The Fall to Power (18 page)

             
One more week and the Beacon would be lit.

             
He continued his ascent, passing Clansmen at intervals who saluted him, feeling the might of his presence before he even reached them. Every now and then he would glance sidelong at the artifice of the brickwork. He had witnessed many atrocities during the last century; committed a fair few of them himself. But mortar of flesh? Part of him reeled at the sheer barbarism of the act. But another, larger part of him found it amusing; he was the Barbarian King, however ancient and outdated the title now, and barbarism was apt. Besides, Ceceline knew more of the power that fuelled them, knew how to placate it, to guide it than he did. He was a mere vessel, a channel, an avatar of that power, content to use it, rather than experiment with it.

The hows and wherefores didn’t concern him.

              At long last, after half an hour of climbing the spiral staircase that encircled the tower of grisly stone, he reached the summit, stopping as he stepped onto the platform proper and turning to gaze across the dark sea to Pen-Merethia, the sprawling city-fortress clutched to the coast like a monstrous limpet.

             
How long ago now had he taken over that keep from Raga, finding Ceceline within and changing the history of the world forever? Over the years, the decades that had followed, he had rebuilt, remodelled the city to his own liking, expanding, fortifying. He could make out from here the Arena, where tonight the Games would be held for his amusement and that of the gathered Nobles and returned Huntsmen. Down there, at the foot of the cliffs, the docks he’d had carved, so that the ships of the Merchant Coast could bring goods directly into the stores beneath the keep. The twin towers, tall and imposing; Ceceline’s where toiled the Coven of Seers, scrying at this very moment for the shamans of the North. His wherein slumbered Dexter and Sinister, his loyal glaives, undrawn for years now, yet never dulled, never losing either edge or shine.

             
Yes, he’d left his mark on this city over the years.

             
So why then, when he gazed upon it, did it no longer feel like home?

             
A gust of cold wind blew across the tower and, despite not feeling the cold, he instinctively drew his bear-skin cloak about him, the horns atop each shoulder waggling like the antenna of a hugely oversized bumblebee. It was funny; he used to be able to recall with great relish the fight with the Horned Bear that had attacked him on his journey from the distant North. Every blow, every scratch, as he’d cast his glaives aside and snapped the creature’s neck with his bare hands as though he’d had an old score to settle with that particular species.

             
Yet now, when he tried to think back to that time, to the reasons he’d even been in the North, all he could see was a haze of anger and hatred that blurred all the details. He’d come from the North with revenge on his mind, but the reasons were gone, only the bloodlust had remained.

             
“Shekel for your thoughts, my King?”

             
Bavard stood next to him, gazing out on the same scene, the breeze ruffling the long hair that streamed in front of his handsome face. Invictus smiled at his General.

             
“Do you ever feel like you’re going mad?”

             
Bavard laughed.

             
“Been there, done that.”

             
The King nodded, recalling the bloodthirsty slave of long ago, as Bavard continued.

             
“In answer to your question, though, I believe every man has madness within. Only purpose can quell it. It’s when a man has no purpose, no reason and,” he emphasized, “no freedom, that’s when the madness comes to the fore. Think of the tiger, prowling its cage, yearning for the hunt.”

             
The King pondered this.

             
“And your madness is quelled, these days?”

             
A nod.

             
“Aye, my Lord. I have a purpose now; to serve you, a duty I will do gladly for the rest of my days, never-ending though they may be.”

             
“Doesn’t that mean you have no freedom?”

             
“No, my King.” A smile on his face. “For if you remember, this life was offered me, not forced. You could have killed me in our little duel. Besides, as your General I get the chance to fight from time to time, unleash the madness within, keep it from building. Though it no longer rules me. Of that, I’m truly glad.”

             
Invictus regarded the man in front of him, immortal, as with the other council members, Cece, Memphias, Kurnos. Yet the thought struck him that, despite his horrific beginnings, a slave forced into slaughter and carnage, perhaps he remained the most human of them all.

             
The duo turned, as one, to stride from the edge of the platform, heading towards its centre where a tall, pyramid-like altar rose a further hundred feet into the sky. As they reached the steps at its base, Invictus frowned as they passed an intricately wrought emerald, breath-taking in its purity, the height of a man. Shouldn’t that be in place already? The lighting was only a week away.

             
His answer came as they reached the summit of the altar.

             
Ceceline awaited them, a smile on her face, like that of a proud parent showing off her newborn to the world for the first time. At the very top of the altar, in the centre, stood a block, unshaped, rough, black and translucent.

             
“What do you think so far, my King? An impressive achievement, yes?”

             
Invictus nodded as he embraced her.

             
“An incredible undertaking, my dear. How you’ve managed it in so few months, I have no idea.”

             
“Manpower,” she laughed. “A great deal of manpower. Some of it even voluntary.” She saw the questioning look in his eyes that kept darting down to the emerald, then up to the unfinished block that was, he assumed, to form its dragon-claw cradle. “Of course, it remains to be completed,” she admitted. “That is where you come in, my King.”

             
He frowned, puzzled, but enlightenment soon struck as he gazed at the oddly familiar texture of the stone block, its translucent lustre putting him in mind of something, something he himself had had a hand in making, many years ago.

             
“My glaives,” he finally spoke out loud. “This obsidian stone, it’s the same as my glaives.”

             
The Seeress laughed gently as she saw his stunned expression, his fingers roaming the indestructible surface with the tentative familiarity of a lover not seen for many years.

             
“You see now why we need your input, my King. No tool of man could hope to carve the design from this stone, for it is every bit as untouchable as your swords. Chisels and hammers shatter like glass. Only raw power can hope to shape it, such that is beyond my means to wield.” She came close to him. “But you, my King, are just the man for the job.”

***

The Games. A by now time-honoured tradition, brought forth by Invictus himself to make use of those captured by the Hunt who proved too tough, too resolute, too unwilling to be broken and sold as slaves. Some captives were simply too determined or too frenzied to serve their new masters and in times past, back in the days of the Barbarian Kings of old, they would have been let loose anew to run across the Steppes, hunted down for sport by the Clansmen, to keep their instincts sharp and their blades bloody.

             
But the God-King, despite his lofty station, was a man who knew to work the people, to keep them onside by appearing generous, despite little cost to himself. He had found other uses for such Slaves.

             
He had extracted from them entertainment for the masses.

             
The Games. The arena soaring high into the night sky of Merethia, rendered bloody orange by the flickering glow of the twelve open fire-bowls that encircled the arena floor. The crowd of thousands, roaring in mounting excitement from the stands, competing in volume with the fanfare of trumpets, the cries of the traders who wandered back and forth hawking their wares of cured meats and honeyed dates.

             
An event, a spectacle, bloody and fierce, held every week to sate the appetite of the unwashed, to give them someone lower than even themselves to gloat over. To remind them that no matter how low their own station in life, at least they weren’t in
there
, fighting, bleeding, dying for the entertainment of noble and peasant alike.

             
For the poor souls, captured, plucked from their homelands many hundreds of miles apart; they were less than nothing. They were  not even worth the shekel and hassle of being bought as slaves. No, it was because of their very pride, their very refusal to be broken that they were now even less than they could have been, had they chosen to submit.

             
They were meat for the grinder. Horses to be bet upon in a race where even the victor was still, ultimately, a loser.

             
One such horse stood, numbed to the roar of the crowd, the sound muted as though heard underwater as he stood, lost in a world of his own thoughts. For this horse was lame. This horse was ready to be put out of its misery.

             
But the crowd had other ideas. They thirsted for entertainment.

             
And it was provided, willingly or not.

             
A creak of thin, metal wire and the heavy manacles about Alann’s wrists fell away, as did their brothers on the wrists of all those lined up alongside him. A clanking of metal and the kicking up of dust, as the chains that had bound the captives together were dragged away from the arena floor, through a gate in the side of the wall where a portcullis dropped with a resounding crash of finality.

             
Ten had entered the Arena floor, where they would face whatever horrors the crowd hungered for the sight of that night. Whoever remained standing by the end of the battle would be allowed to live for at least another week until the next Games inevitable rolled around. For in the end to be entered into the Games was to be sentenced to death; your successes only serving to stay the executioner’s axe for another seven days at a time…

             
The relentless roar of the crowd came at him in bloodthirsty waves, until finally, Alann had to look up, to scan the unending lines of faces that were baying for his death. Faces that, had situations been different, had they been born in the Hills of the North, rather than the Steppes of the South, might have been in his place. Oh, had things only been different, that it were they down here, facing death by means unknown; him, up there in the stands, baying for blood. But he shook his head. That was not him. Could never be him. He was Alann, father, husband. He had lived ten years for vengeance and it had granted him nothing.

             
Violence was never an answer.

             
The feelings of resignation were challenged as he looked up into the stands, spying the Council’s box, wherein sat the Immortal Few, lavishly attended by servants who brought them wine, fruit.

There, the accursed Hunter, the booming and barrel-chested figure sloshing his stone stein, nearly spilling it on the person sat next to him. The handsome figure, tall, laughing, must have been Bavard, the General of the Clans. To the right of them, a startlingly beautiful woman, with raven-hair and moonlight skin. She must have been the Seeress, though he’d never seen her before. Memphias of the Khrdas was also a Councilman, also known to watch the Games, or so he’d heard. He could be anywhere, him being the master of assassins, but he was certainly not in the box this night, for there was only one seat remaining, the stone throne in the middle of the group and the figure that sat in that was unmistakable.

              As the man rose, Alann had to restrain himself from taking a step backwards in awe, feeling the same emotion rippling through the line of captives beside him. For this man was a legend made manifest, a figure from the stories told him by the village elders as he and the other children had sat, listening, by the wheel of the mill beneath the mid-day sun.

             
This was the God-King, Invictus and, despite himself, despite the revulsion he felt for all this man had accomplished – taking a Kingdom of Barbarians and wielding it as though to settle a personal and everlasting vendetta – he couldn’t help but be drawn in by the man’s charisma, his scale, the luminous inhumanity of those eerie green eyes.

             
The crowd fell silent, the trumpets falling from lips, the vendors content to stand and wait. The ruler spoke, his voice mighty, strident and confident, each syllable filling the arena with ease, the tones honeyed and rich, massaging the ears with pleasure, yet at the same time filled with an authority he’d never heard on the lips of any man.