The Forgotten War (131 page)

‘Before training starts we are given blackroot, a tiny sliver from a fresh bulb dissolved in water. Fresh blackroot is much less concentrated than the old root you have there. Tolerance
has to be built up slowly.

‘Despite that, many of us died, including friends I had just started to make. Only one in four survives an encounter with blackroot. For those of us that did, though, there are benefits,
enhanced senses, strength and speed. That was used when our training started.

‘There are three aspects to our training. The first aspect is to take the love we have for parents and family and redirect it into love for the Emperor, for to be a Strekha our devotion
must be absolute. The second aspect is weapons training; you have seen the effectiveness of that for yourself, and the third is privation training – resistance to thirst and pain and the
like.’

‘Pain resistance? Love of the Emperor? How can they do that?’ Morgan looked intrigued.

‘Love of the Emperor is achieved by reciting litany after litany in his praise, again and again, until it is all known word for word and your mind is full of nothing else. In the darkness,
deprived of sleep and often chained to walls or from the ceiling, you forget your family, especially if the only rest and food breaks you get are if you denounce them and praise the Emperor
instead. It affects your sanity, you know, your ability to reason – the lack of light, food, water; if it is only the Emperor that can release you from this torment, then, yes, you do come to
love him. We would lick the walls for the moisture or chew the moss off them, such was the deprivation we had to endure. I held out a long time until I suppose my mind snapped in a way. I was
hallucinating, hysterical. “The Emperor is divinity made flesh; only he provides food, warmth, comfort. Those that sired me are merely his vessels; their purpose is no more important than
that of the cow that gives birth to the prize bull. I am the Emperor’s child, no one else’s, and my devotion to him and him alone will endure into infinity.” That was part of the
litany I spoke before they finally released me. From that day forth I was the tool of the Emperor. Once the overseers are convinced that you harbour nothing but love for him and would happily die
for him, then you can start your weapons training. Then it is pain tolerance that we learn. You wish to know how?’

Seeing Morgan nod, she continued.

‘You are chained again and the chains are pulled up to the ceiling so you can only stand on your toes. Then one of the Emperor’s mages enters with the orb. The orb is a sphere with
six stones, or crystals, embedded into its black surface. The mage can make the orb float around you and with a word he can cause light to shoot from a crystal.’ There was a tremor in her
voice. ‘The light causes a pain I cannot describe; it is something akin to having your skin slowly pulled off with a hot knife until you are nothing but exposed flesh and raw, bare nerves.
You are naked, of course, and by the time the orb is finished with you, you are little more than one of the sides of meat you see hanging in a market. Except that you are still alive –
quivering, shaking, trembling in your agony but still alive. When you can endure three of these beams for ten minutes at a time your training is completed. To become one of The Ten, the Strekha
elite, it is six beams for twenty. Even when the training is complete, once a year we have to undergo it again, just to keep us sharp. Without blackroot, our hearts would give out.’

‘And you? Are you one of these Ten?’

‘Yes, when I was aiming to join The Ten it was between me and another girl. We both managed six beams for twenty minutes, so we added another orb. Eventually I bested her by enduring
twelve beams for half an hour. It almost killed me; it did kill her. But I was one of The Ten, so it was worth it.’

Morgan looked at her impassively as she continued.

‘When I was five years a Strekha, that is fifteen in your years, I was deemed trained. I was allowed into the light, given my armour and taken to guard the Emperor, just one of over a
hundred. In those five years I was allowed out of the training rooms only on a couple of occasions, the purpose each time was for me to ... meet the Emperor. I was still not allowed to see the
light, though, even then. The final step of my training was to complete my first mission successfully.’

‘You were sent to kill someone? They don’t give you much rest, do they?’

She smiled slightly and wistfully. ‘The first mission is one to test your loyalty to the Emperor. You are watched all the way. The way loyalty is tested is that you are sent to kill a
member of your own village or family. In my case, it was both.’

‘Both?’

‘Yes. My mission was to kill an alleged leader of Norvakkor resistance to the Emperor. I knew he was an innocent man but I had been commanded. So I did it.’

‘But how did you know he was innocent.’

‘It was simple enough for me to know. He was my father.’

‘By the Gods!’ whispered Morgan. ‘Were you seen?’

‘No ...yes. I did the job quickly and painlessly, but as I left I saw my sister. It may have been over five years since I last saw her but I recognised her. And she saw me, too. Just for a
second when I lifted my head above the place where I was hiding she caught my eye and saw me. Then she went to the longhouse where she would find him. When she looked at me, though, it was as if
she already knew it, already knew what I had done. I have not been back up there since.’

It was nearly dark now. A solitary candle flickered in an alcove over the bed. Morgan stood and stretched his legs. ‘This blackroot,’ he said, ‘does it have side
effects?’

She started, as if coming out of a dream. ‘Side effects? One or two,’ she said with a bitter laugh. ‘It is a poison, Baron; you may tolerate it but it will get you eventually.
No Strekha makes it to forty years; few make to thirty-five. I have, if I am average, eight more years to live. Also, if you conceive a child, the blackroot will kill it within a day or two. This
is a good thing, though; the Emperor can use us without fear of our being spoiled. A pregnant Strekha would be little more than useless.’

‘And what happens to one who has failed? Say I was to send you back home in chains.’

She swallowed. ‘I would rather you didn’t. It is a humiliation for the Emperor, a failed Strekha, so we are put to death in a matter the Emperor deems fitting while the rest of us
are forced to watch. Boiling, or skinning alive, are the usual punishments; I have watched both being practised.’

‘Was it your friends who were punished?’

‘Friends are discouraged. They are seen as rivals for the affections of the Emperor. Instead, once a year we compete in games and fights, athletic competitions to keep us in shape and
establish the year’s order of hierarchy. The Ten remain as such though, unless they are individually challenged one on one. Only a single challenge per year is allowed to each of The Ten and,
if the challenger loses, they have to wait three years before they can challenge again. This discourages the foolish and the hot-headed from challenging rashly. It is a constantly evolving process,
ensuring that only the best have the closest access to the Emperor’s person.’

Morgan rested his head in his hand. ‘May I ask something? Now you have failed in your task, what do you think of your Emperor now? He would show you no mercy if he saw you
again.’

‘The failure is mine. The Emperor is divine. Without him I am a creature without a soul.’

‘If you say so. So he has been financing Arshuma then?

‘Yes, for some years. Some of his money has paid for your traitor barons, the ones who betrayed you.’

‘So all I need to do is let Chira know and their relationship with Arshuma changes for ever. They will not accept a client kingdom going behind their back.’

‘Yes, though I am the only proof you have. Will you be sending them my head?’

He sounded surprised. ‘Your head? No, I won’t. As far as I can see, with you I have three options. I can have you executed. Being honest I may have to after what you have done, but
if I do so it will be done quickly and quietly. Secondly, I could keep you here, which is what I shall do for the time being.’

‘And thirdly?’

‘I let you go, trust you to run off and live the life you want to.’

Her eyes widened a little. ‘Would you do that?’

‘If you gave me your word, you would leave the country and not involve yourself in our affairs. I believe Strekha are honourable and keep the word they swear by.’

Her face fell a little. ‘I cannot do that. Technically I am still bound to kill you.’

‘Can you not think for yourself, just this once?’

She stood, for the first time, stretched out her arms and swayed a little, swinging her hips in the slightest of movements, exercising her stiff frame.

‘All I am is an instrument of the Emperor’s will. In a sense I am not even a living creature, just a small part of a much larger body. If I dissent, or turn from this path, then the
body dies, so, as you can see, I have little say in what I must do.’

‘Very well,’ said Morgan. ‘Let me just say, though, that this training that you went through...’

‘What of it?’

‘It works. It works very, very well.’ He got up and knocked on the door, waiting for the jailor to let him out.

‘One other question.’

‘So many you wish to ask!’ Syalin sipped some water. ‘Proceed.’

‘Why have you not tried to kill me now? You may have got the chain around my neck and throttled me; you may never have had a better opportunity.’

Syalin came towards him, walking around the table to face him; they were barely two feet apart. She smelled clean, well scrubbed.

‘You say Strekha are honourable; this much is true. You came here willingly, knowing the risk and you have been respectful to me. I remember my father once butchering some goats to see us
through the winter. He had killed several when one young animal, a yearling, dumbly walked right up to him showing no fear, though my father held his butcher’s knife dripping with the blood
of his fellows. My father let him go. He was unsure if the creature was brave or stupid but he gave him the benefit of the doubt.’

‘So am I brave or stupid then?’

‘I do not believe you are stupid.’

‘Well, I am glad someone thinks so.’ Morgan then picked up the blackroot and stowed it back in his pouch. ‘I will return in a week or so to give you some more.’

She did not answer, but her eyes followed him as he left the room, nodding a goodbye to her. After he had gone and the door was locked again, she sat on her bed and stared at the floor. Stared
at the floor until the moon was high in the sky and the bats started to flit about as they left their homes in the high tower.

At the same time, inside the tower, Cedric was climbing the steps to the library. He was feeling a little stiff, especially in his legs, and felt that some exercise might just
be what he needed. He ascended slowly his stick tap-tap-tapping on the stone steps. He was surprised to see a light coming from behind the door, but less so when he saw who it was sitting hunched
over a book with a lamp close by and a couple of candles flickering in their alcoves. It was Cheris.

‘Ah! The mage at study – is there a greater archetype than that?’ He went to the shelf, selected a thick tome bound in vellum, pulled it free, raising a small cloud of dust,
then sat down with it opposite her.

‘Not all archetypes ring true,’ she said, smiling back at him. ‘If my tutors caught me studying hard back on the island, they would have fainted with shock. I am not a natural
student.’

‘So you have talent rather than application. A most desirable attribute when you are young; study does prevent the pursuit of more desirable hobbies.’

‘You have never been to the island, have you? There are few desirable hobbies to pursue there aside from the more obvious ones. If the study of seabirds and wild rabbits or bracing coastal
walks appeal, then you are lucky. But few of my age or younger tend to be interested in that sort of thing.’

Cedric opened his book. ‘I was at that age, but then I was always a little odd. I imagine if I were a beautiful young woman, I, too, would have found it somewhat stifling.’

To his surprise, she actually flushed a little. ‘When I find a beautiful young woman I will ask her,’ she said.

‘Listen to me,’ said Cedric, ‘I have no tact. Having said that, it is always nice to know what makes a woman blush; I see it is flattery in your case.’

‘I think you will find it applies to most women.’

‘I see. You have me at a disadvantage, I am afraid. In the university there is little opportunity to seek out female company.’ Cedric gazed at her over the top of his reading
glasses.

‘But it is not a closed community, though; you can leave the premises whenever you wish, surely?’

‘In theory, of course. In practice ... well, one is often too busy. Also, the longer you stay away from life in the city, the harder it is to return to it.’

She nodded in understanding. ‘How true – the experience is similar for me, I know I will not be travelling into Felmere any time soon.’

They returned to their books, though not for long, for Cedric seemed to be quite in the mood for conversation.

‘May I ask you what you are reading? My tome, alas, though beautifully illustrated, is not grabbing my attention as it should.’

She looked evasive and shifted uneasily in her chair.

‘I would rather not say, to be honest.’

He held his hands up. ‘I apologise for being so intrusive; it really is not my business at all.’

‘No, it is not that. It is just that, if I were to tell you, then first of all you would be horrified and then you would proceed to lecture me on the dangers of my talents and the
importance of controlling any forces that I may unleash and, believe me, it is a lecture I have heard on many, many occasions before.’

He stood up and made to leave, obviously believing he had offended her.

‘I have caught you at the wrong time, I can see that. Please allow me to bid you goodnight. Maybe we can talk tomorrow when you do not mind having your concentration broken.’