The Jack of Souls (26 page)

*

Two knights waited
by the bodies in the stable yard as their squires inquired after carpenters to construct coffins.

One rested against a water barrel, gnawing a fingernail. The other squatted beside the glassy-eyed corpse of Sir Yolan, whose face seemed stuck in vain astonishment. The squatting knight tried to shut Yolan’s eyes with his hand.

“His eyes won’t close.”

“Leave him, poor chap. A decent fellow, was Yolan. Ate like a Phyros-rider. That Willard seems as stout as ever, what?”

“Shouldn’t have tried to take him. I don’t care how big you are, you can’t take a Phyros-rider. And they were fools to try without armor. What do you think came over them?”

The standing knight crossed to peer down at the body of the Iberg, and shuddered. “Glad to be rid of that witch, though. I don’t know why His Majesty brought him, but he gave me the cold shivers. He and that horrid moon cat.”

“Haven’t seen it, have you?” said the other, still fussing with Yolan’s eyes.

“Not a glimpse, and I don’t care if I ever do. Even dead I wouldn’t touch it.”

“Pah. It’s just an animal.”

“I beg to differ. I’ve seen it
do
things.”

“Like?”

“Where do you think the witch’s stone went?” He raised an eyebrow and waited out a meaningful pause.

“You think a cat took it.”

“I most certainly do. That cat isn’t natural, I tell you. I’ve heard a witch keeps
spirits
in his moon cat. Dead ghosts from the unhallowed moon that he feeds with the souls of his victims.”

“You’re afraid of a cat.”

“I’m afraid of witches, and so you should be. When you look in the eyes of that cat, it’s the witch’s spirits you see looking back out.
Unnatural
is the word. And with no one to feed them now, there’s no telling what trouble may come of it.”

—From
A Study of Arkendian Heraldry
, by Chani of Losif Major

On Treating with Gods

J
amus and Ellentane
entered the south wing of the lodge, where six of their knights stood watch over the hall in which Bannus chambered.

Sir Grennit, a stocky knight in green armor, stepped forward officiously. “It has been a quiet watch, Your Majesty.”

“Sir Bannus remains within?”

“He does, Your Majesty.”

“He took a girl from among the staff.”

Ellentane raised an eyebrow. “Same Bannus, I see.”

“The girl is gone now.” Grennit nodded toward an adjacent servant passage. “Seems to have slipped out of a hole His Holiness created in a wall.”

“Send word to the hostess that I secured the girl’s release.”

Grennit signaled a squire, who left with the message. “Sir Bannus’s shield bearer is on watch,” he said, as he ushered the princes to Bannus’s door. “It’s said that he…” The knight seemed to search for appropriate words. “That he’s become a…” Grennit frowned.

“You refer to Titus,” said Jamus. “Indeed, a sad story. A bastard of my father’s making.”

Grennit bowed, signaling his gratitude to be so deep in the prince’s confidence. He opened the door to a dark passage, giving Jamus a candlestick.

Jamus met Ellentane’s eyes only briefly, to assure himself his brother-in-law was prepared, then led him into the paneled hall. Grennit closed the door softly behind.

*

In the light
of Jamus’s candle, Sir Bannus’s shield bearer cut a lean, straight figure upon a stool outside his master’s door. He sat erect as a pillar, wrapped in clothes and capes of deep royal violet, his gloved hands folded in his lap. Before the princes’ arrival he’d sat in complete darkness. He did not stir when they approached, nor did he turn to meet them, but remained in profile, as motionless as the carving of a man.

The yellow light reflected from his partly hooded face in little glimmers, as though his cheeks were made of glass. When they halted beside him, they saw he wore a glassy red-stone mask concealing his features.

“Gods leave us,” Ellentane whispered.

Jamus fought back his own revulsion. Titus had become a Faceless One. Bannus had resurrected the vilest cult of the worst days before the Cleansing, and imposed it upon his squire.

“Welcome back to the Isle of Heroes, Titus, Bastard of Pellion,” Jamus murmured.

The figure remained motionless, but the candlelight now illumined him fully, allowing Jamus to study him. The mask was carved of wine-red alabaster, the traditional material, for the coolness of the stone was said to soothe the heat of the scars. The mask’s expression was mild and serene, its features of idealized male beauty—cleft chin, cut jaw, delicately sculpted lips and nose—and with an air of dreamy, almost sleepy repose.

“You see my devotion to His Holiness,” Titus gasped through the mask. He convulsed slightly with the effort of speech.

Jamus’s nostrils flared. “Is that what your master calls it? Devotion?”

“All is discipline. All is will. The body nothing. Pain unreal.”

Jamus regarded him for several heartbeats in silence. He exchanged a grim glance with Ellentane. Then, as if his bastard brother were no longer present, he turned crisply, and seized the handles to Bannus’s chambers.

One of Titus’ gloved hands flashed to Jamus’s wrist. His breath came in strangely hissing rasps. “His Eminence does not wish to be disturbed.”

The prince did not look at the Faceless One, nor did he remove his hand from the door. “Is he sleeping?”

“Resting.”

“Is he with company?”

“Alone.”

“Will he…punish you, if I enter?”

“He”—there was a strange, dry-throated swallowing behind the mask—“left orders. None enter.”

Jamus quirked a tiny smile on one side of his mouth. “He makes you immortal with the Phyros blood? Heals you with it?” Titus said nothing, but his breathing was harsh and gurgling. He released Jamus’s wrist, and stumbled from the stool to face the prince on one knee. Red-rimmed eyes pleaded mutely within the mask. Jamus snorted in disgust. “So refreshing to see the—what did you call it? Devotion?—to the Old Ways, Titus.” Then, sadly, “You could have stayed with us, you know. Our father didn’t offer immortality, but his sort of devotion paid well in other ways. You would have found it so.”

Titus stood. He straightened his cloak around him and sat back on his stool, still and erect. Once again a carving of a man. “All is discipline. All is will…” he chanted, as if the princes had left him.

Jamus met Ellentane’s gaze. Beneath his brother-in-law’s stern aspect, Jamus sensed horror. “Ellentane,” Jamus said, softly but firmly. “Worse than this lies beyond these doors.”

Ellentane nodded curtly.

“Under no circumstance must Sir Bannus sense your fear, or it will send his wildness past recovery. Remember this: an Old One is half god, half rabid beast, but he respects one thing above all else—royalty. Which we must appear to be, or he will tear us and our titles to pieces.”

Jamus laid his hands on the doors in preparation for heaving them inward. “I should probably tell you, too, that he is also likely quite insane. The most ancient of the Old Ones usually are, which is why they’re so unpredictable.”

This time Ellentane’s face remained an undisturbed shell of indifference. “Ah, well,” he said lightly, “who isn’t a bit mad these days?”

“Steel yourself,” Jamus warned, and heaved the doors inward.

*

Twelve men had
been evicted from the room Sir Bannus commandeered, and all dozen beds lay stacked against the walls. Their mattresses had been heaped in the middle of the room like a hedge boar’s midden, at the foot of which lay a clutter of grease-streaked platters, stripped ox bones, and discarded mugs of blood drafts.

The immortal Sir Bannus sprawled across the summit of this mountain like a drunken god, as gloriously nude as a court painting of some West Isle scene in the days before the Cleansing. His body was a shocking topography of popping veins, impossible muscle, and quantities of ropy purple scars: the wounds of twenty lifetimes in battle, all healed with the Blood of the Phyros. It was a scene few in Arkendia had witnessed since the Cleansing, but one quite common before it—a glutted god, his blood rage cooled with flesh and drafts, sated, half fallen, half reclining, like a sleeping lion.

Pieces of outlandish Diurn armor adorned the edges of the room, and against one wall stood the monstrous Phyros sword,
Basilisk.
A lacy bit of white cloth concealed Sir Bannus’s face, draped there, perhaps, as a scented souvenir of the innkeeper’s girl.

A faint suck of breath from Ellentane. He closed the doors quietly behind, and remained in Jamus’s shadow as if he’d disappear there.

“Welcome back to Arkendia, Sir Bannus,” the prince murmured. “It has been…eighty years, has it not? Before my father’s birth.”

The immortal remained, lolling magnificently, horribly, arms thrown wide, face turned to the rafters. After what seemed like an eternity, the graveled basso finally welled from the massive chest like a cataract of grief. “Liar. You lie. This is not Arkendia. This is some other land. Ruled by women, peopled by dogs. I do not know this land.”

“It has indeed changed in your absence.”

“This is not Arkendia. In Arkendia, my order is revered. Our will is law. We are worshipped with fear.”

“Gone now. All has changed.”

The immortal clutched his head with both scar-knotted hands, as if trying to hold his mind together, or keep out an unwanted truth. “Are there none left now?” he cried in anguish. “None of my order? Is it possible? All slain? All hiding? And do the peasant priests strut openly, unchecked like wild dogs? Arkendia! O, father of gods, where have you gone?”

“Arkendia is not gone, Sir Bannus, only weakened, as with a disease. But the source of the disease—their queen—is weak also, which gives us hope, and opportunity.”