The Path of Anger (49 page)

Without saying a word the old man had followed him out into the courtyard. Side by side they contemplated the city, exchanging a few tense glances. Before them the rooftops of Masalia had taken on an orange glow. In the distance they could see the port where several three-masters lay at anchor, while on the horizon the sun’s reflection cut a dazzling track across a calm sea.

Laerte lowered his eyes towards the tankard that Dun-Cadal was bringing to his lips. He shook his head in resignation. The old man did not seem to be drunk, but how much longer before the alcohol rose to his head? The sound of the wine splashing upon the gravel made Laerte look down again. Dun-Cadal was tilting the tankard to let the contents run out with a distracted air.

‘I could drink to our farewell, but I don’t really feel any desire to, lad . . .’

Laerte simply nodded. With a sad smile Dun-Cadal watched the wine spill down. It was as if he were watching his regrets vanish into the gravel too . . . down to the very last drop.

‘If I’ve understood rightly, this evening I’m free to go.’

‘A carriage will come fetch you just after we leave,’ Laerte said at last in a hoarse voice. ‘It will take you wherever you want to go. De Page has agreed to give you enough to live on for another few years.’

‘So he’s buying me off . . . Is that how he does things?’ said Dun-Cadal with a scornful laugh. ‘He hid his game well.’

Laerte would have liked to tell his mentor what awaited him, to reassure him and know that the old man was serene before he left him for good. The recent hatred he had felt towards him had no deeper cause than discovering him here, lost and addicted to drink. He had learned to love Dun-Cadal after all these years. But he had preserved his memory of a proud general, rather than the filthy shadow of a knight at death’s door he now saw before him.

He made an effort to clarify his feelings. Although he still wasn’t capable of saying so, he knew what they were. He loved the man.

Laerte hesitated over whether to put a hand on the old man’s shoulder.

He did not move. His gaze drifted out again to the city spread below.

‘Tell me,’ Dun-Cadal asked, and then cleared his throat. ‘Tell me: everything will play out at the Palatio, won’t it?’

Laerte did not reply.

‘He has the
Liaber Dest
, lad,’ continued the general, letting his tankard drop.

It smashed on the ground. Through the shards of stoneware, he watched the red wine trickling through the gravel like so many tiny rivers that had decided on their course.

‘He holds the destiny of men in his hands.’

‘That’s a possibility,’ admitted Laerte, still looking out at Masalia.

‘He does not deserve to possess such power . . .’

‘That’s a certainty.’

‘So stop him, son.’

Time seemed to slow in the moment when Laerte finally placed his hand on his former teacher’s shoulder. For an instant. Then he drew away to go back inside the house.

‘Frog,’ Dun-Cadal called out in a muffled voice.

When Laerte turned round, the setting sun wreathed a bright halo around the old warrior’s hunched silhouette. Slowly the man recovered his stature and from the sound of his voice, his backlit features in silhouette, Laerte finally saw the general as in his time of glory.

‘Have you become who you wanted to be, my boy? Are you a knight . . . or an assassin?’

His tone was more confident but it still contained a hint of sadness.

‘What’s the difference?’ asked Laerte, seeming disturbed.

Dun-Cadal took a step forward and the light fell upon his wrinkled face. In his expression there was a calmness quite unlike what had been there before, an air of wisdom that now surrounded him.

‘There is a difference, for you and me. The oath, do you remember? We took the oath.’

‘We were supposed to serve the Empire,’ Laerte replied without animosity.

‘It goes much further than that,’ asserted Dun-Cadal. ‘It’s about the path you chose to take. What if you come across Esyld this evening? Will you give in to your anger?’

Laerte grew tense. He did not want to think about that, he did not want to imagine it. He needed to concentrate on his goal. But the mention of her name unleashed a storm within him that he feared he could not master.

‘That’s what the oath is about, that’s the promise you made. Remember it. The path of anger leads to an abyss, for to continue walking it you must constantly feed your anger, and always be looking behind you. Vengeance only calls forth vengeance.’

Dun-Cadal slowly approached him.

‘The choice belongs to you . . . Laerte of Uster. My son . . .’

He made no gesture, he merely looked Laerte straight in the eye.

‘I have always been so proud of you.’

He did not wait for any reaction, passing Laerte without adding anything further. In the end it wasn’t knowing which choice the boy would make that mattered to him, it was reminding him that a decision was inevitable. Once the general entered the house, Laerte advanced to the edge of the courtyard, admiring the sunset.

‘Thrown into the fire, it does not burn . . .’

Everything would be decided this evening, everything he had been fighting for, whether it was worth all the sacrifices he had made, deliberately or not . . . including losing Esyld to Balian Azdeki.

‘Put to the sword, it does not rip.’

‘It is made from the murmur of the gods and nothing shall ever destroy it.’

The Sacred Book was unique in that it was indestructible. Aladzio had been able to verify that, it was one of the first things his new master had demonstrated, by throwing the book into a hearth. The flames had licked the cover without blackening the leather, and when Azdeki had removed it, still hot, he had told Aladzio to stab it with a dagger.

The blade had broken.

So it was absolute incontestable truth: the
Liaber Dest
was far more than a mere book. But did that mean, as legend claimed, that it contained the destiny of humanity? de Page, hostile to the Order of Fangol, doubted it. The Azdekis were certain of it. As for Aladzio . . .

The inventor was torn between his critical perspective as a scientist and the hope that something greater than mere human reason existed. Although he tried to analyse the world, he would have liked to believe in something superior, something . . .
divine
. . . and perhaps to find therein something greater than his own intelligence.

In the tangled labyrinth of legends he was exploring he had come to recognise certain myths were true: such as the existence of an
ancient tower filled with ancient manuscripts. Based on some enigmatic inscriptions on the very earliest maps of the former Kingdoms, he had managed to narrow down the building’s approximate location. But when he had finally been able to go there, full of anticipation, he found nothing but ruins guarded by a disgraced monk called Galapa.

Long ago, Galapa had lived in the Tower of Fangol, the Order’s first monastery. But he’d been banished shortly before the Saltmarsh rebellion, sentenced to the thankless task of caring for some ruins that no one in the world cared about. Yet here, beneath its wobbling stones, slumbered the immense storehouse of knowledge Aladzio was searching for, including the first great works produced by the Fangolins – tomes which had later been forgotten when they lost their most eminent representatives. For one aspect of the Fangolin Order had survived Kingdoms and Emperors alike: the art of secrecy.

Aladzio had stayed in the ruined tower to decipher and translate these texts, thereby coming to understand how the Fangolins had recounted history in their own fashion; copying and recopying vague legends until they became accepted as indisputable fact. But it had taken centuries for their official version to outlive dissident voices. And the very earliest written works that Aladzio had discovered preserved liturgies that were markedly different from those practised during the Reyes dynasty.

Throughout the numerous ancient texts dealing with the
Liaber Dest
, Aladzio observed a curious correlation with references to a holy blade. Over the centuries, as references to the blade dwindled, one sentence had been preserved and its meaning was discussed repeatedly:
‘In my left hand the Book, in my right hand the Sword, and at my feet the World.’
Over time the Fangolin monks and the more educated members of the nobility all came to agreement about the symbolic nature of this sentence. As the centuries passed, the hypothesis that it might have a more literal sense was dismissed.

‘At my feet the World.’

But if it was a real blade, what sword could it be, if not Eraëd? What other blade was as old as the Emperors?

For Aladzio, it became a certainty: one could not exist without the other. If the book was real, so was the sword, and the repetition of an unknown symbol – a rectangle crossed by a straight line – became
a reference point for him in every document he consulted. It had taken his discovery of a codex, written in the ancient Gueyle script, to make the meaning of this drawing clear to him.

The codex allowed Aladzio read between the lines. To learn the origins of the Book and the Sword. To uncover the truth: that the sole purpose of the blade was the destruction of the book.

Driven by their obsession with finding their destiny in the pages of the
Liaber Dest
, and ignorant of the Fangolian’s lost knowledge, the Azdekis had forgotten about the sword of the Emperors. All that mattered to them was having proof that they were indispensable to the smooth running of the world. If they had founded the Republic, if they had sought to improve the lot of the common people, it was because something dark and mysterious had been feeding their ambitions since the Empire fell. Something mystical. Faith.

The Book might not give the Azdekis the key to the destiny of men, but it would at least instil respect for them in believers, as well as fear in those who doubted. For the Azdekis would be in possession of the mythical
Liaber Dest
itself, once thought lost for eternity. They had already earned admiration for overthrowing a tyrant and creating a more just Republic. Henceforth they would also have the gods’ support. But there was a flaw in their plans. A pact whose significance they had overlooked, a secret known only to a few and quietly passed down through the ages, one designed to preserve the balance of power: to the Usters the Book, to the Reyes the Sword.

The Book and the Sword were linked. True power required possessing them both.

‘It’s ironic, don’t you think?’

The torches in the tower’s cellar created a curious interplay of shadows and light that ran across the councillor’s smooth face. De Page leaned on the long wooden table with both hands, his eyes sweeping over the open books.

‘That he should be in Masalia . . .’

‘The sword is with him,’ said Laerte, leaning against the wall near the alcove.

De Page lifted his chin.

‘I think so too,’ he agreed with a nod. ‘This . . . Dun . . .’

He could not help smiling and raising an eyebrow, but he ran aground on Laerte’s expressionless face.

‘He wouldn’t have hidden it anywhere but close by him. He’s having a laugh, sending people off to the cold Vershan mountains while he enjoys Masalia’s sunshine.’

De Page paused.

‘“The city of all possible things” . . . It hasn’t usurped its nickname. What are your feelings for him?’

‘He doesn’t mean anything to me, de Page. He won’t be an obstacle. He’ll talk, I know him.’

The duke straightened up with a sigh, abandoning his cordial manner.

‘We won’t have any margin for error. Not even once. Aladzio is en route for Masalia to prepare for Masque Night, upon the Azdekis’ orders. He has obtained powder for the fireworks in rather greater quantities than necessary. Certain councillors are about to set sail. At the port, you—’

‘I shall satisfy myself with Enain-Cassart,’ Laerte interrupted him coldly.

‘Leave Etienne Azdeki for last, that’s important.’

‘I drew this plan up with you, de Page. Are you having doubts about me now?’

For the first time, the duke was unable to conceal his anxiety. His usual serenity and self-control had vanished. Where Laerte was concerned, he was no longer in command. They were going ahead with this mission side by side, as equals.

‘No, I have no doubts about you.’

‘Why?’ Laerte asked suddenly.

‘Wh-why what?’ stammered de Page.

‘I want to know your motives before leaving for Masalia. You know what drives me. Are you really acting for the sake of the Republic as you claim? Is that what you’re fighting for?’

‘I’ve already told you. They plan to—’

‘Why?’ Laerte asked again quietly.

Since the fall of the Empire, de Page had treated Laerte with kid gloves, providing him with information, deductions and the premises of their plan, but only as the duke saw fit. Now that Masque Night was only a few months away and the warmth of spring was bringing the land back to life, Laerte wanted to be certain he was not simply
a weapon in the duke’s hands. De Page’s mistrust of the Azdekis was matched by Laerte’s own anger, to be sure, but what would happen when their mission was completed?

‘It is essential that neither you nor I are seen as having any part in the forthcoming events—’

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Laerte cut him short.

‘If I can’t find out who Azdeki has rallied to his cause, I won’t be able to distinguish our enemies from simple councillors. We need to identify those who are prepared to destroy your father’s dream out of religious piety, and give the Order of Fangol power it does not deserve. They believe the gods have everything. It goes against the very idea of a Republic where men choose which path to take. They will proclaim themselves as the elect, not of the people, but of the gods. And since the people are fearful, and have doubts, they will listen to our opponents and make them new—’

‘Why?’ Laerte repeated in a murmur.

‘Because destiny isn’t written!’ cried de Page. ‘Anyone who disagrees with them will end up hung or burnt at the stake. It will be done in the names of the gods, without any regard for humanity.’