Empress of the Fall Read online

  He strode away, pausing briefly as he passed a mirror – vanity had always been his primary vice. Though in his mid-forties, he looked closer to thirty, with an admirably full head of dark, swishing hair, an elegant goatee and a cruelly handsome face, with intense eyes and full lips that had beguiled anyone he’d ever set out to ensnare – the fairer sex were his other main vice. In the Celestium, sins weren’t so much forbidden as a secret currency.

  The long walk to the amphitheatre took the prelates through the Mosaic Hall, where an earlier grand prelate had commanded a map of the world to be laid in coloured tiles and lit from within through gnostic artifice so that it glowed as they passed over it. Ostevan glanced at the two continents: Yuros, the western continent, was coloured in rich greens, while yellow tiles represented the eastern deserts of Antiopia, or Ahmedhassa, as the inhabitants called it. Golden models marked the great cities, with Pallas the most resplendent, presiding over an empire that directly ruled a third of the landmass and indirectly, the rest. As always, he looked first at the northwestern corner and found his home city of Coraine, then his gaze drifted to the east, over mountains, forests and plains, to Pontus.

  Right now, everything revolved around Pontus and the Leviathan Bridge.

  At their closest points, Yuros and Ahmedhassa were only three hundred miles apart, but the powerful tidal effects of the giant moon Luna made the seas impassable. The sunken isthmus that had once joined the two was long gone; but the Leviathan Bridge, running straight as a rod from Northpoint near Pontus all the way to Southpoint in coastal Ahmedhassa, had allowed trade between the two, and later, conquest – for the Yurosi, at least. And now the Rondian Empire planned to destroy the bridge and raise the isthmus again, to enable the permanent domination of both continents by Pallas.

  A wonderful feat, thought Ostevan. Shame it mostly benefits the stinking Sacrecours.

  He strode on, following the animated cloud of prelates, old men babbling like children, into a dimly lit amphitheatre built in the ancient Lantric style, with a circular stage overlooked by curved banks of seats. Ostevan sat away from the rest of his fellow prelates. This would be the Fasterius-Sacrecour alliance’s crowning victory, the culmination of their triumph over the Ordo Costruo and an end to a troubling Third Crusade. There was much confusion over what was going on in Antiopia, with wild claims that the crusading Rondian armies had actually been defeated. But when the Leviathan Bridge collapsed and the isthmus rose from the sea, none would be able to deny Emperor Constant’s triumph – well, Mater-Imperia Lucia’s triumph, if truth be told; this was surely all the work of the Fasterius matriarch. Already the Sacrecour-Fasterius adherents were back-slapping and congratulating each other. Those like Ostevan, from lesser houses, were either sitting in isolation or trying desperately to pretend they were part of the inner circle.

  How long before I need to join those cocksuckers?

  ‘Brethren, pray be silent,’ Dominius Wurther, Voice of God, Grand Prelate of Kore, boomed from his throne. ‘The time has come.’

  At his lordly gesture, a seer began to conjure images. His mind, linked to another seer on a windship over the Pontic Sea, half the world away, was able to translate everything his fellow mage saw onto the theatre stage. Even Ostevan forgot his vexations as the visions from Pontus began to unfold.

  The gnostic image showed the deck of a windship, one of many hanging in the sky like insults to gravity. This one, the royal barge, was the largest ship in the windfleet. Far below was the Pontic Sea, with massive waves breaking ferociously upon a small island topped by a tall tower, Midpoint, which anchored the central point of the Bridge. Even amidst the heaving seas it looked impregnable, a testament to the mastery of the magi over nature. A beacon shone from the tip, bright as the sun, and Ostevan could see smaller windvessels circling it like midges. Running towards the tower-island from the southeast and on into the northwest was the mighty Leviathan Bridge: a line of darkness. But their eyes were drawn constantly to the Midpoint beacon, which was growing brighter and more intensely scarlet by the second.

  Then suddenly beams of light flew in from four points of the compass, making visible the gnosis-currents linking Midpoint to its four satellite towers. The clergy gasped as the voice of Emperor Constant came through the gnostic link, hectoring his court about what a momentous moment this was.

  ‘Here it comes,’ someone muttered, and the beacon went brilliant crimson, painting the seas blood-red as it pulsed to a giant heartbeat.

  Ostevan leaned forward, holding his breath.

  A pillar of light burst from Midpoint Tower and carved the sky in twain – but quite unexpectedly, caught the windship next to the royal barge in its beam. For a second its shape was burned onto Ostevan’s retinas . . . and then the windship ceased to exist.

  The royal barge fell suddenly silent.

  Then someone near the linking mage-priest cried out in anguish, and a babble of panic arose as the image began to flicker, jerking about in dizzying confusion. The watching prelates shouted in alarm as if they themselves were aboard that ship thousands of miles away. More light carved the skies, and another windship was blasted from existence.

  What the Hel is going on? Ostevan rose to his feet as the vision ended in a burst of scarlet light, a momentary burst of transmitted agony leaving everyone watching reeling in shock. The amphitheatre plunged into shadow.

  When the lamps were kindled, they revealed a sea of white faces dotted with black holes: eyes and mouths stretched open.

  Ostevan sank back into his seat, staring, as the amphitheatre plunged momentarily into stunned silence. Then voices clamoured, demanding explanations, already seeking someone to blame; most directed their ire at the hapless young seer who’d been transmitting the images.

  With an ashen face, Dominius Wurther rose ponderously to his feet and swept out of the door behind the throne, leaving the prelates in turmoil.

  *

  Ostevan was summoned an hour later, leaving his fellow prelates still milling about, demanding in vain that the flustered and frightened seer re-establish the link. Those with clairvoyance as an affinity tried to do the same, but they too failed. Others, Ostevan included, stared at the void in the middle of the room, waiting for sanity to reassert itself: surely, any moment now, the gnostic image of some palace dignitary would appear to reassure them that all was well, praising Emperor Constant for this great victory.

  Instead of such reassurance, he was ordered to the grand prelate’s chambers.

  ‘Ostevan, my old friend,’ Dominius said as he entered, ‘come in.’

  Ostevan kissed the Pontifex Band, noticing with a thrill of exultation that the office was empty but for them. Just as it used to be, when he was the brilliant young aide and Wurther his mentor.

  Wurther looked sickly, his pallor relieved only by his bloodshot eyes. He’d changed from his richly adorned, heavy vestments to a simple grey cassock; Ostevan noted his armpits were already soaked in sweat.

  ‘Dom, what is it?’ Ostevan asked. ‘Are you unwell?’

  ‘Not I – what ails is this empire. It’s confirmed: the emperor’s dead.’

  ‘Constant is dead? Kore take his soul,’ Ostevan said insincerely. ‘And Mater-Imperia Lucia?’

  ‘Dead also,’ Wurther whispered. ‘Survivors are using relay-staves to send reports. We’re still guessing what happened, but it looks like someone utilised those energies that were supposed to destroy the Bridge and turned them on the Imperial windfleet instead. Against such power, not even the most powerfully shielded windships could survive.’

  ‘Who could do this – the Ordo Costruo?’

  ‘Perhaps: they created the Bridge, after all. But we don’t know . . .’ Wurther’s voice was anxious, but Ostevan recognised something in his eyes he’d not seen for a long time: the intense intellect that had plotted his irresistible rise to the Pontifex’s Curule. The real Dominius Wurther, not the bumbling fool most saw, but the fiercely intelligent, cold-as-ice man he knew, was back. And his
first act had been to recall the partner of his rise to glory.

  So, my ‘friend’, just how desperate are you? he wondered.

  ‘We must secure Mother Church,’ Ostevan said, meaning, We must secure our positions.

  ‘Of course,’ Dominius said, understanding perfectly. ‘Before she flew east, Lucia left the royal children in my care.’

  Ostevan’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You have Prince Cordan and Princess Coramore?’

  ‘Aye, I have the heirs – but they are nine and seven, too young to rule an empire, especially one that’s been beheaded. The vassal-kingdoms will revolt unless we can immediately install a strong and united Regency Council.’

  ‘Half the court went east, Dom – the Second Army has been destroyed, and the First Army – if it even still exists – is trapped in Ahmedhassa. The Crusade has been a disaster, and this empire faces a crisis of existence . . .’

  Wurther wiped his slick brow. ‘I know the armies of Rondelmar are severely weakened – but our vassal-states are in the same state. Lucia entrusted me with the task of keeping the heirs secure and the empire united – how she foresaw it, I don’t know. But five centuries of Sacrecour rule could end tonight, unless we act swiftly.’

  Ostevan stared. Is he really going to remain true to the bloody Sacrecours? When we both know there’s a better way? He began his plea carefully. ‘There is another faction, Dom, one which didn’t send half its fighting men into the East, one which sits above the intrigues of the Great Houses: the Holy Church of Kore.’ He reached across the table and seized Wurther’s hand. ‘Remember what we dreamed? A union of Bastion and Celestium? An Empire of Kore, ruled by a meritocracy of clergy, the best hearts and minds, dedicated to one Emperor-Pontifex.’

  It had been a treasonous dream . . .

  Wurther’s mouth fell open, as it always did when his mind was racing, then he shook his head and pulled his hand away. ‘Ostevan, I abandoned that dream years ago. The separation between Bastion and Celestium is necessary: no empire is eternal, and if our Emperor-Pontifex were to fall, then his Church would fall too. By standing free of the hurly-burly of politics, we preserve the Church against such calamity.’

  Ostevan felt his hopes wither, but he knew when to obfuscate. You timid fool, he berated his former friend silently, but aloud he said, ‘My dear friend, I merely test you. I’m yours to command, as always.’

  Wurther looked at him steadily and for a moment Ostevan thought he’d snapped the last threads of trust between them. But then Wurther said, ‘I summoned you, Ostevan, because you’re the best man in a crisis I know. There’s no time to waste – but I must know I can trust you absolutely. Put aside that old dream – it was always just a dream – and come back into the fold, my friend. I need you.’

  Ostevan realised that without giving his unconditional support, he might not leave this room alive. So he kissed Wurther’s ring again. ‘I’ve always been yours to command, your Holiness.’

  *

  An hour later, alone in his quarters, Ostevan bent over a small bowl of water, conjuring the face of a man he’d not seen in the flesh for years, though they spoke weekly. Dirklan Setallius had grown older as all men did, even magi, but he remained a byword for unflinching pragmatism. His loyalty to House Corani was steadfast.

  As is my own, Ostevan vowed.

  Light blossomed in the water and Setallius’ one-eyed visage appeared.

  ‘My friend, drop everything!’ Ostevan told the Corani spymaster. ‘Finally, we have a chance to rectify the damage of 909.’

  The Sett, Coraine, Northern Rondelmar

  Junesse 930

  Final month of the Moontide

  Damage: that was the word Dirklan Setallius’ mind always conjured when he remembered 909. No one who survived had done so unscathed. Everyone had been wounded, whether physically, mentally or spiritually; that was the price of falling from the heights.

  In 909 he’d been a senior Volsai, an Imperial Informer, or ‘Owl’, as people called them. A group of Corani had entered the academy together to redress the balance between supporters of Emperor Magnus, who’d married a Corani, and the long-entrenched Sacrecour-Fasterius agents. The new Corani Volsai’s unspoken mission was to wrest control of the Owls.

  In 909 they’d failed, utterly.

  The Sacrecour counter-attack, when Magnus died and the Sacrecours swept the Corani from Pallas, had cost Setallius his left hand and left eye – and he’d counted himself lucky; most of his fellows had died, as had most of the Corani leadership. Three legions had been trapped and massacred; Arcanum students had been butchered in their dormitories. What still galled him was that the signs had been there, but no one believed Lucia Sacrecour could be so ruthless.

  But now the witch is dead!

  That thought lent purpose to his stride as he entered Corani Hall. The bells tolled, calling the magi and soldiery of Coraine to readiness, and all about him was bustle and confusion, though no one else knew if the bells signalled danger or celebration.

  The crowds parted before him, something he’d become used to: he knew he cut a sinister figure with his left eye covered by a dark patch, long silver hair curtaining his scarred left cheeks and his black-gloved left hand – the lost flesh replaced by metal, fashioned to his own design. He strode through the hall to join Knight-Commander Solon Takwyth on the dais.

  Takwyth was also a veteran of 909. Tall, lordly and steel-faced, he shone with belief today. He and Setallius had worked together to rebuild the Corani. He might be in his forties now, but he was bursting with energy. He saw this as destiny.

  I don’t believe in destiny, Setallius mused, but I do believe in seizing chances.

  Takwyth raised a hand for quiet as Setallius scanned the room, seeking the patterns in the clusters of knights and battle-magi. The Falquists stood on the opposite side to the Jandreux, with the Sulpeters in between, as usual. Behind them was the faction that wasn’t a faction: the lone wolves and dissidents and troublemakers, here in force. Every single man and woman was straining their ears.

  It was those at the back Setallius felt most akin to. Most were the veterans of 909: men with haunted souls, like dead-eyed Jos Bortolin, the brothers Larik and Gryfflon Joyce, and Ril Endarion, who had been just twelve years old when his tutors at the Pallas Arcanum had tried to murder him in his sleep. These men were undoubtedly damaged by what they’d endured, but they were living legends among the Corani.

  Setallius’ ruminations were interrupted as Takwyth spoke. ‘Men of Coraine, men of the North: hearken! I’ve much to say, and little time to say it. The chance has come for revenge – for 909, and for everything since.’

  That got their attention.

  For centuries, the Corani had been despised as the Pallacian nobility’s country cousins, the butts of all their jokes – then, in 890, came their golden moment: Alitia Jandreux, eldest daughter of the Duke of Coraine, married Prince Magnus, the son of Emperor Hiltius. Suddenly the Corani were welcome at court.

  The golden age was brief, though; four years later Alitia died in childbirth, leaving her husband with a daughter, Princess Natia. Though Natia was still the heir apparent, the northerners were worried: Magnus had betrothed the girl at birth to Ainar Borodium, son of the Duke of Argundy, in a plan to unite the two kingdoms, but Argundians had never been welcome in Pallas either, and now the Corani were tainted once again.

  In 897 Prince Magnus remarried, to the ambitious and ruthless Lucia Fasterius, thinking to split the Sacrecour-Fasterius alliance. For a time the Corani breathed easy – but five years later Emperor Hiltius, now a widower, was murdered by persons unknown, and Magnus ascended to the throne, with Lucia at his side. Magnus publicly acknowledged Natia and Ainar as his heirs, and they were wed at the age of fourteen to great ceremony and rejoicing. The royal couple took the name Vereinen, which meant ‘unity’ in Argundian.

  For a while it looked as if this compromise, and Magnus’ grand plans for a Rondian-Argundian Empire, might have mollified his critics. His
empress declared a programme of grand public works to honour her beloved husband.

  And then the Fasterius clan struck.

  When Emperor Magnus died mysteriously in 909, Lucia moved to secure the throne for her own son, Constant. Calling in her Sacrecour allies, she executed hundreds of alleged traitors, including Ainar Vereinen, then faced down the wrath of Argundy. Natia, just fifteen years old, was ‘imprisoned’, although it was an open secret among the Great Houses that she was dead. The Corani lost thousands of their fighting men: barracks were stormed in the dead of night and whole dynasties wiped out. Those few lucky or hardy enough to escape fled to their northern fastness, and to prevent total annihilation, the Duke of Coraine was forced to bend the knee.

  That was twenty-one years ago, and those events haunted the Corani still.

  ‘Knights of Coraine, stand for your Lady!’ Solon Takwyth bellowed, and he stepped aside for a stooped, plain woman with small beady eyes and the close-cropped grey hair of widowhood: Radine Jandreux, Duchess of Coraine and Regent for her late-born grandson Yannoch.

  ‘My knights,’ she said, and though her voice was thin with age, there was no disguising her excitement, ‘I have need of you. We have word out of Pallas, before the knowledge of our rivals.’ She paused, and everyone present fell completely silent, straining to hear her next words. ‘A great tragedy has occurred: the emperor and his Sainted Mother are dead!’ Radine did not even try to contain her glee.

  The entire room swallowed, gasping at the news, then low, vindictive cheers filled the air.

  She held up a hand for silence. ‘We must act swiftly to safeguard the realm,’ the duchess said without the slightest trace of irony. History would be recording her words. ‘Volsai Master Setallius has learned of six sites we must secure to prevent the Sacrecour cabal from reasserting control. Sir Solon has the list, and his orders are to seize them. I cannot predict what you will find, as our intelligence is incomplete, but my belief is that you will be securing the future of House Corani. I know you will do us proud!’