Scions of death, p.1
Scions of Death, page 1
SCIONS OF DEATH
A PRACTICE OF POWER NOVEL
MARCELA CARBO
BLACK CRATER BOOKS
CONTENTS
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
A Dream
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
A Dream
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
A Dream
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
A Dream
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
A Dream
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
A Dream
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
A Dream
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
A Dream
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
A Dream
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
A Dream
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
A Dream
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
A Dream
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Epilogue
Preview: The Dusklight Oath
Appendices
About the Author
Destroy a thing to know it perfectly.
MEROH, 13TH VALMAS AN’XUL.
PROLOGUE
Seven lanky figures wrapped in tattered cloth stood in the shadow of an immense city gate. The doors had long ago rotted away, and the stone frame bore the scratches and pockmarks of gray dust storms that ravaged the land for a thousand miles in all directions.
The expedition had never been this far into Saydolin before.
Six of them formed a hexagon around the shorter seventh member, and together they produced an enchanted light field around the group, powered by bone fragments implanted in their dead flesh. They didn’t speak, but marched through the gate into Saydolin’s third ring, maintaining their positions to protect the central figure.
Wind whistled through the ruins, gathering strength and dust, a last gasp before the sun set. The figures doubled over, bracing themselves against the gust, and it pelted them, sanding down their weakening shields. One of the figures fell to its knee and the light-shield flickered and faded. Pellets of coalesced dust beat at them, tearing at what remained of their garments. When the storm had passed, they stood, and the dust sloughed off them in gray avalanches. As they took up their positions once more, the light-shield flickered back to life.
The central figure raised its hands, searching for remnants of power. Fragments of bone covered its lifeless hands like armor, glowing brightly with green and white light. Gold-striated bones ringed its wrists and forearms like bracers.
Dull white light rose to the east, casting a strange shadow over the land while the sun flickered to the west and then vanished.
They stepped rhythmically through thick layers of dust, past ancient monuments and structures. Cassan’s faint light illuminated the massive ruins, slicing the horizon with their jagged remains.
The receding power that had once ravaged this land still throbbed, but had no effect on them. They were no different to it than the crumbling stone monuments or metal structures clawing at the sky. They walked unmolested past trinkets and relics, half-buried devices and instruments of power. Iron-plated trampled ordinary bones sucked dry, crunching them underfoot.
A massive covered pavilion rose ahead; hundred-foot metal columns twisted from the weight of dust on the roof. The figures walked the perimeter as the structure whined under its burden. The pavilion was five hundred feet across, and the surface was a lumpy terrain of dust and whatever had been there at the moment of destruction.
The roof heaved as a fresh wind started up from the north. They paused, as silent as their surroundings, as if in a secret consultation about how to proceed. When the wind eased, they moved as one up the three wide steps, treading carefully within as the massive ceiling creaked to the east, then west, then east again. The central figure stretched out its hand, fingers fanned out, searching for its quarry. A throb of hungering power rippled through it, but without effect, as if it were invisible. One column creaked loudly.
Undeterred, they made their way through the mounds arranged in a familiar pattern; the Alcar were predictable in their power. The enormity of their empire had fallen because of it, easily read and picked apart by an insatiable hunger.
Three dust mounds rose in a triangle around a ten-foot pillar at the pavilion’s center. Whatever had sat upon the pillar was long gone, but magical light still rippled through the marble veins.
The central figure crouched down, brush in hand, and removed dust from one mound. Fragments of cloth fell away with the dust, and beneath it all, brilliant golden light shone from a skull.
The shield-bearers tightened the circle around the remains, creating a still space. Each of them faced inward and opened a bag for the digger to place its findings.
The digger worked diligently and patiently. Even bones with only a touch of the golden light went in a bag. It even gathered fragments of cloth which were like wire meshes now, much of the natural thread gone, eaten away by time or the power that throbbed through the place. It searched for pockets of finer, darker dust, and placed the miniscule amounts of this purest powder in a small bag lined with rubber.
They worked like this through the night and the next day, moving from mound to mound, but the remains were all the same: golden.
When finished, they walked around the pavilion and looked north down the wide thoroughfare, ample enough to hold a village at its widest point. A light blinked at the end. It was the next marker, a spire of the wall encircling Saydolin’s second ring. It would not be long before the tower’s light blinked one last time, and then rested for eternity under the gray.
They turned southeast and headed toward the gate through which they had entered. They’d no need of food, water, or rest. The winds tore at their garments so fiercely that when they finally stepped on living ground again, their skeletal limbs fully exposed to the elements, only their parcels remained intact, protected by enchantments embroidered into the bags.
They entered a hill cave and descended to a large grotto of haunting white pillars. In a pattern resembling the expedition’s own, men and women sat in groups of three. In the center of this arrangement, like the digger, sat three sets of three persons. All wore thin, white garments. The only noise in the great cavern was the click-clacking of bones dangling from their garments and extending from their hands like claws. The boney extensions waved and tapped through the air, an intricate language without words.
The expedition stopped at the edge of the human pattern and set down their parcels. Then, as one, they stiffened. A heavy sigh escaped their forms, followed by the creaking of bone on bone as they settled into place.
A woman from the central group, small, tanned, and amber eyed, tottered toward the digger and removed the pouch of fine dust from its pile. She opened it carefully.
“Life to Death,” she said for all to hear.
“Death to Life,” her companions responded.
A small smile broke upon her cracked, bloody lips.
1
Empty nooses swayed from the charred gallows.
The red-robed monks of Vetru had pronounced the wood sufficiently pure. They kept a fire burning day and night in the Field of Peace where the northern revolution had begun. Thousands had died there, and the wood scorched by those sacred flames traveled the land, purging and purifying.
Feroh, a Dyers Guild apprentice, made his way through the crowded plaza toward a stone wall from which he could look out over the crowd. A woman hissed at him when he brushed her arm, rubbing it as if he’d pricked her. Her face contorted, and she rattled off a series of curses. He pulled his hood closer around his face.
He clambered atop the retaining wall, which supported the shops on the north side of the plaza. Two other men were already there. They inched further down the ledge to make room for him. Behind them was an olive oil shop, and the pungent scent filtered out through the latticed wall. Other young men followed Feroh’s example and joined him on the thin ledge. From this vantage point, they could see the entire plaza.
Gentle hills blanketed by rows of olive trees tumbled down around the town to a sandy beach. Fig trees heavy with young fruit, a local fertility symbol, lined the new plaza, too grand for a backwater town like Bokhal. Canvas tarps strung up on poles hid the unfinished Hall of Truth and the other administrative buildings erected for their new magistrates and the empire’s representatives, the masters they’d chosen for themselves. The largest building in the plaza was the district council seat, a marble building with two massive columns repre senting the twin virtues of the Azhal: truth and justice. In front of it was the platform erected for the occasion. Atop it sat a row of sacred gallows, dark against the brilliant white marble.
Behind the marble buildings, the Silt Sea shone like beaten bronze in the noon sun. This time of year, the skies were clear, blue, and hot. The dense air, the close bodies, all conspired to make Feroh sweat.
At least he’d shaved his hair recently. Sweat trickled down his body beneath cool layers of Kolas cotton. Some people in the crowd wore traditional linens. No one was certain what Azhal thought of the Kolas since their league had made a tentative cease-fire with Ithka, the ancient overlord, only a month ago. The Azhal Empire’s war with Ithka had not ceased. The magistrates could interpret the smallest action as a sign of support for the evil Ithka perpetrated on the people of the Dragonlands.
Feroh wore the cotton because it was the best tunic he had.
He had more pressing worries than what the cloth he wore said about him. He’d not put the tincture in his breakfast porridge. It didn’t take more than half a day for his corn silk colored hair, or his pale green eyes, to break out of the brown the tincture tried to impose. The more he ate, the less it did. He’d also not shaved for days, and his sandy stubble drew attention. He shouldn’t even be at the event at all—his father had forbidden it—but he had to see for himself. It was a once in a lifetime event. Someday he’d tell his children and grandchildren that he’d seen the Hero of the Karal, the Consul of Azhal, the bearer of the Sword of Truth.
The people of Bokhal, folk from surrounding villages, trading posts, and plantations had all come for that same purpose. Feroh teemed with excitement, thrilled to see for himself the young man tasked with joining their town and the surrounding region to the Azhal Empire, the beacon of freedom for all Ithka’s enslaved peoples. Feroh had dreamed of this day, of seeing the hero who’d conquered Karal, the city-bridge between Azhal and Kopis. Because of this victory, Kopis was more inclined to side with Azhal, and the word was it would soon declare itself free from Ithka. The Consul was the youngest to preside over the senate—not that it was a very great feat to be so young. Azhal had only gained its independence thirty years ago, and its elders had died in the war of independence. It was not just a young empire, but also an empire of the young.
The crowd cheered as high-pitched, silver trumpets blared.
Feroh beamed at all those around him. He baked in the heat as the sun continued its rise. The people in the plaza covered their heads and fanned themselves. All around, people laid down mats on the hot tile roofs to watch from a distance. Feroh grinned so hard his face ached. He couldn’t help it, and didn’t want to.
Even though they’d not offer him citizenship initially, he hoped that someday, if he did all the right things, if he proved himself an exemplary member of the empire, Azhal might make him a citizen.
Below him, level with his knees, a woman with one child in her arms and two others grasping her skirt, turned and muttered something to him. She patted the child’s head as it held in a cry.
The men on the ledge stared at him, frowning. Feroh bobbed his head apologetically. He plucked at a strip of striped linen about his neck—a sign of his apprenticeship to a local guild. He withered under their gaze, but they turned away as the trumpets blared again. The crowd surged toward the platform and more people entered the plaza to fill the vacancy. With each blast, the people roared. Between the heat and excitement, they quickly reached a fevered state.
Feroh let out a deep, anxious breath. “Vetru, let him come,” he whispered to the Azhalite spirit of justice and truth.
“He’ll come,” said another woman below him. Her face was ecstatic, her hands clasped firmly to her breast. Her two small children hugged her thighs like she’d fly away.
Wind disturbed the nooses, and they swayed. The crowd roared their approval. Surely it was a sign of favor.
“Yes!” Feroh cried out, shaking his fists in the air.
Folk nearby glanced at him, but then turned back to the stage.
“Vitreyin zhal!” cried a lone, shrieking voice. The spirit wills it.
Voices called out until they united, rising like the ocean waves battering the outer islands.
“The spirit wills it,” Feroh yelled. “Yes, he wills it.”
The woman below glanced at him, shielding her eyes. Did she see something in him? She turned away, and he shivered. He didn’t know if any spirit or god willed it, but the energy of the crowd was too much, and he wanted to be counted a good Azhalite citizen even though he was just a migrant like so many in Bokhal, not the member of a clan invited to make the oath of citizenship. Not yet.
A flurry of movement at the far side of the plaza set aside any doubt about the consul’s coming. Large banners appeared, their long tails snaking through the wind, carried lazily over the crowd as elite guards marched through them, forcing them to split to either side.
Cheers rose again, screams of delight. All seemed enraptured. They wept.
Feroh touched his eyes and smeared his own tears on his cheeks. He’d never felt so much in so little time, and he’d not even seen him yet.
A stream of maidens dressed in white gowns, their bare arms twined with jasmine, tossed petals to the ground. The crowd fell silent.
Two red-robed monks, one each for Vetru’s faces, flung censors at their sides. A strange smell wafted to Feroh. The censors held the ashes of their fallen soldiers. The Azhal no longer buried their dead in the mountain tombs awaiting the Day of Ash.
He bowed his head and whispered the only prayer for the dead he knew. They were the secret words of his own clan.
“An’ka’ish suralim,” he whispered, with all the feeling trapped in his chest. I clothe myself in life. The prayer meant little to him, and when he opened his eyes, the child below him was staring at him. A toddler only, but frowning as if Feroh had uttered a curse. Feroh feigned not seeing the boy and looked out over the crowd to the sea.
The trumpets blared again. Hands rose, palms facing where the young Consul must be standing.
Sparks of gold flashed between arms and banners.
Then he appeared, and Feroh held his breath.
The Consul mounted the platform, standing at the edge, dressed in nothing but a simple apricot-colored toga and knee-length britches. Gold flaked laurel crowned his glossy, black-curled head, rising from his temples like eagle’s wings, pointed to the heavens, to his father, the sun.
Sunlight makes all things clean, was the saying. And fire.
A band of gold paste ran down the center of his face, over the bridge of his nose and full lips, down his chin and neck to his breastbone, where, like a lance, it pierced his bare chest, bursting like a sun into beams of light rather than blood. He was tall for an Azhal, slim and muscular. His dark eyes did not smile, but looked over the crowd in judgment.
Because that was why he’d come. The crowd was there to pay homage to the one virtue none dared deny: justice. The Disciples of Vetru must redress the wrongs perpetrated on the people of the empire. Every threat, every ancient heresy, every foreign power, every form of witchcraft, must be expunged if the empire was to have any chance against the might of Ithka. Enemies surrounded Azhal. They pressed on it, challenged it, stole from it the hard-won bounty of its abundant lands.
