Song of the Dragon

CHAPTER 18

The evening had deepened into a purple twilight around the horizon by the time Assesia Jukung joined the rest of the Quorum in the courtyard of the Keep. The globe-torches mounted on the inner walls of the Keep had just flickered to life in the gathering night, illuminating the ancient flagstones beneath their feet. Above the walls to the east, the towering subatria of the Imperial City shone in the night with a soft incandescence, the Cloud Palace itself shining above them all.

Soen saw none of its beauty; his eyes were focused on the Quorum that had formed before him. Each of them was clothed in much the same manner as himself, in a dull reddish-brown hooded robe with a black sash closure at the waist. They also, he was pleased to note, appeared prepared for an extended absence as all were shouldering backpacks bulging with their field goods.

Each also held the unique staff of their Order-the Matei-which was simultaneously the tool of their protection, the symbol of their office, and the means by which they measured out their often final, deadly judgments regarding the lives of those whom fate caused to cross their path. Just over six feet in length, the smooth wood of the staff had a polished steel cap with a diamond-edged spike at one end. The upper third of the staff was carved with intricate patterns and ended with an ornate headpiece representing the Eye of Qin-symbol of the god worshiped by their Order-fitted with a large crystal. Soen noted with satisfaction that within each one the power of the Aether shone; their staffs were fully charged for the journey ahead.

“I am Soen Tjen-rei,” he said to the assembly without preamble. “We serve the Will of the Emperor tonight by journeying to the Icaran Frontier. It will be a long road but one that you are well prepared to face. We travel the folds of the Myrdin-dai with their blessing and should, with the favor of the gods, arrive at our area of need quickly. Where we are needed, we do not yet know, but when we arrive, it will be with death staring into our faces. Be prepared to stare back and spit in its eye.”

Dark chuckles rolled among the members of the Quorum.

“Qinsei, you will be my first. . Phang, my second,” Soen nodded to each of them. It was necessary to make clear the order of command in case Soen somehow got himself in over his head. His death was unimportant; continuing the mission was. Qinsei was female and Phang was male. It made some difference in terms of their abilities, but generally he liked the idea of the balance it represented. “Watch each other. Trust in the Order-trust no one else. We are the Iblisi. . and we serve the Imperial Will!”

“We serve the Imperial Will,” they answered back in unison.

“We are one!” Soen shouted.

“We are one!” the Quorum shouted in reply.

Soen turned and pulled the deep hood up over his head until its forward edge hung low over his sloping forehead. He shifted his own Matei into his right hand and took his first step on a journey whose end he did not yet see.

“Where are we?” Wreth asked quietly.

“An Iblisi always knows where he is,” Phang replied in the same voice. “Even when he’s lost. Did they teach you nothing in the Lyceum?”

Soen allowed himself a rueful smile, then said in a voice that carried throughout the Quorum, “How many folds is that, Qinsei?”

“Eleven, Master Inquisitor,” she replied.

“Three more, then, and we should be within the borders of Ibania,” Soen said.

Soen stepped off the fold platform. The Myrdin-dai priest who was managing the portal was watching them closely but always glanced away whenever Soen turned in his direction. It was the expected reaction. The Iblisi were, by Imperial decree, their own justice.

Soen gazed out over the assembly area. This one was in a hollow rimmed with tree-covered hills. It was the same sort of undulating geography that typified much of the lands northwest of Rhonas proper. The last four folds had been into similar terrain.

And each was similarly boring, Soen thought.

The weary slave armies of the Empire were being herded home once more. Most of these were from the Army of the Emperor’s Blade heading back in the direction from which Soen’s Quorum had just come. The Impress Warriors of the various Legions, Centurais, Cohorts and Octia were emptying into the holding pen of the surrounding totems from the fold at the far side of the hollow. They wandered about listlessly until their group was sorted out by the Myrdin-dai and their various Tribunes and then meekly filed through their respective folds on their own journeys homeward. He had seen it all before; these weary slaves with different faces had been shuffling out of every fold portal he and his Quorum had entered since the central junction in the subatria of the Myrdin-dai temple in the Imperial City. If there were a problem here, Soen had not yet found its edges and did not expect to do so for another six folds. It was a long way to the frontier, and even utilizing the folds it had taken them four hours to get this far.

“Phang, you know what to do,” Soen said, tugging at his gloves.

“Find the Field Marshal, show him the baton, secure our passage, and report.” Phang’s words reflected Soen’s own boredom. “Aye, Master Inquisitor.”

The Codexia turned to make his way around the hollow. but Qinsei, standing behind Soen, called out. “One moment more, Phang.”

Soen turned a curious eye on his First. “Yes, Codexia Qinsei?”

“The road is long before us,” Qinsei said, her voice smooth and unusually deep, “and it is late. Our problems lie ahead of us, and wisdom might be found in resting mind and body to prepare for them when they are discovered. Might the Inquisitor consider camping here for the night?”

Soen considered for a moment. “You make an entire argument in a single breath, Codexia Qinsei.”

The Codexia only smiled back and bowed slightly.

“Still, few words often carry the greatest merit,” Soen continued. They had been traveling against the tide of warriors flowing through the gates since they left the capital. He was beginning to feel the weariness of the journey as well. “The question in my mind is whether to camp here or continue a few folds farther on. . wait!”

A scream cut once more across the herd from the fold portal on the far side of the hollow. A chimerian stood on the platform before the shimmering fold and howled such a terrible sound that the Myrdin-dai and others on the platform scattered at once, stumbling over each other as they tried to get as far away from the mad creature as possible.

The chimerian was a horrifying sight. His skin was streaked with blood, glistening in the light of the globe-torches hung around the fold platform. He had extended his body to its full height, and all four arms stretched out from its sides, each holding a different type of sword. The chain mail vest he wore was ragged and broken, pierced in several places where the creature’s own blood oozed out. But it was the eyes-fixed wide open and unblinking-that were windows into a torment without depth and a mind lost to its merciless ravages.

“Run!” the chimerian screamed. “Run from your lives!”

The mad creature lunged forward, leaping from the platform, its blades slicing with soft ringing sounds through the evening air. Heedless, the chimerian dashed forward into the herd, sword blades churning. The surprised warriors leaped back, several of them reacting instinctively to face their opponent, but the chimerian continued to dash across the base of the hollow, deftly slipping past one, slicing into the side of another, rolling around a third. The sound of the Impress Warriors rose to a thunderous roar, and still the chimerian continued its pell-mell charge across the field, its eyes fixed on one thing.

An exit portal. . and Soen’s Quorum alone stood in its path.

Soen stepped forward, spinning his Matei staff deftly in front of him, then gripping it in both hands. The headpiece suddenly flared with brilliant light, an incandescent blade forming outward from the top of the staff into the shape of a razor-edged scythe. At the bottom of the staff, a globe of crackling blue light was forming at the same time.

Soen kept his eyes on the mad chimerian, widened his stance and waited.

The chimerian plunged directly toward the Inquisitor, its mind fixed on reaching the exit portal beyond, its blades whirling so as to obliterate anyone or anything that stood between it and its next passage.

The young Assesia Wreth took a step forward, brandishing his own Matei. . but Qinsei held up a cautioning hand to restrain him.

“Run from the dreams!” it babbled as it charged. “They’re coming! They’re right behind! Run!”

The chimerian lunged at Soen.

The Inquisitor rolled backward, his Matei spinning in his hands. Soen planted the headpiece in the ground next to him just as the glowing ball at the bottom of the staff discharged.

The chimerian soared straight up into the air, its body bent double by the force of the Aether discharged into its abdomen. The mad creature screamed horribly, and its arms-still gripping the blades in its hands-twisted angrily in the air. Soen held firm to the staff, his arms shaking with the effort. The glowing blade at the head of the staff was now against the ground, Soen using its force for leverage against the chimerian as the creature continued to writhe, now suspended over the staff in the air.

Soen looked up, his black elven eyes fixed on the chimerian. “I am Iblisi; I am the Emperor’s Will. . you are commanded to obey!”

The chimerian fixed his hateful gaze on the Inquisitor and then, screaming, slashed at the air with all four of the blades in his hands. “Death to the Emperor! Death to his dreams!”

Soen’s eyes widened.

The chimerian’s back arched impossibly backward, and then its entire body suddenly contracted and thickened. The tall lithe form was replaced by a stocky short one. “I’m awake now!” the creature said with a dangerous edge in its voice. “I won’t sleep ever again. . not for you or any of your bastard brothers!”

Soen nodded, then yelled, “Death to the Emperor! ”

Assesia Wreth gasped.

A shocked silence filled the space around them. Jukung stepped forward, an angry frown on his face but Phang placed a restraining hand against the young elf’s chest.

“Death to his dreams!” Soen shouted. His eyes were fixed on the chimerian above him.

The mad warrior suddenly relaxed.

“What is your name, friend,” Soen asked quietly.

“My. . name?” came the whimpering reply.

“I’ve come to end your dreams, friend,” Soen said in even tones. “But I must know your name.”

The chimerian blinked at him, unsure.

“What was your name in the dream?”

The chimerian curled his lips back in loathing. “Chentas-that is what they called me.”

“And your House, Chentas,” Soen’s voice was calm, his eyes fixed on the chimerian. “What was your House in the dream?”

Chentas began giggling, blood running down from the corner of his mouth. “I won’t tell you! You’re going to put me back to sleep-send me back to those dreams!”

“No, Chentas, I can’t do that,” Soen replied. “I’ve come to end your dreams.” The Inquisitor was beginning to sweat with the effort of keeping the chimerian suspended above him in the air. “I promise you. . tell me your House in the dreams, and I will end them for you forever.”

“Forever?”

“Forever.”

Chentas shuddered.

“TELL ME!” Soen yelled at the chimerian hovering ten feet above him in the air.

“I dreamed of a slave named Chentas, of the House. . of the House of Acheran,” the chimerian sneered. “Now keep your bargain, Iblisi!”

Soen frowned and then nodded. The magic holding the chimerian collapsus at the Inquisitor’s command. Chentas fell, but before he reached the ground, Soen whirled with the Matei, the scythe blade flashing through the air. In a single deft stroke, the wheeling Soen drove the long, mystical blade across the neck of the chimerian.

Chentas’ head rolled a few feet across the ground, coming to rest at the feet of Assesia Wreth.

Four swords rang against the ground, falling from the limp hands of Chentas’ body just as Soen finished his turn, planted his feet in a wide stance, and swung the blade down from above his head, driving it through the back of the chimerian and out the front of its chest.

Only then did Soen hear the thunderous shouts of the Impress Warriors around him. The Tribunes were quickly sorting them back into their units and regaining order, as Soen knew they would. He whispered to his Matei, and the glowing blade vanished, leaving only the blood to emerge from the wound.

“Master Inquisitor,” Qinsei spoke as she approached him. “What does it mean?”

Soen knelt next to the body, considering it for a time, and then stood up, shifting his gaze to the fold portal at the other end of the marshaling field. We have not even crossed the Ibanian borders, he thought. It is worse than the Keeper believes. . worse than even I could imagine.

Soen turned back to his First. “It means that the trouble has found us. We will not be camping here or, I suspect, anywhere else tonight. Phang, have Assesia Yarou make a sketch of the Devotional tattoo on the chimerian’s head-he’s got a talent for that sort of thing-then prepare the Quorum for battle.”

“Battle, Master?” Phang asked in surprise.

“Yes, battle, Phang,” Soen said, placing his long hands on his hips as he thought. “We’re going to follow the trail back to its source, and if this Chentas is an example of what we have ahead of us, our best course will be following a trail of murderous, insane slaves attacking everyone in sight to their source.”

Qinsei’s eyes narrowed. “Back to this. . this House Acheran?”

“Yes, if there is such a House,” Soen said. “Have you ever heard of it?”

“No, Master.”

“Phang?”

“No, Master.”

“Neither have I,” Soen said, fingering his Matei staff as he thought.

“It must be a minor House nearby,” Phang said. “Some Fifth Estate fool who lost control of a handful of slaves.”

“No, Qinsei,” Soen said, looking down at the body of the dead chimerian. “The Keeper tells me this trouble started in Icara-and that more than a dozen Houses are involved.”

“Icara!” Qinsei’s voice rose in tone. “That’s at the edge of the Western Provinces. . it would take us another day just to get there.”

“Longer if we have to fight our way through some of the marshaling fields,” Soen agreed, “which we almost certainly will have to do. But it is the Will of the Emperor. . the Will of the Keeper. . and my will that we find this-this House Acheran or whatever House is responsible- and secure its truth for the good of the Empire and the glory of our Order. Gather the Quorum-we leave at once.”

“Aye, Master Inquisitor,” Qinsei said as she straightened her back with pride.

Soen watched his Codexia as they moved back to instruct the rest of the Quorum. He reflected for a moment that Jukung would no doubt find some way to report back to Ch’drei and he wondered what the old woman would think of all this.

He turned and gazed once more toward the fold portal at the far end of the hollow

House Acheran, he thought, struggling to recall anything in his vast memory about the name. Who in all the gods of the Void knows ANY House Acheran?