Farlander

CHAPTER FOUR

Flags of Conquest 'I'm hungry,' complained the young priest Kirkus.

The woman lying on the divan opposite gave a smile that almost split her withered features in two, showing a fine set of teeth that were not her own. 'Good,' purred the ancient priestess, while she spiralled a painted fingernail across her gleaming pot belly, tracing the course of old stretch marks and the gold ring pierced in her navel. 'The flesh is strong, Kirkus. But it may only become truly divine when it acts in accordance with the will. Deny your hunger. When next you eat, do so because your will has decided the issue as much as your stomach. That is how we maximize our appetites so that they demand power. That is how we achieve Mann.'

Kirkus grunted in irritation. 'You are starting to bore me. You offer nothing but sermons that I have heard a thousand times before.'

Her chuckle made him think of dry paper being ground purposely underfoot. It only irritated him more. Still chuckling, she shifted her bony frame on the divan, turning over to expose her bare, wrinkled back to the sun. The sound of her laughter spilled over the side of the imperial barge and fell, between the splashing, slow-moving strokes of the oars, into the brown waters of the Toin, before fading, ever so slowly, towards the distant bank of mud – where a crocodile stirred and plunged into the sluggish current in a brief sparkle of sunlight.

Abruptly, her teeth clacked shut.

'But I think you forget yourself, my young man, hmm? Not yet fully cocked, and you think yourself the next Holy Patriarch. Very good, but we are on the grand progress meanwhile, and I am to instruct you until you prove yourself worthy of the faith. These things you must know… but more than just know. You need to feel them, too, right down in your guts.'

'I already feel them right down in my guts,' he snapped. 'That's the problem, you old crone.'

Her look was one of measured appreciation. Kirkus knew he was her favourite pupil, and sometimes, when she scrutinized him in this way, it made him think of her as some obsessive sculptor, locked in an attic for years, slavering much too lovingly over her latest precious creation. Kirkus looked away from those hungry eyes, partly disgusted. He glared instead at the slave standing behind his divan, cooling him with a fan of ostrich feathers in this private space screened off from the rest of the deck; a thin Nathalese girl, with red hair hanging down around her small firm breasts, her ruined eyes hidden behind a scarf of peach silk, her hands gloved in white in case they accidentally touched the divine skins of Mann. Appetites, Kirkus thought lazily, taking in the slickness of her skin, noting how it stretched to the regular rhythm of her motion. He imagined for a moment what it would be like to take her, right here on the deck – this blind and deaf girl with only the sense of touch – the experience of pain or pleasure – left to her. Suddenly, he was physically responding to the thought of it.

'Patience,' the old priestess declared with mirth, her attention focused all too plainly on the evidence of his sudden enthusiasm. 'We dock at the next city at noon. You have heard of it, I trust. It is called Skara-Brae.'

Kirkus nodded. He had read of it in his studies of Valores's recently published Account of Empire, and wished to forestall yet another lecture from her.

'We can find some more playthings for your initiation. And, after that, we will go pay a visit to the city's high priest, and there drink and dine to our stomachs' content.'

'If only it was merely food that I craved,' he remarked gloomily, giving the slave another hard stare.

'You poor, weak child; it will all be worth it in the end. Have faith in an old woman who wishes only the best for you.'

She looked to the river for a moment, her features relaxing as she reflected on some distant memory, perhaps her own initiation as a priestess. Suddenly an expression of youthfulness passed over her features, as though by some glamour of recall. 'By the night of the Cull,' she said, still gazing at the flow, 'you will be so full to bursting that, when you unleash those desires, you will at last know what it is to be divine. I quite guarantee it, my fine boy.'

Another sermon, Kirkus thought to himself. But he swallowed down his annoyance and offered a grunt of acknowledgement, if only to shut her up. Let her savour her vain wisdom, he decided. She had nothing else left to her, certainly not beauty, nor even any real power in his mother's court.

Kirkus tried to think of other things. He scanned the water and the far bank, looking for something of interest to occupy his roving eyes. But there were only birds and buzzing insects, and the occasional white-and-black striped zel sipping from the water's edge. He was bored of it all already, twelve days now on this stinking, torpid river in the hinterlands of the Empire – ten long months of travel and sightseeing before that – and never once allowed to act freely, on his own desires.

What else could he do, though? The old bitch was his grandmother, after all.

*

The Toin was one of the great rivers of the Miders. It fell from the highlands of the mighty Araders mountains, first as small rushing torrents that rapidly gathered in tributaries before descending into the Lake of Birds, then, continuing as an ever-widening flow that stretched at some points for over a laq across. The river provided the commercial lifeblood of Nathal, and all of the nation's major cities could be found along its natural course.

As a nation, the Nathalese were a proud people. They had never been conquered by their neighbours – Serat to the west, Tilana and Pathia to the east. For a thousand years their culture had blossomed, uninterrupted, with philosophy, learning, and the arts. Daoism had come to them and they had embraced it also, as they embraced all such new ideas and thinking, adding it to the many other faiths that were practised and nurtured in their lands.

No longer could they feel so proud, though. Fifteen years ago their cherished independence had fallen beneath the studded boots of the Holy Empire of Mann. For a while they had fought a guerrilla war against the occupiers, but even those small flares of resistance had finally been extinguished. The crucifixion of entire towns in retribution for such rebelliousness had hammered even the proud Nathalese into submission. Nathal was now yet another province of the Holy Empire. It was ruled, as all the other fallen nations were ruled, by a hierarchy of administrating priests of Mann, its traditional beliefs outlawed, all concepts and faiths not in accordance with the divine flesh being vigorously censored and destroyed.

As the extravagant imperial barge finally pulled into the docks of Skara-Brae, the riverfront looked like that of any other settlement within the Empire. Signs hung overlarge from the fronts of old and new buildings alike, displaying goods and services for those unable to read in Trade, while outside the stockhouses gangs of unemployed men waited in the hopes of finding employment for the day, and fat patricians and their bodyguards oversaw the loading and unloading of their precious cargoes. Prostitutes and beggars waited in the shadowy openings of alleyways, many of them ill from missing their regular fixes of dross. Everywhere, imperial auxiliaries could be seen maintaining the peace, mostly drawn from the local population, wearing suits of white leather armour and the hard, wary expressions of those despised by their own people.

However loud the Nathalese might cry out for independence, occupation by the Empire had been good for them in one obvious way. Fifteen years ago this riverfront would have been the site of only a sluggish interchange of goods, just like the river it relied upon. Now, business was booming.

As the barge came to a stop, a hush fell upon the riverfront. Sixty oars rose dripping into the air as one. A detachment of Acolytes marched first from the deck, armed with spears and long-swords – even the occasional rifle. They were armoured with heavy suits of chainmail that hung down to their knees; awful to wear in such heat, though these male and female warrior-priests betrayed no signs of discomfort. Masks covered their faces, white and featureless save for a smattering of holes to breathe and see through, and over the mail they wore the striking white robes of the order, with hoods covering their heads, the material thin, embroidered with patterns of white silk thread that reflected the sunlight in subtle, ever-changing ways. From their ranks, a runner instantly set off into the city at a jog, bearing news for its high priest and governor. Like it or not, tonight he would be receiving visitors for dinner.

The Acolytes moved into the crowd with the confidence of fanatics born and raised to a purpose, pushing the locals back to form a large open circle. Once that was established, they forced those standing nearest to their knees. The local auxiliaries began to follow their example – pushing children and wealthy merchants alike to the ground, until the only people left standing were the Acolytes themselves.

That done, two priests emerged, reclining on a heavy palanquin borne by twelve slaves shackled together at the neck by gilded chains. Around them the Acolytes formed up in ranks, while several hundred faces gazed dutifully at the ground, or tried, from the corners of their eyes, to catch a glimpse of these beings who claimed to be divinities. They did not see much: merely two figures reclining on the sedan, their faces masked with gold and their heads shaved bare and gleaming.

With a shout the procession set off into the quieter streets of the city, breaking the previous stillness with the crash of studded boots against cobbles and the occasional bark of command from the Acolyte captain. At its head walked a single young man bearing the imperial banner, displaying the red hand of Mann. Again the Acolytes broke aside in ones and twos to force onlookers roughly to the ground.

'Captain,' the grandmother, Kira, said quietly to the commander of the guards, 'let them be for now. We cannot see them if they are all lying on their bellies.'

The captain nodded and passed on the instruction.

The two reclining priests were clothed in the same white robes as their Acolytes. They sprawled in comfort and nibbled on the occasional piece of dried fruit through the narrow slits of their masks. It was all that Kirkus was allowed to eat for now. Excitement glinted in their eyes, for it had been two days since their last venture into a Nathalese town, and they both needed the distraction it would offer them.

It was Kirkus who first spotted something that caught his attention: a young girl with dirty, bare feet selling sticks of keesh from a basket.

The old priestess eyed her young protege, aware of his interest. She studied him, waiting, until Kirkus cleared his throat.

'That one,' he instructed, pointing a finger at the girl. The captain gave a command, and a group detached itself from the vanguard to quickly surround her. They threw her basket to the ground and carried her, struggling, back to the rear of the procession. Those townsfolk still on their feet shouted in alarm. A few even made a move to help the girl, though others pulled them back for their own sake, and for everyone's sake.

All they could do was watch as the Acolytes shackled her in chains and led her away to the rear, the girl crying now, looking about her for support. The silent stares of the street folk grew more openly defiant; it was the only protest left to them. But even that would not last long.

It was next the turn of the grandmother, Kira. With a snap of her fingers she set the Acolytes on to the hostile populace. Soon, people were scattering in all directions, away from the sudden violence, as the warrior priests began dragging bodies out of the fray.

'Wonderful,' sneered Kirkus. 'Now you frighten away our sport.'

'It is a large city. It has many streets.'

She was right, of course. Other streets, in different quarters, were calmer than those left in the procession's wake. Word must surely have already reached them, though, for the streets were emptier than might have been expected. Still, people went about their daily business, perhaps figuring rumour for exaggeration, or they were simply not in a mind to be chased from their own ground. By now, no one looked directly at the passing procession.

'Do you see anything else of interest, my child?'

Kirkus shook his head within his sharp-contoured mask. But he stared with fascination, appraising everyone that he saw, waiting for something further to grab his attention.

'I sometimes wonder,' mused Kira, as she studied the young girl captive now walking in chains at the rear, 'if we have not lost something in the gaining of an empire. At least, it seems that way to me sometimes. For every gain there is a loss. And every loss a gain. Once upon a time we had to do this through stealth and deceit: drunks stumbling home from the inns, street children out late, unwary travellers on the road. But that was long ago. In my memory, it seemed somehow better.'

Kirkus was barely listening, his gaze still intense – waiting, waiting.

The palanquin finally halted in a noisy market square. This was the city centre, Kirkus knew – for where else would one expect to see a one-hundred-foot rusting spike rising sheer from the stone flagging? He stared at the great pole towering above the marketplace.

His grandmother noticed his wonder. 'It was Mokabi's idea,' she began. 'After the town fell he-'

'I know.'

The locals seemed to pay the monument little heed as they went about their business. He could see wreaths of flowers piled around its mottled base, where soldiers stood guard, eyeing the crowds.

The city of Skara-Brae had been the final Nathalese stronghold to hold out during the Third Conquest. Hano, the young queen and military genius of Nathal, having been defeated at last in the field, had bolted here to Skara-Brae with the last of her forces. Archgeneral Mokabi, commanding the Fourth Army, had given chase and laid siege to the city, demanding the gates be opened, else all within would be slain. At this, it was said, the young queen had offered to surrender herself, but her soldiers and the city's population refused to let her go. They paid the ultimate price for their defiance.

When the city finally fell, at great cost to the Fourth Army, Arch-general Mokabi decided to hold a celebration for his conquering troops, one befitting those who had sacrificed so much during the campaign. First, they turned the town into an open brothel, slaying what they finished with or did not want in the first place. Then, in a stroke of inspiration, the archgeneral ordered a great spike to be forged from the melted armour of all those men of his army who had fallen during the siege. Fashioning a spike running a hundred feet in length, they fastened a great plug of concrete to the base of it, then positioned the entire thing, on its side, in the city square for all to see.

On the fifth night following the fall of the city, amidst an orgy of drinking and excess, the archgeneral's men forced the defeated officers and the town leaders one by one on to the spike's point. Impaled sideways like this, the male and female victims were drawn along its entire length, most dying in the process, until the spike was entirely filled by them. At its very tip, they placed Hano herself.

At a signal from the archgeneral, and with a shouted salutation to the defeated queen – at least, as Valores told it – the corpse-laden spike was hoisted vertically by three hundred enslaved townsfolk, there to be planted as a permanent monument to conquest.

It was a rousing tale and, years later, when Kirkus finally met Mokabi at a celebration for the birthday of the Holy Matriarch, Kirkus's own mother, he had found himself stuck for words in replying to the old man's kindly questions concerning his youthful studies – struck with awe at being in the presence of a living, breathing legend. But there had been something else too, something more subtle that had stilled his young tongue as he stood in front of the archgeneral and which took him several sleepless nights in his bed in the Temple of Whispers to fathom. For when young Kirkus had held the man's large hand in his own, something about that fleshy touch, cool and a little sweaty, had terrified him. Suddenly, all the stories of the general's exploits had become more than mere words on a page. This very man, his grip living and pulsing against his own, had commanded the slaughter of thousands; and not only defeated soldiers, but women and children, old men and babes. In that moment Kirkus had felt repelled by his touch, as though a mere handshake might infect him with something dreadful, something tainted. Afterwards, he imagined he could even smell blood on his hands. No matter how often he scrubbed at them, he could still smell it faintly, the metallic scent of it, when he lay alone at night with his own thoughts.

That sensation only diminished as his fourteenth birthday came and went, and he was allowed to share his bed with his temple friends at last: Brice and Asam sometimes but, after a while, mostly Lara. With such heady new experiences to explore, he allowed himself to forget about the imagined taint of blood on his hands. During the same period his lessons in the rituals of Mann intensified. He underwent his first purging. His mother, increasingly, allowed him to witness the intrigues and responsibilities of her newly seized position on the throne. Kirkus, over time, began to lose his inner sensitivities. He learned to appreciate the necessities of the ruthless act, and the basic selfishness of compassion. And when, on those rare occasions he again found himself seized by a sense of corruption – whether a greasy door handle or a glass of wine shared between friends, even a bathing pool already used by others – he would make sure to withdraw into the privacy of his chambers before he succumbed to the compulsion to scrub himself raw. After all, he was an initiate priest of Mann, and next in line for the throne. He could not afford to appear weak.

'Coming?' asked his grandmother, as she climbed down from the palanquin.

Kirkus tore his gaze from the mammoth spike, and in particular the patches of rust that stained it. He stared at her for several beats of his heart before her words sank in.

He shook his head, and watched as the old priestess wandered about the market, accompanied only by her personal slaves, freely sampling sweets and local wines. She declined an armed escort, staking her life on the intimidating power of her white robes alone, which parted the crowds everywhere as she went.

For some time Kirkus merely sat where he was and savoured the possibilities, playing fantasies in his head of those citizens that took his fancy. At last, when he was certain of who he wanted, he rose to his feet.

More quietly this time, he pointed out those who had caught his attention: two pretty sisters with manes of blonde hair sweeping down almost to the ground; a fat butcher who handled his cleaver like a veteran, and might offer some fight; a young man who reminded him of his boyhood friend Asam; an old fishwife with a body still lean and strong and interesting.

The Acolytes swept through the crowds, snatching those indicated where they stood. Shouts went up, only to be lost in the general clamour of the marketplace. Kirkus watched the ensuing commotion, following its stirs and eddies spreading throughout the square. He was mesmerized by it all, as distraught friends and relatives clung to those being taken away from them, crying out for help from others crowded around them. Each was apprehended in turn and the sounds of alarm rose higher, finally beginning to usurp even the din of the busy marketplace itself.

Kirkus knew, in that moment, that for the rest of his long life he could never grow bored of days such as this one.

As Kira returned accompanied by a hamper filled with choice goods, she left behind her a market square of depleted stalls and baskets still spinning where they had been dropped, their owners shouting as they fled the scene, intent on passing the alarm to adjacent streets. Behind the palanquin, the sense of shock felt by the newly acquired slaves emanated like a palpable force as in turn they were fixed to chains.

Several streets later, a man dressed in the faded leathers of a courier rode up to the head of the column, his striped zelback made jittery by the brooding atmosphere all around. The rider spoke briefly to the Acolyte captain, then handed down to him a scrap of folded paper, before he turned and kicked his mount into a canter, heading away.

Kira read the note with growing bemusement in her eyes.

'It would seem that word of our arrival has stirred more than just fear in this city. Listen to what it says: This evening, when you meet with High Priest Belias, study closely the fit of his robes. You will find underneath only a charlatan.'

'Is it signed?' asked Kirkus, only partly interested.

'A loyal subject of Mann.'

Kirkus shrugged. 'It is the same everywhere we go,' he remarked, disdainfully. 'The high priest doubtless has his enemies, and now they hope to jostle for position while you are here.'

'You have a fine mind when you put it to some use. You may well be right, but closely observe the man, anyway. It is a skill you must learn, to discern the true believers from the false, and yet another skill to know how to deal with them if they prove to be untrue.'

'We then dispose of them, what more is there to know?' he replied, while his attention returned to the surrounding street, searching still.

'Sometimes,' she crooned from behind her mask, 'your lack of imagination truly startles me. We must work on that fault.' She snapped her fingers, drawing the Acolyte captain to her. 'I think we will go to the high priest's mansion now,' she instructed him. 'I wish to rest there for a while, before we dine with this man who rules our city.'

'As you wish,' the captain replied, with a bow of his head.

The procession stamped onwards.

*

'I'm bored,' announced Kirkus to no one in particular.

The young priest was merely a guest at this meal, yet he sat at the very head of the table, where he had been downing the heady Seratian wine as though it was water.

'Ignore him,' recommended Kira to the family who played host to them this evening. 'He is merely drunk.'

Belias, the high priest of the city, and therefore its governor, acknowledged this statement with a brief if slightly nervous smile, whilst dabbing a handkerchief at the sweat gathering upon his bald pate. He felt oddly out of place here this evening, even though they were dining in the banqueting hall of his own mansion, where he was playing host to these two arrivals from far-off Q'os, the seat of the Holy Empire of Mann. Maybe it was the way the old priestess kept looking at him, something unspoken in her gaze.

Once more he wished they would finish eating and retire to their rooms for an early night. Belias needed to speak to his staff, find out if the city populace had heeded his hastily called curfew. Yet for the last two hours he had been trapped at the dining table with these guests, feigning interest in the old woman's talk while he eyed the rate at which they consumed their food and drank their wine, trying through simple prayer to hurry them up. Surely they must be sated soon?

By his elbow, his plump wife sat in silence. She was dressed in the finest of farlander silks, and sported jewels extravagant enough for a queen, or at least a minor, provincial queen. Again, she cast a demure glance towards the handsome young priest, sitting like a king at the head of the long table; again Kirkus pointedly ignored her attentions. Belias, too, pretended not to notice. He was hardly surprised by his wife's flirtations. She had always been drawn to power – it was why she had married him in the first place

He looked across at his daughter, Rianna. Belias often looked to his daughter when in need of a little support. She was whispering something to her fiance, a man ten years her elder. He was an entrepreneur of the patrician class, who had finished his food long ago and watched all three priests seated at the table with barely concealed distrust.

They were a jolly group, for sure, as they dined silently in the draughty hall, listening to the rain gusting against the windows of stained glass, the munching of food and the tapping of cutlery against plates, the occasional civil comment; that and the cries of the slaves squatting out in the rain in the gravel driveway outside.

Belias had been informed by his chancellor of the occurrences in the streets of Skara-Brae earlier that day. That was partly why he was sweating so badly, and why he had to feign an appetite for the cold remnants of his food. The city folk were in an uproar, by all accounts. They wanted their loved ones back; failing that, they wanted blood. It worried him greatly, these sudden public displays of anger, for Belias understood the Nathalese only too well, and how easy it would be to tip them into open revolt. After all, he was Nathalese himself.

'Are you quite all right, High Priest?' inquired Kira kindly, though he suspected that any kindness exhibited by this woman was more akin to a cat's toying with a mouse. Belias tried to compose himself. No, he was hardly all right. This old witch was the mother of the Holy Matriarch herself, and that lout, lolling in his chair at the head of his table was nothing less than the Matriarch's only son, likely next in line for the throne. It was enough to drive a simple priest from the provinces to distraction.

'I'm fine,' he heard himself reply to the old priestess. 'I was just wondering… you see… why you needed to acquire so many slaves today?'

The old woman sipped delicately at a glass of wine, fixing her gaze on him over its rim. She smacked her lips. 'My oaf of a grandson there is soon to undergo his initiation,' she explained, in a voice creaking like old stairs. 'We have been gathering what things we need for the ritual, stopping here and there along the river, at whichever towns take our fancy. I have brought him on the grand progress this last year, you see. I am sure, being a high priest, you have undertaken the pilgrimage yourself.' And for a moment she held up the crystal goblet to study it, as though looking for imperfections, and Belias saw her focus on him through its transparency.

Belias nodded, smiling like an idiot, not entirely offering an answer. No, he had never taken the grand tour himself, though he was not about to inform her of that fact. It was long, and hideously expensive if one wished to see it through in any comfort, and it involved all manner of orgies and ritual taboo-breaking along the way that would probably finish off his weakened heart for good. Somehow, Belias had just never quite got around to it.

'I see,' said Kira, whereupon Belias let the smile drop from his face. He didn't know what she saw, but his heart began to thump a little faster. He forced a slice of sweetroot into his mouth, a simple act of outward composure – though he spoiled the attempt when he tried to swallow, choking on the barely chewed morsel.

His daughter passed him a goblet of water, an expression of concern creasing her forehead. He drained it dry and smiled at Rianna in thanks. She wore a dress of soft green cotton this evening, complementing her red hair and cut high enough to hide the seal she always wore about her neck, at his own fatherly insistence. Belias had snapped at her earlier, privately, for thus hiding the seal from sight, as she always did in company. It was of no use worn like that, he tried to tell her. It is not a deterrent if people do not see it. But Rianna had never fully understood the risks involved in being the daughter of the city's high priest. In a way, he hoped that she never would.

He now regretted those harsh words to her earlier as, across the table, his daughter returned his smile. He knew that she had already forgiven him. She always forgave him.

He was glad, at least, that these two priestly visitors had not turned the conversation to matters of doctrine and ritual tonight. He had always tried to shelter Rianna from the dark heart of this religion, its secrets and hidden rituals. He cherished her innocence; it was the only bright light in his otherwise mundane life.

'Look at him, there!' The old priestess now jabbed a finger at her grandson, though only half seriously, causing her host Belias to flinch. 'Drunk on wine and full to bursting and still he complains that he is bored. Would you believe he has seen an entire empire pass beneath his heels these last twelve moons, sights that only a privileged few will ever be fated to witness? No, he merely whines for more, like the spoiled child he is.'

Kirkus belched loudly at that.

There is no lord but thy own self, Belias silently recited, as though suddenly he was indeed a true devotee of Mann, while he covertly took in the intoxicated condition of the young priest sprawled in his chair. Could this truly be the next leader of both an empire and a faith that spanned two continents, and at least forty different races?

Unlike many of his fellow countrymen who would rather fight until independence or death if they could, Belias was by his own reckoning a realist. It was a trait he judged far superior to any other in his life, and which he found miserably lacking in his fellow Nathalese. Save, perhaps, for the merchant classes, who knew a good business opportunity when it came crashing through their doors boot-first.

All those years ago, when the imperial army had first rolled up to the Nathalese borders, and broken through almost without pause, he had recognized the future imperial occupation for what it truly was – an inevitability. And so, after the final stand of Queen Hano and her forces right here in this ill-fated city, which he had been fortunate enough to escape, through being far away with his wife and child on his family estate, and being the ambitious young politician that he was, Belias had switched sides accordingly. He became, of all things, a priest of Mann, seeing this as the only way to advance politically within the new order. It had been a simple enough business. All he needed to do was study for three years at the newly opened temple complex in Serat, where all manner of provincials were studying likewise to take on the robes of the order, and then to brave his way through the Cull, that mysterious ritual which would also signify his final initiation into the creed of Mann.

It had worked well, his change of allegiance – and Belias liked to remind himself of this, and of the subsequent success of that decision, during those darker nights when his conscience plagued him. He was now, after all, the governor of his very own city.

But, despite all such pragmatism, or perhaps because of it, Belias understood his less sophisticated countrymen only too well. An episode like today, a public press-ganging throughout his city, might well be enough to trigger a revolt, despite the threat of total retaliation that would be anticipated by all. If that uprising happened, High Priest Belias was undoubtedly a dead man. He would be the first to be strung up by the populace, seen as the traitorous figurehead that he was. And even if he somehow avoided such a lynching, the priesthood itself would finish him off for allowing such a revolt to occur in the first place. They would denounce him as weak, and no true priest of Mann at all, and he would be disrobed by their favoured method of disrobing one of the order – by sticking him on top of a burning pyre.

And all of this because of these fanatics from Q'os, sitting here at his dinner table, in his own home, in his city, gorging themselves on his food, while their stinking slaves cluttered up his driveway. It would be their fault if the citizens revolted, and their necks might even join his own in the noose. But that would not provide much by way of compensation. Dead was dead, after all.

Mann, the high priest reflected sourly. The divine flesh. Belias had made a point of learning everything he could about this all-consuming religion he had bought into. And he believed he understood it for what it truly was.

The Holy Order of Mann had not always been so holy. Once, it had been nothing more than a dark urban cult, a rumour whispered among the city states of the Lanstrada, where it was used as a threat by mothers to frighten their children into obedience. But that was before the same furtive cult had risen to dominance in the rich city state of Q'os – a populace gripped by fear and superstition induced by years of disease and failing crops – where the cult had seized power in a coup known as the Longest Night.

Driven by their victory and ambitions to consolidate their power as quickly as possible, the cult invested the vast reserves of wealth now under its control into reforming the city's army into a machine fit for conquest; their dream, to spread the Mannian philosophy throughout the known world. At first, their military endeavours did not go so well. But, eventually, armed with a new design of cannon – more accurate, less prone to exploding unexpectedly and requiring a smaller quantity of blackpowder – their fortunes on the battlefield finally turned. This led to an era of invasion and dominance that saw the brutal forging of an empire in little less than fifty years and, in the process, changed the very nature of warfare.

During those five decades in power, the cult had purposely wrapped itself in divinity. Over a relatively short period of time it had grown into a state religion, with many of its earliest customs hardening into tradition. The Cull was one such example. For the neophyte priests it was a ritual of initiation, in which they would lose the tips of their little fingers then proceed to murder an innocent with his bare hands, such a breaking of taboo being intended to hone the primal self into a point unstoppable.

Or so the faith went, though Belias thought it all so much fluff at the end of the day. He had merely felt sickened by his own long night of initiation. While more devout priests repeated the ceremony of the Cull many times during the course of their lives, supposedly honing the divine flesh further still, Belias had never repeated the experience, and tried hard never to dwell on that one and only time. Not once had he ever told his family what he had done to attain these white robes of his station.

Before now it had never seemed to matter that Belias did not believe in any of Mann's more fundamental nonsense. He was an ambitious turncoat priest in a religion that did not concern itself with selflessness or sacrifice, but only with power and self-divinity, and therefore Belias, a man of supreme self-worship in his younger years, had rarely ever felt himself a fake.

It was curious however, sitting at his own dinner table with these obvious fanatics from Q'os – real priests in every sense of the word, with their carefully shaven scalps and their abundance of facial piercings – that Belias was finally feeling himself to be the charlatan he really was. And it was this thought that lay at the forefront of his mind as he sat observing the scene before him, his sense of foreboding growing by the moment. He wondered just what they would do to him if they ever suspected.

*

Kirkus was feeling irritated. The wine was passable, the food at least filling, but it felt as though he had passed the last hour dining with corpses, so stiff and formal were the minor conversations conducted around the table. Not for the first time in the last six months, he wished he was back at the Temple of Whispers, along with his peers.

A sharp cry from outside broke his disgruntled train of thought. Likely, one of their newly acquired slaves was being coaxed into silence by the lashings of a whip.

'About time,' he commented, fumbling to refill his glass yet again. Such arrogance was partly for show, however, for Kirkus was not in every way the spoiled lout that he pretended to be: it simply entertained him to appear so at times such as now.

No one responded to his remark. The tinkle of cutlery and the crunching of food continued around the table.

Kirkus straightened the cutlery before him until each piece was again perfectly in its place. His teeth ground together. If he did not do something soon to relieve his boredom he would go mad.

A quiet conversation flurried for a moment between Kira and the high priest, something about the river, and how far along it the Lake of Birds must be from here. Belias was sweating even worse than before.

'I'm bored!' Kirkus cried out again, louder this time, though still not enough to scatter the polite conversation entirely from the table.

It was enough, however, to draw the attention of the high priest's daughter from her plate of fresh salmon. She turned round and fixed a smoky, indignant gaze on his own. It was the first time she had met his eyes since they had sat down for dinner. He leered back at her, making a show of it, and then he leered at her fiance, too, that slick profiteer who looked up briefly to acknowledge him. As one, the couple returned their attention to their plates. Kirkus watched on, seeing the glances they passed between them after that. They shared something, these two: an unspoken connection.

He's probably riding her like a stallion whenever the parents are away, Kirkus mused broodingly. And, unwarranted, a memory forced itself into his mind: Lara and the last time they too had ridden together, her drugged and debauched hunger for sex driving him to a high he had never before known.

The memory lay like a leaden ball in his belly, and now it caused others to emerge. An evening spent with his grandmother in the cool shadowed room that was her personal chamber, her constant croaking reminding him of things he would rather not have to contemplate during those days in which all he wished to think about was when next he would see Lara. All that mattered to him was the scent of her skin, smooth and supple beneath his touch, or his bite; the sound of her laughter, clear and melodious, and provoked by things he could only guess at; the vision of her perfect face, flushed beneath him, or above him; her gifts of spontaneity and high spirit.

'Little Lara can never be your glammari, Kirkus,' his grandmother had told him bluntly, after spending an hour explaining yet again how only the women of Mann transmitted the power and wealth of their families, for only they could pass down an ancient bloodline with certainty.

'These things you must remain aware of more than merely who pleases your cock the most,' she had chided. 'Remember, Lara's kin are already allied to our own. You, my child, must chose your consort to the advantage of your position, from a powerful family we wish to bring over to our side. For you, Lara can be nothing more than what she already is, and you must be content with that, the pair of you.'

Kirkus had cursed at the old woman and told her to mind her own business. He had said nothing of it to Lara – not even knowing how to. Yet still she had come to hear of it, somehow.

Lara's behaviour had been skittish on the night that would prove to be their last together, though only she had known it as that. After their hours of love play, they had fallen into an argument over something of no importance, some vague misunderstanding that even now he could not recall. Lara had stormed off, shouting about how she never wanted to speak to him again, and he had laughed at her dramatics and thought it nothing more than one of their usual squabbles – not knowing he had lost her.

A few days after that, at the Ball da Pierce, Lara had arrived with a new lover, that ass Da-Ran strutting proudly in his dress armour with its ribbons, and a scar still healing on his cheek, having just returned that very week from putting down some tribes in the north.

Lara had not even looked at Kirkus that night.

Not once.

This girl at the table, Rianna, she had a way of glancing at her fiance that made Kirkus feel uneasy; if he had been remotely inclined towards self-analysis he would have recognized it for the envy that it was. But instead, he merely sat with increasing ill humour and watched with darkening eyes.

One of her hands lay beneath the table as she ate, Kirkus observed. Peering closer, he saw how that same arm kept moving to a rhythm, though so delicately it was barely enough to notice. Kirkus grunted. With the showy subtlety of a drunk, he dropped his unused napkin to the floor, and ducked beneath the table to squint along its underside. There. Her fragile white hand gloved in lace, the tips of her fingers stroking lightly against her fiance's crotch.

Kirkus retrieved the napkin and returned it the table. He was grinning now, and, as he looked upon the girl again, it was as though he suddenly saw a different person. His attention lingered on her skinny body beneath her green dress, the breasts pouting with youth, the long swan-like neck curving up to a face, that was soft-skinned, proud, both whitened and blushed with make-up, and framed with a great tumult of red hair.

'I want her,' he said to the room, and his quiet and fierce demand caught the attention of all.

'What, dear?' inquired his grandmother from the far end of the table, the old bitch pretending to be deaf.

He pointed a finger at Rianna.

'I want her,' he repeated.

The girl's plump mother broke her silence at last. She giggled into her fist as though she had suddenly found herself in the presence of the insane. The other diners, however, seemed far removed from laughter. They were still hooked on his words, their mouths open in shock, perfectly poised.

'Are you quite serious?' asked his grandmother, in a tone that implied he had better be sure of himself before he next spoke.

Kirkus knew what he was asking of her. Back in Q'os, she might well refuse such a thing; she had done so with Lara, when he had demanded her as his own after the night of the ball, too fearful of upsetting the delicate balances of power that his mother had contrived, as always, to maintain her position. But here? With this provincial fool of a high priest? The report she had been given earlier in the day was correct. Belias was obviously playing at his role of Mann, not fulfilling it.

'You know as well as I do what these people are. Yes, grandmother. I want her – for my Cull.'

The young redhead held a hand to her throat and turned to her father for reassurance. Her fiance placed a hand against her arm and stood up in protest, though he said nothing. The mother continued to giggle.

The old priestess Kira sighed. What was passing through her mind in the next few moments no one in the room could guess at, not even Kirkus, but she stared long and hard at him down the length of the table, and he at her, till the silence grew into a hanging presence.

Turning to Belias, Kira studied him carefully, his face suddenly drawn tight and white with fear. It seemed to prompt her in her decision. Her smile, when it came, appeared merely for politeness.

'High Priest Belias,' she said deliberately, placing her cutlery down beside her plate, 'I would ask of you a question.'

The man cleared his throat. 'Mistress?'

'What is the greatest threat to our order, would you say?'

He opened and closed his mouth a few times before the words gained voice. 'I… I don't know. We rule most of the known world. We are dominant everywhere. I… see no threat to our order.'

Her eyes closed for a moment, as if the lids were heavy. 'The greatest threat,' she intoned, 'will always come from within. Always we must guard against our own weaknesses – of becoming soft, of allowing those into our order who are not truly of the faith. This is how religions become hollow in the end, and meaningless. You must surely appreciate this.'

'Mistress, I…'

She opened her eyes again, and the high priest fell silent. His hands, poised above the tablecloth, trembled visibly.

'Thank you for your hospitality this evening,' she told him, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin before setting it down.

The old priestess raised a skeletal hand into the air and snapped her fingers once, with a sound like the breaking of bone. As one, the four Acolytes stationed around the room began to move.

The girl shrieked as they fell upon her.

Her fiance swung a fist, desperate and panicked enough for it to catch an approaching Acolyte on the jaw.

In the next instant another Acolyte drew his sword and raised it to strike – the fiance, by instinct, raised his forearm to block the blow, and with a butcher's mindless simplicity the Acolyte hacked clean through it, then raised the sword again and hacked down through the wounded man's collarbone. The severed hand had already dropped to the floor. The arm flopped heavy and awkward next to it, where it rolled to settle on the open palm, while its owner fell screaming, blood spurting everywhere.

The mother stood up and vomited a shower of barely digested shrimps over her embroidered tablecloth.

The father mouthed words of inconsequence and stumbled around the table towards his daughter, his voice rising. But he slipped on the spreading pool of blood on the floor and, as he regained his footing, clutched at his chest, his face tightly pinched.

The doors at the far end of the room burst open and the mansion's guards tumbled in, weapons already drawn, anticipating trouble. They took in the scene: their master reeling as though drunk at the far end of the room, the bloody mess of a man still screaming on the floor, the daughter struggling in the arms of the Acolytes: and there, seated calmly at either end of the table and sipping wine, the two white-robed visitors from Q'os.

The men backed slowly from the room, closing the doors gently as they left.

The high priest groaned, then fell to his knees as Kira rose above him.

'Please,' he barely managed as he clutched at his chest. A small blade appeared in her hand. With the smallest of motions she swept it across his throat.

'Take the mother, too,' she commanded, as she stood over the dying man.

The Acolytes seized the mother and dragged both her and her shrieking daughter from the room. Kira paused to look down at Belias. She stared into his rolling eyes.

'Do not be bitter,' she told him, though it was doubtful if he even heard her words. 'You did well enough out of us – while it lasted.'

Kira stepped over the high priest, rather than around him, leaving a trail of dainty bloody footprints in her wake.

Kirkus finished his wine with one swallow and stood.

In the great hall of the mansion, the guards waited with expressions of poorly concealed fear. Egan, the high priest's chancellor, stood before them, his hands hidden within the sleeves of his white robe. His silver hair contrasted sharply with the flush of his face, and Kirkus assumed it to be anger until he observed an interested gleam in the man's eyes, which now followed both mother and daughter as they were pulled outside into the rain. He wondered if he was the one who had penned the note earlier that day.

'We have need of a new high priest, Chancellor Egan,' Kira announced.

'Indeed,' the man purred.

'I hope you prove a more dedicated follower of the faith than your predecessor ever was.'

Egan bowed his head. 'He was weak, Mistress. I am not.'

Kira appraised the man for a moment longer, then with a sniff she whirled about and swept through the front doorway.

Kirkus dutifully followed his grandmother outside.