Retribution Falls

Thirteen

Frey stumbled through the mountain pass, his coat clutched tight to his body, freezing rain lashing his face. The wind keened and skirled and pushed against him while he kept up the string of mumbled oaths and curses that had sustained him for several kloms now. On a good day, the Andusian Highlands at dawn could be described as dramatic—stunning, even—with its wild green slopes and deep lakes nestling between peaks of grim black rock. Today was not a good day.

Frey dearly wished for the sanctuary and comfort of his quarters. He remembered the grimy walls and cramped bunk with fondness, the luggage rack that ever threatened to snap and drop an avalanche of cases and trunks on his head. Such luxurious accommodation seemed a distant dream now, after hours of being pummelled by nature. He was woefully underdressed to face the elements. His face felt like it had been flayed raw and his teeth chattered constantly.

He lamented his bad luck at being caught out in the storm. So what if he’d set out completely unprepared? How could he have known the weather would turn bad? He couldn’t see the future.

It seemed like days had passed since he left the Ketty Jay hidden in a dell. He couldn’t risk landing too close to his target for fear of being seen, so he put her down on the other side of a narrow mountain ridge. The journey through the pass should have taken five hours or so. Six at the most.

When he set off the skies had been clear and the stars twinkling as the last light drained from the sky. There had been no hint of the storm to come. Malvery had waved him on his way with a cheery ta-ra and then taken a swig of rum to toast the success of his journey. Crake had been playing with the new toys he’d picked up in Aulenfay. Bess was having fun uprooting trees and tossing them around. Pinn had stolen the theatrical make-up pen that Frey had bought in the South Quarter and painted the Cipher on his forehead—the six connected spheres, icon of the Awakener faith. He was prancing around in the ill-fitting Awakener robes that had been tailored for Frey, pulling faces and acting the clown.

Frey had been unusually full of good cheer as he walked. All of them had come back from Aulenfay. Frey took that as a vote of confidence, even if the truth was they had no better alternatives. But even with the news of Hengar’s death looming over him, he felt positive. Bullying Quail had energised him. Having a name to put to the shadowy conspiracy against him gave him a direction and a purpose. He’d got so used to running away that he’d forgotten how it felt to fight back, and he was surprised to learn that he liked it.

Besides, he thought sunnily, things were about as bad as they could possibly get. After a certain point, it didn’t really matter if they hung him for piracy, mass murder, or for assassinating Earl Hengar, heir to the Archduchy. He’d be just as dead, any way you cut it. That meant he could do pretty much whatever he liked from here on in.

His buoyant mood survived while the first ominous clouds came sliding in from the west, blacking out the moon. He remained persistently jolly as the first spots of rain touched his face. Then the howling wind began, which took the edge off his jauntiness a little. The rain became torrential, he got lost and then realised he had no map. By this time he’d begun to freeze and was desperately searching for shelter, but there was none to be found and, anyway, he didn’t have the supplies to wait out a really bad storm. He decided to keep going. Surely he was almost there by now?

He wasn’t.

Dawn found him exhausted and in bad shape. His face was as dark as the clouds overhead. He stumped along doggedly, head down, forging through the tempest. His good mood had evaporated. It wasn’t positivity but spite that drove him onward now. He refused to stop moving until he’d reached his destination. Every time he crested a rise and saw there was another one ahead, it made him angrier still. The pass had to end eventually. It was him against the mountain, and his pride wouldn’t let him be beaten by a glorified lump of rock, no matter how big it thought it was.

Finally the wind dropped and the rain dwindled to a speckling. Frey’s heart lifted a little. Could it be that the worst was over? He didn’t dare admit the possibility to himself, for fear of inviting a new tempest. Fate had a way of tormenting him like that. The Allsoul punished optimists.

He struggled up another sodden green slope and looked down into the valley beyond. There, at last, he saw the Awakener hermitage where Amalicia Thade was cloistered.

The hermitage sat on the bank of a river, a sprawling square building constructed around a large central quad. It was surrounded by lawns which opened on to fields of bracken and other hardy highland plants. With its stout, vine-laden walls, deeply sunken windows and frowning stone lintels, it looked to Frey like a university or a school. There was a quiet gravity to the place, a weightiness that Frey usually associated with educational institutions. Academia had always impressed him, since he’d only a passing acquaintance with it. All that secret knowledge, waiting to be learned, if only he could ever be bothered.

A little way from the hermitage, linked to it by a gravel path, was a small landing pad. There were no roads into the valley. Like so many places in Vardia, it was only accessible from the air. In a country so massive and with such hostile geography, roads and rail never made much sense once airships were invented. A small cargo craft took up one corner of the pad. It was their only link with the outside world, most likely, although there would certainly be other visitors from time to time.

Frey could see the tiny figures of Awakener Sentinels patrolling the grounds, carrying rifles. They issued from a guardhouse, which had been built outside the hermitage. He’d intended to arrive under cover of deepest night, but getting lost in the storm had put him severely behind schedule. There was no way he could approach the hermitage during the day without being seen.

The last of the rain disappeared, and he saw hints of a break in the clouds. Shafts of sun were beaming down on the mountains in the distance, warm searchlights slowly tracking towards him. There was nothing for it but to find a nook and rest until nightfall. Now that the storm had given up and he’d reached his destination, he was tired enough to die where he stood. A short search revealed a sheltered little dell, where he piled dry bracken around himself and fell asleep in the hollow formed by the roots of a dead tree.

He woke to the sound of engines.

It was night, clear and cold. He extricated himself from the tangle of bracken and stood up. His skin was fouled with old sweat, his clothes were stiff and he desperately needed to piss. His body ached as if he’d been expertly beaten up by a squad of vicious midgets. He stood, groaned and stretched, then spat to clear the rancid taste in his mouth. That done, he went to investigate what that noise was all about.

He looked down into the valley while he relieved himself against the side of a tree. The moon had painted the world in shades of blue and grey. The windows of the hermitage glowed with an inviting light, a suggestion of heat and comfort and shelter. Frey was looking forward to breaking in, if only to get a roof over his head for a while.

The craft he’d heard was a small black barque, bristling with weapons. A squat, mean-looking thing, possibly a Tabington Wolverine or something from that line. It was easing itself down onto the landing pad, lamps on full, a blare of light in the darkness.

A visitor, thought Frey, buttoning himself up. Best get down there while they’re occupied.

He made his way down into the valley, staying low in the bracken when he could, scampering across open ground when he had to. He got to the river, where there was better cover from the bushes that grew on the bank, and followed it up towards the hermitage. There was a lot of activity surrounding the newly arrived vessel. The Sentinels had all but abandoned their patrol duties to guard it. They stationed themselves along the path between the house and the landing pad.

You should leave it alone, he told himself. Take advantage of the distraction. Get inside the building. Do what you came here to do.

A minute later he was creeping through the bracken, edging his way closer to the landing pad to get a better look. He just wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

The craft rested on the tarmac, bathed in its own harsh light. Though the cargo ramp was down, it still had its thrusters running and the aerium engines fired up. Evidently it wasn’t staying for long.

When he’d got as close as he dared, Frey squatted down to watch. The wind rustled the bracken around him. The craft had a name painted on its underside: the Moment of Silence. He’d never heard of it.

The Sentinels had organised themselves as though they expected an attack, guarding the route between the craft and the door of the building, which stood open. They were dressed in grey, high-collared cassocks of the same cut that all the Awakeners wore. They carried rifles and wore twinned daggers at their waists. The Cipher was emblazoned in black on their breasts: a complex design of small, linked circles.

Sentinels, Crake had explained, were not true Awakeners. They lacked the skill or the intelligence to be ordained into the mysteries of the order. That was why they only wore the Cipher on their breast, not tattooed on their foreheads. They devoted themselves to the cause in other ways, as protectors of the faith. They were not known to be especially well trained or deadly, but they were disciplined. Frey resolved to treat them with the same respect he gave anyone carrying a weapon capable of putting a hole in him.

Everyone was on the alert. Something important was happening.

There was movement by the house, and several Sentinels emerged. They were carrying a large, iron-bound chest between them, straining under its weight. The chest was a work of art, lacquered in dark red and closed with a clasp fashioned in the shape of a wolf’s head. Frey was suddenly very keen to find out what was inside.

The Sentinels had hauled it up the path and had almost reached the craft when two figures came down the cargo ramp to meet them. Frey felt a chill jolt at the sight of them. Being so close to the craft didn’t seem like such a good idea any more.

They were dressed head to toe in close-fitting suits of black leather. Not an inch of their skin was showing. They wore gloves and boots, and cloaks with their hoods pulled up. Their faces were hidden behind smooth black masks, through which only the eyes could be seen.

Imperators. The Awakeners’ most dreaded operatives. Men who could suck the thoughts right out of your head, if the stories were to be believed. Men whose stare could send you mad.

Frey hunkered down further into the bracken.

The Sentinels put the chest down in front of the Imperators, then one of them knelt and opened it. Frey was too far away to see what was within.

One of the Imperators nodded, satisfied, and the chest was closed. The Sentinels lifted it and carried it up the Moment of Silence’s cargo ramp. They emerged seconds later, having left their burden inside. A few words were exchanged, and then one of the Imperators boarded the craft. The other turned to follow, but suddenly hesitated, his head tilted as if listening. Then he turned, and fixed his gaze on the spot where Frey hid in the bracken.

An awful sensation washed over him: foul, seething, corrupt. Frey’s heart thumped hard in terror. He ducked down, out of sight, burying himself among the stalks and leaves. The loamy smell of wet soil and the faintly acrid tang of bracken filled his nostrils. He willed himself to be a stone, a rabbit, some small and insignificant thing. Anything that would be beneath the Imperator’s notice. Some distant part of him was aware that such overwhelming fear wasn’t natural, that there was some power at work here; but reason and logic had fled.

Then, all at once, the feeling was gone. The fear left him. He stayed huddled, not daring to move, breathing hard, soaked in relief. It had passed, it had passed. He murmured desperate thanks, addressed to no one. Never again, he swore. Never again would he go through that. Those few seconds had been among the most horrible of his life.

He heard the whine of the hydraulics as the cargo ramp slid shut. Electromagnets throbbed as the aerium engines got to work. The Moment of Silence was taking off.

Frey gathered his courage and raised his head, peering out above the bracken. The Imperators were gone. All eyes were on the craft. Frey took advantage of the moment, and scampered away towards the hermitage.

By damn, what did that thing do to me?

He could only remember one event vaguely comparable to the ordeal he’d just suffered. He’d been young, perhaps seventeen, and he and some friends went out to some fields where some very ‘special’ mushrooms grew. The night had started off with hilarity and ended with Frey seized by a crushing paranoia, afraid that his heart was going to burst, and being mobbed by hallucinatory bats. That senseless, primal fear had turned a confident young man into a quivering wreck. Now he’d been brushed by it again.

His breathing had returned to normal by the time he got to the hermitage, and he had himself under control again. Shaken, but unharmed. He approached the building from behind, where there were no guards to be seen, and pressed himself against the cool stone of the wall. Security was lax here. He had that to be thankful for. The guards didn’t expect any trouble. They were only here for protection against pirates and other marauders, who might find the idea of a hermitage full of nubile, sex-starved young women somewhat alluring.

Frey cheered at the thought. He’d forgotten about the nubile, sex-starved part. It made his mistake back in Aulenfay twinge a little less, although his cheeks still burned at the memory.

He’d studied the Awakeners in Olden Square and picked Crake’s brains about their faith for a purpose. His idea was to disguise himself as a Speaker, to blend in seamlessly, and thereby move about the hermitage unopposed. Congratulating himself on his unusually thorough preparations, he’d surprised Crake by appearing in full Speaker dress: the high-collared white cassock with red piping, the sandals, the Cipher painted on his forehead in a passable impression of a tattoo.

‘What do you think?’ he asked proudly.

Crake burst out laughing, before explaining to the rather miffed captain that Awakener hermitages were always single sex institutions. Acolytes were allowed no contact with the opposite gender. In Amalicia’s hermitage, all the tutors and students would be female. The male guards would be forbidden to go inside except under special circumstances, and even then the female acolytes would be kept to their rooms. Lust interfered with the meditation necessary to communicate with the Allsoul.

‘So you’re telling me that there’s a building full of women who haven’t even seen a man in years?’ Frey had demanded to know.

‘What I’m telling you is that your cunning disguise is going to be pretty useless in there, since there shouldn’t be a male Speaker within twenty kloms of that hermitage,’ said Crake. ‘However, it’s interesting that you jumped to the other conclusion first. I never pegged you as a glass-half-full kind of person.’

‘Well, a man must make the best of things,’ Frey replied, already envisioning a pleasant death by sexual exhaustion, after being brutally abused by dozens of rampant adolescent beauties.

So Frey had discarded the uniform. Pinn found it later and had been wearing it ever since, for a joke, pretending to be an Awakener. It was funny for the first few hours, but Pinn, encouraged, had carried the joke far past its natural end and now it was just annoying. Frey wouldn’t be surprised if Malvery had beaten him up and burned the robe by the time he got back. He rather hoped so.

He found two small doors, recessed in alcoves, but the Awakeners who ran the hermitage were sensible enough to keep them locked. He considered breaking a window, but they were set high up in the wall and were very narrow. He wouldn’t want to get stuck in one. Finally he found the entrance to a storm cellar which looked as if it led under the house. Hurricanes were frequent in these parts. A padlock secured a thick chain, locking the doors to the cellar. Both were stout and new. It looked like it would take a lot of sawing and hammering to get through that. An intruder would certainly be caught before they gained access.

Frey drew his cutlass and touched its tip to the lock.

‘Think you can?’ he asked it. He didn’t really believe it could understand him, but as ever, it seemed to know his intention. He felt it begin to vibrate in his hands. A thin, quiet whine came from the metal. Soon it was joined by another note, setting up a weird, off-key harmonic that set Frey’s teeth on edge. The lock began to jitter and shake.

Suddenly, by its own accord, the cutlass swept up and down, smashing into the lock. The shackle broke away from the padlock and the chain slithered free. The blade itself was unmarked by the impact. Frey hadn’t even felt the jolt up his sword arm.

He regarded the daemon-thralled cutlass that Crake had given him as the price of his passage. Best deal he ever made, he reckoned, as he sheathed it again.

He climbed into the storm cellar before anyone came to investigate the noise. Steps led down to a lit room, from which he could hear the growl and rattle of machinery. He slipped inside, shut the cellar door behind him, and crept onward into the hermitage.