Tower Lord

CHAPTER NINE

Frentis

The seed will grow . . .

The itch began the morning after they killed the old man in the temple. Frentis woke with the woman’s naked flesh pressed against him, features serene and content in slumber, locks of dark hair tumbling over her face, stirring a little in her soft, untroubled breath. He wanted very much to strangle her. She had been exultant as she used him, nails digging into his back, her thighs firm around his waist, panting riddles in Volarian as she moved. “We have . . . the whole world now . . . my love . . . Let the Ally play his games . . . Soon I’ll play mine . . . And you . . .” She paused, smiling as she pressed a kiss to his forehead, sweat dripping from her breasts onto his scarred chest. “You will be the piece that wins the whole board.”

Lying there, his body lined with sunlight from the slatted windows, he willed his arms to move, his hands to reach for her throat, forcing every ounce of desire into the command. But his arms stayed at his side, relaxed and unmoving. Even now, lost in sleep and whatever nightmares she thought dreams, still she bound him.

He noticed the itch as he let his eyes wander the ornate ceiling of her inn room. It was a small, faint tickle in his side, just below the rib cage. He assumed it must be one of the numberless bugs that seemed to be everywhere in this corner of the empire, but there was a rhythm to it, a slight but constant scratch too regular to be the nibbling of a bug.

The woman stirred, rolling onto her back, eyes opening, a lazy smile on her lips. “Good morning, beloved.”

Frentis said nothing.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh don’t sulk. That man was singularly undeserving of your noble concern, believe me.” She got out of bed, walking naked to the window, peering through the slats at the street. “Seems we’ve caused a little commotion. Only to be expected. These irrational wretches are bound to react badly when one of their gods fails to stop her own temple burning down.”

She turned away, yawning and ruffling her tangled hair. “Go get dressed. Our list is long and so is the road.”

He went to his own room, drawing a wide-eyed gasp from the serving girl in the hallway. He closed the door on her blushing embarrassment and started to dress. The itch was still there and he was now allowed sufficient freedom to look, fingers probing the flesh under his rib cage. There was nothing, just the thick scar line that ran from his side to his sternum . . . wait. It was only the smallest change, a slight shift in the texture of his damaged flesh, from rough to smooth. He could see no difference but his fingers told another story. Is it . . . ? Can it be healing?

He recalled the woman’s alarm when she saw the old man’s blood on his face, the way she had bound him, eyes alive for any change in his state, and the old man’s last sputtering words. The seed will grow . . .

The binding flared with an impatient jab and he finished dressing. Healing or not, she bound him as tight as ever.

They went to the docks and booked passage to the Twelve Sisters aboard a compact merchant vessel. The captain was an aged veteran of the seas and eyed Frentis with no small amount of suspicion, saying something to the woman which made her laugh. “He says you look like a Northman,” she said in Volarian then gave the captain an answer in Alpiran which seemed to satisfy him. He pointed them to a spot on the mid-deck amongst a collection of caged chickens and spice barrels. They were gone from the harbour within the hour, sails unfurled to catch the north-westerly winds.

“How I hate seas, ships and sailors,” the woman said, gazing out at the waves with a grimace. “I once sailed the ocean to the Far West, endless weeks sharing a ship with slaves and fools. It was all I could do not to kill them all mid-voyage.”

There was a shout from one of the crew and they turned to see a young sailor pointing off the starboard bow, yelling in excitement. Frentis and the woman joined him at the rail along with a cluster of crewmen, all jabbering in Alpiran. At first he could see nothing to arouse such interest then noticed a thrashing in the waves some two hundred yards distant, a great sail-like tail rising out of the water. Whale, Frentis decided. He had seen them before, off the Renfaelin shore, impressive beasts to be sure but hardly an uncommon sight for a sailor.

The thrashing abruptly increased and a flash of red appeared amidst the foam, a great pointed head rising from the spume, jaws widened to reveal rows of bright teeth. It disappeared back into the water, a huge tail rising shortly after, more than forty feet in length, the skin shining in the sun, stripes of pale red on the dark grey topside, the underside milky white. The tail whipped from side to side and was gone. The water soon calmed, the red-slicked surface broken only by the bubbles rising from the depths.

“Red shark,” the woman said. “Unusual for them to come so close to shore.”

The crew dispersed after some happy chatter. It seemed this was a good omen.

“They say Olbiss the sea god gave the shark a whale to sate his hunger so we could sail safely on,” the woman observed, turning her face to the sea to conceal her contemptuous grin. “It’ll take more than a whale to sate mine.”

Land hove into view four days later, a great mountain appearing out of the morning mist. It seemed unnaturally dark to Frentis as the wind pushed them closer, but soon he realised it was covered in forest from top to bottom. She had brought him to another jungle.

Their vessel moored up on a narrow jetty reaching out into a natural harbour on the south shore of this island. The woman named it as Ulpenna, easternmost of the Twelve Sisters, the islands that formed the broken bridge between the continents. He followed her along the jetty to a sizeable town of wooden buildings. In contrast to the ramshackle slave market at the Volarian riverbank, this jungle town displayed an elegance and age indicating many years of settled occupation. The houses were mostly two-storey affairs with ornate wooden statues on every veranda, each one different.

“Each house has its own god,” the woman explained, once again reading his thoughts. “Each family its own guardian.”

They stopped at a tavern and ate a meal of heavily spiced chicken stew, the woman striking up a conversation with the man who served them. Frentis’s Alpiran remained poor but he picked out the words “law” and “house” amongst the babble.

“No guards,” the woman commented when they were alone. “A trusting fellow this magistrate. Popular too, by all accounts. Not what you’d expect for a lawmaker.”

They lingered at the tavern until late afternoon then took the only road, a track of dry red clay trailing out of town and upwards into the jungled slopes of the mountain. They followed the road for another hour before the woman led him onto a side track, through the dense jungle until they came to a large house. It was an impressive three-floored structure built on a ledge in the mountainside, shuttered windows open to the evening breeze coming in off the sea.

“Just the magistrate,” the woman told Frentis as he stripped down to his trews, taking off his boots and smearing earth over his exposed flesh. “Apparently there’s a wife and three children, but you don’t have to concern yourself with them.” She tweaked his nose a little. “Isn’t that kind of me? Now off with you, my love.”

The information from the tavern had been correct, there were no guards. A servant tended the small garden at the rear of the house and another lit lamps on the porch. Frentis approached through the thick undergrowth at a crawl, lying still when he got to within twenty feet of the south-facing wall. He lay against the carpet of vegetation until nightfall then crept forward to the wall. It was an easy climb, the ornamentation favoured by house-builders here provided plentiful handholds.

He hauled himself onto the top-floor veranda, finding an open door. Inside a child was sleeping in a large bed, a small dim shape in the bedcovers. He moved through the room on silent feet and into the hallway beyond finding two other rooms on this floor, each occupied by sleeping children, before making his way downstairs. There were two more rooms here, one a book-filled space he took as a study, empty of any readers, the other a bedroom, the covers on the bed neatly pulled back in readiness. He returned to the landing, hearing the sound of voices from the ground floor.

The staircase creaked as he descended to the hallway, but his step was too light to draw any attention. The voices came from a room at the front of the house, a man and a woman talking on the other side of a closed door. Frentis found a shadowed corner, crouched and waited.

He fancied the itch had grown worse today, building steadily to a true irritation. The binding was loose enough to let him scratch at it, although this seemed to have no effect at all, and once again his fingers revealed a change in the texture of the scar, more smooth flesh amongst the damaged tissue . . .

His head snapped up as the door opened, a woman emerging, glancing back to say something, face lit by the glow of the room. She was somewhere past her fortieth year, a handsome woman dressed in pale blue silks with bound-up hair and an easy smile. A male voice came from the open door and she gave a small laugh then turned away, walking to the staircase and ascending, oblivious to Frentis’s presence.

He waited until he heard her enter the bedroom above then went to the door. The woman had left it slightly ajar and he could see the man inside. He was seated at a desk, facing a window affording a fine view of the sea, humming to himself as he read a scroll. He was of middling height, portly and balding, more grey in his hair than black. Frentis wondered what his name was as he pulled the dagger from the sheath at the small of his back.

“A single thrust,” the woman said as they made their way up the mountain. They had sat in the jungle until morning, watching the house and waiting for the screams. They began to climb accompanied by the grief-filled cries of the magistrate’s wife, moving away from the road and the town where people were like to start asking questions about new arrivals when news of the murder became known. “Neat and quick,” the woman continued, climbing without any obvious strain. “Aren’t you going to thank me for letting you give him an easy death?”

Frentis kept climbing, saying nothing.

They came to the summit as the sun climbed to its apex, the woman turned towards the west, arms wide. “The Twelve Sisters in all their glory.”

They stretched away into the mist-shrouded distance, a line of eleven jungle-clad islands rising from the sea. “For centuries not even the bravest soul would dare to live here,” the woman went on. “It’s said there was a great cataclysm, great enough to shatter the land-bridge joining our continent with what is now the mainland of the Alpiran Empire. What caused it none can say, though legend offers a thousand explanations. The Alpirans say the gods battled the nameless and their wrath was such the earth shook with enough fury to drown the bridge. The tribes to the south have it that a fiery globe fell from the sky bringing destruction in its wake. There’s even an old story in Volarian about a mighty but foolish sorcerer who summoned something he couldn’t control, something that ravaged the land before dragging him screaming back to the void. Whatever it was, when it was done the land-bridge had become what you see now, twelve islands. Wild stories abounded of the great evils and magics still lurking here in the aftermath of the shattering, beasts that could talk like men, men that were more like beasts. It must have been a shock to the first Alpiran explorers who dared to come ashore, finding nothing but stinking jungle.”

She started down the western slope. “No time to enjoy the view, beloved. We’d best be off this rock by nightfall. You can swim, can’t you?”

The channel between Ulpenna and its nearest neighbour was at least five miles wide at it narrowest point. The woman had him fashion a small raft for their pack from the light wood that littered the beach, lashed together with vines hacked from the jungle. He pushed it ahead of him with both arms, legs pumping. He had always been a strong swimmer, but that had been in the stretch of the Brinewash curving around the walls of the Order House. This was very different, the ceaseless swell of the sea and the darkness of the water as the sun began to descend conjured fresh images of the great red-striped shark as it devoured the whale.

The woman laughed, turning onto her back, leg kicking lazily in the water, completely at ease. “Don’t worry. We’re far too meagre a meal for a red shark to bother with. He does have smaller cousins though.” She laughed again and swam ahead as his fear lurched to an even higher pitch.

They made it to the far shore without undue incident, though Frentis could swear something rough and scaly had brushed his leg beneath the waves. He gathered driftwood and stacked it in a crude cone. The woman held her hand to it, grunting in pain and delight as the flame lashed out to ignite the timber, a line of blood appearing beneath her nose almost immediately. She wiped it away with a casual flick of her thumb, but he took note of the way she flexed her hand as the flames subsided, and the shudder of suppressed agony in her shoulders. There’s always a price to pay, my love.

They sat by the fire to dry off as the darkness deepened and a half-moon rose high above.

“Can you sing?” the woman asked. “I’ve always had a yen to hear my lover sing to me beneath a moonlit sky.”

For once Frentis was happy to reply without any encouragement. “No.”

She frowned at him. “I can make you, you know that.”

Frentis stared into the fire, saying nothing.

“You’re wondering who he was,” she said. “Why his name was on our list.”

The itch flared anew, almost burning now. He fought down the impulse to wince and kept his hands resting on his knees. If she knew of his discomfort, the woman gave no sign, tossing dry twigs into the fire as she spoke on, “I’m sorry to tell you he wasn’t a bad man, quite the opposite from what I could gather. A fair and learned judge, immune to influence or bribery. The kind of man who is trusted by all, rich and poor. The kind of man people look to in a crisis.” She tossed a final twig into the fire, offering Frentis a sad smile. “That’s why he was on the list. His worthiness killed him, not you. You are merely the instrument of a long-planned enterprise.”

She rose, moving to sit at his side, wrapping her hands around his arm, her head resting on his shoulder. He knew they must have made a pretty picture, young lovers huddled together on a moonlit beach, but her voice held no vestige of prettiness when she began to speak again. It was a harsh, sibilant whisper, barely controlled, the voice of a madwoman.

“I know this pains you,” she said. “I remember that pain, my love. Though it was many lifetimes ago. You think me cruel, but what do you know of true cruelty? Is the tiger cruel when it takes the antelope? Or the red shark when it claims the whale? Was your mad king cruel when he sent you off to fight your hopeless war? You mistake purpose for cruelty, and I have always had a purpose. I am not mindless. When we are done with this list I promise you we’ll write one of our own, and then there will be no pain when you strike off a name, only joy.”

She snuggled closer, sighing in contentment . . . and the itch burned like fire.

They killed twice more in the Twelve Sisters. A merchant’s clerk on Alpenna, throttled by the woman in an alley as he searched for a place to piss away the night’s wine. Next was a tavern girl in Astenna, lured to Frentis’s room by the silver he spun before her eyes, making it dance along his knuckles. She giggled as she followed him up the stairs, giggled as he stood aside with a bow at the door, giggled in the room as he lit a lamp and closed his arms around her. Once again the woman let him make it quick.

They found a ship before the sun was up and sailed away with the morning tide. The ship docked at Dinellis four days later, a huge bustling port even larger than Mirtesk. The guise of lady and bodyguard had been abandoned by now, replaced by husband and wife, though this time she played the role of cowed mouse and had him act the domineering braggart, spoiled son of a Meldenean merchant come to oversee his father’s trade. Dinellis yielded another victim from her list, a rotund innkeeper persuaded to join them for a cup of wine on their veranda by a boisterous Frentis. They left him there, staring sightlessly at the harbour, his empty wine cup still resting on his extensive belly.

The days took on a nightmarish monotony as they journeyed north, finding listed names along the way. There was no pattern to this list, at least none he could decipher. A village washerwoman ten miles north of Dinellis, a strapping farmhand two days later, a half-blind and deaf old man the day after that. If not for the fact he had seen the man with the too-familiar voice hand her the list, he might have thought it just a delusion of her fractured mind, an illusion giving her permission to kill at random. But there was a control to her killing now that told him this mission was not recreational, the savagery that had so disgusted him when she killed the old man in Hervellis replaced by a terrible efficiency. Whether she did the killing or forced him to it, little was left to chance. Their victims were observed and killed when opportunity arose, quickly if not cleanly, and they were gone well before any alarm could be raised.

A carpenter in Varesh. Another magistrate in Raval. A bandit leader in the hills to the west.

“Well, he was a tough one.” The woman angled her head at the body of the bandit, shaking blood from her short sword.

Frentis dodged a spear thrust from the last of the bandit’s men, the five others all lay about their camp, bloodied and lifeless. The camp had been hard to find, taking several days tracking through rocky hills. When they finally came upon it the woman eschewed waiting for darkness in favour of walking in and killing them all. “We’ve scant time for artistry, my love.”

The bandit leader had fought hard, if briefly. His men hadn’t run when he fell, bespeaking a genuine friendship and respect amongst these rogues.

The final bandit wore his hair in long, tightly bound braids, an intricate array of decorative scars etched around his eyes and mouth. He cursed Frentis in an unfathomable torrent of Alpiran and redoubled his efforts, fury putting too much strength into his final spear slash, the barbed blade arcing wide, leaving him exposed. Frentis’s boot took him square on the jaw, felling him unconscious to the dusty rock.

“He’s seen us,” the woman said, the binding forcing Frentis to bring his sword to bear on the fallen bandit’s neck . . .

. . . the itch burned, bright and fierce, so bright he wondered it didn’t burn through his shirt and blind her . . .

. . . the blade stabbed down, severing the spine. The bandit spasmed once and died.

They took the bandits’ horses, squat, wide-legged animals little bigger than ponies, and rode hard towards the north. The horses withered as night drew on but the woman wouldn’t stop and they rode them to death before the next morning. Two days’ walk brought them in sight of Alpira, the empire’s capital.

“Magnificent isn’t it?” the woman said. “They can’t build a road worth a turd but they can build a city.”

Alpira was a vast square grid of countless houses and towers, bordered all around by huge sloping walls fifty feet thick. Frentis would have been awe-struck by the sight of it but for the images of murder that now crowded his head. The farmhand had approached them with a wide smile, stepping away from his plough with raised arms, thinking them travellers in search of direction. Frentis’s dagger had opened his neck with a single slash and they watched him thrash on the ground until he bled his life away.

“See?” the woman was saying, finger pointing. “The dome of the Emperor’s Palace.” The dome seemed to shimmer with a white fire as it reflected the afternoon sun. “Clad in silver, every inch of it. I wonder what it’ll look like when it burns.”

They made camp atop a nearby hill, watching the city as night fell, a spectacle of lights appearing as the shadows grew long, the city resembling an unnaturally well-ordered spider’s web.

The woman took a piece of waxed parchment from the pack, unfolding it to briefly scan the names it held, then tossed it onto the fire where it blackened and curled in the flames. “You still haven’t reckoned it out, have you?” she asked. “What this has all been for?”

Frentis watched the last fragments of parchment burn and said nothing.

“Do you know what scrying is?” she persisted.

He wanted to ignore her, but found he needed to know why she had made him spill so much blood. If he could make some kind of sense of it, then perhaps the images wouldn’t plague him with such ferocity.

“I heard one of my brothers talk of it once,” he said. “Brother Caenis, he knew many things.”

“I see. And what did knowledgeable Brother Caenis have to say about scrying?”

“It’s a thing of the Dark. A way of seeing the future.”

“Quite so. But it’s a far-from-exact art, and a rare gift. The Council have been scouring the empire and beyond for centuries to find those with this gift, all with but one object, to divine what will happen when we finally come to take this land. Decades of scrying, most of it under torture, produced our list. Each name recurring again and again in the visions forced from the seers. The magistrate on Ulpenna would have rallied a fleet of armed merchant ships to harry our supply lines. The clerk was destined to be a master strategist in naval warfare, architect of a great victory. The whore in the tavern would discover a talent for archery, becoming a legend when she killed our admiral on the deck of his flagship. I assume you can guess the rest. Our list was a list of heroes, my love. By removing them we ensure success and eternal glory for the Volarian Empire.”

The sound that rose from his chest was so unfamiliar it hurt his throat. A laugh, in truth more a grating mirthful cough, making the woman narrow her eyes. “Do I amuse you, my love?”

Her anger just made him laugh harder, choking off as she flared the binding, leaning forward, hands flexing. “I will not be mocked. You saw me drink the blood of the last man who mocked me. Do not forget what I can do.”

He was surprised to find she had left him freedom to speak. “You won’t,” he rasped. “Mad bitch that you are, you’re actually in love with me.”

She became very still, fists clenched now, face twitching. “It seems you know more about cruelty than I gave you credit for.” She reclined slowly and unclenched her fists. “I asked what amused you.”

This time the binding left no room for silence. “There are millions of people in this empire,” he said. “Not slaves, free people, more than can be counted. Janus sent the largest and finest army ever mustered by the Realm and we couldn’t hold three cities for more than a few months. You think because we killed the people on your list this empire is ripe for the taking? You think amongst all the millions there won’t be any to take their place? I hope your vile race does try to take it, and I hope I live long enough to see their ruin.”

She gave a laugh of her own, short, almost wistful. “Oh my love, if only you knew how childish you are, how small your mind is. You talk of taking an empire, and in truth those idiots on the Council dream of little else, selling themselves like the cheapest whores to the Ally. They can have this empire. I want more, and I’ll have it, with you at my side.”

The itch, dormant for much of the day, began again. Not so painful now, but an insistent throbbing ache.

“But first,” the woman said, getting to her feet and brushing dust from her clothes, “we have the last name on our list to strike through. And this time, since you find me so amusing, I think I’d like you to play with them a while first. It’s a child you see, and children do so love to play.”

The villa stood on a plateau to the west of the city. It was a large horseshoe-shaped structure, two storeys tall, comprising a stable and workshop as well as a lavishly decorated main house, all set within well-ordered groves of acacia and olive trees. White-cloaked guards patrolled the grounds in pairs. From the number visible, Frentis guessed there was at least a company garrisoned here.

They had approached via a narrow fissure in the southern slope of the plateau. It would have been a perilous climb in daylight but at night their success in scaling it seemed miraculous. He knew he had the woman to thank for the smooth precision with which he had made his way up the rock, hands and feet finding purchase with faultless accuracy. Somehow the binding enabled her to convey her skills to him, along with her bile. The itch hadn’t stopped and he worried continually it would prove such a distraction he would slip, but the binding and the woman’s Dark skill left no room for error and they reached the plateau’s edge without incident.

He hung at her side as two guards passed by above, fingers clamped to the ledge, sweat bathing him as the strain told. But his hold never wavered and he suspected, if she so wished, she could have him hang there until he starved. She waited until the voices of the guards had faded then hauled herself up, sprinting into the gardens, Frentis trailing ten feet behind. They moved fast but with barely any sound, halting in tree-cast shadows to allow patrols to pass. They were both dressed head to foot in black cotton, the metal hilts of their swords and daggers blackened with ash to conceal any telltale gleams. The guards were a vigilant lot, speaking to each other in infrequent murmurs, their eyes constantly scanning for intruders. Whoever lived here was clearly worthy of the best protection the Emperor could offer.

It took over an hour before they made it to the rear of the main house. The windows on the ground floor were all securely shuttered and this side of the building was bare of any decorative fixtures that would have afforded useful handholds. The woman took something from the silk sheath on the underside of her wrist, a small garrotte he had seen her use on the merchant’s clerk in the Twelve Sisters, ten inches of shining steel wire stretched between two wooden grips. She moved to one of the windows, briefly inspected the iron padlock on the shutters, then looped the garrotte wire around the U-shaped piece of iron to which it was secured. Her hands moved in a blur, the scrape of the wire on the metal seemed like a scream after so much time spent in silence. Frentis kept watch as the woman worked. In the distance he could see two white-cloaks moving through the gardens, left to right, then right to left, following a pattern that took them ever closer to the house. He and the woman were concealed in the shadow cast by the stables but that would offer scant protection when the white-cloaks came within thirty paces or so.

There was a ping then a clatter as the lock came free of the shutter, the woman catching it before it could hit the ground. She pulled the shutters apart and climbed through, Frentis following, closing the shutters behind them. They were in a kitchen, the cook fire still glowed from the day’s work and rows of hanging copper pots gleamed in the half-light. The woman drew her sword and moved to the door.

Most of the servants would be abed in one of the side buildings at this hour, but there were still a few tending to nightly chores in the main house. They found an old man lighting lamps in the hallway, the woman’s sword piercing his neck from behind before he even sensed their presence. A pretty young maid swept a broom over the marble steps ascending from the main lobby, she had time to gape at them before Frentis’s thrown dagger took her square in the chest. He pulled it free as they climbed the stairs. By now the itch had grown to a tiny pinprick of purest agony in his side, the kind of agony that would have sent him screaming to his knees but for the binding.

The next floor yielded three more servants, all dispatched with quiet efficiency. The woman opened successive doors until she found her quarry. The boy half rose in his bed as the light from the hallway bathed him, yawning and rubbing at his eyes. He was nine or ten years old and stared at them with a strangely fearless wonder, saying something in a sleepy murmur.

“You’ve never had a dream like us, boy,” the woman said, then nodded at Frentis. “Bring him.” She turned and walked along the hallway to another door, pushing it open and provoking a startled shout from an unseen female occupant.

Frentis entered the boy’s room, standing over him, hand outstretched. The boy looked at his hand then at him, his eyes suddenly absent of sleep and full of terrible understanding. I’m sorry, Frentis wanted to say, standing there, tormented to the edge of reason by the binding and the agony in his side. I’m so sorry.

The boy’s head slumped and he took Frentis’s hand, allowing himself to be led from the room, padding alongside in his silk pyjamas as they went through the door the woman had opened.

He found her tying another woman to a chair, her head slumped forward, dark hair dangling as the woman bound her with ropes torn from the drapes over the windows. When she was done she took hold of the woman’s hair, jerking her head back, revealing a face of arresting beauty, the kind of face that belonged on one of the Alpirans’ god-worshipping statues. The bound woman was dressed in a white silk robe, the ropes leaving red weals where they bit hard into her tanned flesh. The woman slapped the beautiful face, once, then twice. The bound woman’s eyes flew open at the second slap, bright green and darting about in alarm.

“Beloved,” the woman said in Realm Tongue, “allow me to present the Lady Emeren Nasur Ailers, former ward of the Emperor Aluran Maxtor Selsus, and widowed bride to Seliesen Maxtor Aluran, the fallen Hope of this empire.”

The Lady Emeren drew a great breath, tilting her head back.

“Scream and the boy dies,” the woman said.

Emeren closed her eyes, the breath hissing from her through gritted teeth. “Whoever you are . . .” she began in accented but well-spoken Realm Tongue.

“Forgive me,” the woman said. “My etiquette is not what it was. You must, of course, be fully informed of who we are. This handsome fellow is my lover and soon to be husband, Brother Frentis, formerly of the Sixth Order of the Faith and the Unified Realm. As for myself, I haven’t had need of a name for many years, so let’s just call me a servant of Volarian Imperial interests, for the time being anyway.”

Frentis watched the calculation on the Lady Emeren’s face, the way her eyes shifted from the woman to Frentis and the bloody dagger in his hand, then to the silent boy holding his other hand. It was only when she looked at the boy that he saw true fear in her eyes.

The throbbing in his side was like a spike, plunging into his flesh, over and over . . .

“If you know so much,” Emeren said, her voice even and well controlled, “you know I hold no power in this empire. I have no sway with the Emperor. My death will cause him no hurt.”

“Hurting the Emperor is not our object,” the woman replied. She went to the large bed, sitting down and bouncing on the soft mattress, her legs dangling over the side, a little girl at play. “I thought you might like to know something,” she said. “Regarding your recent visit to the Meldenean Islands. Did you know, if you had succeeded in your artful scheme, you would have given immeasurable aid to our enterprise? We’ve given up trying to take Al Sorna, now it’s just his death we seek. He’s there in every scrying, every vision we wring out of the seers. The endless impediment, saving those we want dead, killing those we want alive. Your much-mourned husband for instance.”

Emeren’s eyes flashed at her, fury burning amidst the fear.

“Oh yes,” the woman went on. “The visions were quite clear. Had he survived his encounter with Al Sorna, Seliesen Maxtor Aluran would have orchestrated the assassination of your Emperor, blaming it on agents of the Unified Realm, sparking another war, a war that raged for years, sapping the strength of the empire and making him a monster, the greatest tyrant in Alpiran history, and the doom of his people. For when our forces landed, there would have been scant strength to oppose them.”

“My husband,” the Lady Emeren grated, “was a good man.”

“Your husband lusted for the flesh of other men and found you repellent.” The woman’s gaze shifted to the boy at Frentis’s side. “Surprised he managed to get a child on you though. Still, duty makes us perform the most vile acts. Take my darling betrothed here. I know what I’m about to make him do will cause him great and terrible pain, but I will do it. For it is my duty to educate him in the nature of our bond. He doesn’t love me, you see. To love a man and not have that love returned is . . .” She sighed, offering a sad smile to Emeren. “Well, I think you know. The blood of your son, spilled in front of his mother’s eyes, will turn his soul a darker shade, bind us closer. For every time we kill together our bond grows. I know he feels it, my song tells me so.”

The sickening fear gripping Frentis deepened into terror as he saw a tear trace down the woman’s cheek, her eyes wide in adoration as she gazed at him. “Take his fingers first, my love. Nice and slow . . .”

. . . the throbbing was almost continuous now, barely pausing between each stab of agony . . .

He tugged the boy to his knees, tightening his grip, forcing the fingers apart, placing the blade of his dagger against the knuckle of his smallest digit . . .

Something made a loud crashing sound downstairs, followed by a fierce shout in Alpiran.

“HEVREN!” the Lady Emeren screamed, putting every ounce of her strength into the cry, straining against her bonds, neck muscles bulging.

The instant thunder of boots on marble could be heard through the open door.

“Oh bother!” the woman sighed, springing from the bed and moving to the door, drawing her sword. “No time for play, after all, beloved. I’ll be downstairs. Make sure of them both and don’t linger.”

Alone with them, Frentis took hold of the boy’s hair, drawing his head back, placing the dagger against his exposed throat . . .

The throb exploded in his side, a nova of all-consuming pain, burning every thought from his head and swamping the binding. He staggered, letting go of the boy, reeling in a welter of pain.

The boy ran to his mother, tugging at the bonds that bound her to the chair. “Unteh!” she shouted at him, shaking her head frantically. “Emmah forgalla. Unteh! UNTEH!”

He won’t run, Frentis thought, seeing the boy continue to tug at the ropes.

He was surprised to find he could move, despite the pain raging in him from head to toe. He could move. He took a step, he actually took a step of his own volition, though the binding still compelled him to slit the throats of this boy and his mother. It was still there, flaring away, but compared to the pain that exploded from his side, it was little more than an irritant.

From downstairs came the sound of combat, multiple voices raised in challenge and fury, steel clashing, then a loud whoosh, like a first spark touched to oil-soaked kindling on a pyre. Screams followed and a pall of smoke started to fog the hallway beyond the door.

Frentis stumbled towards Emeren and the boy, limbs twitching as he fought for control through the pain. He collapsed against her, a shout of agony erupting from him to wash over her face. She twisted away in disgust and terror, screaming again as his dagger came up, wavering as he strove to control it. The boy launched himself at Frentis, kicking, punching, biting. He hardly felt it, focusing all his will on the dagger, bringing its trembling tip onto the rope across Emeren’s chest. One final spasm of muscle and it was done, the rope parting and falling away. He released the dagger, letting it fall into her lap, rolling onto his back, convulsing in pain.

The binding was flaring with a new ferocity, the pain in his side slowly diminishing. Not enough, he thought, teeth gritted as he writhed on the floor. The seed didn’t grow enough.

He was aware Emeren was standing over him, dagger in hand. The look on her face was one of mingled rage and confusion. “S-sorry . . .” he sputtered, spittle flying from his lips, “So . . . s-sorry . . .”

Her eyes bore into him as her son tugged at her hand. “Entahla!”

Frentis wanted to scream at her to run, but the resurgence of the binding left no room for further forbidden action. She gave Frentis a final glare of frustration and fled, lifting the boy into her arms and running from the room. She turned to the left, wisely opting not to take the stairs to the lobby.

The binding closed on him like the fist of a giant, forcing him to his feet with an implacable command: HELP HER!

He ran for the stairs, sword drawn, descending to the lobby to find the woman locked in combat with a white-cloaked guardsman. The walls of the lobby were covered in fire, thick black smoke blanketing the ceiling. The woman attacked the guardsman with every vestige of skill she could muster, her blood-streaked mouth snarling, but he was no easy opponent, fending off her blows with rapid counterstrokes of his sabre. There was something familiar about him, a tall black-skinned man with pepper-grey hair and the lean weathered features of a veteran. Catching sight of Frentis he grimaced, side-stepped a lunge from the woman and launched himself towards the stairs.

Frentis parried the sabre thrust and countered with a slash to the guardsman’s eyes, but he was quick, dodging past the blade with inches to spare, leaping up several stairs to turn and face them. He met Frentis’s gaze, eyes bright with desperation and fury, torn between continuing the fight or running to check on the fate of the lady and her son.

They’re safe, Frentis wanted to say, but of course, the binding wouldn’t let him.

A shout caused him to turn back to the woman, finding her battling two more guards who had braved the flames now licking around the open door. The grey-haired guardsman saw his chance and thrust at Frentis. He managed to twist away before the sabre point found its target but the edge left a shallow cut on his back as it sliced through his black cotton shirt.

He launched a kick at the guardsman’s chest, the boot impacting on his breastplate and sending him sprawling. There was no time to press his advantage as the woman called him to her side. She retreated back from her two opponents, Frentis stepping in to fend them off as she sheathed her sword and pointed both clenched fists at the nearest wall. She screamed as the flames burst forth, two columns of raging fire striking the wall and blasting through in a haze of cinders. She collapsed as the flames faded from her hands, blood streaming in red rivers from her nose, ears, eyes and mouth.

Frentis caught her before she could fall, lifting her onto his shoulder, parrying a final thrust from one of the guardsmen then sprinting through the hole she had blasted in the wall.

The villa grounds were a confusion of running guards and swirling smoke. Frentis ran to the rear of the house, seeking the stables, hoping he didn’t catch sight of Emeren and the boy, knowing what the binding would force him to do. The stables were full of guards and servants trying to save the horses from the inferno now engulfing the main house. Frentis picked out a large stallion, rearing in alarm as a stable boy attempted to lead him away. He felled the boy with a blow to the back of the head and caught hold of the reins, hoisting the woman onto the stallion’s back then vaulting up behind her. The horse ran without need of encouragement, desperate to be away from this place of fire and terror.

They were free of the smoke in a few heartbeats, galloping hard to the west as the villa burned and tumbled to ruin in their wake.