The Grave thief tr-3 Read online

  The Grave thief

  ( Twilight reign - 3 )

  Tom Lloyd

  Tom Lloyd

  The Grave thief

  WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE

  Abbot Doren, head of an obscure island monastery, flees to the city of Scree with the apprentice Mayl. They are hiding from a murderous monk, Jackdaw, who has thrown in his lot with the shadow Azaer. Meanwhile King Emin of Narkang also sets out for Scree, lured by the prospect of hunting down the man who betrayed him for Azaer several years before.

  Lord Isak, the new Lord of the Farlan, has left Narkang, determined to return home before news of his predecessor's death encourages rebellion. He carries with him two Crystal Skulls, given to him by a sect within the Knights of the Temples who believe him to be the Saviour of Mankind, and, imprisoned in his mind, Aryn Bwr, the last king of the Elves, who had hoped to use Isak to return to life and continue his war against the Gods.

  When they reach Farlan territory, Isak's small party is ambushed by the Certinse family, which includes the new Duke of Lomin. Isak's men are badly outnumbered, but they are saved by a religious sect called the Brethren of the Sacred Teachings, led by Suzerains Torl and Saroc and Chaplain Disten, the man who uncovered the Malich conspiracy.

  During the battle Carel is badly injured and Isak realises there are others whose association with him is putting them in unnecessary danger. He dispatches the failed Harlequin, Mihn, and Morghien, the man of many spirits, to the Yeetatchen homeland, to fetch Xeliath, the white-eye girl who was crippled by a stroke when Isak's fractured destiny was tied to her own. She too carries a Crystal Skull.

  Isak is met by Ilumene, the man King Emin is hunting, and Ilumene, pretending still to be in the service of the king, encourages Isak's presence in Scree. Isak initially ignores him and continues home, but he knows he will have business in Scree soon enough, as it is the nearest stronghold of the White Circle, the sisterhood who tried to enslave him in Narkang.

  In Scree, the vampire Zhia Vukotic continues to masquerade as a member of the White Circle, and starts to develop a powerbase for herself there. She takes control of the sisterhood's recently recruited mercenary armies in anticipation of a Farlan assault, while also knowingly taking a Farlan spy, Legana, under her wing. Further south, Kastan Styrax returns to Thotel, having killed Isak's predecessor, Lord Bahl. Thanks to Azaer's warning, he manages to put down a coup within his own ranks. Styrax also comes to an agreement with the highest-ranking Chetse general, paving the way for the recruitment of Chetse legions. During the battle he is contacted by Isherin Purn, a Menin necromancer in Scree, who has sensed an artefact of immense power appearing in the city. He requests help to secure it, but Styrax, preoccupied with his injured son, resists the temptation, instead sending only a few soldiers to scout the situation in his place.

  Back in Scree, the novice Mayel and his criminal cousin discover that the strange theatre group who have taken residence there are not all they appear to be – especially the minstrel who leads them, Rojak. Isak has finally reached Tirah, where he is to receive the blessing of the Farlan chief religious council, and issues a summons to all Farlan ranking noblemen, before making plans to go to Scree himself. King Emin arrives in Scree with members of the Brotherhood, his band of agents, and one, Doranei, makes accidental contact with Zhia Vukotic, who takes a shine to him. Zhia has rebuffed Rojak's advances at the theatre run by Azaer's disciples just as her brother, Koezh Vukotic announces his presence in the city.

  Kastan Styrax's soldiers arrive in Scree and are met by Nai, the necromancer's acolyte, only to be ambushed by King Emin, who has been tricked into believing one of the soldiers is Ilumene. Zhia, in her White Circle guise, arrives to keep the peace and takes Nai and two of the soldiers prisoner. By now tensions in the city are significantly raised: Siala, Scree's ruler, has declared martial law, there is an unnatural summer heatwave, and there is growing resentment towards the Gods.

  Isak arrives just as the madness on the streets increases a notch.

  He saves Mayel from a blood-crazed mob, and a man is beaten to death for wearing what appears to be a priest's robe. As he watches Ilumene forcing another man into the now-deserted Temple of Death.

  Two separate armies arrives on Scree's outskirts, while inside, the White Circle appears to have lost control of its mercenary forces. The Witch of Llehden and the Demi-God Fernal arrive in Scree and encounter Isak, and working together they realise that the new theatre at the city's heart has been imbued with a spell that is increasing the tensions in the city and driving the natives to madness.

  In the south, Lord Styrax has also been busy: he has double-crossed the daemon he's been dealing with for several years, freeing himself of its influence, while finding the opportunity to demonstrate his peerless martial skills to the Chetse generals – and he 'accidentally' demolishes the great Temple of the Sun in Thotel, revealing the hiding place of one of the Crystal Skulls.

  Back in Scree, all order has collapsed, and even well-trained soldiers are hard-pressed to walk the streets without being overwhelmed by the crazed mobs. Isak, discovering that Isherin Purn was instrumental in Lord Bahl's death, insists on attacking the Red Palace, where Siala has secreted the necromancer. He manages the attack, but is cut off from the bulk of his army by the mobs and forced into a desperate last-stand defence of the Temple Plaza, which the Knights of the Temples are trying to save from attack.

  While they are fighting in the north of the city, Rojak puts the next part of his plan in motion. He sets the southern part of Scree on fire, to drive the mobs towards Isak. He ensures that Abbot Doren announces his presence in the city. And he brings King Emin and Zhia Vukotic down on himself. By this point Rojak is close to death, having tied his life to the spell he is working on the city. Rojak's troops are driven off by Koezh's undead troops, and Abbot Doren is killed by Zhia. King Emin retrieves the Crystal Skull that Abbot Doren had brought from his monastery, trying to keep it safe from Jackdaw, and finally manages to kill Rojak, though the minstrel is dying anyway.

  Back on the Temple Plaza, Isak's massively outnumbered troops are pushed back until they are defending the steps of the Temple of Death. In desperation he reaches for any help he can find – and the Reapers, the five violent Aspects of Death, answer his call. They go berserk and start slaughtering the mobs just as Rojak dies and the spell is broken. Once he realises they are saved, Isak manages to stop the Aspects killing anyone else and dismisses them before accompanying the leader of his allies into the temple to give thanks -but as they do so, they're attacked by a man possessed by a daemon. Isak responds savagely, but manages to stop himself from killing the man when he recognises him as his missing father.

  Several days later, while the fires in Scree slowly burn out, three of Azaer's disciples are trekking across the obliterated city. In the cellar of the abbot's house they find a woman, once a mercenary in Zhia's employ, now a helpless – pregnant – amnesiac. She is holding a book, a journal written by Zhia Vukotic's insane younger brother Vorizh, which may lead them to a prize far richer than the fabled Crystal Skull they sacrificed to get it.

  CHAPTER 1

  Evening fell with a whisper. The day's thick-falling snow had abated with the failing light and now, as the sky turned deepest blue, the air was clear and still. Venn felt the silence of the forest stretch away in every direction, disturbed only by his own laboured breath and heavy footsteps. The bite of the chill night air was savage and he urged himself on, knowing he had to reach the clearing before the cold took him. Too many travellers misjudged their journeys and succumbed. The Vukotic could keep their Saljin Man; winter was a daemon all on its own in these parts.

  At last he reached the clearing and, against all common sense, stopped at its edge stari
ng dumbly forward. It had been years since he had last been here. The Land itself seemed to catch its breath, as if waiting for the tremors his return would bring. At last he stepped forward into the clearing, the ruin of his people hidden in his shadow.

  He walked hesitantly, somewhat humbled by the grand, silent scene. Above him pink wisps of cloud catching the last of the light provided an unearthly backdrop for the place he had never expected to see again. The only sounds were his boots crunching through the snow and the occasional creak and groan of laden branches in the forest behind. He fumbled at his bearskin, trying to tug it tighter around his shoulders, but the weight of his shadow made it hard and after two attempts he gave up, leaving it open at his throat. His goal was visible now, and that was all that mattered.

  The entrance to the cavern was only a hundred paces off, crowned by snow-burdened dwarf pines that covered much of these crumpled mountains. It abutted a long slow rise in the ground that continued for miles into the distance and formed one of the two crooked 'legs' of what was called Old Man Mountain. There was a shrine to a God no one remembered, derelict, yet still imposing, near the top. Venn remembered visiting it once, out of youthful curiosity. The God, whatever his name was, had been stooped and aged; like the bare mountain that served as his memorial. He had been no match for Ushull when the reckoning came.

  Venn paused halfway to the entrance and looked back over the expanse of pine studded by enormous cloud-oaks like nails driven part-way into the slopes, but before he could dwell on his childhood love of this view Jackdaw's wheezing broke the spell. Shaking his head, Venn turned away. He had been spared the sight of Jackdaw's twitching tattoos and scowling face that final day at least, as well as the man's incessant chatter, and for that much, Venn was glad. Once the former priest had cast the spell to bind himself within Venn's own shadow, he had learned not to waste his strength on complaints.

  The cavern entrance up ahead was unchanged since he had first marched out into the Land, his swords strapped proudly to his back and his white mask hiding the man underneath. Free-standing brass braziers on either side of the enlarged cleft cast a weak light over the darkened interior and the sap of fresh spitting pine cones mingled with incense in the evening air. Each brazier stood atop an octagonal stem thicker than a man's waist, high enough that some priests had to stand on tiptoe to see over the battered edge.

  They were centuries old and had suffered during those years. Venn remembered his disappointment when he had learnt the truth about the faint markings that covered the braziers. He had thought them incantations in a secret language, when instead they were only scratches, the effect of weather and time, of careless priests and gales tipping them onto the stony ground. His father had huffed and frowned at his imagination where others would have laughed.

  Was that the first step on this path? he wondered. That first loss of wonder: was that the day I saw my father as something other than an otherworldly servant of the Gods? Where once I beheld priestly robes and a half-mask of obsidian shards, I found just a tired man with thinning hair and a piercing wheeze when he slept.

  'Hey-! Hey, you!'

  Venn stopped walking. He didn't turn, knowing the speaker would have to walk into his line of sight. The speaker turned out to be a round-faced priest, his arms laden with logs. In his ear Venn heard an intake of breath from Jackdaw. He was invisible and near-incorporeal, at least as long as he stayed in Venn's lee, and yet Jackdaw remained a coward.

  Venn recognised the priest despite the smooth black porcelain that hid half his face. They were of a similar age and from the same clan, which had forced them to be something approximating friends as children. Corerr was his name, a foolish, fat little boy who'd grown up into a bewildered junior priest who'd never even lost his puppy-fat in the process, a man still sent to fetch the wood for the fires in the cave, though doubtless there were younger priests to do that tiresome duty.

  'Who are you? Why are you here?' Corerr called as he trotted forward to place himself between Venn and the cave entrance. Under the bearskin Venn's dyed-black clothes were just visible, clearly marking him as not belonging to any of the clans.

  Venn didn't respond, preferring to wait for a grander audience. One face had already appeared at the cave entrance, his lined cheeks and lank, wispy hair illuminated by the weak light. Corerr took another step forward, peering anxiously into the gloom of Venn's snow-capped hood. In the twilight he would be able to make out that Venn wore no mask, yet he had a blood-red teardrop falling from his right eye, the same teardrop that Harlequin masks bore.

  Venn kept his eyes on the cave entrance, knowing Corerr wouldn't have the courage to do anything more than look. At last another face appeared, this time that of a woman. She loomed over the first by at least half a head. Venn saw her mouth move. She was speaking softly to her companion, while never taking her eyes off Venn. He took that as his cue to abruptly move again, causing Corerr to yelp in alarm and almost fall over backwards. As Venn closed on the cave mouth he recognised the woman with eyes like polished cairngorm. Even after the long years of his absence she retained the bearing of a warrior-queen.

  'Venn ab Teier? Merciful Gods, is that really you?' Corerr twittered in sudden shock and scrambled to walk alongside Venn. 'Your face, your clothes – where have you been? What happened to you?'

  Venn walked forward, careful to let the man's words drift over him without reacting. The other priests hadn't moved or spoken; the man was positioned slightly in the lee of one brazier, as though ready to hide behind it, and the priestess stood with hands entwined

  at her breast, falling naturally into the conventions of piety learned decades before. Her hair was greying and crow's feet marked the corner of her eye, but for all that she looked a younger woman, one whose heart hadn't been broken by this wilderness.

  Her half-mask was covered in obsidian shards, as his father's had been, but hers, crucially, also lacked the tear-trails of moonstone signifying high rank. He held his breath and focused directly on her right eye, letting the glazed look fall away for the barest moment. He saw her reaction, though it was so slight he doubted she was even aware of it – only someone looking for it would have seen that flicker in the eye, but to a follower of Azaer it was enough.

  Ambition in a place such as this… you must hate them as much as I do.

  After a moment, the priestess stepped to one side and offered Venn the path into the cavern. He shuffled forward, eyes vague as he ignored the icons and prayers painted on the rough stone walls either side of the passage and started on the downward slope, breathing in the incense-laced air of his boyhood.

  He continued in silence, feeling as if he were being towed by some unseen rope. So focused was he on the image he was presenting that he found himself jerking to a halt at the far end of the tunnel as it suddenly opened out into an immense space. His eyes were still glazed over, but in his peripheral vision he spotted movement in the dim light of the cavern. He listened to the priestess catching up to him. It wouldn't do to let his herald fall behind. Herald: the word reminded him of Rojak's rasping, plague-ravaged voice and that final whispered commandment of twilight's herald: 'Give them a king.'

  You're right, minstrel. These people want a king – they need a king – but I am not it. I can only lead them to one worth breaking their bonds for. Is that not our master's way anyway? To show a man the path and let him choose it himself?

  A large natural pillar at the centre of the cavern dominated his view; its rough sloping sides studded with glinting quartz and stained by long rusty streaks. At points on the pillar some industrious priest had hacked or drilled holes to insert wooden beams that now protruded directly out some eight feet in all directions. From those hung shallow brass braziers like those by the cave entrance, once decorated but now as battered by the years as the priests who tended them. The hum of quiet chanting and a haze of incense filled the air, bringing back more memories of his father; of long days and nights in prayer that had left him drained and exhau
sted when he returned home.

  The cavern stretched two hundred yards from left to right of Venn's vantage point. At its widest, directly ahead of Venn, the cavern floor ran for fifty yards until reaching one of the twelve open chapels dotted around the wall. Those were dedicated to the Gods of the Upper Circle, but there were many more shrines beside these. The holy words of his people dominated the cavern from one end: foot-high characters cut into the rock with such precision only magic could have achieved it.

  Even with his back to them Venn could feel their presence. Their creation had signalled the end of the Age of Darkness, the return of the Gods to the Land and to their mortal servants. Their message had enslaved the Harlequin clans and bound them to these frozen mountains. He resisted the urge to turn and look at them; his mission led him elsewhere first.

  At the base of the pillar was the smallest and meanest of the cavern's shrines, little more than a trickle of water that ran down a natural channel and collected in a carved hollow. The inside of the hollow was coated in some icy substance that gave off a faint white glow. Animal symbols etched into its rim represented the Gods of the Upper Circle.

  The priestess drew closer and he heard the hesitation in her footsteps. Perhaps she was wondering whether to reach out and pluck his arm, maybe even guide his elbow forward. He didn't wait for her to come to any decision but lurched off again, down the steps to the small shrine. Every visitor to the cavern would take a thimble-sized cup of polished brass and drink the ice-cold water. Legend said it had been blessed by the Gods and was the source of their remarkable abilities, but there had never been any mages among the clans and no one knew for sure.

  Venn knew; his time in the Land had revealed much of its workings and he was in no doubt about what lay behind his people's abilities, yet as he knelt at the edge of the basin he felt his breath catch. With ponderous movements he took up a cup and drank. His throat tingled at the sharp chill of the water as he swallowed and began to murmur a prayer he'd not spoken in years. The prayer tasted bitter, but he knew Jackdaw needed the delay.