Best Laid Plans (36 page)

Shader dipped his head, grasping the rail and staring into the sea. ‘Only I wasn’t alone,’ he said as the faces of Sabas, Elpidio, and Osric flashed before his mind’s eye. ‘And it wasn’t even my idea to attack.’

‘Yes,’ Ignatius said, turning to join Shader’s study of the waves. ‘What on earth possessed the Captain to such an act of valour? Hardly the sort of behaviour you’d expect from a smuggler.’

‘You know he smuggles for the Templum, don’t you?’ Shader said.

Ignatius chewed his top lip, his brows furrowing in thought. Finally, he pushed away from the rail and straightened his surcoat with a sharp tug. ‘A good man, nevertheless. Brave. Fearless.’

Shader lifted his eyes to the horizon half expecting, half wishing to see the
Aura Placida
racing towards them. Ain only knew where Cleto would take the crew. Some port no doubt where they could make repairs. Shader had felt like he was watching the slow death of an old friend as the carrack limped away.

‘He was terrified,’ Shader said. ‘The mawgs tore his crew apart when he was a kid. He was so scared he did the only thing he could: he faced his demons head on.’

Ignatius was nodding his understanding.

‘The only problem was,’ Shader continued, ‘he dragged the crew into his own nightmare. I don’t suppose they’ll ever forgive him.’ He couldn’t see how they could; not with so many of their friends among the dead.

Shader winced as he pictured Elpidio’s face again, and then his thoughts turned to Osric. Poor doomed Osric. Shader didn’t know whether to be relieved that Osric’s curse had been lifted, that he’d finally found the peace of death. He felt an icy knotting in his stomach, as if all his hopes, all his Nousian beliefs, were being sucked into a void at its centre. Araboth. Shader shook his head with bitter recollection of his time in the illusory realm. That’s where Osric should be now, but something about that last desperate look the wraith had given him told Shader there was no heavenly paradise waiting for him. It had been a look of utter horror, as if at the last Osric had glimpsed the madness of the Abyss, or worse still, the absolute emptiness of the Void.

He started at a tap on his shoulder and looked up into Ignatius’ grey eyes.

‘His Divinity is here,’ the Grand Master said, dropping to one knee.

Shader did the same as the Ipsissimus, accompanied by a black clad exemptus in a red biretta, approached. The exemptus hobbled ahead, tapping the deck with a walking stick. His cheeks wobbled as he walked, and his paunch rippled beneath his robes. Shader recognized him from his consecration, and from that fateful day at the tournament.

‘Deacon Shader, knight of the Elect,’ Exemptus Cane said through a spray of spittle. ‘Keeper of the Sword of the Archon.’ Cane looked pointedly at the gladius scabbarded at Shader’s hip and then shuffled around to indicate the Ipsissimus.

Shader couldn’t help staring. There was something different about the ruler of the Templum: he no longer had the pallor of death about him. His face shone with a vitality that matched the sparkle of his eyes, and he seemed taller somehow, less emaciated. The hair beneath his biretta was brown with a healthy sheen, whereas before it had been as grey as his bloodless face.

‘Bend your knee and bow your head before His Divinity, the Infallible Ruler of the Nousian Theocracy, the Supreme…’

‘They’re already kneeling, Cane,’ the Ipsissimus said, ‘and their heads are bowed. I think we can safely say they know who I am, so please, let’s not go through all that pomp and ceremony.’

‘But, but, but…’ Cane’s jowls shook, but he sealed his lips and dropped his chin to his chest at a withering look from the Ipsissimus.

‘Please stand, Deacon Shader,’ the Ipsissimus said, holding out his hand.

Shader rose and planted a kiss on the Ipsissimus’s golden ring. His eyes flicked to the gleaming Monas hanging above the white robe, its single amber eye glinting as if it held a miniature sun at its centre.

‘You have my thanks,’ the Ipsissimus said. ‘And my forgiveness. No one has ever left the Elect before, particularly with the Sword of the Archon, but your actions today have more than atoned for that little… blip.’

The Ipsissimus threw an arm around Shader’s shoulders as if they were old friends and led him away from Cane and Ignatius. They received some strange looks from the crew and the scores of battle-weary knights who stood to attention as they passed.

The Ipsissimus pulled open the door to a large cabin and gestured for Shader to enter. Shader cast a look back at Ignatius, but the Grand Master merely shrugged.

‘It’s quite all right,’ the Ipsissimus said. ‘I was going to offer you a drink.’

Shader ducked inside the doorway. He was a little disoriented by the absence of gold and crystal, velvet drapery, and artistic masterpieces he’d come to expect from the highest echelons of the Templum. Instead he was confronted with a low bed without a mattress, a single threadbare sheet, a chipped and scratched wooden chair that looked as if it would collapse if a cat leapt on it, and an upturned crate upon which stood a carved Monas, a burned-down candle, and a prayer cord. A string line had been tied across the back wall, and from this hung a couple of pristine white robes and a stained and patched nightshirt.

‘Can’t stand all the tawdry trappings that are supposed to go with the Office,’ the Ipsissimus said, easing past Shader and stooping to reach under the bed. ‘Have to go along with it in Aeterna, but here,’ he stood with a bottle of wine and a couple of goblets clutched to his chest, ‘here things are a little more as Ain prefers, don’t you think?’

Shader stuck out his bottom lip and nodded.

‘Oh, don’t say anything,’ the Ipsissimus said, setting the bottle and glasses on the deck and feeling around under the bed until he located a corkscrew. ‘I know your type quite well; I know the sort of judgments you’ve secretly been making.’

Shader opened his mouth to protest, but the Ipsissimus jabbed the corkscrew in his direction and continued.

‘I’ve done it myself,’ he said. ‘Still do, as a matter of fact, Ain forgive me. Only the other day I made scurrilous remarks about dear old Exemptus Silvanus. Unforgivable comments, egocentrically critical and unbefitting a Nousian. Actually, since you’ve been kind enough to join me, would you be so good as to hear my confession?’

Shader took an involuntary step back and gave a little cough.

‘But, Divinity, I’m not a priest.’

‘Ah, pshaw!’ the Ipsissimus said. ‘You’re a Nousian, aren’t you? Nothing in the Liber that says you have to be a priest.’

‘But Templum Law, Divinity…’

‘I’m Ipsissimus. Templum Law is whatever I say, isn’t that so?’

Shader stiffened and swallowed. The Ipsissimus was watching him intently through narrowed eyes. A long silence ensued and then suddenly the Ipsissimus doubled up with laughter. Shader was too stunned to react, but the Ipsissimus’s mirth continued, hands weakly slapping his thighs and head bobbing. His laughter grew shrill as he drew closer to the floor, his legs wobbling until he dropped to his knees. Tears rolled down his cheeks and his breath came in stutters as if he were sobbing.

‘Forgive me.’ He waved a hand at Shader. ‘I shouldn’t have, but you looked so serious.’

A high-pitched hoot escaped him and Shader felt his cheeks tighten. The edges of his mouth curled, and then he could contain it no longer. He spluttered and sprayed spittle as a laugh burst forth, and then he was giggling with the Ipsissimus as he offered a hand and helped the old man up. Only he wasn’t old anymore. If he hadn’t known better, and if it hadn’t been for the eyes, Shader would have thought him a man in his thirties. The Ipsissimus must have seen the expression on his face.

‘I succumbed,’ he said, touching the gilt Monas around his neck. Its amber eye glinted and Shader felt a reciprocal purr from his gladius. ‘Such is the way of power.’ He looked momentarily older as his face creased with concern. ‘It disguises itself as a need or a means to an end. It has a strategy for all of us, and in my case it convinced me that I was necessary in this coming war.’

The Ipsissimus sighed and seated himself on the floor, gesturing for Shader to join him. He picked up the bottle and the corkscrew and flicked his eyes from the sheathed gladius to Shader’s eyes.

‘I know the names of every crewman on this ship,’ the Ipsissimus said, ‘and every Elect knight on board. It’s no easy feat.’ The cork popped free and the Ipsissimus poured a little wine into a glass and passed it to Shader. ‘I developed a system, a sort of memory game, where I think of something each person reminds me of and then store the image away in an imaginary castle up here.’ He tapped his temples. ‘It works pretty well up to a point, but it has finite capacity. Once I get above a certain number I start to forget those I started with. How’s the wine?’

‘Excellent, Divinity, thank you.’ It was the truth, but even if it hadn’t been, what else could he have said to the ruler of the Templum?

The Ipsissimus filled his own glass and then topped Shader up. ‘The crew.’ He raised his glass. ‘I remembered all their names, every single one of them, but then the mawgs attacked us and I can’t recall the names of the dead. How do you explain that?’

‘How many did you lose, Divinity?’ Shader’s mind was filled with the bloody faces of crewmen from the
Aura Placida
whose names he’d never known. He’d barely even acknowledged many of them. He sipped some wine and closed his eyes as his stomach knotted.

‘Fifty-three on this ship.’ The Ipsissimus’s voice was almost a whisper. They’re still counting the survivors on the others, but with the sunken ships, we must have lost close to a thous…’ The Ipsissimus took a long gulp of wine and gave a weak smile. ‘But you suffered losses too. Friends among them.’

Shader’s eyes brimmed with tears, but he didn’t look away.

The Ipsissimus reached over and held his hand. ‘There is more suffering to come. Much more.’

Shader nodded. How could it be otherwise? He could feel the walls of fate closing in around him, its cogs and wheels grinding inexorably, deaf to all appeals.

‘I am sorry, Deacon Shader,’ the Ipsissimus said, ‘but you are at the centre of what’s happening. Don’t ask me why, but Ain has placed you here for this very purpose.’

Shader’s eyes narrowed. ‘How do you know?’ He didn’t include the customary “Divinity”, but the Ipsissimus showed no sign that he was bothered.

‘Oh, there’s no mystical explanation.’ The Ipsissimus released Shader’s hand and took another sip of wine. ‘I was told some time ago, but I never paid it much notice. Now, however, after what I saw you achieve during the battle with the mawgs, I’m starting to realize they spoke the truth.’

‘Who?’ Shader gripped his glass so tight that he half expected it to shatter.

‘Aristodeus,’ the Ipsissimus said, ‘and…’

‘And me,’ Huntsman said as his spirit shimmered into view.

The Dreamer had the look of a vulture about him as his leathery face craned towards Shader on a spiny neck. At first it seemed as if he’d sprouted wings and drawn them about his sinewy body, but then Shader realized it was the cloak of feathers. Huntsman’s sharp eyes studied him, lids twitching, lips curling in the slightest hint of a sneer. Shader held his gaze, but had the uncomfortable feeling that, by doing so, he was giving far too much away. He felt the vein in his temple pulsating and pinched the bridge of his nose to relieve the tension building in his head.

Huntsman ruffled his feathers with a whiplash motion and swivelled his head to regard the Ipsissimus. Shader was on his feet in an instant, the gladius scraping and ringing as he drew it. Huntsman hissed and glared, a clawed hand emerging from beneath his cloak and making clutching movements in the air.

‘Sit down, Shader,’ the Ipsissimus said. ‘Sit down. He’s merely a spirit. And besides, he’s a friend.’

Shader obeyed without question, sliding the sword back into its scabbard and resuming his cross-legged position on the floor. His eyes remained fixed to the Dreamer’s, though, and he fancied that he saw a glint of triumph in Huntsman’s eyes. Huntsman’s hand withdrew beneath the cloak of feathers and he offered the Ipsissimus a thin-lipped smile.

This wasn’t right, Shader told himself. The Ipsissimus of the Templum and a heathen sorcerer in the same room together. What if Huntsman had ill intentions? No one should come so close to the Ipsissimus. Not even me, he realized.

‘Forgive him, my friend,’ the Ipsissimus said to Huntsman. ‘It’s how they’re trained.’

Huntsman bowed his acceptance. ‘My people train dogs same way.’

The Ipsissimus lowered his eyes and touched his fingertips together. ‘I have nothing but respect for my Elect,’ he said with careful clarity. ‘The sacrifice they make, the paradox they embody, allows the rest of us to live the ideal. Fighting for love is no simple matter of conditioning.’