Citadels of the Lost (28 page)

Soen's blank, black eyes shone with hatred.

The multitude of pilgrims, now numbering almost sixty thousand strong, once again erupted in cheer.

The Council of the Prophet convened that night within the walls of the Grahn Aur's tent. Gradek had stationed guards not only outside the tent itself but in a perimeter nearly a hundred paces from the stakes holding it to the ground with instructions that no one outside the council and those specifically invited by the Grahn Aur were to be allowed any closer.

The question of Soen Tjen-rei was being debated.

Soen stood in the center of the tent, surrounded on all sides by the seated council. The Grahn Aur sat on his high-backed throne with cloth chairs situated in a wide semicircle around Soen. To the Grahn Aur's left sat the human Braun, who gazed on Soen with an oddly blissful expression. Next to him sat an elf looking intently at Soen through narrowed eyes, followed by Gradek the manticore Captain of the Watch. To the right of the Prophet sat Vendis, followed by a cheery-faced mud gnome and a bored-looking female goblin picking at her teeth. The shadows of a phalanx of guards outside the tent shifted listlessly across the fabric.

Not that they would do much good,
Soen thought to himself.
If I willed it, most of this council would be dead before the guards were aware anything was happening within.

“Council of the Prophet,” the Grahn Aur's voice was warm and easy. “May I present to you Soen Tjen-rei . . . formerly Inquisitor of the Order of the Iblisi
.
It is not who he was but who he is now that is the issue before this council.”

“I disagree,” said the frail, nervous-looking elder elf seated two chairs to the left of the Grahn Aur. “Who he was—truly, who he was, is of supreme importance to this council.”

Vendis groaned. “Must we hear again a litany of the terrible crimes of the Rhonas state? We've all experienced them, Tsojai Acheran.”

“I'd like to hear it again!” chirped the mud gnome seated to the right of Vendis.

“You would, Neblik!” Vendis retorted.

“House Acheran?” Soen said quietly. “I know that name. It was a House in the Western Provinces, was it not?”

“You know
nothing
of my House, Iblisi
!
” the elf spat the words as though they were venom. The frail elf barely reined in his anger as he continued. “My House was of the Second Estate, Inquisitor. I was raised in Rhonas Chas and summered on the Benis Coast with all the privileged class. My father was Khal-rei Acherana, Grand Guildmaster of the Paktan Order. But I was tutored by one of your own Order, Soen Tjen-rei, and came to know the truth of the Empire. I saw how bankrupt the Empire had become—devoid of any real glory and only serving itself with lie upon layered lie!”

“Is there any way to stop him from talking?” said the bored female goblin seated next to Neblik on the far right of the Grahn Aur.

“Hush, Doroganda,” the Grahn Aur said quietly. “Let him finish.”

“Grahn Aur,” Soen asked. “Am I permitted to speak?”

“You already have,” the manticore replied with a deep chuckle. “But, yes, you may speak here.”

“Sha-Acheran,” Soen said, turning toward the elf. “I recall that you
were
a House in the Western Provinces. A House listed as the Fifth Estate . . .”

“Banished!” Tsojai answered back. “Disgraced! In Rhonas Chas I was an elf of enlightenment—with a vision for a better future for our race. It was not just me . . . there were many more of us. We found each other, spoke of change. We learned of the elves of Oerania and Exylia—of Museria, Brendabria, and Lyrania—across the Aergus and Meducean Seas. Places where elves struggled to live in freedom and peace. We wished the same for the elves of Rhonas. We hoped to change the Empire from within.”

“The Emperor did not share your vision,” Soen said. “And so he banished you.”

“No, he did more than banish us,” Tsojai replied. “He put us under Imperial Devotions. Surely, the great Soen Tjen-rei, was aware that the Empire was not above enslaving its own citizens through the Devotion altars? It wasn't enough that humans, chimerians, and manticores be put under House Devotions and kept docile to do the labor of the Imperial Will. Why stop there when you can pacify your own citizens at the same time?”

“Is this true?” Gradek asked in astonishment. “Does the Empire work its slave magic on its own as well?”

Soen drew in a deep breath. “Yes, Gradek . . . it is true.”

“You see!” Tsojai exclaimed. “So, yes, Inquisitor Soen, my House was in the Western Provinces when the Wells failed . . . but that freed more than the slaves of my House . . . it freed
me
, too! I remembered what the elves could have been but for an Empire drunk with Aether and the power it gave over every other thinking being.
That
is whom you serve, Soen of the Iblisi. The very existence of your Order is to discover the truth and hide it from the world. Why should this council hear your words? Why should we trust anything said by such a servant of the Emperor?”

Soen nodded. “You should not give me your trust.”

Doroganda looked up in sudden interest. “What did he say?”

Braun folded his arms across his chest. “He said we shouldn't trust him.”

“But,” Neblik raised his hand. “If Tsojai says we shouldn't trust what he says . . . and he says we shouldn't trust him . . . does that mean we
should
trust him because he's lying about how we shouldn't trust him?”

Braun nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Neblik, that makes no sense!” Tsojai responded with exasperation.

“Look, Tsojai,” Neblik replied. “It's my job here to keep a record of the story. I just want to get it straight!”

“Then let's ask for some clarity,” the Grahn Aur said. “What did you mean, Soen Tjen-rei?”

“I meant, Grahn Aur,” Soen said, addressing the council as a whole, “that this council should give their trust to no one. I am an elf of the Empire—the same Empire that hunts you hunts me as well. Whatever their reasons—or whether reason is involved or not—we are, for this time, traveling this same road together. Trust is not something you should give . . . it is something that can only be earned. I tell you that my purpose here is not to harm you, this council, or your people. But our fates are woven together for a time . . . and I need that time to earn that which you should not give too easily.”

Soen knew the stars had risen above the tent in which he sat. The canvas had grown darker with the passage of time, and the evening breeze had pulled the smell of the shore away from the encampment. The air temperature had fallen slightly but not precipitously and so he knew the weather had remained clear.

So the stars were out though he did not see them.

Soen squatted, instead, inside the tent, holding and shifting his now-drained Matei staff, rolling it again and again across his fingertips. He had never before held a staff so completely devoid of Aether life. Even in the Benis Isles campaign, when he held out for six weeks with the garrison at Sh'dakya Keep against the assault of six Legions of Lyranian elves and thought this magical weapon exhausted of all power—even then it had more life remaining in it than the all-butdead shaft of polished wood and its crystal headpiece now contained.

And so he squatted here in the tent they had provided for him, rolled his staff, and contemplated the options remaining to him.

He was a Hero of the Pilgrimage now.

That, he reflected ruefully, would mean that he could not go anywhere among the pilgrims without attracting attention. Even as he was escorted here, everywhere he glanced there was another human, manticore, or mud gnome praising him, thanking him or, worst of all, wanting to touch him. He was perhaps the most highly skilled Iblisi of this age, he dispassionately commended himself, and yet his very ability for anonymity had been stripped from him.

Worse, he could not doubt that word of the “Hero of the Pilgrimage” would all too soon find its way down the coastal trade routes—with his name and his location being all too soon whispered into Ch'drei's ear.

Of course, he reflected, all of that could be fixed. There were entire chapters of history where blunders, atrocities, and mistakes had been obliterated from memory and history. He had done so himself on numerous occasions. All it really took was a judicious application of controlled information, the retelling of a plausible alterative tale, and the eventual expurgation of troublesome facts from the official record. Soen knew better than anyone that the most evil of despots could be remembered as benevolent so long as the right people were in charge of the record.

The trick, he thought to himself, was to outlive the truth until the lie could be properly established. His problem, however, was now having to outlive both the truth AND a lie—the whopping lie of being a delivering hero to thousands of pilgrims.

Even that could have been handled to his advantage . . . if Vendis had not somehow known his true name. Soen's eyes closed in frustration. How
had
the chimerian known his name?

Soen heard footsteps approaching outside the tent. He continued to play with the staff, shifting it expertly in his hands. He had been among the elite of the Iblisi and use of the Matei staff was only one of his many skills. He was a dangerous creature even without its power but one of the primary tennets he adhered to was to choose carefully when to act. There were far more answers to his questions to be had among this pilgrim horde, and it remained to his advantage to learn those answers before he acted.

So it was that when the tent curtain opened, he remained calmly squatting in the center of the tent and rolling the useless staff in his long hands.

The Grahn Aur entered the tent first, his large manticore frame nearly pushing his mane-covered head into the canvas above him.

“Soen Tjen-rei,” the manticore said quietly. “It is better that we should meet this way.”

“Grahn Aur,” Soen said, not looking up. “You honor me . . . too well.”

A single, deep chuckle came from the manticore's throat. “Too well, indeed.”

“And as it appears that I have saved your rebellious horde from the depths of the Shrouded Plain,” Soen continued quietly. “Perhaps you could tell me just where we are now . . . in case someone asks me where I saved them
to
?”

The Grahn Aur nodded. “We are between the Willow Reaches and Glachold—some forty leagues north of the Mournful Mountains.”

Soen looked up sharply, his black, pupil-less eyes fixed on the manticore. “That is impossible.”

“Nevertheless,” Grahn Aur said. “We are here.”

“No, you lie,” Soen replied, shaking his head. “I know Glachold, and I've walked the Shifting Pass through the Mournful Mountains. That's nearly three hundred and fifty leagues from the Shrouded Plain. We would have had to pass through a dozen folds—powered each of them separately—brought the horde through each one before conjuring the next. The loss of Aether alone over such distances would have made it impossible to achieve.”

The Grahn Aur stepped closer, folding his legs under him as he sat down in front of the disgraced Iblisi
.
Soen considered this. The manticore was deliberately putting himself in a position where it would be easy for Soen to attack. Was it a gesture of trust, underestimation, or arrogance?

“Impossible now, perhaps,” The manticore spoke again. “But perhaps not always before.”

Soen frowned at the thought. He had been in the service of the Iblisi for so long, had covered up so many lies, and been the keeper of truths locked and hidden away for as long as he cared to remember. It had never occurred to him, as a keeper of the truth, that there might be truths others kept from him—that some of his own truths might be lies as well.