The Fall of Ossard ot-1 Read online

  “What?” I asked.

  “You.”

  8

  The Inquisition’s Answer

  Anton and I took the stairs to the third level, heading for the balcony that ran the length of the Malnobla’s front. We followed Lord Liberigo, the Benefice, Pedro, Sef, and Kurgar. Word had come via an attendant; the crowd was demanding to see the Inquisitor.

  Maria and Lady Liberigo were waiting for us in the ballroom that opened onto the balcony, accompanied by two men at arms. Before we reached them we could hear the crowd’s rumble.

  The Inquisitor said, “The Lord and Lady will step out first to address the crowd and introduce me. Benefice Vassini will accompany them, but shall not speak.”

  Vassini looked affronted.

  Anton ignored him. “I will follow with Pedro and Juvela.” He then turned to face Kurgar and Sef. “You two shall stay here and well back from the doors, we don’t want to confuse our message with too many faces.”

  Too many Flet faces…

  Pedro said, “I’ll bring our daughter.”

  “Yes, of course.” Anton paused before continuing, “Once out there, I’ll undo the damage caused by the fraudulent Heletite, and offer the people some reassurance. That will be all.”

  The square spread as a sea of scared faces with thousands upon thousands holding branches of oleander in the air. Clearly those preaching the word of the Protector of Children had been busy.

  The crowd hushed at the sight of their Lord and Lady, not so much out of respect, but because they wanted answers. The silence was short-lived. When Benefice Vassini came into view many began to shake their oleander in anger and boo.

  A lone voice yelled, “Remember Saint Santana’s martyr!” And thousands of voices sounded in agreement.

  Lord Liberigo let the crowd settle while the dusk sky grumbled in its own disquiet. A thunderstorm had come rolling across the heavens bringing with it a whipping wind.

  The Inquisitor and I waited for our turn, watching from a window by the doors. Pedro stood with us and held Maria. Sef and Kurgar watched from another window where they’d been exiled to a far corner.

  The air grew tense, suddenly cooling.

  Anton closed his eyes for a brief prayer, before opening them to ask, “Did you feel that?”

  And I did.

  Outside, a growing vortex of power made the air prickle as it hung over the city. “What is it?”

  “Take a look.”

  I relaxed as the room before me sprang into clarity. I looked further, my view fading into the hues of blues and blacks while the soul-lights of those around me flared. My perception shifted as I swung it about.

  Market Square spread as a blinding sea of life-lights, but above it all swirled a dim blue whirlpool of gathering power. At the heart of that disturbance lay a huge circle, as wide as a warship is long, and within lay a stunning cobalt-blue iris that was split by a sharp edged pupil. It was an eye.

  My soul felt brittle.

  Only one thing could be so big and make me feel so small.

  It was a god!

  I lost my concentration and fell back into normal vision. The shock of it left me weak with my legs buckling to send me slumping against the wall.

  Anton moved to my side, but not to help. “See, he’s sensed the beacon and now comes for Ossard!”

  Pedro paled and took a step back.

  I cursed; I’d just let him see me look into another world. Turning to him, I reached out with a hand and begged, “Please, Pedro…”

  Anton laughed.

  Pedro flinched at my reaching hand, but stilled himself at Anton’s mirth. He composed himself as he stood there. He didn’t take my hand, or step closer, but neither did he step any further away.

  Outside on the balcony, Lord Liberigo addressed the crowd, “People of Ossard, it is true that the kidnappings threaten to spiral out of control, that they are linked to ritual magic, and that last night the city watch discovered the bodies of many victims.

  “My people, we of the city are working hard to get answers, and each new answer brings us closer to the guilty!

  “Still, it is such a diabolical thing, that we’ve felt it wise to accept the offered aid of the Inquisition. The Black Fleet is currently moored in distant Lucera, but has heard our cry and dispatched a ship. That ship, the blessed Ba-Mora, has arrived this very day. I present to you Inquisitor Anton, their mission’s leader.”

  Anton grabbed my hand and led me onto the balcony.

  People generously applauded the Inquisitor, but a cheer erupted as they laid eyes on me. Some in the crowd yelled, “The Lady of the Saint!” It didn’t take long for those calls to fall into a chant, “Lady of the Saint! Lady of the Saint! Lady of the Saint!”

  The Inquisitor stood before them with me at his side, while Pedro followed but kept a couple of steps back with Maria.

  My husband watched me with questions in his eyes. He loved his daughter, loved her more than life itself, and not so long ago a seed of love had begun to sprout between us despite the barren soil of our marriage. That poor love, a union that had waited so long to take, still seemed determined to struggle on.

  Briefly our eyes met.

  I offered him a smile to try and reassure him.

  His tense face relaxed, but he couldn’t hold my gaze.

  Maria also looked to me.

  I called to her, “Be good, Maria, be good for your father.”

  She smiled and then nuzzled into his chest.

  He again met my gaze and this time held it. There was hope there, in his beautiful brown eyes – but also so much pain.

  The noise of the crowd faded, but Inquisitor Anton waited for silence. Finally he addressed them, “People of Ossard, you live in grave times, the gravest, but know that I have come to put things right!

  “You think the kidnappings are out of control, but they aren’t. It’s your faith that’s run amuck!

  “What kind of city allows its people to grow so lax? What kind of people accepts it becoming so? Your home might be rich in coin, but it’s a pauper of devotion!

  A lone voice yelled, “Saint Santana will save us!”

  The Inquisitor’s face grew sharp with rage. “You have been deceived, there is no such saint! She is nothing but a fraud and vile heresy!

  “It is the weak-willed and feeble-minded who are prepared to adopt a new saint on a whim that have allowed the cults to gain a foothold in your city. You have been fooled by the very people who are stealing your children!”

  The crowd grumbled with several voices rising above the noise.

  “They said Saint Baimio was a false prophet too!”

  “Our faith is strong!”

  “Saint Santana has kept my child safe!”

  “The Lady fights with her blessing, we saw it!”

  Inquisitor Anton turned to me and beckoned me forward.

  So this was what he wanted me for.

  I stepped up, nervous, half expecting him to denounce me. Behind me, Pedro moved closer in support, but Anton waved him back.

  Maria looked to me with sad eyes while the air of unease grew.

  Pedro stood anxiously. He could also feel it.

  I whispered something to him that surprised me, “I love you.”

  My husband, that tall, strong, and handsome man I’d always dreamed of, stood there with our daughter in his arms and tears in his eyes. He nodded, and for the first time in years no fear beshadowed him.

  Something had grown between us, and not something to keep us apart, but something to bind us together. Regardless of what might come, right there and then I found some solace. It was as if, finally, we were a true family.

  Inquisitor Anton turned to the crowd and said, “Before you stands Lady Juvela Liberigo, a symbol of this city. She is a Flet with a Heletian husband and name, and a mixed-blood daughter, little Maria. Many of you also believe that she is the servant of Saint Santana, I ask her now: Are you in the service of this so-called saint?”

&nbs
p; The crowd fell silent for my answer.

  So the Inquisitor wanted me to denounce Saint Santana, fine, simple enough. I cleared my throat and said, “I have never been in the service of the false saint, Saint Santana.”

  “Had you ever heard of this fraudulent saint prior to the events of yesterday in which suspicious third parties anointed you her instrument?”

  “No.”

  “Would you describe yourself as a particularly spiritual person?”

  I hesitated, not sure what answer he wanted. I’d promised my soul to Schoperde, and while he probably expected that, I doubted it was the revelation he was after. “My faith is strong and righteous, and it isn’t owed to any false saint.”

  He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look angry. “And you have never, in any way, felt that you have been touched by the questionable power of this supposed saint?”

  The vision of the huge eye watching over the city came back to haunt me. With a slight shiver, I couldn’t help but glance skywards. “No, never.”

  “So your actions yesterday were your own, and not guided by divine power?”

  “They were my own. I saw a mother crying for help and went to her aid.”

  “Do you believe in Saint Santana, or that she is the protector of children?”

  “No, she is a fraud.”

  And the faces in the crowd began to drain of the little hope that had lit them.

  Inquisitor Anton turned back to the packed square, raising his arms beseechingly. “You have been lied to! Cast aside your false relics and oleander. Krienta will look kindly on those of you who renounce your heresy, but only if you do it now!”

  Across the square, oleander dropped to the cobblestones amidst the clatter of discarded amulets. Satisfied, the Inquisitor didn’t even bother to suppress a grin.

  Then the sky winked.

  In a moment everything changed.

  A coldness rose in me to make my soul shiver. The voices within whispered in frightened tones, their fear making them quake.

  Something terrible was coming, and then even the Inquisitor lost his grin.

  I heard Pedro gasp behind me.

  As I began to turn, the voices began whispering bittersweet sympathy, urging me to be brave. Then I heard Maria’s mind-voice, and she only had two words to say, “Bye, Mama.”

  I turned to see Pedro staggering back as his arms tightened about Maria. They both stared with wide eyes at a swirling vortex of darkness that opened up in front of them.

  “No!” I screamed.

  The crowd cried out.

  Beside me the Inquisitor turned to face the challenge.

  The vortex sucked at the light, the dark within it chill and malicious. Out of it stepped the robed man I’d first seen almost five years ago, the cultist who’d taken the redheaded boy.

  I hated him!

  I yelled, “Get Maria away!” And then rushed forward to put my body between them.

  Pedro stepped further back.

  Behind me the Inquisitor chanted.

  The robed man, calm and in control, looked straight at me. A hungry grin split his face to reveal bloodstained teeth. “We’re well past that now, we don’t just need children.”

  The thought hadn’t occurred to me.

  Was I his target?

  Pedro called from behind, “Juvela!”

  I looked over my shoulder.

  Pedro stood with his arms pinned by four cultists while a fifth snatched Maria.

  I turned my back on their leader to lunge for my daughter.

  More blackness arose about me, not of vortexes, but swirling robes. We were outnumbered.

  Sef charged through the ballroom, heading for the doors to the balcony. Despite his desperation, I knew he wouldn’t make it.

  In the square below, the people of the city began retrieving their discarded oleander and amulets. A voice called out from amongst them, “The Lady of the Saint is forsaken!”

  Something then hit me from behind to send me sprawling.

  I blacked out for a moment, but then came to. Ignoring the pain, I tried to get back on my feet, only to realise that it was already too late.

  A dozen cultists stood at the far end of the balcony with knives held to the throats of Lord and Lady Liberigo, and Pedro and Maria. Dark vortexes swirled about them, ready for their escape.

  Pedro looked to me with fear in his eyes, and with my celestial vision I saw the colours of life drain out from him. I could see his fate; a pale, stiff, and cold body lying butchered and cursed, with his soul eaten by ritual magic.

  Their leader strode past to join them. “We don’t just want children, now we need whole bloodlines.”

  I cried out.

  Inquisitor Anton stood behind me still chanting his prayer.

  The cultist leader laughed and then ushered his people through their vortexes. I got up and leapt after them, but only succeeded in grazing myself on the balcony’s paving.

  They were gone.

  Sef cursed as he finally got through the doors.

  The Inquisitor finished his prayer, one I now recognised as the litany for the dead. He’d never intended to stop them.

  On my knees, I threw back my head and wailed. My heartfelt cry fell into the long and deep notes of Schoperde’s song of sorrow.

  Anton cursed my heresy before kicking me in the back of the head.

  The darkness that followed was a mercy.

  Part II

  Ossard, The Pious Empire

  9

  Sorrow

  I awoke in my parents’ home, nestled amidst the linen of my childhood, and in the familiar surroundings of my old room. My mother sat beside me mopping my brow with a cloth, while whispering for me to be still.

  For the briefest of moments I lay calm and blank, until the agony of my daughter’s goodbye ruined me afresh.

  She was gone!

  That misery was then doubled by my memory of Pedro having a knife held to his throat as he too was taken. I cried out, “My family!” and struggled to rise, but my mother’s hands held me down.

  “Hush, you can’t do anything for them now.”

  I gave up my failing efforts. “What happened?” And behind her I could see Sef standing at the doorway with downcast eyes.

  “In the absence of Lord Liberigo, Benefice Vassini has claimed rule of the city. There’ll be a proclamation tomorrow at noon.”

  No wonder the Inquisitor had done nothing; the kidnapping of the Liberigos had delivered control of Ossard to the Church.

  “What kind of proclamation?”

  “Your father says that the Benefice and Inquisitor have claimed governance, and that the Council of Princes is to be disbanded.”

  “What about the other council members?”

  “They’ve all been taken.”

  I was stunned.

  She went on, “And Pedro’s brothers are too far away.” His three older siblings acted as ambassadors in distant Porto Baimio, Lixus, and Vangre.

  “Sweet Schoperde!” I whispered.

  “Oh Juvela, there’s such misery in the streets!”

  I struggled to sit up, and this time she didn’t stop me.

  My mother took a deep breath. “There was a new round of kidnappings. So many have been taken that they’ve stopped ringing the Cathedral’s bells. People say that well over a hundred are missing, including all of the council, and five of their family lines.” And then tears overwhelmed her composure. “The city is ungovernable.”

  “Pedro and Maria?” I asked.

  She just shook her head.

  They were gone, my husband and daughter – gone!

  My own tears came and their issuing hurt, them running hard and hot.

  Some witch I was, something I’d still probably die for, yet all I could do was sob.

  I’d grazed my hands and knees back on the balcony. My once smooth skin now swelled black and blue, and spread with rugged scabs, but the real hurt lay underneath. My heart wasn’t just bruised, it lay smashed and
ruined – trampled by an army of cultists and then worked over by the Inquisition.

  It seemed that the Church had got everything it wanted; control over the city, a free hand to deal with the cultists however it saw fit, and then perhaps me. Would Anton still allow me to go into exile? I doubted it. I couldn’t in any case, not until I knew I’d done all I could to save my family.

  My family…

  That night, standing at my old bedroom window, I looked out across the rooftops and watched the distant warehouse of the ritual burn. The flames leapt high in flashes of orange, blue, and yellow, fed by oil and wood. They consumed the building and my memories of a city forever changed. The Ossard I’d grown up in, the free and easygoing place where anything could be bought or sold, the city known as The Whore, was gone – and I dreaded what might replace it.

  Taking in that sea of countless rooftops only dragged me further into despair.

  Where could they be?

  Even the most thorough search would have trouble finding them, it complicated by a tradition of giving buildings hidden cellars and exits long ago used to avoid raiding pirates and tax collectors. And if the orderly districts of the city would be difficult to search, then the slums would be all but impossible. The filthy warrens of tightly packed buildings and twisting alleys dominated the city, including most of Newbank, the opposite riverbank, along the city walls, and around the port.

  It seemed hopeless.

  For a real chance of finding them I needed help. Quite frankly, I needed a miracle.

  A knock sounded at the door. I turned to see my mother enter and Sef’s shadow haunt the corridor behind her – as always he watched over me.

  She said, “Your father’s at the Guild, they’re talking of organising searches. Don’t worry, they’ll find them.”

  I nodded, but wasn’t much cheered.

  She carried something behind her back, something heavy that strained her arms. “I have something for you.”

  I finally smiled and went to her.

  She held before me an old book, something thick and dusty. It was no ledger, no family tree, nothing at all like that. Within me, for the first time since Maria and Pedro’s disappearance, the voices again whispered.