The Fall of Ossard Read online

  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.

  Mother said, “It was your grandmother’s.” She shook her head trying to fight off tears before pushing on, “I don’t know what it is, but she used it. I think it gave her power.”

  The strongest voice in my head whispered, “The Book of Truth!”

  And I was sure it was her; my grandmother.

  I reached for the tome amidst a rising babble of head-bound voices and could feel the power within me begin to stir. My fingers touched it and the voices gasped.

  Hope was here, hope, hope to see Pedro and Maria returned!

  I took it from my mother’s trembling hands.

  My sense of awe faltered, and then crumbled, giving way to despair. “Mother, I can’t read!”

  She guided me, forcing me to turn and put the book down on the bed. With a smile, she said, “Neither could your grandmother.”

  “What?”

  She indicated the closed tome. “Just try it.”

  I opened its stiff leather cover, stained where so many hands had held it, to reveal brittle pages yellowed with age. They spread before me covered in lines of dense script marked by slashing and generous strokes. It was beautiful. Before I knew it, I found myself running my fingertips along them, and with that the voices in me spoke, “…their only choice, for the Goddess of Life existed in a time of only one other god, Death, and between them, together and in union, they forged a mortal world…”

  Stunned, I lifted my fingers from the page. The action brought silence. I turned to my mother and said, “I think I know it!”

  My mother embraced me. “You should rest. Your father will do what he can with the Guild, and perhaps tomorrow we’ll see what you can do.”

  I nodded.

  She broke her grip and step by step backed away. She remained scared of the magic, the Church had done that to her, but she knew there was more to it than the priests’ dark dogma of fear. When she reached the door, she said, “I’ll bring up a lamp in case you wish to read.”

  I smiled. “I’d like that. Thanks, Mother, you’ve given me hope.”

  10

  The Book of Truth

  In the bedroom of my childhood, by the light of a lone lamp, I let the voices read to me led by the strongest, Vilma, my haunting grandmother. She was there to help, to see me through this awakening, and to see me become more than I was. I felt her presence, and almost glimpsed her, as if she was woven of drifting smoke.

  Never did we speak to each other, but read on she did. I listened to her whispering voice as my fingers slid along the tome’s lines of slashing script. She didn’t tire or miss a word, she just continued on, through the night’s long darkness until the flames feasting on the warehouse faded, and up until the coming of dawn.

  It was only a start, and we both knew it, but it left me forever changed.

  Afterwards, it was hard to describe how I felt.

  I sat by the window lost in thought as the sun rose to wash over me with its golden rays.

  Strangely, I felt born anew and so alive, but also cold and numb. No, it was more than that. I felt uncomfortably chill and deathly stale.

  I wondered at that, at such contrasting sensations - life and death. Perhaps in some way I’d been reborn and in the process part of me had also died. Regardless, one thing was certain; I‘d begun to see the world differently.

  The Book of Truth…

  There was nothing in the book about how to use magic, let alone anything to help me understand what talent I might have. In that regard I felt disappointed, but it did speak of the cost of utilising such gifts.

  It said that a responsibility came partnered with working magic, something that touched upon more than oneself. The passages concerning this were brief but grave and also warned of being greedy for power. It gave me a premonition, it rank with dread, and I knew that a day would come when that cost would weigh heavily on me. Still, I told myself, such worries were for another time. Fatigued and distracted, such a thing was easy to believe.

  The beginning of my illumination came through the book, but it was only the start. The ancient tome wasn’t what I’d expected, neither a listing of spells, lessons of the magical, or a guide to a witch’s art. Instead it was a record of the world’s history, its true history, it holding the divine truth.

  It left me shocked, but also exhausted and confused.

  Astounding as it was, I just didn’t have time for it. I mean, all I really wanted was to find Maria and Pedro, but these new revelations, I wondered; could they help me in my search?

  “Yes!” my grandmother whispered.

  I couldn’t see her, but I sensed her as
the air chilled.

  The feeling didn’t sit well though, not after all that I’d read. From where I sat by the window, I looked back to the tome where it lay on the bed. It set me to shiver.

  The divine truth…

  It was unbelievable and so well hidden, yet obvious all at the same time. And it had already touched me, but until now I’d never known.

  A war was raging, one that was being fought right around the world. It was a secret war, a divine war, and it pitted the goddess of life against the god of death. Sometimes it was a war of bloody battles, other times bandits and raiding pirates, or plague and famine, or even cultists stealing children from dark and dirty slums. Each of those happenings was another victory for Death and the bleak world he promised.

  Unknown to most, this war had been going on for thousands of years, and only now was coming to a close. And that was the worst part, for Life, Schoperde, had all but lost.

  Now was a time for the last empires to fall, sanctuaries to be overrun, and for peace to choke on gore. In the end there would be nothing left but ruin and whatever Death chose to build upon his bloodily won ground. That was why Ossard had become a place of abductions and murder with only worse to follow.

  And here I was with so many burdens weighing down on me, and no idea of what to make of it. I wondered if it wasn’t my problem, but with my family stolen away that simply wasn’t true.

  With a grim face, I turned back to gaze out the window. The sky above the city was busy with long grey clouds moving in from the west. By the light of the rising sun, something that should have painted them gold and amber, they only looked ominous.

  Drifting in my thoughts, I eventually found myself lost. It was a sanctuary of sorts and led to another; daydreams, in particular, the dream that had given me respite from the lustful fevers inspired by my mother’s lotus.

  It returned as before, with me passing like a bird over the steep and narrow valleys of the coastal sounds. Eventually, I arrived at an area of rolling hills, green and spotted with herb-brush that climbed from behind rocky bluffs and beaches. Nearby, but back from the water, and amidst the heights of those hills, a canyon opened wide. Its sides fell away deep into the soil with small streams of water seeping out to trickle down until they found its bottom. There, half hidden by mist, they watered a wondrous fern forest.

  The images of my sanctuary left me feeling settled and content, but I had to drag myself away from it. It was an indulgence, and such daydreams weren’t going to save my family.

  My family…

  I felt confident that they were still alive. With so many people taken in the past few days the cultists had to be building to a ritual beyond anything they’d already run. Simply, I had to find Maria and Pedro before it was enacted.

  A knock sounded at my door.

  I got up and went to it.

  Sef stood there taking in the sight of me, his eyes wide with surprise.

  I smiled. I was changed, not only did I feel it, but from Sef’s reaction he could see it.

  He said, “I came to check on you.”

  “I’m good, the night has agreed with me.”

  “So it seems.” His surprise faded, replaced with a cautious smile.

  “At noon I’m going to go to Market Square.”

  “For the proclamation?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll accompany you.”

  I shook my head.

  “Juvela, you’ll be in danger. They may try and take you.”

  “Sef, I know I’m new to this, but I also know that I’ll be safe. It would be better if you went with my father and found out what the Guild is doing about searches. I’ll need to know when I return.”

  He nodded, reluctant, but willing to trust me.

  11

  Founding The Pious Empire

  For the first time in my life, I walked from Newbank to Market Square. I passed under grey skies, dawn’s dark clouds having moved in to smother the sun and lend the city a sombre air. The tight streets about me were again busy with traffic, but all of it subdued. It was as if everything held its breath waiting to see what would come, waiting for the Inquisitor’s unveiling of the new.

  Before long I was crossing the wide way of the Cassaro Bridge and leaving my home district for Ossard’s Heletian heart. Here the streets ran thick with late-morning crowds, many also making their way to Market Square.

  Oleander hung from many doors, twigs of its long leaves tied with bunches of the shrub’s wilting pink blooms. Some homes even hosted braziers or pots that sat in windows or doorways from which the bitter stink of their smouldering offerings arose.

  The crowds grew thicker, but moved aside for me. I saw their sideward glances and heard their whispers, some from their lips, and others escaping their thoughts, “The Forsaken Lady!”

  I pitied them. Yesterday I was their hero, but today I was their villain. They’d changed so quickly, yet in that they weren’t alone. Not so long ago I’d been an innocent girl, but now I was a learning witch, an angry mother, and also a lonely wife trying to avoid being widowed.

  And the voices had changed with me.

  Their whispered messages came clearer now. It wasn’t as though they sounded out any louder as they offered their advice, instead they came on a different level. I no longer heard the thought to beware or to look with celestial eyes, now it instinctively happened.

  In much the same way, I found myself sensing the thoughts of those that I passed. Those mixing their thoughts with strong emotions came easy to sample, yet most were lost within confusing veils, and then there were others who came across as simple voids.

  Those that hid their thoughts so completely turned their knowing faces away. To read so many startled me, but to be refused by so many others was unsettling. The Inquisitor was right; the city was riddled with cultists, cabalists, and the Sisterhood.

  How could we have missed it?

  The thoughts I did read ranged from anger and disgust, to sorrow and fear. They combined to create a stinging bitterness in the celestial, the scent of souls turned sour.

  They hated me.

  The followers of Santana believed my denunciation of the new saint had endangered the whole city. In penance they’d rededicated themselves.

  I shivered. The city was a whore willing to sell itself for yet another turn of luck.

  Others pitied me. To them I’d become a mourning widow and mother, the very thing they so desperately wanted to avoid.

  Mothers held their children close as I passed, fathers averted their eyes, and some recited Santana’s prayers. I noticed on more than one occasion that their mumbled, whispered, or wailed verses were offered up to more than Saint Santana. The name of another saint, Saint Malsano, also came into their good graces.

  Those who’d accepted the new saints didn’t trust the Inquisition. They remembered the city’s long history, the conflicts, the rigid dogma, and the upheaval of The Burnings. They wanted safety for their families, not the hatreds of firebrands from a distant and almost foreign Black Fleet. Benefice Vassini might question the legitimacy of the new saints, but none of those who offered them prayers seemed to have suffered at the hands of the kidnappers. They’d won protection. In contrast, everyone knew that the one person who’d openly denounced them, me, had lost her family.

  A circle of space followed my progress down the avenue, it eight paces wide. I think it had been there through Newbank, across the Cassaro and St Marco’s, but now it was unmistakable amidst the thickening crowds. Still, with more and more of the city’s ugly truths revealed, I was glad to be outcast from it.

  I finally reached the square to find it almost full. Well over ten thousand stood across its cobbled expanse, a sea of people extending all the way to the Lord’s Residence. More joined the mass every moment, all come to hear the city’s fate. A subdued murmur sounded out from the crowd to build over a tense and deepening air.

  The Lord’s Residence stood festooned with both the long white and y
ellow and gold-starred ensigns of the Church, and the dour black and navy, with gold star and sword of the Inquisition. Anton and the Benefice were making a point; now they were the lords of the city.

  I went forward, wanting to be close enough to hear.

  A few Flet guildsmen stood out amongst the masses, recognisable by their guild jackets and caps. They’d be here to listen to the proclamation, the Guild no doubt worried that our people were going to be blamed for the woes of our beleaguered city.

  I came to a stop at the centre of the square where my circle of space remained, but even that had shrunk under the crush. I hoped it was small enough to keep me hidden: I wanted to hear the proclamation, not become a distraction from it.

  Looking about, I could see many in the crowd holding on to objects of faith; holy symbols, charms, and countless sprigs of oleander. The square was a focus, a divine focus, a focus of yearning and belief.

  I glimpsed skyward and let my perception drift into the celestial. The eye remained above, huge and wide, watching and waiting…

  But waiting for what?

  I feared I knew the answer; the next ritual, the ritual that would see Pedro and Maria slaughtered along with the rest of the Liberigo bloodline. The thought made me shiver, sending my perception back to the real world.

  Just in time…

  The noise of the crowd began to fade, and at noon the previously empty balcony of the Lord’s Residence became full. At the centre stood the Benefice and the Inquisitor, the two flanked by priests, monks, and even some of the Inquisition’s feared knights; the Sankto Glavos.

  Inquisitor Anton raised his hand in greeting to the crowd, but wasted no time. “Welcome Ossard, welcome to your judgment!”

  Ossard had been judged once before…

  “For twenty years you have been without your shepherd, the Inquisition. Left untended, you, our most northern flock, surprisingly did quite well, even going on to recapture some of your past glory and wealth. Together you earned it, through your hard work and continued faith, but alas it could not last.