Book of The Dead

It was tempting to reach out and tap at the array with a finger, just to make sure it was working. Poranus glared at it, unwilling to believe what he was seeing. The eyes could lie, he knew it well, especially when a person was tired.

And he was tired. Exhausted. Day after day, he and the Magisters had poured their magick into the sigils, turning arcane energy into pain, until he had begun to believe it would never end.

Yet, as he continued to look, the sigils continued to lie dim. No response from the brands meant that the slayers in question were not acting against instructions. Despite the fact he’d been pouring his life into the sigils for weeks, he double checked to make sure that the two he was looking at corresponded to Magnin and Beory, and they did.

“Well, it’s nice to finally close the book on this little task,” a cultured male voice said from beside him.

Poranus ground his teeth, but tried to keep his dislike under wraps. No need to aggravate his fellow Magisters, particularly one on the fast track for promotion.

“You don’t see this as a little suspicious, Herath?” he asked, gesturing to the unlit sigils. “After more than a month of resisting the highest level of torture the Magistry has ever devised, they just… give up?”

Brushing back his long golden hair with one hand, Herath smiled and shrugged carelessly, irritating his contemporary even further.

“It’s clear that the Steelarms concocted some method to resist or limit the effects of the brand, but they were unable to suppress it completely. Despite their best efforts, they were eventually broken down by our relentless pressure. A triumph for the Magistry and quite the feather in our cap, in my view. The strongest Slayers in the entire province couldn’t resist our will. Doesn’t that mean all is working as intended?”

Poranus’ eyes boggled.

“We needed a rotating team of Magisters working around the clock for a month to get any response at all! Does that sound like everything is fine? They must have discovered a flaw, or weakness.”

As he muttered to himself, Herath just shook his head.

“I swear, you just refuse to take a win when it’s handed to you. Look,” he pointed, “the sigils are silent. The Steelarms will obey, or they will die. That is the end of it.”

Despite himself, Poranus tried to let his irritation and anxiety go. He was just being paranoid. An unfortunate result of the ordeal he’d gone through over the previous weeks.

Just by a hair, he allowed himself to relax, and only then did he realise how tightly wound he’d become.

“I need to sleep for a week,” he muttered, and Herath grinned.

“I’d invite you to the Jorlin estate, the grapes are being harvested at the vineyards, you can smell the wine in the air,” he closed his eyes and flared his nostrils, as if imagining the rich scent, then shook his head, “but only family are allowed. Apologies, brother.”

“Then why mention it?” Poranus growled.

A robed servant nervously tapped at the door.

“What?” the disgruntled Magister snapped.

Always has to flaunt his family connections, as if his natural gift for magick wasn’t enough. Arrogant prick.

“The Lady would like to see you,” the servant bowed.

Blood instantly froze in his veins.

“Do you mean myself, or Magister Jorlin?” Poranus forced out.

“The Lady requested you by name, Magister Taridus.”

Herath placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Try not to piss her off and get yourself killed,” he said, smiling.

I will kill you one day. I will kill you, and laugh.

“Lead the way,” he ground out.

Bowing low, the servant turned and began to lead the way, studiously ignoring everything he and his contemporary had to say. Poranus served a fresh glare to his fellow Magister, leaving him in no uncertain terms as to his feelings. Herath simply smiled.

Stop letting him get to you, he admonished himself as he left the chamber.

Within that small room, the Marks of all the highest ranked Slayers in the province were kept, under lock and key in the heart of the Tower. It was that room, and the others like it, that maintained the Marks of all the lesser Slayers that put the Magisters firmly in control of the populace.

The Slayers were the attack dogs of the empire, unleashed on the rifts and the monsters that came through them. The Magisters were the masters, one hand firmly on the leash at all times. Control led to order and order led to survival; that was the mandate handed down from the Divines to his order, and he tried to let some of that prestige and power flow into him now.

Magisters did not bow and scrape. There was no need for him to be afraid. He and those like him were captains of the ship that was the Empire.

But they didn’t own it….

When they arrived outside a large, gleaming wooden door, he waved the servant away and wiped his sweaty palms on his robes. All he had to do was mind his tongue.

He knocked.

“Enter,” came a clinical reply.

The door swung open to reveal the Lady’s quarters, as lavish and elegant as ever, with the Lady herself in her customary position, seated behind her oversized, ornate desk.

“Magister,” she greeted him, her tone as neutral as always, “please come and sit.”

She gestured to the chair positioned to one side, and Poranus eyed it like a viper. Refusing to let his trepidation show, he took wide steps, grabbed the seat with more force than was perhaps strictly necessary and moved it opposite the noble before he reclined.

Lady Erryn watched this take place with the usual impassive expression on her face, as if everything he did, or could do, was boring to her on a fundamental level.

When she spoke, it was almost as if being forced to do so was disappointing.

“I understand that congratulations are in order,” she said.

Her icy-blue eyes were wintry cold as they pinned him to his seat. There was no celebration evident there.

“It would appear so, my lady,” he replied, meeting her gaze. “The Marks have grown dim. We have no reason to believe that the Steelarms resist their instructions any longer.”

The Lady took a moment to note this on the clean paper that lay before her on the table.

“I see. The Marks are unresponsive?”

“That is the case. It was first reported by Magister Thurn, then myself and Magister Jorlin confirmed it.”

“Do any of you believe that the Marks have been compromised?”

The question was asked in the same, disinterested tone, but Poranus felt sweat break out on his back. One thing everyone knew about nobles, they always hunted for someone to blame. Lady Erryn would never be held responsible for anything that happened here, she was above such things, but that didn’t mean a scapegoat wouldn’t be useful. If he said they weren’t compromised, and it turned out Beory Steelarm had managed to break them, his head would roll.

The Mark is a work of incredible sophistication that has been employed since the Ascension. I couldn’t begin to think of tampering with it and surviving, what are the odds that a Slayer could do so?... Then again, Beory is no ordinary Slayer.

“It is my understanding,” he said carefully, “that the stated position of the Aristocracy, the Church of the Divines, and the Magistry, is that the Mark cannot be compromised.”

It was a good answer. Neither yes, nor no, he simply spoke the truth. Everyone believed they were foolproof.

“Then the Steelarms are moving to execute their criminal child?” she asked, as if discussing the weather.

“We have no reason to believe otherwise, my lady.”

Her eyes flickered down to the page then back to meet his.

“And what is your personal belief, Magister?”

A direct question. The worst kind.

“I believe… that the Steelarms developed a method that allowed them to blunt or resist at least part of the pain caused by the Mark,” he said slowly. “Using this method, they were able to endure until this point, but now their will has broken and they obey. That is what I believe to be the most likely series of events.”

It was the most likely. Herath had believed it also.

“I did not ask what you believed was most likely. What do you believe?”

He swallowed.

“I… find it… difficult… to believe that two individuals such as the Steelarms would give up so easily. I do not believe they will willingly kill their own child.”

Lady Erryn watched him for a moment, a glimmer of interest finally appearing in her eyes. She leaned forward, resting her chin on her own steepled fingers.

“Well, I should hope that they don’t,” she said dryly.

Poranus was taken aback. Isn’t that what they’d wanted all this time?

“I don’t understand,” he said, “you don’t want them to kill him?”

The noble shook her head slightly and tsked, her brown curls waving.

“What will happen if they refuse to obey their orders?” she asked him, as if lecturing a student.

As if I didn’t know.

“We will use their Marks to torture them to death,” he said.

“Obviously. Now that they no longer resist, they will not be granted a second chance. If they do not bring us the head of their boy, we will resume the torture in a week.”

The Magister wanted to slump forward. So his ordeal was not over yet. How he yearned to be free of this laborious nonsense.

“So you would rather the boy was left alive, and the parents killed?” he asked.

“You are not thinking with enough clarity,” she said. “All three of them will die. That is our will.”

All three of them?

“When you say ‘our will’...” he began.

“The Aristocracy speaks with the voice of the Divines,” she cut him off, blue eyes glinting like steel. “They have ordered it, and so it shall be.”