Page 36 of Crucible of Chaos

She retreated a few steps, then tossed her latest carving at him. ‘You fail to live up to your reputation, Eminence.’

Estevar caught the figurine in his hand and held it up to the dying light.

It can’t be more than an hour or two after noon– why is the sky so dark?he wondered. When next the lightning flashed, he studied Leogado’s gift. The work was rough but already he could make out the contours of a heavy-set man whose braided beard came down to his broad chest. There was a sword in his hand and a blindfold over his eyes.

‘I am not quite so unseeing as you imagine, General,’ he said, pocketing the figurine. ‘You speak of the Margrave of Someil using the chaos in the abbey as justification for taking control, yet you do the same by stoking fear of him conquering the island. The frantic military preparations I witnessed downstairs serve a purpose little different to that of Strigan’s revels: they keep your followers too busy to question your decisions over which gods the abbey should serve.’

There was no ire in her reply, but plenty of condemnation. ‘Only a fool would believe all the dead gods will return. The mechanism of their creation derives from the faith and desires of the people of this nation. Tristia has changed; so too must its deities.’

She went silent, as if waiting for some proof of her assertion to emerge from the blackening sky outside– and sure enough, it came in the form of blinding lightning accompanied by thunder so devastatingly loud it left Estevar’s ears ringing.

‘You think these storms are natural? The entire island will be shattered like the statues in the courtyard and sink into the sea before your vaunted intellect perceives that which would be obvious to any child. The gods aren’t coming, Estevar, forthey are already here!The storms are their heralds, commanding that we divine the natures of our new deities so that we can bring the people closer to them.Thatis the only path to salvation, Eminence, not your trials and your laws.’

Her fury was beginning to match that of the storm and Estevar knew he ought to be cautious, yet he’d never allowed deception–however subtle–to go unchallenged in his courtroom and nor would he do so now. ‘I couldn’t help but notice your monks below, packing up the abbey’s treasures, General. Perhaps it is not only by the gods’ will that you seek to prosper?’

Accompanied by the almost military drumming of the rain echoing against the stone walls of the tower, Leogado marched back to her map table. She snatched up a handful of her carvings of knights and archers and for a moment, Estevar thought she might hurl them at him. Instead, she brought them closer. ‘Each of these represents a troop of ten soldiers. Someil commands a hundred and fifty knights, ten times that in infantry and archers. He has siege-engines, Estevar! I cannot defend this place with rusting duelling swords and poorly made arrows!’ She tossed the figurines back onto the map table. ‘Can the simple calculus of our situation escape you? We are all as doomed as Strigan, even those of us who have stayed true to our vows! Either you help me unite the brethren of this abbey under my leadership, or Someilwilltake this island.’ She wrapped her arms around herself, as if suddenly aware of the cold. ‘He threatened Venia, you know.’

She let that last piece of testimony hang in the air. Even the thunder remained quiet, the longest gap since the storm had begun.

‘The margrave?’

Leogado nodded. ‘Time and again, Someil sent his envoys to the abbey. Sometimes they brought gifts, other times, letters signed by legal scholars and even other clerics, all claiming that Isola Sombra was part of the hereditary lands belonging to the March of Someil.’

‘An argument King Filian would not be likely to find persuasive,’ Estevar noted.

The general shook her head as though frustrated that he, Estevar Borros, was too slow-witted to comprehend her analysis. ‘I took up carving only recently,’ she said, returning to the map table and fumbling among the papers until she produced another wooden figurine. This one was far more refined than the others, the lines more detailed, the wood stained and polished to perfection. She tossed it to Estevar.

It was carved in the form of a monk, smiling beatifically, witha noose around the neck.

‘This was my inspiration for taking up my new hobby,’ Leogado said. When Estevar held it out to return it, she shook her head. ‘Keep it. There are plenty more sitting idle in the abbot’s private study. The margrave had taken to sending one of these on the first of each month.’

Estevar stared at the deceptively simple wooden sculpture in his palm. A master’s work, without question. What had Sir Daven said when he’d met Estevar at the causeway? ‘My lord is no enemy to the new king, nor to his magistrates.’ It appeared the same could not be said of the margrave’s intentions towards the brethren of Isola Sombra.

Estevar turned to go. The pace of his investigation would need to quicken. He must chase down the Bone-Rattlers, those traditionalist monks who’d stayed true to Venia’s teachings. He would have to search Venia’s rooms, uncover whatever clues hadn’t already been trodden into dust by monks searching for any small treasures they could snatch up before their brethren beat them to it.

‘You still intend to waste your time searching for Venia’s killer?’ Leogado called after him. ‘To what end? A trial? Followed by some preposterous arbitration in which each of us is forced to plead our cases so that you might bless us with your final verdict? Perhaps Strigan isn’t the only one obsessed with false rituals.’

Estevar placed his hand on the doorframe. He felt an odd loss, as if he was leaving something unexpectedly precious behind in this lonely watchtower. ‘That is what Venia asked of me. I am a magistrate. My duty is not to any god but to uphold the peace.’

He heard her surefooted steps across the floor. Despite her shorter stature, three strides were all it took to bridge the distance between them. He felt her hand grab hold of his wrist and was surprised at how easily she spun him to face her. ‘Thenupholdthe peace! You speak of factions as if there was some choice to be made, but you’ve admitted yourself that the Wolves will abandon their pack. The Bone-Rattlers scurry about the abbey, rolling their dice and praying to whomever the pips command, not out of principled belief but because they know not what else—’

More thunder threatened to shatter their eardrums, more flashes of lightning split a sky far too dark for so early an hour–and all of it was striking too close to the abbey to be attributed to the fickleness of nature. No wonder the villagers had fled and the monks retreated to whatever dark corners they could find.

Leogado caught the concern in Estevar’s expression and sneered in disgust. She let go of his wrist and strode back to the window, jabbing her finger outside as if accusing the entire world of treachery. By chance, her gesture was accompanied by yet another bolt of lightning, this one so bright, the thunder so deafening, that it must have struck right in the heart of the abbey courtyard. Estevar’s ears felt as if they were plugged with wax, forcing him to read Leogado’s lips to make out what she said next.

‘What you see as divisions are little more than the petulance of children refusing to clean their room because Daddy has gone away and Mummy refuses to give them. . . give them—’

‘My Lady?’ he asked, his own voice sounding muffled and distant. He saw, rather than heard, the breathless gasp escape Mother Leogado’s gaping mouth as she looked down at the ruins of the statuary below. Only her silhouette was visible now; the tower was shrouded in darkness. A chill seeped into Estevar’s bones when he noticed that the rains had stopped and the storm was passing the island, because it meant that what he heard next could not be confused with the shrieking of the wind or the crashing of thunder. Screams were rising up from the courtyard like ghostly hands coming to drag someone back to hell with them– screams that evoked more horror inside him than he’d ever known before.

‘By all the gods,’ he swore,an uncharacteristic oath that felt like the only one worth uttering in that terrifying moment.

‘There are no gods,’ Leogado said, her tone flat, stripped of pride, of courage, of hope itself. Hands that had held steady a sword in the most brutal of battles now shook uncontrollably. ‘How could there be gods in a world where such things as those are allowed to exist?’

Estevar didn’t want to join her at the window, where his gaze would be inexorably drawn to whatever it was that could fill so battle-hardened a warrior with dread. It wasn’t any courage of his own that compelled him, but instead, that more potent impulse that had always been both his bane and his saving grace: the fathomless curiosity of one who had to know the truth of things, no matter the cost.

Here on this island, though, where he would never have set foot if he’d listened to the wound in his side warning him he was too weak and slow to face another enemy so soon, the price of knowledge was too high.

He raced for the door and down the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him, convinced he would be too late, while equally certain the oath he’d taken years ago when he’d first donned the leather greatcoat now at the bottom of the sea demanded from him a greater duty than to watch the victim die alone and unaided.

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