Page 14 of Crucible of Chaos

‘The mule is a handsome fellow, to be sure,’ Agneta interrupted, ‘but he is not the issue here, nor are the deaths of our nation’s six benighted gods, but we must start somewhere, eh, your Eminence?’

Why must she peck at him like a grey-feathered crow feasting on the entrails of his corpse? Was her haranguing meant to keep him from losing consciousness entirely, which would leave her having to drag his substantial bulk to the abbey herself? Perhaps he ought to be grateful for her ministrations, which she probably considered kindly, coming as they were from a former inquisitor no doubt more comfortable torturing those in her presence than caring for them.

‘As I was saying,’ Estevar began again, ‘the gods were killed by—’

‘Murdered,’ Agneta corrected. ‘Are we not finders of facts, you and I? Enforcers of the law? Different laws, I will admit, but precision remains an investigator’s first duty and most reliable ally.’

‘Saint Zhagev-who-sings-for-tears, woman! Must you—?’

‘Also murdered two years ago,’ she interjected amiably. ‘As were a great many other saints. The seventh year of the interregnum was a rather tragic one for religious figures, wouldn’t you agree?’

Estevar took a deep breath to calm himself, but that only set him hacking again, forcing him to lean against Imperious to keep from falling to his knees.

‘The gods weremurderedby a man wh—’

‘Specificity, please.’

‘Enough!’ he bellowed, grabbing at her shoulder even as he fought back the cough that threatened to smother his outrage. ‘I am a King’s Magistrate, summoned here by your own abbot. It isIwho holds jurisdiction over such matters on behalf of the Crown, and it isIwho will conduct the questioning. Do we have an understanding, Cogneri?’

‘Feeling better now?’

Never had he wanted so badly to slap an elderly person in the face. Still, he had to confess, at least to himself, that the irritation and indignity she’d provoked in him was a potent elixir, for all the while it was burning in his throat, it was also clearing the fog from his mind.

‘The person responsible for the death of Tristia’s gods was an Inlaudati,’ he went on, and alongside the equally unsteady Imperious, resumed the trek. ‘A human being, like us, but one possessed–whether by accident of birth or tragedy so profound it altered the inner workings of his mind–of a strategic, or some might sayspiritual– intellect far beyond the limits of ordinary genius.’

‘Some would also call such individuals perversions of the natural order,’ Agneta commented sourly, ‘but do go on.’

Estevar found himself eager to do so; this subject tested the boundaries between the mundane and the supernatural, piquing his curiosity. ‘Little is known of the Inlaudati, how they come to be, or the inner workings of their gifts. But among the Greatcoats, it is believed that the Tailor’– out of habit, his thumb and forefinger came up to pinch the leather collar of his own magnificent dark crimson coat, only to wince at the feel of sodden, tattered linen– ‘the woman who designed our coats,’ he said, trying to recover his excitement, ‘who guided her son, King Paelis, in his reforms and helped restore the Order of Travelling Magistrates from little more than legend is believed to be an Inlaudati.’

‘Or was,’ Agneta retorted. ‘I’m told the old buzzard’s mind has settled into something approximating sanity now that her grandson sits the throne and the historical tides that gave birth to her unnatural talent have quietened at last.’

Estevar had never heard it put that way. He’d assumed age, or perhaps sorrow at the recent death of her granddaughter, had induced the Tailor to retire from politics and intrigue. Now it was the sixteen-year-old Filian, also of her blood but raised by her most hated enemy, who sat the throne in Aramor. Whether the boy would prove to be a king in the mould of his idealistic father or instead follow in the steps of the coldly brilliant, pragmatic woman who stole him as a baby yet appeared, in her own callous way at least, to love him, remained to be seen.

‘Keep up, Trattari,’ Agneta urged, still striding ahead of him.

Does the woman never tire?

‘Tell me of this other Inlaudati, the one who contrived to murder the gods themselves.’

Estevar licked his lips, tasting salt. Despite being soaked from head to toe, he was thirsty; his fever had stolen every ounce of moisture from the tissues of his mouth and throat. ‘The Inlaudati called himself the Blacksmith,’ he said, wheezing. Agneta was right, though, he needed to talk– tothink. ‘The Blacksmith chose that sobriquet because he believed that he alone had discerned the secrets of the metals running through the oldest mines in Tristia. By long-forgotten means, those sacred ores once combined with the force of our ancestors’ faiths to bring the gods they worshipped to life.’

‘You make it all sound so tedious,’ snapped Agneta. ‘The Blacksmith’srealachievement was in constructing iron masks made of that same ore and imprisoning the saints he captured within, weakening them enough to steal their spiritual power, which he then used to subdue and slaughter the gods, that he might forge a new one in his own twisted image.’

Estevar had been hundreds of miles away when Falcio val Mond, the former head of his order, had led the enquiry that uncovered the Blacksmith’s scheme to destroy the living expressions of faith in Tristia and replace them with a far crueller and more demanding deity. ‘A god worthy of this corrupt nation,’ the Inlaudati had said, according to the records of his testimony in defence of his own villainy. ‘A god of fear to rule over a craven people.’

Oh, to have been there when Falcio met the Blacksmith’s foul creation in the duelling circle: to test not only one’s blade, but the steel of one’s will against the ultimate expression of that which the Greatcoats were made to fight against: injustice and tyranny!

Estevar’s heel caught on a loose rock and he swore as he lost his footing. His stumble halted by the redoubtable sturdiness of Imperious, he recovered his balance, though the wound in his side screamed as if he were being stabbed all over again.

Then again, he thought bitterly,seeing that I lost a judicial duel to a petty fencer-for-hire, perhaps it’s as well that it was Falcio who crossed swords with the god of fear and not me.

He sensed Agneta was about to start cajoling him again, so he resumed quickly, ‘The slaying of our gods left a void within the country. The spiritual energy of which they were born, some small stolen part of which infuses those we call saints, was lost for a time.’

‘Nothing is lost,’ the implacable inquisitor corrected,tut-tuttinghim as if he were an errant schoolboy. ‘Nothing is created or destroyed. All that exists remains, from my frail old bones and your sorry carcase to the mighty stones upon which Isola Sombra was built and will one day crumble. Given enough time, that which has been obliterated becomes something new. It is the waiting that tests our spirits.’

She stopped suddenly and Estevar, so intent on keeping up, barrelled into her. At first he thought she was staring up at the dark clouds blanketing the sky, then he followed her gaze and saw that they had rounded the last curve and stood at last before the sublime, broken majesty of Isola Sombra.

‘It cannot be. . .’ Estevar whispered, surveying the calamitous destruction beyond the gate.

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