up a fight. I snatched for his weapon but failed. He made no move to go for it himself. A door thudded open behind me and heavy footfalls thundered down the corridor.
I backed away, glanced over my shoulder. A half-dozen men were running my way. I gave it up, lowering my fists and relaxing. If they tortured me they tortured me. I would take it and the next trick. My mind was my own. But I was scared of it, scared of the torture. Terrified. Had Ormal been through this? Is that what broke him?
Everything slowed down. Not in some mystical sense; just that everyone relaxed. I wasn't putting up a fight now. It was over. The barbarians coming my way slowed to a stop and Sheo limped through their midst to stand in front of me. I was glad to see him and smiled. But he wasn't smiling and what he said took the smile from my face.
“Kukran Epthel will see you now,” he said.
61
“What happened?”
Sheo didn't answer. The style of building was familiar to me, plush but functional, palace and administration building in one, of the kind we build everywhere and that are copied further afield. Plush but not over done, functional but not bare, with public and administrative and private rooms spread evenly throughout.
“What did they do to you?”
“I changed my mind, Sumto. Nothing more. As you will. The cause of Kukran Epthel is just and honorable and deserving of our dedication. I have dedicated myself to his cause.”
“I notice you don't wear a stone,” my meaning was clear.
“A wise man does not take a wild dog into his home and trust it with his children on the first day. First it must be trained and earn your trust.”
It sounded like a quote.
The public areas were larger rooms, designed to impress subtly. There were people here, waiting as the commoners have always waited for the masters of their fate to decide it. In the city such places were relaxed, people talked, laughed and joked with each other, discussed their purposes, traded favors, sought advantage in their negotiations and asked advice. Here the people were nervous, solitary, quiet. They looked down as I sought to catch their eyes. They shuffled their feet, hugged the walls and avoided each other as they awaited their fate. The contrast was marked. I recognized them as Geduri by their dress, imitating city fashions with tokens of their heritage worked into the designs. Some were city folk and these were the most worried, the most nervous, the most timid. Clearly the judgments were likely to go against them and they were only here to try. I wished them luck, but wished more that they would either flee south to freedom or rise up and fight for it.
The doors ahead were guarded. That was anathema to me – what ruling class needed to protect itself from its people? The doors had been defaced with a branded symbol, the white wood scarred forever. The room they opened into had been changed; where once it would have been lush and decorated, it was now bare and austere. Two large windows were hung with drapes that admitted the barest amount of light that was needed to see. There were no lamps; not one. Only the shrouded daylight lit the room dimly. At the far end a dais had been built and a throne installed. We loathed thrones, the mark of kingship. Even the consuls of the city did not have thrones. Or the king, though it would be the kind of joke we appreciated. Of course, the king of the city was not in fact king in any meaningful way, not as barbarians have kings, but merely a tribute to our past, an acknowledgment of our heritage; the king had little power, and certainly no throne. A chair should not be a place to lounge but a place to rest your butt while you did business. It is not there to impress or raise you above your peers. A man's character and deeds should be the only way to do that, to be better than your peers was not the product of a throne. That was for men who were not better but sought to steal the appearance of superiority with trappings and baubles. Every patron of the city had earned the respect given, had worked for the dignity and standing he had earned to the point where none could fail to acknowledge it. Thrones were for men who had earned nothing.
Seated on this throne was a tall figure wrapped in a black robe of a thick, rough cloth.
Sheo went to one knee as soon as the door opened and bowed his head. I was shocked. No man of the city bowed. Not even a commoner. To see a patron bow before a king was an affront to me, an insult to the city. Kings bowed to us. Not the other way round.
Our escort was also on one knee but only for a moment, only until they saw I would not kneel. Then it wasn't long before I was beaten and forced to my knees and held down by two burly men with a hand on each arm. There was a pause and I took the opportunity to look around the room. I was in for more shocks. Several of those standing against the walls were dead men. There was no mistaking that. Some had open wounds that dripped a clear fluid. Their skin was gray. Some had bloated stomachs filled with gases that vented even as I watched. I shuddered. Their faces were vacant, fingernails black, eyes dull. They moved. Not much but enough to tell me that these corpses were animated by spirit even though their bodies decayed.
The figure in black beckoned us forward and we came to our feet and approached. I went with them. There was no point in fighting them. Nothing to be gained. I walked to stand in front of the figure on the throne. He waved the others aside and they moved a few paces back and turned to watch. There was something sick about him, the hands and face gray. He reached to a table by his side and took a small eye dropper from a tray, leaning his head back he dripped water into each eye and blinked a few times, tears of water dripping down his face. His eyes were dulled by some disease, perhaps cataracts.
“The eyes dry,” he said conversationally as he put the eye dropper back in the cup of water. I noticed the ten carat stone then, worn on a ring. “A small price for immortality.” It was then that I realized he was as dead as the bodies about the wall. A lich. A dead body animated and inhabited. A poor immortality, I thought, fighting back revulsion.
“Immortality? You are a corpse.”
“The body functions. The blood replaced by… another liquid. It isn't the same, of course, but it has the benefit of not wearing out. It will not grow old, or weak. It will endure.”
I almost asked him what it was like, but decided I didn't want to know, and didn't care, so I held my tongue.
“What's going to break you Sumto? Afraid of the dark? Rats? Torture? What will make you obey? We will find the way to break you in time. And I have time. All the time in the world. There is no escaping your fate. One way or another, in some capacity or another you will serve the cause.”
“What cause?”
“The cause of freedom. My cause. I am told that you freed your slave, that you have a good heart.”
I let the attempt at flattery wash over me. “No one is free of duty or obligation. The rational man sees reality as it is and knows that his choices are limited by his surroundings and ability. Once you have found the facts and assessed them there is usually no choice left, the facts decide for you. No one is free of that.”
“I am not going to debate semantics with you, Sumto Cerulian. Or debate at all. I am only interested in knowing how to make you serve. Only interested in what will make you obey me, once and for always. It will happen, you will serve, it is only a matter of when and in what capacity. Your companions are choosing to join me one at a time, each obeying in his turn, and you will too, in time.”
“Join him, Sumto. He's opened my eyes, let him open yours,” Sheo seemed calm, but his voice was dull and unenthusiastic.
“What are you fighting for? What does your city offer?” Kukran Epthel asked.
“Freedom.”
“Are your slaves free?”
“Better a slave of the city than the lie of slavery you offer without even being honest enough to call it that. Our slaves are mostly people who opposed us. And a slave can work hard and become a freedman, his son free, his grandson a knight, his great grandson a patron.”
“And how many achieve that?”
“Damn few, but that's not my responsibility. It's there for them if they want it.”
“And you, born to privilege and wealth? What do you know of hardship and suffering?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I'm learning.”
