Orb Sceptre Throne

The sergeant’s voice took on an edge. ‘Get going … now.’

‘Fine!’ The man straightened to slap dirt off his hide trousers, motioned his team up. The sergeant turned to the captain, cocked a brow and saluted.

Fal-ej answered the salute and yanked her mount round. ‘Thank you, sergeant.’ She rode off kicking up more mud.

‘What’s gotten under her saddle?’ a trooper muttered. ‘Martinet bitch.’

‘Naw,’ the sergeant said as she watched the woman go, a hand shading her gaze. ‘Ain’t nothing a good humping wouldn’t cure.’

‘Sarge!’ one trooper groaned. ‘Do you have to?’

‘That’s your answer for everything,’ another complained.

The sergeant turned, rubbing her hands together. ‘Yes indeed — too bad none of you poor excuses are up to it.’

‘Oh, don’t go on about the damned Moranth. We don’t believe none o’ those stories.’

‘Now don’t go and just kill everyone, okay!’ Yusek snarled over her shoulder as they struggled up the narrow mountain trail.

‘You exaggerate,’ Sall answered calmly.

‘No, I do not fucking exaggerate! Someone raises a cooking ladle your way and you two butcher two hundred! Try to show a little respect. This is some kinda monastery or something.’

‘If they are unarmed they have nothing to fear from us.’

She snorted her scorn. Pausing, she glanced further down to distant Lo making his way up after them. No sign of sweat or labour on either of them! No shortage of breath. Yusek, for her part, felt light-headed and nauseous with the height. Gods. Never been this high before. They say the air is poisonous up here. Kill you as sure as a blade to the heart.

Swallowing to wet her rasping throat she glanced ahead to the monastery walls of heaped cobbles. Tattered prayer flags snapped in the cold wind. White tendrils of smoke blew here and there from cook-fires. Overhead a clear, painfully bright blue sky domed the world. Beautiful, in its way, but for a faint green blemish across its vault — the Scimitar of a god’s vengeance, some named that banner.

A monk, or acolyte, or whatever you would call him, met them at the stone arch that was the compound’s entrance. Yusek took the shaven-headed slim figure for a boy until she spoke, revealing her sex. ‘Enter, please, the adytum. We offer food, shelter, and peace for contemplation to all who would enter.’

‘Adytum?’ Yusek repeated. ‘Is that the place’s name?’

‘The adytum is a location. The most sacred place. The inner shrine of worship for our faith.’

‘What faith is that?’

‘Dessembrae.’ And the woman gestured aside, inviting. Nor did she blink in the face of the two masked Seguleh.

Yusek urged Sall forward. ‘Well? Go on!’

By his hesitation the young man appeared almost embarrassed. ‘There is a proper time for everything,’ he told Yusek aside; then, to the acolyte: ‘Thank you. We would rest. And any hot food you may spare would be welcome.’

The acolyte showed them to a simple hut of piled stone cobbles, almost like a cell. A fire already burned in its small central hearth. Smoke drifted up to the ceiling hole. A black iron pot was heating over the low flames. The young acolyte — no older than I am, Yusek reflected — in her loose shirt over trousers of plain cloth and bare feet, stopped at the threshold. ‘You would prefer separate quarters?’ she asked Yusek, who nodded. ‘This way.’

The hut she showed Yusek was no different from the other. ‘Listen,’ Yusek told her, lowering her voice, ‘those two are Seguleh.’

‘I have heard of them.’

‘Yeah. Well, they’re here to kill someone. You have to warn him — tell him to get out of here.’

‘They’ve come to kill someone? I doubt that very much.’

Yusek found herself clenching her teeth. ‘You don’t understand-’

The young woman held up a hand. ‘Your concern does you credit. But there is no need for worry. The man you speak of has no interest in their challenges. They will leave empty-handed.’

Yusek wanted to grab the girl’s shoulder and shake her. You little fool! You have no idea what you are facing here! But the girl studied her, calm, uninflected, and something in that steady regard made Yusek uneasy. As if she’s looking through me … like I’m a ghost or something.

The girl bowed. ‘If that is all.’

‘Yeah … I suppose so.’

The girl withdrew. Yusek sat on the cot, unrolled the bedding of thick woven blankets provided against the cold. In truth she was exhausted, which surprised her. Hardly a full day’s journey since their last camp, she freezing her butt off, complaining the entire time, and those two maintaining their infuriating silence — not even telling her to shut the Abyss up.

She lay down, threw an arm across her eyes. Well, she was free of them. She’d brought them to the monastery and now her obligation was over. She’d take off tomorrow and leave these pathetic empty wastes behind. Maybe she’d head on north to Mengal. Who knew, maybe she’d take a ship to some rich distant land like Quon Tali or Seven Cities.

She fell asleep dreaming of that. Of getting away, far away.

When she started awake the light coming in through the shutters over the single tiny window held the pink of dawn. Normally she never woke up this early but normally she never fell asleep in the afternoon. Groaning, she stretched her stiff frozen limbs, then dropped to her knees before the hearth to tease the fire back to life. After a hot cup of tea she felt alive enough to head out.

When she opened the door the first thing that struck her was the silence. She’d grown used to the forest with its constant background noise of the wind through the branches, the trunks groaning as they flexed. Here there was only the low moan of the wind over stone, the faint snap of the prayer flags. She found herself almost trying to soften the fall of her moccasins on the stone-flagged walk. Almost. Then she shook off the spell and went to find something to eat.

To her chagrin she found everyone up already. What is it with these people that they get up so early? It’s inhuman. A group of the monks, or priests, were out on a central field of sand, weaving through some sort of exercise or devotional movements. She watched for a time: the practice held a kind of flowing beauty. It seemed almost hypnotic. But she was hungry and so she turned away to find someone to ask for directions to a kitchen or mess.

Later, chewing on a hot flatbread, she wandered back out to the central open field to see Sall and Lo watching the monks, who were now engaged in some sort of paired physical training of throws and falls.

Aha, she thought. This is more like it. She stepped up to Sall. ‘Going to talk to me? Or am I a nobody now?’

Standing arms crossed, the youth did not shift his gaze from the monks. ‘I will speak to you … for the time being.’

‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. What now? What will you two do?’

‘Lo will challenge the — the man here.’

Yusek gave an exaggerated nod. She too watched the monks. ‘So which one’s he?’

A heavy breath raised Sall’s shoulders. ‘That is the problem. He will not identify himself. Nor will anyone else do so.’ His voice took on an almost puzzled edge: ‘They are simply ignoring us.’

Yusek choked on her bread. Gulping, she managed to swallow, then broke out in a laugh that left her almost helpless. She bent forward, resting her hands on her knees to catch her breath. She straightened, wiping her cheeks. Sall was regarding her from behind his mask, his dark brown eyes uncomfortable. She took a steadying breath. ‘Aii-ya. So … how does it feel to be on the receiving end, hey?’

The lad had the grace to lower his gaze. Again a great breath raised his chest behind his crossed arms. ‘It is most … frustrating,’ he admitted.

Yusek gave a satisfied: ‘It most certainly is.’