Excerpt: GRAVE EMPIRE by Richard Swan
From critically acclaimed author Richard Swan, Grave Empire (US | UK) begins the epic tale of an empire on the verge of industrial revolution, where sorcery and arcane practices are outlawed—and where an ancient prophecy threatens the coming end of days.
Read an excerpt from Grave Empire (US | UK), on sale February 4, below!
I
An Urgent Message for the Secretary to the Ambassador
“Armed conflict is a wellspring of certain misery, but is not to be avoided at any cost. There is such thing as an intolerable peace. The diplomat finds himself at the nexus of these two states. Their mission is an unenviable one: to avert both the former and the latter.” —FROM MANAGOLD’S THE THIRD WAY
The Imperial Office
SOVA
They were no strangers to the sound of pounding footsteps in the Imperial Office. Messengers bearing urgent dispatches rattled through the place daily. They were the same children who hounded people on the streets to buy pamphlets and newspapers and political polemics—and indeed the same children who coalesced into gangs and trapped well‑to‑do Sovans in back alleys and threatened them with knives. They were a bloody menace, though Renata had to respect their tenacity. Sova, after all, did a very good job of crushing the poor beneath its boot heel.
The scurrying footsteps were normally confined to the upper floors of the Imperial Office, where the more important diplomatic suites lay. There, entire staffs dedicated to the different peoples of the known world languished in opulence. There was the Office of the Western Kingdoms Alliance, the Office of the Principality of Casimir—the “Great Enemy”—the Office of the Kova Confederation. There were even offices for the pagans to the north and south, countries like Tolland and Draedaland, Manaeisland and Saekaland, mysterious, closed‑off places which had once been part of the Sovan Empire. The Zyrahn Dynasties of the Southern Plains, Qaresh, the wolfmen of the Kasar Kyarai, the colonies of the distant New East—all of them had an extravagant offi ce, a host of tame analysts, and a diplomatic staff.
Not so Renata’s office. This was a dingy place in the basement, what looked like a hare‑brained professor’s study. Overstuffed bookshelves and framed nautical artworks lined every wall, whilst maps of the Jade Sea cluttered every surface. Where there was space, paraphernalia from that submarine realm lay scattered about—a jar of iridescent oyster pearls from Ozeanland, a hunting spear from the Iris Isles, and the pièce de résistance, the wrought‑coral battle helm of Old Scar‑Eye himself, the largest white shark known to mankind.
The place had the musty quality of an abandoned library. Natural light came in through a small blurry window at street level, and thanks to the contrivance of mirrors filled the chamber. Pipes, which gurgled frequently, ran across the junction of the wall and ceiling. In winter they wore coats and gloves and drank brandy‑infused coffee constantly; in summer the air was so thick they could barely breathe.
Renata shared this place with her superior, His Excellency the Ambassador Didacus Maruska. On warm spring days like this one, it felt as though their combined breath filled half the chamber.
“Where do you think?”
Renata looked up from her copy of the Superior Dialecta Stygio. Maruska, a beacon of colour in his orange‑and‑red Qareshian kaftan, squinted at her.
She thought for a moment. “The Kasari Office,” she said. Maruska stroked his formidable beard. It was greying by the day. “A safe choice,” he allowed.
It was a game they played. Each slamming office door had its own distinct timbre which resonated through the building, and they liked to guess who had received the dispatch.
Renata smiled, her expression wry. “Where else do the messengers go these days? The country is weeks from collapse.”
Maruska considered this—or pretended to. “Yes. I expect you are right.” He tapped the front of his newspaper. “And the goldmark with it.”
They listened for the inevitable thump of the heavy oak double doors of the Kasari office. But to Renata’s surprise, the footsteps continued. Now came the telltale slap of sandal against stone step.
She met Maruska’s eye. “Downstairs?”
“Probably got lost.”
He pulled out his pipe and began to thumb in tobacco leaf. He struck a match against the desk, next to where a newspaper lay. The headline, which took up much of the cover, read: WOLFMEN ROUT! NORTHERN KYARAI WEEKS FROM BEING OVERRUN. GOLDMARK TUMBLES, IMPERIAL BANK DESPAIRS!
“They’re coming closer,” Renata said in a sing‑song voice as the footsteps grew in volume.
“Here, then,” the ambassador replied, filling the chamber with the sweet scent of Qareshian pipe smoke. Renata complained that it took all the air out of the room, though secretly she loved the smell of it.
“That doesn’t count as your guess,” she said.
Maruska winked at her. A moment later, there was a sharp rap at their door.
Renata stood and walked over to it, and pulled it open. There stood a young girl, perhaps ten years old, her face ruddy and perspiring from exertion. “Is this the… ‘Stygion Mer‑men Office’?” she asked in gutter Saxan.
Renata nodded, still unconvinced. They hardly received letters at all, let alone urgent ones. “Yes.”
“Urgent message for Renata Rainer.” The girl held the letter out as though it would poison her if she held it any longer.
“Thank you,” Renata replied, taking it and giving her a penny.
“Well?” Maruska said, once the door was closed.
Renata opened and read the letter with an expression of bemusement. “This is Imperial letterhead,” she muttered. “From the Office of the Royal Court. They want me to report to Zobryv Gardens—immediately.”
“The embassy district? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Renata said. She put her shoes on and grabbed her purse. “But I’d better go. Are you coming?”
“It’s not addressed to me, is it?”
“No.”
He shrugged. “Well then, off you go.”
Renata walked quickly through the basement corridor of the Imperial Office, and then up several flights of stairs and into the main entrance hall. This was an imposing place of schach‑pattern flooring and statues and portraits of famous ambassadorial staff. Above the main entrance was an enormous painting of the wolfman Zuberi, the “Saviour of Sova”—so named for some centuries‑old battle in the city. His watchful lupine eyes never failed to elicit a shiver from her.
She exited the office directly on to Admiralty Square, where the desiccated grass crunched under her feet, and immediately turned left and then left again, passing down a narrow, bustling street between the Library of Sova and the Imperial Office. She cut over a bridge which crossed the westernmost branch of the brown River Sauber, covering her nose as she did so. It was coming to the time of year when the Sauber really began to smell, ripe as it was with effluents and iridescent with industrial outflow.
Zobryv Gardens itself was largely empty, though it would soon be full of the promenading wealthy and workers taking their lunch. It was a pleasant green space of broad walkways shaded by old‑growth oaks, and grass lawns and fl ower beds ensconced in ornate iron railings. It was a pretty little corner of the city, quiet for somewhere so central, overlooked by the rear of a long terrace of foreign embassies along the Veleurian Road.
The letter had stipulated she hurry to a small walled garden near the centre of the park, and she moved quickly in spite of the spring warmth. She was intercepted for the last hundred yards by a well‑dressed gentleman whom she felt she recognised, a young man in a spring suit of plain black cloth. He wore an urgent countenance. “Ms Rainer!” he said breathlessly. “Please, quickly, this way. There is a pressing matter which requires your expertise.”
“Yes, of course—lead on,” she replied, trying not to sound as breathless as she felt. She followed the man at a fast walk into the walled garden, a pleasant structure overgrown with intricate knots of ivy. Ahead and in the centre was a cluster of besuited gentlemen, all craning to see something at the edge of a fountain pond.
“I have her!” her escort called out to the group.
“Nema Victoria!”
“Thank goodness!”
“Over here, Secretary Rainer! Quick!”
Overcome with curiosity, Renata hurried into the centre of the group. A man was crouched down, and in his hands was a bizarre creature; half frog, half fish, and grafted together so expertly the thing writhed and wriggled in a deathless agony, with neither air to drink nor water to breathe.
The man looked at her sharply, wearing a wide, disingenuous grin. “It’s the Stygion ambassador, Miss Rainer!” he exclaimed. “He’s looking a little green around the gills!”
There was about three seconds of silence as the clot of men—all of whom she now realised were colleagues from the Imperial Office—studied her with idiot expressions of glee. Then a second man snatched something from his pocket and held it out. It was an elongated black shell, redolent of seawater.
“I think he’s pulled a mussel!”
And then all of them exploded into fits of red‑faced, thigh‑slapping laughter.
She met her half‑sister in one of the kaffeehaus es which sat in a row on Gooseneck Street. To the south was the enormous Imperial Stocks Exchange, and at lunchtime the place disgorged its occupants like an upturned waste bin. They filled the public houses which themselves filled the surrounding area like symbiotic fish, demanding beef steaks and ale and brandy and making as many deals there as they did in the Exchange itself.
The kaffeehaus was a dingy place filled with dark wood. In one corner, placed prominently, was a chalkboard with exchange rates for foreign currencies and the price of various commodities—furs, cotton, tobacco, silk. Once, this had been the preserve of the nouveau riche, who had come to ostentatiously drink expensive coffee filled with teaspoons of expensive sugar; now, like the surrounding taverns, it was a place of business for the merchant classes.
“And then they made a pun. Two puns,” Renata muttered. She had been careful not to give the men—boys, really, in spirit—the satisfaction of her ire. Instead she had simply rolled her eyes and left, biting down the fury which had filled her.
“What were the puns?” her half‑sister asked. She was a beautiful woman. Where Renata had inherited her mother’s paper‑pale skin, Amara had their father’s light brown colouring. She was a postgraduate student at the University of Sova, a talented linguist and secret pamphleteer, intelligent and headstrong and roguish. She fought off suitors daily—men and women alike—and affected to tire of it.
“Something about gills. One of them took out a mollusc and suggested the wretched creature had pulled a mussel.”
Amara put her hand over her mouth.
Renata squinted at her. “It’s not funny.”
“No,” Amara said, taking a long sip of coffee. “What utter beasts. What was the creature?”
Renata waved her off. “Some vivisectionist from the University had spliced a fi sh and a frog together. The thing cannot have lived for long after.”
“Still, not a bad likeness. For a mer‑man, I mean. I know you have your whole… thing going on, but they are a little bit ghastly, Ren.”
Renata set her teeth. “I deal with enough of that in the Imperial Office. I don’t want to deal with it with you.”
“Sorry,” Amara said, though she wasn’t.
Renata sighed. “All this bloody… war. War in the Kyarai, war with Casimir. Everyone’s idea of diplomacy is to threaten, to shoot, to bludgeon terms out of your enemy. Capitulation is the only acceptable outcome. And I look around the streets and no one even seems to be that bothered about it. Parades of soldiers down the Petran Highway, lists of medal awards in the newspapers, pamphlets—there’s a new row of fl ags on Aleksandra the Valiant Boulevard, have you seen it?”
Amara inclined her head.
“Just dozens of them tied to the lamps, all the different regimental banners. It’s vulgar. I remember a time when ‘blackcoat’ was an insult. When did the city become so… martial?”
“Since Zelenka Haugenate took the throne?”
“Oh, don’t get me started on her. Our glorious new Empress. It’s still extraordinary to me how the Senate just…” Renata snapped her fingers, “decided to reinstitute the monarchy.”
“I am absolutely not going to get you started,” Amara said impishly. She had heard this diatribe before, many times. “I told you I can put you in touch with the pacifists up in Pike’s Bend.”
“No, I told you. It’s a proscribed organisation. I’ll lose my job.”
Amara shrugged slowly. “Well then.”
“Well then what? Put up or shut up?”
“Goodness me, you are prickly today. All because of some absurd lark. Really, Ren, this is precisely what they were… angling for.”
“Amara!” Renata snapped, but her sister was so pleased with the pun she spent a good few moments in hearty, silent laughter, and eventually Renata found herself coaxed into laughing as well.
After they had both calmed down, Renata finished the last of her coffee. The sugar had settled at the bottom, the last mouthful tepid and much too sweet. “How are you, anyway?” she asked when her sister had recovered herself. “How is Father?”
Amara waved a hand dismissively. “Fine. He’s fine. Off to the south to search for gold in the Reenwound.”
Their father, a successful and eccentric Zyrahn prospector, had made his fortune in diamond mining in the western half of the Kyarai—the country of the wolfmen—and had supplied all of his many children—of whom Renata and Amara were the eldest—with generous funds to pursue their interests. Renata almost never saw him, especially since her mother had died.
“And is there anyone you are seeing?”
“Do you mean have I been successfully wooed?” Amara winked. “No. Everyone bores me. The men and women of the University are such a dull lot. What about you? How is Alistair?”
Renata thought of her putative beau, a young poet whom she had met in a public house in Creusgate several months before. The man was lovely, but much too intense, and she had quickly tired of him. The fact that she worked for the Sovan state, too, was a source of near‑endless argument. Sometimes it ended in lovemaking; more often it ended in resentful silence. Renata kept meaning to break it off, but she had been preoccupied, and their relationship had limped on like a dog with a broken leg.
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
“Oh dear. Who will be enough to tame the great Renata Rainer?” Amara said playfully. “Perhaps you could strap your legs up and learn to breathe underwater and marry a—”
“Oh, shut up,” Renata said, throwing her napkin at her sister. She looked around the kaffeehaus, at all the ruddy‑faced merchants talking loudly to one another. A member of the establishment was updating the commodities prices on the chalkboard, which had prompted a fresh round of loud, excited chatter. It made conversation practically impossible.
“Well, I should be getting back,” she half shouted.
Amara reached across the table and took Renata’s hand in her own. The levity had gone; concern was writ large on her features. “Are you all right, Ren?”
“Why do you ask?” Renata replied. Such questions always put her back up.
“You always seem so highly strung. Sensitive to the goings‑on of the world. I hate to think of those wretches in the Imperial Office making fun of you, especially given how hard you work.”
Amara’s sympathy came from a place of genuine affection, and so Renata made an effort to reciprocate her sincerity. Many made the mistake of thinking Amara a superficial creature.
“I’m afraid until someone discovers coal or iron or gold at the bottom of the Stygion Sea, the mer‑men will always be little more than a curiosity to the Empire. And that is in the best case.”
“Don’t the mer‑men have a thing about whales? I heard they boarded that whaling ship in the night. What was it called?” Amara snapped her fingers. “The Sophia Juras. Killed everyone on it.”
“That’s a silly rumour,” Renata lied.
Amara sighed. “Well. The important thing is you are all right. Do not spend your life thinking about mer‑men, please. Have you even met one yet?”
“The ambassador is preparing an expedition for next year.”
“Ren,” Amara said gently. “The ambassador has been ‘preparing an expedition’ for as long as you have worked there. You might as well have remained at the University with me.”
“I never had your talent for languages.”
“You must speak Loxica pretty fluently.”
Renata snorted. “It’s mostly sign language.”
Amara grinned. “Show me something. How do you say ‘Amara is the best sister a lady could hope for’?”
Renata considered the question, and after a moment’s pause performed a silly flourish followed by a middle finger.
Amara’s eyes widened, then she snorted so loudly she clapped her hand over her mouth, and the two of them fell about laughing again, so long and hard that by the end Renata was crying tears of mirth.
“Now I really do need to get back to the office,” she said once they had calmed down. Around them, obese traders in groaning jackets and breeches eyed them with a mixture of lust and contempt.
Amara sighed. “Let’s do lunch next week, yes? Let’s get oysters like we used to when you lived in that ghastly apartment near the Creusgate magazine.”
“I still live there.”
“Oh, for Nema’s sake,” Amara said.
“Goodbye Amara.”
Renata could still hear her sister laughing as she left the kaffeehaus.
The bankers had returned to their banks by the time she crossed Gooseneck Street again. She stopped outside the Board of Trade building, where a Grozodan baker offered her a sweet bun from his cart, and she bought two—one for Maruska—then made her way back across Admiralty Square and into the Imperial Office. She ducked in just as an afternoon shower started in earnest, sloughing away the dust and dirt from the Sovan streets, and made her way back down to the basement, where Maruska sat in his chair, snoring lightly. She pursed her lips.
“I got you a pastry,” she said loudly. The old ambassador didn’t startle awake; he simply opened his eyes slowly.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the Grozodan sweet bun from her. He examined it, though there was no hint of honey or ground walnuts and pistachios such as he might have bought in Qaresh. Still, he managed to eat it.
Renata watched the rain splatter down into the streets, sending dirty streaks down the office’s solitary window. When it was cloudy, the room became very dingy indeed.
“You aren’t going to ask me what the message was?” she said eventually.
“What was the message?” Maruska asked.
“It was a lampoon. Men from upstairs, making fun of me. Making fun of us.”
“It is as it has ever been.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?” she asked, trying to affect nonchalance. “To be a laughing stock? To be…” she searched the office, “a joke?”
“We are not a joke, Ms Rainer.”
“Yes, well.” She waved him off. “Sometimes it feels like it.” She thought of her sister’s words, words spoken with affection but which had hit on Renata’s private fears. “I’ve not even met a mer‑man.”
“To be a joke and to be perceived as a joke are two different things.”
In spite of her best efforts—she was a diplomat after all—she felt her anger briefly boil over. It was anger she should have spent on the men in Zobryv Gardens. “Spare me your mental gymnastics, Didi. It was humiliating.”
Maruska shifted in his chair. A moment later she heard the strike of a match, and the familiar smell of rosemary‑and‑sandalwood‑scented tobacco.
“Do you know what the problem with the Imperial Office is?” he asked.
“There is only one?”
“Have you naught left to learn?” Maruska asked sharply.
Renata forced herself to relax again. She had run into the curtain wall of Maruska’s patience. Many regretted surmounting it.
Maruska pointed the bit of his pipe at her. “The problem with the Imperial Office is that it views every race of people on this world as a problem to be solved. A dog to be brought to heel. It thinks in terms of administrative ledgers, accounts, mathematical equations, supply trains and tons of powder. It sees the Kasar and the pagans and the Casimirs and the mer‑men not as pieces in a common lot, but either as tools or as enemies. Does the gardener negotiate with the rake? Does the farmer entreat the ploughshare?”
“N—”
“Nay!” Maruska suddenly thundered, slamming a fist on the desktop. “He commands them! He bends them to his will, for they are naught but tools. And what of those he considers pests? The rats, the foxes, the wild dogs and pigs? They are killed! They are killed and they are skinned, and their meat and offal is cut out and cooked, and their bones are boiled for broth, and the blood is mixed into the soil for the plants or into the mortar for the bricks.” He clapped his hands together. “The farmer does not beg the vermin to leave, he does not barter with them, he does not offer them some of his corn in return that they leave the field be. Because the farmer has the ultimate power of life and death in his hands, though he does not think in those terms. The tools he will use, and the pests he will exterminate, and the land he will claim. They perceive us as a joke not because we simply seek to speak to the animals, but in their eyes, we have dressed the fox in a day suit. We have coiffed his fur and soothed his mange, and we have bespectacled him and given him a hat and shoes and a leather satchel filled with documents he cannot understand, and we have sat him at a table in our farmhouse and set out our terms. What are the terms, Miss Rainer?”
“Please leave the chickens be?”
Now Maruska laughed, a throaty sound enriched by years of smoke and brandy. “Precisely. Why are we here in this basement whilst our peers enjoy opulence? Because they see the Stygion as a dressed fox; something which should be shot or snared and clubbed, or otherwise cowed. Look at the way they use the Kasar in the northern Kyarai, not as equals, but as living weapons to claw and stab and shoot their compatriots in the south. Look at the way the gangs tour Sungate and round up wolfmen there to press into the Legions. Look how Sova seizes the lands in the east from the mountain tribesmen and turns them on each other.”
Renata collapsed into her chair opposite him. “Why do we bother? I mean, really, what is the point in all this?” She gestured to the stacks of waxed papers on the desk in front of her, messages to their Stygion counterparts a thousand miles away. They were little more than correspondents, maintaining a diplomatic channel because it was only slightly more expedient for the Sovans than to not do so. Certainly if Renata didn’t have a source of private funds, she would not be able to survive in her current role. The Imperial Office paid poverty wages because it traded on prestige. Perversely it meant that the place was overstuffed with the privately wealthy, scions of noble houses who were much too haughty and arrogant to make effective diplomatic negotiators. They were people who had never had to compromise, and, with the backing of the entire state apparatus, saw no reason to start now.
“Because no one else will,” Maruska said simply. “It is better to be a voice of dissent on the inside than on the outside. There is a saying in Qaresh. ‘There are two ways to blunt a blade; one is in its scabbard, the other is in the belly of your enemy.’”
“You Qareshians are very fond of your aphorisms, aren’t you?”
Maruska’s laugh rumbled throughout the office again. A moment later he stopped, cocking his head to one side; the thump of footsteps was once again sounding through the corridors. “Come; let us have one last game, and then I think we can be done for the afternoon.”
Renata blew out her lips as she listened. “The Kasar again.”
Maruska tutted. “Listen, that is the carpet in the Matria Paulaskas hallway. Listen how it softens the step.”
Renata smiled gamely, but the truth was she just wanted to go home now. “Fine; the Grozodans, then.”
“You are only saying that because you bought a Grozodan sweet bun earlier.”
Renata lapsed to silence. But once again they exchanged a look of surprise as the footsteps slapped against the stone steps leading down into the basement, and then across the undressed wooden floor of the corridor outside.
“Give me strength,” she muttered, pressing herself to her feet as there came another knock at the door. She yanked it open to see a different messenger this time, a lad in his teens who doffed his cap at the sight of her.
“Urgent message for the ambassador—”
“Oh, piss off,” she muttered.
The messenger said and did nothing for a moment, his face an expression of absolute bafflement.
“But it’s… from the Empre—”
“Yes, very good,” Renata muttered. She snatched her coat off its hook next to the door. “See you tomorrow, Didi,” she called over her shoulder, and, pushing past the messenger, made her way out of the building.
III
A Most Extraordinary Tale
“Truth is found at the bottom of the brandy glass and the top of the scaffold.” —SOVAN PROVERB
Creusgate Magazine
SOVA
Renata lived in a small rooftop apartment in the lee of the redundant Guelan Wall. It had once been fifty feet high; now, like much of the rest of the fortifications which surrounded the old city, it had been significantly reduced, its stone salvaged for other construction projects.
To the north of her was the Creusgate Magazine, an army logistics hub which looked out over the city’s western approaches, whilst to the east was the fi schmarkt, an enormous seafood market which filled the air with its brackish scent—reek, if she was feeling uncharitable—something that seemed somehow appropriate given her line of work. It was a noisy, bustling and relaxed precinct, filled with artists and poets united in their disdain for Imperial Sova and its expansionist politics.
She fetched a pail from the apartment and returned to the street pump for water—just in time, too, for a long queue was already forming behind her. She filled it quickly, paranoid that Alistair would see her in the street, and then returned upstairs. From the windows in her apartment she could see over the Guelan Wall to where a vast tangle of houses and residential apartment blocks stretched into the distance, filling the late‑afternoon sky with chimney smoke. There was something so… alluring about Sova. Many decried it as an overlarge, overstuffed city, one filled with cut‑throats and thieves, frequently the subject of riot and disease. But for Renata, there was nowhere else in the world she would rather be. Many of the things other people hated about it were the things she loved. It was a melting pot of civilisations, the trading nexus of the known world, a place where anyone could be and do anything.
She made herself a cup of tea and cut a thick slice of fruit bread, and sat in the drawing room, allowing her thoughts to wander. A part of her still detested those obnoxious man‑children from the Imperial Office who had made fun of her—her, and not the ambassador, whom they would not dare off end; and yet another part of her knew that there was a kernel of truth to their mockery. She had never seen a Stygion. She could speak and sign their language—Loxica—but had only ever laid eyes on sketches and drawings. She had been trained in their ways, but they were enigmatic and savage and reclusive, and surfaced only to attack Sovan whaling ships. Even Maruska did not know more than the scholars at the University. His practical knowledge was based on several fleeting diplomatic missions, and there was little scope to expand their relationship. The mer‑men were not a serious trading partner. The only thing they could really lay claim to were cuts of meat and bone from whales and sharks and herring dogs, and they did not want to give those up for any price. They prized pearls as much as humans did, but Sovan oystermen did not barter for those; they took them at will, and even clubbed and shot at the Stygion who tried to stop them.
No, there was something quite ridiculous about the Stygion Office. And that was what cut her. It was not that the other diplomats were cruel; it was that they were right.
She tossed the fruit bread back down on to the plate, disgusted with herself. It was much too early to turn in, otherwise she might have been tempted to simply go to sleep and write the rest of the day off as a failure. There was a pile of Alistair’s verse on the table, which she idly leafed through, but she found it embarrassing—much of it was about her—and overwrought, and couldn’t bring herself to read it. Instead she spent the balance of the day reading through some diplomatic treatise from the University, until even the candles in her apartment were not enough to stave off the gloom. Then she prepared herself for sleep, and climbed into bed.
She had barely closed her eyes when there came a violent pounding at the door. Such was her shock that she actually cried out; then, when the pounding continued, she climbed out of bed and put on a robe, and approached the front door.
“Who is it?” she demanded. She cast about the place for a makeshift weapon, and decided that one of the fi replace pokers would do should it come to it.
“Secretary Rainer!” a gruff voice shouted. “Open this door in the name of the Empress!”
“Who is it?” she snapped again, annoyed. “It’s after dark and I’m not expecting anyone.”
There was an audible sigh from beyond the threshold. Between them was a stout oak door with several locks; it would take a very determined intruder to gain access.
“Sergeant Engilram, ma’am. You were summoned this afternoon to attend Colonel Glaser of the 1st Sovan Legion.”
“I… what?”
“I need not tell you, ma’am, that in spite of your position, ignoring an Imperial summons is a crime.”
Renata swore loudly and yanked the door open. Before her was a burly sergeant, red‑ faced from his ascension to the top floor. But he was no ordinary soldier; he was from the 1st Sovan Legion, the so‑called “Imperial Life Guards”, the foremost of the élite Guards regiments headquartered in the capital. Even Renata, ignorant as she was of matters martial, recognised the man’s white coat with its royal‑blue facings.
“The letter for the ambassador? From the messenger boy? That was real?”
“I’m afraid so, ma’am. You have been expected for several hours now.”
“Nema Victoria,” Renata muttered, suddenly feeling ill. “I thought it was a joke.”
The sergeant’s features creased in confusion. “Why would you think that?”
Renata waved him off. “I need to get dressed,” she said.
“Quickly—” Engilram started, but she slammed the door in his face.
In spite of the late hour, the streets of the capital were still thronged with people. She followed Engilram outside, to where there was a collection of six or seven soldiers waiting by the street pump, each armed with a musket. In this part of the city, sandwiched between bohemian Creusgate and the academic quarter—for just across the Klaran Road was the University—they were a very unwelcome sight indeed. Those still out and about jeered and decried them as blackcoats and warmongers, though none were so bold as to test themselves against the soldiers’ bayonets.
Renata found herself being whisked through the dark, rain‑glossed streets. They travelled briskly down the Sofijan Highway past the fischmarkt, where sellers tried desperately to hawk the last of their stocks as their ice melted and the fi sh began to ripen in the warm night air; then they turned due east down the Creus Road. As they crossed over the main branch of the Sauber, the Imperial Palace hove into view. It was a colossal structure, an enormous obsidian‑dark pyramid rendered in old Saxan gothick, an architectural tradition which had been since supplanted by the baroque style. Sova had once been a place of magick, centuries before, and some of the enormous structures in the capital owed their size not to the wit of masons but to the arcane abilities of sorcerers. But magick had long since been outlawed, and only the Corps of Engineers had been made privy to certain thaumaturgical practices which enabled them to maintain the runes and sigils holding these colossi aloft.
The Imperial Life Guards were barracked by the Old East Battery at Sungate, in and amongst the great organs of state. Engilram took her quickly inside, and eventually to an office on the north‑eastern corner. He knocked quietly on the door, and heard from inside “Enter!” and they did.
Beyond the threshold was a large chamber, well appointed with all the martial bric‑a‑brac Renata would have expected: busts, oil paintings, the regimental colours. Sitting at a desk in front of the large windows—they afforded little in the way of view except for the facade of the Imperial Institute for the Scientific Arts—was Colonel Glaser himself.
“Aha,” he said as he laid eyes on her. He was perhaps fifty or so, white‑skinned, his hair thick but greying. He wore a more ostentatious version of the uniform Sergeant Engilram wore, and a less ostentatious version of Sergeant Engilram’s moustache. “The fabled secretary.”
Renata inclined her head. “Colonel Glaser,” she said, politely, professionally. “You must excuse me—”
“It is no matter. We already had the hen.” He gestured to Maruska, who was sitting in front of Glaser at the desk. “Now we have her egg.”
“And should the egg take a seat?” Renata asked gamely.
Glaser laughed, surprising himself. “Very good, madam. Please.” She took a seat as bade. She caught Maruska’s eye, and though he did not seem to be annoyed with her directly, something was clearly troubling him.
“I have already spoken to His Excellency here on the nature of our problem, and I am not in the habit of repeating myself,” Glaser said. Renata inclined her head; she believed him. “But since I now have the full brace of Stygion diplomats, I shall give you the précis ahead of the second part of our meeting.”
“Thank you, Colonel. I’m grateful,” Renata said, feeling her pulse quicken. She was about to add some humorous addendum, but it seemed that the mood had shifted, and levity was now inappropriate.
Glaser drew in a deep breath, and released it. “This morning, two men presented themselves to the Royal Petitioner. They were Neman monks of one sort or another, and most peculiar fellows. They insisted on meeting the Empress, which of course was impossible.”
“Of course.”
“Over the course of the day they found themselves in front of, among others, myself, as a member of a committee of the Privy Council. We were discussing the impending failure of our efforts in the northern Kyarai.” Glaser’s expression curdled into one of distaste. “It was decided, for reasons beyond my grasp, that we were the best placed to listen to their entreaties.”
“What did they say?” Renata asked.
“They gave a most extraordinary tale,” Glaser said. “They hail from an old fortress in the south called Zetland, in the very southernmost part of the Prinzpatriate of Reichsgard. I know the region, of course, and the fortress’s historic significance, but I’m not directly familiar with it.”
“It is just over the border from Qasr Qaresh,” Maruska said. “An old Sovan Templar fortress, at least partly in ruin.”
“And yet, apparently inhabited. The men belong to a religious sect called the ‘Bruta Sarkan’. A spiritual successor to the Templar order, but with no mandate and certainly no martial capability.”
“Surely the raison d’être of the Templars,” Renata said.
“Quite. Though precisely who they would make war on escapes me. After all, we are fi rm friends with the Qareshians, are we not, Ambassador?”
Maruska inclined his head. “I like to think so, Colonel.”
Glaser steepled his fingers. “Whatever the state of their lodgings, the monks brought with them some most unwelcome news, the first part of which was that, pursuant to their particular and peculiar brand of Nemanism, they practise the art of séance.”
Renata considered this carefully. “Séance is illegal,” she said eventually.
“It is,” Colonel Glaser agreed. “And for a very good reason.”
He did not need to say why. The attempt by a rogue army of Templars to overthrow the then Emperor using stolen magicks was a well‑known episode in Sova’s mediaeval history. The attack had been thwarted after a costly battle in the capital, and had resulted in the prohibition of all magickal practice—and particularly the arts of séance and necromancy—across the Empire. Now, two hundred years later, only a small cadre of individuals in the Corps of Engineers were permitted access to the ancient sorceries, to examine their scientific applications. As for any interaction with the afterlife, such was strictly forbidden.
“But they have been doing it nonetheless,” Renata said. Unlike most Sovans, who were unfamiliar with, and afraid of, the arcana, Renata was more ambivalent. The Stygion, after all, routinely practised magick.
“They have.”
“Are they to be shot?”
“They may yet be.”
“Yet they came,” Maruska said. “They came knowing that they could be executed, and informed you anyway. That surely speaks to the credibility of their claims.”
“And what precisely are their claims?” Renata asked.
“Well, now we get to the nub of it,” Glaser said. “For the last two hundred years, these monks have been conversing with the spirits of the dead, along with the other creatures of the afterlife—sprites, angels, demons, et cetera. I know not the taxonomy of these things, nor is it permitted for me to know.”
“But something has gone awry with the practice,” Maruska prompted.
“Indeed. The monks speak of an old prophecy known as the ‘Great Silence’. It certainly does not form part of the Nema Victorian orthodoxy that I am aware of.”
“It sounds like Conformism,” Renata said warily.
“For what it’s worth, I agree with you,” Glaser said. “I’m not sure the monks themselves see it in those terms, but it is all beside the point. The point is, this prophecy postulates that one day the afterlife will fall silent. The spirits, the angels and so on will all vanish.” He shrugged. “It is supposed to herald the End of Days.”
“Blimey,” Renata said.
“May I?” Maruska asked, gesturing to Glaser with his pipe.
“Yes, yes,” the colonel said, waving him away.
Maruska packed it, and Colonel Glaser pulled out his own pipe and did the same, and then leant forward and lit both of them with a match. Smoke quickly filled the chamber, and Glaser idly pushed one of the windows behind him open.
“What precisely is the Great Silence?” Renata asked.
“The monks do not know. What they do know is that up until a few weeks ago they were able to speak to the dead, and now they cannot. It has all… gone quiet.”
“Silent, even,” Maruska said.
Glaser looked at him pointedly. “Indeed.”
Renata thought a moment. “Well, that is certainly very interesting, Colonel. What I do not fully yet grasp is where His Excellency and I fit in to this.”
“That brings me neatly to the second part of this meeting,” Glaser said. “Excuse me a moment.”
He stood and walked over to a section of wall to the left, and pressed a concealed switch. A hidden doorway popped open, and Renata exchanged a brief glance with Maruska.
“Impressive,” she said quietly.
“I’ll say.”
Glaser returned a moment later with the two monks. One was older, perhaps the same age as Maruska, whilst the younger one was probably the same age as Renata—an amusing mirror‑image of the two of them. The older one was fatter, grey‑haired, and wore a white habit and surcoat embroidered with a black cross, whilst the younger was olive‑skinned and dark‑haired—likely Grozodan—and his clothes consisted of a simple dark brown robe. Both had tonsured hair and a diffident air about them—possibly the result of the death sentence they now faced.
“This is Brother Herschel,” Glaser said, gesturing to the older man, “and this is Brother Guillot.” Now he turned to the two diplomats. “This is His Excellency Didacus Maruska, and his deputy ambassador, Secretary Renata Rainer.” The monks, who seemed to be very much out of their depth, bowed low. Maruska and Renata inclined their heads in reciprocation.
“I have given them the skin of it,” Glaser said to Herschel and Guillot. “What we want to know now is what you need Stygion ambassadors for.”
For a moment it seemed as though neither man would say anything at all. They looked like a pair of nervous students who had been asked to give a presentation. Renata smiled in an encouraging way, and eventually Herschel said, “If you will indulge me, Colonel, it will be easier if I—”
“Just get on with it, man. We have indulged you this far.”
Herschel wilted, but nonetheless found his voice. “We have struggled to discover precisely what the Great Silence is,” he said, clearing his throat several times in successive efforts to speak louder. “Those volumes which would have been written on the subject are likely to have been lost in a fi re which gutted the library in Keraq some centuries ago.”
“Why don’t you tell us what it is you do know?” Glaser said with a hint of impatience.
“What we do know is that the Great Silence is either the extinction of every spiritual force in the afterlife, or a mass relocation to some deeper plane unreachable to us. Either of these eventualities suggests the interference of a third, uh, entity.”
“You are saying that they are either being killed by something or running away from something?” Renata asked.
“Precisely.”
“What are they running away from?” Glaser asked. “Or being killed by?”
“We do not know.”
“Then how have you arrived at this conclusion?”
“Because the spirits themselves have made no mention of any such abdication or upheaval. We must believe that their sudden extinguishment was born either of surprise or calamity—or indeed, both.”
“Why do you know about it?” Maruska asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, why do you have knowledge of this? And why did the spirits not know of it and prepare accordingly?”
“That’s an excellent question,” Glaser said, turning back to the monks.
Herschel looked uncomfortable. “You must understand, Excellency, that the Neman Creed is full of these sorts of prophecies. The Prophecies of Zabriel, for example, form an apocrypha which is explicitly rejected by the Victorian Orthodoxy.”
“So you are Conformists?” Renata asked.
“We are not Conformists. We are not religious at all, at least, not in that sense.”
“You are monks, though?”
“It is you called us monks. We do not refer to ourselves as such.”
“Let us not debate nomenclature,” Glaser said.
Herschel cleared his throat yet again. “In answer to your question, Excellency, I could point you in the direction of a dozen such prophecies. The older volumes of the Creed are full of them.”
“I see. And so, as each has failed to reach fruition, they have been disregarded accordingly,” Maruska said.
“Correct.”
“And you believe, in the event, erroneously.”
“Certainly in the present instance.”
“And—forgive the question—you are certain it is not your methods which are at fault?”
Herschel shook his head, though he seemed not the least bit off ended. “The rituals have remained the same for centuries. We are very adept at the practice. We have changed nothing.”
“Perhaps therein lies the issue?”
Again the man shook his head. “We do not believe that to be the case.”
“Have you considered the possibility that the spirits are no longer interested in speaking with you?” Renata asked. She kept her tone light, so as not to off end them.
Herschel actually chuckled. “Every time we conduct a séance, Madam Secretary, the difficulty is not in finding a willing participant, but in cutting through the clamour. We have never wanted for conversation.”
“What is it all in aid of?” Renata asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, why do you speak with them?” If indeed you do, she might have added.
“Would you not, given the opportunity?” Herschel asked gently. “The chance to speak to a deceased loved one, or a figure from ancient history, or an elemental being?”
There was a pause. Renata didn’t know what to think. She knew that the afterlife was a real place where one’s life essence travelled; the weight and breadth of historic record and the modern practice of magick—albeit in a limited form—was testament to that. And besides, she herself might have been a rare sight in temple, but she was a practising Neman. Her faith obliged her to believe in it, even if nothing else did.
Even so, it was all so far removed from her daily life that it felt too abstract to be compelling. It was like hearing about some catastrophe in a country on the other side of the world; she had no trouble in accepting the truth of it, but it was not something that would affect her daily dealings.
As though Herschel could read her thoughts, he said, “Colonel, please. I know that it all sounds far‑fetched to you…”
“Something of an understatement.”
“…but we would not have come here, knowing our lives would be forfeit, if we did not think it was a matter of the utmost urgency. This does not concern just the Bruta Sarkan; it concerns every man, woman and child on this earth, human and otherwise. What affects the afterlife inevitably affects the mortal plane.”
“Let us at least hear your proposal,” Renata said, heading off
Glaser, who looked as though he were about to shoot the pair.
“Of course,” Herschel said, sensing, probably correctly, that he had more of an ally in Renata than Glaser. “As we all know, there are several other practitioners of the magickal arts in the region. The Kasar, who have their Spiritsraad, and the Stygion, who have the Psychic Conclave.”
“I thought the Spiritsraad was a building,” Glaser said.
“It refers to both the temple and the congress of magickal practitioners within,” Herschel said.
For the first time since she arrived, Renata was beginning to form an idea of where this all might be heading.
“What magicks do the Stygion practise?” Glaser asked.
“A great many, Colonel,” Maruska said. “Selachomancy, channelling, séance, to name but a few. The Stygion are the most magickally gifted of all earthly races. It was through the Eye of the Sea, after all, that magick first entered the world.”
“You are talking about the epicentre of the Great Cataclysm,” Glaser said, rubbing his chin. “I’m trying to remember my lessons from temple school.”
“Precisely, Colonel,” Herschel said eagerly, sensing Glaser’s latent interest and trying to husband it. “The Great Cataclysm concerned the conjunction of the mortal plane and the afterlife, the point in time at which, thousands of years ago, magick came to our realm. And because it entered via the Eye of the Sea, the magick there was the strongest and most intense.”
“And it made the Stygion.”
“Right. And the Kasar. And dozens of other hybrid races besides, though of course, their bloodlines did not stabilise and they have not survived into the modern age.”
“Of course.”
“The Eye of the Sea, that crucial gateway, lies at the centre of the Iris Isles, many tens of fathoms below the surface. The Iris Isles are of course part of the Stygion Sea, and well within the Stygion borders.”
“Well, you need to be careful with that. I am not sure the Empire recognises the ‘Stygion borders’ such as they are claimed,” Glaser said, a warning note in his voice.
“It does not,” Maruska said tonelessly.
“Stygion‑controlled territory, then,” Herschel offered. “We shall make a diplomat of you yet,” Renata said, and they all shared a muted chuckle.
“So… what?” Glaser asked. “You want to use Sovan ambassadors to entreat the mer‑men to open the Eye?”
“Nema, no!” the monk erupted, making them all start.
“Bloody hell!” Glaser said angrily.
Herschel looked horrified. “I am sorry, Colonel, but—to be clear—the Eye of the Sea must remain closed for ever. It is the portal through which demonic entities would enter our realm and—”
“Yes, all right, I think we all get the picture,” Glaser muttered.
Herschel collected himself. “Colonel, I know that Sova requires you to reject these heresies, but I can assure you that these matters are as real as you and I.”
Glaser thought a moment. Just as Renata did not have the measure of her own feelings, so too did Glaser seem to be wrestling with his. For all he affected disdain for the monks and their story, it was clear he was grappling with how to proceed. If they would only give him a fig leaf, something that didn’t sound like lunacy, so that he could keep a straight face if questioned by a political rival on the subject.
“So it’s a fact‑finding mission, then? You wish to find out if the Stygion, as the foremost magickal practitioners in the world, have sensed anything awry, and you need the ambassador to do it?”
“Precisely that, Colonel,” Herschel said encouragingly. “Guillot here can speak Kasarsprek and so we have no need of a formal diplomatic legation to the Kyarai, but we do not know the Stygion at all, and nor does anyone else within the Bruta Sarkan. They are an enigmatic people.”
“The Kyarai is a war zone, Brother Herschel,” Colonel Glaser said pointedly. “If your plan is to visit the Spiritsraad in Port Talaka first—which it seems to be—you are very unlikely to make it before Casimir takes the capital. Even if you left presently, you would likely be arriving at the same time as the enemy. A day or two ahead, at most.”
“That is a risk we shall have to take, Colonel,” the monk said.
Glaser quirked an eyebrow. “Well. You do not want for courage, I will say that of you.”
“Believe me when I say, Colonel, that I am frightened: both of the enormity of our task and of the consequences of failure. But someone must do something. We have to do something.”
“Indeed,” Glaser said, now with a measure of respect. “We could use a few Herschels on the general staff , I daresay.”
The monk offered a weak smile. “The final point I would make is this: if I am wrong—and I pray that I am—then we have nothing to lose in the attempt.”
“Except the sum total of our diplomatic mission to the Stygion,” Glaser remarked.
“A scant forfeiture,” Maruska said, winking. Glaser snorted. “I would add, Colonel, that we have not mounted an expedition for some years now. Even if it transpires that there is nothing to this ‘Great Silence’ theory, the journey will not be without diplomatic value.”
“I agree,” Renata said. She was not particularly keen to travel with these strange monks; she was even less keen to accept the truth of their story, for to do so was to admit that the entire world was teetering on the brink of oblivion. But she was desperate to put her diplomatic training into practice. If this mission was the best current opportunity to do so, then she was going to take it.
“I do not doubt it,” Glaser said wryly. “I am more concerned with diverting men and matériel to escort you.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think—” Maruska began, but Glaser held up a hand.
“Mark this: if we are going to do it, Excellency, we are going to do it properly. Authorising this mission means accepting at least the possibility of the prophecy. And I do not go in for half‑measures.”
Maruska inclined his head tactfully. “Of course, Colonel.” There was another pause as Glaser thought again, though Renata no longer seriously considered that he would refuse.
“Let us for a moment assume I will indulge this request,” he said. “Who do we have in reserve? And what I mean by that is, what happens if the mission goes wrong and the pair of you are killed?”
“There is a man at the University who is well versed in all matters Stygion. We exchange notes frequently. He would be the natural choice to replace us,” Maruska said.
“And that is it?”
“He will have students, naturally. But the Stygion are not considered to be of great value to the Empire, and the diplomatic apparatus is scaled accordingly.”
“Well,” Glaser said thoughtfully, missing the pun. “Perhaps that is something we shall have to remedy.”
“Nothing would please me more, Colonel.”
Glaser sighed. “I must say, Brother Herschel, I do not know what to make of this. A part of me—and it is a sizeable part—thinks I should have you both shot. And yet…” He fell once again into a brief reverie. “And yet, there is some attraction to the argument that we have little to lose in the attempt. The risk of doing nothing does seem to me to be the greater.”
Both Herschel and his mute companion breathed out great sighs of relief. “Thank you, Colonel,” Herschel said.
“Do not thank me,” Glaser said. “It is likely I have just sent all of you to your deaths.” He turned to Maruska. “How soon can you be ready to leave?”
“I would say two days,” the ambassador replied.
“And you, Madam Secretary?”
“Two days,” she agreed, though she would have left there and then had it been necessary.
“Very well. I shall have my adjutant make the arrangements. I will be in touch.” The colonel wrote something down on a piece of paper in front of him, applied a dribble of wax, sealed it with his signet ring, and gave it to Herschel. “You two can quarter with me. This is my address. Go there now; my husband is called Velimir. Tell him I sent you.”
“H‑he will not mind?” Herschel asked.
“Oh, he has seen stranger things,” Glaser said off handedly.
“I doubt that,” Renata murmured under her breath. Maruska stifled a smile.
Glaser gestured to the door. “Right. All of you out, now. It is late, and saving the world is one of many things I have to attend to this evening.”
Blood once turned the wheels of empire. Now it is money.
A new age of exploration and innovation has dawned, and the Empire of the Wolf stands to take its place as the foremost power in the known world. Glory and riches await.
But dark days are coming. A mysterious plague has broken out in the pagan kingdoms to the north, while in the south, the Empire’s proxy war in the lands of the wolfmen is weeks away from total collapse.
Worse still is the message brought to the Empress by two heretic monks, who claim to have lost contact with the spirits of the afterlife. The monks believe this is the start of an ancient prophecy heralding the end of days—the Great Silence.
It falls to Renata Rainer, a low-ranking ambassador to an enigmatic and vicious race of mermen, to seek answers from those who still practice the arcane arts. But with the road south beset by war and the Empire on the brink of supernatural catastrophe, soon there may not be a world left to save…
