Well, what did it matter? He wrenched his mind away from Rena and forced himself to concentrate on what the Lady Asea might want. She was, after all, the most dangerous person he had ever met.
Chapter Nine
Asea had placed her tent on the hill where the rest of the Terrarchs had pitched theirs, but hers was slightly apart, in the space between the land used by the officers and the army’s sorcerers. There was a clear area all around, as it were being shunned even by other Terrarchs.
The tent was the same sorcerous self-erecting structure she had used on the trek to Deep Achenar. Just the sight of it filled Rik with foreboding. That was an adventure that had not turned out well. It had led to the death of his closest friend and an encounter with an ancient demon god. They had been lucky to get out of Achenar with their lives.
Rik felt as if unseen eyes were watching him, which perhaps they were. The Magisters of the army had most likely placed warding spells on the area, and there were sentries among the tents to make sure nothing untoward happened to the High Command while they slept.
Karim gestured for him to wait and disappeared inside the tent. A moment later, he reappeared and held the tent flap open, ushering Rik inside. As the youth stepped inside he felt as if he were passing through an invisible barrier. It was much quieter within than without. The night sounds of the camp were all but inaudible. Here was a subtle magic, he thought.
The tent’s interior was a small, separate world of luxury. Thick carpets from the southern lands covered the floor. A glowstone set on a rune-marked brass tripod provided light and a little heat. Incense rose from small stands in each corner. Lady Asea sat in a corner on a folding chair reading a book; in front of her was a small portable table. On it stood a silver tea service and cups. She looked up as he entered. In the shadows, her inhuman face had a sinister loveliness.
“You wanted to see me, milady?” Rik said. He knew it was not his place to speak first, but he was in a mood to test things.
“Yes, Rik, I do. There is much that we should talk about and we can do it here without eavesdroppers. The spells that keep the noise out also keep our words unheard by any but us.”
“Is such secrecy necessary, milady? I am but a common soldier.”
“I am rather afraid it is, Rik, and there is no need to call me milady, at least here in private.”
“Thank you, milady.”
“I have not forgotten about you, Rik, while I was away. Quite the contrary, I have been looking into your background. I’ve been to Sorrow among other places.”
“I had not realised my past was that important.”
“It is good that you did not. I fear you might have drawn unwelcome attention to yourself if you did.”
“What do you mean?”
“All in good time. This is a story best told with all the events in their proper order.”
Rik said nothing. If she was determined to be mysterious there was nothing he could do about it.
She gestured for him to take a seat and indicated that he should help himself to some tea. He sat but he did not drink. He studied her face. Lady Asea was said to be over two thousand years old but there was no trace of age in her features, no lines, no coarsening of the skin. There was no real sign of it in her eyes, which were larger than a mortals, and somehow inhuman, although he could not put his finger on exactly why. Perhaps the pupils were slightly bigger; perhaps the iris was flecked in a subtle way. She did not seem discomposed by his scrutiny, but returned it just as levelly.
“I visited the Temple Orphanage on Rose Street,” she said. “A depressing place.”
Just the words brought the memories back with feverish intensity. The gloomy corridors, the cobwebs in high places, the musty smell forever at war with the reek of cabbage cooking, the dimness and the sounds of children crying, and the endless chanting of joyless prayers.
“I always found it so,” he said.
“I am not surprised. The ratepayers of Sorrow are not overly generous in their support of the unfortunate. But that need not concern us here. What should concern us is that I found your name and your mother’s on the Temple register. And I talked to the Master in charge”
“Pternius?” His image flickered through Rik’s mind, a tall, doleful looking Terrarch, not cruel like some of the Temple masters, just disappointed as if he had expected better from life and not found it.
“The same. He remembered a boy called Rik, who ran away when he was eight along with a boy called Leon. He also remembered the night when your mother was brought in. The Temple is not just an orphanage, it’s an almshouse and a hospital for the poor.”
Rik had been too little to really understand that when he had lived there, but his memories of the place confirmed this to his adult understanding. He remembered the chambers with the sick and the mad and the dying, and the priests constantly coming and going, and the prayers, always the prayers.
“He remembered my mother?”
“Yes, he did. It was a difficult birth and there was something of a scandal. Poor Pternius seemed quite frightened. There was a cover up.”
Rik looked at her sharply. Her expression had not changed. It was still calm but somehow there was an intensity in her voice that had not been there before.
“A cover up.”
“Yes. The poor girl was terrified and babbling about all sorts of things. She spoke of dark sorcery, of thanatomancy and old forbidden rituals.”
“Thanatomancy?”
“A peculiarly vile form of dark magic,” said Asea. “Vampiric, forbidden on pain of death even to Terrarchs.”
“My mother knew about this?”
“She described it. Pternius reported it to the Magistrate. He was told to keep quiet, that the matter was already under investigation.”
“Was it?”
“The District Magistrate then was called Areoc. He has left Sorrow. I have instigated an effort to track him down.”
“So you are no closer to knowing what happened.”
“I found some of Areoc’s constables from that time. They were humans, mostly old men now. They talked. There had been an investigation. A woman called Ilara, the same name your mother gave Pternius, had reported a killing that looked suspiciously like a thanatomantic sacrifice eight months previously. She answered to the description of your mother that Pternius gave me.”
A strange feeling pressed down on Rik, as they discussed this woman he had never known, his mother.
“You know what my mother looked like? Tell me?” It came out sounding oddly eager and pathetic. What might have been sympathy flickered across Asea’s face.
“A young woman not much older than you are now, about 20, tall, good looking, black hair, a mole on her neck roughly where you have one. Not very well educated, a prostitute the constables thought.” Rik tried to picture this stranger and found he could not. He had half-hoped that some vague primordial memory would be stirred but nothing came.
“So young? Do you think she might still be alive?” Asea shook her head.
“She died about a month after giving birth to you. Murdered, the constable said. Same way as in the killing she had reported, same way as she babbled to the midwives about, the ritual of the Black Blade.”
“The Black Blade?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Believe me, I do.”
“The victim is gutted while still alive, tortured with small hooks attached to the sorcerer by enchanted wires. He devours her soul as she passes and feeds on the energy.”
“Devours her soul?” Rik was stunned and angry and sad all at once.
“It gives the sorcerer energy, prolongs their life, rejuvenates them.”
“It was a human who did this then,” said Rik. “I mean no Terrarch would need to do that. You don’t age.”
Asea shook her head. The look she gave him carried a complex mix of emotions. “You have a lot to learn, Rik. There are many, many reasons why a Terrarch would do this. In this place we do age, just much more slowly than you do.”