Prisoner of the Iron Tower (15 page)

Gavril paused for breath in his daily circuit and gazed up at the sky. It was spring, no doubt of it, even though there was no sign of leaf or flower, not even a weed pushing up through the courtyard cobbles. The sky high above was a delicate shade of blue, the color of speckled eggshells. The air felt soft and the fresh breeze smelled somehow . . . green.

“Keep running!” bawled his warder. “Your time’s nearly up. You’ve got three more circuits to complete!”

Gavril bit his lip. No point aggravating his warders and losing his paints. For now he would play their game. He began to run again, forcing his unwilling body to move.

It would take a long time to regain his agility. The long weeks of confinement and the heavy dosing with sedatives had slowed his whole system.

Must keep fit. Must keep alert. Must sweat the drugs out of my body.

“Time’s up!” It was not Onion-Breath today, but another he had nicknamed Lanky. Lanky was a tall, shambling man whose stooped frame gave no hint as to his considerable strength.

Gavril continued running.

“I said time’s up!” Lanky tossed Gavril the threadbare square of linen that served him as a towel.

Gavril caught the towel and wiped the sweat from his face. Then he bent over, gasping to regain his breath.

“You’re one of the lucky ones,” observed Lanky morosely. “You’ve got privileges. There’s some here as hasn’t been outside in years.”

“In years?” Gavril straightened up. “How so?”

“No friends in high places.”

Gavril cast a glance behind him as Lanky led him away. To be incarcerated here in the same cell year after year . . . He shivered in spite of the sweat dampening his body. He knew he only enjoyed this taste of fresh air because Eugene wanted something of him. Eventually Eugene would tire in his search for the Drakhaoul, and his privileges would be withdrawn. And he would be left to molder here forever.

“Clean yourself up!” Lanky ordered, pushing him into his cell.

A bowl of tepid washing-water stood on the table with his little ball of yellow asylum-issue soap beside it, “to last you half a year, so be sparing!”

“Where are my pictures?” He had left them in a pile on the table. Now they were gone.

The door clanged shut. Lanky had locked him in.

“My pictures!” he cried. He thudded his fists in fury against the iron door. “Where are they?”

They must have taken them while he was in the exercise yard. For what purpose? What could they learn from them? To anyone uninitiated in his family history, they would be meaningless. He was not at all certain he understood them himself.

But the very act of taking away the one thing that was significant to him was a violation. He had staunchly endured innumerable petty slights and humiliations since the life-sentence was imposed. Now he saw that, for all the so-called privileges, Eugene had ensured that the loss of his name meant the loss of his identity. His wishes counted for nothing. He was no one.

“Damn you, Eugene!” he yelled till his throat was raw. “Damn you to hell and all its torments!”

Director Baltzar handed the sheaf of drawings to the visitor.

“The man’s mind is deeply disturbed,” he said. “And yet he’s evidently an accomplished artist. What a tragedy. Perhaps we should try to persuade him to paint a still life . . . or some flowers?”

“So you do not subscribe to the view that this outpouring of violent and disturbing images is in some way therapeutic for a troubled mind?” inquired his visitor mildly.

“Indeed I do not!” Director Baltzar said with more vehemence than he had intended. “I fear it may encourage him to dwell more on such dark fantasies. It may feed the flames.”

“And his behavior?”

Baltzar sighed. “My warders report that he has been shouting and banging at his cell door for hours. I am reluctant, in all truth, to bring you to him while he is in such a volatile state.”

“You have reduced his medication, as requested?”

“Much against my better judgment, yes. But as your instructions come from the Emperor himself . . .” He ended with a shrug, and then wondered too late if he had acted presumptuously in expressing a contrary opinion to the Emperor’s special envoy.

“You are a medical man, Director. How do you interpret these drawings?”

Baltzar felt even more uncomfortable now. He sensed he was, in some way, being judged by his visitor. But in what respect? Surely not his medical achievements? His degrees—from several eminent universities—were displayed on the walls of his study. His dissertations on the disorders of the human mind, bound in brown vellum and tooled in gold, lay on the desk for all visitors to see and consult. Yet when he spoke, he found his mouth uncomfortably dry. He swallowed hard.

“I suspect they are the expression of some deep and unresolved conflict of the mind. These terrifying portrayals of great fanged snakes could be interpreted as his fear and resentment of authority.”

“Hm.” The visitor nodded, apparently satisfied with this interpretation, but Baltzar did not feel in any way reassured. “We have talked enough. Take me to him.”

“What, now?”

“Now.” The visitor’s pale eyes stared directly into his own.

Baltzar blinked. He had been about to say something, but his mind was utterly empty.

“Wh—what was I saying?”

“You were about to take me to Twenty-One,” said the visitor.

“Yes. Of course.” Baltzar rang a little bell to summon the warders on duty.

Gavril lay listlessly on his bed. He had lapsed into a daze, staring at the clouds endlessly drifting past his high window. Even blinking seemed an effort.

Why had he been deluding himself with these crazy dreams of escape? There was no escape from Arnskammar. He was confined here for life.

Now he wished he had died in the defense of Kastel Drakhaon, fighting side by side with his
druzhina
.

Footsteps echoed on the landing outside. He did not bother even to raise his head. What was the point?

Keys jangled. The locks creaked and the door swung inward.

“You have a visitor, Twenty-One.”

A visitor?
Gavril turned over, in spite of himself.

A wisp-haired, frail old man entered the cell. Behind him Lanky shuffled from foot to foot in the open doorway, awkward and ill at ease.

“You may go now,” the old man said.

“I’m not allowed to leave anyone alone with Twenty-One. Governor’s orders.”

“The governor’s orders are that you return to the ward-room. I will send for you when I need you.”

To Gavril’s surprise, Lanky nodded and shambled away, shutting the door behind him.

“Good-day to you, Lord Gavril,” said the visitor. The old man’s eyes gleamed like quicksilver in the dull light of the cell. Gavril found he could not look away. Now he saw that the old man’s frail appearance was only a shell, a carapace hiding a dazzling power-source from the everyday world. And that power, he sensed, was as cold and inhuman as a force of nature.

“Who are you?” he gasped.

“We have met once before, Drakhaon. Do you remember?”

Gavril shook his head.

“You broke through my defenses. No one has done that before. But then, you were so utterly determined to rescue your mother.”

“You were at Swanholm?” Nothing but a chaos of memories remained from that frenzied flight, when he had swooped down on the enemy’s stronghold to snatch Elysia from the Tielen firing party. When he could still fly . . .

“You owe your survival to the intervention of one individual. You were exhausted, your powers all but spent. If she had not begged me to stay my hand, you would not have left Swanholm alive.”

Gavril still stared at the visitor. His memory was fogged in mists. One moment alone of that day remained, lit with a horrible clarity.

A dark-haired young woman stares at him across the smoking, charred remains of Feodor Velemir, her eyes wide with revulsion and terror.

She knows him now for the daemon-monster he has become. She knows—

“Astasia. Was it Astasia?”

“You still do not know me?” the old man said, not answering his question. “My name is Linnaius. Kaspar Linnaius.”

“The Magus?” Elysia had warned him of the Magus’s powers. And now here he was, trapped in this little cell, with no means of escape and no one to defend him. It was as if he were stripped naked. “What do you want of me?” His shoulder blades grazed the wall. He had instinctively backed away, without even knowing he was doing so. But there was nowhere else to go.

“You are of considerably greater value to the Emperor alive than dead, Nagarian, I assure you. I am only here to ask you a few questions, that is all.” Slender fingers reached out to rest on his forehead, the back of his head.

Gavril shuddered at his touch. He felt as if his skin were brushed by dead, dried husks of insects. And then a little flare of Drakhaon pride, too long subdued by the physicians’ drugs, suddenly rekindled.
“Get out of my head.”

He felt the Magus’s fingertips snatched from his forehead as if singed.

“It is in your best interests to cooperate,” Linnaius said quietly.

“The Emperor has taken everything from me. Everything! Must you take the last of my sanity too?” And then he stopped as a tidal wave of sensations, images, feelings rushed through his mind. He gripped hold of his head in both hands, overwhelmed.

He saw the faces of his
druzhina,
eyes bitter at their betrayal, as one by one they went to surrender their weapons to the Tielen soldiers. He saw Elysia, distraught, her hands desperately outstretched as if she could tear him back from his captors. He saw Kiukiu turning to wave to him as her sleigh set out across the snowy moorlands. He heard his own voice confidently shouting,
“I will come for you. . . . We’ll be together again soon.”

“Ahh . . .” An aching moan of grief and loss welled up from deep inside him. He raised his head and stared at the Magus directly. “What have you done to me?”

“Unlocked your memory, that’s all. The sedative drugs had dulled your brain.”

And protected me from the torment of living with the knowledge of all I have lost.

“So did you find what the Emperor sent you here for?” He would not let himself be intimidated by Kaspar Linnaius, powerful though he knew him to be.

The Magus stared back at him a long time without answering.

“You spoke the truth to him, as you perceived it,” he said after a long while. “That I can verify.”

“Don’t speak to me in riddles. Tell me what you found.”

“Your Drakhaoul is indeed gone. But you are not entirely free, are you, Gavril Nagarian? It has left you a legacy of memories, spanning many human lifetimes . . . and maybe more, besides.”

“More?” Gavril felt a tremor of unease, even though the Magus’s diagnosis was ambiguously phrased.

“I cannot tell.” Linnaius’s pale eyes seemed to grow more translucent as Gavril gazed at him. Silver eyes—seer’s eyes—probing deep beneath the surface of the everyday world. Time slowed as he found himself unable to look away.

Dazzled, Gavril blinked.

And found he was alone in the cell. Alone—and filled with the anguish of bitterly remembered loss.

Why had Linnaius committed this cruel act? What had he wanted him to remember? And how would he use it against him—and all he held dear?

CHAPTER
12

“What do you make of these, highness?” Linnaius gestured to a sheaf of watercolors that spilled out from an open portfolio, their imagery dark-drenched with blood and shadows. “They are all the work of Gavril Nagarian.”

Eugene lifted sheet after sheet from the desk. His eyes ached from looking at the vivid swirls of violent color as he tried to make some sense of the chaotic images of nightmare and madness.

“So this is what Drakhaoul-possession does to a man’s mind,” he murmured. Snakes coiled and writhed around a tall archway; glittering daemon-eyes glowered from the smoke-wreathed cone of an erupting volcano. “The incoherent daubings of a madman.” He cast them down on the desk. “There’s nothing of use to us here, Linnaius.”

“On the contrary.” Linnaius drifted closer to the Emperor and, with one spindle finger, began to outline certain images. “We see here an island—or isthmus—dominated by a single volcano. This crescent-shaped group of stars in the sky looks more than a little like the constellation we call the Sickle in Francia. And look, highness, at this gateway. It stands within an ancient temple, a portal enwreathed in winged serpents, daemons or minor gods. One crowned serpent dominates the gate and in its eye socket burns a sacred flame, red as volcanic fire.”

“You think these images are clues to the daemon’s origins?”

The Magus raised one gossamer eyebrow. “I am certain that Gavril Nagarian knows more than he has revealed in these paintings. He resisted my attempt to probe his mind with considerable force.”

Eugene picked up the watercolor and stared at it, tilting it from side to side, trying to make better sense of it.

“Then if he will not talk to us . . . he might open his heart to a friend?”

“There was one I glimpsed close to his heart—before he countered my intrusion. A young woman in Azhkendir. The name I caught was ‘Kiukiu.’ ”

“Kiukiu? That’s a woman’s name?”

“Azhkendi names can sound crude to more refined sensibilities,” said Linnaius fastidiously.

“Let’s contact the garrison commander in Azhkendir by Vox Aethyria and see if he can find anyone of that name.”

Linnaius was looking at him, his pale eyes veiled. Eugene sighed.

“You disapprove of my plan.”

“I merely ask your imperial highness to consider what your true motives are.”

“You know—” Eugene checked himself, unwilling to speak his darkest obsession aloud. “You know my wishes on that subject.”

“And you know my advice, highness.”

“But if it is true that the Drakhaoul can heal its host . . . Look at me, Linnaius.” Eugene gestured with his burned hand to his damaged face. “Is it any wonder Astasia still shrinks from me?”

“Highness,” Linnaius said, the slightest glimmer of a smile illuminating his pale eyes, “we both know that it is not only the Drakhaoul’s healing powers you desire.”

Now that Linnaius had called his bluff, Eugene felt a certain relief. He could speak freely.

“How can I keep the empire together if others wield greater power?”

A frown passed as fleetingly as a distant cloud across the Magus’s face.

“Ask yourself, highness. If the Drakhaoul’s power is so great, why are the Nagarians not rulers of the world?”

It was a question that had kept Eugene awake at nights.
“Unnatural lusts and desires . . .”
Gavril Nagarian had said.

“There is always a price to be paid,” the Magus said, as if reading his thoughts.

Kaspar Linnaius threw a veil of concealing shadowsilk over his sky craft. He had deflated the canvas balloon sail, wrapped it up, and placed it in the wooden hull. No one would notice it now in the shadowy forest glade; a passing monk or charcoal-burner would see nothing but the lichened trunks of the great firs of Kerjhenezh.

He set out to walk the last quarter-mile to the monastery. His progress was slow; today he felt the damp of spring rain in his bones. He would need to concoct another phial of the life-preserving elixir that sustained him.

At last the whitewashed walls of the Monastery of Saint Sergius could be glimpsed ahead through the trees.

He passed fishponds, murkily green and still, and then came to an orchard of apple trees, their branches covered with a snowfall of blossoms. At the far end of the orchard he could see bee skeps tended by an elderly monk.

“Good-day to you, Brother Beekeeper. Where can I find the abbot?”

The white-bearded monk replaced the lid on the skep and straightened slowly.

So the damp is affecting your old bones too, Brother,
Linnaius thought.
I’d offer you a draught of my elixir—but if you knew what went into its preparation, you’d be sure to refuse.

“He’s in his study; I’ll take you to him. . . .”

“You’ll understand, Magister Linnaius,” said Abbot Yephimy, “that the brothers and I permit only the most devout and learned of scholars access to our precious archive.” He gazed severely at Linnaius, who sensed he was being assessed and found wanting. “But since you come on the Emperor’s business, I cannot deny you. Though I must insist you wear these archivist’s gloves at all times when you handle the ancient parchments.”

“Thank you, Abbot.” Linnaius took the thin, white silk gloves and eased them onto his gnarled fingers. “The Emperor was confident that you would help in our researches.”

“Please follow me.”

Yephimy led Linnaius into the monastery library. It had a deep barrel-vaulted roof, with a gallery beneath lined with bound volumes. On the ground floor several of the monks were busy copying manuscripts, sitting at high, sloping desks surrounded by pots of ink and pens. Each desk was placed in a window embrasure to take advantage of the natural light of day, which was filtered by diamond-paned glass. Some of the copyists glanced up as they walked quietly past, and nodded to the abbot. The only sound was the scratching of nibs and the occasional dry cough.

At the farthest end of the library was a little nail-studded door; unlocking it, the abbot showed Linnaius into a room so small it was scarcely bigger than a monk’s cell. No windows let in the daylight here; Yephimy used a taper to light the lanterns.

Every book on the dark-stained shelves was chained. And every book was an ancient volume, the leather bindings faded and stained. Yephimy selected one bound in dark leather, red as dried blood, and laid it on the desk with a clinking of the chain that secured it.

“I think this is what you’re looking for, Magus,” he said. “I believe this volume is unique. The only surviving copy, and we hold it here at Saint Sergius.”

Linnaius waited until the abbot had withdrawn and closed the door before lifting his white-gloved hands to the precious book.

This hand-scribed copy of the Rossiyan Chronicles, entitled
The Glorious Life and Martyr’s Death of the Blessed Serzhei of Kerjhenezh
was quite unlike any of the others he had researched so far. For one, it was written in the obscure Old Church Azhkendi, not the common tongue, and it would take all his considerable philological skills to make sense of the ancient language:

And so it came to pass in the eleventh year of the glorious reign of Artamon the Great that Volkhar, the fifth and youngest son of the Emperor, was shipwrecked off the southern coast of Djihan-Djihar and thought to have drowned. The Emperor and all his court mourned the young prince for three months, and none were seen to grieve more than his elder brothers—although it had been whispered by malicious tongues that, being jealous of Artamon’s fondness for Volkhar, they had caused his ship to founder.

But a year almost to the day that the prince’s ship went down, a merchantman put into port at Mirom and among its passengers was none other than Prince Volkhar. The Great Artamon ordered a week of celebrations to be held throughout his empire in honor of the prince’s return. And he was even more delighted when Volkhar presented his father with a magnificent ruby as large as a goose egg, which he had discovered during his travels.

The Emperor showered the young prince with so many favors that his brothers looked on him with suspicion, fearing he would supplant them in their father’s affections.

Such was the envy of the older princes that they fell to bitter feuding among themselves. In his despair and fury, Emperor Artamon declared the ruby must be accursed and bade Prince Volkhar return it whence he had found it.

The prince set out to do his father’s bidding. But his jealous brothers waylaid him and took the stone from him by force . . .

Linnaius read on, turning the leathery pages with care. Thus far he had not seen any great variation from the other versions of the Rossiyan Chronicles he had consulted. The warlike exploits of Artamon were enumerated. The violent feuding between the princes was described in stilted archaic terms. And then the text reverted to the life of Saint Sergius, which the title had promised. After pages of pious deeds, Linnaius began to wonder if this manuscript would offer any new insights after all.

Then the history of Archimandrite Sergius seemed to leap forward suddenly:

And so the Blessed Serzhei wrestled with the daemons all that night and day. At last, feeling his strength waning, he called in his mortal agony upon the heavenly warriors
whose names must not be uttered except by the pure of heart.
Armed with the might of the Righteous Ones, Serzhei banished the daemons from Rossiya, and bound them in a place of torment for all eternity. Yet there was one who still defied him and all the hosts of heaven.

Linnaius leaned closer. “Ah,” he said softly. “Just as I suspected.”

A secret text had been hidden behind the intricately hand-scribed words. He was well-practiced in prizing ancient scholars’ secrets from arcane manuscripts, but it gave him a special satisfaction to unravel this one, which had been so cunningly concealed.

Some hidden texts could only be read by moonlight, others were revealed by a sudden shaft of lightning. Others still required the concocting of alchymical solutions that, when applied with the greatest care to the vellum, would force them to disclose their secrets—although one had to be careful that they did not also release a breath of lethal poison at the same time, to ensure that their innermost treasures were never revealed.

Yet this incunabulum was different. It was embedded within the words themselves, like a cypher. Linnaius had only to apply a sprinkling of mirror-dust (an old mages’ trick) and the hidden text appeared, glimmering in the lamplight.

And as Linnaius leaned closer, he thought he heard a far-distant murmur of deep voices that sent a shiver through his body. It was a curse and a very powerful one too; centuries after it had been pronounced, the resonances still lingered, a warning to the unwary:

“Seven. They were Seven, the Dark Angels of Destruction.

“Accursed be the barbarous priests of Ty Nagar who first summoned these dread warriors to do their bidding. And thrice accursed be the sons of Artamon who sought the powers of the Seven for their own selfish ends and brought down their father’s mighty empire.

“And blessed be Serzhei of Kerjhenezh, who called upon the Heavenly Guardians to help defeat the evil ones. With his holy staff, he bound them until the very end of time.

“Accursed be he who seeks to release them from their eternal imprisonment.”

But now, to Linnaius’s surprise—and he had thought that nothing could surprise him still—what looked unmistakably like the contours of a map, glowed faintly beneath the text.

Little phosphorescent stars appeared as the map slowly revealed itself. And brighter than the rest glimmered six stars of cobalt-blue.

Linnaius, entranced by the sorcerous artistry of the device, realized that he was looking at a chart of the heavens.

He began to sketch furiously, trying to set down as accurately as he could the position of each star. But fast as he worked, the map faded faster, almost as if it had guessed his intent.

Soon, to his frustration, it vanished, hidden once again behind the chronicles of Serzhei’s life. And even though he sprinkled more precious mirror-dust onto the manuscript, nothing happened.

He looked at his hasty sketch. The chart he had copied had been drawn centuries ago; there was little to suggest any familiar constellations. Except that the six blue stars looked remarkably similar to the Silver Sickle.

He leafed on through the manuscript, doubly wary now, in case it concealed some powerful ward to protect its contents. But there was no further hint of thaumaturgy until he came to the final page. Here a laconic motto concluded the life of the saint:

Though death stills my earthly voice, through her songs will I tell my tale to those yet unborn.

The first letter of the motto was illuminated with the most exquisite draftsmanship. It showed a woman seated, playing a many-stringed zither. A dark doorway yawned behind her, and emanating from the doorway the illuminator had drawn insubstantial shapes, some with human faces and weirdly beautiful, others grotesque and frightening: death-daemons whose hollow eyes and mouths were contorted into writhing grimaces of pain and terror.