Excerpt

Prologue

The seed of darkness is in the ground,

Watered by years of pain and rain,

And stroked by the tresses of blinded Night.

—The Twilight Emperor by Ushald Drusarik, Act 1, Sc 2

The high-walled, grassy courtyard of the Sejeend Imperial Academy's eastern cloister was smothered in late spring blossom from the four spiraleaf trees which dominated the square lawn. A flock of greenwings trilled and swooped on the gusts of a breeze which blew down into the cloister and stirred up swirls of pale blue and yellow blossom. A door opened in the east wall of the main building, under the sheltered cloister walkway, and a slender man emerged. His dun leather skullcap and ankle-length black cloak marked him as one of the Academy's clerks. Pale brown hair was tucked under the caps edge while cold, grey eyes in a narrow, pinched face regarded the chirping, swooping greenwings with disdain. Locking the door behind him, the clerk turned and stalked across the blossom-strewn lawn, his thin-lipped mouth taking on a bleak smile as he saw the crownhawk that was relentlessly chasing the greenwings.

The eastern portal was a pair of tall, iron gates guarded by four masked sentries armed with bucklers and maces. Their iron shields and bronze masks bore the crest of the Imperial Academy, a book and a crown, as did the seal he wore prominently on a chain about his neck. But still the sentries squinted at it for long moments before grudgingly allowing him to pass. Seething inwardly, the clerk said nothing as he hurried out to the stone steps that curved down one side of the wooded hill on which the academy had been built.

Statues marked where sidepaths wound off into the pocket gardens and arbour that had been sculpted amid the dense woods by gardeners past and present. Here, a black granite Mazaret stared grimly from beneath a spreading torwood tree while further on a Queen Alael in white marble sat enthroned on a low plinth, her legs and midriff entwined by wallthorn. The clerk just scowled and hastened onwards.

At the foot of the steps was a high stone wall and a heavy wooden door. Being daylight it was unlocked and old hinges squeaked as he tugged it open and stepped out into a tree-lined, cobbled street. A steady traffic of carriages, pedestrians and the occasional sedan was passing to and fro along it. The clerks face was impassive as he made his way determinedly over to the other side where a busy bridge spanned a deep, leafy gully. There, a graveled path diverged from the road and sloped down into the wooded gully, following it north towards the center of Sejeend. The clerk paused to glance over his shoulder, a hard suspicious look, then hastened down the path.

The steady rushing sound of the river Kala filled the tree-shaded air, mingling with birdsong and the chatter of voices. People sat at the table of small alehouses that had been built into the steep sides of the gully. Children dashed after pets or each other while kulesti players went from table to table — the clerk did his best to avoid them all as he continued northward.

Formed by the Kala across many centuries, the mouth of the gully was a steep-sided notch in the face of the hundred-and-fifty foot cliffs that towered over the city of Sejeend. Once it had been blocked by an ancient, fortified wall from before the Khatrimantine imperium — the clerk could see the ruined remains of all the way up either side, massive blocks half-buried by vegetation. A large, moss-burdened piece of masonry with a curved underside jutted over the path, either side of it carved with bear-like shapes. The clerk glanced up at it without pause as he left the path to cross the river by a low, wooden footbridge. Shafts of sunlight cut through the leafy canopy of huge agathons, turning the Kala's running waters to flowing, sparkling crystal, making insects into glowing motes. The clerk entered one of the slanting sunbeams and was dazzled for a second before rejoining the shadows on the other side.

His pace was quicker now, bootheels knocking on the wooden riverside walkway as he followed it out into the city. Four- and five-storey buildings began where the river disappeared beneath a horse-ornamented stone bridge, the last sight of it before it re-emerged somewhere near the harbour. The clerks course then took him westward along a narrow street, between a row of opulent townhouses, abodes of the rich, and the high wall of a burial grove. The clerk rigidly ignored the guards watching from some of the townhouse balconies, instead gravely bowing his head as he strode through the groves arched entrance.

Sheltered by its enclosing wall, the grove was made still more shady by several overspreading torwood trees, each burdened with loops and coils of sweet-scented litrilu blooms. Devotional chimes tinkled amid the lower branches while a few solitary figures in mourning robes tended some of the gravestones. The grove was a long, narrow strip of ground running along the foot of the great cliff, widening westward till it stopped at the pale stone of the White Keep, domicile of the one of the city's High Stewards. While most gravestones were the size and shape of a small shield, or a figurine atop a short pillar, a few tombs were larger receptacles fashioned to resemble temples or ships. All of these were built into or near the foot of the cliff and it was towards one of them that the clerk now made his way.

It was the sepulchre of a military man, his resting place a great piece of granite carved in the likeness of an archaic, palisaded barracks, with stern-looking, sword-grasping guards at each corner. The clerk squeezed past a tall bush which concealed the gap between the tomb and the cliff, then crouched down and felt around a stone in the tomb's base. A moment later it was removed and he lifted out a small but weighty leather pouch. Replacing the brick, he straightened and turned to face the cliff, a rock face patched with lichen and sprouting tiny plants and grassy tuffs from its many cracks. He studied it for a moment, then smiled and spoke a word.