‘More than ever,’ said Atharva with a nod as Severian emerged from the shadows with a weapon held at his shoulder.

‘Good enough,’ said Tagore, lifting the weapon as though seeing it for the first time.

Severian turned his gun around in his hands and said, ‘You know what these weapons are, who they were made for?’

‘Yes,’ replied Atharva. ‘I do.’

‘I heard they were dead,’ said Tagore. ‘I thought they all died in the last battle of Unity.’

‘So history tells us, but apparently Terra holds its own secrets,’ said Atharva, staring at the thin wisp of fumes drifting from the hissing patch of ground where Ghota had spat.

‘History can wait,’ said Severian. ‘Our hunters will not, and this will draw them to us like moths to a flame.’

‘What about Gythua and Kiron?’ asked Subha. ‘We can’t just leave them here like this.’

Atharva turned to Antioch. ‘Do you have any suggestions, chirurgeon?’

‘I can’t keep them,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’m in enough trouble as it is.’

‘No, but as chirurgeon in a place like this, you must be aware of places where dead bodies can be taken.’

Antioch looked up, and whatever caustic reply was forming on his lips remained unspoken as he saw the deadly earnestness in Atharva’s eyes.

‘Best you can do is to take them to the Temple of Woe,’ he said. ‘There’s an incinerator there if you don’t want the bodies picked clean by daybreak.’

‘The Temple of Woe?’ asked Atharva. ‘What is that?’

Antioch shrugged. ‘A place where folk that don’t want their dead left to rot take their bodies. They say it’s run by a priest, if you can believe that. I hear he’s some madman who lost his mind and thinks that death is something you can appease with prayers.’

‘And how would we find this place?’

‘It’s a few kilometres east of here, built into the foot of the scarp you can see over the roofs there. You can’t miss it, there’s dozens of statues carved into its walls. Leave your friends at the feet of the Vacant Angel, and they’ll be done right.’

Atharva’s psychic senses flared at Antioch’s words, and the memory of his recurring vision returned with all the clarity of a lucid dream.

A haunted mausoleum, a stalking wolf and the towering statue of a faceless angel…

NINETEEN

Enemy Emperor

Night is Falling

Execution

KAI FELT WARMTH on his face and a cool breeze caressed his skin with fragrances of glittering oceans, long grasses and exotic spices designed to inflame the senses. He wanted to open his eyes, but some lingering anxiety made him keep them shut for fear that this precious moment of peace might be snatched away from him.

He knew he was dreaming, and the realisation of that did not worry him unduly. The life he had left in the waking world was one of pain and fear, emotions he did not have face in this state of limbo. Kai stretched out his senses, hearing the soft sighing of water on a beach, the rustle of wind through high treetops and the emptiness of space that can only be felt in the greatest wildernesses.

‘Are you going to make your move, Kai?’ asked a voice that came from right in front of him. He knew the speaker instantly: the golden figure he had pursued through the marble cloisters of Arzashkun. Hesitantly, he opened his eyes, surprised for some reason that he could do so.

He sat on a wooden stool before a polished regicide board on the shores of the lake beyond Arzashkun’s walls. The game was underway, and the silver pieces were arranged before Kai, the onyx ones laid out before a tall figure clad in long robes of deepest black. His opponent’s face was hooded, but a pair of golden eyes glittered deep in the blackness within. Embroidered words in fine black thread were stitched into every seam and fold of the fuliginous robes, but Kai couldn’t read them, and gave up trying when the figure spoke again.

‘You have come a long way since last we spoke.’

‘Why am I here?’ asked Kai.

‘To play a game.’

‘The game’s already begun,’ pointed out Kai.

‘I know. Few of us are granted the privilege of being present for the beginning of events that shape our lives. One must look at the board one is presented with and make of it what you can. For example, what do you see of my position?’

‘I’m not much of an expert on regicide,’ admitted Kai, as his opponent pulled back his hood to reveal a face that shimmered in the haze of sunlight that danced through the waving leaves of this oasis. It was a kindly face, a paternal one, yet there was a core of something indefinable, or perhaps undefined, behind that mask.

‘But you know the game?’

Kai nodded. ‘The Choirmaster made us play it,’ he said. ‘Something about making us appreciate the value of taking the proper time to make a decision.’

‘He is a wise man, Nemo Zhi-Meng.’

‘You know him?’

‘Of course, but look at the game,’ insisted his opponent. ‘Tell me what you see.’

Kai scanned the board, seeing that a number of the pieces were hooded, making it impossible to ascertain their loyalty. From what he understood of the game’s complexities, it appeared there could only be one outcome.

‘I think you’re losing,’ said Kai.

‘So it would appear,’ agreed the figure, drawing the hood from one of the pieces, ‘but appearances can be deceptive.’

The revealed piece was a Warrior, one of nine remaining to onyx, rendered as an ancient soldier in gleaming battle plate.

‘One of yours,’ said Kai.

‘Then make your move.’

Kai saw the revealed piece had been pushed forward as part of an aggressive opening, but it had been left unsupported by its fellows. Kai moved his Divinitarch from a nearby square and took the piece, placing it on the side of the board.

‘Did you mean to sacrifice your Warrior?’ asked Kai.

‘A good sacrifice is a move that is not necessarily sound, but which leaves your opponent dazed and confused,’ said the figure.

‘I was told that it is always better to sacrifice your opponent’s pieces.’

‘In most cases, I would agree, but real sacrifice involves a radical change in the character of a game, which cannot be effected without foresight and a willingness to take great risks.’

And so saying, the figure swept his Fortress down the board and toppled Kai’s Divinitarch. The piece in the figure’s hand glittered in the sunlight, seeming to shift from black to silver and back to black.

‘The sacrifice of a Warrior is most often played for drawing purposes,’ said the figure with a sad smile. ‘Against the very strongest players it can prove to be quite useful, and one of the advantages of playing so risky a gambit is that the average opponent knows little of how to defend against it.’

‘What if you’re not playing an average opponent?’ asked Kai. ‘What if you’re playing someone just as clever as you?’

Kai’s opponent shook his head and crossed his arms. ‘If you allow timidity to guide your play then you will never achieve victory, Kai. All you will find are new ghosts to fear. Too often you allow the fear of that which your opponent has not even considered to keep you from greatness. Thatis the truth of regicide.’

Kai looked down at the board, enjoying this moment of calm in the pain-filled nightmare his life had become. That it was a temporary fiction made it no less real at this point, and Kai had no intention of rushing to embrace the madness of his waking life.

‘Do I have to go back?’ he asked, moving his Templar forward.

‘To the Petitioner’s City?’

‘Yes.’

‘That is up to you, Kai,’ said the figure, repositioning his Emperor. ‘I cannot tell you which path to choose, though I know the one I would wish you to take.’

‘I think the warning I have is for you,’ said Kai.

‘It is,’ agreed the figure. ‘But you cannot tell me yet.’

‘I want to,’ said Kai. ‘If you arewho I think you are, can’t you just, I don’t know, lift it from my mind?’