IMPERIATA AND OTHER STORIES
Trevelyan Cooper
Copyright 2013 Trevelyan Cooper
Table of Contents
Imperiata
The Prince Of Fey
A Mote, Amidst a Tide of Darkness
Imperiata
The valley was dark with mud and insects and rain. If it had a name, those who fought there had forgotten it. The eternal empire had fallen, and a thousand petty tyrants jostled for position, and so nameless valleys filled with blood all across the world.
Men swore and struggled and slid in the mud and forgot why they stood there at all, and amidst them, still and watching, stood the demon-slave Ishta’eth, the last Lord Kereshin.
She smelled soot. All her life she had smelled soot. She smelled blood and sweat and fear. She smelled the stench of offal from spilled entrails, and the retching sweetness of the dead rotting away. She watched the rain, and watched men fight, and knew her plans were working.
These days only crows and oathless mercenaries did well. Ishta’eth had always despised those without masters, but that was what she had become. She sold herself to make war, and she did well. She was among the greatest generals there had ever been.
She stood in rain and tasted ash and felt like she been waiting there for all of time. Somewhere in the distance a peasant girl sobbed, her farm burned or man dead or honor violated by a hundred passing troops. It would be one or the other, but Ishta’eth did not especially care which.
A day passed, and very little changed.
A soldier approached her. A man of her borrowed army. He halted ten steps away and cleared his throat, because they had all learned to approach carefully. She had killed three by accident before that lesson was taken.
“My lady,” he said. “Someone asks for you.”
He was not courtly in his habits. He simply bore the words he was given, with no thought to which someone and why. She grew impatient with such carelessness, but did not correct him. In her heart she felt some pity. She always pitied the lost souls she fought beside. Regular troops sent into battle beside the Order Kereshin had usually angered the powerful. The Kereshin did not march from their barracks without finding glory, but that glory came at the price of others’ limbs and blood and orphaned children. It was the way, and had always been, and for the emperor that was right and proper. But not here. Once such men had fought for something that mattered, but this man, and those with him, did not. When she thought on it, that troubled Ishta’eth, so she did not often think.
“You should go home,” Ishta’eth said. “Otherwise you will die here in this mud.”
The man looked startled. “My lady…”
“You gave your oath?”
“My family. Without my pay they would go hungry.”
Ishta’eth nodded. Such complications often slipped her mind. She was more used to those who would sack a city for slighted honor, and maim whole nations over wounded pride. She forgot that some raised their hand for more humble reasons.
“Then stay,” she said. “But you will die.”
“I know.”
“You should go.”
“I cannot.”
She tried to be kind. “Then take care.”
“I will.”
She nodded. “Someone asks for me?”
The man pointed.
“Did this person say who they were?”
“I did not think to ask.”
“Or why they want me?”
The man shrugged.
“Tell him I will see him later,” she said. They asked for her all day, complaining civilians and begging enemies and lords seeking her services for her next war. She had led the Order Kereshin for a thousand years and that was something the world remembered.
“He asked for you by name, my lady,” the messenger said.
“They all do.”
“He said he had once been a friend.”
Ishta’eth turned and looked across at the distant figure and tried to make out detail against the smoke and dust.
“My thanks,” she said to the soldier. “Go.”
He went quickly. That never changed. Men such as him, men who lived in the knife-edge between life and death in pointless wars, had very good instincts. They knew what she was. She moved too carefully, and was too careless of slighting others’ honor. She was so terribly still.
Ishta’eth tried to recall the last time she had stood in a room and not known she could kill everyone in it. Not since the empire fell, certainly, and probably long before that. It would need many, many soldiers, prepared by a tactician as good as herself who had established clear fields of fire. And it would need archers. She loathed archers. All Kereshin did, but they were needed to kill the likes of Ishta’eth. Here, in this valley, she had given the usual order that captured bowmen be blinded and dismembered, but she knew it was being ignored.
She waded through the mud, up to the waiting figure. She stood and looked and said, with little joy in her voice, “Yasen.” A slight pause, to make him cautious, and then she added, “Old friend.”
“You still call me that?”
Ishta’eth stood for a long time, letting him worry. “I do,” she said. “You need ask?”
“These days, who knows?”
She nodded, for it was true.
Yasen was a spy, of sorts, from one of the older of the great houses. Not a soldier, but not a terrible man either, unlike many nobles. They had shared a bed for a while, when he was young.
Ishta’eth stood there and looked at him and wondered what he wanted.
Suddenly, she realized she had been among the mud and foot-soldiers too long. She had forgotten the ways of polite society. She stepped forward and held out her sword-hand and Yasen looked relieved. He tried to embrace her, and she stepped back, quickly. He had always tried, and she had always stepped back. It was dangerous game he liked to play.
He seemed pleased to see her, as far as she could tell. He smiled, and looked her up and down. He was older, now. His face creased and hair grey and he seemed to have felt pain. She didn’t ask how he was, but she never had in the past. Noblemen such as him were young and ambitious, then old and cunning, then gone. It was how it had always been. When young, she liked their arrogance and passion and sometimes took them as lovers. When old, she liked their caution, their fear of death.
She tried to remember the ways of noblemen’s talk, the matters one ought to discuss, even as the world burned about you.
“How is your family?” she said.
He shook his head, one brief shake, and she understood.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “These are hard times.”
He seemed surprised. She supposed that once she would not have bothered with the words.
“It’s good to see you,” he said. “Gods, Ishta’eth, what are you doing here?”
“In truth, I am not sure. War is a habit, I suppose.”
“You are in command?”
“As much as ever. They ignore most of what I say, but I am in command.”
It was an old ploy. Kereshin only ever led, they did not take direction, so if on the field a Kereshin had to command. Following a Kereshin into battle tended to make men die, though, so wiser soldiers learned to misplace messengers and misunderstand commands and do as they saw fit. Once Ishta’eth would have ordered whippings until her orders were obeyed, but now she cared little. The truth was that more of them died because they ignored her than if they had done as she asked. Obeyed, she could have won this battle of theirs drunk and blindfold and with only one ear to listen, but she cared little. It was their own lives they threw away.
“How goes the battle?” Yasen said.
Ishta’eth shrugg
ed. “This day or the next or a week from now this little war will be over.”
“But you are trying to make this happen.”
“Not particularly.”
He looked at her and seemed puzzled.
“It matters not,” she said.
“Yet…”
“It does not. I am war, so here I stand.” She sighed. “But it matters not.”
He nodded.
“I believe right now I aim to take a hamlet. Over there somewhere. Or perhaps a hill. I forget. My petty tyrant fights another, and they impoverish themselves to hire me.”
It had been this way since the empire fell and the incessant wars began. All fought all, in shifting alliances of self-interest. There were no fixed sides, no real factions, and the Lord Kereshin was a prize all needed in their purse.
Yasen understood. “Because they fear if they do not have you, the other will.”
Ishta’eth smiled a little. It was true. They believed in her enough to be terrified their opponents would have her, but not enough to let her win their wars.
“And then they banish me to a remote corner of their campaign where I can do no harm,” she said. “Because they fear that if they give me their best troops I will take offense at some slight and grind them against impregnable walls until they are exhausted.”
“Would you?”
“Of course. I care not who wins.”
“Why not give those paying you a victory? Can you not with these men?”
Ishta’eth was startled, and almost offended. He forgot so quickly. “Against the likes of these?” she said. “I could take victory alone.”
He stood there and tried not to smile and Ishta’eth realized he had been teasing her. He had used to do that, to say the obvious, just so she would explain it to him and he could listen attentively, and let her explain further and further, until he burst out laughing. He liked his dangerous games, and once she had enjoyed that about him.
She looked around at rain and mud and death and suddenly could not be bothered. Instead she said, “And my secret? I take their pay, then hand their gold to their enemies and start the cycle again.”
“Why?”
“Why not? They all die anyway, and their wars give me something to do.”
And because the world should suffer without the empire, and war should be unending, so given the chance all would welcome the empire back. That too, but she did not speak those words out loud.
“It seems I am a kind of a blessing,” she said. “For their men. As if my standing up here makes their commanders slightly more competent and death hurt a little less.”
“Like the blessing of some ancient war god.”
“Exactly like. Am I not?”
He seemed not to know how to answer that. They looked at one another.
Ishta’eth decided there had been enough politeness. “What brings you here?” she said.
“Rumors. Glorious rumors.”
Ishta’eth waited.
“You have not heard?” Yasen said. He seemed excited.
“I hear nothing. I sit in my mud and watch little men die.”
“The emperor had a son.”
Ishta’eth went still. Yasen kept talking, and seemed not to notice the change in her. After a moment she realized he thought her stillness was skepticism and was trying to convince her. Enthusiastically, believing it himself, he said, “He did. I have heard this from one who was there.”
“Tell me,” Ishta’eth said, a little saddened, and barely listened to the answer. She heard words without really hearing. “A farm… Hidden all these years… A wonder.”
Yasen stopped talking. Ishta’eth realized there had been a question.
Yasen was looking at her. “Join me,” he said again. “We shall go look. Gods, Ishta’eth, a son. I came to you as soon as I heard.”
“Where is this farm?” Ishta’eth said, but did not listen to the answer.
Quicker than his eye could see, quicker than any but her own could follow, she slid a knife from her belt and across Yasen’s throat. He seemed surprised, seemed offended, seemed to find it terribly unfair, but he was dead before he could make a complaint.
She felt a little sad at killing a friend. She lowered Yasen to the ground and looked around.
“Horse,” she called, and one was brought.
A soldier scurried over. One of the officers, one of the warlord’s men, sent to watch her. She had no time for the commanders. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“Away,” she said.
“If you leave,” the man said, “This job will not be here when you return.”
Ishta’eth rode away. The officer shouted after her, until she stopped her horse, and suddenly the curses stopped too. She did not turn. The silence told her everything. A coward, not worth her time. She rode on.
She had a long way to go.
She knew the farm. She knew the boy. She had taken him from the dying emperor’s bedchamber as a child and hidden him there twenty years before. Then taken herself away, because the face of the Lord Kereshin was known the world over and nothing would attract attention to the hidden child more than her being at his side.
And now it had finally happened. The day had finally come.
She should feel joy. She should feel the honor to come. This was her time. She would restore the empire and take vengeance on its enemies. The revenge would be magnificent. Every city that had opposed her would be burned. Every noble family that had acted against the empire would be pulled down. Bloodlines as old as the emperor’s would disappear from the world, bloodlines from the beginning of time. There would be killing like no Lord Kereshin had ever overseen before, and the world would always, always remember it. She had planned for this day, and now it was beginning, and all she felt was a little mournful, and she did not know why.
She put it from her mind. She had to protect the child now. He had been found, so her absence was no longer of any purpose. She must stand at his side and keep him from harm, and she must raise him up as emperor and teach him how to rule. She had hoped for a little more time, a little more learning and wisdom, but twenty years was probably sufficient.
No Lord Kereshin had ever had an opportunity like this. She would crush all who stood before her, destroy enemies old and new, and when she was done there would be peace for ten thousand years. Peace like she had never been permitted to make before, because emperors had always been raised to the court and gentler souls than she was. This time was different. This time she would create the emperor herself.
*
Ishta’eth rode into the village and began killing. These were mostly peasants, and little threat. She did not bother climbing from her horse, and used only a short-sword, not her true-sword. She only intended to create chaos, to kill enough of those who had seen the boy that none would think to ask what had become of him for a week or two. She felt a little regret, but did what needed be done. These fates had been set when she left the child here a generation ago.
Among the peasants were a few old soldiers, their rusting blades out once they realized they were under attack. One, towards the end, saw her coming. He looked at her and lowered his sword.
She was puzzled. “You will not defend yourself?” she said.
Slowly, he shook his head.
“You know what I am?”
“To say yes will not help me, will it?”
“Equally, to say no,” Ishta’eth said. “I will know your lie.”
“Then I know what you are. Does that seal my fate?”
“It does.”
He threw his sword away.
Ishta’eth looked at him. She was always a little curious how they felt. This one seemed frustrated. Resigned, but bitter too, as if he had been trapped in a snare not of his making.
“You do not wish to try?” Ishta’eth asked.
“I was in the old army. I saw your people do their work. There is hardly any point.”
“No,” Ishta’eth said, polite, respectfu
l. “I regret I cannot talk more, but I must be on my way.”
“I understand.”
“This will be quick,” Ishta’eth said, and cleaved his throat in two.
She burned the town, now filled with blood and flies, and went out to the farm, riding in a meandering circle so as not to leave a straight arrow of death marking her path. She killed whoever she passed, killed those she found at the farm.
She knew the boy when she saw him. She could not help but know him. He glowed with the light of her people’s oath, a burning like fire when she looked upon him that made the song of her vassalage thick in her ears. She stopped and listened. She had missed that sound, had heard it most of her life, but not for the last twenty years. It was like a heartbeat, hardly noticed until it was gone. The song calmed her, helped her think, and put in her in a better humor.
The boy seemed scared, and she could see why. Her clothing was clinging to her, thick with sheets of rich red blood. Her hair was matted. Her eyes must gleam white from a death-mask red face. She climbed from the horse, lowered her sword, and held out her hand.
*
Nici, the child who would be emperor, had grown up in a farming village on a fishing island at the far end of the world. It was a lucky village. When he was very young, in a cave near the farm there had lived a goddess who prowled the night and slew wrongdoers. They had peace when many others had not, and the islanders had seen the bodies of brigands and pirates and understood, and had not spoken of their goddess to outsiders. In time no more pirates had come, and one day the cave was empty, but by then it was not of consequence. There had been peace.
Now that peace was over.
Nici looked at the monster in the guise of a woman. It climbed from the horse, wearing the blood of his family and friends like a cloak. The blood ran down it in sheets and dripped about its feet. It reached towards him, and he screamed. The monster, the woman, seemed surprised.
“Come,” she said. “Be calm. Everything is well.”
Nici lunged at her, slapping at her ineffectively. He hit her face and she did not move, simply watched. He struck again, and she caught his wrists. He struggled for a moment, then gave up.
“Kill me then,” he said.