9 - FIRST SIGHT OF THE AUTARCH

We arrived at Tymora at around midday. It was a disgustingly humid, sweltering day, made worse by our stolen armor, which was heavy enough to make my bones ache and which had been infused with the scent of its previous owner, a cloying musk that filled my nose and made it difficult to breathe.

Tymora, like all major Autatchy cities, was strictly controlled. All six of its major gates had been turned into checkpoints manned by bored-faced officials. A slow stream of people trickled both in and out, the vast majority of them doing so with supplies.

Tymora had a million people, and thanks to the Autarch’s new breeding programs—The Population Plan was its bland name—that number was steadily increasing.

It took a lot of work to feed and supply so many people.

And because there were so many people, and the officials were so bored, or sick of their jobs, or overwhelmed, or all three, we entered the city with relative ease.

An officer eyed us and asked where we’d come from and what our business was. I don’t even remember what half-baked lie we told them, but it worked, and in we went.

I had never been in a city before.

The experience was overwhelming, to say the least.

Justinia had warned me this would be the case. I braced myself and followed her closely as she expertly weaved her way through wide streets packed full of people.

In the Autarchy, everyone walked on the right. Later, I would learn that this was an actual law and that, although it was rarely enforced, a person could be heavily fined by breaking it. The threat worked. People flowed back and forth in orderly waves.

Thousands of them. A sea of faces swam before me. The cumulative chatter of such a multitude was deafening. There were horses, carrying riders or pulling wagons and carts. There were soldiers. Merchants. And so many facial combinations that I lost myself in my study of them.

More than the people, the city itself staggered me.

Impossibly tall buildings surrounded me, great, white spires adorned with a thousand pieces of glass, and, intermittently, sculptures of heroic figures that stood tall and proud around the edges of the buildings so that they might look down upon the city and guard it.

In a city square, I got my first look at Autarch Marak himself.

It would not be the last.

This statue of the Autarch had to be at least twenty feet tall. Sculpted from solid white marble, the Autarch was clad in elaborate armor, every inch of every plate engraved in art: a rising sun across his breastplate, rays of light spilling out down his lower torso, across his shoulders, along his arms.

A resplendent cape hung from his broad shoulders. Here, the artist had done a splendid job of imbuing the marble with a sense of fabric in motion. I could almost believe it was real, that he had really been here, just so, and this statue was his afterimage, imprinted upon the very air by virtue of his greatness.

The Autarch wore no helmet. Of course he didn’t—the people needed to see their lord’s face.

And what a face it was.

A stern and stony gaze was fixed upon the far distance, a look that promised to piece the very future itself. His jaw was wide, his chin strong. His nose was aquiline, his hair a messy yet nonetheless dignified tangle. He appeared to be perhaps thirty. In reality, he was more than three hundred—although no one knew how.

And in the Autarch’s right hand, held low by his side, was a sword.

Sunlight.

A blade so famous that even we necromancers of the Withered Isles had heard of it.

A blade that had sliced the continent wide open.

Sunlight was the mysterious sword that the Autarch had used to dethrone a hundred kings, smash a thousand armies, and best countless champions. It was said that it was a relic of the old world; it was thousands of years old and imbued with ancient magic that allowed it to cut through anything as though it were little more than air.

And, indeed, even this artistic rendering of Marsk and his sword, which I would later learn was mostly accurate but not entirely, managed to convey just how alien his sword was. It did not look like anything any human had ever made. It consisted of unnatural lines and curves. Even the edge of this marble mimicry appeared so sharp that it could very well cut open reality itself.

Stolen story; please report.

“Stop staring,” Justinia grunted. “Keep moving.”

This proved to be sage advice. It soon became apparent that the only way to carve a path through the bustling, choked streets was to surge forward with momentum and purpose. Justinia led us past a vast fountain where seven colossal statues, each an armored giant with a sword similar to Marak’s own, bled streams of water that shone like glass in the late afternoon light.

Street vendors lined the streets ahead, and these men and women called out to us as we passed in loud, booming voices. We ignored them, passing rows of buildings with brightly painted doors. An old, decrepit man got in our way and begged for money. Justinia shouldered him out of the way, sent him sprawling in the dust. Up ahead, a building with three floors and a sign outside the front declaring it to be The Silver Sparrow, famed inn. Here, Justinia stopped, glanced at me, and then led the way in..

Crowded inside, and mostly with only men, all of them dirty and rough-looking. They ate hot, steaming meals at round tables and washed their greasy food down with flagons of—I didn’t know what exactly. Amongst the Withered Isles, we drank only water, goat’s milk, and, occasionally, hot, spiced wine.

Heads drifted up. Narrowed eyes settled first on Justinia and then on me. I became suddenly conscious of our uniforms and armor. Of the heavy resentment in the air, and the sense that we were very much unwelcome here.

The man behind the counter only had one arm and half a face. The other half appeared to be badly burned, the skin fused together like melted wax, a patch in place where his right eye should’ve been.

“Ah,” he said when he saw Justinia, “you.”

“Gavriel,” Justinia said curtly. “Good to see you again.”

Gavriel grunted. “Is it? What do you want this time?”

“Just a room for the night.”

“A room,” Gavriel murmured. He forced a smile. “Anything for two agents of the Undying Autarch. Why don’t you follow me? Allow me to personally escort the two of you to the finest room I have available—yours for no charge, of course.”

A performance for everyone else in the establishment—all of whom were closely watching this interaction, although pretending that they weren’t—or just pure, blatant mockery?

Up a flight of creaking stairs and down a narrow corridor that smelled of mold. Doors on either side of us. Gavriel brought us to one at the very end, limping with every step. I found myself wondering how he’d found himself so badly injured—and how he’d survived it.

Gavriel led us into a small and surprisingly clean room. There was next to nothing inside—just a bed and a wooden stand, presumably for hanging one’s traveling cloak and other belongings. A window overlooked the street below, marred by a single crack.

Gavriel closed the door behind us. He looked at Justinia expectantly. “Well?”

“Well what?”

Gavriel gestured to our armor.

“You should know better than to ask,” Justinia said.

“I find myself awfully curious, however.”

“I thought Marak outlawed curiosity.”

“He did. But not all of us care too much about what the Autarch has and has not outlawed.”

Jusitnia pursed her lips. “Don’t get yourself into anything you can’t get yourself out of.”

“Says the woman wearing stolen Autarchy armor. And, anyway—” he looked right at me with his single, bright green eye. “Who the fuck is this?”

“Aurion,” I said, and extended a hand. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Gavriel looked down at my hand as though he’d never seen one before.

I slowly lowered it. Justinia said, “Mind if we stay, say, three nights? Possibly four?”

“I don’t mind,” Gavriel said, “not really. So long as there won’t be Autarchy operatives hot on your trail.”

“Shouldn’t be,” Justinia said. “We’ve been careful.”

Gavriel just grunted.

I said, “How do you two know each other?”

They both looked at me. Gavriel responded first, “Met a few years back. Eight years, maybe. Both signed up for a mercenary company. The Black Tears. Worked together for a little while. Saved each other’s skin more than once.” Gavriel shrugged. “And since then, we’ve crossed paths a few times.”

Justinia sat down on the edge of the bed, began to unbuckle her breastplate.

Gavriel said, “And as for that armor—and those uniforms—I expect you’ll find a way to discreetly dispose of them?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“Good.”

“Gavriel—Tymora. How’s the city? What’s changed?”

Gavriel shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Not good. The Politarch is choking the city tighter than ever. He’s killing us with taxes and, when people complain or try to do anything to make a difference, he sends in the Terarch Guard with no hesitation. People vanish, Justinia, and they’re never seen again. Lately, he’s become fond of what he likes to call, setting an example. He impales people upon the highest buildings of the city. But he doesn’t just impale them. He has several operatives of the Seeking Hand in the city and they have a very particular way of shoving a sharpened, iron stake through a person’s body in such a way that all crucial organs are missed—meaning that the poor bastard in question can stay alive for days. All the while they’re impaled fifty feet above a bustling street, drooling and bleeding and shitting themselves. And he’s done this to hundreds of people.”

Justinia slowly removed her breastplate, her face devoid of emotion.

I said, “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

Gavriel scoffed. “Stick around a little longer, kid, and you’ll very quickly hear far worse than that.”

Events would prove Gavriel’s prediction correct.

I would indeed soon hear of far worse things.

I would see worse.

And I would do worse.