Chapter 19
Overthrowing the government required a great deal of work and an impeccable attention to detail, so it had been another very busy day for Grand Inquisitor Omand. There had been judges to threaten, bankers to bribe, and high-status warriors to frame for terrible crimes. He had fanned the fires of war in the west by ordering the assassination of an important Makao arbiter, while leaving evidence that the murder had been ordered by the Thakoor of Harban. Reprisals were sure to follow. Plus word had just arrived that heavy fighting had broken out between Thao and Kharsawan inside the city of Neeramphorn, which was pleasant news since Omand had barely needed to spend any resources at all to exacerbate that simmering conflict.
Best of all, across the land casteless were dying by the thousands. If things remained on schedule, soon that would be by the millions. Omand had no personal vendetta against the non-people. They had never done him wrong. He was so far above them, how could they? It was the demon’s animosity that required their demise. Their sin was existing. Omand simply needed them to die so that he could live forever.
“Is there anything else, Taraba?”
His loyal assistant checked the briefing he had prepared—which would surely be burned the instant this meeting was over—and said, “We’re still waiting for a report from the expedition you sent into Vadal lands. Our nearest agent was a low-status Inquisitor, so he obligated some local workers and started excavating the area as per your instructions. The witch hunter you dispatched to oversee the operation should arrive soon if he hasn’t already. The last message said they had crossed the border and obligated two paltans of local warriors to guard the site.”
“Good, good.” Omand and the prisoner floating in a fetid water tank in the dungeons below were the only ones who knew the true purpose of that particular mission. “Speaking of Vadal…”
“It appears everything there is proceeding as you predicted. We have arranged for Lord Protector Devedas to find out that his woman was being held by Harta Vadal.”
“Did you decide to plant rumors, Taraba, or something more direct?” Omand had no issue delegating assignments to properly skilled underlings. How else would they learn? He cared not how the work was done, as long as it was effective.
“Direct, sir. Anonymous letters, which will appear to have been penned in the halls of the great house itself have been sent, informing the Protectors that they are very concerned the Law has been violated in Harta’s court, because a Capitol Archivist is being held there against her will. I believe Lord Protector Devedas will be suitably outraged.”
However that issue sorted itself out, Omand would benefit. If Devedas killed Harta, his greatest political foe would be removed, and then Omand could simply go about painting Harta as a villain, slain by Lok’s greatest hero, just as he had slain Ashok the Black Heart before that. If Harta killed Devedas, then the narrative became a tragic tale, of how a champion of the people had been murdered by a foul and treacherous Thakoor who was seeking to overthrow the Law. That would require Omand to find himself a new figurehead, but the idea of Devedas would serve either way.
“Excellent. Then I believe I will relax for a time and enjoy my pipe. You may go.”
“Of course, sir.”
Omand turned his chair toward the fine glass window. The Grand Inquisitor’s office offered a magnificent view of the Capitol. The Inquisitor’s Dome was perched high upon the slopes of Mount Metoro, and is office was near the top of that lofty tower. He did not mind the stairs, because they kept him fit in his graying years. The climb was worth it, for beyond his window was the best view of the greatest city in the world. From up here it was like looking down upon the tiny cities on the Chief Judge’s map table. Omand enjoyed watching the highest-status men alive scurry about, small as fleas, so far beneath him.
The only place that offered an arguably better view of the Capitol than the Grand Inquisitor’s office was atop the dome itself, but there were so many condemned prisoners chained up there right now—being slowly cooked to death by the sun—that it was too crowded to enjoy it. Plus, the smell of the recently dead was unbearable, and it would remain that way until the vultures were done with them.
“Taraba, do you know what this building was before the Inquisition claimed it as our own?”
His assistant had been walking away, and paused, hand upon the door latch. “I believe it was some manner of church until the first witch hunter seized it.”
“Something like that. It predates the construction of the Capitol by a long time, but the ancients knew how to build incredibly durable structures. It belonged to one of the multitude of different religions the tribes believed in back in those days. This peculiar bunch was a minority even among those. They didn’t believe in burying or burning their dead. Death could not pollute fire or soil.” Omand had to laugh at that foolish superstition, for he understood that death went wherever it felt like. “Instead they’d left the corpses on the roof for the birds to eat, and once the bones were picked clean, they’d sweep them into a hole, where they would tumble through a central shaft to their final resting place, a great cavern of bones, which now lies beneath our dungeons.”
“What was once a fanatic’s ceremony has become an effective tool of punishment and notable deterrent to Law breakers,” Taraba said. “Marvelous.”
“Indeed.” The occasional whiff of rot upon the wind alone was enough to remind the Capitol who watched over them. Omand took off his mask so that he could place his pipe stem in his mouth. Taraba was one of the few who he could let down his mask before…the physical mask at least. “The first time I was obligated to serve in this tower, I served as a torturer, and my quarters were next to that shaft. I could hear the bones rattling as they fell. I was certainly deterred.”
Taraba laughed, because that was the thing reliable underlings did when they assumed their master was trying to be humorous. Only Omand was not. That sound of clattering bones still haunted his dreams on occasion. Taraba abruptly stopped laughing when Omand stared at him blankly with his true face.
“Do you know what they called this place back then?”
“My apologies, Grand Inquisitor. I do not.”
“No need to apologize. Your instructors probably deemed it forbidden religious knowledge, if they even knew the name themselves. It was called the Tower of Silence.”
“An ominous name.”
“Not to the original users, I suspect, but for our use, I find it strangely appropriate. Ominous, even. We loom over them, quietly watching. Silently vigilant against any who would break the Law. Acting only when their crimes and shortcomings force us to.” Omand prepared his pipe, filling it with fine Vadal tobacco. “There is no gravitas to the title, Inquisitor’s Dome. That is a simple description of our ownership and architecture, nothing more. I prefer the ancient name. I think we should return to it.”
“The religious connotations are lost so I doubt any of the judges will take offense at an official name change.” Taraba was not the sort to be bound by tradition. Which was unsurprising for a man who had once disguised himself as a filthy fish-eater and used a Fortress rod to assassinate the Chief Judge on the steps of the Chamber of Argument.
“To them it is just a change of name. To our allies it will be a bold symbol that a new age is upon us.”
“Tower of Silence is a fine name for the home of the Inquisition, sir.”
“I shall make an official announcement in the morning, then.” Omand drew a match, but before he could strike it, there was a commotion on the other side of the door. Booted feet, moving swiftly. Omand had put down his pipe down and returned his ceremonial mask to his face by the time the runner knocked. Properly adorned, Omand nodded for Taraba to open the door.
The Inquisitor who rushed inside was one of the few trusted enough to serve as a monitor among the racks of demon bones that were waiting to receive messages from the other bones they’d been paired with, carried by witch hunters across the land. He hurriedly bowed, indicating his news was more important that propriety. “Grand Inquisitor, there is an urgent message from Witch Hunter Shiladitya.”
Shiladitya was the reliable man who Omand had put in charge of the expedition into Vadal lands to search for the prize the demon had shown him. “I have been expecting this message, Inquisitor Varman. What about it causes you to interrupt my meeting?”
“It was a damaged partial, sir. The pattern fragmented during sending. That normally only happens when—”
“The sender is violently interrupted.” Omand held out his hand. “Bring it to me.” Varman rushed past Taraba to present their master with a single knuckle of demon bone. The adjoining joint would be in distant Vadal, in the capable hands of one of his best witch hunters. Inquisitor Varman scurried away as Omand held the bone to his temple and visualized the complex pattern necessary to free the information imprinted inside.
It wasn’t a report. It was a warning. Omand listened, and it was a good thing he had put his mask back on, so that his subordinates would be spared seeing that their leader could still experience disappointment and anger, the same as any regular man. As Shiladitya’s message disintegrated into incoherent screaming, the knuckle turned to dust.
Omand abruptly stood and started toward the stairs, grinding the ash between his fingers as he clenched them into a fist. Varman fled, while Taraba unquestioningly followed, but trailing a respectful distance, perceptive enough to recognize the fury in the Grand Inquisitor’s walk, and wise enough to not to ask any questions.
With every step he took toward the dungeons, Omand’s anger grew. It wasn’t just being betrayed. Betrayal was always to be expected. It was that he had walked into this one. He had allowed his eagerness to overcome his suspicions. Normally, he was the master of the great game, but even a master can slip.
Omand had been played by a demon.
When he reached the dungeons, he passed the saluting torturers as if they weren’t even there. Taraba realized where they were going and grabbed a torch from the wall to light their way.
As they neared their destination Omand snapped at Taraba, “Wait here.”
The young Inquisitor was clearly nervous, because in all the years he had served the Grand Inquisitor, he had never before seen Omand Vokkan this upset. Very few had ever seen this level of emotion from him, and fewer still had lived to tell of it.
Omand barked at the guards, “Begone!” and they immediately fled.
The prisoner was floating in the filthy tank, its lump of a head already at the glass port, as if it was waiting for him. Gloating. Grasping a piece of bone from a pouch inside his sash, Omand pressed his other hand against the glass, and called to mind the complex pattern that would allow him to converse with the creature.
“You deceived me. I sent my men into a trap. What have you unleashed?”
Doom
“You promised me the source!”
Remainder upon kill Ramrowan blood
And then it showed him the terrible things Witch Hunter Shiladitya had seen as he had died. The entire expedition had been brutally massacred by what they had unwittingly freed. This particular demon magic was different, unlike anything he had encountered in his extensive travels. Even jaded Omand was temporarily taken aback by the savagery of his Inquisitors’ deaths in the vision.
Punish
Along with that grim word, Omand was granted some understanding as to the nature of the thing that had just slaughtered the expedition. It was a living weapon, a terrible ancient thing, designed to gradually spread for hundreds of miles, killing untold numbers before its lifespan was through. Even after the scourge subsided, that entire region of Great House Vadal would remain poisoned and uninhabitable for generations.
That was unfortunate…for Harta Vadal.
The demon had led Omand astray, fooling him into believing it had inadvertently shown him where the source was hidden, while that vision had been a decoy all along. Instead of securing a priceless treasure, his men had disturbed a terror forgotten since the great war between man and demonkind.
Only how had the prisoner seen and been able to share Shiladitya’s and the others’ deaths? Then a terrible realization struck him. The Inquisition had been harvesting this demon’s body for decades. It was likely most of the fingers hanging on the racks of the message room had been cut from its hands. If the demon was still magically bonded to those bones as they were to one another, how many other secret messages had it spied on over the years? Omand didn’t know if that was the case, but if so, such knowledge could prove useful. He would have to test the theory later. For now he hid that thought from the demon.
“You lied to me, wicked beast.”
False source punish
If demons were capable of laughter, it would have mocked him. Omand’s greed and haste had caused this. The lesson stung. The demon would settle for nothing less than the total extermination of the casteless before giving up its secrets. Several Inquisitors and a hundred warriors had just been torn to bloody shreds and fed into a multiplying demonic engine, simply to remind Omand that their arrangement was a partnership.
“I should kill you for this.”
The demon showed him another image, once again, from above, falling through the clouds engulfed in fire. It was the same as before, only now it was speeding toward the western side of Lok.
Was this at long last the real path the ancients’ forge had taken when it had been cast from the sky?
The new vision ended abruptly.
True source upon kill
Omand was not easily stirred to emotion. The temporary thwarting of his life’s work had angered him, but already he couldn’t help but calculate how he could capitalize upon these sudden events. A scourge from hell had been loosed upon Great House Vadal. Thousands would die. So be it. Their suffering could be of use politically. Omand would learn from his mistakes and press forward, wiser.
It was rare that Omand was outplayed in the great game and never before had it been by something inhuman…He would savor this rare education.
“I assure you, all the blood of Ramrowan will perish. The extermination has begun. I will expedite the process. You will see. Then the next location you show me will be the real one, or our agreement is over. If our arrangement ends, abandon your dreams of freedom, for you will be nothing but parts to be harvested…forever.”
Omand broke the spell and stepped away from the tank. The two of them stayed there, watching each other through the heavy pane of glass for a very long time. The reflection of the golden mask of the Law was superimposed over the demon’s flat black skull.
“This is not finished, old friend.”
It swam away, leaving Omand alone.
By the time Omand left the tank room he had already formulated a plan. “Taraba, send messengers to alert the Lord Protector, and summon all the judges. We must convene an emergency session in the Chamber of Argument immediately.”
The demon was clever, but not as clever as it thought. This was not a defeat. It was an opportunity.