The Initiate Read online

  Throughout history, the twin powers of Light and Darkness have appeared in many guises. Day and Night, Good and Evil, Order and Chaos -- and, in many of the ancient religions of our world, personified in the forms, sometimes human, sometimes beyond humanity, of warring deities -- Osiris and Set, Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman, Marduk and Tiamat, and many more. Each personification has its followers, and each personification is unique -- but all draw their true nature from the same universal source; the eternally conflicting forces of manifest duality.

  The Lords of these twin realms -- whatever the names under which they are worshipped or reviled -- are masters of the forces of Nature; those powers that mere humans have called "magic. " Manipulators of Time and Space, their influence pervades every mortal world, and their eternal battle for supremacy maintains an uneasy balance in the many dimensions which form the fabric of our Universe. But there can be times in any one of those dimensions when the balance tilts too far, and one power triumphs to reign at the expense of the other. And without its opposite to counter it, neither force can perpetuate; the relationship is symbiotic, and Order without Chaos, or Chaos without Order, must finally result in entropy.

  Somewhere, far beyond the Earth we know, is a world where the balance has slipped out of true. The Lords of Order are victorious, and have banished every manifestation of Chaos from the land... or almost every manifestation. Perhaps, somewhere, a single spark still remains -- and if it can be found, and nurtured, then a day must surely come when the Lords of Chaos will return to challenge their ancient enemy once again...

  Prologue

  "There is little time left to me to write this account. Even as the ink dries on my parchment I feel the fate that hangs over us drawing closer, and though the insights of a Magus are beyond my skills I know I mistake neither its cause nor its intent. Our time can be reckoned in mere hours; but as senior historian to the Lords of the Star Peninsula, it is my duty to commit to posterity all I can of the events that will bring about our final demise. This duty I will not shirk, if the gods of Chaos can grant me sufficient respite.

  "The power of this Castle, so long a focus for the forces that our Magi have called through the gates of Chaos itself, is rapidly crumbling. Another Moonrise will see the horde at our portal, baying for their masters' triumph, and a sure instinct tells me that before the Sun breaks in the East we will look on the accursed face of Aeoris, and die.

  "We have served Chaos truly and loyally for generation upon generation; now though even those seven great Lords cannot save us, for their sway has been broken. Through the treachery of those whom we ruled the demon Aeoris and his six brethren have returned to the world; the eternal enemy, Order, has challenged Chaos and prevailed. Our gods are retreating and cannot save us. We have called upon the greatest occult forces known to our race, and cannot aid them. And though we might destroy one or ten or a hundred mortal armies, against the full might of Order we are powerless.

  "And so we prepare to leave this world for whatever fate awaits us in the afterlife. Those who succeed us, those blind followers of Order, will destroy or abuse the skill and wisdom that we have gleaned over the many centuries of our rule. They will revel in the overthrow of our sorcery, praise the annihilation of our knowledge. They will dwell within our stronghold and deem themselves leaders, and they will think themselves our equals. We, who owe our origins to something above and beyond their mortality, might almost find it in our hearts to pity the ignorance and fear which will bring about their own ruin as surely as it has brought about ours. But there can be no pity for these human traitors who have turned their backs on the true ways, to follow false gods. There will be bloodshed; there will be terror; there will be death... but our sorcery alone cannot stand against the Lords of Order, called from their long banishment to challenge the rule of Chaos. They will prevail, and our day is done.

  "Our gods go into exile; we go to destruction. But we have solace in the certainty that the rigid and stagnant reign of Order cannot endure for ail time. Let it take five generations or five thousand, the circle will come about once more. Our gods are patient, but in time the challenge will be issued. Chaos will return.

  "This last document by my hand on the day of our fall; Savrinor, Historian. "

  "This manuscript is one of the few fragments to have survived the Scourge carried out in the Castle of the Star Peninsula this five years past, after the final fall and annihilation of the race known to us as the Old Ones.

  "Those of us who, by the grace of Aeoris, survived the War of Just Retribution (as it has come to be known) and have since lived on to prosper and flourish in the very seat of the tyrants' power, are aware of the great responsibility laid upon us by the Gods whose hands have elevated us from the realm of serfdom to the realm of rulership. The wrongs done to the people of our land by the Lords of Chaos and the sorcerers who followed their evil doctrines are manifold; there has been suffering and terror and oppression. Now it is our holy duty, in the name of Light and Sanity under the bright banner of Aeoris, to put our world to rights and to eradicate the name of Chaos from all hearts and minds.

  "To this end, the first Great Conclave of Three has taken place upon the White Isle, in the very place where Aeoris himself adopted human incarnation to answer our prayers for salvation. While he trod our earth in mortal guise, the great God charged us to rule wisely, to uphold his laws, and he has placed in our safekeeping a golden casket to be enshrined and guarded upon the Isle. Should our land ever again face the dire peril of Chaos we are pledged to open the casket, and in doing so call great Aeoris back to our land.

  "I hope and pray with all my heart that such a day will never come. Chaos is banished utterly from the world; we are charged with the task of ensuring that it cannot return. Three we are, empowered to tend to our people and bring the Light of Order back to this torn land; and I give humble thanks each day for the honor done me in elevating me to that great triad.

  "Far in the South in his new palace on the Summer Isle dwells our High Margrave, to whom all honor and homage. Benetan Liss fought at the side of Aeoris himself in our last great battle and proved himself a warrior and conqueror worthy to become the First Ruler of all the land. He it is who shall dispense the justice due his people, and I pray that his descendants will flourish to continue the noble line. And our Lady Matriarch, Shammana Oskia Mantrel, is mistress of the newly endowed Sisterhood of Aeoris, that body of good and devout women who will forevermore keep the flame of Aeoris's love burning in all our hearts. And I, Simbrian Lowwe Tarkran... as first High Initiate of the Circle, charged by Aeoris himself to cleanse the taint of evil sorcery from this Castle and from the world, I am aware from dawn to dusk of the magnitude of my task. The Old Ones have left us a legacy of darkness and mystery; much remains to be unravelled and only a fool would deny that their black skills surpassed those of even our greatest Adepts. But we will prevail: we draw strength from righteousness, and the wisdom of Order will sustain us in our task. The Circle -- a small but growing body of magicians and philosophers, of which I believe I am justly proud -- has pledged itself to the pursuit of knowledge and justice in all matters of our religion and our creed. While we stand as upholders of the divine laws laid down for us by Aeoris, the minions of Chaos will never again gain a foothold in this land, and the nightmare of the past will one day be forgotten in the purity and peace of Order.

  "The road ahead of us is long and arduous; our accomplishments as yet are relatively few. But my dreams are full of hope. Dawn has finally broken; mayhem and madness are no more a part of our lives and we have emerged from the blackness of enslaved terror into the light. The hand which recorded and railed against the death of Chaos is dead also; we live, and shall grow and prosper. And for that I give my undying thanks.

>   "Written this Spring Quarter-Day in the fifth year of peace, the hand of Simbrian Low we Tarkran, by consent of Aeoris First High Initiate of the Circle. "

  But Chaos will return....

  Chapter 1

  With the dawning of the Spring Quarter-Day, the wet weather which had plagued Wishet Province since midwinter abated. Self-appointed sages, who claimed to have predicted the change, pronounced it a good omen, and the more pious inhabitants of the province gave thanks to Aeoris, greatest of the Seven Gods, in the privacy of their homes.

  Today, following a centuries-old tradition, every town and village in the land would be celebrating the arrival of Spring and one small Wishet district, some seven miles inland from the province capital, Port Summer, had prepared well in advance for the lengthy ceremonies. As always a mass procession, headed by the Provincial Margrave with a train of local elders and dignitaries, would parade through the town to the river where a ritual dressing and revering of wooden statues of the Seven Gods would take place. The Quarter-Day Rites were an occasion for the entire populace to attend, from the highest to the lowest -- even the household of Estenya, an impoverished woman who lived with her illegitimate son in the poorest part of the town and depended on the grudging charity of more fortunate members of her clan.

  Today, Estenya was more acutely aware than usual of her lowly status as she looked at her reflection in the fly-specked mirror. Her dress -- the best she possessed -- was old, and hadn't been new when it came to her; washing had shrunk the fabric so that the hem was barely below her calves. And the embroidered shawl that she wore in an attempt to brighten the dress's drabness was thin and would do little to keep out the bite of the Easterly wind. But today, appearances mattered more than comfort; she would simply have to put up with the cold, if she didn't want to disgrace her relatives... not, she reflected bitterly, that they were likely to do more than curtly acknowledge her during the festivities. She was the blot on their immaculate record, the pretty and promising girl who had inexplicably fallen from grace and had been paying the price ever since....

  Estenya worked her face into an expression that she hoped would disguise the lines which, at thirty, were now beginning to mar her skin, and silently railed against the events that, twelve years ago, had set her on this road. Then, exhausted by the birth, overemotional, she had pleaded to keep her son against family pressure to pass him off as a servant's child, and she had won -- at the price of her own prospects. The boy had no father from whom to take a clan name, as was traditional for male children, and her family had flatly refused to bend the rules and grant the baby the privilege of their own name. So from birth he was clanless -- and Estenya became, in effect, outcast. She had submitted willingly enough to the strictures at first, but as time went by and the first bloom of her youth faded while the boy, growing, seemed to become less and less a part of herself, she began to bitterly regret the decision she had made.

  But even if she could have been freed from the burden of the boy, she doubted that any man would think her worth marrying now. There were too many younger, fairer women; women without a shameful past to hamper their chances. If only, she thought to herself, if only I hadn't been such a fool!

  A faint sound suddenly impinged on her and she turned, then started with shock.

  The boy had opened the door and come into her bedroom so silently that she hadn't had the least inkling of his presence. For all she knew, he might have been standing there watching her in that inscrutable, unnerving way for ten minutes or more, and as always his look suggested that he knew precisely what she was thinking.

  Angrily, she snapped at him. "How many times have I told you never to enter my room in that way? Do you want to make me die of fright?"

  "I'm sorry." The brilliance of the boy's strange, green eyes was masked momentarily as he lowered his gaze. Looking at him, Estenya wondered how she could have given birth to such a boy. The established clans of Wishet shared certain similarities of build and coloring, typified by the stockiness and sallow skin that Estenya had inherited from both father and mother. But the boy... already he outstripped her in height, and his was a rangy, harsh-boned frame. His hair -- jet-black -- curled in wild tangles to his shoulders, and the green eyes against his pale, thin face gave him a disturbingly feline look. Perhaps he drew his genetic heritage solely from his father -- and always on the heels of that thought came its unpleasant corollary: if she had known who his father was! There lay the unhappy root of this whole unhappy affair; the fact that the identity of the stranger whose ardent advances at a long ago Quarter-Day celebration she had been unable to resist was, and still remained, a mystery. One mistake had caused her so much misery... and she couldn't even remember his face.

  Now she looked critically at her son. She didn't mean to be irritable and impatient with him, she told herself; he could hardly be held to blame for her circumstances. But nonetheless the resentment was there, and surely anyone with any heart could understand it.

  "You haven't combed your hair," she accused. "You know how important it is to look your best today. If you disgrace me..." She let the threat hang in the air unspoken.

  "Yes, Mother." A flicker of near rebellion in the odd green eyes, but it was gone almost before she could register it. As he turned to leave the room she called after him, "And you are not to associate with Coran. Don't forget!"

  Privately, Estenya hated having to impose that restriction. Coran, her cousin's son, was of an age with her own boy and the only good friend he had. But Coran's parents disapproved of more contact than was necessary with a bastard child, whatever the blood relationship, and she dared not cross them. The boy didn't answer her though she knew he had heard, and a minute later his footsteps clattered down the uncarpeted stairs of the shabby and cramped house.

  Estenya sighed. She didn't know whether he would heed her warning; he had always been secretive, but lately his mind had become a closed book to her. All she could do was hope, and try to get through the day as best she could.

  A large crowd was already gathering in and around the streets of the town as the boy made his way towards the main square. He was glad to be free from the stifling confines of his home, where he never seemed able to do anything right, but at the same time he felt no enthusiasm for the day ahead. Despite the supposed festivity of the occasion, a Quarter-Day tended to be a solemn and dull affair. People were so preoccupied with their status and dignity that it seemed that the true nature of the celebrations was lost. And today, with the Sun tracing a low arc in the sky and the last of the heavy-bellied clouds still hanging far away inland, the Rite promised to be gloomier than ever. The procession itself was just forming up as he reached the square, and the ritual drums had begun their funereally slow and grave beat. The long crocodile of Province Councillors, religiouses and elders, with the portly figure of the Provincial Margrave at their head, was bathed in a dull red radiance that was the best the heavens could provide at this time of year, and even in this prosperous sector of the town everything looked mean and small. Even the seven garlanded statues of the gods, swaying on their litters above the heads of the procession, seemed grotesque and tawdry, showing the wear and tear of age through the touched-up glory. The boy moved slowly among the crowd, aware of his mother's earlier admonition not to make himself conspicuous, and took up a stance at the entrance to a narrow alley that led into a maze of back streets. Restless and uninterested in the proceedings, he was relieved when, as he had half hoped, a voice hailed him.

  "Cousin!"

  The boy's face broke into a smile. "Coran -- " Instantly Estenya's warning was forgotten as he shouldered his way through the press of people to join the auburn-haired boy. The contrast between Coran's fine clothes and the handed-down shirt, jerkin and trousers of his cousin was something that the boy tried -- usually with success -- not to notice. The differences had never been a barrier to friendship, and now Coran stood on tiptoe to whisper in his taller cousin's ear.

  "Dull as ever, isn't it? I tried
to find some excuse for staying away, but Father wouldn't hear of it."

  The green eyes narrowed, and he smiled a wolfish smile. "We've attended, as we were bidden. Isn't that enough?"

  Coran looked round hastily to see if anyone had overheard this invitation to rank disobedience. "We'll both be for a whipping if anyone finds out," he said uneasily.

  The other boy shrugged. "A whipping's soon over," he pointed out. He had suffered enough such punishments for them to mean little to him now. "And if we go to the river, no one will ever know we didn't follow the procession all the way."

  "Well..." Coran hesitated, less inclined to flout authority, but the temptation was too great to resist. Together they slipped into the alley, weaving their way through the narrow lanes until they reached the river jetty at the eastern end of the town. Here the main Rite would take place; the statues would be ceremonially washed in the sluggish current to symbolize the rebirth of life within the land, and interminable speeches would be made before the celebrations ended with music and stiff, formal dancing.

  Now though, the jetty was deserted. Several small cargo boats, newly come upriver from Port Summer, bobbed on the ebbing tide, and the black-haired boy squatted near the water's edge gazing speculatively at the craft. He had often dreamed of escaping from his present life, secretly boarding such a boat and sailing away to another part of the world where no stigma would attach to his existence. No one would miss him, for no one cared about him. He was an embarrassment, unwanted even by his mother; so much so that he had no clan name and the forename Estenya had given him was rarely used. In the solitude of his room he had invented another name for himself, but no one knew of it, for he never spoke it aloud lest it should be discovered and taken away. And yet the boy felt in his bones that he was, somehow, special. It was the one lifeline that had kept up his lonely spirits as he grew towards adolescence, and lately it had begun to goad him more and more towards a half-formed idea of running away.