Stride Old Phuul

1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-913117-28-3
Verlag: Inspired Quill
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 2, 356 Seiten

Reihe: The Viiminian Empire

Can a Necromancer save a dying world?

The Viiminian Empire rots from within, its dominion mere walking corpses and fading memory. Everyone knows its glory is gone. Everyone except Rhea Phuul.

Confronted with the painful decay of the once-mighty Empire, Rhea has taken up the mantle of the Eternals: the restoration of her society and its ancient faith. Only when long-forgotten duties are carried out might the Empire again find renewal.

But Rhea must convince the people of Tuonako to heed an outsider of no great lineage. Her fiance's family bring prestige, but they also bring age-old enemies. Rhea is no schemer. But her greatest foe, darker than the grim-faced Establishment and its shadow-stalking Inquisition, may lie deep within her own mind.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stride, Daniel

Leseproben

Chapter Two

Mists were rising as Rhea emerged into the Tuonakonian afternoon. Up went her umbrella. Rhea never left the house without one, not since that time she had found herself stranded in a library alcove, clutching a stack of Ooseman commentaries to her chest to keep the precious paper dry. Rhea always tried to learn from mistakes.

Offering necromancy lessons was not a mistake, but no children had signed up for tutoring.

Ambling gingerly over the rain-slick cobblestones, Rhea found it profoundly wrong.

Necromancy was a fact of life and death in the Viiminian Empire, and anyone could advance themselves through application and study. Yet these children – and their ilk – would sooner laugh at learning. Were there no folk left with ambition? No-one who aspired to climb the ladder society offered? She herself was living proof that the system rewarded excellence.

She sighed.

Not everyone was like her. Most of those children were destined for the Guild of Skilled Labourers, a lifetime of flaunted wealth and exemption from the Death Draft. Family bias and heritage were powerful things in shaping young minds, and sometimes the flow of fate ran against even the most talented individual.

Besides, the afternoon had hardly been wasted, either artistically or financially. This performance had netted copper bits. A silver mark or two. And she’d escaped injury in the fall, save for bruising on the shins. It could have been worse.

I’m thinking like Teltö. Sadness stabbed her heart as she turned the corner towards the gondola station. Wherever he is.

Rhea increased her pace, and manoeuvred around a puddle. All around, leafy green weeds sprouted between the cobblestones. Brambles and bracken broke through cracks in a brick wall.

•   •   •

History and culture had long ago sliced Tuonako in twain. Upper Tuonako rested upon crags and cliff tops. Its houses and walls hugged the knees of the Kullio Mountain Ranges. Lower Tuonako sprawled between the slopes of the lower foothills, and spilled out through the fertile river-valley as far as the eaves of the Nholoma Forest. Some brave souls had even erected dwellings beneath the very trees, heedless of all which lurked in those green and ancient shadows.

As the only Imperial City west of the mountains, Tuonako was a geographical divide, and yet something more.

Necromancers, Guildlings, and Ordinaries were abundant in both the Upper and Lower halves. Alien Mnomo squeaked in every side-street from the high snow to the low river. Yet, as soon as Rhea first stepped off the midnight train and into the chill mist, she had sensed an invisible wall. Months later, she was no closer to solving the mystery.

But pondering would not get her home to Vaani’s. A gondola would.

Rhea reached the front of the ticket queue, and dismissed these idle thoughts. As her father always said: practicality first. She slid a ten-bit piece over the counter. The lich behind the window was plain, with mud-dark hair and an oversized forehead. Even the touch of Mother Death did him few favours. Alas, the functionaries of the Empire needed little beauty. If beauty is dead, cannot the Dead, at least, be beautiful?

But it could have been worse. At least necromantic reanimation staved off rot and the worm, at least for a time.

Rhea collected her ticket and settled down on a sheltered bench to wait for the transport. Rainwater ran along the street guttering, and gurgled down the storm drain. Tuonako, city of storm drains. By happy chance, the gondola queue was short this evening, with only a dozen travellers. Which were from the Upper and Lower Cities? Rhea tried to spot the clues.

Blind guesswork. Rhea twitched. The answer danced tauntingly out of reach – she knew a local, or even Vaani, could spot each person immediately. But she was an outsider. A funny-speaking Easterner, from the other side of the mountains. She’d never understand Tuonako, even if she tried until the peaks of the Kullio Ranges crumbled into dust.

The gondola car bore the arrow-insignia of the Imperial Department of Transport. Rhea found a seat near the rear, which she preferred. Her back-of-the-envelope analysis – using three weeks’ worth of painstakingly collected data – showed it meant less chance of unwanted social interaction. Or any social interaction at all.

Bloody gondolas. But she had little choice in crossing Tuonako’s divide. Back in Mustanako, Vaani had warned against the other main route.

“The Midnight Stair is old,” he’d whispered one night as they cuddled on the hearthrug, after liquor and love. The gaslights shone dim and remote. The fire’s embers lay exhausted, save for snatches of ruby-red. “Too old. It is never the same way twice. Tuonakonians rarely speak of it. The words that once ruled it are lost.”

Which, short of arcane goat tracks, left gondolas as the connection between the Upper and Lower Cities. Car and cable formed a thin, mechanical link between two worlds, for merchants and travellers alike. Rhea Phuul remained the alien in both.

“I’m a Mnoma to them.” She gazed out the rain-spattered window. The car was rising, leaving the mists of the Lower City behind. A cloudy curtain drew across her vision, a thousand secrets concealed. “A green-skinned lunatic Mnoma, in human form. What’s my response to pain, you bastards? Are you going to write papers on me?”

Up front, a woman in a beige cardigan turned her head. She blinked like a tired midday owl, and hooted down the length of the gondola car. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Yes, sorry,” said Rhea. Her cheeks were burning again.

•   •   •

Rhea’s eyes flickered open. Grey webs of light seeped into the bedroom through a gap in the curtains, illuminating boxes of books in every nook and corner. Books upon books, stacked like ill-built towers, collapsible at any moment. Rain pattered soothingly on the roof and windowpanes.

She yawned and sat up, letting the blanket fall to her waist. Beside her, Vaani lay curled like an embryo beneath the sheets. So he crept in during the night, poor thing. From the soft and steady breathing Rhea knew her fiancé still slept. She smiled. He was at his most lovely when he slept. There was an innocence about him, a trusting quality. Would that he might sleep forever.

She climbed from the bed and padded naked over to the window. The carpet felt so cosy against her toes, thick and sumptuous as new woollen socks. Nudging a stuffed owlet out the way – a birthday present from Vaani’s father – she pulled back the curtains to reveal the Tuonako morning.

A dusting of rain peppered the windowpanes. As always.

Rhea unclasped the latch, and poked her face into the bracing air. The freshness goose-pimpled her skin. Outside loomed the City, hazy and vague, and alive with hidden vistas. Mist shrouded the rooftops of Lower Tuonako, and besieged the steeples and factory chimneys. The Gasworks and the Lesser Council Chambers stood like island fortresses in a sea of swirling white vapour. The Venivat, second river of the Empire, ran like a chill and silver ribbon in the dawn. And on the western horizon, like a smudge of forbidding murk, lurked the forest and its gloomy-green mysteries. Rhea had never ventured there.

“Morning already?” croaked a voice.

Rhea fastened the window latch, and turned. Vaani sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. His mop of light brown hair hung lank and unkempt over his forehead.

“Yes,” said Rhea. “It’s five-thirty. Can I fetch you a coffee?”

Vaani blinked. Weariness lay heavy upon his sharp features. “Five-thirty?”

“It’s still Summer. It dawns early due to planetary tilt.”

Vaani sank with a groan, and pulled the blankets over his head.

Rhea fished her tartan dressing-gown off the floor and threw it on. The cord had gone missing en route from Mustanako, but she could live with that. Holding the gown closed manually, she hurried downstairs.

•   •   •

A steaming milky mug later, Vaani’s eyes were less red. A positive. Rhea preferred his grey shade, even if it reminded her of a Kuolinako smoke cloud.

“Thank you,” said Vaani. He repressed a yawn.

Rhea perched upon the quilted bedcover. Dawn brought out its mountain lily design.

“Another late night?”

He nodded. “So many things to sort ahead of my Grand Council candidacy.”

“With a surname like yours, I’d have thought someone else would sort it for you.”

Vaani replaced the mug on the tray. He didn’t touch the biscuits. Rhea didn’t blame him. This ancient bunch might have been made of sawdust and concrete; all she could muster in her hurry.

“It’s a mystery at best,” he said. Another yawn. “Since Uncle Peta died, the bureaucrats have made life difficult.”

Rhea frowned. Vaani continued.

“Uncle Peta had enemies. Quiet ones, of course, but the old man’s paranoia wasn’t entirely misplaced. I’d jump at shadows too if I thought shadow-stalkers were lurking under the stairs.”

“But he was Grand Chancellor, the most powerful man in the Empire. Before that, he served as Inquisitor General. Someone like that should fear nothing.”

Vaani patted her shoulder. The blanket slipped, revealing his bare chest.

“Someone like that fears everything. It’s how they get the position.”

High Politics was something else Rhea never understood. So pointless; a squabble of bald men...