Nights of Villjamur - Mark Charan Newton [163]
Brynd wanted to think about almost anything just to take his mind off tomorrow’s operation. He thought of Kym; one particular night the two of them fucked on a balcony, the risk of getting caught seeming a thrill at the time—merely a warming feeling now.
Such absentminded retrospection delayed his observation of two figures standing in the umbra further along the balcony. It was Apium, and the cultist Blavat.
As he approached them, Apium inquired, “You couldn’t sleep either?”
“No,” Brynd replied. “When there’s a big day ahead, I never can sleep easy.”
“Been far too long since we’ve had a proper big day,” Apium grumbled. “If it wasn’t for that business at Dalúk Point I would’ve totally forgotten how to fight by now.”
“Unlike you to be so glum,” Brynd observed.
The stocky soldier merely shrugged.
The cultist turned to face him, her aged skin somehow timeless in the starlight. “You want me to light a fire to get you warm?”
“Please,” Brynd said, gratefully.
She reached into her pocket, twisted something. A purple light started from nothing, and she set it down on the edge of the balcony until it soon transformed into a welcome glow.
“Handy, that,” Apium commented in admiration.
The three of them stared out northward, toward Tineag’l. Brynd couldn’t imagine what state the refugees would now be in. It could take days to reach them, and you had to factor in how far the ice sheets had descended, and how much distance they would have to travel on horseback.
“I won’t necessarily be able to get you out of any difficult situation,” Blavat said dully, now gazing into the fire. “Don’t start thinking we cultists are the stuff of epic poems. We’re ordinary people, just like you.”
“So who did you piss off back home?” Apium inquired. “Since you’re the lucky sod who’s forced to come out all this way north with the army, instead of keeping your arse safe and warm in Villjamur.”
“There’s a certain amount of loyalty owed to the order, but Papus is a bit too fond of being in authority. She doesn’t like her position challenged and apparently I became a bit too popular with the rest of my order. Times are uncertain, and she wanted to make it very clear who is in charge, especially right now.”
“Especially now?” Brynd queried, surprised at the intensity of her tone.
“Yes, it’s all to do with Dartun Súr of the Order of the Equinox. Papus hates him, even holds him responsible for the draugr. I don’t know if it’s just a personal vendetta, or whether she truly holds the moral high ground. Don’t be surprised, if when we get back to Villjamur, you find all cultists are at war with each other. And I was hoping to spend my time quietly on Ysla during the Freeze.”
“So this Ysla place,” Apium said, “what’s it really like?”
“It is an incredible place, you’ve no idea how much so. There are problems, just like any place, but there is a governing board of cultists from every order who make sure everything runs smoothly. It will be significantly warmer there than elsewhere in the Archipelago, so I doubt the ice will cause too much of a problem.”
Brynd interrupted, “I believe you can control the weather there, so why can’t you do that for the rest of the Empire?”
“A couple of members of the Order of Natura can alter cloud patterns in order to keep the sunlight on us—also drive snowstorms away—but not for long periods of time. It’s a difficult science, and though there is a heritage from the times in our history when the sun shone brighter, we only comprehend a fraction of it all.”
For a moment no one said anything,