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  ACHING

  GOD

  Iconoclasts – Book I

  Mike Shel

  ACHING GOD

  Copyright 2018 by Mike Shel

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher/author.

  Printed in the United States of America

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  Table of Contents

  Map: Hanifax Imperium

  1: Nightmare

  2: Travelers

  3: The Blue Cathedral

  4: Citadel

  5: For Agnes

  6: Courtiers

  7: Long May She Reign

  8: The Golden Egg

  9: Surprises

  10: Duke Yaryx

  11: The Earl’s Son

  12: Kenes

  13: The Hunchback

  14: Vintage 766

  15: The Manticore

  16: Discord

  17: The Hermit of Kalimander

  18: Serekirk

  19: Pennyman’s Respite

  20: Leaving Serekirk

  21: Into the Barrowlands

  22: The Fog

  23: Conclave

  24: Persuasion

  25: Sleepless

  26: Sin Eater

  27: Phantom

  28: Cage God

  29: Bottomless

  30: Idol

  31: The Aching God

  32: Descent

  33: The Face of God

  34: Inquiry

  35: Homeward

  Appendix A

  Appendix B

  Appendix C

  Special Preview: Sin Eater

  Stay Connected!

  About the Author

  For Tracy…worth the wait.

  MAP

  Note: for color versions of all maps, visit

  www.mikeshel.com/the-world-of-hanifax.

  ACHING

  GOD

  Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.

  – J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla (1872)

  1

  Nightmare

  He stumbled down the humid corridor, heart pounding like rapid claps of thunder. He was desperate not to trip on the ancient, unevenly laid paving stones, but fear fueled his flight from the horde of gibbering dead things they had awoken in the niche-lined room. One of the perverse creatures had spilled Ursula’s entrails onto the floor with quick, greedy claws, and another separated Meric’s head from his shoulders the way a child might flick the bloom off a dandelion. With Brenten and Lenda he had bolted out of the domed chamber, fleeing in panic from the carnage like a trio of untested neophytes rather than the seasoned veterans they were. Though the ill-lit hall was only seventy feet long, it seemed to stretch out endlessly into the distance, those flickering tongues of fire atop fat, misshapen candles in the entrance antechamber appearing to grow farther away despite their terrified flight.

  It was when he heard his father’s rough voice echo down the impossible corridor that Auric realized he was dreaming; that these events were in his past; that he had survived this dreadful ordeal. But the knowledge gave him no comfort: fear gripped him as tightly as it had all those years ago.

  “You stink of piss, boy! Too good to be a tanner, yet you still stink of piss!”

  His father’s acid contempt snapped at his heels, every bit as threatening as the filthy jaws of those slavering corpses. Though the man was thirty years in a grave a thousand miles away, Auric was certain that if he turned to face the pursuing dead he’d find Samic Manteo in their vanguard, waving a vat hook at his only son, intent on dragging his flailing body into a liming tank. Brenten was ahead of him, fumbling with his flasks and vials, dropping one after another in panicked clumsiness punctuated by near-tearful curses. Normally fleet Lenda brought up the rear, slowed by a leg wound.

  “Auric!” she shouted, her own fear carrying with her voice. “Don’t leave me to them, Auric! We can face them two abreast if we turn and stand our ground! When have you ever run from a fight?”

  Then Lenda’s calls to rally stopped: her throat had been torn out. He knew this because he had turned around all those years ago, to face the dead with Lenda. Side by side they had cut down three of the awful things before a fourth broke through Lenda’s defenses and tore out her throat, gobbling up the bloody meat before their eyes. It was done with its grisly meal before she collapsed to the ground.

  But in the dream, he didn’t heed her urgent cry for help. He ran. He ran despite knowing a pit had opened in the floor ahead and lay waiting for him. It had already swallowed Brenten. Soon, its gaping mouth would swallow him, too.

  Auric woke from disturbing dreams, the bedsheets disagreeably damp with perspiration. Margaret lay at the end of the bed, big, dark eyes looking at him with mournful concern, snout twitching between her paws. Though the details were already fading, he knew the subject of this nighttime theater: the corpses, the pit, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. Feeble moonlight seeped through the window, modestly illuminating the large bedchamber. He figured it was no later than four in the morning. Further sleep would evade him. It always did.

  Many months had passed since his slumber was interrupted by this old haunt. Indeed, the dreams of that fateful descent into the Djao temple had faded away in the months after he had left the city and moved into this manor home in Daurhim.

  “There, there, girl,” he said to the hound, reaching out a shaking hand to rub her ears as he ran the other through his sleep-tousled hair. “It was just a dream. Just a dream.” The dog lurched up from the bed and nuzzled his hand with familiar affection.

  As she settled back down on the blanket, there was a knock at the door. Before Auric could give leave, the hinges creaked and the portal opened.

  “Good morning, my lord,” muttered the gray-haired man who appeared with a candle, still in his bedclothes and rubbing a sleepy eye with his balled-up fist. “I trust your sleep was pleasant and deep. Did you require anythin’ from me at this gloriously early hour?”

  Hanouer was mocking him, of course. No doubt Auric had cried out at the end of the nightmare, waking his surly manservant. Hannah had been appalled by the man’s frequent disrespect, but Auric himself more or less tolerated it. Truth was, in many ways he still felt like the bruised tanner’s boy from a Woolly Coast backwater. The fact that he lived here in a manor home with two servants still had an air of unreality. He half expected a crack across his face from his father’s scarred hand, along with accusations of “putting on the high hat.”

  As usual, Auric chose to ignore Hanouer’s jab.

  “Saddle Glutton for me, if you would. I think I’ll go for a ride.”

  On cue, Margaret leapt down from the bed and headed out the door for the stable. Hanouer, scowling, began moving in that direction himself. Auric got out of bed and changed into well-made but simple riding clothes, then walked through his modestly appointed home, through the kitchen to the small barn where Glutton was stabled wi
th two other mares. Hanouer was standing by her stall, holding her reins out to him, a grimace on his face.

  Glutton was true to her name. She had a voracious appetite and was remarkably fat. But what she lacked in speed she more than made up for with astonishing stamina, and Auric had ridden her with pride since retiring, undeterred by the sniggers the horse’s girth drew. He led her to the nearby wooded hillside, Margaret matching their easy pace. Rides in the countryside sometimes helped dispel the lingering unease of a nightmare, Glutton’s plodding gait soothing his nerves. Margaret, sniffing the air as she trotted beside the lumbering horse, attended as his faithful guardian.

  What would bring these old ghosts haunting again? After, what? Two years? No, three. Three years since he bought the land and the buildings that sat on it; since he resigned his commission with the League, saying goodbye to a nearly thirty-year career.

  Auric rode for over an hour in the early morning gloom of the woods before breaking out into Farmer Coso’s pasture bordering his estate. There was light in the farmer’s barn, where Coso’s innumerable burly sons were doubtless milking the man’s legion of cows. There were other signs Daurhim was beginning to stir. In the valley below, lights in windows here and there winked into life. Auric turned to the small keep crowning the hill south of his own home and wondered if Lady Hannah herself was awake yet.

  Pala had eggs and bacon waiting for him when at last he returned to the manor. He ate without tasting them, looking out of the kitchen window as the sun crept over the eastern horizon. Hanouer entered the kitchen, pinching his wife’s ample bottom as he stole a slice of bacon from a platter near the stove.

  “That’s for the master, you old goat,” chided plump, plain Pala, swatting at his hand with a wooden spoon.

  “Gods forbid I take food from the master’s mouth,” Hanouer grumbled.

  There was a rap on the back door. Hanouer chewed his bacon for a moment before looking over at Auric. “You’ll be wanting me to get that, I suppose?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” Auric responded, matching the man’s casual tone. Hanouer scratched his smear of a nose and went to answer the knock. Pala smiled at Auric, gratitude in her homely face for tolerating her husband’s relentless cheek. Hanouer reappeared after a few moments, standing in the kitchen doorway without speaking, a look of boredom on his grizzled face.

  Auric waited a few beats until he was certain Hanouer would say nothing. “Yes?”

  Hanouer hesitated a moment longer before depositing a folded half-sheet of vellum on the table. “This just arrived, my lord. Assumed you’d want it right off.” The churl doffed a nonexistent hat and backed out of the kitchen with mock gravity. Had the sender of this note witnessed Hanouer’s theatrics, she would have had the man flogged and placed overnight in the stocks in the town’s main square. Auric just smiled, thinking it no more than a tanner’s boy deserved for putting on the high hat. He opened the note and read its familiar, elegant hand.

  Sir Auric:

  A communication of some urgency has arrived for you from Boudun. I would ask that you present yourself this morning to collect it. I would also speak with you regarding another matter, if you would so kindly indulge me.

  Lady Hannah Dyre

  Baroness of Daurhim

  So formal. Baroness of Daurhim. A rebuke? Again, it was no more than he deserved. It was he who ended their affair, so uncomfortable was he with the gulf between their stations. “You are an anointed knight of the realm!” she had exclaimed, weeping. “If that is enough for me, why shouldn’t it be enough for you?” She was truly a good and giving woman, but her noble blood deafened her to the condescension in her words. “If I am not bothered by the fact you are the son of a peasant,” she said, “what conflict is there?”

  At times, Auric had felt awkward when with her in public. His own severe, dark eyes, hawk’s beak of a nose, and thin-lipped mouth set in a self-critical grimace were such a contrast to Hannah. She was lovely, graceful, and exuded a natural air of dignity. His face was a peasant’s face if ever there was one. But what conflict was there? During his storied career, he’d had many dealings with the nobility, none of which left him in awe of the highborn. Why should he end an otherwise meaningful and mutually pleasurable liaison? He frowned, catching his reflection in the window showing the gray in his hair overtaking his formerly black mane. Feeling foolish, he swept it back with the fingers of one hand and slapped his battered old riding cap back onto his head.

  “Should I assume you’ll be with the baroness for the rest of the morning, my lord?” said Hanouer, standing again in the kitchen doorway, now with an inimitable leer.

  “Assume nothing, you bloody chuff,” Auric growled, immediately regretting the eruption, but refusing to broach an apology. Instead he pushed past Hanouer, giving Pala a weak smile as he did so.

  Stepping out his front door, Auric ignored the groomed path that wound around the hill, designed by a landscaper who lacked a soldier’s sense of efficiency. Instead, he walked straight down the gradual slope. Only Daurhim’s ancient cemetery stood between his own home and Dyrekeep, perched atop its own rise to the south. The baroness’s many servants were already in evidence, trimming the manor’s hedge and tending Hannah’s horses. Auric recognized towering Belech chopping wood for the manor’s many hearths, singing some old soldier’s song as he worked, his rich baritone rolling down the hill. When Auric came near, Belech stopped to wipe sweat from his brow with a pocket rag, close-shaven gray stubble starting to show. Belech nodded with an affable grin before resuming his task. Auric had been hunting with the man on a few occasions. He returned the silent greeting, feeling a bit of discomfort. Was this the first time he’d been to the Dyre manor house since his poorly handled termination of their romantic relationship? Yes, first time on his own, at least. He’d been up once or twice for a meeting of Daurhim’s leading citizens to advise the baroness on some local matters, as was his duty as an alderman. Hannah—Lady Dyre, he corrected himself—had been somewhat cold, but proper, as befitted her role as ruler of the little town. But it wasn’t pettiness in her manner. She wasn’t a petty woman. So why, as he approached the manor door, did he feel like an errand boy soon to receive a scolding for laggardly service?

  Arlan, her chief manservant, answered Auric’s knock. A rotund man in a flowing tunic, apparently capable of maintaining a perfectly expressionless countenance regardless of circumstances, guided him past the rich appointments of the reception hall to the baroness’s private office. She sat behind a great desk of oak, carved with intricate griffin motifs, suitable for even the loftiest aristocrat. She was reading a bundle of papers and he recognized some as architect’s plans for a monument park honoring Hannah’s late husband’s family. Padrig Dyre had died the year before Auric’s arrival in Daurhim, some fool riding accident. Word had come to town recently that some of his self-important relatives in Boudun were raising a stink at court about how this wholly unnecessary project had been on hold now for a decade. Padrig himself and then Lady Dyre after his death had repeatedly postponed the wasteful expenditure in favor of the more urgent needs of the settlement. This itself stood as more honorable testimony to the Dyres’ stewardship of Daurhim than would any marble cenotaphs.

  Though she was a few years younger than Auric, Hannah Dyre’s hair had long been completely gray. It was gathered at the nape of her slender neck in a pale blue lacquered loop, framing a handsome face. Arlan made Auric’s introduction and after a brief pause, she looked up from her papers and gave him a lovely smile, devoid of any bitterness or malice.

  “Sir Auric. Please, take a seat. Arlan, bring us some of the fresh apple cider Irlena cooked up yesterday. You look tired, sir. Did you not sleep well?”

  “Unpleasant dreams, I’m afraid,” he said, making a formal bow before taking the proffered seat.

  “I’m not surprised,” she answered. She must have seen his confusion, for she offered a co
nciliatory grin. “You talk in your sleep, sir.”

  “And I was convinced Daurhim had me sleeping like a baby.”

  She lowered her intelligent hazel eyes to her desk and picked up a small envelope, which she handed across to him, her smile fading. “You’ll recognize the seal.”

  His heart skipped a beat. Indeed, he did. An elaborate S within a nine-pointed star—the sign of the Syraeic League. Auric had been a Syraeic agent for most of his adult life before retiring with a sizable fortune at his disposal. Since his retreat from those hazardous pursuits, he had heard from other intrepid Syraeic adventurers on occasion while ensconced in his cozy manor home. Their letters began with flattery, or feigned interest in his welfare, before transitioning with varying levels of artistry to the author’s true concern. One didn’t delve into the dangerous and forbidden for nearly thirty years without gaining a considerable bounty of equally dangerous and forbidden knowledge that others required for similar endeavors. But this was an official seal used only by ranking officers of the League: its lictors. The color of the wax, a pale mustard yellow, indicated the message’s import.

  “Have you read it?”

  “The seal is unbroken, Sir,” she answered, sitting straight in her chair and tilting her chin up. “I am not in the habit of prying into the correspondence of others.”

  “Of course,” he responded, frowning with contrition, appalled by his own stupidity. “Forgive me.” He broke the seal and was greeted with dense text in a cramped hand he didn’t recognize.

  Sir Auric Manteo, greetings:

  I am Pallas Rae, late the Third Lictor of the Syraeic League, based in Boudun. Though we never had any personal dealings with one another, I remember well your reputation for resourcefulness and skill as an agent of our association. Despite your abrupt departure from our ranks, I hope that my own reputation might prevail upon you to make your way to the Citadel to consult on a matter of grave importance.