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ONE

It began in darkness. Zahariel’s eyes snapped open an instant before Lord Cypher’s men came for him. He awoke to find a hand descending to clamp across his mouth. They dragged him from his bed, put a hood over his head and tied his arms behind him. With that, he was hauled blindly down a series of corridors. When at last they came to a halt, he heard one of his captors knock three times on a door.

The door opened and he was pushed inside.

‘Who is brought before us?’ asked a voice in the darkness.

‘A stranger,’ Lord Cypher said beside him. ‘He has been brought here bound and blinded. He comes seeking entrance.’

‘Bring him closer,’ said the first voice.

Zahariel felt hands at his arms and shoulders. He was propelled roughly forward and forced to kneel. A shock ran through him as his bare knees met the cold stone floor. Unwilling to let his captors think he was afraid, he tried to suppress a shiver.

‘What is your name?’ he heard the first voice again, louder this time. Its tone was rich and deep, a voice accustomed to command. ‘Who are your people?’

‘I am Zahariel El’Zurias,’ he replied. In keeping with ancient custom, Zahariel recited his full lineage, wondering if it would be the last time he ever spoke the words. ‘I am the only living son of Zurias El’Kaleal, who in turn was the son of Kaleal El’Gibrael. My people are descended from the line of Sahiel.’

‘A nobleman,’ said a third voice. In some ways this voice was more arresting than the others, its tone even more magnetic and compelling than the first. ‘He thinks he should be allowed among us because his father was important. I say he isn’t good enough. He isn’t worthy. We should throw him from the tower and be done with it.’

‘We will see,’ said the first voice. Zahariel heard the telltale rasp of a knife being slid from its sheath. He felt the uncomfortable sensation of cold metal against his skin as a blade was pressed to his throat.

‘First, we will test him,’ said the voice in the darkness. ‘You feel the blade at your throat?’

‘Yes,’ replied Zahariel.

‘Know this, then, a lie is a betrayal of our vows. Here, we deal only in truth. If you lie, I will know it. If I hear a lie, I will cut your throat. Do you accept these terms?’

‘Yes, I accept them.’

‘Do you? Understand, I am asking for an oath. Even when I take the knife away from your throat, even when I am dead, even when this knife is rusted and dull and useless, the oath you make by its edge will still be binding. Are you prepared to make an oath?’

‘I am prepared,’ said Zahariel. ‘I will make the oath.’

‘First, tell me by what right you have come here? Who are you to claim entrance to our gathering? By what right do you claim to be worthy to stand among us?’

‘I have completed the first portion of my training and I have been judged worthy by my masters,’ said Zahariel.

‘That is a start. But it takes more than that to be welcomed among us. That is why you must be tested.’

Zahariel had known they would be coming for him. Master Ramiel had told him as much the previous day, though, as usual, the old man’s words were cloaked in shadows, concealing as much as they revealed.

‘You understand I cannot tell you much,’ Master Ramiel had said. ‘It is not the way we do these things. The initiation ritual is ancient. It pre-dates the Order’s foundation by thousands of years. Some even say our ancestors may have brought it with them from Terra.’

‘I understand,’ said Zahariel.

‘Do you?’ his master asked.

He turned to stare at Zahariel with quick, hooded eyes. In the past, Zahariel might have felt the need to look away under the intensity of his gaze, but now he met the old man’s eyes directly.

‘Yes, I think you do,’ said Master Ramiel, after a short pause. A smile creased his weathered face. ‘You are different, Zahariel. I noticed it in your face when you first joined our order.’

They were sitting in one of the many practice halls inside Aldurukh, where knights and supplicants spent their days honing the skills they needed to survive on Caliban. The practice hall was empty, the hour so early that even the supplicants were not yet awake. Ordinarily, Zahariel would also have been abed, but a message from Master Ramiel had brought him to the practice hall an hour before daybreak.

‘In the course of the next night, you will attend your initiation ceremony into the Order,’ said Master Ramiel. ‘During the ceremony, you will swear your oath of loyalty and will begin your journey to becoming a knight of the Order.’

‘Do you wish to take me through the procedures for the ceremony?’ asked Zahariel. ‘So I know what to expect?’

Ramiel shook his head, and Zahariel knew the old man had other things on his mind.

‘Despite the claims of some of our rivals, the knights of the Order are not entirely immune to the lure of tradition. We understand the vital role it can play in our lives. Human beings crave ritual; it gives meaning to everyday life and adds gravity to our deeds. More than that, it can even help us to understand our place in the world. Granted, we disagree with those who hold a religious view of such things. We see no supernatural significance in tradition, whether our own, or anyone else’s. In our view, the most important function of ritual and tradition is not to achieve any effect in the outer world, but to create stability and balance in the inner world of the mind. If tradition has any outer function at all, it is to create a sense of social cohesion. It might almost be described as the glue holding our society together.’

The old man paused again. ‘You are looking at me strangely, Zahariel. Have I touched a nerve?’

‘No,’ said Zahariel. ‘I’m just tired, master. I hadn’t expected a lecture on tradition at this hour in the morning.’

‘Fair enough; you’re right, I didn’t bring you here to discuss the social aspects of tradition. I am more concerned with the symbolism of some of the Order’s rituals. I want to make sure you understand their significance before they come for you.’

Master Ramiel rose to his feet and walked into the middle of the room. In accordance with the Order’s traditions, there was a spiral design inscribed into the floor of the practice hall, stretching from one end of the room to the other.

‘You know why this is here, Zahariel? The spiral?’

‘I do, master,’ said Zahariel, rising to join Ramiel. ‘The spiral is the foundation of all the Order’s sword work, as much a part of its physical doctrines as the Verbatim is the cornerstone to our mental disciplines.’

‘Indeed so, Zahariel, but it is so much more than that. From your first day, you have been made to walk the spiral on the practice hall floor, launching pre-set routines of attack and defence at different stages of your journey. Do you know why?’

Zahariel hesitated before answering. ‘I assumed it was an ancient sword ritual of Terra. Is that not so?’

‘Possibly,’ admitted Ramiel, ‘but by rigorously practising the spiral, endlessly repeating its patterns day after day for years until the movements become second nature, you will master an unbeatable system of self-defence.’

Master Ramiel began walking the spiral, his staff moving as though in an elaborate ballet of ritual combat. ‘The knights of the Order regularly defeat representatives from the other knightly orders in tourneys and mock duels. The spiral is the reason.’

At last, Ramiel reached the centre of the spiral and indicated the lines encircling him with a wide sweep of his staff. ‘Look at the pattern laid out before us. This room has been here ever since the monastery at Aldurukh was founded. You see how smooth the edges of the spiral are in places, worn down by the feet of the thousands of warriors who have walked its path since it was put here. But what is the spiral, Zahariel? What do you see here?’

‘I see attack and defence,’ Zahariel replied. ‘It is the path to excellence, and to the defeat of my enemies.’

‘Attack and defence?’ Master Ramiel slowly nodded his head as he spoke the words, as though considering them. ‘It is a good answer, as far as it goes. Spoken like a true warrior. But a knight must be more than just a warrior. He must be the guardian and guide of our people. He must protect them from all their enemies, not just the human and bestial ones. It is not enough to protect our people from the beasts, or from predatory warlords and bandits. The path to excellence is a far harder and rockier road than that. No, we must try to shield the population of Caliban from every threat that assails them. We must do our best to protect them from hunger and want, from disease and malnutrition, from suffering and hardship. Ultimately, I grant you, it is an impossible task. There will always be suffering. There will always be hardship, but for so long as the Order exists, we must strive to defeat these evils. The measure of our success in this case is not so much that we win the battle, but that we are willing to fight it at all. Do you understand?’

‘I think so, master,’ Zahariel answered, ‘but I do not see how it relates to the spiral.’

‘The spiral is an ancient symbol,’ Master Ramiel said. ‘They say it was found carved on some of mankind’s oldest tombs. It represents the journey we take in life. You are young, Zahariel, and so your experience of these things is limited, but I will tell you of a mystery of life that is revealed to a man as he gets older. Our lives repeat themselves. Time and time again, we face the same conflicts. We take the same actions. We make the same mistakes. It is as though our lives circle the same fixed point, repeating similar patterns endlessly from birth to death. Some call this “the eternal return”. That which is true for individuals is also true for the mass of humanity as a whole. One need only look at history to see that repeating the same mistakes is hardly the folly of individuals alone. Entire cultures and nations do exactly the same thing. We should know better, but somehow we never do.’

‘If this is true, if the spiral represents our lives, where does it lead?’ asked Zahariel, looking at the design on the floor beneath them. ‘The spiral never comes to an end. Every place where its lines should end, they turn back on themselves, creating a repeating pattern.’

‘What does it remind you of?’ asked Ramiel.

Zahariel cocked his head to one side and said, ‘It’s like a serpent swallowing its tail.’

‘An ancient symbol indeed,’ nodded Ramiel. ‘One of the oldest.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘It is a symbol of rebirth and renewal,’ said Ramiel. ‘A symbol of new beginnings and immortality.’

Zahariel nodded, though the sense of much of what Ramiel was saying was lost upon him. ‘If you are saying that our lives repeat themselves, isn’t that the same as the teachings of the religious diehards? They say after death our spirits are reborn in new bodies. They talk of their own spiral as well. They say it exists in the underworld, and that by walking it we choose the path of our rebirth. Is that true?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Master Ramiel.

Seeing the expression of Zahariel’s face, Ramiel smiled again. ‘Don’t look so shocked, Zahariel. I know it is commonplace among supplicants to view their masters as the font of all wisdom and knowledge, but there are limits even to my insights. I can only comment on the paths we walk in life. As to what happens after death, who can say? By its very nature, death is an insoluble mystery to us. No one has ever returned from its lands, at least not to my knowledge, so how can anyone define its nature? Are we simply a collection of physical processes that begins with birth and ends with death, or is there more to us than that? Show me the man who claims to have the answer to that question, and I will show you a liar.’

Without waiting for him to comment, Master Ramiel continued: ‘We are digressing, however. I called you here because I wanted to emphasise the symbolism underlying some of our traditions. I told you earlier that I couldn’t reveal too much about your forthcoming initiation ceremony. It would not be seemly for me to do so. It is better you experience the ceremony without preconceptions. I simply wanted to ensure you had some inkling that the outer circumstances of the ceremony, the ritual and its accoutrements, have a significance that extends beyond their mere physical aspect. All these things are symbolic. Remember, this is not just an initiation, but a ceremony of rebirth. Symbolically, you will be reborn from one state into another. You will make the transition from supplicant to knight, and from boy to man.’

‘Tomorrow, the old Zahariel will be dead,’ Master Ramiel said finally. ‘I wish my best to the new Zahariel. May he live a long and worthy life.’

It was more an interrogation than a test.

Zahariel knelt on the stone floor, his head hooded, his hands bound, and the knife still at his throat. He knelt, while his unseen captors hurled rapid-fire questions at him one after the other. At first, they questioned him at length about the Verbatim. They insisted he recite entire passages from memory. They made him explain each passage’s meaning. They asked him about his sword work, whether it was better to respond to a two-handed descending strike by evading the blow or by meeting it with a parry.

‘What kind of parry?’ the first voice asked after they had heard his answer. ‘Your opponent is right-handed and his blow comes at you on a high diagonal line. Do you deflect to your left or right? Do you follow with a riposte, a counter-slash, or a punch with your free hand? Should that hand even be free? Where is your pistol? Answer quickly.’

So it went on. They asked questions about warhorses, about hunting beasts, about pistols, swords, lances, strategy and wilderness survival. They asked him about the dangers of sweetroot flowers, the most secure places to seek shelter in the forest during an unexpected storm and how to recognise the difference between the tracks of a mellei bird and a raptor. They asked him to explain the decisions that needed to be made in setting up an ambush, what warning signs a commander should look out for when adopting a defensive perimeter, and what was the best way to attack an enemy who had the advantages of both higher ground and a fixed position.

‘What are the accepted grounds for challenging a knight from another order to a duel?’ the second voice, the one he knew was Lord Cypher’s, asked him. ‘What form should the challenge take? How do you choose your seconds? What about weapons? Where should the duel take place? Is honour the only consideration, or should there be others? Answer quickly.’

There were more men in the room, he was sure of it, but only three of his captors contributed to the interrogation. They handled it smoothly, as though each was well practiced in these situations, swiftly following every one of his answers with yet another question.

At times, attempting to confuse him, two of them would ask different questions in tandem, sometimes all three at the same time. Zahariel refused to be flustered or intimidated, he refused to let his confidence be undermined by the off-putting conditions. It did not matter that he could not see or that his hands were tied. It did not matter that there was a knife against his throat.

He would not fail this test. He had come too far. He would not fall at this latest hurdle.

‘This is a waste of time,’ the third voice said. ‘You hear me? We are wasting our time. This whelp will never be a knight. It doesn’t matter what his masters say. He doesn’t have what it takes. I have a sense for these things. I say let’s cut his throat and be done with it. We can always find another candidate for the path to knighthood, one that’s more worthy of the honour.’

The questions of the third man were always the hardest. Most of the time, he did not ask questions at all. Instead, he verbally abused Zahariel as though trying to denigrate him in the eyes of the others. Where the other two did not react when Zahariel answered a question correctly, the third man always responded with bile and sarcasm. More than once, he accused Zahariel of being ‘book-learned’ rather than a man of action.

He accused him of lacking staying power and fibre. He said Zahariel did not have the true inner resolve that was necessary to become a knight. Again and again, he tried to persuade his confederates that Zahariel was not what they were looking for.

‘He will bring shame to our order,’ the third voice said, during one particularly heated exchange with the others. ‘He will be an embarrassment to us. He is useless. We must be harsh in these things. One weak stone in a wall is enough to bring the whole structure crashing down. It is better to kill him, here and now, than take the risk that he may one day destroy us. He should have been drowned at birth like a tainted child.’

‘Too far,’ said the first voice, the one that held the knife against Zahariel’s throat. ‘You play your part, brother, but this is too far. The young man before us has done nothing to earn such disdain. You treat him too harshly. He has proved he is worthy to train further among us.’

‘He is worthy,’ Lord Cypher’s voice agreed. ‘He has passed the test. He has answered every question. I vote in his favour.’

‘As do I,’ said the first voice. ‘What of you, brother? Has he convinced you? Will you make it unanimous?’

‘I will,’ the third voice said, after what seemed like an eternity’s hesitation. ‘I have played my part, but I had no doubt about him from the outset. He is worthy. I vote in his favour.’

‘It is agreed,’ Lord Cypher said. ‘We will administer the oath. But first, he has been in darkness too long. Bring him into the light.’

‘Close your eyes,’ said the first voice as the knife was taken away from his throat.

Zahariel felt hands at the hood over his head, pulling it away. ‘Then wait a moment before you open them. After being in the dark, you may find the light blinding.’

The hood was lifted from his head and, finally, he saw his interrogators.

At first, all Zahariel could see were blurred shapes and outlines as the brightness of the room stabbed at his eyes.

Slowly, his vision was restored. The blurs coalesced into discrete bodies and faces. He could see a circle of knights in hooded robes surrounding him. A number of them held torches, and as the ropes were cut from his wrists, he looked up and saw the faces of his three interrogators gazing down at him.

As he expected, one of them was Lord Cypher, an old man that many of the younger supplicants felt was long past his prime.

Lord Cypher blinked and squinted at him through eyes that were already well on the way to succumbing to cataracts. The two other faces he saw belonged to far more impressive individuals. On one side stood Sar Luther, a hearty and robust figure who favoured Zahariel with a friendly smile, as though trying to encourage him not to be too intimidated by the solemnity of the occasion.

On the other was a man who was already a legend, who, rumour had it, would eventually become the Order’s next Grand Master: Lion El’Jonson.

In his first years with the Order, it was the closest Zahariel had ever come to Jonson, and he felt his senses and reason desert him at the incredible presence of the warrior. He towered over Zahariel, and the young man found himself staring intently at the magnificent, leonine specimen of physical perfection in unabashed awe.

Luther laughed and said, ‘Careful, boy, your jaw’s in danger of dropping off.’

Zahariel snapped his mouth shut, fighting to throw off his adoration of the Lion, with only moderate success. The Lion spent most of his time in the forests, leading his campaign against the great beasts, and only rarely returned to Aldurukh for any extended period. As such, it was an honour of unprecedented worth to be accorded the attention of such a senior figure, and to be inducted into the Order by such a mighty legend.

‘We should bring matters to a close,’ said Sar Luther. ‘I am sure our friend would like to get up off his knees sooner rather than later.’

As he spoke, Zahariel was struck by the resonance of Luther’s voice, knowing that its power would make men follow him into the depths of hell if he ordered them to march beside him.

He had been so astounded to see Lion El’Jonson standing before him that he had almost ignored Luther entirely. Belatedly, it occurred to him that he had been doubly blessed. His initiation ceremony had been officiated over by two of the greatest men of his era, Jonson and Luther. While it was true that Luther could in no way match Jonson’s extraordinary physical stature and musculature, he was every bit as exemplary and heroic a figure. In their own ways, they were both giants.

‘Your tone is inappropriate,’ said Lord Cypher, fixing his half-blinded eyes on Luther. ‘The initiation of a new member of the Order is not a time for levity. It is a sombre and serious matter. One might almost describe it as sacred.’

‘You must forgive my brother, Lord Cypher,’ Jonson said, placing one of his enormous hands on the old man’s shoulder in a placatory gesture. ‘He means no harm. He is simply mindful that we all have other pressing matters that demand our attention.’

‘There is no more important matter than the initiation of a new supplicant,’ remarked Lord Cypher. ‘The young man before us is still on the threshold. He has come forward into the light, but he has yet to take his oath. Until then, he is not one of us.’

The old man stretched out a hand for the knife in Lion El’Jonson’s grasp, the knife they had earlier pressed against Zahariel’s throat. Once Jonson had passed it to him, Lord Cypher put his thumb to the edge to test it.

‘Now is the time for the shedding of blood.’

He turned to Zahariel and brought the blade down upon his hand.

The cut went diagonally across his left palm, causing a moment of pain, but it was shallow and only intended to shed his blood for the purposes of the ceremony.

It was symbolic, just as Master Ramiel told him.

At the climax of the ceremony there was a taking of oaths.

‘Do you, Zahariel, swear by your blood that you will protect the people of Caliban?’

‘I do,’ he said.

‘Will you swear to abide by the rules and strictures of the Order and never reveal its secrets?’

‘I will.’

‘From hereon in, you will regard every one of our Order’s knights as your brothers, and never raise a hand against them unless it be in the form of a judicial duel or a sanctioned matter of honour. This you will swear against the pain of your own future death.’

‘Against my death, I swear it,’ he answered.

There was a particularly chilling moment in the oath-taking, for Lord Cypher held the knife up before Zahariel to enable him to see his face reflected in its surface beside the red smear of his blood on the edge of the blade.

‘You have sworn a blood oath,’ said Lord Cypher. ‘These things are binding. But now, you must go further.’

Lord Cypher turned the blade so that it was balanced in the flat of his palm. ‘Put your hand on the knife and swear to the most bloody and binding undertaking. This blade has already taken your blood. It has cut your palm. Let the knife be the guardian of your oaths. If by any future deed you prove that the words you have spoken here are lies, let the blade that has cut your palm return to slash your throat. Swear to it.’

‘I swear it,’ said Zahariel, placing his hand over the knife. ‘If my words here today are lies, let this knife return to slash my throat.’

‘It is done, then,’ Lord Cypher nodded, satisfied. ‘Your old life is dead. You are no longer the boy named Zahariel El’Zurias, the son of Zurias El’Kaleal. From this day forward there will be no more talk of lineage and the antecedents of your fathers. You are neither nobleman nor commoner. These things are behind you. From this moment on, you are a knight of the Order. You are reborn into a new life. Do you understand?’

‘I understand,’ Zahariel said, and his heart swelled with pride.

‘Arise, then,’ said Lord Cypher. ‘There is no further need to kneel. You are among brothers. We are all your brothers here. Arise, Zahariel of the Order.’

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Special thanks to Graham McNeill.

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