The Tyranny of Faith

Acknowledgements This isn’t the first time I have written the second book in a trilogy, but it is the first time I have done so with any sort of readership. Fortunately for me, the final draft of The Tyranny of Faith was turned in before The Justice of Kings was even published; any sort of pressure that I might have felt in meeting reader expectations was entirely tempered by the fact that there were none. That will certainly not be the case for book three, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. The story that you are holding in your hands is a far cry from the first draft of it, and (believe me when I say) much improved. As before, and as with all good books, this is thanks to a number of people. In the vanguard are my beta readers, Will Smith, Tim Johnson, and George Lockett. It is a difficult (and I continue to stress, unpaid) task to take a messy, annotated and “[sort this bit out]”-strewn zero draft and provide such helpful and incisive commentary. I will always be grateful for your time and effort. Behind them, in a sort of disorganised mass, stand the professionals. Thanks always to my agent, Harry Illingworth, and to my editorial team – for this one, James Long and Hillary Sames – as well as the rest of the Orbit mob. That this book looks and reads so good is because of you guys. Lastly, but always most importantly, thanks go to my wife, Sophie. Were it not for her corporate breadwinning, I would not be able to while away my days writing. I love what I do, and I love her for the gift of the time to do it in. This one’s for you, Soph. Richard Sydney, June 2022 I On the Road to Sova “No event simply occurs. Each is the culmination of countless factors that trace their long roots back to the beginning of time. It is easy to bemoan an era of great upheaval as a sudden commingling of misfortunes – but the discerning eye of history tells us that there are few coincidences where the schemes of man are concerned.” JUSTICE (AS HE THEN WAS) EMMANUEL KANE, THE LEGAL ARMOURY: ENTANGLEMENT, NECROMANCY, AND DIVINATION “Do you think he’s dying?” “Sir Konrad?” “Aye.” “The way he carries on you’d think so.” It was a warm, drizzly spring morning in the Southmark of Guelich, and Sir Radomir, Bressinger and I were standing fifty yards from a tumbledown herbalist’s cottage. Vonvalt had been inside for most of an hour, and the three of us were trading bored, tired jibes, trying to get a rise from one another. “There is certainly something the matter with him,” I said. Both men turned to me. “You said yourself the man is easily het up on matters of health,” Sir Radomir said. “Nema, keep your voice down,” I muttered. Bressinger looked at me chidingly. He had always had a reproachful streak, but since the loss of his arm his humour had worsened. Now his hackles were quick to rise, especially when he felt Vonvalt’s character was being called into question. Once these non-verbal reprimands would have plagued me with guilt. Now I was beginning to give the chastisements short shrift. “I don’t think anyone can sensibly argue he is not,” I said, glancing at Bressinger. “But this is different. I have not seen him like this in a long time.” “Aye,” Bressinger murmured eventually, in what was a rare concession. “This is not his usual fussiness.” I turned back to the cottage. It was a ramshackle place, a daub and timber construction sagging under the weight of its thatch. The place was mostly concealed behind a riot of wildflowers and other plants, and a strong herbal scent, intensified by the drizzly wetness, suffused the air and had led to no end of both human and equine sneezing. We had been on the road from Ossica for most of the month of Sorpen, and were now but a few days’ ride from the outskirts of Sova itself. Guelich was one of the three principalities that surrounded Sova like the white around a yolk, and was ruled by the Emperor’s third son, Prince Gordan Kzosic. His castle, the fortress at Badenburg, was just visible on the distant horizon, a towering fastness of grey stone that caught the sun – and the eye – from thirty miles away. Our journey was not supposed to have taken this long. Had Bressinger not lost an arm in Galen’s Vale, we would have left our horses and equipment in that city and then taken the Imperial Relay for a hundred and fifty miles south as far as the Westmark of Guelich. From there we could have simply taken the Baden road due east to Sova itself, for a total journey time of perhaps a week with good weather, or ten days in bad. In fact, had Vonvalt not insisted on tracking down and then murdering Obenpatria Fischer, we could have simply hired a ship to take us down the Gale, since the river was a tributary of the Sauber which flowed directly to Sova (and which itself was in part a tributary of the Kova). But this is as much a digression as the route itself. In any event, Vonvalt’s illness had scuppered any plans to make haste. It had come on suddenly one night. He had complained of light-headedness, which we had all attributed to the wine, but it had persisted the following day. Vonvalt, learned as he was in ailments, blamed vertigo – until he began to suffer, too, from a deep-seated sense of dread, which he could not place. The emergence of this second symptom had confused all of us, since fearfulness was not amongst his faults. But the nebulous dread continued, and then, not long after, tiredness, which itself turned into bouts of crippling fatigue. The Empire was lousy