Into This Wild Abyss Read online

  Atlantis Publishing

  1206 Eruera Street

  Rotorua 3010

  New Zealand

  Copyright © Fraser Newman 2018

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-473-46000-6 (Kindle)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded, photocopied, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  The scanning, uploading. And distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorised electronic editions, and do not participate or encourage electronic piracy of copy written materials.

  Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain

  His dark materials to create more worlds--

  Into this wild abyss the wary fiend

  Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,

  Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith

  He had to cross.

  Paradise Lost ― John Milton

  “Then the First Emperor ascended Mount Tabo and sacrificed there to the gods. He entered into a Covenant with them, giving to him and his descendants all lands under Heaven, and in return he and his descendants would rule with justice and benevolence from that day forth.”

  The Book of Life

  “The law of nature is such that plants require earth, lest they wither; fish require water, lest they die; and man requires government, lest he shrivel and return to be among the animals. Thus is the Emperor ordained, by the Covenant, as a Demi-God to rule over mankind, in accordance with the law of nature, and to protect us from barbarity.”

  The Book of Life

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  FEEDBACK

  For maps, concept art and information about this book, visit www.vermilionempire.com

  CHAPTER 1

  Po pressed his nose against the glass. His breath frosted the window pane, covering the books inside in a white, spreading mist.

  “Hurry up,” Master Dugen barked. “Where have you gone?”

  A hand grabbed Po’s arm and yanked him away from the shop window. Dugen looked down at Po through his thick brass glasses. His wrinkled skin and shaved head were silhouetted against the sky.

  “What did I say? Running errands is a privilege.”

  “They’re books,” Po said, pointing.

  “Of course they’re books. The whole street is bookshops, but we’ll never get to Vaisha’s if we stop and look in each one. Now, can I trust you enough to let go of your arm?”

  Po nodded, and Dugen released him.

  “Can we look at some on the way back?”

  “No,” said Dugen flatly.

  The door jingled as Dugen and Po entered. Inside was dim, lit only by a lamp over the counter. Po’s eyes took a moment to adjust.

  “Good afternoon,” Vaisha called from out back. The shopkeeper poked his head around the corner and squinted at the pair; the old master in burgundy and the novice in cream — Ba’re monks.

  “What can I do for you?” Vaisha asked, wiping his hands on an ink-stained cloth.

  Dugen handed Vaisha a note, and the two exchanged pleasantries.

  “I won't be a moment.” Vaisha disappeared out the back and returned with a freshly pressed copy of Asanga’s Foundational Falsehoods of the Vu Religion. Dugen flipped through the pages and Po admired the woodblock prints.

  “So,” Vaisha said. “You’re with Jan Moga — that’s the monastery off Washer’s Street in the Lower City isn’t it?”

  The monk nodded and closed the book.

  “This is the fifth edition?” Dugen asked, tapping the cover.

  “It is. As requested, I’ll just need your name here.”

  Vaisha presented the ledger and Master Dugen put his signature to the paper. While waiting, Po ran his eyes over the floor to ceiling shelves. One day he would have a library like it at home. Of course, that depended on him abandoning monastic life — not an easy thing while his parents paid for his education.

  The two monks returned to the street and pushed through the jostling students streaming from the Imperial Academy. At the end of Scholar Street, the masses thinned and the pair rejoined the normal ebb and flow of Pao’an’s Inner City. Po would have preferred to walk in silence, but Dugen began a monologue on Asanga’s key assertions in dismissing the Vu religion as ‘utterly irrelevant and faulty from the very foundations of its thought.’ Po had heard it all before and hurried along in the master’s wake, contenting himself with an afternoon off class. Dugen stopped suddenly.

  “Looks like some disturbance on South Avenue.” Po looked up. A crowd pressed into the intersection, buzzing with chatter. Raised voices carried on the breeze and onlookers leaned from tenement buildings and the windows of the corner taphouse.

  “Let’s have a look,” Po suggested.

  “No, best avoid it,” said Dugen. “We can take Park Avenue.”

  “Maybe someone needs help?”

  “There’s always someone who needs help. The question is whether we have the means to give it.”

  “We don’t know unless we look,” Po countered. Dugen sighed.

  “Oh alright. A quick look and we’re away. The abbot won’t be pleased if we get caught up in anything. I’ll have to say it was your idea.”

  Po bounded ahead of the senior monk, his sandals slapping on the cobblestones. He came to the crowd and edged his way through.

  “Excuse me. Pardon me,” he said, ignoring the scowls and hot-tempered curses. When he could go no farther, he rose on his tiptoes and caught a glimpse of a man with a bald head and a sharp nose. He appeared to be arguing with someone. Changing positions, Po observed soldiers — and not just any soldiers, but the crimson and bone white armor of the Vermilion Guard. Imperial business, Po realized.

  “I’m waiting,” said the bald man. “Make it easy on yourself.”

  “I’m a cabinet minister. There are protocols, damn it! We can return to the palace, but I’ll not go in chains.” The crowd murmured in agreement. Po caught a glimpse of the second speaker. He was stocky and shorter than the first but dressed in fine robes of silk and velvet trimmed with fur. His face flushed red and his cheeks quivered.

  “Impossible,” said the first. “This is a warrant —” a piece of paper rose above the crowd sealed in Vermilion wax “— for your arrest, signed by the hand of the Emperor himself. Tell your guards to put down their weapons.”

  “No,” barked the second. “You do this pantomime on the street as if a show for children? Where is your dignity!” A hand fell on Po’s shoulder.

  “There you are!” Dugen hissed, dragging Po from the spectacle. “Let’
s go. There’s nothing we can do here.” Po resisted, planting his feet firmly on the ground.

  “Hold on, it’s getting interesting.” Steel clashed and a man howled in pain. Everyone moved at once. Someone shoved Po, tearing him from Dugen’s grasp. Bodies crushed against him, pulling him this way and that.

  “Po!” Dugen shrieked. Po fought against the crowd and reached his teacher’s side. Dugen stumbled and Po caught him, dragging his teacher as best he could through the writhing mass. He spotted a cobbler’s cart and pulled Dugen behind it. There they sat with their backs pressed against the wooden boards. Dugen hugged his book and looked about in terror.

  “I can’t see. My glasses!” A stone lodged in Po’s stomach. He was going to get a good telling off when they returned to Jan Moga.

  “I’ll go look for them,” Po suggested. “Maybe —” The cart shook, and a weight drove Po into the cobbles. A person. Tearing apart, the newcomer pounced into a fighting stance then relaxed. They stared at each other for a moment. Po judged him a clerk or an assistant in an office somewhere; slightly older than Po, perhaps nineteen or twenty to Po’s seventeen. Neither was a threat to each other. In the awkwardness that followed Po stuck out his hand in lieu of any better idea.

  “Po of Jan Moga,” he said. The youth accepted the outstretched hand.

  “Dasha Luka-Tudo,” he said. “Sorry for landing on you like that.”

  “Forgiven,” Dugen said with the wave of a hand. “Can you tell us what happened?”

  “You didn’t see?” Dasha asked, joining the pair with his back against the cart.

  “We were too far back,” Po explained.

  “That was the Minister of Revenue,” Dasha said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “A judge came and presented an arrest warrant.”

  “Arrest warrant?” Dugen asked.

  “You know, one of those paper things,” Dasha explained, glimpsing around the edge of the cart. Steel continued to clash in the background. Po peeked over the top. A thick knot of soldiers hacked and stabbed at each other while others lay bloodied and dying. The judge stood apart, signaling down the road. On the other side, the condemned minister seized a poll from his palanquin and joined the fray. Po ducked back down.

  “You sure it was the Minister of Revenue?” Dugen asked.

  “Maga Nodu,” Dasha said. “Yeah, I’m sure. My father deals with them. We own a trading house over the Blue Riv—”

  “They got him!” someone cried. Po peeped over the cart. A man in crimson armor stood over Maga, the tip of his sword at the minister’s throat. The cabinet minister held up his palms in surrender and guardsmen approached with chains ready. Then Po noticed it. Between Maga and the cart was the glint of brass.

  “Glasses!” Po exclaimed. He jumped the cart and ran as fast as his sandals allowed. He got halfway before the men at the intersection noticed him. One took a step forward and raised his sword. Po froze.

  “Oi! Hold it there!” Po glanced back towards the cart, then towards the guardsman. “No closer! This is a security operation.” Behind the man, the judge looked Po’s way and the two locked eyes. The judge’s eyes narrowed in a frown.

  “Leave him,” said the judge. “Get the minister and go.” The guardsman did not respond immediately but scowled at Po before sheathing his sword. Po discerned his chance. He ran for it, skidded, snatched the glasses off the street and scrambled back to safety.

  “Hey!” the guard yelled after him, but Po was already back under cover. Dasha regarded him wide-eyed.

  “What were you thinking? I’ve seen some weird stuff, but you priests…”

  “Monks,” Po said, correcting him.

  “Did you not think they’d shoot you?”

  “Shoot?” Po asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “You didn’t see the man with the crossbow trained on you?”

  “Oh that,” Po said, bluffing. “Yeah, I didn’t think they’d shoot a monk.” Dasha shook his head and looked back at the intersection.

  “They’re leaving,” he said.

  Po took a deep breath and dropped the glasses into Dugen’s hand. The monk ran his fingers around the brass frames and held them to his face.

  “Crooked and one broken lense,” Dugen said. “One scratched. Not much use to me now. I have a spare pair in the dormitory, but you’ll have to help me back.”

  “All clear,” Dasha said, standing and dusting himself off. “Well, nice meeting you Po. Stay out of trouble.”

  “Same to you,” Po said. He helped Dugen to his feet. The old monk wheezed and dabbed a handkerchief on a split lip.

  “Well,” Dugen said after a long silence. “You’ll have some explaining to do when we get back.”

  ⁂

  On the other side of the city, Natan listened with his ear against the door. Coins slid across the table and dropped into a bag. The tax collector said something, and his father replied, their words muffled. Natan pulled back a lock of his black hair and adjusted his ear against the wood, frustrated that he could not understand what they were saying inside. At eighteen and as the youngest son in the family, information was leverage.

  “Natan!” boomed his father’s voice. “Natan! Would you come in here?”

  “Coming.” Natan grabbed the broom he had left propped against the wall and opened the door. “Yes?”

  Avi sat behind his desk, his lean frame, hawkish nose and unruly mob of hair framed by the open window behind him. Opposite sat the taxman counting coins into a canvas bag.

  “Take this cat away,” Avi demanded, motioning open-handed at the ginger cat sitting on his ledgers. Natan scooped the cat up and winced as it clawed his shoulder.

  “And shut the window, would you?” Natan bit his tongue. The window was just behind his father — he could have done it himself. Natan walked over and slid the window shut. The room immediately darkened.

  “Is that all?” Natan asked.

  “Yes,” Avi said, waving him away. “No, wait. Can you bring me my pipe?”

  Natan left with the cat and returned with his father’s pipe and a pouch of dama leaf. The pouch left a musky, sweaty smell on his hands, so pungent that sometimes Natan thought it was a physical stain, but never there when he looked. Still, the wiry leaf kept his father relatively placid and relieved him of pain. Sometimes he just wished the experts did a better job. The Vu’du holy men tattooed his father’s joints, the shaman prayed out the demons, and the apothecary gave him ointment, but Avi kept returning to the pipe — it was the only thing that worked.

  “Now,” Avi said, grabbing at the pipe. “What was I saying?” He fumbled with the pouch and spilled some of the dama on the table. “Yes. It is not an easy time for us merchants. I’ve never seen it so tough. But somehow you always get your cut eh?” The taxman snorted and leaned. The chair creaked under his mass.

  “Avi, Avi,” he chided. “I’ve known you long enough and you’ve never thought business was good. The Empire has its costs. Imagine how the Luka-Tudo Trading House would fair if no one guarded the roads or kept the peace.”

  “I fear the Worshipful Company of Dockers more than bandits,” Avi quiped. The taxman chuckled.

  “Plenty of merchants would agree,” he said with a wag of the finger. “But the Worshipful Company pays taxes too.”

  “I’ll say it again,” Avi said, tapping the table. “Break that monopoly on the river, and I’ll halve the cost of grain in the city.” Avi lit the pipe and confidently leaned back in his chair, blowing smoke toward the ceiling.

  “Easy for you to say,” said the taxman. “But the Imperial Government must take all views into consideration. Now think, if we take the monopoly away from the Worshipful Company of Dockers, they’ll call for us to strip the rights of the Merchant Guild as well. Before you know it, chaos would reign. Do you want that? Do you really want that Avi?” Natan noticed the telltale twitch that indicated his father was angry.

  “Well, you do well out of it,” Avi snapped.

  “There are some advant
ages to being the cousin of the Minister.”

  “I’d say. You certainly don’t lack any comforts in life.” The taxman frowned.

  “Don’t be like that, Avi. Our little arrangement keeps the auditors at bay. Those things can be a right pain. Everyone does it.”

  “It doesn’t make — what is that blasted commotion?”

  Avi swung himself off his chair and opened the window. Natan followed. The yard bustled with shirtless laborers and traders from all corners of the Vermilion Empire. Natan’s eldest brother Dan stood amidst them arguing with two men in red and black gambesons.

  “Guards,” Natan said. Avi leaned out the window.

  “Oi Dan, what do they want?” The guards spun at the voice and looked to the window.

  “We’re here for Gupo Nodu. Is he there?”

  “Gupo Nodu?” Avi turned to the tax collector. “That’s you isn’t it?”

  “Er… yes,” he said. “Who are they? What do they want?” Avi turned back to the window.

  “What do you want with him?”

  “Official business,” the guard answered. Avi wrinkled his nose. Natan knew how much his father hated the precinct guards.

  “Stay,” his father shouted. “He’ll come to you.”

  “We’ll come —” Avi slammed the window shut and rounded on Gupo.

  “What’s all this about?” he demanded. “Did you bring them here?”

  “No, no,” the taxman said, his hands up in defense. “I didn’t —” Something heavy smashed against the front door. His mother screamed from the hall.

  “Well they mean business,” Avi said. “Downstairs, now.”

  Avi and Natan pushed past the tax collector to the stairs. Natan’s mother Oni stood with the two guards in the hall. She had a stern look on her face, made more severe by her frizzy gray hair tied into a bun.

  “Didn’t I tell you to stay where you were?” Avi snapped, descending the stairs.

  “We’ve orders,” one guard said. “Is that him?” He nodded toward Gupo Nodu behind them.

  “It’s him. Now, what are you doing in my house? I told you to wait in the yard.” The guard drew out a piece of paper covered in blocks of text and fixed with a wax seal and red ribbon.