Read Online The Heresy Within by Rob J. Hayes - Free Book Online

like your brain was two sizes too big for your head was never a fun start to a day and today was no exception. Alchemists and herbalists the world over had no shortage of remedies and concoctions for the pain and the nausea and that strange feeling of floating just outside your own body but rarely would any of them work. The Inquisition had long ago come up with its own cure. It wouldn't look good for an Arbiter to be unable to function due to a hangover; it would no doubt lessen the fear the common folk had of them. No, it was much better that people could see Arbiters drink an inn dry and have no effect. So now one of the first things the Inquisition taught to its initiates, after the compulsion of course, was the hangover cure; a small charm, made from wood and carved with a powerful enchantment then hung around the neck. Simple and genius but the charm always seemed to work its way to the bottom of Thanquil's pack.
    He hadn't even opened his eyes. To do so may well have induced vomiting and the last thing he needed was to be seen throwing up in the middle of the barracks. Instead he kept his eyes closed and rooted around in his pack with one hand while praying to Volmar that he hadn't lost his charm.
    “Arbiter Darkheart,” came a voice, the same voice that had awoken him. Quiet, demure, male and with a touch of fear. Who the hell had decided to wake him?
    Thanquil's hand closed around the charm, as always, at the bottom of his pack and he pulled it free, spilling the contents of his bag all over the floor. He hung the small wooden rectangle around his neck, waited for a few moments then sat up and pried open his eyes. The world gave one violent lurch sideways and then settled down the right side up. The pounding in his head began to slow and then fade and the nausea quieted, though his throat tasted of bile.
    The man standing in front of him was dressed in the emperor's white and gold and wore a look of one part fear to two parts determination. He was young, still in his teenage years so half a man and half a boy and had been ordered to come to the Inquisition compound and rouse a sleeping Arbiter. Thanquil was impressed.
    “Hello,” Thanquil said, still squinting at the man-boy and wishing the world were less bright.
    “Emperor Frances requests your presence,” the messenger said in a most imperious tone.
    “Now.”
    “Um... yes, I think.”
    “I have time to bathe first,” Thanquil said.
    “Um...”
    “I smell like a brothel, lad.”
    “Uh...”
    “Don't worry, it won't take long. Wouldn't want to offend the God-Emperor by turning up looking and smelling like an outhouse would I. No. Exactly.” With that Thanquil lurched out of bed, pushed the spilled contents of his pack under the bunk and walked for the exit, the messenger keeping up behind him while spouting a constant stream of words that Thanquil refused to listen to.
    He'd never been to the Imperial palace before. Glimpsing it from afar as it rose with exaggerated majesty above the rest of the city was one thing but up close it just looked monstrously tall. How had men managed to build such a thing? Thanquil couldn't imagine it. It must have just been here all along, or maybe Volmar just willed it into existence. A God could do such a thing but there was no way men could have built a thing so tall and yet so sturdy.
    Huge, reaching spires hundreds of feet tall all white and shiny in the morning sun. Windows of all shapes and sizes, some round, some square, some rectangular, some small, some larger than any Thanquil had ever seen before and all made from expensive, clear-glass
    To his left Thanquil spotted fountains taller than a man with tens of tiers where water could pool and then spill down to the one below. To his right he spied a carriage waiting to take some noble folk or other away from the palace. The carriage was bigger than any he'd ever seen; eight wheels and twelve horses all magnificent and black. Thanquil's own chestnut mare would be