Nightchild

by James Barclay

  Denser raised his eyebrows. It seemed that Dordovan thinking hadn't advanced too far on this subject in the intervening millennia.

  He read on, past some blank and fractured passages of translation, the prophecy moving to encompass the likely results of ignoring the threat or of failing to control the developing mage. Denser's heart began to beat faster, his mouth drying. Balaia had already been struck by tidal wave, hurricane and days of unbroken thunderclouds and here they were, all laid out. It was hard to believe it was a prophecy, not a diary because, not only did Tinjata foresee the weather systems, he also knew where they would strike.

  “‘The sea will rise and smite the mouth of the land.’” It didn't take a genius to deduce that Tinjata had meant Sunara's Teeth. “‘The sun shall hide its face and the sky's smears will grow thick and deliver floods upon the earth. And when the gods sigh, the tall will be stunted where they felt most secure and the proud will be laid low, their stone temples the graves of their families.’”

  And further on, Denser shivered at what might be to come. “‘The beasts from below shall rise to gorge themselves and the mountains will crumble, their dust seen by none, for the eyes of the world will be blinded, awaiting the new light of the One. It shall be the light of hell on the face of the land.’”

  “Dear Gods.” He looked up and found the archivist looking at him. “It really is happening, isn't it?” The mage nodded. “Is there more?”

  “It's worth you reading,” said the archivist. “It might help you understand our fears more fully.”

  Denser blew out his cheeks. “I already understand. I just don't agree with your methods. This is my daughter we're talking about.”

  “What can I say?” The archivist shrugged.

  “You could say, ‘can I get you some coffee and a sandwich.’”

  “I'll be back in a moment but don't leave the library. There are still those who are very bitter about what happened the last time you were in our Tower.”

  The archivist bowed slightly and walked away, Denser hearing the door shut gently. It wasn't so much Denser they were bitter about, he assumed, more his Familiar who had, at his bidding, killed a Dordovan mage in a room high up in the Tower. He had never felt any sympathy for the man—his had been a stupid action in capturing the mind-melded demon in the first place—but he had regretted the necessity of his death nonetheless. Dawnthief and the salvation of Balaia had been at stake and there was nothing that couldn't be sacrificed.

  Denser turned his attention back to the prophecy, flicking on, the pages creaking against their bindings. He frowned, looking again at one of the partially blank pages. There was something not right about the parchment. He brought the lantern closer and looked, smoothing down the opposite pages. They were different colours, the translated paler than the transcript. And the clinching evidence was there in the spine and the bindings. He quickly checked all the blank and part blank pages, six of them. There could be no doubt. They were newer.

  He really had no choice. With his heart thumping in his chest, and his ears straining for any sound of the returning archivist, Denser drew a dagger and slit the untranslated pages from the volume, folding them hurriedly and stuffing them inside his shirt. He resheathed his dagger and turned to an undamaged spread as the door opened.

  “Thank you,” he said as a tray containing coffee and bread were placed on the table. He poured a mug with a slightly quivering hand. That had been a little close.

  “Anything you need help with?” asked the archivist.

  “No,” said Denser, smiling. “I'm all but done. Just a few more passages.”

  The Dordovan moved away. Denser leaned back and watched him, blowing on his coffee and taking a sip. It wasn't too hot and he gulped down half the mug. He took a bite out of the cold meat sandwich. The archivist disappeared behind a shelf and Denser took his chance, closing the volume and snapping the clasps into place. To him, it looked so obvious that pages were missing; to one who wasn't looking, there probably wasn't anything to arouse suspicion. Probably.

  Deciding not to take the risk, Denser drained his coffee, grabbed another mouthful of sandwich and stood up, chair scraping slightly on the smooth wood floor and picked up the book. Heading back to the shelf where he thought the prophecy sat, he was intercepted by the archivist.

  “Don't trouble yourself,” he said. “I'll take it.” He held out his hands.

  “It's no trouble.”

  “I insist.”

  Denser smiled as generously as he could muster. “Thank you.” He followed the Dordovan to the gap in the eight-row-high shelves. The man raised the book to slide it home and paused, a slight frown on his face. He hefted it, feeling its weight. Denser held his breath. It could only have been a heartbeat but it felt a lifetime before the archivist shrugged and replaced it, turning to see Denser's renewed smile.

  “Thanks for your help,” he said.

  “My pleasure.” The frown hadn't quite disappeared from his face. “Take the food on your way out. The guard will see you to the gate.”

  Denser proffered a hand, which the Dordovan shook.

  “Goodbye,” said Denser. “Let's hope this ends well for all of us.”

  “I can second that.” At last a smile.

  Denser walked as calmly as he could to the door of the library and summoned the guard to see him out of the Tower, across the grounds and into the streets of Dordover. Only there did he start to relax, a broad grin spreading across his face. He had to find the others and quickly. Vuldaroq might not welcome them for much longer.

  It wasn't until early the next morning that the archivist's nagging itch led him back to the Tinjata Prophecy for another look. His swearing shattered the calm of the library.

  The Raven, if you could call them that, had come and gone in two days. So far as Vuldaroq and his network could gather, they had found out nothing new, which was something of a shame but hardly a surprise. The Dordovan College guard and mage spies had interrogated every possible contact and lowlife in the City. Spies and assassins were tracking every lead but so far, though some clues to her direction were known, there was nothing as to her final destination.

  Yet still he felt satisfied that his plans were forming well. The bait had been taken and Vuldaroq felt he could relax in the knowledge that Balaia's finest were immersed in the search. All that irked him was that, though Denser had taken in the information Vuldaroq had wanted him to from the prophecy, he had stolen that which was not on offer. And the Tower Lord did not want to risk him finding someone to translate the lore for him. Someone, for instance, like his lore scribe wife, Erienne.

  He had come to a bar well away from the College and just east of the central cloth market, a well-to-do area where a senior mage could relax without interruption and meet discreetly with whom he pleased. This time, his companion was less brash and arrogant than at their first, rather difficult meeting, but was no less driven.

  “You have to understand that the nature of mages has changed since the Wesmen invasion. We cannot afford to wantonly sacrifice each other to satisfy the cravings of a maimed Black Wing. We are trying to regain our strength, not pare it still further.” Vuldaroq took a long drink from his goblet and refilled it from the carafe of very expensive Blackthorne red. A serving woman brought another bowl of Korina Estuary mussels and oysters. “Excellent.”

  “But you understand my price cannot be reduced,” said Selik, his face hooded. “I will have the bitch, with or without your blessing, but together it will be easier for us all to achieve our ultimate goals.”

  Vuldaroq chuckled. Selik had been lucky to escape with his life from the College and had done so only with Vuldaroq's personal intervention. Even so, the Black Wing had left pale and shaken, freed from the entrapping spells in which he had been so quickly entwined. There had been shouting, pushing and recrimination but most of all there had been a shocked disbelief, and it had been this that had allowed Vuldaroq to get Selik away.

  “Erienne is still o
ne of our most talented and fertile mages. Her death would be a blow the College would feel keenly. I do not necessarily share the College's view.”

  “So?”

  “So I will meet your price but you must operate only through me. And now I have organised for you a little assistance.”

  “Who?” Selik's single eye stared bleakly from his cowl.

  “The Raven.”

  Selik laughed, a pained, rasping noise that shuddered his ruined lung. “And what help can they give me? I am already closer to your precious prize than they will ever be.”

  “I would advise you never to underestimate The Raven or their resourcefulness. And for all your torture of the elf you suspect of belonging to this Guild of Drech, he revealed nothing. The Raven are a useful extra force. Monitor them as I will and use what you find as you see fit. As I will.”

  Selik rose. “Then I am already late. The Raven left some hours ago.”

  “And headed south,” said Vuldaroq. “One more thing, Black Wing. Remember with whom you are dealing. Erienne left in response to a signal that pierced our mana shield as easily as a knife through water. They retain great magical power and I need to know where they are. See that Erienne does not die before she tells you their location. But see that she does die.”

  Selik bowed very slightly. “My Lord Vuldaroq, strange though this union of ours is, we both understand that magic is a necessary force. The Black Wings only seek to cut the mould from the otherwise healthy fruit. We are both fighting for the same cause.” He left the inn, Vuldaroq's eyes on him all the way.

  “I don't think so, Selik,” muttered the mage to himself as he prised open another oyster. Unexpected pieces were being added to what could turn out to be a very satisfying conclusion. Perhaps more than one enemy would be laid to rest forever. In a while he would have to organise the interception of The Raven and the taking of the stolen parchment, but for now he had more oysters to enjoy and Vuldaroq was not a man to let excellence go to waste.

  Outside, the wind was getting up, rattling the windows of the inn. Dordover could be in for a stormy night.

  The day dawned bright, light streaming through cracks in the barn walls. Ilkar, The Unknown and Denser had begged the shelter from a farmer, happening upon his land late at night with the wind battering at their bodies. But it had blown over quickly and now was just an unpleasant memory.

  Ilkar rolled over and sat up in his makeshift bed of hay, in the loft above the animals, and came face to face with Denser.

  “Gods, but I shouldn't have left Julatsa,” he said. “Every morning for days, I've been waking next to a beautiful face and figure and for some twisted reason, I've exchanged that for your bloody beard and stinking armpit odour.”

  “You know you've missed them,” said Denser, scratching at his short-trimmed beard.

  “No,” said Ilkar, heading for the ladder. “I have not.”

  “Hey!” The Unknown's voice came from below. “Stop chattering and get moving.”

  “You heard the man,” said Ilkar, smiling.

  “Just like old times,” muttered Denser.

  “Absolutely nothing like old times whatsoever,” returned Ilkar.

  Outside the barn, they followed The Unknown who was striding up toward the farmhouse across an empty paddock. All the horses were still in the barn and stables. Inside the two-storey house's kitchen, a plate of ham steamed on a long table and the aroma of a sweet leaf tea filled the air. Ilkar raised his eyebrows.

  “Very decent of him,” he said, sitting next to The Unknown and forking some meat on to a thick slice of bread.

  “Not really,” said The Unknown. “I've paid him.”

  The farm was fifteen miles south of Dordover and one of a cluster lying in a shallow valley near the main trail to Lystern. Occupied during the Wesmen invasion, they had been rebuilt, their fields replanted and animal stocks replenished, restoring them to their key position, supplying both Colleges. Mage-friendly, Ilkar had been confident they'd get a good reception from any of the farms and, since neither he nor Denser had been keen to remain in Dordover, the settlement had been the obvious choice.

  “Now listen,” said The Unknown. “It's apparent that the Dordovans are very serious in their attempts to find Erienne and Lyanna and that means we have to be efficient. So far they've squandered their fifty-day advantage but it can't go on forever and their mage spies will be everywhere, just listening. We should also consider the possibility that we'll be followed.

  “Now, that curious friend of Will's told us about activity to the south of the City on the night Erienne left, if you can believe what he said, and even more unreliably, that drunk you found, Denser, reckoned he'd seen a woman and a girl getting into a carriage in about the same place.”

  “So what?” asked Denser. “We already knew they left Dordover. It tells us nothing.”

  The Unknown shook his head and sipped the tea. “Think, Denser. You've spent too much time dabbling in Xetesk's politics. It tells us two things and we can infer a third. First, that they had help, wherever they were going. Second, a carriage suggests a longish trip. Third, they headed south.” He held up a hand to stop Denser speaking. “Now I'm sure the Dordovans have guessed as much and no doubt they have representatives in every town and city south of here. What they don't have is the information I found out yesterday afternoon.”

  “What information?” Ilkar frowned.

  “Sorry not to share this until now but too many people knew why we were in Dordover. I bumped into an old merchant friend of mine who travels a good deal between Greythorne and Dordover. He saw a carriage driven by an elf leaving Greythorne three weeks back and heading for Arlen. I know it's not much but it's more than Vuldaroq knows. I think that's where we should be headed.”

  “Will this friend talk to anyone else?” asked Denser.

  The Unknown cocked his head. “Hey,” he said. “It's me you're talking to.”

  “Arlen's a long way round from Xetesk and the Balans,” said Ilkar.

  “Just what I was worrying about,” said The Unknown. “Here's what I propose. Denser, you get to Xetesk as fast as you can. ShadowWings would be best and we'll bring your horse. Ilkar and I will head for the Balan Mountains and talk to Hirad. This could get nasty and we need his blade and his strength. Then we meet up as soon as we can in Greythorne.”

  “You reckon you can persuade him?” asked Denser.

  “Well we've got more chance if you're not there, put it that way,” replied The Unknown. “He had some particularly legitimate grievances.”

  “I know, I know,” said Denser sharply. “But you know Mount politics, Unknown. Gods’ sakes, how far have you got in pressuring the completion of research into safe release of the Protector army?”

  “The group I am funding is considerably more advanced than yours which seeks understanding of the realignment of the dimensions. Besides which, I cannot be in Xetesk for long periods. I don't live there, unlike you. And however much Diera understands my desire to see the Protectors have some sort of choice, I am supposed to be retired. Anyway, I don't think this is the time to debate the rights and wrongs of the Mount's organisation,” said The Unknown. “But you haven't helped yourself, Denser. You haven't kept him informed so he's gone and sought his own information. All he's heard is about your ascension to the fringes of the Circle Seven, and nothing about serious dimensional research.”

  “He has to be patient,” protested Denser. “It's a delicate—”

  “Denser, don't try it with me!” snapped The Unknown. “For one, Hirad has never had any patience and you should always have borne that in mind. For another, it's been more than five years and nothing has happened. Those dragons saved Balaia and so far as he's concerned, Balaia, and more particularly Xetesk, has turned its back on them. And I have to say I have a good deal of sympathy for him.”

  “We need him, Unknown. Dordover are a real threat to my family, I can feel it.”

  “I am aware of that. All I can say is, we'l
l do what we can and we'll see you in Greythorne in fourteen days or so.”

  “That's a long time,” said Ilkar.

  “Then we'd best not hang around,” said The Unknown. “Come on, eat up. It's time we were on our separate ways.”

  Erienne sprinted through the orchard and flung the door aside, her daughter's screams resounding in her ears. She turned right and ran down the corridor toward the Al-Drechar teaching chambers buried in the hillside.

  Lyanna was sobbing now, the sounds a torture in Erienne's mind. Her anger flared. Through a set of double doors she all but flattened Ren'erei, who caught her by the arm, arresting her progress.

  “Let me go, Ren'erei,” she hissed.

  “Calm down, Erienne. What's wrong with you?”

  Erienne struggled against her grip, unable to break it.

  “Those bloody witches are hurting my daughter.”

  “Erienne, I can assure you that is the very last thing they intend.” But her dismissal and the laughter in her voice merely sent Erienne's blood racing yet higher.

  “Let me go. Right now.”

  “Not until you calm down.”

  Now she looked at Ren, seeing her eyes flinch involuntarily. “Let me go or I'll drop you where you stand,” she whispered. “I will see my daughter now.”

  Ren'erei stepped away and Erienne ran on without a second glance, following the sounds in her mind, reaching the door to the Whole Room and throwing it open.

  “What the hell is going on?” she demanded, but the last words almost died in her throat. Lyanna, apparently happy, was drawing on a chalk board with bright coloured chalks, the Al-Drechar clustered around her desk, staring intently at her work.

  Ephemere glanced up. “Erienne, you look flustered. Has something happened?”

  Erienne frowned. The wailing sobs in her head were gone, the screams a distant echo.

  “I heard—” she began and took a pace forward. “Lyanna, are you all right?”

  Not even looking up, Lyanna nodded. “Yes, Mummy.”

  Erienne turned back to Ephemere who, with Aviana, was walking toward her across the bare but warm, firelit chamber, the flames dancing across the polished stone walls and ceiling.