The Outcast

by Louise Cooper

  ‘Damn it, what does it matter? If you can’t read them for yourself, I’ll read the documents to you - but you must listen!’ He snatched at her arm, pulling her with him across the room. ‘You’ve got to realise what’s truly happened here - what Tarod has done, and what he is!’

  The urgency in his voice made her quell her resentment. If he had discovered something vital, then any quarrels and tensions between them should be forgotten, and as he subsided on to the bed she sat beside him, peering over his shoulder at the papers.

  ‘This,’ Drachea said, brandishing what she took to be a letter, ‘was written by the Lady Kael Amion, Senior of the West High Land Sisterhood Cot - and I don’t believe anyone would call her word into doubt. Listen; she says “My dear Keridil — I have entrusted this letter to the hand of my colleague, Sister Erminet Rowald. Your report came as a great shock to me, and I can only thank Aeoris that in His wisdom He has seen fit to thwart the fugitive Tarod, who was apprehended at my own Cot last evening. Novice Sashka Veyyil — whose circumstances you are, of course, already aware of-was blessed with the moral courage to realise her duty, and it is because of her swift action that we are able to deliver this man into your safe keeping. It is a sad day for Circle and Sisterhood alike when such evil is uncovered, but with Light and Law to guide us we shall prevail. Charity commands that I should pray for a condemned man’s soul; I would therefore be obliged if you will apprise me of the date set for Tarod’s execution -”

  Cyllan interrupted, her voice low and incredulous.

  ‘Execution … ?’

  Drachea laughed sharply. ‘Oh, yes! And there’s more; far more.’ He set the letter aside, picked up another document. ‘It’s here - in Keridil Toln’s own hand! This is the High Initiate’s report of the trial and planned execution of our good friend Tarod!’

  Cyllan stared at the papers, stunned. The writing was meaningless to her, and she railed against her own deficiency. Something within her protested that Drachea must be wrong; that the Circle could never have cause to condemn one of their own …

  ‘But Tarod’s a high Adept,’ she said uneasily. ‘That much we know is true.’

  ‘Adept he may be. But what man is it who carries his soul in a gemstone?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s nothing less than the truth. Tarod’s no ordinary mortal; he never has been. The High Initiate discovered his real identity.’ Drachea paused for dramatic effect, then added: ‘Tarod is not human!’

  Cyllan felt a deep-rooted shudder rack her, as though some inexplicable and indecipherable premonition were at work. ‘Then … what is he?’

  Drachea looked nervously about the room, as though convinced that some unholy presence was watching them. The shadows were still and silent, and, before courage could fail him, he whispered, ‘Chaos.’

  The word sent knives through Cyllan’s nerves, and instinctively she made the sign of Aeoris before her face. Every instinct rebelled against the concept - it was an impossibility. And Tarod, one of Aeoris’s own servants -

  ‘Chaos is dead … ‘ She barely recognised her voice.

  ‘It - it can’t be true, Drachea. It can’t!’

  ‘When I was a child,’ Drachea said, ‘I once heard an Adept speak at a Summer Quarter-Day celebration. He exhorted us always to keep faith with the cause for which the gods came to this world and fought the last great battle against the Old Ones. He warned us always to be vigilant, lest Chaos should one day return. And now … it would seem that his exhortation was well founded.’

  ‘But Aeoris himself banished Chaos!’ Cyllan protested. To suggest that the dark powers might defy the gods - ‘ She shuddered. ‘It smacks of blasphemy.’

  Then you call the High Initiate a liar?’ Drachea countered. As her eyes widened, he went on, ‘Keridil Toln knew. He discovered what Tarod truly is, and set out to destroy him.’ Again he glanced around the room, then added darkly, ‘It seems that he failed.’

  Cyllan stood up and went to the window, staring out at the now disquietingly familiar vista of the hellfire-lit night. Unwillingly, she found her gaze drawn to the Northern spire. No light burned there, and she looked away.

  Chaos. She couldn’t make herself believe it. All that time ago on the cliffs of West High Land, she had met a man, not a demon. And yet she remembered her terror when she had woken in this room to find Tarod’s hand gripping hers. He had claimed to know nothing of the nightmare which had assailed her; now though, her doubts were swelling into a fearful certainty that only he could have been responsible. An insane part of her wanted to give Tarod the benefit of the doubt; but she knew that to do so could put herself and Drachea into unimaginable danger. She couldn’t take the risk.

  Turning back towards the bed she said quietly, ‘Read me the papers, Drachea. Please. I want-I want to know all that they say.’

  And so, while she sat silent beside him, Drachea read the High Initiate’s detailed report. The story began to form a frighteningly cohesive picture; Tarod’s near-death from an overdose of the Spindrift narcotic, the taking of the old High Initiate, Jehrek Banamen Toln’s life; the encounter with Yandros, Lord of Chaos, and the revelation that the gemstone of Tarod’s ring was the repository for a life-essence created by the Chaotic powers … and there was far more, as Tarod and the High Initiate began to clash. But finally the document posed its own mystery, ending merely with Keridil Toln’s statement, undated, that ‘on this night, the being called Tarod will die’.

  There was utter silence when Drachea stopped speaking. Cyllan’s finger traced the wax seal at the foot of the execution order - he had read it to her, and its stark simplicity was somehow the ugliest condemnation of all.

  She felt the contours of the High Initiate’s symbol, the double circle with its bisecting lightning-flash, and at last said, softly, ‘But he didn’t die … ‘

  Drachea gave her a look that was impossible to interpret. ‘No … he thwarted them. By halting Time itself.

  Gods!’ The thought made him shiver, then he collected himself and managed to summon a faint smile. ‘But it was an empty victory, wasn’t it? When the trap was sprung, he too was caught in its jaws, and now he can’t escape.’

  Cyllan hugged herself uneasily and said, ‘Unless he should regain the stone he spoke of, and use it to call back Time.’

  ‘Yes - and now we know the true nature of that gem!

  A soul, born of Chaos … it doesn’t bear thinking about.’ He stood up, strode across the room. ‘Just imagine what the consequences of his retrieving that stone could be! Without it, he’s powerful enough - as I can attest. The Circle have already failed to defeat him once - can you envisage what he might be capable of, if that stone were in his possession once more?’

  Cyllan could, and shied away from the thought. But she couldn’t escape the other consideration that haunted her, and to which she could find no answer.

  She said, hesitantly, ‘And yet without the stone, we are as trapped as Tarod. We can’t leave, and even he hasn’t the power to release us.’

  ‘If he should choose to,’ Drachea put in darkly.

  Cyllan smiled with irony as she recalled Tarod’s words to her. ‘Why should he not? He’s not interested in us - and we’re of no use to him.’

  ‘Aren’t we?’

  She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that we might be able to succeed in retrieving that gem where he has failed. There’s something - some power - preventing him from getting his hands on it. But if we’re not bound by that same power, then we’re invaluable to Tarod.’ Drachea paused, thinking. ‘We broke through the barrier that separates the Castle from the rest of the world. We don’t know how it happened, and neither does he - you saw how shocked he was at our arrival. If we can reach that stone, he’ll use us to do so.

  And then … ‘ He let the sentence hang unfinished.

  Cyllan looked again towards the blood-red light beyond the window. The thought of what might happen once the stone was in Tarod’s possession was terrifying;
yet without it, there could be no hope of escape. Eternity, spent in a world enclosed by four black walls, companioned only by Drachea and by a man who was no mortal man at all, but owed his origins to something beyond her comprehension … never changing, never ageing, denied even the release of death. Suddenly she smiled thinly to herself. Was that prospect so much worse than the life she had known? At least here there was no hardship, no endless toil. Here, she wanted for nothing. Except, perhaps -

  Drachea broke abruptly into her reverie. There is a way,’ he said, ‘just one way to escape this place without playing into Tarod’s hands. We must find the stone for ourselves, and use it.’

  Cyllan turned and stared at him. ‘Find and use it?’ she echoed, incredulous. ‘Drachea, this is no child’s bauble!

  If what is in those papers is true, then that gem is a thing of Chaos! Are you or I such great adepts that we would dare to use it, even if we could?’

  ‘We can at least try!’ Drachea insisted stubbornly.

  ‘Have you a better plan? No, I see you’ve not! Look - ‘

  He darted to the bed and scooped up the scattered documents. ‘The High Initiate speaks of a chamber called the Marble Hall. It seems to be the Circle’s sanctum; the place where the most sacred rites are performed and the most sacred artefacts kept.’ He grinned.

  ‘You’ll recall that Tarod chose to be cryptic on the subject of the gem’s whereabouts. It’s my belief that if we can find the Marble Hall, we’ll find that stone, too.’

  ‘A place that for some reason Tarod can’t enter …’

  Cyllan mused. Drachea’s theory seemed plausible.

  ‘Or won’t. It may be that it’s the one thing of which he’s afraid - and that can only be to our advantage.’

  Drachea was riffling through the papers. ‘There must surely be some hint here, some idea of the Marble Hall’s location …no, nothing!’ He threw the papers aside in frustration.

  ‘You found these,’ Cyllan said, indicating the scattered pages. ‘There must surely be other documents; something that will help us.’

  ‘Yes … either in the High Initiate’s study, or better still, in the library.’ Suddenly Drachea’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Gods, Cyllan, the library - it’s a treasure-house of knowledge, the arcane wisdom of centuries! I found it by chance, and the thought that it’s there, open to me whenever and however I choose - ‘ He stopped as he saw that her expression hadn’t changed. ‘No, well - of course, to you it would mean little.’

  ‘Indeed,’ she said with gentle acerbity.

  He had the good grace to blush. ‘Naturally, I’m far more concerned with our plight and how to resolve it … but I’ll wager anything that the library will provide what we need to begin our search. There must be historical records that explain the Castle’s layout.’ He recalled his previous visit to the library, and the memory unsettled him. Though nothing would induce him to admit to fear, he was determined not to return there alone.

  Cyllan glanced at the broken book on the floor.

  ‘Tarod already knows of your first visit to the library,’

  she reminded him. ‘We must take care not to arouse his suspicions any further.’

  Drachea smiled condescendingly. ‘What he doesn’t know can’t trouble him. Don’t concern yourself with Tarod. He’s not as invincible as he seems to think - and before long, I intend to prove that to him!’

  The two figures making their way through the courtyard were all but hidden by the vast shadows of the Castle wall, but even the smallest movement amid that dark stillness was enough to attract attention. Tarod stood by the window in his unlit room at the top of the spire, his face expressionless as he watched them creep cautiously along the colonnaded walk towards the vault door, Drachea leading and stopping every few paces to make a gesture that cautioned silence. Like as not he meant to show Cyllan the treasures he had unearthed in the library; and from there it seemed logical to anticipate that they would, eventually, discover the entrance to the Marble Hall. Tarod had refused to allow himself to speculate on whether or not they would be able to enter the Hall - the force that held the Castle in limbo had, somehow, shifted the peculiar chamber a fraction out of synchronisation, and he himself was barred from it as surely as if it hadn’t existed. But Cyllan and Drachea had broken through one barrier … it was possible that they could reach the Hall where he had failed.

  And if they did? Tarod didn’t know what they would find, but of one fact he was certain - the Marble Hall held the crucial key to his hope of release. It was the sole gateway back to the disturbing astral planes through which he had travelled to find and halt the Pendulum of Time; and, too, it was the place where the Chaos stone - his own soul - was trapped.

  He looked out of the window again, and saw that the two distant figures had vanished, leaving the vault doorway ajar behind them. Briefly, an unaccustomed yet distantly familiar feeling assailed him; a sense of anticipation coupled with a formless pre-echo of fear. A very human sensation … he smiled to himself. Imagination must be getting the better of him; human feelings lay in the buried past. Or at least, he had believed so …

  Tarod swung suddenly away from the window, disliking the unexpected turn his thoughts had taken. Since he had left Cyllan’s room, unable to control the temptation to swat Drachea aside in the way he might swat an irritating insect as he left, the encounter had been preying on his mind. He had little else to think of, but nonetheless he was unused to being troubled by such thoughts. The old memories awakened by finding Cyllan lying senseless on the floor refused to be quieted; and they were complicated by odd, random recollections that flashed unbidden into his head. The lightness of the girl when he had lifted her; the roughness of her skin when he took her hand to help her back to reality; even the way she had sworn like some hard-bitten merchantsailor at the shock of finding him at her side. Though afraid of him, she had refused to be intimidated, and her spirit struck a chord somewhere within him. He had found himself wondering if, in spite of the indifference he professed to feel, he could trust her … and then the thought had been abruptly curtailed as he remembered another life, another girl in whom he’d placed trust.

  Sashka Veyyil had been everything Cyllan was not; beautiful, educated, assured of her place in the world.

  Theirs had been, he’d thought, an idyllic match - until she had callously betrayed him to safeguard her own standing, and advance her own cause. Sashka now languished in limbo with the Castle inhabitants; Tarod’s love for her had turned to searing contempt, and thought of her plight gave him a malevolent satisfaction.

  But, against all reason, Cyllan’s presence in the Castle had harked back to those old times, stirred up something which should have been unable to exist.

  He was suddenly angry, both with himself and with the girl. The concern that had moved him when he found her unconscious was ashes, and that was how it should remain. She was nothing to him beyond a cipher that he might, with fortune on his side, use to further his own aims; and if she suffered in the process it was of no moment. To put faith in her would be madness - he would watch and wait, assess her value to him and make use of her. Beyond that, she was nothing.

  Picking up a book he had already read twice, Tarod sat down, ignoring the faint and distant voice that accused him of self-delusion. Such human failings were a thing of the past. And the past was dead.

  *****

  Cyllan stared in amazement at the thousands of books and manuscripts that littered the vault floor and lined the row upon row of shelves. Starting to move forward she stumbled over a huge, black-bound tome and hastily sidestepped it, overawed and afraid of damaging any of the precious volumes.

  Drachea had no such compunction. Now that he had a companion to bolster his courage, he had forgotten his first unnerving experience here and was rummaging among the books, picking out those which seemed to offer promise. Cyllan watched him, acutely aware of her own shortcomings - save for making some sense of a map, she had no part to play in the search for clue
s.

  Discomforted, she wandered to the far side of the vault where the light seemed a little better … then stopped, noticing a small, low door set deep in an alcove and invisible but from close quarters. Experimentally she touched it; it moved, a little stiffly at first, then the hinges unjammed and it swung fully open.

  ‘Drachea … ‘

  He answered with a dismissive grunt, but she persisted.

  ‘Drachea - look! There’s another passage … ‘

  His head came up and he looked round - then froze.

  He recognised the door - it was the same one he had unwittingly and unwillingly discovered in his moment of panic here alone, and he didn’t like to be reminded of that incident.

  ‘Doubtless it’s unimportant,’ he said carelessly.

  ‘I don’t think so … ‘ Cyllan frowned. The narrow, palely illuminated corridor that sloped steeply away downwards intrigued her; intuition told her there was more to it than met the eye, and she took a few steps into the passage. The light increased; faint still, but unmistakably growing, as though some hidden source lay at the end of the corridor. She wanted to explore further.

  ‘Drachea -I think we should investigate. Perhaps I’m wrong, but - I think we should.’

  She heard Drachea curse impatiently under his breath, then his footsteps sounded across the flagstones and he came to join her.

  ‘Look,’ she said quietly, pointing. The light … ‘

  He saw what she meant, and his curiosity was aroused. There was, after all, nothing to fear here - no lurking horrors, no demons, no phantoms, except those his own mind chose to create.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, brushing her aside and taking the lead. ‘If you’re set on it, we’ll find out where it leads!’

  He set off, walking fast and not waiting for her to keep up. Cyllan hurried after him - then, barely able to stop herself on the steep gradient, all but collided with him as, without any warning, he halted abruptly with an oath of surprise on his lips.