Noonshade

by James Barclay

  “But yes, we lost many good men in the defence of the city and there will be a significant number of prisoners. It is this that gives us our most immediate problem.”

  “So what can we actually do?” There was a half smile on Endorr's face but no mirth in his eyes. His question ignored Kard's last statement.

  “Our choice is straight,” said Kard. “Surrender, remove the Shroud and open the gates to the Wesmen, or wait for rescue by Dordover and other forces unknown.”

  “Surrender is absolutely unthinkable,” said Kerela. “To open the gates would be the end of Julatsa as a centre for magic and probably of all of us too. I ask you, how many of you around this table believe the words of Lord Senedai?”

  “We will be walking out to our deaths,” said Seldane. “You know the Wesmen feeling for magic.” There was a murmur of agreement around the table.

  “And if no help arrives in four weeks?” asked Torvis, his eyes recovering a little of their twinkle.

  “I will, of course, work on escape plans with my senior staff, but you should know now that any escape will be bloody and must include us all,” said Kard.

  “Not an escape, a break out,” said Torvis.

  “Yes.” Kard managed a smile. “It will be a question of concentrating our efforts on the assessed line of greatest weakness. One reason why that tower they are building must be destroyed. Any moves we make have to be secret until the gates roll open. I'll leave that to you. But there is something we must face with more urgency and it may sway the mood of the people within the walls.”

  “Surely they are happy they are alive,” said Seldane.

  “Oh, I have no doubt that's true,” said Kard. “But most of them have loved ones outside the walls somewhere, either dead, in the wilds or imprisoned. Earlier, Senedai spoke of employing further pressure to force our surrender and the removal of the Shroud.

  “He has already lost enough men in the Shroud to understand its impenetrability and deadliness. I don't want to spell this out, so I'll ask you this. If you wanted us to remove the Shroud and surrender and you had several thousand prisoners in your hands, what would you do to put pressure on us?”

  Septern's return through the rip had been one of unbridled rage and the incongruity of it all still made Sha-Kaan's mind fill with mirth. Septern had not been particularly tall for a human, perhaps only a little more than five and a half feet in Balaian terms. Sha-Kaan, by comparison, despite his youth, had at the time stretched more than eighty-five feet from snout to tip of tail. He had since grown to be well in excess of one hundred and twenty feet and was among the largest dragons still flying. More crucially, he was still almost as quick as he had ever been.

  Septern had tumbled from the gateway, brushed himself down, seen Sha-Kaan immediately and had begun berating him and his kind. A Vestare doing the same would have been killed or at the very least expelled for insubordination. He'd pointed behind him repeatedly as he spoke.

  “Why don't you go through and see what your beloved, what is it, ‘Brood,’ has done? You have demolished a peaceful and beautiful civilisation with your damned fire and your damned jaws. How dare you assume the right of life or death over people in another dimension? How dare you? Well, I have seen to it that you will never do the same in my world. And none of your bastard murderous Brood will ever see the Avian dimension again by my hand. I just pray enough survive to rebuild what you have taken from them.

  “You are not the Lords of the world, only your own dimension, though I fail to see how destroying everything in your path makes you anything other than mindless animals. How can it possibly aid you to destroy innocent people? Well? Lost your power of speech, have you?”

  By this time, Septern had been standing toe to snout with Sha-Kaan as the dragon rested on the ground, head pillowed on leaves and grass, wings furled, tail curled along the length of his body and under his long, slender neck. He had fought back the desire to punish the impudence of the human, keeping in mind how vital he might be to the Kaan's survival and development.

  Behind Septern, four Kaan, all that had survived the battle with the Skar in the Avian dimension, flew from the swirling brown depths of the gateway, victory calls echoing across the devastated land of Keol.

  He recalled as if it was the day before, their next exchange.

  Sha-Kaan waited until they had gone, scanned the sky, sniffed the air for signs of any Skar and began to talk, having pulsed a message to his most immediate Vestare to attend him.

  “I will tell you three things,” he said. “My name is Sha-Kaan of the Brood Kaan, your world is not at risk from my Brood and you must curb your tongue because others of my kind are not as forgiving as I am.”

  “Forgiving? Don't make me laugh. You call that slaughter through there forgiving too, do you?”

  “I call it survival,” said Sha-Kaan, using the gentle tone he knew calmed anxious Vestare.

  “How is it survival? You've torn apart their homes, burned their wings and bodies, shattered their ledges and brought darkness and lightning to the sky in daytime. I don't suppose they're impressed with your justification being a need for survival since I don't suppose they'd heard of the Brood Kaan yesterday.”

  “But they have heard of the Skar. And they serve the Skar. For that, they were against us, however unwittingly. This is a war and they are an ally to an enemy. They took a side that was not ours.” If Sha-Kaan had been able to shrug like a human, he would have done so. Instead, he raised his bony brows. He saw Septern shift, some of the tension leaving him.

  “But did they, the Avians I mean, know that?” he asked.

  “The Skar should have told them everything about dragons, and the reasons they were chosen to serve. As shall you be.”

  “Thank you, I'm sure,” said Septern. “First, tell me how the Avians could operate as allies to the dragons. It doesn't make sense.”

  Sha-Kaan moved his head, beginning to raise himself.

  “That is not a simple request to answer,” he said. “And we should move to a safer place. My attendants will give you food and provide escort. I will await your arrival at the Kaan Broodlands.”

  “Who says I'm going anywhere but back through that rip?” demanded Septern. At last, Sha-Kaan's eyes fired and he knocked Septern from his feet with a fuel-less breath.

  “I do,” he said, his voice loud. He saw Septern wince and raise hands to his ears, his face pale and scared. “You and your dimension can be of great benefit to the Kaan and, in return, we can protect you from other, less tolerant Broods. And believe me, fragile human, one day another Brood would have found you, had you not so fortuitously fallen to me.

  “Now, I will await you at the Broodlands and you will attend to speak to the Ancients of the Kaan. The Vestare will help you but they will not speak your language and you may not be able to pick up their thoughts. Until we meet again, calm your mind and let it open, because this world is far bigger than you can possibly conceive.”

  And he had unfurled his wings and flown away, feeling Septern's eyes in his back and fighting himself not to probe the human's mind. He was a great human, of that there was no doubt. He understood the magic of dimensional travel, he could control it and that made him an incredible prize for the Kaan. He had looked back once, curling his neck under him as he flew onward. The Vestare were there. They would see him safe.

  Sha-Kaan had bellowed his pleasure and flown for the Broodlands.

  Kard, Kerela and Barras stood silent in the ankle-deep mist of dawn behind the shifting evil of the DemonShroud, through which faceless pale blue phantoms shot and curled. Dormant during Balaia's hours of darkness, the shapes added a new level of deep unease to the feeling of dread the Shroud evoked. Lookouts above the North Gate had reported Senedai walking alone toward the College walls, through streets where, so recently, the peaceful business of Julatsa had been conducted. Now, those streets belonged to the Wesmen and their Lord was about to deliver judgement on the Julatsan Council's decision.

  At a
signal from Kerela, the gates were opened and Julatsa's military and mage elders stood across the Shroud from Senedai. This time, there were no flags, no archers and no guards. The meeting was likely to be brief.

  “I see your friends keep you company this pleasant morning,” said Senedai, his smile sneering from beneath his moustache, the tone of his voice falling dead against the Shroud.

  “I see little pleasant in our situation,” said Barras shortly. “General Kard and High Mage Kerela are with me to hear your response to our decision.”

  “Good. So tell me the result of your discussions.”

  “We will never surrender our College,” said Kerela flatly.

  Senedai nodded and there was a trace of regret on his face.

  “I expected nothing more. I respect your decision but it leaves me no choice but to force you from behind your evil mist by means other than negotiation.”

  “That's what you called yesterday's ultimatum, was it?” Barras growled.

  Senedai ignored him. “As you can see, I have come unarmed and unaided because I want you to believe my words. If, after I have spoken, you choose to strike me down with one of your spells, then so be it. But what I am about to tell you will merely be quickened as a result.”

  “Here it comes,” muttered Kard.

  “Tell us about the state of any prisoners you hold,” demanded Barras.

  “Alive,” replied Senedai. “But they are prisoners. They have no standing.” He paused. “There are no mages amongst them. Not now anyway. I couldn't trust them not to cast the moment my back was turned.”

  “That's a bluff,” said Kard, speaking low, his face away from Senedai. “There's no way he could tell the difference in a crowd. He'd have to see them cast.”

  Senedai clapped his hands, the sound echoing dully across the small cobbled courtyard in front of the gates in the quiet of the early morning.

  “No more talk. Here is what will happen until you agree to surrender. At dawn, midday and dusk each day, fifty prisoners will be brought to these walls and made to walk into this barrier you created. Any attempt to stop us will result in a further three hundred prisoners being executed and their bodies brought to you for burial. Unfortunately, since we cannot pass these bodies, or those who walk the barrier, to you, they will have to be left to fester and rot in full sight of anyone who cares to look down from your walls.

  “Furthermore, as each day dawns, the number of prisoners walking into your mist each time shall rise by fifty. You can stop this repatriation—” he smiled at his choice of words “—simply by hanging your flag of truce or surrender from this gate and then removing the barrier. The first fifty prisoners will be here at dawn tomorrow. I give you one more day to make the right choice. Don't make me prove my words.” He spun on his heel and strode away.

  Barras and Kerela looked at Kard.

  “He'll do it,” said the General, nodding gravely. “Have no doubt. In fact I'm surprised he gave us another day.”

  “Damn the man,” said Barras.

  “But you can't fault his thinking, can you?” said Kerela. “This is very public. And our people will see their own killed by something we created.”

  “But his is the force, Kerela,” protested Barras. “We're the innocents.”

  “Yes indeed,” said Kerela quietly. “But it is within our power to halt the murder and in a very short time I can see our people turning against us. We must be prepared for that.”

  “You're not suggesting surrender?” said Barras.

  “No. But remember, most of us within these walls are not mages. They do not have the same desire to preserve the College because they have no conception of what it would mean to lose it.” Kerela chewed her lip and began walking back to the Tower. “We must work out what to say to our guests.”

  Sha-Kaan stretched his jaws in the quiet of Wingspread, feeling through slight vibration in the walls and floor the scurrying feet of his attendant. There was much to tell him and a journey would have to be made. So much of what was to come to Keol and then to Teras was similar to the arrival of Septern all those long rotations before. But there was a key difference.

  Septern had been able to produce the help they needed through his intimate understanding of the nature of the dimensions. Sha-Kaan had no such confidence in the abilities of Hirad Coldheart and his Raven.

  And yet he wondered whether it wasn't all simply a fate over which none of them had any control. Skies knew it felt that way. But who could have foreseen the other chain of events that Septern's arrival at the Broodlands had set in motion?

  Sha-Kaan closed his eyes once more, breathing in the damp of the earth beneath his great body and recalled the Ancients’ meeting with Septern. He had arrived irritable but well and Sha-Kaan well remembered the look of awe on his face as he took in the Broodlands. There was no Wingspread then, of course, but the structures of the Ancients sprang from the ground, testimonies to their leadership of the Kaan.

  The Ancients had chosen to meet Septern on the banks of the River Tere, allowing those with the need to rest in its calming flow. In addition to Sha-Kaan, invited as the one who found Septern, three Ancients met the human. Ara-, Dun- and Los-Kaan. All had been in the last flights of their long lives, scales fading from gold to a dull brown, wings drying making flying a painful and difficult process.

  Septern had walked into the middle of them, craning his neck to see their faces, his eyes trailing over their massive bodies, down to the tails which twitched impatiently. Ara-Kaan had opened his mouth to speak but Septern had spoken first, chilling the proud thought in Sha-Kaan's mind. Ara had been an ill-tempered dragon at best and the current Great Kaan felt the shudder of ages through him as he remembered what followed…

  “—I'm not happy about this,” said Septern. “I arrive in good faith, after winning the trust of the Avians to let me build a rip in their land and they are rewarded by wanton destruction by your…your minions or whatever you call them. It was their fatal misfortune that my incomplete knowledge of the workings of dimensional magics in their land led to it being far larger than I had intended. Then, as if that's not—”

  “Silence!” thundered Ara-Kaan. “Skies fall but you humans do not know when to hold your feeble tongues.” The sound of Ara's voice cracked across the valley, once again dumping Septern from his feet. He looked straight into Ara's eyes, defiant.

  “I understand that I'm important or I would already be dead,” he said.

  “Then you understand very little.” Ara's long neck snaked out, his old head, eye ridges blistered, dim blue eyes losing their lustre, coming to rest directly in front of Septern's. “We already have the means to travel to your dimension, which you presented to us. There will be other humans we can talk to.”

  “Then burn me and find out how wrong you are,” said Septern, getting back on his feet.

  Ara cocked his head.

  “No!” shouted Sha-Kaan. “Great Kaan, don't.” Ara-Kaan paused, one eye swivelling to fix on Sha-Kaan.

  “Hear him,” said the young dragon. “He has mastered controlled dimensional linking. He deserves some respect.”

  “He is human,” said Ara dismissively.

  “And here, where he shouldn't be,” said Dun, speaking for the first time. “Hear him.” Ara relaxed his neck.

  “Speak, human,” he said.

  “Thank you,” said Septern tersely. “Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Septern, nominally a mage of the College city of Dordover in Balaia. However, I do not feel allegiance to any one College, having been blessed with an understanding of multiple disciplines.”

  “Excellent,” said Los-Kaan, his tail absently sweeping water over his back as he sat half in, half out of the River Tere. “And so does this mean that more than one of these multiple disciplines has an understanding of dimensional magics, as you would call them?”

  Septern looked hard at Los-Kaan, presumably weighing up the meaning behind the question. He shrugged.

  “Yes, in theory, a
ll four Colleges have the knowledge to develop dimensional magics. It is a subject that crosses the ethical boundaries quite freely. However, it is the individual mage who has the responsibility to forward research and precious few work in this field. Dimensional theory is new and so is mistrusted.”

  “But not by you,” said Ara gruffly.

  “Of course not,” said Septern, smiling. “I originated it.”

  “Really,” said Ara. He stretched his huge jaws, displaying his rank of yellowed fangs. “Tell me why we are so wrong about your gateways.”

  “Because when I went through the rip to witness your attempted genocide, I made some adjustments to the rip magic. Now, the starting point of your travel is crucial and since the rips to the Avian dimension and Balaia are linked, you have to start in Balaia to travel back there. So the rips are useless to you, aren't they?” Septern's smile became patronising, an expression Sha-Kaan had seen among the Vestare.

  “By the Skies, if I wasn't sure you were speaking the truth, I would burn the flesh from your crumbling bones,” spat Ara.

  “That's your answer to everything, is it? Set light to the offender and hope they learn their lesson? It's no wonder you're fighting your Skar and destroying your own lands.”

  “Meaning?” demanded Dun-Kaan. The Ancient's tongue flicked out of his age-paled face, moistening the lids of his eyes.

  “Ever tried employing this?” Septern pointed to his mouth. “You sound bright enough; why don't you talk?”

  “Ah,” said Los-Kaan. “There speaks one who knows nothing of our history. The time for talking has long since passed. Conquest is the only way to secure peace now.”

  “Gods falling, you sound like a Wesman,” said Septern.

  “A who?” asked Los-Kaan.

  Septern shook his head. “The race in Balaia who are threatening my lands and people. But never mind that. What is it you want?” His tone was suddenly impatient. “And why do you sound like you've met humans like me before?”