The Master

by Louise Cooper

  ‘Well, Adept?’ The Margrave licked his lips uncertainly. Is this the girl the Circle are seeking?’

  He couldn’t deny it. The Sisters had proved Cyllan’s identity beyond all shadow of doubt, and they were waiting only for his confirmation. Slowly, Tarod approached the cage, and as he did so Cyllan let her hands fall from her face. He allowed his left hand, hidden from sight of the Margrave and sisters, to make a small, warning gesture, and he hoped she understood.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice even. ‘This is the girl.’

  As the small group moved away from her prison, Cyllan’s gaze followed Tarod with a hunger and longing that made her shiver uncontrollably. Since the nightmare of her capture had begun she’d thought of nothing but him, tormenting herself with visions of a short-lived future in which all hope of seeing him again was gone.

  Before their arrival at Prospect Town she’d made two attempts to escape from the Sisters, but both had failed, and though it wasn’t in Cyllan’s nature to admit defeat she had realised that any further attempt at flight was pointless. Even if she could escape - and that in itself was unlikely - she couldn’t hope to retrieve the Chaos stone, and without it Tarod’s cause was lost. She had no power of her own; all she had was the ability silently to defy and curse her captors, while she waited to be taken to her death.

  But now … She rubbed fiercely at her eyes, still part convinced that she must be asleep and dreaming, but Tarod’s tall figure didn’t waver and vanish. He looked gaunt, tired, unkempt; but he was alive, and he had come to her. Somehow he had deceived the Sisters and the Margrave, and for the first time since her own deception had been discovered Cyllan felt hope renewing itself. If he could just find a way to - Sister Jennat, on the edge of the small group, suddenly looked over her shoulder directly at the cage, and Cyllan felt a sharp frisson of discomfort, as though her thoughts were being spied upon. She’d forgotten Jennat’s talent in the shock of seeing Tarod, and quickly turned her face aside, trying to cloud her mind and block the seer’s attempts to probe. After a few moments Jennat looked away and she allowed herself to breathe again. With luck on her side - and she desperately needed luck now - the dark Sister had had no chance to find anything suspicious in what she saw. Drawing air into her lungs, and striving to quell the pounding of her heart, Cyllan sat back to wait. It was all she could do.

  ‘There’s no question as to the girl’s identity,’ Tarod told his companions. ‘As I explained to the Margrave, I saw her during her captivity at the Castle, and despite her disguise I’m not in any doubt. However, there is still the matter of the jewel. I’d like to see it for myself.’

  He became aware instantly of Sister Jennat’s sharp scrutiny, and warning bells rang deep in his mind, Something - he couldn’t judge what, though it hardly mattered - had alerted the seer, and he could sense a sly, subtle attempt to probe his thoughts. Quickly he blocked them, saw her flinch momentarily, and realised that, although she couldn’t tell what he was thinking, his retaliation had made her all the more suspicious. An unpleasant sense of urgency began to worry at him.

  Intimidated though Sister Liss might be by the authority of a high-ranking Adept, Jennat was another matter. He had to get Cyllan away, before the Sister’s doubts could take root and grow.

  Liss bowed her head, acquiescing. ‘Of course, Adept, if you wish to see the gem I have it here in my pouch.

  Though - forgive me -I wonder if it might be unwise to expose it? We took certain precautions, you understand, and - ‘

  Tarod’s uneasy impatience redoubled, but he tried to keep it from his voice. ‘I appreciate your concern, Sister Liss, but I need to be sure of its authenticity.’

  ‘Sister - ‘ Jennat hissed the word involuntarily, then blanched as Tarod turned a swift, angry glance on her.

  Liss was fumbling in her belt-pouch, her movements infuriatingly slow, and it was all Tarod could do to stop himself from physically shaking her into greater haste.

  He didn’t dare look towards the cage at Cyllan, and prayed silently that Jennat wouldn’t turn her attentions to her and see what was in her mind. He felt a disturbing mixture of impatience and dread as he watched Liss’s clumsy efforts - he needed the stone, wanted to touch its familiar contours and know that once again he controlled its power; and yet the fear that he might succumb to the jewel’s ancient influence, that the servant might become the master, was all too strong.

  ‘Here it is.’ Liss finally drew out a tightly folded piece of white cloth, and Tarod saw the lightning-flash sigil of the White Gods embroidered on it. He kept the relief he felt from his voice as he spoke.

  ‘Thank you, sister. If I might see the stone … ? ‘

  Jennat was biting her lip, glancing nervously from Tarod to Liss and back to Tarod. The older woman began to unwrap the cloth; through its folds something glittered coldly, and Tarod felt a surge of raw emotion, of power; a sensation he had all but forgotten and which struck him so unexpectedly that he didn’t think to control it -

  ‘Sister, no!’ Jennat’s frantic cry cut the still air like a sword-blade, and at the same moment the final folds of the cloth fell away to expose the Chaos stone in Liss’s hand. Tarod swung round, and his gaze locked with the dark girl’s - her face was a frozen mask of horror, and in her eyes he saw stunned recognition of his true self.

  Sister Liss was turning, alarmed by Jennat’s warning but not yet comprehending what her seer had understood. Without pausing to think, Tarod snatched the jewel from Liss’s palm - and a massive physical shock jolted through him, as though he’d been struck by a thunderbolt. His left hand clenched round the gem, and an atavistic, titanic sense of power flooded his mind, wiping out all reason and setting fire to an instinctive fury. He couldn’t think as a logical, mortal man -

  Jennat’s face was a blur, the Margrave’s querulous cry like a distant, meaningless bird-call - he flung his left arm out towards Jennat and the power surged within him.

  The flowering tree in the corner erupted in a column of white flame, and light blasted across the courtyard.

  Burning branches whirled down on to the cage, and the wooden bars blazed up like torches. Tarod saw Cyllan reel back, and he screamed her name, summoning her to his side. She staggered, regained her balance - then he saw her fling herself through the roaring arch of fire that consumed the cage, her figure lit grotesquely and her face distorted with a wild triumph. She reached him and his right hand locked on hers - the clutch of her fingers was ferocious - then through the mayhem he heard Sister Jennat shrieking.

  ‘No! No! Sister, help me! Stop them!’

  Men were bursting from the door to the justice house, the Margrave was trying to block his path, and he saw Jennat, a blur of white robes and flying dark hair, hurling herself towards him. He didn’t think - he couldn’t think; the instinctive fury was too great. A gesture, and Jennat screamed like a tortured beast, her body twisting about in a gruesome dance before she crashed to the ground, her bones smashed and all traces of life obliterated from her eyes.

  Through a red daze Tarod saw Sister Liss backing away on all fours and heard her wailing on a high, insensate note. He dragged Cyllan to his side, swung round, and came face to face with the Margrave. The old man’s features were distorted by terror but he was trying to block their path, his militia behind him. Tarod raised his hand again and the old man reeled sideways, buffeted by a force that punched him across the courtyard.

  The militiamen fell back in horrified confusion and Tarod clove through their midst, only dimly aware of Cyllan at his side. The door split, burst apart by the insane force erupting from within him, and they were running through corridors that warped and fragmented before them. Faces loomed and fell away crying out in fear, the double doors at the main entrance were before them -

  The crowd outside in the avenue parted like leaves before a gale as the dark, demonic figure ran from the justice house. To Tarod’s twisted consciousness the scene was a nightmare of crazed shapes and howling sound; the Chaos force had co
ntrol of him and the milling bodies and screaming voices had no meaning.

  Black light flickered about him, lighting his stark face and possessed eyes. At the edge of the crowd something moved, and he sent out an implacable mental summons; the big bay horse reared and danced but his will held it and he was dimly aware of lifting Cyllan, flinging her astride the animal and springing into the saddle behind her. The sensation of the powerful, bunching muscles beneath him brought back a measure of sanity - he screamed a command and the horse spun about, launching into a standing gallop as it raced towards the town walls and freedom.

  Chapter 7

  Sweating, shaking, the bay horse stumbled to a halt under the shelter of a vast pine tree that marked the edge of Prospect Province’s southern forest. The last bloodied streaks of Sunset were still just visible in the West, but dusk had drained all colour from the woods, merging shadow with night and casting a charcoal-dark pall over the humping landscape.

  Tarod slid from the saddle, his spine jarring as his feet struck the uneven ground, and for a moment pressed his face against the animal’s flank, feeling drained and exhausted. Then he reached up and his hands caught Cyllan about the waist to lift her down. Her face stared back at him, a pale, indistinct oval in which only her eyes looked smudged and dark in the deepening twilight. He felt her fingers clutch his arms to steady herself, then she slithered to the ground and suddenly was clinging to him with the desperate hunger of a frightened child.

  ‘Tarod… ‘ She said his name over and over again as though it were a talisman, and he drew her to where a tangle of briars formed a natural shelter, fallen pine needles making a soft carpet on the turf. Together they sank down on the makeshift couch, and at last she raised her head and gazed at him.

  ‘I thought I’d never see you again.’ Her fingers touched his face tentatively, as though she didn’t trust the evidence of her eyes. ‘I’d been searching for you, listening to every rumour, hoping … I believed you must be alive, but - ‘

  ‘Hush.’ He kissed her, moved by the aching familiarity of her skin beneath his lips. ‘Don’t say anything.’

  Her hair brushed against his face and he pushed it aside, his fingers tracing the contours of her face. She felt so small, so vulnerable … when he kissed her again she turned her head so that his mouth found hers, and he pulled her closer, the cloak he wore enveloping them both. Tired though he was, feelings were awakening that he couldn’t and didn’t wish to stem; driven by an understanding that he dared not acknowledge, he needed her and wanted her in a way he’d never known before.

  She made to speak but his lips quieted her, and he felt her responding to him, uncertainly at first but then with increasing fervour as recent terrors gave way to the emotions of the moment. By the tree the bay horse snorted and Cyllan started nervously; he smiled, and drew her closer against him.

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ Tarod told her softly. ‘Nothing can harm you. Not now … ‘

  Much later, she woke from a restless sleep and saw him standing at the edge of the forest, silhouetted against a sky steeped in thin silver-grey light. Both Moons were high, but barely more than crescents; an insidious wind had risen and rustled in the burgeoning trees, lifting Tarod’s black hair back from his face and casting his profile into sharp relief. Beside him the bay stood head down and dozing; but from the set of his shoulders Cyllan knew that Tarod hadn’t slept; his restlessness was a palpable aura.

  She got quietly to her feet, gathering up his cloak with which he’d covered her, and walked slowly towards him.

  Hearing her approach he turned, and she saw that he held something in one hand; something that glittered coldly. His smile was touched with sadness.

  ‘You should be sleeping.’

  ‘I’m not tired, not any more.’ She touched his hand; it was chilled and she cast the cloak around him. ‘And you … ?’

  ‘I don’t think I could sleep, even if I wanted to.’ His fingers moved restively, and the Chaos stone caught and reflected a sharp sliver of light. For near on two hours Tarod had stood gazing out at the landscape with its Moon-distorted perspectives, searching his own mind for the answers to a dilemma he knew he couldn’t resolve, and he felt incapable of expressing to Cyllan the feelings that stirred in him. He had thought himself immune to the Chaos stone’s influence, but he’d been wrong - yesterday’s ugly events had proved that beyond all doubt. The old power had returned to him, and he’d used it without considering the consequences … now, he was torn between loathing of the stone and the heady knowledge that he was whole again. However evil the jewel might be, whatever its Chaotic legacy, it contained his soul - it was an integral part of him, and without it he’d been little better than an empty husk.

  Last night when he’d made love to Cyllan he had been stunned by the intensity of his own emotions. The long, lonely days when he had existed soulless and empty had left their mark, and he’d all but forgotten how great the strength of human passions, good or ill, could be. It was as though his existence had taken on another dimension; one where every sense, every feeling, every thought, was brighter and clearer and sharper. He had once told Cyllan that until his soul was restored to him he could never love or give in the way that he really desired to, and now he realised how true his words had been. Yet the stone, without which he was only half alive, had imbued him with an evil to which he’d already succumbed once, and would doubtless succumb again. That was the nature of the dilemma, and Tarod was finding it hard to live with himself.

  He was turning the stone over and over in his hand, and suddenly he felt Cyllan’s fingers tangle with his, arresting his movement. ‘Your thoughts aren’t happy, Tarod,’ she said quietly. ‘Were you thinking about what happened in Prospect?’

  He looked down at her, then sighed. ‘Yes. And I was wondering what I’d see in your eyes when you woke, and asking myself if I could face it.’

  ‘Why should you not be able to? Do you think I’ve changed so much?’

  Tarod shook his head. He made a tentative attempt to release his hand, but she would not let go. ‘Yesterday, for the first time, you saw the force that truly moves me, Cyllan,’ he said. ‘You saw my soul, and that soul isn’t human. You saw Chaos.’

  ‘I saw Tarod, as I see Tarod now - and as I touched and felt Tarod earlier tonight.’

  ‘Then maybe you don’t yet understand what I really am.’

  Her face was partly obscured by the curtain of her hair, but even in the dimness he could see an odd, burning intensity in her eyes. ‘Oh yes, I think I do,’ she told him stubbornly. ‘I know that you love me enough to have saved my life, no matter what the cost to you. As to whether that motive is born out of Order or Chaos - it doesn’t matter, Tarod! It’s a human feeling, a mortal emotion.’ Her fingers squeezed his, hard. ‘Doesn’t that prove where the real truth lies? Yes; you killed someone. But you killed them to save me. And I’d be a hypocrite, wouldn’t I, if I condemned you for doing no more than I’ve done myself?’

  He realised what she was saying, and at last something which he’d heard but doubted was confirmed. He was a little disconcerted to find that the confirmation came as no surprise.

  ‘Then you did kill Drachea Rannak … ‘ he said.

  Cyllan turned away from him. ‘Yes. I killed him, and I can’t regret it. I’ve tried to make myself feel remorse, but I’m not capable; not after what he tried to do to us.’

  She released his hand at last and walked away to the edge of the trees, staring out at the Prospect hills but taking in nothing of the vista. ‘I used the stone to kill him, and I’d use it again - I’d use it now, if I had to. Does that make me evil?’

  ‘No. But - ‘

  ‘Tarod, if you find it hard to reconcile your conscience, then I can only pray you’ll understand and forgive me for what I’ve done … ‘

  He stepped towards her, ‘You know there’s nothing to forgive. If - ‘

  She interrupted again, her voice unexpectedly harsh.

  ‘I don’t just mean Drachea. The
re’s more.’

  ‘More?’ Tarod hesitated, then laid his hands on her shoulders, drawing her towards him though she still wouldn’t face him. ‘Tell me.’

  He felt Cyllan shiver, and this time it seemed she had to exert a great effort of will to speak. ‘You rejected your own soul because you wanted no part of an evil legacy,’ she said. ‘Yet I couldn’t follow your principle, and I think that makes me far more evil than you. You see … I made a pact with Chaos to secure your freedom.’

  Tarod’s fingers tightened reflexively on her shoulder muscles, but it was the only outward sign of the shock he felt. Slowly Cyllan raised her left arm and turned her hand palm up, so that her coat sleeve fell back. Even in the gloom he could see the dark scar, like a burn, that marred her skin.

  ‘Yandros made that mark,’ Cyllan told him quietly.

  ‘He kissed my wrist to seal our bargain.’

  Stunned, Tarod took her arm, but his touch was gentle. Her skin was puckered and as he touched the scar he could sense its origin; a stigma that time wouldn’t erode.

  With terrible clarity he remembered Yandros’s face; the proud, smiling mouth, the everchanging eyes, the power that defied mortal concepts … he’d challenged Yandros once, and defeated him; but he understood Chaos in a way no other sorcerer could, and knew how to use the dark lord’s own weapons against him. The thought that Cyllan, unskilled and unprotected, had faced such a power, chilled him to the marrow.

  He said, not knowing how to put his feelings into words, ‘How did he - how could he break through? He was banished … ‘

  Cyllan hugged herself. ‘I called him - prayed, I suppose you might say - and he answered. That’s all I know.

  He appeared in my room, and - and he agreed to aid me.’ She shut her eyes, trying to squeeze out the memory of that sense of appalling power and the paralysing fear that it could still engender.