Sword of Caledor

by William King

‘In theory. In practice, I doubt that things would work out the way that Morathi expects.’

  ‘So it is the Hag Queen that we are talking about.’

  ‘Yes, and possibly her son, Aenarion’s child, Malekith.’

  The scale of the ambition revealed by Caledor’s statement was breathtaking.

  ‘How would they do it?’

  ‘Tempted?’

  ‘Who would not be?’

  Caledor’s smile was strange and sour. The complexity of the emotions in it made Teclis feel ashamed. The old wizard spread his hands wide and shrugged. ‘Indeed. Who would not be?’

  ‘What do you think they are planning?’

  ‘If the pattern of the Vortex is destroyed, Chaos will overflow into your world. Eventually, matter itself will become mutable, the very structure of reality will become fluid as the powers of Chaos exert themselves. Once that happens, a mage of sufficient power and skill would be able, in theory, to remake the world in an image created by themselves.’

  ‘Is that really possible?’

  ‘Truthfully, I doubt it. We are talking about magic on a scale that only gods or daemon princes could work. Nonetheless, possible or not, I think that is what Morathi intends. I think it is what she always intended, even before she met Aenarion.’

  ‘She must be stopped,’ said Teclis.

  ‘Indeed she must. You are here because we need a weapon against those who would swallow the world. You will be our sword.’

  ‘Me?’ Teclis felt suddenly very vulnerable. It was all very well saying that someone had to stop the most powerful sorceress of all time. It was an entirely different matter when you yourself might be the one chosen to do it.

  Caledor’s expression was bleak. ‘We all feel that way when destiny taps us on the shoulder. I never thought that one day…’

  He looked away and shook his head. The walls of the chamber seemed to fade, and Teclis looked out onto the vast, glittering space beyond. As far as the horizon an enormous pattern of light blazed. At its centre a cancerous darkness was eating away at it. Around that darkness blazing figures, elf-like but sky-tall, worked spells to keep it contained. Even as they did so, the darkness threatened to erupt in a different part of the pattern.

  The walls returned. The chamber coalesced around them. Caledor, who had seemed for a moment to be one of those distant gigantic figures, was once more his stooped self, small and infinitely sad. ‘We cannot do it. We are trapped here. We have screamed warnings in the dreams of the Wise. We have woven spells to summon aid to us. You are what we have been sent.’

  ‘So she must be stopped,’ Teclis said softly. ‘What must I do?’

  ‘You must return and tell the wizards of Hoeth to prepare for war. And you must prepare for war yourself.’

  ‘Me? I am not a fighter.’

  ‘You are of the blood of Aenarion. I doubt you will have a problem with killing.’

  ‘It’s the being killed I have a problem with.’

  ‘Everything that lives has that problem.’

  You do not, Teclis wanted to say. It was almost as if the old wizard could read his mind. ‘I am no longer alive,’ he said.

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Teclis.

  ‘That makes two of us,’ said Caledor. He tilted his head to one side, as if listening to something or someone very far away.

  ‘Our time here is over.’

  He rose from his chair with very great reluctance and walked as slowly as a prisoner going to his own execution towards the door. Every step seemed to take him a prodigious effort of will. He turned when he reached the door, his hand trembling on the handle.

  ‘Farewell, Teclis, son of Arathion. Make sure your brother stays alive. If he falls, you fall and our world falls with you.’

  Teclis did not know what to say. Caledor opened the door. The blazing inferno of the Vortex sprang into being behind him. Blast furnace heat washed across the room. Caledor stepped through the doorway and walked out onto the pattern, every step agonisingly slow. His body started to shrivel and burn as it had burned for over six thousand years. He raised his arms as if to cast a spell, a blazing figure crucified against the light, a weary ghost returning to hell to perform its final duties, of its own free will.

  Watching him, Teclis knew he could not ever do that.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The scouts reported back early in the evening. Dorian greeted them in his command tent. They were the best of their kind, males, trained from early childhood when they were abducted from their kindred on Death Night. They had proven early their gift for survival by living through being tossed into a cauldron of boiling blood. That had been the start of a lifetime of hardships that had made them among the best killers in a nation famed for its murderousness. Assassins of the Cult of Khaine.

  ‘We have found the tournament ground, general,’ said the assassin. ‘It is where the king said it would be.’

  ‘Did you ever doubt it?’ Dorian asked, not because he thought the assassin ever had, but because he disliked him and his entire breed. They made him too nervous. They belonged to the Cult, body and soul, and it belonged to Morathi. It formed part of an extensive and alternative system of government to Malekith’s. Rumour had it that the cults of pleasure performed the same function albeit in secret.

  ‘Never,’ said the assassin blandly.

  ‘And they did not spot you or your brothers?’

  ‘No, though we were close enough to the sentries to reach out and pluck hairs from their head.’

  ‘I trust you engaged in no such frolics.’

  ‘You seem determined to wilfully misconstrue everything I say, general. Do we have a problem, you and I?’

  There was an obvious threat in the assassin’s voice. Dorian would have had any one of his soldiers who spoke to him like that given over to the torturers but he could not do it to this elf and both of them knew it. Dorian felt compelled to let the assassin know he was not afraid of him either. ‘If we did you would not now be standing here.’

  The assassin inclined his head. ‘That is the truth.’

  He let his posture and his expression show that he believed that the reason for that would be that Dorian was dead, but the ambiguity of the response left honour satisfied on both sides. Dorian smiled to show that he understood that too.

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘It is a vast tent city, full of armed elves but disorganised, more like a country fair in Bretonnia than an armed camp.’

  ‘That is because it is a fair,’ said Dorian. ‘They do not expect an attack here of all places. Let us see to it that it remains so.’

  ‘Quite,’ said the assassin. ‘My brothers scouted through it under cover of shadows. We have located the Pavilion Palace of the Everqueen.’

  ‘It is guarded.’ It was not a question.

  ‘Yes, general, subtly and well. And even as we speak there is a great feast in which the Everqueen is surrounded by the pick of her potential champions.’

  ‘Individually they will be formidable, but they are not a military force.

  ‘True. There are a number of smaller forces, armed bodyguards of nobles and such. It amounts to a small army of warriors but it is not organised as an army. It is a collection of retinues.’

  ‘Nonetheless, they will be able to fight.’

  ‘And fight well, I do not doubt. But they should not be able to stand against a competently led attack.’

  Dorian smiled, knowing the assassin had said that to cover his own back. He would have his own reports to make, to his own masters, and ultimately his mistress. Blame would need to be apportioned in case of failure and the assassin would see to it that it would not fall on him.

  ‘You need not worry about that,’ said Dorian, letting irony show in his own voice. ‘I will see to it that everything goes according to plan.’

  ‘I n
ever for a moment doubt that, general,’ said the assassin. ‘Khaine’s blessing on your blade.’

  ‘And yours, and all your brethren. Tomorrow we will reap many souls for your master.’

  ‘I look forward to making the offerings,’ said the assassin. His smile was disquieting.

  All of the elves competing in the tournament gathered in the great Pavilion of the Everqueen. It was a massive tent made of spider-silk and spiralborne thread, large as a palace and big enough inside to hold a full grown tree. Only magic made a structure of such enormous size possible.

  Beneath the branches of the great oak, in the glow of magical floating lanterns, hundreds of trestle tables were set. They groaned under the weight of food and drink. Minstrels moved everywhere, singing the old songs and playing the old tunes. Over everything an air of almost feverish festivity hung.

  Tyrion sat at the high table with the Everqueen, the captain of her guard and a number of her highest advisers, along with those candidates for the post of champion who had performed best in today’s contest.

  This was part of the test. They were under observation to see how they fitted in. They were being judged by the Everqueen and her advisers for their suitability in the role of companion and defender.

  All of the elves were on their best behaviour, showing off their most polished manners, making their wittiest quips, eating and drinking sparingly and watching their rivals like hungry hawks.

  It was fascinating for Tyrion to watch. Seemingly polite conversation was filled with traps designed to give one elf a chance to show off his knowledge and display the ignorance of his rivals.

  One after the other, a number of conversational set pieces took place, each wittier than the next and each showing a dazzling knowledge of history and culture on the part of the person who inaugurated it.

  It was like watching a sword fight. All of the competitors were very good at this sort of thing, Prince Perian perhaps most of all. He had a sly wit that reminded Tyrion of Prince Iltharis and he used it expertly to needle his fellow competitors before despatching them with an effortless quip.

  Only Prince Arhalien seemed able to match Prince Perian and he did it politely, persuasively and without giving offence. Somehow he always seemed to be able to extricate himself from the most cunning conversational snares and all the while managed to maintain his image of good grace and good breeding.

  Perhaps he came across as being a little stiff but that was no bad thing under the circumstances, Tyrion thought. He did not seem determined to put down his rivals and that made him seem refreshingly different and perhaps more diplomatic. If it was a strategy, it was a very good one.

  Eventually, as he knew it must, the conversation settled on him. Prince Perian looked over at him and said, ‘You’re very quiet, Prince Tyrion.’

  Tyrion felt all eyes upon him. He was very aware that the Everqueen was looking at him, as was the captain of her guard. Normally he did not feel particularly self-conscious. He was used to being the focus of attention but there was something about the gaze of the Everqueen that rankled him.

  ‘I do not have very much to say,’ Tyrion said.

  ‘Prince Tyrion prefers to let his deeds speak for him,’ said Prince Arhalien.

  ‘I have never heard that being a great warrior was incompatible with being able to speak,’ said Prince Perian.

  ‘Certainly being able to speak is not incompatible with being a great warrior, as you have proven,’ said Prince Arhalien.

  ‘Surely, Prince Tyrion wishes to take part in the general conversation. We have not yet seen any examples of his scholarship.’

  ‘Save with a blade,’ said Arhalien.

  ‘I cannot claim to be a great scholar,’ said Tyrion. ‘In my family that such honour belongs to my brother.’

  ‘And why has your twin not chosen to enter the competition?’ said Prince Perian. There was a sly smile on his lips. He had obviously heard about Teclis’s infirmity.

  ‘My brother is studying at the White Tower of Hoeth,’ said Tyrion.

  ‘I have heard he has good reason to hide away there,’ said Prince Perian.

  ‘I did not know he was hiding there,’ said Tyrion. ‘He certainly wasn’t hiding when he went with me to Lustria and reclaimed the sword of Aenarion.’

  ‘You reclaimed the sword of Aenarion. That’s an interesting way of putting it,’ said Prince Perian. ‘Do you claim it is yours by right?’

  Tyrion saw the trap waiting for him. To make any claim to the mantle of Aenarion would be boorish in the extreme, not to mention foolish. None could compare to the first Phoenix King. ‘I claim it is mine because I found it and all those with any other legal claim are dead.’

  ‘A scavenger’s claim,’ said Prince Perian. ‘It is said your father has the dragon armour of Aenarion, you have his sword. It is a pity that the first Phoenix King never left a crutch. Your brother might have had it…’

  It was a cruel joke and had obviously been long prepared. Tyrion merely smiled. ‘You think Sunfang would have been better left in the hands of the lizardmen?’

  Clearly it was not the response Prince Perian was expecting. He remained silent. Tyrion continued to speak.

  ‘Or perhaps you think it ought to have been found by someone more suitable, such as yourself. If that is the case, all you had to do was spend ten years looking for it and venture into the jungles of Lustria. As my brother did.’

  ‘I see you are determined to tell us the tale of your adventure,’ said Prince Perian. ‘You have picked a roundabout way of introducing the subject but nonetheless…’

  ‘You talked about my brother needing a crutch,’ said Tyrion. ‘It seems to me that he has, perhaps, done more than you have, while enjoying far less of the benefits of good health.’

  Prince Perian looked flushed. He obviously did not enjoy being told that a cripple was more heroic than he was, particularly since he was the one who had brought the subject up.

  Tyrion looked around the table. It was hard to tell whether he had won or lost this particular sally. He suspected that neither he nor Prince Perian had come out of it looking particularly good.

  It was going to be that sort of evening, he thought.

  Still glazed in sweat from their furious lovemaking, Dorian leaned on one elbow and contemplated Cassandra’s naked form. The sorceress was as beautiful as ever. He reached over from the silken bedroll and picked up some grapes and fed them into her mouth one at a time.

  ‘Black grapes from the vineyards of Har Ganeth,’ Cassandra said. ‘And on campaign no less. I never expected to encounter such luxury in the field.’ Her voice was low and husky, out of keeping with her slender form. As ever he found it strangely thrilling. Like her, he was sleeping with the enemy. That too was arousing in its way.

  ‘My slaves packed them in a metal container full of ice from Mount Ebonfang. They stored it in the ice-caves in the hull of the Black Ark to keep them cool. It has only been a few days since we left it.’

  ‘And yet here we are,’ she said. ‘More than halfway across Ulthuan in a place I never thought we would see.’

  Was she testing him, Dorian wondered, trying to draw out some sort of half-treasonous response so she could report it back to her superiors? She ought to know him better than that by now.

  ‘I never doubted our king,’ Dorian said.

  ‘Never in public anyway,’ she said with a smile. ‘And never out loud. Nor will you ever. I said I did and I meant it.’

  ‘Such words could be construed on as defeatism,’ he said. ‘Treason in time of war.’

  ‘Will you report me?’ Another test, he thought. Was she exchanging a confidence so that he would do the same? It was a time-honoured technique and he was too old to fall for it.

  ‘I would if I thought you meant it.’

  She smiled at his response. She looked a little sad tonight, he t
hought, which troubled him more than he cared to admit.

  ‘Tell me, Dorian, do you ever tire of the ambiguity of our lives?’

  He studied her face. He knew it very well. He had known it for a century. They had been on and off lovers for much of that time. There was an expression there he had never seen before. ‘I am not even sure what you mean, Cassandra.’

  ‘We fence. We lay traps for each other. We do not trust each other. We fear we will report each other to our masters. We watch every word we say, even here in a makeshift bed in an armed camp in an enemy land, and even though we may die tomorrow night.’

  Her words hung in the air. He sensed they held more depth of meaning than usual, that their relationship was at some kind of junction, that something was in the air tonight that had never been there before. Or maybe that was just what she wanted him to think.

  ‘Of course we do,’ he said, choosing to make a joke of the thing. ‘We are druchii. What else would we do?’

  Her answering smile was brilliant and shallow. Her face had become a mask in the half-light, one he could not read at all. It was odd, like looking in the mirror and seeing the features of a stranger. A single bright jewel glittered on her cheek. Surely, it could not be a tear.

  ‘I don’t know. We live in the shadow of ancient terrors, you and I. We have spent our lives there. We trust no one because anyone could be the spy who undoes us – our sisters, our brothers, our parents, our lovers, our friends.’

  ‘A druchii has no friends,’ said Dorian. It was the punch line of an old joke which, like most jokes, had a core of uncomfortable truth to it.

  ‘There are spies everywhere. The worst thing is that our system turns all of us into spies on each other. And even when we are not, we behave as if we were. That is very sad,’ she said.

  ‘You are in a strange mood tonight, Cass,’ he said. He surprised himself by sounding almost sincere. ‘What has brought this on?’

  ‘I am frightened,’ she said.

  ‘There is nothing to be frightened of. Tomorrow we will win.’

  ‘Tomorrow we go against a god. A very old god.’