by John Kerry
“Scary killing-machine?”
“Hardly rolls of the tongue.”
“How about Spike? You know, because …”
“… he has spikes on his back?” Sammy said. “Good effort. Original. I’m calling him Kimbo Slicer. Because he looks tough. Kimbo for short.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You wouldn’t.”
This was Mehrak’s chance. He was going to say something. “Sammy?” He looked away, worried that if he made eye contact, words would fail him. Worried that he’d see her roll her eyes and embarrass him. “In the Temple of Paths before you left. The thing that happened between us …” There was no going back now. “It wasn’t nothing. To me, anyway. I care about you. I know two years have gone by for you and feelings change over time, but – the thing that happened – it’s only just happened to me and the time we’ve spent together has been special and …”
“Great Ahura! What is that!” Leiss exclaimed as he hobbled over.
“It’s Kimbo,” Sammy replied cheerily. She got up and led the monstrous beast over.
Leiss had the worst possible timing. At least Mehrak had managed to get some of what he wanted to say off his chest. She knew he cared about her. That was good enough for now.
Leiss backed up a couple of paces as Sammy brought the hyena close. “That is one scary looking animal,” he said. “Are you sure you should be so close to it? He’s not a pet you know.”
“He’s my pet.”
“That thing can’t stay in Eggie,” Mehrak said. “He’s too big.”
“We can keep him, though. Right? He can jog alongside Louis.”
“What if he attacks us? Hami won’t like it.”
“You can talk him round though, can’t you?” She smiled at him and touched his arm. “If you care about me …” She pulled a pouty face like a child would when it wanted to be indulged.
Mehrak wasn’t stupid. He knew he was being mocked, but there was no cruelty in it. “I’ll talk to him,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said, and jogged off with her new ‘pet’.
He watched her go, a warm feeling of contentment spreading in his chest.
“You’re a mug,” Leiss said. He laughed and slapped him on the back.
Mehrak didn’t care. Sammy didn’t necessarily return his feelings, but she was at ease with him. They were on good terms and she’d touched his arm. That had to count for something.
“Wait for us, dog whisperer,” Leiss called ahead to Sammy. He jogged to catch up.
She stopped and turned back. “Dog whisperer? Seriously?”
–THIRTY-ONE–
THIRD PERSON ADVENTURE
Behnam watched his body stagger down the street from behind, using Ghobad’s eyes.
Both men stopped so Behnam could adjust the dressing over his own ruined eyes. From the guard’s viewpoint, he watched his hands adjust the bandages and tighten them around his head.
He wasn’t entirely accustomed to this voyeuristic out-of-body experience yet. He could feel his hair with his own fingers, could feel his head being scratched, but it was a strangely disconnected sensation, seeing it from a location outside his own head.
Ghobad the person had long gone, his consciousness imprisoned, locked away deep within his brain. Behnam was disgusted with himself for having done it. It was a heinous act, unforgivable by the magi, and if it weren’t for the fate of the realm, he would’ve sooner died than put another human being through it. Even scum like Ghobad, a man that had pledged his allegiance to Ramaask.
Behnam sighed, he wasn’t able to rationalise his actions, even to himself.
He stirred himself back into motion. Was he really as old as he looked through Ghobad’s eyes? He’d lost weight from his incarceration, explaining his slack skin. But when had his hair become grey?
It had taken time to get used to this new way of controlling himself. When Ghobad had first unlocked his cell and dragged him to a safe place, he hadn’t been able to walk unaided. He’d barely been capable of feeding himself.
While Behnam recovered, he inhabited Ghobad’s head, piloting the man’s body, sending it out for food and supplies, eventually becoming adept at remote-controlling it.
After several days of lying low, Behnam’s own body was finally fit enough to walk under its own steam. At first it made him ill, watching himself from a location outside his body. A kind of motion sickness. Similar to when he’d first learned to ride a greenbuck. He figured it was due to the input from his new set of eyes not synchronising with what his inner ear balance was telling him.
It took some trial and error, but he managed to get both Ghobad and himself to the area where he and Hami had tied their greenbucks. Both animals had long since depleted their food reserves, were malnourished and close to death. It would be days before they were strong enough to move, let alone ride. Behnam had Ghobad feed them, then untie and shoo them away. The poor creatures could barely stand. He wasn’t sure how much longer they’d live but they might survive if they made it to the Fungi Forest.
Ghobad’s first task was to find some healthy animals for them. The guard possessed a detailed knowledge of Aratta, so by tapping into that, Behnam was able to guide the man to one of the Order’s stables where he stole a pair of horses. Food supplies came next, then they were ready to leave.
Behnam needed to catch up with Hami as soon as possible. The last location his friend had been at when they’d connected was the Fifth Azaran Fire Temple. He doubted Hami would still be there, but it was as good a place as any to start looking for him. And yet, as he stared up at the black sky with Ghobad’s eyes, he knew it was too late.
Had Ramaask been right in his fears? Behnam had unintentionally connected with the demon when he’d tried to read his mind. He’d gazed through the window into Ramaask’s head, seen things that no human should ever see. He almost hadn’t returned from the experience. Something had returned with him though, a shadow that strained at his sanity. Damage had been done, he’d been changed, traumatised. He couldn’t allow himself to infect the wider magi network and, by extension, his brothers. He wouldn’t connect again, he’d travel to Hami in person.
Still, there were questions that needed answering. Had the Ahriman been unleashed on Perseopia? Or was this darkening of the sky something else? And what of Ramaask? Had he died like he’d feared?
Behnam and the guard led the horses from Aratta, taking the eastern trade route out into the Fungi Forest towards New Ecbatana. The route hadn’t been frequented for its intended purpose for more than a hundred years. Occasionally, a brazen thief would use it to sneak into Aratta to scavenge treasures from abandoned houses, but mainly it was used by Ramaask’s henchmen and crabmen to enter and leave the city.
Mushrooms had grown up on some parts of the route, but it had been used frequently enough that it remained a usable path through the forest. Hopefully, with Ramaask’s apparent demise, they wouldn’t run into anything dangerous coming the other way.
–THIRTY-TWO–
TARGET ACQUIRED
Sammy helped Mehrak collect the soiled dishes from around the fireside. She gathered them up in a stack, then set off towards Eggie. Halfway there, she paused to look back at the Fungi Forest. Now just a thin strip of green, way off in the distance.
After the burning village, they’d collected Louis and the Marzban and struck out across the plain. That first decimated village was a long way back now. They’d passed another two since then, before they made camp out in the darkness of the plain.
Hami had been listening in on the magi’s communications. Apparently they’d followed the demon north and witnessed the deaths of villagers along the way. They’d tried to intervene at first, but two of them had been lost to the dead army and so they’d retreated. Each village that fell in the path of the demon was consumed, the inhabitants were killed and their bodies joined the ranks of the dead to grow the demon’s army.
Despite her frequent journeys o
ut into the dark alone, Sammy loved the vibrancy of the Fungi Forest, the duality of calming beauty and lurking danger. Now that they’d left it behind, she realised that she might not ever see it again if Hami got his way and returned her to the Mother World.
He was heading for disappointment if he thought she’d go willingly. She was exactly where she wanted to be; back on the road with Mehrak and Louis.
An uneasy feeling hitched in her chest then. The purpose of their mission was to travel to the snow base for Mehrak’s wife, as well as sending her home. Two scenarios she didn’t relish coming true. It was selfish, but she didn’t want Mehrak to find his wife. She didn’t want the woman to spoil what they had, whatever that was.
As she passed Kimbo, she shifted the plates she was carrying to one hand so she could ruffle the hair behind his ear with the other. They’d made him a makeshift collar and leash to tie him up away from the other animals. For their safety as much as his. Slicers could chew their way through plate armour, apparently, which meant he’d be able to deliver a lot of damage before they could take him down. Narok was especially concerned about what he might do left alone without Sammy around to keep him calm. But Kimbo was a big softy. Sammy could see inside him. He was a simple creature but he was loyal to her. If she told him not to attack the other creatures, then he wouldn’t.
“Come on dog whisperer,” Leiss called from the back door hatch. “Pass me those plates.”
Sammy dragged her heels towards him. “I thought we’d dropped dog whisperer.”
“I like it.”
“Can’t we swap it for beast master? Or …” Sammy shrugged, “… monster tamer?”
“Monster tamer sounds dumb.”
“That’s all I could come up with on the spur of the moment.”
“You ridiculed me for Spike,” Mehrak said as he came over with his plates.
“Spike is still worse.” Sammy yawned.
“You should get some sleep.” Mehrak smiled. “Maybe your new nickname will come to you in a dream.”
“I think bed is a good call.”
“Sleep well then, dog whisperer,” Leiss said, then disappeared back into the cottage.
Sammy couldn’t summon up the effort to respond. She stepped onto Louis’s tail and was boosted up and onto the stairs.
She nodded an acknowledgement to Hami, Leiss and Eva when she reached the kitchen, but then headed past them and took the steps to the tower. The day had not been an especially hard one, they’d done no more walking than normal, but the excitement of finding the village and taming Kimbo had left her drained. She climbed into the bed and within moments she could feel her consciousness drifting away as sleep dragged her under its veil.
Sammy experienced an almost dreamless sleep. She was vaguely aware of being asleep, but it was a sleep of sensation and shapes, without tangible substance, until she heard the words;
“Seek out the path, cross the river of light,
“Descend through the depths and when you alight,
“Take a trip through the gate, where the mountain will fall,”
And that was as far as she got. Hands were on her. Shaking her.
Sammy came round to Hami standing over her, shaking her awake.
“What are you doing!”
Baxter was at the minister’s desk, poring over the particulars of funding the military presence in Ameretat, when the Grand Master burst into the room unannounced.
The minister looked up. “To what do we owe the pleasure, Master Aegis?”
Aegis composed himself and took a breath. “I have news.”
“That couldn’t have waited until the morning?”
“I believe there’s a second child from the Mother World here in Perseopia.”
The minister put down his papers. “Explain.”
“A number of days ago, a potential magus recruit registered on the magi network not far from where Sammy was found in the Fungi Forest. The recruit we sent Victa Wild to collect.”
“And you think it’s this recruit? But how could that be? Victa ran into a group of crabmen and dropped off the network before he found the person?”
“We assumed Victa dropped off the network before he found them. But then the same recruit has just connected to the magi network again. This time near the village of Kath in the plains of Al-Biruni. Hundreds of stadia from where they had first appeared.”
“How do you know it’s the same person?”
“Every human being has a unique brainwave signature. Like a fingerprint. As a magus, you get to recognise the characteristics of these signatures like you’d recognise a face. This person is the same one that connected in the Fungi Forest, and they’ve coincidentally travelled hundreds of stadia across Perseopia to a location just north of the Fifth Azaran Fire Temple, only a day and a half behind Master Piruzan.”
“Are you implying that the Marzban that found Victa also found this potential recruit and took them both all the way across the Fungi Forest to Hami at the Cataclysm?”
“That is exactly what I’m implying.”
“Which means Hami is hiding this person.”
“The evidence suggests it. He’s left the network, and we know he’s listening in on conversations between the lower order magi in Piruzan’s unit. He’s checking their location and that of the demon. Probably so he doesn’t stray into either by accident.”
“But what makes you think this potential recruit is from the Mother World?”
“Piruzan sensed something when he met Hami at the Cataclysm.”
“Something?”
“Something not of this realm. Hami explained it away as being the residual essence of the first child from the Mother World, Sammy. The one that left. And because Lord VorMask’s presence was still overpowering, it helped to mask it. Hami also happened to be forthcoming with information and seemed eager to assist, so Piruzan didn’t press further. But it seems Hami was merely telling Piruzan what he needed to hear in order to escape with this person unknown.”
“And Piruzan fell for it?”
“Piruzan didn’t completely trust him, and after dwelling on the unusual sensation he’d experienced at the Cataclysm, he communicated to the magi he’d assigned to the Fifth Azaran and had them interrogate the Hirbod.”
“And?”
“At first, not much. No one had seen Hami enter the temple and the Hirbod that had been protecting the opening to the Temple of Paths had been killed. Burned to death by what we believe was one of Lord VorMask’s creatures. However, the custodian Lila-Maryam and several others were around when Hami left with the traveller in the golden caravan. She reported that they’d both acted cagey and had backed the caravan up to the hall that led to the hidden temple, as if they were smuggling something or someone out. Then as they left, one of the young priests spotted a face peering out of the curtains of the caravan.”
“What sort of face?”
“She couldn’t make it out from her vantage point, so couldn’t give us much to go on other than she thought the person looked like a young woman.”
“It’s not likely to be a potential magus recruit if it’s a girl though, is it? And you haven’t convinced me that this child is from the Mother World. Or whether it is still the first child being smuggled back out of the temple.”
“It could be the girl, Sammy, but I think that’s unlikely. The mountain fell and the skies have darkened so we know she definitely crossed the seal. However, the sensation Piruzan experienced upon meeting Hami at the cataclysm was powerful. And in hindsight, he believes it was most likely a child from the Mother World.”
“In hindsight? Most likely?”
“I know it’s not much to go on, but why would Hami keep a normal magus recruit secret? I realise that this may sound far-fetched, but given the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in, I’d rather make preparations for it being another Mother Worlder than assume it’s not and suffer the consequences. Piruzan sensed the essen
ce of someone not from here. He believes Hami had someone with him, someone he was hiding. I know for certain that Hami didn’t want an escort back to New Ecbatana. He told Piruzan that he wanted to go north with him, to follow the demon.”
“So let’s assume you’re right in your hypothesis. Why would Hami want to risk the life of another Mother Worlder by following the demon to the Naziarabad Monument?”
“Unless he’s not going to the monument. If you carry on past Ameretat and travel far enough north, you reach the snow base Hami discovered the location of.”
Baxter felt his head beading with sweat. “The snow base with the portal.”
The Grand Master nodded. “A portal, if Hami is to be believed, that Ramus VorMask intended to use to travel to the Mother World. And I believe it’s this snow base that the demon is heading to.”
The minister’s mouth opened but nothing came out. Baxter found himself similarly at a loss for words.
“Hami knows something we don’t about this potential magus, and I think he is taking him – or her – to the portal in the mountains to send him or her home.”
“Why didn’t he send them home the same way as last time, using the Temple of Paths?”
“I can’t go into detail but that avenue to the Mother World has been lost.”
“This is a disaster.” The minister held his head in his hands. “Should we move our armies to the snow base?”
“Ameretat is too heavily populated. It’s out of the question that we lose all those civilian lives. This demon is destroying every town and village in its path, killing all their inhabitants and building its army of the dead. We’ve been lucky that thus far its path has contained low population settlements. We can’t lose the citadel too. We already have the bulk of our military forces assembling at the column. As you know, my magi and many of your pachycephalosaur riders are already there, minister. Marzban from Honton Keep are on their way over too. None of them are prepared for low temperature or high altitude fighting. We should continue with the plan as it stands.”