Eric crouched with them and made the hug a three-way business. Siel’s body shook with tears she tried to keep back. ‘Easy, lass, let it out now,’ said Loup, winking at Eric.
There came the unmistakeable noise of the Glock firing outside.
Eric ran to the window. Gorb was at the water’s edge. A thin bald man tucked up under his arm kicked and struggled. Gorb examined with some confusion the small black gun, minuscule in his hand. He’d clearly fired it by accident and now peered down its barrel.
‘No!’ Eric yelled through the broken window. ‘Point it away from yourself! And don’t waste the bullets for God’s sake!’
‘What’s all that noise it makes?’ enquired Gorb, still peering into its barrel.
‘You’re back!’ cried Loup, shouldering Eric aside at the window. ‘You come on up here, just in time for lunch. Bring up that Otherworld trinket, and we’ll have a good old yarn, we will.’ Loup beamed a gummy smile down at the half-giant with such warmth it was as if he greeted an old friend. Gorb scratched his confused head and stepped into the lapping waves.
As Gorb made his slow way up the tree, its brittle wood groaning in pain, Eric went to an oblong structure the size of a large dining table, split with a gap across its middle. Only after he’d stared at it for a little while did it become plain this was a model map of Levaal, for scale-built cities and terrain emerged on what had been a blank, flat space. The line dividing the two halves was obviously depicting World’s End, where the Wall had stood. At the near tip of the oblong was a large white dragon statue: the castle. The map’s southern half remained entirely blank space.
But as he watched, it became more than a map; the scale changed, and he could pan his gaze closer to a region, bringing it out in finer detail. Threads of cloud hovered inches high above the table, mostly white as cotton with the odd dark one pouring down rain and little flickers of lightning. Elvury sat high in a nest of mountains, with thin smoke trails curling in the air.
He panned his gaze back, swept it south. Near the Wall, insectsized things moved back and forth: the great stoneflesh giants, still patrolling along the boundary. In the north, a large swarm of tiny shapes moved down the Great Dividing Road like a column of ants on the march.
‘The cities are all in the middle,’ Eric said. ‘Why haven’t any been built out here?’ He pointed to the wide fringes, the land near the inland seas, or beyond walls of mountains.
‘That country can’t be settled in,’ said Siel. ‘Terrain’s impassable. Mountains, or marsh you’d sink into. Where it’s flat or dry, the soil’s too bad to grow food in, and there’s no game to hunt. There are elementals and Lesser Spirits and other bad things. Snowstorms, bitter cold.’
‘No one lives there at all?’
She shrugged. ‘The most far-flung settled places are the villages by the Godstears. There may be small groups of dark-skins in the harsher places. Outlaws sometimes flee there. But none return.’
‘It’s deliberate,’ Eric mused. ‘You’ve been fenced in. Except now someone’s kicked down the back wall …’
‘As It wills,’ Siel murmured.
That mentality again, Eric thought. Something ‘just is’; there’s little curiosity in these people to look closer, to ask why and how. Is it because they can see their gods? Or since there’s magic, there’s been less need to break the world down to its nuts and bolts?
Gorb had evidently given up trying to climb the grey dead tree by the window, not trusting it to hold his weight. He’d gone through the arch to the whirlpool’s steps, and now his footsteps thudded slowly up the winding staircase. ‘Strange, down there,’ he said, nodding to where the water swirled and burbled. ‘Sounds, down below. Almost like voices, mixed with wind.’
And Loup hadn’t wanted me to go down there, Eric thought. He made us climb that fucking tree and risk our necks. I’d understand what the voices said – is that why?
‘Who are you?’ said Loup.
‘I’m the one you yelled and threw things at,’ said Gorb. ‘Then you invited me up here for lunch. Now you don’t know me. You’re mighty confused, even for a mage.’
‘Not you, him!’ Loup pointed at the squirming bald man tucked under Gorb’s arm.
‘Oh. This’s Bald. He got lost and almost starved. So I fed him and looked after him and he hung around and made things for us. But you have to keep an eye on him. He gets edgy when he’s got nothing to make or take apart. And you should probably know that there’ll be trouble here soon, because of Bald.’ Gorb set the emaciated, crazed-looking man down. Bald lunged for the gun still in Gorb’s hand.
‘Here, I’ll take the bullets out,’ Eric said, ‘before you kill someone with that.’
‘It won’t kill anyone,’ Gorb assured him, ‘just makes a noise that hurts your ears. Bald, what did you do to that soldier anyway?’
‘I have established the thing’s purpose,’ Bald rasped in a voice so terrible it would have suited any comic-book arch-villain Eric had encountered.
‘Easy now,’ said Loup nervously.
When Gorb handed over the Glock, Bald made a pained sound, then sat himself away from everyone else, face downcast, not moving a muscle.
‘What’s this about trouble?’ Loup asked the half-giant.
Gorb had got almost through his ponderous explanation of events at the village when there was a thock! sound outside, then another. An arrow sailed through the broken window and skidded to a halt near the stairwell.
At the water’s edge were ten men in chain-mail, two with longbows in hand. They ceased their fire.
‘Stay down all of you, pretend you’re not here,’ said Loup irritably. He went to the window and called down, ‘Save your arrows, idiots! Strange times these, you’ll soon have better things than my house to shoot at.’
‘Your house?’ called up the group’s leader. ‘The locals say your house wasn’t here, last week. Nor were you.’
‘What of it?’ said Loup. ‘This land’s not claimed by – Tanton, are you from? Not by your city or any other. Piss off. Where I live’s my business.’
‘Where is the half-giant and his murdering friend?’
‘Ehh?!’
‘Where is the Pilgrim? Send those ones down and we’ll leave you be.’
Loup cackled hysterically, thumping down on the window sill. ‘Do you think the lot of you together’s enough to over-power a half-giant, if there was one here? Lucky there ain’t one! Never seen one angry, have ye? I have, oh aye! More’n once.’
The group’s leader laughed grimly. ‘There are means to deal with such creatures, and we have them. It is his “friend” we want, an Engineer of our city. Send them down with the Pilgrim and it may all end peacefully.’
‘No such thing as Pilgrims. Old myths. Go away or I’ll set you on fire.’
‘Don’t threaten us, fraud,’ said the leader while the other men laughed. ‘We are told you have the Pilgrims here.’
‘Oh there’re two of them now, aye? Who’s the fraud? Leave me be. You interrupted my nap.’
The men strode cautiously into the lapping waves, while their leader waited at the water’s edge. ‘Fan out,’ he called to them. ‘Have a shot trained on the other windows.’
‘Don’t come nearer!’ said Loup.
The soldiers were soon halfway across the water. ‘So, old man! What magic have you? Where is your fire?’
Loup stuffed a knuckle in his mouth. He looked to the others for help, when the air was filled with a hissing noise. A horrible scream sounded below. Then it was a chorus of screams. White steam gushed up from the waters, suddenly churning and bubbling like a cook-pot.
A touch late, Loup began a theatrical waving of his arms. The men, shrieking and dropping their weapons, raced back to the shore, where one ran in blind circles, howling with pain. The rest quickly stripped off their leggings and fled, backsides pink and scorched. Their captain gaped up at Loup then backed away. The water calmed and serene waves again curled languidly across it.
&n
bsp; ‘Ahey! See that? Safe here, all right,’ cried Loup to his gaping companions, affectionately patting the window sill. ‘What’s more, I’m starting to wonder if this old house wasn’t built for us! Maybe they knew you were coming, eh, Eric? They left the pantry full after all. Let’s eat!’
THING IN THE WOODS
1
The uppermost of the tower’s three floors had eleven beds laid out, four of them recently slept in before Loup had arrived to find the place abandoned.
Now Siel alone was still awake despite the quiet song of breeze and gently lapping waves, which had eased the others to sleep. This strange magic house didn’t like her; she could sense it longing to give her nightmares. Dreams sometimes gave her things worse to confront than all the grisly offerings of reality. She dreamed she were living a simple happier life, knew love, had children. In this dream life she’d never killed, never known war or battle. She dreamed of her mother and father growing old, she dreamed of looking after them. Dreamed of their praise, their embraces.
It had been a mistake to pick a bed two down from the Engineer. Though Bald was quiet now, his earlier snoring came with occasional convulsions which threw his thin body over his creaking bed. In the afternoon Eric had at last given in to the Engineer’s sulking pleas and let him examine the gun (not before taking out its deadly little pellets). ‘He’ll make more guns,’ Gorb had claimed. ‘Those dolls, well, he helped me make them.’ The half-giant had been shamefaced, caught in his earlier fib. ‘I did their faces. He did the joints and did the things that made them go. We were a team.’
Wind sighed across water. A cool gust blew up from the stairwell, with the hint of a human voice sadly murmuring, Won’t you come and speak with me? Siel had imagined rather than heard its message, she knew. But still she rose and descended the steps. She walked between the odd black structures on the second floor, all still moving with hypnotic liquid motion. The shallow pool of water glimmered. Even Loup had no idea of the purpose of these devices.
She gazed around at it all then spat in disgust, no doubt displeasing the house further. Disgust at those aloof, cowardly wizards who’d suffered their defeat, then hidden in comfort through nearly three centuries, passive through so much evil, lending no help to the common people who worked and died to avenge them.
She went to the broken window and gazed out. The waves below lapped with their patient insistence, edged with luminous traces of silver. For a time she gazed at them, lulled almost to sleep, till movement at the shore caught her eye. Something big very quickly crossed the thirty or so paces to the tree line. It seemed only a blurred patch of night, but a glimmering flash of gold and silver trailed it; a puff of beautiful cloud which fell in hard sparkling pieces to the ground in a rain of bouncing gems. They made a faint sound, like tinkling bells. The lumps of beauty melted into the grass.
Siel exclaimed in wonder. Her heart beat fast. And, there! Movement by the trees, the glimmer of eyes inhuman, more beautiful than human: ancient and knowing and smiling eyes, peering right through the window into her own. An invitation to come outside, the eyes spoke it as loud as words. Come and play.
A gust of air pushed from behind her, drafting up from the stairway, almost as though the tower was urging her: go on. The tower that didn’t like her. That had tripped her up, had tried to make her fall from the window ledge, which surely wished her ill …
And yet she found herself up on the window sill, stepping onto the thin but firm tree branch out there. Her bow and knife were back by the bed she’d slept in, but she had little thought of that. Down the trunk she slid, landing hard on the little patch of turf around the tree’s base, hesitating before putting one bare foot down in the slow-moving waves.
In the dark woods, the eyes were gone from where she’d seen them, if they’d been there at all.
The water was cold. The screams of the burning Tantonese soldiers echoed in her mind. One step, two steps … soon she was far enough in that she would not avoid being cooked if the waters boiled again. She ran the rest of the way, puffing, filled with adrenaline. She crouched at the water’s edge and caught her breath.
And only here, now, did she wonder what in blazes she was doing, walking unarmed into the clutches of some unknown power. This was so unlike her she was tempted in a fit of self-reproach to finish the job, walk headlong into the consequences and make sure her punishment was complete.
The sound of branches moving. High in the trees, the white flash of an Invia’s wings. There were two of them, there then gone. Something large moved through the thicket with fast thudding footfalls. What seemed a trail of golden smoke puffed behind it; the sparkling mist coalesced into more of those nuggets and coloured gems, raining to the ground with tinkling music, then melting away into liquid gold.
Siel went toward the woods, forgetting herself again. She had not felt this way before, had barely been aware there was some part of life she’d missed living. It was as though a light had been thrown on in a dark room within her, showing something surprising and wonderful which had been there all along. She was tasting youth again, rather tasting it properly for the first time, without grief’s bitterness. If only she’d take a few more steps, just into the row of trees there …
So she did, moving deeper into the woods’ gloom. The tree bark smelled fresh; undergrowth’s needles and leaves whispered as her boots disturbed them. Between trunks thick as pillars some way ahead were those eyes, watching her. Ancient eyes. Some bulk shifted behind them with feline agility. A gleam flashed off its flanks. Closer it came, its precise shape still obscured as though by a gown of night. She retreated till her back was to a tree. Here is death maybe, but I don’t care, part of her rebelled. What does dying matter if you’ve never really lived? Trade me now an hour’s life for three or four decades’ death and fear. Take it! Make good your promise, give me life for a little while.
The big shape moved sideways, was gone just as she was about to see it properly, left her peering into empty gloom. There was its presence behind her, something caressing her leg, running up one leg then the other and sending a ripple of pleasure from its touch which moved in shivering waves through her whole body, most intense in her mind, heart and between her legs. She gasped, surrendered to it. Something closed about her like curtains, enfolding her in darkness while the gently tracing thing, whatever it was, slid up her thigh. The air was filled with a musky scent.
Something said: ‘May I speak with you?’
‘Yes,’ she gasped.
There the eyes were, right before her again, above her, filled with noble pleading sincerity. ‘I will name you Hathilialin, which means great beauty in the tongue of my people. I have called you here, you have come. Is that not so?’
‘Yes.’
The deep whispering voice was a caress which sent pleasure rippling from her mind down. ‘I will protect you, I will teach you. I will fertilise your mind. Only if your trust of me is total. You must give it, there is no time to earn it slowly. If I wished you harm, I have you here and vulnerable. Do I not?’
‘Yes,’ was all she could say.
‘Of all your kind who have ever lived, so few have beheld my race, much less been given this high honour, Great Beauty. Yet you are not here reduced; you are elevated. I do not wish you harm. I offer you a place among the Favoured. Do you wish to claim it? You may leave here unhurt and free if this gift is not desired, if your life of trial and pain calls you in a sweeter voice than mine.’
She almost said yes again, but she felt a slight relaxing of the force clouding her mind. She clutched weakly at her thoughts, tried to understand what was meant by the word ‘favoured’. It was a term she’d heard before, but where?
Something coiled like a long reaching arm around her thigh, grabbing tighter, hinting at far more powerful strength behind it. Pleasure pulsed from it through her. She came quickly once, twice, a pause, then a third time which shook her whole body and left her close to collapsing. Above her an Invia shifted in her perch and sta
red down with eyes bright and blue as sapphires, its white wings spread wide.
Waves of pleasure, slow to subside, still went through her. The thing waited patiently, eased off its grip, made a deep sound like whinnying laughter as though pleased with itself. ‘Do you see now how things could be, if you would join me? How easily the two of us may—’
Then something broke whatever force was at play. Her seducer’s attention was divided; she felt its surprise and panic as though those feelings had hit her like a blast of wind.
What happened next was too fast for her to follow. There was the rushing bulk of something close by, quite possibly the thing which had seduced her, knocking her to the ground as it went; fast as fevered percussion the thud of heavy feet; an eerie shriek of pain or surprise. Something large crashed into a trunk and ripped it out of the ground. Two Invia took off from trees overhead with whistling cries. Heavier wings than theirs beat the air.
The silence that followed was watchful and tense. Siel heard her own pulse loud as a drum and tried to slow her breathing.
‘That was hard,’ said a voice which made her jump. She had felt she was alone again. She scrambled to her feet. ‘Don’t go yet.’ The voice was like Eric’s but flat and lifeless. There he was before her, arms hung clumsily. His dark clothes blended with the gloom, his outline visible only because he stood between her and the tower’s lapping water, glimmering with its silvery light. Siel’s hand went to where her knife usually hung but of course it wasn’t there. Useless or not she longed for its feel in her hand more than she ever had. ‘What was that thing?’ she said, panting. Her head still spun and her body hummed with warmth and pleasure, but she felt sick.
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