by Greg James
“But I did. I followed you. I called out to you. You would be alive if I hadn’t done these things. A shadow would not have stolen into our home to take your seat at table. I want you back. I want my brother alive.”
“Cacea,” came the words of Aarthe, her brother, “life does not work like that, and you know it. We cannot change it anymore than we can still all the waters by damming all the rivers.”
“But I don’t want this to happen,” she said, tearful, “I don’t want to see you die again.”
“Then do not. Close your eyes. Leave me be and go on.”
“But if I go on, I’ll be alone, and it’s a cold world in which to be alone.”
“You are strong,” he said. “You’ll find ...”
He spoke no more.
And Cacea wept bitterly.
The world grew dark around Anhedon. He could feel shadows stealing in over the leaves and the trees creaking in protest as good memories were disturbed by the fell footsteps of melancholy and fear.
He arose from his place in the trees. “Cacea, we must go from here.”
But she was no longer before him. He saw instead burial mounds. Three, for her mother, father, and brother. A fourth hole had been dug beside them, but there was no sign of her.
Anhedon ran through the trees calling out, “Cacea! Cacea!”
No answer followed his calls.
She had fled even deeper at his coming.
I should not have shown myself, he thought. It was too soon.
I may lose her yet, and become lost here myself.
There was a worrying thought, that he might be cast adrift in another’s nightmare and never return to his own flesh.
He heard a great cry, though it was not human, and he broke through the brush ahead to find Cacea cowering before a gigantic boar with cloven hooves and fierce eyes that shone with an abysmal light. A venal poison dripped from its tusks, blackening the grass and making the earth smoke where it fell. When it grunted, Anhedon heard the sound of the swine-daemons he knew so well. He stepped in front of Cacea as the boar charged. He parried its tusks with a glancing blow from Baro Vane, now in his hands at a thought. Another slash and riposte turned the beast on its hind-legs, twisting it away.
Its roar shook the trees around them as it righted itself and made to charge once more. Anhedon cut at the air, etching a smouldering arc that rained fire down onto the giant boar; its hide caught alight, its skin blistered, and its flesh cooked, but still the daemon charged.
Anhedon continued his dance of death with the boar, but though he wounded and scarred it, the daemon did not tire.
“Come, beast,” he cried, “tell me what wound must I inflict?”
The boar snorted, pawed at the earth and charged him. The glistening tusks tore at Anhedon’s tunic, revealing smooth, soft skin. He could feel his heart beating beneath, or rather the memory of his heart.
He wondered if he was mortal here.
It is not well to die in a dream, he thought.
Could a dead man die, even if it was but a dream and memory of death?
The boar was turning on him once more. His ghost-heart was quickening as if it were a live thing. Not the twisted knot of dead muscle that resided in his true breast.
And it was then that Anhedon realised what had to be done.
This dream is not mine, it never was.
He sheathed Baro Vane and stood before Cacea once more.
The boar came at him.
Anhedon spread his arms wide.
He made no move to escape its headlong charge.
Its tusks speared him, shattering his ribs, lifting him from his feet and spearing him to a tree. He cried out. Pain roared through him as a white inferno. He spat blood, and he felt his heart ache and tighten.
Death then, he thought, an end to it all.
Perhaps, I was wrong.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the darkness to swallow him.
It did not.
A cry issued from the boar, and Anhedon’s eyes opened again. He saw the creature retreat, pulling itself free of him and turning to face something else that had disturbed it. Anhedon’s vision flickered and faded. He hauled himself along, through the grass, aching to see.
Cacea stood before the boar, Baro Vane gleaming in her hands. The hilt of the blade was smouldering from her touch, for it had not been forged for her to wield. Anhedon could see how set and hard her expression was, bearing the pain the sword dealt out to her.
The boar thundered towards the girl.
She held Baro Vane out clumsily, but the enchanted weapon, forged with a soul of its own, guided her so that it came down and cleaved the boar’s skull in twain. The beast stumbled, whistled through its teeth, and then crashed to the ground. The shadows retreated. The air of the dream became suddenly lighter and fresh.
Cacea came to Anhedon’s side.
“How could I slay it and not you?”
“Because this was your dream, and your daemon to slay. It was not my place to take either of them away from you.”
The carcass of the boar evaporated, leaving a dim stain on the earth. Anhedon looked down at himself; his skin had returned to its worn, aged state.
“Come,” he said. “Let us leave this place.”
As Cacea took his hand, the woodland washed away into darkness, and she, in turn, saw into Anhedon’s mind.
She saw the day Ain’Soph burned.
*
The inferno’s ferocious light scarred the sky as it incinerated everything and everyone Anhedon loved. It was not yet morning, but already there was nothing left of his people.
The bone-like towers of Helde Naern still stood and they would continue to stand. A monument to the lost, though Anhedon doubted he would look upon them again. There was a sere tone to the feelings gathering in his breast. The others aboard this vessel did not know it but this was goodbye. The time to bid farewell to the land where they were born and had grown.
He could say this to none of them.
There was sadness and fear enough in their souls. To burden them with the loss of hope, this would be as sure an act of destruction as the one worked upon their people by Khale and his marauders.
“There will be a reckoning, Sire,” said Nhaeye, his blood-cousin. “We know who did this. We will avenge our kin."
Nhaeye was lithe and slender, clad in pale armour from the bone-forges with his brow and cheekbones marked by the ritual scars reserved for high-blooded warriors. The hot wind which blew from the burning isle made his long, spider-black hair stir.
There had been few warriors in all on Ain’Soph. War was not in the blood of many born there. Now, it would be in the blood of none.
“How so? How do we slay a man who can turn Death’s blade aside?”
“With Baro Vane, Sire. It waits below. You must wield it and sever Khale’s blasted head from his shoulders. Expel the vermin from this world.”
Anhedon sighed. “I will think on it.”
“My Lord, may I speak freely?”
“Our home is gone. The Court is no more. You may call me Anhedon, Nhaeye.”
“Anhedon, you went through much to see this bewitched blade forged. You cannot possibly think to leave it untouched. We must set a course and pursue him.”
“I went through much, Nhaeye, and I have lost much. I cannot help feeling some blame is owed to that blade, as much as to Khale. It is not a gift of providence. It is a soiled treasure, as are all unholy things. If I could, I would cast it back into the pit it came from without a second thought.”
“You should not speak so, Anhedon. Baro Vane will be, it must be, our means of salvation.”
“Salvation, damnation—such extremes, such polar opposites. I distrust them both."
Anhedon’s eyes met those of his cousin; he saw no understanding at all, only the desire for swift and brutal vengeance. His heart ached for the same, but he knew, deep down, it would not be so simple, not with that muttering scion of the Gods’ black forges in
the hold.
“I must rest,” he said. “We will talk more on this later.”
“Aye, we will,” his cousin said, reproachfully.
Anhedon descended into the hold to his cabin. Baro Vane was waiting for him, unsheathed on the bed. He gazed upon the sword. There was not an inch of blackness to it, nor was there the slightest outward sign of its true depravity.
It was the most beautiful object he had ever set eyes upon.
The immaculate hilt gleamed with the gold and azure of dawn. The blade absorbed the low light of the cabin, and poured it over the silvered steel like molten mercury flowing over the smoothest glass. The fuller was decorated with an intricately detailed frieze that represented the Gods in Shadow creating the world whilst in their constant, frenzied state of raping, abusing, and consuming one another. It was as repulsive to look upon as it was fascinating. The sword gave no sign of being forged; its organic curves and elegant lines denied that fact. It looked as if it had been born, like a living thing.
But what manner of womb could have given birth to such monstrosity?
Though he was already steeped in blood and horror, Anhedon shivered. When he reached out to touch the blade, he realised he was not alone.
He turned to find Cacea standing in a corner, watching him.
He smiled sadly at her. “Other men thought my people were gods, and perhaps it was better for them that they did. Were they to learn the true nature of the beings that created this world, as I did, their minds would crack, their eyes would roll, and they would go utterly insane.”
“Men do not learn,” Cacea said, “except for better ways of wounding one another.”
“You make yourself sound old beyond your years.”
Cacea shrugged. “Age without and age within are different matters. It is certainly so after all that I have seen tonight.”
“Perhaps. Will you return with me, Cacea?”
“I will. I do not wish to linger there, though. I want to return to my world, our world.”
Anhedon’s face wrinkled deeply. “There is a way. I will show you. Although it is most dangerous.”
“What has not been dangerous so far?”
“Truly spoken words. Take my hand.”
Cacea took the aged hand as Anhedon began to intone some ornate words, and closed her eyes.
When she opened them, she was back in Anhedon’s abode. His fair eyes flickered into wakefulness.
A sudden concussion threw them both hard upon the ground, sending dust and debris raining down.
“What was that?”
“That,” Anhedon said, “is the end of this world. This last piece of it is finally being consumed by the Thoughtless Dark.”
Cacea rose to her feet and peered out at the land beyond. Great cracks showed in the ground, and clouds of dust hung over fallen and collapsed mausolea.
From the distance came a deep and disturbing roar.
Cacea prayed that it would come no closer.
Chapter Nineteen
“We’re here,” Murtagh said.
There was relief in his voice as Khale lowered his head and, half-crouching, bowed through the archway Cacea had fled from in fear not so many hours before. There was a door which they heaved closed behind them and barred with timber from a nearby pile. A few moments later, Khale heard an unpleasant flapping and muttering from the other side of the door. The skins had been close on their heels. The door would keep them out for long enough.
“We were most fortunate,” Khale said.
“Fortunate, how so?”
“We were not found by what left those skins.”
“You mean the beast which slew them?”
“They were not slain, Murtagh. They hatched.”
“Hatched? You speak madness, Khale.”
“I speak the truth. Does not a snake shed its skin once it is full-grown?”
“Swine are not snakes, Khale.”
“Aye, and those devil-spawn are not swine.”
“What are they then?”
“They are the Seed of Chuma, Murtagh. Also known as Chalga. Think on it.”
The torches were still lit in the dungeons and the air was pungent with blood, shit and offal.
The usual odours of a torture-hole, Khale thought.
They passed by the common devices; an iron maiden, the rack, braziers and a Judas cradle. The device they sought was set apart from the others.
The Red Wheel of Barneth.
Murtagh and Khale beheld a wet, crimson ruin strapped to the spokes of the Wheel. Bone glistened as much as blood in the low light, and a constant tremor ran through the body. Threads of fine hair still clung to the scalp. The eyes were missing. The teeth had all been cut out.
“Cacea ...” Murtagh whispered at Khale’s side.
Khale said nothing but the pallor of his face was ghostly.
... only her life ... only her life ...
All was lost.
A moist croak escaped the shivering wreck, and Khale saw the tongue had been torn out, root and stem. He drew close, and whispered something into the hole where an ear had once been. The half-crushed nugget that remained of the head jerked spastically, consenting to whatever he had said.
Quickly, Khale opened the throat with his knife blade.
The torture had not been clean, so let the death be so.
Khale set down his knife. Pain and Suffering: his ever-faithful retainers. He stared again at the corpse. He saw a flask on the table.
“Murtagh,” he said, gesturing at the vessel.
The Captain took it up and unfastened the covering. With the back of his hand covering his mouth, he passed the flask to Khale.
The Wanderer upended it and watched as a severed penis and testicles spattered onto the ground.
“Gods’ bones ...” Murtagh croaked. “Who lies here, then, if it is not her?”
“Timoth, the mage,” said Khale. “he’s paid the price of his folly.”
“Cruel words, Khale. Sometimes you do not seem human.”
The Wanderer laughed humourlessly at that. “She is alive. Her corpse is not here among these dregs. She must be with Barneth in his sanctum.”
“To what end?”
“I know not, but I mean to find out.”
Though he would not say it, Khale could see guilt written on Murtagh’s face. He had his part in Timoth’s fate as much as in Colm’s, and his role in the death of others was weighing on him. He was not the only agent of Barneth, but he had been the one closest to Alosse. With a word, he could have put an end to the conspiracy. It would have meant his life but also the lives of others would have been preserved, such as Milanda and Leste.
Perhaps none of this might have happened, but for him.
Khale read the bleak thoughts passing over Murtagh’s face like rain falling on a mountainside.
Soon, all of his sins would be washed away.
Chapter Twenty
Cacea stared out at the ruddy domes of distant, time-worn mountains that glistened blackly with the mica-dust of long-dead stars and other, fallen worlds. She understood where she was now, just as much as Anhedon understood her past. They had shared not only memories but also pieces of themselves, broken off like shards of glass that now remained within their breasts.
“We must go to the heart of this place,” she said. “There is a way there, and you know it.”
Anhedon nodded. “We must make haste,” the ground shook violently as he spoke. “This world is almost done.”
Having so spoken, Anhedon and Cacea set out from his shelter. There were periods of peace between the quakes that could not be measured as the three suns remained still, frozen in twilight overhead. But each time the earth shook, each sun darkened and Cacea glimpsed the shifting tides of the abyss waiting beyond.
They crossed through desolate depressions in the landscape, where lost gemstones glistened in pockets of rotten earth. They passed over misshapen hills that resembled the backs of great beasts that had fallen and petrifi
ed where they fell.
Ruins came into view like nothing Cacea had ever seen before; each of them slowly sinking into the plains as if drowning in the sea of dust and soil.
It was all so different to the world she was born into, but her time in the dream with Anhedon had done something to her. She could look upon such things now and not feel her reason bleeding away.
As they passed the hollows of one mausoleum, a strange cry sounded from within.
Cacea moved to follow it.
Anhedon’s hand fell on her shoulder, “Cacea, time is not our friend and fellow here. It waxes and wanes from moment to moment. We must not tarry for a fell cry.”
“We can’t leave someone else here to suffer the same fate we wish to escape,” she said.
Cacea shook off his hand and, sighing, he fell into step behind her as she entered the mausoleum. Through its ways and past its pits they went, following the forlorn cries, until they came upon a form buried in ashen sand. The dismal light from the three suns fell upon a softly-moaning shape.
Cacea reached out to the half-shadow.
“Have a care,” Anhedon hissed.
But she had all ready stopped and withdrawn her outstretched hand from the trapped form.
It looked like a finely wrought statue of polished marble, veined with threads of cerulean and indigo. Immersed to its waist in the sand, the statue’s feminine face was carved into a mask of fear and wept tears of verdigris. The arms had been shattered, their fragments scattered all around, leaving only two rough stumps, which bled the same greenish hue as the statue’s eyes.
Cacea was staring at its face.
Anhedon looked at it as well and pulled hard at her shoulder to draw her away.
No good could come from dwelling on such a thing.
The face of the statue was a tormented mirror of Cacea’s own.
The beseeching moan echoed from its unmoving lips. Cacea moved away, looking to Anhedon, whose face had grown dark. They left the mausoleum, though the carrion-call of the statue rose once more to become the shrill, perishing cries that first drew them to it.
Once outside, they stopped and spoke.
“What was that thing?”