Dark Heart (Husk)

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  Patience, he tells himself. Patience. He has lived by this mantra, so why did he lose control?

  Conal of Yosse had been a poor choice for a spike. Husk’s roving mind had found him lying in a bed on the seventeenth level of the keep, the place usually reserved for those suffering illness. Husk had found no illness in the boy save a deep lassitude, the sort of weakness associated with a large, but not life-threatening, drawdown of essenza by a skilled magician. This was a puzzle, as Husk had detected no significant magic use in the keep for days. So he had investigated further.

  The boy had a strange mind. Immense potential, but all stoppered up with knowledge, so his higher reasoning faculties could not work effectively. This one would believe whatever he was told. An ideal candidate to be used as a spy. A thought confirmed as Husk rummaged around in the lad’s mind, finding links to Instruere and Stella. Husk claimed him then and there, hammering his spike in deeply, delighted at his good luck.

  Problems had arisen almost immediately. The boy was a priest, and wished to see things as his superiors told him. However, on the return journey to Faltha Husk realised the boy’s own view of his importance was enormously inflated. He would never gain a senior position in the Koinobia.

  Not unless Husk helped him.

  When he recommenced his studies on the Destroyer’s Consort, the boy found himself able to concentrate more effectively, read more quickly and reason more creatively. The lad never suspected he was being magically aided. Most importantly, Husk fed him small details of Stella’s life not part of the official record, things that captured the attention of his seniors.

  But it was such hard work. Husk spent hours every day immobile, working to make this flaccid mind into a blade-sharp weapon to suit his purposes. It cost him dearly, and set his plans back months. However, with the death of the fop Leith and Stella’s subsequent flight, Conal was easily manoeuvred into position.

  Unfortunately, the boy is now beginning to think for himself. He is much less easy to control, and suffers from the nearest thing to megalomania Husk has ever seen. He honestly believes he is at the heart of the Most High’s plans. Ironically, of course, he is at the heart of someone’s plans. If he would only remain tractable, he could stay there.

  It was Conal himself who gave Husk the idea. Standing there, listening to Stella and the sorcerer talking, and having to endure the priest’s maudlin fears that his impossible love had been thwarted, Husk almost missed Conal’s impulsive thought.

  Push them over the edge.

  Of course, Conal was not the sort of man with the courage to obey such an instinct. By the time he had weighed up all the benefits and costs of executing such a notion, the opportunity would be lost. Husk scorned his vassal.

  But then Conal heard—to Husk’s enormous shock—that Heredrew was the Undying Man. Was addressed so by Stella.

  This time the thought was Husk’s.

  Husk poured himself into the priest, seized control of him and threw him at the pair, all without consideration. Patience be damned, here was a chance to revenge himself on his torturers. But even as Conal’s shoulder drove up into Stella’s back, propelling her into the Undying Man, he recognised the impulse for what it was. An instinctive reaction in which good sense played no part. Realisation of the deeply buried need to do something after all this time. An action doomed to fail.

  He was right. Even as the bodies crashed together to the street below, the Undying Man was busy drawing enormous energies from wherever he could find them. Everyone in Dhauria would feel tired and unwell for a time as a result. The Undying Man even contrived to land first, cushioning Stella from the worst of the fall.

  Husk wishes he had forced Conal to watch their fall: that sight would have almost been worth the danger he is now in. Together, writhing in pain on the ground below, ah. He will make do with his imagination. He thought that if the pair were not broken beyond mortal repair, then at least they would be sidelined for some time. Husk amused himself imagining what he might do to Andratan in its master’s extended absence.

  But Husk forgot the nature of the city in which these things happened. Dhauria, the place of the Fountain, that unapproachable, forbidden magic.

  Conal has not been confined, and Husk sends him nosing: what he hears, particularly from the incautious lips of the guardsman, frightens the magician. Within hours the Undying Man is taking steps to undo any advantage Husk enjoys from the incident. Within weeks, perhaps even days, the two immortals will be as strong as ever; as ready to interfere as ever; and Husk’s action has rendered vulnerable one of his spikes. Kannwar will ask Conal harsh questions and the truth might well emerge.

  Husk will have to plan.

  A moment’s thought. He snaps his fingers—or would have, had he any fingers to snap. Conal must observe the immortals drinking from the Fountain, and he must bring witnesses with him, people who will make the Undying Man’s immediate future difficult.

  A whisper in his dupe’s ear is enough to set things in motion. Hurry, he croons into the man’s mind. Hurry, hurry, hurry. He sends reassuring self-congratulatory feelings to ensure his idea takes hold, then withdraws a little to watch.

  Conal, you are a lecher at heart, Husk thinks as he observes the priest’s choice of neutral observers. Women, mostly. They take some persuading, especially the council member, and Husk worries. Hurry, hurry. The priest employs clever arguments to persuade his targets that the truth about the outsiders has not been satisfactorily explained, that something dire is planned, and plays on their distrust of their own scholar. Eventually Conal assembles his cast and, as they make their way to the docks, Husk luxuriates once again in the immense satisfaction of controlling events half a world away.

  His plan nearly founders when the council member has difficulty in securing a vessel. No one goes out on the water after dark, apparently, despite the good night fishing to be had. It is a religious thing, a desire not to desecrate the ruins of Dona Mihst by foundering on them. A thin excuse for laziness. Two boats are found, and the owning clan release them to the councilman unwillingly. ‘Hurry,’ he compels the priest to say. ‘I have uncovered a plan to interfere with the Fountain itself. We must stop them.’

  A short time later the two boats are cutting through the dark waters. Husk hates the sea. He often wonders if his true mistake was not when he made an enemy of Stella Pellwen, but to have left his beloved Jasweyan Mountains in the first instance. He withdraws further from Conal’s mind.

  Husk has Conal position the boats so the immortals are between them and the moon, making their silhouettes clearly visible. They are in time to see the immortals drink from the Fountain, but are too far away to interfere. The councilman is incensed; Conal sees this from the other boat. The young scholar from the scriptorium is also angered at what she has seen, and urges Conal to intercept the imprudent outlanders. The uncouth plainsman and his father say little, but they are no doubt surprised at the day’s events.

  World’s not as simple as you thought, Husk wants to say to them. He tired long ago of their humorous interplay. Wrap your drollery around that.

  Oars dip into the water and they are off in pursuit. Conal’s boat leads; the members of the other boat, the council member and representatives of various clans, are still debating the intentions of the outsiders among themselves. Ask them yourselves, fools! Just get on with it!

  ‘Ho, the shore!’ Conal calls out as they draw near their quarry. The immortals have conveniently set a fire, an inadvertent beacon to guide Husk’s people to them. His only worry now is that the second boat is some distance behind—

  A blue light flashes. Explodes outwards. There is one person in this world most likely to know what this is: the one watching the scene through Conal’s eyes. No! The Undying Man’s blue fire, his method of communication over long distances. And a sometime haphazard way of transporting people over those same distances. He can do nothing; nothing but watch the flame roll towards Conal and his passengers, envelop the boat and ensnare it
in powerful sorcery.

  He has seen this before, oh yes, on the day Stella ruined his life. He had entered Instruere using subterfuge and had risen to command the city—in the name of Faltha, but in reality on behalf of his master, the Undying Man. Of course, he had his own schemes. Why should he not plot to oust his master from his throne? Would his master not expect it? Of course, but nothing would be said, as long as he was not caught. But then the she-dog Stella had been captured—through Husk’s own manoeuvring, of course—and had told the Undying Man what she knew of his plotting. Enough to ensure that the next time he contacted his master through the blue fire, Husk had found himself jerked into the flames and transported through tunnels of endless, searing pain, to be deposited at his master’s feet.

  Now he watches as Conal suffers the same fate.

  Husk cannot withdraw completely. The fire requires life-force essenza to function, and it pulls with irresistible strength at his magical link with Conal. It is all Husk can do not to be drained himself.

  To Husk’s enhanced senses Conal is everywhere and nowhere, smeared across space between Dhauria and Andratan. The priest is in agony. Husk smiles. This is the pain he feels every day. Then a thought snares his attention…

  Only now does Husk wake to the true danger he is in. It is not that Conal has been discovered and will soon be questioned by the Undying Man. It is that they will soon be here, in Andratan—not only the Undying Man, but also Conal and Stella. Far, far too soon for his purposes.

  His breath falters. His raw, bleeding hide shivers. He has failed.

  And then his unknown enemies save him. Astonishingly, beyond all hope, they intervene, pulling at the metaphysical connection between the blue fire set on the shores of Dhau Ria and the fire blazing out of control in the hearth of the Undying Man’s Farsight Tower, consuming the men who served there. Godlike hands reach through twin holes in the immutable fabric separating the physical and spiritual worlds and bend the passage of the blue fire to their own purposes. Pull it towards them.

  Only one question remains in Husk’s mind as his avatar falls helplessly towards his unknown enemies. Better or worse than the enemies he knows, they are certainly more powerful. Can they be made allies?

  FISHERMAN

  CHAPTER 9

  A BANQUET OF REVENGE

  ‘SHE’S DYING, FOR ALKUON’S sake,’ Noetos snarled. ‘I don’t care about what happens to us. Nothing else matters but her.’

  ‘She obviously doesn’t think so,’ Duon said quietly. ‘Otherwise she wouldn’t have injured herself trying to save you. Leave your children alone. Let them recover.’

  Yes, the comment made sense, as did everything else this foreigner had said since their imprisonment. Noetos chose to ignore it. Had to. He needed to know.

  Anomer, he begged for the hundredth time. Tell me. How is she?

  No answer. No answer now for hours.

  Arathé had poured herself out for him, his son had told him, supplying him with unnatural strength in his bid to escape the Summer Palace. It had cost her dearly. Anomer had become more and more anxious, apparently, as she spent herself heedlessly, bolstering her father, until eventually Anomer had struck her, knocking her unconscious. Then he had taken her place as her primary source of magical energy. Anomer had suffered hardly less than his sister.

  Noetos had been unable to understand it. Why had fighting a few guards been so taxing? Surely his escape attempt had used much less of his children’s power than defeating the whirlwinds?

  No, Anomer had replied to his question. Wearily, Noetos thought. The effect is cumulative. We used much of our strength against the storm. Also, Father, we are still learning. I think I may have found a way to do this more efficiently, but we do not have the strength to try it. Not yet.

  His children had nothing more to give him. They needed time to recover. Anomer might as well have told his father to go away and leave them alone. It certainly stung as much.

  He’d told Duon nothing mattered but Arathé, but this didn’t explain the hurt he felt at Anomer not replying to him. Unless he also—unless he is resting. Yes, resting.

  Nor did it explain his rising fear.

  Claudo had been to visit them soon after they had been thrown in here, hours ago now, trussed together and locked in. His effeminate voice spelled out the likely consequences for having slain the Neherian general and a number of his elite guards. Death would come eventually, Claudo had told them pleasantly.

  ‘You’re not showing much caution,’ Noetos had told him, ‘given that we have superhuman strength at our command. Ought we not be chained, at the least?’ He was past caution. As usual, his son’s voice had said.

  ‘I don’t care how strong you are—or were. You won’t break out of this prison. You ought to know: it was your grandfather who had it built. The strength of ten men won’t bring down this door.’

  Easy for Claudo to say, given he was currently on the far side of it.

  ‘We’ll have questions about your performance in the throne room,’ Claudo had continued. ‘You will explain to us how you accessed this wild strength, and why it is temporary.’

  ‘Could tell you now, if you like,’ Noetos had said. ‘Or show you.’ Bravado, but it sustained his courage.

  ‘We don’t want to know yet. Now, get some sleep. Rest up and regain your strength. We want you at your most inventive tonight. The Neherian court will be here to witness your explanations, and they require entertainment. They are notoriously difficult to please.’

  ‘The Neherian court? The court has come north? Are they insane?’

  Duon had grunted. ‘Not as insane as leaving some of their number behind,’ he said. ‘The best way of avoiding a coup is to keep the entire court in one place.’

  ‘Oh? An expert on Neherian affairs?’

  ‘No, but that is how it would work in Talamaq. How it did work, in fact. We lost the most powerful members of every major Alliance in the Valley of the Damned.’

  ‘Is my friend right?’ Noetos asked Claudo.

  ‘It is as he says,’ the man had replied, shrugging his shoulders. ‘What have they to fear? They have a navy and an army to protect them. Far safer here than at home. And there are special entertainments for them to look forward to. They are particularly keen to meet the surviving seed of Roudhos. Why do you think Fossa was liberated first?’

  ‘Because it’s one of the closest villages to Neherius, you feckless fool.’

  ‘You’re going to torture us publicly?’ Duon had said. ‘Barbarians.’

  ‘Torture? No. After your questioning, which is likely to be rigorous, you will be given your freedom. That is, if you are able to slay’—he paused for a moment, as though considering—‘a legion of our finest soldiers. Sound fair to you?’

  Noetos had spat at the door.

  Claudo left them then, to endure the waiting as best they could. Noetos knew it would be a race between his children’s recovery and the onset of questioning. He speculated as to what his children might be able to do to aid him, then fell to wondering what the Neherians would do to him to encourage him to talk. Hot irons; they were known for that. Pincers. The removal of body parts. He tried to think of something other than what awaited him; he knew the Neherians were leaving him time to dwell on the sordid nature of his fate in order to break down his resistance.

  They didn’t know, or had forgotten, that he had seen far worse than they could inflict upon him. What was his own flesh compared to the defilement and death of those nearest to him?

  Noetos sighed. He wasn’t fooling himself. Everyone talked under torture. After they’d finished screaming.

  ‘Do you have any of your power left?’ Duon asked him.

  ‘None. Listen, I’m sorry you became involved in this. I didn’t make you, though.’

  ‘No, let history record I came here of my own free will,’ Duon said dryly.

  Noetos listened carefully: Duon did not sound as fearful as someone in his position ought to be.

 
; ‘I saw you,’ Noetos said to him. ‘You kept up with me, which means you had power of your own.’

  The man grunted.

  ‘You’re a sorcerer then? Are you a true sorcerer, like my son and daughter? Or do you borrow your power, as I do?’

  ‘As I understand it, every worker of magic borrows the power from someone else,’ Duon said.

  ‘Not a true sorcerer, then.’ A true sorcerer would know this for certain. It had been a recent but crucial discovery, so Arathé had told them. Sorcerers died young because their magic ate them. It drew on their own energy. So the alternative, until recently known only to a few, was to absorb the essence of magic from everyone around them—and, if one was highly skilled, everything. ‘But you still know about magic. Who is using you?’

  ‘I do not know. I thought I was going insane. There’s a voice in my head telling me things, mocking me, but supplying me with uncanny strength. Using me. But what you’ve described about your children sending you power sounds very much like my experience. Except I don’t know any sorcerers. Certainly I have none in my family. I don’t know who it could be.’ Duon’s voice petered out, ending on a frankly puzzled note.

  ‘The issue for us is whether you still have that link. Can you call on your power at any time?’

  ‘I don’t know how to call on it,’ Duon confessed. ‘It just happens. It calls on me.’

  ‘Huh. Then we will have to trust your mysterious benefactor to intervene at the right moment. I don’t like to plan on the basis of such an arrangement.’

  ‘He hasn’t failed me yet.’ The man laughed, a dry sound. ‘Not that I know what success and failure are for him. He’s told me nothing of himself or his purposes.’

  ‘And you?’ Neotos asked gently. ‘Would you speak of yourself and your purposes?’

  Duon’s mouth opened, as if about to speak, then closed again, and his lips pressed together as if trapping any ill-considered words inside.

  ‘I cannot,’ he said. ‘Not yet. I have two masters, one seen and one unseen, and I trust neither of them. My friend, I am not certain what my purpose is.’