by D. P. Prior
Cadman knelt down on creaking joints and closed Shader’s eyes; didn’t think he could stand back up again. Something glinted, and he felt the distinct thrum of power. It was coming from Shader’s gladius. He reached for the hilt, but a jolt of pain shot up his arm.
Blasted thing zapped me!
He scowled at the sword, and he was sure it would have done the same to him, if it had eyes. Something about it made him feel extremely uncomfortable. Dirty, even.
He crawled away from it on his hands and knees, but stopped as he felt a different sensation.
Heat radiated from the pocket of his tattered robe, burning away the frost in his bones. Well, it couldn’t hurt, could it? If Eingana wanted to help him in his weakness, who was he to refuse? Just a quick dribble of power and he’d be right as—
He started at a squawk and slipped in a patch of blood, landing on his bony arse. He looked every which way, heart slapping crazily at his ribcage like there was no tomorrow.
Nothing. There was nothing there.
“Caw.”
There it was again, only this time closer, more urgent. He could almost feel something breathing down the back of his neck. The ice in Cadman’s bones chilled a few hundred degrees, sent its necrotic fingers around his heart. The walls of the templum closed in around him, the roof starting to drop like the lid of a tomb.
Breathe, you silly old sod. Breathe.
Suddenly the emptiness of the Void was looking like an old friend in comparison to the mess he’d got himself into. Well, maybe that was overstating it. He winced at the tightening in his stomach—psychosomatic of course, like the ghosting the amputees had reported to him back on the front. Back when… Back…
Too many chances, blast it. Too many actions. Didn’t I always say it would come to this? In for a penny, in for a pound, then. Too late to back out now.
His fingers closed around the amber pieces, absorbing their warmth, accepting their comfort. So what if some antediluvian bird cawed every time he used their power. It wasn’t as if anything bad had happened. Just needed to act fast, that’s what. Decide what to do with all that power and do it quick, before there were consequences.
The pieces throbbed in his hands, sent stabs of heat into his brain.
“Show me.” Cadman pressed the eye and the fang together, amber radiating from their contact like a miniature sun. “Show me what to do!”
Blistering flames filled his skull, burning away the fog and indecision. Clear as day, he saw it all laid out in front of him. The Dweller oozing malice, returning to claim its due. A blast of amber so powerful it seemed to burn the world. A face so bloodless it could have been made of wax. The most unnatural eyes of electric blue locked onto him, scrutinizing him as if from the other end of a microscope. Banks of screens flickering between images, row upon row of bat-winged demons staring at them with sightless eyes. Something dark dropping from the sky—a monstrous black spider, legs curling around him. No, not legs, they were fingers. Not a spider, then. A hand, gripping, squeezing, crushing.
“What have I done?” Cadman sent the eye and the fang clattering to the floor. “What have I done?”
Too late, old boy. Far too late.
The amber glow cast long shadows about the templum and momentarily lit up Shader’s dead face, formed a halo around his head like the Ancients’ paintings of the Luminaries, or whatever they’d been called back then.
And then Shader was lost to the dark as Eingana’s light faded and died. For the briefest of moments, Cadman was back in his cot, tiny hands grasping through the bars, tears streaming down his cheeks. “No, Mama. Please! Don’t turn out the light!”
He picked up the amber pieces and shoved them deep in his pockets, turned and headed back outside like a diver striking for the surface.
In for a penny—
Shut up!
In for a—
“I said shut…” Cadman took a deep breath and finished in a whisper. “Shut up.”
Outside, the knights of the Lost waited for him like his faithful children. Only they weren’t. They hated him, just as much as Callixus hated him. Couldn’t say he blamed them, either.
As he walked towards them they parted, revealing his black carriage at the end of the Domus Tyalae, the driver standing with the door open, chimney-stack hat held to his chest. He’d never done that before, and it quite put the frighteners on Cadman. He stepped inside and the driver shut the door behind him. For one very nasty moment, Cadman had the distinct feeling he was being taken to his own funeral. As the carriage clattered away, he put his head out of the window. The driver’s back was silhouetted against the silvery moon, creating the impression he was frozen in ice. He must have sensed Cadman watching and twisted in the seat to look over his shoulder. Crimson flame flickered from his eyes and he began to chuckle. He turned back to face the road ahead, and the chuckle bubbled up into a full and throaty laugh.
The story continues in
Shader: Book Two: Best Laid Plans …
SHADER
Book Two
BEST LAID PLANS
D.P. Prior
Third Edition, 2013
ISBN 978-1-61364-723-3
Copyright © 2011 D.P. Prior. All rights reserved.
The right of D.P. Prior to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be, by way of trade or otherwise, lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank my editor, Harry Dewulf for the excellent comments about language and his attention to the minutiae.
Paula Kautt has been invaluable for her suggestions, demanding clarification and pointing out inconsistencies, and also for proofreading the story.
I’m extremely grateful to Valmore Daniels for a crucial re-edit after the text was changed to US English, and for formatting, and cover design.
Theo Prior, as always, has been my sounding board and has listened patiently to each successive revision read aloud. He also provided the inspiration for a number of new characters and plot developments on those long walks to the comic store in Naperville. If that’s not enough, he also produced the map of Sahul—which is no mean feat at nine years of age.
Thanks are also due to Mike Nash for the iconic image of Shader on the cover, and for the map of The Nousian Theocracy.
Finally thanks must go to the people who read my stuff and take the time to feedback: John Jarrold, for his comments on the original story, Tony Prior, Ian Prior, David Dalglish, C.S. Marks, Moses Siregar III, Ray Nicholson, Dallas Dredske, and M.R. Mathias.
OCEAN’S EYE
Aethir: The Time Of The Reckoning
Maldark held firm to the mast of his boat, eyes narrowed against the spray and the squall. The yawl reared and plunged, wind punching the sail. A fierce gust whipped hair in his face, the boat lurching as wave after wave broke across the bow. There was a moment’s calm, a gentle bobbing, and then stillness.
He held his breath, eyes fixed to the reflections of the twin suns rippling on the surface.
Mouthing a prayer, he wrung the moisture from his beard, tasted its saltiness. He flopped onto the bench, ran cold fingers through limp hair, and listened.
Nothing. He was almost disappointed.
Lying back, he stared up at the bloated clouds, blood pounding in his ears. He started to hum the tune always gnawing at the back of his mind: the lament of his fellow dwarves in the Abyss. A lament or an accusation, for had he not betrayed them, along with the hybrids and all the races of Aethir?
The oaken hull began to creak, quietly at first, and then with increasing strain. There was a scrape and a crash as his war-hammer slid across the deck to lodge beneath a bench. His hand snaked out catching his helmet by a horn as it rattled in pursuit. Jamming it on his head, Maldark scurried around the ship looking over the side. The keel was warping and buckling under tremendous force, the sea sucking greedily as violent eddies and swirls formed up ahead.
There was a sudden blast of wind, the ship heaving dangerously as it was wrenched against the swell. Ocean walls rose on either side, a frothing corridor of roaring water. Maldark clung to the mast as the boat sped along the channel toward a spinning black maelstrom.
“Lord?” he cried, eyes riveted to the whirling darkness up ahead. “Is it finally Thee?”
He prayed that it was; prayed for an end to the years of drifting on the seas, seeking atonement, but knowing there was none; hoping for a way to make things right, to put an end to Sektis Gandaw—still untouchable in his black mountain, still warping the creatures of Aethir and dreaming of the unweaving of all creation. How could Maldark have believed his lies?
The skin of his face was stretched taut, his back crushed against the mast. Shutting his eyes and fixing his mind on God’s hallowed name, Maldark shrieked a plea for forgiveness as the ship fell into the dark and merciless eye of the vortex.
Oblivion did not come.
The bobbing of the boat told him that. His eyes opened upon mist rising from a slick black river that bubbled through a gorge of steaming rock.
Gehenna, he realized. The underworld connecting Aethir to the Abyss. He’d been here once before, when he’d removed the black axe, Pax Nanorum, from the world above lest his people fell for the deception. Power is the bait used by the Demiurgos, he’d explained at the time, and most of the dwarves had accepted his wisdom. Most, but not all. The safest solution had been to send it back from whence it came. But its curse had stayed with him, in spite of the precautions he’d taken, the briefness of the contact. He’d not aged a day since, and now he’d forgotten just how old he was. Impossibly old—even for a dwarf.
Vast stalactites dripped from the ceiling like an inverted forest, globs of oily liquid clinging to their tips, heavy and threatening to drop like poison from one of Sektis Gandaw’s pipettes. Poison that altered rather than killed, forcing life along pre-determined routes, twisting, changing. Metamorphosis, Gandaw had called it. Forced evolution. The terms had meant little to Maldark, but the effects of the process had been clear. New creatures, dark creatures; creatures molded to suit every purpose of their creator. Creatures to be discarded like soiled rags once their usefulness was at an end. Creatures like Maldark and the rest of his deluded race.
Muffled cries penetrated the fog, fading from the walls of the gorge and falling upon the oozing stream with the silence of death. Sulfurous fumes burned his nostrils, made him hack and rattle deep in his chest.
The boat was snatched by an invisible current and lurched toward the middle of the river. Maldark straightened the prow with the merest of thoughts, steering a course toward the cries. Funny how so natural an action could still make him think of the dwarves who’d made the boat, who’d made so many of the wonders of Aethir. His heart was heavy with the thought that he’d never see them again. He didn’t deserve to.
A pitiful wail came from the shore, sending ice through his veins. The gloom was darker further back along the bank: empty spaces or shadows roiling in the mist, whispering to him, beseeching him, accusing him. One stocky wraith detached itself from the throng and drifted out over the black flow. Maldark’s breath caught in his throat, and his heart thumped against his chest. He knew what it was even before the face emerged from the smog: a face etched with pain, eyes like the Void, and a beard matted with blood.
Maldark opened his arms, the tremors in his legs threatening to pitch him over the side. The dwarf came to his embrace, the chill of its touch driving all warmth from him. It was a communion of death, a condemnation, and a plea all in one. The air about the wraith shimmered, its eyes turning from black to gray, its beard transfigured into the white of virgin wool. It passed through the mast, wafting silently down the river and fading from view.
The boat continued on its way, going wherever the black river would take it. Maldark’s ears were full of the calls of the dead walking over the acrid surface toward him. Arms wide like a father’s for a child, he bade them come.
***
If time passed, he did not know how much, but he was sure he’d crossed over into the Abyss. It only seemed right. Perhaps God had finally given him what he deserved.
The boat drifted past scenes of fire and blood, and grotesque figures groaned or screamed from the banks. He lost count of how many wraiths he embraced—the ghosts of the dwarves he had led to their doom. Their pain seemed more pitiable the further he traveled, the deeper he went into the realm of the Demiurgos. Did his touch truly help them, free them from this hellish limbo, or had he been deceived?
They ceased to come as the gorge forked, the left-hand stream frothing with black foam as it coursed downwards into the dark. The waters to the right rushed toward a whirlpool shimmering with greenish light. With only an instant to make his choice, Maldark willed the rudder to take him to the right. He held onto the mast as the boat was caught in the maelstrom’s grip and sent into a dizzying spiral. He shut his eyes and fought back the urge to vomit. There was a brief surge of pressure, a loud pop, and a blast of warm air.
The watery portal spat forth the little ship, spluttered momentarily, and then retracted through an infinitesimal point. The boat landed heavily on stone and Maldark was jolted against the mast.
The first thing he noticed was the color of the sky: gone was the familiar cobalt of Aethir to be replaced by a hazy azure, cloudless and shimmering with the intensity of a single alien sun. Maldark surveyed the damage to the keel and saw that it was minimal. Peering over the stern he looked upon this new and arid land from a great and vertiginous height. The horizon stretched out to infinity, the intervening terrain a ruddy desert spotted here and there with hardy shrubs and the occasional jutting monolith. The boat had come to rest atop a sprawling tabletop mountain.
Grabbing his war-hammer and clambering over the side of the ship, Maldark alighted on hard reddish rock and let his eyes run across its surface. A hundred yards to his right something glinted in the sun. He set off toward the light and saw that it came from a small crevice in the summit. Reaching into the gap, he pulled forth a slender shard of glowing amber, half an inch long, one end curving slightly toward a vicious point.
Maldark could hear the blood pumping in his ears. Recognition filled him with elation and dread. What was a piece of the Statue of Eingana doing here? A fang? Why had the statue been sundered? What trick of fate had merged his destiny with that of the supernal being he had betrayed?
Something about the fang’s radiance spoke to him of distress. Empathically, the amber reached out and guided his next actions. Placing the shard upon the rocky surface, he raised the mighty war-hammer and brought it down with full force. There was a massive burst of light and a clap like thunder. Maldark was blasted from his feet, his hands clutching the hammer as if melted onto the haft. Rising shakily he looked to where the shard had been and saw only a blackened patch on the red rock. Raising the hammerhead to eye level, he saw that it exuded a soft amber glow for a few moments before fading back to gray.
How could one so unworthy be entrusted with so crucial an artifact? Was this some trick of the capricious Creator? Maldark looked up at the unfamiliar sun and wondered at the penance God had worked out for him now. Would he ever be rid of the stain of sin, of the atrocities he had committed? Never, he concluded, for how could one such as he ever be forgiven?
Gazing once more at the endless horizon, Maldark the Fallen resolved to pull the little ship by ropes across this vast and hostile landscape as if it were the physical counterpart of the sins that all the oceans of Aethir could never wash
away.
A TRICKY VENGEANCE
908 Years Later
Shadrak leapt the last few steps and tumbled over the ledge clinging on by the tips of his fingers.
I know, I know, he told Kadee’s face as it loomed in his mind and gave him a very disapproving look. But what was I s’posed to do? My life or his, and that’s a no-brainer, I reckon. The poxy knight, Shader, was as dead as shog. Weren’t no point fretting about it now. Sometimes Kadee’s presence could be a right pain in the ass.
He felt an unnatural coldness blow over his fingers and tensed, ready to drop if necessary. After waiting a moment, he pulled his chin above the edge and risked a look. The wraith reached a dead end, pushed its hand through the wall and looked like it was going to disappear into the rock, but then it stopped, its great-helmed head swiveling, coal-fire eyes burning into Shadrak’s. The spectral knight shot toward him like a sail catching the wind and Shadrak let go.
He landed with a clang on the metal floor of the Maze and reached for one of the glass globes in his pouch, but hands grabbed him from behind.
“Got you,” said a blond-haired youth in an outfit similar to the one Shader had been wearing when Shadrak stabbed him. The lad had a strong grip on his arm.
A sandy-haired knight had a lock on his other wrist. Shadrak knew his face from that night at the Griffin when the bard had sung the tale of the Reckoning.
Careless, Shadrak. Very careless! But what could you expect in the situation?
A circle of armored youths sprang up around him, some of whom he also recognized from the Griffin. The blond one, though, hadn’t been there. Shadrak was sure of that; but there was something familiar about his face.
“Don’t I know you?” the sandy-haired knight said, his face creased with the effort of holding Shadrak still and wracking his brain for an answer to his own question. “You were in the pub when Elias performed his epic. What I want to know is…”