Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04

by Chaz Brenchley

  Rudel had already walked forward, to stand within touching distance of the boundary. He glanced at her, all the summoning she needed. She told Esren to be ready, to whisk the carpet through as soon as the way was opened; then she went to join him.

  It felt strange, so strange to be doing this with him, father and daughter working as one as though there were no ghost unlaid between them. It was an old ghost, though, and seemed to be retreating; sometimes she had to struggle to remember the taste of what had poisoned her love and tainted everything so many years before.

  Just now, it was almost meaningless under the urgency and importance of the moment. She shrugged thoughts of it aside, surprised to find how easy that could be, and focused her attention on Rudel.

  Even with two, this would be no simple task. Surayon had been Folded, slipped aside from mortal eyes or understanding, but it was still fixed as it must be, still rooted in the everyday world. Her grandfather and his fellow savants who had achieved the Folding had laid bonds of power all across it, from one border to the other in every direction, tethering north to south and east to west like a needlewoman stitching and gathering a fold into a sheet to isolate a stretch of the material. Their task now, hers and Rudel's, was to cut some few of those stitches, to make a breach large enough to pass all their companions through. The difficulty lay in remaking the stitches afterwards, to seal the boundary again; the greater clanger was that if they lost control of their cutting, the whole intricate network of the bond might unravel, to leave Surayon utterly exposed.

  Another glance between them, and both Surayonnaise reached out their hands to touch the insubstantial curtain. It was like healing, Elisande thought, looking below the skin of the world to see the reality beneath. Here were threads and cords of power like woven music, chords rather than ropes; she could hear their throb and pulse, if she closed her eyes she could see them like lines of light against the darkness of her lids, wrapping around her fingers as she probed the mesh. She could feel the suck of them as they sought to pull her far, far away; it took concentration to deny them.

  Rudel, she thought, would not have closed his eyes. Older and stronger and far more experienced, he would stand foursquare and demand that they yield, that they part to his touch. She heard his voice now, through the subtle insistence of the web: 'I have begun, Elisande. Do likewise, but remember to keep hold of the threads, we must knot them after.'

  She knew that, of course she knew that; for a moment the age-old resentment rose like bile in her throat. She swallowed it down hastily, fighting to keep her mind on what her fingers did. This was no time to play the sullen child ...

  The beat of the music was the beat of her blood. She had the right and the power to do this; besides, she had done it before, and alone. Not so great a tear, nor holding it for so long a time, only the moment that it took a slender and agile body to slither through the smallest gap she could create; but she had done it then, and mended it after.

  Her ringers unpicked the strings, like a musician plucking her instrument and snapping where she plucked; but she sang her own song in silence as she worked, and so held the mesh together. It was like having other hands, hands of the mind that seized the threads as they broke and wouldn't let them fly. She could grip this many and more, this one and that, more yet; she felt them strain against her control but would not let go, simply refused to allow it. And her father was at her side, he could lend his strength to hers if she should need it, though she would not ask for it yet...

  But then suddenly there was another body between herself and her father, she felt it loom beside her and she didn't understand it at all. Only Coren was up and about, not set-ded still on the carpet; and he wouldn't come so close to disturb them, he if anyone must know the delicacy and danger of their work. Besides, the smell was wrong: the mustiness of unwashed wool with the dry spicy smell of a man from the Sands underlying all, that was certainly not Coren ...

  Her eyes opened despite herself, so that she struggled to keep her mental grip on all the threads she held; and she saw Morakh close enough to touch except that her hands were vitally busy already, and he was facing her father and had his scimitar drawn.

  Rudel was staring at him, his own hands caught in the barrier's weave, helpless to defend himself. There was the touch of a smile on Morakh's face as he raised his curved scimitar and brought it down.

  One swift stroke, it seemed almost too casual, too small a thing to end any man’s life, let alone such a man, such a life.

  Coren was shouting something, but he sounded a long way off and Elisande wasn't listening in any case. Elisande was screaming, wrenching her hands free of the intangible web that held them, forgetful of everything except the knife in her belt and the sight that filled her eyes, her father fallen in a gout of blood with his head half severed from his neck.

  Morakh seemed slow somehow, so slow to turn. Her fumbling fingers had time to find the knife and draw it, time to thrust it deep into the Dancer's belly before his sword came up again. She was screaming still, she could hear herself, as though she'd forgotten how to stop; he made no sound at all, only sagged heavily against her so that she staggered backwards and almost fell herself beneath his weight.

  He took her knife with him as he slumped to the ground. She didn't care, she was transfixed, seeing a strange smoke rise from Morakh's slack mouth; but then there was the 'ifrit scurrying out of the moonshadow, still shaped long and stick-like on slender legs except that it had claws now, and the smoke twined around its body and was absorbed even as those claws reached towards her.

  She had just time to remember that her knife was blessed, and then to remember that it was out of her reach now, lost beneath Morakh's body, and so she was as dead as her father or would be in another moment.

  The 'ifrit seemed to lose sight of her, though, even as it poised to strike. Its head turned, blindly questing; its claws flailed at the air. She stood frozen yet, lacking the wit to run, the sense to do anything at all. Someone else was running, she heard his steps and couldn't so much as look around to find him; and then Coren was there at her side with Hasan's great curved scimitar in his hand. He hewed and the blade cut, he thrust and the point drove through the 'ifrit s gleaming chitin and deep into its body, and it died and dissipated like dust on the wind.

  And still she stood there, staring at her father’s brutal corpse; and it was only when he said her name, 'Elisande,' with a terrible sadness that she remembered what was worse, what was the greatest horror of this dreadful, suddenly more than dreadful night.

  Now she could move, although she didn't want to. She moved only her head, and that only a little: just far enough to see what no one had seen for thirty years, Surayon her homeland unfolded and unsafe, open and exposed, where all her grandfather's careful protective magic had frayed to nothing and was gone because she and Rudel had let the web unravel.

  PART TWO

  The Road to Revocation

  Into the Unfolded Land

  Anton wouldn't say that he lit the candle in all innocence, no, he couldn't conceivably claim that. None the less, he declined absolutely to accept any guilt in the matter. If pressed to it -if there were any who would dare to press him, which there were not - he could quite legitimately deny that any guilt existed, in him or any man else. Guilt for what offence? Marshal Fulke was sought, and could not be discovered anywhere within the bounds of his army's camp; there was one in the company — one Sieur Anton d'Escrivey, whose name might be known for other matters and whose deeds might be spoken of in whispers, scorn and nervousness together, but no matter for that, it wasn't relevant here — who knew where the marshal might be found, and how to reach him there. There could surely be no objection if that same Sieur Anton went to seek his master commander, wherever he might have wandered. Marshal Fulke was a man of virtue, obedience, rigid discipline; who would dare suggest that he of all this number would tread forbidden or unholy ground .. . ?

  That at least was the argument that Anton was quite ca
reful not to rehearse, as he never expected to need it. He could argue against it with an equal facility, how all men knew that there was ground permitted to their seniors that was utterly forbidden to them, and that it must have been clear to the meanest pack-boy that this was such a case. To the military and the religious both — and Anton was both, as was the man he followed - his coming here without order or sanction was contrary to all law and duty, and stepped perilously close to heresy.

  And yet there had been no hesitation in him when the moment came and the temptation - no, say the opportunity arose. He'd been on watch half the night, and making his way towards his bed when he was overtaken by a runner with a message for Marshal Fulke. They'd gone together to the marshal's tent, where a soft light glowed through the walls; Anton's call had produced no answer, though, and they'd gone in to find the tent deserted. On a simple camp table had been an oil-lamp burning, and a linen roll unfolded to show a number of candles, black and white tapers intricately plaited together. For Anton, that had been better than a clue to his commander's whereabouts. He'd questioned the runner, whose message was an urgent summons; the lad claimed to have tried everywhere in the camp before he'd dared come to disturb the marshal's sleep, and Anton had found little difficulty in believing him. Marshal Fulke could be charming when he chose, but he had a chilly reputation among the men.

  Anton had a reputation himself, of course, which had been made evident in the runner's blushing awkwardness. It could have been an act of simple kindness to dismiss the boy

  to find food and rest among his own friends in the encampment, and he might have done it for no reason else. In fact, though, he'd had another motive, a sudden curiosity that he'd made no great effort to suppress.

  Left alone, he'd scooped up one of the candles and abandoned the tent, to take his search elsewhere. Not towards the mysterious, intangible border where Surayon ought to be and was not; Marshal Fulke was known to spend a lot of his time on that front, watching and praying, but the lad had come from there.

  Instead Anton had turned the other way, towards the rear of the camp. He'd walked through the lines of horse-pickets and the groups of sleeping men, further than he thought a nervous and hurried boy would have ventured in the dark; he'd found the men on watch around their fires there and questioned them, and yes, the marshal had come through the lines alone and only a few minutes ahead of him.

  Leaving the scattered line of fires behind him, Anton had walked on until his eyes had adjusted to the moonlight. Then he'd stood still, scanning the slopes of the hills that closed in around the road there. He might not have spotted a black-clad figure moving through the darkness, but he hadn't been watching for that. After a minute, he'd seen a momentary spark, another, and then a flickering point of light to his left and above him.

  Not so far; he'd stepped softly over the stony ground, slipping between thorns and scrub while he slipped the candle from his robe and his own flint and tinder from a pouch at his belt.

  Soon he'd been close enough to see Marshal Fulke's silhouette, stark against a guttering light; close enough also to hear the marshal's voice, chanting quietly. He'd heard the words before, and this single repetition was enough; he'd always prided himself on a sharp memory.

  Shielding the candle with his body against both wind and the marshal's eyes, he struck sparks until the tinder caught, then lit all four of the candle's wicks. Straightening slowly and already murmuring the chant, he turned to see the marshal weaving cords of light, stepping into a golden nimbus. For a moment it hurt to watch, but the glow faded quickly, and the man was gone.

  Anton followed swiftly but not hastily, guarding the candle's light with a cupped hand and speaking the words clearly now, trying to be confident both of his actions and of his intent.

  In the one at least, he was successful; the flames of the candle were suddenly white and still as glass, brilliantly flaring. Anton touched them, bent them with his fingers as the other had before him; they seemed to cut a doorway in the dark, and he felt only a moment's lack of courage before his determination took him through.

  This was not like the last time: no vision of the country spread out below him, no sense of flight or falling. Instead he was snatched instantly, urgently from one place to another, though so far as his eyes could tell he had simply stepped into a new landscape, other hills, these bathed in light without source so that they cast no shadow.

  He had come — as he had hoped, intended, expected, almost prayed — to the golden country where he had stood before with Marshal Fulke. The ground was dry beneath his feet, walls of rock were dry around him, even the air felt dry and strangely lifeless in his lungs; nothing grew, nothing could grow here. There was no sun in the pearly sky, and all the land gleamed dully gold; he wondered if night could ever come to such a place, and felt briefly glad not to see it.

  The marshal was standing a little distance ahead of him, just where the gully opened out onto a plateau. Beyond that still figure Anton could see another, a man lying fallen on the ground; his clothes, his bulk and the unlikelihood of chance made that man Sergeant Blaise.

  Anton thought that he could maybe see something more, a slight disturbance of the air above Blaise, some twist of wind and light that seemed to sparkle faintly. In his own world he would have dismissed that as a mirage; here he was less sure.

  Fulke walked forward less briskly, less confidently than was normal. He was still a few paces short of the body when a voice spoke, thin and silvery and seemingly out of the dead air — but it came, Anton thought, from that air that seemed not dead at all, that had a little spin to it, a touch of shine.

  'Stay back, human. He is not dead, and I can prevent his dying, though he will be dead to you. It would be as well if you did not touch him.'

  'He is my man,' Fulke said, quite calmly.

  'He was, perhaps. No longer, and not for a while now. He has been a man of the 'ifrit; soon he will be nothing at all, unless I make him mine. Which I will do.'

  'If he is injured, we have medicine of our own.'

  'He is not injured.'

  'Well then, what ails him?'

  It seemed to Anton that there was an extra hum to the voice suddenly, as though the creature - whatever it was - had been pleased by the question.

  'You have asked, and I will tell you - though you will owe me a debt for the answer, and I will claim it later. The 'ifrit do not breathe and this is not a poison, but you might say that the man has been first poisoned by the breath of an 'ifrit, and then possessed by a fragment of its body. When it abandoned him, the poison remained. Or you might say that the 'ifrit cast a shadow in your world as a snake casts its skin, and that shadow has fallen over him and he has breathed within it, breathed it in. It is a cold thing, and eats at the will of creatures such as yourself. This one is strong, he did well to make the journey here, though it has drained him now; most would not succeed so far. The djinn do not breathe either, but my own breath, if you would call it that - or else my own shadow, even here in my own world — will rouse him, if only to my service. He is lost to you. Accept that, and go back.'

  'I will stay, and see if he recover as you say. And hear what he says, after. The deceits of demons are legion, and he is a servant of the God.'

  'I am a djinni; we do not lie. Perhaps he will serve your God, in serving me. That I do not know. You would be wise not to speak to him; if you ask him questions when he is mine, you will only increase your debt to me. But stay if you will, both of you. I do not forbid it.'

  Now Anton could stand back no longer; he walked out onto the plateau, and saw Fulke's brief surprise.

  'You, Sieur Anton? You followed me?'

  'There was a message,' though the excuse sounded ridiculously thin, here and now. 'Besides,' more honestly, 'I was curious ...'

  'Well. Curiosity can work to the good; we are both in a new world tonight, where we face new revelations. Though I did not know that the King's Eye would shield creatures of the underworld.'

  'Creatur
es of spirit,' the voice, the djinni corrected. 'The King's Eye sees far, and it sees deeper than you can, human. Do not rush to judgement in your ignorance; you stand in my world now, and it is not less than yours.'

  'If you would save Blaise,' Anton said neutrally, thinking that that was an argument that could run for ever, and Marshall Fulke might well be in the mood to argue it, 'it would be as well to do it soon.'

  'Patience. Mortal flesh is not as weak as you suppose, though a simple scratch opened his body to the 'ifrit. He might live here for days before he died. I do not plan to linger so long, however.'

  The djinni fell silent then and seemed to contract a fraction, insubstantial though it was. Anton thought that the coil of its spinning had grown tighter, like a spring compressed; he thought that perhaps there was a difference to the quality of the air immediately between the djinni and the man, a stronger dust of gold; he saw a stir in Blaise's hood, as though a bellows had blown that hot and glittering air down upon him, directly into his face. He supposed that you could call that breathing, if you were a djinni.

  Then there was other movement, this time in the man himself, a little shift of muscle that became an inch-slow squirm, a cautious stretch - like a snake flowing back into its skin, Anton thought, or a man rediscovering the limits of his own body — and then at last Blaise gathered himself together and stood up.

  His hood fell back, and they saw his face for the first time. It was Blaise, and yet not quite. All the features were right - the bull brow and the once-broken nose, the jaw that could outstubborn an ass - but they had once all been animated by a spirit both men could recognise, and they saw no hint of it here. Blaise's face, yes, but occupied by a stranger: that was as close as Anton could come.

  'Blaise!' the marshal said, apparently disregarding all the djinni's advice, though it had sounded good to Anton.

  The man turned, slowly, from where he had been regarding the floating column of the djinni's intangible body.