by Stan Nichols
Kutch beamed proudly. ‘Admit it, you’re impressed. Do you know how much homunculi of this quality would cost on the open market?’
‘You made them?’
‘Well… no. But I helped.’
‘I grant they’re well constructed. But, don’t take this the wrong way, they’re hardly original.’
‘No,’ Kutch allowed, smile freezing, ‘I never said they were.’ There was an air of slight annoyance in his response. ‘It’s not the homunculi themselves, it’s what I’m going to do to…’ He considered, then pointed at the dragon. ‘…
that
one.’
From a cluttered shelf he selected two flat, polished stones, reddish brown in colour and of a size to fit comfortably into his palms. The stones were decorated with runic patterns. ‘You’re going to witness a transformation. Using the Craft, I’ll change this dragon into another form. It needs quite a bit of concentration, so please be quiet.’
Caldason raised an eyebrow. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms.
Kutch held the stones to the jar on opposite sides, facing each other. He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he began droning an incantation in what Caldason supposed was the elder tongue. The dragon watched.
Pinpricks of light appeared in the centres of the stones. They expanded, joined, spread and began pulsing. The dragon homunculus bared its fangs and lashed its forked tail. Kutch rambled on, mouthing incomprehensibly, face screwed with effort. A faint sheen of perspiration dampened his forehead.
The glowing stones emitted a stronger radiance.
There was a kind of eruption then. Both stones sent out miniature incandescent, slow-moving energy bolts that melded midway, forming a horizontal fiery tightrope. It flickered and crackled. The dragon snapped and postured.
A second later the fluctuating flow sent out a pair of tendrils. They probed the bottom of the bottle, searching out the scuttling dragon and finding it immediately. Twin sparkling currents latched on to the reluctant glamour. In turn they drew down the greater flux passing between the stones above. It bowed, U-shaped, and joined the dragon too. All the energy generated by the stones ran through the creature and bathed it.
‘Here it comes!’ Kutch cried out, lips trembling. ‘The transformation!’
There was a muffled explosion. The jar shuddered violently. Its inner surface was instantly coated with a viscous green lather. There were bits of scale and bone mixed in.
‘Oow!’
Kutch yelped, dropping the stones. ‘Hot!’ Hopping, he blew furiously on his hands and flapped them about.
‘You need to work on your craft,’ Caldason suggested tactfully.
‘I don’t understand it.’ He was still puffing on his hands and grimacing. ‘I’ll try another.’
‘Don’t bother. I’m not very enamoured of magic anyway.’
Kutch found that vaguely shocking. ‘You aren’t?’ he said, discomfort forgotten. ‘What about all its benefits?’
‘Let’s just say there were never many for me.’
‘You mean you can’t afford it,’ Kutch concluded knowingly.
‘You could put it that way.’
The youth’s manner moved to serious. ‘I really don’t know what went wrong.’ He glanced at the jars and appealed, ‘Let me have another go.’
‘Not on my account.’
‘If you only give me the chance, I’m sure I could -’
‘
No.
It’s past my time to leave. I must get out of here.’
It seemed to Kutch that suddenly there was an almost desperate edge to Caldason’s words, and he looked tenser and furtive. Kutch made to speak, but his guest was already deserting the study. He pounded the stairs after him.
‘Look, I’m sorry it didn’t work out quite the way I expected,’ he apologised once they reached ground level. ‘But there’s no need -’
‘It’s nothing to do with that. I have to…’ He swayed, as if about to fall.
Kutch was alarmed, but something about Caldason stopped him stretching out a hand. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ Caldason collected himself and straightened. ‘I’m all right.’
‘Let me mix you a healing draught.’
‘No.’ His breathing was becoming laboured. He cradled his head in his hands.
‘What ails you?’
‘Just a dose of… reality.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Caldason didn’t elaborate. All but staggering, he made his way to the swords he’d left on the floor. Looking close to passing out, he scooped them up. ‘Do you have a secure place here?’ he asked.
‘Secure?’
‘Somewhere under lock. Somewhere solid.’
‘Why -’
‘Do you?’
Caldason barked.
The boy flinched. He strove to think. ‘Well, nothing except…’
‘What?’
‘Only the old demon hole.’
‘You have one? Here?’
‘Yes. My master had need of it sometimes.’
‘Take me.
Now
.’
Growing fearful, Kutch led the way to the cellar door. Still holding the swords, Caldason negotiated the dank steps uncertainly.
The demon hole was a small vault at the cellar’s far end. It was constructed from robust stone, with a sturdy door into which a barred grille had been cut. Inside, stout iron rings were embedded in the floor, with chains and manacles attached.
Caldason lifted one of the swords.
‘Please don’t,’ Kutch pleaded. ‘There’s no need to lock me in there. I won’t tell about you.’
‘Not you. Me.’
‘What?’
He thrust the sheathed swords at Kutch. ‘Take them! And these.’ Several knives joined the haul. ‘Hide them.’ He stretched a hand to the youth’s shoulder to steady himself and peeled off his boots. A buckled belt followed them. His movements were becoming erratic. He sweated, and breath didn’t seem to come easily.
‘What is it?’ Kutch said. ‘Is somebody coming? Do we have to hide?’
‘We’ve got to trust each other. Now listen to me. Do not, under any circumstances, let me out of there until… well, you’ll probably know when. But if you have any doubts just leave me be.’
‘None of this makes sense.’
‘Just do it. Please.’
Kutch gave him a dazed nod.
‘Are those the keys for the fetters?’ Caldason waved a hand at a bunch hanging from a hook on the cell’s door frame.
‘Yes.’
‘Then chain me.’
‘You want to be chained too?’
‘We’ve no time.
Hurry
.’
With shaking hands, Kutch secured Caldason’s ankles and wrists.
‘Whatever I say or do,’ Caldason restated, ‘don’t open that door. Not if you value your life. Now get out. And stay away.’
In a state of confusion, Kutch backed away from the cell. He closed the bulky door and turned its lock.
Then he stood by the grille and watched what happened next in amazement.
3
His people thought honour meant something. Until betrayal rode in on a thousand horses.
The raiders came under cover of a moonless night, with no aim but murder. They were welcomed by paltry fences and open gates. A sparse watch, taken off-guard. An alarm raised too late.
They set to slaughter, and savoured the task.
But his folk were warriors, first and last, and they met the traitors. There were inexhaustible numbers to unhorse and cut down, and still they made no impression on the tide. Victory was hopeless. Yet better to die with sword in hand.
He did his share of killing. In vain he tried to organise a defence in the face of chaos. Where he could, he protected the weak.
In the confusion of running, screaming, burning and dying he saw a woman and her child cowering before a raider. She pleaded as
the youngster wept, balled fists to his eyes. He hacked his way to them and struck down their would-be assassin. The pair fled, the woman clutching the boy’s hand. Then he watched, powerless, as another rider swooped in to spear and trample them.
Dead and wounded littered the ground, most of them his own people. He walked, stumbled, ran over them as he dodged and slashed. The wave of attackers seemed endless. He looked to the central lodge, the communal hub of the camp and traditional sanctuary in times of strife. Some of the more vulnerable, the young, the old and the ailing, had been swiftly shepherded there. That might include his closest kin. Now he wanted only to be with them for the end.
The great round house’s thatch was already ablaze before he battled his way to its door. His arrival, gore encrusted, panting, found the building in full flame. Victims of the conflagration, staggering fireballs, groped shrieking from the burning lodge. Around its entrance lay evidence of a particular massacre within the general carnage. The corpses of family, comrades, and siblings by right of blood oath. His despairing thought was to get away, perhaps then to join with other survivors and strike back at their enemy.
A group of raiders lashed ropes to the camp’s corral and brought it crashing down. Scores of terrified horses galloped out to compound the anarchy. The stampede acted as a diversion for his flight. He sped to a cluster of huts, several of which were also on fire, and weaved through them. His goal was the perimeter fence, the pasture land beyond and then the forest.
He didn’t make it.
A pack of the distinctively garbed attackers appeared and blocked his path. More closed off his exit. He tore into them, fighting with the frenzy of hopelessness. Two he downed at once, ribboning the throat of one, skewering the heart of the next. Then he was at the centre of a storm of blades. He took his own wounds, many of them, but gave plenty in return. Another opponent fell, chest caved, and another, stomach slashed.
His reckless fury brought a small miracle. All but a pair of his opponents were dispatched, and one of them was injured. But his hurts were too many and put paid to hopes of escape. Near collapse from loss of blood, vision swimming, a blow across his shoulders brought him to his knees. His sword slipped from numbing fingers.
He thought he saw, just fleetingly, the figure of an old man cloaked in black smoke, standing at the door of a nearby hut.
His gaze went up to the face of his killer. An ocean of time flowed slowly between them.
Then he felt his ravaged body pierced by cold steel.
Cold water battered his face.
He came round in a spasm, fighting for breath, eyes wide. His arms and legs were held fast, and instinctively he jerked at the chains binding them.
‘Easy.’
Caldason blinked at the figure kneeling alongside.
‘I think it’s over now,’ Kutch told him.
Sitting up, painfully, Caldason took in his surroundings. They were in the cramped demon hole. The hard, irregular stone floor was uncomfortable and wet.
‘How long?’ he grated, wiping blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
Kutch put aside the bucket. ‘All day. It’s late evening now.’
‘Did I do any harm?’
‘Only to yourself.’ He surveyed the Qalochian’s bruised face and grazed arms, his dishevelled hair and the dark rings under his still slightly feral eyes. ‘You look terrible.’
‘Did I speak?’
‘You did little else, though rave might be a better word. But not in any tongue I recognised. You’ve no need to fear you gave away any secrets.’
‘I have few enough, but thank you for that, Kutch.’
‘I’ve never seen anybody the way you were, Reeth. Unless they were ramped or possessed of demons.’
‘Neither covers my situation.’
‘No, that was something else. Is that why you wanted to consult my master?’
‘Part of it.’
‘
Part?
You nearly uprooted those restraining rings! You
frothed
, for the gods’ sake! And you have
other
problems?’
‘Let’s say they are complicating factors.’
Kutch could see he wasn’t going to get any more on that subject. ‘I’d heard you were a savage fighter,’ he said. ‘Is that because of these… fits?’ It was an inadequate word.
‘Sometimes. You’ve seen I don’t control it.’
‘How did you -’
‘Kutch. I ache. I’m soaked and I could use food and something to drink.’ He thrust his manacled wrists at him. ‘Get me out of these.’
Kutch looked wary.
‘The seizure’s passed, you’re in no danger. I have some warning of an onset. If it’s going to happen again I’ll come back here.’
Still the boy hesitated.
‘It’s not as though I’m in a permanent state of derangement,’ Caldason persisted. ‘I’m no Melyobar.’
Despite his apprehension, Kutch had to smile as he reached for the keys.
The royal court of the sovereign state of Bhealfa hadn’t stood still in almost twenty years.
When he gained leadership, though technically not the throne itself, Prince Melyobar was eighteen. Some said he was eccentric even then. Given the unusual constitutional situation he found himself in, with his father, the King, neither dead nor properly living, there were doubts about the Prince’s legitimacy as a ruler. It took an interminable time to sort out the problem. Melyobar distracted himself by consulting seers and prophets, hoping to hear something of his coming, ersatz reign.
It was then that he learned the true nature of death.
Nobody knows which of the numerous mystics he received first put the idea into his head. But the result was that, for Melyobar, death became Death. An animate creature, walking the world as men do, dealing out oblivion. Worse, intent on stalking
him
.
Backed by the counsel of some of his more pliable soothsayers, the Prince reasoned that if Death walked like a man, he could be outrun. In eluding Death, death could be cheated.
At vast cost, Melyobar ordered the construction of a moveable dwelling, smaller than the present palace but as opulently furnished. It contained hundreds of apartments, including a ballroom and a chamber given over to meetings of his puppet Elders Council.
The new court resembled a ship without sails, its prow and stern squared off. Its motive power was fabulously expensive magic. Steered by hand-picked enchanters, it floated silently above the ground at about the height of a man with his arms raised. It travelled at the pace of a cantering horse, though this could be varied somewhat. The Prince had two lesser versions built to accompany him as escape vessels.
Dozens of courtiers spent fortunes on their own conveyances, vying with each other in size and ornamentation. The Prince’s personal guard, representatives of the sorcerer elite, scholars, lawmakers and servants occupied more land ships. Others carried victuals and provisions. For the lower orders and mere camp followers there was no magical impetus. Their wagons relied on teams of horses, hazardously changed on the move. Everything depended on a complex logistical system, and the administrators who ran it took up yet more vehicles.
As the vast cavalcade journeyed the length and breadth of Bhealfa its route was varied to confound Death. Sometimes that meant the flattening of harvest crops, the fording of swollen rivers, even the destruction of an occasional village if it couldn’t be avoided. The priority was to keep moving at any cost.
This night, the flotilla crossed a relatively unpopulated region of the Princedom. It blazed with light from swaying lanterns and flickering brands. Nor was it quiet. The caravan brought with it the sounds of thundering hooves, squeaking wheels, music, and lookouts hailing each other when collisions threatened.
A carriage arrived at the periphery of the cortege and matched its speed. It was met by outriders who checked the visitor’s credentials. Then they escorted it into the con
voy, a chancy undertaking at the best of times. But they reached the gliding palace with a minimum of bumps.
The carriage door opened and an elegantly dressed passenger stepped across onto the rungs of a short ladder. Deck crew assisted him aboard and a uniformed welcoming party saluted.
He was taken to an antechamber and subjected to the indignity of a light search. Not for weapons, but to ascertain that he was who he appeared to be, rather than the entity so much was being done to evade. Familiar with the Prince’s obsession, he suffered it without protest.
At last he was ushered into a lavishly appointed stateroom.
‘The Imperial Envoy of Gath Tampoor,’ a flunky announced before discreetly exiting.
The room’s only occupant sat at an exquisite desk, studying a parchment held flat by a pair of silver candlesticks, seemingly unaware of his visitor’s arrival. Containing his impatience, the emissary gave a polite cough.
Prince Melyobar straightened and regarded him. His manner seemed vague, if not actually confused, and recognition took a moment. ‘Ah, Talgorian.’
‘Your Highness.’ The Envoy delivered a small head bow.
They were roughly the same age, but the Gath Tampoorian had worn much better. He was lean and fit, where the Prince was stout and pasty-faced. Talgorian had a neatly trimmed beard; Melyobar’s rotund face was shaved, against the prevailing fashion, and his hair was prematurely white. The Envoy was possessed of diplomatic calm, at least outwardly; Melyobar’s disposition was jumpy.
‘To what do I owe…’ The Prince trailed off, preoccupied.
‘Our regular meeting, Highness,’ Talgorian reminded him firmly, though remaining on the right side of protocol.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And the matter of the provision of additional troops.’ He enunciated this more slowly, in the way a peasant might address an obstinate cow. ‘Bhealfan troops. For our new campaign against Rintarah, Highness, and their troublesome clients.’
The Prince didn’t seem to comprehend. ‘To what purpose?’