Citadel

by Martin Ash

  Finally something burst from him, a great splutter of pent-up spleen. ‘You— You ask? You wish?’

  The last word was a roar. At the same time he released my arm, brought his arm back and around and cuffed me hard about the head as though I were an intransigent child. The blow sent me sprawling to the floor again.

  Feikermun shifted to and fro, two steps one way, two the other, still struggling to find a way to come to terms with the outrage. The ape lifted its huge arms and brought them down with a colossal thud upon the floor close by my head. I lay still, not sure I was going to survive the next few moments.

  Then there were yells in the corridor outside. I heard the door fly open and a man’s voice, raised in alarm, ‘My lord, she is here!’

  ‘What?’ Feikermun spun around.

  ‘Malibeth, Excellency. Her men. They have entered the private apartments and are at the south stairs. We are holding, but we must pull back. Excellency, for your own safety you must vacate your apartments until we have them secured.’

  ‘Let me see!’ bellowed Feikermun. He charged from the chamber. I lay still, half-dazed. I felt warm breath upon my cheek. The great ape had laid its head close to mine, was staring at me with a curious mindlessness, its huge, flat leathery nostrils delivering short blasts of warm air into my face.

  I had moments, if that. I got up groggily and, unnoticed by the guards - their attention was on the conflict outside - moved across the chamber. In the alcove was a wooden seat. I shifted cushions, opened a small cabinet. Nothing. To my side was the door to the room from which Feikermun had brought the ape. I stepped across and quickly through. I was in a bedchamber dominated by a huge four-poster bed, its covers adrift, filth upon the sheets. By one wall stood an ornate chest of carved black wood. Upon this rested the amber.

  I crossed quickly, picked up the precious resin and stuffed it inside my tunic, then returned to the main chamber. The guards were unaware of me. I could hear fighting - it seemed close. Feikermun’s belligerent yells, even closer, dominated all. I felt a moment of concern, that he would hurl himself into the fray and be slain by Malibeth’s men.

  Then he was returning, making his way back to the chamber. I steeled myself. What would happen next?

  Sixteen

  What actually happened was that the world went insane.

  As if it had not already been.

  It was inevitable, given all that had so far transpired, and I should have foreseen it. In many ways perhaps I did, but I lacked the means to predict the form the insanity would take. It is the nature of madness, I suppose: one may sense its approach, be aware of the signs and indications which blaze like angry beacons on high hillcrests, but its onslaught cannot be stemmed. It is monstrous but indistinct, clutching and slippery, never to be contained, reasoned with or subdued. It ravages, and does not even know that it does so.

  Feikermun stormed back towards the chamber where I waited. The door opened, but slowly, in complete contrast to what I had expected. Feikermun’s voice still yelled, his feet still pounded, but into the chamber came perhaps the last person I had expected to see.

  I stood rooted to the spot in utter astonishment. ‘Lady Celice!’

  She stood in the light of candles, in all her beauty, the ravishing young wife of the Orl Kilroth of Surla in Khimmur. The tips of the fingers of her hands touched one another lightly before her and she gazed at me calmly, her eyes clear, her lips slightly parted, her bosom rising and falling beneath a thin, low-cut green gown. Despite everything, I felt the first irrepressible quickening of my heart and the surge of blood to my loins.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I had to find you. I was worried for you.’

  I was utterly confused. She stepped towards me, and I saw now that the smile was false, the calmness a sham. Her beautiful face was an unconvincing mask which failed to cover her strain. Feikermun’s guards watched her like famished men.

  ‘Celice, what is the matter?’

  ‘We must talk. Dinbig, there is something we should discuss.’

  ‘Sshh! Don’t say that name!’

  I glanced in alarm at the guards. By Moban, she was about to give me away! Mercifully none seemed to have heard, or, if they had, did not make the connection. But then the thought came: how does she know me? She had never seen the disguise I wore. She could not have recognized me, unless... unless someone had betrayed me.

  I fought down my panic. There was something unutterably strange going on here, something I could not fully grasp.

  ‘You have used me, that is all,’ said Celice. She gripped her hands tight before her bosom and I saw that tears had started to her eyes.

  ‘Used you?’

  ‘For your own ends. I mean nothing to you, do I?’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  There was a beat of wings, a glimpse of flurrying red and black, a waft of air upon my face.

  ‘Is it not? Then why ...?’

  ‘There are others,’ I said. ‘Not only I. What about Mintral?’

  ‘Mintral? Lord Mintral?’ She almost scoffed, but her anger and hurt showed uppermost. ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Mintral is a friend, nothing more,’ said Celice. ‘And that’s more than I can say of you.’

  ‘But the Orl, your husband. You married him, and then—’

  ‘He married me! Do you think I was consulted, was given a

  choice? I was a child! The marriage advantaged my parents. It was arranged years ago, without my knowledge, without reference to my feelings or wishes.’

  ‘I see.’ I was stunned, not by what she was telling me - there was nothing so unusual in that - but by the fact that she was here, now, telling me under these extraordinary circumstances. ‘Celice, what’s happening? You’ve never spoken like this before.’

  ‘You didn’t wish me to. You’ve never wished to know who I am, what my hopes and aspirations might be. You gratify your needs, and then you’re gone. That’s all I represent, Dinbig, isn’t it?’

  ‘Do not speak that name!’

  The ape snorted at my shoulder. The hairs prickled on the back of my neck. How could she know?

  Celice put her hands to her bosom and tore aside her gown to expose her naked breasts. I caught my breath. She continued to tear the gown down to its lower hem so that it rendered in two. Beneath it she was naked.

  ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Tell me this is not all I am.’

  ‘This is unjust,’ I said, reaching for her. ‘You participate as eagerly as I do.’

  I took her, irresistible, bent my head to kiss her shoulder, her neck. As I did so she smiled. 'Take the amber to the well, Dinbig.’

  My lips touched chill metal; I drew back, and faced a nightmare. Celice was Feikermun of Selph, clad in coloured mail and plate, his lips curled into a malevolent grin as I recoiled.

  ‘You are not so different from I!’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘I exist within you.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You cannot fight Feikermun. Feikermun is greater than you.’

  ‘I will fight you!’

  ‘But you cannot kill me, for what will it mean?’

  ‘I’ll find a way.’

  He shook his head. ‘I know who you are!’

  Something else was happening. The beating of bodies, the gasping of wings. I stared up through the bloodied water and stared down and watched myself die. I cried out as I groped upwards in the dark for a bough that was beyond my reach, as I was sucked down slowly into the foul oozing muck. And slowly the room returned.

  The guards watched the door. I could hear Feikermun approaching, bawling curses, threats and obscenities. I blinked and shook my head, then patted my midriff and felt the amber there. The guards snapped to attention; the door flew back. ‘Cormer of Chol, accompany me!’

  He snatched up the ape’s chain, seized my arm and half-dragged me from the chamber into the corridor. The place was full of shouting. He veered
left, and I glanced back over my shoulder. At the far end of the corridor, at the head of a flight of stairs, Feikermun’s men were hacking with swords at others below them. From around the angle of a wall a figure suddenly appeared, dropped to one knee, raised a crossbow and let fly at us. The bolt went wild, chipping into the wall some way off. A palace beast swung with his blade, almost decapitating Malibeth’s crossbowman, who slumped to the floor. More of Feikermun’s men came running to drive the foe back from the stairs.

  I was shocked. Malibeth was so close. We rushed on, guards closing in to guard our backs. The floor felt warm beneath my feet. Why was I naked? From somewhere far away, an unknown, unknowable distance, I heard a baby cry. I clutched my middle again. Yes, the amber was there, beneath my tunic. I was not naked and we were fleeing along the corridor — Feikermun, the ape and I — as behind us the battle raged for the palace, for Feikermun’s life and for ultimately so much more. I heard shouts as men died. I smelt the smell of fear strong in my nostrils, and realized it was my own. I saw the walls split asunder, then cement themselves together again. And then I saw Ilian.

  He was in the square, Culmet’s Bazaar, talking to someone I did not know. How had I got here? I did not recall leaving the palace. Ilian failed to notice me, though I stood close by. He concluded his business and the man he was with, a pale young man with light golden hair, made off across the square. Ilian turned and, still ignorant of my presence, walked past me and entered a nearby tavern. I was curious, and chose to follow the man he had spoken with.

  He led me through the marketplace, his shoulders slightly hunched, posture a little stiff, as though nervous, self-conscious. Leaving the square, he turned into a sidestreet. I followed, pushing through the crowd, and had gone but a few paces when I felt a hand upon my shoulder. I wheeled around. Before me stood someone I knew, a man who did not exist. He was Cormer of Chol, perplexed, flushed. He was I, Ronbas Dinbig, disguised.

  He struggled for words, as did I, but he found his voice first. ‘Who ... who are you?’

  I felt suddenly, through fear, through my horror, an irrational heat. I wanted to strike him down, for he could not be me, not even disguised. He was an impostor, imitating me, wearing a mask. But why? And I thought, How can I recognize him if I don’t know who he is? The notion agitated me further and I stepped towards him, not quite sure what I intended. The air shimmered and blurred. There was a flash and the world fell away. I stood in another street, a loose knot of people around me, falling back in fear and dismay. A little distance off I acknowledged the presence of three men I knew: Jaktem, Ilian and the man disguised as Cormer of Chol. But I gave them no thought for uppermost came my wrath, my hatred, and I sprang as women and men screamed in terror. My claws ripped randomly into nearby flesh, opening a middle-aged woman with one long tear. As she fell I leapt upon her, ready to pull the meat from her living bones, but she was gone and I was falling through nothing, crying out in panic, ‘What is happening here?’

  ‘You are not so different from me!’

  The carcasses of dogs. The leaves not falling from trees beneath which men, women, children waited to ensure they could not litter the ground. And Dhaout burned. Dhaout was riven with strife.

  Feikermun still gripped me by the arm, and we ran, his soldiers at our backs, his breath loud in my ear and his chinking armour and the chinking chain of the great ape that grunted, lungs like bellows, at his side. We descended to the second level, then the first. Lurid frescoes of battle scenes and orgies, celebrations of cruelty masked as heroism, the walls alive with obscene tortures and pleasures. An ass stood beneath an arch watching mindlessly as we approached, and Feikermun’s roar dominated all: ‘Aniba, I am coming! Malibeth, I am coming!’

  My breath was short, searing my lungs. I clasped the amber to me, afraid that it would fall. There was a humming in my mind, and the filthy, bloodied water parted again and I saw us all before I died.

  ‘Aniba, help me!’

  ‘Aniba, I am coming!’

  Shouts from the side. Ten or so of Malibeth’s men were rushing to intercept us across a yard which opened on to the passage in which we raced. Feikermun vented a great cry and swerved to confront them. He had acquired a huge doublehanded axe from somewhere and he launched it at the first of the enemy, swinging in a great arc; the blade bit clean through leather, flesh and bone, taking off shoulder and arm in a single blow. Malibeth’s fighter stumbled forward to his knees, gaping as his blood fountained and his limb dropped to the ground, still clutching a sword. He crumpled forward in his death swoon, not yet believing he had died, and Feikermun charged on.

  But he was outnumbered. More men were coming from the left; flames and black smoke leapt high from behind a wall, crackling and roaring. Feikermun’s guards leapt to his aid. He swung at another of the enemy, cackling insanely. The man sprang back, lunged with his sword. Feikermun dodged nimbly, swung again and took him hard in the flank.

  Another darted at him, and another. His guards intervened before he might be overwhelmed, but I could see that he could not hope to survive unless he withdrew. I was without a weapon. The great ape leaned upon its knuckles beside me, indifferent to the affray.

  ‘Lord Feikermun!’ I yelled ‘You must withdraw. We go to the Citadel, to Aniba!’

  Feikermun failed to hear - or ignored me - I could not tell. He and his men were all but surrounded now. Two of them had been cut down. I ran forward, seized a fallen sword and rushed at one of Malibeth’s men, thinking, Moban, I do not want to kill this man. He may not be my enemy!

  His back was to me. I might have run him through, but I hesitated. Another saw me, bawled a warning, and suddenly I was facing two. I backed away, rueing my hesitancy. I am no swordsman, and these men were fierce, trained fighters. One thrust forward. I parried his blow, but the other leapt at me with a yell, sword descending towards my head. I dodged, went down on one knee. There was a bloodcurdling bellow and suddenly the first swordsman was lifted high from the ground. Feikermun’s ape hurled him against the wall.

  The second soldier backed off, but the ape loped away towards its master. The soldier turned back to me but I was already swinging with the sword. The blade bit deep into his thigh and he staggered back with a groan, blood blossoming fiercely. I rose, stabbed, pierced his lung and took his life.

  I stood for a moment regaining my breath, panic seizing me in paralysing waves, cold sweat drenching my clothing. More of Feikermun’s troops were arriving, hacking their way towards their crazed master. Malibeth’s men began to fall back. Feikermun was suddenly free of the melee.

  ‘Lord Feikermun, the Citadel!’ I cried, afraid he might yet be cut down.

  He heard me this time, and turned and grinned, then raised both hands above his head, gripping the axe-helve, and performed a brief victory-jig before striding towards me, one hand cupping his jock.

  ‘The Citadel! Aye, we are there, or is it here?’ He thrust me roughly back to the passageway and we ran on. ‘It’s mine! Aniba, it’s mine!’

  I was not sure whether what he said made any sense. I wasn’t sure of anything. As I said, the world had gone insane. I realized there was Scrin among us. Towering, rat-like, predatory, part-manifested, a phantom altering the air, swiping with claws but striking nothing that I could see. Then it was gone, as if it had stepped through a veil.

  ‘The Citadel is here!’ cried Feikermun, laughing.

  We passed into the banqueting hall, a white peacock with blood on its back flapping aside as we rushed in. It seemed that Malibeth’s troops had been held for the time being. Feikermun paused, leaning upon his axe-helve to regain his breath, his painted face streaked with sweat. A number of his fighters were with us; they moved to check exits. I gazed about me at the hall. There was something strange about it, about the way its walls stood around us, its high vaulted ceiling over our heads. It was not quite real; it seemed superimposed, as though something else lay unseen behind it, or perhaps, conversely, it lay behind something not seen but sensed or
half-inferred by a subtler perception. I could not be sure that I was here, but, if not, where else was I?

  A langur leapt across a long table and then vanished as though swallowed into nothingness. Aniba stood near one end of the hall, her body stiff, her beautiful features strained and tormented. Her posture, her look, reminded me of Celice.

  Celice! How had she been here?

  I caught the flurry of wings, black-and-red-banded, feathertips almost brushing my face. Rushing air. The cries of the trapped and slain. And I glimpsed the weird amber light, the winged bodies suspended and the black overhead, the bleak plain and the fabulous sunset, a small far boat on still water, one person within, gazing up, waiting, waiting for the world...