by Martin Ash
‘When is this proposed meeting to take place?’
‘My master awaits you now. If by midnight tonight at the latest you have not come, it will be taken that you do not intend to, unless I, in company with Jaktem and Master Cormer, am able to present to my master convincing reasons why he should wait a little longer.’
Feikermun nodded to himself. I had doubts that he would accede to the Golden Lamb’s proposition, yet plainly he was intrigued, and also desperate. He was distracted, too. The gidsha dream had him fast in its grip, as it did me, and all around us the Citadel of Selph continued to spew forth its contents into the world. I discerned shapes moving in the hall, indistinct and almost formless. Were others aware of anything? I could not tell. Did the Golden Lamb know anything of what was really happening here?
Wirm loudly cleared his throat to draw Feikermun’s attention, then spoke quietly in the lunatic warlord’s ear. Feikermun nodded several times, then addressed Ilian. His tone now was quieter, more thoughtful. ‘We shall go, yes. Feikermun will give audience to your master. Let us see what he has to say.’
‘Do we depart at once?’
‘Where is the place he has chosen to meet?’
‘I have not been told to reveal it in advance, simply to take you there.’
‘Feikermun assumes he is not expected to come alone?’
‘My master invites you to come in whatsoever company you wish, though the meeting itself will be held in private.’
So we waited a short while longer, until Jaktem was brought. He entered under guard, relief upon his face when he saw Ilian. His eyes then met mine, but failed to hold my gaze.
In the meantime both Feikermun and Wirm had dispatched messengers from the hall. I assumed precautionary measures were being taken to safeguard Feikermun’s passage and make secure, or as secure as possible, this meeting with his mysterious foe. I assumed also that he was hatching a plot, and wondered how wary the Golden Lamb was, how well he knew his adversary. Officers came and went and in due course, at a moment chosen by Feikermun, we left the banqueting hall.
Now things turned awry again. It was as though the tension of Ilian’s arrival, his confession and the message he had brought, had focused my attention, partly breaking through the gidsha dream, holding back Selph’s assault. Everything had been almost clear and I had been in strange attunement; nothing had seriously intervened. Now that was ended. We went to meet the Golden Lamb - I do not know where - and quite suddenly everything changed again.
I was in another place. Feikermun was there; so were Jaktem, Ilian, Wirm, a score of Feikermun’s beasts and the ape. I was aware of the palace walls and of the open air, that we had stepped on to a wide parade-ground and were skirting its perimeter, hugging the walls, moving towards a portal on its far side. The dusk had descended and the sky - overcast now, with fiery ribbons and glowing stains of vermilion, blood and molten rose visible low in the east - had begun to let fall a steady, light rain. From behind us the glows of burning buildings cast agitated shadows across the rooftops, and columns of dark smoke towered high, lifting twisting embers into the twilight.
But all of this was secondary, a reality lying at the back of the gidsha reality into which I had been cast. I was within the Citadel of Selph, or Selph was within the world - the distinction meant little. The winged bodies were all around, hundreds of them, more than I had imagined, as far as I could see. Between them moved the tall shadowy forms of the Scrin army of phantom things, heading... where? I could not tell. Had they access to Dhaout, or did they still haunt only their own domain?
And animals hung, dogs - strangled, garrotted - and pigs and monkeys, some of the corpses putrefying. There were cries in the air, tortured and not-human, and I could not tell where they came from. Feikermun marched ahead of me. He looked back and laughed. ‘Do you dream, Cormer of Chol?’
Something was wrong. We reached the portal; one of Feikermun’s beasts was drawing it open. A crossbow-bolt zinged off the stone ground a short way off, then another, and another. There were shouts from somewhere behind. Turning, I saw men in silhouette rushing along the parapets. Malibeth’s men, being met by Feikermun’s. Metal clashed; a body fell from wall. A tall dark shape formed suddenly, fell upon the body, ripping at its flesh, then disappeared. I only glimpsed it, and it was like nothing I had seen before; but I knew what it must be.
The Scrin take whatever form you perceive, whatever your consciousness can accept... do not truly exist within the scope of your experience... things of an other order...
We crowded towards the portal, Ilian leading, then Jaktem both chained. I pushed through, glimpsed Wirm, his eyes flickering on me. Was he waiting for his moment, a chance to slip a blade between my ribs? Feikermun shouldered past, almost knocking me to the ground, toting his axe high.
‘Aniba, be here! I am coming!’
I knew I had to get away. Could I risk abandoning Feikermun? I considered his position. He was as well-protected as he could be under the circumstances and, as he had said himself, in going to meet the Golden Lamb he was hardly likely to hop like a rabbit into the lair of a wolf. Malibeth’s forces were behind us and, in the main, held back. If they pushed through, Feikermun could lose his palace but he, by my assessment, was presently out of Malibeth’s reach.
Nothing was certain, of course, and there still remained the Golden Lamb. His proposed meeting might be a genuine attempt to resolve the crisis by one means or another, but the means could take any form. He was an absolute unknown. But I could not see that any contribution I might presently make would help preserve Feikermun’s life. The madman was surrounded by his beasts, men who would protect him to the bitter end, and I had little doubt that many more of his troops were watching and following us. And he was on the verge of being unstoppable. Better, all things considered, to absent myself from the company and find my way with the amber to the well.
And then?
I did not contemplate it further. Most immediate was the problem of actually leaving Feikermun’s company undetected. And if I achieved that I would be alone in the Citadel of Selph, in the gidsha dream, the nightmare that Dhaout had become. The thought petrified me. Aniba, will you be there? Will you help me?
I let myself drop back a little way as we jogged on, leaving Feikermun’s palace behind, keeping to the dark of a built-up street. The rain by now had soaked my hair and shoulders. I waited, watchful, seeking an opportunity to break away and lose myself down an alley. But I, too, was being watched. Feikermun’s beasts were close to me, giving me no space to dart between, and Feikermun looked back over his shoulder and leered. ‘Cormer of Chol, are you taking me to her?’
‘I thought you wished to meet with the Golden Lamb, my lord.’
‘In time. In good time. First I must have what I need, then the Golden Lamb will be of no consequence.’ His eyes hardened. ‘Take me to her, man!’
Did he think I had some control over Aniba’s movements? ‘Lord Feikermun—’ I began, but the look on his face silenced me. He shouldered his way brutally back through his men to confront me, scowling, his eyes blazing. We had all come to a halt. Wirm moved up close into my field of vision; his tongue snaked along his lips.
‘Bring her to me, Cormer,’ ordered Feikermun. ‘Bring her now.’
‘I have no power over her.’
‘But she comes to you.’
‘I do not know why, my lord. But she has appeared to you also, has she not?’
‘In the past,’ he said, abruptly wistful, then snarled, ‘But she did not speak!’
‘I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t know how to summon her.’
Feikermun raised his great axe. ‘Perhaps she will intervene when she sees that I am about to end your life!’ He turned his brutish, painted rain-streaked face to the dark sky and bellowed, ‘Aniba, come to me! Come, now, or this wretch will end his miserable days here, on this wet spot, with my blade cleaving his skull!’
There was nowhere I could run, crowded as I was by enemies. Thoug
h I had a sword I could not hope to defend myself against so many. I reached desperately into my mind, trying to summon a rapture. I was but a lowly First Realm Initiate and knew nothing powerful enough to stop a force like Feikermun and his beasts but I might possibly distract him for an instant. Long enough… to do what?
It seemed that time was suspended, that I stared for an age at that monstrous axe-blade poised above my head, and at Feikermun, squat and powerful, his agonized features turned upwards past mine, tortured by the unearthly glimmer of clashing realities, the water splashing off his face, coursing through the chaos of paint. The ape hulked at his back, a solid flesh shadow, its own face turned upwards, sifting the air with a brooding semi-intelligence, disconsolate as though seeking something it lacked the faculty to comprehend.
Feikermun’s cry cut through: ‘Aniba! Aaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiibbbbbbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaa!’
The yell cracked the air, rent the world, spiralled away from us, splitting and purpling the sky, piercing me, and a faint wet light, the glistening raindrops on the hovering blade, a stir of feathered wings, the suspended, the cries of the dying Avari as Scrin moved among them, strode purposeful things on their journey from the Citadel, perhaps not yet quite certain of the way into the unfamiliar world, but conscious that the way was open, Selph unleashed, the world, the cosmos, exposed, for which they had striven through countless eternities, theirs now to plunder and rive and finally destroy, so fervid were they for their own end.
For they cannot die while anything else exists.
Had Sermilio said those words? I could not remember. Something like them. That was my understanding. I did not know. The axe hovered, I stood on the rainswept road, its end just before me if I made that choice, and I could see no further.
‘Aaaaaaannnnnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiibbbbbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaaa
aaa aaaaaaaaaa!’
I stared with tears in my eyes at the sunset, brought to my knees. Such exquisite beauty, the light that falls upon this world!
Don’t let it end!
The cry of the baby, some distance now behind me, and the bells ringing far above. The mother sang, her voice so sweet, so strong, so pure, filled with joy and wonder, and sorrow and fear for what the future might hold.
Don’t let it end!
‘Do you dream, Cormer?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Have you brought it?’
Whose voice was this? Sermilio’s? Yet I could not see him.
‘Have you brought it?’
‘The amber?’
‘Yes.’
I felt the rough stone beneath my tunic. ‘It is here.’
‘Go, then. There is so little time. Take it to the well.’
I stepped out onto the road, heavy, heavier than before. The familiar alien buildings stood before me, burnished by the light, their shadows long and blacker than was natural. The well lay just beyond.
‘Aaaaaaannnnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiibbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaa-aaa aaaaaaaaa!’
The axe above me, dominating the sky, a vast, deadly, tarnished silvery blade struck with crimson raindrops, poised to fall, to cleave through the bodies of the winged ones, indifferent to their death agonies.
Don’t let it end!
‘Take it now! Hurry!’
I dragged myself on. I was between the first buildings now, entering those black shadows. I felt… so aged, my body enfeebled, nothing before me, too weary, too saddened to carry on. Nowhere to go.
The well. It was there, down the little path, dark trees swaying behind it. But I was on my knees, the amber an unbearable weight, something pulling me down, into the mire, all far too much effort and no will any more to continue. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep forever.
‘Am I dying?’
Silence, but for the soughing of the wind in the dark trees.
‘AM I DYING?
‘Do you dream?’
I could not go forward, the well was beyond my reach.
‘Tell me!’
Silence. It was the end.
Don’t let it end!
EIGHTEEN
She lifted my head then, turned me to her breast and gave me succour. Her voice soothing and sweet, her arms holding me safe, the closeness of her, the smell, the warmth, her song. Safe. Don’t let it end.
The blood-specked blade was falling, cleaving the sky, dropping through eternity to sever me, its song a terrible keening that scoured the soul. I was somehow climbing to my feet, unsteady, clutching the amber in both hands, stumbling down the little stony path to the strange well.
At the rim I looked down. Far below I looked back at me looking down.
‘Go now! Don’t hesitate!’
I threw myself over as the axe-blade howled, as the god Feikermun’s blade smashed the earth.
Falling, slowly, endlessly, towards myself and whatever else waited below.
‘Am I dying?
I could not understand where everyone had gone. I had been with them, a prisoner, waiting for the axe to fall, and there had been no escape. Now I was alone, still descending, and the reflection I saw below me shifted, the surface of the water stirred and I fell on, passed through it, feeling nothing - on, on, down the endless, timeless black tunnel. The Amber of Selph was held precious to my belly, the shadows of Scrin beginning to materialize then dissolve around me.
I had died! I was certain of it now. This was my death. The axe had fallen. Was I too late?
A light shone ahead, bright and blinding, dilating, rushing now towards me, flooding me. I cried out, but made no sound. I looked up into her face, so huge above me, smiling, eyes filled with joy and wonder, the first face I had ever seen.
‘You are my mother!’
‘Now do you understand?’
‘I don’t know. It’s too much to ask.’
She smiled, slowly shaking her head, then began to sing softly to herself, to me whom she held so close and safe. The bells rang far overheard, and I knew then she was everything.
‘Have I died?’
‘That is not the question.’
‘Am I dying?’
‘You do not know?’
‘I think, perhaps, I understand.’
‘Then say.’
‘You are my mother?’
‘Then ... what?’
‘I have just been born.'
‘Aaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiibbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaa!’
The spell was broken. Fear and violence darkened the world.
‘He has followed me here!’
She replied, ‘I knew he would. He has come for me.’
‘And if he finds you?’
‘He will take my blood. It will give him nothing, of course, though he will believe otherwise.’
‘Can he do it?’
‘Here he can, yes.’
‘And then?’
‘There will be no “then”. He has already set Selph free, though it hesitates for an instant, part-blind, a little unsure of its power. If I’m gone it will hesitate no longer.’
‘Then your death does give him power?’
She shook her head. ‘No, for it will be the same if I live - except that, while he seeks me, he will continue to believe that he needs me. I can’t prevent him now. I never could, though I tried.’
‘Then who is he?’
‘You still don’t understand? He is Feikermun. Your brother.’
‘No!’ I could not grasp that. I could not have it.
‘The Citadel is his home. It is he, as it is your home, as it is you. It is Selph, that’s all. You are here now, like he is, following paths you might have chosen. And whatever remains, if anything remains when all this is done, will be the path of the future. It can be decided now, or it can all end.’
‘But it’s not my choice!’
‘Then whose? You came here—’
‘I had no choice!’
‘Think that if you will, though it’s not true. Choice is
yours now.’
‘But what must I do?’
‘Dinbig,’ she said, and her smile was warm and filled with intense sorrow and such love, ‘you must choose. Remember, what comes before any action? Act, then, and understand what your actions will mean.’