by B R Crichton
Truman regarded him for a long time. “Then we leave dawn after next. Say your goodbyes, and pack light. It is hot where we are going.”
Chapter Twenty Five
Kellan pushed on relentlessly. The horse struggled to find enough grazing, and the streams were increasingly frozen solid. Eventually, he took the saddle and bridle off, dropping them carelessly in the snow, then he pointed the beast eastward and slapped its rump with a resounding crack that sent it whinnying away.
He had the clothes he wore, his bow, two dozen arrows, his Jendayan sword and enough food to take him another two or three days without replenishing his supply. Shelter was never a problem; the rich farmland was dotted with cottages and small hamlets of a half dozen buildings or so. All were deserted and he helped himself to the contents of the larders, eating well and keeping dry and warm.
He walked from dawn to dusk and beyond every day, covering long distances even in the thickening snow. Occasional patches came up to his knees, but for the most part it covered the tops of his boots and no more.
The silence of the landscape and the lack of inhabitants sucked the life out of the land. He could easily believe that he was alone in the world; that he had woken from a terrible dream in which he had doomed the population of an entire world, only to find that there were no such people. Perhaps that would have been preferable.
When he did at last see signs of life, he was not sure how long they had been watching him. He saw two figures in dappled white and brown cloaks standing at the edge of a tree line. They were making no effort to hide, yet they blended in perfectly with the background. Their cloaks covered their bodies from the neck down, giving them the appearance of strange pillars in the snow.
The further he walked, the more he saw, dozens, then hundreds of them, all standing still in the low light, regarding him with unreadable eyes. That they did not attack was no surprise to him. The Shar knew what to look for when they sought him out, and the birthmark that covered half of one side of his face was a conspicuous sign.
Not one of the Jendayan soldiers tried to speak to him or direct him; rather they funnelled him in a certain direction. It was all rather surreal. Kellan almost laughed out loud again. Did they know that they were all going to die?
He found himself in an enormous encampment, after what must have been two miles since his first sighting of the soldiers, where he continued on, unchallenged. Soldiers simply stood, looking at him, and watching him with those strangely down-turned eyes.
Eventually, one of their number approached him. The man was no taller than Kellan, but his back was straight, and his posture assured. Kellan was aware that his slightly stooped frame looked all the more sloppy beside this man. He straightened a little despite himself.
“Kellan Aemoran?” The Jendayan said with a heavy accent, and a glance at the Jendayan blade Kellan carried at his hip.
He nodded.
“I am Kiritowa Tui. Come. Please.” He turned without waiting for a response.
Kellan followed, allowing the Calm to settle on his mind as he did so. They arrived at a ludicrously large tent and the guards on either side of the entrance drew the flaps back.
“Eyes down when you enter,” the man who had introduced himself as Kiritowa Tui said.
Kellan stepped into the tent. He was as close as he was ever going to get; now was his chance. He had already sought out the seemingly unbreakable link to the Life-force that could only belong to Abaddon. He hurled all of his mental strength at it, trying to twist it free, snap it, shatter it, anything to kill the God, but his efforts slipped from the link, sliding off it, completely ineffective. The Daemon thrashed more excitedly than it had ever done. Not against the barrier of the Calm, but as if expecting its imminent release. Like a dog greeting its master.
Abaddon chuckled from the shadows.
“Eyes. Down.” Kiritowa hissed. He himself stood with his gaze fixed on the carpeted floor of the tent. Kellan kept his gaze high.
“Careful, General,” said a grating voice from within the tent, “this one could kill you with a thought.” Then he said something in a tongue Kellan did not understand, and Kiritowa retreated, clearly dismissed.
“Now who taught you that, I wonder?” The voice grated again. Kellan cursed himself. How much had he given away with that useless attack?
“Do you think that I would have allowed you in here with those weapons if I was so easy to kill?” The voice mocked him.
“Show yourself,” Kellan said levelly. “I would sooner speak to you face to face.”
A giant shape moved in the shadows to the rear of the tent, slowly moving towards the pool of light in the centre before a large throne-like chair. Abaddon was tall. Easily the tallest man that Kellan had seen, taller even than any of the Heavy Infantry, but his narrow shoulders and painfully thin limbs gave the impression of extra height. As he came into the light, Kellan could see his pallid skin, made paler by his black robes, pulsing with black ichor beneath the thin layer on his face. His large eyes were flawlessly white except for a tiny, piercing pupil in each that bored into Kellan’s skull as though trying to pull the thoughts from his head.
Had he not been shielded by the Calm, his fear would have buckled his knees, but instead the emotion slipped from the shield. The Daemon buzzed with renewed vigour.
“I cannot blame you for trying however,” Abaddon said absently. “Many have tried. It is in your nature to try.”
“One day, someone will succeed,” Kellan said.
“No. They will not. Do you know who I am?”
“You are Abaddon. A fallen God.”
“Very good,” Abaddon sounded pleasantly surprised. “Already you have surpassed your predecessors. They had no idea at all. And you killed my pet Shar. Both of them” He sat on the throne, smiling enthusiastically at Kellan.
“You cannot have this world. I will not succumb to the Daemon.”
“You do know a great deal, do you not?” the voice grated. “I wonder, where did you learn these things?”
“Leave this world; look elsewhere for your sport.”
“I am afraid that I cannot. The key to that feat is in you. Whether you succumb to the Daemon, or simply die of old age, eventually someone will succumb. I can wait, I am immortal. Do you not know that?”
“What if I were to strike your head from your shoulders? Would you still be immortal then?” Kellan put his hand on the hilt of his sword and took a step towards Abaddon.
“It has been tried. The kingdom of Nothigara. So horrified by my appearance they were, that the King ordered my head and limbs be separated from my body and placed in jars. Each jar was taken to a different corner of the Kingdom and buried. The Daemon inevitably made me whole again. I flayed his children as he watched for that crime, and then boiled his innards in a pot before him. He died badly.”
“You would have done it anyway.”
“Perhaps I would have,” he chuckled; a sound like splintering wood. “But I took great pleasure in doing it to him.”
“Why do you do it?”
“Because, insect, I said that I would.”
“The Gods who created these worlds are gone. Is that not enough? They are not here to witness your actions. To whom is this point being proved?”
“You really do know a great deal, young Kellan. But I know a great deal too. I spoke with a friend of yours, who told me all about you.”
Roban, the scout who had disappeared.
“You should not believe everything you hear, Abaddon.” The Daemon was quieter; expectant, as though the dog now awaited a treat from its master.
“I know that you harbour a special hatred for Korathea. Why not join me as I crush them into dust?”
“Because, you would not stop there.”
“But I was led to believe that their very existence enraged you.”
“I am master of my own anger.”
“If I threatened the Northlands, would that anger you more?”
“My family are a
lready dead.”
“I see.” Abaddon looked thoughtful for a moment. “All this snow, it reminds me of a tribe from the far south of the Jendayan Empire. They live in a land of ice and snow all year. This would be a balmy evening to them. They have become skilled at fighting in snow, and moving among icy wilderness to attack their enemies.”
A trickle of apprehension slipped through the Calm, Kellan clamped down on it.
“I brought a large number with me, and I am glad that I did. You see, your friend told me something else of interest about you. He told me that you had a certain attachment to a place in the mountains.”
The apprehension turned to fear, and Kellan fought it down, tightening the shield around his mind.
“So, shortly after I spoke to your friend, I sent them to this place. It is said that the only approach is from the south, up a single stone staircase. Well, they have never met the warriors of the Nakura Wastes. No-one will be looking up!” Abaddon leaned forward with a grin that exposed jagged, black teeth.
Kellan began to back out of the tent, struggling to keep the Calm in place between the onslaught from his own fear, and the Daemon that had resumed its frenzy.
“But hurry, Kellan. You would not want to be too late.” Coarse, grating laughter followed Kellan out into the darkening evening as he turned and burst from the tent. One of the Jendayan guards reflexively went for his sword, and Kellan severed his connection to the Life-force before it was half drawn. He ran through the camp, searching for horses, while the Jendayans watched in confusion; still clearly under orders to leave him unhindered.
The Calm shook.
Horses!
He snatched the reins from a rail, and leapt into the saddle, forcing his heels into the animal’s ribs. Through row upon row of tents he forced the horse on at a gallop, leaping cook fires and knocking pots, scattering the bemused Jendayans. Onwards to the edge of the encampment, and then north-east towards Lythuria.
The warriors would have had months’ head start, before the arrival of the snow. There was no way that he could hope to reach Lythuria before them, but he had to try.
He reached out with his mind, searching for Eloya, desperately trying to find her, but his racing thoughts and wild panic were shaking the foundations of the Calm and he could not manage to do it.
He slowed his mount, to its great relief, and focused his mind on the task. He pushed his mind along the path he had before, minds flashing past like fireflies in the night. Compelling his self towards hers, feeling himself funnelled by his desire, channelled by longing to a single point where the countless other minds were pale and insignificant.
He found her!
Relief pattered on the shield of the Calm like summer rain.
He tried to form a warning to lay on her mind, but at this huge distance he could not make the connection. It was as though he stood before her with his hands bound at his sides. She was there, he could see her, but he could not reach out and touch her.
The Calm crumbled under the stress of fear and frustration. The Daemon buzzed excitedly, but with no anger to feed on, it slid back into the pit to scowl in ire.
He almost wept again. He was perhaps four days south-west of Moshet. It would take him two months to reach Lythuria, if the snow got no worse, and the horse would not last if he rode it to death. He knew that he must push it hard but keep it alive as it would make better progress than he could alone in the snow.
The fear was like an iron band around his chest, stifling him, suffocating him.
But fear was better than anger. He reminded himself of that, and welcomed it like a protector.
Granger watched the horizon, expecting at any moment signs of the Daemon to appear. He knew now that Kellan would fail, and that he himself had already failed, yet for so long he had harboured a hope that somehow they could pull this world from the jaws of death.
Why had he been compelled to help that boy?
Why, after witnessing so much death and tragedy, had that wretched child been so important to him; ultimately costing him his immortality and casting him into a doomed land?
But he had been compelled.
He had never known it in the past, and so he had attached great significance to it, telling himself that this was all some part of a greater plan set in motion by a higher power. But could it be that on that day when he had reached into the icy water to pull the drowning boy to safety, he had simply experienced a moment of madness? Was the supreme scheme a fabrication of his crumbling sanity; a symptom of his overall decline?
Had he simply observed that day, the Daemon would have left the tiny corpse to find a new host, and perhaps the ground he walked on now would be as charred and lifeless as all the others before it. He did not know. There was no certainty any longer but that of his approaching death. That, and his love for Kellan.
He smiled fondly as he remembered the boy’s earnest face, his thin limbs with their awkward lumpy joints that he threw into his play with all the enthusiasm of his bigger friends. It was strange that the stubbornness that had driven Granger to distraction a decade or so ago now brought a warm fire to his chest when he remembered the squabbles and wrangles they had had. The role he had taken on as parent to Kellan was the hardest, and the easiest thing he had ever done. He had a better understanding now of so many of the deeds set down in the Book of Lives, so many of the actions now made sense to him, whereas in the past they simply seemed unnecessarily selfless. So many had given their lives so that their loved ones could live, and he knew beyond doubt that he would do the same now for Kellan, without a moment of hesitation. In a heartbeat.
He looked up, above the horizon, trying to judge where the Emissary would be observing from, and he smiled, a self-satisfied smile.
“At least I have lived,” he said to the air.
He wondered about the Emissary that he could not see. Wondered about the Immortals long dead. He began to ask questions that ate at the very fabric of everything he believed, sowing doubt in a universe of certainty. How much of what he knew to be true was a lie?
Had he been looking down, he would have noticed tracks in the snow. A horse had passed by here perhaps a day and a half earlier, heading across their route and north-east, as they themselves travelled south.
Even if he had seen them, he could not have known that Kellan himself had made them.
The fear and the feeling of helplessness was grinding away at his sanity, but Kellan pushed on, knowing that he could not give way to anger; he could not fail now. Nor could he hold on to the Calm indefinitely; the longer he held it, the more it tried to slip away, and the length of the rests he took from its use corresponded directly to how long he could keep it in place the next time.
Time and again, he tried to warn Eloya, but she was too distant. He tried to warn Ganindhra, hoping that the great mind of the old God would be easier to reach, but it was not so, he needed to be closer. He dug his heels into the horse’s ribs, spurring it to a slow canter, but knowing that he would need to rest the animal again soon, and if he could find some winter feed in an abandoned barn for the beast, all the better.
Granger had often told him that there was always hope, and it was that thin thread that he clung to as he headed for the mountains, through almost deserted lands. Perhaps Abaddon had lied; tricked him in the hope of provoking him to anger. Maybe he had simply been playing games with him as the Gods had done in the past, pushing mortals this way and that to see what sport would ensue.
He pulled the collar of his coat higher and snugger around his neck against the cold wind, thinking of the warmth of Lythuria, untouched as it was by the changing of the seasons, and pressed on.
The city walls of Moshet were a great relief to the army that had marched from Hillfoot. It was mid-morning and the gentle rolling hills were blanketed in snow, unbroken by the traffic that this area usually saw. The farms had been abandoned; livestock driven east by the fleeing owners, and fields empty of winter crops. The road was easy to follow even if
they had to break their own trail; the ground was raised with shallow drainage ditches on either side, and the snow was not so deep as to obliterate the profile. Occasional hedgerows too had shown the way.
The clouds to the west were heavy with promise, and Truman had been gauging their approach against their advance on the city. With any luck he would be warm and snug in an alehouse with a foaming mug of something bitter on the table before him, and something plump and sweet on his knee.
He sighed. Actually, perhaps the ale alone would be enough; he had no appetite for womanising lately. He sang songs, and wrote poetry rejoicing in the wonder of love, but he had secretly dismissed the notion for himself. Let other men be chained to a single woman in the name of love; he preferred to remain free to explore the many wonders that could be found in any inn or alehouse.
The thrill of the chase, the hunt, anticipation, then the kill.
Strange. Perhaps he was getting old, but the desire for that old way of life had all but vanished.
Old! You’re in your prime, he told himself.
There was only one hunt that consumed him now, but she would not be preyed upon.
Oh! How the mighty have fallen.
He looked again at the advancing storm, like a wall of dull grey, marching across the snowy fields.He was feeling a little less confident of reaching the city in time.
Ahead of him, Valia trudged relentlessly through the slush that had been trampled by those at the front. She had drawn a cloak around her shoulders, and was hunched into it for warmth and shelter from the rising wind. Even wrapped up and shapeless she was beautiful.
He became aware of someone beside him. Dimas had lifted his pace a little as the city had come into sight. Truman noticed that the three wineskins that hung around his shoulders by leather cords were flat and empty. No doubt the memories from Sangier were surfacing as he neared sobriety, and he was eager to reach the city with its promise of alcohol, and forgetfulness.
His own wineskin held a few mouthfuls still. He unslung it and offered it to Dimas. The man accepted it gratefully, pulling the stopper free and draining it eagerly into a mouth almost completely hidden by wild facial hair. With mumbled thanks, he slowed his pace again and fell behind.