by Tim Stead
“That is true,” she said.
“It is, of course, a weapon.”
She stared at him. A weapon? How? The Sirash was a thing that enabled them to speak to their animals, to their names species. It made it possible for them to translocate. How was that a weapon?
But Pelion, and now Pascha, had no named species. All species were there, touched by the Sirash, touchable. It was a net connecting every living thing. If she could do through the Sirash what she could do in person, then nothing was safe from her, and she could move about among her enemies unseen. She did not even have to be there to kill them, to draw off their life.
“You made it?”
“I made it.”
“Why?”
“Because I was afraid.”
Pascha shook her head. What could a mage like Pelion fear? The answer came to her on the heels of the question.
“Dragons,” she said.
“Quite so. The thing I made to end their war on life was a trick, like the salt rain. It was a misdirection. When I created the conscience of dragons I hoped that it would work, and it worked better than I could have dreamed. They stopped. They experienced guilt on a cataclysmic scale. Each of them was filled with horror and revulsion at what they had done, what they were. It stopped them, reduced them to impotence. But there is a problem. The stone is not immutable. A single blow with a hammer will shatter it.”
“…And they will revert?”
“It is possible.”
“You don’t know?”
“The stone was made in haste. Its power is great, but there are things within it that I have been unable to resolve, even after so many years. It may be that the dragons will remain as they are forever, and it may be that as soon as the stone is broken they will become as they were – creatures of hate and destruction.”
“So you made the Sirash to kill the dragons?”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
“I, too, was touched by the stone.”
“You…?” He had made the thing in haste indeed. The stone had done to Pelion what it had done to the dragons. That explained many things. He was wracked by guilt. So weakened was he that he had fled from the world to hide in a place where he could do no more harm, and the Sirash was there, waiting for a day that he hoped would never come, waiting for a man who could probably never use it. But she could.
Pelion shook his head. It was as if he had read her mind. “It would make you worse than dragons,” he said.
“You’re going to destroy the Sirash when I leave here,” she said, seeing it clearly. His conscience could not trust her or those that came after her, not with such power.
“I will,” he said. “And when I destroy it all the Benetheon will be dissolved. Their powers will be diminished.”
It was true. They would no longer be able to speak to their animals, or translocate. They would be little more than Farheim, only less because of their vulnerability to blood silver.
“I am trapped here, then.”
“No. The Benetheon’s time has passed. There are so few left anyway. The fish will stay as fish, and on land there are only you and Narak, Jidian and Sithmaree, and the latter two may not live that long. It is Narak who traps you here.”
“Narak? Why Narak?”
“He is using the Sirash to draw heat from his wolves. It is a clever thing. But it will be impossible when the Sirash is gone. The connection will be severed.”
“Then I will go to him. I can keep him warm with the power that I have.”
“You can, but you will not be welcomed by the company that he keeps.”
“Company? He is not travelling alone?”
“No. He is accompanied by a dragon’s avatar, and Kirrith would not welcome you either.”
Pascha was speechless. She was familiar with the name Kirrith. That was the name of the dragon Narak was travelling to meet, but another dragon? An avatar?
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Perhaps there are still things that you need to learn,” Pelion said. “There is much at stake. All the dragons are watching. They have delegated Hesterion to be their eyes.”
“Explain.”
Pelion smiled. It was the kind of smile that Pascha had come to loathe. It was smug. It was superior and condescending. It meant that he was about to impart some great secret. This time, at least, Pascha was anxious to hear what it might be.
“The dragons are afraid,” he said. “They know what they used to be. It is a burden that they carry with them every day. It drags them down to the depths of the sea, to caves in the ice, to islands a thousand miles from any other living thing. It is a torture that they believe they deserve, and so they do.
“Yet they look at the world and they see events unfolding that will be every bit as catastrophic as their own rampages. They cannot stand that this should come to pass if there is a way in which they can prevent it.
“They can, of course. They merely have to rise again, to forbid it on pain of death, to breathe fire and stamp the world once more with their terrible power. But they will not. Like me they are broken. The stone cripples them with guilt. They can no more rise up than a cow can eat the farmer that tends it.
“So they find themselves in a trap. They have sworn, you see, to protect the stone with their blood. Yet at the same time they want to give the stone to Narak to prevent the Bren holocaust. And again, they are terrified to let it out of their protection lest it be broken and they become again what they once were. It is a pretty puzzle.”
“You said defend it with their blood?”
“I did. Narak will have to fight for it.”
“Fight a dragon? That would be suicide.”
“Kirrith will find a way. He does not want to kill Narak. He wants him to succeed. Even if it means that Kirrith has to suffer the indignity of defeat.”
“And this other dragon, this Hesterion, what is its purpose?”
“To watch. To judge. You see, if they knew that you even existed they would not permit Narak to touch the stone. They will be more afraid of you than of anything, because you have the talent. They will not trust you. It is remarkable that they have gone so far. Kirrith has courted Narak, drawn him on so that this might be possible. It is the boldest thing a dragon has done for two thousand years.”
“Can I not stop the Bren? Myself?”
“Perhaps.” Pelion looked at her as though assessing her ability, but Pascha knew that he was fully aware of her powers, weak or strong as they were. He was acting again. “I do not know,” he said. “Truly, I do not. The Bren may bend before you like reeds in the wind. They may fight you to the greatest of their ability. It depends how they see you – as my true heir or as some blood born usurper. I suspect the latter.”
“But you could tell them otherwise. Be bold, like the dragons, and come forth one more time into the world. Set things right.”
She had never seen fear on Pelion’s face before, but Pascha saw it now. His eyes widened, his lips twisted, and he turned his face away. “I cannot.” The words came out as a gasp, as though the very suggestion that he should leave this hidden place was enough to steal his breath, seize his throat and choke him. In a moment he had restored a calm appearance, but she had no doubt. Pelion, the mighty Pelion, was more trapped by the stone than the dragons. He would never rise again. He was dead, but had not quite surrendered to the fact.
“So I am trapped,” she said. “Unless I want to fight dragons and Bren both.”
“The dragons will fight only for the stone," Pelion said. “The Bren…” he shrugged. “The Bren I cannot predict.”
“You made them.”
“I regret, now, that I forbade you children. You would have been more understanding.”
Children. Pascha felt an ancient pain within her. It was true that Pelion had warned them, a thousand and a half years ago, that the gifts he gave had that price, that all the Benetheon would be sterile, but she had not known truly what this meant
until later. She had thought it a small price, and yet it had put a bitterness between her and every mortal woman. She watched their children die, their grandchildren, and so on for generation after generation. Perhaps it was a kindness. Her own sons and daughters would have been mortal, and they would have passed. She had seen the grief on Caster’s face when his child had died of old age, but just once she would have liked a taste of that particular mortal joy.
It was hard to believe that being immortal she could not also be a woman.
Twenty Seven - Cain
Quinnial had been right about the cliff road into Berrit Bay. It was a tricky path, a death trap by night. As advised, he had waited on the cliff top until morning, and by dawn’s light he and his men had descended to Berrit Bay with great caution. He was surprised that the road was so well used, but it was a trade road, and Cain had never understood traders.
Berrit Bay was a flat triangle of land with the town on the sea shore, and the main road, the proper road, heading north from the town at the base of the triangle to its apex, where the river that gave the bay its name flowed down a series of steps and then across the flats and through the town. The whole thing was about three square miles. The land had been drained, the river channelled, and everywhere there were ditches to carry away the life blood of what had once been nothing but swamp. The Berrits, as Quinnial had called them, had made a pleasant enough place for themselves.
He rode to the outskirts of the town and had his men set down in a field just shy of the main bridge into the settlement. He himself rode over the bridge with about twenty men under the watchful eyes of the townsfolk. He noted a couple of bows in the hands of men on the roofs and hoped they would be circumspect. He had left eight hundred men in the paddock. It was a force large enough and green enough to get out of hand if the town’s people started something.
In the main street he rode until he found himself confronted by a line of men. Again there were bows as well as some axes present. He stopped. There was an unarmed man in the middle of the line, a portly figure with thinning hair and squinting eyes. The man was dressed in what passed for provincial finery – a black jacket, white shirt, a red ribbon with some brass symbol at its end. Cain thought it looked like a fish.
“Are you the mayor?” he asked.
The fat man nodded. “Mayor Greyash,” he replied. “Elected to speak for Berrit Bay. And you?”
That was fair. “Colonel Arbak, First Regiment of the Seventh Friend.” He could see that the words had an impact. They knew his name. A couple of the bowmen let their bows drop.
“Lord of Waterhill? The Wolf of Fal Verdan?” the mayor, too, seemed impressed.
“I will answer to those titles,” Cain replied.
“My Lord,” the mayor bowed, and that triggered a confused wave of obeisance among the men around him, some nodding, others bowing from the waist. “Might I ask why you and your men are here? We do not have a great deal of food to spare.”
“We have brought our own rations,” Cain reassured him, but ignored his question. “Have you seen other men, other soldiers, pass through here recently?”
“We have,” the mayor nodded. “Just two days past a small group of men rode through, but they did not stop, they did not speak to anyone. They went up the west road.”
“How many men?”
“Twenty at a guess. I saw them with my own eyes.”
It had to be Tilian. Cain understood why he hadn’t stopped. He was in a hurry. The town wasn’t really defensible and he was looking for an ambush point, or favourable ground. It was still an impossible task. Cain could hold the town with his men – he had enough that they couldn’t force their way down either cliff path and any assault down the main road would allow him the advantage of cavalry, of which he had three hundred, albeit green and untried.
“You haven’t seen any signs of a fight?”
“A fight?” The mayor seemed surprised by the question. “No, no sign.”
Surely the Seth Yarra couldn’t still be down the coast. They should have reached here by now, even plodding at their slowest pace. Perhaps they had turned north.
“I thank you, mayor Greyash. My men will stay in the field to the east of the town unless it becomes necessary for them to be elsewhere. We will depart your town tomorrow morning, if not before. You will permit us to pass.”
The last was not really a question, and the townsfolk recognised it as such. They quickly moved to the sides of the road and Cain rode through with his twenty men. They rode on for a mile further until they came to the start of the western cliff path, where they dismounted. This path was certainly no better than the one they had descended. Cain walked up the path with a handful of men. It was awkward. The footing was poor and the path sloped uncomfortably towards the sea.
“Colonel.”
He turned and saw that one of his men was craning out over the drop. It made Cain want to tell him to pull his head back in, but he didn’t.
“What is it?”
“There are bodies down there.”
Damn. Now Cain would have to look. He edged closer to the crumbling lip of the path and looked. He could see them. There were two, laid out on the rocks below, but by the look of them they had fallen from further up the track. He pulled his head back and eased away from the fall.
“How many did you see?”
“Five,” the man replied. He must have had a better head for heights than Cain.
“All west of here?”
“Aye, Colonel, all west.”
He led them upwards, but not for long. They came to a chasm, a split in the cliff, and there was no way across. There had once been a way, by the look of it. There were rough stone footings for what might have been a bridge, and recently, too, by the look of it. He turned to the man with a head for heights.
“Look down there and tell me what you see,” he said, pointing to the chasm. The man stepped forwards and leaned over, then got down on his belly and pushed himself even further out. A couple of the other men took hold of his legs without being asked.
“More bodies, colonel,” he said in the end.
“How many?”
The man shrugged, a difficult thing to do when hanging over a cliff by your legs. “I can’t count ‘em,” he said. “Too many.”
“More than twenty?”
“Aye, much more.”
Not Tilian, then. “Can you tell what they are?”
Another of the men touched him on the shoulder. “There, sir.” He was pointing across the gap, and following his arm Cain could see a body, or what seemed to be a body, crushed against the side of the path. There was a sword lying in the dirt beside him, and the armour was a recognisable style.
“Seth Yarra,” Cain said.
“Captain Henn’s work, sir?”
“It must be, and it explains why he hasn’t come back to Berrit Bay. He took the bridge out to trap them.”
“Do you think he got them all?”
“I don’t know,” Cain replied. “I hope so, but three hundred against twenty – if even a fifth of them got free he would have been in trouble.”
But what now? If Tilian had won he would be heading back to Berrit Bay by the main road. If he’d lost, then Seth Yarra would be doing the same. Either way his course was obvious. He must take control of that road and wait. It would not be long before one or the other came down it.
He gestured and his men began to make their way back down the slope, edging with their backs to the cliff. There was no room for him to pass and lead them down, so he followed at the tail, kicking stones away before placing each foot to be sure of not slipping. It took some time to get back down.
Sheyani was waiting for him. She was grinning like the cat that got the cream. It was odd because he’d left her with his men in the field the other side of town. He smiled back.
“Glad news,” she said. “The Seth Yarra are defeated.”
“And you know this how?” he asked.
She shifted her horse
and he could see two men standing beside her. They were not armed, but they had the bearing of soldiers. As if to confirm his judgement they both saluted.
“Colonel Arbak,” one of them said. “I bear a message from Captain Henn.”
“Which you have already given to my wife,” he said dryly, but he didn’t mind. “Go on.”