The Pity Stone (Book 3)

by Tim Stead

  * * * *

  It was almost immediately clear that Hestia and the Telans knew what he had done. The tunnel between the Avilian and Telan held forts was not blocked, but the Telans would not open their door, and refused to speak.

  It was childish, Skal thought, but it was what he had expected. In truth he was more interested in the havoc his men had wreaked upon the Seth Yarra camp. It had become a busy place. As the day waned he could see the desperation of the enemy. They knew what the night would bring and they strove to rebuild what they could, to create shelter from the wind, and places where they might be warm. Skal knew it was futile. They had almost no wood left for fuel. Most of their food was spoiled, their tents burned.

  It was going to be a terrible night for the soldiers of Seth Yarra.

  Already there was a lively breeze, dusted with snow, blowing out of the north.

  He went down from the wall. There were not many men guarding it now. There was always the chance that their desperation would lead Seth Yarra to attack once more, but they had tried once and failed. They were weaker now, and it was unlikely that they would succeed. They would know this.

  Besides, his ruse had worked. The attack had been directed against Hestia’s fort, and he had taken advantage of that to win the battle. It was a perfect example of Cain’s dictum that a soldier’s duty was to win the battle, not to kill the enemy. He had destroyed their ability to maintain the siege.

  He did not think that the enemy had the heart for another attack.

  He went down to the warming room. There were a few men there who had just come off the wall, standing in front of the fire, stamping their feet, rubbing their hands and talking to each other. Skal was in need of the same thing. He had been on the walls for two hours, and could barely feel his fingers. His ears were as numb as wood, despite the scarf. He was certain that he could have cut one off and not felt a thing.

  He poured himself a hot tea from the kettle and stood by the men. Their conversation died, much as he knew it would. It was his job to either restart it or leave them to their own devices.

  “Another quiet watch?” he asked.

  The men grinned. They had stood and watched the attack on the other end of the chain, the opening of a magical door, and the burning of the Seth Yarra camp.

  “Quiet enough, colonel,” one of them replied.

  “Aye,” another chipped in. “Any quieter and we’d have won the war.”

  They laughed together.

  “Well, now we’ve rescued Telas from her folly do you think Avilian can survive without us?” Skal asked.

  He saw the men exchange glances, and he saw what the glances said. These men wanted to go home. It was what he wanted, too. They’d spent long enough in this foreign place, and their welcome would be positively threadbare after Skal’s dalliance with a Durander Mage. He could leave Hestia to hold for the rest of the winter, but could he get his men back through the Green Road?

  He needed Passerina. He needed someone to tell him what was going on, how many Seth Yarra stood at Fal Verdan. Could he force his way through? Would he need to call on the Berashis for help?

  “I think they could manage in a pinch, colonel,” one of the men said. The others nodded their reluctant agreement. It was a soldier’s thing to say. They wanted the comforts of home. This time of year was traditionally the soldiers’ rest, the time spent with families, and he had brought them here to fight. Yet they would stay and fight again, and again, and for as long as he asked it of them. Silently Skal thanked Cain for showing him how to do this.

  “Myself, I’m inclined to be in Bas Erinor,” he told them. “I miss the ale at the Seventh Friend. I don’t think the siege will last another week, but I don’t much fancy marching south in this weather, not with wounded men.”

  Again the men nodded. Skal was happy that he had done his part. These men would tell others, and before tomorrow night it would be common knowledge among the men that Skal wanted to lead them home now that victory was assured, but he hesitated only on behalf of the wounded. It was true enough, if somewhat simplified.

  He drained his tea, turned the cup upside down on the mantle over the fire and left them. “Get some sleep, lads,” he told them. “You’ve earned it.”

  He went upstairs to his bitter room with its ineffectual fire. In spite of the tea he was feeling weary, and he kicked off his boots, threw his tunic on the floor and rolled himself up in furs and blankets. He was asleep almost at once.

  In the morning he awoke to find the Seth Yarra lines deserted. They had gone south in the night.

  Thirty Six – Narak

  Cobran’s palace was beyond belief.

  It stood in a valley, nestled in the near impossible cold of the far north, a place where nothing lived that was not itself frozen and strange beyond words, and he saw grass and flowing water. He saw the sun higher in the sky than it could be. He saw magic.

  There were no protecting walls here. This was not a city like Dun Vilant. Flowers bloomed in a wild profusion of colour beneath the walls of a glorious, convoluted building, white alabaster arches, golden towers and silver pillars, violating the frozen land. Fountains defied the ice.

  Considering that Cobran was dead two thousand years it was a wonder indeed.

  “How is it done?” he asked.

  Avatar shrugged. It was a peculiar movement of the shoulders, almost human, but not quite. “Magic,” he said. “Dragons have no magic and know nothing of it.”

  “Is it warm within?”

  “If I tell you not to enter, you will. I know this now,” Avatar seemed almost resigned.

  “But…?

  “It is a prison. A creature is trapped within this structure that cannot leave, is bound there through the power of our will. If it sees you it will kill you, and for once you must believe me when I say that you are not its equal.”

  Narak studied Avatar, but as usual it was a fruitless exercise. The creature was adept at showing nothing at all of what passed within its head.

  “Tell me what lies within,” he said.

  “Very well. It is Torgaris who is imprisoned here.” Avatar said the words as though they were some revelation, but seeing the lack of reaction from Narak he went on. “Torgaris is a dragon, one of the nine. He is also called the lord of despair. He believes himself damned and unredeemable. He is the only dragon on whom Pelion’s magic failed.”

  “Failed? He has no conscience?”

  “He has too much.”

  “That makes no sense, Avatar. Too much conscience?”

  “You could say that it has overwhelmed his sanity. Whatever words you hang on it, the truth is that Torgaris saw no reason to seek redemption or forgiveness. He has embraced despair and damnation as his lot.”

  Narak looked at the palace, the flowers and the fountains. Such a terrible thing trapped in such a beautiful place made a kind of sense, like water might be employed to cage the hottest fire.

  But Narak could sense something beyond the grass and the white walls. He could sense life. It was not precisely the creature that Avatar had described.

  Narak was used to sensing the thoughts of his wolves, the simple desires and fears, the comfort and comprehension that passed for happiness. This thing beyond the wall was no wolf, and he should not have been able to sense it, but he could. There was no denying it. This creature was not the unmitigated servant of despair that Avatar had painted. In the midst of the darkness there was a flame, a blue flame.

  How can you put a colour to something that you cannot see? Narak did not know, but he sensed blue, a hard, bright blue. He sensed need.

  “Answer me a question, Avatar. If you see need, is it not right to offer help?”

  “If it lies within your compass.”

  “And if you do not know?”

  “You would be unwise to enter, Narak.”

  “But he calls me, Avatar. Torgaris calls me. Can you not hear it?” It was true. The feeling was almost like a voice, and it almost called his name,
but in another way, like a lock calls a key. It was almost as though he had developed another sense, similar in a way to the feel of the Sirash, but different, too.

  “I hear nothing but your foolish words, Wolf Narak. Nobody calls you, and if you enter Cobran’s garden you will never leave.”

  Narak stood in the snow and listened. The sensation was very strange. He had often wondered what it must be like for the wolves when he called them in the Sirash, and he imagined it must be like this, some nameless sense outside the usual five. Perhaps the wolves perceived it as a scent. Their lives were dominated by scent. Narak heard Torgaris almost as a song, almost as a dance. There were no words. He shook his head, blocked his ears, closed his eyes to see if the feeling would go, but it stayed, strong and true.

  He could deny the call. He could stand and continue walking north with Avatar until he came at last to the place his dreams had shown him. He did not doubt Avatar’s warning. Torgaris the dragon lay trapped within those pretty walls and would like as not kill him, but he did not fear such a death. In spite of what he knew he felt that he would be safe. Something within the calling reassured him.

  “I will enter,” he said.

  “I forbid it,” Avatar said, drawing himself up to his full, impressing height. He was a head taller than Narak at least.

  Narak laughed. “What will you do? Kill me?”

  “We have travelled thirty-seven days together, and we have completed more than half our journey. This is not the time to throw away your life.”

  “Trust me,” Narak said.

  “Trust you? How can I trust you? You swim weakly in a sea of ignorance. You are tossed from side to side by whim and fancy. What is there to trust?”

  Narak stared back at him. How could he explain? He had quickly learned to trust his wolves, though he understood them very little at first, and he had trusted Pascha and Remard and Beloff. None of them had been an open book to him, yet each had instincts that he had trusted completely.

  Narak did not reply. He left his sled by Avatar and walked down across the snow towards Cobran’s palace. He was as curious about the place as he was drawn to it. The building, the central mass, was vast. It certainly seemed so as he approached it, but it was also in proportion so that it did not look awkward or overbearing as a castle might. It settled its bulk into the land, spreading out in open cloisters and small pavilions that scattered into the gardens with a pleasing effect.

  The top of the highest building was a golden dome. He guessed it might be a hundred feet across, perhaps more, and that was surrounded by a mixture of small and delicate golden domes and silver towers, the latter being much higher, almost to the height of the great dome. Further from the dome there were long, low buildings with curved walls and roofs, all white, and interspersed between them were smaller, square towers with silver roofs.

  The whole thing glittered more than a starry night.

  He could not see a single window.

  Narak came to the edge of the snow and stopped. Driven by curiosity he bent down and scraped the snow back from the ground. Beneath it was bare rock, though just an inch away he could see lush grass.

  He pushed one hand over the boundary. It felt like he was pushing through a skin, and it gripped his hand slightly. He felt the warm air on his fingers. He felt sunshine warming his blood. He stood again and stepped through.

  Inside the garden it was a summer day. He inhaled the scent of flowers, birds sang in the trees, and the sun stood high above. He stripped off his coat, his heavy jacket, his gloves and laid them on the grass. He crossed the lawn to the closest fountain and dipped his hands into it, drinking deeply. It was water, but such water as he had never tasted. It sparkled on his tongue, filled his mouth with a delightful coolness, and soothed his throat. He splashed a few drops on his face, and felt quite revived.

  He looked about him. Just a few paces away he could see the snow, and beyond on the frozen hillside the figure of Avatar standing beside his sled. The creature had not moved a step.

  He turned and looked at the palace. It seemed like a great white hill, riven with passes that reached into its cool and inviting interior. He stepped forwards, walked across the lawn to a path of white marble. He followed it past a low building that had been crafted to resemble a many peaked tent, but built wholly of seamless white stone. Further he went, and he passed through a door into a passageway that curved to his left.

  Now that he was within he saw why there was no need for windows. The entire structure was translucent. Yet it was magical, too. When he looked at the wall it was opaque, and merely glowed with the sunlight that fell upon it. When he lengthened his gaze to look at the sky or the mountains he saw them as clearly as if there was no wall at all. It made him quite dizzy for a moment.

  He walked on. At the end of the curving passage he came to a door that seemed to have been made from a single ruby, its surface cut into a million different facets so that it glittered as much as the rest of the place. He pushed, and the door opened.

  Within lay another corridor. He thought it a corridor, though it was as wide as an avenue, for it curved away in both directions and likely made an entire circuit of the great dome. Here the floor was smooth as glass, and he could not guess how it had been made, or even what it was made from. It had a reddish hue that the light picked up and used to paint all the walls so that he felt as though he was within a great blood vessel.

  The illusion was aided by the doors that opened inwards, each being round and about half the height of the great corridor.

  There was still no sign of Torgaris. He had expected to be met and challenged almost the moment he stepped onto the grass. He still heard the call, the half dance, half song, but there was no real sound, no movement as he walked deeper into the palace.

  He traversed the corridor and examined one of the round openings. It seemed that each gave onto a suite of rooms, but offered no opportunity to progress further. It was remarkable that each suite had a bed in its bed chamber, apparently freshly made, and that fresh water ran in an eternal stream through another room, carried by a channel that ran along the wall at waist height. There was a bath, too. It was smaller than his arrangement at Wolfguard, a more human size, but equally functional it seemed.

  He wandered the corridor until he came to a larger door. This one was full height and barred by twin doors made of wood. These were not the studded, planked doors of Avilian custom. They were polished smooth and inlaid with woods of different hues and textures so that they made a picture. The workmanship was exquisite.

  The image was of a man, rendered larger than life with a firm jaw line and fiery eyes. He was reaching across the doors’ divide, hand open and palm down in a gesture of blessing, and before him knelt the peoples of the world. Hundreds were represented here. Narak could make out kings in crowns, dark skinned islanders, red haired people of the north.

  It was an expression of arrogance, beautifully crafted.

  He was amazed that none of the work was damaged. This place was supposed to be Torgaris’ prison, and in addition a place that was created by Cobran, whom the dragons had destroyed, and whom, in any interpretation of justice, was responsible for their present plight.

  He pushed through the door.

  Torgaris was waiting for him. The dragon was coiled in the centre of the chamber under the great dome, his eyes fixed on the door. Narak had never seen a dragon in the flesh. He had only seen the images sent to him in a dream, and he was overwhelmed by the sense of sheer power emanating from the monster.

  Torgaris was black. His scales were black, his talons were black, his wings were black, and even his eyes were black. It was like looking at a living shadow, a vast and sinuous piece of the night that had come alive.

  The dragon said nothing. It did not move so much as an eyelid, but Narak felt its stare like a hot wind.

  “Torgaris,” he said.

  The dragon raised its head a couple of feet. It was huge. The eye alone was almost the size of a man�
��s head, and he had no doubt that a sheep could vanish within its maw in the blink of an eye.

  “Why have you come?” Torgaris asked. His voice was thunder and ice, rolling and scraping from his black throat.

  It was not the question he had expected. Why had he come? He had come here because Avatar had brought him to show him the city as promised, but that was not the right answer. He had come north because he wanted to find a solution to the war that ravaged the six kingdoms and threatened to destroy the millions of Seth Yarra, but that, too, was not the right answer. He had come within the palace because he was curious, because he had felt the need radiating from within, because, because…

  “You have been waiting for me,” he said.

  Torgaris stared at him still. The black eyes had not left him since he had come through the door, but it seemed to Narak that the stare intensified. It grew hotter.