by Tim Stead
Like everyone else she knew, Pascha had pushed this knowledge aside. She did the same again, but this time with a promise to re-examine her conscience at a later date.
“You see the justice of my cause,” Fashmanion insisted.
“I see that you would have killed us all,” she replied. “You had already assumed the mantle of Seth Yarra. You would have ruled unopposed, unquestioned, for ever.”
He stared at her, his expression quite blank, and she had an impression of rapid calculation. Then a lopsided smile appeared. “I would, wouldn’t I?” he said. “Just like you’re going to.”
“You are a fool, Fash. You’ve been so taken up with your little war that you missed the real change. The dragons have awoken, and even now they gather in the north.”
“Dragons? They still live?” He seemed genuinely surprised.
“There are other forces rising as well,” she told him. “If they are not stopped the Bren will march on the last day of spring and wipe all traces of Seth Yarra from the world, so if you had won you would have lost.”
“It cannot be true. Pelion restrained them.”
“They have inherited the slyness of men,” Pascha said. “They have learned to bend his words, reshape his laws according to their own ends. It is only a matter of time before they discard them altogether and set about destroying what remains of mankind. They do not wish to share the world. So you see that your plan was doomed from the very start. The world you were creating would have been no more than the death throes of mankind.”
Fashmanion seemed quite crushed. “You swear that this is true?” he asked.
“I do not need to swear. You have brought mankind to the brink of destruction, and it is only the good fortune that I am what I am at this time which will save them.”
“Not Narak, then?”
“Narak went north in search of the Pity Stone, and has found dragons.”
“Let me help.”
“Your war has killed a hundred thousand people. You have killed six Benetheon gods. Even if I wished to let you live you would be hunted down and slain by a dozen others. You are already dead, Fashmanion.”
“And you will kill me?”
Pascha did not answer, but instead plucked an arrow from her quiver and fitted it to the string of her bow.
Fashmanion was quick. Perhaps he thought that her claims had been untrue, perhaps he thought it was at least worth testing them. He drew his blade and attacked, cutting at her neck and head. He struck four blows, so swiftly that less than a second passed between the first and the last.
Pascha parried each of them with her mage blade, the sword that looked like fire. It sprang into her hand on the instant that the Crow drew his sword and met each fierce cut with an unmovable wall of power.
However, she was forced to release her arrow, and it fell to the ground.
Fashmanion took advantage of the space this created and leaped back and upwards, abandoning his human form and becoming once more the crow. It was a last ploy, for in casting off his human form he also discarded the intelligence that went with it.
The crow few away through the trees with rapid wing beats and Pascha picked up her arrow. She put it to the string and drew it back alongside her cheek. She closed her eyes. Fashmanion was there. Behind her eyes there was no distance. She could see him as clearly as though he flapped hapless in the air before her.
Pascha felt a tear on her cheek. She had liked Fash. He had been one of the most honest when they first met, one of those that wanted to do good, to be good. He had been like Narak, a natural rival to Narak. How had he changed so much from those idealistic days?
But perhaps it was not Fashmanion who had changed. Perhaps it was her, and Narak and all the rest of them. In the end it did not matter.
Pascha released the arrow, and the light that was Fashmanion the Crow went out of the world.
Fifty Three – Narak
Narak took a step back, felt the rough wall of the cave against his shoulders. Kirrith’s vast head loomed over him, but he did not draw his blades. There would be no point. Steel was useless against dragons, and his strength was no match for this monster.
“Is that what you called me here for?” he asked.
The giant head retreated, turned, and suddenly the chamber was full of fire. In one breath Kirrith washed all the walls about them with flame, and when the flame died away Narak could see that a hundred torches had been lit. The dark, frozen chamber had become a hall full of light.
Now that he could see the chamber he marvelled at it. The walls were sheer and smooth as glass, but for the niches in which the torches burned. The stone was so polished that it caught the light from the flames and threw it back in a myriad of new shapes and motions.
It stretched up to an unimaginable height – perhaps the height of the mountain itself, and even with the torches lit he could not see a ceiling. The walls vanished into shadow a hundred feet above the highest light. There was nothing that might have been called ornamentation in the chamber. There were two entranced on this level – the one through which he had entered and another, smoother tunnel. The second was Bren made.
He saw the Bren Ashet, the messenger. It was standing close to the entrance to its tunnel, watching him.
“I called you here because I supposed you might be some use in preventing the Bren Morain,” Kirrith said.
“You want me to use the Pity Stone,” Narak said. “Well, where is it then?”
“It is here, but I cannot give it to you.”
Narak stared. It was the purpose of his journey. Months of walking through snow and ice dragging a thrice damned sled, all the pain, all the trouble and now that he was here the dragon was saying… what?
“Then why am I here?” he asked.
“I want you to have the stone,” Kirrith said.
“But…”
“Listen and you will understand.” Kirrith shifted in his lair, and his scales glittered. Narak could see no colour in them, but somehow they did not seem black, not grey, nor any colour he could put a name to. “I am sworn by my blood and the blood I shed to defend Pelion’s Star from all who come here, to not give it up. It is the surety of my race, the defence of mankind and all life. I swore to keep it safe. It is an oath that I cannot break.”
“What does that mean?” Narak thought he knew, but he asked just in case.
“It means that we must fight, and you must defeat me,” Kirrith said.
“Kirrith, you are a dragon.”
“I know this,” the dragon replied, and for a moment there might have been a hint of amusement in his voice. “But I have devised a contest that you might possibly win. You will fight my avatar.”
“Can’t you just give me the stone? We both want this.”
“You ask me to break my oath?”
“Rather than see the world burn.”
“It is not given to me to make such fine judgements,” Kirrith said. “We are ruled by the stone, and the stone will countenance no finessing of conscience. If a thing is so, then it is so. My oath is unbreakable.”
“Yet it can be bent.” Narak didn’t really see the difference.
“It can be honoured in different ways,” the dragon corrected.
“So I must slay your avatar?”
“That will not be possible, or necessary. I have given much thought to it while you made your troublesome way here, and I believe the oath may be satisfied by a single cut. If my blood is spilled, even from an avatar, I may hold the blood oath fulfilled.”
It was certainly a great degree of bending, but Narak thought he would be able to handle an avatar. After all, he was more now than he had been. He was filled with dragon magic himself.
“There is other business to conclude between us,” he said. For a while Kirrith did not reply, but stared at Narak with his baleful yellow eyes.
“The promise,” Kirrith said, his voice lower, almost a whisper. “How can I believe in that? It is no more than a dream made up by minds ad
dled with guilt and time.”
“I do not understand magic,” Narak said. “Any that I have was gifted to me, but it seems that understanding it is not required. It walks its own peculiar path, and perhaps belief is all that is needed. Perhaps not even that.”
“Put it to one side,” Kirrith said. “You must have the stone, and to win it you must fight. Bend your mind to that.”
Narak stepped into the wider spaces of the chamber. It was large enough to accommodate three or four dragons, even as large as Kirrith. He drew his blades, flexed his fingers on the grips.
“I am ready,” he said.
Kirrith uncoiled a portion of his body and the avatar stepped forth. It was exactly the same height as Narak, and the same build. If he had been pushed to say so he would have presumed it modelled on what he saw in the mirror. It, too, bore a brace of blades, but there the resemblance ended. The face was no more than a suggestion of features, and it had no eyes that he could see. It wore no clothes, and seemed the same glittering absence of colour as Kirrith.
“Karimic rules?” Narak asked.
“As you wish,” the dragon replied.
The lack of eyes was going to be a problem. Caster had taught him that eyes were the traitors of a fencer. They often indicated some part of his intent, or lied about it, and that too was a clue. No eyes meant no clues.
They circled each other for a while, and Narak noted the sureness of tread, the stillness of the blades. The avatar did not try to impress as some men did, swishing blades energetically in difficult patterns, changing their footing, dancing. It just walked, one definite foot following the other, its head turned towards him, blades held at an easy distance from the body, ready to block any attack.
It reminded him of Caster.
He closed the gap between them, shortening his strides. The avatar did nothing to maintain the distance. It seemed to be waiting for him, but he closed in all the same.
It was Narak who struck first – a lightning fast lunge at what passed for a throat, followed by a series of three cuts to the neck, shoulder and hip. Each was parried with precision and a strength that matched his own, but he had no time to dwell on this because the avatar launched its own attack hard on the heels of its defence. Somehow it managed to cut and counter cut in the same movement, and Narak was forced to parry with both blades simultaneously. He jumped back out of the path of another attack and they began to circle again.
He felt a pang of anxiety. He had not faced an equal since the early days with Caster. Any natural man would have fallen at his first assault. Even Caster would have been hard pressed, but this thing was untroubled. What if it was better than him? He pushed that thought aside. He must win.
He attacked again, this time trying to pass his opponent and attack from behind as he spun round, but the avatar matched his turn and parried, then cut at his head. He ducked the blow, but that was a mistake, because he found himself struggling to get his blades high enough to meet the next cut which came half a moment later, angling down at his shoulder.
He slapped the blade away, but the movement put him off balance and he was forced to roll away, rising at once with both blades ready, and just in time. The Avatar was on him immediately, cutting and stabbing with great ferocity. He was forced back three paces, and then managed an attack of his own, matching the avatar’s aggression, and pushing it back.
This set the pattern. It was Narak who initiated most of their exchanges, and the avatar that countered. It was fast and strong, but it seemed to believe that aggression was a weakness. Mostly it chose defence. Narak began to adapt himself to its style, trying to draw it into attack. More and more often his own attacks were little more than feints, and once or twice he managed to deceive it, yet he never managed to touch its skin.
Time passed. It seemed that neither of them was tiring and the exchanges went on and on. Narak was looking for a weakness, but even when the avatar attacked he could see none. It was careful, and seemed determined to avoid risk.
The implication was obvious. It would have to be Narak who took the risks, Narak who dared, else they could be at this game a month. He stepped back and raised his blade, the Karimic gesture for a truce, and the avatar stopped in a defensive posture.
“Your avatar is a dull match, Kirrith,” he said.
“Yet a match it is, for you at least,” Kirrith replied.
“We could be here until midsummer,” Narak said. “If neither of us tires and neither takes a risk.”
“That may be true, but I think it is your impatience that will decide the bout, one way or the other.”
“I will not lose,” Narak said. Kirrith did not reply, he just looked down on Narak with his yellow eyes, now dimmed in the torchlight. “Remind me of the decision again. It is first blood?”
“If you cut the avatar you win,” Kirrith said.
“And if it cuts me?”
“It is no matter. My oath has nothing to do with how much you bleed.”
So it was weighted in his favour, and that more than explained the avatar’s caution. It set his own path as well. To win he must be reckless. But he would be carefully reckless. He would wait and watch. Eventually he would see his chance.
They resumed fighting. Narak altered his style, trying each and every variation he knew. Hours passed, and the dragon’s chamber rang continuously with the sound of steel on steel. The avatar was impressive. It made no mistakes, but that in itself was a failing. It gave the creature a degree of predictability. Each attack he launched drew a response that exactly matched it. He began to form a plan of attack.
When he had been learning to fight he had spent hours talking with Caster. The sword master was a mine of arcane information about the Ohas style of fighting that he taught. It had begun with the Farheim. Legend said that Ohas was a man’s name – given or family was not known – he was just Ohas. Ohas had become a Farheim and had developed the style to suit his new existence.
Men who do not mind being cut in battle do not require shields or daggers. Men who do not tire have different attitudes to battle. The Ohas style was developed with these things in mind, and it took a remarkable natural man to master the intricacies. Caster understood it all. After the fall of the god mages and their Farheim Ohas had become a style suited to assassins. It could only be fully utilised for a short period, because natural men tired quickly, and so was ideal for bursting through a ring of guardsmen, slaying your victim, then escaping.
Others had used it too. The Crastine Monks had adopted it, but they were also assassins by any objective measure. It was just that the Crastines did not care if they lived or died in their work. It took years of dedication to become adept in the style, and only a moment to perish.
Tradition has it that it was a Crastine who had assassinated the first king of Avilian after the king’s cousin had pledged fifty pounds of gold to the order. The monk did his work, but the cousin, who briefly ascended the throne before he, too, met a premature end via a poisoned cup, outlawed the order. Within fifty years they had been hunted down and wiped out.
Yet Ohas survived, and the Crastine traditions survived. Chief among these was the idea of the perfect stroke. The monks had developed an attack which they said could not be stopped. It was a movement, a shifting of the body and two blades against which there could be no defence. It was deemed pure because the monks were as certain to die as their intended target.
Narak, however, was no natural man. He had the robust qualities of a Benetheon God. He had been somehow changed by Pascha, and that was something that Narak did not still fully understand, but he knew it had made him stronger, faster, even more resilient. Thirdly he was infused with dragon magic, and this also seemed likely to improve his ability.
There was a risk that he would not survive. He could see clearly enough that the avatar’s blades were not blood silver, but he suspected that they were just as deadly. He had heard tales from the god wars, tales that suggested dragons could breach any armour, slice through any mag
ical defence.
Narak knew the perfect stroke. He had practiced it briefly with Caster over three hundred years ago, but he still remembered. The question was: did he remember well enough? There was also some doubt as to whether the perfect stroke would work at all against something as adept as the avatar. It had been designed to kill men, and it certainly wasn’t a man. Narak was inclined to think that it would work, because he and the avatar were equals, or as close as made no difference.
He drew it into another attack, parried, and watched the position of his opponent’s blades. That was it. Just at the moment it withdrew back to its defensive posture: that was the moment to attack.