by Tim Stead
“It’s Hammerdan’s blood,” Pascha said. “He is dead.”
Cain looked from one woman to the other. He, too, could see that Sheyani was troubled, but he did something that surprised Pascha: he didn’t ask her what had happened, he didn’t look doubtful. He stepped over to where Sheyani stood and took her in his arms and held her.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
Whether he had guessed, or whether he simply didn’t care she could not say, but the sight of it moved her. Was this what she had thrown away when she had left Narak? She had a momentary feeling of loss, but she pushed it roughly away.
“Skal, are you sober?”
Skal flushed slightly. It was unfair of her to ask, because she knew he had been sober since that day when his friend, his acquaintance, Kaylis Faste, had tried to draw him into the plot that had killed Duke Aidon. He’d tried to drink himself into oblivion that day because of the news, because he felt both guilty by association and helpless.
“I am,” Skal responded, somewhat stiffly.
“Then we have work to do.”
The world blinked again, and they were standing in the bailey of a fortress. Skal recognised it at once. They were in the Chain.
“Hestia,” he said.
Their sudden appearance caused a stir among the Telas soldiers. Most of them recognised both Pascha and Skal. There was no hint of hostility, but men ran off to fetch someone capable of dealing with such esteemed visitors. They waited, but not for long. Captain Emmar was the first to arrive.
He glanced at Skal but his attention was drawn to Pascha. “Deus, we are honoured that you choose to visit,” he said, and dropped to one knee.
“Stand up, Captain,” Pascha said. She had never liked people kneeling to her before, and she saw no reason she should permit it now. Emmar stood.
“I will take you to the queen,” he said.
He led them into the keep and up a stone stair that would have passed for a servants’ passage in any Avilian house, it was narrow and twisted. At the top there stood a pair of guards and a door. The guards were better dressed than the other men they had seen, but still looked more ready for battle than a ballroom. Their armour was not dented, but bore the marks of being hammered out, both had beards, one had a tear in the leg of his trousers and a healed cut over one eye.
The guards did not question Emmar, or make any move to bar their way. They stood to one side, and Emmar banged on the door.
“You may enter.” The voice came from within: Hestia’s. Emmar pushed the door open and then stood back. It was plain that he did not intend to come with them. Skal stepped through first, almost as though he was in a hurry. He didn’t even glance at Pascha. She stepped through the door and heard it shut promptly behind her.
Hestia had done her best to create a throne room. She sat on a substantial chair that had been draped with velvet and silk, gold and red. There were green cushions, a footstool, all mounted on a wooden dais. She, too, was dressed for war. She wore black trousers of thick cotton, a sword at her hip, a heavy padded woollen jacket and a mail shirt over it.
Pascha found it hard to read her face. She was not slumped back at her ease, but instead leaning forwards, gripping the arms of her chair.
“Were you expecting trouble, Queen Hestia?” Pascha asked.
“We are at war, Deus,” the queen replied.
Pascha did not bother to correct her use of the old title. “Do your people know what you are?” she asked.
Hestia looked at Skal, an accusing look, Pascha thought. “They do not,” she replied.
“And if they did?”
“They would obey me.”
“I don’t suppose they would have a choice,” Pascha said. She crossed the room and sat in a chair to one side. “You want to continue to rule in Telas?”
Hestia stared at her, and again she was hard to read. She must have expected this. She was Farheim and very long lived, and such a one ruling a kingdom would lead to trouble, even civil war, as it had with Alaran. It would be even worse with Telas.
“I think it is best that I do,” Hestia replied.
“For the duration of the war, I agree,” Pascha said. “But after that?”
“Even if we win, the kingdom must be rebuilt. It will take years.”
Pascha smiled. “We will win,” she said. “The war will end on the last day of spring, but you must know that you cannot continue to rule. Your span is now centuries.”
“I am the rightful queen…”
“Through marriage. Your blood is not royal, and you have no heirs.”
“You will force me from the throne? Why can you not take it back, this gift? I did not ask for it. I did not want to be Farheim.”
“If I had not acted you would have died at Fal Verdan. Many things would be different. The gift cannot be withdrawn. The only way you can give it up is to die.”
Hestia’s head fell. It seemed she was finally defeated. “Then you have stolen my destiny,” she said.
Pascha felt the smallest pang of guilt. She was not particularly fond of Hestia. The woman was overly ambitious, driven to the point of obsession. She was Telan to the core, and lived and breathed being Telan. Even as a child in Telas Alt Pascha had not been so dedicated to her country. It had just been the place that she lived.
“You would make Telas great again?” she asked.
“It was never great,” Hestia said. “It has always been drained by war and crippled by fools.”
“How old was your mother when she died?”
“What?”
“How old?”
“Why? Why do you want to know that?”
“Answer.”
“She had seen sixty three summers,” Hestia said.
“And you have seen thirty-eight. Well, then, you may rule Telas for twenty five years, and at the end of that time, your natural span, you will select an heir and abdicate. You will enter my service for the rest of your days, or if you choose it you may die. Is that fair?”
“Fair?”
Pascha didn’t respond. It was the best offer she could make, perhaps overly generous, and she thought that she might come to regret it. A Farheim queen of Telas could be a dangerous thing, even for twenty-five years. The other kingdoms, especially the Duranders, would need some reassurance.
She could see Hestia thinking, and it seemed that her gaze had settled on Skal.
“Am I like you?” she asked. “I mean with children?”
It took a moment for Pascha to grasp her meaning, and then she did, and understood why she had been looking at Skal.
“Farheim are not sterile,” she replied. “You can breed an heir, though it will not be Farheim, but a natural man or woman.”
Hestia’s gaze shifted back to Pascha. “I accept your conditions, Deus,” she said.
Pride was a strange thing, Pascha thought. Hestia had no choice, unless she wanted to die. Yet it pleased her that this had seemed to be a negotiation, because pride was important, too. People needed their pride. This was another thing that she had learned from Narak. The Wolf always tried to persuade people to his way of thinking, even though a naked threat was likely the quicker path. He killed without hesitation, but it had always seemed to Pascha that he never did so without cause.
“You will want to be in at the end, I expect,” she said.
Hestia’s head lifted. “The end?”
“The last day of the war, the final battle, the defeat of Seth Yarra.”
“The last day of spring?”
“Yes. We will face the enemy at Fal Verdan. Take your men and march south. Skal will wait for you, and impress upon your men that all parties will be united in this, from Afaeli to Durander. There will be no petty squabbles.”
Now Hestia seemed to come back to life. Pascha was a little ashamed to be using Skal as bait, but it seemed to have the desired effect. Not only would Hestia be able to salvage some Telan pride by her presence at the battle, but she would be side by side with Skal. “I will s
ee to it. We will leave here as soon as we can.”
“See that you do,” Pascha said. She walked towards the door, and Skal turned to follow her, but she stopped. “Don’t be too long, Lord Skal,” she said. The door opened and closed behind her and Skal was still in the throne chamber, alone with Hestia. It was the least she could do.
Fifty Five – Narak
It happened faster than even he could measure. His blades moved in perfect arcs, just as he had visualised. The avatar’s blades moved, too, but in a way they were also under his control. The right blade was forced to parry, it met his own with jarring force, and the left was drawn to strike at him by the opening he had left.
That was the idea, of course. It was a life for a life.
He felt the blade cut him. More than that, it pierced him, just above the right hip. It was painful, and shocking. Narak had lived and fought for centuries without a significant wound, and now he could feel steel slicing through his flesh, jarring against bone, and the pain rose up in his mind and all but swept aside his reason.
He fought it. This was his only chance. One of his blades was held, but the other was free. He could do what he liked with it, but he needed control. He roared with pain, and found that shouting helped. He seized the kernel of clarity that it made and used it. His free blade was driving for the avatar’s throat, but at the last minute he changed the thrust into a cut, brought the blade down in a slashing curve that carved from shoulder to hip. It was his choice – a bloody cut, but not a killing blow.
The moment of clarity dissolved. The pain won, and he lay twisting on the floor, the avatar’s blade through him, pinning him to the rock. If this had been any normal fight he would have lost with that cut. Even with the thrust he would have lost and won in the same moment, but now the avatar pulled back its blade.
Then the most wonderful thing happened. The pain went away.
Narak lay for a moment, fearing that it was an illusion. He touched the place where the avatar’s blade had ripped him open, but found no wound there, and only the ghost of pain, more a memory, an expectation, than a physical thing. He stood, picked up his blades and faced the avatar again.
The avatar had not healed. The gash he had engineered marred its smooth chest, and it seemed to be leaking gold, not blood, from the cut.
Narak said nothing. Kirrith said nothing. For a while he just stood and stared and the avatar bled gold. He touched his non-existent wound again and found that there was blood on his hand. The expectation of pain was still there, but in truth it was gone. He was completely healed. Even as a Benetheon god he had never healed so quickly. This was something to do with Pascha, with what she had done at Wolfguard.
“You are Farheim,” Kirrith said, an echo of his thoughts, and the word did not sound like a compliment on the dragon’s tongue. It sounded like poison. But it made sense.
“I am what I am,” he replied. “I was a man, once, a natural man, but I have been changed many times, by men and women, gods and dragons. I do not think there is one word for what I have become.”
“Narak,” the dragon said.
“Yes, perhaps that.”
“You have done what I asked of you,” Kirrith said. He sounded almost resentful. It might have been that he was part Farheim, it might have been that his success triggered a change, but Narak could only guess.
“Now you will give me the Pity Stone,” he said.
Kirrith didn’t move. He didn’t speak. To Narak he looked as though something had stopped inside him, some conflicting forces had met and could not pass. He waited, but the dragon remained still.
“Kirrith?”
No reply, just silence and stillness. His ancient oath must be strong, and unwilling to surrender his duty to protect the stone. Yet his promise to Narak and his desire to see the plans of the Bren undone was also strong, and freshly made.
Narak looked about the chamber and saw that there were boulders lying about. He walked to one of them, a rock about waist high to him and fairly round. He put a shoulder to it and battled it slowly across the uneven floor until it rested below Kirrith’s head.
“Kirrith?”
There was still no answer. The dragon’s head was still, its eyes dull in the light of the torches. He saw a movement to his left, but it was not Kirrith. A pale shape half concealed behind a rock. He recognised it at once.
“Bren Ashet,” he said. He should have expected it. The creature stepped out from its concealment, stood staring at him, blinking. It was unhappy, he remembered that blinking was a symptom of unease.
“Wolf Narak,” the Ashet said, a reflection of his own words.
“The Bren Morain know what passes here?” he asked.
“The Bren Alar forbids it,” the Ashet replied. “I only speak of that which it commands me to speak.”
“So this is secret? The Morain does not know?”
“That is so.”
Narak nodded. He was surprised that Kirrith, the Bren Alar according to Bren mythology, could wield such power over the Ashet. It was a denial of what they were. It was to his advantage, though. It meant he could afford to ignore it. He clambered up onto the rock. He was high enough now that he could reach Kirrith’s head if he stretched. He stretched. He placed his hand on one vast scale that formed part of the dragon’s upper lip.
“I am Adelir,” he said. “The promise is Adelir. I am the promise.”
The scale on Kirrith’s lip exploded with colour, flickering with every hue of the rainbow. It continued to change, becoming a thing of extraordinary beauty, and for a moment Narak thought he had failed to stir the dragon, but then the great head lifted away, new life and light came into the yellow eyes.
The head lifted to an impossible height. It was almost as though Kirrith had taken to the air, but his great wings remained furled against his body. Narak had not thought that the dragon was so large, but uncoiled he was twice the size of Torgaris. He seemed to grow larger and larger as he rose up. Narak realised he was seeing the dragon as it was meant to be seen, that these vast creatures had an aspect every bit as disturbing as that of a Benetheon god – more so because of their unparalleled size.
And Kirrith was angry.
“I am Adelir,” Narak said. The dragon magic was strong in him. It rose up as Kirrith rose up.
“You ask me to believe,” said the dragon, its voice sibilant, yet still just a whisper short of a roar. The chamber shook, small stones clattered about them both. “You should not have asked.”
“I could do nothing else,” Narak replied. It was true. He had hardly been aware of what he was doing. He had pushed the boulder, climbed upon it, and yet there had been no conscious thought attached. He had wanted to wake Kirrith from his frozen state, no more than that. He had failed to perceive his own actions.
Kirrith closed his eyes. There was a rumble as he drew in a gale of breath, and Narak thought for a moment that he was going to be burned, but Kirrith turned his head aside, and for a moment his whole body glowed. The heat brought beads of sweat to Narak’s face, but he did not mop them away. He watched, certain that no man had ever seen such sights.
The dragon’s huge head swung down again until it rested on the floor just feet from where Narak stood, wisps of smoke drifting from the nostrils.
“You are a remarkable creature, Narak,” Kirrith said. Narak didn’t reply. What could he say? Yes? No? Either seemed false.
The avatar, which had been quite still since he had cut it, now moved again. It discarded its blades and with its right hand touched the slash across its chest. The hand came away smeared with gold. It reached out and touched Narak. The Wolf didn’t flinch. He looked at the gold, almost expecting it to be molten metal, to be burned, but it lay harmlessly against his flesh.
The avatar had produced another blade from somewhere, a short blade.
“I will give you three gifts, Wolf Narak,” Kirrith said. “Each of them brings with it a particular doom, as you will come to see with time.”
The
avatar cut him, just at the point where the dragon blood lay. The cut, of course, healed at once, but the cut was not the point. For a moment his blood mingled with that of the dragon, and the magic within him responded. If the blood had failed to burn his skin it now compensated for the oversight. He felt that his veins were on fire. His body burned from toe to scalp, and he was blind. All he could see was light, golden light.
It passed. The pain and light diminished together, leaving him drained, slumped but still on his feet. He had not felt so tired in living memory.
“That was a gift?” he asked, his tone sceptical, his tongue thick with weariness.