The Pity Stone (Book 3)

by Tim Stead

  “Then we must go,” she said.

  Blink.

  They were standing on a grassy hill, bathed in spring sunshine. Skal looked around, but could see no sign of the Great Forest, no trace of his men. “Where are we?” he asked.

  “Somewhere private,” Pascha replied. “You wanted to speak to me.”

  “I did?”

  “To ask my advice, about her.”

  Skal stared at her. If she was right he had not known it until now. But he was not one to decline a gift. “If you have advice I would welcome it, Eran,” he said.

  “You are mine, Skal,” she said. “I chose you. The others are just so much happenstance, but you were in my favour. I will tell you the truth. Hestia will live the best part of eight hundred years. For most of that time she will be just as she is now, clever, beautiful, tricky. A thousand years after she is dead you will still be young. You are the strongest, the cleverest, the most deadly of all my accidental Farheim. If you wed her and give her the heir she desires you will see that child die, and its descendents. It is very likely that you will see your line die out. Long life is cruel, Skal, but you must learn to take what pleasures you can, or it will become a burden you cannot bear

  “Marry her. Give her children. She will not betray you because I will not permit it.”

  “You heard everything?” he asked.

  “Everything. But my ears are sharp, Skal. I do not think the others heard.”

  Skal looked about him again. In the distance he could see a river, silver and sluggish, winding through green land cut into square fields. There was a wood beyond, and further still a range of low, blue hills. He could see a thin column of smoke rising above a house. He took a deep breath, and there was a hint of wood smoke there, too, and everything else.

  “You have lived a long time,” he said. “Did you ever love?”

  Pascha seemed startled by the question, but she replied promptly enough. “Twice,” she said. “I was a fool both times, but for different reasons, and in different ways. I regret neither.”

  Skal smiled. “Thank you, Eran,” he said. “Shall we go?”

  Fifty Eight – Pascha

  Pascha sat alone in her room at Wolfguard and tried to summon all the tasks that yet remained before her plan could be called complete. It was an arrogant plan, or so Pelion had named it, but he had still smiled as he said it. Arrogance was perhaps a god mage’s prerogative.

  For all its ambition it was a good plan, an elegant plan, a plan that might end the war and bring peace at a single stroke. And it was all coming to fruition, one fragment at a time. Skal was back with his men, Hestia was marching south, Hammerdan was dealt with, Fashmanion was ended. She had sent messages to all the allied kings and they, too, were responding. All her forces would be at Fal Verdan on the appointed day.

  Now she needed to ensure the enemy’s presence. Both enemies.

  She was certain that she could control everything. Her power was such that neither the Bren nor Seth Yarra presented a problem. They would obey her if she made that plain enough.

  She picked at the tray that one of Narak’s people had left beside the bed. There was always food on hand at Wolfguard. Narak’s people were the finest to be found. She only had to wish for something, it seemed, and someone would appear with it. Even the loss of The Wolf’s remarkable steward had not changed things that much.

  She pulled on her boots, threw a cloak about her shoulders and went out into the corridor. She turned left, downwards, followed the slow curve. She did not meet anyone, though she knew there were people about. She had taken Skal to his men, Cain and Sheyani back to Bas Erinor along with the quiet one, Jerac Fane. She hadn’t known what to make of Fane. He was one of Narak’s unaccountable whims – an old man made young again, a carpenter who’d bought him a drink. She had no idea what drove Narak’s choices in such things, but he was invariably correct.

  She came to the moat. It had been drained again – a laborious process – and the dead Seth Yarra removed from the corridors, the dark stains scrubbed from the stones. It was almost as if they had never attacked. She went down the steps, crossed the still damp stone – small puddles remained from the draining – and climbed up on the other side.

  Now she was in Narak’s personal domain. It felt deserted, as well it might. The lord of Wolfguard had been away a long time. It was still spotlessly clean. She passed the door that led to his study – still locked, and a place she had not trespassed – and on past the lower kitchens. It was all quiet and empty.

  She had felt something here before, a presence, a hole in the void. Now she felt it again. This time she knew what it was.

  Pascha walked on until she came to the lair, the deepest, darkest corner of Wolfguard. This was truly Narak’s place. It was unlit and unheated. Her breath made clouds in the chill air and she picked up the last lamp from its niche in the wall of the corridor and crossed the threshold.

  This was indeed a place of ghosts. The lamp struggled against the darkness, and Pascha against the weight of memory. For hundreds of years this had been her place, too. She had shared it with Narak, slept on his bed, eaten at his table. Here they had laughed, loved, argued and fought. She set the lamp down on the table and sat next to it. She closed her eyes and tried to cast herself back. Things had been very different. There had been no war, no death to come between them.

  Had it all been her fault? Was her desertion the spur that had created the Bloodstained God? Perhaps if she had been at his side she could have eased his grief at Remard’s death. He would have listened to her. Perhaps. It might all have been different.

  This was not the time. The past was past. You cannot unspill blood.

  Pascha stood and walked across the lair to a point just to the left of the door. She reached out her hand and it passed through the solid rock. She pulled and it came out again, clutching a Bren Ashet by the neck. It struggled pointlessly in her grasp, legs waving a foot above the floor. She carried it back to the table and set it down.

  “I have a message for you, messenger,” she said.

  The Bren was blinking furiously, rubbing its neck where she had seized it.

  “You are The Sparrow,” it said.

  “No.” She stared at the pale creature. It looked faintly repulsive, like something you might find under a rock. “I was. I am Eran Pascha, true heir of Pelion.”

  “It will be contested,” the Ashet said.

  “So I would expect. The Bren have fallen into error.” The Ashet continued to blink rapidly. It did not reply. “This is the message,” she added. “The Bren Morain of the highest rank will come with what force he deems fit to the place known as Fal Verdan on the last day of spring, at dusk, and there we will decide the issue of my inheritance or his. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “He is to bring Pelion’s crown.” The blinking became frantic until the Ashet simply closed its eyes and stood, swaying, next to the table. “You thought I did not know of it,” Pascha said. “I do. The Morain will bring it.”

  “I only carry the message,” the Ashet said.

  “Of course. No blame attaches.”

  The Ashet opened its eyes again. “The message is delivered,” it said.

  “And?”

  “The Morain will be there. It is agreed.”

  “And Pelion’s crown?”

  “There is no reply.”

  Pascha smiled. No reply. The crown would be there whether they wished it or not. She knew what it was and what it did. Pelion had told her, and doubtless the Bren also knew. That is why they hid it, why bringing it to Fal Verdan was the very last thing they would do.

  It didn’t matter. They would come.

  “You may return to your rock,” Pascha said. The Bren did not move at once, but stood by her for a moment.

  “I will be here,” it said. “If you need me you need only speak.”

  “I will not need you again,” she said.

  The Bren scurried across to the
rock wall by the door and vanished within it. Pascha remained seated, looking around the great chamber of the lair by the inadequate light of her single lamp. As she sat she became aware of a sense of loss. Those had been good times. They had not been burdened with grief and death. There had been no mistakes to regret. She had been… happy.

  Oh, Narak, what a mess we have made of things.

  Fifty Nine – Narak

  Narak tried to look inside himself. The truth was that even he did not know what he had become. Kirrith had called him dragon kin, but he did not know what that meant. He could not doubt that he was changed – again – but what kind of monster he had become was a mystery. The name alone: dragon kin. It was enough to engender fear.

  But he was blind to it all. What Pascha had done to him was now clear enough. He was Farheim, but something else, too. The unexpected chemistry between Benetheon god and Farheim had slowed whatever change had been wrought. Now to that heady mix Kirrith had added dragon blood.

  “What have you done to me, Kirrith?”

  The dragon shifted its huge bulk and looked down at Narak. “The consequences are not entirely understood,” he said.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I know that it is a gift,” Kirrith said. “I do not know the exact nature of the gift, but it will give you strength.”

  Narak looked at his hands. He listened to his body. He could detect no change. He felt as he had always felt: strong, healthy, sharp.

  “At least I have not grown scales,” he said.

  “You do not understand dragons, Narak,” Kirrith said. “You probably never will, but there is a quality to what we are that you should be told. Although we are capable of reason, it is not our primary nature. We know things. When I hear you speak I know if your words are true or false. When I see a mountain I know how high it is. I know how fast the wind blows, how deep the snow is, how cold a stream is. I do not have to measure these things, and I have no scale within me. It is just that I know.”

  Narak looked sceptical. “You know truth from lies, but not right from wrong?”

  “It seems absurd, but that is quite correct. Our nature was to destroy. It still is. What Pelion did to us gave us the knowledge of consequences, of pain and suffering that we did not have before. Right and wrong are not as absolute as men like to think, but pain and suffering are plain enough, and now we are more comfortable in their absence. Indeed, we abhor them.”

  “The Pity Stone,” Narak said.

  “Yes, that thing. I said that I would give it to you.”

  “You did.” Narak had decided not to push too hard – not yet. Kirrith was clearly unhappy giving it up. He had guarded the jewel for two thousand years, and it was troubling for the dragon to even display it. But Kirrith shifted about, reached back and produced a wooden chest about two feet square. It was a plain piece made of a hard, dark wood that Narak did not recognise. Kirrith set it down on the ground between them, but left one huge claw draped over the lid, making it impossible to open. It was surprising that so huge a creature could be delicate enough to pick up so small a box.

  “This is the stone?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Narak studied the box. He would have expected arcane symbols, exquisite carving, gold inlay, but he saw none of it. The box was simple, smooth sided, closed with a simple hasp through which a wedge of wood had been thrust. The colour was almost black, but in the light of the torches he could see the dark grain.

  “May I see it?” he asked.

  For a moment he thought that Kirrith would refuse, and the box would be whisked away once more, but the dragon lifted his claw and laid it beside the box with treacle slowness. Narak paused for a moment to be sure that Kirrith was comfortable, then pulled the wooden wedge, flipped the hasp up and opened the box.

  It was full of cloth. It looked like white satin. It had been pushed in to fill up the box with the idea that the stone would not rattle around inside. He touched the cloth.

  “Beware of the stone, Narak,” Kirrith said. “When you look upon it, it will change you.”

  Narak wondered if it would. He was already well endowed with conscience, and weighed down with more than his share of regrets. He pushed his hand down into the cloth and found a hard object beneath. He rummaged the cloth aside until he held the stone cleanly. It certainly felt like a jewel. It was half the size of a fist, cut in smooth planes like a diamond or ruby. He felt nothing.

  He pulled the stone free of its wrappings and held it before him. His fingers had not lied about its size or cut, and if this had been a diamond it would have been worth half of Bas Erinor. It was a beautiful gem. The colours were impossible. It was as though someone had captured red and blue smoke within the most perfect diamond. It was clear as spring water despite the colours.

  He stared into the heart of it, but the only sensation that came to him was warmth, like a flush, spreading from his hand up his arm and into his body. It was soothing. Kirrith was staring at him, clearly waiting for some reaction, some evidence of pain.

  Narak was surprised, too. This was the terrible pity stone? This was what had conquered dragons where all else had failed? It was no more painful than a warm bath. He tested himself. He thought of Afael, the burning ships, the streets piled with the bloody product of his work, the stones slick with blood. He felt guilt for what had been an unnecessary slaughter, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The stone did nothing.

  He opened his eyes again. Suddenly he felt it. The stone took hold of him and judged him. But it was not at all what he expected. The stone did not seem to examine his deeds. It looked instead at his feeling of guilt, at his remorse. It recognised his burden of mistakes, his wishing that things had not been so. Then just as suddenly it was gone. If this was a test he had passed it. He placed the stone back in the box and closed the lid.

  “You felt nothing?” Kirrith seemed shocked.

  “I did,” Narak replied. “It judged me.”

  “It judged you?”

  “Aye, it did, and apparently I am not to be changed.”

  “Not changed? But you are a famous killer of men. If there is one among you that comes close to us in the terrible nature of our deeds it is you.”

  It was not exactly a compliment. Narak had never really thought of himself that way – it was like comparing an apple to an orchard –but he acknowledged the truth of what Kirrith said.

  “Apart from the question of scale,” he said. “But there is a difference. I have always killed for a cause, even if it is one so wrong headed as revenge, and I have always regretted my mistakes. I do not need a magic stone to add to my burden.”

  Kirrith looked at him for a long time, almost as though he did not believe the words that Narak had spoken. “It seems,” he said eventually, “that it is not so entirely foolish to believe.”

  A rustling noise drew Narak’s eyes to the dark Bren tunnel, and he saw that the Ashet had emerged into the torch light. It was standing only a few paces forwards from where it had hidden, but it clearly sought their attention, or Kirrith’s, at least.

  “Mighty Bren Alar,” it said. “There has been a message.”

  “Who speaks?” The dragon’s head swung low, close to the Ashet, and Narak had a side view for the first time. He was again impressed by the size. A plough horse could have stood behind it and been invisible.

  “One naming herself as Eran Pascha calls upon the Bren Morain.”

  “Eran?” Kirrith’s head swung in Narak’s direction. “This is the one that made you Farheim?”

  “An accident,” he said.

  “She is the Sparrow that was,” Kirrith said. “What is the message?”

  The Ashet told him: The last day of spring, Fal Verdan, Pelion’s crown.

  For a while the dragon seemed lost in thought. Narak wanted to assure him that Pascha had only the best intentions, that she wanted what Kirrith wanted, but he judged it best not to disturb the creature’s meditations, and anyway, he did not think that hi
s opinions would carry much weight at this point.

  The Ashet withdrew a few steps back out of the torch light and into its tunnel.

  Narak thought of Pascha. She was going to face down the Bren and the Seth Yarra both together. Her power must be great indeed to attempt such a thing.

  “It is twelve days,” Kirrith said suddenly. “We will go to Fal Verdan. We will see this confrontation, and you may use the stone.”

  That had been the intent all along – to use the stone to stop the Bren massacre of Seth Yarra, but now it seemed presumptuous. It might not work. It might not be needed. Narak trusted Pascha, but he knew that Kirrith and the other dragons had no cause to do the same. Somehow he would have to warn her that he was coming – that they were coming. It would change everything.