What Lies Within (Book 5)

by Martin Ash

  'Ah,' said Aztin, 'Master Urch may have misled you in certain respects. We have already been able to hold the tail steady for a short time within a reasonably small area within your world.'

  Leth felt a pulse of hope. 'How small?'

  'Some tens of square miles. Urch-Malmain's irritation is occasioned by our not being even more precise. He wishes to step precisely into a location of his exact choosing.'

  'Does the obturation allow you greater precision?'

  'It should, were it not for the fact that the tail is now being influenced by this unidentified other, or indeed others.'

  'And you have no clue as to who this other or others may be?'

  'By my understanding, that is the meaning of the word 'unidentified',’ replied Aztin tartly.

  'What of their motive?'

  'That is surely obvious. To gain control of the tail, and hence command the Portal itself.'

  'Yes,' mused Leth, 'but are they Urch-Malmain's foes or something else? Do they even know that it is Urch-Malmain who has constructed the Portal?'

  'We have no way of ascertaining these things. We have attempted communication, but to no avail.'

  'To what degree have they established influence?'

  'No greater than we. Far less, in fact. But their efforts have a tendency to disrupt ours, and vice versa. They are a cursed nuisance.' Aztin made a queer sound, like a wet whinny. 'Now, Swordbearer, I think I see where your questions are leading. However, if I am not mistaken, the only person to benefit from the plan you are outlining would appear to be yourself. That is supposing the plan bears fruit. Am I wrong? What, then, of us?'

  'I was coming to that. It seems to me that your arrangement with Urch-Malmain is a far from happy one, and that, were you able, you would extricate yourselves from it as quickly as possible. I wonder, what is required before you can dismantle this Portal and return to your own domains and dimensions.'

  'Why, Urch-Malmain's permission, of course,' replied Aztin.

  'His permission? Nothing more? What of payment?'

  'Payment?'

  'For your services.'

  'Ah. Experience is our payment. As we disperse we will have absorbed into our beings all that has occurred here, in the form of harmonic resonances and correlations that previously we did not possess. We will carry them with us forever. They will nourish us, lighten our souls, and in time will perhaps come to enhance the quality and character of our separate existences. It pleases us greatly.'

  'And that is all?' enquired Leth, astonished. 'You are willing to suffer the indignities and broken promises that Urch-Malmain has heaped upon you, simply for the experience?'

  'That is it precisely. What else is there, after all? The quality, as you would no doubt view it, is of little relevance. We learn, we grow.'

  With one finger Leth scratched the side of his nose. 'Well, perhaps I can enhance your experience even further. What would it require to liberate you of your sense of obligation to Urch-Malmain?'

  Aztin considered, then said, 'A moment, please. I must consult.'

  The Portal was silent. Leth stood tensely, fearful his time would run out. He was by no means certain that he was going to achieve his aim here, and his anxiety mounted. He glanced towards the door, then smiled at his two children and spoke a few encouraging words.

  Aztin finally broke the artefact's silence. 'Swordbearer, we have consulted. We have weighed your words, and firstly I will say this: we disapprove of the general manner in which Urch-Malmain has conducted his business with us. He is despicable rogue, a vile felon, an unprincipled reprobate, conscienceless and probably beyond redemption. A perverse, corrupt, demonic and immoral creature . . .'

  'Yes, that is how I see it,' put in Leth, encouraged.

  '. . . but we are not at this stage prepared to renege upon our compact with him. Urch-Malmain may have acted less than honourably, but we are honest and upright entities. We have entered into a compact of business and we intend to honour it. To do otherwise would be to besmirch our bright souls. We would be diminished in our own eyes, would have become like him for whom we hold so little respect. Hence the issue as you propose it is not one of liberating ourselves from a sense of obligation to Urch-Malmain. Rather it is one of liberating ourselves from our own true nature - something we have no desire or inclination to do.'

  Leth reconsidered rapidly. 'Very well. I respect that sentiment. The point I wish most strongly to emphasize is that Urch-Malmain is indeed a person morally bereft and utterly depraved. He is a scourge upon any world, any society. He is not of this domain, but in his own world - my world - he has access to far greater power and is capable of acts of wickedness on an incalculably greater scale than here. I cannot permit him to return to our world, yet I am powerless to prevent him.'

  'It is more or less as I thought,' observed Aztin. 'You are asking us to keep him here.'

  'Will you do that?'

  'We cannot command him.'

  'You could persuade him that the Portal is unsafe.'

  'Such subterfuge would sully us.'

  At that moment there was a loud hammering on the door at Leth's back. He spun around. The door shuddered. He heard Urch-Malmain's voice, harsh and incensed: 'Swordbearer! What have you done?'

  An axe was being used on the door. It would be through in moments. Galry and Jace ran to their father and clutched his legs.

  'Swordbearer, you will suffer for this!'

  Leth turned back to the artefact. 'Aztin, will you aid us?'

  'What is it that you require?'

  'To escape. Now. If we remain we will become Urch-Malmain's slaves forever.'

  'We do not know that it is within our power to aid you.'

  'Are you truly honourable and upright? Can you live with yourselves and evolve in the knowledge that you have denied assistance to ones who have come to you in desperation and fear for their very souls?'

  'You wish to pass through the Portal.'

  'Yes, with my children.'

  'I cannot prevent Urch-Malmain from pursuing you.'

  'What of the tail? Will he know where we have gone? Will he be able to follow?'

  'I have said, we barely control the tail.'

  The axe blows struck again, and again. Leth glanced back, saw the gleaming edge of a curved blade slice through the splintering wood and work free to strike again.

  'Do you have any idea of where we will be transported to?' he asked Aztin.

  'Little. As long as there is no extraneous interference it will be somewhere within your own domain.'

  'And there will be no exchange?'

  'I think not, but nothing is certain. You are taking a considerable risk, Swordbearer. You could find yourselves in the clutches of those who influence the tail.'

  I know it, thought Leth. But he had gone too far now. The risk could not be greater than remaining here.

  The axe crashed behind him; the timbers creaked and moaned as they were riven apart.

  'Aztin, one last thing. Is it possible for me to locate the tail again and return here?'

  'Why would you do that?'

  'Please, just answer me.'

  The door hammered and shuddered. Urch-Malmain shrieked, 'Swordbearer, I see you! Stop! Stop now!'

  'Don't look!' Leth commanded his children, holding their heads so that they might not meet the Noeticist's gaze. 'Don't look at his face!'

  'Take this,' Aztin said. Something small formed in the mist under the arch and fell to the floor at Leth's feet. Leth bent to pick it up.

  'What is it?'

  'A Locator. It will tell you in which direction the tail lies.'

  'Swordbearer! Swordbearer!'

  Leth glanced back, and could see Urch-Malmain's crazed, contorted features through the gap that had been smashed in the door. He grabbed his terrified children and said again, 'Do not look at his face!' He stepped towards the portal. 'Aztin? We can go?'

  'Yes. But I can guarantee nothing.'

  'Swordbearer! Stop! I command you! Stop, no
w!'

  Leth held Jace and Galry close, took a deep breath, and stepped into the fume beneath the silvery arch.

  THREE

  i

  Far away, other travellers had already stepped with pounding hearts and clammy palms through a portal of another type, into the unknown. The air in the underground chamber beneath the secret Karai camp, where the Farplace Opening swelled and pulsed, had been close and unnaturally lit. Overhead Karai warriors swarmed through the ruined camp. Queen Issul, knowing that in moments she would have been discovered, had clutched the blue casket of the Orb to her bosom in some trepidation. What choice did she have? Orbelon warned that a Reach Rider possibly waited on the other side. But she had come this far . . .

  With Orbelon and Shenwolf at her side she had entered, for the second time, the glorious oval of trembling, opalescent light: the Farplace Opening.

  It was different this time. Previously the Opening had reached out and embraced her. It had taken her in the space of a heartbeat into the lofty tower chamber within Enchantment where the three white-skinned, white-haired, blue-eyed child-beings who called themselves Triune waited. This time something had changed.

  Issul found herself again in the almost bare chamber in Triune's tower. A heavy rectangular table and three unembellished wooden chairs were the sole furnishings. Outside, the mountains blazed with fiery auras of intermingling shades of crimson, green and gold. The air shifted and crackled, a maze of astonishing colours, of ghostly shapes merging but never quite forming, breaking up and dispersing, only to almost form again, and again, and again.

  'Ah, Enchantment . . . !' breathed Orbelon. 'So long! The unstill air; something always striving to become.'

  Issul's apprehension grew; she felt her skin crawl. His words echoed almost faultlessly words that had been spoken to her by Triune when she had been drawn here before. Panic had threatened to choke her then, as she swam, helplessly suspended in a globe of coloured mist. She had thought she had gone mad. The shadow of that feeling rose within her now. She was aware of how vulnerable she was, how she was confronting powers that she had no real comprehension of. Directed against her; she was without defence.

  She glanced across at Shenwolf. He had his sword drawn and was peering about him, wild-eyed and unsure of himself. Her gaze returned to Orbelon, then scanned the chamber. She realized immediately what it was that had changed.

  This time there was no vaporous globe containing and constraining her. She stood freely upon the uncertain floor.

  And Triune was not present.

  'It’s all right, child,' said Orbelon softly, sensitive to her disquiet. 'We have passed through safely.'

  'But where is Triune?' queried Issul. 'And what of the Reach Rider?'

  'This is what we must discover. Stay close to me at all times. You need my protection.' Orbelon glanced at Shenwolf. 'Are you all right?'

  'I feel no ill effects, bar a gut feeling that all is not well,' Shenwolf replied.

  'Then the talisman is effective, as I had hoped. Tell me immediately if you feel any change.' Orbelon seemed to study the tower chamber. 'Something extraordinary is happening here. I do not know what it is, but it is not quite what I had anticipated.'

  'Are we in danger?' Issul asked.

  'We should remain alert and expect the unexpected. Now, before we go further, tell me something. Does Triune know that you are Queen of Enchantment's Reach?'

  'I- I don't know. I did not tell her as much, nor did she indicate that she was aware. But I did make plain my concern over Enchantment's Reach. Is it important?'

  'I do not know, but for the present let’s keep it to ourselves.'

  He turned to Shenwolf, who nodded. 'Very good.'

  Orbelon raised his voice and spoke in sonorous tones. 'Triune! Are you here? Show yourself if you are. Triune! I am Orbelon. I have returned.'

  There was no response, no sense of the tower being occupied. The air eddied and surged outside. Issul thought again that she heard a faint crackling sound, as if improbable energies seethed.

  'I don’t believe Triune would willingly have deserted this place,' said Orbelon. 'And . . . no, the evidence in the underground chamber was that a Reach Rider was preparing to break through. And there is a Reach Rider close by. I sense it. But . . . Something . . . I cannot grasp it.'

  He moved a little way across the chamber. Issul kept pace with him. Shenwolf went the other way, examining the walls, for there was no obvious sign of a way out. Issul glanced back; the Farplace Opening through which they had come shimmered, pale blue and cloudy grey, much less dazzling than in the Karai bunker.

  Orbelon spoke again. 'Triune. Are you here?'

  Again there was only the sound of the air outside. To Issul Orbelon said, 'You are in no doubt, this is the place that Triune told you was hers?'

  Again Issul sent her thoughts back to that fear-filled time when she had first entered this chamber. 'No. As I recall she made no specific reference to the tower itself. She said she had acquired the Farplace Opening from the god who aids the Karai.' Another thought came to Issul. 'She said . . . she said she was giving me something, though I do not know what. She told me I could dream and bring her forth.'

  'Then perhaps it is you, rather than I, who have the power to summon her.'

  'I don’t know how.'

  'Call her, in her three separate forms. Call her and see what happens.'

  Issul did so. 'Triune, it is I, Issul, who came here from the formed world, from the Reach. I upon whom you bestowed a gift. You said you could be with me. If you hear me, come forth now.'

  A sixth sense made Issul look behind her. Blinking in the blur of the Farplace Opening was a triad of Karai warriors. They were momentarily dazed, but their bright gem-eyes focused quickly. Two of them advanced immediately upon Shenwolf, whose back was turned. The third came towards Issul.

  'Shenwolf!' Issul yelled. She swiftly stooped to put down the blue casket, then with sword drawn met the third Karai.

  He came at her, swinging his blade, lunging. She darted back, parrying the blow. From the other side of the chamber she heard the clash of steel against steel as Shenwolf met the other two, but she was too hard-pressed to see how he fared.

  The Karai drove forward, grim-faced and determined despite his disorientation. He stabbed and slashed with a flurry of rapid, powerful blows. There was little space to maneuver. Issul, using the long, unfamiliar sword she had taken from Tracker in the woods, found herself disadvantaged. She deflected his thrusts, but the force of his blows jarred her arm and she was unable to gain the offensive.

  Her heel came up against the stone wall of the chamber. Reflexively she bent her knees, lowering her centre and slipping to the side as the Karai struck. His blade slammed into the stone, raising sparks. Issul brought her own sword up, slicing near-vertically as she ducked free. She heard him grunt as her blade opened his arm. She pulled away, stepping around and to the side. Two-handed, she hefted the sword and swung as the Karai wheeled about to face her. Her blade caught him hard in the neck, liberating a stream of bright blood. He staggered, marvellous eyes widening in pained surprise, then fell, clutching his neck.

  She spun around. One of Shenwolf's assailants was on the ground, blood seeping beneath him. The other, as she watched, was forced against the wall, his sword knocked from his hand, the point of Shenwolf's blade pressed to his throat. He should have yielded. Instead his gaze met Shenwolf's, darted to Issul and Orbelon, then met Shenwolf's once more. He nodded slightly, without emotion, seeming to make an acknowledgement of some kind. Then he drove himself forward so that the blade pierced his windpipe, passing through his neck to protrude briefly at the base of his skull.

  Shenwolf cursed and pulled back, drawing the weapon free. The Karai sank to his knees, gurgling, choking on his own blood. He turned his pained eyes to Shenwolf again, and reached out for the sword.

  Shenwolf looked disconsolately to Issul. 'He is dying. We cannot save him now.'

  'Then help him die.'<
br />
  She sighed. The ghastly wet sound of the Karai's breathing ceased. Resignedly she crossed to the other one and with Shenwolf's help rolled him onto his back. He was alive, but unconscious and barely breathing. Shenwolf's sword had penetrated deep between his ribs. He would not last long.

  Issul looked back at the Farplace Opening. 'The others will come, from the camp. As many as fifty or more. We can't hope to fight them all.'

  She realized at that moment that they were no longer alone in the high chamber. Standing beside the table at the far end were three slender children of indeterminate gender. They were identical but for slight variations in height. They were motionless, near-expressionless, their hair long and pure white, their eyes glowing a fabulous, unnatural, deep lapis blue. Each wore a long loose garment of resplendent silver-white.

  'Triune.'

  ii

  The three children blinked in perfect synchrony, looking from one to the other of their three visitors. Their gaze lingered on Orbelon.

  'Orbelon, is it truly you, after so long?' enquired the middle child.

  Orbelon leaned heavily upon his staff. 'Aye, it is me.'

  'Yes, and across the eons you have not altered. Are we surprised by this? Perhaps not. But we see that you come with our visitor from the Reach. Now that intrigues us. And who is this other who fights alongside her?'

  Shenwolf came forward to stand at Issul's side. 'I am Shenwolf.'

  'That has no meaning for us.'

  'He is a warrior who shares our hopes and aspirations,' Orbelon said.

  'Hmm. Well, explain to us, Orbelon; inform Triune, what are these hopes and aspirations? Why do you come here, now?'

  'In part to speak to you, to seek your advice and aid. Why did you not answer my summons?'

  'Our first response was that you were of insufficient interest.'

  Orbelon spluttered, plainly affronted.

  'But our visitor from the Reach, now that is another matter.' The three children smiled at Issul. 'But tell us, why did you not inform us? Why did you not dream and bring us forth, as we told you to do? We seek our reunion and you could have assisted us.'