Best Laid Plans

by D. P. Prior

  Shader waited a moment before continuing. ‘The man responsible works for Governor Gen. He’s some sort of medical advisor. Goes by the name of Cadman. He’s the one now in control of your city.’

  Hagalle’s eyes narrowed at the mention of the Governor. ‘I knew it. Backstabbing ponce. What did I tell you, Starn? Gen’s been nothing but trouble, just like his arse-licking ancestors.’

  ‘I don’t think the Governor’s involved,’ Shader said. ‘This Cadman’s not all he seems. He has power over the dead and he possesses two pieces of the Statue of Eingana. He nearly got hold of a third.’ Shader’s skin crawled as he once more felt the cold touch of the Dweller. ‘With the statue fully assembled he’ll have the power of the Reckoning at his fingertips. My Lord Emperor, set aside your quarrel with Nousians. Let us help you.’

  ‘Fantastical nonsense,’ Hagalle said. ‘I would have heard, if this were true. I have eyes and ears everywhere. Everywhere!’

  ‘The plague, my Lord Emperor,’ Starn said. ‘We have been effectively blinded to events in Sarum.’

  ‘And what of the plague now?’ Hagalle asked.

  ‘It’s been dying down,’ Shader said. ‘It’s my belief that the plague and Cadman are linked, but I can’t understand why it should retreat as his power increases.’

  ‘Because the statue has now attuned to his necromancy,’ said a new voice, causing everyone to turn in astonishment.

  ‘Please excuse my interruption,’ Aristodeus said, appearing out of nowhere, ‘but there is more at stake here than you can imagine. The time has come for you to play your part, Hagalle.’

  ‘Who are you to tell me what to do?’ Hagalle took a step towards the philosopher.

  Aristodeus raised a finger, his eyes locked on Hagalle’s, icy and unwavering. ‘I’m the one who kept your pathetic empire together when you were too frightened to take a shit in case there were assassins down the latrine.’

  Hagalle’s jaw dropped and Starn put his hands to his ears.

  ‘If it weren’t for me,’ the philosopher continued like a schoolmaster reprimanding an errant child, ‘the Eastern Lords would have crushed your so-called dynasty the day your father died; and even all his successes came from my hand. I don’t have time to flatter Imperial egos, Hagalle. I’ve watched over you since you were a boy and you’re still a boy now as far as I’m concerned.’

  Shader watched his old mentor with the feeling that he’d never really known the man. All these years he’d been moulding Hagalle, preparing him for whatever was unravelling. What did that say about Shader’s own childhood, the years of lessons he’d had from Aristodeus? And more to the point, how had the philosopher been on opposite sides of the world at the same time?

  ‘As Shader says, put aside your quarrel with Aeterna. You must join with her if we are to survive the coming storm. All of us,’ and here Aristodeus turned his eyes on Shader, ‘have our parts to play. The outcome is balanced on a knife’s edge. Do not fail me now, Hagalle.’

  ‘I will never ally with Aeterna,’ Hagalle said. ‘But as for the matter of a ghoulish army in one of my cities, rest assured, it won’t be there long.’

  ‘And Deacon Shader?’ Aristodeus asked. ‘Don’t forget I need him.’

  Shader looked at the philosopher, but saw nothing other than cold calculation in his grey-blue eyes.

  ‘He will be kept here until I decide what action to take,’ Hagalle said.

  Aristodeus nodded, seemingly satisfied.

  ‘And Aristodeus,’ Hagalle said, his jaw set firm. ‘Next time I see you, I’ll cut that bald head from your shoulders. Is that understood?’

  A flash of anger crossed Aristodeus’s face, but then the air around him shimmered and he was gone.

  Hagalle bunched his shoulders and stared at his feet. After what seemed an eternity he spoke.

  ‘Ready the troops, General.’

  Starn saluted and hurried from the pavilion, tripping on the flap as he went.

  ‘So,’ Hagalle said, studying Shader, ‘you know the bald bastard, too. Funny that, because he’s the one you remind me of. Something about the eyes. You related?’

  Shader shook his head. A cold knotting had started in his stomach. Childhood memories drifted into mind and dispersed, drifted and dispersed. His mother and father; the Brinwood friars…and then blackness. Where were all the others? The other children? His extended family? Just Jarl, Gralia, Frater Kelvin, and Aristodeus. Always Aristodeus…

  ‘Got any Graecian in you?

  Shader swallowed and shifted his focus back to the interior of the tent. ‘Britannish, through and through.’

  ‘So, what’s your role in all this?’

  ‘No idea,’ Shader said, ‘but I’m getting the impression it’s not going to be good.’

  Hagalle pursed his lips. The next instant he clapped his hands and nodded to the guards flanking Shader. They each seized an arm and bent them up high on Shader’s back.

  ‘What about Barek Thomas?’ Shader asked.

  Hagalle looked blank for a moment, scratched his beard and then said to one of the guards, ‘Cut him down and chain him up with this one until I return from Sarum.’

  The Emperor glared at the map he’d been studying when Shader arrived. Without warning he smashed his fist into it, picked it up and started ripping it to shreds. The guards hovered uncertainly for a moment and then bundled Shader out of the pavilion.

  FENRIR FOREST

  Shader was dumped amongst a clump of grasstrees. His wrists and ankles were shackled with iron that pinched, cutting off the blood and numbing his fingers and toes. He felt a mixture of relief that Hagalle was going to investigate Sarum and hopelessness at his own situation. This Shadrak had taken the serpent statue, and he felt naked without it.

  He felt even more vulnerable without the gladius. It had spared him from the Dweller and magically healed his body, but there was bound to be a price to pay. If anything, his cheating of death had somehow rendered life more precious. He’d always thought himself ready to meet his maker, but now he wasn’t quite so certain. He allowed himself a sardonic smile. Hardly the self-surrender required of a Nousian.

  Barek Thomas’s broken and bloodied body was dragged beside him with no need for chains.

  ‘Don’t be cross,’ said one of the soldiers, a gap-toothed man with greying black hair swept back in a ponytail.

  His balding companion punched him on the arm and groaned. ‘That’s terrible, Pete.’

  Pete reached down and took hold of Shader’s shackles. ‘Well, Anthony, I suggest you take your complaint up the chain of command.’

  ‘You stupid sod,’ Anthony said as they headed towards the tarpaulin shades on the edge of the grasstrees. ‘Hey, what d’you s’pose their favourite armour is?’

  ‘Very good, Anthony, very good. Guess if we put them on work detail they’d be in the…’

  Barek was pale from loss of blood. His hands were red and swollen where the nails had pierced him. He whimpered and mumbled something through dry and cracked lips.

  ‘Try to rest Barek,’ Shader said, looking around for something the youth could drink. They’d been left no food or water, and little shelter from the sweltering sun. He called over to the guards, but they merely raised their canteens and drank appreciatively.

  Shader felt his anger rising—it was directed more at himself than the soldiers. His rashness had put Barek’s life at risk. The last thing you do with a lunatic like Hagalle is come to him with open arms. More Nousian idealism leading to yet another disaster. Shader shook his head. Maybe he was just chasing castles in the sky like his father used to say. Right now he knew what Jarl would have done, and for once Shader was starting to agree with him.

  Propping his back against the trunk of a grasstree, he scanned the area once more and saw the glint of something metallic reflecting the light of the sun. He squinted at it—a shining object skirting in and out of the stunted trees. As it drew closer he gasped, recognizing the Sword of the Archon racing through the
air towards him. The gladius came to a halt in front of his face, a couple of feet above the ground. The blade shifted to Shader’s wrists and touched the manacles. There was a flash of light and the chains fell away. The sword did the same with the bindings around his ankles before settling itself snugly into his right hand, pulsing and purring to itself.

  Shader looked to the guards’ position some twenty yards away. They didn’t seem to have noticed the sword’s movement and continued their idle banter. The city of tents petered out to the west, the layout affording a straight avenue all the way to the edge of Fenrir Forest. The road from the north skirted the forest, bypassing its foreboding gloom.

  The trees were clearly not indigenous, their leaves perennial and dark green. Fenrir sprawled all the way to the Western Ocean and for untold miles to the north. It was most likely the creation of the Ancients, with their penchant for introducing their own native flora and fauna into the barren soil of Sahul.

  Their best option would be to head through the forest and make for the sea. Hagalle would find and confront Cadman, freeing Shader to go after Shadrak. He just hoped Rhiannon and the priests would be all right, and that Justin didn’t go and do something stupid. Not that Shader could talk.

  Barek groaned, his body going taut and then starting to spasm. Shader crawled to his side as the gladius began to glow. Casting a glance at the guards, he returned the blade to its scabbard. Heat passed into his thigh, rising along his spine and flowing to his arms and hands. Without thinking, Shader reached for Barek and gasped as light streamed from his fingers into the youth’s flesh. Barek’s tremors stilled and he shone like a Luminary. The wounds made by the nails started to close and the light dispersed. Barek’s chest rose and fell like a bellows, his face ruddy and full of vigour.

  ‘Master Shader,’ he said. We thought you were…’

  Shader fell back, limp and spent, but the sword surged again, its heat passing through the scabbard to fill him with strength and euphoria.

  One of the guards moved off, presumably to relieve himself, and the other was busy shoving food into his face.

  Barek sat upright and tried to stand, but Shader put a restraining hand on his arm. The lad looked ready to burst with energy. He nodded and followed Shader’s gaze towards the forest. They waited until the other guard returned, lacing his breeches. As soon as the soldiers recommenced their banter, Shader tapped Barek on the shoulder and they scampered for the cover of the nearest tent. Checking to make sure they’d not been seen, they sprinted to the next one and then onto the bitumen avenue running down the centre of the camp and leading to the forest.

  A shout went up, but neither looked back. Shader ran with inhuman speed and Barek kept up with him, a look of joy and wonder on his face.

  Once within the forest’s dark shelter, Shader looked behind. Scores of soldiers were hurrying from their tents and starting in pursuit.

  Barek led the way deeper into the trees where no sunlight penetrated. Shader drew the gladius, letting its radiance light their way. The sudden brightness in the gloom was greeted by an angry sibilance.

  They hurried on through thick foliage until the unnatural vitality left them. Once or twice muffled screams sounded from somewhere behind, followed by the rustling of leaves. Eventually their pursuers gave up the chase and Shader beckoned for Barek to rest a while in a small clearing where a narrow shaft of sunlight broke through.

  ‘Place gives me the creeps.’ Barek’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘I came here once for a dare.’

  Shader raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I was just a kid at the time. I skirted about on the edge of the woods for a bit and made out I’d gone inside.’

  Shader smiled. He’d done similar things back home, although the trees of Friston had always been more of a comfort than a fear. This place made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It reminded him more of Verusia, where the great firs loomed oppressively, and the feeling of being watched had proven devastatingly true.

  ‘How’d you know where to find me?’ Barek looked down at his perfectly healed hands.

  ‘Justin told me what you were up to. I thought Gaston was the crazy one, but you’re starting to come a close second.’

  Barek chuckled. ‘Hadn’t bargained on the Emperor being there. Even so, I thought he might’ve at least listened to reason.’

  ‘Probably did,’ Shader said. ‘But the reason of lunatics tends to run in tight circles.’

  They sat in stillness for a while, occasionally starting at the cracking of twigs or the sudden gusts of wind that ripped through the leaves. Finally, Barek broke the silence.

  ‘What happened to you back at the templum?’

  Shader thought about how best to answer. ‘A taste of death, I suppose.’ He stood and leaned against a gnarled trunk beneath branches thick with leaves that seemed to writhe in the darkness. ‘More than a taste. I can still feel the cold steel in my back, the acid touch of the demon.’ Shader suppressed a wave of nausea as the Dweller’s stench once more filled his nostrils. It was like its presence had seeped into his skin and now he’d never be rid of it.

  ‘Even as it rolled over me I knew I should already be dead. I was stabbed by an expert who was very precise with his aim. Part of me wishes this Shadrak had killed me before the Dweller…’

  ‘Do you remember what happened next?’ Barek asked.

  ‘There was a burst of light and then I recall walking through a desert beneath an alien sky. I thought I was in Araboth with the Luminaries.’ He gave a derisive laugh, which Barek seemed to miss.

  ‘Araboth truly exists?’

  ‘I never took you for a doubter, Barek.’

  The youth looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m not. It’s just that faith is…’

  ‘Difficult?’ Shader said. ‘Tell me about it.’

  What the Archon had said about the Liber had been niggling away at the back of his mind. If he couldn’t even trust the scriptures, then what could he trust? Was it all just smoke and mirrors?

  ‘How do we even know if we’re on the right path?’ Barek said.

  ‘I’m not the man to ask,’ Shader said more harshly than he intended. ‘Experience hasn’t married well with my learning. You know, I used to look down on our priests. I sneered at their homilies, and yet when I follow my own path…’ His thoughts drifted to Rhiannon—that day he’d carried her bloodied and half-naked to her home in Oakendale. His faith had been indestructible until that moment, and then he’d suddenly been pitted against an enemy he had no experience fighting. She’d tried to kiss him once, but he’d pushed her away, citing his vow of celibacy. When he’d finally worked out what to do, how to live a truly human life in the love of Ain, she’d done the same to him. It didn’t matter that she’d been manipulated—that they both had. The moment had gone and he was left with no choice but to follow blindly wherever Ain led him.

  ‘Perhaps that was my mistake with the White Order,’ he said. ‘Maybe I overcompensated and grew too literal. Just look at the consequences for the Order, for you, for Gaston.’ He wanted to add Rhiannon, but couldn’t quite say her name.

  Barek’s look showed he knew. Mercifully, he let it drop.

  ‘Come on, Barek.’ Shader clapped the lad on the shoulder. ‘Let’s put a bit more distance between us and the camp.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Barek said, standing and brushing himself down before giving Shader a hand up. ‘Which way?’

  ‘Forward,’ Shader said with a shrug, and they headed deeper into the darkness of Fenrir.

  SEER’S WEB

  Hagalle drew rein atop Carys Bridge above the shimmering waters of the Soulsong River and patted the neck of his grey gelding. He was regretting wearing his black doublet of stiffened leather for the heat was sweltering. He tightened the silk kerchief covering his mouth and nose. Shader might have been right about the plague’s abatement, but you could never trust a Nousian.

  Duke Farian rode up alongside, mopping the sweat from his brow. His usually immac
ulate beard was lank and matted. Hagalle suppressed a smile as he heard the galloping of horses behind.

  ‘Majesty,’ puffed Farian, ‘there are hidden dangers everywhere. Let the scouts take the lead for we can’t predict the flight of an assassin’s arrow, or an ambush by this Cadman fellow.’

  ‘Sultan tells me the way is clear,’ Hagalle said, tensing against the possibility that he too was unreliable. ‘Sultan is a powerful seer, my Lord, and is right more often than not. However…’

  Hagalle narrowed his eyes at the duke, wetted his lips and then nodded. Wheeling the gelding, he cantered back across the bridge, the ranks of his personal bodyguard parting to admit him and closing as he passed.

  The dark-skinned seer, Sultan, was swathed in heavy black robes and seemingly immune to the heat. He squatted over a splatter of blood that was beginning to pool from a cut to the palm of his hand. As Hagalle and Farian drew up, he looked at them askew.

  ‘Truth Shader did speak, Great One,’ Sultan said in his thickly accented voice. The Sahulian tongue was apparently a challenge for his lipless mouth. ‘Plague no more.’ He stood to the accompaniment of cracking cartilage. ‘Plague never was.’

  Hagalle glared at the seer and then at Farian. ‘Speak clearly, man.’

  Sultan threw back his hood to reveal a black and crusted face, creased by untold years and the harsh aridity of the deserts of Makevar, where he’d served the headshrinkers before Ogalvy’s occupation. He turned his sickly yellow eyes upon Hagalle and scrunched up his face in concentration, three broken stumps of teeth jutting from bleeding gums. ‘Poisoned the Dreaming is with bad magic. For the restless dead Eingana has big tears.’

  Hagalle fought back his disgust at the seer’s appearance. He hated having to rely on such vague prognostications, but his advisors had counselled that Sultan be brought along after he had prophesied about the dark magic being used in Sarum.

  The seer threw him a haughty look, as if he considered Hagalle an imbecile. ‘Since the Reckoning, when Huntsman,’ Sultan hawked and spat, ‘made the dog-head’s dreams destroy the Ancients, over the world has been stretched a web of power. Some read things there.’ He touched his clawed fingers to his chest. ‘Others its magic grasp for good or evil, and some drink from it so the mud will not take them.’