by Will Elliott
Here came two Vous-things now, threading through the corpses, their Friend and Lord’s face hungry, sneering, atop a feeble old woman’s body. Sharfy waved his sword at them, but only one fled. The other ran with thrashing arms right at Anfen, who didn’t bother to even look at it. Sharfy stepped towards it, blade raised, and let the horrid thing skewer itself. Only as his hand made contact with its ribcage, the blade poking clear through the back of a plain dress, did the creature seem to notice him, its baleful eyes peering into his, breathing a warm breath of rot into his face. The moment drew itself out for a long time.
Those eyes were two long tunnels of light, with a small writhing thrashing shape at their very ends. The tiny shape was Vous, he saw: Vous’s body convulsing in a small bare room. It took effort for Sharfy to look away.
The Vous-thing fell from his blade and slumped to the ground. He wiped blood from his hand. Some kills in battle one kept in mind like the favoured page of a story, to retell many times. This was not one of them. The Vous-thing stared up at him, hotly, hatefully, as its last two breaths shuddered out. The light of its eyes extinguished slowly.
Serve him well, echoed the god Valour’s words in Sharfy’s mind. Serve him well. ‘Just did,’ he muttered to himself. ‘How many times now? Saved his life. Kept him fed. All pointless.’ He wiped his new sword on the grass. He’d taken it from a fallen Elite guardsman: a fine blade, well balanced, though he’d shave a fraction of the weight off if he could. He said, ‘Anfen. What’s Valour want us to do now?’
‘Witness.’
Sharfy wanted to weep at the vagueness of it, but the single-word response was more than he usually got to his questions. He sat down on the soft lawn and gazed up high at the balcony where Vous stood with arms extended to the storming sky. Mad, he is. Everyone in this world. Me too? Must be. Look how I lived. Could’ve had a little farm. Tended a field, kept a herd, married. Pa wanted a fighter. Grandpa too. They got one. ‘Will you kill the Arch?’
Anfen dropped his sword to the ground as though by answer.
‘S’that mean you won’t? Come on, bastard. Talk. They’ll kill us. Right on the grass here. It’s where I’ll die. I can take it. You can talk to me at least. Not expecting any thanks.’
Sharfy’s hands tensed on his sword as two Vous-things came near.
‘Is Shadow here?’ said one, then the other.
‘Off south,’ Sharfy answered. One of them snarled; both scurried away.
Sharfy was surprised to feel Anfen’s palm on his shoulder. ‘The Arch doesn’t matter,’ said his captain, voice hoarse from the battle cries that had torn from his throat. ‘I understand now. Why speak of him? He was used. He never mattered. The spells only ever cast him, Sharfy. That’s how it really works.’
‘Not true. And you know it. We fought im. He knew what he was doing. All on purpose, all planned, everything he did. He knew what war is. Knew how to kill, make men slaves.’
Anfen sat down on the grass beside his fallen sword. ‘He did not use his power, the power used him. From where did the power come? That stuff mages see in the air, what is its purpose? Does it have no life or intention of its own?’ Anfen began to say more but a coughing fit cut off his words. At the end of it he spat blood.
Mad, mad, mad. Everyone. ‘We can’t sleep here for the night. Unless we’re going in there.’ He nodded at the castle steps nearest to them. ‘But I know this. I might find a bed and some drink in there. Put my legs up, relax. Then some old commander will come. Make me march to World’s End, probably. Without pay. He’ll polish some bones. All cos a god told him to.’
At that moment the wind died down. A cry issued from Vous that was like the long note of a beautiful eerie song. All Vous-things in sight went instantly still with their heads raised.
Overhead a red drake flew, its wings labouring into the powerful wind. Two of the drake’s riders fell free, but somehow didn’t fall. Instead they floated on the air, just as debris floats on a river, their bodies drawn towards Vous. ‘Looks like Eric,’ Sharfy remarked. Then it occurred to him that it might actually be Eric, and his heart beat fast. Who the woman was, he had no idea. But when the drake’s body angled forwards, he saw clearly that Loup was on its back. ‘Loup!’ he yelled, loud as he could. ‘Down here!’
But his voice was drowned out by the high deathly shrieks of a thousand war mages. They poured from scores of the castle’s windows, blackening the skies like great streaks of shadow.
‘They come for us,’ said Anfen mildly. ‘Farewell, Sharfy. My redeemer has willed it.’
‘What? No! Get us in the quiet. They can’t see us there.’
‘Let it end. I am tired.’
‘Give me that armour then. Quick, before they come.’
Anfen made no move to do so. Above them Eric and the woman had got nearly halfway to the castle when they changed direction. Steadily they floated skywards, away from Vous. Two Invia flew wide circles about them as they were carried higher and higher, until lost from view in thick clouds.
The war mages were soon close enough that the yellow gleam of their slitted eyes could be seen through faces of twisted ropy beard. As one, the mass of them shifted direction and flew up, in pursuit of Eric and Aziel. From a distance it looked as though the flocking mass of them assumed a formation of an arm and fist rising from the castle to strike skywards. Vous’s beautiful sung note grew mournful, as if he were sad that Eric and Aziel were no longer coming towards him.
Sharfy knew he’d live, for the moment at least. He also knew he owed Anfen no thanks for it. ‘If that was really Eric,’ he said, ‘that’s the last of him. Never seen that many war mages. We have to get under cover. They’ll come back. Fuck you and your redeemer. Stay here and die.’ He left him sitting there without a moment’s pause, nor the faintest hint of guilt or regret.
Anfen stared up at a high castle window, and did not appear to have heard or noticed.
2
SKY PRISONS
As strong as the cold wind through Eric’s hair was the sense of unreality which blasted from his mind the present moment, the past, and every experience he’d had since Vous’s eye peered through the little red door’s keyhole, fell upon him and named him Shadow.
None of it was real any more. The wind numbed his skin with its cold and ruffled his clothes. He was just an object being moved; that was all. The ground was lethally far beneath. The castle looked like a huge white dragon, huger than huge, tail curled round about itself, head resting on the ground, its great mouth opening out onto the Great Dividing Road. From innumerable windows came reflected glints of lightning. On the balcony with arms spread, Vous sang beautiful notes after them.
Beings on the grass, tiny with distance, stared up at Eric till the cloud concealed them. Close by the storm spat lightning at the castle or tossed it about with great flickers of white. The air held him and Aziel aloft as easily as someone’s invisible palm, slowly raising them away from the castle, where Vous had attempted to draw them to himself.
Aziel’s voice brought Eric back to himself. He missed what she’d said. She clutched at him in fear, fingernails digging into his skin hard enough to leave small crescent cuts. He took her hand and told her a lie – they’d be all right – and a truth – it would all be over soon.
He made himself see the air’s magic and was overcome by the frantic movements of fierce colour, a many-armed wheeling star spinning slowly and enormously about the castle. One arm passed right through them, though they felt nothing more than the cold of the wind. His last sight of Vous before the clouds took them was of the man-god’s eyes, two points of light, locking onto his own, seeing him but not understanding what they saw. At once Vous was fascinated by and deathly afraid of Eric. Eric had thought it a dream long ago, when he’d first heard the words You are Shadow. He heard the same words again now, Vous’s voice carrying through the storm and the wind, spoken softly and uncertainly. ‘I’m not Shadow,’ Eric answered. ‘I’m not Shadow. Help me. I’m not Shadow.’
<
br /> Aziel’s hair whipped his face. She’d covered her eyes with her hand, though there was not much more to see than the cloud’s white mist. There was a sense of falling upwards. The two Invia – the ones who’d shadowed their flight from the wizard’s tower – wheeled around them, conversing with each other in joyful, whistling calls. They were suddenly drowned out by the terrible noise of a thousand shrieking war-mage voices, growing louder, coming nearer.
They came through the upper band of clouds. As in the dragonscale vision Eric had had at Faul’s house, he saw the sky was a dome, a roof of stone spread as far as sight. It was not yet lit with the full force of daylight but was still painful to their eyes, this close to it. Great areas were cracked, broken and stained. Parts hung loose as though they might fall.
Beneath them, where there were gaps in the clouds, the world was a haze of green and blue. Distant peaks stuck their tips up like small islands in a white sea.
There behind the castle was the tall valley where the door, the Entry Point, had been. Two sheer cliffs cupped the high ridge of rich green grass, cliffs which rose till they joined the domed lightstone roof. That green valley had been filled with bodies, that first day, slain by the same creatures which pursued them now.
‘They’re coming,’ said Aziel, still covering her eyes with her hand. A face covered by a mane of tangled ropy beard poked through the cloud, two horns exuding pencil-thin lines of smoke, black slits in its yellow eyes flickering from one of them to the other. Its mouth opened, its scream loud and high. The cry was answered a dozen times from close by. More distantly, hundreds more war mages called out.
The two Invia swooped from elsewhere in the cloud and tore the war mage to pieces with a bloody thrashing blur of motion almost too quick to see. They flung its body parts in all directions. But more war mages came, their faces surfacing through cloud soon crackling with orange fire. The unearthly cry of a dying Invia tore across the world.
Whatever force pulled Eric and Aziel through the sky wrenched them up with more urgency. Their bellies lurched. The lightstone dome rushed at them. A gap in it appeared just ahead, and then they were through it, and set down on a ledge in the upwards-leading tunnel. The ledge was only a stride deep into the dark stone, as wide as an armspan. The second Invia’s dying wail soon reached them. With a rush of air, shapes shot past them from above: five, six, ten Invia or more in a blur of white wings and streaks of vividly coloured hair.
So that was why they’d been set on this ledge – to make room for the Invia rushing down at lethal speed. Beneath them the bird-women dived into clouds and fire. Dizzy, Eric clutched Aziel and instinctively drew her back a little from the edge.
‘Don’t be so free with your fingers,’ she snapped, slapping at his hand.
He stared at her, stunned. ‘You’re worried about that? Look down there, Aziel. Look at where we are.’ Overcome with disbelief, he grabbed at her breast and squeezed it.
She shoved him off the edge without an instant’s hesitation.
He fell only for a second or two – enough to register his amazement that she’d been willing to kill, to actually kill him for trying to prove a point – when the invisible hand caught him again on its palm and lifted him upwards, with Aziel floating just ahead of him. They were pulled urgently through the grey stone tunnel till it opened out into a vast cavernous space. Here was the place Case had been told by an Invia was the Gate of Takkish Iholme, sky prison of the dragon-youth.
It was not long before the Invias’ death wails rang out: they were slain by the war mages in the clouds.
Eric’s eyes soon adjusted to the vast gloomy space, unlit yet somehow still visible, as if this were a place where light had no purpose. All about them was nothing and no one, just the naked stone until the edge of their vision, where there were outlines of some type of building. Wind piped eerie music through tunnel mouths bored into the curved walls and roof. The cavern’s age pressed down on him like heavy hands on his shoulders.
He bit into his bottom lip to keep from passing out – for some reason he’d grown dizzier. He swayed on his feet till Aziel grabbed his hand and pressed it to the metal of her necklace. At the charm’s cold touch all dizziness flushed out of him. Warmth filled him.
‘Do you know where we are?’ she asked him.
‘Where the dragons live. Only I don’t see any.’
The boom of an enormous weight being dropped came from some way away and gave them both the odd feeling something had been listening in. This was its answer: We are here, all right. The stone floor gave a faint shiver. Eric stood, felt for the gun out of habit. He got the usual familiar comfort from its touch, then thought about that for a moment: How much fucking good is this likely to be against dragons? Maybe about as much good as blowing them kisses …
The scream of a war mage wound up the tunnel they’d been brought through. Now he was glad he had the gun – except the scream was chorused many times, so many times it seemed there must be a small army coming. Eric grabbed Aziel’s wrist and they ran. Aziel was out of breath before they got very far at all and he had to drag her along at a fast walk. Back where they’d just been, the first of the war mages poked its shaggy head through the tunnel and clawed its way up. Tendrils of smoke wound from its horns, its eyes glowing yellow. Its mouth hung open in apparent surprise as it gazed around. Its scream almost seemed a question.
Eric pulled Aziel to the floor. He half expected her to reproach him again for touching her. ‘Don’t move, no sounds,’ he whispered, taking the gun from its holster. Directly overhead came a blast of wind, a long low note. Three Invia tumbled out into the air. One turned, spied Eric and Aziel, made a shrill querying sound.
The war mage was soon joined by four more of its kind. Their screams too held questioning notes. Sudden as a bottle uncorked, there came a streaming mass of them pouring out through the tunnel and into the cavern.
‘Well, nice knowing you,’ Eric said. ‘Some of the time, anyway.’ He looked to her, hoping to at least trade a smile before their impending death. Aziel didn’t speak; her skin had turned faintly blue. Coldness poured from her rather than the charm about her neck. Her eyes glowed with silver light. ‘Aziel?’
‘For a brief while, I shall hide you,’ she said in a voice that was not her own. It was deeper than her real voice, and though her mouth moved in time with it, it seemed to come from far away. ‘I cannot hide you for long. Keep your touch upon the charm.’
‘Who are you? Is that Vous?’
The silver eyes turned slowly to him and sent shivers down his spine. ‘I’ll not through human lips speak the name humans call me. You should not be seen by he who approaches. When he comes to the Gate, the intruding swarm will not have mind of you. You must run from here. Run now. Go to the nearest Invia roost. He who comes will not go there.’
‘Who comes here? And who are you? Are you a dragon?’
‘He who comes, men’s mouths call Shâ. You must not be seen by him or it may begin a war among the Eight. He knows not that you are here. I must leave you for a time or he will sense my presence with you. It is not known whether you shall live beyond this day. His motions disturb the futures as would his steps throw silt clouds up in water. Flee now while I may hide you, or you shall die and I shall find others to perform your work.’
The three Invia over their heads rushed suicidally to the horde of war mages still pouring into the cavern. The Invia moved fast through them, each leaving a trail of destroyed bodies behind them, till a storm of sparks and fire erupted. In quick time came the creatures’ dying wails.
A sudden silence filled the cavern. Even the wind-music through the tunnel ceased. The war mages stopped screaming and seemed to wait, listening. A very real sense of something watching – or more than one thing – seemed to sweep over the bare rock walls, invisible but as real as any beaming searchlight.
Still the cold emanated from Aziel; still her eyes glowed silver. Hesitantly Eric said, ‘Have you possessed Aziel before?’
>
He shrank back from her stare. ‘Great risk I take to bring you here, against the man-god’s will. My Parent’s law forbids such deeds. I crafted this thing that she wears, this that helps protect you. A thousand eventualities I foresaw, and did prepare for each. But what has come about, I did not foresee. She shall not be slain when she wears this charm. You do not have such protection, though you may soon find gifts of your own. Her gift took a century to make.’
‘You’re … you must be Vyin. You’re our friend, aren’t you? Our only friend among the dragons.’
‘Name me no more, for Shâ has left his hold. Most of my siblings now agree that we need your aid at this time, Favoured one. We shall have it for you need our favour. Five of my siblings have hatred for you that is cold, patient and deadly. Shâ has hatred for you hotter than ever burned Inferno’s fire. He comes now. Flee for the Invia roost. You are expected there. This girl cannot abide my thoughts much longer. She will perish if I stay with her. Ever it seems I know your kind less well than I suppose.’
The light went out of Aziel’s eyes. The strength went out of her too and she lay limp, shivering with cold. Eric rubbed her arms, whispered her name. There was from different directions the heavy thud, thud-boom of massive weights shifting. Coldness swept through the cavern. The silence grew heavier, more watchful. The war mages seemed oppressed by it too – now and then the odd confused cry sounded among the scrape-scratch-scrape of their claws on the stone.
Scores of Invia suddenly poured through those openings directly overhead. None of them cried out – not even their beating wings could be heard. Yet more Invia came from elsewhere across the dome ceiling, their wings so white they seemed to glow. Among them were a rare few larger than the others, still of human shape but twice the others’ size. It was one of these larger ones that first swooped at the war-mage horde like a diving bird, then all the others followed. Their dives began gracefully then became a blur of destruction, snapping war-mage bodies like pieces of brittle wood.