by Will Elliott
Sharfy learned – deeper than his mind, deep as his bones – knowledge which astounded him; they showed him that the unlikely histories murmured in taverns, read from ancient stone tablets, were real, not mere myth. The wildest myths were real! The madmen who swore by them had been right all along. It was strange how glad this made him …
But each time Sharfy woke from these visions, all the knowledge fell from him. Fell like small dead bones from his hands when he thought he’d held something living and warm; fell and clattered among the litter of the apartment, crushed to dust, scattered. The moment he emerged from these visions he’d thrust the scale immediately back to his forehead.
In those brief returns to himself – sprawled across the bed, open mouth too dry now to spill drool down his face as it had done at first – he understood he would soon forget who he was, just as he was forgetting to eat, to drink, to care that he’d soiled himself. He had forgotten completely she who’d given this wonderful gift to him. Of Anfen and Valour he thought hardly a thing.
The room stank of his sweat and the waste that had spilled out of him. His chest rose and fell slowly, his heart sluggish, now and then picking up when his mind’s eye beheld another miracle of knowledge.
It was in this state of filth and weakness that Shadow found him.
Sharfy’s eyes peeled open, sore in the weak daylight spilling limp through a high window. His head spun, the feeling so much like being hungover he assumed briefly that he was. He had no idea what he’d seen or learned in the last vision, only that it had been mind-blowing. It always was.
The stink of his own excrement was an assault. His empty stomach roiled.
The pretty silver scale gleamed on the floor at the end of the bed. He felt dizzy with pleasure at the sight of it, and felt an emotion the reverse of envy, just as negative, directed at Anfen. Anfen with his miraculous sword and armour. Who needed such things when you could peer behind the world’s curtain and see what no one else had ever seen?
As usual, Sharfy did not reach for the scale but lunged for it. He was mid-lunge when a familiar voice said, ‘It’s killing you.’ The voice spoke observantly, devoid of feeling. He had not expected to see Eric standing at the foot of his bed, but there he was. Sharfy’s lunge for the scale veered wildly off target and he landed hard on the cold tile floor.
‘It’s mine,’ Sharfy said. Rather tried to say – his throat was so parched the words hardly came out.
Eric made no move to take the scale. Sharfy crawled along the floor and snatched it. His legs barely moved, stuck all over with severe pins and needles. It was truly Eric, wasn’t it? Yes, though his eyes had gone peculiar. They were big and black. They just stared down and seemed to move around at their edges, too large for his face.
‘I’m trying to work something out,’ said Shadow. ‘But I don’t know much about how it all works. I’m learning. You might help me. I did a bad thing. To Siel.’
‘Eh?’
‘I did something wrong. Didn’t know what that meant, before. “Wrong”.’
Sharfy edged away, shielding the silver scale. ‘Eh? What’d you do?’
‘Killed her. She’s dead.’
‘Huh. Why? Why do that?’
‘She hurt me. So I hurt her back. Thought it would make me feel good. It didn’t. It hurt me much worse. It hurts different from how the man’s sword hurt.’
Sharfy shook his head to try and clear his vision. This wasn’t Eric, he decided. Eric died, up there in the skies somewhere. That many war mages? He’d never make it through, not tough enough. This was his ghost, talking lies. ‘Go away. Busy.’ Sharfy clawed his way back to the bed.
How strange and large were the eyes of Eric’s ghost. It said, ‘I’ll leave. Just want to find something out first.’
‘What?’
‘Killing Siel was bad. So if I make sure someone else doesn’t die … would that be doing something good?’
Sharfy shrugged. ‘Who cares?’
‘Would it make the dead person come back?’
‘No! Don’t be stupid. Only gods can do that.’ He fondled the scale like a lover’s breast. ‘Dragons too. Maybe.’
‘If I did something good … would it make the bad thing I did less bad?’
Anything to get rid of the ghost. ‘Yeah. Sure it would.’
Shadow reached down and plucked the silver scale from Sharfy’s hand with a movement too quick for him to follow. Sharfy’s impression was that the scale had simply disappeared and he was deeply confused, blinking at his empty hand.
Eric’s ghost said, ‘You’ll die soon. You need to drink. And eat. And wash.’
Sharfy saw Eric’s ghost now held its hands behind its back. ‘You took it?’ He looked around for his sword. ‘Think you know so fucking much?’
‘I shadowed you. Saw what happened. She wants you to kill yourself. Could have done it herself – she’s strong. She didn’t want to do it herself. She thought it would be dangerous for her, to kill you herself. Because for her, there are rules. She’s not allowed to be here with people at all. Not allowed to interfere. So she wanted to make you choose to do it yourself. That’s still not allowed … but it’s not as not-allowed.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know what all those things mean. Do we have rules, like they do? Am I allowed to be here?’
Sharfy grabbed the elite guardsman’s sword from the floor. It was far heavier than he remembered it. He snarled, vision blurring so that he saw three Erics standing there. He raised the blade overhead and missed all three. The sword vanished in his hand just as the scale had. He toppled forwards, hit his head, and was at best half-conscious from then on as someone gently tipped water in his mouth, carefully put food in there too, poured water over him, changed his clothes. ‘You think I’m Eric,’ said Shadow, and told Sharfy his real name.
‘Shadow? Nah.’ Sharfy peered up with narrow eyes. ‘Just stories,’ he murmured. Although in truth he’d begun to wonder.
17
A BETTER PLACE
It seemed to Anfen he felt Shilen’s approach long before he saw her slow dance-like strides through the flotsam of human wreckage which lay before the castle. She walked proudly, as if she had caused it all herself, these scattered bodies murdered by Vous’s great change. Or as if she were the crowning piece in a sprawling work of grim art, its lone jewel. So seemed her approach to him: both dream and real at once, life moving through death, graceful, without fear and inevitable.
Anfen’s eyes had remained mostly on the window, where he sensed rather than saw the Arch Mage gazing out. The Arch Mage, whose fall from power had happened with such impossible speed he could not yet even see the reality of it before him. Perhaps recognition would occur soon. Perhaps he expected Anfen to charge up through the castle and make the final ending easy.
Anfen would not do that. Mercy indeed awaited with a very sharp edge, but the Arch would not be forced to take it; that was far too easy. He must choose it. He must admit his loss, come down and bare his throat. Only then.
If Valour had wanted Anfen to witness the final stage of Vous’s great change, he had fulfilled his purpose. Vous had flown into convulsions of energy, taking lightning in all his splayed fingers. His shrieking voice spewed mindless sounds. Or perhaps it was a language, the language of the Spirits. Was he greeting the other gods? Announcing his place among them? Were they pleas, cries of fear? Perhaps all of these. Waves of energy had pulsed out from the castle, invisible to Anfen’s eyes. But he had felt them: like a new warm element, between wind and water, flowing over him. Valour’s breastplate had grown warm, near unbearably hot for just a brief while as it shielded him from the magic.
The instant Vous became a Great Spirit was too brief for human perception. In that instant, a ripped hole in Levaal’s reality opened up like shreds of torn canvas flapping in wind bursts. The argument with reality – slow by mortal standards, urgent as it had ever been by other measures – was in an instant of action decided. Vous the man was now Vous the Great Spirit, youngest of th
e gods.
Silence and eerie peace fell after that instant. A breeze breathed through the castle lawn grass, gently rustling the clothes of the dead as if in consolation, or in thanks. The image of Vous upon the balcony remained, motionless and lifeless as paint flung upon a wall long ago.
The hours and days drew out; he didn’t count them. If he died before the Arch came down it hardly mattered. He supposed that Valour, his redeemer, must be far away, for suddenly the Spirit didn’t much cross his mind. He didn’t think of much at all – he was glad and relieved to be dying. Perhaps dead already, he didn’t know.
He knew when Shilen came that he was not dead – not dead at all. He watched her come without moving, without thinking, until she’d eased herself down in the grass beside him. The sweet but strange smell of her just faintly trickled into the background reek, as if to make him aware of the reek for the first time. And he smelled its foulness now in full, and wondered why he was here.
She followed his gaze. ‘There he is,’ she said at last. She raised a hand, waved hello at one of the high castle windows. How light and easy was her voice, rich with humour.
For the first time he could remember, deep within him, something heavy seemed to shift. He knew not what shifted; only that it was something which had held down all chance of joy or laughter. He laughed now. Then his laugh became a hacking cough, his head spun dizzily, and he collapsed.
It was the smell of food – again, accentuating the reek behind it – that drew him back to wakefulness. A bowl was before Shilen, holding meat with golden skin gently steaming, vegetables too. Every part of Anfen commanded him to eat, but for the first time he seemed to see the woman properly, when before she had seemed part of a fevered dream. He drew his sword out, held its point two hand spans from her, off to the side. She pulled back, fearful. Good. ‘Name yourself,’ he rasped.
‘Shilen.’
For some reason his mind flashed back to that night in the woods, when he had gone down suicidally to meet Stranger, leaving the group he led at the mercy of whatever might find them.
He put the sword away, sat, took the bowl she offered and devoured everything in it. The meat was some kind of poultry with soft bones – he ate those too.
‘Water?’ she said, offering a cup.
He snatched it, drank, spilling much down his chin. Drops splashed onto Valour’s breastplate. ‘What do you want?’ he said.
She struggled to find words. ‘I would be … honoured, if you told me … something of your redeemer.’ He looked up at her sharply, reached for his sword again. ‘Don’t hurt me,’ she said.
‘I’ll tell you nothing of him.’
‘As you wish, warrior.’
‘Don’t ask me that again, ever.’
‘Yes, warrior. Shall I leave?’
He spat.
She sighed, stood up, gazed around and said, ‘When I was young, my mother told a tale of a brave young man. Would you like to hear it? She asked him one day why he had chosen to be born to her. The young man said he had come into life to prove himself to her with sword in hand – he just needed an enemy to kill. His mother said, “I have known you in other lives, and have already seen that you are strong with a blade, and unafraid of death. There is nothing more for you to prove with a sword. There are other things you must prove to me.” She took the sword from him – reluctantly, he released it – and she took him across the realm to an island where no one had lived before.
‘It was bare, just grass, rocks and turf. She told him to make it into a garden. It would grow all he needed to eat. Its living things would become his friends, if he cared for them. And one day, others would come to live there with him, and share in its splendour, if it grew beautifully enough. This was how he must prove himself. He must guide a barren place to growth and beauty.
‘She left him there and he did as said. He wrenched out the rocks and weeds with his bleeding hands, swam to the mainland when he needed to, wandering far to find seeds to plant and young animals to raise. With time, lovely things indeed grew all over his island. He learned that plants and trees speak a certain quiet rustling language. He could hear it, but could not speak it. He was lonely, but did not wish to leave.
‘As he grew older, he discovered he was in love with the flowers and vines and trees. He thought of what his mother had said, about others coming to share this beauty with him, which he had worked so hard to bring to life. Lonely though he was, the thought of sharing it made him jealous and angry. So he let the island’s edges go bare and foul, and stacked there piles of animal bones and skulls, so that from afar, it seemed a deathly place. He kept for himself the inner, beautiful part of the island’s middle.
‘In the end …’ She shook her head, tsked. ‘Well, it is just a foolish story.’ She gazed around. ‘But this place, with all its bodies in the grass. A strange and awful place to choose as one’s home. Your friend had better taste, I must grant him that.’
When she said ‘friend’ Anfen heard redeemer. He stood up, sword drawn back. ‘Speak no words against him.’
‘I have spoken no word against your friend, Anfen,’ she said, fingering a flaxen curl nervously. ‘Nor against Valour. I have never seen him. I wish I had.’ She looked at him sidelong. ‘Many say he does not exist.’
‘He does.’ Anfen slammed a fist into his breastplate. ‘I am his witness.’
‘What did you witness?’
‘The change. A new Spirit has come.’ He put his sword away, hesitated to speak. ‘How does your tale end?’
She shrugged. ‘That? Well. The man grew old, savouring his solitude, his secret knowledge of growing things. When he felt lonely, he imagined that those who would have come to his island would have been revolting, angry people, and in this way he comforted himself. He felt he had passed the test his mother set for him for this lifetime, and wondered what the next would bring.
‘Then, one day, he heard footsteps, the sound of claws scraping the island’s dead stony edges. He heard harsh voices speaking. He was no longer alone. On that day, he learned that some beings find bareness, rot and piles of bone as beautiful as others find flowers and vines. He learned that some find screams of pain as lovely as others find the sweetest music or birdsong; and that some would sooner drink blood than wine or a brook’s water.
‘It was with such folk he ended up sharing his island garden, for they were drawn to the bareness of its edges which they saw from afar. They decided they would stay there. They corrected the beauty in the middle by stamping it out, tearing down its trees, burning it all down.’
‘And of the man?’ said Anfen.
‘Him they held in high regard. They sang his praises, for crafting such a place for them. They forgave him the small blemish of green and growing things in the island’s middle – that was easily fixed, after all. He was kept with them, given a longer than normal life, but forbidden ever to leave. Though he was chained there, they revered him, held feasts for him, and pleasured him.
‘As their idea of beauty was different, so too was their idea of pleasure different. What they ate at their feasts was different from what others ate. Slowly and bitterly, the man learned their ways, acquired their tastes, changed himself. Never again was he as happy as he’d been before they came.’
Shilen gazed about the field and its bodies again. ‘A silly tale, of needless suffering. Warrior, is your work for Valour now done?’
Anfen slumped down and thought of his redeemer, Valour, as he’d appeared that day of his resurrection, giving him life again from death at Kiown’s blade. A gift, that renewed life had seemed at the time. But it had brought him here to this land of enemies and bodies in the grass.
‘I have places I wish to see,’ said Shilen after a while. She said it sadly, he thought, as if she knew it was pointless to invite him to come with her, much as she’d like to. ‘Places where there is much more beauty than here.’
He considered the breastplate Valour had given him. How plain it suddenly seemed. Shilen looked
up at one of the castle windows. She laughed. The curls bounced about her shoulders, seeming to laugh along with her. ‘Is that why you linger? To slay that foolish mage? You need not trouble yourself. Others come to deal with him. It’s said there shall be a new lord and lady, a new king and queen, whatever you wish to call them. Have you not yet carried your share of Levaal’s burdens?’
He owed her no answer to the question, he knew. But was he not owed an answer to it? Had he not dragged himself across the world, forsaking every comfort? Troubled, he watched her walk away, her steps not part of any ritual dance beyond the swaying hips of a beautiful woman.
Slowly he rose to his feet and followed her.
And so Anfen was not there to witness Aziel’s return to the castle, when she was carried from the heights of the sky prison’s Gate in the arms of an Invia with violet hair. Aziel’s feet pressed down on the lawn not far from where he’d sat. She smoothed the dress she’d found in the sky prison, which the wind had badly ruffled. Eric’s feet were set down on the grass beside her seconds later. Both of them laughed, surprised to have made it back alive again to this world below.
18
FIRSTBORN OF THE FAVOURED
Once they’d set Eric and Aziel down, the Invia immediately took to the sky again. Wind from their beating wings ruffled Eric’s and Aziel’s clothes. During the long descent, the castle’s shape had been so clearly that of a huge dragon that Eric imagined once or twice he’d seen its white marble bulk faintly rise and fall, as if with breath.
Something had changed since they were gone – both of them felt it. Things were quiet and still. Staring up at the enormous structure from ground level, the chain-mail shirt seemed to clench in on Eric’s body like a flexing muscle. Aziel’s hand found his, swung in his palm, her smile so easy his own nerves calmed. Her beauty at that moment surprised him.