by Greg James
He stepped away as the iron door opened and closed. He stood looking down at Leste Alen. Her cropped hair was a rich red stubble over her scalp. Her cheekbones were high and fine, and as sharp as the thin, green eyes that pierced the shadows. The fierce scowl on her face and the scar that bifurcated her lips undid the traces of comeliness that were there. She had worn the same look when she entered his tent in the brigand encampment.
A hot-blooded warrior, Khale thought. The steel of her soul will be cooled and tempered in time. If she had time, thinking that she could take him on and live.
Leste stalked away, calling to the guards to be vigilant. They barely saluted her retreating back.
Khale waited until she was well out of earshot. She would return soon enough, when it became clear he was not to be found elsewhere in the castle.
He had to use the time given to him wisely.
There was a conjuration that might work, but it would leave him vulnerable. There was little for him to fear from the swords and slow hands of these guards in their armour of rust-caked mail and cracked leather, but he knew Milanda would be placed well beyond his reach if the hue and cry was raised. Khale stood for a moment, caught by indecision.
I must do it, he thought, or forfeit all.
He killed the guards.
It was a simple matter of closing his eyes, slowing his breathing, and reaching out with the ghosts of his own hands. His fingers passed through their armour, the skin of their chests, flesh and bone, and closed tight around their hearts.
By breaths, he tightened his grip, crushing the life-giving muscles until they tore open and gave out. The guards slumped to the ground, giving up their last breaths to Murtuva, First of the Four and Lord of the Dead.
Khale shifted his body out from the shadows and into the light. He hoped that he still had enough time. He closed his eyes once more and allowed his soul to step out of his skin and cross over into fringes of the Thoughtless Dark, where dreams and nightmares gathered, and from there he called to Milanda.
Chapter Seven
Milanda sat on the bed, her eyes raw and her throat sore. Her father was dead, and his killer was loose in the castle, seeking her, according to the Lady of the Watch. She felt cold and rubbed at the skin of her upper arms. There was a shawl in one of the chests; she would put it on and try to get some rest.
Yes, sleep was what she needed.
She unlocked the chest and raised the lid. Inside, a black-feathered bird that looked like a crow was laid out; it was dead yet alive, and its flesh shone silver-grey. She leaned over the trembling form and saw the raw wound that was once its chest. A mass of worms teemed within, seething and writhing over one another, their segmented bodies glistening with pale flakes of corruption.
Feeling sick, she went to close the chest on the horror, but then she saw the eye of the crow and how it wept a yellow tear. It showed her things, feelings best left forgotten.
Milanda shuddered in the tight grasp of remembrance. A hand lightly touched her shoulder, and she jumped to her feet, turning to see who was there.
It was the boy, the one her father beheaded for trying to kiss her, and for more. She heard his voice as an echo of the past, heavy with tears, confessing his love, begging the King’s mercy. There was none to be had, and so the axe-man took his due with one brutal blow.
His name was—
Gods’ bones, she had never been told.
She looked at him through her tears: he was death-pale and salted with grave-dirt. The puckered line of execution encircled his throat. He could not speak, so instead he raised the dying bird to her—an offering. His eyes were the same grey-silver as the bird’s. There was need there, and she couldn’t deny him after what he had given up for the promise of a kiss.
Only my life, my Lady ... only my life ...
“I wanted you as well,” she said, her voice cracked. “I’m so sorry ...”
She cradled the shuddering near-corpse of the bird and brought it up to her lips. She bit down into it, burying her mouth deep, swallowing wormy mouthfuls until she tasted of the truth and its terrible cold. Darkness overcame her. She collapsed into his arms, but the dead boy was no longer there.
It was Khale the Wanderer that held her.
*
Milanda was cradled in his arms when he came back to himself. The iron door was undisturbed, the walls of her bedchamber unbroken—such was the strength of dreams, where the real becomes unreal and ghosts walk as flesh once more.
Khale turned about and saw there were guards facing him. The dead guards had been discovered. He sighed. He knew it might come to this. There was not enough time to weave a glamour on these men.
They came towards him steadily. None of them were young and dumb enough to rush in and get themselves killed, which was a shame. A corpse always served well to make those alive more wary. Honour, duty, nobility, and courage were small words against the love a man had for taking one breath after another. Still, Khale knew these men would not meekly allow him to ride from Colm with the girl in his arms. And he could not easily set her down and draw the two-handed sword strapped across his back without leaving himself open and exposed.
They knew this as much as he.
Moments passed as the enemies faced one another.
“Set her free,” an older guard said.
“I don’t think so,” Khale replied.
“Then we will run you through,” said a younger one.
“I think not.” Khale smiled as he began to hastily mutter to himself.
“What’s he doing?” asked the younger guard.
“Mage!” yelled the older. “He’s one of ’em.”
With hateful cries and hateful faces, they plunged their swords forward and watched as he took a step backwards and seemed to pass through a wall bearing his royal burden, leaving their blades to cleave through empty air.
*
Khale had other places he would rather be than here. Passing into the dreamlands to snare the girl was one thing, but traversing this dead space was something he had hoped to avoid. But, he thought, even the wisest man can weave a scheme that goes awry.
The dead space wept like a willow tree; all of its poison shades running one into another before trailing away into nothingness. He glimpsed faces forlorn, the wasted threads of lives and abandoned loves spun together into a disintegrating cascade. It flowed over him as a fog. It made sighs like those of a man standing upon the bottom step of a gallows at dawn.
Khale strode through the fog, keeping his eyes ahead. Many who tried to master the art of traversing the dead spaces never returned. They became lost forever, their shades wandering through these eternal mists, thinking themselves to have only been there for a mere moment before looking down to discover decades and their own deaths had come to pass. Khale would not age and corrupt, but the same could not be said of the mortal girl in his arms. She was too precious a burden for him to linger here long. He had to be swift, to find his way through the murk to a place where the fog grew thin. From there, he could cross back into the world of the living.
The mists stirred about his feet. His passage disturbed the dead space, and he knew what might be awakening even now. The thought passed through his mind with a tremor and a sense of motion that was not his own.
Khale began to run. His breath became ragged after what felt like minutes but could have been hours and many miles. Time and distance were everything and nothing here.
Looking ahead, Khale saw the fog thinning to a fine mist. The shapes of low hillocks showed through it. He shouted a command to make the mist pause, and it did, as if he had stilled water with his voice.
Khale threw himself and Milanda through the still-point he had made.
He landed on the ground. He turned to face where the mist had been; it was ebbing away. In another moment, it was gone.
He was back in the land of the living with his prize.
Khale smiled a brutish smile.
Chapter Eight
Barked knuckles rapped hard on the stunted door.
“Timoth, open the door.”
The knuckles rapped again.
“I will not ask you a second time, Timoth.”
The door eased open.
A man stood before him: broad, plump, and dressed in roughly sewn clothes. His face was round and wore an uneasy smile. “How can I help you?”
“With a summoning.”
“A summoning? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Do you wish me to say the word ... mage ... out loud, so close to the Church of Four, old man?”
“Please go away. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I do not do summonings.”
“But you will for me, just for tonight.”
The man held the door open and forced Timoth back into the hovel. It was overrun with bric-a-brac and knick-knacks. A rumpled sleeping cot sat at the far end, and a low table covered with teetering piles of scrolls and crumbling books dominated the room. The walls were decorated with illustrations of legendary figures and relics: The Crone of the Peaks, the Red Wheel of Barneth, the Iron Wand, and Anhedon the Last.
“One might almost think this to be the house of a ... mage,” said the man.
Timoth’s face drew taut and his large fingers fidgeted. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come, Timoth, be honest. You know who I am.”
Timoth nodded, face white, not saying another word.
“You know that a word here and a whisper there in the right—or shall we say, wrong—ears would be all it takes to have you marched through the streets. Did that not happen to your sister and her two sweet daughters?”
Timoth’s face hardened into stone. “Yes,” he said, before his lips set themselves in an even harder line.
“Then you know that to deny us what we wish will only bring trouble down on your own head.”
Timoth took a long breath. “But if I do it, this will not be the last time you ask it of me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because men in your position can never have enough.”
“Enough what, Timoth? Coin? Power? Strength?”
“Death,” the older man said. “You bring death into the world. You always have done and always will do.”
“Only when I need to,” the man said. “Now, the matter of coin.” He tossed a purse onto the table; it landed heavily.
Timoth flinched from it.
“I know you can use the coin,” the man went on. “Your situation is bad, and your means are frugal. Let me correct myself. You need this money as much as I need you. No-one lives in the Pig District by choice, unless they are hiding something.”
Timoth sighed and thumbed moisture from his eyes. “You wish for a summoning, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then, you shall have it. You know what such a ceremony requires?”
“Yes. There is a cart outside.”
Timoth should have said good, but he didn’t. There was nothing good about what was going to happen here tonight.
“Hylde, forgive me,” he whispered.
*
The corpses were brought in fresh from the gallows. No-one would miss them and, in this part of the city, no-one would care what was to be done with them.
They were laid out on three narrow tables according to Timoth’s instructions, not leaving much room in the hovel. Clothes and boots were cut from their bodies with flensing knives. Timoth came forward and laid a hand upon each of the bared chests before turning to the man. “They must be flayed.”
The slow blood of the dead fell thick, black and heavy as the man went about his task. Finally, the last traces of skin were cut away, and the forms upon each table were as raw and vile in the lamplight as madness itself.
“Strap them down,” said the mage.
The man tied each of the bodies to the table it was on.
“Anoint them,” Timoth instructed.
Canopic vials were emptied of their spices and oils, which were liberally applied to the bodies. The odours of burnt copper and incense wove bitterly together, stinging the nostrils of the living. Timoth withdrew to a corner and brought forth three draped shapes, which he placed at the head of each table. He drew back the cloth covering each shape and revealed them to be mirrors, but mirrors unlike any the man had seen before. Their frames were worked from what appeared to be bone, only the substance was threaded with traceries of ebon and incarnadine.
Timoth motioned to the man to stand away as he brushed his fingertips over the surface of each mirror. The glass there seemed to tremble like disturbed water.
“Timoth,” the man said, “your hand. What happened to it?”
The mage held up his left hand and looked absently at the smoothness where three fingers had once been. “Ah, in my younger days I was not so careful as I am now. I lost them when I first tried to scry with the shadowglass.”
The man’s face paled. “How dangerous is it?”
“Have you ever thought of placing your hand into a pool of dagger-fish? I imagine the effect, and the pain, is much the same.
“My Lords,” Timoth intoned, “come forth and possess these prepared vessels, that you might work your will on the Realm of Men once more. Leave the Thoughtless Dark behind so that you might prey and feed and walk in flesh again.”
The mirrors writhed and shook. The glass flowed outwards and began to shape itself, straining as if to shatter. Then, three foul breaths of cloud poured silently forth to settle over the skinless corpses.
The eyes of the dead opened, meeting those of Timoth and the watching man. Their mouths tried to scream, but the screams changed in timbre, heightening, becoming something far worse—a cold, humourless laughter. The denizens of the Thoughtless Dark that gilds all Creation had found themselves some meat and bones to wear once more.
The eyes closed, so did the mouths.
“Why must they be flayed?” the man asked, dry-mouthed.
“Because they must be made empty, both without and within. Only empty vessels may be filled, is that not so?” Timoth replied.
Slowly, the corpses on the tables opened their eyes, revealing pits that seemed to swim with a cold black water. Their lips parted and they spoke. “Tell us ...”
Timoth looked to the man. “The names. Give me the names of those you seek. I dare not set them free until they know their quarry, otherwise, they will slay us.”
The man gave Timoth the names.
Timoth addressed the dead. “Milanda, daughter of Alosse, and Khale, a wanderer and brigand. They are the ones to die.”
The corpses shuddered against their bonds. “Khale ... yes ... we know him ... the long-lived ... the master-puppet ... we crave his blood ...”
“Then, go and drink upon it,” Timoth commanded.
The corpses flexed their arms and legs. They snapped their bonds, as if the tarred ropes were string. They got to their feet and turned to face the man.
“We would ... have ... this one’s body ... and blood to drink ...”
“No,” commanded Timoth. “You are bound. You have the names. You must go. This one is not for you.”
They turned their eyes on Timoth. “We go ... we hunt ... we will feed ... then we will ... no longer be bound ... then we will take the bodies ... we wish for ... these here two ... him ... and you ...”
With that, all lights in the room went out.
The two men screamed.
Timoth muttered quickly under his breath, and a glowing orb of light burst into life. They were alone in the room.
The mirror-beasts were gone.
“What they said,” the man asked, “will they come back for us?”
“They are bound,” Timoth said. “You are safe from them, I promise.”
The man handed Timoth the promised purse and left without another word.
*
Timoth sat down with a flagon of hot, sour wine and drank his fill. He’d sworn that he would never do this again, never speak with the Thought
less Dark. This was why he had not left Colm and fled to Neprokhodymh after it happened, after his family died. Mages were foresworn, or they had been, from doing anything other than that which was beneficial to others. The shadowglass mirrors were in his keeping and he knew what use they might be put to in the hands of the Autarch.
He had tried to muster the courage and shatter the shadowglass mirrors on countless occasions, but his nerve always failed. He did not know what would happen once he struck the glass. Would it break? Would he be dragged through and lost to the abyss? Would some scrap of a Thoughtless One creep inside his own skull and weave itself through his brain until he was as empty as those poor dead devils he’d sent away tonight?
The mirrors were in his keeping, and so he kept them.
He made occasional gestures in favour of those around him: curing a pox-ridden infant here, seeing that a broken limb knitted together correctly there, and keeping the worst of the vermin away from the surrounding houses. At times, he was not sure why.
Why did some compassion linger on in his soul?
Sometimes, he hated himself for it.
They would burn him for all the little acts of good he had tried to do on their behalf.
For trying to make the world a better place.
He’d seen it happen to others. He’d seen it happen to his sister and her daughters.
Hylde. Ileana. Elsoune.
Though, in some ways, he was glad they were not alive to see what had become of the world. The rot was becoming so very palpable these days; bringing the Thoughtless Ones across the void and giving them flesh to wear had never been so swift an act before.
He well remembered being taught that there was a natural order to things, and that to disturb it overmuch, and in certain ways, was done at one’s peril. But Timoth had come to accept that common men, rich and poor, lived to disturb and upset the world around them.
There was no escape from them and what they wished to do.
Magic is born in the blood and can only be extinguished by fire and flame—those were the words people believed. It was the language of hate, and hate was as old as Mankind. Humanity lacks humanity, he thought. Hatred and cruelty are its root and stem, and so the souls of men grow thin, like bitter wire-weeds, from the morn of birth until the night of death.