by Will Elliott
Far Gaze waited for Siel to come fully awake. The new people’s healing had kept her asleep, he was sure, for there’d been noise and motion enough to wake her many times. When at last she stirred he whispered in her ear: ‘Maintain the look of someone drugged and dazed. Feign sleep. The mayor and his men are going insane. They watch us closely. They will question you. Now is not the time to speak with them of the unknown. Do not argue with what I’m telling you now, or I won’t defend you. Speak with me later. We may need to flee them. But first I need rest as much as they do.’
She gave no indication of having heard. He knew that she had.
When the day’s ride finally ended it was a mercy. Another full day at that pace would bring them to Gorb’s village and the tower. ‘Is this spot safe?’ said Tauk of the incline upon which they made camp.
‘Yes,’ said Far Gaze solemnly, not knowing whether or not it was, and hardly caring. The night was cold enough to frost their breaths – indeed the weather had got cooler since the Wall fell. The men spoke little, ate from provisions and of foraged roots, their eyes ever suspicious over the embers of a small fire. Far Gaze laid his blanket over Siel. ‘Where does the girl lie tonight?’ asked one of the men, his question not as casual as it sounded.
Far Gaze met his eyes. ‘Pass me your food. I’ll bless it for taste.’
The man drew back, shielding his bowl. Tauk smiled at Far Gaze and laid a hand on the man’s arm. ‘You need not fear my men. These are hard times; the road’s been cruel to us. But we’ll not forget our honour.’
Far Gaze sipped from his bowl. ‘I never doubted it.’
They put out the fire and soon the men snored. Far Gaze went under Siel’s blanket and shook her gently awake. Their heads close together, they spoke in hardly more than breaths. He studied her closer than she probably knew, seeking any sign of change in her. ‘How were you healed?’ he whispered.
‘Do you expect me to explain their arts?’
‘I see they have not changed you overmuch. Tell me all that you remember.’
She paused. ‘After I fell … I was dreaming of strange realms. I don’t remember much of it now.’
‘Lands in the south?’
He felt her shrug. ‘Then there was something rushing around me like water from a flood. It was sound, but I could feel it as if it was water.’
‘Was it music?’
‘Yes. It carried me from one dream to another, as if each place we stopped bore a signpost on the way back to here, to being awake and alive. I can explain it no better. The music seemed to promise I would return to those places. It was strange, but it made me happy. Then I woke in pain.’
He hadn’t told her the extent of her injuries, but maybe she’d guessed. ‘What was the music like?’
She struggled for words. ‘Different from music we know. Maybe the Pilgrim has heard its like, I don’t know. If I concentrate I can still hear parts of it, faintly. It makes me think of lush places where things grow.’
‘And when you woke, what did you see?’
‘There were two of the new people near me. One had a little reed, or something like it. He blew into it. My eyes opened as the last notes came. It did not sound in waking like it had in sleep. It was thin and high, not very pleasant. Seeming to press into my head almost like someone’s hands. In sleep it was all around me, sounded very different. The other one, he had something in his hands he wished to hide from me. I didn’t see what it was.’
He thought of the little black sphere he’d seen in one of the new people’s hands. ‘You are well, now?’
‘Aches, dizziness. I feel strange. Not sick, not well. I hope it passes.’
‘Your thinking? It’s as normal?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How do you feel about the new people?’
She didn’t answer for a moment or two – fine instincts for a trap, had Siel. ‘I know nothing of them,’ she said. ‘No more than you.’
‘That’s not what I asked you.’
‘That’s the answer you’re getting.’
‘Why did Shadow attack you?’
He felt her shudder. ‘Don’t speak of him.’
‘You have seen worse terrors than him, I am sure. Why such fear of Shadow?’
‘He can travel across the world in moments! He’s got some sort of … attachment to me. He may come here, tonight. His powers are greater than yours, far greater. You could not stop him if he came here. We must go back to the tower. Now. He cannot reach me within it.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Lower your voice! If I sneak away, these men will take it as an act of war. Did you not see their mood today? The mayor’s city is in dire peril. More accurately, his power is. They say he is a good man, as mayors go. Invite them to leave their high seat, you see a certain … kinship.’
‘I know your opinions of our leaders well enough. Stay if you wish. I’m going.’
‘If they find I’ve let you leave, they’ll cut my throat.’ He pondered. ‘Attempt to, anyway.’
‘You fought a dragon. I think you can handle three men.’
A dragon who did not truly wish to kill me, he thought. ‘No mage is immune to an arrow or sword edge when he sleeps. I do not wish to travel in constant alertness! I must be free to meditate.’
‘They’ll not hold you accountable for my fleeing. I will take a steed and be four hours ahead of you before they wake,’ she said. He knew there was no point arguing with her. He considered casting to make Siel sleep. ‘What will you do?’ she said, already eager to leave.
‘These men are half mad. It would please me to be free of them. But with each day I keep them alive the mayor’s debt grows greater. He will remember it when times are less perilous and sanity returns. He will owe me much of his city by the time he returns there. Far more than he can pay.’
‘Do you really feel such a debt is apt to be honoured?’
‘I do indeed. Or he will never have peace for the rest of his days, wondering in what shape and form the oath-breaker’s curse will come. Whatever things he treasures most, he will fear most for and never love those things again. Be it his offspring, his wealth, his fate after death, or all of these together. Should he honour a tenth of what I claim, I will be content.’ He contemplated the off-chance of Siel meeting up with Gorb again. ‘And of course, I owe the giant a share, which I’ll pay. Leave, if you must. Take the grey stallion; they use the other as a pack horse. Go now. And silently!’
‘They go where we go. Why should it matter so much that I leave? Am I free or a prisoner?’
‘Until they know what the new peoples did to you, you are neither. You are regarded as property.’
‘The “new peoples” healed me from death,’ she said with feeling.
And made a friend of you, I see, he thought. Aloud he said, ‘Tell the wizard to prepare for guests who are going mad. If indeed he allows us back in his home. Take care when you return there. Remember, the waters about the tower can boil.’
12
WHERE DID SHE GO?
Far Gaze had assumed the night’s rest would do at least something to cure the men’s anxieties, even when they rose to find Siel had fled. But rough hands lifted him to his feet and out of sleep, the blanket still wrapped about him. The circle of protection he’d cast about where he slept had evidently failed to take hold thanks to the polluted airs. A blade was at his throat, the point of another between his shoulders.
Sour morning breath poured over him. ‘Where is she?’ someone demanded.
It was not yet light. ‘Who?’ he said, yawning.
The hands gripping him clenched harder. ‘What do you mean who? How many women did we camp with? She’s gone. A stallion with her.’
‘I see. Take me to the place the horse was tied. I may tell you more.’ The hands released him.
Tauk was still a sleeping bundle near the dead campfire. His two men – Vade and Fithlim, if Far Gaze remembered their names right – put their weapon
s away but watched him closely while he crouched near the spot, closed his eyes, hummed and murmured, waved his hands in imitation of magic gestures. ‘Ah,’ he said at last.
‘What have you learned?’
‘The winds, the very grass blades, tell me she has gone to the same place we go.’
One of the men, Vade, detected the faint sarcasm in his tone. He reached again for his weapon. ‘Why does she go there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘This wizard you claim is there. What does he look like? From where does he come?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But you are certain he exists?’
‘I am not certain I exist, let alone him.’
This brought weapons out of their sheaths again. But the mayor had woken and was now on his feet. The other two rushed over to tell him what had happened. All three looked at Far Gaze with renewed suspicion, but at least they put their swords away.
‘We depart,’ Tauk called over. He said it like an edict from the gods, as if all Levaal depended on them packing their blankets and leaving this patch of grass now rather than in an hour’s time. Far Gaze’s lip curled, but he bowed low.
They’d put a mile behind them before day had whitened the sky, hooves thumping the road with a beat more urgent than yesterday’s. Huge on the horizon loomed a stoneflesh giant, its torso twisting just slightly, perhaps to follow their passage. They were now near to those fields where a Tormentor had taken them by surprise in the night, and nearly killed Siel. The ruins of wagons and bodies both human and Tormentor littered the fields to both sides. What had happened to the humans was clear enough, but there was no indication at all of what had slain the Tormentors.
As if he could see Far Gaze’s memory of Gorb blowing a Tormentor apart with one of his guns, Tauk sat upright in his horse and cried in dismay: ‘The weapons! The giant’s weapons! Inferno eat us all! We forgot to bring them!’
There was no going back, of course. The three men stayed quiet, allowing Far Gaze some welcome time for reflection. To his eye, heavy blows had slain the Tormentors along the road. The stoneflesh giants couldn’t have done it – they moved too slowly and the racket would have been heard halfway across the world. There was no obvious sign on the ground of any struggle, nor had the airs any lingering effects from spell casting …
The strange southern land continued to reveal itself through coils of white mist. Here and there on its flat expanse were what may have been homes constructed within crescent shells of stone, their insides made of vines, ferns, flowers and hanging teardrop-shaped leaves, with ponds of clear water in the middle of their floors. If they were homes, there was no sight of who or what lived in them. The stone ocean they sat upon stretched as far as sight.
One of the men – Vade – cried out and drew his weapon. He pointed to the south, where in the mist they could make out people standing in a line of five, upon a wave-like rise in the stone desert’s floor. ‘Them!’ Vade screamed. He turned his horse, sword raised, and looked ready to charge over till Tauk snatched the reins from his hand.
‘Be still,’ the mayor commanded.
All four of them stared at the new people. The new people stared back. They wore the same kind of brown-green robes as the earlier group, if indeed these weren’t the same ones. Far Gaze raised an arm in greeting but got no response. A coil of mist rose about them, veiling them from view. When it settled the new people could not be seen.
Fithlim waved his sword, stared about them, screamed, ‘They’re here!’
Tauk drew his own blade, swung it in a figure eight.
Vade rounded on Far Gaze. ‘You waved to them,’ he said. ‘You told them to come here! Where are they, mage? How long have you been in league with them?’
Far Gaze groaned. ‘Tauk! Your men become a burden to us. Reel in their passions or I shall have to.’
‘The mage betrays us!’ cried Fithlim, charging. Far Gaze lurched back from the swipe of his blade but only just. Anger filled him fast and dangerous. He was not even aware of what he cast – he knew only of a flare of red briefly consuming his vision. Afterwards Fithlim – whose sword had drawn back for another slash – fell onto the ground and writhed, clutching his ribs.
Instantly the burn flushed through Far Gaze, with a feeling like fists pressing his temples almost hard enough to bend his skull. For a brief time he was in more pain than the man he’d cast upon. Its intensity eased but spread through the rest of him. The seconds crawled slowly as it passed. The spell would not have taxed him this badly in wolf-form; human bodies were just not made for such magic.
Fithlim’s and Vade’s horses both cantered away, spooked by the hot wind which had accompanied the spell. A second rush of wind passed through them, but it had nothing to do with Far Gaze. With it was the cry of a playful whinny, musical to hear. An explosion of colour rippled across a length of scaly flesh, there among them only for an instant. The horses bolted, tipping off their riders.
Far Gaze alone saw clearly who, and what, had swooped down on them: Dyan the dragon, with Stranger and a second woman upon his back. Dyan flew up into the clouds in a fast smooth arc. Far Gaze understood the meaning of the playful whinnying cry: ‘Hello, wolf!’
The burn faded out of him at last. He ignored the hysterical questions of the men, and Fithlim’s cries for healing. He went instead to find and calm his horse, in the process pondering whether the mayor and his debt were worth the trouble. I will make sure they are, he thought, licking his teeth.
13
BLAIN AND HIS UNDERLING
In a clearing in the woods by the wizard’s tower, Strategist Blain tugged his beard, glancing from the Invia to Kiown and thinking fast. His life had become a cascade of bad luck: outwitted by Domudess without a spell needed; thousands of troops vanished, his best Hunter now dragon meat, his remaining Hunter stupid enough to attack and steal from Invia! Now they had to flee before the damned thing woke up, or it would tear them both to shreds.
A glance at the object Kiown had snatched from the Invia’s body showed at once the thing was crafted by one of Levaal’s great powers, almost certainly a dragon. It looked plain enough to normal eyes, as the great charms often did; in the Hunter’s hand a pendant of thin black metal hung on a loop of chain, with a rectangular stone set in its middle. The stone was blue, but the colour changed in similar fashion to the way colours shifted on Blain’s own Strategist robe.
Kiown stared down at the pendant, mouth hanging open. His eyes were wide. There was no doubt he was in love with the thing already.
Easy does it, Blain thought, though he’d begun to sweat. Don’t panic. It will change him, whatever it is. But not all at once. Blain tugged at his beard and murmured a quick incantation to master himself. The light that began to flash in Kiown’s eyes disturbed him. It went from white to violet then went out altogether.
Blain stepped towards him, walking stick raised as though to punish an underling; in truth he needed to see if Kiown still was an underling. ‘Idiot!’ he said. ‘Do you know what you’ve just picked up?’
Kiown did not seem to hear. He stared at the pendant’s stone.
‘That thing is of dragon-make!’ Blain cried. His robe flashed fiery crimson. ‘Nor was it made by any Minor dragon. Humans should not reach out and snatch such things like biscuits from mother’s pantry.’ His staff shook in his hand; his knuckles were white.
Kiown looked at him. That hint of violet was in his eyes again, there then gone. He stood up. The amulet’s chain clutched his wrist like a closed trap. Carefully – lovingly, Blain thought – he peeled the thin black chain away and swung the amulet on his finger. Round and round it went, the stone flashing. ‘Would you like to hold the amulet, Strategist?’ Kiown asked politely, an air of innocence about him. He extended the amulet on his palm.
O marvellous, Blain thought, wiping his brow. I thought I was the tyrant here. He looked towards the tower, just visible over the treetops. Domudess’s window was not in view. Blain cleared his
throat, stalling. ‘What about that?’ he said, pointing down at the unmoving Invia Kiown’s poisoned knife had felled from the tree. ‘You think it might not wake and claim back its trinket?’
Kiown mock-bowed, produced a knife from his boot. He pulled the Invia’s head back by its hair and swiftly cut its throat. Unconscious at the point of death, it did not cry out.
‘Have you a death wish?’ Blain yelled, forgetting caution. ‘We don’t know how many more of them are about. Not just them – a dragon’s nearby too!’
‘O. A dragon.’ For some reason the taller young man smiled.
‘At least get the pretty thing’s blood, now it’s dead,’ said Blain, crouching to catch the blood in his hands. Tiny glimmering things like crushed diamond dust flowed in the dark fluid. ‘Useful stuff,’ Blain murmured. ‘Good for potions. Your pack? A container?’
Kiown ignored him, giving the corpse a shove with his boot. He paced back and forth, deep in thought, leaves and sticks crunching under his boots. Now and then the violet-white light flicked on in his eyes. Blain watched him, letting the Invia’s blood spill on his robe to soak in. He’d be able to suck it out of the fabric, still potent even when it became days old. The rare liquid was good for far more than just potions, of course, but there was a reason he’d kept that fact hidden.
‘Interesting!’ said Kiown in conversation with himself.
‘What’s interesting? Death by dragon rage, does that interest you? Did you see Thaun’s body? I should say bodies, plural. That’s what dragons do when men displease them.’
‘Mind-control,’ Kiown said, tapping himself on the forehead. He turned back to Blain with a smile. ‘I didn’t know that you’d set mind-control in place on me.’
‘That was years ago!’ Blain spluttered.
‘I’d taken my fierce loyalty to Vous to be a virtue. You must use mind-control with all Hunters. Yes?’