by Will Elliott
‘Never seen its like, I keep saying. No reason to think it’s related to the death.’
‘Who made the rune, wizard?’
‘Could be a dragon cultist; they were never completely wiped out. Could be the new people. A mourning symbol! That may be it. They’re sentimental beings, the new folk, not the type to murder. That’s what happened: they come through, meaning to find the tower, not knowing Domudess had gone from here. They see us … but, fearing attack, pass us by. By some means they find the Invia’s body, perhaps sensing the thing’s trace of magic. They dig, find a body, grow sad, and make a mourning symbol.’
‘Why did they take its arm?’
‘I wasn’t there!’ cried Blain. ‘I don’t know their ways.’
‘I begin to think you made the rune as a play against me.’
Blain emitted a growl of frustration. They both moved out of earshot.
Siel was enjoying herself. She went to her hiding spot, chewed a little of the Invia flesh. It was tough and had little taste to it, thankfully. But her whole body seemed to vibrate after she’d swallowed it, seemed to fill with strength and heat. She had to do something, anything, with this energy. She dashed down and carved more meaningless runes on a part of the path the men would surely see on their way back to the Invia’s body when it grew light. One of the phoney runes looked like a human arm, cut off at the elbow. Back in her hiding place she kept her laughter silent.
Since the group put out their campfire Siel had been lightly sleeping in her hiding spot among the trees. She had been dreaming of the lake, its crystal light, and the multitude of beings around her as she’d walked with Far Gaze towards its shores.
Something rustled the undergrowth in her hiding place, waking her up. Day was close. A glimmering green light bathed her hiding spot. Something whispered to her words in a tongue she hadn’t heard before, and yet found she understood. An image came to her mind: a man with a sword – Valour. Riding across World’s End, the ground seeming to rattle with the hoofbeats pounding down. Across the boundary, blade raised high, his steed veering to run over haiyens who could not flee quickly enough, a thousand men or more from the city of Tanton riding behind him. Through the haiyens’ stone-shell homes his horse stomped, crushing them to shards. Onwards Valour rode, the war cry from his throat an eerie, dreamy trumpet call, echoed by the men behind who followed and mimicked him so uniformly they were surely in his thrall.
Siel could not divine the presence about her that showed her these things. But it was benign – she knew it would not hurt her. Something spoke in a voice like rustling leaves, and placed another image in her mind: of Siel herself, at peace. The world falling to pieces around her, but none of it mattering. Would she like to be taught new things? she was asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. The little place she hid in came alive around her. Small glowing things dropped down from above, like stones made of light. Strange soft music played. Briefly she worried that all this would draw the attention of those by the campfire.
Whatever it was, the benign presence spoke a final time to her. It assured her she would be well, though many others would not; that she was honoured, the first in this place to be taught new arts, though she may not understand them yet. A cleansing was upon them all – the lands were young, but wise for their age. All things meant to be, would be.
She was responsible enough to hold power, the rustling leaves told her. She saw herself moving through the campfire group in naked daylight, fading and twisting like smoke in and out of sight. This was one of the new arts she would be taught. You are a good hunter, it said. Eat the things I shall leave here for you. This will open powers within you. There was more to learn, but the haiyens could teach the rest, if they wished to. For now, I must depart. When the time comes, you will go to World’s End, where Road meets Road, and wait there for the final Pendulum swing. Your role there is one of honour.
All went quiet; the faint luminescence dimmed away. The small glowing lumps remained behind. Hesitantly she reached for one and ate it. It felt as if cold clear water flushed through her veins.
When morning light came in full, Kiown and his dragon returned.
41
NEW POSSESSION
Dyan had only just set down when Blain and Tauk took Kiown by an arm each and began to lead him away from the others, as though they had urgent tidings for him. Angrily Kiown shook them off, shoved Blain to the ground and viciously kicked him. The old man was briefly airborne. He got up, spat blood from where his face had scraped the ground, then bowed to show reverence. The rage flashing in his Strategist robe was so bright it bled faintly through the plain garments covering it.
Tauk bowed too in faux apology. He spoke with urgency, pointing off into the distance, his face grim. Kiown listened. Siel heard the mayor say, ‘If this is true, I must ride there at once.’
‘You’ll stay here,’ said Kiown. ‘We have other things to discuss. Dyan will take care of it.’
Kiown spoke privately with the dragon. Dyan gave the mayor and Strategist a long look with his head cocked to one side, the way he looked when puzzling something out. But he took off as he was asked to and was quickly gone into the clouds.
Kiown watched him go, deep in thought. Before he turned around, Blain had split into a dozen copies of himself, all of them with eyes glowing red as they advanced. Tauk ran at Kiown with his sword angled, aimed a slash at his body. Kiown’s spin was deft. The way he avoided the blade seemed impossible: as if he had dodged it after it should have cut through him. The eye claimed for a moment that he’d surely been cut. Tauk was stunned, off balance. With a blow from both palms Kiown sent the mayor flying backwards through the air. Violet light shone from the Hunter’s eyes.
Evelle had looked to be sleeping off last evening’s drink, but she leaped to her feet, knives in each hand. She sprang upon Tauk and stabbed the forearm holding his sword. He released it. She got him in a choke-hold with one knee bent around his neck and grinned down. Her look said killing him was a game she’d been dying to get back into.
Whether it was from Valour’s armour or else where, Tauk found strength she’d not expected. He writhed, broke out of the choke-hold, kicked her off then scrambled for his blade.
Kiown had his own sword drawn. The violet light in his eyes made his whole face ghoulish and savage. In fear, the real Blain backed away behind the group of illusions he’d made, for Kiown ignored them and gazed only at him. Kiown dashed through the copies of Blain, slicing at each with almost an Invia’s attack speed, his arm a dozen lashing whips. He paused to grin at Blain, enjoying the old man’s fear. Like Evelle, Kiown was in no hurry to make the kill – after all, he had many slights and insults to make up for.
Meanwhile Evelle threw a knife at Tauk but Valour’s armour deflected it. She threw her other and hissed in rage when it missed, for she never missed and her throw had been perfect. Tauk raised his sword, pounded his chest with the bleeding arm she’d stabbed, began to shout about his city, and his honour, and his ancestors. She got to her feet and into position for hand-to-hand fighting as she backed away from him.
Tauk’s man Vade joined the fray. He left his mayor to handle Evelle and slashed at Kiown, who did not see him coming. There was a spray of blood. Kiown gave a hissing scream, clutched his side. He spun on Vade, leaped at him. Such was his rage he forgot his sword altogether and used his teeth instead, faster and more vicious than a dog. Blood poured from Vade’s throat and his shout became a gargle.
Siel walked down through the fight with hardly a thought or plan in her mind. She had never felt calmer or more relaxed. It was the exact vision the Teacher had shown her of herself: walking seen one moment, unseen the next, purely as the moment required to preserve her from harm. There was no need for her to try and control this power, as long as she trusted it. As long as she didn’t fear for her life, nor for anything else. Even if it looked as if her life were about to end, she must not fear.
So it was they didn’t see her, none of th
em. She picked up Evelle’s knife, the one Tauk’s armour had deflected. Kiown, given completely to his rage, attacked the dying Vade with greater savagery, hissing and spitting, the violet light pouring from him. At last it occurred to Kiown to summon back his dragon. He stuck his head up and whistled.
At that moment Siel took a handful of his hair, pulled his head back. Her every move felt graceful, part of a dance. ‘Think of me, in the waters,’ she whispered in his ear. He froze, recognising her voice. There was comprehension in his eyes as he rolled on his back, hands to his chin where blood poured from the great gaping slit she’d opened up from jaw to sternum. His fist closed tight on the dragon-made amulet, even now refusing to release it. She cut off the hand that held it. Only then could she pry his fingers away.
Blain had begun hobbling back towards the woods, not expecting to make it there. They’d not supped of the Invia flesh recently enough – that, or the flesh had begun to lose its potency. Now he looked back, expecting to see Kiown bearing down on him. He let out a horrified rasping scream to see Siel take two reeling steps, the dragon-made amulet in her hand. In that moment Blain’s own death would not have been half as horrible as seeing someone else seizing the precious charm he longed for. Blain prepared to cast a combat spell, but as he did Siel faded from his sight.
There was a thud as Evelle’s head dropped in the grass. Tauk spat, wiped his face where many nicks and cuts had been made by the assassin’s razor-sharp fingernails. Panting, Tauk beheld the scene around him. The sudden quiet and stillness seemed impossible. Quickly Tauk searched Kiown’s body. ‘Where’s the dragon charm?’ he said in a hoarse voice.
‘Gone,’ Blain whispered.
‘You’ve kept it?’ Tauk roared at him.
Blain groaned, made himself vanish. The mayor gave in to his rage, slashing his blade down at everything in sight, kicking the bodies, screaming.
‘All of them will be cleansed,’ said Siel. ‘There’s no need for grief or anger.’ Tauk heard her. He looked frantically about but did not see her. He threw his sword aside and wandered away, face buried in his hands.
A flood seemed to have poured into Siel’s mind when she closed her hand upon the charm, a flood of information she would later have to sift through bit by bit to properly understand. But she knew now that she was the rightful ruler of this land, and she knew the dragon quickly flying back towards them would not harm her.
Dyan too knew that he had a new master. He landed before her as gracefully as a cat. He took an uninterested look at the carnage about him then lowered his head to Siel. ‘I am yours,’ he said.
‘What if I don’t want to own you?’ she said.
‘Then you may order it so.’
‘Your Great Beauty is dead. Stranger, as we called her. Do you care that she’s dead?’
Dyan appeared to think about his answer carefully. ‘In this I must answer truly. “Love” meant different things to her and to me. I found pleasure and delight in her, even when her moods were bad. I would rather that she was not dead. Yet I do not mourn her in the way it is human custom to mourn the dead, for I expect humans to have far shorter lives than I. My duty is now my one true interest. The spells upon the symbol you hold make this so. To that symbol I am now bound.’
‘It doesn’t anger you that I killed Kiown and took this charm from him?’
‘I have no say in who possesses the symbol, New Beauty. Such is the sentence given to me, by those who crafted the symbol you hold.’
‘I see. If I ordered you to tell me all you know of the dragons and their plans, would you?’
‘No, New Beauty. For I am not privy to all their plans.’
‘I see. Then take me to Eric. Find him, and take me to him.’
‘He who rides a red drake?’
‘Yes. You’ll help me kill him.’
Dyan pressed himself to the ground for her to climb onto his back.
The dragon flew fast. It was not as fast as Shadow had moved when he’d brought her to Stranger’s cavern from the wizard’s tower; she did not think anything could move that fast in all Levaal, or all of Otherworld for that matter. Now and then she ordered Dyan to slow down, for his speed made her dizzy.
‘You may sleep upon me while I fly, Beauty,’ he said. ‘I sense you are tired. I shall not drop you.’
‘Don’t call me that. Use my name.’
‘I will call you Beauty. This lone freedom is mine. A prisoner may gaze outside his cell and admire what he sees.’
‘How do I know you won’t drop me?’
‘I could not let you come to harm, Beauty.’
‘You would not need to obey me, if I were dead. You could go and find someone you find more beautiful.’
‘The symbol you own does not allow it. I obey the symbol, not you, Beauty. Its authority travels through you, not yours through it.’
Their flight went over Faifen. There, great ditches were dug alongside the city. The ditches were filled with dirt and ash. The great piles of clothes and other belongings spread on the ground nearby were the only clue of what the ditches were for. No living people could be seen inside the city walls, or outside them, though there was the odd curl of smoke from chimneys. She felt no sadness for those whose bones and ashes filled the ditches; since possessing the charm, her memory of the waters had been pushed to the back of her mind, but still she knew how lucky those dead people really were, to be free now.
Sitting on Dyan’s back soon felt perfectly natural, like she’d grown into an extension of him (or perhaps he’d become part of her). While they flew, the charm unravelled its secrets in her mind. She need not strain to use its powers, she saw; as the need for its powers arose, they would come. She had but to experience the pleasures of ruling an empire, to taste the power …
Dyan perched on a mountain without her bidding him. He sniffed the air for many long minutes. His tail swished behind him, which it did when something troubled him.
‘What is it?’ she said, climbing down from him to stretch her legs.
‘The fire god has awoken,’ said Dyan. With his mouth permanently upturned in the corners it was not obvious that he was afraid, but she knew that he was – and for the first time that she’d seen.
‘Woken? How?’
Dyan didn’t know so he didn’t answer, just took more great sniffs of the air. ‘He came near here, but is here no longer.’
‘No longer in this part of the country? Or no longer in the North world at all?’
Again, Dyan did not answer; she supposed he didn’t know. She climbed to where the rocks reached higher. Ah, how the charm gave her arms and legs new strength. She climbed a sheer face with barely any handholds for her. How easy it was! She went out on a thin limb of stone stretched like a pointing finger, and crouched upon its tip. Without the charm it would surely have snapped and sent her to the ravine beneath. Down there, a dry riverbed wound through the stone valley. She clutched the stone point with her hands, swung around like a child on a tree branch, laughing at the abyss beneath her feet.
‘Something else is here, Beauty,’ Dyan called up to her. ‘Be wary.’
‘What else?’ she called back, her voice echoing over the rock faces. She pulled herself back upon the stone finger.
‘Another power. I do not know what it is.’
‘It’s surely not the fire god,’ she replied. She held the charm up to the sky, admiring its beautiful stone. She had never felt this before, a jealous craving for something she already possessed …
The thin length of stone she crouched upon seemed to shift. A cascade of small rocks and dust slid down the cliff. Strangely, she thought she heard a voice speaking in the clattering noise it made. She gazed above at where the stone curved up like something’s huge round shoulder. A wide clump of hanging white vines almost formed the effect of a beard. A crevice above the ‘beard’ was cut into the stone like a wide mouth. One corner was curved up. She searched higher for eyes but did not see any.
Not that it was a face, she k
new … but turning her gaze to the stones beneath, she saw there were interesting formations there too. One jutting shelf seemed from above to be shaped like something’s folded knee. ‘Beauty, be careful,’ Dyan called again. ‘Something stirs in the stone.’
‘Why? There is nothing here but us.’
‘Something is conscious. And aware of us. Stay there. I will come to you and we will leave.’
Many stones broke with a loud burst of cracks and slid down the sheer cliffs. The whole mountain shivered. Siel yelped, fell, grabbed desperately at an oval slab jutting from the cliff side. Her grip on it was good but the slab seemed to shift around as if it were loose.
From below Dyan’s cry of panic rent the air. She craned her neck to see him. A hand made of sandcoloured stone and bigger than the dragon had pinched his tail between its thumb and forefinger. Dyan thrashed around as wildly as an insect picked up. A rumbling noise seemed to shake the whole world. Boulders cascaded and thumped down, one flying past Siel so close she felt its wind. Whether it was the charm’s protection or the work of something else, somehow a thick rain of stones missed her.
‘Nightmare told me of you,’ said the voice she’d heard, spoken with the crack and whomp of the falling stones.
Dyan screamed words in a language Siel didn’t know. Whatever he said provoked rumbling laughter from the mountain all around them, echoing off the opposite wall of cliffs. After that Dyan kept quiet. A rain of dust scraping on a sheer face of stone said to Siel, ‘Was it you who woke Inferno?’
‘No!’
‘It is a great crime,’ said a spray of falling dust. ‘One of your kind did it.’
‘It wasn’t me. No more than you are responsible for what Inferno does now.’
‘Hm,’ said the rustle of the beard-like vines above her.
‘I’m falling; help me.’
‘Stones live too,’ said the wind blowing through the pass. ‘You did not call for the rescue of those stones which fell to break.’
‘I’m sorry we intruded on your home. Let us leave.’