by Ben Galley
In the darker shadows of the cliff face a Siren stood guard, spear held firmly and low by his side. He cleared his throat and coughed, blinking and peering into the darkness. Standing near to the mountain afforded a little shelter, but the cold still crept inside his cloak and stole his warmth. His red eyes watched the clouds racing overhead, trying to find a star in the dark sky.
Suddenly a slim hand slipped over his mouth and pulled him backwards. A sharp pain pierced his back, and a thin silver blade slid out from his chest. The soldier looked with amazement at the knife protruding from his leather tunic. There was a crunching sound as the blade was pulled out, a scrape of bone and armour. Blood gathered and bubbled in his throat. The pain started to spread, but darkness was quickly gathering at the corners of his scarlet eyes and by the time he hit the ground he was dead.
The figure wiped his long knife on the body of the Siren and sheathed it slowly. He bent to grab the man’s legs and hauled the body into the shadows.
On top of the cliffs, at the top of a winding staircase, was a little door cut into the rock. A lone soldier stood in the doorway, shivering in the cold and stamping his feet to try and keep warm. Someone had taken his cloak from his cupboard, and he had only his leather armour to keep him warm. The butt of his spear tapped on the ground as he shivered. He thought about going inside and stealing a blanket from one of the other guards, but the sergeant probably wouldn’t have taken too kindly to that, so he decided against it. A stone shifted somewhere on the little path to his right, just at the top of the stairs, and it made a little clattering noise as it fell. The Siren blinked against the cold and tried to focus his watering eyes on the stairs. He couldn’t hear anything except the wind, so he huddled deeper against the door frame and tried to feel the warmth of the barracks inside. He could almost imagine the warmth of the beds inside. He closed his eyes and shivered.
Another noise reached his keen ears over the howling of the wind, the sound of boots on stone. The guard peered around the corner of the little door to see a tall stranger, hooded and cloaked, carrying a spear low at his side. The guard shuffled forward, hands still deep in his small pockets, and opened his mouth to hail the stranger.
Like a shadowy blur the man dropped the spear and darted forward, and the Siren panicked. While he struggled to get his hands free of his pockets, the stranger’s hands shimmered with blue light. A yell caught in his throat as a bolt of lightning slammed into his chest and threw him backwards with a crack of thunder. The door splintered into a thousand pieces under him and the air was driven from his lungs. The man felt his ribs pierce his lungs as he collided with the wall at the back of the dark room. The shouts and cries of the others seemed distant and muffled from the floor.
The figure filled the doorway and a flash of light flew from his fingers, blinding the three scaly men falling out of their beds and scrabbling for their weapons. Yells filled the little room.
A flaming knife pierced the darkness and flew across the room, dispatching a bewildered Siren crawling across the floor. A gurgling cry and a crash of furniture rang out. The hooded stranger held his hands open facing upwards and sparks began to gather and spin above his hands. The ball grew and crackled, spitting light and fire as it spun inches from his crooked fingers. With a grunt the man tensed and hurled the huge bolt into the darkness, where it exploded with a massive crash against the back of another guard. The man was catapulted sideways and his forehead collided with the other soldier’s face as he tried to free a sword from its scabbard. There was a sickening crunch and the two men slumped to the floor limply.
The smell of burning flesh and smouldering wood choked the room with a thick smoke, and all was silent apart from the hoarse breathing of the wounded men. The dark stranger went to each one, plunging a knife into the defenceless soldiers to make sure they sounded no alarm. He sheathed his blade and left the room quickly, scurrying out of another low door into a gloomy corridor.
Deep in the mountain a flickering torch fizzled out, pinched between quiet fingers. The spreading shadows hid the cloaked figure as he stepped lightly on the flagstones, creeping further and higher into the palace.
Around a corner, another guard stood quietly and attentively at his post. The man pressed a palm flat against the wall, and the stones shivered and rippled outward with a low rumble. Just as the guard turned his head at the noise, the first wave reached him and the wall burst apart behind him with a detonation of bricks and stone. The man was knocked flat and while he tried to rise the figure dashed forward and ended his life with a vicious slash across the throat. Dark blood pooled on the white floor, but the stranger was already gone, running headlong down the hallway.
Soon a bell rang somewhere deep in the mountain, and the corridors came alive with soldiers like swarming ants. They crowded the lower levels, but the stairs slowed them and the murderer was far ahead, high up at the top of the palace.
The man stood in front of a tall set of iron doors and looked up at the high arch of the door frame. He strode forward and pushed on the metal, making the door creak in protest. Slowly it swung open and the man slipped into the cavernous hall without a sound. He dodged furtively from pillar to pillar and made his way to the statue of the winged god at the end of the hall, and the little stone table sitting near it. The tearbook and a flock of papers sat on it, barely illuminated by the flickering candles around the shrine.
The hooded figure dashed to the table and seized the tearbook. He slipped it into a satchel under his cloak and stuffed the parchment beside it, making sure he got all of it. The sound of bells and horns shook the fortress around him. It was time to leave.
The man reached inside his tunic and brought forth a golden object that glittered brightly with the light from the candles. He gripped it in both hands and headed for the door. The bright corridor was full of the sounds of armour and clanging weapons, and just as he emerged from the dark hall a group of soldiers came around a corner and spotted him. The man wasted no time by lingering and broke into a fast run. The men shouted and bellowed and gave chase but the man had already reached the end of the corridor and had disappeared. Other soldiers joined them, spurred by the shouts and the yells, and soon the entire palace was racing after the hooded intruder, following the trail of dead bodies left on staircases and in doorways and slumped against walls. The Sirens wanted blood, and the stranger knew that, so he darted between rooms and corridors, leading the pursuers a merry chase towards the outside of the mountain. The palace was a warren, and he was slowly losing them.
No sooner had he thought this did he turn a corner to find a swarm of armoured soldiers, teeth bared, scales flushed, and blocking the corridor with their tall shields. The man skidded to a halt and stared at the hungry Sirens. They growled and tensed, waving their spears and blades at the intruder threateningly. The corridor was the only way out of this section on the palace, but the man had one more card to play. He looked at the gold disk in his hand, and lifted it closer to his face, lips mumbling the incantation etched into the shiny surface. Footsteps clattered behind him and a soldier rushed at him brandishing a short sword. The man ducked and spun, flinging out the hand that held the disk and catching the Siren in the face with the hard metal edge. The soldier let out a cry and threw his hands up to his nose while his feet flew out from under him. The others charged to their friend’s aid, yelling war cries and screaming for revenge.
The corridor roared with noise, but the stranger held firm, holding the disk straight out in front of him and muttering the last few words of his spell. And at the very last moment, mere seconds before the spears and swords cut him into pieces, the stranger swung the disk in a wide circle and completely disappeared, slipping into the bouncing, shaking air and vanishing completely. The air in the hallway wobbled like a plucked string and then slowly came to a stop. The Sirens skidded to a halt and stumbled over eachother amidst shouts of surprise and rage. They looked about them, bewildered, for any sign of the mage. But he was gone.
&nb
sp; Back on the beach, the wind howled and the rain lashed the stones and shale. The crew in the boat had done well to bring the boat into shore again, and they crouched by the pale hull of their wooden vessel, and waited. They did not have to wait for long.
Further up the beach a pile of pebbles started to shake and jitter, rocking back and forth as the air began to hum. Suddenly there was a loud sound, like the cracking whip or a tree snapping in half, and the air split in two, leaving a hooded man standing in the darkness. He looked down at the gold disk in his hand, now caked in blood, and turned it over. Shouts rang out from the cliffs behind him, and he heard the sound of arrows against the wind. A few barbed shafts slammed into the gritty sand next to him, and he started to walk briskly back to where the waves crashed on the shore. The men in the boat were a short distance away, but the archers were slowly getting used to the range. He wiped rain and spray from his face and threw a quick look behind him. There were soldiers running along the beach from the west, and the black shapes of dragons were circling the darkened summit of Hjaussfen. Their eyes could pierce the darkness like an owl hunting a mouse, so the stranger doubled his pace, and fled towards the sea.
The men beside the boat had already pushed it into the water, and were now plying their oars against the turbulent seas. The stranger was getting closer by the moment, and he hopped from rock to slippery rock to dodge the buzzing arrows. His hands were numb from the cold, and the wind constantly buffeted him and tore at his cloak.
As he reached the shoreline he looked back at the Sirens dashing after him across the rain-lashed beach. A rancourous smirk crept across his lip, and he looked again at the bloodied disk in his hand. With a chuckle he flung it towards them and it clanged against the slippery stones. Lightning flashed above him and caught the face of the gold, and he leapt into the boat with a huge lunge. Oars and paddles instantly dug deeper into the dark water, and the vessel lurched across the roiling waves with the wind gnashing in its wake. The hooded man stood upright in the bow of the ship, peering back at the shore and holding onto his hood. A member of the crew pawed at his heel, and shouted a question over the howling wind.
‘What?’ snarled the man.
‘Where d’ye want us t’ go your Mage?!’ the man asked again
‘Around the coast, and to the north. And be quick about it too if you don’t want to be speared by the Sirens!’ shouted the man, and the sailor nodded, blinking as a wave splashed against the side of the boat. He made to turn around, but his master grabbed his shirt sleeve before he got away. The hooded mage reached inside his cloak for the satchel.
‘Put this somewhere safe,’ he said, and with a flick of his wrist he tossed it at him The sailor caught it awkwardly, narrowly avoided dropping it into the iron sea, and clutched it to his chest while he cast around for a dry spot between the rowing men and the supplies.
An arrow thudded into the hull of the boat, and the crew immediately started to row faster with urgent hissing shouts. Perhaps it was the current and the winds that pushed them, or maybe it was something to do with the mage at the front of the boat, but either way they sped across the choppy seas and into the stormy night. Snatches of words, fuelled by rage, could be heard on the wind, yells, and banging. Bells and horns shook the mountain of Hjaussfen behind them, distorted and muffled by the weather. The men rowed on, and watched the dark skies with wary eyes.
Part Three
You only come Alive in the Dark
Chapter 12
“As a whole, the people of Albion are without a doubt utterly dimwitted, displaying an idiocy only just surpassed by the foolish pomposity of their so called “Dukes”. The citizens of this drab land seem to spend their time standing on street corners scratching themselves, or gambling, and gawping at the rest of the world flying past without them. In all my years I’ve never met a more dull set of people. But then again it’s probably why I enjoy hunting them so much, they’re as slow as their cows...’
From the diary of Durnus Glassren
Farden awoke when the bright sunlight climbed over the rooftops and pierced the darkness of his room. The rain had stopped in the night, and now an early morning mist filled the streets and fogged the dirty windows.
The mage, however, hadn’t noticed any of this yet, and he closed his eyes tighter against the offending sunshine. The fading tendrils of the dream hovered behind his eyelids. They confused him, annoyed him, ruined his sleep. They were dreams without meaning and the mage tried to dismiss their strange words as nonsense, but he couldn’t help but wondering why the voice sounded so familiar, why he felt as though he should pay attention. Farden shuddered as the hazy memories of the darkness and the sand and the falling fire came back to him. He would keep an eye on the weather, he decided, whatever that meant. Rolling over he reached out for the beautiful girl in his bed but found only empty space next to him. Farden shrugged. He had expected her to disappear during the night, careful to keep their secret a little longer.
Farden had often pondered what would happen if they were discovered, what the magick council would do, what would happen to them, and more importantly, what her father would do. Cheska was a princess and very soon she would be a Written, and that would make her by all reasons and definitions, forbidden. A wave of anxiety washed over him, but after a moment it was gone, replaced by a glimmer of hope and the feeling that his life was finally starting to make sense. He felt the small dragon scale amulet tapping against the skin of his neck, and thumbed its rough surface contemplatively. From now on, he said quietly to himself, things would get better, and then for once he let his mind go quiet.
Farden smiled to himself and put his hands behind his head, still refusing to open his eyes and admit it was daytime. He let the events of last night wander through his head. With a smile the mage stretched and his hand knocked against something small and metallic on the pillow beside him. Farden grabbed at the object and held it in front of him, blinking his sleepy eyes into focus. It was Cheska’s fjortla, left for him to keep until she had passed through the gruelling Ritual. He gripped the bracelet so hard that it hurt his hand, and then forced himself to sit up. He said a small prayer to the gods to keep her safe and then got up to gather his scattered clothes.
The bar area was filled with snoring or unconscious men, most of whom were sleeping under chairs and on table tops, some covered in vomit, others lying flat on the stone floor, swollen bellies rising and falling laboriously with deep drunken breaths. The two bards had fallen asleep leaning on each other, voices and fingers raw from performing. The innkeeper had disappeared. He was probably nursing his own throbbing head somewhere upstairs, Farden thought. He had to step over a huge man in a guard’s uniform that lay blocking the doorway. His beard was still wet with ale and his chest rumbled like a storm cloud. Farden could smell the beer on his breath as he passed.
The streets were buzzing, and everyone seemed to be rushing around. It was still early morning and yet the roads were packed with noisy, bustling crowds. The mage pushed his way into the street and joined the throng of teeming citizens. Carts pulled by donkeys crowded the thoroughfares, and their drivers yelled angrily for people to move and give way. The whole city was in uproar.
Farden hoisted his hood over his head and weaved through the crowds, pushing people aside with his strong arms. Everywhere he looked he could see guards frantically running back and forth, spurred on by the shouts from their captains and sergeants. Vice and the magick council had been busy this morning, Farden thought. He dug out a piece of dark dried meat from his belt, the same fishy stuff he had eaten in Nelska, and nibbled as he walked.
Even though he was only a short distance from the Arkathedral it took him the best part of an hour to reach the tall gates of the fortress, and even there people clogged the roads and gathered at the foot of the walls. Farden squeezed through a crowd of citizens that were angrily yelling at the phalanx of soldiers standing at the gates. The armoured men repeatedly shook their heads at the people and their capta
in was pushing them back with a short wooden stave. Farden elbowed his way forward.
‘What’s going on here?’ demanded Farden, once he was close enough to the officer.
‘Get back from the gates!’ The soldier shouted at him.
Farden yanked his hood back and held up one of his wrists to the man. The captain looked at the mage and then at the symbol on his skin and bowed instantly. ‘My apologies sire, these citizens are demanding refuge in the Arkathedral, but we’re under orders from the Undermage not to let anyone in besides soldiers or mages.’
‘Why?’ Farden looked at the man with a quizzical expression.
The man shrugged. ‘They didn’t say, but orders is orders and I do what I’m told. You’re better off asking them inside, sir,’ he nodded towards the tall gates.
‘This city is a madhouse,’ Farden muttered, and the soldier laughed without any humour. ‘If you think this is bad, then you’re not going to like it in there.’ Farden nodded grimly and the man bowed. He called to his men to let the mage through and their ranks parted. Behind him he could hear the captain poking and shoving the people away with his stave. ‘Back! Get back I say!’
Farden walked under the massive gateway and instantly realised the soldier had been absolutely right; the whole Arkathedral was alive and buzzing like a hornet’s nest. The mage groaned. It was as if war had broken out while he had been asleep, and now the grand marble atrium was stuffed and crammed with all sorts of people. Servants scurried this way and that through clusters of workers, their arms full of supplies and boxes or pulling little carts behind them. Soldiers ran back and forth lugging armour and bundles of weapons, yelling “move!” and “mind out!” and pushing others to the floor. Guards stood at every doorway and entrance. Everybody was shouting and rushing around. Only a small few stayed relatively still amongst the disorder, and they gathered in the corners of the marble hall, hooded and conspiratorial in their little groups. Several of them noticed Farden as he stood alone in the gateway watching the chaos. One man in particular, a very thin willowy man with white-blonde hair, broke away from the group and waded through the masses towards him. The man proffered a hand, and Farden shook it warmly and smiled. The symbols on their wrists flashed momentarily as they touched skin.