by Alan Baxter
The Guards staggered back, momentarily stunned by the ferocity and power of the ancient Kin, morphing into shapes of their own as they fell.
‘Contain him!’ Katherine screamed as her own flesh stretched and shone, her fine dress became scales as her legs elongated into a powerful serpentine tail that whipped across the room. Her arms lifted, fingers extending to claws as her hair sprang out into a mass of writhing snakes. Her beautiful face hardened and lengthened, teeth growing long, mouth wide as a forked tongue flickered out.
The fight was intense and fast, the two Guards and Katherine thrashing into the insane beast of Parlan. Blows were scored on every side as Parlan roared loud enough to turn the bowels of anyone within five hundred metres to water. It was clear Parlan would either escape or die and by the time the Guard from downstairs had made the landing, his body lay rent and broken in an ocean of his blood. Gore stained the bed, ran down the walls. The male Guard that had led him in lay dead and broken, the female sat against one wall, gasping, wide-eyed, as she used both hands to hold her intestines in.
Katherine morphed slowly back into her human appearance, wincing against pain from half a dozen gashes and bites across her arms, chest and face. She stood, breathing heavily, staring at the remains of the original Kin. ‘I did not fucking expect that,’ she said in her measured, upper-class tone.
Alex crept through the Tower of the Autarch, growing ever more frustrated. He could move freely, his invisibility proving time and again to be quite effective against the occasional Kin hierarchy he passed. But the Tower was bigger than he had imagined, with several rooms on every level. Some had been locked and he feared to try cracking them in case someone on the other side discovered him. He had travelled down first of all, wondering if the cells where the humans might be held were likely to be dungeons beneath ground. But he had found nothing to suggest that was the case.
He made his way back up through the Tower, floor after floor, carefully exploring wherever he could. Bed chambers and lounge rooms, kitchens of a sort, various bathrooms and lavatories. Several lowen moved about the Tower, presumably working for the Autarch and his hierarchy. They would be the ones who emptied the latrines and ferried the water to the baths, and whatever else the Kin required. The whole place was a hive of industry, particularly lower down, and Alex could only assume the cells and the real business was conducted higher up. It was slow, painstaking going to avoid the people, make no sound and search. Invisibility was a great asset, but it was no free pass.
He moved around to another stairway and climbed to the next floor. He passed windows as he went, glancing out to see Obsidian laid out below. He saw edges from his vantage point, the streets of the various wards crisscrossing grid-like, a sea of gleaming black roofs between the Void and the Tower. As he moved around, he saw the edge of the farmland, stretching out of sight, lowen like ants milling about in an effort to harvest weak crops to feed the equally enfeebled population. He ground his teeth and moved on.
Silhouette stalked between the buildings of Oldtown, keeping a wary eye peeled. The Austere robes she wore were bloodstained and torn from their fight. Turning them inside out had helped a little, but she wished she had thought to discard them before wading in. Regardless, time was running out and caution would have to bow to it. She paused, momentarily distressed. So what if she found the stone? How would they get out anyway? Did it really all depend on Alex getting the humans out and those humans having some knowledge they could use?
She imagined them all trapped and hiding, wondered how long they could last before the hierarchy overwhelmed them. She thought about sneaking back here, using the pathway to escape, leaving Alex and the others to their fate. She had survived hundreds of years as a pariah among her own kind and selfishness had been no small part of that survival. But she was pleased to feel the wrench inside that proved she really would not leave without Alex. If he was trapped here, she would stay.
She shook herself. ‘Fuck all that,’ she said under her breath. ‘Find a way out.’
She moved on, let her mind probe around, looked for anything that felt different. If this anchor stone was secreted somewhere here in Oldtown, she would find it. A systematic search had seemed the best option but she was losing hope now she was nearly three quarters of the way through the small locality. The broken-down village met the edge of Obsidian along one side, where a tall, thick wall of black glass had been grown. She had tried to scramble to the top, to see over, but the surface was too slick and she feared discovery. The blue-tinged dome dropped down right beyond the wall, so she was sure there was nothing there to be found. It seemed as though Obsidian had grown out, away from Oldtown, what was presumably old Averleekan, and the village itself had been slowly abandoned to all but the most destitute and mad. Not a bad way to protect the only way in and out and the stone that made this place what it was. Superstition was a powerful tool, and had ever been abused by the ruling classes.
A sound, scraping and moaning, made Silhouette freeze. She looked around and saw a lowen dragging himself across the road towards her. The man’s legs were withered like fleshy seaweed, sliding uselessly behind as he hauled himself forward with his hands. His eyes were beseeching, his mouth forming moans in place of any intelligible words.
Silhouette managed to prevent herself from recoiling. She hunched in her Austere robes, uncertain. The damaged man pulled himself to her feet and collapsed, face in the dirt. After a moment he looked up, gibbered something and collapsed again. Horrified, Silhouette reached down and laid a palm on his head, bracing against the stinking greasiness of it. ‘Peace be on you,’ she said softly. She let a little of her magic out, a soft Kin enchantment, and the man dropped into a dreamless sleep. She had no idea what else she might give him. With a small noise of distress, she moved on.
As she rounded a corner, she saw a man walk in through the front doors of a church. She stopped, surprised, moved cautiously forward again. The man had seemed quite hale and strong, his face curious, his pace wary but firm, and clearly a lowen.
Silhouette approached, checked all around in case the man had friends. She saw no one. The church was just as ramshackle and tumbledown as the rest of Oldtown, but it was certainly one of the stronger and more complete buildings. Made all of stone, it had survived time better than the wooden homes.
A sense of power drifted through the cracked and splintered doors. There was something here and it was both incredibly powerful and heavily warded. Perhaps she had found the anchor stone. But who was this man who had found it too?
She shifted into her favoured panther form, grey Austere robes and her own clothes beneath warping and merging into soft grey-brown fur at the behest of her magic. She slunk around the door, slipped into the deep shadows inside. The man she had seen stood in the middle of the aisle, right before the altar. He had one hand pressed to the side of his head as if in pain.
The sensation of power grew stronger. Silhouette allowed her senses to seek out a little further and the magic swelled. It was beneath them. The man stepped suddenly backwards, looked at the floor. He stood on a dark stone slab, carved with names and dates, worn smooth and shiny with the passage of thousands of feet. Silhouette wondered how long since feet had stepped on it in recent years. The man turned and stared right at her.
Sil jumped, shocked to have been spotted so clearly in her hiding place. The man crouched slightly, glanced left and right as if to run away. Silhouette stood, morphing back into human form. The stealth of her cat form was pointless now. ‘Don’t panic,’ she said. ‘I’m a friend.’
The man’s eyes narrowed at her strange accent, his head tipping to one side. Silhouette realised something about him and tensed. The sensation of Fey magic came not only from whatever lay beneath the slab, but from the man as well. He was touched, as the humans often called it. The Kin and the Fey called it ridden. The ridesprite that had abandoned the useless seer when they arrived had found a new host and had failed to conceal itself before she noticed. Why h
ad it led this man here?
‘What’s your name?’ Silhouette asked, trying to keep her voice soft and calm. She felt the presence of the ridesprite. It knew that it had been discovered and did not attempt to hide.
‘Edmund,’ the man said weakly. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We’re going to find out, Edmund. Why are you here?’
‘Are ye hierarchy, come to test me?’
Silhouette raised both hands, palms out. ‘Please, why are you here?’
Edmund shook his head, looked around the abandoned church. It was cool and still. Rotten tapestries hung from the walls like peeling scabs. Pews were broken and cracked, but mostly in order. ‘I don’t know.’ He looked towards the altar, threads of old cloth still clinging to it. A crucifix bearing the suffering Christ hung above it.
Silhouette was surprised those things hadn’t been taken away and hidden or destroyed by the Kin, lest they upset the new order imposed on these people should they venture in. Or perhaps they were left deliberately, a reminder of old ways that had failed. ‘What led you to this place?’ she asked.
Edmund swallowed. ‘I’ve been dissatisfied for some time. Very recently it got much worse and I simply felt the urge to travel here.’
Silhouette nodded, though she didn’t fully understand the purpose even if she did know where the urge came from. Perhaps the ridesprite simply needed to confirm the location of the anchor stone and ensure the human it rode knew where to come again. ‘Do you feel any other urges now?’ she asked.
Edmund smiled ruefully. ‘I have a powerful need to visit the Tower of the Autarch. I feel there’s someone there I need to talk to.’
‘Can you get access to the Tower?’
‘Aye. I work there two turns in every ten.’
Questions bubbled into Silhouette’s mind. How did they mark time here without days and nights? She had heard the bell before, but what did that mean exactly? How were workers chosen? Were they paid in any way? She shook her head, tried to focus on the immediate. ‘What do you do at the Tower?’
‘Cleaning, serving. Same as everyone.’
‘When are you due there next?’
‘Not for another two bells. But I feel the need to go now.’
Silhouette frowned. She wanted to ask how long a turn was, when the bells rang, but had no idea how to frame such a question without a point of reference. Regardless, they could not wait long. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to get into the Tower when it’s not your turn to work?’ she asked.
Edmund shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
Silhouette made a decision. ‘I need you to help me out for a while.’
Edmund looked her up and down. ‘Ye’re like them, but clearly no them. Ye dress in Austere robes and shapeshift. Why am I no terrified of ye?’
‘You’ve been … compromised by something. It’s affecting the way you think. I can help you, but you have to help me first. Deal?’
‘All right.’
Silhouette moved to his side. ‘First, help me lift this slab.’
They found old metal fittings, which Edmund handled nervously, and worked around the edges of the engraved stone. It showed signs of having been moved, but not for many years. Eventually they levered it loose and Silhouette got her hands underneath. Kin strength and sheer determination combined and she heaved it up and slid it away from a yawning black hole in the floor. Damp, earthy smells rose and waves of arcane energy pulsed through.
Steps led down into the darkness, to a small, cramped crypt with stone walls and nothing else. Silhouette pried around the walls and floors, scanned with eyes and mind. She found a movable slab of stone in the far wall and pulled it aside. More steps led down into a wide cavern, pulsing with blue light. The energies rising pulled and twisted at her soul and mind, dragged her forward against her will.
At the back of the cavern was a pedestal and on it sat a glassy black stone, almost spherical, no bigger than a baseball. It exuded a menacing energy that weakened her. Feelings of despair welled up in her heart, Fey power made her feeble. She saw a dent in the top of the stone, scalloped, a section removed, and knew it was where the Darak stone in Alex’s chest had come from. The round stone grew and shrank subtly, throbbed with an ethereal life.
This was the true heart of Obsidian. This was the battery that powered the whole place. This power, corrupted and controlled by the hierarchy, kept the people alive and crops growing without sun. It provided water without rain, air without atmosphere. The magics burning off this stone were almost enough to flay her soul and the more it was used, the more Obsidian grew, the stronger it got, a perpetual engine of eldritch might.
She grabbed Edmund’s arm as he swayed beside her and dragged him back towards the steps and up to the crypt above. ‘We have to go,’ she said faintly, stunned by the magic. ‘Now!’
They stumbled back into the church. A figure stood in the doorway and Silhouette cried out, overcome, finding it hard to think. She dropped into her animal form and tensed to rush the newcomer, but he raised his hand and spoke. ‘Silhouette? It’s me!’
She melted back into human form. ‘Claude?’
‘I traced the ridesprite from Rowan and it led me here.’
Silhouette nodded towards Edmund, dumbfounded beside her. ‘It’s him. But he’s not really up to speed just yet.’
‘What’s happening?’ Edmund asked, his voice a whisper.
‘We’re getting out of here,’ Silhouette said. ‘Right now!’ She pulled him along and turned Claude at the door, drew them both outside. ‘We have to get back to Lily and hope to fuck that Alex has been successful.’
Alex continued to climb the Tower of the Autarch, growing more frustrated with every step. There could not be much Tower left. As he rounded the top of a flight of stairs, a number of Guards gave him pause. The sudden increase in bodies must mean something. Relying on his invisibility, moving as silently as he could manage, he crept along towards them. The Guards seemed to be conversing, two groups changing a shift. One group moved away, the other spread out along the corridor. Alex slunk by, checking to see where it led. He held his breath as he passed within inches of the last Guard and turned into a large room built into one entire side of the Tower. It seemed to be exactly what he was looking for. Several heavy wooden doors with small, barred windows marked a crescent around the room. Six doors. Six cells?
He paused, crouched against the wall. There were no Guards in the room, which was a decent piece of luck. He looked back the way he had come. Only three Guards remained. The others had all moved on. He could handle three, if he caught them by surprise. But if there was any noise and the others came running back, the odds would quickly turn against him. And assuming the other humans were here, how would he get them out?
He imagined old movie plots. Perhaps he could take out the Guards, get their uniforms for the humans and hurry them from the Tower before the switch was noticed. He curled a lip. Did that stuff ever really work?
While he thought more about it, he slipped through the room, looked into each cell through the small, barred window high in the studded wooden door. The first two were empty. The third held a lowen close to death, emaciated and unconscious. The fourth was empty. In the fifth was a trembling human, slightly overweight, with lank, once curly brown hair plastered to his face. His eyes were wide as he stared at the wall and rocked slightly. One human. Alex checked the last cell. Empty. Was there only this one left?
He moved back to the cell door, put his face close to the barred opening. ‘Don’t panic,’ he whispered. ‘I’m here to help.’
The man looked up, scanned the cell, his face flickering with nervous tics. ‘Who’s there?’ His voice was loud.
Alex winced, hissed. ‘Shh! Be quiet. I’m here to get you out. You can’t see me, but you have to trust me. Can you do that?’
‘They’re dead, you know. Darius certainly, I saw him go. Salay must be too by now.’ The man’s voice was quieter, cracked, defeated.
‘There were th
ree of you?’ Alex asked.
‘Just me now.’
‘Okay. Just you. But you’ll survive.’ Alex thought frantically, tried to formulate a plan. In some ways getting one person out would likely be easier than three. But did this one know anything that could help? A self-preservation instinct rose in Alex’s mind. If this man was no use in helping them out, Alex would be damned if he’d risk himself in a rescue. After all, these bastards had dragged them all into this mess in the first place. He owed them nothing. ‘We followed you through the portal from the Callanish Stones,’ he whispered.
The man’s attention instantly hardened, his eyes narrowed. ‘From Lewis?’
‘Yes. You drew us through. Do you remember that?’
The man’s mouth twisted in a slightly insane smirk. ‘Of course I remember that!’
‘What’s your name?’
The man pulled himself up a little straighter. His clothing was stained with sweat, blood and other things that offended Alex’s nose. ‘I’m Professor Nicholas Haydon.’
‘Okay, professor. My name is Alex. I’m going to get you out of this cell. Can you get me and my friends out of Obsidian?
‘Out?’
‘You used some magic to draw us all into this place. Do you have some way to get us out?’
Haydon nodded, a sparkle returning to his fraught eyes. ‘I have a ritual. I have a method that I need to employ at a certain place. But I can’t get there.’
‘Will it get us home?’ Alex insisted.
‘It will get everything back!’ Haydon seemed a little exultant, extreme in his fervour.
Alex chewed his lip. ‘Everything back?’ He thought of the anchor stone. The reasons the Fey might have put their ridesprites into action, using Rowan to bring Alex near the magic this man performed. It only stood to reason the Fey had used ridesprites or similar coercion to make Haydon perform the ritual in the first place. Alex’s stone made Haydon’s magic potent and brought them all here. Now Haydon claimed to have a way to bring everything back. Everything. The Fey were making a play to get their anchor stone from the Void. They wanted free rein in the mortal plane again. Maybe the worst thing Alex could do would be to free this crazed professor. Perhaps they should all die here, Alex included, and the last hope of the Fey anchor stone ever returning to the mortal realm would die with him.