A Place Among the Fallen [Book One of The Omaran Saga]

by Adrian Cole

  'But no longer!’ Grenndak said quickly.

  'No, not any more. All the world-gates are now closed. Many worlds have died, or been spoiled. But nothing else will escape Ternannoc now. And you, Grenndak, came here and set yourself up as the Preserver. You brought with you your own law, a law for this world, the Abiding Word.’

  Grenndak nodded. ‘Yes. I could not allow the same unforgivable thing to happen to Omara. Power had caused it. Therefore I vowed to ensure that never again was power to be allowed to have its sway. In Omara there was no power, except for that handed down by the refugees from Ternannoc. I created the Deliverers to sniff it out. Many of the descendants of those ancient flights are in complete ignorance of their ancestry, but even so, we are finding them.’

  'And giving their blood to the earth,’ said Wargallow. ‘Because, to use your very words, the law says that Omara is alive, a single being, with everything a corporate part of it. We cleanse transgressors of their sins by releasing whatever powers they have, even if it is only thoughts of power, or gods, and let their blood soak into the purifying body of the earth.’

  'So all teachings of religion, such as it is in Omara, originated with you, Grenndak. The teachings of Ternannoc, except that this insane shedding of blood was never done. The people of Ternannoc did not take life, they gave it. What you have taught here has another name. Murder.’

  Wargallow frowned. ‘If the Abiding Word teaches us to rid Omara of power, by acts of what you call murder, it is because power is evil. Better to have no power at all and thus remove the risk of its misuse. That is the Preserver's law.’

  'You see,’ said Grenndak softly. ‘The simplicity. Wargallow is my greatest disciple. He understands. I could not let power get out of hand again, Korbillian. Such a sin, to waste a world. There is no murder when the blood goes back to the earth. Omara lives and her blood does not die.’

  Korbillian shook his head. ‘The Hierarchs never willingly took life. They gave it. As with the Hierophants.’

  'What happened to them?’ said Wargallow.

  'For the most part they agreed to leave Ternannoc and go their own ways, leaving the Hierarchs to their fate. They took a vow before the Hierarchs that they would always oppose them, even war with them if they crossed paths again, which was a foolish thing. The Hierarchs, weakened by all that had happened, knew that their only hope was in unity. They would concentrate their power. They would give it to one custodian. But who could they choose for such an onerous commitment? It had to be someone who was so radically opposed to the use of power that he would never consider using it if it were put into his charge. It had to be someone who had been opposed to the working and who had wanted to see all power sacrificed to save Ternannoc. It had to be someone who could be relied upon to sacrifice himself if necessary to make whatever amends he could for what had happened. And most difficult of all, it could not be a Hierarch, for none could be trusted.

  'Thus there was great argument, while Ternannoc was dying. Some Hierarchs, like Grenndak, fled, taking with them their powers and so lessening what was left. The remainder made their choice. It was one that could not be fought against. They enforced it.’ Korbillian held out his sheathed hands.

  Wargallow stared in fear and wonder. ‘You? You have their power?’

  Grenndak shuddered. ‘Let him go on. Let him tell you how they ordered him to hunt us down, to take back into him our powers.’

  Korbillian's anguished face seemed even more agonised now that he had reached the truth. ‘I was a Hierophant. A master of the elements. I was the only one who disagreed with the other Hierophants. I wanted to see everyone sacrifice their power to save Ternannoc. It would have worked! We would have had a world without power, without our harmony with the things around us, but why not! It would have been better than a dead world. But no, there was too much greed. Power is a great breeder of avarice.’

  'So where are the Hierarchs now?’ asked Wargallow.

  'Finished, just as Ternannoc is finished.’

  'You and Grenndak are all that remain?’

  'Possibly a few Hierarchs are elsewhere, on remote worlds. And there are Hierophants alive, some here. And the descendants of the common people of Ternannoc. The people you are trying to wipe away. That must stop, Wargallow.’

  'I heard they had chosen you,’ said Grenndak. ‘The only Hierophant who was not jealous, who did not hate us for our blunder. The only one of them who agreed to the sacrifice of all power.’

  'I never sought this burden,’ said Korbillian quietly.

  'Which is why they gave it to you. Anyone else would have used it to become a god, a ruler of world after world.’

  Korbillian shook his head. ‘There is a purpose for it. I have tried to use it in other worlds, sealing gates, trying to save those worlds that the working polluted. But I have not saved one yet. I cannot do it alone. But now I must use the power up, all of it, to save Omara. I don't know if there is enough.’

  'The east?’ said Wargallow.

  'Yes, the last great poison from the Hierarch's working. Lodged here like a plague, spreading, already killing. It will pollute all of Omara if it is not cut out. Surely, Grenndak, you knew of this?’

  'The east? Desert, waste land. Little else.’

  Korbillian looked appalled. ‘Are you insensitive to it? Have your own dreams of ridding Omara of power closed your mind to it?’

  Grenndak shook his head. ‘There have been a few reports, but rumours, no more.’

  Korbillian looked at Wargallow. ‘Well?’

  'I have seen something of it, as you know. Had I known of its existence, I would have had Deliverers deployed there to find out more. But there is much I don't understand. These scattered powers—”

  'I need them!’ said Korbillian, and it was almost a cry of pain. ‘Even with what I have here, I need every last particle. You are killing the very people who can save you. I go to the east, and to destroy that evil, I need power, Wargallow. As much as there is. That, or Omara and everything in it will perish.’

  'So you want mine!’ laughed Grenndak. ‘You did not come here to destroy me, but to seek my help.’

  'What do you know of this eastern power?’ Wargallow asked Korbillian.

  'Not enough. I thought it no more than a disease, a mindless thing, spreading randomly. But I am no longer sure. On other worlds where I have seen it, it was so. Voracious but without real purpose. But there is a frightening difference about it here. What are these Children of the Mound?’

  Wargallow described his meeting with the stones-that-move and the creature that controlled them. ‘Be sure of this, Korbillian, they wanted your death. I see why now.’

  Korbillian nodded. ‘It seems worse than I thought. There must be an intelligence of some kind dwelling in or near the Mound. Unless beings have found a way of using that power. When I first came ashore at the village of Sundhaven, I wondered at the storms. The fury in them, and the way they changed, as though seeking me out. They came from the east.’

  'But what can lie in the Mound?’

  Korbillian shook his head. ‘I know nothing of the history of Omara, not of this continent. Even in the Chain it is unknown. But nothing could possibly control that power. I cannot believe that.’

  Grenndak broke his thoughtful concentration. ‘The Silences are said to be the oldest part of this world. They were old even when I first came here. They hold histories from beyond time. No one alive could possibly tell you the secrets of Omara's lost past. The Silences themselves are dead. Once they were seas.’

  'And the land beyond, where the Mound lies?’

  'A plateau that once rose up from the seas. Dead, like all the rest.’

  'Dormant,’ said Korbillian. ‘But not dead.’

  * * * *

  When Sisipher fell asleep in Wolgren's arms, she slipped into a dream almost at once. She felt as though she was soaring high over a dark, troubled landscape. The images blurred, as did the sensation of flight. She fell into false wakefulness. Figure
s coalesced before her and she heard them speaking. She saw again the hall of Ratillic's mountain retreat and he was there, the great, bird-like man, sitting at his table, brooding and downcast. Opposite him, claws locked on to a chair back, was Kirrikree.

  'You remain adamant?’ said the bird, and in her dream, Sisipher heard the bird speak.

  Ratillic seemed to be struggling to suppress the same fury she had seen when he had confronted Korbillian. ‘This is the old argument, Kirrikree! Of all the Hierophants, only one, one insisted on the madness of sacrificing everything in an attempt to save Ternannoc. Save it! When it was already doomed by the lunacy of the Hierarchs! We should have united ourselves, oh yes, and destroyed them! While they were weak.’

  'I accept that Ternannoc would probably have perished even if all power had been gathered together,’ said the owl.

  'You do? And yet now, when the same man demands that power is gathered here, in Omara, you fly straight to him!’

  'I have seen the enemy,’ said Kirrikree. ‘You have not. This is not our world, Ratillic. Our people have served each other well, and we have shared our gifts. But you do not have the right to control our gifts.’

  'But Korbillian does?’

  'No. We choose what path we will follow. Omara is in great peril. It may fall just as Ternannoc fell, and we may not be able to save it. But the gates are closed, Ratillic. Closed. No power can open them again. There is nowhere else for us.’

  Ratillic closed his eyes, apparently drained. In a moment he looked again at the unblinking eyes. ‘You see this war as inevitable?’ He looked ghastly in the strained light.

  'The people of Omara need help. They are unaware of what reaches for them, and they war among themselves. These Deliverers kill the men and women of their own world. They have taken Korbillian to the Direkeep.’

  Ratillic scoffed. ‘He will not fall to them.’

  'No, but the girl is in danger. She is from Ternannoc stock, Ratillic. How else did she have the gift? And how many others are there here from our world, sharing our blood? Why must you deny them your help? Is it pride? Refusal to admit you were wrong?’

  Ratillic gathered himself for a last argument. ‘Power,’ he said, ‘belongs to everyone. It should be used by them all. It should not be gathered and put into the hands of a few, and not one man. You understand what Korbillian has? What he is? Absolute power.’

  'No. He does not have all power.’

  'But you would give it to him.’

  'I would see every creature of this world bending his or her power, no matter how small, to defy that evil in the east. It will take an army, and Korbillian is not an army.’

  'And after this evil has been purged? What will Korbillian do with his power then?’

  'If there is any left,’ said Kirrikree, ‘it will be a miracle.’

  Ratillic held his head in his hands, staring down at the tabletop. ‘Another war. More death, scattering.’

  'It is wrong for one to hold power,’ Kirrikree echoed him. ‘And is that not what you do, Ratillic, shut away here in the snows? Hierophant, communer with all living things? And do you share this gift, and teach other men how to speak to the owls, or the fish, or the voles? Have you opened their minds to what is around them?’

  Ratillic looked up at him. ‘So that they could use you? Mistreat you?’

  'Some may. But you should not sit in judgement. You said once that there was no reason in sacrificing all power to save Ternannoc if it meant a world without power, without the harmony it had. Yet in Omara you have allowed a world without power to exist. You have even done nothing to prevent the destruction of power, the giving of blood.’

  'You have said enough!’

  'I never believed you evil,’ said Kirrikree. ‘You have meant well and have served my people well. But I will take them from this place. My duty is plain. I am sorry that it ends here.’ He spread his magnificent wings. ‘There is little time.’

  'Will you leave me nothing?’

  Kirrikree flew up towards the hidden exit, preparing to call his owls together for the long flight. ‘You have your maps,’ he called.

  Ratillic sank back, and for a long time stared fixedly at a point in the darkness before him. The darkness grew and swirled, and Sisipher's dream ended, though her sleep did not.

  * * * *

  Wargallow sat in a room that, like his master's, was furnished with the bare minimum. There was a wooden trestle table, scarred by his killing hand where he had traced patterns on it a hundred times, letting his mind run over and over again the plots and counter-plots that were ever there, never still. He looked at his steel hand now and smiled at it wryly. So all the giving of blood had been wrong? It must stop? Yet how were the Deliverers to be told? If the Preserver was to be deposed, and his law annulled, what use would the Deliverers be? It was one of the many problems Wargallow thought about. His gaze went from the candle on the table to the fire that crackled in his hearth, and in the flames the images of past days taunted him. Korbillian had been given a room for the night. It had been locked and guards put on its door, but somehow Wargallow did not think such things would deter him from getting out of the room if he wanted to. Korbillian's last words still rang in his ears, although they had been spoken quietly enough.

  'I will give you the night to think. In the morning I must prepare for the journey to the east. There is little time to waste.’ He had said this with every confidence, suggesting that whatever the Preserver had in mind, it would not be allowed to interfere with his own plans.

  Wargallow was stretched by doubts. Grenndak had hidden so many truths. And Ternannoc! A world where every man, every creature, had power! It seemed impossible to believe, and yet Grenndak had not denied it. Not even after Wargallow had secured Korbillian and gone back to the Preserver. For the first time he had seemed like nothing more than an old man, not far from his death. In the past, Grenndak's appearance had meant nothing; he seemed weak and ailing, but Wargallow knew that power beyond understanding—beyond question—suffused those old but deceptive bones.

  'He is a danger to us all,’ the Preserver had told Wargallow. ‘He will drag us all to ruin, just as he sought to in Ternannoc. Had he got his way there, everything would have died. I have heard nothing from him now to make me repent. I chose what I thought best. The Abiding Word is still my law.’

  'You did not think Ternannoc could be saved?’

  'No! Impossible. The effects of the accident were too far-reaching. Which is precisely why I have given Omara the Abiding Word, to prevent such an accident occurring again. All this talk from Korbillian is foolish. Now he seeks to drag us all together and do here what he could not do in Ternannoc. He must be stopped.’

  'How?’ It was the one question that burned within Wargallow, for if there were no answer, it would change everything for him.

  'He is mortal, just as we all are. He has terrible power, but one swift stroke of your killing hand would finish him.’

  'And the power he holds?’

  'It would dissipate. Go back into the earth. Strengthen it. Why, it would likely work against the evil powers he babbles of.’

  'You doubt their reality?’

  'He speaks of controlled evil. It is an obsession with him. The power in the east has been there for centuries, millennia perhaps. It is not sentient! What we released was volcanic, mindless energy.’

  'I have seen those who worship it.’

  'I do not doubt that,’ snapped Grenndak testily. ‘But I will not concern myself with it here. For now, we must dispose of Korbillian. Where is he?’

  'In the Eagle Tower, as far from the earth as I could put him.’

  'I doubt that he will sleep easily. He may suspect treachery from me, and if he does, he will be listening to the door, not the window. Pick your man carefully, Simon. He will have to scale the Eagle Tower, climb upon its roof and then drop down to the window.’

  'I have several men who can do this.’

  'Is there a bowman amongst them? A
man who can see in the dark, Simon, a man who can use a single arrow to good purpose?’

  'I am sure of it.’

  'Use poison.’

  'And the others? The girl and the youth?’

  'Tomorrow we will give their blood. I will perform the giving myself.’

  Wargallow studied the flames, imagining the assassin crawling across the sloping roof of the Eagle Tower. Was it to be so easy? Power, he thought. More power than I had dreamed of. And with Korbillian dead, there would be only Grenndak. And the east. I am not so sure that its power is weak. If Grenndak dies and I succeed him only to be faced with this eastern menace and with no power of my own to go against it, what have I gained? Yet if Korbillian defeats this power in the east and loses his own power—or if he should die in the conflict—there would be only Grenndak. Unless he were disposed of first.

  Wargallow watched the fire reflect from his hand. Grenndak to die now? As I have planned for so long. But what is to become of my killers? How to rally them all to me, those who are not of my chosen Faithful, those who are spread wide across Omara. I could turn them all upon the powers in the east. Blood enough there, Korbillian says.

  Yet Korbillian has not come here to kill Grenndak, not if the Preserver is prepared to ally himself to his cause. If Korbillian knew that my master plotted his death, perhaps he would act as the Hierarchs charged him and take his power into himself. Perhaps, perhaps, it is all perhaps. How to swing this to my advantage?

  Wargallow spent another hour considering the possibilities. At last he reached a decision. Having done so, he left his room and went in search of the picked men he knew would suit his purpose perfectly, and who would obey him above anyone else, even the Preserver.

  15

  THE FAITHFUL

  Sisipher awoke in darkness. She thought she heard the beat of wings, but told herself it must have been the breeze outside, or else the echo of her dreams. The conversation between Ratillic and Kirrikree puzzled her. There were still mysteries surrounding Korbillian that had to be clarified. Gently she moved, finding that she was slumped against Wolgren. He was fast asleep, his arms locked protectively about her, and very slowly she tried to move them. He was awake at once.