Nature's Servant

by Duncan Pile

  “Gaspi, if he says it again, or anyone else does, you can do whatever you want,” she said flatly.

  “Whatever you say,” Gaspi said, but Rimulth thought that he looked troubled.

  Thirty-Five

  Ferast and Bork rode side by side towards West Farthing. They were drawing ever nearer to the Ruins of Elmera, and in the last few days, villages and homesteads had become increasingly sparse. As the miles passed, Ferast’s sense of excitement had grown. There was clearly something to the ruined city’s reputation. No-one wanted to live anywhere near it! Just that morning they had come across a lone traveller, who’d informed them that West Farthing was the closest settlement to the Ruins, and beyond that it was just open country. While answering Ferast’s questions, the traveller had become increasingly uncomfortable, unnerved by Bork’s intimidating appearance.

  Ferast smiled sourly at the memory. If he hadn’t been so focussed on finding Shirukai Sestin’s lair, he’d have stopped to show the traveller exactly who he should be scared of, but an instinctive sense of urgency had persuaded him to let the traveller journey on unmolested. Stopping to torture and kill him would have taken at least an hour or two, and the delay would have prevented them from reaching the village by nightfall.

  As had become his habit, he patted the internal pockets of his robes, reassuring himself of the presence of his Darkgems. There were more packed away with his things too, but he always liked to keep a few within his clothing in case they were needed. The power they gave him was mind blowing, amplifying the smallest release of his own magical strength into something much more destructive. He’d discovered that it wasn’t necessary to smash a Darkgem to release its power. That was the easiest way to harness its entire force in one go, but if he wanted to draw only a part of its power, or have it released more slowly, he could thread it directly from the gem without breaking the casing.

  He snorted with derision when remembering the way he’d laboured over the choice of his first human victim, earning him a sidelong glance from Bork. It had seemed so important at the time to choose the most useless, down and out wine sot, but he couldn’t understand why anymore, however hard he thought about it. The power a single Darkgem gave him made it more than worth it, and he never took the time to select specific victims anymore. The truth is, he’d come to enjoy taking life, and more than once he’d become so lost in the frenzied orgy of pain that he’d forgotten to form a gem with the tortured energies of his victim.

  Bork’s victim too, he reminded himself. Bork was the perfect slave for him. The mute was under no illusions of equality and he had a natural affinity with violence. Ferast suspected that he enjoyed inflicting pain as much as he did, and often, after a killing, his eyes would glitter with a strange light for hours.

  Night was falling just as the lights from West Farthing flared into being on the horizon, letting the two travellers know they were near their destination. They would bed down in an inn for the night and set out for the Ruins the next morning. They rode on in silence until they passed the last of the farmsteads and entered into the village proper. West Farthing turned out to be surprisingly large, with thirty or more dwellings, a smithy, several workshops and a large inn. Perhaps the villagers thought there was safety in numbers so close to the Ruins.

  They rode up to the inn, where a stable-hand emerged from behind a stack of hay bales, rubbing his eyes sleepily. They dismounted, handing him the reins of their horses. The stable-hand peered at them blearily, standing still for long moments with his hand extended. When he realised they weren’t going to give him anything for his services, he pulled a face and led the horses into the stable. For a moment, Ferast boiled with anger, consumed with the desire to teach the ignorant serf what it meant to be rude to his betters, but he’d already decided not to perform any magic within a day’s ride of the Ruins. If, as Ferast hoped, Shirukai Sestin had made his home in the Ruins, he might sense the use of magic and mistake him for an enemy, which would make approaching his hideout suicidal. However he approached Sestin it was going to be risky, but he figured the best way was to do so openly and without using magic, in the hope that the renegade would give him a chance to explain himself.

  With some difficulty, he swallowed his ire, and felt Bork relax beside him. As Ferast had come to expect, the killer was tuned into his mood and had been ready to strike. Turning his back on the second person to come within a hair’s breadth of their own death that day, he led Bork into the inn. As usual, Bork’s appearance was enough to silence a roomful of strangers - something that Ferast found irksome. Once again, it was him they should fear more than Bork, but he supposed most people were too stupid to look beneath the surface. It was some kind of compensation that when they finally worked out who to fear, the result was always gratifying. He ordered some food, a small glass of red wine for himself and a pint of ale for Bork without exchanging a single unnecessary word with the innkeep, and retreated to the darkest corner of the common room.

  The food and drink were deposited on their table by a nervous looking barmaid, who departed as quickly as she could, leaving them to eat their meal in silence. With nothing else to do, Ferast decided to go to bed early, anxious to be up as early as possible the next morning. Normally he left Bork to his own devices at night, but as the mute was under strict instructions not to draw attention to them, he went to bed too. The final indignity was having to share a room. Ferast normally slept alone, but there was only one room available in the inn, and it was tiny. Jammed into a small cot, Ferast tried to fall asleep, but Bork beat him to it, his snores sawing away at his sanity. After a few minutes he’d had enough.

  “Bork!” he snapped loudly, waking the mute from his slumber. “You’re snoring. Go and sleep in the stables.” Bork sat up and looked at him expressionlessly for a long moment. For a second Ferast thought he might actually be rebelling, but then the mute rose from his cot and left the room. Satisfied, he lay back down and closed his eyes, but sleep proved to be elusive. He had successfully subdued a feeling of desperate anxiety throughout the day, but in the quiet and the dark, it came back in full force. After all he’d been through on his search for Sestin, he just had to be right about the renegade’s lair this time. If the Ruins turned out to be yet another dead end, he didn’t know where else to search. Angrily forcing away the unwelcome thought, Ferast focused on the hope that he would meet Shirukai Sestin tomorrow, but that thought too left him tingling with nervous energy. He berated himself silently - there was no need to be nervous! As soon as he explained himself to the renegade and showed him the Darkgems, Sestin was bound to welcome him with open arms. If tomorrow went as planned, he was finally going to have a great magician for a mentor; someone who would understand his greatness and teach him what he wanted to know. When he did eventually fall asleep, he did so with a smile on his lips.

  …

  They left West Farthing as soon as the sun was up the next morning, riding away from the still-sleeping village. A farmer, digging in one of the outlying fields, saw the direction they were riding in and called out to them.

  “Mornin’ to yeh good travellers,” he said, ambling in their direction. He stopped at the wall that marked the field’s boundary, leaning on his hands and eyeing them up and down. “I don’t mean ter pry, but yeh don’t wan’ ter be goin’ in tha’ direction.”

  “We go where we will,” Ferast said tersely.

  “But tha’ way lies the Ruins,” the farmer said, looking at him with a mixture of surprise and suspicion.

  “Which is exactly where we want to go,” Ferast said, losing all patience with the interfering peasant.

  The farmer made a protective sign over his heart. “God protect yeh then,” he mumbled and retreated into the field, casting nervous glances back in their direction as they rode on.

  “That’s three,” Ferast said out loud, earning him another inscrutable look from Bork. Ferast decided that if he didn’t find Shirukai Sestin in the Ruins, he was going to pay the villagers of West Fart
hing an extended visit to repay their hospitality.

  West Farthing lay twenty miles from the Ruins, a journey that would take most of the day to complete. Eager to get there before nightfall, Ferast set a fast pace. As usual they rode in silence, the long legs of their horses eating up the miles as the hours passed. They stopped briefly for lunch and rode on again through the afternoon until the terrain became hilly. The hills swelled in size as they travelled, until at last they came to a tall, forested slope that led up to the rim of the city itself. Knowing his destination was just over the lip of the hill, he urged his horse forward, kneeing it through the trees and up the steep slope until it was breathing heavily. Bork’s horse, struggling with a heavier burden, followed at an increasing distance.

  He pressed on up the hill, funnelled into a crevasse that was the only obvious way to the top. Several hundred yards further on, he came to a low wall, on the other side of which was the skeleton of a horse, its bleached bones stripped bare by scavengers. He stopped his horse, looking at the corpse in surprise. So people did come here sometimes, even if it was just to die. Stilled by an instinctive need for caution, he waited for Bork to catch up with him. When the mute arrived, they stopped for a moment to rest the horses. Eager to keep moving, he only gave the exhausted beasts twenty minutes to crop the grass before remounting and carrying on. The sun was already setting, and he wanted to enter the Ruins while it was still light.

  The ground flattened out after that, and they moved at a steady trot into the outlying buildings of what must once have been a great city. The first buildings came and went, delicate looking constructions in pale colours that were slowly being reclaimed by the forest. He couldn’t help noticing that even the most out-flung of Elmera’s dwellings had a certain opulence. The obvious evidence of wealth built his hope that he had finally found Shirukai Sestin’s lair. It would take more than rumours to keep looters away from this place! If it wasn’t Sestin keeping them out, then it was someone else, or perhaps something else! Suddenly he felt nervous.

  “Bork, stay alert,” he said edgily as they rode deeper into the city. The mute nodded without looking at him, his head swivelling slowly left and right as they rode. The outer dwellings soon became more organised, grouped into streets and then boulevards. Spacious mansions and municipal buildings dotted the wider streets, dwarfing the smaller houses of the outlying roads. It was then that the corpses began to appear, lying in the street and in gardens, dark piles of bones abandoned to the elements. Many of them were practically overgrown by weeds which had taken root in the inches-thick dust and debris of the long empty streets.

  Ferast felt a pervasive sense of dread stirring in his belly and called Bork to a halt while he tried to work out what was causing it. It wasn’t the corpses. He had seen plenty of death in the last few months, most of it at his own hand, and a few corpses didn’t bother him. It was something else, something visceral. He supposed it could be a compulsion. If Sestin did indeed live here, then he might have embedded an enchantment into the very streets, an emotional illusion designed to scare ordinary people away, but it could also be something more tangible. He nudged his horse forward, but it refused to budge, sweat breaking out over its flanks. A glance told him that Bork’s horse was in the same state. He grimaced. He could numb the horse’s mind to danger easily enough, but that would mean using magic, and he didn’t want to announce his presence yet. He swung himself down from the horse, as did Bork, and the two beasts instantly bolted, carrying their belongings with them.

  Cursing, Ferast reached out with his power and brought them to a halt, their simple minds compelled to obey him. They walked over to the horses, which were frozen to the spot in obedience but still trembling with fear. It was too late for caution now. If Sestin was in the city, he would have detected even that small release of power, so he may as well use the horses after all. Using another compulsion, he assured the creatures that they were safe, smothering their senses in a soothing blanket of reassurance. The horses immediately stopped trembling, and the two men re-mounted. Turning them around, they headed back towards the heart of the city.

  Ferast glanced at Bork, wondering if perhaps the mercenary might need a calming touch as well, but although his jaw was tightly clenched, he seemed to be alert and in control, so he left him alone. It was better this way - a soothing illusion of safety might take the edge off Bork’s reactions just when he needed the mute to be razor sharp. He scanned the skyline as they rode, ignoring the growing sense of dread that emanated from his gut and numbed his extremities. A tower stood in the near distance, similar in scale and shape to the one that stood in the heart of the College of Collective Magicks. Instinctively, he felt that was where they should be heading, and they rode on through the wide streets towards the prominent structure.

  Large municipal buildings increasingly took the place of the mansions, their entranceways gaping darkly in the waning light. Most of the rooftops had collapsed but a few remained intact, their elegant domes and spires transformed by the fading dusk into looming shapes and shadows, towering threateningly over them as they rode. He glanced at Bork again to see if he was holding up under the strain. Even in the gloaming he could see sweat breaking out on the mute’s normally inscrutable face. He was about to reach out with a trickle of power to take the edge of the mute’s fear when he was seized by a sudden sense of malicious scrutiny. He stopped dead. There was something nearby - a terrible, unnatural something that had him in its sights.

  Taking care not to make any sudden movements, he slowly climbed down off his horse and turned to face the darkened entranceway to what might once have been a library. The malignant intelligence he could sense was watching them from within the cavernous dark. He reached into his pocket and drew out a Darkgem, holding it tightly in his left hand, its hard facets biting reassuringly into his sweaty palm.

  Fear threatened to swamp him then, spiking through his being in uncontrollable waves. A scuffling noise told him that Bork had also dismounted, and the two men faced the entranceway, almost incapacitated by terror. Ferast’s skin prickled in the unnatural stillness as he waited for the horror to reveal itself. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it throbbing at his temples.

  Without warning, something massive came boiling out of the darkness. Ferast froze, stung into immobility by overwhelming dread. The monster, for surely that was all it could be called, was a bristling mound of flesh, a horrendous amalgamation of body parts bound together in one great lump, like some kind of giant, murderous slug. It was enormous, many times the size of a man, topped by a rotting human head that eyed them hungrily. It moved faster than Ferast could believe possible for a creature of such size, scampering over the ground on large, malformed appendages that protruded from beneath its bulk. Worst of all, another human face stared out at him from the centre of the beast’s chest. Its sagging, fear-filled face and darting eyes spoke of perpetual torment in a way that horrified even Ferast’s calloused heart.

  It would have taken him then if not for Bork. With a loud ringing sound, the mute drew his broadsword and leapt at the creature, bringing the heavy blade down in a deadly arc that cut right through the nearest of its grasping limbs. Rearing back in pain, the creature bellowed, the fearsome sound enough to wake Ferast from his horrified stupor. Drawing on the full force of the Darkgem, he hit it with the hardest force strike he could muster. It tumbled backwards, bellowing in fury, but far too soon it had righted itself and was rushing at them again. Ferast reached out with his power, attempting to control the creature’s mind, but the consciousness he encountered was unfamiliar. It had none of the handles that enabled him to control an ordinary human mind. There was no fear, no self-perception, no belief. Just a fierce hunger for killing, and for something much worse. Ferast’s grasping hand of control found no purchase on the creature’s mind, sliding uselessly off without even touching it.

  Mortal terror truly gripped him then as he watched death approach. This creature was no natural monster - it was de
monic. He’d sensed something of its intentions from its alien mind. It wasn’t just going to kill them - it was going to take their bodies and absorb them into its bulk, nourishing itself on their recently living flesh. Swamped by fear, he summoned power in a last desperate attempt to stay out of its clutches. He wouldn’t become like the face in its chest. He wouldn’t let it take him. He raised his fists, energy swirling around his hands as he prepared to obliterate both him and Bork.

  The creature reared up like a leviathan about to strike, but then a sphere of red light sprang into being around them, separating them from the monster. Holding back his deadly spell, Ferast looked about in confusion - he hadn’t summoned the sphere. He didn’t even know how to summon such a thing. Undeterred, the creature smashed its enormous body down on them, only to crash against the shield with tremendous force and slide off onto the ground. Shaking its head in confusion, it picked itself up and heaved its fetid bulk into the air again, ready to strike, but then a figure walked out of the darkness, an arm raised and pointing at the creature.

  “Sestin!” Ferast hissed under his breath. The enormous creature that had been about to end his life took one look at the robed figure and flinched, the sudden movement rippling through its decaying flesh like a wave. Cringing, it turned and shuffled back towards the dark interior of the building it had been hiding in. The red globe disappeared. Ferast couldn’t believe it. They were saved!

  “Shirukai Sestin,” he said eagerly, reaching out a hand to the red-robed figure in front of him. The figure moved his right hand in a rapid, circular motion, and he crumpled to the ground, blackness swamping his vision as he plunged into unconsciousness.

  Thirty-Six

  Ferast blinked gritty eyes as he sought to shake off what felt like a thousand years of sleep. He felt heavy, his face numb, his limbs leaden. He tried to remember where he was and how he got here. With the greatest effort he lifted his head, trying to make sense of the little he could see in the dim light. He was in a very small room, lit by a single tiny window above him. The room had a rounded door set into the far wall, and was just wide enough to hold the pallet he was lying on and allow room for someone to stand up next to it. He forced himself to sit up, trying to think clearly, but it was like trying to swim through soup.