‘But,’ the other argued, ‘that is more than I have allowed to your enemy. For I have given him leave to grant no information at all; not even the sliver of a needle in a pine forest.’
‘That is because my enemy has no need to learn more! The dice were loaded in his favour from the start, so he has almost won the game before it begins. I was under the impression that you and your brothers are here to ensure that neither of us gains an unfair advantage.’ His voice rankled with the unfairness of it all, and he ground the tip of his staff into the turf, rattling the lantern and the string of orbs attached to it.
But the hooded ones remained unmoving, unmoved. ‘Let us not be naive,’ their leader replied. ‘We all know that the game does not start here. It began five hundred years ago, when Scathur ended his master’s life. And even that game began long before the construction of Vaagenfjord Maw. These battles between you and your enemy have been going on ever since the world began. Whoever wins one round passes on the advantage to the other for the next round. And thus will it go on forever, if we have anything to do with it.’
Though there was still no feeling in the words of the hooded one, the tone was a little more relaxed. Perhaps coloured by a tiny hint of ironic intimacy, as though the speaker had become well accustomed to the persuasive machinations of his opponent? They had clearly had this argument before.
The red-eyed entity began again. ‘You and I are old combatants, Time. Always I seek to build, but always you have the final say, and thwart me. You and your fellows stand there like statues, as if imagining that by your rigidity you can keep the world just as you like it. Yes, we are old combatants; and I know which, out of myself and my enemy, you lean towards. But think not of politics or power games; just look at the man now before us . . .’
They dropped their gaze to where Appa knelt shivering in the cold, his aged frame bent under the burdens of a lifetime. Here, all alone and praying so earnestly, he was a pathetic sight, his face shrivelled up like an old potato left to go bad at the bottom of a sack, all screwed up with such anxiety.
‘Are you without pity?’ The tall one’s burning eyes tried to bore through the heavy grey cloth of Time’s hood, tried to catch any glimpse of an expression. But, as usual, he was wasting his time, for the hood was completely impenetrable.
He went on: ‘It is but a simple request. He does not ask for secret powers, or vast armies. All he asks for is a little knowledge . . . call it an omen, if you like.
‘Omen, indeed.’ His opponent laughed. ‘Omens are games, baits, illusions set to trap the simple-minded. Omens can be misread, with disastrous results. Would you risk the life of your old servant here in such deceptions?’
‘Well, yes, frankly,’ the other replied with a shrug.
‘Then who is without pity now?’
‘Do not dare to speak to me that way! Remember that you too are a servant, though I must yield to you sometimes.’
More deferential now, but still unwavering, the grey figure replied, ‘Well, such things as pity are not for me or my brothers to discuss. Besides, it is you and your adversary who play the games, not us. We merely ensure that the rules are kept, leaning towards neither side. The rules have been set, the pieces are now in play, and the game is in your hands. We shall involve ourselves no further.’
And on that final note the audience was over.
Appa was unaware of the strangers, even though they had been standing within yards of him, but his old prescience told him he would get no answer tonight. With bent shoulders and a deeply furrowed brow, the old priest rose wearily to his feet and brushed the clinging lichen from his robe. As he shuffled away, deeply troubled, he resigned his fate, and indeed that of the whole world, to the whim of Chance in the days to come. Perhaps he and this man Bolldhe would find the answers in time.
The silent figures watched the old man depart. The gale still blew, tearing at the ragged robes of Time and his brothers, as the red-eyed one addressed them.
‘So, he is leaving the outcome to you, Time – you and the fellow by your side,’ he sneered. ‘Not much of a pair to put your faith in: Time and Chance?’
The second figure in grey said not a word at this mention of his name, but there was a third figure standing on Chance’s other side. It was this one, wearing an engraved stone tablet suspended on a heavy chain around its neck, which responded with a small sound. Red-Eye wondered if it was a laugh.
‘And only you will have any idea of the outcome, eh, Fate?’
Only when Appa was finally swallowed up by the dark forest below did Time speak: ‘They are bound for the Far North, the realm of Fate, it is true. Though he puts his faith not in us but in you. Or rather in this Bolldhe of yours – though why in such a faithless, unreliable, wandering old rogue is beyond me.’
‘He is not “my” Bolldhe,’ the lantern-bearer retorted. ‘He has no allegiance to me at all. Not yet, anyway.’
‘Quite,’ Time replied.
‘Or to you either, come to that,’ Red-Eye snarled.
Time continued his needling: ‘And it is a mortal so unreliable that you expect to thwart your enemy, by following yon priest into hardship and darkness, maybe even laying down his life for something he does not believe in? Is that not a little optimistic?’
The lantern-bearer turned his gaze directly on his questioner. ‘That is all you have allowed me, as you have been at pains to point out.’
There was a pause, then Time persisted: ‘True, but we did not specify Bolldhe. He was your choice, though you could have chosen anyone: an elder, a high priest, even a warrior hero . . . What is it about this vagrant that makes you select him, above all others, as the one to now champion your cause?’
Red-Eye gave a smile: cunning and without joy, but a smile nevertheless, for clearly he knew something he was not about to reveal. Yet it was a smile without substance, for if the fate of the world did indeed rest upon a ‘faithless, unreliable, wandering old rogue’, Red-Eye did not rate their chances too highly.
‘I know his past, his mettle and his mind. He is unique. He may betray my will as often as he likes on the journey, but I believe he can be guided and moulded, so that by the end he will know exactly what to do. That is why I send my devoted servant along with him. And as for the outcome, only time will tell.’
‘Don’t count on it,’ Time murmured.
No one else knew of their presence there, and nor did anyone care. The night held secret terrors enough for the good folk of Nordwas without their venturing up into the dark hills. The rumours circulating throughout the region were beginning to trouble people, till sleep became the only sure escape from night-time’s shadow of fear. For the Darktime has claws, and they can reach out even from your dreams to grasp your soul and wrench it from you in peals of quivering laughter . . .
But as the pale gleam of early dawn began to wax in the eastern sky, the birds one by one began their song while night began to fade, yielding inevitably to the bright warmth of another day. And finally, as the birdsong had grown from that single voice to a tumultuous chorus of delight, the tired, lonely figure of a little grey man at last reached the wooden gates breaching the stockade wall of Nordwas.
ONE
The Moot at Wintus Hall
THERE WAS AN AIR of mounting excitement as the market hall began to fill. Each passing minute would see more people pass through the heavy oaken doors to enter the echoing vaults beneath Wintus Hall, swelling the throng that waited in anticipation there. Although these vaults were large and cavernous, built to accommodate the entire household of Wintus Hall in the event of siege, those newly arriving had to push their way through the crowd just to find somewhere to stand. And with each minute the noise grew more tumultuous, as all waited impatiently for the proceedings to commence.
Master Gapp Radnar sat towards one end of the dais, squinting at the crowd through his spectacles and occasionally rubbing his reddened eyes. A thick haze of tobacco smoke hung in the air, its obnoxious fumes tainted further b
y the caustic odour of various other herbs being smoked throughout the hall. No one else even seemed to notice this pollution, but Gapp was suffering badly as his eyes smarted incessantly.
Occasionally he scratched the back of his neck in discomfort, where the thongs holding his lenses in place kept itching behind his ears. Despite his fifteen years, he felt very small and vulnerable sitting there, flanked by men who were all bigger and much more important. He was confronted by the largest crowd of onlookers he had ever seen in his life. All of them seemed to be staring right back at him, and he felt nervous, intimidated and so self-conscious that it was all he could do to stop himself burying his face in his hands.
Steepling his fingers before him in an effort to look self-collected and important, he covertly studied the men arrayed before him in the body of the hall.
What a bunch of blackguards, he thought. I wouldn’t trust one of them to run an errand, let alone embark upon a sacred quest.
Ordinarily used as a meeting place of the Peladanes alone, it would normally have been a sea of green, that being the predominant colour worn by their order. Peladane society observed strict rules of hierarchy, one’s rank determining the number of colours one could wear, but each and every member, from highest to lowest, wore a long green robe called the Ulleanh. Today however, the vaults of Wintus Hall were liberally sprinkled with the alternative shades favoured by a wide variety of mercenaries.
Just look at the ditch-born scum, Gapp’s thoughts went on. Dented armour, notched axes, dirty clothes, filthy faces and hair that looks as if it’s served to clean out the grease-tray under the pork-spit.
Of course, he knew, many of them had endured days, possibly weeks of hard travel to get here. The boy ran a finger through the shock of clean, well-combed brown hair that crowned the top of his own head, and wondered briefly if he too might look as they did in the weeks to come.
There was one in particular to whom Gapp had taken a dislike right from the moment he had first clapped eyes on him. That one there, right in the front row, the one who was staring at him even now. Though Gapp kept trying to avoid eye contact, yet their eyes constantly seemed to meet. The boy would casually survey the back of the hall or rest his gaze on the middle distance, but always there would be the old rogue staring, glaring, straight back at him. This time Gapp hurriedly averted his gaze and studied the table-top instead, nervously scratching at its surface with his fingernails.
‘Will you cut that out, you little prat!’ snarled a hung-over voice at his side. ‘It’s like demons scraping their claws on the inside of my skull . . .’
Gapp muttered an apology, keeping his eyes lowered. Stufi and Bhormann, seated right next to him, might be his master’s closest drinking mates but they certainly were not Gapp’s favourite company. As fully fledged Peladanes they were entitled to wear a white surplice over the Ulleanh, and in the case of Bhormann it was adorned with the black hem denoting a sergeant. But the cleanness of these outer garments could not hide the filthiness of the chainmail hauberks beneath, which were permanently soiled with old blood and flakes of dried skin, causing the pair to stink permanently of rotten flesh. In his eyes they were as crass and decadent as the worst of the drunken oafs holding forth in the Peladanes’ favourite taverns in Nordwas. Gapp decided he would almost prefer the company of the mercenaries.
The Order of Peladanes, Gapp reflected, how could you sum them up? They were charismatic and lordly and magnificent, of course, and he could not help but look up to them in awe but, Jugg’s Udders, they made a lot of noise. In fact they shouted all the time; they woke up shouting, shouted all through the day, then went to bed shouting. Some even shouted in their sleep.
A voice rose above the noise, striving to be heard.
‘Could we have a little less noise, please. The council will commence shortly.’
Those who even heard this request either glared at the speaker in contempt or openly jeered. Gapp glanced to his left to see who had dared make this announcement, and saw that it was Finwald. The young man stood hesitant for a while, then sat down abruptly. As he glanced in Gapp’s direction, he gave him a smile as one might to an ally.
Which in a way they were, neither of them being held in any regard whatsoever by the assembled throng: Gapp because of his youth and lowly status as an esquire, and Finwald because he was neither a Peladane nor even a soldier. Civilians were barely welcome here at Wintus Hall; even the warlike mercenaries were accorded little regard. But the presence of a Lightbearer curdled the atmosphere right from the start. Those gathered here today were all soldiers, who had nothing but the deepest loathing for Lightbearers, especially their hated mage-priests.
Even the charismatic Finwald, the instigator of this whole quest, was seen by these hardened fighters as belonging to the lowest vermin on the face of Lindormyn. Gapp felt sorry for him, as he surely did not deserve such treatment. Finwald was one of the most popular men in Nordwas, and that said a lot in this town where the glorious Peladanes enjoyed the status of demigods. But these jealous knights were not used to sharing popularity with others not of their narrow beliefs. Yet even amongst their own ranks there were some that would occasionally welcome Finwald into their homes with a loaf of bread and a tilted jug. He was friendly, supportive and caring to everyone, unlike the majority of mage-priests in Nordwas.
The boy had taken notice of him ever since Finwald had come to Nordwas. Handsome, elegantly attired and possessing a distinctly ‘foreign’ look, he invariably turned heads on the occasions he set foot outside the temple. Now and again he would even sit with Gapp and answer patiently his many eager questions about life down South, among deserts, exotic peoples, fabulous beasts and the famously decadent city of Qaladmir. For Gapp he provided a welcome distraction from the humdrum daily existence of this small, isolated town.
With piercing dark eyes and long, straight, dark-brown hair falling to his shoulders, the young priest’s pallor contrasted sharply with the rest of his dramatic appearance: the wide-brimmed hat, the sweeping cloak and the thigh-length boots all of jet black. The only hint of colour about him was a large, ornate silver Amulet of Cuna, the torch-shaped symbol of his cult that hung proudly upon his chest.
Yes, Finwald had come a long way from his early days in Qaladmir. He had matured so thoroughly in body and mind that perhaps only his modesty and lack of ambition prevented him from achieving worldly greatness. Gone now was the shyness of youth, to be replaced by a cool confidence and strength of purpose and a firm belief in all he did.
It was after first meeting Appa, when the old priest visited Qaladmir twelve years earlier, that Finwald became disillusioned with the corruption of his native city and with continuing the alchemist’s trade. Embracing the Word of Cuna with a glad and joyous heart, he had finally persuaded Appa to take him back home with him to Nordwas. Here, in this northern frontier town, Finwald had made his new home. Accepted into the cult of Cuna as a Lightbearer, in a surprisingly short time he was ordained as a mage-priest. A few years later he won the heart of the daughter of a Peladane, an entrancing beauty named Aluine who could have taken her pick of Nordwas’s finest. Inevitably their betrothal had caused much resentment amongst the Peladanes, and still did.
Undeterred by his reception from their audience, he was soon smiling and chatting with the Warlord’s son seated beside him, a familiarity that aggravated the warriors even further.
Nibulus Wintus also liked Finwald, though as followers of different cults they might normally have kept their distance. And although the cult of Cuna was counter to the warrior ideals of Pel-Adan, they were not openly hostile. The Lightbearers, devotees of Cuna, had moved up from the South many centuries earlier, while the Peladanes were relative newcomers to Nordwas, having arrived only in the last hundred years or so to swell the population and fortify the place against their common enemies. Both cults had since managed to coexist in an uneasy but mutually respectful truce, if not in close harmony.
Unlike his friend Finwald, Nibulus could
never really take any religion seriously, even his own cult, which was not, by most people’s standards, particularly spiritual in its demands. Though regularly observing temple rituals, true worship for the Peladanes was through combat and conquest, and their collection plate was a cart of harvested heads. Their holy water was hot and red, their incense charnel-scented, and their choir music provided by the screams of dying enemies. Magic and meditation were forbidden by their Warlords, for, as Finwald put it, ‘They want to hold the keys to heaven in their own hands.’
Nibulus was son and heir to the Warlord Artibulus, the leader of all the Northern Peladanes, and Nibulus himself was considered the mightiest warrior in Nordwas. Having, over the years, enthusiastically accompanied his father on many campaigns down in the South, he revelled in the glory and excitement of battle and had often proved himself a true follower of the Holy Order of Peladanes.
At six-foot-four and built like a siege-engine, Nibulus was a formidable adversary and had trained all his life as a swordsman. Fully armoured and wielding his Greatsword, few could stand up to him. Yet the fierce posturing and well-rehearsed snarling that were the custom with so many of his kind were not for Nibulus. He had long ago learned that with his bulk he had no need of such artifice. In any case, his chubby, good-looking, personable features just did not seem intended for looking mean. Eschewing the long, flowing locks that were the fashion amongst his comrades, he kept his black hair modestly short and let the stubble grow freely on his jaw.
Today he had donned all four colours of his elevated rank: green, white and black, burnished with the gold braiding of a Thegne. But he wore this uniform loosely, casually, one might even say untidily. The colours may have designated his eminence, but the way he wore them definitely befitted his disposition.
Nibulus had everything going for him that a warrior could hope for, and at only twenty-five years of age he still had much to look forward to. He cared little for the disapproval that some of his kind felt towards him, that being due mainly to his unpardonable closeness to Finwald. It was one thing to employ a Lightbearer as a flunky but quite another to actually become friends with one. Where would it all end? Getting married to a horse?
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