by D. P. Prior
‘Is she…?’
‘Someone hit her.’ Rhiannon’s voice was shrill, like a distraught child’s. ‘Might’ve been Elgin. She fell. There was blood…’ She indicated her mouth with her forefinger. ‘Gaston tried to blame Elias.’ She looked at Shader like she wanted to make sure he believed her. ‘Tried to blame him for what he did to me. Dad didn’t believe him; went for him.’
Shader slammed his fist against the table. The skin of his face was stretched taut and his head was starting to pound.
‘You mustn’t fight him.’ Rhiannon put her hand on top of his. ‘We’re Nousian, remember. Please tell me I haven’t done this for nothing.’
Shader almost scoffed at that. He might have been a Nousian, but he was no Luminary. He doubted his anger could be contained by any impossible ideas of forgiveness. Gaston was going to die for this; more than that, he was going to suffer. ‘Rapists don’t deserve second chances,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘And neither do murderers. He’s not walking away from this.’
‘You can’t kill him.’ Rhiannon gripped his hand so tightly her nails pierced the skin, drawing blood.
‘It’s what you do to evil.’ Shader pulled his hand away and licked at the scratch. ‘Luminary Berdini called it malicide.’
Shader winced: he’d openly condemned Berdini’s argument in Aeterna. It was the sort of justification of opposites that gave Nousianism a bad name; and it had played no small part in his decision to leave the Order. The problem was, he now realized, Berdini’s paradox was also his own: a man torn between peace and war, held together by a uniform and symbols that defined his behaviour and provided the frame through which he viewed the world. It was no different to gazing at a painting and only seeing what the artist intended, the view truncated, forcing a singular perspective. Shader’s frame was obviously rotting, he thought, the painting spilling beyond the edges to where everything was that much more uncertain.
‘Bullcrap.’ Rhiannon glared at him. ‘Besides, there’s no time for pissing around with Gaston flaming Rayn.’
‘Rhiannon!’ Shader couldn’t believe the language she was using, especially with her sitting there in the white alb of a postulant.
‘Will you shut up about my swearing! I couldn’t give a damn if these dried up shogging prunes hear me. My brother’s missing, don’t you see? My little Sammy!’ The tears were flowing unchecked now, her eyes wide and pleading.
Shader stood, hands resting on the table. What was it Barek had said? Huntsman had him. Surely the Dreamer wouldn’t have…’I’ll find a horse,’ he said. ‘Go look for them. You coming?’
Another voice answered: a male voice, deep and thickly accented. ‘No need. Boy is close by.’
Shader started and half drew the gladius, backing away from the table. Rhiannon was staring at a large spider by her feet. It had a smooth, segmented body and long legs twisted forward like a crab’s. The air about the spider shimmered and the creature began to grow, thrashing and warping until it attained the stature and form of a man—a dusky skinned man in a cloak of feathers, his nose pierced with bones.
‘Huntsman!’ Shader slid the gladius all the way out of its scabbard.
The Dreamer made a claw of his left hand and held it before Shader’s face, fixing him with an unblinking stare. His eyes swirled like yellowish whirlpools and Shader felt a compulsion rising up from the depths of his mind and forcing him to re-sheathe the sword.
‘It was not my wish to frighten you.’ Huntsman lowered his hand and perched on the edge of the table. ‘I follow you here.’ He swivelled his head to take in Rhiannon. ‘I came to say sorry, and to tell you boy is safe.’
‘Sammy?’ Rhiannon shoved her chair back and stood. ‘Where is he?’
‘Near,’ Huntsman said. ‘But not for long. There is somewhere I must take him.’
Rhiannon came round the table at him. ‘You bring him here, right now!’
Huntsman didn’t flinch; he merely eyed her calmly as if he considered her something of a curiosity, but not interesting enough to hold his attention. He switched his gaze back to Shader. ‘Eingana is safe?’
Shader felt the statue in his pocket shudder in response.
Huntsman gave the slightest of nods then faced Rhiannon. ‘I am sorry you suffer for her sake. Know this, though, it was bald Clever Man, not Eingana, who told me you must not be joined.’
‘What?’ Shader almost spat the word. ‘Aristodeus planned this?’ He looked from Huntsman to Rhiannon, noting how she turned away. ‘You knew?’
‘Only what he told me.’ She indicated Huntsman with a jab of her thumb. ‘But he never said anything about Aristodeus. He made me swear not to say a word about it. Said there was too much at stake. Otherwise I’d have told you. You have to believe me, Deacon. This isn’t…isn’t what I…’
Shader clenched his fists, turning from side to side in the need to find something to hit. Suddenly, his hand snaked out and grabbed Huntsman by the throat.
‘You did this, Dreamer. Why?’
Huntsman’s hand came up, the fingers once more curling into a claw, but Shader was ready. He slammed it to the table and held the wrist tight, all the while choking the Dreamer with his other hand. Huntsman’s eyes were bulging and drool trickled from his mouth.
‘Deacon!’ Rhiannon placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Deacon stop, you’ll kill him.’
‘Good! It’s what he deserves. Interfering…bloody…savage!’
Rhiannon’s grip grew firmer. ‘But Sammy. He knows where Sammy is.’
Shader released Huntsman, shoved him so hard in the chest his head cracked against the wall.
‘Not my choice,’ Huntsman said hoarsely, rubbing his throat and gingerly probing the back of his head. ‘Bald fellah came; told me things no one should know. Said my people all die; your folk, too—all people. An enemy comes, Deacon Shader. Enemy of my gods. He hunt them for many lifetimes. Them and grandmother of my gods, Eingana. Statue you now protect.’
Shader was still lost in thoughts about Aristodeus. The more he heard about the philosopher, the more he realized he never knew him. Why keep Shader from Rhiannon? How did that benefit him? Did he see her as a distraction? An obstacle in the way of whatever he had planned? Surely it had nothing to do with sanctity, not if Aristodeus were concerned.
‘Purity and focus,’ Huntsman said, guessing his thoughts. ‘Makes you his secret weapon. Thinks you are our best hope.’
‘Best hope for what?’ Rhiannon asked, hands on her hips, breasts heaving with each intake of breath. Shader looked away.
‘Keeping back dark.’ Huntsman’s pupils narrowed to slits.
‘And you,’ Shader said. ‘What do you think?’
Huntsman pulled his cloak around him like a cocoon. ‘At first I believe him. My gods have hidden in fear of this enemy for a long time. What they feel, I also feel, and bald one played upon this fear. He means well, but acts like a god. He tries to squeeze all worlds into his head and one day his head crack like a nut. Other powers there are, powers he cannot control. Not even enemy control them. Not yet.’
Rhiannon sat down, her eyes flicking between Shader and Huntsman. ‘What enemy?’ she said. ‘Who is it?’
Huntsman pressed his finger-tips together beneath his nose. ‘Sektis Gandaw.’
Shader laughed. ‘The Technocrat of the Old World? I’d sooner believe his former master, Otto Blightey, had recovered from the bloody nose we gave him at Trajinot and was up to his old tricks again. Sektis Gandaw died at the Reckoning. You of all people should know that.’
Huntsman’s eyes lost their focus. ‘He disappeared, not died. I stopped him killing my people. Caused Reckoning, ended time of Ancients with power you now protect. Power he has always wanted. Power he would use to end all things.’
Shader’s heart was thumping, his breathing shallow and rapid.
‘I had to do it,’ Huntsman continued. ‘My people…my…’ He shook himself, brought his gaze back to Shader. ‘He will unweave all worlds. Become his
own god. He fled Reckoning, but my gods knew where. It was once their home. Sektis Gandaw survives in Dreaming, but he has eyes and ears in this world.’
‘Aristodeus is using me to stop Sektis Gandaw?’ Shader said, his scalp burning, head starting to throb.
Huntsman considered him for a moment. ‘Tried once himself, he says. Tried and failed. Now he tries through you, but this…’ he waved a hand to take in Rhiannon, ‘not part of plan. Says he saw you slain; saw all worlds lost. Must be pure, he say, must have focus.’
Shader felt a curtain of blackness fall over his vision. He swayed, heard the sound of a chair moving, and then felt Rhiannon’s arms about him, holding him up.
‘What if we tell him to go shog himself?’ Rhiannon said. ‘What if we refuse?’
Huntsman ignored the question. ‘He walks through time that one; speaks in riddles. I look for his spirit and see nothing. My gods say he lost in Abyss, but what they mean by this I do not know.’
Rhiannon guided Shader into a chair where he sat with his head in his hands.
‘He is right to want Sektis Gandaw stopped,’ Huntsman said, ‘but other powers, older and darker, play with him—play with us all. Eingana is goddess of higher place. My people believe she holds all in existence with a sinew of her flesh. She is mother of life and bringer of death. All depends on how power is used. Sektis Gandaw seeks statue. With it, he will unmake worlds, but even he is an insect compared to powers that move him.’
‘The Demiurgos?’ Shader asked, looking blankly at the Dreamer.
Huntsman shrugged. ‘Perhaps. It is more than I see. My gods teach us songs of children falling from darkness. Three children, they say: serpent, light and shadow”•Demiurgos who made Abyss from his own mind.’
‘Whose children?’ Shader asked. ‘Ain’s? Nous’s?’ That’s how the myth went.
Huntsman sniffed. ‘Maybe some truth there. Maybe only half truth. Even my gods cannot see other side of darkness.’
‘This is bullshit,’ Rhiannon said. ‘Fairy stories we can do shog-all about. Just tell me where Sammy is and bugger off back where you came from.’
‘You will see him soon,’ Huntsman said, and before anyone could react he vanished, leaving a spider scuttling across the floor under the table. Rhiannon tried to give chase, but the spider was too quick, disappearing through a crack in the wall.
‘Great,’ Rhiannon fumed. ‘Shogging great! Now what do we do?’
Shader pushed himself to his feet, one hand clutching the pommel of the gladius. ‘What we can,’ he said, feeling all their actions now had a grim inevitability about them. ‘What we’re best at.’
‘Which is?’ Rhiannon asked, crossing her arms.
‘In your case, it’s masquerading as a Nousian.’
She visibly flinched at his remark and Shader knew he was being unfair, but couldn’t bring himself to apologize. He knew he should have said something about looking for Sammy, knew that’s what she needed, but it was all too much to take in. All too much.
Rhiannon’s face hardened, her eyes narrowing in a manner that told Shader she wouldn’t be forgetting this any time soon. ‘And what about you?’
‘I’ll do what I always do,’ he said, heading for the door and pausing to look over his shoulder at her. ‘Cut down evil wherever I find it, starting in the morning with Gaston Rayn.’
TO AWAKEN THE LOST
The black carriage bumped and clattered through thick forest beneath a starless sky. Must’ve been Fenrir, north of the city, but it was hard to be sure in the dark. The evening had been overcast and damp, the never ending drizzle sowing familiar seeds of melancholy in Gaston’s heart, something he’d thought was supposed to end with his conversion to Nous. It all seemed so pointless—the feud with his dad, the training with Shader, all the years of friendship with Rhiannon. Now Dad was back to the ground and Mum wasn’t even talking to him. Rhiannon had…well, Gaston had…He couldn’t bear to think about it. And now Shader wanted to kill him. What was it about him? Why did everyone turn against him, sooner or later? The answer was pretty plain, he reckoned. If there was broken link in the chain that needed fixing, it was him. Always had been. If Cadman hadn’t come to pick him up from the barracks, he’d have taken to his bed, slept till the black mood passed. He’d done that a lot before Shader had turned up and given him a new sense of purpose. Hours and hours wallowing in emptiness that gnawed away at his certainties, left him feeling abandoned and good for nothing.
Cadman, sat opposite him in the carriage, tapping rhythmically at his breast pocket and saying nothing to distract Gaston from his thoughts. He merely smiled whenever Gaston looked up. It was probably meant to be reassuring, but Gaston felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.
Much as he hated to admit it, Gaston felt the loss of Shader like an amputated limb. For weeks he had grown elated in his company, studying the art of war alongside the Liber and finding it no paradox. If anything, it had been a remedy for his dad’s insipid Nousianism. By training his body to respond without the tardiness of thought, combat became, at its best, an expression of the bliss of spiritual unity; and by forming his mind through the practice of the knots, he’d left no room for morbid ruminations.
The perfection hadn’t always lasted, but with the disciplines of weapons practice and prayer he’d felt he was doing enough to claim the gift of salvation.
Up until the day Shader had left.
Made salvation seem a crock of shit, said his cynicism, if Shader had been willing to sacrifice it for the sake of a woman. Didn’t matter that he’d changed his mind, gone running back to the abbey. Fact was, he hadn’t fully believed. Gaston usually fought off such temptations with an increase in devotion and exercise. As head of the White Order, he couldn’t afford to let his doubts reassert themselves, erode the faith that Nous was for them, that he wouldn’t abandon them. But that threw up a whole bunch of other questions. If Nous looked after his own, why were the knights growing sick? When they’d returned from the templum, a few of them were already feverish, the first signs of swelling and discoloration visible on their skin. Was it lack of faith, or something else? Had Nous abandoned them, or had he never been there in the first place? Here, in Cadman’s carriage, the doubts seemed magnified, and the pervasive gloom outside had done nothing to bolster his defences.
‘Worried about the duel?’ Cadman asked, peering over the top of his pince-nez.
Gaston’s stomach twisted, and his heart deflated even further, if that were possible, like a pierced water-skin.
‘What’s to worry about?’ He did his best to make it sound like he wasn’t bothered. ‘Shader’s older, slower, and unfocused. He taught me well, but I’ve outgrown him.’
‘That’s the spirit.’ Cadman reached forward and patted him on the knee. ‘Time for the pupil to put the master in his place, eh?’ A pensive expression came over Cadman’s face and he seemed to wince. Gaston shot him a questioning look, but Cadman just sighed. Then he threw his hands up and beamed as the carriage stopped dead.
‘Come,’ Cadman said, opening the door and clambering down.
Gaston followed him outside, but could see little besides the outline of the driver sitting stoically beneath the dark covering of night, tall hat like a burned-out chimney.
Cadman led the way through gnarled and knotted trees, branches swaying, reaching, jabbing; leaves rustling, rain running off them like tears. Pushing through thick gorse they came to an enormous dome-shaped mound in the heart of the forest. Cadman wandered around its perimeter, bending down to examine patches of the grassy surface, poking and prodding.
‘Eureka!’ he said with a clap of his pudgy hands. ‘Driver!’ he hollered through the trees. ‘Be a good chap and bring a spade.’ He beckoned for Gaston to come take a look.
It all appeared the same to Gaston. He put his hand over the area Cadman indicated, but the grass there was just as slick as the rest, the mud soft and loamy. He pushed a finger into the surface, got it as far as the second knuckle
, and struck something hard. Cadman was breathing down his neck, put his head over Gaston’s shoulder.
‘That, my dear Gaston, is the way in.’
It seemed like metal Gaston was touching. Vibrating metal that sent tiny shocks along his finger. A branch snapped somewhere behind. Gaston almost swallowed his heart and spun away from the mound. Cadman put a hand on his arm and led him to one side. The driver was trudging towards them, a shovel over his shoulder.
‘Here,’ Cadman said, pointing, before flipping open a metal case, counting the cigarettes inside, and returning it to his pocket.
The driver removed his hat, set it on the ground. Gaston gasped and tried to step back, but Cadman draped an arm around him and gave him a fatherly squeeze. The skin of the driver’s face was waxy and pale, his scalp threaded with lank hair and pocked with hives and blisters. There was a wide cavity at the back of his skull, and through it Gaston caught a glimpse of something moist and spongy. The man, or whatever he was, thrust the spade into the base of the mound and set to work.
Gaston saw a fleeting movement out of the corner of his eye. He shuddered and tried to focus on the driver, who was throwing up great clods of soil at an alarming rate.
Cadman released Gaston and tapped the cigarette case through his breast pocket, as if he were thinking of taking it out for a recount. ‘What I am about to show you has remained hidden for countless years, centuries even. Remember the Lost?’
Gaston nodded, a chill crawling beneath his skin. Shader had told him the tale of the Elect, the Ipsissimus’s elite corps, who had been sent to aid the Abbey of Pardes against the mawgs over five hundred years ago.
‘Well, now they’ve been found. Actually, they were never really lost at all, not in the sense of being misplaced like a favourite hat or a front door key.’
‘They ran into something evil and vanished from history,’ Gaston said.
‘Not so, not so.’ Cadman produced a shiny metal device from his pocket and flipped open the top, thumb pressing down with an answering click. A feeble flame sparked up and died, sparked and died, sparked and died. ‘Not really smoking weather.’ Cadman snapped the lid shut and gave a world-weary sigh. ‘It’s like a Britannish summer: utterly miserable. Still, mustn’t give in, eh? Have to stay cheerful.’