Pale Kings (Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  ‘You already know about that…’ managed Tyrfing.

  ‘Do I? Because it wasn’t that clear to me.’

  ‘I…

  ‘Or how about when you learnt to shapeshift, or invade my dreams?’ Tap tap.

  Tyrfing held up a scarred palm. ‘I’ll get to that,’ he said.

  ‘Start talking then!’

  ‘I don’t know what you want from me, Farden…’

  The mage slammed the ruby down on the tabletop with a bang and Tyrfing flinched. ‘I want answers, Tyrfing! I want to know why you ran away. I want to know why you’ve been hiding all these years. I want to know why I’ve had to spend my years as a Written with your madness hanging over me, why I had to endure all the whispers and the pointing, why you filled my head with nonsensical dreams, why I spent the last six months trying to find you, why you paid a man to get rid of me, and why, when I did find you, you hid behind the body of a faun, pretended that you were dead, and then lied to me! And I want to know what the fuck is whistling!’ Farden leapt up, knocked his barrel flying, and hurled the ruby into the kitchen with all of his might. It shattered against the stone wall in a burst of crimson flame.

  Tyrfing sat very still and looked at the upturned plates lying on the floor. He couldn’t meet Farden’s frustrated eyes. With great deliberation, he reached inside his shirt and fished out a golden coin that hung on a frayed string around his neck. When he spoke, he spoke very quietly, almost in a whisper, so that Farden had to retrieve his barrel and sit down. The mage fumed. His knuckles were white. The strange whistling had stopped.

  Tyrfing sighed. ‘Before they give you the coin, you see, it’s held over a fire for a very long time until it glows and spits. The gold doesn’t melt, no, the spells of the blacksmiths see to that, it just gets hotter and hotter and hotter. Then what they do is they take it between two pincers, like this, between finger and thumb, and they hold it against each of your wrists, one at a time, to mark you as an outcast. So everybody knows what you are. I can remember the stares of the soldiers that marched me into the mountains. The scars are there for life,’ said Tyrfing, eyes glazed with long-forgotten memories. He lifted up his wrists and Farden saw the black circular symbols hiding, tortured, beneath the scars, black circles and thin trails of script formed into the shape of a key. Tyrfing spun the coin on the string. ‘They never go away.’ The older mage sat in silence for a moment before chewing his lip some more. An angry Farden waited for him to go on, waiting for his answers. His uncle’s mouth gave a slight twitch. A name tumbled from his lips. ‘Vice, that snake, marked me with fear as well as hot gold. He did something to me, Farden, that I have never managed to forget. Don’t you think I would have come back, if I could have? Do you not think I would have sent myself, instead of sending dreams? And I’m not mad, Farden, before you say it again. I’m old and tired, and afraid, that much is true, and they can seem like madness sometimes, but I’m not mad.’

  ‘Then explain those,’ said Farden, and he pointed to his uncle’s hands and arms. Tyrfing ran a palm over his scars. Another moment passed before he spoke again.

  ‘You were in the mountains dealing with some peasants the day it happened. You were too young to remember but I was so ill by then, so tired of the pressure of the magick on my back and in my skin, so tired of him plotting and scheming, so tired of the voices. He would make more of us, he said, teach them to be like us, he said. Us. I was not like him…’

  ‘You shapeshift like him,’ interrupted the mage, and his uncle’s face went dark like a storm cloud. Foam gathered at the corner of his mouth and his hands shook.

  ‘I AM NOTHING LIKE HIM!’ barked Tyrfing, and being so close Farden flinched. Tyrfing’s face was wild and unrestrained, and Farden once again saw himself in that strange mirror, though this time he saw the angry violent Written, the man he knew was hiding just under his skin. ‘I am nothing like that bastard, that halfbreed,’ muttered Tyrfing. Scarred, white, fists gradually unclenched and spread themselves across the tabletop. His voice was suddenly calm again.

  ‘In the end I convinced myself that the only way to escape was to convince him I was useless or kill myself. He perpetually spoke to me, you see, told me things, whispered in my head and plotted and schemed until I just couldn’t take it any more. One day I just snapped. I smashed down a door and found the man that lived there. I didn’t know him, he was a stranger, but he was the first stranger I could find, and I chose him. All I remember was that he didn’t put up that much of a fight. Faced with a furious, blabbering, Written, who would?

  ‘I used him to break the windows, the chairs, the table, and then I put a part of him in each of the rooms and threw the rest from the window. I painted the walls and doors with his blood. When the guards found me at the wall, naked and screaming, I killed a few and then let the rest take me, but not before I had used the broken glass.’ Tyrfing held up his wrists to show his the nephew the scars. On each of his wrists where his tattoos should have been were the circles of twisted and scarred skin. The mage suddenly felt uncomfortable and, try as he might, he struggled to hold his uncle’s eyes.

  ‘I tried to dig it out, the magick…’ Tyrfing trailed off, and changed the subject. He blinked several times before continuing. ‘You came back early that day, and that’s when you saw me, being hauled off to the prisons in the Arkathedral. I never planned for that Farden, not for one moment. You should never have seen me like that,’ he said solemnly. Farden nodded slowly and looked away, trying to stop the words coming out of his mouth. They forced themselves out anyway.

  ‘And then you left me for Vice,’ he mumbled. ‘I thought you were dead, Tyrfing. Do you realise what that did to me when you left?’

  To his surprise, Tyrfing did not shout, nor did he even flinch. He merely sighed and accepted it as truth. ‘My plan was that I would disappear into the wilds and Durnus, our mutual friend, would keep you in Albion, away from Krauslung and Vice and his machinations. But, unfortunately, even Durnus was blind to Vice’s deceit, and I couldn’t have told him if I tried. Besides, my mind was not right. Twisted. Nothing made sense. Durnus had no idea, and by then of course, it was too late. And for that I am truly sorry, I should have never allowed Vice to get his claws into you,’ apologised Tyrfing. There was silence for a moment, as the wind howled and moaned. His uncle looked up, and pursed his lips, as if his next words were sharp and spiky. ‘Or her claws, for that matter.’ Farden cocked his head to one side, eyes flashing once more. Tyrfing nodded in reply. ‘I’ve watched you and her since this whole thing began, since you met her at the Spire, but never, not once, did it occur to me that you and the princess were the crux of Vice’s plan. Not once. And now that it has it could be too late.’ Tyrfing thumped his fist on the table.

  ‘You watched me? You watched me all along and never thought to warn me?’ asked Farden, incredulous.

  Tyrfing frowned. ‘I did try to warn you… I told you how to escape, to follow the dragons, to keep an eye on the weather…?’

  ‘How exactly was that warning me?’ challenged Farden. ‘Cryptic dreams that kept me guessing to the last minute? A cat who could secretly talk, but just not to me?’

  Tyrfing twitched again. He held up his hands, trying to calm his nephew down. ‘Dreams were my only choice, Farden, and as far as Lerel is concerned, her message was for Durnus, not you. Leave her out of it.’

  ‘You could have warned me about Vice or Cheska at any point,’ snarled Farden.

  ‘Have you ever tried to make somebody dream something, Farden? It is so difficult I couldn’t begin to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t care how difficult it was! Did it not occur to you that I’d just dismiss them as nightmares, like I did for years beforehand?’ Flecks of spit flew with the mage’s words like slingstones, making Tyrfing wince with every one. ‘You should have sent a hawk with a message tied to its leg. I would have paid attention to that. Hell, you should have come yourself!’

  Tyrfing sniffed. ‘What did you expect me to do, Far
den? Just waltz through the gates and pluck you out of Krauslung? I can’t leave my desert. I’m supposed to be dead.’

  Farden jabbed an accusing finger at his uncle. ‘This coming from the mage who can shapeshift! Face it, Tyrfing, you could have done something, and you didn’t. For gods’ sakes, you just left me to flounder like a fish in a barrel.’

  ‘No.’ Tyrfing shook his head stubbornly. ‘I tried. I just didn’t try hard enough.’

  ‘I’ve been through hell because of your not hard enough!’

  Tyrfing lowered his head. His voice was a low whisper. ‘Don’t you think I know that? I know what you’ve gone through, Farden, I’ve watched your every…’

  ‘How?!’ yelled Farden, interrupting and exasperated. His patience for riddles had disappeared. ‘How have you watched me? Is it some sort of spell I don’t know about? Seerstones, tea leaves, scrying mirrors, what?!’

  His uncle rubbed his sweaty hands on the thighs of his dusty trousers. ‘I guess I have to show you for you to understand,’ he said. ‘You wanted to see what the whistling was about, after all,’ he sighed. Tyrfing got to his feet and beckoned for his nephew to follow and, infuriated, confused, and bordering on violent, Farden did so. He clicked his knuckles one by one as he followed his strange uncle through the kitchen, stepping over the scattered pans and shards of ruby, wondering what possible explanation his uncle could offer. His blood simmered.

  At the end of a kitchen was a windowless and winding corridor hollowed out of the sandstone rock. The mage ran a sweaty finger along the walls. They were smooth and cool. Candles perched like birds, fluttering on wooden shelves and plinths at regular intervals along the corridor. Their quivering flames threw strange shadows on the men as they passed by. On either side of the narrow corridor were little rooms and grottoes. Some had doors, others didn’t, and in those Farden managed to catch glimpses of his uncle’s odd life. Some were crammed to bursting with strange artefacts and objects, like exhibits in an abstract museum of the deserts, while others were dark and mysterious, full of books, unused and hoarding dust. Tyrfing didn’t explain, and Farden didn’t ask. The mage wondered who had made these tunnels. He wondered why he cared.

  As they briskly walked passed one little chamber, Farden snatched a glimpse of suits of armour stacked on benches, of strange cuirasses and breastplates adorned with cogs and wires, springs and plates, similar to the scribble drawings covering the walls of the dining room. He hesitated and pointed and opened his mouth to speak, but Tyrfing hurried onward. ‘Keep up,’ he whispered, and Farden had no choice but to do as he was told. The mage growled.

  The whistling had begun again, this time mixed with the howling of the storm outside. Farden quickly noticed a warm breeze blowing down the corridor towards them. It made his skin ripple, and with every step they took it grew stronger. Their path began to slope steeply upwards. Farden’s boots found rock steps underfoot and he trudged up them, wondering what he was being led towards. His fists were still scrunched in anger. His knuckles wouldn’t crack any more so he just dug his nails into his palms.

  Eventually they came to a wooden door and Tyrfing stopped dead in his tracks. So abruptly did he stop in fact, that Farden had to put a hand against the wall to avoid colliding with him. His uncle chewed his lip for a moment, put a finger to his nose in thought, and then placed a hand on a wrought iron latch that held the door tightly shut. The wind whistled through the crack under the door.

  ‘I want you to meet someone, Farden,’ whispered Tyrfing. ‘He’s the reason I’m still alive, and the reason I could make you dream.’

  The mage stayed quietly fuming.

  Tyrfing continued. ‘No sudden movements. No magick whatsoever. And whatever you do, nephew, do not stand in his shadow,’ he warned. Farden scowled.

  ‘Whatever it is, I’m getting impatient,’ he replied.

  Tyrfing shrugged, took a breath and opened the latch.

  The first thing Farden noticed, as he put a hand to the door to keep it from swinging back under the pressure of the rushing wind, was that the room was open to the sky. It was a wide circular room like the turret of a castle, except that the parapets were made of smooth sandstone and the ceiling was made of sky. High above them the storm still raged. It had turned the usually azure sky into a swirl of dusty yellows and browns. Sand eddied and spun around the edges of the room, darting in between boxes and barrels and disturbingly, stacks of bleached bones, picked clean. Behind him the door slammed shut, and that’s when Farden noticed it, sitting as calm as could be in the centre of the room.

  Farden had never seen anything quite like it, and even despite the blinding sand he stared wide-eyed and unblinking at it. By his side Tyrfing held his hands behind his back and waited patiently for his nephew to take it all in.

  The mage couldn’t decide whether the beast was mostly eagle, or mostly lion, it seemed to be comprised equally of both. From the head to the waist it was covered in tawny red feathers speckled with white and grey, sporting huge wings that seemed to hang effortlessly by its flanks. Then, from the waist to its hindquarters, the beast was a heavily muscled lion, complete with powerful paws and a long straw-coloured tail. The tail swished impatiently from side to side and rustled against the walls of its wood and straw nest. Its talons clicked together ominously.

  But it was the face, that terrible striking face, that Farden couldn’t tear his eyes away from. To the two men that had invaded its living space, its expression was that of calm intrigue, yet there was something behind those huge hunter’s eyes, those white and yellow orbs that twitched and flicked over the mage’s clothes, something that scared the mage deeply. They had seen a thousand deaths, seen a thousand years, and they were colder than an avalanche. The massive curved beak and curled talons that resembled antelope horns did nothing to assuage his creeping fear.

  The creature yawned, revealing a crimson throat ringed with rows and rows of feline teeth, and then blinked each great eye separately. Then, with much stretching and rustling, it stood on all fours and stepped down from its wooden pedestal. Instinctively Farden took a step back and made sure his feet were nowhere near its shadow, which incidentally, and probably to do with the lack of sun, wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  But to his utter surprise, the fearsome beast sat back on its haunches and made a whistling noise from between its beak. Tyrfing stepped forward confidently and raised an open palm to the beast. Farden half-expected the creature to rip his uncle’s arm off but instead it met the hand with the top of its enormous head and began, against all odds, to purr. It wasn’t quite a cat’s purr, nor was it quite a lion’s, more of a whistling rattle, but it purred nonetheless and let Tyrfing ruffle its long, feathery ears.

  Farden was awestruck. All arguments and questions had been forgotten, and his anger had melted like an icicle over a fire. He had met a gryphon once before in the far north, or at least he thought he had; it had been nothing like this one. The creature he had seen had been a mere shade of this beast, a trickle compared to a river, nothing more than an oversized chicken, and it had talked with a man’s voice. Faced now with the terrifying creature in front of him, Farden was sure that he had seen nothing more than a trick bird. He spoke as loud as he dared over the howling of the sandstorm above, frightened of startling the creature. ‘A gryphon,’ he said.

  Tyrfing ruffled the beast’s ears once more and smiled serenely at the mage. The creature seemed to have calmed him completely. ‘That it is,’ said his uncle, barely audible over the wind. ‘His name is Ilios.’

  ‘Does it mean anything?’

  Tyrfing smiled. ‘There isn’t a word in our tongue that describes it.’

  ‘Ilios,’ breathed Farden, and the gryphon, hearing its name, fixed him with a look. Leaving Tyrfing’s side it took a ponderous step or two forward and reared its head so it could gaze down at Farden. The mage could feel the weight of its footfalls on the stone floor. He steeled himself to remain still and unmoving, and when the gryphon came to a halt no mor
e than a foot away from him, fully within pecking distance, Farden met its hypnotic gaze.

  It was like staring into a frozen dream, looking into those deep eyes. Farden remembered the first time he had met the Old Dragon in the great hall of Hjaussfen all those months ago. He remembered how he had wanted to dive into those golden eyes and get lost in them. But the gryphon’s eyes were something else altogether.

  Behind their fierce exterior was a keen blade of insight, and instead of falling into them Farden felt like they were falling into him, plunging into his very soul like a dagger through warm flesh. The mage could feel Ilios picking apart his memories and his personality as though he were picking apart a carcass. He realised that the gryphon already knew him better than anyone else ever could, and it made him very uncomfortable indeed.

  Farden looked away and broke the gryphon’s gaze. He blinked like an owl, eyes stinging. Ilios warbled and sat down, folding his eagle-like forelegs underneath him with a hissing sigh. Even in that position the gryphon was still taller than the two men. Tyrfing shuffled forward and put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. He spoke quietly in his ear, and Farden was suddenly very aware that was the first time they had touched in years.

  ‘They say that when a gryphon hunts you, it hunts you twice. Once for your soul, and once for your body. They never miss.’

  ‘I spoke to a gryphon once, in the north. At least, I thought it was a gryphon at the time. Now I realise it was a cheap parlour trick, a fake. Nothing like this,’ mumbled Farden, throwing the beast a wary look. Ilios blinked and looked between the two of them. Calm as could be.

  Tyrfing shook his head. ‘Well, your first clue should have been the fact that gryphon’s can’t talk. They’re an ancient race. His family was driven south by the snows and hunters, long, long ago,’ he said wistfully. ‘They killed the gryphons like they killed the phoenixes. They’re hunted for their claws and their gold, you see…’

  Farden interrupted. ‘Gold?’ he asked.