The General's Legacy - Part One: Inheritance

by Adrian G Hilder

  When the first piece was over the conductor and some members of the orchestra in the front row had their heads together in discussion. When they broke apart, Greta took a seat at the front with her cello. The lead violinist, a tall blond man who could have been anywhere between thirty and forty years old, took centre stage. It seemed they were going to depart from the published programme. They began to play and Cory recognised it as the piece of music Julia had brought with her. It was a good choice under the circumstances, something loud and dramatic to compete with the storm, though it sounded different with the blond man playing — somehow harder and less forgiving.

  ***

  Mrs Samshaw marched through the corridors of the palace carrying a tray of stew, bread, wine and water. The darkness was periodically lit by a pulsing staccato lighting invading through the windows. Her footsteps added their own percussion to the distant sounds of the orchestra. The cello and the violin were doing their deft dance, the sounds like spooks following her down the corridor.

  ‘Big breakfast? Nonsense. I haven’t seen that boy eat all day,’ Mrs Samshaw muttered to herself.

  She had no fear of ghosts or demons lurking in her stark shadows cast against the wall by the lightning. The only thing that haunted her were memories of Norvale’s streets lined with desperate, pleading eyes holding whatever container came to hand in the hope the liberating army might have food to spare. Another scar Mrs Samshaw bore. She remembered a whole crop burning and the looted empty Norvale grain stores after the Nearhon army retreated to their own kingdom. That was after the last Battle of Beldon Valley. I will not see anyone starve if I can help it. Not again, she thought.

  Arriving at Pragius’ office door, she cleared her mind of unpleasant memories, executed her rapid knock and pulled the latch open with a clack.

  ***

  The knocking and the clack shattered Pragius’ concentration — a concentration that had lasted a time he could not measure, but felt like half an eternity. His pathway through the ephemeral, deceptive text was lost. He felt no fear, but rage bearing horns charged right out of the abyss. He heard Mrs Samshaw’s irrelevant words about food and how armies and princes alike march on their stomachs. He turned, expressionless despite the rage, and saw it wavering in the doorway like a silk sheet teased by a gentle summer’s day breeze: a delicious, beautiful thing all white, glowing and determined to feed him.

  Ruuuun! a voice in Delilah Samshaw’s head cried. Did it sound like Jack? She spoke to his memory often this way.

  A cold, clammy hand gripped her throat but didn’t squeeze hard enough to choke. Like one of those nightmares from which she couldn’t run to escape, she was paralysed, her fingers locked on the tray she carried.

  Where are you, Jack?

  Her last thought was sucked into blackness.

  Pragius stood like a statue feeling ecstasy beyond measure — the high point of his existence. I must do that again, he thought. It all makes sense.

  At his feet lay what had been Mrs Samshaw. Her face was like a dark grape, dried and wrinkled in the sun. Pragius saw himself in the mirror. Interesting… His own face and hands had changed, just like Mrs Samshaw’s. Eyeballs hung down his cheeks on red fleshy strings. Bright orange lights floated in his dark eye sockets like burning coals. He flicked away the useless dangles with a shrivelled hand and picked up the book. Time to… leave, it suggested.

  Pragius looked down at what had once been Mrs Samshaw. ‘Follow me,’ he said, and there was magic in the words. Sliding the book into its leather bag, he hooked it over his shoulder and left the office. The thing that had been Mrs Samshaw jerked and dropped the tray onto the floor. She clambered upright with stiff movements and followed him.

  Pragius walked into the waking nightmares of others who screamed and ran away, shutting doors behind them, their flame-like souls quivering. None of these souls were as beautiful as Mrs Samshaw’s, though some may be worth having if he had the time. Of course, he had all the time in the world — just not right now.

  Standing in the grand reception hall, Pragius faced the front doors. Behind him, he sensed someone approach.

  ‘Pragius?’

  Pragius didn’t turn. ‘Yes… Father.’

  From behind, King Coeric saw only what was familiar and never noticed what had been Mrs Samshaw shambling across the hall. Coeric placed his hand on his son’s shoulder. Pragius turned and had Coeric by the throat before he could blink. From behind Pragius, there was a crash of a tray hitting the floor, then the sound of shattering plates followed by fleeing footsteps. The king’s soul certainly had a different flavour — if the sensation could be called that — but it didn’t thrill him like Mrs Samshaw’s had. King Coeric was even wearing the crown and his royal blue fur trimmed cloak for the occasion. Pragius took them.

  Maybe Magdeline’s soul might work, he thought.

  He walked out the main doors of the palace onto the manicured lawn, placing the crown of Valendo on his head as he did so.

  Burn it all down, said the book.

  Pragius dropped the fur-trimmed cloak and leather bag containing the book onto the grass. Despite the rain, a small audience had gathered in the dark like curious nocturnal woodland animals. Lightning flickered, freezing the animals in place. He intoned a solemn announcement that mimicked the cadence of the archpriest’s voice at Ceoric’s coronation only a few months before: ‘Long live…the king.’

  Speaking incomprehensible, angry words, he thrust both hands skyward as if to grab the lightning above. An explosive roar erupted from the first floor of the palace. It blew out the windows and sent glass fragments hailing down on the perfect lawn like a million little diamonds snaring the bright firelight as they fell. Pragius repeated the magic and the ground floor right through to the stables burst apart in flame. More glass showered the lawn as fire jetted from the windows. The audience, shocked out of their trance by hot wind and firelight tried to flee. A few disappeared into the streets while others were knocked to the ground by the bright energy bolts that pulsed from Pragius’ pointed finger. Shrieking people in the palace drowned in a fire that stripped meat from their bones in an all-consuming confusion of pain. Screaming their last whinnies, horses battered at stable doors with their hooves and failing strength. Suddenly, the only sounds became the crackle and roar of mage fire.

  You need an army that’s yours to command, said the book.

  ‘I will start here.’ Pragius sent his senses through the palace and the grounds finding burning bodies. Come to me, he commanded. Nimble, blackened skeletons gathered on the lawn, slick with grease from burning body fat. Some fell from the first-floor windows, breaking their bony bodies on the stone steps. Pragius looked at what remained of Mrs Samshaw and then the nearest and newest of his recruits. Moments later, the once Mrs Samshaw returned from the fire, bones smoking and withered flesh gone. Placing the crown on top of the blue cloak on the grass by the book, Pragius walked back into the palace. Bathing in the flames, he spoke a few words of magic and the fires were thrown back as a shimmering sphere popped into existence. Still smoking, Pragius, now only discernible from the other black skeletons by the orange coal eyes, replaced the crown on his head, drew the blue cloak around his shoulders and retrieved the book. An enlightening thought dawned on him. There was something he had to put to the test. Looking at the lodge on the opposite side of the lawn, he spoke angry words again and it too was consumed in blossoming yellow and orange. I feel no pain at magic’s flow. I have… no limits, he thought.

  The pains of stress are a weakness of the living, said the book.

  Crossbow bolts zipped through Pragius’ cloak. A handful of the town guard reloaded crossbows in the shadows of nearby buildings. Pragius recalled everything he knew about being a battle mage, which was, he thought, everything there was to know. Within moments, the crossbow bolts bounced away on a new magical shield.

  The town guard ran. Then they burned. Then they followed.

  I’ll try M
agdeline — maybe she will be as pleasing as Samshaw, Pragius thought. He strolled with a regal calm through the streets of Tranmure, his retinue of the dead forming up behind him in a neat column at his silent commands. He watched the bright souls of the city’s residents. They quivered at the sight of him, then shook as they fled from his path. Pragius flooded the streets ahead with his battle sense, and a map formed in his mind of every road and pathway. The realisation came to him that he already knew every corner and crossroads of his city. If he still had lips, he might have smiled. He also sensed all the people hurrying from the streets and into buildings. His procession continued down the road on the riverbank, then turned away from the river at the flour mill that contained many memories — memories that were once bittersweet, but now seemed no more than curiosities to be studied. Pragius strolled down the narrow alley between the mill and the warehouse yard. It was the scene of his first experiment with battle magic and a rat. He contemplated that event with amusement as he walked around to the front of the mill house. With a few growled words, he burnt down the wooden door. Two souls rippled on the staircase as the people stood frozen in place at his entrance.

  Magdeline.

  A man holding a wooden pole blocked his path up the stair to her. A stick. He wants to fight me with a stick, Pragius thought.

  The man’s soul flared brighter and appeared more beautiful at Pragius’ approach. He contemplated what this might mean as he caught the swinging pole with his left hand while locking his right hand around the man’s throat. His soul felt quite good.

  He followed the screaming Magdeline up the stairs and into a bedroom. Picking up a wooden chair by its back, she pointed the legs at him. Her long, wavy hair was wild around her face. Why did her face not fill him with a sense of yearning like it once had?

  ‘No, not Jeremiah… not Jeremiah!’ she cried, her back to a cot.

  Pragius grabbed a wooden leg and yanked the chair from her hands, casting it aside. Hauling her away from the cot, he pinned her against the wall with his black bony hand at her throat. Magdeline’s watery bright soul flowed out of her body and into his. She was good, but not that good.

  High-pitched mewling came from the cot beside Pragius. Looking down, he dropped Magdeline’s withered body. A tiny soul lay there like a delicate shimmering flower. The baby was just a few weeks old. Pragius made a quick calculation. Magdeline had been married to the miller’s son only seven months. He thought about the last time he had been with Magdeline, less than a year ago, and the child was named after past kings of Valendo. The thought intrigued him. Turning his back on the crying infant, he left the mill. Magdeline and the miller’s son followed, two more in tow behind the ‘dead mage’ — the name that people cried out in the rain. He ignored them. Pragius recalled what he was supposed to be doing. I need an army that is mine to command, he thought. Mine.

  The dead mage led his followers through the city and past the Church of the Sun. There was nothing in the churchyard but pots of ash. Out to the east, under the mountains lay another prize.

  ***

  Booming, explosive sounds that were not thunder had shaken the windows of the orchestra house. The glow of the palace fire filled the sky with a false dawn. The musicians had stopped playing. Cory and Sebastian looked at each other.

  ‘What was that?’ Sebastian asked, as if Cory would have an answer.

  The rain battered the windows for several moments and then everyone seemed to decide home was the best place to be.

  When Cory and Sebastian eventually escaped the orchestra house and reached the once lush palace lawn, the collapse of the main hall greeted them. A breathless, weeping voice behind them spoke. ‘They’re all dead. All of them. And the dead are walking.’ Cory turned around first. Suki, Mrs Samshaw’s assistant; her eyes were red, her tear-streaked face pale. ‘It… it was Pragius. Only he was different. He…’ She swallowed, not knowing how to make the words come out. The rain hissed into clouds of steam as it fell on the flames. ‘He killed the king — just grabbed him by the throat. It was as if all the flesh drained out of him.’

  Sebastian looked at her like she was an infected wound, his lips curled in revulsion. ‘You’re not making any sense. What do you mean all the dead are walking? Our father was killed? By Pragius?’

  Suki started again. She described the conversation she heard as she came through the door, the moment she saw the thing that was Pragius turn to kill the king when she dropped the tray and ran from the palace… everything until that moment when she came out of her hiding place in the bushes by the burning lodge.

  ‘Pragius using magic?’ Sebastian said incredulously. ‘A burnt skeleton with a crown, a cloak and a book walking round and turning everyone into the walking dead? Impossible. How? It can’t be.’

  ‘Where is the captain of the guard? Why isn’t he here?’ Cory demanded.

  ‘He… he was in the palace, with the rest of them. I was serving at the annual dinner for the commanders and captains.’

  ‘Oh —’ the word that came next was usually used by soldiers in the tavern. Cory hunted the burning palace with his eyes as if guidance he needed was there in the fire somewhere. ‘Oh God…’ he muttered, looking skywards with the rain forcing him to close his eyes. He stood for many short breaths, his thoughts as tumultuous as the storm clouds overhead, still searching for guidance, an answer. One answer came to mind.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Sebastian’s eyes were wide open.

  ‘To get help from the castle.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Get what guards you can together. Order them to guard road junctions and bridges.’

  ‘I don’t know how to command soldiers. You’re the general.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You were training for it. And in case you hadn’t noticed, Cory, the next closest thing Valendo had to a general just burnt in the fire… before getting up and following our brother.’ Sebastian’s arms were rigid at his sides, his hands clenched into fists, and he screamed, ‘I can’t do this!’

  Pain and anger fuelled Cory’s voice and the soldier’s tavern word came again from his mouth. Then he yelled back at Sebastian, ‘Then why don’t you just go to church and pray?!’ Cory slipped in the mud that was once a lawn, stumbled, then ran from the palace.

  ***

  Sunny’s hooves beat the ground. Rain still fell. Water, tears or maybe both streamed out of Cory’s eyes. There were few things Cory kept in the castle. Just his armour and whatever his grandfather had left to him, like the letter that Sebastian had handed to him after the funeral. These few things, the horse under him and the clothes on his back were the only possessions in the world he had left.

  He entered the castle, sprinted up flights of stairs to Garon’s old office where he took the letter from a drawer and lay it open on the desk. Following instructions in the letter, Cory worked with a knife to loosen and remove a stone in the wall. Taking the key he found there, he unlocked the long narrow chest under the box bench beneath the window. Reading the letter again, he took another key and a brown cubic stone set with a second smaller green stone from the chest. He walked through the castle and climbed the south-west tower, which he had conquered so many times — and yet the door at the top had always remained an enigma. Unlike the other wooden doors in the castle, this door was just like the one at the base of the castle that gave access to the rope bridge leading to the waterfall. It was cold, almost black and made of iron. The key unlocked it and he entered expectantly, surveying the room. Engraved on the floor was a circle as wide as he was tall with four lines radiating out from a socket in the centre to the edge. The segments were filled with multi-coloured pieces of tile. He put the stone in the socket and stepped backwards out of the circle. Nothing happened. As instructed by the letter, Cory left the room, locking it behind him and feeling none the wiser.

  Back at the chest in his grandfather’s office, he lifted out something that was wrapped in an oile
d leather cover. Lying flat on the bottom of the chest were some old books. This wasn’t a time for reading so he removed the oiled leather cover and saw something he had only ever seen in the painting on the wall in the castle’s Great Hall: the painting of his grandfather fighting the Ripper. It was the sword with the jewel eye. There was a note curled around the hilt.

  ‘Be strong. Don’t give up,’ Cory read aloud. ‘Well, Grandfather, I bet you didn’t have the walking dead led by my brother in mind when you wrote this.’ Pulling the note out of the way, Cory grasped the sword’s hilt and the world around him vanished.

  ***

  Mounted on a wall in a castle on Green Island, far to the south, a jewel in the hilt of a sword like the one Cory had just grasped lit up like the opening of a lizard’s eye.

  Meanwhile, in a hall lit by a coal fire in a castle on the cliff overlooking Bytper, far to the north, a third sword like the one Cory had just grasped opened its yellow eye. A gloved hand lifted the sword and a face was bathed in the light of the eye-like jewel. King Klonag toyed with something hanging around his neck and hidden under his clothing. A smile grew across his face as he spoke. ‘Interesting.’

  ***

  Cory’s vision cleared. A bright grey sky. No sun, no moon, no stars and no clouds. The ground was shiny black rock. No grass, no trees, no plants and no soil.

  He looked up into a pair of glowing yellow lizard eyes. A grinning mouth filled with short, pointed teeth split the creature’s face. Fat strands of grey flesh like rats’ tails hung down to its shoulders in a grim imitation of hair. One shoulder was connected to a long, thin, muscular arm covered in dark grey scales. At the end of the arm, a long-fingered hand tipped with white fingernails had an iron grip on Cory’s wrist, just as he was gripping the creature’s wrist. The creature’s grin widened and it said something, the sounds twisting and curling. Whatever it said it repeated because the rhythm was the same, except this time Cory understood perfectly. Its voice had a background hiss.