Under Fragile Stone

by Oisin McGann

  They all stood, staring up at the light.

  ‘This is the portal the Seneschal were talking about,’ Mirkrin muttered. ‘The one they had to break themselves up to get through. It was this hole, or one like it. They must go outside sometimes themselves, but nothing bigger than a rat can get in.’

  ‘We have to go on, then,’ Paternasse told them. ‘We can’t stay here.’

  ‘But there must be something around here,’ Dalegin whimpered in desperation. ‘Maybe we should try digging. Anything would be better than wandering around in the bloody dark until we die of thirst or … or worse.’

  ‘This is no good,’ the old miner said to him. ‘We can stand here wishin’ ourselves up that hole all we like; it’s not going to happen. We have to find another way. I’ve seen this before, where men can’t let go of some ghost of a chance and end up doomin’ themselves when they could have saved their bacon some other way. It’s false hope and it’ll kill yuh, sure as a knife through the heart. We have to move on.’

  Dalegin looked ready to break down. He glared at one face after another, but everybody else agreed with Paternasse. Each of them cast one last, longing look at the daylight and then they walked away. Dalegin was the last to leave, his face turned up to the light, unwilling to let go of its tantalising glow. But the footsteps of the others were getting further away, and the fear of being left alone forced him to turn his back on the shaft of light and follow them into the darkness.

  * * * *

  The argument in the tavern was getting heated and Kalayal Harsq nervously wondered if things were going to turn nasty. The two clansmen who had offered to tell him some of the local folklore were disagreeing on some of the finer points of the story of the Tuderem, the alchemists who had lived in the shadow of Absaleth.

  ‘… I’m tellin’ ya, it wuz Orgarth what got rid of the krundengrond,’ one was saying, the sparse hair on his balding head damp with the sweat of passionate debate. ‘He reached out from the mountain and stamped the life out o’ that wild ground. It’s been told that way since my clan was first seeded.’

  ‘And I’m telling ya, it were the Tuderem,’ the other insisted, his large, single ear glowing pink with ire at his friend’s stubborn ignorance. Where the other ear had been, there was an old, puckered white scar pierced with an earring. ‘They used their powers and whatnot to lay it to rest. Why else would it have kept goin’ until they got there. They laid it to rest and started their farmin’ and minin’ and such and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘The heck it is!’

  ‘Damn straight!’

  ‘Maybe you want to discuss this outside!’

  ‘Maybe I want to discuss this right here, where everyone one can see the beatin’ that’s comin’ to ya!’

  ‘Oh? And who’s gonna give it to me?’

  ‘I am, that’s who. Gonna beat you like your pappy used to…’

  Harsq excused himself and left them to it. Behind him there was the sound of stools being pushed back and the occupants of the tavern rising to their feet as men took sides in the dispute. The priest had no doubt he had just helped start a feud that would last two or three generations, but he was more concerned with mulling over what he had heard.

  Krundengrond. The very thought of it chilled him to the bone. He had seen some once, a small area in a valley that had lived with its curse for centuries. He had been summoned by a village there to carry out an exorcism in the hope of quelling its violence. One of his disciples had foolishly got too close while setting up the generator and had been pulled in. He had been chewed up like grain under a grindstone, his body broken and crushed by the kneading of the earth and stones. It took a long time for the pieces to disappear completely into the ground. The exorcism had failed, of course, but then krundengrond was not caused by some landlocked spirit that could be driven out.

  Ludditch seemed to believe there was some of this deadly ground around the edge of Ainslidge, that the soul of Absaleth had held it in check and that the exorcism had freed it. But no one had seen any yet and Ludditch was not going to let the priest and his disciples go until he was sure he had no more use for them. Harsq suspected that they might never leave at all. He knew the krundengrond story was a myth – the tales of Orgarth and the alchemists might have a foundation in fact; most legends had a kernel of truth in their heart. But the Reisenicks were using folklore to explain what was happening to their land. He knew better.

  The earthquakes had started after his visit to Absaleth. He could only guess at what else was happening to this territory, but the tremors would not be the end of it. Dead rivers, certainly, diseases in the trees, animals suffering stillbirths, he had seen it all happen before. A vengeful spirit was a terrifying thing to behold. If Ludditch was going to hold the priests until he saw the outskirts of his territory erupt into krundengrond, they would be waiting a very long time. But if the chieftain realised that the earthquakes were just one weapon in the arsenal of a ghost that Harsq’s ministrations had driven to the Reisenicks’ land, then the Braskhiam and his followers could look forward to slow, ugly deaths and to various parts of their bodies being used to adorn the walls of the clansmen’s meetinghouse. They had to get out of Ainslidge.

  As he walked up the muddy street he saw Jennas, one of his disciples, coming towards him. She was a tall, fair-haired young woman with an innocent manner and an airy grace. There was a look of anxiety on her face as she hurried up to him.

  ‘Kalayal, Ludditch has returned. He does not look happy. He has called some kind of special council and he wants you to join them.’

  ‘That’s fine, Jennas. I need to have words with our gracious host and his cohorts. There’s some straightening out to be done.’

  ‘Kalayal, is everything all right? I mean … they’re not going to hurt us, are they?’

  ‘No, my child. They cannot hurt us while we are under Brask’s watchful eye. Keep the good Lord in your heart and cherish your faith. There is sanctuary in His love.’

  ‘Of course, Kalayal. Praise be to Brask.’

  ‘Praise be to Brask, child,’ he called as he walked towards the meetinghouse. ‘He will watch over us.’

  Though it wouldn’t hurt to stack the odds a bit more in our favour either, he thought to himself. If Ludditch was going to let folklore govern his thinking, then Harsq would provide some mythical elements of his own.

  The council was not being held in the main hall of the meetinghouse. Instead, the priest was led upstairs, where he was faced with one of the most horrific sights he had ever seen – dead Reisenick bodies preserved and posed in all their tribal splendour. In the centre of the room near the flue for the chimney sat Ludditch with his most important, living relatives, already deep in discussion. So this was what the Reisenicks called a Forefathers’ Council. Trying to hide his revulsion at the scene, the Braskhiam made his way over to the group and was pointed towards an empty chair.

  ‘Thank you for joinin’ us, Kalayal,’ Ludditch said, with the slightest hint of sarcasm in his voice. ‘Glad you could stay with us a while longer.’

  ‘I’m grateful for the opportunity,’ Harsq replied. ‘Seeing as my work is not yet done here.’

  ‘Glad you think so,’ the chieftain lit his bone pipe and tugged on it a couple of times. ‘See, we was kind o’ expectin’ more of a … upheaval, if you like, followin’ your exorcism. We were expectin’ things to change somewhat.’

  ‘You were expecting krundengrond, perhaps? You thought the ground around your territory would erupt and cut you off from the rest of the world. Is that what you were expecting?’

  Ludditch sat forwards, taking his pipe from his mouth.

  ‘You been hearin’ things, priest?’

  ‘I’ve heard enough to know that I’ve been misled. That I’ve been tricked by the Noranians and by you into starting something that you don’t know how to finish. You should have told me that Absaleth was inhabited by a god. You’ve endangered everyone by hiding it from me. The Noranians obviously did not
have a clue what they were dealing with, and the Myunans could not be expected to warn me, given their hostility, but once the threat had come to your land, you should have told me everything. You should have told me about Orgarth, for now you have a god contaminating your territory and he will be a threat to your people for as long as he remains free.’

  ‘What are you talkin’ about?’ Ludditch scowled. ‘You exorcised him. We all saw it. Heck, we all felt the damn thing.’

  ‘I thought I was dealing with a mere spirit,’ Harsq leaned towards him. ‘Not a god! Do you think a god can be bettered so easily? I drove the spirit from the body, but we did not find his heart! To vanquish a god, I must deliver his heart to the esh, where it can be consumed by the almighty Brask himself.’

  Ludditch leaned back in his chair and stuck his pipe in his mouth, his hard, narrow eyes regarding the priest thoughtfully. He was quiet for some time and nobody interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘Is that why there’s been no krundengrond?’ he asked finally. ‘Because Orgarth’s heart is still out there somewhere?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Harsq lied. ‘A god can manifest himself in more than one place. We need to find the core of his spirit. And what’s more, no exorcism will drive him from it, the god-heart must be taken to the coast, where we can bring it out into the esh and throw it into its depths. Only the might of Brask can vanquish the power of this lesser god.’

  ‘So where’s this damned heart, then, priest? How do we find it?’

  ‘It’s right where it always was,’ the priest explained patiently. ‘Deep in Absaleth. Let me return to the mining camp with my disciples and we will draw it out and transport it to Braskhia, where we can employ the services of an esh-boat and plunge the heart of Orgarth into the chilly depths of the esh.’

  Harsq settled back in his chair, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. There was no Orgarth, no god-heart, but Absaleth’s soul was still loose in Ainslidge, and it could be anywhere. Every material had its own essence, and it was this essence that made up the spirit. Unlike Brask, the one true god, other ‘gods’ were merely the life-force of a particular land or material. Harsq had razed enough of them to know. But a disembodied spirit could find purchase in materials of the same kind. Absaleth’s ghost could have found a host in any iron-rich piece of earth, any lump of ore or the smallest shard of iron or steel. If the eshtran sought it out, he was sure he could find it, but all the signs were that the ghost was taking root in this land and with every day that passed, its power over it would increase.

  It would be better to flee and leave the Reisenicks to their fate. If he could persuade Ludditch to let him leave for Absaleth, he could be out of their territory within a day. Once beyond their borders, he would make for Sestina, for if he actually went anywhere near Absaleth, the Myunans would find him and kill him. He was in an extraordinary bind.

  It was a frightening thing, to lie through your teeth to a man who would gut you and skin you if he even suspected what you were doing, but he had no choice. He had to stay calm and play this through to the end if he was to get out of Ainslidge.

  ‘Doesn’t feel right,’ Ludditch grunted, as if reading his thoughts. ‘What wuz Orgarth doin’ here, if his heart wuz still back in Absaleth? No the heart’s here somewheres. We just got to find it.’

  ‘No, no,’ Harsq replied anxiously. ‘I only performed an exorcism at Absaleth. It would not have affected the god-heart …’

  ‘Drove him out, though, didn’t it? And what about that scrap that the Parsinor brought in? He was tryin’ to trade for the cubs. Maybe he found it and was gonna give it up ’cos we took their cubs. He could have had the heart an’ all! I mean how big is it? He could’ve hid it on his person somewheres or swallowed it or somethin’ and the boys trounced him before he could trade! Holy meat, Harsq. He could’ve had it on him all along and we didn’t know and then he escaped and took the damned thing with ’im!’

  Harsq struggled to follow the chieftain’s line of reasoning. He could feel his plan beginning to unravel. He remembered the massive creature that had been brought into the village. The Parsinor had been carrying the scrap that was the old host on his back, and even after the exorcism, there had been a metal tinge to his aura. Ludditch might be closer to the truth than he realised. Dangerously close.

  ‘No, I assure you, sir. Absaleth is the key. I have to go back there.’

  ‘Damn, boy, you’re right! That’s what it’s all about!’ Ludditch exclaimed, standing up suddenly and stabbing the air in front of Harsq’s face with the stem of his pipe. ‘Half-right, anyways. The Myunans’ve been on to this all along. We’ve been played for fools, you an’ I. Don’t you get it?’

  ‘I’m not sure I do.’

  ‘Harprag and his crew show up on the border, sayin’ they’re makin’ for Old Man’s Cave. Say they’ve got some rescuin’ to do down there. But it’s just a cover, see? They’re really here to find their precious Orgarth and return him to Absaleth. That mountain’s like a … a mother to ’em. Now, the Parsinor’s out in the forest searching’ for the cubs, finds some o’ my boys tusslin’ with this possessed metal, and takes it off ’em. But we’ve got those cubs and he has to trade to get them back. So he brings it along, but he hides the most important bit of junk and we miss it when we truss ’im up. You did your thing, but you couldn’t finish the job because the brute didn’t give us the whole hog. The Parsinor’s still got Orgarth’s heart!’

  Harsq listened helplessly. A few moments ago, Orgarth’s heart had been something he’d made up to escape from Ainsdale. Now Ludditch had managed to use it to explain everything that had happened over the last day and night. The man was truly mad.

  ‘The god-heart is still in Absaleth,’ Harsq tried again. ‘If you let me …’

  ‘No.’ The Reisenick shook his head, looking around at his clansmen. ‘It’s right here in Ainslidge, and we’re going to track it down. I can smell it. I’m gettin’ a feel for how you operate, priest. You got instincts; well, I think I’ve got ’em too. And mine’re tellin’ me to give chase to that Parsinor and his Myunan toads and where we find them, we’ll find the heart. You want to know about the krundengrond? Give me a couple o’ days and I’ll show it to yuh.’

  Harsq sank lower in his chair, the metallic taste strong in his mouth, his arms folded to hide his trembling hands. At the mercy of the Reisenicks, haunted by Absaleth’s ghost and under threat of death from the Myunans, the eshtran felt as if his sanity was sliding away from him on smooth, hard ice. All he’d ever wanted to do was carry out Brask’s good work. But now everything was going wrong, as if all that power had slipped out of his control and turned against him. He managed a reassuring smile at Ludditch and excused himself, hurrying from the room.

  13 DALEGIN CHASES THE LIGHT

  Draegar stopped the group when he spotted something further down the track. Motioning them to stay back, he advanced cautiously. There, in the branches of a tree above the path, was a cobweb made of bones. The spiralling net was about an arm’s length across and swayed gently in the hint of breeze that passed through the trees. The bones were strung together with wire and seemed to be from the feet of some small animal. They could smell the faint bite of bleach from the macabre web.

  ‘It’s a Reisenick sign,’ Draegar called back to them as he studied the web. ‘We’re in a trapping area. The way ahead is going to be laced with animal traps, all set up so that one catches what another misses. They leave signs so that other clans don’t go wandering into them.’

  ‘That’s a nutty way to make a sign,’ Lorkrin said from right behind him.

  Draegar turned to him.

  ‘You were supposed to stay back,’ he scolded the boy. ‘Why don’t you ever do what you’re told?’

  Lorkrin shrugged.

  As they walked, Draegar described the array of methods the Reisenicks had of catching their quarries. He would find one trap and point out how escape from it would lead an animal straight into another. Often, they found dead or maimed an
imals caught in snares, or pits, or hanging from ropes. There were spring-loaded wooden spikes, nets, nooses, tripwires, cages, swinging battering rams and poisoned darts. The group walked painstakingly slowly as Draegar guided them through the array of hazards, avoiding what they could, disarming some and setting off others to clear the way.

  Eventually they came upon another bone cobweb hanging over the path and the Parsinor told them they had reached the other side of the trapping area.

  ‘Now it’s just the normal snares and things we need to watch out for,’ he said lightly.

  He grimaced and leaned over, first to one side and then the other.

  ‘Here, one of you have a look at my back,’ he said to the Myunans, pulling his bag aside. ‘There’s something caught in my armour.’

  Lorkrin ran his hands over the knobbly, hinged armour plates that covered the Parsinor’s back.

  ‘Can’t see anything,’ he said.

  ‘Try higher up, under the top joint.’

  Draegar kneeled down so that the boy could reach and Lorkrin ran his fingers under the joint in the carapace. His fingertips came up against something and he pulled out his knife.

  ‘Yeah, there’s something here, all right,’ he said, digging at the obstruction with the tip of the blade.

  It popped out and fell to the ground. Taya picked it up.

  ‘Rusty old nail,’ she said. ‘You could have picked it up when we were caught in the landslide.’

  ‘Or maybe from that pile of scrap I carried up to the Reisenicks,’ Draegar guessed, shrugging his bag back into place.

  Taya tossed the nail away, but Rug, who had been watching with interest, went after it and bent down to fish through the grass for it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lorkrin asked. ‘It’s useless. It’s not even straight.’

  ‘I’d like to keep it anyway,’ Rug replied, as he found it and put it safely in a buttoned pocket. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘In case you need a bent, rusty nail?’