by Danie Ware
She was reaching the end of her tolerance. She’d been all night with minimal sleep, unwilling to leave his side. Nivrotar’s entourage of alchemists, philosophers, healers and apothecaries were all damned useless. Any idiot could tell that Ress was loco, but they couldn’t do horseshit about it. And the longer he was trapped, the worse his torment became.
Singing calmed him. When he heard a voice, high and sweet or deep and powerful, he would strain with every fibre of his being to listen; then collapse as if it was not what he wanted. After that, he would shriek, or sob, or talk frenziedly earnest gibberish. Once, he’d howled for mercy from the tortures of an unseen hand.
And she’d watched it all, helpless, unable to face the enemy Ress fought – just like she’d been unable to face Feren’s infection. If she’d been able to touch it, she would’ve torn it apart.
Ress had dissolved into terrible sobbing, a pitiful sound. If he could have seen himself, he would have perished from humiliation. The loss of his mind had one sole blessing – he didn’t know what had happened to him. Trying to muster serenity, Jayr laid his head on her shoulder. He was unaware of her presence.
“Shhhh.” Her voice was gentle. “Trust me, I won’t leave you.”
Slowly, his weeping softened. And it was quiet.
Outside, far below, the wide waters of the Great Cemothen River crawled past to the sea and the vast, dark sprawl of Amos slept on uncaring. Trapped in the height of Nivrotar’s dark castle like some feeble damned maiden, Jayr had found herself hating the city for surrounding her, for its smells and moods, and most of all for its ability to swallow suffering.
Just like the Kartiah.
Her past was too close; it haunted her.
Where was Syke? Where was Triqueta?
What had been in that fireblasted poem? “Time the Substance of the Gods...”
“Please,” she muttered, “give his madness to me. If he has great vision, then let him go.”
But the Gods, as ever, were not listening.
A knock at the door made her start.
“Yes?”
It swung open to reveal Nivrotar herself, the healer Jemara hovering uncertainly behind her.
Jayr stood upright.
“What?”
“I dislike his screaming.” Nivrotar swept into the room. She was wrapped in a cloak the colour of dried blood. As the plump, cheery-faced Jemara hesitated awkwardly, the Lord stopped by Ress’s bed. “We must take control.”
“Control?” Jayr said.
“Jemara.” Nivrotar gestured for the woman to speak.
“It goes like this,” Jemara said, shrugging round shoulders. “There’s a way I can unlock his mind – but it’s dangerous. Some people ply these substances for recreation, some believe that their visions bring them great truth. Others –”
“Jem,” Nivrotar said warningly.
Jumping nervously, the healer said, “There are various narcotics, hallucinogenics...” she tailed off, watching Jayr’s expression.
Jayr snapped, “He’s not touching your – !”
“Think about it,” Nivrotar said. “If he can open his mind, we may understand him.”
“The problem is,” Jemara said, “that Ress has strength and experience – we’ll need more than a little. Eoritu’s euphoric – it can be addictive, and it could make him worse. Once it’s in his body, we’ll have to lead his visions where we want them to go. Do you understand what I’m asking?”
Jayr looked down at where Ress lay. He slept peaceably now, his face lined and sunken.
“Will it hurt him?”
Jemara shook her head.
Nivrotar said, “Not his physical health.”
Where was Syke? Where was anyone that could take the weight of this decision from her shoulders? Ress, what did they do to you?
“Do it,” Jayr said.
* * *
Heat.
Tight, sweating passageways lined with smoothed rocks and a sheen of panic. Ceilings low and dark, close and choking air.
The slash of a stone blade into flesh. Spilled blood spirals inwards towards a heart of fiery, crystalline awareness. Then a rising sense of hunger and an eagerness for release.
Elemental. Sical, creature of fire. Such a thing has not been seen upon the world in a lifetime of returns.
Here in the passageways, the twisted corpse of a Kartian craftsman, shattered by huge strength. His insides have exploded from his mouth, blood covers his face and chest – he’d thrashed for a long time as he’d been slowly crushed to death.
Here, a creature created of alchemy – a crazed cross-breed of man and horse. It stands in deepening night, the Monument its backdrop, a storm raging over it... It’s colossal – and its death crouches in the grass.
Here, a man on his knees, a slim, fair-skinned woman before him, abandoned in pleasure and passion. The man is grinning like a predator, ringed fingers twisting in the soft flesh of her buttocks. She has incredibly long, black hair, thrown wildly down her back and shoulders. She cries aloud, snarls pleasure through clenched teeth...
...and the stone grows into her flesh. Even as the man withdraws, the creeping calcification reaches her throat, her face, and she is left there – head back, lips parted, frozen forever in stone orgasm.
With her final cry, the image changes.
In that rise of passion and release, the stirring Monument awakens completely: it blazes with new, raw power.
The man’s strength is complete. His rings glinting, he stands before a brazier, a broken and twisted pillar. About him is a vast, dark chamber and within it, rank upon rank, stand blunt and misshapen creatures of rock, dark silhouettes against the light. They are ancient, creatures forgotten and now wakened from long rest. There are embers in their eyes and a terrible, grinding power in their movements. The man can feel the steady pulse of the Powerflux. He can pull its might towards the centre, towards himself.
And it is glorious.
But then he realises –
A cascade of water overwhelms the vision, what the man realises is lost. Ress hears her voice again, crying denial. Her waterfall blinds him, deafens him – he knows she was trying to show him something, but she’s too powerful and the images drown him. He tries to shout, but water fills his eyes his mouth.
There!
The grass, the vast carpet of the Varchinde, all bowing towards the Monument, paying homage to the man’s potency as he pulls the World’s energy inwards, building, building his stone army...
What was she...?
Oh, my Goddess. Mother...
At its edges, at the feet of the Kartiah, the Khohan, the Khavan Circle... at the eastern shoreline, where the great terhnwood crops grew... to the far south, the forests at Gasharta, Naskala...
...death is beginning in the grass. As the energy of the Powerflux is sucked inwards by the Monument, so the edges of the Varchinde begin to perish. Rot, devastation, a wave of lifelessness sweeping inwards: the terhnwood plantations crumble and the trees are twisting in pain.
The World will die.
The waters of the Ryll bathe him in horror.
And he screams. And screams. And screams.
* * *
“Silence him!”
The Lord Nivrotar was on her feet. Jemara shaking and white faced.
Ress’s appalling shrieking rang from the ceiling, ricocheted from cold, stone walls.
Jayr held his shoulders, shouted in his face.
“Ress! Stop it! Ress!”
Then the noise fell away, collapsed into desperate, panting breaths, a hunted animal. He rasped, “This... is just... the beginning. There is no time!”
His eyes were open, stark and wide and staring. His back was arched, his hands worked aimlessly, reaching for something – or pushing something away.
No time.
“Oh, you’re so fireblasted clever.” The Banned girl challenged the Lord of Amos and the castle healer. “What the rhez did that achieve? Look at him!”
Jem
ara’s cheery face held fear, her hands twitched helplessly by her sides.
“I don’t know. We gave him clarity, but what he saw...”
Nivrotar stood still, her silk-gloved forearms crossed and the fingers of one hand rapping a silent and restless tattoo.
“He was clearer – stone and flame and sex and power. Great elation and great fear. Will he stand another dose?”
Jayr glowered. “No way.”
Jemara agreed with a reluctant shrug.
“Then we can’t reach him. How do we help him free himself?”
“My Lord.” The healer was still shaking. “His mind is beyond my strength – whatever he can hear has might beyond anything I comprehend. Benign might – but such fear –”
“We must know what he sees.”
Frustrated by her helplessness, her hands itching to fight, to rip his madness out of him by the damned roots if she had to, Jayr moved to the window, to look out at the pinpoint rocklights and flambeaux of Amos stretched below. The slow roll of the river ran to either side of the palace’s island, black strips of bridges sliced its broad shine into cold squares of metal.
Above her, the air was cool and clear, the sky arced over her here as it did in the desolation of the wide Varchinde. Somewhere out there, the same moonlight shone upon Syke and the Banned, upon Triqueta racing to avenge Feren. She leaned far out of the unshuttered window, muscled belly flat against the stone sill, and allowed the breeze to touch her skin.
She didn’t understand. Her hands tightened on the windowledge. She wanted to wrest this thing from his mind and throw it to the floor and tear it to pieces. She wanted to fight –
Behind her, healer and Lord contemplated the now quietly muttering Ress. She could hear them talking, the Lord of Amos demanding answers, the healer having none to give. If only Ress was awake, he would be smarter than both of them.
If only Ress was awake.
If only –
Shit!
All three of them were caught off guard by his sudden movement.
Writhing, he had both hands clamped over his ears in an effort to shut out a sound only he could hear. His face was pale, sweat had sprung out on his skin and the blankets stuck to him as he twisted his body this way and that, trying to find release. He was gagging, perhaps trying to speak but choked with horror at what was tormenting him.
As Nivrotar turned to grasp both of his wrists and hold him down with unexpected, metal-wire strength, he forced out his cry for help, gasping for breath as he spoke...
“Rhan... no, this cannot be!”
“Jayr!”
Jumping to help, Jayr wrestled one of Ress’s ankles motionless, then held it still while she grabbed the other. As she pinned him down, muscles flexing, she caught the eyes of Amos’s Lord watching the ripple of power in her shoulders with a curious light flickering in their darkness. Only for a moment, then Ress began to struggle and howl and her attention turned back to the bed.
“Let me go! Let me go, let-me-go, let-me-go!” He was fighting them, really fighting them as if he knew they were there, but his sight was still turned inwards. “Rhan, they’ve taken Rhan. I have to tell him!”
“Who?” Nivrotar leaned right over him, her curtain of pitch-black hair touching his face. “Where is Rhan? Whom do you have to tell?”
For an instant, just for an instant, he seemed to focus upon her face. He was still, staring into her eyes as though she compelled him to motionlessness. For that instant, his mouth worked, he tried to say, “Nivr-otar. Deathless sleep, passionless, empty – the world’s fear – comes. Rhan – you must... The Bard... I must... see –”
“Fhaveon’s Council is not my concern.” Nivrotar’s voice was soft through her curtain of hair. “To involve myself would be a declaration of –”
“No. I need...” Ress clawed one thin hand about her shoulder, pulling her close almost as if to embrace her. He was shaking with the effort needed to remain focused. “Roderick... must... know... what I’ve seen. All of it. This...” He was panting, sweating. “This is... what he’s been looking for!” His voice rasped with the import of what he was trying to tell them. “The Bard... I hear him, see him. He must understand!”
Nivrotar stared into his face. “I can reach Roderick, if I must. What do I tell him?” For a moment, the dark eyes of the Lord of Amos searched the crazed veteran’s face, his disfocused gaze. “Ress. A moment longer, stay with me. What do I tell him?”
“The world’s fear comes. It is manifest.” His voice was breaking now, his breathing becoming sobs. “She showed me everything!”
Jayr blinked, baffled and hurting.
Nivrotar said, “The world’s fear.” She sat back on her heels, considering. “I tried to protect you, Ress of the Banned. You have found the answer, but it has cost you your mind. Can you...” Her tone was gentle now, almost as if she were terrified to upset the delicate, desperate balance of his cling to sanity. One pale hand stroked his cheek. “Can you tell me... can you tell me what you can see?”
Her meaning was clear, though unspoken: Without costing me mine?
“My Lord, the drug is still in his blood. His sight is clear, but his words –”
“Ress.” The Lord stroked his cheek again, her white fingers gentle. “What does the world fear?”
“Nothing! It’s outside the Count of Time; it’s Nothing! Kazyen!”
Jayr said, “What the rhez is – ?”
“The world’s fear! Tell him!” Ress’s mouth exploded in red and he fell back, silent, his eyes staring empty at the Amos night. He was still breathing – but his mind was gone.
Nivrotar stood up.
Her voice was like a death knell as she said, “Send a bretir to my... emissary... in Fhaveon. Whether we understand them or not, Ress’s words must reach the Bard.
“And we must pray that he understands.”
* * *
Out of the darkness, images fell like drops of rain. They were infrequent at first and they delighted him. He turned his face upwards, blinking to see. Then they were more numerous, a downpour covering and soaking him – until they became a cascade like a waterfall, an onslaught, battering him down.
He tried to run from them; ran until he felt his chest would burst. Perhaps he was trying to outrun the water, to save himself from the assault; perhaps his running was just another image and he was tiny and tumbling, drowning under the deluge.
Somewhere, the voice called his name again, far distant, begging him to listen. It was female, desperate. He was a child, it was his mother; he was a man, it was his wife – her tones were coloured with hope and terror. Hear me, child. You must hear me. You are so close. He tried, but the images were battering him, drowning him. They were coming too fast.
Desperate, he reached out to hold on to something. And he saw...
The Ilfe, destroyed. The Well of the World’s Memory – gone. A single fragment from the chaos that tumbled past him, one he clung to, a lifeline. With it came others – the broken Monument, the desolation of the Great Library, the chill white of the Theatre of Nine. All of these things, decaying, because the World could not remember. In the instant of this realisation, a vast time passed him, an aeon of understanding.
Child who sees, you must hear! Help me!
The voice was a cry of feminine grief, terrible enough to make him cringe. He raised his arms and tried to cry back to her, “How?”
But she did not answer him, and the waterfall had gone. He staggered at the sudden lack of pressure. Fell, panting, to the ground.
She had left him.
He opened his eyes.
* * *
Sealed in hopelessness, far below the surface of the great Lord City, Roderick stirred in a breathless, wordless panic.
His mind was tumbled by images and memories, splashing fragments of things he had once seen, the same images that had swirled at the back of his mind all of his life. They were bright, now, like sunlight on the water. He had to blink to see that the room around him
was dark.
The Ryll. The water and the fear. The tumbling, nonsensical chaos of the world’s nightmare – this, he knew.
But the vision was not his.
Then who...?
He sat up, understanding flooding him like a chill.
It brought him more awake. He found that he was shivering, almost as though he had been in cold water. Pieces of the images still floated at the edges of his mind. They were strong – there was a cry of pain still in his ears and fear in every layer of the darkness around him.
What had he seen?
For a moment, he was still, didn’t move. As if more motion would disturb the last of the images, make them evaporate in the darkness, he sat poised – but they were fading even as he reached for them.
Was there flame – was there anger?
The shiver became a shudder, a tease across his skin. A certainty, though he still wasn’t sure what it was.
As a youth, the Guardians had welcomed him – the first of his kind to be born in the Ryll’s home city of Avesyr in a hundred generations, hailed as the hope of his people. There were few of them left, even then, scattered watchers of a myth forgotten, adhering only to their own history and a mandate more ancient than they had words to recall.
They had taught him many things – to watch the water and to comprehend the tumble of the images within. They had taught him to fight and to run, to understand letters and music, to craft a story to entrance an audience.
They had also taught him to think.
In the darkness about him, the dream fragments were thinning to nothing. They left only isolated images, echoes that made no sense – but one thing remained as clear as Tundran ice...
He knew that that vision had not been his.
Someone else had seen the same thing; someone else had witnessed the thoughts of Ryll, the world’s nightmare.
Someone else had seen the thing they’d called heresy, the blasphemy he had committed.
The thought brought him fully awake and he was on his feet in the darkness, thinking, thinking. He was still shivering, as through the cold had sunk into his bones. He needed Rhan, he needed Ecko, he needed The Wanderer, he needed...