by Tim Stead
So, too they saw the fall of that army; over two thousand men swallowed by the red and brown dust on the plains of Samara, and they looked on the teller of the tale with new eyes.
“And now I have come here to this place,” he finished.
There was a murmuring in the crowd.
“Is that the end of your tale?” tribe master Cut asked.
“No,” Serhan replied. “The tale goes on, but there are two endings, and I do not know which will come to pass, but you can tell me.”
“We? The Kastan Delor do not know your tale, Mage Lord.”
“Yet you will decide it.”
There was a great stirring among the crowds. They were not used to riddles in their tales, but still their attention was bound to it.
“How will this be?”
“I shall tell you both endings, briefly, and you will tell me which one you prefer.”
“It is unusual,” the chosen arbitrator remarked, “but I judge the mood of the Crefas to be in favour. Please go on.”
Serhan looked round at the Shan. They waited eagerly on his words, their faces bright with interest. Some held hands with partners; other leaned on the shoulders of comrades, but all waited, anxiously, for the tale to continue.
“Even now,” he began, “as we sit here passing a pleasant afternoon in the sun, there are men in the city of Darna who mean you harm. Ten sound and well built ships lie in that town’s fine harbour, and men come and go, carrying food, swords, arrows, bows. They are strong men, soldiers skilled with the sword, archers who can pin a glove to a door at a hundred paces. They are free of their masters, the Faer Karan, and their hatred and frustration has boiled over. They want to be masters, now. They want to kill, to conquer, to step in the blood of their enemies. They want new land, lordships, and adventures and they are coming here. In less than ten days those ten ships will be sails off the coast of Cabarissa.
“They will land on one of the empty, quiet northern beaches, and nobody will be there because the beaches are far from the towns of your weaker kin, and the Kastan Delor stay in the mountains for the winter where it is dry, and the pleasures of the Crefas may be enjoyed.
“After camping for a day, or perhaps two, they will assemble their wagons and saddle their horses and move east, passing by Kenrak Point and coming at last to the homes of the Shan. They will kill all that they see, and loot the houses, finally burning them, kicking down the walls, smashing all that they cannot take with them. When they are done they will sweep along the coast to the easternmost end of the island, and all will fall before them, for the lowland Shan cannot fight. They will send envoys to the men, and the envoys will be laughed at and slain, and it will go on, all along the south coast the Shan will perish until the men come to their greatest prize, the Shan city of Jerohal.
“Jerohal will be torn apart. The great colleges of the Seers will be broken, burned and their students killed. By this time you will see many of your weaker kin coming up into the hills to seek refuge. Hundreds of them will walk into the heartland with no more than their clothes, their wounds and memories that scar their minds.
“Some of you will help them, and some of you will drive them away. After all, the mountains cannot support so many as will come.
“It does not matter. When the men have destroyed Jerohal they will turn north and ride after their prey. They will want to finish the job. At last they will come to the Kastan Delor, and the warrior Shan of the hills will fight them, but in all your tribes there are barely twice as many who can bear arms as there are men of Darna.
“They will prevail, and not half a year from today men will camp on this very spot, burning the bodies of your children and the rags that were once your proud tents. They will laugh and drink and sing and gamble with the treasures they have stolen, and the Shan will become a memory, a ghost that will haunt the history of Cabarissa for a thousand years. Then even the name will be forgotten. Even the soil will forget your blood.”
He stopped speaking, and silence fell around the camp. They stared at him, hardly daring to speak, for his words had the force of prophecy, and each of them had seen the terrible things that he had described, carried by his voice into their heads.
The chosen arbitrator cleared his throat.
“You said that there were two endings to your tale, Mage Lord?”
“That is so.”
“I must tell you that I do not like the ending you have given us. Will you tell us the other?”
“I will, but first will you bring me a cup, for I am thirsty with talking?”
A cup was brought. Serhan drained it and set it down carefully on the ground beside him. When he judged that the tension had built sufficiently he began.
“The men of Darna will be met at their landing point. Just one hundred of the Kastan Delor will stand before them and the battle will be brief and terrible. When it is over the men of Darna, those that still live, will flee back to their city, filled with fear. The tales they tell there will keep men from your shores for a thousand years.”
“How can this be?”
“Those one hundred are here, now,” Serhan said. “They are the bravest among you. For each of them I have a word hidden deep within me, and if I give them that word they will become the greatest warriors in the world, greater even than the guardsmen who protected the Faer Karan. They will be spoken of with fear and reverence through all the world, and their tales will live as long as there are Shan to speak them.”
“How can this be?” The Chosen Arbitrator looked alarmed; frightened.
“It is magic, tribe master Cut.”
“Then it cannot be so, Mage Lord. The Shan are closed to magic.”
“So you know more of magic than I, tribe master?”
“My Lord, I know more of the Shan.” It was a bold answer and Serhan liked it.
“You forget that I am death mated to a Seer Sage. What she knew, I know. I offer this ending to my tale not in hope, but in certainty. Are none brave enough to hear the word? Are there not a hundred here?”
“I will hear your word, Mage Lord.”
It was a familiar voice, and Serhan recognised Jat as he stepped from the front rank out into space and isolation. There was a moment when he thought that no others would follow, but the moment passed and ten, then twenty from Jat’s own tribe, faces that he knew, stepped out. That was enough. The Kastan Delor were jealous of their honour, and in a moment dozens began to step forwards, crowding into the space that had existed around him. Now there were more than he needed.
“There are things that you must know,” he said.
“Tell us, Mage Lord,” Jat said. “We will not flinch.”
“You must first swear an oath, and the oath is bound to you by the word. If you break your oath, the word will desert you, and you will not remember it. If you speak the word to another, they will not hear it, unless it is a child of your own blood, when it will pass from you to them, and you will forget the word.”
“And the oath?”
“You will not use the power of the word against another Shan. If Shan fight, it will be as it has always been, with your natural strength and ability. You will only use the power of the word on Cabarissa. The word exists to defend this island, and to keep the Shan safe from their enemies. That is all.”
“This we can accept, but what will the word do?”
“The first time that you speak it you will change in appearance, become a creature of fearsome aspect, impervious to swords and arrows, taller, stronger and faster than any man. None will recognise you. The second time that you speak the word you will return to yourself, and again be a Shan of the Kastan Delor. But time is short. Those who would swear the oath and hear the word, prepare yourselves. I will sit beyond the Crefas on the far shore of this lake, and you will come to me one at a time, so that I might know your names and faces, and give you the word.”
He stood and they parted to let him through. He went to the far side of the lake, and as he had spoken, so i
t happened. They came to him one at a time, and he spoke with them, took their oath and gave them the word. As evening began to darken the sky and shadows stretched across the valley there were no more, and he had spoken with one hundred and thirty-one.
He returned to the camp and addressed them again.
“Now you will see,” he said to them. “Jat, speak the word that I gave you.”
Jat spoke the word, and none could hear his voice, though his lips moved. At once his form became indistinct, darker and larger. He shimmered, and then something else stood in the place where Jat had been.
It was about ten feet tall, and stood on powerful, bird-like legs tipped with claws. Its arms were long and thin, ending in long claw-tipped fingers, six on each hand. The body was covered in black hair and scales, and a long, black mane framed the face and fell down its back almost to the ground. The face itself was featureless apart from two large black eyes and a mouth full of sharp, white teeth.
The Shan drew back in fear, but Serhan smiled. Jat was now the image of Gerique’s doorkeeper, long a figure of terror. He was pleased by the irony.
“Jat, do you hear me?”
“I hear you, Mage Lord.” The voice was still Jat.
Serhan gestured and a figure in armour appeared. It was not a man, but closely resembled one. Again the Shan drew back. For them this day was full of wonders.
“Attack this figure, tribe master.”
Jat stepped forwards, momentarily awkward on new feet. Quickly he found his balance and stood before the magical man-shape. He towered above it much as it towered above the Shan. His arm drew back above his head and he swept it down with awesome speed. The figure shattered, armour split and bent with the force of the blow, and the dummy lifted into the air, cartwheeling away towards the lake with Shan leaping out of its path.
Serhan took up his bow and swiftly put an arrow to the string, aiming and releasing in one movement. It struck Jat in the middle of his chest, and the creature that was Jat took half a step back, but the arrow bounced away with a dull noise and landed among the bystanders. It was broken.
“Now you see what you have become,” Serhan said. “Speak the word again.”
Jat became Jat again. He flexed his hands, looking at them in wonder, and then he looked at Serhan.
“I am hungry,” he said.
Serhan laughed.
56 Waiting
It was the early hours of the morning when Serhan eventually returned to White Rock. He opened the black door directly into his own chambers to avoid causing a commotion in the fortress. They would learn that he had returned in the morning and that would be soon enough. He was not hungry. The Kastan Delor had put tray after tray of food before him until he had eaten all that he could eat, and he had been at the centre of their celebrations for hours.
It was a remarkable thing about the Kastan Delor. Once they had accepted the magic he had given them it was not something that they doubted. Decisions in the past were definitely past for them, they did not dwell on things. He wished he could be the same.
Now at last the second great task was complete. There would be no war. Samara was safe, and Sarata, Pek and Darna, although somewhat diminished, had each learned something. Only Blaye, the northernmost of the coastal cities had escaped without significant death or damage.
Many of his decisions could have been better, but the outcome had never been in doubt. Given the power and knowledge that he had gathered to himself since receiving Rin’s gift, the ability to hear and see old magic, he had become as great as the greatest mages of old; perhaps greater. It was not without cost. He felt heavy with the blood of his own people.
He was tired; tired in body, but also in a deeper sense.
And there was still so much to do.
The Faer Karan were gone, at least for the present, and war had been prevented, but now he must begin to build, and build a world that could resist the Faer Karan should they come again. He did not doubt that they would.
He had used his viewing spell to keep track of what was going on throughout the world. Delf, he knew, was well ahead with building the new place of learning on cleared lands close to the village of Woodside. That was a place that would never be the same again. Already the village was being overwhelmed by builders, and immigrants had started to trickle in from other towns. A new tavern was being built close to Delf’s construction site and the House of Law. He suspected that the builder would become wealthy.
He knew that there was another urgent journey before him. He must travel the land and seek young men and women who had the capacity for magic. The world needed a new generation of Mages because he could not allow himself to be the only line of defence against the Faer Karan. He would send them to Woodside once the place was finished, and he would teach them, encourage them, and prepare them. It was a task for which he had no particular desire, but no other could do it.
Then he must also prepare the Seneschals and colonels who had taken over Faer Karan domains. They would not rule them for long. Most of these places were like High Green, built by magic and needing magic to maintain them. They were not places for the general mass of mankind, but rather the homes of mages. It would not be a popular message. Some of these men he counted among his allies, but he doubted that they would remain so.
He sat at the table for a minute, trying to clear his head of the future and all that it contained. It would be impossible to sleep with all his responsibilities vying for attention inside his mind, and he needed sleep.
He focussed on pleasant memories; walking in the woods to the north of White Rock and tasting the clear, sharp air that reminded him of childhood; eating lunch in the Shining Wake in Samara as an ordinary man, the bright sea just outside the windows and the smell of it as he walked along the quay; the vision of Borbonil walking through the streets of Pek with a crowd following him, and the perplexed look on the Faer Karani’s face seen through his scrying bowl. That last image made him smile and some of the tension left him.
He steered his mind carefully around the memories of Mai, deliberately not remembering, although they were his brightest, happiest memories. All had been stained by subsequent events and they were all a tangle of blame, failure and guilt.
He stood and through force of habit went into his study before his bed chamber, checked that all was well and then closed the door and made for his bed.
He stopped between the two doors.
Something had been wrong.
He opened the door again and examined the room. It was just as he had left it except that the book was closed. He stepped into the room and opened his senses to detect any magic, but there was nothing here except ancient traces and some spells of his own working. He touched the book. There was something that protruded from the clean line of its pages, something foreign. He flipped it open and saw that it was a sheet of paper, placed between the pages at just the place where he had left it open several days ago, at Corderan’s confession of triumph and despair.
There was writing on the sheet of paper. It was an uneducated hand, and written in the common tongue, but he recognised it at once.
He picked it up and read the words.
Your journey through life is like a journey through a great forest. The forest is full of paths, some wide and some narrow, some pleasant to walk upon and some hard and difficult. You cannot see what lies at the end of each path, but as you journey you pass many turnings and crossroads. Each of these is a decision, and in those decisions you must be guided by what is in your heart. I beg that you not be guided by mistrust, anger and disappointment, for on paths so chosen you will find only more disappointment, anger and betrayal. Be guided instead by those good thoughts that remain, by friendship, by loyalty, and by love. Do not become what you have been, or define yourself by the paths already taken. The past is past. At each crossroads the journey begins anew. Each decision is the first decision, each step the first step, another chance to change the world for the better.
He closed t
he book again, walling up Cora’s simple philosophy with the arrogance and isolation of Corderan’s words.
She was right. He, too, was right.
The past was not something that went away. It dragged behind you like a wagon loaded with supplies. It made new paths difficult, new directions harder. Far simpler to keep pulling in the same direction, to let the momentum of the past carry you on towards wherever that led.
And yet he understood her words.
I will do what I can, be as gentle as I can, but there are things that must be done, urgent things. I will not be Corderan, but neither can I be some benign figurehead. All I can do now is prepare the world and wait. Wait for Gerique, for Dragan, for all the others. I do not know how they will come, or when, but I know it will be more difficult than the first time.
I will wait. I will be prepared.
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Coming Soon
The Lawkeeper of Samara
The Fourth Age of Shanakan – Book 2
Samara is the greatest city in the world, recently freed from tyrannical rule it now has a city council and laws, and one man to keep them. Sam is trying to build a force of law keepers, but he stumbles across a terrible crime, and the more he learns the more it seems that magic is involved, the dead are piled high, and it's been going on for decades.