Enchantment's Reach (Book 1)

by Martin Ash

  She estimated they could be at Orbia within a few hours of Gordallith. She would order him, or more probably Fectur, to hand over the ivory carving.

  She fumed silently, cursing Fectur again and again.

  The wind had almost died and the sun shone warmly upon the vast green forest. With the cart determining their pace Sir Bandullo calculated that they would reach Crosswood sometime before dusk.

  Issul began to sink into gloom. She felt assailed on all sides. It seemed there were forces ranged against her that she could not even begin to comprehend, let alone combat. Moscul - what was he? What was his future? To find the answer to that would entail drawing out the secrets of the True Sept. She did not know how to go about achieving this. She relied upon Grey Venger's full cooperation, or that of his deputies. Even if she was successful, could she be sure that the True Sept had the answers? Could the Sept be little more than a repository of superstition and baseless, fabricated beliefs?

  She felt uncertain of everything.

  An abrupt yell roused her suddenly from her reverie. Ahead of her one of Sir Bandullo's men fell back from his horse. There was a rushing, whistling sound in the air. Another man slumped, clutching at the shaft of an arrow which stuck from his flank.

  Instinctively Issul yanked her horse's head about, urging it to drop. Grabbing her crossbow she leapt from the saddle as the mount obediently sank to the ground, and took shelter behind its bulk.

  She was aware of movement in the trees on both sides of the track. Another flight of arrows hissed. There was a shriek. Issul saw Sir Bandullo and three others leaping to the ground, scrambling for cover. She loosed a bolt at a shadowy figure crouched in the undergrowth. The man screamed and fell back, thrashing. But there were more of them, many more.

  She was covered by her horse on only one side. She rolled, then ran for a tree beside which Sir Bandullo lay. She threw herself down beside him. "How many are there?"

  "Too many!"

  Issul heard a woman's shout. She glanced around to the cart. Moscul had leapt to the ground and was running back along the track. Ohirbe was clambering down to take off in pursuit. Arrin, who had the reins, stood as though to jump down, then reeled, clutching at his throat, an arrow jutting bloodily there.

  "Moscul!"

  Discarding her crossbow and drawing her smallsword Issul raced after the little boy. Sir Bandullo and two others followed. The air sang with arrows. Moscul had disappeared into the dense undergrowth about twenty paces away. Ohirbe followed, crying for him. Issul, conscious that she was in the open, threw herself from the track into the trees.

  A man's figure loomed before her, a sword raised. She ducked, slashed, her blade biting into his ribs. Another came at her but was met by Sir Bandullo.

  "Moscul!"

  She drew her sword free and raced on, darting and dodging, estimating the place where she thought the boy must be. Shadowed figures moved beneath the trees. She heard the drum of hooves back on the track. Louder shouts, many more of them. How many were there?

  Abruptly the sound of fighting was behind her. A dense wall of hazel blocked her way. She slipped around, seeking a way through. There was a harsh scream ahead of her, on the other side of the hazel. A woman's scream.

  Issul thrust through, fighting against the hazel branches. She tumbled to her knees and emerged into a small clearing. On the other side, a few paces away, a woman was on hands and knees, climbing to her feet. At first Issul took it to be Ohirbe, then realized the clothing was wrong. And this woman was older and of greater bulk.

  Issul stood, breathless. The woman turned towards her. Blood streamed down one cheek. She was quite old, her hair grey and wild.

  This must be her! The one at the Old Pond!

  Issul advanced towards her. "Where is the boy?"

  The old woman, stricken-faced, raised a hand and pointed at Issul, shaking her head.

  "It has begun!" she cried.

  "What? What do you mean? Has he come this way?"

  "It's too late now! I tried, but it's too late!"

  The woman's eyes blazed, then flickered suddenly away, focusing on something behind Issul. Issul was still moving forward, aware of a rustling at her back. A blinding flash, deafening pain, and she was falling forward, glimpsed a gloved hand before it clamped across her mouth and dragged her back.

  Her senses rang. She was sinking, her legs no longer hers. A dreadful moan as the world retreated. No pain. Dragged across the grass, sky brilliant and spinning overhead. The voices, just one roar, seeming far away, trees so strangely high, also spinning, spiralling away from her, nauseous as it all vanished into darkness.

  SIX

  I

  The gods were not gods.

  So the mysterious Orbelon had informed King Leth. In a later meeting within the blue casket-chamber he had begun to enlarge upon this. He put forward an explanation of the evolution of the gods and of Enchantment itself, unlike anything Leth had heard before.

  "I feel you have a reached a position where you may be ready to listen," he said. "In our last meetings you have shown yourself less inclined to pose other questions while ignoring what I say. This is an encouraging sign."

  They sat, as had become their custom, cross-legged upon the ground, facing one another. Orbelon had his staff layed across his thighs.

  These meetings were always tense for Leth, not least because he never knew when they might end. Without warning, perhaps on a whim or out of irritation, perhaps not needing a reason at all, Orbelon could raise his staff. Leth would find himself cast from the blue world, back to his own study. He was then obliged to await his next summons which, usually manifesting in the form of a dream, might be days, weeks, or on occasion even months away.

  "Listen well," said Orbelon without further preamble. "Enchantment is formed of the raw stuff of unconsciousness, of pre-consciousness, of unthought thought and undreamed dream. It is the manifestation of potential, of immatereality metamorphosing into materiality, chaos churning into form, of Cosmic pre-mind. It is unstable, even though Cosmic laws govern its creation. They are not the laws that govern the formed world, nor are they laws that you might hope to gain any understanding of."

  He paused a moment, apparently studying Leth's face from within his bundled rags. "Imagine this world as a single unconscious thought or impulse made manifest. Where did the impulse originate? Surely it had to come out of a far greater pre-thought state, a Cosmic Potential from which all things come. But now, imagine that between that condition of pre-thought and the created world, or manifest thought, there is a process, an uncertainty, which is the forming itself. That process is Enchantment."

  "But who or what is doing the thinking?" mused Leth.

  "Hah! You must dwell upon that. But I will say this: Who or what thinks your thoughts? Truly. From what source do they originate? And when they have become conscious in your mind, what then do they become?"

  Leth sat in puzzled silence before asking, "Are you saying, then, that the world we know was once like Enchantment?"

  "Once was Enchantment!" corrected Orbelon. "And before that it was Cosmic Chaos, and before that, awesome Potentia, awaiting the process. But to talk of 'before' and 'after', of things linear and sequential, is itself inaccurate. Time is non-existent, except as a rationale of the mind. Everything simply is; but not necessarily as you perceive it."

  "I am lost," said Leth.

  Orbelon chuckled. "What I am telling you is beyond simple intellectual grasp. It has to be assimilated over weeks, months, eons! It is but a beginning. Dwell on it, mull over it, dream it. In time I will no longer be required for the telling. It will become a part of you. It is a part of you, so far unrealized. But it must be gradual or you will be overwhelmed. You cannot treat it as you would a lesson in elementary mathematics or geography."

  "If the world once was Enchantment and is now formed reality, but Enchantment, or a part of it, still exists, does that mean that Enchantment is diminishing?" enquired Leth.

  "Exce
llent! Except that that is no longer the case, and this I will explain presently. First let me tell you that Enchantment is a misnomer, as are all the other appellations by which it is known."

  "In what way?"

  "If a thing has more than one name, which name is correct?"

  "Each name will have a different meaning or interpretation to different individuals."

  "But does that mean it is accurate, or even partially correct. Names are labels, tags, attached to things as a way to try to identify and explain them. But the human mind accepts the tag as though it is the thing itself. It prefers the tag, the outer manifestation, and makes little or no attempt to understand the actuality that the tag conceals."

  "Again, I am lost."

  "You are Leth, are you not?"

  "I am."

  "But what is Leth? Does Leth explain the extraordinary phenomena that comprise you? Does Leth tell me anything of your inner world, of your deepest, most private thoughts? Does Leth tell me what you are, in all your aspects? Does it explain your birth, your existence, your eventual passing, or what you will become after that passing? Does it tell me anything, other than how to recognize your physical manifestation in its simplest aspect, or communicate knowledge of that manifestation to other minds?"

  Leth gave a slow shake of the head.

  "It is a tag, but it is far from being the actuality. So it is with Enchantment. Your kind call it that, for to you it consists of things magical and awesomely powerful, things you cannot know or understand. Enchantment is known by many other names in other cultures: Eidolos, Selph, Ylem, Mystery, Land of Gods, Fear, Pleroma,

  Peime’ntere, Faerie, Mobania, Phor, Tol. . . there are many, many others. All are correct inasmuch as they represent endeavours to explain the inexplicable. And all are incorrect, for at best they explain but a single aspect of that multi-faceted phenomenon, or a simple belief attached to it. We require names, labels and tags simply to differentiate and recognize. But we should be aware that they can so easily become forms of concealment. This applies to all things, from cats and apples to worlds and numina. Language informs no more than it obscures. Consider that, King Leth."

  *

  Orbelon had ended the meeting at that point. A week later he summoned Leth once more:

  "The gods, who are not gods, make war upon one another. That process, the very conflict itself, the conscious manipulation of the very stuff of which Enchantment is formed, is what sustains Enchantment."

  "You said before that it is diminishing," said Leth.

  "No, you did. I said it is no longer the case. And that is why. The conflict creates, even as it destroys. It maintains the flux." Orbelon paused. "The gods, if you like, are aberrations. They formed unnaturally out of the process that is Enchantment. They are conscious beings of immense power. That power enables them to manipulate the forces and energies of the creation of which they are a part."

  "Are you saying they should not exist?" asked Leth.

  "Oh, should not, shmud not! There is no should about it. What is is, what is not is not."

  "But you said 'unnatural'."

  "They are nodes, uncommon concentrations of energy, even within the strange process of Enchantment. You yourself are a lesser node, as are all living creatures."

  "But do they exist as recognizable beings?"

  "Oh they do. They are. But they can change themselves at will. And, dependent upon the power - the magic, as you would term it - that they command at any given time, they can alter the environment in many different ways."

  "Is there a limit to their power?"

  "Yes. As I said, Enchantment can be seen as the process between the formed and the unformed world. In many ways it is therefore almost as your world is, but not quite. And in even its small differences it is profound. In the same way, the so-called gods are akin to denizens of your world. But they are different, and of course, far more powerful than anything you have ever known. In fact," Orbelon chuckled, "from your point of view they may as well be gods!"

  "But they are threatened!" exclaimed Leth with sudden insight. "Enchantment diminishes - why? Because it is the process of creation, not the creation itself! It cannot sustain, it must become! And the formed world which we inhabit is what it should become. But the very consciousnesses that have developed within it - the gods - prevent it doing so. They war - they engender chaos - in order to prevent their world becoming ours!"

  "You are learning fast," said Orbelon with satisfaction.

  "But then surely the fact that they war must also ultimately ensure their end?"

  "Yes, if they were to succeed in destroying one another to the last individual. Then the natural diminishment could continue. Enchantment would, in time, become as the world that you know."

  "How long would that process take?"

  "Oh, a thousand eons. Perhaps two. It is difficult to be precise."

  "Are the gods aware of this? Do they know that they must endeavour to destroy one another to prevent Enchantment dying, while simultaneously they must also ensure that they live - some of them at least - in order to maintain the process?"

  "Some are aware of that paradox, to some degree at least. Others are not. Some of them are really quite stupid."

  "How many are there?"

  "Twenty four in total. How many still survive in their full potency I do not know."

  "Do they threaten us? Are they interested in us in any way, or even aware of us?"

  "They know that a world exists beyond their borders. Other than in quite exceptional circumstances they are unable to enter that world. They would lose their powers, you see. They are generally only powerful within their own flux, their own environment. Of course, they are jealous of your world."

  "Jealous?"

  "It threatens them. You threaten them. The gods would expand Enchantment if they could, for if they could spread its flux across the entire world it would stabilize, if that is not a contradiction of terms. The world would stabilize into the instability that is Enchantment." Orbelon placed his hands upon his knees and rocked slightly from the waist. "They direct their researches towards that end. Now, we have spoken enough for today."

  Leth, while his mind spun with the information it had been presented with, was nonetheless pleased to note that Orbelon had announced the end of their meeting rather than simply terminating it with a sudden, brusque shift of his staff, as before. A hundred questions hummed in Leth's head, but he kept silence rather than irritate the strange mage.

  "Before you leave I have a favour to ask of you," Orbelon had then said. "Next time you come, could you possibly bring some cheese?"

  "Cheese?"

  "Yes. The pale, soft tangy kind, made from goat's milk, if

  you can."

  "Of course. May I ask why?"

  "I have a liking for it. And it is rather difficult to get hold of in here."

  "I would be pleased to bring you cheese," said Leth, bemused.

  Orbelon had nodded his thanks. He raised his staff.

  II

  On the morning that Queen Issul departed Orbia for the village of Lastmeadow, King Leth was for several hours locked in tense debate with his cousin, Duke Hugo, and other military and political advisors. Hugo was planning on leaving for his castle of Giswel Holt the following day. He urged Leth to permit him to take more troops to reinforce those already in Giswel.

  "If the Karai strike, it will be there first. They cannot avoid Giswel if they plan to move into our heartland, unless they take to the forest, which would take weeks."

  Leth was less keen. "You have as many men as I can safely spare. I dare not deplete Enchantment's Reach further. Prince Anzejarl may not move directly against Giswel. He could leave a substantial force in the area to keep you tied up, and swing to the east to bring his main army directly here."

  "Via The Plain of Sighs?" Hugo shook his head. "It would add too much time to his journey."

  "Time is hardly a factor. His army is well-supplied and winter is not close eno
ugh to be a reliable ally."

  Hugo sat back in his seat. He was tall, striking, of powerful athletic build. He was aged twenty-eight, in his prime, a gifted and popular leader of men, if at times temperamental and vulnerable to passion. His hair was long and almost jet black, swept back from his face and held with a silver clasp at the neck. A neatly-trimmed black beard adorned his chin; he moved easily, confidently, and his blue eyes held a glimmer that could shift from merriment to anger in an instant.

  "I would send a strong force south, while Anzejarl is on the march, to harry him and cut his supply lines. He would be slowed significantly. But I can do that only if a substantial garrison remains to secure Giswel."

  Leth gravely shook his head. "It would be too easy to become trapped between Anzejarl and the Karai homelands. No, I can send no more men south, at least until I have more accurate intelligence."

  "If we allow him to force us into a head-on confrontation we will be crushed," Hugo protested.

  Leth turned to one of his generals. "Sir Cathbo, you have said little so far. What is your opinion?"

  Sir Cathbo shrugged. "A pigeon arrived yesterday bringing the news that Anzejarl is still beyond the Bitter Lakes. He has made no direct move against us--"

  "But he surely will!" stormed Hugo. "It makes better sense to pre-empt him. Strikes now, against his supply lines and the army on the move could make all the difference."

  "Or so he may wish us to think," said Leth. "I know Anzejarl to be a clever and resourceful strategist. No, we need better intelligence. We still do not know the reason for this Karai war. It is almost impossible to gain information from Karai itself, with every foreigner being conspicuous by virtue of physical difference, and automatically subject to suspicion. Yet plainly the Karai nation has suffered tremendous upheaval. Anzejarl has usurped his father's place; he has murdered his own brother. Why? The very fabric of Karai society has been rent and sundered by his actions, yet he still leads his people. How? He almost certainly has the support of a god. Again, how? If we had answers to these questions we might be better-equipped to deal with him."