Ahriman: Sorcerer

by John French

  This must end soon, or we will be lost.

  ‘We are clear to the central core on this deck,’ said Halvar, his gaze flicking to the beheaded warrior, and the slumped form of Sycld.

  Grimur opened his mouth, but as he did so, Sycld’s eyes opened. The Rune Priest’s face had returned to its normal shape, and his eyes were hard as he stood. He reached up and picked a shred of meat from his teeth with a bare hand.

  ‘I have it,’ he said, his voice like wind murmuring across an ice field. ‘I can see the path he took, his shadow body dances on the edge of the netherworld, seeking some fragment of the past. We have the scent, we can hunt.’

  Ahriman ran and the wolves ran after him. His breath panted in his lungs, and his bare feet bled into the dust. The night was a silver-scattered dome of sable above him. Tattered strands of light trailed from his left hand. He clenched his fist tighter, feeling the threads squirm against his fingers. Behind him howls rose to the moon. He looked back; the wolves were close, black blurs of movement near to the ground. Their eyes burned coal red and molten gold.

  Too close. Far, far too close.

  The howls came again. He looked ahead to where the cliff rose before him, close, so close. He leapt for the face of pale rock. Scree slipped beneath his feet, and suddenly he was tumbling back, and the howls rose in triumph.

  This is not real, he thought as he fell. This air in my lungs is just a memory, the light just an idea.

  He hit the ground. Air gasped from his lips, and he rolled to his feet. The wolves came out of the night, jaws wide, tongues of fire lapping from their throats. A stink of blood, smoke and matted fur was thick in the air. He stood.

  This is not real. His eyes met theirs. It is a dream, a painting created by scraps of experience and imagination.

  The wolves leapt, burning droplets of spittle falling from teeth of ice.

  But a dream can still kill you.

  Ahriman jumped up the cliff face. Jaws fastened on his ankle. He screamed and kicked down. His grip slipped, and he was swinging by one hand, feet scrabbling on the rock face. The golden threads of light writhed in his left hand, struggling to break free. The wolf bit deeper. Words bubbled up in his mind as blood scattered from the wound.

  ‘We have come for you,’ hissed a voice. ‘We will never tire. We will open your belly to the crows, and feed your soul to the serpent at the world’s heart. We are your oblivion, Ahzek Ahriman. Your soul will sing to the night forevermore.’

  Ahriman felt his grip on the cliff begin to give. He looked down at the wolf hanging from his leg, its shadow-furred body seeming to swell. His eyes met the pits of fire in its skinless skull. Beneath it the other wolves scrambled at the cliff, their mouths smiles of flame.

  No! He twisted to crash his right foot into the wolf’s snout. He felt its hold give, and he ripped his leg from its jaws. It fell to the ground, yelping in pain and rage. Blood was pouring from his leg down the face of the cliff. He gasped. Numbness was spreading up his body, ice crystals forming on his skin, his blood boiling. He looked up at the moon and sky at the top of the cliff, but the cliff was stretching up, growing taller even as he looked at it. He reached for the next handhold. The fingers of his right hand hooked onto the rock and he began to haul himself upwards. The wolves howled in frustration. He thought he heard voices in the cries, old voices shaped by hatred.

  I must not fall. Not now. If I can only reach the top I will be safe. Beneath him the wolves were circling, watching, silent now that they had tasted his blood. He leant against the rock face, reached up with his free right hand, found a handhold and pulled.

  The rock beneath his hand broke apart even as his grip tightened. He screamed as the burning in his muscles fought the coldness spreading from his leg. He looked down. The eyes of the wolves looked back.

  A hand grasped his arm.

  His head snapped up. He had an impression of a hooded face outlined against the stars. Hard fingers clamped tight on his flesh, and he had a fleeting sensation of wrinkled skin moving over whipcord muscle. Then he was being pulled up the cliff, and into the mouth of a cave.

  He lay still, breathing hard, not caring that it was not real air filling his lungs. Firelight flickered against cave walls. The howls of the wolves were a distant murmur. He could hear logs crackling and popping as they burned. Wood smoke filled his nose. He flexed the fingers of his left hand. They were empty.

  Ahriman’s head snapped up and he began to rise.

  The figure standing above him straightened. A tattered robe the colour of rust hid its form, but could not hide its bulk. Muscled shoulders slumped under the worn cloth, and Ahriman saw scarred arms vanish within wide sleeves. A shadow-filled hood pointed briefly at him, and then back to the golden threads hanging from its fingers. The threads twitched and squirmed like snakes.

  ‘A long way to come for such a fragment of knowledge,’ said the figure, in a voice that crackled like the logs on the fire.

  ‘Give it back,’ said Ahriman softly, but there was a sharpened edge in the words. The figure shrugged, and held the threads out to Ahriman. He took them, noticing the pale skin stretched over the long bones of the figure’s hand. The threads folded back into his grasp again, warm and writhing against his skin. The robed figure began to shuffle away towards the light of the fire.

  ‘You will live,’ said the figure, bending and folding until it sat on the cave floor. Ahriman remembered the wound to his leg, looked down, hands reaching to clamp shut over bloody scraps of flesh. He stopped. His leg was whole. No blood marked the cave floor. He looked closer, probing with his fingers. As the firelight shifted he saw it: a pale mark on his skin, like a ragged white scar. It was cold when he touched it, but there was no pain.

  He looked up. The figure was watching him. ‘The marks of their teeth will linger for a while, but they will fade in time.’

  Ahriman ignored the words, his eyes scanning the cave, taking in the texture of the rock, the glint of crystals in the water-worn walls, the smoke-darkened roof, and the patch of night sky beyond the cave mouth. He understood the symbolism of each part of what he saw, but he was still surprised his mind had led him here.

  ‘You are thinking this is still a dream,’ said the cloaked figure.

  Ahriman said nothing, but looked into the dancing heart of the fire. The wolves had almost had him, had almost pulled him down. No matter whether he felt the pain here and now, he would feel it later. They were getting closer each time he came to this land.

  ‘Perhaps it is still a dream,’ chuckled the figure. Ahriman tried to ignore it. ‘But perhaps not.’

  ‘It is,’ said Ahriman, and looked up at the hooded figure. The firelight caught the glint of a blue eye within the tattered hood. ‘This cave is a refuge, a metaphor of a sanctuary built from memories and scraps of imagination. It is a reaction of my mind to danger, nothing more.’ He reached down, lifted a handful of dust from the floor, and let it trickle slowly through his fingers. ‘This cave is like one in the mountains of Prospero. The stars and moon of the sky outside belong to Ullanor, and this dust is the dust of the land of my birth.’

  ‘What then am I?’ said the figure.

  It was Ahriman’s turn to laugh.

  ‘A hooded stranger who asks questions, but hides his face?’ Ahriman pointed at his own bright blue eyes. ‘You are part of me, a part of my subconscious, which has broken free because of the trauma.’

  The figure nodded slowly, stirring the embers at the edge of the fire with a blackened stick.

  ‘But the wolves…’ said the figure softly, and shrugged. ‘They were real enough to kill you, weren’t they?’ Ahriman looked up, his senses suddenly tingling. The stranger’s voice had changed, had become something he had not thought to hear again. The figure turned his head slowly to look at Ahriman, the hood hiding all but a single blue eye. ‘Tell me, why does Ahzek Ahriman run from wolves through his own dreams?’

  Ahriman had become still. Somewhere far off his twin hearts were beating
faster.

  ‘Father?’ he said. No, he thought even as the word came from his lips. This is not real, this is a dream, and your father is lost to you.

  The figure gave a dry laugh, and turned its eye back to the fire. Slowly it reached up and lowered the hood. The head beneath was a lump of bone and glossy scar tissue. The right side of the face was warped and ravaged, the eye swallowed by malformed flesh. The lone eye glinted sapphire blue in the ruin of his face. Suddenly the figure looked like a colossus shrunken by time and twisted by pain.

  ‘You are wondering how this could be,’ said the scarred figure. ‘Whether the wolves bit deep enough to bring the idea of me to the surface, or if it is because of what you seek.’ The figure paused, drawing the tatters of his robes closer around him as though cold. ‘But part of you wonders if this is not your dream any more. Part of you can’t help wondering if your father knows what you seek, and has come to stop you. Part of you can’t help wondering if I am really here.’

  Ahriman did not move. He should have anticipated this. His questing, and the flight from the wolves, had drained him. He had gone too far, and taken too much from the well of his unconscious. Slowly he extended his mind beyond the mouth of the cave, searching for the thread of physical sensation which would lead him out of this dream. Somewhere far off he could hear the rising drum of his hearts, and the sea surge of blood in his veins.

  ‘I am not here to harm you, Ahriman.’

  ‘No,’ said Ahriman. ‘You are not here at all.’

  ‘Is that a fact, or a hope?’ The figure stirred the embers again. ‘You seek the Athenaeum, don’t you?’ The question hung in the air, and the fire crackled in the silence. ‘All my thoughts and all my dreams, recorded and hidden away – a treasure trove of knowledge, a window into the past. That is why you are here, seeking the threads to lead you to it.’

  ‘My father does not even know that the Athenaeum exists. Only a few know it is real, even fewer know that I seek it now.’

  Ahriman stood up, and took a pace towards the cave mouth. Somewhere he felt real breath fill his lungs; it tasted of incense and static. He looked out into the night, and placed his hand on the lip of the cave.

  ‘It will not give you the answers,’ said the figure. Ahriman looked back over his shoulder. The hunched and one-eyed figure was looking directly at him. Behind it a shadow danced on the wall, growing and shrinking, as it blinked between impressions of horns, wings and claws. ‘You followed me in war and treachery. You followed me over the precipice into hell, you believed me, and betrayed me, and yet still you wonder if you ever knew your father at all.’

  ‘I knew him,’ said Ahriman softly.

  ‘Then why seek the Athenaeum?’

  ‘For the future.’

  ‘A good answer, my son.’ The figure looked away, and Ahriman saw a smile struggle to form on the ruined face.

  Ahriman frowned. Something in that smile was familiar, yet it did not remind him of Magnus but someone else, someone he could not place.

  ‘Speak your name,’ demanded Ahriman. The fire dimmed at the words, and the walls of the cave seemed to press closer. The one-eyed figure prodded the glowing logs again.

  ‘Go,’ said the figure. ‘The wolves will return soon.’

  Ahriman took a step back into the cave. The figure raised a hand, and the fire became a white-hot pillar. The shadows grew on the walls, snaking into the light, swallowing it. Sparks, embers, and ash tumbled through the air. Heat stung Ahriman’s skin. Darkness embraced him, and the burning pillar of flame was all he could see. He tried to take a step forwards, but he was tumbling through lightless space, the light of the fire a single distant star that dimmed as he fell.

  ‘Wake, Ahriman,’ said a voice that seemed to be carried on the wind. ‘Wake.’

  II

  Brotherhood

  Ahriman’s eyes opened, black pupils shrinking to pinpricks in the bright light. The chamber was quiet, as much as any part of a ship the size of the Sycorax could be quiet. The only noise was the distant slow throb of engines and power.

  The chamber sat at the summit of a kilometre high tower that rose from a forest of lesser towers which ran down the spine of the Sycorax. It was small, its roof curved into a peaked dome like the inside of a closed flower. Symbols, each one finer than a hair, crawled across the walls in endless patterns, interlinking, flowing together, but never repeating. The symbols glowed with white light. Beyond the walls Ahriman could hear the murmur of minds, hundreds of thousands of minds, their thoughts pattering on the chamber’s wards like raindrops. And beyond the clouds of thoughts, the cold void cradled the ship’s hull.

  He took a breath, allowing himself to feel and remember what it was to have a real body again. A red weal grew across the bare skin of his left leg even as he looked at it. Pain spread in its wake, as though he had been burned by ice. He hardened his will, isolating the pain and containing it at the edge of his awareness. His mind could defeat normal pain and heal normal wounds, but neither the mark on his leg nor the pain it brought were normal. Both would take time to heal. He coughed and tasted iron on his tongue. He touched his lips and his fingers came away red.

  Close, far too close.

  He had pushed too far for too long in the dream sending. In his chest he felt the shards of silver shift and cut a little deeper. The slivers were a remnant of an encounter with the Imperium he had forsaken, an encounter that had almost killed him. The part of his mind that perpetually hardened and healed the flesh around the shards in his chest had faltered as he had tired, and the poisoned slivers of silver had slid a little closer to his hearts. Even now his mind could not touch, feel or grasp them. They were unreachable by his powers. Had they been mundane metal he could have pulled them from his flesh with his will, or could have broken them down into atoms.

  But they were not mundane. In fact, every time anyone had tried to remove them by any means they had slipped deeper into his chest. So he had contained them, wrapping them in flesh which hardened and healed as quickly as it was cut. Awake, dreaming, in trance or battle, part of his mind spun on, keeping the silver from his hearts, keeping him alive.

  He focused, rebalanced every level and thought process of his mind. His heartbeats slowed. He tasted the blood in his mouth, saw the molecules spinning in its substance. He touched the silver, felt his mind slide away, like water from a sheet of glass. A part of his thoughts became like stone. The bleeding stopped, and the silver shards were still again.

  Slowly he let out a breath, tasting its texture and scents. For a long moment he listened to the slow beat of the blood in his ears. A feeling of isolation and spreading calm. For now he was alone, watching the present become the past, allowing the moments to just form and vanish without care. He let the illusion of freedom last for nine double beats of his hearts.

  Only then did he turn his inner eye to focus on the thing that he had brought from the dream. It sat in his awareness, a golden thread leading off through the churning storm of space and time. It was tattered by paradox and possibility, but it was enough to lead them true.

  Without moving he extended his mind, touched the symbols worked into the walls of the chamber around him, and collapsed their barrier to the world beyond.

  A tide of consciousness broke over him.

  …it pleases, does it not… nesun’nth’agara… gods of the abyss let me live… what can I do… I will kill them… five thousand at least… I serve… sentun ushur… two by five by ten… in this instance impossible… what is this… how can that be… now will be best… where are we bound… the pillar… where will I get food… it is a good knife… ametrica… magir ushul’tha… what is it to you… sleep… I won’t… death for certain… system subroutine…

  Hundreds of thousands of thoughts boiled around him, buffeting his mind like a spiralling wind. It was disconcerting, like plunging into water after years spent in a desert. He allowed them to wash over and through him, listening for meaning formed by their tides. He had bee
n in the dream for longer than he had intended. The Sycorax and its fleet had been still in dead space for almost a month. It did not matter, of course, not given where they were going.

  He blanked out the storm of voices, and reached out for a mind that he knew would be waiting for him.

  +Astraeos,+ he sent.

  +Ahriman,+ answered a thought voice, strong and clear above the clamour.

  +We have it. Join me here.+

  +As you will.+

  The palace began in the distance. Astraeos watched the silver and marble towers rise on the black horizon. Darkness separated him from it, so that it seemed as though he were seeing it through an aperture cut into the wall of a lightless room. Slowly the image grew larger, though whether it was moving closer, or if he floated towards it, he could not tell.

  It was not in the distance, of course. The palace was a mental construct, crafted from memory and imagination, and it held the knowledge of many mortal lifetimes. Each corridor and staircase led to a door through which another part of the past could be glimpsed. They were not Astraeos’s memories, though. The palace was part of another mind, Ahriman’s mind. In reality both he and Ahriman sat in a tower chamber, the light of oil lamps casting shadows over their still faces. More and more they met this way, within the architecture of Ahriman’s psyche, rather than in reality.

  The Circle, Ahriman’s council which led his army of fractured warbands, met face to face. Ancient signs and formulae kept those gatherings safe from prying eyes or minds. Under the sign of that assembly all spoke with their true voices. He had asked Ahriman why they did not meet the same way. Ahriman had not answered, and left Astraeos to draw his own conclusions.

  Even after all this time, walking into his master’s mind still made Astraeos’s skin crawl. High-pitched whispers rose around him. Invisible hands touched and tugged at his skin. He kept walking, holding on to the idea of having limbs, of there being a ground beneath his feet even though he could see none. Technically he could have appeared in any form he chose, but he always came as an image of himself as he was in the real: unarmoured, his skin scarred, and his right eye a glowing green lens in a metal setting. The tabard of red and black cloth he wore was the image of the clothing he had worn long ago in a different life. A sword hung at his waist, its pommel the head of a serpent.