Prophecy's Ruin bw-1

by Sam Bowring

  ‘Don’t worry about my son, barkeep,’ he said, making Bel start. ‘He’s had a dark day is all. We’ll get a table out of the way.’ He laid some coins on the counter, then put a firm hand on Bel’s arm. ‘Send over a jug, and the rest for your busted crockery.’

  The bartender nodded in relief, and Corlas led a reluctant Bel to a table in a darker corner of the bar. Curious drinkers who had turned at the sound of trouble turned away again.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Bel distantly, not sounding as if he meant it.

  ‘The Throne is not in his best mood tonight,’ said Corlas. ‘But he is going to allow your return to the keepers.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Bel. ‘Well. Good.’

  ‘He was right about some things though,’ continued Corlas. ‘You cannot take responsibility for what happened.’

  ‘If I hadn’t entered that …that state …’

  ‘You probably would have died too.’ Corlas shrugged. ‘And then where would we be?’

  Ale arrived, and Corlas poured it out. ‘It is the nature of battle, Bel. People die. Others survive. There is no good reason for it.’

  ‘I’m not pure,’ muttered Bel.

  ‘What?’

  Bel met his father’s eyes. ‘All my life I believed what Fahren told me. About the dark thing which left me at birth. That I was better than normal people because I’d been cleansed .’ He spat the word. ‘That was why I was destined to lead the light to victory, I thought. But I am not pure, Father.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Corlas sombrely. ‘None of us is that. The truth, son, is that I don’t think anyone really knows what happened to you. But I do know this: I know you now. And I know something about what you’re going through.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I think perhaps I should tell you about my time at the Shining Mines.’

  Bel frowned, letting an unspoken question hang in the air.

  ‘Not the fanciful way I told it to you many times when you were a child, overexciting you before your bedtime,’ answered Corlas. ‘Skimming the surface and sticking to the parts that make the eyes of young boys glow. I speak now of the full account – a man’s account.’

  Finally Bel seemed to leave his own thoughts and take an interest. Corlas noted with amusement that the glow he had spoken of was back just as he remembered it. He laid his hands palms flat on the table.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘This is what happened when the shadow grew long at the Shining Mines.’

  Twenty-five

  The Tale of the Shining Mines

  ‘In the year I turned thirty,’ Corlas began, ‘I was promoted from cerepan to commander and sent south to the fort at the Shining Mines. It was a posting desired by many young fools seeking the promise of battle. The fort, you see, has always been a tempting target for the Shadowdreamers. Not only is it the closest settlement to the border, but the mine itself is rich with the magical ore called shine. I, however, did not go there for glory. I simply went where I was sent.

  ‘The fort lies in the barren lands of southern Centrus. Dust and rock piles and eroded trenches and little else. Flat too, the fort visible on the horizon from a day’s ride away, atop the only hill for leagues around. When my troop and I arrived, we went up to the southern entrance, the only entrance – a portcullis cast of pure shine, my boy, is something to behold!

  ‘We were greeted there by Gerent Ateppa, a ropy man as hard as nails, with a shock of white hair. He bade us welcome to our magnificent new home. Very soon I knew the fort inside and out, for in truth there wasn’t much to know. Inside the towering grey walls the town was simple, nothing too fancy for us soldiers and miners, as dusty as the plains surrounding. In the centre of town, at the peak of the hill the fort was built around, was the entrance to the mine.

  ‘I led many patrols, and within a month I oversaw my first shipment of shine. It was packed into a crate only a few handspans wide – maybe so big.’ Corlas held out his hands. ‘I was surprised to learn that the mine produced only three or four such crates a year, but that each could have financed the building of a castle.

  ‘I quickly noted that many of the soldiers were uninspired by their long grey days of watching and waiting. I set about organising regular days of games and contests – must have been something of the taskmaster in me then too. I’m proud to say that for many they became the highlight of each month. The fact they gave soldiers extra reason to drill and train was merely a pleasant benefit.’ He winked at Bel.

  ‘My relationship with the gerent grew into friendship. Ateppa himself was a charismatic leader, tenacious …and perhaps occasionally overly excitable. Privately I wondered if serving at the fort for ten years had left him a little unbalanced. For the most part, however, he was well liked by his soldiers.’

  Corlas leaned back and sighed, his eyes turning glassy as he stared into the past. ‘I have always been sorry I had to turn them against him.’

  •

  Corlas stood on the parapets of the southern wall with the cool wind off Fenvarrow blowing on his face and the first rays of the rising sun warm on his back. The juxtaposition reminded him that he was wedged between two worlds, in a no-man’s-land where even the weather was at odds. In the distance hung the Cloud, seething with menace. It too served as a constant reminder of their closeness to the enemy; although the fort walls were hundreds of paces high, it was the creeping darkness on the horizon that was truly daunting.

  From his vantage he surveyed the morning activity within the fort. Everything seemed normal: soldiers marched along the walls, lookouts watched from the turrets, and below the miners trailed up the hill like a line of ants. Turning back to the land outside, he glimpsed a rare speck of colour far below. He squinted, trying to make it out. It was a tattered piece of red cloth, snagged in rocks, flapping in the wind and …

  His blood ran cold.

  A shout echoed from inside the fort below. Alarm rang clear in the cry, and Corlas turned from the grisly view, knowing in his guts that something was very wrong. He went to the nearest stairway and down the inside wall, taking the steps three at a time. When he got halfway he leaned over the stone railing.

  ‘What goes, soldier?’

  The soldier, who had been running towards the town, spun at his bellow, black braids swinging about her face. Even from this distance he recognised her as Adra, one of the younger penulms of the fort.

  ‘Commander Corlas!’ she called, relieved to see him. ‘You must come quickly!’

  Corlas continued down the stairs, and by the time he’d reached the bottom, Adra had rounded up a couple of blades. ‘You,’ she was saying, jabbing a finger at one, ‘go and tell the gerent there’s been an attack on the mages’ quarters!’

  ‘And you, blade,’ said Corlas to the other, ‘go to the cerepan on duty at the gate. There’s been a death outside the walls. I want to know who, then I want an organised sweep of the fort and mine. Anything out of the ordinary is to be reported.’

  Adra was waiting edgily for him to follow. She led him to the mages’ quarters, which was a building separate from the main settlement and home to the fort’s combat mages, the lightfists, whom Corlas had little to do with. They kept mostly to themselves when not on duty, and existed somewhat outside normal military hierarchy.

  Adra led Corlas into the main chamber. Walls of pink-white marble were lined with elaborately carved bookcases choking with colourful spines. A spidery lantern hung above a majestic table long enough to seat two dozen. From skylights the sun’s rays shone down on congealed pools of blood. Smashed glass covered the length of the table, and amongst the ceramic shards lay glistening lumps of flesh. At the far end a mage was sprawled back in his seat, his middle section gutted. On the floor, slumped against a bookcase, was the torso of a small boy, his eyes still staring in terror at whatever had killed him.

  ‘By the light!’ whispered Corlas.

  ‘I had a look in the other rooms,’ said Adra. ‘They’re just as bad. Many of the mages were in their beds. Did you hear that?’ She cocked her head s
harply, braids swishing.

  Corlas stood still. ‘No.’

  Adra moved to the marbled arch at the opposite end of the chamber, drawing her sword. ‘I didn’t check all the rooms,’ she said. ‘Maybe someone’s still alive?’ She ducked through the archway.

  ‘Adra!’ shouted Corlas. He started to follow, but there came a clattering on the tiles outside and the gerent entered the chamber with six of his personal guards. Ateppa froze when he saw the scene, his face going almost as white as his hair.

  ‘Ah,’ he said.

  From beyond the marbled arch came a stifled yelp and the sound of something smashing.

  ‘Adra!’ Corlas yelled, drawing his sword and moving to the archway.

  ‘Wait, commander!’ ordered the gerent, his soldiers fanning out beside him. ‘Do not separate!’

  ‘We already have,’ growled Corlas.

  ‘You will wait, commander!’

  Adra stepped back into view, sheathing her sword. Her shoulder banged clumsily against the archway so that she half-lurched into the room. She straightened as she saw the gerent.

  ‘What was that noise?’ Corlas demanded.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, turning to him. She paused, seeming to consider something.

  ‘Penulm!’ growled Corlas, furious. ‘We heard a cry, and a crash!’

  ‘It was me,’ Adra said quickly. ‘It was so horrible in there, I gave a cry. I knocked over a vase.’

  ‘Don’t separate again!’ said Corlas.

  Ateppa was still staring at the carnage. He bent to his knees and ran his finger through a smear of mud on the ground. ‘This has all the markings of a Mireform attack,’ he said slowly. ‘Everybody keep their weapons out.’

  ‘A Mireform, sir?’ asked Corlas.

  ‘A terrible creature,’ said the gerent, standing. ‘Rare and terrible. A shadow creature, hard to kill; they are shape-changers. Fetch more blades,’ he ordered one of his guards.

  He approached Corlas as the remaining soldiers spread over the room. ‘I was in a patrol that ran close to the border,’ he said, loudly enough for all to hear. ‘We came across a monster such as I’ve never seen. It killed twelve of sixteen, and the four of us who lived were lucky to escape. It followed as we fled, changing its shape, taking on the faces of our fallen patrol, mocking us.

  ‘We returned later with mages who told us it had been a Mireform, a denizen of Swampwild far from home, on some errand for Raker most likely. They say Mireforms require a lot of power to control, but make powerful servants once tamed.’

  Adra snorted, and Corlas gave her an odd look. Her face fell neutral.

  ‘Did the mages kill it?’ he asked.

  ‘We never found it again. They’re excellent at evading detection by magic, as you can see.’ Ateppa gestured around the room. ‘Making them perfect assassins for mages. Corlas,’ he continued more privately, ‘do you know what this means?’

  ‘I don’t like what I’m guessing.’

  ‘Without our mages we’re severely crippled, and that will be the point. Something is coming.’ He fingered his sword. ‘Might the mages on watch still be alive?’

  ‘I’ll go check!’ offered Adra eagerly.

  Corlas hushed her, remembering what he had seen from the walls. A shred of red cloth flapping in the wind – the colour of a lightfist’s uniform. There were other things, too, amongst the rocks, and now he was sure the mages on watch had been the first to die, their bodies hurled from the parapets. He told the gerent what he’d seen and Ateppa raked fingers through his white hair.

  ‘Arkus,’ he swore. ‘No mages at all.’

  More soldiers arrived and the gerent divided them quickly into groups to search the building. As they moved out of the meeting chamber, Adra remained.

  ‘Adra!’ said Corlas. ‘Attend us!’

  She came reluctantly behind as they went further into the building. Each bedchamber was as gruesome as the last. Blood seeped from bloody beds. Dripping was the only sound besides footsteps. All the mages were dead.

  ‘Those in their beds,’ muttered Ateppa, ‘are not as cruelly dismembered as those two in the main chamber. I suspect the sleeping were killed first, swiftly and silently. Once everyone else was dead, those last two, sitting up late into the night, could really be enjoyed.’

  Corlas didn’t hear, for he was staring in surprise at the floor. He went to tap his superior on the shoulder but Ateppa had moved away. Face down on the ground, partially hidden under the bed, was a head. A pool of fresh blood was engulfing the black braids that fanned out around it. Beside it lay the fragments of a vase.

  A stifled yelp. A smash.

  He looked up to see Adra watching him intently. A moment later her face split into the most malicious grin Corlas had ever seen.

  They are shape-changers.

  As the gerent brushed past her, Adra spun, raising her sword to plunge it into his back. Corlas yelled as he lunged, his own blade clattering against Adra’s just in time. She backed away, her eyes darting between them both. Then, slowly and deliberately, she dropped her sword. Her expression, however, was not one of surrender.

  ‘By Arkus!’ called Ateppa. ‘It’s her! Blades! To me!’

  In a voice like a sinkhole sucking down slime, the Adra-thing spoke. ‘It was so horrible, I gave a cry!’ she mimicked mockingly. Then her grin widened until it elongated her entire head, deepening to reveal rows of fangs.

  ‘Hello, crow meat,’ it said.

  Soldiers spilled into the bedchamber, surrounding the thing with swords as it backed into a corner. It threw its head back and gurgled, a brown tongue tipped with barbed spikes slopping from its maw. When the head came down again, most traces of Adra had disappeared.

  ‘It’s changing into its true shape!’ cried the gerent.

  The creature’s shoulders broadened and its arms lengthened. Muddy-coloured patches bubbled to the surface of skin and armour. Silver claws, thin and flat like knives, slid out the ends of its fingers. Its eyeballs shrank to white pearls sunk into deep sockets. The human nose collapsed in on itself, inverting into gaping nostrils. The thing grew taller on thick, bendy legs that were out of proportion to its small abdomen. Its brown flesh was moist and lumpy, peppered with moss-like growths. Holes opened up all over its body to sprout green tendrils. It was like some hybrid of mud, plant and beast.

  ‘Kill it!’ shouted Ateppa.

  With a wet laugh the Mireform tottered forward in a way that might have been comical were it not so terrifying. It swayed atop its bendy legs, shoulders rolling, tendrils whipping so fast they put a thrum in the air. The tongue lashed out at the nearest soldier, sinking a barbed spike into his eye. The man gave a spasmodic jerk as the spike hit his brain.

  ‘Attack!’ shouted the gerent. ‘Slice, don’t stab – hack it to pieces!’

  The soldiers attacked, spurred on by their leader and the death of their comrade. With the creature in the corner, only four blades could attack it at once, but those behind didn’t have long to wait. Soldiers screamed as tendrils pushed into their bodies, or claws rent deep gashes, or the fearsome tongue spiked into hearts and minds. The second wave of blades advanced more warily, hanging back from the Mireform’s ranging attacks. It gurgled, and again the tongue shot out, but this time a soldier was waiting. The soldier cleaved the tongue in half and the creature howled. The severed tongue splattered as it hit the floor, spikes and all, into something like sticky swamp ooze. Muck sprayed from the flailing appendage as the creature sucked it back into its mouth.

  Seeing the creature wounded encouraged the soldiers to press on, and they sliced at its murderous curling tendrils. Each time a piece was cut from the Mireform, it too fell apart into ooze. Swords quickly became coated in brown. A knife spun over the fighting soldiers and sank into the creature’s head, but this did not seem to bother it.

  Ateppa, his face a mask of rage, moved to join the next wave of soldiers waiting for those in front to fall. Corlas also watched for any opening. A soldier screamed as she we
nt down with a thick tendril wrapped around her neck. Another fell, his face in shreds. The Mireform roared, and those tendrils that had been severed suddenly grew afresh. The creature seemed to shrink a little with the regeneration.

  ‘Keep at it!’ screamed Ateppa. ‘Hack and slice! Go for the larger limbs!’

  A new tongue unfurled from the Mireform’s mouth to strike a soldier full in the gut. Bellowing with rage, the gerent took the man’s place. With a fast double slash he lopped off two squirming tentacles, and followed up immediately with a sudden lunge at the arm. His sword struck deep, lopping the whole limb from the shoulder. As it fell disintegrating to the ground, the creature shrieked, a sound that echoed as if it came from somewhere deep within the earth. The Mireform turned its full attention to Ateppa, its tiny white eyes flashing hatefully in their cavities. A tendril shot out to encircle his leg, but even as it tensed to yank him to the ground, his sword came down in a wild and powerful arc. It sank into the shoulder of the beast above the missing arm, carving away a whole piece of its side. The Mireform shrieked again and the tendril around Ateppa’s leg jerked away. Other soldiers took the opportunity to hack off more tendrils.

  The creature fell against the wall and shrank again. As it did, silver spikes protruded outwards through its cleaved side, then came the ends of fingers, then a hand and arm. Tendrils grew once more. In moments the Mireform was whole again, but now no taller than a man. Enraged by pain and fear, it leaped against them, a whirling mass of tendrils, tongue and claws. Three soldiers went down screaming, but the gerent fought on with eyes blazing. Corlas found an opening to join him, swinging his sword back and forth like a pendulum of protection. It protected well – squirming bits of Mireform flew about him like grass from a scythe.

  Two large tendrils seized the gerent by the waist and lifted him into the air. Ateppa swung, but each time the tendrils bent out of his sword’s path. The Mireform grinned and the pointed tips of the tendrils worked their way through Ateppa’s skin. Corlas tried to reach him, but the tongue whipped out to keep him at bay. The tendrils squeezed and the gerent’s cries halted as the air went out of him. As his eyes bulged in his head, it seemed only to strengthen the rage they contained. Leaning against the tendril that wormed into his side, he swung his sword at full arm’s length. The blow struck the creature on the neck and sliced clean through. For a second the Mireform’s face froze in mid-roar. Then the head collapsed into chunks of mud, slopping down its body. It dropped the gerent, who rolled away wheezing.