by William King
During the journey he had gotten to know his half-sister better.
There were times when he asked about his father, filled with curiosity about the Terrarch he had killed and never really known, and was surprised by some of the things she told him. He had not been the worst of fathers and his truly sinister nature had only become evident once Tamara was out of her childhood years. It seemed that he had changed over the time she had known him, becoming stranger and madder as he practised thanatomantic sorcery in response to his ageing.
Knowing what he did about such things Rik found that easy enough to believe. It was at once a revelation and a warning to him, a vision of what he could become himself if he followed a certain path. He wondered if he would have any choice about that- he was young now but perhaps if he became old and feeble like he had seen befall others, the temptation would become greater.
He was fooling himself, in some ways, because the temptation was always with him now. He knew the strength and power he could acquire by draining other living things of their life, and the more his knowledge grew the more he felt the temptation. Tamara had given him access to a body of knowledge that seemed to come naturally to him, far easier than the sorcery that Asea had taught him. It was as if he had always known it and merely had to be reminded, like a student having their memory jogged by a fragment of poetry, like a memory of childhood brought back by a certain smell or sight, like something that had always been there in his blood and had only now started to emerge and change him.
He wondered if this was the trap of which Asea had tried to warn him, at once simple and devilishly subtle. By using magic you not only changed the world, you changed yourself along with it. It was part of a process. He wondered what changes were being made to him by all this knowledge, in what subtle ways the patterns of his thoughts were being re-aligned. He had always been ambitious. He had always wanted such power and now he knew secret means of gaining power that were unknown even to the two sorceresses who had taught him. He could make himself very strong by using thanatomancy and there were going to be times in the near future when he would need such strength.
Rik wondered what he would do then. He had no illusions that he was likely to prove a match for an entire Brotherhood in the service of the Princes of Shadow. He doubted that even Asea was and she was far older and more powerful than he. Most likely the whole enterprise was doomed from the start and the best thing he could do was simply turn around and flee to the edges of the world.
But…he simply could not. He had committed himself to this mission and to Asea and there was a certain sullen stubbornness in his nature that would not let him back out of it now, at least not until she did. It occurred to him that he still had a huge chip on his shoulder and something to prove. He wanted to show Asea and the world that he was as good as any Terrarch, as persistent, as brave, their equal in any of the virtues on which they so prided themselves and so despised their human subjects for supposedly lacking. It was not a good motive for getting himself killed but somehow, it and the basic loyalty he felt towards Asea kept his feet firmly on the road Eastward long after common sense told him that he should make a run for it.
As they breasted the hill and looked down onto the ancient port city and the mighty fortress that loomed over it, he knew that this was going to be his last chance.
At first Sardec could not quite believe his eyes. Ahead of them was a small group of people, and they were people, not walking dead. Weasel had assured him of that. He had gone forward and talked to them and they were human enough. The watched him approach now, warily. One or two of them pointed pistols at him, others kept scythes and rakes held ready as if they were weapons. They had not allowed Weasel to come any closer than thirty yards but they let him walk right up presumably because he was a Terrarch.
Sardec studied them closely as he approached. A few of them were dressed as peasants, one or two like rich merchants. All of them looked afraid. Many of them prayed and made Elder Signs in the air. One of them, older, bearded more richly dressed and with the accent of a successful merchant said, “Good day to you, noble Terrarch.”
“Good day. What news of the world?” The man looked at Sardec suspiciously. He was a native Kharadrean and Sardec was a Talorean so he had every reason to be so according to his own lights. The Kharadreans regarded the Taloreans as invaders and Sardec was not sure that he blamed them for it.
“It is the end of the world, noble Terrarch. Or so I’ve heard tell. The plague has killed millions and the dead will not stay in their graves. You and your men are the first living beings we have seen in days.”
“But you have seen others.”
“Yes but we have met more of the dead. We fled from them and that is why we are still alive to talk to you.”
“Have you heard any news?”
“It seems many of the dead join the Sardean army but many more roam free seeking to devour the flesh and drink the blood of the living. They wander the land in huge bands. Some of them seem to have kept some intelligence and become leaders; most are mindless.”
Sardec realised they had missed a lot by sticking to the out of the way trails. “Have you heard anything of a Talorean army?”
“The Taloreans have fled West back towards their borders. They fear to stand before the Sardeans since their great General was defeated.”
Sardec did some swift calculations. “When did you get this news of them?”
“It would be at least a week ago, noble Terrarch.” Some of the other survivors nodded in confirmation. None of them looked like victims of the plague. None of them showed any symptoms. Sardec mentioned this.
Their spokesman looked at once fanatical and shifty. “That is because we abandoned any who show signs of the plague when they first develop symptoms. I left my own wife and children behind. It was better for them and better for us. Some of us need to stay alive if the human race is to survive.” He paused for a moment and added, “And continue to serve the Terrarchs, of course.”
Sardec said, “You can come with us if you want to. We are heading West. But there will be no abandoning the sick. We have a cure for the plague.”
“That would be a great blessing if it were true, noble Terrarch. Not that I doubt you, of course. If you say it, it must be true, you being one of the Elder Race and all.” It seemed to Sardec that there was less respect in his tone than there would once have been. He imagined that most of the survivors were going to sound like that. There were going to be some changes in the social order after this. Perhaps the cure they carried would prove to be another weapon in the hands of the Terrarch rulers. If they kept it a secret, they could give the cure to whoever they liked as a reward to the loyal. And they could withhold it from those who were disloyal if they so chose.
He would have liked to believe better of his people but he knew things were otherwise. There were those who would seize any weapon that presented itself, who would do anything to maintain their position in the world. The best way of preventing this was to spread the knowledge as widely as possible, to ensure that everyone knew what the cure was and how to apply it, so he told the merchant and immediately regretted it for he saw a cunning look come into the man’s eye and guessed that the merchant saw an opportunity for profit here. Sardec dismissed the thought. It did not matter whether the man sought profit or not. The knowledge would be out there in the world and would eventually spread anyway, particularly if Sardec made a point of making sure of that.
“Do you want to come with us or not?”
The man shook his head and the others seemed to take their cue from him. “With all due respect no, noble Terrarch. We have no desire to go West to Talorea.”
“Then we shall bid you good-day,” said Sardec.
“Be careful if you are heading into the Black Hills, sir. The dead are very numerous there and very savage, or so I have heard.”
“Thank you for the warning. We shall keep our eyes open.”
In the distance a bird sang. The sun peer
ed through the clouds. Flowers bloomed and their scent filled the air. Sardec studied the land around him. It was lovely in its way, abandoned farmhouses set in the shadow of the rugged hills. It came to him then that this was not really the end of the world. Even if every sentient being in it died, plants would still grow, animals would still roam the woods. It would be a world empty of people but it would not die.
He felt more cheerful now. They had found what might prove to be a cure for the plague. If they could get that back to Talorea, they would all be heroes. He found that did not matter quite so much to him now as it once would have. Once he had lived for the idea of fame and glory. The events of the past few months had shown him quite how foolish that was. There were more important things to him now. Rena would live. The children would live. The surviving soldiers would live. He cared about these things. They were important to him. Far more important than the prospect of fame.
Another thought struck him. Rena noticed it and said, “What is it? What are you thinking?”
“It just occurred to me that the plague only affects human beings. It doesn’t affect plants or any other animal as far as I can tell. I was wondering why that was.”
She looked thoughtful and a little embarrassed as a person will when they are out of their depth. “I don’t know why that would be. I don’t know anything about magic. I don’t know anything about medicine.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “I find the older I get the less I know. It just interests me. I think you might have hit the nail on the head though. I think a combination of magic and medicine is at work here. I think someone designed this plague, created it to affect only human beings. And I think that that was a very wicked thing to do.”
“Who would do that?”
“I would like to say someone who was mad, someone with no sense of right or wrong, but I suspect it was done by someone with too much of a sense that they were right, with the certainty of it in fact. And I suspect it was done by a Terrarch like me.”
“If they did that, they were nothing like you.” She sounded very certain of that and he wanted to believe her.
A piercing whistle cut through the air. Weasel waved and pointed at the surrounding hills and Sardec saw immediately what was wrong. There were figures, human figures, moving along the brow of the hill paralleling them. He suspected that they were not really humans at all. He took the spyglass from his pocket and trained it on them. The figures leapt into view.
At first they looked like a crowd of ordinary people, but he could see that their clothes were tattered and rotten as was their flesh. It looked like they had found the dead people or rather the dead had found them.
He hoped the monsters had not seen them but was disappointed in this when they began to shamble down the hillside in pursuit of his small command. They came on slowly but inexorably, far too many to fight in this open ground. Fear seized Sardec’s heart. He gave the order for them all to run. The Barbarian seized up Lorraine. Pteor tugged his wife along. Toadface grabbed Alan by the hand and the whole small party fled along the mountain paths.
Chapter Twenty-Six
From the very first Rik did not like Askander. It had the air of a trap. It stank of dark sorcery, and the powerful nexus of energy swirling in the sky above the Imperial Palace was all too visible to his increasingly sensitive eyes.
He did not get the thrill he had always previously felt from arriving in a new city. He did not know the narrow streets of the human areas or the broad wide roads where the nobles dwelled. He felt vulnerable and alone despite his growing confidence in his new powers. The Empress’s secret police had a well-founded reputation for efficiency and he doubted that they had become any less so with a servant of the Shadow in charge.
He had practised speaking in the local dialect with Tamara and he thought he sounded passable but he knew there were many ways a native might be able to detect him as a counterfeit. It was just another way in which he was vulnerable.
Their first problem was to find a place to stay. According to Tamara, all Innkeepers were required to register their guests and report them to the secret police. A group of unknown nobles from out of town would attract too much scrutiny. And there was no way they could quarter themselves in her family mansion or with at the homes of any family friends. Doubtless all those places would be under close observation. They could be too easily exposed or betrayed.
According to her there were rough districts with empty houses but if a group of Terrarchs were spotted in those areas it would attract attention. They could disguise themselves as much as they liked but Asea and Tamara were still conspicuously Terrarchs.
They had discussed what to do in the approach to the city, and in the end had decided to abandon the coach and risk the abandoned houses. Tamara and Asea were muffled in padded jackets to make their outlines more like those of humans. Asea wore a high collared greatcoat and a broad-brimmed hat. Her hair was chopped short and her face smudged with soot and dirt. No one looking at her would think of the proud lady of the First.
Rik was surprised to see that she was in high spirits, taking the whole business in good parts, as if she were playing some game. She did not seem frightened at all, but then he had always known what a good actor she was.
Conspicuous as Rik felt, no one seemed to pay them undue attention as they made their way through the streets. Everyone seemed too wrapped up in their own fears and thoughts. All of the people looked hungry and wretched, not at all like the inhabitants of the capital of a nation that was conquering the world. The effects of the plague were being felt even here, and the hunger had come from a bad harvest.
Rik had no idea what became of the dead but he saw none of them wandering the street. Perhaps they were rounded up to join the army, or perhaps something else happened to them, or possibly some potent sorcery kept them from rising but he doubted that. There were too many horror-haunted faces all around. Something strange and dark and terrible was happening.
He could smell the salt tang of the sea now, and the air held that trace of moisture that he always associated with the coast. They trotted along beside a canal. Things floated in it, and green scum coated the water’s surface.
Sometimes he saw a drifting corpse, and that triggered those strange other memories that came from the Quan. He found himself feeling the urge to dive into the waters and swim bonelessly out to sea, and had to force himself to remember that he did not have the alien demon’s trick of being able to breathe water as well as air.
Other memories stirred within him, of drowning men and women killed while still in the water, and he had to force himself to face down fears that were not his own but yet were still part of him. It seemed the presence of the sea had brought back the submerged memories of the voices with redoubled force.
It was dark by the time Tamara had led them to the run down area by the docks, old buildings of wood and brick with smashed doors and boarded windows and a smell of rot about them. It took several attempts to find ones that were not already occupied by humans.
The building they ended up in was infested by rats and other vermin and Rik found himself wondering about pestilence, for such places were notoriously plague pits. There was a certain irony in worrying about such things when the undead plague was sweeping the continent, but nonetheless worry he did. It did not matter whether a disease made you rise from the dead after it killed you. Other sorts of plague would end his life just as quickly, and at this moment in time, he still had something to do.
Rik let himself out of the damp building and keeping to the shadows made his way along the street, determined to find out what was going on in the city. He had no fear of the usual criminal fraternity that would haunt streets like these. He carried a blade and brace of pistols. No ordinary man could take him off guard, and anyone who tried was in for a nasty surprise.
He made sure he knew where their hiding place was, noted its position near the canal and the local landmarks such as the burned down building opposite and made his
way towards the harbour.
Within minutes he found himself in streets crowded with men and women, sailors and bar girls and soldiers off-duty. Costermongers sold fish and roast chestnuts and baked potatoes. The people roistered with a feverish, fear-fuelled merriment. He picked the purse of a drunken seaman just to keep his hand in and find some local coinage and made his way into a bar. Men played cards and backgammon and chess and bounced half-dressed wenches on their knees while calling for vodka and beer. Rik felt immediately at home. He had spent most of his life in places like this.
He found himself sitting next to a bearded sailor deep in his cups. The man looked at him sourly and cheered up when Rik offered to buy him a drink. “Been long in port?” Rik asked him.
“Too bloody long,” said the man, swigging at the beer and smacking his lips. “But it looks like we might be able to set sail soon.”
Rik raised an eyebrow and said nothing, and was rewarded when the sailor said, “Sounds like the Empress has managed to come to some sort of agreement with the Quan. Her fleet, anything bearing the colours of Sardea, will be allowed to sail.”
This was a new development and Rik had no idea what had provoked it. Was this the truth? Had the Sardeans found some leverage with the Quan? He supposed it was possible. If the Sardeans won this war, even the proud Sea Lords of Harven would have to deal with them and that would mean the Quan would have to do the same.
From what Rik knew of them, they could dominate the seas but there were things they needed from the land-dwellers and trading for them would be easier. Something else stirred in his alien memories, some memory of fear of the Terrarchs. Perhaps war at sea would not be totally one-sided.
He tried probing his Quan memories. It was not easy, for the creature did not think like a human or perceive the world like one, but eventually he found something- recollections of beings that could be summoned from the beyond that might wreck even the undersea cities of the Quan, and knowledge of something else as well, that the Quan were a dying race, and that it would not take a huge effort to wipe them out.