Shadowmasque

by Michael Cobley

  In her mind, Tashil heard a brief howl of hate-edged anguish, and the next she knew the wraith darted across the room to pass unimpeded through the wall next to the tall windows. Calabos, his face beaded with sweat, visibly relaxed and let the shining broadsword dip to rest point down on the floor. Tashil went down on one knee next to her brother who was weakly trying to sit up. But when she parted his shirt, just to make sure, there was not even the slightest mark upon his skin.

  “What was that?” she said as she tugged away the rope bonds from Atemor’s feet.

  “We’re eager to know as well,” Sounek, with Inryk nodding at his side. “Especially as that’s the second one we’ve seen this night.”

  Calabos straightened and stared at them both.

  “Go on.”

  Sounek gave a curtailed version of his earlier account, ending with a description of an event near identical to that which they had all just witnessed.

  “One such might be considered strange,” muttered Dardan. “Two suggests something more.”

  “I think you can all guess my own hypothesis,” Calabos said.

  “Fragments of the Lord of Twilight,” Tashil said as she helped Atemor to stand. “Gathering together —”

  “Being gathered together,” Calabos said. “There is a malevolent guile behind this, the one who made that sorcerous calling, which has drawn who knows how many unfortunates to Sejeend.” He turned to Atemor. “Including our guest. How do you feel now, young man?”

  Atemor glanced nervously at Tashil who gave him an encouraging smile.

  “I am...well. I dreamed that you pierced me with that blade, elder ser, just before the black fist took me, yet when I awoke there was no wound.” Atemor looked down at his open shirt, then up at Calabos. “Is this a good thing, or an evil thing?”

  “I cannot answer such a question,” Calabos said. “But I’m sure that you are glad to be rid of the illness in your mind.”

  “That handy bodkin,” Inryk said. “The Sword of Powers, ain’t it?”

  “That it is,” said Calabos, holding up the blade to admire its radiant surface. “Forged by the Archmage Bardow during the siege of Besh-Darok, stolen during the reign of Tavalir the 4th, recovered from baneful hands by an old friend who then passed it into my keeping. We will have need of it in the days ahead.”

  “And just what are we going to do in the days ahead?” said Sounek. “We know precious little about this sorcerer.”

  “Could be a connection with the Carvers,” Dardan said. “If they did set the Keep alight like folks’re saying.”

  Sounek shook his head. “It doesn’t ring true to me, but we might know more if the Countess had bothered to contact any of us.”

  “Chellour and Dybel are also inside the palace,” Calabos said. “Nothing has been heard from any of them since the start of that audience of Ilgarion’s.”

  Tashil chose that moment to speak. “I could try and reach her now with a bonding scrye, Calabos — Ayoni and I do have a slight affinity.”

  The elderly mage regarded her a moment then smiled and nodded. Tashil sat down on a vine-patterned pale green settle, breathed in and out steadily to calm and clear her mind. Through her undersenses she could discern everyone nearby but knew she had to focuss her perceptions and push them out, further out, further still….

  The walls of Sejeend became ghostly barriers, a city of smoke and glass through which her senses drifted. Amongst the feeble glows of thousands of minds she wandered, listening and searching for the familiar hue-taste of Ayoni’s presence….and saw/felt it from a landmark she knew, the imperial palace. But as she approached it she quickly became aware of other, stronger minds who were guarding the vicinity. None seemed to notice her snooping on the fringes so she floated nearer….until suddenly she felt a swift and harsh regard sweep over her and stop for a moment before moving on. For an instant she found herself scrutinised by a dark and pitiless intellect which scarcely bothered to conceal its withering contempt for her.

  The encounter shook her to the core, disrupting her focus, and suddenly she was back in the common room, seated on the settle with a trembling in her limbs. Everyone, she realised, was waiting for her to speak.

  “Ayoni is still at the palace,” Tashil said. “But she’s confined, by mage guards as well as the ordinary kind.”

  “Dybel and Chellour?” Calabos said.

  “I found no sign of them,” she said, “but someone else at the palace spotted me so I had to return before I could search for them properly.”

  Calabos’ eyes narrowed. “You were careful?”

  “As careful as I could, being stealthy and masking my thoughts,” she said. “But this person saw through me immediately.” She shivered. “An unpleasant mind.”

  Dardan gave a dry chuckle. “The august Archmage?”

  Calabos frowned. “I wouldn’t have thought Tangaroth capable of such quickness of mind but with Ayoni in his custody we’ll have to assume the worst, that he and his subordinate will be coming for the rest of us.”

  “Could the Archmage be league with our adversary, this dark sorcerer?” Tashil said.

  “There is a possibility…” Calabos considered it for a moment then shook his head. “No, my instincts tell me that he’s following schemes of his own devising. But still it comes down to not knowing exactly what happened at the palace and being unable to contact the Countess.”

  “I do not know if it would be of service,” said a hesitant voice. “But the High Sister at the Imperial Palace is a friend of mine.”

  As all eyes turned to regard the speaker, recollection leaped into Tashil’s thoughts.

  “My deepest apologies, ser, for having neglected you,” she said to the Healer monk who had been sitting patiently by the wall. “Master Calabos — this is Brother Graas from Hekanseh.”

  “From the House of Seclusion,” Graas added as he stood and came over to Calabos and gave a small bow.

  “Brother Graas,” he said, features uncertain. “Your offer to act as our intermediary is most welcome, but I imagine that you are here for quite a different reason.”

  “Indeed, ser. I bear a message from Bishop Daguval but it is for your ears alone.”

  “Does it concern my cousin?”

  “You may speak your message openly,” Calabos said. “Everyone here is trustworthy.”

  “As you wish,” Graas said. “The Bishop’s message is — ‘Tell the honourable Calabos that his cousin has taken it upon himself to depart our House, but we are conducting a widening search for him.’ That is the whole of it.”

  Calabos’ frown deepened and he was quiet for a long moment. Tashil knew that he had relatives in southern Cabringa from mentionings made a few times in conversation, but did not know that a cousin had been living so close to Sejeend. She thought to ask Calabos who he was then remembered that Houses of Seclusion were dedicated to the study and remedy of derangement and decided to stay silent.

  “Thank you for bringing me this sad news, Brother Graas,” he said at last, then addressed all those present. “My poor cousin Gurric was sent to my charge by the family elders but the Healers at Hekanseh have had little success in improving his condition.” He looked at Brother Graas once more. “When you return, you must convey to the Bishop my deepest thanks for all his efforts but before you depart from Sejeen might it be possible for you to call upon your friend at the palace and pass on a message for the Countess Ayoni?”

  “I would be willing to try, ser,” Brother Graas said. “Provided my own mission is not placed in peril.”

  “I understand your duty, Brother. Our duty commands that we now abandon this lodge and seek refuge outwith the city — this is the knowledge that I wish passed on the Countess.”

  “Am I to go with you?” said Atemor suddenly, looking from Calabos to Tashil. “Are you making me your prisoner?”

  “Atti,” she said. “There is danger everywhere —”

  “And the sorcerer who drew you to this city now knows of you,
” Calabos said sternly. “And he knows that you have encountered us, thus were you to fall into his hands you would be but a morsel for his hunger: stay with us and fate may be kinder. The choice is yours.”

  Atemor looked burdened and uncertain and Tashil leaned in close to him.

  “Come with us, Atti — it will be safer.”

  Her brother gave a rueful smile. “Our father will have much to say when he learns of this.”

  “If you live to hear it,” Tashil said, “he can say what he likes.”

  Calabos smiled at them both. “Good — that’s settled.”

  Then he gathered everyone closer and doled out a series of orders, items and supplies that each person was to bring to the hall, and brought the steward Enklar in to help. As Tashil and her brother hurried off in search of blankets and waterproof cloaks, she glanced back to see Calabos and the Healer monk move over to the fire.

  “Now, Brother Graas — this message for the Countess….”

  * * *

  It had been a long, strange night for Coireg Mazaret, a disconnected series of lucid moments strung out through the shadows and streets of the city. At the start there had been glimpses of the countryside around Hekanseh, then vague impressions of a ride in a wooden cart, snatches of cobbled roads and the inky black openings of lightless alleyways. Other sights had also imprinted themselves upon his memory — that of a great fire burning at the palace up on the clifftop, like tongues and sheets of lurid flame rushing upwards into the funereal night. Or of an angry brandishing clubs and spears and striding purposefully through the town. Or fleeing stone-throwing beggar children and having to hide in a small, wooded park west of the centre of the city, on a rise near the base of the cliffs.

  It was there that Coireg regained his sanity for a long blessed moment which, to his surprise, continued uninterrupted. Surroundings slowly made sense and he realised that he was on his knees in long, wet grass, crouching in a curled-up position. Gingerly he raised his head, eyed the darkness, then licked his dry, cracked lips and sat up straighter. The grass before him was strewn with various small roots, tubers and mushrooms, and as the long moment went by he grew aware of a bitter, gritty taste in his mouth. A shaky chuckled escaped his lips — clearly his insane other self had been trying to concoct a potion for some malefic purpose. Instead, it seemed to have subdued him in some way, put him to sleep perhaps.

  He leaned back on his hands, let his head loll on his neck, then inhaled the cool, green moistness of the park and breathed out slowly. And still he was himself. A seedling feeling of elation threatened to burst forth but he kept an iron control over his emotions, remembering innumerable similar instances across the three centuries of this erratic life. Like the previous night when, as now, he hard been enjoying an extended period of calm in his shabby, lamplit room, pottering happily with a pen and ink, writing a few notes in a small journal. Until he began to hear a vague sussurus, like a faint breeze, which steadily grew to a trickle of whispers, than a babbling clamour of tongues riding above a deep, wide voice intoning a ceaseless flow of syllables. It tore through his mind like a storm, uprooting his thoughts, stripping away every vestige of hope, leaving him clinging to awareness out of raw, reflexive desperation.

  Then his insane self had stirred, tossed Coireg aside and embraced the thunderous torrent of eldritch power. And answered its call by escaping from the House of Seclusion and embarking on a wild quest through the night which led to this untended, dilapidated park overlooking the docks.

  Coireg relaxed, taking in the peacefulness of the trees and bushes, noticing the tiny rustles of small creatures in the foliage above and the weed-choked flower beds just a few feet away. Yet there was an underlying tension to his state of mind, an inner watchfulness that stemmed from the burden of the past, an expectation of a return to emptiness.

  “Waiting for oblivion,” he whispered to the darkness.

  “It may be some time coming,” said a deep voice from beyond the vine-entangled trees. “The dose he took should keep him submerged in your mind for a few hourse yet. But when it wears off, he will be unlikely to partake of that particular combination of ingredients again.”

  Coireg felt at once alarmed and resigned.

  “How do you...how can you know the ways of my torment? Who are you that you can see such things?”

  “My people are possessed of certain unusual talents, including eyes that can pierce the skin of life, thus exposing a little of the bones that lie beneath.”

  The shadows around the trees were a mingling of vague shapes and outlines which betrayed no clues as to the observer’s identity.

  “So what lies beneath my skin?” Coireg said bleakly.

  “A mind divided against itself,” was the reply. “And in every crack and gash resides the embers of an ancient power. Thy appearance is that of a man in his fifth decade yet I can see that thou art much, much older…”

  Feeling the onset of panic, Coireg got to his feet.

  “Why that’s….ridiculous,” he said. “Fool’s talk.”

  “There is no need to be alarmed,” the other said. “There are none but you and I in this little wood, and if you decide to leave I shall not try to prevent it. If you do, however, you may be assured that your darker image will reawake and consign you to oblivion once more.

  “But if you return with me to my ship, our apothecary will know how to prepare a draught that will keep your other self from surfacing.”

  Uncertainty and fear swung round into a fierce hope which he strove to master. Unsure whether or not to believe the offer, he paused and regarded the darkened trees.

  “How do I know that I can trust you?” he said. “Why do you not show yourself?”

  There was no immediate reply, but he heard foliage rustle and snap as a tall figure emerged from the shadows. By now the first glimmers of predawn were lightening one side of the sky and Coireg saw long-jawed, gaunt features beneath unkempt hair. The man wore a long, dark coat and his empty hands hung loosely at his sides.

  “What is your name?” said Coireg.

  “I am called Qothan. And you?”

  “Coireg…..Coireg Mazaret!” he said defiantly.

  “That would explain a great deal,” the man said.

  Coireg stared at him. “Will your apothecary give me a potion which could still this monster in my head for good?”

  “I have seen him concoct such a remedy in the past, yes.”

  “Then I will go with you to your ship.”

  As he said the words, Coireg had the sense that he was fated to do this. Fear and uncertainty still churned in his thoughts and he felt a stab of guilt at not having sought out Calabos first, but he had chose his course and would hold to it. Qothan beckoned him to follow and Coireg hurried across the grassy clearing. A path led to a gate in the hedgerow which enclosed the park, and outside a cobbled street led downhill to the docks and a forest of masts and spars.

  “You said that your people possess unusual talents,” Coireg said. “What tribe or clan are they?”

  Qothan was silent a moment as they walked, then said: “In all our travels along these and other coasts we have both assumed and been given several names. New names come with new loyalties which is good since time and tide have ground the old ones away to dust.” He seemed to grow impatient with his own words. “Ser Mazaret, once we were the ones who served — once we were known as the Daemonkind!”

  Chapter Ten

  Into the grey veil of the sea

  Vast sepulchre of the world,

  We shall cast thine idols and thy bones,

  Safe in that bleak, eternal tomb,

  Trapped in those chilling depths,

  Eaten by rot in the abyss.

  —Ralgar Morth, The Floating Fortress, canto xxiii

  With every sail rigged to catch the fitful morning breeze, the Mocker slid slowly through the shifting banks of mist. The crew went about their duties, manning the braces, heaving the lead, sweeping the decks, yet all their activi
ty and every word and laugh was muffled by the enclosing grey shroud. The rattle of chaining, the knock of booms and spars, the creaks from the hull, all deadened. Even the slow beat of the Mocker’s guide bell seemed reduced to a muted clang.

  Up on the helm deck, Captain Bureng lounged in a decaying wicker divan brought out from his cabin earlier. Before him, on a mildewed pillow of red silk, was the Crevalcor Codex, its yellowing pages held flat by one hand while the other periodically raised to his lips a short clay pipe from which he would suck and savour a sweet and heady smoke.

  And even as his eyes traced the angular writing on those wrinkled pages, his senses were alive to the surrounding grey-veiled waters, to the great, slow mass of the Mocker, and to the moods and movements of his crew. This quest of his to go in search of the remains of Hanavok’s fleet had stirred superstitious anxiety in them and now a web of dread held them in its toils.

  Such children are these, he thought. Even the likes of Flane and Logrum — I can see that now. I will be able to bring all of you to believe in me and my destiny, all of you, eventually. He laughed to himself. And long before that I plan to have the truth of my destiny laid bare, that I may understand it, and change it if need be. But first I must seize Sejeend, break it to my will and find out what is drawing me there….

  A whim of thirst came over him and he raised a beckoning hand. Moments later Cursed Rikken was at his shoulder with a bronze-lined wooden stoop of mulled wine. Pungent steam wreathed the vessel as Bureng accepted it. He then drew once on his pipe and expelled a feathering plume of smoke before putting the stoop to his lips and drinking deeply. The wine was a scalding runnel spilling into his stomach, sending a thrill of flavour and heat through him. Ever since that night in Umbril Cove, when he was overcome by his destiny, his sense had become more perceptive somehow, allowing him to discern the depths and levels of smells, tastes and sounds. He could even tell when someone was lying by listening to their words and smelling the taint of their skin.