Shadowmasque

by Michael Cobley

  “This could get interesing,” Tashil said. “A Firedagger might be enough to discourage them, but if it doesn’t we may need more than I can provide. Do you feel up to lending a hand?”

  When Dybel gave no reply, Tashil turned to see him staring forward at the increasingly hazy gloom.

  “This mist is curious, don’t you think?” he said.

  “Sorry?”

  “Well, our sail is still filled with a westerly breeze, but this mist is moving in from the east.” He sniffed the air and breathed in deep. “Don’t like this in the least…”

  There was a bright flash and a jagged line of argent struck the deckhouse’s canvas covering and lanced through it to stitch a charred and smoking wound in the woodwork.

  “So they’ve brought a mage with them,” Tashil said with gritted teeth. “How clever…”

  Suiddenly the riverboat lurched as if it struck something below the waterline. Tashil heard Jodec spit a curse, and then noticed that the boat had come to a complete halt. Atemor and the two guards were readying weapons as Tashil glanced back at their pursuers who also seemed to have faltered in their course. The boat rocked again and a Mogaun battlecry brought Tashil round to see her brother hacking at a drenched-looking man who was in the act of clambering up from the waters. Then there were a dozen pairs of hands lunging up to haul and drag aboard….men who were men no more, only cadavers returned to motion and a ghastly semblance of life.

  Horror was writ starkly in the faces of Atemor, Rog and Gillat yet they drew their swords and leaped into the fray. Dybel, his face armoured in an icy calm, raised hands wreathed in tiny crimson flames and sent a pair of bolts into the chests fo two of the boarders. Fire ripped through their torsoes as they were flung back into the waters, but there were others to take their place. The stench of decay was vile.

  Tashil called on every last shred of her strength, using the thought-cantos Shock and Ram, striving to clear the deck of these gruesome attackers. While concentrating on the fight she heard other sounds of conflict from further away, and during a brief pause while preparing another spell she chanced to glance to one side. A score of yards away, half visible in the gathering mist, the river wardens were in similar difficulties with one boat sunk, another listing badly and the other two filled with scenes of desperate combat.

  Then suddenly the last of the undead had been hacked down, and everyone else was still standing, if bruised, cut or scratched. Once the unnatural life went out of the revenants, however, their cadavers suddenly began disintegrating into a disgusting heap of ichorous flesh and blackened bones, which were hastily tipped over the side with hooks and shovels. Then Tashil noticed that their boat was wallowing in the swell, its sail flapping uselessly, the lines hanging adrift.

  “Jodec,” she shouted. “We have to get under way…”

  “Captain’s dead,” said someone up in the cockpit, the young helmsman, looking pale and frightened. The other two deck hands were emerging from the aft hatch but before Tashil could start issuing orders she heard her brother Atemor curse behind and she looked round.

  Coming through the mist towards them was the tall dark form of a ship, its masts reefed with the tattered remnants of sails that scarcely stirred in the erratic westerly breeze. Yet on it came, steadily, inexorably, its hull and forecastle becoming clearer, blacker, encrusted with barnacles and rotting kelp. And even as Tashil yelled for the Merry Meddler’s sails to be brought round, cadaverous figures began dropping from the ship’s flank into the water to swim towards them.

  * * *

  When the riverboat was just nearing the centre of Sejeend, Calabos, Dardan and Sounek were hurrying past the high outer wall of Hojamar Keep’s courtyard. All three wore hooded cloaks brought from Murstig and tried to adopt the demeanour of devout pilgrims as Calabos led them towards the Kala and its leafy dale. This was as far as he got on the night of the sorcerous calling, but this time he should be able to track down the lair of their dark adversary without interruption. The memory of that vile invocation was still fresh, seemingly seared into his mind and providing a certain sense of direction.

  Past a couple of junctions, they came to a street with a row of prosperous-looking townhouses along the left and a head-height wall along the right. The wall’s coping was decorated with leaves and berries, and tall trees were visible beyond, patches of their foliage illuminated by lamps hanging further down. This was a burial grove and the closer they came to its entrance, the stronger Calabos felt that they were on the right track.

  “It’s somewhere near here,” he muttered to the others as they kept walking.

  “There are guards watching from these houses,” said Sounek.

  “As long as they’re not chasing us or shouting for aid,” Calabos said, “they can watch as much as they like.”

  Although sundown was bathing the rest of the city in a rosey glow, an evening gloom already held sway here in the shadow of the cliffs. The lamps in the trees brightened the shadowy paths and tombs while the interleaving branches concealed much of the grove from the guards across the street. As they entered the arched gateway, Calabos immediately felt a change in the air and also in the ground beneath his feet. About 75 years ago, while travelling through northern Yularia, he had chanced upon a long valley whose villagers and steadings had been recently been devastated by an earthquake. Amid the awful quiet he had felt a disturbing sensation from the ground there, hints of instability or deep, unseen blight as if the ancient supports of the world had somehow been dislodged or damaged. It was very similar to what he sensed now, walking through the burial grove, a faint but insistent sign that a violation of the earth had taken place.

  The burial grove was bounded by high walls on three sides and the sheer grey face of the cliff itself on the fourth. The closer Calabos strayed towards the cliff, the stronger the feeling of wrongness and the great his wish that the others had heeded his warnings. But all his arguments had proved useless against their companionship and their steadfast sense of loyalty towards him.

  Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing, he thought, his smile hidden within his capacious cowl.

  Before long he had traced the dark sorcerous aura to a sepulchre built at the foot of the cliff, a large ornate affair which had been made to resemble a military pallisade. Then he found that a glamour had been cast over a small section of the cliff face behind the sepulchre, which he dispelled to reveal a rusty iron door. Calabos exchanged wary looks with Dardan and Sounek but it was the work of a minute to unlock it.

  Inside, a dark, roughly-hewn stairway curved downwards. Dardan produced a small tallow lamp from one of his pouches and by its yellow glow they made their descent. The stairs turned to the left then right then became long and shallow before emerging at one end of an oval chamber. Crude symbols had been daubed on the walls long ago in paint that was faded and flaking, just as a variety of aged wood-and-cloth charms hung on corroded nails, decayed and dessicated, or lay crumbling into dust on the rough floor. Once upon a time, Calabos guessed, this had been the secret shrine from some cult of spirit-worshippers and then fell into disuse until their adversary found a use for it.

  Calabos could smell the afterpresence of Wellsource use throughout the chamber, but especially at the centre where a mound of cracked, baked clay several feet wide sat upon the stone floor. Whatever function it had served was not immediately apparent.

  “Is this the place?” said Sounek who was hold Dardan’s lamp higher.]’

  Calabos shook his head. “There have been some kind of vile rituals conducted here…” With the toe of his boot he nudged a broken skull on the floor, “but the invocation didn’t…emanate from here.”

  “There’s another door,” Dardan said from the other end of the chamber. “Didn’t see it till I was right next to it.”

  A narrow opening led to a wider passage of strangely smooth, contoured stone surface which gleamed dully in the lamplight. The passage sloped down for a short while then up towards the entrance to another ch
amber, an uneven doorway that framed a pale radiance. Calabos was in the lead, closely followed by Sounek with Dardan a few yards back. He had just stepped through the doorway when he heard a series of cracks from above and a grinding sound. Without hesitation he turned, grabbed Sounek by the shoulder and hauled him up out of the entrance.

  There was a rumbling crash and a spreading cloud of dust. When the rockfall stopped, Calabos and Sounek rose coughing to their feet and surveyed the collapsed doorway and passage, now buried under tons of rubble. Of Dardan there was no sign or sound and shouting his name produced no response, likewise using farspeech. But when they both fell silent, fearing the worst, another menacing voice spoke from the chamber behind them.

  “Welcome to your new prison!”

  An ominous chill passed through Calabos as he turned to see who addressed them. Sounek let out a startled gasp but Calabos maintained his composure.

  Hanging in midair a few yards away was a tall, slender man dressed in the plain yellow attire of a minor functionary or a tenured scholar. A few pale blue ribbons and tassels floated freely, much like the wide sleeves and voluminous troos which undulated slowly as if from faint, languid breezes. The man scarcely glanced at Sounek, reserving his full attention for Calabos.

  “Such an honour,” the man said, “To finally meet the great Beltran Calabos — yet not the first time, perhaps…”

  The man’s voice was sibilant and distorted and his form, Calabos noted, was slightly opaque which meant that this was a spirit presence, another sign of powerful abilities.

  “I do not know you, ser,” he said. “Your face, however, is vaguely familiar.”

  “Ah, this face. Once it belonged to our servant, Jumil, but then it came into my possession, just as you have.”

  “So you are not who you seem to be,” Calabos said with a shrug. “A thief, then — just like your master.”

  The man’s eyes darkened with anger and hate, and he drifted a little closer. Calabos met his gaze and cross his arms.

  “This world was our ancient legacy and it became ours again by right of conquest, only for our strategy to be thwarted by lies and trickery…and the perfidy of turncoats, o great lord! But it shall be ours again, remade forever in reflection of the Great Shadow’s will.”

  In that moment, as Calabos stared unflinchingly up at the cruel face, a shocking certainty bloomed in his thoughts — Mothers name, he knows who I am! But then who is he?

  The dark sorcerer smiled.

  “I can feel your desire for knowledge, Calabos,” he said. “Know this, then — my name is Xabo and know also that a Shadowking is here in Sejeend, yes. You may speculate upon these morsels as you will in the time that is left to you, for this chamber has denizens who are jealous of those who have flesh. The phrase ‘the living rock’ has real meaning here.

  “Of course, if you somehow contrive to escape then we shall merely wait for you to come to us, as we know you must. And once the Shadowking has met you, we can bring your overlong tale to an end!” He laughed, a rushing evil sound. “May you die in agony.”

  Laughing and smiling, the man called Xabo began to fade, his translucent features like eyes and mouth becoming transparent and finally disappearing altogether. By which time Calabos and Sounek were thoroughly occupied by the monstrous change which came over the walls of the chamber. The previously solid-looking rock had begun to move, at first slowly bulging and rippling, all accompanied by grating whispers and moans. Then more definite shapes became visible, the unmistakable contours of bones, the joints of knees, elbows, shoulders, the ridges of ribcages and the gaping jaws of skulls, yet all coated in rough greyness as if the surface of the rock had become a kind of malleable membrane. Several of them half-emerged to stare across at Calabos and Sounek with grotesque, stone-grey sockets while skeletal hands made grasping motions.

  Then to the two mages horror, the boney shapes flowed down the wall and began writhing across the floor towards them on all sides. Calabos hurled a fireball at one group while Sounek flung a shock-charge dagger at some others — both charred the flexing stone but did nothing to stop the things beneath.

  “I’m sure there’s a way to escape this doom,” Sounek said. “Yet my mind seems curiously blank.”

  Calabos’ thoughts were hectically spinning as he eyes the encroaching encirclement. Then a solution presented itself to him and he almost cursed himself aloud for not seeing it sooner.

  “The rubble,” he said, pointing over at the collapsed entrance. “It might offer protection from these horrors if we climb up on it.”

  “So we just need to cross about 20 feet of squirming, deadly stone,” Sounek said drily. “Right, let’s go!”

  With that he was off, leaping over a cluster of grey, clutching skeletal hands amid a rising din of rasping, sawing sounds. Calabos grinned and followed suit, choosing a different route across the restless floor as it heaved with skeletons in various stages of completeness, a bizarre, twitching garden of bones. Hollows fringed with teeth gaped in the spasming stone beneath his feet, bony hands grasped and skulls reared up on snaking spines to lunge and snap. Calabos’ hooded robes were wrenched from him and ripped to shreds and the sole of one boot was half torn-off but he kept going and reached the sloping mound of rubble ahead of Sounek.

  Who was no more than a stride or two away when he stumbled and pitched forward. At once he tried to scramble up towards the rubble but half a dozen grey hands emerged from the stone and grabbed his ankles just as he linked his own hand with Calabos’. Calabos attempted to pull Sounek free but he was fighting the strength of stone and could see that the man’s legs were being engulfed by the surging greyness.

  “I think I can get you out of it,” Calabos said. “But it won’t be pleasant.”

  Sounek’s face was drawn in fear and pain. “Matters not — just try!”

  Calabos called on the Lesser Power with the thought-canto Iceweb turning in his mind. A pale, glittering blueness appeared about his hands with which he reached down to touch the restless, bony floor. A hard white frost sprang up and spread about a foot or two across the stone surface, stilling it in mid-undulation. A few more touches froze all the bone-infested floor that encased Sounek’s legs and all it took was several sharp blows with a daggerhilt to shatter it enough to allow him to crawl shivering up onto the rubble.

  Skeletal limbs reached for them but could not get closer than the edge of the broken rock and gravel. Then, as they sat atop the rubble slope, Calabos felt a presaging tickle in his thoughts, then, faintly…

  (….speak to me, damn you!…do you hear…)

  He shared a smile with Sounek — Yes, we live and hear you well, Dardan. Forgive the lack of communication. We were otherwise occupied!

  (Good to know. Remain where you are and we’ll have you free very soon.)

  Sounek gave Calabos a puzzled look. “We?”

  Calabos shrugged, and they waited, still keeping an eye on the monstrous cave of bones whose restless manifestations had subsided somewhat. As they sat there, Calabos notice Sounek giving him a sidelong glance or two and began wondering if some of the things Xabo had said had caught Sounek’s interest. And then there was his physical exertions which scarcely matched his purported age.

  As for Xabo — well, that malign spirit could only be Obax, the senior Acolyte who had advised Byrnak the Shadowking. And he had claimed to have brought one of them back — how could that be? Was it possible that Xabo/Obax had gathered all those spirit-wraiths together in some host, some doomed unfortunate, for such a purpose? What could be going through the mind of such a creature, and how dangerous would it be? He sighed and tried to put his worries aside, even just until they were out of danger.

  Soon they heard the muffled knock and rattle of stones being shifted and several minutes later the rubble at the top was lifted away piece by piece till there was enough space for them to crawl through. The first face Calabos saw in the dusty lamplight was that of a dirt-smeared Dardan who gave a sardonic smile and
clapped him on the shoulder before turning to help Sounek.

  The next he saw was Coireg Mazaret, looking alert and in good spirits.

  “I’ll wager you’ve a tale to tell,” Calabos said.

  “Ah, at least one, my friend!” said Coireg. “But they’ll have to wait — we’ve hard work ahead of us, upstairs.”

  “Why? — what’s been happening?”

  “While we were potholing around down here,” Dardan said, “Sejeend has been paid a visit, a very unfriendly visit!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Thou shalt become,

  A fortress of life,

  Amidst a desert of death.

  —Keldon Gant, Orosiada: A Masque, Act3, sc1

  The night was full of burning. All along the Silver Landings, Sejeend’s busiest docks, innumerable sheds, godowns and even the lesser wooden jetties were aflame. Bureng had also ordered Hanavok’s cadaverous crew to set fire to everything flammable near the great defensive walls which seperated the quays from the rest of the city, with the result that clouds of dense, choking smoke were now engulfing the ramparts. When Bureng’s invaders, both living and undead, had poured off his ships onto the quays, the defenders had sent a hail of rocks, arrows and bolts down upon them. Now, scarcely any missiles were being fired, much less aimed.

  The smoke was also an ideal cover for the squads he had sent up the walls with orders to unlock either or both of the immense timber and iron gates which were keeping his part of the host trapped on the docks. And all the time, the other captains were making much more headway than was he. It was not until he and his men had stormed ashore that he learned that the immense seagates of Sejeend were open when Flane and Raleth’s vessels reached them. His cursing had been vitriolic and inventive and strayed more than once into more ancient tongues.

  Yet it seemed that the mouth of the Valewater soon became the focus of stiff resistance and many fires were burning there too, looking like the molten glow of a gigantic forge through the smoke and the mist. It was a reflection of the furnace of desire and impatience that filled Bureng’s mind, colouring every thought and impulse in shades of need. He no longer seemed entirely certain of his goal, whether it really was the plunder to be had from the houses of the wealthy and the palace of the emperor, or if it really was all about finding the source of that awakening call. Or if it was that dark and powerful presence which drew him on, an incarnation of powers so like his own and so equally certain of itself that he did not bother to cloak his glittering aura.