The potion suppresses those flaws in the mind that disturb or run counter to its natural balance, be they caused by an underlying schism or an intruding spirit. The principle is the same although the man Ondene may require a more concentrated dose.
Qothan nodded thoughtfully, but Calabos regarded the godlike manifestation above them with growing resentment. Coireg’s proposal may have been impulsive and angry but at least it had the merit of being directly concerned with the person who lay at the root of the entire crisis, Jumil. He could see that Agasklin also harboured doubts from the sombre frown creasing his brow, yet he seemed reluctant to speak. So Calabos decided to voice his own.
“I feel compelled, divine one, to ask you this — assuming that we successfully entrap Ondene and subdue the Shadowking within him, what do we do with him?”
The great face altered as it looked back at him, blurring oddly between male and female. Then, unexpectedly, a cold smile passed across its features.
I want the man Ondene brought to my island Nydratha, to me, and if you accompany him, Calabos, you will learn much that has been hidden from you. The face of the Sleeping God surveyed all present. Know that this man Ondene is the key to a final triumph over the deathly shadow which has marred the essence of this world down all the long ages. I ask you for your trust and for every last shred of resolve and audacity that you can muster — I shall await you at Nydratha, amid its storm.
With that the god-face closed its pale, translucent eyes and sank back into the grey, glassy foliage which in turn folded in on itself until there was only a swirl of ashen haze fading above their heads. As assenting voices rose all about them, Calabos looked over to see Coireg gazing at him.
“What will you do?” he said.
Calabos shook his head. “Should we resign ourselves to the plans of gods? — should I?”
But after half an hour of intense discussion with Agasklin and Qothan and others, Calabos found that only he was left playing the role of skeptic, for the Sleeping God had persuaded the captains of both ships and their chieftains. Agasklin and Qothan then did their utmost to convince Calabos that the Sleeping God’s demand was worth pursuing, but in the end it the prospect of freeing Corlek Ondene from a harsh domination that swayed him. As well as the Sleeping God’s hint of answers to mysteries.
Such that after much further argument and planning Calabos found himself in the company of Qothan and seven other Daemonkind crew from the Stormclaw as they descend the gantry to the quayside under a leaden sky. His frame of mind was a mixture of trepidation and wry humour at the irony of the role he would soon be playing, that of the bait. True, he had himself suggested this is a ploy to draw the Ondene-Shadowking out of Hojamar Keep but he had half-expected that another scheme would be adopted.
Coireg Mazaret had been appalled but when it came apparent that no other equally plausible or workable plan was on the table, he withdrew his objections. As Calabos stepped onto the quayside he glanced back to see his friend watching him from the main deck, standing alongside Agasklin. Hands were raised in farewell and Calabos strode off, lengthening his pace to keep up with Qothan and the others, most of whom were carrying long, cloth-wrapped bundles slung over their shoulders. During their earlier discussions, the tall outrider had hinted at some kind of sorcerous veil that would allow them to travel into the centre of the city undetected. Now, as Calabos followed the Daemonkind up from the wharves, uphill past the godowns, smokeries and livestock pens, his curiosity began to gnaw at him. When Qothan led them into a wooded bluff off the main road curiosity was fast becoming puzzlement. Puzzlement turned into confusion when Qothan halted in a small clearing where his companions unpacked their bundles and began to assemble a small platform on the grassy ground.
Calabos could not help smiling as he said, “An interesting place, friend Qothan, but what is our purpose, here?”
Qothan did not smile, instead picking out a few articles of clothing from one of the unpacked bundles, a heavy woollen cloak, holed in places and fraying along its edge, and a pair of furlined boots.
“You will need these, ser Calabos,” he said, holding them out.
“In summer?” Calabos said. “Even as mild a one as this?”
“Be assured, you will have need of them.”
A glance around him showed that the others looked intently serious — Do these Daemonkind have a sense of humour? he wondered, then decided that there was no trace of it here. He shrugged, accepted the garments and put them on. Quite quickly he could feel himself starting to sweat.
Moments later the platform was finished, consisting of not much more than a couple of yard-long planks atop an iron framework about two feet high. It creaked as Qothan stepped up onto it then beckoned Calabos to do the same, giving him a hand up as he did so. Qothan then regarded his fellow crewmen.
“Have a care as you approach the vicinity of the keep, brothers. When the moment for you to descend comes, our signal will be unmistakeable.” Then he turned to Calabos. “Ser, now you must close your eyes and bend your knees a little.”
“Is this the sorcerous veil you mentioned?” Calabos said. “What does it do?”
Qothan’s voice, like his grip on Calabos’ arm, was iron.
“It takes us into the pit of Time. Now, close your eyes….”
Calabos squeezed shut his eyes and almost at once felt a knot of nausea start to uncoil in his vitals. He suppressed the discomfort but it changed into a feeling of dizzy hollowness which surged slowly up into his chest. Qothan’s hand was still tight on his upper arm but his legs felt rubbery and in his effort to keep his equilibrium his eyes cracked open….
A dark vista of rushing vastness flew towards him and away from him and around him, from the height of a hundred sheer mountain faces to the plunging, abyssal depths of a thousand oceans piled one upon another. An instant of shattering immensity, and in the next instant it parted and poured away, dissolving into dazzling whiteness.
And a startling jolt in his legs as he fell a short distance onto softness, white, cold softness…
“Snow,” he muttered.
“Indeed, ser Calabos,” came Qothan’s deep voice as he helped Calabos to his feet. Calabos blinked as the whiteness began to blur into shadowy shapes, then swiftly recalled the thought-canto Cleareye and applied its restorative quality to himself. At once his vision sprang into focus, revealing that he stood in the same bluff as before, except that the bushes were many and the trees were few, and all were leafless, spidery and smothered in snow. An icy peace held sway and it was near sundown, yet the light was evenly suffused beneath a blue-grey sky.
“We’re still in Sejeend,” he said. “But not our Sejeend…and its winter.”
“Very good, ser,” Qothan said. “Captain Ondene took much longer to reach that assessment. Now come — we must make haste, for when we left our time, I heard from Agasklin that Jumil and Vorik have been seen departing the Keep.”
So saying, he set off down the snowy slope towards the centre of Sejeend. Wrapping the heavy cloak tighter against the needling cold, Calabos plunged after him, his mind full to bursting with questions. As they made their way along the deserted bay road, past a few fisher huts and their flimsy jetties, he managed to glean a few meagre snippets of knowledge from the big outrider. Yes, this was how Ondene had been spirited away from the courtyard; yes, this was the past….yet it was not. The Daemonkind exiles had been severed forever from returning to their shattered realm, and it had been some time before any had the courage or despair to attempt it. It was two malfeasors who had done so, but this had been at sea, and neither of them returned. Only after the exiles’ ships had returned to these waters did some other daring crewmember try to cross over to their ancestral home…and found himself in this snowbound world.
“Yet it is a world that seems locked in its time — whenever we come here it is alway winter, always the same day, and our presence here is always limited,” Qothan said as they trudged up a road where carts and horses had turn
ed the snow into slush. “After about an hour we will be pulled back to the world of our time, like bubbles returning inevitably to the surface — although we can also cause the return voluntarily. When that happens, I plan for you to be very close to Hojamar Keep….”
“Which should be enough to get the Shadowking’s attention,” Calabos said with a smile. “I wondered how we were going to do that.”
“Once he knows of your presence,” Qothan went on, “it wil be up to you to find a way of tricking him down from the Keep and outside its perimeter wall. Once that is accomplished, my brothers and I will finish the task.”
Which meant, Calabos knew, bringing him back here. “I just hope that he is surprised and confused enough for you to administer the potion. But tell me, does this time-journeying not lead to you encountering yourselves or others?”
“Never,” said Qothan. “Once we return to our time, all trace of our presence here is erased, which leads to the conclusion that if this is a real point in the past then it is also some kind of pocket into which we can repeatedly delve. Perhaps further time-walking undertaken in other locations will reveal more about this anomaly, but for now we shall put it to good use.”
Before long they came to the rough wall that marked the boundary of this historical Sejeend, less a city than a town and military garrison. The crumbling arched gate was unmanned and as they made their way up through the snow streets, Calabos noticed between the buildings a procession of refugees crossing a bridge across the Valewater estuary north of the town. Further, they came within sight of the great cliffs but only dense woods were visible along the top of them. The formidable edifice of Hojamar Keep still dominated the town, however, although the courtyard wall was lower than Calabos knew. Guards stood sentry in squat, timber towers either side of the courtyard gates, yawning white breath in the deepening cold. Qothan steered Calabos along a slush-choked cobbled pavement across the square outside the gates before halting by a narrow, flagstoned passageway.
“This part of the road actually remains unchanged for the next 300 years,” Qothan said. “When I leave your side and walk away, you will be pulled back to our time and the Shadowking will become aware of you. Have you thought about what to say?”
Calabos stroked his chin. “Any workable deceit demands the inclusion of something true — I will tell who I was and offer to meet him, perhaps claim to have knowledge that he lack.”
The tall outrider cracked a thin smile. “Good — by the time he reaches you, the rest of us will be moving in.” He turned and began to walk away, back up to the main road, pausing at the corner to say, “And ser Calabos — keep your eyes closed.” Then he was gone from sight, leaving behind only drifting wisps of his breath.
Almost immediately Calabos felt the start of the same nausea surge as before, only this time he had a stone wall to lean against as he closed his eyes tightly. After another drawn-out succession of delirium-provoking physical sensations, his body calmed itself, all agitation dissolving into the pulse of breathing and the blood in his veins. He opened his eyes on an empty street bare of snow and slush, and an early morning sky brightening from the east. He let out the breath he had been holding in a long, relieved sigh and started back up to the main road.
In the few moment it took him to ge there, his undersenses told him that a powerful regard had narrowed and focussed upon him. Once round the corner and looking across at the keep, he composed his mind and marshalled his thoughts, then channelled his words into farspeech.
Greetings, friend.
There were impressions of arrogance and disdain. (Who are you? This is my domain — what are you doing here?)
I was once like the one who carries you — I too once played host to the might of a god.
Shock mingled with a craving for knowledge, then doubt and hate. (Lies! You stink of lies! What could you know of this glory?)
Calabos paused a moment then said,
Byrnak was my name when I and my brothers held all these lands in thrall. Look within — you will see that it is true.
The craving returned, and a new wariness. (Parts of me know that name — we — I remember it….)
But how much do you remember?
(Not nearly enough! They are keeping secrets from me, those vermin — I must know more!)
Calabos inserted a degree of humorous contempt — Meet me face to face down here and perhaps I will be able to fill the gaps in your knowledge. And waste no time — I’m a busy man.
And he broke the link, shielding his thoughts against the rage-fuelled probing brought on by his final remarks. Then it ceased abruptly, leaving him alone at the street corner, leaning against the stonework as he gazed across at the Keep’s tall courtyard wall. All was peaceful in the brightening morning light with only a few people visible over by some shopfronts and a barrel wagon crossing a junction further along. Then suddenly he was aware of someone approaching and looked over to see a cloaked man striding towards him from the direction of the Keep. It was Corlek Ondene and Calabos felt his spirits rise a little, for all that he knew that other intelligence was enthroned in that form.
As he drew near, Calabos could see the smouldering fury in the face and the clenched fists swinging by his side, and realised what danger he was in. He could feel the man’s intense focus of Wellsource power through his undersenses and for a moment he wished he had the sword of powers with him. But no, freeing the Shadowking from Ondene’s body would only make matters worse — now was the time to rely on his own wits and hope that Qothan and the other Daemonkind would be timely.
The Ondene-Shadowking came to a halt a couple of yards away and sneered.
“How can an old man have been the host of the Gre Lord?”
Calabos smiled, shook his head. “Looks are deceptive — this appearance is a convenience, nothing more. And I was host to only a fifth of the Lord of Twilight, which is still a greater fraction that the remnant that you are.”
A sullen anger showed in Ondene’s face as he glanced down at the rest of the city and the lands beyond. “This is true — I can feel other parts of him, of me out there, killing, stealing, maiming, burning. If they were with me, I would have the strength to master that toad, Jumil.”
“You said he keeps secrets from you,” Calabos said.
“Yes, like the true nature of this Great Shadow,” the Shadowking said, scowling. “Is he just another fragment, like that pirate Bureng? Why should I bend the kneee and follow his orders? When I find a way to this Nightrealm of his, I think I’ll just kill him and add his fragment to my own.” He looked round at Calabos with a malign glee in his features. “Yes, that sounds like a worthwhile goal.”
“And a dangerous one,” Calabos added, wishing that Qothan would arrive. “Would you be strong enough?”
“Strength is important” the Shadowking conceded. “But so is mastery of technique. And when I look at you, Byrnak, I see that you are an adept of the Lesser Power and that not a gleam of the Wellsource resides in you. Yet I can feel where it once was and I can feel how your blood and your bones still hungr for runs freely through my flesh. But I am here to take, not to give…” Somehow, he was now just a foot or two away as he reached out towards Calabos’ throat. “Willingly or not, you will yield up to me everything you know, every skill, every trick, every twist, every morsel of understanding in the usages of power, and maybe then -”
He never finished the sentence as a dark shape swept in from one side and fell on him. There was a bellow of rage followed closely by a sudden flare of emerald fire from the Shadowking’s hands as they tightened around his assailant’s neck. Calabos had staggered back against the nearby building and recognise the battling attacker as one of the Daemonkind outriders. His hair was beginning to smoke within the wreath of green fire and the Shadowking was grinning when the second outrider joined the fray, then a third and a fourth.
And in from the left rushed Qothan, one hand gripping a clay vial which Calabos knew had to contain the mind calmative.
/> “Later at the ship!” was all Qothan said to Calabos before he reached into the struggling, grunting knot of bodies and grabbed one of the Ondene-Shadowking’s arms.
There was an instant of blurred multiple images, then they were gone. Calabos, his pulse racing, stared at the vacant spot for a moment or two then looked up to see guards hurrying over from the keep. Deciding that no explanation was likely to stop him being arrested, he quickly strode to the corner and headed down the side road, then ducked along a shady alley, seeking a labyrinthine way back to the quays.
* * *
It was a darkness of the mind so complete that it had no boundaries while giving no room for thoughts. Corlek Ondene could only feel not think in the smothering, limitless pit into the usurping Shadowking had thrust him. From time to time he was aware that events were taking place but the only signs of these were far-off roars of triumph or rage and the thin whispering of many voices that came and went like fitful breezes crossing a desolation.
He had gone through anger and hate repeatedly, cycling back into self-pity and quivering fear although fear seemed to have less of a hold now. Without limbs and a body, the sensations of touch, smell and taste, there seemed to be few prompts for chaotic terror.
Until change came. First he heard the great roars, like gigantic beasts defying each other from the peaks of mountains. After a little of this, they fell silent for a short while before beginning again, an insistent yet distant bellowing that grew gleeful and decisive…then erupted into a shattering cacophony of enraged howling. Fear did grip Ondene then and he seemed to feel a tremble pass through the imprisoning darkness. And despite the pandemonium he could still hear the many whispering voices, only now they were growing into mutters.
Then a sensation welled up to take him by surprise, a feeling of falling which turned into flying then rising….
Then the darkness began to take on texture and solidity —
And a swirl of sounds —
And a patchwork of hot and cold —
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