by William King
“The real ones were enough though, weren’t they?”
“Oh yes,” he said.
“We’d better get back,” she said. “We have a long way to go.”
They made their way back down the dunes and joined the others on the wagon. Onwards they rumbled towards the place they all feared.
Chapter Twelve
Balthazar looked back. Nexali’s people straggled across the grey desert behind him. They moved just as slowly as he did, trudging along as if reluctant to take another step. He would have cursed but he just could not summon the energy. It was all he could do to keep putting one foot slowly in front of another.
Something was missing. It was not just the flatness of senses imposed by the symb. It was the absence of that which had nourished his soul since youth, the feel of the constant ebb and flow of magic all around him.
It made him listless. Aether had surrounded him all his life, within reach, malleable. Magic’s presence had been a constant, like the beat of his heart or the rhythm of his breathing. Now it had been amputated from him.
Would he be able to call upon the power once he was out of the null? Would he survive his time here? The thing that had been his greatest strength was gone. He had lost that which separated him from the herd of humanity. He was no longer a superior being. His god no longer whispered in his waking dreams.
It was not the only absence. The temptations of power had receded. The feel that he must dominate others had died away. It was still part of the long habit of his thoughts, but the need was no longer so urgent. The realisation struck him that he had been shaped by the presence of Xothak since he had first basked the demon god’s presence. It had manipulated him, made him into its tool. Now, for the first time in a long time, it was no longer with him. He was alone, without his deity, amid a terrible desert, protected only by the alien entity Nexali’s people had granted him.
Its mindless presence surrounded him, a thing of hunger and appetite, but it could not replace what he had lost.
If he had lost anything.
The thought sidled into his mind. He was alone and he was free. As long as he was within the null, Xothak could not reach him. It could not look into his mind, use him as its tool. He was his own man. It was an appalling thought but one that he must confront.
Looking now at his life, he could see he had been moulded by his experience of sorcery and his contacts with the forces of Shadow. Since he first joined the cult and taken part in its rituals, he had been exposed to its power. Now, in this dry aftermath, he began to suspect how much it had shaped him. He had been fed dark dreams that had transformed him into what his master beyond the world wanted him to be.
He did not resent that. Not really. It had made him the man he was today and he was happy with that. At least he had been until he had come to this place and been cut off from the source of his inspiration along with his power.
He felt irritable and strange. He missed part of himself even as he struggled to come to terms with the changes the symb had wrought. He no longer enjoyed shimmering visions of his glorious future. Now he saw only chaotic flickerings composed partially of memories and partially of images he barely recognised. He felt the loss as he would withdrawal from a powerful narcotic.
This null was a place where dreams were lost, a dead dry land that represented the sort of existence that most mere mortals experienced compared to the internal life that he had led. Perhaps it was not here merely as a defence against the Old Ones and their magic. Perhaps it was a punishment for them.
For the first time, without the benefit of the god’s subconscious promptings, he considered this place and what he was doing in it. What was he going to find at the end of this journey? A citadel that held the mightiest of the Eldrim, who were far more powerful sorcerers than he was. In the past, he had never questioned his abilities, or the fact that eventually he would triumph, and he was starting to suspect that was a result of his connection with Xothak. Now doubts and fears assailed him.
Who had built this place? How had they created this null? Perhaps they had not. Perhaps they had merely taken advantage of it, like humans building a fortress on an island in a lake. What sort of creatures would choose to build anything here?
Another thought occurred to him. His armour contained blighted energies. Perhaps he could draw upon them. He focused his mind on the symb but nothing happened. There was not the slightest flicker of contact even though he knew it should be there. The null not only contained no magical energies, it actively disrupted any attempt to draw upon them. Perhaps it was not merely an absence of power but something stranger and more sinister.
Perhaps that was why the Blighted Ones seemed as listless as he. They had lived within their Shadow-touched armour for most of their lives. They probably felt as abandoned as he did.
It was something to consider as he wandered the wasteland. Ahead of him were the white mountains. Within them was aeons lost Xanadar, and a multitude of traps and monsters. He prayed that his magic returned before they got there.
Wearily, they trudged on.
* * *
“Are you all right?” Kormak asked Rhiana. The merwoman looked queasy. She had done for the past few hours.
She gave him a wan grin. “No. It was not enough that this place be as dry as a desiccated mummy. It had to be like this too.”
“Still can’t sense anything?”
“It’s like I’ve gone deaf. I had no idea I picked up so much until suddenly I stopped hearing it. It’s not just people’s moods and emotions. It was the little blips of life, birds and mice and such. Now nothing.”
To make her point, she pointed at a sand rat as it hopped away. “It’s not there as far as my mindspeech is concerned.”
Kormak considered that. What would it be like to see something and not to hear it? It was as close as he could come to imagining Rhiana’s predicament. Or perhaps hearing something and not seeing it. He had plenty of experience of that, from his times hunting monsters in the dark.
“At least, Balthazar and his new friend Nexali can’t work magic against us.” Kormak said. “We won’t have to face another storm like the last one. Or demons coming at us in the night.”
He half expected her to contradict him, out of contrariness, but she merely nodded. “I console myself with the thought that it must be worse for him than it is for me. He is a mighty sorcerer. He must feel powerless right now.”
“Let’s hope so,” Kormak said. “It’s the least he deserves to suffer.”
“It’s funny, I never thought of you as a vengeful man. Strange given your profession.”
“It’s not vengeance I am after. I want to stop him working any more evil.”
“He’s not the worst you’ve chased, is he?”
Kormak considered this. He had spent a lifetime hunting monsters, not all of them inhuman. “That Summoning back in Helgard was as vile and as potent a piece of sorcery as I have ever seen worked by a human being."
“You’ve seen worse worked by others then? Old Ones perhaps?”
Kormak thought about it. “It’s not the sort of thing most Old Ones usually go in for. They don’t like summoning beings more powerful than themselves. They see themselves as the ultimate rulers of this world. They don’t like to be reminded that there are worlds beyond this one and beings more powerful yet within them.”
“What do you think it was? That thing we fought back in Helgard did not seem like an Old One.”
“One of the demons who wait in the Outer Dark. They seek entrance to our plane to consume our souls and our lives. Whatever it was, it took over the bodies of all those people and ate their spirits.”
“Is that why Balthazar seeks more Old Ones like Vorkhul? To be host to such things?”
“Maybe. Some Eldrim served the Shadow in the past. They worshipped entities from the Outer Dark. Some of them were prophets of Shadow.”
“I thought you just said the Old Ones did not like doing that.”
“W
hat people don’t like and what they will do for power is often the same thing. Eldrim are not so different in that respect.”
“And? I hear an and in your voice. I am used to it by now.”
“And sometimes they had no choice, I suspect. They were enslaved or enthralled or seduced. The Shadow has a way of doing such things.”
“There was nothing very seductive about that thing back in Helgard.”
“And yet it had worshippers among the officers of Helgard fortress. They belonged to the Siderean nobility, most of them. It’s not like their lives were so terrible compared to most people’s.”
“You sound bitter.”
“I am just pointing out that you can never tell what might appeal to people or what their reasons for doing dark things might be.”
“You think Xothak might have been an Old One possessed by the Shadow?”
“The more I think about it, the more likely it seems. We know that many of the ancient Eldrim turned to the Shadow. The Old Ones fought among themselves. It was what brought their empire down.
“What does the thing that possessed them get out of it?”
“You already know. You don’t need to ask me.”
“Let’s pretend we are making conversation like two normal people.”
“I doubt normal people talk about what demon gods want.”
“Stop avoiding the question.”
“From what I was taught, it depends.”
“What did Xothak want when he ruled these lands?”
“He was a devourer of life. He ate souls or life force or whatever you want to call it.”
“You don’t seem very certain about the existence of a soul for a man who belongs to a religious order.”
Kormak glanced around to make sure they were not being overheard. “You spotted that, did you?”
“I thought your sort were all supposed to be fanatical holy warriors.”
“My sort spends more time dealing with Old Ones and demons and sorcerers than they do praying in churches. You see things. It makes you think.”
“So you think Balthazar is on his way to liberate some new prophets for the Shadow, host bodies he can use to repeat what he did back in Helgate only on a greater scale.”
Kormak nodded. “Vorkhul was bad enough. You’ve got to imagine what something like him could do in the Lunar lands. Ordinary people would see him as a god. Many would obey him. Other Old Ones would listen to him. Some might join him. The times are dark and strange. Who knows what might happen?”
“I’ve been thinking about this little excursion of ours and this place.”
“I’m listening.”
“If you were seeking a refuge from the Old Ones, this would be a great place to put it.”
“A land in which no magic could be worked? You are right. There’s the small problem of finding food and water though.”
“The sand people seemed to have solved that.”
“You think that this is what their patron intended? For them to take refuge here.”
“I don’t know. My own people took refuge in the depths of the sea when the Elder Wars raged, or so our legends tell us.”
Kormak considered her words carefully. “This does not have the look of a refuge though. It has the look of a place where the Elder Races fought their wars. I have seen the Graveyard of Angels and it is a lot like this. There are nulls in the Southlands too, as well as huge blights and places where the power of magic is very strong.”
“You think I am wrong then?”
“No. I think you may well be right about the sand people. If ever there were folk adapted to survive in a world where gods and angels made war, it is they. Perhaps Xayal intended for his people to live through the end of the world.
“And that might upon us soon enough.”
Kormak stared at the distant mountains. “Indeed, it might.”
* * *
Balthazar trudged on across the darkened desert. The moon glared down disapprovingly from the sky. Ruined bunkers littered the landscape, gaping holes where their doorways had once been. Inside he found what resembled the remnants of suits of armour made from alien materials. They looked as if they had been created from bronze and glass. They bore some resemblance to human beings in the same way as the symbiotically armoured sand people did.
“What are these?” he asked Nexali. She stood next to him surveying the remains. She had retracted her cowl. Her face looked pale and uneasy. She obviously would have preferred to use mind speech if she could.
“There are tales of golems who guard these wastelands. Perhaps these are what remain of them. I do not know. I do not want to know. I do not like this place.” Her speech was slow and bemused, as if she was using a skill long unpractised.
He wondered if normal speech was simply something left over from the deep past of her people from a time when they had shared a common ancestry with his own. How might the symbs have changed the desert folk over the long centuries? Had their patron Xayal had made even greater changes to their nature which were simply not visible on the surface. The Old Ones had done that to many other servitor races. They had altered their slaves mentally as well as physically. It was something he must investigate when he had the time.
Balthazar almost laughed. Everything here seemed hostile and alien to him. He was a stranger from the lush lowlands yet he could survive. Nexali had seen to that when she gave him the armour.
He studied the sky. It was getting dark. Not that that made much difference any more. The sight that his symb granted him allowed him to see even in the deepest gloom. He could not perceive colour any more when he viewed things through the lens of his living armour but he could see even in the darkest of nights. It was an acceptable trade-off.
He did not get as tired as once he had either. He could slip into a waking dream as he walked. The symb could navigate and make simple decisions even without his guidance. It would continue to stride in a straight line and avoid the worst pitfalls even as he passed beyond the realms of his normal senses.
So far, there had been no sign of any sandstorms or any other menace. Nothing had threatened them yet there was a growing sense of unease among Nexali’s people. They were becoming more frightened the further they went into this wasteland. It slowed their steps and made them visibly reluctant to press on. They stopped to rest whenever they could, and Nexali did not press them. She seemed to share their reluctance.
They still seemed depressed and weary, as if the null drained something out of them. He guessed that it was leeching away the blighted power within their symbs. The sand people believed they were not magical, but perhaps they were wrong. If the symbs were truly living things, the blight might have mutated them too down the centuries. The absence of magic would affect them as well. It might also affect the minds of their wearers.
A new urgency was growing within him. Every step took him closer to his goal. He might be divorced from Xothak’s presence by the power of the null, but he could still perform his mission.
He was a missile. He had been fired and he was going to follow his trajectory. There did not seem to be anything else he could do with his life. He had spent so much time and so much effort getting to this place that questioning it was foolish. It did not matter whether the Lord of Skulls was present in his dreams or shaping his mind through the contact. He was who he was, a man of great ambition. The means of fulfilling that ambition were almost within his grasp and he was not going to stop now.
He let out a long sigh. It looked like he had left his pursuers behind. He doubted they could have survived that great sandstorm. Even if they had, they did not really have the means to follow him through this deep desert. If the Blighted Ones were anything to go by, the Emerald Swarm would not follow them here. The only thing that could get in his way now was Nexali and her people.
He considered the possibility of treachery. It was something he was always alert to. In Nexali’s position, he would be contemplating it himself. Had Xothak revealed the sa
me things to her that it had revealed to him? He doubted that her presence was an accident. Perhaps he was the one intended to lead her here and he would be eliminated once that goal was reached. He studied her face and saw no sign of duplicity written on it. That meant nothing. He too was well schooled in concealing his emotions. He could keep a blank face when needed. He could smile before he plunged the dagger home.
They were at the edge of the foothills now. Ahead, the mountains glittered with the promise of ultimate power. So close now.
Chapter Thirteen
Kormak awoke, roused by the juddering of the wagon. Rhiana stirred beside him. Zamara and Anders sat on the buckboard. Zamara’s head lolled in sleep, while Anders held the reins. They had all been taking turns to drive while the others rested.
The sand people pulled the wagon. He had no idea whether it was the same ones or similar looking companions had replaced them while he slept.
A gigantic figure loomed out of the darkness. It was larger than a giant and even squatter looking. It glittered metallically in the moonlight. Half of its upper chest was fused and blistered, as if the metal had been exposed to enormous heat and melted and ran. The sight reminded him of the Armour of the Angel Zhamriel back in Trefal cathedral and all the dead angels he had seen in Umbrea.
The mountains were closer. Ahexotl moved up beside the wagon when he saw that Kormak was awake.
“We have made good time,” the leader of the Emerald Swarm said. “Our scouts have found tracks. They think we are overtaking the Blighted Ones.”
“Why would that be? Surely they can move as swiftly as we?”
“I don’t know. But our enemies are moving slowly. Perhaps they are terrified of this place and fear to reach their goal. This place has forbidden to our people since time immemorial.”
“We’ve made much better time than I expected,” said Anders. He did not sound entirely happy with that. “Travelling light and not having to stop for darkness means we’re going faster than I remembered.”