Master Of The Planes (Book 3) (51 page)

It was a simple stone structure, or so at least it appeared once Odestus had completed his discreet perambulation of its perimeter.  A square pen, its walls forty foot high and a hundred paces on a side.  Squat towers perched at each corner and a solitary iron gate was punched in the centre of the eastern wall. 

It had been an hour since the shuffling convoy of prisoners had disappeared inside.  No hint of what had awaited them leaked through the walls by sound or sight.  Odestus crept closer, sweat breaking on his brow as he drew on the chameleon scale to channel his concealing enchantment.  The object, never much thicker than a leaf of paper, was now worn so thin as to be translucent. Odestus estimated he had another hour of protection in it.

Sidling in the shadow of the wall, Odestus glanced up at the watch towers.  Shadowy shapes could be made out above the uncrenelated battlement, but their attention seemed to be directed inwards, more absorbed by the goings on in the fortress’s interior than by any friend or foe that might approach from without.

The little wizard reached the iron gate and caught his panicked breath.  He was not made for subterfuge. He had been obliged to follow many ill-matched careers, since an accident and a trial had robbed him of his mercantile profession.  However, the role of spy was even less suited to his nervous disposition, heavy feet and unfit frame than had been that of general, or dictator.

He was spared any wondering as to his next step, when the gate swung inwards of its own accord and the troop of escorting orcs hurried out unencumbered by the prisoners they had brought.  Odestus slipped past them, hugging the wall and hoping the stolen scale would hold its power as he slid inside the mysterious fortress.

He need not have worried.  The orcs had eyes for nothing more than the road ahead.  They hastened away at battle march speed, eerily bereft of the usual orcish grunts and catcalls from creatures who had nothing to say, but could not normally be prevented from saying it.  Instead the only noise to accompany their departure was the rattle and jangle of their ragged armour, shaken on its straps by the speed of their passing.

The gate swung shut behind them and Odestus turned his head slowly to survey the hidden space he had penetrated.  Too sudden a move could put a strain on the subtle camouflage that his spell had afforded him.  He had no desire to trigger an attention drawing shimmer in the stone wall, at least not until he was sure whose or what’s attention he might be drawing.

The gate had opened on an arched passage way through the thickness of the wall, a length of twenty foot or so.  Two orcs were hauling on chains to shut the halves of the gate, muscles bulging as they dragged the heavy links hand over fist in a bid to complete their work quickly.  As the crack of daylight between the gates winked out, there was a thunderous roar of a portcullis sliding into place behind the gate and the orcs were away, scurrying for a side passage cut in the wall. 

The opening showed a spiral stair case that rose and turned. The orcs had no sooner disappeared around its twists, with never a backward glance, than another smaller iron grill tumbled down sealing off the space and Odestus found himself alone.

He stood still, untrusting of orcs, not moving until the last echo of hobnailed boots on stone steps had long since died away.  He let out a slow breath and pushed away from the concealing stone to walk a few steps towards the space that this high square wall had enclosed.

It was a broad open space like the arenas he had seen decades ago in the Eastern Lands.  Places where strange creatures would be challenged by the bold and bravest of the town’s young men.  Their prancing infront of the trapped beast nothing more than a distraction to draw attention from the score of dart throwing accomplices who would pepper the hapless animal’s hide until, exhausted it fell an easy victim to the leader’s sacred sword.

Like those long ago arenas the sandy floor was discoloured in patches with suspicious stains.  However, this stone enclosure lacked the raised rows of seating which had characterised those amphitheatres of the Eastern Lands.  Instead its inner perimeter was lined with low stone buildings. Barred windows and steel doors sealed two dozen squat rectangular blocks.  There were only two variations in the dull monotony of the fortress’s inner architecture. 

To Odestus’s left low moans emanated from a wooden stockade in the shadow of the gatewall.   A hum of human misery, too exhausted by despair for talk or hope of escape. 

Opposite him, facing the gate, was a two story building with a pitched roof, butting up against the western wall.  Its door was set in carved stone at the top of a flight of three semicircular steps.  It was a structure graced with more grandeur than the utilitarian buildings elsewhere in the compound.  If there were any answer to the riddle of Persapha’s disappearance and Hustag’s sighting of a medusa, then it lay in that building. 

Odestus glanced up at the tops of the walls where a handful of orcs walked a desultory patrol.  He rubbed the chameleon scale once more for luck, taking care not to crack its much thinned surface, and then set off across the arena striding steadily towards the fortress’s big house.

The Vanquisher settled into his chosen throne and eyed Thren bleakly.  “So tell me then, how is it that the secrets of the Helm and of this place are known to Maelgrum?”

“It was written in a book,” Niarmit said.  Eadran’s eyebrows arched at her interception of a question he had directed elsewhere.

“What book?  Who could write of such a thing?”

Both Thren and the queen instinctively looked towards the statue at the back of the chamber its mouth half open in rage.  Eadran followed their gaze.  “Him?” he said dully.  “The Kinslayer.”

“He wrote it all down,” Thren insisted.  “The secrets of the Helm and much else besides.”

“But he can’t have.”  The Vanquisher made a blunt denial, before pushing himself up to pace back and forth before the dais.  He shook his head as he entertained and then dismissed a dozen thoughts.  At length he stopped arms spread to conclude, “there is no way.  I know my art.  No bearer of the Helm can write of it or speak of it or communicate it in anyway to another.”

Thren gulped.  “I know.  I couldn’t even tell anyone of the book, or show it to anyone.  Let alone write such a work myself.”

“But Haselrig could show it and discuss it.”  Niarmit was forced to elaborate when Eadran frowned at the unfamiliar name.  “He is a traitor and a servant to Maelgrum, he must have found the book where Thren hid it and shared its secrets with all the Dark Lord’s associates.  Even Quintala, the half-elf knows of it.”

Eadran cut the air with a sharp slice of his hand.  “That is why any written record was interdicted.  The moment it was written down it could get into any fool’s hands and the whole world would know.  Orc’s blood where is this book now?”

“Destroyed,” Niarmit hastened to reassure the Vanquisher before his fury could rise any higher.  “Its remains were found in the ashes of Haselrig’s workroom.  The pages all burned to a crisp, only the cover remained.”

Eadran frowned, head tilted in suspicion.  “How can you be sure it is the same book if the pages were all gone?”

“It had a very distinctive design on the cover,” Thren interjected.  “Niarmit recognised the book from my description of the picture it bore.”

“A picture?”

“Yes, an oval filled with whirls of different shades of blue, light and dark mingling like eddies in a stream.”  Niarmit’s explanation slowed as she saw the effect it was having on the Vanquisher.  He had gone quite pale and stepped back reaching for support from the arm of his throne as he slid back into the seat.  Niarmit’s voice died away as she completed the description, “it had a single word above the oval.  Fate.”

Eadran was shaking his head and moaning. “No.”  He looked across at the statue.  “You fool, Kinslaer, you bloody fool.  I should shatter that stone encasement and then petrify your shredded body all over again.”

“You know then,” Gregor said.  “You know how it was done?  How Chirard evaded all your precautions?”

Eadran nodded heavily.  “Oh yes, I see it now. And I see how truly mad he was.  Kinslaying was the least of his sins.”

“He killed three thousand of your own blood,” Thren’s tone was stern as he sought to quantify the crime which Eadran had so lightly dismissed.

“Three thousand?” Eadra waited for Thren’s nod before going on.  “Then I still say that was a lighter sin than what he did with the blue gate.”

“Blue gate?” Gregor huffed.  “What is a blue gate?”

Eadran smiled.  “You should know what it is, if you are to understand what he has done.” He jerked a dismissive thumb towards their petrified adversary.

“Then tell us.”

“It is a long story.”

“We have time,” Niarmit assured him.

Eadran nodded heavily. “Tell me then, what do you know of the fall of the Monar Empire?” The demand threw them off balance.  Gregor and Thren glanced at each other, sharing an understanding of what length of the story such a beginning must entail.  The two kings took their seats again to either side of the Vanquisher.

“It was foretold.” For once Niarmit’s training in the path of the Goddess supplemented the deficiencies of detail in her mastery of her people’s history.  “Jocasta, first prophet of the Goddess came to Emperor Justinian’s court and told him his empire was ruined unless he and all his people turned from their many deities to follow the path of the one true Goddess.”

“And for that presumption he had her burned at the stake,” Thren added.

“And the empire dully fell,” Gregor concluded.

Edaran smiled.  “It was a little more complex than that.  Did you hear in those tales of the part played by the council of twelve?”  Ignorance was writ large on the faces of his audience so he hurried on. “The great cities of the empire all had their mages, great wizards who had perfected the magic craft to open these gates.”  His hands rose to mime the casting of the spells and the oval shape of the portals they created.  “This talent ensured that for all its size, the outer reaches of the empire could be constant communication with the centre.  Instant movement of information and scarcely less swift mobilisation of troops meant that the empire could respond to any threat before it could grow dangerous.”

Thren nodded. “When I lived in the Eastern Lands, the phrase ‘as fast as an emperor’s mage’ was still used to mean something done in no time at all.”

“Aye,” Eadran agreed.  “In my own day, it was also used betimes as an insult to a man less accomplished in the bedchamber.”  Niarmit frowned at the lewd allusion; her sensibilities earned only a scowl of irritation from the Vanquisher, before he hurried on.  “The council of twelve was the great advisory council of the empire and few emperor’s ever dared go against their advice.

“At the time of Justinian, the leader of the council was the great wizard Dayaraf.  He had risen from poverty to the highest rank in the land.  They say he taught himself to read by standing outside a book binder’s shop and deciphering the sample work that was left on display.  The shop keeper took pity on him and even turned the pages so the young lad could try a different text each day.”

“All very admirable,” Gregor said. “But what has this to do with blue gates or Chirard or the Helm and its secrets?”

“Patience, Gregor,” Eadran waved him silent. “Dayaraf probed and stretched the understanding of gates.  He discovered planes beyond our own, that the gates could reach.  He even discovered places where time was out of step with ours, where it ran faster or slower than here.”

“Like Grithsank.”

Niarmit’s knowledge brought Eadran up sharp in his tale.  “You know of Grithsank?  You have been there?”

“I have seen it through a gate,” she admitted.  “Though it is not a place I would wish to visit in person.”

Eadran gave a slow thoughtful nod.  “So Maelgrum is still recruiting dragons to serve him.”   

“The gate to Grithsank was not blue, not like the picture on the book.”  Niarmit dragged him back to the question in hand.

“No,” Eadran admitted.  “It would not have been.  Time’s arrow ran in the same direction in both places, albeit at different speeds.”  He drew a deep breath.  Niarmit leant forward in her throne, sensing that the crux of the story was upon them.

“Dayaraf’s great discovery, his cursed discovery, was finding a way to induce a link between two places, that were the same place, but at different times.”

“What?” Gregor voiced their collective stupefaction.

Eadran sighed. “He found that he could induce a connection between two times that his body had occupied. The portal that was opened between them was a window on the past, his past.   He could look through it at the past.”

Niarmit frowned.  That time and space should be so warped as to bend back upon themselves seemed scarcely credible.  But if indeed these gates were a means to look at the past, then one question sprung immediately to her mind. “The gate, the oval drawing on the book was opaque.  There was no scene to be seen barring a swirl of blue.  How then could it be a window on the past?”

“It is only opaque to those viewing it from the past,” Eadran explained.  “The magic could not give them a glimpse of the future, but to the caster looking back there was a clear vision of the past, of what had happened.”

“Looking at what has already happened?” Gregor grunted.  “That doesn’t sound very useful to me.”

Eadran shrugged.  “Indeed it wasn’t.  At first Dayaraf’s great invention was just a curiosity for historians who wanted to uncover the truths of deeds already done.    

“One mage from the council used it to check whether his wife was being unfaithful and with whom.  Most used it to write detailed reports on matters of interest to no one but themselves.

“Some claimed it would be useful to open windows on past crime scenes and so see who had perpetrated them.  But the great mages would rather use this gift to pursue their historical curiosity or check up on the honesty of their servants than identify some vagrant’s murderer.

“So the blue gate would have been ever just a curiosity, except that Jocasta came and made her prophecy and Justinian burned her and things started to go wrong for the monar empire.”

“Wrong?” Thren said.

“At first it seemed a mere coincidence, a governor of one city failed to preserve his grain stores, some say he sold them at a profit.  Then came the drought and famine had people starving in their thousands.  They blamed the governor, in the riots that followed the city was burnt, the governor killed and tens of thousands died.  Some saw it as a sign, the beginning of the end and the whispers started, so Justinian turned to Dayaraf.”

Eadran sighed.  “The great mage had already used the blue gate to uncover exactly what had happened. He knew who was at fault. Now, Justinian said ‘why not travel through the gate’ why not go back and alert the governor to his danger.  Make him handle his affairs properly.”

The Vanquisher’s little audience exchanged looks of horror at the slow dawning understanding. It was left to Niarmit to articulate their disbelief. “You mean he commanded Dayaraf to step into the past and change the future?”

“Exactly that, and that is what Dayaraf did and that is why there is no record of those riots in the history books.”

“He changed history?”

“He thought he had.” Eadran ran his fingers across his thinning scalp.  “Justinian thought he had succeeded.  But the governor, once saved from his fate, grew strong and powerful.   He made wiser decisions, cultivated a broad church of friends and in time…”

“Yes,” Gregor snapped irritably as the Vanquisher shook his head disbelievingly at his own tale.

“… in time, he rose so powerful as to lead a rebellion against Justinian. It took several armies and hundreds of thousands of lives before he was defeated and destroyed, and in the provinces ravaged by the war, the whispers about Jocasta’s prophecy spread stronger than before.

“But still Justinian demanded Dayaraf used the blue gate to right the ills, to cleanse the corruption in the past stream of time, so that the present waters would run clear.  And Dayaraf did as he was bid because in his hubris he believed he could unmake the ills he was unleashing.

“A half-dozen times the great mage punched a hole through time, and a half-dozen times the damage done to the empire grew worse.  But, like addicts to a noxious weed, neither mage nor emperor could stop themselves from meddling.”

“So that was how the empire fell so swiftly, all in the course of a single generation?”  Thren tilted his head as he absorbed this new perspective on a more mutable aspect to history than he could have imagined.

“There was one of the council, newly elected.  He had come from beyond the empire, not young even then, but he had studied long and grown wise in apprenticeship to the archmage revealing a great talent such that Dayaraf took him under his personal tutelage. His name was Zeln, and he studied Dayaraf’s work in great detail and made a small but hugely significant discovery of his own,” Eadran glanced around at his small audience.  Even Gregor was perched in anticipation on the edge of his seat.

“Zeln discovered that time is more like a living thing than anyone had realised.  He already knew that it was a river that could run at different speeds in different places, it could divide and merge again, but always be the same river.  But more than this Zeln discovered that time heals itself, that it cuts a new path to return to its original course, a channel that can be deep and brutal.  Zeln summed this up most simply by saying that any attempt to change what has happened in the past will have an effect which opposes the motivations and intentions of those who tried to induce the change. 

“The multiplicity of disasters that accompanied Dayaraf’s excursions in the past were not mere coincidence, they were the inevitable consequence of a self-healing timeline.

“When Zeln made his declaration to the council, Dayaraf realised immediately that he was right.  The scales fell from his eyes and some say he even wept.”

“What did he do?”

“He went to Justinian to confess and explain how the empire was doomed, for by this stage revolt and open rebellion was widespread.  Seven of the twelve cities had been destroyed and the foes the empire had once so readily repulsed were gathered on its borders like jackals waiting to strip its dead carcass of wealth and land.”

“What punishment did Justinian mete out to him?” Gregor demanded.