Shadow (34 page)

‘For some reason Vous selected the Pilgrim to represent Shadow. I have over the past days observed the Pilgrim closely. In my estimation, the selection was random. The Pilgrim himself is just an ingredient, no more significant than that, possessed of no native powers or greatness of any kind. Whether Shadow
will
destroy Vous or not, no one yet can answer, and my guesses are useless.'

‘What is your guess then?' said Blain, infuriated to be lectured. ‘Useless or not, let's hear it!'

‘As you like. I guess that Shadow will not destroy Vous, nor will Vous destroy Shadow. We are stuck with both entities for the foreseeable future.'

‘Reasoning?'

The magician smiled at Blain's barked demands. ‘Because the greater part of Vous, that which drives him and always has, is lust for power, for godhood. Which is now attainable to him. And I feel this part of him is greater than his urge to self-destruct. I repeat, my guesses are useless.'

Blain paced, muttering into his beard, his walking stick smacking into the floor.

‘You are belatedly perturbed,' the magician remarked with a hint of private amusement. ‘Did it never seem vain or improper to you, to attempt the creation of a god? After a point, Blain, use of magic goes beyond a matter of simple spell craft. It becomes less controlled and predictable. It is why the gods and dragons act within limits, limits they hardly dare approach, let alone break. They know – as we fleet-lived and all-too-curious humans do not – that magic of the kind they wield can do things to alter fundamental existence. And it can make changes as impossible to undo as the clock is to rewind.'

‘Yes, fine,' said Blain.

‘It is why my school, and the others, respected limits to what humankind
should
attempt. We devoted much study to it, in those rare moments people were not pestering us to cure runny noses or assist in their political squabbles. But you burned those books and kept the others. You were not quite so curious about what boundaries should not be broken.'

‘Don't blame me,' Blain snarled. ‘Avridis and Vous made all decisions. We Strategists just advised, or managed things. And our advice may as well have been coughed phlegm for all they valued it. But I'll spare you my pleas. I shed no tears for your schools. I took looted artefacts gladly. I cheered for your deaths. That much is true.'

The magician tilted his bald head as though in thanks. ‘Your attacks were predicted, incidentally. But as you know, most predictions fail. This place was built in case that future came to pass. To our great surprise, it did.'

‘Then there are other places like this?' said Blain.

‘Of course there are – I shan't lie to a potential ally, whatever his past. There are several towers of varying design. My colleagues wait in them, those who survived.'

‘For what do they wait?'

‘The inevitable ruin of Vous, Avridis, and those aligned with him.'

‘Inevitable,' grunted Blain. He paced around the room, his cane thumping down the only sound. Even the swishing music of breeze on waves had gone quiet.

Stranger said, ‘How do you keep Shadow out of this place?' The mage turned slowly and gazed at her. His expression was impossible to read. ‘It is difficult,' he said. ‘Shadow has a strange power. He mirrors something, becomes a different version of it. A fraudulent copy, so to speak. If it could be done to gods it would make him formidable indeed, if only for a little while.' Stranger's eyes widened as though with some realisation. The mage's eye seemed to look deep into her. He said, ‘Or indeed, if done to dragons.

‘I pondered what Vous may do to protect himself from Shadow's power. What Vous may do is divide himself. I did similar things to keep Shadow from this place. What Shadow saw or believed he saw at the water's edge was an infinite number of small powers as though in a swarm. Each on its own so weak as to be negligible, too numerous and fleeting for his comprehension. Think of a mighty beast in a blinding cloud of insects. What can it do? Had Shadow known this was just illusion, he might have crossed the waters, giving you no haven.'

‘You have learned much of him,' said Stranger.

‘Indeed. And I learned much of Dyan, when he was at the window, an hour ago. And much of you, since you have been here. Your heart is treacherous, to you most of all. But also to us.' The mage turned to Blain. ‘There is nothing more to learn from this woman. It is best to kill her. Do so with mercy. I will leave this task with you. Do not do it here, in this place which is my home. Do this for me at the water's edge and you shall be invited back. We shall speak and make plans.'

Stranger gasped. Blain looked surprised. ‘Good!' he said. ‘We will speak more when it is done. I cannot undo my past. But we are of similar purpose.'

‘That may be,' said the magician. ‘My purpose has never changed. Yours has, and may again. We shall see.'

Blain began to reply but the tall magician dissolved into a pile of sand which sank into the floor.

5

Stranger pleaded as they led her down the steps, then through the waves to the shore. She twisted around in Thaun's hard grip, her dress spreading out on the water's surface like a dark green flower. Thaun smiled sympathetically but did not yield at all. ‘I want to see him again,' she said. ‘Just once. Just once. If I may just see him again.'

‘Do you think that is a rational request?' said Blain.

‘Just once,
please
—'

‘Draw from your memories. They're sweeter than a current look at him, fucking Evelle as we speak.' Blain shuddered. ‘A whole new world has opened up before me. I often wondered why Invia look as they do. Now we know. How does a dragon fuck?'

Apparently directed at Thaun. He replied, ‘Very well, it would seem.'

Blain laughed, a wholly different sound from his usual bitter cough. ‘I'm serious. How?'

‘I am unsure, Strategist. Maybe they assume the form of men.'

‘Or shape their women like dragons? I had wives like that. Who knows?'

‘You have light consciences, to lead a woman to death, laughing and joking,' said Stranger.

‘It has long been a flaw of mine,' said Blain. ‘Thaun is weeping inside, I'm sure.'

‘Such is war, Strategist,' said Thaun.

She threw herself away from Thaun's grip as they neared the water's edge. He caught her again easily. ‘Dyan!' she screamed.

‘Shut her up,' said Blain, looking around nervously. ‘Kill her.'

‘Here, Strategist?' said Thaun.

‘Get her out of the water altogether, like our new friend asked. If he truly built this place, he's useful. We'll honour his wishes. And watch your manners, he may have ways to hear us even now.' He examined the line of trees some way back from the water. Kiown was still among them somewhere, keeping watch. Blain murmured a quick lurking spell just to be safe. The smallest burn from casting it flushed through him.

And – there! Blain sensed another power he
thought
was the woman's dragon friend. It was like a weight pulling the blood to the south side of his body. It was some way distant still. Or perhaps it was that other magician, that shape-shifter, Far Gaze.

And yet the power was closing in on them, fast —

‘Dyan!' Stranger cried. Her voice rang out in all directions, too loud for a normal cry; she had to have cast something to enhance it.

‘Kill her!' Blain snapped. ‘Quick, get her out of the water and do it!'

A rush of wind knocked him backward and off his feet. He stayed down under the water's surface, waiting till his breath ran out. Fast, so fast. How had the beast come so fast?

When Blain rose Stranger was not in sight. Thaun's body lay in two twitching pieces on the ground, spilling guts like the stuffing from a torn doll. The Hunter's face showed surprise.

Blain could hardly believe the little lurking spell had saved him from a dragon. Quickly he pulled from the corpse all charms and wards, except of course for those melded into or tattooed on the Hunter's skin. Up in the tower, at the uppermost window, was the tall, bald silhouette of the magician staring down. No magic had won out this time; no illusion, no spell work at all. Simple trickery.
Potential ally
indeed, ah the little chord he'd struck, the note he'd known Blain had wished to hear. Had he also known Dyan would hear Stranger's cries and rescue her? Had he meant for the dragon to kill them both?

Blain tipped his walking stick in a gesture as though to say well played. The bald head did not, as he'd half hoped, nod in a gesture of reciprocal respect to a fellow illusionist; the tower's magician just stared down at him as he limped away from the water, with a last regretful look at the corpse of his finest Hunter.

IN FLIGHT

1

The drake's beating wings had soon put the tower far behind them. Gusts of air both warm and cold blew at them so hard it felt like they'd be knocked out of the saddle-like grooves between the upright nubs on Case's leathery back. The heat always burning deep in his belly kept them warm. It was too dark to see much of the landscape passing below but for the odd lantern-lit window or campfire in fields which looked like oceans of blackness. At times Case tilted forward like a rollercoaster cart heading for a plunge straight down, as though he every now and then lost control of his wings or wished to very briefly rest them. What seemed hours of uneventful flight went by, the wind flicking Aziel's hair in Eric's face all the while. Their winding flightpath veered toward a distant gang of unnatural-looking mountains shaped like pillars. Then a voice spoke from the gloom right beside them: ‘Your wish?'

All three passengers aboard the drake screamed. Loup nearly fell, and clutched Eric's waist to stay seated. They were descending through a blanket of cloud and could see little but cotton whiteness. The powerful animal stink of war mages carried to them even through the headwind they flew into. Shapes could be heard bumping into Case's wings. The drake grunted in confusion and dropped more altitude. ‘Your bidding,' said a machine-deep voice from the other side.

‘I'm yours,' said another.

‘Your will.' A chorus of such voices intermingled with declarations of servility.

‘You're Shadow,' said one visible directly above them when they had come free of the cloud. Amongst a shaggy dangling nest of hair, cat-yellow eyes peered luminously down. Smoke trailed from the tips of its horns, its staff clutched to its chest with long-clawed hands. Its beard strands brushed Eric's head like friendly but unwelcome fingers. ‘Among foes,' it said. ‘A servant.'

‘No! These aren't foes,' said Eric, knowing what it meant to do. ‘Don't attack them! Go! Leave us.'

‘Your word?' it said, frowning as though confused. Others descended through the clouds and flew shoulder to shoulder with the first.

‘Yes, that's my word. Leave us! Fly east. Go! East! Fuck off!'

‘A servant,' said a dozen voices in acknowledgement. Each of the creatures veered away.

‘Tell em to go and fight that dragon,' Loup whispered in his ear.

But the flock had already departed. Their shrieking was soon far distant till it faded from earshot altogether. Unperturbed, the drake beat its wings harder, steering a course through the clouds as though all the skies were mapped out neatly in its mind. They stopped to take shelter from a heavy rain-shower in a cliff-side cave, its floor covered in smooth white pebbles. The drake set himself heavily down, seeming to announce with a huffed sigh that he had flown quite enough for one day. Loup dug through the smooth pebbles and gathered up bones buried beneath them. He fondled them in his gnarled hands. ‘Drake bones,' he said. ‘Not dragons, just little drakes. No wonder he brought us here. An old drake nest, this.'

‘We're putting a lot of trust in Case,' said Eric, peering out the cave's opening, where dropping off a little ledge was a sheer cliff side. Far beneath, huge square blocks of stone waited patiently to thump falling bodies. ‘If he took off and left us here there's no way we'd be able to climb down.'

‘He won't leave us. A good old drake, he is,' said Loup, running a hand over the beast's scaled head. It made a noise more like an old man snoring than a cat's purr, but it seemed to denote satisfaction. Loup said, ‘Strange, though. He doesn't act like people have trained him, but he's not wild, not at all. Funny old feller! I wonder if a mage got inside his head somewhere along the way and tinkered around.' He peered closely into the drake's large gem-like eyes and squinted as though reading fine print therein. Case gazed back impassively.

‘How many drakes have you known?' said Eric.

‘This is the first! And I like him,' said Loup. He brought the old drake bones to Case. ‘Hungry?' Case sniffed the bones, took one of the smaller ones in his mouth and crunched it languidly into splinters with a noise that filled the little cave. ‘They share memories like this, eating each other's remains,' said Loup, patting Case's hide. ‘When two meet up they'll each trade a scale to eat. That's like having a long conversation, for drakes. Case will be learning things his long-departed friend knew, once he digests those bones. The old one crawled here when he knew he was going to die. He knew others of his kind would one day come find him, I reckon. Nice old race the drakes, oh aye they are. Even if they do eat expensive necklaces.'

‘Arch has one in a cage,' said Aziel, breaking a long, sullen silence which Eric guessed was to protest Loup having invited himself along.

‘What's he do with it?' said Loup.

‘Nothing. It just sits there,' she said.

‘Fine man, he is. Not enough cages in the world for his liking. Guess that's why he's put so many folk in the ground, eh? That's a cage too, with a lock that never opens. The stuff of his sweetest dreams, lass. And part of you knows it.'