Shadowgod (29 page)

That's it!
she thought.
It has to be…

“Is there any clue to where it can be found?”

“Oh yes, milady - there are quite accurate directions…” He paused to unearth a tattered map of the continent of Toluveraz from a pile of papers behind him. He laid the faded, wine-stained chart atop Keren's book, swept a pointing finger over the north-west coast and brought it down squarely on a stretch of open water labelled 'the Gulf of Fandugar'. “Yes, about a hundred miles north of Jefren.”

Her heart sank. “Out to sea?”

“Once, many ages ago, the lands of Anghatan and Yularia extended much further north. But a terrible convulsion dragged that entire region beneath the waves, leaving the northern coastline as it is today.” He tugged his gown tighter and tapped the map. “So if Raegal did return this Staff of the Void, it may well be at the bottom of the ocean and thus utterly beyond reach.”

“Excellent,” said a man's voice from the darkness behind Alael. “Now give me that parchment.”

Scarcely daring to look round she jerked in fear as a hand grapsed her shoulder and pushed her sideways out of her seat. She shrank back against the book-shelved wall as the newcomer came into view.

The man looked very ill, cadaverous features blotched and shiny with sweat while the bones of his skull seemed overly defined. His lank hair was missing in patches and a swelling under one side of his jaw made his face lopsided. Yet his eyes blazed with strength and purpose, and for all that his clothes were torn and stinking, the mis-shapen hand that he held out was calm and unwavering.

“The parchment, old man - now.”

Melgro Onsivar, to Alael's surprise, stiffened in his seat, tossed the sheet of translation onto the desk and glared at the intruder. “Take it then. The knowledge yet remains with me.”

Alael had a sense of foreboding as the man grinned unpleasantly.

“Yes,” he drawled, picking up the parchment. “I know…”
He raised his other hand and it was wreathed in flame, an unnatural writhing gauntlet of fire. The flames were a mingling of bright corrosive green and dazzling argent, flickering, clinging to the skin of hand and fingers. Alael could feel the impossibility of it, this interweaving of the Lesser Power and the Wellsource, and her frozen shock began turning into anger and a bitter craving for the Earthmother's gift.

The man gave a sidelong, contemptuous glance. “Where's the goddess now, eh?”

Even as the bolt of green and white lanced out at the Master of Parlance, Alael let out an incoherent cry of rage and lunged at the man. Onsivar's cry of pain cut through everything and spurred her on, heedless of her own safety. The nameless man, unprepared for such ferocity, staggered sideways into the bannister that surrounded Onsivar's dais, uttering a bellow of fury. Alael struggled with him, trying to snatch back the parchment, but the man's speed and strength quickly told against her. With an elbow he thrust her off him then dealt her a buffet to the head with the back of his hand. Alael managed to turn away from the oncoming blow but still it had force enough to hurl her back against a low, padded settle.

The eldritch glow of his burning hand cast strange glints of green and white across his form and face. Staring down at her he clenched the hand into a fist and seemed about to strike at her with the mingled power when the door flew open with a thunderous crash.

First into the room was Nerek who jumped up onto a cluttered table, stared at the tattered man for the merest second and said;

“You!”

The man sneered. “So you remember our brief encounter, mirrorchild. I see you have no street urchins to aid you this time. Well, you had best be ready for I am now stronger than before.”
“So am I,” said Nerek who flung out one hand. A pale web of power left her fingertips and sprang across the room at the man's throat. He fumbled with it for a moment or two before it dissipated but by then Blind Rina and Osper Traum were in the room, their hands aglow with the Lesser Power. He uttered a chilling laugh of derision, and Alael all but cried out for the Earthmother to aid her. The only response was an aching emptiness, so she hauled herself upright with the intention of throwing herself at him again. But before she could a trembling hand reached up from behind Onsivar's desk, seized the lantern that sat there and hurled it at the intruder.

Glass broke, oil splashed and suddenly the man's back was a flaring sheet of flame. By the lurid light of his blazing form, Alael saw Nerek come vaulting over the bannister to attack him with her bare hands. He on the other hand was desperately trying to shuck off his burning clothes when a leather-clad forearm elbowed him in the chest. He staggered back but recovered quickly and swiped at her with his green-wreathed hand. Nerek stepped in close and hammered her gauntleted fist into his face.

Alael heard a crack as the blow sent the man flying backwards across a low bookshelf and with a brittle shattering, through one of the mullioned windows. Later, Alael remembered perfectly that his hair was on fire and that just before he fell out of sight, his skull-like face was grinning.

For a moment the room was plunged into a shout-filled darkness, then a bright glow bloomed between Blind Rina's hands, revealing the presence of Captain Ghazrek and three of his knights.

“Downstairs, captain,” Alael said, gasping. “One of the enemy's agents...fell out of the window - see if he yet lives.”

Ghazrek gave a sharp nod and hurried out.

Alael went over to aid the Master of Parlance. His upper clothing was scorched, his eyebrows and some hair was gone and the skin on one side of his face was red and blistered. As she helped him into his chair, his breathing was shallow and he seemed close to collapse yet still trying to speak. Calming him, she looked round to see Blind Rina examining Nerek's bare hand while a slowly twisting skein of light floated over her head. Halfway across the room, the mage-minstrel Osper Traum looked on with troubled eyes, his hands fingering the silvery instrument at his chest.

Blind Rina came over and crouched beside Alael.

“Is he in much pain?” she said.

“Such a….foolish question,” the old scholar said hoarsely. “Lady Alael, I must…”

“You must rest yourself, Master Onsivar, while I tend to these burns,” Blind Rina said.

The Master of Parlance rallied at this. “My good woman, you may carry out such ministrations as you are able…..but there are matters that I must make clear to the Lady Alael now.”

Blind Rina smiled with ironic brightness. “As you wish, ser.”

“Hmph, very good….now, my lady, listen well. As I began to explain a short while ago, the Raegal manuscript is a palimpsest - an older piece of writing was scraped from the surface of the parchment, allowing it to be used again.

“By various means, I was able to discern those older lines and found to my astonishment that it was a page from an ancient work of philosophy called the Teaching of Korrul. The last copy was thought to have been in the great library of Alvergost when it was sacked after the fall of the Brusartan throne…”

Alael interrupted him. “Master Onsivar, what do these ancient words say?”

“They give instructions, very detailed, on the making of weapons, my lady,” he said. “Weapons made from a mingling of powers, spears, daggers and swords, with not an ounce of iron or wood.” Exhausted, he slumped back in his chair. “There is….a sheet of translation in your book - please, show it to the Archmage.”

“I will, this very night.”

Then the door opened and Ghazrek entered, looking grim, and Alael knew.

“Is he there, captain?”

The Mogaun captain's frustration was plain. “No body, my lady. By torchlight we could see where he landed and we found some burnt scraps of clothing and a few bloody footprints, but they disappeared in the bushes.”

“After all that, he's still able to run off,” Blind Rina said. “A tough one.”

And now he's out there
, Alael thought.
Wounded but still full of hate and power.

“I'll have to leave you here,” Alael said to Blind Rina and Nerek. Standing up she checked that the translation was in the old book of sagas then closed it and tucked it under her arm. “I'll have to take this to Bardow now. You can see why.”

As Blind Rina nodded, there was a discreet cough from across the room.

“I, on the other hand, will be quite happy to remain here,” said Osper Traum.

“I won't,” said Nerek shortly. “I shall return with you.”

The lean woman smiled coldly as she tugged her gauntlet back on. Alael knew there would be no point in argument.

“Very well,” she said, coming down from the dais. “Captain Ghazrek - we shall depart as soon as I've spoken with the old steward.”

But Ghazrek shook his head. “Sorry my lady, he's dead. Strangled. Found his body in a room on the floor below.”

Alael clamped down on her sense of grief. She put one hand to her eyes for a moment and breathed deeply.
Death, death and more death…

Then she let her hand fall and wordlessly gestured Ghazrek to leave. Before they reached the door, Blind Rina spoke.

“Alael, you must also tell Bardow that one of the enemy's agents now knows that we don't have the Staff of the Void,” she said. “Tell him the moment you see him.”

“I don't imagine he'll be pleased to hear it,” Alael said.

Blind Rina gave a quiet laugh, which Alael echoed as she left, closely followed by Nerek who laughed not at all.

Now comes the hour of trial,
When ghosts and dead souls rise,
Hollow and howling,
And hungering for ruin.

—Vosada Boroal,
The Fall Of Hallebron
, BkV, 7.11

The attack on Scallow began just before sunrise.

In the grey light of pre-dawn, Keren was in Trader Golwyth's stables, rechecking her mount's harnessing when she heard the stir of voices from the yard. Stepping outside she saw Captain Redrigh and a few of Golwyth's men gathered round a runner, listening closely. A moment later the messenger was dashing out of the gates while Redrigh and the others hurried over to the stables, faces eager and alive.

“Word from the Grand Marshalls' tower,” Redrigh told her. “Coastal rider scouts have reported a fleet sailing up the Neck. Huge battle dromonds, apparently, bristling with war machines.”

“Are we still patrolling the west bank?” she said.

He smiled sardonically. “The Marshalls have decided that we'd be of greatest use over on South Bridges.”

Keren shook her head. “They really don't understand cavalry, do they?”

The young captain shrugged, then turned to bellow last directions and warnings to his company. Keren pulled on the heavy, non-too fresh-smelling rider jerkin loaned to her by Golwyth's chief stablemaster, but as she fastened hooks and eyelets down the front she found herself missing Gilly's presence. He would have made some revolting comment on the origin of the jerkin's odour and caused her to defend its sturdiness.

Where are you
? she thought as she patted her horse's neck then hauled herself into the saddle.
What kind of peril have you got yourself into
?

The scant investigations she was able to make yesterday cast up few shreds of information about Gilly's movements after leaving the High House of Keels. Down in Wracktown a couple of sullen youths say they saw him board one of the old hulks which then broke loose and sank, taking him with it. Others claimed that it sailed away along the misty Neck, crewed by the dead. If there had been more time, she might have uncovered more but Medwin had commanded her attendance at a conclave called in the aftermath of Yared Hevrin's killing and the subsequent escape of the Chieftain Hevrin and his captains.

It had not been an even-tempered meeting. Junior floorsmen had levelled charges of gross negligence at the Grand Marshalls, three grey-haired hard-eyed men, who responded by pointing out that one of the conditions for the Hevrin's participation at the High House had been the removal of Scallowan troops from its immediate vicinity. They also pointed out that their opposition to such a condition had been over-ruled, then went on to say that indulging in blame-laying while the enemy was preparing to strike was the folly of cretins. After that, Medwin was asked to conduct the conclave which he did with relish.

Which is why I'm riding in this makeshift mobile reserve concocted by Medwin out of Redrigh's men and half of Golwyth's. Just to show that the Crown Renewed is playing its part….

In addition, Medwin had promised the Grand Marshalls that aid from Besh-Darok would be arriving very soon but would not be drawn on the specifics. Keren did not know what to make of this, although at one point in the hours following the assassination she did spy Medwin deep in conversation with two men who, she later learned, had been Yared Hevrin's advisors.

As she spurred her horse out of the gates of the compound, she found herself smiling at the pull of the jerkin and her mail shirt on her shoulders, the bulk of the small shield slung over one shoulder and the solid weight of her sword on her left hip. Along with the smell of her horse, it was a combination of sensations and pressures which her body remembered well, and which made her feel protected and ready for anything. The Daemonkind Orgraaleshenoth's assault on her flesh and spirit a few months ago suddenly seemed a world and an age away.

This early the streets of Scallow were icy, cold and grey, but not deserted. Word of the impending attack had spread quickly through the town and as Redrigh's riders trotted down towards the river, they passed groups of women and children trudging the other way. Some would be going up to the castle for shelter and safety while others faced a longer walk north to encampments deep in the wooded hills. Many men, and some women, were being armed with spears and axes by sergeants of the city guard, and marched off down to the river bank. Keren saw every kind of face in their number, ever shade of fear and anger.

Ahead was the broad carriageway which sloped up on great piles, and led across the short bridges which linked a couple of rocky islets prior to entering the Bridges district itself. As the company trotted across, hooves hammering on the heavy woodwork, Keren could see wharfs and jetties coming into view on either side. Then further off to the right, along the west bank, dozens of masts jutted from the waves near the main docks of Scallow, some trailing torn sails and rigging into the dark, choppy waters. One vessel, a long shore-lugger, lay upturned and mastless on the pebbly shore, its hull punched through with a multitude of dark holes. Some said they saw corpses moving in the waters yesterday during the terrible panic as the ships began to slip beneath the surface. A host of small craft had put out to rescue survivors, and one ghastly story told of a boatman who tried to haul a body into his skiff only for the sodden corpse to seize his neck and drag him under.