Shadowmasque (25 page)

Below, the corridor was narrow and dimly lit by small bulkhead lamps smothered by protective cressets made of cow horn gone a dirty amber with years of heat and fumes. That smell of burning tallow laced the air, mingling with the odours of sweat and recent cooking. Suddenly hungry, Rikken hurried along for’ard, imagining in detail a bowl of hot stew and maybe a wedge of black bread to go with it. But just as he got to the galley’s curtained entrance, the bald, sweat-beaded head of Erdzic the cook popped, saw him and laughed.

“’Bout time! — Cap’n’s been asking for yer.” Erdzic glanced over his shoulder a second then his hand came into view, holding a swinging tray, its lid firmly in place. “There — Cap’n’s cabin right away!”

Then he ducked back inside, leaving Rikken facing the grubby curtain for a moment before he turned and trudged back along the way he had come. The captain’s cabin lay aft, on the port side, and the easiest way there was down into the hold, across to the port ladder, then up to the stern deck, a pace or two and you were there. But when Rikken reached the captain’s door he found it slightly ajar.

“Captain?” he said. “You there?”

Above the creaks and knocks of the ship he heard nothing so hesitantly he pushed the door open enough to look inside. The cabin was lit by a single, hanging lamp and was a clutter of chests and wax-sealed crates, with a boxcrib full of crumpled bedding, and a solid table covered in maps held down by conical plumb weights. Cold, dank air flowed in through the open shutters that led to the stern balcony where Rikken could see the shadow of someone standing just out of sight.

He stepped into the cabin and sidled round the table, thinking to get Captain Bureng’s attention from closer. As he reached the other end of the cabin he could see that the captain was leaning on the balcony rail, staring off to one side. Rikken was about so speak but then froze as that which the Captain was regarding drifted into view. It looked like a knotted cluster of ash-grey, feather tendrils, all squirming slowly as it floated at head-height towards Bureng.

Rikken’s first thought was that it had come from one of Hanavok’s ships but before he could utter the merest sound of warning, the tendril-thing suddenly surged forward onto the captain’s face. As Bureng gasped and reeled backwards, Rikken cried out — and Bureng whirled round, half his face covered with that writhing monstrosity, the other half twisted with murderous rage and a single burning, pitiless eye.

In a single swift movement he lunged through the open shutters and snatched fistfuls of Rikken’s thin jerkin. Transfixed by terror, Rikken went limp in that furious grip.

“You spy on me!”

“No, cap’n, no — I just brought your…”

“An enemy, then? Are you an enemy?”

But before Rikken could reply, Bureng’s grip slackened as he moaned and slumped to his knees. The writhing tendril-thing was sinking into his face, passing through the skin like the ghost of one of those deep-sea abominations Rikken saw discarded on fishermen’s wharfs. After a long moment the last of it was gone, absorbed into the Captain’s features, leaving it looking normal and unmarked. Rikken heard him let out a long shuddering sigh and watched him lift one hand to wipe his brow and gingerly probe the invaded side of his face. Then he raised his head to look at Rikken, and his eyes widened as if seeing him for the first time.

“Rikken, my Rikken,” he murmured. “Did you witness…the joining?”

Rikken could only nod, and Bureng made a wry grimace.

“Hmm, pity that you had to behold it thus.” Then he grinned. “But better you than any of the others, for I know that I can trust you.”

“That you can, captain,” Rikken said unflinchingly.

Bureng nodded and got to his feet, urging Rikken to follow suit. But even just the effort of that caused him to lean heavily on the map table then sit down on a stool nearby.

“Weakened me, it has,” he said. “Still, it will pass and the body of my essence shall increase.” He glanced at Rikken. “I have a long and strange heritage, Rikken — would you hear of it?”

Rikken felt a sense of exhilarated anticipation, as well as humility at being entrusted with such personal confidings.

“Aye, captain.”

“Then listen well — once this spirit of mine, this niggardly sliver, was part of something immeasurably greater and more powerful than all the mages combined.” He shrugged. “Was it a god, this vast immanence? — I cannot say, but I do know that it suffered some catastrophe that shattered it into a cloud of fragments that spread across this continent, lodging in the streams of families, resting there from generation to generation, a scattered legacy of majesty, and now all those wisps and splinters are awakening and seeking each other out, and gathering…I only knew this by stages, from that night on the strand at the cove to this post, sailing at the head of a grim and cadaverous fleet…”

Bureng frowned, eyes narrowed in thought. “But there is another and he resides in Sejeend — a young man, racked with fear, unable to cope with the voices thronging through his mind. When the spirit-fragment awoke within me I knew immediately that it was to be embraced, yet he continues to fight the incoming tide, struggling against the inevitable.” He laughed. “Poor fool — I can sense his feelings of panic, as if he’s slowly drowning. But he does not realise that the joining is a beginning, not an end, when all the voices begin to speak as one…”

He smiled and Rikken did so too.

“So…there’ll be more of them….fragment spirits, cap’n?”

“Yes, Rikken, and I’ll want you by my side now that you know this secret of mine,” Bureng said. “Hanavok’s ships must shield themselves from the sun with this deadening mist, thus cutting our speed. So we will not arrive at the Straits of the Vale before tomorrow afternoon, even with the greater distance we’ll cover tonight. But once near the Straits we shall still have to wait for the onset of dusk before beginning the onslaught since the web of spells is stronger after sundown.”

“But how could I serve you, master?”

“You’ll be with me when we break the walls of Hojamar Keep and storm the palace itself,” he said. “And whenever a dark spirit comes to me, your help will be invaluable.”

Rikken stood straight and gave a formal bow.

“I am your servant, captain — my blade is yours.”

“Good. Now there are a few other things to tell you, but first pour me a jack of goldpurl from that small chest over there…”

* * *

The Countess Ayoni heard the rear door of the confinement carriage open and booted feet climb inside. There was a muttered exchange with the guard at the end of the short passage and a moment later he appeared at the barred window as he unlocked the door.

“Visitor, your ladyship.”

And he stepped aside to be replaced by Ayoni’s husband, the Count Jarryc. On seeing his beloved face, she felt her carefully and rigidly maintained composure begin to crumble, and she rose quickly be enfolded in his arms. They stood there for several moments, murmuring comforts to each other as Ayoni felt the sting of tears on her face.

“Damn them,” the Count said. “This box isn’t fit for a dog!”

“Well, I do have my little wall lamp, and a volume of Roharkan devotional verse, kindly provided by the Archmage,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a kerchief. “Just think how much worse it could be — I might be in one of old Magramon’s verminous dungeons, and you might be facing real danger.”

He gave a sour smile at that. “A day out of Sejeend and not a sign, not a breath of the ‘Mogaun threat’ — why am I not surprised? Yet still I have to endure Ilgarion’s staff meetings and his inane orders which I must accept without question since Tangaroth holds you and Chellour in this wheeled cage.” He curled his lip and glanced momentarily up at the low carriage ceiling. “I saw your jailers as I was brought here.”

Ayoni knew that he was referring to the three experienced battle mages posted by the Archmage atop the prison carriage to keep a close eye on both her and Chellour, ready to subdue them at the first sign of any mageworking.

“I never imagined that your Watcher obligations would lead you here,” he said with a sad smile.

“I’m so sorry, my love,” she said. “But seeing the way that they treated poor ____ and the Duke, I just lost my head….which gave them an excuse to confine me, thus putting you in their power.”

She laid a hand against his chest and bowed her head, and moment later felt his hand stroke her hair.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for, my sweet,” he said. “There are other who must answer for a greater burden of dishonour than any you or I might acquire.”

A throat-clearing sound came from outside the open cell door.

“Sorry, your grace, visiting is not to be very long, by order of the Archmage.”

The Count gave the guard a cold look, then held her close. She reached up to his neck, their lips touched for a gentle moment full of yearning and sorrow and farewell since she knew that fate or chance might deliver a measure of cruelty into their lives. Then they drew apart, hands joined as they gazed into each others’ eyes, then their fingers slid apart and Jarryc turned, stepped outside her cell and was gone. As her door thudded shut and the bar fell back into place, she heard his footsteps recede and vanish as the carriage door closed.

She sat down on her low box crib, cushioned with a straw pallet, and fought not to be engulfed by despair.

“Are you well, Ayoni?” said Chellour loudly from the adjoining cell.

“Here! — quiet now. No talking…”

Ayoni’s despair shifted into anger. She stood and went over to the door and after a moment said:

“Couldn’t be better, dear Chellour, and how are you this fine evening?”

“Ah, you know how it is. Too much good wine and choice viands. A fellow could get quite spoiled by this bounty -”

The guard was suddenly there in front of her door which he rapped with a short stave.

“That’ll do from the both of you! You know the rules — there will be no speaking or conversing, none, for the duration of your confinement.” He sneered. “Or shall I ask the Archmage’s men to send you to sleep again?”

Ayoni shook her head and silently went back to sit on her crib. She knew that the carriage had several Lesser Power charms embedded in its structure which allowed Tangaroth’s mages to send any captives into involuntary slumber, and to wake them, as and when they saw fit. She and Chellour had already undergone this awful enforced oblivion twice, a dreamless and empty gap between one moment and the next. She had no desire to repeat the experience but she lay back on the straw pallet and tried to put her worries about Jarryc aside, seeking natural sleep. Her mind, however, was a maze of anxiety where she wandered from thoughts of her husband to those of Calabos and the other Watchers, then puzzlement over the identity of the man in the flamebird mask who had diverted Tangaroth’s attention at Ilgarion’s coronation. And had Carvers really been involved in the burning of the Daykeep, and were Duke Byrceyn and his wife being well-treated, and was Dybel still alive, and did Calabos recapture the curious Captain Ondene….

After a while her awareness of the cell began to sleep descended and several dream threads offered themselves, each one leading to a vivid patchwork of the familiar and the improbable. But before she could make a choice, something strange happened — the hazy play of interweaving shimmers and shadows grew dim and she heard someone whispering in an elderly, raspy voice, whispering a prayer or a chant in a language that seemed vaguely familiar…

Then the wall of sleep thinned and melted away and she found that she was sitting on the edge of her crib in darkness, her wall lamp having burnt out the last of its meagre amount of tallow. Except that this was a strange kind of darkness where a faint nimbus glowed about everything, like a dusting of jewelled radiance. Ayoni looked slowly from side to side…and gasped as she saw a form lying on the crib behind her, a figure with her own face. Startled she jumped up, leaning on the cell wall for support —

— and found herself staggering through into the other cell where Chellour was examining his own sleeping image. Surprised, he straightened and grinned.

“Greetings, Countess. Are we in each other’s dreams, I wonder, or someone else’s?”

“Whatever’s happened, it’s escaped our keepers’ notice,” she said.

“I haven’t ventured outside yet, though,” Chellour said, stretching one hand out to and through the wall of his cell which was also the side of the prison carriage.

“There is no outside,” said a rasping voice behind them.

Together they turned to see an old, balding man wearing a grubby assemblage of furs and a patched tunic with a long string of beads and charms and bones wrapped around neck and armpits and across his chest. Ayoni knew that this was a Mogaun shaman, perhaps even a seer: she also noticed that he was standing about a foot above the floor.

“There’s no outside?” Chellour echoed.

“No outside,” the old Mogaun said. “No inside either, where we are.”

“So honoured one, where are we?” said Ayoni.

The old shaman gave her a thoughful smile.

“Ghostland, the Domain of Undeath, the Painless Sea, the Forsakening,” he said. “Had to bring it to you to hide you from prying eyes.” He paused to look upwards, cocking his head as if listening, then shrugged and beckoned. “Now I bring you to them — come.”

He turned, still hovering over the floor, and walked off through the closed door of the cell. Ayoni shared a puzzled look with Chellour but before she could speak they both began to glide smoothly after the departed shaman. The walls of the carriage flicked past and then they were outside in the night, floating away in the shaman’s wake, steadily gaining height.

Ayoni found that she could alter her perspective just by trying to twist her head and shoulders round, and was thus able to look down at all the cooking fires and torches and clustered tents of the imperial army. The encampment had been pitched across two outcrops of higher ground, part of the irregular line of worn bluffs and broken ridges that followed the outer bank of the Great Canal. This mighty waterway, nearly half a mile across in places, encircled the ancient demesne of Besh-Darok and joined with the waters of the Gulf of Brykon several miles north and south of the city itself. Ayoni knew, of course, that three centuries ago there had been no waterway but a long curve of craggy peaks, the Girdle Hills, which the Shadowkings in their cruelty and hat had transformed into a long, black fortified wall and the twin dark citadels, Gorla and Keshada. When the Lord of Twilight was defeated, that terrible wall and its citadels had collapsed into the depths, down into the undercaves of the world, thus opening an immense channel to the sea. A sorcerous, underground highway known as the Great Aisle had also linked the two citadels to Rauthaz in the north, and its destruction also created another monstrous trough which reached all the way to the Gulf of Noriel in the north.