Shadowmasque (39 page)

Calabos stood and bowed to the one he now knew was Pericogal, the Stormclaw’s captain, then to Immalarin, captain of the Seafang.

“Sers, we are honoured by the kindness and help you have already lent us so your declaration to further our cause is a boon that can only be repaid with the defeat of our common enemy. May this prove to be so…”

This cannot be so.

The voice seemed to come from every direction and everyone in the chamber was startled and wide-eyed. A cold trickle of unease passed through Calabos in that moment as old memories stirred.

Agasklin was openly angry. “Who speaks? Who dares to disrupt this assembly?...”

“Be calm, Agasklin,”
said Captain Pericogal.
“We have been honoured by the presence of that one whose words and auguries fill our most precious of books.”

Agasklin and Qothan, as well as the others, looked almost incredulous. A whisper rippled round the chamber — ‘the Sleeping God!’ — and Calabos felt his unease confirmed. Glancing over at Coireg, he saw that his friend looked pale and ill and immediately knew why, knew that he too feared the pitiless touch of gods.

“Why have you come amongst us?”
Pericogal said aloud.
“Why do you say that cannot defeat our enemy?”

The air above the inner circle of chairs darkened into a large, roiling knot of shadows which coalesced into a strange representation of a dense mass of leaves, sprigs, fronds and berries that were all murkily translucent as if fashioned from smoky glass. Then the mass of eldritch foliage parted and a great face emerged, pale and opaque in the likeness of a woman sculpted from stone — the perfect, blank eyes, the positioned hair, the classic line of cheek and chin and the skin unmarred by the slightest blemish, all elements of a sublime ideal.

The immense face stared at Pericogal for a moment before speaking in a voice like the torrents of a waterfall.

Your enemy is not who you think, and your scheme could never defeat him. The one named Jumil has already directed the seedings of four Shattergates and he will shortly go to the palace to conduct a fifth…

“Even more reason to gather our forces and attack them now!” cried Coireg.

No! Such a plan would waste your strength and the opportunity that presents itself to you now. Forget the Shattergates — that damage is already done.

“What opportunity do you mean?” Calabos said.

The opaque face turned to look down at him and its appearance changed, losing some of its female character and becoming more male. Was this why the Daemonkind chieftains called it the Sleeping God, he wondered, rather than Goddess?

The deliverance of the Prince of Change.

There was a stunned silence. Calabos knew that the Prince of Change was a mythic figure central to the prophecies proclaimed by the Sleeping God to the first exile captains of the Daemonkind.

“And who is he?” he said, fervently hoping that it was not himself.

The unfathomable eyes regarded him.

You know him well….Corlek Ondene is his name.

There were sighs, quietly excited mutters.

“He has been utterly possessed by fragment of the Lord of Twilight,” Calabos said. “Jumil has used him as a vessel for all those spirit-wraiths which have found some kind of unity. We cannot be certain that anything of Ondene remains….”

Coireg smiled sadly at him. “It’s not impossible, Calabos. I was locked away in my own mind by usurping spirits during the Shadowking war, yet I survived.”

Not even I am able to perceive all ends, thus the identity of the Prince of Change was hidden from me until very recently. Now I am certain — I have seen the branching possibilities….

Calabos remained unconvinced.

“Yet this is not simply Corlek Ondene who we must capture but a Shadowking, a living piece of the Lord of Twilight — he can tap into powers that dwarf ours.”

I had thought you more dauntless than this, poet. With the aid of guile and potion concocted for your friend here, might not you be able to subdue a deranged god’s remnant?

Calabos was about further pursue that line of query when Qothan spoke.

“Your pardon, divinity, but will the calmative elixir have the desired effect? Our friend Coireg suffers from a deep schism of the mind whereas Captain Ondene has been wholly possessed by a hostile spirit.”

The god-face turned to look down at him.

The potion suppresses those flaws in the mind that disturb or run counter to its natural balance, be they caused by an underlying schism or an intruding spirit. The principle is the same although the man Ondene may require a more concentrated dose.

Qothan nodded thoughtfully, but Calabos regarded the godlike manifestation above them with growing resentment. Coireg’s proposal may have been impulsive and angry but at least it had the merit of being directly concerned with the person who lay at the root of the entire crisis, Jumil. He could see that Agasklin also harboured doubts from the sombre frown creasing his brow, yet he seemed reluctant to speak. So Calabos decided to voice his own.

“I feel compelled, divine one, to ask you this — assuming that we successfully entrap Ondene and subdue the Shadowking within him, what do we do with him?”

The great face altered as it looked back at him, blurring oddly between male and female. Then, unexpectedly, a cold smile passed across its features.

I want the man Ondene brought to my island Nydratha, to me, and if you accompany him, Calabos, you will learn much that has been hidden from you.
The face of the Sleeping God surveyed all present.
Know that this man Ondene is the key to a final triumph over the deathly shadow which has marred the essence of this world down all the long ages. I ask you for your trust and for every last shred of resolve and audacity that you can muster — I shall await you at Nydratha, amid its storm.

With that the god-face closed its pale, translucent eyes and sank back into the grey, glassy foliage which in turn folded in on itself until there was only a swirl of ashen haze fading above their heads. As assenting voices rose all about them, Calabos looked over to see Coireg gazing at him.

“What will you do?” he said.

Calabos shook his head. “Should we resign ourselves to the plans of gods? — should I?”

But after half an hour of intense discussion with Agasklin and Qothan and others, Calabos found that only he was left playing the role of skeptic, for the Sleeping God had persuaded the captains of both ships and their chieftains. Agasklin and Qothan then did their utmost to convince Calabos that the Sleeping God’s demand was worth pursuing, but in the end it the prospect of freeing Corlek Ondene from a harsh domination that swayed him. As well as the Sleeping God’s hint of answers to mysteries.

Such that after much further argument and planning Calabos found himself in the company of Qothan and seven other Daemonkind crew from the Stormclaw as they descend the gantry to the quayside under a leaden sky. His frame of mind was a mixture of trepidation and wry humour at the irony of the role he would soon be playing, that of the bait. True, he had himself suggested this is a ploy to draw the Ondene-Shadowking out of Hojamar Keep but he had half-expected that another scheme would be adopted.

Coireg Mazaret had been appalled but when it came apparent that no other equally plausible or workable plan was on the table, he withdrew his objections. As Calabos stepped onto the quayside he glanced back to see his friend watching him from the main deck, standing alongside Agasklin. Hands were raised in farewell and Calabos strode off, lengthening his pace to keep up with Qothan and the others, most of whom were carrying long, cloth-wrapped bundles slung over their shoulders. During their earlier discussions, the tall outrider had hinted at some kind of sorcerous veil that would allow them to travel into the centre of the city undetected. Now, as Calabos followed the Daemonkind up from the wharves, uphill past the godowns, smokeries and livestock pens, his curiosity began to gnaw at him. When Qothan led them into a wooded bluff off the main road curiosity was fast becoming puzzlement. Puzzlement turned into confusion when Qothan halted in a small clearing where his companions unpacked their bundles and began to assemble a small platform on the grassy ground.

Calabos could not help smiling as he said, “An interesting place, friend Qothan, but what is our purpose, here?”

Qothan did not smile, instead picking out a few articles of clothing from one of the unpacked bundles, a heavy woollen cloak, holed in places and fraying along its edge, and a pair of furlined boots.

“You will need these, ser Calabos,” he said, holding them out.

“In summer?” Calabos said. “Even as mild a one as this?”

“Be assured, you will have need of them.”

A glance around him showed that the others looked intently serious —
Do these Daemonkind have a sense of humour
? he wondered, then decided that there was no trace of it here. He shrugged, accepted the garments and put them on. Quite quickly he could feel himself starting to sweat.

Moments later the platform was finished, consisting of not much more than a couple of yard-long planks atop an iron framework about two feet high. It creaked as Qothan stepped up onto it then beckoned Calabos to do the same, giving him a hand up as he did so. Qothan then regarded his fellow crewmen.

“Have a care as you approach the vicinity of the keep, brothers. When the moment for you to descend comes, our signal will be unmistakeable.” Then he turned to Calabos. “Ser, now you must close your eyes and bend your knees a little.”

“Is this the sorcerous veil you mentioned?” Calabos said. “What does it do?”

Qothan’s voice, like his grip on Calabos’ arm, was iron.

“It takes us into the pit of Time. Now, close your eyes….”

Calabos squeezed shut his eyes and almost at once felt a knot of nausea start to uncoil in his vitals. He suppressed the discomfort but it changed into a feeling of dizzy hollowness which surged slowly up into his chest. Qothan’s hand was still tight on his upper arm but his legs felt rubbery and in his effort to keep his equilibrium his eyes cracked open….

A dark vista of rushing vastness flew towards him and away from him and around him, from the height of a hundred sheer mountain faces to the plunging, abyssal depths of a thousand oceans piled one upon another. An instant of shattering immensity, and in the next instant it parted and poured away, dissolving into dazzling whiteness.

And a startling jolt in his legs as he fell a short distance onto softness, white, cold softness…

“Snow,” he muttered.

“Indeed, ser Calabos,” came Qothan’s deep voice as he helped Calabos to his feet. Calabos blinked as the whiteness began to blur into shadowy shapes, then swiftly recalled the thought-canto Cleareye and applied its restorative quality to himself. At once his vision sprang into focus, revealing that he stood in the same bluff as before, except that the bushes were many and the trees were few, and all were leafless, spidery and smothered in snow. An icy peace held sway and it was near sundown, yet the light was evenly suffused beneath a blue-grey sky.

“We’re still in Sejeend,” he said. “But not our Sejeend…and its winter.”

“Very good, ser,” Qothan said. “Captain Ondene took much longer to reach that assessment. Now come — we must make haste, for when we left our time, I heard from Agasklin that Jumil and Vorik have been seen departing the Keep.”

So saying, he set off down the snowy slope towards the centre of Sejeend. Wrapping the heavy cloak tighter against the needling cold, Calabos plunged after him, his mind full to bursting with questions. As they made their way along the deserted bay road, past a few fisher huts and their flimsy jetties, he managed to glean a few meagre snippets of knowledge from the big outrider. Yes, this was how Ondene had been spirited away from the courtyard; yes, this was the past….yet it was not. The Daemonkind exiles had been severed forever from returning to their shattered realm, and it had been some time before any had the courage or despair to attempt it. It was two malfeasors who had done so, but this had been at sea, and neither of them returned. Only after the exiles’ ships had returned to these waters did some other daring crewmember try to cross over to their ancestral home…and found himself in this snowbound world.

“Yet it is a world that seems locked in its time — whenever we come here it is alway winter, always the same day, and our presence here is always limited,” Qothan said as they trudged up a road where carts and horses had turned the snow into slush. “After about an hour we will be pulled back to the world of our time, like bubbles returning inevitably to the surface — although we can also cause the return voluntarily. When that happens, I plan for you to be very close to Hojamar Keep….”

“Which should be enough to get the Shadowking’s attention,” Calabos said with a smile. “I wondered how we were going to do that.”

“Once he knows of your presence,” Qothan went on, “it wil be up to you to find a way of tricking him down from the Keep and outside its perimeter wall. Once that is accomplished, my brothers and I will finish the task.”

Which meant, Calabos knew, bringing him back here. “I just hope that he is surprised and confused enough for you to administer the potion. But tell me, does this time-journeying not lead to you encountering yourselves or others?”

“Never,” said Qothan. “Once we return to our time, all trace of our presence here is erased, which leads to the conclusion that if this is a real point in the past then it is also some kind of pocket into which we can repeatedly delve. Perhaps further time-walking undertaken in other locations will reveal more about this anomaly, but for now we shall put it to good use.”

Before long they came to the rough wall that marked the boundary of this historical Sejeend, less a city than a town and military garrison. The crumbling arched gate was unmanned and as they made their way up through the snow streets, Calabos noticed between the buildings a procession of refugees crossing a bridge across the Valewater estuary north of the town. Further, they came within sight of the great cliffs but only dense woods were visible along the top of them. The formidable edifice of Hojamar Keep still dominated the town, however, although the courtyard wall was lower than Calabos knew. Guards stood sentry in squat, timber towers either side of the courtyard gates, yawning white breath in the deepening cold. Qothan steered Calabos along a slush-choked cobbled pavement across the square outside the gates before halting by a narrow, flagstoned passageway.