Shadowmasque (40 page)

“This part of the road actually remains unchanged for the next 300 years,” Qothan said. “When I leave your side and walk away, you will be pulled back to our time and the Shadowking will become aware of you. Have you thought about what to say?”

Calabos stroked his chin. “Any workable deceit demands the inclusion of something true — I will tell who I was and offer to meet him, perhaps claim to have knowledge that he lack.”

The tall outrider cracked a thin smile. “Good — by the time he reaches you, the rest of us will be moving in.” He turned and began to walk away, back up to the main road, pausing at the corner to say, “And ser Calabos — keep your eyes closed.” Then he was gone from sight, leaving behind only drifting wisps of his breath.

Almost immediately Calabos felt the start of the same nausea surge as before, only this time he had a stone wall to lean against as he closed his eyes tightly. After another drawn-out succession of delirium-provoking physical sensations, his body calmed itself, all agitation dissolving into the pulse of breathing and the blood in his veins. He opened his eyes on an empty street bare of snow and slush, and an early morning sky brightening from the east. He let out the breath he had been holding in a long, relieved sigh and started back up to the main road.

In the few moment it took him to ge there, his undersenses told him that a powerful regard had narrowed and focussed upon him. Once round the corner and looking across at the keep, he composed his mind and marshalled his thoughts, then channelled his words into farspeech.

Greetings, friend.

There were impressions of arrogance and disdain. (
Who are you? This is my domain — what are you doing here?
)

I was once like the one who carries you — I too once played host to the might of a god.

Shock mingled with a craving for knowledge, then doubt and hate. (
Lies! You stink of lies! What could you know of this glory?
)

Calabos paused a moment then said,

Byrnak was my name when I and my brothers held all these lands in thrall. Look within — you will see that it is true.

The craving returned, and a new wariness. (
Parts of me know that name — we — I remember it….
)

But how much do you remember?

(
Not nearly enough! They are keeping secrets from me, those vermin — I must know more!
)

Calabos inserted a degree of humorous contempt —
Meet me face to face down here and perhaps I will be able to fill the gaps in your knowledge. And waste no time — I’m a busy man.

And he broke the link, shielding his thoughts against the rage-fuelled probing brought on by his final remarks. Then it ceased abruptly, leaving him alone at the street corner, leaning against the stonework as he gazed across at the Keep’s tall courtyard wall. All was peaceful in the brightening morning light with only a few people visible over by some shopfronts and a barrel wagon crossing a junction further along. Then suddenly he was aware of someone approaching and looked over to see a cloaked man striding towards him from the direction of the Keep. It was Corlek Ondene and Calabos felt his spirits rise a little, for all that he knew that other intelligence was enthroned in that form.

As he drew near, Calabos could see the smouldering fury in the face and the clenched fists swinging by his side, and realised what danger he was in. He could feel the man’s intense focus of Wellsource power through his undersenses and for a moment he wished he had the sword of powers with him. But no, freeing the Shadowking from Ondene’s body would only make matters worse — now was the time to rely on his own wits and hope that Qothan and the other Daemonkind would be timely.

The Ondene-Shadowking came to a halt a couple of yards away and sneered.

“How can an old man have been the host of the Gre Lord?”

Calabos smiled, shook his head. “Looks are deceptive — this appearance is a convenience, nothing more. And I was host to only a fifth of the Lord of Twilight, which is still a greater fraction that the remnant that you are.”

A sullen anger showed in Ondene’s face as he glanced down at the rest of the city and the lands beyond. “This is true — I can feel other parts of him, of me out there, killing, stealing, maiming, burning. If they were with me, I would have the strength to master that toad, Jumil.”

“You said he keeps secrets from you,” Calabos said.

“Yes, like the true nature of this Great Shadow,” the Shadowking said, scowling. “Is he just another fragment, like that pirate Bureng? Why should I bend the kneee and follow his orders? When I find a way to this Nightrealm of his, I think I’ll just kill him and add his fragment to my own.” He looked round at Calabos with a malign glee in his features. “Yes, that sounds like a worthwhile goal.”

“And a dangerous one,” Calabos added, wishing that Qothan would arrive. “Would you be strong enough?”

“Strength is important” the Shadowking conceded. “But so is mastery of technique. And when I look at you, Byrnak, I see that you are an adept of the Lesser Power and that not a gleam of the Wellsource resides in you. Yet I can feel where it once was and I can feel how your blood and your bones still hungr for runs freely through my flesh. But I am here to take, not to give…” Somehow, he was now just a foot or two away as he reached out towards Calabos’ throat. “Willingly or not, you will yield up to me everything you know, every skill, every trick, every twist, every morsel of understanding in the usages of power, and maybe then -”

He never finished the sentence as a dark shape swept in from one side and fell on him. There was a bellow of rage followed closely by a sudden flare of emerald fire from the Shadowking’s hands as they tightened around his assailant’s neck. Calabos had staggered back against the nearby building and recognise the battling attacker as one of the Daemonkind outriders. His hair was beginning to smoke within the wreath of green fire and the Shadowking was grinning when the second outrider joined the fray, then a third and a fourth.

And in from the left rushed Qothan, one hand gripping a clay vial which Calabos knew had to contain the mind calmative.

“Later at the ship!” was all Qothan said to Calabos before he reached into the struggling, grunting knot of bodies and grabbed one of the Ondene-Shadowking’s arms.

There was an instant of blurred multiple images, then they were gone. Calabos, his pulse racing, stared at the vacant spot for a moment or two then looked up to see guards hurrying over from the keep. Deciding that no explanation was likely to stop him being arrested, he quickly strode to the corner and headed down the side road, then ducked along a shady alley, seeking a labyrinthine way back to the quays.

* * *

It was a darkness of the mind so complete that it had no boundaries while giving no room for thoughts. Corlek Ondene could only feel not think in the smothering, limitless pit into the usurping Shadowking had thrust him. From time to time he was aware that events were taking place but the only signs of these were far-off roars of triumph or rage and the thin whispering of many voices that came and went like fitful breezes crossing a desolation.

He had gone through anger and hate repeatedly, cycling back into self-pity and quivering fear although fear seemed to have less of a hold now. Without limbs and a body, the sensations of touch, smell and taste, there seemed to be few prompts for chaotic terror.

Until change came. First he heard the great roars, like gigantic beasts defying each other from the peaks of mountains. After a little of this, they fell silent for a short while before beginning again, an insistent yet distant bellowing that grew gleeful and decisive…then erupted into a shattering cacophony of enraged howling. Fear did grip Ondene then and he seemed to feel a tremble pass through the imprisoning darkness. And despite the pandemonium he could still hear the many whispering voices, only now they were growing into mutters.

Then a sensation welled up to take him by surprise, a feeling of falling which turned into flying then rising….

Then the darkness began to take on texture and solidity —

And a swirl of sounds —

And a patchwork of hot and cold —

And a veil of odours —

And the ungainly, jointed bonework of a body —

And then the darkness itself began to leach away, pursued by the cloud of muttering voices and for moment it seemed that the great shadowy murk would break apart. But it stayed whole as it sank beyond the horizon of Ondene’s expanding perceptions.

Which rose into the soft light of evening and the cold ground on which he lay and the looming shapes of figures gathered around him. The icy air in his lungs he savoured, along with the wetness seeping into his clothes and the cries of stallowners somewhere along the street. As he struggled to sit up, hands grabbed his shoulder and arms and lent him support. Coughing on a rawness in his throat, he looked round to see who his helpers were, saw it was Qothan and others like him, and began to laugh. Qothan, who was holding a lidless grey vial in his other hand, glanced up at his companions for a moment, then smiled faintly.

“Are you well, ser Ondene?” he said.

“Never better, Qothan, my friend!” He noticed more about the others present and the surroundings, then realised where he was and grinned. “Are you about to tell me that we’ve got to get down to the docks and without delay?”

Qothan stood and helped him to his feet.

“An accurate guess, Captain.”

“Good — give us a chance to swap tales, eh?”

“Perhaps later,” the tall man said. “The first thing you must understand is how to cope with the passenger which you have in your head.”

Ondene’s smile faltered. “That thing….is still there?”

Qothan nodded. “Suppressed by an elixir which I managed to force down his throat,. But come — there will be time enough for details as we go.”

Ondene could only feel a hollow dread as they began walking, as well as a host of minor aches and bruises. As he rubbed his neck he said, “It is your ship we’re returning to, yes?”

“Yes — my captain is keen to speak with you, as is Beltran Calabos.”

That has an ominous ring to it,
he thought as he followed Qothan along the northerly road.
Could there be, I wonder, more risk and peril awaiting me?

We sail through the icy dark,
Towards a shore of death and blood,
Where dream armies of ironclad pain,
Fight and fall and rise to fight again.

—Eshen Caredu,
Storm Voyage
, ch5

Smooth and unbroken, the grey seeding shroud lay evenly in a ragged oval across the hall. From where he stood, near the centre, Jumil looked on with satisfaction as a pillar, its base eaten away, cracked loose from the ornate ceiling and toppled to crash onto the shroud. It smashed into several pieces which quickly vanished under a surge of grey as the shroud consumed them. Meanwhile, plaster and mortar was spilling from one of the walls as the shroud’s edge nibbled at it, a precursor to the slowly widening hole in the wall opposite.

Cracks were starting to appear in the painted, gilded and mirrored ceiling and with increasing frequency shard of golden plaster and silvered glass fell in glittering cascades that were swiftly swallowe by the greyness. Soon, the ceiling would give way and when one of the supporting walls was gone a great collapse would begin and spread further out, bringing down more and more of the palace.

About which Jumil was unconcerned, for it was all part of his master’s plan to join this realm to his own, to bridge the great abyss, to finally right the ancient wrong, invincibly, indivisibly, irrevocably.

On the spot where he stood, not far from the featureless mound in the middle, the substance of the shroud was only a hard grey surface beneath his shoes. But there was another figure upon the shroud, cloaked head to foot in its greyness, meandering to and fro, trudging nonstop around the shroud’s perimeter. Jumil smiled to see Vorik’s torment, especially whenever he scowled or mouthed imprecations or shook a clenched grey fist in his direction. His former mainstay had conspired with a member of his own flock to confound the consequences of the Shatterseed ritual by switching the amulet and employing cantrips cribbed from some of Jumil’s own notebooks. But because the fool did not understand the very spells he was using, he ended up trapped in the seeding shroud anyway. He seemed to have considerable autonomy within its boundaries for now but sooner or later, Jumil surmised, he was be wholly devoured by it.

Yet Vorik was only a minor distraction — Jumil’s attention was actually divided into five, his senses taking in sights and sounds from the other four Shattergate locations as well as this one. From Adnagaur and Oumetra came images of guards patrolling the surroundings of the grey shroud, in both cases amid areas of closely-built houses and warehouses, the former amid gloomy mist, the latter under bright sunshine. In Alvergost the ruined citadel in the far south of Khatris, rain was falling on the seeding shroud which had gnawed its way past the confines of a tumbledown house and was already demolishing those around it while a ragged crowd gazed fearfully from flimsy shelters.

In Besh-Darok he caught glimpses of the Mogaun he had noticed earlier, a peculiar development coming so soon after those four intrusive ghost-things which he had ruthlessly dealt with, obliterating all but one of them. But these Mogaun — he was sure that they were shamen from the slightness of their stature and from their apparent ability to know when he was watching, resulting in a brisk scurrying out of sight. Were they taking part in the pilgrimage to the Carver’s shrine, or were they perhaps members of some chief’s retinue? But if that were so, why were they still nearby?

Then he smiled to himself, secure in the knowledge that nothing they were capable of doing could stop or slow the inevitable adance of the seeding shrouds. Indeed, before long he would be ready to commence the next stage of the shatterseed ritual which would allow the shrouds to expand at a faster rate. Seizing a greater breadth of territory, along with all that it held, would provide all the raw matter necessary for the correct forming of the Shattergates and once they were complete, the conquest could truly begin.