The Malice
Authors: Peter Newman
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
Published by Harper
Voyager
2016
An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
Copyright © Peter Newman 2016
Peter Newman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Source ISBN: 9780007593163
Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007593187
Version: 2016-03-11
For Daniel
Table of Contents
In the south, the Breach stirs.
For over a thousand years it has grown. Slowly at first, a hidden cancer under the skin of the earth, a hairline crack exhaling alien wisps, disturbing yet harmless. But beneath the surface, pressure grows until the crack becomes an opening, and the opening splits wide, a gaping womb, a wound in the world, erupting.
Infernals pour forth, shapeless nightmares that slaughter their way into reality, inhabiting the bodies of the fallen and mutating them, taking the natural order and tainting it, corrupting plants, animals, even the air itself.
As the infernals take on physical form, they find identities and names: greatest of them is the monstrous Usurper, who raises itself to power by force of will, who strikes down Gamma of The Seven and breaks her armies. It is the Usurper who heralds the end of hope and the retreat of humanity’s influence.
But Gamma’s living sword is not destroyed and its continued presence nags at the marks left on the Usurper’s essence, festering, weakening. The Usurper sends its horde in search of the sword, named Malice by the infernals, but their efforts fail. A man takes the sword from them, and in time its power topples the Usurper and a kind of peace returns. Not true peace, too much is broken for the world to simply recover. This is merely a pause, a holding of breath. It is but a temporary thing. For in the south, the Breach stirs.
*
On the other side of the world a man stands by a window, his amber eyes intent on a small figure outside. Her name is Vesper. She is doing nothing of note and yet the man smiles as he watches her, her very existence comforting, warming like the suns.
For a long time he was alone and lost, a vagrant. Now he has a home, a family and more goats than he knows what to do with. It is a good life.
And yet lately a shadow seems to loom around the corner, a hint of coming disquiet. His home is built outside the Shining City, a step removed from people and politics and the expectations of others. News has to battle to get to his door. This is no accident.
Behind him, the sword begins to tremble, rocking back and forth, folded wings tip-tapping on the wall, but the eye remains closed. For years it has slept, deeply, peacefully, a quiet companion.
He turns to it, a smile sliding from his face. Absently, he scratches at old scars, on his thigh, his face, the side of his head. It has taken years to heal. Years of gentle work to make a new life, a safe space for those he loves.
His attention goes back to Vesper, who chats idly with the goats. Slowly, he returns to work but the tapping of the sword continues, like a thorn in his boot, needling, never quite out of mind. Lips form a line. At his sides, fists clench.
The sword is taken to his room, the door shut.
It is not enough.
He wraps the sword, making a thick bed of fabric for it, muffling the sounds it makes.
It is not enough.
Though it no longer bumps against the wall, the sword’s unease comes out in half-made notes, little things that catch on the edges of his soul.
He finds himself standing at the door, staring, one hand starting to open it, to reach out to the sleeping sword. It would be a small matter to lift it, to wake it once more, to …
‘What are you doing?’
He starts, turns to find Vesper standing there, face bright. With her, every day is a marvel. How tall she has become! How reminiscent of her mother.
Her head tilts to one side, trying to see past him. ‘What are you doing?’
He musters a half-smile, shrugs.
‘Are you okay?’
He nods.
‘What’s in there? I thought I heard a noise. Can I have a look? Is it an animal? It sounded unhappy. Can I see?’
He waves the questions away and puts a gentle hand on her shoulder, moving away from the room and taking her with him.
Later, when other distractions have led the girl away, he returns to the room with tougher materials and a box.
But it is not enough.
*
Twenty years have passed since the first wave of infernals came into being but the Breach has not ceased. A steady trickle of twisted creatures has dribbled from it, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs, occasionally in gluts, but always, always, it grows; by inches, getting a little bigger, convulsing, then stretching again.
For eleven of these years, Samael has watched.
He stands on a rusting hill. Once a snake of mechanised metal, now a monument to things forgotten. Beneath his feet native moss does battle with tainted strains. Spongy carpets, yellow and brown, spreading with intent. Samael does not notice, his attention is on the Breach. He first came here on impulse. Drawn by voices he couldn’t quite hear, buried deep within his essence. He likes his impulses, just as he likes his habits. They give him direction.
It is twelve years since his second birth, since he was taken from his life on the sea, and only his hair remains unchanged. Beneath his armour, Samael’s skin is bone white, fossilised into a mockery of cracked marble. Unlike the rest of him, his hair is full of life. He wears it tied up, a horses tail that flows from a slit in the top of his helmet. A vanity he knows his creator would disapprove of. The thought brings a shudder and a smile.
Of course, his creator, the commander, was destroyed by the Malice, along with the other Knights of Jade and Ash but that doesn’t stop Samael thinking about him. Or seeking approval. He wishes it were different.
The armour he wears is a collection of mismatched plates, dug up from the battlefield and roughly beaten into shape. The result is ugly and ill-fitting. It feels right. A second skin he has made for himself. Wearing it has become habitual. Of this at least, his creator would surely approve. He hopes so but cannot be sure. Since the commander’s sudden end, he has been left with freedom and too many questions.
A fresh wave of essence bubbles from the Breach. Once, the chasm could not be seen from this hill and a village stood between his vantage point and the great crack. The village is gone now, swallowed by the earth, sucked down to other unknowable realms, deep, beyond the Breach.
Samael does not know how he knows this, but he does. He remembers buildings, faces, their hope fading as he passes them, leaving them to die. This flash of memory that is both his and not his goes as quickly as it arrives, leaving behind a cauldron of unprocessed feelings.
Grudgingly, his mind returns to present.
This is where the demons find their way in. He cannot change what has been done to him, cannot stop the infernals further north from plaguing the world, but here, he can make a difference. Here, he can at least stem the tide.
Clouds of unborn essence begin to form on the Breach’s edge, along with a host of skittering, hungry scabs, the lowest of the infernals. The scabs spread out, hunting for food amidst the dirt. The unborn spirits search for a way into the world, needing host bodies if they are to remain.
Samael smiles, knowing they will fail.
The few remaining corpses he cleared years ago, those not already claimed as hosts, condemning any new infernal to haunt the Breach’s boundary, dissipating slowly, horrific concepts never finding expression.
He has watched this sight countless times but it never fails to please.
Something is different this time, however. A second wave of unborn clouds confirms it. His half-breed eyes read the patterns in their essences. They are desperate, yes, this is common, but the flavour of fear in their smoky swirls is new. It is not the hostile world they have arrived in that scares them most. It is something else. Something behind them.
They are running away.
A rumble passes through the earth, radiating outward until it shakes the metal hill. Samael throws his arms out, balancing, riding the shockwave until it has passed. Another rumble comes quickly, and the sound darkens the sky, essence spewing from the Breach, thick and black and purple.
Samael is thrown from the hill, landing heavily in the dirt. The half-breed pulls himself up quickly, untroubled by physical pains. The ground still shakes, constant now, as the Breach heaves, trying to dislodge its burden. Earth trembles, gives, and reality retreats a little further north.
The thing that emerges is too big, stretching through dimensions even Samael cannot see. It is both great and small, contained and limitless. But more than that, it has purpose. Without a host, without a birth, it exists.
The Yearning has come.
Samael does not need a second look, the first has already found a permanent place in his consciousness. He falls back on another old habit, and runs.
*
Far to the north, across the sea, in lands of waning green, lies the Shining City. An invisible field defines its boundary, tuned to the infernal taint, ready to burn. Within this field windows peek from grassy hillsides, hinting at the tunnels, pods and infrastructure hidden within. Pillars of silver punch towards the sky, landscaped gardens attached to their sides and tops. Within the circles of hills and spires is a grand open space. At its centre stands a set of steps, polished, dazzling. They climb fifty feet straight up, ending in nothing. A further twenty feet above the top step, a giant cube of metal floats, turning slowly, colossal, held by invisible strings.
The cube is packed full of secrets, with its own hierarchies and troubles, both above and beyond the world below.
At its heart is the sanctum of The Seven.
Even here, in this haven, miles from any infernal, they feel the quake. Even here, behind walls of denial and power, platinum and energy, the shift in earth and essence stirs them.
Alpha of The Seven is the first to wake. His eyes open, matchless orbs, sparkling with the wisdom of his maker and a thousand years’ experience. They sweep across five other alcoves, each a home, a tomb for the immortal within.
Heads turn slowly, moving to meet his gaze. Stone flakes fall from faces as they emerge once more, tentative.
No words are spoken, no songs are sung, not yet. Their power is there, waiting to be called but there lacks the will to call it.
Alpha feels the question in the eyes of his brothers and sisters. A new trouble has presented itself. They want to see his response. He flexes fingers, freeing them from their stony prison, and looks towards his sword. It is buried, a barely discernible lump, shrouded in grey rock. His siblings’ swords are no better, covered in tears of stone, wept in the years of grief.
It is time to take them up again.
Alpha lifts his hand and the others inhale together. Five hands tense, ready to take action.
An invisible force draws Alpha’s eyes to the third alcove, the empty one. Once their sister, Gamma, resided there. Now there is nothing.
She is lost to them.
Lost.
That which they thought immutable was brought low, broken by the Usurper’s power. If they go to war, will this new threat claim another? Even the idea is too much to bear.
Alpha stills his hand, lowers his head.
Five other hands relax and six minds retreat, returning to darkness and sweet oblivion.
A few miles away, hidden in darkness, wrapped in cloth, wrapped in wood, wrapped in dust, an eye opens.
*
A bird drifts in the sky, lazy. A worm dangles from its beak, frantic, hopeless. With a flap of wings, it ascends, riding the currents, spiralling around a great pillar. At the top sits a gleaming sky-ship and cradled within its turrets are a number of nests.
The nests should not be there. The workers should have scrubbed them away but there have been no inspections, not this year, nor the four before that. Nobody can see the top of the sky-ship from below, so the workers don’t clean them. An indulgence that goes unnoticed. There are others. Tiny flaws in the slowly rotting Empire of the Winged Eye.
Shrill voices penetrate the air, begging for food. The bird ignores them, moving towards its own offspring, letting the worm fall towards a trio of gaping beaks before diving away, carried by currents to new adventures.
Far below and several miles distant, a girl watches the bird through an old, battered scope. Her name is Vesper and her feet itch to travel to the pillar, her hands to climb it. But the pillar, along with everything else around the Shining City, is forbidden. They are but images, only dimly understood, no more real to her than Uncle Harm’s stories.
She tucks the scope into a pocket and looks around, seeking inspiration. None comes and her eyes go back to find the bird, staring enviously until the curved line becomes a black dot. Soon even this is gone. Without it, the sky appears blank, uninteresting.
Because she is young, because she is sheltered, because she is different, Vesper plays. She spreads her arms and runs, flapping them like a bird. Enthusiasm cannot defeat physics however and she remains earth bound, an amusement for the goats that crowd the fields.
She arrives at the border of her world, panting. No energy field prevents further travel, just a simple fence and the endless warnings of her family.
Vesper takes a step towards it. She does not need to fly to cross this obstacle. A glance over her shoulder stops the plan before it can form. Her father stands outside the house, amber eyes searching her out. Feigning innocence, Vesper raises her hand, waves. Her father’s hand calls her back towards home.
She loves her father and her Uncle more than words but sometimes she wishes they weren’t there. Not forever. Just for an hour, or an afternoon. As she trudges back up the hill, she imagines the glories such an afternoon might bring.
Before she gets back, however, an angry bleating demands her attention.
‘Here we go,’ mutters Vesper and starts to run.
The male goats follow her a few paces, then stop, knowing their place well.
At the top of the hill, next to her house is another, smaller one. Inside, offerings litter the floor, some barely recognizable remnants, others only half chewed. A mutigel cube has been spread thin across the floor, like a translucent pancake. A blanket partly covers it. The goat stands on top, unsteady, her belly swollen with young. Dark eyes regard Vesper bleakly as she arrives. The goat is old now, too old for such nonsense, yet it keeps happening. The goat is not sure who needs to be punished for the latest in a long line of pregnancies and so tends to bite at anybody stupid enough to get close.
