The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (3 page)

“You are both certain that you have never seen or touched this paper before?”

Both shook their heads in vigorous denial, and the bolder said; “No, Deus. Never.”

Narak smiled at them. “Thank you, I believe you” he said, and turned to Poor. “Please bring the main meal now. We will dine immediately.”

Poor chased the girls out of the door.

“They told the truth,” Caster said, sitting down. “But if they told the truth, then how did the note come to be on your table?”

“I must think on it,” Narak said.

The food arrived, hot and aromatic, filling the lair with savoury invitations. The girls who brought it, the same two, placed it on the table before Narak on two chargers with due deference, and then withdrew. He nodded and smiled to let them know that they were still in his favour, though his mind was working all the while.

The message itself disturbed him. Dogs were his only eyes in the cities, and only once before had they been slaughtered in numbers. By Seth Yarra. In Afael.

Who? That was what bothered him most. Someone had known the exact moment to place the parchment there, between the serving girls leaving and Narak entering the room, and they had wanted him to know that they knew, that they could see into Wolfguard and knew when the room was unattended. It was an intrusion into his most private space.

It could have been a mage. Mages of several kinds could work such a trick, but the timing would be beyond most. The matter of the script, however, persuaded him otherwise. He suspected the Bren. If he was right, if Pelion’s children were sending him notes, then it was a grave matter indeed.

Narak was hungry. He forced himself to eat, but the food gave him no pleasure. His appetite was blunted by a deep sense of foreboding that he could not shake.

Conversation during their meal was desultory. He was not good company tonight and time after time he found himself slipping into silence, his eyes fixed on some point not within the room, his knife hanging lose in his hand. Caster did his best to keep the mood light, but all too often he stared wordlessly at Narak, unable to discover a phrase for the moment. He was too old a comrade not to feel the worry that troubled the wolf god.

The atmosphere grew so thick with unspoken words that Narak could not bear it.

“I am distracted, Caster,” he said. “There are things that I must do, and I fear to delay too long. Please stay and enjoy what you can.”

Having excused himself he went out, passing Poor in the corridor. The steward was startled to see him so soon. It was Narak’s custom to make an evening of it when he returned from the forest, but tonight he could not. He climbed the short slope to his private study.

Narak loved this room. He lit the lamps and closed the door, taking the time to appreciate it all over again. It housed his books, his favoured chair, and mementoes of a long life. He ran a hand along the leather spines of the collected volumes, sat in the chair. It was a large brown leather piece that he had purchased a couple of centuries ago from a craftsman in Telas Alt. It was not pretty, but it was probably the most comfortable chair ever devised, and cradled him like no other.

He sat quietly and closed his eyes. His breathing slowed and he repeated the chant taught to him long ago by Pelion himself.

Petan Shafal Ah. Petan Shafal Ah.

The chant meant nothing. Pelion had told him that it meant nothing, but it took the place of thought, allowed him to focus more easily on his breathing, to send the world away for a while.

He unleashed his aspect, became the god. It was as though he had been bound in a mirror, and now was released. He was both the man and the wolf, retained his clarity of thought and gained his wolf hearing, nose and sight. He felt free and powerful within himself, looking at the darkness behind his eyes with something that was not an eye, and what it saw was not light, but something else.

He was in the Sirash.

Narak had tried to describe the Sirash to Caster, and to others. Even his fellows of the Benetheon did not share the experience well. It was like swimming, and like flying, but unlike either. He saw nothing, but there were lights there – lights that were not lights, and currents, and slopes, and it felt like oil. He had no presence, but he was anywhere he wished to be.

Drifting allowed him to gain control. Like everything else in the Sirash it was the opposite of what it seemed. When he was accustomed to the movement he glided over the top of it, imposing himself on the tides, riding them. He found a wolf, a welcoming spark of consciousness, and settled for a moment behind its eyes. It was in woodland close to the edge of the great forest. He turned and looked down through the thinning trees at tilled fields; a bonfire pushed a tower of smoke into still air. The sharpness of the wood smoke came to him through the wolf. He saw a haystack, a house in the distance with a small courtyard, surrounded by green fruit trees. This was Berash.

He released the wolf and moved again. Navigating through the darkness was a skill, and he was rusty. He moved what he thought was east, towards Bas Erinor, and touched another wolf. Now he saw the slopes of the Dragon’s Back, huge mountains topped with snow and ice. The wind was blowing chill and the pack was on the scent of an elk. This was further west. A mistake. He moved again, slipping a greater distance through the darkness and came across another mind, dimmer, smaller. A dog. He touched it and saw a street that needed cleaning, piled with garbage. He smelled food, human food past eating, but it smelled good. He had no control over the beast, and as much as he wanted it to do other things, to explore more populated streets, the dog carried on with its business, unaware.

This was Bas Erinor, he was certain. The glimpses he caught when the dog looked up were enough. The style of the buildings was Avilian, and the street sloped up to a great dark mass which he assumed was the city of the gods. Not much seemed to be wrong here, but how could he tell?

A burst of light and noise sent the dog running the other way, a glance back showing an open door, a square of lamplight spilling out into the street. He heard voices, but not words. The dog stopped when the door closed and looked back, staying still for a while, gauging the danger, the apprehension of which diminished steadily as the darkness continued to hold sway. It walked carefully back towards the door. There was a new smell of food here.

The dog bent its head and sniffed at what had been thrown out. There was gravy, a smear, and a few scraps of pastry. Its tongue flicked out and they were gone, barely tasted. The dog looked up again, left, right. It trotted a drunken path down the street, following any hint that food might lie among the rubbish.

Narak stayed with the dog for a while. It was mildly interesting to see how it differed from a wolf. It behaved with the caution of a prey animal, eating on the run, watching for danger even as it bent its head to feed.

It came to the end of the street and paused. There was another dark alley, but to get to it the dog would have to cross a larger road. As it looked about Narak was able to see quite a few people. Several men were unloading a cart outside a tavern, man-handling barrels down through a trap into the basement. He could hear their voices clearly, speaking Avilian. One of them was talking about his wedding, asking the older men questions.

“Once you’re married don’t spare your fists,” one of them was saying. “Make sure she knows what to expect if she gets out of line.”

“You’re a bastard, Tegal,” one of the others said. “You hit your wife and all you get is a surly servant, and if she has brothers, well, you might get your own remedy back.”

“What would you know?” the one called Tegal demanded. He stood up and eased his broad shoulders. He had a brutal, scarred face. A man used to fighting, Narak judged, a thug who spoke with his fists.

“I’ve had more joy out of my marriage than you ever had of yours,” the other retorted.

“Joy.” Tegal spat. “What are you, a fucking poet?”

This was the moment that the dog chose to bolt across the road. It paused and looked again just before the cloak of shadows, listening to the sound of the voices. A shout brought the animal’s head round a half circle. It crouched lower, tense with alarm. There were men there, too, running up the street, one fitting an arrow to a bow. The animal could not recognise the actions, but the running and the noise was a threat, so it turned and ran into the alley, stopping after twenty yards or so to see if the threat was gone.

The men, there were four of them, stopped at the junction and one of them struggled to light a lamp. The man with the bow raised it and an arrow clattered off the cobbles a few feet from where the dog stood and shot off down the dark alley. The dog turned and ran again.

That was enough for Narak. What the note had said was true. They, whoever they might be, were killing dogs in Bas Erinor. He did not think that he would learn more by witnessing the dog’s death or escape. Being inside a dying animal was not something that he wanted to repeat too often. It was unpleasant. He left the dog.

He inhabited the Sirash again. What now? It still meant very little, but if it meant anything at all it was that someone had sought to warn him, to tell him. He could see no way past that. The warning leant gravity to the fact.

The four men had not been very effective. They had not been in uniform. In fact he could not see a point to the other two. The archer, yes, and the man with the lamp perhaps, but the others were just hangers-on. You’d be hard pressed to catch a dog with a knife, or to run it down on foot. These were not members of the city guard, then. Nor were they soldiers of the Duke’s. Not unless things had fallen away very badly.

He could warn the others. But warn them of what? Did he dare cry Seth Yarra on the basis of a few ragged men hunting dogs at night in Bas Erinor? No. On the basis of the warning, then? Perhaps, but he knew that most of the Benetheon would not be inclined to credit such paper thin tales. Yet it had been Seth Yarra who had killed dogs before, so long ago in Afael.

He reached out to Beloff. Of all the Benetheon the Bear was closest to him. They had both fought alongside Remard in the last war, had fought back to back in the streets of Afael. There was a bond between them, and he trusted it.

It was like touching someone on the shoulder. He had experienced it himself many times, a touch inside the mind, a knock on the inner door.

“What?” It was Beloff, suddenly a presence in the Sirash, riding in on the connection that Narak had developed. “Narak?” He was aware of the bear’s essence, a hairy, massive strength.

“Yes.”

“What do you want? I’m busy.”

Narak couldn’t see out through Beloff. The Bear was closed to him, an equal. He wondered what Beloff was doing.

“I am concerned,” he said. He explained about the note, about his experience with the dog in Bas Erinor. He mentioned Seth Yarra.

“You think?” Beloff sounded sceptical.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I will send out agents. Have you noticed anything unusual?”

Beloff snorted; a difficult thing to achieve in the Sirash. “Bears see nothing,” he said. “Wolves see almost nothing. You need to talk to the Sparrow.”

“No. You know I cannot.”

“Don’t be such a puppy,” Beloff was scornful. “She is the one you need to speak to.”

Narak said nothing. It was a subject that left him without words.

“You know what needs to be done. Do it.” Beloff finished and abruptly withdrew leaving Narak alone in the Sirash.

The Lover’s Revenge

The Great War echoes down our history like a beating drum. Every child knows tales of Fox Remard, and his name is heard often on their innocent tongues, for he is the hero, the general, the unblemished genius who won the war.

Not so many speak of Wolf Narak, the Victor of Afael, The Bloodstained God. Narak is a darker power, a mighty warrior, certainly, and a hero, yes, but perhaps not for the reasons that drove Remard.

Ancient scripts claim that Narak and Passerina were lovers, and that when he was spurned by her Narak plotted his revenge. Was it a coincidence that Passerina’s new lover, the fabled King Alaran, was slain in the war? And it also seems startlingly coincidental that Remard was slain on the eve of the allies’ entry into Afael City, giving Narak full control of the allied armies, allowing him to butcher at will on the final day.

History is kind to Narak. It lays his excesses at grief’s door and claims that he was Remard’s equal, his brother, his friend.

I will suggest a different interpretation. I will ask the questions that no other dares to ask.

Was this war indeed the culmination of Narak’s revenge? Did Narak slay his own friend to complete his diabolical plan?

With evidence taken from ancient documents not seen since the Great War itself I will show that it is so…

Extract from The Secrets of The Bloodstained God

By Coltan Faroo

Popular Author, Avilian.