World's End (12 page)

Far Gaze had assumed the night's rest would do at least something to cure the men's anxieties, even when they rose to find Siel had fled. But rough hands lifted him to his feet and out of sleep, the blanket still wrapped about him. The circle of protection he'd cast about where he slept had evidently failed to take hold thanks to the polluted airs. A blade was at his throat, the point of another between his shoulders.

Sour morning breath poured over him. ‘Where is she?' someone demanded.

It was not yet light. ‘Who?' he said, yawning.

The hands gripping him clenched harder. ‘What do you mean
who
? How many women did we camp with? She's gone. A stallion with her.'

‘I see. Take me to the place the horse was tied. I may tell you more.' The hands released him.

Tauk was still a sleeping bundle near the dead campfire. His two men – Vade and Fithlim, if Far Gaze remembered their names right – put their weapons away but watched him closely while he crouched near the spot, closed his eyes, hummed and murmured, waved his hands in imitation of magic gestures. ‘Ah,' he said at last.

‘What have you learned?'

‘The winds, the very grass blades, tell me she has gone to the same place we go.'

One of the men, Vade, detected the faint sarcasm in his tone. He reached again for his weapon. ‘Why does she go there?'

‘I don't know.'

‘This wizard you claim is there. What does he look like? From where does he come?'

‘I don't know.'

‘But you are certain he exists?'

‘I am not certain I exist, let alone him.'

This brought weapons out of their sheaths again. But the mayor had woken and was now on his feet. The other two rushed over to tell him what had happened. All three looked at Far Gaze with renewed suspicion, but at least they put their swords away.

‘We depart,' Tauk called over. He said it like an edict from the gods, as if all Levaal depended on them packing their blankets and leaving this patch of grass now rather than in an hour's time. Far Gaze's lip curled, but he bowed low.

They'd put a mile behind them before day had whitened the sky, hooves thumping the road with a beat more urgent than yesterday's. Huge on the horizon loomed a stoneflesh giant, its torso twisting just slightly, perhaps to follow their passage. They were now near to those fields where a Tormentor had taken them by surprise in the night, and nearly killed Siel. The ruins of wagons and bodies both human and Tormentor littered the fields to both sides. What had happened to the humans was clear enough, but there was no indication at all of what had slain the Tormentors.

As if he could see Far Gaze's memory of Gorb blowing a
Tormentor apart with one of his guns, Tauk sat upright in his horse and cried in dismay: ‘The weapons! The giant's weapons! Inferno eat us all! We forgot to bring them!'

There was no going back, of course. The three men stayed quiet, allowing Far Gaze some welcome time for reflection. To his eye, heavy blows had slain the Tormentors along the road. The stoneflesh giants couldn't have done it – they moved too slowly and the racket would have been heard halfway across the world. There was no obvious sign on the ground of any struggle, nor had the airs any lingering effects from spell casting …

The strange southern land continued to reveal itself through coils of white mist. Here and there on its flat expanse were what may have been homes constructed within crescent shells of stone, their insides made of vines, ferns, flowers and hanging teardrop-shaped leaves, with ponds of clear water in the middle of their floors. If they were homes, there was no sight of who or what lived in them. The stone ocean they sat upon stretched as far as sight.

One of the men – Vade – cried out and drew his weapon. He pointed to the south, where in the mist they could make out people standing in a line of five, upon a wave-like rise in the stone desert's floor. ‘Them!' Vade screamed. He turned his horse, sword raised, and looked ready to charge over till Tauk snatched the reins from his hand.

‘Be still,' the mayor commanded.

All four of them stared at the new people. The new people stared back. They wore the same kind of brown-green robes as the earlier group, if indeed these weren't the same ones. Far Gaze raised an arm in greeting but got no response. A coil of mist rose about them, veiling them from view. When it settled the new people could not be seen.

Fithlim waved his sword, stared about them, screamed, ‘They're here!'

Tauk drew his own blade, swung it in a figure eight.

Vade rounded on Far Gaze. ‘You waved to them,' he said. ‘You told them to come here! Where are they, mage? How long have you been in league with them?'

Far Gaze groaned. ‘Tauk! Your men become a burden to us. Reel in their passions or I shall have to.'

‘The mage betrays us!' cried Fithlim, charging. Far Gaze lurched back from the swipe of his blade but only just. Anger filled him fast and dangerous. He was not even aware of what he cast – he knew only of a flare of red briefly consuming his vision. Afterwards Fithlim – whose sword had drawn back for another slash – fell onto the ground and writhed, clutching his ribs.

Instantly the burn flushed through Far Gaze, with a feeling like fists pressing his temples almost hard enough to bend his skull. For a brief time he was in more pain than the man he'd cast upon. Its intensity eased but spread through the rest of him. The seconds crawled slowly as it passed. The spell would not have taxed him this badly in wolf-form; human bodies were just not made for such magic.

Fithlim's and Vade's horses both cantered away, spooked by the hot wind which had accompanied the spell. A second rush of wind passed through them, but it had nothing to do with Far Gaze. With it was the cry of a playful whinny, musical to hear. An explosion of colour rippled across a length of scaly flesh, there among them only for an instant. The horses bolted, tipping off their riders.

Far Gaze alone saw clearly who, and what, had swooped down on them: Dyan the dragon, with Stranger and a second woman
upon his back. Dyan flew up into the clouds in a fast smooth arc. Far Gaze understood the meaning of the playful whinnying cry:
‘Hello, wolf!'

The burn faded out of him at last. He ignored the hysterical questions of the men, and Fithlim's cries for healing. He went instead to find and calm his horse, in the process pondering whether the mayor and his debt were worth the trouble. I will make sure they are, he thought, licking his teeth.

In a clearing in the woods by the wizard's tower, Strategist Blain tugged his beard, glancing from the Invia to Kiown and thinking fast. His life had become a cascade of bad luck: outwitted by Domudess without a spell needed; thousands of troops vanished, his best Hunter now dragon meat, his remaining Hunter stupid enough to attack and steal from Invia! Now they had to flee before the damned thing woke up, or it would tear them both to shreds.

A glance at the object Kiown had snatched from the Invia's body showed at once the thing was crafted by one of Levaal's great powers, almost certainly a dragon. It looked plain enough to normal eyes, as the great charms often did; in the Hunter's hand a pendant of thin black metal hung on a loop of chain, with a rectangular stone set in its middle. The stone was blue, but the colour changed in similar fashion to the way colours shifted on Blain's own Strategist robe.

Kiown stared down at the pendant, mouth hanging open. His eyes were wide. There was no doubt he was in love with the thing already.

Easy does it, Blain thought, though he'd begun to sweat. Don't panic. It will change him, whatever it is. But not all at once.
Blain tugged at his beard and murmured a quick incantation to master himself. The light that began to flash in Kiown's eyes disturbed him. It went from white to violet then went out altogether.

Blain stepped towards him, walking stick raised as though to punish an underling; in truth he needed to see if Kiown still
was
an underling. ‘Idiot!' he said. ‘Do you know what you've just picked up?'

Kiown did not seem to hear. He stared at the pendant's stone.

‘That thing is of dragon-make!' Blain cried. His robe flashed fiery crimson. ‘Nor was it made by any Minor dragon. Humans should not reach out and snatch such things like biscuits from mother's pantry.' His staff shook in his hand; his knuckles were white.

Kiown looked at him. That hint of violet was in his eyes again, there then gone. He stood up. The amulet's chain clutched his wrist like a closed trap. Carefully – lovingly, Blain thought – he peeled the thin black chain away and swung the amulet on his finger. Round and round it went, the stone flashing. ‘Would you like to hold the amulet, Strategist?' Kiown asked politely, an air of innocence about him. He extended the amulet on his palm.

O marvellous, Blain thought, wiping his brow. I thought I was the tyrant here. He looked towards the tower, just visible over the treetops. Domudess's window was not in view. Blain cleared his throat, stalling. ‘What about that?' he said, pointing down at the unmoving Invia Kiown's poisoned knife had felled from the tree. ‘You think it might not wake and claim back its trinket?'

Kiown mock-bowed, produced a knife from his boot. He pulled the Invia's head back by its hair and swiftly cut its throat. Unconscious at the point of death, it did not cry out.

‘Have you a death wish?' Blain yelled, forgetting caution. ‘We don't know how many more of them are about. Not just them – a dragon's nearby too!'

‘O. A dragon.' For some reason the taller young man smiled.

‘At least get the pretty thing's blood, now it's dead,' said Blain, crouching to catch the blood in his hands. Tiny glimmering things like crushed diamond dust flowed in the dark fluid. ‘Useful stuff,' Blain murmured. ‘Good for potions. Your pack? A container?'

Kiown ignored him, giving the corpse a shove with his boot. He paced back and forth, deep in thought, leaves and sticks crunching under his boots. Now and then the violet-white light flicked on in his eyes. Blain watched him, letting the Invia's blood spill on his robe to soak in. He'd be able to suck it out of the fabric, still potent even when it became days old. The rare liquid was good for far more than just potions, of course, but there was a reason he'd kept that fact hidden.

‘Interesting!' said Kiown in conversation with himself.

‘What's interesting? Death by dragon rage, does that interest you? Did you see Thaun's body? I should say
bodies
, plural. That's what dragons do when men displease them.'

‘Mind-control,' Kiown said, tapping himself on the forehead. He turned back to Blain with a smile. ‘I didn't know that you'd set mind-control in place on me.'

‘That was years ago!' Blain spluttered.

‘I'd taken my fierce loyalty to Vous to be a virtue. You must use mind-control with all Hunters. Yes?'

‘Your loyalty
is
a virtue,' said Blain in hurt tones. ‘A grand virtue. He is our Friend and Lord.'

Kiown chuckled as if to say
touché
, then resumed pacing, the cone of his hair flopping behind him like a strangely made
crown. He said, ‘What's interesting is, I am
aware
now of the mind-control. But that does not cancel the loyalty the mind-control causes in me. I still love him.' He stroked the amulet's stone. It responded to his touch with faint pulses of colour. ‘And now I am conflicted, Strategist. I am fiercely loyal to Vous, and must remain so. Your mind-control, I now see, will kill me the instant something tries to remove it.'

‘It was Avridis's work, not mine,' said Blain. A lie of course – Blain and the other Strategists had developed this magic, the utterly inescapable death-trap designed to keep valuable Hunters from ending up in service to Rebel Cities. He said, ‘But that aside, you're right. Tamper with that mind-control and it will kick your brain to slop.' The Invia's gashed throat had eased its flow down to a trickle. The front of Blain's robe was soaked. A clay bowl would be his pick of the world's treasures right now. What a waste, spilling through the leaves and roots!

When Kiown had turned his back, quick as he could Blain drank and licked the Invia blood from his palms, careful to keep it from staining his beard and showing what he'd done. He'd tried this stuff once before, and remembered the feeling: a century of age falling away at once, flushed out by the blasting heat of artificial youth. That other time the blood had been nowhere near as fresh and pure as this. With great effort he kept the buzzing power from showing in his robe colours. Ah, better than any magic air, he thought, his eyes on Kiown's bracelet. Could take the trinket off the little bastard right now, except I don't know whether the thing is safe to possess. Let's test his strength at least …

‘Loyal to our Friend and Lord,' said Kiown ruminatively, still pacing. ‘Yet I have just received a gift from the dragons. A great gift.'

‘So your loyalties are now divided.' Blain made a show of struggling to his feet, though he felt like leaping over the treetops. ‘I see. Most awkward for you.'

Kiown nodded. ‘The puzzle is: why do the
dragons
wish to elevate a man in this way, when that man must be loyal to one of the Spirits? The Spirits are the dragons' enemies.'

‘O come back to your senses, sapling. You weren't chosen! The dragons
may
have had a person in mind for this grand treasure. But …
you
?' He said it with enough scorn to make the tree leaves shrivel. ‘You think they regard us little humans highly enough in the first place, that they'd pick a human
slave
to do their high work? A mind-controlled slave at that. The Invia you just killed, she didn't leap down to bestow the gift upon you, did she? She was surely waiting for someone else. It was random chance, your snatching it up, and nothing more. The dragons' cosmic bad luck continues.'

Kiown's eyes narrowed. Blain peered into him and shuddered with disgust. ‘Ugh! You're right to worry. You've now meddled with designs of the great powers. You see why mind-control was needed? At least we made something half useful out of you. You'd not know how to void your bowels without instructions.' Blain spat in Kiown's face and laughed at him.

The way Kiown's lips pulled back in a snarl reminded Blain of Vous during his famous rages. Out came the sword, and he charged. He was fast of course, but no faster than a pissed-off Hunter should be. The Blain Kiown hacked into – with impressive fury, Blain judged from the other side of the clearing – was obviously not real, though it threw its arms up in feeble defence, splashed realistic blood around and wailed peevishly. The sword nicked off fingers, an ear, a hand and other parts, each of which quickly grew into a new Blain the second they'd thumped down
on the floor of fallen leaves. Each of these new Blains threw its arms up in feeble defence, wailing peevishly.

With growing fury –
now
he moved a touch more quickly, perhaps, than a Hunter should – Kiown rushed through the clearing, decapitating each illusion as it manifested, searching for the real Blain. There we are, Blain thought. The amulet has power, naturally, but it can't make an instant wizard-lord out of him. Well, let's put him back in his box.

The real Blain stepped forwards, growing in size till he was half as tall as the nearest tree. He grew taller still, his legs becoming thick as pillars. With Invia blood coursing in him there was almost no burn to the spell at all. He gave himself the illusion of a cloak of fire, made his beard flaming, created a trident and turned his face into something bestial and terrible.

The giant-looking Blain – giant only in Kiown's mind and Blain's; no one else would see the illusion – strode forwards, making the ground in Kiown's mind tremble. ‘I care not for your new trinket,' his terrible voice roared. ‘But cast off any notions of being chosen for great things! There's such a thing as fortuity. It gets the better of kings, gods and dragons all. You're still my puppet and always shall be. Behave well or you're done with. In the name of our Friend and Lord.' Blain brought his foot down, making the ground seem to shake so much that Kiown lost all balance and fell.

Kiown stood again and dropped his sword. Not in fear, but as a chess player might knock his king from the board. The illusory Blains he'd cut down melted to liquid and sank into the undergrowth.

Blain's tribute to Vous of course was not sincere – Blain had helped to create Vous, knew him as a young man well before the Project, and knew very well there was nothing at all to
swear fealty to, let alone worship. But he would not have Invia blood within him for long – the charade of loyalty would have to be kept up, since Kiown's mind-control was still in place. Blain would in fact have killed Kiown the moment he dropped his sword, if it weren't that he had no wish to touch the dragon-made amulet himself. Nor could it be left lying here abandoned. It was best observed.

Kiown stared up into the giant Blain's eyes. There was no fear in him. ‘In the name of our Friend and Lord,' he repeated.
Let's not forget it
went unsaid, but unsaid rather loudly.

That episode of antler-butting settled, Blain pondered the dead Invia. He wished to preserve as much of her body as he could without annoying any dragons or other nearby Invia. The thing's flesh could be eaten and magic benefits gained, just as with the consumption of its blood. Blain knew precious little of the paltry arts of preserving meat or flesh; that was magic for slaves and nobodies. But he supposed Invia flesh would decay slower than most kinds. For the moment, it could be buried.

Kiown obeyed instructions to dig a hole in the clearing. Blain hectored, lectured and insulted the young man as much as usual. But he knew something had changed, and suspected the other knew it too. Kiown made no smart replies; indeed he hardly spoke. ‘You realise you can't go north again,' said Blain, ‘even if your duties require it? Not with that Invia's Mark upon you.'

‘I'm not Marked,' said Kiown.

‘O you're not? What relief. I dreamed you slew an Invia.'

‘I'm not Marked,' Kiown repeated.

So certain of it! On reflection, Blain believed him. ‘The trinket's work?'

‘I suppose so, Strategist.'

‘Ahh. What else does it do?'

‘We shall see.'

‘In time, eh? May it make you somehow useful.' Soon the Invia was buried, and the patch of ground looked almost as it had before. Blain marked the spot by counting paces to a nearby tree and notching its trunk. He went closer to the woods' edge and gazed at Domudess's tower. Calm ripples of silver flowed through the moat's waters. ‘What do we do about that wizard then, eh?' he muttered into his beard.

Kiown shrugged, yawned. ‘Kill him, if you want.'

‘How?'

‘I'll do it.'

‘That easy? You couldn't best me just now. He bested me once already – didn't even cast a spell to do it. He's got tricks of his own. You believe it, up in that tower of his.'

For an hour or more he watched the tower with a huntsman's patience. Domudess did not appear at the window again, though surely he knew they were still nearby. ‘I suppose we do no more than this,' said Blain. ‘We watch him. Day and night. Let's see if the dragon returns here. Perhaps they're old friends.'

So they waited. Blain had little trouble passing the time, with centuries of memory to paw through. He also watched Kiown. Now and then Kiown took the amulet out, peering into the faintly glowing stone as if to read things written inside it. Thoughtful, thoughtful, he'd become. What's going on in that tiny brain? Blain wondered, vaguely troubled.

Blain had seen and held great artefacts too, many of which the castle had robbed from the magic colleges when war mages flew forth to destroy them. None of those artefacts, so far as he knew, had been made by a Major dragon. One charm he'd
handled had been crafted by a Great Spirit, if their guesses were right. When the Arch Mage learned of it, he'd seized it. Then Vous had seized it from him and somehow destroyed it during one of his more recent rages. What would they say, the countless slaves and victims of the castle's rule, to see the men behind it all squabbling over morsels of power like children over stolen chocolates?