Shadow of the Seer

by Michael Scott Rohan

  The sound stopped her short, far closer than the sounds of riot, echoing down the corridors behind them. Another cry, so like the one that had heralded the fall of the doors that they instinctively shrank back, limbs taut, hair bristling, afraid something else would come crashing down about them.

  ‘Down!’ cried Alya, and they spilled down the stair and out, guards or no guards. But there were none; nor was there the stream of sewage Alya half expected, but instead a wide, echoing emptiness with just a glimmer of light. It showed them, as their eyes grew accustomed, a wide dry cavern in the living rock, natural or very roughhewn. Its ceiling arched high over their heads, as high as the palace, it seemed; and its flat dry floor was a steep slope. Away to their right hand it curved down into depths and blackness; but to the left it rose. The air was warm, surprisingly so. It seemed to throb with a great soundless pulse, as if huge forces were stirring down there in the dark. He thought of the earthfires, of a rising fountain of molten rock, and shuddered.

  Vansha gagged. ‘What’s this? They say the earthfires give off foul gases – deadly, often enough!’

  Alya wanted to spit the foulness from his mouth. ‘Maybe. I’d say they’re worse to the downward side, as you’d expect. But we can still breathe, more or less. And uphill the light seems stronger, don’t you think?’

  ‘Then what’s holding us here?’ stormed Vansha impatiently.

  The cry seemed to answer him, longer and louder than before. At that shrieking, furious summons Savi clenched her hands in her hair and screamed aloud as if in answer, though over that reverberating yell she could scarcely have been heard. And it was not that far off.

  ‘Come, girl!’ snapped Vansha; and seizing her arms, though she did not resist, they bore her up the slope of the tunnel, gasping and choking as they went. But the sounds from below overtook them – a slow, grinding groan of tormented metal, loud enough to set the teeth on edge, punctuated with clanks and scraping rattles.

  ‘Like some kind of huge device …’ began Alya. Then they all stumbled and choked as a great hot waft of sulphurous stench and stink rolled over them, and the earth shook again, more violently than before.

  ‘She’s unleashing the earthfires!’ wheezed Vansha.

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Savi. ‘They’re Ilmarinen’s domain, her foe! She only controls them here at the surface! I don’t know—’

  A second, stronger blast rolled over them, still more mephitic, and a vast moaning rumble shivered through the enclosed air. That was warning enough for Alya; but they were already too far from the stair.

  ‘Back against the wall!’ he cried, and, covering their noses and mouths, they stumbled into the grudging shelter of a tall splintered buttress of raw rock, barely in time.

  The vast billow of smoke and dust came rolling up from the depths, filling the tunnel from wall to wall, and to the height of its arching roof. Small stones were whipped up in it, fragments fell from above, and across its turbulent heart ran flickers of lancing blue light, like threaded lightning. Little banners of flame flared up and vanished ahead of its rumbling majesty, as pockets of cave-gas ignited. It was as if they stood in the vent of a fire-mountain.

  Vansha cried out, and flung his cloak across his face. Savi yelled, and hid her face in Alya’s arm; but he stood amazed and appalled as the waft of heat and stench came rolling and rattling over them in a great slow pulse. It was no volcano. The cloud reeked like the tunnel, beneath the suffocating sulphur a sickly, musky stench pervaded with the rotting of flesh and greasy burning, with ammonia, dung and decay. And within its billows, beneath the roof, massive shadows churned, dark and inchoate, rolling with the slow pulse of the air.

  Within the smoke, fire spurted suddenly, and above it a pair of giant glittering rubies awoke, and another; and all along the walls the gases flamed out in a crackling torrent. By that light they saw, and doubted their sight. For the cloud appeared alive with serpents, vast black worm-like forms that rolled and writhed and churned amid the dust and smoke, surfacing and submerging as if it were a pool they swam in.

  That in itself was terror enough, as the smoke surged about them like a subterranean storm. But the sight at its heart filled them with still greater horror and awe. For within the cloud, spanning the massive tunnel from wall to wall, there beat a single colossal pair of wings.

  They were not serpents that filled the cloud, they were not beasts at all. They were one single, massively serpentine body and tail, borne up by vast tattered wings. And set upon that body three long and snaking necks, all collared with sombre iron; three huge reptilian heads that darted this way and that, the red gems their eyes, set glittering by the brief gouts of flame they spewed from their long jaws, as lesser beasts slaver in eagerness.

  Vast and incredible beyond all they had seen on their wanderings save the Ice itself, the monstrous creature bore down upon them. They might have been spied as they cowered there, for Alya was too stunned to bring the shadow about them. And all three cried out in terror as a gout of oily fire spattered the wall above and a whiplash tail’s arrowed tip smashed splinters from the arch. But the monster was too intent upon its summons to bother with small specks of shivering life down here in the dark. It swept by them, heedless, on an ear-splitting crack of its vast tattered wings as they met at the bottom of their stroke, a bellowing, blasting vision of limbs and claws and scales, all scored and ragged, age-dulled, filth-choked, scarred and ulcerated; and yet horribly, brutally powerful. It had been summoned from its fitful sleep for the first time in a long age; and eager for the long-remembered taste of terror and destruction, it sped to answer the call.

  In the face of fear Vansha cried out the name they all knew from childhood tales. ‘Tugarin! Tugarin son of Zamai! The dragon of old is loosed!’

  How long that vast beast had lain there cannot be said, laired beneath the Ice, the roots of the palace and the mighty buildings that had stood in its place long before, which he, or his hardly less terrible sire, may well have helped to level. Their kind was bred by the Ice for its service, in an age when its ruling minds sought to torment and contort the stuff of the life itself they despised, to shape it to their own destructive ends, and many tales tell of beasts of terrible form and aspect; but none half so great, or so grotesque, as this greatest relic. None so ghastly; none so misused.

  To the noise and disorder above, to the memories perhaps of ancient battles and savageries renewed that were its only joy, flew that distorted creature, and was gone. The blast of its passing tore them from their feet and bowled them about the tunnel. An earth-shaking, rumbling bellow shivered the echoes around them.

  ‘So, it was no legend!’ panted Vansha, raising himself on skinned elbows. His voice was thick with the anger that follows deep terror.

  As one they looked upwards, towards the light. ‘That thing …’ Alya shook his head in horror. ‘They’ll be wiped out! They can’t stand against it, they’re not expecting it!’

  ‘And I wouldn’t give much for our chance of escape!’ agreed Vansha sombrely. ‘How can such a thing be?’

  ‘As well ask how it can fly!’ grunted Alya, helping Savi to her feet. ‘I … have learned something of flight. With that weight … No. Not possible, even with such vast strength. There are other powers at work in that thing.’

  ‘As there are in you,’ said Vansha softly, and Savi looked at him, startled.

  ‘What does he mean?’

  Alya threw up his hands in defeat. ‘No time to tell you now. We’ve got to get out while we may!’

  There was no disputing that. They stumbled on, towards the light. Pale day glinted on the tunnel wall now, and the air was suddenly stronger and fresher and colder against the sullen stenches from below. In minutes they rounded the last bend, and found the tunnel mouth a wide band of hard blue sky before them. But it was tainted by many plumes and billows of smoke, and the air was heavy with burning, and alive with screams and shouting; and above it all, shaking the air, the growling, gloating bellow of the beast.
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  The tunnel had brought them out on the higher slopes above the middle of the town, concealed from it by a crevice half covered by the Ice. Under its jagged roof they scrambled hastily down, but despite their unease, when they came to the crevice’s end they stopped stock-still, rooted in horror.

  The dragon Tugarin stood high in the sky, wings beating with leisurely strength, fanning the smokes, watching the town below as a kestrel hovers over its prey. Thus far removed, it seemed almost a beautiful thing in its sinuous strength and fluidity, its black scales iridescent in the young day. But even as they saw, it stooped upon the lower end of the town, and the road they’d entered by, where many were trying to escape. Across it the creature swept, trailing blasts of flame from its jaws, that filled the narrow streets; and the shrieks that arose were ghastly.

  There was no need to see what was happening. Its tail smashed rooftops down into the inferno, and its call rumbled like malevolent laughter as it beat slowly back up into the sky, to seek another gathering worth its attention.

  Alya looked about him in desperation. ‘We’ve no way out! We can’t get up this wall, it’s too steep! And there’s no way out by the roads, with that thing watching. And the Stair … no. Savi, how did they bring you here?’

  ‘Across the Ice, I think!’ She pointed to the paths on the far slope. ‘By there. That looks high, but it’s just an outcrop of the Ice; it slopes down to another vale on the far side, more open, with a road of sorts. That was the way!’

  Vansha nodded. ‘That’s one of the roads Chuen’s men were supposed to keep open! But against that …’

  ‘Yes. If anyone does get out on to the Ice, with no cover, it’ll be like minnows to a fish-eagle! Look at it, frying thralls and Ekwesh alike! The headmen made no plans against that!’

  Vansha snorted. ‘What d’you think they could have done?’

  And that set a thought in Alya, cold and thrilling, like a trickle from the sunwarmed fringe of the Ice.

  ‘Maybe there is something … Savi, this could be dangerous, best you wait here!’

  ‘To do what? Wait until you don’t come back? Do you think I want to stay here one minute longer than must be?’

  ‘I thought …’ Alya shook his head. ‘I don’t know what I thought! Come on, then!’

  Together they ran and slid down the slope towards the town, crossing great fields of scree and loose boulders like the stripped bones of a predator’s prey – half riding the rubble, half falling with it as it rattled away into the vale.

  ‘Don’t suppose you’d mind sharing this latest flash of insight?’ Vansha flung back at him as they staggered free, dizzy and covered in dust, and made for the opening of a mean and miserable street just beyond.

  ‘We need …’ Alya stopped, and pointed. Down one of the side-streets men were running, men and women, evidently thralls, and hale enough for all their terror. But behind them came others with clothing scorched and blackened, hair singed, some terribly burned; and among them were one or two of the warriors, disarmed and bewildered, shrinking back as the vast shadow passed overhead once more.

  Alya seized one man as he ran past them, short and burly. ‘You! You’re a headman, aren’t you? Chuen said they were always the best fed!’

  ‘Chuen?’ panted the terrified man. ‘I know you! You’re the incomers!’

  ‘That’s right!’ said Alya calmly. ‘And maybe we can help you now, as you helped us. But we need strong men!’

  The burly man knew how to take orders, and to give them. He grabbed folk as they passed, men and women, and Alya felt few qualms at the way he hauled them aside with fist and boot to quell their panic. They were evidently used to that, and there was no time to be gentle. ‘Now!’ said Alya. ‘Back, fast as we can, before that thing strikes again!’

  He looked to Savi as they ran, taking her arm, but she shook him free. ‘I’m well! Better fed than you, by the look of you! It’s as if you’re burning yourself up!’

  He could say nothing to that, but ran with the rest until they came to the main streets leading from the palace down into the town. Here they had seen the great war-machines set up; but the riots had rolled over them, and they stood smashed or smoking. At the cobbled opening of the palace square they found some that had been bodily tipped aside against one of the blank tower walls. Vansha snapped his fingers and cursed. ‘Too late!’

  ‘Maybe we can right them!’ shouted Alya. ‘And the others! Lower them if you can! Drag them around – and aim them at the palace! That’s the way Tugarin’s been coming down!’

  Many cowered at the mere mention of the name; but they ran to the machines nonetheless, and began righting them. Three were whole enough; one had not even been loosed. Its great arms were still pulled back, its cord still held in the trigger mechanism, for the warrior who should have loosed it lay crushed beneath. The huge bolt, longer than a man, had been snapped, but others were strewn about. Carefully, fearing to jerk the trigger, they lowered the machine, and it sat drunkenly on three of its crude wheels; they were shoring the fourth with rubble when more thralls came running up shouting, hustling some battered and bewildered warriors before them. ‘Men who can fire ’em!’ laughed one grey-haired harridan. ‘Just pissin’ ’emselves eager to help – eh, lads?’

  One of the Ekwesh had half his face scorched raw, and painful-looking burns on breast and arms. He had evidently torn off his armour to escape the flame; and he at least went to work with a will, showing them how to wind the windlasses back.

  ‘Hurry!’ yelled Vansha. ‘I can see it up there! And they’re watching us from the palace!’

  Alya and Savi were the only ones who looked; the others cast their eyes down, and many wailed in fear. There were figures high on the balcony indeed, though he could not make them out; and above …

  He almost choked on the words. ‘Faster! Fast! Tugarin’s coming!’

  And indeed they all saw it, the long snaking line against the sky, stooping, shining black a moment against the clouds and then falling, wings flung back, coming around in a great sweep that would bring him out across the town in another fearful wash of flame and death. Perhaps he had marked their preparations; for the Chronicles record that dragons had minds and spirits far above the mere beast, though very little like those of men. But they were proud and malign, and he most of all, one mind in three. Legends spoke of Tugarin’s pride and battle-lust of old, and now, in his colossal age, no doubt they drove him still. Most likely he thought little of the ragged band readying their weapons beneath, save as the next sacrifice of fire he could once again make to his icy masters.

  Down he dropped, and at the last, passing the top of the little valley, he spread his wings with a boom like a great ship’s sail filling; and the gale that streamed from their ragged edges blasted the snow on the glacier skywards, and triggered small crashing avalanches and chiming falls of ice. Up and over the palace he rushed, trailing the snow in a glittering cloud as he had trailed the ancient dust, and the clap of his wings was shattering. Compared to it the snap of two great arbalests was nothing; yet their long bolts sang skyward in his path.

  With time and fortune they might have met their mark. The great beast took little heed of them, so greatly he despised those he fought. But poorly readied and roughly timed, it was small surprise they loosed too soon. One contemptuous twitch of that snaking flank, and the bolts sang away past into the void. The third device, though, did not fire. Its release cord snagged in the damaged trigger; but Alya threw aside the Ekwesh who battered at it, and severed cord and trigger and all beneath with one great blow of his sword.

  The lever fell, the cord sang free. The bow loosed, with a kick that shook its base, and the bolt rose, far more steeply than it should have. The other shots were too early, this one too late. Into Tugarin’s awesome shadow it flew; but no longer into the line of the body. It pierced only the leading edge of his vast wing. In open flight he would hardly have noticed the momentary sting, would have shaken it off and flown on. But he was divi
ng low, over a town, at great speed. There was a tower in his path, and the wing, with the great bolt stuck like a pin deep into the muscle, drooped down against it.

  The towertop shattered, the rough masonry exploded outwards and those below ran out screaming from the rain of stones. But Tugarin, Zamai’s dread son, tumbled in the air, and with a sickening crack the vast wing broke. The great heads jerked back as one, the fire they had been about to unleash coughed out in spraying fireballs, and with a whistling, anguished cry the ancient beast whirled sidelong across the burning town, his tail futilely lashing the air, and thundered smoking down upon the far wall of the vale.

  Right on to its rim he crashed, on to the overhanging curtain of the Ice; and its snowy mantle billowed up and flashed into steam. From all the town a great shout went up, a wordless cry that came from thrall and warrior alike, and it found an echo.

  Under the impact of the massive body the thick white rim along the cliff was flung apart and shattered. Black cracks went racing away all along the glacier’s margin, the length of the vale. Great shelves and walls of ice sagged, shivered; and then with weighty, menacing slowness, amid spurting plumes of snow, they broke away and slid in tumbling, rumbling ruin, cascading and crashing down into the upper town.

  On the slopes above, the living rock, weighed down and worn away for glacial grinding centuries, gleamed suddenly bare and blackly fresh in the morning sun. The earthfires, so long contained, seemed to sense the change; for the earth shook its back like a beast newly shed of its burden, and still more ice went crashing away.

  Vansha stared. ‘That … that’s our way out! As you said, Savi, only a short way across the Ice – but who needs a road now?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re the first to see that!’ she said drily. ‘Come on!’

  They had done little else but run, it seemed, and even Alya’s legs were leaden; but she was right.

  Even as the echoes of that mighty fall faded, and the crumbling ice still rattled down among the mean buildings below, another very different roar went up. Of exultation; of hope, the animal that sees the trap open, the prisoner who sees sudden rays of light where once were only bars. It was as if the whole town stirred itself and ran, like a welling wave, towards that miraculously open way.