The Outcast

by Louise Cooper

  He left the chamber, closing the door quietly behind him, and set off towards the stairs.

  ‘Cyllan.’ Tarod laid his hands gently on her shoulders as she looked up at him. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

  She smiled, her face lighting. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ She covered his left hand with her own, feeling the sharp contours of his broken ring against her palm. ‘You can’t enter the Marble Hall - but I can. And if the stone can be found, I’ll find it.’ She stood on tiptoe, drawing him down to kiss him. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘I do. But I’m uneasy.’ His green eyes, unquiet, focused on a point beyond her. ‘You persuaded me to show mercy to Drachea … I still think you were wrong.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head emphatically, remembering how hard it had been to dissuade him from finding the young man and slaying him without a second thought.

  Why she felt a measure of compassion for Drachea she didn’t know; he had betrayed her trust and, if their positions were reversed, would have had no hesitation in killing her. But mingled with her contempt was an element of pity; revenge played no part in her thinking, and to see Drachea die for no good reason would prey on her conscience.

  Tarod felt differently. Drachea’s treatment of Cyllan was in itself enough to provoke his quick temper, and he wanted nothing more than to blast him to damnation and have done. For her sake he had promised to stay his hand - but deep down he wondered if he might come to regret the promise.

  ‘Drachea can do us no harm.’ Cyllan said. ‘He counts for nothing, Tarod. I’m not afraid of him.’

  He hesitated, then smiled, though there was still a hint of doubt in his eyes. ‘Go, then,’ he told her. ‘And if you need me, I’ll hear you and be with you.’ He kissed her, seeming reluctant to break away. ‘The gods protect you.’

  He watched the door close at her back, waited until he heard her light footfalls on the stairs, then closed his green eyes, concentrating briefly on the small exertion of power that would transport her to the foot of the titanic spire. When it was done, he turned back to his table and sat down. The single candle in its sconce stood among a clutter of books; he passed one hand over it, and the familiar green witchfire glowed into life. As it gained strength, casting a cold radiance across his gaunt features, Tarod gazed unblinkingly into the heart of the flame and tried to banish the uneasiness that lurked like a worm within him.

  As she descended the stairs that wound down towards the library vault, Cyllan was keyed up with a mingling of excitement, anticipation and dread. She didn’t fear the task that lay ahead of her, but knew that, if she was successful, the future would become unknown and perhaps perilous territory. With the soul-stone restored to him Tarod would again assume his true nature, and to stay in the timeless Castle wouldn’t content him. He’d refused to admit the truth directly, but Cyllan believed that, when the stone was in his possession, he would use its power to call back Time to the dimension. The thought of what might ensue when he confronted the Circle again chilled her to the marrow; but she knew him well enough to realise he’d have it no other way. He couldn’t exist in an unchanging eternity; he needed to live, and if living involved risk, he’d take the risk. She couldn’t find it in her heart to argue with him, and yet the one fear which ate at her like a disease was the fear of losing him. Even with his soul restored, Tarod wasn’t invincible; and if the Circle should prevail against him, she’d lose her own reason for existing.

  The sudden and drastic changes in both herself and Tarod had happened so unexpectedly that Cyllan had had no chance even to try to question or understand them. Nor, if she was honest, did she wish to. At Drachea’s behest she had convinced herself that Tarod was evil, an enemy to be mistrusted and thwarted, and she had fought against her own desires and instincts in an effort to reinforce that conviction. But she had never been at ease with it; and once the barriers between them finally broke down, the feelings she had tried to suppress had taken hold of her with a vengeance. Powerful emotions, long repressed, had found their focus in a man who awoke in her a fierce desire, unquenchable love and a loyalty that nothing could shake. Right or wrong she had chosen her path, and no matter what the future might bring she wouldn’t turn from it.

  She ran down the last few stairs of the flight and pushed open the door that led to the library. The dim vault was still and silent, and Cyllan paused on the threshold, turning her mind to Tarod where he waited in the spire. At once she felt an answering presence joining with her and soothing her unease, and she was comforted by it. Whatever lay ahead, he’d be with her …

  As she crossed the room towards the half-hidden door which would lead her to the Marble Hall, the hem of her skirt snagged on one of the scattered books which littered the floor, and she was forced to stop and free it.

  She was unused to wearing clothes like these; for as long as she could remember she’d had nothing but shirts and trousers handed down from a cousin or, in recent years, from one of the men in her uncle’s drover-band. But Tarod had told her that she deserved something better, far better … and he had found, though the gods alone knew from where, a dress of dark red silk which fitted her as though it had been made for her alone. The feel of the fabric fascinated her; the rustle as she moved, the sensation of the silk swirling against her bare legs … and when she wore it for him he had said she looked beautiful.

  No one had ever paid her such a compliment before, yet she didn’t doubt Tarod’s sincerity. To him she was beautiful, and the knowledge meant more to her than she could express. Cyllan remembered his words, cherishing them, as she reached the low door, opened it and gazed through to the empty passage with its peculiar, silver-tinged light.

  Then, gathering her courage, she started towards the source of the light and the Marble Hall beyond.

  Tarod’s plan, as he had outlined it to her, was straight-forward enough. Without the soul-stone he could do nothing to reverse the forces which had halted the Pendulum of Time and locked the Castle into this strange non-dimension; yet the stone had been consigned to limbo along with the Castle’s inhabitants. The only way to resolve the paradox was to break through the barrier on one of the highest of the seven astral planes, and find the stone. If the stratagem worked - and Tarod admitted that he was uncertain of success - it could be brought back through dimensions, if the motivating power and will were strong enough. Tarod had the power, and the will, but the vital focus provided by the Marble Hall itself was denied to him through the quirk of fate which had shifted it fractionally out of synchronisation with the Castle when Time was banished. Soulless, he couldn’t enter … but Cyllan could.

  And her innate psychic ability, Tarod believed, would be enough to enable him to succeed in his task using her as a medium.

  Cyllan didn’t pretend to understand the nature of the occult skill which Tarod would need to achieve his aim, but only prayed that she would be capable of doing what he wanted of her. He had warned her that there could be dangers but she had stubbornly dismissed them; she trusted him, wanted to help him, and she was resolved to play her part.

  Now though, as she reached out to touch the dull silver door that stood between her and the Marble Hall, she was assailed by a chilly shiver of uncertainty. No one knew the true properties of this strange, illusion-haunted place; so much had been made clear in the High Initiate’s papers, and Tarod had only confirmed it. If something were to go wrong with the plan, if some force that even Tarod hadn’t bargained for were to manifest then no amount of foresight could predict the possible consequences. Limbo … Cyllan shuddered at the thought and all but withdrew her hand from the door.

  There’s no shame in being afraid, Tarod had told her.

  Don’t fight your fear, or pretend it doesn’t exist. He was right … the feeling, on the threshold of such an undertaking, was natural …

  She took a deep breath, and touched her hand to the door. It swung open, and the shifting, shimmering mists enfolded her as she walked slowly into the Marble Hall.

  Drachea sto
od in the shelter of the doorway, his gaze roaming uneasily across the courtyard’s vast expanse. It seemed deserted, but it was impossible to be sure; the crimson light played tricks with the eyes, and any one of a thousand dense shadows might without warning move and resolve into something other than shadow … He glanced towards the summit of the Northern spire, and thought he detected the faintest glimmer of light from a high window; but again, it could easily be illusion.

  He had arrived at the courtyard by a deliberately tortuous route which finally brought him to an insignificant side entrance adjacent to the stables. If Tarod were watching for him, the chances were that he’d mount his vigil in sight of the main doors, which Drachea could see standing open. If he kept to the deeper darkness, he should be able to reach his goal with small risk of being detected … and so, trying to quell the thumping of his heart, he eased out into the shadow of the black wall and began to edge his way along it. Nothing untoward happened - once he thought he glimpsed a blur of movement low down, as though something sentient had detached itself from the foot of a buttress and slipped snaking away across the flagstones; but it was nothing more than his imagination, and at last he gained the shelter of the colonnaded walkway. Here he could merge easily with the gaunt silhouettes of the pillars, and by moving with slow caution arrive at the door which led to the library vault.

  At the top of the vault stairs his determination almost failed him as he realised that Tarod could be waiting for him in the library, but Drachea forced himself not to dwell on the idea. If he baulked now, seeing demons at every turn, he might just as well return to his room and wait for insanity or Tarod’s vengeance - or both - to claim him. The work must be begun, and he could gain nothing by delaying.

  Softly, though imagining every footfall to be as loud as thunder, Drachea began to descend the stairs.

  Cyllan stood at he head of the massive block of black wood which lay at what was deemed to be the Marble Hall’s exact centre. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved silently in a fervent prayer to Aeoris for protection - though whether the god would see fit to grant it to her in the face of what she was about to do, she didn’t like to speculate. Her stomach roiled with the sickness of nerves, and though instinct urged her to reach out and lay her hands on the block’s surface, she couldn’t bring herself to touch it. Passing by the seven defaced black statues, which loomed eerily out of the shrouding mist, she had faltered, and only by silently repeating the litany of Tarod’s words to her could she force herself on. But she had come this far … for his sake, for both their sakes, she must look forward and not back.

  The silence and stillness were absolute. Once she had imagined she had heard a distant sound like the muted chiming of a bell, and once an echo of soft laughter, almost beyond the threshold of human hearing, had seemed to shiver in the mist; but such illusions were gone now. The Hall itself seemed alive and waiting; she felt its tension like a physical presence. The mosaic floor was cold beneath her bare feet … she clasped her hands before her and struggled to quiet her mind, make herself receptive for contact with Tarod.

  His presence in her subconscious mind came suddenly and powerfully. For an instant Cyllan glimpsed the darkened room at the top of the spire and seemed to see steady green eyes gazing into her own, lit with an intensity that frightened her. Then she sensed the guiding will that began to integrate with hers and to take control…

  breathing slowly, lightly, she reached out as though sleepwalking, and her hands came to rest on the pitted surface of the block. As they touched, a lurching sensation of vertigo struck up from far beneath the floor and she swayed, biting her tongue to stop herself crying out in alarm. The feeling passed, but she knew that, beyond her closed lids, something had changed. The tension was transmuting into a dreamlike sensation, as though she floated free of time and space. She wanted to open her eyes, but courage failed her. Whatever surrounded her now wasn’t for mortal sight or mortal understanding, and the knowledge brought on something akin to panic.

  She flailed mentally, blindly seeking an anchor, and almost at once the other will touched her and held her, drawing her back from the terror. She felt Tarod’s presence in her mind again, but it was a presence that transcended humanity, more powerful than anything she had ever known. For a moment her own will resisted through fear, but the presence soothed her, reassured her, and she let herself be eclipsed by it as Tarod drew her through the planes towards their mutual goal.

  Sword drawn, Drachea stepped into the vault and picked his way carefully among the fallen books and manuscripts. At every other pace he turned quickly, the blade swinging up as though to block some assault from behind, but the precaution was needless. The library was empty.

  And yet he had a conviction that not all was as it should have been. Something was awry, though he couldn’t put a finger on the cause. Drachea was no psychic, but a glimmer of sensitivity warned him, even before he came across the low door in its alcove and found it standing wide open.

  He stopped on the threshold, licking his lips uncertainly. This way lay the Marble Hall; the one place in all the Castle where, on his own admission, Tarod couldn’t go. Yet the door gaped, suggesting that someone had recently come this way … and the Castle’s only other inhabitant was Cyllan …

  His previous unreasoning fear of the Marble Hall meant nothing in the face of this unexpected opportunity to settle the score. Drachea put the sword away, aware of its disadvantages in the confined space of the passage, and instead drew the short knife from its sheath. The blade glittered wickedly in the odd light, and he set off slowly, cautiously, towards the silver door.

  First there was a terrible sensation of weight, as though the towering cliffs of West High Land were crushing her beneath them … she resisted, urged by the will interlocked with her own, and abruptly the pressure gave way to the balm of a cool, clear current which carried her like a fish on its tide. She heard the eldritch song of the fanaani, but it faded and instead she was being buffeted on a laughing, capricious gale … which exploded into heat that assailed her, burning, unquenchable. She seemed to pass through fire, on the point of screaming until suddenly the searing pain was eclipsed by a voice that spoke in her innermost consciousness, Slowly, it seemed to say, Slowly … gently … I am with you …

  And there was silence. She felt as though she hung weightless and motionless amid nothing; yet there was a disturbance in her mind, an unease, a fear … a sense that below her, something waited … and the voice spoke within her again and said, Look …

  It was a black and silver world, with no colour to relieve the austerity. Cyllan hung disembodied above a floor where mosaics made a complex pattern, and she looked down upon an extraordinary, motionless tableau.

  Some twenty or thirty men and women were ranged in a circle, all heads turned towards one man in heavy, sombre ceremonial garb, wearing a circlet that glittered coldly on his head. His arms were outstretched, and in both hands he held a massive, ugly sword which gave off a coruscation of light that seemed to burn the air around it. The light illuminated his powerful frame and a face which, though young and handsome, was set in hard lines.

  Cyllan felt a shaft of anger lance through her, and knew it emanated from the part of the linked consciousness that was Tarod. She looked again, and saw that the young man who held the sword stood before a great block of black wood … and on the block was another figure, tall, gaunt, face half hidden by a mane of black hair. The tableau’s still rigidity gave a macabre twist to the attitude of extreme agony that racked the victim on the block - then the fury flared into life again, and Cyllan’s mind recoiled in shock as she recognised him.

  The stone, Cyllan … find the stone … The voice that spoke within her carried no overt emotion, but Cyllan felt the savage thrust of pain that accompanied the words. Momentarily she realised how Tarod must feel at witnessing the scene of his own execution, but the understanding was eclipsed by an urgent longing that surged within their linked wills. Guided by Tarod, she exerted he
r strength, seeking, hunting …

  And then she saw it. It lay in the cupped hands of another Initiate who stood at the foot of the block, and it glowed with a cold inner life of its own. A single gem, multifaceted and beautiful … the Chaos stone.

  Take it, she heard Tarod’s whispered command, and something seemed to propel her forward and downward, so that her mind reached out to the still figures of the tableau. The stone began to pulse, radiating seven shafts of light that all but blinded her as she drew closer, closer … and the presence in her mind prepared itself for a last, single exertion of will. She knew that this was the perilous moment; it would take all Tarod’s skill to link their shared consciousness with the soul-stone, and snatch them back from this world of illusion and phantasm. She felt the power building within her, building until she thought she couldn’t contain it and would shatter under its inexorable pressure … still it grew, and the glowing stone blazed more fiercely than ever, drawing her into itself like some terrible vortex …

  A gigantic concussion smashed from every direction at once, and Cyllan’s scream of terror shattered into a thousand echoes that dinned in her ears as she was hurled from the dimension. Mind, body and soul split asunder, the scream rang on and on - until with a titanic crack the world returned.

  She was sprawled across the execution block, all breath knocked out of her lungs by the force of impact.

  She tried to move, but her limbs had no strength and she could only slide helplessly to the floor as her spinning senses struggled to right themselves. At last, guided by the feel of the cold marble beneath her, she gained a small measure of orientation and by slow and painful degrees was able to sit up. Her hands were clenched into fists and when she tried to unlock them she was racked by violent muscular spasms … but in her hand she felt something hard and cold and rounded …

  ‘Tarod … ‘ She croaked his name aloud, trying to urge her will to meld once again with his, and almost sobbed with relief when she felt his mind reaching out to her. The presence was weakened by their shared ordeal; he had exerted all his strength in calling on the forces he’d summoned, and the contact was tenuous. Yet it was enough …