Noonshade

by James Barclay

  “Why not?” asked Will.

  “Because Triverne Inlet represents his quickest route to Xetesk, barring Understone Pass. If he won't see sense, we'll have to leave by the back door in a couple of nights. I just hope it doesn't come to that. Styliann could still be a powerful ally and his sway will definitely help us gain access to the College libraries.”

  “I don't trust him,” said Ilkar.

  “Now there's a surprise,” muttered Denser.

  “No, it's more than inter-College mistrust. He tried to kill us at the Wrethsires’ Temple and let's not forget why. He wanted Dawnthief so he could use it to assume power over the Colleges, and as a threat to the Wytch Lords and Wesmen. He wanted to rule Balaia and I'm sure he still does. God knows what this pooling of knowledge will reveal but I don't think Styliann should have any part in it.”

  “What, just cut Xetesk out, is that it?” asked Denser sharply. Ilkar sighed.

  “You're here, aren't you?”

  “You made your choice at the Temple,” added Hirad. “You're Raven.”

  “There's something more,” said Erienne. “The dividing of Septern's works between the Colleges was no freak or accident. Septern was very careful to ensure no one College had enough knowledge to be dominant.”

  “Was he really that good?” asked Will.

  “It was the potential of his magic that he recognised as so dangerous,” said Erienne. “I suspect he could see the way his research might be taken. And he was right, as Xetesk proved with their DimensionConnect. Just think of the danger when they can stabilise the gateway.”

  “I'm hearing everything you're saying,” said Thraun. “And there's one thing badly astray in our assumptions. We're banking on Styliann's influence opening the doors to the College libraries. I mean, let's face it, if you were a senior mage and you got a request from him to sift all of Septern's work and put it together for the Lord of the Mount to examine, would you just roll over?”

  “Exactly,” said Erienne.

  “No,” said Ilkar. “No you wouldn't. And Styliann must know that.”

  “If he knows that, why was he so confident back in Parve?” asked Hirad.

  “Well, his network is wide, isn't it?” replied Denser with a sniff. “He'll pull strings rather than make a direct approach, certainly to Julatsa and Lystern. The Dordovans might respond well to a personal request, though.”

  “But if he is planning to commune directly with senior mages in other Colleges, we need to stop him taking the short cut to Xetesk and from calling ahead to speed up the research process,” said Hirad. “Fat chance.”

  “So where does that leave us?” asked Will.

  “Out in the cold, I expect,” said The Unknown. “Look, assume for a moment that Styliann determines to cross at Triverne Inlet and that he rubs the Colleges up the wrong way with his demands. We need to know exactly what action we intend to take.” He looked around the fire. The faces of The Raven were expectant. He nodded, smiling slightly.

  “Right. Here's what I think we should do. First, we approach Darrick. We need him on our side. He might be able to give Styliann a tactical reason to cross south of the mountains that Styliann will swallow. If not, in two days’ time, when we are close to Leionu, we do as we are doing now, camp as far from Styliann as we can. Only that night, we'll leave four hours before dawn. Darrick will help us, maybe fake an attack by a Wesmen patrol or something to cover the noise.

  “Until that time, if we are speaking with Styliann, we must try to persuade him to take the right course of action but it's imperative he doesn't tumble to the fact that we have ulterior motives. If we are respectful of his authority, he won't suspect us, Denser?”

  The mage sat up to drink his coffee, shrugging. “I'm not sure about the diversion thing but pandering to Styliann's ego is definitely the right idea. What worries me is the Protectors.”

  “Let me handle them,” said The Unknown. “There are ways to obstruct without disobeying.”

  “How do you mean?” Hirad massaged his chin.

  “You wouldn't understand,” replied The Unknown, and Hirad knew enough not to question him further.

  “When do we talk to Darrick?” asked Will.

  “Now would be a good time,” said The Unknown.

  “His mages are in Communion,” said Ilkar. “It may pay to wait.”

  The big man nodded. “How long will they be under?”

  “An hour or so. It really depends on whether they can find a contact quickly or not.”

  “Very well,” said The Unknown. “We wait.”

  Later, Erienne took Denser away from the fire, he going a little reluctantly.

  “Are you going to tell me what's up with you?”

  “Nothing's up,” replied Denser. “I'm just tired and I can't believe that casting Dawnthief has left us in this state.”

  “But no one blames you, Denser,” she said, her eyes looking deep into his and her hand caressing his hair.

  “It's not a question of blame,” said Denser. “It's here, inside me. I can't explain it to you. It's just…” He trailed away, hands waving vaguely.

  “I can help you. Don't cut yourself off from me.”

  “I'm not,” he said sharply.

  “No? You're so quiet and withdrawn from me. From all of us.”

  “I'm not withdrawn,” he snapped suddenly, his voice overloud. Erienne recoiled. Denser tried to smile. “I just don't want to talk about it.”

  “And that's not cutting yourself off, is it?” She felt her heart tripping in her chest and took her hand from his head. “I need you, Denser. Don't leave me alone.”

  “I'm here, aren't I?”

  “Gods, you're like a child at the moment. That's not what I mean and you know it.”

  “Well, what do you mean, then?” he asked, his expression sullen and angry.

  “I mean that your body's here but where's your heart?”

  “Here, like always.” He tapped his chest.

  “Damn you, Denser, why are you being like this?”

  “I'm not being like anything. Why are you being like you are?”

  “Because I'm worried about you!” She stormed, feeling her cheeks redden, desperate for him to understand what he was doing to her. “About us.”

  “I'm fine. Just let me be.”

  “Fine.” She got up and walked away into the camp, biting her lip before she said something she regretted. He didn't call after her.

  Darrick's Dordovan mages were not alone in their Communion. Surrounded by a close cordon of Protectors, the Lord of the Mount probed across the Blackthorne Mountains, connecting with one of the few aides he felt he could still trust. The Communion was short, the message stole his breath away and when he opened his eyes, he was shaking.

  Julatsa was quiet. Throughout the night and into the morning, the Wesmen camped around the College walls had tried to breach the DemonShroud. The souls of those who touched it merely went to feed the insatiable appetite of the demons controlling the awful spell.

  It had been as pitiful as it had been painful. Barras had listened from his rooms as the Wesmen tried to walk across the moat, then bridge it with wood and metal and finally climb above it using grappling ropes strung from nearby buildings to the College walls.

  Now, with the sun high, they were building something. Barras, unable to simply hear the terrible calls of the dying, walked out to the Tower ramparts and took in the sight of the hell that he and the Council had created just beyond the walls.

  The DemonShroud surrounded the College like a thin grey cloud, rising from the unbroken ground. It was ten feet thick, rippling into the sky as high as could be seen and, Barras knew, it drove into the earth deeper than men could survive. It was an awesome, oppressive conjuration. Majestic in its way and awful testament to the power demons could wield on Balaia with the help of mages. Proximity to it set teeth on edge and fear leached from its surface, covering everything in its compass with a sheen of anxiety and requiring conscious effort not
to shy away from it.

  He had no doubt the Wesmen would try to tunnel in at some stage during the coming weeks. He just prayed that they would see their folly before too many souls were taken. Yet, as he gazed at the Shroud, through which blue and yellow light occasionally flared and forked like desultory lightning, he wasn't so sure. Not sure at all. The Wesmen's actions so far revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of the reality of mana and dimensional connectivity. He found himself smiling a little sadly. Of course they wouldn't understand. The Wesmen had no magic. It was both their innocence and their curse.

  Barras walked around the Tower, taking in the totality of the Shroud, the shifting greyness of which lent everything beyond it a washed-out aspect, dimming colours and making movement seem indistinct. It had first been employed to make the College of Julatsa impregnable over seven hundred years previously and had served the same purpose as a moat but had been infinitely more effective.

  There was no way to cross the DemonShroud until the spell was ended. Any who tried, whether friend or foe, would be taken. It couldn't be overflown, it couldn't be dug beneath. It took souls indiscriminately from man and beast. It was evil on the face of Balaia. Yet it would save Julatsa from the Wesmen and, despite the horror of the DemonShroud, the knowledge gave Barras comfort.

  Inside the College grounds the Shroud was given the utmost respect, with no one who braved the walls venturing closer to its modulating edge than half a dozen paces. Those who had made it through the gates, and who now mingled with those to whom the College was their natural home, walked, stood or sat in groups, all dazed, all saddened and all affected by the dread calm that pervaded the whole grounds. Because the single hardest aspect of the Shroud casting to take in was the quiet.

  Every sound the Wesmen made was dulled and far away. They had long since stopped sending arrows over the walls; it was a waste for them and an addition to the stocks of the Julatsans. Instead, they ringed the walls just beyond the edge of the moat, clustering and staring. But their clamouring at the edges of the Shroud, the hammering at the tower Barras could see them making, their living hubbub, their walking, running, cooking, talking, laughing, all of it was muted.

  Barras dug a finger into each ear, unsure for a moment of whether he wasn't losing his hearing. But then Kard's voice, loud and invasive, struck up to his left.

  “Good afternoon, Barras.” The old elf started and turned.

  “Kard. Glad to see you are well.”

  “All things are relative,” said the General.

  “So they are. What brings you out here?”

  “The same as you.” Kard came to Barras’ shoulder. “To see the Wesmen building their folly.” He nodded toward their half-built tower outside Julatsa's south gate.

  It looked a rickety structure from where Barras stood but he knew better—the Wesmen were fine woodsmen. A lattice of crossed beams was strung around four tree trunks, at the base of which carved stakes would act as axles. Inside the lattice, ladders scaled thirty feet to a platform thick with Wesmen hammering feverishly at the next level of their tower, each strike muted as if heard through thick cloth.

  To the left of the main structure, another team of carpenters was carving wheels while to the right, fires belched smoke into the cloudless sky. These were not cook fires. Wesmen in thick hide aprons toiled with hammer and anvil while others made moulds.

  “What are they making, more weapons?” asked Barras.

  “No,” said Kard. “If I'm right, it'll be cladding for the tower.”

  “They think we'll try and burn it, is that it?”

  “That and I believe they will try to push the tower across the moat, hoping the metal will deflect its power.”

  “Oh dear,” said Barras. He shook his head. “I think we should try to talk to them.” Kard looked at him askance.

  “I see no reason to persuade them to stop committing suicide.”

  “I understand your hatred of the invading force but they are not killing themselves in sufficient numbers to make a difference to the weight of their advantage,” said Barras. “But more than that, I don't think you realise what a death in the DemonShroud means. I would wish an eternity of torment on no one. Not a Xeteskian, not a Wesman, no one.”

  Kard shrugged. “Talk to them if you must. I won't stand in your way but I certainly won't stand at your shoulder.”

  “Your heart is hard.”

  “They have slaughtered much of my army, untold numbers of Julatsa's people and more of your mages than you can count,” said Kard, his voice cold and harsh. “For every one of them that dies in the screaming soul agony you say awaits them in the Shroud, I am a little more assuaged. Just a little.”

  “You are happy to greet death with more death?”

  “That's unfair,” said Kard sharply. “It is human to seek revenge and we did not invite this. The Wesmen have chosen their path and so far as I am concerned, if they can't learn from their mistakes, that's their problem. I will have no part in putting them straight.”

  Barras nodded. “Perhaps I should consult my conscience further.”

  “My old friend, I admire your conscience and your capacity for forgiveness but this is a war in which we have never been the aggressors,” said Kard. “In fact, I still can't believe it's even happened but clearly the Wesmen felt that, with the Wytch Lords at their backs, they could destroy the Colleges just as they thought they could, three hundred years ago.

  “And now they've come so far they believe they can win even without the power the Wytch Lords gave them. And they may yet be right. If you must speak to them you must, but consider this. The longer they believe they can breach the Shroud, the longer their minds are deflected from moving onward and the better our chances of effective relief from Dordover. It may also deflect their minds from what I think is a rather obvious move they have so far overlooked.” Kard's face was grim.

  “And that is?” But Kard's reply was left unspoken. From the North Gates, a cry went up. The two men ran around the Tower to see a dozen Wesmen walking toward the edge of the Shroud, a white and red flag of truce held in front of them. Shouts echoed up the Tower and the door opened. An aide ran out.

  “Kerela requests your urgent attention, sirs.” The young man wiped long red hair from his brow as it blew in the breeze.

  “The North Gate?” asked Barras.

  “Yes, my mage.”

  “Tell Kerela we will be there presently.” The aide nodded and ran back the way he had come.

  Barras breathed deep and faced General Kard, raising his eyebrows as he saw the other man's expression, dark and fearful.

  “Kard?”

  “I think the obvious move may have just occurred to them.”

  “What is it?”

  “Hear it from them, Barras, if they care to tell you.” Kard moved to the Tower's door. “I'm still praying I'm wrong.”

  The camp was quietening, the cooling wind biting into clothing and conversation as the night darkened to a star-lit black, when Darrick made time to visit The Raven's fire at the behest of Hirad and, subsequently, The Unknown Warrior. In carefully plotted lines across the hillside and plateau, the cavalry tents flapped gently, lantern light from within a few casting exaggerated shadows on the inside of canvas.

  The General, his curly hair pressed flat across his head and his travel-stained leather armour hidden beneath a heavy cloak, sat between Hirad and Denser, nodding at Will as the wiry man gave him a very welcome mug of coffee.

  “I must apologise for the time it has taken me to respond to your invitation,” said Darrick, his eyes shining from his ever-enthusiastic face. “I've been in conversation with mages and scouts and you may be very interested in what

  I've heard. But you had something you needed to speak to me about first.”

  Hirad smiled privately. Darrick's tone and bearing, now that he was leading his cavalry across enemy lands, was very much that of the man in charge despite the company in which he now sat. It was easy to see why he was hel
d in such regard by soldier and civilian alike. He simply oozed assurance, confidence and authority.

  “Indeed we do,” said The Unknown Warrior. “Although we might be influenced by what your mages have discovered about conditions in the East.”

  Darrick scratched his nose. “Tell me your thoughts and I'll match them with what I know.”

  The Unknown Warrior detailed The Raven's concerns and plans while Hirad watched Darrick for reaction. He shouldn't have bothered. Throughout the big man's speech, the General betrayed no emotion whatsoever. Nodding occasionally, he took everything in with a calm detachment. When The Unknown had finished, there was a pause in which Darrick drained much of his coffee, threw the dregs aside and handed his mug to Will for a refill. The thief obliged.

  “Thank you, Will,” said Darrick as he accepted the mug. “The first thing to say is that much of what you have said has occurred to me already, and I thank you for confirming my thoughts. I was already planning to split us above Terenetsa, sending you north and taking my men to the Bay of Gyernath. The reports of the Communion mages this evening have convinced me that I was right.” He took a sip of coffee.

  “The situation around the Colleges and in Understone is grave. We could make no contact with a mage in the four-College force at Understone so have to assume the town has fallen to the Wesmen. Fifteen thousand Wesmen crossed Triverne Inlet and marched to Julatsa.” Ilkar started at the mention of his College's name, Hirad seeing sweat forming on his forehead despite the cool of the night. “Notwithstanding the fact that the Wytch Lord magic was taken from them by your actions in Parve, the invasion force didn't stop its march.” Another sip.

  “The College,” managed Ilkar, his voice little more than a whisper. “Has it fallen?”

  “Ilkar, you must understand that these reports are coming via Dordover and are at best inaccurate, at worst mere rumour.”

  “Has the College fallen,” said Ilkar deliberately and Hirad could feel the chill from his body.

  “We think not,” said Darrick.

  “Think? I've got to know. Now.”