Breaking the Lore

by Breaking the Lore (retail) (epub)

  ‘Where are we?’ he asked.

  ‘Welcome to Prk’ysh,’ said Tergil. ‘Land of the rock trolls.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Paris. ‘If you like rocks.’

  ‘Other parts of the realm are more scenic. Off to your right, at the edge of this plateau, is a trail leading down to the valley of Hch’rh. It is extremely beautiful.’

  ‘That’s the place for tourists, then?’

  ‘Not at the moment. That is where the Vanethria are camped.’

  Paris nodded. ‘I guess they’re not up here because they wouldn’t all fit? And even if they would, this is not exactly a suitable location for an army base.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Tergil.

  Paris nodded again, happy that he still had the ability to make rational deductions.

  He turned his attention to Grarf and Eric in front of him. They had manoeuvred the two dead demons into what they saw as suitable positions: lying on the ground as though the pair had killed each other.

  ‘You reckon this’ll work?’ asked Paris.

  ‘I think so,’ replied Tergil. ‘The change of guard will find the bodies. They would raise the alarm if they knew intruders had slain them. However, they will not do so if they believe these two have fought between themselves. Such quarrels are common among their kind. Demons are, as a rule, aggressive and bad-tempered.’

  Paris glanced up at Grarf.

  ‘Thankfully not all of them,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ replied Tergil. ‘But enough.’

  ‘And sometimes when they fight they both die?’ asked Cassandra. ‘Great behaviour to document. I knew I should’ve brought a pen.’

  Paris groaned. He was concerned with much more than natural history.

  ‘Let’s be sensible here,’ he said. ‘I mean, does it really look like they killed each other?’

  ‘Not at the moment,’ conceded Tergil. ‘I am hoping that the wolves will get to them before they are found.’

  ‘And anyhow,’ said Eric, ‘they got no way of checking what happened.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Paris. ‘Because in the magic world you’ve got wolves?’

  ‘No,’ replied the dwarf. ‘’Cos we don’t have no CSI.’

  Paris decided not to argue. This was their home, after all, with their rules for dealing with corpses. No matter how primitive the rules seemed. Or how irrational.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘So what’s our next move?’

  Tergil pointed towards the edge of the plateau. ‘We follow the trail down into the valley and find somewhere to hide near their camp. We wait until nightfall. And then we strike.’

  Paris looked at the elf carefully. Taking on the whole demon army wasn’t very logical. But then, he thought, this side of the portal, who needs logic?

  44

  Paris lowered the binoculars and stretched out his arms. Shuffling round on his cold rocky seat, he contemplated the last few hours.

  They’d set off from the site of the portal, down the trail into the valley. “Trail” didn’t really do it justice, though, since it was wide enough to drive a Jeep down. Or, more likely, a rock troll. The number of trees increased as they descended, sidestepping Vanethria patrols through a combination of warnings from Malbus and Tergil’s short-range mental control. Forty minutes along this would-be road, and what seemed like halfway to the bottom, they turned off where there wasn’t even a track. No room for trolls this time; Grarf could only just fit between the tangled bushes. They meandered back up the hill for a little while, to a cave entrance hidden behind the branches of two trees. Beech trees, according to Cassandra, closer to sea level than the pine they’d smelt earlier. Paris didn’t care about the specific type of plant – he was too busy trying not to laugh as Grarf squeezed his way past them. How Eric had discovered this place, the inspector had no idea. Even for a race who were terrific at finding things, the dwarf had excelled himself this time.

  Once inside, the cave was much bigger than it appeared, with plenty of room for all of them and a couple of metres clearance overhead. Nothing in it except rocks, though, which prompted Paris to complain that the mysterious, exotic magic world was actually no more exotic than the Peak District. “What do you expect?” he remembered Malbus replying. “Herds of minotaurs sweeping majestically across the plain?” “Besides,” Tergil had added, “do you want the effect of coming through the portal to be with you all the time?” Paris certainly did not. He’d bitten his lip and said nothing in reply. He decided that, all things considered, he quite liked the Peak District.

  There’d been nothing to do since then apart from wait for night-time, take turns as lookout and try not to think how much the events of the past few days were screwing him up. Luckily Tergil was on hand to provide a distraction, making them go over the rescue plan again and again and again. He drummed it into the group until they could recite it like their times tables. The elf’s metamorphosis from dodgy pointy-eared bloke into military strategist supreme was now complete, but Paris wasn’t complaining.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Great view from up here,’ said Cassandra. ‘You can see the whole of the dale. Long, wide, flat bottom, steep sides; it’s the archetypal glacial formation. Plus you’ve got the trees up the slopes and the hills in the distance. We could be in Switzerland.’

  ‘Yeah,’ replied Paris. ‘Except Swiss valleys don’t have demon armies camped out in them.’

  He pointed down the hillside. Below him, tents, supply wagons and weapon dumps sprawled along the ground in an untidy mess, like a gigantic child had tipped out a box of toy soldiers. Order and discipline were evidently not Vanethria strong points. However, they more than made up for any lack of organisation with sheer numbers. He had no idea how many there were, but it must be thousands. The last attack had obviously been stopped before the main force got through, and for that he was very grateful.

  Although he knew the rescue plan meant that, soon enough, he would be down there in the middle of them all. And for that he was not grateful in the slightest.

  Cassandra sighed.

  ‘They do kind of ruin the effect,’ she said.

  ‘Right. Exactly what I was thinking – they’re not very scenic.’

  ‘Why are they still here, though? Doesn’t matter how big their army is, they must realise by now they can’t beat our weapons. They can’t win.’

  ‘I would assume,’ said Tergil, as he walked over to join the discussion, ‘they are trying to work out how they can.’

  ‘You mean how to make their spells stronger,’ said Paris. ‘Or how to use them better in the human world. That’s why they’ve got Bonetti, right?’

  ‘Correct. Those are the sort of questions they will be asking him.’

  Paris raised a wry smile.

  ‘I’m interested in how they ask him,’ he said. ‘They can interrogate all they want, but they don’t speak in any language we can understand. They just make that godawful row, like a drunken hippo gargling with cat litter.’

  He glanced towards the back of the cave and was relieved to see Grarf was still napping. He noted that, even when they snored, demons sounded like gargling hippos.

  His eyes flicked back. The elf stared down at him impassively.

  ‘There are ways,’ said Tergil.

  Paris waited for more information which obviously wasn’t coming. He was about to question it when Cassandra grabbed his arm.

  ‘What’s going on there?’ she asked, pointing. ‘Can you zoom in and have a look?’

  Paris followed the line of her finger. Where the trampled grass on the far side of the valley floor gave way to thick forest, some indefinable activity was taking place among the early evening shadows. He raised the binoculars up towards his eyes.

  ‘I’m glad Captain Montrose gave them to us,’ said the witch. ‘Feels pretty good to have the most powerful piece of technology in the whole of this world.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Paris. ‘What about my mobile?’

  ‘The
most powerful piece of technology that works,’ replied Cassandra. ‘Your mobile’s as much use here as a town crier with laryngitis.’

  Paris sulked to himself. There was no point arguing, even if it did seem mighty unfair. Being logical still worked for her.

  He peered down through the glasses. A group of Vanethria soldiers were picking up tree trunks and carrying them to the camp, presumably for firewood. At the group’s edge stood another demon, wearing the tattered cloak identifying him as a mage. He held up his right hand, until a purple glow spread out from it. The hand swept down and the purple surged forward, slicing through a tree and making it fall.

  ‘They’re chopping part of the forest,’ said Paris. ‘There’s a battle wizard using what I assume to be a mystical scythe, same as what killed the centaur.’

  ‘It might be Shadrak,’ said Tergil. ‘If only the most powerful piece of technology in this world was a long-range sniper rifle.’

  Paris cast him a curious glance, then returned his gaze to the lumberjacks.

  ‘It’s quite amazing to see,’ he said. ‘There’s no rational explanation. It just appears, from nowhere, and cuts through things like a laser-powered chainsaw.’

  ‘Well,’ replied Cassandra. ‘You know what they say: any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.’

  Paris lowered the binoculars and moved round so he could face her and Tergil at once. There would never be a better moment to ask than this.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I reckon it’s about time you told me. What exactly is magic?’

  Cassandra’s eyes lit up, as if she’d been waiting for this very question. Tergil’s response was more measured, although the poker face did almost crack a smile.

  ‘It is a form of energy,’ he said. ‘And should not be confused with the process of performing mystical acts, or of “doing magic”. That is the ability to control and manipulate said energy.’

  ‘Like battle mages do,’ added Cassandra. ‘And witches, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ said Paris, thinking it wasn’t really obvious at all. ‘But where does it come from?’

  ‘It is all around us,’ replied Tergil. ‘It is the natural energy generated by living things.’

  ‘And,’ said Cassandra, ‘it’s the reason why humans don’t understand how the universe works.’

  Paris sat with his mouth open, trying to come up with a suitable reply. Nothing came.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s our scientists. They’re investigating gravity, electromagnetics, and the weak and strong nuclear stuff. Their equations are never going to add up until they realise that there are actually five fundamental forces.’

  The inspector stared at her. He knew some of Cassandra’s pronouncements came out of left field. This, however, sprang from a completely different meadow.

  ‘Right,’ he said, as he attempted to piece things together. ‘So some people – and some creatures – are able to carry out feats of sorcery by controlling this “force”. And whenever you do some hocus-pocus, I guess you draw upon your own personal reserves of this weird energy. But at the same time, you’re replenishing this personal stock from the general supply that’s all around us.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘That’s why the battle wizards ran out of power faster than they were expecting!’

  ‘I’m not following,’ said Cassandra.

  Good, thought Paris. Now you know how I feel.

  ‘Basically,’ he said, ‘they’re in a foreign world. If they want to draw on the foreign energy supply, they need the enchanted equivalent of a travel adapter plug.’

  He looked up at Tergil. The elf peered back at him thoughtfully.

  ‘An interesting idea,’ said Tergil. ‘They require a method of using the subtly different emanations of the human realm as if it was their own.’

  He paused for a moment, clearly giving the idea some consideration.

  ‘Of course,’ he continued, ‘the Vanethria mages would have been drawing some power from your world, albeit at a slower rate than they were used to. They would have regenerated their full strength eventually – if your troops had not attacked straight away. How ironic. Rushing in without thinking things through worked in your favour.’

  Of course, thought Paris. Thinking it through would be logical, and we couldn’t have that. He understood things better now, though. And he’d managed to work out what happened with the war magicians, when nobody else could. He smiled a tight-lipped smile. It didn’t matter what mysticism threw at him, he wasn’t giving up on logic quite yet.

  He turned towards Cassandra, who was looking down at the valley floor again.

  ‘You’re sure they don’t know about this cave?’ she asked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ replied Tergil. ‘They do not know this region at all and they have no reason to search where there appears to be no route. Remember, the rock trolls and the demons are ancient enemies. When all other races were granted unlimited access to the portal, the demons were not even allowed into Prk’ysh. Until they invaded, obviously.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Paris. ‘There’s no path leading here. But there’s a great big path heading up to where the portal is. Except what it actually leads up to – most of the time – is nothing. You don’t see anything unless it’s in use and it’s as well signposted as on our side. So how did they find it?’

  ‘I suspect they did so by chance. Possibly a patrol stumbled upon somebody coming through from your world. In truth, I do not know.’

  Paris shuffled round again and stared out through the cave entrance. However the Vanethria had found this place, they’d certainly done so in numbers. Plus, he reminded himself, they were an invading army. So the camp would probably be on high alert when he tried to sneak in. It got better and better.

  He took a deep breath and gazed out over the top of the valley. Birds were flying home to roost. As he watched them, other things with wings came into his head.

  ‘What we’ve just been talking about,’ he said. ‘All fairies can fly, right? So does that mean all fairies are sorcerers?’

  ‘No,’ replied Tergil. ‘Some races have evolved the ability to have limited control over magic as a natural function, without any training. Dragons can breathe fire. Fairies have the power of flight. That is their sole ability, although they do use it well. They can fly quickly and are very manoeuvrable.’

  ‘And that’s a natural thing too?’

  ‘No. That is to avoid being eaten by eagles.’

  He moved to stand by Paris’s side and stared out into the evening with him.

  ‘It is getting late,’ said the elf. ‘Night will be here soon. We should finish off the supplies we brought and prepare ourselves.’

  He strode off towards the back of the cave to wake the others. Paris turned to watch him, with an irritating suspicion gnawing away at his mind. Amongst everything he’d been told, something wasn’t quite right. And he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  ‘Euro for your thoughts?’ said Cassandra.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve gone all continental. And added inflation. You okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ lied Paris. ‘I’m… thinking about what we’ve got to do tonight.’

  ‘I’m thinking about it too. So exciting! I feel like a spider ready to pounce!’

  Paris barely managed to stop his jaw from hitting the floor.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘But I reckon we should pounce on the remaining grub first, don’t you?’

  Cassandra beamed and set off towards Tergil. Paris stared after her in disbelief, forgetting his nagging doubts as much bigger concerns overwhelmed them. How could she possibly be looking forward to raiding the Vanethria camp? True, he felt a little bit excited himself, but his excitement was mixed with anticipation, worry, dread and fear. He felt like a spider too. Like a male black widow just before mating.

  45

  Paris scratched his head.

  ‘You sure this is the right place?’ he whispered.

  He’d spen
t ninety minutes following Tergil and Eric around the valley to a spot opposite the cave. This was where they’d picked as the best place to enter the Vanethria camp from. However, they’d chosen this location in the daytime when they could tell what they were looking at. Now it was after midnight. Apart from a feeble effort by the equally feeble moon, the only light came from the burning torches marking the camp’s perimeter. He knew he’d been kept in the dark so far, but this was ridiculous.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Tergil. ‘I am sure.’

  ‘How can you be so certain?’

  ‘This end of the valley, enclosed all about by hills, is basically a semicircle. A line from here to the cave represents a diameter. I calculated its length, which allowed me to determine the circumference. From there it is simply a matter of tallying our paces.’

  Paris stared at him dumbfounded. A simple matter? True, the maths would be quite straightforward, if this was a proper circle and if you could somehow work out the distances. But knowing how far you’d walked as they weaved in and out through the trees? Either Tergil must be even cleverer than he’d let on, or there was yet more magic being used. Paris wasn’t sure which would be the most annoying.

  ‘Seriously?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ replied Tergil. ‘I counted the torches.’ He turned towards the inspector. ‘I assumed that you would do the same.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I was kind of occupied, wasn’t I? I mean, it’s alright for you pair strolling through the woods in the dark; you live in a cave and Eric’s got his own bloody tunnel system. I’ve spent all my time headbutting branches and tripping over roots.’

  The glimmer of a smile appeared on Tergil’s face.

  ‘You are a city person,’ said the elf. ‘Without your street lights, you are lost. I, on the other hand, am a country person, although circumstances dictate that I currently live in a cave. I like the darkness and the open spaces.’

  Paris almost smiled too, as his mind went back to the pathology lab a few days ago. Tergil’s unease within the metal walls had been noticed and filed away for possible future use. Of course, then he was just a strange being with a pet troll. He hadn’t become an ally at that point, or saved Paris’s life, or risked his own for the cause. Funny how things work out, thought the policeman. What’s the use of making a perfectly good mental note if you never get a chance to use the damn thing?