by James Peart
SITTING ASTRIDE ATTARACK, his great wings soaring through the darkening sky, the two Englishmen circled above the fortified complex looking for a suitable place to land. They could have chosen any spot, Simon thought, as the complex was almost completely deserted. He finally guided the bird down toward the Steward’s quarters, remembering it from his time spent in that other world, the one Christopher kept referring to as the ‘template world.’ It was shortly after they had met the Druid, or rather when Daaynan had torn them both out of their holiday in Italy. Chris had been brooding over his past, Simon had been worried about his future, and Lady Went had been mourning the loss of her son to drink. He’d read somewhere the suggested axiom that all change is good. The source had gone on to say that it allowed you to see things from a fresh perspective. By that token, he considered, Daaynan had certainly been a catalyst for change in both their lives, though he could not bring himself to measure it in terms of good or bad. Challenging, certainly; threatening, definitely; exciting, even life-altering, it had afforded Chris a new lease of life. He had managed to remain sober and even during the occasional lapse, for example on the way to Carasan, his bouts of drinking included none of the maudlin, bitter reflections he was wont to express as had the Chris of old. He had finally discovered a sense of who he was, even if some of the new character traits he’d acquired were somewhat less than virtuous. His dislike of adventure, for example, which seemed to translate as pure cowardice.
Of himself, was he a better man? Chris had said he was like the Druid, yet Simon had dismissed the notion out of hand. He thought better of it now. ‘You have a great sense of duty to people,’ his friend had told him, somewhat shamefully, thinking perhaps of his own situation and Simon’s repeated attempts to bring him out of himself. Lady Went had asked him to, of course, and she was a formidable woman to say no to. But why had she asked him and not any one of a dozen of his other friends? Why had he been the only one on holiday with him? If the Druid had pulled Chris out of their world and not him, what would the result have been? But he knew the answer to that and there were some things it was better not to question.
“Here, at the foot of the tower!” He shouted back to Christopher above the wind.
They brought the Carrion down on the courtyard floor, its great talons skating briefly on the flagstone surface before finding purchase. Casting around for a suitable object, they found a hitching post nearby and tied the bird’s reins to it.
The Steward’s tower was the most imposing building in the complex, in the entire citadel for that matter. It stood in a decorated courtyard inside the complex: its raked and brushed masonry adorned with flags symbolising different state regions; its turrets stretching up into the sky, looming over the citadel; the finely carved stone stairs inlaid with iron images and symbols.
They mounted the steps, treading carefully without the use of a hand rail, quietly so as not to alert anyone of their presence. One mistake and you were over the side, tumbling down a sheer, vertical drop, yet they had negotiated the stairs before and contrived to maintain their balance. At the top of the stairs were the two familiar doors.
“The one to the left houses the plinth which we stood on to leave the template world and get back to the temple,” Simon told Christopher unnecessarily. “The Steward’s quarters are directly ahead.”
“The door’s open,” Christopher said, whispering. “Should we just go in? What if he’s armed?”
“Daaynan said he probably wouldn’t be...” Simon told him, reaching for something inside his cloak.
“Probably wouldn’t? I don’t care for that assessment. I think we should get the hell out of here.”
“Calm down, Chris.” He produced a familiar looking pair of sticks, each under half a foot long and three inches wide, waving them before his friend. “We have the Drey Torch, remember, like we used on the Naveen King? He makes a single move to attack us and we wave these in front of him as we did with Iridis. Besides, he’ll get such a shock when he sees you, he won’t be able to move.”
“Why do we have to confront him at all? Why can’t I simply impersonate him, give directions to his soldiers as we agreed I’d do, leave out the other bit?”
Simon exhaled softly. “We need to capture him first to successfully do the other. Now, follow me in.”
He pushed the door wide and together they stole into the quarters. They found themselves in a large chamber that looked to be a vestibule off which there were two other rooms. It was dark, the only light permitted into the chamber coming from outside through long, narrow vents much like the windows that existed in Fein Mor. Simon gestured Christopher to walk to the far wall of the chamber while he went along the nearest wall leading to the adjoining rooms, yet Christopher vigorously shook his head. Simon shook his fist and silently repeated the gesture, his lips thinning, disappearing into his mouth. He peered through the entryway into the second room and found it almost completely dark, the chamber empty. Walking over to the next room he found the same to be the case.
Striding over to Christopher who lay against the far wall, he announced: “There’s no one here. We’re alone.”
Christopher eyed his friend cautiously. “What do we do now?”
“Grab some of the Steward’s clothes. We’re going to the soldiers’ barracks.”
BENEATH THE CANOPY of the narrow strip of woodland north east of the citadel, Mereka and the Druid hid from the storm that was approaching the city in the form of the Naveen King and the creature borne into this world to confront him. Daaynan slept still on a soft patch of earth, his movements frequent, his closed expression troubled. Mereka tended to him, wiping running sweat from his brow with a cloth, talking to him softly, occasionally placing her cool hands against his temples in an effort to reassure him. He spoke sometimes in his slumber, muttering words that were at times incomprehensible to her, at others spoken so clearly, he might have been awake and engaged in conversation. At one time he thrashed out violently, calling someone’s name over and over, his voice loaded with an acid bitter betrayal, promising harsh recriminations. “Jareth! Jareth, why did you do it!? I’ll find you! I’ll deal with you! Murderer!” He had a cousin by that name, Mereka thought. Could it be Jareth Tox? She had never met him but had heard Daaynan talk of him over the years. What had passed between them? He fell back into a fitful rest, his mind roaming other matters, spitting out names and places she didn’t recognise.
There was a noise coming from somewhere near the edge of the copse. The sound of human voices, shouting and talking excitedly. Judging by the fixed range of their voices, they had stopped, involved in a discussion of some kind. She spied through the camouflage of leaves and branches, unable to get a clear view of them in the settling darkness beyond snatches of their clothing which suggested they did not belong to the army. Citizens of Brinemore, perhaps. They hadn’t yet noticed the pair but if they continued walking toward the plants and trees they almost certainly would. They idled where they stood for a time before deciding to move on, beginning to walk in the opposite direction. Unaware of their predicament, Daaynan called out Simon’s name. “Christopher’s dead,” he lamented, “apparently talking to Simon, “but it’s not my fault. Believe me, Englishman, I had nothing to do with it. He would have died sooner were it not for you,” he whispered in a croak.
A number of citizens turned in the direction of the Druid’s voice and in that moment if Mereka hadn’t dropped flat to the ground they would have seen her. She lay beside Daaynan on the bed of plants and earth, breathing as quietly as she could, one hand cupped over Daaynan’s mouth, the steam from his breath itching her skin. The members of the party stared out past the canopy for a while, then shook their heads and continued walking, resuming their conversation, headed away from the woodland and the citadel.
She exhaled softly, not willing to think of the consequences to their being exposed. Should this group or any other return, they may not be so lucky again. She needed to revive Daaynan and she would have to do it now
, regardless of his condition. Rising to a squatting position, she fished inside her cloak, producing a small jar containing a cloudy looking potion that he had given her at some point in their travels. He had been given it by a healer known as Tolke Straat, he’d said. A powerful mixture known as Liquid Velvet, it acted as an accelerant and could revive a body from the deepest of slumbers. Twisting open the cap which was attached to a small syringe, she opened Daaynan’s mouth and squeezed the syringe gently over it, allowing the potion to drip inside. She considered the amount she had fed him then gave him some more. Putting away the mixture, she leaned now over the Druid, lifting his frame somewhat, her hands supporting his head and neck.
“Daaynan,” she called softly, cradling him. “Daaynan, we’re in trouble. You must wake.”
There was no response. She called to him over and over with the same result. Had she given him the right amount? At least. Any more and she risked killing him. She wondered if it were the correct potion after all? Perhaps it wasn’t an accelerant but a sedative instead. In her panic she had administered the wrong mixture. No, she was sure of the marking on the jar and besides she carried but one other container and that was filled with shavings of herbal leaves, impossible to mistake.
Maybe the liquid had lost some of its potency, she began to think, when Daaynan’s eyelids fluttered and slowly opened. He gazed up at her, his eyes ablaze with whatever fever had gripped him yet overlaid with a new intelligence, a fresh clarity. They fixed on her, filling with recognition.
“Thank the Gods,” she breathed, shakily. A tear rolled down from the edge of her eye onto his face. He wiped it away abstractly.
“Is it over?” he asked.
She laughed, unable to help herself, her entire being flooding with relief. “No, Druid. It’s just begun.”
29.
The evening sky brightened over the Gardens of Reflection as the moon seemed to swell over the city, bathing the gardens in a dim pool of light, reflecting off the bright surfaces that filled the urban park. The white flowers that lined the many walkways. The cultivated hedgerows framing the edge of the gardens with their broad yellow leaves. Surface water from the large ponds that interrupted the numerous paths that crisscrossed the park.
Standing outside the old palace remains that had been converted to a spice market was the caretaker Toc, his tools gathered in a shunt-bag strapped over one shoulder. He had finished his daily chores hours ago yet had wanted to remain in the gardens for reasons he couldn’t have explained, least of all to himself. Whatever they were, they were important enough for him not to go home at the end of his shift as he regularly did. Something was happening in the city tonight. There was that storm a day or so ago. The over-bright moon tonight. The air of restlessness that hung suspended over Brinemore like a portend bringing fulfilment to an odd prophecy he vaguely remembered. He was no prophet, yet he was tied to the land in the way an ordinary citizen was not, and as such was sensitive to changes that imposed themselves on it, appear as they might in the form of seasonal weather or man’s intervention, read in the air or a man’s look and felt in the shift of ancient leylines that crossed and touched beneath the earth. Both his father and grandfather had tended the gardens (though it was said he was the most gifted of the three, sometimes even able to ‘far see’ as they termed it) and he supposed he had inherited this understanding from them. His intuition, however, told him this was different. What would happen here tonight came from another source that lay beyond ordinary understanding. How could he go home now and miss whatever it was that was about to happen?
The moonlight reflected shimmering movement close to the boundary of the palace’s smaller garden and the avenue beyond it. People, hundreds if not thousands of them, in bright citizen’s robes coming toward him, their trailing cloaks billowing in a rush of sudden wind. They passed between the guards on the night watch, through the vaulted iron gates that loomed over the park, walking calmly to where he stood, their features as they approached still and prescient, as if they bore a gentle warning over which he should not greatly trouble himself.
“Who passes here at this time of night?” he demanded querulously, spying into their number, recognising at least one face from those now massed around him. “Lud, is that you? What’s happened? Has there been an emergency? Talk to me, fellow!”
Lud appeared to consider his question, untroubled by any urgency of response. Those beside him began to whisper slowly, persuading him of something. He then nodded, as if confirming a decision, walking to one side of a breach that had opened up in the crowd. A man walked through the breach, a tall man wearing a sentry officer’s uniform though something about him was at odds with the guard’s clothing. He lifted one hand at him, in greeting he supposed, though the gesture was made with a casual arrogance Toc did not like. There was a pale animation to his face and you could see veins and muscles beat and stretch beneath the skin; with the icy hauteur in his expression, he looked like a regal spectre.
“Hail, fellow,” the spectre said. “Come join us.”
Toc offered the other a slanted look. “And who would you be, now?”
“I am the Raja Iridis, and these,” he indicated the thousands gathered with a broad sweep of his arm that carried the same lazily arrogant motion, “are my subjects.”
Toc glanced disbelievingly at the crowd, permitting himself a look of mild wonderment as he began to recognise more of them. “Are they indeed?” He turned to them. “Set? Vash? Is that you? This is a funny day on the farm. What’s been happening here?” But the men he addressed did not respond, only gazed blankly ahead at some point beyond him.
He focused on Iridis once more. “What have you done t...” he began, but before he could finish the words a number of them had closed the remaining distance between them, moving quicker than his eye could follow, grasping him tight around the arms, shoulders and waist, holding him fast. The spectre walked slowly up to him, smiling. He/it reached out and gripped his neck and Toc instantly went numb. His mind and body froze in mid-thought/action, his last feeling- though it had more the shade of an impulse- that he was caught in the thrall of this being and thus had an answer to his question. A final remnant of instinct told him that, gifted as he was, even he could not have seen this coming.
“LONGFELLOW ISN’T AROUND- my guess is he’s fled the city. Are you ready?” Simon whispered to Christopher. They were standing outside the soldiers’ barracks. Worried that he had given him too much to say, he had earlier simplified the prepared speech he had given to his friend to memorise for when he addressed the soldiers of the Northern Army. Christopher gave him a terse nod, clearly agitated. Simon wished he could have given the speech himself, could have persuaded him it was in both their interests but there was no purpose to that reasoning and his friend understood that much at least.
Together they walked inside the barracks, a building which housed a vast network of rooms interrupted by broad corridors and ante-chambers with racks on the walls on which were mounted swords, bows, pikes and halberds of differing varieties. The entrance to the barracks led down some steps into a tall chamber decorated with murals of troops engaged in forms of combat on enemy fields. A gold-inlaid plaque fixed prominently to the side-wall read in bold inscription: ‘A stake for every citizen is a stake in his future.’ There were a handful of army men sitting on a bench playing a card game of some description, they didn’t know what, the cards looking wholly unlike what they were familiar with. On seeing Christopher, they scrambled immediately to their feet, nearly knocking over the bench. “My Lord!” they said in unison, sketching hasty salutes.
Christopher made a gesture to put them at their ease. With a whispered prompt from Simon who was standing behind him to his right, he instructed “gather the rest of the men to assemble herein this room. I need to address all of you.” To Christopher’s relief they set unquestioningly about the task, marching down the corridors and beginning to hammer on the doors of the soldiers’ individual quarters amid shouts of �
��out of it!’ and ‘look alive!’. By the look of them, some of the troops, when they emerged, had been sleeping. As they noticed Christopher, they stiffened immediately, wiping the crusts from their eyes and fell in line as they assembled in the high-ceilinged chamber.
When they had all gathered, Christopher looked at the thousand-strong rank and file before him with something approaching alarm. The eyes of some of them moved questioningly over Simon, not recognising him from the Council body. Most stared straight ahead, waiting for their Steward to begin speaking. Christopher half turned to Simon for support yet the other prodded the small of his back sharply with his finger, the action unnoticed by the soldiery, and Christopher reluctantly turned back to deliver his address.
“I have called you here today as your Steward,” he began tentatively, almost questioningly, not noticing Simon close his eyes briefly behind him. “You have served me well over the years, given many years of service to Brinemore, and for that I thank each and every one of you. Today, however, I ask something of you that goes above ordinary notions of duty.” He swallowed, then cleared his throat.
