by Karen Miller
Most of his guards had deserted their posts. Some had fled the City with family and friends, certain that just beyond the next bend, in the next town or village, lay safety, and sanity. The few who’d remained were dead or had gathered in the Square to pray, ignoring his pleas to uphold their duty and their oaths.
He couldn’t really blame them. If he’d had a family he might have discarded duty too. Run away or joined with the crowd crammed into the Square where Barlsman Holze all yesterday led beseeching prayers for deliverance.
But deliverance didn’t seem to be coming. Dorana was doomed, and the kingdom with it.
Weary almost beyond walking, he made his way downstairs to the guardhouse’s deserted main hall where Ox Bunder held steadfastly to his post.
“Captain!” Bunder frowned. “Where’s your sling, sir? That shoulder’s nowhere near to healed yet.”
“My shoulder’s the least of my troubles,” he replied tiredly. “Ox, you’ve a young family waiting. Why don’t you go? I’ll stay here, for all the good I can do.”
“No, sir,” Bunder said. Stubborn to the last. “I’ve got my duty.”
Before this he’d never much cared for Bunder; now his heart broke for love of him. “No, my friend, you’ve got your family. Go to them. That’s an order.” He held out his hand. “And good luck.”
Torn between guilt and relief, Bunder clasped his wrist. “Yes, sir. All right.”
Orrick walked out with him. His lovely City stank of burnt bones and death. Stopping at the guardhouse gates,’ he patted Bunder on the back and watched the man force his way through the milling throng, the frightened animals, the puddles and debris.
Scarlet lightning split the sky, spearing the ground with random vengeance. The Golden Cockerel burst apart. A score of people died then and there, pulped and broken by flying brick even as they ran screaming for shelter. But in the center of the Square, citizens with more faith than sense stood their ground, eyes fixed firmly on Holze on Barl’s Chapel steps, as they stubbornly followed the cleric’s desperate prayers.
Some folk even climbed into Supplicant’s Fountain. Clustered round Barl’s greenstone statue, they stroked and stroked her hands, her feet, the folds of her robe.
Begged her in high, shrill voices to protect them, save them, forgive them.
Forgive them for what? What sin could merit such harsh retribution? He was a guardsman, he knew crime when he met it. The people of Lur had done nothing, nothing, to warrant the horrors he’d witnessed. The carnage yet to come.
All his life he’d thought himself a man of faith. But what was it he believed in? A cold stone statue? A woman who’d died over six hundred years ago, at an age almost young enough to be his daughter? Magic?
For six long centuries the Olken had been told the Doranen were different. Stronger. Better. But the streets were littered with Doranen dead, as well as Olken. Their magic hadn’t saved them.
It wasn’t saving anyone.
And neither were the prayers.
Even as he watched, another scarlet javelin lanced from the sky and blasted Barl’s statue to rubble. Shards of shattered greenstone whipped through the crowd. There was screaming. Blood. More dead, more injured.
Fleetingly, he thought of Asher—but help from that quarter was clearly a forlorn hope. Asher wasn’t coming. Asher was probably dead. Struck by lightning, drowned in a ditch, swallowed by the hungry earth. Asher’s survival would be some kind of miracle.
Only fools believed in miracles, and Pellen Orrick had never been a fool.
Numb with despair he stumbled to the ruined fountain. The remains of the poor fools who had believed in miracles, who needed his help, for all the good he could do them now. But he was a guardsman, help was his duty, and duty was all he had left.
———
“It’s no use!” shouted Veira as the panicked horses reared and plunged, threatening to smash the wagon and everyone in it. “We’ll have to walk the rest of the way!”
Squashed beside the old woman on the wagon’s seat so Dathne could get some rest in the back, Asher could scarcely hear her words above the howling wind. They were halted where the Black Woods Road met the main thoroughfare into Dorana. In the distance they could see the foaming River Gant, its banks burst, spreading like a lake on either side. A flood of carts and carriages poured past them fleeing the City, drivers and occupants blind to the mad folk standing still on the side of the road.
Dorana was a scant two miles away now. Behind it, the terrible Wall thrashed to ribbons against the stricken sky. Asher groaned as his guts thrashed in sympathy. There was a vise clamped around his head, its screws turning tighter and tighter with every heartbeat. Nothing could save Barl’s Wall now, it was shredded beyond repair. He felt like he was shredding with it, all the power in him curdling and boiling, bubbling like engraver’s acid sat on a naked flame.
“Hold on, child,” said Veira, her cold lips pressed against his ear. “Not much longer, now.”
He pulled her to him, shoving her face against his chest, as fresh hail pelted from the sky. He heard the wagon’s makeshift canvas covering tear, and someone’s stifled shout as the jagged ice found naked flesh; it sounded like Gar. Then the air was full of sound and soaking splinters as a barbed spear of lightning struck the heart of a towering djelba tree, too close to their right. The horses bellowed again, plowing the mud beneath their maddened hooves.
“Please, Veira, you got to let me do somethin’!” he begged. “We’ll never make it to the City at this rate!”
He felt her shake her head. “No, child,” she answered; even muffled, her voice brooked no argument. “He’ll hear you and all surprise will be lost. Don’t fratch yourself. Prophecy’s protected us this far, it won’t abandon us now.”
More red lightning whiplashed the air, struck the ground, the river, somewhere out of sight in the midst of the fleeing City folk.
“Don’t listen,” said Veira fiercely, as he jerked his head towards the terrible screaming. “Your job’s ahead, not here. We have to go!”
“She’s right!” Matt shouted, holding the horses with all his strength. “Now help me get these damned animals unhitched before they flip themselves over and squash us all to mincemeat!”
Asher let go of Veira and leapt to the ground. As his boots touched mud the earth trembled and shuddered, heaving as though something monstrous and living surged just beneath the surface, battling to be free. The wagon lurched forward as the horses tried to run.
“Get to their heads, Asher!” yelled Matt. “Hold them till I reach you! Veira, down! In the back there, get out!”
Skidding in the slimy mud, Asher reached the nearest horse’s head and wrapped his fingers in the bridle. Willed the bloody animal to stand, stand, stand, you bastard. Digging in his heels he hung on till he thought his arm would tear right off at the shoulder. Then Matt was with him and there was a knife in his hand, sharp blade flashing, severing harness and traces. The horses, sensing freedom, struggled even harder. The knife slipped. A horse squealed. Blood churned into the mud underfoot.
Then the last length of leather surrendered to the steel. Mindless with fear the horses bolted, bridles still intact, canvas blankets slipping and sliding and flapping like sails. Gasping, grunting, Matt and Asher propped each other upright and watched the animals disappear into the gathering murk.
The lowering clouds pressed lower still, and belched a blizzard of snow.
“Come now!” said Veira, chivvying like a shepherd with her flock. “We’ll freeze to death and turn into snowmen standing here, and besides, we’ve work to do!”
Asher straightened. Managed a wry grimace in Matt’s direction, then turned his face towards their destination. Felt his guts spasm all over again, protesting the death of Barl’s magic.
“You all right?” said Matt.
He nodded. “I’ll manage. You?”
“I’ll manage.”
There was pain in Matt’s face, echoing his own. “Let’s go then, e
h?”
Staggering and stumbling as the uneasy ground beneath them shuddered and the freshly rising wind flung hail and snow in their faces, with newly bleeding Gar supporting Darran, Matt lending a strong arm to Veira, and Dathne stubbornly alone, they started doggedly towards the City. Towards the failing Wall, which drew them like a magnet.
———
When he’d done all he could for the dead and maimed of Supplicant’s Fountain, and finally convinced that fool Holze to get the people praying inside the chapel, even if it meant they had to stand on each other’s shoulders and dangle from the ceiling, Orrick stayed in the streets doing whatever else was needed.
Indifferent to the danger, to spears of lightning, squalls of hail, and snow, the wind and stinking rain, abruptly collapsing buildings and lethally panicked livestock, he clambered over chunks of masonry and spars of timber, splashed through red-tinged puddles and stepped over rents in the cobbles, because what else could he do? Go back to his office, his desk, his paperwork!
He was trying to force his way into a half-tumbled dress shop in Lace Lane, one street back from the Square, to see if anyone was inside injured when a clutching hand closed round his good elbow. “Pellen!”
He turned. “Asher! “
It was him. Whole, alive and not alone. Behind him, shrouded in cloaks and hoods, huddled Matt, Dathne, Darran, the prince, with blood on his face—and a wrinkled old woman he’d never laid eyes on before.
“Asher!” he said again, and was flooded with a complication of emotions. The ending world blurred briefly. “How did you—”
Asher shook him. Pain flared, but he didn’t care. “Where’s Jarralt? I mean, Morg?”
He pressed a hand to his wounded shoulder. Felt fresh blood, seeping, and a fresh chill of horror at the sound of that name. “No one’s seen him. No one knows.”
Another crimson whiplash of lightning, shrill and shrieking. The hideous screaming of horses, the bellowing of bulls. A thudding rumble as the Musicians’ Guildhouse collapsed. Out of nowhere an icy wind, howling and whirling and tearing the bruised clouds to pieces.
A frightened, ragged cry sounded beyond the line of the lane’s wrecked shops. Orrick looked at Asher and unspeaking they ran, splashing and reckless, back to the square. The others followed.
When they reached the open rubbled space at the City’s center, what they saw stopped them in their tracks.
“Barl have mercy,” moaned Darran.
The few remaining threads of Barl’s miraculous Wall flapped uselessly against the green and purple sky. Once proud and gold and mighty, it was now a ripped and raddled mockery of itself. Even as they and the fools still out in the open watched, pieces of magic tore free of the anchoring mountains, setting fire to the trees at their top.
Then Asher and Matt cried out together, staggering, as the last stubborn links of Barl’s great Wall snapped. A booming thunder of enormous energy, released, shivered shaken buildings to ruins. Pressed flesh to brittle bones. Beneath the City’s cobblestones the earth turned over in one last, massive protest. Every person standing was thrown to the ground, shouting, and all the sensible folk who’d taken refuge in the chapel came running out again, down the steps and into the Square, to see for themselves what had happened. Holze came out behind them, braid flying, to stand on the top of his precious chapel steps and weakly call them back.
The wind fell silent. No rain. No snow. No pounding hail. Gasping, Orrick and the others clambered to their feet. Orrick looked around him, tried to see what fresh damage was done to his poor dying City. If anyone else was killed. His heart stuttered. Heedless of the pain, he flung up his injured arm and pointed. Shouted.
“Look! Look!”
The sorcerer Morg was coming.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
He floated on air, on power invincible, high above the wrecked, rubbled City and over the crowd-crammed Square.
“Barl, my beloved! Your Wall has fallen and I am here!”
A voice assailed him. “Conroyd! If you are indeed Conroyd! In the name of Barl and all things holy, I command you now to leave!”
Ah, Holze. Barl-sodden, mumbling, bumbling Holze. He floated to the chapel, the last refuge of dead men, where the shaking old fool stood on the steps and defied him to the last.
“There is no Conroyd,” he said, smiling down at him. “Conroyd is dead.”
“I don’t believe you!” Holze quavered. “Return him to us, whoever you are, and get you gone from here!”
Still smiling, he reached down and touched Efrim’s cheek. Withered flesh scorched and melted. “Efrim, Efrim. Recall your scripture. You know who I am.”
As the cleric fell backwards, screeching, he turned in the air and faced the vanquished mountains. Shivering with pleasure, with a ravenous hunger, he opened his mind and summoned his power, all his power, all of himself that he’d left behind, that for too long had been denied him beyond Barl’s Wall. Summoned his glorious victory and received—
Nothing.
The shock was so great he fell like a stone. Plunged into the midst of four-legged cattle. Before they could trample him he turned them to ashes with fire and hate, then took again to the fretful air. Horror was a living thing, beating him almost to blindness.
Nothing? Nothing? How could there be nothing? He was Morg, the most powerful magician undying! He was a mountain of power, an ocean of power, a sky everlasting of power!
He opened his mind a second time, strained beyond the confines of flesh, of blood, this outgrown borrowed body—
—and touched his sundered self. Felt it tremble, as he now trembled. Yearn, as he was yearning, to be complete again.
And then it recoiled. Repulsed him. He felt revulsion, rejection, an utter repudiation of his mind and his mastery—as though he were a stranger and this not a coming home.
Deep inside him, Conroyd was laughing.
Morg, Morg, what did you think? That I, Conroyd Jarralt, would lie down and die? How could you swallow me yet not know my flavor? You’re far too late, cousin, and too long changed. Our minds are one. Our flesh is one. I am you, and you are me, and there is now no going back. The Wall is fallen and still you are trapped.
Deaf and blind, Morg hung in the air. Trapped? Trapped?
He opened his mouth and screamed.
———
Forgetting he hated her, Asher grabbed Dathne’s hand and ran, trusting the others to follow. As Morg dangled helpless above them, keening like a creature in torment, he headed for the nearest safe shelter: the Butchers’ Guild common house, half of its roof missing and part of one wall, but with most of its front awning still intact. They scuttled inside and collapsed to the ground, panting.
“The guardhouse would be safer,” said Orrick. The shoulder of his tunic was wet with blood. “And I’ve lots of weapons there.”
Asher shook his head. “Truncheons and pikestaffs won’t hurt that thing. Veira? What’s happenin’?”
Seated on a big chunk of brickwork, the old woman dabbed a kerchief to her bleeding arm. “Don’t know. But it’s useful. Everyone all right?”
Everyone was. Even Darran beside her, though he looked the worse for wear, pasty-faced, and breathing like a bellows. Gar, his hail-damaged cheek puffed and scabbed with blood, had an arm tight round the old man’s shoulders, holding him shakily upright. Matt crouched beside them, and Dathne next, with Orrick closest to the street and trouble. Of course.
He shouldn’t have let them come. They couldn’t help him, and all their lives were in danger.
Gar let go of Darran’s slumped shoulders and wriggled closer. “Asher. I have to talk to you. Privately.”
Bits of broken masonry dug sharply into his knees. Ignoring the small discomfort, he didn’t take his eyes from the Square. From Morg. “What for? There’s nowt left to say.”
Gar had never known when to shut up. “Yes, there is. The killing spell—”
He spared the little shit an impatient glance. “I’ve learned it. I know it.
You did your job. Now hold your tongue, why don’t you, so’s I can do mine. I’m tryin’ to think here, if it’s all right with you.”
“But you don’t understand! I—”
Lunging sideways past all the rest of them he shoved Gar hard and sent him toppling. The bastard’s head hit the wall with a thud. “There’s nowt left to say!”
As Darran protested and the others fussed over Gar, Veira leaned over and touched his hand.
Her hood was down, her silver snake of hair rain-soaked and tumbling round her shoulders. “I’ll call the Circle to you now, child. Let them in. Let them help you. Don’t be afraid.”
He wasn’t afraid, he was bloody terrified. With the Wall’s demise the grinding pain in him was almost faded, but in its place something darker flowed bitter and sluggish through his veins, sticky hke tar. The foulness of Morg. From the sick look on Matt’s face, his friend was feeling it too. But not as keenly as he did. Or as intimately. Matt weren’t the Innocent Mage.
He ain’t... but I am.
For the very first time, he truly accepted it. Did that mean he accepted death too?
Veira’s finger poked him. “Asher! What is it? What’s amiss?”
He waited until his heart stopped galloping and he could trust his voice not to crack, his feet not to run him away from there without asking permission first. “Nowt. I’m fine.”
“Then be still and silent, and I’ll summon the Circle.”
Asher watched as she fumbled in her pocket. Pulled out that blue felt bag and withdrew a shard of crystal. It shimmered in the lowering light, then was hidden between her palms. Her eyes closed... her lips moved without sound... and the crystal shard she’d buried in his flesh burst burning into life. In his mind a chorus of voices, echoing.
We’re here, Asher. We’re with you. Use our strength when you need it. It’s yours for the taking.
Fear faded, and with it some of the blackness in his blood. He felt his power stir, untainted. Felt the remnants of pain ease. A comforting heat was in him now, centered above his heart. Within the crystal.
