Maesa rode from the inn’s yard. He would dearly have liked to give Aelphis his head, and let the beast break into its springing run, but the streets of the fourth ward were as crowded as those of the second. Beast and rider were forced to keep their patience until they reached the eastern outgate.
A permit was required to leave the walls at night. Maesa duly provided his papers to the gate captain, who scrutinised them carefully.
No one else was leaving.
‘All is in order,’ said the captain reluctantly.
At a shout from the captain, the gates swung wide. The road leading away from Glymmsforge was empty. Not one soul walked the level paving. A channel of purple salt cut through the road surface a hundred yards out, interrupting its journey into desert nowheres devoid of living souls.
The walls were patrolled by keen-eyed men armed with sorcerous guns. Two of them barred Maesa’s exit.
‘You must be an influential man to secure exit from the city at night,’ said the captain, handing back the papers. ‘I advise you to wait for the day.’
‘I am eager to be away.’
‘I have a suspicion where you are bound, prince,’ said the captain. ‘I’ve seen plenty of creatures with the same look you have in your eyes. They are not to be dissuaded, so I will not try. I will give you the warning that all free-thinking folk receive from me. At the line of salt out there, the protection of Sigmar ends. There are perils aplenty beyond these walls. This gate is the frontier of life. Out there is only death and undeath. Are you sure whatever reason you are going out there for is worth your soul?’
‘It is a price I will gladly pay,’ said Maesa.
‘Then Sigmar watch over you. There are no others that can,’ said the captain.
‘Your warning is noted, captain,’ said Maesa. ‘But I have nothing to fear.’
The men stepped aside at a nod from the captain.
Maesa’s trilling song set Aelphis bounding out into the empty desert, joyful to be free of the confines of the city.
The road entered the low hills some miles from Glymmsforge, and there it petered out at a half-finished cutting. Construction gear lay around, awaiting the day and the work gangs. Night-time was altogether too dangerous for mortal labour. As the stag left smooth paving for the sand, Maesa directed him up the slope and pulled him to a stop.
Dust kicked up by the stag’s hooves blew away on a cold wind. Maesa turned back for one last look upon Glymmsforge. From the vantage of the hillside, it was set out like a model for him to examine.
The Shimmergate gleamed in the sky, surrounded by the gossamer traceries of the stairs leading to its threshold. The Realmgate reflected in the Glass Mere, the broad lake encompassed by the fortifications. Monumental buildings stretched spires skywards, taller even than the walls, all ablaze with fires and shining mage-light. Among the finest were the cathedral-like mausolea of the Celestial Saints, the relics of a dozen creatures whose holy power kept back evil, joined together by trenches of the purple salt. The twelve-pointed star the mausolea and the sand trench made was the reason for the city’s survival, being a barrier to all wicked things.
Around this oasis city, the Zircona desert stretched its gloomy grey expanses. The haunting cries of tormented spirits blended with the fluting wind.
‘Look back at the city, small evil,’ Maesa said to Shattercap. ‘It will be our last sight of life ere our task is done.’
Tiny, whistling snores answered. Shattercap was a relaxed weight in the bottom of Maesa’s hood.
Quietly, so as not to disturb the slumbering spite, Maesa urged Aelphis into a run.
Zircona’s desert ran for leagues. Aelphis covered its distances without tiring. He cut straight across the landscape, bounding as quickly over crags and shattered badlands as he ran over the flats. Day’s watery light came and went, and Maesa did not pause. Every third night he would rest, for aelven kind are hardier than mortal men, and sleep rules their lives with a looser hand. Aelphis slept when the prince did while Shattercap kept watch. Trusting terror to keep the spite vigilant, aelf and stag rested without misgiving.
There were ruins in the wastes. Shattered cities dotted the lands, though whether raised by the living or the dead it was impossible to say. The metaphysics of Shyish were complicated. Before the Age of Chaos cast them into ruin, many lesser afterlives had occupied the desert. As time went on, the living had come into those places also, and lived alongside those who had been born and died in other places and come to Shyish for their reward. In the south of Glymmsforge, towards the heartlands of Shyish, there were mighty realms yet, but towards realm’s edge where Maesa headed, only ruins remained, haunted by the shrieking gheists of the dispossessed.
None of these wandering shades dared come near him. To the sight of the dead, Prince Maesa shone with baleful power. His sword, the soul-drinking Song of Thorns, would bring their end with a single cut, and Maesa had other magical arts to command should it fail him.
They passed a great city whose walls were whole and aglow with corpse-light. No sound issued from the place. There was no sense of vitality, only an ominous watchfulness. The city filled the valley it occupied from side to side, and Maesa was forced to travel uneasily within the shadow of its fortifications.
A wail went up from the gatehouse as he approached, answered by others sounding from the towers in the curtain wall. Aelphis pranced and snorted at the din. Shattercap gibbered in miserable fright. Disturbed, Maesa spurred Aelphis on. The wailing harrowed their ears as they galloped by, but nothing came out from the city, not phantom nor spectral arrow, and as Maesa passed, the ghostly shrieks died one by one, until terrible silence fell.
They quickly left the city behind. Afterwards, the character of the land changed for the worse.
During the night that followed, they camped. All were weary, for the land took a toll on their spirits. Shattercap puled miserably and tugged at Maesa’s hair.
‘Master, master,’ he whined. ‘I feel so ill, not good at all.’
Maesa squatted at Aelphis’ side. The giant stag was sleeping, its huge flanks pumping like bellows, gusting breaths whose warmth the bitter lands swiftly stole. Maesa took Shattercap from his shoulder and looked at him carefully. The spite’s skin had gone dry and grey. Maesa too was ailing. His pale face had lost its alabaster sheen, becoming pasty. Dark rings shaded his almond eyes.
‘It is the land. The nearer the edge we go, the less forgiving to mortal flesh it is, even to those like we, small evil, who are blessed with boundless lifespans.’
Shattercap coughed. Maesa cradled him in the crook of his arm like a sick lamb as he hunted through his bags with his free hand.
‘It is time. For you especially, a creature born of the magic of life, this place is hard. I have something here for you to ensure your survival.’
He took out a round flask protected by a net of cord. Contained in the glass was a clear liquid that glowed faintly with yellow light. As Maesa uncorked it, it flared, lighting up the bones and veins in his fine hands. He held the bottle to Shattercap’s lips.
‘Water from the Lifewells of Ghyran,’ Maesa explained. ‘Drawn long before the Plague God’s corruption. Take but one drop. Any more will change you, and we have but a little.’
Shattercap dipped his pink tongue into the glass. When it touched the blessed water, he let out a relieved sigh.
‘It tastes of the forests. It tastes of the rivers and the seas. It tastes of home!’
Maesa set Shattercap down and wet his own lips with the water. His skin tingled. His face glowed with renewed life, and the dark rings faded. He dabbed a little on his forefinger, to rub on the gums of the sleeping stag, then corked the flask and put it away.
A miserable moaning sang out of the night.
‘Best keep this out of sight,’ Maesa said. ‘The dead here are cold, and will seek out a source of life such as thi
s.’
They went further edgewards, heading away from the heartlands of Shyish. At night, the dark was full of desperate howls. Cold winds blew, carrying whispers that chilled the marrow. Thunderous storms cracked the sky with displays of purple lightning. No rain fell. Nothing lived. The days grew shorter with every league they went, the sun paler, until they passed some fateful meridian, and went into lands clothed perpetually in shadow.
Where the light died, the sky changed. Beneath amethyst chips of stars a new desert began. Zircona was a wasteland, but it was part of a living world. This new desert was wholly a dead place.
Maesa slipped from Aelphis’ saddle.
‘We have reached the Sands of Grief. Now is the time for the magic of Throck and Grimmson,’ he said. He took out the gold compass, and set it on a stone. From a velvet bag he removed the skull of Ellamar and unwound its wrappings, set it on the ground, and knelt beside it.
‘Forgive me, my love,’ he said. Delicately, he took up the brown skull, and pinched a tooth between forefinger and thumb. ‘I apologise for this insult to your remains. I shall replace it with the brightest silver.’
Grimacing at what he must do, he drew the tooth. It came free with a dry scraping.
He set the tooth aside, rewrapped his precious relic, and returned it to the back of his saddle. Then he opened up the lid of the compass-box and placed the tooth within.
‘Let us see if it works.’
He held the compass up to his face.
Slowly, the pointer swung about, left, then right, then left, before coming to a stop. Maesa moved the compass. The pointer remained fixed unwaveringly on the desert.
‘Success?’ said Shattercap.
‘Success,’ said Maesa in relief.
Daylight receded from recollection. Shifting dunes crowded the mind as much as the landscape, and Maesa put all his formidable will into remembering who he was, and why he was there. Had he not, his sanity would have faded, and he would have wandered the desert forever.
Time without day loses meaning. The compass did not move from its position. Hours or lifetimes could have gone by. The desert landscape changed slowly, but it did change. Maesa came out of his fugue to find himself looking down into a gorge where shapes marched in two lines from one horizon to another. One line headed deeper into the desert and the realm’s edge, the other oppositely towards the heartlands of Shyish.
The sight was enough to shake Maesa from his torpor. Shattercap stirred.
‘What is it?’ asked Shattercap. His voice was weak.
‘Skeletons. Animate remains of the dead,’ said Maesa. The percussive click of dry joints and the whisper of fleshless feet echoed from the gorge’s sides. Purple starlight glinted from ancient bone.
‘What are they doing?’ said Shattercap.
‘I have no idea,’ said Maesa. ‘But we must cross their march.’
‘Master!’ said Shattercap. ‘Please, no. This is too much.’
Maesa urged Aelphis on. The great stag was weary, and stumbled upon the scree. Stones loosened by his feet sent a shower of rock before him that barged through the lines of skeletons and took two down with a hollow clatter. The skin of magic holding the skeletons together burst. Bones scattered. Like ants on their way to their nest, the animates stepped around the scene of the catastrophe, and continued on their silent way.
‘Oh, no,’ whimpered Shattercap.
‘Be not afraid,’ said Maesa. ‘They see nothing. They are set upon a single task. They will not harm us.’ He drew Aelphis up alongside the line, and rode against its direction. The skeletons heading outwards marched with their arms at their sides, but those going inwards each held one hand high in front of eyeless sockets, thumb and forefinger pinched upon an invisible burden.
Shattercap snuffled at them. ‘Oh, I see! I see! They carry realmstone, such small motes of power I can hardly perceive them. Why, master, why?’
‘I know not,’ said Maesa, though the revelation filled him with unease. Nervously, he checked his compass, in case the undead carried off that which he sought, but the compass arrow remained pointing the same direction as always. ‘I have no wish to discover why. Few beings could animate so many of the dead. We should be away from here.’
They left the name unsaid, but it was to Nagash, Lord of Undeath, Maesa referred. To whisper his name would call his attention onto them, and in that place Maesa had no power to oppose him.
‘Come, Aelphis, through the line.’
The king of stags bounded through a gap. The skeletons were blind to the aelven prince. With exaggerated, mechanical care, they trooped through the endless night, bearing their tiny cargoes onwards.
They passed several skeleton columns over the coming days. Always, they marched in two directions, one corewards, the other to the edge. They followed the lie of the land and, like water, wore it away with their feet where they passed, forming a branching of dry tributaries carrying flows of bone. Not once did the skeletons notice them, and soon the companions’ crossing of the lines became routine. The compass turned gradually away from their current path. By then notions of edgewards and corewards had lost all meaning. They knew the direction changed simply because they found themselves coming against the skeleton columns diagonally, then, as the compass shifted again, walking alongside them to the deeper desert. For safety’s sake, Maesa withdrew a little from the column the compass demanded he follow, shadowing it at a mile’s distance. Time ran on. The line of skeletons did not break or waver, but stamped on, on, on towards Shyish’s centre, each step a progression of the one behind, so the skeletons were like so many drawings pulled from a child’s zoetrope.
Some time later – neither Maesa nor Shattercap knew how long – they witnessed a new sight. In a lonely hollow they spied a figure. On impulse Maesa turned Aelphis away from their route to investigate.
A human male squatted in the dust, a prospector’s pan in one hand. From the other he let a slow trickle of sand patter into the pan, then sifted it carefully around the pan while croaking minor words of power. Sometimes he would take a speck of sand out and put it into something near his feet. More often he would tip the load aside.
‘Good evening,’ said Maesa. It was dangerous approaching anyone in the wastes, but even the prince, who had spent solitary decades in his wandering, felt the need for company.
‘Eh, eh? Evening? Always night time. What do you want?’ said the man. He did not look up from his work.
Maesa saw no reason to lie. ‘I seek the life sands of my lost love. I hope to bring her back, and be with her again.’
‘Mmm, hmmm, yes. Many come here for the realm sand, the crystallised essence of mortal years,’ said the necromancer, pawing at the ground. He mumbled something unintelligible, then suddenly looked around, eyes wide. His skin was pallid. A peculiar smell rose from him. ‘You must be a great practitioner of the arts of necromancy to attempt to find a particular vein, though I doubt it. I never met an aelf with a knack for the wind of Shyish. But I, Qualos the Astute, necromancer supreme, I will have my own life soon bottled in this glass! By reversing it, I shall live forever. I alone have the art to exploit the Sands of Grief, whereas you shall fail!’ He chuckled madly. ‘What do you think of that?’
‘It is most impressive,’ said Maesa.
The smile dropped from Qualos’ face, his eyes widened. ‘Oh, you best be careful! He doesn’t like it when souls are taken! You take the one you’re looking for, even a part, and he’ll come for you. He’ll not let you be until your bones march in his legions and your spirit shrieks in his host.’ He looked about, then whispered. ‘I speak of Nagash.’
The whisper streamed from his lips and away over the dunes, growing louder the further it travelled. Thunder boomed far away. Aelphis shied.
‘Not I, though. I have this! Within is my life! My soul is none but my own.’ He held up the bottom bulb of an hourglass. Th
e neck was snapped, the top lost. The glass was scratched to the point of opacity. No sand would run in that vessel, unless it was to fall out.
‘I see,’ said Maesa neutrally.
‘The man is mad!’ hissed Shattercap.
‘Just a few grains more, then I will be heading back,’ said Qualos. ‘All the peoples of Eska will marvel at my feat!’ he said. He licked his lips with a tongue dry and black as old leather. ‘I don’t think you can do it, not like me.’ He cradled his broken glass to his chest.
‘We shall see,’ said Maesa.
‘Well, on your way!’ said the necromancer, his face transformed by a snarl. ‘You distract me from my task. Get ye gone.’
Aelphis plodded slowly by the man. As they passed him, Maesa glimpsed white shining inside his open robes. Shattercap growled.
Qualos’ ribs poked through desiccated flesh. Splintered bone trapped a dark hole where his heart had beaten, now gone.
‘He is dead!’ whispered Shattercap.
‘Yes,’ said Maesa.
Shattercap scrambled across Maesa’s shoulders to look behind.
‘You knew?’
‘Only when he spoke,’ admitted Maesa. ‘I thought him alive, at first.’
‘Should we not tell him?’ asked Shattercap.
‘I do not think it would make any difference, and it may put us in danger. His fate is not our business. The Lord of Undeath has him in his thrall. A cruel joke.’
Maesa directed Aelphis back upon their course and rode for a while. When he was sure they were out of sight of Qualos, Maesa pulled out Ghyran’s bottled life and regarded it critically.
‘The lack of this, however, is a cause for concern. There is enough for a few more days,’ he said. He looked towards the centre of Shyish, estimating the ride to more hospitable lands. ‘No more than that.’
‘What do we do when we run out?’ whimpered Shattercap.
Maesa would not answer.
Sacrosanct & Other Stories Page 23
