“Peace?” Cillian repeated. “Exactly like he did with the traitor god, Nathair, he let them win. This time he trapped them all inside his own body and sacrificed himself to save all of us – I don’t think that option could ever have occurred to such selfish creatures as they were. With his last shreds of willpower he held up the wards and…” I struggled to get the words out from a throat gone dry.
“And then he died,” Cillian whispered. “And dragged them down into oblivion with him.”
We were silent for a long time.
Cillian drummed ink-stained fingers on the desk. “How certain are you that you witnessed the death of the enemy tyrant? They possess such a devious magic, and we only found a finger.”
“I am certain,” she replied. “They were locked within Walker’s body and had no opportunity to affect me before the end, or they would have. He managed to destroy them in body and mind. We would not be having this discussion were it otherwise.”
Cillian sighed and nodded. “What now for you? I have so many tasks needing done. There will be great need for a knight of your prowess in the coming days. You are a hero to the people you know.”
I shook my head. “I am done.” My voice rasped, hard and harsh even to my own ears.
“I could order you to stay,” Cillian replied. “But I know you would just ignore it. A little of Edrin Walker seems to have rubbed off on you. Sometimes I think the Arcanum could use a little more of that. Still, you have sacrificed enough, Evangeline.” The Archmagus grimaced, and forced out her next words, dripping with pity: “I know you suffer greatly from your wounds, and I know that will never change. If you wished, I would end it quickly and without pain?”
I considered it, feeling little emotion about dying. It would be a relief from the relentless pain. She could do it in an instant – burst my heart and stop my blood. “No,” I answered, surprising myself a little. “I would not ask that of you. There are still mighty daemons lurking in the hinterlands. I shall venture out alone, find these remnants, kill them, and eventually die at their claws. I will go down fighting.”
Cillian rose, came around the desk and put her arms around me. I stiffened, but then just put up with it. “May the gods go with you, Magus Evangeline Avernus.”
I snorted and eyed the mass of scrollwork on her desk. “I think you need their attention more than I do. I have all that I need.”
With that I left the Archmagus and the Arcanum behind and descended from the Old Town into the Crescent. I stopped and looked back up at my home for the last time. The gods’ towers were lit and their temples glowed with renewed life. The war was over and the world was safe. Setharis would rebuild. I was no longer needed. I could finally rest.
I did not consider saying farewell to my parents, even with their newfound desire to reconcile now that I was thought a hero. Funny that.
I set off to obtain a mount and supplies. I would set forth for one last glorious fight. Peace could wait. Filled with resolve, I turned my back on the Old Town and visited the supply stores and stables. While a boy saddled my horse, I watched the people passing by on the street. For a moment it seemed like the old Setharis, if you didn’t look down to witness the devastation of the Docklands. Even here in Sethgate, the richest area of the Crescent, the clothing was old and patched, and weapons worn on every hip. The jugglers, illusionists and wandering bards were mostly gone from the street corners, replaced by weapon carts and sword masters touting for business, offering training for sons and daughters at reasonable prices, promising spectacular results.
I stiffened, noting a face I had been seeing entirely too often over the previous weeks, too regularly to be mere coincidence now that it occurred to me. I had felt eyes upon me but until now I had not managed to locate the watcher. She was very good indeed if it had taken me this long to notice such close scrutiny.
The woman smiled and nodded a greeting, then crossed the street towards me. There was something oddly familiar about the way she moved…
She was young, pretty and dark skinned, and up close I realised that she was known to me through the memories Edrin Walker had shared before the end. I looked to her hand, noting the distinctive callouses and small scars from weapon-work, and then imagined her wearing a mask. “Layla,” I said. A vague protective emotion washed over me, the ghostly memories of Walker.
“Hello Eva,” she said. “He said you would know me without the mask if I came too close.”
A moment of confusion, and quickly quashed hope. I did see the sneaky bastard die, after all. There was no faking that or the recognisable fragments of his body scattered across mud and grass. Even Dissever had broken into jagged shards upon his demise.
She held out two folded squares of parchment sealed with blobs of red wax. “Uncle Walker left these letters for you among the pile entrusted to me.”
“And it has taken until now for you to deliver them?” I growled, snatching them from her.
She shrugged, not concerned in the slightest about angering me. “He told me to wait and watch, and only to hand them over if you decided to leave on a stupidly suicidal quest. His words of course, annoying bastard.”
I opened the first letter and began to read aloud. His handwriting was atrocious.
Dearest Eva,
If you are reading this then I am dead, which sucks arse. Still, surprise! Just because I am dust and ash does not mean I am done annoying you just yet.
If you have this letter then it means you are determined to go off and get yourself killed. I get it. I have felt your pain. I know that only duty kept you going. You fought to save Setharis in its
darkest hour. You fought to save the world. It was a worthy cause to endure agony for. Now you no longer have any reason to.
If you want to die then go right ahead. I’m dead so I can’t exactly stop you. You might want to try something first of course, a way to find peace and freedom from your pain. Do you recall I said that there is supposed to be a sacred valley deep in the Clanholds, a place that only the despairing can find? There, the God of Broken Things dwells. Apparently he cannot heal, for that is a rare talent indeed, but they believe that those wounded in body will feel no pain, and for those wounded by the past, they are gifted with forgetfulness.
Worth a trip to check it out, right? Do it for me – one last request. If it doesn’t work out, have a drink for me and then go pick a fight with something big and nasty. There will be plenty of such things loose up here for years to come.
I have also sent you a map. Apologies for my artwork. It’s about as grand as my poetry. Note to self – leave a letter for Layla to burn the contents of that damned box.
Well, I guess this is farewell. I hope you find peace, one way or another.
–Walker.
PS – Did you see how fucking awesome I was at the end? At least, I hope I was. If everything went to plan then that should be worth an epic tale or two from those bloody bards.
I opened the map and stared, then showed Layla. She burst out laughing at the uneven scrawls and child-like drawings of trees, mountains and towns. I couldn’t help but smile. It was truly, truly awful, but it would serve.
I looked to Layla, who was studying me intently. “Did you burn whatever was in that box?”
She grinned. “Oh gods no. He’s a hero don’t you know, and it might be worth something one day.” She handed me another slip of paper, old and yellowed at the edges. “Have a read later and you will see why he wanted it burned. It really is that bad. So, what will you do?”
I instinctively liked her. We might have been friends in different days. “I’ll go; I owe him that. One last request to try and find peace… hah, I expect it to prove superstitious nonsense, but there is nothing lost by taking a look, and daemons roam the Clanholds as well as the rest of Kaladon. That place is as good as any other to die.”
Layla stuck out her arm and I clasped it. “I hope you find your peace,” she said. “I will help look after this place, and Cillian is not a bad choice of
archmagus.”
“She will do well,” I said, as the stable boy brought my readied horse over. I mounted and lifted a hand in farewell. “I wish you well, Layla. May life treat you kindly.” With that I rode down into Docklands, past new housing being built and rubble being cleared. One day all of this would be a distant memory. A horror recorded only in crumbling scrolls and weather-worn statues, read only by scholars and remembered in inflated tales told by bards on dark and stormy nights. That was no bad thing.
Walker’s memories offered me conflicted feelings as I left Setharis behind and made for Westford Docks to take a ship north to the Clanholds. He had been forced to leave his home once, with no intention of returning, and now I too had no expectation I would ever set foot here again.
Somebody was waiting for me at the docks, currently deserted with all the sailors cowered in their ships’ holds. They’d had more than enough of magic and monsters, and even gods like Shadea. She was clad in flesh of shining bronze with a golden skull, steel wires and pulsing human veins.
“Magus Evangeline Avernus,” she greeted me.
I dismounted and offered her a hand, a huge breach of etiquette when facing an Elder, never mind a god. She had always been good to me and I think some of Edrin Walker’s boldness bid me to treat her as human one last time.
She took it, careful not to crush even my knight’s body to pulp. “I would heal you if I could, but I do not possess the skills required. If you do not wish to wait the years necessary for me to learn then I could construct you a new body immediately?”
I ran my eyes across her body of brass and blood and shook my head. “I am tired. I think I would rather rest than become something inhuman. No offense meant, elder… ah, my god.”
Shadea smiled, cogs turning, wires pulling. “Then I hope you find the rest you seek.”
Behind me the sky flashed purple and the ground trembled. One of the gods towers shook and spat a stream of fire into the clouds – the one belonging to the Hooded God.
Shadea laughed, a tinny, unnatural sound but no less filled with undisguised glee. “That sly boy! He was always trouble. He had a letter delivered to a certain group of scribes along with a bag of gold. Copies of it have spread all through the city.”
“What did this one say?” “It truthfully detailed every single illegal act, every murder and machination that Archmagus Byzant once carried out when he was in charge of the Arcanum, or asked young Edrin to do on his behalf. The boy has spilled every last one of Byzant’s dark secrets, and placed the guilt at the foot of the Hooded God’s temple. All now know who that god was before he ascended, and what he did. I suspect, however, that the additional stories of Byzant’s dalliances with a pig might have been false. It would seem in line with Edrin’s perverse sense of humour. False claims or not, the god is now a laughing stock and utterly reviled.”
Laughter erupted from my mouth and my eye burned with tears. “Couldn’t happen to a better piece of shit.” Shadea joined me in my mirth. It was a lovely shared moment, but passed all too soon. She had so much to see to, and never enough time.
As she sank down into the stone below her feet, frightened faces peered out from portholes and cabins, gazing on me with wonder. I turned my back on the rage of Edrin Walker’s old mentor who had tried to have him killed, and made my way aboard my ship with a wide smile under my mask.
This was goodbye.
CHAPTER 38
The Clanholds on a sunny spring day was quite a sight. The endless white snow-bound valleys and frozen streams had given away to lush grass and budding trees. Sheep dotted every hillside and long-horned cattle with shaggy red hair had been put out to pasture, barely even noticing a horse and its steel-masked rider winding through the valley. It was serene without hordes of screaming daemons and bloodthirsty warriors trying to hack your head off. Hawks circled lazily overhead and small blackbirds flitted through trees and bushes, singing their hearts out. I was in no great hurry.
Banks of vibrant yellow blooming gorse bushes lined the path on either side, prickly and fragrant. A riot of small white flowers, delicate as single drops of snow, bloomed outside the squat, drab farmhouses and atop picturesque rises.
As the light began to fade I came to the only inn for leagues around, two storeys of grey stone and lichen. An old man was sat outside weaving a length of rope, smoke rising from a clay pipe jutting from cracked lips. He looked up, shading his eyes against the sunset as I approached and dismounted. “Lad!” he shouted. “A customer!” A small, surly boy scurried out to take the reins and led my mount to a small stable around the back.
I looked at the valley ahead, the route growing increasingly steep. “I need a private room and a hot meal.” The mask was itching and my legs were burning, the skin cracked and weeping from all the riding.
The old man leaned forward, took out his pipe and cocked his head, looking me up and down. “Room and meal? Nae bother, but you don’t wanna be headin’ up those parts. There’s tell of monsters lairing in the hills now. O’course you have a big sword strapped to yer mount. Any good?”
I shrugged. “There will not be monsters for long.” I collected my pack and sword from the stables and was shown to my private room. After undressing to treat my wounds and slathering a mixture of herbs and grease across burning, itchy scars, I replaced my mask and clothing and went back out to sit at a table by the hearth in the common room. A young girl brought me a cup of ale and a wooden platter of bread, cheese and a bowl of mutton stew. She shied away from me, afraid of the mask.
The old man was not so bothered, quite the reverse. “Wounded in the war were ye? Didn’t mean no offense. You folks fought a’side our young’uns against the Skallgrim and their monstrous beasts is all.”
I nodded. His expression slumped into gratitude. “Did you know ’im? The tyrant as was called Walker?”
“I did. He was a good man.”
The old man sat opposite without asking and bellowed for ale. “That must be a story and a half.”
I looked down at my food forlornly. An audience was not welcome, given I would have to lift my mask to eat and drink.
“Have you ever heard of a being they call the God of Broken Things?” I asked instead. “Is it real?”
He paused, then slowly nodded. “So I hear. Certain to be strangeness on the path ahead through those there hills. Folk vanish. Folk go in with food and goods and come back with silver and no idea where they’ve been.”
I unfurled my map, set it on the table and tapped a crude drawing. “I am looking for this valley.”
He squinted down at it, then back at me, then at the map again. “The rock there looks like the maiden stone. Said to be a legendary druí bard with a silver tongue as was turned to stone in a storm, struck down by great spirits who didn’t like her telling tales better than themselves. It’s a little off the track. A way’s up the rise and then left through a tiny pass right by a shrine to The Queen of Winter. Horses refuse to go there so it’s said. Nothing more to see, it’s just a barren hunk o’ rock and scree down that way. Whole legend is a crock of shite if you ask me.”
I was almost at my destination. “Keep the horse. Where I am going I will have no need of it. Have your boy lead me there in the morning. Now leave me to eat in peace.”
The next morning the surly boy led me to the entrance of the pass. He seemed nervous to go any further, muttering about curses and dead spirits of evil druí stealing away and eating the hearts of wayward children. I imagined any such being might spit this sour child right back out.
I slung my pack and sword over my shoulder to squeeze my way through the small pass, a crevice in the side of a cliff really. On the other side another, hidden, valley began. A crooked stone pillar, like an old woman with a hump, guarded the route ahead. An old shrine to the Queen of Winter lay in ruins, kicked into a ditch.
I began to walk, and at my pace I would be at the mark on the map within the day. It was disappointing to only be attacked twice, once by a half-sta
rved bone vulture, and once by a strange demon that was half-dog and half-monkey. I enjoyed the diversion of beating both to death with my bare hands.
After a few hours, rock gave way to soil and grass. I came across farmers tilling small plots of land, and tending sheep and cattle. I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. This was no hidden valley, and was surely no secret if people lived and farmed here.
A few of them waved as I passed by, and I hesitantly returned it. It was certainly not a place of daemonic terror and they didn’t seem scared to see an armed stranger with a steel mask. It was a little odd so soon after a great war, and yet none of them bore any weapon beyond hoe and shovel.
It was a pretty place, and sheltered from the winds that scoured some of the other places in the Clanholds. Swallows flitted and danced in the sky and I found myself enjoying the walk. For a time it distracted me from constant pain and the rubbing of clothing.
After another league or so past a number of occupied dwellings, and others still only half-built, I realised that something was bothering me. I had not seen any children, and a number of the inhabitants bore nasty scars. Old limping warriors and women with faces lined with grief laughed and smiled without care as they worked the land. Phantom hairs on my arms rose.
This place was not right. I kept my blade close to hand. Splitting from the main path up ahead, a gravel track led to a wide circular tower made from dry stone that loomed above every other building I had seen in the valley. Smoke trailed from gaps in a circular slate roof, and people were coming and going from the tower’s single and very defensible doorway, some laden with building materials and others hefting sacks of grain. As I approached the door leading to a large and smoky central room, a man on his way out stepped aside and with his sole arm held the thick oak door to allow me to enter. I stepped through and tried not to stare – his face was a disfigured mass of burn scarring.
“Good afternoon,” he said cheerily in a Setharii accent hailing from the cultured middle classes of the Crescent. “The ale here is cold and the food is hot. You will find what you seek, of that I have no doubt.” He pointed to her mask. “You will not need that, Eva. We are all friends here. None will judge a person on such superficiality.”
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