by Sam Bowring
Gudgeon stared hard at the man. He’d seen a portrait of Corlas Corinas in the Halls, as had every soldier who’d eaten in the barracks mess there. It could be this man bore a passing resemblance, but Gudgeon couldn’t see much beneath the hair and grime. Certainly it was impossible to reconcile the image of the great warrior Corlas with this animal. Probably the bastard was mad.
‘It matters not if you doubt me,’ said Corlas. ‘What do you search my clearing for? I have nothing left to take.’
A thought struck Gudgeon. If this wild man lived here, perhaps he’d found the pendant. Maybe Gudgeon could buy his way free.
‘A pendant!’ he said. ‘A precious stone hanging on a black chain. It will fetch a great reward for the man who finds it. A great reward! Have you seen such a thing?’
Corlas stared off into the distance. ‘It was my wife’s,’ he said eventually. ‘Then my son’s. Now, like them, it is lost.’ He twisted the axe in his grip. ‘Why do you search for it?’
‘They didn’t tell us,’ said Gudgeon, hoping the man was lying about the pendant’s loss. ‘But I do know that if you can find it, the Throne will pay dearly to possess it.’
‘I told you, soldier,’ Corlas said, ‘it is gone. Where is my son?’
‘What?’
Corlas backhanded Gudgeon across the face. He yelped, and Corlas seized his throat, constricting the next cry so it came out as a squeak.
‘Do not call out. I’ll ask again. My son. He was here with me in this wood. A mage arrived with a soldier. They wanted my boy. Then shadows came creeping. As all fought over him, I was knocked unconscious.’ He drew close. ‘Who has the boy with blue hair?’
He released Gudgeon’s throat and the soldier sucked in air, glaring with angry eyes. When he could wheeze out words again, he said, ‘You claim to be father of the false child of power?’
‘Who took him?’ Corlas said, raising his hand again.
‘We did!’ said Gudgeon. ‘The light took him, though I’ve heard only rumours. I didn’t even know this wood was where they found him.’
‘Where did they take him?’
Gudgeon could feel a tooth coming loose in his gums and spat out blood. His mind raced – how could he appease this man? ‘Mages were spotted carrying him through Redbrook, but . . . he died.’
‘What?’
Gudgeon worried he’d made a terrible mistake, but he couldn’t turn back now. ‘A chest fever, they said. He died in his sleep.’
Corlas’s knuckles went white on the axe and Gudgeon whimpered. Instead of hitting him, Corlas laughed humourlessly.
‘Dead, is he? We’ll just have to see about that. Tell me why you called him the false child of power.’
‘Well,’ Gudgeon said, ‘he can’t be the child of power if he’s dead. I also heard that his hair was dyed.’
‘Dyed?’ said Corlas. ‘I see.’
He tapped Gudgeon on the forehead with his axe and the man fell unconscious once again. ‘I am sorry, blade,’ he rumbled.
•
Corlas moved to the smoking deer and tore a leg from it, eating without tasting as a fire built in his belly. He knew his son’s hair had not been dyed, so they had to be hiding him because they believed him to be the child of power. There was only one place they would take him. Corlas finally had what he needed – a direction.
He left the fire and the unconscious soldier. The man would suffer no permanent damage, and would soon be able to call out to his comrades. Although Corlas’s thoughts ran red whenever they turned to the Halls, he could not blame an individual blade. The soldier was simply following orders, as he’d done himself for many years.
One day, Mirrow, he promised. One day I will return. But until I have our son again, there is only one thing I choose to take with me.
He twisted the axe in his grip.
•
Vyasinth watched from on high, displeased by the soldiers scurrying about her domain. What they searched for was gone, carried away in a charred grip, and still they disturbed the earth.
At least the man whom Corlas had caught could serve some use. Foolishly, Corlas had left him alive, but that was something she could fix. Underneath Gudgeon, the earth caved in and slowly he sank into it. Leaves settled over his disappearance and tiny shoots began to grow.
Vyasinth wondered if Corlas could ever prove a worthy champion. The Sprite blood in him was old and buried, and he’d never even believed that he had it. She hadn’t intended him to be anything more than a mate for Mirrow. Now he was her only hope.
Return with the child, Corlas, she bade him, and you will not find Whisperwood so lightly defended against our old opponents. This I swear.
•
A bright speck in the corner of his awareness rose and fell on high thermals and finally Fahren accepted that he couldn’t concentrate on his book. The bird’s pleasure at being aloft washed through him and for a moment he forgot his anxiety over the news it carried. Affinity with animals had always been one of Fahren’s strengths. In his younger years, when he’d served at Holdwith, he’d tracked animals of Fenvarrow to make friends with them and use them as spies. The only ones he’d failed to charm were the shadowmanders, so surprisingly hateful in their dark little hearts.
Currently most of his animals were messengers, and he’d sent out many birds in the past few days. South they had flown, to mages and cerepans and anyone who owed Fahren a favour, but all were distracted by the threat of invasion. Day after day passed without word of Tyrellan.
Fahren also kept close watch on the baby being brought to the Halls. Stupidly, his mages hadn’t thought to hide the boy as they’d passed through a village on the journey home. Fahren had ordered they return to the village and falsify the child’s death, giving out that he’d been a fake and that his hair had been dyed. It was common sense to carry something so important in secret, and his underlings were going to rue their thoughtlessness – if he didn’t simply wipe their memories.
Getting up from his table, he walked to the edge of his study where, between shelves, a missing section of the wall allowed him to stare out from the top of the Open Tower. The sundart dived towards him, its golden wings spread full span. A beautiful thing it was, always Fahren’s first choice when delivering messages to pretty ladies. It landed on his outstretched hand, chirping as he stroked its wings. He unclasped the note attached to its leg and unrolled the tiny coil of paper. Breathing out slowly, he put down the note.
The Stone had not been found.
Seven / Thy Enemy’s Enemy
Seven
Thy Enemy’s Enemy
Thy Enemy’s Enemy
The forest’s edge came abruptly, a line of tall trunks like a grey fence. They overlooked the Grass Ocean, a region of grassland that stretched all the way to the Great Rass and Dragon’s Sorrow rivers. The day was hot, the dry air smothering the land like a blanket, the grass bowing many heads under a lazy sun. Somewhere a solitary bird chirped half-heartedly, as though making up its mind whether or not to sing.
Suddenly it stopped.
From inside the forest came the sound of footsteps, crunching towards the tree line.
Corlas blinked as he stepped into the sun, shielding his eyes as they adjusted. How many years since he’d left the forest? His life beforehand seemed like a dream.
As he began to stride purposefully north, a beady gaze followed him from shady branches. The creature focused on Corlas’s thoughts, so intent that they pulsed clearly in the psychic landscape. The man went to find his son, a boy with blue hair, who’d been taken away to the Open Halls.
The carcass of the bloodied songbird slipped forgotten from the creature’s claws.
•
Battu halted halfway up a staircase. One of his spies was sending him a psychic message, somewhat frayed around the edges
for the distance it travelled. The spy was watching a wild-looking man who stalked away from Whisperwood carrying a fearsome axe. Suddenly Battu understood what his spy understood – this man was the child’s father and went to find the boy who had been taken by the light. Was there some way to turn this to his advantage?
Well, he thought, the weaver will follow and I will know soon enough.
Right now he was more concerned with Tyrellan. Through the eye of the unknowing blade, he had seen the female mage dead with one of the mysterious babes in her arms, which meant Tyrellan must have escaped with the other. Tyrellan, however, had disappeared, and Battu hadn’t been able to scry him out. He both admired and damned the goblin’s ability to hide, leaning towards damnation as time passed.
Meanwhile, his army continued to gather, as did the Throne’s forces, at Holdwith. This was concerning, as there was always a chance the Throne would decide to take the offensive. Though Battu would love to wage outright war, that had never been part of the plan. He had his orders, received from the Dark Gods all those years ago, and already he had taken liberties.
Where was Tyrellan?
Ahead, at the top of the spiral staircase, was a door behind which his answer might lie. Plucking a key from his robe to undo the lock, he listened for a moment to the roar of the Cloud on the other side. He still felt the old excitement when he came here. There was no way to tell what he might experience in the shadowdream. Perhaps he would float in ecstasy, or be inundated with despair. He might see the future, the past, or things that never were and never would be. And though the dream ran thick through the walls of Skygrip, it was here on the roof that entering it was most overwhelming.
He opened the door.
In the centre of the roof, between the four great pinnacles, a curling stream of grey-black vapour rose into the sky. It moved upwards slowly, thundering like a distant sea, feeding into the boiling Cloud high above. This was the birthplace of the biggest shadow in the world, one that fell on land and sea, on past and future, even on possibility.
Battu stepped into the vapour and felt the updraught of the Cloud’s passage, the soft caress of floating moisture. He kneeled on the cold stone from which the Cloud emanated and breathed in a darkness that suffused his body and mind. He began to float, indistinct, in a place where time and space held no sway. A great void surrounded and carried him, though it did not take him to anything, nor did it bring him from anywhere. Distantly he heard the sound of the world from conception to end, but avoided listening too closely. He spread outwards without purpose until he had almost spread too far. Be a leaf in the stream, Raker had taught him, not the stream itself. He reined himself in, and then he began to chance upon other leaves, drifting . . .
. . . dark shapes slip through dark water, circling a kill, which darts back and forth desperately. The anticipation of blood, flesh between the teeth, means the sharks won’t, can’t, hold back much longer. No, thinks Battu, draw away . . . this is not the time for pleasant distractions . . .
. . . a young man sits by a stream, feet dangling in the water, listening to the sound of insects chirping. He has pale skin and eyes like midnight lakes and wears the blackest gloves Battu has ever seen. Battu has never known calm such as he sees on the young man’s face. Someone comes to sit beside him, runs her hand through his long blue hair . . .
. . . Fahren is angry, raises a warning hand. Battu pulls back the hood of his cloak and the old man’s eyes widen in surprise and recognition . . .
. . . a field of tiny flowers, white. Battu walks across it, the sun shining brightly on his back, the grass soft under his bare feet. In the sky, golden birds circle and play, catching flies in a warm breeze. What is he doing here?
. . . an orange puffer fish swimming in a dark sea. It gets tangled in a net, extends its thorns to protect itself and they catch in the weave. It begins its final journey, to Battu’s table . . .
. . . Tyrellan, but younger than he is now. The goblin sits hunched by a cliff overlooking the Black Sea. Someone approaches and he moves behind a rock, stringing an arrow to his bow. His brother arrives, calling for him. Tyrellan puts an arrow in his back, sending him off the edge of the cliff. Tyrellan stands, walks to the edge to look down . . .
. . . a scar-faced man, Raker, stands on the roof in front of the Cloud. He turns to eleven-year-old Battu and smiles fiercely. Battu thinks he is ugliest when he smiles. Raker tells him to come and see, to touch the Cloud, to get lost in it . . .
. . . Raker again, this time fighting for his life. He’s wounded already, for Battu has caught him off guard. His eyes are full of rage, but Battu sees he is genuinely surprised at this betrayal. Battu learns a valuable lesson about trust . . .
. . . and Tyrellan again. The goblin crouches amongst bushes, a child with blue hair tightly strapped to his back. He hides from the day, and a group of soldiers on horses, a Varenkai patrol riding past. They move on; failing to spy him.
Battu flooded back to his body, rolling out of the Cloud to gasp in cold air.
Tyrellan was coming home.
•
That evening, on a bare patch of earth between trees, Corlas fed sticks to a fire. He’d built it without thinking, for there was nothing to cook and no need to see the empty, miserable world around him. Though this was a land he’d once fought for, he felt little connection to it now. It was tainted by those who ruled it, those he’d once served but who had stolen his child and left him for dead. Weariness closed his eyes, but anger kept him awake.
‘Sleeping so soon?’
Corlas leaped to his feet, axe at the ready. Hopping about at the edge of the firelight was a little bird. Corlas’s movement startled it and it cocked its head at him warily. A moment passed and it returned to its fossicking. Corlas glanced around but no one else was there. Had he imagined that singsong voice as he’d been falling asleep?
‘Who’s there?’ he demanded of the darkness.
‘Just us,’ came the voice.
Corlas spun about, but again there was nothing there save the bird. It scratched the earth and gave a low chirp.
Sitting down heavily, Corlas buried his head in his hands. Had he lost his mind as well? Would there ever come a time when he had nothing left to take?
‘Why do I bring such despair, Varenkai?’ came the voice.
‘Silence!’ bellowed Corlas. ‘You do not exist! Leave me be!’
‘But I hate to see someone alone in such a state.’
The voice was so close that Corlas’s head jerked up. At his feet stood the bird, unafraid. It was sparrow-sized but far more colourful, with wings of scarlet, a yellow breast and a bright blue tail. It had eyes like beads of blood. Corlas blinked at it.
‘Did you . . . speak?’
‘I’ve been speaking for some time.’
Corlas stared in shock.
‘I’m sorry if I scared you,’ said the bird. ‘I have that effect on people sometimes. Most birds don’t talk, I do realise that.’
‘You . . .’ Corlas licked cracked lips. ‘You are real?’
The bird gave a chirp of what seemed to be amusement. ‘I certainly hope so! Did you think you were imagining me?’
‘Indeed,’ said Corlas slowly. ‘And still I am not convinced. My mind has been . . . overloaded of late. I fear I may have dropped it altogether.’
The bird seemed to think about this, then launched off the ground to alight on Corlas’s arm. Corlas flinched as it tightened sharp little claws on his skin.
‘There,’ said the bird. ‘Does that feel real?’
Corlas was dumbfounded. The bird did seem real enough.
‘What are you?’ he asked.
‘A friend. Perhaps one more significant than my appearance suggests.’ It seemed to sigh. ‘Not many of my kind are left these days, but long ago we were the Sun God’s messengers. We lived
in his Garden and filled it with song. So prized by Arkus were we that he bestowed upon us the power of speech and allowed us to fly free into the skies of the world. Wherever we go, we bring his light, and when we feel the presence of one who lives without it, we are driven to help. And I have not felt misery such as yours for a long time. I don’t know what ails you, but, if you wish it, I will travel with you for a time. Perhaps I can help?’
Corlas laughed bitterly. ‘What help is a tiny bird?’
The bird scratched its head idly with a claw. ‘Companionship is not measured by size or shape, and it can be good to talk if one is troubled. Perhaps you will tell me what has befallen you?’
Corlas’s faced darkened.
‘Something I’ve learned,’ the bird said, ‘is that if one hoards his feelings like gold, he can expect to collect interest. And, like wealth, too much misery can drive a man insane. Perhaps your heavy mind would lighten if you shared its load?’
Corlas closed his eyes as sadness welled up within, like water pushing against a dam. Perhaps he did need to talk to someone. Yes, came soft words somewhere in his mind, encouraging, understanding. Speak.
The dam burst and words gushed in a torrent. Corlas told the bird everything: about the death of his wife, the birth and theft of his son, the days or weeks following as he’d roamed the wood, forcing himself to keep on living, to put food in his mouth and lie down to sleep, instead of climbing a tree to throw himself off. Then the soldiers had come looking for the pendant, bringing with them the information he’d needed – the whereabouts of his child. At the end of the deluge his voice was hoarse. Only then did he realise he had been shouting in anger.
‘Those are terrible things to happen to a person,’ said the bird, full of compassion. ‘Terrible things. You poor fellow.’ Its eyes flickered. ‘Did the soldiers manage to rob you of the pendant as well? After they had taken everything else?’
