The Best of Men - an epic fantasy (Song of Ages Book 1)

by Wilf Jones

  Bassalo could not close his eyes but, for all the torment they had endured, he knew that now for a blessing.

  Central Asteranor

  HEARTLAND

  Misin Part 3057.7.18

  Proud steps, echoing deeply, set the woodland flowers a-shiver; her whinny quivered the tall trees. She was a bay warhorse of remarkable weight and strength, livery of green and gold hung with tiny bells and tassels, her bridle and empty saddle wrought of tooled leather. Dressed for a pageant she was power incarnate prettied to be less frightening.

  On a whim she cantered; for a lark she ran fast, bells shrilling. Abruptly she charged off the greenway, clattered through the trees, splashed through a brook and burst onto the road again. Like a foal she frolicked among the woody paths of Pars’ heartland, far from danger, far from evil. She was safe and free and her heart was full.

  Almost free: a tender slavery ruled her. Even now she heard his call. It was like a whisper, it was like a kiss. He was ready.

  The glitter deep in the forget-me-nots gave him away. Armour aflame in the high sun he struggled with the pans and bags and other gear, all to be hidden up for the onward journey. Seama was now less than a mile from Ayer; noon would see them climbing the river bluffs to the ancient castle: there seemed little point in taking the bedding.

  The wizard looked up as the charger neighed her approach.

  ‘Rested then?’ he asked and she nodded in agreement. He grinned. ‘Now who’s a pretty Bellus?’ The tease provoked a snort of disapproval. She did not like the decoration and didn’t care who knew it. ‘What can we do, Bellus? The Court will have its way.’ Seama was sure Mador wouldn’t care if he turned up in night-clothes but there was etiquette to be observed, and even the King had to bow to that. Ayer was an ancient citadel, a seat of great power on this continent, demanding of respect; should Ayer require a degree of pomp and pageant then a degree of pomp and pageant is what she would get. Even if that did mean dressing up in armour elsewhere considered old-fashioned.

  ‘Heavy arms, Bellus, and a breastplate and greaves too – I’m a beast of burden. And speaking of such, what shall we do with The Mule? Leave him here?’ Bellus snorted again. Seama laughed. ‘Yes let’s. Safer that way, he’ll only cause trouble. You should have seen him when he got rid of the packs! You should have heard him! No, we’ll let him wander. He’s far too noisy for the Palace.’

  As though in response to his words a raucous braying arose from a beech thicket close-by, but the owner of the voice came no nearer.

  ‘Stay then!’ he called. ‘Come on Bellus, we’ll get no better.’

  It was a habit of the wizard to talk to his animals as though they understood him.

  His road to Ayer followed a route through the calm woods and farmsteads of the Misin Part, a beautiful if un-dramatic country. Seama was a son of the wind-blasted Isle of Athel in the Errensea, more at home with a raging ocean and tall cliffs than this carefully maintained and utterly predictable parkland, and yet there was something irresistible about the place. This was the home of the Partians; they had fought to protect it through sixteen hundred years of trauma and conflict. The desire of generations had carved the landscape into something comfortable, green and fat, inviolable as a matron, immune to change. Seama’s home with its salt-stinging winds and craggy littoral was so far removed from these surroundings that he felt suddenly, achingly out of place.

  Seama’s role in life was all to do with protection. Whenever the Council saw fit, which meant often, he was sent out to solve problems, to offer support, to protect the vulnerable. So what was the point of sending him here? If anybody needed his help right now it was the villagers on the Aegardean border. Mador certainly didn’t need help, just a kick up the backside and a stern warning, and anyone from the Council could have done that.

  ‘It has to be you, Seama.’ Peveril had insisted, ‘Sabresten and Melchiot are in Polz by now, making for Nai’vedya – we have to know what the Sirdar is planning next.’ Gow Sabresten and Otrom Melchiot were key agents for The Council, men of authority, easy to trust and powerful too. ‘What with that and the group still up at Aristeth we are a little thin on the ground. And besides, Seama, who else would Mador listen to if not you?’

  Seama had not taken it lying down.

  ‘Look, Aiden, the question that really needs answering is who else should be sorting out this Black Company? You heard what Sight had to say about them. They are an abomination. Packing me off to Ayer adds five days to my journey. A lot of people could die in that time. Waldin, tell him.’

  Waldin had been uncomfortable with all of this ever since Sight’s outburst and subsequent report. He wasn’t the cold fish some thought him. And yet he did not hesitate.

  ‘We all share your impatience, Seama. If I had the power… if we had the power, if you had become Tap-Rod then, perhaps, we could have done something immediately. As it stands we don’t even know where they are. Whether it is shock or something else, the fact is Sight has lost the ability to track them. So, I have sent messages to Roar McAndre and Colm Peveril. They are already at River’s Twist, much closer to the problem than we…’

  ‘Roar and Colm? No disrespect meant to you, Leader, but your son isn’t twenty. Waldin, you must know he’s far too young for a mission like this. And Roar McAndre, he was a great force in his time but…’

  ‘Seama, to you everyone is either too young or too old: it colours your perception. The rest of us are not so well blessed in our governance of age. A blend of experience and youthful power, rarely available in one man, is what we need in your stead.’

  Waldin strayed between compliment and criticism in his argument and though niggled Seama took his point, ‘And that’s why you think the pair will work well together.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Well I think it’s asking for trouble.’

  ‘We’ll see. However I’m not sending them out to fight the Black Company – that will be your job. Their job will be to locate this foul crew and gather information. Knowing where to find them will more than make up for your days lost in Ayer.’

  Seama let his shoulders fall. He knew he had lost the argument pretty much as soon as it started.

  ‘How will they let me know?’

  Waldin cleared his throat. ‘Roar has his bird,’ he said.

  ‘Not the eagle? Not again. You know it nearly had my hand last time we used it.’ Seama shook his head. ‘Bad tempered, foul mouthed and vicious, and those are its good points. It should never be let out of its cage, never mind sending it off as a messenger.’

  Aiden Peveril looked up from some papers he had been taking the opportunity to sign. ‘An animal that hasn’t fallen under your spell, my lord? Surely not?’

  Seama returned him a tight smile.

  ‘I am better with creatures that walk upon the earth, Aiden. Though there’s a spell or two I’d like to try on that damn creature if I get the chance.’

  Waldin shrugged. ‘It’s always perfectly fine with me. There must be something about you it dislikes.’

  ‘Well the feeling is mutual.’

  ‘What I always wonder,’ Peveril mused, ‘is just how it manages to find people?’

  ‘I don’t think even Roar could tell us that. But Seama, there is an easy answer. I will have him contact De Vere instead. You will be meeting up after your trip to Ayer, I take it?’

  ‘I haven’t sent word yet, but yes. There’s plenty of groundwork to be done and he’s far the best man for it.’

  ‘There we are then, problem solved.’

  And so it had gone: arguments bypassed, wrinkles ironed out. Seama’s route had been made up for him: the fast clipper from Errensea to Pilgrim’s Bay, Pilgrim’s Bay to Ayer, Ayer to Riverport, a ship to cross the River-Sea, a canter through Gothery’s midlands and finally off to find The Black Company somewhere in eastern A
egarde. He just hoped he could make good time. Seama needed a quick solution to this: to defeat the sorcerers, dismay the villains, to lift the spirits of their victims and arm the people to their own defence. And all this, of course, to succour the suffering, to bring hope, yes, and all this, of course, was very important… but deep down, shamefully acknowledged, Seama knew full well the real reason he wanted it finished. However cold and brutal the deeds of the Black Company, they were nothing more than a distraction. The sheer ferocity of their attacks was designed to create outrage, the outrage provoked reaction and dispute, and the dispute was made critical all to draw the eye of the Council. For Seama, if no one else, that fact was plain as a pikestaff. The thought of it made him feel queasy. How breathtakingly callous to cause so much pain and anguish and horror simply to create a diversion. How evil the mind behind such a design. But what deed, what event, what plan was that dispassionate mind so keen to keep hidden?

  Seama had no doubt where the answer lay. The burning book burned through all he knew. His interest had turned to obsession, his obsession had become need: need to understand, need to connect, a need to… something, he knew not what. The book dominated his waking thoughts and unsettled his dreams; it both disturbed and thrilled him. For all the confusion, for all of its ramblings through dubious history and spurious chronicle and incomprehensible commentary, Seama had finally developed a clear notion of what this Song of Ages was all about. It was quite simple: the burning book was a warning.

  He had brought it with him, tucked into his saddle bag, a facsimile of all they had left. Every morning and every night he read as much as he could. Some of it was maddening, full of words he didn’t and couldn’t understand; some of it was laboured and boring to him, the author shovelling out information in the hope that some of it would stick and mean something; but increasingly Seama’s eyes and thoughts were drawn to passages describing, far too briefly, the early days of this age of the world. Eight thousand years ago, an epoch lost to common knowledge, a presumption of an age when mankind, scattered and homeless, struggled to find a future; a time when whatever had gone before was slipping away into fancy and myth. But deep in the heart of that fancy and myth, as cold and hard as stone, stood a truth, a monument of the past, a reality that was once so important the whole of creation had to bow before it. It was there in the Song, obscured by time and Haslem’s ageing brain, but there nonetheless. A menace lay upon the borders of this new existence of man, an angry and a jealous menace, waiting only upon the slightest chance to return.

  Seama’s notion had spawned a theory that carried at heart an easy proposition: whatever it was waiting then, all those years ago, it waited still; a force standing in the wings of the daily drama of the people of Earnor, watching and yearning as the pages turned, cloaked in deception, armed with fear and ever poised to make an entrance.

  War was coming, that was it: the essence of Haslem’s warning. A mighty war! And all the disputes and the squabbles and the wicked deeds of this year were merely the opening scenes of a much greater tragedy. Seama knew this to be true. He just did not know how, or where, or when or why.

  Small meadows and strip fields sloped away from the left hand side of the road down to the winding River Misium. Cattle and sheep browsed the lush grazing by the river; farmsteads and hamlets dotted the valley. The ‘city’ of Ayer, set fair amid this pastoral scene, was a cluster of streets grown up around the market yards beneath the castle hill. Most of the buildings here were houses for rent, inns or hotels. Ayer was a bustling place. A weekly fair brought merchants from all over the continent; the King’s court brought in petitioners and emissaries and no doubt any number of spies but the permanent population was relatively small. Many of those with work in the town came in every day from the surrounding countryside. Pars had true cities of course: Riverport on the Hypodedicus, the city of Pilgrim’s Bay, Pulonia and many large towns but the country was essentially rural and it was considered right that Ayer, with its feet in the good earth, was capital of Pars and King’s Residence.

  The road up to the castle bypassed the town. There were not many visitors though who would have dared approach the castle directly. Protocol would force most people seeking an audience with the King, or indeed with any of the Lords of the eight Houses, first of all to attend the bailiff’s office down at the town hall. There a request might well be considered over several days before being accepted or denied. But Seama was not most people. Seama was a friend of the King.

  It had been many years ago at the time of Mador’s marriage to Jehanne that their friendship had begun. Even now this familiar path brought back the most bittersweet of memories.

  The wedding of the King of Pars to the daughter of Maximilliam Meladre, Convener of the Apian Part, was so important an event that the then Leader of the High Council of Errensea, Astrig Beladaer, had journeyed to Ayer in a great company. With him the Governors of Lindis and Brist, their wives and children in tow, and Waldin Omroot, newly appointed Master of the College, and, just to round things out, the several grand masters of commerce who were key to the thriving trade between Pars and the Holy Isles. At the Leader’s request Seama Beltomé accompanied the Master. His official role was to stay behind after the festivities for long discussions with Mador and his ministers on the political and economic challenges that lay before them all. Unofficially he was there to make sure Waldin did not overstep himself: a wise old head to counter the new Master’s youthful arrogance.

  The wedding itself had been a joyous affair due almost entirely to the great beauty and goodness of the bride. Jehanne Meladre was not a woman of mystery or guile or anything at all calculated. She was simply the most attractive person Seama had ever met. She drew people in with no greater enchantment than the power of natural grace and honesty. Sitting at Mador’s side she seemed to make him greater than he could ever have been without her. She took up his blazing spirit, without any sort of apprehension, and made of it something solid and wholesome. Everyone at court was in love with their new Queen, and Seama no exception, but Jehanne kept her heart for the King. It was a sight so rare to see people of such great power so much at ease and so much in love; and their love made them a generous couple. In the weeks following the wedding Seama was given all the time he needed not only to do his work, but time to relax and time to think and time to become friends. Wizard, warrior, ambassador of the Council, Seama’s world was all restless activity, constant event. These few months of quiet and kindness and simple pleasure were perhaps the happiest of his life. For several years after, Seama’s face became well known in the Partian capital. He visited at the least excuse and his visits were inevitably a cause of celebration. Pars was a lively place in those days. Hope and vigour seemed to imbue the whole country and Seama had no doubt of the source. The birth of the King’s first child should have been a moment of the greatest joy for the whole nation.

  Seama could feel the pain of it still. How could so shining a soul could be taken from them in the glorious act of giving birth? It seemed utterly wrong. Jehanne’s death hurt everyone. A pall of grief descended upon the country, from the smallest cottage to the greatest of houses. Everyone was stricken. Seama could only imagine the pain Mador must have suffered. The King’s refuge was in his love for his daughter. The Partians were a strong race. They knew that all life sooner or later meets death; those left behind can do nothing more than get up in the morning, take a good deep breath, and remember to treasure each and every love they have left. And who would blame Mador Bhadrada, after the death of his precious Jehanne, if he treasured his tiny Xandra a little too much.

  Bellus made that warm noise Seama loved. Was it from her throat, her mouth, her chest? She meant comfort; she was nudging him back into the present. That was the thing about riding: it was all too easy to drift off into reminiscence and sentiment. Affectionately he ran his hand along her mane but Bellus nickered at him.

  Gently rebuked, Seama looked abov
e and there she was, Castle Ayer, gazing imperiously from her prominence, taking in a view of the countryside for miles around, vast, impregnable and utterly assured of her place. Eight sides of honey coloured stone with a turret topped by a spire at each corner: each of these turrets a stronghold and armoury for one of the eight Royal Houses of Pars, their banners flying bright to mark them. The curtain wall was seventy feet high; the turrets another thirty feet above that. Within the curtain was a wide concourse surrounding the palace, through the years kept clear for games or ceremony or muster. The palace itself, octagonal to match the outer walls, was home to the King of Pars and all his court from Chancellor to pan-scrubber. At the very centre was the King’s Tower rising definitively over the rooftops, beneath it the Throne-room and Presence and flying proud above all the Partain Short, standard of the Partian Union.

  It took him only a few moments to see that something was wrong.

  The flags fluttered in what should have been gay colours; the sun still managed to find the odd sparkle on the gilt roofing of the King’s Tower but the normally yellow walls appeared grey. Close-up Seama could see that weeds grew everywhere, tall and bitter, and in many of the fenestrations glass was cracked or shattered. The flags seemed sullied whenever a cloud hid the sun and rust grew thick and red on the lowered portcullis.

  Seama’s heart fell. No one walked the walls to enjoy the day, windows were closed, not a voice was heard. The castle seemed desolate. Seama didn’t know what to make of it. He urged Bellus onwards. They came to halt on the ever lowered drawbridge and waited.