Dark Heart (Husk)

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  She summoned her strength. You chafed under the Most High when he withheld the full truth. According to you, this was the root of the rebellion in the Vale of Youth. If you choose to behave in the same fashion, your story loses all credibility.

  Silence for a time. She tried to turn her head, but could do no more than catch a glimpse of his ruined face. The longer the silence lasted, the more hopeful she became.

  You trust them? he asked eventually.

  With the exception of the priest, for obvious reasons, yes. Phemanderac and Robal with my life. Kilfor and Sauxa because Robal vouches for them.

  Mm.

  Silence again. Stella watched her friends weep as they gathered together to try to make sense of the scene before them. Conal was at the centre of the gathering and Phemanderac was clearly questioning him hard.

  He didn’t tell them what he did, she said.

  No?

  No. Or the guard would have killed him by now.

  Perhaps he does not know what he did.

  I saw his face as I fell, she said. He knows.

  In his place, would you tell? His question was sharp.

  I wouldn’t be in his place, she replied.

  There is something we can do, he told her, though it means taking those you trust into our confidence.

  Our confidence? They would have to learn who you are?

  Yes. But it would greatly assist our recovery, and speed our entry into the coming conflict.

  What must we do?

  For now, wait. We have not the power to do what needs to be done. Then he told her what they would do once they had recovered a little of their strength.

  The day had disappeared. One moment Robal was explaining events as best he could to various officials—whose function he could not identify—and the next shadows were creeping from the west across the dark stain at his feet.

  There had been no sign of the bodies.

  Well, that isn’t accurate, the guardsman within him said. There was plenty of sign, an abundance of it. Unmissable. Just no actual corpses. Stella he could understand, barely. Perhaps her immortality could stand even a fifty-pace fall. But Heredrew must have died. Everyone agreed on this. Couldn’t have survived. And those who did not know Stella’s secret assumed she must also have perished.

  But if she had survived, where was she now?

  Robal stretched and yawned. Traitorous body, still demanding sleep and food. She would likely eat and drink no longer, though she would finally sleep. A sleep she had longed for, it seemed.

  The crowds of puzzled, vaguely offended locals had long since dispersed. There had not been a murder for so long, apparently, that no one knew how to deal with it. Three of the Council of Scholars had questioned his group—everyone was calling Stella’s friends ‘his group’ now, and waiting for him to make decisions on their behalf—but they had not asked the sort of questions a guard would. It didn’t matter; there were no answers. So he’d spoken politely when asked, and had sent the others back to their lodgings when the questioners left. Now only he remained. Well, only he and a woman from the clan responsible for cleanliness on the streets, who had begun to scrub at the edges of the obscene brown stain. She’d be at it until dark, he judged, and would have to return in the morning. He couldn’t help wondering if the woman could catch the curse from touching the dried blood.

  I don’t care, he decided wearily. Let her live forever.

  Above her two people leaned over the railing, pointing out to each other where the dreadful accident had happened. Apart from them, the scene was deserted.

  ‘Robal,’ someone called. ‘Robal.’

  The voice sent a shiver through him. It sounded like nothing he’d ever heard. On the other side of the street the cleaning woman continued her work, oblivious.

  He turned, and there she stood, half-hidden by the corner of the building nearest the cliff from which she’d fallen. His mind went blank as his brain fought with his eyes.

  ‘Robal, we need your help. Please. Please come.’

  He didn’t believe it, not for a moment. It was preposterous, as his old sergeant used to say, pre-pos-ter-ous. Her fall had cushioned his, according to her, and they had crawled off together behind the houses like animals nursing their wounds. Had to be lies. Of course, this failed to account for how the man calling himself Heredrew—don’t call him by the other name—could function with the back of his head stoved in. Completely avoided explaining what else might have left the bloodstains on the steps leading to the flat roof of the house where Stella claimed they had spent the day recuperating. Or their torn clothing, or the slowly weeping wounds on their hands, or a hundred other things.

  She looked terrible. Her face had been sucked dry, the skin lying flat against the bone. Her eyes, blacker than he’d ever seen them, jutted from her face like those of a frog. Various parts of her body seemed not to be functioning properly, and her skin had turned a sickly yellow. Every time he looked at her he felt cold all over, then felt guilty at his cowardly reaction.

  He told Phemanderac, as they requested. Only he could arrange what the two of them needed. The old man had started shaking as soon as Robal led him to the shadows where they waited, and had still been shaking when he left to find Lindha and their cart. Robal hoped the shock would not prove too much for the scholar’s frail body.

  He didn’t tell Conal or the others, also as they requested.

  Phemanderac returned eventually with the cart, driving it himself, still shaking as though in the midst of a seizure. Stella protested, but the scholar claimed he could think of no one to trust with the news that the Destroyer walked among them. No matter the stakes, irrespective of what was to be gained from the man’s presence here, Kannwar’s execution—his attempted execution, at least—would immediately be ordered. And the strangers who had consorted with him would be dealt with. He would drive them.

  Robal and Phemanderac helped the two cadaver-like people into the trap, covering their cold bodies with a blanket. Stella said little apart from frequent expressions of thanks; the other man said nothing; and all the while Robal wanted to embrace the one and kill the other. No dream had ever seemed as unreal as this.

  A faint misty rain began to fall as the scholar shucked the reins of their donkey. Robal walked beside Lindha’s long, ugly head, his hand on her mane, for some contact with the mundane as much as anything. Slowly they moved through the night-quiet city, ghosts in an upside-down world.

  This is the man who destroyed the most beautiful city in the world, Phemanderac told himself. The man whose hatred for the Way of Fire plunged us all into a future without the Most High. The Fuirfad was lost to the First Men because of him.

  He could reach out and touch the man responsible for two thousand years of suffering across a continent. Responsible for thousands of deaths during the Falthan War. Responsible for the death of Hal, the Right Hand of the Most High. And responsible for the extended misery of Stella and Leith, the two people Phemanderac loved above all others in the world.

  Phemanderac could reach out and touch him, and so he did. The scholar’s arm stretched painfully behind him until it fetched up against the man’s cratered face. There was a hiss of indrawn breath.

  ‘Yes, I am real,’ the man rasped in his reedy, broken voice. ‘And yes, I did everything you are no doubt thinking. But it is not all I am. You recall our discussions twenty years ago, and so you know I am not entirely without merit.’

  ‘Your permission to draw from you, friend Robal?’ Phemanderac said as he withdrew his hand. ‘It will make you feel a little weak, that is all.’

  ‘Very well,’ the guard said, clearly not knowing what the scholar meant.

  ‘He wants to do magic, as much as his meagre talents allow,’ said the man behind him. ‘He can’t draw from himself, as he is too fragile in his old age. Neither Stella nor I can spare any power; we’re engaged in healing ourselves. Hence the request. He’ll probably kill himself in the attempt.’

  ‘Oh,’ sa
id Robal.

  ‘There’s no need,’ the man continued. ‘Leave the guard alone. I will remain quiet until I am required to speak. I will not attempt to escape. I will play no tricks. I will adhere to the plan as outlined.’

  The rest of the journey to the Dhaurian docks was conducted in complete silence. The boat awaited them when they arrived.

  The two wounded immortals were assisted from the trap and into the dinghy.

  ‘Sorry, Lindha,’ the scholar heard Robal whisper. ‘You’ll have to find your own way home.’

  ‘Attach the reins to that post,’ Phemanderac said, pointing. ‘Someone will be down to pick her up in the morning.’

  The guard nodded. Here was a man who did not require a full explanation; he just did what was needed. Robal was a fine guardian for an immortal.

  But what use to an immortal was he, Phemanderac?

  He pondered the question as Robal pushed the boat away from the wharf. He ought not to be involved in this most foolish enterprise: let them heal naturally—well, less unnaturally—over the next few years, and then let Stella return to Faltha and the leadership of her people, while the other one stood trial for all he had done. But Stella had asked him, had begged him, to trust her, had called upon their bond of friendship. Had named Leith, his own secret, unconsummated love; had known about that, apparently.

  He could not refuse her, not when she asked in Leith’s name.

  He was a guide, not a guardian. He whispered directions to Robal, who could see nothing meaningful in the dark, facing as he was away from the direction in which they headed.

  ‘Left,’ he said, not caring the word was not a nautical term. ‘Further left. Hard right, now. Left again. Left.’

  There was enough light to see by, but Phemanderac could have guided them by scent alone. He had never been to this place, but its smell permeated the wide, deep Dhaurian valley. A sweet scent of the purest water overlaid by the pungent smell of sulphur.

  The Fountain of the Vale.

  The moon rose, illuminating their passage. Avoiding the fishing smacks anchored and moored in the shallows had been difficult, but now they were in open water, Robal panting as he stroked the boat out into the middle of the vast Dhau Ria, the sea that had flooded Dona Mihst at the Most High’s command.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said eventually, at the same time as Kannwar cried ‘Halt!’ and Robal began to back with his oars. The smell was at its strongest here, and the sea bubbled beneath them.

  ‘There is a deep chasm below us,’ Phemanderac explained. ‘It was formed by the wrath of the Most High, and divided Dona Mihst between rebels and loyalists. From it liquid fire emerged, and it was quenched only by the onrushing sea.’

  ‘We know the story,’ said the man behind him.

  ‘The chasm still emits vapours and occasional bursts of fire,’ the scholar continued stubbornly. ‘The Fountain is a little way beyond, and is on the highest point of old Dona Mihst. Some say it is occasionally exposed at the lowest of neap tides.’

  ‘It does not need to be exposed for our purposes,’ Kannwar said. ‘Do you have the cloths?’

  ‘Aye,’ said the guard.

  ‘Place them over our mouths as soon as we have partaken,’ Kannwar commanded. ‘The reason will be evident.’

  The brute took Stella’s hand. ‘Be brave,’ he said to her.

  ‘Why has no one else done this and gained immortality?’ Robal asked.

  ‘Because the Fountain is diluted by the water in which it plays,’ Stella said. ‘It won’t affect a normal person enough to make a difference, but Kannwar believes it will help us. You will need to row us back, dear,’ she added, touching Robal on the sleeve of his tunic. ‘We may appear dead; we may even die. Neither of us can guess the effect. But if we are to be of any use in the next few months, we must try it.’

  Robal rowed on, until he was signalled to stop. ‘Here,’ Phemanderac said.

  The scholar could feel a faint vibration against the hull of the dinghy, no doubt the pressure of the water welling up from the Fountain below. In the stern Stella and the—Kannwar dipped their hands into the sea and withdrew them. Raised them to their lips. Drank.

  Their screams were piteous. Horrifying. A bass roar intertwining with a high-pitched shriek, echoing around the valley.

  ‘For the sake of the Most High, Robal, apply the cloths! Gag them!’

  The guard would not be rushed. He laid the oars carefully inside the boat, then took a cloth and bound it around Stella’s juddering head, across her mouth, stopping her screams. He did the same to Kannwar.

  ‘We could tip him over the side,’ Robal said into the silence. ‘Perhaps he might be swallowed by a leviathan. Let him be immortal in a sea beast’s belly.’

  ‘And what would you say to our lady?’

  ‘There is that,’ the guard admitted. ‘This is beyond me, scholar. I have no way of judging whether anything I do is right or wrong.’

  ‘Then hold on to what you know to be right, and do as she asks.’

  They waited under the starry sky until the two figures stopped shaking.

  ‘Time to return,’ Phemanderac said, ‘and thence to judge the effectiveness of our cure.’ He grimaced. ‘Never in my worst nightmares did I see myself aiding someone to break the prohibition of the Most High.’

  ‘It was for a good reason,’ said the guard.

  ‘Yes, it was. And that is exactly what Kannwar said when he broke it for the first time, if his scroll is to be believed. I am frightened, friend Robal. Frightened that I have done something that might have cursed not just my best friend, but the entire world.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been worried about too. Do you think we should write our own scroll of apology?’

  ‘Uh,’ said Kannwar, struggling to sit up. He waved a barely controlled arm in the direction of his gag. Robal looked at Phemanderac enquiringly.

  ‘We must,’ he said to the guard. ‘I’ll do it, while you start rowing.’

  The cloth came off easily and, for a wonder, the man thanked him. ‘Is Stella all right?’ he asked in a shaken voice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Phemanderac said.

  ‘She’s cold, and so am I,’ the man said. ‘Would it be possible to divert to the nearest land? I could start a fire, and we could warm ourselves before returning to Dhauria.’

  ‘We need to get back to the city,’ Robal growled.

  ‘It would give Stella time to recover. And if we judged it necessary to return to the Fountain, we would be close by.’

  Persuasive words, Phemanderac knew, but that didn’t mean the man was telling the truth.

  Stella’s deathly cold face decided him.

  They had to lift her from the boat, as she remained unconscious. It took a while for Robal to assemble enough driftwood for a fire, but no time at all for Kannwar to bring forth a flame.

  Phemanderac and Robal took turns rubbing Stella’s icy hands. She was alive, of that he was as certain as anyone could be when dealing with immortals. She breathed, at least, albeit raggedly. The Water of Life was at work in her, strengthening—or poisoning—and healing. Already the bruises were fading, and the more seriously damaged internal organs were no doubt being restored as they waited.

  The faint sound of splashing came to them across the water. ‘Ho, the shore!’ someone called.

  ‘Who is that?’ Robal hissed. ‘Dominie, we should put out the fire and hide. Explaining ourselves will be awkward at best.’

  Phemanderac was deathly tired and did not react as quickly as he might. ‘A boat?’ he said, stupidly.

  ‘Yes, and it draws closer.’

  Kannwar drew a pouch from under his tunic, not caring to hide his actions. Phemanderac saw him moving but thought little of it, preoccupied with the oncoming craft. The man sprinkled a small amount of powder on the fire and muttered a few words under his breath.

  The world around them exploded in a flash of blue. There were cries of fear and pain everywhere, one of which came from Phemandera
c’s own mouth. They were all drawn inside the flames, consumed by them, suffering horrible agonies. Betrayed by the Destroyer! Phemanderac begged the fire to slay him swiftly. It took a long time, but eventually the sound and pain faded away, away, away to nothing.

  INTERLUDE

  Husk has imperilled his own plans. He knows himself for a fool. If the future goes against him, his precipitous action may cost him his life. Such as it is.

  But what else could he have done?

  If his story is ever written, if he is ever revealed as the one who vanquished the Undying Man, he hopes his biographer makes mention of the many mitigating circumstances surrounding the rash decision he has made today. He will make sure they are noted. Chief of these, of course, is the sheer agony of seventy years of struggle. Day after day he has endured pain and suffering beyond anything he ever inflicted on others, and yet over the years he has returned from the house of death to a place of strength. He has achieved this by suppressing rigorously every emotion and exercising an inhuman, costly patience.

  But patience has failed him today.

  He stretches his vestigial forelimbs forward a finger-width, takes a grip on the next stair, and begins to haul himself upwards. Patience. He moves literally an inch at a time; he remembers using the phrase ‘inching’ once in his former life to describe slow political progress, but had never imagined what the word might literally mean.

  Now he knows.

  One year to climb from the dungeon to the Tower of Farsight. A whole year to travel a thousand paces. Every pace takes hours of inching. He cannot devote all his strength to this task, of course, as he has to mask himself whenever someone comes down the corridor. Of late, however, much of his energy is absorbed by fighting to maintain the spikes he has set in his three unwitting servants. And in fighting off the increasing depredations of the unknown powers exploiting them.

  A whole year, of which months have already passed. He is far above the dungeons now, and his body is burned during the day by bright sunlight coming from high above him. He has nearly reached ground level. The most difficult part of his journey lies ahead.