The Long War 03 - The Red Prince

by A. J. Smith

  If Voon heard, he didn’t respond. The monosyllabic Karesian just strode down the steps, not looking back as Utha tentatively followed him. Soon they were a good distance apart, maybe three rotations of the tower. He tried to catch up, but his progress was hindered as he desperately tried not to look down. At least it meant he didn’t have to watch Voon contorting the bottom levels of the tower.

  ‘Hurry up,’ said the Karesian, disappearing into a newly created corridor.

  ‘Fuck off!’ he muttered in response. ‘I’ll follow in my own bloody time.’

  He deliberately slowed down, lingering in the wide, dark stone cylinder. What a strange place. A strange country, full of strange people and stranger magic. They didn’t even realize how strange they were, which made them stranger.

  ‘Hurry,’ repeated Voon from the darkness.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, loud enough to be heard. ‘As I understand it, this tower only has doors when you ask it.’

  He reached the bottom of the steps. The corridor Voon had created contained more steps, delving into the bare rock. It might have been a part of the tower, or they might be walking into the earth. Either way, Utha was glad he no longer had to look down.

  ‘Where does this go?’ he asked, unable to see Voon.

  There was no reply.

  With a sigh of annoyance, he followed, hurrying into the dark staircase. The steps were steep and he used the walls to steady himself. He walked downwards for ten minutes or more.

  Now there was light coming from somewhere. No more than a blue glow, but enough to see by. Studying the construction of the stairway, he could see cracks in the cyclopean stone blocks and ribbons of blue light emanating from them. Wherever they were, this had not been newly created. Voon had led him somewhere. To this anchorhead maybe.

  ‘Voon!’ he shouted down the steps. ‘Are you still there?’

  No reply, but footsteps were gradually approaching. For a moment, Utha felt fear. He didn’t know why. As Voon appeared, he breathed out deeply.

  ‘Where the fuck are we?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re under Thrakka. Do you need to know more?’

  Utha stroked his hand along the stone wall. It was smooth and cold. There was something odd about the stairway. Some trick of the light making the angles appear irregular.

  ‘I don’t like this place... it’s eerie.’

  ‘It is. And much more,’ replied Voon. ‘Let us stay together. And perhaps advance more slowly.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, welcoming the unexpected offer.

  They walked slowly now, delving deeper into the ancient bedrock of Karesia. Hours came and went, and Utha had no idea of how deep they must be. The stairway didn’t change. The slivers of blue light, the huge blocks of stone, the eldritch prickle at the back of his neck.

  ‘We’re almost at the anchorhead,’ said Voon, breaking the silence. ‘We will cross over soon.’

  ‘Cross over into what?’

  The exemplar of Jaa stopped walking and faced Utha, his eyes shadows in the blue glow.

  ‘It is time to grow up, Utha of Arnon.’

  ‘Do you want another punch in the face?’

  ‘Now is not the time for your temper. I am being serious. Your upbringing has been sheltered, your world mundane. If you were astonished by the towers of Thrakka, your mind may not be prepared for a Jekkan ruin.’

  ‘A ruin? Like an old building?’

  ‘An old, old building,’ replied Voon, his lip twitching. ‘It was once part of a city called Oron Desh. The magic the viziers wield in Thrakka leaks from the ruins below. It twists up from ancient chaos and madness. Though the Jekkans have gone, their magic infests the brick and stone.’

  ‘So, what? I might go mad?’

  Voon bowed his head and frowned.

  ‘I don’t know. Jaa has gifted me with strength enough to withstand it. I don’t know how an old-blood will react. You may be stronger than me, or you may die in tortured insanity.’

  Utha felt like hitting him again. Not because he was feeling angry or violent, but because he was feeling naive and foolish. He had followed prophetic dreams and bizarre counsesl and they had led him to a world he didn’t understand.

  ‘Will I get any warning, or will I just start dribbling on the floor?’

  ‘Your eyes may bleed first,’ replied Voon.

  ‘Nice. Let’s go then, shall we?’

  Voon led the way and the staircase stopped, blending into a large walkway. It was higher and wider than the passage down, but was made of the same smooth stone blocks and emitted the same blue glow.

  ‘Where is that light coming from?’ he asked, the web of blue stinging his eyes.

  ‘Not known,’ replied Voon. ‘I imagine it was their way of doing without lanterns.’

  Before them, the tunnel ended in a solid wall. The blue lines were duller and the stone appeared to crumble as they approached.

  ‘We’re crossing over into the Jekkan ruin. Prepare yourself.’

  Utha was about to make a sarcastic comment when he felt his world assaulted. The grey stone fell away to reveal a sickly blue vista, dripping and coagulating into walls and ceiling. Every sense was heightened. The colour was too vibrant, the screaming in his ears too loud, the rank smell of death too strong. He could even taste the chaos. It left a metallic sheen on his tongue and tightened his throat. Time and space felt elastic. He imagined he fell to his knees, but he couldn’t perceive the floor on to which he fell. He imagined he screamed, but the sound was drowned out by the roaring in his ears. He closed his eyes, but the blue shone through his eyelids.

  Voon clapped his hands together in front of Utha’s face. ‘Wake up!’

  The old-blood grabbed at the air, reaching for his companion. When his hands grasped the other man’s shoulders, his head cleared. Panting, clenching his fists against Voon’s robes, he regained his senses.

  ‘You are strong. You weathered that far better than I did the first time.’

  Utha coughed violently, his lungs burning. He looked around hesitantly. The cavern was vast, melting into far darkness beyond thousands of carved pillars. There was no ceiling, just more black, endless emptiness. The blue light remained, but it was now just a glow framing each flagstone of the smooth floor.

  ‘That was an anchorhead? So we’re beyond the world?’ His voice was disjointed.

  ‘No, we are still in the world, just not in the lands of men. The Jekkans could shift reality, hiding themselves from lesser species. They knew the power of their magic and they sought to protect it. What we just did would have killed any common man seeking entrance.’

  Utha stood and rubbed his eyes. His legs were sore and struggled to carry his weight. There was fear nagging at the back of his mind, a fear that came from the very stone. Every inch of the Jekkan ruin emanated an aura beyond its simple architecture. Magic infused the place, as mortar infused a castle of Ro.

  ‘How long do we have to spend here?’ he asked, accepting Voon’s help to stand up.

  ‘Perhaps two weeks. The causeway will lead us to Oron Kaa, but the distance changes. We’ll still be there well ahead of our pursuers.’

  ‘Is it all like this?’

  The endless, irregular forest of pillars was all he could see.

  ‘Mostly, but it changes,’ replied Voon, offering his spear as a crutch.

  ‘Why can’t I fucking stand? My legs are fine.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it. The rules aren’t always the same. I think metal weighs more here.’ He tapped the heavy steel mace at Utha’s side. ‘The Jekkans had no knowledge of metal, I understand.’

  ‘There is metal in my boots, metal in my belt, metal in my pack. I’m not leaving everything behind.’

  ‘Then grow stronger,’ replied Voon, gesturing to his own fabric robes and wooden spear.

  ‘Yes, very funny. What do we eat down here? I don’t see any game.’

  ‘We won’t need to eat.’

  ‘Do we still get hungry? Because being hungry without
needing to eat sounds shit.’

  Voon ignored the question and began to walk. He appeared to pick a direction at random. Utha hoped he knew where he was going.

  Leaning on Zarzenfang, the old-blood limped after the exemplar.

  * * *

  Time had no meaning in the Jekkan causeway. Utha felt neither tired nor hungry and their progress was good, though the unchanging surroundings were disorienting and made it hard to assess how far they’d travelled. He grew used to the weight of metal and the stark vibrancy of his senses, but the fear at the back of his mind didn’t abate.

  Randall would doubtless have had something blunt and witty to say about the place. All Utha could think was how otherworldly everything was. Even simple things like stone and carved pillars had a strangeness not found in the lands of men.

  Within hours he had begun to study the endless carvings. Each pillar, from floor to darkness, was covered in elaborate designs. He guessed that the cat-like figures, which dominated the carvings, were Jekkans. They were thin and sensual, with extravagantly long claws and luxuriant whiskers. Once his interest was peaked, Utha found it hard to turn away.

  ‘They tell a story,’ said Voon. ‘It’ll pull you in if you let it. Jekkan art is addictive for humans.’

  Utha was looking at a grotesque scene of cavorting Jekkans. They danced round a central mass, beckoning tentacles and eyes to form on its surface. It was black and the carving appeared to ripple.

  ‘That’s a servitor,’ offered Voon. ‘Made from flesh and madness.’

  ‘It’s a blob,’ he replied, the fear more acute now.

  ‘It’s a tool, a pet, a minion. They fought wars for their masters. They had other pawns called builders... strange insects.’

  Utha nodded. ‘A pillar back there seemed to show that the servitors rose up. Some kind of revolt.’

  ‘You shouldn’t look at the story. You can’t have knowledge and safety.’

  ‘Safety? Since when was that an option?’

  He turned back to the carving. It seemed the Jekkans were proud of the beings they had created but feared them gaining their freedom and minds of their own. All their wars – and the carvings suggested there had been many – had been fought by the servitors and the ancient Jekkans had become reliant upon them.

  ‘Utha, you need to trust me. This magic is insidious and seductive. It will crawl into your mind and make you its plaything. You won’t even notice.’

  ‘Okay, let’s go. Do we need to rest down here?’

  Voon shook his head and ushered Utha away from the carved pillar.

  * * *

  More hours of walking and he wished for conversation. Any kind of conversation. Left to his own thoughts, he was steadily worrying himself into knots. Perhaps Voon had interests or hobbies, things he could talk about. He was a miserable bastard, but maybe Utha just hadn’t found the right topic of conversation. Everything was muddled and confusing, even his own thoughts.

  ‘Why have you stopped walking?’ asked Voon.

  ‘What? Sorry, I didn’t notice.’

  He was motionless, staring at another carved pillar, his eyes drawn far into the design. The servitors bubbled and blasphemed from the stone, twisting the will of their masters into forms and functions. The art had layers of texture, eliciting meaning from bare stone. They were talking to him, addressing him directly.

  ‘Stop looking at the carvings!’ demanded Voon, turning Utha round.

  They locked eyes. He felt drunk or drugged. ‘I think I need to sleep. Or at least sit down.’

  The Karesian studied his face. Utha smirked, feeling light-headed, but oddly in tune with the Jekkan causeway.

  ‘I don’t think this place likes old bloods,’ said Voon.

  Utha grinned like a drunken fool. ‘It doesn’t know what to make of me. It’s scared.’

  A sound echoed between the pillars. It came from far off but was deep and insistent. Voon’s hand went to his spear and he looked terrified.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Utha, slurring his words. ‘It just wants to see me.’

  ‘We need to leave!’

  ‘It won’t hurt us,’ he replied, not knowing how he knew, or why he was no longer afraid.

  Voon grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. ‘Your mind is being twisted, man,’ he snapped, turning Zarzenfang towards the noise.

  ‘But I want to see it.’ He was so sure, so confident.

  A repeating cry, the same few sounds over and over again, bouncing off the pillars and growing louder. It gurgled and coughed, each note echoing into the next. A shape appeared. Just a shadow, low to the ground, oozing into view from between the pillars.

  ‘Run!’ shouted Voon, grabbing Utha.

  He let himself be led away, but he had to see it and stole a backwards glance.

  Over the Karesian’s shoulder was a pool of bubbling black. Its shape flowed across the stone, rolling and bubbling after them with surprising speed. For a moment, Utha thought it was a moving shadow, until it flickered into the blue light close to them.

  ‘Fuck!’ he bellowed, his mind recoiling from the abomination, and the fear returned like a war-hammer to the head.

  It was huge. A shapeless, protoplasmic mass forming pustules that turned into eyes and disappeared. It conformed to no law of nature that Utha understood, and the repeating cry was now deafening.

  ‘Tekeli-li, tekeli-li, tekeli-li, tekeli-li.’

  Each sound was unnatural and coughed from the depths of the iridescent shape.

  They ran. Utha no longer needed persuading. The servitor had shaken his mind to pieces. He pulled himself past pillars and sprinted after Voon. The sound followed, each syllable causing pain. He rubbed his face and felt blood, as if the servitor was cutting him with its mocking cry.

  He screamed. No words or meaning, just a primal shout of despair. The thing, the servitor, the insane, black mass. He had no way of comprehending what he’d seen. He just ran and he just screamed.

  ‘Tekeli-li, tekeli-li, tekeli-li, tekeli-li.’

  It was still there. Could they outrun it? Voon was ahead, sprinting through blue-tinged stone. He hadn’t looked back.

  Tentacles appeared, reaching for him. Arms of rippling tar, snapping at the air as he ran. They caressed his face, leaving a sticky residue on his skin, but they didn’t grab him.

  Instinct took over and he narrowed his eyes. Utha the Ghost was not going to die in a cave under Karesia. He turned sharply, running in another direction. He threw himself past pillars, weaving in chaotic lines and pumping his knees as high as he could.

  The sound died down, but he didn’t stop running. His lungs burned and his legs ached, but still he ran. The Jekkan servitor was still there. He glanced back and the shapeless blob of black bubbles was stationary. It reached into the air after Utha and Voon but did not know which of them to follow.

  He couldn’t see the Karesian. The causeway looked all the same. Pillars, stone and the blue glow. Utha kept running, more concerned about ourunning the servitor than with finding Voon. After what seemed like an age, he could no longer hear the repeating cry of the Jekkan beast.

  * * *

  He could handle the monotonous hours of solitary walking. He could ignore the carvings. He didn’t feel tired, metal was no longer heavy, and he was trudging on with stubborn determination, but the blue glow was driving him mad. Why blue? Did the Jekkans not know about other colours? Their servitors were black, their stone grey, but their lights were all blue.

  He was unimpressed with their architecture as well. Pillars and huge, square flagstones. Not very imaginative. No rooms, no corridors or walls. Just the bloody pillars.

  Why was he here? The staircase, the labyrinth and the guardian? The halls beyond the world? The exemplar of fucking Jaa? His dreams, so vivid for months, seemed far away now. The certainty that he had worn like armour was now a thin veneer of hope which offered him no protection. He just wanted to go home and forget he was an old-blood. Being an albino wasn’t so bad. Peop
le were scared of him, but it didn’t preclude a quiet life.

  Quietness had a resonance. The Jekkan causeway had no ambient sound. No whistle of wind or background chatter of animals. He began to talk to himself just for company.

  ‘Sorry you’re not here to see this, Randall. I’d like to share my abject misery with an unsympathetic ear.’ He smiled. ‘And I could have thrown you to the servitor while I ran away.’

  ‘How long have I been down here? Not tired, not hungry.’

  He puffed out his cheeks and stopped walking.

  ‘Voon!’ he shouted, surprised when there was no echo. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a tavern or a fuck-shop down here?’

  No answer. Utha imagined he was lost, separated from Voon by the endless stone pillars. There was no point in stopping, but was there any point in continuing to walk? He had always been lucky, but finding Oron Kaa amid such monotony would be a tall order. In fact, it edged into the realm of the impossible.

  ‘Voon! I’m getting fed up of this place.’

  Still no answer.

  ‘Does it change? Do the lights turn green at some point?’

  His eyes were drawn back to the pillars. The carvings were just as vague and shadowy, but his mind felt stronger and he allowed himself a look. The stories were told in interwoven pictograms, with one pillar connecting to adjacent pillars. He found that the story dictated the direction he walked, each thread of story leading him in a different direction.

  The Great Race of Jekka had held these lands for millennia. They had built an empire on chaos and sensuality. He wouldn’t call them evil, just amoral. Or perhaps he just didn’t understand their morality. They warred with ancient creatures, all of which were lost in the catacombs of deep time, forgotten by the Jekkan caliphate that had quashed them.

  A symbol made him pause in his journey through the history of the Jekkans. It was a humanoid, superimposed behind a bright star, and he knew that it referred to the old bloods. In the Jekkan age the blood of Giants was still strong and the warlords of the time had wielded this power to build their own kingdoms. They had fought each other and they had fought the Jekkans until few remained. The old bloods fell from might and were hunted by the Great Race, who both feared and hated them. The fear was stronger. But why? The carvings were vague and he felt the very stone recoil, bringing him to a halt.