Shadowkings

by Michael Cobley

  When she finished, another guard came over and hauled her to her feet while the first one used a dagger to sever the bonds on her feet and wrists. Once this was done, they stood either side of her as Nerek came over, halting several yards away. She had tied her pale hair back in a topknot and wore a long cloak of some heavy blue-grey material over her mailed jerkin and leggings. But it was the fire she was carrying which struck dread into Suviel' heart.

  A bright knot of flames writhed in her cupped hands, tiny undying flames of carmine and amber that rippled and coiled around each other like a burning thread with no end. Nerek bent her head, moving her lips as if whispering to it, then glanced up at Suviel, smiling a secret smile. Without warning the two guards grabbed Suviel by the arms and Nerek lightly tossed the living fire at her.

  She twisted uselessly against the guards' grip as the burning thing flew towards her face, tendrils spreading like wings. She fought the urge to close her eyes, staring with futile courage at the oncoming doom...

  ...which blurred into opacity just feet from her, all the colour and detail draining from it as it flowed into nothing before her. Suviel felt a wave of warm air strike her face, smelling like the heat of a forge, hot stone and iron. The guards released her and Nerek came nearer.

  "Do you know what I have done to you?"

  Struggling against dizzy nausea, Suviel shook her head.

  "And you call yourself a mage. Are you even able to name the fires of old?"

  Suviel straightened in surprise. Nerek's question was part of the rote catechism of mage teaching, albeit a part that never seemed to be of any practical use. Nerek stood watching her with an expectant tilt of the head, so she dredged her memory and began to recite.

  "Fire of the earth, fire of the sky, fire of the waters, never burning, fire of song, fire of learning, fire of night, fire of day..." She tried to remember, "...fire that sleeps, fire that rages, fire that watches, fire that..."

  There was a prickling sense of presence, and as she glanced quickly to one side she caught a glimpse of something hovering at her shoulder, a feathery form bright with flaming colours. Then there was nothing, only empty air.

  "The fire that watches," Nerek said with a kind of intense satisfaction. "I have made a servant and set it over you. I gave it my breath and my word so I will know if you intend to become... troublesome."

  Suviel summoned her remaining dignity and met Nerek's gaze. "Then since my fate is in your hands, I have no choice but to trust you. So be it."

  Nerek uttered a quiet, mocking laugh but Suviel saw the shadow of uncertainty in her eyes as she turned and walked away, passing out the final orders to break camp.

  Fitful showers came and went as the party finally left the clearing on horseback. The air was mild and heavy with the moist odours of earth and foliage, yet there was a pervading taint of decay which Suviel could almost taste. There was the occasional howl and yip of some unseen beast, more mournful than menacing, and once Suviel saw a black furry creature the shape of a rat but the size of a dog dash across the trail ahead.

  Not long after that, they came to the edge of the forest and paused for a moment or two as Nerek issued her final commands. The masked guards were heading north through the undergrowth while Nerek and Suviel, and her invisible watcher, continued towards Trevada.

  The Oshang Dakhal loomed ahead, a two mile curve of rocky promontories and crags that rose steadily to the sheer cliffs and peaks upon which was the High Basilica and the academies of magecraft. Between it and the forest lay a wide valley divided by a river, a ruined terrain where clusters of charred tree stumps poked out of the weedy ground and rubbish floated on stagnant pools, and where only the broken traces of walls suggested that people had once lived here.

  The bridge over the river was crudely made from large blocks of pale stone but only when they drew nearer did Suviel realise that they were columns and flagstones looted from an ancient Fathertree temple which had once stood near the riverbank. She had thought that her prior knowledge, gained from travellers and spies, had prepared her for this poisoned, ravaged scene but the reality of it shook. As she rode over the bridge and saw where countless other hooves and feet and cartwheels had chipped away at the beautiful relief carvings she found herself weeping.

  Gone, she thought. All of it gone, all the gardens and the songbirds and the groves of ankeril, the homes of farmers and artisans, all the sweetness of Prekine, ground down and wiped away.

  It was worse, far worse than anything told to her second or third-hand. She brought her horse to a halt at the mid-point of the bridge and gazed down at the swollen waters of the river she once knew as the Aithel. With tears running down her face she stared at the ugly brown torrent and contemplated throwing herself into it. It would end this drawn out spasm of pain and there would be no more need for grief and struggle and loss. But before she could dismount there was a flash of fiery amber near her shoulder, and a leaden lassitude settled over her.

  "What is this? What were you going to do?"

  Nerek came back alongside and angrily snatched the reins from Suviel's unresisting hands. Then she saw the tears and anger gave way to puzzlement. "You wanted to kill yourself. Why?"

  For the first time Suviel felt a flash of raw, unreasoning hatred towards the woman, and for an instant pictured herself with her hands round her throat. Then a kind of shame came over her and she shied away from the image. Bending her head, she wiped the wetness from her face.

  "You do not know what this place was like before the invasion," she said. "And I cannot explain to you what I feel at seeing it now."

  Nerek shrugged. "New things will grow here - is that not so? Others will come and build homes and farms, too."

  "Mogaun homes," Suviel said bitterly. "Mogaun farms."

  "I care not," said Nerek, surveying the open stretches of land between them and the high, wide open gates of Trevada. "There is no time for this. We must continue - now."

  With a jerk on the reins of Suviel' mount, she urged both horses into a gallop. On the other side of the bridge they followed a muddy track across uneven, waterlogged land. As the two women approached the city, Suviel saw riders and wagons coming and going at the high, wide gateway which had been divided in two by a thick wall of stakes, one side for entrance, the other for exit.

  Nerek had by this time returned the reins to Suviel, and as they came up to the gates she said: "There will be an Acolyte watching all who enter, so I have placed a spell over us to conceal our true natures. Just remember - we are hunters from the south, from Honjir, here to find work as foragers or spies."

  Suviel nodded morosely, and they rode into the long dark entrance. There was a stench of horse manure and rotting garbage, mingled with the odours of human and horse sweat, and a constant hubbub of conversation, the creak of wheels and the clatter of hooves on the cobblestones. Most of those that they queued with were Yularians or Anghatanis on foot carrying great bundles or pushing carts, while the few riders were fur-clad Mogaun warriors. At the other end of the tunnel, a group of guards - mercenaries with company badges on their chests - gave their weapons and belongings a cursory inspection and waved them on. They were there, Suviel realised, to prevent disorder and catch any obvious troublemakers while relying on unseen help to pinpoint genuine threats.

  Like us, she thought. Then she smiled thinly. No, like Nerek. I hardly count next to the magnitude of her powers.

  Now dismounted, they led their horses away from the guard post and into a busy crowd of travellers and city dwellers on the edge of a square. Instinctively Suviel looked to the right and up at the balconies of the building immediately next to the gateway. But no students sat at the Five Moons anymore, sharing drinks and stories and singing songs. Now, only semi-naked prostitutes leaned on the rail, leering and beckoning to the men below.

  Everywhere someone had something for sale. Sallow-faced traders sold weapons, clothes or food from the backs of wagons while footsore new arrivals offered what looked like loot f
rom private houses, a pair of fine leather shoes, or a bronze figurine, or a handful of ornamented hairclips and pins.

  This place was once called Journeyman Square and although the fountain with its back-to-back statues was still there at the centre, its limbs and heads were missing and blue paint was daubed on the marble. The four ancient agathons which once stood at the corners of the square were gone, some of the buildings were burnt-out shells, and filth marred every surface. But in addition to all this degradation, there was something else wrong with the entire busy scene, some small detail which nagged away at the back of Suviel's mind without revealing itself.

  Dodging the attentions of pickpockets and drunks, they made their way round the square past a succession of squalid taverns and grimy stalls selling boiled shellfish or dubious-looking sweetmeats. As they came to an alleyway between buildings, Nerek paused to make sure no-one was close enough to overhear.

  "My master's allies here have posted only one of their number in this part of Trevada, and since his attention is solely occupied by incomers I have let the veiling spell fade and lessened the strength of your constant companion..." There was a small smile. "We must press on. The higher part of the city is walled off and my enemy is already there - "

  "Suvi? Little Suvi? Is that really you?..."

  An old, grey-haired man in ragged garments, tottered towards them up the alley, one hand grasping a walking stick. Suviel stared at his face in amazement and joy.

  "Master Babrel?"

  But before another word could be spoken, Nerek had thrust her horse's reins into Suviel' hands and was moving towards the old man called Babrel with dagger drawn. Few eyes turned their way as she grabbed a handful of his grubby coat and dragged him back into the alley darkness. In horror, Suviel wound the horse reins about her hand and led them quickly in pursuit.

  "Don't hurt him, Nerek. Please, I beg you! - "

  "He recognised you," Nerek muttered, pressing the old man against the alley wall with an arm at his throat and the dagger at his chest. "He spoke your name aloud - "

  "He was a porter at one of the academies during my student days," Suviel said hurriedly, reaching out to lay a hand on Nerek's shoulder. Nerek flinched, glancing sharply at her. "Babrel will not endanger us, I swear. Look at him - how could he?"

  Nerek shifted her glare to her captive and after a moment or two of unwavering scrutiny suddenly stepped away from him and snapped her dagger back in its waist sheath. "You know this part of the city well, old man? Is there somewhere we can safely stable the horses?"

  Breath wheezing in his bruised throat, Babrel nodded, braced his weight on his stick and began to hobble down the alley. Suviel flashed an angry glance at Nerek, tossed her horse traces to her, then went to Babrel's side, a helping arm about his shoulders. He felt shockingly bony.

  "Master Babrel, why are you still here?"

  Babrel gave her a sideways look with one eyebrow arched, a facial gesture she remembered so well.

  "Why did I not abandon and flee with the others, you mean?" He gave a disapproving snort. "Someone had to remain to bear witness, young Hantika, to keep watch and perhaps even save a little. Do you understand?"

  "I do."

  "Good. And I hope you and your two accomplices have not been idle all these years. What were their names, again?..."

  Suviel sighed. "Pelorn and Cavaxes." They had been her closest friends during her time at Trevada, Pelorn with her waistlong hair and mock-haughtiness, and Cavaxes of the deadly wit. The three of them had stayed together long after attaining magehood, and for a time it had seemed that their friendship would remain unbroken. There was a sad ache as she realised that she had not thought of them for years.

  Babrel seemed to notice her silence. "Do they still live?"

  "They both died at the fall of Besh-Darok."

  For a moment he was silent. "Many good people gave their lives in those final days. Too many. Now only the brutal and the powerful survive," he said, adding, "'As must I'."

  Suviel smiled briefly, recalling the couplet of verse he had quoted from -

  A hundred monsters,

  And a thousand treacheries live on,

  As must I.

  It was from the Black Saga Of Culri Moal, a long storysong full of obscure allusions and grotesque imagery. She could imagine its unknown writer living through a period as calamitous as this one.

  She eyed the lightless black hulks of buildings to either side as Babrel led them on. The grey afternoon light exposed the broken chimneys and collapsed eaves of the rooftops, but scarcely filtered down to narrow alleys littered with refuse and muddy from blocked drains. Before the invasion these buildings were student inns, and quarters for carpenters, papermakers, bookbinders and glassblowers as well as a bewildering variety of artisans producing everything from shoes and candles to kites and sail-driven carts.

  "They're all empty, these houses," Babrel said. "Most are too dangerous to even just step in through the front door, what with rotten floors and crumbling walls. All the mercenary scum and their parasites live around Journeyman Square and a few of the grander buildings along the Great Wynd, so they're the only places that get any kind of repairs." They had rounded a corner and Babrel indicated a three-storey building which had been constructed against one of the many rocky crags which confined Trevada. "Except for one or two others."

  As he started towards it Nerek paused, a hard suspicious expression on her face. "We're being watched," she said.

  Babrel shrugged. "Scavengers, beggars, drunks...outcasts," he told Suviel. "You have not said anything about your companion, and I know better than to ask. But anyone can see how dangerous she is." He resumed his hobbling progress "No-one would interfere. Come."

  He led them down an alley to where a huge sheet of sailcloth, grey and stained from years of rain and mould, hung across a wide gap in the side of the building. The sharp rankness of damp, decrepit cloth filled Suviel' nostrils as Babrel pushed the sheet aside and gestured the women and their horses through. Suviel' mount jerked his head, reluctant to pass from dimness into pitch darkness, but while she calmed him Babrel went within and lit a lamp from a tinderbox.

  The weak glow revealed a high-ceilinged room with a counter along one side and a dilapidated staircase leading up. Broken furniture was heaped in one corner but the floor appeared freshly swept. Suviel looked around with a growing sense of familiarity as she hitched her horse to a wooden pillar.

  "This is the Steward's Tabard, isn't it?" There was a long empty recess behind the counter where the kegs had been, and vacant shelves and niches in the wall above where tankards and bottles had sat. This had been the taphouse set aside for the rod-serjeants and wardens of the various academies and libraries of Trevada. A refuge forbidden to students and masters alike, the Tabard had also played host to many famous poets and minstrels: it was a popular rumour back then that Avalti had written the bulk of his Song of The Queen's Regard within its walls.

  "After the fall of Trevada," the old man said, "and after the sack and all the slaughter, I hid in this ruin for months, hating it yet having nowhere safer to go. But it eventually became my home." He glanced upwards. "I have a room up on the next floor, quite a comfortable one, too. There are other rooms you and your companion can use, if you so wish, and the only way up is by a concealed ladder. Those stairs are an impassable death trap."

  "Useful if you need to be warned of intruders," Suviel said.

  "But only if you have an escape route," added Nerek.

  She was standing at the bar, fingering the deep scores and gashes in the countertop while studying the empty pegs and ledges once adorned with tapestries, paintings and figurines. "Do you have any treasure hidden away, old man? Any baubles and pennies?"

  To Suviel' surprise, Babrel smiled. "No, only worthless things. A few wooden carvings, poorly made by my own hands, and a meagre flower or two." He looked at Suviel. "Would you care to see?"

  She turned to Nerek. "By your leave?"

  The
sorceress gave a half-shrug. "We must stay here till nightfall, so gawp over trinkets as you will. But keep out of sight, and have a care."

  It was an oblique reminder of Nerek's invisible watcher, and Suviel was silent as she followed Babrel out of the back of the taproom. A low passage led past doorless pantries and servant rooms to a larger room strewn with smashed barrels and crates. Babrel had lit a candle from the lamp in the taproom and by its light Suviel could make out dark stains on the dusty floorboards, old blood stains. But Babrel was already at one end of the barrelroom, clearing some rubbish away from a door which creaked as he opened it. Hurrying after him, she stepped through and found herself outside.

  Except that it was outside in the narrowest sense. From where she stood on the threshold she could reach out and lay her palm flat on a sheer wall of rock, the jutting crag against which the Tabard had been built. Yet the original builders had contrived to create a tiny plot of ground, a secret garden that was the length of a four-wheeled cart and which widened from an arm's width near the door to no more than a couple of paces. Perhaps those long-gone, nameless founders had meant from the start for it to be a secret, since Suviel had never heard of such a thing in all her time in Trevada.

  "The Tabard's walls do block off a lot of daylight," Babrel said. "But my little sprigs seem to gain nourishment despite the gloom."

  He was standing next to three sturdy-looking saplings which gazed at in frowning puzzlement for a moment till she recognised the leaves.

  "Agathons," she said in amazement, going over to take a closer look.

  Babrel nodded, pleased. "During the sack, the Acolytes' beastmen cut down the four ancient ones in Journeyman Square, but afterwards I dug some seeds from the upper branches and this is the result."