The Lord of Lies: Strange Threads: Book 2

by Sam Bowring

  With Unwoven closing in from either side, Salarkis pounded towards the Spire entrance. The darkness within seemed like sanctuary, yet was that truly what it represented? Just as he was about to cross the threshold, a grey hand snapped closed around his wrist, spinning him around so he smacked against the inside of the doorway. Slightly stunned, he looked up into blue eyes.

  ‘Our game ends,’ Blue-eye said with a nasty smile.

  ‘Let go,’ gasped Salarkis. ‘It’s … my turn now.’

  ‘Your silly words do not penetrate my thick skull,’ said Blue-eye. ‘Though my thumbs will penetrate yours.’

  Salarkis sent out his influence, but Blue-eye’s pattern was too coarse and strong to affect. He tried to pull away physically, but it was like trying to pull down a tree. Desperately he cast about for anything to help him – and inside the Spire saw the glint of his discarded daggers.

  Your lack of name will not protect you from me, Blue-eye.

  Twin blades scraped along the floor and lifted, flew together out of the darkness at speed, and sunk into Blue-eye’s blue eyes. The Unwoven gave a perplexed grunt, but his grip did not relax as he turned his head this way and that, slicing his eyelids on the protruding blades as he tried to blink them out. Salarkis willed the blades further into his skull, squishing sticky white dollops from the punctured sockets. Finally Blue-eye shuddered and his hand went limp.

  Salarkis stumbled backwards into the shadows and fell on his buttocks. Looking up, he was chilled to find Unwoven at the doorway staring in at him. They must have been almost upon him when he had finally struggled free. They did not, however, cross the threshold.

  There was no time for relief. Maybe the Unwoven would not enter this place, but he did not think that would apply to Mergan. Without pausing to catch his breath, he rose and headed to the stairs.

  Mergan arrived at the Spire entrance. Unwoven who had been in pursuit of Salarkis gathered outside, seeming uncertain over what to do next. As Mergan slid off his horse, he felt a little uncertain himself. It had been Salarkis, hadn’t it? Salarkis as a man, as soft-skinned and brown-haired as before the change. How had he shed his stone, his tail? How had he come to be in the middle of the Tranquil Dale, wandering through Unwoven territory in disguise?

  Mergan gazed up the grey, lichen-coated walls. From this angle he could not see the Wound, but he wondered if it had something to do with Salarkis’s transformation.

  ‘I do not wish him killed,’ he announced. ‘There are five or six questions I want to ask him, maybe more.’

  The Unwoven stared at him in silence.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ he snapped. ‘Get in there after him!’

  Scarbrow appeared by his side. ‘My lord, we will do as you order, of course – but is it your will that we be turned weak, winsome and whiny?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your Spire, lord – you do not know? We have avoided it for many years.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Sometimes those who enter change. Into things alike to what we would have been, if not for your glorious gifts. Kin to the untarnished who live outside the Dale.’

  Mergan frowned. Unwoven changing into ‘untarnished’ sounded similar to what had happened to Salarkis, yet he did not believe it would occur simply by stepping through the doorway.

  ‘And what,’ he asked, ‘do these changed Unwoven report about the experience?’

  Scarbrow shrugged. ‘It has been many years since it happened, but stories say they were killed quickly by our people.’

  Something about the Wound, Mergan thought, undoing the work of Regret? Taking threads? Or giving them back? The Unwoven are, after all, defined by what they were stripped of. Putting things right?

  ‘I thought,’ said Mergan, ‘that my children knew no fear? Yet here is a place they dare not tread.’

  ‘Fear, no, we do not know this thing. We have heard it described, tried to understand it. It sounds like little more than frailty, for which we have nothing but contempt.’

  Scarbrow snarled with such animal ferocity that it sent prickles down Mergan’s spine – though whether they were good prickles or bad, he wasn’t sure.

  ‘So,’ said Scarbrow, ‘while we would not wantonly throw away our strength – if you command it, we will enter the Spire.’

  Mergan tapped his elbow thoughtfully. ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe now that you are back the Spire can be reclaimed? Legend tells of a time when it held no danger for us.’

  ‘We shall see,’ said Mergan. ‘Wait here.’

  He moved through the doorway into a dark antechamber that stunk of moss and mildew, from which a stairwell spiralled upwards. Carefully he ascended, following footsteps in the cloudy beds of mould that covered everything, finding nothing above but more empty rooms.

  Two hundred and nine … two hundred and ten …

  He realised he was counting stairs, and tried to stop. Despite this, a little voice in his head carried on without permission.

  Two hundred and eleven …

  With a bark of anger he flew up the steps, too quickly for the stupid voice, making it lose count.

  Up, up, up, until he breathed a waft of clean air. He arrived in a room with a couple of round openings, and saw, directly opposite, an arch through which stairs were lit by sunlight. Going to stand just inside he peered up into open sky. He could not see the Wound from this vantage, but knew it was up there, and Salarkis too.

  ‘Salarkis!’ he called.

  There came the sound of footsteps approaching the top of the stairs, but they stopped before anyone appeared.

  ‘Mergan, old friend.’ Salarkis’s voice was warm and familiar. ‘How do you fare?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Mergan, unsure if that was true or not. He cleared his throat. ‘I did not realise it was you, back there, when I ordered you killed.’

  ‘That’s comforting to know. Why don’t you come up and we can talk? The view is magnificent.’

  ‘I did not recognise you, you see, because you are your old self!’

  ‘Aye, and a good thing it is to be.’

  ‘How did you manage it?’

  ‘I’ll tell you.’

  Mergan bit his lip.

  ‘Are you coming up?’ said Salarkis.

  ‘I think not.’

  Salarkis’s head appeared then, smiling, at the top of the stairs. ‘Why not? Come, old friend, there is nothing to fear. I am no longer tainted – all evil has left me.’

  But not me, thought Mergan, and giggled.

  ‘You are trying to trick me, I think,’ he said. ‘Tell me about removing the Spell’s threads – was it something you did, or was it done to you?’

  Salarkis shot out a hand and gripped Mergan with his influence. Caught off guard, Mergan staggered a few steps up the stairs, and for a moment the edge of the Wound came into view above. Beyond its tattered edges he saw the multitudinous threads of the Spell twisting like huge entwined vines, and gibbered in fear. He wrenched free of Salarkis’s grip and sent his own forth in answer, intending to drag Salarkis down into the dark. Salarkis struggled, but his strength was nothing anymore and he began to slide towards the stairs … quickly Mergan realised he had made a grave mistake. By sending his influence upwards he had exposed himself, by extension, to the Wound. An immense force began closing about him like the jaws of a great beast, and desperately he retracted his influence, just managing to slip through its hold. He fell back through the doorway, out of sight of the sky, to the floor. There was no doubt in his mind that the Wound had tried to grab him, lift him up, and reclaim what did not belong to him.

  ‘Are you still there, Mergan?’

  He tried to catch his breath. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want you to know that I was only trying to help.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘I don’t know what has happened to you, but really – leader of the Unwoven? Pretending to be the madman himself?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘How did you even convince the
m you’re him?’

  Mergan grinned humourlessly. ‘They decided it for themselves.’

  A pause.

  ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to be yourself again?’ asked Salarkis. ‘You are far from the Mergan I remember, who would be ashamed to see what he’s become. Maybe, if you give the Spell back its threads, you’ll find yourself happier for it?’

  ‘I don’t think so!’ The vitriol in his echoing shout surprised even him. ‘Mortal, and without many years left to me? Weak again, like you? Ashamed of what I’ve done? That does not sound like much reward for all I have endured.’

  ‘But it would be an act of restoration. The world would be better off –’

  ‘May the world crumble and fail! I will eat it piece by piece.’

  ‘I can’t believe you really feel that way.’

  ‘What you believe of how I feel, makes me feel nothing.’

  Mergan rose. He did not like this conversation anymore, he decided.

  ‘I am going now,’ he said.

  ‘But wait, old friend …’

  There was a hint of desperation in Salarkis’s voice. Perhaps he did not like the idea of being left alone and trapped? Maybe it would give him a taste of what Mergan had endured.

  Maybe it would make him understand.

  ‘What?’ Mergan snarled.

  ‘I don’t quite know what to say, but I wish you would not leave so quickly.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mergan, ‘we cannot always have what we wish, can we?’

  Happier for it? he wondered for a moment.

  But, as corrupted as he was, perhaps he could only be happy in a corrupted world.

  ‘My lord,’ said Scarbrow, as Mergan emerged. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Did you kill the intruder?’

  ‘No, but he is trapped on the roof. He can do nothing from there, except maybe send messages to our enemies.’

  ‘You will allow this?’

  ‘I will stop them if I sense them. In the meantime, the roof is off limits to those who value their threads. The Wound has grown strong, beyond my control.’ He sighed. ‘However the Spire, on the whole, is safe. I want it cleaned out, for it’s full of filth. As long as no one strays up the final stairs to the roof they will remain intact. And set guards, I don’t want our guest sneaking out.’

  Scarbrow nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘Now,’ said Mergan, ‘I am hungry.’ He licked his lips. ‘I think I fancy another horse.’

  RIPPLES

  Yalenna woke to sunrise creeping through her high windows. For a moment she lay still, listening to the sounds of the castle readying for the day ahead – movement in the corridors, voices from the square – and then she felt the warmth of the man draped against her, his arm across her chest, his head upon her shoulder.

  Well.

  Ale had been in play, she remembered, but she didn’t feel guilty or remorseful. She knew this kind of thing happened at times. Many people – most people – awoke at some point with someone else there who made them feel good. It was a common enough thing. Most likely it was common as muck, yet she had never experienced it before. There had been the odd dalliance, of course. Certainly she’d attracted important, dashing suitors when she had been named the Priestess of Storms at age eighteen, and there had even been one or two she had quite liked … but Regret had arisen all too soon, and after his defeat, well, she had been too busy cleaning up the mess to entertain any thoughts of love. And all those suitors were now bones in the ground.

  She ran her fingers through the tousled hair of handsome young Jandryn as the light set off the contours of his naked muscularity. He stirred and, with a soft grunt, raised his head, his cheek marked red where he had rested against her. His eyes found her breasts, and for a moment he was both entranced and mortified.

  ‘My lady, I … if I took advantage …’

  She chuckled throatily. ‘If you took advantage? I think you may be remembering things incorrectly, Captain.’

  She kissed him on the forehead. He had been attentive – a most generous lover in fact, more interested in her pleasure than any of her previous adolescent entanglements.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m glad for what happened.’

  He looked unsure, yet some of the tension left him.

  ‘I am also, my lady.’

  ‘While naked in my bed, you may call me Yalenna.’

  He smiled, then withdrew from her embrace to sit up and glance at the window.

  ‘It is only just light,’ she said. ‘You won’t be expected anywhere yet, surely.’

  He frowned. ‘A Captain of the Guard is always on duty. What if someone has been trying to find me? People might say they saw you with me, might track me down here!’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Well, I … your good name …’

  ‘Do not tell me that noblewomen have stopped taking lovers.’

  He shook his head slowly.

  ‘I will give you your first order of the day then – be calm. And continue to touch me.’

  He sat back and awkwardly slid his arm around her.

  ‘Did not you want this?’ she said. ‘I thought you did.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘How could any man fail to admire you?’

  ‘Well, you could have said something about it. Honestly Jandryn, you make me do all the work then worry it was you who took liberties!’

  ‘Well, it’s just … you’re the Priestess, and a Warden. I am only a man. I would never dare to presume.’

  ‘I am no better than any other.’

  ‘Most respectfully,’ he said, a welcome wryness showing on his face, ‘I must disagree.’

  There was a tap on the door and Jandryn started.

  ‘Wind and fire,’ Yalenna said, rising. ‘You will have a short life indeed if every servant leaving breakfast sets your heart beating like a silkjaw attack.’

  Bundling some bedclothes around herself, she went to the door and opened it slightly. The hall was deserted, but a pot of fresh tea and toasted bread lay on a tray. Quickly she dragged it inside, then let the sheets fall away as she lifted it.

  ‘Hungry, Captain?’

  He stared at her in open awe, standing there unclothed with steam curling around her.

  ‘There’s only one cup,’ she said, ‘but we need not stand on ceremony – we can share.’

  ‘As long as you do not set the tray on my lap,’ he said. ‘Right now I am apt to knock it from the bed.’

  She laughed. ‘Well, Captain, we cannot have that.’ She set the tray on the table and crawled back over the bed towards him. ‘Perhaps the tea will take some time to cool.’

  A little later there was no question that ale had been the sole fuel of their desires, and later still the bed was full of toast crumbs.

  Jandryn sighed. ‘The sun climbs,’ he said. ‘The day is truly underway.’

  ‘Yes. I should see about myself also, shortly.’

  She lay watching him retrieve his strewn vestments from about the room, assembling them on his person in a rather comical order.

  ‘Don’t giggle please,’ he said, as he searched for his loincloth, while already wearing a vest and armbands. ‘This is a serious business.’

  ‘My apologies, Captain.’

  ‘All right.’ He found it and slid it on, his trousers quick to follow. ‘Well, my lady,’ he said with an exaggerated air of formality as he adjusted the sword at his waist, ‘I’m sure I’ll have reason to report to you later.’

  ‘See that you do.’

  He bowed with a smile and left the room.

  Tarzi awoke to Rostigan already moving about.

  ‘Are you off somewhere?’

  He slung his sword across his back. ‘Indeed, songbird. I must speak to Yalenna. It is possible we may be away today.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Worry set in – the last time Rostigan had gone somewhere with Yalenna it had been to hunt Despirrow. He had returned bruised an
d injured, with a grievously hurt Braston.

  ‘Maybe nowhere.’ He sat on the bed and ran his fingers up her brow to dig them into her hair. ‘I have an idea to share with her. We’ll see if she thinks it worthwhile.’

  She took hold of his hand and made him press his fingers more firmly into her temples than he ever did without prompting. Sometimes she was amused to receive a head rub from the man known as Skullrender, but not today.

  ‘If you are hoping such a vague answer will satisfy me,’ she said, ‘you are as stupid as you are handsome.’

  ‘Whereas I,’ he said, rising, ‘consider myself cleverer and uglier than you do.’

  ‘Don’t forget stubborn.’

  ‘I’m simply not sure. There is much I must discuss with Yalenna.’

  ‘As long as you do not mean to go off threadwalking together to kill Forger.’

  He got a funny look then. ‘No. Not today, at least.’

  Once he had gone, Tarzi was immediately restless. She wanted to do something, but felt rather purposeless. Journeying to Althala, encouraging people to heed Braston’s call and join his army had given her a sense of achievement. For a short while she had been the leader but, as soon as her group had reached Althala, they had been swallowed into the ranks and she had become a simple minstrel again.

  ‘A bloody good minstrel though,’ she muttered.

  Well, if that was the best she had to offer, then so be it. She decided to pay another visit to the recruit’s camp and do what she could to raise the soldiers’ spirits. She would also quite like to see how Cedris, who had been one of the first to join her and Rostigan on the road, was getting on.

  She left the barracks, finding the morning air crisper than she had guessed. Hugging her arms, she stayed in the sunlight as she made her way across the square into the city streets.

  Ever since the silkjaw attack there were more soldiers on patrol than usual, and she passed a couple now whom she recognised from her storytelling in the barracks dining hall. She gave them a wave, and they gazed at her blankly. The previous night their eyes had shone merrily and they had laughed and hollered in all the right places, so she found their sombre reaction a bit strange. Maybe they had consumed more ale than was wise and were feeling sore-headed.