by A J Dalton
She knew she should ignore it because there was no time to do otherwise. She didn’t want to disappoint friend Anupal, after all. She’d promised she would go with him to the place where they could do good things to make good friends; and that place would only be there if they got there in time. Yet her heart wouldn’t let her just leave the screamer, monster or otherwise, in such distress. She would see what she could do and make up the time afterwards, carrying friend Anupal through the night if necessary so that he could get the rest he needed.
Closer still and she felt a more sinister vibration beneath the screaming. Sun-metal! The screamer was trapped inside a cube of it. She was appalled. Who would be so cruel as to do this to another being? It was the worst of tortures, eternal diminishment and a stripping away of being. No wonder the creature screamed constantly. It must have been driven mad by its imprisonment. It must yearn for death.
‘I see you!’ it resonated, and capered about in the cube, first on the ceiling, then it crouched in a corner. ‘Come to taunt me? Gar sent you, didn’t he? Told me not to overreach, didn’t he? What do you expect of Gar of the Still Stone? Inertia. No ictus for dynamic change. No catalyst. Nothing! What sort of god is that?’ A moment’s hesitation. ‘But what sort of gods are there any more? None. Leave me! You depress me. Leave me!’
Its demand was so strident that it was painful to listen to. She backed away, at a loss as to how she could help anyway. She was powerless against the sun-metal.
‘Leave me, leave me, LEAVE ME!’
Agony. The screamer’s. Her own. The rock’s. Her mind rattling and fracturing. Fragmentation. She had to get away before it shattered her. She vomited dust and debris, the rock around her becoming a deluge. She ran and swam and fought her way up, refusing to let it sweep her away into the bottomless pit of eternity, where the punishing Underlords awaited the fall of the world. She hardened, solidified, became immovable bedrock and faced the tearing torrent. She would not let it drown her.
It finally began to abate, as the mad screamer’s mind wandered and forgot itself once more. Exhausted, she hauled her way up to safety and for once welcomed the light of the sky-cave on her skin.
‘Net her,’ ordered a tight little voice.
There was a blur of red and gold as a gossamer web of sun-metal was cast over her and pulled closed. It began to eat into her.
‘No, please!’ she begged. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong!’
‘That’s not for you to judge,’ disagreed the voice. ‘I am the authority here. I bet you haven’t got any papers either, have you? Honestly, this Empire would completely fall apart if I weren’t here to detect unauthorised intrusions, pick up the pieces when proper procedure wasn’t observed, and so forth. There’d be absolutely no order or organisation if we all came and went as we pleased. It would be chaos. Nothing would ever get done, would it? I’ll ask you again. Do you have any papers?’
‘Noo!’ she groaned.
‘Then how am I to know who you are? How am I to know if you’re a threat or not, hmm? After all, you’re quite odd and dangerous-looking, aren’t you? If anyone needed papers, it would be someone like you. So what am I going to do with you, hmm?’
Through the spots and stars of her vision she made out a prim figure who was all straight lines and uniformity. Even his face had a perfect and unremarkable symmetry about it. By contrast, the half-dozen heavy men with him were all slouched and scuffed, straps on their armour hanging loose, their hair dishevelled, dirt on their faces, lopsided expressions, and so on.
‘What? Let you loose in the wider Empire to cause who knows what trouble? I don’t think so. That would be quite negligent of me. And how can you expect to cross a border into another region when you have no papers? No, I’m going to have to detain you until you can prove who you are to my satisfaction.’
‘But how can I prove who I am without papers?’
‘Well, you should have thought of that before you decided to come storming through here without manners, invitation or permission, shouldn’t you? Don’t worry, because you’ll have plenty of time to think about how you can prove who you are in your holding cell. All the time in the world, in fact. Take her away.’
‘Yes, holy one,’ the heavy men responded as three of them took hold of the net and proceeded to drag her off.
The well-ordered authority looked up at the sky. ‘And prepare a second cell, as we will soon have another unauthorised arrival. This one’s a repeat offender, so I’ll have to come down hard or we’ll just end up with a free-for-all.’
The Peculiar chased the eagle up into the clouds, widened his mouth to ridiculous proportions and then swallowed it whole. He burped. The eagle struggled inside him, pushing his stomach out in the shape of head and beak, and then talons.
‘Oo! That tickles. It’s your feathers. Ouch! That hurt.’
He coughed and spat the bird back out. It plummeted a good distance before it managed to right itself and slow its fall. It landed heavily but looked like it would survive – if delayed shock didn’t kill it, that was.
‘Never liked the taste of eagles anyway,’ the Peculiar grouched. ‘Taste like frogs, which taste like chicken, which taste like carp, which eat pooh and mud off the bottom of rivers. Far too primitive a life form ever to taste good. Ah, how I wish wyverns still graced the skies. Now they were a challenge. Sneaky too. Tasted almost as good as people, in fact, if not better than some. Whatever happened to the wyverns, I wonder? Bet Goza ate them all. Doesn’t leave much that’s new these days. The world’s in decline, of course, the power of the Geas slowly drained by the elseworlders. Yes, the disappearance of certain species is no doubt connected to the dwindling of the Geas. Still, I wonder what elseworlders taste like. Look a bit bony. Hmm. Something to mull.’
He hit a still pocket of air and the wind went out from under him. He plummeted much as the eagle had just done.
‘Oops. Too much mulling. Should have looked where I was going.’
Next he was caught in a downdraught and hurled towards the earth. He decided against wasting any power to halt the fall because he was more interested in getting to earth as quickly as possible. He’d just about had enough of this meddlesome Saint. It was time to deal with him once and for all.
‘This is going to hurt,’ he said to himself.
His body punched into the ground, throwing up a shower of pebbles and stones. After a minute or so of reknitting his limbs and flesh, he pulled himself out of the deep depression he had made. He slowly pushed his right shoulder and then his left shoulder back, sighing as his spine cracked back into place.
‘Ahh! That’s got it.’
‘Well, well! Just look who’s dropped in for another visit,’ simpered the voice of Saint Virulus.
‘Don’t you know who I am, you witless cock-a-mouth? I can’t believe you’ve never heard of the Peculiar, otherwise known as the Lord of Mayhem, the Great—’
‘I don’t care who you think you are!’ Saint Virulus shouted from atop a rock that made him appear taller than his henchmen. ‘This is my region, and I intend to see to it that order is instilled in everyone and everything. It is the only way to pre-empt the Chaos and ensure eternity.’
‘I don’t know how you managed to alter the air up there, but if you think you’ve got any chance of instilling order in the Lord of May—’
‘Silence! I control the very elements of this region. Control, control, control. Not even the air flows without my say-so. None are capable of breath or speech without my permission. Silence, I say!’
A gag of air had been forced into the Peculiar’s mouth to stop him speaking. He spat it out furiously. ‘That does it! I will spread you like manure across this region. The soil could do with it after all. Rejoice that for once in your uninspired life you will be of some passing use!’
‘And you will be brought to heel,’ the Saint sniffed. ‘Enough of your wayward words and rabid ranting, you … you … vagabond. Net him!’
A gossamer web of sun-met
al was thrown over the Peculiar. He shrugged it off and laughed softly. ‘To think I actually hesitated to kill you before, in case your Saviours got their knickers in a twist. I now realise I’ll be doing them a favour. And I have my reputation to think of. If I were to let this pass and word spread, then every insipid Saint I came across would take it upon themselves to interfere with me.’ He took a pace towards the Saint.
‘Net him! Net him!’ Saint Virulus urged. ‘I will have order!’
Two nets were thrown at the same time. The Peculiar became a liquid and ran between them, his helmet of sun-metal carried through on the stream.
‘And now what will you do?’ the Peculiar asked.
The Saint raised his hands above his head, palms facing inwards as if he held a block of stone. He hurled the air at the Peculiar. The Peculiar became a ghost and the force passed straight through him, although his helmet slipped askew.
‘And now what will you do?’ he asked, righting the helmet and taking a step closer.
‘Attack him!’ the Saint called to his six men. ‘For the Empire!’
‘Stay where you are!’ the Peculiar compelled them with a snatch of song and a lover’s sigh. He took another step closer. ‘And now what will you do? Your orders have foundered; your attempts to control matter are limited and limiting. Now what will you do, vapid little Saint? Will you accept that just as there is order, there must be disorder? Will you accept that nothing can be all-controlling and all-powerful if this world is to exist? Will you accept that your Saviours are not eternal?’
‘Anarchist!’ the Saint gnashed, unleashing spirals of flame from his hands to engulf the Peculiar.
‘Silly of me,’ the Peculiar said. ‘Of course you won’t accept it. It’s just too great an admission of error, false belief and inadequacy for you. Such a self-deluding creature is man. Such a self-defeating conception and philosophy. Fancy thinking that you can impose yourself on the world which created you, and that you can take absolute command of it. So circular, so flawed! Do you not see that it is the very attempt that always undoes you? But I know why your kind does it. I am not without understanding, not without compassion even. It’s because you feel so alone and lost in the universe, isn’t it? Come, let me hold you.’
The fiery figure burned all the colours of the rainbow as it stepped up onto the rock and embraced the Saint.
‘Nooo!’ The coiffured man screamed as his hair caught alight, his skin began to melt and his uniform burned away. The aroma of cooked meat filled the air.
‘There, there. It’s all right. I’m here now.’
The Saint’s flesh blackened and crisped. His dying moan became one sound with the roar of the inferno. His limbs remained for a moment as thin and twisted wicks for the spectral flames and were then nothing but ash on the wind. The fire suddenly snuffed out as if the Saint had never been.
The Peculiar stepped down from the rock, dusting off his hands and adopting his previous form of a painfully beautiful youth. ‘I did warn him. You heard me warn him, right?’
The six staring Heroes nodded.
‘Friend Anupal!’ called a voice. ‘I am imprisoned down here.’
The Peculiar’s brows drew down in sultry displeasure. ‘You curs have incarcerated my friend? That is no way to treat a lady!’
‘Monster, you mean,’ responded a hatchet-faced Hero, who appeared to be shaking off the glamour.
‘Take your sword and cut out your tongue. Good, good. Now swallow your blade with your words.’
The other five watched in helpless horror.
‘You!’ the Peculiar said to one who had wet himself. ‘Release my friend.’
The Hero took a tentative step forward, his knees knocking. The Peculiar tutted and touched the soldier on the shoulder. The man fell dead, a look of surprise on his face.
‘Too slow. I’m busy, busy! I have places to be. You! Release my friend.’
The next Hero wasted no time and made it to the first stair to the punishment chambers before the Peculiar yawned and clicked his fingers. The man tripped and fell down the stairs. The sudden silence from below told the remaining three that their fellow had broken his neck.
‘You!’
The fourth man was already moving.
‘Good presence of mind and initiative.’
The remaining two sighed with relief. The Peculiar turned his eyes towards them.
‘Unlike you two.’
One threw himself to his knees and clasped his hands before him. ‘Mercy, holy one!’
The Peculiar touched him on the forehead as if in blessing. ‘Very well. I will make it quick and painless for you.’ Then he turned to the last of the Heroes. ‘Well?’
‘I-I …’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry?’
The Peculiar gave him a severe smile. ‘Good try, but what use is being sorry after the event, eh? You need to be sorry before the event, so that the event never occurs.’ He stroked the soldier’s cheek. ‘Remember that if the Geas deigns to allow you another lifetime.’ He caught the man as he fell and laid him gently on the ground.
The fourth of the Heroes now returned with Freda. He looked down at his dead comrades and swallowed fearfully.
‘Ah, there you are, dear one. Are you well?’
‘Yes, friend Anupal.’
‘That’s good. Then let us leave this unpleasantness and be on our way.’ He took her by the hand and they walked away, leaving the Hero behind.
‘I’m glad you didn’t kill all of them,’ Freda murmured despairingly.
‘But of course not, dear one. I’m not a monster. I seek to do good things where I can, to make good friends. It saddens me when I cannot do so.’
Besides, I need one left alive so that the story can be told to the current generation of this world. My reputation needs to be re-established.
Jillan jolted awake, disorientated. Where was he? A small golden-beamed room. There was no one else there. Full daylight came through a pair of shutters, not the harsh light of a new morning either. It felt closer to the middle of the day. How could that be? He’d lost something but didn’t quite know what. He felt nauseous with déjà vu.
His head hurt. He was tempted to call on the taint to ask what had happened the night before, but Bion had warned against any sort of magic. That was it: he’d been talking to Bion and then got lost on his way back to the smithy and Thomas’s house. Stara had eventually found him and led him home, but it had been fully dark by the time they’d got there. He’d gratefully allowed the welcoming faces and warmth of the fire to soothe away his distress, and willingly joined the revelry and cheer. Hadn’t he stood on the table at one point to sing them all a song? He felt slightly embarrassed to remember it now, but it had pleased Stara.
He frowned. Another evening lost. He pushed the over-piled pillows away from him so that he could move more freely. He put his feet on the floor and realised he was only wearing his underclothes. Where were his other clothes? With relief, he saw them draped over a chair and quickly put them on. Where was his pack? What had happened to his armour? Was it magical and therefore something to be avoided? No, it had saved his life on more than one occasion and he wanted it back. Added to that, he’d only really borrowed it from the pagan chieftain, so he should try and take good care of it. He dared not lose it. Oh no! Where was his sun-metal sword, the one Samnir had given up even though he’d known it was all he had to defend himself against Saint Azual? Thomas had always been interested in it. Had he taken it?
Jillan crossed the room and pushed the door open. Stara was waiting for him, blocking his path.
‘There you are, Jillan. I’ve missed you since last night.’ She blushed prettily. ‘Do you want to come pick mushrooms with me for breakfast?’
He took her by the upper arms and gently moved her aside. ‘First I need to find my pack, and then Aspin and Ash.’
He went down the stairs and Sabella came bustling up to him. ‘There you are, Jillan. Too many ales again last night.’ She winked knowingly. ‘You�
��ll be wanting some bread and honey. It’s your favourite. It’s all laid out for you there.’
He gave her a small smile and then looked carefully around the large open room. Everything gleamed and competed for the eye’s attention: the polished oak chairs, the shining surface of the leaf-carved table, the brasses around the newly swept ever-burning fireplace, the light reflecting off delicate china plates and through jars of preserved fruit, the glare off cutlery, Stara’s sparkling eyes and white dress, Sabella’s bright cheeks, the sun flooding in through the open door and shutters.
He looked for the shadows, where things would be hidden. Ah, there. He moved to the small space under the stairs. Pushed to the back were his armour and sword. He pulled them out and began to put them on. Then he saw his pack and the two bows he’d stowed in the wagon before rescuing Aspin from Saviours’ Paradise. These he also took.
Sabella’s smile faltered. ‘Why, Jillan, are you going out, dear? You should have something before you go. How about just some tea? I have some steeping. I’d never forgive myself if you left without something to keep your strength up.’
He cinched the last buckle on his armour, immediately feeling more like his old self. The gold symbols on his breastplate glinted and he thought he heard something in the distance. Was that a howl? Now he thought on it, the wolf had been calling for quite some time, hadn’t it? He just hadn’t seemed to notice before.
‘I’ll go with you,’ Stara insisted and followed him out of the door, ‘so you don’t get lost again.’ She gave an affectionate laugh, but became downcast when he didn’t share it. ‘Do you want me to take you to Aspin first? Judging by the mood Betha was in earlier, I think he’s with Bion again.’
Jillan nodded and let her lead him past the forge, where Thomas battled his dragon, across the stream, down through the copse and out across the wild meadow. Off to the side of the path he heard Ash whispering and Ausa squeaking in delight.
Jillan put a finger to his lips and he and Stara crept closer to the voices.
‘So your father won’t mind us being together?’ Ash mumbled where he lay in the tall grasses next to Ausa.
