by Tom Lloyd
The general grunted in assent and together they lifted Kohrad onto the cradle while the soldiers brought over a horse to attach it to. Leather straps went around his chest and waist to hold Kohrad onto the cradle but they had to bend his knees to ensure his feet didn't drag.
His son looked suddenly frail, ashen in the weak light. Styrax re¬membered Kohrad as a child, an energetic sprawl of whirling limbs, storming through Crafanc's rooms with his lionhounds. His mother, Selar, was also a white-eye – they could breed only with their own kind – yet she had proved a remarkably attentive parent. It had broken Selar's heart when her cherished son effectively chose his father over her; after years of his mother's unconditional love, it was to Styrax that Kohrad had turned.
Through his childhood Kohrad had been in perpetual motion, rarely able to remain stationary. Even as an adult he would pace and gesture, brimming with childish energy and wicked humour. And now he lay there with slack lips and vacant eyes: to see Kohrad like this chilled Styrax's heart, more than any wound he'd received.
Reluctantly he lifted the drag-cradle and hooked it up to the wait¬ing horse's saddle. Gaur gave him a nod and led the horse away, clearly intending to walk beside Kohrad all the way. Styrax took one last look and left his friend to take charge, a rare flicker of fear in his heart as he returned his attention to Larim. Whatever concerns he had, he couldn't show the ambitions young white-eye a trace of weakness. Larim might begin to think he would succeed where Salen failed.
'The young lord is badly hurt?'
'He will recover,' Styrax growled in reply, glaring at Larim until the younger man shifted his gaze from Kohrad's prone form. 'You had something important so show me?'
'Ah, so I did.' Larim coughed and gestured to his two guards, who dragged the prisoners from their saddles. Each had his hands bound with white cord with some sort of enchantment woven into the thin rope. Styrax could just make out the glittering silver thread that held the magic. Larim took one by the arm and dragged him over to where Styrax was standing.
'I was following your orders exactly – quick simple deaths, with no experimentation or creativity. A waste of perfect subjects, in my opinion, but I understood your reasoning. Consequently, I was sur¬prised to observe the following.'
He whipped a thin dagger from his belt and slammed it into the man's chest. The man gave a high-pitched shriek and convulsed in pain. Larim frowned at the sound and jolted the man, as though to admonish him. The man gasped, then went limp, passed out from the pain and died quickly.
'Normal thus far?' commented Larim, as though conducting an ex¬periment in front of a flock of acolytes. Styrax nodded, managing to contain his curiosity. The Chosen of Larat was doing nothing to the man. Styrax could sense no force, nor any charm that would prevent death, or even make that death notable. The only thing he suspected of Larat's Chosen was that he was enjoying the chance to provide Styrax with some instruction, and that wasn't exactly a surprise.
'But observe,' Larim continued, pulling the dagger back out of his victim. A gout of blood sprayed from the corpse over the base of the pillar Kohrad had been attacking. With a fastidious sniff, Larim released the body and stepped back. The dead mage swayed and his knees buckled, limbs and neck limp all falling limp, but somehow he remained upright.
'You're right,' said Styrax, 'that is curious.' He tasted the air. The Plain of Pillars was thick with the stench of death, but suddenly the odour had risen, heavy in his throat. Styrax recognised the sensation: this was necromancy, without doubt, but the source eluded him. He felt the rare sensation of being intrigued.
'Salen put some form of necromantic charm on his coterie? But no, I assume if that were the case you'd look a little less immaculate.'
'You would be correct in that assumption, my Lord.' Larim stepped back half a pace to give the corpse a little more room. His expression was one of calculating interest, rather than concern. Styrax again reached his senses out, to be certain this was no elaborate trap. He could feel nothing of the power that would be required normally, but there was something unusual. A presence of some kind? He didn't know of any daemon that could enter a corpse without some form of assistance.
'Larim?' rasped the dead mage. There was an echo to the voice, as well as the bubbling of air though a ruined windpipe.
'I'm here,' was the reply, laced with a vague amusement.
'I cannot see you.'
'That's because your head's hanging down at the ground.'
'You wish to gauge my strength? So be it, you are but a child after all.'
There was no emotion in the voice. Styrax couldn't tell whether the being was angry or amused at the game Larim was playing. Controlling the muscles was difficult for a daemon, and clearly the Chosen of Larat had broken the corpse's neck to find out how powerful a being they were dealing with.
With jerking movements the dead mage's head was forced to an upright angle, tongue lolling and eyes dead. 'You have found Lord Styrax as I asked. Good.'
'Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?' Styrax en¬quired.
Larim turned to face Styrax. 'I believe this is your friend, not mine.'
Styrax felt a chill on his skin. Was he being accused of something? Had Larim proof that Styrax had made a pact with a daemon? If so, why confront him here, surrounded by Styrax's troops?
He looked at the dead mage. 'Well, corpse, are you a friend of mine?'
'A friend? No. A loyal subject of course.'
'Loyal subject?' Styrax narrowed his eyes, thinking frantically, then cried, 'Amavoq's rage; Isherin Purn? I'd assumed you were dead – we've heard nothing from you in two years.'
'I am honoured you remember me.' The voice lacked any emotion, but Styrax could imagine it now, the mocking, wheedling lilt, Purn's thin lips over-forming each syllable in almost obscene pedantry. The necromancer was an unpleasant, rat-like figure, alternating wildly between ridiculous scheming and depraved experiments.
'You did your job well. I expected you to return and claim your reward. Lord Bahl would never have left himself vulnerable without your influence. I had hoped to hear just how you accomplished it.'
An artist cannot reveal too many secrets. All I will say is that it required a creative pen as much as spellcasting.' The corpse paused. 'I did not return because I have found myself many distractions in this part of the Land. There is so much fun to be had here.'
'And yet you seek me out?'
'Ever willing to be of service to my Lord.'
Styrax snorted. 'When you were in my grip, perhaps. You certainly had enough sense not to challenge me. Now that you are beyond my influence, I'm not so sure.' He cocked his head towards Larim. 'What was it Verliq said? "I hold no allegiance but to my art"?'
The white-eye's lip twitched in irritation. 'I would not know, my Lord. You have not let us read any of his works.'
Styrax gave him a bright little smile. 'Ah, no, of course not. A shame, you would find them most instructive. Well, Purn? I know necromancers care little for their rulers, so tell me why you have gone to all this trouble.'
'I am in Scree. It is a backward little city, typical of the Western states, caught between one powerful neighbour and another and spending all their time looking outwards for the next threat.'
'So they don't worry much about people disappearing off the street from time to time. I'm sure it is paradise for you. I do already have agents however; agents who provide better information that that. Either tell me something new, or 1 will dismiss you in a manner you will find most uncomfortable. My son is injured so I have little time for the babbling of deranged maniacs.'
'If your son is injured, then you had better be more courteous to the walkers in the dark,' the corpse retorted, its jaw snapping shut, an indication of Isherin Purn's anger.
'Why? What do you know about it?' Styrax stepped forward and grabbed the corpse by its slack neck. Without any apparent effort he lifted it up with one hand and brought the dead lolling eyes level with his own. 'Whatever allegiance
you profess to hold, never forget my power. There is nowhere you could hide from me. There is no protec¬tor you could find to keep you safe if you made yourself my enemy. Now explain what you meant.'
Returning the corpse to the ground, he stepped back and watched it jerk and spasm as Purn fought to regain control over its muscles. That close, Styrax could smell the emptied bowels, adding to the stink of corrupt magic surrounding the cadaver. Purn had grown in power since being allowed to leave Salen's tutelage at the Hidden Tower and seek out Cordein Malich. Styrax guessed that the necromancer would be unable to repeat this trick with anyone but members of the coterie he had served in, yet even so, it was impressive. And it was an illustrative point of theory – he would have to send someone to read Larim's notes when he had time to investigate it further.
'I understand,' the corpse rasped eventually. 'I am no threat to your son, but he walks with one foot in the dark.'
'One foot in the dark? He is not as close to death as that.'
'Not close to death, but walking in the dark nonetheless. He is open to the creatures of the other place. They can feel the fire raging through him. I do not know the being that fuels his fire, but it is not one that would willingly share its possessions. I do not dare investigate further else I be scorched by its vengeance.'
'Kohrad is no toy to be shared,' Styrax snarled. 'Nor is he a posses¬sion of either God or daemon. If one seeks to claim him, it will have to fight my armies for him.'
'It already has staked its claim.'
Styrax hesitated. 'The armour? That is what gives it power over him?'
'Ah, a suit of armour? If that is true, then you are dealing with an old one, the most ancient and cunning. Filled with malice they are – and hard to trick out of their prize. Take care how you proceed.'
Styrax hesitated. He knew which inhabitant of the dark would want a hold over him: the daemon-prince he had made a bargain with many years ago. It feared his strength and scrabbled for purchase. So be it; he had always known a reckoning had to come one day. Strange that it comes this way though, 1 wouldn't have expected a daemon to choose such an oblique path.
'Was that what you came to tell me? A warning from a loyal servant?'
'No.' The corpse gave a wheeze, a dribble of cloying blood emerg¬ing from the corner of its mouth. Styrax suspected Purn, back in his festering laboratory in Scree, was laughing at the notion. 'To tell you there is a new air in Scree. Figures of power walk the streets, unknown songs drift on the air. It is nothing I have ever felt before, but it is more akin to the currents surging through the Dark Place than the politics of a city. Something calls to me in the night, something of incalculable power.'
'You're asking for help?' Styrax's puzzlement was plain in his voice. He glanced at Larim, but the young white-eye looked just as confused. A necromancer as powerful as Purn was unlikely to ask for assistance, no matter what the task. Sharing, spoils or troubles, was not often part of the mindset.
'Scree becomes the focus of something quite remarkable, I believe. I do not know what dangers lie here, but they shift and feed off each other. Scree sees the convergence of horrors. I fear this home will soon be no home, not even for a man of culture such as I.'
Styrax knew what Purn meant, but when he glanced at Larim, he didn't appear to understand; his contact with necromancers during his fifteen-year apprenticeship would have been limited. Necromancers disliked states descending into chaos. There were too many factions involved, too many mobs roaming the streets and disrupting their work. They liked their shadows still and peaceful, rather than flicker¬ing in the flames of funeral pyres.
'You lack the power to compete for whatever it is that calls to you in the night?'
'If this convergence draws more people to Scree that will certainly be true, but in fact I suspect the artefact would draw me into the games of lords and Gods, and in these troubled times that would not prove healthy. Instead, I offer to help you secure it.'
'You're offering me this artefact? In exchange for what? A manor back home with your pick of the gaols? A guarantee that your activi¬ties will be unrestrained?'
'No. The pickings will be richer this side of the waste. Every denizen of the dark knows that a storm has scattered the strands of the future far and wide. Fate lies in her chamber and weeps for what she has lost. I do not wish to be absent from such delicious chaos. The freedom you offered me is my price – as well as men to assist me here – but in Thotel, where I am not answerable to anyone but you. That – and one of the Chetse's Bloodroses for my personal use.'
Styrax frowned. A necromancer offering to hand over something of such power? It hardly seemed creditable, yet Purn knew his lord well enough not to expect some foolish mistake that could put Styrax in danger, or honour an agreement where he'd been lied to. 'If this artefact is as great as you claim, I agree. I will send you some men to help and they will accompany you back here.'
The corpse shuddered, slumping to its knees before Purn regained his control. 'I cannot hold this much longer. Who will you send? They must leave word for me at a tavern, the Lost Spur.'
Styrax's thoughts began to race. Killers would be easy enough to find, but who of his staff could he send to lead them? All those men whose names came readily to his lips were men of importance, and he had few friends he could spare for such a thing. Then one appeared unbidden in his mind. Styrax pictured the terror it would cause even as he spoke, and the picture it made caused him to smile inwardly.
'Mikiss. A messenger called Koden Mikiss will lead them.'
Not waiting to hear any more, Isherin Purn broke the link and the mage's corpse collapsed in a heap of stained, stinking robes. Styrax didn't move for a moment, thinking over this remarkable conversa¬tion. Of what importance was Scree? What sort of convergence could be happening there? Then Kohrad's still form returned to his memory. There were more important things to deal with this night. His skills would be required if they were going to break whatever hold the daemon had over his son. Once that was done, there was revenge to be planned.
'Major,' Styrax growled. The tall soldier hurried over, his amber eyes glinting in the firelight. 'Find our friend the messenger and have him waiting for when I finish with Kohrad. Do you have a few men you can trust for a trip such as this?'
'If it's as important as he said,' the soldier replied with a nod towards the corpse, 'I'll go myself, and take the twins with me. Any more than that will make it hard to travel quick and quiet.'
Styrax gave a nod of approval. 'Good. I don't want to send an army all the way up there, not yet. Find out what Purn is talking about and if you think it worthwhile, send word with what assistance you'll need to secure it. Get yourself ready, then bring the messenger to me. But first, find me a horse.'
CHAPTER 10
Mayel pressed his palm flat against the door and stopped. In the gloom of the cellar stairwell, he could just make out the pitted iron ring that opened the door. He held his breath, feeling the insistent thump of his heart pounding as his ears strained to detect any sound from the house above. All was silent, but for a flutter through the house as the blustery wind rattled the shutters. A droning whistle abruptly pierced the quiet, making Mayel's heart almost leap into his throat.
Then he recognised it, and grinned in relief. 'Just the wind com¬ing through the keyhole,' he muttered. 'Idiot!' The lock on the kitchen door was old and broken, like everything else in this house, no matter how grand it had once been. Mayel could hardly believe anyone would let such a fine house fall into disrepair like this, let¬ting the damp to creep up the walls and seep into the floorboards until they swelled and burst like overripe fruit. The surrounding area might explain a lot for, like the house at its centre, the district was decayed, half-abandoned, home mostly to furtive figures who lin¬gered in dark corners, hiding from the light as much as the rain. The abbot, of course, thought the area ideal. Having escaped the austere bleakness of their island monastery, Abbot Doren had sought out its cosmopolitan equivalent, much to Ma
yel's indignation. That the abbot had paid good silver for it only compounded the young man's irritation.
Mayel had adopted the kitchen as his own and scrubbed it clean. The abbot had the cellar room for his studies, and the rest of the house they had sealed off and left for the rats to enjoy. The abbot worked through the night, talking to himself and clattering around down here as Mayel drifted off to sleep in his makeshift bed. When the old man did sleep it was usually in a chair shaded from the afternoon sun, though his slumber was far from peaceful, his dreams plagued by fell shapes he refused to discuss… Mayel could see them haunting his waking hours too.
Abbot Doren was far from young, but Mayel suspected he was not as old as he appeared, despite the tired look in his eyes. Perhaps it was the dreams that aged him, perhaps it was something else. He was a mage, like most high priests, and neither magic nor Vellern were easy masters. The two together would take a lot out of any man.
Flickering light seeped through the cracks, outlining the door. Finally, Mayel turned the iron ring, and waited. Salvation or damnation, he wondered, slowly easing open the door. Wincing slightly at the creak of the hinges, he poked his head around the door and looked into the cellar.
The morning light was streaming down through the two grime-smeared windows facing him. The cellar had been underneath the main entrance to the house, looking up at what was, at one time, a busy street. The tall oak door that had been the grand entrance to the house was now rotten and broken, with black paint peeling from its surface like a leprous skin.
