Magic, Myth & Majesty: 7 Fantasy Novels

by David Dalglish

  “Because of your piece of the statue?”

  The Gray Abbot’s hand went to his chest as if expecting to find the Monas still there. “Huntsman was not clear why it should stay in Sahul. He received feelings, intuitions, but ultimately I think he was as clueless as the rest of us. I once told him the whole business was akin to faith. Can’t say he liked the idea very much. Has quite a temper, you know. When the Lost disappeared, Huntsman dealt with the mawgs himself. Storms of lightning, packs of rabid animals, swarms of insects—none of it terribly Nousian, of course, but it scared the living daylights out of the mawgs.”

  The Gray Abbot turned to look once more at the painting of gargantuan winged serpents spewing fire upon the civilization of the Ancients.

  “Why should Callixus reappear now, after so many centuries?” Shader asked. “What does he want with the statue?”

  “I have no idea.” The Gray Abbot pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes. “But I sense a trail of darkness, like a vein carrying corrupted blood back to the heart. And that heart is Sarum.”

  “Could it be Blightey?”

  The Gray Abbot shook his head. “Blightey’s not left Verusia for centuries. If he did, the Templum would know about it. No, I doubt even his reach extends to Sahul. This is something else.”

  The Gray Abbot coughed and bent double. Shader took hold of his shoulders and guided him onto the edge of the bed.

  “Time’s catching up with me,” the Gray Abbot rasped through snatches of breath. “Should have felt this centuries ago.”

  “You want me to go after Callixus, Pater Abbot?”

  The Gray Abbot spat out some phlegm and dabbed at his mouth with tremulous fingers. “You feel the hand of Ain in this, or the promise of more bloodshed?”

  “You think we should do nothing?”

  The Gray Abbot raised a hand, shaking his head. “Forgive me, Frater. I’m hardly the one to judge. It’s doubtful the path of peace is still open to us. Maybe it never was. Perhaps you were right all along.”

  Shader’s stomach knotted. He felt as if one of the joists supporting reality had just been split. Nausea swirled around him like a maelstrom. Was he dreaming? Remembering? He shook his head and breathed deeply, and as quickly as it had come, the feeling left him. “What’s that supposed to mean, me being right all along?”

  “I remember a novice I once sent into Sarum, a reformed man, humble to the point of obsession.”

  Shader knew where this was going and turned away.

  “He was passing a tavern in one of the rougher districts of the city—the Mermaid, I believe—when he chanced upon a bunch of wharfies setting upon a young man. Oh, the fellow was a merchant or some such, and probably deserved it. I heard later that he’d swindled one of the dockworkers out of his home.”

  “I never knew that,” Shader said, his voice a whisper.

  “It hardly matters,” the Gray Abbot said. “Except to illustrate that things are often other than they seem. You saw a defenseless man being beaten to death, and despite your calling, you could not simply look on and let it happen.”

  Shader winced at the recollection. His first impulse had been to fight, but something had held him back: his love of the Gray Abbot, the example of his life. “I pulled the merchant to his feet and told him to run. Stood in their way, let them hit me instead.”

  The Gray Abbot sighed and put a hand on Shader’s shoulder.

  “The way of peace,” he said. “Non-violent resistance. I often asked myself afterwards, whilst you were recovering at the Templum of the Knot, if your example had changed any of those involved. I wondered if they ever asked themselves why you didn’t fight back, why you let them nearly kill you. I suppose even someone who’s lived as long as I have can still be naive. I was proud of you, proud of the abbey, proud of Nousians.”

  “And then I went back,” Shader said, hunching his shoulders. “I went back and did to them what they did to me. Only I didn’t stop until every last one of them was bleeding out on the street.”

  “You went back and you did what was in your nature. Yes, I felt betrayed. Yes, I felt my faith corroded by that bitter reminder of human nature—not just yours, but all of ours. Mine even. I was glad when you left. I needed no further evidence of what we really are; but when you returned, still intent to try, I was forced to confront Nous’s infinite mercy. I even dared to hope again.”

  “You thought that if I won the tournament—”

  “—you’d excise the violence; become more than human: detached and otherworldly. I know, I know it’s an outmoded theology, but that’s my flaw. Sometimes I wonder why Nous cares, if he cares. I know if I were him, Ain forbid, I’d have turned my back on this world eons ago.”

  Shader’s eyes flicked back to the painting. The Ancients: brutal, efficient, and utterly dismissive of life. It had simply been about utility and power for them, and all the peace and love in the world had been seen as a disorder. It was only when the dragons had come, along with every other nightmare from the Dreaming—

  “I’m not even clear about what’s at stake,” the Gray Abbot said. “It all depends on what Callixus plans for the statue, and, more importantly I suspect, what the statue plans for itself. My fragment is only one of five. It’s granted me long life and enhanced my ability to heal. Besides that, I still know next to nothing about it.”

  “But you said you sensed an evil trail. Surely Callixus intends some mischief.”

  The Gray Abbot shuffled fully onto the mattress, leaned back against the wall. The energy leaving him was almost palpable. He seemed to be growing older by the minute. “I must take the blame for the conflict you experienced in Sarum when I last sent you. I doubt much has changed since.”

  “I am ready, Pater Abbot. This evil has restored my purpose.”

  The Gray Abbot gave him a long searching look. “Callixus was a good man, strong and firm in the faith.”

  “And I am not?”

  “Maybe this is your calling, Frater Deacon. Set aside past failings, high expectations. Pray often and trust only in Ain. A Monas has been stolen. Return it to me, and in so doing let us hope you retrieve something of your own also. This is either Ain’s work or the Demiurgos’. If you are strong in prayer, there’s nothing to fear from the latter and everything to gain from the former.”

  THE SHAMAN AND THE IPSISSIMUS

  Huntsman’s stubbly legs probed at the base of the door, the hairs on his back sticking up, mandibles tasting the air. Flattening himself, he scuttled through the gap, feeling the floorboards for tell-tale vibrations, listening, watching, scenting. Besides the musk of disuse and the smell of rotting vegetables, there was nothing.

  Drumming his limbs on the floor, he shuddered and split, wriggled and grew, the air about him shimmering until he once more stood in the form of a man. He felt his cheeks, touched both arms and rocked from foot to foot. A wave of nausea passed from his stomach to his head. Grimacing, he shook himself and sucked in a gulp of stale air. Satisfied the room was unoccupied, he opened the door and Sammy entered, bleary-eyed and yawning.

  Dust lay thick upon the hardwood floor and swirled in moats where light peeked through holes in the curtains. Sammy tugged them open and leaned his chin on the windowsill. Huntsman put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and peered over his head.

  A death-cart was being loaded with bodies from the house across the street by heavily cloaked and masked orderlies, whilst an unmasked woman robed in white looked on. Vast towers dominated the distance, and buildings of brick, iron, and wood sprawled in every direction, scabs on the skin of Sahul.

  “Why are there so many dead people in Sarum?” Sammy asked.

  “Plague. But do not worry, little fellah, it does no harm to children.” He had intuited that much from the distressed cries of the statue—not audible cries, but sensations, ripples deep in the marrow he had felt since the Reckoning when it tore him apart and forged him anew. The polluting of its power by unnatural currents affected the soul befor
e spreading to the body. Like the Kutji spirits, it fed on disorder and impurity. Where those things were not present, it could not take hold.

  Sammy looked reassured and sat himself on a wooden pallet strewn with stained blankets. He yawned widely, but refused to give in to sleep. Huntsman smiled at him, seating himself in a decrepit rocking chair by the door. The boy lay down his head and began to hum a tune, his eyelids growing heavier.

  “Why is the red rock burning?” Sammy muttered.

  Huntsman cast his eyes around the room. “What red…?”

  And then he realized. The boy meant the Homestead. Sahul must still be talking to Sammy, showing him the events that scarred her past.

  “Long time ago, little fellah. Do not worry now. Red rock is safe.”

  Sammy sat bolt upright. “No,” he said. “Not safe. Monsters are coming. Metal monsters and fire. Lots of fire.”

  Huntsman rocked forward and forced a smile, hoping he could keep the pain of the past from his eyes. “I was there,” he said in a soothing tone. “I made them go away. It will not happen again.”

  Sammy stared right through him, as if he were focused on something else. “You are wrong. The stars run backwards. He comes for them. He comes to start the Unweaving.”

  Huntsman felt an icy knot forming in the pit of his stomach. “Sahul tells you this?”

  Sammy shook his head. “Not tells. It’s what I see when my eyes are closed.”

  “Look now,” Huntsman said. “Describe it to me.”

  Sammy shut his eyes and his body immediately went rigid. “Dark. A cave. Under the red rock.” He gasped and half-opened his eyes.

  “What is it?”

  “A man. A big black man. His head is … is…”

  Huntsman leaned out of the chair to place his hands on Sammy’s shoulders. “Head of a snake?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Do not be afraid. He is a friend. Sahul loves—”

  “No,” Sammy cried. “Not afraid of him. Afraid for him. The monsters are coming, all silver and fire.”

  Huntsman had the heart of a cornered rabbit. This was no memory of the events of the Reckoning. There had been no attack on the caves beneath the Homestead, and the snake-headed god, Mamba, had not been there.

  “All dead,” Sammy whispered, a single tear rolling down his cheek. “Snake-head, toad, crocodile…”

  “Dead, how?” Huntsman asked, the chill creeping up his spine.

  Sammy’s eyes fixed on his. The boy wept freely now, his bottom lip trembling. “I saw a spider too,” he said. “A big one, all curled up and smoky.”

  Huntsman fell back in the chair, his heart thumping so hard he could hear it like a drum.

  “He tried before.” Sammy’s voice was reedy and distant. “And now he tries again.”

  Huntsman frowned. What nonsense was this?

  “Aristodeus had no ward against me,” the unearthly voice continued. “He knows that now, knows what to do, but it is a trap within a trap.”

  “Eingana?” Huntsman threw himself out of the chair and started to shake Sammy.

  “Sektis Gandaw has the scent. He has not forgiven my grandchildren. Help them, Huntsman. Help my grandchildren. Help me.”

  “Eingana? Goddess? Speak to me. Speak!”

  “It goes beyond him. Beyond the end of all things.” Sammy coughed and spluttered. His eyes rolled and then he began to scream. Huntsman pulled him into a hug, resting his head on the boy’s shoulder, eyes brimming with tears.

  Sammy went limp in his embrace. Huntsman settled him down on the bed and watched as the boy’s breathing grew soft and regular. Covering Sammy with his cloak of feathers, Huntsman sat back in the rocking chair and turned his attention inwards.

  Earlier, he had sensed power from the body of the Statue of Eingana—the piece he had entrusted to the bard. It was close by. Closer than it should have been. It seemed the bard was finally on the move. Soon the mawgs would come for it, as they had come for the eye held by the Gray Abbot many lifetimes ago. Most of the custodians had heeded his warnings not to use the power of Eingana, but the Gray Abbot had grown careless and nearly brought about the destruction of his abbey. Huntsman thought he had learned his lesson, but then the Gray Abbot had used the power again for some trifling matter and the mawgs had returned. This time the knight Shader had driven them off, but they’d marauded south to Oakendale, feasting on the white folk. Huntsman couldn’t help wondering if they’d scented the body of the statue even then, before Elias had used it. Perhaps the thought and energy the bard had put into the writing of his epic had been enough to attract them, without quite giving the location away.

  And now Elias had succumbed to the temptation to draw upon the statue’s power, even after the scolding Huntsman had given him following the performance. It was a dangerous thing, speaking about the statue. Sektis Gandaw had eyes and ears everywhere. The gods had warned him of this centuries ago.

  Two of the pieces were missing: an eye and a fang. The fang had been taken from Jarmin the Anchorite during his visit to Sarum. Huntsman could feel its closeness. It was still somewhere in the city. The second had been wrested from the Gray Abbot, and this time there had been palpable distress from the piece. It had been taken by unnatural forces: forces abhorrent to Eingana.

  Huntsman’s eyes narrowed and he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The pieces were together, he could feel that much, and something was using their power. Using it for purposes inimical to the nature of the statue. He could feel its revulsion and already the results could be seen in the streets of Sarum.

  He contemplated the now sleeping form of Sammy. The child had endured unbearable suffering and yet had trusted Huntsman like a parent from the moment he had led him from the woods. There was something about the child: Sahul favored him, and her cousin Eingana spoke through him. Maybe it was to balance the demands that had been made on his sister, or maybe Sahul was just being fickle. Huntsman wondered what the Wapar Man would have thought of a pale-skin speaking with ants. Would he have taught the boy the ways of the Dreaming?

  Sammy’s breathing softened into that of deep sleep, and Huntsman’s thoughts returned to the present. Three pieces of the Statue of Eingana were somewhere in the city, and another was still accounted for. He’d kept track of their whereabouts for more days and nights than there were grains of sand in a desert. He sometimes lost the trail of a piece for a while, but he would always find it again. The fifth piece, however, had always eluded him. Ever since the Reckoning, when the statue had divided itself, he had not been able to locate the other fang.

  He had taken one eye to Ipsissimus Thesarius over nine hundred years ago. He could not explain why, but it is what the statue had wanted. The other three pieces he had scattered the length and breadth of Sahul. One of them, a fang, had changed hands often, sometimes warranting intervention from Huntsman. He had finally reclaimed it from Ogalvy of Makevar and entrusted it to the anchorite of Gladelvi, where it had remained safe for centuries—until Jarmin’s visit to Sarum.

  Huntsman was bound to the statue. Since the Reckoning he had felt like its twin. If he took no action, the statue might be powerless to prevent itself falling into the wrong hands, and yet there was no guarantee that any action of his would not make matters worse. He must have done something right, he figured, for in more than nine hundred years the statue had remained hidden from Sektis Gandaw and life had been allowed to continue.

  But the gods—Sammy had seen them all dead. He had spoken with the voice of Eingana. It is a trap within a trap. What did he mean by that? Help my children. Whatever threatened them, Huntsman would stop it. He had to: they were his gods, his greatest love.

  Rising from the rocking chair, he looked down at Sammy curled up beneath the cloak of feathers, snoring lightly. He could hear the rattling of the death-cart pulling away and glanced out of the window. The white-robed woman was kneeling beside a man who’d collapsed on the street, and behind the towers of the Ancients, Walu the Sun-W
oman had entered the tunnels beneath the earth, painting herself with ochre that stained the clouds as she fled.

  Matching his breathing to the rocking of the chair, Huntsman settled into the rhythm of the Dreaming and let his spirit soar free.

  * * *

  Ipsissimus Theodore watched himself kneeling before the Monas in his private chapel in Aeterna. Twin candles cast long shadows on the walls and ceiling. Frankincense burned on the altar, rising like Theodore’s spirit, which drifted above his motionless body.

  Thoughts of Nousia, and how best to keep it from the errors of the past that had ultimately led to the Reckoning, dropped away from him. His hacking, wasted body no longer dragged him down, and he felt like a young novice again. He might have rejected the healing offered by the amber eye at the center of his pectoral Monas, but it had granted other gifts nonetheless, gifts that had not required more than a trickle of its power. At least now he could fly free from the tomb of his flesh and feel some respite from the disease eating away at his lungs.

  As he rose into the night sky of Aeterna, Theodore felt the joy of unity, a foretaste, he thought, of the bliss awaiting him in Araboth. Clothed in the white light of the spirit, he allowed his soul to float on the tides of emotion swirling about Aeterna until, picked up by an eddy, he was carried gently towards the scriptorium where Exemptus Ricci and Adeptus Dolobro were engaged in a fierce dispute about Ipsissimal succession. No doubt Theodore looked as bad as he felt, but nevertheless, he refused to draw on the healing power of the amber eye. Last time he’d done that, old evil had awoken in Verusia, and something even darker had started probing his dreams. The Elect had contained the Verusian threat, but he had no wish to draw any more attention from the presence he’d felt in his sleep.

  Theodore willed himself onwards and upwards, flying high above the night clouds where the scarred and pallid moon glared like a skull amidst the stars.

  “I am sorry for pain in your body,” Huntsman said. “Others would have used statue’s power by now.”