The Bloodstained God (Book 2)

by Tim Stead

  Yet there were facts that he could not deny. Their long lives were in his gift. It was Narak who held the power, real, absolute power. They knew what he had done at Afael. They had all seen him practice with Caster. He was no toothless old wolf to be humoured. He walked the line between tyrant and friend, and lately he had been on the rough side of the line.

  “I am sorry, Narala,” he said. “You know that the war does not go entirely as I might have wished. I have lost Perlaine; a burden that we share. There are traitors and spies where I expected none. I have been sharp of late, and with those who do not deserve it. I am sorry for that.”

  It was an unprecedented apology, and Narala knew it. She stepped forwards and took his hands in hers, for a moment the beautiful sister that he fondly imagined her to be. Her eyes were full of surprise and concern.

  “Deus, we all know the burden that you bear. There is no cause, no thing for which you need to apologise to we who serve.”

  He smiled. He kissed her on the forehead.

  “Quite so,” he said. But he knew that she was right, or right in part. He felt the weight of despair, even failure, creeping upon him. Tomorrow he must go back to Avilian, and there he would find out if Cain Arbak had solved the problem that he could not. He was actually not certain which outcome he desired.

  Cain was the man who had released Perlaine from the agony of her death, but that meant he had killed her. He had done what Narak knew he could not have done. But perhaps he could. He did not know. He had once released an old wolf, eased it’s passing, but to do the same for Perlaine… He did not know if he could have done it. He was infuriated by the doubt. Cain had done the right thing. The part of him that was wolf told him that. But the man, Narak Brash the hunter, was not so sure; not so strong.

  Every time he thought of Cain, and what had happened to him since their bloody encounter at Bel Erinor, he felt something like envy, flavoured with disbelief. Cain seemed to stumble from one triumph to the next, riddled with doubt, careful and tentative, and yet excelling at every turn. He did things that were not possible. He was helped at every turn by those from whom he had no right to expect succour.

  Yet it was he, Wolf Narak, who had seen it first. He had looked at the man whose life he had held in his hand and told himself that here was a clever man, a brave man, a man who had done nothing so shockingly wrong, and he had liked him. That was Cain’s secret. People liked him. Narak knew that there was something deeper. Beneath the cut price soldier that Cain had become there was another man, a leader, a charismatic, modest, even humble man. A gifted man.

  He had started it. Like throwing a pebble over a cliff he had given Cain money, started him on his way. Yet he was shocked when the pebble became an avalanche, a torrent that swept away everything that stood before it. He had created an innkeeper, and so a councillor, a colonel, a general, a hero, a lord.

  If only he had been Cain. If only Pelion had chosen Cain. What then?

  10. Pascha in Wolfguard

  Wolfguard was almost silent. Narak was gone, and Pascha had found a quiet room in the bowels of the place, a vast and silent chamber that seemed to be the deepest part of the wolf’s fortress. She had brought a lamp with her. Narak’s people were all devoted to the point of lunacy, and she could not trust them to indulge her whims, especially when she wanted to hide things from their lord.

  Something had happened to her in the forest, something that had scared her. It was not the assassin. That had been trauma enough, but she had, just for a moment, become more than she should be. She had reached out, spread herself thin across the flock, and she had become something else.

  There were rules to being part of the Benetheon. Laws even. You had certain powers, certain abilities, certain limits. It seemed to her that she had broken through those limits. She had become more than Pelion had intended.

  It was not possible, and if it was it was most certainly dangerous. If you broke the rules of the gods that made you then nothing was safe or certain. So why would she want to do it again? There was no doubt that she did want to. Something about the experience had caught part of her. It was like being the flock, but more, like having known only candles and seeing the sun for the first time, or rivers and seeing the sea. It had been terrifying, yes, but she had never felt so… There were no words to describe it, or she had none that could.

  She sat in the quiet of the room. It was comfortable enough. There were thick rugs and furs scattered about the floor, and the air had a cool clean taste, and a faint scent of some spice that she could not place.

  She sat on the floor, placed the lamp to her right and breathed deeply, closing her eyes and reaching out to the sparrows in the woods around Wolfguard. There were more of them here now. It was a strangeness that she had noticed. Wherever she stayed they tended to gather. When she had come here there had been only a dozen or so. Sparrows did not live well in the thick trees and undergrowth of the forest, but they could live. They were creatures of grassland, seed eaters, harvest thieves. Now there were fifty or more. They haunted the trees by the gates to Narak’s fortress, waited for her to emerge, and every day she did, laden with food. There were so many now that some would have starved if she had not fed them.

  She felt their presence in the darkness behind her eyes and gathered them to her mind. It was different from becoming the flock. It was less, because she was still herself, a woman of flesh and bone, but there was a kindred feeling, a part of the line that led towards the explosion of her presence that she had experienced before.

  She reached out as she had done before, pushing the birds away from Wolfguard, spreading the net of her consciousness over one acre, then three, then ten. This was what she thought had triggered the experience before. It was almost as though she was an actual net, and could catch within her expanding mind enough of the rest of the world to begin it, to light the fire. She struggled for words again, and so she forgot them, and bathed in her senses instead.

  She spread thinner and thinner. Ten acres became fifty. Fifty became a hundred. There was no change in her perception. She had grown used a multiple existence, gained skill in seeing with so many eyes, hearing with so many ears. It was becoming harder now as the birds scattered. Usually the flock overlapped, the images joined to form a coherent cloud of vision and sound, and it all knitted together, but now the birds were so far from each other that they saw no common sights, and it was like being fifty quite separate beings.

  A pain began to blossom in the back of her head and she struggled to remain in control. Her breathing became rapid and shallow, she was panting, her heart was beating like a dance day drum. One by one the sparrows began to escape from her control, popping out of her concentration like beads of soap from a grasping hand.

  She gave up, let go, and dissolved back into her body.

  The headache was still there, pounding now, making it painful to look at the lamp, and her eyes seemed out of focus, almost as though part of what she looked at was missing and the rest preternaturally, hurtfully bright. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, listening to her heart until it began to slow and the pain in her head receded to a dull throbbing just above the base of her neck. She massaged the area with her hands, but the pain remained.

  Well, she had failed. Clearly it had not simply been the spread of her consciousness that had triggered the experience. There was something else. It had been worth a try. If she had been right there was no telling what new skills she might have mastered. The problem was that there were so many different factors and influences involved. She had been the flock, not just drawing experience through one. She had been afraid. The other, the assassin, had been there, and perhaps it had something to do with that. She had also been focussed on her senses, trying to detect any sign of him to be sure that he would not shoot at her again.

  At least there was a list of things to try again. She might have failed this time, but she would try again, and again, until she found out what had happened, how it was triggered.

&
nbsp; She stood gingerly, twisting her head to and fro on her shoulders, trying to ease the nagging pain. How long would she have to put up with that, she wondered? She walked slowly towards the door, allowing her eyes to grow used to the brighter light in the passageway outside.

  She suddenly stopped and turned her head back into the room.

  “Hello?”

  Her voice echoed faintly. She held the lamp high and looked around the room. It was big and dimly lit, but there was nothing but a small table and a couple of chairs, nothing where anyone could have hidden. Yet she had heard something, seen something, like a flicker of a pale face, a whisper of breath.

  She stood for a minute looking back into the room that Narak called his lair, but she could see nothing but rocks walls. There was no sound.

  Eventually she turned away. She must have imagined it. The headache perhaps, or the strangeness with her vision. She walked back up into the body of Wolfguard where there were people, and brightness, and other gods.

  11. Three Kings

  The day of the audience dawned bright and hot. The southern sun leaped boldly into a clear blue sky and began at once to batter the Green Isles with heat and brightness. It was not the sort of morning that Narak enjoyed. Indeed, if he had been a real god, the sort that had real power, he would have forbidden such intemperate dawns. They were hasty and impolite. Even in mid summer the northern sun was more respectful of the blessed state of sleep.

  He rose quickly, and in the earliest light he bathed. At this time of the day there was fresh water for bathing; a spectacular provision, as all the fresh water had to be brought by boat from other isles. This barren rock had none. Another advantage was that the night had cooled the water, and it was a delight to wash away the sweat of a humid night and, at least for a short while, feel cool again. He did not remember from his other visits here it being so unpleasantly hot, but perhaps the Golden Islands were further south than he had ventured before.

  Once bathed, he dressed slowly in white cottons. Any haste was paid for in sweat. Breakfast was fruit. It was the local custom, and while it seemed quite odd when viewed from an Avilian or Berashi perspective, it worked well here. You could not have eaten anything hot. Even the thought of the steaming, rich porridge, laced with honey that he enjoyed so much at Wolfguard was enough to have sweat beading his brow.

  Narala walked with him down to the shore. This was not the time of day that the heralds came, but the grizzled man who had carried his message was waiting for him. This, too, was the custom of the place. This man was his guide, his ticket into the Hall of Decision. He had to confess to himself that he was keen to see the place. It was a rare privilege.

  The boat was waiting. The oarsmen were ready. The old herald waited, seated at the back of the boat, and there was a vacant seat, no more than a plank stretched side to side, between the pairs of oarsmen.

  “I don’t know how long this will take,” he said to Narala.

  “No more than an hour,” the herald called. “No decision will be made. They will hear you and ask questions, that is all.”

  Apparently the man was now permitted to converse with him, his herald’s role complete, at least as far as carrying the message was concerned.

  “It is a short time,” Narak said, but the herald shook his head.

  “Anything worth saying can be said in less than half the time,” he said. “It is a long time, and it shows that I did my job well.”

  “You carried my message,” Narak said.

  “Oh, much more than that! I made you sound interesting.”

  “You are saying that I am boring?” In spite of himself Narak was being drawn into the conversation. The man was outrageous.

  “All you wax faced northerners are the same, so serious, so dull. We of the Isles like a good story, a good tale told well.”

  “The truth needs no fancy dress,” he replied.

  “There, you see. You make my point for me. Come we must go. It does not do to keep the Sei waiting.”

  Narak touched Narala’s hand briefly and met her eyes, nodded. He jumped lightly across the water into the boat, landing with perfect balance, and the boat stayed firm and upright in the water. He sat on the bare plank seat, facing the old man. He didn’t like boats over much. Probably because he didn’t like water he could not stand up in.

  “So let us go,” he said.

  The oarsmen dipped their long bladed oars and the boat shifted easily off the sandy bottom, rushing quickly through the still water, and as they settled into a rhythm they began a slow, bass chant which kept them all precisely on the beat, dipping, pulling and lifting their blades in unison. Narak was facing the bow, and he could see the course that they were taking. The island directly ahead was about half a mile away, but it was not their destination, and the boat slipped sideways, steering close to the reef that ringed it. The water was a wonderful, bright turquoise, and he caught glimpses of red and blue beneath the waves, and fish that looked like ornaments.

  “So you speak the truth?” the old herald asked.

  “I do, when I choose to speak.”

  “War is coming?”

  “It is here,” Narak assured him. “You are part of a land that has been set on fire. Because the fire has not reached you yet does not mean that it will not come.”

  “Better,” the old man said. “That was better, but a house would be better than a land. Houses here burn easily.”

  “Are you my tutor, then?” Narak asked. He could not prevent the smile that came to his lips. “Will you teach me how to speak?”

  The herald shook his head. “No, it is too late for that. I can advise you, though. Remember that they are kings that you speak to, but also common men. We do not have blood rule as you in the north have it. All these men started life as the sons of ordinary men. They are Sei because they have shown both merit and skill in state craft.”

  Narak nodded. He knew this already. The Green Isles did not have great houses. There were no Dukes and Kings, no heirs and bloodlines. Each of the Sei was chosen by their peers and served until they died or stepped aside.

  “You were one of them,” he said.

  “Ah, perception. I have been as obvious about it as I could, and at last you see. I was curious when you chose me to carry your message. Most know me, and are afraid to insult me with payment, but the copper coin was good. It was clever. Even if you did not know, you knew.”

  “It seemed right.”

  “That is an instinct that you should trust.”

  The boat had rounded the island now, the bright water and reefs slipping away behind, and the sea became a darker blue beneath the boat, the water not quite so flat. Narak could feel the ocean’s breath, the rise and fall as the boat moved away from land.

  Their destination lay before him. It did not look imposing. In fact it looked uninhabited. The only signs that it was not were a small jetty built out into the sea and a thin column of white smoke rising above the trees in about the centre of the island. Apart from that it looked forested, or at least covered in trees. He could not quite bring himself to accept that the sweltering, dripping green tangle that covered the wild parts of these isles was forest. Forest was where he lived. Forest had wolves and deer and snow in winter.

  There was a reef, too. He could see the water breaking on it, washing over it; the small rocks protruding as stark little silhouettes, just enough to hole a boat such as theirs. The herald saw the direction of his gaze.

  “There is a gap,” he said. “You do not see it now, but we will pass through easily enough.”

  Sure enough they swung along the reef while still some thirty paces off, and a few more strokes brought the boat to a place where the water did not break, but opened like a turquoise door into the lagoon beyond, and they swept through, losing the motion of the sea again, gliding above impossibly white sand, as though the sea had been floored with marble, or snow had somehow settled beneath the waves.

  The boat swung up to the jetty, and a single man wai
ted for them there. The oars were shipped, a rope thrown and caught and suddenly the boat was still again, nudging gently against the worn wood of the jetty. Narak thought the jetty excessively modest. He had seen better built and more impressive structures gracing the fish ponds of some of Avilian’s great houses. It was unpainted, unvarnished, and bleached pale grey by the sun.

  The herald stepped ashore with a lively hop and stood waiting. Narak stood and swung himself up onto the jetty. It was planked, and the planks roped together with some sort of twine. It looked temporary.

  “Come,” the herald said, and set off along the jetty towards the trees. Narak followed. From the root of the jetty they stepped onto a sandy path no more than two paces wide. The luxuriant, dark green leaves of the lower shrubs reached across it in places, and the herald brushed them aside as he walked. The muttering of the sea on the reef grew quieter as they walked, and he became aware of insect noise, and the screech of birds in the branches above their heads. He saw them, swirling in small groups in the treetops above them as they walked. They were mostly quite large, the size of a crow, but where crows dressed in mourning all their lives, these creatures were clearly clothed for a carnival. He saw blue wings and green heads and yellow tails. They flew joyfully, too, never pretending to any serious business. They were exuberance given wings.