by Ian Graham
Ballas recalled Laike’s attempt to open the door, and his scorched flesh.
‘The Lectivin use of magick is peculiar: one Lectivin cannot cast a spell against another. Perhaps, within their culture, they feared treason and rebellion: and this informed the way magick was taught and practised. Nonetheless: just as the spell placed upon the doorway did not harm you, so you cannot be damaged by any spell Asvirius may launch against you. It used a spell to destroy this cave, did it not?’
‘Yes.’
‘The falling stones might have killed you, but the spell itself could not have done so.’ The Master moved closer. ‘Asvirius’s greatest strength is magick. Through magick it could defeat every Warden in Druine. But you are immune. Asvirius can harm you only through violence, Ballas.
‘And violence … well, you have an aptitude for it.’ He exhaled. ‘We shall be paying out pensions to the families of those Wardens who perished at your hand. We know what you are capable of.’
The Blessed Master shifted uneasily.
‘If you do not fight the Lectivin, if you do not kill—’
‘All Druine will perish, I suppose.’
Muirthan nodded.
Ballas shrugged. ‘Good.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t care for Druine. Nor the people who dwell there. I’ve had enough. This land has granted me no favours. Nor has your bloody Church.’
‘We hunted you because we had to! We knew Asvirius would—’
‘So what?’ Ballas whirled to face the Master. ‘So what if the world is overrun by bloody Lectivins? Why should I care? I’ve had enough!’
Turning, Ballas stepped to the edge—but then he froze. He stared at the sea. At its grinding, swelling blackness. It delighted him—yet it frightened him too.
He imagined leaping from the overhang. He imagined the moment of commitment when he sprang into the air. Then the split instant of weightlessness before he fell. Then the descent. The moment his destiny would become truly apparent. The downward-hurtling moments in which he would sense, in every nerve, sinew, bone and muscle, his own mortality. He would see death in front of him—and be powerless to fight back. He would be falling; there could be no escape.
For the first time in a long time he felt truly frightened.
He craved the ocean’s dark. But to confront the dark, and to see nothing except that dark … to comprehend fully, at the moment of death, that he was dying …
Ballas shut his eyes, appalled.
He could not take his own life. If he had been capable of such an act, he would have done it long ago.
He did not crave death. Merely oblivion.
Merely a death that did not wear death’s real mask.
Ballas opened his eyes. And turned to Godwin Muirthan.
They walked out of the shattered cave on to the snow.
Half a dozen Wardens lay on the pale ground, dead. They had perished, Ballas presumed, by Asvirius’s sword. Some were decapitated, their neck stumps blood-wet, their heads close by, the eyes glassy. Others bore slash marks across their chests, their stomachs, their throats. One Warden’s ribcage had been hacked open, a neat horizontal gash exposing his lungs and heart. Other Wardens had died by magick. These still stood upright—yet a blast of fire had blackened them. Their eye sockets were burned empty, their hair had crisped to brittle curls. In their charcoal-dark forms, only their teeth shone: each tooth seemingly too long and too broad for their mouths. They maintained their dying-instant postures. One gripped his sword in a gesture of threat. Another was unsheathing his weapon. A third was turning away, as if intending to flee rather than fight.
A hundred yards away there were two more figures.
Athreos Laike was sprawled upon his back. His woollens were blood-soaked and he stared at the stars, the moon—shining clearly, so far from the sky-corrupting lights of cities. Yet they shone unseen by the man who would have most enjoyed their purity.
Beside Laike, Heresh sat back against a rock. Her head was bowed, her hands clamped over her stomach. Her hands were dark, blood-slick.
She looked up, as if sensing Ballas’s presence. Their gazes locked—but only fleetingly. Heresh lowered her head, her shoulders sagging.
Ballas drew a breath—then strode over.
‘What are you doing?’ Godwin Muirthan hurried along behind him. ‘There is no time! The longer Asvirius remains in the corporeal world, the stronger it will become. You must fight it while it is weak!’
Ballas continued walking.
Then he halted by Laike’s corpse.
A deep incision gaped in the explorer’s throat. Within the soft flesh, vertebrae and tendons could be seen—each daubed scarlet, each glinting softly. He had intended to die upon the mountains. But he had craved a placid, introspective death. He had wanted a rowan grove, and numbness. Not butchery. Not terror. But then, it hardly mattered. How many men choose their own deaths? How many actually go to the grave in a manner they desire?
Ballas shifted his gaze to Heresh.
Her hands remained clasped over her belly. Yet through her fingers, through the blood, there was a soft, glistening smoothness—and a hint of grey-blue. Her stomach had been sliced almost completely open. If she were to take her hands away, her innards would slither out. She was shivering and her skin was pale.
She raised her head. Once more, she looked into Ballas’s eyes.
‘I am dying,’ she said. There was no anger in her tone. No accusation. Only loneliness—a loneliness that Ballas recognised. She was slipping from this world. And she knew it. She no longer belonged to the realm of flesh. Of life. And she felt her distance from all living things as a type of intractable isolation … It was the sound of black water upon rocks. Of wind groaning around a standing stone.
‘You see what wickedness Asvirius commits? You see why it must be stopped?’ Muirthan’s voice cracked. ‘Can you comprehend now what it is capable of?’
‘This was your Lectivin’s doing.’ Ballas’s voice was dull, flat.
‘Then—then I apologise. The Church didn’t intend for it to slaughter your companions. This killing does not please me; in truth, it angers me, for we—the Church—will be in your debt, if you destroy Asvirius: yet we have left you bereaved—’
‘Heal her.’
‘What?’
‘Make your Lectivin heal her. It can do that, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Heal her, and I’ll do as you ask.’
‘Such things do not happen quickly! The magick is slow, it takes time—we cannot wait that long. But I swear, if you go now, to Asvirius … Nu’hkterin will mend her. It will return her to health. And we will ensure her a safe descent from the mountains.’ Muirthan gestured across the mountain tops. Nu’hkterin appeared from behind a rock. As the Lectivin approached, Muirthan said, ‘I have never before observed fear in Nu’hkterin. But I see dread now. It believes that if Asvirius finds it, it will be killed—but only after it has suffered the most astonishing tortures. After all, it has betrayed its own people. It is an ally to humans, not Lectivins.’
Nu’hkterin blinked rapidly. Its gaze darted here and there, as if it expected Asvirius to appear at any instant.
Muirthan spoke to it in the Lectivin tongue. It listened, then nodded jerkily.
‘It will heal her,’ said Muirthan.
Turning to go, Ballas felt a hand on his forearm. The hand was pale, spidery-fingered.
Nu’hkterin said something in Lectivin. Then it proffered a short-bladed dagger and, drawing it from a scabbard, a thin sword. Both weapons were crafted from the same bonelike material as Asvirius’s sword.
‘Take them,’ said Muirthan. ‘Lectivin weapons are incredibly sharp—and light, too. You will not believe how …’ His voice trailed off. Then he touched lightly his scar-scrawled face.
Ballas accepted the weapons.
Slowly, he and Muirthan walked away.
‘Destroy Asvirius,’ said the Master. ‘And you will be rewarded. I will see t
o it myself. Whatever you request will be yours. What are your tastes, Ballas? Do you like wine? You shall drink only the finest. And women? We shall grant you gold enough for a thousand whores. And, of course, we shall grant you a special dispensation: you will be absolved of all sins. And when you pass away—in old age, I expect—the Four will guide you through the Eltheryn Forest, to heaven, where you shall dwell beside the saints—’
‘Visionary’s root,’ interrupted Ballas.
Muirthan frowned.
‘Does it work? You’ve forbidden it, haven’t you? So it must have some use …’
‘If you want visionary’s root,’ said Muirthan, ‘you can have as much as you wish. We have contacts in the East—’
‘Does it bring insight? That’s what I want to know.’
‘Certain men, who have the proper skills … yes, they acquire insight.’
‘A root-eater reckoned he dreamed of me. He spoke of three chalices, each holding what he reckoned was the essence of my soul. One held the past, the other the present, the third the future.’
‘The Trinity of Chalices. A dream that is difficult to conjure. But of all root-dreams, it is the most reliable. What did the third chalice hold? The chalice concerning your soul’s future? Was there velvet, denoting sensuous contentment? Lilies, predicting love? Liquid gold, suggesting wealth? We can provide them all, if you wish—’
‘The chalice was empty,’ said Ballas.
Muirthan froze. ‘Empty?’
Ignoring him, Ballas started down a long slope, following Asvirius’s footprints in the snow.
Ballas thought of little as he moved onward.
He felt the wind on his skin, heard the crunch of his feet upon snow. He tasted the brittle air, and for the first time noticed that, as Laike had promised, it was pure. Yet it didn’t provoke pleasure. Or discomfort. It simply existed, and was neither good nor bad.
He licked his lips. Now, a different taste: blood—his own. The wound above his eyebrow had stopped bleeding. The blood had dried, acquiring a sour taste. A taste he knew well, a taste that—along with ale, whisky and wine—had been with him for ever, it seemed.
So too had a few other sensations. Sensations he felt now: bruised flesh, broken bones, an aching skull. Was it strange, he wondered, to find oneself in extraordinary circumstances— yet feel nothing new? To pursue a Lectivin over a mountain— yet feel as if he were hung-over after a night of revelry and a beating?
He grunted: it did not matter.
For another familiar feeling was with him.
The desire to kill.
Asvirius came into view: a tall, gaunt figure, its robe shining in the moonlight. Despite the snow, it walked with long, sinuous steps. It moved down the slope, six hundred yards away. Even so far off, its height perturbed Ballas: the creature seemed unreal, something that did not exist, could not exist.
Ballas cupped his hands to his mouth, intending to shout for it to halt and fight. But he remained silent, and lowered his hands.
There were better ways of issuing a challenge.
He broke into a run, approaching Asvirius from behind. Fifty paces away, he halted. From his belt he drew the short-bladed knife given to him by Nu’hkterin. It was a neat, compact weapon. And very small: in Ballas’s large hands, it seemed no more substantial than a dining fork. It was also very light: it weighed as much as a thin strip of wood.
Yet the blade looked sharp. Looked as if it could carve stone.
Drawing back his arm, Ballas hurled the knife. It spun through the air, flickering in the moonlight. It made a murmuring sound as the breeze blew around it. And this alerted Asvirius. The Lectivin halted and turned—but too late to dodge the weapon. The blade pierced hilt-deep into its shoulder. It staggered, raising fingertips to the knife. For a heartbeat it seemed that Asvirius would collapse.
And this filled Ballas with panic. The Lectivin could not— must not—be so easily killed. For if it died … if no true fight ensued …
Asvirius tugged out the knife.
It peered at the blade. It pressed a finger into the blood, then raised it to its lips, tasting it—as if this provided proof that it was no longer in the Eltheryn Forest. As if it showed it had returned to the world of flesh.
Casting the knife aside, it lifted its head. Then it locked gazes with Ballas.
Upon its palm, a ball of light appeared—a floating globe of blue: Asvirius hurled it at Ballas.
Crying out, Ballas covered his face and dropped into a crouch.
The light-ball reached him. Then it exploded in a mountain-engulfing flash.
Ballas expected pain. Expected his skin to blister and his eyes to be searched out of their sockets. But he felt nothing. Not even a faint warmth.
He opened his eyes.
Snow had melted, baring sodden grass, wet stone. A rowan tree yards away smouldered, smoke writhing up from its branches.
Asvirius tilted its head, puzzled. Then it lifted its chin—as if it suddenly understood something.
In a single fluid movement, it drew its sword.
Ballas did the same. Like the knife, this weapon had almost no weight. Ballas swung it back and forth: he might as well have been wielding a bamboo cane. The blade looked sharp— but how sharp? Ballas strode to the rowan tree. He placed the blade against a low branch, and pressed. It sank effortlessly through the burned wood.
Asvirius ran up the slope towards Ballas.
It moved quickly—a flash of white against the different white of the snow. In a few seconds it had reached Ballas—
And was lunging at him, its sword snaking out.
Swearing, Ballas parried the strike. The Lectivin sprang backwards then advanced, executing a swift downstroke. Raising his sword, Ballas blocked the attack. Asvirius slithered its sword free, then swept the tip horizontally across Ballas’s chest. The big man lurched back, the blade point missing him by a fraction.
Breathing heavily, he lifted his sword, ready to deflect another blow.
Asvirius did not attack. It stood several yards away, inhaling lungful after lungful of air. It rocked from foot to foot. And idly flitted its sword back and forth. At first Ballas thought it was toying with him. Then he realised it was getting used to the physical world. The world of sensations. Of flesh, of pain.
Asvirius ran at Ballas. It unleashed a dozen lightning-fast strokes. Ballas parried frantically. The Lectivin’s blade moved so fast that it vanished from sight; it seemed less a solid object than a stirring of the air. Ballas felt flickers of pain in his forearms and shoulders. He glimpsed blood. The Lectivin was cutting him. Yet it was impossible to detect which attacks caused the damage. Asvirius appeared to be enjoying itself. To be savouring the violence. There was a near-sensuous delight in its movements. It was taking pleasure from the corporeal world. And this, thought Ballas, was a blessing. If it wished, it could kill Ballas with a few strokes. Yet it treated him like a cat did a mouse: as something with which to sharpen reflexes and hone skills—only when it grew bored of him would it deliver the fatal blow.
That moment came seconds later.
Asvirius made a hissing noise—and its sword swept once, twice, thrice across the big man’s chest. Ballas’s tunic sagged open. Underneath, a deep cut seeped blood through thick layers of fat. Delicately, surgically, Asvirius sketched a gash across Ballas’s forehead. Blood poured into the big man’s eyes. Cursing, he turned and sprinted away.
When he halted, he found that Asvirius had not moved. It stood twenty paces away, watching.
Ballas wiped the blood from his eyes. Instantly, fresh blood poured down. Stooping, he snatched up a fistful of snow and pressed it into the wound. There was a moment of pain— then numbness. He threw the snow away: it was bright red. He gathered some more and jammed it against the wound.
He was tired. He felt it now: a dull heaviness in his limbs.
Scowling, he rolled his shoulders, then rubbed snow into his face.
Asvirius approached, walking slowly. Unhurriedly. Then
it broke into a run, its sword flickering out. Ballas blocked strike after strike. Yet he was clumsy compared to the Lectivin. Asvirius doubled its efforts. Ballas heard himself roaring. In frustration. And anger. He took step after step backwards to avoid the Lectivin’s assault—
Then the slope steepened and he found himself rolling down it, tumbling head over heels. The sky swung in and out of view. He felt himself gathering speed. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a yawning blackness: a chasm, sinking deep into the mountain. Swearing, he tried to stop himself. He clutched at the snow. He dug in his heels. He stabbed his sword into the ground, as if it were an ice axe.
Suddenly, he rolled off the edge of the chasm. Briefly, he was airborne, hanging over empty space. Then he fell.
He struck something, he could not tell what. It felt like a thousand dry fingers had clutched at him, then withdrawn. There was a crackling noise—and the scent of wood sap.
A tree—he had struck a tree that sprouted from the chasm’s wall.
Thrusting out a hand, he grasped a branch. He held on tightly, but his grip slipped. He fell a few more feet and pain shot through his hand. He grabbed a second branch. And halted his descent.
The rowan creaked softly.
Ballas looked down.
Fifty feet below, there was a jumble of rocks. Ballas looked around. A ledge jutted from the chasm’s wall—five feet wide, snow-stacked. He threw his sword on to it. Then, after clambering through the rowan’s branches, he jumped down.
He sprinted to a small recess. As he went, he glanced up—and saw Asvirius, peering into the chasm. The Lectivin lingered—then it withdrew.
Something had cut Ballas’s right hand. Had pierced it: a raw hole gaped in his palm. Blood flowed copiously, making his hand slippery—too slippery to grip his sword. Cursing, Ballas tore off his tunic hem and tied it around the wound.
Taking up his sword, he stepped from the recess.
As Ballas followed the ledge, a thought struck him. It was simple, obvious, something he supposed he had always known … but now it carried a certain force.
