“Come, my queen,” growled the loved, hated voice from beside her. “We have business to attend to.”
She opened her eyes reluctantly and scrambled to her feet. The bitter wind whipped at the stunted bushes around them, the thin branches clacking together, creating an unpleasant sound.
“Cold wind and thorny bushes,” she said. He’d returned her voice, at least. “Why doesn’t that surprise me, Destroyer?”
“Ah, Stella,” Kannwar purred. “Delight of my heart. Unquenchable spirit.”
Hatred for the man boiled up within her, underlain by something darker. She wanted to hate him, wanted to… She couldn’t want that. What was wrong with her?
They reached the end of the bushy grove and emerged into the open. To Stella’s left the land dropped away to the dull grey sea, whose great surges boomed and sucked at the coast. Above them the louring sky darkened towards twilight; towering clouds, pale at their tops, dark and forbidding at the base, blurred where rain swept across the water. Ahead lay the island itself: a table-top of rolling grass interspersed by gnarled trees. Her gaze followed the lie of the land forward, and snagged on the fortress.
Andratan stood there, towers, battlements, keeps and walls all purpling in the last of the day’s light. Like a champion before battle it seemed to adopt a confident stance, immovable, certain of its own strength.
“Home,” said Kannwar. “You’ll like it here.”
“Only if you find somewhere else to live.”
The Destroyer smiled at this weak sally. Then his face changed.
“You dare sit on that seat?” he breathed.
Stella quailed at the anger in his words, then realised they were not meant for her. He snatched at her hand and began to drag her forward.
The sodden ground kept trying to snare her feet. After the second time she’d fallen, he hauled her mud-soaked figure to its feet and sighed.
“Come on, Stella,” he grated. “We have an uninvited guest to be rid of. And I had so hoped our nuptials and their consummation would be a more select affair.”
Again his words stirred something within her as thick as tar, as black as pitch. She was frightened of him, petrified in fact, but what seemed to be building inside her scared her far more…
“The Sea Door,” he said. “He will be expecting us to use the main entrance. Always direct, our Deorc. We shall just have to confuse him.”
“You are enjoying this,” Stella said in wonder. “A man who betrayed you seventy years ago has escaped from the most appalling torture and now controls your castle, and you are enjoying yourself!”
The Destroyer turned to her and not for the first time she saw the delight of a young boy shining out from his dark eyes. “How else does one know one is alive?” he said, grinning widely.
He led her down a slope to their left, to the top of a stone stair that led all the way down to the sea. They were much closer to the fortress now, but the largest tower stood well to their right. Across a small inlet, in which three ships lay uneasily at anchor, stood an adjunct tower at the base of which Stella could barely make out a small door.
“Mind your step,” said the Destroyer.
The steps were wet with spray and hard to see in the gloom. Stella rolled her ankle on the third step and fell in a heap.
“Are you doing this deliberately, my queen? Do I need to possess you in order to carry you over my threshold?” He lifted her chin in one illusory hand. “Do you ever want to exercise free will or must I compel every aspect of your life from now on?”
“No,” she said, attempting to stop the tears that had begun to fall. “I’m trying. Please, help me to my feet.”
He raised a finger to her face and traced one of her tears as it rolled down her cheek. “This will not do,” he said, his voice gentle. “We cannot enter my house like this. We are not beggars come to request a favour from some great lord that we should creep and weep.”
He waved a hand and his guise changed. Gone was Heredrew, that elongated man. In his place was a shorter, more compact figure, long blond locks framing a handsome face with an aquiline nose and deep blue eyes. The hair tumbled down to the high collar of a formal brown jacket, embroidered in green and gold; his leggings were similarly adorned. He wore white gloves and long black boots, and the overall effect was unsettling. The syrup deep within Stella stirred. She had no doubt she was seeing Kannwar as he had been when he had rebelled against the Most High, before the Water of Life had twisted his body. A figure altogether fair, the best of his generation, the culmination of a thousand years of patient planning by the Most High. The true First Man.
Almost unbearable to look upon.
His hand waved again. Her bedraggled, soaked attire vanished, to be replaced by a flowing red dress. Ankle-length, gold-threaded silk, hugging the curves of her body, the high collar tickling her chin. Crystal slippers on her feet and a tiara in her hair. She raised a hand to explore how her hair had been styled.
He smiled. Her hand dropped back to her side.
“That’s how I see you, my queen,” he said. “That’s how I’ve always seen you. Come, now. Let us enter our house with dignity.”
This is some kind of glamour, she thought. I am helpless in the hands of the Destroyer. My friends are trapped in the House of the Gods. Umu is loose and the world is still endangered. And ahead of us waits another madman, someone who believes I betrayed him seventy years ago. And all I care about is how beautiful my captor looks?
Something within her urged her to forget everything and surrender to the moment.
As they reached the base of the stair, a huge figure stepped out from an embayment in the cliff to their right. “Halt!” it cried. “Give your name and—oh.” It lowered the enormous sword it had drawn, laid it on the stone step and bowed. “My lord,” it said, in a voice like gravel.
“Prepare the boat,” the Destroyer commanded the figure.
As the man rose, Stella was forcibly reminded of Noetos; certainly this fellow was of the same stock, if somewhat larger even than the fisherman. His red hair was cut short, his hairy arms exposed by the short-sleeved jerkin he wore. Stella had never seen a man so muscled.
The man disappeared around a bend in the path, then came back a moment later and beckoned them forward. A boat slopped in the water. The Destroyer gestured her towards it. “You first, my queen.”
She thought of pitching herself in the water. Saw herself carried out by the sea, then pitched back against the rocks by the first wave. Imagined the crack and shatter of her bones, felt the water filling her chest. Sighed deeply as she envisioned herself coming back to life, and plunked herself in the boat.
The bay was perhaps two hundred paces across, an effective barrier preventing an easy approach to the tower. The red-headed giant rowed them across in twenty powerful strokes of his oars, leaped out of the boat and made it fast in one swift motion.
The Destroyer pursed his lips. “Come with us,” he instructed the man. “Draw your sword.”
The man nodded, content to leave his lord’s command unquestioned. Or frightened perhaps, though he did not look frightened. His expression was remarkably blank. A dullard? Stella thought of her brother, her poor dead brother, killed seventy years ago by drink, and the uncomprehending look on his face when the bottle had taken him.
The Destroyer led them up the ten steps to the door of the tower. The remains of the day were leaching away, but Stella could still see the disturbing architecture of the tower above her. Surmounting the door was a carving of some battle scene in which a man with a flashing blade held off a horde of wild-looking soldiers. The artist had injected the scene with a manic quality and the snarl on the face of the defender was little less sinister than those on the attackers’.
“That happened,” said the Destroyer, noting the direction of her gaze. “The hordes of Kanabar overcame my armies and drove me back to Andratan. Actually, we were never in any serious danger of being overrun but feigned defeat, thus stretching the foolish
barbarians’ supply lines to breaking point.” He laughed. “It did my legend no harm to have fought their elite troops single-handed at the door to the Sea Tower.”
“How long ago?” Stella croaked.
“Over seventeen hundred years ago,” he replied. “Seems like yesterday.”
As he spoke the words, something thickened in the air around them. A trap?
“Ah, now that I did not expect,” the Destroyer said. “No matter how clever my plans are, some dupe always blunders in and upsets them. Conal Greatheart, Leith Mahnumsen, lucky fools.”
“What has happened?”
The Destroyer pursed his lips. “Umu has been extremely clever,” he said. “Ironic, really, in light of where we stand. She has pretended to flee from the hordes intent on her destruction and has now found a far safer place from which to wage her war. Not that Deorc will think so.”
Stella shook her head, not understanding a word of it. The Destroyer leaned on the door and swung it open, and she followed him inside.
And so this ends, one way or another, for everyone else, she thought. But for me, it begins.
Conal’s body lay empty and stiff at the base of the throne.
“Has she gone? Is she still hiding in there?”
The travellers gathered around, staring at the body, most of them unclear as to what had just happened.
“Umu has gone,” Duon confirmed.
Cheers accompanied this statement, dying out as it became clear that the principals did not share their joy.
“She’s not been driven beyond the hole in the world then?” Bregor hazarded.
“No,” Noetos said. “You’re all aware that my daughter, the Elamaq captain and”—he kicked the corpse with his boot—“that thing were all linked to the magician’s voice. You know that we discovered his identity and location, being one Husk of Andratan, who had opportunistically spiked these three when they visited the fortress. You also know they broke free of his control by exploiting the death of Conal.”
Everyone nodded. As much had been explained to them during their journey north to Zizhua Valley.
“But what you didn’t know—and what we did know, but discounted—was that the magical channels formed between Husk and his three spikes remained open, even though Husk himself could no longer exploit them. That’s right, isn’t it?” he finished, turning to his daughter.
She nodded, and extended a hand to Duon, gesturing for him to speak.
“We might have been able to close them,” the southern captain admitted, “but we never tried. It seemed to us that we might be able to utilise the link to draw power from Husk, in the same way he had once used us. Turn and turn about, in a way. In fact that’s just what we did when we rallied together to drive Keppia out of Cylene’s body.”
“But Umu found the link, didn’t she?” Lenares said, her eyes sparkling as she solved the puzzle. “She discarded Conal’s dead body and leapt into Husk’s live one.” She giggled. “How surprising for Husk!”
“Yes, but what I want to know,” said Noetos, concern on his face, “is how easily she might return.” Everyone stared at the body at their feet. “Not Conal’s body, but down one of the other links, to Duon or Arathé—and through them to others.”
Duon saw the worry on the man’s face. He’s concerned for his daughter, and also for himself. As am I.
As are we all, Arathé whispered, her voice a caress even in its anxiety.
“Then the two of you need to work together on some form of defence,” said Anomer, clutching his sister’s hand.
“Aye,” Mustar agreed. The fisherman’s eyes flicked over Arathé.
That one fancies you, Duon said.
He does. He’s quite the handsome young man, don’t you think?
Indeed, if you like them vacuous.
She laughed in his mind. Jealous, Captain?
Anomer cleared his throat; clearly they were spilling over into his mind’s ear. “Perhaps,” he said, “you ought not to use your mental connection for now, in order not to draw the Daughter’s attention?”
Ah, Arathé and Duon said at the same moment, and damped their minds down.
In the silence, the group heard an exhalation from the corpse’s body. How undignified we all are in death, Duon reflected; though a moment later he began to wonder. This corpse is weeks dead. How could it still be manufacturing gases?
“It’s trying to say something,” he said, and bent down to the rotted face.
“Careful!” Mustar cried. “It might be Umu!”
“Whoever it is, we ought to hear it,” Duon replied.
The breaths, exhalations, came rhythmically, as though something mechanical was expelling breath from the lungs. He winced at the dire smell contained in the vapour.
“He’s saying sorry,” Lenares said.
“Priest?” Sauxa said, bending over the body. “Is that you?”
“Yesss.”
Duon leaped backwards. Sauxa stayed where he was.
“Speak,” said the plainsman.
“Ssss-Stella?”
“She’s not here,” the plainsman said shortly.
“Sss-sorry,” said the body. “I let everyone down. Too weak. Wanted to… to pleassssse.”
The breathing stopped, and for a moment Duon thought the priest’s spirit had finally fled.
“Ssselfish. Paid for it now. But I fought the monssster, made her sssluggish. S-ss-sent her away. Saved you all.”
“That you did, priest,” Duon said, choosing not to elaborate on the problems this act might have caused. “Your sins have been absolved.”
“Sssss,” said the body. “Sss-say goodbye to Ssstella for me. I go now to sssee what judgment has in ssstore for me.” The mouth clicked in what could only be macabre laughter. “I don’t hope for much.”
“Aye,” Sauxa said, his face troubled. “Nor should any of us.”
The body seemed to deflate, as though the breath had gone from it—which, Duon presumed, was likely exactly what had happened.
“Fare well, priest,” Sauxa said, his face stony. Wishing, no doubt, he’d had the luxury of last words with his own son.
Noetos sighed, and eased himself to his feet with a groan. “What next?” he asked the group.
“We must find Kannwar and Stella,” Lenares said firmly. “Then we can decide what to do next.”
“Whatever we decide, it will necessarily involve Andratan,” said Consina. “If that’s where Umu has gone, it is where we must follow.”
“Aye,” Sauxa said. “Why not? Travel with the Destroyer and invade his fortress. I’m sure I’m asleep in my tent, the Journeys of the First Men lying across my lap. Someone wake me up at the end of this dream.” He licked his lips and corrected himself. “This nightmare.”
They buried the body with no ceremony. Everyone felt ambivalent about the little priest, Noetos judged. Brave at the end, though. The burial was easy, given the soft, sandy floor of the Throne Room.
“So,” he said, as Seren and Mustar hand-shovelled the last of the sand over the shallow grave. “Our quarry is hundreds of leagues away. By the time we travel to Andratan any conflict will long since have been resolved.”
“We still have to go there,” Lenares said stubbornly.
Such a strange girl, so like and so unlike her sister. Both stubborn, fortunately for him. He took Cylene’s hand in his own; she smiled in response.
Cylene had said nothing about Conal’s demise, but he knew it had affected her deeply. How else would it have taken her, given how close she had come to a similar fate? Of them all, she knew best what the priest had endured at the end. Her face had been pale as they had buried Conal.
Noetos tried not to think of the dead woman keeping his beloved Cylene alive. Madness, the whole story seemed; something to have been dismissed without comment in the days before this crazy adventure had begun. A dead soul sustaining Cylene, allowing an infinitesimal amount of magic down the conduit once belonging to Keppia himself? He’d not known wha
t to think when she’d come to him that first night after her… well, her resurrection, for want of a more accurate term. Offering herself without a trace of embarrassment. He’d not known whether she was still the same woman he’d fallen in love with, and had been reluctant in his own secret heart. Partly, he admitted, because of his upbringing. He was supposed to bring his intended home for the family to inspect: Look, Father, I’ve found a chaste woman mad enough to spend the rest of her life with me! Except Cylene was anything but chaste, and she’d make no such promise. Nor do I need her to, Noetos had realised. Keeping such a woman will mean wooing her anew every day.
He’d looked her in the eye, there on the road north of Mensaya, and had quashed his fear. You don’t need someone frightened of you, he told her in his mind, knowing she couldn’t hear him and glad of it, glad she couldn’t see his confusion. You need someone to comfort you, to reassure yourself you are human.
He had reached out his hand and taken hers, then led her to a sheltered place far enough away from where the others slept, and there had loved her with his body, exercising restraint and tenderness. She had cried in his arms, not needing to explain her tears, knowing he understood. Healing.
She squeezed his hand now. Perhaps she too had been thinking of that first night.
“The swiftest way north is by ship,” she told her sister.
“No, there is a quicker way,” Sauxa said. “If we can find the Undying Man, he can take us there in but a moment.”
“How?” This from Sautea, the stocky fisherman.
“His blue fire.” Sauxa reminded them of the Falthans’ journey to Bhrudwo and their arrival at Lake Woe. “It’s not a comfortable voyage, but if it’s speed you want, I can’t think of anything comparable.”
“Can we trust him?” Noetos asked.
Anomer turned to face him, his eyebrows raised. “Father, haven’t you had enough evidence that the Undying Man is on our side? Didn’t you hear his words? He’s not like us: his morals are necessarily more rarefied than ours. Arathé has accepted his explanation, as have I. Can’t you accept it too, and move on?”
A fair question, deserving a fair answer.
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