And all fell silent.
The wind died, birds hushed, the whole land waited.
It was like a scream in the emptiness of night when the broken trapdoor slid open.
A head emerged from the stairwell. Rork’s half-lidded, cunning eyes fixed themselves on Liru. He was a big man, and strong. Aedan had seen him during the Fenn encounter – he had not gained his dangerous reputation for nothing.
Aedan drew his short sword and considered rushing forward while Rork was still half buried, but the man’s long arm and longer sword were already clear, swishing as casually as a tomcat’s tail.
“You going to stand against me you little leaking coward?” He stepped up onto the platform, bigger than Aedan remembered – now that Osric was not nearby.
“Aedan,” Liru whispered, “I lost my weapons earlier. I will not die at his hand. If you cannot fight him, I will jump.”
Aedan stamped down a black upwelling of despair. He concentrated on the swords, trying to distract himself from what he knew was lurking inside him. He settled into a guard stance.
“You defy me!” Rork yelled and strode forward.
Though Aedan fought it with all his mind, and though he set his knees and clamped them, it was no use. He might as well have tried to hold back a wave in the ocean. He heard his sword clatter to the ground and felt his legs give way.
This was it then. All his life had been for nothing, for waste.
Like arrows raining down in a thick and deadly hail, sharp thoughts began to run him through with such speed that everything else turned to a nightmarish stillness.
He had failed.
Failed Kalry.
Failed Liru.
Failed Peashot, Hadley, Osric.
He had shamed himself and disgusted all who had supported him.
Perhaps it was right that it should end here. He had caused enough ruin.
Shaft after shaft pierced his mind – shafts that quivered and rang and screamed of pitiful failure and utter worthlessness. They made him want to save Rork the trouble, to crawl over the edge and fall to his death. What was the point of living when he would continue to fail those who leaned on him?
Then, from within, another thought rose into the chaos of his hammering, shaking mind, a thought that stood out with icy clarity. He knew where the blame lay.
His father.
His father had planted the weakness in his bones that had caused him to wilt before Dresbourn, before Iver, before the Fenn, and now before Rork. And it had meant injury not only to him, but to those he cared about. Aedan’s long-brewed, potent swill of violent resentment bubbled up inside him, turning his vision black.
He would hate his father forever. Even in the grave. This hate was the one thing that couldn’t be taken from him, the only thing left to him.
A faint, choking sob tugged at his ear, and a light a step, Liru’s final step towards the parapet. If there was another step, he did not hear it, because everything suddenly disappeared.
It was like being struck through by solid light. Heat built up in his chest until it seemed it would burn him to cinders, but instead it worked on him like the warmth of the morning sun. Power was crackling and sparking around.
Then he heard a voice that was the roar of thunder and the gurgle of a stream, a voice as old as the sky but filled with the lightness of a child’s laughter.
“Aedan,” it said. And in that one word there was enough to make his heart burst.
He was already on his knees, and he was glad of it. He could not understand what was happening, but he wanted to kneel before the one who spoke with this voice.
A warm, singing wind rose up and as it blew, the statue, Kultûhm, DinEilan, Vallendal – they misted and dwindled away until they were gone.
Around him was starlight. His feet touched the ground, but it was like standing on clear ice, for stars glittered far beneath him too. The singing began to build, a growing, thrilling exultation that all but seared him with its beauty.
Then it was as if a shroud made of stars was dropped. At first he could see nothing but the brilliance of pure, solid light pouring down around him. When his vision cleared a little, he found himself before a great throne. It was not just a chair – it was more like a mountain before which even the heights of DinEilan would have been dwarfed. The upper reaches rose among the stars, lost to his eyes.
Then, like an eruption of all the lightning ever to burn the skies, the throne was filled, and Aedan immediately dropped his eyes before one who was simply beyond the limits of sight or comprehension. The radiance was overwhelming.
And in that untainted light, there was no hiding. Of all the times he had found himself where he did not belong, none came anywhere close to this. Never had he fallen so far short of the requirements for entry, yet here he stood, and there was no bluff, no excuse, no argument he could make for himself that would hold up in this place.
Until now, he had always thought of himself as good and noble of heart. Yes, there had been some wrong choices, but it was an un-asked-for history that had forced him into those paths. Those choices were his father’s doing, his father’s fault.
He was damaged, not guilty. He had loathed himself at times when seeing the warped changes taking place, but how could he blame himself? Measured against his father or any of the other tyrants he had known, it was obvious that he was on the better side of the line.
Reasoning this way, he had always felt justified. Aside from a few smudges, his soul was clean.
But now, instead of being compared against dirt, he was searched by the radiance of utter purity. And he gasped at what was revealed. He stood as a hog dripping filth, a hog that had somehow slipped into the royal throne room, blinking and stinking, and realising for the first time that there was a measure as high above the ways of the sty as life is above death.
What answer could he make?
As he lowered his gaze, he was further distressed to find that he was no longer kneeling but standing. And it was clear why. He held a deep cauldron in front of him that would not allow him to reach his knees. When he looked inside he almost vomited. He did not need to be told what it contained. It was the vile mixture of all the hatred stored and brewed for his father, the debt he had kept, that he intended to settle. It was his treasure.
“Kneel,” the voice said, shaking the ground.
He tried, but the cauldron was as big as a storage vat. It prevented him from reaching his knees. Afraid to look up, he cringed, fearing that he would be told to release it, knowing he could not – would not – and dreading the wrath that would follow.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, thinking not only of his unbending knees, but of all the filth of the sty he had brought with him, and his inability to rid himself of it.
He would be thrown out. He should be thrown out. That would be justice. He began to turn away.
The next words were quiet, but they caused every muscle to lock and hold him in place. “If you choose, you may walk away from me, Aedan. But I will not walk away from you.”
“But … I don’t understand,” Aedan stammered. “Am I here to be punished?”
“You are here to be freed.” The words rumbled like an avalanche, and the shudder in Aedan’s chest was beyond any emotion he had ever known.
That word, kneel, echoed again in his mind. In it rang not the groans of enslavement, but the song of freedom. He knew why. It was about belonging, the right kind of belonging. It was isolation that led to enslavement. He had discovered that.
Though there was more to fear before this throne than in ten thousand of Kultûhm’s giant beasts, it was not wrath that he sensed or dread that welled in him.
An invisible torrent surged from the throne, washed through him, wrapped around him. He felt as if he were a fish that had hatched and managed to survive in the muddy pool of a dry river bed, and was now being swept up into soft, clear waters. It was unlike anything he could define. This was defining him.
And then he looked in
to the cauldron.
The fumes were poison, and the container stood between him and the throne. It blocked part of the life-giving flow, leaving a shielded place where bitterness still coursed through his veins and gathered in dark clots. Did he really want this?
The decision was more intimidating than any bridge- or cliff-jump, but he drew a breath, and in his mind, leapt free of the old, dark refuge.
He tried to pull the cauldron away from him, but he could not. It was as if it had grown into his skin.
“Help me!” he cried.
There was no surge of power, just the faintest tingling in his arms. He looked down and pulled again, and this time, it tore partly away from his skin. The pain was intense, and as the raw skin was exposed, he felt a sudden vulnerability, for the cauldron had been a kind of shield. But from the river that was rushing around him, he drew courage and wrenched again. The cauldron ripped free, and once he had torn it loose, he flung it down on the ground where the noxious liquid poured out and was washed away.
Finally, he was able to fall to his knees, and as he did so, the stains that covered him began to fade.
Then, from a distance, he saw his father. His fist clenched automatically and he felt something in his grip. It was a dagger. He understood at once what he needed to do, what he had never been able to do before. Looking not at his father, but towards the foot of the throne, he opened his hand and dropped the blade, releasing judgement to one higher.
As the dagger melted away, light flooded that part of him that he had kept hidden by the cauldron, kept in bitterness and shadow, and he yelled with fright at what was revealed. Crouching in that inner bastion of hate, that long-guarded place where he had so often fled and braced himself with fantasies of revenge, he saw it. It was not strength that had kept him company in that place, but a coiled, venomous thing of fear. His numbing, paralysing fear. A lying, twisted demon that now looked up at him with more hatred than he had ever known.
But the light that illuminated suddenly became solid, a pure rushing torrent. It struck the twisted shape with power both infinite and effortless, tearing it loose and flinging it out, its screams fading to nothing.
The bitterness and poison slowly washed away. It was peace, deeper and broader than the starfields around him. It was belonging. It was freedom. Kneeling before the one who could only be the Ancient had not been the cost of freedom, but the means.
For a long time he laughed and wept and laughed again, released.
Then he saw something completely unexpected, and this time he did not understand at all. It was a book, old and faded. The cover was of red leather and the design on the front was a lizard curled twice around itself. He did not like the look of it and turned away, but it was put before him again, pressed towards him. It was clear what he was expected to do, though not why. He reached out to take the book and as he touched it, the vision faded.
Stars began to wash away as hills, mountains and clouds took their place. The light thinned into a few sparks and cleared as if a huge basin had been emptied and the last drops had fallen.
Liru and Rork were staring at him.
“You are alive!” Liru said, kneeling alongside. “It struck you, it held you, and you are not even burned.”
Aedan could still feel something burning in his chest, but he could see no mark on his hands or clothes.
Rork was recovering himself. “Yes, you are alive,” he said. “Let’s see how long you manage that with steel through your belly.” He had stepped back, but now he came forward, cutting at the air before him and snarling.
It was the same beast, the same terror, but something was different.
Aedan watched as the sword rose over the man’s head, as the foot was planted, the weight shifted, and the blade brought down with a fatal shriek.
There was a clash of steel.
He stared. The blade had not reached him. A sword had blocked it. His sword. Raised by his arm. How could he do that? How could he defy the monster?
Rork swung again, harder this time.
The blow fell like a hammer on the flat of Aedan’s blade, nearly wrenching it from his numb hands. The shock stung him all the way to his elbows.
Rork bellowed and raised his sword overhead. As the large soldier towered before him, Aedan realised what was different. It was the fear. It had changed. It was no longer infinite and crushing, undoing him from within. That hidden traitor was gone. And there was something else. The one who had spoken to him in the lightning dwarfed this enemy that faced him now. Dwarfed him utterly.
The enemy too was beginning to change. The shadows were falling away. Those great black wings that could blot out the sun, the claws that could tear through mountains – illusions, lies. They had been powerful ones that had taken deep root, but they were now cracking and disintegrating like paper that has encountered fire. The monster was crumbling, shrinking, revealing a man.
Only a man.
A traitor and a murderer certainly, but that made him less not more. Aedan had been trained to fight such as these.
And then it struck him that Rork was making that most inexcusable of mistakes – he was underestimating his adversary and exposing himself with a wild, undefended attack.
Aedan gathered himself and lunged, thrusting at the soldier’s chest. The tip pierced the armour, but barely. It produced little more than a deep scratch. Aedan recognised, from the exercises with pig carcasses, the springy feel of hitting a rib. Rork leapt back, clutching his chest, seeing the patch of blood on his hand. He smiled.
“So you want to fight now, do you? That suits me fine.” He stepped forward and unleashed a series of cuts that Aedan managed to block and deflect, but he was driven backwards.
“Aedan!” Liru cried. “He’ll push us over the edge! Don’t step back again!”
Aedan had no advantage or opportunity, but neither did he have a choice. He lunged forward. His thrust was easily parried and Rork swung the pommel across into Aedan’s eye, then drove a knee into his midriff. Aedan collapsed and, by sheer force of hard-learned habit, rolled away as the point of a longsword sparked off the ground beside him. Dun had been strict. Boys who lay and groaned after an injury were punished severely enough to purge them of the habit.
Completing the turn, Aedan lunged along the ground at Rork’s ankle. The steel nipped through the skin and Rork leapt back, giving Aedan the space to scramble to his feet.
He realised he would not be given another chance like the first. This was a soldier who had picked many fights and won them all. As he watched Rork take his guard, he noticed the sturdy foot placement and the ease with which he flicked the long blade from side to side. Rork favoured the double grip, it was becoming clear now. His feet were planted wide and square for powerful swinging. It was a single-minded, forward-focussed style that was slightly rigid, leaving his back rounded, shoulders and neck tight, and his eyes blind to anything that might threaten him from behind.
It gave Aedan an idea.
He remembered how Liru had been trained and how they had worked together when teamed against Osric. Without turning, he spoke.
“Liru, kiel na aviestros le malatia ena. Keu ni ra nam.” It was Fenn. He did not trust his Sulese at such a moment. He knew Rork spoke Orunean, but no more. Liru came up behind Aedan.
“So you think you can protect your wench, do you?” Rork jeered. “Want her to stay behind you? Let’s see you manage that.”
Aedan did not smile, but he could have. Rork had failed to notice Liru slip a long dagger from the sheath behind Aedan’s back and conceal it in her sleeve.
The next attack was brutal. Blows fell like rocks. It was all Aedan could do to keep from being sliced in two. The man’s guard was impenetrable. The length of his blade preserved a distance too great to permit any kind of counter; not that Aedan could have exploited one if it had appeared – he was staggering under the onslaught. Twice he had been too slow to recover and almost lost his arm. Two cuts, one deep, bled freely. Blood ran down onto
his hand, slicking the grip.
For all the tricks he had learned, this man’s practiced skill and far greater strength were too much. Rork drove him along the edge of the platform. Aedan blocked a furious swipe. His left hand broke from the slimy grip and he stumbled to the ground. Rork stabbed and Aedan was not quick enough this time. The tip drove into his left shoulder and held him on the stone. Rork lifted the sword up over his head.
Liru was no fool. As soon as Rork had separated Aedan from her, she had trailed the big swordsman. His frontal style kept his neck tight and his attention forward, so he had no idea of the danger that stalked him. Aedan had seen her raise the blade more than once, and he knew what held her back. She had seen the force of Aedan’s thrust reduced by the armour. Her attack would need to find a chink, and would need to be pinpoint accurate. It would also need to be a surprise, so there would be only one opportunity. She could not afford to squander it.
But now her eyes enlarged, her jaw locked and Aedan knew she had committed. She darted forward and drove the narrow blade deep into the exposed armpit, withdrawing it in the same instant. Rork screamed and spun towards Liru. From where he lay, Aedan reached up and thrust his sword deep into Rork’s leg, then fell back beneath the sweep of the longsword, narrowly escaping decapitation. The blade cut through his shirt and sliced across his chest. He rolled to the side as the enraged soldier prepared for another cut. He heard Rork shout again, and saw Liru dancing away with a crimson dagger dripping, while Rork clutched his other leg.
The man staggered, but he was far from spent. And he had learned their tactic. Keeping now to the parapet, he clenched his sword in one hand. Aedan got to his feet, but he was dizzy from the injuries and struggled to keep his distance from the advancing soldier. He tripped over the pile of shoes and almost fell down the stairs while backing away. The longsword rang on the stone where he had sprawled an instant earlier. Liru darted in, but Rork swung on her too quickly and she avoided the blade by a hair, ducking beneath it and diving away.
Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) Page 64
