The Dark Shore (The Dominions of Irth Book 1)

by A. A. Attanasio

  "Stop!" He put a hand to his brow to shield his eyes. "I cannot bear to hear of their suffering."

  "They suffer no longer, my lord regent," Jyoti said stiffly. "Witnesses report they are dead. Romut gave them to the cacodemons in public display to satisfy his hatred of you and to tighten his rule of terror on Dorzen. No one now dares oppose him. Arwar Odawl will not be avenged."

  Drev huffed angrily and had to turn away. She spoke truth, he knew, yet her derisive, angry tone incensed him, and he had to remind himself that she spoke out of even greater suffering than his. "We will find a way to break Wrat."

  "Is that why you are wandering the Qaf, lord regent?" Jyoti pressed, with a hint of mockery.

  Drev slowly turned and faced her. "Margravine, I flee the cacodemons, because I cannot fight them. But I am determined to find a way to strike back."

  She lifted her chin in challenge. "How?"

  "I don't know." He scowled through his perplexity. "But I do know that all beings under the Abiding Star are mortal. Wrat brought these monsters across the Gulf from the cold worlds. That is why Charm is useless against them. Yet, surely, among all the sorcerers, witch dancers, and sages of Irth, there must be some knowledge that will reveal the weakness of the cacodemons."

  Jyoti studied the wizarduke, then passed her gaze to the Falcon Guard, and finally to her brother. When she looked back at Drev, a brighter awareness shone in her large eyes. "That is our hope, as well, my lord. That is why you find us here in the Qaf. We are questing for our father's weapons master, the sorcerer Caval. Our inquiries suggest he may yet be among the sages in the sanctuary of the Calender of Eyes, not too very far from here. Perhaps he can find the knowledge we need to fight the cacodemons."

  The wizarduke nodded. "I would offer you escort, but that would only mark you more boldly for our enemy."

  "We have come this far on our own," Jyoti said. "We have a trek of three days before we reach the Calendar of Eyes."

  Drev signaled for the nearest trooper to hand him his firelock. "Take this with you." He passed the holstered weapon to her. "There are trolls in the gypsum hills south of here. The sight of the weapon alone should keep them at bay. Use it only if you must."

  "I know," Jyoti finished for him. "Firecharms attract cacodemons. They are scouring Irth for all the Peers. Wrat wants every one of us dead."

  "Do you need provisions?" Drev asked. Looking at these two, with their kin traits of broad bones, freckles, and pale skin shining in the white shadow of Nemora's full disk, he felt touched by prescience. Briefly, he scried them dead. A cacodemon squatted over them, the mess of their guts hanging from its jaws.

  The image dissolved and disappeared in trickling lines of time: He glimpsed the causal stream of events that would guide sister and brother to their fate. Their arduous journey on the river of time revealed nameless distances of desert, jungle, and bog—and everywhere they went, cacodemons thronged.

  "On the airship to Saxar, we traded hex-gems for provisions," she replied, then noted the indrawn vacancy of his stare. "My lord—are you all right?"

  "Yes," he responded at once, and common sight snapped back into place. "Now and then, I glance sidelong into time. I witnessed a little of your hard journey ahead. You must be careful. You wander perilous paths."

  "So do we all." She clasped her wrists with her hands and bowed formally, and her brother followed curtly. "Farewell, my lord."

  / |

  Jyoti slung the firelock across her back and led her brother into the night shadows. They followed a rock beach along interlocking crater rims, keeping to the dark side of the tall and cloven walls.

  When they had walked long enough to be well out of sight of the wizarduke and his Falcon Guard, Poch spoke in a piteous tone, "He scried our doom, you know."

  She hushed him and kept her eyes on the pathless way ahead, toward the silver sill of the starry horizon.

  "You're not listening, Jyo!" Poch spoke shrilly. "He saw across time."

  "The time to come is uncertain," said Jyoti, "even for those who can scry. And do you think he's any less doomed than we are? Want to go back and travel with him? He's going north. He'll be cacodemon scat in a few days."

  "He saw our doom," the boy spoke sullenly. "I know it."

  “That would be the obvious thing to see," Jyoti derided. "You don't have to be a wizard to see that. But if we look deep enough, we'll see a way out of our doom."

  "He didn't see that."

  "Then he didn't look deep enough, did he?" She picked up their pace testily. "Caval will. He will see a way that leads not to doom but to victory. We will destroy the cacodemons. We will slay Wrat. And we will rebuild Arwar Odawl."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "We've talked about this, Poch," she said, trying to check the burr of impatience in her voice, "more than a few times."

  "Don't be mad at me. It's dark, Jyo. It's better for me in the dark when I hear your voice."

  Greased shadows of starlight showed the way toward the windward face of dunes and, beyond, rock escarpments of other extinct volcanic craters. Jyoti sighed and made an effort to soften her scolding tone. "Then listen to me, little brother. I know it's hard for you. If we accept that we are doomed, tonight would be a good night to use this firelock on ourselves and let our souls and bodies rise into the Gulf wind and ascend with the nocturnal tide. Would you prefer that?"

  "No!" he replied at once. "Please, I don't want to die. I don't want to be doomed."

  "Then we shall live," she affirmed with a smile. "We shall find Caval. We have taken the shortest route to him. If we had approached from the south, we would have had to cross the Spiderlands and climb through the Malpais Highlands. Riding the black dirigible north to the Qaf has saved us many days of wandering."

  "But look at this place!" Poch cried. He squinted with disdain at the austere terrain of flint rocks and dunes. "Could the Spiderlands be worse?"

  Jyoti cast a baleful look at him and refused to condone his question with a reply.

  "The regent said there are trolls here." Poch studied both epaulets of niello eye charms to be absolutely certain no trolls currently approached. "Have you ever seen a troll?"

  "No."

  "I think we're going to." He looked out on the great expanse of wild and stony terrain before them, blotched with impenetrable darkness. "It's a long way to go without seeing them, if they're really here."

  "You fret too much, little brother. We have a firelock to protect us."

  "And why did we think we could cross these badlands without one?"

  She shrugged off his complaint. "I tried to buy one on the airship and at every trade port along the way, but no one would sell to us."

  "Sure. They knew who we are. We were lucky to get passage."

  "We rode as unregistered cargo, that's why. But a firelock can be traced."

  "So, what would we have done out here without a firelock?" Poch challenged.

  "What do you want me to tell you?" Jyoti asked with exasperation. "That I've thought all this through? You know everything I know."

  Poch shuffled onward silently for a spell, then spoke dimly, "Tell me again, Jyo."

  "We're going to find Caval."

  "And then?"

  "We will return to Arwar Odawl." She spoke in a flat tone, mechanically, weary of her brother's incessant whining. "We're going with Caval into the archives. They are vaulted in the city's core. No harm has come to them. Those vaults were designed to be indestructible. Designed for a tragedy such as this."

  "And we'll find the magic there to destroy the cacodemons," Poch said with dry sarcasm. "That is, if there is magic to be found that can work against them."

  "Our archives are the oldest on Irth," she answered his doubt. "Older than the most venerable sanctuaries or even the ancient temple at the Cloths of Heaven."

  "Yeah, yeah." Poch kicked a stone violently and sent it skidding ahead, striking small sparks along the way. "We're the oldest family on Irth. Older than Charm. And
now we're old and dead."

  "Not dead so long as we live," she insisted. 'That is why we cannot fail. To all the Irth, we are emblems of tradition. That is why Wrat seeks to destroy us."

  "Don't call him Wrat."

  "That is his name."

  "Maybe it was," Poch conceded glumly, "but now he is Hu'dre Vra. And we don't know that he wants to kill us."

  Jyoti stopped walking and stared with disbelief once again at her brother. "You ninny. He destroyed our family, our city—everything!"

  “To force submission from the others," Poch explained. "He chose the smallest of the cities."

  "And the terror in Dorzen that we heard about on the airship?" she asked with brittle ire. "The cruelties of Romut? What of that?"

  "The Dark Lord wants vengeance against the wizarduke for having broken the Bold Ones." He leaned forward inquisitively. "And were the Bold Ones evil? They were scavengers striving for something greater. Lord Drev broke them to preserve his hold on power—to protect all the Peers."

  Jyoti stood, arms akimbo, features scrawled with disbelief. "And so we should submit to the murderer of our parents, the slayer of our people, the destroyer of our city?"

  "We will die if we don't. The wizarduke saw it. You know that. He scryed our doom."

  "Wrat will kill us if we submit."

  "I think not." Poch crossed his arms and spoke matter-of-factly. "We are the last of the oldest brood. I believe Hu'dre Vra will preserve us, for tradition. Conquerors want validation. We can offer him that by submission. He won't kill us. He will make a showcase of us. And we will live on to continue our brood into the next era of Irth's history. It will not be the first time that our clan has adapted to survive."

  "I can't believe you are saying this." She dropped her arms to her sides and continued walking. Over her shoulder, she threw a question. "Have you no love for Mother and Father?"

  "They are dead." Poch strode beside her, staring hard at her with conviction. "We don't have to die just because they died. We can choose to live."

  Jyoti shook her head. "Don't do this to me, little brother."

  "Do what?" He edged his voice with scorn. "Disobey you? I don't want you to think for me anymore. I'm over five thousand days old. You can stop being my know-it-all sister now."

  Again she stopped in her tracks and turned abruptly to face him. "I am not just your sister anymore, Poch. I am your margravine. I lead our brood now."

  "Our brood!” He spat the last word. "We are no brood. Our brood are corpses. It's just you and me, sister."

  "Even so, I am margravine," she persisted with authority, "and you will obey me."

  "Or what?" He pushed close to her, his features tight. "You can't make me obey you."

  Jyoti fumed, speechless. Then she pulled herself away from her brother's angry stare and continued hiking in long furious strides.

  Poch hurried to keep up with her. "When we get out of here," he promised, "I'm going my own way."

  "Why wait?" she shot back. "Use the aviso. Call for your beloved Dark Lord. I'm sure his cacodemons would be delighted to pick you up."

  He trailed after her silently for a while and then admitted, "I don't want to go alone."

  Jyoti hissed a rueful laugh. "Why? Don't you want to be a conqueror's showcase?"

  "You have to come," he pressed. "You're the margravine."

  "Oh, is that it?" She sneered at him. "I am the margravine. That is the truth. I am the margravine who is going to destroy Wrat. I will never submit to him. If you're going over to the enemy, little brother, you go alone."

  / |

  Jyoti and Poch walked on in silence through that night of star fire and the strange contours of rocks. And they walked on in silence well into the radiant day of glaring sands and thermal gravel beds, toward pale mountains that seemed to float upon a lake of shimmery nothingness. And when at last they did speak it was small and routine talk of water, Charm, and the lifeless distances between them and the conjectural snow ranges of the south.

  From atop blue mesas far behind them, the wizarduke watched until they became so small in his niello eye charms that they vanished as motes at the rim of the world. Drev looked up and stared across the lonely void.

  His prescience had been clear about the margravine and her brother. They would soon fall under the talons of the cacodemons. With their deaths, the brood of Odawl would become extinct, tragic precursor to the fate of all the Peers if Wrat continued unchallenged.

  But what counterstroke to an invincible foe, Drev pondered, except evasion?

  The Falcon Guard asked no questions of their lord. They marched with him along the high mesas, silent and alert patrol of these nether limits.

  Leboc alone wondered aloud at their ultimate destination. As they descended the narrow defiles that switchbacked among stratifications of purple rock, the marshal addressed his lord. "Zul will be infested with cacodemons by the time we arrive there."

  "We are not bound for Zul." The wizarduke swept his arm toward the anvils of surrounding mesas. "This is my dominion now, Leboc. Here I am lord. Lord of the nethermost."

  That silenced Leboc, for in his commander's reply he heard madness. And how could he not be deranged? the marshal asked himself. How can any of us pretend to sanity now that chaos runs rampant upon Irth?

  Drev felt into the silence surrounding him. Modulating breathing to induce trance in rhythm with the cadence of the squad's march, he searched ahead through time.

  Scry shadows appeared upon the seabed of lava below. Phantoms of wandering refugees from Zul crisscrossed the pan of cracked volcanic glass. Among them would be charmwrights, witches, mentors, sages, and workers of sorcery. It was his task to cull them with his prescience and find those who had knowledge of cacodemons, who knew how to fight the fabled beasts.

  The wizarduke could not accept that anything in the world lived forever. And though the world was a huge place and hid many secrets, all secrets could be disclosed by persistent inquiry.

  And there, in the Qaf, where those with Charm would flee to escape the invaders, he believed he would find the ones who knew how to unravel the strength of cacodemons. But how to identify them? he asked himself, gazing upon the stark promontories and scorched cinder fields. Ghosts abounded, shades of exiles yet to trespass these badlands.

  He ignored those with the brightest Charm. Though powerful and certainly wealthy, they could not help him. Instead, he fixed upon apparitions with dull yet iridescent shine. The muted glow told him that those individuals had fewer power wands and less mental amplification from hex-gems like rat-stars and sharp-eyes. The iridescence came from mirror-chips, also called trance-inducers, popular among charmwrights and frequently used in sorcery.

  While still high in the mesas, the wizarduke selected several promising candidates among the time shadows. He carefully marked in his memory the pathless vectors these blue specters followed across the wasteland. He intended to meet each, and he accordingly adjusted his direction through the directionless land.

  The vaporous quality of the vision assured him that the first encounters loomed days away. The squad marched on in silence. The land demanded strict discipline, and the Falcon Guard proved well matched to this arduous task. If Leboc or any of his squad entertained fears for their duke's sanity, none showed it.

  They scarce had time. Trolls abounded in the graphite hills and often came charging down the slopes, only to scatter and flee the moment the troopers unholstered their firecharms. No one fired in panic, for all knew the terrible consequences of such rashness.

  Careful to favor the hard footing of rock ledges and shale clines, they still left scattered, intermittent tracks. And on a wine-red morning, the wizarduke's niello eye charms warned of approaching cacodemons. Two of the monsters scuttled across the desert floor reading the squad's spoor, tracking them remorselessly across the rocky terrain. Others circled lazily overhead.

  "We must separate," Leboc realized. He raised the vizard of his raptor hood, the better to
sniff the air. An acrid taint of sulfur soughed from the west off an infernal rill of volcanoes beyond dense hillocks of sand. "You will hide there, my lord, with half the guard. The others will come with me and lead the cacodemons that way." He pointed east toward an outlandish skyline of standing rocks and stone arches.

  Time shadows blurred at this juncture of fate and mortality, and the wizarduke could see no viable alternative. Like frightened animals, he and five of the Falcon Guard burrowed into the sandy hillocks.

  Leboc and the four remaining troopers swept away the tracks of the duke and his escort with their cloaks. Then, they clambered up the eastern inclines of pea gravel into the wilderness maze.

  Protected from smothering by his power wands and a mask of theriacal opals, the wizarduke lay perfectly still as the cacodemons clattered past. Their avid breathing sizzled, and he could also hear the gnashing of their abdominal faces, hungry for prey.

  He watched them in his eye charms as they scratched at the flinty ground with their talons. Tiny black beads of eyes embedded in their lobed brows almost grazed the ground, reading the tracks of Leboc and his troopers. They turned their horned and scaly backs on where Drev and his guard hid and scampered howling toward the monument rocks.

  Their cries echoed weirdly through the stony labyrinth. The eelish creatures ferreted into every shadowed alcove and toppled poised boulders in frustration. A trooper screamed, and a leering cacodemon hauled him out of a kettle hole and kicking into the sky.

  The doomed soldier’s firelock blasted point blank at blue maximum intensity and did not faze the beast. Other cacodemons flocked closer, slashing at his frantic body, ripping him apart as they fought for gobbets of flesh. And in moments they devoured even the marrow in his cracked bones.