by Martin Ash
'I’m sorry,' said Issul. 'I did not know how. You did not make it plain.'
'Ah.'
'She is mortal, Triune. Of the Reach,' Orbelon said. 'You place too much upon her. She can’t fully grasp what happens here.'
'Perhaps it is so,' said the tallest child. 'A pity, then. But no matter.'
'Triune, I must warn you of the Karai,' said Issul with urgency. 'They will be pouring through here in moments, investigating the fate of these three.'
The smallest of the three Triune-children walked forward and raised a hand. The Farplace Opening seemed to gather itself, forming into a semi-transparent blue globe. At virtually the same moment four Karai warriors appeared within, their swords drawn. Their faces, initially fierce, showed sudden surprise. They gaped at their unexpected environment and its occupants. They pressed, then struck at the enclosing membrane, to no avail.
'What is to be done with them?' said the smallest child.
'Do we wish them here?' the middle child asked.
'No. They are of insufficient interest.'
'Send them back, then,' said the taller.
'Yes, send them back.' The smallest child motioned again with a hand and the four Karai vanished, leaving only a billowing misty blue globe in their wake.
The three turned, standing side by side once more, and smiled as one at Orbelon, Issul and Shenwolf. 'We are broken, but not without strength. And here we are strong.'
'Triune, what is happening here?' demanded Orbelon.
'We guard the Opening.'
'Against whom?'
'You are not aware? It is she who engineered our downfall, yours too. She who sundered us.'
'Strymnia?'
Triune nodded. 'Strymnia.'
Orbelon mulled on this. 'It is no great surprise. And is it also she who aids the Karai and marches against the kingdom of Enchantment's Reach?'
'It is.'
Orbelon turned to Issul. 'There at least is an answer to one of your questions.'
'Why does Strymnia march against us?' demanded Issul. 'We have given her no cause. Nor, as far as I am aware, has she been provoked by the southern Mondane Kingdoms, yet with the Karai she has crushed them.'
Six slight and slender shoulders lifted in an indifferent shrug. 'Perhaps she was bored. Or perhaps not. We do suspect a particular motive, for her efforts have been intense and methodical. But we do not know what it is.'
Orbelon said, 'On the other side of the Opening I was conscious of a Reach Rider preparing to break through. I sense its presence still.'
'Yes, there is a Rider,' replied the taller child. 'It almost succeeded in breaking through. It is below, now. We have it contained, at least for a time.'
'Is it yours?'
'Ours? By all the powers of Enchantment, no. It is Strymnia's, of course.'
'The resources and energies required to beget and empower a Reach Rider are immense. It will have cost her. Or is her cost - and her burden - shared? You know that when she bested me, and subsequently yourself, she had others working with her?'
Triune's three pale heads nodded. 'She deceived Urch-Malmain and caused him to vanish. We are not sure how.'
'Deceived Urch-Malmain?' mused Orbelon. 'That is no easy feat.'
'He was surely distracted by his joy at your defeat, for it was at that time that he disappeared. Strymnia's other co-conspirator was Bartacanes. But he, noting Urch-Malmain's abrupt absence, grew mistrustful and quickly withdrew himself from her company. We are reasonably sure that Strymnia now operates alone.'
At the mention of Urch-Malmain Issul and Shenwolf exchanged weighted glances. Issul sensed Shenwolf's apprehension, even moreso that of Orbelon who in recent days on the journey towards the Karai camp had spoken several times of Urch-Malmain. It was Orbelon who had identified the strange ivory carving which Shenwolf had passed to the Legendary Child. He had recognized it as a talisman commonly used by Urch-Malmain in the distant past. Furthermore, Orbelon now claimed to have become uncomfortably aware of Urch-Malmain's presence, 'as though he watches me'.
'Do you know what became of Urch?' Orbelon was asking.
'Now that is interesting,' replied the tallest child, and all three faces broke into identical, bright-toothed smiles which conveyed nothing more than did the smile upon a mask. Six glowing blue eyes stared.
'In what way?' Orbelon prompted, for no further explanation was immediately forthcoming.
The smiles shrivelled. The middle child replied coldly, 'Triune has no wish to speak further of this matter just now.'
Orbelon weighed this, then asked, 'Is Strymnia aware that it is you who now control the Farplace Opening?'
Issul caught the uncustomary nervousness in his voice.
'Of course, she is,' Triune said. 'We told her.'
'You told her?'
'How else would we conduct negotiations if she did not know who we were?'
'What kind of negotiations?'
'Orbelon, we negotiate for the return of our Soul. Strymnia took it, as she took yours. She sundered us forever, made us Three, scattered so that we might not become One. But we returned. She never anticipated that. And now you too have returned. Does she know? Has she anticipated?'
'I do not believe she has.'
'Ah, so. She did not anticipate our strength either. We have developed, solely for this purpose, and now we have secured this stronghold. We have concentrated all our power here. Strymnia did not believe we could withstand her. She sent a Reach Rider, convinced it would overcome us and journey on to transform the Reach Lands. But we anticipated. Oh yes, we anticipated. And we snared the Rider! Now Strymnia will be so angry.'
The three Triune-children turned and hugged each other in glee.
'And she will put everything she has against you,' warned Orbelon. 'Soulless, you are enfeebled, like me.'
'Not so enfeebled! As Three, without a Soul, we are far less than the One that we might be. That much is true. But we have worked long to establish defences here. And do not forget, Strymnia has expended immense power. She has established the Farplace Opening, begotten a Reach Rider, placed a hold upon the Karai. Further energies are expended in the maintenance of these. She can spare little for the likes of us. Nor does she have much time, for if she delays all will go awry.'
'And you would return the Opening and the Reach Rider to her?'
'For our Soul, but nothing less.'
'But that would permit her to destroy Enchantment's Reach!' flared Issul, her voice strident with emotion.
The three children faced her. 'We understand your concern, but it is nothing to us.'
'Nothing?'
'We are of Enchantment.'
Issul stood stiff in mute and helpless outrage. Orbelon rotated his ragged bulk towards her. 'It is as I have explained to you. Do not try to reason with it.'
'But in your own words, a Reach Rider will bring a wake of destruction to our lands and establish the conditions by which Enchantment may grow.'
'Exactly so. In perhaps this one area alone Strymnia and Triune are not opposed.'
'And you, Orbelon?' she accused, with sudden mounting dread. 'What of you?'
'I will not betray you, Issul,' said Orbelon softly. He returned his attention to Triune. 'How has Strymnia received your 'offer'.'
'Since sending the Reach Rider she has been silent. The fact that it is now ours gives her much to dwell upon.'
'Is it not more likely that, if she cannot destroy you now, she will simply abandon her plans and then re-direct all her energies against you rather than allow you the power your Soul will grant you?'
'We do not think so. Strymnia seeks something, something in the formed world, perhaps in Enchantment's Reach. She has gone to so much trouble. She would not willingly abandon her plans now. It would be a long time before she could both create another Opening and beget another Reach Rider.'
The Legendary Child! thought Issul. Can she be seeking the Legendary Child? But why is she prepared to destroy Enchantment's Reach to get
it? Or is there something else? What is happening here?
She kept her thoughts to herself, watching Triune all the while.
You fight her, she thought bitterly. And whether you win or lose, Enchantment's Reach falls. To Strymnia or the Karai, to Moscul or to Enchantment itself. Even to Fectur! What hope do we have?
'Now, Orbelon, we should know more of your return. Tell us again, why are you here?' Triune said. 'Indeed, how, are you here?'
'The how of it would be too long in the telling just now. As for the why, surely you don’t need to ask? I am like you, seeking the Soul that was taken from me all those eons ago.'
'And what do you offer Strymnia in return?'
Orbelon gave a cynical laugh. 'Offer her? Nothing. For I at least am under no illusion. She will never willingly return it to me.'
'Do you know its location?'
'I labour under the probably forlorn hope that you might be able to furnish me with that information.'
The three children scrutinized him for some moments before saying, 'We can tell you nothing in that regard.'
'And what of your own Soul?'
'Perhaps in the same place as yours, wherever that may be. Or somewhere close by. Strymnia has never seen fit to inform us.'
'And you have never seen fit to search for it?'
'Where? We might scour the whole world and worlds beyond and not find it. No, our plan is the best, most direct route.'
Orbelon stood silently, his head bowed in thought. At length he said, 'Triune, we should combine our forces.'
'What forces? It seems to Triune that we have forces while you have none. Hence your bargaining power scarcely lifts itself above the negligible.'
'It is possible I may surprise you there.'
'Yes? Well, let us suppose it is so. To what end should we combine?'
'To gain what we both seek so that we may once again face Strymnia and all our ancient adversaries on equal terms.'
'It sounds fascinating, and yet there must be something more in it for you, for the Orbelon of old would never come seeking to be merely equal.'
'I am not the Orbelon of old. And this is something I wish to speak to you about. Privately.'
'Privately?'
'That is so.'
Triune flicked a triple-glance at Issul and Shenwolf. 'And you believe it will benefit us?'
'I do,' Orbelon said.
'Very well.' The tallest child motioned with a hand. Triune vanished, as did Orbelon
iii
'Orbelon!'
Issul stepped forward, alarmed, but the god was no longer within the chamber. Fear rose in her breast. She looked around her wildly but there was no visible exit, save the window. To this she went. More than one hundred feet below the ground fell away in a steep, grassy, rocky slope which swelled and slowly broke and re-formed as though its constitution was fluid and impermanent. She turned back. The blue casket of the Orb still rested on the floor where she had laid it. This gave her some hope. If the casket had not gone, then neither had Orbelon - at least, not far.
Unless . . . Had things changed now? Was Orbelon free of the Orb?
Her mind reeled.
Shenwolf gave his attention back to the walls, seeking a hidden door, but he found nothing.
'We can only wait.'
'I don’t like it.' Issul picked up the casket. She held it in two hands, the fear profound in her that it might be plucked away. She lowered herself to the floor, her back against the stone wall. 'I don’t like it!'
Shenwolf sat down beside her. She sensed his tension. He had changed, was no longer the cheerful, devil-may-care young soldier of just two weeks ago. He wanted to speak, she knew. He was profoundly troubled, but the words did not come readily.
And in her own mind was the understanding: I am wholly at the mercy of beings infinitely more powerful than I. I cannot hope to comprehend them, nor do I know whether I can trust any of them in any way. I am possibly a pawn in their extraordinary schemings, probably even less than that. And I am helpless in their grasp. Everything I cherish may be lost.
Was she right ever to have put her trust in Orbelon? How many times had she asked herself that question? Leth had trusted him, as it seemed had his mother, Queen Fallorn, and the monarchs of Enchantment's Reach before her. But what good had come of it? Look where it had got Leth.
Orbelon, no matter his protestations of concern, was one of the Highest Ones of Enchantment. His ultimate loyalty could not be to Issul or her kind. She had been conscious of that from the beginning. Now he was returned to his own land, among his own kind. He sought his Soul, yes, but now that they were in Enchantment Issul could do nothing more to help him find it. But if Triune could . . .
They care nothing for Enchantment's Reach!
Issul sat there in agitation, her fingertips running distractedly over the glyphs and beading on the surface of the blue casket. Time passed; her anxiety mounted. Her thoughts flew to Enchantment's Reach. What was happening there now? Was it besieged? Under direct attack by the creatures of the Karai? How was Pader Luminis coping in his role of Lord Protector? Had Fectur attempted to move against him? She wondered if Fectur had learned yet of her capture by - and subsequent escape from - Commander Gordallith and his men. How would he react to this news? Her concern over Fectur's state of mind came to the fore again. What was his plan? What was he not capable of?
And she thought again of her children.
'Issul?'
Shenwolf's voice snapped her back to awareness. 'Yes.'
'May I call you that?'
She nodded.
'You were lost in thought.'
'I have much to occupy me.'
Shenwolf hesitated, then said, 'Perhaps this is not the best time, but I feel I must say what is on my mind.'
'Speak, then.'
'It has to do with what we spoke of, in the forest on the way here. About my past.'
'There is something you have not revealed?'
'No, not that. I am shaken by what I have discovered about myself - that is to say, that there is so much that is unknown. I feel fear, therefore, where before I did not question. Fear of what may lie within me, that I harbour something that I cannot know or trust.'
Issul managed a small smile. 'In many ways I would say that fails to mark you out as being so different from the greater mass of humanity, myself included.'
'In the forest you mentioned the name 'Urch-Malmain'. You say that it is he who has done to me whatever has been done. Now Orbelon and these Triune children speak of him again, as though he were one of their kind, yet at the same time also their enemy.'
'I said only that we suspect Urch-Malmain's involvement at this time. But we do not know, Shenwolf. We simply do not know.'
'But what, or who, is he?'
'I can tell you only what I have learned from Orbelon. Urch-Malmain was a creature like Strymnia, one of those beings we term the Highest Ones, and with Strymnia he worked to overthrow Orbelon. He was powerful and given to turpitude. He drew perhaps his most formidable powers from his ability to alter the minds of others. He has not been heard of since Orbelon's defeat, yet now Orbelon feels him close by and strongly suspects his influence in this dark affair, at least in part.'
Shenwolf stayed silent for some moments, then said in a low voice, 'I am afraid. I will admit it. I have fought men and beasts and monsters and known the fear that such combat carries with it. But that is a good fear, a worthy fear, a fear that can almost be relished. But this . . . the fear of what may lie within me, that I may not be the person I believe myself to be, that my greatest enemy may yet be myself . . . this is a fear like nothing I have known.'
'But at the moment it is a fear of what could be, not of what is,' said Issul.
Shenwolf shook his head. 'I have come from Urch-Malmain, that much is virtually beyond doubt.'
'It may be. But you have proven yourself to me again and again.'
'But tomorrow, or the next day, or even five minutes hence, might be the ti
me that you learn I am your enemy.'
Issul took his hand. He turned to her and she saw again the pain in his young blue eyes, and felt within her the throb of some powerful emotion which she could not, or did not wish to, admit to. 'We will fight this thing,' she whispered. 'Together.'
The air before her flickered. For a moment she thought Shenwolf had vanished, then she realized that he in fact almost certainly remained where he was and that it was she who had been transported from the chamber.
She was in a long, vaulted gallery. Further back a fine mesh of some sort of greenish gelatinous substance was strung from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Behind it something huge and monstrous thrashed.
The air was highly charged. Issul felt the hairs on her skin prickling. She recoiled involuntarily as the thing behind the mesh threw itself towards her. She could make out no distinct form. The creature - if creature it was - was huge but seemed to lack true substance, for she could see through it to the wall behind. But as it struck the mesh, as though with solid mass, the mesh bellied out. Issul saw the suggestion of grotesque limbs, a confusion of changing heads and faces or facial features. It was gargantuan, inhuman, repellent, brutish - all these things and more. No one feature remained constant for more than a couple of heartbeats. They came together and were torn apart, reforming into other semblances.
She drew away reflexively, jumping to her feet, though the monster seemed securely confined behind the mesh. It prowled, a shadow. It paused as though watching her, though she perceived no eyes. Then in a spasm of rage it flung itself once more against the mesh. And the strangest thing: it made absolutely no sound.
'This is the Reach Rider,' Orbelon said, and she realized that he stood at her shoulder, Triune a little way off to one side.
Issul still clutched the blue casket. She could not take her eyes off the creature. 'This is what will bring chaos to my land?'
'If it is released, yes.'
'It seems only half-here, without real substance.'
'That is precisely what it is. Drawn from Enchantment, the Reach Rider is genuinely the projection of a higher-dimensional life form. In effect what we are witnessing is analogous to its shadow, cast in three dimensions. The creature itself requires a minimum of eleven dimensions in which to fully manifest. We should perhaps be thankful that three, or at most four, are the best that can be achieved on this plane of existence. Still, the shadow is adequate as far as its purpose here is concerned.'
