by Martin Ash
Sir Almric strode off. Pader happened to glance along the parapets. Thirty paces away a solitary figure stood. Lord Fectur, Master of Security for Enchantment's Reach, rested his hands upon a pair of merlons and stared down between, his face set into a near-scowl as he took in the distant Karai.
Yes, thought Pader, and what tricks have you up your sleeve, my lord?
Fectur turned, perhaps becoming aware of Pader's gaze. His grey eyes settled upon the small-statured Murinean. Pader hesitated, then approached him, Kol at his side. Sir Grenyard and the squad of guards came behind. 'Good morning, my lord.'
Fectur nodded, his face, near-expressionless, nevertheless managing to convey scathing contempt. 'Lord Protector! Your glorious hour is at hand, by all indications.'
'Would that it were otherwise. But I think you know that glory is not my goal. My efforts are directed solely towards preserving the integrity of our realm.'
'We are in harmony, then,' said Fectur icily.
'I would hope so, my lord! It would - ha-ha! - it would worry me mightily to think that anything else could be the case, at any time, let alone one as critical as this!'
A nerve twitched at the corner of Fectur's mouth.
Pader began, 'Would you--' - and was interrupted by a cry from Sir Grenyard. He was pointing southeastwards into the sky where, from within a layer of mist, four dark, heavy winged shapes had appeared.
Pader felt Kol's hand upon his arm. 'Lord Protector, we must move indoors.'
They quickly withdrew from the ramparts. From a window they watched as the four slooths came in over the city. They were high, well beyond the reach of any missile, their great wings flapping lazily. As they came closer they moved apart, then began to circle, each above a separate area of the city-castle.
They came lower. Pader saw arrows fly from several towers, but none struck home. He heard faint cries from the streets below. The slooths circled slowly two more times, then began to climb, drawing together again, and flapped away towards the southeast.
ii
It was a time unlike any that Lord Fectur had known in his entire life. Never before had his plans gone so consistently awry. It was as though Fate toyed with him, wrongfooting him at every turn. Never had he experienced such uncertainty, such violent, relentless, incommunicable turmoil.
Shreds. They were still all he had. He pulled them together, worked so assiduously to fill the gaping holes, only to find others forming almost before his eyes. And all the while a wall of silence was building around him.
For a perfectionist like the Spectre, accustomed to the acquisition and expedient application of information, such a ragged tapestry was intolerable. Such a wall was a galling affront, and a deadly threat. Others knew more than he. Separately or together they worked to keep him in the dark, and his intelligence network, normally unerring, was failing him.
Too much had gone wrong!
How?
Fectur found himself uncharacteristically formulating stratagems that reeked of desperation. Into his mind sprang implausible scenarios, though hardly more implausible than the reality that confronted him. He devised unsound remedies to imperfectly diagnosed conditions, then abruptly, recognizing their worthlessness, dispensed with them and began to consider others, equally deficient. His mind would not be still. He was thinking the unthinkable, facing the unfaceable. For the first time in his life Fectur was beginning to fear.
Yesterday evening had brought yet more unwelcome news. In the dark hours a solitary rider had returned to Enchantment's Reach. He was a member of The Spectre's security cadre, a man skilled and pitiless, one of the blackhearts who had accompanied Commander Gordallith in pursuit of the Queen. His name was Vos, and he brought with him the first word from Gordallith.
Fectur had been keenly awaiting news. He received Vos in his private office inside the Ministry of Security building. But as Vos delivered his report Fectur's face fell. He found himself scarcely believing his ears. The report was a schedule of mishaps and blunders. Absolutely nothing had gone to plan. At first he almost scoffed as Vos told him of the devastating grullag attack on the Queen's company.
'I do not lead you false, my lord,' Vos had insisted, correctly interpreting the look of disbelief on Lord Fectur's face. 'They attacked suddenly, in a mass, and with co-ordination. The Queen's men were caught by surprise, and suffered for it. The battle was brief. Commander Gordallith wishes me to inform you that the purpose of the attack was to secure the release of the leader of the True Sept, Grey Venger, who was the Queen's prisoner.'
Fectur's eyes had widened. 'What?'
'Furthermore, my Commander instructs me to inform you explicitly that the grullags were organized and under the command of a child. Commander Gordallith wishes you to know that this is the same child who he interviewed in the village of Lastmeadow.'
Fectur's jaw had dropped open. He sat staring into nowhere, then in a trance he had risen from his desk. 'By all the . . . !' He paced across the chamber, then back, hearing nothing but the resounding yammer of his own thoughts. It was some moments before he recovered himself and rounded upon Vos again. 'Well? What else, man? What else?'
The news had not improved. Vos told of the Queen's flight from the battle and how, as Gordallith's men searched for her, she had come upon them, giving them little option but to take her prisoner.
Fectur became ominously still at this. 'She saw Gordallith? How did he explain himself?'
'My Commander kept his face covered. He does not believe she recognized him, or any of us,' said Vos. A sweat had broken out upon his brow.
'What of the chest she carries?'
'It was to preserve it that she fled the battle. She deems it of the highest importance. But when we apprehended her the chest was missing. She took us to the place where she said she had hidden it, but it was not there. It was unclear whether she tricked us or it had been stolen, as she claimed. She was greatly distressed by its absence, however.'
The chest!
'Did you recover it?'
'No, my lord.'
She was taking it to Enchantment. She had been there before. And inside the chest, within the blue casket that it contained, somehow, it was as good as certain, was a god whose name was Orbelon.
What did it mean if it was lost? Had it fallen into the hands of Venger and the Legendary Child?
'Did the Queen tell you anything about it?'
'She said it had some connection with Enchantment, my lord, where she also said she was bound. She had declared that the forces of Enchantment would be brought down upon all our heads if she was not permitted to continue on her way with it.'
Fectur closed his eyes. 'Where is the Queen now?'
Vos had swallowed. 'I regret, my lord, she escaped.'
Fectur barely flinched. His eyes became slits. He inhaled a long breath. Then his voice came from between his teeth, low and, initially, far too steady. 'It is strange,' he said. 'I believed I had sent a team of specialists upon this mission. Trained, skilled men. Experts in their respective arts, men in whom I could have every confidence. Instead-' his voice began to rise '-instead I find I am served by a group of fumble-fingered, bleary-eyed, dung-eating lackwits. Buttock-brained jakes-dwellers who bang heads and fall over one another's feet while a slip of a girl runs rings around them and leaves them gawping helplessly in the woods like drunken baboons!' Fectur's face had turned dark crimson; flecks of spittle flew from his lips. His voice rose to a higher pitch, even as he recalled that it was he who had taught Issul so well. 'What manner of incompetence is this, man? She escaped? How was it possible for her to escape? And did Gordallith not give chase?'
'She was not alone, my lord,' replied Vos, standing rigidly, steeled, his voice constricted. 'Our horses were set loose. By the time we had recovered them and were in a position to give chase darkness had fallen. We could not find her trail again before morning. She rode away with one other, that much we know. Commander Gordallith continues to track her, but it is an arduous task.'
Fectur had stormed to the side of the room, fighting to regain control of himself. Had Issul recovered the chest? Who was this other who aided her?
'Shenwolf!' he spat the name.
'My lord?'
'How many survived the Grullag attack?' demanded Fectur.
'Perhaps half, my lord.'
'But they did not rejoin her?'
'They mounted a search, without success.' Vos had swallowed, then added, 'There is one other thing, my lord. A strange, uncanny phenomenon. While the Queen was in our custody she appeared to summon phantoms to aid her. A pair of horse-warriors, without substance yet most real to the eye. She called out to them, invoking the name of the King. They appeared, rode towards her, then vanished.'
Fectur had glared at him, ever more uncertain of what to make of what he was hearing. Phantom horsemen? Grullags, the Child, Grey Venger? And how, how, could Gordallith be so inept? To accidentally kidnap the Queen? Then to allow her to escape? What was he doing?
And who now had the chest and the god within it?
A god! A god! To possess such a thing!
There is power!
'Begone from my sight!' he snarled. 'Return at first light. I will have new orders for Gordallith.'
Fectur had spent much of the night pacing his chambers, fuming, disbelieving, damning as he grappled with the problem of how best to deal with this setback. In the end there was little he could do. Then news arrived that the Karai were at the base of the scarp. And at dawn Vos returned.
'Rejoin Gordallith and inform him that his orders remain unchanged,' commanded Fectur. 'He is to find the Queen, as before. I do not expect her to return. He is to locate the chest - and most vitally the casket that is inside it - and bring it to me. Go now. I will not tolerate any further incompetence.'
Vos swallowed apprehensively and said, 'I regret, my lord, I cannot leave. The Karai are outside our walls.'
Fectur turned him a gelid stare. He advanced to stand directly before him, their bodies almost touching. Slowly, deliberately, through clenched teeth, he said, 'I am aware of that. But you are a specialist of the Security Cadre, are you not? So, Vos, you will use stealth. You will become invisible. You will move through the Karai and the Karai will not see you. You will pass like a mote of breeze-blown dust through a field of corn. Do you understand? And you will find Gordallith and you will tell him everything that I have said. Do you understand?'
Vos nodded, gulping. 'My lord.'
He saluted then, and turned and departed.
Fectur had considered a moment more. No, he could not run the risk of Vos being taken by the Karai. There was too much he could tell them. Gordallith's orders were essentially unchanged; he knew what he must do, and would certainly be most anxious not to make any more mistakes. Fectur tugged upon a tasselled rope which descended from the ceiling against one wall. Some moments passed, then there was a sharp rap upon the door. At Fectur's command a man entered, a cadre agent, thickset and scarred upon cheek, nose and chin, wearing no uniform. He saluted smartly.
'Vos thinks to leave us,' Fectur said. 'His motives are not concordant with my own. He must be stopped. Be discreet.'
'Do you wish to see him again, my lord?'
Fectur gave a single shake of his head. 'He has failed me.'
The cadre agent saluted again and marched from the office. Fectur returned to his desk. Gordallith, you fool!
He had brooded. Does Fate truly play games with me? Are there forces at work here that I cannot comprehend?
It had all been going so well. He had believed Fortune was with him, Fate permitting him to play out his destiny. His courting of the factions, King Leth's ill-advised overtures to the True Sept; the Queen's disappearance, Leth's continuing refusal to hear any voice but his own. In the end his removal from office had been almost effortless.
And then King Leth had vanished. Somehow. With his children. And the Queen had returned from the dead, professing ignorance of her family's fate when in fact, it had now become plain, she knew far more than Fectur himself! And incredibly, she, like the Karai, had acquired the patronage of one of the Highest Ones.
Fectur clenched his fists hard upon the desktop. Pader Luminis had known the truth all along! He and the Queen, heads together, conspiring!
And now, what was this Soul of the Orb that she and the god, Orbelon, sought in Enchantment? How did this link with what Fectur already knew?
Fectur considered Mawnie, the Duchess Demawndella, lying stricken in her chambers. His best efforts had failed to draw information from her, though his instincts told him she had something to tell, something she had never disclosed about the terrible incident with her twin sister Ressa on Sentinel Peak. Could there possibly be a link with everything that was happening now?
Fectur ground his teeth, feeling a tight, piercing pain behind his brow, feeling that his customary control was dangerously compromised, a murderous wrath welling within him. There had been no word from the True Sept. Two days earlier Fectur had released the prisoner, Iklar, from his cell in the bowels of the Ministry of Realm Security and dispatched him with a message, back to Overlip and his Sept masters. The message was not complex. Iklar was simply to repeat what the Lord High Invigilate had told him: that King Leth had broken his promise to Grey Venger; that at Leth's behest Venger had been spirited from Enchantment's Reach by the Queen; that despite what they had claimed, neither the King nor Queen had direct access to the Legendary Child.
Then Iklar was to speak further words. He was to inform his Sept masters that the Spectre had word of the Soul of the Orb. Finally, and crucially, he was to say, 'Another Soul. The Second Flame burns most brightly. All shadows are dispelled.'
These final words were a mystery to Fectur. He had drawn them out of the Sept agent his men had intercepted attempting to make contact with the Karai. A pity he had not been caught later, as he left Prince Anzejarl, carrying the Karai response. But the risk of losing him altogether had been too great.
What could the words mean? The man had whispered them into Fectur's ear on his dying breath. In his death delirium, racked with the agonies of Fectur's ministrations, he had perceived The Spectre as someone else. He had passed out of this world under the conviction that he had delivered his message as ordered. Had he lived longer he could have told nothing more, for Fectur was satisfied that the man would himself have been ignorant of the meaning of the message he carried.
Likewise Iklar, who was also a simple messenger, if perhaps a half rung higher than the dead agent. Fectur could but speculate. The words taunted and tantalized, almost connecting with what he already had, but in the end leaving him baffled. But they meant something to the High Priests of the Sept, that was certain. And they must also mean something to Prince Anzejarl.
Issul's manouevres had prevented Fectur from testing the words on Grey Venger's ears, but Iklar had the means to return them to the True Sept's heart where, at this late stage, Fectur had been confident they would elicit a response in some form.
Instead the Sept was unmoved. Fectur grew uneasy in the silence.
Prince Anzejarl's army was at the walls. Most probably another Sept agent would have succeeded in delivering the coded message to him.
The mighty Spectre sat alone at his desk, the pain in his head persistent as he turned over and over in his mind the bald, brutal, undigestable fact that all of his enemies were better-informed than he.
iii
The first attack came at midnight. It followed the pattern set earlier at Giswel Holt, with the exception that here it took place under the cover of total darkness.
The moon was a slender crescent concealed behind dense cloud, allowing the first wave of slooths to come in undetected, their numbers inestimable. Only at the last moment did the most alert of sentries catch the sinister beat of their heavy wings whacking the air, low like far off rhythmic t
hunder, despite their proximity. By then the slooths were already letting loose their cargo. Kegs and bladders filled with highly flammable oils dropped unseen through the quiet dark to smash open and gush their contents onto roofs and streets.
The second wave, coming almost immediately behind, drew a collective gasp from the city-castle's observers. They appeared suddenly out of the cloud, made visible only by the flaming brands they clasped in their talons. A fiery shower, awful and spectacular to the eye, descending suddenly. There were dozens of them; scores, like plummeting stars.
Bolts, arrows and larger missiles sped skywards in their hundreds. But already the firebrands were tumbling freely, the slooths themselves rendered invisible again by the night. Conflagrations flared suddenly in a hundred locations across Enchantment's Reach, but the enemy was gone. Not a single slooth had been brought down, and probably none were even injured.
In the morning numerous smoke plumes still spiralled into the sky, blending quickly into the dense pall of cloud overhead. The flames had all been doused. First reports told of a dozen deaths: men, women and children trapped in their burning homes. A single soldier had also been killed, struck by a stray bolt from his own side. Several homes and business premises were gutted, as was a stable within Orbia palace, with the loss of three cavalry mounts.
Pader Luminis called for immediate consultation with government and military heads. At the Table of Debate, Gursmaeden, in the Hall of Wise Counsel, the various ministers, knights and officiers gathered to hear assessments and voice concerns.
Sir Grenyard spoke first, his eyes heavy for, like the others he had slept little. But his tone was defiant. 'Assaults of this nature will not bring Anzejarl the victory he craves. They are disruptive and sap morale, but if this is all he intends to put against us we can meet him without great loss or damage.'
