by Martin Ash
He thought of Issul as he had just seen her. Her voice, her mannerisms, everything about her had been utterly convincing. He had felt so sure of her presence, could almost have touched her, kissed her, had all but smelled her familiar scent. And her words, her joy and sadness, the account she gave of herself - everything combined to persuade him that it had genuinely been her. And that being so, he knew that no force on this world or beyond could coerce Issul into betraying her own children.
But to take the children to Enchantment . . .
A nervousness gripped his innards. He looked around him into the trees, noting the light slanting from low in the sky, and thought: where else? Giswel Holt has fallen, Enchantment's Reach is besieged. Nowhere is safe.
He became aware of Galry and Jace. They were tearful, understandably confused and disappointed. Leth knelt and took them both in his arms. He tried to explain in the simplest terms, but his words were inadequate. The children would not be comforted, and he could hardly blame them.
But she was real! It was neither illusion, bewitchment, nor the product of my derangement. It was real. She was here. She is alive!
With this conviction in his heart he stood. He helped Galry back into the shirt he had discarded, then, taking the children's hands, cast his gaze once more into the surrounding wildwood, and moved on.
EIGHT
i
Leth and the children passed the night in the village of Little Sprike, a small cluster of humble wood and stone dwellings huddled deep in the forest. Much of the land surrounding the village had been cleared and set to arable and pasture, enabling the villagers to sustain a modest lifestyle.
Arriving in Little Sprike, Leth sought out and found the farmer Jalibir without difficulty. A leather-skinned, ruddy-cheeked man in his middle years, with strong, suntanned limbs, a cheerful manner and witty tongue, Jalabir managed a small farm at the edge of the village. For a fair price he was happy to sell Leth not only a horse but a donkey tool, upon which Galry and Jace could ride. The horse was a grey mare - a nag, really - no longer young but gentle-natured and still quite sturdy. Certainly she was robust enough to bear Leth as far as he wanted to go. Jalibir summoned a neighbour, and for a few coppers more Leth was able to purchase saddles and bridles for both beasts.
Leth, Galry and Jace ate with Jalibir in the home that he shared with his wife and teenaged son and daughter. He served them with a haunch of roast venison, potatoes with herbs, fresh root vegetables and flagons of strong red wine. They slept the night in the hayloft above his byre, where several cows and sheep and a soft bed of hay helped ward off the night's chill.
In the morning Jalibir and his family bolstered them with a fine breakfast of sweet frumenty, pork hash with eggs and sage, and a steaming spiced almond caudle laced with spirit of molasses. Jalibir gave them provisions sufficient to see them through the day and perhaps beyond, and waved them on their way.
The morning was damp and chill, in contrast to the previous day. During the night thick clouds had gathered and descended low over the forest, leaving a pall of dense fog. With no breath of a breeze to stir it, it lay silent upon the forest, opaque and utterly still. By mid-morning the sun had failed to burn through. Leth and the children rode wrapped in blankets that he had bought from another of Little Sprike's inhabitants. As the cold fog condensed and slid in dull silver beads from overhanging leaves and branches the ground beneath the hooves of Leth's mare and the donkey grew soft and moist and slippery. Vision was restricted to barely more than twenty yards.
Though he enquired, Leth had learned nothing in Little Sprike to enlighten him any further about the current state of Enchantment's Reach. There were rumours aplenty, augmented by rumours of rumours in almost equal amount. Jalibir's family needed little prompting to repeat as many of them as they could summon to mind. From their efforts Leth was apprised of little that he had not already gleaned the previous evening from Bicault and Anacissia. Karai had been seen heading north in endless columns. Villages and towns along their path had fallen, as had the great castle of Giswel Holt. Lord Hugo was dead; the capital, Enchantment's Reach, was under investment. Flying monsters and gigantic troll-creatures supplemented the Karai ranks, to devastating effect.
Little Sprike itself was almost as isolated from the greater world of Enchantment's Reach as Bicault's little cottage on the shore of Wyslow Water. What news arrived threw consternation into the hearts of the villagers, and was instantly subject to fevered conjecture and speculation. But it was like strange rumours from afar, prey to distortion and exaggeration in the course of their travels. Thus when Leth was told of bolts of crimson lightning being drawn from the sky to shatter the magnificent towers of the great capital, he was quietly inclined to scepticism. And stories of magical engines capable of blasting through the ancient walls, and of gods and their evil minions rising together to fly out of Enchantment and add their number to Prince Anzejarl's great horde, he greeted with equanimity. He applied his mind to those elements of the villagers' tales that lay reliably within the purview of his own recent experience and the information he had garnered since leaving Enchantment's Reach. In the final analysis he had only confirmed what he already knew: that the gravity of the situation had deepened considerably, and that almost anything might be true.
As with Bicault and Anacissia, Leth had detected an air of unwitting complacency in Jalibir, his family and neighbours in Little Sprike. They spoke always of the conflict as though it ravaged another land, somewhere distant and remote. The physical isolation of Little Sprike encouraged a sense of the same among its inhabitants, as though the outside world could not truly touch them. Leth had tried to impress upon Jalibir that if the soldiers of Enchantment's Reach were not successful in driving the Karai from their land quickly, then sooner or later the Karai would come here, to the lonely places. And when they did they would not deal kindly with those they found.
But Leth could tell that his message was not wholly penetrating Jalibir's skull. The villagers perceived the great forest of Enchantment's Reach as forming a vast protective shroud about Little Sprike which no evil might penetrate bar those evils that already resided there. Their unspoken conviction verged upon the religious, and indeed their reverence for the forest more than resembled something they might bestow upon a deity. This disturbed Leth, who was acutely conscious of how easily such faith might be shattered.
Jalibir expounded in a little more detail on the condition of the capital itself. The family had heard tales that both the King and Queen had departed - fleeing to protect themselves, cynics said - but Jalibir steadfastly refused to believe such a thing. There was a rumour that the Lord High Invigilate had stepped in to take control and rid the country of the Karai pestilence. Jalibir likewise took that mootly.
Leth listened to these stories with an eager ear. Plainly much had filtered out from the capital by one means or another. No mention was made of Pader Luminis, and Leth was unable to determine anything certain of what had happened since Issul had departed.
*
Leth rode from Little Sprike with mixed emotions. He felt sadness and a weight of responsibility. It was his sworn duty to protect these people, and his heart told him he was failing. If he could not rally the forces to turn back his enemy's advance, then the enemy would be here, in weeks or days.
But what forces could he rally? Beyond his own, there were none.
He had winced when he heard Jalibir speak of the villages and towns that had been overrun, and the acrimony with which his own name was referred to by the fleeing survivors who believed his troops should have been there to protect them. Leth felt impelled to ride directly for Enchantment's Reach, there to re-enter the palace of Orbia and reclaim the throne that had been seized from his grasp by such unjust and devious means. He burned inside as he thought of Fectur.
Was the man mad? Where was the logic in his actions, to so undermine the integrity of the nation at such a critical time? Blind ambition could surely not in itself explain it, for on t
he surface of things Fectur had little to gain. Ruthless he might be, but not foolish or impetuous. To have moved as decisively against the throne as he had done at this time appeared to defy all rationale.
Unless he knew something that no one else did.
Unless he had a pact with Anzejarl.
Could it be possible? Or - the thought entered King Leth's mind for the first time, and turned him cold - could Fectur be under the influence of another? Could a spell, a powerful cantrip or rapture of some kind have been placed upon him?
Leth mulled over this, and into his mind sprang the image of Urch-Malmain.
But how? The Noeticist was trapped in Orbelon's world. He could surely not have touched Fectur?
Still, there were others. It seemed far-fetched, and Leth recognized that he was grasping at straws. But where else other than within those three options - madness, a clandestine pact, or supernatural influence - could the answer to Fectur's behaviour lie?
Leth let the thought pass. Again he was seized by the impulse to ride for Enchantment's Reach. Here in the wilderness he was powerless. But if Pader Luminis led the government, he would to hand the reins of power back to Leth with alacrity. Then, somehow, Leth would find the means to rid his nation of Prince Anzejarl's bloodless swarm.
Leth sighed. Issul's admonition notwithstanding, he knew the capital was beyond his reach. Even were he able to enter, the Karai were not so easily moved.
But to turn and ride to Enchantment . . ?
Over and over again Leth considered this, and over and over he relived his encounter with Issul the previous day. Alive! After such remorseless dark despondency, such a total loss of hope and reason, to discover that she had survived after all. . . Overnight his dreams had been haunted by her. More than once he had awoken, believing her lost, and had lain in the pitch dark, gradually reassuring himself that what he had experienced had been true, that Issul was alive. That knowledge infused him with new hope. The desire to continue and fight on, which had become blunted and subdued within him, hardly more than the life-force that sustained him, had been renewed.
But he was chastened by the knowledge of just how much still remained to be overcome. To be reunited with Issul was one thing, to do battle with gods, the Karai and the Legendary Child was another.
And he wondered, did Prince Anzejarl know that both the King and Queen of Enchantment's Reach were absent from the capital? Might it trouble or encourage him if he did?
Leth considered again his adventures of recent days. He had been convinced that his entry into Orbelon's world had been a random event, the outcome of pure chance. But he was struck by the apparent unfolding of a meaningful pattern. In the eyes of the inhabitants of Orbelon's world he had somehow been drawn there, at the proper time as they perceived it, as a god for whom they had long waited. No matter his knowledge that he was no such being.
He had performed the task they had demanded, which they believed him destined to perform, that no other might accomplish.
Godlike, he had rid them of their scourge and allowed life to return to their bleak, alien world.
It was as though he truly was the agent of their Creator, who they did not know, who was Orbelon, cast from and ignorant of the true nature of his own creation.
And then Leth had passed from their world, back into his own.
Leth stared ahead unseeing, into the surrounding pall of still white mist and the trees that stood within it like tall, half-seen shadows. What does all this mean?
Did seeking meaning even make sense? Perhaps all that happened was random, bereft of ultimate purpose - yet part of him rebelled at that. The urge to know, to find purpose and meaning, was so dominant within him. Perhaps, then, there was purpose that could never be wholly perceived or assimiliated by the minds of human beings. He grew frustrated. Always mystery prevailed . . . as though mystery was the natural form.
We are entering Mystery, Leth. Do you not wish to travel?
I have travelled, thought Leth with passion. I was not allowed to choose.
In our desperation to explain Mystery any one of us may be drawn to unreliable conclusions.
Whose words were those? Not Orbelon's. No, they were Pader's. Leth recalled Pader Luminis speculating on the possible origins of the True Sept's system of belief. The dream of a madman who does not know that he dreamed.
Then Orbelon again: No matter how far you go there will always be something unknown and hidden beyond.
Leth closed his eyes. And he heard Orbelon's voice once more: No matter how far you might travel, the journey, truly, is one that leads inwards. It is in a kind of madness, a letting-go of all that is known and familiar, that an answer may be found.
Leth had resisted when he first heard those words. He had been fearful, feeling that he stood upon the precipice and was being asked to take that final fateful step forward.
Are you alone, Leth, within yourself?
Leth clenched his jaw, staring again into the enveloping white fog. His mind moved on. He found himself thinking of Lakewander, and the image of her within him brought with it a queer pang of emotion. Had she truly taken his seed, there on the Shore of Nothing? Did it merge and grow inside her now? In coming months was she to become mother to his child, the child of a god who had come, as summoned, and then passed from her world? What was that child to become?
Again he was struck by the impenetrability of it all, combined with the growing conviction that a pattern, a meaningful stream, flowed through it.
He reflected upon the presence of Urch-Malmain, a malign god, dispossessed like Orbelon, enfeebled like Orbelon, yet still incalculably powerful, and extant within him. Trapped and seeking to escape, a demonic presence, routinely altering the minds and memories of others on a whim or in answer to some perverse desire. And Leth wondered whether, within Urch-Malmain, who like Orbelon had passed eons in unconsciousness, waiting without ever knowing that he waited - within him did yet another world exist? Did it grow, evolve, become, seeking to know itself and its purpose?
Where could it all end?
Leth caught his breath in profound bafflement and forced himself to concentrate on the way ahead. The path that he and the children followed was a little-used track, barely wide enough for a single cart to pass. It followed or worked around the contours of the land - a wild land here, still forest clad, and all sudden craggy upthrusts, dramatic columns or ragged ridges of granite and limestone, and deep ravines where foaming streams thrashed.
A league or so ahead Leth knew that the way broke out onto the main southern road which linked Giswel in the south to Enchantment's Reach itself, running via the market township of Crosswood. The southern road would be in full use by the Karai, but before that, so Jalibir had informed him, another way branched off the track they now followed. This was Angsway, an ancient, barely plied trail, named after the notorious robber, Baron Ang, who had operated along its length over a period of years, until perhaps four or five years ago. Angsway ran deeper into the vast forest, passing through some of the remotest regions of Enchantment's Reach's hidden heart. It emerged eventually upon a western way which, according to Jalibir, passed within an hour or two's ride of Ghismile Tarn.
'Many reckon Angsway to be haunted, Sir Clun,' Jalibir had cautioned. 'The spirits of the ancients wander its length, so it's said, seeking freedom from this world and unwary victims to carry with them on their way. You'll pass tombs sacred to races we know nothing of - and be careful to leave them undisturbed. Werebeasts and ghouls come out on certain nights, attracted to Angsway by forces we can’t perceive. Mad Baron Ang is said to gallop his ghostly mount up and down Angsway in search of trespassers. And when he finds them . . . well, I'll say nothing more. All of these things may be true, or none of them, and you'll want to stay alert and avoid trouble. But if you're keen to stay off the southern road, Angsway's the only choice you've got.'
Leth knew of Angsway and the many legends and tavern-tales attached to it. Which, if any, were true and which the product
s of over-active imaginations he had no way of knowing. But risks there certainly were. Angsway crossed some of the most lawless and desolate regions of his kingdom. Certainly, until just a few years ago, robber gangs and lone highwaymen had been active there. All were said to pay a percentage of their profits to the infamous Baron Ang in return for his permission to ply their nefarious trade along the way he considered his dominion.
Leth's mother, Queen Fallorn, had dispatched forces to track them down, but on the whole had enjoyed little success, for the villains darted skilfully hither and thither, striking always in those places where Fallorn's police were not. Baron Ang himself had been particularly deft at staying beyond the grasp of the law. Even the location of his castle remained a mystery.
In the end, however, the robbers and brigands had become their own worst enemies. So effective had they been at depriving travellers of their valuables, and in many cases their lives too, that fewer and fewer persons elected to use Angsway, other than those wealthy enough to employ a strong guard as deterrent. Baron Ang was said to have retired gracefully to enjoy a life of debauchery and ease; a rumour later circulated that he had died in a hunting accident. The ancient road that bore his name fell into disuse a year or so before Leth acceded to the throne.
Leth also knew that somewhere in this region, closer to the southern road and probably some way further north, his senior knight and military advisor, Sir Cathbo, led a force of three hundred elite fighters from Enchantment's Reach in raids upon the Karai host. That is, if Cathbo still survived. Through Leth's mind had flashed the notion of trying to link up with Sir Cathbo, but he dismissed it almost immediately. The region was vast and trackless. Cathbo might be almost anywhere, or he might now be lying in cold and still repose beneath the dark soil of Enchantment's Reach. Whatever his state, to find him Leth would have to search close to the Karai army that he harried. The idea was impracticable.
