He begged Meheg-Ba to set him free.
The demon mocked him for a while, but eventually said, ‘You know there is a price to pay for your freedom.’
‘I had guessed,’ said Ashurek with what sarcasm he could muster.
‘Don’t worry – it is a very simple task. I am going to deliver you to another dimension where you will fetch a small jewel known as the Egg-Stone. Then I will send you home.’
‘Why can’t you fetch the thing yourself?’
‘Because no creature of the Serpent can enter the dimension,’ the demon answered. ‘And the stone is guarded by a creature who could destroy a Shanin with the merest touch. But it offers no danger to humans, so you need not fear.’
‘Fear,’ Ashurek echoed bitterly. ‘What if I refuse?’
‘Fetch it, or keep us company here for eternity!’
‘Very well. But if you are so eager for the stone, you can do something else in return. Swear that my mother and sister will be left out of your plan, and unharmed.’
The demon grinned with red delight.
‘Of course! I swear it. But the bargain will also work in reverse. If you fail, your mother and sister will be brought here and used in any way it pleases me.’
The demon released Ashurek into a dimension of shifting grey rock. It seemed a region between worlds, like the area where two great continental plates move uneasily against each other beneath the ocean. He crossed this strange, neutral landscape with grim briskness, putting from his mind speculation as to what the Egg-Stone might be. He had no choice but to seek the artefact. At last he came to a mountain that sailed in the mist like a vast ship of stone.
When he set foot on the mountain he was still, in the Gorethrian way, innocent.
A bird flitted across the rocks in front of him as he climbed. He started, because surely Meheg-Ba had implied there was no living creature in this dimension except the Egg-Stone’s guardian? He shook his head and went doggedly on. But the bird wheeled round and began fluttering alongside him, hopping from rock to rock.
He ignored it – until it spoke.
‘Where, oh where, are you going?’ it sang in a melodious, lilting, unhuman voice.
Ashurek stared at it. It was a large female blackbird. Its tawny feathers shimmered with gold, and its small form contained more beauty and liquid grace than any living creature on Earth. He could not look at its eyes, though. Shining black and sad, they were the most beautiful eyes, the only honest eyes, he had ever seen.
‘I seek the Egg-Stone,’ he said, and climbed on.
The bird followed. ‘If, only if you can find it,’ she sang. ‘If you can find it, then you can take it.’
‘Who are you?’ he asked gruffly.
‘You should know who I am, Prince Ashurek of Gorethria. No one should come here who does not know,’ the blackbird sang, her voice gentle and sad as tears.
‘How do you know my name?’ he gasped, feeling ever more deeply disturbed by the strange creature.
‘I know everyone,’ she replied. ‘Anyone can know a name. Mine is Miril. But do you know who I am?’
‘You are the Guardian of the Egg-Stone.’
‘I am. You know that and you know my name, but you do not know me. Alas, Ashurek – will you ever know me?’
‘I know not and I care not,’ he muttered, climbing faster. Something inside him was trembling, awakening. Worse than the grief for his father, fear for his family and all the torments of the Shana, he felt a terrible stirring within, like a chick struggling to break from its shell. He should care. He did care, but he fought the feeling as though it was killing him.
‘No demon can touch me,’ Miril sighed, like wind ruffling water. ‘No human can look at me but they turn back the way they came, weeping for mankind. So should you, Ashurek, except that you will not let yourself care until it is too late, too late.’
‘Let me be!’ he cried. ‘I have to find the Egg-Stone.’
Above, he saw a sort of eyrie with a small nest upon it. He struggled up the sharp rocks and at last, breathless and bleeding, he gained the shelf of rock and looked into the nest. There he saw an object as small as a blackbird’s egg, silver-speckled blue.
Forces welled within him. The shell of innocence became more fragile. There was a thunderous gathering of dark promise, terrible bloodthirsty lust, and it emanated from the Egg-Stone.
Miril had flown ahead and perched on the other side of her nest, facing him.
‘I cannot fight one who does not know me’ she sang, her voice more strident and appealing than all the dawn choruses the world has heard. ‘So it has always been. I sing and they close their ears, I fly into their gardens and they throw stones at me. I have kept the world safe from the Egg-Stone for so long, but now the Worm’s time has come. Take it!’
And Ashurek reached into the nest and took the Egg-Stone. It was as heavy as lead and it transfixed him, seeming to whisper to him. He felt the throbbing of its dreadful, dark power and knew that, even if he changed his mind, he would be unable to put it back.
The bird’s lovely body shuddered and sagged, as if racked by terrible pain.
‘I know it for the evil it is,’ she said softly, ‘for it was given into my keeping, that the Earth be protected from it. Even so, it was as a child to me, the beloved egg that would never hatch. My pain on parting from it is unspeakable. And so will yours be.’
Then Ashurek did look into her eyes; and amid the lead-dark, irresistible pull of the tiny gelatinous Stone, the shell of his innocence shattered. He knew who she was.
‘You look at me, Ashurek, too late,’ Miril sang, her voice unbearably sweet. ‘Am I not lovelier than the most beautiful creature or garden or flower you have ever seen? Am I not the longing of sunset and the joy of dawn? I am the Hope of the World.’ And in her eyes he saw his guilt. There, in the quicksilver shining depths of those black orbs was the misery and injustice, the blood and pain and hunger and utter wrong of Gorethria’s atrocities, and those of every other race like them throughout space and time. There was a child crying in hunger because its parents had died in battle, and that battle had not made the conquerors more glorious, but less than the rat scuffling in the straw at the child’s feet…
‘Miril,’ Ashurek said, his voice a rasp of pain, ‘help me.’
‘How can there be help without Hope? The world’s Hope was I, and you have destroyed me. I will fade, and hide myself in darkness to mourn, and wait. And you, as soon as I am gone, will begin to seek me; and unless you find me again, your world will be doomed. No more can I say.’
Then Ashurek knew he had committed a more terrible act than Meshurek. The Egg-Stone was burning into his palm like molten metal as he was carried down into the dark spiral of his fate. Speechless, he watched Miril’s lovely form fade.
‘Oh, Ashurek, I think no wrong of you,’ she sang before she disappeared, and the words pierced him like arrows of mercy he did not deserve.
When Meheg-Ba retrieved Ashurek from the dimension and stood before him again, the demon seemed an insipid figure, hardly to be feared. Ashurek was ready to fight the Shanin for the Egg-Stone, because its dark power had utterly possessed him. But the Shanin did not attempt to take the Stone. Meheg-Ba wanted it to remain in the High Commander’s hands, for there it was most useful.
Ashurek was returned to the palace, to find that only a few hours had passed. Still dazed, feeling hollow and emotionless, he wandered in the corridors until Orkesh found him and seized him by the arms, her green eyes searching his face.
‘Where have you been?’ she cried. ‘What happened? Did you find Meshurek?’
He said nothing and Orkesh backed away from him, reading the terrible Serpent-power in his eyes. Filled with dismay and horror – and a dark desire she did not understand – she turned and ran, sobbing as she went.
He mouthed her name, only half understanding the misery he felt as she retreated. Then he went to his room and made a small leather pouch for the Egg-Stone, and hung it on a chain ab
out his neck. He was oblivious to Meshurek’s presence, although his brother sat in full view, staring with greed and longing at the evil artefact.
It was not in Meheg-Ba’s plan, but Meshurek was determined to take the Egg-Stone for himself.
Now began the most terrible phase of Ashurek’s life and Gorethria’s history. The Egg-Stone’s black power made him invincible, flowing from him into his soldiers until they became one terrible, bloody entity that could scythe through the strongest resistance. Ashurek took a single division with him to subdue the rebellion in Alaak. And although the white-faced, fierce, hard-disciplined Alaakian army greatly outnumbered the Gorethrians, they were nevertheless ruthlessly slaughtered in what came to be called the Massacre of Alaak.
And Ashurek discovered that with the fierce joy of bloodshed and victory came grief, guilt and self-loathing. But there was nothing he could do to resist the Egg-Stone’s power over him. He was an instrument to extend the Empire over which Meshurek and Meheg-Ba ruled.
Now Meshurek’s dream began to come true. As he had predicted, ships carrying his brother and over half Gorethria’s armies sailed across the ocean to the continent of Team. There they ravaged their way through the countries of the East coast, and all, weak or strong, fell before Prince Ashurek’s terrible might.
Tearn was thrown into turmoil as the months and years passed and more and more countries came under Gorethria’s rule. Ashurek rightfully earned his reputation as despoiler, murderer and necromancer. He swiftly became the most loathed and feared man in the world; he was called child-slayer, devil, Grimhawk, Serpent in human form. As with all legends, eventually the colourful tales outstripped reality. Those Tearnians who actually met him found a quietly-spoken, morose and troubled man rather than the grinning, wild demon of the stories.
He was troubled indeed. The more the Egg-Stone drove him on to cruel and violent deeds, the more he saw Miril’s eyes in his dreams and became racked with despair. And as he fully realised the hopelessness of war, the Egg-Stone forced him like a puppet through battle after bloody battle, while he became ever more bitter and cynical.
Several times he tried to destroy it, but failed. He needed it like a drug. He was becoming a skeleton, held together and motivated only by the Egg-Stone’s power. Yet somewhere inside, as though Miril had left a feather-barb in him, part of him was finding strength to rebel.
Some four years had passed since the invasion of Tearn, a lifetime away from Shalekahh and his previous happy life, an eternity in the possession of the cursed Stone. He knew that if he spent any longer going through these appalling motions, the plaything of the Shana, insanity and self-destruction were imminent. Though the life he had enjoyed as a Gorethrian Prince was lost forever, he knew that unless he found the strength to resist the Egg-Stone, he and the rest of mankind were doomed.
About this time, after the invasion of Drish, General Karadrek betrayed him, attempting to disgrace him because he had shown mercy to the Drishians. Karadrek was punished, but Ashurek, bitter and dispirited, left the encampment and made for his main headquarters further to the north. His mood was black; near madness.
When he arrived at the small palace that the battalion had taken over, he found Orkesh and Meshurek waiting for him. He stared at them in amazement and said, ‘I did not expect you. No one sent a message.’
‘We have only just arrived,’ said Meshurek, sitting languidly back in his chair and smiling. Orkesh was tense, her eyes glittering. And she was again dressed in grey.
‘My brother,’ she said, standing up to kiss Ashurek formally on the cheek. ‘How good to see you again.’ She seemed utterly unlike herself. Her gestures were slow and plastic, and there was an awful look in her eyes, as though she had fallen in love with something that had previously revolted her, and was ashamed of her dark surrender.
‘Is not mother with you?’ Ashurek asked sharply. The room, suddenly small, dark and escapeless, began to spin slowly on its axis.
‘No,’ Meshurek answered with the bland look of a lizard. ‘This is what we have come to tell you. She attempted to thwart me, and had to be stopped. Tell him, Orkesh, what has happened.’
The voice of his beloved sister was a jagged knife slicing the air. The heavy power of the Egg-Stone seemed to throb in sympathy with his painful surge of emotions as she said, ‘Mother told you not to fail, Ashurek, but you did. Did you think, knowing that she was a strong-willed and determined woman, that she would not take action on her own? She sought out those who supported you, and made them into an army to take the throne from Meshurek. I would have no part of it. She did not believe me when I said you were in the demon’s power as well. So, angry, I went to Meshurek and confronted him. But he calmed me down and made me see how foolish I had been, and that mother was wicked and must be punished. The rebellious supporters were crushed and I sought out mother, and slew her.’
Dark and dangerous emotion filled Ashurek, growing larger than himself until it filled the whole room with black, swirling anger. Through it the figures of his brother and sister looked tiny and unreal.
‘Now we are free of those who seek to hold us back,’ Orkesh went on. ‘The three of us have become great, the most powerful beings the world has known, more than human–’
‘Orkesh!’ Ashurek cried, voice rough with torment, ‘I warned you not to confront Meshurek! You saw what happened to me – and still you did not take heed!’
‘It’s all right,’ she replied calmly. ‘I was willing. What Meheg-Ba offered, I found I wanted.’
Then Ashurek’s anger and grief, magnified by the evil of-the Egg-Stone, focused in his arm. In one swift movement he drew his sword and plunged it up through his sister’s stomach into her heart. The shock and sorrow in her eyes turned them, momentarily, to Miril’s eyes, and as the blood welled from her body onto the floor, his black fury bled into nothingness with it.
The room seemed pale then, expansive, as though he could walk across it forever and never reach the door. Meshurek had risen to his feet and the fleeting grimace on his face showed all the sorrow he was capable of feeling. Looking at Ashurek, shaking convulsively as he stared at the blood-soaked sword, Meshurek said, ‘Don’t weep, brother. It matters not. She was only biding her time, waiting to seize power from both of us. It would have had to have been done eventually.’
‘You live in another world, Meshurek,’ Ashurek said through bitter tears. ‘Power – what is that? You have caused the deaths of father and mother, made a slave of your sister, turned me into a mass murderer – for what? The sake of the Empire? No – you are destroying the Empire. You have undone all father’s work, and surely now it deserves to be destroyed. For your own personal power, then? You fool – Meheg-Ba is gaining the power, not you.’
‘You are wrong! I have my own power!’ cried Meshurek, coming forward to face his brother. In despair, Ashurek knew that nothing he said was getting through to the demon-possessed Emperor.
‘It doesn’t matter to you, does it,’ he cried, ‘that thousands of people die every day for the sake of the Shana’s lust? That your own family have been destroyed, the only beings in the world that should have meant something to you? Once I thought you a victim of an affliction, a paranoia which was not your own fault. Now I know – my eyes have been opened – we are all victims of the Serpent, but you and I are conscious, willing ones. We are guilty, you and I – as guilty as the Serpent itself. Don’t tell me not to weep!’
But Meshurek was not listening. He was staring at Ashurek’s throat, reaching towards it – and Ashurek realised Meshurek had sailed the ocean not to see him and tell him of their mother’s death, but to steal the Egg-Stone.
That he could not permit.
With a howl that might have made the Serpent itself shudder, he struck Meshurek down with the flat of his sword and fled.
Ashurek ran from the palace, seized a horse and forced it at a punishing gallop away from the battalion, from his insane brother and his beloved dead sister. He rode, fighting the evil pul
l of the Egg-Stone at every stride, until at last he was lost among the forests and mountains of Tearn; far beyond – so he thought – pursuit or retaliation.
It was a strange time, those years spent wandering alone in Tearn. Ashurek tried to avoid all humans, and those he met responded to him with a fear and hatred with which they might have greeted the Serpent itself. He became an utter outcast.
Meshurek meanwhile was in a torment of fury, made worse when the demon punished him for attempting to steal the Egg-Stone. The punishment over, Meheg-Ba forgave him and together they plotted the recovery of Ashurek and the Stone.
Ashurek then found himself continually pursued by agents of the Serpent – misshapen creatures, or disturbances of wind and weather, or sometimes actual demons. But with skill and fierce determination Ashurek fought them, and remained free. The Egg-Stone was a paradoxical element in this, because although it darkened him and tried to bend him to its evil will, he also found he could use its power against his pursuers. And because it gave him more power than a demon, Meheg-Ba could not catch him.
Meshurek ruled uneasily in Shalekahh. Rumours ran wild about Melkish’s plot against him, her death, and the disappearance of Prince Ashurek and his sister. Always unenthusiastic about this Emperor, now the people of Gorethria became openly hostile.
Only Meheg-Ba’s power kept him in control of the throne, crushing his enemies with malicious cruelty and bending his soldiers to his will. But without the Egg-Stone’s force to hold it together, the Empire was crumbling. Meshurek realised he had been a fool. He knew how much Ashurek had loved Orkesh, yet it had not entered his mind to manipulate him by threatening her. And now there was no one left for whom Ashurek cared; Meshurek had no hold over him at all.
The Emperor became stooped and darkened in mind and body, hunched like a spider over his misery and lust for power. And the demon, Meheg-Ba, merely laughed at his plight.
Ashurek desired to die, or at least escape into madness. But he remained sane; and dared not risk what might happen to the world if he killed himself and the Egg-Stone fell into other hands. Besides, it was all that kept him alive.
A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1) Page 7
