World's End

by Will Elliott

  They had been named ‘the lost ones’ by their kin. They had names for them in turn: the savage ones, the wild ones. The savage ones had befriended a god who did not belong in their reality at all. It was no more than the lost haiyens had done.

  It was a long stroll from tower to tower, across miles-long thin bridges stretched so high that the land below would not have been visible with normal sight. Lesser towers, a multitude of them, were like spear tips to either side: a city of the lost ones. They had thrived, his guide told him in what seemed a completely impartial observation. They had adapted. The dragons would not have allowed this prosperity. It was true they could no longer live and build homes down on the surface … but with all they’d learned, there was no need.

  Eventually their walk reached an end point, a kind of outpost. There they’d waited for a length of time Kiown had not been able to gauge. Time was so strange there it seemed his visit had been both recent and very long ago.

  The rumbling sound carried to them on the bridge well before he saw the thing, gazing down with eyes the charm had enhanced. A huge bloated mountainous rolling thing, bigger than anything living he’d ever seen. Its flesh was grey and brown, at times like molten rock, at times gelatinous. It left a residue behind. A peculiar swishing windy sound emanated from it. As they watched, it came to rest and spread its heaving mass across the ground. ‘They are not unintelligent, as the savage ones claim,’ said the haiyen. ‘I shall not tell you this one’s name. The sound you hear is its speech. Much meaning can be discerned by those sufficiently trained. Its wisdom is infinite. Listen for a short while and one’s thoughts are not the same afterwards.’

  ‘Why is it they slay the dragons, but not Spirits?’

  ‘Spirits do not attack them. The dragons did. If this being came to your realm, it would probably be the same. It would leave your Spirits alone, perhaps become great friends to them.’

  Kiown understood that these haiyens felt about the summoned ones similarly to the way he felt for Vous. He had understood completely.

  ‘That great one you saw has claimed this land,’ said his guide as they strolled back towards the tower where Dyan waited. ‘No others of its kind come here. Each claims a large area. We summon them only when conditions allow it in their native reality. Their young venture away to claim new lands. If they stayed here the greater ones would incorporate them. Some of the new ones succeed in growing large, but most are hunted by the savage ones when they are small. We hunt the savage ones in turn. The war is old and slow. We capture their places of breeding one by one, while ours are safe here in these high towers. The savage ones will ask your lords for permission to build more breeding nests in your lands. You must not allow it.’

  ‘I’ll help you, if you help me.’

  ‘We shall give you a presence. One at first, until you show you will nurture it. Grow it large. That is all you need – you do not need us. They will help you. Learn to understand their speech and song. Name them. Devote yourself to them. They know their benefactors. What we have learned from them enhances all our arts, enhances everything we do.’

  Returning through their towers he saw this was so. Their artwork, their creations, their devices – nothing in the North compared to it, nothing but Vous himself.

  Kiown’s fingers drummed the glass case they’d given him. Within it was the real reason he wanted this city for his own, and it was nothing to do with the reasons he’d given Eric. The ‘presence’ inside the case could not even be seen. It was no more than a tiny ball of invisible purpose. They had summoned it right there in the tower, over a thousand silent haiyens gathered to pool their minds. All that effort and power to open a gap between their world and wherever this had come from. They’d told him to guard the thing fiercely as it grew. When it had found enough matter to form its own shape, it was vulnerable and could be slain.

  As far as the world knew, Elvury was still filled with Tormentors. Here, the presence would not likely be pestered.

  Kiown hunted around in the rooftop’s overgrown garden, found a cricket, squashed it between his fingers, then carefully slid it under the glass case’s lid. For a minute or two nothing happened. Then something pulled at the dead insect. A leg separated from the body. Kiown laughed, delighted.

  The air whooshed as Dyan took off and soared towards the river. The huge Tormentor he flew at slowly moved one arm upwards as if in greeting. Dyan became a white light painful to look at. The light vanished. A splitting crack rang out, echoing through Elvury’s dead streets. Slowly half the Tormentor’s huge face slid free and fell.

  Dyan reappeared in the sky some distance away. He landed back in the same spot he’d taken off from, taking deep breaths, heat wafting from his body.

  ‘Is it dead or just hurt?’ said Kiown. While they watched the huge Tormentor leaned backwards, then fell with a great splash into the river. The others all turned, facing where it had stood. Their bodies erupted into motion: dancing, it seemed. The skeletons of slain men shook from their spikes and fell to the ground, into the river.

  Dyan lay flat, head on his paws. ‘I rest, before slaying another. They are now roused and know me for a threat.’

  ‘They’re not as smart as we assume. But fine, rest.’ Kiown drummed his fingers again on the glass case lid. The dead insect was now a little mashed-up grey-green ball. One crooked leg still protruded, twitching. Kiown found more insects, stomped them to paste, fed them into the glass case. He told Dyan to fetch him a bird or a dog – one or two dogs had barked when they first arrived. Dyan left, soon to return with the requested dead animals in his mouth.

  What need for ceremony was there? Kiown left the case’s lid open. The little ball of matter seemed reluctant to leave. Kiown dragged over the bodies of those men Dyan had killed a day before. ‘Enjoy your meal,’ he said to the presence. He stood, stretched. ‘Ready for a long flight?’

  ‘If it is your wish, I must be.’

  ‘Fine, we’ll rest awhile. But it’s time to check on Tauk. See if he’s willing to be a general or not. I have a feeling he won’t be easily handled. May have to see if Blain can impersonate him.’

  ‘And those?’ Dyan nodded to the distant huge Tormentors, still dancing on the riverbank.

  ‘Leave them for now. It’s enough to know we can kill them. The presence won’t be big enough for them to notice it, not for a while yet. The haiyens said it can use bones and Tormentor flesh. There’s no shortage of either all over the place down there. It won’t go hungry.’

  40

  A LITTLE HUNTING

  From the voices which carried through the abandoned village it was clear to Siel that in the mayor’s group someone was arguing. She listened at the window in Gorb’s abandoned home. Through the parted curtains she could just make out their campfire. There’d been a little preserved bread and meat in Gorb’s cupboard, somehow missed by whoever had taken the rest of his store. Despite the preservation it had begun to go stale, but she ate it gladly.

  She remembered Eric saying that his people in Otherworld knew none of those simple arts which kept bread and meat preserved; they had devices to do that, devices to do everything. She thought of that strange world, the brief sight she’d had of it with Kiown and the others. The strange dark sky alive with points of light, ‘stars’. Incomprehensible strangeness. Perhaps more strange than anything she’d seen in the world to the south.

  How joyous and free she had been in the light of that huge suspended crystal. Ever her mind returned to it. She felt again the slow press of this weighty world coming down upon her. After coming out of those waves she’d been refreshed, cleansed of things which had caused her pain before. Memories of her parents and their murder did not bother her any more. Yet now she was here. While things and places infinitely better waited elsewhere, she was still here …

  The argument grew heated. Tauk’s voice was loudest among them. Looking out the window she saw a silhouette marching away from a campfire. A short figure – perhaps Blain – hobbled after h
im, arms out, beseeching.

  Siel let the curtain fall back. She smelled a kind of ending coming, as surely as animals could sniff out a storm. Her own life ending perhaps, or maybe the end of this world. Spending the last days hidden away like this would not do. Why walk meekly into the healing waters, when one could run and dive with flourish?

  She had no bow, but there were blades left lying around, in this house and in others. Maybe she’d need no more than the murderously sharp short-sword she’d recovered from the litter of a caravan, not far from here. She laid the blades out over her bed, weighed each with care, strapped one to her ankle, the short-sword at her waist. She crept out the place’s back doorway, crawled like a cat through the overgrown grass, the wind shielding her rustling movements till she was near enough to their fire to hear them.

  Evelle’s cackle was drunken. Siel knew little of the Hunter Evelle, but suddenly understood: Evelle was enlightened. In whatever she did, good or evil, she found divine purpose. There was great wisdom in that; Siel wished her own life had been similar.

  A little away from the fire Tauk was snarling at Blain: ‘… or your schemes either. You’re a treacherous wizard like the others, and I’m no one’s general.’

  Blain said, ‘Just play along for a while! We can slay him! If you or I possessed that amulet it would all change.’

  ‘No! No more scheming. I return to my city and my people. We have Otherworld weapons the half-giant brought us. We are the new rising force, not him, not you. At Tanton we shall not suffer anyone else’s rule, man or beast, wizard or dragon.’

  ‘Dragons care not for flung rocks!’ Blain cried. ‘Listen to yourself. I’ve had that little shit as my underling for these past weeks; I know his true nature. A wretched imprisoned thing, kicked and despised. His like should never rise to power! Not him as lord and master, anyone but him. Talk to Evelle! Defy him and you are stewed guts. You and your city. He’ll never let you return there. Pledge allegiance, pucker up, bow and scrape. Then slay him, take his place! Take the amulet!’

  ‘You want the amulet yourself!’ Tauk roared at him. Angrily he marched away.

  ‘Shh!’

  ‘He has a dragon with him!’ cried a third voice, one of Tauk’s men who’d wandered over. ‘How do you suppose …?’ Their talk drifted away as Blain scurried after the mayor.

  Siel crept closer in the long grass. Stranger – a forlorn bundle – slept not far from the fire. Evelle swigged from a bottle enough liquor to put the hardest of warriors to shame. Siel could smell the bottle’s contents from where she lay. Evelle swayed a little as she watched the men argue. Her smile was gleeful. Tauk’s other man held a hand out for the bottle, which she passed to him.

  Siel waited. She watched them all for a long while with deadly patience. Tauk’s man by the fire – now as drunk as Evelle – lurched up, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and staggered past where Siel lay, seeking a tree to piss against. Silently Siel went nearer to him. Wind through the grass covered what little sound she made as she rose from her walking crouch, pulled his head back by the hair. The man’s last surprised breaths were liquid gargles. He fell and twitched for a while but died with little more fuss than that. Evelle’s cackling laughter boomed out from the campfire.

  Siel crept back to the hut to clean off the blood. She felt calm, even pleased. Perhaps what she’d just done had been murder, since the kill had not been in open combat. If so, it was the first time she’d murdered. Once, such a deed would have bothered her. But the man was in a happier place now, washing free his soul just as she washed his blood from her arms.

  Something occurred to Siel for the first time as she dried herself: of all the creatures and life forms she’d seen marching to bathe in the crystal’s waters, she had seen no dragons. Not one.

  She went back to watch the others, maybe to catch them on their own too. Hunting game for food had never been this gratifying, nor had it made her feel this alive. None of the prey seemed to have noticed yet that a man was missing. The arguments went on: Blain persuading Tauk of some plan, or attempting to; Tauk’s speech growing angrier and more violent. ‘I’ve seen you off in the woods,’ said the mayor. ‘Just what in the fire god’s flames are you doing there?’

  ‘Shh!’ Blain pleaded. ‘Because of him. The bastard sapling means to rule us. That’s why I go. I never know when he’s coming back here, he and that dragon of his. I must keep my powers sharp for when he returns. Try it yourself, there’s power to be had. But keep it quiet from the rest of them.’

  With a nod Tauk sent his man back to the fire. ‘What power?’ he demanded. ‘Try what?’

  ‘Come! I’ll take you, you’ll see.’

  Blain hobbled as fast as his short legs would take him. Tauk followed, a hand on his sword hilt. Siel followed them both, risking a dash out of the grass into the open, skirting around to the path leading into the woods. No one saw her. Soon they were in the same woods the dragon had drawn her to, down from the tower. The waters had cleaned away any shame or anger from that memory.

  Blain and Tauk crouched now in a small clearing, murmuring quietly. Blain was digging something up, and there was nothing frail about his movements now. It was an opportunity to dash in, cut their throats, but she held off when an arm flopped out of the ground. Pale and slender. Blain washed the dirt off it with a canister of water. ‘Should it … should it not be cooked?’ Tauk said.

  ‘No need. Blood’s better, if it’s fresh. O, it’s worth a pretty sum too, the risk one takes to harvest it. Flesh will do us. Still potent magic in it, though not as sharp, nor lasting.’

  ‘How long has it been here? Why hasn’t it rotted?’

  ‘They’re not like people, these Invia. Their flesh lasts longer. This is not an attempt to poison you, Mayor. Watch. I’ll eat first, if you like.’

  ‘No. I shall.’

  Siel turned away as Tauk leaned forwards. There was the sound of chewing, then gagging.

  ‘Needs salt, eh?’ said Blain. He chuckled.

  ‘I feel something,’ Tauk whispered. He stood, exhaled deeply, laughed. ‘I feel it! I could pull these trees out with my hands.’

  ‘Good! Now you know why I come to these woods every few hours.’

  ‘And every time you return with dirt on your hands,’ Tauk laughed. ‘Now I see why.’

  ‘I’ve had many lifetimes’ worth of years in this rusting old body. It’s not going to culminate in being that little bastard’s slave. When the little shit returns, we get him away from his dragon, Tauk. Then we have him. Some story. We’ll concoct it together, you and I. Don’t tell your men! They’ll follow your lead when the battle starts. Don’t tell the women either. Evelle, she’s mind-controlled like he is. They’ll be of the same purpose when the swords come out. Don’t be fooled by the tits! She’s deadly. Keep her drunk. No more beating your chest, Mayor. No shouting. Even drunk, even sleeping, she listens. When we get back there, we argue as before, or else she’ll know we’ve a plan to act on.’

  Tauk murmured something Siel didn’t hear.

  ‘Every few hours,’ Blain replied. ‘We come back here, eat some more. Understood? We need allies. I’ve bared myself to you. This dead Invia’s my last good card to play until we get his amulet. I’d rather you wore it than me or any other among us. You are all I have left. Return my trust, Tauk!’

  They covered the Invia with soil and leaves, not troubling too much to make the ground look undisturbed, then headed back to the village. When they were gone Siel dug up the corpse. She had no idea how long it had been buried, but the flesh indeed seemed well preserved, without even a smell to it. In death its scales were more pronounced, so much it hardly looked human at all. They’d taken their bites from its upper arms.

  The flesh was hard to cut. When finally she got an arm separated at the elbow she did not bother burying the body again. She carved a rune in the ground which actually meant nothing at all, so far as she knew – it was only to confuse them if they returned here. She took the arm to a plac
e where she could watch the others from the cover of trees.

  *

  She watched them as day broke, as they began to search for the missing one. She watched them find the body, drag it to camp, inspect it. Watched Tauk’s and his other man’s tears, watched them strip from the body the armour and weapons. She watched Tauk point an accusing finger at Evelle while Blain stood between them, trying to calm things. Tauk’s other man accused Stranger. Rushing to her feet, Evelle agreed it had been Stranger! She’d seen her lurking over there where the body was found! She’d seen her earlier with a blade in her hand!

  Stranger, backing up, palms raised, pleading. It did no good. Tauk’s man screamed as he cut her down.

  With no sadness Siel watched the death of the woman who’d sold herself, and sold out her kind to the dragons. She felt no pleasure in Stranger’s death, perceived no justice or crime, felt no guilt or pity. The waters awaited Stranger, awaited them all.

  Many times Blain and Tauk went back to the woods to eat from the Invia corpse, in case Kiown should return. They’d noticed the missing arm, for they came back from that first trip nervous indeed. Frequently they went off to chat in private. Siel went as close as she dared to listen in.

  Blain whispered, ‘Nothing’s hunting us. Maybe it was Stranger.’

  ‘There were none of her prints near where he died.’

  ‘With all that long grass? Of course not. It had to be Stranger. Someone greater than us would have battled us. Someone in fear of us wouldn’t have bothered to kill him at all! A bandit would have robbed him, but no one took what was in his pockets. The sword’s clearly priceless yet they left it with him. Yes, Evelle probably lied about seeing a knife, I agree with that. It doesn’t mean there wasn’t one! Stranger was insane – love-mad for a dragon who didn’t love her back. You know how they get. He – Fithlim, was his name? – gets drunk, forgets his honour, makes an offer, perhaps grabs at her. She grows angry. Hides it. Off into the grass she goes with him, eager for fun. Or so he thinks. Out comes the knife.’