by Will Elliott
The men stared down at them in turn. Everything was very still. The spell within Far Gaze commanded him to flee, for nature seldom trusts what it doesn’t know, and these things had never in history set foot in these woods, nor (Far Gaze assumed) had they set foot beyond World’s End at all.
Far Gaze did not run. He knew, long before Tauk’s men would consider it, that these beings had not shown themselves for a battle. But he also knew the men’s mood and was not at all surprised, looking back later, that a battle unfolded.
Two of the newcomers reached inside pockets of their gowns, producing instruments. One was a spherical black ball; the other appeared to be a baton, long as a man’s forearm, with twisted knots on its ends. When those two beings crouched beside Siel’s body, the mayor’s men screamed and charged. They were led by the one the mayor had banished and whom Far Gaze had lied about, for that man was now all too eager to prove his loyalty by spilling enemy blood.
The beings did not move until Tauk’s men had almost charged upon them. The one with the baton stood up, away from Siel’s body, and swung his instrument quickly, making it a wheelshaped blur. This was the point, looking back, that Far Gaze’s memory went from a clear chronology to a jumbled mess of images and sounds, as if the events were all a deck of picture cards spilled across a table then scooped up again. He remembered the newcomers standing motionless right up until the swords swung down on them; recalled them cringing away, crying out with high voices, perhaps not comprehending until that very moment that they were under attack. He recalled one of them falling back, surely dead with a slashed wound from shoulder to hip, two shades of blood gushing out, one much lighter than human, the other almost black. And the men lunging furiously at the others, till they were repelled by something invisible that seemed to shove them hard every time they came near, till they were all pulled around like boats in a whirlpool, unable to break out of it. One man gored another by accident in the confusion.
Far Gaze recalled music of a kind he’d never heard, a fast little crescendo which only hurt his ears, but killed the man nearest to the newcomers. Killed him neatly, without mess or fuss: just like that, he dropped down, dead.
The remaining men fled while the mayor himself stood grimly watching it all. One of the fleeing men brayed that Tauk had not fought, that he’d mistaken him for a warrior, once. Tauk yelled back he’d given them no order to fight and could not govern the wits of a determined fool.
Far Gaze fled the glen. The mayor’s men found him later, the group of them panting, wounded and frightened, almost having forgotten the possibility of Tormentors in the area.
All these things happened in a different order each time Far Gaze (and the other men) tried to remember them. Chronology resumed again from that point on: the mayor and the man who’d yelled at him, off having quiet words away from the group. Which was to say the mayor himself doing the talking, and offering the man the chance to reappraise whether Tauk was a warrior or not, with sword in hand, right now, one of Tauk’s arms injured or not. The chastised man hung his head, bent to one knee, offered his neck, a gesture Far Gaze had not witnessed before but which made sense to him, with what else he knew of Tanton’s warrior culture. After that, it appeared all was forgiven between them.
The group of them went back to the glen, having vowed to slay the strange people, despite whatever magic they wielded. ‘Are you with us?’ Tauk demanded of Far Gaze, his remaining men pressing in around him with weapons at hand.
Far Gaze met the mayor’s eye, solemnly agreed he was with them, meaning only to follow at a safe distance then take the valuables from their foolish corpses. Perhaps he’d take Tauk’s head too, with spells of preservation upon it in the same way one preserved meat on journeys. He envisioned going to High Cliffs or maybe Yinfel, burying the head nearby, asking a price for the mayor of Tanton’s head, receiving scoffs and astronomical offers. Then after a day or two’s rest, he’d return with the head and collect. A debt was a debt.
But in the glen there was no second battle, for there was no sign of the other peoples. Except for the one slain, who lay with arms arranged in a way clearly deliberate: one flat by his side, palm down, the other across his chest. Five strangely coloured flowers had grown about his head of a kind Far Gaze had not before seen.
More surprisingly, Siel lay nearby, but not as she’d lain before. Her hair was dirty with dried blood, but she was quite alive. She peered groggily at the men as would a drunkard. She tried to speak but, like a drunkard, threw up instead down the front of her shirt then fell back again, sleeping. Gorb had not yet woken from his poisoned slumber and lay exactly as everyone had left him, none the wiser.
Upon seeing Siel, Far Gaze was surprised by the quick bloom of joy that went through him – surprised, that is, by its intensity, which easily countered the disappointment he’d felt to learn that there’d be no trip north or east with the head of Tauk the Strong. (At least not without bringing the rest of him too, alive and well.)
9
TO THE TOWER
The poor tired mayor was faced with yet more decisions as the men ate from their provisions. ‘Your counsel, mage?’ Tauk said at last, turning to Far Gaze his bloodshot eyes.
Far Gaze spoke in the quiet, ominous and indifferent tones an advisor would use, careful now not to needle the mayor’s pride. ‘Your city’s fate is now beyond what you do. If you return there, you will find citizens being butchered by the last men ever to fight in castle colours. Or perhaps you’ll find the city held its own, without you there to guide it. That brings political consequences you don’t need me to spell out.’
‘Say them anyway.’
‘As you like. You’ll have missed your city’s direst hour in generations. Many will say you are no longer needed. Worse, some will claim you fled in fear, anticipating the city’s loss … that you returned only when it was safe. You had best return there in secret, if at all, and then keep a close eye on your generals. If it turns out your city has won, that you return and are by some miracle still accepted as mayor, your next threat is High Cliffs.’
‘Why them?’
‘Simply because they are closest. Then you must worry about the other cities. When they learn what has become of the castle’s armies, I think you may guess what will occur to all the mayors. There is a power vacuum to be filled. You know history well, Tauk the Strong. It’s unlucky your city had to bear the final wound of this war, right before another begins, without time to rest and feed your weary, wounded men. And without time to replenish your city’s food stocks.’
Tauk, if it were possible, looked yet more sober and exhausted. ‘I know you have no need to lie or mislead me.’
‘Indeed not. You owe me your life, and the lives of six trusted men. Expensive lives, all of them. I want you safely in charge of a rich, prosperous city.’
‘Yet it would seem I cannot return there.’
‘Not openly, Tauk. And if possible it must not be known you ever left. And that’s if Tanton survives the battle it fights while we speak here. The next battles are soon to come, if today’s allies become opportunists.’
‘Where go you, mage?’ asked one of Tauk’s men.
‘To the tower I came from, before I met you all. To speak with the wizard I have heard lives there.’
‘To ask him of the new people?’ said another of the men, when the mayor didn’t respond.
‘Among much else, yes.’
‘What’s to ask?’ said Tauk. ‘It’s plain we have a new enemy.’
‘Enemies do not heal each other.’ Far Gaze looked pointedly at Siel, sleeping under a blanket.
‘Indeed. We do not know what they did to the girl,’ said Tauk thoughtfully. ‘Did they enchant her? Possess her? Infect her with something that will spread among all our people? Do you know any more than I do of their magic? If you do, you’ve not said so.’
‘I know not whether they use magic, not as we know it. When it was cast, the airs were not affected.’
‘And tha
t is all you know? Very well. We shall take the girl with us till she is recovered, and observe her. We’ll take that body too,’ he said, pointing at the corpse of the slain one. ‘And we will depart this hour, before the giant awakens to discover he was poisoned.’
Far Gaze supposed that at least the mayor had not suggested killing Gorb where he lay. And unlike some mayors, he at least seemed willing to digest an unpalatable truth or two. Yet a look had come into Tauk’s eyes Far Gaze did not like at all. He’d seen it before: the very moment a man of power has discovered the way a situation may be used, and all else be fed to Inferno. Whether the new people brought immense gifts, or whether they were as the mayor feared a grave threat, from now on any argument would be moot until Tauk had what he wanted.
Far Gaze could quite easily have predicted Tauk’s next remarks before they came: ‘The castle threat may have weakened, or gone away altogether. But a new one rises from the South world. The cities need each other, mage. Now more than ever. This is no time to attack Tanton! The other cities will be told of this new threat.’
Far Gaze inclined his head as would an advisor at court. ‘And should we come upon more of the new people, whatever and whoever they truly are?’
‘That is easily answered,’ said the mayor, steel in his eyes. He turned to his men, pointed at one of them. ‘Go at once to our city. Take the secret routes. You have the pass tokens? Good. Tell the generals of this new threat.’
‘And if the city is lost?’ the man said.
‘Then all is done and nothing more matters.’ To another of his men he said, ‘Go to High Cliffs. Tell Ousan the same, that the new people prepare for war, that we must stand together, or surely we shall fall. Do not tell him where I have been nor who goes with me. Take this, so he knows your words come from my mouth.’ Tauk rummaged in one pocket for a specially marked coin. ‘Do this, and you will be a wealthy man for your remaining years. Your grandsons too.’
‘I need no more incentive than love for my city,’ the man replied, a catch in his voice.
‘Does he speak truth?’ Tauk asked Far Gaze.
Far Gaze rubbed his chin, pretended to appraise the man. ‘He does. Mayor, a word?’
Tauk dismissed the men with a wave. One went to retrieve the dart still stuck in Gorb’s hand. Far Gaze said, ‘There is a law, Mayor, penned by no man, woman, wizard, or Spirit. It is called the law of unintended consequences.’
‘The law of survival overrules it,’ said Tauk, steel in his eyes again.
‘Verily. You may be breaching that law too, if you attack the new peoples, and if you encourage other cities to attack them. You may create an enemy where there was not one before.’
‘Exactly,’ said Tauk with a smile.
‘It seems … extravagant, Tauk the Strong, for a hedge against fights with a neighbour, to begin a war between worlds. One’s city is an important consideration; surely one’s world is a higher one yet. We do not yet know the new people. It may be they are great friends to us, if we allow them to be. You and your city may be the first to welcome them and gain their favour.’
Tauk put a hand on Far Gaze’s shoulder, the weight of his arm’s muscle heavy. ‘Mage, they have come to our world, our home. It is not for us to prove them friends.’
‘Perhaps in healing Siel they already have.’
Tauk scoffed. ‘No! They must declare themselves in our tongue. And then prove it! And pay whatever homage we deem they owe for their trespass. You have seen all else that has come from that place, mage! All else brings death, terror and poison.’ Tauk’s tone said the matter was settled. ‘Whatever way history turns on my decisions, you as a witness may have a hand in its telling, mage. You will speak in truth of what I have done.’
Far Gaze quelled the anger building in him. Men like Tauk, all of them, thought in such terms: as if ‘history’ were a living judge ever witnessing their deeds, a damsel to impress, a classroom filled with tomorrow’s great rulers, eagerly studying their every word and deed.
‘You will accompany me to the wizard’s tower,’ said Tauk, squaring his shoulders to show it was an order, not an invitation.
‘Certainly,’ said Far Gaze with his advisor’s head-tilt again. ‘Although I know nothing of the wizard there. I shall shift form, Mayor. You may tie the girl to my back.’
‘So you may run off with her? No,’ said Tauk. Far Gaze had indeed considered doing just that – again he had to hide his flaring rage. ‘I will carry her on my steed, if the beast can be found. And you will remain a man, not a wolf, so that I may speak with you if I need to. We leave at once.’
‘And the half-giant?’
‘He will wake in an hour or two. I wish to be nowhere near him when that happens.’
‘Very wise,’ said Far Gaze, bowing low, privately seething.
While the steeds were brought round (a difficult job, finding a safe path for them through the soft and often slippery damp ground), they examined the newcomer’s slain body. The throat had a windpipe for speech, ears for hearing, a nose. Two small neat holes were beneath the ears at the jaw’s edge, whose purpose Far Gaze couldn’t guess. (Breathing under water? Something else?) The eyes were not blank as they seemed from a distance; they were a slightly lighter shade than the skin, with a dark point in the middle. This one’s skin had gone greyish and chalky in death. In life it had been a creamier tone, in places the very lightest shade of brown. It did not seem to possess a sex. Opening the sword wound that had killed it, he saw what must be the heart in the dead centre of its chest. It appeared better protected by a plate of either bone or hard cartilage than was the human heart protected by its sternum.
‘Shall you cast to preserve it, mage?’
‘No. Let’s see how it decays, compared to the flesh of Tormentors. Mayor, I suspect they left the body here as a gift for us.’
‘Why would they do such a thing?’
‘For us to do what we are doing now. Examine it and understand them.’
Tauk spat in irritation. ‘They left bodies of my men here too. A generous people. Just how do you know their intent? It may be for religious reasons, to leave one of their slain where he was killed. Some who swear to Valour and Nightmare do similar things. It may be they were simply burdened already, and could not carry more.’
When the horses arrived the men quickly packed, eager to be away from Gorb before he woke. The half-giant hadn’t moved at all. Far Gaze itched to leave him a written note but had no materials for it, and the mayor’s men were watching him … subtly enough, but they wanted him to know it.
Siel hadn’t woken. Far Gaze removed her soiled shirt, dressed her in a fresher one from her pack and insisted upon riding a steed with her until Tauk consented. From then on Tauk’s men watched Far Gaze’s every move with suspicion. Wise, he reflected.
10
THE HALF-GIANT RISES
Half an hour later Gorb woke, stretched, scratched his head and looked about in confusion. An insect had bitten his hand and left a nasty mark. He peered at the wound, trying to judge what had bitten him – an odd-looking bite! Powerful poison. He didn’t remember much at all.
Bald’s weeping burbled from the cave mouth, the way he cried when he’d had nightmares. It wasn’t how he cried when in danger, so Gorb relaxed.
How strange the men had all left without him, and that – as he saw when going back to the cave – they’d neglected to take with them the guns Bald had made. The temptation to take the guns while Gorb slept must have been enormous.
Maybe he’d misjudged the mayor after all, and misjudged his men. Maybe they were good people, men of honour. Guilt flushed through him as fast and profound as any rage he’d ever felt. Guess I owe the man a favour, he thought with a sigh. ‘Come on, Bald, it’s a long way to Tanton. We’d best head off,’ he said. And they did just that.
11
WESTWARDS
The stoneflesh giants over each horizon stood motionless, so tall they hardly seemed real. Most faced south, clearly still roused, b
ut they gazed into that foreign land with the same infinite patience they’d had when the Wall stood.
The countryside was a strewn mess of broken wagons, dropped belongings, corpses of humans, horses and Tormentors. The piles of their remains here and there were like funeral displays made from glossy polished black stone. It appeared the bodies had been shattered by tremendous blows.
At a gentle pace for their overworked horses, they went by a trading route which was part paved stone, part beaten-dirt track. To their left, the red veil at World’s End had almost entirely cleared, showing a sky the same colour as their own. Beneath that sky were plains of smooth glassy rock, eventually rising up to wall-like hillsides, alive all over with twisting tendrils of fog. Occasional rock structures jutted through the flats, some human-sized, some much larger, all of which seemed to have been sculpted by something’s hands rather than by time and nature.
Tauk rode with his face almost completely covered in a hood, lest he be seen by men of other cities and discovered so far from his home. Only two of Tauk’s men remained with them, and both were showing signs of madness, the kind felt by hunted creatures. Their eyes seldom left the new southern land being revealed, as if they expected an army of terrors to charge through the long gaps between stoneflesh giants. Now and then both men furtively glanced at the foreign being’s corpse slung on the mayor’s horse and covered with blankets. They looked just as anxiously at Siel, who rode with Far Gaze’s arms about her, the reins in his hands, her head flopping forwards on her chest.
Further west, Levaal South showed a clutch of sheer hills that leaned towards one another like a conspiring group. A river trickled between them then curled towards the boundary before it turned abruptly away, not wishing to share its water with strangers from the north. Far Gaze did not himself feel the men’s fear, but he too felt a certain strange stillness in the south. It was not watchful, not brooding, just stillness itself: the land like an ocean turned to ice or stone, motionless when the eye expected to see motion.
