Obsidian

by Alan Baxter

  ‘Everyone calm down,’ Silhouette said. ‘Alex and I will check that church. You guys move back and linger. We’ll find you when we come back. Got it?’

  Claude blew air out, frustrated. ‘This is not over.’

  Alex gave him a sarcastic smile. ‘I look forward to our next chat.’

  Silhouette hissed in annoyance and dragged Alex away.

  As he went, Jarrod called out, ‘Perhaps we’ll investigate that way.’ The big man nodded across the farmland, away from the farmers who had seen them, towards the edge. ‘Get a lie of the land. The other side was all a city wall, so I’m wondering what else might be on this low side.’

  Alex looked around. ‘There’s not many people that way. But be careful. Stay away from anyone.’ He pointed towards a row of low homes a few hundred metres away. ‘We’ll see you there in an hour or so?’

  Jarrod pulled a phone out from under his robes. ‘This still works as a clock, if nothing else. An hour then.’

  Alex checked his own phone, nodded agreement.

  Jarrod clapped a hand on Alex’s shoulder and shuffled away, Claude and Rowan in tow. Claude looked back once as they left, his eyes like daggers of hatred.

  Alex turned to Silhouette. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘He’s going to be trouble,’ she said.

  ‘I know. I’ll deal with him if I have to. Hopefully he’ll calm down and be useful.’

  ‘You’ll have to talk to him some time. About Hood.’

  ‘I know. But not now.’

  The slow walk between the wheat fields was unexpectedly harrowing. Alex felt immediately exposed, vulnerable. He hoped a couple of Austere heading towards the strange church weren’t too out of place. The farmers had gone back to work, ignoring them, but he still felt eyes everywhere.

  They reached the building and looked inside. A heavy wooden double door guarded the entrance, one side open. Dark wood pews with deep red prayer cushions marched away from them towards a black altar grown from the floor of the church itself. Ornate embroideries and tapestries hung from the windowless walls, smears of colour in the low, flickering candlelight. The place was deserted.

  Alex stepped inside. ‘If we encounter those Priests, try simply ignoring them. If they insist, we might have to kill them.’

  ‘It’s a hell of a risk,’ Silhouette whispered.

  ‘I know, but I really want to talk to that prisoner. I can’t think of a better way of getting information.’

  They stiffened at a scraping sound from the back of the church. A trapdoor opened up from the floor beside the altar. Voices rose with it. Alex and Silhouette stopped, tried to stand as limp as three-day-old lettuce, and stared at the floor. The three Priests emerged and their conversation stilled as they saw the Austere loitering in their church.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ one called out.

  Alex immediately felt their magic probe around, feel them out. He hoped the shields they had painstakingly erected held up. He and Silhouette remained silent, looked only at the floor. ‘Hoping for Ascension a little early?’ another Priest asked, with a laugh. ‘We could maybe arrange that for you.’

  ‘Just ignore them,’ the third said. ‘Useless scum. They make me sick.’

  The Priests moved away and Alex’s pulse began to calm. A small door led out of the main church behind the altar and the three went through, closed it behind themselves.

  Silhouette breathed a sigh of relief. ‘So far, so good. I guess we need to go down there.’

  Alex looked at the closed trapdoor. ‘I guess so. What’s beyond that door they went through? Just a room? They might hear us.’

  Silhouette moved forward, silent as a ghost. Alex waited, marvelling at her grace, her physicality. He remembered her nervous trysts with Jarrod on the way here and a pang of jealousy sprang up. He still needed to understand that. Now was not the time for that either.

  Silhouette crouched at the door, peeked through a keyhole. She shifted, left, right, trying to see as much as possible. In moments she was back. ‘I can’t see much of anything. There’s a large room in there and it seems empty. Stairs at the back lead up to another storey.’ She looked up to the ceiling, smooth black glass merging seamlessly with the walls. ‘The building is bigger than this. Perhaps there’s a whole second floor up there.’

  ‘Let’s chance it then,’ Alex decided. He moved towards the trapdoor.

  It lifted easily and they slipped quietly down stairs of hard obsidian. Guttering candles provided wan light, glistening off the black walls, floor, ceiling. It was a low cellar, Alex had to stoop slightly. Wooden racks stood around, rows and rows of wine bottles in ranks like dusty, sleeping soldiers. The cellar stretched back into darkness. Alex took a candle in a glass lantern and carried it before him, stepping nervously into the shadows. A voice came to them, with a broad Scottish accent.

  ‘Leave me alone, ye bastards. The lights are dancing, all dancing, you disturb the …’

  The words petered out as Alex’s light fell across the iron bars of a floor-to-ceiling wall cutting off the far end of the cellar. Strong, overlapping magical wards were obvious to Alex, containing and shielding the cell. Magesign swam lazily, clear to Alex’s trained eye. The scrawny, bearded Kin crouched behind the bars, eyes and mouth wide in wonder.

  ‘Are ye playing with me, lights?’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Alex asked.

  The man tipped his head back and howled with laughter. Alex surged forward, shushing frantically.

  ‘Don’t give us away! Please, what’s your name?’

  ‘Are ye really real?’

  Alex reached through the bars, gripped the man’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘I am. Please, talk to me.’

  The man’s mind sprang up, questing over Alex, seeking something. Alex took a calculated risk and let his shields open briefly, a tiny flash of his true self. The man’s mouth dropped open again and his face lit up with unfettered joy. ‘You came to me!’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I’m Parlan.’

  ‘Hi, Parlan. I’m Alex. I really need your help.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘My friend. Her name is Silhouette.’

  Parlan looked from one to the other several times then his head slowly sank, his joy with it. ‘So many lights, always dancing. I never know what’s real.’

  Alex frowned, keenly feeling for the old Kin. The shades about him were confused and twisted, interrupting each other in waves of contradiction. ‘Please, Parlan. I’m real. Will you help me?’

  Parlan barked a laugh. ‘Look at me, you fool! Look where I am. What help can I be to you?’

  Alex looked about the cell, barely a few square metres of cold rock and straw. A rough pallet lay in one corner, filthy blankets strewn across it. A lidded bucket stood in another corner, exuding a foul odour. ‘How long have you been kept here?’

  Parlan looked up with haunted eyes. ‘I don’t know. You lose count after the first couple of centuries.’

  ‘What the fuck is this place, Parlan?’ Alex asked. ‘Not this cell, this whole place, Obsidian.’

  Parlan nodded, eyes downcast again. ‘You’re one of the invading humans they’ve yet to catch.’

  Alex smiled inside, pleased to hear that Parlan expressed no surprise about there being something beyond Obsidian. He had assumed all the Kin knew the truth and only the lowen were kept ignorant. It was nice to have that at least partly confirmed. ‘Yes, I am. But I don’t mean to be here. I don’t even know where here is and I want to go home.’

  Parlan’s eyes narrowed, he seemed to stare deep into Alex’s soul. ‘How did you get here in the first place?’

  Alex rubbed absently at his chest. ‘I don’t know. Not really. Please, tell me all you can, who you are and what this place is. It might help me.’

  ‘And why should I help you?’

  Alex smiled. ‘Because I promise that if you help me out of this place, I’ll make sure I take you with me.’

  Parlan sat back o
n his haunches, head in his hands. ‘The lights fight my mind, all the time. So hard to see, to think.’ He looked up sharply. ‘To know!’

  ‘Just tell me what you remember.’

  ‘Ach, I remember it all. It was never Obsidian in the first place, you know. It was a bustling little town called Averleekan. But no one remembers that. The Fey used the town and planted it there, the stone. Their anchor, their power in the mortal realm. They had such power then. But the Eld had other plans.’

  Alex started, eyes widening. The Eld. His chest burned, the Darak pulsed harder along with his heart. It was the Eld who had fashioned the Darak and used it to banish Uthentia. It was Alex who had found the broken Darak and re-formed it, only to bond with it and break it again when he banished Uthentia the second time. Now he and the broken stone were one and the same, indivisible. What did the Eld have to do with this place? He could sense Silhouette’s sharp attention behind him as she listened while she watched the trapdoor at the other end of the cellar. ‘Go on, please,’ he said.

  ‘This is all new to you, is it not?’ Parlan asked. ‘No one remembers the truth.’ He waved a hand, batting at something only he could see. ‘We left it out of all the records, in the hope it would never be known.’

  ‘I want to know the truth,’ Alex said.

  Parlan took a long, shuddering breath. ‘When the Fey roamed the mortal plane with impunity, life was hard for everyone. The Eld discovered their anchor stone at Averleekan and came up with a plan. If they could get rid of the stone, the influence of Fey in the mortal realm would be hugely reduced. Can you imagine if every day was a thin day? That’s what it was like with the anchor stone in the human realm. Fey could come and go as they pleased. Without the stone, only on the real thin days could the Fey pass between realms. If they got stuck in the mortal plane, they would have to wait, almost powerless, for the next thin day to go back. But a stone like that, you can’t destroy it. It had to be … removed. A war unlike anything known before was brewing. The Fey were rampaging across the mortal realm with an elder god as their ally.’

  ‘Uthentia,’ Alex whispered.

  Parlan looked up, a feral grin spreading across his face. ‘You’re special, aren’t you.’

  Alex laughed. ‘Fucking cursed is what I am. Please, tell me more.’

  ‘A plan was formulated. Averleekan needed to be cut off from Fey awareness for long enough for the stone to be removed. The people there needed to be contained, in case any were in cahoots, might have run off and given the game away.’

  ‘Cut off?’ Silhouette asked. ‘How?’

  ‘You seen the dome around this place? That was the first great spell of the Eld. It’s weakened as it’s been stretched with the growth. Still nothing can get in, but things can squeeze out now. There’s nowhere to go, of course, so that doesn’t matter.’

  Alex shuddered, remembered the woman they had first seen when they arrived. ‘So what happened?’

  Parlan smiled, batting again at invisible intrusions. ‘The Eld needed to do two things at once. They needed to cast out Uthentia and, using that as a distraction, remove the Fey anchor stone. So they took a chip of that stone and fashioned it into a powerful amulet, to use against the godling. You can’t destroy it, the anchor stone, but they managed to separate a part. Oh, such huge magic we wielded.’ Alex’s heart rate increased. ‘While they engaged the Fey and Uthentia in battle,’ Parlan went on, ‘the Seven, the most powerful Eld, hid within the dome around Averleekan to remove the stone to the Void. That was huge, barely contained magic and nearly disastrous, but it worked. It took the entire town with it, over a thousand people, but that was considered acceptable collateral damage. The greatest trick we ever pulled against the Fey!’

  Realisations hit Alex like punches. ‘You’re one of the Seven? You’re Eld?’

  Parlan smiled with blackened teeth. ‘Let’s see it then.’

  ‘See what?’ Alex asked.

  ‘You know what I mean. The piece of the anchor stone. It’s the only way the realms could be breached to get you here.’

  Alex lifted his shirt, revealing the three shards embedded in his chest.

  Parlan nodded. ‘You used yourself to rebind it,’ he said quietly. ‘Brave. And you must be strong.’

  ‘It very nearly killed me.’

  ‘I’m surprised it didn’t. They’ve waited a long time for you, the Fey.’

  Alex felt nauseated, his head swam with confusion. ‘I still don’t really understand …’

  Parlan laughed, guttural and phlegmy. ‘They’ll have been trying to find those pieces, rebind that stone, forever. I didn’t think it could be done, but you did it.’

  Alex rubbed his forehead, feeling like an idiot. ‘So what happened when you removed the anchor stone?’

  ‘When we banished it, we had to travel with it, accompany it all the way out, protected by the magic.’ He waved an arm. ‘The dome above. But we needed a way back. So woven into the spell was a way back, to allow us to leave the stone behind and return to the mortal realm. It was fashioned so that only Kin could pass. Anyone with pure human or Fey blood would simply be unable to travel the pathway. It’s old magic, intricate, binding. And we were to destroy it when we came back, leave the anchor stone lost forever. But we were greedy.’ Parlan’s head fell and tears spattered the dark, glassy floor at his feet.

  ‘Go on,’ Alex said.

  ‘The lights are blinding,’ Parlan said, both hands waving in front of his face. ‘It’s all noise and colour!’

  ‘Parlan!’ Alex’s voice was sharp, loud in the confined space. ‘Please, tell me the rest.’

  Parlan looked up, eyes wet and red. ‘When we realised the whole town had come with us, over a thousand captive humans, we didn’t close the pathway. We kept it open. We manipulated the magic inside to support the people, the village, the crops.’ His expression hardened, angry, defiant. ‘The seven of us lived like kings and queens, feeding on our own private stock. We insisted the people breed, built up a whole society from the original inhabitants of Averleekan. We let a few close Kin allies in on our secret, developed a Priesthood here and over generations the people forgot their own ancestry. We took away books, forbade writing, reading, stories. It took a long time, but slowly they forgot. We fed judiciously, ensured there were few Kin and many humans and, as the population grew, we used the power of the magics here and the anchor stone to grow the place as well. Obsidian is a powerful substance, born in the fires of the Earth’s heart. Combined with our magic and the stolen power of the Fey, this place is unique. And it’s still growing now.’

  ‘Why are you here then?’ Alex asked, all sympathy for Parlan draining away as the story unfolded.

  ‘There were differences of opinion between the Original Seven and the few Kin we had let in on our secrets. There was a war between us and the Original Seven were killed. Obsidian was taken over by that fool who calls himself the Autarch.’

  ‘Not all of the Seven were killed,’ Alex said.

  Parlan laughed without humour, a harsh, bitter sound. ‘No, quite right. Six were killed. They’ve kept me alive as I’m the only one who knows the original magic. They think I’ll be able to help them if there are ever any problems.’

  ‘And that’s why they sent for you today, because I’m here.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Are you going to help them?’

  Parlan laughed again. ‘Fuck, no! Now answer something for me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Finding and recombining the pieces of the Darak should never have happened. It was the only way for the anchor stone to be tracked from the mortal realm. That’s why the Eld insisted it be scattered across the Earth, hidden forever as it can’t be destroyed. But how did you know how to use it to find this place?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Alex said. ‘I was used, some Fey magic. We need to find the people who started the spell that brought us here.’

  Parlan nodded, his chest vibrating with laughter. The madness in his eyes stood o
ut clearer than ever. ‘Aye, you really do!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, there’s only one reason the Fey would use you to open up the way here.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘To get someone in.’

  A deep dread circled Alex’s gut. ‘Right, obviously. But why would they want to get someone in here?’

  Parlan roared with laughter. ‘To bring their anchor stone back to the human realm, you fool! Why else?’

  Edmund woke with a start, his heart hammering. Uncomfortable words, strange alien sounds, becoming clearer, swarmed in his mind as if alive.

  ‘A nightmare?’ His wife’s voice was slurred with sleep.

  ‘It’s okay, Sal, go back to sleep.’

  ‘Is it okay?’

  Edmund sat up, rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s strange, I don’t understand it. I feel like I just got some kind of message.’

  His wife nodded, smiled. ‘Ye’ve always been a spiritual person. All of Ward Four looks up to ye.’

  Edmund laughed. ‘I think that’s an exaggeration, love. Ward Four is a big place. Most people don’t know a thing about me.’

  Sal sat up beside her husband, laid an arm across his hot, sweating shoulders. ‘Ya modesty is one of ya best features, but ye know it’s true. Why else would the people be so nervous of the Priesthood noticing? People look up to ye.’

  ‘Maybe so. But what difference does that make?’

  ‘Perhaps it was a message. From the Ascended.’

  Edmund turned to look at his wife, concerned. She prayed so hard for Ascension, always such a devout churchgoer. Could he ever really be honest about his disbelief? His surety that something else, beyond their reach, was the truth? The Priesthood surely misled them. ‘I get a strange urge to visit Oldtown.’

  ‘That haunted place? What does Ward One have for ye? For any of us? It’s dangerous ground, Oldtown especially.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He lay back down with a sigh.

  Sal lay beside him again, kissed him gently on the forehead. ‘Get some more sleep, then go to Ward One.’

  ‘Ye think I should?’

  ‘Why not? If ye have a strange and sudden urge, it’s worth following up. Even just to write it off as some sleeping nonsense.’