And the joyful, dissolving flame.”
“Nicely expressed, especially in the final verses,” said the male voice. “We may have time for more delights, but first we must greet our visitors.”
Tauric gave Shondareth a look of surprise but the witchhorse tilted his head at the barn and together they entered. Within, the walls were hung with paintings and tapestries and a selection of musical instruments, while gauzy lengths of pale blue and yellow material were draped between the overhead beams. Two large, bronze lamps shed soft light on three cowled figures sitting on a bench with their backs to the door. Before them a large, elderly witchhorse was reclining amid a heap of straw sprinkled with tiny red flowers.
“Joyful greetings to you Shondareth – I had heard that you were lost to us, that some cantrip out of the wastelands had snatched you away.”
“That was indeed my unhappy quandary, o noble Thoumyrax, until a strange agency and this young man provided a means of return.”
The recumbent witchhorse gave Tauric an assessing look. “Please accept my heartfelt thanks, both you and your enigmatic passenger, for bringing back my friend. From your dress and your careworn demeanour it would seem that you hail from the wastelands. Are you a slave there, or a fugutive?”
For a moment Tauric was wordless and confused.
How do I answer? he thought.
Tell him who you are, said the Fathertree, and what you want. Speak plainly, directly.
“Honoured Thoumyrax,” he began. “I am Tauric tor-Galantai, emperor of Besh-Darok, and I have come to ask if you will come back to the Realm Between and aid us in our direst need.”
There was an uncomfortable silence during which the witchhorse Thoumyrax just stared at Tauric for a long moment. Even the three women made no sound. Then Shondareth spoke.
“Well, Thoumyrax? - would you be prepared to walk away from this, your innerland, and plunge back into the dark struggle?”
The older witchhorse looked at Shondareth. “Ah, I fear not, my friend. The cause was lost when we and the empire were strong – what is being played out back there is but the long-delayed final scene of the final act. Partaking of such a struggle would be a futile deed of sacrifice, so I must respectfully decline your request, emperor of Besh-Darok.
“But I grow weary so I must retire for the evening.” He looked at the three cowled women. “Thank you all for reading such illuminating verses to me, thank you Pel, you Cava, and you Suvi, thank you for your beautiful voices…”
As the women stood to make their farewells, Tauric gained a better view of them – the one called Pel had long dark hair and a calm manner, Cava had black curly hair, a darker complexion and mischievous eyes, and Suvi had shoulder-length golden hair and an open smile. Tauric and Shondareth quickly bade the older witchhorse farewell and as they left the barn with the three women Tauric contrived to be walking beside Suvi. There was something about her that kindled his curiosity and a suspicion.
“Do you live near here?” he asked as they emerged. Outside, evening was drawing in with its veils of mist and shadow.
She gave him an amused look. “In a manner of speaking,” she said, pointing up at the mountains, at the raised promontory of the Oshang Dakhal where the lights of Trevada now glowed. “That is where I work, live, eat, pray and study, which I should really only tell you after we've been introduced.”
What…?
Thoumyrax will have kept her from hearing you earlier.
“I...see…” He cleared his throat. “Very well – I am Tauric dor-Barleth.”
“Barleth?” Suvi said with a small frown. “Isn't that part of the ducal lands in Patrein?”
“I have the honour of being the son of his grace, the Duke,” he said, giving a slight bow.
“And I am Suviel Hantika of the town of Kessio in Cabringa.” She laughed and curtseyed, then turned when her friends called from the open doors of a stable a little way upstream. “I must go or I'll be late,” she said. “Safe journey, Tauric dor-Barleth.”
He watched her run off through the knee-high grass, young and energetic, and remembered the kindly but weary woman who had helped Keren get him to Krusivel then tended him after he lost his arm.
Why is she here? he thought.
Thoumyrax must have known her in her youth, said the Fathertree spirit. And in his intense need to create a comforting innerland illusion, he's revived a portion of north Anghatan with great accuracy of detail and atmosphere. However, I suspect that every day here is the same day in late summer…
As Tauric watched the three women ride north through the trees he felt a sharp yearning for peace, happiness and no more struggle.
That you could have very easily – peace and happiness, success and accomplishment, the love and devoted regard of admirers. All that and more, a castle, a domain or even a kingdom of your own. You could be king, emperor, anything that you could want or dream about could be yours - just ask Shondareth.
He paused, his thoughts arrested by the possibilities laid out by the Fathertree spirit, all his desires made real and solid. He reached out to touch the rough bark of a nearby tree and tugged a handful of leaves from a low branch, imagining creating such things from his own memories….then he looked up at the clouded sky and wondered how real such a place could be.
It would be real for you.
And unreal for everyone else, he thought, letting the leaves fall. While I surrounded myself with my desires, all else would fall into chaos. No, it would be a lie and I am too much my father's son to forgo my duty – I know that now.
Yes, the Fathertree said as the witchhorse Shondareth came walking through the grass. Whatever the lineage of your blood, you were always the son of the duke.
* * *
In the coolness of the glade, where shafts of sunlight fell upon a small pool and a white stone monument, she waited patiently, just as the goddess had instructed. There was a large round rock jutting from the ground near the pool so on it she sat, staring down into the waters at the tiny fish and the tinier insects darting across the surface. After a time she looked up and let her wandering gaze come to rest on the monument and she was peering closely at the detailed carvings along its side when the densely intertwined screen of foliage rustled slightly. Then it bulged, sprig and tendrils writhing, and the tall figure of a woman garbed in a long cloak of leaves stepped forth. As the foliage closed behind her, the goddess walked barefoot and unhurried across the soft, mossy ground to pause by the monument and regard the waiting woman. A feeling of tense expectancy filled the air, and a gem-like light seemed to shift around her.
“Suviel,” the goddess said. “Come here.”
The woman felt a muffled stab of panic on hearing that name, her own name, which seemed to want to own her rather than her owning it. But she had to obey so she rose and went over, eyes downcast.
“Look up.”
Suviel did so. The Earthmother towered over her, long dark hair interwoven with blue flowers, her face strongly featured, her eyes a pale, copper green that shone into Suviel's thoughts. For a moment the goddess regarded her with that numinous regard, then crossed to the impenetrable wall of vine and leaves on the other side of the glade. Suviel could only follow.
“I have several tasks for you,” the goddess said. “Firstly, it would be advantageous to restore a few of your memories and abilities…”
One moment she was empty as a shell with only a name rattling around inside of her. The next, the knowledge and history of the lands of the empire that was came cramming into her thoughts, names, places, meanings, all those things that Suviel had shrugged off in the Vale of Unburdening. She almost wanted to weep.
“Now, watch.”
The Earthmother made a small gesture, and power rippled all around her as the wall of vines parted to form a dark, oval opening as tall as the goddess herself. Glittering ripples raced across the dimness within then dissolved away to reveal a view of a gloomy chamber lit by two large candles. On a table were several items
, a book and two caskets which suddenly became transparent and glasslike, revealing their contents. Suviel made a small sound in recognition.
“The Crystal Eye and the Motherseed.”
“The prizes which the Shadowkings, especially Byrnak, desire above almost everything else,” the Earthmother answered. “Possession of these talismans would give them the power to deal with the Lord of Twilight once and for all, but I shall not permit that for I will have my revenge!”
The goddess' anger shivered through the moist air and the surroundings seemed to become subdued and dimmer. She made another powerful yet tiny movement of her hand, and the scene changed. The chamber shivered into a gleaming swirl which then coalesced into a view of a paved courtyard with an open gateway looking out at a wide expanse of water beneath a cloudy sky. In the foreground was a stocky, bald man in the brown robes of a monk and two others in military garb, red cloaks, identical silvered breastplates and elaborate gold masks. Familiarity was fitful – the masked men were officers of the Jefren Theocracy, but was that not the waters of the Sea of Birrdaelin in the distance? Had the Theocracy come so far, then? The bald man, though, was Coireg Mazaret. From the memories available to her, she knew the name and little else, yet it seemed to imply something more, something which remained elusive.
A few yards away from Mazaret stood a line of five figures, five hooded men dressed like riders or scouts. The first approached Mazaret, went down on one knee and pushed back his hood….Suviel felt a surge of recognition and shock which she firmly quelled. It was Gilly Cordale.
The features, however, were chalk-white and the eyes pale. A suspicion formed in her mind as Mazaret exchanged a few words with him then presented a bone-handled dagger in a curved sheath. The man took the weapon, stood and without backward glance walked to the open gateway and stepped out of sight. The next man came up to Mazaret, knelt and bared his head, which was identical to the first.
They were rivenshades, sorcerous doubles depending on part of someone else's spiritual essence for a kind of half-life. From her memories Suviel knew that this had been done to her, robbing her of all that she had been. The Crystal Eye had restored most of it, before she died…
“Even the enemy's own servants unknowingly further my purpose,” the Earthmother said as the dagger bestowal was repeated for the rest of the rivenshades who followed the first out of the gate.
“What are they going to do?” Suviel said.
“They are being sent forth as assassins,” the goddess said. “Deadly blades in whose hilts are wells of poison baneful enough to kill any living thing, however strong and vital – when the Shadowkings' bodies die, the fragments of the Lord of Twilight will be free. The Acolytes secretly allied themselves with the Jefren Theocracy when it became clear that Byrnak and the others wanted to keep the Lord of Twilight under lock and key, as it were, and this is the outcome of their pact. They may prove to be useful if other strategies fail…”
The Earthmother's fingers twitched. Once more the scene rippled and swirled, reforming to show a dark, stone chamber. Small lamps burned on chest-high stands in all four corners, illuminating the large iron casket that hung on chains from the shadowed ceiling. Below it, emerald radiance burned in the patterns chiselled into the dungeon's flagstones, intricate symbols whose every curve and hook spoke of an ancient power. Yellow lamplight and green iridescence swam across the glyph-crowded surface of the long canister and tinged the grimacing bearded face staring out from the opening at the top of canister.
“Ystregul,” the Earthmother said. “The first of the Shadowkings to be driven mad by his fragment of the Lord of Twilight. As you can see, he is constrained and guarded by a plethora of spells and traps. Although I could step into that room this very instant, my mere presence would set every alarum in Trevada shrieking.
“Therefore, Suviel, I shall send you to a less sensitive area in Trevada from whence you will find a way into the passage beneath the Basilica, enter that chamber and release him.”
Thus making it easier for an assassin to reach him? Suviel wondered. Certainly, it would make it easier for him to attack me…
But she bowed her head before the goddess, hoping only for an early return to the tranquility of nothingness.
“Divine Mother, I am yours to command. When shall I begin this task?”
“Soon, Suviel. Very soon.”
* * *
With his feet planted on ice-free projections and his good hand gripping a crack in the rock, Tavo paused for breath. He was getting close to the top of the cliff face now, he was certain. It had been a long and tortuous climb during which he had fallen twice, endured wind-driven rain, hail and snow, and was almost discovered by that turncoat bitch, Nerek. That was several hours ago when she and a couple of those dog-mages had appeared on the stone bridge that linked the mainland city battlements to the two sheer rock islets whose fortified watchtowers guarded the approach to the harbour. As they gazed down from either side of the bridge, Tavo had lain flat and utterly still while driving all vestiges of the Wellsource from his being. After a time he had peered out to see the bridge empty once more. With a prayer of thanks to the Prince of Dusk, he had continued upwards…
Feeling a little recovered, Tavo moved the fingers of his good hand up the narrow rock fissure to where it ran horizontally, then with one foot braced on a knee-high ridge he pushed himself higher. His other hand was all but useless, broken last night in a fall that had left him in stunned agony on a ledge two-thirds of the way down. He had used the Wellsource then to fuse all the bones into a clenched fist so that he was free to use that lower arm or elbow as leverage. There was still a lot of pain from the wrenched and torn muscles, but it merged with the pain from all the other wounds he had suffered in the last few days, not least the burns he received in that cursed college. Then there were the slow distortions of skin and bone brought on by the combined use of Wellsource and Lesser Power. This had all left his body feeling like a sack of torment that he was slowly hauling up the sheer rock.
The cliff face was like a huge, insane pattern carved into the stone by the weather, a vertical maze of ledges, holes, jutting protrusions and cracks. In spring and summer it was also home to thousands of birds whose decaying nests and excrement still littered every shelf and hollow, thus as he climbed he acquired a stinking encrustation of filth. He cursed it with every upward step, every foot– and hand-hold that took his weight and did not crumble. The light was failing as the sun dipped towards the horizon, but he had been in bone-chilling shadow for most of the day and only the heat of the Wellsource in his veins kept the frostbite from eating his extremities.
Then, with the sky dark grey and turbulent, the vertical face turned into a steep slope dotted with hardy bloodspine bushes. Carefully he crawled up it, still using any holds he could find, progressing doggedly onward and upward as the incline grew steadily shallower till at last Tavo was lying on flat, snow-covered ground. To his right loomed the massive walls of Besh-Darok, its parapets and towers lit by watchfires. Part of him wanted to get up and dance and shriek his defiance, and mock them for letting him slip through their grasp. But he put aside the urge and crawled away from the walls to seek cover behind a snow-laden clump of hogthorn bushes. Now that he was concealed he could employ the Wellsource in a way that was impossible in the city. He opened himself to it, felt its ardour, the pushing force of its need to be used rushing through him...its intensity almost overwhelmed him in his weakened state and his body trembled as he struggled to shape its power to his own needs. Finally he had what he needed, an eye that would let him see the nearest allies and servants of Gorla or Keshada. Sitting upright, he trained it to the southwest, peering through a curious mist made of the distance. Almost at once he spotted an outlying tower of the long growing wall, and a moment later a presence there became aware of his regard. Recognising him instantly as a servant of the Shadowkings it offered to send help, and he gratefully accepted.
As he quenched the Wellsource within hi
m, he sat back, breathing heavily.
Soon, my masters, soon you will know the truth, that the third talisman lies not within Besh-Darok but at the bottom of the Wilderan Sea!
Chapter Twenty-One
Have little to gain more,
Be empty to receive,
Become broken to remain whole,
Be nowhere to be everywhere.
—Shaman proverb
At the dark, mirror-calm pool near the clearing where every witchhorse's trail began, Tauric sat on a smooth rock by the water's edge, disconsolately tossing fragments of dry twig and watching the widening ripples. Behind him, Ghazrek was finishing off another tray of delicacies – for the Mogaun officer it had been less than half a day since their escape from the temple at Nimas, while Tauric had spent almost a week visiting many of the witchhorses in the cocooned illusions of their innerlands. But hardly any were inclined to hear his plea for help and not one showed the slightest shred of concern or understanding.
Strangely, the spirit of the Fathertree within him seemed quite satisfied and suggested that Tauric return to rest by the pool while it pondered on all that they had seen. Tauric felt that rest was the last thing he needed – he had experienced no tiredness at all – but agreed nevertheless. He had hoped that relaxing and clearing his thoughts would help him to think the situation through for himself, but instead he ended up brooding over the mistakes he had made, the naïve trust he had placed in those who turned out to be enemies. Indeed, was it not possible that he was making the same mistake again?
You are entirely justified in posing such a question, said the Fathertree. In my own defense, I can only point out that I have not and will not coerce you against your will – if I cannot persuade you, that will be an end to it.
How could I know if you've tampered with my…judgement, making me favour your suggestions?
You could not, but I swear to you by the Sacred Void that your mind is your own, unchanged by my hand.
I see, he said, scattering his last few twig fragments across the pool. Well, then – have you mulled over all that we've witnessed and reached any conclusions?
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