Now, huddled in a storeroom across the corridor from the dining chamber, he listened to Alael’s explanation.
“It’s the Earthmother,” she said tearfully. “She wants to use me, dominate me completely, so that she can attack the Lord of Twilight..”
“But he is divided among the five Shadowkings,” Gilly said, remembering what Suviel had told him.
“He was, but the part that was in Byrnak has escaped into another host and has already joined with another two of the god’s fragments..” Alael closed her eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them to show her fear.
“What can we do to stop the Lord of Twilight becoming whole? I’ve been fighting the Earthmother with all my strength, but could she be right? Should I just give into her?”
Gilly got to his feet in the darkened storeroom then helped her to stand.
“I don’t know what the answer is,” he said. “But Suviel may. I overheard some of the masks here saying that an army from Besh-Darok is heading for Keshada. Suviel said she was going to return with help, and she said that we were to find you and wait for her by the entrance to the Realm of Dusk…”
“But that’s…” she said.
“The Lord of Twilight’s domain,” he said. “But that was what she said, to go to the seventh floor where there are several doorways to that place and hide nearby…” He laughed softly, “…although I cannot say where Mazaret has got to.”
With every step a stealthy tread, Gilly led her from the dining chamber and along to a stairwell he had happened across earlier. Its stairs spiralled around a massive stone pillar covered in niches and alcoves of every size and in each one stood a male figurine or statue. While the central pillar was constructed of a dusky, ochre stone, the statues were of a dark grey stone, well-polished to highlight the details of garments, features and motion. For each stature performed some small action in a repeating cycle, sharpening a sword, lighting a fire, pulling on armoured gauntlets, writing on a sheet of parchment, braiding a rope. There was even one that grinned while tossing and catching a spinning coin, over and over again. Gilly was not sure if they were all supposed to represent the Lord of Twilight, but something about them gave him a chill and he hurried Alael up to the next floor.
There, the corridors seemed deserted and finding stairs to the seventh floor was a straightforward matter. As they climbed, shouts and the crash of weapons came up from a few levels down, but whether this was from the masked soldiers resisting an incursion or fighting among themselves, he could not tell.
The doorways were where Suviel said they would be, in the outer wall. Gilly stood with Alael on the threshold of one, staring out at the strange, rocky waste, which lay perhaps five or six yards below, knowing that other windows on this floor looked across miles of snowbound fields from a far greater height…
“This is the place,” Gilly muttered.
“But how do we get down?” said Alael.
He shrugged then stepped out onto the wide ledge that ran along the outside, spotted the battlement of a large, square keep round to the left and ducked back inside.
“What is it?” Alael said.
“Some kind of fortification next to the wall further round, “ he said. “I saw guards on its ramparts, so we can’t go that way…”
“Perhaps there are stairs along the other way,” she said, dashing off along the corridor inside.
Shaking his head, Gilly went after her. Strong-headed women or implacable goddesses, he thought. Is there that much difference?
Ahead of him, Alael stepped through one of the tall openings, back out to the ledge, and was gone from sight. Gilly sighed and called out to her.
“Alael, this is a dangerous place – come back and wait…”
There was no response so he hurried through the nearest opening and saw her descending a wide ramp which led down the outside of the wall. Annoyed, he ran after her, catching up as she reached the foot of the ramp, and put out a hand to her shoulder, only noticing the faint golden nimbus in the last instant. She turned with hot amber eyes and made a back-handed strike at his face, not seeming to put any effort into the movement.
It was like being hit by a sack of vegetables swung by a fairground strongman. Pain lanced through his jaw and head as he was knocked flying to land on his back on a mound of pebbly sand. Gasping, head spinning, he struggled to sit up, probed his tender, throbbing jaw and blinked hard. Alael was now some yards away, heading into a dusty gully which, further down, looked dim and shadowy. Spitting out grit, he got achingly to his feet and glanced over his shoulder at the keep. It looked small and shabby next to the smooth, towering perfection of Keshada, but there was no sign of activity.
“Well, Suviel,” he muttered. “You said naught about the possibility of the girl being possessed by the Earthmother, but I’m sure that if I lose her I’ll never hear the end of it, eh?...”
He chuckled to himself, tore off the black mask he had been wearing for hours, loosened his blade in its scabbard, and set off down the gully.
* * *
Byrnak rode through the ravaged fields of ice and snow with a host that was not his own at his back, with a scouring, inner emptiness, his thoughts clouded by fear. Ahead, the long dark walls and the tall gates of Keshada loomed ever nearer, bringing the need for subterfuge and his ability to bluff their way inside…
No, it's not bluffing, he told himself. I am still Byrnak, and they will know my face…
Hooded riders rode either side of him and the one on his right edged a little closer before raising the cowl to look straight at him. As he met Suviel Hantika’s gaze, he could feel the enmity of Bardow’s eyes boring into him from the other side.
“You know what you have to do?” she said. Her lips moved in a mutter which somehow reached his ears perfectly. Her voice, which had come to him in the cell where he had lain with his mind torn by shrieking tongues of pain; that voice, which had whispered soft, sorcerous syllables to block out the torment, then offered him a bargain which would safeguard that barrier.
He nodded. “Get the turnkeys to open the gates, enter with Yasgur and his warriors, order the officers inside to confine their men to quarters…”
“And think of no other purpose, Byrnak,” came Bardow’s mistrusting voice. “No deviations and no deceit, and your thoughts will remained untroubled.”
“You must convince the men at the gate,” Suviel Hantika went on. “You must play the part.”
“I know,” he said. “I shall.”
Onward they rode and all too soon the dark, fluted immensity of the wall was blocking out all else. The ramparts, however, seemed deserted – a few grey banners and flags fluttered and a dusting of snow flew off the battlements in the chill breeze. Even when they reached the gates themselves, the air of abandonment was undiminished – high, sheltered balconies that should have been crowded with bowmen were empty while other armoured shutters hung open and unmanned.
When Byrnak and the two mages led the way into the low walled courtyard set out before the gates, a voice did at last ring out from one of the flanking towers.
“Who dares to approach the citadel Keshada?”
Byrnak glanced at the mage Hantika who gave a cowled nod of the head, then he urged his horse on ahead as the host slowed behind him. He clenched his reins tightly as he rode up to the high tower, then forced a sneer onto his features as he looked up.
“Do you have eyes in your head, fool? Can you not see who I am?”
There was some whispering for a moment, then:
“Lord, it was said that you fell in the city palace –”
“Wrong, fool – I have returned after securing my victory with those who stayed loyal in the forge of battle. Open these gates and I shall permit you to join them…”
“O great one, the pale lords told us to keep the gates shut fast –”
“Shall I make an example of you then, fool? Perhaps turn you into something fit only to be fed to the eaterbeasts… or I might spare myself the effor
t and feed you to them as your are, since your brains are clearly naught but offal!”
"I hear and obey, great lord!"
He relaxed in his saddle, feeling himself tremble with the effort of playing the part that had once felt so real.
But was it ever real? he wondered. Were we five hosts ever anything more than rivenshades animated by an ancient purpose…
Muffled clanks from within the towers disturbed his brooding. As the host of Mogaun riders and the smaller column of knights (garbed in black mask and cloaks) drew near, the sounds of chains and turning ratchets came forth and the huge, iron gates of Keshada began to open inwards. As the phalanx of horsemen approached the gaping entrance, he noticed Yasgur riding beside the mage Hantika, head inclined towards her and talking quickly. But she shook her head and the Mogaun chieftain slipped back to be with Welgarak and Gordag. All three watched him with unforgiving eyes as he resumed his station between the cowled mages. The main gates were now fully open and the inner 'cullis gate was rising.
"And now?" he asked.
"And now we enter," Suviel Hantika said. "Remember - order all officers to confine their men to quarters. We have to reach the Realm of Dusk as soon as possible, so there must be no delays."
He nodded wordlessly and stared off into the waiting gloom of the entrance. When that fragment of the Lord of Twilight had uprooted itself from his being to invade Nerek, it had also torn out every last shred of his affinity with the Wellsource. Sitting close, here at the threshold of Keshada, it was as if he had become a ghost to this vast temple of power.
And since the mages had refused him any kind of blade he was for the first time, truly, utterly defenceless.
"Time is not our ally, Byrnak," muttered the mage Hantika. "Lead the way."
Gritting his teeth he urged his horse forward.
* * *
Suviel kept a close eye on Byrnak as she rode beside him through the gates of Keshada. Her undersenses told her that there were only a handful of soldiers in the gate towers, now hiding rather than risking what they imagined to be Byrnak's ire. Ahead, the high, dark entranceway became a wide ramp leading up into a huge, inner courtyard and she knew that it was empty. Only when they rode up from the ramp did she realise that it was only empty of the living. The dead were there, in abundance.
Black-clad bodies were scattered everywhere, hundreds upon hundreds of still forms lying in the contorted positions of death agony. An orgy of violence had been played out across the vast chamber, and blood drenched the flagstones and walls. A long platform jutted out into the courtyard from a semicircular walkway, and at its end some kind of last stand had been made, with bodies gathered in mounds.
The host rode slowly through the slaughter in horrified silence. Suviel though at one point that she could no longer stomach the stench of blood and death but she mastered herself and rod on without pause. As she passed the dead soldiers she noticed that some had a torn-off strip of green cloth tied about the upper arm, and began to realise that the majority of the corpses wore no such badge. This it seemed likely that a green-badged force of mask soldiers ambushed and massacred another faction, then gone off to hunt through the rest of the citadel above them.
And as she rode she so no bear heads among the slain, no unmasked faces that might belong to Ikarno or Gilly.
Where are you both in all of this? she wondered.
Byrnak seemed strangely composed amid this carnage, his bearded features bearing little more than faint puzzlement. Suviel recalled Yasgar's vigorous suggestion that the former warlord be bound hand and foot before they entered Keshada, in case he galloped away to rejoin his troops. She wondered what the Lord Regent was thinking now.
A wide ramp which curved up to the semicircular walkway had to be cleared of bodies before the small army of Mogaun and Besh-Darok's knights could ride up and among to a wide, plain doorway. Still following Byrnak's lead, Suviel rode by him into a high, curved hall where hanging lamps sent amber light down among the shadows of pillars. There were still more bodies strewn on the floor, puddled with dark, viscid blood. The more she saw, the more she realised that a full-scale battle had taken place here. As the clearance teams got to work again, she looked at Byrnak.
“What could have caused such slaughter?” she asked.
“I know not,” he said darkly. “Without soul-bound officers to guide them, they may have decided upon new loyalties…”
A moment later Byrnak led the way towards a tall archway which spanned the distance between two pillars, wide enough for two wagons or five riders travelling abreast. But what caught Suviel's attention was the glittering haze that swirled against the blue-blackness of the opening…
"Wait," she said to Byrnak. "Where does this lead to?"
"The drill yards on the third floor," he said with a glare. "From there, a smaller traversing door will take us to the seventh."
"Perhaps we should send some scouts through first," Bardow suggested.
"As you wish," said Byrnak, shrugging.
A handful of Yasgur's men were sent through on foot, returning a short while later to report similar scenes of slaughter and no living in sight. Reassured, Suviel glanced at Bardow, nodded to Yasgur and his fellow chieftains, then gestured Byrnak to continue.
Passing through the archway's glittering darkness was like stepping through a thin veil of icy spiderwebs which caressed her face and hands. On the other side, it was brighter due to the plentiful lamps hanging from the numerous circular vaults which partitioned the great ceiling. Again, death's silent multitude were in attendance, sprawled in blood spattered blade pits, slumped on target ranges with feathered shafts sprouting from chests, necks, heads, or lying in gory heaps, some hands still clutching practice weapons. All part of the same story of murderous conflict.
And still Suviel stared at all those within view, searching, searching, hoping not to see Ikarno's face. At first she had imagined that she would somehow know if he came to harm, but the streams of Wellsource power that poured through Keshada were blinding her to him. Even with the Crystal Eye's enhancement of her abilities with the Lesser Power, the Wellsource was ultimately the stronger. She could only hope and pray that the Fathertree spirit had been right to insist that she bring the Eye and Motherseed with them.
When all the talismans are used together, it had told her, even gods walk in fear.
Riding on Byrnak's left, she went on surveying the faces of the dead while staying alert to the slightest perception or impression of Ikarno or Gilly from the outermost fringes of her undersenses.
A raised, columned walkway passed around the drill yards and following it they soon came to another glittering door, a smaller one wide enough for only two horses. Once again, scouts were sent through, and came back with tales of deserted passages and rooms full of butchery.
Suviel passed through with Bardow and Yarram, the Lord Commander of the Fathertree knights, closely followed by the knights of the order who had survived the battle at Besh-Darok. The doorway from which they emerged lay at a T-junction of three tall, wide corridors well lit by oil lamp cressets set into the walls. Some swift questioning of Byrnak revealed that they were on the other side of this floor from the gateways to the Lord of Twilight's realm. The leg of the T-junction lead inwards to a hub gallery encircling a stairwell: from the gallery, another corridor ran straight to the outer wall of Keshada and the waiting gates.
"I don't like it, m'lady," said Yarram. "I should like to spread out from here and secure every corridor on this floor before moving forward…"
"I understand your caution," Suviel said. "But we do not have the time to spare for such an approach, nor is there room in these corridors for our thousands of riders."
"Then we will have to scout ahead in strength," said Yasgur. "And at speed - let me send riders of my men along the passages nearest our route even as the rest of our army is coming through and moving towards our destination."
Suviel could think of no other swifter, more effective tactic so
with Bardow's nod and Yarram's reluctant consent, she agreed to Yasgur's proposal. As it transpired, Yarram's fear of room and corner fighting went unfulfilled since this level seemed as deathly and forsaken as the rest of the citadel. Suviel was at the front when the spearhead of riders, mostly heavily armoured knights, emerged from the radial corridor into the wide, spacious gallery that was the outermost passage. Its inner wall was an expanse of polished, fine grey marble into which a line of shoulder-high niches had been carved, each holding a metallic head muttering in some lost tongue. The outer wall, in blocks of rough-hewn, rust-brown stone, was broken by smooth-edged triangular openings which afforded a generous view of the Realm of Dusk.
With Yasgur's scouts visible further along the gallery and the rest of the army filing out of the corridor, Suviel dismounted and walked over to one of the triangular openings. Pausing on its threshold she stared out at the seared, rocky desert then left at the dust-hazed jumble of ramshackle fortifications, then right along the wide shelf which remained deserted along all of it that she could see. But of Gilly and Alael and Ikarno there was no sign, and her heart sank.
Had Gilly and Ikarno failed to find her and keep her safe, and perhaps turned their efforts towards fostering dissension among the rivenshades? That might explain the slaughterous scenes elsewhere in the citadel, but where were they? And where was Alael? If the Earthmother had taken full possession of her, she could be out there in the Lord of Twilight's realm this very moment in which case time was growing perilously short…
She was about to turn back to her horse and the milling crowds of riders when, through her undersenses, she felt another's presence nearby, beyond the shelf. She knew that there was a wide ramp there and as she stepped forward the full length of it came into view, as did a pale-haired, dark-cloaked figure who sat near the bottom. A few steps down the ramp and the man's profile and features became clear and familiar. Suviel smiled and almost laughed with a weak relief. The white hair, pale skin and grey eyes were all just as she had left him. Then he glanced round, smiled bleakly and nodded.
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