Octoberland (The Dominions of Irth Book 3)

by A. A. Attanasio

  The pixies watched him from all sides of day, from the glowing nests of dawn and dusk and the gold branch of noon. In their leaf caps and bark boots, they appeared harmless and childlike. But the look in their large eyes shone with terror.

  And in those mirrors, he confronted himself as the pixies viewed him: He held a firelock. The pixies knew that his breed had invented firelocks, weapons designed to kill not only other creatures but their own kind. And they knew he had come here to slay them.

  Demons! the goblins yelled.

  And their cry pierced him with its truth. He jolted alert and pushed to his feet.

  "The trolls!" Jyoti shouted at him. "I can't get them all. There are too many. Help me!"

  Shaken by what he had seen, Reece stood unmoving, watching the metal-sheened creatures climbing down the rock shelves to save the exiled pixies from demons.

  Death’s Nightmare

  Demons! the goblins shouted with fear—but their telepathic strength had dimmed. The trolls they had summoned reverted to mindless carnivores without the goblin's guidance and began to scatter in fright before the painful attacks of the humans. All across Irth, trolls fled back into the wilderness, seeking sanctuary in rock coverts, forest canopies, swamp morasses.

  In New Arwar, the goblins responsible for focusing the psychic power of their breed needed more hex-gems. The jewels they had dangled in their web works had emptied of Charm and dulled. Frantically, they called for the demons they had expended so much energy taming: Shai Malia! Poch! The dear ones need you! Come to us again! Come at once! Poch! Shai Malia!

  Neither the margrave nor his wife heard the telepathic summons. With glazed eyes, they sat in their suite watching TV. A blackened glass pipe lay on the rattan table before them. Their drugged minds floated adrift in their skulls, so dark that the phosphor glow from the screen seemed bright as the Abiding Star itself, and they stared at it through dark glasses.

  Daylight glittered prisms in the webs that suspended the two assassins. Slowly and with stupendous effort, the goblins lowered one of the bodies. The cold of this world had taken its toll on the small creatures, and they did not want to reach again into the mind of another monstrous demon. They did not want to feel its cunning self, its capacity for deception, violence, and murder.

  Now they had no choice. Without hex-gems, they could not project their telepathy to the trolls and ogres. And without those beasts as defenders, the demons would eventually track them down and inflict on them death's nightmare: prolonged life under the scalpel and exploratory needles.

  They had seen this in the brains of every demon they had dared touch with their minds—the need to know at all costs, to dissect and analyze, no matter the suffering of their subjects. Cruelty emanated from these beings

  *

  News of the weakening goblins spread rapidly. That afternoon, Overy Scarn received reports that the troll attacks in every dominion had lifted. This both mystified and alarmed her.

  Strolling among the maze hedges and espaliered flower trees of Primrose Stilts, she contemplated what had gone wrong with the goblins.

  "Use the ceiling camera to capture an image of the goblin chamber," she instructed her sentinel chief, Roidan, when they met among the topiary shrubs. "Bring the image to me in an eye charm. I would see what changes have befallen our guests."

  She waited for him to return beside one of the temple's seventy-seven pillars of smoky marble and climbing rose vines. Her large body occupyied a wood bench. Its slats creaked under her weight, for she had neglected to wear her brace of levity-pearls.

  Trepidation so occupied her that she noticed nothing of the fruited dwarf trees that shaded floating lilies on the jade-rock pool. Beauty could not reach her, for anxiety had displaced all other feelings.

  Though her eyes gazed upon a wrought lantern of black silver and green copper hung by a thick chain from the high rafters, she saw instead her severed head. That would be the penalty in wartime for usurping a margravine if the Peers defeated the goblins and subsequently learned how she had misappropriated Dig Dog funds to take New Arwar and all its resources for herself.

  When Roidan returned, she leaped from the bench and snatched the eye charm from his grasp. She found within the dark lozenge a lucid image of the goblin chamber. The gauzy interior shone with silver webs and cottony fluff that obscured much of the room—yet she easily discerned the goblins, their bulbous heads agleam like melons, their smutty, deformed bodies huddled together.

  "There is only one assassin in this picture," she observed and looked up sharply at Roidan. She caught the hints of disgust in his stocky face—the wrinkles beside his bent nose, the curled lip, the dismay in his deep-set eyes—as he regarded not the goblins but her. She had neglected to wear her spellbinder girdle and determined to return to her bedchamber to retrieve it before she lost complete control over her muscular minion. First, she had to know. "Where is the second assassin?"

  "I know not." Roidan's block brow furrowed. "They were both there when I looked this morning."

  "Go at once and look again," she ordered. "And bring another eye charm to my chamber. I must see for myself that they are both still captive."

  Overy Scarn returned to her suite and immediately opened her wardrobe, seeking her spellbinder girdle. "Ah, Overy, I need you now. Did you see the look on his face?"

  "Roidan is a dolt, Scarn," she answered herself, running thick fingers over the starburst of ecstasy-topazes and rapture-garnets. "The spellbinder will keep him in line. After he—"

  Her thought fractured when she noticed that her wardrobe drawer had been forced open: a curl on the head of a dancing satyr carved into a wooden drawer panel had been chipped. She opened the drawer and gasped. Her theriacal opals, sleep-emeralds, and serenity-sapphires were missing. "Who would dare?"

  She crossed the room and stood before a TV monitor and digital disk player she had attached to a video camera mounted within a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree dome lens on the crossbeam of her ceiling. No one in the dominions knew of this technology from the Dark Shore, and so none had yet thought to elude it.

  She fast-played the day's recording and found the intruder—a slinky shadow who moved across the room like liquid darkness, ebony robes gummy with goblin webs.

  Torn and Most Whole

  “The goblins need hex-gems, Scarn,” Overy Scarn told herself. "That was what Poch and his lovely wife provided them—until they became too dizzy with coca smoke to obey their masters anymore."

  She removed her spellbinder girdle and returned it to the wardrobe closet. "I won't let them have my hex-gems, Overy. The assassin N'drato was fool enough to leave behind the jewel case that had held those gems for so long. It will be expensive to have a charmwright net the case in conjure-wire and use resonance with my stolen hex-gems to draw the Charm out of them. It will be expensive, more costly than the gems are worth by four or five times. But in this way we will deprive the goblins. N'drato was a fool not to take the entire case.”

  "Assassins are never fools, Scarn," she countered herself, holding the bejeweled girdle to her bosom. "He left the jewel case behind intentionally. It is a statement from the goblins themselves. They wish us to know that they are in command, not us. They defy us to take the Charm from them. If we do—they will kill us. They have in their power two assassins.”

  "Bah!" She stepped back angrily from the hanging girdle. "I do not fear those dirty little imps. It is the Peerage I fear. Let the goblins have their Charm—until they have destroyed the Peers and cleared the dominions of all opposition to our reign."

  She held the glittering girdle again to her body and shook her round, curly head. "No, no, Scarn, that won't do. We must assert control over these dirty little imps immediately—or they may get notions that we are weak and they can command us. They may even seize the opportunity to turn the Peers against us.”

  “That we will not suffer!" She slammed the wardrobe shut. "Overy, you have convinced me. A lesson is in order."

 
When Roidan knocked, she opened the door a crack and snatched the eye charm from his grasp, shouting, "Send a charmwright to me, at once!"

  To the charmwright, she delivered the jewel case with information that the hex-gems within had been stolen and their Charm must be drained by resonance. She then summoned the manor's maintenance manager and showed her the video cameras that had come from the Dark Shore.

  Overy had originally intended to use the security cameras to guard her warehouses. She instructed the manager to install the mirror-dome panoramic view cameras in the corridors and air ducts surrounding the bond agent's suite. And she specified that each camera should be hidden behind sentry amulets.

  After seeing this work completed, Overy Scarn sat in an overstuffed chair of crushed hippogriff leather with an array of small TV monitors stacked on a low table before her and waited. At her side, hanging from a wooden clothes rack, she kept the spellbinder girdle, occasionally reaching for its sparkling fabric to converse with herself.

  That night, with the windows behind her shining with star smoke and planetary orbs, she reclined, watching her monitors until she spotted the assassin outside her bedchamber. He wore foil discs to reflect the watchful Charm of the sentry amulets, which detected him not at all. Only the video cameras recorded his stealthy approach to her door. With a swipe of a keycharm, the lock snicked and the door opened.

  Overy Scarn waited until he had closed the door behind him before turning on the soft, corner lights. "Come in, assassin. I have been waiting for you."

  The assassin spun and reached for the door latch. Before he could exit, the jamb beside his cowled head burst into splinters.

  "My next shot will blow out your brains." Overy wagged her chrome-plated Sig Sauer 9mm outfitted with a long black silencer at the assassin. "You've never seen the likes of this weapon—and you have no protection against it. Turn around and tell me your name."

  "N'drato." The assassin folded back his cowl. His bald head and lean face held shadows in sinister angles. "The dear ones have sent me to take your life."

  “The dear ones, is it?" Overy Scarn kept the gun trained on the assassin as she addressed the jewel-studded girdle on the rack beside her. "Do you hear that, Overy? If they can make an assassin love them, none of us are safe from their powers.”

  "Watch him closely, Scarn," she warned herself as her hand drew the dazzling garment over her shoulder. "He has been trained since before birth for danger."

  N'drato's small, black eyes narrowed slightly. "Who are you talking to?"

  "Why, to myself, of course." She emitted a bubbly laugh, giddy to have an assassin under her power. "On the Dark Shore there is a compilation of sacred texts called the Bible, and in chapter four, verse nine of the holy book of Ecclesiastes it is written, ‘Two are better than one ... for if they fall, one will lift up her companion.' So, you see, N'drato, I am two and stronger for it."

  "You're mad." In his hand, the black curve of a razor knife appeared as if from nowhere. “I intended to make your demise appear accidental, to keep attention averted from the dear ones. But you force me to deliver you to a more bloody death."

  "N'drato, you underestimate this weapon." Her mouth held a dark smile. "You'll be dead before you hit the ground."

  “This is so—but only if your next shot hits me." The razor knife moved like a living thing in his hand. "If not..."

  "Are the dear ones listening to what I say?" she asked coolly. "Is their telepathy strong enough to see me through you, or have the hex-gems that I emptied of Charm depleted their powers?"

  "The pixies see and hear you through me." He seemed to float forward. "You have deprived them of their power to direct trolls at a distance, but they have the strength to guide me."

  "Stop where you are." Overy Scarn pointed the gun at his face. "Don't make me kill you until your dear ones have heard what I have to tell them."

  N'drato paused, the razor knife smiling in his hand. "Speak."

  "Dear ones, pixies—goblins—I offer you an understanding." Overy Scarn spoke to the black bits of the assassin's eyes. "I shall give you all the hex-gems you require, and you shall remain unmolested here in New Arwar. No one will know of your presence except myself and the people you now hold in thrall."

  She pulled the spellbinder girdle over her shoulder and continued, "Scarn will provide this for you, and in exchange you will continue your war against the dominions. You will destroy the Peers. And when you are done, I, Overy, shall see that you have a dominion entirely to yourself. No people will trouble you there. You shall be free to live as—dear ones. That is what you want, yes?"

  “The dear ones do not trust demons," N'drato muttered.

  "They can learn to trust me—or they can die now." Overy Scarn waved her gun casually. "I can have their chamber gassed. Or torched. Or I can simply deprive them of hex-gems and keep them my prisoners. You see? I am in command here. Obey me and, as Overy, I can be generous and loving. You will have your own dominion and life everlasting. Or—Scarn will deal with you. What will it be?"

  "Give me the hex-gems." N'drato offered an empty hand while the razor knife turned slowly in the other. “The dear ones will do as you say."

  "Yes, I thought they would." She released the spellbinder girdle and sat forward. "Overy's terms are most generous. But, dear goblins, you must understand that Scarn will hold you to your promise." She fired the Sig Sauer from her lap, and the bullet struck N'drato under his jaw and penetrated his brain.

  Journey to No End

  Brick observed his dead body, sprawled on the altar, and beside it, immured in darkness yet visible to his phantom sight, Mary Felix. She wept as though his spirit had succumbed to the damned. He wanted to comfort her in the deepening drift of darkness—but his light had begun to fade.

  His whole life, every event and deed, floated in nothing as motes, each a little world, flecks of dust in a universe of dust.

  All his memories, all he knew of beauty and fear, of wounded love, hope, and mad prayer had spilled out and drifted away into—nothing. Alive on Irth, he had believed himself a philosopher, groping for knowledge. And now he realized that, in truth, all knowledge entailed a journey to no end.

  Formless and featureless, he drifted away. In the empty space of being, the water tank dwindled. He floated through the shagbark wall and across the cluttered rooftop, again unborn.

  A handsome young man stood beside vapor pipes, naked but for a loin wrap. His shiny black hair swept back and cut bluntly at the shoulders like a pharaoh's cowl framed a smiling, cleft-chinned face. The youth stood tall as the legend of himself—and Brick realized that this must be Nox made young.

  "Farewell, ghost!" Nox waved. "Farewell as you sink into the ancient well of night."

  Brick watched the waving figure fade. The water tank and the city skyline diffused, sugar shapes melting away. Clear diamond glints of atoms remained, hovering in the void.

  "Don't be afraid."

  The voice came from a thin ray that stretched among the diamond sparks.

  Facing glycerine emptiness—not dark, not light, just empty—he understood that the filament of light suspended in this nothingness lived. That entity had caught him on the harp string of its being, stretched taut in the vast space between atoms.

  "It is I—Caval."

  "Wizard!" Brick shouted with surprise, and all of creation shook. The teeming atoms around them vibrated together like shaking sand grains resolving to an image of a dazzling city night—and Nox stood before the water tank, his youthful body caught in mid-stride, arms outflung in celebratory dance.

  "Hush, Brick." Caval's voice soothed him with simple indifference. "I am holding your waveform with what little is left of my Charm. If you become agitated, you may snap me like an overtight string. Then, we will both dissolve into the teeming void. Stay still."

  The image of the blazing city misted again into colorless fog.

  "How?" Brick dared ask, mustering the smallest of whispers.

  "I am a w
izard—a wizard who once gathered Charm here on the Dark Shore," Caval's voice answered quietly. "I prepared a place for myself here, in this sky. But I have so little Charm left that I am stretched to the breaking point. If you want to stay alive, you must remain still—still and silent."

  "Let me die, wizard." Brick spoke through a sigh. "I have seen my whole life and it is done. I am a man now. Let me die as a man."

  "And leave the spoils of this planet to the likes of Nox?" Caval's voice trembled with indignation. "Not on your life."

  Invisible Light

  “He is dead.” The door to the water tank opened, and night's blue sliced the interior darkness to the bloody core of the altar.

  Mary Felix knelt there, sobbing.

  "Quiet your tears, woman." Nox stepped into the ceremonial room and breathed the meaty stink of decay. "This creature is dead."

  Mary accepted this yet did not move.

  "I saw his ghost depart the ritual chamber," Nox announced in his vigorous voice. "He has faded to nothing. And by his death, I am made young."

  "I should be dead," Mary whispered. "I was old. He gave me his Charm and made me young. Why should I be young? I should be dead."

  "In time, your wish will come true." Nox coughed a cynical laugh and took her arm. "You are still mortal. Enjoy what life you have taken from this creature of another world."

  She pulled her arm free. "You didn't have to kill him. You took his Charm. You could have left him his life."

  “That was too dangerous. And I have lived too long to cherish danger." He seized her arm again and pulled her to her feet. "Come with me, away from this place of death."

  "Leave me here. Go away." She vainly tried to twist her arm from his strong grip. "Just leave me. You have what you want."

  "You can't stay here." He forced her toward the door. "Octoberland is finished. This is a place of death now. You don't belong here."