A Hero's throne tae-2

by Ross Lawhead

  There were small booths around the edge of the tent that contained beds, wardrobes, maps, scrolls, and books. It was from one of these that a white-haired man-and he did seem to be a man, not as tall or angular as the elves-popped his head out and peered at the tent entrance.

  It was Ealdstan.

  “Hello?” he asked again. “Is anyone there?”

  Daniel was so surprised that he did nothing and the wizard turned back to his booth where a large scroll of parchment had been unrolled. Daniel came nearer to Ealdstan as he saw he was copying it into a large notebook with a gel pen, both of which Daniel recognised as being from his own world and incongruous not just in this world but also in Ealdstan’s hand. The image that was being copied was a complex series of interlinking rings that Daniel recognised as being very similar to the map of the spheres that Reizger Lokkich had once consulted.

  “So inaccurate. .” Ealdstan lamented under his breath, and then he turned around again. “Truly now, who is there?” he asked. “Show yourself,” he commanded weakly, sounding thin of breath and disturbed.

  Daniel waited. He couldn’t really sense him, could he?

  The wizard spoke a few words that he didn’t understand in either English or Elvish and waved his hand.

  Daniel felt a heaviness build inside of him, like he was made of lead weights, and suddenly he found himself standing before the elderly man, re-corporated against his will.

  “Hello, Ealdstan. What are you doing here?”

  “What am I. .? Who are you?”

  “Don’t you recognise me? It’s Daniel-Daniel Tully. I killed Gad for you. Well. . tried to.”

  “You mean. . you. .? What are you doing here?” The old wizard seemed really rattled.

  “I asked you first. Why aren’t you in Ni?ergeard? Don’t you know it’s been overrun?” Daniel asked. He tried to dissipate but found himself unable to; it was like he was being bound together by thousands of rubber bands. It was uncomfortable, and he started to become nervous in case any of the elves outside should come in and see him. “Why are you here and not there?”

  Ealdstan recoiled from the questions, moving a step backward and drawing into himself. He pulled at his beard. “I am concerned with matters greater than those of my own little fortress. But what news have you of Ni?ergeard? You have been there recently?”

  “It’s been completely invaded-overrun. Knights and the people who live there have been killed or chased away. We don’t know where Godmund or Modwyn are-Kelm is its ruler now.”

  Ealdstan just nodded.

  “You don’t seem particularly surprised.”

  “It is unfortunate. But as I said-greater matters.”

  “What greater matters are those?” Daniel asked. “Can I help?”

  “Perhaps, yes, I think you may. At the moment, I’m trying to find my way back to our world, but I’m having difficulty finding exactly where the gate is.”

  “‘Gate’?”

  “It’s a place of confluence, of origination; a gate between the worlds.”

  “Could it be anything?” Daniel asked, starting to get a feeling. “Could it be just, like, in the middle of a field?”

  “It could very well be that,” Ealdstan said. “Indeed, that would make much sense of what is here before me.” He gestured to the diagrams. “You must already have the place in mind?”

  Daniel told him about the field he kept waking up in. “It’s the spot I first came to this land, about a month ago in our world’s time. And then I got pulled back there this time, without my body. It’s where I keep waking up in again. That sounds like the thing you’re looking for, I think.”

  “It very much does,” said Ealdstan. “It sounds like the exact thing. That might be the way for both of us to return back to our world-it keeps trying to draw you back, even though you are trapped here. Your soul is like a twig in a stream-trying to continue through, but caught up on something that is keeping you here. If we make it there, then I am certain I can help you. Can you take me there?”

  “Yes. It’s pretty far away though.”

  “You will find me a tireless traveller.”

  “So do you think you could undo whatever it is you did? I’d like to be able to go invisible again.”

  “Of course.” He murmured the unknown words again, and Daniel felt the bands around him loosen and then fall away completely.

  “Thank you,” Daniel said.

  “I shall be ready in just a moment. .” Ealdstan started to hastily roll up the scroll and close his notebook.

  “Shall I meet you somewhere? I don’t think I should be seen here.”

  “No. No, you shouldn’t. Um. . I think there is a copse south of here, next to a river. .”

  “Just start walking south,” Daniel said. “I’ll meet you somewhere along the way.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course.”

  Daniel dissolved into the air and left the tent. He found his bearings and started heading south.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Warchief’s Lament

  I

  “I have decided. I shall lead you to where the Carnyx is.”

  Freya shook her head, wondering if she’d heard her right. Modwyn was sitting up on the edge of the bed. She looked at Vivienne, standing in the corner.

  “Where is it? Is it far?”

  “No, it is very close. We were cunning in our action. We knew that the enemy would go to the ends of the earth to find it and so we kept it here.”

  “Okay. .” Freya said. “Really? So where is it?”

  “It is in the Beacon,” Modwyn said. “The great building that once illumined all the land. It fell when the yfelgopes besieged our walls, but there is a hidden passage.”

  “But this place was so secure-you killed anyone who came into it-why not just keep it here?”

  “We feared that the enemy would make a grand assault here, and so it would be safest where it was thought less secure-like keeping your coin underneath a chest instead of locked inside it.” Freya frowned. That only half made sense. “But in eight years, have Gad or Kelm made any serious attempts to get into the Langtorr?”

  “They have not.”

  “And don’t you find that suspicious?”

  “They wish only destruction and ruin-they have that. Chaos is both method and aim. To have one is to have both.”

  “So they just sat around here, happy not to finish the job?”

  “I do not pretend to understand the wishes of a dark-hearted people.”

  “Freya, although I hesitate to say ‘it couldn’t hurt,’ I believe it prudent to follow up on this,” Vivienne said.

  “Yes, you’re right,” said Freya. Was Vivienne deferring to her, or is that just how she wanted to make it seem? “Let’s go after Godmund and the Carnyx.”

  They filed out of the room and began down the stairway. Frithfroth, as usual, walked before them, escorting the three women.

  “Why hasn’t Godmund used the Carnyx?” Vivienne asked.

  “It is not the hour of direst need. Only when this island’s enemies surround us shall the horn be blown. Then shall we rise and chase them all into the sea.”

  “But the inscription on the horn reads ‘the next army,’” Vivienne persisted. “Doesn’t that mean something different from the army already asleep?”

  Modwyn paused. “Why do you ask?”

  “I am just trying to understand exactly. The reason we sent Ecgbryt and Alex all over the country to raise these knights is that we were uncertain exactly what the horn would do, if it could even be found. What would happen if we blow it and the knights are already awake?”

  “I do not know. The horn is more than just enchanted. It uses a powerful magic-it will summon what help it can, and the help will come quickly, when it comes.”

  “Vivienne,” Freya said. “What do you think the horn does?”

  “I have theories, but I don’t think anyone really has the slightest idea of what will happen when the Carnyx is blown. It never has bee
n before, and I doubt that it came with instructions. There are no legends for the Carnyx itself, but when legends do speak of such things, they talk of awakening ancient heroes, but also of summoning heroes from other worlds-or of angels.”

  “Angels? Seriously?”

  “Let me put a question to the two of you,” Modwyn said. “What do you wish to happen when you blow the horn?”

  Freya sighed. “Honestly, Modwyn-I don’t understand any of this. I just want it to end. And once it has ended, I want to start my life over again. Move somewhere different, meet new people, work in a completely boring job, and come back home and do nothing. And I want to do that same boring routine over and over again, until all of this. .” She shook her head. “Fades like a bad dream.

  “My life has been a literal hell for the past eight years and I believe that I’m fortunate enough to be in a position to rid the entire world of this godforsaken, wretched, dark, dank, underground world, and if that is at all possible, then I want to do it. I want to wipe it all out, Modwyn, and I’m telling you this because I think, deep down, that’s what you want too. It’s what you all were put here to do-to fight this fight. Well, good for you. I’m going to give you what you want. I’m going to do what the Carnyx was apparently designed to do. I’m going to bring you war.”

  “What you want is not so different from what we want. We wish every dark day for deliverance, that our presence and purpose underground were not necessary, that war was not our constant reality. But this is the world we chose to enter-what else should we do?”

  “It’s a world that you also dragged others into-innocents like Daniel and Freya, and all the children before them. My family-generation upon generation of my family over hundreds of years, down to Alex, the youngest generation-we’re all wrapped up in it as well. What reason do you have for involving us?” Vivienne asked.

  Modwyn spread her hands. “This is the world we are in. The lengths we went to, the measures we took, were reasonable.”

  “And my brother Alex-who now styles himself Gad Gristgrennar. He looked too much into this world and became warped by it. Do you take responsibility for him?”

  “We are not responsible for all the wickedness that men do.”

  “And yet you claim to be their salvation?”

  “I make no such claim. All must do as much as they may in this world to cast a light into the darkness. And fail or succeed, Ni?ergeard has striven to be the brightest light.”

  They continued the rest of the walk in silence until they reached the ground floor of the Langtorr. Frithfroth led them across the hall and through the door beneath the tapestry.

  Vivienne and Freya braced themselves for the stinging stench that was about to hit them and followed the two Ni?ergearders through.

  “Okay, Modwyn,” Freya said. “Where is it?”

  “Underneath the stairs, on the far side, where they join the wall.”

  Freya followed Modwyn across the room, through the biers of dead knights. A few times Freya saw Modwyn’s skirts catch and the regal woman awkwardly free herself. Good, Freya thought.

  “Vivienne, I suppose you’ve already been to the Beacon?”

  “No, I swear, I know nothing of this.”

  There was a stairway underneath the one that circled around the Sl?pereshus, which meant that they had to walk around the entire room to get to it; none were eager to walk straight through. Even in the low light Freya could see that Modwyn’s eyes were streaming with tears. She wondered if it was due to the acrid air or sorrow over the lost knights.

  The second stairway descended a few flights and then became a snaking tunnel with no slope. Within a few minutes, they came across a gruesome barrier. The corpses of about thirty yfelgopes were lying in a mangled heap, all at the same spot in the tunnel. The pile of their bodies nearly reached the ceiling, but the years of decay had diminished them and they now lay in a sunken, sticky heap.

  “I hate this,” Freya said as she tried to negotiate the morbid barrier without actually looking at it. Vivienne groaned. Her boot slipped on something nasty and she swore. “What happened to them?”

  “I did,” Modwyn said as she took her first step into the pile of bodies. “I ended their lives the moment they stepped across the threshold of the Langtorr. They were like tiny sparks cast from a fire that I tamped out.”

  Freya swallowed back bile and finally made it through the stomach-turning pile. She scuffed her boots against the ground to try to remove as much of the crud from them as possible, and made a mental note not to ever wear them again. The air started to fill with a sickening smell that they had awakened from the bodies they disturbed.

  Modwyn walked beside her now and they continued in silence. After a time the tunnel ended in a room that contained a wrought iron circular staircase, which they ascended.

  Freya was hit by the smell-different from the decay of death that they had just walked through; this was a living rank filth, which was more like the smell from a zoo-a human zoo.

  Freya lifted her lamp higher and slowly turned around inside what she assumed was once the Beacon. Rubble and metal furniture had been piled against the walls, completely blocking any doors, windows, or other portals.

  The building-or the inside of it, at least-was round and tapering to a flat roof, rather like the inside of a beehive, if it were hollow. The rubble was not confined to just the walls, but hunks of stone lay in a thick layer on the ground. Freya didn’t know where it came from, at first, but shining the lamp around a little, she decided that it was the remains of the upper floors of the tall structure-floors that were not of wood and masonry, but that had once been carved from solid stone. Broken benches and twisted pieces of metal chairs added to the piles.

  And there were people, littered about as randomly as the stones. Some of them were knights, some of them were the Ni?ergeard townspeople-the stonemasons and metalsmiths who kept the city and the knights in repair. The rest of them were yfelgopes. At first Freya thought that they were all dead, but as light poured into the room, heads swivelled toward her. And although the light was very dim to Freya, they shielded their eyes from it-knights and yfelgopes alike.

  Both of these things, the sight and the smell, came to her at the same time, as did the sound. A voice was droning in low, croaky, and cracked intonations-with long, slow, and deep basso profundo notes, each of them as long as a breath.

  “Where’s that sound coming from?” Freya asked. “It’s ghastly.”

  “There,” Modwyn said, pointing toward the far wall, where a ragged silhouette sat in a lumpy, hairy heap, singing its dreary, dire song.

  Where are the fighters; are they fled, or failed-

  Where the field of battle; the fight would be brought-

  The enemies and attackers do not advance anymore,

  What damage their hands could do against us-

  Our camp in ruins, crows eat our store,

  The minds of men, barren and masterless;

  Carrion carcasses carrying life, but

  where has passion gone, when parted it our chests-

  The fire, from our hearts, not from brands has been flung.

  Why do we wait, wakeful not watchful.

  Swords lie silent, will they not sing-

  The fallen cry vengeance beneath victorless feet.

  Arms hanging leadenly a leader unleading

  He dismisses his warriors and walks all alone.

  Death walks between disdaining our lives

  Not worth the cost to carry our souls.

  It was another obstacle course to reach the speaker, but this time Freya was trying to avoid stepping on the living, not the dead. They looked anaemic, pale and blue, with hollow expressions on their faces. They did not appear diseased or emaciated-the Ni?ergearders did not need to eat, after all-but looking into each one was like looking into the face of death. And each one, so Freya imagined, asked the question “Why?” As if they asked it of the universe, and she just happened to be in the way of it.

>   “Is that him? Is that Godmund?” Vivienne asked, squinting into the gloom, not wanting to move forward.

  The grizzled hair and jutting brow were unmistakable, but his cheeks were sunken and his jaw hung slack. “Godmund. Godmund! Come on, get up. What’s going on here?”

  Black eyes turned toward her and shied away when she brought the lantern up.

  “It’s me, Freya. I came here when I was young, with Daniel. We went on a mission to destroy Gad, remember?”

  Godmund didn’t move or take his eyes off of her.

  “We’ve come back. The others are bringing an army. We need you and the other survivors-” Freya looked around the room, still appalled. They didn’t seem like survivors. “We need you to help us.” Her words were losing their passion and conviction as she listened to what she was saying. These people were traumatised. They couldn’t fight. Godmund was still staring at her, dumbly.

  “The Carnyx,” she said. “Why didn’t you blow the Carnyx?”

  Godmund made a sound that made her think that he was going to start singing again-but then she found that he was laughing.

  “To save us would be to destroy us. That is as certain as the darkness. Our general has abandoned us. No, worse! He conspires against us. Our whole army, formed along a precipice, to do battle with the air. How do you fight the wind? To step forward is to perish. We are the walking fallen, still retreating, searching for a way out of the miserable reality. I have seen the hand that moves us in the darkness-a game of chess with all the pieces of one colour. A game of chance with a die that has just one side. A house on stone, but with walls of sand. What use has. .”

  Godmund continued babbling. Egads, thought Freya. He’s completely lost it.

  “Honourable Godmund,” Vivienne broke in. “We need you to fight now. We need you to rise up and chase away the invaders of the surface world. It’s. . it’s being invaded, Godmund: trolls, goblins, dragons, were-bears, ogres, all manner of sprites and hobs. . the time has come!”