by Martin Ash
She shook her head.
'Jace . . . Issul . . . .' he said softly.
'Did I cry out?' she asked.
'Yes. Was it terrible?'
She nodded.
'It’s all right, it has gone now,' he said. His fingers brushed her cheek, stroked her hair. 'I am with you.'
He was calm, his voice reassuring. She needed that. His face was just above hers. 'Shenwolf,' she whispered.
'I am here.'
His voice was soft, close in her ear. Before she knew it his lips touched hers, then he kissed her cheek, the side of her nose, her eyelids, the corner of her mouth, softly, so softly. It was wrong, she knew it, but she wanted him, wanted his kisses. 'Shenwolf!' Her mouth sought hungrily for his. One hand went to the back of his head, pulling him to her, the other slid over his back. Their lips glued, Shenwolf pulled aside her blanket and slipped beneath it. His body was deeply stimulating against hers; she clung to him, their tongues meeting, exploring, playing. His hand slid inside her tunic and found her breast. She tore at his clothing, wanting him naked as his kisses smothered her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. They strained together, and she knew it was wrong, she knew it but could do nothing about it, did not want to stop it, not now, not now . . .
She cried out, and suddenly was awake, the forest all around her, hissing like an ocean lapping at the shore, and the stars cloudy bright above her head. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, her heart pounding. Had she called out? What had happened?
Shenwolf lay sleeping a few yards away. She could see nothing of Orbelon. Issul sat erect, struggling to make sense of everything, gradually remembering where she was and why, constructing the reality out of the multitude of images that had beset her. She was breathing heavily. She closed her eyes, calming herself, dispelling the phantoms, then put her chin upon her knees and hugged her shins. After a few moments she pulled her blanket aside and rose.
'Issul, child, are you all right?'
It was Orbelon, coming from the deep dark beneath a tree. She nodded. 'I can't sleep.'
'Do your dreams trouble you?'
The question made her nervous. 'Did I call out?'
'No, but you have been restless all night.'
She nodded and let out a long sigh. 'How long have I been asleep?'
'About five hours. It is a while yet before dawn. You should try to sleep some more.'
'Yes, I will. I just want to stretch my limbs a little and clear my head.' She picked up the water-sack which lay beside her litter, and drank. Then she said, 'Orbelon, I’m concerned about Fectur.'
'He is a devil, that much is plain. Still, with what you already knew of him his latest instance of skulduggery can have come as no great surprise.'
'That's so. What worries me is the lengths he is prepared to go to now. He craves power, but it is not in his nature to take unnecessary risks. At least, not as I know it.'
'Was it such a risk? You say yourself that his men did not intend to kidnap you, at least not at this stage.'
'But at some point they would have been prepared to murder me. That says much.'
'Even so, had he had you murdered here in the forest, far from home, none would have been the wiser.'
'He knows I have gone to seek out a means to save Enchantment's Reach. Does he wish to prevent that? Why? With the Karai poised to strike Enchantment's Reach, and the unknown quantity of the Legendary Child also in opposition, his actions seem to border on the irrational.'
'You think him mad?' enquired Orbelon.
'I am beginning to wonder whether he truly knows what he is doing. Alternatively, does he know something that we do not?'
'Such as?'
'I don’t know. But his intelligence-gathering faculties are extraordinary. And who really knows where his true loyalties lie, other than to himself? Could he have discovered some link with the Legendary Child? Could he actually be working with the True Sept? Or with the Karai? He had uncovered a Sept channel leading to Prince Anzejarl, I know that. Can he have found some way of surviving the threat and establishing power for himself? Or is he out of control?'
'I fear you will find the answer to that only when you return.'
v
Late in the morning, as Shenwolf had predicted, they came in sight of Ghismile Tarn shimmering through the trees. They eased the horses forward slowly until they stood in the shade of the trees close beside the shore. The air was still, and warmer than in previous days. A few winged insects flitted between the forest's fringe and the water's edge. Upon the still water a pair of elegant black swans glided, a number of coots and other water-fowl evident some way off close to the shore.
Shenwolf pointed. 'It’s more or less as I thought. Over there is the village. And that way, see, is the height by which we approached when we came last time.'
'Very good,' said Issul, and swung her horse towards the higher ground in the distance. 'Let’s waste no time.'
Two hours later they were on the low promontory from which they had first gazed down just over a week earlier and gained their first sight of Ghismile Tarn. Issul felt her anxiety growing. Before the day was out they would be at the Karai camp again. What would they find?
Late in the afternoon Shenwolf signalled a halt. 'We should dismount now and approach on foot. Will you lead the horses while I check for traps?'
She nodded.
'It may be a laborious process. Stay a good twenty yards behind me,' Shenwolf added. He began making his way forward with slow, cautious footsteps, his eyes scanning the ground at his feet, the tree-trunks and bushes to either side, the boughs and branches above. From time to time he glanced back and gestured for Issul to move forward with the horses. After an hour of this the light began to fade. Shenwolf paused and said, 'I had hoped we might reach the camp before dark. It can’t be more than a few hundreds yards away. But now I think it will be safer to rest here overnight. The failing light only increases the risk of falling foul of a trap. It would be a cruel irony to have come so far only to find ourselves plunging into a stake-filled pit or swinging by our ankles in a noose, either of which we might easily have avoided in daylight.'
Reluctantly, Issul agreed. They led the horses a little way back to a hollow they had passed, which was well-sheltered by trees and a low cliff. A small pool fed by a bubbling spring lay at its base. They unsaddled the horses and tethered them beside the pool, where they might drink and crop the grass. Then they settled down to wait for the dawn.
vi
The ruined camp appeared deserted. When Issul had left it less than two weeks earlier it had been in flames. Now, most of its guardtowers fallen, its huts and palisades reduced to ugly charred black vestiges, it was a blot within the great concealing forest, anonymous and silent, barely hinting at what it had once been.
As far as Issul could make out the camp had not been visited since her departure by anything other than wild beasts and birds. She lay prone beside Shenwolf in the cover of the trees at the edge of the clearing in which the camp was situated, alert for any indication of life. The chest containing Orbelon's world was at her elbow, bow and arrows slung across her back. Shenwolf had discovered no traps in the surrounding woods, which seemed a further indication that the Karai had not reoccupied the camp. But this was curious. Slooths had flown from the camp when their Karai masters were overcome; Issul had assumed they would return to Prince Anzejarl's army and he would dispatch reinforcements. The Farplace Opening - which as far as she could tell was the Karai's main purpose for constructing the camp - was surely far too precious to be abandoned? If Anzejarl knew, why were his troops not here? Or had the slooths not alerted him?
Or was it possible that the Farplace Opening was no longer in the underground bunker?
Or were there troops here, hidden, waiting?
She had lain here for an hour now in the cool early-morning air, barely exchanging a word with Shenwolf. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound, save the birds in the trees and the light breeze stirring the foliage. But still
they waited, just in case.
For Issul, and she supposed to some extent for Shenwolf too, it was an eerie experience to look upon this place again, where she had endured so much and had fought for and won liberty at so high a cost. She could barely believe she had left here only days ago. Her imprisonment in the camp had become almost a distant memory. So much had happened in so short a time.
'I think we are clear,' murmured Shenwolf, breaking the flow of her thoughts. 'If you like I will go forward and check more thoroughly. If it’s safe I will beckon you.'
Issul gave a nod.
Shenwolf rose to a semi-crouch. 'I’ll move around a little, come from the southeast perimeter of the clearing. That way, if Karai or anyone else are hidden here they won't be led directly to your position.'
He made off silently through the undergrowth. A minute passed and Issul saw him emerge from the forest fringe southeast of where she lay. Looking all ways, he crossed the stream that ran beside the clearing, where Issul had strained her back and rubbed her fingers raw and numb scrubbing Karai garments in the icy, fast-flowing water. Shenwolf moved swiftly to the secondary gate, which stood more or less intact at the edge of the main compound. He crouched there for some moments, scanning the compound, then was briefly lost to sight as he rose and entered. She saw him through a gap in the burnt palisade, heading for a ruined hut - her former dormitory - swivelling on his heels as he went, checking in all directions. He moved to the burned-out wall, quickly inspected the interior, then cut across to the remains of the former command hut. Reconnoitring the entire main compound in this manner, he eventually beckoned Issul to him.
'I think we are in luck,' he said when she had joined him, the chest beneath one arm. 'They’ve not re-occupied.'
'But why not?' she mused, then: 'To the bunker, then, quickly.'
They passed from the main compound through the picket gate into what had been the work area. Issul felt anger return as she recalled the ferocious battle that had taken place here; how the Karai guards, discovering themselves attacked, had turned their weapons upon the defenceless, shackled prisoners. And she steeled herself at the thought of what lay here, beneath the surface of the compound.
They came to the head of the stone steps which led down into the underground bunker.
'Ah, I had forgotten,' observed Shenwolf, taking in the earth, boulders, grass and brushwood that covered the steps and entrance. 'This entrance we barred as securely as we could. It will be easier to enter at the rear, via the slooth pens. The entrance there is wider and better-concealed by the surrounding terrain. We only covered it lightly.'
They left the work-compound, passed back through the main area, through another gate and into a passage between two walls of sharpened stakes. Issul shuddered. The last time she had passed this way it had been with two Karai guards gripping her arms, leading her - as they believed - to her death in the charnel back-clearing of the slooths' feeding area.
With Shenwolf watching her back she advanced around a right-angled corner. Ahead was another gate, this one wrenched off its hinges, and a smashed, fire-blackened wooden portcullis beneath a burned-out guardtower. Through this they passed along a twisting grassy causeway between the trees, and came at length into the open. At once the stench of putrefying flesh hit Issul's nostrils, and she gagged. Tatters of meat and bones were strewn across the clearing, and at its centre two stout wooden posts stood, silent and terrible.
Issul clenched her teeth tightly. Shenwolf took her arm.The carcasses of several slooths occupied one side of the clearing, picked at by crows. Issul found herself rooted to the spot, unable to tear her eyes away, until Shenwolf spoke softly beside her. 'Come, this way.'
He led her away from the sight of the carcasses, her hand covering her mouth and nostrils, then veered back towards the west wall of the camp. The faintest dirt trail led between bushes, and down. Shenwolf pulled aside undergrowth to expose an opening. 'This takes us directly into the brooding-pens. Remember?'
Issul nodded. Exploring the bunker for the first time, they had entered from the work compound. In the grim chamber of the slooth nesting-stalls they had seen a way leading upwards towards light. Shenwolf had investigated and declared it to be a way out into the forest.'
Suddenly he froze. 'Hssh!'
Issul heard it at the same time. The clink of metal; the unmistakeable sounds of things moving in the trees to the other side of the clearing. She threw herself down; Shenwolf likewise. Moments later a mounted column of Karai troops began to emerge from the trees across the clearing.
'By the spirits, Anzejarl has sent a force to investigate!' Issul breathed.
The leading Karai halted. Issul could not see how many made up the force, but it looked considerable. The leaders seemed to be taking stock of the sight of the ruined camp.
'Quickly!' whispered Shenwolf. 'They will search the camp. We have little time.'
Even as he spoke there came a barked command from the Karai officer in charge. Several Karai dismounted, drew their swords and began to run across the clearing, accompanied by an equal number of warriors on horseback. Others began to fan out silently, notching arrows to bows.
Issul and Shenwolf slid down into the darkness of the slooth brooding pen. The air was thick, musty, imbued with the stale, pungent stench of slooths. They could see barely a thing, but though Issul carried a torch upon her back they could not light it for fear of the sound of striking flint carrying to the Karai outside.
'I think this may be one of the last places they search,' whispered Shenwolf. 'They may not even know of it. I just hope there are not stray slooths still lurking down here.'
His sword was drawn. Issul gripped the weapon she had taken from Gordallith's man. Slowly they began to grope their way forward along the aisle separating the two rows of stalls where the slooths had nested. They could not see a thing. From outside came curt, muffled calls of the Karai.
'Wait.' Issul knelt. She set down the wooden chest, raised its lid and took out the blue casket. 'Orbelon, come forth.'
The god materialized, bathed in a faint, misty blue lucence. Before he could speak Issul hurriedly explained the situation. 'The chamber of the Farplace Opening is less than twenty paces from where we stand,' she said in conclusion.
'I know. I can feel it,' replied Orbelon. He gazed towards the opening by which they had descended, revealed by a shaft of weak grey light. 'I can do nothing about the Karai, but perhaps I can help relieve this darkness.'
He passed his hand before him in a circle. His blue aura intensified slightly, sufficient to throw a wan radiance for some short distance around him. Immediately Shenwolf moved off between the wooden stalls, investigating each one, until he reached the door at the end. This was barricaded: Shenwolf himself had nailed it closed and heaped earth and stones against it when sealing the bunker. Now he prised at the planks, using his dagger to lever them free. Issul joined him. In a couple of minutes they had the door open.
'It’s through that door,' said Issul as they stepped into the ante-chamber outside the chamber of the Farplace Opening. Orbelon stared contemplatively. As Issul moved to the door, which was also barred with planking, Shenwolf darted into the passage on the right which led to the main entrance and the former work-compound. He quickly returned. 'I can hear them outside. The entrance remains secure for now.'
He worked with Issul to unblock the door. When they had done they were both perspiring and breathing heavily. Issul turned to Orbelon. 'What now?'
'We enter,' said Orbelon. 'You take me through the Farplace Opening.'
'But we can’t all go through. Yet neither can Shenwolf remain. The Karai will kill him.'
'You have with you Urch-Malmain's talisman. Give that to Shenwolf. I think it will give him some protection on the other side.'
'But you cannot guarantee?'
'I can guarantee nothing at this stage. Shenwolf must make a choice: to step through with the talisman, in the hope that it will protect him, or to remain here.'
'What of the Queen?' Shenwolf said. 'She requires the talisman for her own protection.'
'As long as Queen Issul remains with me I can shield her to some degree from Enchantment's immediate effects,' Orbelon replied slowly. 'Now, there is little time. Make your choice.'
'I will come through with you,' stated Shenwolf without hesitation.
'Then let us go.'
Issul's heart was in her mouth as she pushed upon the door. It swung back and she stepped in, and gasped. The fabulous light oval hovered as before in the centre of the chamber, unearthly and blindingly beautiful to behold. But it was much bigger than before. It rose almost to the ceiling and was nearly as broad as the chamber was wide. Its radiance was of a far greater magnitude than when she had first set eyes on it; both she and Shenwolf were forced to shield their eyes with their hands. Opalescent, multi-toned colours fluxed and whorled in its incandescent depths, and the oval pulsed, dilating and reducing rhythmically, as though alive. As her eyes adjusted Issul saw within it something that had not been present before: a maelstrom of thousands of tiny, dazzling fibrils and scintillae, surging and darting in clouds of restless, constantly changing colours. The sight was mesmerizing, breathtakingly beautiful, and terrifying. Clutching the blue casket to her, Issul was transfixed.
'This is grave,' declared Orbelon in forbidding tones, snapping Issul out of her trance.
'What do you mean?'
'It was not this way when you saw it first.'
'No. Why? What is happening, Orbelon? Why has it changed?'
'A Reach Rider is preparing to break through.'
Issul's gut twisted in fear. 'Now? What can we do? Can you prevent it?'
Orbelon hesitated, his spine bowed as he leaned heavily on his staff. 'You said Triune guarded the Opening on the other side, that she had taken it from the god who aids the Karai?'
'That’s what Triune told me.'
Orbelon stared at the great pulsing globe. 'Something has changed.'
