by Jen Williams
‘I am sorry, Siano.’ She could just about hear the girl’s voice over her own screaming. ‘It pains me to lose you, it really does.’
The skull lunged again, hungrily now, like a dog who’s discovered that this old sack contains something tasty after all, and although Siano pushed with all her might she couldn’t break that vice grip. With a lurch of horror she realised that it was chewing, that the skull was chewing pieces of her face, and as she watched she saw that the flesh was growing back across the yellowed bone. For every piece of Siano it ate, the corpse was regaining what it had lost.
‘No,’ she gasped, ‘no no no,’ and that was when the skeleton dragged her down into a deeper embrace and bit off her tongue. Siano felt the hot gush of blood, the insistent gnawing of the skull’s teeth against her lips, and the skittering of finger bones in her hair.
‘It’ll be the eyeballs next,’ said the girl in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘He’ll want to see what he’s doing.’
Beneath her, Siano heard the skull laughing with her own tongue.
PART TWO
The Riven Soul
24
Nuava ran across the practice yard, her heart hammering in her chest. She spotted the familiar form of Bors over by the repairs pit – he was working on a werken with a cracked foot – and she gasped in sudden relief. Everything is fine, she told herself firmly. You are jumping at shadows like a child.
He looked up and, seeing her, waved cheerily enough, although his face took on the familiar creases of worry as she got closer.
‘What is it, Nuava? Are you all right?’
She nodded rapidly, suddenly feeling foolish. There were a few men and women here on this overcast afternoon, repairing their werkens or just putting them through their paces. ‘Yes, I mean, no, I’m not sure. It’s just—’
Bors put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, just as he had when she was a little girl who’d hurt herself playing on the ice. She took a deep breath. ‘A few moments ago, there was this tremor in the Edeian. I could feel it all around me, like the whole world shifted. Did you notice anything?’
Bors frowned and shook his head. ‘You know I can’t sense the Edeian as you do, Nuava. I’ve noticed nothing unusual.’ He gestured at the yard. ‘And the werkens are all functioning well. Have you felt anything like this before?’
‘No, that’s what worries me. Have you seen Tamlyn?’
‘Not since this morning.’
There was a commotion at the gate. Nuava turned to see a tall man dressed in long, old-fashioned robes walking rapidly towards them. Next to him was a young girl of about twelve or thirteen and – Nuava blinked rapidly. She knew who it was. It was the Prophet, out from behind the curtains of her bed, walking with her head uncovered and her small moon-like face turned up to the sky. She was grinning, and Nuava felt bile pushing at the back of her throat. Something is very wrong.
‘Who is that?’ asked Bors. He put down the chisel he’d been holding in his free hand and wiped his fingers on his jerkin. ‘Another mercenary?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think he’s one of them. I don’t think he’s one of them at all.’
The man had shoulder-length brown hair, thick and shining with health, and a neat brown beard that framed an open, handsome face. As he drew nearer she saw that he had large brown eyes, and his brows were creased into an amiable expression of slightly bemused good cheer. He was smiling gently, looking around at everything as though he’d never seen such a place before. The robes he wore were dark green silk, and fringed with gold – very beautiful, and extremely inappropriate for the weather. Already the bottom of his robe was heavy with melted snow. There were lengths of linen tied around his hands, linen painted with intricate shapes, and that sent a cold shiver down the back of Nuava’s neck.
There’s only one mage left in the world, she thought, and we’ve met him. So who is this?
‘Hello,’ called Bors, already approaching the stranger. Nuava grasped at him, but he brushed her off. ‘Can I help at all?’
‘Why, yes.’ The man’s voice was warm, educated. Reassuring. His smile broadened as he reached them, and he took Bors’s hand and clasped it briefly. ‘I’ve been away for such a long time, and I’ve so much to catch up on.’
Bors smiled, the puzzlement clear on his broad features.
‘You’re from around here?’
‘Oh you could say that,’ said the man. ‘A very long time ago, of course. But you’ve been so busy! These creatures you’ve crafted with the Edeian are quite extraordinary.’
Nuava saw her brother relax slightly, and she twisted her fingers into the fabric of her coat.
‘Well, our Mistress-Crafter, Tamlyn Nox, does most of the actual crafting – she’s my aunt – but thank you. We’ve all worked very hard and I think—’
The man reached out, quite casually, and laid the tips of his fingers against Bors’s chest. Bors glanced down, confused, and then he jumped backwards a foot, arms flailing. For a few seconds Nuava couldn’t connect the sudden wet warmth on her face with the bright, arterial splash now painting the cobbles, but then her brother fell over backwards and she saw the hole in his chest.
‘Oh, so sorry about that,’ continued the man, an expression of slightly abashed chagrin on his face. ‘But it has been ever such a long time.’
Distantly, Nuava could hear screaming. She knew that some of it was coming from her. The man turned to the child standing beside him.
‘My first gift to you, Bezcavar. The first of many.’
They turned away then, and Nuava fell to her knees.
Tamlyn staggered in the street. The man she’d collided with turned towards her with angry words on his lips, but, seeing who it was, he swallowed them down. Instead he nodded hurriedly, backing away.
‘Many apologies, Crafter Nox.’
She frowned at him, not even seeing his face. The tremor in the Edeian was still reverberating inside her, and the chips of Heart-Stone in the palms of her hands and her ear lobes were burning and itching. In all her years of crafting the Edeian she’d never felt anything like it, and she had no idea what it meant. Moving away down the street she glanced up to the north of the settlement, to see the warning beacons still unlit. Not an attack, then, or at least not from the Narhl.
It was late afternoon, and Skaldshollow was thick with people going about their daily chores. From where she stood she could see four werkens hauling goods, and one war-werken stationed at the corner of the Tower of Waking. Her own werken, sleek and terrible, was squatting next to it, ready for her planned journey back up to the quarry. Just a normal day, she told herself. Whatever it was, she’d imagined it.
As if to mock her, a terrible scream rent the air. The crowd ahead of her parted, the people falling back in confusion, and a tall man walked towards her, a young girl at his side. He was talking quite calmly to the girl, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, but the bottom of his green robe was stained dark, and where he walked he left a smeared trail of blood.
‘The Prophet,’ muttered Tamlyn through numb lips. ‘And him. It’s him. She really did bring him back.’
‘There you are!’ The Prophet’s voice was clear as a bell across the milling crowds. ‘Tamlyn dear, I would like to introduce you.’
‘I know who that is.’ There was a crunch and the thunder of stone steps as her werken trotted towards her back. Just as instinctively, her hand hovered above the short sword at her waist. ‘What have you done?’
The Prophet shrugged. ‘Nothing you didn’t know about, Nox. Just think of everything you can learn now.’
A slim figure forced its way through the crowd. Nuava’s face was streaked with tears and blood, the skin beneath her eyes purple with shock.
‘They killed Bors!’ She stumbled forward. ‘Just killed him, for no reason, in the street.’
‘I have brought him to you,’ said the Prophet, talking easily over Nuava. ‘Joah Cirrus, Joah Lightbringer, Joah Demonsworn. Just as I said I would.’
The crowd began to mutter more loudly now. The man – and it was Joah, every line of him having stepped living and breathing from a history book – looked vaguely disgruntled.
‘What have you done?’ Tamlyn asked again. She had thought this would be simple, that they could contain it somehow, but there was the blood . . .
‘He killed Bors.’ Nuava ran forward and grabbed Tamlyn by her sleeves, her eyes wide. ‘He just tore the heart out of him. My brother.’
‘Bors?’
‘He’s dead!’ Nuava was screaming again, her fists curled into the fabric of Tamlyn’s clothes. ‘I h-had to leave him, to find you, to warn y-you.’
Tamlyn looked back to the Prophet. The child who wasn’t a child.
‘Why?’
‘These werken creatures are quite extraordinary.’ Joah was peering closely at Tamlyn’s own mount, which now stood to her left. He showed no fear of it, even though its head was some distance above his own. ‘You have put them together yourself, and then activated them with the Edeian?’
Tamlyn shook Nuava off with some difficulty and took a few stiff steps towards the Prophet.
‘Why? Why murder a member of my family? You said nothing of this to me.’
The Prophet shrugged. ‘I’m sure I mentioned that he could be unpredictable. Think not of what you have lost, Tamlyn, and really that is so little – another soldier, his only advantage that he shared your blood. Think of what you will gain. You can learn so much from Joah, and your werken army will be unstoppable.’
Tamlyn glanced at the mage. He was running his fingers over the stone of the werken now, muttering under his breath.
‘He cannot go around slaughtering where he will. I have my people to protect.’
‘You knew about this?’ It was Nuava again, her face slack. The girl’s skin had gone so pale she looked grey, and Tamlyn guessed she was a few moments away from passing out. ‘This was the Prophet’s plan all along, and you knew about it?’
Tamlyn shook her head irritably. ‘No. I wanted to retrieve the Heart-Stone first, to try and fix this by ourselves. That’s what the mercenaries were about. This was a last resort. Listen to me, Nuava. With Joah’s knowledge we can build an army that Ede has never seen. He will teach us, you and I, all the secrets of the Edeian.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Joah stepped back from the werken, his handsome face creased into a mildly apologetic expression, ‘but I shan’t be doing that. Look at you, you’re not even a mage. Playing with the Edeian, bashing rocks together like primitives.’ He waved a hand at the werken and it floated up into the air, as if it weighed nothing at all. The crowd around them gasped, and a few, the wiser ones, began backing away. The werken spun softly, and although Tamlyn summoned it fiercely inside her own head, it would not move.
‘It’s all the same as it ever was,’ continued Joah. The Prophet was grinning now, revealing neat white teeth that looked too sharp for a human face. ‘Humans grubbing around in the dirt, grasping to create even the most basic toys. Why would I stoop to teach you anything?’ He smiled again, almost kindly. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand. You are not my people.’
He pitched his arm around, as though casting something away, and the werken flew over Tamlyn’s head and crashed into the crowd. People, cobblestones, even half a building; pieces flew in all directions. Within seconds the street was filled with screaming, with people trying desperately to get away, but Joah Demonsworn would not let them leave. Those that made it to the end of the street found themselves crashing against an invisible barrier, before being dragged back by the same unknowable force.
‘It has been ever such a long time,’ he murmured.
‘Kill them for me, my Joah,’ said the Prophet. Tamlyn heard each word like a strike against her heart. ‘Kill them in my name, as you used to.’
The man called Joah grinned and spread his fingers, and a wave of bright fire appeared from nowhere, rolling up the street to smother the men and women trapped there. The screaming became inhuman howls, and Tamlyn pressed her hands to her ears.
‘Stop it!’ she cried. She could smell scorched flesh, and the fires were already blazing out of control. ‘You cannot do this!’
The mage was already summoning more spells; war-werkens that arrived, thundering up the street to try and stop him or at least put out the fires, were tossed into the air, smashing into buildings and sending avalanches of rock and mortar down onto the cobbles. Tamlyn saw people crushed under the collapsed buildings, saw their blood smeared on the rocks. And in the centre of it all Joah Demonsworn stood content and untouchable with the Prophet at his side. He was sending fireballs after the people still left alive, their hair, their furs, roaring into life like beacons, and the scent of burning meat was everywhere. She could hear Nuava screaming still, and the thunder of more war-werkens approaching, but none of it seemed very important. Joah turned to the sound of more troops arriving, an eager smile still on his face and his hands held up to meet them.
Amongst the devastation the Prophet appeared, to lay one cold hand on Tamlyn’s.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it? All of that suffering, and in my name.’ When Tamlyn didn’t answer, she squeezed, hard enough to be painful. ‘He always was so wilful, though.’
25
Nuava moved quickly past the rubble, trying to keep out of sight. She passed several dead bodies – one a man with his face boiled away, another lost within a partially formed chunk of ice – before she rounded the edge of the building. Here there were three or four broken werkens, in so many pieces that it was difficult to tell where one began and another ended, and beyond them she could see the mage and the Prophet, talking animatedly. As quietly as possible, she crept up to the wreckage of the werkens and waited, straining to hear what they were saying.
It hadn’t taken long for Joah Demonsworn to throw Skaldshollow into a confused state of terror. When Tamlyn had recovered herself enough to speak again, she’d summoned a further force of war-werkens, which Joah had seemed to treat like some sort of challenge – he’d picked each one up and thrown them into the crowds, or simply through buildings, with tremendous force. When the soldiers had come at him with short swords and crossbows, he’d actually laughed.
Nuava squeezed her eyes shut, remembering.
There had been the wave of freezing ice, picking up men and women and solidifying around them. Nuava had seen their eyes as they’d suffocated one by one. There had been the fire, a wall of it that moved down the street leaving twisted, blackened corpses behind. And there had been the look on the man’s face: simple, honest joy as he’d torn men and women apart.
‘I am asking you just to wait for a moment, Joah, my dear one.’
The wind had changed, bringing their conversation to Nuava’s hiding place. She tensed, trembling all over. In her fist she clutched the knife Tamlyn had given her to cut the fingers from the Narhl soldier. It wasn’t much, but it might be enough.
‘I’m busy.’ The man’s voice was slightly dismissive – the tone of a man who had far too much to do and too little time in which to do it. ‘So many spells still to test, and then I should travel to the Citadel. I must have so much to catch up on, and I’m sure all that business will have blown over by now.’
‘They’re all gone, Joah.’
Behind the pile of rock that had been a werken, Nuava frowned. The Prophet’s voice sounded almost tender.
‘What?’
‘The mages. They are all gone. You are the last true mage, now that you have returned to us.’
Joah shook his head, bewildered. ‘How can they be gone?’
‘Time, Joah, took them all. They did away with the gods, and then the Edenier faded from this world. They scrambled around as best they could, of course, clung on to their tiny magics in their desperate need for survival, but in the end they all died, ancient and decrepit. Which was all that they deserved, after how they treated you.’
‘How long? How long have I been gone?’
‘A thousand y
ears, give or take a few centuries.’
‘That cannot be. Such a loss is unthinkable.’
As Nuava watched, Joah Demonsworn looked down at the ground, his long hair swinging forward like a curtain. Whatever expression was on his face now, it displeased the Prophet. The girl tipped her head to one side, an oddly childish gesture, and now there was petulance in her voice.
‘The age of the mages has long since passed. Don’t you remember what they did to you? You do not need them, you never did.’
The mage turned away, shaking his head irritably. ‘They might have hated me. Feared me, even. But they were the only family I had. And now I am alone?’
‘You have me,’ said the Prophet. ‘We can be together again.’
‘I have unfinished work.’ His voice was so quiet now that Nuava could barely hear him. ‘I shall go to the hills.’
‘Wait.’ There was a tone of command from the Prophet that made the hairs on the back of Nuava’s neck stand on end. ‘I need you to do something for me first, Joah. Now that you’ve had your fun here.’
‘Yes?’
Nuava shifted around, moving closer to the edge of the rubble, the knife still held tightly in one hand. The mage was distracted, and perhaps if she got close enough she could end this. All she needed was one chance, a moment to slip the knife between his ribs, and maybe that would be enough. He’d killed her brother, so she had to at least try.
‘There are some enemies of mine near here,’ continued the Prophet. ‘A knight called Sebastian, a woman sell-sword, and a lord. They are travelling through a strip of land on the edge of Skald territory. Go there, kill them for me. I have grown weary of them, so kill them quickly. And then you are free to continue your work.’
