The Iron Ghost

by Jen Williams

  ‘I’m getting the impression’, said Sebastian, ‘that you’re about to follow up these observations with bad news. Significantly bad news.’

  Wydrin sighed. ‘The bad news is that this Joah is madder than a box of cats in a storm, and although Frith is alive, he doesn’t look like he’ll be alive for much longer.’

  ‘We should go, then,’ said Dallen. He stood up and came over to them, pushing his hair back behind his ears. There were specks of what looked like sweat on his grey and brown forehead, and he looked unsteady on his feet. ‘If we wish to save your friend and retrieve the Heart-Stone, we must move quickly.’

  ‘How?’ said Nuava. She had finished her stew and was in the middle of spooning more into her cup, but she stopped to look up at them. ‘You saw how powerful he is, and what he’s capable of. How can we hope to break into his stronghold?’

  ‘Oh, we’ll think of something on the way,’ said Wydrin. ‘That’s what the Black Feather Three specialise in, you see – impossible tasks, snatching forbidden items from cursed temples, generally defying death for a modest fee. Well, Black Feather Two, I suppose.’ She waved a hand at their small group. ‘Black Feather Four, then. Or five. Whatever. We’ll think of something. Sebastian, did you drink all my rum?’

  41

  ‘Wake up, little man, you must wake up!’

  Frith groaned, trying to sink back down into featureless sleep, but the voice was insistent and loud. He opened his eyes and had a moment of extreme dislocation; he wasn’t in the bunk room at all, but lying awkwardly on a steel-plated floor in one of the Forge’s many red-lit corridors. He was still cradling Gwiddion’s small body in one arm.

  ‘What?’

  Memories started to come back. The Edenier had burst into flickering life, covering his hands and arms in bright green flames, but Joah had laughed, had actually laughed at him, before a simple gesture had thrown Frith to the ground once more. After that he’d run, and Joah had made no attempt to come after him, apparently happy in the knowledge that Frith would never be able to force his way out of the Forge. Frith had sprinted down corridor after corridor, trying to summon the pink healing light for Gwiddion and failing, still failing. Eventually, his vision had grown dark at the edges and his legs had given way underneath him. And now he was here.

  ‘It’s you,’ he said, although he could not see her. ‘I know who you are.’

  The darkness immediately to his left shifted and grew solid, and Xinian the Battleborn glared down at him. She was vivid but colourless, a person built of cold greys and blacks. Her ragged leathers and furs hung on her like spoiled flags.

  ‘And you know what I did?’

  ‘You killed him,’ said Frith weakly. It was difficult to care about anything at the moment and the stern look on the woman’s face exhausted him. ‘Although, apparently, you didn’t do a very thorough job.’

  ‘Now it is your turn, shadow-mage. You have to stop him.’

  Frith laughed softly, trying and failing to get to his feet. ‘He killed Gwiddion, you know. I can’t bring him back. He was my griffin.’

  ‘Even now Joah Demonsworn is readying his spells and bringing them to life again. He is waking the Rivener and soon it will move.’ Xinian’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘He will kill thousands, as he has killed thousands before, and, poor excuse for a mage that you are, you are all that stands between him and the power he seeks.’

  Frith braced his legs against the floor and pushed, sliding himself up the wall. Gwiddion’s body began to fall out of his cloak so he carefully tucked it back into his wide inner pocket.

  ‘It is impossible. Joah, although far from sane, is significantly more powerful than me.’

  ‘So you will just give up?’ said the woman. ‘Fall down and let him do as he wishes?’

  ‘No, I will not give up,’ said Frith, feeling some of the old anger rekindle in his chest. ‘And I’ll thank you not to speak to me that way. And what do you mean, the Rivener will soon move?’

  Xinian Battleborn crossed her arms over her chest and stepped back into the darkness, becoming nothing once more.

  ‘If you do not hurry, I suspect you will find out exactly what I mean, shadow-mage.’

  Frith stumbled down the corridor. There was a blinding pain behind his eyes now, and his stomach churned constantly. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, but he could hear a distant thrumming noise that also seemed to be vibrating up through his feet. Every now and then it went up in pitch, as though growing more urgent, so he headed towards it, figuring that he’d find Joah wherever the noise was coming from.

  Eventually he came to the stairs that led downwards, and found Joah in the large room filled with iron plates. All of them were spinning now, the sigils on some of them glowing with pearly light. Joah moved between them, touching one to still it before pressing his fingers to another so that the sigils grew brighter. They doused his face in light as cold as the moon. At the sound of Frith’s footsteps he glanced around before turning back to his work.

  ‘Oh there you are, Aaron. I wondered where you’d got to. We are almost ready to go.’

  Frith swallowed hard. ‘To leave this place?’

  Joah laughed. ‘No, no, not at all. We could hardly do that.’ Joah’s hands flew over the sigils, lighting and extinguishing them, over and over. The thrumming grew louder. ‘All those years ago, Aaron, when they took against me and they sent their assassins, they had a great deal of trouble finding me. And do you know why?’

  He shot Frith a look over his shoulder, the look of a child with a scandalous secret.

  ‘Because I would move the Forge. The whole thing. Just up and take it somewhere else. The spells involved are impossibly complicated, of course, the whole thing a fine mesh of Edenier and Edeian and demon magic, but it was a sight to see. And now the Rivener is so much more powerful than it was.’

  Frith shook his head. ‘Let’s say I believe whatever it is you’re raving on about.’ He was too tired and too sick to be tactful now. ‘Where are you taking it?’

  ‘I’m glad you asked that, Aaron.’ Joah reached into his robe and removed a piece of yellowed parchment, which he glanced at briefly before dropping it on the floor. ‘A small settlement nearby, just to try the old girl out, and then I have a whole list of places where humans have gathered over the years. Should be more than we need.’

  Frith took a deep breath, gathering his strength. If he was going to do anything he would have to do it now, before whatever it was that Joah was setting into motion truly got under way. He tried to summon the Edenier within him, to bend it to his will without the conduit of the mages’ words. His fingers itched.

  ‘Joah, please stop to think about this.’ He came a few steps forward, forcing a smile on his face. ‘I was hoping that we could have more time together, that I could learn more from you before we do anything rash. I feel so behind.’

  Joah flapped a hand at Frith impatiently. The sigils on the plates were staying lit now, glowing with a brilliance like starlight.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Aaron. Once we have O’rin where we want him, neither of us shall have to struggle to know anything ever again. We will be gods ourselves.’

  ‘I just want more time to think, to plan,’ said Frith, edging closer. If I can just get within reaching distance, he told himself, I will put my hands around his neck and pull forth all the Edenier I can. Perhaps if I surprise him, I will have some sort of chance. ‘I want to help you, Joah, I really do, but I want to be prepared.’

  ‘You are afraid, Aaron, and that is understandable.’ The plates were now spinning at a tremendous rate. ‘After everything you’ve been through, my friend, I wouldn’t expect anything less.’

  At that moment there came a great clanging sound from down the corridor. Joah looked up, startled. ‘What was that?’

  The sound came again, a great metallic crash, and then again.

  ‘I couldn’t say for sure,’ said Frith, feeling faint, ‘but it sounds rather like someone is knock
ing on your door.’

  Without looking at him, Joah ran from the room, robes flying, and Frith followed, struggling to keep up. They pounded up the darkened stairs and emerged once more in the central Forge room, the violet light of the Rivener seeming to stab at Frith’s eyes. In here, the sound was much louder, as though someone were banging on the roof above them.

  ‘What could that be?’ said Joah, looking up at the red lights in the ceiling. For the first time he looked truly uncertain. ‘There shouldn’t be – there couldn’t be anything up there.’

  Frith looked around and spotted a knife lying on a nearby bench. He walked over to it and picked it up, keeping his movements slow and casual.

  ‘An animal, perhaps?’ he suggested in a normal tone of voice. He rolled up his sleeve and began to cut directly into his arm, willing himself to remember the shapes accurately enough. A curve here, a straight line there. Blood ran down his arm and soaked into his shirt, but he kept the blade moving, and his face blank. Joah still wasn’t looking at him. ‘You do seem to get some strange wildlife here.’

  ‘But we are protected!’ cried Joah. The noise came again. Clang, clang, clang. Flecks of rust floated down from the ceiling. ‘The Forge is hidden.’

  Frith cut the last part of the word, and immediately the Edenier surged within him, eager to be free after having been imprisoned for so long.

  ‘Perhaps you are not as protected as you think.’ He lifted his arm and summoned the word for Fire, throwing a fireball directly at Joah’s head. The magic burst forth, burning a bright agony along every carved line in his flesh, and in close quarters, Joah was caught entirely unawares. The blast threw him across the room and into the wall, setting his robe and part of his hair on fire. Frith laughed and staggered, barely able to believe he’d managed it.

  ‘How does that feel, you mad bastard?’ He held up his arm, ready to throw another wall of flame, but Joah was already on his feet and Frith was frozen again, one hand held out in front of him. As he watched, unable to move, Joah extinguished the small fires on his robes, and patted his hair down absently. One side of his face was lividly pink, and his right hand was bleeding. His eyes were alarmingly blank.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Oh, Aaron.’

  Frith strained against the spell holding him in place, feeling the cuts on his arm burn fiercely. Nothing happened. Joah came over to him slowly, almost dragging his feet.

  ‘We’re brothers, you and I,’ said Joah in that strange, empty voice. ‘My only brother. You lost yours, and I thought I could be a replacement. Someone to make up for what happened to Tristan and Leon.’

  Frith tried to force a scream up through his throat. How dare you? he wanted to scream. How dare you think you could replace them? The clanging noise from above continued, an unceasing rhythm.

  Joah stood in front of him. Up close, Frith could see that the fire had done more damage than he’d initially thought. If Joah had been a normal man, he would have been in serious trouble.

  Quick as a snake, Joah grabbed Frith by the throat and dragged him, helpless, over towards the corrupted form of the Heart-Stone, burning with its evil light. It was almost entirely black now, a crusted lump run through with veins of glowing amethyst. Frith could feel the poison coming off it in waves, like a fever, and tried with all his strength to pull away.

  ‘You probably think I haven’t noticed’, said Joah absently, ‘that the Heart-Stone has had a debilitating effect on you. It is a shame, that to use it so causes such a poison to leak into the air. How is it looking now, Aaron?’

  Joah shoved him forward, pushing so that Frith’s head was halfway into the aperture and his vision was filled with the stone. The pain behind Frith’s eyes increased tenfold and now he did scream, the pain forcing its way up his throat and through his lips. His whole body recoiled, and he began to shake violently.

  I’m going to have a seizure, he thought wildly. This is how I’ll die.

  Joah held him there for a few moments longer, and then dropped him to the floor. Frith hit the cold iron gratefully, curling up so that his knees were under his chin.

  ‘You were supposed to be my brother!’ Joah was shouting now, the strange distant tone vanishing from his voice. ‘You were supposed to help me! How can you let me down like this?’ He kicked Frith in the stomach once, viciously, and then turned away. ‘AND WHAT IS THAT FUCKING NOISE?’

  42

  Sebastian drew his sword and stood at the ready.

  ‘Are you sure this is wise?’

  Wydrin was standing part way up the small hill, watching Mendrick at work. They had found a dent in the ground surrounded by unstable rock and under Wydrin’s instruction Mendrick had set to work uncovering what lay beneath. A few hours later, and he’d stepped away, his stony face as expressionless as ever. By this time it was late afternoon and the shadows were growing long. Underneath the loose stones there was a wide panel of what looked like iron, engraved with sigils Sebastian didn’t recognise, and now Mendrick was jumping up and down on it, causing a great reverberating clang that echoed flatly off the neighbouring hills.

  ‘We can’t get in there by ourselves,’ said Wydrin firmly. ‘So we’re just going to have to draw the bastard out. He’ll soon wonder who is knocking in his ceiling.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Nuava. She was standing near the werken, Wydrin’s dagger held uncertainly in one hand. ‘I can’t believe it’s really here.’

  ‘He has corrupted our very lands,’ said Dallen. The prince stood next to Sebastian, an ice-spear held loosely under his arm. ‘I can feel the Heart-Stone from here. It is very sick.’

  ‘I still don’t understand the plan,’ said Nuava, a slight tremor in her voice. ‘I mean, I understand that we’re luring Joah out here.’ She paused as the werken made another jump, stone feet clanging against the iron. ‘But once he comes out, then what?’

  ‘Ah, that’s the interesting bit,’ said Wydrin, coming a few steps down towards them all. She had Glassheart in one hand, and she waved it for emphasis, ‘because I’m buggered if I know.’

  Nuava opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

  ‘What Wydrin means to say,’ said Sebastian, ‘is that we may be playing it by ear. We have very few advantages, save for surprise and a foolhardy disregard for our own safety. However, we hope that we can get some strikes in before Joah gets up to full power, and we hope that Frith is still in some condition to fight, somewhere in there.’

  ‘Ah, hope,’ said Nuava. She had gone slightly pale. ‘We hope that we don’t all die horribly?’

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ said Wydrin. ‘From what Mendrick can see, the weaknesses in the rock indicate that the hill will open down this seam here.’ She pointed at a rough depression in the ground, a crack that ran down to the bottom of the hill. It was difficult to spot unless you knew where to look, half covered as it was in snow. ‘So make sure you stay above and to the side of it. When Joah comes out, we don’t want him to see us immediately. Sebastian and Dallen are our main force, whereas we are surprise back-up.’

  ‘Always a pleasure,’ said Sebastian. ‘Wydrin, you’ll have to move quickly if—’

  The ground beneath began to shake. Wydrin scurried over to one side, waving them back hurriedly. The rocks and thin layer of earth covering the hill around the crack flexed and bucked, as though suffering an extremely localised earthquake. Nuava shouted in alarm, still holding the dagger awkwardly in both hands. As they watched, the hill itself cracked down the middle, revealing a dark crevasse and an iron door. Joah Demonsworn stepped from it, and immediately Sebastian felt his unease increase tenfold. The Joah they had seen before had been deadly but calm, cheerful almost. This man was in a black fury, and he looked as if he had been recently burnt; one half of his face was red and peeling, and parts of his robes were blackened.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded as he stalked out of the entrance. ‘I cannot be disturbed at such a time—’

  There was a shout from Wydrin,
and Mendrick leapt from the top of the broken hill down into the heart of the newly opened path, directly at Joah Demonsworn. The mage seemed to catch the rapidly approaching shadow out of the corner of his eye and he ran, but not quite fast enough. A ton of falling masonry caught him on the shoulder, throwing him face down onto the ground. Sebastian ran forward, sword held ready to his shoulder for a killing blow.

  ‘Now!’ called Wydrin. ‘Let’s bloody do it!’

  Amazingly, Joah was crawling to his feet already, although he looked stunned and was holding his arm awkwardly. Sebastian kept coming, and saw an ice-spear go flying past him. It hit the rogue mage on the other shoulder and pushed him down again in a shower of jagged ice.

  By Isu, thought Sebastian, we might actually get a chance at this.

  Without pausing to think, he brought his sword down in a powerful arc, meaning to sever Joah’s head from his body in one move and have done with it. But instead of the satisfying bite of steel into flesh, there was the strangest sense of drag – he saw the point of his sword enter Joah’s neck, but it passed on through as though he were made of something insubstantial. Sebastian staggered with the momentum of the blow, thrown off balance, and Joah looked up, his eyes strangely blank.

  ‘I do beg your pardon,’ he said mildly. ‘You believe I would not take precautions against mere steel blades?’

  ‘Wydrin,’ cried Sebastian, ‘bloody get in there.’

  He glanced up to see his partner, already climbing her way down to the iron door. This is it, then, he thought, we’ve had the best possible start we could have had. We’ll just have to hold out until Frith is back in the game.

  Sensing Dallen at his back now, armed with more ice-spears, Sebastian levelled his sword once more.

  ‘I believe you took something of ours,’ he said, ‘and we would like it back.’

  Something sharp was digging into Frith’s chest. With some difficultly, he explored his cloak with his fingers until he found the source of the discomfort; it was Gwiddion, the griffin’s small bird beak jabbing him in the rib. The body was cold now, his small black eyes dusty.