Quicksilver Zenith

by Stan Nicholls

  And as above, so below. The horsemen were sweeping into the clearing. They came with dreadful cries and scything blades. Few as they were, his kinsmen stood ready to meet them. From the land and from the heavens, battle was joined.

  Flame and steel rolled in to engulf him.

  He came to, biting back a scream.

  Someone’s hand was on him. He snatched their wrist and held it like a vice.

  ‘Ow! You’re hurting me!’

  Caldason blinked into focus. ‘Kutch? What the hell are you doing? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to –’

  ‘You were shouting fit to bring the house down. I heard you from upstairs.’

  ‘I … I’m sorry.’ He let go.

  Kutch rubbed his wrist, looking pained. ‘What was it? Another one?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sat up and shook his head to clear it. ‘A … dream, or whatever they are.’

  ‘Sounded bad.’

  The Qalochian nodded. ‘And different.’ A thought struck him. ‘What about you? I mean, did you see anything? Were you –’

  ‘No, I didn’t share it. Not this time. It’s happening less now I’ve stopped spotting so much.’

  ‘You still think there’s a connection?’ He swung his legs off the cot and stiffly rolled his shoulders.

  ‘Well, it started when I began training as a spotter. I can’t think of any other way I’ve changed.’

  ‘You’ve changed in lots of ways since we came here, Kutch.’

  ‘Have I? How?’

  ‘Mostly for the better.’ He put on a weak smile.

  ‘You said it was different. The dream.’

  The smile faded. ‘Yes. Some of it was familiar. Too familiar. But there was something new.’

  ‘What?’

  Caldason stood and walked past him to the window. It was early light, and Valdarr’s streets were already bustling. For the most part, genuine humans milled below. But there was much of the phantasmal, too. Many illusions were obvious. Others might be mistaken for flesh and blood by a casual observer. Bursts of light marked the appearance of new glamours. Equally numerous were the implosions of non-light indicating their demise. A flock of birds flew across the grey sky. Perhaps they were real. He couldn’t tell.

  ‘Reeth?’

  ‘The visions have shown me my death many times,’ Caldason said, his eyes still on the scene outside. ‘Well, what should have been my death. Now there’s something else.’

  ‘Whatever it was, you seem pretty shaken by it.’

  ‘I think I saw how I came into the world. And how my coming into it killed the woman who birthed me.’ He turned to face the boy. ‘I was responsible for my mother’s death, Kutch.’

  High above, the birds flapped lazily towards the rising sun.

  8

  Thousands of birds darkened the watery sky.

  They circled an area that had a comparatively sparse population, despite being in central Bhealfa. What drew them in such vast numbers was easy pickings. Not just the countless worms churned up, but the profusion of refuse left by the cavalcade they followed. For the birds, it was a never-ending banquet. Although it was not without its dangers. Wild dogs and feral cats were attracted by the feast, too. And the humans in the great procession used hawks and archers to reduce the flocks, and for sport.

  The birds’ other rivals were the armies of scavengers living in the convoy’s wake. These men, women and children existed in a hierarchy as rigid as that of the wider society that shunned them. The lowliest, the dung gatherers, roamed on foot, their carts and wagons being employed to carry the valuable fruits of their labours.

  The niche above them was occupied by the rag pickers. Notwithstanding their job description, they ferreted out anything of value from the general detritus. Fuelled by stories of discarded coins, and even jewels, many pickers had the mentality of gold panners.

  Occasionally, they came across a dead body. These were the result of execution or exile, which amounted to the same thing if the accused was cast out from one of the convoy’s higher places. Some were suicides of people who came to prefer death to the regime’s haphazard cruelty. Once stripped, the bodies were left for the carrion crews. Spurned by everyone, these motley bands contained many outcasts; sufferers of unsightly diseases and the mentally unstable who could find no other employment. They survived by selling the corpses back to their often aristocratic families for decent burial.

  The travelling artisans considered themselves far superior to the scavengers, pickers and body snatchers. Carpenters, builders, thatchers, wheelwrights, blacksmiths and a dozen other trades made up their ranks. Their bread came from offering to make good the damage caused by the passing of the procession. A handful of sorcerers of dubious repute were loosely affiliated with this group, promising the afflicted charms to avert such disasters in future.

  Being more prosperous than the baser camp followers, the artisans could afford magic, if largely rudimentary. Glamoured bird scarers were part of their cache, and every so often they let one off to have a few minutes’ respite.

  So it was this brisk dawn. A hex ignited an ear-splitting salvo. Flaming, multicoloured tendrils jabbed the sky, dispersing their squawking targets. The birds escaped to higher reaches, to regroup.

  One scavenger took the racket as a signal to straighten his aching back for a moment. He raised a hand to mop his sweaty forehead, despite the morning chill. Grabbing a breath, he gazed at the source of his livelihood, perhaps a mile distant, and felt the familiar thrump-thrump-thrump through the soles of his feet as it slowly moved away. He never ceased to be awed at the spectacle, the chaos. Or to be grateful that it fed him. It was a miracle, a gift from the gods. This clandestine economy built on the foolishness of one man widely considered insane.

  Some likened Prince Melyobar’s roving court to a sow nurturing her incalculable litter. The less benevolent saw it as a bloated leech gorging on the blood of all around it.

  Melyobar’s palace was a capricious affair. Huge, as befitted the ego of its master, the structure expressed his aberrations, too. It was a rare angle that struck the eye as true. There was an over-abundance of towers and spires. A host of statues stood on its battlements, uniformly freakish or alarming. It bristled with defences and scaling obstacles. Everything was embellished, carved, tinted, bedecked and overlaid with precious stones and valuable metals. The impression was of a spiky cake iced by a demented chef.

  The palace-cum-fortress had never been still. It floated, under direction, and was powered by stupefyingly expensive magic. Its sole purpose was to accommodate the Prince in his craving to outpace Death, and thus cheat death.

  In this endeavour he was alone, but not unaccompanied. To maintain their stature the aristocratic families had travelling palaces built too, though they were careful to make them less opulent. The guilds did likewise, along with various courtiers of influence and great wealth. All vied to squander their fortunes in the cause of keeping up appearances.

  There were magically powered auxiliary structures to serve the Prince’s needs. The Royal Guardsmen, quarter-masters, armourers, fletchers, administrators, scholars, diviners, sorcerers and a dozen other specialist groupings had their own transports.

  Lesser functionaries and camp followers, who were legion, had to make do with more conventional ways of keeping up. The number on horseback were uncountable, including several detachments of cavalry and an entire division of paladins. Wagons, carriages, coaches, gigs and chariots were present in hundreds. Their occupants had a relatively easy passage compared to those on foot, who numbered many thousands, and who had to rely on an elaborate system of horse-drawn sleeping rigs to take their rest. For the only rule was that the cavalcade stopped for nothing.

  There had been suggestions, not entirely frivolous, that Melyobar’s nomadic folly should be officially recognised as a city.

  Any such thought was far from the mind of the Prince himself. He was focused wholly on a scheme to defeat his deadliest adversary. To that end, he stood
with a detachment of militia on a parade ground abutting one of the palace’s highest ramparts.

  As monarch, Melyobar was automatically named Supreme Commander of the Combined Armed Forces, although the title was honorary, since Gath Tampoor effectively ran things. For no apparent reason, today the Prince chose to disport himself as Lord High Admiral of the Fleet, as was his right. His dark blue, shoulder-padded uniform jacket was smothered in gold braid. The coat didn’t quite meet over his paunch, so the gold buttons were undone. Breeches with gold stripes down the sides, and shiny, knee-high boots disguised his puny legs. He wore a tricorn hat with a white plume. Strands of greying hair poked from beneath the rim, giving his ashen, puffy face a cracked-egg impression. He had a splendid sword to wave about.

  ‘Now send over another one!’ he demanded, his voice too high-pitched to command respect in itself.

  ‘Sir!’ A sergeant smartly clicked his heels and, to his credit, maintained a granite expression. He marched off to bellow orders.

  ‘Over there!’ the Prince yelled. ‘That way!’ He pointed at a distant farmhouse gradually drawing level. ‘Hurry!’

  A unit was manning one of the large siege catapults lined up near the parapet’s edge. Frantically, they wound back the arm, accompanied by the sound of creaking timber. Someone used a mallet to hammer home the chocks under the catapult’s front wheels.

  Four men appeared, each holding a corner of a net containing a round, leathery object bigger than an ox’s head. It was heavy enough to make them stagger slightly. A blue-robed sorcerer followed, clutching a small velvet sack. Lank, bald and bearded, his features were set in the requisite austerity.

  Melyobar clapped his hands like a petulant schoolmarm. ‘Come on, come on!’

  They loaded the leather ball into the catapult’s scoop. The sorcerer rummaged in his sack and brought out a thin, square stone, about the size and reddish-brown colour of a fallen oak leaf. He slipped it into the coil of twine binding the ball, then began mumbling an incantation.

  Watching with ill-concealed impatience, the Prince remarked caustically, ‘Let’s try to be a little more accurate this time, shall we?’

  He took a glamoured spy tube from the pile on the bench beside him. Holding it to his eye, he saw the farmhouse in close-up, as though it had been moved to within a stone’s throw of the palace. He could make out people gathered on its porch. Some of them were waving.

  Melyobar squinted as the image flicked, started to fade, and died. The spy tube’s magic expended, he tossed it aside with an irritable snort. The tube rolled a few feet and disappeared over the rampart’s edge. He snatched another from the table. There were a dozen or so there, each worth the equivalent of a militiaman’s wages for a month.

  The catapult unit stood to attention while the Prince fiddled with his spy tube. When the farmhouse was parallel, he raised his sword.

  ‘Fire!’

  The lever was pulled, the arm went up and over with tremendous force. Spinning, the leather ball climbed high, fast. Describing a great arc, it curved down towards the farm building. The people around it started to scatter. Ants running from a boot.

  Looking tense, the sorcerer continued muttering, eyes half shut. Melyobar studied the target through the tube. A black dot descending, the missile seemed on a path to take it safely over the farmhouse. The scurrying ants realised this too, and most of them stopped to crane their necks.

  When the ball reached a point directly above the roof, and the sorcerer’s chanting came to a pitch, it silently burst. A fraction of a second later a muffled boom reached the palace. A mass of purple vapour hung in the air where the ball had been. Then, like a rain cloud, it began discharging its load. A shower of blue liquid fell, pattering on the thatch, the farmhouse garden and the perplexed spectators. Unaffected by the wind, the cloud kept its position. The drizzle became a downpour. People were running again, hands over their heads, as a blue torrent drenched the entire area.

  ‘Better,’ Melyobar pronounced. ‘Much better.’

  The sorcerer relaxed a little. By the catapult, and on the square, the militiamen allowed themselves a slight ease.

  At the farmhouse, the deluge stopped. The cloud dispersed. A few remaining purple wisps quickly melted away.

  The Prince beckoned the wizard. ‘That’s more like it! Practice makes perfect, eh? Eh?’

  ‘Er … yes, Highness. Thank you, Highness.’ He gave an awkward bow.

  ‘Soon iron out the kinks. Shoulders to the wheel and all that.’

  ‘We could carry out your wishes more efficiently, Royal Highness, if we knew your intentions, the aim you have in mind.’ He immediately regretted saying it.

  Melyobar’s expression darkened. But not, it turned out, with his infamous fury. He leaned closer, his manner that of a plotter. ‘Suffice it to say …’ He looked to left and right to satisfy himself they were not overheard. ‘Suffice it to say that my work here will lead to the ruination of –’ his voice dropped to a whisper ‘– the great destroyer.’

  ‘I’m sure we all yearn for that outcome, sire.’ He chose his words carefully, aware that conversing with the Prince was like entering a house of glamoured mirrors.

  ‘The plan is sound,’ Melyobar confided. ‘My father, the King, devised it himself.’

  ‘Indeed, sire?’ The wizard swallowed. ‘How fortunate for us all that His Majesty’s great wisdom should be brought to bear on the problem.’

  ‘Quite so. That’s something I often tell him when we talk.’

  The sorcerer, aware as anyone that the old King was dead, or as good as, nodded gravely. He strove to think of a suitable platitude to respond with. ‘I trust His Majesty is in good health,’ he returned, desperately.

  ‘In robust health and excellent spirits. And anxious to assist in destroying the foe.’

  ‘Capital, sire. The reaper’s days must surely be numbered.’

  ‘No doubt about it, and today I’ve taken a step towards arming myself against him.’

  The wizard stole an oblique glance at the saturated farmhouse. ‘Begging your forgiveness, Highness, but with … coloured water?’

  Melyobar gave him a knowing wink and tapped the side of his nose. ‘Oh, look. A bam. Sergeant! New target!’

  9

  ‘It’s no good,’ Kutch pleaded. ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘You can,’ the mage insisted. “Trust me. Concentrate on the exercise and –’

  ‘I can’t! I thought it was a good idea, but now I see you …’

  ‘Seeing me this way was the whole point, remember? Now forget everything else and focus on the task at hand.’

  ‘It’s not easy.’

  ‘Since when was anything to do with the potent art easy? Just try. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘I … I’ll try.’

  ‘Good. I suggest we be still for a moment and centre ourselves. Breathe as you’ve been taught.’

  Kutch wriggled into a meditative position. Back straight, hands on thighs. He was stiff and fidgety.

  ‘Relax.’

  ‘Relaxing’s hard work sometimes,’ the boy grumbled.

  A smile crimped the old man’s face, exposing remarkably well-preserved, even teeth. His face was wrinkled and a little weather beaten, and he had a knack of adopting an expression that was simultaneously severe and benevolent. He was Kutch’s late master, Grentor Domex, to a T.

  Kutch’s eyes were closed, but his lashes trembled, betraying his tension. The mage let him be.

  The room was quiet and softly lit. It was unmistakably a wizard’s den, filled with stone pots and glass jars of herbs and elixirs; ceremonial paraphernalia; ancient books. Everything was in haphazard piles and disordered heaps. There was a temporary air about it that declared its occupant was an itinerant.

  When a few minutes had passed, the mage said, ‘Open your eyes.’

  The boy did so.

  ‘Let’s get rid of these, shall we?’ The mage leaned over, took the blinkers dangling from Kutch’s wrist and drop
ped them on an adjacent table. ‘They’re not needed.’

  Kutch nodded, but kept a wary eye on them.

  ‘We’ll try something different,’ the mage decided. ‘Look over there.’ He pointed to a tall wooden cabinet standing in the middle of the room’s clutter. Its doors were half wire mesh. There were sounds of movement inside, but the mesh was too dense to see what made them. The mage performed a swift hand gesture. The cabinet’s doors swung open. ‘Which is real?’ he challenged.

  Three pigeons fluttered out, one black, one white, one grey. They spread their wings and took off. The room was small, and the frenzied birds seemed to fill it. They flew in circles, collided with furniture, pecked at the closed window. The noise they made was deafening.

  ‘Centre yourself, Kutch!’ the mage called out, oblivious to the racket. ‘Focus, focus!’

  Kutch struggled to apply his spotting talent. The constant movement, the shrill cooing, the beating wings, all made his head spin. Loose sheets of parchment swirled in the chaos. An earthenware pot fell from its shelf and burst open, splattering the floor with something gelatinous and bright green. A vial of sparkly, salmon-coloured powder dropped and shattered next to it. Neither had a particularly pleasant odour.

  The mage was unconcerned. ‘You can do it!’ he urged. ‘Have confidence in your master!’

  ‘You’re not him,’ Kutch announced deliberately, barely making himself heard above the din. ‘He’s dead.’

  The mage saw that the boy’s eyes were moist, and sighed. He snapped his fingers. Instantly, silence returned. The pigeons hung motionless in the air, frozen in mid-flight. Two of them, the white and the black, lost their definition. Feathers and flesh dissolved into masses of golden motes. The birds’ shimmering outlines remained for a second, then faded into non-existence. Another snap of his fingers freed the real pigeon, the grey. It beat its wings and compliantly swooped back into the cabinet. The doors slammed shut behind it.