Absence_Mist and Shadow

by J. B. Forsyth

  She felt a breach in his mindscape that confirmed her suspicions – the lair of a trapdoor spider flicking open in a summer meadow. This was the moment The Reader’s eyes narrowed, when all those gathered in the enclosure felt the change in the Wakening. But that world was a million miles away from Della. The faces rushed to the breach, but it didn’t open again and they soon dispersed.

  ‘He’s trying to trick you!’ she screamed. ‘He wants to steal the Creator Stone.’

  The faces gathered around her now, drawn by her outrage - burning her up with their convergent gaze. Her panic deepened. What she was doing was just distracting them. If they were to discover Izle’s deceit, she would have to drag him up from his hiding place herself. She tried to sink to the centre of him and it should have been a rapid descent – like water falling through cracks. But she went nowhere. His mindscape was superficial and constructed with mental steel. She felt her opportunity slipping away and went to her final attempt in an urgent fever of anger and indignation. She shifted to the place where she sensed the breach, taking the ring of faces with her.

  ‘You have to look deeper. He’s hiding from you.’ The faces crowded her like a ring of hungry wolves - eyes shining and dangerous. But they didn’t do as asked. And why would they? The Reader had not been designed for such purposes. She pressed herself down in desperation, concentrating all her powers of descent onto the breach.

  ‘Remember me Izle Rohn? My uncle’s dead because of you! Come out… Come out you coward… Come out and…’

  Just as it was a mistake for an ant to wander too close to a trapdoor spider, it was hers to press against the trapdoor in his mind and it sprung open, snatching her inside.

  If the subject of a fixed gaze could feel heat from it, the man on the Judgement Stone would have been on fire. For every last pair of eyes were trained on him with feverish intensity. An ominous tone was coming into the Wakening and a strange tension was building in The Reader’s frame. Its grip tightened on its swords - blanching its knuckles and rippling its forearms. The crowd paled, the excitement of a few seconds ago replaced by a screaming disquiet. They didn’t know what was happening and didn’t like it one bit.

  Della was drawn down through the mist poisoned realm of Izle’s inner mind. The Wakening and the faces were gone now, left behind the moment he snatched her away. She went down kicking and screaming, but it did no good. As he took her down, he wrapped and swaddled her with Membrane – compressing her into a suffocating holding cell, much the same as the one Ormis burnt her in. It was almost over and the future of the Westland was now a bleak picture on the under surface of a card, seconds away from being flipped over. Izle was fooling The Reader and he was doing it whilst holding her bound and gagged. She raged against the injustice of it, expanding furiously against the tight fabric of his mind.

  A week ago Izle would have held her, but she was a different girl to the one who chanced upon his shape shifter that day after school. Since then she had suffered a series of tragedies and ordeals and she held Izle solely responsible for all of them. But as potent and raw as her hatred was, it was the consequence of her foulest deed that made the difference now. She had consumed one of Izle’s powerful servants and she drew on that reservoir of power as her rage reached a crescendo. She exploded like a small star, rupturing his superficial mindscape and all at once The Reader saw him for who he really was.

  Izle Rohn extended his neck to look up into the crimson globes that were The Reader’s eyes. The sense of divine scrutiny had withdrawn from him, leaving something much worse in its wake. An ominous crackle came into the air and he felt like he was standing at the centre of a gigantic storm, on the brink of detonation. With a fear he had never known could exist in his body, he ran for his life.

  Wrath

  Through Izle’s eyes, Della saw the enclosure walls spin and his focus settle on the main gate. It was shut; but as he raced for it, a guard pulled it open. She was at a loss to understand why, but then she realised he had committed no crimes of which the guards were aware. They were feeling the hostility in the Wakening, but it was no reason to detain him. To them he was just another rejection bolting in fear. She tried to stop him by expanding into his body and stiffening his legs. But all she achieved was a slight stumble. Without the need to deceive The Reader, Izle’s mind was stronger than hers and he shrugged her off. He reached the gate, but as he passed the guard she saw a sudden terror leap onto his face. She couldn’t see what was happening behind Izle, but she sensed it in the Wakening. The guards weren’t going to stop him, but The Reader was. And as he ran through the gate, she left him to his fate.

  In the poison mists of Izle’s mind The Reader saw the enemy it had been created to destroy and it swung one of its swords back with a tremendous whoosh. But the enclosure wasn’t big enough to accommodate such swordsmanship and the end of its blade sliced through a section of the rear wall, lifting great chunks of masonry into the air along with dozens of people. The debris seemed to hang above the enclosure forever before crashing down on others too stunned to get out of the way. The blade continued its arc, catching a glint of dying sunlight before The Reader lunged forward, stamping its foot down between the Royal Artist and the Captain of the Guard. The impact punched through the cobblestone, sending a web of cracks to the walls and jarring them off their feet. The Creator Stone swung away from its chest, sending a path of crimson light towards the gate. The Reader twisted at the hip as it brought the blade down, huge muscles in its calf and thigh bulging beneath its skin. It should have cut Izle Rohn in two as he raced onto Reader Way, but the sword was struck by a streak of light that shot from the tower balcony, nudging it onto a different trajectory. The blade cleaved the densely populated west wall down to its foundation - butchery and stonemasonry in the same savage arc.

  The light gathered above the enclosure gate, becoming a spirit of swirling smoke and hungry flames. A head appeared from the chaos – a skull tortured by bumps and ridges and covered in tattered skin. Many of the spectators had seen this spirit before, for it was the same one they had seen exorcised at the old barracks a few days ago. But the exorcism was a sham – a light display perfected in the deep jungles of the Eastland. The spirit had been watching the ceremony from the shadows of the balcony and now as its master staggered along Reader Way, it bolstered itself to deflect another blow.

  The Reader straightened up, its perennially calm face clenched around blazing eyes. For centuries the people of the Westland had used it for a purpose other than it had been created for. And they would have continued to, if Izle Rohn hadn’t come before it tonight. But now as it brought itself back to full height the people of Irongate were about to realise just how misguided they had been. For the titan they had built their homes around was no chooser of kings. It was a thing of flesh and blood, forged and hardened by magic to slay an army from another world.

  Whoever had given the Wakening its name made an apt choice, for a wakening was all it was – nothing more than the gentle yawning of a much greater power. And now, as the titan roared with rage the people of Irongate felt its full force. It was a weapon that The Reader drew from the Creator Stone; designed to rip courage from its enemy. A weapon never meant for use in a city of its creator’s descendants. The same black radiance that preceded the titan when it vanquished an Uhuru army five centuries ago; swept through the city now. But unlike its old enemy, the people of Irongate had no magic to mitigate its power.

  The Wakening became terror itself; a medium that submerged all those in its field. A forbidding presence crackled in the air and a deathly precipitation condensed on everyone’s skin. They tasted blood and smelt roasting flesh. And The Reader’s furious baritone swept through their bodies, vibrating bones and teeth and challenging bladder and bowel. Until then the spectators had been anchored in a terrible hypnosis, but now it broke and they ran for their lives.

  As the strength of the Wakening increased, so did its radius of perception - an invisible wave that washed over
the entire city, taking those oblivious to the events inside the enclosure by surprise. Wherever they were and whatever they were doing, the dreadful air soaked into their bones and took possession of their minds; filling them with an unfocused terror and an irresistible urge to run - to go anywhere to be free of the damp crackle that spoke of their imminent death. People fled in all directions and those not quick enough were knocked down and trampled. Where the surging crowds bottlenecked, people climbed over the fallen, mashing faces beneath their boots and pulling and clawing at those in their way. In some places the pile of bodies grew so high, those who scrambled over them were able to climb into first floor windows. The elderly were forced into a scramble with the rest, swinging sticks and clocking heads; forced into movements well beyond what their degenerative joints would normally permit, setting themselves up for months of pain.

  Screams of agony and terror shredded the air, but they were barely heard beneath The Reader’s roar. In a bedroom in the market quarter, two children broke from their play and dived beneath a bed as the Wakening washed over them. They clutched one another in a quivering ball, unaware the source of their terror was the real life version of the carved figure they were playing with.

  No life was spared.

  Horses reared wide eyed and bolted through the masses – some pulling wagons or carts behind them. On Reader Way a rider was thrown, but his leg became caught in his stirrup and his frothing horse dragged him over the cobbles, smashing him into stalls. When a cart crashed into a shop, dozens of exotic birds took to the wing in little cages; tiny hearts bursting in their chests as they flapped themselves to death. From cellars, under eaves and out of cracks in walls, all that crawled and scuttled surged into the light - a plague of insects, conjured in a matter of seconds. Fleas jumped on their hosts and lice crawled rapidly through hair. Even earthworms felt The Reader’s wrath and huge numbers wriggled free of the soil, fleeing beneath panicking crowds in a great rippling exodus. In the filth of the alley behind The Lonely Spirit a sleeping beggar woke with a cry, flailing to his feet and grabbing his chest; sure the end of the world was upon him. As he staggered round a corner he went down, overrun by an army of clawing rats coming the other way.

  The Wakening raged out from Irongate for over a mile. Beyond its influence, travellers gawped at the chaos down the road: people running into fields of wheat and potatoes; horses bucking riders or thrashing at their harnesses. And beyond them, hundreds of people spewing from the city gates. What they saw spoke to them of a danger they couldn’t see, and many fled with the rest.

  On the enclosure wall people surged towards the stairwell in a suffocating squeeze that stole their breath and threatened to crush bones to powder. Some were so desperate to get off they jumped the fifteen foot from the wall, suffering broken legs and twisted ankles. Others quivered and went limp, the power of the Wakening stripping them of all self-control. Kye felt the urge to flee, but the crush of people held him as tight as a nail in a block of wood and all he could do was close his eyes and squeeze Della’s limp shoulders.

  The spirit above the enclosure gate was repaid swiftly for its interference. On the crest of The Reader’s roar two gossamer faces shot from its eyes and struck the spirit, sending it into a nebulous spiral of smoke and flame. It was Izle’s most powerful servant, but even after its consumption of the Indomitable Spirit it was no match for its assailants. Within a few seconds the faces devoured it with huge distorting mouths and disappeared back into the titan’s eyes.

  It turned its attention back to Reader Way. Sensing a concentration of the Wakening along the main road, most people had fled into the side streets. Those who remained were either too injured to move, unconscious or dead. Izle Rohn raced through them, stumbling over the litter of overturned stalls. A terrified blind man stepped into his path and he shoved him aside, sending him flailing into an upturned apple cart. The Reader swung its other sword and it came down on an arc that looked destined to fall short. But as its elbow straightened a ghostly light raced down its arm and along the length of its sword, forming a screaming face on the tip of the blade. It opened its hand and the sword flew over the enclosure’s front wall and into the city. It entered Reader Way between the shoemaker’s and the ironmonger’s; a third of its length disappearing into the cobbles like a dagger into a silk lined scabbard. Windows exploded and all those within a hundred-yard radius were jarred from their feet.

  Izle Rohn, once the 23rd High Exorcist of the Caliste, was directly in its path and the blade cut him in two at the waist. In the end, without his black arts to protect him, he was just a man – and he died like one. His lower half collapsed at the knees and his upper half slid down the topside of the blade on a streak of blood; dead before he struck the cobbles.

  The spirit that guided the blade rose from the ground. She hovered over his torso to ensure no ghost could rise from him, then travelled back up the blade to become a bleak face on the pommel. When she craned her neck the ground groaned, the sword slipped free and it flew back to the Reader’s open fingers. It stepped back and straightened on the granite outcrop and the spirit disappeared into its body. Its eyes cooled from crimson to blue and it went back to its familiar vigil; looking out over the devastation as though nothing had happened.

  The Wakening lifted from the city and the people looked around; at first with bewilderment and then in horror at what they were doing. Those who found themselves clambering on bodies, climbed off in shame and began helping people to their feet. Others gawped at the blood on their clothes and at those whose hair they were pulling or whose faces they were about to scratch. At first no one spoke and there was an eerie quiet when even the injured and dying made no sound.

  Solace

  Kye opened his eyes, not knowing what he would see or even where he would be. The Wakening had taken him outside himself and he looked out over the enclosure with a swirling disorientation. A rear section of the far wall and a large section of the gatehouse had been reduced to gullies of rubble, littered with bodies. At the centre of the courtyard was a large depression of cracked cobblestones, so deep he could see great wedges of dark earth beneath. Three guards were getting to their feet and the Royal Artist was rolling onto his back beside his broken easel. Above them, the balcony where Lord Beredrim and his mystery companion had been standing was empty. Beyond the wall, spirals of smoke were lifting into the evening air. The sudden end to the Wakening had left behind an eerie vacuum through which harrowing cries were beginning to carry.

  High above The Reader studied the horizon.

  He felt the strength coming back into his legs and turned to see the last of the spectators hurry away down the stairs. Only Ormis remained. His head was bowed and there was a dagger in his right hand. Kye stared at the blade. ‘Ormis?’ The exorcist’s face twitched and his eyes focused. ‘Are you alright? I think Della did it. I think she stopped him.’

  The exorcist looked at her and opened his fingers, his dagger clattering to the stone. Then he looked east – his face betraying some terrible realisation. ‘Forgive me,’ he said and ran down the stairs.

  Della began to stir and like some limp puppet coming to life, she straightened and turned to him. ‘Izle’s dead,’ she whispered, but there was no triumph in her voice. He hugged her and she hugged him back. ‘What happened to Ormis?’

  ‘He was here just a second ago. But he was acting strange and went off in a hurry. It must’ve been the Wakening. I’ve never felt so scared.’

  ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen this way. I should have gone to him earlier – while he was still in line.’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself, this wasn’t your fault.’

  She looked into the enclosure and Kye could see she wasn’t convinced. Some brave folk had returned and were already assisting the dozens of injured people that littered the rubble.

  ‘Come on Kye, we’ve got to help.’

  There were more people clambering in by the gate, so they started around to the back wall. They went
holding hands, both of them on jelly legs, with an unsettling swishing in their heads. When they started picking their way down through the rubble an enclosure guard called up. ‘Hey you.’ He was crouched on a huge slab of broken wall, trying to splint someone’s leg with an empty scabbard. ‘Come here and help me will yer.’

  Kye angled towards him, but Della grabbed his arm.

  ‘I’ve got to go to it.’

  At first he didn’t understand. But then she looked up at The Reader. ‘Why? I thought it was all over.’

  ‘It is. The city’s safe now. But it’s calling to me.’

  Kye felt his stomach clench and his heart rate spike. ‘What if you set it off again?’

  ‘I won’t. It wants me to go.’

  ‘Do you have to go now?’

  ‘Yes. Before anyone stops me.’

  He was about to protest when the guard shouted up again. ‘Boy! Are you coming or not?’ He waved to say he was on his way then took Della’s hand.

  ‘Go on then. I’ll be waiting for you,’ he said, before turning away and clambering down through the rubble.

  Della crossed the enclosure, approaching The Reader in dreamy steps. For the last few days she had thought of nothing else besides stopping Izle from acquiring the Creator Stone. Now Izle was dead and the stone was safe, but for some reason she felt worse. The fate of the Westland had served as a distraction to her bleeding heart and tattered conscience and now she was feeling the pain of them once more. The Reader was calling to her with a promise of solace and she went to it with hope.