‘If only the dragons could tell us what they had done to that mountainous sculpture to make its airs run so thick with power … but they keep their secrets. Men who dwell there live longer, untroubled by sickness. Mages bask in the potent airs or at least pay a lower price for the magic that goes through them. It has been a temptation to all who have sat in those thrones, and walked those halls, to remain forever. It took a long time for someone to reach for the prize with enough cunning and luck to seize it. Vous was the one to do it.’
Siel paused to sip her drink, the same strong brew Case had been sipping most of the day. They’d seen Lut begin to make a new batch of it from roots and fat red berries. Eric sipped a far more agreeable drink, the Levaal equivalent of tea, its taste sweet and nutty.
Siel went on, ‘He was born of a powerful merchant family in the city of Ankin. He knew sons and daughters of other powerful families across the world. They all resented and mocked the magicians’ system, resented its taxes on their wealth, its limiting of their cities’ greatness. Their parents and grandparents had mouthed the same complaints, but this generation decided to act. Vous, a gifted speaker, a skilled swordsman, soon earned his cause a small, devoted following. They were few, but had great wealth behind them. They recruited the help of rogue mages, many of whom hated the Schools’ decision to sell the castle to the Mayors.
‘It was easy for Vous, with bribery, lies and blackmail, to be Ankin’s nominated wise-man when the time arose, despite his youth. It was a longer, dirtier battle to get his co-conspirators nominated as their respective cities’ wise-men. A trail of intrigue and murder churned in their wake. The families emptied their safes of riches, knowing the prize they reached for would be greater. And they achieved their goal. For the first time, all six wise-men had the same interests at heart.
‘The rules appeared to be followed, when the newly appointed wise-men set forth for the castle gates from their cities to claim rule. They appeared to rule justly at first, and fears were soothed. But much went on behind the stage of this performance. In five short years, with vast new resources and powers, the six used the same blackmail, bribery, lies, and murder on a grander scale. Soon the ring of cities closest to the castle were the first of what we now call ‘Aligned Cities’. Puppets of the conspirators were put in charge of each, generals were likewise replaced, and those cities’ armies swelled the castle’s ranks. War brewed silently and invisibly. The cities further away did not see it coming.
‘When five years had passed, the next six nominated wise-men came to claim their place. They were brought up to the castle halls and killed. This act was kept secret for three years, time enough for more drastic change. The first war mages were created, wilder and harder to control than today’s. An army of them began to grow in secret. Many heard their screams, and wondered what foul thing spoke death’s tongue.
‘People were slow to believe a tyrant had really seized the castle. People in Aligned Cities learned not to rebel when their city’s food was withheld. In time, anything posing a threat to Vous and his cohorts was stamped out: the magic schools, folk magicians, half-giants, things and peoples you’ve not yet heard of. We who serve the Mayors’ Command, a fragile alliance at best, are high on their list. There are slave farms, mines, and other places to send us. Six Free Cities remain.’
As Siel paused to drink from her cup, the silence was startling. Across the room Loup began snoring as though to fill it. Anfen got up, stretched, and sat with them. ‘I’ve been listening to your history lesson,’ he said to Siel. ‘Painfully brief. But the key things were covered. May I join you?’
‘Your pardon, good people,’ said Case, sitting up from his mat. ‘I don’t feel right lying in here, comfy and warm, while that poor girl’s out there in the cold.’
‘She has blankets,’ said Siel.
‘I’m going to see if she needs anything else,’ said Case, ‘like being treated like a human being after what she’s been through.’
‘Don’t go further than the porch,’ said Anfen, rolling his slanted eyes. Case didn’t acknowledge he’d heard.
Eric sighed. ‘Sorry about him.’
‘What’s his grievance?’ said Anfen. ‘Does he want to return home?’
‘It’s that Stranger woman. He thinks she’s his friend, thinks you’ve been unkind to her.’
‘Yes, her.’ Anfen looked troubled. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you this, but … the charm Case wore. Loup discovered one of its secrets. If you wear it and hold two of its active beads in a certain way, you have a vision, showing you what Case heard and saw within the castle, right up to his waking on the lawns. I spent the day examining it closely. On the lawns, you hear what he says to Stranger. You do not see Stranger, or hear what she says to him. Somehow, she has kept herself hidden from the charm, almost as though she knew at a glance what its purpose was, and hid from it.’
‘Or maybe she wasn’t actually there—’ said Eric.
‘She exists,’ said Siel. ‘I saw her and fired at her.’
‘But who is she, what does she want?’ said Anfen. ‘Her powers sound formidable. She does us no harm, but goes to great trouble to remain unseen. If she is really a friend, why?’
Said Siel, ‘We have not been unkind to Lalie. She has done many bad things. I would be glad to kill her, if allowed.’ She said this as casually as if saying she’d like a bath. Eric pictured her wrist-deep in a mule’s carcass, blood glistening down her arms as she sliced off its meat with steady calm hands.
Case crept out the front door, unsure why it felt like he was up to something mischievous. He just wanted to check on poor Lalie, out here on her own.
Didn’t he?
There she was, asleep, curled up like the house pet on a soft mat, pillow under her head, blankets over her, a clay jug of water nearby. He peered at her face: so different from the wild, angry thing she’d been, sprinting out of the hunters’ hall covered in blood. She didn’t stir at the creaking of floorboards under Case’s feet, loud though it sounded to him.
Cruel to keep her out here like this, he thought. He gazed around at the darkness. The quiet was broken only by a fresh-smelling breeze rustling the stony yard’s stiff clumps of grass. The night’s darkness was not total — there seemed as much light as if there were stars or a sliver of moon above, and that was probably the strangest thing. Direct from the front porch, that’s where they’d come from. The woods stretched out to the left as a thick, pitch-black line. A night bird of some kind screeched horribly from that direction, and he shivered.
It was a night bird, he hoped. So many perils, so many horrors. He’d thought the old world was a dark, terrible place. Maybe it was. But at least you knew there it was other people out to get you most of the time. Not some unknown, unnameable things …
He didn’t know why, but yes, his feet took him down the steps of the porch. And then, well, it seemed he was walking out through the stony field, a little adrenaline surging in his veins as he spun around, eyes sweeping all directions, looking for something. Or, of course, someone.
He’d known he would see her here, had known it before he excused himself and came outside. And there, not too close: a little glimmer of green.
Case ran for her. There she was! And he wondered: why should he have missed her so much? He hardly knew her. But she stood, that smile on her face, that glint in her eyes, eyes that seemed to see him inside out and to understand: You can’t help but to be what you are. Don’t worry! It’s not all bad! You’re fine. I see you as you are, as you used to be, as you might have been. They are all fine.
In her hand was a cup, and he knew what was in it. ‘I didn’t know if you’d come,’ she whispered, handing it to him. ‘A few nights, I’ve waited for you. This is as close as I dare get, even though your mage sleeps.’
‘He’s not my mage,’ Case said. He sipped the delicious cold wine, felt the buzz cloud his head. ‘I don’t want to be with them any more. Even Eric … well, even he seems to have fallen in with em. I w
ant to be with—’
‘Shh, shh. Do they know you’re out here? Are all your companions asleep?’
‘No. They think I’m on the porch, there. Listen, be careful out here on your own. We’ve seen some bad things in those woods. Why not come in, introduce yourself?’
‘I cannot. There are reasons I cannot, which will make no sense to you, Case, though I know you mean well. I need you to trust me on this: I mean well too.’
‘I believe you, miss, but they probably won’t, no matter what I tell em.’
‘You need not tell them a thing.’ She touched his arm and it sent pleasant chills through him. ‘Case, do you know where they are headed? I follow, and keep many threats at bay. You would not have made it this far without me. But it helps to know Anfen’s intentions.’
Case thought back. ‘He said something about meeting a council—’
‘Council of Free Cities?’
‘That’s it, I think.’
‘Good,’ she said, nodding. ‘He must. And I shall help him get there, though he may not see it. You had better go back.’
‘Stranger, look, please be careful out here. I’m telling you. There’s something bad in the woods and we saw what it did.’
She laughed that sparkling laugh — damn it, nothing would hurt her, nothing could hurt someone with a laugh like that. ‘I am well aware of them,’ she said. ‘Tormentors, they are called. There are none nearby, for the present.’
‘What are they supposed to be?’
‘No one knows. The castle is as frightened of them as everyone else. Anfen may rest assured of that. They come from World’s End, from beyond the great wall, the Land None Have Seen. Few know this. But you must go back. There’s another mage, not far, in the guise of a wolf. I must hide, for his intentions aren’t clear to me. Sleep well, Case.’
‘You too, miss. And thanks for the drink.’ Case wiped away a tear, and wondered why he’d shed it. She’d vanished, but her voice came from the gloom: ‘Be safe, Otherworlder.’
32
The next day brought more hours of sword craft in Faul’s lonely back yard, surrounded by scattered man-sized knuckles of obsidian black stone. When they were done, every part of him ached and some little cuts crisscrossed his forearm where Sharfy’s sword had come a fraction too close. They sat for a breather by the back steps. ‘Who’s going to teach me magic?’ Eric asked.
Sharfy’s reaction surprised him with its vehemence. ‘No!’
‘And why not?’
‘Want to risk going halfway mad?’
Eric laughed. ‘Look, life as I know it is forfeit. Understand? You guys won’t let me go back and read comic books or get laughed at by co-workers ever again. Yeah yeah, I know what you’re going to say, how it’d be impossible even if you wanted to. The point is I am not thinking long term here. I am thinking: what kicks can I get before something bites my head off in a week’s time? To be able to cast a spell, an actual spell, would almost make it all worthwhile.’
‘Make what worthwhile?’
‘Having to see all the dead bodies I’ve seen, we’ll start there.’ Sharfy surprised him by laying a hand on his arm gently. ‘If you don’t already have talent, no one can teach you. You’d know if you had talent because you’d see magic in the air. If you don’t see that already, you won’t learn to cast. Don’t be sad about it. If I had talent, I wouldn’t learn. If you learn, they come hunt you, unless you’re like Loup is, and can stay out of their way.’ Sharfy contemptuously flung the army-issue sword to the ground. During their session he’d cursed the weapon nonstop.
A flock of birds suddenly erupted from the woods’ line of dark green in the distance to their right, with a faintly heard explosion of shrieks and squawks. ‘And what might that be?’ said Sharfy, standing and reaching for the sword again. No one had mentioned the horror of the doomed hunters’ hall since they came here, but they hadn’t forgotten it wasn’t very far away.
Loup suddenly barrelled down the back steps, an excited grin across his face. ‘There they are! There’s our dancing mages! Hoo! She’s back on our tail all right. Far Gaze doesn’t know what to make of her either, you watch!’ Loup jogged off towards the woods, peering at distant things none of the rest of them could see and hopping from foot to foot with excitement. Sharfy ran after him and tried to get some idea what in blazes he was talking about.
On the other side of the yard the man of the house, Lut, was watching Siel push along a wheelbarrow full of bark strips he used for brewing. At that moment she evidently tired of all this toil and hurled the cart sideways, spilling its contents across the ground. She ignored the man calling her back, instead storming directly towards the back steps.
Eric watched her come. ‘These people are feeding us,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should earn our keep.’
‘I’ve earned it by risking my life for weeks,’ she replied, tugging on both braids at once, to indicate extremely pissed. ‘It’s not the work I hate, it’s his blathering. The man won’t shut up.’
She sat heavily on the step beside him. He began to speak but she cut him off: ‘Shh! I have something to say to you and I’m thinking of how to say it.’
‘Fine.’ He waited, watching Lut pile the bark strips back onto the wheelbarrow with much angry talking to himself and headshaking.
‘You’re to be a hero,’ said Siel at last. ‘Good. Do you think learning to use a sword is going to be enough?’
Eric looked at her in surprise. ‘Maybe not. But I’ve asked to learn magic as well—’
‘Do you think magic is going to be enough?’
‘Enough for what? To beat them?’
‘Yes to beat them,’ she snapped. ‘They have magic, so do we. They have swords, so do we. Anfen is a better swordsman than most, though you have only seen him lose a fight to an Invia so you may not believe it. He is not enough to beat them. So even if you could wield a blade like Anfen, and cast like the Arch Mage, would that be enough?’
Another flock of birds erupted from the line of trees. Out in the yard Loup cheered like someone watching a horse race. Eric said, ‘Obviously not, by the way your questions are headed. You’re saying we’d need a lot more such people. How do you propose to get them? I’m trying to become Anfen. It’s why I have these.’ He showed her the cuts on his forearms.
She slapped the step in frustration. ‘Listen! What do we have that they don’t? What weapon, what tool to use, what thing to fall back on, what map to guide us which they are missing? You heard what I told of their history! They do anything they want. They stop at nothing. They kill, steal, kill, lie, kill.’
Now he got it. ‘Principles. Values. We have principles. They don’t.’
She turned to him, brown eyes wide. ‘Yes! Case is usually wrong, but he has them. Do you?’
He was taken aback. ‘Of course I do.’
‘What are they? I’ve heard you betray your friend’s confidence, telling us of his lust for Stranger when he left the room.’
‘Anfen needed to know it—’
‘Yes, he did. So betraying your friend’s confidence was the useful thing to do. Was it right? You lied to my face without batting an eye. Yes, you were scared, but you also wanted to use my body again, and you kept up the lie for days. I waited, I gave you a chance to see there’d be no danger in telling the truth. But you didn’t.’
‘Hey, use your body? Who seduced who?’
She hadn’t seemed to hear. ‘You explained why you lied but you never said sorry. You just panted after me like a dog all through the woods, greedy for more meat.’
There was nothing he could say in his defence, other than: ‘Siel, please, what the hell brought this on?’
‘I’ve looked into your mind and heart and seen nothing there. It scares me.’
Tears slid down her cheeks. He didn’t get a chance to recover from his shock and answer before she’d stormed into the house and slammed the door behind her.
Loup and Sharfy returned, the magician muttering excitedly. ‘Th
ey were close! And fighting hard. We’ll see how that works out. Far Gaze isn’t the greatest mage who ever lived, but he’s no weakling. She must be something, that one he’s dancing with! Oh, aye …’
‘Are you sure Anfen’s sleeping in there?’ Sharfy asked him.
Loup nodded, grinning. ‘Out like a blown candle. I even blessed his sleep, so his dreams’ll be peaceful, not full of blood and guts, the poor lad.’
‘Now’s the best chance we’ll get,’ Sharfy whispered, the addict again creeping into his face. ‘How long’s a black-scale vision take?’
‘Depends,’ said Loup. ‘Maybe he’ll go out of body. They got some kick, the black ones.’
Eric barely heard them, too busy replaying Siel’s outburst, trying to find which parts he should accept and which he could debate. Point taken on the lust, but given the stress and circumstances, perhaps a little slack could be cut. As for betraying Case’s confidence, I don’t quite see her point … He came back to the present. ‘Out of body? Does that mean what I think it does?’
‘Means what it sounds like,’ said Sharfy. ‘Body stays here, you don’t. Looks like you’re sleeping.’
‘Where would I go?’
‘Past, future, present, maybe somewhere else altogether,’ said Loup, smiling toothlessly. He lowered his voice as Lut strode past with a crunch of boots on gravelly turf, still muttering angrily about young people’s lack of respect for the land. ‘I heard of people who went to Otherworld, and further places besides,’ the magician whispered. ‘Whatever happens, you’ll see stuff, you believe it.’ He leaned close, eyes gleaming. ‘I heard how you found that scale. No one just finds a black scale like that. That’s meant. Dragon meant you to have it. Why you think I crushed it up like that? I knew It wanted this. It didn’t just want you trading for a few passing treasures. So let’s go inside and see what It wants you to see …’
The Pilgrims: Book One (The Pendulum Trilogy) Page 20
