The World Raven

by A. J. Smith

  For an instant, Saara considered entering his thoughts then and there, taking time out from the war to start to weave her enchantments into the cleric’s mind. But it wasn’t possible. To enthral Elihas would be the work of many months’ patient endeavour. She resolved to use him as a treat when the killing was done.

  ‘Their deployment is ragged,’ said Elihas. ‘They’re not following their fabled battle-tactics. It’ll take a while for them to muster for a charge.’

  ‘Prepare a few packs to pursue when the king is dead and the Hawks run away, but until then hold position.’

  Saara felt a surge of pain enter her head, as if a thin needle drove its way into her troubled mind. Somewhere below, scratching in the catacombs, the Dark Young were calling to her and, in the centre of the cacophony, the Aberration screamed. She winced, reaching forward to lean heavily on the balcony’s edge. A dozen men moved to assist, but she waved them back and composed herself.

  ‘You have your orders,’ she snapped, rubbing the sides of her head. ‘All you have to do is stand still – surely you can do that without my assistance.’

  Elihas hadn’t moved to help her, but he now took over, shouting orders at wind claws and whip-masters. He cast a sideways glance at Saara, but otherwise ignored her as she hurried to the nearby stone steps. She tried to maintain her poise, but the stabbing pain in her head made her flinch every few steps. She was a slender woman in a dress among dozens of heavily armoured men, but each one fled from her, not daring to catch her eye or even stay in her field of vision.

  At the bottom of the spiral steps, she thrust her arm against the nearby wall and edged along it. With a few deep breaths, and a moment of calm, she pushed the pain to the back of her head and entered her private sitting room, slamming the door behind her. The surge of the Dark Young was powerful but not aggressive, almost as if they cowered before the sharp voice that rose from among them.

  She lay face down on her bed and flailed on her dressing table for her pipe. With the pain making it scarcely possible to see, she loaded the pipe with rainbow smoke and pulled the thick vapour into her lungs through quivering lips. The drug took the edge off the pain, but mostly just made the call sharper and more distinct. It was summoning her.

  ***

  Saara stood in the huge stone entranceway that led to the dark catacombs, and stopped. The way behind her was open and clear, leading from the depths of the city to the Hawkwood Gate. The city streets were like a ghost town, as if awaiting the Thousand Young of Shub-Nillurath. They were restlessly on the move. They’d scuttled through vast, stone vaults and crawled upwards to meet her, displacing the air as a noxious flood of tentacles and madness. They called to her, but their voices were a murmur next to the roar of the Aberration. She beckoned them upwards, fighting the pain in her head and trying to focus on the work to be done.

  She walked through a misty line where darkness eclipsed daylight and saw a texture of writhing, black bodies. They filled the passageway, crawling over each other to bubble forward as an eruption of fleshy madness. At the front, with clear stone between it and the rest of them, was the Aberration that had been Rham Jas. For the first time, it appeared in the open, allowing her to see it.

  It shared only its cracked, black flesh with its brothers and sisters, being different in every other way. It had a small, muscular body, suspended on four thick tentacles, each ending with a mass of wriggling feelers. From the cleft where its two front legs met rose an elongated head, sharp at both ends and split with a mockery of a human face. It moved like a sinewy panther, with hundreds of feelers padding on the stone like paws.

  ‘Come to me, creature,’ she said, arms beckoning, ‘come into the light.’

  It paused in front of her, making the mass of Dark Young stop dead in the tunnel. They swarmed over each other, reaching forward but apparently too afraid to pass the Aberration. Saara thought it worrying behaviour, but was determined not to show any fear in front of the creature as it craned its lithe body to look down at her. The face was locked into a black scream of anguish, just as it had been when the Kirin first died. The eyes, mouth and nose were all stretched across the middle of its pulpy, angular head, clad in a hundred different shades of black. It wrinkled and contorted, twisting into pain, then hate, then pain again. She wanted to feed off its suffering, but it wouldn’t let her. She wanted to feel its mind and caress the divine spark of Shub-Nillurath, but it was closed to her.

  The eyes became suddenly white, as if milky orbs had thrust upwards through the flesh of the face. She gasped as they looked at her, showing a maddening awareness of where it was. Its head swayed from side to side, then up and down, slowly assessing her.

  ‘We are both of us servants of Shub-Nillurath,’ she whispered, hesitantly reaching for the creature. ‘The Twisted Tree has claimed these lands. But lesser beings say otherwise. They have risen up against our power. You must rise into the light and obliterate them. Will you kill the king for me?’

  She touched its face and it let her, blinking its bone-white eyes and hunkering down, level with her. She stroked its head, moving her palm across a grotesque doppelganger of Rham Jas Rami. Her movements were tentative; she expected the Aberration to rear up at any second. But it stayed at eye-level, regarding her with chaos in its eyes.

  ‘The battlefield awaits. Reveal the Twisted Trees to these lesser mortals.’

  The creature shook with a sudden mania, its legs rippling with a glistening muscularity. The face split as sticky tendrils snapped apart to reveal a gummy mouth, from which guttural sounds began to spew. The creature was trying to speak. The orifice puckered and spat, but she could discern no meaning in its spewing, just strange syllables connected by throaty gurgles. As the mouth pulsed and formed simple lips, the sounds became clearer. She stood transfixed, unable to scream or leave as the Aberration spoke through gnashing, glass-like teeth.

  ‘We are the priest... we are the altar.’

  The words could have come from no mortal mouth, and the meaning carried a sea of emotion – raw, unhinged emotion. It snapped forward, its newly formed mouth inches from her face. She jumped backwards, but the Aberration didn’t attack. The creature rose back to its full height and screeched. It was high-pitched, like fingernails on glass, and made the other Dark Young flail madly and pull themselves forward.

  The white eyes turned back to her and Sara felt her mind being penetrated. All of her power, all of her years – none of it meant anything as the Aberration took control. But it didn’t harm her. She could instantly feel that it was somehow unable to. It wanted to show her something and she had no choice but to see it.

  ***

  She saw the Tyranny of Arnon. A hundred black spires, slicing into the air and a thousand voices, rising in exquisite pain. At the centre of the massed towers, sitting astride a many-faceted throne, was the Aberration. As it festered in the catacombs of Ro Weir, the creature had imagined its future. It knew much, having taken knowledge from the dark-blood, and had already decided that Ro Arnon would be its future domain. It liked the rocky pinnacles and felt the towers of the Gold church were worthy of the creature’s majesty. It thought much of itself; it felt that it was a superior form of life.

  She looked closer. The Aberration had an army of thralls spread throughout its land, informing, and infesting everyone with paranoia. It would control them through brutality, but never reveal its motivations or allow them to see its designs. Saara was amazed at how far ahead it had thought. To the creature that had been Rham Jas, the king of Tor Funweir was already dead and the Tyranny of the Twisted Tree was firmly under heel. It hadn’t considered defeat for an instant, never doubting that it would rule its own land as Tyrant. Its subjects would understand that it was absolute ruler and would do as it wished: without law, without morality and without consequence.

  Saara wanted to see herself in the creature’s future, but it had no regard for her. Perhaps it had chosen Arnon because Saara already ruled in Weir. But there was nothing in the Aber
ration’s thoughts to suggest this. There was nothing in its thoughts regarding her at all. It thought her barely superior to the peasants and lesser men of Ro. She imagined the only thing that kept it from killing her on a whim was her tireless service to Shub-Nillurath, for even in its imagined future, she could sense the creature’s devotion to the Forest Giant of pleasure and blood. Or perhaps there was more: behind the hatred and arrogance, Saara realized that the Aberration saw her as an equal and that the thought was disturbing to the creature. It made them rivals.

  The vision was so real, giving her a clear picture of a world where the Twisted Tree held absolute authority. The remaining warriors of Ro were a minor problem, insignificant in the span of centuries she’d have to rule. If only they realized... if they could see the future she’d seen, they’d surrender.

  ***

  The Aberration gave her a final, spite-filled glance, then pounced over her head and towards the light of Ro Weir, shimmering into a barely visible shadow as it moved. She remained a helpless statue, as the thousand Young of Shub-Nillurath writhed past her, squeezing their fleshy, black bodies round her and after their master. She closed her eyes, letting the sea of thick tentacles wash over her. She was buffeted, but only gently, and after a maddening few minutes the column of thrashing beasts had passed by.

  She opened her eyes and turned back towards the daylight. The last few Dark Young were just crawling out of the catacombs and seeing the sky for the first time. She could hear muffled screams, as a few stray pairs of human eyes dared to look upon the creatures.

  She did not feel powerless or mundane; far from it. She felt as if a future rival had revealed itself. A creature as malevolent and cunning as she herself was.

  ‘Matron mother,’ she whispered to the air, ‘can you hear me? I have news of our triumph. And news of an enemy.’

  CHAPTER 22

  DALIAN THIEF TAKER IN ORON KAA

  HE KNEW WHO he was. His sense of identity had returned and the greatest of the wind claws walked again in the realms of form. He had flowed into his new body not knowing what would happen. Anger and faith had driven him on, driven him to possess the mindless shell of the exemplar, driven him even to kill Utha the Ghost. But now, as every wisp of his divine energy settled into the mortal body, he knew that he lived again. Voon was gone, but Jaa now had an exemplar of true might and conviction; and Dalian had a much younger body, with feet that did not constantly hurt. He chuckled to himself.

  ‘What’s funny?’ asked the young man of Ro, limping along next to him.

  ‘I appear to be Dalian Thief Taker,’ he replied.

  ‘That’s not funny,’ said Randall.

  The Thief Taker had barely noticed that he carried a dead body down endless stone steps with a young man and a Gorlan mother. His thoughts were so vibrant and alive, as if Voon’s relative youth had rekindled a spark of energy in the old wind claw. He couldn’t help but imagine all the wonderful things his youthful body was now capable of.

  ‘Can you hurry up?’ said the young squire, fixating on the limp figure, hanging from Dalian’s powerful arms.

  ‘We have time,’ said Ruth. ‘As long as the Shan within him lives, his human body is sustained. However it may look.’

  ‘The Shan didn’t live in his chest, did it?’ asked Randall. ‘Because that’s where the spear went.’

  Dalian glanced over his shoulder at the finely crafted spear across his back. He knew it was called Zarzenfang, and that it was far less appropriate than two kris knives, but Voon had greatly valued it and the Thief Taker would honour the weapon.

  As he briefly looked back, he saw hateful eyes glaring at him. Randall was a powerful young man – perhaps more than a man – and all of his ire was directed at Dalian.

  ‘We met in the Dokkalfar settlement, didn’t we?’ he asked, gradually increasing his pace down the steps.

  Randall screwed up his face, surprised at Dalian’s manner. ‘Yes. You were with Nanon and the bloody Kirin.’

  ‘Rham Jas, yes,’ replied Dalian, enjoying the flood of familiar memories. ‘Unfortunately, he is dead. We failed in killing the Sister.’

  The young man of Ro just twisted his mouth into stupid, gormless expressions. Dalian felt a modicum of sympathy; Randall had been through much, without the benefit of divine certitude.

  ‘We are nearly at the tear,’ he stated, feeling a crackle across his skin.

  ‘Then hurry up,’ said Randall, focusing on the only thing he cared about.

  The stairs levelled out and Dalian carried Utha’s body along a wide, jagged passageway. Left and right, the stone was adorned with intricate carvings of thrashing beasts and wailing supplicants. Something about the sweep of the designs made him think they had been carved by the insects, perhaps using their wings to scrape the stone and their puckered mouths to refine the details.

  ‘I don’t understand the need of wicked people to display their wickedness,’ he mused. ‘Such heresy belongs in unadorned darkness, gawked at by its ignorant followers and those that brave the shadows.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Randall. ‘Why are you talking at all?’

  He decided to keep his musings on heresy for a later time and concentrate on getting the Ghost to the tear. Though he felt no guilt for killing the Old Blood, he understood the Gorlan’s desire that it should not be Utha’s end. For want of any immediate alternative, Dalian was prepared to ally with the ancient creature – if it meant the death of the matron mother.

  He felt a crackle at the back of his neck. His new body was less hairy than the previous one, and Voon’s smooth skin made him shiver with an unearthly chill. The air was alive with energy, dancing from jagged rocks and shimmering in their wake. Everything was a dull green, with sharp edges of sickly light touching their arms and legs. Randall gasped with surprise and scratched frantically at his crackling hands, but the Gorlan calmed him with a thin smile.

  ‘It is divine energy,’ said the woman.

  ‘It is rotten energy,’ replied Dalian. ‘Seeping from a tear in the world.’

  ‘You are in no position to make judgements,’ she said. ‘It was your Fire Giant who allowed this to happen.’

  He was too controlled to lash out and too wise to think a sudden rebuke would make any difference, but her words were deeply insulting. Jaa did what he did in the distant corners of deep time and his actions were not to be questioned by lesser creatures, even a Gorlan mother.

  ‘I said that your impudence would be remembered. We are equally good at remembering blasphemy.’

  ‘Spare me,’ she replied, raising her arms and revealing that the rotten energy did not touch her or Randall as it did Dalian. ‘Do you know what an Old One is, Dalian Thief Taker?’

  He’d heard the term, but only as a vague mention in heretical accounts of the time before Jaa. ‘What relevance does it have?’

  ‘If you had occasion to converse with your Giant, you should ask him if he considers me blasphemous or if he knows the name Atlach-Nacha. I think he would show due respect.’

  He didn’t change expression. Voon’s face was naturally dour and Dalian was glad of the stony expression. He didn’t like admitting that he didn’t know things and Jaa had not thought to bestow upon him any knowledge of the Old Ones or the importance they played. In the short term, it was the wise course to comply with the Gorlan’s wishes.

  ‘I don’t wish to interrupt,’ said Randall, ‘but Utha is still dead.’

  Dalian looked down at the limp body he carried. He was strong enough that the albino weighed virtually nothing, but his expression, even hanging in a death mask, showed a strength worthy of respect.

  ‘I apologize, Randall. I forgot who it was I carried.’

  ‘Just hurry up!’ snapped the squire. ‘And stop arguing about Giants and Old Ones. I don’t give a shit. I only give a shit about Utha – and you put a spear through his chest.’

  ‘Then let us hurry,’ said Dalian, quickening his pace along the divinely charged passagewa
y.

  The crackling green energy thickened and spread like mould over the floor and walls. He could ignore it, but felt that Randall would be more vulnerable to the rotting power of Shub-Nillurath. This concern disappeared when he saw how the Gorlan mother stood over the young man. Dalian could sense a protective barrier, flowing like spider silk from the woman to envelop Randall in an invisible cloak, through which the corruption of the Dead God could not penetrate. Dalian hoped that their collective immunity would anger the matron mother, perhaps drive her to do something foolish.

  The passage widened and the walls became more jagged, with pits and tunnels cut into the surface. It was as if the stone itself was rotting.

  Ruth moved ahead, emerging into a large, glowing cavern. A globe of rotten energy was repelled by her presence, darting backwards into darkness. Randall followed into the cavern and his eyes widened as he saw the tear for the first time. The cave was high and deep, ringed with stalactites and pitted rock, plunging into deep tunnels and dark fissures. The tear itself was a sharp cut in the air, wavering like a flag in the wind and belching forth fetid green energy. It had no front, back or sides. It was a rend in reality, a gateway through which one world touched another.

  It was the first time Dalian had seen it as well. When he’d passed through, in search of Voon, he’d been merely a shade, unconcerned by the tear, or perhaps in too much of a hurry. Now, seeing it through mortal eyes, he was repulsed by it.

  ‘Remain here,’ said Ruth, indicating the cavern entrance. She then strode down the wide terrace to the cave floor and raised her head to breathe in the stagnant air.

  Randall obeyed Ruth without question, skulking in a greenish shadow at the end of the stone passageway. Dalian didn’t hide or cower, nor did he drop the Old Blood. He did as the Gorlan mother asked purely for the sake of ease. If the old spider was here to kill her daughter, who was the exemplar of Jaa to argue? The old woman had twisted the faith of the Fire Giant and deserved to die for her heresy.