The Sceptre of Storms

by Greg James

  The long fingers in her hair were strong. Sarah tensed her legs, trying to grip the ground—ground that was no longer ground. There was nothing there. In her throat she was growling and then grunting, straining under her breath. Not wanting to scream.

  I don’t need help. I’m not scared. I can win this. I can do it. I’ll be okay.

  She could feel the hard tug of gravity in her gut. Her flesh would line the stomachs of these strange, blind things. For once, they would have life to feed upon, not crumbling death. Black tongues flickered over salivating brown gums.

  Sarah twisted and turned, and fell into the yellow wall of sludge they had been feeding on.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Sarah was standing in the crowded fairground, years ago. She was a child again, clutching at the callused fingers of her father.

  “Have I won yet? Can I go home now, Daddy?”

  Dad was at her side, his firm hand steadying her shaking shoulder.

  “No, Sarah. You gotta keep on going. Kill ’em all. All the bad guys.”

  “But I don’t want to, Dad.”

  “Life ain’t about what you want, Sarah.”

  “No! I’m not killing no more.”

  The hand on her shoulder became cold and rigid, the fingers digging in fiercely. Sarah yelped. She looked up at her dad. She couldn’t see him, not very well. His face was blurry. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have started this, Sarah. Ain’t no going back.”

  Sarah couldn’t see his hand so well anymore. Dad was looking weird and out of focus. His edges were wobbly. There was a fire inside him, a dark fire scorching the surface, making his body ignite and peel away. Sarah stood dumb, eyes staring into the queer fire. So bright and so dark at once. Burning the man until he was hollow like –

  The Fallen One!

  He lunged at her and she ran.

  She could hear him following her. As she ran, bumping from body to body through the fairground crowd, they all collapsed. Sarah felt what was underneath their clothes. Wood, shaped, cut, and polished—made human. Their joints clattered as they slumped to the soil. From their arms, great strings trailed, let go by unseen hands. Their heads did not fall. Instead, Sarah watched them float away. She watched wigs, moustaches and sideburns unsticking, fluttering to earth. Balloons in the air—pink, brown, white, yellow and black with crude eyes and toothy grins crayoned across the smooth oval rubber bubbles. She could hear them squeaking as they brushed against each other, ascending into the starless night.

  Or, were they giggling?

  Laughing at her?

  “Look at us, we escaped, got away, we’re on our way to Heaven, where the lights go out. Look at her, stuck down there. Run, girl, run. Run to the Light.”

  Sarah could see it ahead: a chink, a slit, a long tear of brilliance showing in the shadowed fairground. The slick rustling of Dad was not far behind. She chanced a look over his shoulder. She saw a hissing Dragon, spitting fiery phlegm. Where the stuff landed, puffs of sour steam rose up. Then a stream of flame shot from its jaws. Sarah’s periphery flickered. There were figures moving among the rides—tall and tenebrous Mind-Reavers coming quickly towards her, stretching out their glistening tentacles. Sarah kept running, legs pumping hard. They came so close, snatching at her. And there were more things coming out from among the shooting galleries and the candy stalls on her left and right. The dead of Yrsyllor and Highmount. The hung, drawn and quartered of Brindan and Atosha. Their sundried faces and wailing mouths would linger in her nightmares for years to come.

  Sarah reached the Light, flickering like a flame, and threw herself into it.

  ~ ~ ~

  The Light took her into the Hall of Mirrors.

  Her heart skipped a beat. Ahead was a corridor, so it seemed. It was reborn a hundred times over in the reflections of its mirrors. Ominous crimson lighting permeated the inside.

  It’s just reflections, Sarah thought, and reflections can’t hurt you.

  Sarah watched what the mirrors did to her. They made her into a snake, a worm, a dwarf, a hulk and many other peculiar things. Her legs and arms dangled like spaghetti. Her head bulged, bubbled and buckled. The twists and curves in the mirrored glass worked the simple magic they were designed for.

  It was then that Sarah saw it: the thing in the mirrors with her, looking back out at her. It had arms and legs and a head, like her. Not a face. No eyes. It was a shape, not a person. It was the Fallen One, and it was telling her what it would do to her when it was freed from its tomb.

  Sarah turned away from it and walked straight into a mirror. The trouble with a hall of mirrors is that there always seems to be a way out—everywhere. Sarah bumped and thumped from dead end to dead end. The thing in the mirror mimicked her, mocked her, its limbs loping and lunging, making slapstick exaggerations of her panicked flight.

  Sarah couldn’t get out. She was trapped. She was never going to get out. She was stuck in the Hall of Mirrors forever.

  But maybe, if she stayed put, Mom and Dad would come find her.

  But Mom and Dad were ... gone.

  They weren’t here. She was on her own, or was she?

  Sarah looked around, and she didn’t like what she saw. The Fallen One was making strangers that looked just like her, almost. Puppet-girls that were right yet wrong. Sarah looked away, sat down, pressed her knees up against her chest.

  Come and get me, Mom. Dad.

  Please!

  Before the monster comes out to get me. Before it makes me into a puppet-girl too. She could hear them dancing, just like that doll had been dancing on its strings as it hung from that tree outside Yrsyllor. The rattle-rattle-rattle of bones and wood.

  Then, there were strings around her wrists, and she was trapped behind the glass, looking out from behind the mirrors. She saw one of the puppet-girls standing on the other side. Looking in at her. Its painted eyes were wet with laughter’s tears.

  And Sarah saw her mom’s hands falling on the shoulders of the puppet-girl.

  “Sarah, where have you been? I’ve told you about running off, about taking silly risks and walking into stupid dangers.”

  The puppet-girl took Mom’s hand and they left the Hall of Mirrors together, leaving Sarah behind. Sarah battered her fists against the unforgiving glass. Not stopping. Not stopping. She called out to her mom.

  But Mom wasn’t coming back.

  She was a shadow, almost gone.

  No, you’re not taking my momma away from me!

  Sarah pulled down hard with all her strength against the strings around her wrists. They bit in harder and harder as she pulled, until she reached her belt and was able to fasten her fingers around the hilt of the Sword of Sighs. She didn’t need the Flame for what she was about to do. She lifted up the hilt, and she hurled it at the mirror.

  The mirror shattered.

  The Hall of Mirrors was gone.

  Sarah pulled at the strings around her wrists and found they had come loose and dropped away. She looked at the black space before her, where the mirror had been.

  I’m going to save you, Momma.

  She stepped through.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Sarah was standing on a city street in the dead of night. In her hands was an air rifle from the fairground firing range. Stepping through three-in-the-morning slush, she looked up and down the street, which was perforated with sodium holes made by the standing lamps. They hurt her eyes with their brightness. The way the light fell on the houses here was wrong. The windows did not reflect. The paint on the doors did not shine. The pavement rang hollow under her feet. Nothing moved at all. There was no breeze, and the air was stale with dust. This was not outside air but inside air. Sarah walked to the nearest house and went up the steps. She felt them sag and creak. The door was not a door: it was painted onto the same flat surface as the windows and the outlines of the bricks. She looked at her palm. Dregs of drying paint stained it red, green, and grey. She ran down to the end of the street and found that there was no e
nd. The end was wood stretching from one side to the other and a receding street was painted onto it. Dabs of orange where lamp lights would be. Squares of white for windows. Smeary smudges for faces looking out from behind non-existent curtains. Sarah, looking up, saw things moving about. Sarah hugged the air rifle to her chest. She wanted out of this and to be back in her world with the people she loved, the ones she cared for. Not to be here, trapped in a painted nightmare. From behind came a sound. Sarah turned around and looked down the street.

  Out of the darkness came a figure. The eyes were painted mean and a helmet was wedged awkwardly onto the cut-out head. A red check shirt and jeans hung loosely on its flat frame. The mouth was a slit. It wore a black cowboy hat and it moved forward jerkily, the polished barrel of a pistol glistening in one hand.

  A bad guy.

  “Bang-dead!” said Sarah to herself.

  She threw herself to the ground as bullets tore an ugly line across the street painting behind her, showering Sarah with sawdust and charred wood. She hugged herself into a foetal position as the fusillade went over her head, rattling, chattering and burning. Then, it stopped.

  Sarah peeked out. The bad guy was going away, jerking back into the shadows at the opposite end of the street. She could feel machinery whining away under the floor.

  There’ll be another one soon, she thought.

  Sarah got to her feet, slowing her breathing, little by little. She weighed the air rifle in her hands. Up ahead, she heard a whirring and a clank.

  The next one’s coming.

  Sarah nestled the butt of the little rifle against her shoulder. Closing one eye, she peered down through the sight, seeing the outline of a crude head, shoulders and splay-legged body coming at her—fast.

  “Bang-dead,” she said.

  ~ ~ ~

  The street was dusted with grains and chips from the bad guys that Sarah had taken out. It was easy, almost fun, as she pulled the trigger and watched a painted chest explode. They were just dummies, nothing to be afraid of. Whirring, clanking, hidden gears grinding. Another one was on the way.

  Sarah got her gun ready.

  Bang!

  She took the shot before the figure was out of the shadows, but it did not retreat once shot as the others had done. It came on, whining forwards. Because it was not the same as the others: not a bad guy. The face had been drawn on in hurried slashes. The mouth was a hole. An ugly daub of crimson paint glistened where the bullet had gone in.

  Sarah’s face went white.

  She dropped the air rifle.

  It was her mom.

  “No!”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Sarah blinked and found that she was somewhere else. The low sky was the hue of soiled butcher paper. There was a hissing in the air here too. She was standing on a cold beach, looking out to sea, and a wolf was cantering down the beach towards her. It was lean, scarred, and near hairless, its worn skin as grey as its old eyes.

  It was hurrying towards her.

  It was intent on her.

  Sarah took a step away.

  Its muzzle was soggy, dripping with foam and spittle. And its eyes were streaming with tears and sweat. It was not running with the haste of the hunt; it was running in fear. No growls came from its throat, only whines.

  Then it leapt at her, its great paws coming to rest on her shoulders. Sarah staggered under the sudden weight. Its eyes looked not into hers but past her, out to sea, to the churning froth of waves. To the parting of the tide and the moonish crown of a gnarled, buckling head breaking through. Dark with moss and long-buried mould, a dank colossus was rising. The eyes of the wolf showed it to her as a reflection. Like twin polished shields saving her eyes.

  Do not look!

  The thing in the waves was a Gorgon; not to be seen by the naked eye.

  Do not look!

  It was the Fallen One come, at last, to the shores of Earth.

  Do not look!

  Sarah knew what she had to do. She had to look. Sarah took a deep breath, the wolf’s paws dropped down off her shoulders, and she turned around.

  Time to face my fear head on.

  The desolate scene dissolved, becoming unreal. Reality was shimmering and stretching before her like a great soap bubble.

  A moment later, it burst open.

  Sarah recoiled from the rupture as what was inside came out at her, thrashing with violent life. The stuff of reality was being forced into a shape that was not its own, and it was trying to push the invasion back out, reject the dark virus. It reached for Sarah with twitching hands. The Fallen One, shorn of His many disguises, so it seemed.

  The core of its head had collapsed in, hungrily swallowing itself like a black hole. The hole in its head stared right at her like an eye, its churning depths lit by a grim glow. The Fallen One’s shimmering hands were lengthening, stretching out, becoming the claws that every child fears. The darting, scratching fingertips that flicker on bedroom walls when the moon is full. The limbs of trees that sigh and groan when the witching hour comes.

  It was reaching out for her, wanting to tear her apart.

  Sarah plunged her hands into the open cavern of its skull, feeling the freezing temperatures there as they ate into her, drawing hard on her heart, wanting to swallow her whole, to skin her and suck her dry. Sarah forced her hands together, feeling the numb singularity that was the creature’s core. Caught in her hands was the Fallen One’s dismal flame—the dark and poisonous brother to the Flame. Sarah clamped her palms together over it, feeling it go out. The black light within the thing died, and it vanished.

  I’m still fighting you, she thought. You won’t take me. I’m still fighting.

  Chapter Forty

  Sarah came to at the top of the tower.

  Looking back down, she saw the stairs spiralling away down into the darkness below. She put a hand out to touch the wall, to feel something solid that wasn’t bred from dreams and nightmares. Feeling somewhat steadier on her feet, she walked into the high chamber.

  This was the tomb of Ka’aron, the First of the Wayfarers.

  And there was his sarcophagus at the centre of the smooth-walled chamber. It was lit in the same manner as the cities under the Mountains of Mourning. Phosphorescent light from some unknown source illuminated the undecorated space around her. She could see an aged, pale form lying atop the sarcophagus. She remembered seeing Egyptian pharaohs like this, but this one was different. It looked like this was Ka’aron’s body, perfectly preserved and outlined by a greenish light. He was a slight figure and short, with a plaited white beard that reached down to the ornate blue slippers on his feet. His robe shimmered like moonlight and was woven with filigrees of silver and gold. Sarah approached the sarcophagus and looked down at the lifeless figure. Ka’aron’s hands were fastened tight around a horn of fluted bone threaded with marbled veins of pale azure and rose.

  His eyes opened.

  They were entirely white, and the voice from downstairs echoed and boomed inside the chamber, although the mouth did not move a muscle.

  “BY STONE AND BY LIGHTNING, I PRESERVED YOU. IN THE CITY AND IN THE SKY, I SAVED YOU. I WAS RIGHT TO DO SO. YOU HAVE DONE WELL, CHILD OF FIRE. YOU HAVE PUT DOWN YOUR GHOSTS AND FOUND YOUR WAY TO ME. TELL ME NOW WHAT YOU TRULY SEEK.”

  “My mom. I want my mom.”

  “GOOD. YOU UNDERSTAND NOW THAT TRUTH IS WHAT MUST BE SPOKEN IN SUCH TIMES. TAKE WHAT YOU NEED AND USE IT WELL.”

  The bony fingers snapped open and Sarah reached in to take the Sceptre of Storms. As her hand closed upon it, Ka’aron’s hands clamped tight around her wrist. His head cracked to the side and his white eyes stared into hers.

  Sarah saw what had gone before.

  In the Beginning, there were the Dragons and the Unicorns. They were among the most blessed of the beings created to people the lands of Seythe. The mightiest and most ancient of the Dragons was Sula, and the wisest and strongest of the Unicorns was Adraxis. As the Unicorns rode across plains, so the Dragons
swept across the skies as companions to one another. No man dared fell a Unicorn, for the knowledge that a Dragon would soon come thereafter to burn his home to the ground was passed on from father to son. In the same manner, no man stole the eggs of the Dragons as a Unicorn stampede would then follow and reduce their home to dust, rocks, and sticks. Thus was the long friendship of the Dragons and the Unicorns. It endured through the Beginning and the tumultuous Ages that followed. It lasted until the dawn of the Age of Air.

  E’blis was gathering his armies to drown the land in blood, so that the Fallen One might rise from his tomb and feed upon it all. The Daughters of the Flame saw what would come to pass and knew they would need allies other than humanity and the Kay’lo. So they called upon the Dragons and the Unicorns. Without them, Seythe would fall into darkness—this was known.

  The Dragons and the Unicorns understood this, and they agreed to fight alongside the people of Seythe against the Fallen. As the armies of the Darkness That is Not Darkness marched out from the Nightlands, so the armies of the Flame marched to meet them with the Unicorns in the vanguard and the Dragons flying on high.

  And the armies met upon a plain that stretched for leagues in all directions. One day, it would become known as the Grassland Plains. Men and women fell before the pikes and halberds of the Fellfolk. The Fallen-born slew kings and queens. But the Unicorns tore apart Dionin and Drujja alike. And the Dragons were masters of the wind, casting one foul creation after another to the earth, where they were trampled into the dirt by the hooves of the Unicorns. As the battle wore on and the numbers of the opposing armies dwindled, the Dragons and the Unicorns began to see the cost that was being paid. Their kin lay dying alongside men, women, and Kay’lo. There had been so many of them, but now, in such a short space of time, they had become so few.