by T. O. Munro
“You lost the right to a voice in this forum a millennium ago, father,” the Vanquisher’s son growled. “You confined us all in an eternal hell hole out of your hubris and fear. This place is built on blood you shed.”
“I gave you a heaven you could craft to suit your own desires and a means to still live in the world that death had ripped you from,” the Vanquisher stormed. “Aye, there may have been a price to be exacted. It is a price he was not unwilling to pay.” He jerked his head in the direction of the steward’s chair, where Santos sat deathly still, eyes fixed on the floor. “But it cost him just a few short years and bought him centuries of existence in their place.”
“Existence,” his son snorted in disgust. “There is a difference between life and existence. You cannot place an equal value on both, father.”
Eadran strode to the centre of the chamber and spun round, arms extended. “All this, my boy, all this. You would forgo all this, if you could?”
“In an instant.”
Eadran looked at his son disbelievingly. “Then it is too bad that you can’t,” he snapped.
“There is a way.”
Gregor spun at the unlooked for claim. All the other monarchs’ attention swung like his upon the owlish blinking form of Santos. “You told me there was a way.” The steward had no eyes for anyone save Eadran. “You said that someday I could leave, that you had a key.”
“I said,” the Vanquisher insisted red faced, “that it was at a cost you would never want to pay.”
“There is a way?” Niarmit cried above the tumultuous hubbub of her ancestors. “There is a way to leave?”
“I always knew you were not to be trusted, father,” Thren snarled. “Perfidious from the very start.”
“It’s not a matter of just opening a bloody door for you to walk out of,” Eadran insisted. “And you will not like what you find on the other side.”
“Tell us!” The unanimous cry went up from all the kings and queens as they rose to close in on the glowering Vanquisher.
Eadran flung out his arm and the press of monarchs found they could not approach any closer than two yards from him. Gregor saw Niarmit rise from her throne and step from the dais to stand behind Eadran. She clapped a hand on the Vanquisher’s shoulder and spun him round. “Tell them,” she insisted. “Tell me.”
Eadran shook his head. “Be careful what you wish for, girl.”
***
Jay sat at the constable’s side. They had made him as comfortable as they could, but there was an ugly stench to his wounds and his breathing was shallow and irregular. Jay reached out to an unmarked patch of flesh on the constable’s shoulder, resting his fingers lightly where there seemed least chance that the pressure might cause him pain.
“Who’s that?” Johanssen’s eyes sprang open, hoarse words dragged from a scorched larynx.
“It’s me, my lord, Jay Hiralson.” Jay swallowed. “Jorgen Hiralson, that is when I say it proper. Jorgy to my dad sometimes.”
“I heard what your dad did,” Johanssen wheezed. “He was a brave man.”
“You are a brave man too, my lord.”
Theconstable turned his head with agonising slowness to look at Jay. “And you’re brave lad. Get yourself somewhere safe.”
Jay shook his head. “I’m staying here.”
“Company for a dead man, eh?”
“Don’t say that.”
“I know how it is, boy.” Johanssen swallowed dry mouthed. Jay squeezed a wet sponge over the constable’s lips. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. The Goddess is waiting for me and I’ll not keep her long.”
A movement at the entrance to the long low tent made Jay look up. The queen stood in a moment’s whispered conversation with father Novus. Jay could not see her eyes behind the Helm, but she glanced in his direction a couple of times and then walked towards him between the double row of simple cots on which the dying lay in repose. Novus watched her back for a few seconds and then ducked out of the tent.
“The queen is here,” Jay told Johanssen.
The constable struggled to rise on his elbows but both Jay and the queen urged him to be still. She knelt on Johanssen’s other side and looked down at him through the opaque visor of the Helm.
“He thinks he’s dying,” Jay said. “Can you do something for him, your Majesty? The Goddess favours you.”
The queen stretched out a hand towards the constable’s face, touching her fingers to his temple. Jay watched, waiting for her to reach for her crescent symbol, to say a prayer to the Goddess, but she did not. She sat there for a long stretched minute. Johanssen lay perfectly still, as still as death with only two brief blinks of his eyes at the canvas awning stretched over them to show he lingered still in the world of the living.
She turned her head suddenly towards Jay. “You should go,” she said.
“I want to stay with him,” Jay stammered, unnerved by the sternness of her voice and the blankness of the steel visor through which she clearly saw him.
“You should go,” she repeated. “Go now.”
He looked at Johanssen. The constable gave him the slightest of nods, a barely perceptible twitch of his chin. Jay stood uncertainly. There was a harshness to the queen’s voice that he did not recognise, an unyielding firmness in the set of her jaw the flat unsmiling mouth. He stepped away. “I’ll wait over here then.”
“You do that, boy,” she said.
“I’ll not be far off, my lord.”
Johannssen merely blinked an acknowledgement.
***
“This is madness,” Niarmit cried on her gilded throne. “This is blasphemous madness.”
“No change there then,” the Vanquisher’s son growled.
Eadran sat once more in pride of place in the central white throne. He opened his eyes and lifted his hands from the carved arms of his seat. “You heard the constable, girl.”
“I heard what you let me hear. How can I trust you?”
Eadran shrugged. “There was nothing else save what you heard the Constable Johanssen say, or rather what you heard him think. He is agreeable.”
“He doesn’t know what he is agreeing to.”
“He knows exactly what he was agreeing to and I, my girl, have no reason to lie about his concession. This is what you wanted,” he swung his head round at the assembled monarchs. “What you all wanted. It is none of what I wanted.”
“Then who will dare it first?” Mitalda asked. The other kings and queens shrank back at the invitation. But then the Dragonsoul stepped forward.
“I will,” he declared.
“Always has to be first,” Danlak grumbed.
“Better that than last,” his brother replied, before turning to the Vanquisher. “What must I do?”
Eadran rose from his throne and approached the dais. He beckoned the Dragonsoul after him. “If you will excuse us, my dear,” he said to Niarmit still seated beneath the Helm.
She lifted the Helm from her head and stepped down from the dais. The Dragonsoul slipped somewhat hesitantly into her chair while Eadran reached for the Helm hovering above the gilded throne. It did not scald or hurt him at all. Niarmit stood stock still, watching but not quite believing, as the Vanquisher lowered the Helm upon his great-great-grandson’s head.
There was a bustle behind her as the watching monarchs settled in their thrones, eyes closed. “Come,” Gregor commanded.
She took the seat that the Dragonsoul had abandoned and Eadran followed her with unhurried steps from the dais to take once more the central throne.
“What do I do?” the Dragonsoul muttered flexing his fingers.
Niarmit shut her own eyes to see what the Dragonsoul saw as he inhabited her body. “Let me take your hands, my boy,” Eadran commanded. “Now are you sure this is what you want?”
The king on the gilded throne gulped and then the need above all else to be courageous stiffened his resolve and banished whatever doubt he might have had. This was a man who would jump off the highest cliff r
ather than be thought a coward, and for all Niarmit knew that was just what he was about to do. “I am sure,” he said. “Just do it.”
The Dragonsoul may have inhabited Niarmit’s body, but it was the Vanquisher who controlled it. Archaic words slipped from her mouth. Her hands fluttered faster than a humming bird’s wings. Beneath the spell the constable rasped uneven breaths.
A glow formed about the old warrior’s body, a web of gleaming dust spun from Niarmit’s enslaved fingers. She opened her eyes in the domain of the Helm to see the same glowing net enmeshing the Dragonsoul upon the gilded throne. Within that light his body grew brighter and more blurred. She switched frantically between the view in the chamber and the view in the tent of the mortally wounded constable. Johanssen and the Dragonsoul were both indistinct in the bright light that consumed them and then the light faded and the gilded throne was empty and lying on the cot in the hospital tent was the tall muscular form of the Dragonsoul, unblemished by any sign of injury, utterly and entirely in the real world. He looked at her from the other side of the Helm, an air of wondrous surprise upon his face. He sat up on a bed stained by the seepings from Johanssen’s wounds and looked about him.
He reached for the Helm, the real Helm that Niarmit’s body wore. He stroked its side and looked deep into the impenetrable visor, knowing that all within could see him plain as day.
“Well,” he said. “I’m back.”
***
Jay blinked. The ghostly glow had faded and the constable was sitting up. The queen knelt perfectly still by his bedside. Jay hurried along the length of the tent but his stride faltered and the cry of joy at the patient’s restoration died unuttered on his lips. It was in hesitant silence that he trod the last few steps to the narrow bed on which a stranger sat.
He was a handsome man. Even though he was still sitting, Jay could tell he was taller than Johanssen and he had a full head of red gold hair, not the sparse circlet of grey stubble which had framed the constable’s bald pate. His head turned as he surveyed the scene around him. Everything from the seams in the canvas to the dirt floor seemed to enthral him with a fascination that more became a child than a man on the threshold of his middle years.
The queen was silent as well as motionless so it was Jay who spoke when the newcomer fixed him with a quizzical stare. “Who are you, what have you done with Johanssen? What’s happened to the queen?”
The man’s eyes flicked to the left as he considered the questions. “Johanssen is here, in here with me, but he is sleeping. The queen, I expect is recovering from a certain surprise, just a little more slowly than I, and I my boy,” he gave a broad grin of pure pleasure. “I am Chirard, the first of that name, who some called Dragonsoul while I lived, and a title granted by many more after I fell.”
Jay shook his head. “You’re not. The Dragonsoul died nigh on nine-hundred years ago. I know my history. He fell in some petty siege in the Eastern Lands, his body is buried in Rabdoux. You can’t be him.”
The man swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. He bent his knees and bounced a little testing the strength of his limbs. Satisfied he turned to the stunned boy. “Well, boy, far be it from me to doubt your word, but I think I’d know if I was me or not.”
He clapped a companionable hand on Jay’s shoulder, a firm grip, unintentionally heavy. Jay shrugged off the contact and shook his head. He backed away, not letting his eyes stray from the smiling apparition. “This isn’t right. Wake the queen up, she won’t want no ghosts stealing other people’s bodies.”
The Dragonsoul grinned. “On the contrary my boy, it is sharing not stealing and it is exactly what she wants. It’s what we all want.” He laughed, not unkindly, but Jay turned and fled from the tent. He crashed into Father Novus as the priest returned. They tumbled to the ground, the priest looking from Jay to the smiling warrior standing between the row of beds and back again. Jay shook his head, scrabbling to his feet and then charged off into the darkness.
***
There was uproar in the Chamber of Helm. Excited shouts and chatter from the assembled monarchs. Niarmit sprang for the empty gilded throne and dragged the Helm down upon her head. Recovering control of her own body she swung round to seek out the smiling king who had taken and reshaped the dying form of Johanssen. The Dragonsoul had not strayed far, the simple pleasure of directly inhabiting a real body was still too wondrous for him to forgoe savouring it.
Father Novus stood at the tent’s entrance, deathly pale his hand over his mouth. But Niarmit had more pressing concerns than the stunned shock of a priest. “Is it true, Chirard?” she called at the liberated monarch. “Is Johanssen still there?”
Chirard Dragonsoul tilted his head as though testing his teeth with his tongue. He nodded. “I can feel his presence, sleeping within me. He is at peace, in no pain. The Vanquisher spoke true about that.”
In the Domain of the Helm, Eadran said grimly, “I spoke true about everything.”
“We can escape,” portly Gregor cried. “We can all leave this place. I can let people know that it was not me.” He glanced at the Kinslayer’s statue. “I was not mad, it was him that did those awful things.”
“Well you’ll have to tell your story pretty quickly,” Eadran told him with a scowl.
“How long will we have once we have left this place,” Danlak demanded.
Eadran sighed. “D’you never listen boy. I’ve told you this.”
“Until sunset,” Niarmit said from the gilded throne. “You told us it was until sunset, the next sunset.”
The Vanquisher nodded. “So someone at least has both ears and a memory linked to them. Of course it was until sunset, it could never have been anything else.”
“Why?”
Eadran turned a baleful eye on the portly Gregor. “This Helm seized your soul, all your souls, at the moment of your death. You escaped the harvest of souls when it passed by your corpse at sunset on the day of your death. Your spirit was hidden here, beyond the soul reapers’ sight. But your soul is still forfeit and when next the sun sets you will be harvested.”
“What then?” Danlak asked.
Eadran looked at him in stupefaction. “Then, my boy.” He spoke slowly. “You’ll be dead. Just as dead as if the Helm had never claimed you.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Niarmit’s father said.
“We may rest with the Goddess,” Niarmit said.
Eadran snorted. “Some of you may fancy she is waiting for you, but I daresay a fair few will not be welcome in her arms.” He looked pointedly around the monarchs, his gaze lingering on Danlak and Thren the Fourth.
Bulveld the Third looked quickly at his own father and muttered, “I’ll take my chances with the Goddess, thank you. Let us see if another of these dying men will share their body’s last few hours with a penitent soul.”
Bulveld the Second gave a sniff of disdain at his son’s assertion.
“It was not my doing father,” the younger Bulveld pleaded.
“You did not stop them, though,” his father snarled. “Them and that witch of a mother of yours.”
“I was twelve years old,” his son cried. “How could I have stopped them?”
“You were a prince and my son, on either account you should have done something.”
“Well, I will answer for my inaction to the Goddess, if not to you.” He turned to Niarmit and the Vanquisher, “please, see if another of these fellows will harbour a sinner. And who knows, while we await the dusk harvest, I may yet swing a sword and crack an orcish skull or two.”
Eadran threw up his hands. “You are all mad.”
“And the men that share their bodies, they are not destroyed you are sure?” Niarmit frowned. “Is this not the very mechanism by which Maelgrum stole and shaped a body? That is how he thrived when his homeless soul was freed from the prison you had created for him?”
Eadran shrugged. “I expect it was some similar craft as this, though I am sure that Maelgrum would have destroyed wha
t ever consciousness he found in a body he appropriated. These fellows here have neither the skill nor the inclination to squash another’s presence out of existence.”
“So they sleep?”
“That’s what I give them, girl, a deep and restful sleep until the harvest comes. That’s not so bad is it?”
Mitalda broke in on their exchange. “If we are to do this thing, if all who wish to leave are to take this chance now, then we should press on. It will take time to secure the consent of each of these poor doomed fellows to act as a host for anyone of us.”
Eadran nodded with sad finality. “Very well then, let us find a home for Bulveld the Third.”
***
Kimbolt pushed himself up off his haunches, willing himself with some effort to leave the warmth of the little fire and the lingering sweet smell of freshly spitted and devoured rabbit
“Get some rest, lads,” Kimbolt told the little group around the fire.
One of the soldiers had already stretched his length upon the grassy bank, the even rise and fall of his chest testifying to a dreamless sleep.
“I don’t know how he does that,” his wiry companion grumbled. “My stomach’s turning itself inside out and my mouth is dry and there’s Stennal just slumbering on. Cold as stone that one.”
“You’re not scared are you, Trajet?” a bulkier man on the opposite side sprang at the thin one’s anxiety.
“He’d be a fool if he wasn’t,” Kimbolt slapped down the big man’s eager crowing. “There’s little to be gained by pointing out another man’s fear in the hopes of diminishing your own.”
The man scowled, even Trajet looked less than re-assured. “They’ve got a lot more numbers than us,” Trajet muttered. “A lot more bodies.”
“Aye literally,” his taunter laughed. “Walking bodies.”
Kimbolt nodded. “And we’ve got a lot more priests, and we’ve got the Goddess and the queen on our side.”
