Shadowmasque

by Michael Cobley

  “I will not bend the knee,” the Shadowking said. “I will not submit, I will not bow before the storm. Just as he would not before me.”

  “Aah, then you desire it all,” Xabo said. “My master the Great Shadow will be both eager and intrigued to see how you cope with the peculiarities of the Nightrealm. Know that in my eyes such a contest would only be a fruitful thing, for the victor will be stronger than either and thus better able to ensure the success of the conquest.”

  “Your composure may be your undoing,” said the Shadowking. “If I am victorious, my re-ordering of the Nightrealm and all its works may not be to your liking.”

  “If you are victorious, lord, you will be quite different to how you are today, “Xabo said. “As would be the case if my master the Great Shadow triumphs which, you’ll forgive me for saying, is the more likely outcome. If the essence changes so too does the outward appearance, for which I am prepared.”

  The Shadowking laughed and walked up to the open blackness of the Shattergate.

  “Then be ready for a new purpose and a new realm!”

  With that, he stepped through and vanished.

  I am certainly ready, lord, Xabo thought. But are you?

  * * *

  More than an hour after the Ondene-Shadowking’s departure, Tashil was standing on the battlements of the remaining seagate tower at the mouth of the Valewater and listening Dardan and Sounek arguing.

  “…and a huge mouth opens and a traveller emerges,” Sounek was saying. “That’s what we saw, therefore it had to be the great sea god Grath.”

  “Yes, according to the milk-tales you learned at your nanny’s apron-strings,” said Dardan.

  “I never had a nanny,” Sounek said. “Unlike you.”

  Tashil quickly cut in. “At least we can agree that it was Corlek Ondene who walked out of the thing.”

  “With the Shadowking in charge again,” Dardan said morosely. “Whatever happened on this Sleeping God’s island, it wasn’t good.”

  Sounek nodded. “And no word from Calabos, nor Dybel…”

  Tashil shook her head as she regarded them both. One minute they’re picking away at each other, the next they’re brothers in gloom. But then perhaps they have cause to be….

  Yesterday’s desperate scramble to escape the sudden and terrifying expansion of the blight was still vivid in her mind. She and the others had been in a taproom off Brewers Way, trying to steady exhausted nerves after the recent havoc, not to mention the death of Tashil’s brother….and they had been listening to a wounded archer tell of how he had been knifed during Ilgarion’s march north to Besdarok, when a panicky youth burst in from the street and shouted at everyone to flee.

  Outside, they had been confronted with the sight of hundreds of townsfolk rushing past on foot, horseback or in carts towards the Valewater. None would stop and explanations had seemed garbled until they spotted a guard in palace livery among the throng and hauled him out. Questioning revealed the very cause that Tashil had feared — the grey blight within the palace had started to grow and at a fearful rate, eating its way through the walls and bringing down building after building as it spread outwards at walking speed. Tashil had wanted to go and investigate but the others had strenuously argued against thi, pointing out how escaping to the north bank by boat or bridge would become more difficult as time passed, not less.

  Thus they had joined the hurrying crowd then, only minutes later, Dybel let out an exclamation of annoyance and reminded the rest that Enklar and the guards, Rog and Gillat were asleep in a lodging house nearby. Then, ignoring the others’ pleas, he fought his way back out of the thronging people, vowing to meet them down at the wharves. After that, they had progressed to the next corner when a shriek of terror went up some way behind them, to which many paused to look round. And saw the greyness of the blight pouring over the edge of the cliff, tongues of pale grey slowly drooling down the cliff-face.

  Seeing this, the exodus turned into a roaring stampede, carrying Tashil, Dardan, Sounek and Inryk along in a torrent of bodies. The next hour was an unbroken spectacle of madness in which Tashil was witness to acts of blind barbarity and acts of selfless heroism, people trampled to death while other were dragged out of certain peril. At one point Tashil had become seperated from the rest but managed to haul herself up to a window and inside a house. Once out in the back courts she wove and skulked her way north, tracking down the others who had reached an animal feed storehouse near the riverbank.

  From the weather-worn battlements of the seagate tower, Tashil was able to look along at the very spot where she and the others had ventured out onto the Valewater in a flat-bottomed rowboat unearthed in one of the storehouses’s sheds. Half way across the thing had started letting in water and efforts at bailing had been hampered by swimmers attempting to board them. Somehow they stayed afloat long enough to reach the north bank, while towing some half a dozen fugitives grasping the sides and who were near frozen by then. In all the chaos of escape there had been no hope of finding Dybel, Enklar and the guards, even if they had made the crossing. So on Dardan’s advice they headed for the seagate (through which they had escaped in the Merry Meddler not so very long ago) and the north tower, around which there had been savage fighting during the undead invasion.

  And now, from these fortifications, the south side of Sejeend was a shocking sight to behold, the heart of the imperial city destroyed, consumed by that creeping abomination which now covered every square foot of solid ground. From far along the bay to the south bank of the Valewater and all the way down, heading west, was pale, dead grey with just the low ruins of buildings jutting like broken bones beneath a clinging shroud.

  Calabos, she thought despairingly. What now for us?

  There were footsteps and Inryk, looking alert but dishevelled, climbed up onto the tower platform, glanced with distaste at an unscrubbed bloodstain on the floorboards, then regarded the three of them.

  “I have news,” he said.

  Dardan snorted. “Good or bad?”

  “Some is incontrovertibly good, some not so good.” He gave a dry laugh. “In fact, depending on your mood, it might be quite bad.”

  “Then please, lift our spirits with the former,” Tashil said.

  “Dybel, Enklar and the guards are alive — I just had a message brought by a trader who arrived during the night then spent some hours tracking us down.”

  “This is good news,” Sounek said. “Yet no word by farspeech…then again, he’s not at his best. And what, pray tell, is the not-so-good news?”

  “His supreme Exaltedness, the High Steward Roldur, awaits our presence in the common chamber below,” Inryk said brightly.

  “Horse dung,” Dardan muttered.

  “In what frame of mind is he?” said Sounek. “Does he appear angry or calm?”

  “Calm,” Inryk said, leaning forward slightly. “Very calm.”

  Sounek shook his head and looked from Tashil to Dardan.

  “He will, I think, be seeking answers from the both of you, given your doubtless convincing performances yesterday.”

  Dardan glowered at Inryk. “Does he have an escort?”

  “Yes, about a dozen guards.”

  “The entire north bank is in chaos,” Dardan said acidly. “Yet he doesn’t have anything better to do except harrass us!”

  Sounek was peering over the cityward battlements and making tsk-tsk sounds. “Yes, I’m afraid it looks like you’ll both have to swim for it — I wonder if any of those pirate ships are still around? I’m sure they’ll be taking on new recruits!…Tashil? What is it?…”

  Tashil shook her head, made a hush gesture and tried to focus on her undersenses. A moment or two ago she was sure she had heard a glimmer of farspeech from someon…

  (…Tashil, Dardan…look to the east…)

  Her spirits leaped. Calabos!?

  But the only reply was a silence of the mind. Still, she went to the seaward wall and stared out at the horizon, erratically visib
le as ragged rainfronts chased each other from north to south off in the distance. She tried to picture tiny sails emerging from the hazy curtains almost as if by doing that she could make them appear. But their steadfast absence continued and prolonged, even as she sent her call out in farspeech once more.

  Dardan made a sound that was equal parts disgust and worry.

  “We’d be as well wishing for Ilgarion to show up with pardons and dukedoms for us all,” he said.

  “Yes, on the scale of probability,” said a well-educated voice, “that would indeed be vanishingly small.”

  Tashil exchanged resigned looks with Dardan and Sounek as they all turned to face Roldur, High Steward of Sejeend. He was immaculately attired in a pale blue and yellow gown worn open over a fine sable doublet adorned with the rose-and-key sigil of his office. His greying hair was well-groomed and his chin well-shaven, but there was no disguising the ire in those eyes.

  “An explanation is required,” he said, indicating the featureless, mordant greyness blanketing the north, “for that.”

  Sounek spread his hands. “Honoured ser, this grave tragedy could never have been foreseen. We face an enemy whose contempt for anything resembling civilised values is near-bottomless.”

  “What he means if that they’ll destroy us if we don’t destroy them first,” Dardan said with not a scrap of deference. Tashil gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to send him an angry look.

  Roldur, though, gave him a hard appraisal.

  “But you, ser, and the lady here came to the palace and conducted an impressive ritual near the fringes of that vileness. Was there in truth any relevance or efficacy in that performance?”

  Dardan looked him in the eye. “In truth, ser, very little, though we did confirm that our enemies are very powerful.”

  “A conclusion you chose not to share with me.”

  “We did not think it wise.”

  “Wise?”

  At this, Tashil had to intervene.

  “Honoured Roldur,” she said. “Although we were highly uncertain about the enemy’s true abilities, we had no reason to believe that they would allow that devouring veil to…”

  “Enough, lady Tashil,” the High Steward said, raising a hand. “You have nothing of substance to tell me, that much is clear. I was prepared to trust to your aid and counsel on the strength of Calabos’ wisdom and asociation — however, it seems that this trust was misplaced, for which I blame myself.” His gaze grew cold. “But for ineptitude and poor counsel, I blame you Watchers! I can see that Tangaroth may have been right — you should have been reined in long ago…”

  As Roldur began to enumerate their failings, Inryk, who had been leaning sideways on the seaward wall, silently caught Tashil’s eye and glanced out to sea but skywards as well. Tashil stared at him, nonplussed.

  What? she said in farspeech.

  Just look, will you? was the response.

  Aware of the High Steward’s disapproving glare, she turned to peer into the skies and saw there a black dot. She focussed on her magesight to diminish the distance…and the dot became larger, dark object, then a cluster of figures, three with wings carrying a fourth who was wingless. As they came nearer, seemingly headed for the mouth of the Valewater, the High Steward abandoned his polemic and with the others gazed skywards. By the time Tashil was able to recognise the the passenger as Calabos, it was also abundantly clear just who his bearers were — Daemonkind.

  The three half-reptilian creatures, great wings beating, carefully set Calabos down at the corner of the tower roof, then flew over to alight on the northern part of the sea gates, which still stood partially open. Like the rest, Tashil was half-fearful, half-mesmerised by the sight of these legendary beings and recalled from her own researches that at the end of the Shadowking war some of them had sided with the forces allied to the young emperor Tauric.

  Now they stood upon the gantry which ran the length of the gate, wings folded as they regarded the blanketing greyness to the south, seemingly oblivious to the excited crowds of townsfolk who were gathering on the bank to see.

  “Friends,” said Calabos. “It gladdens my heart to see you once more.” Smiling, he clasped hands with Sounek, Dardan and Inryk, lastly taking Tashil’s and giving it a brief and noble kiss. Tashil notice that he was wearing the sword of powers slung over his back, with the hilt jutting above his shoulders. And she suddenly felt a stab of anxiety as she realised that this had all the hallmarks of a final farewell, but before she could speak he had turned to the High Steward.

  “Most excellent Roldur,” he said. “I hope that my companions have been of some assistance to you in my absence, although even if I had been here I could have done nothing to save the treasure of Sejeend.”

  At these words of commiseration, the High Steward’s face became a picture of sorrow. “I cannot express the sense of loss I feel, honoured Calabos,” he said.

  Calabos nodded sympathetically. “We are faced with a careless, rapacious evil, Roldur, and it is our burden to face it, just as it was three centuries ago.”

  “You say what must be said,” the High Steward said. “Even thought the Emperor and his Archmage face the foe in the north, we must needs find the courage to stand firm here. But we know little of what assails us, good Calabos, despite the efforts of your Watchers.”

  “My knowledge is equally uncertain,” Calabos said. “But you may yet face a new danger emanating from a portal at the centre of this grey blight, invaders armed and ruthless.”

  The High Steward looked appalled, then visibly gathered his resolve. “We shall have to be ready for them,” he said, moving towards the stairs. “Thus I must go to being preparations and warn my captains. Will you be staying to lend us your skills and counsel?”

  Calabos shook his head. “My duty takes me elsewhere, to the portal I mentioned before. I, and my unusual allies…” He glanced at the three Daemonkind. “…will infiltrate the enemy’s domain and carry the fight to him there.”

  All of Tashil’s fears came together as she struggled to take in his words. “But where is this domain?” she said, then indicated the sword he wore. “And what manner of dangers will you face there, and how many? Calabos, you cannot do this alone — some of us should go with you, please….”

  Even as the others added their voices to her argument, Calabos halted them all with an upraised hand and sad smile.

  “If I am unable to prevail against the Great Shadow on my own, then your presence would be too much of a sacrifice…” He glanced at Dardan, “and this time it’s true, old friend!” He straightened and looked over at the Daemonkind for moment, and as if at a silent beckoning they stirred and leaped aloft on beating wings.

  “Remain in Sejeend,” he said, turning to Tashil and the others. “Although you might find Hubranda Lock a better refuge — make yourselves ready for battle, help the High Steward as best you can, and watch for anything untoward from west along Gronanvel — there is another of these blights centred on Alvergost. Also, you should prepare yourselves for grim news from Besdarok….”

  The three Daemonkind were now hovering a short distance overhead, and Tashil could feel the breeze from their wings. As they began to descend, Calabos looked at them all again, one by one.

  “My fate now leads me into a dark and perilous realm and in all honesty this may be the last time we meet in this life.” Then he gave a flash of his old grin, all dash and cunning. “But I can return, once doom is averted, be assured that I will — and then you’ll hear a tale like no other!”

  Then he raised his arms and the Daemonkind lifted him into the air. Tashil shouted a farewell as tears stung her eyes, and she stayed by the battlements to watch the flying cluster of figures head south and quickly slip out of sight beyond the grey-swathed cliffs. In her loss she found herself thinking of her brother, Atemor, and of her father and family. Leaning on the cold stone, she whispered a prayer for them, directing her plea to the Earthmother yet feeling it to be a gesture cast into the abys
s.

  How else do we petition the gods? she thought and went to join the discussion of practicalities just begun by the High Steward.

  * * *

  A soldier was screaming in agony as attendants rushed him away from the ravine barricades, back up to the camp. Sitting on a partly-smashed barrel, Ayoni wondered if any of the wounded were surviving after reaching the healer tent, considering that the senior healer had died yesterday during the bloody chaos that swept the mainland shore after the crossing.

  Chellour, having finished tending to the barricade troops’ flesh wounds, came stumbling over to sit on the grass nearby, hanging his head in an attitude of utter weariness.

  “The sarjeants say we may not be able to hold them of next time,” he said. “Especially if we don’t get those troops back from the vale.”

  “It was a desperate situation, Chellour,” Ayoni said. “Jarryc’s captains had to have reinforcements. Even so, it could have gone either way — we’re just lucky that the Mogaun don’t’ seem able to co-ordinate their attack.”

  Chellour looked up, eyes dark from lack of sleep. “I wonder how many of their chieftains they lost over there, after you dealt with Huzur Marag.”

  She shrugged. “Too soon to tell, but hopefully this will be as good as they can get while we grow in strength as more survivors keep arriving…”

  “But no Ilgarion so far,” Chellour said with a wan smile.

  “Hope springs eternal,” she murmured. “Have you heard any farspeech since we came back across?”

  “Before that last attack, I thought I heard fragments of something from Calabos, then not long after a response from Tashil. But I was just too tired to focus — still am.”

  “Something is going on,” Ayoni said. “I wonder if the other blights have grown in the same way…”

  Chellour gave a bleak laugh but before he could speak, an infantry runner hurried up, saluted them both and handed Ayoni a message tablet.

  “From the general, m’lady.”

  Ayoni resisted the urge to grin at Jarryc’s newest title and opened the tablet, swivelling the lid on its hinge. There were only a few words — Come quickly, new arrivals — accompanied by her husband’s seal. With her thumb she smoothed the clay flat before closing the tablet and handing it back. The runner put it in a waist pouch beside some others, bowed and left at speed.