‘Very good, Jak.’ He urged the guide onward.
Overgrown stone heaps lay to either side. They appeared to be walking an ancient road, or ceremonial way. The heaps proved to be squat plinths supporting equally squat monolithic heads as big as huts. Roots gripped these enormous heads and most sported tall trees like fanciful hats, but all were identical. Portraits, they were, of a man in an armoured helm. Savage hard staring eyes, a long straight nose, and a slit mouth that looked as if not one word of mercy had ever passed its lips.
And Pon-lor knew that face, that man. And his breath left him in one gust. A cold slither of something gouged a nail up his spine.
That face. Always the same face. He’d seen it before on the coins and funerary statues that littered the tables in Master Varman’s study – his hobby of collecting pre-catastrophe artefacts – where, spurred by curiosity, half knowing the answer already, he’d asked: this ancient likeness, is it a man or a god?
And Master Varman had studied him for some time in silence, his head lowered, eyeing him from under his thick brows, until finally he cleared his throat to say, ‘Strange that you should put it that way, Pon-lor. As you no doubt suspect, that is the face of the greatest evil of his day, the self-proclaimed God-King, the High King. These days the ignorant name him the Fallen One or the Demon-King, the infernal Kell-Vor. But that in truth is not his real name – that I shall never speak aloud. For it carries with it a curse. A terrible ageless curse.’
Pon-lor blinked now in the rain, suddenly more chilled than he had been in days. Was Chanar merely built on these ancient pre-Fall ruins? Or was this building one of the few surviving structures from that age? In any case, the scholar within Pon-lor was roused. What an unlooked-for opportunity! Here in the wilds of the border region. Yet, where else? Was he not approaching the lands of the Ancient Queen? And were there not legends that claimed King and Queen ruled together and that the catastrophe of the long ago Fall slew the King while the Queen survived? A twisted shadow-play of the truth, no doubt. But still, both figures could be traced back to those hoary dawn ages of humanity.
‘Magister …?’ a voice called from the dark. Their guide.
He’d been standing in the rain for some time, his guards encircling him. He nodded. ‘Yes, coming.’
A single guard in plain leathers awaited them at the gate. A young man of his age, spear in hand, a bow at his side. ‘Welcome,’ this one murmured. ‘The lord will see you in the Great Hall.’
Jak invited Pon-lor forward. ‘I know the way.’
Overseer Tun blocked the narrow stone entranceway. ‘I will walk with you, little guide.’ He waved for two guards to remain at the gaping stone portal, then signed for the rest to attend on Pon-lor.
Jak shrugged, and lit a torch. ‘This way.’
The halls were dark. Pon-lor’s wet sandalled feet kicked through a wind-blown litter of leaves. In side corridors tiny animals scampered from the light, and cobwebs choked the ceilings and corners.
‘These halls are abandoned?’ Pon-lor asked Jak.
‘Khun-Sen is an old man. He has few remaining servants or followers. And each year they are fewer.’
‘Ah. I see.’ So, soon this great brooding edifice overlooking the Pass of Seven Peaks would once more lie empty. As it had for thousands of years. For with its cyclopean stone construction, its dark sandstone blocks, its flat squared lintels and mottling of lichen growth, Pon-lor recognized it for what it was – the colossal and overbearing architecture of the self-glorying God-King.
They exited on to a narrow inner bailey that was nothing more than a miniature jungle of tall trees. Across the way, stairs climbed to a higher inner structure and faint light glowed from high windows. Pon-lor had no training in military readiness but even he was appalled by the neglect and dilapidation. ‘Was no effort made to clear the overgrowth?’ he asked Jak.
The young man gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘No. It was no priority of Khun-Sen’s.’
‘I see.’ When he returned he would have much to report regarding the activities, or rather the lack of activities, of this self-styled general on their borders.
Within, the overall neglect continued with trash and wind-blown litter hastily brushed aside, and a minimum of torches and lamps lit. Chambers to either side lay dark and empty. In one, a long low table held the remains of a meal, plates and goblets in place. In the unlit gloom Pon-lor thought he glimpsed cobwebs on the table. ‘Where is everyone?’ he asked.
‘Readying themselves to greet you, perhaps,’ Jak answered, his voice tight with some emotion. Fear, was it? Was he also unnerved? Somehow Pon-lor found this reassuring.
They entered a large room. A bonfire burned in a central fire-pit. A second-storey viewing terrace encircled the walls. Pon-lor assumed this was the main hall. He turned to Jak. ‘A rather subdued reception …’
The young man wet his lips, his dark eyes glittering as he scanned the viewing terrace. ‘There must be some problem,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps the lord is ill. I will go and see.’ He turned to leave.
‘Halt!’ Tun snapped. He signed to two guards. ‘Accompany our guide. We would not want him to get lost.’
One of the guards gathered up a handful of cloth at Jak’s shoulder and the three marched up a passageway. The glow of their torch slowly faded. Tun edged close to Pon-lor to whisper: ‘I do not like this, Magister. This is an ill-omened place at best. We should go.’
‘Ill-omened?’
‘Yes. Tales of travellers disappearing. Of a midnight court of the dead.’
Pon-lor arched a brow. ‘Really? I’m not familiar with such folk tales. However, I agree. Perhaps we were better off with the fanged cat after all. Call the men. We will withdraw.’
‘Very good, Magister.’ Tun paced to the passage entrance and bellowed: ‘Harun! Vayach! Recall!’
Something like a weak shout echoed down the corridor.
‘Did you hear that?’ Pon-lor asked.
‘Yes, Magister. A cry. But distant. Should we advance?’
‘No. I’m beginning to believe we have come much further than we should have. We will withdraw. We know the way.’
Tun snapped a sign and the men surrounded Pon-lor. My remaining men! By the ancient false gods, I’ve already lost a quarter of my command. If this is an ambush then it has been masterfully played.
Tun led the withdrawal. At a sign from him the men drew their blades and raised their shields. From his place at the centre of the column Pon-lor spied a figure ahead in the darkness blocking the exit to the inner court. Shifting moonlight behind revealed it to be someone new. One of Khun-Sen’s men? ‘What is going on here?’ he called. ‘I am a representative of the Circle of Rulership.’
The armoured figure did not answer. Tun waved him aside, bellowing, ‘Make way for a magister of the Thaumaturgs!’
In answer the newcomer thrust forward and a spearhead burst from the back of Tun’s studded leather hauberk. The overseer dropped his torch, which snuffed out in the damp. The lead men loosed yells of shock and rage and hacked at the figure. Despite taking a number of solid blows it calmly yanked its spear free.
Those strikes sounded strange to Pon-lor. It was as if his men were hacking stone. And that reminded him of something. Something alarming. ‘Retreat!’ he yelled. ‘Back up, now!’
Even as he shouted one of the lead men fell to the spear. ‘Damn you!’ he roared. ‘Do as I say!’ The troops began edging backwards. The figure advanced with them, but slowly, a black silhouette against the night beyond. It was too dark to see much, so Pon-lor could not be sure of his guess, but the man’s slow shuffling walk fitted in with what he suspected. Back in the main hall, he ordered men to scout the other exits. In moments all reported back that the ways were blocked by other figures. He ordered a defensive circle close to the hearth bonfire. At least now they did not lack for light, anyway!
Then a laugh of scorn echoed through the chamber. It came from the second-storey terrace. Pon-lor raised his gaze, knowing just
whom he would see. It was their raider-in-tatters, Jak. The young man held a bow. ‘How does it feel to be the hunted one now?’ the lad shouted down.
‘What is this?’ Pon-lor asked, his voice mild.
‘What is this? What does it look like? Revenge, fool! Justice.’
Dragging steps sounded from all around. His guards shifted, fearful, hunched with swords ready. ‘Revenge?’ Pon-lor asked. ‘Justice? Whatever for? What have I done to you?’
The question seemed to enrage the youth. ‘Done? What have you done!’ He snapped a quick shot, which Pon-lor sidestepped. ‘Rich pampered bastard! Look at you! Your family probably bought you your rank!’
‘I have no memory of my parents. I was taken from them when I was very young.’
Jak fired another shot that a guard caught on his shield. The former guide appeared almost maniacal in rage and coiled eagerness. He lifted his gaze across the hall and gave a fierce nod.
Pon-lor felt his shoulders fall. Damn. Allowed myself to be distracted. ‘Ware!’ a guard shouted the instant something hammered into Pon-lor’s back, punching out all his breath. Only his years of Thaumaturg training allowed him to stop the shock from dominating his mind.
Isolate the pain. Breathe. Constrict the vessels.
His diaphragm expanded and breath rushed into him once again. Too low for a lung. Thank the ancestors!
‘Protect the magister!’ a guard yelled, his voice oddly distant. Men crowded, shields raised.
A part of Pon-lor calmly studied the many side portals. Figures now emerged all around. Their gait was unnaturally stiff. They were a mix of male and female, armoured soldiers and clothed civilians. They held spears and tarnished swords in awkward, unswerving grips. There was something familiar in their rigidity; it plucked at a thread from his training. He just could not be certain … yet.
A number of his men bellowed war cries and charged, either battle-maddened or unable to endure the wait. Pon-lor clutched at one fellow to keep himself erect. ‘No,’ he snarled through teeth clenched against the pain. ‘Disengage!’
‘Aye,’ the man answered. He yelled: ‘Fall back, dogs! Withdraw!’
The majority could not hear – or chose not to. Iron rang from iron or bit into wood and armour. The encircling figures hardly defended themselves. They moved in a sort of dreamy slow motion, but with deadly power. Leather armour hung in rotting strips. A few wore chain or banded coats half fallen away or flapping uselessly in rusting sections. Some wore plain clothes now in rags. Immobile faces held a strange grey pallor, the eyes empty pits. That, and the ring of metal on stone when a guard smashed the face of one, confirmed what Pon-lor had suspected.
Oh, poor fool! Stupid fool! He lures us here to die at the hands of these cursed souls, little knowing just where their curse came from! ‘Jak!’ he called, having now mastered the agony of the wound. ‘Why do they not attack you?’
The young man was squinting down the length of a nocked arrow, searching for an opening through the guards’ raised shields. ‘I did not lie, you bastard! I am from here. They attack no one of their blood.’
Yes. They retain at least that much sense of their past lives, imprisoned as they are in flesh that has betrayed them. Thank you, Jak.
These pathetic shuffling figures were the cursed soldiers, civilians and court of Chanar Keep.
Still advancing, they clutched at the limbs and armour of Pon-lor’s guards to grapple with unbreakable grips or thrust or choke with fingers as strong as stone – for stone they were, flesh accursed to harden into petrification.
The dismissal, man! Think! How does it begin? Pon-lor fell to his knees and covered his eyes to blot out the sight of his men falling before him, screaming and gagging, throats torn. Then he had it, the opening invocation, and it all flowed from there with ease, the sequence hammered into his mind through countless repetitions sitting legs crossed in the ritual centre, chanting from sunrise to sunset, sometimes all through the night until he slumped forward unconscious.
‘Magister …’ a guard breathed above him, awed.
He dared open his eyes, his lips moving soundlessly.
Stone hands were reaching for him not an arm’s length away. Frozen now in the act of stretching. And as he watched an invisible wind gnawed at those fingers and the expressionless mask-like faces behind. Grain by grain the petrified flesh fell away like dust in a sandstorm. The clouds of dust swirled, wind-driven, obscuring the chamber. Even the bones of the hands disappeared, scoured away into blunt stubs, the arms following.
‘What?’ he heard Jak yell through the churning ashen clouds. ‘What is this?’
‘Who did you think lowered this curse upon Khun-Sen?’ Pon-lor shouted.
‘All know this as the work of the Demon-Queen!’
Pon-lor straightened to his feet. The invocation had centred him fully. Pain could not touch him now, nor could hunger nor fatigue, until he should ease out of the state, or eventually fall unconscious, or dead. He had closed off the bleeding. Clenched muscles and flesh against the wound. As he could now suppress any or all physical damage unless instantly fatal. ‘No, Jak,’ he began, his voice calm and strong. ‘An understandable assumption, but no. The Ruling Circle sent this curse against Khun-Sen – why I do not know. But it is our curse … and I am dismissing it now.’
‘I will see you dead!’ the young man howled.
‘He has run, Magister,’ a guard said, his gaze shaded against the swirling dust.
Metal clattered to the stone flagging as limbs cracked or hissed away into nothing. Faces had been gouged away into flat discs, bone and all. A head snapped off as the thinned neck gave way with a crack. Which of these, if any, was cursed Khun-Sen himself Pon-lor could not bring himself to care. One cursed figure, an elderly soldier, perhaps Khun-Sen, toppled over to burst into fragments.
‘Shall we pursue, m’lord?’ a guard asked, his tone now far more respectful.
‘No. They know this labyrinth. We’ll never track them. Let’s find the eastern path.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
The dense iron-grey cloud of dust was dissipating. Pon-lor could now see across the chamber. A good finger’s thickness covered every surface. He tilted his head to brush the fine powdered stone from his hair. Armour and weapons littered the floor, along with the corpses of his dead. As the last of the grit sifted away Pon-lor faced a mere four standing guards, all wrapped in shrouds of grey, like the ghosts of Chanar Keep themselves. The four stood blinking at one another through the smeared masks of pulverized stone as if shocked to find themselves alive.
‘Magister …’ murmured one, gesturing to his side.
Pon-lor peered down to see the bloodied, now dust-caked arrowhead and a good hand’s width of haft standing from his torso. He’d almost forgotten about it. ‘Break it off and pull it out,’ he told the guards.
They exchanged uneasy glances but nodded their acquiescence.
‘This will hurt, Magister …’ one told him, reaching for the haft.
Pon-lor took hold of the man’s sash to steady himself. ‘No, Melesh – it is Melesh? Yes? I quite assure you it will not.’
* * *
If any ships witnessed the storm that arose upon the great empty tract of ocean between Quon Tali and the shores of Jacuruku, none survived to tell the wonders of the sight. No natural tempest was this. The sea clashed as if driven to war against itself. Mountainous waves swelled as current surged against current. Deep troughs the size of valleys opened as if to reveal the infinite depths. The winds battled and slashed each other into shreds of cloud and sleet.
Through these howling squalls a single vessel did push south by southwest. Long and low it was, of black wood lacquered in countless layers. It possessed no masts. Its deck was fully enclosed but for a single small hatch. Single banks of twenty oars to a side fought the contrary winds and slam of waves in a steady inhumanly powerful stroke.
As if in defiance of the storm a woman stood open to the elements upon the deck. Her clothes h
ung from her, utterly soaked. Water ran in rivulets from her hacked short hair and slid wind-driven across her face. She stood with arms crossed beneath her outer robes, her gaze slit against the cutting sleet. Twice a day another woman emerged from the small hatch. This one wore light leather armour, belted and studded. A pale mask hid half her face. Though the deck was featureless polished wood and the wind raged in gusting contrary blows her footing was sure as she crossed to the first woman. Here she offered a meagre ball of food or a skin of water that the first always refused, and then she would withdraw, bowing.
Who would it be? T’riss, the Enchantress, Queen of Dreams, and one-time companion to Anomandaris, wondered. Which of them shall be first? She sensed them all far to the west, all gathered for the potential transfiguration. And who shall it be, and into which state? And will they be pleased with the results? Too many futures now beckoned for any to see the clear path. Even she.
And it is the mortals who will choose.
There it was. The unwelcome truth – her forte. As ash-dry in her mouth as in anyone’s.
After all these ages … the choice was no longer hers. Indeed, she saw now that it never was. That what she had taken as control, the subtle manipulation, all the light plucking of such diverse threads, had been no more than the kicking of stones down a hill. They do end up at the bottom where you want them, but how they got there … well … one can hardly take the credit.
And speaking of tumbling stones … she sensed them, then, her first visitors.
Get of the Errant. The vindictive two-faced Twins.
It was the Lad who faced her. The rain slashed through his wavering translucent image. His pointed ferret face twitched in something resembling a wink.
‘What do you want?’ she said and he heard her though the raging winds annihilated her words.
He took on an expression of anxious concern. ‘I have come to warn you.’
‘Warn me of what?’
He wavered closer as if to impart some secret news. ‘Have you not seen there is a strong chance that this gambit of yours will bring you to your end?’
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