by S. K. Holder
Connor pulled the wooden stake from the neck of his boot. He slashed the air in front of him. ‘Show your-yourself or the deal’s off.’
The stake was wrenched from his hand, the tip cutting into his palm.
He cried out, clenching his fist, dispensing droplets of blood onto the floor. He saw the stake lying between two crates. He reached for it again. It slowly began to move across the floor. He slammed his foot down on it. It wriggled under the weight of his boot as if trying to free itself.
Connor was now more annoyed than scared. He was in no mood for games. ‘This isn’t funny,’ he shouted, his eyes roaming around the semi-dark room. ‘This isn’t fair.’
‘You trying to kill a Traceless One is not fair,’ said a voice at his feet.
Connor lifted his foot off the stake. The stake went still. He made no further effort to retrieve it. You couldn’t kill a Traceless One with a wooden stake.
‘I wasn’t trying to kill a Traceless One. I was trying to defend myself. You said you showed me my fear and I made it go away, how?’
‘You pushed it away, yes?’ replied the Traceless One. ‘You confronted it and you pushed it away with the light.’
The Traceless One sounded as if it had more than one voice that was neither male nor female.
A face without a body drifted into view. The face of the Traceless One was long. Its eyes were covered with a mesh-looking material. Its upper lip was turned down in a frown. It had a marking on its cheek: four vertical arrows pointing in different directions.
Connor’s body gave way to involuntary spasms. He felt his throat close up.
‘This room is as black as night,’ said the face without a body, but you can see me, can’t you?’
Connor gave a stiff nod. He really didn’t want to see anything.
‘You see with Citizens eyes.’
‘Is that where the light comes from?’ he asked. ‘My eyes?’
‘The light comes from inside your mind. Now if you require a past-telling, you must go to sleep.
‘No,’ said Connor. He thought it was over. How could he possibly sleep in this place? The Traceless would steal his soul. It would leave him for dead. ‘I’m not tired.’
Something walloped him in the back sending him crashing to the floor. He groaned. His head was pounding again as it had done when he was in Bluewood Forest.
The voice of the Traceless became a faraway echo and his world went black.
TWENTY-FIVE
Those after something rare and special sit in the crowded benches of the stuffy Auction House. Its steps are crumbling under the weight of the many who take the steep climb, intent on doing their bidding. The most valuable items are the most costly and the hardest to acquire - or so some would have you believe...
Skelos had risen early to make it to the auction house in good time. He had had an uncomfortable night on his straw bed, sleeping behind a wall constructed of bales of hay, thinking about the strange men who had come to Undren and why they were here. What were they after? He had to know. The suspense was a haze of distraction in his complex endeavours. Undren was not the unassuming village he had supposed, and he was fast outstaying his welcome. This village is like a magnet. Everyone is drawn here. The good, the bad and the insane.
He halted in front of a large stone building with a black slate roof. He gazed at the sign hanging above the door: UNDREN AUCTION HOUSE.
He joined the fast moving queue and quickly found himself inside the crowded hall. He inched his way along the lines of people, holding in his stomach, least one of the common village folk rebound off of it. He kept his right hand pressed to his chest and his head bowed, as he had done in the church the day before, with two aims in mind: to hide and look humble. The villagers liked humble. They trusted humble, even if it presented itself in the guise of a sorcerer. He was herded onto a bench by a man with a shock of yellow hair and a rather long walking stick. He tried to contain his rage when the man prodded him in the side with his walking aid. It was a further and painful reminder that in Narrigh a Citizens’ Status stood for nothing.
He would have broken into the building the night before if there were not so many guards on patrol and a body lying on the floor of Callawly castle. The Shardner’s men would be drawn from the tavern if only to ensure that no one left the village until they completed their inquiries. It was only a matter of time before he was discovered.
He had to crane his neck to see the Auction Master, a tiny man with a bowl-shaped haircut, who stood on a stage at the front of the House with the items for auction spread on a mammoth table. The house was packed to capacity. The auction house opened at eight in the morning and Skelos had vowed to get there early. It was not to be. He was so sleep deprived, he had shuddered awake after ten o’clock. He had gone without breakfast, gone without washing. There were a lot of smelly people in Narrigh and he was fast becoming one of them. His skin was itching. He mopped the sweat from his face with a soggy sleeve.
There was no sign of the Shardner and no talk of war or invasion. The occupants of the auction house did not have time for gossip. They had to concentrate on the process of bidding and buying.
The Auction Master banged on the table with a wooden hammer. ‘Sold,’ he shouted in great booming voice, ‘to number eleven in the grey jacket!’
Skelos sipped water from his flask. He stared wide-eyed at the list of items available on the parchment given to him by one of the Auction Master’s assistants. They had also given him an auction ticket number to present if he wanted to place a bid.
The man with the walking stick had duly noted the colour of Skelos’s cloak and quickly hobbled off. A woman in a green cloak, sitting on the other side of Skelos, did the same.
Before the Auction Master had called the next bid, the space around Skelos was quite empty, which suited him just fine. The only smell I can cope with, in this stifling heat, is my own.
A small boy with messy hair and watery eyes pelted up the steps leading to the stage. He added a long sword and belt to the table.
On the wall behind the Auction Master was a board. The Auction Master’s assistant, a stocky fellow with a long grey beard, stood beside it with a piece of chalk in his hand. Most of the items listed on the parchment were also written on the board along with their starting prices.
Skelos recognised some magical items. There was plenty of armour, potions, and maps available. The potions were expensive: seven pieces of gold minimum.
The Auction Master called the starting bid, on a Lightning Sword, at one piece of gold. Several people held their auction tickets aloft.
The other items were tempting, but Skelos did not want to attract any more attention. There was only one item he needed. He found it way down on the list with no starting bid and a ‘buy now’ price of one bronze coin. The Auction Master had clearly seen no value in it. The last of the ‘silverware’, the Undren guard had told him about, was absent from the list. It seemed the Callawly Castle thieves had taken their more valuable plunder elsewhere.
‘I hear five…six?’ boomed the Auction Master. ‘Do I hear seven? No?’ He smashed his hammer upon the table. ‘One Lightning Sword, sold to number fifty-four, in row nine, for fourteen pieces of gold!’
It was another forty minutes before the bidding closed. Skelos was already on his feet before the last bid was called. He weaved his way amongst the sea of people to the front of the house and asked the Auction Master about the painting.
‘No-no, that’s still here,’ he replied. ‘You-you want it?’
Skelos nodded. The Auction Master sent his youngest assistant off to retrieve the painting. He returned moments later, clutching the picture. The glass was broken and a segment of the wooden frame hung loose. It was nothing more than a flaking oil painting, milling with poppies. It did not take your breath away or fill your head with pleasant thoughts.
Skelos tossed a bronze coin on the table and took the picture from the assistant. He slipped it into an old corn sack he had br
ought with him. He departed, scampering down the auction house steps, his eyes fixed on the ground. He was content in the knowledge that his fortunes were about to change.
‘Hey, Gyan!’
Skelos tucked his chin to his chest. His eyes swivelled up, down left, right, scanning the people going about their daily business. With half the Shardner, no doubt.
A hand landed on his shoulder. His heart complained as loudly as a drum. Gyan here in Undren? He swung around drawing the painting from under his arm to use as both shield and weapon.
‘Gyan, it’s me.’
Skelos let out a sigh of relief. Oh yes, I’m Gyan. He was almost pleased to see the old rogue. ‘Barnabas, what are you doing here?’
‘What am I doing here?’ The old man shook his head. ‘I should ask you what you’re doing here.’ He seized Skelos’s sleeve, propelling him down the last of the steps. ‘I told you to wear the cloak I gave you at all times.’
Yes, but why should I listen to you when you’re no one and I’m-
‘You’ve got Hans Runick put you in the barn because you didn’t do what I told you.’
‘This cloak draws more attention than a Plowman,’ snapped Skelos. ‘It creates suspicion wherever it goes.’
‘I figured you for a smart man, Gyan.’ Barnabas stabbed him in the arm with his finger. ‘This cloak is your best protection. You choose to wear it now in a crowded auction house, but not in a quiet inn. I didn’t say Runick was stupid did I? A black cloak doesn’t invite questions, a flashy robe does. You’ll have to move. You left anything up there?’
The Avu’lore globe, my Worral stone, one Shard, Gyan’s Logbook, the Bolt-Shot whip, the device I stole from one of the Shardner’s provision rooms, and the rest of my gold. All hidden in a bale of hay. He nodded, his face burning. He felt like a fool.
‘Pick up ‘em. I’ve got another place you can stay. A friend of mine’s gone away. He left me the keys to his place. Wants me to watch it for him.’
Left him the keys? Skelos doubted that this was true. ‘Does it have a bed?’
‘It has three and a well, so you’ll have plenty of water and there’s some food in the larder.’ He gave him a piece of folded parchment. ‘Summerwell cottage. I’ve drawn a map so you know where to find it.’
‘You’re helping me,’ said Skelos. ‘Why?’
‘First, I can do with some more of that gold of yours since my source of income’s guarded and boarded.’
Skelos nodded. Of course, the mines.
‘And second, Hans was asking me questions about you. Questions that left my tongue in knots, so I told him I never heard of you. That means he’s about ready to squeal you up.’
‘I thought you said he was discreet?’
‘He won’t be discreet if he thinks you’re a Northern insurgent. The Shardner pay for information and the Shardner was here last night. Get back to the barn. Keep a watchful eye out and your hood up.’
TWENTY-SIX
A dark window surged towards him. For an instant, Connor felt his breath sucked away by its extraordinary power. A brilliant light seeped through a tiny crack in the corner of the pane. Connor squinted. He desperately wanted to shield his face, but his arms remained locked at his sides. He felt as if someone had rammed a red-hot poker through the palm of his right hand. The tugging sensation in his head overwhelmed him. He tried to turn, to look away. He failed.
The window was opening.
The rift in the pane widened and more white light spilled out. What lay behind it? What was it he didn’t want to see?
A fierce pain shot through his body. Racked with spasms, his back arched. His jaw locked.
And all the while, the light poured in through the window, choking him with memories…
He sees a man lying on a slab of granite.
The Traceless One spoke to him. ‘Here lies your father.’
His ‘father’s’ hair is knotted with leather bands. His arms are folded across his chest. His eyes are closed. He is dressed in a fine silver tunic. His black cloak is draped over one shoulder. His brown face glistens in the fragile light that shines from eyelets in the ceiling above him.
‘You’re special,’ said his father. ‘You can do things other Status Citizens can’t. It’s a rare gift you have and a dangerous one. There are those who would give all Odisiris to have your gift for themselves.’
Connor discovers he can fall asleep and wake up in any place he chooses, by searching for the keyhole-of-light and unlocking its door with his mind.
And he sees things. Things that happened in the past, long before he was born and things that will happen in the future. He cannot make sense of all the jumbled images. He becomes frustrated trying to unravel them.
‘This gift is not to be wielded as a toy,’ says his father. ‘Use it wisely or not at all.’
He tries not to think about his sleep-dreams. It is not easy. He does not want anything bad to happen to anyone. He wants to put everything right in the world, but sadly, he cannot change time. There is no order to his dreams, no dates for him to go by, no way of knowing when something is going to happen - just that it is.
‘You created a Dark Window in your mind,’ said the Traceless One, ‘to conceal the visions that plague you.’
In a labyrinth of red stone tunnels, Connor spies on a spy. Lurking unseen behind a stone pillar, he observes the back of the spy. He has a thick neck and a head of straggly brown hair. The spy peers through a snake-shaped crack in the wall. Connor peers with him. Through it, he sees a cave alive with colour. The colours dance, weaving patterns on the wall. There are two people present: a figure in a white hooded robe and a bare-chested man with slicked-back oily hair. Connor cannot see the face of the hooded figure, who stares upon what looks like a crystal ball, positioned on a high stone table. The ball spirals with colours, the same bright colours that ignite the cave; the colours of the rainbow. Three partially dissolved objects extend from the crystal ball. They resemble serrated knives fashioned from deformed icicles.
The bare-chested man stands just behind the figure in the hooded robe, his arms folded behind his back, his muscular torso rigid. His sea-green eyes are fixed on the crystal ball. Blood trickles from his nose onto his lip. He licks it off with his tongue.
‘May I go?’ the man asks the hooded figure.
‘Not before you have taken your own life.’
The bare-chested man’s brows dip. ‘With what?’
‘With the blade you hold behind your back, the one you were going to plunge into my neck as you watched me observe the Avu’lore; the artefact, I am using to control you.’
The bare-chested man grins. ‘My apologies.’ He brings the knife from behind his back and slits his own throat. The blood bubbles from the yawning wound. He collapses. The knife clatters to the ground with him.
Connor chokes down a scream and flees. He runs down one dark passage, followed by another…and another, passing figures and shadows. He cannot tell if they are human, animal or something else...
Connor enters the World of Dreams.
He lets the wind carry him westwards across the rolling desert plains. The sand is lapped up in the prevailing wind. The rain lashes against his face. His head feels as if it is encased in ice. As he struggles to control his breathing, he realises two things: the first, that he is not alone, and the second, that he is flying. He spreads his arms out like a bird in flight, exemplified with all the grace of an eagle. And when he sees the black and silver-winged birds, he swerves with inept precision to avoid them. Unlike a bird, staying airborne does not come naturally to him. It takes all his concentration. He cannot allow himself to relax or become distracted, least he plummet into the ocean depths.
The barren land is out of his reach. He tells himself, he must not panic. It’s an optical illusion after all.
He hears a man’s voice. He tries to ignore it, to concentrate on his aviation. Soon the whisper becomes a wail.
He flies. His concentration is waning, prepari
ng to drag him into the abyss. His father’s words come back to him. ‘There are those who would give all of Odisiris to have your gift for themselves.’
He looks down. The ocean is blood red. A boat bobs on the water. It looks like an eye, staring up at him. He shuts his eyes, willing it away. Too Late. The ocean rushes up to meet him. He lets out a small cry.
His feet hit the water. He skims the surface, leaving a trail of white foam on the ocean floor as he is dragged upwards. He lets forth a raw gasp.
The cold air subsides and a warm breeze ensues. He feels as if he is floating.
‘Boy, are you all right?’ The voice is resonant.
‘Who’s there?’ he asks in his mind. He opens his eyes to a blue sky, shrouded by the face of the man who has gathered him in his arms. He stares into the man’s bright blue eyes and asks, ‘Where am I?’
‘Running away indeed. You didn’t get very far, did you?’
Connor pounced into consciousness. His eyes popped open. He scrambled to his feet, spinning, searching for the Authoritative Voice. He was still in the fortress. He had never left. There was no sign of the Traceless One.
‘Those aren’t my memories,’ he yelled. ‘I’m not from Odisiris. I’m not a Citizen!’
‘Ah,’ said the Authoritative Voice inside his head, ‘but you are.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
The sun has baked the craybine in South Narrigh, transforming its colour to a pasty grey. The sun rises in the west and sinks in the east. In the evening, the sky darkens, the clouds drift across the sky and two pearly moons appear...
Skelos trudged up the sloping hill looking over his shoulder, convinced someone was following him. He took a detour, clambering over the birch fences in the neatly divided fields. He listened to the insects buzzing and the birds singing in the treetops and jumped at the sudden whooshing sound of gushing water from some faraway stream. The sun shone down on Undren like a plate of molten gold, shimmering over the folding hills and vales. He checked behind him, above him and beneath him. He saw nothing untoward. Where were the guards? In the trees and hedges? Or in the nettle-filled paddocks?
