by William King
“No villages then?”
“Sometimes. There are lots of habitations the merfolk use on the sea bottoms. You’d be surprised. There are abandoned cities and caves and there are places that we’ve made our own.”
“Why did you leave your people?”
“My sister and I wanted to see the surface world.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“Mika did not want to settle with the chieftain who had chosen her. She wanted to lead her own life. And she did, until that bastard, the Kraken, killed her.”
“And you went with her.”
“And I went with her. It was after our parents were killed in an attack by the Sea Devils. I looked after my sister and she looked after me. She filled my head with tales of the glories of the surface world. I wanted to see it. I wanted more than my people could offer me.”
“What was that?”
“You were brought up in a small village in the mountains. Didn’t you ever think about leaving? Didn’t you ever have stories about other places that were far more wonderful?”
“I don’t remember,” Kormak said. “I left my village when I was eight years old. Everybody was dead. An Old One killed them.”
They fell silent, each of them tending to their own thoughts. Kormak shifted his hand. Her fingers felt warm and dry in his. She shivered a little. He took his cloak and swirled it out around her shoulders so that it covered them both. They held each other tightly beneath it.
“I wanted to get away,” Rhiana said. “I wanted to be more than simply a girl who bore children for the chieftains. I wanted a different life. I made sure I got it. And in a way, it killed Mika. If I had not agreed to go with her, she would never have left.”
“You blame yourself for that? You shouldn’t – it was the Kraken.”
“I know that and yet I still do. If she had stayed, she would still be alive today. If I had not found that ancient magical armour, he would not have killed her to get it.”
Silence fell again. From beneath them rose the sound of a group of Siderean marines singing. The words told of women left behind, of homes that might never be seen again, of comrades fallen in battle, of strange sights seen and new lands visited and the fatal lure of gold. There was something sad about the way the men sang and something reassuring in the harmony of their voices.
Kormak knew the marines felt far from home as well. He looked around, making sure that all the sentries Sergeant Terves placed were in position. Sometimes things came out of the night and snatched men away. Sometimes they slew the sentries as a prelude to an attack. He could see nothing although his night sight was better than most men’s. Rhiana sensed the trend of his thoughts. Or perhaps she was simply following the direction in which he looked.
“There’s nothing out there tonight,” she said. “Nothing that I can sense anyway. Although I would not put too much reliance on this. We are a long way from any place where I feel comfortable and I’m not sure my senses work as well up here in this thin dry air. Everything feels different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Over there,” she said, pointing at Dhargon’s Beacon. “That thing radiates power.”
“You don’t say,” Kormak said. “The magical runes on its side are a bit of a giveaway, don’t you think?”
She punched him on the arm underneath the cloak. “It feels strange. Not like anything else I’ve ever encountered. I don’t know who made that thing. I do know that they were powerful sorcerers.”
“Even I can see that,” Kormak said. “That tower is gigantic. Not too many people could have made something like that.”
“You’ve seen something like that before though, haven’t you?”
“In the deserts of Umbrea. Close to the Graveyard of Angels. It was not built on this scale but it was similar. There were supposed to be more like it deeper in the desert. I never went any further so I never found out for sure.”
“You’re possibly the only person I’ve met who has travelled more than me,” Rhiana said.
There was a moment of odd silence. She turned and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. He returned the kiss passionately and they stood locked in each other’s arms for a long time
* * *
Balthazar looked at the naked woman. There was something familiar about her face. He had seen it before, in his dreamwalker vision back in Coiled Serpent’s village when Xothak had first spoken to him.
“Greetings to you,” the woman said in Eldrim.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, inspecting her. Her eyes were dark, her nose flat and broad. The lips were broad and thick. Her forehead was high and her hair was short as any soldiers. Her features reminded him of those he had seen on statues across Terra Nova. It was the face of a human changed by the Old Ones. The question was in what ways.
She was shorter than he was with firm full breasts and long clean limbs. Her flesh was puckered at the joint of arms and knees. He wondered if that had something to do with the armour that lay like a shed skin at her feet.
She tilted her head to one side as she examined him as closely as he was looking at her. He wondered if she even spoke his language. He said the same thing again in the language of the Old Ones. She smiled and said, “Yes. It is.”
He answered her smile. There was a certain tension in the air. “I apologise for being rude. I worked up a mighty thirst during our journey.”
“That’s not surprising. You withstood the ride well for an outlander.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I brought you here because scouts of the people saw you flying through the desert towards the Beacon. You wore a somewhat different form then.”
Balthazar considered his words. He doubted that this woman was a sun worshipper or that she would be shocked by much that he could say. She was touched by the moon. Her armour showed that, just as it showed traces of blight. The question was did she have any other allegiances? She might not serve the same power he did, and the Shadow Lords hated each other as much as they hated the Auratheans.
“Your people are not strangers to such things,” he said. “That armour you were wearing testifies to that.”
“That armour was a gift from Xayal, who we once worshipped.”
Balthazar considered this. Xayal’s name came up in certain grimoires. Not much was known about him. It was said Xothak had cut his body into a thousand pieces and scattered it about the land. The Lord of Skulls did not spread much knowledge about his former rival.
“But no longer,” Balthazar said. He put a question into his voice.
The woman nodded. “Our creator proved weak and was destroyed. We swore allegiance to the one who killed him, his slayer, Xothak, the Lord of Skulls.”
“I know something of such things,” Balthazar said.
She nodded at him. “The dagger that you bear is testimony to that.”
“You know what it is?”
“I know what it is for.” She moved over to the wall and touched something that looked like a large mollusc shell about the size of a footstool. It opened. From within it, treating it with all the reverence it deserved, she produced a dagger like the one he carried."
“The fact that you found me is not a coincidence,” Balthazar said.
“It isn’t,” the woman said. “I have seen you in my dreams.”
Balthazar smile widened. “I’ve waited a long time to hear those words from a woman as beautiful as you.”
“There is no need for flattery,” she said. “You’re welcome here. Xothak told me that we must render assistance in your quest. It is of great importance to the Lord of Skulls.”
He did not miss the fact that she mentioned the demon god had spoken to her. She was another, like Coiled Serpent, who could reach into the Outer Dark and commune with their deity. She was letting him know it. It did not come entirely as a surprise. Dark power clotted the air around them. It must be easy for the Lord of Skulls to reach into the world here.
&
nbsp; “I am pleased to hear that,” Balthazar said. “I am surrounded by enemies.”
“My people have always been surrounded by enemies. I’m sure you have much in common with us.”
Balthazar gestured to the mat. “I am tired.”
It was all he could manage to say. Waves of weakness swept over him now. He wondered if there had been something in the wine, if the woman’s friendly words had all been a ruse. Just because they followed the same god did not mean they could not be rivals. He had killed his own predecessor as leader of the Shadow Cult. Perhaps she intended to murder him and claim his blessed dagger. She did not make any move either to harm or to help.
“I can see you are weary and you need to rest. You may share my sleeping mat.”
“I am grateful,” Balthazar said. He let himself slump down onto the mat. A moment later the woman lay beside him. Her touch was soothing. There was something wet on it, some sort of ointment. “This will help your skin to heal,” she said.
“Thank you,” Balthazar said as consciousness slipped from him and he descended into strange sorcerous dreams.
Chapter Five
Balthazar sank into a troubled sleep. His body felt too warm, and his breathing odd, as if he were forcing liquid into his lungs instead of oxygen. Magic pulsed all around him, as if hundreds of sorcerers were casting minor spells at the same time. Or as if they were all taking part in some great ritual.
He stirred. His eyes opened. He became aware of the woman beside him. She looked down at him; pupils dilated, reached out, and touched his cheek.
Sleep, she said. Her lips did not move. Perhaps he was still dreaming. His thoughts sank back into chaos.
His spirit floated free of his body. He looked down upon where he lay beside the desert woman. She still watched over him as if waiting for a sign.
His point of view drifted upwards. Somehow, he saw through the rock of the mesa, aware of the hundreds of sand people scattered through the caverns. Some were naked and human-looking, others were still encased in their strange living armour. All seemed awake and all communed. Pulses of energy joined them to each other. A vast web of magic linked them all.
Their redoubt sat amid a huge blight, a sinkhole through which the power of Shadow reached into this world. Perhaps that explained their mutations, and why they all seemed touched by sorcery.
He did not doubt that what he was seeing was real, that some truth was being revealed to him. He questioned the reasons why he was being shown it. Why were the sand people working this ritual? What were they hoping to achieve here? He was the focus of powerful magic. This entire community was working the spell, but whether it was for his benefit or to do him harm, he could not tell.
His spirit rose. He saw the gigantic blaze of magical energy from Dhargon’s Beacon. It represented magic of a different sort, not anything he could use. Rivers of power ran away from it, flowing across the landscape, moving in the direction of lost Xanadar. Towards the east, he saw small glittering campfires, and the glint of souls untouched by blight. He suspected that this was where the Guardian was. Pursuit was already under way.
His spirit continued to rise atop the column of blighted energy. The world curved away beneath him. He became aware of other areas of magical energy, some touched by blight, some not. He saw many communities as large as this one scattered across the Desert of Demons. Who would have thought there was so much life here?
As he rose, he saw something else, a place where there was nothing. It was like looking at a hole in reality. It sickened him and filled him with dread although he was not sure why. Within it, he could perceive not a thing.
He reached a point high above the clouds, with a view of the world such as only birds or gods might aspire to. He felt exalted, filled with power, ready for anything, and that made him suspicious. His mind was being tampered with, his thoughts were being influenced. For a sorcerer that was never a good thing.
He tried to invoke wards, but it was too late. He struggled and then relaxed. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. He could bide his time and gather his strength and be ready for it. He hoped that this thought had not been put in his mind from outside.
The world swirled around him. The thin fabric of reality peeled back like the layers of an onion. His home plane overlapped with many, many others. They lay alongside, closer than the touch of skin, further away than the edges of the universe. These were the realms from which demons and angels came, the sediment atop the Outer Dark.
Once more, his spirit was drawn down towards that alien dimension, where his master had spoken to him as he lay in the ruined temple atop the village of the jungle tribes. Once more, his soul travelled through the realms of Shadow towards the skull palace within which Xothak dwelled. Once more, he confronted the ultra-cosmic entity he knew as the Lord of Skulls. Its burning gaze fell upon him. He sensed its terrible intelligence. He felt the cold burning touch of its thoughts.
It was not like being contacted by another mortal. The mind of a god was too vast and strange to be understood. It encompassed manifold worlds and multiple planes of existence. Xothak had absorbed millions of spirits, not all of them human. It regarded him the same way as he might look down on the least significant insect.
A flood of knowledge poured into Balthazar, a tidal wave that threatened to drown out his consciousness, to submerge his identity. He burned with alien hunger. For a moment, he felt as if he could understand the whole, intricate pattern of the universe. He caught flashes of a gigantic, ancient, and complex plan.
He saw himself as the focal point of a vast scheme, knew he had been chosen for great things. Energy flowed into him, and knowledge, and visions of other times and places. He understood he was being offered a position as Xothak’s satrap on this tiny mudball world, with a power greater than any other being dwelling upon it. He saw part of what he had to do to get it and knew that when the time was right he would understand more.
His mind flexed and shivered as new patterns were forced into it. He had no idea what they meant or what they were for. Mighty flows of information, encoded in some way he would probably never comprehend, forced their way into his brain. He was being made into a messenger, but what for, he did not understand. He just knew that he had to bear this message to the place where Vorkhul had been found.
His mind distorted under the weight of knowledge. His spirit screamed, and darkness flowed into him and overwhelmed him at last. He sank into merciful oblivion, wondering if ever he would wake.
* * *
Kormak woke, disturbed. He was not sure why. Foreboding filled him. His eyes were inevitably drawn to a distant part of the horizon, a place shimmering with blighted energies. A dark aurora coruscated in the sky above a plain of glass. He felt sure the lights had not been there when he went to sleep. He contemplated it for a while and yet felt no immediate threat.
His side felt tender. His bruises pained him despite the analgesic herbs he had taken. It was no wonder he was awake. Just the shifting of his weight was enough to send pain stabbing through his ribcage.
As quietly as he could, he reached into his pouch and pulled out more of the herbs. As he chewed them, calm returned and he studied the sleeping Rhiana. With her eyes closed and her gills covered, she looked mortal and beautiful in the moonlight. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed. She looked as relaxed, all the worry and tension normally written on her face vanished. She smiled at some dream and he fought down the urge to reach out and touch her cheek. He did not want to wake her. Her days were troubled enough, and she need to be rested. They all did.
Around him, he heard the night noises of the camp: men shifting in their sleep, harnesses jangling, animals moving softly. He listened for any sign of the unusual, for anything out of the ordinary. Many times in the past, he had woken seemingly randomly to discover some threat creeping up on him. This might be one of those times.
He concentrated as hard as he could, ready to grab his blade at the slightest sign of danger but he
sensed nothing close, despite all his forebodings. He lowered himself back down, and stared up at the stars. They glittered in the cold desert sky, and still he could not sleep.
Eventually, he rose and stalked to the edge of the camp. The sentries nodded acknowledgement to him, as if his nocturnal wandering was the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps to them, it seemed like it was. Kormak was a Guardian of the Dawn. He noticed a lone figure sitting on a rock by the edge of the desert. It was Anders. He beckoned Kormak over and said quietly, “Couldn’t sleep either eh?”
“I felt the urge to check the boundaries.”
“It’s that sort of place, isn’t it? It makes you think of monsters creeping out of the darkness.”
“Most places make me think of that.”
“Given your profession, that’s not surprising.”
“What about you?”
“I could not sleep because I kept remembering the last time I came this way. Looking at the Beacon glowing in the darkness makes me think of my old company, and all the men who died out here. I was wondering how many of these soldiers will go the same way.”
“Not the most cheerful of thoughts.”
“No but it’s one that must have struck you too. Does it not trouble you, that you might be leading all these men to their doom?”
“Including you, you mean?”
“You are a cynical man, and I notice you have not answered my question.”
“Does it trouble you? You are leading them to their doom as much as me. Perhaps more so. You are the one who knows where we are going, after all.”
“A nice shift of blame there and still you avoid the question.”
“As do you.”
“Of course, it troubles me. Almost as much as it troubles me that I might be marching towards my own death.”
“Why are you doing it then?”
“Because I want to pay back that bastard Balthazar.”
