Shadowmasque Page 18

  Then he was away, flying across the marshy landscape. To his spiritwing senses there was no day or night, only the manifestations of life and the history of life’s consequences, all of which was laid out before him. For as far as he could see, the land was an immense web of intertwined causes, potentials and hungers, all struggling or diverging, flowing from one place fo another or petering out to nothing. Forests were like ancient, mighty creatures holding onto the land with an inexorable grip. Mountains were the vast thoughts of the earth made solid and thrust up to pose as a challenge to everything that lived on and around them. Streams were sweet songs coursing through the land, rivers uttered rich braids of melody, while in the distance the boundless choir of the ocean gave forth an eternal euphony.

  And through it all ran the gleaming tracery of the Lesser Power, which the ancients knew as the Godriver. When compared with the long-vanished Rootpower, or the sundered Wellsource, it seemed feeble and unwieldy yet its all-pervasive nature conferred a certain balance, a tendency towards harmony.

  But there were other minor powers lurking across the land, like little knots of darkness hanging in a many-coloured web. Sometimes it was a particular place, like a stagnant pool or a standing stone, or a crossroads; sometimes it was some living thing, an old, solitary tree, an insect hive or a rat nest. While not allied to the Watchers’ adversaries, they could only be considered as a danger. Calabos sensed them from time to time as he soared overhead, noticing them notice him and feeling a dull, brutal regard, but only fleetingly.

  Then suddenly he was nearing the outskirts of Sejeend, its buildings looming like walls and towers of frozen smoke and silvery ice. With a thought he brought his spirit-form to a halt in sight of the imperial palace, then wrapped himself in serenity, sinking down to the darkened ground as he cleared his mind. The city that lay before him was a ferment of vivid, spectral images, the ephemeral outpourings from thousands of dreaming townsfolk, and Calabos focussed on an inner core of waiting stillness around which he envisaged the Spiritwing thought-canto…

  And the inner waiting stillness changed, became an opening, a gate into the plunging infinity of the Void, a way through…but only for thoughts and words.

  Ayoni, he said firmly.

  At once his spirit-form began to glide forward, passing through the grey, glassy hues of the city, down into the dense shadows of the soil and rock of the ground atop the cliffs. The spiritwing was carrying him away from the palace and north across the Valewater, keeping to those districts nearest the bay and moving steadily parallel with the shore. He remembered what lay there even as the heavily fortified walls came into view, sheer curtains of ashen translucence along whose ramparts the glows of soldiers patrolled in pairs. This was Hubranda Lock, one of Sejeend’s three main garrisons. Calabos could sense Ayoni’s presence somewhere within, along with others that he knew — Tangaroth and his senior mages, a score of dukes and barons, Shumond, Lord Commander of the Iron Guard. As his perceptions widened he realised that well over a thousand men were quartered in the barracks while other columns of troops, both cavalry and infantry, were hurrying through the streets towards this place. This was an army in the making, and he knew that Ilgarion must have all but emptied the other two garrisons, Dremari and Kanoth, in order to assemble it.

  A slight change in the focus of his senses told him that Chellour was also being held with the bastion, but of Dybel there seemed to be no sign.

  What is Ilgarion going to do with this army, he wondered. If this was a response to the burning of the Daykeep then it would be a retribution attack, but the main strength of the Carver theocrats lay in southern Anghatan and western Honjir, and in order to strike at that distance he would require a much larger host, complete with long and vulnerable resupply routes. There was no evidence of that kind of preparation, therefore the object of his retaliation had to be much nearer and smaller….like the pilgrims gathering at Besdarok.

  Yes, Calabos reasoned, that fits neatly into Ilgarion’s petty, self-centred view of the world. But what does he want with Chellour and the Countess? And then there’s Dybel….

  He cleared his mind once more, and as his inner gate to the Void hesitantly reopened he focussed his perceptions upon one name:

  Dybel, he said.

  Suddenly he was in motion again, whirling through the ghostly edifices of the city, translucent walls and roofs that flickered past in a torrent of pearly shadows. And out of the tumult loomed the sheer mass of the cliffs west of the Valewater, which the Spiritwing swooped past in a graceful westerly curve, rising gently over the rooftops. But even as he turned along the Gronanvel he felt a presence react to his passing, felt a startled gaze fall upon him followed by a lance of blackest hate which lasted only an instant. Yet it was long enough for Calabos to recognise the taint of that presence from the sorcerous calling of the previous night.

  Still further on the Spiritwing took him, slowing as he flew past districts dominated by weavers, wineries and tanners. Through opalescent buildings he swept, drawn ever closer to the foot of the cliffs, gliding in the direction of several sheds and workshops that were clustered near the foot of the Melvio Steps, a long stairway which led up the cliff-face to the very top. Then drifting towards one particular shed, through it to a dark, overgrown gap at the rear where drops and trickles of water fell from the cracked heights of the cliffs, and where a figure sat on a crate, bent over in pain, clutching his side.

  Dybel, he said, speaking to the man’s thoughts.

  The head lifted to show the familiar big-jawed face looking pale and tormented. Water had plastered his brown hair to his skull and strands of it straggled across a furrowed brow, above eyes which betrayed flickers of hope through the anguish.

  “Calabos…I hear you but different from farspeech somehow…”

  I’m right beside you, on the spiritwing — how bad is the wound?

  With eyes tightly closed, Dybel did not answer for a moment, then he opened them and let out a shuddering gasp.

  “Double-barbed marksman’s arrow, iron-tipped,” he said. “Caught it in the side while escaping the palace…” He paused a moment then went on. “The point is right up against one of my vitals — can’t push it through, and I’m doing all I can to dull the pain and stay awake…I haven’t the talent for serious healing…”

  I will send some of the others to get you out of here….

  “Please, yes, that would be most….acceptable, but listen, Ayoni and Chellour —

  Are being held in Hubranda Lock, I know, and I’ve seen Ilgarion’s army.

  “But Ayoni is being held hostage against Count Jarryc’s good behaviour and agreement to lead Ilgarion’s cavalry…when they march north in the morning. She and Chellour will be going to as Tangaroth’s special….guests….”

  Has anyone from the palace been following your trail, that you know of?

  “Don’t think so — I feinted tracks eastwards along the clifftop before doubling back to the Kala then slipping through the southbank streets till I found this resting place….Calabos? You still here?…..”

  But Calabos had become aware of something drawing near, some kind of spirit from radiating a turbulent malice.

  Dybel! — flee this place! I’ve been seen by a hostile presence and it is heading this way. But be near the foot of the Melvio Steps in two hours time…

  Dybel gave no reply save a raised hand as he lurched to his feet and staggered off. Calabos watched him go for a moment then ascended into the air well above the rooftops to meet the approaching menace. While near-invisible to any ordinary observer, to Calabos’ eyes it looked like a roiling cluster of lightning-cracked clouds amid which there flew a creature out of legend, a drakken. It was wingless, which indicated that it was the river or lake-inhabiting variety, but its claws were large and powerful-looking as were the fangs in its gaping jaws. A trifurcated tongue writhed in that fiery throat while vapour the colour of bile trailed from flaring nostrils and crimson eyes glared with an unquenchable wrath. Soo
n Calabos and the drakken were facing each other in mid-air with only a few cart-length between them.

  *You*must*die!* were the drakken’s first words.

  Begone, vermin — it is not yet my time, Calabos said.

  *You*dare*to*insult*one*such*as*I?*Your*death*will*be*a*long*masterpiece*of*agony!*

  Why should I bandy words with a mere lackey? Enough talking — either prepare for blows or scurry back to your master!

  The only reply to this was a bellow of insensate rage as the drakken lunged forward, jaws agape. But Calabos was prepared for this onslaught; he had refined and strengthened the properties of his spirit-form down the many year of his life, and with a word transformed his upper arms into long, flashing blades with which he faced the oncoming monster. Glittering razor-edges cut and slashed and the very form of the drakken seemed to lose coherence as it veered away with the glowing clouds burgeoning around it, concealing.

  A suspicion was already forming in Calabos’ mind, confirmed when boiling mass of coruscating clouds subsided and a new shape emerged. It was another mythic creature, the heavily-muscled forequarters and snarling visage of a Horncat. But this time Calabos was first to attack, diving in with blade-arms swinging — the Horncat struck out at him with long, gleaming claws but Calabos just severed the forelimb and sliced it to pieces which faded in the darkness. And after several ruthless slashes the Horncat fragmented and dissolved away to reveal a twisted, shrivelled creature whose body was a grotesque amalgam of horse and wolf. As Calabos pressed home his attack the strange being dodged and ducked, uttering a dry screech as it tried to escape. But Calabos was faster and cut it down with surgical blows that left it drifting in several pieces which slowly melted into vapour.

  From his reading of folk tale and myth Calabos recognised it as a comavyle, an evil leeching spirit which preyed on the sick and the elderly as was able to cloak itself in different shapes in order to reach its victims. But Calabos was neither sick nor elderly (in the enfeeblement sense of the word) so it was not a immediately apparent why it had come for him. Then he gave a grim smile as a familiar, webby amorphous thing emerged from the comavyle’s disintegrating remains.

  Our unknown adversary has more skill than I imagined, he thought. To be able to ensnare one of the primal spirits and command it thus…he will be a formidable foe.

  As the spirit-wraith glided away across the pale roofs of Sejeend, Calabos turned his gaze inward and envisaged the thought-canto Spiritwing spinning there, a perfect circle of all his self-chosen elements. It took the merest thought to pluck out just one of them, breaking the circle, ending the spell…

  There was a sudden inrush of vertigo and weight, the twin sensations of returning to the solidity of his body which was being kept steady by the hand which still held onto the stonework. He gasped, then drew a long breath, cold misty air laced with faint odours of mud and marsh.

  “So what did you find out?” came a voice from further along the rampart. Dardan.

  “They’re holding Chellour and the Countess at Hubranda Lock,” Calabos said, going on to relate all that had happened. As he spoke his eyes grew used to the darkness and he was able to make out Dardan’s lean face.

  “Curious,” Dardan said once he had finished. “Heard of the comavyles before, but never seen on. Once saw a lickslay by moonlight…so who’s going back for Dybel?”

  “You and Tashil,” he said. “When you find him, see to his wounds as best you can but don’t delay — get him to Murstig with all despatch. It’s a small village just past the city boundary along Gronanvel, which is where the rest of us shall meet you.”

  “If Dybel is in a bad way,” Dardan said, “we might have to hire a cart or a boat, though stealing’d be safer. Question is, why Murstig?”

  “If Tangaroth is taking his most skilled mages on Ilgarion’s punitive expedition, then those left behind would be unlikely to confront us, thus giving us a free hand to deal with our adversary, this master of wraiths.”

  Dardan nodded thoughtfully. “Bring him down now before he gets any stronger.”

  “Exactly, which is why I want you and Tashil to leave now. Take my horse — she’ll get you both back to the city quickly if you ride double.” Calabos frowned. “Are you happy to take Tashil or would you prefer one of the others?”

  “I’ve no qualms,” Dardan said, moving towards the stairs. “She’s a good companion and a worthy talent.”

  “Fine, but remember to exercise caution and watchfulness…” Calabos said.

  “Aye, we will, as long as you tell me your Spiritwing secret when next we meet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dardan offered a half-smile. “My few experiences of Spiritwing left me feeling weak as a kitten in the aftermath, yet you manage to speak and stand up at the same time!”

  Inwardly, Calabos cursed this lapse in his outward demeanour while making a dismissive gesture.

  “Merely the benefit of my advanced years coupled with the ability to appear more alert that might otherwise be the case!”

  The two men laughed, Dardan shaking his head.

  “Very well, keep your secrets,” he said, starting down the steps. “May the light guide you, brother.”

  “And you,” said Calabos.

  Alone on the ramparts once more, he sniffed the air and frowned as his thougts returned to Coireg Mazaret and Captain Ondene.

  I was unable to protect them, he thought sourly. May the powers protect them now. Then, hearing Dardan’s voice from below, he hastened to descend the steps, wishing to bid Dardan and Tashil a proper farewell.

  * * *

  There were voices in his head, a ceaseless swirl of whispers, mutters, screams, imprecations, discussions, hysterical weeping, cruel empty laughter, inexorable catechisms, guttural chanting, and a bestial howling. If he concentrated amid this cacophony he could remember when the first of those floating wraith-things had seeped into his head, guided by that evil warlock, Jumil, who had frozen him with a touch. Then, afterwards, he had felt no difference in his mind, no obvious change, until he began hearing brief whispers in an unknown language, then a spoken word or two.

  A short while later another wraith-thing appeared and was again led to its new perch within his skull, then another, and another. Soon his very thoughts were drowning in a maelstrom of babble and now, much as he cowered in the recesses of his own overcrowded mind, he cowered on the rug-strewn floor of a dimly-lit chamber in an unused wing of the palace. Iron shackles gripped his wrists and ankles but he was scarcely aware of them as he struggled to hold his inner barricades against the torrent of invasion, to hold onto himself.

  “My name….is Corlek Ondene, son of Baron Arnos Ondene,” he murmured, “lately returned from from….the Stormbreaker Isles…”

  Approaching footsteps and subdued voices made him fall into silence while continuing to mouth the words.

  “…so when will this coalescence take place?” said one voice he recognised as Vork dor-Galyn. “How full of these scintillae will he have to be?”

  “This is not easy to determine since this process has never been attempted before,” came a second voice. Haughty and malefic, the sorcerer Jumil. “But when it comes the change will be dramatic, and you will behold something of the grandeur and might that once walked in these lands!”

  “I am…humbled by the prospect, master,” was dor-Galyn’s flat reply. “But I merely seek reassurance that this fragment of the Broken One will aid our plans rather than obstruct them.”

  “Like speaks unto like, Vorik. Understanding shall become mutual, as will the aims.”

  A quiet chuckling came from somewhere, quiet and mad, and Ondene was shocked to realise that it was coming from his own lips.

  “The brave captain mocks us,” Vorik said menacingly and his heavy footsteps came nearer. “Perhaps a punishment is in order.”

  “That is not Ondene, fool,” said Jumil, “but one of his passengers. A promising sign…and now another arrives! Good, I’ve been expec
ting it…”

  “Expecting?”

  “Yes — one of those Watchers has been flitting about the city in spirit-form so sent a scintilla-bound comavyle after him. It might have been Calabos himself, but in any case the encounter hs freed another splinter of the Broken One…and there it goes, sinking into its new home…”

  And Ondene felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing different in the clamour that bore down on the last remaining stronghold of himself.

  “How many more of these things are there?” said Vorik.

  “How many?” Jumil’s voice dripped disdain. “How many cupfuls would make an ocean? How many grains of sand do the beaches contain? How may one measure the essence of a god? No, you would have been better to ask how many might have been touched by my great calling.”

  “Master — consider my negligent question suitably modified.”

  “Scores upon scores, Vorik. Perhaps even hundreds. But enough of that for now — I must needs discuss the other Nightkin Flocks. We must settle upon the final details of their despatch, so that all is ready when the time comes…”

  Their voices faded as they walked from the room, yet Corlek Ondene lay in the same position as before with an unending malign chuckle spilling from his mouth. But his eyes wept.

  * * *

  It was late morning beneath a grey, unsettled sky by the time Tashil and Dardan came to the Silver Keys, an inn perched on the cliff’s edge close to the head of the Melvio Stairs. During the ride from Korfaen Marsh, Tashil had tried several times to reach Dybel with farspeech but only once got anything like a reply — a wordless acknowledgement. This made her wonder if Dybel was too badly injured to move, even after healing. She said as much to Dardan as they dismounted in the courtyard of the Silver Keys.

  “Which is why I’ll be scouting for a boat while you mend his wounds,” he said before seeking out one of the ostlers to pay for stabling for Calabos’ horse.