Beyond the Wall of Time (27 page)

While in Instruere, she told them, she had fallen in love with a mysterious stranger called Tanghin. What she did not know
was this man’s real identity. When her friends advised her against the liaison, she ran into Tanghin’s arms, only to discover
him in magical communion with the Destroyer. Tanghin was Deorc.

Kannwar continued the tale. He told them how he had commanded Deorc to capture Stella, seeing something magical in her. Deorc
complied, but his bitterness grew as he wanted Stella for himself. Stella seized on this and lied to Kannwar, claiming Deorc
had taken her for his own. Enraged, Kannwar had engulfed them both with his blue fire, pulling them from Instruere across
the world to where his army was encamped, waiting for the signal to invade.

“I tortured Deorc,” Kannwar admitted. “I had to know the depth of his treachery. I forced Stella to watch. Yes, I am ashamed
of these things, but it was a time of extremity, and I had long ago abandoned the restraint with which ordinary people hedge
themselves about. It soon became clear to me that Stella had tricked me. Deorc had not touched her. Yet he had acted traitorously.
It was Deorc who had sent the four Bhrudwan Lords of Fear west to take Leith and Hal’s parents captive, because he wished
to learn my secrets. Do you see? Had he not betrayed me, Faltha would have had no warning of my invasion. No resistance would
have been raised and I would now be ruling throughout the northern world. To their betterment, though I accept Queen Stella
sees this differently.

“I was angered beyond reason. I encased the wretch in filaments of magic, binding him in a place of near-death forever. He
was entrapped in the seconds before death, eternally reliving the pain of his torture. This I judged sufficient to balance
the great harm he had done.”

“You did it to frighten me,” Stella said, her eyes dark.

He nodded. “You were even more dangerous than he. If once you discovered the reservoir of magic the Most High had deposited
within you, I might not have contained you. So I kept you frightened, unsure, always on edge.” He lifted his face to them
all. “Of anyone alive, Stella Pellwen has seen the worst of me.”

“And this is the man who calls himself Husk?” Conal said, his voice high and sweet. “This man eternally on the cusp of death,
his magic bound?”

“I have underestimated him,” Kannwar said. “Seventy years ago I bound him, and seldom have I looked in on him since. You see,
with the loss of my other hand and my subsequent defeat, I was forced to re-evaluate my goals. My long years of planning for
revenge against the Most High seemed a waste to me. In fact, as Stella can testify, I walked in the borderlands of madness
for a long time.

“In my weakness I drew on all the magic I had, some of which I had invested in the bonds imprisoning Deorc. In my long path
to healing I may have disrupted this magic, allowing him to free himself from his prison. It is the most likely explanation
for what is a clear fact: Deorc of Jasweyah is now Husk and has become a formidable magician. I will tell you this, though
it chills me to the bone. As Stella can attest, the way to make a great magician from a good one is to immerse them in suffering.
Such has happened to Stella, though she is yet to test her limits. And such, I believe, has happened to Deorc. I have an enemy,
and he is housed in my own citadel.”

“And he is your own problem, surely,” said Moralye. “Phemanderac ended up trusting you, though he was old and perhaps easier
to sway. And I do not deny the things I have seen: how you have rendered aid to the Most High. Yet I cannot help thinking,
along with Hauthius, that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ ”

She turned to the others. “Why ought we be concerned about this Husk? Ought we not to seek this magician out and see what
aid he can give us in defeating the gods? Might he not be a better choice to rule Bhrudwo than the man who, with his rebellion,
broke apart Dona Mihst, the man who became by choice the greatest enemy of the First Men?”

“Aye,” Robal said. “We’re assuming that the man standing before us is a reformed character. But I say he is not. I say he
is still the man whose army killed thousands of Falthan sons, orphaning a generation of children. If we trust him now, we
will end up as amusements in his dungeon. For myself, I would see him dead, or at the least bound in the manner he bound Deorc.”

This is not going well
, Stella said.

No
, replied the Most High.
Despite Kannwar’s masterful application of the Wordweave, there are still six of your companions who do not trust him, and
one I cannot read.

The latter comment took a moment to penetrate Stella’s consciousness. But before she could question her guest, someone else
had asked for clarification.

“How could we consider Husk a potential ally given what he made Arathé do?” asked Mustar, the young Bhrudwan fisherman. “I
saw her tearing the Padouki apart with her hands and her teeth. What sort of monster would make an innocent girl do that?”

Sautea growled his agreement.

Robal snorted. “If he can do that much with hands and teeth, what could he do against the Destroyer with his magic?”

“We don’t want to bring one tyrant down only to replace him with another,” Moralye said. “We need to learn more about Husk
before we decide anything.”

Kannwar is behaving with remarkable patience
, Stella thought.
The Destroyer I knew would have ground every nay-sayer into the dust.

“Are you proposing an expedition to Andratan?” Robal asked Moralye.

“No one enters Andratan without my blessing,” Kannwar growled, but only Stella heard him.

“No need,” said Conal brightly. “Wouldn’t it be easier simply to ask one who has suffered at his hands?”

The travellers agreed to listen to Conal’s tale. Only Lenares objected, wishing instead to regale them with her ideas of what
they should do. But no one was in the mood to listen to the cosmographer, no matter how bravely she had behaved. More pressing
mysteries had presented themselves.

“Husk ensnared three minds during his time in Andratan,” Conal said. “Mine, that of Arathé of Fossa, and of Duon, the explorer
of Elamaq. With these three minds he planned to have his revenge on the Undying Man by using them to draw three groups of
travellers from the three corners of the world. I ensured Stella came east, while Arathé drew her family, and others, north.
Captain Duon influenced the decision of the Emperor of Elamaq to send an expedition, from which we have our cosmographer and
her, er, paramour.”

Stella stood up. “This was all his plan? How long have you known this?”

“He told us only in the last few days,” Conal said. “Before that we did not even know his name.”

“He tells the truth,” Lenares said. “But something does not add up.”

“Much does not add up,” Conal agreed. “I am a man of few powers, so what did Husk think to achieve by bringing me here? Or
was I just the instrument by which Stella was brought?”

“I cannot see why he wants me,” Stella said.

“I can,” said Kannwar. “Revenge. You were the one who betrayed him to me, and that on false pretences. You tricked him and
he suffered for it. I should have made an end of him.”

“Who knows what his insane plans were?” Moralye said. “What matters is how you were treated.”

“We were treated very well,” Conal said.

At this Lenares hissed.

“Very well, all things considered,” the priest amended. “Most of the time he was only a voice in the back of our heads. Without
his intervention, Stella would be dead and one of the Lords of Fear would be immortal. Hard to see that as a good thing. Yes,
in the last weeks he has been a harsh taskmaster and I wished with all my heart to be free, but I am alive still.”

“And you say you are now free of his control?” Stella asked him.

“Yes. He cannot touch me now.”

There was a deathly certitude in the words that tickled some warning thoughts in Stella’s mind, but in reviewing what he’d
said she could make nothing of it.

“Very well,” Moralye said. “I suggest we think on this tonight and resolve the issue in the morning. As Lenares would no doubt
remind us, our ultimate task is to remove the threat posed by the gods. But I will not be party to this if the price is the
reinstatement of a tyrant in Bhrudwo. Any tyrant.” She looked around the semicircle, ensuring everyone understood her meaning.

“Rest well,” she added.

The others echoed her words, and made preparations for sleep.

In her present state Stella required no sleep. She had grown weary of conversing with the Most High, who seemed to have little
to say, and had been left with her own thoughts. What few there were soon suffered an interruption by Lenares.

“Don’t listen to the priest,” Lenares said, even as she shook Stella by the shoulder, assuming she was sleeping. “Don’t listen
to him.”

Stella levered an elbow under herself and raised her head, the most she could achieve without the intervention of the Most
High. Amused at the woman’s intensity, she smiled. “I’ve already listened to him. How should I now remove the words from my
ears?”

“You make fun of me, but you know what I mean. Don’t consider his words in your plans. He is wrong.” She sucked at her lip,
frustrated at her inability to communicate her meaning. “I don’t mean his ideas are wrong, though they are. I mean there is
something wrong about him.”

Now she had Stella’s attention. Stella called for the Most High to listen, but there was no answer. Was he listening regardless
or was he elsewhere? Could he not be in a place? One of a hundred questions Stella had not asked him.

The crack of a trodden-on twig made them both spin their heads. Conal stepped out of the darkness, a cudgel in his hand and
something dangerous in his eye.

Stella cried out and thrust Lenares behind her. At least, she attempted to: the arm she lifted was the one ending at the elbow,
and her push achieved little apart from her own pain.

“Not you I want,” Conal said. “Not yet. Get out of the way.”

“I’ll burn you with my magic,” Stella said.

“You wouldn’t hurt your devoted priest, would you?” the figure snarled. “Of course you wouldn’t, because you can’t. Your magic
is locked up.”

Lenares looked on with wide eyes. “Just like Dryman,” she whispered, and began to back away.

“Enough.”

The figure stepped over Stella, raised his cudgel and struck Lenares a fearsome blow to her shoulder. Bones shattered like
thin sticks. She collapsed to the ground with a scream.

“Conal!” someone cried. “What’s happening? What are you doing?”

Conal turned his eye on a wide-eyed Stella. “Shut your mouth, bitch, or I’ll break your face,” he rasped.

He turned away and called to the others. “Some sort of wild animal. A rat. I’ll have it dead in a moment.” He raised the club
a second time.

“No!” Stella cried, and threw herself at Conal.

The club descended, its tip scraping her forehead above her right eye. She backed away, slithering on her back, one hand raised,
shielding herself and Lenares from the death facing them.

Please don’t kill them
, Conal whined.

Too late for that
, said Umu.
It’s amazing how much strength one can transfer to such a weak arm as yours—what is that?

A roar came from the far side of the camp and Kannwar stood, his burning eyes staring in their direction.

He has a link to Stella
, Conal said quietly.
He knows something is wrong.

You should have told me!
Umu raged.

You didn’t ask
, Conal said, his voice freighted with spite; then squealed as she took his fragment of consciousness and squeezed it.

The Undying Man started towards them.

“Is that Conal?” cried another voice. “But he’s dead! We buried him!”

Umu glanced to Kannwar’s left, to where Noetos strode into the camp, followed by Duon and Arathé. For a moment she was paralysed,
knowing trouble came for her but not realising why. Then she remembered Husk’s two other spikes.

They know you died
, she said, and dropped the cudgel in dismay. A moment later she sent Conal’s arms scrabbling for it.

“It’s Conal’s body, right enough,” Duon said. “But who is that inside?”

Conal moaned in an extremity of pain and self-loathing. His arm had just struck down his queen, was about to slay the only
woman he’d ever loved.

Don’t be so sure
, Umu said.
Stella has immortal blood. People have thought her dead before.

She hissed to herself, the element of surprise lost. She spun his body around and set off into the darkness at a shambling
run. A commotion broke out behind them. Shouts echoed across the rim of the pit, voices yelling at each other in anger.

Perhaps I will have to come back and kill her again and again. You’ll enjoy that, won’t you, Conal?

He ignored her taunts.

Something rippled across his damaged consciousness, a light-headed uneasiness akin to a short dizzy spell. Conal wondered,
now he no longer had access to his glands, how he could feel anything.

“Not you I want,” his mouth said to Stella, who stood defiantly in front of a frightened Lenares. “Not yet. Get out of the
way.”

This is odd
, Conal thought. Stella ought to be lying on the ground, but there she stood, along with Lenares, who had definitely been
badly hurt.

“I’ll hurt you with my magic,” Stella said. She raised a hand to her head, as though checking it was unhurt.

She remembers being struck.

“You won’t hurt your devoted priest,” the figure snarled. “Your magic is locked up. You need the assistance of the Undying
Man to make use of it.”

Lenares’ eyes were as wide as saucers. “Just like Dryman,” she said, backing away.

What has Umu done to my memory?
He paused a moment.
No, not just my memory. Lenares and Stella know something is wrong. Umu doesn’t realise though.