Master Of The Planes (Book 3) (55 page)

Odestus’s heart was racing though his body could not move. Cold cloying mist enveloped him as the dark shape of Maelgrum stalked round to face him, red eye pits flaring with a furious beat.  Dema stood apart head bowed, dutifully subservient in the presence of the master.

“The little wizard ssshould not be here,” Maelgrum’s voice filled the freezing room. “What hasss he told you?”

“Nothing.” Dema looked up, jaw jutting towards the Dark Lord.

“How long hasss he been here?”

“A few minutes nothing more.”

“And in that time he hasss told you nothing, nothing of consssequencsse?”

“He wanted to, but I would not let him.  He’s told me nothing more about my fate than what I already knew.”

Maelgrum came close.  The medusa was tall, but Maelgrum was taller still and he bent his head to look down his red eyes glaring into the sparkle of her gauze covered blue ones.  “You know there isss nothing that you can do to change it.  What hasss happened will happen.  Oncsse the gate fadesss, oncsse your work here isss done, you will go back to the future that awaitsss you.”

“I know,” she said sternly.  “You have told me often enough.”

Maelgrum nodded in grim satisfaction.  Odestus a helpless prisoner in his own body could only watch and hear as Dema launched another question.  “How long?  How long before the gate fades and the link is broken?”

“The exissstance of your body isss a powerful anchor for the ssspell.  It will lassst for many monthsss, yearsss maybe.”

“And I can stay here that long?”

Maelgrum didn’t seem to hear the question.  He turned to inspect the paralysed form of Odestus.  “You did not tell me of the little wizard’sss visssit, or rather I sshould ssay you will not tell me.  I ssshould have liked to know of it. But in your future you kept thisss matter sssecret from my passst.”

Dema shrugged.  “I cannot. I must not tell you what lies in your future, any more than you can let Odestus tell me what lies in my future. You told me that yourself.  Whatever I learn now and whenever I take it back into the past with me, I cannot tell anyone of it, least of all you.”

Maelgrum tilted his head to one side, the beat of his red eyes slowing a fraction.  “You are right of courssse.  I wasss merely testing your underssstanding of the sssituation.”

“Of course.”

“And it isss equally cssertain that the little wizard cannot remain here.  He hasss abandoned my ssservice and ssshown himssself at lassst to be a traitor.”

“What will you do to him?”  There was a hard edge to Dema’s question.

Maelgrum straightened, cold fury condensing from the rotten sleeves of his robes.  “That isss no concssern of yoursss.”

“You will not harm him.”

“You forget yourssself, lady medusssa, to think you can command me.”

“If I return to my past knowing that you have harmed so much as a hair on the little wizard’s head, then there will be nothing that stops me from telling everyone where, or rather when, I have been and what I have seen.”

The temperature dropped at least ten degrees, ice formed on the floor.  Maelgrum’s voice was as precise and sharp as cut crystal.  “We have dissscusssed thisss.  Sssuch profligacssy would dessspoil the ssstream of time.  Untold disssastersss would ensssue all of them working againssst your own intentionsss.”

“You forget, Maelgrum.  I’m going to die.  That’s what lies in my future and, for reasons I cannot fathom, Odestus is the only living person.” She stopped and corrected herself, “Odestus is the only person, living or dead about whose fate I give a flying fuck.

“So, if I am to be dead and he is doomed, then the whole world can go screw itself and the rampaging streams of time can drown you all in your own piss and shit.”

Odestus’s fingers were going blue with the cold, deprived even of the means to shiver he could feel his mind slowing, thoughts fumbling over themselves in the the arctic chill of Maelgrum’s ire.

“So you are going to let Odestus go, unharmed.”  Dema made a bald statement of it.

“That isss sssomething I cannot do.  He knowsss you are here. He may by sssome chance betray sssome ssshred of information, sssome beat of a butterfly’sss wing, that will dissstort your presssent and hisss passst in waysss to the detriment of you both.”

Dema scowled.  “There must be a way.”

“I can confine him.”

“He must go free.  I must see him go free.”

Maelgrum nodded slowly.  “Until your work here isss done, the little wizard will ressside at my pleasssure.  Then, jussst when I am ready to return you to your passst, the lassst thing you will ssseee is him ssset free and sssafe.”

“You promise?” Dema said doubtfully.  “How can I be sure?”

“If I break my bargain, then you can wreak what havoc you wisssh in the passst.  It will dessstroy usss both, and many more besssidesss, but asss you sssay, you would have nothing left to lossse. You have the power to assssure our mutual dessstruction, I will not trifle with that.”

Dema nodded.  “We have a bargain then.” She glanced at Odestus’s frozen form, a half smile playing on her lips.  “A last word then, before you take him away.”

Odestus strained to break free of the magical bond that held him, to flex some muscle, an eyebrow even, in a desperate bid to tell Dema of the daughter she had, of the daughter that even now she must unknowingly be carrying.  But Maelgrum stepped between them, obscuring Odestus’s view and raising a hand to thrust towards the frozen wizard. “No wordsss, no more talk.  It isss time the little wizard left.”

Odestus felt the pressure on his chest as he was pushed back and he was falling, falling through a gate.  The air was cold, the space was open, mountain peaks to left and right, and cold stone beneath his back.  And as he felt movement returning to his limbs, his thoughts turned from Dema to her daughter. 

If as it transpired, Hustag had been right and it was the mother that he had seen in Morwencairn in the company of trolls, then where was Persapha?  Where had Galen taken her when the necromancer had attacked the karib settlement?  Or was she dead already?

The yellow sun beat down from a purple sky on the hot sands of Grithsank.  Vlyndor placed one three toed foot infront of the other, leaning forward, tail extended for balance.  He did not like to be at large in the daytime but that choice, like so many other choices had been somewhat restricted for the last three years.

The mountains loomed ahead, their peaks blunted into hollow caldera.  A place that had once been home, from which they had been driven.  Anger was not a karib trait, but Vlyndor felt a deep sadness at the fate that had befallen his people.  The karib were not warlike creatures, but war had come to them in the most horrible way.  Chased by the walking bones of their own forbears, they had fled their home, scurrying through myriad passages to gather on the flank of the volcano cowering in the glare of Grithsank’s sun. 

He had led them, those survivors, in search of shelter, picking a way north.  It was the only way to go, even though that took them towards the territory of dragons and through the infested sands of the desert.  He had lost good friends on the way, and children too, for they were the easiest for the land sharks to seize.  The creatures were drawn by the lightness of the children’s footfall, picking the weakest targets to drag underground.

His eyes blinked faster at the memory, a tear formed on his greying scales and swiftly dried in the desert heat.  It had taken them a month to reach the safety of Lyndat’s people.  A month of exposure when, by some grace, they had evaded the interest of the airborne lizards that circled in the distant skies. 

And Lyndat’s people, led by her brother Glyndower and rich in memory of the karib who had married beyond their tribe, had welcomed the refugees.  Their simple domain, the small network of caves within the walls of a deep crevasse lacked the security of the volcano’s heart which Vlyndor’s tribe had abandoned. There were few resources that could be gathered without a perilous daytime journey beyond the meagre protection of the narrow fissure in the rock.  A few of the children had complained, bemoaning the change in circumstance, but Vlyndor had quickly reminded them of the gratitude they owed to his wife’s people, who had so little and yet shared it all.

For three long years they could not go back, not to confront the horror which had driven them from their home.  But here he was, within sight of the mountain they had abandoned.  He trod carefully, ducking forward, stepping lightly seeking the spots where his feet could fall unheard.  Then he crested the last rise before the mountains and he stopped.

There in the shallow valley before him lay a field of bones, bleached white by the fierce heat of the Grithsank sun, half buried by drifts of orange sand.  He scanned the scene.  Karib after karib skeleton lay there, the curved spines with the extended tail vertebrae, and the long white skulls, all lying where they must have fallen.

He started forward, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.  “Is it safe?” she asked.

He turned to the girl.  She was tall now.  He hoped she had stopped growing.  He did not like to look at her eyes, even when she wore the gauze mask.  But he still tried to face her always despite the chilling of his blood that the azure sparkle induced.  He did not want her to think he was afraid to look at her, for he knew that would hurt her more than anything else she had endured.

He shrugged his shoulders.  “There is no other way, if we are to go home.”

“But we don’t have to go home.  He might be there still.  We could stay with Lyndat’s people.  I don’t like the way he made me feel.  I don’t want to feel like that again.”

His tongue flicked out, tasting the air between them, sensing the heady flavour of fear and anger that the young medusa exuded. Her hood stirred, the serpents seething with her mood.  “Let’s go back,” she said.  “We can still go back.”

“You know we cannot, Persapha,” he said sadly.

“We can share. I can eat less, we can all eat less.”

Vlyndor shook his head.  The barren nature of the land was not the real reason he had to make this journey.  He had not told her, he never would, nor would anyone. But Glyndower, Lyndat’s brother had taken him aside.  They would not question his decision to take and raise the medusa’s child as one of their own.  But that had been a decision of Vlyndor’s tribe, not theirs.  Even a karib baby could taste the otherness of Persapha.  They cried at the sublimated rage which salted their tongues everytime the medusa walked past.

Glyndower had not asked them to leave, he would never ask them to leave.  But his concern so gently expressed meant Vlyndor knew they must choose to leave, so he and the medusa had travelled across the desert to their old home. 

He would not have taken her with him, if it could have been avoided, but he knew she would not like to be left behind and in truth he did not like to leave her.  He was a keen student of the rage that bubbled within her.  He had dragged her spitting and screaming from a confrontation with the necromancer. He could taste when it was time to distract her and when it was time to let her roam alone.  Though well intentioned, he did not think that any other of his own people, still less of Glyndower’s would be able to manage her as he had.

“What if these dead stir, just like the others?” Persapha asked.  “What if they come at us?”

Vlyndor began to edge down the slope.  “It was only the necromancer’s will that made them angry.  Without him, and I do not see his scarlet cloak here, then I am sure no karib would harm another, even a karib summoned from death by that man’s malice.”

“I don’t trust him,” Persapha said, following her adopted father down the slope.  “He could be anywhere.”

They trod warily around the fallen skeletons, but none rose to challenge them, or even raised so much as a pure white knuckle at their passing. Vlyndor was halfway through the field of skeletons when he realised the medusa had stopped, standing stock still.  He spun round, alarmed that maybe a land shark had seized her, though the long walk across the desert had shown that most of Grithsank’s denizens shied away from the aberration that was the medusa.

He hurried back to her side.  “What is it?”

She pointed at the ground. A scrap of scarlet cloth no bigger than her hand lay half buried in the sand.  Vlyndor bent low and brushed the sand aside.  There was more cloth, a sleeve, its bright patterns much faded by sunlight before it had been covered by the sand.  Persapha knelt beside him, scraping at the dust with both hands.  He had to wave a hand to quell her urgency. The fluttering of their digging could attract all manner of creatures that lived below the surface.

In more patient mode they uncovered the whole of it.  A skeleton within a set of faded robes, no tail, its outstretched hand held five full fingers. A human.  Vlyndor rolled it gently over, brittle bones fell from within the cloth.  The ribs were missing. The sandsnake that had felled him would have feasted on his viscera. Vylndor had buried enough hollowed out bodies to know how these animals worked.  They could devour a prone corpse from below, without once breaking the surface, or marking their victim’s backs.

He tried to stop Persapha from picking up the skull that had been left by the high cylindrical collar, but she had turned it in her hands before he could speak.  It was only the back of a skull, the front was missing, a great void from forehead to lower jaw where the snake would have eaten its way into the ripe grey matter.

“Would he have suffered?” Persapha asked, placing the incomplete skull carefully on the ground.

Vlyndor watched her carefully as he answered, his tongue flicking out to taste her emotions.  “A land shark devours whole, but a sandsnake paralyses its victims with a poison that incapacitates the body but keeps the meat alive and fresh.  It can take days for a snake to eat a whole person, returning many times to feed.”

Persapha nodded slowly as she absorbed this information.   She drew a deep breath, he caught a bitter taste on the wind, but then she breathed out.  “He did not deserve to live, but there is no pleasure to be taken in another’s suffering,” she said.

Vlyndor smiled and tasted honey. She looked at him brightly.  “You know what this means?”

“Yes,” he said, still smiling.

“It is safe for us to go home, for all of us to go home.”