Shadow (14 page)

‘What are they?'

‘I don't know. Do not stare at them too long either.'

Loup's muttering and cursing about the broken window carried down to them through a winding set of steps. The steps also led down to that dark space beneath where a whirlpool quietly spun and burbled, winding out of sight into the water's depths.

Loup stumbled down, shirtless and barefoot despite the air's chill. The grey wires peppering his chest, and the hairs on his head, stood crazily on end, as did his beard and eyebrows. As though the three of them had been involved in a long discussion, he said, ‘Nay, lad, not at all, no clue why they left here in such a hurry. But leave they did, and it's our home for now.'

‘Who left?'

‘Mages.' Loup cackled. ‘Aye, they had most of us off their scent, making out they'd all been killed. But
I
wondered! Had to be
some
still about from the old schools. Hiding somewhere. Good airs here! Strong!' He gazed around with slightly crazed eyes. ‘Small little place by
their
standards, this is, not much chop. Built it in a hurry. Bet there's others like it too, here and there. Off in the far east where no one goes, I'll bet.' He sighed. ‘That ugly magic of the Arch and his pets, that's all fast on-the-spot stuff. The old mages could
do
that kind of thing, but they didn't like to. Now why would an artist go round lighting fires, is what they'd say. S'why it caught em off guard you see, that sad night when the Arch sent out his war mages to slay em all. They liked
slow
casting, slow, lasting, thoughtful spells. Not just bang, pop, kill something. Spells'd take a day or longer, ones you could only cast one part at a time.' Loup wiped a tear from his eye and sniffed. ‘Works of humans actually rate worth a damn, the slower kinds of magic we do. Could earn respect of higher beings. As for this tower, well hey! For them, the old wizards, this place is a rush job. Ah, those old snotty mages who thought they were so clever they could tell the world what to do. Well, here's news: they
were
clever.'

Siel said in tones of disbelief: ‘Mages from the defeated schools have been here, hiding all along, while
we
gave our lives to avenge them?'

Loup snorted. ‘Who else built it?
I
didn't! Thought he'd killed em all, that foul Arch Mage bastard! Thought he'd got rid of em. But this old place was hiding, oh aye. He'll be nervous when he hears of it! He'll think that in the long years hiding, they learned up on lighting fires and killing! And maybe he'll find he's not the best at it any more. We'll see. Question is, where'd they go? And when? My hunch is, not long back at all! Days, maybe.' Loup bounded to Eric and clutched his arm. ‘But as for you, lad. Who's the new one?'

‘The giant?'

‘Not him! The one who looks like you, been following you about?' Siel turned away. ‘Ah,
she
knows.
She's
seen him, I can tell. What about you, lad? I know a little of him already, but I want to know what
you
know, or what you guess about it.'

‘I'm not sure. But I had a strange dream last night … You were there! I heard you speaking.'

‘
You
heard me?' said Loup. His creased old face bunched with worry. ‘I never saw
you
or said a word to
you.
' He paced for a minute or so, muttering. ‘Never mind that, though. More of that black scale; you got it handy? Then I'll be able to keep an eye out for him. Not easy to steer him around, you mark me. Dangerous! I found some red and green up there in the attic, but not as much kick in them. Black's what we – Now wait, that's something! Where's your shadow, lad?'

‘What would you have us do, Loup, now that you've let word slip to the locals that we have the Pilgrim here?' said Siel to change the subject.

‘
Do?
Wait here,' said Loup, crouching down at Eric's feet and examining the floor. ‘Safe as anywhere else. Safer! And don't ask me to cast a damn thing till this gunk clears out of the air, if it ever does. I'll not risk it just to make your bread taste better.'

‘Wait here for what?'

‘You and your questions! All of you people, all the time,
explain explain explain,
with your fool brains getting in the way of things, and your fool
plan this, plan that,
not trusting the mages who lead you by the nose out of your silly messes—'

‘Listen old man,' Siel screamed. ‘
I
have a temper too. I woke this morning to a knife at my throat, after months on the road stepping through death, death, death, everywhere I look, present, past and future, death death death! I've not been paid, I've not been thanked, I've not had a day to relax and
live
without death kicking down the door again and dragging me out in the cold. And if you want to know about that demon in the woods—' She had taken strides toward him, not without a hint of menace, when something tripped her up and sent her sprawling heavily to her feet.

Loup rushed to her and said in the tenderest tones, ‘Aw, easy, lass, easy now. Are you hurt?' He examined the shoulder she'd landed on, pressing in his gnarled old fingers. Siel was too baffled to answer, trying to work out what on the flat space of floor she could possibly have tripped on. ‘This old house doesn't much care for you, lass,' said Loup gently. ‘Might've been breaking the window, might be it don't like happenstance. Better keep your voice low till it learns to trust you. Aye I know, you've journeyed long, me with you. It's a hard life you've had, but it's made you tough as a stoneflesh. Rest up here awhile, lass, easy now.' Siel wiped a tear from her face and manoeuvred herself away (unsuccessfully) from Loup's hug. ‘Come here, Eric lad, join in. Show her all the world ain't mean as a war mage!'

Eric crouched with them and made the hug a three-way business. Siel's body shook with tears she tried to keep back. ‘Easy, lass, let it out now,' said Loup, winking at Eric.

There came the unmistakeable noise of the Glock firing outside.

Eric ran to the window. Gorb was at the water's edge. A thin bald man tucked up under his arm kicked and struggled. Gorb examined with some confusion the small black gun, minuscule in his hand. He'd clearly fired it by accident and now peered down its barrel.

‘No!' Eric yelled through the broken window. ‘Point it
away
from yourself! And
don't waste the bullets
for God's sake!'

‘What's all that noise it makes?' enquired Gorb, still peering into its barrel.

‘You're back!' cried Loup, shouldering Eric aside at the window. ‘You come on up here, just in time for lunch. Bring up that Otherworld trinket, and we'll have a good old yarn, we will.' Loup beamed a gummy smile down at the half-giant with such warmth it was as if he greeted an old friend. Gorb scratched his confused head and stepped into the lapping waves.

As Gorb made his slow way up the tree, its brittle wood groaning in pain, Eric went to an oblong structure the size of a large dining table, split with a gap across its middle. Only after he'd stared at it for a little while did it become plain this was a model map of Levaal, for scale-built cities and terrain emerged on what had been a blank, flat space. The line dividing the two halves was obviously depicting World's End, where the Wall had stood. At the near tip of the oblong was a large white dragon statue: the castle. The map's southern half remained entirely blank space.

But as he watched, it became more than a map; the scale changed, and he could pan his gaze closer to a region, bringing it out in finer detail. Threads of cloud hovered inches high above the table, mostly white as cotton with the odd dark one pouring down rain and little flickers of lightning. Elvury sat high in a nest of mountains, with thin smoke trails curling in the air.

He panned his gaze back, swept it south. Near the Wall, insect-sized things moved back and forth: the great stoneflesh giants, still patrolling along the boundary. In the north, a large swarm of tiny shapes moved down the Great Dividing Road like a column of ants on the march.

‘The cities are all in the middle,' Eric said. ‘Why haven't any been built out here?' He pointed to the wide fringes, the land near the inland seas, or beyond walls of mountains.

‘That country can't be settled in,' said Siel. ‘Terrain's impassable. Mountains, or marsh you'd sink into. Where it's flat or dry, the soil's too bad to grow food in, and there's no game to hunt. There are elementals and Lesser Spirits and other bad things. Snowstorms, bitter cold.'

‘No one lives there at all?'

She shrugged. ‘The most far-flung settled places are the villages by the Godstears. There may be small groups of dark-skins in the harsher places. Outlaws sometimes flee there. But none return.'

‘It's deliberate,' Eric mused. ‘You've been fenced in. Except now someone's kicked down the back wall…'

‘As It wills,' Siel murmured.

That mentality again, Eric thought. Something ‘just is'; there's little curiosity in these people to look closer, to ask why and how. Is it because they can see their gods? Or since there's magic, there's been less need to break the world down to its nuts and bolts?

Gorb had evidently given up trying to climb the grey dead tree by the window, not trusting it to hold his weight. He'd gone through the arch to the whirlpool's steps, and now his footsteps thudded slowly up the winding staircase. ‘Strange, down there,' he said, nodding to where the water swirled and burbled. ‘Sounds, down below. Almost like voices, mixed with wind.'

And Loup hadn't wanted me to go down there, Eric thought. He made us climb that fucking tree and risk our necks. I'd understand what the voices said – is that why?

‘Who are you?' said Loup.

‘I'm the one you yelled and threw things at,' said Gorb. ‘Then you invited me up here for lunch. Now you don't know me. You're mighty confused, even for a mage.'

‘Not you, him!' Loup pointed at the squirming bald man tucked under Gorb's arm.

‘Oh. This's Bald. He got lost and almost starved. So I fed him and looked after him and he hung around and made things for us. But you have to keep an eye on him. He gets edgy when he's got nothing to make or take apart. And you should probably know that there'll be trouble here soon, because of Bald.' Gorb set the emaciated, crazed-looking man down. Bald lunged for the gun still in Gorb's hand.

‘Here, I'll take the bullets out,' Eric said, ‘before you kill someone with that.'

‘It won't kill anyone,' Gorb assured him, ‘just makes a noise that hurts your ears. Bald, what did you do to that soldier anyway?'

‘I have established the thing's
purpose,
' Bald rasped in a voice so terrible it would have suited any comic-book arch-villain Eric had encountered.

‘Easy now,' said Loup nervously.

When Gorb handed over the Glock, Bald made a pained sound, then sat himself away from everyone else, face downcast, not moving a muscle.

‘What's this about trouble?' Loup asked the half-giant.

Gorb had got almost through his ponderous explanation of events at the village when there was a
thock!
sound outside, then another. An arrow sailed through the broken window and skidded to a halt near the stairwell.

At the water's edge were ten men in chain-mail, two with longbows in hand. They ceased their fire.

‘Stay down all of you, pretend you're not here,' said Loup irritably. He went to the window and called down, ‘Save your arrows, idiots! Strange times these, you'll soon have better things than my house to shoot at.'

‘Your house?' called up the group's leader. ‘The locals say your house wasn't here, last week. Nor were you.'

‘What of it?' said Loup. ‘This land's not claimed by – Tanton, are you from? Not by your city or any other. Piss off. Where I live's my business.'

‘Where is the half-giant and his murdering friend?'

‘Ehh?!'

‘Where is the Pilgrim? Send those ones down and we'll leave you be.'

Loup cackled hysterically, thumping down on the window sill. ‘Do you think the lot of you together's enough to overpower a half-giant, if there was one here? Lucky there ain't one! Never seen one angry, have ye? I have, oh aye! More'n once.'

The group's leader laughed grimly. ‘There are means to deal with such creatures, and we have them. It is his “friend” we want, an Engineer of our city. Send them down with the Pilgrim and it may all end peacefully.'

‘No such thing as Pilgrims. Old myths. Go away or I'll set you on fire.'

‘Don't threaten us, fraud,' said the leader while the other men laughed. ‘We are told you have the Pilgrims here.'

‘Oh there're
two
of them now, aye? Who's the fraud? Leave me be. You interrupted my nap.'

The men strode cautiously into the lapping waves, while their leader waited at the water's edge. ‘Fan out,' he called to them. ‘Have a shot trained on the other windows.'

‘Don't come nearer!' said Loup.

The soldiers were soon halfway across the water. ‘So, old man! What magic have you? Where is your fire?'

Loup stuffed a knuckle in his mouth. He looked to the others for help, when the air was filled with a hissing noise. A horrible scream sounded below. Then it was a chorus of screams. White steam gushed up from the waters, suddenly churning and bubbling like a cook-pot.

A touch late, Loup began a theatrical waving of his arms. The men, shrieking and dropping their weapons, raced back to the shore, where one ran in blind circles, howling with pain. The rest quickly stripped off their leggings and fled, backsides pink and scorched. Their captain gaped up at Loup then backed away. The water calmed and serene waves again curled languidly across it.