Shadow (43 page)

Stillness fell again like an oppressive weight. Their ears rang.

Aziel covered her eyes with her hands and wept. ‘Up, Case,' said Loup urgently, gazing about the countryside. He perched her on the drake's back and he and Eric scrambled on before Case took to the sky, through gusts of powerful wind flying laterally about the castle's face. They were close enough now that windows could be made out on its side like staring lifeless eyes.

‘That wasn't my father,' said Aziel.

‘It's not your fault,' said Eric gently. ‘Your father is ill. He was ill long before you were born. We're going to cure him. I'm not from a “rebel city”, I'm from Otherworld. You can help me, Aziel. Where should we go to find him?'

‘My bedroom. I'll know the way from there.' After a minute she added, ‘And when you say cure him, I know what you really mean.'

‘And that upsets you, even after what we just saw. Do you think there's anything else to be done for him?'

‘Maybe not,' she said, voice thick with tears. ‘But you leave Arch alone.'

‘We can't hurt him, neither of us. We can't hurt your father either. I don't know what we can do. This is a leap of faith.' He laughed. ‘And it's a big leap. I've read of quests before. People usually have something specific to do, however hard it is. Or they have some weapon to use. We're not even that lucky. I'm going to go and confront a god or a wizard or both, and I'm armed no better than a policeman.'

The gun's weight in its shoulder holster felt reassuring, nonetheless. When clouds permitted sight of the ground beneath, it was strewn with the dead. Loup told him for at least the hundredth time – and for the last time – that it was not too late to go back, but Eric barely heard the words. He willed himself not to see the wildly behaving airs and their storm of colour, but could tell from Loup's gasps and murmurs how intense the sight became as they plunged into the star-arms' outer orbit. The air seemed to fizz with energy, making their hairs stand on end. A part of the swirling mass – Vous's consciousness, or at least a part of it – had noted them, and watched them come.

They were among it now. Eric willed himself to see the magic again and found they were immersed in sickly colour. Each breath drew it into his lungs, spirals and threads of gleaming mist, the power of it making him dizzy. More than that, he felt Vous's direct gaze from somewhere nearby, which barely comprehended anything it fell on, but now had fallen on
him.
Sadness poured through the air, infinite sadness. Eric went dizzy, saw oceans of tears turned to blood in a heaving tide, saw a hundred years of forlorn dreams, a barren forest of dead grey husks where all life had departed, the sound of weeping, weeping, weeping …

He fell from Case's back, but it seemed more as though he'd been pulled by strong hands. The air held him as cold water would have. But he was caught in a rip, with no volition of his own. It twisted him around so that before his eyes one moment was the dome sky-roof gleaming white; the next, the ground far below strewn with dead; then the castle big as a planet or a god or he knew not what. He felt sick, dizzy, felt himself a question being pondered by a mind of utter insanity.
I am no threat to you,
he suddenly, belatedly wanted it to know.
Look how you toss me about on the winds! I am an insect. I am nothing. I am about to die alone.
As It wills.

But he was not alone. Aziel was in the air beside him, her face alight with absolute terror, the scream on her lips lost in the turbulence of the wind.

Something carried them both forward until the castle windows were right before them. War mages shrieked nearby like birds of death. He grabbed for Aziel's hand and felt her grip on his, tight with panic. The castle itself seemed to draw them in, just as it had tried to do in his crushed scale vision at Faul's house, when the eyes of mighty Vyin had gleamed through the opening of his prison like two trapped stars.

Do they watch me now? Eric wondered, and somehow he knew they did.

A DISCOVERY

1

Blain's walking stick thumped the base of a tree, a rare expression of rage usually evident only in a deep scarlet pulse through his gown, and simmering in his face of course. With disgust he tossed the charms and wards salvaged from Thaun's body so they fell at Kiown's feet: a ring which made him tolerant of flame and extreme cold; an earring ward – quite powerful – to disrupt hostile spells; and two others whose function Kiown didn't yet know, so he didn't dare wear them to find out. Now was clearly not the time to ask Blain about them either.

Kiown watched the Strategist, wondering for how long loyalty to him was required. The abuse was getting tiresome, and the sulking did not bespeak of a steady hand on the reins. ‘Bitten in half!' Blain raged. ‘I should have protected him: such assets aren't fodder. Should have used
you,
rat-gnawed bastard.'

Blain's staff lashed toward Kiown's shin. He jumped nimbly so it struck the tree behind him then stepped beyond the range of Blain's swing. Assault by staff was tolerable, could even indicate a certain warped affection, but if Blain started using magic it was time to run, or sneak a blade between his ribs. ‘I feel I've earned my status, Strategist,' said Kiown.

‘Some say that of you, but I've not seen you do much useful yet.'

Kiown reflected he was probably lucky Blain hadn't seen him hacking at the tower's tender parts as he fled during the war mage attack. He said, ‘You didn't see me slay Anfen.'

Blain ignored it. ‘Ugh! Envidis off south minding an idiot. Evelle a dragon's whore. It wasn't supposed to
keep
her! Thaun bitten in two, and now I'm stuck with the green one, the sapling.'

‘Do you have a plan, Strategist, or am I witnessing it?'

‘Don't be clever with me, you shit,' said Blain, but now he sounded more tired than anything. He slumped with his back to a tree, staring forlornly at the tower, where the wizard's tall silhouette could still be made out at the window behind golden light, facing their direction. The whole building looked to be an extension of him, or rather he looked to be one of the living place's inner organs. ‘Yes, you sense me still,' muttered Blain. ‘Go ahead, pass a sleepless night wondering what I'm up to out here. Ugh! And that's my best revenge. How low I've fallen.'

‘Who is he, anyway?'

Blain answered irritably, ‘Domudess is his name. I remember him. Not a master when I saw him last, hardly a face worth remembering, back then. Errand runner! So long ago. Don't know how much power he really has now, but there's cunning there at least. Useful cunning.' Blain sighed.

‘Your plan, Strategist?'

‘No plan! We're fucked. Alone with our wits. We came to make allegiances. Rejected by everyone. Oh, it's understandable. I'd have betrayed them, but only after much mutual advantage. That's what they wouldn't grasp. They really believe in their own purity. Idiots. Play the game! Think I want to rule over a corpse of a world? They would, because of principle! Idiots.'

A rare glimpse into his inner heart, Kiown thought with wry amusement. He climbed up a tree trunk and took a seat on its sturdy branch, which creaked under his weight. Blain looked around wildly, mistaking the sound for a Tormentor.

The Strategist stood and leaned heavily on his walking stick. He said, ‘A long way back to the castle. You want a plan? Let's go there and hope by some miracle the fool's been killed, that our Friend and Lord – whether the Change has happened or not – sees us for the long-suffering loyalists we are. May he pet and feed us, his poor starving dogs. You like the odds, whelp?'

‘If the Change has occurred, our Friend and Lord will not be there. Or so I understand, Strategist.'

Blain waved the line of conversation away. ‘Let me think!' He muttered, ‘The others won't trust me; Avridis gone, they'll rush to fill the vacuum like I mean to. So far from it all, here in the south! I've made poor moves. Curse it. The mayor, Tauk. Worth a try with him? Promises and knowledge are all I have to offer him. He's about the only card left, short of going over World's End to chance what we find. Someone else has probably grabbed Tauvene's leash by now…'

Kiown went higher for a vantage point of the surrounding country. He leaped to a neighbouring tree, up on a branch that bent alarmingly with his weight. He dropped his sword to the ground, steadied himself, gazed around. The charm in his ear made his night vision exceptional – how he'd missed it when undercover, not daring to use any charms under the distrusting gaze of Loup.

Just a way over was the clearing where the dragon had brought Evelle. Perhaps the beast had been aware of him even as it did whatever it did to her. She was a warrior, to subject herself to that so fearlessly, he had to admit …

Rustling noises a few trees over. An Invia's bright white wings curled about its body, which was obscured by the tree limbs between he and it, so that the wings were all he saw. He hung out at an angle to get a better look.

Indeed it was an Invia. So far south? Very peculiar …

He half slid, half dropped to the ground again. Blain's robe flashed scarlet with anger at having his meditation disturbed. ‘Magpie,' Kiown whispered.

Blain looked shocked. ‘Where?'

Kiown stalked the short distance through the woods to where he'd seen it. Why was the creature here
?
Was it following the Minor dragon about? In any event, he had a thing to prove to Blain about being a ‘sapling'. He'd never hunted a magpie before, aside from scraps when undercover, when the creatures had gone for Anfen. They were not easy game by any measure. But they sometimes – just rarely – bore treasures that made the risk worthwhile.

He unwrapped from his boot a vial of spell-effected poison strong enough to knock out a half-giant, carefully poured its flickering deep red liquid into the hollow tip of a throwing knife, then crept with utter silence to the tree base while Blain hobbled behind him.

A ghostly whistle sounded in the tree above with a rustle of leaves and creak of branches as the Invia noticed the ‘walkers' beneath. It was possible, he knew, that it could glean his intentions from his aura, so he had to be swift. Adrenaline poured through him. Killing it and bearing a Mark of course was not the objective … stealing from one was not strictly wise either. But the poison had a charge in it made to blank a half-giant's mind. With luck it would work on an Invia too.

‘Not like that,' Blain snapped at him when he saw the knife. ‘Don't poison it, idiot! Stand back, I have an enchantment known to—'

But Kiown was pulled taut as a bow string and barely heard him. Up through a web of branches the Invia peered down at him with eyes of brilliant green. It all depended on this throw, but Hunters did not miss. He hurled the knife. With a shriek of surprise and pain the Invia thrashed for a second then dropped heavily through the lower branches to the ground. The knife had struck flush into the underside of its thigh.

‘You had better hope it didn't break its neck!' Blain hissed, enraged. ‘Getting stalked by these things is the last thing we—'

His words fell short, for he saw what Kiown had just seen. A glimmer of dark metal, a flicker of light gleaming across it. Kiown and Blain exchanged a quick glance, then Kiown reached for it, his hands clasping on something cold, which clasped him
back.

His vision blacked out – he staggered backward. A surge of hot power flushed through his body. His delighted laughter filled the woods as knowledge poured into him. Blain cringed away.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I'd like to thank Rebecca Taubert of Sunshine Design (
sunshinedc.com.au
), Katrina Lewry, Tim Jones, Jo Mackay (keep those phonecalls coming, please), Tom Flood, John Berlyne, Ken, Kirsty Brooks, Melissa S, and everyone at HarperCollins but especially Steph, Monica, Jordan and Kate. Also my gratitude goes to George Grie, whose wonderful artwork inspired some of this book (in particular ‘Habitat for Humanity', on which I based the wizard's tower).

TOR BOOKS BY WILL ELLIOTT

T
HE
P
ILGRIMS

S
HADOW

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

W
ILL
E
LLIOT
's debut novel,
The Pilo Family Circus,
co-won the Aurealis Award for best horror and won the Golden Aurealis for best novel and the Australian Shadows Award.
Shadow
is the second title in Elliott's visionary fantasy, The Pendulum Trilogy. Elliot was born in Brisbane, Australia.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

SHADOW

Copyright © 2011 by Will Elliott