Shadowgod (38 page)

“I understand and agree,” Byrnak said, his thoughts dwelling on Keren and the mirrorchild, Nerek. With his senses he stretched out to perceive the fullness of the Wellsource then focussed on certain currents within it. Satisfied, he withdrew and returned his attention to the sorcerer, Crevalcor.

“Continue on your course,” he said. “I shall speak to you later and hear your assessment of the circumstances.”

As you will it, great lord, so shall it be
.

As Crevalcor's presence faded he turned back to Kodel and the seated Thraelor.

“Brothers,” he said with a broad smile. “There are many pressing matters at Keshada which demand my immediate and personal involvement, thus I shall take my leave.” With a thought and an easy gesture, he opened in the air beside him a slender, misty-edged door of swimming darkness. “This visit, though brief, has left me reassured and confident, brother Thraelor.”

“I concur,” said Kodel. “I see no need to further impose on your hospitality and valuable time. I shall likewise return to my work at Rauthaz, and see what has detained our brother, Grazaan.” Quickly, he moved to join Byrnak.

“Ah, Grazaan, Grazaan,” Thraelor said, shaking his head. “I'm worried about him, you know…”

Through the black door Byrnak then Kodel stepped, emerging on the shadow-patterned floor of the throne room in Keshada.

“He is mad, of course,” Kodel said.

“Undoubtedly,” Byrnak said. “Uncomfortably so.”

Laughing, Kodel opened a portal door to Rauthaz. “Till later, brother,” he said and passed out of sight. The door shrank to a black line then vanished. Byrnak watched his departure then sent forth a thought to summon one that he knew was in the citadel. A short while later, the audience room's tall doors parted and Azurech strode in.

“Great lord,” he said, kneeling before Byrnak.

“Developments, Azurech,” Byrnak said. “What have you to say?”

His general looked up with his own face, devotion in every line. “The armies are ready, great lord, and the tinemasters assure me that the eaterbeast swarm is rapacious and blood-hungry. Also, the Mogaun host has completed its encampment north of the Girdle hills, and awaits your orders.”

“The nighthunters?”

Azurech frowned. “The Acolytes seem scarcely capable of delivering any kind of direct answer. All I am certain of is that we will have very few available to us come the assault. However, the great warwagon has finished its trials without any difficulties.”

Byrnak nodded, knowing that the problem of the Acolytes would have to be faced very soon. “And Nerek – you encountered her? Is she joined with the Wellsource once more?”

“I saw the fire of it in her eyes, my lord,” Azurech said. “I could feel the heat of it rushing through her, and almost hear her body exulting in its glory.”

“Yet still she remains opposed to us?”

“Sadly this is so, lord. She has returned to Besh-Darok.”

“As I thought she would. And now that she's back in the city, the stage is set for the next misfortune.” He glanced out of the tall, arched window, past the shielding barrier at the snow-smothered, abandoned lands. It was past mid-afternoon but under that pale grey light it could be any time from morning to early evening. “Did the attack of the warblood sacrifices have the desired effect?”

“Dread and hysteria reigned, my lord,” Azurech said with a smile. “Some of Yasgur's warriors were even attacked by a drunken mob.”

“Good. Nerek's presence in Besh-Darok will now loom large to those of power in the city, thus no-one will notice if we send a Source-bound messenger bird to Kodel's spy.” Byrnak grinned widely. “It is time for the boy-emperor Tauric to face his destiny in Khatris. When word of his disappearance becomes known among the city's rabble, panic will spread like wildfire. Go and prepare my officers for the soul-binding.”

“As you command, great lord.”

* * *

It was a hard task, this secret departure, and it was hard to keep himself convinced that he was doing the right thing. Tauric knew that Bardow would be both furious and beside himself with worry when he discovered what had happened, yet hoped that the letter he had left in his chambers might put minds at rest. He knew that this task, this quest was vital to all their survival and if they could make their way to the temple at Nimas undetected he would at last call on the spirit of the Skyhorse.

He was sitting crosswise in the back of their small supply cart as it jolted and rattled through the streets of the old town. The cold, grey gloom of dusk was drawing down across Besh-Darok. On his head was a wide-brimmed drover's hat and he wore a long, grubby smock over his breastplate and mailed leather, along with thick woollen gloves and disguising rags wrapped around his boots. But the deepening chill still bit at the tips of toes, and at his nose and fingers.

His standard-bearer, Aygil, and three others rode along with the cart, two behind, two ahead, and all cloaked and muffled against the cold and recognition. Four were all of his Companions that the priestly Armourer would allow, so Tauric had made sure that they were well-armed.

The Armourer was driving the cart with its one mule, his hooded, hunched figure swaying as they progressed across the uneven, cobbled street. It had been late afternoon, perhaps three hours hence, when one of the Companions had sought him out with an urgent message from the Armourer. Tauric had been in the palace library, making notes on old Skyhorse rituals, so he had stuffed the scrawled-on parchments inside his doublet and made for the Keep of Night. As he rode in the back of the cart, the Armourer's words came back to him.

“Majesty – the time of destiny is upon us. We must depart for Nimas as soon as possible.”

In the priest's small chamber, in the gloomy glow of the solitary candle, Tauric had felt trepidation clutch at him as the blood began to beat in his skull. “Why now? What has happened…”

“I had a vision, majesty. In the midst of my meditation, my senses were seized in a whirl of motion, as if wings were carrying me up into the sky, and when all came to rest I was standing on the highest pinnacle of a towering, star-gathering mountain. From there I could gaze across the entirety of Toluveraz from shore to shore and beyond while birds wheeled far below me and the very clouds brushed against my brow. Then through the terrible grandeur of the upper air a great pale horse as tall as the palace came galloping up to rear over me before regarding me with eyes full of time's reflection.

“'He must come to Nimas,'
it said in a thundering voice.
'To the temple there before sunset tomorrow.'
And an instant later the vision fled like leaves in the grip of a gale, and left me here in my dim room…”

He must come to Nimas...The words still echoed in his mind as he sat in the back of the cart making its way through the darkening streets of Darok Oldtown. Their route led past the tall house on whose roof Tauric and the Armourer and others had taken refuge during the early stages of the struggle for the city. He glanced up quickly, then away as the cart turned a corner into dark, puddled side streets. The Armourer kept to the back alleys as much as possible as they wound their way through the Old Town to the fishers' quarter. A variety of ketches and small netting boats ranged forth from two coves in the cliff-ringed northern curve of Andaru Bay. The southernmost one was where they were headed, and the smells of the curing shops and rendering yards grew strong in the air.

The fishers' quarter was a cramped district of small, close-built houses and narrow, badly cobbled streets, but there were many lamps aglow above doorways and many folk out and about. Tauric knew from an earlier study of city maps, that the only direct route from the fishing community to the cove with its two piers was a sloping track hewn into the cliff face. So when the cart passed under a heavy gate lintel and turned sharply downward he realised where they were and looked round over his shoulder to see the abyssal darkness of the bay, the black, battlement-surmounted mass of the promontory and the utter, night-drowned expanse of the sea beyond. Then, as the cart rumbled down the track, he heard the Armourer whisper to him:

“Our ship awaits us down at the pier, majesty, but so does a lading official and a pair of harbour guards. I may have to employ a certain amount of mummery so I apologise now in case it appears that I am being disrespectful or insulting to you.”

“I understand, ser,” he whispered back.

In the event, there was no need for playacting. The lading officer was a sallow-faced, shivering man keen to get the inspection and approval over so that he and his men could return to their warm cabin up on the cliff edge. The Armourer presented himself as a chandler from north Cabringa, then passed off the four Companions as youths travelling to Sejeend to begin apprenticeships, the horses as bound for a Roharkan breeding stable, the Companions' bundled equipment as antiques and curios procured for wealthy clients, and Tauric as his servant boy. The lading officer gave it all a cursory glance, then shrugged and signed the Armourer's concocted manifest. The Companions were down in the hold, seeing to their mounts with a couple of the crew while Tauric watched the Armourer shake hands with the lading officer then limp with his stick up the gantry.

Once on deck, he drew Tauric off to one side as the gantry was hauled in. “T'would be wise to maintain our roles whilst on board, majesty, just until we put ashore further north.”

“I agree, ser. Perhaps I could wait on deck, just for a short while to see us leave.”

“As you wish, your majesty,” the Skyhorse priest said, amusement in his voice. “I mean to speak with the captain, so I shall attend you after.”

Tauric nodded, but his excited attention was on the sailors as they tugged on lines and exchanged shouts, making ready to depart. The vessel was a small, two-masted cargo lugger with high prow and stern, and this would be Tauric's first real sea voyage. Under his feet he could feel the slow sway of the vessel as it rode in the swell, hear the quiet lap of the waves and smell the salt of the wine-dark waters. Then, more calls from the crew as they cast off. The deck lamps swung, booms creaked and the sails made a great ruffling sound as they caught the breeze and bore the ship away from the pier.

The young emperor breathed in deeply and sighed, staring across at the southern part of the bay, the Long Quays and the great bulk of Five Kings Dock. Then the cliffs slipped aside and the palace and the tall spindle of the High Spire came into view, and a spasm of guilt and qualm went through him. Was it too late to turn back? He imagined himself trying to tell the captain who he was and demanding that he go about and make for the pier…

Then through his panicky imaginings he noticed something happening ashore, at the mouth of the Olodar near the Earthmother temple at Wybank. Knots of people with torches were coming along the waters edge from upriver towards the area where the rocky shore rose from the pebbly strand to become grey cliffs. He crossed to the starboard side, gripped the wooden rail and stared out, wondering if the torchbearers were hunting for him. Then the Armourer's voice came from the shadows to his right.

“Worry not, your majesty. It is not you that they are pursuing, rather some cutpurse or the like.” He was silent for a moment. “Tell me, sire, are there uncertainties in your mind?”
Tauric laughed nervously. “A host of them, good priest. A jostling army of them!”

“And all begging you to give up this mad venture and return to the palace, yes?” The Armourer nodded within his capacious cowl. “Such are only the fears of past lives having their say, impossible to silence yet possible to ignore.”

“Yes, ser priest,” Tauric said, gathering his resolve. “You are right. The Skyhorse temple at Nimas awaits – I shall not doubt or falter.”
The Armourer clapped him on the shoulder.

“My lord, you have grown this day and the first steps on the path of fate. Now let us go below and see what we can find in the way of a hot meal – when we disembark in a few hours, we shall be lighting no fires to draw attention to ourselves…”

Nodding, he followed the priest down the open companionway but his rising spirits were blunted by the cold chill of his metal arm which fed the ache in his shoulder.

* * *

Bardow sat stony-faced at the great table in the steward's hall and watched the twenty-two White Companions file out of the doors under armed guard. Some fingered their horse pendants and all looked disconsolate, having confessed all they knew in admirable detail when confronted with the ire and steely gaze of an angry Archmage. As the last of them left, Bardow leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table and study the notes he had made on a long strip of parchment. Then he glanced at Yasgur who had observed the proceedings from a window seat at the side of the chamber, and was now frowning silently to himself.

“At least now we know it all,” Bardow said.

“Pity we did not know five hours ago when they were still in the city,” Yasgur said gruffly.

Which Bardow took to mean –
Why didn't we know before all this that a servant of the Shadowking Kodel was ensconced in the palace itself
?

He wished he had an answer. The Armourer was clearly a sorcerer of some ability to have devised Tauric's metal arm back before the uprising, and that was emphasised by the way in which he had remained undetected in Besh-Darok all this time. The question was whether he was solely a Wellsource adept or if he was able to employ the Lesser Power as well. Bardow had wondered about the timing of the secret departure, coming so soon after Nerek had returned with her powers restored. One thing he learned from the Night Keep guards was that some had seen a small bird flitting through the corridors in the early afternoon. Likewise, when one of the court servants entered Tauric's bedchamber later, he saw a similar bird, a slip of paper in his beak, spring up from a taboret and dash out the open window in a blur of wings.

Bardow smiled bleakly, certain that the bird had been sent by the Armourer's masters in Gorla and Keshada, signalling him to spirit the boy out. In his turn, the Armourer had used the creature to steal a note left by Tauric in his chambers….well, that was conjecture but he felt sure that Tauric would have left a letter, an explanation of some kind. Yes, a Wellsource-bound creature that small would have gone unnoticed in the confusion wrought by Nerek's own powers, which would draw the attention of the Crystal Eye as well.