Shadowgod (51 page)

A street loomed at the end of the alley, tall, grey and swept by gust-driven snow. Another alley opening was visible at the other side of the street but a glimpse along it revealed a patrol of masked and armoured soldiers drawing near. Carefully he edged out onto the street and ran at a half-crouch across to a doorway, then made his way west. The next corner he knew led round to a terrace of merchant houses that faced the Square of Swords, but if it was deserted he could still find another back street down to the river.

Where I shall wish for a nice, safe shell…

But when he turned the corner, he found himself beholding a chilling sight. From the city wall north of the Shield Gate, great white horses were taking long, graceful leaps from roof to roof and approaching the square. Atroc stared in fear and fascination then scurried over to squat between two bushes and watch. It was as if his dream-vision of the wave of horses was coming true before his eyes. Then he noticed the small horns on the horses' head, and saw that only one of them had a rider…

Shouts and an agonised shriek came from the guardhouse of the massive Keep of Day which faced onto the Square of Swords. Then the main gate opened a few feet and a lone figure came running and stumbling out, one hand grasping a long dagger. It took him a moment to recognise the person as Nerek, but wandering and seemingly deranged. Most of the white horses had landed in streets north of the palace but the one with the rider had come down near the square and was cantering over to the distraught Nerek. The rider was Tauric, and Atroc felt such elation that he leaped up and began hurrying over to meet them both.

Then Nerek caught sight of Tauric on his steed, let out a cry and fell sprawling in the snow. Tauric was quick to reach Nerek, dismounted and crouched by her. What happened next took Atroc completely by surprise. In the space of a brief moment Nerek had jerked to life and was writhing on the ground, and in the next she had run Tauric through with her dagger. Tauric cried out as she got to her feet and pushed him to the ground. The great horse roared and lunged, breathing out a plume of white fog which left Nerek wrapped in grey, jagged ice.

But only for a moment. The ice burst apart and Nerek swung at the horse's neck, hacking through its throat. Steaming dark ichor gushed forth and the massive creature bellowed once before crashing to the ground.

Atroc had fallen to lie on his stomach from where he watched the terrible slaughter in fear and horror. Nerek then screamed 'No!', dropped the bloody dagger and sank to her knees, head wrapped in her arms. Then she threw back her head and in a strange, inhuman voice shrieked
'Yes!'

There was a dazzling, white flash of light and when Atroc's sight returned he saw Nerek on the other side of the square, staggering away towards the gap in the wall. But when Atroc finally reached the spot where Tauric and the white horse had been slain there were only fading wisps of water vapour and a large, misshapen scorch mark on the flat stones of the square.

In the haunted earth below,
Beyond underground battlements,
Behind the weltering darkness,
Lies an ancient, sleeping prize.

—Gundal,
The Siege of Stones
, Ch8, ii

In the glade of the monument, standing alone in the moist, green light, Suviel watched the fierce drama of the siege unfold in the oval, mist-edged window which the Earthmother had formed in the screen of foliage. With a cool equanimity she observed the assault on the walls and the desperate hand-to-hand struggle which sprawled across the ramparts, and when the war host of the Mogaun came charging south to scatter Byrnak’s troops across the snows, she only observed, nothing more.

But when Bynark’s war machine struck the wall and on the third impact broke it, she felt a distant ache. Events tumbled after one another in terrible succession - the ashen wraith of the Lord of Twilight tearing away from the insensible Byrnak to sweep down on Nerek, the abduction of Alael, the arrival of the witchhorses and Tauric’s death at Nerek’s hands. She almost gasped at that final sight, Taurik falling to the ground, blood from his chest and mouth darkening the snow, while the possessed Nerek then slew the witchhorse –

“Suviel.”

The goddess’s presence flooded the glade, and all her confusion suddenly drained away. In the window a dazzling burst of light blotted out the bloody spectacle, then faded to show a purposeful Nerek now outside the city, approaching a riderless horse and moments later galloping westwards…

With a small gesture of the Earth Mother’s pale hand, the window dissolved back into the lush green tangle of leaves, tendrils and tiny red and black flowers. She had adopted another form which had the perfect likeness of the monument’s carving of the seated woman – her skin, hands and eyes were like white marble made flesh, and the stone-milk of her gown hung and flowed like cloth.

“Suviel.”

Again, her name, and all that she had been stood forth in her mind, all her memories and experience waiting to be called upon like a legion of helpers and all rooted in an unquestioning faith and obedience to the Earth Mother.

“A fragment of the Lord of Twilight has finally been uncaged,” the goddess said. “All he will want to do is hunt down the other fragments of himself, thus you shall smooth the way for him.”

The blank, white eyes regarded her. “Release Ystregul from the chamber beneath the High Basilica in Trevada. I have taught you how to deal with the constraining spells, but know that once you have done so every denizen of those ancient halls shall be bent upon your destruction.”

“What will the next task be?” Suviel dared to ask.

A cold smile curved the polished lips. “If you succeed in this undertaking and survive the aftermath, find a safe place and wait – I shall come to you. Have you faith in me?”

“I have.”

“And are you obedient to my will?”

“I am.”

“Then accept my blessing and my gift and go….”

With the Goddess’s last word, a sudden blur of darkness and half-glimpsed shapes whirled around and past her, as if she were stationary amid a rushing abyss. Just as suddenly all sense of motion died away to leave her standing in the dank darkness of a high windowless chamber. Behind her in the corner a faint, pearly radiance was fading from a shiny vine tendril which climbed up the wall less than a yard from a gap in the cobbled floor. By such meagre means had the Earth Mother opened a door for her. Once that numinous power had faded, there was only the weak glimmer of torchlight filtering in through the small, barred window of a door set high on one wall, at the head of a flight of steep stone stairs.

But with her magesight Suviel had no difficulty in finding her way up the steps, and with her enhanced undersenses she could easily perceive the whereabouts of Ystregul’s prison. Wrapped in a multitude of spells it stood out like a flaring beacon surrounded by misty outlines of other corridors and rooms. The chamber she had appeared in was actually a dozen yards or more deeper in the rock of the Oshang Dakhal than the Shadowking’s prison, but she would have to climb to a higher floor in order to gain access to that part of the Basilica’s vaults.

The door at the top of the steps was unlocked and, cloaked in an eye-beguiling glamour, she stole along the corridors in search of a way up. These many underground passages and rooms had been burrowed into the rock over two hundred years ago by Zothelis, the Archmage of that time whose ambition it was to create an entire town within the Oshang Dakhal. Left unfinished after his death, the many rooms were employed by successive stewards of the High Basilica as storerooms and dormitories. The Acolytes of Twilight, however, had found a new use for them.

Suviel could almost feel the pain of the prisoners they held as she climbed stairwells and stalked along corridors. Pain in many shades, contrasting with the banal cruelty of the captors and torturers who had become mere instruments in the service of an inhuman power. She could almost feel their pain but only because those assembled elements of her old self were feeling it instead, and she caught flickers of anguish as she proceeded along a torch-lit passageway which led to a particular downward spiral stair.

The passages were not deserted and twice she had to make a detour to avoid senior Acolytes accompanied by parties of novitiates. For the rest her glamour was sufficient to fool the guards and turnkeys as they did their rounds, and soon she was descending to that level where the Shadowking was held. Several spiral turns of steps brought her to a small, dim antechamber full of a curious blue-green radiance which emanated from the strange, hooked emblems fixed on the walls above arched doorways. Without pause she stepped through the arch to the right then had to duck into an alcove to allow a guard pass in the narrow corridor.

Moments later she was standing before the door to Ystregul’s prison. It was riddled with alarm spells binding it to the massive doorframe but fortunately there were none linking the frame to the stone wall. She knew which thought-cantos to use and after a few careful, tense moments she reached out to push the heavy wood frame. Cradled in a web of Lesser Power, it swung noiselessly inwards. She stepped over the threshold and swiftly put an illusion of the undisturbed doorway in place behind her, then turned to regard the prisoner.

Great ancient glyphs of power burned bright emerald in the floor beneath him, while to Suviel’s eyes the Shadowking’s casket hung at the centre of innumerable interlinked skeins of sorcery. Standing in that chamber felt like waiting between huge jaws eager to grind any intruder to nothing. But the Earth Mother had told her how to unlock those faltering energies in such a way as to make their unleashing work for her. Recalling those instructions, she was able to employ the Earth Mother’s power in the creation of two spells, one to break the chains holding up the casket, the other to reflect the backlash energies against the spells binding the casket itself.

When they were ready, Suviel added one last refinement to the chain-breaker which would delay its unfurlment for a few seconds, long enough for her to find another chamber to hide in.

She stood back to survey her handiwork. The chain-breaker hung in the air above the casket, a small, opaque orb with misty tendrils stretching out towards the four heaving chains. The reflective spell clung to the high ceiling, a rough, pearly oval from which a pale web spread across the stone.

It was time. With a single thought she kindled the first spell into life and hurried from the chamber, intending to head back to the stairs. But a trio of Acolytes were standing along at the antechamber, deep in discussion, so she hastened down the corridor before her. She had gone perhaps a dozen paces when she felt the chain-breaker fulfill itself in a spasm of Lesser Power that jolted through her senses. As instant later there was a mighty crash, and the outfall of shattered spells sent vibrations through the stonework and a wave of disorientation through Suviel’s mind.

Shouts came from behind and in front as doors were thrown open. In panic she dived along an empty, unlit side passage and turned its corner only to find that it ended abruptly in a solid door. The lock was a complex mechanism that she was able to defeat in a matter of seconds. Once open, she slipped inside then shut and locked the door behind her. Within, the chamber was sunk in utter darkness but her magesight revealed bare outlines – debris piled in one corner, a few trestle tables littered with broken pottery, candle stubs, torn and mouldering parchment. And near the centre were four iron pillars, two of which each had a man bound to it and seated on a half barrel. Both were blindfolded and had leather strapping across their shoulders, waists, thighs and lower legs. Both seemed insensible until one raised his head and said weakly –

“Is… someone there?”

Suviel felt frozen by a nameless fear as her dislocated memory began to recall fragments of a confinement in blackness, suggestions that she had been in a place very like this before her death….

She turned to the door and her soft boot scraped on the floor.

“Who’s there?” said the man.

Clearer and stronger this time, the man’s voice set off a new surge of emotion, desperate hope warring with dread.

The other man stirred. “Wha…. What’re you sayin’…..”

“There’s someone in here with us,” said the first. “but they won’t say anything.”

“Really, now? Must be some twisted fiend come to gloat over the prisoners…”

Suviel moved towards the door then froze, realising that something was sitting in the way, a creature of some kind, its form as black as the room, its large, ungainly head coming up to her shoulders.

Suviel Hantika,
it said in harsh whispers that she heard only in her head.
Do you recognise those two men?

No. I… yes, a part of me does
, she replied in her thoughts.
Who are you? – what are you?

A friend who would see you well and whole again.

A feeling of terror gripped her mind and a longing for the Vale of Unburdening swept through her, prompting a prickling of tears in her eyes.

Wholeness… is of no interest to me,
she said.
I have no need of it.

How would you know what you want or need? the creature countered. It suits the Earth Mother for you to be this poor, disconnected thing that stands before me. Your ignorance and fear serves her purpose!

Purity is purity, she replied doggedly. Purity demands pure sight.

In that case I think there may be something wrong with your eyes,
it said sardonically.
Let me help you…

Before she could say or do anything, a hot charge sprang through her like a storm of coalescence. Emotion and memory and will embraced one another, joining empathy and intuition in a festival of the senses that lasted for a long, glorious instant. Tears came freely and silently in the darkness now as she understood what had been done to her and others by this struggle between gods. Now that she was whole, she was able to view the entirety of the cruel conflict and see how the Earth Mother’s meddling had piled deceit upon injustice in the pursuit of her vengeance. Through her machinations, one part of the Lord of Twilight was in possession of the mirrorchild Nerek and heading for the citadel Gorla, while the most dangerous of the five Shadowkings was now free by Suviel’s own hand.