Shadowgod (52 page)

I was dead
, she said in her thoughts,
but now I am alive.

Conundrums proliferate in times such as these
, the creature said wryly.

Smiling in the darkness she regarded the hazy outline.
Conundrums like yourself?
she said.
You remind me greatly of the hound-like beasts I saw in the desolation which the Realm of the Fathertree has become. Which power do you serve, I wonder?

I serve no power,
the creature said.
I am but a shadow of what once was, a memory of a memory, the faintest echo of a departed glory. No, I serve no power and have only the meagrest vestiges of a vanished night left to me.

Suviel was stunned by realisation.
High Father
, she said
. Forgive my disrespectful -

No, no, no,
said the spirit of the Fathertree.
No formality or stiffness – we have no time for such indulgence. Our angry Shadowking is just emerging in the main hall of the Basilica, having slain six Acolytes on the way, just out of displeasure, you understand. The whole place is in uproar and almost all the guards and Acolytes have left the underlevels, so now would be a good time to release those two friends of yours and find a way out. Agreed?

Yes, but… how can we possibly stand against the hunger and wrath of gods?

By striking at where they are strongest,
the spirit said.
The citadels Gorla and Keshada may exist in our world, squatting upon the Girdle Hills, but they also continue to exist in the Realm of Dusk. Through one of them we may reach the very heart of the Lord of Twilight’s power but we will need to muster whatever strength remains of the defenders of Besh-Darok, which will include the Crystal Eye and the Motherseed –

And attack those citadels?
Suviel was aghast.

One of them, Keshada. It’s only as strong and invulnerable as those who command it. After Byrnak’s fall, his army’s loyalty split between those who serve his general, Azurech who now rules Gorla, and those that follow the gang of rivenshades, who hold sway over Keshada. You can see how one of these two
– The Fathertree spirit nodded at the captives who had lapsed back into silence, -
would prove useful in that place.

You would have me lead him back into peril,
she said.
After all that he’s been through….

All of the world is in peril Suviel. Uncountable lives, good, bad and indifferent, are balanced on a knife edge and those who can fight, must. There is much more to tell you but time grows short –attend to your friends and we shall speak again later.

And before her magesight the strange, hound-like form faded away, glimmering outlines of its head and suggestions of eyes and a mouth melting into the leaden gloom. With a mixture of sadness and anticipation, she turned and walked back to the pillars and their seated prisoners. The taller of the two raised his head at her approach.

“Ah.. our visitor returns.”

“Have they brought anything to drink?” said the other. “A good wine would be most welcome..”

“Hush,” she whispered. “There are enemies about.”

“A visitor who speaks,” murmured the first. “And a woman, to boot.”

“Hmm, you noticed that too, eh?”

Suviel shook her head, then broke off a scrap of thread from within her gown and used it to make a wordlight, a tiny speck of radiance which she floated in the air above her head. She then reached out to the taller man sitting before her, and tugged his blindfold up and off. Blinking and wincing at even that meagre glow, Ikarno Mazaret gazed up at her with a wary smile.

“Greetings, lady. Whoever you are, you have my deepest thanks.”

Emotions surged and clashed within her as their gazes met. There was a sense of loving triumph in being her beloved’s rescuer, and there was sorrow and heartbreak in realising that she was a stranger to him.

“My duty and pleasure, sir, “ she said, quickly freeing his hands then turning to the other captive. She surreptitiously wiped tears from her eyes before lifting the other’s blindfold and cutting his bonds. Flinching from the tiny hovering wordlight for a moment, Gilly Cordale peered up at her and smiled. His face was gaunt, there was a good deal more silver in his hair and beard than before, but despite losing most of his memory and essence to the rivenshades, something unquenchable in his character remained.

“A fair sight,” he said. “ I am in your debt, m’lady.” Then he looked round at Mazaret who was leaning on his pillar.

The two men regarded each other for a long moment.

“You’re somewhat shorter than I expected,” Mazaret said.

“Well, you’re certainly uglier than I imagined,” Gilly replied.

Both men laughed quietly as Suviel looked on in delight. Then Gilly faced her, as did Mazaret.

“Lady,” said Gilly. “I have no knowledge of my name or anything that has happened to me, beyond my awakening here a day ago. Such holds true for my friend here also-”

“Except that I have been held prisoner in this stone pit for several days that I know of.” Mazaret regarded her levelly. “Tell us honestly, lady – do you know of us, and do you know our names?”

“Yes, I do,” she said to them. “You are Ikarno Mazaret, and you are Gilly Cordale.” As both men began to speak at once, she held up her hands. “Please, sirs, we have no time for questions – we are deep inside a stronghold of deadly foes and if we are to escape we must act now while all is in commotion…”

A familiar presence brushed against her undersense, making her pause.

Act quickly if you can – Ystregul just left Trevada on the back of a nighthunter, heading east.

Then the spirit of the Fathertree was gone again, leaving her in the gloom with her charges.

“Weapons,” said Gilly. “We need weapons and disguises.”

Suviel shook her head as she coaxed the Mother’s Gift into life about her fingers and began assembling illusion cantos in her mind.

“No, disguises first then weapons.”

* * *

It was two days after her sorcerous talk with Bardow, Alael and Nerek (and three since her arrival in Untollan) that the commander of the ruined mountain stronghold paid Keren a visit.

She was lying on her decrepit, skin covered pallet in the strange pillared and windowless chamber that was her prison, reading from a children’s book of fanciful tales when approaching footsteps outside the door made her look up. She had already had her evening meal of thin stew and hard bread, so knew that this was out of the ordinary. Closing the book she got to her feet, blew out the floating oil lamp on the shelf near her bed which left one lamp burning in a niche opposite the door. Then she waited in the shadows as a key rattled in the lock and the door swung open.

“Domas! So I wasn’t dreaming that I’d heard your name.” Then relief turned to irritation. “But why have you kept me prisoner? You must have know who I was…”

“Yes, Keren, I have known it was you, since before my man brought you here, in fact. And I’m sorry for this captivity but I’ve had to agree to certain conditions to gain the help we’ve needed this past week…”

The former rider captain looked at once weary and on edge. He trudged past her, hunkered down to sit on her pallet and beckoned for her to join him. By the door, a pair of leather-clad guards waited impassively, each holding a torch and a spear.

“So…” She sat down beside him. “Who are these allies of yours? More to the point, can I be of use to you here? And have you had any news from Besh-Darok”

Domas gave a slight shake of his head. “They have asked me not to talk of them with you, but as for news…”

He paused, reluctance in his face, and Keren feared the worst.

“This morning white ravens brought messages from one of my eyes in eastern Khatris, saying that the Shadowking Byrnak had ridden forth with all his might and surrounded Besh-Darok. This afternoon another message came with news that a dread device had breached the city’s main wall, and that the Shadowking’s horde was pouring in…” He looked away. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s been no more messages?”

“None… yet.”

She felt stunned to numbness by this, almost too stunned to move.
Bardow, Alael and Nerek
, she thought
. I spoke to them just two days ago…

“Then, that’s it,” she murmured. “The Shadowkings have won…”

“Not according to the … to my allies,” Domas said. “They insist that the Crystal Eye and the Motherseed have not yet fallen into the hands of the enemy, which means that the Shadowkings are still vulnerable.”

Keren laughed bitterly. “To what? Talismans that only a mage could wield?…” Then she frowned. “But if they haven’t been seized by Byrnak, where are they? I’d wager that your allies know more than they’re telling you, Domas – ”

“That would not surprise me,” Domas said, getting to his feet.

“But who are they?”

Domas went over to the door where he paused and looked at her. “You’re about to meet them – they asked to meet you once we’d finished talking.”

“But we haven’t finished…” Keren said as he opened the door and gave a slight bow to someone outside.

“My lords…” he said and stepped back.

A tall man, in a long, dark red coat entered the chamber. He was young with high cheekbones and short golden hair, and Keren had never seen him before. After him came a similarly tall, similarly dressed man, except that his coat was darkest green, his face was narrow and his eyes were dark and powerful and cold…

She gasped, scrambled to her feet and retreated to the opposite corner of the room. When she had first encountered the second man, months before, in the refugee camp at Alvergost, he had called himself Raal Haidar. Only later, in that desolate otherworld Kekrahan, did he reveal his true form and name, Orgraaleshenoth, prince of the Daemonkind, first and mightiest of the Lord of Twilight’s servants.

“Damn you for a fool, Domas!” she cried. “What have you done?”

“Keren, you must listen to them,” Domas said. “This is not what you think…”

But all that was going through her mind were memories of the torments she had endured at Orgraaleshenoth’s hands as they climbed the deadly tunnels of the Ordeal below the High Basilica in Trevada. Fear racked her spirit, hate fired her blood, and her senses quailed at the thought of being in the Daemonkind’s power once more…

“Keren Asherol.”

It was Orgraaleshenoth’s companion who spoke, the handsome, younger man. Yet even as she regarded them in the wavering yellow glow of the torches, her fearful mind imagined the outlines of their true shapes, muscular bodies and limbs, rough pebbled hide, narrow reptilian heads, and great hooked wings. And through such spectral imagining came the merest whisper of betraying recollections that she had briefly coveted that mighty frame and had hoped to become a Daemonkind herself.

“Keren Asterol,” he said again. “My name is Rakrotherangisal and, like my oath-cousin, I am of the Israganthir whom you call Daemonkind. Unlike him, however, I am no bloodline prince, being no more than a mere vassal in our flokkar… or I was until heresy led me into this exile…”

At this, Orgraaleshenoth stepped forward and stared across the chamber at her with dark, penetrating eyes. Inwardly she quailed, outwardly she stood straight and made herself meet his gaze.
Show no weakness
, she thought.
Survive
.

“Do you remember,” he said, “during our journey up through the Oshang Dakhal, you asked if you would ever be rid of me?”

“You answered ‘never’,” she said.

A wintry smile passed over those sharp features. “I should have reversed the question for the answer would have been the same, except that I would have neither known nor understood it until well after my banishment by the mage Suviel.” The Daemonkind prince looked around her chamber for a silent moment. “When I bound your essence to me, to strengthen and protect you as we passed through the wards of the Ordeal, there was an irrevocable co-mingling of our essences. After returning empty handed to the Realm of Ruin, I began to see that nothing was as it had been before and I felt a restlessness utterly new to me.

“I began to argue with the flokkar wisdoms over our unyielding loyalty to the Lord of Twilight, pointing out how little reward we have earned for long ages of devotion. I was threatened with the Pinion and other punishments so I took myself away to the fringes of the realm where the thinning weft sometimes permits glimpses of this world, the Realm Between. There I met my cousin, Rakrotherangisal, and a strange spirit who claimed to be the last remnant of the Fathertree…”

As Keren listened in astonishment, the young Daemonkind spoke again. “The Fathertree spirit showed us many things but the most terrible was a vision of what will happen should the Lord of Twilight triumph…” A haunted look came over him. “All the Realms would be broken and the wreckage would sink into the Void, merge with it into a single, sunless domain. He would become the Lord of Life and Death, all who survived would be slaves to his desires, and there would be no other power capable of restraining him. We cannot allow this to happen.”

Keren looked from the Daemonkind to Domas who nodded gravely at her. But suspicion was a stubborn companion.

“How are we going to stop it? After all, Byrnak has broken Besh-Darok’s wall or so I’ve been told – ”

“That is so,” said Rakrotherangisal.

“And yet the Crystal Eye and the Motherseed are not in his possession? How? Why?...”

“The Shadowking Byrnak,” Orgraaleshenoth said, “is no more. He was struck by a weapon whose like has not been seen for millenia, a blade which did not harm his physical form but severed certain bonds within him. Byrnak is now naught but an ordinary, mortal man while the god fragment that he carried has seized the mirrorchild Nerek and ridden off in search of the other fragments. Leaderless and under attack, the Shadowking’s great army has retreated to Gorla and Keshada, for now two of the Three Gifts remain safe.” He gazed at her and it felt like an iron weight on her spirit, already burdened with the news about Nerek. “With the third Gift, we may be able to prevent the Lord of Twilight from coalescing… with all three it might be possible to banish him to his own realm.”