Shadowgod (57 page)

"Is it the guardians?" she said. "But who are they fighting…"

Then she knew.

"The Theocracy," she said, suddenly filled with grief and despair. "How can we get out? - we're trapped…"

The Daemonkind took the Staff of the Void from her unresisting hands.

"There is one place we can escape to," he said. "But I am weak from combat, so I hope that this talisman will be of use to me…"

In his great taloned hands the Staff looked small and fragile, then a moment later soft glints of light seemed to swim through its marbled opacity. As Keren watched this transformation, she thought over what he had said and made a sudden, intuitive leap.

"You mean to flee back to the Daemonkind domain," she said. "The Realm of Ruin."

"That is so," Orgraaleshenoth said evenly. "I would advise you to accompany me, given the situation."

Shouts and bellowing came from the far end as the fighting finally spilled out of the Processional and into the hall, scores of red-cloaked, gold-masked warriors and several screeching nighthunters, all skirmishing with pale images of themselves.

"I would have to become Daemonkind," she said, mouth suddenly dry. "Wouldn't I?"

"To survive there, yes. It would not be permanent, however," he said. "You would be Daemon
like
, not Daemon
kind
."

One of the nighthunters had destroyed its attackers and, with several figures clinging to its back was now flying across the hall, heading straight for the dais. Keren stared at the glowing motes swirling in the Staff of the Void, then tightly clenched her fists.

"Do it," she said.

A rushing brightness bloomed from the Staff and engulfed them both, like great hands of light lifting them up, hands that she felt beginning to change her.

I have seen the Shadow raise cruel
legions from the earth. I have seen stars die
and standards burn in the withering night. And
I have seen a black dream give birth to a ruined world…

—Wujad’s Vision, stanza 19.

At a point nearly two thirds of the way along the Great Aisle, a man stood waiting. He was tall and well-built and wore a long black robe, open down the front over rich, dark green clothing. The robe was sleeveless, showing off his muscular arms while his black bearded features and calm, impassive eyes looked around him.

Here, the Great Aisle was a little narrower than it was further south. The high, wide-curving wall was the same, unchanging Wellsource-derived barrier, its shifting, grey-green-blueness casting a dull gleam, as if the restless depths of an ocean were surging beyond it rather than the earth and stone bones of the continent. It was cold in the tunnel, and getting colder as the man who had once been Nerek and Ystregul stood waiting.

Tiny glowing points emerged from the gloom far to the north along the Great Aisle, the light of lamps that drew steadily nearer. Before long, a column of cantering riders came into view, a dozen mounts wide and stretching away back into the shadowy distance. Lantern bearers flanked the column while a cluster of heavily-robed men rode before it, some carrying silky, fluttering bannerets. Those in the lead saw the lone man up ahead, standing in the middle of the Aisle, arms at his sides as he calmly watched them approach.

When it became apparent that the man had no intention of removing himself to the side, hands went up and the order to halt echoed all the way back along the Aisle. In a great din of thudding hooves, cries and rattling harnesses, the column came to a stop about a dozen paces short of the waiting man. One of the robed men came forth on a spirited horse, his narrow, elegant face contorted with fury.

“Out of the way, wretch! You are delaying the march of the great and mighty Shadowking Thraelor…”

The man who had once been Nerek and Ystregul, gazed past the robed rider to his companions and saw that they, too, had the same face. He smiled wryly at this, which enraged the robed rider still further.

“Do you seek to mock us?” he bellowed. “In my master’s name, I swear I’ll have your head…”

As he drew a sword from a saddle sheath, the other swung back at him with a hard, black look. In the next instant he was flying backwards off his horse, landing awkwardly on one shoulder. There was a commotion among his companions, all of whose free hands came alight with emerald flames of power. But before any retaliation could take place, their close grouping parted to allow another rider to come out. It was Thraelor, himself.

“Hah, just one man, eh?” he said in a hoarse voice. “If you’re another of those assassins, know that I dealt with one of you before leaving Casall and my brother, Grazaan, is torturing another this day…” Thraelor, gaunt and skull-faced, peered at the silent man. “Hmm, you don’t look like one of them – have you anything to say for yourself, before we ride on over your carcass?”

A look passed between them and Thraelor’s eyes widened.

“What kind of power are you?” he said sharply. “One of those dog-mages, I’ll wager, with some kind of relic in your pocket.” He turned to his robed followers. “Destroy this upstart for me!”

Green flame-wreathed hands came up, brightening, but when the lone man made a casual, sweeping gesture their powers went out like snuffed candles. Then life drained from their faces and they toppled out of their saddles to lie dead on the floor of the Great Aisle. Then the man made a wider, more violent sweep of his arm and a force like the gust of a hundred storms roared along the tunnel. Horses were thrown onto their sides, riders were snatched from their saddles and hurled back over the heads of the others while masks, saddlebags, flags and garments were blown still further back. For seventy yards or more north along the Great Aisle, all was a heaving mass of havoc, panicking screaming horses and riders desperately trying to bring them under control

Through all of it Thraelor had remained untouched, sitting immobile on his horse. His face was slack and dull-eyed, but another lay over it like a translucent mask, spectral and crimson. As the man who had been Nerek and Ystregul approached, the masked Thaelor climbed down from his horse.

“At last,” the crimson mask said. “This one has fought me every step of the way, and I would be rid of him for good.”

“Then let us join,” said the other. “Greatness awaits.”

Garments dissolved into ashy veils and features yielded and stretched as the two forms flowed together slowly. It took only moments for the coalescence to run its course and when it was over only one figure stood in the middle of the Great Aisle. He was noticeably taller than before, and was differently, more austerely garbed in a collarless, sleeveless robe of dull purple over plain black shirt and trews with open-toed sandals on his feet.

Some of the riders in the leading ranks had seen the transformation, and a few of their sergeants came to kneel before him in their awe and fear.

“My lord,” said one, swallowing hard behind his black leather mask. “Is our master.. dead?”

“No, for he is with me and part of me now.”

The sergeants glanced at one another for a second.

“Then our loyalty is to you, great one,” the spokesman went on. “What name shall we know you by?”

“In time I shall take back my true name, but for now you may call me Shadowlord, nothing more.”

“What are your commands, o Shadowlord?”

“We shall ride north to Rauthaz,” the Shadowlord said, “and pay my brother Grazaan a visit.”

* * *

“A noble spirit he was, once,” Alael said in the voice that made Gilly’s skin crawl. “But he let envy into his heart and became an enemy of life, a dark destroyer. Soon shall his long campaign of evil be brought to an end, when I take my vengeance…” There was a pause, and she drew a shuddering breath before speaking in her own voice. “Oh, leave me alone, I beg you…”

As she wept quietly in the shadow of the draped storeroom, where they had taken temporary refuge, Gilly shook his head and tried to take stock of their situation.

Despite having overheard Alael’s location in the meeting hall, it had taken him some time to first locate the room then find his way in. Ever since parting company with Ikarno Mazaret, he had noticed a growing confusion taking hold throughout the citadel of Keshada, shouts, troops running hither and yon. Soldiers hurrying past his hiding places muttered rumours of a clash between the pale lords, running battles on the stairs and a distant army approaching from Besh-Darok. Indeed, he had to take a different route to avoid a bloody skirmish on the fourth floor.

Alael was held in a large chamber on the fifth floor, its doors watched by six guards. But Gilly had found a way in from the next room, through a cramped wooden screen high on the adjoining wall. Once inside, however, he had been aghast to find Alael lying full-length on the floor, her form cloaked in a tenuous golden nimbus, her eyes wide and sightless. Yet somehow he had managed to carry her up a stack of furniture to the high opening and through to the other room. There, the aura faded a little and she seemed to regain awareness sufficient to walk with Gilly’s help, so he led her onto the next chamber by a short connecting passage. They had just emerged in what seemed to be a dining room when the golden aura brightened about her and she began speaking in a voice which felt like several voices in perfect unison. Yet there was no attempt to communicate with him, rather the words seemed part of a strange monologue, like ceaseless broodings over past wrongs and anticipated retributions. The very sound of it made the hairs on his neck rise.

Then the aura and the voice had faded and Alael, recognising Gilly, had wept to see him. And Gilly likewise felt the sting of tears and memory for, during his quest through the citadel, he had been unexpectedly waylaid by a wave of knowledge which had burst into the empty grooves of his mind, filling many gaps. He
knew
who Alael and Ikarano Mazaret and Suviel were, but when Alael mentioned the name Tauric it meant nothing to him.

Now, huddled in a storeroom across the corridor from the dining chamber, he listened to Alael’s explanation.

“It’s the Earthmother,” she said tearfully. “She wants to use me, dominate me completely, so that she can attack the Lord of Twilight..”

“But he is divided among the five Shadowkings,” Gilly said, remembering what Suviel had told him.

“He was, but the part that was in Byrnak has escaped into another host and has already joined with another two of the god’s fragments..” Alael closed her eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them to show her fear.

“What can we do to stop the Lord of Twilight becoming whole? I’ve been fighting the Earthmother with all my strength, but could she be right? Should I just give into her?”

Gilly got to his feet in the darkened storeroom then helped her to stand.

“I don’t know what the answer is,” he said. “But Suviel may. I overheard some of the masks here saying that an army from Besh-Darok is heading for Keshada. Suviel said she was going to return with help, and she said that we were to find you and wait for her by the entrance to the Realm of Dusk…”

“But that’s…” she said.

“The Lord of Twilight’s domain,” he said. “But that was what she said, to go to the seventh floor where there are several doorways to that place and hide nearby…” He laughed softly, “…although I cannot say where Mazaret has got to.”

With every step a stealthy tread, Gilly led her from the dining chamber and along to a stairwell he had happened across earlier. Its stairs spiralled around a massive stone pillar covered in niches and alcoves of every size and in each one stood a male figurine or statue. While the central pillar was constructed of a dusky, ochre stone, the statues were of a dark grey stone, well-polished to highlight the details of garments, features and motion. For each stature performed some small action in a repeating cycle, sharpening a sword, lighting a fire, pulling on armoured gauntlets, writing on a sheet of parchment, braiding a rope. There was even one that grinned while tossing and catching a spinning coin, over and over again. Gilly was not sure if they were all supposed to represent the Lord of Twilight, but something about them gave him a chill and he hurried Alael up to the next floor.

There, the corridors seemed deserted and finding stairs to the seventh floor was a straightforward matter. As they climbed, shouts and the crash of weapons came up from a few levels down, but whether this was from the masked soldiers resisting an incursion or fighting among themselves, he could not tell.

The doorways were where Suviel said they would be, in the outer wall. Gilly stood with Alael on the threshold of one, staring out at the strange, rocky waste, which lay perhaps five or six yards below, knowing that other windows on this floor looked across miles of snowbound fields from a far greater height…

“This is the place,” Gilly muttered.

“But how do we get down?” said Alael.

He shrugged then stepped out onto the wide ledge that ran along the outside, spotted the battlement of a large, square keep round to the left and ducked back inside.

“What is it?” Alael said.

“Some kind of fortification next to the wall further round, “ he said. “I saw guards on its ramparts, so we can’t go that way…”

“Perhaps there are stairs along the other way,” she said, dashing off along the corridor inside.

Shaking his head, Gilly went after her.
Strong-headed women or implacable goddesses,
he thought.
Is there that much difference?

Ahead of him, Alael stepped through one of the tall openings, back out to the ledge, and was gone from sight. Gilly sighed and called out to her.

“Alael, this is a dangerous place – come back and wait…”

There was no response so he hurried through the nearest opening and saw her descending a wide ramp which led down the outside of the wall. Annoyed, he ran after her, catching up as she reached the foot of the ramp, and put out a hand to her shoulder, only noticing the faint golden nimbus in the last instant. She turned with hot amber eyes and made a back-handed strike at his face, not seeming to put any effort into the movement.