Shadowmasque (2 page)

“And he will be arriving soon, Jumil, very soon.”

Lurid green fire was shining through webs of cracks in the malleable clay face.
“I’m sure that you understand that by now.”

The clerk did not answer. Squatting on his knees, leaning forward on clenched fists, he seemed unable to move or utter a sound. A shivering ague had him in its grip and as sweat ran down neck and arms, the eyes in his frozen, open-mouthed face were full of ghastly horror. They stared imploringly at the great face on the chamber floor which only laughed quietly as it watched him.

A few moments later the eyes ceased their terrified darting, slowed to lifeless stillness. The body itself seemed strangely restless in small ways, as if muscles were shifting and flexing, limbs tensing and relaxing, bones turning in their sockets back and forth. Although dead, the body of Jumil straightened and the head moved with sluggish jerks, its face looking slightly misshapen, the skin sickly and taut.

Something cracked, and the clerks body slumped forward. There was a sharp ripping noise and blood spattered the chamber floor. There were more cracks, wet tearing sounds, a moist intake of breath and a throaty hiss. A dark, slender form writhed amid the gore, tore apart what remained of Jumil’s head and then crouched there, breathing heavily

“Welcome, Xabo,”
said the Great Shadow’s face.
“Welcome to the Realm Between.”

“Master, I….” A hoarse voice paused for a savage bout of coughing, then went on; “My head is rent by a fever of strange imaginings...my thoughts scarcely seem my own…”

“You have come into this realm through a bloodgate, formerly one Jumil Felok, and it is his essence and memories which are clouding your mind. Let them find a place there, Xabo, and savour them — you will have great need of them in the days ahead.”

Harsh emerald radiance from the great face gleamed on wet, black limbs and cast glittering highlights across a hairless, gaunt face from which dark red eyes stared.

“Yes, I can see pieces of his past, master, and read their meaning….there are many connections….although I still feel that the Duskgeneral would have been a better choice than I.”

“No — he has other duties for which he has unique abilities. Focus on your form for soon it will change, limbs, skin and face — Jumil’s memories are not the only aspect that you will take on.”

The smooth, black head nodded. “I am to become Jumil Felok, master, prepare the NightKin flocks for the great task, and crush these Watchers before they become a real danger.”

“Exactly so, except that the danger is already real, Xabo. I know this to be so because I have very recently discovered the identity of their leader… truly, when I discovered this knowledge, the past came alive to me. You know him, Xabo, as the one who turned and tried to betray me at the crux of the great struggle….”

The creature called Xabo stiffened.

“Him? — I thought that one had died.” Hate glared from his eyes. “How I would exult to see him exhibited in your dreamcourts, highest!”

“Yet still he lives and seeks to frustrate my will once more. He goes by the name of Calabos now…”

“That name,” said Xabo. “It is….familiar. A poet, a dramatist…”

“In time, all of Jumil’s memories will become clear to you, much of it vital to the demanding work that lies ahead. So for now, my faithful one, rest, build your strengths and prepare for your new role. Become acquainted with all that Jumil has accomplished with the NightKin — he mentioned using what remains of the Broken against the ‘poet’ and his underlings. This would a most satisfying way of grasping a long-awaited retribution…”

Silently nodding, Xabo crawled away from the bloody wreck of Jumil’s body and sat against the chamber wall, brooding, watching, waiting.

When Death’s baleful hand,
Lies heavy on heart and soul,
Summon all of thy strength,
And dream the dream of life.

—Abbess Halimer,
Cautions & Aphorisms

The light of the day was fading through shades of rose and grey as Corlek Ondene made his way up Baraskel Hill by way of the old Treemonk’s path. The fresh smell of new leaves and burgeoning flowers hung in the cool air, and early blossom lay in small drifts against low bushes or scattered across the simple wooden benches that he passed every twenty paces. This was a place of communion and devotion, yet as Corlek walked through the scented stillness his thoughts kept straying to the letter which he carried in one of his robes inner pockets. A four-year old letter, which had reached him three years ago as he lay shivering with fever in an ocean-lashed tower out on the westernmost edge of the Stormbreaker Isles.

In the letter his elder brother, Rhanye, had written of their father’s tragic death in a boating accident at the mouth of Sejeend’s harbour. After that had come a short account of how the Emperor’s ministers then found a way to rescind the family’s right to their manor and estate (which was later bestowed on an un-named court favourite). However, the Emperor insisted that his mother and brother be allowed to reside in the old summer house and receive an adequate annual stipend ‘as a measure of the crown’s unfailing generosity…’

Corlek smiled bleakly as he trudged on, easily able to imagine Rhanye speaking those words with unrestrained sarcasm. The letter went on to reassure Corlek that despite their reduced circumstances all was well, and ended with the words — ‘In the six long years since your unjust exile, not a week has passed without our giving prayers and offerings at the Earthmother shrine in Drum Park. You are always in our thoughts, brother. May the Light be with you…’

Through his robe he patted the shape of the letter, its every word graven into his memory by the hundred or more times he had read it these last three years. During the latter days of his mercenary wanderings every sentence had become a small treasure, a fragment of the life he had abandoned a decade ago. Yet nowhere in the letter had Rhanye mentioned the reason for Corlek’s mad flight from Sejeend and the lands of the Empire because, Corlek knew, his mother would have read it before its despatch.

It would have been improper to mention that a young knight newly raised up to the Iron Guard, the Imperial bodyguard, had dishonoured the Emperor’s own daughter, would it not, mother?
he thought.
Especially when that young knight was and is your own son…

It was getting dark beneath the trees that sheltered the path but there was light up ahead. Moments later the ground levelled out as Corlek emerged at the cleared, open crest of the hill, a flat, grassy area softly lit by a pair of glass-chaliced oil lamps on ornate stands. Dominating the clearing was a fountain shrine dedicated to the spirit of the divine Emperor Tauric I, the liberator of Sejeend who gave his life in the final struggle to vanquish the Lord of Twilight. Standing over a shell-like bowl was a pale marble statue of the boy-emperor, hands holding aloft a banner while his feet bore down on the back of a five-headed, reptilian beast from whose fanged jaws water poured. But there was a finger-length crack in the fountain’s bowl, an old one by the long stripe of green mould on the underside and the channel worn into the ground by the leaking water. In the lamplight, the rivulet looked almost black as it trickled away down the other, steeper side of Baraskel Hill, beside the curving rack of worn, wooden steps.

Corlek stood by the fountain, one hand trailing in the cold water, listening to breezes sigh through the trees and inhaling the sweet fragrances they brought. But his mind was full of memories of Lyndil, the Emperor’s daughter whose beauty and grace had stolen his heart and his mind and shackled all his senses. The Emperor’s fury on discovering their dalliance had been such that Corlek was advised by one of his father’s friends to flee the capital or face charges of treason followed by a certain death.

But now Magramon was dead, and his body was interred in the royal vaults on the Isle of Remembrance. Looking southwards across the outer estates of the city, he could make out the lanterns of the burial grove by Drum Park. It was a man-made hill amid the city, but was called the Isle of Remembrance by the Earthmother priestesses nevertheless. With night now encroaching, a carpet of lights was beginning to spread through the streets and districts as porch lamps and street cressets were lit. Suddenly he laughed, full of the belief that he was on the verge of new beginnings, new hope and a new life. All that remained was to seek out his mother and brother and see what might be salvaged from the old.

He followed the wooden stairs downward, alongside the leaking water which veered away near the foot, disappearing into a bushy copse. With the hill behind him, Corlek hurried along a log-surfaced road with small, hedge-bordered fields to either side as he headed towards a slow-winding river called the Deinlok. Beyond it lay the northern districts of Sejeend and the former estate of the Ondene family. As he neared the substantial bridge that crossed it at this point, he had to pause as a caravan of ten or more horse-drawn wagons coming from the north rumbled across it. He guessed that they must be carrying the first harvest from the rich fields of eastern Khatris. The impact of horses’ hooves and iron-rimmed wheels passing over heavy planking combined to create a mighty din and as the last rolled onto the bridge Corlek tugged the wide brim of his hat a little lower, shouldered his travelling sack and followed close behind. Half way across, he passed a night-torch man hauling a little cart from which a lamp swung and a folded ladder jutted. Gruff nods were exchanged as the man stopped by an empty iron bracket and went about his business. At this ordinary sight Corlek felt a sense of certainty that he was back where he belonged.

“Back to civilisation,” he whispered to himself as he reached the other bank of the Deinlok.

Rather than follow the wagons uphill into the northern urbs, he ducked right along a grassy riverside track. In darkness he hurried, led by childhood memories which told him that before long he would come to a great, tilted kingsgold tree in whose bark he and Rhanye had carved their initials far back in their youth. At a bend in the river he paused to light a small, shuttered lamp then looked about him — sure enough, there in the undergrowth was a leaning tree. The initials were still there, if a little higher.

Hanging the lamp at his waist, he tugged on his gauntlets and began tearing away a screen of dogthorn and winding grass, searching for the flat stones and split logs they had laid down over the boggy ground which blocked the way to the eastern boundary of the Ondene estate. Bushes and saplings had taken root but the stones were still there, providing a path for him to follow. But when he emerged a little while later from the trees, muddy and scratched, he was confronted by a tall, heavy pallisade rather than the flowering fences which had once served as an enclosure for the servants’ huts. Following it round to the right, he saw where it joined the old west wall which was a combination wood, turf and slate — eleven paces along from there he crouched down behind a clump of bushes and found his secret entrance, a small section of the wooden surface which fell inwards after several moments of determined pushing. As he crawled into the short, root-fringed tunnel on hands and knees, he laughed quietly as he imagined the surprise on his mother and brother’s faces when they opened the door to him.

The lamplight showed the square wooden framework of the hatch that opened on the slanted earthwork beyond the wall. It took a while to push it open against all the grass rootless which had woven together down the years but once they began tearing apart at one corner he was soon through. He then turned round and went back to put the log section back in place before backing out and fitting the grass-covered one into its square hole.

Lights were burning in some of the servant cottages and he could hear voices talking as he crept northwards to the old coppice beyond which the summerhouse lay. Skirting the trees he used the bushy undergrowth for cover yet when he pushed his way out of the foliage on the other side he thought for a moment that he had lost his way. Instead of a two-storey house with a small greenhouse, where was only dark, empty ground leading to a slight rise to the bush-bordered gardens stretching away to the lamplit walls and bright windows of the high manor. But he knew that from the balcony over the manor’s main entrance you could look straight down at the seated arbour at the rear of the summerhouse so this was were it had to be….

A ghastly fear rose up in him and heedless of any observer he opened the shutters of his lamp and stumbled across the bare, hard ground, searching….

“Stand where you are, ser! — and put out your light…” came a man’s voice from the dark behind him.

He whirled on the spot, one hand reaching for his sword….then he froze when he saw the spear waiting poised about two feet away, aimed at his throat.

“The lamp,” growled the spearman. “Put it out.”

As he did as he was told, he saw that the other man carried a hooded lamp on a chain about his chest. Faint glimmers highlighted the spear’s wooden shaft and the dark iron of its tapering point.

“Who are you?” the man said. “Why are you trespassing?”

But Corlek was full of panicky foreboding.

“Ser,” he said. “I beg you, please tell me what happened to the summerhouse….it used to stand on this very spot…”

“How….” the man began, then set his spear aside as he raised up his lamp to shine in Corlek’s face. There was a gasp.

“Master Corlek!”

The man turned the lamp towards himself and Corlek immediately recognised him as Rugal, the Ondene’s stablemaster. But his ten-year old memories were confounded by what he saw — once a tall, vigorous man, Rugal was now gaunt and stooped, black hair gone grey and long while his eyes looked watery and full of pain and fear.

“Rugal — what happened?”

The older man suddenly gave him a grim, piercing stare.

“Can’t you smell it, young master?” he said. “Breathe in deep.”

Almost against his will he did so and found that he could smell something, a faint charred odour, like old ashes…