The Lord of Lies: Strange Threads: Book 2 (9 page)

There came the sound of a distant commotion. Ahead, he made out figures moving towards him through the ruins, and spilling out across the valley on either side. Around him, other Unwoven were growing curious, craning their necks to try to see what lay at the centre of the oncoming mass. It grew closer, swallowing up the city, and Salarkis had to fight the urge to run. He did not know what was happening, but certainly he was filled with foreboding.

A voice
rang out from the crowd, and Salarkis frowned, for it seemed inexplicably familiar.

‘ … have returned … lead you again … to chaos, for the Spell is breaking … think it can be stopped … know the truth …’

As greater numbers of Unwoven converged on the speaker, whoever he was, Salarkis slowed to a stop. He found himself jostling with others, reluctantly being pushed closer to the middle.

‘… is where I came from,’ came the voice, now clearer. ‘This is where I was made! I belong with you.’

‘You are an outsider!’ someone screamed.

‘Nay! Nay!’

There was a mighty boom and Unwoven fell back.

Salarkis clambered up onto a mound of crumbled bricks and finally caught sight of the speaker. The man faced away, his brown robe dusty, his grey hair flying about his head. He did not have the blanched skin of an Unwoven – he was human! What poor fool was it who had wandered into such an awful predicament? How had he managed to get this far?

Around him stood a ring of Unwoven warriors looking very much like guards, snarling at anyone who got too close. The human had his arms raised, having evidently just performed some kind of threading. As he turned, Salarkis could not believe the face he recognised, contorted as it was by madness.

Mergan.

A lone
Unwoven between crowd and guards picked himself up out of the dirt.

‘You think,’ he shouted, ‘that your tricks impress us? Threaders’ bodies break as easily as their mouths moan.’

‘Impudence!’ roared Mergan. ‘You think just because you have lived leaderless so long you have every right to continue? Look at you, milling about without purpose, like a bunch of dogs licking at each other’s scabs! Is that my will being served? No. The cracks widen, yet you stand idle!’

‘We will know when the time is right.’

‘You know nothing! You are not worthy to call yourselves my slaves.’

One of Mergan’s guards, a stoic looking Unwoven with a scar across his brow, stepped forward.

‘Do you not recognise our lord?’ he asked. ‘Are you who journeyed to the Peaks to pay him tribute so dull of memory that you do not know the face from behind the tomb’s veil?’

A stir went up and travelled about. Salarkis was dumb-founded – what strange path had brought the best of the Wardens, once so wise and kind, to this point?

‘For too long I have been imprisoned,’ said Mergan, ‘but finally I have returned! Ungrateful doubters, hear me now. Without my touch upon you, you would be as fearful and weak as the untarnished living outside our realm, not empty and strong, as you are!’

Voices
rose.

‘It
is
him.’

‘Look, look at his face.’

‘Has he returned to us?’

Mergan’s accuser, his enmity seemingly completely forgotten, smiled widely.

‘Lord, I did not understand! Forgive my stupidity.’

Laughter broke out, and jubilant cries, and kissing.

‘First things first, my children,’ said Mergan. ‘An interloper stands amongst us.’

His eyes came to rest on Salarkis, who froze where he stood in icy fear. An influence he was not prepared for gripped him suddenly, and he screamed as the knot at the centre of his chest was violently wrenched undone. His old pattern sprang back into shape, his grey skin taken over by a flood of pinkness, his ropey muscles losing definition as the flesh around them grew soft. A moment later he stood undisguised in the midst of a thousand Unwoven.

‘Kill him,’ said Mergan.

Surrounded by
glowering Unwoven fast converging on him, Salarkis knew there was no hope in standing and fighting. He had to flee, but how? Where? The main bulk of the crowd blocked the way towards the Pass, so the only direction worth considering was up the Dale, back towards the Spire.

He flung up his hands, and all around jets of dust sprayed upwards into nostrils and eyes. As the figures around him reeled and coughed, he bolted through their midst, swirling a protective bubble of air about himself to keep his own way clear. A grey hand broke into it from the gritty air outside, and he dodged, only to charge headlong into another Unwoven’s back. It stumbled, and Salarkis bounced off in a slightly new direction, all the while sending out more gestures to open fissures and shoot up more dust. The cloud that hid his progress grew larger, billowing through the city ruins.

‘After him!’ came
Mergan’s cry.

Salarkis knew that Mergan would not suffer his cover for long. It was simple magic, therefore easily countered, and already he felt a wind stirring up. He sent expanding shockwaves of air ahead of him, knocking Unwoven from their feet, doing them little actual damage, but buying the time to pass. As he leapt over a toppled figure, he felt fingers brush his foot. He thought for a sickening moment he was about to be pulled downwards, but landed on the other side, emerging from the dust at full pelt with fewer Unwoven ahead than behind.

A loose brick came spinning at him from the side and cracked his elbow. He gave a cry as it jarred his funny bone – it could have been worse, of course, but the sensation still set his teeth on edge.

Was that
really
necessary?
he thought as he ran.

He sensed a foreign influence worming its way up his calves into his knees, and desperately knew he could not exorcise it. Mergan had a Warden’s power, and Salarkis had only distance on his side – any moment now his kneecaps could crunch to pieces inside him and bring his flight to an agonising halt. Rather than fight Mergan directly, he tried to make himself difficult to grip, vibrating his threads so fast that his vision blurred and his teeth chattered together painfully in his mouth. Just when he thought they were about to shatter, he broke from Mergan’s ethereal grasp.

A quick glance behind showed Unwoven appearing from the dispersing dust, the jets of dirt now petering out. The sight gave him strength, fuelling his feet. Ahead, other Unwoven were emerging from buildings or wandering in from the slopes to see what was happening. Mergan might have swept away some of the dust, but there was plenty more around, and Salarkis did not hesitate to use it. He opened more fissures, trying to place them under enemies who stood in his way. To his side, an old house exploded as a great jet issued up underneath it, hurling stones into the air. He grabbed hold of a few of them and sent them spinning around himself as a kind of whizzing shield.

If only
he could make it to the Spire. He did not know why the Unwoven shunned it but, whatever the reason, hopefully it was enough to stop them following him inside.

He pulled a couple of free-standing walls inwards as he passed between them, and heard grunts in response as they toppled behind him. Clearing the ruins he began to head up the Spire’s slope with aching muscles. An Unwoven ran out of a hut and leapt at him, only to be cracked on the skull by one of the stones flying about him.

Ahead the Spire loomed, but another glance behind shook his confidence of reaching it. From out of the dust Mergan rode, astride a galloping white horse. Salarkis reached to try to break the beast’s legs, but Mergan easily unspun his influence. The old man was closer than before and, as their eyes met, his anger turned to shocked recognition.

‘Salarkis?’ he mouthed.

So, he
had not initially realised who the ‘interloper’ was – unsurprising, since Salarkis was restored to human form. Salarkis wondered briefly if Mergan would be kindlier now that he recognised who he chased, but he dared not take the chance. Instead he used Mergan’s distraction by reaching towards the ground in front of his horse, and sending up another blast of dust. It hit the creature full in the face, set it rearing and snorting, and Mergan had to hold on grimly.

With Unwoven closing in from either side, Salarkis pounded towards the Spire entrance. The darkness within seemed like sanctuary, yet was that truly what it represented? Just as he was about to cross the threshold, a grey hand snapped closed around his wrist, spinning him around so he smacked against the inside of the doorway. Slightly stunned, he looked up into blue eyes.

‘Our game ends,’ Blue-eye said with a nasty smile.

‘Let go,’ gasped Salarkis. ‘It’s … my turn now.’

‘Your silly words do not penetrate my thick skull,’ said Blue-eye. ‘Though my thumbs will penetrate yours.’

Salarkis sent out his influence, but Blue-eye’s pattern was too coarse and strong to affect. He tried to pull away physically, but it was like trying to pull down a tree. Desperately he cast about for anything to help him – and inside the Spire saw the glint of his discarded daggers.

Your lack of name will not protect you from me, Blue-eye.

Twin blades scraped along the floor and lifted, flew together out of the darkness at speed, and sunk into Blue-eye’s blue eyes. The Unwoven gave a perplexed grunt, but his grip did not relax as he turned his head this way and that, slicing his eyelids on the protruding blades as he tried to blink them out. Salarkis willed the blades further into his skull, squishing sticky white dollops from the punctured sockets. Finally Blue-eye shuddered and his hand went limp.

Salarkis stumbled
backwards into the shadows and fell on his buttocks. Looking up, he was chilled to find Unwoven at the doorway staring in at him. They must have been almost upon him when he had finally struggled free. They did not, however, cross the threshold.

There was no time for relief. Maybe the Unwoven would not enter this place, but he did not think that would apply to Mergan. Without pausing to catch his breath, he rose and headed to the stairs.

Mergan arrived at the Spire entrance. Unwoven who had been in pursuit of Salarkis gathered outside, seeming uncertain over what to do next. As Mergan slid off his horse, he felt a little uncertain himself. It
had
been Salarkis, hadn’t it? Salarkis as a man, as soft-skinned and brown-haired as before the change. How had he shed his stone, his tail? How had he come to be in the middle of the Tranquil Dale, wandering through Unwoven territory in disguise?

Mergan gazed up the grey, lichen-coated walls. From this angle he could not see the Wound, but he wondered if it had something to do with Salarkis’s transformation.

‘I do
not wish him killed,’ he announced. ‘There are five or six questions I want to ask him, maybe more.’

The Unwoven stared at him in silence.

‘What are you waiting for?’ he snapped. ‘Get in there after him!’

Scarbrow appeared by his side. ‘My lord, we will do as you order, of course – but is it your will that we be turned weak, winsome and whiny?’

‘What?’

‘Your Spire, lord – you do not know? We have avoided it for many years.’

‘Why?’

‘Sometimes those who enter change. Into things alike to what we would have been, if not for your glorious gifts. Kin to the untarnished who live outside the Dale.’

Mergan frowned. Unwoven changing into ‘untarnished’ sounded similar to what had happened to Salarkis, yet he did not believe it would occur simply by stepping through the doorway.

‘And what,’ he asked, ‘do these changed Unwoven report about the experience?’

Scarbrow shrugged. ‘It has been many years since it happened, but stories say they were killed quickly by our people.’

Something about the Wound
, Mergan thought,
undoing the work of Regret? Taking threads? Or giving them back? The Unwoven are, after all, defined by what they were stripped of. Putting things right?

‘I
thought,’ said Mergan, ‘that my children knew no fear? Yet here is a place they dare not tread.’

‘Fear, no, we do not know this thing. We have heard it described, tried to understand it. It sounds like little more than frailty, for which we have nothing but contempt.’

Scarbrow snarled with such animal ferocity that it sent prickles down Mergan’s spine – though whether they were good prickles or bad, he wasn’t sure.

‘So,’ said Scarbrow, ‘while we would not wantonly throw away our strength – if you command it, we will enter the Spire.’

Mergan tapped his elbow thoughtfully. ‘No.’

‘Maybe now that you are back the Spire can be reclaimed? Legend tells of a time when it held no danger for us.’

‘We shall see,’ said Mergan. ‘Wait here.’

He moved through the doorway into a dark antechamber that stunk of moss and mildew, from which a stairwell spiralled upwards. Carefully he ascended, following footsteps in the cloudy beds of mould that covered everything, finding nothing above but more empty rooms.

Two hundred and nine … two hundred and ten …

He realised he was counting stairs, and tried to stop. Despite this, a little voice in his head carried on without permission.

Two hundred and eleven …