Authors: Russell Kirkpatrick
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Epic, #Fiction - Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Fantasy - Epic, #Fantasy - General, #Magicians, #New Zealand Novel And Short Story, #Revenge, #Immortalism, #Science Fiction And Fantasy
Robal staggered on, unable to keep up with the feral madman his companion had become. Despite his very best efforts, the ungainly, timid priest outpaced him, thrashing through the reeds and river shallows with absolutely no sense of self-preservation. Surely a man possessed, a thought that frightened him mightily. Had he heard the voice of the Most High speaking through the priest? Until a few moments ago he would have bet his life that the priest, with all his foolishness, was further from the Most High than he, a simple soldier.
But here was the boat, and there the path, just as he had said. And there the mad priest was, some way
down the path, a berserker from the scrolls of legend, a huge branch in his left hand—the hand affixed to a broken arm, he reminded himself—making ready to deliver a blow. There it went! It lifted the recipient off his feet. He drew his sword, knowing somehow it would not be necessary.
Now he could hear the priest. The madman uttered a cry of rage, of pain, a tortured howl surely not from the Most High; and continued to scream long after his breath must have run out. Longer, longer. And still he screamed, as though all the agony in the world funnelled through one mouth.
Robal could barely speak, so exhausted was he when finally he reached the man, who howled still. ‘Conal! Priest!’ No response. He banged him on the back, once, twice, and jerked his hand away. The man
burned
! But at least the scream stopped.
‘Sword,’ the priest said in a voice like a falling mountain, and grabbed the hilt of Robal’s blade. Instinctively Robal grasped Conal’s hand, ignoring the heat pouring from him, but despite using all his strength could not prevent Conal twisting the sword from his grasp. The priest strode forward over the shattered head of the man he had struck with the branch, making for a small cottage a few dozen paces away. Sword in the left hand, the guardsman noted, though the priest wrote with his right.
Robal followed, badly frightened. For a moment there was no sound save the reluctant tramp of his own boots, then a woman’s shrill cry came from somewhere ahead of him. Two thumps, then another cry, a third thump and the cry cut off.
‘Stella!’ Conal bellowed, and rushed forward, blade outstretched as though it were a pike. As the priest disappeared through the door to the cottage, shrieking like a lunatic, Robal was sure he saw smoke coming from his hair.
In his extremity, Husk is forced to abandon prudence and draw power from anything he can find. All around the lower levels of Andratan rats drop dead, and outside the fortress birds fall from the sky. Prisoners drift into comas; guards find themselves on their knees, struggling for breath. It is far too late to worry if the Lord of Andratan will sense the disturbance; there is no possibility of disguising what is happening in his keep. The raw magic coursing through Husk and out to his three spikes is unmixed agony to him, his blood having turned to something like acid. His already maimed body begins to steam. He chuffs out a breath, fouler than a crypt.
Something is desperately wrong with the world outside Andratan. He has known this for weeks now, has bent his thoughts towards puzzling it out.
Why now?
he asks himself. Such cursed coincidence, this interference to the fabric of intersecting wills that lesser men know as magic. If coincidence it is. Have his actions, small as they are, drawn something opportunistic to nibble at his carefully laid plans like a rat at poisoned bait?
More, I need more.
In one of the cells a prisoner’s brain bursts. Blood dribbles from the woman’s mouth.
More.
A torturer collapses in the larger of the two chambers, falling across a brazier filled with glowing coals. He shrieks as his flesh begins to melt, but cannot roll away. Husk has stolen everything he has.
Could it be the Destroyer?
Husk wonders. Is he even now manipulating events, aligning them in opposition to Husk’s own plans? It defies all logic. All the Undying Man has to do in order to snuff out Husk’s cleverness is to descend from his precious tower and come down to the dungeon. Husk has no real defence against a physical attack.
Stealth, all must be done with stealth.
But the strength of the one opposing him, whoever it is, leaves no room for stealth.
Another breath. His body, such as it is, begins to fail him. He will have to withdraw from one of his spikes, leave a third of his plan exposed to chance. If this is what his opponent intends, Husk is about to lose everything. But he
cannot
…
He hangs onto his sweet angel by the merest thread. She is in danger, yes, but not under the remorseless assault his captain and his priest are suffering. She has a degree of magic herself; perhaps she will draw upon it and keep herself alive until Husk can once again attend to her. He is left with nothing but hope.
He lets her go, hoping he can find her again.
The Most High himself, perhaps? Husk can imagine no other being capable of the immense power he has seen through the unwitting eyes of those he has spiked. Puissance so intense it has burned out some of the threads of the world’s tapestry. Who is capable of that but an immortal? And, as far as Husk knows, there are only three immortals.
Soon to be four,
he promises himself. But he has been in a dungeon for seventy years. Might the blessed contagion have spread?
No. He cannot imagine either the Destroyer or his one-time consort sharing their immortality. One is too jealous of his power, the other too caring to risk infecting others. Might then the Most High have
begun a third kingdom? Dona Mihst and Faltha have both failed to a degree; it is possible, unknowable.
He curses his state, then counsels himself to patience. He has no energy to waste on anything other than preserving the Falthan queen. With a hiss he resumes his battle.
THE COUNTRYSIDE NORTH OF Fossa glittered in the clear noonday sunlight, which played on the beaded remnants of a gentle midmorning rain. Grassy fields spotted with sheep and goats alternated with orchards, ploughed ground and newly planted fields to the west of the narrow, stony Fisher Coast Road, creating a pleasant tapestry spread over rumpled hill country. Here and there tree-fringed outcrops of bare grey rock poked obstinately through the fertile soil, the only land not harnessed in some way for agricultural use. This kind of landscape was widely known as Palestra Country, a reference to the nation nominally ruling over this section of the Fisher Coast.
Tall oak stands and groves of squat fruit trees filled The Champleve, the Palestran name for the narrow strip of land between the road and the eastern cliff-top. A gentle sea breeze ruffled the oaks’ budding crowns in the same fashion a genial father might tousle a favourite son’s head, shaking out sparkling drops of water. Certainly as Noetos watched the trees he could feel his own father’s hand in his hair, triggering an unexpected pang of loss.
He made his way north along the road, The Champleve to the right, Palestra Country to the left,
and the Hegeoman stumbling reluctantly ahead of him. Noetos wasted a great deal of his breath ordering his captive to hurry, barking commands, even pushing him in the back; despite this, progress was far slower than he was comfortable with.
Perhaps the journey, slow as it was, would have been more tolerable had it been conducted in silence. Instead, the Hegeoman insisted on using whatever wind he had on haranguing the fisherman with arguments as to how blind fools rushed into trouble, what dreadful things might be happening in Fossa, and the nature of the pursuit the villagers would send. Certainly the man often turned his head, peering behind him as though expecting to see something coming up the road. Noetos kept his eyes firmly focused on the road ahead: likely the villagers would fail to notice the man’s absence, and when finally they realised he was missing they would probably celebrate, led no doubt by the man’s poor wife. Well, no, in fairness he was a popular leader, for all that he had not a brain in his head; but there were many more likely places to be searched, such as the base of the cliffs or in the burnt-out shells of the boats, before parties were sent north and south along the Fisher Coast Road. No, Noetos’s troubles lay before him, not behind him.
‘No smoke to be seen,’ the Hegeoman reported with satisfaction. ‘Not since we crossed the last ridge.’
‘You said that half an hour ago. The boats won’t burn forever. You expecting someone to set them alight again?’
The Hegeoman hunched his shoulders in response, and turned back to the road. ‘No, no, just curious. You can’t expect me to be happy about being forced to accompany you on your mad journey.’
Noetos drew his sword in answer. The sound of it sliding from its scabbard sent the Hegeoman lurching
forward until separated from his captor by a few paces. ‘I don’t understand this,’ the man said plaintively. ‘What have I done to warrant your anger?’
‘What have you done?’ Noetos repeated. ‘Bregor, you may be the village leader, but I despair of you. My son and my wife are somewhere ahead of us, held captive by magicians, and you claim you do not understand why I am angry at you? You turned my family over to the Recruiters and made me an enemy of my village. Anomer and Opuntia sought safety at your house, but you denied it to them. I would have thought you would at least have granted Opuntia sanctuary.’
‘You don’t understand. These are government officials, Noetos. Anomer offended the Recruiters, we all saw that. You were sent home in disgrace. I was surprised, certainly, when your wife and son turned up at my door, but what grounds did I have to withhold them when the Recruiters requested custody? They were in no danger.’
‘No danger? I saw my own daughter dead on the floor of my house, a knife in her back, and you tell me there was no danger?’
Both men increased their pace, the Hegeoman in response to the fisherman.
‘But…this tale of your daughter makes no sense,’ the Hegeoman said, puffing heavily. ‘Opuntia said nothing of this to me. Her concern was for her own safety and that of her son.’
Noetos heard the familiarity in the way the man said his wife’s name. He had been hearing it all morning, whenever the conversation took this turn, and had found it difficult to resist making an issue of it. Impossible to resist.
‘I’m surprised Opuntia failed to find shelter in your house,’ he said evenly. ‘My understanding is she has found shelter there many times before.’
‘What do you mean?’ The Hegeoman’s sweaty face turned to face him, eyes wide: he knew exactly what was meant.
‘Adultery.’ The word burned on the fisherman’s tongue. Such a sweeping euphemism for lying with another man’s wife, with the wrestling and grunting it entailed, the shocking intimacy of it. Or another woman’s husband: there was another injured party in this, he acknowledged. ‘Bregor, you were sleeping with Opuntia.’
‘Sleeping with her?’ The man puffed up with anger. ‘Yes, she came to my house, but not to see me, not at the start anyway. She actually came to speak to Merle, looking for advice as to how to deal with a drunkard husband, as it happens. When Merle explained the situation to me I spoke with her also.’
‘Alone?’
‘Sometimes, yes. Think what you like, Fisher, your problem is not that I paid your wife too much attention; it is that you did not pay her enough.’
Noetos jerked his head back as though from a blow. He was so certain—Opuntia had behaved like someone with a guilty secret—but the Hegeoman’s words cut him like truth. He had no proof, no confession; and their marriage had been a broken thing for so long now he was just as likely to have misinterpreted her guilt. Perhaps she was simply ashamed of seeking help from others. Scared of his reaction when he heard of it.
With good reason,
Noetos admitted to himself grimly.
‘We could be of little help to her with regard to her marriage,’ the Hegeoman continued, his words cutting at Noetos like the blade of a boning knife. ‘So we offered her the things she lacked at home: interesting and stimulating conversation, news of the world beyond the cliffs, even philosophical discussion. Noetos, I am frightened of you, I won’t pretend
otherwise, but you made the accusation, so you should not resent the explanation. Come back with me to Fossa and talk with Merle. She will explain it better than I can.’
‘So you did not sleep with her?’
‘Opuntia is a beautiful and clever woman. She aspires to far more than a simple headman of a fishing village. For some reason she thought you had promised her more than she could find in Fossa. What promises you made to her, and why she should have believed them, I do not know. But once married you delivered on none of them. She often talked of feeling trapped, as though the cliffs were a cage.
She
couldn’t put out to sea in a boat and escape.’
The fisherman winced as his own nightmare came back to him. ‘You’ve said enough,’ he admitted.
The Hegeoman continued relentlessly. ‘She saw her time with Merle and myself, and with the other cliff-dwellers, as freedom from her cage; yet she never ran from her obligations, never shirked her duties to her husband and family. And now, after years trapped in Fossa, she is out on the road. Spending time as a guest of the Recruiters, who surely cannot mean her harm, may be the best thing that could have happened to her.’
No, it is not as simple as that. I would have let her go had she asked. But not in the company of these magicians, not with the ones who killed my daughter.
The magic, the swordplay, the body in the hall: these things gave the lie to the Hegeoman’s reassurances. Anomer and Opuntia were in real danger, and Noetos knew himself to be their only hope. He would press on, seeking to overtake them; then, by argument or by force, attempt to take his family from them. After that…After that, they could talk together about their future. Find somewhere he could continue to hide, somewhere Opuntia’s ambition
could be satisfied. Clearly they could no longer live in Fossa. But where would they go?