Shanakan (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 1) (10 page)

“Even so, Wulf and I have to return home and make arrangements before we can do this. Perhaps twenty days?”

“You have a home?”

“We took your advice, after starvation reinforced it a little. We were farming in a village three days’ ride from here up until a couple of weeks ago. We even have a house, and a food store, if it’s still there.”

“I take it you’d rather be a builder?”

“If there’s a decent project.”

“There will be. I’m not intending to build just one of these things, Delf. One for each town, and then perhaps even one for each village, but it is a major piece of work.”

“I see,” Delf was quiet for a while, looking at the plan scratched on the ground. “You can do this?” It was amazing that he could have come by such power after so short a time at White Rock. He wondered what Serhan had done to achieve this.

“I think I can persuade Gerique.”

“That, I would like to see. On second thought, perhaps not.”

“You will be at White Rock in twenty days?”

“Yes, I will be there, with all the people that I can persuade.”

“Thank you, Delf. I shall see you then. If I am not there, please ask for Captain Grand or Captain Bantassin. Either of them will treat you well until I return.”

The agreement made, Delf approached the recently released people who were still at the camp site. It was almost dawn by now, and most were still making plans, eating, trying to catch a few hours of sleep before dispersing.

He persuaded twenty eight to join him, and arranged to meet them back at the camp site, which was conveniently no more than a day’s ride from the fortress, in nineteen days. He then secured three horses for himself, Wulf and Falla, and rejoined his old comrade at their hearth.

“We’re going home?” Wulf asked when he finally sat down beside them.

“Yes, after I get the chance to close my eyes for a while.”

“What were you talking about?”

Delf explained quickly. He had assumed that Wulf would come with him, but looking at his friend now he saw that he was having doubts. He decided on the direct approach.

“You don’t want to do this?”

“I don’t know,” Wulf was hesitant. “I really liked it back at the village, and if the guard from White Rock are clearing up the bandits it could be a really good life.”

“I need you, Wulf, at least on the first one. I need someone I can trust to train the others.”

Wulf nodded, but Delf could sense that the decision wasn’t made.

A few hours of fitful sleep and he was woken by the warmth of the sun. Wulf was already up, and he had the luxury of eating a good breakfast almost as soon as he rolled off his sleeping mat. Falla had changed. What had once been almost unrecognisable as a human had become in a few hours a young woman. She had found a comb somewhere and cleaned out and tidied her hair, which now framed an oval face which while still mostly grave was host to the occasional smile. She had a good smile. Her sack-like clothing was now tied at the waist, and she was paying a lot of attention to Wulf. Wulf was loving it.

They rode out of camp and headed south towards the village. For once Delf felt that he could relax and enjoy the journey. The horses were a valuable acquisition, and they had been allowed to keep their weapons, so there was very little chance of being waylaid by bandits, if there were any left to waylay them. The sun shone, breezes cooled them and they took their time, stopping in pretty places to eat and rest, and while they rode Falla was given to singing songs. She was tuneful, and her voice was soft, so Delf found it most pleasing.

When they camped on the second night and Wulf disappeared into the forest, as was his habit, to gather herbs, Falla approached Delf. She hadn’t really said much in the previous two days, and she was still a stranger to him.

“Sir, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, but please don’t call me ‘sir’. Everyone just calls me Delf.”

“Are you Wulf’s master?”

“His friend. We are both free men, or at least we were until we met Bragga.”

“I’m glad he’s dead,” she said, and there was a change of tone, a vehemence in her voice that suggested a considerable volume of hatred.

“Bragga wasn’t a good man.”

“..and it was your friend who killed him.”

“Hardly a friend, though I’d be glad to call him such, and glad to work for him, I think. He has not mistreated me the times we have met, and he’s certainly had the opportunity.”

“Do you think he likes me, Wulf I mean?”

Delf was surprised at the question, but it made sense. Wulf had looked after her, but he wasn’t a very demonstrative man, and hard to read. Delf could, though; he had a lot of practice at it.

“I think so. I think he likes you a lot,” he said, and was treated to another smile. He didn’t think she was fully recovered from her ordeal yet. It would take time, he guessed, but for now she was still swinging between hate and joy, love and despair. Her freedom and safety weren’t real yet, and would take some time to become solid, dependable, and trusted. Being back with Tarbo and the rest of her family would help.

“Will we be home tomorrow?” she asked.

“I think so. If I read the land right we should be there in the afternoon.”

She nodded and wandered off to tend the fire while Delf looked after the horses, making sure that they were hobbled and had good grazing and water within reach.

The following day was beautiful from the moment it dawned. Birds serenaded them from the trees and the spring air was full of life and promise. They rode easily through the hours, accompanied by Falla’s songs and the gentle sound of their horses’ hooves on the forest floor. The paths through the trees felt wider and more spacious than he remembered, and it was shortly after they had stopped for a mid day meal that they came out of the tree cover into the fields around Woodside.

It was quite a homecoming. A number of men were working on the land. It was close to the end of planting time. At first the people looked alarmed by their appearance, but they waved and smiled, and were recognised. One figure came running madly across the fields and rushed up to them out of breath and red faced. It was Brono, Falla’s brother, and she leapt from the saddle into his arms. They embraced for a long time, not speaking, and other farmers gathered around them.

Eventually, they disengaged and Brono turned to Delf and Wulf, who sat on their horses grinning.

“From this day you are my brothers,” he said. “You cannot imagine the joy that you have brought to our family.” He turned to another man, one of Tarbo’s field hands. “Go,” he said. “Run. Fetch my father.”

The man ran off in the direction of the village, and the whole party moved slowly in the same direction.

“When you failed to return there were people who said that you had fled, left us to our fate,” Brono said, “but my father denied them. Then when the bandits did not return in a day, two days, three days, we realised that they were not coming back. We wondered why.”

“Delf told them you had the plague,” Wulf volunteered. The glow of good will all around him was making him voluble. “They caught us in the woods half way back here, and we joined up with them to lead them astray.”

Questions flowed, Wulf answered most of them, and Falla walked with her brother, gripping his arm like an anchor in a stormy sea. Half way to the village they were met by an even larger party hurrying out to them. It was a very good day.

There were few tasks that Serhan dreaded, but prominent amongst these few was a mission such as this: punishment. Gerique had summoned him and told him that a problem existed in the town of Sorocaba, which lay about sixty miles south east of White Rock. The problem was a man, and the man was practising magic. Reports had come in from those who served the Faer Karan that a wizard had arisen in the town, and that the wizard was exhorting the people to open rebellion. It was not something that the Faer Karan could ignore, and Gerique did not choose to do so. Without the option that Serhan represented he would have sent Dragan, a Faer Karani in his service. Dragan was the punisher, and its methods were known, and feared. Dragan ate villages and towns, it was said. After it left there was nothing to be seen but flat ground. There were no bodies, no houses, just bare, flat, burned ground.

Gerique made it clear that this was a test of Serhan’s ability to solve such problems, and that Dragan was waiting in case of failure.

Serhan wondered at the reports. A wizard? No such thing had been seen in nearly forty decades. He himself was the nearest thing to a wizard that he could imagine. His perfect memory had given him seven spells in addition to the original three he had been taught, though they had yet to be tested. He was personally keen to try the black door spell, but the opportunity had not yet arisen. He was still uncertain of Gerique’s tolerance towards his use of magic, even though he had been given the magic ring. He was walking a tightrope, though he was doing so with some confidence.

He went to consult with Darius and Cora and found them sharing a bottle of wine in Darius Grand’s quarters. Consultation had become a routine in dealing with any problem. Their advice was always sound and he had come to rely on them to agree with him. This time he was surprised.

“A wizard?” Darius said. “No such thing.”

“Not my words,” Serhan said.

“Cal, we’ve never seen or heard of a wizard,” Cora said. “We can deal with people, but we don’t know what a wizard is, or what it does. How do we fight it?”

“I don’t know. That depends on what it can do.”

“If we don’t know what it is, we have no tactics, no drill for the men. It’s chaos.”

Serhan realised that they were right. With no idea of what to expect, all Darius and Cora could do was guess, and hope that their subordinates would react quickly to any adjustments that might be needed. In the heat of battle that was a poor strategy – communications were difficult, even in a small force.

“So the unexpected is my area of expertise?”

“So far,” Cora said.

“That’s the deal, then. I’ll deal with the wizard, whatever that turns out to be, and you manage what happens afterwards.”

“That sounds like a plan. Your sort of plan, anyway.” Darius said.

He couldn’t complain. They had got used to him winging it, solving problems when they had to be solved. When Darius Grand described it as his sort of plan, he meant no plan at all. He didn’t often feel that he needed a plan, and positively avoided it most of the time. A plan was rigid, and he liked to be flexible, using variable means to ever changing ends.

“I’d like to know how he finds these things out. Does it have spies?”

“Oh yes, I thought you’d know that by now,” Darius seemed surprised. “He has people in most of the large towns, probably all of them. They do it out of fear, and because they get a certain amount of protection. Colonel Stil coordinates it.”

“Stil? I wondered what more he had to offer.”

“You should be careful of him, Cal,” Cora said. She looked worried. “He really doesn’t like the influence that you have. He doesn’t even like us speaking with you, and if it wasn’t the wish of the Faer Karani he would forbid it.”

“You think he would dare to move against me? Gerique would be angry, and I think that would be enough to stay his hand.” He wondered about the colonel. He had almost dismissed him from his tactical thinking. The man had access to Gerique, but could not interfere in any way with his work. He hardly ever saw or spoke to the colonel and all their exchanges were brief and functional apart from the odd insult. It probably suited Gerique to keep them at odds.

“Not directly,” Cora said, “but he is not a direct man by nature. He seems full of bluster and anger, but there is a lot underneath that he keeps hidden.”

“As long as I keep Gerique happy things should go smoothly.”

“Yes. We hope so, anyway,” Darius agreed.

“One more piece of gossip that you should be aware of,” Cora said. “I heard from one of the castle staff last night that The Faer Karan may have brought a Shan to White Rock.”

“A Shan?” Really loud alarm bells were going off inside Serhan’s head.

“Yes. Late last night they were called out to put it into quarters on the east side of the keep. Nobody else stays up there, so it will be completely alone.”

“You’re sure it was a Shan?”

“The man that told me was pretty sure. His guess was that it came through a black door from Cabarissa, because it came out of the Faer Karan quarters. It was small, he said, about a foot shorter than you, and wrapped up in a grey robe so that it was impossible to see its face. It didn’t speak at all.”

“What does Gerique want a Shan for?”

“Your guess is probably better than mine, but they do render service to the Faer Karan from time to time. The orders to quarter it, and where, came from the colonel, by the way, not that knowing that will ease your mind.”

“You’re worried, Cal,” Darius observed.

“Yes, because I have no idea what this is about. You know what the Shan can do?”

“Not first hand, but there’s talk they can see a man’s thoughts,” Darius said. “Perhaps even see the past and the future.”

“Quite. I don’t want anybody knowing what I know, where I’ve been and what I’ve done, and least of all what I want.”

“Then you’ll have to stay clear of it,” Cora said. “Anyway, you two are off to Sorocaba tomorrow, so I suggest you get some sleep. I certainly need it.” She drained the cup of wine in front of her and left them. Darius poured another cup for Serhan.

“You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?” he asked.

“I won’t deny it. There are a lot of things in my head that I don’t want Gerique to know.”

“Not much you can do except stay out of the way, get out of White Rock as often as you can. You’ve got the freedom of action and enough excuses to be somewhere else.”

They left it there. Serhan didn’t really want to talk about it any more. He had to think, and returned to his own rooms to do so.

The Shan were an ancient race, and lived apart from men on the island of Cabarissa where they practiced their strange skills. They were physically small, and weak, and there were no great Shan warriors. They were no match for men, had no inclination to war, and saw no glory in it, people said. He had heard that there were a hundred thousand of them on Cabarissa, and that they built cities of stone and crystal in which they dwelled in comparative peace. The old Kings of the south were supposed to have extended their protection to the Shan because they were willing to serve the Kings in return. They were used as truth tellers. You could not lie to a Shan, and you could not hide a secret from them.

The stories that Serhan had been told insisted that skin to skin contact was necessary for the hearing of thoughts to take place, but that was the only defence. Master Brial, back in the valley, had painted the Shan as an evil race, accomplices to tyrants and betrayers of the just, but Serhan had not quite believed it. He had thought for a long time about what it must be like to be defenceless. There were so many more men, and they were so much stronger and more warlike. He preferred to think that Brial was a man for whom secrets were necessary, and the existence of the Shan was an offence to him.

He pushed open the door to his rooms and noticed that the handle was slightly sticky. It annoyed him that those whose job it was to clean had missed something so obvious. He washed his hands in a bowl of water and lay down on his bed, but sleep would not come for a long time. He thought about the town of Sorocaba. It was large for Gerique’s domain, with a population of five thousand or more. Dragan, the punisher, would have levelled the place, so in a way he was saving thousands of lives, or would do so if he was successful.

He did not believe that a genuine wizard existed in Sorocaba. They were an extinct breed, wiped out in a few days by the Faer Karan nearly four hundred years ago. If some knowledge had been preserved it would be trivial, similar to his own, and he knew that the wisdom he had gleaned from Gerique would serve him well. The ring was also an advantage.

There was a noise outside his room. He lay very still and listened. It sounded as though someone were scratching at his door. Then it stopped. He rolled off his bed and walked quietly across the room, pulling the door open suddenly.

There was nothing outside, just empty stone hallways and a single oil lamp. He listened again for a full minute, but didn’t hear anything more, so he closed the door and went back to bed. His stomach felt bad. He guessed that the wine had not been that good, but it did not disturb him enough to prevent sleep claiming him at last.

It was several hours later that he awoke again, and realised that he was dying.

His body was bathed in sweat and his arms were incredibly heavy. He could not move his legs at all, and blood was beating loudly in his ears. He was seized by panic, and thrashed around as best he could, trying to get out of the bed, but then stopped.

What good would getting out of the bed do? Could he reach the door? No. Could he call out? He tried his voice, but it was very weak, and he doubted that it would be heard beyond the door. So what could he do to save himself?

Before he knew that he must know what was wrong with him, and a few moments of calm thought put it together. It was not the wine. He had been poisoned. Not so bad, then. He focussed all his remaining strength and reached back into his memory, bringing out the spell of healing that both Balgoan and Gerique had used to fix his broken limbs. He knew that the spell itself might kill him if it drew too much of his reserves away, but there was no other option.

He spoke the words clearly, perfectly, and felt the rush of heat through his limbs and chest. It was gone. The weakness passed and his legs felt light again. He sat on the edge of the bed and sucked in air. He felt drained and the sweat made him cold, so he pulled a blanket round his shoulders.

Who had done this? His thoughts went back to the cup of wine he had taken from Darius. There was no motive there, and Darius was a friend. He put that to one side. He had once thought that if anyone was going to poison him it would be Colonel Stil, but he could not see how it had been done. He had eaten nothing that had not been from the common pot, and drunk nothing except water from the well and Darius’s wine.

He remembered the sticky feeling on the door handle. Poison? He went to the door and opened it, ran his hand across the handle again. It was polished and smooth. Well, that explained the noises he had heard outside the door. Someone had waited until he had retired, and was assumed to be sleeping, and then removed all trace of the poison.

But this was beyond the art of Colonel Stil. He would have had to employ somebody with great skill and… the Shan! Now he remembered other stories that he had been told. The Shan were supposed to be masters of medicinal herbs and poisons. They were sometimes employed to heal in the old kingdoms, but just as often to kill. There was never any proof, but the stories persisted. So Stil had used a Shan to try to assassinate him. It was a bold move. Cora had been right, the man had hidden and sinister depths. On the other hand, he did not think that Gerique would have agreed to this. It was just possible that the Faer Karani had set him a test, but he did not think it likely, so the Shan must be here for some other purpose. It had been brought in through the Faer Karan area of the castle, probably by a black door, so Gerique would know that it was here, and there would be some reason. The Shan would be here until its official purpose was achieved.

It was awkward for Stil, he thought, that the Shan was still around, and so was he. If the thing was here to expose him, to test him, then Colonel Stil would have waited until that particular test had been passed or failed before making his play, so now he reasoned that he could feel safer in that regard as well.

It was too much to think of now. He needed sleep for the long day tomorrow, and there would be plenty of time to think on the journey.

*              *              *              *

In the morning he deliberately delayed going down to join the assembling troops until the last possible moment. He dressed at a leisurely pace, and fifteen minutes before they were due to depart he sauntered into the castle courtyard where the troops, a hundred of them, were completing their preparations. He was very pleased to see that Colonel Still was also there, and although he controlled his reaction very well, it was clear that he was both surprised and fearful at Serhan’s appearance.

“You’re late,” Darius said.

“Sorry. I slept very deeply last night, for some reason.” He made sure that the colonel could hear his voice. He walked over to where he was standing. On his way down to the courtyard he had picked up a dab of honey and placed it in the palm of his hand, smearing it so that it was sticky. “You look pale, colonel. Are you well?”