Songs of the Earth (61 page)

‘Where are they all coming from?’

‘Savin’s summoned them. He can’t approach the islands directly, so he’s sent his creatures instead.’ Masen appeared at Tanith’s shoulder. He laid a hand on her arm, his eyes framing a question. She nodded and gave his hand a squeeze. ‘There are other worlds than this one, Leahn, if you know where to look. Savin discovered theirs a long time ago.’

Gair swore again. His head still rang from whatever Tanith had done inside his mind and he could not think clearly. The squealing of the demons was scraping across his brain like fingernails down a chalkboard. He clapped his hands to his head.

‘Gair, you need to relax.’ Tanith’s voice again, soothing as balm. ‘Sit down a minute. Try not to fight the shield.’

Curse words were all he could manage; coherent thought was impossible. The shield filled his head, pressing outwards even as
the weight of Chapterhouse’s defensive weaving bore down from above. Then, as suddenly and silently as the bursting of a bubble, it was gone. He gasped for breath, and immediately wished he hadn’t. He didn’t dare imagine what he could taste on the air.

Tanith touched his arm. ‘Better?’

Gair nodded. His thoughts still felt disconnected, but it was bearable.

‘Is the shield still holding?’ he asked.

‘Yes, so far.’

‘How long can they maintain it?’

‘In theory, indefinitely,’ said Masen, ‘but people will need to eat and sleep eventually, and there aren’t enough full Masters to replace everyone up here at once. Even if we rotate them in shifts, they’ll tire long before Savin runs out of imps. Alderan will have to use the best of the adepts before the end.’

‘I can help. I’m strong enough.’

‘No, you aren’t, Gair,’ Tanith said firmly. ‘If you were well, you’d be a huge help, but right now it’s too dangerous. That shield in your head is the only thing keeping you safe.’

‘Safe from what? You said we’d destroyed what Savin left behind.’

‘We did, but you need time to heal – there was a huge amount of damage done to you, and I had to seal it away to give you a chance to repair it. That shield isolates you from the Song.’

If he listened, he could hear the Song inside him, swirling restlessly in response to the massive weaving all around him, but it was muted somehow, remote, more like a memory of the Song than the thing itself.

‘How long, Tanith? How much time do I need?’

The way she paused for a beat before she answered told him he wouldn’t like what she said. ‘Weeks. Most probably months.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Possibly for ever.’

Before he could find the words to protest she had her hands on his arms. Her grip was surprisingly strong. ‘Gair, I’m sorry, but I
don’t know how long it will take. I don’t know how quickly you can heal yourself.’ Concern shadowed her eyes, concern, and a flash of pain. ‘The shield will shrink over time as your mind restores order to itself, but that will happen at its own pace. I can’t speed it along. It’s impossible for anyone to organise all those fractured memories. All I can do is give your brain a quiet place in which it can work.’

Clammy fingers of dread plucked at him. The Song might be out of his reach for ever? He might never be able to touch it again, even though he could feel it like a flame behind glass. He might never be able to fly. No. Not that. He scanned the turbulent sky, but he couldn’t see her. He couldn’t bear it if he couldn’t fly.

The shield flashed silver, and scrabbling multitudes of Savin’s creatures returned, relentless as the tide.

‘There must be something I can do besides standing here,’ Gair muttered.

‘The best thing you can do is find a place to rest,’ said Tanith gently.

‘I can’t rest with this.’ He gestured at the shield, and winced as it discharged into the demons. ‘I can feel it, Tanith – I can’t touch it, but it can touch me. I’ve got to find something to do. Where’s Aysha?’

‘She’s outside somewhere. She’s our eyes and ears over the island. Gair, please, listen to me. You need to rest.’

He turned to go down off the wall and had to stiffen his knees when they wobbled underneath him.

Masen’s hand caught his elbow. ‘You should heed the lady. She knows what she’s about.’

‘I can’t stand idle, Masen.’ He disengaged his arm. ‘Thank you, Tanith, for everything you’ve done, but I can’t stay here.’

‘Gair, wait!’ She caught his hand in hers and tried to pull him to a halt. ‘Are you always so stubborn? Please, you’re not fully healed. You need rest.’

‘I’ve rested enough.’ Lifting her hand he ghosted a kiss across
the back of it. ‘Stay out of danger. Chapterhouse might need you later.’

She threw up her hands in exasperation as Gair strode away towards the stairs, newly healed muscles twanging in protest at the pace he set. He pushed past the discomfort; he had no time for it just now. He still had a sword he could use, if it came to down to that.

Adepts crowded the yard. Most stood silently, faces upturned to watch the roiling demons and the flashing of the shield. Some kept their heads bowed, and Gair heard more than a few prayers as he wove through them towards the main doors.

As he reached the vestibule, a hand snagged his sleeve. It belonged to Sorchal, and his other hand was on the hilt of the rapier at his hip.

‘I thought they’d have you in the shield,’ he said.

‘I would be, if I could. Tanith says otherwise.’ Gair gestured at his head. ‘What about you? You’re not out with the other adepts.’

The Elethrainian showed his teeth. ‘I’m not much of a talent! No point standing around out there like a square wheel on a wagon. I just wish there was some way to kill these things. They’re grating on my nerves.’

‘Maybe there is,’ Gair said. ‘Why don’t you get Haral to open up the armoury? Take everyone who knows one end of a weapon from the other who isn’t needed elsewhere and get them equipped. We might need them to protect the Masters if the shield comes down.’

Sorchal’s green eyes sparked. ‘I’ve asked all the girls to dance with me; might as well ask Lady Death. Where are you going?’

‘To do the same as you. To get ready for a fight.’

Sorchal loped off in search of the weapons-master, and Gair continued inside. The main hall stood empty, echoing to his footfalls as he hurried to the stairs and along the silent gallery to his room. Even indoors he could feel the shield as it charged and
discharged. It prickled over where the Song should be like yellow-balm on a skinned knee. When he came back out onto the gallery with his sword, Darin was standing uncertainly in the doorway to his room.

‘Gair?’ The Belisthan’s dark eyes were lost in their shadowed sockets.

‘Shouldn’t you be down in the yard with the others?’

‘There’s something I’ve got to do first.’ Darin’s left hand plucked at the front of his shirt. His right was balled into a fist. His gaze flicked down the gallery then back again, but was unable to settle, hunting for something to rest on.

Gair looked closely at him. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You’re very pale.’

‘I’m just scared.’ A sickly smile. ‘I can hear them screaming. They’re all screaming.’

‘There’s no one else here.’ Gair frowned. ‘Who’s screaming, Darin?’

His slight shoulders lifted, then slumped again, as if he hadn’t the strength to keep them squared. ‘Everyone,’ he said, then turned and walked away.

‘Darin, wait!’ Gair called after him. ‘Darin!’

The Belisthan walked on towards the far end of the gallery, away from the stairs. As he rounded the corner Gair debated running after him, even jogged a few yards along the passage, but when he leaned out over the balustrade he could not see anyone. Darin must have gone into another room. Gair called his name again, but there was only an echo for an answer.

Back on the parapet, two of the Masters had been replaced. Tanith knelt over a blue-robed figure in the lee of the wall by the kitchens, but she was too far away for him to see who it was. Above the gates, Alderan still watched over the shield. Gair climbed the stairs
to stand next to him. Scant feet away was a roil of sharp teeth and flat black eyes.

‘Relentless, aren’t they?’ Alderan said. He eyed the sword. ‘Pray Goddess things don’t get so bad we need to go hand to hand with them.’

‘Tanith’s shield cuts me off from the Song. At least with my sword I don’t feel quite so useless.’

The old man laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘If it weren’t for you we wouldn’t have known he was coming, so you’re far from useless. You paid a high price to give us a few days’ warning, and believe me, for that I’m grateful.’

Overhead the shield flashed and more shrieking demons fell away. Through the bluish haze Gair could see more longships closing on Pencruik. Fire-arrows leapt into the anchored sandboats and fishing vessels, adding to the smoke that billowed across the sound from Pensaeca. An early dusk was falling as the storm clouds finally smothered the sun. Then Savin’s imps resumed their scrabbling and cut off his view.

‘What exactly is this talisman he thinks we have, Alderan? You never got a chance to tell me.’

‘The Nimrothi call them starseed. The stones are prized by the clan Speakers, because they enable them to draw more deeply on the Song than they could unaided. That’s how they tore the Veil in the first place, and how Corlainn sealed it up afterwards.’

Gair frowned. ‘Corlainn the heretic?’

‘Corlainn Fellbane should have been raised up a saint, not burned at the stake.’

‘He condemned himself, Alderan; by his own admission he used dark arts to summon demons. Wait—’ Gair corrected himself as his brain made the connections. ‘That’s how they held Riannen Cut when Gwlach brought up his reserves, isn’t it? That’s how they turned the battle – he used the starseed!’

Alderan inclined his head in salute. ‘And Corlainn paid for it with his life, to protect the Order’s reputation. He was a hero,
Gair, the kind folk should write stories about: a plain-spoken, good-hearted soldier who was not afraid to stand shoulder to shoulder with his men and bleed for them. He should never have been asked to make that sacrifice, but he did it because he believed in something greater than himself.’

‘And the Church repaid him by ensuring he was recorded in the histories as a treacher and apostate.’ The shield sizzled and stank. ‘Another sin to call them to account for. What about the starseed?’

‘After he’d taken it from Gwlach’s clan Speaker, he used it to stitch up the rent she had made in the Veil, sealing the Wild Hunt away again. After his arrest, he surrendered it to the Suvaeon. History is silent as to its final resting place.’

‘Is it here?’ Gair asked.

Alderan shook his head.

‘But Savin thinks it might be? That’s why he’s coming against us?’

‘That, and there’s other knowledge here – books, people, all things he could find a use for as he searches for that starseed. We cannot let him back into Chapterhouse.’

‘What would he do with it if he found it? Rend the Veil?’

‘Oh, he can do that already.’ The old man jerked a hand towards the rent in the clouds that was still spewing demons. They were thick as blowflies round rotten meat. ‘It’s already wearing thin, according to Masen. With the starseed, Savin could destroy it completely, and from that, there is no coming back.’

Another flash overhead.

With mounting horror, Gair realised where Alderan’s story would end. ‘Holy Mother, you’re talking about the Last Days!’

‘“And Eador did cast down the Angel into the Abyss, there to remain for all eternity. She commanded that the Angel’s name be not spoken, that He should dwell in nameless darkness, forever in opposition to Her will. Should ever the Angel escape the Abyss, there will be much weeping, for a darkness shall cover the land and in it shall be the ending of all things.”’

Even curse words failed Gair now.
The ending of all things
. The Book of the Last Days was the final book in the gospels, St Ioan’s apocalyptic visions of a battle between heaven and hell. He had been raised to fear such things, and now Alderan had told him that he might live to see those events unfold within his lifetime.

His mind reeled. ‘I can’t believe— Why would he want to destroy the Veil? Why?’

The old man smiled sadly. ‘You’d have to ask him that, because I simply could not say. Much of the Book of Eador is based on legends, scraps of legends, really, from a time further back than even the clan Speakers can recall, but there is truth in it too. The hell of the Book is one aspect of the Hidden Kingdom, one of the many worlds that exist beyond the Veil. If the Veil were to disappear, there would be nothing to prevent those worlds intersecting with our own, and the creatures that inhabit them have no love for men – least of all those creatures that mankind once banished there.’