The Long War 03 - The Red Prince (64 page)

He couldn’t see the Karesian. The causeway looked all the same. Pillars, stone and the blue glow. Utha kept running, more concerned about ourunning the servitor than with finding Voon. After what seemed like an age, he could no longer hear the repeating cry of the Jekkan beast.

* * *

He could handle the monotonous hours of solitary walking. He could ignore the carvings. He didn’t feel tired, metal was no longer heavy, and he was trudging on with stubborn determination, but the blue glow was driving him mad. Why blue? Did the Jekkans not know about other colours? Their servitors were black, their stone grey, but their lights were all blue.

He was unimpressed with their architecture as well. Pillars and huge, square flagstones. Not very imaginative. No rooms, no corridors or walls. Just the bloody pillars.

Why was he here? The staircase, the labyrinth and the guardian? The halls beyond the world? The exemplar of fucking Jaa? His dreams, so vivid for months, seemed far away now. The certainty that he had worn like armour was now a thin veneer of hope which offered him no protection. He just wanted to go home and forget he was an old-blood. Being an albino wasn’t so bad. People were scared of him, but it didn’t preclude a quiet life.

Quietness had a resonance. The Jekkan causeway had no ambient sound. No whistle of wind or background chatter of animals. He began to talk to himself just for company.

‘Sorry you’re not here to see this, Randall. I’d like to share my abject misery with an unsympathetic ear.’ He smiled. ‘And I could have thrown you to the servitor while I ran away.’

‘How long have I been down here? Not tired, not hungry.’

He puffed out his cheeks and stopped walking.

‘Voon!’ he shouted, surprised when there was no echo. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a tavern or a fuck-shop down here?’

No answer. Utha imagined he was lost, separated from Voon by the endless stone pillars. There was no point in stopping, but was there any point in continuing to walk? He had always been lucky, but finding Oron Kaa amid such monotony would be a tall order. In fact, it edged into the realm of the impossible.

‘Voon! I’m getting fed up of this place.’

Still no answer.

‘Does it change? Do the lights turn green at some point?’

His eyes were drawn back to the pillars. The carvings were just as vague and shadowy, but his mind felt stronger and he allowed himself a look. The stories were told in interwoven pictograms, with one pillar connecting to adjacent pillars. He found that the story dictated the direction he walked, each thread of story leading him in a different direction.

The Great Race of Jekka had held these lands for millennia. They had built an empire on chaos and sensuality. He wouldn’t call them evil, just amoral. Or perhaps he just didn’t understand their morality. They warred with ancient creatures, all of which were lost in the catacombs of deep time, forgotten by the Jekkan caliphate that had quashed them.

A symbol made him pause in his journey through the history of the Jekkans. It was a humanoid, superimposed behind a bright star, and he knew that it referred to the old bloods. In the Jekkan age the blood of Giants was still strong and the warlords of the time had wielded this power to build their own kingdoms. They had fought each other and they had fought the Jekkans until few remained. The old bloods fell from might and were hunted by the Great Race, who both feared and hated them. The fear was stronger. But why? The carvings were vague and he felt the very stone recoil, bringing him to a halt.

The Jekkan causeway was afraid of him. The servitor had not been trying to kill him, it had been trying to scare him off, to make him leave. But why? What power did he have?

He followed the story, lost in his journey between the pillars. The stone columns had appeared identical, but now each one was as different as steel and snow. Jekkan art was experienced in layers, depth chiselled out of stone by unknown craft. Or was it art? He was beginning to doubt. It felt as if he was reading a book or watching a performance. It was in his head, an experience both visual and sensory. Voon had said it was addictive, but he now drew his eyes away easily.

He looked around, taking in the still air. The metal was no longer heavy and his head was surprisingly clear. In fact, he felt good. Well, not exactly good, but certainly not as bad as his situation would dictate.

He kept following the Jekkan story, slowing to a stroll and concentrating on the images. Old bloods were forbidden in Jekkan lands. In ages past, the Great Race had been terrified of those with Giant’s blood, believing their presence drained the Jekkan magic. The last symbol was harder to translate. Maybe
drained
wasn’t the right word.
Leeched
,
consumed
. He wasn’t certain.

He stopped again, rubbing his eyes and swearing in a low mutter.

‘Fuck me, this is weird. I’m in a world of blue shit, lost, looking for a Karesian shit, while reading some carved shit... on stone shit.’

He turned away from the pillars and slumped to a seated position on the huge flagstones. He wasn’t tired, but defiantly he plonked himself down anyway.

‘Randall, what do I do? What’s my move, how should I react? Come on, you’re so good at moralizing... tell me what’s right.’

The blue glow began to fade. Slowly at first, the criss-cross lines disappeared. Centred on Utha, the immediate area darkened. The pillars still had their eerie light, but the blue of the floor was repelled by him. He could feel its fear.

He stood. ‘You are right to be afraid of me.’

The light held its position, pulled back in a circle, unable to encroach into his space. Every second he felt stronger, every second he leeched more power from the Jekkan causeway. Reading the story had unlocked something. The art was more than carved images, more than decoration. It had transferred knowledge to him. Knowledge that he struggled to put into words or any sort of usable form, but it was there, scratching at the corners of his mind.

Jekkan magic was bastardized from the divine spark of the gods. It was the remnants of the true magic of the Giants, mighty in the lands of men, but vulnerable to those who possessed a true hint of the divine.

With clarity, Utha the Shadow realized that he was more than he thought. The stories called him something else, something more than an old-blood. He was a demi-god. Millennia had wiped out his legacy, but the power remained, hidden in the depths of his blood. Somewhere, clinging to a vein or sitting in an artery was a drop of divine ichor, the blood of the Giants. It gave him power. The Jekkans understood this and knew what the old bloods could do and what they represented. Though he was still vulnerable. He and his Shadow Giant ancestors had no power of belief... maybe a distant sliver from the remaining Dokkalfar, but nothing of true worth.

‘Right, what else do you have to tell me?’

He returned to the pillars and located his place, letting the story take him where it wished. As he walked, the lights retreated from his step, illuminating nothing but the carved pillars. He felt stronger with each step. Larger, more upright. As more of the Jekkan power passed into him, Utha breathed in deeply.

‘You’ll show me what I want you to show me.’

He pushed his will at the Jekkan causeway, forcing it to answer to his command. His eyes took him back to the halls beyond the world. The pillars showed him the dreamscapes that had plagued his nights – or perhaps he was now reading his own story. Either way, he felt powerful and in control.

The shadow hall was still there, a broken wreck of black, twisting shapes, a graveyard for a long dead god. But there was more. The place called to him as if they were intertwined, as if his spark of the divine was all that was keeping the hall intact. There was no Shadow Giant, not any more, but Utha knew now what he had to do. Within him was the seed of a new god. In the lands of men, his destiny had been vague and unformed, but now that he was infused with Jekkan magic he was more confident than he had ever been. He was the distant descendant of a god, a creature of lands both terrestrial and beyond.

‘I can rebuild the hall. I can revive the Shadow Giant.’

* * *

As the hours melted together and formed an endless journey, Utha learned more and more. He could shape his story with a thought, forcing the causeway to obey him. He had been a simple man with a simple view of the world, but that view had been challenged, eroded, cut away and finally splintered.

‘You’re not so scary really,’ he said to the causeway. ‘You’re all big and tough with men, but you’re fucked when someone stands up to you.’

He had followed the pillars in meandering lines and chaotic circles. The stories were also a map, a guide through which a knowledgeable traveller could find his way. Oron Kaa was just a chapter heading, a place to bookmark the journey if he so wished. He could halt his journey at any one of a hundred different locations, none of which he had heard of.

Imrya, the Nar Scopian Deeps, Mordja, the twin cities of Klarkash and Skavan. He hated feeling ignorant. The magic he leeched made him feel powerful, but did nothing to alleviate his ignorance. These lands, these kingdoms, these cities, they had existed in the distant past of the world. Perhaps they existed now, but Utha didn’t want to visit them.

He located Oron Kaa and walked.

EPILOGUE

F
YNIUS
B
LACK CLAW
, captain of Twilight Company, was staggeringly bored. He sat at a table opposite a bunch of people, most of whose names he couldn’t be bothered to recall. There was the tall one, the drunken one and the one with bizarre eyebrows.

On his side, Mathias Flame Tooth, Al-Hasim, Federick Two Hearts and Lady Bronwyn spoke for the Ranen. Even recalling their names was a struggle.

‘The law is the law,’ said the one with bizarre eyebrows.

‘The law of Ro doesn’t apply here,’ replied the fat one, Mathias Flame Tooth to those who could give a shit.

‘Two hundred Purple clerics are dead,’ said eyebrow man. ‘Someone must answer for that.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ muttered Fynius, not realizing that he’d spoken aloud.

Everyone looked at him.

‘What? What did I do?’

‘You killed two hundred Purple clerics, you obstinate bastard,’ replied the eyebrows. ‘And a cardinal.’

‘I only killed five or so... but the cardinal, yeah, that was me.’

‘Fynius, keep your mouth shut for a minute,’ snapped Lady Bronwyn, the up-her-own-arse one. ‘Diplomacy is not one of your gifts.’

He slumped back in his chair. ‘Yeah, okay, just wake me up when the Ro bastards have fucked off.’

The tall one kept the peace as the eyebrows started swearing. The drunken one just smirked, sipping from a brass goblet and nodding politely. They whinged and bickered, making stupid threats and feverishly masturbating over their Ro superiority.

‘Please, gentlemen,’ said Bronwyn, interrupting their words with raised arms. ‘Fynius does not represent all of us. The Ranen of South Warden wish for a peaceful resolution.’

‘As do we,’ said the tall one, who appeared to be more reasonable than the eyebrows. Fynius thought he was Fallon of Leith but would continue to think of him as the tall one until he was sure.

‘Where are you bound, my Lord Frith?’ asked Bronwyn. ‘Tor Funweir could use its Red general.’

Good girl, she was flattering him. Old men liked that.

‘My destination is not pertinent to the current situation,’ he replied. ‘The murder of the clerics is.’

‘Murder!’ exclaimed Mathias. ‘Just so we know, where does conquest end and murder begin?’

They carried on talking. Some of it may have been arguing. Most of it was dull babble, infused with a sense of entitlement. These men, this moment, all of it was a click of the fingers or a speck of dust in the ocean. They would never understand, so he let them argue. He let them argue and he gradually stopped listening.

Once eyebrows had stopped whingeing about the murder of the One God’s noblemen – a ridiculous title, with many levels of misunderstanding – he moved on to the state of his country. Fynius began listening again.

‘How fairs Tor Funweir?’ asked Lady Bronwyn. ‘We have had little news... little opportunity to ask questions. Since I left Canarn... seems like years ago... I really don’t know what’s been happening in the lands of Ro.’

Frith shrugged. ‘We’ve been on the road for months. The last I heard, an enchantress had turned up in Ro Arnon. Something about Hounds around Ro Weir, but that wasn’t our problem. The king commands and we obey.’

Another man of Ro appeared. An old man, robed in brown and with an open, friendly face.

‘I may be able to offer some information,’ said brown robes, standing over the tall one’s right shoulder. ‘I was in Canarn more recently than Lady Bronwyn.’

‘And?’ prompted eyebrows.

‘Well, the reports were sketchy... and obviously my Lord Bromvy wasn’t first in line to receive any juicy information.’

‘Speak!’ said Frith, his bizarre eyebrows dancing about on his forehead.

Brown robes flapped a little, uncomfortable at the Red man’s tone.