Under A Colder Sun (Khale the Wanderer Book 1) (17 page)

She remembered passing through the mirror and the fall through the Dark that waited outside the world, and how it was peopled with the faces of all those she had known; that was when she knew Colm had burned. The Dark had seemed to go on forever, and she would never forget the sound of its screaming. And then, it spat her back out: alive and breathing into the world. The crown of her skull had struck upon the cold, damp stone that was now under her feet.

Some days she spent with her fingers, exploring the scar that ran across the palm of her hand, the one made in Voyane’s name.  And she thought on the words of Kereth and the dream she’d had about the God. It had all seemed like something born of stress and pain at the time. She had doubted what was to become of her.

But then there had been the weeping blade; as sure a sign of Voyane’s favour as any.

The ache of memory was as bitter and sweet as a given kiss, but there were deeper wounds also, those of the heart and soul. She barely remembered what it meant to be a woman: a simple creature born amid a torrent of blood and fluid that would go on to survive as best it could in the world, before its life was ended and returned to the Thoughtless Dark, as all others before it had been.

No wonder we scream so when we are born,
she thought,
I understand now.

Without windows, without doors, and without light, her time in the pit, and its darkness, had made her become something more complex and more empty. She was becoming closer to Khale in her nature. And why not, if that would make it easier to take his head one day?

“I will kill you for this, Khale. I will find you and I will kill you.”

She heard footsteps crossing to the seal-stone with acuity. Long days of complete silence had trained her ears to detect the slightest sound. She rose to her feet, brushing flakes of blood from her torn hands as there came a grinding from above. The seal-stone was being opened. It was not a surprise to her, though it should have been. A deeply buried part of herself had known this was coming since the night of the dream where the voice of Voyane spoke to her and she ate of the God’s flesh.

But the time for such reveries was past, as she listened to the sound of steel separating mortar from stone. She thought on how those who had kept her trapped here had made one simple mistake: they were letting her out.

After all these long days and nights of isolation and darkness, not one of them had thought what such conditions might create. Not one of them had thought it might be better to kill her and have done with it. One less prisoner to feed. They would not live long enough to dwell on how unwise they were, for they could not have foreseen what would emerge from the pit once the seal-stone was opened and the rope lowered down.

A Blood-servant of Voyane and Daughter of War.

Leste the Red.

End of Book One

Book Two
of Khale the Wanderer

Lost is the Night
-
available
here

The Evolution of Khale

Author’s note:
Khale is a character who has gone through a few stages of evolution before his final form was realised in
Under a Colder Sun
. For those of you interested in this, the following section contains two bonus stories;
Timestone
and
Each Dawn, I Die
.

There are some situations and characters in each story that have been re-cast for
Under a Colder Sun
but I hope you still get some enjoyment from these early attempts at realising the Wanderer and his world.

Timestone

The world has grown old, and the sun is a cracked black lantern hanging in the sky. Everywhere from horizon to horizon has become a desert of dried-out land, snowless mountains and ruins. There is precious little warmth to be found and, just as her sun has grown dim, the Earth has grown cold. The last human beings huddle close around feeble fires to tell old stories of The Time Before. For they know that there will not be a Time To Come. There will only be The Long Dark Night and when it falls over everything, it will consume them and the last vestiges of the Light.

*

The Wanderer dragged his captive along by a length of hemp rope bound around her throat in a tight noose. Ahead rose a small mountain of blasted red stone and some other substance that shone and glittered in the eternal twilight cast by the shadowed sun.

His name was Khale and he was older than most of the things left alive on this dying Earth. His features were brutish and masked by a bearded mane of dirty grey streaked with occasional stripes of obsidian black. He was clad in rough leather armour overlaid by fur pelts to keep out the cold of the days and nights. There were no seasons anymore, only times of settled temperance and freezing winds that followed no pattern. Khale could feel that a mild time was ending. In a few nights, he would need shelter to survive the tundra gales that would come surging across the land.

The girl he dragged behind him was M’taoi, daughter-priestess of Talor, the Living God. Though Talor was no longer alive, as Khale had slain him. Not that it had been a callous killing. M’taoi’s cultists had cast Khale into the pit where they kept their God, and he found a bovine, albino mutant shuffling about down there in the dark. It was sick and weak, having no desire to fight man or beast. Though from the scars on its torso, Khale could see it had been forced to do so any number of times. The creature’s haunches had been worn raw from the rusted chains it was bound with, and it had torn out its own eyes long ago as madness from infection set in. Khale had crushed the moaning creature’s throat into collapsed fibres with his bare hands. He was sure that he felt a sigh of relief escape the thing named Talor by the savages above. Casting a look of disgust towards the shadows clustered around the mouth of the pit, Khale had uttered one of the most bloodcurdling screams he could muster until he saw them cheer and then begin to drift away to their sleeping chambers.

Clambering out of the pit after nightfall, Khale crept through the shadows to the sleeping chamber of M’taoi and made off with her. Because the Cult of Talor knew one thing of importance among all of its broken gibberish and concocted fantasies.

They knew where the Timestone was buried; a relic of the ancient world that would grant Khale his heart’s desire.

M’taoi was pale-skinned, dark-haired and clad in a fur cloak and oilskin boots that were far too big for her. Khale had dug them out from his bags. Though he cared not for her, he did need her to remain alive until they reached the mountain. Having her perish from being barefoot and clad only in her sleeping robes would gain him nothing. Though the idea of leaving her to die out here alone had held a certain appeal as she sobbed and wailed her way through their first days and nights together. He could not shake the miserable image of the beast she had called God from his mind. It was seared into his retina, waiting for him whenever he closed his eyes. Such pain she had caused that creature. She should be rewarded with the slow and painful death that wandering in the barren lands would provide. But that was not to be as Khale needed her and she was quieter now, bearable company though hardly stimulating. When she did talk, it was monotone religious doggerel.

“You shall be struck down for the wrongs you have done to me, Dark One. I will be avenged by the mighty Talor. He shall arise from his pit to tear the flesh from your bones.”

“You’re very tedious, you know that?”

She hawked and spat at him.

Khale shrugged.

He’d known worse insults and deeper wounds.

*

The mountain drew closer and M’taoi slowed her pace, her eyes widening as they crossed into its shadow. Khale listened to her muttering and chanting under her breath. More doggerel and superstition though her fear was well-founded, even if she did not know why or wherefrom it came. They reached the gateway into the mountain. A colossal door cut from the glittering, metallic substance that seemed to be fused with the rock and stone. M’taoi grovelled in the dirt before the gate, her forehead beating at the ground while Khale stood in sombre remembrance.

There were shadows guarding the gate, recorded by the cult of Talor as creatures that walked the night when the sun went down to snatch away the unwary and drink the blood of unbelieving fools. But Khale knew that they were merely after-images, burned into the red rock by an explosion thousands of years gone by. And now that he was close enough, he could see that the other substance that made up the mountain was a dark-toned metal that had fused with the stone. A curious by-product of the blast, perhaps. Or, something that had come from what was waiting for him inside the vaults of the mountain. Something created by the presence of the Timestone. He could also see that the gate was fused shut. There was no way in here.

He kicked M’taoi in the side, making her cry out.

“Get up.”

He yanked hard on the noose around her neck, feeling it bite into skin and muscle.

“I said, get up!”

“I shall not. It is profane and blasphemous to look upon the shadows when the sun is still high. They will drink my blood and carry me away into the Long Dark Night.”

“Listen, the only reason you are alive and not wandering around out there like scavenger-bait is because you know something I don’t.”

Still she would not get to her feet nor look at him.

“You know how to get inside that mountain. There is a way and you are taught it. It is as a part of all the shit you believe in, right?”

She said nothing. He pulled the noose tighter and leaned in so she could see his eyes. They were yellow eyes though not tinged with the gold of the wolf or the amber of the cat. This hue of yellow was one of plague, waste and disease. There was a taint inside him, something deeply rotten, that no balm or cure could ease.

“I have heard stories ... ” she began to say.

“The mark of the Death,” he said.

“None live who bear Her mark but one,” she went on, “and he is a man that walks alone. A Wanderer Eternal ... ”

Suddenly, she was grovelling to him instead of the shadows, tugging at his pelts and patched armour.

“Immortal lord, do not forsake me. Do not let me die here at the hands of the shadows.”

He jerked the noose hard, dragging her up onto her feet this time.

“I will not ... forsake you ... if you show me the way into the mountain and the iron labyrinth it houses.”

“As my immortal lord commands.”

Khale let her lead the way, a cold and amused smile on his lips. Maybe religion had a few things going for it after all.

*

M’taoi showed him the way inside. A small, unobstrusive passage a quarter of the way around the mountain’s circumference. There were guardians in the iron labyrinth but Khale had guessed as much and he was ready. M’taoi screamed until her throat was dry at the sight of the guardians but, in truth, they were even more pathetic than Talor had been.

Khale had met such beings before. Remnants of the old world. Necroforms of some sort. He was surprised to see that they had survived this long. Their skinless faces, seething maggot-ridden bodies and chattering teeth were unsettling to look upon as they shuddered out of their hiding places. But they were little more than walking sacs of fluid and pus that burst like overripe boils as he struck them down with his sword. Their bones were trembling stalks and the crusts of marrow that made up their skulls shattered with ridiculous ease. The only thing Khale found offensive about them was the rank smell that hung in the air after they had been reduced to so much pulp and slurry.

M’taoi whimpered and cried as they went deeper into the labyrinth that Khale was recognising more and more as a research facility. Clearly, the nuclear device detonated outside had been intended to sterilise the area. But it did not account for the strangeness of what he was seeing emerge around him. The rocky passages were inlaid with more than the weird dark metal; he could see outlines of fossilised human skulls and bones. A process that should have taken millions of years had been achieved in mere thousands. The cold smile was back on his face.

“It’s here. The Timestone is here!”

*

They came to the heart of the labyrinth where it was waiting for them.

No
, Khale thought,
waiting for me.

The Timestone, pounding with the rhythm of a heart, gave off a hideous light bathing the circular chamber in luminous shades and colours that Khale could not name. The Timestone itself was a cuboid etched with eldritch lines and ornate markings resembling spirals and flickering flames. To look upon them for too long was to start to entertain the notion that they were moving of their own volition. Khale greeted the sick, twisting feeling the sight of them gave him. It meant that he had found what he was looking for.

M’taoi was on her knees again, beating her forehead against the ground. He was tempted to put his foot on her neck and grind the air from her lungs. He had no intention of letting her walk away from this alive.

But that pleasure could wait, he sheathed his sword and walked forward.

“No. You must not touch the Timestone, my lord. It will eat your soul.”

Khale looked back at her and felt something that was not good but pleasing inside, as she recoiled from the way the Timestone’s light illuminated, rather than darkening, his features and showed his immense age. Every line, every mark, every scar that he had borne since he left mortality behind. And his eyes were beginning to shine with the same light as the Timestone. He could feel it.