World's End (18 page)

While Anfen and Shilen walked through the quiet countryside she told him more tales; rather, she seemed to speak them to the air, and he heard them as he heard the bird calls and peaceful wind. The country was familiar to him. With Loyalist pride he'd led men through these lands, all of them young and stupid, their heads full of lies about those evil Rebel Cities. Lies which made them willing to march, proudly notching kills on their belts or kit bags.

Anfen remembered how he'd lined up those men and women before a ditch he'd made them dig, his belly roiling, sick, hands trembling. Not with fear, but doubt. He had carefully thought through his loyalty – it wasn't blind at all. Yet here was a trembling family, young and old all together before the ditch they'd dug. Accused of practising rites the castle forbade. He'd seen the totems and stones with his own eyes, objects of the most forbidden and dangerous kind. He had his orders. He thought of the castle, of honour, of being the leader of men they'd made him. Then he'd cut their heads off with his own sword when all of his men had refused to.

A leader no more, he followed Shilen through fields battered by castle-army boots. He thought he saw a Vous-thing in the
distance – or perhaps it was Vous himself – in a gaily moving dance of sweeping arms, spilling white and gold light into the air. He was there and gone in a second. Anfen rubbed his eyes – surely just more tricks of his mind.

Shilen's latest story had finished. He'd missed how it ended. ‘Is it really true, there is a new lord coming?' he said.

She smiled, radiant. ‘It is true. He knows and loves you, warrior. It is the Pilgrim.'

Anfen laughed. ‘The Otherworld prince. His lie came true.'

‘Yes, and Aziel shall be with him. She is nothing like those who raised her. A ruler from each world. The worlds are joined, after all, warrior. I think all worlds are joined.'

‘All worlds? How many worlds are there?'

She smiled but did not answer. She ran ahead, her hair flying behind her. He followed, sword inhibiting his run. He unstrapped it, let it fall to the ground. She'd passed from sight down an incline by the time he looked up – how fast she moved! A lake came into view, ringed on its far side by rocky hills touched with snow. Light steam rose from the water. Shilen's clothes fell about her feet. She turned to him, her tall full body the finest he'd ever seen. Her laugh was bells pealing. She dived into the water.

Anfen unstrapped the breastplate and let it fall to the ground. He stripped off his clothes and dived in after her. Despite the white snowy caps on the far shore's hills the water was warm, it was perfect.
She
was perfect. Her free, clear laugh joyously declared them the owners of the lake, and for all he cared they were the only people still alive in the entire world. Anfen had never been so free, so happy as he was in this moment.

‘Come to me,' she said. He swam out after her, the water's warmth pouring life into his blood. She floated on her back,
seeming to glide on the water's surface. Her arms opened wide to embrace him, wider yet … then they seemed, impossibly, to stretch till they surrounded him in the water. ‘Don't fear me,' she whispered.

He didn't fear, for suddenly there was no will to live left in him. He went cold.

Her skin changed from its healthy glow till it was white as the clouds. Scales poked through it until they covered her. Her neck stretched and arched above him. Her head lengthened, sleek and long. Eyes brilliant as jewels, slitted like a serpent's, looked down at him and deep inside him, further than he could look inside himself.

‘Kill me,' Anfen said. ‘Give me peace.'

‘I don't wish to kill you,' she said in a voice gone deeper but still musical. ‘I wish to swim with you.' Her body pushed through the water, pulling him along in the current it created. One long white wing stretched tall and fanned like the mast of a sail, catching wind. ‘This is a better place to call home,' she said. ‘Isn't it, warrior?'

‘No,' said Shadow.

Sharfy turned to him. ‘What?'

‘The answer is no. I don't.'

It was Shadow's third or fourth completely random outburst. The ghost had taken to following Sharfy around as he skirted the land a ways south of the castle, now and then calling Anfen's name.

Sharfy also sought to find the woman who'd deceived and bewitched him (as he saw it). In truth he hoped he wouldn't find her. Honour required that he slay her, but he'd never slain a woman before, let alone a beautiful one. Doing it would not be easy.

Shadow's large eyes peered into his. They were curious pits waiting like hungry mouths to have something put in them. Sharfy said, ‘Go away. What? What do you mean, “no” what? What answer? Huh?'

‘You said, do I think I know so much. No, I don't. You can teach me.'

‘Know. Teach. Eh!' Sharfy rubbed his temples. ‘Worse than Anfen, for travel talk, you are. Never said that.'

‘Back at the bed. When I made sure you wouldn't die.'

‘Answer me
then.
Answer questions
when someone speaks em.
Not days later. Stupid.' Shadow's head cocked sideways, the way it did when he seemed to have understood something new. ‘Not like that, either,' said Sharfy. ‘Nod your head if you agree on something. Like this, see? Got it?'

Shadow's head became a blur of motion, so fast it was just a streak of colour.

‘Funny,' said Sharfy. He resumed walking. ‘What are you, anyway? Ghost?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Tell me. Don't hold back. Reckon you know stuff about other people. Why not you?'

‘I can't shadow myself.'

‘Why'd you kill Siel?'

‘That hurts. Don't talk about it.'

‘Pah! You killed her. You deserve it to hurt, if you killed her. I killed people too. Never a woman. What's it like? Bad huh? Knew it. I only killed people who tried to kill me first. Got it? That should be a rule for you. Kill people who try to kill you first.' Sharfy reflected. ‘Or one time when I robbed someone … but that's bad too. Long time ago. Don't rob no one less you have to. Got it?'

Shadow nodded.

‘Why'd you kill Siel? She was all right. Pretty good bow-shot. Saw her miss a few times. Not much, though. I think it was that touch of magic she had, made her a good bow-shot. Skinny girl like her shouldn't be able to pull the string back all the way like she could. I could shoot better. But bow's a coward stick. For men with no sword play. Or women I guess. But you need a few bows. That's a shame. Should all be swords. All those wars. Just a few swords should do it. Like in Valour's Helm. Your
ten best, our ten best. Fight! Winner wins. No more armies marching, killing everyone who don't deserve it. That'd be better.'

Shadow nodded.

‘Anfen!' Sharfy yelled. Shadow dashed off ahead of him. ‘Good,' Sharfy called. ‘Stay away.'

But Shadow returned. ‘Wrong way,' he said.

‘What?'

‘He's not the way you're walking.'

‘How you know?'

Shadow's body orbited his in ten or more fast blurs. ‘There was something over there made of air.'

‘Elemental? Don't go near em. Dangerous. They kill people without meaning to.'

‘I shadowed it. It didn't like to be shadowed. But I said I'd leave it alone if it answered a question. So it did.'

‘See? That's what I mean. You know how to do that. But need me to tell you how to answer a question proper?' Shadow looked at him, waiting. ‘All right,' said Sharfy. ‘Which way? Point the way. That way? That way's a lake. Why'd Anfen go to a lake for?'

Shadow said nothing.

‘Don't answer the question later. Answer now. See?'

‘There's no answer.'

‘Huh. Then you say, I don't know. You already knew that! Don't joke around. So we'll go to that lake. If you lied, I'll cut you. I don't care about your fancy tricks. I don't back down. There's one for you. Don't ever back down.'

Shadow nodded.

They went beside a thin winding river in a glacier-carved groove, feeding out into what locals called Crown Lake. Sharfy had been here twice before, in his late teens, fishing. Near the
shore he'd learned the value of facial scars with women who liked their men bruised and battered. He'd gone and overdone it, of course. Never handsome, but he'd had fewer scars and dents back then. ‘Listen. You know anything about Valour?' said Sharfy.

‘There,' said Shadow, pointing at the lake.

‘Valour! Where? I don't see him. What's …?' Sharfy cut his words off. He'd taken the sight at first for a strange boat with a white sail. Bigger than a canoe, a bit smaller than those fishing boats over at the Godstears. But the sail flexed and moved like an arm would move. It dipped down into the water and the whole thing capsized. Its neck arched over the water, gazing down at its own back, or so it seemed. ‘Dragon?' Sharfy said, hardly trusting his eyes. He rubbed them. ‘You see it?'

‘That's her,' said Shadow.

‘Huh? What?'

‘The one who gave you the silver scale.'

‘Don't be stupid. A woman gave me that. Not a dragon.' He saw something by the water's edge, possibly clothes. Possibly a dress. ‘Maybe it ate her. Good! I don't have to kill her now. Never wanted to. Only thought she was pretty.' It was then he saw Valour's breastplate. ‘It ate Anfen too!'

‘No. He's swimming with it.'

Sharfy saw him then, a limp shape seemingly being pushed about on the water's surface by the dragon's wings. Shadow vanished from Sharfy's side and quickly returned. ‘She didn't see me. I know things about her now. I'll forget a lot of it soon.'

‘Know things? Like what?'

‘She's going to kill him. But she also likes him. It's strange.'

‘Huh? Makes no sense.'

‘She's like men are when they have meat set before them. They like it. But they eat it.'

Sharfy drew his sword.

‘You can't hurt her,' said Shadow.

‘Shut up.'

‘That sword won't cut her. She's strong.'

‘Anfen's sword! That'll cut her, that'll cut anything. If he left the breastplate, the sword's there too somewhere. Get it. Go get it. Quick.'

‘You can't kill her with any sword.'

‘Get the sword!'

Shadow whizzed to the water's edge, then away into the fields adjacent. ‘It's there,' he said upon returning, pointing to where Anfen had dropped it.

‘Get it,' said Sharfy.

‘No.'

‘Get it!'

‘I won't touch it. It hurt me badly.'

‘Get the armour then.'

‘No. It might hurt me too.'

Sharfy swung his blade at Shadow, just a warning. Shadow's mouth opened wide for an instant, eyes too, all of them wide enough to swallow him. Sharfy cringed back, recovered, lunged again. Shadow dodged. ‘Your sword can't hurt me. The other sword can. But we shouldn't fight.'

‘What's that dragon want with my friend?' Sharfy said, as if Shadow had had some part in it.

‘She'll kill him. And take that armour away.'

‘Dragons don't wear armour. They got scales. Make some sense, stupid ghost.'

‘She wants the armour. There's magic in it, she wants its magic. She's going to kill him then take it.'

‘Can
you
kill her?'

Sharfy had meant it as a taunt, an insult. He hadn't expected Shadow to say, ‘Maybe.'

‘But she's a dragon! How?'

‘I scared a dragon away, once. From Siel, in the woods. It liked her. It didn't know I was there. When I shadowed it, it thought I was another dragon which crept up on it. It was very scared.'

‘Do it now! Go, do it now!'

A winged shape flew over their heads. Sharfy ducked down, covering his head. He heard something heavy drop in the grass, not far away. When he looked up, Eric and Loup were climbing off the back of a red drake. Loup did a double take upon seeing Sharfy.

Shadow was no longer beside him.

Case's behaviour had become strange when the lake's blue-white hills appeared on the horizon. As though he'd caught a scent, his wings beat harder, faster in fact than Eric or Loup could recall him moving. The drake responded to none of their words, to no yelled threats. His breath came in big huffs. From his nostrils flared a glow like red coals. Soon Eric and Loup both just had to hold on.

On the lake's waters something came into view which both men at first thought was a white boat with one sail raised. Case landed heavily in the grass and shook himself until his passengers climbed off.

Eric had barely set his feet down when a wave of heat hit him and knocked him on his back. A streak of colour tore across the ground from where Sharfy lay. It blurred in a fast orbit around him, its human features growing long and distorted. Eric knew it was Shadow. Little threads of colour were sucked from the blurring streak and into the amulet he wore, the same amulet which had summoned Hauf. After his brief resistance Shadow was caught inside it, drawn in just as he'd been caught in Aziel's necklace. The force of it pushed Eric tumbling across
the ground. Where Shadow had circled him was a blackened burned ring, puffing up smoke.

Loup would have been flabbergasted enough by the drake's behaviour, more so by the sight of Sharfy lying there in the grass (Sharfy, who he'd assumed was by now beheaded from boasting too much in a tavern somewhere). The sight of what he now recognised as a dragon playfully swimming out in the water stunned Loup to silence. Then he saw Anfen was out there with it … then he saw Vous, the god of beauty, dancing without a care further around the shore. And then Shadow was sucked into Eric's dragon-made charm.

So Loup collapsed on the grass, mouth open, staring at nothing, unable to speak, think or move. His overtaxed mind gave no warning about the brief holiday it would now take. It embarked. He did nothing more for a little while.

Eric climbed painfully back to his feet. The amulet was so hot he hurled it away. Like an insect it scuttled back to him, crawled up his pant leg, put itself in his pocket.

‘Eric!' Sharfy hissed, angry. ‘Why'd you do that? He's going to fight the dragon. Let him out of there.'

‘I don't know how.'

‘Get down out of sight. That's a dragon, in the water. You're dumber than the ghost. Get down before it sees you.'

The drake bounded towards the shore. He growled loud, apparently eager to get the dragon's attention.

Sharfy cocked his head – he thought for a moment he'd heard the sound of hooves approaching. It couldn't be hooves – the sound was too similar to distant thunder. He went quite pale. ‘What's the matter?' Eric asked him.

‘Valour's coming.'

*

Out on the water, Anfen had not seen the drake and its passengers arrive. If Shilen had seen them, she gave no indication. ‘Why did you fight for your masters?' she said. Her eyes peering down seemed to shine with love. Her voice was deep and gentle. ‘It's so silly, so easily answered. Yet you've made such a puzzle of it, it has destroyed you. I could tell you why you fought. Shall I? Do you fear the truth more than you fear death, warrior?'

Shilen pushed herself further out towards the blue-white icy hills. Anfen's body rolled like a log but she would not let him sink. As the world spun overhead, water, skies and the lake's bank, he thought he saw Vous again, dancing gaily on the shore, flinging flower petals into the air. Anfen envied him. ‘Kill me,' he said.

‘I shall. First I will tell you why you fought for them. You fought because you believed yourself weaker than them. You were free all along to leave them to fight their own wars, with you no part of it. If every man did that one simple thing, there would be no masters of men, at least no masters as cruel as yours are. That freedom is a gift you never knew you had: that choice. Dragons do not have that choice. Dragons envy it.' She pointed her head skywards, bright yellow eyes gleaming as if they pierced all the skies to meet the gaze of listening dragons above.

He wept. ‘They raised us to know only that path. From birth, they taught it to me. How was I to know different, until I walked the path I walked, and learned the truth? How does a child with a wooden sword know better, with smiling adults all about him?'

‘But still you haven't learned the truth, even in this moment when your life is about to end. Those human masters you obeyed never loved you. Those who respect them the most,
who obey them swiftest, are the ones the human masters hate the most.'

‘I fought against the bastards too.'

Her gleaming eyes poured love over him. ‘No. Two kings who mean to play at war need the other side as badly as their own, warrior. You ever followed other men's will. Because you suffered, you thought your service to them had value. It did not. Not one drop of blood spilled truly mattered to them. Now your torment ends. Now I shall make you free.'

Her jaws descended on him at last. The two parts of his body floated gently to the surface as she pushed herself through the water away from him, swimming as she had dreamed of doing for a long time. Each movement and ripple of water was a joy to her. Dragons knew patience, and knew to savour things; for they now knew times could come unbidden when memories grow more precious than any material treasure. Precious were these collected journeys to take with them into cages, then to stroll through at leisure when stone walls shut them in, crushing and cold.

While Shilen loved and savoured the water, with no more thought for Anfen's corpse than she had for the other floating bits and pieces, Vous danced gaily on as if he shared the joy of her freedom and wished for her nothing less. She did not see him. The wind carried his flower petals far. A gust took a clutch of them further and higher, as if a grateful spirit had caught a handful of it on its journey away from that place.

‘It got him,' said Sharfy. He blinked, rubbed his eyes. The two parts of Anfen floated only briefly before they sank under the surface.

Loup recovered from his shock at all he'd recently seen.
He crouched down beside Sharfy. ‘Who got what? What got who?'

Sharfy did not answer – he just stared at where Anfen's body had been.

‘It's Vous,' said Eric in amazement, pointing at the grassy field where the Spirit danced in and out of their sight. Flower gardens had sprung up about him. Like Vous, they too faded in and out of sight.

‘Don't fear that nutty Spirit,' said Loup. ‘We've other troubles. Old Case is going to bring the dragon over. Look! He's burping flame now to get its attention. All of you sit still, don't move. No sounds.'

‘Let the ghost out of that charm,' said Sharfy.

Eric took the amulet from his pocket. It was cool to touch again, but holding it felt like holding a spider he wasn't sure was dead or not. Uselessly, he shook it. ‘I don't know how to let him out, Sharfy. I didn't know it was going to trap him like that.'

‘You didn't know, neither did Shadow,' said Loup. He said it as if this were important. ‘Surprised him good, and he didn't feel it coming.'

‘Too late now,' said Sharfy. ‘Anfen's dead. You helped kill him.' He raised his sword in two hands, surprising Eric and Loup so much they almost allowed him to plunge it into Eric's chest. Loup got his wits back, grabbed Sharfy's arm by the bicep. There was a snapping noise. Sharfy dropped the sword, clutching his hand. He threw a punch at Loup, connected, sent him sprawling away.

‘Stop it,' Eric said in a voice hardly his own. His charm gave a burst of heat. Sharfy not only stopped – he went completely still. Eric understood he'd just cast his first spell,
without meaning to or knowing how. The charm quickly cooled again.

Loup rose from the grass, rubbed his cheek. ‘Leave Sharfy be,' he said. ‘A dragon just killed his friend. My friend too.' A tear was in his eye. ‘Let Sharfy out of that spell, lad. Amulet was what cast it? Through your voice, aye?'

Eric gawked at the amulet quite helplessly. ‘Free yourself,' he ventured. Nothing happened. The muscles of Sharfy's face twitched. ‘Move again. Step forth. Be freed.' Nothing.

‘Look with your mage eyes, lad. Airs are a little kicked up, but not much. It's naught too serious, he's alive. We'll figure it out. Sharf, if you hear me, hold tight and we'll fix you. But I got to shut that drake up before he brings the murdering dragon on us.'

Loup ran over to Case, tried grabbing hold of one of his ears. The drake's head thrashed around, butting him down. ‘One more bruise,' Loup said from the ground. ‘What's the difference? But I won't be dragon food today, you stupid mule. It'll eat you too, believe me.
Hush it now!
No more of that fire.'

Shilen's body turned with slow grace, her face now pointing towards their shore. Briefly it seemed she went still, and then her wings fanned wide. In no hurry, she angled them so the wind took her sailing to the shore.

Loup sighed. ‘So it ends. Why not here? It's a pretty enough spot. Say your last words, lad. We'll catch up with Anfen's spirit on our way out, if we're quick enough.'

When she was closer, Shilen unexpectedly dived till she was out of sight beneath a rippling spread of bubbles. Loup dashed back to Eric. ‘Hear me, lad? We're done. Drake's called her over. I should've seen it coming. The birds bring him eggs to eat, he brings dragons
people
to eat. All that flying; it must've been
what he was doing all along. Wasn't ferrying us around for free. He was looking for a dragon to offer us to. Don't run when it gets here, don't fight it. Might be that we can talk our way out, but that's all. The dragon Far Gaze battled didn't slay him when it might've done. They must like some sport.'

‘She won't eat us, Loup,' said Eric.

From the water emerged not a dragon but a naked woman. Eric knew her face at once. She slipped her dress over her head, and glanced at a gleam of light where Vous had vanished from sight. The dress clung to her wet body. She crouched by a discarded breastplate for a minute or more before she picked it up and carried it with her. Valour's hoofbeats were still distant but growing ever louder.

Shilen jogged towards them, wet hair flopping and spraying water in the air. Case ran to meet her, joyful as a hound. She held up a hand in warning and he went no closer. ‘Well met, man-lord,' said Shilen. She looked at Sharfy, still frozen.

‘Leave him be,' said Loup.

‘He is your business,' she said.

‘Aye, lass, he is. You leave him alone. Which of the great beasts are you?'

‘Beasts? That is a matter of perspective,' she said gently. ‘Do you mean, which of the Eight am I? None. The sky has not yet weakened far enough for them to come. It shall do. Fear not. My name is one you've never heard. Call me Shilen. Few know me. You are privileged.' She turned back to Eric. ‘Manlord, I gave you a task.'

‘To take back the castle?' said Eric. ‘We did it.'

‘How did you two slay the mage there?'

‘I summoned Hauf.'

She smiled. ‘You did that while inside the castle? Tell me what happened.'

Eric nodded. ‘Ahh. Now I understand why you didn't send any Invia to help us. That was what you wanted all along, wasn't it? For me to call Hauf, while we were in the castle. To see what would happen. That's why you sent us to do it alone.'

‘Our deeds have many purposes, man-lord. A throne should not be freely given. To fight for it ensures you know its value. You earned the throne, be proud upon it.'

‘You used us.'

‘Summoning Hauf within the castle was a great risk. You slew the most cunning human wizard of these times, using a tool we gave you. You may have used any other tool you liked. This is the freedom you asked for. What happened when Hauf came? Tell me. You have been given much, with little asked of you.'

Eric laughed. ‘Where are my manners? The castle shook, that's what happened. Now tell me why you killed Anfen.'

‘It shook? Tell me more of that.'

‘No more to tell. Use your imagination.'

She carefully set the breastplate down and squeezed water from handfuls of her hair. ‘To answer you, I slew Anfen because he asked, in fact he begged, to be slain. And not because I hurt him. I wished to swim with him, that was all. Death was all he spoke of. He was slain quickly, with mercy. He knew no pain. That is the truth. Your children, I hear, slowly pull the wings off insects. Such things are not to our taste.'

‘Nice of you to do a man's bidding,' said Loup, wiping a tear from his eye.

‘I regret to have pained you,' she said, inclining her head. ‘One must care for those dear to him.' To Eric, ‘Taking the castle is not the only task I gave you. I have heard that Inferno may soon awaken. He will swallow the cities with his fire. Have you no wish to stop this?'

‘I'm human. You're a dragon. Who is better placed between the two of us to stop him?'

Shilen laughed. ‘Who is better placed to avoid his shambling steps, once he is awoken? I tell you this, man-lord, in trust that you reveal it to none but your mate, Aziel. A dragon was sent before I came, to prevent Inferno's waking. He has chosen not to, seeking instead a life of play. He gambles on the great ones not gaining freedom, and he has made a terrible decision. Trust him not.'

‘Dyan?' said Eric.

‘You know him? That is well. Do not speak to him of this! He feels that by some late token gestures, he may regain favour; that his crime will be forgotten. But he is doomed. Inferno is a minor concern of ours, to have sent one so wicked and neglectful as Dyan to deal with it.'

‘So minor that you'd break the law of your Parent?' said Loup.

When Shilen gazed at him her eyes seemed briefly like her dragon eyes, yellow and slitted for just an instant. Her words were to Eric. ‘You made clear your wish for freedom, man-lord. Do you now wish for us to manage your business? Shall we handle the burning god? We can do. But such a service brings costs you may not like.'