World's End (3 page)

‘They come for us,' said Anfen mildly. ‘Farewell, Sharfy. My redeemer has willed it.'

‘What? No! Get us in the quiet. They can't see us there.'

‘Let it end. I am tired.'

‘Give
me
that armour then. Quick, before they come.'

Anfen made no move to do so. Above them Eric and the woman had got nearly halfway to the castle when they changed direction. Steadily they floated skywards, away from Vous. Two Invia flew wide circles about them as they were carried higher and higher, until lost from view in thick clouds.

The war mages were soon close enough that the yellow gleam of their slitted eyes could be seen through faces of twisted ropy beard. As one, the mass of them shifted direction and flew up,
in pursuit of Eric and Aziel. From a distance it looked as though the flocking mass of them assumed a formation of an arm and fist rising from the castle to strike skywards. Vous's beautiful sung note grew mournful, as if he were sad that Eric and Aziel were no longer coming towards him.

Sharfy knew he'd live, for the moment at least. He also knew he owed Anfen no thanks for it. ‘If that was really Eric,' he said, ‘that's the last of him. Never seen that many war mages. We have to get under cover. They'll come back. Fuck you and your redeemer. Stay here and die.' He left him sitting there without a moment's pause, nor the faintest hint of guilt or regret.

Anfen stared up at a high castle window, and did not appear to have heard or noticed.

As strong as the cold wind through Eric's hair was the sense of unreality which blasted from his mind the present moment, the past, and every experience he'd had since Vous's eye peered through the little red door's keyhole, fell upon him and named him Shadow.

None of it was real any more. The wind numbed his skin with its cold and ruffled his clothes. He was just an object being moved; that was all. The ground was lethally far beneath. The castle looked like a huge white dragon, huger than huge, tail curled round about itself, head resting on the ground, its great mouth opening out onto the Great Dividing Road. From innumerable windows came reflected glints of lightning. On the balcony with arms spread, Vous sang beautiful notes after them.

Beings on the grass, tiny with distance, stared up at Eric till the cloud concealed them. Close by the storm spat lightning at the castle or tossed it about with great flickers of white. The air held him and Aziel aloft as easily as someone's invisible palm, slowly raising them away from the castle, where Vous had attempted to draw them to himself.

Aziel's voice brought Eric back to himself. He missed what she'd said. She clutched at him in fear, fingernails digging into
his skin hard enough to leave small crescent cuts. He took her hand and told her a lie – they'd be all right – and a truth – it would all be over soon.

He made himself see the air's magic and was overcome by the frantic movements of fierce colour, a many-armed wheeling star spinning slowly and enormously about the castle. One arm passed right through them, though they felt nothing more than the cold of the wind. His last sight of Vous before the clouds took them was of the man-god's eyes, two points of light, locking onto his own, seeing him but not understanding what they saw. At once Vous was fascinated by and deathly afraid of Eric. Eric had thought it a dream long ago, when he'd first heard the words
You are Shadow.
He heard the same words again now, Vous's voice carrying through the storm and the wind, spoken softly and uncertainly. ‘I'm not Shadow,' Eric answered. ‘I'm not Shadow. Help me. I'm not Shadow.'

Aziel's hair whipped his face. She'd covered her eyes with her hand, though there was not much more to see than the cloud's white mist. There was a sense of
falling upwards.
The two Invia – the ones who'd shadowed their flight from the wizard's tower – wheeled around them, conversing with each other in joyful, whistling calls. They were suddenly drowned out by the terrible noise of a thousand shrieking war-mage voices, growing louder, coming nearer.

They came through the upper band of clouds. As in the dragonscale vision Eric had had at Faul's house, he saw the sky was a dome, a roof of stone spread as far as sight. It was not yet lit with the full force of daylight but was still painful to their eyes, this close to it. Great areas were cracked, broken and stained. Parts hung loose as though they might fall.

Beneath them, where there were gaps in the clouds, the world
was a haze of green and blue. Distant peaks stuck their tips up like small islands in a white sea.

There behind the castle was the tall valley where the door, the Entry Point, had been. Two sheer cliffs cupped the high ridge of rich green grass, cliffs which rose till they joined the domed lightstone roof. That green valley had been filled with bodies, that first day, slain by the same creatures which pursued them now.

‘They're coming,' said Aziel, still covering her eyes with her hand. A face covered by a mane of tangled ropy beard poked through the cloud, two horns exuding pencil-thin lines of smoke, black slits in its yellow eyes flickering from one of them to the other. Its mouth opened, its scream loud and high. The cry was answered a dozen times from close by. More distantly, hundreds more war mages called out.

The two Invia swooped from elsewhere in the cloud and tore the war mage to pieces with a bloody thrashing blur of motion almost too quick to see. They flung its body parts in all directions. But more war mages came, their faces surfacing through cloud soon crackling with orange fire. The unearthly cry of a dying Invia tore across the world.

Whatever force pulled Eric and Aziel through the sky wrenched them up with more urgency. Their bellies lurched. The lightstone dome rushed at them. A gap in it appeared just ahead, and then they were through it, and set down on a ledge in the upwards-leading tunnel. The ledge was only a stride deep into the dark stone, as wide as an armspan. The second Invia's dying wail soon reached them. With a rush of air, shapes shot past them from above: five, six, ten Invia or more in a blur of white wings and streaks of vividly coloured hair.

So that was why they'd been set on this ledge – to make
room for the Invia rushing down at lethal speed. Beneath them the bird-women dived into clouds and fire. Dizzy, Eric clutched Aziel and instinctively drew her back a little from the edge.

‘Don't be so free with your fingers,' she snapped, slapping at his hand.

He stared at her, stunned. ‘You're worried about
that
? Look down there, Aziel. Look at where we are.' Overcome with disbelief, he grabbed at her breast and squeezed it.

She shoved him off the edge without an instant's hesitation.

He fell only for a second or two – enough to register his amazement that she'd been willing to kill, to actually
kill
him for trying to prove a point – when the invisible hand caught him again on its palm and lifted him upwards, with Aziel floating just ahead of him. They were pulled urgently through the grey stone tunnel till it opened out into a vast cavernous space. Here was the place Case had been told by an Invia was the Gate of Takkish Iholme, sky prison of the dragon-youth.

It was not long before the Invias' death wails rang out: they were slain by the war mages in the clouds.

Eric's eyes soon adjusted to the vast gloomy space, unlit yet somehow still visible, as if this were a place where light had no purpose. All about them was nothing and no one, just the naked stone until the edge of their vision, where there were outlines of some type of building. Wind piped eerie music through tunnel mouths bored into the curved walls and roof. The cavern's
age
pressed down on him like heavy hands on his shoulders.

He bit into his bottom lip to keep from passing out – for some reason he'd grown dizzier. He swayed on his feet till Aziel grabbed his hand and pressed it to the metal of her necklace. At the
charm's cold touch all dizziness flushed out of him. Warmth filled him.

‘Do you know where we are?' she asked him.

‘Where the dragons live. Only I don't see any.'

The
boom
of an enormous weight being dropped came from some way away and gave them both the odd feeling something had been listening in. This was its answer:
We are here, all right.
The stone floor gave a faint shiver. Eric stood, felt for the gun out of habit. He got the usual familiar comfort from its touch, then thought about that for a moment: How much fucking good is this likely to be against dragons? Maybe about as much good as blowing them kisses …

The scream of a war mage wound up the tunnel they'd been brought through. Now he was glad he had the gun – except the scream was chorused many times, so many times it seemed there must be a small army coming. Eric grabbed Aziel's wrist and they ran. Aziel was out of breath before they got very far at all and he had to drag her along at a fast walk. Back where they'd just been, the first of the war mages poked its shaggy head through the tunnel and clawed its way up. Tendrils of smoke wound from its horns, its eyes glowing yellow. Its mouth hung open in apparent surprise as it gazed around. Its scream almost seemed a question.

Eric pulled Aziel to the floor. He half expected her to reproach him again for touching her. ‘Don't move, no sounds,' he whispered, taking the gun from its holster. Directly overhead came a blast of wind, a long low note. Three Invia tumbled out into the air. One turned, spied Eric and Aziel, made a shrill querying sound.

The war mage was soon joined by four more of its kind. Their screams too held questioning notes. Sudden as a bottle uncorked,
there came a streaming mass of them pouring out through the tunnel and into the cavern.

‘Well, nice knowing you,' Eric said. ‘Some of the time, anyway.' He looked to her, hoping to at least trade a smile before their impending death. Aziel didn't speak; her skin had turned faintly blue. Coldness poured from her rather than the charm about her neck. Her eyes glowed with silver light. ‘Aziel?'

‘For a brief while, I shall hide you,'
she said in a voice that was not her own. It was deeper than her real voice, and though her mouth moved in time with it, it seemed to come from far away. ‘
I
cannot hide you for long. Keep your touch upon the charm.
'

‘Who are you? Is that Vous?'

The silver eyes turned slowly to him and sent shivers down his spine.
‘I'll not through human lips speak the name humans call me. You should not be seen by he who approaches. When he comes to the Gate, the intruding swarm will not have mind of you. You must run from here. Run now. Go to the nearest Invia roost. He who comes will not go there.'

‘Who comes here? And who are you? Are you a dragon?'

‘He who comes, men's mouths call Shâ. You must not be seen by him or it may begin a war among the Eight. He knows not that you are here. I must leave you for a time or he will sense my presence with you. It is not known whether you shall live beyond this day. His motions disturb the futures as would his steps throw silt clouds up in water. Flee now while I may hide you, or you shall die and I shall find others to perform your work.'

The three Invia over their heads rushed suicidally to the horde of war mages still pouring into the cavern. The Invia moved fast through them, each leaving a trail of destroyed bodies behind them, till a storm of sparks and fire erupted. In quick time came the creatures' dying wails.

A sudden silence filled the cavern. Even the wind-music through the tunnel ceased. The war mages stopped screaming and seemed to wait, listening. A very real sense of something watching – or more than one thing – seemed to sweep over the bare rock walls, invisible but as real as any beaming searchlight.

Still the cold emanated from Aziel; still her eyes glowed silver. Hesitantly Eric said, ‘Have you possessed Aziel before?'

He shrank back from her stare.
‘Great risk I take to bring you here, against the man-god's will. My Parent's law forbids such deeds. I crafted this thing that she wears, this that helps protect you. A thousand eventualities I foresaw, and did prepare for each. But what has come about, I did not foresee. She shall not be slain when she wears this charm. You do not have such protection, though you may soon find gifts of your own. Her gift took a century to make.'

‘You're … you must be Vyin. You're our friend, aren't you? Our only friend among the dragons.'

‘Name me no more, for Shâ has left his hold. Most of my siblings now agree that we need your aid at this time, Favoured one. We shall have it for you need our favour. Five of my siblings have hatred for you that is cold, patient and deadly. Shâ has hatred for you hotter than ever burned Inferno's fire. He comes now. Flee for the Invia roost. You are expected there. This girl cannot abide my thoughts much longer. She will perish if I stay with her. Ever it seems I know your kind less well than I suppose.'

The light went out of Aziel's eyes. The strength went out of her too and she lay limp, shivering with cold. Eric rubbed her arms, whispered her name. There was from different directions the heavy
thud, thud-boom
of massive weights shifting. Coldness swept through the cavern. The silence grew heavier, more
watchful. The war mages seemed oppressed by it too – now and then the odd confused cry sounded among the
scrape-scratch-scrape
of their claws on the stone.

Scores of Invia suddenly poured through those openings directly overhead. None of them cried out – not even their beating wings could be heard. Yet more Invia came from elsewhere across the dome ceiling, their wings so white they seemed to glow. Among them were a rare few larger than the others, still of human shape but twice the others' size. It was one of these larger ones that first swooped at the war-mage horde like a diving bird, then all the others followed. Their dives began gracefully then became a blur of destruction, snapping war-mage bodies like pieces of brittle wood.