Wrath of Kerberos (21 page)

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

T
HEY HAD ALL
seen the star finally fall to earth, had felt it as a deep bass thud that made the desert sand shiver. Silus knew, then – looking towards the column of smoke rising from just beyond the horizon – that he could no longer bear the weight of his guilt. If he was going to lead Illiun and his people to their deaths, then he needed confirmation that he was doing the right thing from someone other than Kerberos. Illiun’s story had shaken his faith in the deity, and every kind gesture from the settlers, every act that showed them to be nothing less than entirely human, no matter their origin, made his task all the more difficult.

So he approached Katya as she sat chatting by the campfire and said, “We need to talk.”

She nodded as though she had been expecting this, handed Zac into the care of Rosalind, and let him lead her out beyond the light of the flames.

Away from the camp, Katya turned and was about to open her mouth – let all her worries and fears flood out – when Silus held up his hand, silencing her.

First he told her that he loved her and Zac – no matter what happened to them, that would never change – and then he told her of the task that Kerberos had entrusted him to perform and everything he had learned about this world; explained to her that if it wasn’t carried out then the future history of Twilight would be unwritten.

“I’ve tried to justify it to myself,” Silus said. “After all, what are the deaths of tens of people, compared to millions? But this isn’t as straightforward as destroying the Chadassa; those alien creatures were demonstrably evil. No matter which way you look at it, these... these are
people
, Katya, human beings, and my god is asking me to murder them.”

Seeing the despair on his face, she took Silus into her arms, and though she still didn’t know how to respond to what he had shared with her, she said, “Shh, it’s okay. I still love you.”

“I don’t know what to do, Katya. How can I stand against a god? And how when the consequences of doing so would be so dire?”

Katya sighed. All the tiredness and the toll that the journey had taken on her were written on her face.

“I suppose that sometimes we just can’t fight against destiny,” she said. “Sometimes it’s impossible to understand the odds we’re up against. You were called, Silus. You told me that yourself. Last time you listened to that call, you helped save Twilight from the Chadassa invasion. This time the threat is harder to understand, but the stakes are higher. This will be our world one day, this
is
ourworld. We must make sure that nothing happens to interfere with that.”

Silus looked up at the great azure sphere that had set him on this path, and silently cursed the fact that there had to be a god at all. Without Kerberos, life would be so much easier.

A sudden pulse of light washed across the face of the deity and he knew that the time had come to put the final plan into action. But before that happened, he would once more have to commune with Kerberos.

“Katya, promise me that you’ll protect Zac from all of this. He’s too young to understand.”

“I promise. But you have to promise that you won’t hide from us anymore. No matter how strange things get, no matter how dangerous, you mustn’t forget that you are a husband and a father.”

“I promise. I love you.”

He kissed her long and deep, and then went to find Bestion.

K
ELOS BOWED AS
his audience applauded. The tiny apparition that he had conjured chased the children, who squealed with delight as they tried to escape from the purple bear with the glowing green eyes. Catch them it did, though, before exploding in a cloud of candy-coloured butterflies, each singing an aria before disappearing in a burst of bubbles. The children rolled in the sand, laughing until their eyes leaked and their sides ached. The adults looked on, amazed and delighted by Kelos’s conjurations. Ever since the mage had felt the presence of magic – the source not far distant from them now – he had taken to entertaining the travellers of an evening. Admittedly, he could do little more than basic cantrips and conjurations, but once they reached the source of that raw power, he would be able to do so much more. For now, these small sorceries were like a long drink of cool water on a baking hot day.

“Someone’s enjoying themselves,” Dunsany said, as he stepped into the circle of spectators.

“Ah, ladies and gentlemen,” Kelos said, performing a gesture with his hands that outlined Dunsany’s form in a glittering gold aura. “My beautiful assistant.”

There were wolf-whistles from some and Kelos noticed the appreciative glances of a handful of women, not to mention a couple of men.

“Well, you can’t have him. He’s mine! But for now, my glamorous assistant will help me to demonstrate... the disappearing man!”

“The disappearing man?” Dunsany whispered.

“Yes, the disappearing man. You remember that one, don’t you?” Kelos whispered back.

Dunsany shook his head.

“Back in the day? That grubby little place we had above the butcher’s shop in Allantia? Performing shows twice nightly down at the
Broken Oar
just to meet the rent?”

“Ah, yes! Sub-dimensional pocket?”

“Sub-dimensional pocket.”

Noticing that the audience was growing restless as the performers whispered between themselves, Kelos produced a sack from the folds of his cloak with a flourish.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the disappearing man!”

Kelos placed the sack on the ground and opened it out before stepping in. He pulled the hessian up around himself and above his shoulders, before finally ducking his head below the opening. Dunsany secured the mouth of the sack with a rope and stepped back.

“Now,” Kelos said from within the sack, “I need absolute silence. Glamorous assistant, will you please intone the words of power? On the count of three: one... two... three!”

“Dissapeariariumanissium!” Dunsany shouted.

Kelos dropped feet-first into the sub-dimensional pocket – the opening to which was located in the base of the sack – before closing it around himself. The air within was musty and the darkness absolute. Sub-dimensional pockets were handy for storage, but weren’t somewhere you’d necessarily want to spend much time. Kelos knew that, above him, the sack would have crumpled, seemingly empty, and he was about to re-emerge with a flourish and reap the applause when he sensed a presence.

Something was pushing against the walls of this mini-dimension. That should have been impossible; nobody but a sorcerer of the highest calibre could intrude on this reality.

A thin line of light drew itself across the darkness before his eyes, as a wickedly curved and lethally sharp talon tore into the wall of the sub-dimensional pocket. There was the sound of voices raised in song – Kelos thought of Emuel – and then the mage was tumbling towards the light, his stomach turning over and over as though he were falling a great distance. He prepared himself for a bone-shattering impact, only to find himself kneeling on all fours, warm sand beneath his palms.

He didn’t dare look up, because he knew that the source of the raw magic he had sensed from far across the desert now stood before him, and the thought of looking upon so much power filled him with terror. He considered that perhaps he was in the presence of an adept shadowmage; one who had mastered control of all the known threads of magic. The low growl that emanated from somewhere above him, however, put paid to that theory.

A great clawed foot thudded into the ground just inches from Kelos’s head, and he cried out. Finally, he looked up.

Nothing that Kelos had read in ancient texts or seen painted onto the walls of Old Race ruins could have prepared him for the sight of the dragons. He felt awestruck, deeply moved and profoundly honoured that he had been graced with the presence of these legendary creatures. Without understanding how, he knew that it was the dragon standing directly before him – its huge azure wings unfurled, its head held proudly to one side – that had plucked him from the sub-dimensional pocket. Although they were just as beautiful, the two smaller dragons flanking it didn’t exude the same raw power; they seemed subservient to the azure dragon, hanging back as it examined the mage. Experimentally, Kelos reached for the threads of sorcery that flowed from the azure dragon, and was stunned by the possibilities they offered. Usually when he prepared a spell, he found only the thread of elemental magic open to him, but here every channel of power was open. The azure dragon – he realised – was magic itself; the very stuff of creation.

“Kelos?”

For a moment he thought he was hallucinating. Being in the presence of concentrated magic tended to have strange effects on the human mind; this would certainly account for the vision of Emuel sat atop the black dragon. The vision called his name again and Kelos decided to play along.

“Emuel... why are you riding a dragon?”

“It
is
you! It really is!”

The eunuch dropped down from his enormous mount and raced to gather up the mage in a very un-Emuel-like bearhug. Feeling the warmth of the young man against him, Kelos realised that this was no vision.

“Good gods, Emuel! We thought you lost when the
Llothriall
was destroyed.”

“The spell that was supposed to retrieve the ship backfired, and the Faith retrieved only me and Ignacio. The Order of the Swords of Dawn brought us to find the rest of you, but I got parted from the main party. I don’t know what happened to Ignacio or the Swords, but my friends here rescued me from the desert.”

“Your
friends
? You do realise what these creatures are, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. Beautiful aren’t they? The black one, that’s Calabash. Piotr is the silver-grey one over there. The azure one... well, I haven’t named it yet. Really, we’ve only just met.”

“I can’t believe I’m seeing this. All my life I’ve read about these creatures – their role in the cycle of magic, theories on their extinction – but I never, ever thought I’d see one, let alone three. There is such... such
power
here. Any sorcerer would give their right arm to be where I am right now. The possibilities these creatures open up are almost boundless. In fact...”

So lost in his reverie did Kelos become, that it was only when the eunuch shook his shoulder that he realised he was trying to talk to him.

“...I said, where did you come from? Are the others here?”

“What? Oh... yes, yes. The others. Yes, sorry, Emuel, you’re right. We must get back to them, though I’m afraid to say that Ignacio and his new friends are now amongst their number. No matter. It may be that I can use the power of the dragons myself to perform a sorcery that will send us all back home. Just imagine it! The most audacious spell ever performed, breaking down the boundaries of time and space!”

“Old man, you’re babbling.”

“Sorry, sorry. Quite right, Emuel. Quite right.” Kelos looked up at the stars above him. “Right, I must return and inform the others.”

“In that case, hop up beside me.” Emuel said, mounting Calabash.

“Hop up?”

“Yes. It will be far quicker to fly.”

“Oh, I know that
you’re
going to fly,” Kelos said, and Emuel noticed that the mage had begun to make strange gestures with his hands, a faraway look in his eyes. “But with the magic flowing from your friend here, I can simply weave a spell to send myself back. I must, after all, prepare our companions for what they are to witness. Be the herald of the good news, as it were.”

And Kelos began to fade from before them, until he disappeared completely.

D
UNSANY STOOD BESIDE
the empty sack, looking at the faces of the expectant audience and wondering what to do.

When they had performed this trick in the past, Kelos had usually re-emerged well before this point, hungry to reap the applause. However, five minutes had now passed with no sign of the mage, and people were beginning to mutter amongst themselves. Dunsany sighed and opened up the sack.

His gut clenched as he saw that the sub-dimensional pocket had collapsed. Had the artefact taken Kelos with it, perhaps trapping him forever on some other plane of reality?