Book of Shadows.
Will Elliott.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
Domudess: a wizard.
Gorb: a half-giant.
Shadow: a mythical being.
Stranger: a magician of some kind Stuart Casey, aka Case: a changed man Mayors" Command:.
Anfen: former First Captain of the castle"s army.
Doon: Faul"s nephew, killed by Kiown Eric: a journalist (and fan of Superman comics) who went through the door Far Gaze: a folk magician Faul: a half-giant.
Lalie: an Inferno cultist Loup: a folk magician Lut: Faul"s husband.
Sharfy: one of Anfen"s band Siel: a low-level happenstance mage.
Tii: a groundman.
Castle: Arch Mage/Avridis: Vous"s advisor, confidante, and overseer of "the Project"
Aziel: Vous"s daughter, imprisoned in the castle; heir to rule, in theory.
Blain: a Strategist.
Envidis: a Hunter Evelle: a Hunter Ghost: a conglomerate of five personalities housed in Vous"s mirror (and other gla.s.s surfaces) Kiown: a Hunter.
Tauvene: First Captain of Kopyn.
Thaun: a Hunter Vashun: a Strategist Vous: the Aligned world"s Friend and Lord Council of Free Cities: Erkairn: Spokesman of the Scattered Peoples.
Ilgresi the Blind: mayor of Elvury Izven: mayor of Yinfel Liha: mayor of Faifen.
Ousan: mayor of High Cliffs Tauk the Strong: mayor of Tanton Wioutin: Advisor to the mayor of Tsith G.o.ds/Great Spirits:.
Nightmare: young G.o.d Valour: young G.o.d.
Wisdom: young G.o.d Inferno: old G.o.d.
Mountain: old G.o.d Tempest: old G.o.d.
Dragons: Dyan: a Minor personality Ksyn: one of the eight Major personalities.
Sha: one of the eight Major personalities Tsy: one of the eight Major personalities Tzi-Shu: one of the eight Major personalities.
Vyan: one of the eight Major personalities.
Vyin: one of the eight Major personalities.
OUTSIDE OF TIME.
1.
There are horse hooves thudding on the Great Dividing Road. Their beat is fast, urgent. The world has the soft blurred edges of a dream, the deep purple twilight seeming to filter through water. Fragments of memory like broken possessions float in a dark pool but do not break through to its surface. There is just the beating of hooves: closer, closer it comes.
The man"s heart, recently still, now beats in time with that sound. He groans. Warmth flushes through his cold flesh, beat by beat, until it reaches his stiff cold fingers. He cannot remember a thing, not a cursed thing: not his name, not how he came to be here in a pool of dried blood. His hand goes to his belly, his hand remembering something his mind does not. Then to his neck.
A light approaches from the south, comes close, swallows him, then heat is washing over him in pulsing waves. Above him is a rider on horseback, who pulls his steed to a halt. It hurts to look at the rider directly. The steed has silver barding which glows jewel-bright. Halted or not, the man can still hear the hoofbeats thudding down. "Who are you?" he says hoa.r.s.ely.
A voice, quietly commanding, answers, "I am Valour. You are reprieved."
Blooming light flares brightly about the G.o.d, filling all the world. The man feels for a long time that he is floating in it, laughing, forgetting everything and knowing only joy until the G.o.d speaks again to drag him back to the Great Dividing Road and the pool of dried blood. "Hear me," says Valour. "There shall be no second reprieve, if again you fall. Not for you, nor for any other. I have altered the world itself to return your mortal life. I cannot do so again, lest my creator rise in wrath. Do you understand?"
"I do, my redeemer," he says though he does not understand. He tries to see the G.o.d"s face but cannot find its features in the light. He can feel Valour"s gaze upon him, cold and warm at once.
"Stand again. You are a warrior, not a servant."
He staggers to his feet. "For what purpose do I live, my redeemer?"
"Act as you will: with freedom, till death take you. Take you it shall. But I say this: do not serve the brood. Come what may. Whether I leave this land or remain."
"But, my redeemer ... why would you go?" The thought fills him with profound sadness.
"The brood wish to be free, for we Spirits to be gone. The day will come when I must ride to war. I do not know my future." The light about Valour begins to withdraw.
"Wait! I love you dearly. Stay with me! I do not understand your words, my redeemer."
"Then hear this. There are two great Dragons, not one. Now they are naked before each other. Ours still sleeps, the far one is awake. They bend their thoughts to war. The Conflict Point is World"s End, where stood the Wall. Where the Great Road meets its twin."
Valour tosses to the ground a chest-panel of plated metal. It lands with hardly a sound. Atop this he drops a sword, sheathed. "I give you a part of myself," says Valour, "so that part of myself remains, if I am sent away. I cannot better aid a mortal man than this. You will take this sword, this armour. If you find a steed, tell it my name and it will serve you. Do not serve the brood. For the Pendulum has begun to swing. Hear me? The Pendulum has begun to swing."
Tears run down the man"s face. Then Valour is gone, and the only way he knew it was no dream or fevered vision is the armour and sword lying there for him, and the pools of dried blood. And his heart, beating again.
IN THE SKY.
1.
"Asked for me?" Case laughed. "Now why the Christ would a bunch of f.u.c.king monster dragons or whatever you got up here ask for me?"
Evidently this was a question not worth answering, for the Invia ignored it. Her staring eyes were bright as little pools of water in sunlight, though they and her parted lips expressed nothing other than that she watched him. Case wondered if any human emotion stirred beneath. The wind gaily tossed around her snowy hair and ruffled her wings" long soft feathers. She stood on a shelf of air and stared.
Case"s feet dangled from the edge of a jutting shelf just above the thick layer of the sky"s lightstone. Though it was dimming to usher in night, its brightness was still painful. A long, long way below them the ground waited to thump the life out of him. He was beginning to get impatient for it. He"d flap his arms on the way down, whoop and bray like a jacka.s.s. Try not to land on anyone who didn"t deserve it, though the odds were slim. He pictured a bunch of people going about their business and a suicidal old man landing among them making a h.e.l.l of a mess, and he burst out laughing. He tossed his hat into the sky; the wind whisked it out of sight. "If I jump, you"re going to catch me, aren"t you?"
Said the Invia, "Yes. Don"t!"
He laughed. "Why the h.e.l.l not?"
"It would annoy me."
"Which would be just tragic. S"cuse me a moment, some things never go out of fashion." Case scratched his b.a.l.l.s with vigour. The Invia unfurled her wings and picked him up with effortless strength. "Watch what the f.u.c.k you"re doing!" he snarled as her hands pinched his underarms, already tender from the long flight after she"d plucked him from his would-be plunge to the death.
Her wings beat the air as she carried him higher through a funnel of deep grey stone, away from the lightstone, up to where she had to push him from beneath through a gap hardly big enough. After an uncomfortable crawl the s.p.a.ce widened out to a vast cavern of smooth dark walls. Wind came at intervals through a hundred off-shooting holes bored in the cavern"s domed roof and walls, singing eerie notes like a huge woodwind instrument being randomly blown. Now and then echoing inhuman cries reached them from deeper within.
Despite himself, Case was intrigued by the sense this vast bare dome was ancient, far older than anything people had built anywhere. Its age pressed down on him so tangibly he could feel it. The air was thick with a strange smell. "Where"re your dragons then?" he said.
"Not here! This is the Gate. They never come here. Not much."
There was a distant thudding sound. The stone underfoot just faintly shivered. The Invia gave a fluttery excited whistle.
"That was big, whatever that was," Case said. He sniffed deeply, trying to place the air"s scent. His head began to spin and suddenly he was on his back. His thoughts spun dizzily until they broke down and became colours and shapes floating before his eyes all the world just coloured shapes, each with its own simple meaning which needed no elaboration. Then there was a pleasant taste he sucked at greedily, something pressing against his lips. Slowly his mind came back together.
The Invia"s expressionless eyes peered at him closely while she put her gashed wrist to his mouth, feeding him her blood. "Are you alive?" she said.
Case wanted to make a smart-a.r.s.e remark but all that came out was, "Ehhhh ..."
"No walkers come here," she said. A deep piping note played with a blast of cold wind from a nearby tunnel, throwing her hair around. "The air is very strong here. Walkers are soft as their skin. They don"t like it. Foolish walkers."
There was a burst of movement and the tunnel directly overhead sang its high-blown note. A small flock of Invia poured through, filling the s.p.a.ce about the tunnel"s mouth. They exchanged fluttery whistles. Each of them shot off in a different direction, one alone pausing to stare down at Case before it flashed away in a blur of white wings and skin and scarlet hair.
The Invia waited for Case to recover from his faint. He was shaken by sudden cravings for half-a-dozen chemicals he"d been hooked on, once upon a time. He"d taught his body in the end to be content with just the booze; it was the best he could do. "Not sure what hit me there," he said.
"You"re old, for a walker. And sick. Your aura"s bad. Faint and sick."
"Yeah well. You know my idea to fix all that. But you won"t let me." The enormous dome stretched in all directions further than he could see. "What is this place for anyway? Doesn"t look like a gate to me."
She tapped the grey stone floor with a knuckle. "Strong skystone. This keeps them here. They cannot break it. Or fit through gaps. They can"t even change shape to fit through! It was made for this."
"Got it," he said.
"And the G.o.ds. They make sure it holds. This is how it works."
"Yes, ma"am."
"If the G.o.ds went away, it might be different."
"I"ll see what I can do."
She leaned close to him, her bright sparkling eyes going wide. "Already, Dyan escaped. He"s just a Minor, but clever. There could be others, soon. They are trying to find out how. It"s hard. Are you ready to fly?"
Case sat up, rubbing his head. Taking this for a.s.sent she grabbed him and flew, picking out a gap in the roof from the scores around it. Cold air blasted out in a low note, painfully loud as they plunged through the wide stone maw, the tunnel snaking around but always leading upward. From off-shooting ones to either side came the occasional shriek reminiscent of the Invia"s dying wail he"d heard at Faul"s place. The sounds" meanings he caught but they made no sense to him, much like catching only one or two words in a long conversation.
After a time the Invia sat him on one of the ledges set in the tunnel"s sides, c.o.c.ked her head and listened. Wind blasted through with a low thrumming note; within the gust a flock of Invia shot past in a blur of white feathers. Case"s Invia wrapped her wings around him, shielding him from any accidental collision. Her cool cheek pressed against his; her wings about him imparted strange tenderness, protecting him as an animal protects its young, no human sentiment in the gesture at all. Still he"d have happily stayed in the soft feathered nest all day.
When the flock had pa.s.sed, she said, "They heard him speak. Just a word. They have not heard him for a long while! I have. They are excited. They should come here more often. Those ones always pester Tsy. He dislikes them."
Her face showed unusual animation. Not wanting her to remove the tiny house of soft feathers (he stroked them) he said, "Who spoke?"
"Vyin. He knows you are here. You heard his feet press down, when he leaped from a perch. That was when we were in the Gate. You didn"t hear his voice. Walkers can"t, unless he lets you."
She picked him up and on they flew, through an endless labyrinth of stone.
2.
In the maze"s deepest darkness were what seemed life forms made of strange light, their bodies a twisted glowing core within a blurry nest, their flickering fingers groping blindly at the cavern about them as if seeking flaws or cracks.
There were times the dark was so utterly black Case could grab handfuls of gloom from the air and feel it as he squeezed it in his fist. There were pa.s.sages where the stone creaked and wept with the bitter sadness of someone wishing desperately for the bright world below: for running water, trees, winds, oceans to dive into, glaciers to swat through the waves with a gush of foam and breaking ice, lands to beat into sculpted shapes. But there was only this darkness, the pressing stone walls the cruellest cage ever made with no quick and easy mortal death to buy freedom for those here imprisoned. Case almost drowned in the sadness pouring through him, pouring through the very stones. He could not help weeping. Even the Invia wept, her tears splashing down on his head as she brought him higher, deeper and into the sadness, out of his life and into a dream he was sure he"d had long ago.
Then the narrow ways poured into an open s.p.a.ce even more vast than the Gate had been. Below them was a kind of ziggurat, a structure of strangely laid slabs of shining black metal with long arms stretching off at different points. The arms spun slowly. More such designs were set into the walls and roof, ugly and incomprehensible things. A city of such buildings stretched back into the dark, though no living beings moved on the smooth barren ground that he could see. A river gouged into the stone floor cast up a long wedge of brilliant light.
The strange smell was overpowering. Again Case"s thoughts dissolved to shifting coloured shapes; again the Invia fed him her sweet nourishing blood to bring him back to consciousness. They flew toward a high roof of gleaming stone, carved with runes through which brilliant colour moved and flowed, as though the cavern had a heart and pulse, and these colours were its lifeblood pumping beneath the dark stone skin.
Case threw up.
The Invia descended with a noise of annoyance at the puke on her forearms. "I should not be here," she said. "I would not be, if you could come yourself. Silly walker! You cannot fly."