Part 18 (2/2)

Anfen slowly drew his sword. A glimmer of white light flickered up and down the blade. 'Bring me Avridis,' he said.

The commander looked at him, not comprehending. 'Answer my question.'

'Bring me Avridis or be cut in half.'

The commander, stunned, laughed. 'Who is this fool?' he asked no one in particular. Anfen made good on his promise with a flash of sparks as the sword did its work.

A ripple pa.s.sed through the people nearby. The bustle of movement came to a gradual cease and heads turned. A silence drew out, broken abruptly as other men drew weapons and charged them.

Anfen looked sick, starved and weary, but moved as fast as Sharfy had seen any man move. Any who came at him were soon dead on the ground, their blood spilling over the Great Dividing Road.

An alarm sounded like the huge call of a deathly bird. Sharfy watched the sky uneasily, expecting a war mage, but none came. 'Stay near me,' Anfen told him. Soon the pair of them were surrounded by a ring of heavily armed men. One half held up s.h.i.+elds they crouched down behind, while the other poured arrow after arrow at them.

Anfen stood completely still in the midst of it as arrows rained down, but somehow none of them struck home. It was like a big invisible s.h.i.+eld guarded them. Sharfy felt heat building from Anfen, then saw his armour was glowing faintly red, and growing hotter the longer the soldiers shot bolts at them. Soon the heat was painful.

Luckily the rain of arrows stopped. A huge litter of them lay on the Road's pavement. Someone shouted an order to charge. Anfen screamed a war cry to Valour and swung his blade overhead in a blurring wheel of death, and Sharfy watched with his mouth hanging open as those who charged were cut savagely down in a storm of blood, until none dared attack them any more. The rest ran.

'Bring me Avridis,' Anfen yelled. 'Bring him!' Then panting and haggard, he collapsed. He was drenched from head to foot in blood. The few castle troops who remained did not dare go near him even as he lay there.

The wailing alarm was answered by another which came from further away. Sharfy felt what seemed a million pairs of eyes peering down at them from the castle's windows, near and far.

He cleaned as much blood off himself as he could, then began wiping it from Anfen's face.

What seemed a long time later, there was movement at the gates above the steps. A group of men in full dyed-black plate elite guard, Sharfy knew, having heard many stories of them came out and stood in a new ring around Anfen, heavy double-sided axes as tall as they were planted handle first at their feet. These men would all be wearing enchanted gear, Sharfy knew. They would swing those huge heavy axes fast as whips. Their armour would be like trying to pierce a wall of stone. But he thought Anfen's sword would cut through it with ease.

Anfen didn't even seem to notice them. Sharfy longed to ask the elites if it were true that they were fed half-giant blood before each battle (or was it drake's blood?), but instead he tried to look menacing, as though he'd had a hand in dispatching the dozens and dozens of dead warriors lying on the road around them.

The Arch Mage himself alone, without ceremony came out soon after. He hobbled to the small balcony, before which townspeople usually came to beg for work. He looked at the bodies but gave no hint of what he thought. He said, 'You have come a long way. And through dangerous country. But it has not made you weak, I see.'

Anfen stood and leaned heavily on the handle of his sword, its tip not piercing the Great Dividing Road.

Anfen said, 'Very dangerous country. The men who fight and die for you would not like to know you set Tormentors free, to mop them up when they return from the final battle.'

The Arch Mage's gaze lingered on the mound of bodies Anfen had produced. 'For one who professes concern for my fighting men, this is a strange way to demonstrate it. But I set no Tormentors free.' He stared at Anfen like one trying to solve a riddle. The square gem in his eye socket twisted. 'Some of the beasts won their own freedom. A risk of trying to use them. They are extremely difficult to handle. I must condition all their handlers so that they no longer fear death or pain. Volunteers are ... rare.'

The elite guards watched them silently.

Said Anfen, 'Do you understand you have set the Pendulum swinging?'

The Arch Mage shook his head. 'I am familiar with the Pendulum theory. I do not subscribe to it. Some of my Strategists do.'

'You should have listened to them.'

The Arch Mage leaned forward upon the rail and sighed. 'Otherworld usually has greater material science than we do. By which I mean non-magical science. In my long lifetime, even in your brief one, Anfen, their advances defy belief. I am nearly certain they would destroy us in war. But in that place, pendulums are a recent invention. They are used to tell the time, I believe. I do not have much time to spare. You have earned an audience with me. Tell me why you are here. That is mighty armour you wear, and a mighty sword in your hand. From where they come I cannot tell. But you are more formidable than when we met by the Wall. I shall be wary of you.'

'And you have more powerful airs to use than you did on that day,' said Anfen. 'But be careful what you cast, and when. This is why I have come. To give a lesson in magic.'

The Arch Mage peered at him curiously. 'You aren't here to duel? That is well. Then I wait, and learn. Teach me.'

'Cast a spell for me.'

'A spell?'

'Any kind of spell. A small one, if you prefer.'

The Arch Mage looked warily at him, then stood. 'As you wish. This one used to amuse my daughter.' There was no visible movement from the Arch Mage, nothing to indicate his casting of the spell if he did anything, it was by thought alone, and his eye never left Anfen. A small bird, seemingly made of little spots of multicoloured light, fluttered clumsily down the steps, then crash-landed on the ground in a shower of sparks. 'Sufficient?' he said.

Anfen did not answer. Sharfy saw neither of them, then, for Anfen took the Arch Mage into the quiet, leaving him alone by the steps in the hot glare of the castle's elite guard. 's.h.i.+t,' he muttered.

3.

All the soldiers, and bodies, vanished. The Road was still underfoot, the castle was enormous before them, vaster perhaps than it had been in the normal realm. The sky was twilight, the distant landmarks black against it. The stone walls seemed here in the quiet to swell and recede like the chest of someone breathing. Enormous white glowing jewels, bigger than any they had seen on the road, were all through the sky, some hung low and some far distant.

Anfen and the Arch Mage were alone. By the steps, where he had cast the little spell which had so amused Aziel he had not realised just now that he'd referred to her as his daughter a little cl.u.s.ter of diamonds, no more than a handful, hung in the air. The Arch looked about himself with alarm, not sure what had happened, what effect was in play.

Anfen told him about the quiet. The Arch Mage listened.

'In your words, Avridis,' said Anfen, 'what is magic?'

'I explained it to Aziel, days ago. It is loose reality. Made into fixed reality, by designs of the caster.'

'It is here, where it becomes real.' Anfen pointed to the small clutch of diamonds. 'Do not touch that. That is the spell you cast. Those are the instructions to create your bird of light. Those patterns are the language your instruction is written in. A shaper will come to carry out your instructions. To us, the spell looks instant. But this place is outside of time. There are many shapers here, where the airs are strong. Look there, one comes now.'

Indeed two came, distorted patches without shape of their own. But the second drifted away when it saw the first had already reached the spell. In moments it devoured the little sparkling pieces frozen in the air. Then it moved away like something floating in water.

The Arch Mage watched, fascinated. As he'd read theories on the Pendulum and much else besides, he had also read theories of this place, and this process, which likewise he had not believed. Now that he found it was real, he already knew more of this place than Anfen would have guessed, this place the theories gave many names: the under-realm, Kalom in an old tongue, which meant dream aspect. And more names it had.

And he knew there was no magic here for him to use. He was in dire peril.

He made a grand show of his amazement as Anfen lectured. He would not have needed the mound of bodies to see that Anfen had become dangerous. It had been immediately clear that a new power was about his former First Captain, beyond just the armour he wore and blade he wielded. The Arch Mage could not guess what had caused this change; his first thought went out to the mages of the hidden schools.

'If you went to the unclaimed lands, you would find enormous spells not yet transcribed by the shapers, dating back to the dragon days,' said Anfen.

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