Part 28 (2/2)

'It may. Or it may harm us. It may be small and frail, or have more strength than Mountain. But the Pendulum swings. Another Spirit may, perhaps one day soon, be called across into the far land to do war, leaving those of us remaining too weak to keep the brood in hold. Anfen. You did well not to slay the mage who makes this come about.'

'Thank you. Oh, thank you, my redeemer.'

'It was hard for you. The mage knows not his purpose. Both Spirits and the brood have used him at different times. As he used you.'

'I suspected this was so, my redeemer.'

'You may slay him when the change is done if that remains your wish, and if your hand is fast enough.'

'Thank you, my redeemer. Oh, thank you.'

'The new Spirit will come forth soon. He cannot remain so close to the great power you call the Dragon he will be pushed away. It will be then you know the change is done. When Vous comes south and chooses for himself a home in the realm, we others must watch. In time we must decide if he is to be kept, or to be sent to where mad Inferno went. Inferno was not slain, Anfen, but brought low. No more can happen to Vous. Even now, he could not be slain.'

'He has achieved eternal life, my redeemer?'

'If this was his quest's object, he has. There will be much time for him to regret it. We now must part. I give you this advice: you have no true friend among the brood. There shall be no Favoured. Listen not to any such tempting promise. Tell your kindred. Go forth now, Anfen. Witness for me. I have no governance of the hand wielding the sword I gave you. That is only yours. Your thoughts are yours, your valiant heart is yours. Your grief and shame are yours, if cling to them you must. Go now.' Valour's gaze again fell on Sharfy. 'Serve him well.' Those three words fell as heavily as slabs of stone.

Sharfy wanted very much to run and hide. Instead he stammered, 'Yes, I will.'

3.

Step after step, he followed Anfen back to the castle, which soon loomed enormous over their heads again, seeming to stare directly at them like a living beast, as though the living beast buried somewhere far beneath it could see through these great stone eyes.

Anfen babbled happily about dragons and Spirits and his redeemer. The scar from his neck dribbled blood onto his collar, which was already stiff with it. Sharfy glanced skyward hoping an Invia would come and kill him. None did.

They did not go back into the quiet, and only once was a lone Tormentor visible in the distance. Its head swung around to watch them, and it stalked with its odd gait to where they'd pa.s.sed, but it did not pursue them.

Whether it was Vous or something else, there was no denying a change had come, or else one fast approached. It was as tangible as a gathering storm, the air crackling with energy. There were patrols, but they seemed strangely disorganised, rus.h.i.+ng along the roads Sharfy had at last with great difficulty persuaded Anfen not to travel on. There were also floods of refugees, or what looked like them, heading for some reason toward the castle, not away from it. Almost as though they were all obeying a summons or had heard some call. From the glimpses Sharfy had of their faces, they rushed with the fervour of those who have heard that treasure is to be found just up ahead.

As he and Anfen got nearer, as the castle's hugeness became overwhelming, the babble of a crowd's voice carried back to them from its lawns. Gathered there were citizens and fighting men alike, starving and well fed mixed together, in rags or occasional finery, all staring up and talking with excitement.

Far above them, on a ledge overlooking the lawns, their Friend and Lord stood with his arms held aloft, his face turned to the sky, where dark clouds gathered in a swirling ma.s.s and lightning lashed about like the tongues of enormous beasts. The castle and the ground beneath it seemed to s.h.i.+ver.

IS SHADOW HERE?.

1.

The castle shook. Strategist Vashun the only one to still respond to the Arch's urgent summonses voiced what the Arch himself wondered, what he could only answer with guesswork to give the appearance of control he no longer had: 'Is this it?'

The Arch stared at him; through his gem he saw deeper into Vashun than the Strategist would realise, and saw att.i.tudes he did not like. He answered, 'Not yet.'

He hoped it was true. He would not be here, if he knew this was indeed the great change.

A high-pitched sound had come from Vous's chamber that morning. The drake caged in the Arch's study had heard it, had whined and writhed and scratched at its cage bars. The Arch had seen a disturbance in the airs, as though something had gone through all the nearby energies like a wave through water. Those exotic airs in jars on his shelf stirred and s.h.i.+fted like they had heard the sound too and wished to answer with a voice of their own, if only a mage were to give them that voice. And he had been sorely tempted to smash the jars and cast something, anything, to oblige them ...

He'd resisted, instead rus.h.i.+ng to the higher floors. The canisters of foreign airs still sat beyond Vous's chamber. They were not ruptured or broken. Inside, Vous writhed and thrashed on his throne. His movements were impossibly fast, limbs blurring. His body was translucent.

The Arch stepped backward, alarmed, for Vous was an instant later standing right before him in the chamber doorway. His face held none of its usual rage. It was a blank mask.

'Friend and Lord?' said the Arch.

Vous didn't seem to see or hear him. Arms aloft, he stepped away from his chamber. Colours pulsed in the airs. There was a low background humming throb, and the castle s.h.i.+vered again.

Slowly, slowly, Vous proceeded to the balcony overlooking the lawns, where he stood with his head turned up to the gathering clouds, as though his raised arms conducted their movement. For hours sixteen, now he had waited there and not moved at all. The soaring wind did not even ruffle his hair.

Some call had gone out to the closer cities, the nearby patrols, and all villages within a half-day's march. All who'd heard it answered by coming here, and now stood gathered on the lawns below their Friend and Lord. A sea of murmured conversation and upturned faces waited, and the crowd grew ever larger by the hour.

The Arch and his one remaining loyal Strategist and not loyal by much, he now knew waited and watched. Influencing Vous was not a possibility. The options were observe or flee. Staff from the castle had congregated below with all the other teeming ma.s.ses, all but those mind-controlled ones who stayed at their posts, and would do so even if flames crept up their legs.

'You and I are not called below,' Vashun observed, still cheerful.

The Arch did not reply.

'Some kind of lure. Very potent. Now's not the first time it's gone out, you realise. Some of those people began marching here many days ago. From Kopyn! How'd he do it without our noticing till now?'

The Arch did not reply.

'The windows. They have all gone blank. Did you know?'

'I know,' answered the Arch.

'Have the war mages returned? Any of them? Is there ... sign of the girl? Should she not be back by now?'

The Arch rounded on him, ready to strike the Strategist down with a spell, but he was no longer there. There was an echo of laughter instead. Avridis knew that at last he was truly on his own. Angered beyond any rage he'd known before, a feeling that surpa.s.sed any desire or emotion he'd ever felt, he went to Vous's chamber and blasted open the metal cases holding in the foreign airs, wanting only to cause some pain, some harm, with for the first time in his life no further hint of purpose or reason. Everything he'd done in this castle, every act of war or torture, even every act of kindness, had served a purpose, until this deed.

The foreign airs, a harsh and luminous red, filtered into the vast winding threads swirling about the castle like the arms of a whirlpool with Vous its centre. The red joined the mix of dark glimmering colours till it was no longer discernible. The disturbance in the airs was almost too subtle to see, but he saw it, and felt a twist of pleasure. Whether this act caused what came next, or whether the timing was coincidental, the Arch, and of course Vous himself, would have no way of knowing.

2.

'Is Shadow among you?' Vous breathed, stirring from his pose at last.

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