Читать книгу Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead - Robert Hood - Страница 6

CHAPTER TWO

ANCESTRAL CALL

i.

The alley was a dead end.

At first, the inebriated fat man hadn’t noticed this fact. Shock had cleared some of the fuzziness from his head, but not enough to neutralize a full afternoon’s drinking. He’d stumbled upon the opening and plunged in, desperately hoping it could hide him from his pursuer. The dagger he clutched in his hand had seemed little defense in the open street, but the alley’s darkness reassured him.

Echoes of his padding feet, their rhythm fractured by a weakness in his left leg, came back to him from the rough brick walls to either side. By the time he realized his way was blocked, it was too late to hide. He glanced back. A dark shape slid toward him against the lighter background of the outer street. “What do you want?” Zeth-han cried. His gilded robe rustled loudly, his sandals scraped on the rocky dirt of the road, but the shadow said nothing. It was almost on top of him now, losing its outline in the darkness, growing larger as it joined with other shadows to become one terrible, formless mass.

“I have no money!” His words rebounded hollowly.

Out of the gloom, fingers like steel ropes clamped on his arm. Zeth-han screamed as his attacker’s bulk clarified and the amorphous shadow became a face made of darkness. Gaunt and wasted, it looked like a thing long dead.

“No, please!” Zeth-han groaned. Pushing outward with his hand to fend off the attack, he struck the flesh of his attacker’s chest. The skin was rough and cold, and gave way along the edge of a ragged cavity—as though the thing’s heart had been torn out. For a moment, synchronicities reverberated in Zeth-han’s mind and in his bones, even while fear fractured his thoughts. He remembered something…a living heart. But the cold memories slipped past him without clarifying. Night roared in his ears.

Zeth-han screamed again, thrashing out in a mindless panic, wanting to cut away the darkness and prove these events a nightmare. But though there was no awakening for him, there was reprieve. More by luck than design, the dagger he still clutched in his hand found the thing’s cold flesh and plunged into it. The impact was hard, but the blade penetrated to the hilt.

As the dagger slipped from his fingers, Zeth-han was suddenly free. He staggered backward, hearing the heavy thud of his attacker’s body on the stones and dirt. Hysteria churned in his throat and choked him, the wall shifted under his weight, and his empty hands scraped on the rough bricks. The metallic ornament he always wore on his wrist felt heavy and dragged at him, as though compelling him to follow his attacker to the ground. He forced himself in the opposite direction.

Long minutes passed before he escaped from the alley. He felt himself pulled back continually and had to fight for every step. His gimpy leg ached and his lungs were weak with exhaustion. Sweat dripped onto the damp road, as though the shadows were clinging to him. He glanced back once, but the alley was still.

In that moment of peace, memory of the disembodied human heart returned—a heart found beating in a funereal coffer on the penal island of Reyad. He had tried to forget he’d ever seen that object, for thought of it drove ice into his gut. Now, rebelliously, his memory held up one nightmare from his past against another in the present. This creature lacked a heart—he had found a beating heart on Reyad. Could they be connected? But his mind revolted from the idea. Too many years had faded behind him for the terrible discoveries of those days to find some fearful culmination now. Desperately, he drove the revelation deep into the dark beneath memory. Once, he recalled, he had been a penal governor, a man of power afraid of no one. Now, every shadow was his enemy.

He waited until he caught his breath, then got back on his feet and staggered for support against the wall on the opposite side of the main thoroughfare. An old sign there read ‘Telfith’s Mast’. Zeth-han looked into the night-sky for a hint of dawn.

He feared he would not survive to see it.

ii.

Remis found herself within another’s body, a cold dead body that she could not control. It confined and oppressed her as it stepped through night-shadows, the damp of the streets stagnant at its feet. Now it had entered an alley, the brick expanse of walls to either side rough and dirty, abandoned to years of weathering. Remis…or the undead corpse she had become…leapt along the lanes, grabbing at the burning imprint that scored the air, the pain in its limbs driving them into fits of rage. But wherever the shape was when the corpse snatched at it—light before a darkened wall, glittering in a shaded doorway—it was gone as the thing reached the spot. It spun away like a fog-wisp before the corpse’s grasp. Each time it grabbed at emptiness, the creature cried out, silently, in mingled despair and anger.

Then before it was a man whose eyes were wild with fear. He staggered, perplexed in misery and terror; when the corpse roared the man cried out and ran. A jagged glow lent its flame to his escape. In a frenzy of pain the undead corpse scrambled through Remis’s dream, following the man, aching for explanation, aching for the thing that dogged his path. The roughness of the road went unnoticed beneath the corpse/Remis’s feet. The man limped around a corner as the undead thing reached out, smashing the worn timber of a narrowing fence-line.

“What do you want of me?” the man yelled.

Corpse-Remis roared. The man held out his hand and there appeared between the creature and the man a specter, burning with unseen flames as its fingers snatched at the corpse’s empty chest. It stepped back, afraid.

In sleep, Remis went rigid. Her muscles twitched as though her body were pricked by pins of fire. When the tension dissipated, the peacefulness of night infused her.

Her eyes flickered open. For a moment she saw only the night-dimmed forms of furniture and the wood-frame of the room. She puzzled briefly over the strange vividness of the dream, searching through her study-memory for some way to interpret its meaning. But movement swept these conceptions away before they were formed. A dim figure stood near the door, barely visible among the shadows. Remis gripped her blanket tightly, but the shade did not move. Remis blinked, doubting her eyes. Clear contours were lost in the speckled darkness.

“Who’s there?” she asked it.

No answer. She sat up, straining to focus her eyes on the place where she imagined the shape to be. Was it possible it was just an after-image of vivid dream?

Then the figure was near her, leaning. She had not seen it move. She stifled a scream in the base of her throat. “Please!” she whispered instead, fearful that her voice might goad the phantom into some ghostly act.

In the faint light that drifted through the window, carried on a breeze that chilled the sweat on her skin, Remis could see the phantom’s face, white and bony, framed in a distinctive square-cut beard, the lips moving in silent speech. When she saw the opaque whiteness of its eyes she knew it was no mortal visitor. Numinous terror tightened her neck muscles. “What do you want?” she whispered.

The specter said something, but it was dim and without force, not driven by fleshly lungs. There was pain in it. Her shock and involuntary superstition dissipating, Remis realized that this was no ghost either, but rather an image sent to her from elsewhere. It was a message. “You want my help?” she said. It nodded. “Why did you come to me?”

The figure made hand-movements in the air, speaking in study-signs. It spelt out the words, “You are Valarl—blood-link.” What did that mean? Was she related to this phantom? But there was no time; she let speculation pass. Later. The sending was barely visible in the gloom.

“How will I find you?” she asked.

The figure reached out a translucent hand and touched her. In her mind she gazed along a darkened alley, the road-stones wet with dew and mist. Beyond the alley ran another, larger thoroughfare. A painted sign, unclear in the distant fog, read: “Telfith’s Mast”.

“I’ll come,” she said. Instantly the image faded.

Remis rubbed her eyes, which were sore and strained. Her mind felt dried out, as though its edges had been brushed by the passing of some dusty desert wind. She wondered whether she had dreamt the encounter, though she knew quite well she hadn’t. Someone was in an alley off the Street of Telfith’s Mast; they had called to her, psychically, seeking aid. They were, or had once been, her kin. These things seemed clear.

Quietly she slipped out of bed and dressed.

iii.

Night in Koerpel-Na was generally a dreary, sordid thing—a poor substitute for the clean expanse of natural darkness that night became in the outer lands where he’d been born. Arhl Mogarni lay on the flat baked-clay roof of his workrooms and let nostalgia and sorrow take him.

Life had not been easy of late. Talking to his neighbor, Remis Sarsdarl—even if briefly and without much engagement—had brought the difficulty of it to the forefront of his mind again. Now he was having trouble sending it back into a darker place where it could be accepted without morbid self-loathing. What was his life? Little work, no money, few prospects. His landlord was threatening to have him evicted. He’d had to lay off his apprentice, though he’d kept the lad on beyond his ability to pay proper wages, hoping the situation would change. It hadn’t, and fulfilling his obligations to the youth had been hard. He had to face the truth: his business was almost dead. All in all, Arhl felt strongly that he had failed, as he always failed, and could see no clear way forward. This fact saddened and infuriated him.

Yet he knew that thinking this way was pointless.

Despite himself, however, he let the worries and self-doubt continue to surge through his thoughts, giving them free rein. Sometimes it was necessary to experience the full gamut, to allow emotions to grow, to rage against the inevitable, even though in the end such indulgence might be a sign of weakness. Arhl was tired of being strong. In that, too, he was a failure. So, for a while, he would let himself be weak; he would succumb to self-indulgent recriminations and pathetic complaint, and after a time it would pass, returning him to his life of stoic acceptance.

Wind guttered through the eves below him and rattled at some loose metal sheeting there. A dog barked in the distance, the sound wild and ominous. Above, the sky grew suddenly clearer than usual, free of smoke and the filth of local industries. Residual light snaked through the blackness, forming into patterns he couldn’t decipher.

Breathing slowly and more easily now, Arhl felt his body closing down toward sleep.

But something—a movement nearby—jerked him awake again. Skin across his scalp tingled. The night seemed thicker about him, its breath plucking at his face.

“Who’s there?”

Silhouetted against the sky, a figure sat on his roof with him, knees drawn up, staring out across the City. How had his visitor climbed up without Arhl noticing? Instinctively he made to draw himself further away, but some familiarity in the size and shape of the figure stopped him. It was a woman, he saw. Her hair was long and plaited, and her clothes made of fur and roughly woven dyeless fibre, after the tribal fashion of his own people. Leather strapping around her waist and over her shoulders were the accoutrements of a hunter. Arhl sniffed at the air, which should have carried her human scent to his sensitive nostrils. But there was only the smell of coming rain and smoke residue from his own forge.

He swallowed back a groan. He knew this woman and he knew what her appearance here, now, might mean.

“Mother?” he whispered.

The woman turned. At that moment night-light shimmered above and lit her features dimly. She had the hard, pale youthfulness Arhl remembered from so long ago. Within her eye sockets, however, there lay an ancient darkness.

“You’ve come to me again,” Arhl remarked, his voice weak with ghostly anticipation.

You are my son. The bond between us is infinite. Why wouldn’t I come to you when danger stirs about you and your world is threatened?

The fear Arhl harbored grew more resonant in the hollow of his chest. Mogarni had come to him like this before, several times, since her hunting death long ago when he had been a mere cub. Each time, the comfort she offered had done little to bring him peace. Were others haunted by their dead kin like this? He didn’t know, because he was always too afraid to ask them. He suspected it was not common. There was a strain of psychic doom within his people that would have marginalized him even further had the inhabitants of this City known about it—a link to the Deep Powers of the world that led, inevitably, to death or madness. It had destroyed his father…in the end it had fractured his tribe. Perhaps, too, it had driven Arhl himself to come to Koerpel-Na, seeking a purpose that was tangible and this-worldly. Why must his past haunt him like this?

“What do you want?” he snapped, annoyed at the injustice.

I know what you fear, my son. I know I am not welcome in your life—not like this, not as a ghost. But I’m in you and can’t be ignored. I’m a part of you that lies so deep in your soul you rarely hear its whispers. Yet I’m more in tune with the currents of the world than you can imagine—and I see what’s around you, ache with the pain of it. I won’t be silent.

“Say what you must say then.”

She smiled gently, like a memory from his infancy.

Watch the one you care about, the woman with Power.

“Remis Sarsdarl? What are you talking about?”

She is at the center of a storm. She will need your help.

He pushed himself up and crawled toward his mother’s ghost, forgetting his fear now. Strangely the movement brought him no nearer to her. “What do you mean? How is she in danger?”

Ancient currents are converging. Vast, dangerous currents. At such a time, even the simplest of actions may be vital to the survival of all. You must be alert. Watch her! Stay near to her.

“Can’t you tell me more? What’s happening?”

I have no more to tell. That is all I can see, and all that you can know. Guard her and you guard your own future.

And suddenly Arhl was alone on the roof, lying in the spot where he’d been all along, staring into the clear, flickering night sky. He sat up and looked about himself wildly.

“Remis!” he whispered, speaking the name as though the sound of it would bring her to him. When nothing happened, he frowned but continued to scan the darkened city, his breathing labored in the aftermath of the visitation.

iv.

The night was clear and still. Winds gathering earlier had swept away the clouds and then gone with them into stillness. The dark firmament twitched with light-residue. Remis watched a brighter trail weave its dim pattern and spend itself as soon as formed. “Now where was Telfith’s Street?” she whispered to herself, trying to remember. She had a vague recollection that it was near the southern docks.

She headed in that direction, assuming an easy running pace. Uncharacteristically, the City was quiet and still. As she entered Than-Rewi, the main road through to the largest bridge to cross over the City-dissecting Antelon river, she found its emptiness unnerving. Her boots were noisy on the hardened surface, creating strange and sometimes distant echoes that made her feel as though she were being followed. The first time a human figure appeared ahead of her—in all likelihood a worker headed home from the inner harbor docks—his featureless presence sent fear like ice into her heart.

When the Than-Rewi thoroughfare reached the Circle, she followed its eastern branch toward the Antelon crossing. This led her past the Yucartel Chambers where Family members and their political visitors slept peacefully—no lights burned in street-facing windows and the forecourt was empty. The ornately filigreed Law Courts, too, remained silent and apparently unoccupied, except for a partially visible guard, standing in the umbra of the stone archway that defined the Courts’ main entrance. Remis approached cautiously, trying not to startle him. “May I ask you a question?” she said, unsure of the protocol.

His eyes were not visible in the shadows under his plumed headgear. “What do you want?” his low voice rumbled.

“Directions to a street called Telfith’s Mast. It’s very important.” She felt absurdly concerned to justify speaking to him.

“Telfith’s?” His left arm rose. “Continue along here till you reach a square. There’s an open grassed area in its center—with a statue…ugly thing. Some hero or other. On the other side of the square, take the road veering south-west. Telfith’s leads off this road. Look for a large mast.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He leaned closer suddenly, so she could see his eyes. They were benign. “You shouldn’t be wanderin’ about down there this time of night. It’s not safe.”

“I’ll be careful.”

He grunted, then stood upright again.

* * * *

Some time later Remis entered an old-fashioned dirt-covered street, dark brick storage buildings squatting silently along its length. Further on there were more decorative façades indicating shops and an occasional tenement, but at this time of night the street was deserted. The Mast could be seen at its far end, over Telfith’s, the shipwright.

During the visitation, she had been shown an alley, opposite a painted sign. She walked further along, peering into the few alleys that disappeared into dark shadows off the street. At last she stopped beneath an old, weathered board, on which some careful hand had written ‘Telfith’s Mast’. There was an alley opposite. She turned and gazed into the tenebrous murk of the alley’s depth, straining her eyes to see through the gloom.

She couldn’t blunder in blind. The alley was so thin the overhanging shingles of buildings on each side effectively blocked out what diffused light came from the night-sky. Thick shadows made her nervous.

Standing before the alley’s mouth, Remis made a few discreet ritualistic gestures with her hands. She began to recite the Lunist-Kan Chant for night-vision—and after a moment, as her words focused the Deep Power in her, her eyes acquired a steely aura. Darkness slipped away for her, as though sucked into the surrounding brickwork. Now she could see what appeared to be a body lying at the alley’s rear, perhaps a hundred paces from where she stood. Beyond it the alley ended abruptly at a rough stone wall.

Maintaining clear vision by the continued recitation of the Chant, Remis walked slowly down the alley, concentrating power through the channeling crystal she wore around her neck—the cerenil that had been formed over the whole period of her magical training, a solid reflection of her own advancement. It took a lot of concentration, for the Chant drained her and demanded a large proportion of her attention. To minimize the weakness she felt stealing over her, she modified the spell, though this diminished the clarity of her vision. Darkness crept over the alley again, as though a gray twilight were falling. A grainy sheen further dirtied the stones and walls.

Lines of blackness that were probably some clinging vine covered the dead end stone-block wall ahead. Glimmer showed that its base was damp, watered by drainage from the roofs. Piles of refuse were scattered all around. They stank. The loose rocks and dirt beneath her feet seemed broken and decayed.

Her legs tingling with weariness, Remis stopped a pace from the body she had already seen from the distance. It was a man, sprawled on his back and naked, limbs twisted into a caricature of some epileptic spasm. The hilt of a dagger protruded from the corpse’s chest. She was too late to help him. She glanced around nervously, fearful of spying the murderer.

But the alley was empty apart from herself. She knelt. The shadows became deeper as her will faded. Her spell muttering continued as an undercurrent, blurred further by echo from the walls.

The first thing she noticed was that there was no blood around the blade in the man’s chest and none pooling on the ground beneath him—none that her failing vision revealed anyway. Admittedly the dirt was wet, but she saw no evidence of a thicker, bloody pooling. Where his heart should have been was a large dry cavity. His heart had been removed, it seemed, and without a drop of blood spilling out around the wound.

She reached forward, running her fingers over the man’s skin. It was as cold as the dirt he was lying on. Not an hour had passed since she received the Call and the caller hadn’t been dead then. How could he be so cold and bloodless now? This thing reminded her not of the phantom that had called her, but of the undead corpse that had raced through her dream—only this one did not move.

This was no time to ask such questions, she decided at last. Her sight had darkened to the extent that the alley was nearly as obscured as it had been originally. Remis’ muscles ached with the effort. Moreover, to be found bending over a murdered man in this part of the City was to be found guilty of the crime. She wondered what the guard at the Law Courts’ entrance would think, if he caught her here like this.

There was nothing she could do. But the experience required study and given her expertise, it was the dagger in the man’s chest—the murder weapon—that was most likely to yield some answers, however tentative. She had to study it. She could look into its substance and read its history. Ceasing her chant, she took the dagger by the handle and tried to pull it from the body’s chest. The corpse shifted, but the knife remained where it was.

Adjusting her stance in order to get better leverage, she placed both hands around the hilt and pulled. Still the blade refused to release the dead flesh. Full darkness had returned now, though she could see better in the dark than she’d been able to before utilising the chant. Details were lost and the dead man was a thick shadow, but she wasn’t blind.

She concentrated and forced a release spell through her oddly reluctant lips.

The knife slid out abruptly. The suddenness caused Remis to stagger back. She regained her balance, staring at the strange snaking double-blade that she held. It was too dark for her to make out details. Night seemed to congeal, as though the air was alive with movement. It concentrated directly in front of her. Remis felt a chill that was almost solid stab into her chest.

The corpse rose stiffly, flexing its arms in the snake-thick air.

Remis tried to edge away—wanting to run from the fear and unreality of her dream realized—but instead found herself motionless, mind numb with cold. The creature’s hand jerked out and thudded against her shoulder. She staggered, though it hadn’t been a hard push. Almost a touch after all. Its body was sinewy with tense muscle and suppressed power.

“Who are you?” Remis asked it.

It remained mute. Remis found herself staring into eyes devoid of life. Deeper within them perhaps, further than she could see unaided, a life was trapped in the decaying flesh.

“Are you the one who called me?” She tried to send the words on a psychic level as well. Still it neither answered nor ran from her. Movement like an involuntary twitch shivered through its limbs.

“Please—”

Its hand pointed. The dagger. Remis gripped it before her, unconsciously prepared to use the weapon. The creature might have been staring at it, conveying a message she didn’t understand. Was it dangerous?

“This…knife.…” Remis raised it and the creature drew away, “…did it hold you? You needed it to be taken out of your flesh?”

The dead man stood unmoving.

“The man in you, who you once were, before undeath claimed you, is he here? Can I speak to him?”

There was no answer, as she knew there wouldn’t be. The man this corpse had been—the man she’d seen in her sleep—was visible in the hard lines and stony lifelessness of the dead face, but what had come for her help had been a shadow, the last traces of a trapped spirit. The dagger, which had to be an enchanted one, would be a talisman designed to simulate true death in the corpse, to hold it immobile. Yet the creature had desired release so that the false death with which it was cursed could achieve some end unknown to her. Once she’d taken the dagger from its chest, the creature’s undead life had returned.

And with that realization, its gaunt hand touched her again. In a moment the undead creature was roaring—soundlessly. As though there was nothing in it to come out.

Then it turned and sped down the tunnel of darkness into the open road beyond. Turned left. Was gone. Ahead of it, and in its wake, surged a wave of power that almost overwhelmed her. It had told her what it had wanted her to know, and now it had returned to whatever business obsessed it.

Remis’ knees buckled. She sank to the rocky dirt of the alley, its irregular surface somehow reassuring. Her heart was pounding and blood hissed in her ears. The runic pattern on the dagger felt like a warning as she pressed her fingers against it.

“I don’t know what you’re after,” she whispered, staring into the night, “but I intend to find out.”

Remis was not overly superstitious, but nor was she fool enough to lightly dismiss the weirdness of this night and the awful reality of the unliving corpse. Was it coincidence that all her plans—the vision that had governed her life for so long—had in the lead-up to this moment been all but squeezed from her? On the Rheateeshan Continent children were instructed that all were caught in the net of Junsar’s Curse. Junsar’s Curse was Fate, the inevitable deterioration supposed to have resulted from the actions of the primeval God, Junsar. Remis knew the tale well: Junsar was one of the original creators of the world, set to define the world’s end limits, and hence the shape of being. But doubt and fear had entered his heart and Junsar, hoping to build a safer place for himself with its power, stole a husk of the cosmic Seed from which the world had been grown. The Seed-husks, or kartoranth, were to be placed at the opposite ends of the world to define a space in which the fallen god Errellinarth could be re-made. This was the world, Tharenweyr, as they knew it. The Far Kartoranth, which Junsar stole, was intended to fix the lower limit of Tharenweyr. Instead of saving himself, therefore, Junsar warped the world, and the result was Fate.

Now, in these events that had touched her life, Remis could smell more than a whiff of Fatefulness.

v.

Remis had not been alone with the undead corpse that night. Another had been watching from back in the shadows—a tall, strong figure dressed in the robes of a sorcerer: Aridor—senior Acolyte of the Yanuran Lord Worjaren Rehemon. He was an intense, thoughtful man, and soon his thoughts would be turned toward Remis.

At first, however, standing under Telfith’s Mast, Aridor had seen nothing out of the ordinary, despite the omens that had brought him there. He’d thought he was alone, as he preferred it. The street ran before him into darkness, empty and damp with rain. On one side there was a stone wall; on the other, brick warehouses and slat-fronted shops. Smears of blackness along the way were alleys and lanes leading nowhere.

He began to walk down the street, staying close to the shop façades for protection from the rain and watching eyes. His breathing was slightly labored. He was very tired. This day, like many of his days before it, had been spent in an outer-circle reading room of the Hassur libraries, where he sought to refresh his memory of undead lore. For according to his master Lord Worjaren Rehemon, an undead creature lay at the center of their search for the legendary artifact known as the Cerendar. They had heard whispers of its presence, tales of the disturbances that attended its arrivals and equally sudden departures—always hints of the all-powerful Cerendar were found in its wake.

“Whatever this thing may be,” Lord Worjaren had said to Aridor, “this much is clear: it is pursuing the Cerendar, mindlessly, as the birds pursue the Spring, with a perception no other being in all the world can claim. The Cerendar is hidden even from the searches of the bright gods of Tharenweyr—the Guardian Raashyr—but this creature sees it. It will find the artifact because it must, and we must be there when it does. Of that you can never doubt.”

Lord Worjaren Rehemon was clearly obsessed with finding the artifact called Cerendar. Aridor knew that, had known for many years—but he had never before seen him this intensely insistent. It was as though he smelled the nearness of the legendary object on the wind.

Why did Lord Worjaren want it so much? For the incredible power it was said to wield? Wasn’t such foolish avarice a weakness?

Lord Worjaren’s authority within the Yanuran court, and the sorcerous influence he controlled, ensured that Aridor would never allow his dedication to flag or his mouth to utter treachery, whatever his mind might whisper. But the doubts were there nevertheless, gnawing at his belief.

Tonight, returned from the Libraries, he had lain in his room within the Yucartel Chambers and indulged his pessimism. A year had passed since Eblamthezaik, the Ormsinir of Dark God Lord Huedaik, had come in his demonic glory and purged the royal Court of Dagest-Yanu of those harboring treachery in their hearts and, dare he say it, doubt in their souls. The demi-god had spoken of the victory possible through the Cerendar and urged all Huedaik’s disciples to join the search for it. With many others, Aridor and his master Worjaren had sniffed out the clues. But where had it led them? To this decadent city. To stagnation. To despair.

Yet, tonight, his dreams had been of an undead creature and of the Cerendar. It was nearby—of that he was sure. Just out of his reach. He woke with the images in his mind. He knew the time had come. He felt it. From a guard at the front gate of the Chambers, he learned of a woman who had passed in the night, looking for the Street of Telfith’s Mast. Though it seemed irrational and insignificant, he had known at once that his search must focus on that woman. He stood now in the Street of Telfith’s Mast in order to prove his intuition true.

“Are you the one who called me!” The voice was clear and strong—too strong to be only in his ears. Someone was drawing upon the Deep Powers.

A shadow moved in the shifting darkness. Aridor ran forward a pace, but a continuation of the movement he had already seen caught him unawares. It was like a tidal-wave in a rock canal, pushing the sea into furious eddies. He saw it sweep out of an alleyway ahead of him and knew instantly it was too late to avoid it. When it hit him he staggered physically, though the wave was no material disturbance. It was a thing of the spirit.

His mind reeled. He was afraid. Burning pitch was foul in his nostrils.

Something struck him a blow to the side of his head. It felt like a fist.

“Shut up, boy!”

He was kneeling in the dirt. A large, warty face leered at him. One of the raiders that had appeared from the sea.

“Tanuul!”

It was important that he ignore his father’s voice. They were killing the old man and Aridor could do nothing to help him. To hear the pain would only harm himself.

“Help me, Tanuul!”

There were blows and his father screamed. Aridor collapsed face down, covering his ears with his hands.

But his arms were grabbed and the sounds flooded back.

“You’ll hear,” a voice snarled. “You’ll hear it all.”

The images of his own past—the death of his father at the hand of raiders—collapsed into darkness. Aridor leaned against rough stone as the night fractured again.

“Take it!”

A creature like a man stood before him, its flesh dry and decayed. Aridor knew it was dead—no longer a man, but merely the animated shell of a man.

“Take it!”

The undead creature reached out, its fingers scraping Aridor’s face.

It was in his mind, but he cringed and suddenly was in the street again.

Light flared. For a moment, clearly, he saw a bright, jagged shape burn out of the darkness—as though the night were a gray fabric that had been shredded by the creature’s fingers. The light was coming from a place far beyond the world he knew. It was from outside, where the real and the imagined blended together and became infinitely powerful.

He recognized the shape of the light.

Cerendar! he cried. His voice echoed in the street. A creature was before him for a moment, real this time, looming out of the darkness of the alley’s mouth. Grotesque. Decayed. It did not see him. He fell back and collapsed onto the cobbled road. When he looked up it was gone.

The night fell silent, though there had been no real sound made, apart from the scraping of feet on stone and dirt. Aridor blinked into a mist of fine rain. The Street of Telfith’s Mast was empty. He made himself stand, his body weak. The wave of Deep Power had come from the alleyway—not an attack upon him, but a spell-residue to which his sensibilities had made him vulnerable. The creature, too, had come from the alley.

Aridor reached the wooden fence at the corner of the alleyway and peered cautiously into its shadows. Gathering the last vestiges of his strength, he extended his sight to push aside the darkness.

He saw a woman. She walked along the alley, studying something held in her hands, too distracted, hopefully, to notice his magic.

In that instant Aridor’s knees began to buckle under him, but he forced himself to stay upright. The woman had to be followed.

His consciousness drifted in and out of shadows. With an effort he made it into a doorway before he lost control. He fell heavily and for a while there was nothing.

When he woke, mere moments later, the woman was far down the street, but still visible. Aridor staggered up.

A dull stream of rust-blue whiteness was draining out across the firmament, catching fire on the damp air and igniting clouds in the north. Behind it, in about half an hour, would come its source, Taal-Numid, the Skywave that brought day with it, a pulse of intense iridescence that stretched in a cosmic bow from the west to the east and moved steadily southward over the world toward the home of his Dark Gods at the end of the world. Soon it would be full dawn, and the City would wake.

Aridor stood, his head throbbing. Images of the undead creature and of the Cerendar were clear in his mind. He took a step. It was difficult, but the one that came after was easier. Then another. He began to run, staggering unsteadily, before the woman disappeared from sight.

He knew the importance of this effort he was making. The undead creature. This woman whom he assumed could control it. Surely in them was the secret to finding the legendary Cerendar. The connections seemed obvious.

His Master would be pleased.

In this way, the woman’s fate and that of Aridor—and beyond him, that of his master Lord Worjaren Rehemon—had became entwined. There could be no turning back from this.

Gathering his determination, Aridor hurried on.