Читать книгу Starman: Book Three of the Axis Trilogy - Sara Douglass - Страница 11

For hours (or was it days?) Timozel sat knee to knee with Friend in the tiny boat, gliding smoothly and effortlessly over choppy grey waves and still, icy green waters alike. Friend kept up the pretence of rowing, but Timozel was sure some enchantment was being wielded. Who could row for hour after hour (day after day?) without tiring?

Friend had not said a word since he rowed out from the beach at Murkle Bay. But Timozel felt certain that within the shadows of the close hood Friend grinned maniacally at him. Timozel spent most of his time staring anywhere but at the darkness behind the man’s black and gloomy hood.

After an unknowable time Timozel perceived that their boat glided through green and glassy waters so icy that great icebergs, only three or four to start with, jutted skyward. Soon Friend was manoeuvring their tiny craft through a veritable forest of the ice mountains. To the south lay a grating ice pack, and beyond that a still and silent beach. Timozel twisted on his bench, anxiously peering this way and that, jumping every time a deep roll of thunder rumbled through the icy canyons towards them.

“Friend?” he asked, unable to keep his silence any longer. “Friend, what is that noise?”

Friend rowed in silence for a few more strokes, then spoke, startling Timozel, who had not expected a reply.

“The sound you hear is that of the great glacier of Talon Spike calving her icebergs into the ocean.”

Timozel tried to remember the few rudimentary maps he had seen of the northern wastes. “We are in the Iskruel Ocean?”

“Assuredly, Timozel, assuredly. See, the icebears gambol, and to the south beyond the ice you can see the Icebear Coast.”

Timozel twisted to where Friend had inclined his head. On the nearest berg a massive icebear stood watching them, her fur yellowed with age and the elements. One ear had been lost in a past dispute with another icebear over the carcass of a seal, and the loss gave her head a curiously lop-sided charm. The bear’s black eyes were uncomfortably all-knowing.

“We are almost there,” the Dark Man said, his own eyes briefly meeting those of the icebear. “An hour or two, perhaps more, perhaps less. Gorgrael is close.”

Timozel shivered and forgot the bear. “Gorgrael is close,” he whispered. “Gorgrael is close.”

He hoped Gorgrael would be all that his new friend had promised. He hoped Gorgrael would indeed prove to be the Great Lord of his visions. He hoped that in Gorgrael he would find the saviour who would drive the Forbidden from Achar’s fields and rescue Faraday from her fate at Axis’ hands. If these hopes proved false, then Timozel knew he would go mad.

Gorgrael was keen to make a good first impression. Apart from the Dear Man, Timozel would be Gorgrael’s first real visitor, and the arch-fiend of the Prophecy of the Destroyer was determined that Timozel should find his new master worthy of his service.

He stood in front of his (for once) brightly glowing fire, every sharp plane and angle in his warped furniture waxed and polished. The crystal – what was left of it – that Gorgrael had retrieved from Gorkenfort sat on the single flat surface of the sideboard. Wine glinted richly in the depths of the decanter. All Skraelings within his Ice Fortress had been banished to unseen rooms, and SkraeFear, representing the SkraeBolds, waited nervously in an anteroom to meet his new superior.

Gorgrael twisted his clawed hands as he watched with his mind’s eye the Dear Man pilot his boat towards the Ice Fortress. So much depended on Timozel, and the Dear Man had recently convinced Gorgrael that gentle persuasion and seductive lies would more likely win Timozel’s total support than the outright terror Gorgrael had been subjecting Timozel to in his dreams.

“After all,” the Dear Man had said, “Timozel is an intelligent man. He deserves better than what you mete out to your SkraeBolds. Much better. Besides, better he work his heart out willingly for you than under duress.”

Of course, Gorgrael reflected, Timozel would still need to have the ties that bound him to Gorgrael confirmed, and for that there would need to be a little pain. Just a little.

Friend had been rowing steadily north-east for some time when he suddenly shipped his oars and nodded to a spot behind Timozel.

“We walk from here,” he said.

Timozel turned and stared. The little boat was drifting towards an ice-bound beach; he could see round pebbles and small rocks beneath a thin and treacherous layer of ice. Briefly he cast his eyes beyond the beach to the towering cliffs of ice that hid the land beyond, then looked back to Friend.

“We’ll break our ankles within five steps on that footing, Friend. Do you know where you lead me?”

“Assuredly, sweet boy,” Friend said. “I always know where I’m going.”

As the boat crunched across the beach Friend rose and stepped past Timozel and out of the boat. “As this trusty boat has carried us through the treacherous waters of the Iskruel Ocean, then I am sure your feet will carry you safely across these shores.”

Magic again, Timozel thought. Although he had been taught from birth by the Seneschal to loathe all manner of enchantments, Timozel was slowly coming to the understanding that perhaps the enchantments of the Forbidden could only be broken through similar magic; perhaps his visions were proof enough of that. He stepped carefully onto the ice-bound shoreline and found his booted feet gripped as surely as Friend had said they would. Well, whatever magic Friend had wrought to bring him to this remote spot seemed mild and harmless enough. Perhaps magic was only evil when used by the Forbidden and their spawn.

For some time they walked up the canyon, the ground rising and the walls narrowing as they proceeded. Timozel’s breath came in short, sharp puffs that frosted heavily in the icy air. For the first time he noticed how cold it was and pulled his cloak closer about him. Friend’s cloak billowed out as he strode several paces in front of Timozel, seemingly unconcerned by the cold. His features must be fully exposed as that cloak blows back, Timozel thought, and he tried to increase his pace so that he could catch the man and see his face.

But just as Timozel came within a pace of Friend, the ground rose sharply before them, and Timozel had to slow his pace and use both hands to steady himself as they climbed. The sky almost completely disappeared as the ice walls closed in; within minutes Timozel found that he was climbing almost vertically through a narrow icy chasm. Above him, Friend’s boots sent a constant torrent of small rocks and slivers of ice cascading into his face and Timozel would have cursed, had he the breath.

Irritatingly, Friend whistled a silly ditty. Where does he find the breath? Timozel wondered as one of his hands slipped from its hold and he almost lost his footing. His heart pounded and Timozel felt sweat trickle down his face – he would die on the ice-covered rocks below if he fell down this chasm now. He gritted his teeth. If Friend could climb so effortlessly, then so could he.

As if he could feel Timozel’s increased efforts, Friend called down reassurance. “Almost there, Timozel. Just a few more minutes.”

That’s what you said hours ago in the boat, Timozel thought.

The Dark Man laughed merrily. “Time means little to me, Timozel. But see, I have reached the top of this ice-pit.”

Even as he spoke Friend’s boots disappeared over the welcome lip of the cliff, and the next moment Timozel grasped the man’s hand and let him pull him out of the chasm.

“See?” Friend cried. “The Ice Fortress!”

Timozel blinked and looked about him, narrowing his eyes. The sky was clear and the sunlight almost blinding as it glittered across the snow. They were standing on a flat, snow-covered plateau that stretched north and eastwards from the ice cliffs bordering the Iskruel Ocean for what seemed like eternity.

“The Ice Fortress,” Friend said again, pointing.

Perhaps half a league away to the east stood the Ice Fortress. It was constructed of jagged sheets of sheer ice that rose like perpendicular daggers towards the sky. It was massive, and Timozel guessed that it was twice the height and girth of the Tower of the Seneschal as it sat on the shores of the Grail Lake.

It was also very, very beautiful.

Shifting colours of mauve and pink shone as the sun struck the ice walls and reflected off on wildly divergent tangents.

“Beautiful,” he whispered. “Beautiful.”

“Of course!” Friend said, taking Timozel’s arm and pulling him forward. “Of course. Did I not say that you would find Gorgrael worthy of your service? Could anyone as dark and as desperate as the Destroyer of the Forbidden’s Prophecy live amid such beauty? No! Come.”

The Ice Fortress was as beautiful inside as it was from the outside. There were none of the horrid writhing shapes beyond the corridor’s ice walls that Timozel remembered from his nightmares and visions. All was calm, all was bright.

The corridor wound through the heart of the Ice Fortress, gentle pink light reflecting from unseen lamps. Gorgrael has done well, the Dark Man thought, very well indeed. He glanced at Timozel, who was walking steadily forward with a glazed expression on his face.

But that changed when they rounded a corner and Timozel found himself walking down the same stretch of corridor that he’d walked in his nightmares. He recognised it because there at the very end was the massive wooden door that his treacherous hand had knocked upon to summon Gorgrael.

“No!”

“Timozel, my man,” the Dark Man said, his hand firm and reassuring on Timozel’s shoulder. “What you dreamed was Forbidden-corrupted, not the truth. No-one is more upset that you have been frightened than Gorgrael himself.”

“Truly?” Timozel asked, desperate to believe Friend’s explanation.

“Truly,” the Dark Man soothed, wrapping Timozel’s mind so tightly in enchantments that the man stood no chance of discerning truth from lies. “Very, very truly. Now, shall we go on?”

Gorgrael stood in the centre of the room and extended his claws as the door opened and the Dear Man and Timozel stepped through. The man’s face was pinched and white, despite the Dark Man’s enchanted reassurances, and horror rippled across his features as he saw Gorgrael.

How could something this repulsive – so horribly malformed – be anything but an aberration?

In his nightmares, and in his enchanted vision when he had been forced to mortgage his soul to Gorgrael, Timozel had been brutally treated by the Destroyer.

But now the horror stepped forward, opening its taloned hands in welcome, dipping its tusked head almost in embarrassment that Timozel should find its form displeasing, spreading its wings behind it in unconscious imitation of the Icarii manner of abasement, and almost swallowing its over-large tongue in an effort to twist its mouth in as close an imitation of a smile as it could get.

Timozel came close to fainting, and actually swayed slightly on his feet, but Friend grasped his elbow. “Steady, steady,” he whispered. “Take courage. Think of this as a test. Do you have the courage to do what is needed to win both Achar and Faraday their freedom?”

“Yes,” Timozel muttered. “Yes, I have the courage,” and he straightened his back and squared his shoulders. “I have the courage,” he said in a stronger voice.

“Timozel,” Gorgrael said, and Timozel jumped slightly at the power and strength in Gorgrael’s voice. He stared unflinching into the creature’s silver eyes.

“Timozel, are you my man?”

“Do you fight to destroy the Forbidden?”

Gorgrael almost snarled. Who was this stripling to question him? But he felt the Dark Man’s eyes on him, and he remembered their plan. “It is my name,” he said in as soft a voice as he could manage. “The Destroyer. I live to destroy the Forbidden, the hateful Icarii and Avar.”

“Will you free Achar?”

“I will drive the Forbidden from the land, yes.”

Gorgrael would free Achar. Timozel only heard what he wanted to hear. He cleared his throat and spoke in a slightly stronger voice. “Do you seek to destroy Axis?”

Now Gorgrael could not help a small hiss and he flexed his clawed hands. “I will shred him!”

Timozel smiled, and for the first time he seemed comfortable. “Good. Will you free Faraday?”

Gorgrael smiled with an equal degree of chill. Faraday. Axis’ Lover. The key to his destruction, and a woman Gorgrael had come to desire almost as much as he desired Axis’ death.

“Will you help me free her, Timozel? Will you help me rescue Faraday?”

“Yes, yes and yes thrice over, Great Lord,” he said. “You are all that Friend said you were.” He paused. “My soul is yours.”

Fool! Gorgrael thought. Your soul was mine from the moment Faraday broke your vows of Championship. But he ducked his head and simpered anyway. Time enough in the future for Timozel to realise exactly how deeply Gorgrael’s claws were hooked into his soul.

“Then let us cement the bargain,” Gorgrael whispered.

The Dark Man hurriedly stepped out of the way.

In the wink of an eye Gorgrael scurried the distance between himself and Timozel, his dreadful clawed hands and taloned wings extended. He was so quick that Timozel could not have moved, even had he wanted to.

All he had time for was a quick breath of surprise, a widening of the eyes, then Gorgrael was upon him.

With lightning-quick movements, Gorgrael shredded the clothes from Timozel’s upper body, then knifed razor sharp claws deep into Timozel’s chest.

Timozel opened his mouth to scream, but the pain was so great all that escaped his mouth was a harsh gurgle.

Gorgrael twisted his claws in deeper, then pulled Timozel next to him, their faces close in a frightful parody of a lover’s embrace.

Timozel’s eyes, open wide, were sightless with agony. His arms curled at his side, his hands crimped uselessly.

The Dark Man watched impassively. This had to be done, but he hoped that Gorgrael would be able to wield the enchantments so that Timozel would remember nothing of it afterwards. Damn it, Gorgrael is enjoying this. Pity poor Faraday when Gorgrael finally has the chance to get his talons into her.

His claws scraping through bone and flesh, whimpering with pleasure, Gorgrael finally let a bolt of power flood through Timozel’s body. If Timozel was to lead Gorgrael’s army against Axis, then the man needed a well of power like those Gorgrael had given the SkraeBolds. It would contain only the minutest fraction of the power that Gorgrael himself commanded, but it would be more, far more than the SkraeBolds enjoyed. Timozel needed to be able to control the SkraeBolds as well.

“Feel it!” Gorgrael hissed ecstatically, wriggling and pulling Timozel more firmly against his own body. “Feel it!”

Somewhere in a dark corner of his mind that wasn’t totally consumed by pain Timozel faintly heard Gorgrael’s words, and, even more faintly, could feel something warm and dark writhing in his belly. Feel it.

This darkness suddenly, unbelievably, flared into such firebarbed agony that Timozel finally found the breath to cry out. He arched his body, flung back his head and shrieked, and shrieked, and then shrieked once more.

“Yes!” Gorgrael groaned, then retracted his claws and let Timozel fall to the floor, dark blood streaming from the dreadful wounds in his chest.

Timozel drifted out of the blackness that had claimed him. He felt incredibly relaxed, and a feeling of such well-being flooded him that he tried to hold on to the blackness. He smiled, savouring the sensations. Not even Yr at her best had caused him to feel this satisfied, this replete.

The Dark Man caught Gorgrael’s eye and nodded. You have done better than I expected, my friend. You have excelled yourself. The man will do anything for you now. Anything.

Gorgrael reflectively rubbed one of his tusks with a claw. Good.

Timozel stretched his body, turned his head, smiled, and opened his eyes.

Friend and Gorgrael were seated in grotesquely malcarved chairs before a roaring fire. Both held crystal glasses of wine. Both were gazing benignly at him.

Timozel smiled at them. “What happened?”

“I have accepted you into my service,” Gorgrael said. “See?” He tapped his chest.

Timozel frowned, then realised that Gorgrael wanted him to look at his own chest. He raised himself onto his elbows, noting in some surprise that he only wore his breeches and boots.

On his chest was branded the outline of a clawed hand.

“My mark,” Gorgrael said.

“Then I am proud to wear it, Great Lord,” Timozel said boldly, and he rose to his feet. He had no memory of the assault that had put the mark there.

He felt incredibly well and powerful, and both Gorgrael and the Dark Man smiled at the expression of wonderment on Timozel’s face.

“Already you feel the benefit of my power, Timozel,” Gorgrael said, rising from his chair and moving to what Timozel, even in his sublime state, considered the ugliest sideboard he had ever seen. “Wine?”

Gorgrael held the decanter and shook it slightly in Timozel’s direction.

“Yes,” Timozel said. “Wine would be welcome.” He wondered why he had ever feared this noble creature now standing before him. This was where he was meant to be. This was vision. This was destiny.

Gorgrael handed Timozel a glass of wine and waved him over to a table. “We must plan, Timozel, to bring Axis’ evil house crashing about him and to restore Faraday to the light.”

“With pleasure, Lord,” Timozel said, taking a sip of the wine.

The Dark Man stood and the three toasted their future success.

Gorgrael was prepared to admit that the Dark Man had been right. He had over-reached himself by launching his attack on Gorkenfort two years ago. It had been precipitate and foolish. His SkraeBolds had badly mismanaged the attack on the Earth Tree Grove, as well as the battle above Gorkenfort where so many Skraelings had been destroyed by the emerald fire. But now Gorgrael felt that all the elements he needed to defeat Axis were firmly in his grasp. The last piece had been Timozel, and now Timozel stood here, so tightly bonded to Gorgrael’s service that he would sell his soul … no! Gorgrael almost laughed out loud, Timozel would now gladly sell Faraday’s soul to ensure his master’s victory!

“Enough,” he said, startling the other two. “We must plan. Timozel, let me tell you about the army you will command.”

For the next hour Gorgrael spoke, and Timozel’s excitement rose. What a force the Great Lord was handing him! Over the past year Gorgrael had been transforming his hordes. The Skraelings were no longer the misty wraiths Timozel had originally seen at Gorkenfort, vulnerable through their eyes. Now they were fully fleshed creatures, so totally encased in bony armour they would be near-impossible to kill.

The IceWorms had been bred larger, more numerous and more mobile.

“The weather is mine,” Gorgrael said finally. “I now wield virtually total control over the ice and the wind.”

The Dark Man nodded to himself. That was Gorgrael’s Avar blood coming out in him; with that and his ability to wield the Dark Music, Gorgrael would be able to unleash a frozen hell over most of the northern half of Achar … Tencendor now. The Dark Man was pleased with Gorgrael’s work in this area. Two years ago Gorgrael’s control over the winter had been a haphazard and fragile affair. Now it was almost total.

“Then you would do well to send some of your ice south as soon as you can,” Timozel said.

Gorgrael frowned. “Now?” He had thought Timozel would need at least a week or two to establish his control over the Skraeling force.

“Axis will be sending many of his army north soon, Great Lord. We are lucky that he has not already done so. If you send your ice south now – as far as the Western and Bracken Ranges if you can – then you will freeze those rivers that have caused you such trouble. And if the Nordra freezes, Axis will not be able to move his troops north faster than a crawl.”

“Yes. Yes,” Gorgrael said. “You make a good point.”

Timozel watched his master. He vaguely remembered that once he had thought Gorgrael a creature so frightfully malformed, so disgusting, that his very appearance seemed the personification of evil. Now Gorgrael seemed noble, and his strange appearance only made him appear powerful, not ugly or frightful.

“And your ice spears, Master, why have you not used them again? You tried to murder Axis with them once outside the Barrows of the Enchanter-Talons, and you could perhaps have employed them to your advantage at Gorkenfort. If you use them again, I am confident they will create mayhem among Axis’ force – and think how they could impale the Icarii Strike Force!”

Gorgrael looked embarrassed. “Ahem. Yes, well, I must admit, Timozel, that I badly over-extended myself at the Ancient Barrows. I was not as powerful then as I am now. But I am afraid that I will not be able to use the ice spears again in any case, although they were such a pretty creation.”

“But why, Great Lord, if your power is so much greater now?”

Gorgrael grinned to himself, and the Dark Man smiled too, knowing what Gorgrael was thinking of.

“Because I have one more secret to show you, Timozel. The weapon that will surely destroy Axis and his army.”

He clicked his claws, and Timozel heard a movement in one of the darker corners of the room.

“I will give you an air-borne force, Timozel, that will make the Icarii Strike Force seem pitiful indeed.”

“The Gryphon!” Timozel suddenly remembered the dreadful winged creatures that had flown over Jervois Landing.

“Yes,” Gorgrael said. “The Gryphon. Behold, my pet.”

The Gryphon that now crawled on its belly towards them was much larger, her lion’s body more powerfully built, than the original Gryphon Gorgrael and the Dark Man had created between them. As she approached Timozel she dipped her eagle’s head in subservience.

The Dark Man managed to stop himself swearing in surprise. This was not the Gryphon that he and Gorgrael had made!

Gorgrael peered at the Dark Man slyly. “I lost another of the SkraeBolds in the WildDog Plains, Dear Man. With its decomposing flesh I made another Gryphon. Only larger, more powerfully built. More intelligent.”

“And it breeds?” the Dark Man asked, his voice harsh.

“As do its pups,” Gorgrael said, more than pleased at the Dark Man’s surprise. “As do its pups.”

He turned back to Timozel. “I will give you one of this creature’s pups as your own. Go on, pat her head, scratch the back of her neck, she likes that. With one of these creatures as your mount you will be able to sail the thermals as easily as do the Icarii.”

As Timozel bent down to the Gryphon fawning at his feet, Gorgrael took the Dark Man by the elbow and led him away a few steps, talking quietly.

“Perhaps there is something I should tell you, Dark Man.”

Hearing the perverse pleasure in Gorgrael’s voice, the Dark Man knew the news was going to be bad.

“Dear Man, I know you planned that the Gryphon should stop breeding after the second pack was whelped. I know you planned that the numbers of Gryphon would be limited.”

Months ago Gorgrael and the Dark Man had created a Gryphon, a creature with the head of an eagle, the wings of a bird, and the body of a great cat. The Dark Man had infused deep enchantments into the making of the Gryphon; the single female had been created pregnant, and soon after she had been created she had whelped nine pups. And these nine pups had been born female and pregnant. After four months they too whelped, each bearing nine pups. But the Dark Man had thought he had manipulated the enchantments so that the breeding would stop there. He wanted Gorgrael to have a powerful air-borne force – and the eighty-two Gryphon created in this fashion would surely be that – but he did not intend that the breeding should continue.

“But the breeding has continued,” Gorgrael hissed, and he felt the Dark Man twitch under his hand. “Already I have seven hundred and twenty-nine. And soon they will whelp. Each will whelp nine pregnant pups. Do you know how many that will be, Dear, Dear Man?”

The Dark Man was silent, almost overcome with horror.

“Over six and a half thousand. And in another four months those six and a half thousand will whelp – almost sixty thousand pups. And in four months those sixty thousand will –”

“Stop!” the Dark Man cried, and jerked his arm from Gorgrael’s grasp.

“And not to forget, of course, the second Gryphon I created. She and hers have generated eighty-one Gryphon. In just over a month those eighty-one will become seven hundred and –”

“Yes, yes!” the Dark Man spat. “I understand!”

“No,” Gorgrael said very, very softly. “I do not think you do. I am the Destroyer, Dear Man, and I plan to destroy. Whatever pretty enchantments Axis can throw my way, I will still destroy Tencendor. With the Gryphon-breeding as they do, in less than a year there will be five-hundred thousand of them in the skies of Tencendor, Dear Man. Think of it. Five-hundred thousand. So what if my comely brother can stab one or two here or there? Or his army forty or fifty thousand? Even if one escapes, one, that one will breed nine, and those nine will whelp nine each, and … I need not continue. Even if one escapes, within two years at least sixty thousand will repopulate the skies of Tencendor.”

Behind his hood the Dark Man stared at Gorgrael, appalled.

“So you see,” Gorgrael said, “even if Axis destroyed me in battle, I have planned that he shall have nothing left to enjoy. Not even Axis can counter the virulence of the Gryphon. Eventually there will be nothing left of this green and pleasant land except the shadows of Gryphon wheeling and shrieking through the sky. They will blot out the sun and they will destroy and destroy and destroy until there is nothing – nothing – left!”

Oh Stars, thought the Dark Man, and felt the plans of three thousand years crumble to dust about him.

Gorgrael grinned triumphantly. At last he had bested the Dark Man. And if he could do that, then Gorgrael knew that he would best Axis.