Authors: Martin Ash
'Remember, do not draw the Orbsword or otherwise engender light,' Summoner cautioned. 'The
ools
will ignore you as long as you obey that simple rule and do nothing else to provoke them.'
He pushed open the door and they stepped through into the pallid green lucence of the
ools'
chamber. Leth pressed forward, cold sweat trickling down his spine. He heard scuffling above him, and queer, subdued pipings. He glanced up. Dozens of the hideous creatures peered down at him, blinking their huge eyes. They were perched on rock ledges which ascended in natural tiers for as far as Leth could see. But though they watched and shifted and twittered among themselves, none of the
ools
descended and Leth and Summoner passed through the chamber without trouble.
Before them now was the narrow spiralling stairway to the upper levels of this other Orbia. Somewhat to Leth's surprise Summoner walked on past it, to a small iron door set into the wall. He brought forth a key on a chain around his neck and inserted it into the lock and turned it with a grating sound, then pushed open the door.
'This way, Swordbearer. It is here, beneath Orbia, that the secret lies. This is where our enemy must come if it seeks to do us harm.'
Inside he turned and locked the door behind them. Another stairway lay beyond, this one spiralling dizzyingly downwards and dimly illuminated by lanterns set upon the wall. Leth followed Summoner down, gripping a shaky iron handrail for support. Down, down, until at last they arrived in a short, wide passage which opened onto a circular, vaulted chamber. There, in the glow of torches, were three figures, two standing, one seated upon a bench.
'Greetings, Swordbearer,' said Shenwolf, turning and bowing as Leth entered. Beside him his sister, Lakewander, clad in her red armour, also bowed her head, then raised her eyes to Leth's, smiling diffidently. And old Master Protector, a frail grey figure on the bench, rocked from side to side and said in a wheezing voice, 'Ah Lord Swordbearer, how good it is to see you again!'
Leth's gaze was drawn to the centre of the chamber where a small glowing platform rested just above the earth, casting a column of some smoky grey glasslike substance towards the roof. Within it Leth could see what appeared to be another, similar chamber.
'The Union,' said Shenwolf in a solemn voice. 'This is what our enemy seeks. It lies both here and in the Orbia of your world, for we are one, within and containing the other. That is what you can see, and if the Union is harmed then we and our worlds are sundered.'
'What must we do?' asked Leth.
'Wait.'
v
Issul paced impatiently up and down the passage outside Leth's study, gnawing at the knuckle and nail of her thumb. Nearby Pader Luminis
waited anxiously, and glanced from time to time out of the window, half-expecting to see the Karai returning to the Palace in their hordes.
'What is keeping him? We can’t delay,' Issul muttered, and as if in answer the misted form of Orbelon materialized at her side.
'Leth has gone, Issul.'
'Where?'
'To Orbia, in my world. To the place where our worlds conjoin. Now you must go to that place, here, in this Orbia. You must go below, into the locality you call Overlip, for the old way, directly from within the Palace, no longer exists. Within Overlip's heart is the site I created eons ago. There you will find that place where worlds conjoin, and where they may also be sundered. I will guide you, in as far as I am able.'
*
The cold dusk was closing in. Issul took a brief moment to pause, standing poised upon the edge of nothing. The snow fell, a freezing wind wind whipped about her. So far below hundreds of tiny twisting twinkling threads of light, like strings of luminous beads or thin streams of stars, were
Karai torches, revealing the great armed horde wending its slow way back along the forest road towards the south. The forest was sombre and off-white beneath the crepuscule, stretching away forever, waves of motion passing restlessly through the dark trees as the wind stirred their branches. The mountains of Enchantment were cocooned in lowering snow-clouds; the faintest wash of diffracted, watery colour staining the cloud was all that revealed their existence.
Issul was reminded of the last time she had stood here on the lip of the scarp, at the threshold of the burrows of Overlip. Ohirbe had just brought the news of the strange old woman and the young man at the pond who had shown interest in Moscul, and the subsequent reappearance of the old woman in the village of Lastmeadow, plainly watching the child. It had been such a short time ago, yet it felt to Issul that a lifetime had passed since then. So much had changed. Her world was no longer the same
place, was barely even recognizable. She was likewise changed, barely recognizable as the young woman she had been then, even to herself.
She mused upon the chill irony of it. How they had all been gulled! Even Arene, who had come from the
Hir'n Esh
- the Witnesses of the Unfolding - to kill Moscul . . . even she and the others of her kind who attuned with the subtle energy field of the Well of Immaculate Vision, had failed to see the truth.
Would it have changed a thing if Arene had taken Moscul's life? The irony hit Issul then with greater force. If Arene had succeeded, then she -Issul - would never have set out in pursuit of Moscul, would never have been captured by the
Karai forward unit and imprisoned in their secret camp, would never have discovered the Farplace Opening and Triune, who waited on its other side in Enchantment. She would have remained, in ignorance, in Enchantment's Reach, to face the Karai horde and Strymnia's projected servitor, Olmana, without help. Leth and the children would almost certainly still have been lost in Orbelon's World, but would have been at the mercy of Urch-Malmain. Leth would have learned nothing of Triune. Orbelon, too, would have been kept in ignorance. Urch-Malmain would have escaped to Enchantment, leaving Orbelon's World as he wished; and Leth would never have located, or even known of, the resting-places of the two stolen Souls. Orbelon and Triune would still be disempowered; Strymnia would by now have achieved the supremacy she so craved.
This revelation rocked Issul; she found herself growing giddy as the snow whipped about her and she strove to embrace and hold quiet the ungraspable.
What is happening here?
Her gaze turned skywards, as though an answer might lie there. Thick cloud obscured the stars that would now be becoming visible in the early evening firmament, like a
celestial mirror of the Karai lights below. She thought of the many other times she had gazed upon them in awe and wonder and questioned whether somewhere out there in that incomprehensible vastness others stood upon their own lonely worlds and looked up and wondered. Perhaps they saw her world, now or at any time, but didn't know it. And surely they asked the same questions as her? Surely their hearts and minds were filled with the same profound wonder, the same unanswerable enquiries, the same soulful yearnings? And did they find answers? And were their lives and their worlds as troubled?
Tears pricked Issul's eyes; cold snowflakes alighted on her cheeks and brow. And then another impression came, and she gasped:
It was as if I knew! As if I knew without knowing that I knew. I had to seek! I had to discover what some deeper, unknowable, incomprehensible part of me was already aware of!
This too rocked her to her core. And she heard Orbelon's voice whispering, perhaps in her ear, perhaps in her mind,
'It is the Union, the Mystery, the beginning of understanding, the beginning of true knowledge. It is there for us all, but we have to seek, and sometimes we must suffer before we can hope to discover, for when we suffer we are prompted to search, to look beyond...'
'Are you all right, my young Queen?'
It was Pader Luminis who spoke. He had insisted on accompanying her, and although she had the power to veto him - and had been tempted to do so - she had not. She was glad of his company.
She looked at him, slightly dazed, her heart beating hard.
'Yes, Pader. Yes, I am all right.' With new conviction Issul turned and addressed the soldiers who accompanied her: 'Come. We move on.'
Much of Overlip had been secured - a task that would have been virtually impossible only a day ago. But the King's troops had moved quickly. Even before Leth's surprise return, following the revelation of their freedom and the
Karai withdrawal, Pader Luminis and his military advisors had been instantly alert to this unique circumstance. So many of Overlip's inhabitants had swarmed forth, not only the True Sept, but opportunity-seeking thieves, cutthroats, general no-goods and criminals of all stamps, borne on a wave of bloodlust and perceived opportunity. They had seen the True Sept join forces with the invading Karai; seen the troops of Enchantment's Reach so hard-pressed and apparently failing. So they burst from beneath the ground to wreak carnage in Enchantment's Reach, looting, raping and murdering indiscriminately.
And then the
Karai had deserted them. Without word or signal. The Karai had simply walked away, and the special forces of Enchantment's Reach had come immediately from their hidden-places, swiftly supplemented by regular troops and the Security Cadre, and had fallen upon the bewildered and beleaguered Overlip rebels, in many cases before they had become aware of their abandonment.
The result was the most slick and rapid clean-up operation that Leth could ever have hoped for. Even in the overall confusion, even with the inordinately swollen population within the walls of the city-castle, the special forces, regular troops and members of the Security Cadre had identified and rounded up leading activists and huge numbers of their followers, and slain many more. A condition of Emergency had been reinstated, giving sweeping powers to the Crown, and the King's troops poured underground before Overlip could recover and rally any of its remaining defences.
No matter the Sept's reputation for fanatical loyalty among its members, Issul had interrogated several prisoners and gained useful intelligence. Two of those prisoners accompanied her now. She had had no recourse to force to extract their information; the mere fact of the loss of their allies - to them an inexplicable betrayal - and their overwhelming defeat had been enough to throw severe doubt and questions into their minds. They had been utterly convinced that they were divinely inspired, that the Legendary Child and One True God fought on their side, and that they were thus made invincible. Now they were shattered, broken shells of men. Deft interrogation and psychological pressure, revealing to them the extent of their betrayal and the loss of all they had ever believed in, had done the rest. They provided Issul with information and the encouragement she needed to proceed into Overlip's buried heart with some measure of confidence.
She and her company descended the giddying stairway down the sheer face of the scarp and arrived upon Market Way. Palace Guards lined the street; there was nothing of the erstwhile bustle and crowds. Cowed, curious faces peered from the inner shadows behind windows and doors, and a few subdued inhabitants watched with sullen expressions over the guards' shoulders; but there was a sense of resignation there, and perhaps there was even an air of relief. The promise of the restoration of order in this teeming, anarchic warren was, for many, welcome and long overdue.
With a strong guard surrounding her Issul marched quickly along Market Way and plunged into the outermost tunnels of Overlip. She had two destinations. The first was the Tavern of the Veiled Light, from where she had first sent a message to the heart of the True Sept, and to its bedevilled leader, the Grey Venger.
She strode on through the fug and stench of the tunnels, twisting, winding, penetrating deeper into the living, tortured rock that supported her city. There were beggars and peddlers here still, and bodies slumped against walls, lodged in alcoves and ledges in the rock. But there were her soldiers too, stationed at every intersection, policing every passage of this lawless underworld along which she strode. The sense of apprehension that she had formerly experienced when she came here in secret was no longer apparent, yet she feared, genuinely feared, what might lie ahead.
She arrived at last at the Veiled Light. Guards were stationed outside. There had been some fighting here; several corpses lay on the street. She scanned their faces quickly, but saw none she recognized. She entered, her two prisoners following.
Inside the tavern several men were being held. One of them she knew.
'Well, Iklar, so you live on. Does that not shame you?'
Iklar sat broodingly at a table, two Palace Guards standing behind him. He said nothing.
Issul took a stool and placed herself opposite him, noting the soiled bandage wrapped around his head, covering one ear. The blood that had soaked through the bandage was dry. Plainly he had been involved in violence before today. 'Tell me about the Legendary Child, Iklar. Tell me about the Grey Venger. Tell me about the One True God and the predictions of the Screed of the One and True Sept, which have all become less than chaff in the wind.'