World's End (33 page)

‘I may transport you two men to the castle,' said Luhan the haiyen traveller, ‘but I cannot bring your drake. He is too large.'

‘I'm not leaving Case on his own,' said Eric. ‘I'll fly him to the castle.' Having just watched Siel part from him at the haiyens' and wizard's orders, he was in little mood to be in their company.

Domudess quietly took Eric aside. ‘Do you believe Aziel will speak with me?' he said.

‘I have no idea. The half-giants might not even let you and the haiyens inside: you might have to find a way past them.'

‘That is no difficulty. But I shall be alone. The haiyens will not enter the castle, not yet. They must first go home and heal. You would not know it, but being this far inside our world makes them very sick.'

‘Because of the magic in the air?'

‘Because of this world's time. Time varies from world to world in ways difficult for us to fathom. This world's time is something created and imposed by the Dragon-god. Our haiyen friends say that Otherworld is affected by the same design of time. Your home world, Eric, is a prison world as much as this one. And it has the same gaoler. The Dragon-god guards the doorstep of your world, so that a more free reality may not enter.'

‘Call me Shadow, not Eric.'

‘You're not Shadow,' said Sharfy, as one would speak to an imbecile. ‘Shadow's not you. Shadow's your ghost. How come your ghost and you are alive at the same time?'

‘People accept me because they think I'm the same “Shadow” of their tales and myths. They've heard for years that Shadow will come from Otherworld to bring an age of peace and abundance. They'll listen to me only if I am known as Shadow. That's what you'll call me, especially in front of Aziel. Got it?'

‘That is wise. We shall next meet within the castle,' said Domudess, addressing both of them with a low bow.

So Sharfy and Eric flew north aboard Case, meaning to go straight to the castle's high towers. Eric had not counted on the swelling masses of people gathered on the roads as they got near. Sharfy grabbed his shoulder and pointed. ‘Look, dead dragons. Take us down. Let's see em. We need to know who killed em.'

Teams of men hauled thick ropes looped around three large corpses, dragging them along the road. From the sky it was plain to see they wouldn't get much further before the road was completely blocked by the crowds ahead.

Going down there was very nearly a mistake. When the people saw a winged creature descend on them, weapons came quickly to hand. It was lucky none beneath had bows or slings. ‘It's Shadow!' someone said. ‘That there's a drake, not a dragon.'

The group spoke the greetings Eric was accustomed to receive when he stopped at villages and cities. They backed away from the dragon corpses to let Eric and Sharfy see them. All three were larger than Dyan, although two of them were not larger by much. The third was at least double Dyan's size. ‘None of these are from the Eight?' said Eric, and felt immediately foolish
for the laughter his stupid question brought. He heard Sharfy groan behind him. He'd never felt like less of a lord than he did then.

A burly man held aloft one of the dragon's severed heads by the horns, although the head looked too big to be lifted by one man. He strode forwards and dropped it at Eric's feet. Its eyes still looked very bright and alive. ‘We've had trouble, as you see,' the man grunted, wiping sweat away with a huge meaty arm. ‘I am Huldeel, chieftain of our village.'

‘What village?' Sharfy said.

‘In the lowlands of River City. The name of the village does not matter, for it no longer exists. We began to rebuild it when River City was liberated, after your very visit, Shadow my lord. Do you recall? When you flew in with news that Vous had left the castle.'

‘I remember.'

‘We hung the last of our overseers high on the walls that same day, Tempest toss their ashes. Our rebuilding work went well. We'd just got a taste for peace when the sky began to fall and these very dragons beat our village to splinters. They had help from another, a smaller dark-coloured beast which we didn't see again, but whose face we'll not forget. It is well you've come, Shadow my lord, although you must take care with your drake. Your people are at war. Yet again, at war. Our enemy's no man nor mage this time, and by now we all know it. You know it too, or so we hope, Shadow my lord. The sight of your drake did us ill.'

‘They been eating you?' said Sharfy.

‘More than that besides,' said the man, steel in his eyes. ‘Slaying us for sport. Carrying off our women and children for we know not what cause. Biting our men in half, good men of honour.
They seemed to make games of the killing which I'll not speak of. We'd not have made it here but for the aid of a god.'

‘Where you going to take em?' Sharfy nodded to the dead dragons. ‘Invia see em, might be trouble.'

‘We have “trouble” already. We'll take these bodies to the castle. We have heard that people from all the cities gather there, with grudges forgotten. We shall form a new army and go to war. Join us. All who hear our story will surely join us. We've no fear. We're not alone in this war. The gods fight the beasts with us! These bodies we will show to all fighting men, so they know that the beasts
can
be slain.'

‘The Minors, maybe,' said Sharfy. ‘You seen the one I seen? At Athlent? Huge. No one'll kill that. Not even gods.'

‘There was one of the Eight at River City,' said someone in the crowd. ‘I saw it. People got away. Some said it was guarding the place from other dragons. I'll not credit that, but it slew no one.'

‘I saw that very dragon. It did not guard our village from these,' said Huldeel, striking the dragon's head with his boot. ‘Nor did it stop the Invia stealing away with our people.'

‘Tell me what happened,' said Eric.

‘A great flood of people began the trek from our city and from its surrounding lands, as soon as the skystone began to fall upon us. The rain of heavy stones killed some of them. As the good man says, the great dragon who came to our city did no harm, not by itself. But it was huge and terrible to behold, even from the distance at which I saw it. All in the city who saw it fled. As they fled, Invia came in great numbers, carrying people off west. We know not what became of them. They fought, and slew some Invia at great cost. These dragons you see then
came to our village and ruined it. We let them have the place and fled but they followed us.

‘We went underground as long as we could, for we'd had commerce with groundmen near there. But their passages grew too small to pass so we had to surface. The children alone kept on underground. We've no idea if they made it to the castle or not. When we surfaced, the same dragons came at us again. They watched us for miles, taking one or two of us at their leisure. We heard screams but did not see what they did. We could not fight them. One of them knew magic and it did things I'll not speak of.'

‘How'd you kill em in the end?' said Sharfy.

‘Something helped us. We know not what.'

‘It was Vous,' said someone from the crowd.

‘I'll not credit that,' said Huldeel. ‘But it was surely one of the Spirits. I'd guess Wisdom. It used such magic as kept the dragons spellbound. Illusions of the dragons appeared on each side of the road. Each illusion was just the same as the dragon it copied, but larger. Far more beautiful too, it must be said. We ourselves were spellbound awhile. The dragons, more so. They could not look away from these visions of themselves. We could see them battling to try and pull away. I have never seen such beauty; there, I'll say it. And I've naught but hate for the foul things and all to do with them.'

‘They sang,' said another from the crowd.

‘Aye, they did. I've never heard its like. Stillness fell on us – we were all taken in it. Only Uon was not so taken, for he's deaf as wood. He cut one of their heads off while it stared at its likeness. Even then the others did not stir. They went into a kind of dance, I swear it. Slow and swaying. But
I
stirred.' The look in his eyes said clearly it was he who'd cut off at least one of
the dragons' heads himself. ‘So that's our tale. Tell the people we're all one now, Shadow. No difference of the past is worth a pit devil's turd. If the Arch still lives,
he's
a chance for penance now, if he'll but slay one of those beasts. If he dies in the trying I'll tip a drink to him, whatever the past.'

‘He is gone,' Eric said.

‘Fine. But tell the people of your realm: all who can are trekking here to join our fight. Tell them a war's upon them. Road talk says all cities are lost and unsafe to go to. They took Esk; they took Athlent as your man here says. They'll take all the realm. We've only each other now, all of us are brothers and sisters.' The village chieftain grabbed Eric by the shoulder. ‘The people will hear you. If you've weapons in that castle, pass them out. Tell the people to fight!'

‘I won't,' Eric said. ‘Maybe you haven't seen the dragon called Shâ. I saw it slay a thousand war mages all by itself.
Easily.
They didn't even hurt it. I'm not going to send anyone off to fight it, nor the other Major dragons. This will be hard for you to hear, but this is not a fight for us. Get to safety and stay there. Get inside the castle. There is room there for many people. No dragons dare come there.'

‘Word travels back that the giants let no one in,' said someone in the crowd.

‘I'll see what I can do about that,' said Eric.

‘Leave the dragon bodies here,' said Sharfy. ‘Or take one to all major roads. A body at one, a head at another. Can cover six roads. Dragons will see it's a warning, come no closer.'

A murmur of chatter rippled through the crowd, some of it angry. ‘And just who are you?' said Huldeel to Sharfy.

‘Do what he says,' said Eric. ‘The roads in are blocked. You won't get much closer to the castle than you are now. Don't
fight any Invia you see, unless you absolutely have to. This will sound strange, but fighting the dragons is the worst thing you can do. There are other ways to handle them.'

The whole group of them seemed stunned to silence for a moment. ‘Our children climb through dark tunnels below the ground. Many of these men about me watched their women carried off, could do naught about it. If you mean to preach surrender …' Huldeel bent and lifted the dragon's head again, grunting at the effort. ‘And if those gathered at the castle have been through what we have, or anything like it, then my holding this head aloft shall have more sway with them than any crown, any throne and any title.'

A murmur of strong agreement swept through the crowd. Sharfy caught Eric's eye with a look that said:
It's time we left.

Eric said, ‘I feel the same way you do. And if it were possible to fight them I'd agree. But trust me on this: there's a better way.'

‘What way is that, Shadow my lord? We are listening.'

Eric did not know how to explain it. He knew how the haiyens' advice would sound to these men. Had he not seen Siel employ the power of it, making herself invisible to Shilen, he'd have doubted it himself. ‘All of us will be taught the way to hide ourselves from the dragons. The new people of Levaal South – the people known as haiyens – will teach us, if we will allow them to live here among us. We will build a new world, one where we live among the dragons, hidden from their sight. We will be invisible as the winds are to them. There will be no more wars between us. Our new cities shall be hidden from them too, built with arts the haiyens will teach us.'

The group looked at him like he was a madman, or worse.
‘Tell me, good sir,' said the village chieftain, ‘why is it you choose to ride a drake? A drake is kin to dragonkind. Is it not?'

‘Not all dragons are—' Eric began, but Sharfy yanked his arm. Reflecting on what he'd been about to say, he was soon thankful for it. When they got aboard Case, he flew away from there much faster than he usually flew.

It was hard to tell how many thousands made up the crowds milling about the castle. People had come from every city but the southernmost ones. Their angry rumble seemed to have morphed into one great voice with a common complaint. When Case flew over them some screamed, thinking a dragon had come to a place they'd believed they were safe. Case headed for Aziel's old bedroom window, ignoring Eric's instruction to take them down near the steps … he had wanted to tell the half-giants to allow people inside.

But before they reached the window something caused an eruption of angry cries beneath. Sharfy pointed out the Invia diving down from the clouds into the throng of people, diving just as birds would dive to catch fish. Some Invia came up from their dives and flew away with struggling people in their arms. Others did not make it back to the sky. The loud otherworldly shriek of their wails sounded four separate times.

‘See?' said Sharfy, triumphant.

‘I told you, goddammit, I believed what you said. Since you have all the answers, how the hell am I going to keep these people calm now?'

‘Shouldn't be calm. It's war.'

Eric got off Case's back and climbed through the window. He saw no point arguing, but Sharfy was wrong – this wasn't ‘war' at all. It wasn't even hunting. It was just farming … farming human beings like penned animals. Shilen had known this was what waited, once the dragons got free. Surely she'd known all along. Eric said, ‘Serious question. If you were lord, Sharfy – and maybe you should be – how would you make those people out there believe what the haiyens have told us?'

Sharfy leaped from Case's back onto the window sill with no regard at all for the distance he'd fall if he slipped. ‘Wouldn't try.
I
don't believe em.'

‘Why not? You saw what happened when Shilen came. Shilen didn't see Siel at all. You saw that it worked.'

‘That's just how she acted. Tricks. Just tricks. S'what dragons do. She tricked you too. Remember?'

A voice from across the room surprised them both. ‘Our task is not going to be easy, Eric. Or Shadow, as you have rightly said I should call you.' Domudess stood with his head stooped to avoid the top of the door frame.

‘Call me whatever name you want,' said Eric. ‘It hardly matters now. We're being attacked by Invia. People aren't safe even here at the castle. There won't be time to teach them the haiyens' arts now. So what are we supposed to do?'

Domudess smiled at him sadly. ‘It may be there's nothing we can do. You and I know that raising our consciousness is a way to avoid dragons, and to avoid Invia. To avoid all the pain and death these people are soon to march towards. It is a simple thing to practise, but impossible to teach those not willing to learn, especially in such a short time as we have. Your valiant companion has seen the effects and does not believe what his own eyes showed him. I am old, one of the
oldest men alive. You are young, Eric. To you, this helplessness is a new feeling. I have watched humanity all my life. I am no longer surprised, no longer even disappointed. They are what they are.

‘If you go to that balcony and address the crowd, you may tell them either truth or lies. Neither truth nor lies will change things now. Or you may stay here, away from them, and leave them to have what they insist upon. I do not know which course is best. That is for you to decide. I am here for a similarly futile cause, only because I promised our haiyen friends I would try. They too are new to the futility of trying to change humanity. Somehow, when speaking with them, I too forget that it is futile.'

Eric said, ‘I'll tell them the truth. The myth about Shadow may be the only thing which gives them a chance to believe it. I just don't know how to say it.'

‘Say that the haiyens have taught us a way to stay hidden from the dragons, a way to ascend out of their perception altogether. One must bring positive energy into one's mind, and it's nothing to do with the magic in the air which mages use. They may do it simply by thinking and feeling positive things, by banishing all fear, even the fear of death. In the haiyens, this does not translate into what we describe as love. In them, it brings more a kind of peaceful awareness, a harmony with their surrounds. In us it looks and sounds like love, and in fact that may be what it is.

‘But, to say to stirred men, many bearing wounds from dragons and from Invia who serve dragons … to tell them they must
love
the dragons? That they must bear in their hearts no hate or fear, that they must hold no desire to hurt them, that they must find admiration and understanding for that mighty and
advanced race … and cling only to that? I feel it is not possible for them to accept. They will react as did Tauk the Strong. As I knew he would react.'

Domudess planted his hands upon the doorway's frame and held on tight. It seemed he knew with three seconds' warning that the castle would shake itself, for that's what happened. For a minute or more the floor seemed like shuddering liquid. Sharfy fell face-first into the wall and was very lucky he wasn't tipped the other way – straight out the window. The drake leaped off the sill in panic, belching a gout of flame which singed Sharfy's hair.

‘How peculiar,' Domudess said mildly when the shaking eased to a halt. ‘The haiyens have told me they have ceased the Pendulum swing, and that the Dragon-god will not waken.'

‘Is that what that shaking was?'

‘I suspect so. The Dragon may wake regardless of the Pendulum effect; it may not wait for the influx of foreign gods. It may rise just to police its escaped brood, given how the brood are behaving. If it does, I do not know what will happen to us. Nonetheless, we must continue as if the future has a place for us. Come. We shall speak with Aziel, whether or not she listens. She can do no worse than pick up a sword and try to run us through.'

‘Don't rule that out.'

To Eric's surprise, Far Gaze and Loup were already in Aziel's chamber. Eric had forgotten all about his ‘Mage of the Realm'.

However busy Aziel had been with other things, she'd found time to decorate the large room with artworks, finery, tapestries and hangings of deep red and gold. They had heard her raised voice well before they entered the chamber and now she
rounded on them, looking for all the world as though she'd gladly bite them. Faul stood like a dozing statue at the room's lone window, not bothering to turn about as they came in. She'd surely seen what went on outside with the Invia … Eric wondered, remembering the rage she'd flown into when one was killed on her land, whether she felt as much sympathy for the creatures now.

‘And where have
you
been?' Aziel snarled at him. To Domudess she said, ‘If you want to remain in this chamber, prove your worth. Why did the castle shake?'

‘Because the dragons have descended, and their sleeping Parent may be aware of it,' said Domudess, striding towards her until his way was blocked by an armed bodyguard, surely little older than sixteen and looking scared to death. Domudess smiled at him kindly. He added, ‘Such shaking may continue. The haiyens say the Dragon shall not wake, but I feel otherwise. Within the coming days, you would be wise to depart the castle. All of you. To those here with mage eyes, have you examined the airs? Do so now.'

Eric did. He had heard much of the power of the airs within the castle, and had seen for himself the wild twisting sheets of colour outside it, back before the dragons had taken him and Aziel up into the skies. But now … ‘There's nothing,' he said.

‘Indeed. Something has reclaimed all the airs' magic. Can you guess what force that is?'

‘Well, it's probably not Loup,' Eric said.

‘Mage of the Realm to you,' said Loup.

‘It is the work of the Dragon-god, drawing all nearby magic to itself. It is awakening. It is a guess, but I believe it to be correct. No one alive today has lived through such an event except the dragons themselves, and they do not recall the last
time fondly. What frightens them should most assuredly frighten us. None of us knows what shall happen, nor how long the process of awakening takes. At any moment? Or will it be years? Or am I wrong, and the Dragon-god merely turns about in restless sleep?'

‘Why leave the castle?' Eric said. ‘Is it going to erupt from the ground beneath us?'

‘It may.'

‘No!' said Aziel. ‘I am not leaving.'

Far Gaze said, ‘Eric. I have been trying to convince her lordship—'

‘
Lady
ship!'

‘—of a very different course of action, regarding which she is just as reluctant. That we allow people inside the castle. She feels the food stores will be ravaged, that she herself will be ravaged, and her mandate to rule will be ignored by a screaming mob.'

‘The mandate the dragons themselves provided?' said Domudess mildly.

‘I have told her that the mob will more likely befriend her if she extends her hand to them,' said Far Gaze. ‘If they are kept out, they will get louder, hungrier and angrier.'

‘He also claimed he'd been to the South and seen the gods there,' she said. ‘Am I supposed to believe that?'

‘He has been there,' said Domudess. Aziel laughed at him. ‘May I ask why convincing Aziel of the best course is seen as necessary?' said Domudess.

‘That's why,' said Aziel, pointing at Faul, who still hadn't turned away from the window.

‘Aziel, a quiet word?' said Eric.

The pair of them walked away from the rest of the group. He
said, ‘Listen. Shilen lied to us – do you know that yet? The dragons have been eating people out there. Whole cities full of people. Sharfy saw it, so did most of those people gathering down there. What's more, Shilen knew it would happen. Last time I spoke to her, she said the Favoured ones are still safe from the dragons. She's lied so much already, how do we know even
that
much is true? I never understood what she meant, Aziel. She hinted but didn't say it outright. She meant anyone
not
Favoured is fair game. Maybe we all are. You and me included. Maybe the Favoured just get eaten last.'

He paused for breath, surprised to find she actually seemed to be listening. He went on, ‘We also have to be very careful of the Invia. They're snatching people right outside as we speak, taking them to the dragons. What's more, they're not afraid of coming here, inside the castle. They're not our friends, Aziel. Maybe one or two of the Eight are on our side, and maybe not. They sure aren't stopping the others from killing people. In fact you could call what's happening a war – those people outside are calling it that. If you and I are really running things here, we need to get a handle on all this
real
quickly. Those people down there, they're about to take up arms and march off to fight the dragons. I'll bet there are rousing speeches going on right now.'

‘Let them march,' said Aziel.

He was briefly speechless. ‘Do you know what you're saying? We have to listen to the haiyens. They know how we can make ourselves hidden from dragons. They're willing to teach us.'

She raised a palm to quiet him. It was the gesture of a wise and weary queen, not the girl Aziel had so recently been. ‘I know what the tall wizard is going to say,' she said, ‘about how we can survive the dragons. A summary of the idea was already presented to me. It's not going to work.'

‘It works, Aziel. I've seen it work. Listen to me. Siel vanished from Shilen's sight.'

‘It might work for you and me. Explain it to that crowd and it will sound like surrender. They will pull us limb from limb. We have not had time to put a structure in place to protect us from them.' She gave him another weary look. ‘Actually, we
had
enough time. You insisted instead that the stupid mob out there was to be well fed, before all else. So, that is what our administrators have been doing, since you set a great number of them loose. Distributing food and other goods. We have no army. I have a few hundred volunteers on the lower levels, whose loyalty to us we cannot gauge. They are not mind-controlled.
You
wouldn't allow such a thing. Assuming they fight for us to their very deaths against the mob outside, they would be trampled in a minute or two. We are probably finished. The half-giants are all we have. Even though they are each worth several men apiece, they are now far outnumbered. They do my bidding – some of it I should say, and only if my instructions suit them – because I have made them an offer. One which anyone else in this room can match. Although few can better it, since the half-giants have received everything they asked for.

‘Shilen's and the dragons' endorsement is the only claim to this throne I have. You heard what the wizard said, just now. He has already begun to take it away from me.' She smiled helplessly. ‘So. If the mob outside insists upon fighting the dragons, we cannot stop them, nor should we want to. If we stand in their way, be assured we are the first they'll trample. The best thing you could do is go out there and tell them now is the time to fight, then if they're lucky the gods might step in to help them. But I know you won't tell them that.'

Eric was surprised to find he'd underestimated her grasp of
things. He said, ‘You know we can't trust Shilen from here on? She only put us in charge in the first place because she didn't know how long till the dragons would come down from the sky. She wanted all the humans to be well-managed and busy until they came. You and I were supposed to be so busy fighting Kiown that we'd never consider how we might deal with the dragons, if and when they came down.'

‘That doesn't matter now. Do you see why I asked the half-giants to kill you, Eric? I tell you this here and now because it is certain to come out, sooner or later. They refused to do it. And there is no longer a point in killing you, since your damage is done, so you may relax. There will be no attempt on your life – not on my orders, at least.' He didn't want to betray that he was shocked to hear this, even though he'd suspected something of the kind … but he knew his shock showed. She saw it and laughed bitterly. ‘You grew up in Otherworld as a peasant, working and playing games. So you played games here when you were put on the throne. I grew up watching lords. They were evil lords, I see that now – just look at the mess they left for us. But at the very least,
they
took power seriously.'