Dreams of Darkness Rising (46 page)

“Baron Benrich, as he was then, petitioned the king in protest but got short shrift from him. Then they heard Duke Hordous, the king’s uncle, had stripped down a monastery out on the riverside. It was too much and Benrich called his sworn lords to a war council. Before long he had Milgis, Latimer and Exiki on side.”

“Did my father go with them or the king?” Aldred asked.

“Your father was a pragmatic man in those days. He had no real love for the clergy nor for the teachings of Mortis. So he resisted the zeal that accompanied that rebellion.

“Inevitably it was all crushed, but not before they had had several decisive victories. The battle of the Kingsfield was going Benrich’s way at first but then reinforcements from the south arrived.

“During that battle thousands were killed. It is said the grass will no longer grow, such was the death at that place. As I recall Lord Markson died during a cavalry charge. His son got a nasty gash in his arm and the sour wound got hold of him.”

“And the nobles got to have their heads chopped off. I remember now!” Poris said with some glee.

 “Your enthusiasm precedes your learning, like a true Thetorian,” Guntir said. “It was Benrich who was executed and the king had the baron’s younger brother step into the empty boots. Latimer and Exiki were faced with massive fines but kept their heads. Baron Milgis was to be thrown in the dungeon for ever more but died when he slipped down some stairs. Milgis had a young heir at the time, Olivar, who took the baronial seat but with his uncle as Lord Protector.”

“Where were Markson’s lands?” Aldred asked.

“I’ll find out for you, m’lord. Off the top of my head I’d say they are in the north-west of the barony, not too far from the border south of the river Eviks. Right in the Barrowlands.”

Urgon Tannerson approached the table as the four sipped their cider. “Captain Guntir, pardon the intrusion. There’s a…situation that requires your attention.”

Guntir looked with annoyance at the innkeeper. “Can’t you see I am busy, Urgon? Get one of the lads to sort it. I’m off duty.”

“With respect sir, it is the burghmaster that’s asked for you. And Lord Aldred as well,” Urgon said as he cringed.

All four at the table looked surprised at the request. It was common knowledge that there was no love lost between Guntir and Orlo Smithson and even less between the burghmaster and the nobility.

The four rose from the table, leaving their flagons and squeezed through the crowded common room with Urgon. The heat of the room seemed suddenly cloying to Aldred and he found a strange sense of panic rising in him. He had struggled with enclosed spaces since his night in the crypt.

His heart was racing as he followed Guntir and his two friends. They were led by a town guard whose chainmail glinted eerily in the red moonlight of the Pyrian moon. Tears of blood. An ill omen.

The quintet moved down Evik’s Bar and over the crossroads, following the cobbled street of Rivergate towards the river. Guntir was talking in hushed tones to the guard. They passed several stores before reaching a few tall houses. The largest of the six belonged to Orlo and commanded fine views of the river and a small copse of willows. Guntir lead them through the open gate, around the side of the house and into the gardens.

Orlo Smithson’s garden stretched a hundred yards to the riverside, a jetty protruding between the willows. The grass was flecked with snowdrops that in the red moonlight looked like spatters of blood. At the edge of the jetty were gathered a small crowd of guards and Orlo’s wife who was sobbing. Orlo was knelt, rocking a figure in his arms, concealed by a cloak.

Aldred’s heart was in his mouth as they neared. The air was dense with a sense of evil. Black magic, he thought. Guntir leant forward and put a firm hand on Orlo’s shoulder and he turned his head to face them. His features seemed cadaveric in the moonlight.

“There’s evil afoot, Hawkskin. Evil! Nekra herself could not have committed such depravity on my little girl.”

Arlien Smithson lay dead in her father’s arms, her long Mirioth satin gown torn and muddied. Aldred had seen much horror in the past two weeks but even he was not prepared for the appearance of her body.

She was white. It was as if every iota of colour had drained from her body, leaving her skin almost translucent. The moonlight cast a ghastly pall over her. Her slender neck had a gash, the size of an animal bite. Yet what creature could have done this?

Aldred felt faint and nauseous, the cider making his head swim. He walked on to the jetty feeling numb, the only sound other than the sobs being the gentle splash of the river. All of a sudden he wanted to be back in the castle, eight miles up stream from here, warm and safe in his own bed.

Across the far side of the River Eviks a dark shape watched Aldred, its eyes burning like orange coals. It turned silently and padded off along the riverbank, the girl’s blood still warm in its mouth.

Chapter 3 An Unexpected Reunion

Sunstide 1924

Fever dreams had a different quality. Whereas a normal dream was distinct from the world which lay outside the dreamer, the fever dream merged with the exterior. At the age of ten years, gripped by winter fever, Emelia had slipped in and out of a macabre world: stone walls flowed like porridge; little men inside floor grates sang to her; spiders with grinning masks crawled over her skin in places she could not reach to itch and so forth. An awareness of Mother Gresham mopping her burning skin emerged periodically, always accompanied by her distinct lavender scent.

Now Gresham was seven hundred leagues to the east and if she ever set eyes on Emelia again was unlikely to greet her with a tepid sponge. Despite this, Emelia had a pang for the comfort of the Keep’s matriarch.

Emelia alternated between the cool surface of Lady Orla’s armoured back and the gentle ministrations of Jem. As her cognition undulated with the peaks and troughs of the temperature she was vaguely aware of the motion of a horse. She felt an intense chill despite the layers of clothing around her and the warmth of the sun on her brow.

They were in the highlands now, rising slowly along a trail into the looming mountains. They glinted like the teeth of a gigantic metal dragon, the rock the silvery hue that bestowed the range its name. She clutched tightly to Orla’s back. A tug on her waist reassured her she was secured to the saddle with a robust strap.

Emelia slid once more into a slumber. The rocky hills and their purple bruises of heather faded away and soon she was elsewhere.

For a moment she thought she was dreaming of the purple stone city once more, running down its wide canyons. She looked around at her surroundings and what she saw made her long for the recurrent dream.

A city. A dead city. She had recently been here in her nightmares: it was his favourite place. The streets were choked with weeds and vines, a slimy glint to them from the recent rain. The impassive figures that populated this ghostly warren were black and shiny, like beetles. The wind carried their woes; pleading souls doomed to spend eternity petrified in this place, cursed by the folly of magic and the arrogance of Empires.

So the chase begins again, she thought. Part of her considered confronting him, to get it all done with. Yet she knew that when she did she would surrender to him totally. She would lay back and let his cold hands move over her body.

She wore her black armour and tunic, her hair tied tight in a whip of gold. In her hands she carried the blue crystal, yet it was different. It was a looking glass. Images twisted like eels within the bluish surface: a desert of red sand and lava, fire plumes rising like birds taking flight; a twisted swamp, slime rolling down the walls of a ruined building looming above the filthy water; a vast green forest, columns of light streaming through the canopy like pillars of gold.

Emebaka—dreamt in the form of a deformed child—tugged at her hand. The mystery of the glass would have to wait. He was searching again. She moved like mercury through the desolate place, clambering and climbing, using every surface and level to evade her pursuer. Emebaka bounded like a mountain goat, vaulting from balconies and shattered roofs. The motion made Emelia hotter and hotter and she felt her mouth barren and dry, her lips cracked from thirst.

They halted atop a wide flat building, its frescoes chipped and faded.

“Yet another mural of the faded Empire,” Emebaka said. “Once it was an Empire as bright as a midday sun, now it is as disparate as the dusk.”

“If you say so,” Emelia said. “Onor’s spit, my mouth is like the dunes of Pyrios.”

 A pothole in the roof had collected water. Emelia scooped some into her hands, tucking the mirror first into her belt. The water was turgid but she was so thirsty that she cared not.

It ran thickly down her chin. Its taste was metallic and filled her with wonderful warmth, soaking into her like moisture through a cloth. It dripped between her fingers thick...and red.

She saw with revulsion that she drank blood. Yet it tasted delicious, like the finest Feldorian wine.

“My favoured vintage. Can you see why?” a voice asked.

She jerked upright and looked around in panic.

He stood atop a similar rooftop a hundred feet away, the breeze blowing his dark purple robes. His hair was liquid night, flowing like oil over his shoulder. His skin was chalk-white and pristine, like the snow of the mountains. Emelia knew it would be every bit as cold. Even from this distance she could see his grace and nobility, his burning hot eyes and his arrogant mouth with its thin crimson lips.

“I must confess, you fascinate me, Emelia,” he said. “In the space of these last few weeks we have moved from your uninvited visitations into my dreaming to hosting me so generously within your own.

“In my day though, and I’ll confess I am rather old fashioned, a hostess would actually sit down for a feast with her guest.”

His voice was close to her ear, despite his physical distance.

“This is all some mistake. I never meant to come into your twisted mind. I don’t know how it happened and I certainly don’t want you here,” Emelia said.

 “Now that’s not entirely truthful is it? I excite you and intrigue you. I’ll admit that I too am at a loss to explain how we have forged this link and moreso how a child such as you can resist me when I have been bending minds to my will for nearly three millennia. Perhaps I am losing my touch? Too much time spent as dry bones and mummified flesh. Well no longer. This new body is far more comely, wouldn’t you say?”

“It’s ghoulish and vile,” she said. Yet within her a strange desire was rising.

“Ha! You modern girls. So ready with your insults. In the day of Gilibrion few women were even acknowledged, save his little warrior girls who played at being men. I told him it was short sighted, that the fairer sex had untapped depths, but he was more concerned with stopping my goblin allies annihilating his lands.”

“What do you want of me, Vildor?”

“My name, you’ve remembered my name! Untapped depths indeed. You are the first human, well near human, to interest me in centuries. I want you. And what can I give you in return? What you want more than anything. I can give you true freedom. The freedom that comes with knowledge. I can show you such things if you come to my side. I can give you such treasures. Two and a half thousand years of learning. That is most of this world’s recorded history. Moreover, I can give you eternity if only you stop resisting me.”

Emelia could feel his enormous will pushing against her. Flashes of emotion ran through her: desire, fear, longing, temptation, loneliness, insecurity. She stepped forward to the edge of the roof.

Come to me now, he whispered inside her head. Step from the precipice and become mine. Together Emelia, we will never need to be apart. Bring it to me.

She hesitated, resisting the intense pull from his mind. She squinted down at Emebaka who looked at her with eyes that glittered like diamonds. Her own eyes: star eyes. Warm thoughts of the Keep cemented her feet in place on the rooftop. Whether he desired her or not, he coveted the blue mirror even more.

She vaulted from the rooftop and onto a shattered balcony below, Emebaka at her side. The chase was back on.

Vildor smiled and melted back into the shadows of the dreamscape, leaving only a hint of shadow in his wake.

***

Orla was surprised at how long it had taken for her to get comfortable riding a horse again. Riding a griffon exclusively for most of the last decade had undoubtedly deskilled her. Being Coonorian born and bred (she felt like a horse herself when she put it that way) exposure to riding had been fairly limited. Her father’s family, the Farvouses, were jewellers and gem merchants and had little interest in anything organic. In the summer breaks she had journeyed from her city school to the family estate in Lower Eeria. Yet whilst her brothers and her cousins rode and played in the pines she shunned them in favour of books, feeling their immoderation below her. Ironically it had been books that had lead her to that shameful incident in the final summer.

Her mind moved on instinctively. Lord Tor-Baal and her other lower lord uncle, Talis Ebon-Farr, would be on the high council with her father Elik when she returned to Coonor. She felt a pang of fear at the prospect of admitting the failure of her mission. She would return without thieves, without servants, without her men and without the blue crystal. A demotion would be just reward, to fourth lance at least, but that would be minor compared to the looks of disappointment.

Orla glanced over to where Jem and Hunor sat astride their horse, arguing in low voices as to which of two potential mountain paths to follow to Giant’s Crag. Jem had the blue crystal in his pack. She could not tackle the Wild-mage unaided: he was swift at magic and an adept swordsman also. Hunor laughed and joked but watched her like a hawk. She knew he wanted to be rid of the blue crystal, but probably in order to realise its financial worth.

To round off her dismay she was indebted to Hunor for he had saved her life when they fought the demonic humour. Honour dictated she acknowledge that debt and she would be damned if she was going to return to Eeria with her honour as shattered as her pride. Yet the orders from the High Commander had been specific—retrieve the blue crystal by whatever means necessary.