Elves: Once Walked With Gods (12 page)

Overhead, clouds were gathering. Another deluge was very close. The air was close and hot. The tallest trees of the canopy reached up, greedy for it to start. The hoots and calls and chitters of myriad species exhorted Gyal’s tears to fall. Thunder rattled high above, booming through the heavens.

Olmaat turned left into the wide Avenue of Gyaam. Ahead, the expanse of the spice market beckoned. It only operated every tenth day, and never when the Gardaryn was in session. A few elves could be seen looking at displays in the shops that bordered the stone-flagged and pitch-marked marketplace, and that was strange enough.

‘I would have thought spices the least of their concerns right now,’ muttered Lorius.

As rain began to fall, footsteps could be heard behind them. Running fast. Olmaat stopped and turned, ready in an instant. Jarinn turned too and smiled.

‘Hithuur,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re safe.’

The tall gaunt scripture scholar lived at Aryndeneth, rarely travelling to the city. He had come to the temple a broken ula. His family lost to the Garonin. Only in Yniss had he found solace and he was a fervent student. Jarinn suspected his aspirations went further than a reader of the Aryn Hiil, the core text of the Ynissul faith.

Hithuur had never said but surely he wanted to be accepted as one of the Silent. There was a passion in his eyes and a determination in the set of his body and the questions he asked. And he did not seek the love of another iad. He clung to the belief that his family was still alive, one day to be found and freed.

‘I had to know you would be safe,’ said Hithuur, trotting up while gathering his shirt collar against the rain.

‘I am with Olmaat. How much safer can I get?’

Hithuur did not smile. ‘You’re running into trouble if you go through the spice market. I have a safe place just to the north.’

The rain fell in stair rods, bouncing from the cobbles and setting up a roar on domed and steep-pitched roofs all around them. Olmaat set himself between Jarinn and Hithuur.

‘What’s the problem beyond the market?’ asked Olmaat.

‘We’ve had information that—’ Hithuur looked briefly at Lorius ‘—elves of other threads want to kidnap you. Use you as currency in a power struggle. They all know the limited ways you can leave the city from the Gardaryn. You should lie low, High Priest Jarinn. We can move again when passions falter.’

‘It makes sense, Olmaat,’ said Jarinn, feeling the edge of anxiety and the full force of sadness filling him. ‘See, Lorius? Your plans are poorly thought out.’

‘Where is this place?’ asked Olmaat.

‘The Hausolis Playhouse.’

‘A major public building,’ said Olmaat. ‘Surely you could have found something a little more obvious? The lawn of the temple piazza perhaps.’

Hithuur’s face darkened a shade. ‘It has significant benefits. Not least that it is closed during the grieving period for Jilad Kantur. And from the rear, no one overlooks those arriving or leaving. It is secure.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said Olmaat. ‘Tai. A hundred paces ahead. Left and right. Quick and silent.’

Olmaat’s Tai turned north. At the corners of a side street, they swarmed up the sides of houses as fast as most elves could run. Scaling tiled roofs designed to channel the heaviest of rainfall into gully, gutter and storm drain as if they were climbing an easy flight of stairs. Jarinn watched them go, a smile on his lips despite the situation, the rain and the pain in his joints.

‘They are something to behold,’ he said to Hithuur, looking across at the adept. Hithuur turned to him, his expression one Jarinn could easily mistake for worry. ‘Something wrong?’

Hithuur tried a smile. ‘No, no. Just regret that I am not good enough to be one of them.’

‘But you will make a fine addition to another order,’ said Jarinn. ‘You are meant for great things.’

Olmaat gestured his charges before him and followed along behind. The front of the playhouse bordered an area of gardens. They were a popular gathering place where people ate, drank and watched entertainment provided by a legion of jugglers, singers and minstrels before the main event.

With the theatre dark while they grieved for their principal actor, the lawns were empty of the revellers who would shelter under leathers when the heaviest rains fell. Jarinn approached at a half-trot; it was as much as his arthritis would allow. He saw Olmaat’s Tai emerge from the shadows on either flank and disappear to the left and right of the playhouse. Olmaat held up a hand. Jarinn, Lorius and Hithuur stopped.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Jarinn.

‘Nothing,’ said Olmaat. ‘I need to be sure we aren’t observed.’

He moved on at some signal Jarinn did not see, heading to the left of the main doors, whose great double latches were carved in the shape of masked dancers. The shadows were deep here. Behind the playhouse were its workshops and stores. Timber stacks rose against high wooden walls beyond which was cleared waste ground, ear-marked for warehousing and a new marketplace for fine wooden and stone goods.

Hithuur was right: the rear access was secure. But you had to get there unseen too. Olmaat stopped in the yard, in the lee of the playhouse and spoke to his Tai. One of them scaled the gates and headed into the waste ground. The other pulled open the rear door and vanished inside. Olmaat gestured the others to him. The rain battered against the playhouse and drummed high from the stone flags that paved the yard.

Jarinn wiped his face. A pointless reflex. More rain ran down his face. He shifted his bare feet to keep them warm in the puddles in which he stood.

‘Hithuur,’ said Olmaat. ‘What will my Tai find inside? What will I see?’

Hithuur nodded. ‘The staging area is behind this door. It is clear and empty. Directly ahead is the auditorium. The curtains are drawn, and beyond them steps up to the stage. We’ll be safe here. There is food and others are coming to ensure we get to Aryndeneth safely.’

‘High Priest Jarinn does not need greater numbers,’ said Olmaat. ‘He has the TaiGethen.’

The door to the playhouse edged open. Olmaat’s Tai emerged.

‘It is empty,’ she said. ‘The auditorium is silent.’

Olmaat nodded and led them inside. Jarinn had never been back-stage at the Hausolis Playhouse though he had been on the stage a number of times, normally called from the audience to take prayers or speak from the Aryn Hiil. Here, the space echoed. Parts of sets were leant against walls and there were a few chairs and a couple of tables looking lost in the middle of the floor.

Directly ahead, the curtains were closed and still. Beyond them, the oval stage was surrounded by benches on the ground floor and two tiers of balcony seating above. It was a wonderful place. Warm and light and full of emotion. Much of the emotion hung in the air even now. But that wasn’t what Olmaat was sensing. The TaiGethen was sniffing at the air. He gestured his Tai towards the curtains.

‘Olmaat?’

Olmaat raised a hand. ‘A moment, my priest. Something smells wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There is something in here not of the rainforest.’

‘Hithuur?’ Jarinn turned to his adept.

Hithuur spread his hands. ‘I’ve no idea what he’s talking about.’

‘Olmaat?’

‘Something is not right.’

Jarinn felt suddenly tired. ‘Do what you must. I’m going to sit down. Lorius?’

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

The two priests walked towards chairs and a table a few yards to the right of the curtains.

‘Hithuur?’ Jarinn beckoned his adept.

‘It’s more comfortable in the auditorium.’

He moved towards the curtains. Olmaat tensed. Jarinn felt suddenly vulnerable and frightened but still couldn’t place why.

‘Olmaat?’ he said a third time.

Olmaat’s Tai stepped back through the curtains.

‘The floor of the playhouse is empty,’ she said, moving back to Olmaat.

Hithuur broke into a run. There was noise behind the curtains. Slapping impacts like people landing after a jump. Olmaat’s head snapped round. The curtains were dragged aside. Six figures stood in the space. Not elves. Strangers. Blink-lives. Jarinn stopped, halfway to his seat. The blink-lives had no weapons but spread their hands, palms up. He could hear murmuring.

‘Takaar betrayed us!’ yelled Hithuur, standing by the strangers. ‘He killed my family. The harmony is dead.’

Olmaat’s Tai launched herself at the blink-lives. A jaqrui throwing crescent whispered out and chopped deep into the neck of one,who toppled back grabbing at his ruined throat as his life bled away. She took a sword from her back and thrashed it through the waist of another. An arrow from the depths of the auditorium took her through the throat.

Olmaat did not attack. Instead he turned and began sprinting towards Jarinn.

‘Run!’ he shouted. ‘Get out, get out!’

Jarinn gaped. More figures were rushing up behind the line of strangers. There was a tightness in the air. Hithuur’s words hung in his mind, a blade to the heart.

‘The new order will sweep Takaar’s law away,’ shouted Hithuur. ‘You are the old way, Jarinn. And Lorius will be the first martyr of the Tuali.’

Jarinn backed away. Olmaat was nearly on him, still shouting at him to go. There was a whine in his ears and his body felt as if it had been plunged into hot water. There was a rush of energy, like his soul flaring. He felt confused. He stared at the strangers. The four remaining moved their hands together.

Heat. And soul-scourging light.

Chapter 10

Respect those you kill in battle for we are all brothers in the eyes of Shorth.

Takaar couldn’t control the nausea. He twisted out of his hammock, flopped onto the ground four feet below and vomited. Green and brown flecked with red. His head pounded and his stomach twisted. He vomited again, helpless as the constriction in his gut intensified. He hauled himself up onto his hands and knees, his whole body convulsing.

He was aware of a roaring sound. He assumed it was the blood rushing around his head but it was more distant than that. As his body calmed a little, and the breaths he gasped ceased to bring more convulsions, he found he could focus outside himself.

The roaring and growling was a panther. More than one. The guttural sounds echoed his own pain and were a mirror for the confusion he was beginning to experience. He rolled away from the stinking pool and lay on his back, grabbing air in grateful gulps. The rainforest was quiet. Unnaturally so.

Takaar sat up. He plucked a leech from his right arm and walked a little shakily to the edge of his bivouac, where he rested against the bole of a fig tree. He took a few deep breaths and tried to replay the instants before he was sick. He didn’t like what his body told him.

You’re scared. Should be a familiar feeling but you seem to believe otherwise.

‘These are unusual times.’ Takaar refused to turn to his tormentor, who sat behind him underneath the shelter. ‘They are unpicking everything I have ever lived for.’

All the more reason to jump when I tell you to.

Takaar shook his head and walked away from the shelter. He had experienced a trio of events. Events? It seemed the only way to describe them. Far more complex than any emotion and far more overwhelming than mere feelings. They dipped into the core of him, of his race, and toyed with it.

It had begun with a sickness that was way beyond physical. And, in quick succession, two revolting grabs at the souls of the forest, the gods and every elf. They were what had caused him to vomit. And now he was left with an ache in his head not unlike the aftermath of the taipan venom.

What scared him was that he knew from where each of these events emanated. The grabbing of his soul had been triggered from Aryndeneth and Ysundeneth while the sickness came from everywhere. It would unsettle every elf, though many would barely register it. But he, Takaar, champion of the harmony, the ula who once walked with gods, felt it for all of them.

He’d been feeling the unsettling nausea on and off for some time. The events at Aryndeneth and Ysundeneth were something altogether more violent, brutal. Sudden and brief assaults that had fed back through the energy lines that latticed the world.

He’d assumed the power they represented to be benign, latent. Yet the suddenness of his sickness and its violence told of a rippling in those energy lines and a filling of the air with something new that he could neither taste nor touch but could sense with his body and mind.

The energy was not something he could use. Not yet. But it was reminiscent of that he had felt on Hausolis, way back before the beginning of the harmony, when he had discovered the gateway and managed, somehow, to link himself to it. What had awakened the earth? And what did it have to do with the harmony and the anxiety of the elves?

He shouldn’t care. Couldn’t afford to.

Didn’t.

Yes, best you take another edulis leaf, nicely boiled down with a little simarou and crushed beetle wing. Forget it. Forget it.

Takaar nodded. It was not often his tormentor adopted a sympathetic tone. Even rarer that he was right. Takaar returned to his shelter. A movement in the brush to his left caught his eye. He had faced every danger the rainforest could throw at a lone ula. There was nothing within it that could unnerve him now.

He stopped and stared hard into the undergrowth. A sleek form eased from within it, moving towards him. And it was not alone. He counted three. He should have been scared. He was easy prey. But they were not interested in his flesh.

Takaar crouched and held out a hand. One of them came forward. He felt the panther nuzzle his hand. Her tongue explored his palm and the head withdrew.

‘What is it?’ asked Takaar. ‘What is it that we feel?’

His tears stung the burns on his face. He moved forward on his belly, every excruciating moment punctuated by the feeling of his clothes dragging where they were fused to his body. The skin had blackened on his hands and raw flesh was all that remained of the soles of his feet. Yniss had spared him. Spared his eyes. He did not know why. The last thing he wanted was to live and see what filled his gaze.