Book Of Shadows Part 15

'Dream!' Loup's eyes went wide. 'Normal dream, or more funny business? Tell me about it and don't waste words.'

Eric told him what little he remembered.

'More trickery!' Loup cried when he'd finished. His gnarled face twisted into a fury Eric had not before seen in him. 'And you clutz fool s.h.i.t didn't think to wake me at the first scent of it!'

'See, here's where you explain to me what it all means. Then the next time it happens, I'll know what to do.'

'Next time if we're lucky!' Loup staggered back and fell as though he'd been shoved, hands to his face. 'You know what he's liable to do? He's like a wee tot taking toys apart to see what's inside em. What he'll be when he grows up? Well who knows that? If she's alive, call it more luck than a rain of diamonds. If she's not, it's your hands helped kill her, and I don't care if you're a Pilgrim or a common idiot or both. Scale! Where's the black scale? Oh there better be enough left. Pinch of green in the mix might help, might not. Oh what's he done ...?'

Wailing and cursing, Loup ran back up the steps.

Eric said to Stranger, 'If you are a captive here, I'm not your guard.'

She laughed. 'You'd turn a blind eye if I jumped out the window? I don't want to. I want nothing. He's right, the fire is out. Do you see? It's not the power I mourn, nor is it strictly him. I don't know if it was a spell that made me love him, that's beside the point. The connection, the bond. Its very threads, the firm grip of them. He didn't matter, I understand now. But his power made the bond stronger than anything I will have again. I'm over.'

'Unless he returns?'

She laughed. 'He won't. I know him now that we've parted, in the way you know a familiar place even more when it's left behind you. He was never mine. Just as we keep horses and beasts until they're not useful any more. That's all I was to him.'

Eric noted the choice of words. He won't return was not quite the same as even if he did return, I'd not have anything to do with him. Aloud he said, 'But that's not to say a person can't be a genuine friend to his steed.'

'Until it's of no more use,' she repeated sadly.

Far Gaze opened a bleary red eye and groaned. Unabashed by his nakedness he got up and moved very stiffly, like an old man, though he could not have been much older than forty. His hairy body was broad and muscled. 'Get me food,' he said. 'The mongrel tried to kill me.'

'What happened to Case?' Eric demanded.

'Jumped off a cliff. Said thanks for the ... I forget the words. He said something a friend would say in farewell. I have no more answers for you.'

'No more answers,' Eric echoed hollowly.

'I was in shifted form. Not ideal for playing messenger. Leave me be. I must think about what the wolf scented and heard. There's a lot.' Far Gaze c.o.c.ked a thick eyebrow at Eric, belatedly perceiving his att.i.tude. 'And as for saving you in the woods, from one peril after another, after keeping a dragon at bay, among other things, after a futile sprint across the world. You ... are ... welcome. Pilgrim.'

He went up the steps clutching his back. A moment later, through the window Eric and Stranger sat beneath, a drake's head burst in.

2.

It was well that Stranger saw in time there wasn't room for Aziel's head to clear the top of the window, or the Lord's daughter might have been sent tumbling to the small shelf of turf below. The drake pushed its way in, getting a wing caught on the window and flipping over onto its back with a grunt, almost landing squarely on Eric, who was too surprised to move until he heard the bone-breaking force of its squat body hitting the floor. Stranger pulled Aziel inside.

'Hands off me!' the girl yelled shrilly, thrashing her legs around. 'Leave me alone. Do you even know who I am?'

Stranger perhaps expecting 'thank you' for saving the new arrival's life was lost for words. The drake, on sight of Eric, got up and rushed at him. 'Help!' he yelled, backing into a wall, but the drake had him cornered. Rather than attack, it pushed its head into his midriff as though it wanted to have its ears scratched.

'He won't hurt you,' Aziel snapped at Eric. 'He's mine. Don't touch him.'

'What is yours?' said Stranger. 'Eric or the beast? Or maybe everyone and everything?'

'Don't speak to me that way!' said Aziel, though she sounded more frightened than anything. 'Do you even know-'

'You are Aziel, our Friend and Lord's daughter,' said Stranger with a smile. 'And I believe my prediction was right. Don't you, Eric?'

Eric was too busy fending off the drake's affections. It had propped itself up on its hind legs and tail, with one foreleg planted on his chest, looking into his face with what seemed imploring eyes. Eric felt his ribs bend under its weight. 'What's wrong with it?' he gasped.

'He might be thirsty,' Aziel said. 'He likes beer.'

'Is it going to breathe fire at me?'

'No! He doesn't do that much. He's a nice drake. Take me home. Take me back to Arch. I don't understand why I'm here or why it came and took me. I just want to go home.' She burst into tears.

Stranger laid a palm on her forehead, muttered something, then Aziel collapsed into sleep. 'You have a new friend,' said Stranger, a drop of blood leaking from her nose.

'I think so.' The drake had calmed down a little. Now it sat before Eric like a dog awaiting instructions from its master. It made sounds deep in its throat as though it were trying to speak, though the sounds had no meaning Eric could discern. 'It's trying to tell me something.'

Stranger stroked the beast's back. 'It seems very tame. There were some drakes trained for fighting, years ago. If they escaped their handlers, they were dangerous. It's quite remarkable, if this creature will stay with us and be a steed. Drakes are very rare.' The drake turned to her and made more sounds like it was trying to speak. Stranger said, 'They are the only dragon kin allowed to live in the human world, though they were hunted near to extinction for the privilege.'

'Why hunted?' said Eric, patting the creature's back.

'Drake skin makes fine leather armour, easily enchanted. Their blood and body parts are used in rituals. Highly potent, their blood. And they were ridden to war, killed faster than they bred.' Stranger took Aziel in her arms and carried her upstairs. 'I think your new friend will need a name, Eric,' she called over her shoulder.

'You're right.' Eric stroked the creature's hard leathery head. 'I'll name you after a friend of mine. Nice to meet you, Case.'

The drake shut its eyes, seemed to groan and, to Eric's confusion, twice head-b.u.t.ted the floor.

Eric laughed, thinking that the real Case would get a kick out of the beast's reaction, if only he were here to see it.

3.

Aziel slept deeply, for Stranger's spell ensured that no noise woke her. Watching her contemplatively, Far Gaze sat on the platform beneath a dark glittering ribbon of winding magic, sniffing in strands of it and murmuring. He'd wrapped a white sheet about himself.

When Loup's scale vision ended he rose from his bed ashen-faced. 'I couldn't find her,' he told Eric with a sigh. 'And I've used up the last little specks of black scale. She may well be gone now, lad.'

'Siel? But what the h.e.l.l happened?' said Eric.

'He took her. Shadow did.'

'How do you know, Loup? We've got an empty bed and a dream I had. That's enough for you to work out exactly what happened to her?'

Loup gave him a dark look but didn't answer. He filled a dish with water for the drake downstairs.

'What do drakes eat?' Stranger asked.

'Anything and everything,' said Loup, handing her the water dish.

Far Gaze rose from the platform. A ring of dark magic broke from the thick stream and circled his head like a spinning halo. It followed him across the room till he inhaled it with a deep sniff, little curls of it puffing through his lips when he spoke. 'The drake will fend for itself, we need not feed it. Keep anything you don't want in its belly away from it. Shiny things most of all. Seffen used to feed their war drakes diamonds, ages ago. Intended to give them blood l.u.s.t. Diarrhoea was more likely. But the drakes gladly ate them.'

'What's the odd beast doing here then, eh?' said Loup.

'I'm not the one to ask,' said Far Gaze, his eyes on Stranger.

'Nor am I,' she said. 'I've never seen that creature before in my life.'

'Never seen a drake? I'll credit that. Rarer things, perhaps? Pilgrim, we must speak with you. Stranger, go downstairs until I call you. Go! Do not listen in. I will know if you try to.'

Water dish in hand, she went without a word. Far Gaze sat by the top of the steps, watching her go.

'Is there a reason you have to talk to her that way?' Eric asked him.

Far Gaze laughed. 'What chivalry. Never clashed with her, have you, Pilgrim? Watch your talk around her. Every word she hears, the dragons may hear also.'

'My name's not Pilgrim.'

'You have two names. Eric. And Shadow. Which should I call you?'

Eric scoffed, but he looked down at the bare floor where his shadow should have lain slanted behind him. Far Gaze watched him keenly. 'The Arch Mage does not realise how close his Project is to succeeding,' he said. 'If Vous can do this, he is close indeed to becoming a Great Spirit.'

Eric said, 'Hold on a minute. One of the Arch Mage's war mages helped me out. It killed a Tormentor for us. It "saved" me from you in the woods, when you were in wolf-form, thinking you meant to attack me. Remember?'

'Vividly. The stink of your fear was strong.'

'The war mage wasn't "helping" us on the Arch Mage's orders,' said Eric. 'Was it? Maybe it was nuts, but even if so, the castle lost control of it. So how the h.e.l.l is he going to control a G.o.d? And if he can't, why would he want to create something more powerful than him, which he can't control?'

Far Gaze's eyes gleamed. 'Indeed. And you can be a.s.sured this has gradually dawned on him, though maybe far too late. What do you think the so-called Arch Mage will try to do now? Eric? Loup?'

'You tell us,' said Loup.

'He will ruin Vous, while he still can,' said Far Gaze. 'If he still can. Remove him from the throne, replace him with someone else. Maybe with himself. But it is probably too late for that. The great change draws close, if it has not happened already.'

Eric said, 'I was told the Arch Mage spent hundreds of years trying to make all this happen. Now he wants to prevent it?'

'It would seem so. And I tire of hearing his silly self-granted t.i.tle. His name is Avridis and he is hardly the greatest mage who ever lived. The most destructive of our era, certainly. The father of all modern war magic. But not revered, not by us.' Far Gaze went to the platform and sniffed a big strand of the winding dark ribbon as though it were pipe smoke to focus his thoughts. His eyes glowed violet.

He said, 'Simply put, a Great Spirit is an enormous power embodied, with a personality to govern it. The dragon-youth can be described in the same way, for they are of similar stature. The Arch has for centuries been drawing more and more power about Vous, binding it to him. With rituals, artefacts, by making people swear to him, and other means. But as he has lost control of Vous, Vous has lost control of himself. He opened the Entry Point and called you through, maybe by complete accident. The other G.o.ds might one day destroy him as they did Inferno. The destruction all this could cause is unthinkable. But even then, it is not the gravest danger facing us.

'I have smelled much in the air on my travels. Too much to rightly make sense of the mongrel understood things with his wolf's brain that I do not, when he wasn't busy filling my belly with rotting meat. The war is done. Finished. We have lost. Free Cities who were allies last week now skirmish among themselves. Many people have abandoned their cities, fleeing to Tanton for the final stand. Faifen is gone, Tsith is gone. Elvury belongs to no one, but no one will claim it. Tanton and High Cliffs may hold out for a time, but they are alone. Yinfel has already Aligned without one blade drawn.'

'That'd be right,' Loup muttered.

'There is more yet,' said Far Gaze. 'Indeed the entire war may look like a skirmish before long. To begin with, foreign airs are here. Some of it is harmless enough if left alone. Some is deadly. It is well we are in this place above the ground, for the poisonous airs move lower. There were people made sick by it, whose skin had turned hard.

'But after talking with Loup, it's clear our more imminent danger is Shadow. And he may also be our one hope. What do you know of him?'

'Nothing,' Eric said angrily. 'You ask that like I'm holding some private knowledge back. So does Loup. Do you think I wouldn't have told you by now? All I know is, some kid over by the wall said Shadow would save us all ...' The words drained from him when he remembered what else the kid had said: He rides a drake. A red drake ...

Far Gaze's glowing eyes peered deeply into him. 'Part of Vous longs to be undone, to be sent to a natural death where he will be at peace. You, Pilgrim, have become that weapon against him, which he himself made. A destroyer of G.o.ds, perhaps. Shadow is you. You are Shadow.'

'I don't even know what Shadow is. How can it be me?'

'Why you were chosen, only Vous can answer. You are ent.i.tled, if you wish, to feel honoured. In a way, you have been honoured. Invited to be part of great events. Though your being chosen might have been pure luck.'

Eric thought back to walking past the door on his way to work, and the sight of an eye at the keyhole. Whose was it? he wondered. The thought that it was Vous's eye made him shiver. 'You say the other G.o.ds destroyed Inferno. Why don't they destroy Vous now?'

Far Gaze spread his hands. 'It may be because he is in the castle still, where the other G.o.ds cannot seem to go. It may be they have decided not to destroy him, at least until he proves himself a danger. It may be that they will do no such thing! It may be that they need Vous to ascend and join them. They may need his help.'

'Help ... with what?'

'That is where Stranger may a.s.sist us. Stranger! Come back. Tell the half-giant to come too, he is welcome to hear this. Tell us about the dragons.'

Stranger came up the steps with Gorb and Bald following. 'Your pet drake is sick,' she told Eric. 'He keeps trying to throw up.'

'Why do you say he's my drake?' said Eric defensively.

'Forget the drake,' said Far Gaze. 'Tell us about his bigger cousins.'

Strange hesitated then went to sit on the platform. She breathed deeply of the dark winding ribbon of magic overhead. 'What should I tell?'

'To show us you are not loyal to the beast who so callously used you,' said Far Gaze with narrowed eyes, 'tell us everything.'

She glared at him but said nothing.

'I am not going to be patient with you much longer,' said Far Gaze. 'The beast may come back to recover its prize. You had better prove you're worth fighting over. For there is an easier way to ensure it doesn't get what it wants.'

'If you want a dragon wrathful with you, take that easy way,' she said hotly.

He smiled. 'Are you quite sure he would be wrathful?'

Tears brimmed in her eyes. She gave Far Gaze a look that reminded Eric of Siel lining up a target with her bow.

Stranger turned to Eric. 'I don't know quite where to begin.'

4.