Book Of Shadows Part 19

'How can that be so, Anfen?'

'Shapers follow no order. They roam, they move to whatever spells they see, then do their work. Bigger spells take them longer, sometimes occupying many of them for a long time.'

'Why do you bring me here, Anfen?'

'To warn you. If you use foreign airs, Avridis, you will cause foreign shapers to come. Ones from beyond World's End. Already some are here, though for now very few. They read a different language of instructions. They will alter spells already cast in our realm, but not yet made reality. Here, in the quiet.'

The Arch Mage nodded. 'Which means if they alter spells already cast ...'

'They will alter the past. They will change everything. It is how Vous made Shadow real, and made him part of a common history.'

'Is Shadow here?'

'He can come here whenever he wishes.' Anfen gazed into his human eye and spoke not to the Arch Mage, but to Avridis, the young man who ignored the warnings of mages and wizards long ago, and provoked them into banishing a promising student from their temples. 'You have created something you shouldn't have,' said Anfen. 'With your knowledge you alone can now help make the damage less. It's why I have not yet cut the life from you, as every part of me thirsts to do.'

The Arch Mage nodded to show he understood. His mind immediately went to the canisters of chilled foreign air, in near-complete purity, sitting in storage. And he knew he held a weapon to Anfen's head, and had all of Levaal at his mercy. But he had first to get back to the familiar realm where he could cast to defend himself.

So he listened to all of Anfen's warnings, his instructions to call back the war mages and to forbid them to cast anything until the foreign airs had dissipated. He even hung his head as though ashamed of his deeds. Privately he reflected with amus.e.m.e.nt on how those with tender consciences a.s.sumed that, deep down, others were ultimately the same. So very wrong.

When Anfen finally took him back, he immediately cast a spell which kept his likeness here on the steps like a puppet, while he fled to the safety of the castle, and controlled his puppet from a distance. A useful trick, one that had saved him from Vous's rages many times. He ordered the elite guards to stand down and leave them be.

'As you have taught me, I shall teach you something of value,' he said when they had gone, and he explained about the foreign magic he had captured with airships when the wall was destroyed. Anfen listened, seeming more weary and sick than ever. 'So I have a quest for you, Anfen. My enemies are now your enemies, and they have stolen Aziel. Find her, and bring her to me. Or I will empty what foreign power I have into Vous's chamber. All at once. What effect this will have in our realm, I don't know. Do you?'

Anfen did not answer.

'But now we both know what it will do in the quiet. Thank you for the lesson on magic. I am sorry you find yourself serving me again.'

When Anfen rushed forward and cut the Arch Mage down, the body did not bleed it vanished into a sheet of mist and he heard mocking laughter.

A VISITOR.

1.

Well into the following morning Aziel still slept where she'd fallen and the necklace's secrets remained untold.

On the upper floor, Stranger took what Gorb had caught in the nearby woods two fat birds, three rabbits and laid them all out on the platform. 'He is starting to worry me down there,' she said, referring to Far Gaze, who had watched Aziel constantly as though her every breath was of great importance.

'Stand back, shield your eyes,' she said. There was a flash not unlike a camera's. When it faded the meat was skinned and cooked golden. 'Don't tell the other mages I did that,' she said, pa.s.sing the meat around to Eric and Gorb.

'Why not?'

'They're afraid there's something bad in the airs. They don't want much casting.'

'That red stuff?' said Eric, squinting at the dark glimmering ribbon that wound over their heads and trailed out the rear window. 'There isn't any of it there any more.'

'It's clean enough now.' Stranger plucked a thread out with her finger and wound it around like string, till it broke and dissipated. 'But you can see by the way the magic behaves that something is not right. There are ripples and strange movements.'

Bald was pouring water from a rusty metal jug over his seven wildly varying versions of the gun.

'That's enough,' Eric said. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the Glock out of Bald's hands and put it back in the shoulder holster.

Bald shrieked, tried to bite him, tattled to Gorb. 'I know where you sleep,' he hissed.

'Hush, Bald,' said Gorb.

Bald pointed at Eric like a prosecuting attorney. Spit flew from his mouth. 'You would have to expand his being. He will observe in a seat above the world, strapped in hanging, effects of deeds, effects throughout ages stretched, each dependent on innocent deeds about them as a demon skipping on dry rocks across a river-'

'Bald, hush up and do your work,' said Gorb sternly. 'No one wants to hear that stuff. It doesn't mean anything anyhow.'

'One day the poison shall be expelled!' Bald shrieked in anguish. He went back to sprinkling drops of water over his creations like someone watering plants, glowering murderously at Eric.

'Those guns he's making, they're sort of alive,' Gorb explained. 'That's why he's watering em. He couldn't figure out what makes the trigger send out the what did you call it?'

'Bullet.'

'Yeah. So it was easier to bring a part of the gadgets to life,' said Gorb. His fat lips pulled the meat from a poultry shank with one quick suck. Big hunks of it showed in his teeth when he spoke. 'He's been trying to work out how smart to make them. Enough so the guns understand what they're meant to do: shoot. But not so smart they can decide if they want to obey or not.'

'Can he bring any object he wants to life?' said Eric.

'Sure, if he finds the right airs.' Gorb chewed up the poultry bone as though it were a biscuit with three crunching bites then swallowed the bone chips. 'He could bring a chair alive, say. But why? It wouldn't do much. And you'd need to look after it. Food or water or firelight, whatever it needed. If you didn't, it'd die and fall apart. No one wants a chair like that.'

'How's he do it?'

'Only Engineers know,' said Gorb sagely. 'You saw them dolls we did. Weren't easy to make, took us ages to find the airs. But there's good airs here, I guess.' Eric was newly nervous to learn the crazed little man had such powers. 'You did good to make him mad, just now,' said Gorb. 'He's trying to make the alive part of the guns so they're always angry. Why else would they want to shoot at something? Now he's putting the anger you gave him into the guns.'

'How long till they're ready to fire?'

'They're almost ready now,' said Gorb. At Eric's look of disbelief, he said, 'Yep, all we need's to make some bullets. Rocks we can sharpen, maybe. Something that'll fit in those what do you call em? Barrels.'

'You can see why Engineers are prized property,' said Stranger.

Eric said, 'Why didn't it occur to anyone in this world to make guns before now?'

'As It wills,' she said, shrugging. She took the sc.r.a.ps and bones as though to toss them out the window, but Gorb took them from her and shovelled them into his mouth, devouring the lot. 'Such a weapon was not part of this world until you brought it here,' said Stranger. 'Just as past Pilgrims brought versions of all other weapons we use. The gun had no place here until you came. Now yours is here, it can be made real and copied. You should bring more things, if you ever return to Otherworld.'

'Stones!' Bald screamed. 'I need stones! Bring stones!' He clawed at his own face, opening up the grooves dug in the last time he was worked up. Blood poured down his cheeks.

'I'll get them,' said Stranger.

When she'd gone down the steps Gorb remembered he was meant to watch her. 'Eric, I better stay with Bald. Sometimes he hurts himself bad enough to nearly die. Can you go with her? Make sure she comes back like Far Gaze asked me? You got your gun back now.'

'I don't think I'll need it for her,' he said, standing. And I don't know that it will be much use if Shadow returns. But its weight in the holster rea.s.sured him nonetheless. He loaded it then followed her.

2.

At the water's edge Eric found Stranger crouched to examine what looked like a scorched path burned into the ground in a neat ring about the moat. 'Enough heat to melt the rocks. Our new friend did this, didn't he?' she asked as he stepped out of the water.

'Yes. Can you sense him nearby?'

'Never him; he goes unfelt. But ...' She looked at the horizon and he saw excitement on her face, which she quickly masked. 'Stones. There don't seem to be many here. Let's try over there, near the woods.'

There were occasionally villagers around, come to stare at the tower. They'd learned a healthy respect for the dangerous mage who had boiled its waters and sent a Tantonese patrol away, shrieking in pain. Now a young girl, alone among the trees, ducked out of sight of Eric and Stranger. Eric pretended he hadn't seen her.

'Here's some,' Eric said, finding a few smooth pebbles at his feet and stuffing them in his pockets. But when he stood Stranger was no longer with him. She did not answer his calls.

He went to where he'd seen the girl. 'Hey there. I see you, hiding behind the bush there. Come out, you're safe. I'm no scary wizard. Did you see where she went?'

The girl emerged and pointed to her left.

'You look frightened,' he said. 'What's the matter?'

'A dragon's in there,' she whispered in an awed voice.

'What? A dragon? Are you sure?'

'I'm going to ask the wizard to kill it. Will he? He's your friend. Can you make him?'

'If by wizard you mean Loup, the most dangerous thing about him is his breath. Why would you want the dragon killed?'

'It killed some people in our village. My friend Shalinta's parents. She's alone now. We are looking after her.'

The dragon killed them, or did Shadow? he wondered. Aloud he said, 'That's very sad. Can you take me to the dragon? Quickly, I need to see it. Then I'll speak to my wizard friends about it.'

'Do you promise?'

He nodded solemnly. She led him in through the same part of woodland Gorb had hunted game from earlier. The trees were s.p.a.ced a good distance apart, another of those little hunting playgrounds made (it seemed) especially for human convenience. It wasn't far before he caught sight of Stranger's green dress ahead, and a larger shape looming before her. There was a sonorous musical note, not obviously speech at first.

Adrenaline shot through him as another miracle revealed itself among the horrors: a dragon! A living dragon, as real as the trees.

The village girl evidently did not find the sight miraculous. She ran. The beast glanced up at the sound of her quick feet crunching leaves. Eric ducked out of sight and crawled closer, quietly as he could, shielded from the dragon's sight by a thick trunk with a fan of bush at its base.

The dragon was bigger than a horse; its scales of many sparkling shades tended toward the green of the woods. Its build was sleeker than the smaller drake's, which seemed clumsy and bulky by comparison. This was no mere animal; it was beautiful, he thought, a higher being, its mouth shaped up in a slight permanent grin, the power about it as real as heat about a fire. He wished he were close enough to stroke its head, which was lowered as though in supplication to Stranger.

She stood before it with her arms crossed. Eric could hear her weeping.

'There are no more fitting words, in all the poetry of your kind or mine, than these: I am sorry,' said the dragon Dyan, its voice like a deep woodwind instrument. It peered up at her with big beautiful eyes. The way its wings were spread flat on the ground to either side of it seemed to convey shame.

'The answer is no!' said Stranger.

'And yet you remain here to speak with me. I use no magic on you now, O Hathilialin, Great Beauty. Find forgiveness for me! Draw it from the memory of love, if love has truly left you.'

'How you cheapen the word. You want something. So you return.' Her voice wavered with tears and anger. 'Ride me like a mule again! You left me to die in that village where the air was bad. You have not even asked what happened. The wolf found me while you were gone.'

'Has he hurt you?' the dragon said in a harder voice. A ripple of bright red pa.s.sed through its scales.

'Don't pretend you care about that now,' she said.

'Great Beauty, who I freed from the cavern's cruel claws. Great Beauty who I saved! I have not forgotten the flow of your moods. There is a secret inside that you long to tell. Tell it to me! I ask you, Great Beauty, using no arts or devices. Instead I offer freely a secret of my own in the hope you will reciprocate. And it is a warning to take care. Do! There is another dragon free.'

Stranger was shocked to silence for a moment. 'Another dragon? No!'

'There is. I felt it, days ago in these very woods. It was watching me. It came upon me by surprise, as I ... as I sought you out so desperately. I'm nervous. I am frightened. There were not supposed to be more. I do not know who sent it. I know nothing of it at all. The moment I felt it near, I fled quicker than the wind. I have sought it ever since, fearing it would come for you, but can find no trace. It hides from me with great skill. It may watch us now. Indeed I feel that something does.'

'Why has it come?'

'To watch me.' Dyan lifted his head and gazed about the woods, eyes gleaming. Eric ducked away from what felt like a searchlight beaming about him. The colour of Dyan's scales shifted from green to deepest blue as he crept closer to Stranger. A thick fallen branch split under the weight of his feet. 'I have not done my duty. I have been lax, idle, have been ... indulging myself. Swimming with you in lagoons, soaring the skies. It is so different here now! You have no idea the beauty of this place, after being in Takkish Iholme so long. But Tzi-Shu is angry. It was surely she, or Sha, who sent the new one to spy. If they deem I have failed them, I am doomed when they descend. I must go now to World's End, naked and openly, if you will not come and hide me in your great beauty.' The dragon sighed, a low piping note that sent shivers down Eric's back. Dyan said, 'Things must have moved too slow for them. After uncounted years, with so little time left to wait, they have discovered impatience.'

'What will you do?' said Stranger with fear in her voice.

'I will go to where the stoneflesh wait to cross. Two G.o.ds prevent them. I will try to-'

'No!'

'I must. I want this no more than you. My freedom is enough. I don't need theirs. But if I am being watched there is no choice. I will be careful. I will not battle them, don't fear! And I will return for you. I swear it.'

Stranger was crying again. 'You have no idea how much you hurt me,' she said.

'Never again! But, Great Beauty, I must act. If only I knew the other dragon's mind. Will you share yours with me?'

Stranger lowered her voice and Eric had to risk crawling closer to hear the end of her story. '... the girl has it. Or more likely, it has her. It has fused to her neck and won't come off. It was surely made for the Pilgrim. The wolf contemplates her murder to remove it, but the charm will protect her. Vyin made it.'

'Vyin!'

'I'm sure it's his touch I see upon it.'

'Do the humans know the artefact's function?'

'I guessed some things, but keep my guesses private. It's not easy. The wolf hates me; the half-giant has keen eyes. The charm must be for the being they call Shadow.'

The dragon crept closer. 'So, he has been made real. What have you learned of him? What are his powers? Is it as Sha guessed?'

'I have not learned much at all. The Pilgrim and he are linked somehow, but he knows less than I. Shadow cannot come close enough for the charm to do its work, whatever that work is. The tower prevents him.'