The Shades Of Time And Memory Part 26

It might be that Ponclast was mustering his forces, or perhaps he was incapable of doing more than he had already done, but Cobweb could not help but feel that they were being played with. The silence, stretching interminably into the hot reaches of balmy summer, was intolerable. It was worse than attack. It was worse than the most terrible of news.

When news finally came, it was not on a windy, moaning night or a miserable morning when rain slashed the earth turning everything grey, it was on a motionless afternoon, with sunlight the colour of honey splashing against the walls of Forever. A horse came galloping up the curving driveway from Galhea, its hectic sweating rush totally inappropriate on such a glorious afternoon. Its rider urged it madly into the sleepy yard behind the house, where horses rested their chins on stable doors and flies looped drunkenly round their eyes.

Cobweb, who was painting in the garden, watched the horse approach. He put down his brush, set aside the creamy white parchment he was working on, and went with purpose back to the house. By the time he reached the stable yard, Swift, who happened to be home at the time, was already out there. Cobweb saw a shuddering har hanging in Swift's rather stiff-limbed hold. He heard Swift barking questions, but could not hear the words.

'What is it?' Cobweb asked, and his own voice seemed to come from another world. He already knew.

Swift released the messenger into the hold of two of his staff who had followed him out of the house. 'Amber Ridge has been attacked,' he said.

This was a Parsic settlement some miles south of Galhea. 'By what?' Cobweb asked.

'By shadows,' Swift answered, 'shadows with knives.'

'What?'

Swift did not answer. He was already walking back into the house, calling orders to the rapidly expanding group around him.

Cobweb soon stood alone in the peaceful afternoon, while a groom led the shuddering horse to a stable for water and a blanket. He looked up at the sky, though his vision was blurred, but all that drifted there were tame clouds, not a single black bird scrawled against them.

The attack had come in the early morning, just as hara were rising from their beds to attend to their day's work. It had taken some time for them to realise they were, in fact, being attacked, because each a.s.sault came secretly: in the yard of a home, in a back alley, in a bedroom where the curtains were still drawn. It was only when the cries began to resound from different points of the small town that hara realised these were not isolated incidents. Even as a har died, his throat opened like paper, he could hear the cries of a neighbour dying upon the pales of his fence next door. A harling shrieked in terror as his hostling's life blood pooled in dead eyes on the kitchen floor, only to hear his best friend groan his last, while his parents helplessly tried to free him from the hold of an a.s.sailant they could barely see. Smoke beasts: that's what they were. Blurry shadows that flashed with silver, the metal of their weapons. They made no sound, they had no smell, you could not touch them. The first attack took only five minutes at most, and even while the residents of the town were still reeling from it, weeping over their dead, trying to organise their stunned thoughts, the second a.s.sault came, more deadly than the first. The town governor sent a rider to Galhea, moments before he was gutted and crucified upon the eaves of his own house.

Cobweb heard the details later, when he interviewed the messenger alone after Swift had made him tell the story several times. The messenger seemed only too relieved to be able to speak of the horror again and again. The details never changed. They did not have to be exaggerated.

'What will you do?' Cobweb asked Swift.

Swift was dressing himself in steel strengthened leather armour, pulling on black gloves that looked as if they belonged to an executioner. 'Investigate,' he said. 'Cobweb, you and Snake work on our protection. You're all we have, I think. Send messages to Seel, to Pellaz, wherever you can. Send messages to any har who can hear you.'

'I will,' Cobweb said. 'But how can you protect yourself?'

'These shadows strike with blades of metal, not ether,' Swift replied. 'They move quickly, but if they attack an armoured har, we have to hope this protection will afford enough time for us to defend ourselves.'

'How many are there, do you think?'

Swift shook his head, sighed. 'Only a few hundred were confined in Gebaddon, all those that were left of Ponclast's forces. I can't see who would ally with them now. As they appear to have otherlane access far different to that of the Gelaming, I think they're making quick guerrilla strikes, with only a few hara. Our task will be to try and capture one of them. We can't answer this attack with might. We must find other means.'

'They will have a weakness,' Cobweb said. 'Everyhar does,'

'Yes...' Swift paused. 'I have spoken to Ithiel. He will remain here with you. He and his staff will speak to everyhar in town to ensure they take precautions. I think our enemy will attempt to pick off outlying towns before a.s.saulting Galhea. They could have come for us first. They didn't. There must be something here they fear.' Swift reached out and touched his hostling's face briefly. 'Take care. Take especial care.'

'If I cannot protect this house, I deserve to die,' Cobweb said. 'This is my domain. None shall breach it.'

'Extend that protection,' Swift said. 'There is more than this house at stake.'

As Cobweb stood on the front steps of Forever, watching Swift lead a troupe of hara down the driveway, he could not help but be reminded of the times when he'd stood in exactly the same place watching Terzian depart on some campaign or another. One time, Terzian had not come back. Do not think that, Cobweb told himself. Don't risk making it real.

He went back into the house and found the Kamagrian housekeeper, Bryony, in the hallway. 'The staff are worried,' she said. 'Nohar will tell us anything.'

'Bring all of them to the kitchens,' Cobweb said. 'I'll speak to them. Send somehar to fetch Snake Jaguar and to find Tyson.'

Bryony went at once to do so.

For some moments, Cobweb stood alone in the hall, his head in his hands. His heart was pounding painfully fast, his breath was shallow. This was an ordinary day. Nothing was different. And yet everything was.

The messenger from Amber Ridge had insisted on joining Swift's forces, so Cobweb had to relate the story to his staff in his own words, as best as he could remember. His vision was filled with a blurry sea of round, panicked eyes. He tried to keep his voice level, to instill confidence. While he spoke, pans containing vegetables for dinner bubbled on the stove. Life went on, it always would. Forever lived up to its name. Whatever happened at Amber Ridge was a glitch, a mistake. Other hara might have died, but Galhea was safe. Still, it appeared the staff did not share this view. Cobweb could smell the heat of their fear. He realised, for perhaps the first time in his life, what the responsibility of being a leader of hara really involved. He could not betray weakness or anxiety. If those feelings chose to gnaw away at the certainty everything would be all right, he had to be his own consoler. Those who stared at him wanted to believe he could protect them. It was the job of the House of Parasiel. It was why they lived in this big house, why they were respected and obeyed.

Once Cobweb had finished relating what he knew, Bryony said, 'This is ridiculous! Ponclast and his butchers are no match for the Parsic forces. What are they thinking of? The Gelaming put them in Gebaddon, it'll be easy to put them back.'

Some heads nodded in agreement around her, but Cobweb could tell that most of them harbored a superst.i.tious fear. Perhaps, like him, they had begun to question just how fair it had been to fling the Varrs into Gebaddon in the first place, and how a har's mistakes might come back to haunt him later, once everything was forgotten, and life was deceptively rosy.

Once Snake arrived at the house, he and Cobweb worked together on a newer, more potent, shield of protection. Cobweb was slightly shocked how much energy Snake demanded they pour into it. It felt to him as if his life energy were being drawn from his body. All that they were, they poured into a shield for others. It left them depleted, and Cobweb had never experienced that before with Snake. Both of them fell asleep exhausted on the floor of Cobweb's trance room.

Some hours later, Cobweb was awoken by what he thought at first was the crash and rumble of an electrical storm. He was fully alert at once and sat up. The room was in darkness, but flashing light from outside sporadically filled it. He got to his feet and went to the window. He could see with his physical eyes a dome of silver white radiance over the town, which was unusual to say the least. He realised this was only possible because something was striking the shield. It was not the shield he saw, but the hostile energy splashing against it.

'Snake!' he cried.

Snake was beside him in an instant, moving more quickly than Cobweb had believed him capable of. 'It comes,' he said. 'We must reinforce the shield.'

'We need more strength. We need others,' Cobweb said desperately. His own energy reserves were so depleted there would be little he could do to sustain their defenses.

'Then go and find them!' Snake ordered. 'Hurry!' He winced and gripped his chest.

'Snake...' Cobweb reached out a hand in concern, but Snake backed away from him.

'Do it!' he growled. 'Go at once.'

Cobweb ran out of the room. The only resources he possessed were the household staff, who were untrained and of low caste. He ran into Tyson on the stairs.

'I was coming for you,' Tyson said. 'We're under attack.'

'I can see that, Tyson,' Cobweb answered sharply. 'Where is Ithiel?'

'He was here earlier but went into town when the show started.'

'Is Ferany with us?'

'No.'

'Then fetch him immediately. I need both him and you to help me. You're no great magus, Tyson, but you're going to have to learn very quickly.'

'What?'

'Find Ferany. Quickly. Bring him to my trance room. But if you can't find him at home, return here without him. We have no time.'

Tyson left the house, while Cobweb went to the staff quarters where he found Bryony and Yarrow, the cook, attempting to keep their anxious hara under control. 'I need those of you with any psychic ability whatsoever to come with me,' Cobweb said.

They all stared at him speechless.

Cobweb sighed. He could see they were all senseless with fear. 'Yarrow, you,' he ordered. 'And pick whoever else you think can help.'

He turned to Bryony. 'I must ask this of you. Your Kamagrian essence may be of great help.'

Bryony nodded and sighed, her face set in an uncertain smile. 'I always meant to start... training. I should have done. I really should. But I'll do what I can.'

'That is all I ask,' Cobweb said. 'Come to my trance room. We have to feed the shield with our energy. Put fear aside. Focus on this task. It is all that matters.'

Cobweb didn't wait to see how Bryony and Yarrow dealt with the staff. He went back into the family area of the house, unsure of what to do next. He had an intense urge for search for something, but he didn't know what. It was as if he'd forgotten something vital, something he'd meant to do that had slipped his mind. He went from room to room, reinforcing the protection glyphs at the windows and doors and hearths. Outside the night was alive with light. It was beautiful to behold. He was almost compelled simply to stand and watch it. Bewitching. Nothing had ever touched Galhea, not even in the days when Terzian had waged war wherever he could. Galhea had always been the safely protected heart. How would Terzian deal with this if he were still here? And where was Swift? Why hadn't he returned? Amber Ridge was not that far away. Had he been lured from home so that it could be attacked in his absence?

Cobweb pushed his fearful thoughts away. He could not dwell on them. The danger was immediate. He had been brought to Forever simply to be a hostling, to give Terzian sons. He had become a domestic leader in the house, but now he knew he had to become more than that. He had to remember who he was, how he had once been wild and warlike himself. So long ago. Too dim to remember. The woman in him had slipped one night into the chamber of the warrior and had slit his throat as he slept.

'This is not my job,' Cobweb said aloud. 'Aghama, Thiede, help us. I cannot do this.'

He put his hands against his face, pressed hard. It seemed a strange, soothing atmosphere came into the room. The deafening crackle of energy from outside became muted.

'Do you hear me?' Cobweb said. 'Thiede, are you there? Tell me what to do. Give me strength. Come back to us. I am not the har for this task.'

There was a moment's silence, and then a soft voice behind him said, 'You are.'

Cobweb turned round so quickly, he stumbled. He did not really expect to see Thiede standing there, but neither did he expect to see the har who now came toward him from the darkness of the room: a tall har with white-gold hair.

'Cal...' Cobweb's initial reaction was to be flooded with a feeling of relief so intense he nearly lost his senses. Acting on impulse he threw himself against the har before him, gripped his clothes. 'Don't vanish. Don't you dare vanish!'

'I am here,' Cal said. 'I'm no illusion.'

'You heard me. You have come to help.'

'I have come to help,' Cal said gently. 'Let me go. You've grabbed flesh as well as cloth.'

'How...?'

Cal shook his head. 'Now is not the time to explain. It would take too long.'

Cobweb released his grip. 'Ponclast's Varrs have escaped Gebaddon. They are attacking us. Swift is gone, with many of our forces. Seel is in Imbrilim. Azriel and Aleeme have been taken. The shield is foundering. Snake and I... we are.... Do you know what I'm talking about?'

'I know you are under attack and that your defenses are weakening. I know we can ensure the shield will hold for this night. That's all we must think about.'

Cobweb nodded silently, then said, 'I don't know why, but I'm not surprised to see you.'

'We must start work,' Cal said.

'Come to my trance room,' Cobweb said. 'Pell's brother is there. Not Terez. Dorado. He is called Snake now. He is powerful, but drained, as I am. We made the shield.'

'I know. Lead on. I am anything but drained.'

Cal didn't say anything more as Cobweb led him to the upper part of the house. It was hard to believe it could really be him, and not some supernatural manifestation. Too many questions and no time to ask them. Be thankful for what you are given. Take it and be glad.

By the time they reached the trance room, Yarrow and Bryony had already taken a number of the staff there and Tyson and Ferany were also present. The expression on Tyson's face when Cal came into the room would remain with Cobweb forever. It was comical, but in that situation there was no s.p.a.ce for humour. Cobweb wondered whether this was difficult for Cal, whether he cared.

'We have unexpected aid,' he said lightly. 'Most of you know Cal, of course.' He gestured toward Snake. 'Cal, this is Pell's brother.'

'We have met,' Snake said in an enigmatic tone.

Cal merely inclined his head. 'Well, let's get started. It might well be a long night.'

As the group composed themselves in a circle, Cobweb was amused by the way they arranged themselves, how Snake and Tyson chose places far from Cal's hands and how Ferany made a point of sitting next to him. Cobweb sat on Cal's other side and the whole group joined hands. Cobweb led them into a trance state, all the while conscious of the familiar yet strange energy that coursed into him through Cal's warm dry fingers. It was as if he had left Forever only yesterday. For a while, secretly, Cobweb had believed Cal could be a second Terzian for him. They had experienced an intense and complicated relationship while he'd lived in Galhea. Now, it was difficult not to remember those times. Cobweb was also aware he was doing little to guard his thoughts. If Cal picked up on them, he gave no sign, but then he was used to hara being in love with him. For Cal, it was a life hazard. His devotees in Forever formed an exclusive club, but few of them had any idea Cobweb was part of it.

One of many, Cobweb thought, and because he did not like to be such a thing, he curbed his fond recollections. His companions were ready to project their energy toward the shield. That was the only consideration.

Cal's presence was like an amplifier. Cobweb was sure that none present found it difficult to project their intention with power and authority. Cal's strength filled them all. He had been changed, but by what or who? Where had he been all this time?

In his mind, Cobweb visualised the energy dome around Galhea becoming hard as steel, hard as diamond. Whatever struck it would be sent back to whoever hurled it in their direction. Take it back, Cobweb thought, and be aware we will fight you with equal strength.

An hour or so before dawn, the attack subsided. Cobweb sensed this and picked up a brief mind touch from Snake. End it now. Cobweb's low voice called to his companions, bringing them back to normal consciousness. Their work was over. Far from being exhausted the group felt strangely exhilarated. They all commented on it. Those with little experience were overwhelmed by what they had achieved. The atmosphere in the room was one of celebration and triumph.

Yarrow was the first on his feet. 'Breakfast,' he said, and gestured at some of his staff. 'We all need a good meal.'

'We'll be down shortly,' Cobweb said. 'Thank you, all of you, for being here. Galhea has much to thank you for.'

'What would have happened if the shield had been breached?' Bryony asked. Now it was safe, she obviously felt comfortable asking the question.

'I don't know,' Cobweb answered, 'but can only imagine it would have been something like what happened at Amber Ridge. Unseen a.s.sailants?' He shrugged. 'It doesn't matter. We held them off.' He paused. 'Now we have family business to deal with. I'll see you all later.'

The staff filed from the room quickly, and Snake also got to his feet. Cobweb was concerned because of all of them, he seemed the most unsteady. 'You don't have to go,' he said.

'I would prefer to,' Snake answered.

Tension came into the atmosphere. Cobweb let him go, leaving only Tyson, Ferany, Cal and himself behind.

'Do you want me to go also?' Ferany asked.

Tyson shrugged as if he didn't care either way. He was staring at Cal. 'Did you come to me last year? I thought I saw you.'

'I was thinking of you,' Cal said carefully. It was clear he had no idea how to relate to Tyson. Perhaps this was because of all the hara in the world, Tyson was the only one that Cal couldn't use arunic wiles on. 'It's like looking in a mirror. I'd know you anywhere,' he said. 'You've turned out well.'

Cobweb winced inside.

'I have spent my whole life so far convincing hara I'm not you,' Tyson said, but he didn't sound bitter. 'Looking at you now I wonder why I bothered.'

Cal laughed. 'It amuses me to think of Seel having to see you every day. I'm grateful to you for that. I have remembered many things.'

'Like what?' Tyson asked.

Cal shook his head. 'Details. Not important. Well, now we have met again and I'm relieved to discover you're not some screwed up ball of resentment ready to go for my throat. Pellaz bullied me about us meeting, you know, and frankly I was terrified of it. I'm quite aware I'm not exactly a model parent.'

'I never resented you leaving me,' Tyson said. 'That's the truth. I'm too like you not to understand.'

'Does Pell know you're back?' Cobweb asked quickly before Cal could respond.

'No, not yet,' Cal said and there was a guardedness in his tone that made Cobweb uneasy.