Destiny's Rift (Broken Well Trilogy) (13 page)

‘You can set yourself up well,’ said Fahren, ‘as a deciding factor in this war. Leave no one in any doubt of your worthiness to rule.’

‘Yes,’ said Thedd. ‘Yes, wise words.’

Fahren held out his hand. ‘Then let us make this pact, to achieve the end we both want. Let us proceed in friendship and be stronger for it.’

Thedd took the offered hand and put some strength into his shake. ‘I thank you for sharing your plans,’ he said. ‘You will not find your faith in me misplaced.’

‘And now, I beg, make haste, for there is much to be done. Perhaps your mages can add some swiftness to your journey?’

‘I imagine they are up to the challenge.’ Thedd glanced behind him. ‘And perhaps I will replace my carriage with something swifter at the next town.’

Fahren nodded. ‘An excellent idea.’

‘Very well,’ said Thedd. ‘Then I will away . . . unless there is anything more?’

‘That is enough for now,’ said Fahren. ‘You have plenty of your own plans to make, I’m sure.’

‘Yes,’ said Thedd, and bowed. ‘Thank you, Throne. I will send word when I have arrived home.’ He turned and strode back to his entourage a happier man. ‘Come on, everyone! We have some leagues to chew!’

He swung up into his carriage without any help, and Fahren nodded and smiled to him as they drove away.

Silly man
, he thought sadly.
Does he not realise how crucial such a time of rebuilding would be, what responsibility it would demand? The world is not a playground, and a selfish Throne will ill serve it. To have laboured so long to achieve such an end only to give it over to the likes of Thedd would be like leaving well-earned valuables in the protection of a thief.

Still, angering Thedd in such a future, when Fahren’s promises turned out to be lies, was a small price to pay if it helped them get there.

Glumly, Fahren made his way back to his guards. One way or another, he feared the glint of gold on his forehead would be with him forever.

Sideways Thinking

Sideways Thinking

Sideways Thinking

Even though Gellan kept his ward shining brightly, Fazel raised no defence in return.

‘Explain yourself, abomination,’ said Gellan.

Somehow Fazel made his look to Gellan withering. ‘No need for name-calling,’ he said. Then he gestured at Bel.

‘Keep your hands down,’ said Gellan, ‘if you know what’s good for you.’ A spurt of flame appeared at his fingers.

Fazel lowered his hand. ‘As you wish. But I’ve no immediate intention of attacking you further.’

‘Why?’ said Bel.

Fazel’s empty eyes moved to Bel. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Just look at you, all grown up strong. How time flies.’ He gave a humourless gibber, then cocked his head slightly. ‘It seems you share something of the connection.’

‘What do you
mean
?’ said Bel impatiently. ‘Be clear!’

Fazel stiffened. ‘As you command. You may know that I am a slave to whomever’s soul is bound to Skygrip Castle. I’ve had no tidings for a while, but could it be that Battu is toppled from power?’

‘Indeed,’ said Bel. ‘My counterpart now rules Fenvarrow.’

‘That would explain it. Tell me, if you crack your sword in half, do you have two swords, or the broken pieces of one?’

‘A broken sword,’ said Bel slowly.

‘You and Losara, broken as you may be, are pieces of the same soul. A soul that is now bound to Skygrip Castle. Thus when you shouted at me to stop, I was compelled to obey.’

Bel shifted his feet uneasily. A part of him was connected to Skygrip through his
other
?

‘Well,’ said Gellan, suddenly jolly, ‘this is a stroke of luck! Or fate, perhaps.’

‘I’m going to check on M’Meska,’ announced Hiza, in a tone that seemed to chide everyone else for failing to think of it.

‘Yes!’ said Gellan. ‘She may need healing. Come, all, let us head back. Bel, if you wouldn’t mind asking Fazel to join us?’

‘What?’ said Bel. ‘Oh.’ He wiped blood from his eyes. ‘Yes.’

Bel was about to command Fazel to heel like a dog, when he remembered that the undead mage had once been a great man of the light, and had not chosen willingly to serve Fenvarrow.

‘Fazel,’ he said, ‘would you please accompany us?’

Fazel nodded.

•

M’Meska sat on a rock, scowling as only a lizard could, as Gellan wafted his hands over various bumps and bruises. Bel suspected her grouchiness was more about missing the fight than actual pain. Nevertheless, Gellan did not want her moving again that day.

While Hiza busied himself setting up camp, Bel and Jaya waited for Gellan to look at their wounds. Bel found it hard to take his eyes off Fazel, who had been standing motionless in the same place since they’d arrived. While Bel hadn’t exactly expected him to kick up his heels, the effect was somewhat eerie.

‘Is that bothering you?’ he murmured to Jaya.

‘What?’

‘Fazel standing there, just . . . staring at us.’

‘Oh,’ said Jaya, and considered the undead mage. ‘No, not really.’

‘Maybe he’s waiting for an order,’ wondered Bel and raised his voice. ‘Fazel – can you help Hiza gather firewood?’

Fazel nodded. The mage seemed, strangely, almost pleased with the task, although it was hard to tell for sure. He stalked over to Hiza, who was collecting branches beneath trees. He looked perturbed to be joined by such a companion in his menial endeavours.

‘Does he disturb
you
?’ Jaya said quietly. ‘I know a worried warrior when I see one.’

Bel shook his head. ‘What disturbs me is this . . . connection . . . I apparently share with Losara. I keep imagining a thin strand of myself running away over a great distance, all the way to Skygrip.’ He frowned. ‘A shadowy strand it is too. As if the worm left a trail when it crawled away.’

‘Well,’ said Jaya, ‘whatever it is, it’s fortunate for us, else we wouldn’t have Fazel. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but . . . it was enough when I realised that Losara’s life is tied to my own. And now this.’ He turned to her. ‘Not seeing some slick of shadows under my skin, I hope?’

‘Would it matter?’ she said, sounding more contemplative than reassuring.

‘All right,’ called Gellan, waving them over, ‘let’s smooth out that riddled skin of yours.’

As evening set in, they gathered around the fire. Fazel sat at the edge against the darkness, his black skull gleaming in the flickering light.

‘I take it you don’t eat?’ said Hiza, tearing a leg of rabbit from the spit.

‘No.’

‘Now,’ said Bel, ‘you must tell us – how is it that you come to be here? Do you know where the Stone of Evenings Mild is?’

‘I do,’ said Fazel.

‘Do you have it with you?’

‘No.’

‘Where is it, then?’

‘In a dragon’s lair.’

Bel almost choked on his food. ‘What?’

‘Perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves,’ said Gellan. ‘Should we not simply ask Fazel what happened to him after the fight in Whisperwood?’

Bel pulled the bone from his mouth and tossed it away. ‘Good suggestion,’ he said. ‘Fazel?’

‘As you wish,’ said Fazel. He sketched at the ground with a bony finger, choosing where to begin.

•

Well did he remember the horror he’d felt at being pulled back together in the dust. Despite his being little more than ash and bones, the enchantment tying him to ‘life’, for want of a better word, had held strong.
Oh no
, he remembered thinking, over and over.
Oh no, oh no
, an eddy of troubled awareness swirling around burnt remains.

‘I came back not long after the fight ended,’ he said. ‘Arisen from the ashes as the thing you see before you. I do not think that anyone, even me, expected such resilience. Battu certainly didn’t, and must have believed me dead ever after, otherwise he would have willed my return.’

Stupid indeed of Battu
, Fazel thought. Just because the bug-eye that had connected his sight to Fazel’s had been destroyed, Battu had assumed that the mage too had perished. Fazel, for his part, had never ceased worrying that a Battu-shaped shadow was going to billow out of the rocks and compel him ‘home’.

‘As it was,’ he continued, ‘I still had my orders from Battu, to find and retrieve the blue-haired boy. They were orders that had become nigh on impossible to fulfill, for the boy had been split in two and taken to opposite ends of the earth. One part, gone to the shadow, was accounted for, but the other was away in the Open Halls. Without a clear way forward, I was able to think, shall we say . . .
sideways
about my task.

‘I could not return to Fenvarrow, for I had neither succeeded nor failed. I did not journey towards the Halls, for I’d be captured within minutes of crossing the wards, and how would that serve my aim? Besides all that, I was supposed to retrieve the blue-haired
boy
, not
boys
, which confused the matter even further. The only thing I could imagine in the world that would make it possible to put the two boys back together, and thus complete my orders, was –’

‘The Stone of Evenings Mild,’ said Bel.

‘Yes. I had an idea that’s what the pendant I saw around your neck might be, and certainly I knew it was responsible for whatever had happened to you. Thus I hunted for it and found it quickly enough where it had fallen amongst the trees. Immediately I felt the wood . . . well,
worrying
at me is the best way I can put it. There are souls in that place, not gone to either Well, and another presence too, which did not like me taking the Stone. They were too depleted from the battle to concern me overmuch, but nonetheless it became my priority to protect the Stone from them . . . and indeed protect it from any who may covet it for purposes not in line with my mission –
even Battu.
’

That had been a good bit of sideways thinking, he’d always thought.

‘I left Whisperwood via the Nyul’ya river, which kept me safe for many leagues. By walking below the surface, I was able to avoid detection, and for a long time I strode slowly on, day and night, against the current. I might have been years down there, yet I was still in line with my task. I reached the Great Rass and the going became even more ponderous, for the river flows so strongly. All that time submerged gave me ample opportunity to think, and think sideways, about what I must do and where I should go.

‘I remembered a mission I’d had years ago. Battu was ever obsessed with sending out bug-eyes to increase his network of unknowing spies. He was bored, I suspect, and in need of purpose, for he was not allowed to attack Kainordas . . . he never told me why, but I caught a flicker of it once in a stray thought of his. At any rate, bereft of greater designs, Battu concentrated on seeing as much of Kainordas as he could though his bug-eyes.

‘Somehow he heard that a dragon, called Shebazaruka, had made her lair in the far eastern foothills of the Arkus Heights and was heavy with child. A rare thing indeed, for there are few dragons in the world since the breaking, and they do not often stray from their territory to meet others and mate.

‘Battu started thinking – a dragon would fly high and see much of the land. Imagine if he could get a bug-eye into one! There was no way the parasite could take hold in a fully grown dragon, but if he could get one into a baby, perhaps it would grow with its host.’

‘By Arkus,’ murmured Gellan. ‘What an appalling idea.’

‘I agree,’ said Fazel. ‘At any rate, Battu ordered the First Slave Tyrellan and I to journey into Kainordas and find Shebazaruka. We travelled up the eastern coast, accompanied by enough Arabodedas to carry a crate of bug-eyes and a golden statue, which was part of Battu’s cunning plan. I kept us heavily disguised, of course, and we went by rough, untravelled ways whenever we could.

‘Tyrellan wasn’t happy – although he’d never speak openly against Battu, he knew there was a madness to our mission. It was so overly grandiose, and with what reward? A view of treetops for Battu in some remote part of the world? For myself, I was glad to be back in my own lands, on a mission that brought no direct harm to those I still consider to be my people.

‘Weeks later we drew close to Shebazaruka’s lair. We left the carriers and the statue, and took the bug-eyes into the woods that run along the foothills. Soon we came upon an area that had been burnt clear, around a large cave mouth in the mountainside. We left the crate of eyes in the woods and went out from the trees, calling to the dragon. Well, she came, and was none too happy, either, to see strangers so close with her newborn in the cave. She would most certainly have attacked us, but Tyrellan shouted out that we’d brought a gift of gold, and that curbed her fury. Greedy things dragons are: to them treasure means more than the safety of a child.

‘Why, she wanted to know, did we bring her gold? We said it was in offering, like the days of old. We told her it was back along our trail, and she asked why we hadn’t brought it to her. We said we’d had to scour the mountain for many days to find her, and meanwhile left the heavy statue under guard to hasten our search. At the word heavy, the glint of desire in her eye became a lantern, blinding her to all else.’ Fazel sighed. ‘How can great creatures be so shallow? You’d think a thing so long lived would grow wise.’

‘So what happened next?’ said Bel.

‘Shebazaruka demanded that we take her to the treasure. We offered to get it and bring it to her, but now she would not let us out of her sight. This was, of course, exactly what we wanted, to lure her away from her child so the bug-eyes could do their work.

‘She sniffed the air and declared that no one else was around – that was her only concession to assuring her offspring’s safety. She would not stoop to letting us ride on her back, and so we all walked together, a strange sight indeed. As we departed the area, I sent a spell sneaking into the trees to unclasp the lid of the crate and set the bug-eyes free. There were many of them, and we had little doubt that one would find the dragon child.

‘Meanwhile the three of us travelled in a wide circle around the woods. We eventually found the place where the Arabodedas waited with the statue and presented it to Shebazaruka. She was most pleased, crowing and cackling over her new prize. She did not thank us, but gripped the statue in her claws and took flight, knocking us to the ground with her wind. I almost did not pity her for the trick we had pulled so easily.

‘When we returned to Skygrip we found Battu cheerful, for a bug-eye was indeed working perfectly in the child, and the mother did not suspect a thing. Not long after, however, the eye failed. Battu was angry, but I think by then he had grown to realise that there wasn’t much to be gained from spying on mountainside and wood. It did not take long for him to forget it altogether.

‘And so, as I plodded along against the swirling currents of the Rass, my rib cage now home to a companion eel or two, I decided it was time to bestow another gift upon Shebazaruka. Even if Battu later found me, and forced me to tell him where I had hidden the Stone, it would not be an easy thing for him, or anyone, to retrieve it. A dragon’s lair is about as safe a place as any in which to store precious things. I would even be protecting it from my future self, in case I received new orders.

‘So, as the Rass thundered up into the Heights, I said goodbye to my eels and finally crawled out somewhere not so far from here. To eastern Dennali I went, once again looking for Shebazaruka’s lair. I was not sure whether to present the Stone to her as a gift, as before, for it was not as shiny as a gold statue and perhaps would not pique her interest. My other thought was to try to sneak it into her cave without her knowing. As it turns out, neither of those plans was ever necessary.

‘I was about a day from the lair, moving along a ridge, when a dragon descended upon me. I had not meant to be seen, but dragons are excellent at spotting trespassers in their territory. I was not concerned – either I would give Shebazaruka the Stone, or she would destroy me, and I would be gladdened either way.’

‘Unless,’ said Gellan, ‘you simply came back again.’