Dreams of Darkness Rising (53 page)

After a minute of silence the baron glanced up again and looked perturbed that Aldred remained.

“What were you doing down in the Barrowlands anyway? Was the night in that black mage’s den not enough excitement for you?”

“I—I was looking for an old friend from Thetoria City. No-one you’d know I’m certain.”

“It’s a fell day when goblins are so far from the borders and bold enough to ambush armed Thetorians. Benrich has clearly let it slip. I always thought they cut off the wrong brother’s head.

“Well, whilst you were looking up old friends, your little partner Korianson has been busy.”

A tingle of apprehension ran through Aldred. He had left Livor looking into the mysterious death of Smithson’s daughter. Another secret he kept from his father. Was that where he lived now—a castle of deceptions?

“Oh, really? Anything of importance?” Aldred asked.

“It seems that the Spring Fayre and its maidens were not enough for his appetite,” the baron said. “He organises an impromptu dance in the village for the Spring Maidens, in honour of the dead girl.”

Aldred shrugged and his father returned to his papers. After another minute, the baron slammed down his quill. “Aldred, I’m too busy to be entertaining your little sulks. Go play with your minstrel. I have taxes to harvest and murderers to find. If there’s nothing else?”

Aldred shook his head and wandered to the door. He paused as he pushed it open.

“Father, the knight in the dungeons, can I see him?”

The room chilled palpably behind him. “I see no reason why you should hear his poisoned words. No, Aldred, you may not. Now leave me.”

Aldred stalked out of the study shaking his head and stomped down the hall. He took the staircase that descended to the dining hall.

The fever had altered his father. Bad temper was nothing new: the baron had been that way since Aldred’s mother died. Yet before the mood was driven with a kind of weariness, of gloom and of irritation, as if he was lashing out from the pain locked inside him. Now it was different. It was as if the baron enjoyed being mean and vindictive. It was as if he took pleasure in cruelty.

Aldred paused on the staircase feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the events he was embroiled in. One thing was definite: he had to get out of this castle and its lands sometime soon.

***

The dining room was a substitute for the Great Hall, which was currently under repair from fire damage on the night of the Feast of Blood. An old table had been dragged from some cobweb clogged corner and given a new lease of life.

The mood was light as Aldred entered. Ekris had evidently spent his time entertaining the serving girls with japes and jests because their faces were reddened from laughter. They all stood stiffly when Aldred entered. He slumped onto a seat and the servants began placing dishes on the table.

Ekris was dressed in a red and gold doublet with a floppy cap very much the fashion amongst the artisans of Thetoria.

“Is the baron indisposed, m’lord?”

“My father is in a fickle mood of late. He has just recovered from a fever and seems inclined to work in his study most nights.”

“We are night owls then, he and I,” Ekris said. “The silky darkness of the night nourishes all my most extravagant ideas that fade like a lover’s promises in the heat of the day.”

“And what plans have you now, Ekris? You are more than welcome to indulge my father’s indirect hospitality for as long as the fancy takes you.”

Ekris made a bowing motion with his head. “As ever you humble a simple thespian. I shall not be as the boor in Deradov’s epic tragedy Voltag’s Doom and outstay my welcome. No, m’lord, I plan to saunter to the town of Eviksburg and sample its pleasures for a number of days before I recommence my travels.”

“Good idea. Tell me though, how did you come to be on the road to Weaver’s Beck? And if it’s not too presumptuous of me to ask how does a wandering actor fight like you do?”

“My troupe finished in Silverton a week ago, albeit prematurely. I rode ahead of my fellow players intending to use my time to contact an old acting friend near Weaver’s Beck. Yet with the events that then transpired I thought it my duty to accompany you back to Blackstone Castle.”

“And your skill with the sword?”

“I was raised in the warrens of stormy Kir on the north coast of Azagunta, m’lord. One fought daily for survival in the Barnacle.”

Aldred nodded and gestured for the servants to bring the next course of basted goose and sweet potato. The Azaguntan seemed genuine but a nagging doubt still played inside him. There were layers beneath layers in this man.

“Forgive my queries. I could sorely use some of your technique in battle,” Aldred said.

“Maybe I will have the honour of tutoring you one day then, m’lord?” Ekris said, with a mouth full of goose. “Or perhaps lessons in the art of pretence and acting? As an aside I note that the castle is fond of Azaguntans. I can not think that I have ever seen so many outside of the glum isle.”

“You’re very observant. They were brought in over the last few years by our deceased advisor Quigor. I’m afraid he proved to be...a poor representative of your nation.”

“In the great Eerian tragedy Historica Imperius, Holden writes of the Azaguntans ‘A race born from the dust with a soul of stone.’ I’ve often added ‘and a heart of opal.’”

Aldred’s hand trembled abruptly at the mention of the opal. The goblin bandit had spoke of Ligor. It had occurred to him that it was one of the names that Quigor’s master had said.

“How came Quigor to be in this corner of fair Thetoria?”

“My father’s cousin, Argas Enfarson, had sent him, though Argas lives in Artoria somewhere so I am unclear how.”

 “A mystery befitting of the most epic yarn. I have long had a hankering for the journey to Keresh, to learn the dance-theatre of the legendary Glazan Players. I shall be sure to convey your disappointment to your noble cuz.”

Aldred smiled and, as Ekris proceeded to witter almost non-stop about the variety of theatre he had been trained in, Aldred’s mind drifted. There was a pattern to all these threads: Quigor, Hunor, the knight, magical opals and the creature that slew the maiden. And Poris’s omen: was this all somehow predestined?

A dessert of Feldorian sugarcake and another bottle of Nulorian White arrived at the table. Well the knight was off limits for the moment. Perhaps a simple start would be to read Poris’s omen and Aldred resolved to find a copy of the Nine Sacred Scrolls that evening.

***

It proved a futile search through the castle. Perhaps it was the influx of godless Azaguntans into his home or perhaps it had been a product of the fire that had ruined the castle’s shrine as it had the Great Hall, but Aldred could not find one copy of the Nine Sacred Scrolls.

He was struck with inspiration as he stood sulking atop the battlements, watching the mists gather. The collection of cottages in the bailey below Garan’s Motte had a chapel for the small folk.

Aldred descended to the courtyard. In the light of the red moon he could see guards chatting whilst the stableboys brushed the horses. With a smile he noticed Hinkir the stable boy, now a hulking lad of fifteen, mumbling to a pair of scullery girls. An old woman was drawing water from the deep well close to the steps that lead to the main castle.

He passed the bored looking soldier at the gatehouse. Another bloody Azaguntan, he griped, as he walked down the steep road that ran down Garan’s Motte.

The night was cool and the mist was thick over the grass of the bailey. The clamour of the castle behind him was fading and the road to the outer gatehouse was quiet. The walk seemed to take longer than normal in the fog. Aldred began to get a strange sense he was not alone in the night.

He turned and scanned the road back to the castle but it was empty.

He continued towards the collection of cottages scowling at his own nerves. His heart was quickening, his breathing loud in the gloom.

He paused again and turned. There was definitely something near him.

“Hello? Hello? Is there someone here?” he called. His voice was dampened by the grey air.

There was only silence.

Aldred felt a sudden urge to void. Damn his stupid imagination and damn that bloody wine. Livor would laugh himself senseless if he knew of this.

Aldred ran to the cottages, his mouth dry and sticky. Sounds of warmth and laughter came from within their wattle and daub structures. The noise was like nectar to Aldred’s senses. He moved swiftly along the road and to the wooden chapel. Its roof was crested by the sign of the sun, silhouetted against the faint red of the Pyrian moon.

Aldred entered the foyer, clutched the wall and tried to gain control of his breathing. After a minute he moved through into the nave. The benches were arranged for the next day’s service, with an occasional hymn book for those skilled in letters. At the chancel, before the altar, Aldred could see the kneeling form of Pastor Pritir. He was crying.

“Pastor?” Aldred said, his voice echoing in the empty chapel.

Pritir nearly fell over at the sound of Aldred’s voice. One of the two flaming braziers that stood either side of the chancel wobbled as he scrambled to his feet. He squinted, drying his face with the sleeve of his golden robe.

“Lord Enfarson? What is it? Why—why are you here?”

Aldred looked a bit embarrassed at the priest’s astonishment. He wasn’t that reticent a worshipper of Mortis was he?

“Would you believe I just couldn’t find a copy of the Nine? May I please have one to read?” Aldred asked.

The old priest shuffled to the bookcase on the east wall, lifted down a gold book and passed it to him.

“Pastor, are you alright?”

“No, my child, I fear none of us are. I weep for the weakness in my faith that has allowed such evil to breed at my doorstep.”

“We were all taken in by Quigor, Pastor. My father included.”

“I am the chosen of Mortis on this soil. Let all who serve me guard well against the serpent in the nest, it is written in the Book of Hirid. I have permitted the serpent to multiply and the good folk now endure its bite. Excuse me, I must return to prayer and penance. Kindly put the book back on the shelf when you are done.”

Aldred nodded and took a seat in the back corner of the nave. The light from the braziers was poor and he sat partly in shadow but he felt so uncomfortable near the wretched priest that he accepted this.

The lament of the pastor was the only noise in the chapel. Aldred began leafing through the book. The ink was smudged from years of thumbing and Aldred thought transiently of Livor and his printing press as he located the sixth book, the Book of Graen.

He patiently scanned the pages, trying to drag his sparse theological learnings from his drink dampened mind. He finally located the passage he required, the letter of Graen to Arcox of Birin, on omens and signs from the Father.

The voice came unto my mind as if the calls of the Hergada, those who ride at the right arm of the Father. And the voice spoke of five signs and five signs there were in my minds eye. Five portents of doom. Five to match the elder gods, the second born. Five to match the Younger Gods and five to represent the quintet of the Pale.

And the first of these five shall be the omen of blood. It shall pour like a widow’s tears. And those that crave the water of life shall rise in its wake. Vampyrs, men call them and their fell Lords the Ghasts, minions of Nekra, abhorred child of the Mother Miria, whose domain is Time. And the dead shall stir in their graves.

And the second shall be the omen of ice. From the skies of the summer day it shall pour…

Aldred stopped reading, the hairs of his neck rising. Vampyrs and Ghasts? Surely they were just fairytales to scare errant children? Like the Barrowlands and dark wizards? Like the ghosts of dead parents. No, it was only too real. He began shivering as terror seeped like damp into him. Something was wrong: the priest had stopped praying.

A huge shape padded into the chancel, its eyes burning a flaming red. It stood perhaps the size of a small pony with thick black fur that seemed to devour all the light near it. For an instant Aldred thought it some enormous wolf but as it turned its face towards the terrified priest he saw the canine features were strangely human. Its wide mouth was packed with long knife-like teeth and the fire of the brazier tinted the tendrils of fetid drool a golden colour.

Aldred was frozen to the spot with fear. This was no opponent he could battle. He had no sword to even try. He shook as the beast approached the priest, who seemed miniscule before it.

Then it spoke.

“Your time of deliverance has come, priest.”

“May Mortis curse you for entering his house, hound of the Pale,” the priest said, quaking.

“And Nekra relish in your screams for all eternity. Your faith is weak, old man.”

The priest bolted but the beast was upon him. In a blur it sank its wicked teeth into his body and he screamed as it shook him like a doll. Blood spattered across the altar and stone floor.

Aldred felt sick with fear yet in an instant knew he could not leave the pastor to die this way. He leapt to his feet and charged down the nave towards the beast. It looked up as he kicked the flaming brazier over onto it. The hot coals spilled across its black fur and it roared in pain. Smoke erupted from the old cloths that adorned the blood soaked altar.

Aldred grabbed the pastor but with dismay realised he was dead, a look of agony transfixed on what remained of his head.

The beast struck him with a crash and he hit the bloodied stone hard. He tried to scrabble from under the bulk of the huge monster. Aldred could feel its hot breath on his neck. He could feel his bladder empty as the monster pressed down.

Then it stopped.

Smoke was pouring from the blazing cloths and he could hear shouts from outside. The creature whispered in his ear as he spluttered and choked.

“Never challenge me again, boy. I have little mercy within me.”

Aldred sobbed as he laid face down, smoke clawing at his throat. The weight of the beast was gone. He rolled over and saw the flames writhing up the wooden walls of the shrine. The orange glow looked ghastly on the half eaten face of Pastor Pritir.