OrbSoul (Book 6) (28 page)

   His fading eyes found hers again, the tendons of his throat working to produce words.
'Because.'

   Fectur coughed, then, 'Aah, it is done.'

   A sudden rush of blood poured from his mouth. His body twitched, his grey eyes closing, and he lay still.

   Issul stepped back, pushing her damp hair back from her face. 'Thank you, Pader.'

   'It was nothing.' Pader gazed down at the Lord High Invigilate, and shook his head, a tear glistening on his cheek. 'He looks almost beatific.'

   It was true. In death the tension had gone from Fectur's face. His brow was clear and there was a small, near-serene smile on his pallid lips, as though he had at last visited a place where he found no conflict, which he did not wish to leave.

   Issul wiped the back of her hand across her brow. Bone-weary, she crossed the grotto and retrieved her shortsword, then turned towards the iron door.  

    A soft, scrabbling sound came from overhead. She half-glimpsed a movement. Instinctively she darted sidewards as she glanced up. Above
her a diminutive figure clung to a stalactite, peering down with glowing green eyes.

   'Hello, Aunt Issul.'

   Lir had changed. Still recognizable as the child Issul had last seen before setting out on her return to Enchantment, only three weeks or so earlier, yet Lir's features, the form of her body, were quite altered. She was naked, and her skin was pale blue-grey, its consistency appearing to lie somewhere between leather and ophidian scale. Small knobbly spines extended down her back and continued along a short, powerful tale extending from her rump. Her small hands and feet were clawed. She had, in so short a time, assumed many of the physical attributes of her monstrous hybrid sire.

   Lir's intense green eyes, always unworldly and unusually expressive, now held a new intensity, perhaps exaggerated in the
eldritch light of the grotto.

   Issul was caught in a morass of emotions, and could not speak. Lir gave a little rasping laugh,
then leapt across space to alight, nimble as a capuchin, upon another stalactite. She looked towards the corpse of the Lord High Invigilate. 'You did well, Aunt Issul.'

   'Was he under your influence, Lir?'

   'He gave himself to me. He didn't know it, but his hatred was so strong it drove him straight to me. At the end I had to do barely a thing.'

   'How long has he been yours?'

   'For as long as I have wanted him. But his plans and treacheries were his own, Aunt Issul, right up until the end. It was his capacity for betrayal that brought him to me, not the betrayal itself. I had nothing to do with that. But he was a weak man, Aunt Issul. A very weak man.'

   'And now he is gone.'

   'Do you want to see what is beyond the door, Aunt Issul?'

   Issul glanced towards the door again. A soft radiance could be seen in the chamber beyond it. 'I want this to end, Lir,' she said.

   'It is about to end, Aunt Issul. Worlds are to be parted and rent asunder. All will be what it was, before ever it was.'

   'That is not what you came for, Lir. Your purpose, invidious though it was, was to provide dominance to she who sent you into this world.
Strymnia, who was your true mother.'

   'She is thwarted. The One True God cannot reign.'

   'Then cease this now,' Issul cried.

   'Yes.' Lir leapt onto the grotto wall and slid lithely to the ground. She stood before Issul, a preposterously tiny figure, half-babe, half-beast, and licked her lips. 'Yes, cease. Cease all.'

   She turned and with three bounds disappeared behind the iron door. Issul went after her. She entered another grotto-like chamber, at the centre of which was a strange artefact: a small glowing platform resting just above the rock floor, from which a smooth-sided column of smoky grey glasslike substance extended towards the ceiling. Through this Issul could vaguely discern another chamber where misted figures waited.

   Lir stood before the platform. In her clawed hands she held a small casket, similar to the blue casket of Orbelon's World. 'We are two worlds, Aunt Issul.
Two worlds in Union. Together we can see and know all, though we may not always know what we know. Two worlds, converging, in order to look out and understand that we are One. But sundered, we are nothing. Nothing at all. We vanish. We become like dust. And I am Lir, the Legendary Child; Lir the Sunderer. This is my task.'

  
'Lir, no! Why? Why must you do this?'

   'Why? Aunt Issul, I’ve no choice. It is what I was born to do. Now, when I step here into the Union and open this casket, the Union will be dissolved. Two worlds will part, and we, all of us and all of this, will become No-thing - that which we all secretly or knowingly crave.'

   She turned and stepped forward.

   Issul leapt at her.
'Lir, no!'

   Lir swivelled, but smiled and made no immediate attempt to resist. Issul's sword swung down, striking the beast-child just below the neck, a powerful blow that should have buried itself deep or even taken head from shoulders, but it left no mark. Lir grasped Issul's wrist and jerked it to the side, throwing Issul to the floor and making her gasp with pain.

   'Aunt Issul, you are totally powerless to stop me.'

   Lir stepped towards the smoky column again, clutching the casket. As she was about to enter the Union a figure emerged, clad in ribbed blue armour, wielding a radiant sword. Lir
glanced up. Before she could speak the Orbsword descended and cleaved her small body in two.

vii

    
Leth bent and took the casket from beside the sundered body. He stood warily over the small broken form, alert for movement, then lifted the upper portion and head. For a moment he gazed expressionlessly at the small, semi-childlike features, a thousand thoughts passing through his mind. Then he swivelled and tossed it into the Union. On the other side the misted figure of a tall young woman in red armour came forward and picked it up and bore it away.

   Issul climbed stiffly and wearily to her feet.

   'Is it over?'

   He nodded. 'It’s over.'

   The exhaustion that she had been keeping at bay for so long now claimed her. Her knees buckled. Leth caught her before she hit the ground, and as he lifted her into his arms she was already asleep.

EPILOGUE

    It was a day later that Queen Issul, refreshed after a long night's sleep, set forth again from Enchantment's Reach. This time she was accompanied by Sir Cathbo and his valiant three hundred. Her destination, for the second time, was the secret
Karai camp and the Farplace Opening hidden beneath - the way into Enchantment, the entrance to Triune's Tower. There she was to reclaim her two children, Prince Galry and Princess Jace, and bring them home.

    In the grip of the new winter the land was desolate. Snow fell in quick, frequent flurries, but lay thinly upon the ground, melting reluctantly and oozing into the dark earth in the daylight hours as the pale sun gathered itself to cut through the clouds. Issul's company encountered neither incident nor travellers until it reached the environs of the township of Crosswood. Word had passed swiftly among the invaders: the
Karai had all gone south before her. Isolated detachments doubtless still trekked their way down from more northerly regions, but no contact was made.

   Temporarily, Crosswood remained a
Karai staging-post, though the garrison had been downgraded to little more than local administrative status for the withdrawal, and was in the latter stages of its own preparations to depart. Other companies passed through, or rested over on their return journey to the Karai homelands, but though they were organized, disciplined and alert, they exhibited little indication of the desire for battle that had formerly characterized their passage.

   For some time Issul and her force waited beside the road a little way outside Crosswood, but the
Karai paid them virtually no heed, and eventually they advanced into the township. Issul shook with anger as they rode, for everywhere in and around Crosswood was evidence of Karai cruelty. The corpses of men, women, children hung from trees and the eaves of buildings, or lay dead and discarded on the earth. Some had been impaled upon sharpened stakes, others burned. From earlier reports and her own studies and experience Issul had come to understand that mass slaughter and torture of innocents was not customary Karai practice. Rather, it had served largely as an amusement for Prince Anzejarl as he had passed through Crosswood in the course of his advance upon Enchantment's Reach. Even so, she raged inwardly and silently wept at the loss, and was hard put to keep herself from ordering her men to mete out singular vengeance on the spot.

    Some way beyond Crosswood they departed the road and struck off into the forest in the direction of Ghismile, on the shore of Ghismile Tarn. They followed the tracks that Issul's
own, smaller company had left as she had ridden this way scarcely three weeks earlier. They reached the place where Issul had rested, and the emotions rose painfully in her breast. It was here that Arene had denounced Shenwolf as a traitor, here that virtually simultaneously Issul's force had been ambushed by Grey Venger and the grullags.

  In this place she ordered a search. Sir Cathbo's troops found decomposing bodies of her men, ravaged by forest animals, but little else, and she wondered what it was she had been hoping to discover.
A sign of Arene? Issul had frequently wondered whether the old woman of the
Hir'n Esh
had truly been slain here, or if not, what had become of her. She wondered, too, about Commander Gordallith and his band of villainous traitors, who she ached to bring to justice. But they were almost certainly long gone from this region, and she deemed them unlikely ever to return to Enchantment's Reach.

   She moved on, and came in time to Ghismile. Her scouts explored with caution, but the village and keep proved to be deserted by all but the corpses of some of their former inhabitants. With a heavy heart Issul identified several of the bodies: the woman, Marilene, who had suffered so terribly at the hands of the evil 'Baron' Ombo; Issul's former companion, Aurfusk, who had escaped with her and the others from the
Karai camp, but whose injuries had prevented him from travelling further. She recalled the horrors the villagers had lived through for so long, and again she wept and raged, and wondered in perplexity at the nature and purpose of all things.

   A day later they were at the
Karai camp. This too was deserted. With Sir Cathbo and a squad of guards Issul descended into the bunker, but having assured herself that the brooding-pens and ante-chamber were unoccupied, she entered the chamber of the Farplace Opening alone.

   The magnificent orb of the Farplace Opening hovered in the centre, pulsing gently.
A myriad colours swam across its intangible surface, fluxing, merging, swirling. Issul was again momentarily transfixed by its opalescent, mysterious beauty.

    She thought about Triune, not knowing whether she was expected - or even if it was safe - to pass through into the Tower on the other side of the Farplace Opening, and enter Enchantment again.

   'Triune, I am here,' she said aloud. 'It is me, Issul. I have returned to give you my thanks, and to take my children. Are you aware of me?'

   The Farplace Opening dilated and briefly increased in magnitude, dazzling her. She threw up her arm to protect her eyes, and then Prince Galry and Prince Jace were within the globe. The brightness diminished and they rushed forward into their mother's arms. Galry was carrying a scroll, which, when Issul was able to release him, he handed to her. She unfurled it, and saw a message upon its surface, scrawled in a wild and somewhat bizarre hand.

 
 
Issul,

     Do not attempt to pass through the Opening. It is no longer appropriate.

    The two small beings to whom you have formed so strong an attachment are returned to you. It is strange: they are beguiling. I almost came to feel something I am unfamiliar with, which you might call affection or a notion akin to it. You creatures of the realized world. . . I suspect we will never understand you.

    Now it is over; balance is restored, and our conflict can continue, as it must. You may not return here. We have shared some small part of the dream. You have partaken, and witnessed something of the true world, the many-named domain, where all things are possible. You have served us; you have dreamt and brought Triune forth. Triune is no longer broken and scattered. And Triune, I trust, has served you in return.

   Now you must leave. Something of Enchantment will always be yours, for you have dreamed, even if the dream was not yours alone, even if you did not know that you dreamed. Something of Enchantment is within you and about you. Now it is done.

   All things may be.

   Farewell,

                 
TRIUNE
.

   Even as she read, Issul grew aware of the magnitude of the Farplace Opening dimming, and decreasing in size. She watched with mixed emotions as its colours passed and it became smaller and smaller until eventually it was gone and she stood in darkness beneath the ground, holding her children’s warm little hands.

*

   In Enchantment's Reach King Leth was given much to
reflect upon.

   In the early days following the
Karai withdrawal his time was largely devoted to the complex task of restoring order and stability to kingdom and capital, but as the weeks passed he came to reflect more and more deeply upon the extraordinary enigmas and mysteries of all he had been through and all that had occurred.

   Since the death of Lir, the true Legendary Child, Leth had had no contact with Orbelon. As he had been preparing to step through the Union into the chamber deep within Overlip, old Master Protector had warned him, firmly but not without respect and affection, and with tears in his eyes, that he should make no attempt to return without prior summoning. Indeed, within moments of Lir's death and the acceptance of her half- corpse, the Union had dwindled and vanished.

   The blue casket was sealed, and unresponsive to Leth's attempts to open it, and had been so since that day. Leth began to believe that all links with Orbelon's World and with Orbelon himself had now been severed.

   Many times he dreamed of his adventures in that land, and daily he wondered what had become of the people he had met there. Shenwolf, Summoner, Master Protector, Lakewander. He wondered greatly about the child - his child -
that Lakewander supposedly bore. If it were true, she would be approaching her mid-term now. His son, or daughter, would soon become part of that extraordinary world. Were they ever to know each other?

    It seemed there were no answers. Some things were simply not to be known.

    Leth also wondered about Orbelon himself, and he considered how everything he had been through had challenged and in many instances forced him to modify his own views. With this in mind, and in consultation with Issul and Pader Luminis, he reflected hard upon the matter of the Deist Edict introduced by his illustrious ancestor, King Haruman. Haruman's argument, which had gained wholehearted support from his descendants, had been that the Edict was required to curb the fervour and growing influence of the religious factions that had sprung up in response to the great questions posed in large part by the existence of mysterious Enchantment upon the border of the realm, and of its mighty and unapproachable denizens. But in the manner of all known faiths, the factions had virtually created gods of those beings of whom they knew next to nothing, and had used them not as a means to genuinely attempt to explain the mysteries of life, but as a way of establishing corporeal power and influence over those persons they were able to draw into their belief system. Dogma, blind faith and manufactured belief, brooking no enquiry, had been placed in purposeful obstruction of a genuine search for knowledge.

   Haruman, and subsequently Leth, had argued that true knowledge of the gods and their desires - if such gods existed - had not been arrived at. The so-called will of the deities propounded by the various religious factions was in fact manifestly and demonstrably
superficial human will masquerading as divine. Haruman opined that religion had become, not a source of succour and hope, but a means of enslaving and manipulating for earthly gain the minds of those many persons who came genuinely seeking help and an insight into the true nature of their existence. He had decreed the abolition of such practices and established the framework, in the form of the Arcane College and the Department of Philosophical Studies, that would enable and encourage a genuine search for Knowledge, Truth and Wisdom.

    But now it seemed at first that everything had changed. Issul and Leth had entered Enchantment, had consorted with gods. And the greatest miracle of all: Orbelon had been transformed over eons into a true divinity. He was, even if inadvertently, the Creator of his own universe. He was also, in himself, that universe in its entirety.

   Over and over Leth grappled with this, for it threw up so many questions in his mind. But after many weeks he was drawn to conclude that in fact, as far as his own world was concerned, little in essence had changed. He had learned unequivocally that, with the sole exception of Orbelon, the Highest Ones of Enchantment could not be said to be true gods. Advanced, mighty and near-immortal they might be, but they were not divinities. They lived lives of inextricable conflict, though they needed each other, and could do nothing other. They cared little or nothing for the welfare or concerns of humans. For all their power and knowledge they were, like humans, essentially creatures born out of the cosmos into ignorance, and prime examples of consciousness gone astray in the physical world.

    Therein was the nub, and known or unknown, their worship was to be vigorously discouraged. Haruman's Deist Edict had in fact now been validated by direct experience.

    This was an extraordinary development, and one with potentially wide-ranging ramifications for the country and its peoples. But how much of what had been discovered should be made public? Both Issul and Leth had been brought to knowledge of great and profound secrets, and such secrets, in the wrong hands, were as liable to misrepresentation, abuse and manipulation as anything that had gone before.

    Issul and Leth embarked upon the task of recording their adventures, but the decision was eventually made to seal their records in the vaults of the Arcane College where, initially at least, none but the most advanced and devoted adepts of the College might have access to them. In time, by degrees, their discoveries would be made available to less advanced students whose conduct, dedication and application of the College's teachings, codes and principles marked them out as worthy. And one day, perhaps, when enough adepts had been inducted into the mysteries to
ensure that such knowledge might not be distorted for personal gain, it might be possible for it to be gradually filtrated into the consciousness of the public at large.

*

   One evening in late spring Leth and Issul rested alone in their apartments in the First Tower of Dawn. A shadow flickered and came forward from the depths of the chamber, and revealed itself as Orbelon. He offered no greeting but merely stood before them and after a pause raised one hand and, without hurry, began to unravel the great mass of rags that swathed his head.