Wrath Of The Medusa (Book 2) (15 page)

“She can whistle all four verses of Eadran’s march through her arse before I attend on her,” the necromancer declared.  “And you can tell her I said that.”

Vesten was never going to pass on Gal
en’s undiluted contempt to the Medusa; it would take being the bearing of bad tidings to new suicidal extremes.  The secretary surmised that it was this certainty which led the necromancer to so freely vent his spleen against Dema, knowing his language would not be repeated.

“It has been a week since the battle and still you have not joined her council.”

“And why would I? To get my throat bitten out like poor Nagbadesh.  I mean I had heard she was a mad angry bitch but that!”

“It was an assassination attempt,” Vesten wearily repeated a story he did not believe.

Galen shook his head, rattling the gold chains on his high collar as he did so.  The necromancer had a flamboyant dress sense and the elaboration of his attire was strongly linked to his conception of his own value and power.  Judging by his present costume, he thought his star to be immeasurably in the ascendant.   The red robes were richly embroidered with gold and platinum threads which traced their most intricate patterns around the deep hanging cuffs of his voluminous sleeves. The robes parted at the front from neck to navel, to afford a view of the mat of thick hair across his chest.  A sharply hirsute contrast to the complete baldness of his shining head.  A palm sized medallion of gold, carved into the shape of a grinning skull, hung on a thick gold chain nestling in the carpet of his chest hair.  The stiff splayed collar rose as high as the crown of his skull, giving the impression of a man wearing half a bucket around his head.  His thin beard and moustache were trimmed to a finer precision that any artist’s brush could have achieved.  Galen, was a man in confident command of his situation, and Vesten hated him for it.

“Assassination?  Yes, the best defence against an assassin is always to bite his throat out.
” Scorn dripped from Galen’s lips.  “I saw the body, no other marks on it, perfect for adding to my legion of undead.”

Vesten paled.  “You didn’t,
not Chief Nagbadesh?  You didn’t raise him as … did you?  The orcs don’t like to think of their own kind walking the Earth after death and being denied entry to the feasting halls of the afterlife!”  

Galen gave an airy wave of dismissal to the sec
retary’s fears. “Of course not. I know the orcs’ ways well enough and that is why the Gutshredders asked me, no pleaded with me to stay under my command rather than transfer to that mad bitch’s.”

“Even after….”  Vesten was stunned.  The Gutshredders had been the tribe most mauled by Galen’s unguided zombies, yet the truth of the necromancer’s assertion was evident for all to see in the obdurate refusal of the orcs, or their ma
ster to accept orders from the Medusa.

“It is not just Dema, but Governor Odes
tus also commands your presence,” the secretary fumbled for extra weight for his argument.

The necromancer laughed.  “Governor?  We are not in Undersalve now, I do not answer to the fat little wizard anymore.
   His authority over me ended when we left that bedraggled apology for a province.”

“You were his pupil.”

“A good student inevitably outgrows his teacher.  Mine is an independent command, free from old hierarchies.  I answer to no-one save the Master himself.”  Galen reached for his medallion and spun it round to show Vesten the obverse side in which was set a plain black disc.  “See, I bear the Master’s talisman.  My orders come from Maelgrum directly, every day!”

“The M
aster would not like to see discord and disunity in his followers.”

“This is not discord, Secretary Vesten.  This is just healthy competition.  The silver soldiers are locked up in the hills, l
icking their many wounds.  The Master will be most interested to see whether I or the snake lady are best suited to flush them out.”

“She is by far a better commander than you.”

“Ah, but her strength and numbers fade, while mine grows.  Every battle is a necromancer’s delight.  Win or lose, the many dead may serve another turn.  You know Rugan left eight thousand corpses on the battlefield?   Eight thousand!”

“You have not the wizards to shepherd such a horde.”

“I don’t need to Vesten. I just need to send them stumbling in batches into the hills.  Their hunger will do the rest.  I warrant when I take the Gutshredders up the Eastway in the Spring, we will be walking through abandoned guard posts into a land purged of the living by the dead.  And when that happens, who do you think will stand highest in the Master’s favour?” 

It was a homecoming of sorts, Haselrig reflected.  This after all was where it had begun, his journey into Maelgrum’s servitude.  He shook his head, he had had no choice, no real choice.  Those who had confounded him long decades ago had precipitated all the events which followed as directly as if they had deliberately chosen them.

“
Something troubles you, Haselrig?” the Bishop asked without sympathy.

The antiquary turned the key firmly and hauled open the wrought iron gate.  
“Nothing at all your reverence.” 

The more ancient or more dangerous items in the royal library were archived deep in
these vaulted cellars.  The thick stone archways supporting the floors of the palace above provided long segregated caverns within which documents of varying enchantments could be safely isolated and secured.

The B
ishop and the antiquary stood on the threshold of one of the most extensive catacombs, the one which held all the known writings of Chirard the Mad.  The cluttered space was filled with shelves piled high with scrolls and papers, some bound manuscripts and a fair few books that were damaged, mostly by fire.

“
As antiquary I would have thought the least of your tasks was to keep these papers in some order,” Udecht said gazing round at the confusion.

“Believe me, your reverence, this is in far be
tter order than I found it.”  Haselrig stepped into the dusty space, lifting the corner of a familiar scroll and letting it fall back on the shelf.  “Thren the Seventh had all the Kinslayer’s writings gathered in one space.  He meant to have them studied to seek some insight into the workings of Chirard’s mind.  He thought that understanding what went wrong might mean future generations could avoid a similar catastrophe.”

“Why so disordered then?”

“Chirard was a paranoid bastard.  Everything he wrote was doubly encrypted and warded with hidden glyphs.  Several of Thren’s researchers were injured, two were killed.  The need to understand became less pressing after that. 

“Then Thren’s son decided that any study of magic was against the true teachings of th
e Goddess so the mages who might have made sense of the mad one’s work all fled to the Eastern lands, or those few that stayed did so on sufferance of having their weekly supervised dose of mind numbing juice.  That left them incapable of exercising the simplest charm, still less negotiating the perils Chirard left behind.”

“Why didn’t Thren the Eighth have these papers
destroyed then?  All other trace of magecraft was extirpated, the colleges of magic were all sealed shut.   Why keep this, the most compelling evidence of the ruin that magic study would bring?”  Udecht reached towards one undamaged book on the shelf nearest the iron gated entrance.

“No your reverence!” Haselrig called, pulling sharply on the chain that joined them
to tug the Bishop’s hand away from the shelf.  “That book is his simplest test. I have no desire to spend the first five hours of my work here dragging your unconscious body around these archives.”

The B
ishop lowered his hands cautiously to his sides.

“Qui
te so, your reverence.” The antiquary, reassured by Udecht’s circumspection, addressed the Bishop’s question.   “The surest answer in Thren’s time was to lock all these papers away.   The numerous traps left by the Kinslayer were a far more effective block on curiosity than any royal statute.”

“Until you came along?”
Udecht observed.  “Tell me Haselrig, what was it my father did to you, that you hated him enough to visit this ruination on his family and his people?”

Haselrig had been peering into the dark corridors, re-
discovering his bearings in an environment untouched since he had left it one fateful night seventeen years earlier.  He did not turn at first to answer the Bishop’s question, though he did let it play in his mind.  It was Chirard’s obsession with Maelgrum, littering his writings, which had triggered the antiquary’s own curiosity in the vanquished undead wizard.   But the motivation behind Chirard’s obsession had ever eluded the antiquary.   Still there was some link between Chirard and the Helm wearer, as there had been between Maelgrum and Chirard. 

“Haselrig?” Udecht snapped at the silence.

“Motivations are complex things, your reverence.  They are rarely properly understood by the motivated, still less explained to a casual observer,” Haselrig replied, speaking to the book lined passageway in front of him, rather than the Bishop behind him

“You betrayed the entire Salved people to their greatest enemy and you don’t even know why?” Udecht spat.  “I know someth
ing of your history, Haselrig. You once served the Church of the Goddess.  Whatever crime it was that you committed, to be given a secure position as the court antiquary must have been the mildest of punishments, yet still you bit the hand that had saved you from exile.”

“
It is no crime to challenge the idiocy of fools, your reverence,” Haselrig growled.  “The crime lies with those of weak intellect and great fear who deny others the advancement to which great minds are entitled.”

“And yours is a great mind? A thwarted greatness to which betrayal is not so much a choice as an obligation?”  Udecht mocked.  “I trust you are enjoying the fruits of that betrayal.”

Haselrig spun round.  “Maelgrum’s is the greatest mind the world has ever known, even you cannot deny that.  He walked the Eastern lands when the Monar Empire was in its pomp, he has explored the inner and the outer planes.   Dragons bend the knee to him.   The greatest crime in the Petred Isle is that an intellect of such power should have been imprisoned.”

“Intelligence is not a virtue of itself, especially when it
serves a will as evil as your Master’s,” Udecht snorted.  “I have seen you tremble when he calls, Haselrig.  Tell me true, are there not times when you regret whatever part it was you played in freeing him?”

The antiquary hauled on the chain to lead the Bishop down a particular dark passageway
lined with dusty shelves.  “The Master is generous with his knowledge and his gifts to those who serve him well. While and whenever I have been useful to him he has more than repaid my service.  Now, hurry your reverence.  He has set us a task and I do not mean to fail him in it.”

“Set
you
a task, Haselrig,” Udecht reminded him
.

“The M
aster has said that, provided I have served him well I will be his emissary to the Eastern Lands.  I will be Warden of his Eastern Outpost, privy to its wealth and riches as all traffic and trade is channelled through my lordship.  You will not keep me from that destiny, your reverence.”

Udecht stopped short, bringing Haselrig to a stuttering halt as the chain ran taut.  “All this, Haselrig,” the Bishop murmured.  “All this for Salicia?”

“Are you sure this is wise?” Odestus panted, hurrying to keep pace with the Medusa as she strode imperiously through Listcairn’s Eastern gate.

“If the little shit will not come when ordered then I will go and drag him to my council by that twisted thread he calls a beard.”

“Dema, stay a moment please, my legs are too old for such a race as this,” Odestus gasped.  It had already been a frantic march from the castellan’s keep to the city gate and there were still barely halfway to the Gutshredder’s camp in the midst of which towered Galen’s crimson pavilion. Thankfully, the Medusa stopped and turned to look back at the wheezing wizard.  There was even a smile playing on her lips.  It creased the ragged half-healed wound which Rugan had left in her cheek but she seemed not to notice any strain or discomfort. Instead there was just that familiar amusement at his enduring weaknesses.

“Your legs are only as old as the rest of you, little wizard.  Is your whole body no longer fit for purpose?”

He looked around.  Of the council only he had followed her in her rage.  The sentries at the gate had averted their gaze, as so many did about Dema.  The few trusted citizens steering wagons of grain into the captive town were in no greater hurry to attract the attention of their new overlords.  In the midst of bustle and activity the pair were as close to being alone as they had been in days and Dema was smiling, head cocked to one side as she used to.  

“My dear, before you go and shred that arse we know as Galen, will you walk with me a moment. 
Take a turn in the constable’s gardens perhaps?”  He gestured towards the walled enclosure where the ill-fated last Constable of Listcairn had indulged his love of horticulture.  Had he given his military duties as much devotion as his flowers and herbs then he might not have had his throat opened by Dema’s sword.  Odestus added, as lightly as he dared, “There are things I would discuss with you.”

“You pick your moments, little wizard.”  But she was still smiling and, diverted from her fury at the disobedient necromancer, she let Odestus lead her into the carefully ordered gardens where even the bare
winter trees held elegant poses.

“Well,” she said when they had walked a moment in silence.  “Have you some case to urge for your protégé, some reason for me to hold my anger and not relieve him piece by piece of his command.”

“It is not of Galen, that I wanted to speak,” Odestus spoke with slow care.  “Well not simply of him.  I wanted to talk of you and the Captain.”

“Little wizard, I
take my pleasures where I can. I would suggest you do the same.  Who amongst us knows how much time we have left to enjoy them?”

“But when I first arrived
here, there had been a mischance of sorts.”

“And you
have restored the good Captain, as good as ever, if not better.  The experience seems to have loosened those cloying morals and loyalties which had afflicted him in the past.”

“It is not the captain’s petrification that I meant, my dear.  It was… it was the other mischance.”

She stopped walking and looked at him, sparkling gauze clad eyes staring at his.  “But you got rid of it?!”  She gripped his shoulder.  “You got rid of it didn’t you, little wizard?”

He nodded quickly, thinking again of the great egg he had held so
briefly, its leathery surface, its oval shape.  “The thing is gone, Dema, completely gone, but I fear for what it took with it.  What it took from you.”

“Took from me?”  She glared at him through the mask and there was a stirring of the serpents beneath the hood of her cloak. 
“Speak plain, little wizard. I am a master of war not a mistress of riddles.”

“Bear with me, my dear.  There are pieces to a puzzle that has been troubling me.  I think I see how they fit together, but I would show them to you first if you would let me.”

She said nothing, which he took as consent.  “You remember that night, the night in San Nystrel where, where everything began.”

“How could I forget little wizard.  Your misread spell made me what I am today.”

“And you remember what I said, about what you would become.”

“You said I would become a monster, that the part of me which was Dema would shrivel up and die within this monstrous form.  And then you tried to stab me with your little toothpick to save me from that fate,”  she was laughing as she remembered.  “But I am still me, little wizard, twenty year
s on I am still me, only more so.”

Odestus tried to hold her gaze, though even through the gauze her eyes could chill his blood.  His hands worked over themselves in a slow mime of handwashing as he spok
e.  “My dear, you are the only Medusa, the first and the last in perhaps two thousand years.  Your kind were hunted to extinction in the East when the Monar Empire was young. 

“Th
e Medusa of ancient times were not entirely as you are.  They were crude vicious creatures, beings of instinctive malice living solitary lives because they hated everything and killed anything.   They ate raw flesh, feasting on the still warm bodies of their victims, those they did not stone.”  He paused.  “They were monsters.”

“
What are you saying, little wizard?” Her tone was level, dangerously even.

“Twenty years ago I feared you would perforce become a mons
ter like that, but you did not. You have not.  You have been Dema always.”

She was silent and still.

“But since you have taken with the Captain, since you were delivered of that… that object.”  He wrung his hands until the knuckles whitened. “Dema, I fear you are changing, that the things you have done, the egg you delivered, they are taking the humanity from you.”

“You think I am becoming the monster you always feared?”

“Dema, you cannot be oblivious to the changes.   I am not the only one to see them.  Your tastes, your temper, they are not as they were.”

“You think that
Kimbolt is screwing the humanity out of me?”

He blenched at her language, but nodded, simpering with his hands.

She grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands apart to stop the endless wringing.

“Listen, little wizard, with Kimbolt I feel more h
uman than I have felt in years, in decades.  Whatever it is you fear, lay it not at the Captain’s door.  You say I have changed? Many other things have changed in recent months.   We each of us are shaped by circumstance as much as nature.  Look at how different our lives and my command have become and then be not surprised if you notice some trifling differences in my manner.   The insolence of your apprentice Galen would try the patience of a Saint of the Goddess and I am certainly not one of those.”

He stood dumb mouthed in the face of her denial and his stupefaction brought another smile to her lips.  She p
atted him lightly on the cheek, a slap of affection.  “Fear not, little wizard.  I am the Dema you have always known and now I would have words with the Necromancer.”

As she strode away towards the garden gate she looked over her shoulder at the unhappy Odestus.  “I am glad you spoke of this, little wizard.  There should be no secrets between us of all people
, but we will not speak of it again.  As you see, I am still and always will be Dema.”