Verge of Darkness

  *******

   

  A few weeks later, Xiang Tse told Pagan Chenghuan was on the brink of great unrest. None knew who had commissioned the Zhaojin. It was known that Chan Pao-Lin, the scion of an old distinguished family, and a cousin of the Emperor, together with several counsellors and influential families, had strong misgivings with some of the Emperor’s decisions. Furthermore, he believed the throne rightfully belonged to him. But few thought he would go far as plotting the Emperor’s assassination. Chan Pao-Lin naturally denied any involvement.

  Xiang Tse believed it best for Pagan to leave Chenghuan in the eventuality the unrest erupted into civil war. Xiang Tse was loyal to the Emperor, and the Jade Castle was no longer a safe haven. He didn’t want Pagan endangered in affairs that didn’t concern him.

  Pagan had also been instrumental in foiling the Zhaojin. It was the first time in living memory they had failed to fulfil an assignment. That was of huge disgrace to their Order. Their reach was long and their power great. And they would seek his death.

  Xiang Tse arranged a berth for Pagan on one of his ships sailing to the distant city of Petralis on the western continent, and gave him letters to deliver to a man called Casca – an old friend who owed him a favour.

  Pagan protested. He considered the Jade Castle his home and didn’t want to desert Xiang Tse and Liang. But Xiang Tse wasn’t to be swayed. To make things worse, Liang was in the south, caring for her ill grandmother and Pagan wouldn’t have a chance to say his farewells.

  With heavy heart, he stood on the ship’s deck and bowed deeply to his teacher as the bireme slipped its moorings. Standing on the quayside, Xiang Tse returned the bow of the boy from the far corner of the world who had grown into a man under his tutelage.

   

  Counsel

   

   

  Casca stood at his station, and for the umpteenth time idly ran a rag along the top of the bar. It was a quiet night at the Philosopher’s Folly. The loggers who worked the high country and loaders at the docks were not due to be paid till the morrow. Come the evening, the Folly would be packed with the fools seemingly determined to drink away all their earnings in one night. But then he mused, it is downright ungrateful to refer one’s patrons as fools. After all, where would he be without them?

  Glancing to his left, he saw Pagan engaged in earnest conversation with Tovral the baker. Casca shook his head in wonder. The little fat man spoke about little except his bakery and newly discovered recipes, but then, Pagan had a way with people. The man was a contradiction. Atimes taciturn, yet when the mood took him, able to engage in a wide variety of topics. But surely, a deep conversation on the intricacies of baking was beyond even him.

  But it was no surprise to see Aeneas sitting with them, a plate of honey-sweetened oatcakes in front of him. Jaws working overtime, a look of bliss on his face, and crumbs on his tunic-front – his son sure loved his sweetmeats.

  Over to the right in a shadowed part of the room, the burly figure of Masrel the blacksmith, was locked in an intimate embrace with a woman Casca knew wasn’t his wife. Looking over his paramour’s shoulder, the blacksmith caught Casca's eye and winked. Casca turned away. Masrel’s wife wasn’t a woman to be trifled with. If she ever found out about her husband’s infidelity, she would likely take a blunt knife to his privates.

  Pouring himself a jug of ale, Casca took a sip, his mind wandering back to what he had read earlier. According to the Chenghuan manuscript, the energies keeping the Gualich beyond the portal would fade one day, leaving the demons free to enter the world once again. There had been no mention when this would happen, but Casca’s fear that the collapse of the portal was imminent had been reinforced by his dream a couple of nights past.

  Elander Zucros had written how an alliance of mages and heroes had defeated and banished the Gualich. And the Chenghuan manuscript said when the shape shifters returned, the task of opposing them would fall on the descendants of the original heroes and…a wanderer.

  Casca was a frightened man. He was descended from one of the mages, but was certainly no magicker, and had no idea who the other descendants were. Beleth’s balls, a thousand years had passed! The unwelcome responsibility weighed heavily on him and he had no idea what to do.

  Perhaps the whole thing was a myth. The Gualich had never existed, there was no portal, and the so-called heroes had simply defeated a band of particularly blood thirsty outlaws. He muttered a string of expletives under his breath, then laughed out aloud at the absurdity of it all, causing Pagan and Aeneas to glance askance at him.

  As he caught his son’s eye, the thought came: better he handled this unearthly menace than the possibility of the portal failing in Aeneas’s time.