“How long?” he asked WingRidge standing beside him.
“It will take some days, perhaps a week, to fully emerge,” WingRidge said. “It will gauge its rising to the approach of the Demons.”
Drago nodded absently, his attention now focused on what he could feel of the TimeKeepers. They were still distant, many days travel away…but they were very, very angry.
Enraged.
“StarSon!” WingRidge barked, and Drago leapt out of his reverie, surprised not only by the tone in WingRidge’s voice, but by the title.
However much Drago had thought he’d accepted it, reminders of his heritage still came as uncomfortable shocks.
“StarSon!” WingRidge said again. “Look!”
Drago stared to where the captain of the Lake Guard pointed, and drew his breath in sharply in shock.
“Dear gods!” he whispered.
The gates of Carlon were rocking back and forth, back and forth, and Drago realised the guards who manned and maintained them were either dead or gone.
As he watched they broke asunder, and a surging tide of maddened animals seethed through into the streets of Carlon.
Then he, as WingRidge, jumped in further surprise.
A peal of bells had sounded over the burning city.
Goldman gritted his teeth and hoped he remembered the correct clarion. The guildsmen of Carlon lived their days according to the dictates of the sundry guildhall bells. The bells rang out the hours, the workday, the holidays, the watches, the curfew, and—unknown to most of the aristocracy of the city—they also rang out coded messages.
Goldman had learned the code and the method of ringing as a child, but he’d not done this for many years, and he hoped that he got the code right.
He rang a clarion of escape, of doorways, and of location. The bells demanded that guild-folk everywhere hark to their message, and move those they were with through the streets and whatever buildings still stood towards the doorways. Into his clarion, Goldman put something a little bit extra. A bit of depth. A degree of compulsion. Anyone hearing the bells, and understanding their message, would be forced to act.
Goldman finished a clarion and paused to heave in some breath. Had any heard? Had they understood? Had—
From somewhere else in the fiery, smoke-filled city, another clarion of bells rang out. Goldman grinned weakly in relief. Someone had heard him, and he had got the message right, for now a guildsman far distant was repeating the message.
Another set of bells started, slightly closer this time, and Goldman laughed out loud as he saw a man hustle his family and neighbours down a steep ladder from their roof and lead them towards the building where Goldman had erected his doorway.
Another family rushed from a doorway.
Not everyone would understand the bells, but there would be enough guildsmen to interpret.
ProudFlight appeared in the street, glanced up at the window where Goldman’s face was framed, and beckoned him down.
“We have trouble,” ProudFlight said tersely as Goldman joined him.
“What?”
ProudFlight did not have time to answer, for at that moment a huge pig ran around a corner, its hooves scrabbling for purchase on the cobbles.
In the distance, a woman screamed. The sound was cut off halfway through.
“The gates have fallen,” ProudFlight said, and Goldman felt cold fear slither through his belly.
“Gustus!” Drago yelled, “continue with the evacuation! Herme! Follow me!”
“What can we do?” Herme said, running after Drago as he rushed through the door.
Once outside their progress slowed. The hallways of the palace were full of people moving towards the enchanted doorway, and Drago, Herme, and the feathered lizard which had followed its master, had to push bodily though.
Its crest was held high, and it had ruffled out its feathers so that it appeared a third again as large.
“What can we do?” Drago said harshly. “Not much, save protect these people as well as we are able.”
WingRidge caught up with them. “Do you want me to take the Lake Guard away from their duties helping those trapped?”
Drago shook his head. “Their only hope is to get through that doorway as fast as they can. WingRidge, if you serve me as you say you do, then get those people through!”
WingRidge nodded curtly, then vanished among the crowd.
“And what are we going to do, Drago?” Herme asked.
“Against several hundred thousand maddened beasts? Well, I don’t intend to hold them off single-handedly, if that’s what you thought, Herme. Come on! No time for detailed explanations.”
And what would he do? Drago thought as he and Herme jerked to a halt in the courtyard of the palace. Outside the courtyard gates they could see the streets seething with a mass of animals and as they watched several sheep, a goat and a half-grown bitch ran inside the gates, snuffling carefully about the shadows.
He could draw another doorway—but where could he send them? Wherever he chose, he would risk a mass of them escaping into Spiredore…and that thought did not bear thinking about, not with thousands of Acharites passing through each minute.
“Drago?” Herme prompted. One of the sheep had spotted them, and stood completely still in the centre of the courtyard, staring.
Its lower jaw fell open and it drooled.
Somewhere in a distant street a man screeched in horrified surprise, wailed in agony, and then fell silent.
“Drago?”
The sheep took a step forward, and then another one.
Drago’s hand tightened about the staff, but he called forth no enchantment.
What should he do? Gods, but he wished he’d not sent Katie back to Sanctuary!
The sheep suddenly launched an attack. It leapt forward, wailing, its teeth bared, bloody foam frothing from its mouth. Its movement attracted the attention of the other sheep, the goat and the bitch, and they, too, slunk slackjawed towards where Drago and Herme stood in the doorway.
“For gods’ sakes, man!” Herme said, grabbing Drago’s arm. “Get back inside!”
In answer, Drago seized Herme, pushed him back through the door, and pulled it shut.
In the same instant the sheep reached him, and in one smooth movement Drago brought the staff around and cracked the sheep over the head with it. The lizard sunk its teeth into the wool at the sheep’s throat and began to shake the creature.
Drago flinched as bloody foam from the sheep’s mouth splattered across his face, then, coming to an instant decision, altered his grip about the staff, and then drew a symbol in the air.
The lizard, still with his jaws locked into the sheep’s neck, struggled to raise a foreclaw, but Drago grabbed it.
“No.”
The sheep convulsed, and bloody specks flew through the air. Drago ducked his head to try and avoid them, and then fell to the ground as the goat leaped over lizard and sheep, its teeth snapping a bare handspan from Drago’s face.
The goat hit the closed door with an audible thud, landing on its side on the stone step and rolling heavily against Drago.
Drago struck it a heavy blow to the head, and had raised the staff again when he—as every other living creature within Carlon, sane or not—halted transfixed.
A heavy voice sounded over the city. It was thick and menacing, and sounded as if it spoke through…water.
Attend!
Both sheep and goat stopped struggling, and the other creatures in the courtyard froze.
Attend!
Drago slowly raised himself to his feet. He put a hand on the lizard’s head, and it released the sheep, standing itself and looking about. Every creature they could see had stopped in its tracks. Eyes were narrowed, ears cocked, heads tilted to one side.
Listening.
I command you, attend!
No-one noticed Drago’s lips moving very, very slightly.
The pig had been about to attack Goldman and ProudFlight when the voice s
ounded.
It stopped some three paces from where both men huddled against a wall, ProudFlight with his sword drawn, and turned very slightly towards the Lake side of the city, listening intently.
I command you, attend!
“What is that?” ProudFlight said, shaking his head slightly.
Goldman tilted his head and spoke very, very quietly into ProudFlight’s ear. “It is an enchantment.”
Faraday had also halted. The room she stood in was packed with people about to move through the doorway, now standing still and confused.
As Goldman, she recognised the voice for what it was.
“Quick, go through!” she said, putting her hand in the small of the back of the person standing next to her and pushing none too gently. “Quick, or the people behind you will die!”
The line began moving again.
The brown and cream badger raised his snout from the remains of the old woman he’d cornered coming out of a doorway, and snuffled the air.
I command you, attend!
Like Goldman, Faraday and the other two women now also herding their charges through the enchanted doorways with renewed urgency, the badger recognised the voice as a sham. An enchantment, although he was not sure of the mechanics or origins of its making.
No! No! he commanded, Do not attend. This is—
He got no further. A clutch of cows hurtled about the corner and knocked him against the wall.
They did not stop, nor even look at their commander.
They were attending the voice.
Within moments the majority of the animals and demented humans which had invaded Carlon were dashing back the way they’d come, slipping and sliding in their haste to obey. Some ran straight into burning buildings in their haste, re-emerging on fire, and setting fire to their companions thronging the streets leading back to the main city gates.
No! No! the badger cried, but it was too late, they would not listen to him, they were desperate…desperate…desperate…and the voice became more insistent, far more commanding.
They were running for the Lake to attend the Maze which surely was about to rise at any moment. There was something in that Maze that the animals knew they would adore, venerate, worship, and which they were sure would adore them in return.
And now it called!
Run! Run! Run to be the first among the ranks lining the Lake!
The badger gave up trying to reason with the mobs fleeing through the streets. He communed with the Demons, letting them see with his eyes what was going on, letting them hear what was ringing through the cinder streets of Carlon.
He struggled to his feet and trotted down an alleyway, thinking to take a shortcut through to the main avenue leading to the gates, when he ran headlong into a man wearing a short white robe and one of the birdmen, a sword in his hand.
“What a nasty mind you have,” Goldman said to the badger which had skidded to a halt a bare pace from him.
The badger hissed, and sent everything he saw and heard back to the Demons.
Drago opened the door revealing a disgruntled—and extremely bewildered—Herme.
“What was that voice?” Herme said. “Attend who?”
“A sham,” Drago said shortly. “And one that will not last for long. Herme, this city has become an oven. Within half an hour no-one will be able to survive within its limits. If there is anyone left in this quarter of the city, then get them to the doorway now!”
As Herme huried off, Drago spared a moment to look about him. The ancient Icarii palace had thus far survived the flames, and Drago wondered whether, like the hidden city of the Minaret Peaks, it could survive just about any disaster relatively intact.
Well, if it survived this fire, it would find itself sheltering a dark master indeed. The feathered lizard rubbed against his legs, and Drago smiled a little and rubbed its head.
“Did you enjoy the taste of sheep, my friend?”
The lizard grinned.
The badger growled as ProudFlight advanced a step.
“Mind, young man,” Goldman said, “this one is particularly nasty.”
In truth, Goldman was intrigued. He found that he could see inside the badger’s mind, or, at least, understand some of the thoughts that were chasing themselves about the badger’s head.
“Wasn’t that a clever enchantment?” he said, his tone condenscending. “And a clever, clever badger to be able to see through it.”
A shifting mass of shadows loomed behind the badger’s eyes, and Goldman abruptly realised that there was more intelligence and knowledge in those eyes than he’d originally reckoned with.
“Who are you?” a voice hissed from the badger’s mouth.
Goldman licked suddenly dry lips. The voice was horribly reminscent of the voice that Drago had conjured up, and Goldman realised he was speaking to one of the Demons.
Which? he wondered.
“Sheol,” the voice hissed, and the badger squatted a little and urinated on the cobbles.
“And a fine good afternoon to you, Mistress Sheol,” Goldman said pleasantly. “And now…if you’ll excuse me…”
He began to step about the badger, but then felt something reaching out from the animal, something that promised frightful agonies if it reached him. He gasped, stunned, but just as he felt the power touch him ProudFlight plunged his sword into the nape of the badger’s neck.
The power dissolved instantly, and Goldman relaxed in relief. He raised his head to thank the birdman, but ProudFlight simply grabbed him and hustled him back towards the building—now leaning precariously to one side—where glowed their enchanted doorway. When they finally attained the chamber, Goldman suddenly, desperately, remembered the cats, and he turned back to the door leading to the corridor.
“What are you doing?” ProudFlight yelled.
“The cats—”
“The cursed cats can look after themselves. Get through that door now!”
Goldman grabbed the birdman’s arms, meaning to shove him to one side, but the birdman was much stronger than he, and in the full pride of Icarii youth, and Goldman stood not a hope against him.
The last thing he saw as ProudFlight shoved him through the glowing door was the ceiling collapsing in a shower of sparks and flaming debris.
The Demons sat their mounts, thinking. What was that, who was that, the badger had spoken to?
There had been a power in him. Something unexpected and, while the man had not been able to use it effectively, the potential was enough to fret at the Demons’ minds. They shared their visions and thoughts with StarLaughter, thinking she might be able to explain it.
But StarLaughter shook her head, just as puzzled.
Desperate to solve the riddle, the Demons then allowed WolfStar to share what they’d seen.
“What is it, this power within this man?” Sheol asked.
But WolfStar shook his head. “I do not know,” he said, and then grinned. “But I think the StarSon is gathering to his side his lieutenants for the battle.”
For that he paid. Dearly.
66
Cats in the Corridor!
The chamber was still crowded as the evacuees Herme and his men had found within nearby tenements filed through the doorway, but even so Drago felt the arrival of Goldman and the Lake Guard who’d been with him.
He turned in time to see them step through air that appeared to ripple slightly, as a still pond that shelters deep secrets. It was the first time Drago had witnessed how Spiredore nonchalantly inserted someone into the spot they’d named.
“Well?” Drago said.
“Everyone we could find in our quarter has been moved through the doorway,” Goldman said, patting a pocket in his robe where he’d stored the folded doorway.
“Everyone alive,” ProudFlight said.
“Except the cats,” Goldman muttered.
“The cats?” Drago said.
“They disappeared when we were leading the last of the Acharites through,” ProudFlight said
. “Goldman feels he should have saved them.”
Drago put a hand on Goldman’s shoulder. “They were not your responsibility.”
Goldman nodded unhappily, and Drago tightened his hand momentarily.
“Were you responsible for the bells, Goldman?”
Goldman managed a small smile, glad of the change in topic. “A good idea, was it not?”
“Yes,” Drago said. “But if you’d told me about it sooner it might have saved everyone some trouble.”
“I am an aging man, Drago, and the weight of my years has addled my wits.”
Drago snorted, then addressed ProudFlight. “Split the Lake Guard you have with you into three and then use Spiredore to go aid Faraday, Gwendylyr and Leagh.”
ProudFlight nodded and turned aside.
Drago walked over to the window, and Goldman joined him. His face sobered as he looked outside. Carlon was eating itself up. Most roofs were well alight, and walls and floors crumbled under the heat and the weight of collapsing beams. Many streets were now impassable, or completely inundated with piles of glowing rubble.
Goldman blinked back tears, his distress over the cats exacerbated by the sight before him. Carlon was his home, yet far more than just a “home”. It was a place of vibrant life and laughter, of tender love and the exquisite pain that love brings, and the very heart of a realm.
Yet here it was dying, and Goldman could barely tolerate the screams of nails tearing from toppling walls and stone exploding centuries old constructions.
“We must rebuild,” he said. “We cannot let Carlon lie in ruins.”
Drago took a moment to answer, and when he did he did not look at Goldman.
“Carlon will never be rebuilt,” he said. “This is a final death.”
Goldman was about to protest when he realised the depth of sadness on Drago’s face. He bowed his head, took a deep breath to bring his emotions under control, then looked out the window again.
He could not bear the agony of the city, and so Goldman looked further out to the tens of thousands of creatures massed about the Lake. For the first time in months all their attention was on the water rather than Carlon itself.