Kormak looked at the wall surrounding the Blue Wyvern. “I am going to have to go back in there, it seems.”
“I trust you are not planning on doing so through the front door,” said Darien. “That would seem particularly lacking in sense.”
“I can get you in,” said Nuala. “We go over the lock and up the cornices and in through the balcony on the third floor. All the lower windows are barred.”
“It sounds like you’ve given this some thought on a previous occasion,” said Kormak.
“Nuala can’t look at a house without thinking of a way in through the window,” said Darien, ignoring the glare the girl gave him.
Kormak considered his options. At least, he knew where the Ghul was, if Darien was telling the truth. The question was whether Razhak had changed forms once again and how to find him once he was in the building. Still, it was better than he had feared. At least he did not have to chase the demon through the city, looking for a trail of destroyed corpses. Of course, there were some unpleasant potential implications of the fact that the Ghul had decided to stay in one place as well. It was perhaps expecting him, and it had, perhaps, cut some sort of deal with Scar. Nuala was right. He might well be walking into a trap. He noticed that both the girl and Darien were staring at him.
“Well, what do you want to do?” the girl asked.
“I am going in.”
“I am going with you. You don’t look like you know how to take out a pane of glass without making a noise. Or are you planning on just smashing a window and hacking your way through Scar’s men?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“All that will get you is dead and your demon will still be on the loose.”
“Very well then,” said Kormak. “Let’s get going.”
They made their way up to the wall. It was tall enough so that Kormak could reach the lip of the wall by stretching, but broken glass and nails had been set in the stonework on the top.
Nuala removed her leather jerkin and wadded it up. “Boost me up,” she said.
Kormak made a stirrup of his hands and lifted the girl. She threw the jerkin over the sharp objects and then used it to stand on as she crossed. Kormak pulled himself up with his fingers and scrambled over with less grace than the girl. He felt as if the glass had punctured the jerkin in places but the garment had served to reduce any damage to mere scratches on his own clothing.
Nuala reached up and pulled the jerkin down. She opened it up, revealing slices and punctures in several places. “You’ll pay for that,” she said.
“I suspected I was going to,” Kormak said.
“It’s my favourite,” she said, as if that explained everything, and perhaps it did to her. She glanced around. The garden looked empty and there were no guards anywhere in sight. They padded across it, keeping to the shadows.
“I always expect black lions in places like this,” whispered Nuala.
“Not very convenient when you have clients coming and going and the neighbours might complain,” Kormak said.
“There is that.”
They reached the wall. Kormak could see what Nuala had meant. Rows of gargoyles were carved on the side of the building from the second floor. She reached within her jerkin and produced a coil of rope. It looked as thin as string and Kormak doubted it would hold their weight. That did not seem to bother Nuala as she coiled it into a noose and then threw it over the nearest gargoyle.
“Spidersilk,” she said and began to clamber up the line. “It’s strong enough to hold both of us, although I suggest you don’t put that to the test unless you absolutely have to.” She reached the first gargoyle, grasped it and pulled herself up. That put her within reach of another gargoyle and she just kept climbing. Kormak decided he had better follow her.
In armour, it was not quite as easy as the girl made it look but he managed. Within a few minutes he found himself dropping onto the balcony beside her. “You’ve done this before,” he said.
She nodded and inspected the panes in the window. Just the fact they were of glass told Kormak that Scar’s operation was making money. In the west only the richest could afford glass. City councils often taxed people based on the number of glass windows they had. It was as good an indicator of wealth as any other. She produced a very narrow, very thin dagger and worked it slowly into the window frame; softly and slowly she sawed away and the lowest pane began to slide out. It fell quietly backwards and made a gap. She put her hand through behind the next highest pane and repeated the procedure catching the glass before it could fall as the small pane toppled backwards. After a couple of minutes she reached the latch and undid it, and opened the window.
She crawled through and gestured for Kormak to follow. They were in a quiet chamber, lit by moonlight. Nuala moved over to the doorway and opened it. Kormak followed her. They were looking out into a long corridor, lined with doorways.
“Scar uses these rooms for his wealthier clients. The ones with the lighted windows will be occupied by some of the local gentry, puffing away on his wares.”
“Nice to know,” said Kormak, “but that’s not going to help us find Razhak.”
“You think it will still be wearing Ana’s body,” she asked.
“It most likely is. I doubt it would want even Scar to see it shift forms. That would be likely to turn even an orc against it.”
“What if it has? Could you still spot it?”
“There are signs, if you know what to look for.”
“It might be helpful to know what those are.”
“I don’t have the time to lecture you on the subject,” Kormak said. “Stick close to me and I will let you know if we are in his presence.”
She nodded. They pushed on along the corridor and came to a flight of stairs leading down. A man and a scantily clad woman came up them and Kormak realised they had their own business. Nuala pushed herself against him as she had done when the guard appeared earlier and he hoped the bar-girl and her client did not look too closely at them.
“The girls use the private rooms upstairs,” she said, after they separated. She seemed to be breathing a little faster than normal. Kormak knew he was. “There’s supposed to be other rooms in the basement, with chains and other more exotic devices for those who like such things.”
“Scar has his finger in a lot of different businesses,” Kormak said.
“This Vandemar, big man,” she said. “People do what they have to.”
They continued down the stair and came out on the balcony overlooking the common room. It had been tidied up since the fight earlier and was just as busy as it had been back then. Kormak stood in the shadows on the balcony and scanned the room, looking for any signs of Razhak.
“You planning on searching every room in this place?” Nuala asked.
“No,” said Kormak, moving towards the door of the chamber from which Scar had emerged earlier. “I am going to ask for directions.”
He pushed the door open and entered blade in hand. Ana was there, so was Scar and half a dozen other men. Nuala hung back, staying out of line of sight.
Seeing Ana Kormak sprang. Quick as he was Scar somehow got between them and parried his strike with his blades. Steel rang on steel.
“I was wondering when you would show up,” Scar said. His voice was soft but his words carried. He struck at Kormak swift as a serpent. Kormak barely had time to parry.
“Do you know what you are doing? Who you are protecting?” Kormak asked. He countered swiftly, bringing his blade sweeping down towards Scar’s face. Scar sprang backwards.
“Yes,” said Scar. “It matters not to me if it preys on your weak race. I will have your heart and your blade and a life of endless challenge when your brethren come to seek it. I was First Blade of the Red Horde, taught Edge Rites by the Wolf Shamans. I will devour your brethren and absorb their prowess.”
Kormak cursed quietly. The orc was serious. He believed he could ingest part of an enemy’s prowess with his flesh and he w
elcomed the possibility of endless conflict with Kormak’s order and a heroic death in battle. It was how orcs lived and how they wanted to die.
Scar struck. His blades were flickering lightning, dancing everywhere with dizzying speed. Kormak fell back towards the door, parrying, looking for an opening. Scar was not even breathing hard.
Kormak saw an opening. He knocked Scar’s blade aside and stabbed his dwarf-forged sword into the orc’s heart. Scar twisted, turning sideways. The blade passed through his side but not fatally. It had been a feint of a most daring and bloody kind.
Scar’s massive hand reached out and he caught the Elder Sign hanging by its chain around Kormak’s neck. It snapped and the sign went skittering free across the floor.
Before he could withdraw his blade, Razhak struck. He darted forward and stabbed out with his hand. Pain spasmed through Kormak and for a moment he lost control of his limbs. While he thrashed, two of Scar’s men raced forward. Bludgeons slammed into Kormak’s head. He fell to the floor, twisting to tell Nuala to get away. He need not have bothered. The girl was already gone.
Kormak awoke feeling bruised and chilled. Metal chains restrained his limbs and chilled him where they touched flesh. He looked up and saw Ana. Rotten skin had sloughed away from her flesh now. An eerie green glow glittered within her eyes. Looking around Kormak saw frightened thugs looking at her in horror. Behind her was Scar repairing the links of the chain of Kormak’s damaged Elder Sign. The orc’s wounded side was bound. Seeing Kormak awake, he showed his fangs, put down the amulet and picked up his blades.
Kormak realised his mail shirt had been removed and his amulets. His blade lay on a table in the far corner of the room. He had been stripped of all protection, physical and spiritual, and he doubted his life had been spared for any good reason.
“I had to use up most of my energy with that last spell,” said Razhak. “It ruined this body, took the life from it. I need a new form so I have patched yours up. It is magnificent, a shell that should house me till I reach Tanyth.”
“Kill me and my order will send two more to hunt you.”
A soft, corrupt phlegmy laugh emerged from the possessed woman’s throat. “I have heard enough about your order. I shall leave the blade here with my friend Scar and I shall disappear. They can reclaim the sword. That is all they care about.”
Kormak felt the touch of the Ghul. It was chill and clammy. Ana’s hand felt oddly sticky as if some small vampiric creeper was attaching itself to his breast. A coldness radiated out from the point of contact, sending tendrils burrowing deep into Kormak’s chest, through his veins and up his spine. At first it was not painful, not even unpleasant, only faintly disturbing.
He looked up into Ana’s face. The possessed woman’s face glowed from within. Her flesh was starting to turn black and liquefy. A reddish glow burned in her eyes, growing brighter with every passing heartbeat. Through Ana’s stolen eyes, something ageless watched him, her lips twisted into a smile as the skin ran like wax from a melting candle.
Suddenly, Kormak felt as if a thousand needles stabbed into his flesh where the cold hand rested above his heart. The chill spread suddenly and searingly, so cold it burned, along all those lines of power. His whole body spasmed as his muscles reacted. His fingers opened and closed and they did not do so at his command, nor at the command of anyone else… yet.
He felt in some way like a puppet at the end of a string and at the same time could feel an ominous sense of presence growing in his mind, as in some dreadful dream. It was as if some dark and awful monster, lurking out of sight, was coming ever closer.
His heart raced. His mouth went dry. He felt dizzy and if it was not for the chains, he would not have been able to stand up right. He felt as if he was falling into a black pit that yawned at his feet, an endless, empty chasm in which he would never hit bottom.
His limbs thrashed. He bit on his tongue. He felt a tearing sensation as if his spirit was being ripped free of his body and something else was trying to elbow it aside and take its place within the house of his flesh.
Images started to flicker into his mind. Bubbling up like old memories suddenly remembered. Some of them belonged to him and some of them belonged to someone else. He felt tendrils of alien thought riffle through his mind, like a burglar looking through the possessions found in a trunk. He felt an eager, gloating presence, keen to take possession of all of them, of every little thing he remembered.
He saw a village in the mountains of Aquilea, everyone dead, corpses sprawling in the muddy streets, as cold as the fingers that touched his chest, dead eyes staring at the sky, mouths open in prayer to a god that never answered. He saw an eight year old boy standing in the ruins of a smithy, clutching his father’s hammer, confronting an evil as old as the world while that evil watched him with mocking eyes. The ancient being walked over to the boy and took away the hammer, and it reached out and touched his cheek. You I will spare to take word to the world but one day, child, when you least expect it, I will come for you again. On that day, you will die!
He felt Razhak’s sense of shock in the invading presence. It realised what it was seeing. It was looking on something coeval with itself, a thing that had once been its master, a Lord of the Old Ones, a renegade outside the Law.
Kormak took advantage of its surprise to strike back, as he had been taught by the masters of Mount Aethelas long ago. He threw all of his willpower into envisioning an Elder Sign in his mind. The Ghul recoiled from him, leaving him with a fragment of its memories. Of a world before the coming of men, of ancient beings who had once served the Old Ones and who sought to emulate them.
He watched the Sunlanders arrive borne on the wings of storm from their sinking island continent to claim the lands of the Old Ones in the name of their brilliant, solar god. He saw the Ghul take advantage of the war to rebel against their masters.
He saw Tanyth, a gigantic city with a dome of magic over it and towers whose minarets glowed like the moon as lightning danced from spire to spire. He saw the things that looked somewhat like men, but were not, lie down in sarcophagi and have their essence strengthened until they could exist outside the housing of flesh. He felt a sense of triumph. They had emulated their masters. They were immortal.
The Ghul struck back at him. A wave of power rushed inwards battering at the walls he had created around his self with the Elder Sign. It smashed through them and dug its talons into his soul and began to shake lose his memories once more. He saw that eight year old boy still standing in the ruins of an empty village. The ancient evil was gone, as inexplicably as it had come, leaving him alone in the place of death. He heard the sound of a horse. He looked up and he saw a grim-faced man ride in, with a dwarf-forged sword slung on his back. The man looked wary at the sight but he did not look afraid. He dismounted and moved towards the boy suspiciously, as if he thought the child might be a demon wearing a different form. The boy stood watching, clutching his father’s hammer. The man reached out and touched him with an amulet, which did not burn and then asked him what had happened.
Kormak saw that Razhak was beginning to understand. Taking advantage of the demon’s confusion, he countered. The memories came in a tide of images, intermingling as the two spirits fought for possession of his body. Kormak was not going to give up. The tide of memories brought back fresh recollections of his training in how to resist magical influence. He strengthened his wards, clawed back at Razhak.
Images flickered through his mind. The bodiless Ghuls raced around the world, disembodied immortal creatures that yet had the appetites born of flesh and which now hungered for the experiences they could no longer have. Disquieting tidings came, as Ghuls started to flicker and fade. There was a flaw in their magic. They had not become as independent of the flesh as they had thought. They could still die, coming apart in a welter of entropic energy, losing form and coherence, as if there was nothing to anchor them to reality.
More memories were ripped from Kormak’s mind. He saw the boy and
the Guardian approach the towering spire of Mount Aethelas. He caught sight of the ancient fortress monastery for the first time. He saw himself placed with the other novices. Once again he picked up a training sword and surprised the masters with how good he was with it. He recalled the long years of training and learning. He saw himself grow to become a hulking youth with quick reflexes and a quicker temper, a black-haired cuckoo among the golden-haired second offspring of the Sunlander nobility from whom the vast majority of Guardians were drawn.
He saw the first desperate attempts of the Ghuls to find out what had gone wrong. Without their physical forms it was difficult to work the magical engines they had thought they had no more need for. He saw the Ghuls learn how to seize the forms of others, starting with beasts and working their way up to sentients.
Humans proved best. They lacked the spiritual protections of the Old Ones and there were so many of them, scattering so far and so fast across the lands that the weakest could be picked off without the Ghuls being noticed. Some acquired herds of humans, with scores of new bodies to be taken possession of. Some set themselves up as kings. Some led human armies against their former masters, the Old Ones. Some were worshipped as Gods just as the Old Ones had been. They returned to Tanyth and made a home there, with herds of subject humans to worship and guard them. Life was good until the Emperor Solareon intervened to free the humans from their worship of false gods. His armies smashed Tanyth, bound the Ghuls in great amphorae with potent spells, questioned them as to their secrets, then one day he rode away to make war on new enemies, never to return. His successor, fanatical with holy rage, threw the amphorae into the darkest part of the World Ocean, to rest in the darkness of the ocean floor for long cold millennia. Kormak was struck by a vast sense of cosmic loneliness. Razhak had encountered none of his own kind for centuries. It was possible he was the last.