Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead. Robert Hood

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СКАЧАТЬ knife slid out abruptly. The suddenness caused Remis to stagger back. She regained her balance, staring at the strange snaking double-blade that she held. It was too dark for her to make out details. Night seemed to congeal, as though the air was alive with movement. It concentrated directly in front of her. Remis felt a chill that was almost solid stab into her chest.

      The corpse rose stiffly, flexing its arms in the snake-thick air.

      Remis tried to edge away—wanting to run from the fear and unreality of her dream realized—but instead found herself motionless, mind numb with cold. The creature’s hand jerked out and thudded against her shoulder. She staggered, though it hadn’t been a hard push. Almost a touch after all. Its body was sinewy with tense muscle and suppressed power.

      “Who are you?” Remis asked it.

      It remained mute. Remis found herself staring into eyes devoid of life. Deeper within them perhaps, further than she could see unaided, a life was trapped in the decaying flesh.

      “Are you the one who called me?” She tried to send the words on a psychic level as well. Still it neither answered nor ran from her. Movement like an involuntary twitch shivered through its limbs.

      “Please—”

      Its hand pointed. The dagger. Remis gripped it before her, unconsciously prepared to use the weapon. The creature might have been staring at it, conveying a message she didn’t understand. Was it dangerous?

      “This…knife.…” Remis raised it and the creature drew away, “…did it hold you? You needed it to be taken out of your flesh?”

      The dead man stood unmoving.

      “The man in you, who you once were, before undeath claimed you, is he here? Can I speak to him?”

      There was no answer, as she knew there wouldn’t be. The man this corpse had been—the man she’d seen in her sleep—was visible in the hard lines and stony lifelessness of the dead face, but what had come for her help had been a shadow, the last traces of a trapped spirit. The dagger, which had to be an enchanted one, would be a talisman designed to simulate true death in the corpse, to hold it immobile. Yet the creature had desired release so that the false death with which it was cursed could achieve some end unknown to her. Once she’d taken the dagger from its chest, the creature’s undead life had returned.

      And with that realization, its gaunt hand touched her again. In a moment the undead creature was roaring—soundlessly. As though there was nothing in it to come out.

      Then it turned and sped down the tunnel of darkness into the open road beyond. Turned left. Was gone. Ahead of it, and in its wake, surged a wave of power that almost overwhelmed her. It had told her what it had wanted her to know, and now it had returned to whatever business obsessed it.

      Remis’ knees buckled. She sank to the rocky dirt of the alley, its irregular surface somehow reassuring. Her heart was pounding and blood hissed in her ears. The runic pattern on the dagger felt like a warning as she pressed her fingers against it.

      “I don’t know what you’re after,” she whispered, staring into the night, “but I intend to find out.”

      Remis was not overly superstitious, but nor was she fool enough to lightly dismiss the weirdness of this night and the awful reality of the unliving corpse. Was it coincidence that all her plans—the vision that had governed her life for so long—had in the lead-up to this moment been all but squeezed from her? On the Rheateeshan Continent children were instructed that all were caught in the net of Junsar’s Curse. Junsar’s Curse was Fate, the inevitable deterioration supposed to have resulted from the actions of the primeval God, Junsar. Remis knew the tale well: Junsar was one of the original creators of the world, set to define the world’s end limits, and hence the shape of being. But doubt and fear had entered his heart and Junsar, hoping to build a safer place for himself with its power, stole a husk of the cosmic Seed from which the world had been grown. The Seed-husks, or kartoranth, were to be placed at the opposite ends of the world to define a space in which the fallen god Errellinarth could be re-made. This was the world, Tharenweyr, as they knew it. The Far Kartoranth, which Junsar stole, was intended to fix the lower limit of Tharenweyr. Instead of saving himself, therefore, Junsar warped the world, and the result was Fate.

      Now, in these events that had touched her life, Remis could smell more than a whiff of Fatefulness.

      v.

      Remis had not been alone with the undead corpse that night. Another had been watching from back in the shadows—a tall, strong figure dressed in the robes of a sorcerer: Aridor—senior Acolyte of the Yanuran Lord Worjaren Rehemon. He was an intense, thoughtful man, and soon his thoughts would be turned toward Remis.

      At first, however, standing under Telfith’s Mast, Aridor had seen nothing out of the ordinary, despite the omens that had brought him there. He’d thought he was alone, as he preferred it. The street ran before him into darkness, empty and damp with rain. On one side there was a stone wall; on the other, brick warehouses and slat-fronted shops. Smears of blackness along the way were alleys and lanes leading nowhere.

      He began to walk down the street, staying close to the shop façades for protection from the rain and watching eyes. His breathing was slightly labored. He was very tired. This day, like many of his days before it, had been spent in an outer-circle reading room of the Hassur libraries, where he sought to refresh his memory of undead lore. For according to his master Lord Worjaren Rehemon, an undead creature lay at the center of their search for the legendary artifact known as the Cerendar. They had heard whispers of its presence, tales of the disturbances that attended its arrivals and equally sudden departures—always hints of the all-powerful Cerendar were found in its wake.

      “Whatever this thing may be,” Lord Worjaren had said to Aridor, “this much is clear: it is pursuing the Cerendar, mindlessly, as the birds pursue the Spring, with a perception no other being in all the world can claim. The Cerendar is hidden even from the searches of the bright gods of Tharenweyr—the Guardian Raashyr—but this creature sees it. It will find the artifact because it must, and we must be there when it does. Of that you can never doubt.”

      Lord Worjaren Rehemon was clearly obsessed with finding the artifact called Cerendar. Aridor knew that, had known for many years—but he had never before seen him this intensely insistent. It was as though he smelled the nearness of the legendary object on the wind.

      Why did Lord Worjaren want it so much? For the incredible power it was said to wield? Wasn’t such foolish avarice a weakness?

      Lord Worjaren’s authority within the Yanuran court, and the sorcerous influence he controlled, ensured that Aridor would never allow his dedication to flag or his mouth to utter treachery, whatever his mind might whisper. But the doubts were there nevertheless, gnawing at his belief.

      Tonight, returned from the Libraries, he had lain in his room within the Yucartel Chambers and indulged his pessimism. A year had passed since Eblamthezaik, the Ormsinir of Dark God Lord Huedaik, had come in his demonic glory and purged the royal Court of Dagest-Yanu of those harboring treachery in their hearts and, dare he say it, doubt in their souls. The demi-god had spoken of the victory possible through the Cerendar and urged all Huedaik’s disciples to join the search for it. With many others, Aridor and his master Worjaren had sniffed out the clues. But where had it led them? To this decadent city. To stagnation. To despair.

      Yet, tonight, his dreams had been of an undead creature and of the Cerendar. It was nearby—of that he was sure. Just out of his reach. He woke with the images in his mind. He knew the time had come. СКАЧАТЬ