Dreamlands (21 page)

“We
pursued the black galley and we overcame her.  Isobel is alive and safe, and
Solomon the shipwright avenged, because of your tireless labour and courage.”  I
paused, already sweating.  “We overcame her crew and burned them to the water,
but there is a greater threat from the Men of Leng.  They have been gathering
their strength for a ritual, a working of desperate magic–”

Though
no one spoke, discontent rippled through the crowd as plainly as wind on a
field of wheat.  I paused a second time, a weaker Isaac Sloan whispering in my
ear that if I failed to rally them I could turn the Peregrine back south, and
leave off conflict and death for the life with Isobel that I had so hardly
earned.

“The
gold,”
Erik hissed to me beneath his breath.

I
cleared my throat.

“They
have gold,” I said, and their attention snapped back to me like a compass
needle to true north.  “The yellow-eyed merchants have traded and schemed,
gathered and stole for the past two years to amass a great horde of gold.”

“How
well is it guarded?” someone asked.

“Is
it far?” said Gavrel.

And
a host of similar questions.

“It
is not far,” I said.  “I do not know how they guard their wealth, but we have already
taken the measure of their slaves, and we all have friends to avenge.”

The
promise of revenge made Jome the first to declare his support.  That shout
turned to a cry of pain when he tried to lift his wounded arm, but luckily his
enthusiasm was infectious.  A little time would ease my own doubts as well.  Whatever
devilry they planned, I knew I could not leave the Men of Leng to their own
devices.  I dismissed the men to two days' leave in Dylath-Leen, at the end of
which we would sail against the horned ones a final time.

I
called Jome to a conference in my cabin.

"I
have hard news, Jome,” I said, “but you're a hard man."  In better times
he would have answered this with a joke, but Marthin’s death had damped his rude
humour.  “You know we can’t take Isobel with us to the granite isle, and Dylath-Leen
is the enemy’s territory.  I need someone I can trust to escort her back to
Zij.”

“That
you might,” he said, “but not me.  I’m the best fighter you’ve got.”

“Can
you make a fist yet?” I asked, and he shot me a look that could have burned a
hole in the keel.

Steadying
himself with his right hand, he groaned with the effort as he tried to close
his left.  He shook his head, panting from the pain.

"Go
easy on that and it might mend."

“There’s
to be a fight,” he said incredulously, “and I’ll miss it.”

“You’ll
miss your left arm more.”  Seeing that he had already come around, I produced a
coin pouch.  Convincing Isobel had been much harder.  "There's enough here
for both your passages, plus your payout, and more besides.  You leave in the
morning."

"I'll
stand the drinks on the Peregrine’s return, Captain."  He tried to smile
encouragingly, but quickly gave it up.  It didn't suit his face anyway.

That
night, Isobel and I lay in the captain's cabin like two mice in a cigar box and
for awhile pure exhaustion obliterated the terror of the yellow-eyed merchants,
and all our lesser cares besides.

“A
storm gathers in the north,” Gavrel observed.  Dark clouds were rising behind
the jagged hump of island ahead.

“And
in the east,” Erik said dourly, “west, and” –looking over his shoulder– “in the
south.”  As he said, bad weather seemed to be converging on the island from all
sides, and would soon crowd out the remaining patch of blue sky.

“I
do not like the look of it,” Gavrel said.

We
had departed Dylath-Leen for the second time with a crew of only two dozen.  It
was a short jaunt to the nameless island, and morale was no longer a problem. 
Among the men, talk of gold circulated like a fever.

Cliffs
of yellow granite, lifting a forest of ancient oaks up from the sea, marked our
destination.  If there was aught special about the place, it was not
immediately apparent. 

“I
see a jetty,” Erik said, scanning the shore through our spyglass, “but no tower
or fortifications.”  The dock had been built at the foot of a natural slope
which bypassed the high cliffs along the water.

A
little later he added, surprised, “No black galleys in sight.”

“Bring
us closer,” I said.

The
approach was too shallow for the Peregrine, so a dozen of us landed in the longboat. 
Once on dry land, we sent the craft back for more men.  I gestured for silence,
but there was nothing except the wind in green leaves and the small sounds of a
forest in summer.

“There
may be no one here now,” Erik remarked, “but that track heading inland shows
regular use.”  Indeed, the earth was so packed down it looked broom swept.

“Let’s
scout ahead,” I said.  Erik began to follow the path, but I led us into the
woods, where we followed the road at a distance.  The massive oaks crowded out
the light, which made for sparse undergrowth and, after the steep climb up from
the shore, an easy hike.  We moved anxiously at first, wary of a trap or
ambush, but the dappled light and warm breeze made it seem impossible we headed
towards violence.

Near
the center of the island, a long, clay-floored declivity ran like a scar
through the wood.  At the far end, the clay had been scraped back to expose a square
plaza of the island’s naked bedrock.  Inspecting this scene from the cover of
the trees, my attention was drawn to the sky directly above.  Where the roiling
clouds met, they were forming an inverted black funnel, a shape both unfamiliar
and unnaturally precise.

Erik
again removed the spyglass from its felt pouch and raised it to where two
lonely figures conferred at the far end of the plaza.

“The
first is one of the Men of Leng, the other a man in red robes.  He’s too calm
and still to be one of their slaves.  They are speaking in a friendly fashion.”

After
surveying them for a minute more, Erik jerked the telescope to one side and
carefully adjusted the focus.

“Something
else of interest,” he said, passing it to me.

Scarring
the exposed granite floor was a circle several meters across, the inside of
which was crowded with sigils and hieroglyphs, also carved into the stone.  Softly
glowing in spite of the gloom, every line and curve had been filled in gold.  I
let out the breath I had been holding, and turned the glass on the two forms at
the edge of the arcane device.  The man dressed in rust-coloured robes was solidly
built and had hidden his face in a cowl, as was ever the habit of cultists.  Huspeth
had told me every cult must have a high priest, and that we would certainly
find him on the island.

“But
for a crossbow,” I said to myself and chuckled grimly.

I
let the others each have a turn with the glass, ensuring everyone had a long
look at the gold, and put a hand on Gavrel’s shoulder.

"Head
back to the beach,” I told him, “and make sure the others find us." 
Gavrel jogged back the way we had come.

“The
yellow-eyed ones never travel without their slaves,” Erik said, scanning the oak
wood which edged the clearing on all sides.  “We should wait for the rest of
the crew.”

“No.
 The weather has turned odd, the golden circle is complete, and Huspeth warned
me a full moon rises today.  Their ritual has already begun.”  I glanced
apprehensively at the sky.  Whatever the funnel portended, its apex seemed to
narrow to a place beyond sight.  My eyes would not focus there, but always slipped
aside to the restlessly streaming clouds.

Setting
his jaw, Erik quietly concurred and the others straightened their backs and made
their weapons ready.  No one could mistake the burgeoning, unnatural tension in
the air.  We left the safety of the trees, and headed across the clay towards
the granite stage where the high priest waited, alone now.

As
Erik had predicted, once we were exposed a contingent of Wilted emerged from
the trees.  They did not walk with slow menace or run out to attack, but alternated
between scurrying forward and abruptly pausing, like a horde of curious rodents. 
Forming an uneven crescent at our backs, they fidgeted and leered at my men,
and jostled each other like nervous children.

“Isaac
Sloan and his merry band of ne’er-do-wells!”  The hooded figure's voice rumbled
with hearty good cheer, more like that of a favourite uncle than a fearful sorcerer. 
“Brave sailors and adventurers, why do you persist in obstructing our affairs? 
You have murdered my lieutenants and servants, and scuttled my finest ship.  You
recovered your girl, yet your bloodlust remains unslaked.”  He sighed and shook
his head at events having come to such a ridiculous conclusion.  “Worst of all,
you think me your enemy.”

Despite
the threat of the high priest ahead and his henchmen behind, the vortex
overhead was exhibiting a terrible fascination.  Observing it, I felt tantalizingly
close to understanding an immense puzzle.

“The
battle will take place here on the ground, you buffoons,” Erik said to the men likewise
staring upwards.  “Not in the pretty clouds!”

“I
bring you not destruction but mercy,” the cowled figure continued.  “You are about
to witness a change as significant as this world has ever seen, a rebirth for man
and animal, plant and stone.”  The winds chasing the storm had risen from a
moan to a howl, buffeting us from all sides, yet though he was over twenty
meters away his voice was as clear as if he stood at my shoulder.  “I am glad
you have come, Isaac Sloan, and you men of the Peregrine, for you will be the
first fully human witnesses of the new age.”

Having
allowed him all the time he wished for his monologue, I was repaid for my
patience.  The rest of my crew had arrived, and fanned out behind the high
priest’s henchmen.  The sailors were coiled and eager to fight, and I knew Gavrel
had spread word of the gold.  The Wilted were growing more agitated as well,
calling out threats and jogging in place.  We had not evened the numbers, but neither
would it be a rout, and though the Wilted separated the two halves of my crew,
they did not shield their master.

Ajer
made an almost imperceptible signal to me, and I to Erik.

“At
them, men,” Erik cried, “cut them down!”

The
crew of the Peregrine swarmed the Wilted from both sides while Ajer and I broke
in a sprint towards the cowled figure.  The gold's light was dripping upwards
from his feet like ice melting from ground to sky.  As we came closer to the
magic circle, I saw too the tangled beard that spilled from the dark of the
high priest’s hood and the hole of his mouth.  When that black oval had
stretched improbably wide, it loosed a rushing cacophony of voices, male and
female, in all different accents and pitches, yelling, gurgling, and singing.  With
this, the gale redoubled in force and shifted its direction to directly oppose
us.  Ajer and I had to stop to find our footing so we would not be bowled over.

When
the babble of sound, and with it the overpowering wind, abruptly ceased, the
light began to bend overhead.  I was reminded of my dream in Bromm’s hut of vines,
when the sky had become a lens through which something vast and
incomprehensible watched.  I sensed that this was no dispassionate observer,
however.  It wanted to come in.

The
high priest brought his palms up from his sides as if holding an invisible tray,
and the ground between us began to split.  Ajer and I assumed a fighting
stance, I fearing we would be swallowed up.  The cracks did not reveal a pit
however, but squirming, organic movement.  Pushing up from below, living things
were breaking free of the earth the way a chick breaks free of an egg.

What
arose made the uncanny nexus above and the clash of battle at my back fade away. 
Naked human figures struggled free and, shaking the clay from their bodies and
hair, formed a rank between us and the high priest’s platform.  Here were a
dozen flat, expressionless faces I had never thought –nor hoped– to see again. 
I saw among them Orvuhlt and Marthin, as well as others of the Peregrine’s crew
and the Asphodel’s, and pirates I had killed.  At the end of the line stood little
Lark.

Ajer’s
staff trembled in his hands, and his eyes bulged in panic.  I was thinking that
Gorice was mercifully not among them, and at the same time realized the ground
nearby had begun to bubble with more.

“Did
you not hear their troubled cries from beneath the clay?” the high priest asked.
“They were calling your name, Isaac Sloan!”  He roared with laughter, and a
copy of the young pirate I had killed on the Asphodel came towards me.

The
doppelgänger’s face remained perfectly blank, even as I severed his raised right
hand with a sweep of my sword.  His colleagues looked on while he confusedly
contemplated a grey, bloodless stump.  His master lifted a cupped hand, and the
rest of his cursed minions advanced as one.

I
gave a rather unheroic yelp as Ajer and I were jostled from behind.

“Hush,”
Huspeth said, finger to lips.  “Mind your arms for you will need them.”

Standing
between us, the soothsayer planted her staff, the same stick I had brought down
from Captain Bromm’s mountain, and faced our nemesis.  She began to whisper in
an unfamiliar, guttural tongue.  I could not repeat what I heard, but the alien
syllables seemed to rise in volume upon leaving her mouth before culminating
with a sound like a clap of hands.  The high priest had leaned forward at this
development, chin jutting, but stayed within the bounds of the golden symbol.

Huspeth
raised her stick and, making a cryptic gesture with her left hand, brought it down. 
White light flared up before us, seemingly from nothing, a flame borrowed from that
towering pillar which blessed the Temple of Nasht and Kaman-Thah.  A brilliant
corona formed the omega around it, completing the symbol first shown me by
Bo'sun Longbottom.

I
do not know whose voice said in awe,
"The elder sign,"
as at
the same time the naked men stalled and the high priest himself reeled as if
struck a blow, briefly falling to all fours.  After hanging in the air like a
high clarion note, it vanished.

Orvuhlt
and the young pirate collapsed back into the clay from which they had been
raised, and the hummocks of ground where more of their kind had been breaking
free stilled, stray arms and faces crumbling into inanition.  The others were
marked everywhere with hairline cracks like spider webs, but came on
nonetheless.

The
golems carried no weapons, but though I lopped off a hand, an arm, and even a
head, whatever remained bit and battering relentlessly.  Thanks to Ajer sweeping
the legs from under a few of them, we were not immediately overrun.

The
high priest was tracking the action closely, his head moving in quick jerks
like a bird's.  I spied what must be the relic from the Toad Temple, a tusked skull,
resting on a low pedestal at the heart of the circle, and recalled the long
effort the Men of Leng had made to capture it.

“Ajer,”
I cried with breath I could not afford to spare, “the clay men are a
distraction!  The skull is the thing, get to the skull!”

The
black fighter grimaced in understanding.  With an artful thrust of his bō,
he created an opening in the tangle of bodies, and rushed at their master on
his granite platform.

Unfazed,
the high priest produced, seemingly from air, a scimitar almost the height of a
man.  He met Ajer with that weapon as if it were no more substantial than a
switch, and opened with a flurry of blows.  Ajer deflected the assault and
returned a shocking jab to one thigh.  As soon as the wizard became distracted,
I saw that his minions slowed and I shifted my efforts to providing a rear
guard for Ajer.

Having
pushed his opponent back a step, Ajer Akiti knocked the weird skull from the
plinth.  The air above the magic circle rippled like the surface of a pool as the
skull danced helter-skelter across the plaza.  When it came to rest twenty
paces away, near the far edge of the design, the sigils’ upwards flowing light
subsided like a fire banked to embers.  I risked a glance at the sky but whatever
the nature of the singularity, it had not been interrupted.  Ajer at once began
backing in the direction of the relic.

The
cultist’s blade beat rhythmically against Ajer’s bō, which blurred in
compact, efficient arcs as it countered each attack with a steely ring.  The high
priest was relentless, but each blow drove Ajer towards the skull.  The assault
grew frenzied, then reckless, and when Ajer chose at a critical moment to sidestep
rather than retreat, his opponent chopped wildly at empty space and was left
defenseless.