Journeyman: The Force of the Gods: Part I (39 page)
Read Journeyman: The Force of the Gods: Part I Online
Authors: Mark Tuson
He was going to need help, though. Atlosreg alone didn’t have the first chance of getting everyone out. He was going to have to ask Eddie to enlist a few – or all – of the Guild, the better to be able to locate everyone and shepherd them all back to Knifestone.
Later in the evening, once everyone had called down after this evening’s attack from the Werosaian forces, Peter went to look for Eddie.
‘Hello?’ He found him at the opposite end of the refectory, silently nursing a much larger mug of brandy than the ones they had all been given before.
‘What do you want?’ Eddie’s eyes were bloodshot, and now Peter had a chance to look at him without the distraction of impending death hanging over them all, he noticed that Eddie looked a lot older as well. He looked worn out, which the appearance of him having not shaved for a week did nothing to help.
‘I know you don’t approve of what I’ve been doing. But Atlas and I are ready to move the Werosaian innocents out, to Knifestone.’
Much to Peter’s shock, Eddie nodded. ‘I know you were right about that,’ he said. ‘A couple of months ago, we kept one of the Army alive and… made him talk. He was terrified, said that he was only acting under orders. He didn’t want to be a part of any of it. We’ve still got him, protecting him.’
That was encouraging, thought Peter. Someone had proven to Eddie that Peter wasn’t full of shit after all.
‘Are you prepared to help us?’ Peter said after a brief pause.
‘Yes. Just let me see who we still have, then you can have whoever can help.’
Peter nodded solemnly. ‘Thank you.’
Eddie waved him away. He wanted peace.
They stayed there, at the Guild, that night: Peter in his old room, and Atlosreg in a room nearby. The following day, Eddie addressed everyone, calling a meeting in the refectory immediately after a large breakfast.
‘As some of you know,’ he was saying loudly, ‘Peter Rutherford and Atlosreg of Werosain have been working together for the last year to prepare a place where the innocents of Werosain can be relocated, before Peter does what our ancestors should have done twenty thousand years ago: call and end to that world.
‘He will be needing help to move everyone to the place he has prepared, and I have said we’ll assist in whatever ways we can. This means, later, we will be splitting off into a number of groups and travelling to each of the villages in Werosain –’
At the mention of them all travelling to Werosain, a few people began to shout out garbled phrases alluding to the impracticality of such a mission, alongside a few others who stood up and blatantly shouted ‘fuck that.’
Eddie continued, shouting over the insubordinate comments: ‘Travelling into each of the villages in Werosain,’ he repeated, ‘to invite them to come into the new place.
‘Meanwhile, Peter will be looking for Rechsdhoubnom, and engaging him personally. I have
no idea whatsoever
how he expects to survive that one, but he seems to think he can.’
Peter laughed aloud. He hadn’t realized how little the other members of the Guild knew about how far he had come in the year since he had last even set foot in the Guild.
Eddie signalled to Atlosreg to explain his part of the plan, and he reluctantly stepped up in front of everyone to do so.
‘There are around ten thousand, divided into villages of between three and five hundred each. Finding them will not be difficult, but I will be going ahead of everyone to explain what is happening and why. We can expect resistance, but for the most part any people who make things difficult will be on their own – I imagine – and easily sorted out.
‘I have drawn a map of Werosain, but I cannot guarantee how accurate it will be. Copies have been prepared and I have marked each village, and where the other main landmarks are. There are twenty-seven of these villages, and they are all far enough away from one another that we will have to travel. That said, we can carry a door with us so we can get back to Knifestone with the people we are bringing back.
‘We can expect it to take a week or two to get everyone moved, if we work quickly. During this time, Peter will be working alone, looking for Rechsdhoubnom and possibly fighting with him. I
can
guarantee his capability, because of the magic I have seen him produce – he is easily the most powerful magician I have ever seen at work.’
For a man who had seemed reluctant to stand before everyone and speak, Peter thought, he didn’t have much of a problem actually speaking. Not that it mattered; he had got across what he needed to get across – for now, at least. There was more he was going to need to tell them, but he would be better telling them those things once they became relevant.
Copies of Atlosreg’s map were distributed, and a month’s worth of food rations were given to Peter, to keep him going while he was on his journey. The food rations consisted mostly of hardtack and honey, which in themselves weren’t particularly appetizing, but Peter knew they would help him survive pretty much as long as he needed to, and if he didn’t feel like eating them he could likely hunt for something. Privately, he was looking forward to the possibility of finding a wakka or two on his travels.
Shortly after, they were ready. All of the surviving members of the Guild of Magicians, plus Atlosreg, swarmed through the portal to Knifestone. It was surreal, everyone standing on the island which, until this morning, had been a secret. He couldn’t help being curious as to how Lucy could have found the place, but he supposed he would find out in due course.
As everyone else made their way down into the town-sized cavern under the island, Atlosreg and Peter pulled the doorway they had built out of the water, and cleaned it. It was still usable, though no obvious attempts had been made by anybody to come through it. Between them, they carried it down into the cavern and set it up.
The cavern itself was dark and warm, and the ceiling, which was two hundred feet higher than the floor, was glowing a reddish colour, similar to the sky in Werosain. The spellwork involved had been nontrivial, though not quite as difficult as it could have been, especially given Peter’s initial idea of creating a copy of the sky above. The atmosphere down here was one which, Peter imagined, would feel at first quite alien to anyone else. The ground was cool and damp, and with the light down here there were the very beginnings of small plants attempting to grow. Of course, they weren’t as well-established as they would have been had they been growing on the surface, but the fact of them having grown the little they had had been encouraging to Peter and to Atlosreg.
With everyone here at Knifestone, and the door set up, they were all almost ready. The one thing they had left to do was make sure everyone had all the tools on them they were going to need. As Peter had hoped, Eddie had paid attention to the shield spell Peter cast on him, and now everyone else here knew how to do it, which they all did. Peter checked his own shield: it was as strong as he had hoped it would be, and the out-phasing spell he had developed, and eventually cast on the small gold cygnet ring he had taken to wearing, was ready to become active at a thought. His wands, knife, two-stick, and flute were in his satchel, and his food rations were in a large blue backpack.
He was ready. This was it.
Atlosreg and Peter went through first, killing the guards before even having looked at them. Peter stepped back through to Knifestone to give the others the “all-clear” for coming through, and then he, feeling nervous and emotional, said his goodbye to Atlosreg.
‘I hope this works,’ he said quietly. ‘And I hope we see each other again. You’ll let me know when everyone is safely back on Knifestone, won’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Thank
you
, Peter.’ It felt very strange to hear Atlosreg say his name; that didn’t happen very often at all. ‘You have given me hope that maybe my life has not been wasted. I hope you find him and succeed in this. You are the only man who can.’ And then, in a gesture which was so alien to Peter that he nearly burst out laughing, Atlosreg put an arm around him. ‘We will see each other again, brother.’ Peter nodded. For the moment, he couldn’t speak.
Eddie and Eric had come through, and they both came together to wish Peter luck, though Eric seemed not to be willing – or able – to speak. Eddie, on the other hand, told Peter that he was sorry for having been unfair on him, but that he should have been more open about his intents, and more willing to accept the guidance of his elders. Peter understood, and hugged both of them. Even Lucy and Caroline came to see him off, both hugging him. He wasn’t sure why Lucy had made this effort, since they hadn’t ever spoken before – unless Peter had gained a reputation in his absence of which he wasn’t aware.
There wasn’t anybody else there wanting to say anything, at least as far as Peter knew, and he took his opportunity to quietly leave. They were going to be alright from here.
Wand at the ready, he left the room in which the door out of Werosain was. He threw explosive spells at every Werosaian who approached him, no longer feeling any remorse for the deaths he was causing. This was a military operation, and he had to be prepared to sacrifice the lost to save the innocent.
Calmly and purposefully, he continued in this manner until he reached the palisade around the base. The guards had their own wands out, and were preparing what appeared to be some kind of duet offensive spell between them: they must have seen Peter approaching, and the fallen Werosaians in his wake. They looked worried and shaken as they worked, though neither one finished the spell they had started: they simply collapsed where they were, still wearing the expressions they had been when they were alive.
As he stepped through the now un-guarded gateway, he set light to the wooden fence, for no other reason than that he wanted to. He now had to simply work. There was no stopping and allowing himself to feel the things he had just done: he was working for the greater good – a greater good which, hopefully, would save anyone from committing any more killings. That was the theory, at any rate.
He took out his own copy of Atlosreg’s map. If Rechsdhoubnom had a home, it wasn’t marked down. Obviously, Atlosreg didn’t know of any particular home he kept, which meant Peter would have to search through all of Werosain, possibly trying to break through who-knew-what ancient forms of concealing spellwork along the way.
The map itself was drawn in an almost unbelievable level of detail, which made Peter wonder how Atlosreg could have gained such a knowledge of the land: he had never claimed to have any expertise in cartography or geography, and from what he had said, he had never travelled much.
After a moment’s absent-minded pondering, he reminded himself that he was here on a mission, and directed his attention back to the map, which indicated his current position as being pretty much dead-centre of the most western part of the lower continent, which was the largest of the three continents which constituted the total landmass on Werosain.
He had realized before setting out that he was going to have to look through each continent in turn, starting with the one further away, to the north-east: as far as Atlosreg knew, there was no settlement there, and no military base, which – in Peter’s mind – would make it the perfect place to hide whatever home, or base, or whatever the most appropriate term was, that Rechsdhoubnom kept. The only drawback was that it would take almost as long simply to
get
there as it would take the rest of the Guild to evacuate the rest of Werosain. And then, when he got there, if there wasn’t any sort of base there in which Rechsdhoubnom lived, he would have that time to spend
again
, getting back to the main landmass and starting again.
Not only was there that to think about, but Peter and Atlosreg had also discussed the likelihood of Rechsdhoubnom moving away from his own home, wherever it was, and engaging the Guild in combat. They had concluded, however, that even if that were to happen, Peter would pose more of a direct threat; his presence would be far more likely to pique Rechsdhoubnom’s interest.
Peter stared at the map again, and at the landscape, and back at the map. He was trying to match physical landmarks with those Atlosreg had marked on the map: compasses wouldn’t work here, which Peter guessed was likely to be because of the lack of a magnetic field on the planet which constituted Werosain.
It took him nearly ten minutes to plot any kind of track to follow, based on the few things he could match between the map and the landscape. He had considered flying to the far continent, as he and Atlosreg had when they were fleeing, but the spell which facilitated flight like that would take too much out of him, and ne needed to save as much strength as possible.
What he guessed to be the first two days were incredibly tiring, yet completely uneventful. He had no way to keep track of time, which meant he was working entirely from guesswork, as far as time was concerned. There was a stark advantage to this, however, which was that he wasn’t constricted by day or night; he could simply walk when he was awake, and sleep when he was tired. With the hundreds of hybrid spells protecting him, he saw no real need in having any kind of shelter to keep with him. He did, however, put a spell on a small perimeter around himself, to alarm him should any potential threats appear.
On the third day – or what he guessed to be the third day – Peter was awoken by his alarm spell emitting an intolerably high-pitched note. He immediately awoke and had his wand ready, but nothing was there. Only after a few seconds did he notice that the dry earth had been disturbed to one side, and looking further in the distance, he noticed a number of wakka, running away, looking like a horde of demented top-heavy horses.
There was another sound nearby, coming from the opposite direction. After the moment it took him to discern it, he saw what it was that was chasing the wakka: a tiger-like animal, similar in colour to the dead earth, running hard. Peter stood, not knowing whether he should flee or stay still. The beast seemed intent on the prey it had put to flight, but it might opt instead for him, since he was standing there. His wand hung loosely in his hand, momentarily forgotten.
The creature didn’t stop for him. Instead, it ran straight past him, leaving a trail of disturbed earth floating behind it, which settled again after a few seconds. Only then did Peter remember his wand: he felt like a fool for not having used it to protect himself or disable the beast, or whatever the hell he might have done. Sighing, he snapped off the alarm spell and returned the wand to his satchel.
He ate a couple of the concrete-like hardtack he had been given, pausing after each bite so he could allow himself to fully resent it, and then he resumed his course across the dead land. By what little reckoning he had been able to do, he guessed he should be approaching the edge of the continent within another couple of hours, at which point he would follow the shore for another couple of days in what would, on Earth, have been an easterly direction.
When, eventually, he did arrive at the shore, he stopped again, to eat and to look at the sparse landmarks and calculate again how long he would need to walk before needing to think about crossing the sea.
The shore was nothing like the beaches Peter had seen on Earth: the ground simply ended here, and the translucent water began there. It looked a greenish colour, though it was reflecting the red of the sky: the effect was a somewhat distressing brownish purple colour, which made him think of poisonous chemicals, acids, and nuclear waste. Even though he highly doubted that any of those categories of material were in that water, he was very definitely not looking forward to having to cross it.
By the rough reckoning he repeated upon arriving at the shore, he confirmed the reckoning he had done just before setting off in the first place: it would be around two days from here to where he would need to cross.
As he continued walking, his mind wandered. The land looked all the same here: purplish-looking water to the left, and plain, desolate land to the right. By the time he was tired enough to assume it was night-time, the landscape he was seeing had changed so little that it would have taken no effort at all to convince himself that he hadn’t moved at all: the only evidence of him having done so was his mildly-aching legs.
His night’s-worth of rest was undisturbed, and when he set about walking again after waking up, he realized he was really starting to feel what it was he was doing. For one thing, the protective spells he was wearing like armour hadn’t been originally intended to be worn in such a way, and especially not for four and five days at a time – and however long he was yet to need them. They were already having an effect on him; he was starting to feel lightheaded, and his senses of touch and smell were somewhat faded.
He was also beginning to sink into something of a depression. He had had no contact with anyone in five days now. In and of itself, that wasn’t such a dreadful thing, though the last times he had been in a situation by which he was denied the contact of other people had all been self-imposed, and mostly they had been reversible. This was starting to feel more like he had done when he was away on the island, on trial. Memories which hadn’t even momentarily suggested themselves to him in over six years were now forcing their way into the forefront of his consciousness. Times when he had been without food or water, entire days when he hadn’t had the energy to move. There had even been a period of two or three days when he had been ill with what he presumed was some sort of infection, and he hadn’t been able to find any food. He hadn’t expected to survive, though somehow he had.
When he first remembered that occasion, he stopped walking for a moment, wondering why he hadn’t remembered anything about that before. He looked out over the water, noting how little it seemed to be moving. It made him feel sick.
After a moment, he reminded himself of the need to carry on. If he didn’t, he would be at risk of allowing himself to feel all the tiredness that was due to him, which he knew would stop him from being able to carry on at all.
The rest of the time it took Peter to move toward the point where he needed to cross the water felt like it might as well have been a year. The sea barely moved and made no sound whatsoever, and the sun hadn’t moved at all since he had arrived. While the sun not moving had been something of a novelty to him when he had first seen it, that week he and Atlosreg had spent with the village, it had become irritating and depressing very, very quickly.
He stopped at the place at which he would need to cross, trying not to feel too disgusted at the filthy water into which he was moments away from immersing himself.
There were more spells he knew, which would prevent his clothes from soaking, and other similar things which would make the journey a little less disgusting for him. He had wanted to build a raft, but there were no trees around as far as he could see. Thankfully, he was able to use the spells for stamina and strength, which he had used effectively before, to enable him to swim for the four or five hours it would take with a little more ease.
He cast the spells on himself and stowed his satchel into his backpack, which was itself practically made of protective enchantments now, and stepped into the water. He could tell it was cold, though with all the spellwork he was wearing he was merely aware of it, rather than being under any threat of hypothermia or any similar temperature-related maladies.
With the sun being static in the red sky, there was no way to gauge the time it took him to swim from the one continent to the next. This, however, had an advantage, in the sense that it meant he could keep on-track simply by ensuring that it was in the same position in the sky as he went.
It felt like forever he was swimming, though he wasn’t getting anywhere near as tired as he would have done had he not cast the spells upon himself that he had. Eventually, however, he made it to the shore of the continent he was aiming for, and one he was there he decided to settle for some rest, a couple of hundred yards from the edge of the water.
The following day, he set about locating the centre of the continent, which was a much greater challenge than it had been on the larger continent, because Atlosreg hadn’t noted any landmarks here at all, only the shape of the continent itself. This meant he was going to need to rely entirely on the position of the sun to keep him going in the right direction.
He had decided to spiral outward from the centre of the continent because, in his mind, that seemed to be the most logical way of finding anything: he imagined that if anything was here it was likely to be at the centre because that would offer the most protection, simply by way of the amount of land surrounding.
It took another few days’ walking to navigate to the centre point he was looking for, and by the time he was coming within half a mile of where he had estimated it to be, he knew he was perfectly on track: right ahead of him was a valley, completely identical to the one in which the Guild was headquartered, even down to the woodlands scattered hither and yon about it.
He stopped to sleep with the valley just in sight. If Rechsdhoubnom was really in there, he was going to need to be well-rested. After he awoke, he cast every protective spell upon himself that he could think of in addition to the ones already there, ate a large breakfast – consisting of five of the hardtack he had been given, and almost half a pot of the honey he had been given – and slowly, attentively, and with the greatest of vigilance, he walked the final stretch to what he
knew
would be the entrance to a series of caverns, right between the hills.
He had never been there before, but the moment he arrived at the entrance of the place, he knew his way around. It was much darker inside here, and much colder. The earth was damp and smelled of decaying leaves, and the lanterns mounted on the walls appeared to have almost burned out.
Walking purposefully but quietly, he made his way to the bottom of the vast spiral, noticing along the way that none of the work that had been done at the Guild – floors, ceilings, walls, doors – had been done here. This was an identical copy of the Guild as it had once been, long ago. Given what he was looking for, Peter happily understood that this wasn’t simply a copy of the Guild: it was the crossover point, the place where the two worlds met. The navel of Werosain.
The bare earth walls and floors muffled his footsteps almost completely, and as he walked down to the tomb, he was feeling more alone than ever before: he was alone, in silence, under the earth on an uninhabited continent of another world. That was, except for the person he was hoping – and dreading – to meet.