Under A Colder Sun (Khale the Wanderer Book 1) (6 page)

With that, all lights in the room went out.

The two men screamed.

Timoth muttered quickly under his breath, and a glowing orb of light burst into life. They were alone in the room.

The mirror-beasts were gone.

“What they said,” the man asked, “will they come back for us?”

“They are bound,” Timoth said. “You are safe from them, I promise.”

The man handed Timoth the promised purse and left without another word.

*

Timoth sat down with a flagon of hot, sour wine and drank his fill. He’d sworn that he would never do this again, never speak with the Thoughtless Dark. This was why he had not left Colm and fled to Neprokhodymh after
it
happened, after his family died. Mages were foresworn, or they had been, from doing anything other than that which was beneficial to others. The shadowglass mirrors were in his keeping and he knew what use they might be put to in the hands of the Autarch.

He had tried to muster the courage and shatter the shadowglass mirrors on countless occasions, but his nerve always failed. He did not know what would happen once he struck the glass. Would it break? Would he be dragged through and lost to the abyss? Would some scrap of a Thoughtless One creep inside his own skull and weave itself through his brain until he was as empty as those poor dead devils he’d sent away tonight?

The mirrors were in his keeping, and so he kept them.

He made occasional gestures in favour of those around him: curing a pox-ridden infant here, seeing that a broken limb knitted together correctly there, and keeping the worst of the vermin away from the surrounding houses. At times, he was not sure why.

Why did some compassion linger on in his soul?

Sometimes, he hated himself for it.

They would burn him for all the little acts of good he had tried to do on their behalf.

For trying to make the world a better place.

He’d seen it happen to others. He’d seen it happen to his sister and her daughters.

Hylde. Ileana. Elsoune.

Though, in some ways, he was glad they were not alive to see what had become of the world. The rot was becoming so very palpable these days; bringing the Thoughtless Ones across the void and giving them flesh to wear had never been so swift an act before.

He well remembered being taught that there was a natural order to things, and that to disturb it overmuch, and in certain ways, was done at one’s peril. But Timoth had come to accept that common men, rich and poor, lived to disturb and upset the world around them.

There was no escape from them and what they wished to do.

Magic is born in the blood and can only be extinguished by fire and flame—
those were the words people believed. It was the language of hate, and hate was as old as Mankind.
Humanity lacks humanity
, he thought.
Hatred and cruelty are its root and stem, and so the souls of men grow thin, like bitter wire-weeds, from the morn of birth until the night of death.

It was small wonder that the world was slowly dying around a people who sowed its soil and waters with nothing but bile and poison. He paused to hawk a gobbet of alcoholic phlegm onto the floor.

“Therein lies the truth,” he said to himself, admiring the wet stain.

And what of the Four, was their strength withering like autumn leaves? Could there be something else reaching out into the world? How did the old words go?

And though we dwell long in the Shadows of the Four, we shall fear no Other.

Did it mean there was something more beyond the Thoughtless Dark?

A Greater Darkness?

Timoth finished the dregs of his wine, feeling little courage flowing through his veins. His work for the night was not yet done. He got up and shuffled to the cupboards, where he began to search among jars, phials, and canisters thick with the dust of disuse. So much learning, so much knowledge, so many ways to make the world a better place—all lost, all ignored.

The world was falling apart, but rather than do something, the common people spat on others and called for blood. And blood they’d had—precious blood—belonging to those he loved.

When he found what he was looking for, he clapped his hands together and rubbed them fiercely. This was no flagon of wine for him to drown his sorrows in. This was something to be done in memory of his murdered family.

Something that would never be forgotten.

But, there was a sacrifice to be made and though it was not a great one, he nevertheless found it hard to take. For the spell to work, it was a small matter of cutting off the remaining two fingers on that hand.

A small matter
, he thought bitterly, as he ground up the necessary dried roots and herbs with pestle and mortar.

Afterwards, he sat with the knife in hand for long hours, bringing its edge down to touch the skin and then withdrawing it quickly. He got up from the table. He paced back and forth. He drank more wine. He cursed. He cried. It was not the loss of two more fingers that hurt so much as the loss itself. For so much had all ready been taken from him.

“Hylde, forgive me,” he whispered for the second time, remembering the shouts of the macabre crowd, their desire to see his loved ones become burnt-up candles of flesh and bone. Yes, he remembered the children; how they laughed and danced around the flames.

He had seen the fire reach up its fingers and caress his bloodkin until their skin blackened, until it fell away, and their screams were turned to ashes and silence.

And still the children had laughed and danced.

With the memory in mind and tears in his eyes, Timoth sat down at the table, took up the knife, and rested its edge against the roots of the two fingers remaining on his left hand. He set his jaw, squared his shoulders and put his weight behind the blade.

It cut cleanly through skin, then flesh, then bone.

Timoth did not scream. He had a strength inside him that few truly knew.

He wept as he picked up the severed fingers with his unmutilated hand, and let them fall into the bowl where the powders waited. The foul mixture was set alight with a muttered word, and the air of his hovel became thick with wild shadows as he bound himself for the last time to the Thoughtless Dark.

Soon enough, the grand conjuration he had woven was complete. Now, he could work his will upon the world as a puppet-master makes his creations jerk and dance and fall with the merest gesture.

The fate of Colm was in his hands.

And he would deliver it to Lord Barneth.

Chapter Nine

The man returned to his rooms and sat down heavily in a chair. He had seen things tonight that he never thought to see: the mirrors, the things that came from them, and dead men walking out of the door as if they were alive. He found some honeyed whisky to drink, and the sweetness as well as the harshness of it calmed his nerves. It worked better than beer and wine, and he was thankful that he was one of the few in Colm who could afford it. Timoth’s creatures would dispose of Khale and Milanda. They were an expensive means to dispose of a brigand and a child, but he could not afford to risk mortal assassins, who might be easily slain or have their loyalties turned by coin. Without Alosse, Colm was ripe for handing over to Barneth, at last.

I have saved so many lives.

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.

He put his cup down, and went and opened it.

“Sir, can I speak with you?”

It was Leste.

Murtagh let her into his quarters. “What is it, Leste?”

“I’m going after him.”

“You’re going after Khale.”

“Yes.”

“Leste, I know how you feel, but this is not the way to ease your conscience. Colm needs us. It needs all of us, with the King gone. We can’t lose you to the wilderness.”

“I failed him,” she said. “I failed the King and his daughter. I need to rescue Milanda and bring her back.”

“It can’t be done, Leste. You know how he escaped. He used sorcery. Who knows where he might be? He could be on the other side of the Heart, you realise that? He could be half the world away.”

“He has gone to Neprokhodymh. You know that as much as I. He used sorcery to escape. His allegiance is to the Autarch, and he is taking her Grace there for whatever purpose.”

“That’s as may be ...”

“It’s my duty, sir. I have to go. My honour—”

“Is not at fault, Leste.”

“But it is, sir.”

“You did what you could.”

“Rather than what I should have done, sir. I should have stayed in the room with the King and Khale.”

“Then you would be dead also, and I could not bear that.”

“The King—”

“
Is not the child I raised!
” Murtagh shouted. “Don’t you understand, Leste? I love you. I raised you, though you were not my own. Death has taken Maerysa and Neal from me, which is why I have done what I have to.”

“Sir?”

“You are forbidden to leave the boundaries of Colm. The order has been given. The men and women of the Watch know that you are not to cross through any of the city gates until further notice.”

“Sir ... Murtagh … you can’t do this to me. I won’t be able to live with myself.”

“You will, Leste, you will. Someday, you will learn how to. We all do, eventually.”

“Father ...”

“You will not go after Khale, Leste.”

“He is only a brigand.”

“Enough. Go home, Leste. Yrena and Osta need you more than the dead and honour do. Go, now.”

“Sir.”

Leste left, and Murtagh closed the door after her, letting out a long, tired sigh. He hoped she would listen to Yrena, if not to him. A lover’s words often bear more weight than a father’s.

She would hate him, he knew that, when she found out about Lord Barneth and when Colm became a part of his kingdom. But she would be alive to hate him, as would every other person in the city who would have died otherwise. Murtagh could live with that, just about.

Better alive and hating me than lying dead on cold ground far from home with the crows as her pall-bearers and worms to bury her
, he thought.

He knew what Khale was, though he knew Leste did not believe it. She was still young, she did not understand how strange the world had become.

The old stories told of a great battle long ago, the battlefield it was waged upon stretching for a hundred leagues. On that ground, from dawn to dusk and then well into the night, men, women, beasts and demons fought until the earth was an ordure of blood and churned entrails. Many fell that day and night, more than could ever be counted, and such was the scale of the slaughter and bloodshed that Death himself walked corporeal among the fallen, harvesting their souls.

It was dawn of the following day when Death came upon Khale.

He was the only one left standing, alone, wearied and bloodied. He was only a mortal man back then, a soldier trained and experienced in the arts of war, but still a darkness clung to him; it coloured his blood with a bitter lust for the kill, a lust none of his fellows shared. His fellows now lay about him, carved into pieces, torn apart.

Death came to him at this moment and raised his blade high to lay Khale low. And Khale raised his sword in kind and met the sword of Death with a thunderous crack. The air shook as he turned Death’s blade aside. But Death was tireless, as all Gods and Goddesses are, and he swung his blade down to cleave Khale’s skull again. Again, he was parried. Again, he was denied.

For a further day and night, Khale fought with Death as mongrels and vultures feasted on the rotting slain. No words were spoken. No sound was uttered by either of them. There was only the relentless song of steel ringing out across the reeking battlefield. On and on the duel went; each thrust parried, every riposte answered by counter-riposte.

Only when dawn rose once more over the scene was the struggle decided. Judged a weary mortal by his immortal foe, he was able to take advantage of the arrogance born in all Gods and Goddesses. As Death saw Khale slowing and finally tiring, the God’s gestures became grander, his blade falling only after ostentatious, taunting sweeps and displays of his unholy dexterity were made.

In the small pause between one such blow and the next, Khale struck. He drew a dagger from one of his greaves and drove it into the place where Death’s heart should have been. Death had no heart to speak of—the wound was no more fatal than the bite of an ant—but it was the distraction Khale had needed. Faltering, Death’s black eyes wide at harm inflicted upon him by a mortal, he fell under Khale’s sword. His smoking blade was shattered and his head cut from his shoulders.

Khale mounted it upon the splintered spike of a standard that was trampled into the mud nearby. And as he stared at his black-eyed trophy, he felt a sudden and terrible cold surge up from his heart. It swelled into his throat, choking him as surely as a freezing hand might. And the eyes of Death were upon him as the God’s bloodied lips spoke a curse.

“For what you have done this day, for raising your hand to one such as I, for turning Death’s blade aside, I name you Wanderer. The roads of this world, you shall walk them all. The men and women of this world, you shall know them all. The pain of darkness and death, you shall feel these things always. Yet you shall not die, for you are mine: Death’s Herald. And on the last day of the last age, you shall sound the fatal notes of my Horn and bring all Creation down to nothing. And only then, when all things know Death, shall thou know thy true death and, at long last, sleep.”

And with these words, the black eyes closed and the head and body dissipated as ashes on the wind. Khale was alone on the battlefield. Alone in the world.

A killer like no other.

A warrior stronger than Death.

Murtagh poured more honeyed whisky into his cup, drained it, and then decided he would finish the bottle tonight. “May the Gods and their bones forgive me, and may their Shadows save us all.”

Chapter Ten