World's End (2 page)

They paused before a non-magical window overlooking the Road-side lawns. Down there a large pile of bodies was heaped, the slain Vous-things which had run rampant through the crowd during the wilder moments of Vous's change. The rogue First Captain stood in their midst, small with distance but recognisable, his sword drawn. Anfen raised his head as if he somehow knew which window they had come to – and perhaps he did. Both wizards fancied he saw them there. A glint of piercing light shone up from his armour to spear into their eyes. ‘Who do you suppose he is here to see, O Arch?'

‘All of us.'

‘Ah. I wonder, who will he visit
first
? O, to know the grim man's mind.' Vashun could not contain it – he wheezed with helpless laughter for a minute or more. ‘But ah, your pardon. Maybe he can be stopped. There are … how many war mages in the new batch?'

‘Many hundreds. Many hundreds more roost in the lower holds.'

‘How many do you suppose we'll need? For
one
errant First Captain? He is rather, shall we say, formidable? Brazen too, mm. A little power to that sword, that armour, I'll venture. How many war mages, Arch, to kill a lone man?'

The Arch Mage shrugged and leaned more heavily upon his staff.

‘Well, why don't I send them all? Just to be sure. Besides, the new ones are overdue for their first flight.' He got no argument. Vashun whistled for a servant (who was a long time coming, since most had quite wisely fled), and gave him the instructions. Vashun would
not
allow that First Captain to end the Arch Mage's torment swiftly and mercifully with a sword. The very idea was heinous.

He and the Arch Mage walked on to the Hall of Windows, Vashun's long spidery strides making no sound, the Arch's clattering hobble echoing more than usual in the empty corridors. Vashun knew what they would see in the Windows, and he believed the sights bore no deception this time.

Sure enough, across the screens were the ruined bodies of men from the force they'd sent south, sent to conquer the last few Rebel Cities. The ground was wet with blood over many miles. Supply carts and war machines of all types were ruined. Tormentors stood like peculiar tombstones over these fields of death, their dark spiked bodies bright with blood. Now and then, one or two would sway or move their arms with peculiar grace, body language the handlers had never managed to interpret or understand. ‘I had no idea you created so
many
of these, Arch,' said Vashun mildly. ‘My memory fools me, these days. I recall a strange dream, where we spoke of “controlled release at strategic points”. And only to slay the
returning
forces.
After
their fighting was done. Yet, behold! Thousands. Loose about
the realm, with not all cities yet subdued. Nearly every Window boasts of the creatures. Thousands of them. Enough to wipe out an army. As it were. You are a master of discretion, Avridis.'

‘These ones aren't ours,' said the Arch Mage dismissively. As if this meant the creatures hardly existed at all.

Vashun came closer, making his customary sniffing noise, which neither of them noticed any more. He had learned to discern the scent of many kinds of fear and suffering, and longed now for this new untried flavour: Avridis Sinking in Defeat. He said, ‘How do you tell, O Arch? Are “ours” given collars? Brands? Saddles, castle colours to wear? It would appear these beasts have rescued the southernmost Rebel Cities.'

‘The Windows lie. Vous said so. The Windows lie.'

Vashun reflected upon this. He did find it curious that the Windows revealed these sights at this time, as though they shared his own delight in the Arch Mage's failure, and wished to rub his nose in it. There did indeed seem some
consciousness
at work in them, a thing he'd never considered before.

‘So, the Windows lie. A relief to know it, O Arch. For if they were showing the truth … well! It would mean we have nothing left, nothing against the arms of three or four Rebel Cities. Do you suppose our position may have weakened a fraction? Or am I missing something, O Arch?'

‘Here!' Avridis spun, a triumphant red gleam in his eye socket's gem. He stood before a Window which showed Tanton under siege.

‘You have found an honest Window?' Vashun enquired, moving closer to look.

‘As planned. The city is besieged. The war is ours, you paranoid fool.'

Vashun examined the Window's scene, shown from high
above. A good number of the castle's forces surrounded Tanton's high walls, but no siege towers or trebuchets had arrived.

‘Just the vanguard. Where are the rest?'

‘The vanguard will be enough, even if they are all we have. Vous is ascending. Don't you feel it? We have created a god! Vous will not forget his enemies when he steps forth from the castle. He will clear the realm of those Tormentors, whoever made them. He will bring Aziel back to me, and she shall be next to ascend.'

‘An historic day, then.'

‘You don't believe it?'

‘I think the Windows here invite us to leave the castle, O Arch. We must find a place to hide. Just as the schools of magic were made to hide, long ago.'

‘I shall not leave. Never! You truly feel we have
lost
?'

Vashun let a silence draw out, which answered the question perfectly well. The gem in the Arch Mage's eye socket gleamed red and twisted around. A tear fell from his other eye. Vashun watched it slide down the wrinkled skin with utter astonishment. It's Aziel, he marvelled. She did nothing to him, yet she has broken his mind.

Distantly there began a shrieking chorus as the war mages were roused and given their task.

‘Easy, Case old man.'

Loup tried to wrench the drake's head but Case kept straining into the wind towards the castle. So much wind! So much chaos and magic and colour in the air he could barely see Eric and Aziel. They'd been pulled from Case's back towards Vous's balcony, but something else had grabbed them and now drew them skywards, to the dragons' sky caverns. They seemed to
float slowly and serenely amidst all the turbulence, as if whatever pulled them up wished to do it with the utmost care. Their feet vanished, sucked up into a fat mass of high cloud. They were gone. Loup was too busy trying to control the drake to be sad about it yet, but he knew it was probably the last time he'd see Eric in this lifetime. (And Aziel too most likely, but he'd shed no tears for that …)

The drake moaned in protest and spat a gout of orange fire with a sound more like a belch than a roar. ‘I said, easy!' Loup yelled above the wind's howl. ‘Whatever's taken them up there in the sky,
it don't want us.
You know as well's I what took em. Dragons! Go on, keep trying. Feel that air push back at you? You ain't invited, silly old man. Don't go whining and burping fire at
me.
Away! Off south; I know a place to keep us a time. She who lives there, she loves critters with wings.' Loup was uneasy at the thought … Faul the half-giant also loved holding a grudge.

Still the drake strained to follow Eric. ‘Listen here!' Loup yelled, clutching one of its ears tight in his fist. It was stiff as boot leather. ‘Let em go, you fool sky pony. There's mighty great
dragons
up there! You might not be fraid of
me
when I'm mad but what about them? Turn us around right now, old man, or I'll rip this ear off.'

Case wheeled about, but Loup did not think it was because of what he'd said. More likely it was due to the sight which took his own breath away as much as it evidently frightened the drake. The skies grew dark with moving shapes. From hundreds of the castle's windows, war mages poured, and an orchestra of deathly shrieks rose over the winds. The sound was a nightmare Loup would not forget. Case may have been aided by the wind, but Loup had never seen him fly so fast.

‘See that?' Loup murmured to himself, looking back over his shoulder. ‘Was like kicking a stump full of flying bugs.' He realised he was still clutching the poor drake's ear. He let it go, patted Case's leathery neck. ‘Stay calm, old man, don't tire yourself. They're not following. We don't matter much, not you and me. Be glad of that. Nothing wrong with that.'

Anfen and Sharfy saw the same thing.

Far above where they stood on the castle lawns, Vous had become like a statue with arms splayed. He was naked and his body brightly glowed. His scream no longer carried above the tumult. He no longer conducted the lightning and clouds with sweeps of his thin arms – now they were open as if waiting for an embrace from something in the sky.

Beings fled around them. Some were people, the last few of those from the castle's lower floors to avoid the Vous-things' massacre. Most of the Vous-things too had fled, although now and then they came close in groups of two and three, blood and filth smeared on their clothes and faces. Their eyes burned with light.

It was up to Sharfy to brandish a weapon at them and frighten them away. Anfen, it seemed, was done with fighting. Anfen's strange blade right now appeared no more than a length of normal steel, bloodied with more deaths than Sharfy had been able to count. The sword had not a single notch down its edge. Its tip gouged the dirt by Anfen's spattered boots. Sharfy gazed with powerful longing at the sword which could cut foes from afar. How he thirsted to wield it! He'd be a king. He'd march up through the castle gates, slay the Arch, slay Vous, make the world better.

Here came two Vous-things now, threading through the
corpses, their Friend and Lord's face hungry, sneering, atop a feeble old woman's body. Sharfy waved his sword at them, but only one fled. The other ran with thrashing arms right at Anfen, who didn't bother to even look at it. Sharfy stepped towards it, blade raised, and let the horrid thing skewer itself. Only as his hand made contact with its ribcage, the blade poking clear through the back of a plain dress, did the creature seem to notice him, its baleful eyes peering into his, breathing a warm breath of rot into his face. The moment drew itself out for a long time.

Those eyes were two long tunnels of light, with a small writhing thrashing shape at their very ends. The tiny shape was Vous, he saw: Vous's body convulsing in a small bare room. It took effort for Sharfy to look away.

The Vous-thing fell from his blade and slumped to the ground. He wiped blood from his hand. Some kills in battle one kept in mind like the favoured page of a story, to retell many times. This was not one of them. The Vous-thing stared up at him, hotly, hatefully, as its last two breaths shuddered out. The light of its eyes extinguished slowly.

Serve him well
, echoed the god Valour's words in Sharfy's mind.
Serve him well.
‘Just did,' he muttered to himself. ‘How many times now? Saved his life. Kept him fed. All pointless.' He wiped his new sword on the grass. He'd taken it from a fallen Elite guardsman: a fine blade, well balanced, though he'd shave a fraction of the weight off if he could. He said, ‘Anfen. What's Valour want us to do now?'

‘Witness.'

Sharfy wanted to weep at the vagueness of it, but the single-word response was more than he usually got to his questions. He sat down on the soft lawn and gazed up high at the balcony
where Vous stood with arms extended to the storming sky. Mad, he is. Everyone in this world. Me too? Must be. Look how I lived. Could've had a little farm. Tended a field, kept a herd, married. Pa wanted a fighter. Grandpa too. They got one. ‘Will you kill the Arch?'

Anfen dropped his sword to the ground as though by answer.

‘S'that mean you won't? Come on, bastard. Talk. They'll kill us. Right on the grass here. It's where I'll die. I can take it. You can talk to me at least. Not expecting any thanks.'

Sharfy's hands tensed on his sword as two Vous-things came near.

‘Is Shadow here?' said one, then the other.

‘Off south,' Sharfy answered. One of them snarled; both scurried away.

Sharfy was surprised to feel Anfen's palm on his shoulder. ‘The Arch doesn't matter,' said his captain, voice hoarse from the battle cries that had torn from his throat. ‘I understand now. Why speak of him? He was used. He never mattered. The spells only ever cast
him
, Sharfy. That's how it really works.'

‘Not true. And you know it. We fought im. He knew what he was doing. All on purpose, all planned, everything he did. He knew what war is. Knew how to kill, make men slaves.'

Anfen sat down on the grass beside his fallen sword. ‘He did not use his power, the power used him. From where did the power come? That stuff mages see in the air, what is its purpose? Does it have no life or intention of its own?' Anfen began to say more but a coughing fit cut off his words. At the end of it he spat blood.

Mad, mad, mad. Everyone. ‘We can't sleep here for the night. Unless we're going in there.' He nodded at the castle steps nearest to them. ‘But I know this. I might find a bed and some drink
in there. Put my legs up, relax. Then some old commander will come. Make me march to World's End, probably. Without pay. He'll polish some bones. All cos a god told him to.'

At that moment the wind died down. A cry issued from Vous that was like the long note of a beautiful eerie song. All Vous-things in sight went instantly still with their heads raised.

Overhead a red drake flew, its wings labouring into the powerful wind. Two of the drake's riders fell free, but somehow didn't
fall.
Instead they floated on the air, just as debris floats on a river, their bodies drawn towards Vous. ‘Looks like Eric,' Sharfy remarked. Then it occurred to him that it might actually
be
Eric, and his heart beat fast. Who the woman was, he had no idea. But when the drake's body angled forwards, he saw clearly that Loup was on its back. ‘Loup!' he yelled, loud as he could. ‘Down here!'

But his voice was drowned out by the high deathly shrieks of a thousand war mages. They poured from scores of the castle's windows, blackening the skies like great streaks of shadow.