James Barclay - Rise of the TaiGethen

Takaar could see Pelyn gradually pushing herself upright against the dividing door.

‘Because I’m being followed. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but it’s become obvious recently. Movements in the trails of magical force, that sort of thing.’ Takaar waved a hand. ‘Nothing I can do about it except take what I came for and try to leave you with some hope. So I need your help.’

Pelyn turned and grabbed the connecting door. She’d pulled it half open before Takaar kicked it shut again and grabbed both her arms at the shoulders, forcing her to face him.

‘And I need that help now.’

‘What? What!’

‘This place is made up of ghettos now, right? You get to take me to the Ixii and Gyalan ghettos, the Orrans and Cefans too. After that I might just let the elf who supplies you live to see the destruction of everything he thought he was building here. Because when they get here, unless you stand against them, it really will be the end. No more Katura. No more edulis. Poor little Pelyn, what will she do then?’

‘Who’s coming? Who’s following you here?’

‘Thousands and thousands of men.’

The appetite for Calaian rainforest wood is insatiable. No one of any means would consider the use of any other timber. The bloody idiots would probably burn their own houses now if they were fashioned of Greythorne oak.

Reminiscences of an Old Soldier, by Garan, sword master of Ysundeneth (retired)

Garan was sitting in his favourite chair in the western panoramic room, giving him views over Ysundeneth. In decades gone by he’d enjoyed watching the city landscape change; become less elven, more human. Beauty was not something Ystormun appreciated; functionality was everything, and Garan defied anyone to find beauty in Ystormun’s version of functionality though the efficiency of his redesigned Ysundeneth was certainly impressive.

The city was dominated by the imposing warehouse buildings which housed the Sharps. Thousands were crammed into inadequate spaces. That, combined with derisory latrine facilities, rations just above starvation levels and elven herbs in quantities sufficient only to cure mortal illnesses, was Ystormun’s morale-sapping master plan.

It was most effective. The Sharps feared the withholding of food as much as they did the draconian crushing punishments for stepping out of line. The whole city was effectively a prison camp and a storage and shipping facility of huge proportions taking resources and wealth north to Balaia.

Sitting here, on a day that had begun with spectacular lightning storms and torrential rain and was now steaming gently under a hot sun, Garan started to wonder when his mind had begun to change. The gods knew he had plenty of years to look across. He took a sip of a honey drink designed to soothe the sores that ran the length of his gullet.

He could dismiss the dimmer memories, like the day he heard he would never be going home or the day he knew he had become little more than an experiment. Not because they didn’t hurt but because they were over a hundred and twenty years old. And he had to admit that watching everything unfold around him for the last century and a half was a significant compensation.

Garan’s gradual grudging friendship with Takaar was certainly a factor. Though he couldn’t recall much of their earlier conversations, Garan recognised that they had sown the seeds of a respect for the elven race. He’d always known they were far more than their portrayal as violent primitives.

What Takaar had taught him, in his often unhinged but always charming way, was that there was a depth of spirituality and, well, humanity, to the elves along with their skills, knowledge and strength, and that should be embraced not exterminated. It hadn’t ever led Garan to believe the occupation of the rainforest by man was wrong, but he had slowly begun to think a feudal partnership might be more productive than occupation and enslavement, in the long term.

Garan sighed and shifted in his chair, trying to alleviate a pressure point in his backside that sent shooting pains into his right leg. What had it been, then, that one tipping point, if indeed there had been just one? Not Ystormun himself. Garan had developed some understanding of him in the last couple of decades, as he had mellowed as much as an ancient and basically evil bastard could.

He did respect Ystormun’s pride in his achievements on Calaius and most recently his ultimately futile resistance to his cadre’s desire to send the army out to exterminate the race of elves.

‘Hmmm.’ Garan took another sip of his drink. ‘Of course it never is the how, it’s the why.’

He had the answer now. Everything else was just skirting the issue. It had been some years ago now, perhaps fifteen, but they all blurred into one amorphous smear of pain and unpleasant smells these days. It had been the moment he learned that the work on Calaius would no longer be to the benefit of Triverne or, by extension, to magic in general.

Worse than that, further investigation had revealed exactly what all Calaius’ wealth was being diverted to support. Garan loved Triverne, and he loved Balaia too, though he would see neither again. And what he knew was dreadful for both of them. The power he had dedicated his life to support would turn his country and his city to ash in its desire for dominion. Yet even though he was in possession of such knowledge, he had not thought he could affect what was to come.

But his mind had turned that day. And so it was that, years later, he was open to options when they were presented to him… and those options had led him inexorably to the action he was to sanction today. Now.

Garan had made sure that his people were at the door to the panoramic room and that his people were attending to his many needs. One slip now and the worst of deaths would be awaiting them all — all but Garan himself. He and his people had planned for this from the moment it had become obvious that Balaia and Triverne were facing war.

Footsteps approached his chair. A figure stepped in front of him. Garan smiled. It was exactly who he had hoped to see when the ship had docked late the preceding night. Still he was impressed that the man had arranged to be re-summoned by Ystormun eight years after his first visit.

Stein was a squat man, barrel-chested and broad of gut. His skull was covered in a thick mat of tight blond curls and his features were all slightly larger than seemed quite comfortable, especially when crammed together in an oval face topped by wild eyebrows and tailed by an impeccably trimmed beard.

‘You got my message, then?’ asked Garan.

‘All of them,’ said Stein. ‘We don’t have long. Ystormun wants to outline my duties.’

Garan gestured to a chair.

‘You remain fantastically ugly,’ he said.

Stein laughed and sat. ‘Your saying that, when no mirror can survive your reflection, is a testament to your powers of self-delusion.’

Garan cleared his throat. ‘I need to know that you understand the gravity of the proposition. Let’s face it: I want to die. I’m equally sure that you don’t.’

‘Correct, and yet here I am. That should tell you all you need to know about the fear gripping any of us with half a brain in Balaia right now. It’s much worse than you think.’

‘How close?’

‘Any day, literally. And the cadre really can win, despite the force that will be ranged against them when the day comes.’

‘I’m not asking you to destroy your own,’ said Garan. ‘You know that. A show of force is all it should take.’

‘How comforting.’

‘But we’re relying on the Sharps — the elves — to prevail out there in the forest. If they don’t then we’re already too late and this place will become a power base like no other.’