Ian Esslemont - Stonewielder

Eyes widening in superstitious fear and awe, the guards backed away. Then they bowed reverently. ‘Yes, Deliverer!’ And fled.

Ivanr eased himself back down into his bed. He massaged his chest. Gods, how giving orders hurt!

*

Sister Gosh straightened from where she’d taken cover from the gusting frigid wind next to Cyclopean stones that anchored an immense length of chain, the links of which were as thick as her thigh. The huge chain extended out across a wide gap of water between the tips of two cliffs, the ends of a ridge of rock that encircled a deep well that was supposedly bottomless. The Ring. Metal mesh netting hung from the chain — a barrier to anything larger than a fish.

She studied the rusted gnawed metal of the chain, pulled a silver flask from her shawls, up-ended it in a series of gulping swallows then shook it, found it empty, and shrugging threw it away. She set both hands upon the final link and bent her head down to it, concentrating. Smoke wafted from the iron and a red glow blossomed beneath her hands.

‘It’s just you and I now, Sister Gosh,’ someone said from behind her.

Sighing, she turned to see Brother Totsin, the wind tossing his peppery hair and the tatters of his frayed vest, shirt and trousers. ‘Thought you’d show up.’

‘The Lady is with me, Gosh. I suggest you join as well.’

Sister Gosh sighed again. ‘The Lady is using you, fool. And in any case, she’s finished.’

‘Not if you fail here.’

‘I won’t.’

Totsin frowned, disappointed, as if he were dealing with a recalcitrant child. ‘You cannot win. The Lady has granted me full access to her powers.’

‘Meaning she owns you.’

His greying goatee writhed as he scowled his irritation. ‘Be the stubborn fool then. I never liked you.’

‘I’m relieved to hear that.’

He launched himself upon her. Their arms met in an eruption of power that shook the stones beneath their feet. Rocks tumbled down some ten fathoms to the blue-black waters of the Hole below. The gargantuan chain rattled and clacked to vibrate in a frothing line across the gap. The flesh of Sister Gosh’s hands wrinkled and cracked as if desiccated. She snarled, bearing down further, her face darkening in effort. A satisfied smile crept up behind Totsin’s goatee.

Like an explosion a crack shot through the chiselled stone beside them anchoring the chain. Snarling, Totsin twisted to heave Sister Gosh out over the Hole. Black tendrils like ribbons snapped out around him, yanking him backwards, and the two released their mutual grip with a great thunderclap of energy.

A new figure now stood upon the narrow stone perch, tall, emaciated, dressed all in black, his black hair a wild mass. ‘I have come back!’ he announced.

Edging round to face both, Totsin nodded to the newcomer: ‘Carfin. I am surprised to see you again.’

‘The truth at last, Totsin. The truth at last.’

A rumbling swelled in the distance as of a thunderstorm, though only high clouds obscured the sky. Sister Gosh and Carfin shared alarmed glances.

Totsin laughed. ‘Too late!’

‘Not yet,’ Sister Gosh snarled, and she threw everything she had at him.

The blast of energies surprised Totsin, throwing him back a step. Carfin levelled his Warren as well. The coursing power revealed far more potency than even Sister Gosh suspected of him — it seemed his sojourn within his Warren had granted him much greater confidence in his abilities. Totsin flailed beneath the cataract streams coursing upon him then, grimacing, leaned forward, edging in upon them. Carfin gestured again and a cowl of black snapped over the man’s face. His hands leapt to the hood, grasping, tearing it into shreds. Sister Gosh yelled as she drew up a great coil of might that she snapped out upon Totsin. He flinched back, crying aloud, and stumbled off the lip. Sister Gosh kept her punishment centred upon him all the way down, and, though she could not be sure, she believed he struck the water far below.

‘Thank you,’ she gasped to Carfin.

‘It was nothing.’

She turned to the anchor stone and the chain. ‘Quickly now.’

Each pressed hands to the final link, stressing, heating, searching for weaknesses. The water, she noted, now ran far higher on the chain than it had before. Thunder rising in pitch announced the approach of something enormous emerging from Bleeder’s Cut.

‘What was it like?’ she asked while they worked.

‘What was what like?’

‘Your Warren. Darkness. Rashan.’

‘I don’t know,’ Carfin answered, straight-faced. ‘It was dark.’

The metal glowed yellow now beneath Sister Gosh’s hands. Drips of molten metal ran down the sides. ‘You mean like that slimy cave you live in?’

Carfin clapped his hands and the metal of the link suddenly darkened to black beneath a coating of frost. It burst in an explosion of metal shards, Sister Gosh yanking her hands away. Screeching, grinding, the immense length of iron dragged itself down the lip of the cliff to flick from sight. Away across the gap water foamed and settled over its length as it sank.

‘It is not a cave,’ Carfin told Gosh. ‘It is a subterranean domicile.’

The ridge of solid rock they stood upon shook then, rolling and heaving. A titanic bulge of water came coursing over the bay created where Bleeder’s Cut met Flow Strait. The wave, more a wall of water, flowed over the Hole and with it went swift glimmering flashes of mother-of-pearl and brilliant sapphire.

Sister Gosh and Carfin sat on the lip of the stone. These flashes of light sank within the nearly black waters of the Hole. They seemed to descend for a long time. Then eruptions frothed the surface, greenish light flashing, coruscating from the depths. Over the Hole the surface bulged alarmingly, as from the pressures of an immense explosion. Then they hissed, steaming and frothing anew. Fog obscured the pit of the Ring, hanging in thick scarves.

The afternoon faded towards evening. Sister Gosh watched the undersides of the clouds painted in deep mauve and pink. More shapes came flashing through the waters to descend into the Hole. She fancied she saw the shells of their armour opalescent in emerald and gold. Reinforcements?

Whatever was down there was a long time in dying. Eruptions blistered the surface anew. Lights flickered like undersea flames. It seemed a full-blown war somewhere far beyond the ken of humankind.

Slowly, by degrees, the ferocity of the struggle in the depths appeared to wane. Evening darkened into twilight. Carfin amused himself making shapes of darkness dance upon the stones. Seeing this, Sister Gosh growled far down in her throat. The shapes bowed to her, then diffused into nothingness. Carfin sighed and shifted his skinny haunches. ‘Now what?’

‘Now everyone and their dog will be a hedge-wizard or sea-soother.’

Carfin wrinkled his nose. ‘Gods. It’ll be awful.’ He rose, dusted off his trousers. ‘I’ll stay in my cave — that is, my domicile.’

‘Good riddance.’

‘And to you.’ He stepped into darkness and disappeared.

Now that’s just plain showing off.

Below, swift shapes passed beneath the soles of her mud-covered, tattered shoes, coursing out into the bay. Far fewer than had entered, that was for sure. So it was over, here at least. What of elsewhere? Did the Riders fare as well against their other targets? Who knew? She was dog-tired. So tired she wondered whether there was a boat somewhere on this damned island.

Suth and Corbin followed Keri through the tunnels. They stayed close as the woman showed an alarming willingness to throw her Moranth munitions wherever she wished, and at the least hint of danger.

Almost hugging her back, Suth asked, ‘Did the old man send you to help us?’