Roger Taylor: Arash-Felloren

‘I took nothing,’ he said plaintively to his now solitary ally, catching hold of his arm urgently. ‘You can search me.’

The man seemed anxious to be on his way, but the Kyrosdyn’s soft apology and Pinnatte’s appeal had placed him in the position of an arbiter. He looked from Pinnatte to the Kyrosdyn. ‘Will that satisfy you, sir?’ he said uncomfortably. ‘I can call for the Weartans if you wish.’ He pointed to a building some way down one of the streets that led into the square.

Pinnatte uttered a brief prayer of thanksgiving. It was highly unlikely that the Kyrosdyn would want anything to do with the Prefect’s guards – the men and women nominally responsible for enforcing the law and maintaining order on the streets. No one walked away from an encounter with them other than poorer.

The Kyrosdyn tightened his grip about Pinnatte’s jacket and his eyes narrowed savagely. Then, abruptly, he released him.

‘No,’ he replied, still polite. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary.’

Pinnatte wasted no time in thanking his inadvertent saviour, but turned to flee immediately. He had not taken one step however, when something struck his shins and sent him sprawling painfully on the cobbled road. It was no relief to him to note that this time it was not some strange power of the Kyrosdyn that had brought him down, but the guard’s foot. Before he could recover himself, that same foot placed itself deliberately over his ankle, and pressed. He cried out in pain and tried to pull his foot away, but the guard merely smiled and increased the pressure. Such of the crowd as remained kept their distance and watched warily. Passers-by stepped around them nervously.

Then the Kyrosdyn was bending over Pinnatte. The pressure on his foot eased, but still held him fast. ‘There will be another time, thief,’ the Kyrosdyn said. He crouched down, untied the purse that Pinnatte had tried to snatch earlier, and held it out for him to inspect.

The leatherwork alone was worth more than Pinnatte could expect to earn in many weeks of good thieving and, while he was no expert in the value of crystals, those he could see inlaid there represented wealth he had only ever dreamed of. He looked stonily at the purse, knowing that if he had been lucky enough to escape with it, he would probably not have been able to dispose of it. In fact, he would almost certainly have been at as great a risk from other, more successful thieves as from the searching Kyrosdyn. He could even have found himself having to deal with Barran’s men.

He pushed the thought away.

He noticed that the Kyrosdyn’s eyes were grey, as if all the colour had been drained from them.

‘You’ve caused me grievous offence, thief,’ the man was saying. ‘And thus the Brotherhood. And though circumstances have conspired to protect you at the moment, I’ll have your worthless soul before we’re through.’ He bared clenched teeth and, with a curiously delicate gesture, reached into the purse. When he withdrew it he was holding a clear crystal between his thumb and index finger. It glittered brightly – more brightly than it should have done in the hot and dust-filled light of the square, Pinnatte thought.

‘I’ll bind it in here. Hold it with bonds smaller and more powerful than you could believe.’ He held it to his ear. ‘I’ll listen to its futile struggling as it flitters about the latticed cages of its new home. Reflecting and refracting endlessly, bouncing to and fro, echoing and resonating. Doing our bidding. Trapped. For ever.’

The crystal was gone, suddenly encased in the Kyrosdyn’s hand. Pinnatte blinked. For a moment the square seemed to be much darker than it had been. Though the Kyrosdyn’s words made no sense, they had been terrifying and his mouth and throat were dry with fear. ‘I took nothing,’ he managed to say hoarsely. ‘You know that.’

The Kyrosdyn made no response but stood up and motioned the guard to release Pinnatte’s foot. Then he started, as if he had seen something unexpected. Doubt and certainty, both equally terrible, began to vie for mastery of his face as he stared at Pinnatte, and his head canted to one side as though he were listening to something far away. A shaking hand drew something hesitantly from inside his jacket. Pinnatte watched him fearfully.

Slowly – painfully, almost – the doubt faded into a tight-faced resolution, then, with an almost reckless swiftness, the Kyrosdyn took Pinnatte’s right hand and pressed his thumb lightly on the back of it. As he did so, his eyes glazed and then closed. For a timeless moment, Pinnatte felt as though he was somewhere, something, else – a brightness, without form or place, beginning or end.

Then, abruptly, he was in the square again, snatching back a hand that was no longer being held. He began scrambling away from the two men over the rough cobbles. The Kyrosdyn made no movement to pursue him, and kept a restraining hand on the arm of his guard.

‘Come to the Vaskyros when you are ready,’ he said, his tone strange, almost respectful, then he turned and walked slowly into the busy crowd.

Pinnatte watched him go, unable to accept for a moment that nothing else was going to happen. His confidence began to return.

Lunatic! he thought witheringly as he limped back up the steps of the fountain.

Sitting down, he leaned back against the wall, and began massaging his bruised foot.

As he did so, he noticed a small blemish on the back of his right hand.

The Thlosgaral

‘It was in the time of the Final War, when the Great Lord sought to wrest His birthright from the usurper Estrith. So terrible was this War that from the depths of the ocean to the highest of the clouds, no haven was to be found, and no living thing escaped its bloody taint.

‘And the Great Lord built a mighty Citadel to the south of Estrith’s land so that His army might find rest and shelter there before they ventured forth, and so that His many aides could study and teach the ways of war.

‘But Estrith’s spies brought to him news of this place and he sent to it a great gathering of the cloud-lands, having deceived their peoples so that they denied the justice of the Great Lord’s cause.

‘From the east they came, in numbers the like of which there had never been before nor have been since, and all decked and dressed for battle. Black and terrible they were, darkening the Citadel and the land about it and bringing terror to His people.

‘And as they gathered there was a strange silence. Then, the army of the Lord, which stood outside the Citadel, heard the rushing of a wind and looked to see winged warriors, shadows within shadows, descending upon it, bearing missiles and fire. And great harm was done, for, being without true courage, it was the way of the cloud-land warriors to soar above the reach of arrow and spear.

‘For many days the army stood fast, yet it seemed that it must be destroyed utterly, and great was the anger of His soldiers that they should perish thus, unable to strike a blow in their own defence.

‘Then the Lord was with them, come suddenly and mysteriously from afar. He moved among His soldiers, brilliant, like a silver star in the false darkness that the cloud-lands had brought. And when He saw what had been wrought, such was His fury that He gathered His lieutenants about Him and, raising the Power that was His to command, struck at the darkest of the lowering cloud-lands. And so great was His Power that the cloud-land was rent in two, and the sky was filled with the cries of its dying people as their extremity gave them the vision to see now the truth of Estrith’s deception.

‘But there was no rejoicing from those in the Lord’s Citadel, for it was seen that the stricken cloud-land would fall upon them. Seeing their plight, and spent though He was, the Lord sent forth the last of His Power so that the cloud-land fell to the east of the Citadel.