A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1) (9 page)

‘It’s all right,’ she replied calmly. ‘I was willing. What Meheg-Ba offered, I found I wanted.’

Then Ashurek’s anger and grief, magnified by the evil of-the Egg-Stone, focused in his arm. In one swift movement he drew his sword and plunged it up through his sister’s stomach into her heart. The shock and sorrow in her eyes turned them, momentarily, to Miril’s eyes, and as the blood welled from her body onto the floor, his black fury bled into nothingness with it.

The room seemed pale then, expansive, as though he could walk across it forever and never reach the door. Meshurek had risen to his feet and the fleeting grimace on his face showed all the sorrow he was capable of feeling. Looking at Ashurek, shaking convulsively as he stared at the blood-soaked sword, Meshurek said, ‘Don’t weep, brother. It matters not. She was only biding her time, waiting to seize power from both of us. It would have had to have been done eventually.’

‘You live in another world, Meshurek,’ Ashurek said through bitter tears. ‘Power – what is that? You have caused the deaths of father and mother, made a slave of your sister, turned me into a mass murderer – for what? The sake of the Empire? No – you are destroying the Empire. You have undone all father’s work, and surely now it deserves to be destroyed. For your own personal power, then? You fool – Meheg-Ba is gaining the power, not you.’

‘You are wrong! I have my own power!’ cried Meshurek, coming forward to face his brother. In despair, Ashurek knew that nothing he said was getting through to the demon-possessed Emperor.

‘It doesn’t matter to you, does it,’ he cried, ‘that thousands of people die every day for the sake of the Shana’s lust? That your own family have been destroyed, the only beings in the world that should have meant something to you? Once I thought you a victim of an affliction, a paranoia which was not your own fault. Now I know – my eyes have been opened – we are all victims of the Serpent, but you and I are conscious, willing ones. We are guilty, you and I – as guilty as the Serpent itself. Don’t tell me not to weep!’

But Meshurek was not listening. He was staring at Ashurek’s throat, reaching towards it – and Ashurek realised Meshurek had sailed the ocean not to see him and tell him of their mother’s death, but to steal the Egg-Stone.

That he could not permit.

With a howl that might have made the Serpent itself shudder, he struck Meshurek down with the flat of his sword and fled.

Ashurek ran from the palace, seized a horse and forced it at a punishing gallop away from the battalion, from his insane brother and his beloved dead sister. He rode, fighting the evil pull of the Egg-Stone at every stride, until at last he was lost among the forests and mountains of Tearn; far beyond – so he thought – pursuit or retaliation.

It was a strange time, those years spent wandering alone in Tearn. Ashurek tried to avoid all humans, and those he met responded to him with a fear and hatred with which they might have greeted the Serpent itself. He became an utter outcast.

Meshurek meanwhile was in a torment of fury, made worse when the demon punished him for attempting to steal the Egg-Stone. The punishment over, Meheg-Ba forgave him and together they plotted the recovery of Ashurek and the Stone.

Ashurek then found himself continually pursued by agents of the Serpent – misshapen creatures, or disturbances of wind and weather, or sometimes actual demons. But with skill and fierce determination Ashurek fought them, and remained free. The Egg-Stone was a paradoxical element in this, because although it darkened him and tried to bend him to its evil will, he also found he could use its power against his pursuers. And because it gave him more power than a demon, Meheg-Ba could not catch him.

Meshurek ruled uneasily in Shalekahh. Rumours ran wild about Melkish’s plot against him, her death, and the disappearance of Prince Ashurek and his sister. Always unenthusiastic about this Emperor, now the people of Gorethria became openly hostile.

Only Meheg-Ba’s power kept him in control of the throne, crushing his enemies with malicious cruelty and bending his soldiers to his will. But without the Egg-Stone’s force to hold it together, the Empire was crumbling. Meshurek realised he had been a fool. He knew how much Ashurek had loved Orkesh, yet it had not entered his mind to manipulate him by threatening her. And now there was no one left for whom Ashurek cared; Meshurek had no hold over him at all.

The Emperor became stooped and darkened in mind and body, hunched like a spider over his misery and lust for power. And the demon, Meheg-Ba, merely laughed at his plight.

Ashurek desired to die, or at least escape into madness. But he remained sane; and dared not risk what might happen to the world if he killed himself and the Egg-Stone fell into other hands. Besides, it was all that kept him alive.

The black loneliness of his existence was growing beyond endurance. Wandering in a Northern country of Tearn, West Sel-Hadra, he found his way to a tavern in a small village and sat, sardonically heedless of the fearful stares of the folk there, drinking alone in a corner.

At length a woman came through the tavern door. She looked around, saw Ashurek and stared intensely at him for several seconds. Then she retreated through the door and was gone as swiftly as she had arrived.

Ashurek’s mood changed like lightning. It was as if part of his consciousness turned outwards instead of inwards. After a minute he rose and left the tavern also.

For he thought he had seen Miril in human form.

Outside in the cold misty night, there was no sign of her. His mood reverted and he trudged across the thin village road and into the trees beyond, sighing bitterly as he went. All was darkness, escapeless and full of malicious laughter. He left the trees and found himself climbing the stony slope of a hill. Fog confronted him like a solid wall, lit eerily from within, and his hand went to his sword hilt. Something was moving towards him through the mist. He waited to see what would emerge; and out of the vapour came the woman he had seen at the tavern.

She was small and slender, dressed in white, her eyes, skin and luxuriant hair different shades of deep gold. She was beautiful, exquisite; but there was pain or extreme weariness in her face. Her eyes were wide with fear or intense concentration. She walked straight past Ashurek as though she had not seen him.

Behind her, enmeshed in the trails of light that drifted from her half-raised arms, stumbled a great, malformed beast of the Serpent. As it came out of the fog, the vapour dispersed.

Ashurek drew his sword and followed. Yet the creature did not attack her, and she was not running away from it. Rather she held it in thrall somehow and was leading it purposefully down the hillside. She glanced round as if to satisfy herself that the fog was gone; then she stretched out stiff arms, as if resisting a massive weight. She cried three words and a hole rent the earth in front of her. It was still widening as she made a desperate leap across it. Behind her the Serpent-beast tumbled into the blackness, uttering a frustrated shriek as the fissure slammed shut above its head.

The woman sagged with relief and her light faded. Now Ashurek could barely see her. He went to her side before she disappeared again.

‘I can’t believe what I have just seen,’ he said. ‘How–?’

‘I’m glad you were there,’ she said, breathless. ‘I would have needed your sword, had my sorcery failed.’

Ashurek was mystified and skeptical. ‘You claim to be a sorceress?’

‘I don’t claim to be one,’ she answered with a faint smile in her voice. ‘I know what you think. There is no sorcery on this Earth, no power but that of the Serpent and its Shana; no magic that can be learned or drawn upon. Nevertheless, I am a sorceress. My name is Silvren, of Athrainy in the north.’

‘I am Ashurek of Gorethria,’ he responded.

‘Prince Ashurek; yes I know,’ she said faintly, drawing back from him.

‘You recognised me in the tavern,’ he stated with some bitterness.

‘Yes, but – I was not afraid of you. I meant to speak to you but – it was a shock. I was afraid of the Stone around your neck.’

Ashurek felt cold astonishment flood him. ‘No one knows about that,’ he whispered.

‘I told you, I am a sorceress. I can see it and I know what it is and what it has forced you to do.’

‘Then you were right to run from me. And I should not have followed you.’

‘Oh, but I am glad you did!’ Silvren answered with light in her eyes. ‘Are you not someone who knows how it feels to carry a burden of appalling power? You and I have much to talk about, and I am cold.’

He followed her without argument back to the tavern where the landlord showed them to a small, lamp-lit room. ‘The creature that was following you,’ Ashurek began as he seated himself on a bench, ‘do you know what it was – why it was there?’ He half-feared that the beast had been searching for him and found her instead. Her reply, as with almost everything she said, was unexpected.

‘When I left the tavern,’ she said, sitting cross-legged on the floor, ‘I walked, trying to decide what I should do. The beast concealed itself in a mist and attacked me on the hillside, so I mastered it with sorcery. There was no danger, really; well, not much. Many such creatures have been sent after me.’

‘Why? You have not been foolish enough to summon a demon?’

‘No, not I! Someone else summoned it–’ a wince of pain or regret crossed her face ‘– and sent it after me. Diheg-El is its accursed name.’

‘They pursue you because of your sorcerous powers?’ Ashurek asked, leaning forward.

‘Yes, but also because I have turned my magic against them. It is a long story. I cannot explain my powers, I was born with them – I certainly did not want them! Somehow I was born out of my place and time. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only being on Earth or the three Planes with these powers. I knew they could be dangerous, so I have travelled and learned to use them properly. And I learned much else besides… have you not noticed how the world seems to be stagnating, growing ever darker and crueller?’

‘Aye,’ he laughed bitterly. ‘All due to me.’

‘Not to you. It is because of the Serpent M’gulfn… the hideous Worm that is no myth, but a physical vessel of evil. It is the channel by which the Shana can maintain contact with the world; it is the force that shapes cruel empires like Gorethria’s. It emanates an aura that creeps round the world like a choking poison, and it has many underlings to do its work and protect it. Its wormish body inhabits the North Pole, and once in a thousand years it might fly south to feed on flesh. But they say it also inhabits a human body, as protection against death – can you imagine locating that one human amongst the millions on Earth? And even if that one human were to be discovered and killed, M’gulfn would not be destroyed, for it inhabits both bodies simultaneously. Its wormish body is said to be impossible to destroy. But I am determined that it must be killed.’

‘As you say, that would be impossible,’ Ashurek exclaimed, amazed and fascinated by this strange Tearnian woman.

‘Probably… but I must try, for it is now mustering its forces to dominate the world totally and forever. This world has a bright and vigorous future with sorcery, not the sick power of the Serpent, holding sway – if only the thing can be destroyed. If not, the Earth has no future at all.’ She gazed clearly into his eyes, and he knew she spoke absolute truth. ‘I am the only one that knows this – unless Eldor knows. Not that I haven't tried telling others – people I thought I could trust – but they laughed, and called me deranged.’

‘Not I,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

‘I believe that on the Blue Plane they know a way that the Serpent might be killed. It is knowledge that can never come to Earth, lest M’gulfn find out. But every time I have neared an Entrance Point, the Shana have prevented me from entering. So that would seem to prove me right.’

When he did not at first reply, she said, ‘Ashurek? Do you believe me?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he answered. ‘I know that the Shana and Serpent are evil. And Gorethria is not the glorious entity I once thought it, but a ghoulish puppet of M’gulfn…’ She looked at him enquiringly, and he found himself telling her his own story.

‘I have exchanged no more than a few words with anyone for years,’ he concluded. ‘I don’t know why I trust you – except that your sorcery, although not evil, seems as much a burden as the wretched Egg-Stone.’

‘You must get rid of that Stone,’ Silvren said, her golden eyes still fixed on his. ‘It’s no good fighting just that and Meheg-Ba. The evil needs to be tom out at the roots – the Worm itself! Listen. I have strength to resist the Shana – but I am growing so tired, I know I cannot hold out much longer. I need to reach H’tebhmella. I need help – and so do you.’

Ashurek sat back, looking away from her.

‘I cannot help you, Silvren. I can’t dispose of the Stone, any more than I can tear my own heart out. You must see how dangerous that makes me to you. I would betray you eventually. I murdered my own sister…’

‘But that is not the whole story! You are fighting the Shana already. If we separate, we are both lost. But together, we might find hope.’

Hope! Miril’s eyes, burning into his. ‘As soon as I am gone, you will begin to seek me…’

‘Silvren, I don’t think you understand what I have just said to you,’ he persisted bitterly. ‘I am no fit company for you – I have become vengeful, bloodthirsty. I may destroy you.’