Empire of the Saviours (Chronicles of/Cosmic Warlord 1) (44 page)

In moments all were seated and staring longingly at the bread, vegetables and cheeses. Thomas’s wife ladled an aromatic stew into bowls, which were passed quickly round the table.

Thomas stood with his beaker of ale in hand. ‘I know it is a terrible test to ask you to hold your appetites in check for a minute longer, but the stew is piping hot and will only burn the hasty eater. I’d like to welcome Ash and Aspin to our table, and also Jillan, to whom this family is indebted. I’d therefore like to ask you all to raise your cups in a toast to him. The ale is my best and as restorative as my wife Sabella’s fare is hearty. So, the toast is to Jillan and new friends!’

Everyone repeated the toast and drank from their cups, Ash draining his in one and only then realising that everyone else had sipped theirs. ‘Sorry,’ he said with a cheeky smile. ‘I think there was less in mine than everyone else’s.’ There were giggles from the girls and Thomas tapped him another generous measure. The blacksmith then looked at Jillan expectantly.

Jillan squirmed slightly and blushed. ‘I … Well, it was nothing, you know. I don’t know what else to say really.’

Sat next to him, Stara beamed proudly as if he’d spoken with inspirational grace and wonder. ‘Can we eat now, Papa?’ she asked, saving an immensely grateful Jillan from further embarrassment.

Thomas chuckled fondly. ‘Of course, daughter.’

And anything else he would have said was lost in the hubbub of requests for trenchers to be passed, arms stretching, the clatter of cups and serving spoons, and excitement. Aspin wasted no time tearing off a large piece of bread for himself, heaping stew onto it and then cramming too much into his mouth.

‘He eats with more alacrity than my wolf,’ Ash declared, winning the attention of all three girls at once as they gasped, cooed and begged to hear about the beast.

Aspin didn’t mind one bit as he grinned at Jillan with bulging cheeks, juice running down his chin. Jillan had to smile to see his friend so happy. Then Jillan turned his attention to his own bowl and realised he was hungry beyond sense or description. He shovelled food into his mouth, swallowed and felt dizzy for a second. He took another spoonful. He’d had a sick emptiness in his gut since he’d left Godsend but the well-seasoned stew was already doing much to put an end to that. As he ate, his spirits began to lift and he felt a strange mix of emotions: giddy relief, guilty pleasure, happy discomfort and the quelling of fears. He finished his ale and Stara refilled his beaker.

‘I don’t mind telling you we never had anything this good in the mountains,’ Aspin said as he cut into a crumbly white cheese.

‘You’re from the mountains!’ Betha sighed, hanging on his every word. ‘I knew there was something special about you. They must be beautiful. I’d love to see them one day.’

So Aspin regaled them with tales of the mountains and a comical holy man called Torpeth who wandered around naked and worried the goats. The mountain warrior enjoyed being the centre of attention for a while and none begrudged him it. Thomas listened attentively to everything that was said, smiling and nodding with the rest. Jillan recalled that when they’d been travelling in the woods, Aspin had avoided saying he was from the mountains, but now it didn’t seem to matter. What difference could it make anyway?

Jillan smiled winningly as Stara offered him another beaker. He felt a twinge of conscience as Hella came into his mind for the first time since they’d arrived in Linder’s Drop, but he suppressed any feelings of guilt.
I haven’t done anything wrong
, he told himself,
and her eyes are nothing like Hella’s
.

In the dark his helmet shone so brightly it was hard for her to look at him. It lit the nearby water he called a
stream
and the hollow among the trees where they’d stopped to rest for what he called the
night
. There were white twinkling things up high, which she took to be large diamonds embedded in the roof of the sky-cave, and a silver crescent, which looked like some sort of hook. Maybe the Overlords ran chains over the hook to lift heavy objects. Maybe the silver metal was particularly strong, but she couldn’t sense anything from it.

‘Anupal, doesn’t the sun-metal hurt your head? It would burn me.’

He blinked at her. ‘Actually, my head would hurt even more without it. Yes, it burns a little, but I use some of my strength to restore my skin. It’s a constant drain on my power, of course, and the only reason I didn’t thrash you more easily in the race.’

‘I let you win.’

His mouth dropped open in surprise and then he frowned. ‘You did not! You’re teasing me.’

She made the air boom within her chest to show she was amused.

‘I knew it. You minx!’

She boomed again and then stilled. ‘The sun-metal helps you then?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It protects me from all sorts of things.’

‘I’m glad it can be used for protection too. I thought its only use was weapons.’

‘I know what you mean. Let me tell you about the essential nature of sun-metal then. It is the distilled and counteracting force to omnipotence. Were it not for sun-metal, the gods would be omnipotent, but that would be impossible. If they were omnipotent, of course, there’d be no other life on this world, meaning that its gods couldn’t exist either. Thus, the existence of the gods demands the existence of sun-metal, to which they are vulnerable. In fact, I suspect sun-metal wouldn’t exist without the gods either, although I might be wrong there. Sun-metal is inert as far as I’m aware, which stops it from being omnipotent as well. Do you see?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Well, hmm. Let’s see. To stop any of the gods becoming all-powerful, we have sun-metal. Imagine if one of the gods went mad and started destroying everything. That would be terrible, wouldn’t it? How could they be stopped? Well, we have sun-metal to do that. How about that?’

It made a sense of sorts. ‘Yes. So sun-metal is good?’

The Peculiar scratched his head, which turned out to be his helmet. ‘Only problem with this thing,’ he muttered, picked up a thin stick, inserted it between brow and helmet, and then waggled it about vigorously. ‘Ah, that’s better! What were you saying? Oh yes. Is it good? Well, it’s inert – dead – so it’s neither good nor bad really. It’s good it exists, I suppose, as otherwise nothing would exist. Hang on, is that right? Yes, probably. But forget that. Sun-metal is a weapon and a defence. It is neither good nor bad in itself. Only the things that people do with it are good or bad. Only people are good or bad, but it’s usually very, very difficult to know what’s good or bad. What one person thinks is good, another often thinks is bad, and vice versa.’

Freda pondered that for some time while the Peculiar watched the moths dancing around his helmet, touching it and then flaring as they died. ‘But you said you like to do good things to make good friends. Would some people think the things you do are bad?’

Oops. I’ve underestimated her again. That’ll teach me to run away with my mouth. Always was a weakness of mine, that. What do you expect when I haven’t spoken to anyone except those dusty old elseworlders for millennia? Of course, my vanity doesn’t help me keep quiet either. But I’m so beautiful, how could I not be so vain?
Blithely, the Peculiar answered, ‘Why, you’re right, I suppose, friend Freda. Do you think the things I do are bad?’

She shook her head. ‘Of course not. You saved me.’

‘Well, there you are. It’s only when people agree like that that they can be friends, yes?’

‘Yes,’ she said happily. ‘So would me getting you more sun-metal help you do good things?’

What’s this now?
‘Why, I should think so. It is a powerful substance, after all. Why, do you think you could find me some?’

‘Oh yes. It’s easy to find. It vibrates in a particular way, you see.’

It does? Amazing
! ‘Well, if it’s easy to find, I’d be grateful. Lot of it around is there?’

‘Not so much really, but there are areas of it. The Overlords had exhausted most of it in the mine. I’ll get some when we come close to more.’

The elseworlders are running out in the north then? That’s worrying. If they don’t have a breakthrough in the east soon, then we’ll all have problems. Still, if you can find more for me, I won’t have to deal with them any more. In fact, I might keep you for myself rather than hand you over to them
. ‘That’s good, dear one. You must be tired, though. Time you slept, for we will have a trying day tomorrow as we pass through the central region. We could go around it, but we’d lose too much time. The central region is overseen by a minor functionary, one Saint Virulus. He’s in charge of very little because there are no towns, fields or mines in the region. The Overlords don’t want anyone coming too near them in their Great Temple, or sacred heart as they call it, you see. They struggle to tolerate even their attendant slaves – retainers, they call them – at the best of times. The region’s largely rocky crags, lichens and moss. There are small forts, of course, but they’re manned by the army’s undesirables, because no one else wants a posting to that barren place. Most Heroes would prefer a tour in the east than the central region.’

‘Why will it be trying, friend Anupal?’

The Peculiar picked at a seam on his tunic, avoiding her eyes. ‘Well, I may have been a bit rude to the Saint on the way to find you before. I may have called him a jumped-up little jobsworth. Can you believe he demanded to see my papers or some such, as if a piece of paper could prove my identity? I, Anupal, Lord of … Well, anyway, it was insupportable! I was so irked by the manner of the creature that I couldn’t remain as handsome as I usually am, which meant I couldn’t completely charm him. Then the little runt ordered some of his louts to arrest me because I didn’t have a piece of paper. Well, I was having none of that and ended up causing quite a fracas – or ruckus, whichever. They’ll be on the lookout when we pass through again. We’ll be able to elude the senses of the Heroes without trouble, of course, for you can pass below them and I can pass way overhead, but these Saints are unpredictable, and Virulus may be better prepared to marshal a troubling power against me this time. I’ll annihilate him as necessary, of course, but it would be inconveniencing, eh, and the Overlords might then start complaining and I’ll get no peace whatsoever. I’ll never hear the end of it, as they never forget, these Overlords, and they
do
like to hold a grudge. Quite tiresome, they can be.’

‘Anupal, you said the Overlords are in the Great Temple in the central region, yes? Is not the Great Temple also your home? Why would you live in such a barren place with the Overlords?’

The Peculiar pulled a face. ‘Well, it’s complicated and a long story. Meanwhile, the night is getting short.’ He dropped his voice an octave and made it thrum soothingly. ‘Enough questions for now, dear one. Go to sleep and have sweet dreams.’

Her lids became heavy and she yawned. ‘Yes, friend Anupal.’

Jillan jolted awake, disorientated. Where was he? He was in a room he’d never seen before. There was no one else there. Full daylight came through a pair of shutters, and not the harsh light of a new morning either. It felt closer to the middle of the day. How could that be?

His head hurt. The room was small and golden-beamed. He lay on a raised bed covered in linen. It was strange to sleep so high off the ground. He pushed over-piled pillows away from him so he could move more freely.

‘Taint, are you there? What happened last night?’

The only reply was from birds twittering beyond the shutters. Their song sounded flat.

He put his feet on the floor and realised he was only wearing his underclothes. Where were his other clothes? A floorboard creaked beneath his foot and he heard movement in response some distance below. Footsteps on stairs, coming closer.
My clothes, where are they?
The door to the room began to open.

‘Are you awake, dear?’ came Sabella’s voice as the blacksmith’s wife entered. ‘I brought you your clothes. Cleaned and mended.’

‘Th-Thank you … ma’am,’ Jillan replied, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth.

‘There’s bread and honey below with which you can break your fast. You do like bread and honey, don’t you?’

‘Y-yes. It’s my favourite,’ Jillan said with a pang, suddenly missing home. Sabella almost looked like his mother. And she was kind and caring. ‘I’ll be down immediately. I’ll just get dressed.’

‘Very good, dear. I’ll set some tea to steeping.’ She smiled gently and bustled out.

He wasted no time and was soon down in the eating area. Stara sat waiting for him.

‘There you are, sleepyhead. Mama said you drank too much ale.’

‘Where are Ash and Aspin?’ he asked, for want of anything else.

‘They left.’

‘Left!’ he panicked. ‘Left for Hyvan’s Cross?’

‘No, silly. Left to see Bion. Betha and Ausa wouldn’t just let them leave for Hyvan’s Cross, would they? You don’t like bread and honey, do you? I can have yours if you don’t.’

‘Hey, that’s mine!’ exclaimed Jillan, leaping to grab the thick piece of bread just before it got to her mouth. He was starving again.

‘Greedy guts!’ she grumped.

‘Come now, Stara,’ Sabella chided as she came in with tea. ‘You had several helpings this morning.’

‘I’m a growing girl. You say it all the time.’

‘Go and hunt for something in the woods if you’re that hungry. Jillan is a guest.’

‘The wolf’s out there. It’s not safe.’

‘Oh, the wolf wouldn’t attack people,’ Jillan said between mouthfuls. ‘I don’t think so anyway.’

‘There you are,’ Sabella said with her arms folded, giving her daughter a hard stare.

‘Oh, all right,’ Stara sighed melodramatically. ‘But I’ll never grow up at this rate. I’ll take Jillan to see Bion. Maybe the wizard will give me some honeycomb.’

‘Maybe,’ Sabella acknowledged.

‘Come on, Jillan. Haven’t you finished yet?’

‘Finished,’ he said with a smack of his lips and a slurp of the tea. ‘Thank you, Mrs Ironshoe.’

‘You’re welcome, dear. Hurry along now, or the sun will have set before you get back.’

He looked out through a pair of shutters. The sun was already past its zenith. He pushed back his chair and went after Stara as quickly as he could. They ran past the forge, which was all clanging, hissing, steam and smoke.