Into The Dark Flame (Book 4) (7 page)

   'And what was she before?'

   'Before? I hardly know. She came here from our world, via the artefact. She was terrified, until I placed her under hypnotic reverie and tinkered with her hopes and fears, redrew her thoughts and dreams. Then, when she awoke she loved me in precisely the way I wish to be loved. She neither desired nor knew anything of her former existence. Her one wish is to live out her span with me. She cannot, of course, for I grow bored very quickly.'

   'This is a grotesque violation.'

   'I care not.'

   'Did you make no attempt to discover anything of her former life?'

   'Why would I? Of what interest could it possibly be to me?'

   'How many others have you performed this 'tinkering' upon?'

   'Oh, a goodly number. I keep no record. Some, of course, approached me, having heard of my reputation. They asked that I perform my operations upon them, for their lives were miserable beyond recounting. I did so, gladly, and they were grateful. Well, actually, they weren't, for quite obviously, upon awakening they were not aware that anything had been done. But they served me in the capacity I required.'

   'But you have not done this to me, otherwise, why would you be telling me this?'

   'You are perceptive.
So you hope.
'

   Leth
felt sudden apprehension.
So you hope.
What did he mean by that?

   Leth
leaned angrily back in his chair. He brooded for some moments while Urch-Malmain poured himself wine. 'You speak of 'our' world, as if we herald from the same place.'

   'That is so. Have you not guessed? You are Leth, King of Enchantment's Reach; and I am Urch-Malmain, of Enchantment.'

   'Enchantment?'

   'Quite. I am one of those whom you, against the will of your people, refuse to acknowledge as gods.'

   Leth was astounded. 'Then what are you doing here?'

  
'An unfortunate accident. Caught by the hem of my robe, so to speak. When his enemies - of whom I was one - captured Orbelon eons ago and banished him to this 'non'-place, they sealed me with him in his Encystment of Perpetual Banishment.
Gah!
It pains me to recall! They are devious folk, gods. Low on morals and simple human decency.' 

   'That has already become plain.'

   Urch-Malmain gave a humourless chuckle. Leth considered what he said. If he spoke the truth then he, a god, existed now like Leth, within Orbelon, another god - or as Orbelon had once termed himself and his kind: an aberration, a conscious being of immense power, a node or uncommon concentration of energy.

   Urch-Malmain
knew Leth's true identity; he knew Orbelon. This in itself suggested that he spoke at least partial truth. But a god? Leth looked him over.

   'Yes, yes, I hardly look like a god!' Urch-Malmain declared with impatience. 'I know it. But it was a conceit, an affectation adopted at the time for reasons I have no wish to explain. And when I found myself in
this dreadful domain I had been deprived of all ability to alter my form. Still and all, I am almost able to return. Almost. And in Enchantment I will be strong once more, and those who fooled with me will know my vengeance.'

   Yet again Leth was visited by the unwelcome sensation that he was dealing with irrationalities, that he trod the lonely twisting paths of some terrible dream. And he thought of Issul, who he missed and needed so greatly; Issul, who knew instinctively how to soothe and distract him when his thoughts grew dark and troubled.

   'Do you suspect me of untruths, King Leth?' queried Urch-Malmain, observing him sidelong with one eye closed.

   'I-- I no longer know what I suspect. Recent days have all but stripped me of my ability to reason.'

   'Well, for the sake of progress in our discussion, will you assume, at least for the present, that what I say is so?'

   'For the present I perceive no advantage in attempting to gainsay you. Say on, then. You have been sealed with Orbelon in his Encystment all this time?'

   'I was imprisoned within his non-existence. I could not awaken until he did, and it was not intended that he should wake. Yet he did, and in that act gave birth to this world and gave liberty to me within it, misshapen and reduced though I was.'

   'Is Orbelon aware of you?'

   'I would think not, for I still live unchallenged.'

   Leth nodded. A distant memory had stirred: the name 'Urch-Malmain' mentioned by Orbelon as being one of a cabal of Enchantment's 'gods' who had defeated him. Leth considered the strange tale Orbelon had told him of how he had come to exist within his blue domain. For the first time since Leth had entered this world, something - the first intimations of a coherent pattern - was beginning to emerge. Something fantastical entered his mind, a wild idea, not yet wholly-formed, which he dismissed. He considered it again, his eyes on Urch-Malmain. It was too grand, hovering audaciously at the borders of his imagination, utterly impractical.
And yet. . . . if a pattern could be discerned, could not a plan equally be laid? It was a glimmer of hope, at least; a tiny candle-flame in the despairing darkness that had consumed him.

   'Have you seen Orbelon?' he asked Urch-Malmain.

   Urch-Malmain shook his head. 'He occupies a hidden domain to which I have no access.'

   'And Orbelon
. . . has he been within this world? Has he at any time left his domain?'

   'I know not. And I tire of your questions.'

   Leth shifted his position. 'Well, you have given me much information, and most obviously there is something you wish of me.'

   'There you have it!' exclaimed Urch-Malmain. 'I knew from the first that you were a perspicacious fellow. Though I have already said it, there is a task for you to perform. You will be of great service to me, and to yourself also.'

   'How so?'

   'Your success will enable me to open the way back to our world. You, and I, will be free once more.' Grabbing a last fistful of almonds, he pushed himself up from his seat.
'Now, enough! I can bear you no longer!'

   He began to limp towards the upper stairway. 'I go to dally with Hellia. The machine will awaken in due course. In the meantime I suggest you entertain yourself in whatever fashion you prefer. Eat and drink, and rest. A sleep will do you good. Alternatively, my guards are available should you wish a game of cards or chequers. However, I fear you will find them dreary company and witless opponents. Their skills are generally limited to slaying unwelcome intruders. Make of it what you will. I shall come for you at the appropriate time.'

THREE

I

   'Urch-Malmain, my patience is sorely tried!'

  
'As is mine!'

   'And mine also!'

   The voices issued from within the semi-sentient machine in the musty lowest level of Urch-Malmain's Tower of Glancing Memory. They were querulous and imploring, reproachful and splenetic.

   'You have used us!'

   'This is not part of our arrangement!'

   'We demand an end to this! We demand that you release us!'

   'It is past time you let us go!'

   Urch-Malmain twitched his bent body indignantly.
'Oh
hssst!
Cease your squabbling, all of you! It does no good! You cannot leave until I release you, and I will not release you until your function is fulfilled!' Over his shoulder he spoke sharply to Leth. 'Pay these petulant entities no heed, Swordbearer. They have entered into a compact of business, yet are bearing their travails with poor grace. The facts are simple, whatever they may claim: I employed them to a specific end, and that end is not yet achieved. Hence, they remain in my service.'

   'That is not so!' came a voice from beneath the circular troughs, where a coruscating blue-green fume now curled and billowed.

   'Yes it is. You simply have a predilection for argument. Were I not here you would find fault with each other and squabble until your vapours dissipated, the plasmas were expelled and your voices became less than whispers between the stars. You do it because it is in your natures. You can do nothing else.'

  'Our grievances are genuine! Your principles are called to question!'

   'Ah, pah!' Urch-Malmain waved his stiff withered arm in irritation.

   Leth stood by, bemused. He had entered the chamber moments earlier to find, as his dark-minded host had stated, that the machine had awoken. It hummed and burred lightly; strange lights glowed and shivered on
various of its parts; fluids bubbled and spat and streamed through pipes and tubes, mingled in clear glass bulbs, became something other and coursed brightly into the machine's innards. The little beads rolled in their troughs, back and forth, and passed through gates, dropped through traps; and the whole thing gave off a disconcerting gaseous stench.

  
Urch-Malmain had lurched forward and taken a pinch of plum-coloured powder from with a little onyx box. This he tossed onto the coloured pattern on the floor within the frame. There was a flash, a silent explosion and a great puff of vapour. And then the voices had begun.

   Their babbling became an annoyance, even to Leth who was not best equipped to judge whether they had justifiable cause for complaint. None of the entities were visible; their sound issued from within the coloured vapour that sparkled in the space within the metallic arch.

   'We can’t be blamed for what is happening here! Together we have merged to create a magnificent portal, perfect in every respect!'

   'But it does not work!' Urch-Malmain stamped his twisted foot.

   'It works! It works! It is the Great Sow that has influenced its operation, not us!'

   'Yes! Yes! The Sow! The monstrous Sow!'

   A voice somewhat calmer than the others, spoke out in a brief moment of silence. 'Who is this, Urch-Malmain? I see you have brought a visitor.'

  
'Ah, at last! One of you has perceived something beyond his own whining.' Urch-Malmain, stepping aside, beckoned to Leth. 'Come forward, Swordbearer. Here, irritating wisps, be silent and let me introduce Leth, the Swordbearer.'

   'Is this another of your experiments, Urch-Malmain?' cried an entity. 'Is he to be sent through the portal? It will not work, you know. The result will be as before as long as the dreadful harridan exerts her influence.'

   'No!' shouted Urch-Malmain. 'Just listen! Cease your ululations and woeful gnashings and listen! The Swordbearer is here to serve our ends.'

   'How?' called an unseen entity.

   'What is his power?' queried another.

   'He will suffer the fate of the others. The Great Sow cannot be vanquished,' yet another brayed.

   Incensed, Urch-Malmain drew his warped form to its fullest height, and filled his cramped lungs with a great draught of air that he might deliver a roared command:
'OH, SHUSH!!
'

   All fell obediently quiet. He continued in a more moderate tone, addressing the entity who had first perceived Leth's presence, 'You, Aztin, you are a little less prone to foolishness than your companions. Explain all to the Swordbearer, that he might be in no doubt as to the cause of your malfunction.'

   'It is not a malfunction--'

   'Just explain!'

   'Very well. Swordbearer, something is happening to impair our perfect function. For long ages we have striven to establish the portal between this sorry world and that of our gracious master, the here-standing Urch-Malmain, in accordance with his instructions. And yet, through no fault of ours, those who Urch-Malmain has had pass through via our agency have travelled not quite as they should. We had no explanation for that, for we had merged precisely to form this perfect artefact. We take great pride in our work and were sorely addled at this inexplicable failure. So we passed psychic eyes through the portal, and had them rest unseen in the inter-world drift, to monitor what went on. At first they detected nothing. But then, more recently, we discovered the subtlest waves of disturbance. A flux of instability! Further investigation revealed the source. The flux has been deliberately introduced. It is the Sow, the monstrous Kancanitrix, Ascaria. And nothing we can do will deter her or expunge her baleful influence.'     

  
'Ascaria!' The name was not new to Leth.

   'But of course, you know of her, don't you,' said Urch-Malmain with a sly narrowing of the eyes.  

   'I have heard her mentioned.'

   'Does she not hold captive your beloved children?'

   'So I was told. Though in this world I am unsure what to believe.'

   'Still and all, it is a fortuitous coincidence.'

   Leth scowled. 'How so?'

   'Why, you are on your way to find Ascaria and slay her with your magic blade, and lo and behold, you pass through here and learn that we too wish her slain.'

   'What is this?' cried the entity, Aztin. 'A magic blade?'

   'The Swordbearer is a mighty warrior who bears a fabulous pink sword,' said Urch-Malmain with lofty sarcasm. 'It is the only known instrument capable of taking the Great Sow's life, and he alone can wield it.'

   'That is indeed excellent news,' Aztin said, and in the fume the others set up an approving chorus:

   'He has come to release us!'

   'Oh what marvels! We will be free again!'

   'At last, we can perform our function as we always intended to do. . .'

   '. . . and take leave of this drab and miserable world!'

  
'And good riddance!'

   'Fortune and the good will of the Unity of All Dimensions
is with us after all!'

   Leth was less enthusiastic. He gazed mordantly into the fume. Lakewander and Master Protector had told him that Ascaria, the Kancanitrix of the Dark Flame, guarded a portal which would take him back to his world of Enchantment's Reach, and now here was Urch-Malmain and his living artefact claiming to have created another. Did Urch-Malmain know of Ascaria's portal? Did it truly exist? Leth was in two minds as to whether to speak of it now. He resolved to stay silent for the present, but something else that had just been said bothered him. He asked, 'What of those who stepped through your portal and 'travelled not quite as they should'? What became of them?'

   'We do not know,' said one voice.

   'Perhaps they arrived as they should, perhaps they did not,' said another.

   The remaining entities added their thoughts:

   'Perhaps they were transported to the back of a far star in the constellation of Hesque.'

   'Or into the bowels of a blind Legfish swimming deep in the sea of Dismality.'

   'Perhaps they hover still in uncharted regions of Illusiveness, or were reduced to their constituent atoms and dispersed throughout all the planes of the cosmos.'

   'Perhaps--'

  
'Enough!'
shouted Urch-Malmain, almost beside himself. 'Their fate is unimportant. They were subjects to test the function of the machine, nothing more.'

   'But who were they?' demanded Leth.

   'I would not know who they were.' Urch-Malmain glanced towards the billowing blue-green mist. By his look and posture Leth sensed him to be uneasy. Was he afraid that the entities might reveal something he wished to keep quiet?

   Leth turned to the mist within the artefact. 'Aztin, perhaps you or your companions will enlighten me?'

   'Bah! You are a meddlesome fellow! Their identities are of no relevance,' Urch-Malmain expostulated.

   'Nonetheless. . . .'

   'Time has passed. I have forgotten.'

   Leth was unconvinced. 'Then let me ask you something else. If you do not know what happened to them, what evidence do you have that they did not pass through the portal and arrive safely on the other side as intended?'

   Urch-Malmain drew back his lips and hissed through his teeth. 'One: they sent back no signs. And two: the reciprocity was awry.'

  
'The reciprocity? What is that?'

  
'The Law of Reciprocity. There must be a mutual transfer between domains. If I send something from this world to our own, something of similar context must be drawn here. It is a universal balance.'

   'And it did not occur?'

   'It occurred, but not as it should. On the first attempt it was immediately obvious that something was wrong. The old man I sent through appeared to burst into flame as he passed; in his place there materialised a leather-skinned warrior who promptly expired. Later, after various adjustments had been made, I tried again. The transfer appeared to go well, though I cannot say where the subject ended up. On that occasion I received a dazed young tinker in exchange. At another time I sent the tinker back; in his place came a savage creature, a hybrid of human barbarian warrior and some kind of blue-skinned reptilian-brute. So ferocious was it that, again, I jettisoned it immediately, before it could leap forth and tear the life from me. This time my darling Hellia came through.'

   'And you did not think to ask her where she had come from?' asked Leth, incredulously.

   'Oh I did, but the poor sweet was hysterical and could barely grasp what had happened to her. She was of our world, though. That much was plain.'

   'Then the portal had operated as it should.'

   'Perhaps, but I could not be certain. I had no proof, and for reasons which require no explanation I am not prepared to make my own attempt to return while there remains even a scintilla of doubt as to the outcome.'

   'What is this proof, these signs that you refer to?' asked Leth.

   Urch-Malmain smiled thinly, a nerve at the corner of his mouth twitching rapidly. 'There is no reason why I should reveal that to you.' He paused, turning again to the milling vapour, then went on: 'Most recently I sent a young man through. The entities reported that, as far as they could tell, his passage had been without untoward incident. And someone who might be of interest to you came here in his place. The omens were good, then. But the entities considered it a matter of chance and could not guarantee such success again, not as long as Ascaria continues to disrupt the harmonies of the passage.'

   'Someone of interest to me?' queried Leth.

   'I think so.' He turned away. 'We will discuss that at another time.'

ii

   An hour had passed. Leth stood alone at a window of the Tower of Glancing Memory, his brain seething with questions. In the far distance misty blue hills rose, meeting the sky at a point beyond his perception. Away to his left was the shimmering enigma of the Shore of Nothing, its strange sands a haze of colour in the Orblight. The gleaming red cliffs curved away into the distance from which he had come; before them the End of the World, the void that he could not contain or bear to look upon. And beneath him, falling away dizzyingly from the foot of the tower, was the Death Abyss, its far-off depths concealed beneath a blanket of dense, broiling grey mist.

   There dwelt Ascaria, Urch-Malmain had just told him. There lay his children, and his goal. High above, directly over the Abyss, as if in corroboration of Urch-Malmain's sentiment, was the World's Agony. Closer now; it no longer shone with a piercing golden light; its lucence was the colour of blood. And the sky had darkened, not with the approach of night
but more as though reflecting the sombre, unknown character of the great Abyss over which it hung.