Orbelon's World (Book 3) (11 page)

   'Who is this woman to whom you refer? And who do you consider me to be?'

   The old man began to laugh. It was a pained, suppressed laugh, full of wheezes and strange poppings of an almost musical quality. For a moment Leth thought to hear the honking of distant geese carried on a wind. Master Protector's shoulders were racked; his eyes streamed. He raised one hand, bidding forbearance until in due course he could say, 'The question seems more pertinently to be: who do you consider yourself to be?'

   Leth weighed his reply. Knowing so little of these people and their land he judged it inadvisable at present to disclose his full title.'I am Leth
. . . of Enchantment's Reach.'

  
'Enchantment's Reach?' Master Protector looked to Summoner, who shrugged.

   'It is plainly of the other world, Master,' Summoner said. 'The Lord came, like the others, through the Sign. But so great has been the passage of time, it’s conceivable that he has forgotten us and our covenant.'

   'Others?' queried Leth.

   'Others have answered the summons,' said Summoner.
'Two in my lifetime, others before. But they were not you.'

   Lakewander spoke. 'He means, Lord, that they could not bear the Sword. They came in error, or perhaps in vain hope, but it is the Swordbearer and no other who can help us.'

   Leth shook his head. 'I know nothing of this.'

   'Do you not even recall the Sword?' Lakewander asked. 'Does it not feel familiar?'

   'Recall?
Recall?
I have not been here before. Nothing is familiar.'

   A silence fell. The three exchanged glances. Leth, growing apprehensive, stood.

   'Truly, it has been such a long time,' Master Protector said.

   'His memories will return, I think, as the days pass,' said Summoner.

   Lakewander nodded pensively. 'Essentially it makes little difference, other than to him.'

   'Enough!' flared Leth. 'Have I not made myself plain? I’m a stranger to your land, and I seek nothing except to return, with my children, to my own.'

   'Just so,' Master Protector seemed both sympathetic and resigned. 'And perhaps you shall, Lord. Perhaps you shall, if you succeed.'

   'No. You plan for me to slay some putative enemy of yours, a woman of whom I have no knowledge! This I cannot - will not - do.  I know nothing of the problems of this realm, its politics and intrigues. I can’t interfere. But at home I’m needed. Find some other to perform your assassinations, I entreat you, and show me how I might return, with my children.'

   'Lord, Lord, is it still not clear?' Master Protector looked pained. 'There is no other; no other can draw the Sword.'

  
'Then here!' Leth roared. He swept the bright rose blade free of its scabbard, causing the others to draw back in alarm. Lakewander's hand flew to the hilt of her own sword, but Leth thrust the Sword of the Orb down hard so that its point bit deep into the table top. He released it and it stood, oscillating rapidly back and forth, its aura casting a pale, agitated fuchsia lambence across the chamber, lamplight reflecting in the blade.
'Here!
Take your cursed weapon and give it to another. Instruct
him
never to sheathe it, then burden
him
with the task of murder that you enjoin upon me!'

   'Lord, Lord, we understand your anguish, but we cannot do as you ask,' cried Master Protector. 'For such long ages we have waited, and we have known that the Godworld might cast forth others, but they can only fail us or try to lead us false. Only he who can bear the Sword of the Orb can be the true god.'

   'I am no god!' Leth's eyes blazed. He slammed his fist down on the table, causing cups, plates and cutlery to leap and rattle. 'I am a man, a mere man, who has been drawn here - I don’t know how - and seek nothing but to return.'

   Master Protector nodded sombrely. 'That will be your
reward. . . when your task is complete. You see, we know of no way back, save that which lies within the temple of our oppressor, the Kancanitrix, Ascaria, the Dark Flame of the Orb. It is she who holds your children. Find her, for your own sake and ours, slay her, and you may leave our world. There is truly no other way.'

   Leth grew still, fighting his rage and frustration, sensing no way out. Eventually, in a voice that shook with emotion, he said, 'What is the name of this land? What is its extent? Who are your neighbours?'

   'It is Orb,' said Master Senior. 'That is all. We are ignorant of its extent. As for neighbours, there are folk of many kinds resident here, though far fewer than in the past. Ascaria has seen to that. Do you wish to know the names of them all?'

   'I referred to neighbouring lands.
The nations, races, domains that lie beyond your own.'

  
'Beyond?' Master Protector seemed mystified. 'Beyond the Orb there is only the Godworld, of which we know nothing.'

   Leth heaved a heavy sigh. He turned away. But through his exasperation he felt a measure of intrigue. These repeated references to the Orb. . . . As far as Leth was aware he remained still somehow within Orbelon's world, the world within the blue casket which rested upon his desk in the Palace of Orbia - the world that Orbelon himself, by his own account, had been trapped inside; the world he had unknowingly created. Orbelon had never professed knowledge of anything other than the empty blue domain which Leth had so recently left. Could it be that this land and its strange people were also held within the blue casket? Or could he have been cast back into some remote corner of his own world, or even to another universe entirely?

   'How does it come by its name?' he asked.

  
'Orb? Ah, Lord, now you speak of unfathomable mystery. We will show you - Lakewander will show you if you will rest awhile with us. Will you do that, Lord? Night approaches and it will gain you nothing to leave now. Chambers have already been prepared.'

   'My children--' Leth began.

   '--may be of greater value to Ascaria as hostages than corpses,' cut in Lakewander. 'Though we don’t know that. But even if not, you can’t travel until you know the way. Pass this night here, beneath our roof, and you’ll be more ably equipped to commence your journey tomorrow. There are things you should see, things you should know. And perhaps, even, things you may begin to remember.'

   Leth stared at her uncomfortably. Again he thought she seemed faintly familiar.
Something. . . something was not right. Here. . .  in this place . . .

   'Will you stay, Lord?'

   He glanced back to Master Protector, who had posed the question. He hesitated, then nodded resignedly. 'Aye, I’ll stay, for I see no alternative. But this one night only.'

   'And will you take back your sword?'

   Leth regarded the glowing blade, which rose proud and pulsing from the table. He reached out and grasped its hilt, levered it free. 'For now.' He slid the Sword of the Orb into its jewelled scabbard. 'But when this night is done, and I have seen and learned, I may yet return it to you.'      

FOUR

I

   Leth waited in a state of some agitation in the modest suite of chambers that had been provided for him by Master Protector and his companions. The chambers were situated on the ground floor, and were windowless, which did nothing to set Leth's mind at rest. But the door was not locked, nor had a guard been placed outside. Should the desire so take him, it seemed to Leth that he was free to wander more or less as he pleased.

   After being shown to the apartment by Lakewander, who then departed, Leth had decided to test this. He exited the chambers and began to explore the corridor outside. No one moved to prevent him; more to the point, not a soul was in evidence to do so. Apart from the three persons to whom he had already been introduced, and the hideous ools below, Leth had seen no one. Not servants, nor guards, nor staff of any description. The castle, or whatever the building was, carried a strange and lonely aura, an underlying feeling of desertion, the sense that little existed here other than, perhaps, fading echoes of the past, and, among the living, a glimmer of a hoped-for future. Such was Leth's impression as he stole from the silent chamber.

   The corridor, like the chambers, was windowless. Statues and carved stone reliefs did little to ease its chill and austere character. He passed along it to a towering double-door, which opened without complaint. Another passage led away, and Leth saw, some distance along, an arched window. To this he walked, his shadow multiplied, distorted and shaken by the flames from torches mounted on brackets upon the walls. He looked out.

   Little was visible at ground level: an empty service yard bordered by a high stone wall, the massed black silhouettes of trees outside above its parapet. Dusk had clclosed in, but in those windows that Leth was able to see no candle glowed, no torchlight flickered. The sense of emptiness was amplified.

    He looked upwards. The firmament was starless indigo. He searched, seeking stars, seeking the familiar, and finding neither. As he stared it seemed he descried irregularities within the indigo: deep folds and canyons revealed themselves to his questing eyes; raised features, and scars and depressions, bringing to mind desolate blue highlands, dark gorges and shadowed empty vales. To Leth it seemed he gazed impossibly upon a far landscape, vast, mountainous and barren, formed of the evening sky itself, far overhead.

  
A voice spoke, close in Leth's ear, making him start and spin around.

  
'Swordbearer!'

   There was no one beside him.

   'Who speaks?' demanded Leth, stepping away from the window. 

   'I, who am beside
you.'

   'I see no one.' A chill ran down Leth's spine. He stepped back again,
then cast his eyes up and down the corridor, his hand upon his sword-hilt.

   'You see me, but know it not.' The voice was remote and ghostly, yet so close at hand: a penetrating whisper.

   Leth took two more steps back.

   'Do not draw your blade, Swordbearer. It’s unnecessary, and will avail you nothing.'

   'Where are you? What do you want with me?'

   'I am here. Here, within the stone. And I want nothing, save to ask you what you seek.'

   'Within. . . ?' Leth focused upon the bare stone wall beside the window where he had stood. 'What manner of creature are you?'

   'I am simply one who has lived, and who passed. My being now helps sustain this edifice in which you now reside. I was once a Protector. Now, like all who have gone before me, I am a part of that which I lived to protect.'

   'This is strange to me.'

   'No matter,' said the voice. 'Many ages have passed. If you have forgotten, that’s perhaps to be expected. But I sensed your confusion, that is why I asked,
What do you seek?'

  
Again the insinuation that this had all once been familiar. Leth was guarded. 'I seek. . . I seek to know and to understand. This place, this world, is alien.'

   'But you are the Swordbearer, the True God with whom our covenant was made so long ago. This is your Transformation, isn’t that plain?'

   'Nothing is plain.'

   'Be patient, then. All will become known to you, as is proper.'

   'I am not a god!'

   'Be patient, Swordbearer. Be patient.'

   'I want only to find my children,' protested Leth. 'And then to return with them to our home.'

   There was no reply. Leth spoke again, but if his voice was heard it was ignored. He grew angry. In a state of heightened distraction he made his way back to his apartment. A platter of roasted fowl in rich, dark gravy, with vegetables and bread had been set upon a table.
Also a pewter pitcher of ruby wine, and a bowl of various fruits. He wondered as to the hands that had placed them, for they had not been there moments earlier. The food's aroma teased his nostrils; he discovered he was hungry again, and sat down to eat. 

   He pondered his encounter as he ate. The entity that had spoken to him - was it confined to that one area of stone, or could it pass at will from location to location? There were others; it had said as much. Leth cast his eyes about the walls of the chamber. Were they all pregnant with the souls or shades of those who had lived and died here?

   'Do you watch me now?' he asked loudly, and was answered by silence. 'Is there someone here?'

   The thought lingered uneasily that every corridor and stairway, every chamber, every niche, nook and cranny, could be haunted by the ghosts of those long gone, that his every movement was observed, and nowhere might he find privacy.

   The roast fowl was very good, and despite himself Leth ate heartily. The wine, too, was of fine quality, though not surprisingly of a source and vintage he could not identify. He mopped the last of the gravy from his plate with the bread, and sat back, cradling his head in his hands, contemplating his circumstances. He felt warm now, yet though the wine blunted the edges of his thoughts he found barely any comfort. His belly was filled, but his mind raced and would not be stilled. Did the walls observe him? Did they listen to his very thoughts?

   He thought of Issul. Had she perished? In his final hours in Enchantment's Reach he had all but given up hope of ever seeing her again.
And now, all this. . . . Enchantment's Reach and everything he held dear. . . so far away, another world, almost another existence. Perhaps the wine mussed his thoughts, for it seemed for a moment such a distant memory. He felt a sudden spasm of alarm. It was not so long since he had left; he recalled it all clearly. But this place where he now found himself, so strange and dreamlike; the disquieting insistence of all he met that he had been here before.

  
Do I dream?

  The notion unsettled him, but another one, speeding hard upon its heels, made him stiffen in horror, numbing him to the bone:
Have I died?

   Fectur! Had Fectur done what he had plainly intended to do, the one thing he had to do to fully secure control of Enchantment's Reach? Leth's blood ran cold in his veins. He stood slowly, staring at his pale hands. He cast his eyes around the chamber again. No, he could see. He could hear. He had full sensation. And yet he knew that even in a dream, many times, he had felt the same things. He had dreamed that he dreamed, and knew it too. He had pinched his flesh to feel pain, and yet still he dreamed on.

   But this had another quality, similar yet strangely, disorientatingly different. Something not experienced. As though his mind was not quite his own.

  
Can this be my death?

   Could death possess the quality of dream? How could he discover? Was there a means, a foolproof way, of knowing?

  
Why should there be? My death has waited for me, as it waits for all men, inexorable and pitiless. Now it waits no more.

   His guts churned suddenly, trying to reject the food they had just welcomed. Would a dead man's guts rebel like this? Why not? In the deathdream, if the deluded soul is still attached to the embedded memories of life, clinging to the
familiar, or what remains of it, at least for a time. If the soul does not know that life has gone, still believes that nothing has changed, is in limbo but not yet in oblivion. Would death be so merciful, allowing memory, sensation and consciousness to dissipate slowly in the dream?

   Leth shook his head, trying to dispel these thoughts, fighting. He tried to think back. He recalled, clearly, the events at Enchantment's
Reach, how Jace's childlike curiosity had cast them all into the void of Orbelon's world.

  
The children!
Had Fectur murdered them all? Why did he not recall that? Where were they now? Had death separated them all, casting each into this solitary dreaming state? No. No. It was as he recalled it. It had to be. It
had
to be!

   Leth felt light-headed and nauseous. He sat down again at the table.
A dead man, deathdreaming lightheadedness, deathdreaming nausea and fear, deathdreaming that he sat? Was it possible? He stared at the remains of his meal, at the winecup beside his plate. Had he been drugged?

  
How can I know what is happening here?

   He considered Orbelon, the god who was not a god. The irony of it! Orbelon professed himself and those against whom he had fought and been defeated, to be something less than gods. Yet Orbelon existed within a world that was, essentially, within himself. And now Leth, who had struggled for so long with his own people to persuade them against putting their faith in gods they knew nothing of, was within that world, and welcomed as a long-awaited god.    

  
And Orbelon has abandoned me here!

  He recalled words spoken by Orbelon - it seemed long, long ago now - as they faced one another in the blue domain: 'You, who have lived your entire life on the Reach, have you not always known, somewhere deep inside you, that one day you might have to step over? You have surely wondered what might lie on the Other
Side? We are entering Mystery, Leth. Do you not wish to travel? Truly, this is only the beginning'.

  
The beginning?
Leth wrenched his head from side to side.
I did not wish to travel alone. Orbelon, what is happening here? Why have you forsaken me?

   The chamber door opened. Lakewander entered. She stopped short upon seeing Leth's face. 'What is wrong, Lord? Are you ill?'

   Leth rose again, his limbs weak and liquid. He stared hard at her. 'How did I get here?'

   'Here?
To us?'

   He nodded.

   'You were borne, Lord, through the Sign.'

   'Where have I come from?'

   'From the Godworld. Your own world.'

   'And what was I there?'

   Lakewander looked nonplussed. 'You would have been. . . I don’t know. A god among gods?'

   Leth shook his head heavily.
'A man, among men. That’s all.'

  
'But a leader of men? Isn’t that so?'

   Leth heaved a shaken sigh. 'Aye, I was - I
am
- a leader of men.'

   'And you wish to return.'

   'That is all I wish.'

   'We have told you the one known way.'

   Leth nodded to himself.
Perhaps there lies the sole means by which I might discover the truth, for a man who has died may not be restored to life.

   But a man who has stepped over?

   'Lord, I have come to show you something,' said Lakewander. 'Will you accompany me?'

   Leth did so. He was grateful for her company, the chance it offered, so he hoped, to relieve his mind of its morbidity.

   'What is the name of this place?' Leth asked as they passed from his chamber.

  
'This place?'

   'This castle, or whatever it is, in which you reside.'

   'It is Orbia.'

   Leth stopped dead in his tracks. Lakewander continued a few paces before realising he was not with her. She
turned, a quizzical look upon her face. 'Lord?'

   'How did it come by this name?'

   'Why, you named it yourself.'

   Leth was incredulous. 'I?'

   'In ages past, before you abandoned us. Before you passed to the Godworld.'

   Leth could only stare, though he did not see her now. Lakewander gave a consoling smile. 'You’re still convinced otherwise.'

   'I have not been here before. I am a man, not a god. I am mortal flesh and blood and bone.'

   'Lord, you come among us as one of us, this we know. But you are the Swordbearer, Ascaria's doom.' She watched him for a moment,
then added, 'No other could have slain the ools.'

   'How is that?'

   'Their hide is thick and resistant to steel. A normal blade, even a two-handed sword wielded by one twice your size, would have caused hardly more than a flesh-wound.'