The Queen's assassin

Chapter Nine

Rik followed Asea down the stairwell. It was warm and dark in the cellars below the Palace. He had to stoop. His head brushed the ceiling as the stairs wound downward.

Excitement made his heart beat faster. Today, they were going to practise his first real sorcery. Yesterday's balloon flight had taken them across some sort of threshold. Asea had decided that he was ready to be initiated into the first of the great mysteries of her craft. He was not sure what she intended, but it was something that needed darkness and secrecy. A whole section of the cellars beneath the Palace had been cleared.

A massive door barred the entrance to the cellar. Karim waited beside it, a naked sword in his hand, his face blank and expressionless. They entered the chamber. Asea slipped the heavy bolt into place. Rik considered the metal-bound entrance and the massive bar and realised that they would be secure against a small army. The ritual must involve making them very vulnerable if it needed this level of precaution. The security was for Asea. No one cared whether he died or not.

The place was prepared for their arrival. Complex patterns of Elder Signs and alchemical runes had been inscribed in chalk upon the floor. Patterns of coloured salt swirled around the edges. In the centre of the largest circle in the middle of the chamber was a small brazier on which steamed a bowl. More braziers were placed at intersections of the patterns.

"Walk to the central circle, aspirant," said Asea. He did so, as he had been taught, being careful not to touch any of the lines. The patterns were wards. The slightest disturbance could make them vulnerable to inimical forces from outside of normal space and time.

Once he had done so, Asea too walked along the corridors of the pattern, speaking words of power that caused the braziers to light. The air filled with the smell of narcotic incense. Rik's skin tingled and his eyes burned. Asea joined him in the central circle. Picking up a wand of power, she closed the entrance to the corridor of lines down which they had walked, completing the pattern. She spoke the words of an ancient spell, and then bowed from the waist to the eight points of the astrological compass, invoking the names of various guardian spirits. This done, she indicated that he should sit, cross-legged as he had been taught, before the brazier. She did the same.

She picked up a knife from the tools laid out along the brazier and held it in the flame until it was hot. She took powdered alchemical compounds from a small herb-box and placed them on the blade. They sizzled.

"Put out your hand." He did so, palm up, and she slashed it with the knife. The herbs went into the wound, making it smart at first, and then tingle until it went numb. She did the same to her own hand, and then placed them together so that blood mingled where the cuts had been made. With her free hand she offered him a wafer. As he had been previously instructed, he bit half of it and chewed and swallowed, and she did the same.

They continued to hold hands over the brazier. Her hand was cool and smooth, her fingers stronger than they looked. He breathed in the fume-filled air and his head swam. Dizziness and nausea twisted his senses.

Asea chanted words. He repeated them, mindlessly, echoing her words. They had a strange rhythm, a metre that seemed to scan at the same rate as his heartbeat. As the beat of the chant slowed so did that of his heart. He wondered if her heart was doing the same.

All his extremities felt numb now, and he wondered if he had been poisoned.

All drugs are poisons. The thought slid into his head from somewhere else. It would have startled him more if he had not experienced something like it before, when he had communed with the ancient alien priest in the heart of the Tower of Serpents. Was it his imagination or was it really the voice of the Lady Asea sounding within his head?

This is real, but difficult. Your mind is protected against intrusions such as this, only the drugs and the physical contact and the ritual make this possible. You are indeed what I suspected you to be, Rik.

Shadowblood, he asked.

Yes.

As the thoughts swirled between them, they continued to chant. The words flowing into him from her now, so that their voices had merged. His stomach lurched and his mind screamed at the vertigo and he was standing above himself, looking down at his body.

Fear filled him, worse than the fear of flying in the balloon. Had she killed him? Was this what death was like?

Sardec looked the surgeon in the eye, trying to gauge his response. The doctor was a tall, slender Terrarch dressed in white robes. His face was unreadable. He listened to Sardec's pulse with his fingers, looked into his eyes.

"Am I going to die?" Sardec asked at last. The doctor had treated his burn after he returned from the cemetery, and had told him to return in a couple of days.

The surgeon gave him a frosty smile. "No. But I do not think that is what is worrying you."

"Am I going to become a ghoul?"

"I think it unlikely. It is very rare for the disease among Terrarchs. It did not exist on Al'Terra. It was the scourge of humans before we came, and began wiping the creatures out."

"The Terrarch in the graveyard was a ghoul. She looked like the queen of all ghouls."

"I said it was very rare for the disease to affect our kind. Not impossible."

"What are the chances of me…becoming like her?"

"Far, far less than for those of your men who were bitten."

"But not out of the question?"

"No."

"How long till I know?"

"If you were a human symptoms might manifest within twenty four hours. If they did not appear within three days, then the chances would be that you were clear. That’s why I asked you to come back today."

"But of course I am not a human."

"No."

"So how long?"

"I do not know. Cases of the ghoul plague among Terrarchs are rare and records rarer still. I would think that within a few days we will know."

"A few more days…" Sardec's outrage was explosive.

"Perhaps longer. Among humans there are cases of men being bitten and not showing any signs of the disease for years, and then, one day turning on their neighbours, friends and families. Of course, humans do that anyway, without the excuse of a disease." Sardec realised that the surgeon was attempting to lighten the situation with a little humour, but he did not find it funny.

"You are saying that the disease can remain dormant for years."

"Apparently so, unless the people we are talking about were secretly consorting with ghouls all along. You never know with humans." Apparently the surgeon was a little offended that his joke had gotten no response, so he had decided to repeat it with a variation. Sardec smiled politely. He supposed it was much easier for the surgeon to take this calmly. After all he was not the one who had been bitten. Sardec wondered whether he should bite the medical officer. Maybe then he would understand. The grotesque humour of that made him smile, and the doctor smiled back.

"I would not worry, Lieutenant. You and your men took all the correct precautions. I would say there is an excellent chance that you will never develop the disease."

That was a little more reassuring. Sardec found himself asking the question he had hoped not to have to ask. "If they…or I…do have it what can we do?"

The surgeon's cold smile faded. "Nothing much I am afraid. Once the disease is incubated it is irreversible and incurable."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. Except put you out of your misery."

"Then we should best pray, my men and I," said Sardec.

"If it helps you feel better," said the surgeon. "Place the matter in the hands of God."

Rik looked over his dead looking body. He could see a shimmering translucent outline. It was Asea. She looked subtly different from how he saw her in real life, and he wondered if this was how she saw herself.

If this is death, then I have suffered it too. But this is not death, merely something like it.

Is this your soul? Is it mine?

Perhaps. It is just a ka, a projection of your mind beyond your body, an imprint of your will upon the aether.

Rik was not sure he saw a difference, but it seemed to mean something to Asea. Her spirit reached out to him.

Come — we must go — before the effects of the drug wear off.

Go? Where?

To the Deep. To the Great Deep. You will see the first and most important secret of sorcery with the eyes of your spirit.

He took her immaterial hand with his. There was a sensation of contact quite unlike the meeting of flesh with flesh. Space and time seemed to bend and flow about him, and suddenly a whirlpool appeared in the air, reality shimmering around it. From it he heard voices, they impinged on his soul, sounds that were not sounds audible only to ears that were not ears.

What is it, he asked?

An entrance to elsewhere.

Where?

The realm of the spirit.

I don’t understand.

You do not need to understand — just follow.

Asea dived into the swirling distortion in space. For a moment Rik hesitated, and then with a supreme effort of will, he followed, plunging into a very different realm of existing.

There was no land below. At least not at first. They floated free in ultimate night. All around was blackness save for the glow they made. Rik was sickly, dizzyingly disorientated. Everything was chaotic, a jumble of images and sensations that threatened to overwhelm his mind.

Then slowly sanity seemed to come. A kaleidoscope of images whirled through his brain. He saw the streets of Sorrow, but they were larger than he remembered, the buildings huge on a scale that dwarfed even those of Halim. All around were people, giants. He realised that this was the city of his earliest memories, when he and Leon had escaped from the Temple Street Orphanage. The people had a twisted monstrous look, more ogre than human. He looked at Asea. She was the same, a luminous figure, human in scale.

What are we doing here?

We are looking for a place where you can connect with your power.

Where is that?

No one really knows — it may be inside your mind. It may be inside the Deep. It may be the place where those two meet. It is the realm of spirit, perhaps the deeper level of dream. Now be still and let your mind open. Practise the exercises I taught. If you sense something let yourself be drawn towards it.

Rik did as he was told. He focused on the Elder Signs. He tried to empty his mind, to reach deep into his being, to touch the power that he had been told was there. Then for the first time he felt something. It was small and distant but it called to him. He tried to clear his mind and let it draw him. He noticed that the ground was drifting away beneath him, although Asea’s spirit was close. The higher they went, the faster they moved. There was no sensation of speed, but the world dwindled beneath them swiftly and it seemed that the stars were rushing closer.

No. What he had thought to be the stars were glowing objects much closer than the stars of heaven. They were like tiny blocks of land floating in this great void. Amid them was a glow. With an effort of will, he made for it, shooting after Asea at a speed that was breathtaking. Soon they hovered above the surface of a tiny worldlet. Its surface was inscribed with strange runes. Swirling patterns shimmered in his vision.

What is this?

Your place of power, your connection to the Great Deep.

He remembered what she had taught him about the Great Deep. It was the place where all magical energy came from. It lay below, above and around their home plane. It intersected with others. The gateways passed through it. It was the road to Al'Terra.

How can the Deep be within my mind?

All minds touch it one way or another. The difference is that a sorcerer knows it, and can use it. And there are things that dwell in the Deep that know this too. Demons can break through into your mind here, if you let them.

Why have you brought me here?

So that you could see it. So that you could begin to understand. And so that you could forge a link to the Deep. It is the source of all power. You must tap it to work magic. You must draw tau from it.

How do I do that?

I will show you. This place is your place of power. But there are dangers in forging a link with it.

What are they?

Listen and I will tell you.

Rik listened. All around him he felt the pulse of strange powers. He felt reality shimmer and twist. Perhaps it was the drugs he had taken back in the cellar, but he doubted it. He felt it was somehow connected to the very nature of this place.

Things are not how you see them here, Rik. This is an alien place. What you are seeing is only how your mind interprets something completely alien to it. It is trying to make the incomprehensible comprehensible.

That is a very strange concept.

No more strange than our existence back in Gaeia. There is a world beyond that we perceive with our six senses, Rik. This is one of the first truths of being a sorcerer. We do not see reality. We see only a slice of it. Dogs smell things we cannot smell, hear things we cannot hear. Your eyes can see into darkness where no normal human can see. A cat's eyes see further still. We do not see reality, only a slice of it.

Rik could see the logic of what Asea was saying but could not see how it related to what was going on around him.

Reality is a construct inside our minds. Normally the process is one way. Reality floods us through our senses. What sorcerers learn to do is take the model of the world inside their heads and force reality to conform to it.

That sounds mad.

Perhaps it is. But it can be done, but only in small ways, and only with enormous amounts of help. You need to tap energy to do it. You need to control and mould that energy and bring it into our world. The Deep is where that energy comes from. It is the source of all tau.

She had taught him often enough about tau, ambient magical energy, and how there had been more of it on Al'Terra than there was on Gaeia which was why the magic worked there was only a pale shadow of what it had been on the Terrarchs homeworld. He asked her why?

The walls between the worlds are thicker on Gaeia. It is harder to reach the Deep and the power must be drawn from further down in the well. It takes longer and it is not so abundant, at least in most places.

There are places where the walls are thinner, he said. He knew this to be true. Like at Deep Achenar where Uran Ultar, the Spider God came through.

Yes, and in those places, power is most abundant. They were the sacred sites of the old witches, the places of power of the demon gods. In truth they are simply weak points in the fabric of our reality, where alien energy bleeds in. It flows out from those places, like water from a spring. At such places even those with almost no magical talent can work spells, like Zarahel did, but as you get further from those spots, the power is spread so thinly that it might as well not be there. If you wish to use magic regularly you need a direct connection to a source. You need to be able to reach down and tap a spring of power.

And this is what we are going to do here.

No. This is what you are going to do here. Reach out and touch this wellspring. Place your hand in it. It will be painful but you will endure. It might destroy you. It might drive you mad. It would certainly do that to any human who tried this but you are only half-human.

What if I don't want to do this?

Then you will never be a true sorcerer. You will be at the mercy of your surroundings, and incapable of true magic.

Rik considered her words. As ever he wished he had some way of knowing whether what she was saying was true. Perhaps there were many ways of tapping power. Certainly there were tales that had hinted at such, and the Old Witch, his first tutor in matters magical had claimed this was so. Asea seemed to sense the direction of his thoughts.

Oh you will be capable of thanatomancy, of draining the life force of others and using it in your rites. You will be able to devour their souls as beasts consume food, and like food it will give you strength. In the long run, it will also turn you mad, and you will become a beast of shadow. Is that what you want?

Rik knew that he was being tested here. It did not really matter what he wanted. It was what Asea wanted that mattered, and he suspected that if he gave the wrong answer she would destroy him. He was certain that she did not want another dark mage running loose in the world. Did he want to be like that anyway? He did not think so.

It is not a case of what you think you want, Rik. It is a case of who you are. You are a sorcerer and the power calls to you. Eventually you will be tempted to use it and you will find the means to. You have walked too far along the path to change direction now. The question is how you will walk the path. It forks here — one way leads to shadow. The other way leads to mastery.

Not light?

No. Not light — but to a place where you will be the master of the power, rather than the power being the master of you.

But that way may lead to destruction or madness, here and now?

Exactly so. Now is the time to choose. Which path, Rik? Which path?

Sardec strode into the room. Rena looked up from her knitting. She sat in a chair before the fire. She looked very peaceful and there was a serenity in the way she smiled. Sardec let out a long breath and began to tug off his boots.

"Let me help you," she said. "Take a seat. I will pull them off."

Unreasoning anger filled Sardec. He did not want to do what she said. Who was she to tell him what to do? "I am not a cripple," he said, all too aware of the lie contained in his words.

"I never said you were," she said. She looked shocked and a little angry. Who was she to be angry with him? How bold she was becoming. Even a few days ago she would never have let such emotion show upon her face.

"You take too many liberties!" he roared. She backed off. Fear and something else showed in her face. In his current state, that merely gratified him. He sat down in his own chair and began to tug at his own boots. With only one hand and a hook, it was heavy going and he was very clumsy. He felt his face flush with effort and embarrassment but he was not going to start asking for help now. He continued to tug at the boot, angry that there were no servants here.

She backed away into the corner, as if afraid, which annoyed him even more. When had he ever given her cause to be afraid of him? He had been nothing but the soul of gentleness to her. Too gentle perhaps if she could behave like this in front of him.

"What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"There's nothing wrong," Sardec almost shouted, aware that there was something very wrong. Was it the disease? Had it already started to affect him or was it simply his own emotional reaction to the strain.

"You are not normally like this." He let out his breath in a long sigh. Calmness slowly returned.

"You are right," he said. He could not quite bring himself to ask for forgiveness. It would not have been seemly for a Terrarch of his rank to admit that such a thing was necessary to a human. "You are right."

She rushed over to him and took his fleshly hand. "What has happened?"

He told her of the ghoul bite and of the Terrarch woman in the graveyard.

"I do not believe anything will happen to you," she said.

"I wish I was so certain."

"The surgeon seemed to think the chances were very low."

"The same was true for the lady at the mausoleum."

"You must not let this get you down. You are brave. Do not let it trouble your spirit. Why worry about what might never happen?" She smiled at him, and he could see that she was worried about him already, and that touched him. Oddly enough the need to reassure her began to take the edge off his own concerns. He forced himself to nod, and say, "You are right. And forgive me for yelling at you earlier. I did not mean to."

"There is nothing to forgive," she said. He knew otherwise. She would have to forgive him a lot, if only she knew his thoughts.

Rik came to the conclusion that he did not have much of a choice in this matter. If he was going to return home to his flesh, he knew he was going to have to brave the dangerous path. He was going to have to forge a link with the source of power they had found here. He said so.

Very well, extend your hand into the vortex.

He reached out to touch the swirling cyclone of magical energy. He did not know what to expect. Fire and pain perhaps but what he got was like nothing he had prepared himself for. There was pain and there were other things, a welling joy so intense it made him want to weep, a sense of well-being, of peace and calm that he never wanted to let go. He sensed his consciousness expanding outwards and away, like ripples where a stone has broken the surface of a lake. It was like touching the mind of God.

The pain and the power bubbled into him, cleansing him, showing him the things that lurked in the shadows of his own mind. Somehow they did not seem so frightening now that he had looked upon them; in fact they seemed small and petty, just like himself. He felt the urge to open his mind, to let the knowledge and the wonder flow through him, to become one with the cosmic all, to let his spirit disintegrate into a million fragments and be absorbed by the universe. Perhaps this was what death was like, he thought, and if that was so, it was not such a bad thing.

He could let go of himself, of his petty fears and ambitions. Who was he anyway, and what did he matter in the great scheme of things. His own egotism was what crippled him. All he had to do was let go of it and fade. It would bring him peace and an end to all struggles and all pain. The power mounted in him, and he began to hear singing, like that of a choir of angels. He knew that if only he let go of himself, let the beauty of those ethereal voices sweep over him and cleanse him, he could become like them, he could join them in bliss forever.

Somewhere in the depths of his mind a small nagging voice countered the singing. He told himself that what he was hearing was false, the lure of demons and of death. In his soul, he did not really believe that but the resistance was important. Part of him did not want to surrender, part of him wanted to live, to complete his business among the living.

He tried to block out the singing, to resist its lure, to pull his hand from the spell vortex. He found that he could not. He was locked in place by that siren song and the source of it. Fear tickled the edges of his mind. A note of discord entered the triumphant harmony. The music did not seem quite so overpoweringly spiritual.

He let the fear speak to him. He tried to draw strength from it, and from the anger that followed inevitably in its wake. Fear and anger, the two emotions that dominated his thinking, and that had defined him for as long as he had lived. He tapped into the memories they brought back, of the beatings in the orphanage, and the constant fight for survival in the streets of Sorrow. He remembered his anger at Sabina who had betrayed him, and his terror of Antonio, the fat gang-lord who was her lover and whom they had both betrayed. He remembered the battles he had fought with the Foragers, and his rage and terror when Sardec had ordered him flogged. Slowly a bit at a time, he rebuilt himself, first as an engine of anger and fear, and then he filled in the gaps, remembering his small joys and pleasures, and the hoarded scraps of good experiences that had come to him.

He remembered the good times with Sabina, and with Rena. He recalled his friendships with Leon and the Foragers, and even in a strange way with Asea. Slowly he came closer to being himself, and further away from those seductive voices. Inch by inch he pulled his hand from the vortex, and he noticed that it was limned with fire, and traceries of light connected him to the thing.

I thought you were lost.

I think I was, he replied, but I have found myself now. He was not sure what he had become, but he was sure that he had changed.

It is time to return.