The Twilight herald

ENDGAME

A reluctant sun rose above the horizon and began its slow climb through the cloudless skies above what had once been known as the city of Scree. The dawn light illuminated a dead place, scarred by the hand of man and now almost bereft of life. Here there was no rich warble of birds, just the occasional zip of jewel-winged beetles and darting dragonflies, and the sharp hum of less harmless insects. The city was once a warren of cramped houses with ramshackle eateries on every corner, a place where extended families lived and ate together, gossiping and arguing all the while. Now there was an unnatural quiet, broken only by the faint sigh of ash shifted by a listless breeze, and the occasional crack or crash as one of the few remaining walls fell.

The firestorm had scoured the city of anything larger, consuming the southern part with a quick and savage hunger, and burning out to leave this devastated wasteland of smoking pyres and vast mounds of rubble. In the north, a few isolated fires smouldered on. Throughout Scree the stones on the ground were still hot enough to cook on, radiating heat like a thousand ovens.

When two silent figures set out through this desolate landscape, it was the blistered ground that scorched their skin, rather than Tsatach's yellow eye. They covered the ground quickly, even the bulkier of the two, who was clad in armour. His companion wore only a black patchwork tunic and trousers, and would have looked like an ordinary traveller, were it not for the swords sheathed across his back. His face was smooth and pale where the skin wasn't tattooed, while his larger companion displayed a lifetime's accumulation of scars on his weathered skin. The strange pair walked silently, with purpose, though no casual watcher would have been able to fathom what that purpose might be. They appeared to know their route, despite the lack of discernible landmarks, almost as if a voice were whispering directions in their ear.

Once in a while Ilumene, the larger man, would pause and turn to look back. Trailing a hundred yards or so behind, like an errant child, was another figure, obviously suffering greatly from the growing heat of day. He had a sheet loosely wrapped around his head and body in a feeble attempt to protect himself from the sun. Dark, bloody scabs had formed on his exposed face, and his hands were a mass of red blisters. He held them turned inwards, trying to protect his palms, but when he tripped instinct caught him off-guard and using his hands to break his fall left him whimpering in agony. Neither Ilumene nor his companion, Venn, waited to help him. Ilumene contented himself with ensuring their follower was still within sight; beyond that they appeared not to care about him in the slightest, keeping a good dis¬tance away so they were not bothered by the sounds of his laboured breathing or cries of pain.

Almost half an hour after the first rays of dawn had touched the treetops, Ilumene decided they had arrived at their destination. The only difference to the rest of the city that anyone might have noticed was the increase in the number of charred bodies lying around. He and Venn stopped and watched the progress of the tattered man.

Jackdaw, panting hard, stopped before he reached them, pushing the now-filthy sheet back from his head for a moment to mop the sweat from his face. His pale face was emaciated; even the midnight-black feather tattoos on his cheek contrived to look ragged and crumpled after his time in Scree.

Jackdaw hesitated when he reached them, looking fearfully horn one to the other as though worried about how they would react to his presence. Ilumene gave a snort and tossed the man a half-full waterskin. Jackdaw took it gratefully, sucking down long gulps until he caught the scarred soldier's stare. He handed it back quickly.

Ilumene allowed himself a mouthful and hung the waterskin back around his neck, then made his way into the wreckage of a build¬ing. Jackdaw looked past him at the bodies, many burned beyond recognition. He paused as he stared at the nearest corpse, a man lying at rest, his hands folded at his throat as though laid out for burial. It was a strangely peaceful sight, especially when compared with the charred heap of long, strangely distorted limbs and hooked talons a few feet away. Ilumene walked up to it and gave the mas¬sive body a kick, knocking off some blackened lumps of some unidentifiable material. Whatever it might have been, it wasn't human.

'Was that his Aspect-Guide.?' asked jackdaw breathlessly as Ilumene cursed and tried to shake the mess from his boot.

'Unless you think it likely some other beast this size wandered into the city last night,' growled Venn.

Jackdaw didn't reply, afraid of saying anything that might antago¬nise either of the other two men. They kicked and beat him whenever they pleased, and the mage had been too frightened to do anything in return to Rojak's favoured sons. He stood now with his eyes on the ground, shoulders slumped, looking for all the world like a skeleton hung on a peg.

Ilumene moved through the rubble where the house had once stood, dragged aside a long, blackened timber and kicked chipped slate tiles and other debris out of the way until he found what he was looking for. Jackdaw surreptitiously leaned to one side to get a better look until something snapped under his heel, drawing furious looks that made him scramble back, biting his lip to stop the gabbling apologies that so infuriated them.

Illumine finished glaring at Jackdaw and descended the handful of steps he'd uncovered. A battered wooden door at the bottom wouldn't budge until he kicked it hard, splitting it enough for him to be able to smash through the rusted iron hinges with a lump of stone. Jackdaw didn't need to see Ilumene's face to know how much he was enjoy¬ing himself; the former King's Man took an almost childish pleas¬ure in destruction, anything that could break, anything that could bruise.

'What are we looking for?' Jackdaw muttered.

Ilumene said nothing as he ducked his head under the sagging lintel and disappeared from view. Jackdaw allowed a few minutes to pass before he sighed, cleared a space on the nearest flat piece of ground and eased himself down. Venn stared at him for a moment, then stepped up onto the broken door and positioned himself so he could see both Jackdaw and the steps.

They waited in silence. Venn looked off to the northern horizon where he'd once said his home was located, then, murmuring some¬thing under his breath, he balanced himself on one foot, keeping remarkably still without any apparent effort. He glared disdainfully at the twitching figure in a ragged sheet.

Jackdaw ignored him, staring morosely at the patch of dirt at his feet.

After a while Ilumene's voice echoed out through the doorway and Jackdaw, grimacing, clambered to his feet. Astonishingly, Ilumene was guiding out a large woman with long, straggly grey hair and a bewildered look in her eyes. Jackdaw could see she had a powerful body underneath her torn and damaged leather armour, and a younger face than her hair-colour indicated. Her solid frame surprised Jackdaw, most people in the city had become gaunt and emaciated after the weeks of chaos. This woman showed no ill-effects of the minstrel's magic, but he could see a dozen more mundane injuries, both recent and half-healed. One eye was half-closed by a long grazed bruise down the side of her head. She was hugging something close, a book, maybe, wrapped in cloth.

'It's all over now, you're safe,' Ilumene was saying soothingly. Jackdaw almost convulsed in surprise, at the man's tone as much as anything. Ilumene sounded as kind and reassuring as the monks in Vellern's monastery – until now he'd never known the man from Narkang to be even civil to anyone but the minstrel. He wanted to warn the woman to not be such a fool, to scream at her to run, not to trust whatever poisonous schemes Ilumene had in mind, but instead he looked down and said nothing, paralysed by his own cowardice. All he could do was bite his lip and hate himself a fraction more, if that were even possible.

'What happened here?' she murmured through cracked lips. She looked startled, blinking against the light and wary of the ruined Land she'd awakened to. Jackdaw saw incomprehension in her eyes and realised she didn't even know where she was.

'War, and the cruelty of Gods,' Venn answered distantly, not even bothering to look at her. The woman shrank towards Ilumene when she heard the coldness in Venn's voice and he immediately put a com¬forting arm around her shoulders. She leaned gratefully into his body, bigger even than hers, not noticing the bloody lattice that covered the back of his hand.

'What happened here is nothing for you to worry about,' Ilumene repeated. 'It's all over now. A new dawn has come.'

'Who are you.'' she whispered. 'How did you find me?'

'All that matters is that you're safe now,' he said, stroking her hair.

The woman's face twisted. Jackdaw realised she was trying to smile at her rescuer. Breath of Vellern, she's forgotten how to smile.

'Can you tell me your name?'

The woman thought for a moment then blanched and shook her head.

'You've forgotten it?' Ilumene asked, adding comfortingly, 'That's of no matter. We'll find you a new name; the most beautiful name there is.' Ilumene sounded so benevolent Jackdaw could scarcely believe this was the same man who'd awakened him just before dawn by punching him in the face. He probed a tooth with his tongue; yes, it was still broken; it hadn't been a dream.

'Are you going to take me with you?' she asked uncertainly. It was strange to see such vulnerability from someone who looked as if she was a mercenary, but if she could not remember her own name, she doubtless had no memory of her years of fighting too. It looked to Jackdaw like Ilumene's brutal appearance was causing her to hesitate – as it damn well should; run, you fool, run from him! – but there was a hopeful innocence to her weathered and battered face. He could see she was desperate to believe any promise of protection against this blasted world in which she found herself.

'Of course we are,' Ilumene replied, and then gestured towards the object she was still clutching to her stomach. 'Come now, you have had a terrible time and you will be weak for a while yet. Would it not be easier if my friend carried your burden?'

The former Harlequin hadn't moved towards her, but he was watch¬ing her with rapacious intent.

She pulled the book closer to her chest and shook her head. The movement created a faint cloud of dust and Jackdaw realised her hair was not actually grey, just covered in ash. 'It is mine,' she whispered hoarsely.

As you wish,' Ilumene said gently, 'but can you tell me what it is? So I know best how to help?'

'I-' The woman looked up at him for a moment then hunched protectively over the book. The wrapping had slipped a little, bul still Jackdaw couldn't make out the words on it. He thought it looked unremarkable, just a plain leatherbound work like the dozens in the monastery library. 'It's my treasure,' the woman said finally.

'Treasure and ashes,' Venn said suddenly.

She looked up fearfully as Ilumene chuckled beside her and brushed her sleeve, raising another cloud of dust. She coughed and spluttered, but never let go of the book.

The phrase banged around the inside of Jackdaw's head; had he heard it before? It sounded like the sort of hateful pronouncements Rojak had come out with from time to time; was this all still part of the minstrel's final plan?

'They were burned,' she replied, holding out her fist. Jackdaw saw she was gripping a piece of scorched paper in it and he frowned: the cellar hadn't been touched by fire, so why had a book been burned? 'All burned except this one,' she went on, 'all but my treasure.'

Jackdaw's stomach tightened into a knot. Abbot Doren had fled with the monastery's books, as well as the Crystal Skull entrusted to their care. It looked as if the senile old bastard had tried to burn the books, as if they had been part of what they were after when the Skull of Ruling sat in his possession. He stopped. Had they?

Ilumene nodded as the woman opened her hand and let the remains inside flutter down to join the other ash at her feet. He cocked his head sideways so he could see the book's cover and made a small sound of approval.

Jackdaw couldn't stop himself this time. 'This was all about a book?' he asked, incredulous. He squinted at the cover himself, and this time made out an embossed symbol, partly obscured by the girl's hand. There was a pair of entwined initials above it, a pair of Vs, maybe, indicating the book had belonged to a nobleman once.

'This is no mere book,' Ilumene said, answering the question, much to Jackdaw's amazement. 'This contains the writings of a madman.'

'I betrayed my God for a book?' he asked in a daze.

'Indeed,' Ilumene said with satisfaction, taking the lady's hand and starting to lead her away from the cellar steps, 'a book – or a journal, to be precise: the journal of Vorizh Vukotic'

Now Ilumene was finally talking, Jackdaw was determined to find out as much as he could. 'The vampire? But he's insane.'

'Among other things,' Ilumene conceded, 'but does that not strike you as strange? He is a man cursed with sanity by Death himself, like his siblings, and yet, unlike his siblings, he goes insane. As a mage, tell me, what sort of power could overcome Death's own curse?'

Jackdaw looked blank. 'What power? I know none, bar Death's own.'

'There was a time,' Venn said softly, 'when creator and destroyer walked across the Land hand-in-hand, when they commanded the dust at their feet and the air above.'

'Creator – you mean Life, Death's bride? But she died at the Last Battle, and Aenaris was buried with her. Not even with her sword could the Queen of the Go-' Jackdaw stopped abruptly, a look of horror sweeping across his face. He gaped at Ilumene, who gave him a broad smile in return.

Clutching his hands to his chest, Jackdaw wheezed, 'Death's magic? Death's own weapon? But Termin Mystt was broken during the battle, it was destroyed…'

'Not exactly,' Venn said, nodding towards the book as the woman, her eyes wide, clutched it even tighter. 'Not at all, in fact, but history is written by the victors, who tell what they choose to tell.'

'How can you, of all people, say that?' Jackdaw asked, still shaking. 'You were a Harlequin, a teller of the past – a teller of the truth!'

'Exactly so,' Venn replied, a nasty gleam in his eye, 'and I tell you truthfully: Termin Mystt drove a Yeetatchen maid insane when she touched the hilt during a feast in Lord Death's honour. The Key of Magic is so powerful that it will twist the mind of anyone who touches it – and that was what drove Vorizh Vukotic mad. He stole the sword in desperation, trying to undo the curse on his family.'

'You're hunting Termin Mystt,' Jackdaw said dully, overwhelmed. 'And this book will tell you where he hid it?' A small spark of anger flared inside him and he pointed at the woman holding the book. 'What about her? Are you going to kill her to take the book from her?'

The woman gave a whimper of fear and shrank from Ilumene.

Jackdaw waited, shivering, for Ilumene to smash his fist into the woman's face, but the man from Narkang only laughed.

'But of course not,' Ilumene said gently to the woman, 'not when you're with child. I was sent to protect you both.'

'A child? But how do you know?'

'It has been foreseen,' Venn intoned, 'and when your child is born, you will gift him your treasure.'

'Him? It's a boy?' she asked. 'I wanted a girl… I think I had a little girl, once-'

A boy,' Ilumene said with certainty, 'and one who will grow to be a prince. He will build you a palace of ivory.' He smiled at her, his arm around her shoulder, and urged her to start walking.

Her steps hesitant, she passed Jackdaw, who was still frozen with shock.

'A boy?' he echoed hoarsely. 'A prince?' 'A new dawn, a new Land,' Ilumene called cheerfully over his shoulder.

'Oh Gods,' Jackdaw breathed as a cold presence swept over him.

'Gods,' said the shadow softly, 'will soon have no place in this Land.'

The End