A Prayer of Freaks and Sinners Page 8

  "Like the Sorrow, your enemy will not come into the light. So you must channel your blessing around you to create safe space. Work together, and watch each other for signs of fading. Your blessing is young within you and only a tiny mote after all. It will not last long."

  With that, Invar leaned in and in one mighty breath, he extinguished the candles.

  The vast vaulted room plunged into darkness.

  Alfred could his heart beating in his ears. He strained out into the dark. The other aspirants fumbled and flapped in the gloom. He heard their shallow breath and their leather sandals on the floor.

  The darkness felt infinite around him, as if he had been plunged into some purgatory. Then his skin prickled. Alfred felt something huge move past him in the dark. He heard a low snarl and could smell the musky odour of a beast. He swept his hands through the air like a blind man but hit nothing. He spun around, an irrational terror gripping his heart. He cursed his own fear.

  How can I survive in the Torrent when my courage crumbles in an ordinary room with no candlelight?

  Alfred felt hot breath on the back of his neck and spun around again. He could hear the other aspirants stumbling around in the dark. Just as scared as him and this at least comforted him. Cowards love company, he thought. Alfred backed off into what he thought an alcove he remembered seeing before the lights went out. He tried to remember what Invar had warmed him about his blessing. His breathing calmed a little. He centered the warmth in his chest and focused his mind as a calm pond. He spun around and several things happened at once.

  Some flame activated in Alfred's soul. In an instant a circular pool of soft light had gathered around him like a bubble. It spilled on the floor around his feet creating a glowing circle on the flagstones. He stood there for an instant like a deep sea fish bobbling in lightless ocean.

  Then another light flickered on in front of him.

  At its centre crouched Deena. Her blue eyes stared into his with disbelief and shock. They looked at each other for a long moment, taking in the measure of this new aspect of their blessing. Then they both whispered at once.

  "Deena."

  "Alfred."

  Alfred crouched low.

  "Where is it?"

  Deena's eyes cast off into the dark. She shivered and shook her head.

  "I'm not sure. Come here though. We should share our light."

  Alfred stepped forward and the soft bubbles of holy light merged into a figure eight, and then into one brighter, larger bubble. The increase in brightness cast the pool around their feet wider. Before they knew, Alfred and Deena crouched down, huddled together in the dark chamber.

  They looked out into the gloom and saw another handful of light pop on in the dark. Dunc at the far end of the chamber, huddled against the wall, his thin shield of illumination flickering on and off. After a few attempts it settled into something more stable. He looked across the room and gave Alfred and Deena a nervous little wave. They waved back and then glanced across the other side of the chamber. Straw haired Farah had managed a light, but smaller and dimmer than their own. It cast a pool that reached past her long toes and little more than an amber glow. A few metres above her, standing on some of the carved stone steps, tall blonde Sebastian looked down on them. The pool of light around his feet brighter than anyone else's. Almost painful to look upon. He glanced at everyone but gave no one a wave of acknowledgement.

  Alfred leaned in close to Deena. He could still smell the soap on her skin.

  "Your friend. He won't hurt us during this training, will he?"

  Deena crouched tight jawed and wary.

  "He trained me to fight for weeks on our journey here. There wasn't one occasion I didn't think he wasn't trying to kill me. He says mortal danger is the best teacher."

  Alfred swallowed but tried to hide his fear from Deena.

  "Well, you're still alive, that's something, isn't it?"

  Deena turned to him with wide blue eyes. She placed a reassuring hand on Alfred's shoulder. Alfred tried to suppress the shiver of delight he felt, despite their predicament.

  "Cyrus would bring this whole monastery down on us, and himself, just to see what would happen. Because it would be interesting to him. He'd give his own life up out of curiosity, so don't think he values yours."

  Alfred felt his blood chill.

  "I know he's your friend and all, but he sounds like he's not right in the head."

  Deena shrugged and gave him a sympathetic smile.

  "He's insane, I'm sure of it."

  Alfred huddled closer to the girl and looked out into the huge chamber.

  He saw several metres away, Farah's light failing. Her face a sweating mask of concentration. With each passing moment her head sagged more in exhaustion and as it did so her pool of light drew ever closer to her.

  Alfred gestured at her to move towards him, and she took a step then froze. She looked over at him, shaking her head in fear.

  Then Alfred saw the shadow moving around her, just outside her pool of light. Her eyes opened and locked with Alfred's, and he could see the fear in them. Once more he raised his hand to gesture her over. In that moment a huge shape moved like lightning in front of her. Her light extinguished and with a choked scream gone.

  Alfred and Deena shuffled back against the wall. He glanced over to Dunc and saw the look of frozen shock on his thin face. As his focus wavered so did his light. As it dimmed Alfred heard the rush of Cyrus in the dark, hurtling towards him. Alfred shouted across.

  "Stay calm and breathe, Dunc! Focus on your blessing, it's your shield!"

  Dunc stared across at Alfred as if he had never seen him before. Then some clarity resumed in his eyes and he furrowed his brow in concentration. The bubble of light around him brightened for a second and he looked across at Alfred and smiled. Then his expression fell as the light flickered around him. Alfred called across.

  "Easy Dunc, you're burning it up too quick!"

  Dunc turned as he saw the bestial shadow looming over him. A huge clawed hand cast a shadow on Dunc's face. In his fear his light fading fast. Alfred looked on in horror. Another light flickered on beside Dunc, bright and strong. Manzak there, grabbing his arm and pulling him close. Their auras merged and stabilized, and the feral shadow backed off into the dark again.

  Mazak gave Dunc a smuggler's grin and the gold rings in his nose gleamed.

  "I'm with you, brother. Paladin for hire, best in town."

  The four aspirants crouched there in their protective pools of light and listened as the Karkaren hunter prowled through the dark around them like a shark in night-time Ocean. Then they heard the coarse voice of the big lad, Peyter, shouting out in the dark.

  "No, no, get off me you wretched animal! I'll kill you. I'll bloody murder you!"

  The sound of a terrified struggle and then nothing as Peyter's voice silenced. Alfred looked up the steps across the arena floor and saw Sebastian give a smug grin as he heard Peyter's fearful protests. His aura became brighter, as if drawing on self-satisfaction like a parasite. Alfred shook his head at the tall boy.

  You're burning through it too fast you idiot! You need to rein it in.

  Alfred and Deena watched as the smile faded from Sebastian's face as he realized his mistake. His light, still almost too bright to look at, began to fizzle out in a series of impotent sputters. His arrogance turned to fear as a shadow loomed over him. Then in an instant gone, grabbed so fast that the other's eyes could not follow.

  Alfred and Deena crouched there, breathing hard. At some point they had drawn their short swords but did not remember doing it. They gestured to Manzak and Dunc, who very edged their way across the room, back to back, looking out into the dark until they reached Alfred and Deena. The four of them drew close and shared their lights. Deena whispered to the others.

  "Dim your own, conserve it, so our four blessings make the light of one. If one of us feels ourselves getting tired and fading, tap the rest of us on the shoulder and we'll pick up the
slack. We can rotate it that way until we find safety. Does that work for all of us?"

  The other three nodded. Alfred felt the strange warmth again, the prickling in the skin at his proximity to the others. As if the blessings inside them reacted to and recognized each other.

  Then they noticed the candles being lit again in the chamber. Light returned to the room and Alfred saw a sight that almost made him laugh. Three aspirants trussed up on the steps with rope, struggling and wriggling like pigs. Above them stood the Karkaren Cyrus Blackweather with his huge arms folded. Even more frightening in the light. Invar bent over the last of the candelabras and lit the candles. He turned to the aspirants with a grave look.

  "Well that wasn't very promising overall, was it? Three of you dead . Another saved at the last moment. If you can't use your heads and work together in the Torrent, you're never coming out alive."

  Invar stepped down to the bottom row of stone seating and proceeded to cut the bound aspirants free. His bloodshot fierce eyes turned on them all.

  "You think this Karkaren is frightening, do you?"

  Farah, Peyter and Sebastian nodded. Sebastian seemed embarrassed. Invar pointed up to the hulking beastman. Cyrus just stood there glaring down at the youths as if an appetizer.

  "Well let me wake your minds up to reality, acolytes. This creature is nothing compared to the tyranny and horror of the Sorrow. And that is what waits for you inside the Torrent. Trapped. Left to go insane. Starved of meat and of magic for a thousand years. Imagine what it will feel when it feels your delicious pink young flesh walk in to its prison? It will dedicate another thousand years just to torture what remains of you. So you all better start taking this seriously. Because the fate of all of us rests on your narrow shoulders."

  With that Invar turned and stomped off out of the chamber. At the door he turned.

  "Supper will be served in an hour, get yourselves cleaned up. And eat hearty. For tomorrow at dawn you leave the sun and the world behind. "

  Alfred and Deena found themselves pressed ever closer to one another.

  The reality of where they were about to go hit them both with a cold, metallic taste.

  Their blessings felt cold and shriveled in their hearts, exhausted and bereft of the comfort of magic.

  6

  King Oligan sat on his throne, a brooding crow.

  He listened to courtiers bringing him tales of harvests, neighbor disputes and bandit incursions. And he listened to darker tales too. Ghost stories of how outlying settlements had been become deserted overnight. He sat hunched in his great brass throne as distraught parents wailed on their knees about how their children had been stolen from their beds in the night. Stolen by something unspeakable. Things from nightmares stalked the wild lands. The roads between cities no longer safe to travel. Rumors spread of an odd cult rising in the heart of cities, a cowled militia preaching on every corner of the world ending. A cult that seemed to welcome the apocalypse.

  He listened to tales of rivers polluted by slime and wheat blackened and turned to ash. He sat drinking honeyed wine through the mouthpiece of his mask, getting drunk.

  Oligan's plan. To drink his cellars dry as the world burned.

  He had been so blinded by love for his family, he did not see his future. Now awake and did not need him. An emperor of ash, gazing out into a sea of fearful eyes. He drained his glass and gestured for another. The serving girl ran up the steps and refilled him. Oligan's drunken thoughts swirled.

  What do you people expect me to do, negotiate with death? It's the end of the world, and it's been a long time coming. Just accept it. I'm taking my orders from the deep old gods amongst the stars, and a capricious bunch they are. Now find your own libation and drink deep.

  Half of the fear in his courtier's eyes stemmed from what sat next to Oligan. Like an awful parody of a family portrait, Queen Cassandra, so long retired from public life, now sat on the smaller throne next to him. Beside her, their daughter Aspen sat quite still in her tiny throne, gazing out to the court with dead fish eyes. Next to Aspen a little empty brass chair. Oligan could not bear to look at the vacant throne.

  His other daughter Elena had left on her little pony a week ago, telling him of her need to go out and evangelize the word of the new gods. He knew no longer his daughter. Now a host for something ancient and deadly. Yet his heart broke as he watched her ride out of the city, declaring that she had a message for the river city of Crowburgh to the North West.

  This is how the end of the world begun, thought Oligan, with children on ponies spreading the filth of the Sorrow to my subjects.

  He glanced sidelong at Cassandra. Despite the distorting light from the braziers in the throne room, it was beyond him how anyone at court could think she still passed for human. Despite servants going missing every day, and rumors spreading through the city like wildfire, somehow control had been kept. The army loyal to his house and had been for generations. They thought that they served an old man of over eighty years. No one had seen Oligan without his mask for decades, and his injuries had always made him move like a decrepit old man. His scarred face also hid his age, despite the monthly drops from the Sorrow's essence keeping him as a man of forty. But Cassandra's greyish skin, her blackened eyes and rotting teeth. The horrible taint of the Sorrow within her blood. Not hard to believe as an old crone riddled with disease. Hard to believe still a woman at all. Only fear and years of conditioning stopped the people of Vassonia from asking all the right questions.

  An amazing feat Oligan had accomplished. How an entire population can be fooled and give up their power to the very forces that would eat them alive.

  Oligan made a good tactician, he had to hand that to himself. Even during the Purges against the Old Races all those years ago, they should not have been victorious. Some of the races they pitted themselves against, such as the Manticores, powerful in their own right. Only careful military planning and picking his battles had ensured Oligan victory.

  He knew himself a cruel, shallow, selfish and greedy man, but not without merit. No man is one thing alone. Oligan would now act as a conduit between the world of people, and their new masters. The magic of the world would be siphoned off to feed the Sorrow, and a good proportion of the people would be sacrificed, killed or turned to slavery. But people can adapt to any new regime given time. Oligan would ensure food, security and a minimum standard for those left. He would be the people's champion once more, in a reformed way. Oligan would be the king that kept wells free of poison. He would be the king that helped families keep at least one of their children. He would see daily bread delivered to those who must toil for the new gods. The people would thank him, bow to him, perhaps even one day cheer for him again.

  The king broken from his reverie but the sudden opening of the throne room doors.

  Two pikeman entered and stood in the throne room before him.

  The remaining courtiers cowered and cleared a space for whatever new horror was about to enter their lives.

  Oligan sat up straight. His beaten copper mask glimmered in the firelight. He straightened his white robes and for just a moment he looked like a king again or at least a statue of one. His hollow metallic voice echoed in the throne room.

  "What is this disturbance? I am harried enough by sycophants and beggars. What new hell is this?"

  One of the pikeman caught his breath and stood straight. He cleared his throat but could not hide the fear in his voice.

  "Your majesty. I bring good tidings."

  Oligan sat back on his cold brass throne. He sighed and took a long drunken draft of his wine.

  "I doubt that. Go on, what is it? I am in my cups and have no time for child's games."

  I'm busy presiding over hell on earth, can't you see?

  The pikeman stepped aside and stood to attention.

  "A favored royal subject thought dead has returned. A man who has given such good council to this kingdom and your highness will be much pleased to see him again."

>   Oligan's chilly blood thickened with cold. He knew who was going to walk in those doors before anyone even took a step. He knew that the powers of darkness smothering his lands would not let their most trusted toad perish in the sands of the south. Oligan should have felt terror and despair but instead he felt a strange comfort.

  There is no despair more acute than being cheated of revenge. It leaves a man howling at the stormy skies and cursing the gods for their indifference.

  But here Oligan felt his old blood quicken once again. Here the thinnest hair's breadth of a possibility that he would redeem his cursed soul. Oligan watched, his mask impassive as the burned face smiled beneath, and a man walked into the throne room.

  A man who had used him like a fool for decades, placed a curse upon his house, his family and his kingdom. A mournful priest who worshipped the Sorrow and destruction the way most men worshipped love and sunlight.

  Oligan's beaten metal mask watched without expression as a thin man walked amidst the courtiers towards the throne. Wrapped in black silk and wore a battered misshapen hat. His face covered in stained bandages, ingrained with dirt, pus and blood. Only the eyes could be seen, burning out from beneath the brim of his hat with a light of their own.

  The man limped towards the marble steps that led up to Oligan's throne. With difficulty he knelt down and removed his hat. He bowed low, almost prostrate to the floor and spread his arms wide in a position that would have been painful for any man.

  But this man was a connoisseur of pain.

  Oligan stood. His white robes flowed around the throne. He looked down at the prostrate man and nodded.

  "Merrick Clay. I heard you dead."

  The Witchfinder crooked his neck at a horrific angle, making it seem broken. Oligan could sense the smile beneath the bandages.

  "We are all dead men, your highness. Some of us just cling on a little longer."

  7

  Alfred, alone in his chambers.

  He knelt on the cold stone floor with his fingers interlocked in the sign of flame eternal.