Guardians Watch Read online

  They walked in darkness for a few minutes, boots crunching on the cobblestoned street as they began the climb up the hill to the palace. Tairus scratched his neck, looked up at the sky and casually said, “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”

  “It’s not something I’ve ever been good at,” Rome conceded.

  “You’re going to pay for this tomorrow,” Tairus said.

  Rome shrugged.

  “It’s not going well with the new soldiers,” Tairus said. Since they returned from the summer campaign in which they’d conquered Managil, Opulat, Yerthin, Rahn Loriten and Hen, effectively quadrupling the size of their army, he’d been personally overseeing the training and integration of the new troops. “The men from Yerthin don’t get along with those from Opulat. Those from Rahn Loriten don’t like Opulat either. In fact, they hate each other. They won’t back each other up. Each wants to be in the front in any kind of action. Fights break out all the time. It’s not just the men either. Today I had to get between their commanders. They drew swords on each other during the midday meal. I thought they were going to kill each other.”

  Rome spit on the street, wishing he could spit out his tongue at the same time. When would the burning stop? “Knock them down to sergeant. Promote someone else.”

  “It’s not that easy, Rome. The men won’t just follow anyone. Those men are respected by their soldiers. The men will follow them. I need to find a way to work with them.”

  “Don’t they understand what’s going on?” Rome growled. “Melekath’s just waiting to swallow us all. They need to put aside their stupid feuds.”

  “You’re right. They do. But they won’t. They’ve been fighting each other lots longer than they’ve been fighting Melekath. Besides that, Melekath’s out there somewhere.” He gestured at the horizon. “He’s not even real to them. This is real to them. This is here and now.”

  “Split them up?”

  “Sure. Why didn’t I think of that?” Tairus spat on the street. “I tried. I really did. But then I discovered that those from Rahn Loriten hate those from Hen, who hate those from Yerthin even more. Gods, Rome, there’s not a one of them gets along. If we weren’t using wooden swords in the mock battles I don’t think a one of them would be left alive.”

  “You’ll get it worked out,” Rome said, clapping Tairus on the shoulder. “You’re good at that sort of thing.”

  “I just hope you’re not planning on marching this army anywhere soon. Or fighting it. Or doing much of anything with it.”

  “I sent someone to Karthije to talk to Perthen about allying with us against Melekath.”

  “I’m sure that will go well. Kings love to share power,” Tairus said drily.

  “But surely he will see that he’s got no choice. My army is bigger than his now. By a lot.”

  “So you’re saying that he’ll choose to be sensible and surrender instead of throwing his soldier’s lives away?” Rome nodded. “Have you forgotten Rix already?”

  Rome sighed. “No. I haven’t forgotten him.”

  “Perthen knows you don’t want to lose the soldiers necessary to take Karthije. He’ll use that against you.”

  “He’ll be sorry when he looks out his window one day and sees Kasai marching down the road.”

  “Sure he will,” Tairus agreed. “He’ll know he made a big mistake. But it won’t help us any by then.”

  “So you think we should march on Karthije?”

  “No. I don’t. We’re still stretched thin after the summer campaign. We can barely feed our army here. I don’t know how we’d feed them on the road.”

  “So all we have left is talk.”

  “It’s what kings are good at.” Tairus cracked his neck. “If we can wait through the winter, get these men trained and our supply lines straightened out, by spring we’ll be able to whip Karthije and it won’t matter what Perthen wants. What does Lowellin say? How close is Melekath to getting free?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen Lowellin since we got back to Qarath.”

  “What about Quyloc? Hasn’t he talked to him?”

  Rome shook his head.

  “And he’s supposed to be our ally?”

  “At least he’s still helping the Tenders with their sulbits. I guess that’s something.”

  “I trust them only slightly more than I trust Lowellin. If we survive this, they’re going to be a problem.”

  “I agree with you. Quyloc’s keeping an eye on them. He says they’re getting stronger fast.”

  “So our new army is at each other’s throats. Our allies are completely untrustworthy. We don’t know how long we have before Melekath is free. Am I missing anything?”

  “You forgot about Kasai.”

  Tairus groaned. “I was hoping that was just bad information.”

  “I don’t think so. Perganon swears by his sources.” Perganon was the old librarian. He had a loose network of informants in a number of kingdoms. The one in Fanethrin had recently sent news that one of Melekath’s Guardians, Kasai, was gathering an army. Even more disturbing was how that army was being gathered. Bands of soldiers led by men whose eyes had been burned out were scouring the entire northwest. Everyone they caught was asked a question. Those who answered correctly were spared and joined the army. Those who didn’t were burned.

  “You think Kasai is coming here?”

  “Either that or the Gur al Krin, to be ready when Melekath gets out.”

  “Has there been any more news? Does Perganon’s informant know how long until Kasai’s army is ready to march?”

  Rome shook his head.

  Two

  Quyloc opened his eyes and what he saw shocked him.

  He was not in his bedroom in his quarters in the palace. He was lying on the ground, staring up at thickly interwoven tree branches. The light was all wrong. All at once he knew where he was and he sat up quickly.

  He was in the Pente Akka.

  How did he get here? The last thing he remembered was going to bed. Oddly for him, he’d fallen asleep quickly for once.

  He looked around. He was in a small, grassy clearing. There were huge trees in every direction, their trunks covered in moss, their leaves blotting out most of the light, casting the world in gloom. Ferns grew everywhere, along with mushrooms as big as his head. He was in the jungle, though it was not nearly as thick or as wet as the jungle he’d gone into before, when he killed the huge beast and made a spear from its tooth.

  He looked around. There was no sign of his spear.

  I’m not here, he told himself. He had no memory of going to the Veil or passing through it. This had to be a dream.

  He heard something in the distance, breaking limbs as it came. It was closing fast.

  I’m not here.

  But he could not entirely convince himself of that. It all seemed too real for a dream. And whatever was coming sounded big.

  He closed his eyes and visualized the Veil, picturing it in every minute detail. When he opened them, it was there, a grayish-white, gauzy web, superimposed over the jungle background, stretching out of sight in every direction.

  But he no longer had the bone knife to cut an opening.

  The crashing grew louder.

  He threw himself at the Veil, hoping to tear his way through. But there was nothing there. He passed right through it. It was no more substantial than fog.

  He was trapped here.

  He took off running, animal fear overriding everything else. Whatever was coming, he didn’t want to see it. He burst through clumps of ferns, jumped over rotting, fallen trees thick with orange and yellow fungi. He didn’t choose a direction. He had no destination but away.

  But it was no use.

  As hard as he ran, he could hear his pursuer getting ever closer. He broke through a screen of ferns and into another clearing. This one had a small hill in it, strangely free of trees or other growth save thick grass. On top of the hill was what looked like the ancient remains of a wall, the stones almost
completely obscured by moss.

  He ran up the hill and jumped over the wall, then crouched behind it.

  The jungle went silent. Had his pursuer given up? Was it sneaking up on him? After a minute he peeked over the wall. There was no sign of movement. Had he imagined it all? Slowly, he stood up.

  Something, some intuition, made him turn and look behind him.

  The hunter stood there.

  Completely black, it was manlike in shape and stood head and shoulders taller than him. Its head was an inverted wedge in which two red eyes gleamed.

  This was no dream. This was a nightmare. This thing before him had nearly dragged him into the Pente Akka once before. Lowellin’s warning came back to him:

  It wants you alive.

  The hunter opened one hand. Quyloc tried to step back, but the wall blocked his way. The skin on its palm began to bubble. Quyloc stared in horrified fascination as small, black things wormed their way out of its flesh. Tiny wings unfurled from them and buzzed.

  A second later they launched themselves at him.

  Quyloc slapped at them, but there were too many and they were too fast. They swarmed around his head, so thick they completely blacked out his vision.

  He felt a sharp pain as one bit him on the upper chest—

  And opened his eyes. He was lying on his bed in the dark, drenched in sweat. There was a stinging sensation on his chest. Gasping, he sat up and fumbled with the lamp on the table beside his bed. He got it lit and carried it with shaking hands over to a mirror hanging on the wall.

  There was nothing there, no bump, no redness.

  It had to have been a dream. There was no other explanation.

  Quyloc picked up the spear from where it lay on a table and went out onto his balcony. Dawn was spreading in the east. The wind off the sea was cold. Far below, the waves crashed against the foot of the cliffs.

  It was a dream, wasn’t it?

  What if it wasn’t?

  He hadn’t been back to the Pente Akka since he made the spear. It had been a tremendous relief, knowing he’d never had to go to that cursed place again.

  It had to be a dream. Otherwise, how did he leave, without some way to cut through the Veil?

  He felt cold and sick inside. Had the place found some new way to get its hooks into him?

  “You did it. You found your weapon.”

  Quyloc jumped in surprise, then turned around. “I wondered when you would show up again.”

  Lowellin came forward, the black staff gripped in one hand. He looked as unremarkable as ever, like an ordinary old man with short, white hair and plain clothing. But there was something in his face that belied that. It was stone, made to look like flesh, but lacking something vital, the lines and creases that inevitably mark a face as it ages, gives it depth and personality.

  “That’s close enough,” Quyloc said, stepping back. He had the spear in both hands, angled across his chest, ready.

  “I only wish to see the weapon closer.”

  “Or you think to take it from me, now that I secured it for you.”

  Lowellin’s stone face hardened fractionally. “Don’t be a fool. If I wanted to take it don’t you think I already would have? What door or lock can stop me?”

  He was right. Lowellin seemed able to appear anywhere he chose. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t playing a deeper game.

  Lowellin folded both hands on top of his black staff. “The weapon is not for me to wield. It is for you.”

  “I thought you didn’t care whether I succeeded or not, now that the Tenders are doing so well with their sulbits.”

  Lowellin went to the balustrade and stared out over the sea. “The Tenders are becoming a powerful force, it is true. But…new developments have forced me to reevaluate my plans.”

  “Or is it just that you’re worried I might use it against you?”

  Lowellin’s head turned and there was a look of pure, elemental rage in his eyes. A moment later it was gone, hidden away once again. “So it has occurred to you that a weapon powerful enough to threaten Melekath could also be used on me.”

  “Yeah, it has.”

  Lowellin’s next words surprised Quyloc.

  “Do you know what I am?”

  “The Tenders think you’re a god.”

  “But you don’t think that.”

  “I’m starting to think there are no gods.”

  Lowellin gave him an inquiring look. “Go on…”

  “I’ve been spending some time in the library. Perganon showed me a book written by a Sounder long ago.” Sounders were people who worshipped the sea and claimed to be able to speak with the creatures who dwelled in it. They were presumed to be extinct now, ruthlessly exterminated by the Tenders during the time of the Kaetrian Empire. “The one who wrote the book told an interesting tale of beings that fell from the sky. He called them Shapers, and said that one day they would be called gods. I think you’re one of those, a Shaper, probably a pelti from the Sphere of Stone.”

  Lowellin nodded. “Interesting. But then, they are only words, are they not? They do not change the fact that I am immortal and possessed of powers you have no comprehension of.”

  “True. Nor do they change the fact that this weapon, here in my hands, can kill you. So let us say, instead of immortal, that you are ageless.”

  Lowellin cocked his head to one side. He seemed genuinely curious when he asked, “What do you hope to gain by threatening me?”

  “What do you hope to gain by coming here?”

  Lowellin nodded, as if Quyloc had provided a real answer. “We still face a common enemy. Whatever you may think of me, I am not a threat to end all life on this world.”

  “Yet we have only your word that Melekath is a threat to do that.”

  The anger returned then, Lowellin’s hands tightening on the staff. “You know of the Guardians, what they are doing. Kasai in the northwest, raising an army. Gulagh in Nelton, enthralling people. You’ve seen the effects of the poison that they have introduced into the River itself, people dying, being driven mad. An entire city, Veragin, found dead of it. Can you look at all that and still doubt me?”

  “I don’t doubt that Melekath is a threat. The question is how much of a threat you are.”

  “I spoke of new developments. I have learned something recently, something that makes our situation even more dire than I previously realized. You saw the clouds of smoke and ash in the sky to the north. Do you know what caused it? It was caused by the death of Tu Sinar, one the gods—or Shapers, if you will—who imprisoned Melekath.”

  Quyloc couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a flash of real fear in that stone face before it was hidden quickly. Interesting. Did Lowellin fear that what was used on Tu Sinar would be used on him?

  “How did Melekath kill him?”

  Lowellin moved to one of the chairs and sat down. “He used creatures taken from the abyss.”

  Quyloc sat down as well. “What’s the abyss?” he asked wearily. Wasn’t it bad enough they fought a god?

  “It is a place at the center of the world. A place whose very nature is anathema to this world.”

  “And Melekath was able to take creatures from there and use them to kill another god?”

  “Not Melekath, one of his Guardians. I believe those creatures will be set loose on the rest of the gods who imprisoned him, now that he knows what they can do. Now you see why I am here. I admit that I dislike you immensely. I admit that you angered me and I gave up on you, left you to live or die on your own. Patience has never been a virtue I aspired to.” His depthless gray eyes bored into Quyloc. “But none of it matters now. We have to fight together or we’re doomed.”

  He pointed at the spear. “That weapon might be our only chance. Somehow, against everything that I would have thought possible, you killed the rend, a creature nearly as powerful as the gromdin, the being which rules the Pente Akka. That one act changed everything. That weapon is powerful enough to kill even Melekath, especially if y
ou hit him as soon as he emerges from the prison.”

  Quyloc looked at the spear. The slightly curved tooth, nearly as long as his forearm, was melded seamlessly to the shaft, which had once been a piece of wood, but now looked more like stone.

  “We have no more room for petty bickering,” Lowellin said. “It’s time to put that behind us.”

  Slowly Quyloc nodded. “How does it work?”

  “I don’t know for sure. All I know is that the Pente Akka is poisonous not just to flows of LifeSong, but to the power of the three Spheres of Stone, Sea, and Sky as well. It is why I cannot wield it.”

  “Then how come I can?”

  Lowellin shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “There’s one other problem.” Quyloc told him what had happened during the night.

  When he was done, Lowellin said, “And there’s no mark on your chest where you were bitten?”

  “No.”

  “You must have been dreaming.”

  “Do you dream?”

  Lowellin gave him an odd look. “I don’t sleep.”

  “If I keep having dreams like that, I won’t sleep anymore.”

  “Don’t worry about it. There’s no way you can be dragged into the Pente Akka against your will. Nothing inside there can reach across the Veil, even though the gromdin desires nothing more than that.”

  “Why me?” Quyloc asked, though he knew the answer. “Why is that place so interested in me?”

  “Because you have proven your strength. The gromdin has trapped others in that world before, but they weren’t strong enough and died before it could draw enough Song through them to shred the Veil. You might be the one it needs to succeed. Additionally, by killing the rend you have proven yourself a threat. No doubt the gromdin would like to eliminate that threat.”

  “So by succeeding I’ve just made myself a target.”

  “Yet another reason why we need to work together.”

  “You’re sure it was just a dream?”

  “Of course I am. I’ve been studying that place for millennia.”

  “This isn’t going to be like the last time, when there was that chain attached to me and the hunter almost pulled me through the Veil?”