'Then we will break the Spirits before we break you.'
'It is a battle you cannot win.'
The demon stared at him for a moment, turned and floated away back to the college. An uneasy calm fell over the Wesmen. Tessaya looked back to the towers of Xetesk.
They were clever, these Xeteskians. The demons were susceptible to magic but stamina for offence was finite and the enemy had overwhelming strength. But they had worked out quickly what it was the demons feared and had set it in front of them as a barrier. And for all their force of numbers, the demons respected it and had backed off.
Whatever the casting was, demons died within it and so remained outside of it. There had been very few times in his life when Tessaya had wished he understood magic but this was one such. He envied the potential it gave them and he was filled with a curious impotence. The fact was that these Easterners could kill the demons, or damage them at the very least, while he with all his passion and strength could not.
The sun was dipping behind the towers before he had seen enough. There came a moment when the barrier had sapped the wills of the demons for the time being and they had turned their minds to the recently enslaved populace. Tessaya had no desire to join them.
'The mages will not die easily or quickly,' he said to his nearest lieutenant. 'Our opportunity for today has passed.'
'And perhaps for ever,' said the warrior.
'There will be other days and the demons fear us,' replied Tessaya. 'But for today, we are finished. Call the tribes. We will withdraw. The city belongs to the demons.'
'Camp at Understone?'
Tessaya nodded. 'But with a forward camp within sight of the walls. We must not lose touch. Something extraordinary is happening. Sound the fall-back.'
Dystran watched the Wesmen go and felt deserted. The ColdRooms deterred the demons for now but he needed his every ally and his erstwhile enemy had surely become one.
They had something, they must have. Because the demons didn't, or more likely couldn't, take their souls. Dystran was damned if he knew what it was. But their departure marked the passing of the last vestige of what could laughingly be described as normality on Balaia.
He wondered what they would do. How far they would go. However far, it would not be enough. Strange. He almost felt sorry for Tessaya. Know it or not, the Wesmen lord's fate and that of all his tribes depended on whether magic survived. Another day, he would have laughed at the paradox. Today, though, he had lost his city and most of his college. His mages and soldiers had died and those that remained were few and scared.
Never mind Tessaya, he had to get his devastated people through just one more day. And then the next.
'Gods, Ranyl, how I need you now.'
But Ranyl, like so many, could not hear him.
Chapter 8.
'Ilkar!'
Hirad sat bolt upright in his bed, the sweat pouring from him. He was soaked in it. Just like in the early days of his life on Calaius. But this was nothing to do with acclimatisation. His heart was pounding so hard his throat hurt and he was quivering all over. He rubbed his hands over his face and into his hair. He closed his eyes briefly but the images replayed and he couldn't control his breathing.
With a shiver playing down his back, he swung his legs from the bed and stood on the matting. He heard voices elsewhere in the house and craved their company. In two years he had learned enough elvish to get by. In fact it was a language he enjoyed and these days when Rebraal visited the village, the two of them spoke more in the elf's tongue than Hirad's.
He pulled on a shirt and loose trousers and walked out of what had once been Ilkar's room in his parents' house, heading for the veranda and what he hoped would be friendly faces. Outside in the cool but still humid air deep in the Calaian rainforest, Rebraal and Kild'aar, a distant aunt by some means Hirad couldn't quite understand, were sitting and talking. Drinks steamed gently on a table between them. A fire burned in the pit in front of the house, smoke spiralling into sky that was clouding for more rain.
It was the middle of the night. Out in the rainforest, the noise of life and death went on as it always did. The air smelled of rain and fresh vegetation. Hirad sat on one of the three other swept-back chairs on the veranda, feeling the weave shift to accommodate his broad shoulders.
'I'll get you some tea,' said Kild'aar, levering herself out of her chair and walking slightly stiffly down the steps to the fire pit.
'Your shouting eventually woke you up too, did it?' said Rebraal, a smile touching his lips.
'I'm sorry,' said Hirad.
Rebraal shook his head. 'Tell me. If you want to.'
'I've felt the same thing a few nights but not with this - uh - sorry Rebraal, I don't have the words.' He switched into Balaian. 'This intensity. It's like someone's been battering on the door and now finally they've broken it down.'
'Ilkar?' asked Rebraal.
Hirad shrugged. 'Well, yes. Daft I know. I still miss him, you know.'
'What have you seen?'
'Oh, that's hard to say.' Hirad pushed his hand through his hair, feeling the lank braids and the moisture left on his hands. 'I know it's him but I can't quite make him out. His essence, I can feel that so clearly. Everything that made him. And I fill in the smile and those damned ears myself. But he's in trouble. That's why the dream is so bad. I got the feeling he was running but I don't know where. That something was close that scared him. And though I reached out, I couldn't help him. He was always just beyond my grasp and my vision.
'Huh, speaking it makes it sound lame. Not scary at all.'
Kild'aar came back up the steps and handed him a mug of the herb tea that Ilkar had been so fond of. Deprived of coffee for more than a year now since his supply had run out, Hirad had developed a taste for the sweet aromatic teas of the elves. He'd had no choice really. The trade to Balaia had gone. No ships had come from the northern continent for three seasons now. Part of him worried about what that might mean. Most of him was glad they didn't trouble to make the journey. There was only one man on Balaia that Hirad missed and Blackthorne had never relied on trade with the elves so he would be unaffected. And Jevin, the last time he'd seen the elven skipper, had said he preferred not to sail north any more. He didn't say why.
'Thank you,' he said, once again speaking elvish. 'I'm sorry I woke you.'
Kild'aar waved away his apology and sat down, her eyes on Rebraal. 'You haven't told him yet?'
'We hadn't got round to it,' said Rebraal.
'Hadn't got round to what?' asked Hirad.
'You didn't wake us,' said Rebraal. 'Or at least, not me.'
'So you were having a late night, so what?'
'So I've had the selfsame dream,' said Rebraal.
'I beg your pardon?' Hirad felt cold despite the humidity of the night and clutched his mug tight between his hands.
'I have felt him too. He was your good friend. He was my brother.'
'Yeah, I know, Rebraal, and we've laughed and cried about him a good few times these last couple of years but, you know . . . He's dead, and there's nothing we can do about that.'
'No, we can't. But that doesn't mean we can't help him.'
Hirad felt a growing unease. Rebraal and Kild'aar were both staring at him too earnestly. He frowned.
'You've lost me completely.' He knew his tone was a little sharp but he was tired and this was just riddles. 'That's the trouble with dead people. It's too late to help them ever again.'
'Hirad,' said Kild'aar softly and leaned forward to cover his hands with hers where they were locked around his mug. 'I know it hasn't always been easy for you here and that we, at least in the beginning, did not make it easy for you at all. But we have always respected why you wanted to come here. We know of your love for Ilkar and your desire to learn the ways that made him what he was.
'And you and your Raven will always be friends of the elves because of your actions in stopping the Elfsorrow. Rebraal calls you a brother and Auum, well, Auum let you run with the TaiGethen for a season, didn't he? And that is respect no human has ever had before.'
'He still said I was slow and deaf and blind, though,' said Hirad, smiling in spite of himself and the increasing feeling he was going to hear something he didn't want to.
'You will always be human,' said Rebraal. 'Some things not even Auum can teach you.'
'Tell me about it,' grumbled Hirad. 'Never give me a jaqrui again. I think I scarred Duele for life.'
'The point is this,' said Kild'aar, stilling Rebraal's next retort with a sharp glance. 'Though we trust you, there are those facts about us that you as a human should never know. Secrets that could be used against us. We have already seen what humans do with such knowledge. '
'Not me, Kild'aar. Never me.'
'I know, Hirad,' said Kild'aar, releasing his hands so he could drink. 'Even so, we are only telling you this because you have had the dream and that makes you closer to us than we could ever have thought possible. It makes you family.'
'Telling me what?' Hirad took a long sip of the tea.
'The dead of an elven family are never truly lost,' said Rebraal. 'We can always hear them if they need us.'
Hirad felt a thrill through his heart. 'And can you talk to them?'
Kild'aar's smile extinguished his hope. 'It isn't communication as you would understand it because the dead do not exist in any way you can conceive. But messages can still be passed. It is one of the purposes of the temple at Aryndeneth.'
'The Al-Arynaar have been the keepers of this secret too,' said Rebraal. 'No other order can hear the dead. We learn it over years, decades. And even then it is difficult and uncertain.'
'What do they ask you? Why would they need you?'
'That is a difficult question to answer,' said Kild'aar. 'Elves make life bonds of incredible depth and often the transition to death is difficult. The dead seem to have moments of clarity amongst so much else we cannot guess at. They seek support if they feel lost. News of loved ones. They impart knowledge they had no time to speak when they were alive. You must understand that any communication that comes through is broken and sometimes all but incoherent. The dead no longer have the rules that guide us.'
'All right,' said Hirad carefully, trying to take it all in. 'But that doesn't explain one thing. How come I heard him tonight, if indeed I did?'
'Oh you heard him, all right,' said Rebraal. 'But you shouldn't have been able to and that is what is worrying us. I shouldn't have been able to do any more than sense him outside of Aryndeneth.'
'So didn't you ask him what's going on?'
'I couldn't. It was like he was shouting for anyone to hear him, to help him. Anyone with a connection as strong as family. Hirad, other Al-Arynaar have had this same dream in the past days . . . this same contact I should say. But no one can communicate at the temple. Something is wrong in the world of the dead. Something is threatening them.'
Hirad made to speak and then stopped, at a loss. He sat back in his chair. 'What can threaten someone who is already dead?'
'We don't know,' said Kild'aar, sharing a guilty glance with Rebraal. 'Or at least, we aren't sure.'
'Well we'd better find out and fast,' said Hirad. 'We've got to help him.'
Hirad was half out of his chair before Rebraal's hand on his shoulder pushed him back down.
'That's why we're talking to you now. It might have been better in the light of day but since you are awake, now is the right time.' Rebraal levered himself out of his chair, took all three mugs and jumped lightly down to the fire pit around which insects buzzed and died. 'There are other elements to this which are too convenient to be coincidence.'
'Like what?'
'The lack of trade from Balaia. I don't think you've thought why it's happened. Despite the war, it was beginning to pick up before we left to come back here two years ago. But it stopped abruptly. Merchants who travelled north didn't return. Elven vessels have reported seeing lights in the sky and felt a sense of wrong that no sailor will ignore. Ship's mages think they have felt the edges of Communion, but faint and desperate. That's why they won't land.'
'Don't expect me to cry if they've managed to destroy Balaia. We did what we could. Everything they suffer they have brought on themselves.'
'The Al-Arynaar who stayed to help Julatsa have not returned. We sent others north a year ago to find out why and they are gone too but we can't sense any of them among Shorth's children.'
'Who?'
'Shorth's children is the name we give to the dead. He looks over them.'
'I thought he was a figure of fear,' said Hirad.
'Only to those who are our enemies,' said Kild'aar. 'A god of the dead is not necessarily vengeful on his own people. Ours is benevolent to those who serve our people well in life.'
'I'm sorry for those you may have lost in Julatsa,' said Hirad. 'But it sounds to me like the college has fallen. Either to Dordover or Xetesk, it makes little difference.'
But both Rebraal and Kild'aar were shaking their heads.
'Something else you're not telling me?'
The two elves exchanged glances. Rebraal motioned the elder to speak.
'In our mythology there is the belief that the dead face an enemy from whom they were sheltered in life. That death is a constant battle to achieve peace and sanctity of the soul. It is a belief shared with those on your continent Rebraal tells me, you call the Wesmen.'
'I wouldn't put yourselves in the same arena as them. Hardly worthy,' said Hirad.
'Do not scoff at what you do not understand,' said Kild'aar sharply. 'They have a link to Shorth's children, this is certain.'
'Oh, come off it. That's all just primitive beliefs.'
'At least they have beliefs!' snapped Kild'aar. 'That is the problem with humans. You have denied the teachings of generations and lost your religion and now it is coming back to haunt you. But like with everything you people do, you don't think. And once again, you bring us trouble. This time to our dead.'
'Gods burning, Kild'aar, calm down,' said Hirad. 'You're blaming me for things I have no control over. Just tell me how I can help, that's all I need to know.'
'You need to know what all this is based on,' said Kild'aar.
'No I don't,' said Hirad. 'Learning and me never went well together. Ilkar would tell you just to point me at the problem and tell me how to deal with it.'
Rebraal chuckled. 'He's right of course. But so is Kild'aar, Hirad. Look, this is what you need to know. You understand dimensions, you know the dragons have one and we have one. So do the dead, that is our belief, or else where do they go? No, don't answer that. I'm not suggesting we could ever go there, it is hidden. But there are creatures who travel space and feed off the very thing that all creatures alive and dead hold. Life force, soul, call it whatever you want. Such is our belief.'
'You're talking about the demons,' whispered Hirad, a chill stealing across him.
'If that is what you call them,' said Kild'aar.
'We need Denser and Erienne,' said Hirad. 'They would know what to do.'
'I think we will need the whole of The Raven. I have already taken the liberty of calling Thraun from the ClawBound patrols and messengers have been sent to Ysundeneth to find Darrick,' said Rebraal. 'I'm sorry, Hirad, but for such as yourself, there doesn't seem to be any peace. Not for ever.'
Hirad shrugged. 'But can even we do anything? I don't understand, how can we help Ilkar?'