Ilkar pushed himself to his feet and walked back to the balcony window. The library caught his eye again and he felt a coldness enter his soul.
'You cannot have regained the power you had before the demons came,' he said. 'How much of the archive did you lose?'
The regret in Denser's eyes was answer in itself. 'Nearly everything. During the siege Dystran managed to salvage some texts but we have lost so much that was precious. Irreplaceable.'
'But, even so, you were more fortunate than Dordover,' said Ilkar.
Denser nodded. 'I can't ever see Dordover recovering as a college of magic. The Heart is gone and there are not enough surviving mages to construct a new one. But isn't it strange that, when all is said and done, Julatsa is the most complete college of the four?'
'You tell me; I've been dead almost fifteen years.'
'Lystern has its Heart and precious little else. Dordover has nothing but a library of lore that no one can use. Xetesk has lost two thousand years of teaching. Julatsa is almost untouched. The decision to abandon the college and run here worked in ways your fellow mages and elves could not possibly have imagined. The demons always meant to go back and consume the Heart after the battle here was done. They never made it. It makes Julatsa strong.'
'Only potentially, Denser. I can't imagine too many mages survived to begin the process of recruitment and training. You have numbers at least. But they won't do you any good.'
'So you all keep saying, and you'll excuse me if I don't immediately buy the opinion of people who have been dead for a good long time. We need to see this enemy for ourselves. Understand that I'm only just buying the idea that you can possibly be here at all.'
Ilkar nodded. 'Then do it quickly. Being dead was good. Being alive again really isn't.'
'And that's why Hirad has gone all emotional on me, is that it?'
'No, Denser, it's because he can feel something that he cannot explain.'
There was a knock at the door.
'Come,' said Denser.
A young messenger entered and bowed. 'Please, my Lord Denser, Master Haldryn of the Communion Globe sends his urgent wish for your attention. Calaius has fallen silent.'
Ilkar watched the colour drain from Denser's face.
'I take it that's not good, then.'
Denser shook his head.
'And what's a Communion Globe?' asked the elven mage.
Denser rubbed a hand across his forehead. 'Wait here, all of you. I'll be back as soon as I can.'
They all watched Denser go, following the messenger out of the door and away down the long spiral stairway. Ilkar took a seat next to Hirad and smiled, squeezing his old friend's healthy shoulder and regretting that he couldn't see the barbarian in his original body. For all the awful reasons they were here at all and not floating in the timeless sanctuary of the dead dimension, there was still pleasure to be derived from being among friends. Even the different faces and bodies could not detract from the sense of well-being.
'So what's eating the Lord of the Mount?' asked Hirad.
'Not sure, really. One of his toys is broken and he wanted to show it off to us, I think.'
'Oh, I see.'
As usual, it was plain that he didn't see at all. Ilkar looked over at Sol. The big man was studying the edge of the table, kneading the carved knotwork with his thumbs.
'It's not just a toy, is it, Unknown?'
Sol shook his head. 'It's the first line of defence against any invasion of Balaia or Calaius. It's the way we can talk over huge distances at any time. There are only two reasons for Calaius to fall silent. Deliberate cessation of the casting by the elves, and I dismiss that out of hand.'
'Or . . .'
'Or something overcame them so fast they had no chance to send a warning.'
'Go and have your fight if you must but you need to believe us, Unknown,' said Hirad. 'You need to worry about evacuating west right now. There is no time for doubt.'
Chapter 10.
Pain where there had been comfort.
Fear where there had been calm.
Loneliness from love.
He would have screamed but he had no voice with which to do so. It had been so long, it seemed, since he had ascribed any living sensations to how he felt or what was happening to him. The pain soared, ripping at his being. Unstoppable, rising all the time, scaling heights he could never have conceived existed.
Tearing. Like he imagined it would be should his flesh be torn from his bones while he still lived. And he could not cling on. Could not save himself from being thrown into the teeth of the gale that carried him away from his resting place.
Flesh and blood. Bones and breath.
The trappings of the living. He had forgotten them and how they felt. Why should he be reminded of them now? Dimly, he had been aware that those around him had moved or were gone. He had felt fear through the mass but had not known what it meant. Still he didn't. Yet he was gone from where he had been content until now. But not adrift. There was something just beyond the borders of his awareness and slowly, slowly it resolved itself.
Direction.
He was travelling.
There was no reference. He could not see or feel his movement but there it was nonetheless. There was no scent to guide him, no light to show him a path. But there was something that dragged him onwards, that would not let him be lost to the chaos that surrounded him. And what coalesced from the confusion encasing him jolted through him with, he remembered, surprise.
It was need. That feeling of the heart reaching out to implore help, satisfy yearning and quench desire. To beg for attention. And to be reciprocated, meaning to love. All of this flooded through him and he thought that his speed, if he had one, increased. He had the sensation of flying headlong towards those that needed him the very most whether they were in trouble or just hoping without reason that he would return to them.
It was a feeling of the most basic kind. A necessity without which there was no life. And certainly no return to life. Because shortly before light blazed into the comforting darkness that had been his dead soul, that was what he was sure was coming.
He remembered nightmares from his living days when he was falling, falling. Always waking up just before he hit the ground. Yet though this was no nightmare, it was no less terrifying. The light was forming into vague shapes and he had the impression he was hurtling towards them at a speed he could not hope to arrest before he struck them.
There were many of them, grey and indistinct for the most part but surrounding a separate, familiar shape. And it was to this he was being dragged. Curious. The winds buffeting him were enough to blow him away like chaff in the wind but the draw to the shape was so strong. Like he was swimming down to an anchor.
In the next instant he was gasping in breath, opening his eyes and feeling the fear that had killed him. No, not him. The one who had inhabited this space before him. He lay on his back, barely daring to move. One at a time, he lifted his hands in front of his face, seeing strong, farmer's fingers, calloused and thick. He was not young or, rather, the body was not. Over forty but not yet in decline. The lungs heaved in the wonderful scents of grass and pine and the thick, heavy odours of animals.
He sat up, his soul clinging hard to the body, feeding energy into the heart to steady himself. The heart was tight, the muscles still in spasm. He could not afford to let the body die again. The winds would take him and he had nowhere else to go. He could not go back, that much he knew, and the knowledge sent pain through his new body. Pain of loss. Grief, he supposed, for all that was gone and could never be recovered.
The wolves surrounding him were all old but still he recognised them. Elders of the pack, his pack. He reached out a hand and nuzzled the nearest under the chin, feeling a delightful warmth. Sudden anxiety gripped him and he withdrew the hand.
'You have been waiting,' he said, though he knew they could not understand. 'This body. Waiting for me. You did this. How did you know?'
Words from his mouth. It seemed only a moment since he had spoken his last yet time had passed. Much time. He could see that in the whitening of lupine coats and he could feel it in the air around him.
The wolves, six of them, moved in to smell, lick and know him again. He could sense their relief but it was tinged with fear. Threat.
He stood. 'I am Thraun.'
His name echoed around the valley in which he found himself and the laughter that followed it from his mouth hid the pain of his return just for a moment. He stretched his new body, feeling strong muscle in his chest, arms and legs. The wolves had chosen well. Thraun bit his lip.
'I wonder who you were,' he said, looking down at himself, his rough woollen trousers and shirt. 'I wonder when you will be missed.'
Thraun scratched the back of his head. He was bald too. He looked down at the wolves, all of whom were stood utterly still, staring at him. Waiting.
'Something's not right.' He laughed again. But briefly. 'Something more than being back here at all, that is, and not having a blond ponytail. Bugger it, I wish you could talk. Where am I anyway?'
The valley was full of trees. Oak, ash and chestnut mainly. Pine too, of course. A very familiar landscape. He'd run here before but on four legs, not two. The valley rose to east and west, and if he wasn't mistaken this was Grethern Forest and he'd be able to see the castle and rooftops of Erskan if he climbed west. So he climbed.
The ground felt amazing beneath his feet, and despite the pain in his soul and the heat in his body he couldn't keep the smile from his face. Yet with every pace, that nag of something being seriously misplaced grew stronger. And every time he glanced back to see the wolves following him up the steep slope, whining quietly, his smile faltered a little more and his brow furrowed deeper.
He reached the top of the valley side and the edge of the forest. The sight of Erskan in the distance was satisfying but no more than that. He could hear a distant thumping sound, like a mighty machine battering metal on metal, echoing darkly. And to the north he was drawn to where he knew the towers of Xetesk lay.
'They are there,' he said. 'All of them.'
Thraun crouched by the wolves again, putting his arms around two of them and letting them all come close, to fire their breath into his face and give him comfort.
'I know I'm here to help you but I don't know how. Those I lost when I died are away to the north. They will know what to do. I have to find my friends. The Raven. Come with me. I will keep you from harm.'
The catacombs below the college of Xetesk had been extensively redeveloped in the decade since the demon wars. The Raven themselves had caused a good deal of damage there in their time and Denser had been keen to see them returned to their proper use. Research and archiving, rather than plotting and scheming. Parts of the one-time maze had been turned into a museum of the gory past of the Dark College and Denser had seen the catacombs signposted, properly lit, drained, ventilated and decorated.
Yet the odd bleak corner still remained, and he indulged one in particular. Knocking on the dark-timbered door of the suite of chambers hidden in a side passage near the old Soul Tank, now part of the museum, he always felt like a student sent to the master for some misdemeanour or other. It was an association the incumbents were keen to foster, leaving Denser having to remind himself every time he turned the handle that it was he who was Lord of the Mount.
'Enter.'
Denser pushed the door open onto a sprawling chamber clad entirely in oak and dominated by a huge fireplace in the left-hand wall. No fire burned within it and the chamber was cool. As always, tables across the back wall were covered in parchments, diagrams and equations. Books lined two walls on shelves which reached floor to ceiling.
A quartet of deep-upholstered chairs was set in a loose arc around the fireplace, its carved marble mantel and ornate candleholders. Above the mantel, a portrait of Dystran, former Lord of the Mount, gazed down benevolently upon those assembled in the chairs. At this moment, as with every other time Denser had been called down to the suite, those assembled were Dystran himself, demonstrating that no longer being lord of the college had not lessened his ego a great deal, and Vuldaroq, former Tower Lord of Dordover, now to all intents and purposes a dead college.
Both men looked up at him, adopting expressions of patronising sympathy, scrutinising him over their identical half-moon spectacles.
'Drives me mad,' muttered Denser. 'Am I to issue myself with a mild rebuke to save you the bother?'
'My dear boy, no. Come, sit by us. We have matters to discuss and decisions to make,' said Dystran, patting the arm of the chair next to him.
'Boy? Dystran, I am older than you.'
But he didn't look it. Denser sat and sucked his lip. Poor Dystran. A few wisps of white hair clung to his head. He was painfully thin and his hands trembled violently whenever the calming spell began to wear off. Even so, his bony digits shook a little and his voice was faint as if to speak any louder would be to court disaster.
And Vuldaroq was no better. Admittedly he was significantly older but Denser could still remember the truculent fat man who had hated The Raven as much as he hated Xetesk. Now he was reduced to a skeletal figure, blind in one eye and with a sagging right side to his face following a stroke four years previously.
That the two were the closest of friends was an unlooked-for blessing for them and an occasional pain in the backside for Denser.
'We have been noting the arrival of many, shall we say, old friends,' said Vuldaroq, wheezing as he spoke, his words a little slurred but wholly comprehensible.
'It's in danger of reaching epidemic proportions,' said Denser. 'How-?'
Dystran rang the little bell sitting on the arm of his chair.
'Tea?'
'Coffee,' said Denser.
'Ah. Still like to remind yourself of the tin pot of coffee on a Raven campfire, eh?'
'No, I just like it better than tea,' said Denser.
'And, speaking of which, we understand many of your former mercenary friends are on the Mount as we speak.'
Denser frowned. 'You're very well informed for men who never leave the catacombs for anything barring funerals.'
Dystran managed a shaky smile. 'Ah well, you know the way the Mount works. We must all have our sources, must we not?'
'So it seems.'
'And we understand that the Communion Globe on Calaius is currently not functioning,' said Vuldaroq.
Denser sucked in his cheeks and said nothing.
'Now, if you assume as we do that this is linked in some way to the problems afflicting the mana spectrum at present-'
'Wait,' said Denser sharply. 'That is not open research.'
'Oh Denser, all research is open to the Lord of the Mount,' said Dystran, patting Denser's wrist.
Denser moved his hand. 'Former.'
'Some will remain forever loyal,' said Dystran.
'You do remember it was me who gave explicit instructions that you were not to be killed, don't you?' Denser sighed. 'It has left you in a unique position and I rather hoped you might respect that. There are moments when I regret my leniency.'
Dystran laughed but it was brief and forced. 'There are times I do too, Denser.'
Denser nodded. 'Yes, I suppose there are. So tell me, what are your thoughts on all this?'
'You see?' said Dystran. 'Having the old lord about isn't all bad. If you're lucky, it'll become the done thing.'
'I think we've moved beyond assassination as a mode of ascension,' said Denser.