by Mike Adamson
in Issue 136, May 2023
The Tarantium River rose in the high, cold Mendolacian Mountains, far to the northwest, and irrigated the mild and temperate lands of Avestium in its meander to the Inland Sea. On the fertile planes the ever-fresh melt-waters had provided for a great and noble civilisation, and the city through which the river passed, which had grown up on its banks and bore its name, was a jewel of the world.
But the fairest blossom may harbour a scorpion, and in the years since the fall of the dark god Sho’Tan, cults had risen in opposition to the gentle worship of Sunhawk and Moonstag—new, grim faiths which flung at the state and the world all the pent fury and frustration of the years Sho’Tan had ground the people underfoot. If evil could win such victory, the state was clearly flawed, no matter the king’s justice or how vigorously it was prosecuted.
The old fortress of Aalenbach was a fading ruin on a promontory at a bend of the Tarantium, built to command the river while being defended by it. Hundreds of years ago it had been the seat of power for the line of kings, but with the coming of peace and prosperity it had fallen into disuse; now only the massive keep towered over the river behind walls overgrown and crumbling, forgotten by the thriving society of the city a dozen leagues downriver.
And on the meadow lands below that grim fortress, and all the horrors it had come to hold, a blow would be struck for freedom by the one hand the king trusted to do the impossible. Was Zareft, the warrior priest, not indeed the slayer of Sho’Tan and saviour of all?
The warrior stood tall and wore his hair long, unlike the shaven heads of the monks, and sunlight delineated muscles unknown among his kind save for the blacksmith of the temple. His safron robe was bound at the waist with an armoured belt, and the calm certainty of his gaze defied the chaos that strove to break upon the world.
He waited in the glow of afternoon below the forbidding walls of Aalenbach, and drove staffs into the earth, to bear aloft the fluttering banners of his faith, the hawk and stag whose images were a challenge to the dark forces that had taken root in the old keep. He sat between the sacred sigils, sharpened his sword, and waited. They must come—when the clean light of day left the world, their evil would creep forth, and he would meet it blow for blow—bur not too skilfully. Victory was his intent, but not just yet.
Keen, dark eyes watched the castle as evening sun made of it a golden glory, and he lit incense braziers and whispered invocations to his gods as he sensed the desolation, for the countryside was deserted now. He stood quite alone…but for the rotting corpses of three dozen soldiers impaled upon spikes before the walls as a warning to the king. Ordinary folk were long gone, those with sense enough to know: for even daylight itself was tainted by all that waited for the night.
It began many months ago, early in the Year of the Twins. When farmers and river travellers beheld the occasional glimmer of torchlight from the castle, none in the city paid it much mind, for squatters often sheltered in the ruins of the past. But as one season became another, murmurs of a dark awakening ran through the capital like ichor in its veins, and the stories of countryfolk were taken more seriously. Oftentimes by night, dolorous chanting was heard below those walls, and shadowy figures galloped upon the byroads when darkness clothed the land. It was said young people held counsel among themselves, spoke of a way of which they would not with their elders, and disappeared for hours and days at a stretch. And, most of all, people whispered the name of Darovane.
None without knowledge of the frontiers would recognise the appellation or its grim import, but those who had journeyed far, military officers who had served on the chain of forts fronting the snowy silence of the Mendolacian hinterland, told tales of Darovane. They made handsign to the Sunhawk as they did so, for his name was redolent of all reared in opposition to the good in the world.
As the year of the Twins gave way to that of the Lion, the presence in the old castle became intolerable and when the snows had gone by the king sent his soldiers to clear the ruin. By day little could be found other than the remains of food and candles, torches and lamps, save a great and menacing magical symbol painted upon the floor of the highest chamber. This blasphemous sigil was etched in black blood and yielded not to brush or mop.
A watch was placed on the old turret, and upon the roads leading to it, for Darovane’s shadowy followers may no longer come or go unhindered. But in a dozen scuffles and clashes of swords not a prisoner was taken, and the people of taverns and waystops were tight-lipped in fear. Farmers walked off their land and soon orchards grew wild, houses unkempt, as for leagues around all decent folk shrank from the shadow that squatted repulsively in the great keep.
As spring became summer the Avestian army had surrounded the castle, while watercraft patrolled the bend of the river. With locked shields the phalanxes advanced. The glimmer of torchlight in the night, the drone of magical intonation, had proceeded heedless of all challenge, and in frustration the king tasked his finest regiment to put an end to matters.
The result had been carnage, but hardly the sort His Majesty expected, for no mortal monarch can give form to the arcane weapons of sorcery.
Now, in the months of summer, when the fields lay unreaped and orchards hung heavy with the pendulous reds and purples of luxuriant season, Aalenbach stood gaunt in the midst of farms run to ruin, and the birds and animals shunned it, the silence of the heavy afternoons terrible to behold. No bird would fly over that grim pile and it seemed the river flowed all the swifter to be past it. Only the dark people of the sorcerer moved now, riders by day and night, gathering provender at whim.
When Zareft invoked the religion of the state, the peaceful worship of hawk and stag, he knew the mage Darovane, watching from the upper windows of the keep, would scoff at his ineffectual display, yet sense in him the power of the opposing fury of the age. Here was a fit offering to the Nameless, and the sorcerer would send his people forth to scoop up the bold priest when evening left the world.
The fight cost him dear. Zareft’s great sword cleft seven men before a slingstone brought him down, blood at his temple, and what beating they meted he experienced through the fog of stunning. They dragged him to the river and into a boat, bound him hand and foot, and the grim soldiers rowed northward against the current, around the elbow of the sullen flow as the stars made blue show over the great tower.
With the damp boards of the rocking boat under his shoulders and the flicker of torchlight striking through the hessian cloth over his bound form, Zareft, warrior priest of the Hawk and Stag, acknowledged to himself he played a dangerous game.
He knew equally with Darovane the conjunctions in the heavens, and when the greater planets aligned with the brighter stars all would be most propitious for the rite of ultimate evocation. In the darkest texts of the old world, lost, destroyed and banished, lay arcane spells for the magnification of occult power, and Zareft knew them well, for deep in the caverns beneath the rebuilt temple of the Sunhawk, upon the island in the Inland Sea, lay the only known complete copies of those forbidden tomes. That others preserved such streams of knowledge was certain, and the priests of Hawk and Stag must know all their adversaries might; thus, when the king appealed to him in the face of the military disaster, Zareft had unlocked tunnels untrodden in generations, to descend to the hidden strongroom and bring forth an iron-bound volume of human velum in which was inscribed the heinous spellcraft of times best forgotten.
All other eyes were forbidden, and to guard against malicious energies resident in the book itself, Zareft had unlocked the bindings only in the highest halls of meditation in the tower of the Sunhawk. He had lifted back creaking covers untouched since before his own birth to reveal pages penned with the indigo sepia of great kraken, in the sigils of Menoreth, a sacred alphabet debased by its application to such evil. His mouth was bound, that he might not utter a syllable aloud even by accident, and in the golden light of the airy chamber had performed banishing rituals over the volume.
The Book of Zandrion was thousands of years old, legendary among the sorcerers of Avestium and lands beyond. Fragments were known elsewhere but this was the only confirmed complete compendium. Throughout the glittering afternoon, Zareft studied the old high magics and gathered the knowledge he needed, and before he relocked the volume and the very chamber, to turn his back in the hours of night, he knew what he needed to defeat the sorcerer who had come down from the snows with dreams of erecting a new order.
Darovane needed a human sacrifice of extraordinary potential to seal his ascendancy by courting the favour of ancient and malevolent deities so long shunned by humankind they were without name; even Zandrion had withheld their appellations, for to command their true names, their nomen obscurum, was a power too vast and terrible for any mortal to wield. Zareft knew the gravity of matters, and staked his life upon them, for he proposed to supply that dread sacrifice—with himself.
Zareft breathed steadily in the bottom of the boat, biding his time as the sycophants bore him thither. All was as it must be, and he girded his inner self against the psychic predation of the master mage, for he could expect the full force of that terrible mind to be unleashed when at last they met. He was gravely concerned, for this upstart magician from the cold heights was the gravest peril the world had known since Sho’Tan had come amongst them. Swordsteel and fire had been enough for the false god, but to this archmage must be raised magics in kind.
He heard their speech, a guttural mixture of the dialects of the north and a language from beyond the borders of Avestium. He caught a few words here and there and knew when the officer at the rudder turned the boat into the old water gate of the castle, a dock excavated back into the bluff. Here, among echoes and dank air, the boat was tied up and he was hauled out and upright, a sack placed over his head and two warriors dragged him forth, set his feet to stairs and guided him roughly. Up and up they went, level after level on a stair that went through a square vault or pit, at last through the keep itself. After an age of dizzying ascent he found himself on a level platform and was hurried along corridors with numerous turns to a room which at once felt small, where he was thrust to his knees and abandoned. A heavy door creaked to and an iron key turned in its lock.
I’m in, Zareft thought, allowing a smile to form behind his blindfold. What a regiment could not do, one man already had.
He heard the preparations. He knew the planets would align perfectly a little after midnight. He had until then to meditate and wait upon the grand mage.
For Darovane would come; the audience must be, he would inspect their sacrifice and make a choice, whomever they had selected—most likely a young man or woman of apparent purity, if not high birth—against the warrior priest. The value found in innocence was one thing, to subdue an able foe quite another, and when, hours into his confinement, heavy boots sounded on the stone flags and the key turned in the lock, Zareft knew the time had come. He was lifted, the sack half raised and a ladle of water set to his lips. He took the gift without question, knowing it would be the only offering—they needed him fit to face his ordeal. Then the blindfold was lowered again and he was taken forth, through passages to a well-lit room where he was slammed into a chair and his arms lashed to the slats behind him. Then the sack was abruptly lifted away.
Torchlight was bright after so long in the dark, and he took a moment to adapt. This was an office high in the tower, set to rights with care these last months, and an ancient desk, once the property of the governor or castellan, dominated the stone chamber. Behind it sat a grim and imposing figure swathed in a robe and headdress of deepest indigo, a golden amulet of curious design upon his breast. The soldiers stepped back in silence as the master sat forward and folded his hands upon the desk. Eyes like black gems stared unblinking from crinkled lids and silver brows, and a face made hard by ambition and lined with the subtle marks of cruel pleasures was etched by torchlight.
“You are the priest Zareft, are you not?” the voice was deep and powerful, with a curiously melodic lilt. Zareft said nothing and the mage smiled thinly. “Of course you are. We all have you to thank for lifting the curse of Sho’Tan, and I doubly so, for in so doing you freed me to make clear that the old order has had its day. As the king frets in his palace and his armies encounter the immovable object of my will, the faithful stream to me and swell my ranks.” He spread his hands dismissively. “Your invocations of the state religion of Avestium were more political than efficacious, and you knew it—you were making a statement for the benefit of the people, a prop for the king’s authority, nothing more.” He squinted now, expression like granite. “I know you are not so naïve. The strong-arm who defeated the false god that held half a world in a grip like steel is unlikely to throw away his life or liberty in a mere gesture… What is your purpose, priest?”
Zareft steeled himself, focused all his mental power into a protective wall against the onslaught he knew would come, for when Darovane unleashed his mind it was as if a black sun shone in the chamber, tearing at his shield as if with the claws of demons. Truly this sorcerer’s mind was a lethal weapon, a concentrated outpouring of energy that would strike down lesser men like wheat before the scythe; but Zareft held fast, seeing in his mind’s eye the lightning-like discharges as he deflected the furious power with a will of iron.
At last Darovane relaxed, panting softly. “Your strengths do you credit, priest. But your mental acumen shall avail you nought when the physical body is put to the test.” He leaned forward abruptly. “As it will be. I think you know the purpose to which you shall be put. In a way it will be a shame to bring so remarkable a life to a premature end. Yet it shall not be in vain, for your passing shall seal certain realities and bind them to my purpose.” He gloated for a moment, reaching for a goblet of wine. “The dark powers sustained me and my people in battle and crows grow fat upon the sons of Avestium. So shall it be again and again, for with the favour your passing will win us we will sweep away mortal domain and ineffectual religion.” He drank with satisfaction. “The world shall come to know real power. Real authority.”
Zareft need say nothing. He knew his plans had come to fruition—perhaps too well, for now all that remained was the supreme realisation of the magic he had found in Zandrion’s lost masterpiece; located in, he hoped and chose to believe, chapters absent from what fragments Darovane may possess.
Through the hours of evening the faithful gathered, streaming from the darkened countryside, robed and grim, young and old alike; warriors from the northlands, and dissatisfied youth from the villages here in the heart of Avestium. Those last Zareft pitied, for their wayward thinking would win them awful end should His Majesty wish to underline that rebellion merited a grievous price.
He could not afford to dwell upon it; his role was terrible and he did not relish what lay before him.
He heard chanting above. The arcane circle was readied for the great rite as the stars came into alignment, and drums, gongs and horns roared as midnight approached. He was left bound and hooded in his cell and could only meditate upon his life and skills, and accept his own decision. His cleverness may set the kingdom to rights, but if he failed he would have played a role in its ultimate destruction. To say he would have sooner not faced this challenge was pointless rhetoric: this was the impasse to which destiny had brought him and it was to destiny he must prove himself.
Now he withdrew deep into his being, focused all his attention on the great spell he had worked with the assistance of the brothers. While magic flung at Darovane would have doubtless been deflected, the mage had no control over magic Zareft might perform on himself. Some things were shrouded in legend, almost too terrible to believe in, an age of rational thought, but he above all knew their verity. When Zandrion had spoken of placing a “glamour” upon things, touching them with the essence of magic, it was to Zareft the plainest of speech.
Long had he laboured upon the casting and deeply had the brothers imbued him with the power to bring about the miracle the king required: he had gone forth like a charged weapon, a fireball awaiting the spark before the ballista was loosed. Darovane had no idea what he faced, and when his guards came at last to drag the priest to his feet their smug confidence was almost tragic.
Zareft was stripped, bathed roughly with river water, clad in a gown of coarse white cloth, the virginal attire of sacrificial victims since time immemorial, and blindfolded once more before he was lead forth between guards, feeling spear points in his back. His ears told him he had passed from a corridor to a larger chamber and he felt the presence of a multitude, then he was dragged to a cold, inclined stone surface and manacled hand and foot. The stoutness of the chains was too much for any man to break, and when he was secure the blindfold was jerked away.
A hundred torches and candles lit the upper chamber like day, and the magic circle, complex with eldritch signs and carefully gridded-out conjunctions, was surrounded by the new dark faithful. They chanted softly, moving to the rhythm, many intoxicated, the whites of their eyes showing, and before the stone at the heart of the circle, Darovane waited with arms upraised. His massive voice boomed in the chamber and silenced the horns and drums.
“Behold, my children! The door to the future opens here, for in this priest of the old ways lies the strength to feed those who await their return! Make obeisance!” All went to their knees, prostrate with foreheads to the floor for long moments, then they rose slowly, renewing their chant. “Nameless ones from the times before time, heed your worshippers who prepare for your coming, and accept this gift of blood!” He unsheathed a gleaming silver knife as he spoke, and Zareft’s mouth was dry. The moment of truth would be beyond anything he could imagine, and for one who had learned the warrior ways to willingly allow such a scene to unfold unopposed was a triumph of will.
The drumming and chanting rose to a crescendo as the acolytes swayed, the rumble shaking in every chest, and it seemed the torchlight took on a strange, dark hue, as if flame itself was subsumed to the gleams of dull metal. Zareft panted, staring up at the blade, and his limbs tensed like iron against the manacles. Every fibre of him screamed for a sword, to die like a man, on his feet and hewing with the strength of tigers, but one thought prevailed—like a clear candle, unmoved by the wind that tugged all else, he remembered, he believed the enchantment would work, and all he must do was…absolutely nothing.
The drums reached their ultimate thunder and the acolytes cried out with one voice. The silver crescent came down in a clean arc in the mage’s fist and pierced his chest, driven hilt-deep, and he felt a white fire explode where his heart quivered like a racing bird. Then he knew no more with clarity, all became rushing wind, a fire that burst forth from the centre of his being, and his limbs were wracked with pain as they clenched and knotted …and changed.
It began as an animal-like howling deep in his chest as blood sprayed from his foaming lips, then the cry became a roar and he sensed the congregation shrinking back in horror as he writhed, shuddered, and the chains snapped. Manacles flew open, and he plucked the knife from his chest with a contemptuous flick of one gnarled, inhuman hand. Soldiers hefted shields and spears, came forward gamely, but when Zareft left the slab all was bloody carnage.
His thews had grown to the proportion of a giant, his face was distorted into an inhuman mask of hate and kill-frenzy, and he came among them like a tornado, slashing and ripping, the wounds of their blades meaningless to him. A dozen spears thudded home in his torso and each was swept aside like the merest gnat-bite, while all around men fell with shattered limbs and cloven skulls, battered senseless and torn limb from limb. The acolytes he did not spare, nor their masters, and when he was knee-deep in tattered bodies he found Darovane, arms upraised in vast imprecation of his protector spirits, calling down the dark power which had defeated the soldiery.
Their eyes met, mage and man-beast, and for terrible seconds they recognised each other—the changeling knew the sorcerer for all he was, while the mage understood the warped travesty of humanity raised against him. One hand went to his curious amulet and he drew breath to boom forth the invocation that would bring down hellish forces to his command, but Zareft moved like lightening, bounded across the killing floor, and the blow struck Darovane senseless, hurled him into the unyielding wall, and in a moment more Zareft was upon him, pummelling with the fury of dragons until nothing recognisable remained.
At length, the red mist of frenzy gradually lifted from his eyes and he saw the carpet of torn and broken bodies, lit luridly by blazing drapes and timbers. None moved, all whimpers had abated, and he knew, dimly but surely, that the sorcerer’s power was broken. Now a strange melancholy seeped into his consciousness and he looked at his great, misshapen, blood-spattered paws. This was the other side of the coin, with which he must always live, and the roar from his chest was now less of fury than of anguish. He bounded across the chamber to the casemented window facing west and went headlong through it into the clean, cool dark.
The last he knew was the long, long fall to the waters below.
Zareft found himself on a gravel shore some leagues down-river in the first rose of day, and struggled to his knees, naked and cold. He looked down at his hands, his body, now returned to their original form, and without so much as a scratch from the injuries dealt him before and during his warp-spasm. That was the nature of the magic, the gift and a curse, and it took one with profound depth of spirit to cope with the dim but real memories of all that transpired when the battle-fury was upon him.
He rose unsteadily and looked to the north where the grey outline of the castle was shrouded in smoke, and could only nod. It was fitting that Darovane’s evil should be consumed in clean flame. He stretched, waded from the trickling shallows and collapsed upon grass to recover his strength, brooding upon the lengths to which destiny had forced him. None of it was good, but a lesser evil had contended with a greater, and Avestium thus woke to a new day free of Darovane’s dark ambitions.
© May 2023, Mike Adamson
Mike Adamson has over 200 published stories, including recent tales in Metastellar, The Strand, and Abyss & Apex. He was long-listed for the Hugo Awards in 2018 and 2020, and was a finalist in the 2019 Aurealis Awards, the 2021 Gravity Awards, and the 2022 Jim Baen Memorial Award. He is a current finalist in the 2023 Derringer Awards. He is also a Pushcart nominee. His work has appeared previously in Swords & Sorcery.