The old grey god had not walked very far before
he began to worry. Something was wrong with the way he moved. He stopped and
crouched in the long grass. It wasn’t his walking that was the problem – there
was something strange in the air.
He sniffed; there
was a mild smell of rotting apple: the unmistakable scent of the something
being forced through time and space. Or had he just imagined it? He waited and
the smell, if it had been there at all, dissipated. He lingered in the patch of dry grass, then he
got up and walked a few deliberate steps. A breeze circled round him. He
stopped again. The breeze stopped.
He couldn’t be
certain but fear filled him up completely. This felt like a trap. Was the
archwitch lying when he said that he could not tell where he was? Or if he
could not, perhaps he could track him to somewhere where he could find him. The
swirl of gentle wind reminded him so clearly of the twisters that brought Kratos’s
voice to him. What if he located him in Ortia, warning The Lady. Then all of
his plans would be in peril. If there was any chance that that was true then he
could not go. He would have to send someone in his stead.
***
Rem had von Eisen guarded gently and watched him
for several days before he approached him. It had taken a fraction of the time
for the plains dweller to work out that something was dreadfully wrong. The
Baron was living in a fantasy world of some kind, one inhabited by guilt and
strange fears. And in the middle of this cacophony was a persona, a servant
creature constructed from his mind. He knew exactly what had caused that but he
mused for a long time on what could be done about it.
On the fifth day
he finally approached the patient in his little tent. He sat down on the rug on the floor.
‘You are ill…’ he
said, with no other introduction.
Von Eisen stared
at him vaguely. He smiled indulgently.
‘How so?’
‘You have been
tainted by powerful necromancy that thinks that it is godly’
‘Godly?’
‘Yes – but in fact
it is only dangerous’
The Baron frowned
and stared at Rem. There was no hostility in his face.
‘Strange creature;
are you one of my liege… umm… men?’
Rem thought about
this for a second. He wasn’t entirely sure what this meant but he didn’t really
care.
‘Yes’ he said
solemnly, with a long emphatic nod of the head, ‘your liegeman and your
physician’
He knew that he
hadn’t quite pronounced this last word correctly, but he was still proud of
himself for knowing what it meant.
‘My doctor?’
muttered Von Eisen, ‘you are a strange shape for a doctor’
Rem considered
this.
‘What has shape
got to do with it?’
The Baron stared
at him intently.
‘You are not of
human shape…’
Rem nodded
‘I have always
been judged by my results, not by my shape, your majesty’
Von Eisen’s face
lit up and he gave a little nod of acknowledgement. Rem had hoped once again
that that was the right word and it clearly had been. That was probably all the
experimental Ethian words he’d try for a while.
‘Why do I need a
doctor anyway…?’ he asked, but not to Rem. He seemed to be speaking into the
empty air.
Rem glared at him.
‘Who are you
talking to?’
‘My friend and
advisor, Lord Balliwick’
Von Eisen stood up
as if to introduce them. Rem remained sitting but he stared intently into the empty
space where the phantasm was meant to be standing. His flesh crawled, as if a
thousand tiny spiders were running over it. There was something there – it
smelled of death, or of the shadow of death.
‘What has happened
to you? Rem asked
Von Eisen looked
around with empty eyes. His face crumpled. For a moment Rem sensed nothing
around them. The shadow had gone.
‘I have been disappointed
in my endeavours…’
Rem was about to
respond to this when the shadow returned. He could see it more clearly now,
like a smudge on the edge of his vision.
Rem frowned and
stuck his hand inside his extra-dimensional bag. After some probing around he
found what he was looking for – a small metal jug, like a sugar shaker. He
fished it out, turned it upside down and took a tight-fitting bag off from its
top. He strode over to the smudge and upended the shaker. The white dust spread
over the shadow and slowly it assumed a real form. Von Eisen was startled.
‘What are you
doing?’ he demanded.
Rem ignored him.
In front of him now was a strange white shape, vaguely humanoid and with the
hint of stubby wings. Rem shivered.
‘What is that?’ he
asked, knowing no-one could answer.
An old man in grey
rags pulled back the door of the tent.
‘It’s a taint’ he
said, ‘can’t you recognise it?’
Rem dropped his
shaker. The grey man walked over and picked it up. He handed it back to Rem. Specks
of dust fell on to the old man’s hand, fizzled and then disappeared.
‘My god…’ Rem
said, combining piety and blasphemy in a single phrase.
‘My priest…’ said
the old man, ‘we meet, finally’
Rem could think of
nothing else to say, but the Grey Wanderer seemed unconcerned by this. He
turned and gestured at von Eisen.
‘I smell Kratos’
he whispered, ‘this man has been cursed by our Enemy…’
‘Which enemy?’
asked Rem, recovering his courage and his voice.
‘The greatest one.
The one that makes all the others seem puny. One of the archwitches…’
Rem still had no
idea who this was but it didn’t matter. If his god had an enemy it was his
enemy.
The old man turned
to where the taint stood, a strange white shape, like a half-completed or
half-ruined pale statue – what it was a statue of, however, was less clear. The
old man whispered something in a language older than the world and the shadowy
thing dissolved from the inside. White dust showered everywhere, falling like
weird snow inside the tent. Von Eisen fell too, into a deep sleep, but he was
free.
‘Thank you’
whispered Rem
The old god
shrugged.
‘Who do you think
invented necromancy?’ he said, ‘I’m only correcting the errors I made long ago’
Rem shook his head but could think of nothing
to add. He was glad, however, that his patient was now rid of his worst malady.
He sensed, however, there was still much more work to be done to cure him
completely.
‘Come out into the
sun’ said his god, ‘I do not like it in here’
They walked out
into the bright southern winter.
***
The Grey Wanderer sat in the sand and his mind
drifted. The sun was scorching hot and the wind blew grit and dry grass around
him, but he didn’t notice. The minutes passed, but they were unheeded too.
Rem had sat
patiently waiting beside him. Eventually reverence turned to boredom and he
spoke.
‘Why have you come
here, master?’
The grey being
puzzled over this.
‘I had a plan but
now I fear that it will fail’
‘What plan?’
‘I cannot tell
even you…’
‘Why not?’
‘I cannot let the
plan be revealed to our Enemies. It must be entirely secret’
‘But if it is your
plan it is sure to succeed. You are the greatest of the gods’
The Wanderer shook
his head.
‘Once, yes, but
not now. He is too powerful and I am worn out’
He looked down at
his dirty cloak.
‘I am impure –
sullied, by my own actions. Sometimes I feel that it is too much and I just
want to lie down and sleep…’
Despite the
reverence that he felt for his god, Rem would not let anyone get away with such
a statement.
‘No-one is pure’ he
spat, ‘why would you want to be?’
‘Because I have
caused great hurt and mischief to all the free peoples of the world… And I
would be purified of that…’
Rem turned to his
god, anger confusing his words.
‘You think that
you are somehow different from everyone else and that you can judge yourself –
how can that be? We all hurt each other and we all seek forgiveness – man,
woman, elf, god… You are doing great good now, I know it…’
The Wanderer shook
his head.
‘You don’t
understand...’
Rem laughed
without humour.
‘Yes, I do – you
think that you have done great wrong to the world and now you want to sacrifice
yourself for it; but when great wrong is done only great good can put it right,
not lying down somewhere and sleeping forever’
The god’s voice
was very small.
‘I am so tired –
life is very long. Just sometimes I wonder if it might be better to give up’
Rem stared at him
for a long time and then his expression changed. His eyes no longer flashed
with anger; that had been replaced with understanding.
‘A part of you
wants to become a man; that’s it, isn’t it? To become a mortal. You don’t want
to sleep – you want to die. You want to grow old and die, just like a mortal
man. And then you will be at peace…’
The Wanderer
didn’t move. Rem thought that he was more like a fading creature than any dying
sentient thing he had seen before. One could see it in his eyes – his soul was
in full retreat. Rem swallowed hard.
‘We cannot allow
it’ he commanded, ‘we will not allow it’
The Wanderer’s eyes
flashed for just a second – a mixture, perhaps, of anger and amusement, but
then the flash was gone.
‘”We”?’ he asked,
‘who are they?’
Rem was shocked.
‘The citizens of
Skiophos – who else would we be?’
The Wanderer shook
his head. His dry smile was almost a sneer.
‘And you speak for
them, do you?’
Rem looked
surprised.
‘I do, of course, as
anyone can…’
The old god’s unkind
smile faded.
‘Yes, I suppose
that they can…’
Rem nodded his
agreement. His anger had gone completely.
‘I can help you in
any way that I can, my god; let me help you with your plan’
The god shook his
head.
‘I cannot tell you
the plan, it is too dangerous to reveal; but you can help me. You must go and
try to save the Lady’
Rem’s face turned
sour.
‘Elven goddess. I
have no love for her.’
‘I know. But I do.
I ask you to do it for me’
Rem tilted his
head to one side. He didn’t hesitate.
‘Then I will do
it. You gave hope to my people when we were lost. You showed us the way. I
cannot refuse your request’
‘Good’ said the
old man, ‘I need you to go to Ortia immediately.’
‘But…’ murmured
Rem, ‘you overestimate my abilities. I cannot save her from a wild witch lord’
‘No, but the ones
who love you perhaps can…’
Rem’s face creased
with puzzlement.
‘What? What ones
who love me?’
The Grey Wanderer
frowned.
‘I am not certain
– I can no longer see as clearly in this form. But I can see humanoids – two
female and one male, who were with you in the ruined city, they would listen to
you.’
‘Kath…’ whispered
Rem
‘Who is she?’
asked the old man
Rem’s reply seemed
to be forced out, as if he was struggling to form the meaning of the words and
then reluctant to let them out into the open air.
‘A human… but I
think of her like a young one of my tribe… I am attached to her’
It was the Grey
Wanderer’s turn to look perplexed. He stared at Rem for a minute or so.
‘Your people do
not reproduce, is that right?’
Rem nodded.
‘We create, we do
not procreate’
‘Then I do not
fully understand the attachment’
‘It is nothing…’
muttered Rem, ‘just my foolishness’
‘Is she akin to an
acolyte, a student?’
‘No…’ Rem’s voice
faded, ‘…there was a sort of contract…’
‘You feel a sense
of duty towards her?’
Rem struggled with
his memories. He hardened his words.
‘No – she is far
away; nothing to do with me any more…’
He wrestled with
his thoughts for a moment and then abruptly stopped himself.
‘I should not lie
to you, of all people. Yes, I do…still’
Greatly to Rem’s
surprise his god nodded in empathy.
‘I too know one like that – one much younger
than me who I helped and who I can no longer help. I worry about her a lot… But
it is too risky for me to ever see her again. She is the only other one who
knows my plan fully…’
‘Your daughter?’
Rem asked, surmising, and then realised how foolish this sounded.
‘Gods do not have
daughters’ laughed the old man hoarsely, ‘she is my… apprentice… if anything…
She is a naga’
Rem had no idea
what that meant.
‘Do gods have
apprentices, then?’ asked Rem, softly
‘No, they don’t,
of course they don’t’ murmured the Grey Wanderer, ‘I spoke figuratively… I suppose…’
Their conversation
ran down, and neither of them were inclined to wind it back up again. They were
both lost in their own thoughts. Eventually Rem forced himself to stand.
‘I will go to the
Elf City’ he said, ‘and do what I can’
He nodded once at
his god. Then he went back to the tent and picked up his magic bag. He ordered
his guards to look after his sleeping patient. By the time he came out again to
begin his journey the old man was gone.
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