moved towards him and was almost an arm’s length way. “A vast, smothering host of the dead, an abyss of agony, an ocean of blood.” His grin was savage. “Your dead. Your hand.”
Gaze met gaze, will locked with will. Calabos had to consciously resist the pressure of this unhinged, malefic presence before him while keeping in mind that it was only a fragment of Coireg Mazaret, twisted and deformed by the inhuman tortures of the spirit that he underwent three centuries ago.
“The I that I am,” Calabos said in a low voice, “scarcely existed when Byrnak was stumbling along the path laid down for him by other. When He…..was freed by the melded sword, Byrnak ceased to exist, leaving behind a walking shell and a few instincts and habits, enough to rattle around inside and create the semblance of being…”
Before him, Mazaret laughed darkly. “But you remember, don’t you?”
It was true. His mind, even after all these years, remained the voluminous storehouse of another’s memories but it went beyond that. His hands were the hands which had held the axe which had lopped off Kiso’s hands and feet on the fateful night of Tauric’s capture. It had been his powers which had subdued Ystregul, the Black Priest, and imprisoned him in that spell-laden casket after the first abortive assault on Besh-Darok; his chest which had been pierced by the melded sword in the hands of Nerek….
Calabos breathed in deeply and slowly exhaled, feeling the tension ebb. The longevity laid upon him by his god-host role had also provided or cursed him with persistent, undimmed memories of those experiences (unlike his experiences since which were prone to fading or misremembrance). Many times he had tried to expunge them from his mind with drink, drugs, hypnosis or sorcery or some combination thereof. But nothing, he found, could wipe them away so over time he alternated between avoiding conscious recollection of Byrnak’s part in it all, or striving to come to terms with it — his penning of ‘The Great Shadowking War’ was an attempt of the latter kind.
Then there were the recurring encounters with Coireg Mazaret’s madness, likewise a consquence of an immersion in horror and the full force of the Wellsource.
“My memories are my own,” he said. “To embrace or reject or treat as I see fit.” He leaned forward a little and met Mazaret’s unfriendly gaze. “That aside, it would be of great use to us if you were to tell me where He is….”
Mazaret’s smile grew sly. “In the Nightrealm, the domain of the Eternal.”
“Which is where?”
But Mazaret was not listening, his febrile stare wandering around the room. “Do you remember what I said to atop the great keep of Rauthaz?”
Calabos’ recollection of that moment was effortless and all that was said paraded through his mind even as Mazaret gave his own recitation.
“Ghosts in the sky and sea and the black chasm of the night...armies and nations of ghosts….”
Mazaret held out his hand, at last offering the piece of black ironwood to Calabos who warily accepted it as the words continued;
“...a world full of ghosts, full to overspilling, hungry enough to eat the flesh of the sky and bones of the land, leaving nothing, only shadows….” Then he stepped back, his face gone pale with fear and his eyes seemingly fixed on something unseen. “The world is a ghost, a flimsy parchment skin stretched across a blackened skull…!”
Then the eyes rolled up, showing the whites, and he keeled over, knocking a chair aside as he fell to the floor. Calabos leaped forward, levered Coireg’s head and shoulders up off the woodshaving-strewn floor, then hauled him over to the boxbed in its corner alcove. As he laid him out o the plain grey pallet, there were signs of returning awareness, a groan then a weak coughing as the eyes fluttered open. Calabos poured a beaker of water from a jug on the floor and offered it. Gratefully, Coireg nodded and drank.
“You are a
Gaze met gaze, will locked with will. Calabos had to consciously resist the pressure of this unhinged, malefic presence before him while keeping in mind that it was only a fragment of Coireg Mazaret, twisted and deformed by the inhuman tortures of the spirit that he underwent three centuries ago.
“The I that I am,” Calabos said in a low voice, “scarcely existed when Byrnak was stumbling along the path laid down for him by other. When He…..was freed by the melded sword, Byrnak ceased to exist, leaving behind a walking shell and a few instincts and habits, enough to rattle around inside and create the semblance of being…”
Before him, Mazaret laughed darkly. “But you remember, don’t you?”
It was true. His mind, even after all these years, remained the voluminous storehouse of another’s memories but it went beyond that. His hands were the hands which had held the axe which had lopped off Kiso’s hands and feet on the fateful night of Tauric’s capture. It had been his powers which had subdued Ystregul, the Black Priest, and imprisoned him in that spell-laden casket after the first abortive assault on Besh-Darok; his chest which had been pierced by the melded sword in the hands of Nerek….
Calabos breathed in deeply and slowly exhaled, feeling the tension ebb. The longevity laid upon him by his god-host role had also provided or cursed him with persistent, undimmed memories of those experiences (unlike his experiences since which were prone to fading or misremembrance). Many times he had tried to expunge them from his mind with drink, drugs, hypnosis or sorcery or some combination thereof. But nothing, he found, could wipe them away so over time he alternated between avoiding conscious recollection of Byrnak’s part in it all, or striving to come to terms with it — his penning of ‘The Great Shadowking War’ was an attempt of the latter kind.
Then there were the recurring encounters with Coireg Mazaret’s madness, likewise a consquence of an immersion in horror and the full force of the Wellsource.
“My memories are my own,” he said. “To embrace or reject or treat as I see fit.” He leaned forward a little and met Mazaret’s unfriendly gaze. “That aside, it would be of great use to us if you were to tell me where He is….”
Mazaret’s smile grew sly. “In the Nightrealm, the domain of the Eternal.”
“Which is where?”
But Mazaret was not listening, his febrile stare wandering around the room. “Do you remember what I said to atop the great keep of Rauthaz?”
Calabos’ recollection of that moment was effortless and all that was said paraded through his mind even as Mazaret gave his own recitation.
“Ghosts in the sky and sea and the black chasm of the night...armies and nations of ghosts….”
Mazaret held out his hand, at last offering the piece of black ironwood to Calabos who warily accepted it as the words continued;
“...a world full of ghosts, full to overspilling, hungry enough to eat the flesh of the sky and bones of the land, leaving nothing, only shadows….” Then he stepped back, his face gone pale with fear and his eyes seemingly fixed on something unseen. “The world is a ghost, a flimsy parchment skin stretched across a blackened skull…!”
Then the eyes rolled up, showing the whites, and he keeled over, knocking a chair aside as he fell to the floor. Calabos leaped forward, levered Coireg’s head and shoulders up off the woodshaving-strewn floor, then hauled him over to the boxbed in its corner alcove. As he laid him out o the plain grey pallet, there were signs of returning awareness, a groan then a weak coughing as the eyes fluttered open. Calabos poured a beaker of water from a jug on the floor and offered it. Gratefully, Coireg nodded and drank.
“You are a
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