So Hope remained close to Rafe and his horse, patting the creature’s flank as if to communicate her friendliness. Soon, if things did not go to her liking, she might rely on this creature’s speed to help make their escape.
Tim Lebbon
Dusk
Chapter 21
JOSSUA ELMANTOZ WASan old man, and he had been waiting for a long, long time. So when the message came that the Nax requested an audience, confusion was his first reaction.
That was quickly replaced by fear.
BEFORE THE CATACLYSMICWar, the Monastery had belonged to the Mages. Now, walking slowly into its hidden depths, through shadows that had never seen daylight and into pits and caverns of permanent night, Jossua felt their influence once more.
He was the only Red Monk alive who had fought in the War. His first contact with the Mages and their armies had been not far from here, at the Battle of Lake Denyah, in the Year of the Black 1913. He had been a young man then, a novice pagan priest, driven by a fervent desire to see the Mages defeated and nature return back to its true state. Young, feisty, but afraid as well. Everyone in Noreela was frightened by then. The Mages had been dabbling in the unnatural manipulation of magic for several years, and news had been coming from their keep on Lake Denyah, more terrifying news each and every day, that their workings had transgressed boundaries never meant to be touched.
Jossua was an academic, studying at his local university in Long Marrakash with a view to making the journey to Noreela City and completing his education there, prior to taking up his priesthood. The dealings of politics had rarely bothered him, their machinations crude and encumbered by emotion compared to the pureness of magic. For it was magic that Jossua had studied. Its powers, its sources, its meaning and use, the philosophy surrounding it, its effects on society and the way the land was run. And especially, its confluence with the land. Because just as air and sunlight were taken for granted, so then was magic. It was as much a part of life as breathing.
The Mages made it go wrong. They abused it. Whatever dark arts they were practicing in their keep were great and terrible, too powerful and awful to be ignored. They turned magic from good to bad; from aiding everyday life, to raising the dead; from keeping the balance, to tipping the natural world onto its side. They sought to control the magic of the land for themselves, and all evidence suggested that they had succeeded. The shock waves were felt right across the land: rivers turned poisonous; volcanoes erupted; earthquakes roared from the depths of Kang Kang, sending things from there fleeing into the wider land. The magic that had once been a part of life quickly became a means of death, and the Duke sent an army to question the Mages’ acts.
That had been the start of the Cataclysmic War. Nobody ever discovered what had happened to that first army-there were no survivors to tell the tale, no eyewitnesses to flee Lake Denyah and spread the word-but like a stone thrown into a pond, the first battle and defeat had repercussions throughout Noreela. Magic was twisted even more awry. Great machines turned on their users, plunged into ravines, drowned in lakes or turned turtle and crushed their passengers. Tumblers seemed to sense the imbalance and go mad, slaughtering thousands on the slopes of mountains and in foothills across Noreela. In towns and cities machines went haywire, killing or being killed. The sensitive interactions between humanity and nature were upset. Magic changed almost overnight, and the rot set in.
The reaction of most of the population was one of astonishment and bewilderment. It was as if they had woken one morning to find the sky turned green, or their legs transformed into tree trunks. A law of nature they had lived by for the entirety of recorded history had suddenly been transgressed. Their lives would never be the same again.
Back then, easy communication across Noreela was a fact of life. Machines would carry words and meaning from Long Marrakash to Noreela City in a matter of minutes, delivering it without echo or skewed meaning to the ear of those for whom it was intended. Even after magic changed, this ability persisted; much of the fall was gradual, not sudden, marked by many catastrophic events that caught the imagination. News had traveled fast-the Mages in the west, experimenting, corrupting, powerful, trying to make a part of nature their very own-and the reaction was immediate. A people’s army had formed out of the frightened masses, and they had marched on the Mages’ keep with the remnants of the Duke’s forces.
Jossua had no hesitation in volunteering. His parents and fiancee had traveled to Noreela City with him and cried him away to battle. His fiancee had hugged him and placed something in the palm of his hand, then walked away along the dock. She had not turned to look back, not once. Jossua kept his fist closed until their transport boat started swimming in long, powerful strokes down the river toward Lake Denyah. The sun rose behind them, lighting the boat’s wake into flame-tipped ripples. The silver birch trees on either side of the river were aflame as well, holding and reflecting the red dawn, glittering with the fires of life. It could have been metal in his hand-it had felt cold at first, although now the heat of his blood had warmed it-or perhaps it was some other token, of what he did not know. Closing his eyes, Jossua opened his hand over the side of the boat. He was sure he heard a tiny splash as the gift fell into the river.
On the cruise down from San they heard news of defeat after defeat. The Duke’s second army had reached the Mages’ keep and laid siege, but even their powerful war machines were no match for the Mages’ altered powers. They did not want to believe. Jossua’s traveling companions were shopkeepers and teachers, farmers and moneylenders, men and women of title, thrilled with the chance of adventure at first, but frightened now, regretting their hasty decision as weapons were placed in their hands. Maybe the tales were distorted in the telling, they said. But several hours before they reached Lake Denyah, just before dawn of the following day, they could see the glow in the sky as the land burned.
Even now, after so many years to dwell on those events, Jossua could only recall fragments of the weeks following that river cruise. He could remember the beauty of the surroundings as they moved from the river into the inland sea that was Lake Denyah: the hills on either side clothed in purple, pink and red heathers; the sun behind them, its heat warming his neck as if reaching out a pleading hand; the waters themselves, churned by the passing of so many boats of war and yet never upset for long. He could remember the faces of those around him, people he had come to know quickly as fear brought them together. Back then they had seemed determined to win, but upon reflection he knew that their expressions had been of uniform resignation. They could all see the glow of conflict and destruction ahead. Perhaps with the promise of death so close, determination and acceptance were the same animal.
Once they landed and launched into battle, his memory became even more vague. Weeks of his life were all but missing, trampled down into the bloody mud, consumed by the monstrous things the Mages had made and driven at the offending army. A few stark memories had imprinted themselves deep, like dreams still so fresh that he sometimes wondered whether he had survived through that hell only the day before, not three centuries ago.
He remembered his first steps on the shores of Lake Denyah. Jumping from the boat, his feet sank into the mud and he froze there, unable to move. Water lapped at his ankles and people fell all around him, their outlines spiky with arrows as if already scratched from reality. The smell of dead fish was rich in the air, their silvery shapes piled several deep along the beach, gills frozen open as if trying to scream. Farther up the shore, banked against the dawn sun, huge war machines disgorged thousands of arrows and sharpened discs. They were ugly things, not graceful and smooth like machines had once been. Their extremes were distorted with gushing tumors, their metal limbs rusted, stony protrusions cracked as if from a century of frost. But they were dreadfully powerful. The magic powering these hideous machines must have been driven mad, and now it had been offered an outlet to vent that madness.