“Bree,” Ponclast said softly. “We'll have those things. Do not fear.”
“It has to be different this time,” Abrimel said. “Then, perhaps we'll deserve them.”
“What do you mean?” Ponclast asked sharply.
“You know,” Abrimel said. “Fulminir's dark history. Many oppose the empire of the Gelaming, but the Gelaming are clever. They present themselves as light and good. The Varrs were not. What was found in this place...” He shook his head. “It cannot be that way again. Not if you want victory.”
“You know nothing. The Gelaming did many unspeakable things that hara don't know about. Their methods were simply different from mine.”
“It's what hara see that matters,” Abrimel said. “You know exactly what I'm saying. Don't deny it.”
“I never lied or deceived,” Ponclast said. “Perhaps that's a talent I should adopt.” He laughed bitterly. “The Parsics sneer at the idea of Varrish breeding facilities, but what were you, Bree, other than a planned strategic birth?”
“I was an accident,” Abrimel said.
Ponclast raised his eyebrows. “Really? You believe that? There are no accidental conceptions among hara. Think about it. Think about Azriel har Parasiel also. Before Thiede sealed me into Gebaddon, he told me how he'd arranged for Swift the Betrayer to breed with some Gelaming minion.”
“Azriel was presented differently to the world,” Abrimel said. “Thiede acted so carefully, so manipulatively, that Azriel was conceived in love and desire. The end result was the same. Think about that.”
Ponclast nodded. “I see your meaning.” He kissed Abrimel's cheek. “You give me good counsel. Thank you.”
Abrimel was silent for a moment, then put his hands upon Ponclast's shoulders. “Am I your consort?”
“In every way,” Ponclast said.
“Take the blood bond with me,” Abrimel said. “I feel strongly we should do that.”
“In some ways, I am traditional,” Ponclast said carefully. “A blood bond is insoluble.”
“It must be done,” Abrimel said. “Some of your hara will be suspicious of me. I must prove I am one of them. If needs be, I'll cast off my Aralisian birth before every har in this citadel.”
“Appearances aside,” Ponclast said, “is this what you want, personally?”
“Before you, I have never loved,” Abrimel said. “It is what I want.” He smiled. “My place is here, with you. I won't stay in Imbrilim for much longer.”
“I need you there, Bree. You must report to me on whatever you hear of the Gelaming's plans.”
Abrimel took a deep breath through his nose. “I don't belong there.”
“I know, and as soon as we know what action the Tigron plans to take, you'll move here permanently.”
“Very well. I'll stay there for now. I have my dreams to sustain me.”
Ponclast took Abrimel's face in his hands. “You are of my heart,” he said. “The ceremony will be a formality. We are already bonded in blood.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cobweb had always known he was a creature of intuition and insight, even before he was har. When his flesh shivered in a particular way, when the stars in the night sky seemed harder and brighter than usual, and a dead crow was found beneath the cedars by the lake, he knew something bad, something life-shaping, was about to take place. He had never imagined his instincts could fail him, that his forewarning system might not work.
After Azriel and Aleeme were taken, nothing happened for several weeks. Seel went to Imbrilim, and while he was away, the channels in the ether opened again, much as they'd been before, albeit with cloudy pockets of scrambled information and upsetting glimpses of things so strange there were no words to describe them. Sometimes, a bank of murk stole through the channels, making communication difficult or impossible for days, but there were clear days too. A message came from Seel to say that the Gelaming were indeed aware of the problem, were not taking it lightly, and that the Tigron had summoned a Council of Tribes in Immanion. The Gelaming sedim were still having trouble accessing the otherlanes as freely as they were used to, but at least Immanion was once again in contact with its settlement in Megalithica. Arahal was on alert and was preparing for the worst. Ponclast's name had already been associated with the events, and now it had been proposed that he had been responsible for the attack on the Tigrina. He might also have taken Cal in the way that Azriel and Aleeme had been taken. The Gelaming had sent agents to Gebaddon, but they had yet to report back on their findings, because they'd had to travel overland rather than through the otherlanes. The enemy had a name, but as yet there was no hard proof the name was correct.
Cobweb could tell that Swift was suffering far more than he revealed to his family. Swift feared for Seel, he feared for his son, he feared for Aleeme, he feared for Cal. Nohar dared conjecture what might be happening now to those who had vanished. If Ponclast was involved, the possibilities were too dire to contemplate.
Swift said only one thing to his hostling, “If it is true, if the Varrs have escaped Gebaddon, they will not have forgotten who put them there.”
Cobweb had placed one hand upon his son's shoulder in comfort. He was only too well aware of that fact. “Azriel and Aleeme are not dead,” he said. “I am sure of it.”
It might be that Ponclast was mustering his forces, or perhaps he was incapable of doing more than he had already done, but Cobweb could not help but feel that they were being played with. The silence, stretching interminably into the hot reaches of the balmy summer, was intolerable. It was worse than attack. It was worse than the more terrible of news.
When news finally came, it was not on a windy, moaning night or a miserable morning when rain slashed the earth turning everything grey, it was on a motionless afternoon, with sunlight the colour of honey splashing against the walls of Forever. A horse came galloping up the curving driveway from Galhea, its hectic sweating rush totally inappropriate on such a glorious afternoon. Its rider urged it madly into the sleepy yard behind the house, where horses rested their chins on stable doors and flies looped drunkenly round their eyes.
Cobweb, who was painting in the garden, watched the horse approach. He put down his brush, set aside the creamy white parchment he was working on, and went with purpose back to the house. By the time he reached the stable yard, Swift, who happened to be home at the time, was already out there. Cobweb saw a shuddering har hanging in Swift's rather stiff-limbed hold. He heard Swift barking questions, but could not hear the words.
“What is it?” Cobweb asked, and his own voice seemed to come from another world. He already knew.
Swift released the messenger into the hold of two of his staff who had followed him out of the house. “Amber Ridge has been attacked,” he said.
This was a Parsic settlement some miles south of Galhea. “By what?” Cobweb asked.
“By shadows,” Swift answered, “shadows with knives.”
“What?”
Swift did not answer. He was already walking back into the house, calling orders to the rapidly expanding group around him.
Cobweb soon stood alone in the peaceful afternoon, while a groom led the shuddering horse to a stable for water and a blanket. He looked up at the sky, though his vision was blurred, but all that drifted there were tame clouds, not a single black bird scrawled against them.
The attack had come in the early morning, just as hara were rising from their beds to attend their day's work. It had taken some time for them to realise they were, in fact, being attacked, because each assault came secretly: in the yard of a home, in a back alley, in a bedroom where the curtains were still drawn. It was only when the cries began to resound from different points of the small town that hara realised these were not isolated incidents. Even as a har died, his throat opened like paper, he could hear the cries of a neighbour dying upon the pales of his fence next door. A harling shrieked with terror as his hostling's blood pooled in dead eyes on the kitchen floor, only to hear his best frie
nd groan his last, while his parents helplessly tried to free him from an assailant they could barely see. Smoke beasts: that's what they were. Blurry shadows that flashed with silver, the metal of their weapons. They made no sound, they had no smell, you could not touch them. The first attack took only five minutes at most, and even while the residents of the town were still reeling from it, weeping over their dead, trying to organise their stunned thoughts, the second assault came, more deadly than the first. The town governor sent a rider to Galhea, moments before he was gutted and crucified upon the eaves of his own house.
Cobweb heard the details later, when he interviewed the messenger alone after Swift had made him tell the story several times. The messenger seemed only too relieved to be able to speak of the horror again and again. The details never changed. They did not have to be exaggerated.
“What will you do?” Cobweb asked Swift.
Swift was dressing himself in steel-strengthened leather armour, pulling on black gloves that looked as if they belonged to an executioner. “Investigate,” he said. “Cobweb, you and Snake work on our protection. You're all we have, I think. Send messengers to Seel, to Pellaz, wherever you can. Send messages to any har who can hear you.”
“I will,” Cobweb said. “But how can you protect yourself?”
“These shadows strike with blades of metal, not ether,” Swift replied. “They move quickly, but if they attack an armoured har, we have to hope this protection will afford enough time for us to defend ourselves.”
“How many are there, do you think?”
Swift shook his head, sighed. “Only a few hundred were confined in Gebaddon, all those that were left of Ponclast's forces. I can't see who would ally with them now. As they appear to have otherlane access far different to that of the Gelaming, I think they're making quick guerrilla strikes, with only a few hara. Our task will be to try and capture one of them. We can't answer this attack with might. We must find other means.”
“They will have a weakness,” Cobweb said. “Everyhar does.”
“Yes...” Swift paused. “I have spoken to Ithiel. He will remain here with you. He and his staff will speak to everyhar in town to ensure they take precautions. I think our enemy will attempt to pick off outlying towns before assaulting Galhea. They could have come for us first. They didn't. There must be something here they fear.” Swift reached out and touched his hostling's face briefly. “Take care. Take especial care.”
“If I cannot protect this house, I deserve to die,” Cobweb said. “This is my domain. None shall breach it.”
“Extend that protection,” Swift said. “There is more than this house at stake.”
As Cobweb stood on the front steps of Forever, watching Swift lead a troupe of hara down the driveway, he could not help but be reminded of the times when he'd stood in exactly the same place watching Terzian depart on some campaign or another. One time, Terzian had not come back. Do not think that, Cobweb told himself. Don't risk making it real.
He went back into the house and found the Kamagrian housekeeper, Bryony, in the hallway. “The staff are worried,” she said. “Nohar will tell us anything.”
“Bring all of them to the kitchens,” Cobweb said. “I'll speak to them. Send somehar to fetch Snake Jaguar and to find Tyson.”
Bryony went at once to do so.
For some moments, Cobweb stood alone in the hall, his head in his hands. His heart was pounding painfully fast, his breath was shallow. This was an ordinary day. Nothing was different. And yet everything was.
The messenger from Amber Ridge had insisted on joining Swift's forces, so Cobweb had to relate the story to his staff in his own words, as best as he could remember. His vision was filled with a blurry sea of round, panicked eyes. He tried to keep his voice level, to instil confidence. While he spoke, pans containing vegetables for dinner bubbled on the stove. Life went on, it always would. Forever lived up to its name. Whatever happened at Amber Ridge was a glitch, a mistake. Other hara might have died, but Galhea was safe. Still, it appeared the staff did not share this view. Cobweb could smell the heat of their fear. He realised, for perhaps the first time in his life, what the responsibility of being a leader of hara really invoked. He could not betray weakness or anxiety. If those feelings chose to gnaw away at the certainty everything would be all right, he had to be his own counsellor. Those who stared at him wanted to believe he could protect them. It was the job of the House of Parasiel. It was why they lived in this big house, why they were respected and obeyed.
Once Cobweb had finished relating what he knew, Bryony said, “This is ridiculous! Ponclast and his butchers are no match for the Parsic forces. What are they thinking of? The Gelaming put them in Gebaddon, it'll be easy to put them back.”
Some heads nodded in agreement around her, but Cobweb could tell that most of them harboured a superstitious fear. Perhaps, like him, they had begun to question just how fair it had been to fling the Varrs into Gebaddon in the first place, and how a har's mistakes might come back to haunt him later, once everything was forgotten, and life was deceptively rosy.
Once Snake arrived at the house, he and Cobweb worked together on a new, more potent, shield of protection. Cobweb was slightly shocked how much energy Snake demanded they pour into it. It felt to him as if his life energy were being drawn from his body. All that they were, they poured into a shield for others. It left them depleted, and Cobweb had never experienced that before with Snake. Both of them fell asleep exhausted on the floor of Cobweb's trance room.
Some hours later, Cobweb was awoken by what he thought at first was the crash and rumble of an electrical storm. He was fully alert at once and sat up. The room was in darkness, but flashing light from outside sporadically filled it. He got to his feet and went to the window. He could see with his physical eyes a dome of silver-white radiance over the town, which was unusual to say the least. He realised this was only possible because something striking the shield. It was not the shield he saw, but the hostile energy splashing against it.
“Snake!” he cried.
Snake was beside him in an instant, moving more quickly than Cobweb had believed him capable of. “It comes,” he said. “We must reinforce the shield.”
“We need more strength. We need others,” Cobweb said desperately. His own energy reserves were so depleted there would be little he could do to sustain their defences.
“Then go and find them!” Snake ordered. “Hurry!” He winced and gripped his chest.
“Snake...” Cobweb reached out a hand in concern, but Snake back away from him.
“Do it!” he growled. “Go at once.”
Cobweb ran out of the room. The only resources he possessed were the household staff, who were untrained and of low caste. He ran into Tyson on the stairs.
“I was coming for you,” Tyson said. “We're under attack.”
“I can see that, Tyson,” Cobweb answered sharply. “Where is Ithiel?”
“He was here earlier but went into town when the show started.”
“Is Ferany with us?”
“No.”
“Then fetch him immediately. I need both him and you to help me. You're no great magus, Tyson, but you're going to have to learn very quickly.”
“What?”
“Find Ferany. Quickly. Bring him to my trance room. But if you can't find him at home, return here without him. We have no time.”
Tyson left the house, while Cobweb went to the staff quarters where he found Bryony and Yarrow, the cook, attempting to keep their anxious hara under control. “I need those of you with psychic ability whatsoever to come with me,” Cobweb said.
They all stared at him speechless.
Cobweb sighed. He could see they were all senseless with fear. “Yarrow, you,” he ordered. “And pick whoever else you think can help.”
He turned to Bryony. “I must ask this of you. Your Kamagrian essence may be of great help.”
Bryony nodded and sighed, her face set in an uncertain smile. “I al
ways meant to start... training. I should have done. I really should. But I'll do what I can.”
“That is all I ask,” Cobweb said. “Come to my trance room. We have to feed the shield with our energy. Put fear aside. Focus on this task. It is all that matters.”
Cobweb didn't wait to see how Bryony and Yarrow dealt with the staff. He went back into the family area of the house, unsure of what to do next. He had an intense urge to search for something, but he didn't know what. It was as if he'd forgotten something vital, something he'd meant to do that had slipped his mind. He went from room to room, reinforcing the protection glyphs at the windows and doors and hearths. Outside the night was alive with light. It was beautiful to behold. He was almost compelled simply to stand and watch it. Bewitching. Nothing had every touched Galhea, not even in the days when Terzian had waged war wherever he could. Galhea had always been the safely-protected heart. How would Terzian deal with this if he were here? And where was Swift? Why hadn't he returned? Amber Ridge was not that far away. Had he been lured from home so that it could be attacked in his absence?