Talsy stood on the windy parapet and stared out across the valley, letting the warm summer breeze ruffle her hair. Above her, the long winding banners of blue silk rustled in the breeze, there to give hope to the people who dwelt in the valley. They were Mujar blue, one emblazoned with a golden staff, another with the Mujar mark, the third with Kieran’s princely symbol, a black sword spangled with stars. These were the three things that kept order and peace in the valley: the hope of the Staff of Law, the protection of the Mujar, and the authority of the Prince. The people survived for them, worked and kept the peace, obeyed the laws and were grateful for their lives. Kieran’s authority relied upon the Starsword, whose powers ensured that no one would defy an order he gave, though he rarely had to lay down the law. Most of the time, the sword rested in an ornate bracket upon the wall of his bare room, taken down to be dusted occasionally.
Far down the valley, a vast herd of horses grazed, spotting the velvet green with many colours. The Aggapae had kept their numbers down, preserved the grazing and saved the chosen from having to cull the beautiful beasts. Herds of sheep and cattle grazed alongside the horses, unchanged by the chaos, guarded by their herdsmen. Above her, ugly brown clouds roiled, shot with flickers of silent lightning, parting occasionally to allow golden sunlight through. Safe within the sphere of Mujar power, life in the valley remained tranquil. The chaos outside was sometimes evident in the massive black storms that passed overhead, strangely coloured lightning stabbing the swirling clouds in a savage frenzy. The howling winds did not enter the vale, however, and the rain that reached them fell gently and pure, cleansed by its passage through Chanter’s wards.
Talsy pondered what had happened in the six years that had passed since the remaking of the Staff of Law. Travain’s development had been her greatest source of despair, and only Chanter had been able to save her from utter desolation with his gentle sympathy. At one year of age, Travain had developed the broken Mujar mark. Instead of the circle and cross, his appeared like a star, a broken circle with a fragmented cross within it. Chanter had hissed and recoiled from it with horror in his eyes. He had left the valley soon after, and she had not seen him for weeks. She had watched Travain closely, frightened by his father’s reaction. At that age, Travain could already walk and talk, and, shortly after the mark had appeared, his golden hair had turned brown and his blue eyes green. To Talsy’s intense disappointment, he had appeared to be a five-year-old Trueman boy in both stature and intelligence, his appetite growing with him.
A month after the mark had appeared, Travain had proved that he was certainly not Trueman. In an incident involving a boyish prank, a bowl of hot water and a cook’s stout leather belt, Travain had discovered his powers. The fire had burnt the cook badly, and Talsy had discovered her son’s true nature. Travain had sneered at the cook’s suffering, refusing to help her. Talsy had gone after him with a strap, determined to beat some goodness into him. She fingered the scars on her hands, frowning at the memory. She had cornered Travain in the courtyard, hauled him out of his hiding place under a barrow by his scruff and bent him over her knee. It had not occurred to her that he would burn her, too.
The pain had made her scream Chanter’s name, and the Mujar had arrived in moments as a sooty raven. She had hung onto Travain despite the fire, and Chanter had summoned Crayash. Travain had already held it, however, and what had ensued was a battle that should never have occurred. Travain had faced his father fearlessly, his green eyes filled with malice. Talsy had released him, but he was engrossed in the war of wills with the Mujar. What had followed was imprinted on her memory forever.
Chanter’s eyes narrowed as he realised that he could not simply snuff out the fire Travain held. Talsy whimpered and nursed her hands, wondering what he would do. Chanter bent and invoked Dolana, causing a wall of rock to shoot up between her and the boy. Travain eyed it and smiled coldly at his father.
Chanter cocked his head. “Why do you burn your mother?”
“She’s weak,” the boy sneered.
“You would hurt those weaker than you?”
“She wanted to hurt me!”
Chanter raised his brows at Talsy, who had risen to stand behind the chest-high wall. She said, “He burnt the cook! I wanted to punish him.”
“The cook tried to beat me too!” Travain shouted in his piping voice.
The Mujar shook his head in confusion, and Talsy explained, “He poured hot water on her; she was going to punish him. I thought it was an accident, but then he refused to heal her. If he can burn, he can heal.”
“Yes.” Chanter nodded. “He can.”
“I can do anything,” Travain crowed, “and no one can stop me!”
“Wrong, Travain,” his father informed him calmly. “I can.”
“You!” the boy said, “Mujar scum!”
Chanter glanced at Talsy. For a moment she thought he would leave, but he could not without leaving her at Travain’s mercy. He hesitated, staring at the ground, then looked at his rebellious, scowling son again.
“You are unchosen.” He spoke the words as if they were a death sentence, and Travain’s scowl deepened.
“So what?”
“Oh, Travain,” Talsy groaned, “how could you?”
Travain’s lip curled as he glanced at his mother. “Lowman slut. I don’t care what you think of me.”
Chanter looked puzzled. “If your mother’s a Lowman slut, and I’m Mujar scum, what are you?”
“Better than both of you.”
Talsy gasped, horrified. She had been proud of his intelligence, but he had never spoken like this before. His metamorphosis with the discovery of his powers shocked her, and she could hardly believe that he was the child she had reared.
Chanter frowned at her. “What would you have me do to him?”
“Punish him!” she said, glaring at her son. “If I can’t, then you must be able to.”
“Harm him?”
“Yes.” She hated the necessity of it and the anguish it would cause Chanter. “Trueman children must be taught the difference between right and wrong. They’re not born with the knowledge, like Mujar. You must show him that he can’t harm others without drawing punishment upon himself, or he’ll do it again.”
Chanter nodded and turned to Travain. “What’s your true name, boy? I know you have one.”
“I wouldn’t tell you that, I’m not stupid.”
The Mujar sighed, glancing at Talsy. “For what I am forced to do here today, I will owe regret. But not to you, boy, to your mother. She’s asked me to punish you, and I see that it’s needed, and that no one else can do it. I must inflict harm, which is against Mujar tradition, and abhorrent to me.”
“I don’t give a fig for your Mujar ways,” Travain said, his eyes narrowed.
“You should, since you’re part Mujar, and therefore you have our weaknesses, as well as our strengths.”
“What weaknesses?” Travain demanded, frowning.
“I’ll show you.”
Chanter closed the gap between them in a lithe bound and gripped the little boy’s arms. Fire burst from Travain as he strived to defend himself, but Chanter ignored it, pinned his arms to his sides and pushed him down on the ground. Travain struggled wildly, screaming at the top of his lungs as the Mujar straddled him, holding him to the cold stone floor. Travain’s fire roared savagely around his father, the two engulfed in a blaze of green-streaked blue flames. The boy howled and kicked in vain, and within moments, his fire died. Still Chanter held him down, waiting as the child’s screams of rage turned to sobs of self-pity and growing trepidation. Talsy hardened her heart as he called out to her for help, the pain of her burnt hands reminding her of his cruelty. Chanter watched Travain’s growing discomfort dispassionately.
“Unpleasant, isn’t it? Your first taste of Dolana. You’ve always been pampered with soft beds and chairs; you’ve never felt it before. This is a Mujar’s weakness. This is what holds us in the Pits and allows Lowmen to harm us. Soon you won’t even be able to move.”
“Let me go!” Travain shouted.
“Tell me your true name.”
“No!”
“I’ll hold you here until you do, and this will grow worse.”
“If you don’t let me up now, I’ll kill you! I’ll cut you into little pieces and feed you to the dogs!”
Chanter shook his head. “You can’t threaten me.”
“Then I’ll kill her!” Travain turned to glare at his mother, and Talsy recoiled from the venom in his eyes.
The Mujar glanced at her, then back at his son. “No you won’t. If you don’t give me your true name, the people will bind you with gold, then you’ll be as powerless as they, and harmless.”
Travain squirmed and wept, unable to wriggle free of Chanter’s hold. He shivered and said, “Okay, I’ll tell you, just let me go!”
“No, tell me first, then I’ll let you go.”
Travain seemed hardly able to move, and Talsy marvelled at his stubbornness. Even he had his limits, however, and at last he snarled, “Drummer! My name’s Drummer!”
Chanter nodded. “Give it to your mother.”
Desperate to be free of the Dolana, Travain twisted his head to look at her. “My name’s Drummer!”
Chanter released him, rose to his feet and yanked the child up by one arm. Travain tottered, then jerked free and ran from the courtyard. Talsy gazed after him with despair; Chanter shot her a sad glance. Appearing to shake himself from unpleasant thoughts, the Mujar let the wall sink back into the ground and came over to examine her hands. He led her to a bucket of water left by a kitchen maid and used its powers to heal her. When the pain subsided, she slumped against the barrow under which Travain had been hiding. Hot tears leaked from her eyes, and Chanter wiped them away.
“He didn’t use his full power. Your burns were superficial. He only meant to hurt you, presumably so you’d let him go. If he had truly wanted to, he could have killed you easily. He’s not that bad, and it’ll be all right now, you can use his true name to control him.”
“How can he be so vicious when he’s so Mujar?” she asked. “He even has his own name.”
“No. One thing he’s not, and that’s Mujar. He’s a Trueman boy with Mujar powers. He’s exactly half of each, thus the broken mark, neither one nor the other, but his spirit is Trueman.”
“You always knew he’d be like this, didn’t you?”
“I feared it,” he admitted. “He’s dangerous now. You must warn people, and make him give his true name to as many as you can. I would cast him out, for on top of everything else, he’s unchosen.”
“How can he be? He was raised amongst chosen, and he’s known you since birth!”
“He’s very confused and angry. He knows he’s not like you or me, so he hates us both. Perhaps he has a little Mujar lore floating around in his brain, and this angers him further, for he doesn’t understand it.”
Talsy looked down at his arm. Red marks covered it to the elbow with twisting patterns, like the burns of tiny flames. “What’s this?”
He pulled away. “It’s not important.”
“He hurt you!”
Chanter took her hand. “Come, let’s find that cook and heal her.”
“I should go and talk to him. Maybe I can help him to deal with what he is.”
“Later. Let him calm down first.”
When she had spoken to him, Travain had glared at her, his hatred plain. For months, she had tried every way she could to reach him, to give him love, which he had spurned, to help him understand himself, which he had refused to accept. She had made him give his true name to as many people as she could, and explained how to use it to control him. After that, a semblance of normality returned to the castle, as Travain, unable to harm people, resorted to sulking and hiding. Within a few months, he mastered his powers, and roamed the valley in various green-eyed shapes. Unlike a true Mujar, the forms did not come naturally to him, and he could only emulate what he saw. Like his father, he spent little time in the castle, and shunned his mother’s company. Talsy missed Chanter terribly again, with only Kieran and Sheera for company. She and Kieran still argued often, but sometimes spent hours in pleasant conversation, took long walks and had picnics by the lake.
Over the years, Travain continued to grow rapidly, but not as fast as the first year. At two he appeared to be a seven-year-old, at three more than nine. He enjoyed cruel jokes and vandalism, and sometimes killed livestock to annoy a farmer, or set fire to sheds and frightened people in the form of a great shaggy dog. His limited repertoire of shapes hampered him, for people soon learnt what they were and recognised him. His ability to kill horrified Talsy, and the animals in the valley feared him. The children soon learnt to stay away from him, and the only person who accepted him was Talsy, whose company he rarely sought. Chanter avoided him, and Kieran tried unsuccessfully to befriend him. Travain became a lonely, bitter little boy who grew into an angry, malicious youth. At six years of age, he appeared to be a stocky young man of eighteen, broad shouldered and coarse featured, lacking any trace of his father’s slender beauty or gentle nature.
Talsy sighed and leant against the battlements, her eyes narrowed against the sun that burst through the ugly clouds to bathe the valley in golden light. She had not seen Travain for three days, and Chanter for almost a week. As Kieran had warned her, her half Mujar son roamed free, just like his father. At least she did not have to worry about him, for he was undying. Her dream of bearing a beautiful, gentle son who would honour his parents and comfort her in Chanter’s absence had become a nightmare of guilt and shame.
The evening chill invaded the air, and she rubbed goose bumps from her arms, turning to enter the castle’s warmth. On her way down to her rooms, she paused outside the door to the room containing the Staff of Law. After a moment’s hesitation, she pushed it open and entered. The sunset’s slanted rays gilded the ancient stone staff in its velvet-draped cradle, glinting on the silver ornaments she had placed around it, donated by the chosen. They, too, wanted the gods to take notice of the restored staff, and many precious possessions adorned the room. For several years, they had brought wreaths and garlands to drape over the staff and around the room, but as time passed and the gods took no notice, this practice had waned. Now a few mouldering flowers hung in dry vases, gathering dust like the staff.
The staff had become a symbol of justice in the valley. Whenever Kieran had to mediate disputes or judge criminals, he did so seated next to the Staff of Law. Petitioners and perpetrators were ordered to swear on the staff as to the truth of their testimony, and the Prince found that few could lie while their right hand was pressed to the ancient writing. Chanter assured them that the staff had no power, and it was merely the proximity of this ancient God-given instrument of law that made it impossible for people to lie. In the only incident of murder they had experienced, the man had broken down in the staff’s presence and confessed to murdering his wife through jealousy. The only person immune to its awe was Travain, who mocked it constantly, and had once kicked it to show his disdain. Fortunately, he had hurt his foot, which dissuaded him from further disrespectful displays. Disputes and crimes were rare in the valley, and, judging by the room’s neglected state, no one had been in it for some time.
Shan was the staff’s most devoted admirer, frequently bringing flowers and pretty stones to lay at its foot. Once he had insisted on bringing Thorn, and led the big horse up the stairs to sniff the staff. According to Shan, Thorn was pleased that the staff had been made whole again. Shan was now a strapping young man of twenty-two, and Thorn a magnificent horse standing eighteen hands tall. Although he could never be described as beautiful, Thorn’s massive power held its own subtle allure, and his gentleness was well known throughout the valley.
Talsy walked over to the staff and ran her fingers along the lines of ancient writing, glancing up at the mural of the gods on the wall behind it.
“When will you take notice?” she asked the images. “When will you save your dying world? What more would you have me do to right the wrongs of one of my kind? Tell me, give me a sign, and I’ll do it, I swear.”
An icy gust from the open window made her shiver, rustling the heavy velvet curtains and withered brown flowers like a portent of doom. Its unfriendly touch seemed to answer her question, and she turned away and closed the door behind her.
Law swam through a sea filled with Dolana, its shimmering blue mixed with a haze of silver silt that numbed his extremities and sapped his strength. Shortly after he had found joy and contentment with the food beast and its predators, the food beast had flowered, sending out a sweet scent that had drawn a male to her. Her flowers pollinated, she had gone on with her gentle life, her pods ripening with the torpidity of these ocean giants. Five years had passed before her young were born, sliding into the sea to begin their lives. At this time, Law had sensed the sea creatures’ growing discomfort at the increasing amount of Dolana mixed with the water. It hardly affected the food beast, but Law’s ventures into the sea had become more and more unpleasant. The ocean was no longer the haven he craved; the tainted Dolana that filled it caused him even more discomfort than it did the sea creatures. Law had been trapped on the food beast’s back until a few moons ago, when she had died a natural death of old age. Forced to leave his sinking sanctuary, Law braved the tainted sea, unable to fly.
Law had swum in one direction for several days, not knowing where he was going, but wishing only to leave the sea. At times he had entered waters that were not so tainted, but soon currents brought fresh rivers of warm Dolana to drive him on. Remembering the tainted land he had quit to enter the sea, Law dreaded setting foot on it again, but had little choice. Ashmar, the only Power still relatively untainted, was denied him by his blindness. At least walking on corruption was not as bad as swimming in it.
Far beneath him, he glimpsed the glowing, pitted grey of the sea bed rising, and knew that he was at last approaching a shore. The lines of corrupted Earthpower gave off a sullen warm glow, and the silted sea near the shore weakened him so much that it took all of his strength to drive his sleek dolphin form onto the beach. There he transformed and stood up, walking up the beach to escape the tainted manifestation of Shissar that had powered his change. At the edge of the sand, he waited for the visible Powers to settle on his senses. Grey Dolana outlined ground, rocks and dead trees.
For two days, Law traversed a barren landscape whose dull Dolana pervaded every aspect of it, and sometimes the air in the form of stinging dust clouds. He crossed rivers carrying heavy burdens of silt to the sea, so full of Dolana that their shimmering blue was dulled to a blue-grey. Fields of bones crunched beneath his feet, knobs of corrupted, living rock glowed sickly grey, and the touch of lingering souls made him shiver. Danger dogged his steps, sometimes in the form of buzzing wings above that forced him to hide uncomfortably amid the corruption. Several times, he sensed chaos beasts in the distance and turned away to avoid them, skirting belts of blighted woodland that held far greater dangers in their depths.
At the end of the third day, he encountered a tiny wood clinging to a thread of life. A dwindling Kuran sheltered amongst the few massive trees, the heart and remnant of a formerly vast forest. The Kuran welcomed him, so he settled there, using his powers to purify the Dolana within the wood and strengthen the Kuran’s warding thousand-fold. The dying trees at its perimeter revived, and the greying web of Dolana turned silver again as he played its strands with skills gained from his inborn knowledge. Strange beasts invaded the forest from time to time, roaming amongst the trees with deep grunts and roars of malevolence and rage.
The boughs were Law’s haven, where he could relax, free from the Dolana. Gentle beasts returned, like birds and shy deer, and even some creatures of this world alighted on the treetops to bask in the sun. Gradually, he pushed back the sea of corruption that surrounded the forest, and saplings sprouted at its edges as it spread. Unlike the ocean, with its vastness and ever flowing currents, here he could control the world and cure it, making life bearable within the sphere of his influence.
The golden light in his head still bothered him at times, swirling around when a strange creature or ill wind disturbed it. Mostly, however, it remained calm, as it had done ever since he had solved its mystery. It had taken a couple of years of pondering, contemplation and searching through his Mujar knowledge to unravel the light’s enigma. He had come to understand the words written within it, which his dreams revealed to him. With that understanding had come the realisation that those words were the cause of all the troubles in the world. They came from the Staff of Law, which ruled the world along with the staffs of Life and Death, and they were all gone. When he had tried to summon their images, as all Mujar could with their ancestor’s knowledge, he had found an emptiness that howled with sorrow and despair.
Law used the laws to cure the grove, implanted them within the earth as Mujar laws and restored the integrity of the land and its beauty. In his oasis of purity, the living rock died and creatures of the chaos dropped dead or fled. This troubled him, but also made it safe for him to wander through his little paradise without fear of attack. Dargon gathered in the ground, and gentle wind spirits calmed the air around his forest, keeping dust storms at bay.
Law rested on a crooked bough, one leg dangling, and hummed a little tune he had made up. The sound of Lowman voices silenced him, and he listened to their excited chatter as they explored the woodland. At first he was wary, unwilling to reveal himself to these strangers, but people like these had brought him up, and he remembered the comforts he had received. Lured by the hope of cooked food and a soft bed, he descended to the ground and went to meet them. When he stepped out of the trees, the men fell silent.
Law smiled at their forms, a haze of silver, blue and gold. “Welcome, friends.”
One of the men swore, another muttered, “Mujar!”
Law raised his hand in the palm up gesture. “No harm.”
The waves of animosity that came from the men puzzled and alarmed him. It closely resembled the hatred he had sensed in chaos beasts, and fear fluttered his heart. He stepped back, but before he could flee, the nearest hunter drew back his arm and flung a broad-headed hunting spear. It struck Law in the chest and sent him sprawling with a cry of pain. In moments, the men surrounded him, one pushing the spear deeper until it dug into the ground. Law gripped the shaft and tried to pull it out while the men laughed at his futile, weakening struggles. Pure, cold Dolana invaded Law, bringing with it the icy drain that sapped his strength.
“Let me go,” he begged. “Why do you harm me?”
“Because you’re Mujar,” the man who held the spear snarled, spitting on him.
Law gave up his struggle with the spear and raised his hands in a pleading gesture. “I’ve done nothing to you, please let me go.”
The men laughed, and one said, “Your kind has ever taunted us, Mujar scum. You dirty yellow bastards begged in our cities, living in squalor when you have the power to live like kings. Why should we have wasted food on you when you don’t even need to eat, when you do nothing in return, huh? That’s why your kind all rot in the Pits, and you can join them!”
This statement sparked off an argument amongst the men, most protesting that the Pits were inaccessible, and the journey too dangerous. Law’s horror grew as they argued, then the leader decided that they would take their captive to their chieftain, and he would decide the Mujar’s fate. The others grunted assent, and they lifted Law, releasing him from Dolana’s numbing cold chains. He changed into a stallion in an instant of icy hush, but the hunters clung to the spear, their numbers too great for him to break free. They set upon him with clubs and knocked him senseless to the ground, where he reverted involuntarily to man form.
Two hunters placed the spear upon their shoulders and bore their prize back to their city, trussed and bound like a beast slain in the hunt. They barely escaped the forest in time, for the trees at its edge became animated and attacked them with beating branches. The ground shivered and heaved, but the men crossed the wasteland that surrounded the forest swiftly.
Shugin, leader of the hunting party, swaggered ahead along the city’s tarred streets. A middle-aged man with weathered brown skin, a flattened nose and darting black eyes under a permanent frown, he hated Mujar with borderline fanaticism, and had personally thrown two into Pits. His baggy cloth trousers and drab, coarse shirt, worn under a scuffed brown leather jerkin, hung on his tall frame.
Skinny women and pot-bellied children emerged from the ugly stone houses to gape at the unconscious Mujar hanging from the spear. The route to the chieftain’s house wound through the city, for the living stone that invaded it had blocked many streets. Stonemasons had bricked up the roads to try to stem the tide of creeping rock, but once the street filled, it overflowed the walls that penned it and continued its advance. The city had once hired an earth wizard to rid them of the curse, but his powers had only enraged the rock, and it had grown faster. Almost half the city had been engulfed, and many families were forced to share the remaining houses. A few new ones had been constructed as far from the creeping rock menace as possible, but no one had much spare time to build.
The town had once prospered from a diamond mine, but now that so few Truemen remained, the market for precious stones had dried up and the metropolis had fallen into poverty and disrepair. Crumbling whitewashed brick houses with sagging slate roofs and yellow-stained walls huddled beside the tarred roads, which gave off a terrible stench on hot days. People scratched a living in the fields around the town, tended herd animals that needed constant guarding from marauding chaos beasts or raised hardy livestock, mostly pigs, to feed the populace. Hunters made a living in the dwindling forests, killing the few remaining unaltered wild animals to sell their meat. The people wore faded finery from more prosperous days, and thievery and lawlessness thrived.
A crowd followed Shugin to the chieftain’s house, chattering excitedly and pointing at the Mujar. Outside the dwelling, the former governor’s mansion, Shugin posed proudly until Chief Gallar emerged, looked rather peeved at being disturbed while he was eating his lunch. The older man regarded the Mujar with narrowed eyes, wiping gravy from his ragged, greying beard. Law lay where the hunters had dumped him, curled around the spear shaft.
“What’s this?” the elder enquired.
“A Mujar, Chief,” Shugin said, surprised, and Gallar frowned.
“I can see that, I’m not an idiot. What do you propose we do, eat him?”
“No, but -”
“You went to find food, and you bring back a Mujar?”
“Well we couldn’t just leave him!” Shugin protested. “There’s plenty of food in the forest where we found him, deer and good fruit, nuts, berries, everything!”
Gallar regarded Shugin as if he had just encountered the first brain-dead Trueman who could still talk. “So you leave the food and bring us a damned Mujar!”
“We can go back for the food, take barrows to carry it in. There’s plenty for everyone. It’s a paradise!”
The crowd muttered, but Gallar frowned and shook his head. “I doubt anyone will be able to go near that forest now.”
“Why?”
“Because the Mujar was undoubtedly the reason for the forest’s health, and now the spirits will be angry.” The chieftain tapped his foot on the tarred street. “You remember why our streets are tarred, don’t you? You remember the war with the land. The forest will die without the Mujar, and no one will be able to enter it now.”
“How do you know this?” Shugin demanded.
“Because, unlike you, I’m not stupid.”
The hunter drew himself up. “The Mujar are our enemies! We’re sworn to rid ourselves of them!”
“We have more serious problems to worry about than Mujar now, fool, like what we’re going to eat. If you’d left him there, we could have gathered food from the forest, but now we can’t!”
Shugin scowled, gripping his spear. “You speak like a Mujar lover. We can’t allow Mujar to go free.”
“What harm was he doing? He didn’t come begging in our streets, did he? We could have used him!”
The hunter glanced back at his frowning fellows, then at the muttering crowd. His victory was turning to defeat, and he saw only one way out. Raising his spear, he hefted it.
“Mujar lover! You lie! You want to save the yellow scum!”
Shugin drove the weapon through the old man’s frail chest with a howl of rage, and Gallar collapsed like a marionette without strings, dead before he hit the ground.
Shugin turned to address the crowd. “I’m chieftain now! I say we can gather food in the forest. We’ll have plenty, and we’ll make this dirty yellow scum suffer before we find a Pit for him!”
A muted cheer went up, no one willing to be branded a Mujar lover and suffer Gallar’s fate. As the old chief’s daughter sobbed beside her father’s body, Shugin barked orders at the men, who untied the Mujar and stretched him out on the tar. They hammered the spear in his chest into the street, and impaled his hands and feet with iron spikes. Shugin evicted Gallar’s daughter from the chief’s house and moved in, ordering a party of gatherers and hunters to visit the wood and bring back its bounty. Having established his elevation of rank in the eyes of the people through these few swift moves, Shugin had time to gloat on his victory. Posting two hunters to watch the Mujar, he retreated into his new domicile to wait for the unman’s awakening.
A few hours later, Shugin grew impatient at the Mujar’s continued senseless state and emerged once more under the lightning-shot sky with its scudding brown clouds. He kicked the unman several times to try to rouse him, and, when this did not work, ordered his men to throw water in the Mujar’s face.
Law groaned and gasped, his fingers curling around the spikes in his hands. Corrupted Dolana tainted Shissar’s healing touch, causing intense pain. The sickly Earthpower held him in a grip of cloying warmth so strong that he could not even struggle a little, his limbs leaden. Turning his head to the side, he sensed the solid greyness under him, pitted with swelling spots of utter blackness that burst like rising bubbles and dispersed to be replaced by others. The blue, gold and silver form of a man squatted beside him.
“Enjoying yourself, Mujar?” he sneered.
Law turned his head away.
The Lowman punched him. “Look at me when I talk to you.”
Law obeyed, whereupon the man demanded, “What’s wrong with your eyes, Mujar scum?”
Law braced himself for the next blow, which thudded into his ribs. The man growled, glancing around at the guards. Evidently Law’s stubborn silence made him look bad, and he was determined to get some kind of response. He gripped Law’s hair and banged his head on the ground.
“Did you heal that forest?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To live in,” Law said.
“So, if you can fix the forest, you can fix our city, can’t you?”
“No.”
The man sniggered. “Oh, I think you will, because if you don’t, I’m going to teach you the meaning of pain, understand?”
Law’s silence made the man snarl and jump up to re-enter his house. The young Mujar’s only sensations were the numbing hold of tainted Dolana and the waves of pain that washed through him from his chest and extremities. The golden light raged within his mind, agitated by the proximity of so much corruption, it hammered at his eyes for release.
Chanter leant against the mantelpiece, watching the fire lick at the logs it fed on. Its warmth soothed him, and his full belly imparted a wealth of well-being. Talsy and Kieran sat at a table, sipped a young wine that an enterprising farmer had cultivated on his land and swapped comments on it. Travain lounged in a deep, overstuffed couch, his green eyes coldly flicking over the peaceful scene.
Chanter had been surprised and unhappy to find the crossbreed lurking in the castle when he had returned from a two-week retreat in the mountains. He rarely left the valley anymore, firstly because he hated to see the horrors outside and secondly because the chosen were safer when he was here to keep order. With the increasing chaos, he had to augment the strength of his wards and laws. He had just completed a circuit of the guarding peaks, placing more marks upon them to renew Mujar laws that faded under the onslaught of the chaos outside.
Chanter straightened as a gust of wind billowed the velvet curtains. Kieran frowned and Talsy glanced up in surprise, Travain sank deeper into his chair. The wind spirit swirled around the room in an icy draught before it calmed and engulfed the Mujar in its cold presence, caressing his skin with frigid fingers. Its soft voice whispered in his ear.
“Greetings, beloved of Life.”
Chanter frowned. “What means this invasion, churlish one?”
“Be not angry, but be glad, I bring news, for your ears to hear.”
“What news is so important that you must come within?”
The wind whispered, “Brother yours, beloved of Life, trapped and beaten far from here. A victim of man, he who gave us hope, now fallen and cries in pain.”
“I have heard you.”
The wind rustled around the room, rippling the curtains with its chill movement, then rushed out through the open window with a soft keening. Chanter turned to find Talsy on her feet, her brows knitted. Travain gazed after the wind with a bemused expression.
“You heard?” Chanter asked her.
She nodded. “What did it mean?”
He stared into the fire again, unable to meet her eyes. “Truemen have captured a Mujar.”
“Another Mujar?” Talsy’s voice rose with excitement, and Kieran looked thunderstruck.
“I thought you were the last,” the Prince muttered.
“Apparently not,” Chanter said, “although I don’t know where he’s been hiding. I’ve searched this continent and found no trace of another.”
“Perhaps he came from one of the other continents?” Talsy suggested.
“He must have.”
“So, where is he? What are we going to do?”
Chanter raised his head. “He’s very far away, over a month’s journey by land. It’s too dangerous to try to do anything.” He shrugged. “He’s a prisoner, undoubtedly trapped by Dolana, and he’ll be in a Pit long before we can reach him.”
Talsy came closer to scrutinise his impassive face. “You’d let them torture one of your own kind, and then throw him in a Pit?”
“Traditionally, Mujar don’t help each other. Our fate is our own, and we cannot be killed. Usually, we aren’t even aware of the fate of others. The winds don’t normally tell us these things.”
“Then why did it?”
“Probably because of the state of the world, and this Mujar must be the only other one still above ground. The wind was angry. It seems that my brother created a haven for himself, like this one, and now it will be destroyed. Even the winds suffer from the chaos.”
“We must save him,” Talsy stated, turning to Kieran for support.
The Prince nodded. “Chanter can guide us. We’ll set out at once.”
“No.”
Talsy swung to glare at the Mujar. “How can you refuse? He’s your own kind, being tortured! Don’t you care?”
“No. It’s hopeless to try, and dangerous. He’ll be in a Pit by the time you get there.”
Talsy paced the room with swift strides. “There must be something we can do! If it’s dangerous for us to travel, it must be dangerous for the people who’ve caught him. Maybe they won’t take him to a Pit, and if they try, they might perish along the way.”
“Then he’ll be free,” Chanter pointed out.
“We must still find him and bring him here, before others catch him.”
“You don’t understand.” Chanter intercepted her and gripped her shoulders, halting her fevered pacing. “The chaos outside is too bad now. You’ll never get there.”
“People are still living out there, so it can’t be that bad!”
“They stay in one place and fight off the chaos. Moving through it is far more dangerous.”
“I don’t care.” She jerked free. “I’m going to get him, alone if necessary, though I’m sure many will want to help.” She looked at Kieran, who nodded. She added, “You may not care what happens to him, but I do. I won’t sit here and let him suffer. You could fly there and free him in a few hours, if you wanted to.”
“No I couldn’t,” Chanter denied. “I could get there quickly, yes, but I couldn’t free him, more likely I’d get caught too. They’ll have guards with him. I wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Then I’ll go with whoever will come with me,” she said. “I won’t try to make you do something you don’t want to. Stay here, in your safe valley, if you wish.”
His eyes narrowed. “You know I can’t let you go unprotected.”
“Kieran will protect me. He has the Starsword.”
“That won’t be enough to fight the chaos.”
Talsy glanced at her son. “Travain?”
A hush fell as they all looked at the sullen crossbreed. Travain’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to help you?”
Talsy nodded. “You like to use your powers. You’ll be able to out there, as much as you want.”
His lip curled. “If I wanted to go out there and use my powers, I’d have done it already. Why should I?”
“Because I’m asking you to.”
He sniggered. “I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
Kieran took a step towards the crossbreed, his hand clearly itching to slap Travain’s sneering face, but Talsy stopped him, shaking her head.
“Leave him. We don’t need him. He’d probably try to kill us anyway.” She turned back to the Mujar. “We’ll gather some men and set out at first light tomorrow.”
“You’re really going to brave the chaos, ride all the way to the eastern shore with a handful of chosen, all to rescue a Mujar?” Chanter asked, clearly puzzled.
“Yes.” Talsy raised her chin. “I’d do it for you.”
“As I would for you, but for a stranger?”
“He’s not just a stranger; he’s Mujar, maybe the only one other than you left in the world. We have to try to help him.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re the chosen, and when the gods tested me, one of the tests was whether I would help other Mujar, not only you. Perhaps this is another test, to see if I’d give up my safe haven to go out into the chaos and save a Mujar. Perhaps when I do, they’ll restore the staff.”
Chanter murmured, “You’d risk your life on such a slight possibility?”
“What good is my life, stuck here, waiting for the end? If there’s the tiniest chance that this might change fate, I’ll take it. Mujar may be content to sit on a rock all day and stare into space, but Truemen need challenges, and hope. Without them, we may as well already be dead.”
She gestured at the startled crossbreed. “My son has turned out to be the monster you both predicted he would be. Everything I’ve done has been a failure, and my being chosen hasn’t saved the world. What do I have to lose? What do I have to live for? Unrequited love? The sneering of my misbegotten offspring? No!”
She swung and thumped a table, making everyone jump at the sudden bang. A vase wobbled and fell off with a crash. “I won’t sit here and wait for the world to die! If I perish, it makes no difference now. I don’t care what you say, you can’t stop me! The staff has lain in that damned room for six years, gathering dust. The gods aren’t going to restore the laws, they never intended to. I’d rather die in the chaos then grow old with the memories and guilt of my mistakes.”
After several moments of stunned silence, Chanter stepped in front of her and gazed into her eyes. “Your love,” he murmured, “is not unrequited, and your mistakes are few and blameless.” He took her hands. “I set aside this valley for you because you deserve it, and I won’t desert you now. If you’re determined to find this other Mujar, I’ll help you. I can’t let you die.”
Aware of Kieran watching them with bitter eyes, she stifled the urge to fling her arms around Chanter’s neck and hug him. Instead she smiled and nodded. “Gratitude.”
The Prince turned and strode out, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll go and see how many will join us.”