The Night of the Swarm

that one day, somewhere, they might all be-

‘The head,’ said Ramachni suddenly, opening his eyes. ‘What has become of the sorcerer’s head?’

‘I was about to fetch it,’ said Cayer Vispek. ‘It lies there behind the stone.’

‘Do so quickly,’ said Ramachni, ‘while the flame is at its height.’

‘I will go, Master,’ said Neda.

She ran behind the great carved stone. When she returned a moment later, Pazel knew that the horror was starting again.

The thing in Neda’s hands was not the mage’s head. It was a large yellow mushroom, one of the few that sprouted in the clearing. Neda held it at arm’s length, her lips curled in wary disgust. Already she was preparing to throw it in the fire.

Cayer Vispek snatched at her arm. ‘Are you mad, girl?’ He knocked the mushroom from her hands. Neda cried out, reaching for it, and Vispek slapped her across the face. ‘You’re charmed, you’re magicked!’ he shouted, and dashed behind the stone himself.

‘Have a care, Vispek, the same may befall you!’ cried Hercol, racing after him.

‘Rin’s eyes, it’s right there on the ground!’ cried Ensyl. She was pointing at the Turach’s helmet.

‘Be still, I have it!’ shouted Vispek, returning. In his hand was a fistful of grass.

Something close to panic seized the company. The world was off-balance; the fire was suddenly dying, and a noise like laughter echoed through the ruins. Pazel whirled, and saw the gory head a stone’s throw away. He rushed towards it, calling desperately to the others: but no, it was further off, almost under the trees. Neeps and Mandric were making for different parts of the forest, pointing and shouting; others were racing back to the burning corpse. Stones, mushrooms, clods of earth, weeds, eggs, boots, were hurled into the fire.

‘Hold!’

Ramachni’s voice cut through the mayhem like a scythe. The distant laughter ceased; the world rebalanced itself. The mage, looking very small, stood beside the mushroom Neda had brought in the first place.

The party reassembled. Ramachni’s white teeth flashed. ‘Come here, young sfvantskor, and finish your work. But this time, speak your prayer as if you mean it.’

Neda hesitated, one hand touching the cheek her master had slapped. ‘The prayer?’ she said.

‘Child,’ said Ramachni, ‘that hand is too close to your mouth.’

Neda’s hand fell like a stone. Thoroughly unsettled now, she knelt before Ramachni. She put out a hand towards the mushroom, made a fist, and shouted several words in Mzithrini, the language of her faith.

And suddenly they all saw it: the gaunt, cruel, mud-caked, goresplattered head. The eyes were closed and the mouth hung wide. Below the chin, Thasha’s cut was remarkably neat.

‘Old Faith prayers are rich in antidemonic patterns,’ said Ramachni, ‘and the oldest and most uncorrupted of them, the songs of Tzi-Haruk and Liseriden, were taken from the guardian-spells laid down in the Dawn War. They have almost gone cold, those ancient spells. But a few embers remain alight.’

‘Our prayers are not hexes, wizard,’ said Cayer Vispek sternly.

‘Nor is a bucket a well,’ said Ramachni, ‘although it serves to lift well-water.’

There came a sharp rasp of steel on steel. Hercol had drawn Ildraquin, his black and ancient sword. With great care he drove the tip of the blade into the severed neck, and lifted the head from the ground.

‘Antidemonics?’ he said. ‘Do you mean to say that Arunis counted demons among his servants?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Ramachni, ‘but Arunis never dedicated himself to the summoning arts: in that discipline Macadra was ever his superior. I think it more likely that he has coaxed a lesser fiend or two into serving him, in exchange for future rewards. Arunis, after all, sought nothing less than godhood, and in his fevered investigations of the several worlds, he found at last a kind of schooling that promised just that. He set out to end life on Alifros for one reason only: because that was the task assigned him, in his third millennium of studies. Those studies he had all but finished. The freeing of the Swarm of Night, and through it the destruction of the world, together comprised his last, horrid test.’

‘His exams,’ said Pazel. ‘Fulbreech called them his exams. It seemed too horrible to be true.’

‘Yet it is,’ said Ramachni. ‘Greysan Fulbreech could never have imagined such a depravity, any more than he could have imagined what would come of pledging himself to Arunis. What he witnessed in the depths of the Forest was too much for his weak soul. I think he saw the faces of that deathless circle Arunis hoped to join. The hand that killed Fulbreech was a merciful one.’

Ibjen’s hand, Pazel thought. The dlomic boy had sworn an oath before his mother: never to fight or even bear a weapon. Fear had not been enough to make him break that oath; but mercy had, in the end. Pazel glanced at the dark river. Was the boy still alive? Had he been swept already into some strange, forbidding world?

‘There should be a scarf,’ said Thasha suddenly. When the others looked at her, she said, ‘You can’t have forgotten. His white scarf. He was never without it on the Chathrand.’

Pazel remembered: that ratty, worn-out cloth. ‘Thasha’s right; he never took the blary thing off. But I don’t remember seeing it here. Does anyone?’

The others shook their heads. Pazel and Thasha looked at each other uneasily.

‘Hercol,’ said Ramachni, ‘take the head to the fire. We have laboured long for this day.’

‘Your labour is not done.’

Everyone cried out: it was the head itself which had spoken, in a voice like moaning wind. The dead eyes snapped open; the dead lips curled in a sneer. Hercol placed both hands on Ildraquin. At the sword’s tip, the knob of flesh and bone was moving, twisting, staring with hatred at them all.

‘Arunis!’ cried Ramachni. ‘We have sent you from this world! Death’s kingdom is your dwelling now. Go quietly; you know the agonies reserved for those who will not.’

‘Death’s kingdom cannot hold me,’ said Arunis. ‘Do you hear, ratmage? We of the High Circle are death’s masters, not its slaves. We brew death in our stomachs. We spit death where we will. Your own deaths I will prolong beyond the compass of your shabby minds, and every instant will be a symphony of pain.’

‘You have no other window on Alifros,’ said Ramachni. ‘Your body is burned already; this last foul tool will follow. Spit, viper! Spit your curses among the damned, for they are the kin you have chosen.’

The head’s pale eyes swivelled. ‘Has your mage called this victory?’ it asked the others. ‘He lies, then. For Erithusme is dying, dying in the body of that wanton girl.’ The eyes flicked in Thasha’s direction. ‘You have failed. She will never return. And I have done all that was asked of me. I have brought the Swarm of Night into Alifros, and it will sterilise this world, as a doctor does his hands before a surgery. Nothing will be left that walks or breathes or grows beneath the sun. Wait and see if I lie, maggots. You will not be waiting long.’

‘It is true that we are done with waiting,’ said Hercol, advancing to the fire. The head writhed and roared. Hercol drew Ildraquin back for the fling — and reeled, almost dropping his sword.

Where the head had dangled a moment before, the tiny body of an ixchel woman hung impaled. A beautiful woman, writhing in agony. Pazel could not help himself: he cried aloud, and so did several others. The woman was Diadrelu — Dri — Hercol’s lover and their cherished friend. She had perished months ago. They had given her body to the sea.

A tortured moan escaped Hercol’s chest. Ramachni was on his shoulder in an instant, whispering. Ensyl too raced up Hercol’s side, and out along the arm that held Ildraquin. ‘Put her down, put her down!’ she shouted through her tears.

‘Stop!’

It was Dri’s voice. She could see them. Desperately she waved for Ensyl to be still. Then her eyes moved back to Hercol. ‘Arunis. . being helped. . the demon-mage. . Sathek.’

‘Sathek!’ cried Neda and Cayer Vispek.

Dri’s face was almost mad with pain. She looked again at Ensyl and switched tongues, falling into the speech of ixchel, beyond the range of human ears. Ensyl nodded, weeping uncontrollably. Then Diadrelu placed a hand flat on either side of Ildraquin and swept them all with her eyes.

‘No quitting,’ she said, and pushed herself free.

The tiny body fell to earth. Hercol lunged, but Ramachni was faster. Pouncing on Diadrelu, he sank his fangs into her side, and with a sharp twist of his body, flung her into the fire. Hercol did not make a sound, but he