The Initiate Read online

  He would have given much to see the world. He often walked the seven miles to Port Summer on errands, and had been told that from the Port's high cliffs, if he strained his eyes hard enough, he might just see the Summer Isle, home of the High Margrave himself, ruler of all the land, lying in the hazy distance offshore. He had tried, but he had never glimpsed it. Nor had he ever seen what was said to be the most breathtaking sight in all the world -- the White Isle, far to the south, where legend had it Aeoris himself, highest of the gods, had taken human incarnation to save his worshippers from the forces of Chaos.

  The boy had an insatiable appetite for the mythology of his land; an appetite frustrated by the fact that no one ever had the time or the patience to tell him what he wanted to know. Oh, he had been taught to worship his deities, learned his catechisms, said his prayers each night. But there was so much more he wanted to know, needed to know. Sometimes the Quarter-Day festivities were attended by Sisters of Aeoris, the religious women who were responsible for maintaining all the traditions of worship, but he had never spoken to one of them, and anyway they could not fulfill his hunger for knowledge. What he truly longed for was to meet an Initiate.

  The very word Initiate sent a shiver of excitement through the boy. Those men and women were, he knew, the very embodiment of power in the world; mysterious, unreachable, occult. They lived in an impenetrable stronghold on the Star Peninsula, far to the north at the very edge of the world, and any man who defied their word brought upon himself the full wrath of the gods. The Initiates were philosophers and sorcerers, but fact was clouded by rumor and hearsay -- stories, he had been told, not fit for a child's ears. But whatever the truth, the Initiates commanded respect and fear. Respect because they served the Seven; fear because of the manner in which they served them. It was said that the Initiates communed with Aeoris himself, and from him took powers that no ordinary mortal could comprehend, let alone wield. A cauldron of speculation and half-truth and fable... but the little he had learned made the boy hunger for more. Fancifully, he imagined running away and away, over plains and through forests and across mountains, until he found the Initiates in their stronghold....

  It was that thought that first put the idea into his head. He and Coran had been idly skimming stones into the river current while in the distance the clamor of the procession drew slowly nearer. The spearhead would not arrive for some while; there was time enough to give rein to the idea that had suddenly fired his imagination.

  When he suggested the game to Coran, his cousin was appalled.

  "Pretend that we're Initiates?" Coran's voice was a whisper. "We can't! It's -- it's heresy!"

  Even to speak of Initiates without due reverence invited ill luck, but the black-haired boy had no such fears. The knowledge that he was breaking taboos excited something deep within him, added spice to a feeling already half-formed and half-recognized. He knew nothing of what powers Initiates possessed, but he had a free and ferocious imagination. Coran was less adventurous, but malleable to his cousin's stronger will, and at last -- though in trepidation -- he agreed.

  "We'll be rival sorcerers," the black-haired boy said. "And we'll battle, using our powers against each other!"

  Coran licked his lips and hesitantly nodded. But even his timid spirit entered into the game as imagination began to take over.

  And then, it happened.

  The boys were so intent on their play that they were unaware of the vanguard of the procession as it rounded a corner and came into full view of the jetty. Leading the long human chain came the Margrave; behind him the statue of Aeoris towered -- and the god and his bearers saw everything.

  Coran, by now as caught up in their fantasy world as his cousin, had called down a thousand curses on the head of his rival. Not to be outdone, his rival raised a hand, pointed with a dramatic gesture; as he did so, a stray shaft of watery sunlight glinted with shocking brilliance on the colorless stone of a ring on the boy's left hand. An ornate ring, a strange possession for a child to own... for an instant, as the sun struck it, the stone seemed to come to ferocious, blazing life --

  And, with no warning, a bolt of blood-red fire smashed from the pointing finger with a crack that momentarily deafened him. For an instant only Coran's face was frozen in a mask of astonishment and disbelief... then his charred, broken body keeled sideways and fell with a sickening thud to the flagstones.

  The black-haired boy reeled back as violently as though struck by a monstrous, invisible hand, and though he tried to scream, not the smallest sound came from his throat. For a moment as the procession ground to a chaotic halt there was utter silence -- then pandemonium broke out. Rough hands took hold of him, spinning him around, punching and slapping and kicking him in a rising tide of horror and outrage. Women shrieked, men shouted, and at last the cacophony resolved into words that beat like waves in his ears, cursing him, damning him, naming him blasphemer and desecrator, unfit to live. In a matter of moments the veneer of civilization fell away to reveal the ugly face of naked fear in full, primitive flood, and amid the mayhem the boy cowered, hands over his head, too shocked and numbed to understand what was happening to him, what he had done. As if in a waking nightmare he felt his hands being bound, the cords cutting deep, and he was manhandled into the middle of a circle of hostile, shouting faces. Stone him! they said; hang him! they cried, and he could only stare back, uncomprehending.

  The Provincial Margrave, white-faced and shaking, moved unsteadily forward. Somewhere behind him a woman was screaming hysterically; Coran's mother, who refused to be dragged away from her son's corpse. As the Margrave approached the boy, seemingly afraid to come too close, the town elders set up a fresh clamor. Heresy and blasphemy -- a demonic power at work -- possession -- the bastard son of the woman Estenya; unfit to live... And the Margrave, spurred on by his councillors, pointed accusingly at the black-haired child who had brought such horror to the celebrations.

  "He must die," he said in a voice that quavered. "Now -- before he can do even worse!"

  As if in anticipation, a stone flung by someone in the crowd missed the boy's head by a hairsbreadth. Some semblance of reason was beginning to return to him after the initial shock, and he thought he was going to be sick as an image of Coran's face, before he fell, flashed into his mind. What had he done? How had it happened? He wasn't a sorcerer!

  "Stone him!" a voice yelled, and the cry was taken up again.

  He tried to protest, tell them he hadn't meant to harm Coran, they'd been playing a game, he had no power to kill anyone. But the words would mean nothing to the mob. They had seen what they had seen, and in their fear were determined to stamp it out without mercy. And without understanding what had happened to him, he was going to die....

  Though always a solitary child, he nonetheless felt more alone than he ever had in his life. Even Estenya couldn't help him now; he had seen men carrying away a woman who had fainted, and had recognized the color of his mother's shawl. There was no hope of reprieve. For a moment his gaze locked with the dead, wooden stare of the statue of Aeoris, then he shut his eyes tightly, praying in silent hopelessness that the god, who alone must know the nature of the appalling power that had struck his cousin down from nowhere, would come to his aid.

  The men holding him had moved back, and the boy saw the stones that even now were being gathered from the detritus around the jetty. Every muscle in his body tensed -- then suddenly a lone voice among the mob called out in horror.

  "Aeoris preserve us!"

  A hand was pointing northwards, far beyond the town, and as one the crowd all looked. In the distance, the sky was changing. Slow bands of faint color were marching across the empty bowl of the heavens, and, fascinated, the boy had counted green, scarlet, orange, grey and an eerie blue-black before common sense returned and he realized what he was witnessing.

  "A Warp..." There was naked fear in the Margrave's voice.

  The boy felt a faint tingling from the earth, transmitted through the cold stone of
the jetty. He sensed an electric tension in the air, and his nerves began to crawl with something that terrified him far more than his impending fate; something that evoked the worst nightmares any human being could experience. A Warp -- and the town was directly in its path!

  Warp storms -- the eerie, horrifying forces which racked the land at unpredictable intervals -- were the deadliest phenomenon known to man. Some said that Warps were a manifestation of Time itself; that the powers unleashed could shift and change the very fabric of the world. When a Warp struck the wise shuttered themselves in their homes and covered their heads until the rage was past and the elemental forces exhausted, and no one knew for certain the consequences of being caught in such a storm, for no one had ever returned to tell the tale. The boy recalled a neighbor who had braved the full fury of a Warp, and vanished. They had searched for some trace of him for a full seven days, but had found nothing. He had simply ceased to exist....

  The weird aurora marching towards them out of the north was coming rapidly; now it had all but eclipsed the sun, and some refraction was distorting the solar orb so that it looked like a squeezed, overripe fruit, sickly and aged. Strange colors swept across the buildings and the faces of the throng; people looked bizarrely unhuman and two-dimensional, and to the boy's fevered imagination it seemed that the statue of Aeoris had come to a terrible semblance of life.

  From the sky a harsh singing note now emanated, drowning the frightened shouts of the townspeople, as if something unhuman rode high and fast above the wind and cried out in torment. The boy remembered tales of damned souls lost to the Warps and doomed to fly with them forever, and for a wild moment he thought: better that than an agonizing death at the hands of his human judges!

  But the death promised him wasn't to be, yet. Already people were scattering, running for shelter as the weird, ululating sound in the sky drew inexorably closer. Someone snatched at his bound arm, almost pulling him off balance, and he found himself being towed along in the midst of a group of Councillors who were making towards the House of Justice a short distance away. This building, which combined court of law with counting house and a bargaining center for out-province traders, was the most secure structure in the town with its massive doors and shuttered windows, and as the boy was hustled up the steps and under the great portal, he saw that half the townspeople had chosen it for their haven.

  "Bolt the doors -- hurry! It's nearly upon us!" The Margrave had lost his dignity and was on the verge of panic. Still more people were pouring in, and in the huge reception hall some had already fallen to their knees and were earnestly praying to Aeoris for their souls. The boy, now trembling violently from shock, wondered why they should pray, when surely Aeoris himself must have sent the Warp in the first place.

  Aeoris himself... and the Warp had come mere moments after he had sent his last, desperate plea silently heavenwards...

  It wasn't possible, he told himself. He was a murderer -- the gods would have no reason to save him --

  But the Warp had come from nowhere, with no warning...

  Deep down, he knew that his sanity must have deserted him. But it was a chance, the only chance he would have before punishment was meted out and he died the ugly death he had been promised. Better that... If he worked his hands surreptitiously behind his back he thought he could free them; whoever had tied the cords had failed to fix the knot properly, and it was coming loose.... The last stragglers were entering the House of Justice now, and in the confusion no one was paying him any attention. One more effort... and his left hand came free. The doors were closing, he had only moments --

  With a speed and agility that took his captors by surprise, the boy dived for the doors. He heard someone shouting at him, a hand reached to stop him but he evaded it and half stumbled, half fell out onto the steps. His headlong rush carried him down -- and as he emerged, the Warp came screaming overhead.

  The outlines of houses, boats, the jetty, twisted into an impossible chaos of howling color and noise. The ground was falling away beneath his feet, the sky crashing down to meet him, spitting tongues of black brilliance. Then, with a deafening crack, the world exploded into the image of a seven-rayed star that seared into his mind, before --

  Nothing.

  Chapter 2

  Tarod...

  He' heard the word in his head, and clung to it. It was his secret name, and while he held it he knew that he still existed.

  Tarod...

  He was lying face downward on a surface that felt harsh. Something -- a stone, he thought -- pressed cruelly against his right cheek, and when he breathed in his mouth and nostrils clogged with dust. He tried to move and a searing pain shot through his right shoulder, so that he had to bite savagely into his tongue to stop himself from crying out.

  Slowly consciousness returned, and with it some semblance of memory. Faintly, he recalled the last moment before the Warp had struck; the image that had smashed into his brain before the full fury of the storm swept over him. Was he dead? Had the Warp taken him to some unimaginable after-life? He tried to remember what had happened, but his mind was cloudy and he couldn't rally his thoughts. And besides, he felt alive; painfully alive....

  Again he attempted to move, and this time succeeded in fighting off the pain enough to raise himself on his undamaged arm, though it took a tremendous effort of will. Something clogged in his eyes, making it impossible to open them, and only after he had rubbed and rubbed at them could he finally part the lids.

  He was surrounded by a darkness so intense that it was almost suffocating. And yet his senses told him that he was in the open, for he had the sensation of space, and it was cold. An insidious breeze licked at his black hair, lifting it from his face, chilling a dampness on his cheeks.

  He blinked the dampness away -- it might be water, blood, sweat; he didn't know, and was beyond caring -- and began to grope cautiously with his hands to gain some idea of where he was.

  His fingers found rock; a slope of rough scree littered with stones and vicious pieces of shale. Doubly afraid now, the boy tried his voice. It came dry and cracking from his throat and he was unable to form words, yet it was at least a sound, physical and real. But he was unprepared for the answer of a myriad soft echoes that came whispering back to him, seeming to emerge from solid rock that stretched immensely in every direction. Solid rock... with a shock he realized that he must be among high hills, perhaps even mountains. But there were no mountains in Wishet province; the nearest range lay far, far to the north and west, an unimaginable distance! He shivered violently. If he was still in the world, then it was no part of the world he had ever known...

  Mustering courage, he called out again, and again the rocks answered, mocking him. And among their voices he heard one that was not his own, and it whispered the name that had sounded in his mind as he regained consciousness.

  Tarod...

  Suddenly the boy was overwhelmed by terror and a frantic, almost physical need for comfort. He wanted to cry out for someone to come to his aid, but even as the need surged another memory hit home. Coran -- Coran was dead, and he had killed him! No one would help him now -- for he had already been condemned.

  Suddenly the shock of what he had done, however unwittingly, overtook him, and he shut his eyes again in a desperate and futile attempt to blot it out. Helpless, he began to retch violently, and when the spasm passed his head was spinning. Tears started at the back of his eyes, forcing their way between his dark lashes and flowing unchecked down his cheeks. He didn't understand what had happened to him, and no amount of bravado could combat the fear and grief he felt. Somewhere deep down a small voice was trying to comfort him, reminding him that at least he had survived this ordeal -- but now, as the tears began to flow more copiously, he felt that for all the hope he had he might as well have died alongside Coran.

  Later he believed he must have lost consciousness again, for when he woke there was light. Little enough, true, but a faint, bloody crimson glow was tingeing the air aro
und him; and for the first time he was able to make out his surroundings.

  There were mountains -- vast, towering crags of granite that humped into a frightening distance overhead and seemed to topple towards him, making him reel with vertigo. Though from this vantage point he couldn't see the sun, the sky above the peaks had paled to an unhealthy hue like old, worn brass, and the crags were stained with its gory reflection. Dawn... so he had been lying here all night. And "here" was a narrow gulley half-filled with the detritus of innumerable landslips; loose shale, a massive boulder with one jagged edge showing where it had broken away from the rock face. When he turned painfully to look about him he saw that the gulley ended just beyond his feet, falling away in a shallow but sharp drop to what appeared to be a track of some sort at its base. A pass... ? He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. His shoulder and arm felt as though they were on fire, and he knew that at least one bone was broken, maybe more. Trying to combat the pain, he scrabbled for a foothold on the shale and after a protracted effort succeeded in hauling himself to his feet, using the sharp-edged boulder for support. The movement brought on a concussive spinning and thundering in his head; his stomach reacted and another spasm of retching bent him double, so that for a while he forgot everything but the sheer misery of his predicament. In the wake of the spasm he began to shiver afresh, aware that his body's defenses were dangerously weak. He was by this time on his knees again, unable to stand upright -- if he was to survive, he must find help. But the concept seemed meaningless -- his control was deteriorating and he couldn't think clearly enough to decide what he should do.

  The boy turned about until he was facing, as nearly as he could judge, the direction of the rising sun. Then, by slow and painful degrees, he began to half stagger and half crawl along the ridge that ran beside the twisting mountain track.