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  The Sands of Grief – Guy Haley

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  The Sands of Grief

  Guy Haley

  ‘I don’t like it here, master. Please, let us go. Too much magic, hurts my bones.’

  ‘Hush, Shattercap, they are nearly done, and then we can leave. Be patient.’

  The second speaker was Maesa, a proud aelf prince in the bronze armour and green-and-grey clothing of the wayfarer peoples. The first was a vicious spite, a small, gangrel creature of ill intent. His appearance did nothing to disguise his nature. He was a clutch of bones and twiggy fingers, garbed in wizened green skin. From a small, apelike face, his button black eyes peered at the world with fearful malice, in marked contrast to the calm benevolence radiated by his keeper. But though a captive, Shattercap was more or less content to live among the folds of the prince’s cloak.

  Content, because the aelf offered a way out of wickedness, and Shattercap desired that in a half-grasped way. Less, because the prince and the spite were at that time within the shop of Erasmus Throck and Durdek Grimmson, providers of the finest alchemical instruments in Glymmsforge in the Realm of Shyish, a place Shattercap feared greatly.

  Throck and Grimmson were comical opposites. Grimmson was a stout duardin with a blue beard and bald head. Throck was a tall scrap of man with a shock of white hair and clean-shaven chin. The duardin rooted about behind the counter near the floor. The man was balanced upon rolling steps, searching cubbyholes high up by the ceiling.

  Grimmson hauled out a leather-covered box and placed it on the glass counter top.

  ‘This is it, aelfling, the soul glass you wished for.’

  Throck tutted from the top of the steps at his colleague.

  ‘Come now, Durdek! Prince Maesa is highborn and worthy of respect.’

  Durdek’s granitic face maintained its scowl. ‘He’s an aelf, and I call it as I see it, Erasmus.’

  Throck shook his head, and pulled the wheeled ladder along to the next stack of cubbyholes.

  ‘Don’t worry, your worthiness,’ said Grimmson to Maesa. ‘I’ve outdone myself for you. Look at this.’

  With a delicacy his massive fingers seemed incapable of, Grimmson took out a tiny hourglass. Its bulbs were no bigger than a child’s clenched fists, decorated with delicate fretwork of silver and gold.

  Durdek flicked open a lid in the glass’ top. ‘Life sand goes in here. Seal it. Tip it over when it’s near run out. Keep on with that to prolong the life within. Away you go. Very simple concept, but simple usage is no reason for drab work.’

  ‘We pride ourselves on the finest equipment,’ said Throck. ‘Durdek here makes the devices…’

  ‘…and it’s him as does the enchanting,’ said Durdek.

  ‘It is a beautiful piece,’ said Maesa. He took the hourglass from Grimmson and turned it over in his hands. ‘Such fine workmanship.’

  Grimmson hooked his fingers into his belt, gave a loud sniff and pulled himself up proudly.

  ‘We do what we can.’

  ‘Aha! Here is the other item,’ said Throck. He jumped from the ladder. From a soft velvet bag, he took out a complex compass. It too had a lid in the top, covering over a small compartment. ‘A soul seeker. This should lead you to the realmstone deposit you seek.’

  Grimmson took the glass and placed it carefully back into the box so Maesa could examine the compass.

  Eight nested circles of gold, each free moving against the other, surrounded the central lidded well. On one side of the well was an indicator made in the shape of the hooked symbol of Shyish. Maesa pushed it with his finger. It spun silently through many revolutions at the gentlest touch.

  ‘It floats on a bath of ghostsilver,’ said Throck. ‘Very good work.’

  ‘Should be,’ said Shattercap. ‘For the money you are being paid.’

  ‘You get what you pay for,’ Grimmson growled. ‘Quality. We are Glymmsforge’s foremost makers of such devices.’

  ‘We are expensive, I admit, but you will find none better,’ said Throck.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Maesa. ‘I have no issue with the cost. Ignore my servant, he has yet to learn manners.’ He handed the compass back and produced a white leather pouch from his belt. ‘Five hundred black diamond chips, from the Realm of Ulgu, as you required.’

  Grimmson took the bag from Maesa’s hand and tugged at the drawstring ready to count the contents.

  Throck patted his partner’s burly arm. ‘That won’t be necessary. I am sure the prince is good to his word.’ Throck was awed by the prince’s breeding, and couldn’t help but give a short bow. Maesa returned the gesture with a graceful inclination of his head. Grimmson looked at them both fiercely.

  ‘You best be careful out there,’ the duardin said. ‘We sell maybe eight or nine of these a year, but the folks that buy them don’t always come to the best end. Most go out into the Sands of Grief, and vanish.’

  ‘How do you know they work then?’ said Shattercap, slinking around the back of Maesa’s head from one shoulder to the other.

  ‘Ahem,’ Throck looked apologetic. ‘Their ghosts come back to tell us.’

  ‘Ghosts? Ghosts! Master!’ squealed Shattercap. ‘Why did we come here?’

  ‘I trust you have supernatural means of sustenance?’ said Throck amiably. ‘I do not mean to pry into your business, but where you intend to go is no place for the living. There is no water, no food, no life of any kind, only the dead, and storms of wild magic. We can provide the necessary protections – amulets, enchanted vittles, all you would require – if you have none of your own.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Shattercap shrieked again. Maesa ignored him.

  ‘I have what I need. My kind have wandered in every place. This realm is no alien land to me. I shall return in person to inform you how well your goods performed.’ Maesa bowed and picked up his packages. ‘My thanks, and good day to you, sirs.’

  The door of the shop banged closed behind the prince. Shattercap cowered from the strange sights of Glymmsforge. The sky was a bruised purple, forever brooding, its long night scattered with amethyst stars. Outside the walls were afterlives ruined by the war with Chaos, and haunted by broken souls. But the streets of the young city were full of life, bathed in the light of magical lanterns that held back the dark.

  Throck and Grimmson’s shop was located on Thaumaturgy Way, along with dozens of other purveyors of magical goods. Market stalls narrowed the street, leaving only a slender cobbled passage down the centre. Humans, aelfs, duardin and all manner of other creatures thronged the market, and not only the living, but the shades of the dead also, for Glymmsforge was situated in the afterlife of Lyria, where some vestiges of past glory still clung.

  The crowd moved slowly. People browsed goods, creating hard knots in the flow that eddied irritably around each other. Maesa could pass through a thicket of brambles without disturbing a twig, but his aelven gifts were of no use in that place, and he was forced to shove through the crowd along with the rest.

  ‘Market days, I hate market days!’ hissed Shattercap. ‘So many people. Where is the forest quiet? Where is the mossy silence?’

  ‘You will yearn for their fellowship where we are going, small evil,’ said Maesa. He slipped through a gaggle of ebon-skinned men of Ghur haggling over an imp imprisoned in a bottle, and reached the relative quiet of the main street.

  Free of the overhanging eaves of Thaumaturgy Way, more of the city was visible. Concentric rings of walls
soared to touch the sky. The innermost held within their compass the Shimmergate, a blue slash of light high up in the dark sky. Shattercap and Maesa were in the second district, thus close to the Stormkeep, the College of Amethyst and all the other wonders of the deepest ward.

  Maesa turned his back on the central spires. His destination lay outside the city.

  He returned to their lodgings in the fourth ward, and there arranged his equipment for the journey while Shattercap fretted in the corner. The spite could have bolted at any time, and for that reason Maesa had kept the thing chained for the first part of their association. As the days passed, a bond had grown between them. Besides, Shattercap was too cowardly to flee, so Maesa had abandoned the fetters.

  Maesa packed his saddlebags with food, drink and sustenance of a less mundane kind. He stowed his unstringed bow into its case on the outside of his quiver. The compass from Throck and Grimmson he hung about his neck in its bag, and he stored the hourglass carefully in his packs. Lastly, he took from the table his most prized possession – the skull of his dead love, Ellamar – and placed it carefully into a light knapsack woven from the silk of forest spiders.

  He called the house boy to take the bags to the stables, and followed him down.

  The inn’s stable block housed every sort of riding beast imaginable. At one end of the stalls was a mighty gryph-charger that rattled its beak in conversation with a pair of its lesser demi-gryph kin stabled next to it. Dozens of horses, flightless birds, great cats and more all whinnied, growled, squawked and screeched. As the air was a confusion of different calls, so the smell of the stables was a mighty animal reek composed of many bestial perfumes.

  There was only a single great stag in the stable. His name was Aelphis and he was Maesa’s mount. He waited for his master, aloofly enduring the clumsy efforts of the grooms to saddle him.

  ‘Aelphis,’ said Maesa softly.

  The giant stag bowed his head and snorted gladly at the prince’s greeting. He dropped to his knees to allow Maesa to load him with the baggage.

  ‘I am sorry, my lord, but I do not think I have your saddle right,’ said the head groom. ‘I have never tacked up a creature like he before.’

  ‘No matter,’ said Maesa. Although the groom had made a poor job of it, he was genuinely apologetic. The prince adjusted the saddle while the groom looked on, and Maesa welcomed his desire to learn. When all was as it should be, Maesa leapt nimbly upon Aelphis’ back. The stag let out a lusty bellow and rose up to his full, majestic height.

  ‘We shall return,’ said Maesa, and took his helm from a groom. Its spread of bronze antlers mirrored the magnificence of Aelphis’ rack. Armoured, he and the beast were perfectly matched.

  Maesa rode from the inn’s yard. He would dearly have liked to give Aelphis his head, and let the beast break into its springing run, but the streets of the fourth ward were as crowded as those of the second. Beast and rider were forced to keep their patience until they reached the eastern outgate.

  A permit was required to leave the walls at night. Maesa duly provided his papers to the gate captain, who scrutinised them carefully.

  No one else was leaving.

  ‘All is in order,’ said the captain reluctantly.

  At a shout from the captain, the gates swung wide. The road leading away from Glymmsforge was empty. Not one soul walked the level paving. A channel of purple salt cut through the road surface a hundred yards out, interrupting its journey into desert nowheres devoid of living souls.

  The walls were patrolled by keen-eyed men armed with sorcerous guns. Two of them barred Maesa’s exit.

  ‘You must be an influential man to secure exit from the city at night,’ said the captain, handing back the papers. ‘I advise you to wait for the day.’

  ‘I am eager to be away.’

  ‘I have a suspicion where you are bound, prince,’ said the captain. ‘I’ve seen plenty of creatures with the same look you have in your eyes. They are not to be dissuaded, so I will not try. I will give you the warning that all free-thinking folk receive from me. At the line of salt out there, the protection of Sigmar ends. There are perils aplenty beyond these walls. This gate is the frontier of life. Out there is only death and undeath. Are you sure whatever reason you are going out there for is worth your soul?’

  ‘It is a price I will gladly pay,’ said Maesa.

  ‘Then Sigmar watch over you. There are no others that can,’ said the captain.

  ‘Your warning is noted, captain,’ said Maesa. ‘But I have nothing to fear.’

  The men stepped aside at a nod from the captain.

  Maesa’s trilling song set Aelphis bounding out into the empty desert, joyful to be free of the confines of the city.

  The road entered the low hills some miles from Glymmsforge, and there it petered out at a half-finished cutting. Construction gear lay around, awaiting the day and the work gangs. Night-time was altogether too dangerous for mortal labour. As the stag left smooth paving for the sand, Maesa directed him up the slope and pulled him to a stop.

  Dust kicked up by the stag’s hooves blew away on a cold wind. Maesa turned back for one last look upon Glymmsforge. From the vantage of the hillside, it was set out like a model for him to examine.

  The Shimmergate gleamed in the sky, surrounded by the gossamer traceries of the stairs leading to its threshold. The realmgate reflected in the Glass Mere, the broad lake encompassed by the fortifications. Monumental buildings stretched spires skywards, taller even than the walls, all ablaze with fires and shining mage-light. Among the finest were the cathedral-like mausolea of the celestial saints, the relics of a dozen creatures whose holy power kept back evil, joined together by trenches of the purple salt. The twelve-pointed star the mausolea and the sand trench made was the reason for the city’s survival, being a barrier to all wicked things.

  Around this oasis city, the Zircona desert stretched its gloomy grey expanses. The haunting cries of tormented spirits blended with the fluting wind.

  ‘Look back at the city, small evil,’ Maesa said to Shattercap. ‘It will be our last sight of life ere our task is done.’

  Tiny, whistling snores answered. Shattercap was a relaxed weight in the bottom of Maesa’s hood.

  Quietly, so as not to disturb the slumbering spite, Maesa urged Aelphis into a run.

  Zircona’s desert ran for leagues. Aelphis covered its distances without tiring. He cut straight across the landscape, bounding as quickly over crags and shattered badlands as he ran over the flats. Day’s watery light came and went, and Maesa did not pause. Every third night he would rest, for aelven kind are hardier than mortal men, and sleep rules their lives with a looser hand. Aelphis slept when the prince did while Shattercap kept watch. Trusting terror to keep the spite vigilant, aelf and stag rested without misgiving.

  There were ruins in the wastes. Shattered cities dotted the lands, though whether raised by the living or the dead it was impossible to say. The metaphysics of Shyish were complicated. Before the Age of Chaos cast them into ruin, many lesser afterlives had occupied the desert. As time went on, the living had come into those places also, and lived alongside those who had been born and died in other places and come to Shyish for their reward. In the south of Glymmsforge, towards the heartlands of Shyish, there were mighty realms yet, but towards realm’s edge where Maesa headed, only ruins remained, haunted by the shrieking gheists of the dispossessed.

  None of these wandering shades dared come near him. To the sight of the dead, Prince Maesa shone with baleful power. His sword, the soul-drinking Song of Thorns, would bring their end with a single cut, and Maesa had other magical arts to command should it fail him.

  They passed a great city whose walls were whole and aglow with corpse-light. No sound issued from the place. There was no sense of vitality, only an ominous watchfulness. The city filled the valley it occupied from side to side, and Maesa was f
orced to travel uneasily within the shadow of its fortifications.

  A wail went up from the gatehouse as he approached, answered by others sounding from the towers in the curtain wall. Aelphis pranced and snorted at the din. Shattercap gibbered in miserable fright. Disturbed, Maesa spurred Aelphis on. The wailing harrowed their ears as they galloped by, but nothing came out from the city, not phantom nor spectral arrow, and as Maesa passed, the ghostly shrieks died one by one, until terrible silence fell.

  They quickly left the city behind. Afterwards, the character of the land changed for the worse.

  During the night that followed, they camped. All were weary, for the land took a toll on their spirits. Shattercap puled miserably and tugged at Maesa’s hair.

  ‘Master, master,’ he whined. ‘I feel so ill, not good at all.’

  Maesa squatted at Aelphis’ side. The giant stag was sleeping, its huge flanks pumping like bellows, gusting breaths whose warmth the bitter lands swiftly stole. Maesa took Shattercap from his shoulder and looked at him carefully. The spite’s skin had gone dry and grey. Maesa too was ailing. His pale face had lost its alabaster sheen, becoming pasty. Dark rings shaded his almond eyes.

  ‘It is the land. The nearer the edge we go, the less forgiving to mortal flesh it is, even to those like we, small evil, who are blessed with boundless lifespans.’

  Shattercap coughed. Maesa cradled him in the crook of his arm like a sick lamb as he hunted through his bags with his free hand.

  ‘It is time. For you especially, a creature born of the magic of life, this place is hard. I have something here for you to ensure your survival.’

  He took out a round flask protected by a net of cord. Contained in the glass was a clear liquid that glowed faintly with yellow light. As Maesa uncorked it, it flared, lighting up the bones and veins in his fine hands. He held the bottle to Shattercap’s lips.

  ‘Water from the Lifewells of Ghyran,’ Maesa explained. ‘Drawn long before the Plague God’s corruption. Take but one drop. Any more will change you, and we have but a little.’