I watched in disbelief as he searched the remnants of what had once been the body of Patch. He returned with the bowman’s money-pouch.
‘Should have been mine,’ he said, ‘and would have been had my string not snapped. Let us go.’The attack left me in a state of numbed shock, the passing of terror leaving in its place an emptiness, a void that could not even grieve for the ghastly death of the archer, Patch. I stumbled on behind Jarek Mace and Piercollo, scarcely noticing the journey or the rising of the sun and the warmth of a new day.
Cataplas had moved from amorality to evil and was apparently unmarked by the process. Throughout my years with him I had never sensed his capacity for darkness, and none of his actions hinted at the horror of which he was capable. Often we would journey on foot across the land, stopping at wayside taverns to entertain revellers, or in castles to perform for the nobles and their ladies. Always Cataplas was punctiliously polite, soft-voiced and charming. I never once saw him lose his temper.
Yet here he was practising the darkest sorceries, merging men and beasts, blood-hungry creatures who lived only to kill. I wondered then – hoped, might be a better description – if he himself had been put under a spell. But I knew it was not so.
Long-forgotten memories came back to me. A performance had been cancelled because of the death of a child; the parents were grieving and had no wish to be entertained. Cataplas had been irritated by what he saw as their lack of good manners. ‘Did they not realize,’ he said to me, ‘that I have walked thirty miles to show them my magick?’But their son is dead,’ I answered.
‘I did not kill him. What has it to do with me?’All that interested Cataplas was the pursuit of knowledge. Magick he had mastered, as no man before or since. But magick
was, he said, merely a game played with light, illusory and -artistic considerations aside – worthless.
We parted company one winter’s evening just after a performance at the Royal Court in Ebracom. He had filled the Great Hall with golden birds whose songs were a joy to the ear and the heart, and concluded with the creation of a golden-scaled lion who leapt upon the table before the King, scattering pots and dishes. Women screamed and men leapt back, tipping over chairs and falling to the floor, alarming the war-hounds who sat beneath the table feeding on scraps. Only the King remained seated, a grim smile upon his cruel mouth.
The lion rose up on its hind legs and became a huge silver eagle that soared into the air and flew around the rafters, devouring the golden songbirds.
At the end of the performance there was tumultuous applause. Cataplas bowed and we left the hall.
Outside, in the shadows of the corridor, he said his goodbyes. ‘I have taught you all that you can learn,’ he said. ‘Now it is time for you to walk your own path.’ He bowed stiffly, turned and walked away, his long velvet robe brushing the cold stone of the walls.
As I lay in bed that night I pictured again the golden lion. I can remember a cold chill sweeping over me and I sat up, rigid with fear. The lion had scattered the dishes!
It was not a trick played with light; not a creation of magick. In the seconds before Cataplas transformed it into an eagle it had been real, solid, the golden claws and fangs capable of rending and tearing.
Not magick at all, but sorcery.
Now Patch was dead, as the burned corpses in the clearing were dead. I looked ahead to where Jarek Mace and Piercollo were walking in the sunlight. . . and I shivered.
In a world of violence, war and sudden death, these men could hold their own. But against Cataplas and all the demonic powers he could summon, what hope was left for them?
And for me.
Fear returned then, with great force.
Towards mid-morning we crested a tall hill and gazed out over the slender lakes that shone like silver in the valleys of the central forest. The land stretched away in great folds in a hundred