The Song of Sycamore Edwards Cox
Release Date: August 22nd, 2019
Publishers: Gollancz
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 496
Goodreads: Add to TBR
A new standalone novel set in a fractured world of magic and technology, from BSFA Best Fantasy and Best Newcomer nominee, and bestselling author of The Relic Guild
On the broken world of Urdezha, Wendal Finn died on the hostile plains of the wasteland, one more casualty in the endless war between the city-dwellers and the clansfolk. But now Wendal has returned to his home city of Old Castle, possessed by something he brought back from the wasteland, something old and best left forgotten. The spirits are calling it Sycamore, an ancient entity out to avenge all victims of murder. And in a city like Old Castle, no one is innocent.
With his mind trapped inside a dead body, Wendal can do nothing but watch as Sycamore turns him into a serial killer. Until the magicians take an interest in him. Preserving Wendal's body and trapping Sycamore inside it, the magicians now have the perfect assassin at their disposal. Whenever they need an enemy removed, they can set the killer loose on Old Castle.
The clans are massing. A supernatural storm is raging across the wasteland. It has already destroyed one city, and now it is heading for Old Castle. And the only one who might prevent oblivion is the murderous entity who the spirits are calling Sycamore.
On the broken world of Urdezha, Wendal Finn died on the hostile plains of the wasteland, one more casualty in the endless war between the city-dwellers and the clansfolk. But now Wendal has returned to his home city of Old Castle, possessed by something he brought back from the wasteland, something old and best left forgotten. The spirits are calling it Sycamore, an ancient entity out to avenge all victims of murder. And in a city like Old Castle, no one is innocent.
With his mind trapped inside a dead body, Wendal can do nothing but watch as Sycamore turns him into a serial killer. Until the magicians take an interest in him. Preserving Wendal's body and trapping Sycamore inside it, the magicians now have the perfect assassin at their disposal. Whenever they need an enemy removed, they can set the killer loose on Old Castle.
The clans are massing. A supernatural storm is raging across the wasteland. It has already destroyed one city, and now it is heading for Old Castle. And the only one who might prevent oblivion is the murderous entity who the spirits are calling Sycamore.
Chapter One
The city of Old Castle rose from
the wasteland like an abscess swelling on the festering skin of a diseased
world. Across its neighbourhoods and districts a siren called, lifting and
falling with an ominous wail that sent citizens scurrying for their homes.
Hiding like monsters in burrows, they prayed that this latest threat from the
wastes would pass the city by, while fearing that this time, judgement had come
to demand penance for their crimes. The people of Old Castle were rank with
guilt. The city was populated by murderers.
And it was my home.
Through the chill of evening
shadows, I made my way to the outskirts of Old Castle. No breeze disturbed the
air, no sound accompanied the siren’s wail; light from a setting red sun did
little to warm a tense ambience. Beyond the last of the buildings, I began
crossing a stretch of open ground, heading towards the city wall. But it wasn’t
me walking, not really, not any more. I could see through my eyes, hear through
my ears, smell the stench of the city, but I had no control over my direction.
My footsteps weren’t made of my own volition.
I neared the city wall, a sturdy
construction, thick and high, unbreakable, but at that moment it seemed merely
a thin veil constructed for the illusion of safety. The huge turrets rising
atop it housed the mighty ether-cannons which protected the citizens from the
horrors of the wastes. But not from me.
‘He’s close.’
These words gurgled from an oily
mass slithering over cracked, stony ground ahead of me: a ghoul, wheezing wet
breaths, hissing with anger. This thing had been a woman in life, a simple
soul; but in death, an oozing puddle fuelled by injustice, out for revenge.
Caring nothing for the danger approaching Old Castle, the ghoul sang her Song,
a Song of obsession and need, and I couldn’t deny her plea for vengeance.
Whirring.
Rattling machinery.
Up on the wall, the turrets were
turning, sweeping the aim of their long, fat cannons left and right. A low,
familiar drone came next, baritone beneath the undulating siren, rumbling
through the empty streets behind me. From the centre of Old Castle, a great
beam of energy shot towards the cloudless pink sky like a waterspout. The city
had activated its ether shield. High above the buildings, the energy gathered
into a monumental ball of clear, wavering magic before dispersing, smearing,
spreading across the length and breadth of Old Castle, forming a barrier
between the city and the sky.
Above me, the edge of the shield
curved downwards, creating an umbrella that descended liquidly to the ruined
ground outside the wall. In a matter of moments, this hive of guilt-ridden
souls was secured within a dome of ether power like a city in a snow globe.
Sunlight refracted, the siren changed its pitch, the breeze dropped and the air
became stifled. The bitter taste of ether dried the inside of my mouth. But it
wasn’t really my mouth now.
‘Closer,’ the ghoul hissed.
Cannons tracked the movements of
whatever monstrosity the song of the sycamore was coming from the wastes as I
followed the ghoul along the line of the wall. With no choice in the matter, I
was led to a set of stone stairs rising to a pot-bellied watch post nestled
between two turrets. The ghoul slithered up the stairs and I climbed after her
like the dutiful puppet I had become.
No sign of movement came from
beyond the watch post’s darkened doorway, but I knew a man hid there, a
murderer who had nowhere left to run. He had taken sanctuary in the watch post
in a vain attempt to hide from death. His subconscious under stood what was
coming for him, and why. The dead deserved vengeance.
Reeking of sewage, the ghoul
hissed in anticipation, gurgled with longing. Like a snake, her darkness oozed
up around the doorway to form an oily frame. I stared into the gloom beyond.
‘Your sins have returned to you.’
My Mouth, using my voice, but it wasn’t me speaking. ‘Won’t you come out and
atone with dignity?’
No reply.
The man in the watch post was by
no means the first murderer I had tracked that day, and he wouldn’t be the
last. I’d been leaving a trail of blood behind me for two days now, and there
was an endless river’s worth waiting to be spilled yet.
Whatever will remained to me, I
tried to force it into my legs, to make myself turn around and walk away, but I
no longer had the strength or presence to make a difference to my actions. I
stepped through the ghoul’s stench, entered the watch post, and the man
attacked immediately.
He came out of the gloom, big and
strong, a blur of motion in the dim light shining through the viewing slit in
the back wall. With one arm, he pulled me into a tight embrace, spitting a
curse into my ear as his free hand thrust a knife into my side. The blade
couldn’t penetrate my ribs and sliced over bone before its tip ripped out of
the skin beneath my chest. I was too far gone to feel the damage inflicted upon
my body and pushed the man away with force enough to send him sprawling.
‘Kill him,’ the ghoul hissed from
the doorway.
The murderer sat on the floor,
staring up at me. He was no Magician; he couldn’t see the ghoul of his victim.
His expression became stunned when I pulled the knife from my body and showed
no distress at the hot blood soaking my shirt and trousers. Panic filled the
man’s eyes when I used the blade to point at him.
‘The dead call me Sycamore. I am
their Shepherd.’
With another curse, he jumped to
his feet, fists clenched and ready to fight. I stepped close to him, dodged a
clumsy punch and drove the knife into the side of his neck, down to the hilt.
Such a simple and fluid act. I wished I could have turned away and covered my
ears as the man dropped to his knees, choking, clawing at the knife’s handle
with fingers slicked in arterial blood. Desperate, struggling to breathe, his
eyes pleaded with me. He looked to be approaching twenty, the prime of life but
not yet old enough to have seen the horrors of war.
When he toppled, falling face
down and dead, the ghoul gave a peaceful sigh and slithered across the floor.
The oily darkness mingled with the pool of blood spreading around the corpse of
her murderer. As though in a show of gratitude, a single tendril reached out to
touch my boot before the ghoul faded and disappeared. Finding peace through
vengeance, she journeyed on to the other side.
The city siren continued to wail.
I continued to drown inside myself.
Stepping over the corpse, I
peered through the watch post’s viewing slit to gaze upon the desolation
outside Old Castle. The sun was about to kiss the horizon, a sinking red orb
quivering through the watery magic of the city shield, shedding the last of its
rays upon a broken landscape. Shadows stretched and pointed at the city; the
glassy summits of hillocks reflected light with majestic starbursts of rainbow
colours. Millennia of humanity’s bad choices had been trampled down into a
plain of scorched rock and rusty metal. This was the wasteland. This was the
world now called Urdezha, ruined beyond recognition, just like its people.
It looked as though a dust storm
was blowing in. A bank of debris rolled across the plain like fog on the sea,
hued red by the sun’s backdrop. But this was no act of nature. The storm had
been kicked into the air by the hundreds of feet galloping towards Old Castle.
A herd of beasts. A stampede of monsters. They were too far away to see in
great detail, but these creatures were as big as houses, thundering along on
four legs, too many to bother counting. With stocky bodies covered in bony
spikes and long horns protruding from great heads, the herd’s charge looked
unstoppable. Was this an act of war? Had the herd been driven this way by Old
Castle’s enemies? It didn’t matter. The creatures of the wasteland were never a
match for the might of a city.
Along the city wall,
ether-cannons took aim and fired with oddly subdued whumps. Ether knew ether,
they said, and the shield allowed the lethal bursts of magic to pass through
its energy and race across the wasteland trailing streamers of displaced air. The
first wave of shots smashed into the herd’s front line, punching the life from
the monsters. The cannons fired again – and again – and the charge faltered
under their fury.
Through the sound of the siren,
the drone of the shield and the whumps of ether, distant roars reached my ears.
The cannons spat so many bursts of magic that the enemy was soon obscured by
dust and debris. Whether or not the remaining monsters had turned tail and
fled, leaving their fallen as carrion on the wastes, not one of them emerged
from the storm. The abscess of Old Castle wouldn’t be lanced today, but . . .
‘Soon,’ said a voice inside me.
I placed a hand on the wall to
steady a sudden flush of fatigue
weakening my legs. The knife wound in my side wasn’t critical, but it was bleeding
freely. I needed medical attention, food, sleep, but none of them would be
given to me. As long as I could draw breath, my body would continue this
rampage, while my spirit, my essence, me, slowly spiralled down into the
oblivion of Nothing.
The moment of weakness passed,
and a voice gurgled from behind me.
‘Sycamore.’
Another ghoul had materialised.
It stood in the watch post’s doorway, formed into the rough approximation of a
human shape. It held no discernible features and oily shadows dripped from its
outstretched arms. The ghoul’s presence came as no surprise; it was simply the
next victim of murder to find me. And in this city, on this world, there would
always be a next victim.
Extract from The Song of
the Sycamore by Edward Cox (Gollancz, £18.99).
