Triumph of the Darksword Page 16

  A sword Joram bore, but it did not shine. When he called for battle and the people gathered around him, it seemed to those watching that he held a fragment of the night in his hands. His face was dark and unyielding as the metal of the weapon he carried. There was no call to glory in his words or the grim tone in which they were spoken.

  “This will not be a day celebrated in legend and song. If we fail, there will be no more songs….”

  He was dressed in the white robes of those who escort the dead to their final rest—the white robes of a pallbearer. The magi and the catalysts who heard his words that day knew that they went forward without hope, even as he had gone forward into Beyond.

  “You are fighting an enemy who is not of this world. You are fighting an enemy who is Dead, an enemy who can deal death with the swiftness of a lightning bolt. Your only advantage is your Life. Use it wisely, for when it is gone you will be at their mercy.”

  When Joram’s voice ceased, there were no cheers. Silence shrouded the magi, silence broken only by the hissing of the light beams cutting through the ice and the fearsome rumblings of the creatures of iron. When the magi went forth into battle, they went in silence.

  According to Joram’s orders, the wall of ice came down. Spells had to be cast, and the wall was draining the Life from the magi and their catalysts. Each warlock, witch, and wizard from that point on was responsible for his or her own means of protection from the deadly light beams.

  Acting on Joram’s advice, some became invisible. Though this would not protect them from death should a beam strike them, he said, they were not obvious targets and they could sneak up upon the enemy unobserved. Others protected themselves from the heat-seeking “eyes” of the monsters by surrounding themselves with their own ice walls or causing their body temperatures to drop drastically. Still others turned themselves into were-animals, fearsome beasts who attacked their prey before the victims knew what was upon them.

  As in the ancient days, catalysts were changed into familiars—small animals who traveled with the magi, able to hide easily in bushes or the limbs of trees or beneath rocks.

  Using the Corridors that Prince Garald forced the Thon-li to open, the magi took the field, dividing up, spreading out, fighting in small groups. There had not been time to plan complex strategy. Joram ordered hit-and-run tactics designed to confuse the enemy and keep him off-guard. Once on the field of battle, he and Prince Garald traveled the Corridors, going from group to group, advising them on the best means of fighting.

  Joram showed the Duuk-tsarith how to cast lightning so that it would kill the creatures of iron, not strike their iron scales harmlessly as it had done before.

  “See that part of the creature where the head is attached to the body? Like the soft underbelly of the dragon, that is the place where it is most vulnerable. Cast the lightning bolts there, not against the scales.”

  The warlocks did so and were astounded to see the creatures of iron explode, catch fire, and burn.

  “Use the Green Venom spell,” Joram counseled the witch “The creatures have a vulnerable spot on top of their heads. Cover that with the poisonous liquid and watch.”

  Though this seemed absurd—after all, the poison affected living flesh, not metal—the witch did as she was ordered. A gesture of her delicate hand caused the green, burning liquid to coat the top of the creature of iron as it would coat the skin of a human victim. To her amazement, the witch saw the head of the creature burst open. Screaming in pain, the strange humans flung themselves out of it, their skin covered with the green poison that had apparently seeped through the top of the creature’s head, dripping on the humans concealed inside.

  At Joram’s command, the druids sent the forest into battle. Giant oak trees with the strength born of centuries heaved themselves from the ground and lumbered forward to the attack. Catching one of the creatures of iron, their huge roots wrapped around it, cracking it like one of their own acorns. The stone shapers caused the ground to gape beneath the iron monsters, swallow them whole, then close over them, burying their enemy inside. The Sif-Hanar called down rain and hail upon their enemy, plunged him into night, then blinded him with daylight.

  “When you fight the metal-skinned humans, remember that the metal is not skin,” Joram told his people. “It is a type of armor, such as that worn by the knights in the old House Magi tales. There are gaps in this armor—the largest between the neck and the helmet.”

  Mosiah, changing into a werewolf, knocked a strange human to the ground and sank his sharp teeth into the unprotected throat. With one blow of a massive paw, a were-bear caved in a helmet. A were-tiger dug her claws through the silver skin, shredding and mauling.

  “These humans know little of magic. They are frightened of it. Use their fear against them, particularly their subconscious fears, which are similar to our own,” Joram instructed.

  Illusionists created gigantic tarantulas that dropped down out of the trees, their hairy legs twitching, their many-faceted red eyes burning like flame. Blades of grass turned into swaying, hissing cobras. Skeletons clutching pale swords in their bony hands rose up out of the ground.

  “Call upon the creatures of our world to come to our aid.”

  A force of centaurs was summoned. Consumed by the wild excitement of bloodlust, they attacked and killed the strange humans, then rent the bodies limb from limb and began feasting on their victims’ raw, mangled flesh.

  Dragons swooped down out of the skies, bringing with them flame and darkness. Basilisks and cockatrice used their own lethal stares to freeze the deadly eyes of the creatures of iron. The serpentlike tail of a chimera swept the strange humans to destruction. The snapping heads of the hydra caught up its victims and devoured them whole.

  Perhaps the oddest happening on the field of battle that day was the report by several wizards of seeing a ring of mushrooms suddenly appear in a glade. A band of the enemy, changing into the ring, found that they could not get out. One by one, the strange humans were sucked down into the ground. The wizards reported, not without a shudder, that the last sounds that could be heard were the raucous laughter and gibbering voices of the faeriefolk …

  When their attack began in the morning, the creatures of iron must have been certain of victory. By late afternoon, the magi had turned the tide. But they had not managed to stop the flood. The iron monsters kept coming, the armies of silver-skinned humans threatening to drown the beleaguered wizards in sheer numbers. The magi were weakening, their Life draining from them, their catalysts dropping insensible. The creatures of iron rolled on without the need for rest or food, crawling over the land, breathing their poison fumes, casting their deadly light beams.

  It was then that the miracle occurred, according to later tellings and retellings of this great battle. The Angel of Death himself took the field, or so it was said. In his hands, he wielded a sword of death, and it was this sword that eventually brought the enemy to its knees.

  In actuality, no one was more astounded by what happened than the Angel of Death himself, but that part of the story was never told, it being known only to Joram and Prince Garald.

  The two had just finished destroying one of the iron monsters when their position was overrun by a squadron of the Strange humans. Garald’s magic was nearly gone. Drained of Life, he drew his sword and faced his enemy with grim hopelessness, knowing he could never survive the beams of deadly light that these silver-skinned humans were capable of shooting from the palms of their hands. Joram, too, drew his sword, prepared to die beside his friend. He, too, knew that to fight this enemy with a sword was a ludicrous, futile gesture. They would be dead within seconds, without even the chance to strike back. But, at least, they would die with weapons in their hands….

  As Joram drew the Darksword, however, the metal began to glow blue-white, burning brighter and brighter in his hands. He stared at it in wonder. The only time he had seen the sword flame like this was at the Judgment, when it had drawn the Life cast by the catalysts
to the Executioner into itself. It was reacting the same way drawing Life from something around it. But from what? Certainly not the enemy who were as Dead as Joram himself. There were no catalysts. Prince Garald had ordered Radisovik to stay behind with the injured in the fortress. Whose Life was it draining?

  A silver-skinned human raised his hand, aimed his deadly beam at Joram and Garald, and fired.

  The beam of light streaked from the human’s palm, but it did not strike its target. The light streamed into the metal of the Darksword, causing it to glow with a radiance so bright that Joram could not see for the blinding light. The sword vibrated in his hand, electric shocks jolted through his body. He had all he could do to hold onto the weapon, much less try to wield it. He couldn’t see a thing, and it was Garald who told him later that the strange humans, shielding their eyes, tried everything in their power to fire the light beams at their victims. It proved impossible.

  The Darksword sucked up the energy from the weapons of the Dead as it sucked the Life from the world. The beams of light died and the Darksword lived, flaring fiercely and humming with an eerie sound. Throwing down their useless weapons, the strange humans turned and ran.

  Those who witnessed that battle from a distance spread the report that the Angel of Death possessed the power to put out the sun if he chose.

  When night—true night—came to Thimhallan at last, the battle was over. The magi had won, or at least it seemed so. The creatures of iron and the strange humans who came with them retreated, withdrawing to some place unknown—confused reports came in of having seen the iron monsters entering the bodies of still larger monsters and that these enormous creatures of iron had then flown straight up into the heavens and disappeared.

  No one believed these fanciful rumors, however. No one except one man—Joram—who looked up grimly into the sky, and shook his head. He said nothing, however. Time enough for that later. Now there was much to be done.

  The cost of victory had been grievous.

  Mosiah, changed back from his form as a werewolf, was returning to the fortress when he came across the body of the witch. Her enemies lay scattered around her, but in the end there had been too many. Gently Mosiah covered the pale and beautiful face with the black hood. Lifting the body in his arms, he carried her back to the fortress.

  Here the dead—and there were many—were buried beneath piles of stone, Cardinal Radisovik spoke the words over them in a voice that was choked with tears and anger. The bodies of those who had died upon the field of battle were left where they had fallen. The surviving magi protested against this, but Joram held firm. He knew—no one knew better, having lived in the Outland—what terrible desecration the centaurs and other beasts would commit upon the bodies, but he also knew that finding them, bringing them back, and burying them would take too much time.

  The only ones allowed to return to the battlefield were the Duuk-tsarith. They had an interest in the dead. Not their own dead—the dead of the enemy. Working swiftly and silently under the cover of night, they stripped the bodies of everything from weapons to personal artifacts, never touching any of the objects but handling each with powerful spells of levitation, transporting them to their secret chambers for future study.

  The warlocks carried out their task efficiently, then they, too, were ordered by Joram to leave the field and return to Merilon.

  “What is there to fear?” Garald asked wearily, so tired he could barely stand. “We drove them away—”

  “Perhaps,” Joram replied. “We have no way of knowing for certain until our spies return with their reports.”

  “Bah! They’ve left the world.”

  “I don’t think so. Their retreat was orderly, well planned, and swiftly carried out. It wasn’t a rout, by any means. My guess is that they fell back to assess the situation and reevaluate their strategy.”

  The two stood in the center of the compound, talking together in low voices. Traveling the Corridors, the magi were returning to Merilon. The injured and dying had been sent through the Corridors first, then the catalysts, then the wizards. Some were so exhausted they staggered inside and collapsed. Others couldn’t walk at all but had to be carried.

  They evacuated the fortress under the cover of darkness, the weary Sif-Hanar working until the end; Joram refused to allow even starlight to shine down upon them.

  Joram’s grim tone, his precautions, and his ceaseless searching of the skies made Garald increasingly uneasy. “At least we did what we set out to do,” he said. “We have made them afraid of us. We have proved to them that they cannot sow the seeds of death without reaping its bitter harvest as well.”

  “Yes,” Joram agreed, but he remained grave and his eyes continued their watchful vigil.

  “What will they do now?” Garald asked quietly.

  “Hopefully they are confused, frightened, perhaps even arguing among themselves,” Joram replied. “They may—if we are lucky—leave this world. But if not, the next time they attack, they will know what to expect. They will be prepared. And so we had better be prepared ourselves.”

  Eventually, the magi were gone. Joram and the Prince were alone now, standing in the rubble of the blasted and ruined fortress of the Field of Glory.

  We are alone—if you don’t count the dead, Garald thought. Looking at the huge cairn that had been made of stones taken from the shattered walls, he thought back on the beginning of this day, remembering with bitter pain his dreams of the glories of battle, his delight in the silly game he had been playing.

  Some game. If it hadn’t been for Joram, he would be lying beneath that pile of stones. No he wouldn’t. There would have been no one left alive to bury him.

  “Please, please let this be ended!” he prayed fervently “Please grant us peace and I promise I …”

  But even as he spoke, he saw a dark figure emerge from the Corridors. Coming up to stand before Joram, the Duuk-tsarith gestured pointing toward mountainous country to the north. Joram nodded wordlessly and glanced at Garald. Turning away, weary and despairing, the Prince pretended he didn’t notice. He knew without hearing what the warlock had reported. The enemy hadn’t fled, they had done what Joram predicted and gone into hiding.

  Now what? Garald wondered bleakly. Now what?

  A hand touched his arm. Turning, he saw Joram at his side. Together, in silence, the two entered the Corridor and disappeared, leaving the fortress to the night and the dead.

  Beyond

  I leave this record with Father Saryon to be read in the event that I do not survive my initial encounter with the enemy …

  The enemy.

  I call them this, yet how many of them have become my friends over these past ten years? I think back on them, especially those who have ministered so gently to my wife and who helped me through those first few terrible months when I, too, feared I might lose my sanity. If word reaches them of what I am doing, I know they will understand, however. For they have fought him—the one known as the Sorcerer—far longer than I.

  I am going to tell you everything, you who read this. I wonder, as an aside, who that will be. My old friend, Prince Garald? My old foes, Xavier, Bishop Vanya? It doesn’t matter, I suppose, since you will all find yourselves on the same side in this conflict. Therefore I will set down everything that has happened to me as best I can explain it. It is imperative that you understand this enemy in the event that you are forced to fight him alone, without my aid.

  I will start at the beginning, or perhaps I should say the end.

  I can tell you little of my thoughts and feelings when I walked—as I suppose I did—into death, into Beyond. There is a darkness that comes over me sometimes that I cannot control. This darkness has been diagnosed by those in the world that I shall now call Beyond as a form of psychosis—a word they use to describe a mental disorder that is not physical in its cause.

  Shortly after my return to Thimhallan, Father Saryon asked me if I was thinking consciously of the Prophecy when I made my decision to walk i
nto death. Was I actively working to bring it to its fulfillment as a kind of revenge upon the world?

  Once more, I consider the words of the Prophecy. They are, as you might imagine, graven upon my heart as Bishop Vanya once threatened to carve the image of the Darksword upon my stone chest.

  There will be born to the Royal House one who is dead yet will live, who will die again and live again. And when he returns, he will hold in his hand the destruction of the world—

  It would be to my credit, I suppose, if I could answer yes to Saryon’s question. At least it would show that I was thinking clearly and rationally. Unfortunately, I wasn’t. Looking back, I see myself as I was then—arrogant, proud, self-centered—and I find it miraculous that I had the mental and physical strength to survive at all. That I did, I owe more to Father Saryon than to myself.

  I spent the hours before the Turning alone in a prison cell. There, my mind fell victim to the darkness that lurks within me. Fear and despair claimed me. To have suddenly discovered my true parentage and the strange accident of my upbringing, to know the terrible fate that was to be mine in order to keep me from fulfilling the Prophecy—these drove me almost to madness. When I stood upon the sand that day, I was aware of very little going on around me. I might well have been turned to stone already.

  The terrible, noble, loving sacrifice made by Father Saryon was a shining light into the darkness of my soul. By its bright radiance I saw the evil that I had brought upon myself and those I loved. Overwhelmed by grief for a man I had come too late to love and admire, sickened by the corruption I saw in the world—a corruption I knew was reflected in me—my only thought was to rid the world of the evil I had brought into it. I gave the Darksword into Saryon’s lifeless hands and I walked into death.

  I did not know at the time—so lost was I in my own despair—that Gwendolyn had followed me. I remember hearing her voice as I stepped into the mists, calling me to wait, and I may even have hesitated at that point. But my love for her, like everything else in my life, was a selfish love. I cast her from my thoughts as the chill fog closed over me, and I did not think of her again until I found her, lying unconscious, on the other side.