Dark Heart Part 51

'Have you come to do battle, ancient one?'

'No,' was the reply. The hybrid voice sent chills of fear down Duon's spine. He could hear age in it, and responsibility, and a desperate weariness.

And, inside his head, the magician listened.

'No, we have not come to challenge you, not yet. But you must know we are involved, and we have planned longer and with more care for these days than you can imagine. The very fact we awaited you here indicates we foresaw your actions. Keppia, it is not too late to return to the void. Or, if you desire it, we can give you release, the freedom you crave.'

The mercenary's eyes bulged. 'Do not patronise me! Release, indeed! Freedom for you to pursue your own goal of subjugating everyone under your smothering hand of benevolence. You are vulnerable here, Father, and I mean to make you pay for your mistake!'

He flung out an arm and drew up sand from the ground, then breathed on it with a breath of fire, fashioning six long spears of what looked to Duon like gla.s.s. Just like they manufacture gla.s.s back in Talamaq, he thought, somewhat irrelevantly. The spears' tips were sharp, their centres hollow.

'Seek!' the mercenary shouted, and the slivers of gla.s.s arrowed from him towards where the two Falthans stood, hand in hand. As the spears approached the edge of his bubble it vanished.

The Falthans did not move.

'We always have a plan, Son,' said the voice, and the two bodies changed, becoming something else: shapes of fire, with water for veins. The spears pa.s.sed through without so much as a sound, then vanished into the wall of the enclosure. The two Falthans resumed their true shapes. Or had Duon just witnessed their true form?

'No!' Dryman shouted.

'Have you forgotten the way this enclosure works?' the gentle voice asked the mercenary. 'I remember it. I remember playing here with you, Keppia, when you were a child, before you went out into the world. Tossing stones against the wall, seeing who could throw the highest. Remember what happened to those stones, Keppia?'

Duon saw the spears materialise on the far side of the enclosure. He saw them continue their journey as though nothing had interrupted them. Heading straight for the unwitting Dryman.

'I do not want to remember!' the mercenary shouted, as the gla.s.s needles pierced him. 'I choose to remember my hatred of you! I REJECT YOUR LOVE!'

The needles slipped through his body as if through water, emerging from his torso, his neck and his mouth, to fall spent at his feet.

'Aaah!' the mercenary cried. 'You have killed him!'

The body changed before Duon's horrified eyes, its features altering subtly. This was a man he'd never seen before, wholly the Emperor of Elamaq, exposed without his golden mask. The Son had left him, gone back to the void on the far side of the hole.

'No,' said the Emperor in his own voice, thick with blood. 'No.'

That was all: two puzzled exclamations of defiance against the black tide rolling through him. And then he fell to the ground, dead.

Stella and Heredrew walked slowly towards the body, but Torve was there before them, having crawled across the sand from where he had fallen.

'What do you see?' he shouted, his mouth pressed down against his master's ear. 'What do you see? Are there gates, great one?' He shook the body. 'Do those you killed await you there? Tell me! Is death the end? TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE!'

He collapsed on the body, crying like a child.

About the Author.

Russell Kirkpatrick's love of literature and a chance encounter with fantasy novels as a teenager opened up a vast number of possibilities to him. The idea that he could marry storytelling and mapmaking (his other pa.s.sion) into one project grabbed him and wouldn't let go.

Russell lectures in geography and manages a small mapmaking business. He lives in NZ with his wife and two children.

Visit Russell's website at: www.russellkirkpatrick.com.

Visit the Voyager website: www.voyageronline.com.au.

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Books by Russell Kirkpatrick.

Fire of Heaven.

Across the Face of the World (1).

In the Earth Abides the Flame (2).

The Right Hand of G.o.d (3).

Husk.

Path of Revenge (1).

Dark Heart (2).

end.