Dread Empire - All Darkness Met Part 26

Gla.s.s was a luxury even kings seldom wasted on windows.

Nepanthe rose from a bed. Ethrian lay sleeping on a couch. "Where is he? When can I see him?"

"Who?"

"My husband."

"I don't understand."

"The men who brought me to Throyes... .They said they were taking me to my husband. He sent for me. They had a letter."

"They lied." The woman smiled mockingly. "Permit me. I am Fadema. The Queen of Argon."

No "Pleased to "meet you" from Nepanthe. She went to the point. "Why am I here?"

"We had to remove you from Vorgreberg. You might have embarra.s.sed us there."

"Who is us?" "Madame." Another visitor entered.

"Oh!"

Trebilc.o.c.k, too, gasped.

He had never seen a Tervola, but he recognized the dress and mask. His heart redoubled its hammering. The man would discover them with his witchery....

"Shinsan!" Nepanthe gasped. "Again."

The Tervola bowed slightly. "We come again, Madame."

"W here's my husband?""He's well."

Nepanthe bl.u.s.tered, "You'd better send me home. You lied to me.... I have Varthlokkur's protection, you know."

"Indeed I do. I know exactly what you mean to him. It's the main reason we brought you here."

Nepanthe sputtered, fussed, threatened. Her visitors ignored her.

"Madame," said the Tervola, "I suggest you make the best of your stay. Don't make it difficult."

"What's happened to my husband? They told me they were taking me to him."

"I haven't the faintest idea," the Fadema replied.

Nepanthe produced a dagger, hurled herself at the Tervola.

He disarmed her easily. "Fadema, move the boy elsewhere. To keep her civil.

We'll speak to you later, Madame."

Nepanthe screamed and kicked and bit, threatened and pleaded. The Tervola held her while the Fadema dragged Ethrian away.

Michael Trebilc.o.c.k suffered several chivalrous impulses. He didn't fear the Tervola. But he did have a little common sense. It saved his life.

After the Fadema left, the Tervola said, "Your honor and your son are our hostages.

Understand?"

"I understand. Varthlokkur and my husband...."

"Will do nothing. That's why you're my captive."

In that he was mistaken. Varthlokkur ignored extortion, and Mocker just became more troublesome. It was in the blood.

" Your captive? Isn't this her city?"

"She seems to think so. Amusing, isn't it?" His tone grew harsh. "One year.

Behave and you'll be free. Otherwise.... You know our reputation. Our language has no word for mercy." He departed.

Michael waited five minutes, then crept forward to whisper to Aral.... And found Dantice dead asleep.

The idiot had slept through almost the whole thing.

"Ssst!"

Nepanthe responded to his third hiss by approaching the window fearfully.

"What? Who are you? I.... I know you."

"From Vorgreberg. My name is Michael Trebilc.o.c.k. My friend and I followed you here."

"Why?"

"To find out what you were up to. Those men were the same sort who killed the Marshall's wife. And your brother."She became angry anew. He had a hard time calming her.

"Look, you're in no real danger while they think they can use you to blackmail the wizard and your husband."

"What're you going to do?"

"I thought about bringing you out the window. But they've got your son. You probably wouldn't go...."

"You're right."

"There's nothing I can do for you, then. I can only go home and explain what happened. Maybe the Marshall can do . something."

Nepanthe leaned out the window. "The rain's stopped. It's getting light."

Trebilc.o.c.k groaned.

He and Aral would have to spend the day on that ledge.

Then the Fadema returned. But she stayed only long enough to taunt Nepanthe.

Michael thought he would die before daylight failed. That ledge was murderous.

The sun was deadly.... d.a.m.nable Arnal simply crowded the wall and snored.

Trebilc.o.c.k waited till the rain cleared the streets, then wakened Aral. He spoke with Nepanthe briefly before departing, trying to buoy her hopes.

"We'll ride straight through," he promised. "It won't take long."

Aral groaned.

"Wait," she said. "Before you leave. I want to give you something."

Her captors hadn't bothered searching her effects even after the dagger episode.

That arrogant confidence led to a crucial oversight.

She gave Michael a small ebony casket. "Give this to Varthlokkur. Or my brother if you can't find the wizard."

"What is it?"

"Never mind. Just believe that it's important. No matter what, don't let Shinsan get their hands on it. Turran called it the last hope of the west. Someone gave it to me to take care of because she was thinking about.... Never mind. Get it to Varthlokkur or my brother. Make sure it don't fall while you're going down." She checked his shirt to see if it was safely tucked in. "Oh, was I stupid! If he'd just stay home like normal people.... Those men knew just what to say to me. I'm lucky I've got friends to look out for me."

She gave each man a little kiss. "Good luck. And remember about the casket. It's easy to forget."

"We will," Trebilc.o.c.k told her. "And we'll be back. That's a promise."

"You're bold." She smiled. "Remember, I'm a married lady. Good-bye." She left the window. There was a bounce to her step that would puzzle her jailors for months.

Michael and Aral returned home. And the worst of their journey was getting down that eighty feet of tower.Exhausted, they reached Vorgreberg during the first week of August. They had been gone nearly three months.

EIGHTEEN: The Unborn

For a week no one dared enter the chamber where Fiana lay, where her child-of-evil was being nurtured by one of the older wickednesses of the world. Even Gjerdrum lacked the courage to intrude. He carried meals to the door, knocked, retreated.

Varthlokkur was indulging in those black arts which had made him so infamous. By week's end he had terrori/ed both Karak Strabger and Baxendala.

During the day the castle was obscured by a whirling, twisting darkness which throbbed like a heart beating. Its boundaries were sharply defined. The townspeople called it a hole through the walls of h.e.l.l. Some claimed to see the denizens of an Outer Domain peering out at the world with unholy hunger.

That was imagination. But the darkness was real, and by night it masked the stars over Karak Strabger. Eldritch lights from within sometimes cast red shadows on the mountains surrounding castle and town. And always there were the sounds, the wicked noises, like the roar of devil hordes praising some mighty demon-lord....

On the floor of the little chamber the sorcerer had laid out a pentagram which formed one face of an amazing construct. Eight feet above the floor floated another pentagram, traced in lines of fire. Rising like the petals of a flower, from the luminescent design on the floor, were five more pentagrams, sharing sides with five pentagrams depending from the design above. The whole formed a twelve-faced gem. Every apex was occupied by a silvery cabalistic symbol which burned cold and bright.

Additional symbols writhed on the surfaces of the planes.

The dead Queen lay on a table at the construct's heart. U pon her breast lay the monster she had died to bring into the world. Outside, the wizard worked on.

He called his creation the Winterstorm, though it had nothing to do with weather or season, but, rather, a dead magician's mathematical way of looking at sorcery. It was a gate to powers undreamt even in Shinsan. It had enabled the destruction of the Princes Thaumaturge in times of yore.

Like so many evils, it was terribly beautiful.

For a week Varthlokkur had labored, taking no rest, and little food. Now his hands trembled. His courage wavered. His sense of morality recoiled. The thing he was trying to create would be more evil than he. Darker, possibly, than the incalculable evils of Shinsan. What it did to the world would be determined by his ability to control it- especially in the critical moments approaching. If he failed, he would be just the first to die a grisly death. If he succeeded only partially, it would be but a matter of time till he lost control.

Success had to be complete and absolute. And he was so tired, so hungry, so weak....

But he had no choice. He couldn't stop now. Nor could he turn back. He was committed.

On the edges of his consciousness, out where his heightened senses met the Beyond, he heard the Lords of Chaos chuckling, whispering amongst themselves, casting lots for him.... He wasn't that kind of wizard. He refused to make deals. He increased the might of the Winterstorm and compelled them to respond to his will. He ordered, and they performed.

They hated him for it. And forever they would wait, tirelessly, patiently, for his fatal slip.His fiery wand touched several floating symbols. Those beings on the edges of his senses screamed. Agonized, they awaited his commands.

The symbols blazed brighter. Colored shadows frothed over the barren walls. The dark cloud shuddered and swirled round the stronghold. The people of Baxendala locked their shutters and doors. The handful of castle servants huddled downstairs. They would have fled if Gjerdrum had let them.

The Marshall had told him not to let anyone leave till he heard otherwise. The news was to be stifled till Ragnarson had stabilized the political response.

Gjerdrum was devoted to his Queen and Marshall. Though wanting nothing more than to flee himself, he kept his flock inside. Now, with the howl above redoubling, he again prepared to block a rush toward freedom.

Varthlokkur raised his arms and spoke softly to the denizens of the netherworlds.

He used the tongue of his childhood.

Those things would respond to any language. But the old tongue, shaped by the wizards of ancient llkazar, was precise. It didn't permit ambiguities demons could exploit.

He commanded.

The things on the Other Side cringed, whined-and obeyed.

The Queen's corpse surged violently. The terrible infant, englobed in a transparent membrane, still in a fetal curl, levitated. Its head turned. Its eyes opened. It glared at Varthlokkur.

"You see me," the wizard said. "I see you. I command you. You are my servant henceforth." For seven days he had been shaping its hideous mind, teaching it, building on the knowledge of evil stamped on the thing's genes. "Henceforth you shall be known as Radeachar, the Unborn."

The name, Radeachar, meant only "The One Who Serves," without intimations of actual servitude. It had overtones of destruction, of sorcery held ready as a swordsman holds a ready blade. In olden times those sorcerers who had marched with Ilkazar's armies had been ent.i.tled Radeachar. The nearest modern equivalent was the s.h.a.ghun of Hammad al Nakir.

It fought him. The things he compelled to aid him battled back. He pitted his will and power against the Unborn....

He had to win beyond any shadow of compromise.

It lasted thirteen hours.

Then he collapsed.