Kings of Sorcery

by Robert Ryan

  She drew close, and finally came to a stop. Brand sensed Sighern stir beside him. He no longer carried the banner. It had been reattached to the pole and set in the ground. It may not be clean anymore, but the blood of a hero was a better emblem than a dragon.

  “It’s the marsh witch,” Sighern said, and he made to move forward to greet her.

  Brand clamped a hand down on his shoulder, and kept him in place. Sighern seemed confused, but Brand was growing certain. He had already lost one that he liked today; he would not lose another.

  He stepped forward a pace, and spoke. “Greetings, old mother. Did you change your mind and come to help?”

  She shuffled a step closer on her walking sticks.

  “Aye, lad. I did, but it seems I’m too late. The battle is fought and won.”

  “It’s never too late,” Brand answered. “Come to the light, and leave evil behind.”

  The old witch looked at him quizzically for a few moments, as though puzzling something through.

  Brand, too, was making up his mind. The witch had the gift of prophecy, and she had said they would never meet again. Yet here she was, or one that looked like her but was not. One that had been hunting him.

  They moved at the same time. Brand drew his sword, and it caught the red rays of the dying sun. The two walking sticks of the witch became swords, and her body shimmered and transformed.

  She was the witch no more. The guise was gone, the strands of magic that formed it loosed. What stood before Brand was a Halathrin warrior.

  He heard shouts of elf as the two blades flashed toward him, but he was already moving. Yet even so he barely avoided them. The elf warrior was fast, and Brand knew he would have been dead had he not been suspicious.

  Their blades flickered and crashed together. There was recognition in the elf warrior’s eyes: at first touch he knew Brand’s sword had been wrought by his own kind, and it surprised him. Mortals possessed few such weapons. But it did not cause him to falter. His twin blades were in constant motion, testing, cutting, flicking and thrusting. He moved with sublime grace, but speed and power went with it.

  Few could have stood against him. Or none. But Brand was no ordinary warrior. His skills had been honed in a crucible of necessity and danger that others would not have survived. But he had survived, and learned.

  Brand swept his blade at the elf’s neck, but at the last moment flicked his wrist and thrust. This threw off his opponent’s deflection and nearly killed him. It would have killed anyone else, but the elf merely rocked back out of the way and drove in again, faster and deadlier than before.

  Brand was pushed back. He gave ground grudgingly, and tried to find the warrior’s state of mind: stillness in the storm. But it mostly eluded him. Too much had happened today, and there was a cold anger within him that would not give way.

  The elf pushed him back further, and Brand swung to the side, being careful not to be predictable and retreat in the same direction all the time. He studied the elf as he blocked and parried and swayed. The creature looked like a Halathrin, but was not quite the same. Brand had met immortals before, and they never had such pale skin nor eyes that lusted after battle and blood as did this one. But they were possessed of magic that allowed them to assume guises.

  What other magic did his attacker possess? Brand allowed himself to calm as he retreated. He still could not assume stillness in the storm, but he was closer. The cold fury that troubled him receded, and by just defending he allowed himself some opportunity to think. The elf would soon use whatever other skills he had. The longer this went on, the greater the danger to him. Even if he killed Brand as he wanted, how then would he escape an army?

  The answer was clear. He would assume another guise in the turmoil and try to escape that way. But if then, why not sooner and during the battle?

  Brand fixed his gaze on him, and he swerved once more as he retreated. This time he thrust forward with his blade even as his feet shuffled backward. Again, he nearly struck the elf, but his opponent recovered quickly. One of the black swords swept at Brand’s neck while the other jabbed at his groin.

  Stumbling, Brand fell back. The elf drove at him in a fury of blades, but Brand had feigned his imbalance. His own sword arced through the air in a beheading stroke, but the elf was no longer there. With blistering speed he ducked the blade, rolled away and came to his feet once more, black blades circling the air before him.

  “A valiant attempt, mortal. But you are no match for my kind.”

  Brand grinned at him. “In my experience, warriors who start a conversation during a fight are frightened of losing. They need to try to talk themselves into the fact that they’re better.”

  The elf did not answer, but the killing light in his eyes shone brighter and he darted forward, almost too fast to see. He moved as though he had no bones, only sinuous muscles that coiled and struck like a darting adder.

  Their blades flashed and clanged again. Brand would rather have deflected than blocked, but his opponent was too good. He was forced off balance all the time, cramped in his movements and his own attacks mostly anticipated. He had never faced so skilled an opponent, and it was a battle he wondered if he would lose. Nor could he expect help. It was a one on one fight, and no one would dishonor him by changing that.

  If he were to win, he must at least survive a while longer, but this was increasingly hard. His enemy was running out of time, for the army, though spellbound by the duel, was beginning to form a circle around the combatants. The elf had to win and escape soon, or he never would.

  The elf drove him back, his cold eyes burning with battle lust, his every move smooth, graceful and deadly. In his hands, the two dark swords wove a spell of sharp-edged death, yet Brand held them off and launched a counterattack. He was tired of retreating.

  With swift movements of his own, if not quite so graceful, his pattern-welded blade arced silver fire through the gathering dusk, cutting, slashing and jabbing.

  The elf reeled away, only to attack again, but Brand harnessed his anger and leaped to meet him. Hot sparks flew from the blades and cold metal shrieked. A moment they stood thus, almost uncaring of defense as they each strove to kill, and then the elf nimbly leaped back.

  He stood there, his swords held loosely in his hands, barely seeming to draw breath while Brand panted. And then he grinned, his pale face white in the gathering dark, but a streak of red ran across his cheek where the tip of Brand’s sword had marked him.

  Brand knew what would come now. He had been waiting for it, though what form it would take and what would best combat it he did not know. He drew a deep breath and lifted the tip of his sword a little higher.

  When it came, it still surprised him. The elf just stepped away from himself. There were two of him now, both black-clad, garbed in silver armor, pale eyes burning with battle lust. But each image held only one dark sword.

  Which was real and which illusion? Brand was not quite sure, even though he had been watching closely. This he knew though: the elf would not wait.

  Brand sent out a tendril of his own magic to the image on the right. It was the one that he thought may have been the elf himself. But he did not wait to be attacked by either. Instead, he dived to the right and rolled, moving first to take the initiative and coming to the side of the righthand image so that they could not both advance on him and attack at the same time.

  He surged to his feet, his sword weaving before him. To the side, Shorty and Taingern advanced. It was no longer a one on one fight. But he doubted they would reach either image in time.

  Swift as jagged lightning, both elves sprang for him, but the second was hindered by the first, and the tendril of Brand’s own magic sensed the real from the illusory.

  He darted to the side again, as though ignoring the closer illusion and moving to combat the second. But at the last moment he ducked a vicious strike from the closest image that would have beheaded him and stabbed his Halathrin blade up into its body.

  Brand
drove the blade with all his might, surging up from his bent legs, thrusting also with the strength of his arms and angling the point of the sword to reach beneath the ribs and pierce the heart.

  He knew instantly that he had chosen the correct target. His blade struck no image but a real body. Even elvish chainmail parted when struck by the point of a Halathrin sword driven by the full might of a skilled warrior.

  The sword sheared through armor and clothes, through flesh and blood. It drove up, higher and higher, lifting the elf off the ground. There he hung a moment, the fury in his eyes washed away by surprise. Blood fountained from his mouth, and he died.

  Brand kicked the corpse off his blade. He swung to see the other image, but it drifted away even as he watched like a whisper of mist vanishing into the air.

  He turned back to the dead elf. Pale skin shriveled. The eyes burned away. Its whole body, armor and swords as well, disintegrated and seeped into the very soil as though made of some dark water that soaked into a subterranean chamber of the earth, far, far beneath the sight or reach of men.

  Brand stood there, leaning on his sword in great weariness. It had been an endless day, but he had survived, if changed and only just. The battle was won, but the war was yet to come, and the magician that sought his death was a power in the world not to be dismissed or forgotten. He would try to kill him again, and Brand knew now that freeing the Duthgar was but a secondary thing. Whatever power the magician served was of the Dark, and there lay a greater peril to the land than ever Unferth could dream to be.

  Epilogue

  Char-harash, Lord of the Ten Armies, Ruler of the Thousand Stars, Light of Kar-fallon and Emperor of the Kar-ahn-hetep dreamed.

  And his dreams were of battle and dark magic.

  From the north swept an army of Letharn. Rank after rank of infantry marched. From the east came an army also, this of cavalry and chariots. Before both forces advanced the wizard-priests of the Letharn. With them they summoned lightning that leaped from the sky at their gesture and tore the earth asunder. When they raised their hands, the solid ground heaved as though it were an angry sea.

  Battle raged. Sword clashed against sword. Horses neighed and men screamed. Magicians opposed wizard-priests and the world spun in smoke and fire while the sky darkened and chaos reigned.

  Out of the chaos drove a spear. Char-harash cried out in pain. It took him in the stomach and spilled his entrails into the trampled dust.

  No. He had cried out in pain. And then came the great dark. He knew it for what it was. Death. The gateway to the realm of the gods. He embraced it, for he was a god himself.

  He hesitated. No. It was not so. He fought it, for he was not yet a god. He fought to live, but pain engulfed him. He felt the spear drive deep toward his heart, felt it pull out again, heard his moan as death took him.

  Yes. That was long ago. The great dark still surrounded him. Entombed. Chanted over by his magicians. He heard the echo of their ancient spells even now. Or was he still being interred?

  No. Eons had passed. The stars had shifted in the sky. Or was his last breath still fresh upon his resin-embalmed lips?

  The dark hid things from him. But not all. Slowly he began to wake, and he called one of his kind to him. Horta, a magician of his own line. He was a magician also. Char-harash. The God-king.

  And soon he would wake and tread the earth once again. Let his foes fear him.

  He dreamed no more. Dreams were for men. He was to become a god, and he would not dream but rather send nightmares to his enemies.

  Thus ends The Pale Swordsman. The Dark God Rises trilogy continues in book two, The Crimson Lord, where Brand must face the usurper, his army, and discover more of his true adversary.

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  Dedication

  There’s a growing movement in fantasy literature. Its name is noblebright, and it’s the opposite of grimdark.

  Noblebright celebrates the virtues of heroism. It’s an old-fashioned thing, as old as the first story ever told around a smoky campfire beneath ancient stars. It’s storytelling that highlights courage and loyalty and hope for the spirit of humanity. It recognizes the dark, the dark in us all, and the dark in the villains of its stories. It recognizes death, and treachery and betrayal. But it dwells on none of these things.

  I dedicate this book, such as it is, to that which is noblebright. And I thank the authors before me who held the torch high so that I could see the path: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Susan Cooper, Roger Taylor and many others. I salute you.

  And, for a time, I too will hold the torch high.

  Appendix A: The Runes of Life and Death

  Halls of Lore. Chamber 7. Aisle 21. Item 426

  General subject: Divination

  Topic: The use of magic and talismans

  Author: Careth Tar

  In the south of Alithoras, west of the lands of Azanbulzibar and the barrow mounds of the Shadowed Wars, which the immortal Halathrin call Elù-haraken, dwell a strange people.

  They name themselves Kar-ahn-hetep, which means “children of the thousand stars” in their ancient language. But the long ages since their days of glory, and the short memory and fast tongues of men have reduced this to “Kirsch.” Yet the wise know their true name, and the remnant of their race that still survive cling to it – and also to their old ways of magic.

  The land of the Kirsch was once fertile, but the eons have altered the climate. It has become arid. These people existed in the time of the Letharn, and well before them, and inhabited one of the few lands not overrun by that conquest-hungry race. The inhabitants were fierce fighters. They were also numerous. And the great distance from Letharn strongholds was an additional defensive advantage. But mostly, their survival and indeed aggression toward the Letharn sprung from this: the Kirsch practiced arts of powerful magic unlike that possessed by others.

  Briefly, this is the nature of their magic arts. It centers around a belief in the primordial powers that form and substance the universe. This is what we would term ùhrengai. From this primordial force, two alternate forces arose. Again, what we recognize as lòhrengai and elùgai. But after that their beliefs diverge.

  We, as lòhrens, use the one power. Elùgroths use the other. The Kirsch, on the other hand, use both – but they do not believe they access it directly. Instead, they employ talismans to focus their thought. Also, and importantly, they believe that agencies intervene in this process on the magician’s behalf. This is often thought to be the spirits of the dead and other forces of nature, call them gods if you will. All of these act as conduits between themselves and the primordial power.

  An example of this is the practice of divination.

  The chief means of foretelling among the Children is the casting of the Runes of Life and Death. These are bones. Sometimes animal in origin, sometimes (and preferably) human.

  Human finger bones are favored for a specific reason. The more so if they are obtained from a person of power. Human bones, especially from a powerful person, increase the accuracy of the foretelling because the agency constrained to act on the magician’s behalf is more puissant. Thus, the finger bones of dead magicians are highly sought after. This gives rise to graverobbing, and in turn elaborate means of disguising tombs to thwart exhumation. Also, it generates distrust among their society. Magicians hate (and fear) one another, always seeking to kill lesser rivals and protect themselves from greater.

  The runes consist of ten bones. Each has two paired runes cut into them and colored by blood, two aspects of the same concept or force. By reading which opposite of a paired rune falls, and how the bones scatter in relation to each other, the future is told. Sometimes, a bone wil
l not land squarely on one side or the other. This signifies doubt.

  It is customary to shake the pouch that contains the runes ten times before use in order to prevent conscious tampering with the divination. It is also a tradition not to withdraw ten bones at once, this being considered to signal the highest ill-fortune should it occur by accident.

  These are the ten runes and their double meanings, as translated from an ancient text.

  Hotep: change – quiescence

  It is the nature of the world that things change. Nothing is still. All things exist in a state of flux. The stars move in the sky. The wind blows across desert sands, shifting grains that once were boulders. Flowers bloom, and then in turn wither. This is change, and even the bones of the earth feel it. Yet there is that to humankind which is not material. It is of the spirit. And the spirit of man seeks quiescence. The wise know that true quiescence is the acceptance of change. The foolish seek always to grasp at starlight.

  This then is the moral: when change is afoot, seek to be centered and accepting. Look for the opportunity that transformation will bring. If there is no apparent change, beware. Danger approaches!

  Karmun: death – life

  All things born of the earth return to dust. Only ideas are eternal. Yet an idea is nothing without a living mind to give it shape and purpose and voice. Death is not to be feared, nor embraced. It must be accepted. It, too, is an idea. In a living mind it can be fed by fear until it grows into a great, slavering beast that chases us without cessation. Or it can be accepted, its power used instead to nurture understanding of the beauty of transience.

  This then is the moral: death is always close. Seek not to escape it, for in doing so you will run toward it. Rather, the wise accept it, and give themselves true life.