The Usurper

by James Alderdice

  Thorne fought like a tiger atop the wall, knocking the palace guard aside and pushing with his massive sword until he cleared a space to allow a few more of his dog brothers to climb over the wall. Together they pressed into the enemy until they had control of the portcullis and slowly raised up the black steel teeth.

  The instant that it was high enough, Gathelaus rode his charger through and brought his sword down on the heads of any palace guards brave or foolish enough to face him. Cleaving a bloody path through the royal courtyard, he called out, “When every man of ours is through, close and hold the gate from reinforcements!” He then wheeled his mount and rode the charger right into the palace corridors.

  ***

  As had been agreed upon for a signal, Jolly and two more men, shot three flaming arrows into the sky above the palace, signaling to Niels at the Wells Gate and Baron Undset out at the Eastern Gate that they had accomplished their subterfuge and were inside the palace walls.

  “Time to move,” said Baron Undset. His steward waved a red and black banner, and a portion of the mounted riders hurried toward the Wells Gate a second time that day.

  Niels had his men in position all over the Wells Gate and once they saw the flaming arrows they struck. They knocked aside the few men who had remained on the wall then took the gatehouse without a fight. The drawbridge was dropped, and the portcullis was raised. They wedged blocks into the chains the held the drawbridge and then manned the doorways, expecting a fight. To their surprise, none came.

  Niels glanced at the old officer who made no move toward the door of the gatehouse.

  “We got your messages,” said the old officer. “If Gathelaus is who he says he is, we welcome him taking control from cruel king Forlock.”

  The young man-at-arms beside the old captain did not look so convinced but laid his sword down.

  “You’re welcome to join the cause,” answered Niels. “This is about a cruel king and a new beginning.”

  The old officer tugged at his long mustache and nodded with a grin.

  Below them, wave after wave of riders came storming inside, the thunder of hooves over the bridge was like the drumming from a legion of devils. The cavalry swarmed in and behind them came a mass of the foot-soldiers and pikemen and archers. The city would be theirs.

  But first, to the palace…

  ***

  Looming gilded halls, decorated with fine tapestries and golden mirrors filled the corridor. Forced to stoop once he was beyond the first foyer, Gathelaus dismounted and strode forward. He was flanked by a score of his men and when they met a squad of royal guards they attacked with a fury.

  Hungry men who want are always stronger than those that simply exist.

  Gathelaus’s Sellsword’s cut the royalists down and moved on past fragrant gardens and massive tomblike rooms where servants clutched at their skirts aghast at the apocalypse that had come to their door.

  Royalist guardsmen attempted to hold a section of the upper palace, but were easily circumvented, since the open gardens and porches allowed for so many ways of egress into the royal residence. Fighting broke out in nearly every hall and open chamber.

  The great fountain in the central courtyard even had men jumping in to relieve themselves from the heat of the day only to be attacked by royalists who thought to catch them off guard. Men died in that pool and the waters became red as the apples on the trees above.

  A servant of the palace fleeing with an armful of fine silks and clutching pearl necklaces ran headlong into Gathelaus who knocked him to the marble floor.

  Pearls undone scattered across the white and black tiles like marbles.

  “Put it all back, or I’ll have your head,” said Gathelaus.

  The servant nodded meekly, scooped up the silks and pearls.

  “Which way to the throne room?” demanded Gathelaus.

  The servant pointed with a shaking finger toward a vaulted corridor lined with inlaid ebony and gold, then rushed back the way he had come.

  Cautiously moving down the gilded corridor, Gathelaus eyed with suspicion, panels in the wall that might denote secret passage for watching those that pass by. Great oaken doors stained a deep brownish-red from oxblood were closed. Nodding to his accompanying men, the doors were pushed open to reveal. No one.

  Great draperies hung beside windows twenty feet high, but there was no sign of escape nor anyone hiding here. A massive oaken throne was bare and cold.

  Finding the royal throne room empty, Gathelaus hastened on, hunting for both Forlock and Tormund Ghast.

  “Where could they be? An escape tunnel? A ship that rides a hidden canal to the river?” he asked anyone who could hear him.

  “I know where they are,” said a new voice, throaty and feminine. She was a beautiful auburn-haired woman in a gossamer robe; likely as not a part of Forlock’s harem.

  “Where?” asked Gathelaus.

  “Follow me,” she said, as she went to the far corner of the chamber. There she drew back one of the draperies revealing a slim ebony door. She opened it on a long dark hallway. A low burning lantern sat on a scalloped shelf beside the threshold and she turned the wick for maximum light. “This leads to passageway favored by Tormund Ghast when he wishes to leave the throne room unseen. I don’t know where it ends.”

  Thorne cautioned, with a wary eye at the woman. “Looks like a trap.”

  “By the gods I swear it is not!” she objected. Her chest heaved with passion but Gathelaus decided that her eyes were bold and true.

  “You have to trust somebody,” Gathelaus said.

  “The king and wizard did go down this passage not but a few moments ago,” she said.

  “My thanks,” said Gathelaus. He signaled his men to go through the doorway.

  “May I come with you? I’ll carry the lantern,” she asked.

  He looked her up and down but shook his head. “Maybe next time,” said Gathelaus as he strode into the dark.

  One of the men took the lantern from her and went inside the passage.

  “How do you know you aren’t stepping into a trap, chief?” asked Thorne.

  “I don’t. But it is a step I must make,” said Gathelaus as the words from the witch Norn returned to his mind.

  They foretold direct from the gods they said that he would be the usurper, that he would be king. Now was the time to move on that and take hold of destiny if not his own life. Time to make that destiny a reality.

  What else had the Norn’s said? Step carefully?

  “Everyone keep your distance in this hall. It won’t do for two men to be lanced by a single spear or fall together into a pit,” he warned.

  They went some hundred paces until they reached a narrow stair. Thorne tried to press by first but Gathelaus took him by the shoulder. “Let me go first.”

  “But you’re to be king, let me face the first danger for you.”

  “Another time,” said Gathelaus. “I won’t call it destiny, but I must go first for the sake of knowing where to step.”

  Thorne shook his head at that but allowed his commander to do as he would. He and the warrior holding the lantern stayed right on Gathelaus’s heels up the winding stairs.

  There was a movement in the air, as if the pressure from a chamber far above drew breath from this channel like a mighty lung. Gathelaus had felt this change before in great caverns and he wondered at the very scope of the palace.

  The passage curved now as if following the contours of a circular tower.

  “I think I know where we are,” whispered Thorne. “I saw a circular tower toward the rear of the palace. It sits behind the greater squared tower.”

  Gathelaus nodded. “The wizard’s private abode. Be wary, there will be some black magic keeping court here.”

  Advancing, the curving stair finally came to a landing that extended some twenty feet. The hallway was wider here at about seven feet, but the ceiling was unseen, vanishing into endless darkness above. Beyond the landing there was a doorway where they saw
the light of day within a wide chamber. Surely, they were at the top of the tower.

  Gathelaus and his dozen men moved with silence, bare steel in their hands.

  Not until all of them save the final warrior were on the landing did the impossible happen.

  The floor fell away.

  Stretching with cat-like reflexes, Gathelaus caught himself against the walls, having only fallen just beneath the level of the former floor. Thorne too had caught himself bracing arms and legs against the opposite sides of the wall, though he was much farther down than Gathelaus. The others who had not been so tall as Gathelaus and Thorne nor as quick, screamed in black terror all the way down until the bone breaking crash far below.

  Only the final warrior who had not yet stepped upon the landing was still standing, “Votan! What shall I do?”

  “Fetch a rope and more men,” said Gathelaus, through gritted teeth. He had managed to keep hold of his sword, but his knuckles disliked being pressed so firmly against the cold stone of the palace walls. He wished to replace his sword in his sheath but dared not lose his pressure against the wall.

  The last warrior vanished, his steps faintly audible hurrying down the stair.

  Thorne was perhaps, a good six feet lower than Gathelaus as each man was extended arms and legs against the wall. “Lost my sword,” he lamented. “But you did say to step careful.”

  “Can you make it?” asked Gathelaus.

  “Aye, but it will be slow and easy.”

  “I’m still heading to the door to slay wizard and tyrant,” growled Gathelaus.

  “I’m coming,” said Thorne.

  Gathelaus crab-walked sideways toward the open door. Wondering if at any moment a royalist guard might appear and spear him. But there was no sound or even hint of movement nor shadow from the brightly lit doorway.

  Gathelaus kept slightly below the doorway so as not to illuminate himself should anyone be passing by, even though he believed anyone within must have surely been aware and heard his men fall to their deaths. Perhaps they thought they had all fallen, but wouldn’t they have looked? Who can understand the cruel mind of wizards?

  Glancing to the side, Thorne was making progress heading in the same direction.

  Gathelaus brought himself up to the side of the doorway and reaching grasped the floor. It was cold marble. He let go with his feet and let himself fall to then lunge up and enter the chamber.

  It was a circular with windows spaced closely along the round edges, granting much light into the sparsely furnished area. Not what he would have expected for a dark magician’s abode.

  “Finally,” rasped the wizard. “We have been waiting for some time.’

  Gathelaus wheeled and saw the grey visage of king Forlock sitting upon an ebony throne that itself was on a three tired dais. The throne was a much smaller piece of furniture than the huge oaken chair below in the abandoned room, but there was no doubt that this was his regal chair alone, even if this was the wizard’s hideaway.

  Forlock’s eyes were stormy grey and his face was an angry shade of red while his brows were knitted in a tangle of fury, gripping his bulbous scepter until his knuckles turned white and yet he contained himself thanks to the wizard’s vulture like presence.

  Tormund Ghast, hovered near the king, hunched in his black robes. A leering smile beneath his beak-like nose.

  “Waiting?” challenged Gathelaus. “You could have opened the gates much sooner, and I’d have been happy to come and give you your just deserts.”

  Forlock made as if to protest, but Tormund Ghast, raised a hand to silence his remarks. “We had to be sure you were the one, brave Gathelaus, and now I am sure.”

  “Sure of what? That I am the man to kill you both!”

  The wizard laughed mirthlessly. “No. That you are the man most beloved by the old gods. They watch you with great anticipation and when I sup upon your blood it will be the final insult that their day is done.”

  “I’d be a might disappointed by that as well,” said Gathelaus, taking a step closer, wary of anyone else in the chamber that he might have missed the first time he looked about. He still wasn’t sure how he had missed seeing them both the first time. Perhaps the wizard had an aspect of glamour concealing himself at will in this high tower of sorcery.

  “Such is life,” replied Tormund Ghast.

  “Why are we waiting any longer,” fumed Forlock. “Summon your demon and be done with it!” He gestured angrily toward Gathelaus with his golden scepter. “His men soil my palace even now! Let us clear this taint and banish the foe!”

  “Patience my king. When you savor the meal, it tastes such the sweeter,” said Tormund Ghast.

  “This is your meal, not mine!” shouted Forlock, rising from his throne. He was a big man, and twenty years ago, he looked as though he could have been quite a match for Gathelaus in size and strength.

  Gathelaus advanced quickly.

  “You force my hand, the both of you!” snarled Tormund Ghast, as he made a gesture with his hands and light flashed from his palm and the room warped.

  Gathelaus’s sword was raised and with both hands he brought it down upon the wizard’s skull.

  But Tormund Ghast was not there, and the sword went down and cracked the marble tiles below. Gathelaus’s hands rung from the impact and shot his head each way looking for the vanished enemy.

  They were on the opposite side of the chamber, a good fifty paces away. Forlock appeared amused at the turnabout though he stood upon the dais, gripping his bauble-headed scepter like a mace.

  “Take what’s coming to you,” Gathelaus growled at them.

  “You are a babe in arms, unaware of the wider world,” taunted the wizard.

  Gathelaus charged at them once more, only to find that as he reached them, they were not there either and faded from view like an oasis in the desert.

  “We can play your games all day wizard, but my men have taken the palace and invade the city, sooner or later, your time runs out,” said Gathelaus.

  Forlock was quite displeased with that. “You said I would not have to deal with his upstart revolution. You said he would be dead!”

  Tormund Ghast said, “He cannot touch us, and once he is slain his army will blow away like dust before the storm.”

  There was another warping of the room and Gathelaus saw that once more, his foes were as far away as possible yet still inside the tower’s chamber.

  “Play your hand wizard, for this trickery will not stay my blade!” shouted Gathelaus.

  Tormund Ghast cackled. “I am a cat and you are but a mouse, one that will be most delicious and feed me as I become a god.”

  Forlock shouted, “I can slay this usurper myself! Damn your mummery!”

  “Wait!” shouted Tormund Ghast.

  As Forlock came down the steps, the glamour was broken.

  Gathelaus had been heading straight toward what he thought was the king and wizard, but suddenly found that as Forlock left the dais, he was now to Gathelaus’s far left.

  The rest of the glamour was thrown into disarray and the outside images of the walls and the wizard wheeled about him and leaving no discernable image remaining still. It was as if the outside world had become a kaleidoscope of retreating and advancing images. Only Forlock, stolidly approaching with his scepter remained in focus.

  “I’ve forgotten what it was like to be a king and a warrior,” said Forlock. “What it was like to take a man’s life with my own two hands.”

  Gathelaus did not answer him but held his sword at the ready, trusting his other senses in case this was bit an illusion too.

  The sound, the vibration of Forlock’s very steps and even the hint of his fetid breath told Gathelaus this was real and that the man stood before him raising the skull-crushing scepter.

  Launching a hard right, Gathelaus sent his blade forward and to the left and cut a deep gash along Forlock’s arm.

  Blood made Forlock’s courage slip away. He dropped his scepter and cried out, �
�Ghast! Help me!”

  Darkness overtook Gathelaus and he swung his sword, hunting for the hidden foe.

  “Assiyah and Yetƶirah! I call upon thee as thy favored son! Strength of devils imbue my liege!” thundered Tormund Ghast from the spinning darkness.

  There was a thunderclap in the reeling darkness and as light returned…

  Gathelaus felt his sword knocked from his hand by a terrific blow. A moment ago, Forlock had been on the point of faint and collapse from his bleeding forearm, but now he towered over Gathelaus as if he had grown to twice his height. His face was red as if from a raging fever and had a palpable heat emanating. His crown had grown too small and fell from his head, his fine clothing tore and ripped at the seams to fit his ample frame.

  “Illusion,” growled Gathelaus as he launched himself barehanded at the king.

  Forlock caught Gathelaus in a bearhug. His size was no illusion. He was twice his former size and his skin burned beyond the pitch of any fever a man might live through. Steam rose from the torn clothing on his body and Gathelaus felt like he was pressed beside a near boiling cauldron.

  Forlock squeezed like a python and Gathelaus felt the air pressed from his lungs as his skin was scalded.

  Tormund Ghast stood beside them. “You’ve won my king, drop him that I may taste his blood while he yet lives a few moments longer, you’ve nearly crushed him to death.”

  Forlock, whose eyes blazed with madness, stared at the wizard he now towered over. He dropped Gathelaus and took a step forward. His voice boomed as if from the depths of hell. “Think you my master now? I am power! I will drink his blood and trod his army beneath my foot. Too long I have heeded your advice while you kept such strength from me!”

  “Fool!” grated Tormund Ghast. “This was but a way to preserve your miserable life awhile longer. He would have slain you in an instant and this is how you repay me?”

  Forlock lunged for the wizard, but he had no understanding of his new bulk and missed as the wizard edged away.

  “You burn too hot, Forlock! You’ve outworn your usefulness, and I take back your might! Assiyah and Yetƶirah! Take back your gift.”

  A thunderclap sounded, and Forlock fell to his knees and gradually shrunk back to his all too human form. His clothing shredded to rags fell from his shoulders yet steaming and scorched. It remained hot to the touch as he tried to cover his nakedness but could not bear the heat and dropped them once again.