Hammer of Darkness

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Not exactly. More like…” The Viceroy halts. She wants to say Armaggeddon, but that is not it either. She sniffs. The faintly musky odor is not Forde. Rather Lady Kryn. She is afraid, and she withholds the shiver the thought could bring. Why?

  The questions leap into her head again. One she lets stay. After all, Martel had worn black. Why does she fear men in black? Why poor Martin Martel?

  Except—is he still poor Martin Martel, penniless Regent's Scholar? Or does that Martin even exist? Or was he dust a millennium ago? Who is the real Martel? Does she really want to know?

  A locator arrow flicks to the bottom of the screen before her, identifying a new and building energy concentration. Her eyes dart toward the red arrow, and the black dot it identifies.

  “Magnification,” she says quietly, heart pounding nonetheless.

  She centers the screen on the dot she recognizes as Martel even before the picture is fully focused. “The same one,” whispers Forde to the Marshal.

  The Marshal frowns, then raises his line-thin black eyebrows in a question, as if to ask which one.

  Another locator arrow flares, and the Viceroy splits the main screen into two views. The right-hand view holds Martel in dead center, standing inside the laser screens of the temple of the Fallen One on the steps. The left-hand vision refocuses on an object sweeping out of the dawn sun. “Goats,” mumbles Forde.

  “A god of Aurore, apparently,” observes the Viceroy, her voice but a fraction tighter than normal, the tension unnoticed by either subordinate.

  Both Forde and the Marshal stare, wide-eyed, at the apparition that fills the left screen.

  Two goats, each the size of a bison, red-eyed and yoked to a four-wheeled bronze cart, paw their way through the cloudless morning skies. A red-haired, red-bearded man, armored and complete with pointed and horned helmet, leans forward in the cart and brandishes a graystone hammer in his right hand. In his left are the red leather reins.

  The Regent's hands suddenly begin to play across the power controls.

  CLANG! CLANG! RED ALERT! RED ALERT! FULL DEFENSE SCREENS! FULL DEFENSE SCREENS!

  Another call goes to the Fifth and Seventh Fleets, not that they could accomplish anything in the space above the Viceregal city itself, but Kryn knows they will be of help after the clash between the two gods. And their records may be of great assistance in documenting the power of the gods of Aurore.

  The lights in the control center flicker. “All power sources outside the palace screens have been diverted,” reports the power center.

  “Diverted? Where?” As she speaks she realizes the stupidity of the question. Martel would be grabbing power from wherever he can find it, and that may not be enough if Thor, assuming he is a god from Aurore, can draw on the entire field from that distance.

  Half the controls before her are dead. Nothing outside the palace shields is operative. She watches, merges the two screen visions into one as the goat cart swings down out of the rising sun toward a black marble temple and a man in black. Watches, fists clenched at her sides, not knowing what outcome she wants, not knowing if either outcome is what she wants.

  * * *

  LIII

  The Hammer of Darkness

  Though the wind joy-sings, it's a long way from here. Though the boughs whisper, they whisper of fear. Though the leaves linger, they lean to the wind. And the wind, it is colder for those who have sinned. The wind it is colder; the wind it is cold; The wind it is colder for those who have sinned.

  The ravens are winging; their wings are so black. The lightnings are singing; the sun is turned back. The storm clouds are drawing; the sun grows so dim; And the dark god is coming; I know it is Him! The dark god is coming; the dark god is coming; The dark god is coming; I know it is Him!

  Up on the hillside, where the grasses are gold, The blossoms will fold to the touch of the cold. The grasses love sunshine; the trees love the shade; But neither will stand to the cold He has made. But neither will stand to; neither will stand; But neither will stand to the cold He has made.

  The sunshine we've prayed for, but here comes the night. The darkness is gathering to blot out the light. The hammer of darkness will fall from the sky; The old gods must fly, and the summer will die. The old gods must fly; the old gods must fly; The old gods must fly, and the summer will die.

  Though the wind joy-sings, it's a long way from here. Though the boughs whisper, they whisper of fear. Though the leaves linger, they lean to the wind. And the wind, it is colder for those who have sinned. The wind it is colder; the wind it is cold; The wind it is colder for those who have sinned.

  —Hymn, Church of the Fallen One

  Composer unknown

  * * *

  LIV

  Martel waits. Stands on the temple steps. On the steps of the temple where he slept through the night, slept knowing the hammer-thrower has been dispatched after him, carrying the mandate of the gods, particularly of Apollo and Emily.

  He does not question how he knows what transpired above Jsalm. Knowing is enough. The time to question will be later, if there is a later. As he feels the instrument of vengeance draw near, he prepares to accept the blows of the hammer-thrower.

  One does not fight the blows of a single old god, not when the field of Aurore is massed behind that tottering old god. One fights all the gods.

  The goat chariot clatters out of the sun, a black point in the white-gold circle of light, wheels spinning backward, and hums battle chants from a warriors' tongue forgotten longer than the languages of the obscure poets Martel has made a practice of quoting. Thrummm! Thrummm, da-dum, da-dumm. Martel hears the rhythm. Smiles. Husbands the energy he had drawn from his confrontation with the Lady Kryn, readies his shunts from the Viceroy's power system, and holds his darkness for the assault. Thrumm! Thrumm, da-dumm, da-dummm. The sound is nearer, and it rattles the looser shutters of the battered gray villas that border the black temple. Thrummm! Thrummm, da-dum, da-dummm.

  The sun darkens, though no clouds mar the blue-green of the morning sky. The Viceroy has activated the city's defense screens. “Hsssst! Hssst!”

  The breathing of the battle goats falls like rain across the pavements of the city of the Viceroy, each fragment carrying a sparkle of light that breaks as it strikes the ground or hard surface.

  The sun flickers again as the goat chariot and its master hurdle through the defense screens, haloed in the energy that bathes them momentarily.

  A violet pencil of light leaps from a hidden emplacement, stabs at the bearded god, touches the cart, its bronze bosses, its time-darkened wood.

  The god, for it is Thor, and his graystone hammer is mighty, lifts that hammer, points it, but does not trouble himself to release it. Along the path he has pointed, back along the searing violet, strikes a bolt of lightning.

  The violet light knife is no more, and above the blackened hole a small thunderstorm gathers, raining metal among the boiling water that it drops.

  “Behold! Behold!” thunders Thor, his eyes burning red, his beard flaming. “Oppose not the gods!”

  His words crash across the city. Two dozen men, five women, and three children die instantly from the sonic concussion. Another 231 will be permanently deaf unless major auditory surgery is performed.

  “I oppose,” says Martel, standing on the steps of the small black temple, and his words, scarcely more than a whisper, reverberate through Karnak, even into the sealed chambers of the Viceroy, even through the triple screens of the core-tap power stations, even into the brains of those who cannot hear, and into the awareness of those who cannot reason.

  The thunderstorms, the fire vortex, and the glitter rain of the battle goats dissolve into mist at the words of the man in black.

  “OPPOSE NOT THE GODS! NOR THE HAMMER OF THOR!” thunders the hammer-thrower. The chariot of the ages and its hiss-breathing goats veer leftward as they rumble down toward the temple.

  Another group of unfortunates, somewhat larger now that the thunder-god is near
atop the city, perish. “I oppose.”

  And again, the quiet words soothe the injured, damp the thunderstorms, and enrage the hammer-thrower of Aurore.

  “THEN PERISH! FALLEN ONE! RETURN WHENCE YOU CAME! BEGONE!”

  Thor does not gesture this time. He throws his hammer, that mighty graystone hammer, and he hurls it full at the stocky man in black, who stands upon black marble steps, at that man who would seem slight beside the burliness of the ancient god. In that moment, the sun flickers, and brightens.

  The hammer falls. Falls like thunder, falls like the point of massive lightning. Falls like death.

  The city shakes, as if wrenched by the grasp of a wounded earth giant. Roofs crack, split asunder. Waves on the Lake of Dreams swamp the empty swanboats, spend their force in inundating the gardens bordering the lake.

  The ancient oaks, brought light-years to serve no purpose but the whim of a departed Prince, bend. Bend more, then, as one, snap in two like dry sticks across a kindler's knee.

  The yellow light flowers lining the paths from the lake to the palace flare, then crumble into black dust.

  The lights of the city fail. Fail, reeling from the stroke of the graystone hammer. Reeling from the power of an ancient god. And darkness pounces, from house to hovel to villa to palace.

  Across the void, behind a golden field, on a planet that is not a planet, the cast of the graystone hammer is felt by those gathered in the air above a sacred mountain. Two gods, a goddess, and a scattering of demigods nod. A certain shore trembles with the turning of a chained being in the depths below.

  In the last nanoseconds before the hammer reaches Martel, the villas around the black temple, their walls already flattened and scattered, are pulverized into particles, and the gray dust rises. Rises to block the receptor screens, to shield the view of the telltales, those few that are self-powered and still functioning. Before her screens, a woman finds her view blanked by the swirled dust. The Viceroy finds tears upon her cheeks, tears unsummoned. Tears unknown since before the fall of the Prince Regent, tears unknown in a millennium. Somewhere, a red-haired child sobs. The man in red smashes a balled fist into his left palm, shaking his head, unaware of the shower of sweat that flies from him.

  The chariot, battle goats pawing, circles the cloud of gray dust, passes over the miles of rubble and fallen towers. Thor leans over, his eyes trying to pierce the gloom where his senses cannot penetrate. His right hand is empty, though his left grasps the red leather of the reins more tightly.

  He gestures with his empty right hand, calls for his hammer.

  The chariot circles, a vulture above the ruins of the Viceregal city.

  The Viceroy waits, not understanding, hoping. The man in red leans forward as the dust settles. The sun dims, then flares even brighter, and as the dust cloud parts, the black temple emerges. Stands. Stands untouched. “I oppose.”

  On the temple steps remains the man in black—not smaller, not larger, not darker, not brighter. He does not smile, nor does he frown. In his left hand is a graystone hammer. Martel lifts the hammer, lifts it high above his head. “I oppose the ways of the gods, and I will break you as I will break your hammer. Behold, agent of the gods, and god no more. Behold. This hammer is your life and your strength, and it is no more.”

  Martel squeezes the haft, and as he does the wood cracks and the stone shatters, and the shards crumble into dust.

  Thor shakes his fist at Martel, turns his battle goats and the chariot into a dive toward the man in black.

  “I am of the Fallen One,” admits Martel conversationally, and yet his words carry through the ruins of the city. “And the Fallen One will not be denied. Nor will He be mocked. Your hammer is gone, Thor, and you have no power over me.”

  The chariot is almost upon Martel, and the hiss of the battle goats is rain in his ears.

  “Guess we have to make it formal, old thunder-god.” He raises his left hand again and cracks his voice like lightning across the morning. “Begone! Forever!”

  With the words flows a tidal wave of blackness. When the darkness subsides, moments later, the sky is empty.

  The steps of the black temple, the only fully intact structure in the city of the Viceroy, are vacant, and the sirens begin to wail as the power returns.

  * * *

  LV

  Martel appears in the cart, his feet planted shoulder-width apart.

  The battle goats do not seem to mind, but continue their hissing breath as they paw meaninglessly at the blackness beneath their hooves.

  Martel glances around the square wooden cart. In the corner floor bracket beneath his right shoulder is a built-in quiver, originally bronze, but dulled with a green patina. The horn bow is stringless and would doubtless break if strung, since Thor had never liked archery before he became god of thunder, let alone after.

  If he could smell in the undertime, Martel knows, the goat cart would reek of age, and dust. Not of goat urine, for the battle goats are not goats at all, but focal elementals, harnessed through the field of Aurore.

  He sighs, more of a mental reaction than a physical one, because purely physical actions really do not take place in the subwarp/subtime/subspace corridor that the gods have drilled for Thor's transit and return. With his own methods, Martel could already have been on Aurore. But then, he could not have returned as Thor. His hair goes from black to red and lengthens. A full red beard appears. His stockiness becomes burliness, and were he to speak, his voice would rumble. Martel is Thor.

  Presently the chariot emerges above the sacred mountain, begins a circling descent.

  Martel remembers one last detail, conjures up a graystone hammer, and brandishes it, much as Thor would have done.

  On the peak, or rather hovering above it, in an unnecessary expenditure of energy, reflects Martel/Thor, are Apollo, the Smoke Bull, and Emily. Assorted demigods wait beyond them.

  All for the conquering hero. He blocks the thought. Thor would have thought it only his just due.

  “The traitor is no more!” rumbles the returning thunder-god. “He fell under the Hammer of the Gods!”

  Thor vaults across the railing of the goat cart, dispatches it to an outer circle to wait, and takes three giant steps across the cloud tops toward the triad.

  “Welcome back, Thor,” murmurs the Smoke Bull, the darkness falling from his mouth with the words.

  “Welcome,” adds Apollo. And his voice chimes down the mountainside to ring through the towns below. Emily nods. Curtly.

  “No welcome from you?” growls the returned warrior. “Ah,” he chortles, “but you were once fond of him.” He turns toward Apollo.

  “Martel was a danger. But he didn't gloat about destruction.” The words of the goddess ring in the stillness. Thor turns back.

  “Bitch goddess. Talk not to me of gloating. Talk not to me when more blood has flowed from your hands and your names than mine. Thor am I. Thor am I! Hammer and lightning, like the thunderstorms.”

  “Rather eloquent, Thor,” adds Apollo. “Didn't know you had it in you.”

  “Thor?” asks Emily. “Answer one question. Did you actually see the hammer strike Martel?”

  “He was there. The hammer struck, and he was not. Same as always. No draw on the field since.”

  “What about Karnak?”

  “Flattened,” admits Thor, shrugging. “You knew that would happen.”

  Emily frowns, and Apollo, seeing her expression, clears his throat. Even the half-cough is somehow musical.

  “Is it possible, barely possible, Thor, honored hammer-thrower, that Martel ducked your blow?”

  “I say he was under the hammer, and he was gone. Never has anyone escaped the graystone hammer! Never! NEVER!”

  The three gods wince as the thunderclouds roll in at his voice, and a small tornado touches the edge of Pamyra, destroying an unoccupied cottage.

  “Then it is possible,” observes the Smoke Bull. “Else Thor would not be so angry.”

  “You old fraud!”
screeches Emily. “You had him, and you missed him. Destroyed a beautiful city for nothing! Made a fool out of the gods, and left the Viceroy ready to declare war on the entire Aurore system.”

  “YOU LIE!” rumbles Thor, and he lifts the hammer. “Wait!” commands Apollo, and both Emily and Thor turn to the chimes of his speech.

  “Thor may have destroyed Martel, and he may not have. But one thing is clear. If Martel escaped and did not again confront Thor, then he does fear the hammer. Since the hammer is but one attribute of the gods, Martel may be a difficulty, but one we can handle should he reappear.”

  “I destroyed him,” insists Thor. “You did not,” returns Emily.

  “It does not matter,” observes the Smoke Bull. “Apollo is right. Whether Thor destroyed Martel, or whether Martel escaped at the last instant, the result is that Thor was the stronger. Thor, by himself.”

  Emily almost snickers, understanding the implication behind the Smoke Bull's words. Thor raises his hammer again.

  “Put down your toy, Thor. I do not fear your hammer, though Martel may.”

  Thor glares at the Smoke Bull, raises his left hand to recall the chariot, then faces Emily. “Bitch, best you fear the hammer of Thor!”

  “Is that a challenge, old blusterer?”

  Thor vaults into the chariot without answering, brandishes his hammer, and the battle goats careen across the heaven-field of Aurore, away from the sacred peak Jsalm.

  “I'm not sure that sending Thor was the best idea, after all,” muses Apollo.

  “How soon before we can confirm what he said?” asks the god of black smoke and guile. “You don't believe him?”

  “Only that he flattened the city. No communications from Karnak.”

  “Why doesn't one of you go to Karnak and see?” snaps Emily. Apollo shakes his head.

  “If Thor is telling the truth, there's no need. If he isn't, then we can't afford to leave Aurore to find out.”

  “I'll take care of that,” says Emily, “with Thor.”