As Garth fought to keep his anger leashed until he knew what he faced, one of the loungers called, “Back again?”
“We’ve been waiting for you,” another said; his accent was Dûsarran. “We didn’t want to kill anyone else important while you were off adventuring; that wouldn’t be fair. So we’ve just been playing games.” He waved casually at the gory trophy.
Garth growled involuntarily, as much at the calm dismissal of the guard’s death as unimportant as at the taunts, and drew the undersized sword he had picked up in Ur-Dormulk.
The Aghadites laughed.
Enraged as he was, Garth remembered what had happened before when he struck at one of his red-clad tormentors. He saw no point in breaking another sword, even so poor a one as he now carried—but he was not sure that the protective spell worked against other weapons. The Forgotten King had called it a warding spell against metal. The overman leaned forward and whispered a word in the warbeast’s ear.
Koros roared in reply and plunged forward, fangs bared and claws out. With a bound, it landed atop the three—and slid off, scrabbling for a hold it could not find. It was as if the Aghadites were sheathed in indestructible glass. They obviously had more protection than a ward against metal.
Garth lost his balance and slid from the saddle as the warbeast writhed about, trying to get at its indicated targets; he landed with a heavy thump on a patch of bare dirt, the wind knocked out of him, but not otherwise injured.
When he had regained his breath, he clambered to his feet to find himself facing a truly bizarre tableau. The three humans were sitting where they had been, trying desperately to look unconcerned, while Koros, standing awkwardly upon its hind legs, wrapped its immense forepaws around one man and tried to bite his head off. Garth could hear the grinding of teeth against something impervious.
The warbeast twisted its head for a better grip, but had no more success. The other two Aghadites wore ghastly, contrived smiles; the beast’s intended victim was frozen with fear, despite his magical defenses, and his expression was one of sick terror as three-inch fangs skidded across his throat like fingernails on marble.
Garth took a great deal of pleasure in seeing the Aghadites discomforted, even though he realized that he could do them no real harm. He did nothing to interfere; something else had occurred to him. He stepped forward, sword in hand, climbed atop a pile of rubble, and, leaning over the head of one of the trio, swung the blade against the wooden pole.
As he had hoped, the protective spell had not been extended that far. The wood splintered gratifyingly, and the upper portion toppled over. Before any of the Aghadites could recover, he had stepped over and scooped up his wife’s head.
The two not involved with the warbeast called out in protest; Garth ignored them. He watched for another few seconds as Koros continued trying to gnaw off the other’s head and wished that it were possible for the beast to succeed. It would have been an appropriate retaliation for the desecration of Kyrith’s corpse and the murder of the guard. He regretted leaving the man’s corpse where it was, but did not want to burden himself with it and perhaps give rise to unpleasant speculation in Skelleth as to how the guard had died. He doubted that the Aghadites would bother to desecrate the corpse; they were, he suspected, sufficiently ignorant of overman psychology not to realize that Garth would care about the man at all.
Reluctantly, he at last called the warbeast away, afraid that, in its mounting frustration, it might damage its teeth.
The two unmolested Aghadites had gone into a huddle, conferring with each other; they made no move to interfere with Garth as he led Koros onward into the town. The intended victim had fainted; when Koros released him, he tumbled to the ground in a heap.
After the overman had moved on out of sight of the Aghadites, he paused for a moment to wrap the head in his tapestry bundle, dumping unceremoniously the assorted litter that he had gathered and transferring the few items he still thought might be useful to the pack behind the warbeast’s saddle. He checked to be sure that the Book of Silence was still secure, then continued on his way.
He ignored the townspeople he encountered on the streets and marched across the marketplace without glancing to either side. At this point he was not concerned with anyone in Skelleth save for the Forgotten King and the Aghadites. He intended to spare a few minutes, once he had the Sword of Bheleu, to kill his three tormentors before returning to Ur-Dormulk to deal with the monster. This latest meeting with the cult, he thought, had come out a draw; he intended to be victorious in the next one.
He wondered if Chalkara and Shandiph actually had any chance of getting the awakened creature into one of the lakes and whether that would be enough to kill it. Drowning such a thing would require a very deep lake indeed; he doubted that the one he had seen in Ur-Dormulk would do the job.
The monster might, however, be unable to climb out, given the long drop that surrounded the lake on all sides. If that happened, Garth was sure that the people of Ur-Dormulk would be glad to have it destroyed, rather than have it remain as a perpetual nuisance.
And, of course, if the wizards failed, Garth would have to kill it to prevent wholesale slaughter. Ordinary soldiery, however successful it might be in defending the city against human foes, could do nothing against such a creature.
The thought of soldiery reminded him that the men guarding the eastern gate of the city and serving to control the crowd of refugees had not tried to kill him, nor had hindered him in any way; he wondered again why the party that had pursued him into the crypts had done so. Had they been given orders to slay him, orders that were never spread to the other troops? Or had their commander taken it upon himself to kill the intruding overman?
It was all rather confusing, and Garth decided that none of it really mattered. All that mattered was getting and using the Sword of Bheleu to avenge the wrongs done him by the cult of Aghad and to destroy the monster he had unleashed.
That thought was uppermost in his mind when he reached the door of the King’s Inn, but he paused for a moment before entering. He carried the bundle containing Kyrith’s head in one hand, intending to keep it with him so that the Aghadites could not recover it once more to taunt him anew. The Book of Silence, however, was in a pack on the warbeast’s back. He debated leaving it there; the Forgotten King would not be able to take it from him as readily if he left it outside while he spoke with the old man. On the other hand, thieves might happen along. Koros could easily dispose of most threats and guard anything it carried from them, but if the Aghadites with their protective magic should chance upon it, could the warbeast prevent them from taking the book?
In the interests of at least knowing what became of it, should anything go wrong, he removed the book and tucked it under his arm. Then he ordered Koros to wait by the door and strode into the King’s Inn, marching directly for the table in the back corner.
He was halfway across the room before he noticed that though the old man sat in his accustomed place, something new had been added. The Sword of Bheleu lay across the table, the hilt pointing straight at Garth. The immense gem set in its pommel was not the dead black it had been when last he saw it; instead, it was murky and dark, its dull reddish hue seeming to shift as the overman approached, as if something were seething and swirling within it.
The sight of the sword gave him pause; his stride faltered, and his thoughts grew muddy and unclear. He slowed and stopped, still several feet away from the weapon’s waiting hilt.
The great jewel seemed to flicker; Garth, staring at it, was now quite sure that something was moving within it. He had an unpleasant feeling that he was being watched by the power that lurked in the sword, and fancied that he could make out the image of a baleful red eye in the strange stone.
The idea of handling the thing was suddenly far less appealing, as he remembered the sick joy and dull thoughtlessness that he felt while wielding it. He started to ta
ke a step back, then stopped, angered by his own cowardice. Irritated, he tried to stare back at the stone, to confront directly the hostile power that dwelt therein.
After a second or two of motionless glaring, he realized he must look like a fool, watching an inanimate stone as he would a deadly foe. His annoyance grew.
He knew, vaguely, that he should not let himself be angered so easily, and that only enraged him still further. Confused and furious, he was tempted to step forward and snatch up the sword; that would settle the whole affair. His free hand reached out.
The Forgotten King’s hand moved as well, a subtle shifting of the fleshless fingers, and the gem went black. Garth’s anger vanished, and his mind was clear again.
The anger and confusion, he knew, had been caused by the sword. He raised his gaze from the now-dormant gem to the withered face of the old man.
The King had intentionally let the sword affect him, that was obvious. He seemed to be able to damp its power effortlessly whenever he chose and for as long as he saw fit, yet he had let it affect Garth.
Even then, though, he had kept it weak, kept the stone dim; he had not wanted it to seize full control of the overman.
Realizing this, Garth felt a surge of his own authentic, self-generated anger. “Why did you do that?” he demanded, striding up to the table.
“A reminder,” the old man replied in his hideous, dry voice.
Garth hesitated. The sound of the Forgotten King’s voice was always disconcerting; no matter how often Garth reminded himself that it was horribly unpleasant, it always came as a surprise. Memory and imagination could not live up to the reality.
“A reminder of what?” he said at last, his tone less belligerent.
He did not really need to hear the old man’s answer. The King had ways of knowing of events without seeing them; Garth was certain that the human had known he was coming to the King’s Inn with the intention of taking the Sword of Bheleu and had staged the brief incident to remind Garth what the sword did to his mind and emotions.
As it happened, the old man did not bother to answer at all; he merely shrugged once, almost imperceptibly.
But why, Garth asked himself, would the King want to remind him of the sword’s dangers?
Obviously, the old man did not want Garth to take the sword; that was the only explanation that seemed reasonable.
And why would he want to keep the sword?
Garth thought he knew the answer to that. He recalled that when he had first brought his booty from Dûsarra, the Forgotten King had dismissed most of it as junk, but had been pleased to see the Sword of Bheleu. Later, he had agreed only to loan it to Garth in exchange for the Book of Silence, but not to trade it outright. The wizards in Ur-Dormulk, in their theory that the King sought to bring about the Fifteenth Age, the Age of Death, had said that he required a service from the servants of Bheleu. Garth was, as far as he knew, the only servant Bheleu had alive; had events followed their predicted pattern, he would have the Sword of Bheleu.
He believed, therefore, that the old man’s final death-magic, the spell that Garth thought would destroy the world, required the sword as well as the Book of Silence—and presumably the Pallid Mask as well. It would do the King little good to acquire one of the tools he needed if he were to give up another in exchange. He was therefore, Garth guessed, trying to coax Garth into giving him the Book of Silence without taking the sword.
Or perhaps it was something subtler than that. Perhaps the old man did not mind giving Garth the sword, but feared that after the overman took it, he would renege on his side of the bargain and keep the book. After all, Garth had admitted that his word was not good. In that case, the King presumably sought to frighten Garth out of taking the sword, so that the only way in which the magically protected Aghadites, or the monster in Ur-Dormulk, could be slain would be by the old man’s use of the book.
It might even be that he sought to anger the overman into thoughtless defiance, and then Garth would snatch up the sword immediately. That didn’t make very much sense, however, as surely the King could achieve the same result simply by letting Bheleu’s power go free, so that it would suck Garth in.
If that last possibility was the truth, Garth decided, the old man might yet have his wish, because Garth was now more determined than ever to take the Sword of Bheleu and use it against the Aghadites and the leviathan. If the Forgotten King wanted to keep the sword, it was almost certainly in the best interests of all mortals for Garth to take it away from him.
As he arrived at that conclusion, Garth reached down toward the hilt of the sword.
The old man’s hand shot out with unbelievable speed and grabbed the overman’s descending wrist. To Garth’s astonishment, he found himself unable to pull free or move the hand either nearer to or farther from the sword. It was as if the bony fingers were solid steel—and a very good grade of steel at that, to resist an overman’s full strength without yielding the slightest fraction of an inch. The wrinkled skin even felt cool and dry, like metal.
“Why do you stop me?” Garth was now sure that the old man did not want him to take the sword, but thought it unwise to admit his belief.
“Give me the Book of Silence.” Again, even after so brief an interval, the King’s voice was shockingly ugly.
Garth struggled to free his wrist; the old man gave no sign he was even aware of the overman’s efforts. Finally, after several seconds of useless strain, Garth conceded defeat. “Take the book, then, if you want it,” he said.
The Forgotten King rose, the tatters of his yellow mantle rustling. He reached out his free hand, plucked the volume from beneath Garth’s arm, and held it before him, but did not loosen his grip on the overman’s wrist.
“Release me,” Garth said, mustering as much dignity as he could in so awkward and embarrassing a pose. To be held so easily by a mere human, even one as unique and powerful as the Forgotten King, shamed him.
“My reminder, Garth,” the King warned. “Bheleu is insidious and powerful and can dominate you with ease, perhaps without letting you know he is doing so. Remember, though, that I can free you of his influence as easily as you can blink an eye. You must serve one of us. The choice of masters is yours. Now, take the sword, if you want it, but remember, I lend it, I do not give it.” The bony grip was gone, and Garth watched as the old man, the great black book clutched in both hands, turned away and moved across the room and up the stairs.
When the Forgotten King had vanished into the gloom at the top of the stairs, Garth looked down at the sword.
It lay, untouched, on the table; the gem remained black and lifeless.
Had that, then, been the purpose of the King’s actions—to remind Garth that he would never again be free while both the Sword of Bheleu and the King in Yellow existed?
But then, with the Book of Silence in the King’s possession, how much longer would he exist? He sought his own destruction and needed the book to accomplish it. Perhaps Garth was wrong about the other elements required, and the old man was even now weaving his final spell, a spell that would destroy the cult of Aghad and perhaps all the world as well.
No, that could not be. The old man had not said it, but he had definitely implied that he would live for some while yet, long enough to require Garth’s services. Furthermore, the overman was certain that either the Sword of Bheleu, the Pallid Mask, or both were needed. Other things might also be required; he recalled that the Forgotten King had made him swear, almost three years ago, that not only would he fetch the book but he would also aid in the final magic.
Garth shook his head, dismissing all such considerations as not immediately relevant. He had more important concerns than maybes. He had his wife’s murder to avenge, Aghadites to kill, and a monster to dispose of.
He reached down and grasped the sword’s hilt; as his fingers closed on the black grip, the gem blazed up a fiery blood-red,
washing the overman in crimson light. Savage joy and a blinding fury burst into being within him, and somewhere mocking laughter sounded.
Chapter Eighteen
At first the surge of emotion was too powerful to allow any conscious thought or awareness of the external world at all. For three long years Bheleu had been suppressed, held down, his control of his chosen mortal form cut off; now that he was free once more, he reveled in it. The sword crackled with eldritch energy, and the air around the overman’s body glowed redly.
Garth’s own consciousness was lost for a long moment. He felt himself cut off, drifting in a formless nowhere of red and black, and he struggled desperately to regain his body. He fought to contain the all-consuming bloodlust that possessed him. The initial wave of ecstasy, the emotional overflow from Bheleu’s relief, passed away. Anger remained, but as he pushed his way to the surface, he managed to redirect it, to channel it against the usurping presence in his body and mind.
“Bheleu!” he tried to call. “Listen to me!”
He knew, even in his confused state, that the words had not been spoken, that his lips and tongue had not obeyed him; nevertheless, he heard his own voice, made terrible by the god’s power, answer him.
“Why do you call me, Garth? You have taken up the sword again, of your own choice, and freed me from all restraint. Now you will serve me in destruction, as you were meant to serve me. What need is there of words?”
“I want to make a bargain,” Garth managed to say—or at least to communicate, though he knew he had still not spoken aloud.
The god did not reply in words; instead, Garth felt a wave of contempt sweep over him, felt his consciousness slipping into darkness, and he struggled to retain what feeble control he had.
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