torg 01 - Storm Knights

by Bill Slavicsek

  The stelae was about four feet long. On the outside it looked like an oval of vines and leaves and thorns. But within the oval-shaped wrapping were bones and carcasses of creatures from the Living Land. When three stelae were laid in a triangle, the area within the bounded points would be ready to contain the reality of the cosm that created the stelae — in this case, the Living Land. Dar Ess observed the rituals, noting that they were good. Already she could feel the excitement building, and the sensations reminded her that even those who worked among the dead could know life.

  She watched in anticipation for her own part in the ceremony, when Two Taps leaped into the air. Dar Ess came to attention immediately, hefting her hrockt shoot and looking for whatever danger the stalenger had sensed.

  Coming over a nearby rise were two of the soft-skinned beings of the Dead Land. They wore dead coverings and carried dead items that Dar Ess could not fathom. But they had not yet seen the gotak and her acolytes, and that meant the ceremony did not have to be interrupted.

  The gotak clacked her claws together once, signaling that the others should continue their work. Then she moved away from the digging spot, quietly praying to Lanala as she did so. Almost immediately she felt her god's presence, manifesting throughout her scaled body as a pleasant tingling sensation. She focused her prayer, asking that her hrockt shoot change to serve her better.

  With that, the top end of the shoot reformed, growing to a sharp point that could pierce even the hide of an udatok. When the spear had finished forming, Dar Ess yelled a challenge to the soft-skinned beings. Both looked up, startled by the terrible sound. The smaller one tried to run, but Two Taps caught her in his tendrils and held her fast. The larger one, confused, simply stood there.

  Dar Ess listened to the babbling the soft-skinned male made. If she concentrated, she could understand the primitive language that used nothing more complicated than words. But she did not want to concentrate. There was no need to use the gift that Baruk Kaah had given them, no need to hear the death pleas of a dead thing.

  The gotak shouted in honor of Lanala, then tossed the hrockt spear at the soft skin. It pierced his chest and knocked him onto its back. Dar Ess shook excitedly at the spray of blood that erupted as the spear hit. She had added a prayer that caused the pointed head of the shoot to grow thorns once it struck its target. The thorns would do even more damage to the frail being.

  She bounced over to the male. When she reached him, Dar Ess saw that he was already dead. The thorns had done their job. Too bad, she mused, that she was unable to give the soft-skinned one more sensations before death had claimed him. She grasped the hrockt shoot and pulled it easily from its victim, the point reformed to its original shape.

  Then Dar Ess remembered the smaller one.

  Two Taps still held her, and the soft-skinned woman reminded Dar Ess of a fly in a spider's web.

  "To you, woman of the Dead Land," Dar Ess proclaimed in the hissing language of the edeinos, "I give the reward of sensation. Cherish this last pleasure of life."

  The stalenger felt every bit of the young woman's pain through his tendrils that wrapped about her. The sensations were so intense, he knew that the gotak had seen fit to truly grant the soft-skinned one life at the moment of her death. The sensations lasted almost ten minutes, and then the soft skin died.

  Dar Ess, a wild gleem in her yellow eyes, returned to the dig spot. Only her shaking body, still ripe with excitement, and the single splash of blood on her left arm showed that anything had occurred.

  Without a word to the others, the gotak hefted the prepared stelae and offered a prayer to Lanala. Then she produced a stone dagger — truly a tool of the dead — and offered a second prayer to Baruk Kaah. Beca, the youngest, turned his head from the sight of the dagger. Yes, Dar Ess had once been repulsed by the dead tool, but she had learned to work with it. That was the duty of a gotak. Beca would learn as well.

  The gotak cut a slit in the stelae with the stone dagger. If the prayers had been accepted, then the wound would bleed, giving Dar Ess the sign of life.

  Blood welled from the slit as the dagger cut, dripping down the sides of the stelae, forming rivers of red through the tangle of vines. With a yell of triumph, Dar Ess placed the bleeding stelae in the prepared hole. Then she backed away so that the acolytes could scoop dirt atop the stelae. They chanted as they worked, and soon the hole was filled. Dar Ess prayed once more, and Lanala caused grass and plants to sprout from the replaced soil. Within moments, the digging spot looked as though it had never been disturbed by claw or talon.

  Dar Ess, pleased with their success, ordered Two Taps again into the sky. It would be a long march to the next digging spot, and the sooner they started the sooner they could return to the Living Land.

  52

  During the first week of Wendy Miller's recovery, except when his duties called him to the bedsides of others or when the doctors chased him out of the room to examine their patient, Father Christopher Bryce was constantly at her side. He joyed in the rapid growth of her strength when his world was filled with ministering to the dying. He joyed in merely being with her, feeling a connection to her, as a father would who had been present at the birth of his child. Yet, his fondness for her slid in and out of the realm of the paternal to those feelings that were of a man for a woman. Feelings a priest could have, but feelings that a priest must never act upon.

  She believed she was Tolwyn of House Tancred, and she honestly had no remembrance of the name Wendy Miller. The doctors, in their infinite fear of anything that would not fit into their orderly system, insisted upon referring to the young woman as "Miss Miller, the woman with the remarkable recuperative powers." Except for Dr. Monroe, the doctor who was on hand when Bryce and Alder brought the young woman in, for he had witnessed the events as they transpired and was leaning toward believing her. And, he had to admit to himself, so was Bryce.

  Rick Alder spent some time with Tolwyn, as he called her, and Coyote and Rat paid visits as well. Only Tal Tu stayed away, and that was because Alder insisted he remain hidden in the van.

  On the eleventh day after the destruction of Shea Stadium and the beginning of the invasion, Father Bryce entered Wendy Miller's room. He carried a tray of food, lunch for the two of them. It was good to see that the young woman had been removed from the monitors. Soon, Dr. Monroe had told him, she would be released. But before that happened, Bryce had to know the truth.

  She was sleeping when he entered. So Bryce placed the tray on the table beside the bed, next to the vase that held the blue and red flower, and sat down. He watched her for a time, noting the strong, even rise and fall of her chest, the curves hidden beneath a thin hospital sheet. Eventually, he noticed that she was watching him with a similar scrutiny.

  "Hello, Miss Miller," he stammered. "How are you feeling today?"

  "I do not know how Miss Miller feels," the young woman replied in her unfamiliar accent, "but I am well."

  "Of course," Bryce said, fumbling with an apple he picked off the lunch tray. He handed it to the woman.

  "If you are really Tolwyn of House Tancred ..."

  "I am."

  ". if you are really Tolwyn," Bryce continued, trying not to sound nervous, "then what happened to the brown-eyed person who knew herself as Wendy Miller?"

  The woman started to say something, but then she stopped and a pained expression crossed her face. She looked at her hand, flexing her fingers and turning it from side to side, as though she were examining it for the first time.

  "I am Tolwyn of House Tancred," she finally said with conviction.

  "But who is Tolwyn of House Tancred?" he asked.

  Sinewy muscles played in her forearms as the anger of frustration rose in her eyes. "I do not remember."

  "Who is Dunad?"

  "I do not remember."

  "Where are you from?"

  "I do not know!" she screamed, overturning the tray of food and leaping from the bed.

  He did not ask her any more
questions after that. Instead, he sat at her side over the next two days. Sometimes Alder or the boys sat with them, sometimes it was just the two of them. He called her Tolwyn, so as not to disturb her, told himself. He spoke to her, telling her things she could not understand, answering questions she could not ask. And it didn't matter that, most of the time, she lay with her head turned to the side and looked at the crys flower. He told her about New York City and the start of the invasion, of his meeting with Coyote and Rat, of Rick Alder, and of his parents.

  Bryce stopped talking whenever he mentioned his parents. But Tolwyn refused to let him mourn alone.

  "Tell me what you are thinking about, Christopher Bryce," she asked, but even her questions were delivered in a tone that demanded immediate compliance.

  "I never got around to telling my parents any of the important things," he explained. "They weren't supposed to die so soon."

  "Death never comes when it is expected," Tolwyn said. "That is why we must be ready for it at all times."

  "I was in New York not just to visit them, you know. I was there waiting for a new assignment from the Church, but I was also taking some time to think about my vocation. I had ... doubts. I still have them, I guess."

  "Everyone has doubts from time to time, Christopher Bryce. Even about a calling." When she mentioned that, she frowned. Bryce could tell that she wanted to remember something about a calling, but it was still beyond her grasp.

  "There is something I cannot remember, Christopher who wears the sign of Dunad. The things you tell me about your world cause stirrings of uneasiness deep within me. The invasion of your world evokes ... vague feelings of memories. But those memories stay in the shadows of my mind, refusing to emerge into the light of recollection. This has happened before."

  "Where?"

  "I do not know," she said, clenching her fist and beating at the mattress in frustration.

  "Try to remember ... "

  "Father," Coyote said from the doorway, interrupting the conversation. "You're needed in room 128."

  "Another death?" he asked.

  Coyote nodded.

  "On my way," he said as he picked up his bag and started out of the room.

  Briefly, as he passed through the doorway, Bryce paused to say that he would be back as soon as possible. But Tolwyn was again looking at her flower, so he left without speaking.

  53

  Deep within Illmound Keep, in the realm of Orrorsh, the Gaunt Man sat upon his throne of bones. He was alone in his chamber, with only the song of his Darkness Device to soothe his tired thoughts. It sang to him of conquest and immortality, of darkness and dominion. And it sang of the Gaunt Man's greatness as first among High Lords, as the personage of prophecy, as the Torg.

  After listening for a time, the Gaunt Man rose from the throne feeling almost refreshed. He stepped over to the Device. It was an obsidian heart, carved from the blackest night and hardest stone. Measuring over four feet in all directions, the heart's surface was smooth as though polished. The Gaunt Man could see his own image reflected in the black surface. He gently ran the tips of his fingers over the stone, feeling the heart's heat rising from within, feeling the beat of its eternal existence.

  The Gaunt Man reached for his silver goblet from its place on the mantle. He placed the goblet beneath one of the heart's open arteries, then spoke softly to the great artifact.

  "Heketon the Obsidian Heart, the Darkness Device that found me and revealed my grand destiny to me, I ask you to provide sustenance to refresh me."

  The heart glowed with an internal fire, and its song grew stronger, louder. From the artery, bright red liquid dripped into the goblet. Each drop was as liquid fire, and the Gaunt Man heard them sizzle as they fell into his drinking vessel.

  "Thank you, Heketon, for the blood of eternity." He raised the goblet to his lips and drank deeply. Within the heart's black surface, he saw his own reflection once again. But now the reflection also showed a shattered landscape, a planet stripped clean of its power in order to elevate the Gaunt Man to the next level of existence. Upon that shattered surface, the Gaunt Man stood triumphantly.

  "Yes, together that shall be our destiny," and with that said, he gulped the last of the blood.

  Replacing the silver goblet upon the mantle, the Gaunt Man stepped across the room to stand before a large, ornate mirror. "I shall need assistants from this world, Heketon, pawns to serve as insurance should the game take any unexpected turns. Show me, through the mirror I have name Wicked, those whose souls hunger for darkness and thirst for power. For those are the souls that shall be ours!"

  54

  The tatooed man walked west, his metal-tipped work boots pounding upon the blacktopped highway. So far, none of the passing traffic had stopped for him. But he wasn't worried. He liked to walk, and eventually someone would stop.

  He continued at an even pace, but he had to pause when a sharp pain stabbed through his head. He clutched his blonde hair and dropped to his knees. The pain was intense, shattering his thoughts and blurring his vision.

  Then, through the pain, he heard a voice.

  "Malcolm Kane, behold your new master!"

  Through tear-filled eyes, the tatooed man saw a skeletal face before him. Later, he would not remember any of its features, just its sunken, piercing eyes. It spoke again, and this time he recognized his own name.

  "How do you know me?" Kane asked. "Who are you?"

  "You shall know me as the Gaunt Man," the voice said, "and if you serve me well, then I shall reward you with a portion of this planet as your own."

  At this promise, Kane pushed the pain away. It was still there, but he ignored it. He did not want something so trivial to interfere with this conversation.

  "What do you want me to do?" Kane asked. Then he added, "Master."

  On the twelfth day since New York became a zone of silence, Andrew Decker watched marines load up jeeps for his trip west. He had selected the squad of soldiers personally, working with Sergeant Lewis to weed through dossiers and service records. When they were done, they had a squad of eleven specialists ready to accompany him on his mission.

  The marines had orders to protect the congressman on his fact-finding mission. What they did not know was that Decker had a secret mission, from President Wells himself, to find a stone that both men had seen in a dream. It was crazy, but so was everything else that was happening in the world.

  Sergeant Lewis approached Decker, saluted, and said, "The squad is ready to move out whenever you give the order, sir."

  Decker, while theoretically in command of this mission, had been given Lewis to handle the soldiers. "Then I guess we should ."

  "Congressman Decker, might I have a word with you?" Decker recognized the voice without having to turn to see the speaker. It was Dennis Quartermain, previously the Secretary of Defense but now serving as Vice President.

  "If you'll excuse me, sergeant," Decker said. Lewis nodded, then left to rejoin the squad.

  "What can I do for you, Dennis?" Decker asked rather informally.

  "You may not like me, congressman, but I am the Vice President now."

  "What's your point, Dennis? I'm in kind of a hurry here."

  "My point is this, Decker. I don't like you either. You're nothing but a glorified sports hero going out on a public relations tour so Wells doesn't have to do it himself. I would like nothing better than to hear that you were lost somewhere in the zone of silence, but that would mean we would be losing eleven good soldiers as well."

  Quartermain stared into Decker's eyes, scrutinizing them for some hidden meaning. "Why did he give you eleven specialists, Decker? What are you really going out there to do?"

  "It's like you said, Dennis," answered Decker, "I'm going out to smile and shake hands and kiss babies. Maybe I'll even give a few speeches and tell everyone that the government is still here."

  "I don't believe you. And as Vice President I deserve — no, I demand — to know what is going on."

  "
I don't care who you are or what you demand. I have a job to do, and you're keeping me from that job."

  Decker turned his back on Quartermain and walked away, heading across the huge garage to where the marines were waiting by their vehicles.

  "Don't you turn your back on me, Decker," Quarter-main raged, "I'm not through with you yet!"

  The congressman ignored the Vice President, but he could feel angry eyes follow him to his jeep.

  "Sergeant," Decker said, "let's get out of here."

  56

  Uncovered, the stelae was disturbing to look at. But Captain Nicolai Ondarev nevertheless forced his eyes to roam over its surface. It was a cylindrical piece of metal, silver in color, about three feet long. Streaks of black circuitry ran just beneath the surface, forming complicated pathways that resembled the workings of a mind gone mad.

  If Ondarev examined one spot for any length of time, it appeared as though the silver surface rippled, like the surface of a pond. And beneath the shifting layer of silver, the captain thought he could see tortured, agonized faces swimming up to stare back at him. That was when he had to look away.

  "It bothers you, Nicolai," said Katrina Tovarish. It was not a question.

  "It disturbs me, yet it fascinates me," Ondarev explained. "Have you ever eaten something that was much too hot, Katrina? It burns the roof of your mouth because you could not wait to taste it. Afterward, the flesh is sore and tender, and it hurts to touch it, but you cannot keep your tongue from probing the wound over and over. It causes pain, but your tongue acts of its own volition. That is what the stelae is like."

  "We should destroy it, Nicolai. If it solicits such attention, then it is more dangerous than I thought."