The Ancient Ones (The Legacy Trilogy Book 3)

by Michael Foster

  The dim outlines of each other were visible—everyone present and accounted for. Samuel’s pale face was the only clear part of him, the rest more night against the stars. His son almost seemed to be floating in the air, cradled by two slender hands that protruded from midnight sleeves.

  Leopold slowly turned full circle, taking in the scene, wondering where the magician had taken them. The others were doing the same, staring in puzzlement, their features vague in the near darkness.

  Kali knelt down and rapped her knuckles upon the substance beneath their feet, sounding a solid tap. ‘Glass,’ she said.

  Indeed, it seemed the surface surrounding them was not water, but a single flat sheet of glass that spanned the horizons, a mirror reflecting the heavens. It was unlike anything any of them had ever seen, a strange otherworldly landscape, completely silent.

  Cool air brushed Leopold’s cheek—no sea breeze, for it was stale and dry—and it chose that moment to bluster, whispering as it swirled across the plain, carrying specks that bit their skin.

  A flattened splinter of glowing white rose in the distance: the full moon, just edging above the horizon. Its upper portion was reflected beneath it, an illusion of an inflating ball.

  Leopold rubbed his boots against the ground and found it slippery. A fine layer of sand gave him enough traction to stand, but it was not enough to fully obscure the dulled copy of himself that stared back at him.

  ‘Over there,’ Jessicah said, still clutching onto the captain and pointing with one arm, for a light had appeared in a dwelling a short distance away. Until then, it had been another spot of darkness between the stars.

  Samuel passed his son back to Kali, who cradled the feverish boy, while Daneel continued to hold the body of old Salu across his shoulder like the carcass of a hunted boar.

  ‘Where are we?’ Captain Orrell asked with wonder.

  ‘This used to be Mount Karthma,’ Samuel told them. ‘We are in the middle of what was once the Paatin desert. The desert still exists, beyond the horizon, but here, it has been blasted into this. This is the heart of the Darkening.’

  ‘We’re back in Amandia?’ Daneel queried with amazement.

  ‘Yes,’ Samuel said.

  ‘What did this?’ Orrell asked. ‘I have never seen such terrain.’

  ‘Another magician called Cang summoned a stone from the heavens. It was his goal to destroy the Demon King, even though he knew most of humanity would be lost in the process. Luckily, that singular Starfall was averted, but the broken pieces still rained upon the earth and caused the Darkening. Some struck Garteny. Others struck further east. The largest piece landed here and the magical stone of Mount Karthma was transformed into this, a sea of glass. The place still retains its magic defying powers, so it is here that I could not find Lomar; until now.’

  ‘And what is that?’ Leopold asked, gesturing towards the tiny dwelling.

  ‘Our destination,’ Samuel responded.

  A figure was standing outside the building, cloaked in black cloth that fluttered with the wind. As they neared, they could see it was Lomar.

  He beckoned for them to come closer, waiting for them with a strange, welcoming smile. The deep brown skin of his face still retained the wrinkles of someone kind. His short grey hair and stubbled beard were speckled with grey, and he did not appear like any kind of foe. Indeed, if he was their enemy he did not act like it now. He was far more appealing in features than Samuel ever could be.

  ‘Come, come!’ he called to them. ‘You’ve all made it. Wonderful. Come inside.’ And he returned into his hovel, stooping over to get his tall form through the entranceway.

  ‘Do we follow him?’ Leopold asked.

  Samuel nodded. ‘It is time for everyone to show their cards. This will all be finished soon.’

  ‘Are you not concerned, Samuel?’ the Emperor asked.

  The magician did not answer immediately, and as he ducked down to enter the dwelling he paused and looked back to Leopold. ‘What will be, will be, Leopold.’

  It was an honest answer, but not particularly reassuring.

  Inside, the building was a single rounded room, with the most modest of comforts. A fire burned beneath a primitive chimney, yet the air was free of the smell of smoke. The room was evenly lit, rather than with the flickering light one would expect from such a fireplace. Some bedding sat against the wall with a bucket of water with some cups stacked beside it. A round wooden table took up the middle of the space with four chairs around it.

  ‘Come, sit,’ Lomar invited them, smiling, and he used his ladle to fill the cups, placing them on the table.

  ‘Is this real?’ Leopold asked, glancing about the room.

  Lomar granted him the warmest smile. ‘As real as we need it to be. I have been here for some time and never found it lacking. The water will certainly quench your thirst, the chairs will hold your weight. What could be realer than that?’

  Leopold could not object and so sat alongside Samuel as the magician seated himself down. Jessicah sat at the other side of the magician and Captain Orrell stood behind her, his hands resting gently on her shoulders. His fingers caressed her shoulders, and he flourished from that comforting touch, now appearing more like the champion of old.

  Kali pulled the last chair around to be beside Leopold, rather than sit with her back to Lomar as he crouched beside the fire. She sat with Toby cradled on her lap, stroking the boy’s hair away from his eyes all the while. He was sweating and panting, but there was little they could do for him.

  Daneel laid Salu gently upon the bedding that hugged the wall and then he stood waiting by the doorway, arms folded.

  They regarded Lomar sternly, but the tall man only looked back at them happily, and expectantly, as if he was waiting for some form of congratulation. He grunted and shuffled about as he positioned a tiny stool beneath himself—barely shin high itself—and took the weight off his legs.

  ‘So,’ Samuel said. ‘Here we are. You might as well commence. I’m sure you have much to say.’

  Lomar nodded and conveyed his tale, as requested. ‘I’m so happy to see you all. Of course, I am happiest to see you, my dear friend Samuel. But I can see from your face that you do not share the sentiment, which is understandable given the circumstances. You have changed so much and become the magician I always knew you would.

  ‘We once spoke of ourselves being like trees. Do you remember? Well, what wonderful branches you have grown! You are spectacular, Samuel. And how my heart gladdens to see you again. But, time is short so I will get to the point. I know you all expect to hear what I have been doing, and why, so I will not delay any further.

  ‘My plan has been exactly this: you have found your son, Samuel, and you have gained the power you need to free him. You are now the most accomplished magician to walk the earth since his coming to power—perhaps greater. Everything is in place. You are ready to save the world. Well done, my friend. I could not have dreamed of better.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Samuel asked. ‘You put me through a lifetime of suffering, and all you can say is well done? Are you not worried that I might strike you down?’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ the other magician asked with all seriousness. ‘Your goal is within reach. Don’t you want to save your boy?—and the world with him?’

  Samuel eyed the man suspiciously. ‘Then you have no more planning or conniving? You will not fight us or seek to set us against each other as you have so many times before?’

  ‘I do not understand,’ Lomar said, again entirely straight-faced. ‘I have no intention of stopping you. You are about to do what no one has ever done before you, since your own son became a god. Once you supplant Marrag, I am sure you will do a better job of protecting the world than he—and I’m not implying he wasn’t capable. It’s just that as the eons passed he lost track of the path he first embarked upon. He has kept us from extinction, but as I think we all agree, most of humanity has tired from paying the cost: existing, but as little more
than cattle.

  ‘The only additional matter is, have you told your companions yet what they will be doing in their new roles? Do they know what to expect?’

  ‘I never planned to use them like that, Lomar. That was only your own cruel imagination at work.’

  ‘Oh really?’ the taller magician responded, surprised. ‘I had simply assumed that was your intention. How could it be any other way? Without minions, how will you return to the world? How will you be reborn? You must be reborn or you won’t be able to regather your strength. You are certainly making things more difficult for yourself.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Samuel told him, taking his turn to be smug.

  Lomar was not perturbed, and continued on happily. ‘Then I assume you must have such details in hand, Samuel. Your son’s consciousness gathers around us now like countless, invisible moths to a flame—and the flame is you, Samuel. He will soon be upon us. I am not sure you will have time to speak together before he begins his work.’

  ‘We will speak,’ Samuel stated assuredly. ‘Once he senses that the Ancient Ones are no more, he will investigate. He will sense the great loss of magic from the world and he will wonder what has happened.’

  Lomar raised an eyebrow, his interest piqued on something the younger magician had said. ‘I think you are mistaken about that, Samuel, along with many things,’ Lomar said. ‘The minions of Lin were not the Ancient Ones. The Ancient Ones are truly powerful, but they long precede the time you or your son first walked on the earth. They have been in existence since the first knots of life ebbed out an existence upon the Pattern. You have not been dispatching the Ancient Ones, dear Samuel; you have been feeding them. They are the demons inside you; the horrors that seek to overcome us—the ones that your son has been protecting us from all this time. They are everywhere, surrounding our world, ever trying to devour us. You should know. You were there at the beginning, when they first arrived, courtesy of your boy. Your name was Darrig then, but it was you.’

  ‘That was a long time ago. I have no memory of it.’

  ‘You may have no memory of it, but you were there. Come, does it make any sense? The Ancient Lick, the language of the demons whispers in your ear even now. Does it make sense that such a vile tongue comes from man? Of course not. The Old Tongue is what we spoke in those early days, derived from the innate power of our world, and that is why the Ancient Lick is even stronger. It is not from here. It was brought here along with the demons who speak it; that is why it brings madness, and why it is forbidden.’

  ‘Very well,’ Samuel said. ‘I accept what you say, but it makes little difference. I have been pursuing the Ancient Ones, I have been pursuing demons—what does it matter what they are called or where they are from?’

  ‘It will make a great difference if everything you base your plans on is likewise flawed,’ the taller magician chided. ‘How will you take up the role of our protector if you do not have everything accounted for—if you do not even know the details? Oh, I am very disappointed, Samuel. I put everything on your lap and all you had to do was stick the pieces together.’

  ‘Firstly,’ Samuel retaliated, ‘your disappointment does not concern me in the slightest. Secondly, I do not plan to do as you assume at all. I will end Lin’s legacy, but I shall not take up his mantle, for that role shall not be needed once I am done. I plan to rid us of the demons forever. I will remove all trace of them from us, and they will never haunt us again.’

  Lomar scoffed. ‘Oh, Samuel. You know full well that is not possible. The Old Ones are everywhere. They peek at us through the fabric of the Pattern like thieves in the night, looking through our windows, like a murderer standing in the doorway. They dwell now in the very nature of man. You yourself are riddled with them. There is no way to resist them, save the eternal war that your son commenced, which can never be won or ended.’

  ‘There is another way,’ Samuel declared. ‘Since the darkening, my Truthseekers have been ridding the world of magicians and now, only you and I remain.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lomar agreed. ‘That was your cruel attempt to gain humanity some time.’

  Samuel kept his gaze aimed squarely at the other magician. ‘It is more than that. There is no one left in the world who could call to the demons, no one who could attract them. All knowledge and history of magic, of power, of the Ancient Lick, I have purged from the world. Soon, magic will be only a fairy tale, something to frighten children at night, along with the myth of demons. There will be nothing left to attract your Ancient Ones.’

  ‘Nonsense. These things are part of us. And demons come to anyone who calls them. They come without being called at all!’ His bold edges were becoming frayed, the pitch of his voice raising.

  ‘But they come to the strongest first,’ Samuel corrected. ‘Like moths to the flame, if I may use your words. I am not vain enough to believe every single magician across the world has been eradicated, or every book and notion destroyed, but that is not so important. As you say, demons are drawn to power, and to those who call to them, and I have been calling longer and louder than anyone. All the demons of note, all the Ancient Ones of any worth, are now in this room ... within me.’

  Lomar seemed to grasp what Samuel was suggesting. ‘You have been calling them deliberately? This is foolishness! You know you cannot contain them forever. No wonder you have been struggling!’

  ‘You should know, Lomar. It was you who first instilled them within me, was it not?’

  Lomar smiled. ‘So you know? Yes, I did, that first day when I met you. You were just a child and I planted them into you when I first touched your brow. I had been carrying them very carefully, nurturing them as they slept until the day I eventually found you—as I knew I would. They were the seeds of greatness that would churn in your belly and drive you on. They inspired you when you needed reinforcement. They saved you many times I am sure, bringing you back from the brink. And the demons bided their time within you, waiting for you to become potent, to become their weapon, their tool to obliterate this world.’

  ‘And from that day forward I could see death itself,’ Samuel added. ‘Any time someone was about to expire, the demons let me see the portent of their doom. I must say it is quite an experience to know when loved ones are going to die, not being able to do a thing about it. It had quite a profound effect on me—but let’s not delve into such details. Suffice to say, you were always there to watch over me, the kind soul you were, ready to end me if my demons got the upper hand prematurely.’

  ‘That was to be avoided if at all possible,’ Lomar stated matter-of-factly.

  ‘Of course it was—that would ruin your plan, all your plotting. Well, I have them now, all the demons I could find—the biggest and the greatest—and they will never bother us again. I will take care of them … and they will not escape from what I have prepared for them.’

  ‘You ... you would sacrifice yourself?’ Lomar presumed, quite nervously, then scoffed again. ‘But you cannot. You know your houseguests would simply flee. No harm would come to them through your death. They are bodiless souls. Senseless rubbish!’

  ‘But the legacy of my son’s mistake can be ended. Both of us know I can never dare become a god with such evil within me. It would mark the end of the world. They would overcome me and there would be no one to stand in their way—not with Lin removed from his post. Not even you could be so foolish not to realise this. But I don’t think you want the demons to prevail either, do you? No, I think you know these things very well. Why else would you bring me to this? Why guide me all my life, subtly nudging my direction to make me powerful? Why would you do any of it at all?

  ‘I can think of only one reason. Right now, I am feverishly on the edge of becoming a god. I can barely contain my spirit within this perforated vessel any longer. It craves release, to be free from this cage of meat and bone, and my demons are frantic with anticipation. Not coincidentally, the Demon King—my son—is about to manifest here beside me. Perhaps he
could stop me from becoming this terrible thing? Perhaps he could not? Am I on the right track?’

  Lomar’s smile did not falter, even as Samuel continued.

  ‘I know you would not simply want the demons to consume this world, Lomar—what would be the point of that? You could have let Starfall play out and that would have accomplished the same thing. No, you have long wanted something else ... something far more treacherous. You intended for me and my son to be here together, to be equals—me at my peak, and he drained and recently returned to find his strength. My demons are strong, and it would not take much for me to be overcome. Is that what you have planned for me, my friend? Do you intend for the father to challenge the son?’

  Still, the taller magician did not speak.

  ‘You can correct me anytime if I am mistaken,’ Samuel said, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘No, go ahead,’ Lomar stated. ‘I am enjoying your ramblings immensely. Such rampant misconception fascinates me.’

  Samuel met Lomar’s ingratiating smile with one of his own. ‘But where would that leave us? A battle of such magnitude—it would be far worse than the Darkening. Such conflict might do all sorts of unfortunate things. I’ve seen firsthand what happens when the Pattern is placed under strain. Too much power in too little a place …’

  ‘It would destroy the world!’ Lomar finished, his eyes wide with excitement. ‘Everything would be ended! Better than that, the demons’ link to their home world, that stitch in the Pattern which anchors their portal, would unravel. The fabric of the ether would tear from point to point, all the Weaves and Flows torn to shreds. The result would be—’

  ‘Annihilation,’ Samuel said. ‘At the very least, it would extinguish every star visible in the night sky. Perhaps something might survive, far away, at the edges of the heavens. You don’t want a victor from all this. You want an end to the Eternal War once and for all, and you want all participants to be vanquished. No winners. No losers. Nothing would exist at all. Sheer folly!’