Kelven's Riddle Book Five

by Daniel Hylton

  “No – just to the edge of the city,” Aram responded. He glanced westward, where the jagged teeth of the dark and distant mountains were starting to consume the blood-red sun, and then he turned to mount up. “Let us go,” he said.

  Down the road they went, with Thaniel weaving this way and that around the mounded bodies of the lashers that Timmon’s gun had blasted into brackish rubble. Some way further and Thaniel once again had to work his way around the burned bodies of those that Aram’s Sword had slain. Further yet and they came to an area where there were many lasher bodies, these perhaps less violently slain but nonetheless made dead by Seneca’s lethal aerial assault.

  By the time they reached the valley floor, only a sliver of the crimson sun showed above the horizon.

  A half-mile from the base of the slope, they encountered the remains of Manon’s army, these slain by their master. As Thaniel carefully wended his way through the mounded carnage, Aram gazed in astonishment at the bodies. Though seemingly intact in every detail of their swollen bodies, nevertheless congealing pools of blood surrounded them and fouled the air, having apparently leaked from every orifice. The shock wave, by all evidence, had churned their insides to mush.

  The breeze that had blown from the north for days had failed; the air was still, and the stench of death permeated the air, causing both man and horse to choke and gag. When Thaniel made his way clear of the ranks of slain gray men and lashers, he picked up his pace, in order to get out of the region of foul, unwholesome atmosphere.

  The sun had gone and twilight was stealing into the valley from the east by the time they neared the environs of the city.

  “Halt here,” Aram told Thaniel.

  The tower rose up, up, before them, like a polished black thorn, narrowing to a fine sharp point where it pierced the dark gray firmament far above.

  Aram dismounted, looked down the black road toward the bottom of the immense tower, and then turned to face the horse.

  “This is as far as you go, my friend.”

  Thaniel stared at him for a long moment. “Do not do this to me, Aram. Do not leave me behind. Let me go in with you,” the horse pleaded.

  Aram shook his head firmly. “I cannot,” he said. “This is a task for one man, and I must do it alone. Even the Guardians must remain behind, now.” He raised his voice. “Is not that true, my lords?”

  Thaniel started in shock and moved involuntarily back a step as to either side of Aram the Guardians became visible. Moving at a speed that defied perception, they melded to one side, to reappear on Thaniel’s right. Their bodies seemed to glow in the gloom of the twilight. Here and there, tiny points of light glowed even brighter, as if the images of distant stars were embedded in their flesh.

  Aram bowed to them. “Even you cannot accompany me here – is this not so?”

  Their voices came, like soft, echoed thunder. “We cannot. You must do this alone.”

  “And my friend – the horse?”

  There was a moment of silence before the Astra made reply to this. “We cannot forbid him from entering,” the echoed voices stated. “But what would be the purpose? He cannot bear the Sword, nor wield it. And there are passages inside which, due to his size, he will not be able to manage. If you fail, Aram, the horse will surely die as well. What would be the purpose?” The voices asked again.

  Aram inclined his head to them in acknowledgement of the truth of this response, and then bowed his head yet again. “You have saved my life more than once, my lords, and for this I am grateful.” Going silent for a moment, he peered at them closely. “My lords – do you have any wisdom that you might give me in this moment that will aid me in the hours ahead?”

  The answer was returned immediately. “You have been to the mountain of Kelven and have heard his words, and you have spoken with Ferros. Everything that you need to know, you have already heard from them. Remember that which you have heard of those two gods, for in their words you will find the knowledge you need when you face the enemy.”

  Aram frowned at this vague instruction, even as his mind responded and searched among the memories of his conversations with Kelven and Ferros. After a long moment, he shook his head. “Forgive me, my lords, but I can think of nothing that might –”

  “Forshetha, Aram.” The Astra cut him off in terse manner. “It is not given to us to guide you either in word or in deed to the end of your quest. That work was given to others. To us it was given only to see you to this hour and to this place. Our task is done.”

  Aram went silent, and then he nodded grimly and reached up and slipped the Call off his neck. He held it out. “I return this into the safety of your keeping. Take it, my lords, in the event that I do not return.”

  The Astra made no move to accept the slim silver cylinder, nor did they incline their heads to regard the object that was held out to them. The echoed voices came again. “We were not sent to guard that device, Aram – it is nothing to us. We came only to assure that you lived unto this day – to protect you, as best we could, from accidental death.”

  Aram gazed at them, frowning in his lack of comprehension of this. “But I was told by Florm that –” He stopped himself from rendering what was obviously a foolish response. Of course these two creatures would have access to knowledge that the ancient horse had been denied. He indicated the hilt of the weapon rising above his shoulder. “And the Sword?”

  “The dwelling place of Manon is the final destination for the weapon as well,” the Astra replied. “Our task is now completed with the Sword of Humber.”

  At this statement, Thaniel moved forward in agitation and dared to speak. “Is that all the concern that the gods have for this man – that he live to do the bidding and work of those higher? Why cannot you go with him, and assure that he returns?”

  Aram raised his hand toward Thaniel in protest but then decided that in fact he would like to hear the Astra respond to this question. He lowered his hand and turned to look at the unearthly creatures. There fell a long silence. Then Ligurian and Tiberion spoke once more. “We have seen the regard that you have for Aram,” they told the horse, “and can understand that which you feel in this moment. But we are under command of Him who governs all, and it is His desire that Aram accomplish that with which he has been charged. It is his task and not ours.”

  The Astra turned back to Aram then, and it seemed to him that they made a subtle motion with their hands. “The grace of the Maker go with you, Aram. Farewell. Be strong and remember all you have heard.” And they faded into the night.

  Frustrated and angry, Thaniel swung his head back from staring into the now empty darkness where the Guardians had stood and looked at Aram. “Let me go with you,” he pleaded.

  In response, Aram leaned forward and placed his forehead against that of the horse. “I cannot, my brother,” he insisted. “There is no purpose in risking both our lives.”

  Thaniel was quivering with emotion. “Do not die, Aram, my friend, my brother. I did not bear you across all these years and all these miles to bring you to your death.”

  Aram leaned back and looked at him. “No – you bore me here that evil might be removed from the world and its people set free.”

  Leaning around and reaching past the horse’s head and neck, he looped the Call around the horn of the saddle and secured it there.

  Thaniel’s suspicion flared again at this act. He moved back and gazed full into Aram’s face. “You behave like a man who doubts his return.”

  “Of course I doubt my return,” Aram replied quietly as he met the horse’s scrutiny. “I don’t mean to die, Thaniel – I hope not to die. I hope to live and return to my family. But I’ve been to Kelven’s mountain, and I’ve seen what happens when a god dies. It is calamity. And I mean to slay one here today.”

  He spread his hands. “How will I survive such an event? I do not know. But if there is a way, I will discover it.”

  “The world needs for you to live,” the horse insisted.

 
Aram shook his head. “More than anything, the world needs for Manon to die.”

  Thaniel shifted his massive weight and stamped one hoof upon the smooth black pavement. “If you die,” he said, and his voice was low and filled with the anguish of doubt, “the world will be desolate for me. I told you this once, and I meant it. I cannot live in a world where you do not.”

  Aram reached out with both hands and took hold of Thaniel’s head. “Listen to me, my brother. Whatever happens to me – you have to live. I need you to live. If I do not return from this doom that is before me – then who will guide the world into the task of rebuilding? I trust no one more than I trust you. The world will need you in the years ahead, more so if I am absent.”

  Thaniel shifted again and made to speak but Aram shook his head, cutting him off. He sighed deeply. “And what of Mae? Ka’en will tell her of me, but her words will be colored by loss and sadness. I do not care how I will be remembered by the people of the earth. But I want my daughter to know who I was and how I was. Who will tell her? Who knows me better than you? – no one.”

  He let silence fall while he and the great horse stood face-to-face. The muscles across Thaniel’s broad chest shook and jumped with the potency of the horse’s emotion.

  Once more, Aram spoke, “I ask one thing of you, my brother – if I die, tell my daughter about me when she is old enough to hear it.”

  Then he stepped back and drew himself up to his full height. “But hear this, my friend – I do not mean to die.” He moved his hand and indicated the Call. “I will return for that, I promise you.”

  Thaniel gazed back and did not respond but the suspicion of inevitable pain and loss clouded the depths of his large eyes.

  Aram glanced westward toward the jagged ring of dim and distant hills. If the sun was yet in the sky, it could not be seen through the smoky overcast, and the gathering gloom indicated that it either sat upon the unseen horizon beyond those heights or perhaps had even dropped below the far edge of the world.

  He turned back to Thaniel. “You have to go now, my brother. And so must I.”

  Thaniel didn’t move.

  Aram pulled at his gauntlets and adjusted the Sword on his back. “Go now, my friend. Go and make certain that every element of the army is far to the south of this place. I will be more able to act with clarity of thought if I am sure that no life but my own is in jeopardy.” He reached out and touched the side of Thaniel’s head. “Please, my brother – go.”

  Thaniel shifted his immense weight in agitation and blew a great blast from his nostrils. “Come back to us, Aram.”

  Aram nodded firmly. “I will if I am able.” He dropped his hand and stepped back, and then pointed back along the road toward the rim of the crater. “Please – go.”

  Thaniel stood for a long moment, and then without speaking, he wheeled around and galloped back up the road, dodging this way and that around the heaped bodies of Manon’s dead army. Aram watched him go until the horse climbed the distant slope and reached the rim. At the horizon line, already growing indistinct in the deepening twilight, the great horse stopped and looked back, a small dim black shadow against the gathering night.

  Aram raised one hand and held it for a moment and then let it drop. “Farewell, my friend,” he said quietly.

  Thaniel stood silhouetted against the darkening sky for so long that Aram began to suspect that he meant to return, but then the great horse wheeled away, drove through the cut, down the road beyond, and was gone.

  Aram drew in a deep breath, and pivoted to look toward the massive tower, gleaming in the dimness. Cocking his head, he listened into the falling night, but there was no sound save that of the chill wind that had picked up once more, to sweep restlessly out of the cold peaks to the north of the valley. He glanced up, into the darkness of the eastern sky, but no stars shone. The firmament was as opaque as flint.

  Mustering his courage, he began to move deliberately toward the tower that soared high into the ash-laden sky above him. He was past the heaviest carnage done by whatever power Manon had unleashed upon his own troops; still, surprisingly, individual bodies occasionally lay about on both sides of the road. Several times, he stopped to investigate an imagined sound, perhaps one of Manon’s minions that was only injured and not dead. But each time it was confirmed that, in fact, nothing moved in all the valley of Morkendril.

  The base of the tower rose less than a mile from his position as the night thickened around him. He quickened his steps and glanced involuntarily once more toward the east. The Glittering Sword of God should be in the sky this time of year, just above the horizon, but he could see nothing of that strange array of red and blue stars. The darkening sky was thick and heavy with the exhalations of the smoking mountains.

  The floor of the valley was composed of the detritus from past eruptions from those mountains. Gravel, pounded smooth by the passage of countless booted feet and clawed lasher appendages, extended to either side of the road for as far as he could see in the thickening gloom.

  By the time he entered the outskirts of Morkendril, night had fully fallen. The cold wind concentrated its chill strength upon the main avenue as it blew straight into his face. He was still a long way from the base of the tower. The stone huts, separated by narrow bystreets, angled endlessly away from him into the blackness. Often, he stopped to listen into the night, but there was ever only the sound of the ceaseless wind.

  Ahead and above, the fang-tooth tower gleamed in the night as if the material of the tower itself were illuminated with a faint greenish light. Off to either side, mounding up into the night, other towers arose, connected to the main structure by crenelated turrets and walls. No one manned them now.

  The city was utterly devoid of life.

  Feeling his courage flagging, Aram slowed his pace, reached back and unsheathed the Sword. He drew it forth and held it in front of him, at the ready, resisting the stout westward tug it exerted upon his arm.

  Silence lay thick, dark, and heavy all about him.

  Far overhead, the thin, sharp tip of the tower was lost in the blackness of the sky.

  On he went, walking slowly, deliberately, his ears seeming to tingle from the utter absence of living sounds. Eventually, even the wind grew quiet, and seemed content to lie down and die among the dingy streets and avenues.

  Ahead of him, darker than the surrounding night, the tower grew closer and loomed ever higher, gleaming blackly.

  After what felt like hours of creeping along the smooth black pavement, between the dark streets and empty huts, the road began to descend between two walls of stone. Darkness gathered even more thickly here. Except for the strange gleaming of the vast wall of the tower, his eyes could discern nothing in the gloom.

  Down he went, along the slope of the pavement. The huts of Morkendril disappeared into the night above him.

  Down, down, he went as if the road would lead him eventually to the realm of the underearth. Then his boots sloshed through an unseen, slowly running stream of shallow, rancid water that gave off the fetid odor of filth when his feet disturbed it. Beyond that liquid rottenness, the road rose gently upward again.

  Then, dead ahead, a large rectangle of black abruptly loomed in the gleaming blackness of the tower wall. He’d reached the stronghold of Manon the Grim.

  And the door was open.

  He stopped, cocked his head, and listened into the heavy stillness.

  No sound came to his ear. Not the cry of a night-bird or the chirp of a nocturnal insect. Not even the soughing of the slightest breeze. All was absolutely still.

  He stood stock-still, gazing ahead into the night, and drew in several deep breaths. As his eyes adjusted, he found that the black rectangle to his front was not completely dark. A faint, greenish glow emanated from it, and he could make out the smooth surface of a facing wall beyond the opening, several feet inside the entrance.

  Keeping the Sword in front of him and at the level, he moved toward the entrance. The green glow str
engthened as he came nearer and he could make out the far wall of the interior passageway as well as the vast door that stood ajar from the structure.

  Cautiously, he moved to stand against the open door, on the right side of the enormous entrance. Easing along it toward the opening, he peered to his left for as far along the interior passageway as he could. The passage sloped away from him in that direction and there was no one in sight upon it. Stepping back away from the doorway, he eased to the left side, moved up next to the smooth wall of the tower and looked the other way. In that direction, to his right, the passage rose away from him as it wound into the heights. There was no one in sight there, either.

  Drawing in a deep breath, letting the Sword lead the way, he stepped through the opening. It was as he’d seen from outside. The passageway was made of a slick black substance. If it was not stone, it was similar in composition, but utterly smooth. To the left the hallway wound downward and out of sight to the right. The other way, it wound upward toward the higher regions of the tower and went away to the left.

  Holding his breath, he tried to listen between the deep bass notes of his pounding heart but no other sound came to him. After considering it for a long moment, and feeling uncomfortable with climbing upward if Manon was somewhere below, he went to his left, toward the lower regions, walking slowly and as noiselessly as he could manage.

  The ceiling of the hall, which was lit by green stones that shimmered like jewels and were imbedded into its glossy black surface, was high above him, perhaps fifteen feet or more above his head. The passageway itself was wide enough that two or even three lashers could have passed each other with ease. But if any of those beasts had survived the carnage that Manon had inflicted upon his own army, they were not in sight at the moment. And judging by the absolute silence of the place, Aram now believed that in fact none had survived.

  He was alone in the tower except for his enemy, the enemy of the world, who lurked somewhere in the shadows of this structure, the stronghold of evil.