by Jack Conner
The Spider Goddess’s hearing was excellent.
“You don’t like my children?” she asked, breaking off from her speech and half turning.
Rolenya visibly summoned her courage, tilting her chin up. “As a matter of fact, I do not.”
“Good. I will keep that in mind, and if in the future you misbehave I will destroy that pretty new body of yours, as slowly as I care to, and slip your quivering little soul into the body of a Borchstog, or something you find even fouler.” She paused, delighting in the repulsed expression on Rolenya’s face. “A Spider, perhaps,” she added with a wink to Baleron before returning her attention back to her cheering throng. So did her hundred-feet-high images.
“I am Mother to you all,” she said. “Love me. Worship me. With every life you take, Man or Elf or Dwarf or other, you honor me. With every town you burn and every field you raze, you give me a gift. I am with you at every turn, and everything you do, you do for me, as well as your Sire. We made you as you are to be the best of the races, the strongest, the most fearsome, and you are. Embrace this. Your Master wove your souls out of his shadow, and I ask you now—no, I demand you—to fling his shadow to all quarters of the world!”
They roared.
“Now your Lord Sire would like to address you. Are you ready?”
They clenched their fists above their heads and roared.
She raised her arms again, then stepped back away from the front edge of the terrace and assumed a waiting posture.
The great black figure of Gilgaroth himself strode down the long stairs that led up to his Throne Room, moving with power. Darkness swelled around him, and from it his eyes of fire smoldered. In one hand he carried his long staff. A dark cape fluttered behind him, and a dark helmet masked his head, concealing all save his burning eyes, which seared everything they looked upon. He was even taller than Mogra.
He marched out onto the terrace, right past Baleron—who felt himself unconsciously drawing back and shielding Rolenya with his body—and took up the position Mogra had just vacated. He inclined his head downwards, surveying his army harshly. The Borchstogs exploded, roaring out their love for him, beating on their breasts and pumping their weapons over their heads. The other various beasts and monsters joined in. Baleron could not see all the details, but he could imagine them.
Something at the corner of his eye caught his attention.
Down and to his right was another terrace, not as large, and on it stood none other than the Leviathan. Ul Mrungona saw him. They regarded each other warily, smoke issuing from the dragon’s nostrils. His wet scales flickered in the lightning-rent night.
I should’ve known he’d be here, Baleron thought. Gilgaroth wanted Rolenya and I here—he wanted the chance to gloat—and he wants Throgmar here for the same reason. I’ll teach him the price for his arrogance.
Wordlessly, Throgmar averted his amber eyes from Baleron. He looked from Gilgaroth to Mogra, and Baleron could see dark wheels turning in the Leviathan’s mind. Good, thought Baleron, then returned his own attention to Gilgaroth, his hand unconsciously clenching into a fist at his side. Almost of their own volition his fingers inched toward Rondthril’s handle.
Kill! Kill!
Taking a deep breath, he stilled the troublesome digits and let his right arm hang limply at his side. Rain stung him, and he shivered, suddenly realizing how small and frail he was next to the likes of Gilgaroth.
“My army,” said the Dark One. His image too appeared in the bonfires below, looming over the Borchstogs, who would be gazing up at him reverentially. “You should see yourselves, my sons, my daughters. You look STRONG. Mighty. Stout as stone. Nothing can stand against you. You are the wave that will erode the last bastions of Light. Your purity of essence will be my enemies’ undoing. You will go north and crush the siege at Clevaris. You will burn and blacken the Elvish gardens of Larenthi and spread my wrath throughout the kingdoms of the Crescent. Then you will go into the northlands and make them mine at last. We are partly of the same flesh—YOU HAVE MY BLOOD IN YOUR VEINS!—and you will now be the instrument of my ultimate will. And that will is Ruin!”
They bellowed loudly, gnashing their teeth.
“The Union has kept me pinned behind the walls of my Black Shield for thousands of years, and it shall be you who sets me free. Be proud! Be strong! Be bold! Strike fear into the hearts of all who do not bow before me. Make this tower the very Heart of the World!”
He clenched a fist and a thousand tongues of lightning flickered out of the clouds and a terrible boom! nearly knocked Baleron to his knees. The Borchstogs were so awed they fell silent.
“You will need a leader,” Gilgaroth continued in the silence. “Someone worthy to march you to victory. I must stay here to oversee my various hosts, and to sustain this very tower until it is strong.”
He gestured to the shadows within the Main Hall and a batwinged form materialized from the darkness.
Cautiously, Ungier, former Lord of Gulrothrog, Father of Vampires, late Shepherd of the Flame, stepped onto the terrace. He looked hunched and nervous. His all—black eyes darted here and there in suspicion. They found Baleron and he sneered nastily. Then they shifted to Rolenya, and a strangely sweet smile crossed his face, though he acted no less nervously. He seemed to sense something amiss.
Hope fluttered in Baleron’s chest at the vampire’s unease, but he tried not to let it rise too high. Rolenya clasped his hand, her grip tighter than she probably intended. She was getting anxious.
Giving her an encouraging look, he slowly disengaged his hand so that it would be free.
Gilgaroth held out his own hand and the Vampire King made his way past prince, princess, Borchstogs and mother to his Master’s side. He stood there uncomfortably, gazing down on the endless rows of troops.
“This is Ungier,” said Gilgaroth to his army. “One of my favorite and most powerful sons.”
The Borchstogs started to cheer the Lord of Ungoroth, and Ungier smiled hesitantly. The meager hope in Baleron’s chest began to die.
But then Gilgaroth swept his arm flatly and the Borchstogs fell silent. Ungier’s smile withered.
“I gave him an order—to take Havensrike in my name,” Gilgaroth said. “And so he captured Glorifel, the shining jewel of Man. But in his arrogance he sought REWARD for his labors. More than this, he asked the one gift that I could not give. And when I would not give it, he in secret tried to take it by force.” His voice grew gravelly with rage. “For that he shall suffer, and YOU shall bear witness to the working of my justice.”
Ungier’s face turned gray. Judging from the expression, he had half suspected something like this was going to happen.
Mogra looked surprised, even fearful. Her mouth opened, as if about to say something, but then she closed it.
“It was a mistake!” Ungier cried. He pointed an accusing, trembling finger at Rolenya. “She ensnared me! She’s a witch! She’s ensnared you, too, Sire. Don’t you understand? Shut your ears to her. Do not listen to her songs. Cast her aside!”
Gilgaroth regarded him stonily. “And . . . give her to YOU?”
Ungier swallowed. “Not necessarily, no. But maybe. Perhaps if—”
“Silence!”
The vampire looked to Mogra for aid. “Mother, help!”
She looked regretful. “I would aid you, if I could, Ungier, but for one thing: you challenged your Father in combat. You would have slain him if you could, and for what—her? I’m sorry, my son, but I cannot save you this time.”
Finally! thought Baleron. Though rejoicing at Ungier’s downfall, however, he almost pitied the vampire. To have risen so high and to have fallen so low, and for a love that Baleron could understand—
With sudden movement, Gilgaroth wrapped an armored hand about Ungier’s waist and hefted him high off the rain-soaked balcony. Ungier’s claw-tipped feet scratched at the empty air, and his batwings flapped uselessly.
“You erred, Ungier,” Gilgaroth said. “Once at Gulrothrog,
when you jeopardized my most important spider—” (his helmeted head indicated Baleron) “—and again by asking me to give you my most treasured possession as a reward for a task whose only reward was my love. My love was not enough, so now you will be cast out of it forevermore.”
Ungier struggled in his father’s grip, but his powers had been removed and he was helpless. “Forgive me!” he pleaded. “She’s a witch! She mesmerized me! She’s mesmerized you! Mogra, save me!”
But Mogra kept silent. She may have hated Rolenya, and she may have suspected the princess had some hold over her sons, but she was loyal to Gilgaroth and would not speak against him in this, no matter her private misgivings.
Shaking, Ungier cried, “Father, forgive me! Please!”
“Forgive?”
“Mercy!” Ungier’s battish face screwed up in misery. His all-black eyes looked very large. “Mercy, Father!”
“What IS this . . . ‘mercy’?”
The Dark One pinched one of the vampire’s wings with his free hand. He paused, savoring his son’s fear, then he tore the leathery wing loose with a spray of blood. Ungier cried out in agony.
Rolenya gasped and turned her face away.
“No!” shouted Ungier, writhing, leaking black blood.
“Yes,” said Gilgaroth, flicking the batwing away; it drifted on the wind and was soon snatched up by a passing dragon. The Lord of the Tower nodded to the throng below. “You have drunk the blood of many over the centuries, my son. Now it is time to give back.”
“Don’t do this!” screamed the vampire.
It was too late. Gilgaroth drew back his arm and, with a mighty heave, flung the godling from the terrace. The Vampire King spun end over end, howling as he fell. It seemed to Baleron that for a moment time seemed to slow, and Ungier’s all-black eyes glared briefly at him for the last time, then passed on to Rolenya. His eyes lingered on her lovingly before his face twisted in terror at the fall to come, and he disappeared over the side.
Baleron, and everyone else on the terrace save Gilgaroth, leaned over the edge to see what would become of him.
With his one wing, Ungier tried to master the air. He spiraled down, down and around, flapping that one appendage pitifully.
He would not go easily. As he fell, the vampire passed various prominences that jutted out from the tower overlooking the Great Inferno, and on some dragons lounged. Others were mere decorative spikes. Desperately, almost comically, Ungier flapped his wing, angling himself toward one of these prominences.
He nearly missed it. As it was, his long arms reached out and just barely grabbed hold of a nightmarish gargoyle with his nimble claws, jerking him to a halt. Visibly trembling, he huddled there, safe for the moment.
The Borchstogs roared in thwarted bloodlust.
“The fool!” hissed Mogra. “Can he not even die with dignity?”
Ungier hugged the prominence, trembling, trying to fold himself up and merge with the brooding architecture. He looked down into the bright flames of the Inferno, then up at the terrace high above, then around him.
He issued a high-pitched whistle.
A nearby terrace held the nests of a brood of glarums, and one rose and took wing, flying toward the Vampire King. Ungier might actually escape!
Baleron glanced toward the towering shadow that was Gilgaroth, but Gilgaroth did not move. He’s letting Ungier go. Baleron, unable to believe this, ground his teeth.
The glarum approached Ungier’s prominence. In another few seconds, the vampire would be away.
“I think not,” said Baleron.
He wrenched a crossbow loose from one of his guards and aimed at the dark, small, lanky figure of Ungier. The vampire was a long way down, through rain and night, but Baleron did not hesitate. He sighted along the lethal bolt and fired.
The shaft flew. Just as the glarum neared the prominence to which Ungier hung, the bolt struck the pitiful figure in the side, and the speck that was Ungier lost its hold and fell toward the hungry flames. The glarum veered away and returned to its roost.
The Borchstog reclaimed its crossbow with a snarl, raising its hand as if to strike Baleron but seeming to think better of it.
Ungier, clutching the bolt that protruded from his ribs, still flapping that one wing, head thrown back in a scream, plummeted toward his doom, and Rolenya clung so tightly to Baleron’s arm that her fingers dug painfully into his flesh. Baleron watched Ungier’s plummet with grim satisfaction, feeling a swell of pride—not pride for himself or his marksmanship, but pride for Rolenya. He had tried and failed many times to kill Ungier; Elvish sorcerers and a queen had been unable to tame Rondthril; the Archmage of Havensrike had likewise failed. It had taken Rolenya to destroy the vampire, and that without even trying.
“There!” shouted Gilgaroth to his army as Ungier sailed down, as if Ungier being shot had been of his doing. “THERE is my gift to you! His blood—and his example! Do not fail me as he did, or suffer his fate you will.”
At long last, Ungier passed into the fires of Illistriv and burst into flames. He screamed, audible for miles around. Shrouded in fire, screaming hideously, he disappeared into the depths of the Second Hell, never to be seen again.
Baleron’s heart sang with joy.
He instantly felt a change in Rondthril; the Fanged Blade seemed to sigh, as if with release.
The time has come.
Below, Borchstogs cheered the execution.
Mogra smiled lovingly. “Eager, aren’t they?”
Baleron was just about to pull Rondthril from its scabbard when suddenly Gilgaroth turned and did something unaccountably odd: he reached out a hand and . . . beckoned . . . to Baleron.
Shocked, the prince just looked at Gilgaroth. What was this?
“Come,” said the Dark One.
Was Baleron to meet the same fate as Ungier? Is this how his own labors would be rewarded? Rolenya shot him a worried look, and he tried to put on a brave face for her.
“It will be fine,” he told her.
She didn’t seem able to bring herself to speak.
Again Gilgaroth beckoned for him to come to his right side, and Baleron did so, immediately feeling the heat that radiated off ul Kunraggog. Gilgaroth’s smell was overpowering, even more so than Mogra’s—the musk of the Great Wolf mixed with brimstone and burning coal. Gilgaroth’s living shadow billowed and ebbed, Baleron could feel it, cold and hot at once, oily, penetrating . . . He felt befouled by it, and powerless under its influence.
He stood at the right side of Gilgaroth, Breaker of the World, Prince of Darkness, Lord of Hell, and stared down at the Inferno of the world-bound Illistriv and at the bonfires of the Borchstog hordes that would help the Inferno spread. Wind whipped him, and he shivered. His image appeared in the fires below. He looked very small next to Gilgaroth. What am I doing here?
To the horde, Gilgaroth said, “THIS, children, is my Deliverer. My Savior. My Champion. My Spider—he whom I laid a Doom upon years ago. I planted a seed then, and now it has arisen into a mighty oak and gives me shelter. With his Doom Baleron has helped destroy his country’s own army and that of the Larenth. He helped me fell the White Tower of Celievsti. Thus was I able to both raise Krogbur and breach the Wall of Spires. He has helped me kill Felias and Elethris and the Archmage of Glorifel—even King Grothgar, his own father. And his Doom is not yet complete, not while I live. For his web shall CONTINUE to grow, and it shall be more glorious yet.”
He paused, and Baleron felt his insides wrench. No, he thought desperately. Let it be over!
“Ungier was not fit to lead you,” Gilgaroth said to his horde. “He was not worthy.” He paused dramatically. “It shall be BALERON who leads you! Ul Ravast”
Baleron gasped. Rolenya did likewise.
Below, the Borchstogs cheered. Some took up the chant, “RA-VAST! RA-VAST!”
“Ten thousand years ago I foresaw that one from among the Fallen Race would deliver me my freedom, would serve as the general to lead my armies in the Fi
nal War. That time has come. It shall be HE whom I make General tonight. HE will lead you north to crush Clevaris and Larenthi, and then he will drive you onwards, and under his rule you shall raze the Crescent entire. And then go north, darkening all in your path, to the very Tower of the Sun.”
Baleron’s blood ran cold. Throgmar was right: Gilgaroth truly lived only to cause pain and suffering. Oh, he was evil! He would take the one who hated him most and force that one to spread his evil for him.
Suddenly Baleron decided that he would take no more.
Speaking past the knot in his throat, he said, “I will not.”
Gilgaroth looked down at him, curious.
Baleron fingered Rondthril. Could he be quick enough? Unlikely. Not when those eyes of fire were upon him. Not while that shadow was touching him.
“You WILL,” the Dark One said. “And you will do it well. For your Doom still binds you, and it is entwined about your very soul. It will give you no choice. It will prompt you to carry out my will, even when you are unwilling or unaware.” He paused. “You thought to shake it when you went to the White Tower, but that only furthered my designs. You thought to rid yourself of it when you hacked off your hand and went to rescue your father, but that only freed Rauglir and brought him within striking distance of the King. You thought to fight me at every turn, but I was ready. I have planned this for Ages, Baleron. Every step and counter-step. There is nothing you can do to thwart me. You are mine. And I look forward to seeing you spread my shadow.” He breathed contentedly. “Yes, I will send you out to do my will, and I will keep Rolenya here to await your return. Rolenya, my little songbird. She will amuse me in your absence.”
Baleron trembled in rage. “You have whole kingdoms at your disposal, and this is the only way you can amuse yourself? You’re mad! Mad!” He breathed heavily. He felt his face flush with rage.
Gilgaroth said nothing. He seemed to be enjoying this.