by A J Dalton
Suddenly, he bent his back so that his head was down near his heels and swung his scythe in a perfect, horizontal, one-hundred-and-eighty degree half circle. The weapon hit the King in the neck exactly as Saltar had intended. However, it bounced off as if it had hit diamond and his arms were numbed right up to the shoulders as they were forced to absorb all of the energy of the blow. He could not hold his grip on the weapon any longer and it fell next to the incapacitated goddess.
Still in his throne, Voltar yawned and stretched his back, apparently only slightly troubled by the sympathetic pain the goddess’s suffering caused him. Saltar saw that the Scourge and Kate had collapsed because they had been hamstrung themselves when he had undone the goddess. Think what would have happened if he’d actually killed Shakri! Kate scrabbled for Young Strap’s bow, but Lacrimos was all too quickly kneeling over the Scourge ready to plunge his sword into the Guardian’s stomach.
‘Wait!’ Voltar commanded the god of death. ‘This has provided us with some passing entertainment. Let us not hurry the instructional denouement. I trust, Balthagar, you now see how fitting your defeat and my triumph are, how inevitable they are? I am the creator, the author, the beginning and the end. The trinity of life, death and the Heart all exist through me. Shakri, Lacrimos and the sorceress are one through me, can you not see that? They are the perfect unity through me – one cannot exist without the others, one cannot cease unless the others also cease. They are complete at last. There are no more division, destruction and despair. There are only lasting unity, life and love. There is only my will and immortality.’
‘Scourge, Kate, you heard? One cannot cease unless the others also cease!’ Saltar called repeating the King’s words.
‘Aye, I heard!’ the Scourge chuckled. ‘It’s been good knowing you all, to be sure, but it will be a relief to me when it is done. Anyhow, I’d rather embrace death than have to listen to that tedious bastard on the throne for another second.’
‘What are you…?’ Voltar asked in confusion, starting to rise from his throne.
‘Scourge!’ Kate shouted, tears streaming from her eyes as she lifted Young Strap’s bow. ‘I love you, you miserable, old man. You were always the father I never had. I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused you.’
The Scourge laughed with genuine joy, free of any burden for the first time in his life. ‘I know, sweet Kate, I know! Now, Lacrimos, let’s see what you’re made of. Let’s see if a god can face their end with even a fraction of the dignity and bravery of a mortal.’
‘Master, I’m scared!’ Lacrimos shouted in panic to Voltar.
‘To think I’d actually get to slay a god! To think I could beat Lacrimos himself!’ the Scourge cried with relish.
‘Saltar, there’s no need for this!’ Voltar said shakily as realisation began to dawn.
‘Time for the kiss of death, you sonuvabitch!’ the Scourge grated and pulled Lacrimos down close to him. The god’s sword penetrated his abdomen, and blood spewed from the Scourge’s mouth, but not before he’d used the knife concealed in his sleeve to stab the god deep in the neck. The god howled and thrashed, but could not break free of the Guardian’s iron grip. The knife stabbed again and again until the god could do no more than rest his dying head against the Scourge’s shoulder.
‘Now, Kate!’ Saltar shouted as he placed his boot on Shakri’s throat and prepared to crush it.
Kate drew back the bow, sighted and released. The loud, slow beating of the Heart filled the room as it began the countdown towards its end. The arrow moved sluggishly through the air, but inevitably managed to pierce through the veil of Voltar’s will. Saltar brought all his weight to bear on the one heel and began to grind it savagely through the goddess’s neck. Lacrimos’s eyes fluttered once and then closed.
‘Please, noo!’ Voltar screamed hysterically. ‘You’ll annihilate us all!’
The arrow plunged into the white sorceress’s breast and deep into the Heart. It’s beating stopped and there was a moment of infinite and deafening silence.
Then, the faintest of whispers – ‘At last! Thank you!’ – as Harpedon’s soul found release from its centuries-long prison within the white sorceress’s chest.
‘Why?’ Voltar managed to bubble before he began to lose cohesion along with the rest of the room.
‘Better this free choice than an eternity of slavery and self-abortion beneath the will of another,’ Saltar decided as he watched first his comrades and then Kate fade away. For a while, he was all that remained. He did not know for how long it lasted – it could have been an instant or an eternity – but then he, too, gave himself up to the all encompassing, strangely freeing void.
***
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: To hold back death
He did not know how it was possible, but he still had a sense of self.
‘Where am I?’ he asked, whether it was out loud, to himself or so that another might respond, he was not sure.
‘You are nowhere and everywhere, brother, hmm?’ replied a voice that could only be the Chamberlain’s.
‘Where are you?’
‘I have a place in your realm, brother, as you agreed I would should you defeat the necromancer.’
‘Yes, I remember. But where is this realm?’
‘You are the realm, brother, for you are the unity. You were always dead, alive and other.’
‘Where are the others? Kate, Mordius, the Scourge, the gods?’
‘So much you have forgotten. Do you not sense them within you, within the unity?’
‘P-perhaps! I want to see them though. I cannot tell if it’s light or dark here. Where’s my body?’
The Chamberlain sighed. ‘The things you ask for would end the unity and reconstitute much of what was. Only you can decide if that is what you want, that is what you are and that is what you will be.’
Saltar did not hesitate: ‘Then so it will be. Look! I can see the throne room again. There are Mordius, Lucius, Young Strap… and Kate! Voltar and the white sorceress are gone, of course, but where is the Scourge?’
You are not omnipotent, brother, and you are giving up much to allow this reconstitution. The balance must still be observed, remember, or have you forgotten that too? The Scourge died in Lacrimos’s embrace. That cannot be undone, for the realm is constituted of what you were and what you are. This realm is inextricably linked to and defined by the fabric of the past.’
‘And the rest of it is there now, the palace, the outdwellers, the Accritanians. It all still exists.’
‘All that remains is for you is to join them, Balthagar. I would advise you to make some changes where you can first, however. Your survival might depend on it if you become mortal again.’
‘You mean… you mean…?’
‘Yes, you can know life in full if that is your choice. You can choose not to be this undead creature that so many misunderstand.’
‘There is no choice then, Chamberlain, for I must be with Kate as a real, living man.’
A misty version of the Chamberlain’s face appeared, overlaying the reality that now seemed so close to Saltar that he could reach out and touch it. The Chamberlain smiled bleakly: ‘You will gain much by it but also lose much. Perhaps it is inevitable, as the narcissistic obsession you have with the idea of Kate kept driving you when you had lost all other hope and momentum. Lucius had a similar obsession for the sorceress that temporarily disrupted Voltar’s hold on the Heart. Perhaps there is more magic in mortals than older entities such as you and I ever realised.
‘I will go to her now. And I imagine I will find you in the palace as well, Chamberlain?’
The Chamberlain’s face began to dissipate and Saltar suddenly feared he caught a flicker of something cunning in the fading expression. ‘But of course, for that was the agreement.’
‘What sort of entity are you?’ Saltar asked desperately before he lost his chance. ‘Are there others? Where are you from?’
The Chamberlain tutted: ‘You are mortal now and will only fo
rget no matter how many times I remind you, hmm?’ Then he was gone except for a haunting echo.’
***
Saltar shook his head as if waking from a particularly heavy sleep and looked about him. There was Kate. She looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her, as if she shone with an inner light. She was smiling at him dreamily. He realised everything in the throne room seemed more alive than he had ever experienced it. Colours were so bright that they made his eyes ache. Odours were so intoxicating that they made him giddy. Sounds were so clear that they seemed like the very thoughts in his head. Normally mundane objects were suddenly sensuous pieces of physical art. The taste of his saliva and the flavours of his own tongue and palate almost made him faint with pleasure.
His senses were alive! He was alive!
‘Your terrible wounds are gone!’ Kate said in wonder. ‘And your eyes… can it be?’ She came close to him and raised a hand, but feared to touch him in case his body still felt as cold as death. Surely he now has hot blood coursing through his veins!
He clasped her hand to his chest where his spear wound had once been. ‘It’s me! See?’
She began to cry, not daring to believe it. ‘I can feel your heart beating. It’s so strong!’
‘It’s true!’ Mordius beamed. ‘My magic no longer supports him.’ The necromancer was almost unrecognisable, there was such a look of joy and relaxation transforming his habitually fretful features. He seemed to have been gifted with a true, inner peace from somewhere. Now, he was a man who wanted to embrace the life before him rather than a magician who looked back over his shoulder for fear of invisible, deadly enemies.
‘Where is the Scourge?’ Kate asked worriedly, her head turning this way and that.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No!’ Young Strap protested. ‘It’s not fair! He gave so much. Show me his body!’
Saltar went to him and placed a hand on each of his shoulders. The Guardian hung his head, inconsolable. ‘I don’t know where he is,’ Saltar said gently, ‘but I’m sure he went out as he’d always wanted, principled to the last. He can have had no regrets. Wherever he is now, I’m sure he’s shouting that you should show more gumption.’
Young Strap hiccupped a laugh, wiping tears from his cheeks. ‘I will miss his grousing and constant complaint.’
‘We all will,’ Kate said, her features clouded with pain.
‘I don’t understand,’ Lucius murmured. ‘I remember we were fighting Voltar. There was a woman in white, but… I think we beat him, didn’t we? It’s all a bit vague. Do any of your remember it?’ he asked, looking from face to face.
Saltar was at something of a loss himself. He desperately tried to hold on to images from the final confrontation with Voltar, but it was like trying to use your hands to catch water that had fallen from a great height. Ideas splashed into his clutches, only to leap free and soak away into the ground. ‘Wasn’t Lacrimos there? The Scourge fought him, I think.’
‘Yes,’ whispered a husky and exotic voice. The nubile figure of Shakri the lover appeared in the throne. Her body was barely concealed by a diaphanous length of material draped around her shoulders. Saltar felt his body respond to the sight of her in a way that left him in no doubt that he was now fully alive, and a hot-blooded male to boot.
Kate put her arm through his possessively. ‘Mother of creation, welcome!’
‘Greetings, daughter. You don’t know how it gladdens me to see you have finally found a measure of happiness in your life.’
‘What about the Scourge?’ Young Strap blurted clumsily.
Shakri smiled down on him tolerantly. ‘Fear not, for Janvil now has a place at my side as my divine consort. He defeated my unruly and recalcitrant brother, so what could be more appropriate? He is one of the few mortals who remains himself when stood before the gods. He is good for us although he is already causing me no end of trouble. We will work things out in due course. After all, we have all eternity. He is a very… passionate man!’
She smiled at Saltar with a look that was at once both knowing and coy. The tip of her tongue touched her full, top lip and lingered there for a moment. ‘We have much to thank you for, Saltar. We trust that our daughter, Kate, will go some way towards paying our debt.’
Saltar squeezed his beloved’s arm. ‘She is all I could ever want.’
‘That is well. I must go now, to see that the balance is preserved. I think I hear my consort calling me. He is so demanding.’
Saltar could not help but smile at the domestic simplicity of the deity. Mordius spoke up quickly as she began to shimmer away. ‘Is the war ended then?’
Misgivings wrote her final look. ‘For a while, perhaps. There is much planting and rebuilding to be done of course. I fear my brother and the other forces of the cosmos cannot be trusted to safeguard the good of mankind, however. It is the way of things.’
***
Constantus blinked like a newborn child. The intensity of the light was almost too much for him and forced tears from the corners of his eyes. His vision cleared and he looked out across the plain of Corinus, which somehow looked cleaner than it ever had before. The dead were gone. There was no blood to be seen. There were none of the injured scrabbling in the dirt and the gore of their own intestines screaming for mercy or help. It was as if the earth had been scoured clean and all trace of pain and suffering had been taken away. The soil was a dark, rich colour and surely would be good for crops. It would be good to lay down his weapons and pick up the tools of the farmer, to work the land honestly, husband it and nurture the life that came from it as had always been intended. It would be good to work hard all day and return exhausted to the waiting embrace of a loving family: yes, he would be tired but he would know he’d done enough to help his loved ones prosper and grow.
His brow creased as he remembered he’d had a son, a son who had been lost to the war. A seed that was the desire for vengeance began to take root in his fertile heart. He tightened his hand but found there was no weapon there. Where was his trusty sabre? Quickly! Too late, the thing that had been growing inside him withered and died. He was one amongst thousands of men standing bewildered or milling around aimlessly on what had once been a flesh-rending battlefield. They had all been divested of their instruments of death and torture.
What had happened? One minute he had been hewing away at an equally crazed and foaming Memnosian, and the next… there had been a dreadful, lonely darkness. Then he had awoken to this new place, a place like the old one, but scrubbed so that it shone, scrubbed so that it was no longer tainted by misdeed and sin. Men’s eyes were clearer, the pallor of their flesh healthier. They saw with an acuity and understanding that installed and attached meaning to the most trivial of things. Beetles, small stones, dust, the clouds, the gust of the wind, a button on a uniform: it all humbled Constantus and made him feel more privileged than any king, or emperor even.
What had they actually been fighting over? He couldn’t really remember. What he did know, though how he could not say, was that Saltar had defeated Voltar and that the war was over. There was no reason to fight anymore. The way those around him were behaving, be they green Memnosian youth, Accritanian veteran or mercenary from Holter’s Cross, they shared the knowledge that the generations-long conflict was ended. He was not sure what they were now expected to do.
He heard the hooves of a small group riding towards him. ‘Vallus!’ he called with joy. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes. I never thought to see you again. The gods be praised, I never thought to see the sun again.’
Vallus threw what almost passed for a smart salute. Surely that wasn’t a smile making the normally grim-faced soldier look years longer! ‘General, I… I… what are your orders?’
Constantus scratched his head, at a loss for the first time in his military career. ‘Err… hmm… well, let’s see. I know! Give me your report, Captain! Didn’t I leave you guarding… now, what was his name… ah, yes… Savantus?’
Vallus looked thoughtfu
l and not a little mystified. ‘That’s right, so you did. Well, he’s gone now, it would appear, simply gone. I’ve got this strange feeling, I suppose you would call it, that he hasn’t gone to any particular place, he’s simply been removed from everything. It’s like he never existed or something. Sorry, sir, I’m doing my best but it’s a bit of a struggle.’
‘Not a problem, Captain!’ Constantus beamed. ‘I’m feeling a little dazed myself.’
‘Sir, if I may ask?’
‘Carry on, Captain.’
‘What should we do now? Did we actually win? Have the Memnosians surrendered?’
Constantus shifted uneasily in his saddle, not comfortable with being unable to answer the questions of those he was expected to command with decisiveness. ‘Well, those are all very good questions, Captain, and I’m sure we’ll find out the answers in due course. Why don’t we go find Saltar and see what he thinks? He’s in the palace, I take it?’
Vallus shrugged.
‘Right, okay,’ the General pondered out loud. ‘Then find me the highest ranking Memnosian left alive on this field and we’ll accompany him and a few of his men into the city. I’m sure they’ll open the gates to us given that neither we nor the Memnosians appear to possess a single weapon between us.’
***
The doors to the throne room were thrown open and the Chamberlain led in a long line of cowed and nervous-looking servants. They carried trestles, eating boards, chairs and enough food and drink to feed a small army. Saltar experienced a terrible instant of panic that he would see only darkness beyond the open door but his irrational fear disappeared just as quickly as it had come. As if the Chamberlain controlled the servants with a spell, they arranged the room and Saltar’s group without anyone having spoken a word.
From his position at the head of the table, Saltar found his voice just as the servants were filing from the room. ‘I remember you!’