by J. L. Doty
She walked down the three steps carefully, then started slowly across the floor toward the dark shape, her heart threatening to pound its way out of her chest, squinting desperately to make out the form of the thing on the floor. His face was hidden by hunched shoulders and a bowed head. He was resting on his knees, sitting back on his heels, arms extended forward and down, hands gripped together about something on the floor.
She stopped at a point that would be just out of the sword’s reach, and facing him she lowered herself slowly to her knees. She tried to relax, closed her eyes, let her magic expand outward carefully. Morgin’s hands gripped the hilt of the sword, and he had buried the blade itself deep within the stone of the floor. For the moment it lay quiescent and still, though oddly it filled the entire room with its power.
Too late, she realized her mistake. The power of the blade did fill the room, and now that she had entered its trap it would consume her with its hatred. It flared angrily, and with a shower of stone chips it lifted itself out of the floor, flooding her soul with wave after wave of torment, allowing her to glimpse for a moment the vastness of its power and the malevolence of its desire. But then another power arose behind it, equally as vast and equally as malevolent. It met the power of the blade, surrounded it, squashed it, compressed it with agonizing slowness ever smaller and smaller, both powers coalescing into white-hot sparks that receded into the depths of Morgin’s soul, farther and deeper, until Rhianne could no longer sense them.
The Hall became again quiet, though Rhianne’s thoughts shouted with the revelation of the vision she had seen. Morgin had not lost his power, not as he believed. He had instead used his power to control and imprison that of the blade, and equally matched, both had become compressed and tightened until they were locked away in some deep recess of his soul unknown even to him. And now that Rhianne knew what to look for, she saw the constant struggle within him, and knew now that she must help him at any cost.
~~~
Morgin awoke to a fierce headache and a churning stomach. His mouth tasted like last night’s ale and the air about him smelled of old urine and stale vomit, and even before he opened his eyes he understood he was dreaming from within Morddon’s soul again. “Damn!” he growled through Morddon’s lips.
When he did open his eyes he was lying on filthy straw in a dark, damp, musty dungeon, and the previous night’s memories flooded unwanted into his mind with merciless clarity: drinking alone in an inn near the center of Kathbeyanne, waiting day-in and day-out to go back to the wars and the battles and the bloodletting, practicing his sword skills with the strange and enigmatic angels by day, trying each night to drink himself into oblivion, and most often succeeding. The other Benesh’ere hated him openly—one of their own who sold his sword to the highest bidder—and last night, sitting alone, pouring one tankard of ale after another down his throat, trying not to think of the hatred that drove him, their taunts and insults became intolerable.
The bolt on the door to his cell slammed back loudly; the door crashed open, spilling a cascade of light onto the straw. A guard with a loaded crossbow stepped warily into the cell, keeping his back to the wall and his eyes on Morddon. The dungeon master followed close on his heels and growled, “Up with you, scum. On your feet for your betters.”
Morddon pulled himself slowly to his feet, and only then did Gilguard and Metadan enter the cell. Metadan’s anger was almost palpable, but Gilguard looked at him with a calm, cold hatred, though when he spoke his voice came out almost a whisper. “Why?” he asked simply.
Morddon shrugged. “They started it. I finished it. Besides, it was seven to one.”
The Benesh’ere warmaster nodded slowly and for a long moment he considered Morddon’s answer. “I’ve spoken to the innkeeper, and he confirms that my warriors did start it, and they did outnumber you seven to one, otherwise I would kill you myself.”
Morddon smiled gleefully. “Would you like to try? I’d like to see you try, but you’d better have more than seven of your comrades to help you.”
The guard with the crossbow tensed. Metadan looked at him and shook his head.
Gilguard shook his head at Morddon. “No, I don’t want to try to kill you, and not just because I probably couldn’t win. I just want to know why you take your hatred out on your brothers.”
“I don’t have any brothers,” Morddon growled.
“Two of them are dead,” Gilguard continued as if Morddon had said nothing. “Another lost an arm last night, and another a leg this morning, and the other three: broken arms, legs, ribs, noses, jaws, skulls. Do you feel no remorse?”
Again Morddon shrugged. “They picked a fight, and I know of only one way to fight.”
“Is it that simple?” Gilguard asked. “From what I’ve seen you’re the best fighting man I’ve ever come across, though to look at you one would not know it—you look rather scrawny and underfed—but single-handed you take on seven of my best warriors, kill two and nearly kill the rest, and to you it’s just a brawl. Is it that you fight anyone you can, any place, any time, for any reason? Is it really that simple?”
Morddon shook his head. “Nothing’s that simple.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“I don’t care to.” Morddon looked at Metadan. “You’ve questioned the innkeeper? You know I was minding my own business, and it was not I who picked the fight?”
Metadan nodded without expression.
“Then I’m free to go?”
“You’re free to go,” Metadan said. “But go straight to the legion’s barracks. Tomorrow, at dawn, we leave for the wars.”
Morddon threw back his head and laughed. “Finally! Now I can have some peace.” And with that he brushed Gilguard aside and walked out of the cell.
Gilguard frowned, looked carefully at Metadan. “Going to war will bring him peace?” he asked, and his frown deepened.
Metadan nodded, though as always there was no expression on his face. “That one’s soul is a curiosity to me. And each time I meet him, my curiosity deepens.”
~~~
The voice, soft and gentle, was the only thing in Morgin’s universe, and even though exhaustion and fatigue threatened to devour him, he struggled onward, following it blindly in the vain hope of a respite from the constant battle within his heart.
“Morgin . . . Morgin . . . Morgin . . .”
Cautiously he opened his eyes, parted his lips and tried to swallow, but a coarse, gritty dust caked his mouth and throat. The sword!
As if his thoughts were a trigger the sword flared in his hands, lifted itself high over his head and screamed its hatred at him. He pulled at it with weary muscles, threw his own hatred at it and forced it to the floor where it bit into the stone and raised another shower of chips. Again it grew silent.
Fatigue clouded his mind, but he understood he was on his knees in the center of the Hall, with the sword gripped in both hands before him, trying to control it with no power. How long? he wondered. How long have I held it so?
“Two days and nights,” Rhianne said softly.
He was glad for the sight of her, even if she was a hallucination.
She shook her head. “No. I am real.”
I’m sorry, he thought, thinking of all the years of pain he had given her. He struggled constantly just to hold onto consciousness.
Rhianne shrugged. “We were both stupid, and for that we must both bear the blame.”
The words meant nothing to Morgin, and for some moments this beautiful girl kneeling before him was an unrecognizable stranger. The sword demanded too much of him. If his diligence failed for only an instant . . .
~~~
“Morgin . . . Morgin.”
Morgin opened his eyes again, looked again at the beautiful hallucination kneeling before him. In her right hand she held an empty sheath extended toward him. “Here,” she said. “It will be easier if you cage the beast.”
She was right. But how was he going to take hold of the sheath when he ne
eded both hands to hold the sword’s hatred in check?
The beautiful hallucination turned the open end of the sheath toward him. “I will hold the sheath, but I’ll not touch that blade.”
Morgin looked down at the tip of the sword where it rested in the last gouge it had cut from the floor, then he looked at the distance between it and the open end of the sheath. It might as well have been the distance between heaven and hell, for all it mattered.
“You must do it now,” the hallucination said, “while you still have the strength.”
Morgin nodded, lifted the blade slowly from the floor, sensed the evil within it tensing for a struggle, but with his will he clamped down on it mercilessly and it subsided. He held the tip out toward the sheath, though it wavered unsteadily before him. But just when he could go no further the beautiful hallucination moved with lightning speed and slammed the open end of the sheath down over the blade with a loud metallic crash, and suddenly Morgin felt free again. He felt as if he had been carrying a great weight for many leagues, then someone had taken the weight from his shoulders, and now nothing mattered but sleep.
He let his shoulders slump toward the floor, prepared to curl up right there and sleep for a century, but a hand arced out of the midnight surrounding his soul and struck his face with enough force to rock him back on his haunches. His thoughts were as slow as winter honey, but the hand struck again, and again, and each time it stung more, until finally he saw Rhianne raise her hand to strike him a fourth time, and he raised his own hand to block the blow.
Rhianne hesitated, withheld the blow, looked at Morgin carefully. “Good. You’re lucid. You must stay that way. When you leave this Hall every major clansman in the Lesser Clans will be watching you, and you must appear to be in control.”
Morgin nodded. He understood her somewhat, but the fatigue was far too demanding. “Keep talking,” he said. “Don’t stop. It helps me stay anchored to this world. And let’s don’t waste any time.”
“Then get on your feet. Now.” Rhianne jumped to her feet, stood over him, helped him struggle to a standing position, though he had a tendency to stagger. “That won’t do,” she said. “You’ll have to stand straight, walk straight, look straight.”
“You sound like Olivia.”
Rhianne laughed as they started toward the doors of the Hall. “And you sound like me.”
They waited while the extra timbers were again removed from the doors, then one door creaked open no more than a miserable crack. Morgin thought of Morddon, and decided the angry Benesh’ere’s harshness might act to his advantage here. So with the last bit of strength he possessed he put a shoulder to the door, pushed hard, and at the same time growled, “Out of my way before I lose my temper.” He shoved the door well open and stepped out among the waiting clansmen, who in turn stepped fearfully away from him. He looked at them carefully, as they all looked at him suspiciously. “Well?” he demanded. “What are you looking at?”
All of them but Olivia stepped back a pace, while she stood her ground and looked through him as if she understood well the game he played. But she did not interfere.
“Of course I look like hell,” he growled at them, and like sheep they stepped back again. “I haven’t had any food or sleep for two days, a situation which I intend to remedy shortly.”
He started walking with long great strides, approaching the impenetrable wall of the crowd as if he would walk right over any who stood in his way, and the crowd parted fearfully. All the way to his apartments he did not look back, though he knew Rhianne was close behind him and in his heart he thanked her for that again and again. But just before he reached his rooms his legs gave way beneath him. Rhianne stepped around him quickly, and pretending to be an obedient cow of a wife, she opened the door and held it for him, saying only, “My lord.”
He walked past her on trembling legs, barely managed to get to his bed before passing out.
Chapter 4: The Outlaw
Morddon awoke long before dawn on the morning of his departure from Kathbeyanne, though with the exception of a single angel sitting on the cot next to his, he was alone in the barracks of the First Legion. He often wondered if any of the damn angels ever slept, which reminded Morgin of his own thoughts concerning Ellowyn that seemed so long ago, but, from the perspective of this dream, was actually still in the distant future. As he wiped the sleep from his eyes the angel sitting on the cot nearby said, “You are to follow me, Benesh’ere.”
Morddon nodded, reached under his cot and retrieved a long, thin, gray canvas sack, about the length of an ordinary man, though considerably shorter than his own Benesh’ere frame, and beneath the stiff canvas his hands sensed the shape of the most powerful of the Benesh’ere weapons: the longbow. Fashioning the bow had been the only worthwhile thing he’d done during his weeks in Kathbeyanne, and it and his sword were now his only permanent possessions.
The angel led him to a large staging area well outside the walls of the city where thousands of men and horses and hundreds of supply wagons were gathered. They went directly to a temporary corral in which several hundred horses had been penned. “Choose your own mount,” the angel said, and without another word he turned and walked away.
Morddon leaned on one of the beams of the corral and shook his head sadly. “Damn angels!” he muttered, closing his eyes and running his fingers through his knotted and unkempt hair. He opened his eyes just in time to see a tall black mare separate herself from the jostling mass of beasts in the corral and trot his way. She was coal black, without a single feature to mark her coat, and as she approached Morgin sensed a familiar magic about her, and he instantly recognized Mortiss. She trotted up to him, snorted derisively as if to remind him what a fool he could be, and waited impatiently for him to saddle and ride her.
That first morning out of Kathbeyanne, riding with the First Legion of Angels, Morddon’s heart soared with joy like a prisoner freed after many years in a dark and deep dungeon. It turned Morgin’s stomach to see the Benesh’ere ride so joyfully to war, and to feel that joy himself. But the joyful sense of freedom died quickly in the choking dust of several thousand horses, and as the leagues passed beneath Mortiss’ hooves Morgin noticed that the closer Morddon got to the wars the more he managed to relax, to put the tension and the hatred behind him, and to view life without the harsh edges of his bitterness. Morgin, however, plagued with Morddon’s memories of many years of slaughter, and his own memories of Csairne Glen, grew morose and fearful of the days to come.
He was part of a combined force of the first four legions of angels, two full companies of Benesh’ere, one company of mercenaries, and a flight of about one hundred of the black, winged griffins. As a common soldier Morddon’s only responsibilities were to take care of his horse and weapons, and to keep up with the general pace of the march. And since his riding companions were angels of the First Legion, all of whom he found inhumanly boring, he was left to himself for the most part, which suited him nicely.
On the eighth day out of Kathbeyanne he awoke at sunrise, used a small portion of his water ration to shave and wash—as they approached the wars he was beginning to pay attention to his personal appearance again—rolled up his kit, and to kill time before his breakfast ration he left the camp, found a small, clear hillock some distance from the outer perimeter, and began a series of stretching exercises he used when a real workout was not possible. With his sword drawn, and his eyes closed, he concentrated on each muscle carefully, extending it, then contracting it, until he felt the knots and tension relax. He must now prepare his body for the battles and the warring that would soon come, and he drifted slowly into a mild state of self-hypnosis at the pleasure that came with Morddon’s knowledge and control of his body.
“Harrumph! Um . . . excuse me.”
At the sound of the voice Morddon froze, then after many seconds opened his eyes. A young Benesh’ere lad stood cautiously in front of him. Morddon spoke softly, “What do you want, boy?”
The
boy frowned, obviously thinking of the stories he’d heard of the maniac that towered over him. “You’re Lord Morddon, are you not?”
“I am Morddon, but I’m no lord. And who are you?”
“I am WindHollow,” the boy said.
Morddon nodded. “A powerful name that. What do you want with me, WindHollow?”
“I was told by the warmasters Metadan and Gilguard to bring you to them.” The boy stood uncertainly, as if Morddon might burst into a murderous rage at any moment.
Morddon tried not to smile, but he failed. He sheathed his sword. “Then lead the way.”
Near the tents at the center of camp several men and angels and one woman were leaning over a table full of maps, while not far to one side two of the black griffins sat quietly on their haunches. Even from a distance Morddon recognized one as TarnThane himself, the Griffin Lord, for the strange winged beasts were massive towers of taloned might. Closer yet, he saw gathered about the table Gilguard and two of his lieutenants, the Benesh’ere princess AnneRhianne, Metadan and two archangels whom Morddon did not recognize, plus Ellowyn, though weeks earlier Morgin had learned she didn’t recognize him.
Morddon and WindHollow stopped near the group at the map table and waited silently for the ongoing conversation to cease. TarnThane was giving a scouting report: “. . . Most of the countryside is unoccupied. We saw no sign of the Goath, but we caught an occasional glimpse of the hounds.”