by Curtis, Greg
“Now you.”
Harl spoke to the orange cat who he somehow knew wasn't a cat at all, and told him to open the gate to his enemies. The cat was the way.
It was finally time. Time to end this. There could be no more.
Chapter Sixty Five
The first sign they had that anything was happening was when the ground began shaking though initially Erislee dismissed it. She was coping with too much already. There were too many worries on her mind. The war ahead, the final battle yet to be won or lost. The fear of what would happen if any more of the Circle wizards died. The unexpected death of her sister and her unborn child. It was too much for anyone to deal with. Anyone mortal that was. Maybe the gods could deal with such things better? She didn't know. All she knew was that as the war masters gathered their troops and slowly moved the war machines into position she had to focus on one thing at a time. Only one thing. And for the moment that had to be the battle. It was her only focus.
It was a strange war that required her to protect her own enemies. Erislee had been horrified when she'd received the threat from the king. He would murder his own Circle wizards and destroy his kingdom and kill himself before he allowed them to take the city. What sort of a monster was he? And more importantly would he do it? The war masters said no. That it was a bluff. But the king's messengers had seemed certain. In fact they'd almost seemed to be looking forward to it. As if it would be some mighty victory instead of their deaths.
But would he do it? That was the question that plagued her. It had been a shock when she had discovered that the king of the Kingdom of the Lion was Terellion the Bright. The least likely of the Circle wizards she would have thought to claim such a role. He was a lecher. A self absorbed, greedy, odious little worm who cared about nothing but his wealth, women and wine. He always had been. And Dina had looked particularly unwell when she'd heard it. But it made sense in a way. The wizards after all had been the ones to start this. To make this deal. And all for power. Ruling a kingdom was a form of power, even if it wasn't the one they'd made their deal for.
What didn't make sense was that Terellion was a Circle wizard and yet was still threatening the lives of his own friends and colleagues? Using them as pieces on a board game. These were people he had known for decades. There had to be a bond between them – didn't there? One that even a madman would not easily break. And yet he was happy to sacrifice them as if they were nothing. But at the same time she also knew that all the enemy wizards they had encountered so far were beyond reason. They had done monstrous things in the name of power. Stupid things. Maybe he would do the same. Maybe he was just as mad as the others.
And then there was the other obvious question. Why would the others let him sacrifice them? Terellion was a summoner. The others could have killed him easily if they needed to. And they certainly wouldn't care that he was calling himself a king.
It made no sense.
Then just as she was worrying about things which she could do nothing about the shaking became worse and soldiers all around her started calling out in alarm. Finally Erislee took notice.
“Dina?” She turned to the wizard who was as always beside her.
“Something big. Very big.”
The wizard knew what she was asking, but not the answer. In fact she looked lost. But she knew enough to be frightened. The fear was written all over her face. Written large. Which left Erislee standing there, wondering what to do. Should she call for the army to take cover? If so where? They were out in the open. Should they defend themselves? But if so against what? There was no enemy in sight. No one had emerged from the distant city of Lion's Crest. Its gates were still shut tight, the enemy hiding inside. Besides, this didn't feel like a wizardly attack. And the range was too great anyway. Two leagues between her army and the enemy was simply too far.
Could it be something to do with Whitebrook? They'd received a pigeon only the previous day from the fort there advising that the land had started shaking, and that it had something to do with Harl. Then again didn't everything in that part of the world have something to do with Harl? This though sounded worse than before. Now his smithy had become an inferno and he was working in the middle of it apparently unaware of the fire. Maybe he'd started crafting another weapon of some sort? Something for Helios maybe. The Sun God liked fire.
She would have asked Dina but when she looked into the wizard's eyes Erislee knew the woman couldn't have told her. The wizard was looking even more lost than she'd ever seen her before. And in the end there was nothing they could do anyway. If this was magic it was far too powerful for them to counter. When the trees all around them for a league in both directions had started shaking, she knew that. All they could do was try keep their feet and hope that it ended soon.
But it didn't. In fact it grew worse and soon everyone was finding it difficult to keep their footing. Some fell over. And the war machines were swaying alarmingly.
Lightning struck unexpectedly. It crackled across the clear blue sky. It ripped through the ground. And everywhere dirt was sent screaming into the air.
“Take cover!”
Erislee yelled it with all her strength despite the fact that it was completely impossible for anyone to do it. They were out under the clear blue sky. But strangely others took up the cry, just as lost for ideas as she was. No one though ran to take cover. A few maybe stepped a little further away from the massive war machines in case they toppled, but there was nothing else they could do. There was nowhere to run to.
Without warning the land in front of them was torn apart and massive cracks appeared in it like those an earthquake would cause. Or a titan perhaps tearing himself up out of the ground from where he had been sleeping. But this was no earthquake or titan. Not when there was light coming from the air all around the cracks, and not when she could see two lands appearing in the one place. The wide open grassy fields of Lion's Crest and the deep green of the southern forests. Almost like two images, had been laid over each other.
“It's a portal. Someone's coming.”
Dina yelled it at her, and of course she was right Erislee instantly knew. It was a portal, just not like any she'd ever seen before. Portals were calm things. Small and orderly. Measured. This was angry and violent. A portal perhaps built by the gods themselves as they sent through armies. Or worse as they arrived themselves.
But what finally appeared was no army. It was a man. A silver man. Dressed from head to foot in flowing silver armour. A huge sword at his side. But if he was a man in armour, where were the joins between the plates? Why weren't the plates moving over one another? And what sort of armour bent and flowed like skin?
It flowed like skin because it was skin. Even the best silvered steel couldn't do that – surely?
“It's Harl!”
Dina yelled it at her and Erislee's first thought was to tell the wizard she was wrong. That she was mad. There was no way the silver warrior in front of them was the smith. But then she realised Dina was in fact right. It was him. She didn't know how she could know that – the silver man was featureless, especially from behind which was all they could see, but it was him. Her next was to wonder what she was supposed to do about it. Should she call to him? Had he come for her? Or was it something else that had brought him to their encampment? Something dark? She feared that it was the latter. And that it was linked to Nyma's death.
He had surely been hurt as terribly as anyone by the news they had received. He was grieving as his lover and his unborn child had perished. And if she could have spared the time she would have gone to him. She would have grieved with him. But when she looked at him she knew. This was something beyond grief. Beyond blind rage. Beyond anything mortal. This was something else. And she didn't know what to do.
“Should we go to him?” She asked Dina.
“No you silly girl! You should keep your armies back and watch and wait. He is not to be interfered with.”
A man's voice came out of nowhere to scold her, and the
strange thing was that even though she couldn't see the speaker, she could tell where the voice was coming from. It was just that there was no one there. Stranger still, she recognised the voice.
Then she looked down to see an orange cat standing between her and the silver warrior, and she knew who had spoken at least. Even though it was impossible. Cats didn't talk. And the voice belonged to a dead man. But it was coming from the cat she had pulled off the wizard just before she'd killed him.
The silver man – Harl – left them then, walking off toward the city, and for a moment she forgot the cat. She forgot everything as she wondered what would happen when he reached the city. He was one man, no matter how strange and terrifying, and it was a city filled with wizards and monsters. And yet still she would not wager against him when the battle began. Whatever was happening, whatever had happened to him, it had not been done so that he could lose. The only thing she was certain of though was that when he met with the Circle wizards it would be big. It might be calamitous.
In time as he disappeared into the distance she was able to turn her thoughts back to the cat as he stood there, staring at them. And she knew he had something to say. Probably something important.
“Maynard?” It was him, but still she had to ask.
“Of course High Priestess, and thank you.”
“Thank you?” Those were two words she would never have thought to hear from him. Not after what she'd done. Not after the screams she'd heard after his banishment to Tartarus.
“When you destroyed my flesh you released me from Terellion's hold.”
“Terellion's hold?” That didn't make any sense to her. What sort of hold could the ageing master of summoning have had over him? “He could have no power over you.”
“No power?” The cat stared at her as if questioning her sanity; it was an oddly natural expression for a cat to wear. But it was an equally unnatural one for a man who had spent years talking to himself. “He had all the power. He is a master of the mental as well as of summoning. Far more powerful than even White Tail. Born with the power not just to confuse and compel, but to completely dominate. That's how he rose so high when his gift as a summoner is not so powerful. He simply convinced people that it was. And no one has ever guessed the truth.”
“He possessed me long ago. When he first wanted to join the Circle. He thought I wouldn't notice his attempt to sway me. But he was less skilled in those days. I noticed. And he couldn't let me reveal what I knew. So he forgot subtlety and simply broke my mind. For nearly forty years he has been controlling me. He owned me, confused me, made what was real in my world unreal, and what was unreal real. He brought my fears to life.”
“It was how he rose in power. How he first rose from apprentice to master. Then from master to a member of the Circle. Had the Circle had a leader he would have become that too.”
“Only a few of us were beyond his control. Rickarial because somewhere in his past there was the blood of a nymph. Ordan because her faith in the Goddess Hera protected her. Dina, because you did not live in the city itself and so posed him little threat.”
“I was not so lucky. I am a summoner, and through my bond with those I summon I could protect myself a little. But only a little. Not enough. For forty years I fought his control. Longer and harder than any others of the Circle. But I could not win. I could not separate truth from lie. Some days I could barely think. And most days the only way I could resist was to place much of my mind in the creatures I summoned. But I still fought. And then in one glorious moment you released me. I was free, and now thanks to Nemesis I will remain free. And Harl will release him from his life.”
“He is no wizard of the mind!” Dina had been quiet for a long while, listening. But no longer, and she wanted to object. In fact she sounded outraged by the very thought of Terellion being what Maynard said he was. Why? Erislee wondered.
“He was and he is. He controlled eleven more of the Circle as terribly as he controlled me. More completely. They didn't even know they were his to command. He bent the hopes and dreams of many others as well. He would have controlled you had you lived in the city instead of out in the Fort Elan. And at the end when he came up with this crazy deal he forced me to sign it. By then I did not know what I was doing. I did not know what I was signing. Or that I was even signing anything at all.”
“He coerced the others into signing as well. Most were never so stupid nor so evil as to sign a deal with a demon. Not by themselves. But when he controlled them, bent and twisted their thoughts to his, they forgot that. They could not see the wrong. They did not understand the mistake. As for the rest, the more minor wizards, he still bends them to his will. Not so directly as he did with us. But still, he pushed them. Twisted their thoughts. Enough to make their hopes and dreams seem too important to them to be ignored. They are not innocent. I am not innocent. But our guilt is underpinned by weakness and described by failure.”
“And Harl?”
Erislee had to ask as she watched the silver warrior walking toward the city. She didn't understand what was happening with the smith, but she knew it was madness. And she knew that he was probably going to die. Not just because walking to the city on his own was madness, but because there was a finality in his manner. As if he expected to die.
“I don't know.” The cat looked at her strangely. “I've played my part. Nemesis brought me back from Tartarus and placed me in this body. My task was to watch over him. And to bring him here when the time came. But the rest is not mine. All that is mine is to let him do what he must do, save him if I can, and maybe to keep the rest of you from getting yourselves killed.”
“I don't understand.”
“Neither do I. But I don't have to. And you don't have to either,” the cat told her. “Ask your Goddess.”
And with that he turned and walked away, following the silver warrior towards the city.
For a while Erislee stood there wondering what he meant. But of course she did as he said. She was the High Priestess of Artemis; it was always the first thing she should do. A heartbeat later when she felt the essence of the Huntress fill her she learned that the cat was right. They should not follow. In fact the Huntress directed her and her army to take cover as far away from the city as possible.
“Retreat! To the trees, retreat!” Erislee gave the order and though people looked at her strangely and she had to repeat herself several times, they eventually started doing as she said, retreating back to the edge of the forest.
“High Priestess?”
Dina was curious of course, and Erislee only wished she could explain. But she couldn't. All she had was a tiny piece of knowledge. Not much more than the wizard herself. Probably not even as much as the cat had. Still, she shared it with her as they walked back to the tree line.
“We thought of this as a simple war. As the demons and the wizards declaring war on the mortal races. The five kingdoms. Which they did. But we forgot. These wizards didn't just declare war on the people of the five kingdoms. They attacked the temples. They murdered the priests. They tried to destroy the faiths.”
“How could they ever have thought that the gods would not be upset by that?”
But more than that she knew as she saw the trees ahead and wondered if she should hurry; how could they ever have imagined that the gods would not be angry? That they would not answer in kind? What sort of madness had been theirs? Because she knew the gods were going to show a little of their anger this day and that that little would be more terrible than anything Terellion could ever have imagined.
“Erislee?”
“The armour Harl's wearing. It's transcendent metal. The armour of the gods. And he just poured it over himself so that it became his skin.” Artemis had shown her that. And she had told her one thing more.
“Lyssa's wrath dwells inside him. Nemesis walks beside him. Artemis guides his feet. The others are close. This is not our war any longer. We have played our part. Our hunt is over. Theirs has just begun.”
“This is the hunt of the gods.”
Chapter Sixty Six
“Is time.”
The fury announced it as if it should mean something. But it didn't. Not to Terellion as he lay there still chained to the rack, wishing he was somewhere else. Anywhere else. Wishing he had a sword and could simply cut the bitch apart. But he had no sword and he wasn't somewhere else, and all the wishing and the hatred in the world couldn't help him. He'd been there over a week by then, and all the wishes and prayers and curses had helped him not at all.
“Bitch!” Terellion screamed at her as he always did whenever she spoke. But all he got in return was laughter. He was helpless and they knew it. He could scream all day and all night and no one would hear him down here.
He was in pain. Terrible pain. Hurting in a way he had never known before. Never even known was possible. Hurting in places a man shouldn't hurt. He felt weak and vulnerable, because he was those things. His magic was gone, and even though he had more strength now, it was useless against the manacles that bound his arms and legs. He could struggle against his bonds, but it didn't help him. Nothing helped him. Not even begging. She had no mercy for him. She just took him, brutally, again and again and again.