by Martin Ash
'What do you do?'
Leth ignored him. He bent quickly and placed the casket inside, then closed the lid of the chest.
Anzejarl took a step forward. 'I said, what do you do?'
Leth straightened quickly and his hand went to his sword-hilt. 'Do not question me, invader!'
A blaze of anger flashed in Anzejarl's eyes.
He is no ordinary Karai, thought Leth. He seems to burn with emotion.
They faced each other, six paces separating them. Then Anzejarl said, 'I have told you, my 'trespass' is done. Not out of compassion for the lowly creatures of Enchantment's Reach, nor out of any sense of moral rectitude or a need to salve my conscience. I have no such qualms or failings. Rather, it is a blow against . . . one . . . of the enemies I now face. You have come to slay me? Do so. I will offer no resistance. My work here is done.' He let his hand drop and the dagger fall. It splintered the wooden floor and stood erect, quivering. Anzejarl rested with his arms at his sides. 'But will you tell me first, are you an agent of Leth's? Or do you come from Enchantment? Who are you?'
My adversary, naked before me, so strangely submissive. Do you truly offer me your life? What is happening here? Do I give you my confidence? Or is this a trick?
Again Leth reminded himself of the uncountable Karai guards who must wait just beyond the door. It was too dangerous to reveal himself. And yet, palpably, here was Anzejarl, quite literally bared before him. The strangeness of the encounter defied reason.
'I am charged to tell you that you cannot win here,' he asserted. 'Leth has gained powerful allies and comes now to liberate Enchantment's Reach.'
Anzejarl slowly shook his head. 'Have you understood nothing of what I’ve said? My part in this is over. Come. I will show you.'
Picking up his backpack Leth followed him from the study. He felt hot pulses of anger at the casualness and familiarity with which the Karai prince led him through his own apartment, but they arrived at the bedchamber window and he looked out across the Palace precincts and the streets and squares of the city-castle, and what he saw made him momentarily forget all else.
'What is happening here?'
Prince Anzejarl moved away to stand beside the bed, staring impenetrably down at it. 'It is the first stage of withdrawal.'
'Withdrawal?' Leth was dumbfounded, hardly believing. Yet the evidence, to all intents and purposes, was that he spoke the truth. It was there before him, beyond the window. Charade? He could think of no reason why such a game would be played out like this. Plainly what he was witnessing had been set in motion before his arrival, and Anzejarl could not have known he was coming.
'I have given the order to depart,' Anzejarl said. 'My troops, every last one of them, will be gone from Enchantment's Reach by the end of the day.'
'Why? Why have you done this?'
Anzejarl sighed and said, 'I have told you, to thwart an enemy.'
'What of the government? The Council and Court, nobility and high officials of Enchantment's Reach?'
'They are free. I advised them to take refuge somewhere, until all is quiet. Olmana will not be pleased.'
Olmana?
As if on cue there came a harsh female voice, raised in anger, from beyond the chamber door. The door flew open. 'Anzejarl! What have you done?'
From where he stood in the deep alcove before the window Leth could not see the newcomer. Instinctively he moved closer to the wall, stepping into its shadow, allowing its angle to obscure almost all but his view of Anzejarl.
'What is the meaning of this?'
'The meaning, I would think, is quite plain,' replied Anzejarl with deliberation, though his voice betrayed his nervousness. 'I am no longer bound to you. I am no longer your slave.'
Now Olmana came into Leth's view, though she did not see him. She stepped up close before Prince Anzejarl, sidewise to Leth. Strikingly beautiful, garbed in light leathers, her lustrous bronzen hair somewhat dishevelled and falling unbound past her shoulders. Her body was coiled in fury. 'Rescind the order!'
Anzejarl stood his ground. 'I will not.'
'Then I will rescind it myself.'
'You cannot. Karai will obey only Karai. You know that. My generals have orders to return to Zhang and to there offer reparation to my family for my crimes.'
'Crimes?'
'For all that I have done.'
'You will suffer for this!'
'The suffering will not be greater than that which you have already inflicted upon me, or that which I have been complicit in inflicting upon myself.'
'I will--' She stopped, a new expression on her face. 'The Child! I must have the Child!'
'You have forfeited that right,' declared Anzejarl with anger. 'In hours only the troops of Enchantment's Reach will remain here. If you remain you will be alone.'
'You do not understand. The Child has been interfered with! I must find it!'
Anzejarl was silent. Olmana glared at him, then shook her head and said in a lower voice. 'You are such a fool, Anzejarl. Do you really think you can be free of me so easily?'
From his position pressed against the wall Leth saw Anzejarl's expression change from defiance to sudden dismay as Olmana reached to a pouch at her waist and pulled forth a rose-coloured crystal. He saw the Karai prince take a step back.
'You are mine, Anzejarl. You may think yourself free, able to make your own decisions, but it is not so. You are mine still, and will remain so until such time as I decide otherwise.' The crystal had begun to glow in her fingers. She held it up towards Anzejarl's stricken face. 'You are a fool!'
Mentally, Leth urged Anzejarl to wrest the thing from her, for plainly he feared it. But he recalled that Olmana, for all her feminine beauty, was not human, was most likely capable of overpowering Anzejarl with little effort. And into Leth's mind sprang a memory of a conversation with Orbelon: almost certainly Anzejarl's consort will have with her, close upon her person, a magical artefact of some kind which renews her essence, enabling her to persist without enfeeblement.
Without further hesitation Leth stepped from the shadows, drawing free the Orbsword from its scabbard. He threw himself forward, aware of a blaze of rose light as Olmana wheeled in surprise towards him. He struck hard, with precision, severing at the wrist with a single blow the hand that clasped the crystal.
A great howl from Olmana made his eardrums hum. Without stalling in his movement, Leth stooped and caught up the crystal as it rolled from the dislocated fingers. Ducking, he sprang across the bed, then spun around to defend himself against Olmana. Only now did he realize the origin of the blaze of roseate light. He had presumed it to have issued from the crystal, but he was mistaken: it was the Sword of the Orb. It glowed with its erstwhile radiance, brilliantly haloed, all traces of the diabolic Ascaria gone from the blade.
Leth recalled drawing the weapon when he had found himself inside the World's Agony, declaring to Orbelon that Ascaria was within. Orbelon had replied that now she must return, 'to be absorbed into what she had done'. Soon after, in the blue void of the Orb of the Godworld, Leth had confronted the winged guardian in flames, who had touched its burning sword to the Orbsword. He recalled the shudder the blade had given, and the sense of some subtle, extraordinary energy passing through or from him, after which the guardian had vanished.
Leth had sheathed the Orbsword then, giving it no more thought until now. But it seemed the weapon had been purged. The burning angel had expelled or drawn free Ascaria's essence, and Leth had returned to his own realm with the weapon in its pristine state.
'Give that back to me!'
Olmana's face was a mask of purest demonic rage. She seemed almost to be bursting from herself. But her maddened eyes were on the Orbsword and she seemed hesitant to approach Leth.
'Your time is over,' Leth said in sonorous tones. 'You are defeated.'
'Never!'
'It is so.' He noted the stump of her wrist. Dry, unnatural flesh. No blood pumped forth.
'Who are you?' she demanded. 'Fr
om where do you come?'
Something was moving low on her leg. With distaste Leth saw that it was the hand he had severed. It was clawing its way back up her clothing. As it approached waist level she dropped her arm. The hand crawled on and melded itself seamlessly back onto the wrist.
Leth raised his voice. 'I speak not to Olmana, the projection, the fabrication, but to that which lies behind. I speak to the fabricator, that which has sent its destructive energy forth to wreak such carnage here. I speak to Strymnia. I know who you are, and I bring news for you. Do you hear me?'
Olmana's shape was changing. She became something hideously transformed, a demonic thing, horribly misshapen. Her eyes were incandescent slits, her mouth a dark wound filled with wet, pointed teeth. Her voice, when she spoke, had deepened. 'Speak, manling. You are heard.'
'Then listen well, and you will know that my words contain no falsehood,' said Leth. 'I have come from Orbelon's World, where two Souls were buried, where you believed they would lie hidden forever. You should know that the Guardian of the first, Ascaria of the Dark Flame, is destroyed. It was I who slew her.'
The Olmana creature drew back with an audible intake of breath.
'Yes, and I have freed the Souls you stole,' Leth continued. 'Orbelon is whole once more; Triune also. What's more, they stand in unity against you now, Strymnia, in Enchantment.'
'Gah!' The Olmana creature swiped at the air, its eyes still fixed upon the rose crystal.
'I have not done!' declared Leth. 'Urch-Malmain too, is free once more.'
The Olmana thing mewled, a horrible sound that seemed to claw at something deep within Leth, sending a shiver through him.
'He has returned to Enchantment where he also moves to pit himself against you, seeking sweet and terrible revenge. Your Karai allies here have spurned you. Triune imprisons the Reach Rider, and now, re-empowered with her Soul once again, has no fear of its nature. She has become a most formidable adversary, grown in both power and wisdom. Orbelon, too, has become a redoubtable force in the eons that have passed since he was sealed in your Encystment of Banishment. The balance in Enchantment is thus restored. If you continue to expend your powers beyond its borders you will surely and quickly be defeated. You must look to your defence if you do not intend to perish. I think you have intimations already. You know that what I say is so.'
The Olmana-demon swayed from side to side, her spined tail lashing furiously, her long tongue clicking obscenely in her mouth. Suddenly she struck, with a movement so fast Leth barely saw it. She stepped to the right and thrust out one clawed hand. Prince Anzejarl's mouth sagged open and he staggered back with a dull grunt and a grimace of pain. Sooty smoke poured from a huge black gash in his chest. His eyes rolled and he sagged to the floor.
Strymnia's voice spoke again. 'Return the crystal to me and I will depart.'
Leth shook his head. 'Go. Defend yourself in your own domain, or perish.'
Without warning the creature dived. Somehow, despite Leth's alertness, it was across the bed, slipping beneath the Orbsword with lightning speed and grasping in a crushing grip his other wrist which held the crystal. Leth felt the crystal wrested from his grip, felt himself lifted and thrown, the Orbsword wrenched free from his other hand. He was hurled with tremendous force across the room, slamming into the opposite wall. His armour cushioned him from the full force of the impact, which would otherwise have broken several bones, but his breath was knocked from his body. Dazed, he peered up through his visor-slits. The Strymnia/Olmana creature was bearing down upon him, clutching the glowing crystal.
Instinct told him he had but one hope. He lifted his hand feebly. 'Wait. There is something else you should know. Something I must show you.'
The demon thing bent over him. 'What is it?'
'Will you let me sit? I will show you. Kill me then, if it pleases you.'
She drew back. 'I will see.'
'You recognize that what I have said so far is true?' said Leth, talking to hold her attention as he sat up and pulled the pack from his back. 'Nothing can change that, whatever you may choose to do here and now.' He drew back the top of the pack to expose the wooden chest. 'Your enemies confront you in Enchantment, and your power wanes correspondingly here. But see this.'
He had opened the chest and pulled out the blue casket. The creature peered forward.
'This may, I truly hope, change everything.' Leth set down the casket on the ground beside him and quickly opened the lid.
There was a flash of brilliant blue. He heard a harsh screech squeezed from the back of Olmana’s throat, then he was standing in the vast, walled blue emptiness of Orbelon's World, the Olmana-thing blinking half-blindly before him.
Leth backed away before she could recover.
'Orbelon!' he yelled at the top of his voice.
'There’s no need to shout so loudly! I’m not deaf!’ Orbelon hobbled past, heavy on his staff, and stopped before the demon-thing, which was glaring around in some confusion.
'Good,' Orbelon observed. 'Excellent. This is better than I could have hoped.' He prodded the creature with the tip of his staff. 'Strymnia, do you hear me? Do you know who you face?'
The creature, strangely subdued, hissed, 'Orbelon, I see you.'
'Very well, know then that this part of you is now mine. It is powerless here, and you are powerless to withdraw it. It will remain here forever.'
He reached out. The creature crouched low and hissed again. Orbelon lifted the tip of his staff and raised it upwards. The creature lifted off the ground. Orbelon stepped forward and took the rose crystal from its hand. Then he raised his staff higher, pointing upwards into the misty blue. The thing rose into the air, flailing and emitting queer staccato squawks, and floated away, higher and higher, until it came to rest, no more than a small dark blot far overhead.
'And there she will remain,' said Orbelon, examining the crystal, then turning back.
'Is she really without power?' asked Leth.
'The fabrication, yes. Strymnia has no capacity to draw her out of my world. And the fact that I possess her means that I possess a small part of Strymnia herself - something that will gall her beyond measure. It will temper her strivings elsewhere, including Enchantment, for it is as if I have sunk a hook into her flesh and can draw her painfully back when her excesses grow too great. As you know, it is not in my interest to see her destroyed, much is the pity. But you have now provided me with the means to ensure that she does not overstep herself again. Conflict may continue in Enchantment, as is the natural order of things there, and yet equilibrium is restored. Never again, so long of part of her is held captive here, can Strymnia assert herself to the full detriment of those she may strive against. It is good, Leth. It is good. But now you must return. Much remains to be done in Enchantment's Reach.'
Without further word he raised his staff. Leth found himself back in his bedchamber, the blue casket on the floor beside him and the glowing Orbsword lying nearby. He looked up and smiled inside his helm as the worried, bespectacled face of Pader Luminis appeared around the door.
ELEVEN
i
But it was far from over.
Prince Anzejar was dead; the Karai were gone, as were Strymnia and her projected entity, Olmana. In Enchantment equilibrium was being restored. The ancient conflicts would continue, as they had always done and must continue to do, for it is in chaos that the dynamic hidden order resides, the higher laws and unformed, un-realized patterns out of which the perceivable order flows. Within chaos is potential and the striving to become, the urge to be realized in the formed world. But with the ancient knowledge of the true nature of their struggle regained - and those who would abuse or ignore it restrained - the mighty denizens of Enchantment could maintain their conflict and survive.
The dream could continue, even if some dreamers were not aware that they dreamed. And now none could rise beyond themselves again.
With balance restored and old conflicts renewed, and with the new knowledge tha
t this restoration had brought, Enchantment would no longer threaten to overwhelm the formed world. From time to time it might still bring magic or strange gifts, tests or trials into the lives of humankind, and always mystery and the impenetrable would hover on human horizons, to tantalize and bring wonder, fear and enquiry. At night the weirdlights would continue to both beckon and repel. A brave or foolhardy few might still go forth, never to return; others might, by luck or talent or a combination of both, succeed in bringing back knowledge and understanding through which their kind might grow; but Enchantment would always sit at the far reach of their lives, and its mightiest denizens would remain aloof, as they had done before.
But this was for the future. Now was time for re-evaluation and final measures. All was not yet over; the balance could still be upturned. Unseen menace lingered on in Enchantment's Reach, for there remained a mystery that had yet to be solved.
*
The day had waxed in strength then begun its slow decline towards evening once more, and the snow fell in light gusting showers and the warriors of the Karai, in their thousands, filed slowly out of the great city-castle. An uneasy calm had settled upon Enchantment's Reach. To Leth, as he watched from the Palace windows, it seemed not quite real.
He had made the decision to remain inside the royal apartments in Orbia Palace while the Karai evacuated, and had given no broadcast of his return lest it provoke some new reversal of Karai intent. The Karai, in silence and order, relinquished their positions throughout the city-castle. Slow snaking columns of horse-troops and infantry filed with neither pomp, ceremony nor any sign of complaint back through the streets they had so recently taken, flowing into the wide boulevards like tributaries into great rivers which themselves all converged at the city's perimeter, the great gate, and were disgorged as one onto the causeway leading out onto the scarp. As the Karai went, the bemused survivors of Enchantment's Reach moved equally quietly to take their places, none quite believing, wondering whether this was some kind of twisted game, half-expecting that at any moment all would be turned around again and some new, savage and ever more bloody Karai storm would descend upon them.