by Anne Perry
Tathea nodded.
Tornagrain had not spoken yet but his eyes had followed every word and his agreement was not only in his face but in the angles of his body, the stillness of him and attention to every word. Now he was looking at Tathea, and his gaze fell beyond her to the staff, only dimly discernible propped against the wall in the corner.
It was Sadokhar who realised what he was seeing, and rose to his feet. In trembling hands he carried it back and offered it to Tornagrain. “Can you read what it says?” he asked, his voice suddenly caught in his throat.
There was total silence in the room. Even the wind outside had dropped. The candle flames burned straight as lances.
Tornagrain took the staff and turned it slowly. “Only one line,” he said, looking at Sadokhar, then at Tathea. “‘When the man of hope forges a sword from the dust of hell.’” He stopped abruptly, seeing the light in her face, a joy and amazement as if she had seen a vision invisible to him.
She reached out and put her hands over his on the staff, and her touch was warm and surprisingly strong. “Welcome!” she said fervently. “Welcome at last!”
Sadokhar was beaming. “I should have known!” he said, clapping Tornagrain on the shoulder so hard in his enthusiasm he almost bruised him. Ishrafeli held out both his hands to Tornagrain and clasped his wrists warmly, then slid his hands until they were on the staff beside Tathea’s.
In a quiet voice Ishrafeli read the staff: “‘When the man of courage enters and leaves where I am not: when the man of faith embraces terror to himself: when the man of truth hungers for a lie, and casts it to the deep: when the man of wisdom has spoken the name of all things: when the man of hope forges a sword from the dust of hell: when the woman of love has kneeled in the ashes and taken up My burden, then shall I come and receive My own.”
The candle burned up, filling the room with radiance, and a brightness of certainty descended upon them.
Within days of Sadokhar’s return, Sardriel also arrived in the City. He was leaner than when he had left the Island, his face burned by sun and wind, a weariness in his eyes. There was no air of victory in him, rather a silent and deep understanding of loss, as if he had had many months of solitude in which to learn every corner of its nature, and how to bear it.
But when he saw Sadokhar he came as close to losing his immaculate composure as anyone had ever seen. The emotion radiated in his face and his rare smile was beautiful to see. He wanted to know everything that Sadokhar had experienced, and only afterwards did he tell them of his march through the forests and over the plains, and Almerid’s betrayal, then his own long journey back.
No one questioned him or spoke about the judgements of the losses. The knowledge of them in his face was more profound than anything they could have said. It would have been insulting even to try to share the feelings locked within him.
Ardesir came only a few days later, bringing news of Tirilis and of Shinabar. He arrived in the evening, having walked up from the dockside carrying only a small, leather satchel, his sandals slapping on the warm stones of the floor. He found them sitting together on the steps by the lemon trees.
“Ardesir!” Tathea rose immediately, her face alight with pleasure at seeing him. The others stood also eager to welcome him, to offer food, a chair to sit in, and above all to tell him of Tornagrain, the sixth warrior, even before they asked for news.
“The bankers of Tirilis have lent money for trade all over the north,” he replied at last, when they allowed him to speak. “For their own ends, of course. But I heard nothing of any of the Lords of Sin or of the Undead. However, I think Ulciber may have been there before I was. The marks of his skill are bedded deep.”
No one interrupted, but he saw their agreement in their faces.
“Tiyo-Mah has gone from Shinabar!” he added jubilantly, his face alight with victory. “No one knows where she is, but not in any of the great cities. The civil war was terrible, and the peace is still uneasy ... but it is growing!” A radiant hope lit his thin face. “Perhaps we are winning after all!”
Tathea looked at him with a deep and spreading pain. In spite of the weariness around his eyes and the hollow of his cheeks, there was a youth inside him, a kind of innocence. In fact as she looked at those she loved here in this quiet, familiar room with its ancient colour so reminiscent of long ago, she felt a terrible separation from all of them. This was not victory, and she alone knew it. Armageddon does not end in peace in the mortal world.
How could she tell them?
She was here, warm, comfortable, physically safe, and with those she loved most in all the aeons of her life ... and she had never felt more isolated.
What if this were hell: immortal loneliness, each alive, but with a glass wall between them, seeing but never touching, hearing the words but never the heart?
Or what if the war were over after all? Not won—but lost? And it continued for ever, growing a little less bright every day, until one calm evening like this, the realisation came that they were damned, there was no resurrection. It was all just a slow fading that never ended!
They were talking together, of the Island, of Lantrif again. Without making a conscious decision she stood up, murmuring some excuse, and left the room. She needed solitude; the enormity of the night was hardly large enough to hold the tumult inside her. She went to the door and down the steps, through the lemon trees, glad of the shelter of the cypresses beyond. Here no one could see her even if they were to go to the window and look.
She stared upward at the pinpricks of the stars. Those were the worlds beyond worlds, filled with the creations of God—unreachable, except by the will, the hunger, and the pure courage of the spirit.
She could not do it alone. The weight of the darkness was crushing. Without the deep, passionate, gentle touch of another soul there was no strength to continue, no will to draw on, nor prize to win.
The journey had been too long and she had no glimpse of the end, only hope.
There were six of them now, and yet deeply and unendingly as she loved them, in her understanding she was as alone as a mother with small children who could not know the enormity of the power of the evil they faced.
Then as she stood in the silence except for the wind in the trees, an old promise came back to her mind, as clear as a voice speaking. “Your name is before My eyes, and I shall not forget you, nor shall I leave you alone!”
Her heart overflowed and the cry was torn from her soul: “Father—help me!”
The stars wheeled in silent glory. The wind stilled in the branches. A certainty filled her, and slowly she walked up through the lemon trees across the patch of moonlight towards the steps and back into the house. She went straight to the bedroom and waited for Ishrafeli.
She had no idea how long it was, but eventually he came, closing the door softly behind him. Then, seeing her, he stopped.
She stood up and walked over to him, but did not touch him. She must be honest; there must be no pressure of physical intimacy. She looked into his face.
“This has to stop,” she began. Her voice was level, but caught a little emotion. “I love you more than anything else, except God Himself, and I will not let this distance lie between us.”
He did not move. She could see the pulse beating in his throat. The silence seemed almost to roar in the room before he answered. She felt her heart pounding.
“How are you going to cross the distance?” he asked.
It was as if he had struck her. She could scarcely believe it. But she did not look away. This was the moment of testing.
“I am not.” She almost choked on the words. It was win—or lose—everything on earth that mattered to her ... and what was even heaven without him? “You are,” she said. “This is not the end of Armageddon, it is only the middle, the eye of the storm, the false peace before the greater part, which is still to come. The world is neither won nor lost yet. We must wait, keep our courage and prepare ourselves. I wish it were not so.” She gulped,
the pain inside devouring her. “At least part of me does, the small, childish, human part. The better part knows that whatever God’s plan is, it is as it should be—as it must be. I have loved you since the journey before life, but I cannot deny the truth for you. We must face it ... because it is.”
Something inside Ishrafeli lit with a joy that burned like the light of stars. “Why did you wait so long to say that?” he asked, his voice scarcely more than a whisper. “Did you think I was afraid? I am ... but not so afraid that I can’t face it.”
The tears filled her eyes and spilled over. “I’m sorry!” She had judged him wrongly, weighed him short. Perhaps it sprang from love, her desperate hunger to protect him, but it was still a wrong she had done him.
He smiled, wry, half-humorous, but his eyes too swam with tears.
“Then I suppose I shall forgive you.” He leaned forward and kissed her long and deep, and then again, and again, as if he would never let her go.
The chasm beneath Erebus roared and spewed out the ruin and rubble of worlds high into the air to blot out the last vestige of light.
Asmodeus stood on the parapet as it shattered and regained its form, and cursed in the bitterness of his soul. He would destroy both Tathea and Ishrafeli one day. He was not finished—far from it! This was merely the end of the first wave, a time to cosset them into blindness, a laying aside of weapons so that when it began again it would be even harder to bear.
He was glad he had given Cassiodorus leave to hurt her. He did not know how he intended to do it, but as long as it left her alive so she could taste to the last dregs of the wasting of the earth and feel every moment of pain, he did not care.
Then an idea came to him in the thick darkness of the air. He would use Cassiodorus, Lord of Terror, to destroy Ardesir. He was the perfect tool. Ardesir was clever, resourceful, he never gave up or gave in, but he knew fear. He understood it deep into his bones. And he loved Tathea; it was a friendship that meant more to him than any other. He saw in her a light that shone in no one else.
Yes. It would work very well. There were a score of ways of doing it ... it would be simple. All it needed was to give the order. He could compel Cassiodorus to obey. That in itself would be satisfying.
And after Cassiodorus’ spreading of blood and terror, the bestiality of total war over the earth, there would be enough despair that Yaltabaoth could come at last. He was the last and the strongest of the Lords of Sin, but he was also the one who could touch Asmodeus himself.
A twinge stabbed him somewhere deep inside. He could not afford ever to doubt his own final victory. This world was his! It was his right, which God had threatened to take from him. That was what this eternal war was about. Despair was his one vulnerability. If he granted the possibility of defeat it could be the beginning of it becoming a reality.
Yaltabaoth did not believe he would win, because despair was the core of his nature. And for that Asmodeus hated him even more than he hated God.
Again the chasm churned and erupted torrents of gas, stones and consuming darkness, shrouding the sky and blackening the stars.
Chapter XV
IT WAS THE MIDDLE of the day and Tathea was stooping at the fountain to wash her face in the cool water when the first messenger came. He was a stocky man riding a grey horse, with sweat on its flanks as he pulled it to a halt. The words came gasping from his mouth.
“There are riders in from the north, and from the forests right up to the snow line in the west,” he said breathlessly, swinging his leg over the saddle and dismounting. “And as far as Irria-Kand to the east! The barbarians have attacked! Tens of thousands of them, maybe hundreds of thousands!” He swung his arm wide, his body shaking. “Whole towns have been swept away as if they’d never existed. There’s nothing there now but ruins. You can smell the stench of burning from miles away. God knows how many there are of them. They’re everywhere.”
Tathea looked at Ishrafeli sitting on the stones in the dappled shade, a plum in his hand. He rose to his feet and walked over to the rider. His face was pale and full of pain, but there was no doubt in his eyes.
“Thank you for bringing us the news,” he said to the man. “Rest yourself and your animal, then go home, do what you need to. Make your peace with God.” He offered the plum, but the man scarcely saw it. Instead he simply remounted, awkwardly as if his limbs were stiff, and rode away.
“Is this what it will be?” Ishrafeli asked when they were alone again, his voice rough-edged with horror.
It was a question. He was watching her, looking for some kind of answer.
“It’s not ... not the real attack,” she fumbled towards the truth, trying to see it for herself as well as to console him. “Killing us all does not serve Asmodeus’ purpose.”
“Doesn’t it?” he frowned. “One by one, with pain and terror?” His face tightened. “Reduce us until we deny God?”
She said nothing. The quiet peace, of the courtyard with its carved stone seats, the bright water spilling over into the green bowl—it was like a dream from which they would awaken so desperately soon, the last shreds before reality tore it away.
“Isn’t that kind of fear his weapon?” he asked. “What will we do when we have to face these barbarians—uncounted thousands of them? Isn’t that when we will betray ourselves?”
Tathea searched his face. Had he meant to include themselves in the destruction that he could see ahead? She saw in his eyes the knowledge of the weakness, the pain, the courage and the dissolution to come, and it sickened her with fear. She searched frantically for anything at all, any way to avoid it, escape the loss, the exhaustion, the overpowering darkness ahead. And she knew there was none. The light lay beyond it, and there was no other path.
“I don’t know.” She kept her gaze on his. “But it isn’t what Asmodeus does that destroys us, it never is; it is what we do because of it. I suppose that’s the best and the worst of it. In the end, we will always know that we could have won.”
He touched her gently, the tips of his fingers on her cheek. “We will ... not all of us, but some of us ... enough to count.”
Days after that, news came in from Irria-Kand as well. The barbarians were pouring across the plains, pressing south as well as west, and had taken every city right from the edges of the Caevan forest to the borders of Camassia itself. The survivors of their ferocity huddled in their thousands in makeshift camps across the vast, wind-torn plains, and the first snows would kill heaven knew how many of them. The barbarians roamed in armies on horseback, ten thousand strong, looting and burning what little was left.
And word came across the sea from Shinabar that the desert cities had been attacked and pillaged, every man, woman and child put to the sword. It was total war on every side. People wandered in the streets of the City in the Centre of the World as if struggling to waken from a nightmare. They spoke to each other saying the same things over and over again: it could not be true! There must be something else, some other explanation. This was too much to bear.
But the days of disbelief were short. Suddenly Balour reappeared in the palace, calm and filled with a certainty that curbed the rising panic. He woke the people out of their daze of denial and gave them a sense of purpose. He directed their anger into something that looked like hope.
Every able-bodied man, no matter how old or how young, or what his profession, was drafted into the army. The entire populace must devote themselves to the war. The very survival of the world was at stake. No price whatever was too high to pay, because if they lost, then all the art, the science, and the culture of humanity would be swept away. Mankind would be plunged into an age of moral and intellectual oblivion. Millennia of beauty and accumulated learning would be swept away as if they had never existed.
Every day more people answered his call, at first hundreds, then thousands. By the end of a week there was barely a single voice which did not respond.
In Shinabar Tiyo-Mah reappeared from the desert oases with the same rall
ying cry to unite all the people to save themselves from the blood and terror which threatened to obliterate them and all their works as if they had never existed. She had with her Mabeluz, who had stood beside her in her earlier power, and other Lords of the Undead, Accolon and Indeg.
“Our people have been massacred!” she was reported to have said, “They are part of us, as we are of them! We will be revenged!”
And she was answered overwhelmingly. Support poured in from every side, men, money, labour, above all unquestioning obedience.
A young Shinabari brought the latest news to Tathea, Ishrafeli and the others as they sat late in the quiet room beside the lemon trees, planning what next to do. It was to Ardesir he spoke, simply because he knew him.
“The Isarch is nowhere to be seen,” he said breathlessly. “Tiyo-Mah has three new generals, and they are like no one you have ever seen.” His face became even paler and the fear was printed on it so deeply it was as if another presence had entered the room. How could they be worse than the Lords of the Undead?
“Describe them!” Sadokhar ordered.
The messenger looked to Ardesir.
Ardesir nodded, but stiffly, presentiment telling him what was to come.
The messenger gulped air. “One is big, with tight curly hair and a face that is handsome in its own way, I suppose, and yet there is something in him which frightens me more than all the ugliness in the world.” He shivered although the room was warm. “I feel foolish standing here telling you, but there is a brutality within his eyes and his smile, which makes me wish I had never seen him. I dream he is looking at me, and I waken trying to scream, but my throat is closed.” He stared at them helplessly, willing them to understand and not despise him.
Tathea knew exactly how he felt. Her dreams too had been haunted by him.
“Cassiodorus,” she said gently. “You are right to feel as you do. Don’t blame yourself. You would be foolish not to. Who else? A dwarf with yellow eyes like a goat, and white hands which are never still?”