by T. O. Munro
Chirard made no defence. He flung his arms wide to welcome the assault screaming, “Come on then. Try and hurt me.”
Maelgrum needed no further invitation. Chains of crackling lightning shot from his hands and enveloped Chirard in a mesh of blue violence. Niarmit felt a faint tremor rock the throne on which she sat, but no harm befell her or the leering form of Chirard exultant on the gilded throne.
The lightning net faded and Chirard lowered his arms and grinned at the stunned form of the undead lord. “Who are you?” Malegrum demanded, even as he began another invocation.
“I am Chirard the Great, Emperor of the Salved, Master of Maelgrum,” the mad wizard replied unleashing his own magical assault. A shock wave shot across the plaza, a wall of force that plucked cobble stones from the floor, and flung them along its path. A square stone plinth, already denuded of its commemorative statue by the invaders, exploded into shards of brick as the shock wave passed. The wall of force and debris washed over Maelgrum and the undead lord stumbled and took a step back. Most of the stones swept around him, repelled by his form but a couple penetrated his magic shield and struck stunning blows against his chest and shoulder.
“Bow before me,” Chirard commanded. “Know I am the greater power.”
“Insssolensssce mussst sssuffer,” was the only reply before Malegrum’s counter strike erupted. A pillar of flame enveloped Chirard, blinding with its heat and light. Niarmit safe upon her throne felt the warmth grow to scalding heat before the spell dissipated.
“I felt that,” she muttered, drawing a worried glance from Santos.
“Do you think to hide from the massster of the planesss,” Malegrum hissed. “Fool, the power of Maelgrum ssspillsss into every realm of exissstance.”
“The power of Chirard knows no limit,” the mad wizard replied. “Enough words, now kneel or die.”
Flaming balls of fire shot from Chirard’s hands. Maelgrum invoked a swift counterspell which doused several of them, but near half a dozen punctured his magic shield with a soft pfft and crashed into his blackened torso. Maelgrum staggered and fell to one knee.
Inside the domain of the helm, Chirard was panting with exertion, sweat dripping down his chin, but still he screeched. “See, see how the undead Lord kneels to Chirard the magnificent.”
And then it hit, bolt after bolt of lightning, thin and insubstantial in the plaza yet somehow more penetrating in their hidden plane. Niarmit screamed in pain at a shock more violent than Chirard’s torture. The mad wizard howled on his gilded throne. Santos whimpered at the evidence of injury appearing in welts on Niarmit’s legs and arms- wounds which had their parallel on her corporeal form.
“Malegrum bowsss to no-one, living or dead,” the undead wizard intoned as he rose and crossed slowly towards the stunned and smouldering form of Chirard. “My power echoesss across the planesss. What you feel now isss but the ssshadow of my ssstrength, which reachesss everywhere. You cannot hide from me, fool.”
“Majesty,” Santos wailed. “The new Majesty is wounded.”
“This is not over, Maelgrum,” Chirard spat through Niarmit’s lips. “I will make you kneel again and for ever.”
He worked the stolen fingers in a hasty spell which drove Maelgrum into swiftly renewing his magical shield against another wave of missiles. However, at the spell’s conclusion it was fog not fire that descended upon them. An impenetrable mist that masked all from view. Niarmit peered through Chirard’s eyes at the gloom so thick she could not see his fingers working infront of his face. She heard Maelgrum scream, “No!” His voice blurred by the cloying mist.
“Time for a tactical retreat,” Chirard snarled between ragged breaths and then the blank view of fog flashed and vanished and Niarmit saw instead an opulently furnished room.
***
Haselrig looked in astonishment at the fog which had obscured the combatants in the plaza. There was some sibilant command from within the cloud and abruptly the mist evaporated back into the air leaving only Maelgrum standing head bowed in the midst of his empty victory.
The antiquary rushed to the undead wizard’s side, followed at a respectful distance by the two orcs and Udecht.
“Are you all right, Master,” Haselrig enquired.
He was used to seeing trails of vapour condense with Maelgrum’s cold wrath, but the thin plumes which now rose from the lich’s form were wisps of smoke not ice. While Malegrum’s garb had always been decayed and rotten, there were fresh holes scorched in the age old finery and beneath those the blackened flesh took on a darker crisper hue. Haselrig looked into the Lich’s eyes, expecting to see the red roar of rage within the creature’s empty sockets, but the lights burned dim, scarce brighter than when his Master had been in that absence of mind which passed for undead sleep.
“Master?” The antiquary repeated when Maelgrum gave him no answer.
Slowly the Lich turned his head to look at his faithful servant. “Find that wizard little one. He hasss not gone far. I have hurt him grievoussssly. Find him and bring him to me.”
“Has he hurt you, Master?”
“No mortal man can hurt Maelgrum,” the Lich asserted, overlooking the impudence of the question. He took a step towards the citadel, but stumbled. Haselrig stretched out an arm of support but Maelgrum waved it away. “Damned uneven cobblesss,” he declaimed looking at the surface ravaged by Chirard’s shockwave. But still he did not attempt another step. “What are you waiting for?” he glowered at the two orcs. “A wounded wizard should be easy to find.”
Gurag and Nakesh backed away from the Lich’s fury, stumbling into Udecht as they did so.
“I know where he will go,” Udecht whispered. “Let me lead you there.”
Gurag nodded eagerly but Nakesh was more doubtful. “Why you help us prayer man?”
“We could all do with the Master’s favour,” Udecht assured them. “If we serve him now then he may decide I need no guards, or that you two can have some higher duty than minding me.”
The logic of this argument convinced the dark skinned orc and he quickly nodded his assent. “Which way, prayer man?”
“Back through the library,” Udecht instructed and the two orcs loped eagerly in the lead.
***
“What can it mean?”
Even though the elf lieutenant had not directed the question at him, Thomelator answered it nonetheless. “I should think it obvious. It means that your friends need help.”
The elf scowled at the captured illusionist’s unwanted contribution. “Silence Necromancer.”
“I’m not a necromancer,” Thomelator reminded him. “Or at least I’m a very bad necromancer. I no more like the service I am in than you do. I’d sooner help your friends than take those two back to Hag Marwella.” He had to use his feet to point at the two slavering and bound zombies, for his hands were still tied behind his back. “Look, examine the facts. Firstly I and the two walking corpses over there are back in our normal forms, if not our clothes. That means your friends have either discarded or had dispelled the magical disguise that the good Captain Tordil cast. Secondly, there is an explosion of light and fire at the crest of Morwencairn. Some greater battle is taking place there than ever occurred when the citadel fell. It is too much of a coincidence to believe your friends are not in some way involved.”
“Tordil said to wait here. To wait for them until nightfall, and if they did not come then we should make our escape.”
“With all the excitement that’s going on over there, I think your three friends may struggle to cross an open field free from pursuit. Would you really just wait here for them to make their escape unaided?”
“What are you suggesting, Necromancer?”
“As I said, I am not a necromancer. I am an illusionist and that is rather my point.”
***
Niramit could not tell if it was Chirard’s will or her own body that was swaying. Her insane ancestor sat slumped on the throne, drained by his exertions. Looking through the gatewa
y of the helm she saw that the mad wizard’s usurpation of her physical form had faded; it was her own body and the zombie rags that she looked down on. She could see the painful marks of Maelgrum’s fury etched on her skin just as they appeared on her avatar seated on the throne in the Domain of the Helm.
Still, while the body might look again like herself, it still danced to the wearer of the Helm. It was Chirard who swung her round in the ornately furnished bedchamber to face a pair of double doors inscribed with the crest of Eadran the Vanquisher. Unsteadily she walked towards the doors and pulled them open. It was a familiar corridor within the private quarters of the citadel. The secret stone doorway opposite was raised, and in the opening a surprised but relieved Tordil looked up as Niarmit still wearing the helm approached from this unexpected quarter.
“My Lady,” he exclaimed. “You are hurt!” He leapt through the doorway his arms extended to support her. Over his shoulder she could see Hepdida wide mouthed in amazement.
On the gilded throne Chirard snarled a greeting. “Elves! Just pretty orcs really.”
Horrified, Niarmit saw her own hand raised, fingers curling in a spell of fire as Tordil looked on, puzzlement etched in his features. “No, Chirard, no!” she screamed powerlessly within the Vanquisher’s hall. She could not watch, she opened her eyes to banish the foul reality of her hands raised against the innocent elf.
And as her vision refocused in the domain of the helm she saw a shadow at Chirard’s back. No, not a shadow, a man. A man who seized the Helm on the mad wizard’s head, who clung to it through fire and lightning, his flesh frazzling as he wrenched the basinet from the screaming warlock’s head. A wave of magic blasted through the hall, pinning Niarmit against her seat as Chirard fell senseless from the gilded throne and the newcomer crumpled in a heap beside it.
“Majesty,” Santos was the first to speak as he rushed to their saviour’s side.
Niarmit rose more slowly, fearful of what she had seen in the instant of the mad wizard’s unhelming. Had it been him? Dare she speak?
“Majesty, you have only just awakened,” Santos was saying. “You should not test your strength so.”
He got no answer as the new Majesty got unsteadily to his feet. Above the dark black beard his face was strained with grief. Despite the steward’s ministrations, he had attention only for Niarmit. “I never meant this for you. I wanted to protect you from it. I told Feyril the helm was dangerous. I told him no. I’m so sorry.”
Niarmit gave a stiff instinctive bow to her King, her father, Gregor the Fifth. “Sorry for what, my liege? My birth? My father’s abandonment and death? For my existence?”
“Majesty is hurt,” Santos wailed, gesturing at Gregor’s wounded hands and arms. “A daughter should owe her father more respect.”
“He will heal,” Niarmit said bluntly. “Everything heals here. It is only the wounds of our own world that endure.”
Gregor shrugged painfully and glared down at the insensible Chirard stretched on the marble floor. “How long before he stirs, Santos?”
The Steward wrung his hands nervously. “In truth Majesty I cannot be sure. It is so rare for one Majesty to seize the Helm while another wears it. ‘twas only ever Chirard who succeeded in the attempt, before yourself that is. You have some minutes. I cannot say more. I would advise that you are not here when he wakens.”
“Indeed, but first I would have a few words with my daughter.”
“I am Prince Matteus’s daughter,” Niarmit snapped. “It seems the curse of this Helm means even in death I will still be separated from him that raised me, that served the mother’s and the father’s part in my upbringing.”
“Niarmit, there are things I cannot change, and I would take no shred of credit from Matteus for the woman you have become. I never meant for you to come to this dreadful place and my only advice to you now, my solitary play of the father’s part, is to tell you to use the Helm to leave this place and never wear it again. Everyday of my life it pained me to have worn the Helm, to have seen what it had become and to have known that I could not then escape it.”
Niarmit acquiesced with a nod. “Though still, this curse will draw me back in time, denied the Goddess’s blessing and imprisoned with a madman for all eternity.”
“The other Majesties find that the Domain of the Helm can be hospitable,” Santos interjected with a shrill defensive edge to his voice.
“Aye. Where are they then? Hiding from this lunatic?”
“His Majesty Chirard’s power is weaker in those parts of the realm that the other kings and queens have shaped for themselves. They find in their own lodges he is no trouble to them.”
“Twenty two monarchs skulking around in the corners of some demiplane,” Niarmit snorted. “What does the Vanquisher himself think about what has become of his blasphemous paradise?”
Santos fell to a bout of robe twisting before addressing the floor with his answer. “Eadran the first resides in his lodge behind a wall of thorns and has not come out for over nine centuries.”
“By the Goddess, did he realise at last but too late what torture it would be to share eternity with his descendants.”
The Steward shook his head. “He is waiting.”
“For what?”
“For whom Majesty. He is waiting for the Lady Morwena. The Helm and its Domain was crafted for her as well as for him.”
“The Lady Morwena was the first Archprelate of the Goddess, she would never have agreed to be a part of this sacrilege,” Niarmit stormed.
“Indeed,” Santos conceded.
“Anyway she died centuries ago,” Gregor said.
“She rests now with the Goddess, as all true followers should wish to. The Vanquisher will have a long wait in his hidden halls,” Niarmit added.
“But still he waits,” was the Steward’s only reply.
There was a flicker of movement from the floor, as Chirard stretched in his uneasy slumber.
“Majesty,” Santos implored Gregor. “You must leave, swiftly.”
“Not ‘til I have seen Niarmit out of here,” the King grimly replied. “Put on the Helm girl, and when you raise it, mean to raise it in that world not in this.”
She needed no encouragement. Leaping to the throne she pulled the Helm down upon her head and instantly inhabited her own body once more. The disconcerting sense of being in two places at once was exacerbated by the fact that her body was being carried gingerly down the last few steps of a stone spiral staircase.
“She’s coming round,” Hepdida’s voice called out.
From the throne room she heard Gregor commanding her, “take off the Helm girl. Take it off now and don’t let me see you here for a very long time.”
She wriggled in the grip of her bearers, struggling to raise her arms past their support to reach the Helm and wrench it from her head. Never had the cool air upon her scalp felt so good. She flung the hateful helmet across the passageway where it rang hollowly against the stone.
“Careful, my Lady,” Tordil urged her as he and Hepdida set her gently down. “Sound may carry even through stone and whatever else you have done with that Helm you have raised an alarm for every dull witted orc and filthy outlander within these walls.” The elf was grinning despite the peril he had alluded to. “Still we did it, we snuck into a captured fortress and stole the treasure from beneath their noses. By the Goddess we are blessed indeed.”
Niarmit scowled and began to tell him of the false promise that the Helm offered. Or at least she meant to, but the words would not form. Everytime she tried to give voice to the notion of a planar pocket that was both home and prison to the souls of the Helm’s past bearers, she found the thoughts would not link with words and no sound came from her mouth. She had escaped, but she could not return, or warn others of the Helm’s true nature. She thought of Gregor trapped within reach of Chirard the Mad, Gregor her father who, father like, had seized the Helm from Chirard’s head to save her. She remembered the unkind words she had graced him w
ith, the fact that she had said neither thank you nor good bye and that she would not see him now until death beckoned her to the Vanquisher’s private hell. She blenched at the vision of a second father who she had failed and abandoned to great danger.
“Captain Tordil she is hurt, let her rest a while,” Hepdida upbraided the elf in the hiatus of Niarmit’s silence. “And I will not believe we are really have the Goddess’s blessing until we are safely clear of this place.”
***
Gurag and Nakesh busied themselves hacking and slashing at the ancient bookshelf, levering their swords into the crack between wood and stone to prise it away from the wall behind. Udecht could have told them about the secret catch which, when depressed, would allow a child to swing the entire assembly on well oiled hinges. However, the orcs seemed to be enjoying shredding the furniture to matchwood, and in their distraction noticed not the Bishop’s stealthy circling past the workbench. With a splintering crash the bookcase toppled to the floor to expose a blank stone wall.
“No doorway there!” Gurag cried.
“Prayer man lies,” Nakesh snarled.
“Patience, it is a hidden door. Only one of my blood can open it,” Udecht hastily reassured them as he hurried to the exposed surface. His fingers traced lightly over the stone. Immediately a glowing thread spread out from his fingertips, in luminous relief outlining a portal in the wall. The light faded and in its place was a continuous groove cut into rock separating the section of mobile door from the fixed wall surrounding it. Udecht gave the centre of the doorway the lightest of pushes and it pivoted in perfect balance to expose a stone spiral descending into the castle foundations.
“They not come this way,” Nakesh growled. “Door not open before now.”
“There are other entrances to the tunnels,” Udecht assured him. “The wizard will have used one of those and we will surprise him by coming down this one.”
“Wizards is slippery,” Gurag was hesitant.