“My god!” Garald whispered. “It can’t be! It can’t….”
“You are Joram!” Mosiah shoved his way through the crowd, staring at the white-robed figure with wide eyes, “For once, Simkin was telling the truth! It must be the end of the world,” he muttered.
“Trust me, Your Grace. Give the order!” the man urged.
Garald tried to study the man’s face, but he found it too painful and unnerving to look at for long. Averting his gaze, he glanced at the pale and shaken Mosiah, then silently interrogated the Cardinal, who could only shrug and raise his eyes heavenward.
Faith in the Almin? Well and good, but what he needed was faith in himself, in his instincts.
“Very well,” Garald said suddenly, with a sigh. “Mosiah, spread the word. We are going to encompass this fortress in a wall of ice.”
Mosiah hesitated one last moment to look at the man—who was regarding him with an expression of sadness and regret—then he dazedly stumbled off to carry out his orders.
But it seemed it might be too late. The magi—even the well-disciplined members of the Duuk-tsarith and The DKarn-Duuk—appeared too disorganized to come together. Those who had not succumbed to panic were acting on their own, fighting as they’d been taught to fight. Floating above the wall, they were casting balls of flame at the creatures. The fire had no effect on the iron scales of the monsters. It did nothing except call attention to the warlocks themselves. The blind eyes turned in their direction, the beams flared, and the magi fluttered to the ground like dead leaves.
Others were working frantically, trying to repair the breach in the stone wall. Summoning the rock up from the earth, they hastily shaped it to fit the hole. But the creatures of iron blew apart sections of wall faster then the magi could shape it, and soon those standing near the wall fled before the coming of the humming, foul-breathed monsters.
One person acted on Garald’s instructions. Having been the one who captured Joram in the Grove of Merlyn, the witch—head of the Order of Duuk-tsarith—recognized him immediately. When Joram put away the Darksword, the witch was able, by using the mind-searching skills of her kind, to probe the man’s mind. Though the witch understood little of what she saw there, she learned enough about the creatures in the brief span of time she shared Joram’s thoughts to comprehend his plan.
Moving through the crowd, speaking calmly and forcefully, the witch gathered around her the members of the Duuk-tsarith and any others who were standing nearby. All the magi obeyed her without question; some because they were accustomed to doing her bidding, most because she was authority, a focal point of reality in a horrifying nightdream.
The witch organized the catalysts and, mumbling their prayers, the Priests drew the Life from the world around them, sending it arcing into the bodies of the warlocks, the witches, the wizards, even those few sorcerers who, like Mosiah, had strayed here from their disbanded or destroyed units. Concentrating their thoughts upon a single spell, the magi caused a wall of ice to rise, shimmering, into the air, completely surrounding the fortress.
Almost instantly, the lethal beams of light ceased. The killing stopped.
The wizards stared in amazement. The frosty breath of the ice was visible in the warm air. Swirling about the feet of the magi, it cooled their fevered blood, bringing calm and order where there had been only moments before panic and chaos. Silence fell upon the crowd inside the fortress, as they blinked, half-blinded, at the ice wall gleaming in the sunlight.
A light beam shot through the ice, but it was aimless, directionless. The creatures had no targets now, apparently, and though they continued to fire the light at the ice, most of the beams passed harmlessly through empty air.
“It worked,” said Garald, mystified. “But … how? Why?”
“The tanks—the ‘creatures’ as you call them—kill by focusing their laser weapons—their eye?—on anything that moves or gives off heat,” the white-robed man replied. “Using that, they lock onto their targets. Now they can no longer sense the body heat of those in the fortress.”
Shading his eyes against the glare of the reflected sunlight, the Prince peered through the ice at the creatures.
“So we are safe.” He let out his breath in a sigh.
“Only for the moment,” the man said grimly. “This will not stop them, Your Grace. It will merely slow them down.”
“It will give us time enough to contact the Thon-li and force them to open the Corridors again,” Garald stated briskly. “You have saved us! We will begin the retreat—”
“No, Your Grace.” The man caught hold of Garald’s torn, bloodstained shirt as the Prince was starting to move away.
“You cannot retreat, not yet. You must fight. My uncle was right about one thing, there is no escape, nowhere to run. If you don’t stop them here, they will take over the world.”
“Fight them? How? It is impossible!”
Garald’s gaze returned to the creatures. Evidently at a loss for coping with this new and unexpected situation, several of the iron monsters had come together and were focusing their light beams on the ice, intent on melting it away. This had little effect—the magi simply used their magic to replace it. Other creatures kept up random firing, occasionally cutting down a victim but generally doing little harm. The shining bodies of the strange humans could be seen moving among the creatures now, keeping close to them as if for protection.
But Garald knew his people couldn’t maintain their defense for long. Already, the magi were growing weak, the Life needed to keep the huge wall of ice in existence was slowly being drained off. When their strength gave out, they would be at the mercy of the creatures of iron and the metal-skinned humans.
“Our magic is helpless against them!” Garald persisted. “You’ve seen that—”
“Only because you do not know them, Your Grace!” the man interrupted impatiently. “You don’t know how to fight them!”
“Then you must tell me what is going on? I need to know before I can make this decision.”
The man clenched his fist in frustration, and Garald was strongly reminded of the impatient, arrogant youth. The man checked himself, however, swallowing hot words. Fighting some internal battle for control, he rubbed his fingers over the leather that crisscrossed his chest, perhaps feeling a soothing comfort in the touch. When he spoke, his voice was calm.
“Look into my face.”
Reluctantly, the Prince did as he was asked Staring into the face that he knew yet didn’t know, he realized that he had been avoiding looking at this man, avoiding dealing with the inexplicable, fearful change.
“Who am I? Say my name.”
Garald tried to withdraw his gaze, but the brown eyes held him fast. “Joram,” he said at last, reluctantly. “You are Joram,” he repeated again.
“How long is it since I left this world?” Joram asked softly.
“A year,” Garald faltered.
Reality struck a telling blow. He was forced to confront the fact that only a few hundred days before he had walked in the wilderness with a youth. Now he faced a man as old or older than himself.
“I don’t understand!” he cried, frightened.
“Ten years have passed for me,” answered Joram. “There is not time enough for me to explain everything. If I do not survive this battle, seek out Father Saryon, who is in Merilon. I have left in his keeping a record of my life. What I am going to tell you now you must accept on faith. If not faith in the thankless boy you knew and helped”—Joram paused, sighing—“then faith in what I thought would be my final act: the renunciation of this sword I created, the voluntary walk into death.”
Joram’s face was anguished as he spoke; the hand closed over the leather straps, pressing them into his heart.
Garald recalled all that he had heard of the final, terrible day in Joram’s life on this world, and his last suspicions vanished. He tried to say something to this effect, but the words would not come. Joram saw and understood, removing the need for word
s by reaching out and grasping hold of the Prince’s hand.
“I walked into what I thought was death, but there is not death Beyond, Your Grace,” Joram continued quietly. “There is life! In our conceit, we imagined ourselves safe, protected from the rest of the universe by our magical Border. When we left the ancient world to come to this one, we thought—we hoped—the Old World would forget us as we forgot them.”
Joram looked away, staring beyond the wall of ice into realms that had been revealed to his eyes alone. “They did not forget,” he said softly. “They missed the magic and they searched for it, knowing that somewhere it still lived.” Joram smiled, but it was a dark smile and it sent a shiver through Garald. “I said before that there was not death Beyond. I was wrong. Actually, there is nothing out there except Death. Those worlds that lie Beyond are populated by the Dead. Some Life, some magic exists, but it is scattered throughout the universe like atoms in deep space.”
“Atoms deep space.” The words were strange, meaningless. Garald’s gaze turned, like Joram’s, to the heavens. His confusion was not dispelled, but rather was growing, as was his fear. The ancient world, the world they had fled in terror, was searching for them? He almost expected to see faces leering at him from the cloudless sky.
“I am sorry I know you don’t understand.” Joram’s gaze returned to Garald and it was pleading in its intensity. “What can I say?” He gripped the Prince’s hand harder, as though he could communicate through touch what he was failing to communicate with words. “They—the Dead, if you will—” there was a bitter irony in Joram’s voice that made Garald wince—“call this an expeditionary force. It has been sent to investigate this world, to conquer and subdue it, and prepare the way for occupation.”
“What?” Gerald repeated, stunned. Conquer, subdue, occupation: these were words he knew, he understood. He forced himself to attend, urging his brain to let loose of its grasp of what he had known this morning as reality. “You say, they—the Dead”—he stumbled over the word, his mind still stubbornly disbelieving, although all he had to do was look out beyond the wall of ice to see the evidence of his senses—“want to conquer us? Why? What then?”
Removing his hand from that of his friend, Joram thrust it in the sleeves of his robes. The temperature inside the icebound fortress was gradually falling, growing colder and colder.
“They plan to destroy the barriers, release the magic back into the universe,” he replied. “They will take you prisoner and carry you back to their worlds.”
“But if such is their object,” argued Garald, with the strange sensation that he was debating a point in a meaningless dream, “why are they killing everyone they encounter, including civilians?” He gestured. “They’re not taking prisoners? Or, if they are,” he added, remembering Radisovik’s observation, “they’re only taking catalysts!”
“Are they?” Joram appeared startled, his gaze shifting swiftly to Garald.
“Yes! I saw—the nobles, their wives, their children, riding in their glittering carriages, coming with their wine and their lunches to watch a game. These creatures murdered them!” Once again, Garald was turning over that body, seeing the grinning face of the skeleton. “Is this how they fight in Beyond?” he demanded angrily. “Do they slaughter the helpless?”
“No,” said Joram, appearing grave and troubled. “They are not savage like the centaur. They do not love to kill. They are soldiers. They have rules of warfare, handed down through centuries. I don’t understand. They wanted prisoners.” He paused, his face darkened. “Unless….” He did not continue.
Garald shook his head. “Make some sense of it for me, Joram.”
“I wish I could!” It was a murmur, spoken almost to himself. “I thought I knew them. Yet I have proof now that they betrayed me. Are they capable of more …?”
Garald looked at him intently, hearing again the old, familiar bitterness in Joram’s tone and now something else as well—an echo of pain and loss.
“All the more reason we must fight them,” Joram said suddenly, his voice as cold as the chill breath blowing from the ice wall. “We must show them that they will not take this world as easily as they anticipated. We must make them fear us so that when they leave they will never return.”
“But what will be our weapons?” Garald asked helplessly. “Ice?”
“Ice, fire, air. The magic, my friend,” Joram said. “Life—Life will be our weapon … and Death.”
Reaching behind him, he drew the Darksword from its scabbard. “Long years have passed since I made this. Yet I’ve often dreamed of that night—the night in the blacksmith’s when I forged the metal and Saryon gave it Life.” Joram turned the sword, studying it. His man’s hand fit it better than had the boy’s, but it was still heavy and awkward and unbalanced, difficult to wield. “Do you remember?” he asked Garald, the half-smile touching his lips, “the day we met? When I attacked you in the glade? You said this sword was the ugliest of its kind you had ever seen.”
Joram’s gaze went to the sword the Prince wore at his side. The sun sparkled off the ornately carved hilt of shining silver. By contrast, it did not even flicker in the beaten metal of the Darksword. He sighed.
“Though I didn’t know about the Prophecy, I knew I was bringing something evil into the world with this sword. Saryon knew it—he warned me to destroy it, before it destroyed me. I’ve thought about it since then, and I’ve come to understand that I wasn’t the one who brought the evil into the world with the sword.” He gazed down upon the weapon, running his fingers over the crude, misshapen hilt. “The sword is the evil in the world.”
“Then why keep it?” Garald glanced at it, shuddering.
“Because, like any sword, it cuts two ways,” Joram replied “Now, the Almin willing, I can use it to save us. Will you fight, Your Grace?”
Still the Prince hesitated. “Why are you doing this for us, Joram? If, as you say, we brought this fate upon ourselves, why do you care? After what we did to you—”
“You call me Dead! …” Joram murmured, repeating the last words he had said before he walked into Beyond. “But it is you who have died. It is this world that is dead.”
He stared at the sword, dark and unlovely in his hand. “I was gone ten years. I came back, hoping to find the world changed, intending to—” He stopped abruptly, scowling. “But never mind that. It isn’t important now. Suffice it to say that I returned to find that you—this world—had not changed. In an effort to gain power, you had tortured and tormented a helpless being. I abandoned my project, my hopes, and walked the land in bitterness, seeing everywhere the signs of tyranny, injustice.
“In my anger, I planned to return to Beyond when I discovered that it, too, had betrayed me.” The dark half-smile twisted his lip. “I had no world, it seemed I was willing to leave you, all of you.”—his bitter glance included the creatures of iron attacking the wall of ice—“to your fate, little caring whether either of you won or lost.
“Then a man, a very wise man, reminded me of something I had forgotten. ‘It is easier to hate than to love.’” Joram fell silent, his gaze going to the sparkling wall of ice, to the trees, the surrounding hills, the blue sky, the fiery sun. “I realized that this world is my home. These people are my people. And therefore I cannot speak of it in the second person. I say ‘you’ tormented Saryon, but I should say ‘I’ tormented that good man. Had it not been for me, he would not have suffered.”
Absently, Joram ran his fingers through his dark, tangled hair. “And there is one other reason,” he said, an inexpressible sadness shadowing his face. “Not a day passed during those ten years in another world that I didn’t dream of the beauty of Merilon.”
He looked quizzically at Garald. “It is easier to hate than to love. I’ve never done anything the easy way. Do we fight for this world … Your Grace?”
“We fight,” said the Prince. “And call me Garald,” he added with a wry smile. “I still hear those words. ‘Your Grace’ stick in you
r throat.”
17
The Angel Of Death
They said afterward—those that survived—that they were led into battle by the Angel of Death.
Confused rumors about Joram began to spread among the magi fighting for their lives inside the fortress of stone and ice. Few knew his true history—Mosiah, Garald, Radisovik, and the witch. Many more knew fragments of it, however, and it was these fragments that were hastily whispered to companions during the brief lull in the battle following the raising of the ice wall. Emperor Xavier had said enough prior to his death to enable people to piece these fragments together as they might have a broken stone statue. Unfortunately, it was like putting together a statue that they had never seen whole in the first place.
Several of the catalysts fighting in the fortress had been present at the Judgment of Joram. Those who had been standing near Prince Garald heard him pronounce that name, and they remembered it. Xavier’s words, The Prophecy is fulfilled. The end of the world is come, were repeated in hushed tones, as was each catalyst’s version of what had occurred that dreadful day on the beach when they had all witnessed this man—this Joram—step into Beyond.
“He is Dead….”
“He carries a sword of darkness that sucks the life out of its victims….”
“He murdered countless numbers, but only the wicked, or so I heard. He was falsely accused and now he has come back from the dead to seek his revenge….”
“Xavier fell at his feet! You saw it! What more proof do you want? The old Emperor dropped out of sight opportunely for The DKarn-Duuk, didn’t he? What does it matter who hears me now? Xavier’s dead now and I’ll wager he won’t come back….”
“The Prophecy? I heard a tale once that had to do with a Prophecy, something about the old wizard, Merlyn, and a king with a shining sword that would come back to his land and save them in their hour of need….”
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