by Nat Russo
“The scroll is immutable. You could place it in fire and it wouldn’t burn.”
“And these,” Mujahid asked, indicating the loose parchments.
“It’s impractical to carry the scroll everywhere, so scribes have copied the unverified words of Arin into these documents for further study. They contain every communication that has taken place since the theft of the Orb forty years ago.”
Something wasn’t right. If the number of parchments were any indication, there were more proclamations during the last forty years than in all of recorded history prior to the creation of the Great Barrier. Either Arin had a lot more to say lately, or someone other than Arin was doing the talking.
“Arin speaks only during the Rite of Manifestation—”
“Once per year,” Jonathan said, finishing Mujahid’s sentence. “Yet these parchments suggest Arin has begun appearing to the archmage dozens of times per year.”
“Forgive me, Archbishop. It’s been many years since I last gazed on the Book of Life. May I examine these?”
Jonathan nodded.
Mujahid read for more than an hour, comparing proclamations from decades ago with the most recent ones, trying to find some change in the pattern.
He searched for common themes, but the recent proclamations covered every minutia of life. Perhaps the lack of a common theme might be the evidence he needed? Evidence of what, however, he didn’t know. He turned to the last sheet of loose parchment.
His heart raced when he read a declaration that mentioned his ancestral home. When he comprehended what he was reading, he allowed himself a small laugh. The proof he had sought for forty years was right in front of him. He offered a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t marched on the Pinnacle.
Jonathan’s eyebrows lifted when Mujahid laughed.
“Nuuan would love this,” Mujahid said.
“I’m sorry?” Jonathan said.
“Do you believe in the truth of divine proclamations, Archbishop?” The question was rhetorical. Mujahid was well aware of the Order’s beliefs.
“When a proclamation is verified by the Great Orb, it is beyond question.”
“Have you ever known two or more proclamations to contradict one another?”
“Of course not. One of them would be false.”
“What if a proclamation made a statement that, by definition, could not be true?”
“The same question phrased differently, is it not? I assume this discussion is academic, Lord Mukhtaar. So allow me to clarify and say that what you are asking is impossible if a proclamation has been verified.”
“Humor me.”
“I would question the source, and instruct my priests to do the same. Demonic influence in world events isn’t unheard of—you of all people are aware of this, Lord Mukhtaar.”
Mujahid ignored the remark. There was a legend the Mukhtaar Lords allied with demons. Another claimed they were demons themselves in league with Hasat’Tan. Neither was precisely true, but the poor man would never sleep again if he knew the whole truth.
“But the end result is you would not attribute the words to Arin, correct?” Mujahid asked.
“I believe that is what I said.”
“Read this out loud for me.” Mujahid handed Jonathan the parchment.
Jonathan cleared his throat and started reading. “People of Erindor, mark this day. The city of Paradise has been destroyed. Its orb of power lies in ruin, and the magic of death scatters.” Jonathan lowered the parchment. “Forgive me, Lord Mukhtaar, but I fail to see the humor here.”
“What would you say if I told you this proclamation contains a statement that is absolutely false?”
Jonathan inched closer. “I’m listening.”
“The city of Paradise never had an orb of power in its possession, Archbishop. But the settlement of Paradise Minor did.”
“What? Let me see that.” Jonathan leaned in close and examined the document.
“The city of Paradise is the ancestral home of my clan, and only a Mukhtaar Lord, and those to be tested, know its location. I can tell you with certainty that Paradise stands, and its orb of power is not destroyed…because it never contained an orb of power. The Mukhtaar orb was housed in a different location, a small permanent settlement on the outskirts of Paradise.”
Jonathan’s expression changed and Mujahid could see the man starting to comprehend.
“It…no,” Jonathan held the parchment closer to his eyes. “They destroyed the wrong city.”
“They destroyed the wrong city,” Mujahid repeated and smiled. “When the Great Purge began, we brought our clan members close to our ancestral home, to provide them with as much protection as we could. But Nuuan, in a moment of brilliance…or deviousness, thought it would be best to ignore custom. He spread the word that this small settlement was, in fact, our ancestral home of Paradise. Not Paradise Minor. Until this moment, he and I were the only two people in Erindor who knew otherwise. Now tell me, Archbishop, do you believe the gods would know the true location of Paradise?”
“Archmage Kagan believed the lie,” Jonathan said. “It was right in front of us.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You had no way of knowing. My brother’s deception uncovered something sinister beyond imagining. I’m afraid your initial suspicions are confirmed. These so-called divine proclamations are forgeries. And that can mean only one thing.”
Jonathan’s face drained of color. “By Arin, I was right. The archmage has found a way to counterfeit the Book of Life.”
And that meant Kagan was far more powerful than Mujahid had given him credit for. Kagan was a tyrant, but a false prophet too? To forge a page in the Book of Life required a power beyond imagining. Kagan would have had to find a way to defeat mystical safeguards devised by Arin himself. If Mujahid had followed his instinct and marched on the Pinnacle alone, Kagan would have destroyed him.
But now Mujahid knew what he was up against. He couldn’t guarantee the outcome, but at least he could prepare.
“I am at a complete loss, Lord Mukhtaar. For the first time in my ministry I have no idea how to shepherd my flock.”
“I can’t offer you counsel on that subject, Archbishop,” Mujahid said. “But I will tell you what I must do. I will seek the king’s assistance in accomplishing what I failed to do forty years ago. A tyrant and false prophet sits on the Obsidian Throne. And I cannot allow this to stand.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
“You learned a valuable lesson today,” Lamil said.
Nicolas didn’t want to hear it. He was numb, as if he were observing someone else from a distance. Detached. Empty.
He walked closer to the Orb of Zubuxo.
“You are a necromancer,” Lamil said. “When life finally leaves your body, you will make the journey to the Plane of Death with the blood of many men on your hands. It is the horrible certainty of our vocation.”
Vocation. Nicolas heard that word many times growing up Catholic, used by well-intended priests seeking new recruits. Vocation meant many things to him, but being a killer wasn’t one of them.
“Let’s just agree to disagree.”
Lamil looked Nicolas up and down in a gesture that was familiar to Nicolas now. A gesture of thoughtful consideration, as if the speaker were choosing his next words with care.
“Our vocation is to take on the sins of our penitent,” Lamil said. “You know the namocea. You do not merely witness the evil that person commits…you desire it as much as they do, because for a brief moment in time you are the person you summon. You never feel clean again, do you?”
Nicolas stared straight ahead.
“Yet with each summoning,” Lamil said, “you must strive to make it part of yourself in a way that pushes you closer to perfection, not farther away. The great challenge of our office is to take on the sins of the universe without becoming evil ourselves. Some fail. There are evil necromancers out there whose souls are as dark as the robes they wear. Never forget it. The midnigh
t blue reminds us that we, too, are capable of much evil on the path to perfection.”
Nicolas tried to calm himself by retreating into his cet. How could the siek, of all people, believe that killing was the right thing to do?
His calm exterior crumbled and his cet slipped away. He tried to force his mind into submission—the wrong thing to do, but he didn’t care. He wanted to beat on something, even if only himself.
“There’s something else I’ve learned from all those lifetimes,” Nicolas said. “No one’s beyond redemption, no matter how bad they were. Why did I have to be the instrument of Jurn’s death? Was there no other way to learn the lesson?”
“Too much too soon,” Lamil said.
“No!” Nicolas punched the Orb of Zubuxo, and his energy well drained like a water tower whose bottom fell out. The orb had pulled all the necropotency out of him. The deafening shriek of ripping metal exploded through the temple.
The sound faded and the world folded in on itself.
A bright light at the center of an abyss became a vortex of alternating black and grey cloud that pulled Nicolas deeper. He felt at peace within the swirling violence. He belonged there.
The mouth of the vortex swallowed him and a pinpoint of light grew larger in front of him. The pinpoint became a star burst too bright to look at, so he covered his eyes.
He felt ground underneath him and air circulating against his face. When he opened his eyes he was looking up.
The sky was black and starless, like the sky over the room of many doors in his hall of power. A small, red sphere appeared in the starless void and grew larger as it rushed toward him until it covered most of the visible sky. It was a desert planet, covered in red and orange terrain—and not a drop of water that he could see. It came to a stop and rotated, casting light downward in rays like sunbeams through a cloud.
He stood on a high cliff of lifeless charcoal-grey ground that extended for miles to his sides and behind. In front lay a vast plain, tens of thousands of feet below, stretching into the distance ahead. The plain writhed like a snake, but as he stared he saw it wasn’t the plain that was moving. An ocean of people stood on the plain, each facing away from him.
Most of them weren’t human. He felt small, insignificant. His problems seemed childish now, as if the universe itself would laugh if he mentioned them.
Every time the desert planet in the sky rotated the beams of light would strike the rear of the plain, below the cliff he stood on, and countless souls would materialize, causing the plain to fill. When it reached its capacity it would shift and stretch to accommodate the millions who were coalescing from the rays of light.
He traced the sloping plain downward to a titanic black throne, taller than any mountain in his memory. Was the throne’s height measured in feet or miles? He couldn’t tell, but the answer soon became moot. The plain expanded once more and the empty throne grew along with it.
To the left of the throne was a mammoth black gate that grew at the same rate as the throne.
He knew where he was. Siek Lamil had spoken of it many times; the plain filled with souls, the giant throne, the gate…and the last thing Nicolas remembered touching was the Orb of Zubuxo.
He was standing over the Field of Judgment on the Plane of Death. The souls he saw were the countless multitude of penitents in need of purification. The throne belonged to Zubuxo, the God of Death. And if that was true, then the gate must be the entrance to the Plane of Peace. All the theology Lamil had taught was true…to the letter.
But what did it mean? What of his own religion? He wasn’t the best Catholic in the world, he wasn’t even sure how much he believed, but he was damned if he’d ever stop thinking of himself as Christian.
The field darkened. He looked back to the planet, which had been the source of much of the light in this place, and saw it retreating. It vanished, leaving the starless sky empty, but another took its place and rushed toward him. This one had vast oceans, and thick polar caps. It came to a stop and rotated, shining bright beams of light that struck the field before him, manifesting countless souls on the ever-expanding plain.
If he kept watching, would the Earth fill the sky and deposit its dead on the plain below as well?
Movement caught his attention. Something had noticed him. A ghost-like humanoid figure floated toward him on the cliff, its body more cloud than solid.
And he knew the person.
It was the skeletal warrior that killed the crag spider the day he met Mujahid…his first day in Erindor. He sensed a connection to the warrior, similar to the necromantic link, but subtle and delicate.
Fear bubbled to the surface. The connection he sensed was the feeling of the necromantic link during the namocea. He had never taken control of the warrior! Had the skeleton come back to kill him?
Power surged through his mind and filled his well. He unleashed the energy on the skull symbol and it rushed forward like a bull springing from a pen. That bag of bones was in for one hell of a surprise this time.
Nothing happened.
It was as if the necropotency had taken on a mind of its own and refused to leave him. He was doing everything right, but nothing worked.
The warrior drew closer, but his image shifted and blurred. It grew sharper, like a picture coming into focus, as flesh appeared on its bones from the inside out, beginning with internal organs and ending with fascia and skin.
Nicolas’s fear grew, but something told him there was nothing to fear.
The old warrior stopped a few feet from Nicolas and smiled. A jagged scar ran down his forehead, through one of his eyes, and onto his cheek. White hair cascaded onto broad shoulders that partially concealed a two-handed sword extending up from his back. Armor of darkest black formed around him, as if coalescing from dust in the air, and settled onto his body.
“I’ve waited for you, priest,” the warrior said. “My name is Kynthelig. We once met as master and servant, but today we meet as brothers. Through your summoning I have paid the last of my debt to the God of Death, and I await passage through the gate, as do many down below. But the Plane of Death fills with souls faster than they can be purified.”
Nicolas was dumbfounded. The man wanted to thank him, not kill him. He looked at the vast ocean of souls and felt a permeating hopelessness. All of these people were stranded here, unable to return to their lives, and unable to move forward. How could all of the necromancers combined ever hope to purify them?
“The God of Death hides his face from us,” Kynthelig said. “Many here feel he has abandoned us, and fear the Plane of Peace is forever closed.”
“How long has it been?” Nicolas asked.
Kynthelig gave him a questioning look.
“When did you last see Zubuxo?”
“Time has no meaning here. But I have never seen Zubuxo.”
Nicolas realized he had no idea how long he’d been standing here. Had it been minutes? Days? Years? No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t pinpoint how much time had passed. It felt as if everything was happening now. Past and future combined into an eternal present.
Kynthelig turned to the multitude. “There are tainted ones among us now.” He pointed to the ever-expanding plain below. “Look there. Watch the purest ones.”
Nicolas looked where Kynthelig was pointing. A new throng of souls appeared on the plane. Differentiations existed among them that he hadn’t seen before. Some wore garments of jet black, like Kynthelig, while others wore white and every shade in between. The imagery wasn’t what he expected, given his Catholic upbringing. Kynthelig was pure, yet his armor was black.
“I don’t understand what I’m seeing,” Nicolas said. “Aren’t the ones wearing white the purest?”
“The question of a child, not a priest.”
Something about the word child caused a shift in Nicolas’s perception. When he looked back at the plain below, he noticed that one section stood out from the rest, and within it the garments were the blackest of all. But he sicken
ed when he looked closer.
They were infants floating above the ground in black swaddling clothes.
A bright flash of light reflected off one of the children, as if lightning had struck nearby. When the light faded the child writhed and cried as if in pain.
When the second flash struck, the infant’s black garment turned grey. It was almost unnoticeable, except that it was no longer the darkest in the group.
A third flash struck the child, and Nicolas saw the source. A white door had opened on the planet above, and a brilliant beam of light shot out, striking the child in the chest. The child’s garment grew lighter with each strike. But the garment wasn’t the only thing changing. The child’s demeanor was changing as well.
The strikes began to provoke a violent reaction, and the infant lashed out like a feral animal. The infant stood—something that should have been impossible—and swung its arms at the other children, but it never made contact. Its hands passed right through anything they touched.
“What’s happening to that baby?”
“She is tainted now, priest,” Kynthelig said. “The hellwraiths will come for her soon. This place is no longer appropriate for her.”
Two shrouded beings approached the child from opposite directions of the plain. They had no discernible lower bodies, and the only feature Nicolas could see were two pinpoints of brilliant light where eyes should be.
“They come now,” Kynthelig said.
The hellwraiths flew above the multitude of souls. When they were next to the child they shrank to twice the height of a full grown man and hovered beside her. The souls standing near scurried away and formed a circle, leaving the hellwraiths and the girl at its center.
One of the wraiths produced a great whip that looked like a rope of shadow, absorbing the light around it. The other wraith approached the girl, reaching out with ephemeral hands to grab her.
The child flailed, screaming, and Nicolas expected her arms to pass right through the wraiths as they had with the other spirits. This time, however, her arms made contact. As she touched the hellwraith she threw her head back and cried. The hellwraith lifted her up and flew into the air, leaving a trail of shadow behind him. When his arms enveloped the girl, her clothes became darker and her body shuddered. It carried her toward the throne, to a door that had opened on the side opposite the gate. The remaining wraith followed, stowing its shadowy whip in its cloak that flowed down around legs that didn’t exist.