by T. O. Munro
The Vanquisher shifted in his seat and stood. All eyes turned to the founder of their line, waiting for his contribution, but Edaran said nothing. He sucked in a breath, rubbed a hand over his jaw, and walked pensively round to the statue of Chirard. He gave the Kinslayer’s petrified form an appraising look.
“You say this fool drove Maelgrum to his knees with his spellcraft?” He directed the question with a brief glance in Niarmit’s direction.
She nodded.
“Then he is more of a fool than I could ever have thought.”
“Insane certainly,” the timorous Gregor wobbled a few chins. “But I never thought him a fool. Too cunning surely for that, too cunning and too skilled.”
The Vanquisher speared him with a look. “Less foolish than you maybe, but a fool nonetheless.”
“But he hurt Maelgrum,” Mitalda weighed in on the side of the downcast monarch.
Eadran graced his granddaughter with a more indulgent shake of the head than he had spared his more distant descendant. He stroked the statue’s stony cheek and pressed a finger against its open mouthed cry. “Chirard was a fool. Casting magic from within the domain opens a channel, a pathway to allow the energy to flow out. For just an instant energy can flow back in, a spell caster can strike back in here.”
Mitalda frowned. “I have cast spells through the Helm in centuries gone by, lending my aid to Bulved and to Thren in their conquest of the Eastern Lands. We faced many mages then, but none of them struck back as Niarmit says Maelgrum did. If the Helm has a weakness why was it not exposed then?”
Bulveld the Third and Thren the Fifth both nodded their agreement and their endorsement for Mitalda’s contribution.
“It is not an unforeseen weakness it is a necessary aspect of the design,” Eadran sighed. “Those eastern wizards you fought would have been inexpert in the ways of the planes. They would never have realised the extraplanar origins of the magic with which you assailed them. Maelgrum however is not just an expert, but the expert. He is the Master of the Planes and to attack him from here with spellcraft is to open yourselves to a riposte which will destroy you. Admittedly not a permanent fate for most of you,” he swung an arm to point at Niarmit. “But it will destroy her, utterly, both here and in her plane.”
“It took him time to find the range, the effort weakened him. Time as Mitalda says when we could strike him down.” Niarmit clutched at straws. Feyril had spoken so forcefully of the power of the Helm of the unwearying magic it could dispense at any enemy. To think that potential rendered impotent was too cruel a blow after the hope she had invested in the artefact.
“He was only weakened because he had to use nearly all his strength and spread his power across virtually all the infinite planes in the hope that some of it would strike home at you here.” Eadran sighed. “What you felt when this statueseque fool assaulted Maelgrum was but one tiny fraction of the Dark Lord’s power. But that element which struck home, will have resonated for him like a bell. He will have learned. He will remember.” The Vanquisher shook his head. “He will know where in the planes to focus his power to strike at us here. He will be waiting for the second we give him an opening with an unwise spell cast.”
“It nearly killed me before.”
“And if we cast a spell against him again, he will kill you for sure, and that will be an end to all our hopes of defeating him.”
“So we cannot cast a spell at him, not from here.”
“But provided we show that restraint,” the Dragonsoul pounced. "Then the protection of the Helm will hold good while we trust in the virtues of sword craft.” For emphasis he brought his fist crashing down on the arm of his throne, clearly sorry that it was only white stone he struck rather than Maelgrum’s blackened skull.
“An admirable ambition, my great-great-grandson,” Eadran congratulated him. “But before you seek to take him apart, let me ask what you know of Maelgrum’s history?”
The Dragonsoul looked around the assembled company straining with a deficiency in historical knowledge as great as his shortcomings in spellcraft. Thren the Seventh supplied an answer in his soft eastern twang. “You told us he was known once as Zeln a mage of the Monar Empire.”
Eadran nodded. “Aye, he came to the court of the Monar Empire calling himself Zeln. He was a skilled sorcerer then and served two decades as a mage of the empire before it fell. But that was not the name he was born with, nor was sorcery his first line of employment.” The Vanquisher paused for effect, savouring the naked curiosity of his descendants. “He was born far in the East, where the empire never held sway. His name then was, Usna he whom legend called Usna the Marshal.”
The Dragonsoul paled at the name.
Mitalda frowned, her lips moved in some unspoken thought. ”But Usna lived a century before the empire fell. He could not have been this man. Why that would mean Zeln was a hundred and twenty years old when the empire fell.”
Eadran nodded. “That is what drew him to the art in the first place, the desire to extend and lengthen his life. And where better to continue his studies of how to extend his span of days, than within the very empire he had once fought so hard. He sought out learning to enhance his craft, but even the days he had stolen by wizardry could not last forever, and death chased him still. And that is when he chose the path and the form he now inhabits.”
“But you see, within Maelgrum walks Zeln, last archmage of the Monar Empire, and within Zeln walks Usna greatest swordsman of his age. Not so confident in the power of your sword play now my bold scion?”
“So you are saying,” Niarmit’s father growled. “That Maelgrum is both a great sorcerer and an incomparable swordsman.”
Eadran gave a slight moue of acquiescence. “He was and is the original warrior mage. Victory over him will not come easily by spell or swordplay and even then destroying him would be another matter.”
“This seems to be little more than a counsel of despair,” the Dragonsoul grumbled. “I will trust my sword arm in combat with any man, living or dead. I doubt dead sinews will answer the will of Usna as well as they did in his youth and I am sure my brothers and sisters in the Helm can lend my blows enough weight to shatter a corpse’s body.”
“Your courage does you credit,” Eadran admitted. “Though I am less sure your confidence is well placed. There is a way to defeat him, once we have denuded him of his armies of course, and that is an equally pressing matter.”
“Destroying Maelgrum is the priority,” Niarmit insisted. “If we cannot destroy him, then defeating his armies will avail us little. If we can destroy him then it gives hope that if not us, then others may win a lasting peace by military means.”
“Then the only question,” Eadran said, with a sparkle in his eye. “Is will you trust me?”
“Trust you? I’d rather eat my own shit.”
Niarmit had opened her mouth to speak, but the words were not hers. They came from the far entrance to the Chamber of the Helm, where a newcomer stood glaring at the bristling figure of the Vanquisher by the statue of Chirard.
“Father,” Mitalda gasped.
“Hello, my boy,” Eadran said, his body was still but his eyes flicked up and down as they inspected the new arrival. Thren, the first of that name was a man of middling height, broadshouldered with dark hair and a neat sharp beard. In physique there was little imposing about him, but there was a presence in the stillness of his stance and in the fierce loathing with which he viewed the Vanquisher.
“I’m not your boy, father,” he declared. “And I’d as soon trust the Dark Lord himself as trust you.”
“I am your father and you will show me some respect.” Eadran stepped away from Chirard’s statue. His arms hung by his side but his hands flexed restlessly, thumbs brushing fingers, fingers half clenching. His son, by contrast was scarcely more mobile than the Kinslayer.
“You lost any right to my respect a thousand years ago, father. Stepping at last from behind the protection of your wall of thorns is still scarc
ely an achievement of honour.”
“Is this how your mother would have you greet me?”
“You are dead to my mother, you know that. Your hands are red with blood and guilt you cannot wash free.”
“Kingship is not for cowards nor for the faint hearted. Your mother understood that. She knew that freedom was a hard won prize.”
“Freedom?” Thren raised an eyebrow. “Freedom is a prize you both fought for. But immortality? That was your quest alone, and the crimes you committed stain you still.”
“Your mother did not understand, that is all.” The Vanquisher swept round to look at the assembled monarchs, incredulous witnesses to a long simmering filial argument. “You understand don’t you? You all must understand. The prize that this Helm afforded. Morwena didn’t understand that was all.”
Thren shook his head. “She understood too well, father. Far too well. There are some murders where the grief of a mother will quite supplant the dutiful love of a wife.”
“Murder?” Niarmit echoed. “What murder?”
Thren shook his head. “You don’t know? None of you? You never guessed?”
“Who was murdered?” portly Gregor whined. But by then Thren was looking elsewhere and the monarchs turned to follow his gaze to the slight figure blinking owlishly on his simple wooden chair.
“Tell them, Santos,” Thren growled. “Tell them who you are.”
The thin spare man drew his toga tighter around him and blinked more quickly. “I am Santos,” he insisted uncertainly. “I am Steward of the Helm.”
“The domain could not be uninhabited,” Eadran was speaking fast, pouring out explanations of his craft as a defence of his morality. “It needed a living soul. It was not an end, just a temporary separation.”
“Tell them.” Thren’s eyes and voice were only for the steward who was shaking beneath the curious attention of every monarch of the Helm.
Santos shook his head. “I am the steward…”
“No,” Thren cut him short. “Tell them who you were, before that.”
“Before? I don’t remember.”
“They would have been together again, if she had only worn the Helm,” Eadran was insisting. “I did it for both of them, for all of us, for all of you.”
“What did you do?” All Niarmit’s fears of the blasphemy within the Helm resurfaced as she saw the Vanquisher sweating.
“I don’t remember,” Santos whimpered.
Thren knelt before him and took the steward’s shaking hands in his own steady ones. “You do, remember. Before you were Steward of the Helm, you were a Deacon of the Goddess, and a Prince.”
“I was to forget, he said I should forget it,” The steward’s gaze darted first towards Eadran and then to the soft eyed face of Thren the first. “You said I could forget it.”
“And now I am telling you to remember it, to remember who you were. It is time to remember who you are, and why this man is to be trusted no further than the Dark Lord himself.”
“A prince?” Mitalda murmured.
“Which prince?” portly Gregor whined as the steward started snivelling on his chair.
Thren straightened up. “He is my brother. My half-brother.”
“Eadran had another wife?” The Dragonsoul said.
“No, Morwena had another husband,” Thren told him. “Santhric who fell in battle with the Caliphs before Morwena and the people of the Goddess were captured and sold into slavery to Maelgrum.”
He jerked his head towards Eadran who stood pale and apart. “When my father brought my mother to the Petred Isle she already had a babe in arms.”
“They would not have been long parted, if she had only worn the Helm,” Eadran ground out the refrain through gritted teeth.
“What did you do?” Niarmit demanded.
Thren gave a short laugh devoid of mirth and held his arms up high and wide as he gazed at the domed ceiling of the Chamber of the Helm. “This prison that confines us, it was supposed to be a paradise for two people so very much in love. You think the bloodline is just the bloodline of Eadran?” He shook his head. “He enchanted it for Morwena too, so she could wear the Helm in safety, so she could receive its cursed blessing. And just as it was enchanted for his wife, so too it was enchanted for her son, for Santhric’s son.”
“It needed a living soul to preserve the domain,” Eadran’s arms were folded, his voice defiant. “It needed a soul to hold it ready for our arrival. For mine and Morwena’s.”
“It was an honour,” Santos muttered. “It was to be a great honour that was bestowed on me.”
“He murdered you, my brother, and trapped you here,” Thren insisted sadly.
“No, no, it was an honour.”
“You murdered him,” Niarmit said. “You murdered your step son.”
“You never told me this, father,” Mitalda said. “Not when you were alive, not when you passed into this place. Why did you not tell me?”
Thren scowled. “The dismal story was a tale of the Helm and like all tales of the Helm I was chained in silence by this bastard’s spell. I could not speak of it while I lived. Once death had brought me here I kept the words I had for him alone, for him that sired me. Long have I waited for him to crawl from behind his wall of thorns that he might hear my curse on his name, his legacy and on his bloodstained soul.”
“Why?” Niarmit faced the Vanquisher, from whom all spirit and bluster seemed to have drained away. “Why did you do it?”
Eadran shrugged. “Conquering death, it was the only battle left for me.”
“Ha!” his son cried. “By his own lips he confesses. He is still a slave to his master’s dark ambition. Just as Maelgrum sought out imortaility at any price, so too his chief lieutenant at the end has sacrificed all in the same vain blasphemous pursuit.”
“Your mother…”
“Do not speak of her again, father.” Thren growled. “She kept your secret, she let your fame grow when it should have withered and died in disgrace. My centuries old regret is that I found her warning too late to heed it and have ever since been chained by your paranoid spell craft, as we all have.”
“She should be here,” Eadran insisted obdurately.
“She is where we all should be, resting in the arms of the Goddess, not stranded in this blood stained pit.”
“Whatever I may have done,” Eadran snarled. “I cannot now undo, that much is certain.” He glanced at Santos. The steward stared in grim concentration at his own sandaled feet. “But there is still a peril we all face. Maelgrum walks again and must be defeated.”
“Which brings us once again,” Thren said. “To the question of trust. Can you trust this kinslaying bastard?”
Eadran looked up at Niarmit seated on her gilded throne. His eyes were hooded, his expression a conflict of pride and regret. “Listen to me, girl,” he said.
She shook her head slowly and clamped her hands against the Helm.
“No,” he cried. “Niarmit, no.”
She lifted the Helm from her head and vanished from the Vanquisher’s cursed plane.
***
The patient stirred on the rough matting of the bed. Strips of flesh hung from his fire flayed hands. “Dema,” he moaned.
Vlyndor ground powder in a pestle for another ungent casting anxious glances at the prone form and his restless nursemaid.
“I am not Dema,” Persapha held a wet sponge to his cracked lips. Her snakes slithered beneath her hood, unsettled by her distress. The young medusa looked round. “Can you not do more, he hurts so much?” There was an edge of anger in her voice, clear enough for Vlyndor to hear as well as taste. A temper rising with the frustration of a situation that simply was not as she wished.
“I am working as fast as I can,” Vlydnor assured her, his old fingers wrapped around the pestle as he pressed hard pods into a fine powder. “Lyndat was much better than me at this, I wish she was here now.”
“Well she isn’t,” Persapha snapped. “And what you’ve done so far
isn’t working.”
Vlyndor blinked fast. Bob the chameleon stepped archly into the little room looking hopefully for some small insectoid offering. When the medusa scowled through her sparkling gauze, the little reptile turned and showed an impressive turn of speed as it fled.
“Patience, child,” Vlyndor clucked in the closest to a show of temper he had had in years. “The little wizard is not dead yet.”
At that Odestus gave a low groan and a rattling breath, wheezing as though sucking air through the narrowest marsh reed. “Hurry!” Persapha insisted. It was a command not a plea.
Vlyndor added a fine oil to the crushed powder and mixed them into a smooth paste. “This should soothe the burns and seal them against the risk of going foul.”
“But will it heal him?”
Vlyndor sighed. “All I can do is give his body a chance to heal itself, Persapha and offer him some small protection and a softening of his pain while he does that.”
“And he will get better?”
Vlyndor held himself very still, selecting his words with care. “He is very ill, Persapha. Besides his outward injuries, the skin he has lost that he may never get back, there is damage within. He has inhaled smoke and flame that will have scored his lungs. You should not hope too much.”
“Make him better!” the monster within her snarled with force enough that for the first time ever, Vlyndor stepped back from his adopted daughter.
He steadied himself. “I will do my best for the little wizard,” he said feeling the cold seep into his old bones as he held the sparkling gaze of the medusa through her gauze. “But whatever happens, Persapha, remember you are a karib. Neither Lyndat nor Odestus would like to think of you being anything less.”
She turned away from him then and the writhing mass beneath her hood fell silent as the medusa scratched distractedly at her gauze eye mask.
***
The retreat was slowing. The clutter of refugees like weeds and barnacles on the hull of an ocean going ship had sapped the speed of the endless eastward march. The soldiers had gained little ease from the reduced pace as, whenever a fleeing citizen stumbled or fell, it was the soldiers who went back to gather them. It was truly a retreat of two steps back and one step forward.