Beyond Sanctuary

by Janet Morris

  "Niko! Niko! Stop!" It was Tamzen's voice, this time, tremulous and full of fear, and as he wheeled to face her specter, something jumped upon him from behind, its clammy hands locked around his neck, its childish legs clamped to his sides.

  Then it screamed as its limbs made contact with the cuirass, and burst into flame and threw itself back to sputter and flare into the snow.

  Tamzen and her best friend advanced upon him, and he could barely see them for his tears. Tamzen's sobs were soft and low: "Hold me, Niko; hold me, I'm so cold."

  He lowered his sword uncertainly, an instant, and in that instant both undeads sprang, their fingers crooked like claws.

  Years of training prompted him; he didn't have to think; he stepped in, not out, and the blade so hot and shining now with ruddy light was like a living being in his grip, slicing down into the breast of a girl he'd introduced to love and been at pains, always, to protect. The blade went through as if through cheese and continued, the momentum of its arc catching the other girl beneath her ribs and opening her from side to side.

  But they didn't fall into lifeless puddles right away; they didn't disappear; they both stood a moment, fingers with long, long nails spread over the wounds he'd made—which would have killed them if they'd only been alive. And Tamzen cocked her head, and nodded, said: "Niko. I knew you'd come," and tears streamed from her eyes, no longer white-on-white, but human eyes, dark like velvet, as they'd been in life. She tottered, turning to her friend, saying: "See, I told you Niko'd save us!" and then both she and the other girl disintegrated in a gust of wind. There was a puff of fetid dust which blew his way, then nothing, only Randal scrambling, panting, through the snow, holding a wound that bled profusely at his neck, his breath rasping:

  "Bless you, Niko, bless you. By the Writ, that was as close to damned as I ever want to come."

  Niko backed away. "Your neck. You're wounded. Are you now undead yourself? Or worse?"

  The mageling managed a facsimile of a chuckle: "You've been listening to too many fireside tales spun by your gullible comrades. A little snow to clean the wound, a healing draught to give me strength, and I'll be fit and well again." Randal held out his free hand. In it was the dirk Aškelon had given Niko. "Take it. It's still hot, but then… you're used to that. And don't talk to me about proscribed methods or magic in the future, fighter, not with weaponry like this."

  And Randal clapped him on the back, so that Niko had to shrug him off and tell the mage that he'd join him back at camp when he was ready, and Randal should precede him: "Don't say anything about this to them, no matter how proud you are of not dying on the spot from fear or whatever kind of omen you think you've made of this, or for any other reason. Understood?"

  "Yes, commander," Randal aped a cringe of terror and hurried off with exaggerated stealth.

  Niko was so sick at heart from what he'd seen, he didn't even have the will to correct the mageling: one doesn't call one's leftman "commander."

  He knelt down in the snow where Tamzen had been and felt around for something—bone, or jewel, or piece of cloth— anything. But there was nothing there. And a part of him was glad for that: physical undead or vicious apparition, he was fairly certain that her spirit, by the grace of the sword bestowed on him by the entelechy of dreams, had found its destined rest.

  The assault on the high peaks keep came with dawn; pink-tipped arrows raced a hundred yards straight up, glowing with Enlil's sanction, almost invisible in the tricky light of sunrise, to fell human thralls and fiends upon the ramparts. Ghouls yowled; undeads sparked and flared and burst apart when the god-sent arrows pierced them; demons crashed from dizzying heights to splatter on the rocks below.

  And as the sun banished night with lavender and pink and lemon light, the very foundations of the citadel began to tremble and to shake, and warlocks to quake where they girded for battle.

  Women wailed; wizards paled, someone cleared the wards from gates and high doors, front and back, and the enemy poured in where men were never meant to tread.

  Datan's remaining minions and the bravest of the sorcerers had been on the southern rampart, trying to rout the tiny men below and stop the rain of quarrels whispering death as they whistled over walls magic should have kept secure, when flames licked the ancient rock which by some trick of Enlil's began to burn like tinder. The defenders begged for mercy as they roasted, but eager underworld claws and grasping hands from other planes reached out to take them. The very heavens split asunder, and specters of eternal retribution strode atop the battlements to claim shriveled souls they'd long been promised.

  By the time it was clear that the attack on the keep's southern flank was just diversion, charges shook the towers, and stones began to rumble and tumble, and Nisibisi warlocks ran sobbing through its halls. The guardians of their fate knew who was due for death this day and weren't content to wait. They brought their deeper darkness along, cold and dank with death, to trap adepts and wrap up prized and damned witches who'd traded all they had and now could only weep and cower when their spells died unsaid upon their lips and eternity beckoned all to begin to pay a price that suddenly seemed too great. But it was too late for everyone who'd lived too long and fed on hapless, weaker souls. They shrieked; they threw themselves off towers and sought to gulp down poisoned draughts or fall upon cursed swords. But it was too late; the reckoning was here. Even repentance, tried by some, availed them not; they had bargained away their final option of salvation for power, long ago. The gods they supplicated had lost scores of followers to sorcery, and met wizards' pleas with lists of unspeakable sins whose payment had come due.

  Roxane closed her ears to rumbling stones and cringing women's cries and ran, her hands above her head to ward off the ancient mortar and pulverized stone falling all about. Whoever had opened up the doors had to pay for treachery; she sought the coward among her own, but there were too many: she couldn't tell.

  She skidded round a corner and saw Tempus' Stepsons thronging hallowed halls, every javelin and drawn sword and flying wing and crossbow bolt glowing pink with sanction from the god. She stopped. She estimated forces and chances. She turned and fled the other way, pushing aside other, lesser witches frozen in confusion or dashing aimlessly about, seeking protection in places where it could not be found.

  Datan's fault, all this. She'd known it would go ill when he'd come to her with his princeling wide-eyed by his side, fresh from debauching with the boy, and demanded she sic her most precious undeads upon Niko and his Hazard friend, young Randal. It wouldn't work; it was too soon, she had objected. But Datan was still her ruler; she'd not chanced confronting him right then. So she'd lost her personal protection, given up Tamzen and her playmates to try to make an end to Randal without killing Niko—even in these straits, she'd wanted Stealth alive, somehow to save him while putting his team of fighters out of action. But Randal, more selfless than she'd thought a mage could be, had put his person's safety by and striven to save Niko—in the end, she'd lost her best undeads.

  And Niko's unit hadn't run off, daunted by the specters she had sent to freeze them in their tracks with fear, but hunted witches now within these very halls, every accursed god who loved the armies with them in spirit and in strength.

  She'd seen enough; she turned again and fled toward the inner sanctums, where a witch might make away or make a stand and pass from life with honor.

  On her way, she cursed the soul of Datan, who was nowhere to be found, hearing Critias and Tempus shouting maneuver codes behind her as they fought their way upward, stair by stair. Stopping long enough to peer out a high tower's embrasure, she saw in the courtyard far below such carnage as made even one so inured to horror as Roxane close her eyes.

  Datan. she knew, could stop this, Tempus would call a halt to war to face him, hand to hand. Heart pounding, she dashed through the seraglio's carpet of weeping women swooning on the floor and eunuchs of the blood huddled in the corner, seeking Wizardwall's master where he hid.

  B
ehind the faceless wall of stone which barred the summoning chamber from the lesser mages and the sight of men, she found him, with the sleeping Froth Daughter and his boy. In the center of his power glyphs he stood, his huge bulk somehow smaller. And, beyond, the globe he used to concentrate his power spun, colors from its inset stones making kaleidoscopic patterns on the walls.

  "Hold, Datan! Stand and fight! This slaughter doesn't have to be. Go face the Riddler! This is your doing! Undo it and save those adherents whom you may!" She strode over warming stones and stopped the globe, biting her lip at the sizzling pain she felt when she touched it with her hand. Then the soulless eyes of the Osprey fixed on her. and as he whispered, "No," and shook his head, his arm raised up and a finger pointed at her.

  She was going to speak his true name—it was only fair, for this fat and loathsome creature whom she'd served had betrayed every single one of them.

  But Datan's spell worked faster. From his finger a bolt of royal blue shot out and caught her by the throat. Struck dumb, she reeled and stumbled backward, hit the wall and slid down it, nearly senseless, crumpled in a heap.

  The little boy let out a cry and ran to her. Shamshi's eyes were filled with tears. He looked up at his sire, and back to her, murmuring, "Roxane, oh Roxane, can you hear? Speak to me! Speak to me!"

  She struggled to put out her hand and then she touched him, stroked his hair. Her vision cleared, and with what strength she yet had, she took his hand in hers. And into the boy she poured herself, taking over mind and tongue.

  Datan wouldn't strike his own child dead or dumb, she knew. And as she opened Shamshi's mouth to use his vocal cords and lungs to speak the Osprey's true name and consign him to the hell he'd earned, Datan realized what it was she had in mind, and that great hulk of a creature wheeled with more speed than she'd thought he had, and even began to run, casting behind him another agonizing spell that made all things fade away: the chamber of summoning, the princely child who'd not hurt anyone or anything, the glyphs and globe—everything dissolved in pain and fractured, rainbow lights.

  When next she thought at all, she thought she heard Jinan, awake. She looked up, blinking, trying to focus over the head of the boy who hugged her close and sobbed her name. Jihan stood there, though beyond she saw a sleeping form upon the couch where Jihan had long been snoring, insensible, at rest.

  This Jihan, however, leaned down over her and touched her throat, demanding to know the proper word, the true nature of Datan's secret name.

  And with what strength she still possessed, she whispered it, told the Froth Daughter what to say, and lost sight of everything once again.

  * * *

  Half the outer wall was crumbled; debris and bodies were everywhere. Tempus' eyes were smarting from the sulfurous fumes and the stench of rot that set in once these ancient foes met death. His sword glowed pink and dripped with acid blood and wherever he stepped ichor, in grainy puddles, ate into the paving stones.

  He'd seen Critias, Straton too. They were bloodied but their teeth were bared and their eyes glittered with the shine of men engaging a worthy enemy in an honest fight.

  Bashir he'd left long since, protected by his god and twenty men. The priest was still weakened from the demon spittle in his blood, but his god was not, and Enlil's blessing had helped to win the day.

  He ran through halls where wizards sought surrender and met their deaths instead. Small young demons flapped their wings above, and with his last three quarrels he dispatched them. His twice-human speed and his flickering, shark-hiked sword made him the avatar of death, and he meted it out with impunity to all he met.

  There was neither time for nor use in taking captives here, where every foe had more-than-human guile and none knew mortal restraint. He had seen Stepsons go down with their throats torn out; he'd pulled fiends off friends of his who'd had legs or arms bitten through so that jagged bones peeked out. The fury he'd once thought was lent him by a god raged inside him; now he knew it was his own. The last time he had met inhuman foes, he'd taken far too long to heal. Yet he'd lived to fight at least this one more time and if indeed he met his death here seeking Datan, his heart's sworn enemy, the mage he hated most of mages, an archmage he'd cursed throughout the ages, then he'd be content with that. One head and one alone he longed to sever. Once he'd seen Datan to his eternal unrest, Tempus would have avenged the spirit of Abarsis, Niko's suffering, and even crippled magic's rule upon a land so fraught with troubles that the meddling of enchanters was a wretched, godless expression of evil and excess.

  A clawlike, warty appendage snatched at him from a foggy shadow: some demon lying in wait. He slashed with sword and the hand fell twitching; a demon cursed his name. He shrugged it off: accursed so thoroughly as he'd been through the eons, one more ill-wisher meant little to his fate.

  He'd taken cuts; his naked arms bled freely; his right cheek was abraded. But his stamina was undiminished.

  He stalked Datan through every corridor and at last, on the highest rampart against an inappropriately delicate and lovely morning sky all blue and gold and fleeced with clouds, he found him.

  The archmage had both arms lifted, and dark turbulence was beginning to mass far in the west.

  "Datan! Turn and fight, arch-enemy of old."

  The massive head turned but words no man should ever hear in a tongue which was the native speech of hell burned Tempus's ears and made them ring as if he'd been struck hard upon the head.

  He staggered back, forcing his knees to lock to keep from falling: he'd never missed his patron god so much, and Enlil would not fight upon his right. It was archmage and ancient warrior of heaven, face to face.

  And as he longed for battle, hand to hand, he forced his limbs to move, though dark assailed him, dark from Datan's eyes. He'd have him, or be had by this prince of horror. Either way, he'd win. Death was no stranger to a man who'd fought so many wars; sometimes he thought they had an understanding, he and the reaper whom Tempus had served so well, bringing multitudes to their fate.

  Doggedly, he closed, though dark winds wailed around him and cold bit at his flesh.

  He heard hell's hounds howl and sirens sing and then, as he was struggling to come the last few yards, old Datan laughed a gusting laugh that blew the pink glow of salvation from Tempus's sword and thrust him back as if from a parrying blow. But then the world, instead of fading into blackness, grew bright:

  Jihan stood there, her scale armor afire, her arms outstretched… not to him, but to the archmage.

  And for an instant Datan's eyes left his, where they'd been locked in awful battle, and Tempus, the archmage's hold on his senses broken, stumbled forward as if physical bonds had been cut away, his sword arcing down and singing through the air.

  But the copper-scaled woman was quicker still: Jihan stepped close, then closer, to the archmage, saying, "Thy name is Uomo, thy fate is agony unending. Go thee to the reward thine awful life has earned, and stay! I banish thee!" She shot her hands forward and Datan, his mouth open wide and hands up to shield his ears, his soulless eyes tight shut, stumbled back, and back, and as he did so, the crenelated wall behind him crumbled away and a black rent in Nature's fabric took its place.

  From it horrid devils leaped and grabbed him with talons so hot that his skin smoked and crackled, and Datan, the Os-prey, Uomo and archmage of all Wizardwall, let go a cry of terror so loud and horrible and ringing that everywhere fighting had been raging, men stopped still, demons dropped their prey and fled, fiends went to ground, and all about, a silence thick as sleep came over them.

  Datan's wailing, kicking struggles as hell's coils closed about him soon diminished, and then the black tunnel into hell had swallowed him, and began to shrink and spin in upon itself, and it too soon was gone.

  Tempus sank down where he was, his breath coming hard and his knees weak and shaking, glad for rock beneath his feet and gods above, after what he'd glimpsed beyond that dark maw where Datan was well and truly bound.

  "Jihan,"
Tempus said, "thank the gods you're safe. We've found you—"

  A tinkling laugh made him look up and then sit upon the stone, his sword clattering to the flags where it steamed and cooled. What had been Jihan in tri-color scale armor was changing shape, shimmering and wriggling.

  He wasn't sure he had the strength to fight another foe. He merely watched the transformation under way, and then lay back flat: it was Cime, his benighted sister, who stood there laughing at him gently in her brown-black armor, and her blacker humor chilled him.

  "Jihan," she mimicked, "thank the gods… thank me, brother. Without me to save you, you'd have had the seat next to Datan's in some musty hell. It's a good thing I was here to help, that's sure, or you'd have let your men be slaughtered for no better reason than—"

  "Cime, can't you hold your tongue?" He was staring up at the fine blue sky where the white clouds lazed and brightness reigned. "Or am I cursed with you forever?"

  "Not quite forever, brother. But nearly so." Her voice was close; she leaned down over him. "Now, are we going to be mature about matters, and let me heal thee? Or is suffering so beloved in your sight that you'll take extra, more even than your due?"

  He was full of demon's poison, exhausted and weak. He couldn't find the strength or make up excuses not to let her help him. And so, with words and deeds, Cime managed one more time to bleed the joy from triumph, to belittle him even in what might have been his finest moment. He closed his eyes and let her tend him, a submission he was loath to make.

  Afterwards, he and she together went seeking Jihan behind a solid-looking wall his sister waved away as if it were a curtain.

  And there he found the sleeping Froth Daughter and a weeping tow-headed boy named Shamshi, son of Adrastus Ajami, the Mygdonian general, who was reluctant to believe that the bloody giant in gory mail and the battle-armored woman were his saviors.