Garyll flashed a sickened glance at Cabal. The Darkmaster raised his orb. Garyll was crushed as the words of doom sounded in his ears.
“Darkswords, attack!”
The Swords were taken completely by surprise. They recognised their comrades, and extended empty hands to welcome them back. They were met with deadly steel, as the Darkswords fell upon them. Garyll screamed for their retreat, strained at his bonds, but to no avail. The Darkmaster stood silently beside him, watching with disinterest.
The ambushed Swords were quick to recover. They returned the attack in fury. The men were all trained fighters and their blows were vicious. The fervour of the possessed was met with the anger of the righteous. The plain filled with the clash and cries and blood of battle.
Garyll could not bear to watch, but neither could he tear his eyes away.
“Terrible, isn’t it?” hissed the Darkmaster. “Brother against brother. Whoever wins the battle wins with revulsion at his own actions. Such men are the easiest to turn to the Dark. So you see, I win, no matter who is left standing. But you have a choice—for those who join me now, there will be no bloodshed, no torment. You can call the surrender. You can lead your men and give them life.”
The forces were unmatched on the plain below, though it was hard to tell. He saw one Sword swing a desperate blow against another. A blade slashed open someone’s face. The anguish of battle, and the cries of the wounded rose on the wind to sting Garyll’s eyes to tears. The melee churned in a confusion of the possessed and the pure.
Some Darkswords did not fight with full commitment, some of them pulled their blows. Those that did so, suffered dearly. The others abandoned themselves to the battle. It was the only way to survive, for either side. Only one man turned from the battle, throwing down his sword as he ran for the river. But then he staggered to his knees, and clutched at his head with both hands. Soon after, he returned to the foray.
Garyll guessed the Darkmaster’s sudden concentration had a lot to do with it.
By sheer numbers, the Darkswords were beating their opponents down. Another Sword fell to the earth, his head severed from his body.
“A noble decision, Glavenor,” the Darkmaster mocked. “Murder them all, for you cannot risk your own precious principles. Many would prefer to serve me, than to end their lives on the point of a sword for nothing. Those who die with the Darkstone at their throat, need not die now either. But as I said, it is your noble decision, not mine, that causes all these men to die. You are responsible for those who shall come to avenge them as well.”
The words stopped his heart. Garyll saw the same scene occurring countless times on this damned plain. A squadron would be sent to investigate the disappearance, and another one after that, until the realm was rid of all its Swords. There was no honour in their deaths, and no hope of winning, it was just a waste of life. He was a tyrant, to cast doom on his men because of his own plight. There had to be another way.
“Stop!” cried Garyll. “Halt the Swords! Halt their battle!”
No one heard him above the clamour, except for the Darkmaster.
“Circle them, but do not attack!” the Darkmaster ordered. Garyll felt the words echo in his Darkstone, and knew it carried to those on the plain as well.
The greater part of the battle disengaged, and spread out around the smaller group of Swords within. They were hopelessly outnumbered. Only ten men had survived the onslaught, and even they were badly wounded. Close to forty Darkswords stood guard, heads low, blades raised. One man retched, but nobody broke from the circle.
“You have something to say.”
Garyll looked at the cold stone. “What do you want?” he asked. His voice was strange in his ears, distant, as if spoken by another.
“Speak the words of the Devotion, accept the Darkstone. A small sacrifice, for the life of so many.”
He knew the words. He had been hearing them all through the night. He had to find a way to circumvent the possession. Maybe he could work around the Darkstone, cut it from his neck when he had the chance. But he could not risk falling under the Darkmaster’s domination, even at the cost of another wasted life in his name. He would find a way to fight.
The Darkmaster reached under Garyll’s chin, and held the stone. Garyll groaned as the tide of Dark assaulted him.
I am the shadow and he is my master.
He is the shadow and I am his caster.
The worst was not the invading touch of another man inside him, or the sense of invitation to the Dark ways, or the drowning blackness of his own hungers that ached to be released.
The worst was what came after.
“Forward, Darkswords!”
Out on the plain, the cluster of doomed Swords met the attack with their blades.
“You said the men would be spared!” Garyll cried.
“You didn’t say the words.”
The Swords were surrounded. They pressed themselves into a formation, back to back. There were four blades against each of their one.
“Learn the cost of opposing me, and never think to do it again. I shall ask for your devotion only once more. Be sure to give me what I want, next time.”
The Swords were slaughtered. Garyll counted every body. Some memories fade with the passage of time. Garyll knew at that moment that the sound his men made as they struck the ground would never leave him. He screamed at them to stop, screamed as the bloodlust of the Dark surged to fill him, screamed for the laughter to stop in his mind as he ripped at the fetters which bound him. But the last of the ten resisters fell on the plain, and it became silent on the battlefield.
All the Swords that were left, belonged to the Darkmaster. All but one. Cabal dismissed Garyll’s burning glare with his parting comment.
“You will come to see my way of things.”
“If you wished those men killed, why didn’t you use the Morgloth?” Garyll cried after the Master’s retreating back. “Why do you waste the lives of those who serve you as well?”
Cabal paused, and showed Garyll an amused smile. “You must learn that only those who serve me well earn the privilege of living. Those Darkswords who have died, they have proven to be weaker fighters, have they not?” Cabal surveyed the plain one last time, and chuckled. “As to the Morgloth, I wish to live to enjoy my rule of Eyri. Only a crazy man walks the road to the Underworld. Only a doomed man. I am neither.”
28. ATONEMENT
“Why do birds sing?”—Zarost
Tabitha stared at the ceiling. There was little else to do. Stare at the ceiling, stare at the walls, and think.
She presumed a meal would come after sunset, as it had the previous evening. She didn’t mind that it was likely to be bread and water again. She was atoning.
She lay on her back on the floor. It was best to lie still, for dust coated every surface of the bare cell, and the slightest movement filled the air with dry, choking clouds. The barred, glassless window allowed some light in. A faint breeze rippled the spider-webs of many years.
Ironically, she was actually glad for the time in isolation. Not glad that she had been caught by the Rector, but glad he had chosen to place her in the high room. He had been lenient on her, he could have dismissed her from the Dovecote when he’d found her in the Hall of Sky that night. Instead, he had offered her the chance to repent. His forgiveness was extraordinary. Tabitha thought she was beginning to understand why Shamgar was the Rector of the Lightgifters, and how unworthy she was of bearing her mother’s Lightstone.
With hindsight, it was difficult to accept her wilful behaviour. She knew that she had felt a pull the moment Ashley had formed the rune of the Heart in his hand, when he had told her about the inner sanctum. She had followed that urge without questioning the rightness of her actions. The Ring had led her from one clue to another. She should have been stronger, denied the urge, used her judgement to restrain her curiosity. She had broken not only the sacred rules of the Dovecote, but the sanctity of an ancient chamber, undisturbed for ce
nturies. Only the most high Lightgifters should have been there.
She was not even a half-knot. She was not worthy.
Despite the correctness of her reasoning, she always came up against the same conundrum. The Sage’s message had been for her.
‘Seeker’ he had called her. The message would not have been audible without the Ring, the tests would not have been passed, the signs would not have been seen, without the intense clarity that the Ring brought. Yet the Sage had told her to be rid of it, without hesitation.
She held her hand up to the pearly light from the window. The Ring magnified the pores of her skin beneath a smooth band of clarity. The flesh close to that knuckle was already purpling. Yesterday had been a painful failure and a sobering lesson; the Ring would not come off with any amount of pulling. It was too late. The only way it was going to come off, was in the manner that the Sage had achieved it, by cutting off his own finger. That was too terrible to believe, and it seemed as extreme as cutting off her head because she could not remove the Lightstone from her neck. If she could live with the Lightstone, why not keep the Ring?
When she tested her truth-sense, she found she didn’t really want to take the Ring off. That, she was sure, was the problem. That was why the Sage had feared it so much. It had become a part of her, something she did not want to do without. Had she not learned the verses of the Lifesong during her association with it? Had she not sung like she had never sung before, because of the Ring? There was so much more to the world, when she wore the Ring, so much clarity, detail, and wonder.
It had saved her life, on the Kingsbridge. Were it not for the Ring, she would not have found the perfect note of the Shiver, she would not have stopped the Morgloth and shattered the Shadowcaster.
There were two sides to the truth. Were it not for the Ring, she would not have drawn the hunter upon her in the first place. She would not have had to flee from First Light. Her parents would not have died, Phantom Acres would not have burned, and she would have lived in another life.
Too many maybes, and none of them caused by the Ring itself. She could not turn back time. Life had followed one path, and not the other.
Since she had donned the Ring, her life had changed, but she had tried it on because she had wanted to, she wore it because she wanted to. It was not a thing of evil. It did not rule her life, it was just a tool. A tool, the Sage had warned, that led towards a path of darkness.
The Ring had gone there anyway, it had found the darkness that the Sage had feared. Her mother found the Ring in Fendwarrow, after the Darkmaster had lost it. The Darkmaster had worn it, and Twardy Zarost had been his advisor.
The two thoughts crashed into one another, in a burst of enlightenment. Zarost had advised the Darkmaster, but the Master had finally lost his Ring, and it had passed to Tabitha. Then Zarost had found her, and helped her to escape. And before the Darkmaster, the Sage had owned the Ring. He had spoken of a Riddler as well. Three holders of the Ring, three Seekers of the wizard, with the same advisor, the Riddler?
No, that was taking an idea too far. The Sage had lived over two hundred years in the past, so it could not have been Twardy Zarost who had been advisor in that time. But it was true to say that the Ring always attracted a Riddler, and that the Ring had passed through the Light and the Dark before it had reached her.
And it would probably pass on to another after her, she realised. Well it should, for Zarost had told her that it belonged to the wizard. A wizard whom the Sage and the Darkmaster had not been able to find, in all their years of bearing the Ring.
What chance do I have of solving the riddle?
Zarost had said it would fall from her finger when she ceased to seek out the wizard. If that were true, then she needn’t cut her finger from her hand after all. Her own lack of progress in solving the riddle of the wizard was going to do the job for her. She was going to lose the Ring anyway, she realised with a mixture of relief and dismay.
How long will it be, before it goes cold on my hand, and slips away?
If anything, the Ring had seemed to get tighter of late, but that meant nothing, for she was surely no closer to finding the wizard than she had been when she’d fled from Phantom Acres.
Maybe I should learn all I can from the Ring while I can.
She could develop the clarity of sight and sense and thought that it offered, develop the talent for singing which had quickened within her. Draw everything she could from the Ring before it was lost to the next bearer in the succession. It would be a sad day when the Ring left her.
The Ring was warm, and tight. Why had she found it, if it were not meant to be borne by her?
It made no sense. And the roaming questions born of her isolation found no answers, for there was no one to ask.
She wished she could talk to Twardy Zarost. It had been so long since she’d grappled with his riddles. She needed his knowledge of the Ring. She was floundering in her own ignorance.
How could she decide what to do about the Ring, with only warnings and guesses? She still could not believe that the Ring was evil; it expanded her awareness, it made her feel alive. She needed to know. She needed Twardy Zarost.
The memory of her parting with the Riddler came to her. He had spoken to her as Lethin Tarrok’s guards had dragged him away. Words she had not considered too deeply at the time, shocked as she was by his admission of being the Darkmaster’s advisor.
The Ring grew warmer, and the pool of her memories cleared for her. The sights and sounds of the day in Stormhaven filled her mind. Twardy Zarost, hazel eyes beneath his crazy hat, watching her as he was dragged from the garden. His voice, a melody of cheer despite his situation.
“I tried, but perhaps I shouldn’t have! Now I cannot return, unless you summon me.”
She came back to the present with growing excitement. He waited on her word. In his strange way, Twardy Zarost had told her she needed to send word to him, before he could come. He might be following one of his arcane rules.
Tabitha jumped to her feet. Dust billowed around her, but she made it to the window before it could envelop her. She thrust her head as far as she could against the bars, into the fresh air, but there her sudden excitement left her.
How could she call on Twardy Zarost, when she didn’t know where he was? She had left him destined for the dungeons in Stormhaven, but that was just a guess. The notion of singing the note of the Shiver came to her, but she discarded it. Zarost had claimed to be sensitive to her singing, but the note alone wouldn’t tell him she needed his presence. Besides, the Rector had prohibited her from calling out. Such a high note would be heard throughout the Dovecote, and the Rector would not be pleased at all. She wished to keep her hope of becoming a Lightgifter alive.
A Courier! she realised. She could send a dove to find Zarost, and tell him of her need. She had learned the spell from Ashley. But there again, she met disappointment; she had no Light essence to use. She stared through the bars at the grey day beyond. The view was a familiar one.
The top of a big silken tree blocked the grounds below. The western horizon of Eyri beckoned. She recognised the alcove beyond the bars. She had been up there with Ashley, it was his secret place. When they had been up there, she had looked into the gloom and cobwebs from the other side of the bars, and wondered what kind of a room it was. Now she knew only too well.
The clear essence was still there, left aside when she had drained it of all Light. It formed a small, glistening puddle on the stone of the alcove. A possibility formed in her mind.
The Morningsong. Maybe I can fill the essence with Light again?
She was sure she could perform the spell, but to do it she would need direct sunlight. The sun was hiding behind a slate-grey sky. She doubted any sprites had been energised that morning. Disappointment again.
The search for a solution to calling Zarost was becoming a seesaw ride between hope and helplessness. The Ring burned, spurring her onwards, filling her mind with questions.
I
f it responds to one song, what about another?
She hadn’t sung the Lifesong for a while. The first stanza she had learned, the one of creation, was the only one she dared to experiment with. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath.
She sang the opening line, and the puddle of clear essence rippled. She sang louder, and the essence seemed to shimmer with greater agitation.
The beauty of the Lifesong swelled inside her, demanding perfection, demanding that she sing with all her heart. The notes rang true, resonating through her body, clearing her present cares from her mind. The Ring was a band of heat, driving her to sing the perfect melody. On the fringes of her awareness, a hundred voices sang with her, a faint choral accompaniment. Possibilities crowded the back of her mind, half-formed thoughts of things she might know, if she could sing beyond the first words. She felt touched by a spirit greater than her own. She felt timeless, limitless, powerful beyond measure.
She reached the end of the stanza, yet the clear essence did not calm as her voice died away. Rainbow colours swirled across the surface, and it moved as if agitated by an inner vibration. Yet even as she watched, the vibrations slowed, and the essence began to lose the faint colours she had caused. The sense of wonder abandoned Tabitha—without the music flowing through her, she was just a young woman, a servant in the Dovecote, not yet a Gifter.
What did I expect, for the essence to turn into a butterfly and fly away to find Zarost?
The clear essence swirled together, turned into a butterfly, and flew away. It had delicate, translucent wings that held all the beautiful fading colours of a rainbow wash, from violet at the tips, through purple and blue and green and yellow, right through to pale red upon its slim abdomen. Tabitha gaped after it. It flitted over the silken tree, caught the breeze above it, and was gone.
It was a real butterfly.
The clear essence had disappeared. There was nothing where the puddle had been, nothing at all.
“Come back!” she called out, knowing at the same time how silly the command was. A butterfly would take no notice of her words. But if it was a construct of magic like a Courier it wouldn’t be free to ignore her, it would come back to the one who commanded the Light essence. She had to be sure.
The Riddler's Gift: First Tale of the Lifesong (The Tale of the Lifesong) Page 49