"We have heard rumors of upheaval in Tanar Atain," she said. "Of awful powers long-dormant returned to sow chaos. The Hell-Painted Hills protect us somewhat, but Tanar Atain remains our neighbor. What has happened in the swamps?"
"The rumors are true," Dante said. "The White Lich has returned. We did our best to fight him, but it wasn't enough. He's driven all resistance from his land. It will only be a matter of days before he's conquered the last of it."
"How? To what end? How did you attempt to fight back? I would hear all of it."
"That would take days we don't have."
"And if your knowledge helps me save my people, those days will be well spent."
"Not when the loss of them means I don't have enough time to prepare to fight the lich, and so I get killed, and so all of your people wind up getting turned into his monster-slaves."
Lightning flashed outside again, casting sparks into Vita's eyes. "What was your current course when my messenger came upon you?"
"We were heading to Bressel. The Drakebane has conquered it. We think the White Lich will strike there next to root him out."
"So you were not coming here, to protect my land, although we are closest to this threat and could easily be the enemy's latest prey. If you are leaving us to defend ourselves, then I demand you tell me what I need to know to safeguard my people."
"I'll write you a letter on the way to Bressel. That's the best I can do." He moved to the door.
"So be it," Vita said. "Then I assumed wrongly when I thought you would want to see the grimoire."
Dante stopped, rocking forward on his feet. "Grimoire? What grimoire?"
"You would have no interest in it, as you already know everything there is to know, don't you? Only a less perfect man would find it useful. For it details how to wage war against the Vampire of Light—and to defeat him."
"The Vampire of Light? Is that another name for the White Lich?"
"Oh, I am not wise enough to know that. Now go, run off to save Bressel."
Dante nodded. "You might want to take a seat. This is going to take a while."
They seated themselves. The clouds had broken open and rain smashed the stone walls with uniquely coastal strength. Dante opened his tale with a brief summary of their pursuit of Gladdic, which had taken them to Tanar Atain, and how they had been deceived into helping the Righteous Monsoon launch a rebellion against the Drakebane, who Gladdic had been aiding.
From there, he explained how the Monsoon had been working to unleash the White Lich to help them seize Tanar Atain. When Gladdic had seen that the situation was hopeless, he had released the lich himself, hoping that he would at least kill Dante and Blays—or that the two of them might find a way to kill the lich instead.
They hadn't, of course. And once the lich had shrugged off the initial attempts to destroy him, he'd gone into the swamps to assault isolated villages and steal the life-spark from within their people, converting them into Blighted under his control while also building the stock of ether within himself.
Dante finished by cataloguing the many ways they'd tried to kill him, including the attempt to isolate and destroy his prime body, and then to wield the sorcery-negating powers of the Odo Sein against him.
"There were several times we came close," Dante said. "But he's unlike anything I've ever seen. At this point, he's yoked tens of thousands of souls to him. He's become the most powerful sorcerer alive. He might be closer to a god than a human."
Vita furrowed her smooth brow. "If that is so, then how do you mean to defeat him?"
"By throwing thousands of soldiers and scores of sorcerers at him. He may be half god, but he's not immortal. We may be able to overwhelm him. Failing that, we'll wear him down bit by bit, then land the killing blow."
"And if that fails," Blays said, "we intend to stack so many of our bodies around him that he trips and breaks his neck."
Vita looked down. The rain was still assaulting the tower roof. Another flash of lightning illuminated the chamber, turning her olive face as ethereally pale as the lich's.
"You could not beat him with all your strength," she said softly. "Now, you do not know if you can beat him with an army of sorcerers. Alebolgia has few who know the ways of your priests. If the lich comes for our cities, what chance do we have?"
"None," Gladdic said.
"That's a bit harsh," Blays said.
"That is because it is true."
"Then I must hope that what is contained in this book can help you make your stand." Vita stood and crossed to a shelf set against the wall. She withdrew a bundle, removing the cloth that wrapped it and returning to the table. She bore a tome thick enough to brain a sheep with. She held it before her, gazing down at it with a look of spooked reverence. She hardened her jaw and extended the tome to Dante. "Behold. The Book of What Lies Beyond the Land of Cal Avin."
2
Dante accepted the book with the same reverence he felt when conducting ceremonies at the Cathedral of Ivars. The covers were textured leather dyed a striking orange. The front bore a depiction of an icy blue eye.
He opened it. The pages were vellum and smelled of fresh skins, with no hint of mustiness. The first page was an illustration of a powerfully built figure towering over a field of cringing and dead victims. The art was in a jagged style Dante had never seen before, but there was no mistaking the figure of the lich. He turned the page.
"'An Account,'" Dante read slowly, "'of the appearance of the Vampire of Light, and the many strange travels provoked by his troubles.' This dialect is bizarre. Where is this from?"
Vita stood beside him, watching the book like it might rise up and strike him. "When the rumors began of the White Lich and his dealings, he sounded much as the folk tales of vampires the peasants still tell here in the Strip. So I wonder: could there be more than folk tales? I asked among the other Houses, among the merchants. With the reward I offered, I had enough books brought to me to found a vampire library."
"That sounds like a lot more fun than the normal kind," Blays said.
"Most were simply more folk tales of the type I'd heard growing up. This book is much more."
Dante flicked through a few more pages. "This is a copy?"
Vita gave her head a little shake. "It is the original. I paid so much for it I should charge you rent to read it."
"The seller duped you. This book looks like it was bound within the last year. You can still smell the ink."
"I doubt this greatly. The seller was convinced it had been in his family library for at least a century."
Gladdic leaned forward. Pure white light glowed from the tips of his fingers. He brushed the book's open pages. The light flowed from his fingers across the vellum. A grid of blue-white glowed from the pages.
"The book is sealed in ether," Gladdic said. "This will protect it from age and decay. It cannot be said how old it might be."
"I don't care if it's so young it still wets its covers," Blays said. "Will you just read the damn thing and tell us how to kill the lich?"
Dante paged forward to the book's opening chapter. He cleared his throat and began to read aloud, still hampered by the odd dialect.
My name is Sabel. I am a sorcerer. There are some who say I am the greatest one to walk these lands. On some days, I agree with them.
Yet for all my talents, six weeks after the Vampire of Light came to Elada, every man, woman, and child had been converted into his starving servants. This included my wife, Trinia, and our four children.
My efforts to revive them would require a book of its own. I already know its title: "The Tome of Ceaseless Failure." Once it was clear that there was nothing more I could do, I fled north along the coast, seeking passage away from the havoc. I told myself I meant to seek answers elsewhere, but the truth was that I could no longer bear to look on the pale undead that had become my family's new family.
Sometimes, though, the gods have their own plans.
I booked passage on a slave galley. Though I
took pains to disguise myself, Rumor pierces all facades. I was soon approached by a slave named Leb whose gray skin and white hair I took to be signs of an exotic mariners' disease. He had heard that I had been working against the vampire, and claimed that people in his own land had once fought a similar monster. If I would free him from his bondage, he would lead me to his homeland, where I could seek the answers that had eluded me.
Freeing him was trivial. I didn't even have to kill anyone. I was all but certain Leb was playing me for a fool, but as soon as we had slipped away into port, he found us another vessel headed for eastern lands. This would take us all the way to Mas Basos. There, Leb intended to find another ship that would transport us the remaining distance to his homeland of Cal Avin.
Again, however, the gods' plans and mine did not overlap.
Dante trailed off, sensing that a long and picaresque tale of sea travel was about to ensue. He skimmed the next few pages and confirmed that this was true. "Vita, if I try to read this whole thing now, the only question is what will die first: my voice, or Blays. Is there a part that's more…relevant?"
She made a flipping gesture at the book. "What do you think the ribbons are for? To make it look pretty?"
There were in fact a number of thin orange ribbons tucked among the pages. Dante skipped to the next one, but Sabel and Leb were still at sea, dealing with horrible creatures on a remote island. At the next marker, they had shipwrecked and were beset by cannibals and pirates. At the ribbon after that, however, Dante's eyes locked on the words Cal Avin.
He resumed reading.
And so I entered the port of Had Len, entry to Cal Avin, weighing thirty pounds lighter and wearing no more than a few twists of rag. I wish I could say it was the first time I'd arrived somewhere in such disgrace.
Leb had told me about Had Len. But nothing could prepare me for the sight of it: the mobile islands, the towers of uncut rock, the birds that perched on the idols and judged you with eyes that looked perfectly human. Though the birds looked human, the people didn't: like Leb, they were gray-skinned and white-haired, too tall and too slender. Even the sky seemed a different color than the home I'd left, a bleak green that had no obvious cause.
I have no words for the smells. You should be grateful for that.
Leb, my faithful companion, looked happier than at any time since we had met. I feared he would rush off to old friends or lovers he hadn't seen in years, abandoning me to the alien city. I should never have doubted; we had begun our acquaintance as pure strangers, but since then, we'd been through far too much together to betray one another. He made his inquiries. By nightfall, he returned with the name of a sorcerer who knew of the vampire: Gent of Ada. We spent the next day provisioning ourselves in the markets. The stalls and tents sold wares our language has no words for.
I was goggling over strange roots and powders when the watch came for Leb, arresting him for the years-gone crimes that had caused him to flee Cal Avin in the first place. Could I have stopped them from taking my dear companion? I think so: yet I was stayed by fear. Fear, and the foolish hope that if I soldiered on to find Gent and the vampire's secrets, I could still restore my blood family from their undead curse.
So I found myself alone in a foreign city. It was then that I saw the full wisdom in Leb's insistence I learn his language on our long journey at sea. Far too canny to have been a slave! And I had abandoned him to the predations of the state.
But the die was cast. I gathered my things and made for Ada, vowing to return and free Leb for a second time once I had learned the vampire's ways.
This had the makings of another travel interlude. Dante was now more than curious enough about Cal Avin to read every detail, but that would have to wait. He glanced over the next few pages. Finding them full of bandits, wild beasts with wicked horns, and whispering spirits looking to lure Sabel to his doom, Dante flipped forward to the next ribbon, after Sabel had found Gent and been allowed in by the wizened master.
It was now clear that Gent hadn't agreed to see me out of a desire to rid the world of the Vampire of Light, but to learn my foreign sorcery—and then cast me out of the caverns of Ada.
I confronted him. "If you don't teach me your secrets, all of my people will die!"
"And if I had known the vampires were ridding the world of stinking barbarians," Gent answered, "I would never have had any quarrel with them."
There was no convincing him. Not with words. But in his love for his country, I saw another way.
"From there," Vita interrupted, "Sabel embarked on a string of feats to prove his worth and valor to the scornful sorcerer. It is most fine to read but since you are in a hurry you will want to skip forward."
"What kind of feats?" Blays said.
"In one case, Sabel built a bridge across the river to Ada, which was filled with evil fish that had stopped all previous attempts. In another, he tracked down the Great Bear of Ang that had been devouring children who wandered into the forest and brought its skin back to Gent. After that, he set warring bandit tribes against each other so that they wiped themselves out and made it safe for travel."
"Not bad for a stinking barbarian. So what finally convinced Gent to apprentice him?"
"When Gent had been but a child, his father had entrusted him with the care of the Chain of Years, a family relic. Some time later, Gent lost it while swimming in a lake. This happened fifty years before Sabel came to Gent, so Gent meant the task of finding the chain to be impossible. That's how he would finally be rid of the pesky foreigner."
"Let me guess. Sabel finds the chain?"
"No," Vita said, almost dreamily. "But he swam so deep searching for it that he lost his breath. It took Gent all his powers to save him. Gent was so touched by Sabel's devotion that he agreed to teach him his ways." She tapped the next ribbon. "That story begins here."
Dante turned to the next marker, which was the start of a new chapter.
With the lake's water still leaking from my ears, Gent looked at me with eyes like two graves. "You came to Cal Avin for answers," he said. "But what you need to fight the Vampire of Light can't be found here."
"Oh." In that moment, I wished he'd let me drown. "I'm sorry to have troubled you. Please tell me where I can find my answers, and I will leave you in peace."
"The Realm of Nine Kings. But you'll never get there on your own. You could search for a hundred years and you'd never find it. So it is a good thing for you that I am such a kind old man and will show you the way."
At last, Gent told me how he had driven a Vampire of Light from Cal Avin. He hadn't achieved this through any sorcery, but rather through the acquisition of a weapon of terrible might: the Spear of Stars.
Long ago, the gods had divided the spear into nine parts and handed them down to the care of the rulers of the Realm of Nine Kings. With the vampire at hand, Gent had traveled to this land, earning the pieces of the spear through contests, gambling, thievery, and trickery. Once he had completed it, he returned to Cal Avin and used the Spear of Stars to smite the vampire. With the threat removed, the gods had compelled him to return the pieces of the spear to its nine guardians.
If I wished to wield the spear, I would have to retrace Gent's steps into the Realm. Thus began the greatest quest I had ever known.
Dante stopped and looked up at Vita. "Do they find the pieces of the spear? And does Sabel use it to drive out what he calls the Vampire of Light?"
"Yes to both questions."
A stone of sickness lay in his stomach. "Then we're screwed."
"How can that be so when the book you now hold tells you how to defeat the White Lich?"
"Because it's telling me that if I want to beat the lich, I have to travel to a land I've never even heard of. Depending on how old this book is, Cal Avin might not even still exist."
"Cal Avin is still there," Naran said. "It lies beyond the Five Medenlen Way."
"Hang on, you've been there?"
"It is too far and the route too dangerous to
interest me. But I have known others who claimed to have seen it."
Blays leaned back in his chair and rested the heel of his boot on the table. "So theoretically, you could get us there."
"There is no reason why not."
"Except that such a trip would take months, if not years," Dante said. "Allowing the White Lich months, if not years, to run wild across the continent. We don't even know for certain that this Spear of Stars really existed—or that it's still there today."
Blays set his boot down at the exact moment thunder pealed overhead. "Counterpoint: the spear can be used to destroy the lich."
"Counter-counterpoint: we can be used to destroy the lich by staying right here. The spear is a total long shot. I'd only chase after it if we had no other hope."
"We do not all have to chase after it," Gladdic said. "Captain Naran can make the journey to Cal Avin on his own. Once there, he can seek to discover whether the spear is present."
Blays frowned. "Are you still trying to get Naran killed?"
"There is a chance that he and his ship would be lost on such a long voyage. But he is a skillful man. I have faith in his ability to return."
"Not long ago, I was lamenting my inability to be of use against the lich," Naran said. "If I can bolster our hope of victory by sailing to Cal Avin, that is what I must do."
Dante glanced across the table, afraid they were about to sign Naran's death warrant. "What if we don't have to travel to the Realm of Nine Kings to get the spear? Vita, is there enough information in this book for me to be able to make one for myself?"
The Spear of Stars Page 2