by Warren Fahy
Drewgor was only fairly confident that he was immune to the Illusion Sea’s effects as he rode in Stargazer.
He didn’t trust the strange craft that was shaped by his Cirilen rival’s hands. She seemed to be heading due north, yet he had been traveling too long by his calculations without seeing any islands.
The First Moon, burning bright, peeked through a cloud above and confirmed his suspicions. Drewgor frowned with Trevin’s blue lips at the Golden Coin. “On the morrow, I will take Elwyn’s crown,” he promised, “And I will incinerate you, just as I ruined Selwyn’s Wizard’s Shoe before you.” Then he laughed out loud.
Chapter 30
The Fate of the World
Drewgor arrived well after the rendezvous that he had planned with his minion, Blox.
When Trevin flung Blox out of Wynder as Drewgor dwelled inside the Cronus Star, Blox with a deliciously humorous Wynder body of his choosing: a gray sea slug that had red stubble on its head and could blend easily into its surroundings in the slime at the bottom of the sea. It was from that lowly form that Blox had first slithered out of the sea onto Gwylor’s beach in the middle of the night, transforming until morning into a mockery of human shape Trevin flung from Wynder.
Drewgor had not allowed Blox’s right hand to pass through the Scepter’s stone into his Hala form. With it he could control and communicate with him. Before Trevin destroyed the Cronus Star, Drewgor had hidden Blox’s hand inside the tower.
As soon as he seized the scepter, which the sailors had so kindly provided, he retrieved Blox’s hand from the lightstone lens and dragged it inside the new diamond like a spider with its trophy. Drewgor communicated his displeasure to Blox now as Stargazer finally arrived, unheralded, at the shores of Ameulis.
He had not come upon the port until well after dawn, deceived by Stargazer’s distortions. Only fishing vessels passed him, heading out to sea, and Stargazer’s sail seemed to be making him invisible even to them.
And so he slipped unseen and without fanfare beside the Lightstone Jetty, long after the crowds Blox had arranged to greet him had dispersed.
Drewgor tied Trevin’s treacherous vessel to the great pier west of the Lightstone Jetty, vowing to burn her later. The western pier was the less grand of entrances to the city, as the eastern landing was built of marble. He did not want to draw a crowd that was too small, however, since at close quarters, with fewer people, illusion never worked as well.
He climbed the pier and strode fast among the Ameulintians, weaving an illusion around himself and hiding his scepter under his robes.
“Oi! There is the King by the Gairanor. Look!” cried one fisherman.
“He doesn’t look well!” marked another.
He sped up his pace.
“He looks splendid!” shouted another, from a distance.
Trevin’s kingly robes gave him away as Drewgor rushed down the pier, and a few began chasing after him.
He paused when he came to the intersection where Gieron Way joined the avenue along the embarcadero. He raised his scepter and sent up showers of color to obscure his form.
Those who passed were smitten with dread to witness what seemed to be the truth of Blox’s warnings finally coming to pass. Many had laughed and dismissed Blox’s prophecy as no more than a hoax. But now, here was Blox’s terrible lord arriving for all to see! And as Blox had said, he looked like Trevin, though his scepter shone many colors instead of crimson, just as Blox predicted. Word spread fast along the waterfront: Nekkros had arrived!
A company of seven Nekkrosites with shaven heads, who had waited loyally all night on the embarcadero, now heard the panicked news and rallied themselves, rushing to greet their savior to whom they had devoted themselves. They quickly made their way through passersby and when they saw him, striding in his regal robes, they ran to surround him and trembled to be near him. He smiled, reassured by their conscripted company. Yet he decided to make an example of them. “Where is Blox?” he asked as he turned onto Gieron Way. “Fetch him.”
Two of them ran to do so.
A river of Nekkrosites and Loyalists gathered behind him in his train as he walked up Gieron Way toward Bartering Square, and of course they hailed him as Nekkros arisen with his dazzling scepter.
Blox and Rishen rushed to meet him down that avenue, and their improvised detail of guards dropped to one knee and trumpeted a stammering fanfare with their horns in a disheveled display.
“Get up!” said Drewgor with Trevin’s lips.
“Lord!” the Nekkrosites exclaimed, raising their arms in entreaty.
“All ten thousand of the Mayoral Guard have been mustered by Blox,” said one of his bald chieftains. “We have sent word to all of the lieutenants who have taken buildings along Gieron Way. They hastily lined the street even now.”
“Good.”
A carriage was finally procured to convey the god-king. And he climbed inside the regal coach, waving at Blox and Rishen to join him. His carriage conveyed them then before a stream of Nekkrosites and past banks of onlookers who squeezed in to watch them pass.
When Drewgor reached Bartering Square, the thousands already gathered there fell silent. They had watched the strange light in the window of his black brougham as it made its way to the north end of the square. Drewgor said not a word to either of his horrified officers and they dared not utter a sentence.
When he arrived at the stairs to the terraces, Drewgor joined Blox, Rishen, and several Mayoral Guards and waved at the crowds as they climbed the stairs against the curving wall of Bartering Square.
The Sea Mare crossed the sea of terrors without incident and now she charged over the Gulf of Gwylor.
All blessed Pickle, for the crew smelled the heady aroma of curry, and when their stomachs found it in an egg pie, with black coffee and tomato juice, they felt revived and set their eyes on the northern horizon with renewed vigor.
Trevin addressed them from the aft deck with Nil and Neuvia at his side.
Tobbs wrote down every word.
“Soon, my friends, I shall meet the ancient shadow that has haunted this brave world from its beginning, and now walks in flesh that was mine.” Trevin shuddered in shame and lowered his head. “Alas, I cannot be sure to best his high craft that has been so sharpened by eons. He has imagined his next incantations for centuries and how these next events must fall to suit his ends. Yet I have a power he does not, mighty now that it is free and no longer shackled by his falsehoods. For when good doubts itself, it gives the world away. And yet when good defends itself, there is almost nothing it cannot overcome, and evil is forever surprised by its fearsome ingenuity. This I learned while watching the miracles mortals can achieve. My faith is ever confirmed.” Trevin bowed to them. Then he extended a hand behind them. Vivid threads of white light arced from his five fingers to a point touching somewhere over the horizon.
“Theosophiclar,” Neuvia heard him whisper, “I call upon you.”
He opened his eyes and for a blinding moment his skin was radiant before them.
Trevin turned to Nil then. “The Seventh Isle may be of some use.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Let us raise the green bunting of Ameulis and Gwylor will answer!” said Trevin. “We must make a spectacle of our arrival, eh? As he would have liked but never could in Stargazer.”
“Indeed,” Nil grinned. “Raise the standards! Fly them high!”
Karlok cried, “There shall be no doubt who is Ameulis’s King!”
The men ran up the green banners that snaked in the wind and followed with the flag of the Cirilen, which Nil had been given by Artimeer for this moment. The crew trumpeted instruments and rang the ship’s bell as they tacked toward nearby vessels.
Soon the ships that recognized her raised their own colors in turn to signal yet more, as all set their course to flank the returning warship.
All across the Gulf of Gwylor, vessels came to greet her then. Fishing trawls and cargo ships and yachts and salvaging
crews that doubled as rescue vessels and the skiffs of pearl divers and even two Royal Science schooners that were measuring the weather and water, all converged then across the ocean around the Sea Mare, whose sails were stained and whose bows were patched and battered. Without a plan or orders, the mariners of Ameulis came together to escort her in a vast armada.
As he twisted a knob on the bronze telescope in the Even Tower of Castle Martharr, Teldon spied a ship at the head of a vast wedge of wakes on the gulf below. A navy of 500 followed the large ship like a comet over the sea.
Teldon ran down the spiral stairs of the jade tower, nearly breaking his neck, and then he mobilized the household. The horses were saddled and hitched to carriages as every soul in Castle Martharr set out, at once, for Bartering Square.
As Trevin stood at the prow, Neuvia encouraged him to take Gieron’s scepter, which he still had not touched. Then, following behind the Sea Mare’s spontaneous regatta, the rosy cliffs of the Seventh Isle appeared on the southern horizon.
“Behold the new King!” Blox proclaimed, from the high terrace of Bartering Square, where he stood with Drewgor and Rishen.
Guards and monks flanked them, with the curving wall behind him carved by Poladoris Martharr with friezes of fishers, seamstresses, coopers, cooks and all manner of Ameulintian tradesman radiating in symmetries across the high terrace around the circular plaza.
Paint splatters and slogans had built up on the noble figures carved on that wall ever since Blox declared art made by Poladoris Martharr or Senjessi Tillow to be sacrilegious and gave his sanction to their defacement. It was hard to find a statue that still had a nose since then.
Drewgor waited now as people filled the marketplace. Rishen and Blox both stared at their master, enthralled with fear. Finally, he spoke, with a voice that seemed to rip the earth apart: “I have come, at last, as you were forewarned!” His ominous words rebounded against the wall and over the city: “Ameulis is mine!”
All, including Blox and Rishen, were breathless at the boldness of his proclamation, yet they were acquiescent.
“All of Ameulis shall be my body, my muscle, and my bones. Her people shall help me spread my will across the world until it closes like a fist that shall never open!”
The Nekkrosites shrank back to stand behind him at a distance from Blox.
Alone to wield the nation’s ear, I smiled in tearful admiration.
“All who are not believers in my cause will soon be put to the sword,” the new messiah said that, softly, his roar a little song. He smiled and waved a hand. “But first: where are the good people who came to greet me this morning? They are among this company, I believe?”
Drewgor and seven Nekkrosites stepped forward, smiling in relief as they came before him on the high dais. They bowed before him now, and Drewgor touched his scepter to the back of each of their heads, which fell, severed, on the marble terrace, splattering as their bodies jumped up and stood erect before him.
Drewgor raised his bloody hands and scepter over the balustrade. The Ameulintians churned across Bartering Square in horror.
The Nekkrosites among them, most of whom were now humbled before their righteous savior.
Drewgor spied a purple spark on the sea. He heard distant horns blow along the seafront. From Bartering Square all could see it.
A great island with swirled pink cliffs had split beside the Gulf of Gwylor.
Even as they watched, the island crashed into the end of the Lightstone Jetty with a great spray of sparks and an echoing boom that rolled across the waterfront.
A foaming wave rolled down each side of the three-mile jetty toward the shore, and on its back, to the east of the jetty, rode a great windjammer flying the long green bunting of Ameulis. A purple star burned at her prow and she was flanked by a fleet of vessels that raced behind her to each side of the jetty with the wave that crashed before them
Drewgor smacked his lips with unexpected delight. It must be Neuvia! he thought.
The Sea Mare rode past cheering throngs running along the jetty.
The multitude of mariners issuing onto the seafront now became Trevin’s army, and they marched before and behind him as he strode among them dressed in simple sailor’s garb. He smiled, holding no scepter, and, at his side was his fair Queen, Neuvia, who kept Gieron’s scepter hidden beneath her cloak.
A coach wheeled through the crowd, drawn by a stamping Polwairn. “My Lord,” cried the coachman. “Thank the Gairanor! Blox’s god has come!”
The people looked to him now, and Trevin nodded. “Let us reckon with him,” he said.
Trevin, Neuvia, Nil and Lelinair climbed into the coach, and it rolled along the street as the imploring crowds parted before it. More carriages and wagons joined the procession, each carrying some of the crew of the Sea Mare behind the King’s carriage.
“Lince…?” Trevin asked, looking at Nil. “What has become of him?”
“He died, my lord.”
“We shall do all we can for his kin.”
“He had none, save his cat, and she died with him.”
“There shall be justice.”
“Thank you, lord.”
Trevin looked out the window at the cheering crowds rushing along the street. “They could not imagine what my wife has done. For her sorcery is beyond Khalwairn and Cirilen skills.” Trevin pulled his fisherman’s hood over his head.
“There are more who know their mind in Gwylor, my lord,” said Lelinair.
Trevin smiled. “That is good.”
As they progressed, the coachman cried, “The Crown of Ameulis approaches! Stand aside!” When the crowds saw through the windows who had arrived, they cheered and the loyalists among them formed lines along their passage, countering the Nekkrosites and guards with superior numbers.
Observing these convulsions below, Drewgor snickered, for he knew that Neuvia had already spent her one spell unwisely. He looked forward to making a public spectacle of her beheading. “Let her pass!” he commanded. “Let the Queen of Ameulis come forth before her people on this day for all of us to remember.”
And so they passed unmolested up the eastern stairway, and the mariners did not sheathe their blades or their glares as they climbed through the nervous guards and disciples who yielded before them.
When they reached the top of the stairs, Trevin, in his common clothes, immediately walked toward Drewgor across the high terrace practically unnoticed.
Drewgor laughed loud and thrust his scepter straight at Neuvia as Trevin took the scepter from her hand, and the diamond ignited in a blue explosion.
Drewgor staggered back, confused as Trevin gripped the golden handle and raised the square diamond. Neuvia stepped back as Trevin cast back his hood. Lit up now by the blazing stone was his own ravaged corpse that stood before him as if reflected in an evil mirror, and the sight was terrifying to Trevin.
She stood near Blox as Toy slipped down her arm toward the Mayor’s silk sleeve.
As thousands of Ameulintians watched the two kings, contrary twins, one in regal robes and the other in plain garb, each with a scepter raised high but one that shone all hues while the other was blue as a mountain lake, they knew the battle colliding over them would decide their fate.
Trevin’s diamond burned through the fog of many colors that surrounded his opposite, stripping down Drewgor’s illusion and laying bare his rotting body to all eyes that were close enough to see. But it was not for the eyes of Ameulintians that Trevin shone this light now. For it was the Gairanor that might finally take notice in the light of those burning stars, and surely see that there were two Trevins and that Drewgor had violated Elwyn’s greatest incantation, which had bound them.
Yet still they could not decide which was Trevin and which was Drewgor as both undoubtedly were him.
Drewgor saw through Trevin’s strategy then and did not wait for the Gairanor to make up their minds.
Neither did Trevin as he pointed a finger at the Last Isle and uttered a single
word: “Theosophiclar!”
An arrow of pale light speared the sky at the end of the Lightstone Jetty.
The Lightstone Tower rose from the sea and lifted into the air, hanging still for a moment before coming down with a mighty toll on top of the island that had risen there. Streaming seawater, the restored pinnacle still flew the tattered flag of the Cirilen and the long green banner of Ameulis.
It was Drewgor’s fascination with tactics that made him pause and study the empty spectacle then. What could this young Gheldron be imagining, if it were indeed possible that he was fighting him? Whatever his deflection might be, he would not see it through…
Drewgor directed his entire reservoir of will that was collected over centuries of sleepless rage to flood through the diamond of his scepter in one incinerating moment aimed directly at the heart of the young Cirilen.
Instead of resisting it, however, Trevin took the full force of the Khalwairn’s strike and sent it through Gieron’s diamond along with his own, aiming both equally at the distant Lightstone Tower.
And the tower lit, one half sapphire, the other crimson. And Theosophiclar, his Wynder engineer, focused both channels of light through the lens of Elwyn’s spire. And the beams blasted into the heavens as if from a crystal cannon.
Drewgor instantly withdrew his attack—an instant too late.
The Gairanor had already glimpsed their souls.
Drewgor panicked as he looked at the sky.
Blox panicked, too, next to Neuvia, and did not notice Toy biting his sleeve.
Clouds spiraled together out of the blue over Gwylor as lightning cracked the sky.
Drewgor decided to escape through the diamond of his scepter. But as he wondered if a bolt from the Gairanor could destroy the stone, as well, and whether he would have to make his way across Wondyre and emerge in another stone, Blox ran to Drewgor and clutched his arm… “My Messiah!”
Drewgor grimaced in disgust as Toy slipped out of Blox’s sleeve and bit Drewgor’s neck.