Necromancer’s Sorrow: (Series Finale)

by Pablo Andrés Wunderlich Padilla

  “And the sailor called Ságamas! D’you know anything of him?” Mérdmerén asked.

  Neither was able to answer. The King of Mandrake was worried about his loved ones, whom he had not thought about amid his concerns about the war. His daughter and Lombardo; what would happen to them? What would become of Ságamas the sailor? One thing was certain: these people were very capable and he knew that if Lombardo had survived the battle of Dead Tears, the Battle of Kathanas, and the Battle of Háztatlon, he would surely know what to do in these circumstances. The same could be said of Ságamas since he did not know anybody as slippery as the sailor when it came to finding a way for himself by one means or another.

  Meromérila had wished, with all her hopes, that the Old World could turn out to be her new home. “My people… We’re lost. We have no nation, no home…”

  “What we need to do is call all the insects that have settled in Árath to war, Meromérila,” Mérdmerén said with the Knight’s helmet on his lap. “Only someone like you could rise to a challenge like that.”

  The three of them were sitting at a round table. In the middle were an unlit narghile and a selection of snacks. Mérdmerén had not eaten for days. He supposed that when he had been incarnated in the form of the Metallic Knight, his feeding habits had changed somewhat. But now that he was himself, he had no scruples and ate as much as he could. For the first time in weeks, he felt the urge to visit the latrine.

  “The Dakatak now have their own queen, Mérdmerén,” Meromérila said with a smile. “But I will try. The Dakatak are free to decide for themselves whether they wish to take part in this war. Take me to them and I will gladly express my request.”

  A thought crossed Mérdmerén’s mind and he smiled. “Whatever did you do to my squire?”

  Meromérila blushed. It would be no use to hide the facts from the empress, who could see through people as though she were looking through glass.

  “I have chosen him as my mate. He is a brave man and the only one who has made enough of an impression on me with the strength of his soul and his mind. He accepted my proposal. He will be my mate for the rest of our lives when he comes back from his mission. I think I might be carrying his seed.” The queen said all this very naturally. Talking about these subjects was normal in Gardak, particularly pregnancy and sex.

  “So the Queen of Gardak came to create her empire in our world and she’s gotten herself a man who will give her princes and princesses. Will he be your king?”

  “No,” Meromérila said firmly. “He will be the queen’s consort.”

  Sokomonoko knew something neither Mérdmerén nor Meromérila knew. Her smile said more than her silence.

  “Congratulations, queen. You’ve taken us all by surprise. Now then, that’s enough talk for today. Let’s get a move on because we have a whole universe to save. Apparently, Leandro the Impostor has already set out with his legions. Omen has been emptied and even the Council of Mages has been activated, according to the Baron. All the houses and dukes have sent their armies, so Mandrake is left defenseless. That bloody Mórgomiel! What an ingenious plan! Leandro the Impostor has hit us below the belt and by emptying Mandrake, he’s made sure we’ll concentrate our defense on one point to attack with everything we have left.”

  There was a long silence in which the three leaders considered the implications of this.

  “Leandro the Impostor will have about three hundred thousand soldiers at his command.” When Mérdmerén produced these figures, everything changed. It now came across to them as real, dangerous, and terrifying.

  “And apart from all this,” he added, “Balthazar is dead.”

  This time, the silence was one of mourning.

  Chapter XLV — The Kiss of Silence

  Things had happened too fast. With his wife pregnant, he could not afford to take the slightest risk. The letter he had received was signed by no less than the Baron, and anybody who had lived in the Mandrake Empire and set foot in the capital knew who he was.

  Ajedrea had made a great fuss, giving orders blindly for the boys of the estate to take her to the Imperial Palace at once. Not only was it several hours away at a fast ride that involved a proper carriage for a lady like her, but the journey was full of dangers, given the circumstances. The letter was clear and the rumors that were running from mouth to mouth like wildfire confirmed it: Háztatlon had been assailed by a black dragon and there had been an attempt on Leandro’s life.

  Mérdmerén was absent. Stories were being told among the workers and it was the boys of the estate who, days later, confirmed that the entire city had seen him mount a colossal dragon, take flight, and fight the black dragon. Nobody could say what had happened to him after that. One thing was clear to Lombardo: people cared more about seeing dragons than about the future of their nation.

  The gossip did not stop. The people praised King Mérdmerén and the stories and legends grew. Those who told the most outrageous story were rewarded with good drinks and sometimes, the pleasure of sex.

  “We need to act quickly, my love. I know you’re frightened to death on your father’s account, but you know he’s a man of many resources and I’m sure he’s intelligent enough to have left the palace before the rivers of blood started flowing.”

  Ajedrea was set on going to meet her father. It had taken her a lifetime to find him and even during the great battles they had recently lived through, she had not allowed herself to leave him behind. But she knew. She knew that things were different. Her pregnancy had awakened a maternal instinct so strong that it included protecting the future grandfather. She felt like a lioness, full of ferocity, but her beloved, who was patient and strong as a bear, was urging her to desist.

  Lombardo enfolded her in his arms when she burst into tears.

  “Let’s go to the shelter the Baron suggested,” she said, painfully and reluctantly. Strangely enough, as soon as she had resigned herself to this, she felt better.

  “We’ll pack what we need,” Lombardo said. “We’ll leave right away. There’s no time to be lost!”

  He spoke to the boys who helped him pack. Two of them chose to go to Háztatlon to visit relatives, despite all the dangers.

  “You’ve been good to us, Don Lombardo,” Yuldo said. He was a farmer through and through. He was loyal of heart and worked in the coffee plantations with a firm hand. “You’ve given each of us a plot of land so that our families can grow. I’ll follow you to hell and back if necessary, as long as you can help me keep my people safe.”

  “Right then. Pack!” Lombardo said. “We’ll set out when the shadow of the cedar tree is a foot taller!”

  Ajedrea did not need to pack much. A dagger, a couple of simple dresses, and a pendant her father had given her. Lombardo, on the other hand, put on his tanned leather armor for once. Savarb had given him it years before when they had fought at the Massacre of San San-Tera when the village had been besieged by evil.

  He opened the trunk and took out some junk, disturbing a cloud of dust. Halfway down, he found the long sword and its scabbard that he fastened over his shoulders.

  The nature-loving man wielded the sword with one hand, the powerful muscles of his arm impelling it as if it were a light stick. When he grasped it in both hands, he felt once again the strength he had used to send it flying in arcs and lunges. He hated war, but when the time came to defend his heritage, he would fight with all the pleasure in the world. Lombardo had woken up.

  With the warrior’s passion he had found within himself once again, he cried, “Now you’re going to try my sword!”

  ***

  Ságamas felt clumsy and slow in the absence of his comrades. Bayman, Orpoma, Accused, Jeromyacob, and Giggles had taken on the task of helping the horrible bugs and the men from another planet to rebuild. He had warned them, saying that putting efforts into other people’s work brought bad luck. But he had never expected that bad luck to bring the God of Chaos and his dragon to kill all his friends. Now he found himself in the presence
of a hundred or so survivors, all desperate, hungry, and intent on revenge.

  Ságamas had remained with the Mermaid, the ship the King of Mandrake had given him. Now things had gone seriously wrong and what had begun as a mission on the eve of something grand had turned into a hell and a grave for thousands. When he saw the first explosions, he felt he had to go and help the wounded. And when he saw the catastrophe the God of Chaos had created with one pass of his malicious beast, he had fallen into a depression. If that thing was the enemy, they were lost, an argument that broke down when Nordost entered the game and fell tooth and claw on the enemy.

  During those days at sea, the weather could not have been better and he was hoping it would go on favoring the travelers’ return to Mandrake. The message from Meromérila, the best woman he had ever seen and who was said to be the queen of the rabble from the other planet, had said they were all to go back and fight against an incipient invasion.

  Ságamas knew that the return voyage would take at least a week and a half with the wind behind them and on course to the South under full sail. With luck, they would get there in time. He had the impression that the insects were anxious for delicious revenge. He was a watchful man, he always had been. It was a quality that had saved him on many occasions.

  With that penetrating gaze of his, he had begun to understand the Dakatak. It was not their permanently-open eyes nor the guttural sounds they made; it was the movements of their antennae. When these moved in harmonious waves, it signaled that they were happy and satisfied. When they wagged like the tail of a relentlessly barking dog, it meant that they were angry.

  The Mílikin had learned Mandrakian with some difficulty, but at least they could exchange a few words, request the basics, and, now, insult the God of Chaos. Ságamas had always been surprised at how quickly a person managed to learn the dirty words of another language before anything else.

  Although over five hundred ships full of men had traveled to the Old World seeking to establish an empire, fewer than a hundred and fifty were now on their way back. It had hurt Ságamas to leave such good ships stranded on the beach. The storms and the salt would destroy them in a few months but there was nothing more they could do for the galleys.

  Ságamas fixed his gaze on the stars. A pale-skinned Mílikin woman with large aquamarine eyes approached him, seeking to understand the sky. The sailor soon took an interest in her body and her sweet gaze, and with well-honeyed words, he told her about the stars when they had gone to bed. He might be one-armed, one-legged, and grey-bearded, but what he lacked in leg, he made up for with his groin.

  ***

  Lohrén was distracted, standing on the edge of the higher of the two rock towers that were still whole after the battle against Némaldon. The stories the people told about that battle were true epics. The story he had enjoyed most was that of the mage who had sacrificed himself to save the lives of all the soldiers who had managed to migrate north. Every human remembered the event in his or her own way, and each story was more unlikely than the one before.

  Lohrén might have hated humans before, but now he loved them for reasons not even he could understand. It had all began, of course, when he had met Luciella. What eyes! What a soul! But the heart of the woman beat for someone else.

  He knew that being an elf had an advantage when he was competing for a human woman. Women simply fell like autumn leaves before his charms here in Kathanas, and he had flirted with several of them with the simple purpose of scratching the itch and enjoying his life that remained. Lohrén knew he would die. He did not know how, but he knew that this life with a limit placed on it was a life desired. He hoped that it might have an epic end, dying in battle after tasting a new experience. Besides, he could never love an elf. Not after falling in love with a human of fleeting destiny. He could never get used to the slowness, almost laziness, with which elves did everything. For them, everything needed time for consideration and pondering… Bah!

  The beauty of your face will always be near,

  Luciella of the Holy Comment; whom I will always hold dear.

  Be happy with your love, fly away, my heart,

  Seize this life with a purpose, do it, my sweet heart,

  For, when all’s said and done, you must give yourself away,

  Or lie in silence forever and a day.

  Lohrén sang, his sonorous voice echoing through the corridors of the rock towers. He spoke Mandrakian almost perfectly after practicing it day and night. He had become so involved with humans that even his followers doubted whether he was still an elf. For someone of such a high rank, one who had taken part in the Council of Elves, behaving like this was unacceptable. But none of that mattered to Lohrén. He knew that Mórgomiel would come and that they would fight a battle with all their forces, probably die, and that was that. Who cared?

  As he stared out at the horizon, he also considered that it was precisely for this reason that the elves were stuck on a chunk of land in an obscure nook nobody knew about. After the Times of Chaos unleashed by Mórgomiel thousands of years before, and after the destruction of their planet Érvein, what had the elves done? They had taken a little fragment of the earth of their burning world and then simply left. They had not fought. They had not sought a new home or a new planet to inhabit.

  The winds were changing course. He would never be able to forgive himself for having despised humans so much and now, with total certainty, he understood why the beings of the Celestial Divinity had chosen a boy from a farm to be the incarnation of the God of Light. His wish was that Luchy could find him and save him from his doom. Perhaps with Alac Arc Ángelo, the war might be won. Perhaps.

  A woman’s voice brought him out of his reverie, “Sweetheart, what are you doing here?”

  Lohrén turned and took a naked girl into his arms. She was no princess. In fact, she was the woodcutter’s daughter. But she was beautiful and tall, though not the tallest, with pretty lips, almond-colored eyes, and chestnut hair that was straight and soft like the tulle looms she had been working on.

  “Maia, my dear, I’ve missed you,” Lohrén said with feigned enthusiasm. The elf was not even remotely used to using words of endearment or affection—it was even taboo in Allündel—and for that reason, he forced himself to participate in this exchange of ardent love to live, experiment, and feel.

  “It’s dinnertime,” Maia said as she put on her warrior clothes, admiring the elf’s hairless body at the same time. “The table’s ready and the plates are full. Come with me.”

  Lohrén dressed hastily and allowed the girl to lead him by the hand to the dining room. Here in Kathanas, they were all family and all ate together. There was no king, superiors, or inferiors. After the defeat of the House of Roam and the Duke of Thoragón of the same name, the survivors had chosen to leave behind the notion of sovereignty. There was even talk of independence from the Empire of Mandrake.

  Janikur was sitting with the crowd, sharing a drink and bread with the others.

  “Soon the march to the Portal of the Worlds will begin. General Leandro Deathslayer has summoned us to fight against the invading enemy! They say that many enemies will come through the Portal and our task will be to reduce them to rubble!

  “Kathanas has not known a defeat like the one it suffered during the battle for our city. We survived thanks to the sacrifice of Strangelus Üdessa, a name that will be forever engraved on our minds. That is why we will fight this war with everything we can bring to it, all united, to prevent anything like it from ever happening again.

  “They say the coming war is called Armageddon, a new word for me. It means the perpetual and utter destruction of everything. That will come about if we cower and allow the enemy to do whatever they want.

  “We are grateful for the presence of the elves, a culture rich in wisdom and very—and I mean very—old. The elves have filled the emptiness of Kathanas after its defeat with joy and happiness. Eat. Drink. Sleep. Soon, we shall do what Kathanas has never done before: march wi
th its legions.

  “The city of rock towers has always protected the North from invasions from the South. But the South, the Nemaldines, has been reduced to nothing. For the first time, we will be marching over the green land of the Fields of Flora and the battle that took place there four hundred years ago will be fought again. Friends. The Fields of Flora are fertile because hundreds of thousands of living beings died there, nurturing the soil with their corpses, and that is why the earth blooms from one end to the other. Never forget that. It is going to happen again.”

  Janikur drank from his ceramic mug and raised it in a toast, “To the coming battle! With us is the legion of elves, fine warriors with their elemín armor, who will help us finish the enemy. So be it!”

  Lohrén stood up, already half-drunk from the effect of the alcohol, and raised his mug. “As general of the legions of elves, master of war, I am grateful for your incredible strength and conviction. You humans are to be admired. The elves will follow you with pleasure to war and we’ll unleash the fury we carry inside us. So be it!”

  After these introductory words, the citizens and guests of the city of rock towers sat down to eat. Amid laughter, songs, and jokes, the evening crept on, and soon sleep arrived, silencing the corridors of the ruined city. Nidra, the Naevas Aedán, flew among the people, translating for those elves who had not taken the trouble to learn Mandrakian.

  ***

  Cail the Crafty was now alone. All this time he had thought the news must be false. The Baron, defeated? It was impossible. But that was what people were telling him. It could be part of a macabre plan to destabilize the thieves, but something was telling Cail that things were not as simple as that. Something bad had happened since the day the Baron had asked him to call Leandro. He had done what he was told, only to find out hours later that Leandro had insulted their allies.