by P D Ceanneir
‘I’m going to cure you, my friend,’ said Lord Ness, ‘I’ll do all I can.’
Suddenly Telmar clutched at the Ri’s robe. ‘I know Sallen wants me dead,’ he said, ‘don’t trust anyone!’
Ness Ri gently prised the fingers away and made soothing sounds. ‘Alright, Telmar, alright, no one is here to hurt you. We are all going to do what is best for you.’
Telmar cursed through gritted teeth, ‘I am what I must destroy. I’m going to burn it all, burn it all!’
After this initial conversation, Telmar fell into another Fugue State and remained silent. Ness Ri could get nothing more out of him so he left, looking back at the forlorn figure of the once famous baron as he did so.
He was not to see Telmar again until the Battle of the Firelands. He told me later that he left that eerie cell with a heavy heart and a lump in his throat.
2
Scholars of Rawn History named the events before the war as the Long Month. All of the events leading up to this moment were merely a slow fuse lighting the way to a catastrophic conflict, the first major war since the Dragor-rix two thousand years previous.
The month saw the coming of the Rite of Ancarryn, now held once every four years since the reign of King Cambrian. Sallen IV intended to make this an Ancarryn to remember.
It certainly would be, being the first and last of his short reign.
The citadel still experienced riots, but the king naively believed that the general population would come round to his harsh tax laws when they came to see the quality and magnitude of the funds that he splashed out on the Criab Arena, which was now much bigger and grander than in its creator, Criab III, time.
Sallen announced that entry to the arena would be free on the first day. This act of generosity did not go as well as he had expected because other events sparked more riots within the city.
By this time, the citadel knew of the death of Lady Namwi and Cormack the younger. They knew the truth of the foiled kidnap and the source of its conspirators. All of this had been leaked out by Joaquin Ri who had been released, along with Lord Selwin, from house arrest by the king after pressure from the four newly arrived Ri. Even though Lord Joaquin was not a member of the Ri Order, he was still an influential man with his fellow Ri.
Lord Joaquin publicly stepped down from his post as King’s Consul to great sensational acclaim from the despondent local mobs and surprised shock from the newly installed parliament of Brethac members. He busily went about smoothing over the cracks that had appeared between him and the former members of parliament that had been disbanded over a year ago. These powerful lords joined his cause, but the cause needed a figurehead.
That figurehead was to be Baron Telmar. A mad man trapped in a cell.
Added to all of this was Lord Ness’s woe. He had an idea to aid Telmar by getting him to confront his unstable power and train him to use it to augment his Rawn Arts. The other three Ri disagreed. The prospect of a mad, but powerful Rawn Master like Telmar, was disturbing to them and they considered it best to let the curse run its course. They planned to leave him be and let the curse burn itself out. So Telmar was left to rant and flail at the walls of his cell for another two more weeks.
Joaquin Ri supported Ness Ri in his bid to help Telmar but they were shouted down by the other Ri and were voted out of any further discussion. I was to learn, a few months ago now, that Varix, Fowyn and Neston were key members of the Brethac Ziggurat and the king sided with their decision. Things deteriorated when Duke Cormack and the Brethac Parliament of Dulan-Tiss held a short, sham of a trial against the baron and sentenced him to death when the Ancarryn was over.
Ness Ri felt powerless. He was disgusted with his fellow Ri and King Valient of the Roguns had already made it clear that he would remain neutral in these events. Lord Ness then did the one thing that I did not think would be in his nature. He gave up. He took a ship and sailed away from that sorry citadel not to set foot in it again for several years.
King Sallen went about a systematic search for dissidents. His guard force targeted the lords of the old parliament, arrested and executed thee of them using trumped up charges of treason. Klingspur’s soldiers swarmed around the citadel dispensing a heavy mailed gauntlet upon anyone defiant enough to stand against the king. Lord Joaquin and a dozen others managed to flee capture twice. Finally, several of the enigmatic Ri’s political contacts managed to get them out of the city via a coal barge along the old canal system. He, and a small armed force, eventually occupied the Temple Woods and they watched, powerless, as droves of people queued at the city gates eager for the start of the Ancarryn.
Lord Joaquin, dispirited and reduced in power, retained many allies for his cause and was not the only lord with power and influence enough to hold together an armed revolt. Count Talien, another disillusioned member of the Brethac Ziggurat, rallied to the aid of the baron. Not only was he a close friend of Telmar and his family, but his father made him promise to protect the Tressel lords upon his death. Promise aside, Talien was shocked at Telmar’s treatment and the murder charges against him as an heir to the Vallkyte throne. He began forming a large host in an attempt to merge up with Lord Joaquin’s smaller army and together lay siege to the citadel and free the baron. He had also ordered the four lords of the Guarding Grants to assemble an army from their tenants and local levies. Lord Kelpo had a small host of archers at his command and Sandbrea, Withermorne and Edgemuir could rustle up a sizeable cavalry between them.
In light of all this, the intelligence reports from my brother, Kasan, at the Pander Pass, spoke of several rebel uprisings all over the Vallkyte lands. Some were for the king; most were for Joaquin Ri, or more exactly, Telmar. Grandfather sent word to Kasan’s superior at the Pass, Marshal Praxes, urging him to stand his host ready, but cautioning him as to the delicate nature of the matter. The marshal gave command of one-half of the garrison to Kasan. My brother was still a student of the Rawn Arts at this time, though far more advanced than Hagan or I. Praxes obviously saw much potential in the teenager.
Therefore, the Long Month ended. The next year and a half would see the most intense warfare since the time of the Dragor-rix, and at its heart would be the awesome power of the Pyromancer.
3
Telmar was awake, but the dreams did not leave him.
Faces of those he thought loved him, laughed at him instead. His father and mother, Namwi and Selwin all pointing and laughing, all jeering at his pathetic soul, cursing his inability to strike back at his foes. They ridiculed him and spat in his face.
He covered his ears and screamed, but the laughter was still in his head. Then the faces changed to those he detested. Those that had placed him in this cell with the white walls of melted Glemmarstone. He saw father and I, Sallen and Duke Cormack sitting together pouring scorn on him, our faces twisted in disgust and our eyes hollow, but glowing red with evil malice.
He saw Lord Ness turn his back on him and walk away, leaving him to his fate.
They had all deserted him, left him for dead to continue their own exulted existence.
Looking at these images, I wish I had stayed to help him, at the very least, to let him know we had not given up on him. Telmar, however, had given up on us as well as himself. He was destitute, alone and forgotten, this is how he saw himself in his own mind, a sad mad man, paranoid and bitter.
He hated us all, detested our world. He was going to burn it all around us.
Burn it all!
The pressure in his head did not abate each time he howled. Then new images in his head blurred past his mind’s eye. He saw they were moments of joy in his life, but he discarded them, pushing them away into a dark corner of his mind, locking them inside cold darkness along with the secrets he had discovered in the Elder’s Grymwards. When the imaginary mental door closed on those images with an ominous clang, all that remained was the hate he had for his enemies, and they were many.
The Earth Daemon was one of those enemies, lingering in his st
one circle, and his diligent, if blinded, followers, the Brethac Ziggurat, were also a foe to confront. So too was Sallen and Duke Cormack. However, most of all it was the Door. The Door was coming and when it opened it would consume all life on the continent.
The Door was the real threat to his home, and he could not let it succeed.
Then a revelation came to him which caused the thumping in his head to cease. The revelation was a simple concept. If all life ended with the coming of the Door, then how was the Blacksword to exist?
His eyes snapped open and he smiled.
He said only one word in a dry croaky voice, ‘Harlequin!’ He called, and then he waited. To be honest he was not sure if the Powerball had returned to Basilisk’s cradle after the event at Cormack’s vineyard. Harlequin had a habit of appearing and disappearing at will.. Yet Telmar knew he would not be far away.
He waited, five minutes, ten? He did not know. Time had no meaning in this prison. He sat with his back against the cold wall and leered inanely at the door. Eventually there was click, a whirl, then the door slid back into its recess in the wall, and the glowing orb of the Powerball floated above the threshold.
‘You called, master?’ said Harlequin as he drifted towards him. Telmar could hear the sounds of a large crowd cheering now that the door was open. He realised that the Ancarryn, the contest of champions, had begun.
‘It is time, Harlequin,’ said Telmar with a slight smile.
‘I know.’
‘It is the beginning and the end.’
‘I know.’
‘Of course you know, you know the future, don’t you?’
‘Yes, master.’
‘The Door is coming, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’
‘It was created by the Dark Force of the Earth, was it not?’
‘In a sense, yes it was. The Door is just an anthropomorphic projection of an opening, a passageway between worlds, worlds without time or substance.’
‘Nevertheless, it must burn along with everyone else.’
The Powerball remained silent and bobbed in the air before him.
‘Something bothers me,’ said Telmar with a slight air of smugness. ‘If the Door comes soon and destroys all life, then how does young Vanduke come to write my story in the Black Ledger? How does he have a son? And how will the Blacksword exist?’
‘All of these questions rely on one thing.’
‘Which is?’
‘They rely on you, master!’
Telmar stared at the Powerball with drooping eyelids, and then he nodded. ‘Alright then, will you guide me?’
‘Always,’ informed Harlequin.
Telmar stood. ‘First things first then, eradicate the immediate enemy.’ He walked out into the corridor with the Powerball following close behind. Two gaol guards in grey chest armour lay unconscious on the ground. Each had a large bruise on their forehead.
‘Regrettably I had to pacify several of the king’s own constabulary on the way down here,’ said Harlequin in a tone that suggested he was not regretful at all. Telmar stepped over them and proceeded down the corridor but darkness swamped him before he reached the end. He turned and saw that Harlequin was not following. The nimbus of light around the Powerball brightened on the orb’s right side as a stream of glowing particles extended and lit up a cell door like a pointing finger.
‘I believe you will find someone of interest in this holding cell, master,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ Telmar frowned and watched as the play of light softly seeped into the edges of the door and into the huge mortis lock. There was a sharp click then the door squeaked open. Telmar, chuckling at the marvellous wonder of the Powerball, walked inside. Harlequin’s glow illuminated the room, which was large and segregated into four iron-barred cells along its length. The stench of sweat and filth in here was cloying. The prisoners, wearing tattered rags for clothes, shrunk back into the gloom in fear of Harlequin.
Telmar looked from face to face and saw wild-eyed bearded men on the edge of sanity. He realised that he must look the same to them. Then one of them shuffled forward, but had to stop because of the steel collar around his neck, chained like all of the others, to a ring on the far wall.
‘Lord Telmar, is that you?’ he said.
Telmar stepped closer and looked through the man’s tangle of facial hair, but it was the eyes he recognised most of all.
‘Aelfric Cokato of the Hotten Isle Bear Clan,’ he said, and gave the man a broad smile.
‘Yes, my lord it is I. How are you here?’ he asked.
‘I’m here because I’m mad,’ he said giving a simple answer, the comment met with silence as all there stared at him in wonder.
Finally, Cokato said, ‘we know. We hear your screams day and night.’
‘They are to be sword fodder for the king’s entertainment,’ added Harlequin.
‘Not any longer, my friend,’ said Telmar and waved a hand at the iron bars. The metal turned a sickly shade of grey then burst into a million pieces of flaky shards, so did the collars around Aelfric and his comrade’s necks. They all gasped and sighed in relief as they rubbed their throats.
‘How many others of you are there?’ asked Telmar.
Aelfric Cokato shrugged. ‘Most are in the other holding cells,’ he said, ‘though some were taken to the arena this morning and have not come back.’
Telmar hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the glowing orb. ‘Show Harlequin where the rest are. He will release them.’ He turned and walked out of the cell.
Cokato shouted after him, ‘what do you want us to do after that?’
Telmar turned back to him with a broad grin and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
‘I want you to run, Aelfric. I want you to take your people and run, and when you hear the screams, don’t look back.’
4
It was dry and sunny over the Criab Arena, but the rains of the previous day had turned the grounds into muddy mire. Not even straw matting and sawdust could soak up the dampness from the earth. Those observing from the tiered stalls thought that it only added to the difficulty of the fighting and would test the combatant’s skills, if nothing else.
King Sallen, his pregnant mistress, Lady Mabel, his fiancée the Lady Jinni of Tenk (also pregnant), Duke Cormack and his father, Count Beltane, and a host of other royal personages, all sat in the royal box. There was room for other dignitaries and Rogun Royalty, but because of the rioting and the upsurge of hate towards the Vallkyte king, they declined the invitation, which was just as well.
It had been a good turnout on the first day, mainly because of the free entry, but the whole event’s planning and execution went so well on the first day that many came back on the second to watch the continuing slaughter on the muddy ground below them. The heats of day one centred around disputes between tribal warriors from all over the land. These tribesmen, around a hundred in each team, would set upon one another in a bloodthirsty rampage until one side remained. Then, to make things interesting, the king offered a thousand gold sovereigns to the one remaining alive, and the crowd cheered as kinsmen slaughtered one another for the gold.
The highlight had been the slaves. The Hinterland Berserkers were reputed to be the most feared mortal warriors in the northern lands. Guards and Ancarryn stewards took twenty prisoners from the cells and threw them into the arena with ten blunt weapons and three shields. While fifty well-armed and armoured volunteers from various Vallkyte regiments surrounded them on horseback.
All of the observers knew it was an unfair fight. The king declared that if any of the Berserkers escaped the circle of steel they received their freedom.
The result was a massacre. All of the Berserkers died and, to the annoyance of the king, they gave as well as they got. Over two thirds of the Vallkyte force lay dead also. Any Berserker that made a kill with his bare hands would now have a sword and shield and they eventually forced their attackers back and broke the circle. However, none of them would run for the gaps. T
hey were so well trained as a fighting group that they stayed together to defend each other and hack down any soldier that came near. Even when there were only three skinny, exhausted individuals left alive, with rivulets of blood cascading from their wounds, they did not give up.
The last berserker got the loudest cheer of all when he ran into a throng of spears and shields and died from the sixth sword cut after taking down four men in the attempt.
The second day saw the start of the individual combats. A chance for world-renowned warriors of various creeds and colours to win the crowd, win a fortune in riches and, most of all, to win glory. Fourteen well-armed men in mail and the clothing of their individual tribes and countries walked into the arena. They each took their place in a line to face the king as he stood to address the crowd.
‘All those who raise a sword, we envy you, all those who soak it in blood we respect you, and all those who are about to die, we salute you.’
The crowd cheered and clapped, the champions in the arena smashed their weapons off their steel breastplates and roared. With the cacophony of noise reaching fever pitch, few heard the lone gate guard’s screams.
It was as the cheer finally died down that people looked off towards the main gates and heard his screams as he ran onto the grounds, arms flapping as he tried to dowse the flames that covered him from head to foot. He dived into a nearby puddle, but water had no effect on this type of flame and his agonised screams diminished as he died.
The crowd were stunned into silence. The king and those in the royal box all stood to get a better look at the guard who was still aflame; his flesh popping with heat, the puddle bubbled and evaporated.
‘What in the name of the gods is…’ began Cormack. He stopped when he notice a figure walking from the doors of the main entrance, up the stairs and through the wooden barrier that cordoned the grounds. His walk onto the sandy earth of the arena’s duelling field was slow and deliberate. A ripple of gasps and murmurs shuddered thought the crowd as people recognised the raggedly dressed man.
