“Never have I been so happily cursed,” he answered in turn. “For the terrible truth of my heart is that I would rather be damned with you than stand alone in blessedness. If a choice existed, I would go with you tonight whatever the consequences to my soul. But there is no choice here.”
She said nothing, unable to trust her voice, and a single drop of moisture fell from above to strike the dry floor at his feet.
“You have bound me with chains I cannot break,” she said, looking back down at him with grim eyes. “If I have failed to draw you with me to life, then I have no choice but to join you in death.” She shut her eyes for a long moment before saying, “Tomorrow, you will not stand forth alone.”
She rose to her feet among the rafters, rising now as a warrior who has made her choice. “We shall see if even the champions of Regnar can survive when Bloodseeker and Sarinian shine forth together.”
She swung herself lightly around the beam, launching herself up into the rafters from which she had appeared, but she paused to look back down at the Paladin watching her below, and she touched her forehead in a parting salute.
“Sleep you well, GloryMan. Sleep you well and long.”
Darius nodded. “And you, Good Thief. And may our awakenings bring us joy.”
With that, she was gone, vanished into the darkness as if she had never been, and the only proof she had ever been there was the dull ache in Darius’ heart.
You have swayed her in the end, Inglorion, came the cold voice of Sarinian. The silver sword shall strike in the cause of good. Never would I have credited it.
“Monster,” growled Darius in response, his voice quivering with disgust, not able even to look at his companion. “You sought her end when all she wished was life, and now you praise her when she has chosen death. By the mercy of Mirna, I pray that the morrow sees your end as well.”
That is still to be seen, answered the sword impassively.
CHAPTER 25
The Battle of Champions
The Paladin has chosen his doom, the Ohric announced calmly. He enters the preparation tent and makes ready for his death.
It was still some hours before the dawn, the streets of the Drift frigid with a spring mist, but Regnar sat upon a glowing green throne out in the open, scorning the comfort of the surrounding buildings.
“I seethe to take his head myself and listen to the teeth chatter,” said Regnar, his voice like grinding stone. “But I shall have a drinking cup made of his skull with which to toast the fall of the Drift!”
The battle, even the Drift itself, are no more than distractions, cautioned the scepter. We must now prepare to seize the real prize.
Regnar shifted restlessly, violence filling him. He had no taste for intrigue, and the blood-lust was heavy on him.
You must prepare the incantation properly, the Ohric insisted. There can be no error. Time passes, and this opportunity will not come again.
“I shall have a new skin made from the flayed bodies of the captives,” Regnar continued as he looked down at the naked muscles of his arm, his own skin long since rotted away. “I shall wear them as men wear a change of clothes and devour them when I am done with them.”
The incantation, persisted the Ohric. Are all things prepared?
“Yes, by thunder, fire, and death!” cried the Tyrant in annoyance. “I have set six goblin-mages throughout the night to prepare the cauldrons as you have instructed, each charged with the summoning of a different Duke! A strange spell it is that coaxes and draws rather than compels.”
Any attempt at force will be recognized and resisted, the Ohric explained again. But you have instructed the mages to focus only on the single building, as we agreed?
“Yes, blast your arrogance!” Regnar snapped again. Then he frowned, still troubled by the apparent weakness of the spell, “We have spent heavily to acquire the personal items from the victims. You are sure this will be enough? You are sure they will gather?”
Be assured. Their hearts are already drawn to the weldmort like a hungry man to food, so they will never suspect there is magic at work as well, the Ohric answered soothingly. The incantation need only smooth the way.
Regnar’s eyes narrowed in anticipation. “They shall walk like deer into the hunter’s sights. And I will bring back the head of Argus and set it beside that of the Paladin.”
That and five more besides.
“Aye!”
*
The sergeant of the guard was sympathetic but firm.
“I’m sorry, Miss,” he was saying to Shannon’s beseeching eyes, “But them’s the orders. No one through without a current pass. We’s at war, and it’d be my life to let even an innocent person through.”
Shannon and Jhan were at the southern entrance to the Drift known as the Maganhall Gate having ridden their horses nearly to death through the night to get back to the city. They were tired and dirty and desperate, none of which was helping their case with the sergeant, and Shannon had to control the trembling of her body to stop from saying or (far worse) doing something stupid.
“I can call for an officer, if you like,” the Sergeant offered, but they could tell from his tone that they would get no different response even then. “But even if he passes you, the guard at the gate to the Second Tier will hold you as well.”
“But we must get back to the Third Tier!” she pleaded. “Our mission is to the Paladin Darius, and we have vital information for him!”
It was only a modest lie. Her revelation would at the very least be of interest to him.
“Then you can save yourself the effort,” the Sergeant said. “The Paladin goes alone against three of the Northing champions comes the dawn, and the only question is how long he lasts. He’ll be carrion feed long before he can hear a word of yours.”
Shannon’s eyes nearly burst from their sockets at those words, and Jhan grabbed her by the arm and dragged her away, saying a small word of gratitude to the Sergeant.
“Let me go!” she snarled at him. “I must get in! I must…!”
“And we will,” Jhan assured her softly. “But now is the time to use your head. Look back.”
She turned where he indicated and saw a small train of wagons lumbering slowly through the pre-dawn darkness up towards the gate.
The deal was easily struck. The peddler in the last cart nodded readily to let them hide beneath his load of vegetables in exchange for two very tired but beautiful horses.
“War or no war, peoples got to eat,” they heard the peddler say to the guards when it came his turn to pass the gate.
“Where’d you come by them fine horses, Jem?” one of the guards asked, and Shannon and Jhan froze beneath the cabbages, though his tone was more casual than suspicious. It was dark, and the saddles had been removed, but would the guard still recognize their mounts?
“A pair of brood mares for Captain Jalsan’s stallion,” the man answered cheerfully. “I gets paid the same to bring ‘em in or bring ‘em out, Northings or no.”
“You’d think Jalsan’d have other things on his mind than getting foals out of that stallion. But there’s no accounting for some. Pass on, Jem.”
There were several endless minutes of rolling travel before they stopped again, the voices ahead telling them they had reached the gate to the Second Tier, and the exchanges here were much the same as the first gate. Within a few minutes, they were on their way again.
“This is as far as I goes,” the peddler called back softly. “My pass is only good for the bazaar of the Second Tier. You’d be best advised to roll out now before I gets to my booth.”
Immediately, Shannon and Jhan kicked off the vegetables and dropped quietly off the end of the cart, protected by darkness. The cart rolled on, and Shannon wasn’t sure if she heard a muffled “Good luck” from the driver or not. But there was no time for more.
“Now what?” asked Jhan. “We’re inside, but we’ve half the city and a dozen checkpoints still to pass.”
“If we can’t
pass through them,” answered Shannon, “then we’ll have to pass under them. The sewer drains stretch from this level the same as the others. Come on! We’ve no time to waste!”
*
The crowd lining the Third Wall of the Drift was already thick in the pre-dawn, people lining up since before the watch called the middle of the night in order to insure a clear view of the morning’s contest, and there were now no open spaces anywhere, let alone the prime view only a few paces from the Wizard’s Gate. A common man wearing a hooded cloak against the rising mist placed a gentle hand on a large tradesman who was taking up more than his share of the wall.
“Push off!” the man snarled as he knocked the hand away. Clearly, he had defended his position before.
“I have need of a clear view, friend,” the newcomer said.
“So does we all,” the large man answered. “You comes late, you takes what’s left.”
“I fear I was unavoidably delayed,” the man in the hood replied. “Perhaps I can buy your spot.”
“I ain’t sellin’ nothing!” the large man said as he turned fully around to confront this annoyance. “I…”
A scent awaited him as he turned, a scent put forth from the stranger’s hand that made him grimace at first in distaste and then his eyes widen in sudden fear. A gold coin was pressed into his palm, but it could have been wood for all he knew or cared. He made his own path as he pushed through the crowd and left behind a prime view of the battleground.
Malcolm smiled inwardly at the sight. There was no need for magic when he could waif a hint of wyrm-stench before him, a smell that seemed to strike some primal cord in men. Mraxdavar may never know how many tools he has given me.
He then took the open place on the wall and looked out at the panorama before him, focusing first and foremost on the throbbing blob of the Juggernaut barely two hundred paces away. It was smaller to be sure, the mound itself only half the height and perhaps only two-thirds of its original mass, and most people found comfort in that, assuming wrongly that smaller meant weaker. But smaller in this case meant more concentrated, the thing reduced down to its essences, and he knew the second form would be even more powerful that the first.
Malcolm studied the thing carefully with Wizard’s Sight, and he liked what he saw less and less. The black mass visible to all was actually the skin of the original Juggernaut that protected the real entity transforming within, and he knew that any power he launched would be either absorbed or deflected by that cocoon. The creator of this thing had understood that it would be at its most vulnerable during this transformation, and he had set defenses about it that could not be easily pierced.
No, said Malcolm to himself. No, I have no choice but to wait. When it first emerges, that will be the time, the one chance to take it before it can act. May the fates guide my powers then.
Only after he had come to this decision did he allow himself to look over the area that all the rest of the city was crushing against each other to see, a portion of land perhaps 500 paces in diameter that had been blasted clear of all houses, booths, and rubble. The section immediately before the Wizard’s Gate had always been kept clear by the Magistrates to ease congestion at the portal, and it now appeared that some force had widened it even more. From the torchlight on the walls, he could see a perfectly formed ring of stone, a tiny wall perhaps only half a foot high, a barrier perhaps for ants but not for anything larger. The area within the circle was easily three hundred paces in diameter, and it appeared limited by the black hulk of the Juggernaut only an uncomfortable score of paces beyond the edge.
“That Paladin, he be coming out soon,” one commoner from the opposite side of the wall said to another, and Malcolm turned to follow their gaze. He could just see the top of a large white tent that had been erected directly beside the gate, and Malcolm realized this was the preparation tent, the place where the warrior made his final adjustments to his armor, his weapons, and his thoughts.
As a man of letters and magic, Malcolm had always scorned the contest between knights, the blown-up pageantry and the false bravado of men whose only real skill lay in hacking one of their fellow warriors apart. Yet even he felt a quickening of the heart as he looked at the top of the tent and waited for the trumpets that would announce the emergence of the champion.
The final play is upon you, Darius, he said to himself. And damn me if I can see any way for you still to win the game.
*
Darius rose slowly to his feet, his last prayer said, his heart steady, his soul at peace. He had been in contemplation of the long road that was his life, the seldom remembered days of his childhood and his early family, the growing sense of the calling that would form his meaning and his purpose, and then all the mayhem and unexpected twists of fortune that followed that fateful decision. He let out a deep breath, the sound of wisdom on a steady heart. It seemed to him that in the stillness of the night, he had even caught a tiny glimpse of the wondrous, swirling chaos that formed existence, and the pathetic arrogance of man who thought to control that magnificent power. It helped him to fully grasp once and for all the difference between his intent and that of the Church, for where the Priests tried to shelter men from that chaos, he sought to inspire and lead them through it.
“You have come a long way indeed, my friend.”
Darius turned calmly around, and he was not surprised to see the shining presence of his mentor, Bilan-Ra, the Messenger of Mirna. He smiled in honest welcome, simply glad to see an old friend.
“Have you come to join me, Master?” Darius asked lightly. “It seems I have two positions open for a champion this very morn.”
“I fear that is not my purpose,” he answered gently. “Though the day may yet come when we draw swords together.”
Darius’ smile curled a little wistfully and he said, “I fear our opportunities are waning.”
“Your task does not end here, my friend,” Bilan-Ra told him. “I can feel your heart is ready for death, almost welcoming the end, but you must not surrender to it. The days forward grow more perilous, not less.”
Darius’ brow furrowed in sudden concern. “But the weldmort is forged. The issue will be resolved this day in one manner or another.”
“You have never understood what the true issue is,” Bilan-Ra said. “Today, you will learn.”
Darius turned away, and then turned back again, his mind active again, considering the implications. “The Drift…Shannon… Adella….”
“You cannot serve them with your death, only with your life. There is a long road yet before you, Paladin.” He stepped forward and put a gleaming white hand on Darius’ shoulder. “You have done even better than I could have dared hope, Darius. You have passed through every snare and peril set before you, and our chances for victory have grown with your actions.”
“Grown? The enemy has broken the walls of the Drift and stands on the very brink of taking the city. All my efforts have come to naught.”
Then Bilan-Ra smiled, his face alive with warmth and pride, and Darius’ heart leaped in answer. “You have no idea how much good you have already done. The seeds you have planted shall bring forth rich bounty in season after season yet to come.”
The man held out his hand, and the glowing form of Sarinian appeared in it. Holding the hilts with one hand, he slowly passed the other over the blade as if feeling the steel. Then with a quick and graceful gesture, he spun it around to offer Darius the hilts. Darius took it, and he could feel a new power coursing through the sword, an energy that had not been there before.
“I am forbidden to stand with you in this combat,” Bilan-Ra said. “But that doesn’t mean I cannot help to sharpen your sword. This new energy will not last. But your foes shall feel its bite. Stand forth, Darius Inglorion. Stand forth now as the Champion of Men.”
With that Bilan-Ra was gone as quickly as he had come, but Darius’ heart was no longer composed and content. Now it was alive with the old fire, and he felt his destiny about him. He thr
ew off the cloak that had helped to warm him against the morning chill, and standing in his antiquated armor with Sarinian in his hands, he pushed through the flap of the preparation tent and emerged into the pre-dawn. The trumpets blared his arrival, and the Wizard’s Gate began opening at the sound, the massive doors swinging silently wide, a portal to the end of his life.
He stopped as the Gate opened, looking up into the heavens, his eyes going through the darkness and the deadly canopy to a light that shone eternally beyond, a light that was ever in his heart if not in his eyes.
The Master has set you a deadly task this day, said Sarinian. Our greatest challenge looms before us.
“Silence, Sword. Do you not feel the eyes of Mirna upon us?” asked Darius, his voice soft with reverence.
I feel nothing but the hostile gaze of our enemies and the doubt filled eyes of our allies, replied Sarinian. But this much I will say, Inglorion. If the gods value courage, their eyes will indeed be upon you this day.
Darius walked slowly forward to stand at the edge of the stone circle, the only figure to walk through the open Wizard’s Gate.
We stand alone, observed Sarinian. The woman and the Silver Sword have not come.
“Would that you were right,” replied Darius, a touch of grimness in his voice as he added, “But ever have you misjudged her. Adella comes in her own time, not ours.”
*
The tallest tower in the Third Tier of Jalan’s Drift was the Leatherworker’s Guild, a stoutly built structure that rose above the Wizard’s Gate and gave a dominant view of the entire Second Tier all the way to the Second Wall. The leathermen were not so rich as to command a choice position in higher tiers of the city, but they had built a structure that bestowed the proper respect on their guild and their profession in this lesser locale.
It was here that the Lords of the Southlands gathered before the dawn, gathered, though no one had summoned them and no word of meeting had been spoken the previous night. This was simply the best place to watch the coming contest while retaining a safe and discrete distance, and each in turn for what they thought were their own individual reasons had decided to use their rank to gain this vaunted perch: Thrandar in dark green robes, Georg-Mahl in deep scarlet, Mandrik in the browns that best suited his personality, Feldon in a fine suit of silver and white, Clarissa in a dress of subtle shades of coral, and finally the brooding bulk of Argus in his black cloak that hid a full suit of chain mail.
Upon This World of Stone (The Paladin Trilogy Book 2) Page 32
