Lomar closed his eyes and smiled, as if recalling a wonderful dream. ‘Sweet nothing,’ he said, opening them once more. ‘Only through nothing, a complete absence of life, can we be safe from evil. We can never be free of them,’ he added, very factually. ‘No matter what we do, eventually, some other wickedness will rise against us; if not the Ancient Ones, then something else. There are always more demons hiding in the wings, waiting for their opportunity to smite us. It is the nature of life to eventually turn to evil, to give in to the temptations of jealousy and greed. It cannot be avoided. My way, we can put such troubles behind us. A perfect solution. No more wars, no more pain ... only calm, uninterrupted tranquillity.’
‘Madness!’ Daneel declared from the doorway, scowling.
‘Not madness. Perfection. The beautiful Void calls to me. All this life and death is senseless. All I have ever craved is nothingness, and that dream is almost upon us. It was Salu who whispered it to me,’ and he extended his fingers towards the supine man on his bed, ‘long ago when I first discovered him. But in truth, my plans were never so fiendishly clever as you postulate. Until recently, I was simply following Poltamir’s orders.
‘Everything was part of his scheme: to capture your son, to subdue him and somehow reap his powers, to prolong his own existence—a hopelessly foolish idea. The Dark Ones inside you were small—just enough to give you an edge. We often resort to such lengths, and then kill the host when their usefulness has ended—before the demons can grow beyond control. But how was I to know you would survive Rei’s dungeons and call even more of them upon yourself?
‘Still, we assumed Starfall would take care of all that. It was only when I learned of your survival; that, remarkably, you survived Starfall, and I realised there must be some reason for it, for your survival against all odds, for your very existence, at this, the exact same time as I am here to guide your way. It could not be merely chance—so I sought out Salu for his guidance and he gave me the wonderful answer in a single word—the Void! Of course, he muttered on about other things, but the rest of what he said was inconsequential ranting.
‘With my glimmer of hope, I realised you were the key to unravelling all this.’ He gestured with one open palm to everything surrounding him. ‘With a little more goading you would gain the potential to face Marrag Lin and match him pound for pound—and that would result in our much-deserved obliteration. Ah, serenity. I have craved such repose all my life!’
‘That is not serenity,’ Samuel corrected. ‘It is folly. Serenity only exists when something is there to experience it. Why force such lunacy upon others?’
‘Why not?’ Lomar said genuinely. ‘I did not ask for this life. It was forced upon me.’
‘So you condemn our world and countless others because you were raised as a tool by Poltamir? You destroy us all because you were unloved? Is that what this is all about?’
‘Yes,’ Lomar replied with a contented smile.
‘It was in your hands to save us, Lomar! Innumerable lives have been lost. All this could have been averted if only you had come to me for help.’
‘I have never been free to make such choices!’ Lomar responded angrily.
‘Everyone is free, my friend,’ Samuel corrected him.
‘I think something is happening!’ Kali interrupted, for Toby was breathing harder, panting like a fish. His chest heaved up and down, and froth was gathering on his lips. ‘What do we do?’ she asked, trying to hold him still, but the words had barely been uttered when Toby convulsed one more time upon her lap ... and was still.
‘What’s happened?’ Jessicah asked fearfully. ‘Is he dead?’
Kali sat with the boy on her lap, her hands shaking, mortified.
Daneel leant over and put his ear to the boy’s chest. ‘His heart still beats. He breathes.’
‘That was close,’ Lomar noted. ‘His spirit is trying to free itself, like pulling a foot from a tight-fitting shoe. Marrag Lin will be with us presently ... to begin his work. You have failed, Samuel. Whether you like it or not, you will face your son and he will fight you. My dream cannot be spoiled. Of that, I have been sure.’
‘I can easily concede defeat, Lomar,’ Samuel stated. ‘If I destroy myself now, there will be no demons here to challenge him. Nothing you say will happen.’
‘Killing yourself is the one thing you cannot do, Samuel. Even I know that. You need your little friends here to end your life, and I can stop them before they lift a finger—if it came to that. No, I know you will stay and I know you will take up the challenge, Samuel, for I know you better than you know yourself. This is your only opportunity to save your precious child, and who can tell if another will ever arise?’
‘It is still better than the alternative. I can live with that.’
‘But will you, Samuel? I don’t think you can give up so easily. You have striven all these years to save your boy, and here he is right before you, within your reach. I know you have some other strategy in mind. You will try to end it here. You will endeavour to save him. I know it.’
‘So you will continue with your mad plan, Lomar—knowing the implications, knowing the beast that I will become?’
‘I will,’ Lomar replied with a wry smile.
‘Your scheme is quite impressive, yet you have missed something important. You have not asked me the obvious,’ Samuel said, himself smiling contentedly. ‘I have seen your eyes wandering and I know there is one question you have been itching to ask me.’
‘Oh? You claim to know me better than myself? How close we must be to know each other so well. What is it then, the question even I don’t know I want to ask?’ Lomar said, happy to entertain the notion.
Samuel presented it graciously: ‘Why did I bring the body of Salu?’
Lomar looked at the old man lying flat upon the bed. His brow furrowed, and at once they knew that Samuel was right—Lomar had been yearning to know all along.
‘It was obviously not to save him, for his spirit has already departed,’ Lomar stated factually. ‘It is just a living corpse, with barely a handful of heartbeats remaining. I can’t see what use he could be, except ...’ Slowly, realisation dawned upon him. ‘I know! You seek a new choice entirely, one unforeseen. You seek to rid yourself of your demons, to lure them into Salu’s body and be rid of them!’
‘If I were about to die, an alternative vessel might seem very appealing to them, especially another magician’s of such merit,’ Samuel said. ‘Such a thing is not so easy to come by, and I have been proving quite frustrating to my guests. They could leap into Salu and begin their work straight away and not have me to worry about, always frustrating them and keeping them pent up like this. Yes, I think my demons would be very appreciative of another host about now. Then my companions here could easily kill the old man before he awoke and be rid of them—and I can continue on with my initial plan to free my son.
‘So you see, I did not bring my friends to trick them into any subservience, as you so naturally assume. I brought them with me because of their abilities, and their humanity. I could never have done any of this alone: demons or magic or determination or not. Each one of these good people has saved me more times than I care to count, if not physically, then by granting me strength of will. I have learned more from young Leopold since I met him than from any book ever written by any sage or magician that ever lived. So tell me, Lomar, how will you stop me now?’
‘Destroying their vessel would not destroy them,’ Lomar corrected, as if Samuel’s assumption was childish. ‘The Old Ones will go back to their plane and simply seek the next passage back. Besides, they cannot be fooled into thinking you might die so easily. They are demons, remember. Death is their bread and butter.’
‘That’s fine by me,’ Samuel revealed. ‘I am prepared to die. In the meantime, while all this goes on, my son will have returned. My body will be dead of course, but I have crossed the Boundary before—once, in another life. My spirit can linger, untouchable by the likes of you, while I
await the return of my son. With his assistance, we can swap places and the world can go on as it always has. One day, perhaps someone else will see fit to replace me, but I cannot foresee so far and frankly do not care.’
‘Marrag Lin will not give in to your plans! Even without such evil in you, he will attack you. He has forgotten his human past! He lusts after all power!’
‘Perhaps,’ Samuel said knowingly. ‘Perhaps not. Perhaps if you provoke him he may become riled enough to lose his temper, but I will not allow that. I have one thing, Lomar, that you never seem to have developed. I lost it, but have found it again recently—I have faith in humanity and faith in my son. And from that faith, I reforged my compassion, the greatest of all human emotions. I believe Marrag will not be the beast you claim him to be, and I believe he will speak with me candidly and as the young gentleman he once was. I will ask him to step aside, and I will inherit his duties.’
‘Magicians have no place for faith! There is no room for such rot as compassion! I cannot allow it! The world must burn!’ Lomar declared, greatly agitated.
He stood abruptly, and the dwelling vanished from around them, leaving them in the open night air beneath the stars. The chairs and fire and bedding all disappeared, leaving them falling and scrambling to be back on their feet. Only Samuel defied gravity and simply rose to his feet.
The moon was slightly risen, its upper half forming a perfect sphere together with its lower half mirrored beneath it. The illusion made it appear much too low, and being buried in the horizon, it looked absolutely huge. As it continued to rise, it would elongate, stretching and warping until finally tearing itself away from its underlying twin.
‘Don’t do anything foolish!’ Samuel said, but Lomar had already begun.
His magic tore the air and flowing, burning beasts dropped through from other realms, slapping onto the glass, lighting the night with their presence, their blazing embers reflecting upon the black surface under their feet. Other flapping creatures and creeping monstrosities burst into existence, skulking about in the dimness, while Lomar fled into the darkness.
Captain Orrell took a step after him, but Samuel stopped the man before he could draw his sword. ‘Leave him. I will take care of him. You need to fend off these creatures until my son arrives. Everything hinges on that moment. I will protect you as much as I can, but I must be after Lomar. Stand your ground for as long as you can.’
‘But, Samuel. This is what he wants!’ Leopold reminded the magician. ‘He wants you to fight him.’
‘Don’t worry, Leopold. I must keep him busy to prevent him from harming you. And he does not want to kill me, he wants to wear me out protecting you, so I will be overcome by what is inside me. That is our true prize,’ he said, nodding towards Salu on the ground. ‘Keep Salu safe. Everything depends on that. I will be back.’
And he followed after Lomar, disappearing into the night.
****
Ghoulish high-pitched laughter sounded, coming from the mouths of the burning hounds. The beasts loped, circling the party, sniffing, drooling fire. For now, they were content to stalk, circling them, searching for opportunity to come at their backs.
Noises of battle sounded in the distance, the booms of magic and flashes of light. Lomar and Samuel could not be seen, but streaks of coloured lightning arced and spiralled in all directions, in the sky, along the ground, and between the two—ever mirrored upon the glass. Magic sparked from many locations at once, as if the two magicians were in multiple places, battling from all around.
Daneel and Kali arranged Salu and Toby side by side in their middle, and prepared to defend themselves and the helpless bodies from attack.
With a guttural howl one beast charged, and it was Kali who strode out to meet it. It leapt, and she stepped aside—not fast enough. Its claws tore scraps from her clothing as it passed. She sent her fist into its ribs, and with a yelp it fell to the ground, kicking and thrashing with its flames licking about it.
Leopold expected Kali to finish the fallen creature, but she skipped away out of its reach, cradling her fist, burned deeply.
‘Water!’ Leopold called.
‘We have nothing,’ Jessicah reminded him.
It was Captain Orrell who darted forward and shoved his sword into the skull of the creature as it attempted to rise, letting the beast howl and vomit fire. He put his boot to its head to draw out his weapon, yelling with pain as the heat scolded his foot. The weapon popped free, and he shook his smoking boot. At least the beast was dead. It moved no longer and its flames withered. The others lingered out of reach, awaiting their turn to attack.
Jessicah squatted herself beside Salu, keeping her palm on his chest, as if to comfort him.
‘You can’t fight them bare-handed,’ Leopold told Kali as she returned to them, looking at the raw, blackened flesh along her knuckles. ‘Take my knife.’ The short dagger had long stayed in his belt, part of his emperor’s attire.
‘I am not practised with such weapons, Leopold,’ she responded. ‘This is how I fight.’
Rapid feet sounded and something dark galloped by. A snaking tentacle whipped out as it passed, slapping towards the body of Toby. It would have stolen him away if not for Leopold’s quick reactions. He grabbed the boy by the leg and pulled him aside as the shadowy brute hurried by, grunting and panting.
‘Another one!’ Jessicah called, for a second fiery hound was approaching, and it was Daneel and Captain Orrell who stepped forward to meet this one.
It snapped and snarled just out of reach. They waved their swords to keep it at bay, but behind them, another hound snuck in from the rear.
Kali leapt to their defence, spinning, meeting its head with the end of her foot. There was a splash of sparks blown into the night, and Kali landed lightly, her shoe smouldering. The creature dropped abruptly, its fires extinguished.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong,’ Kali said, puffing, back beside Leopold. ‘I ... I feel so heavy. My body will not carry me as I wish.’
A yelp sounded as Daneel cut a slice out of the other beast, and it turned tail and darted back to join the pack, bonfires in the darkness.
‘Perhaps, it is this place?’ Kali pondered, eyeing the glass landscape with concern. ‘I—’
Her next word did not make it from her mouth, for something bound from the darkness, a blot of black fur, and snapped her up in its grip. It fled, loping like an ape, one of its long furred arms wrapped around her throat.
Leopold was after it without thinking. It was not quick, but it was shaking Kali wildly as it ran, as if to dash her to death against the hard ground—her legs slapping up and down as if bereft of joint and bone.
Leopold drew his dagger from his belt and leapt onto its back, stabbing wildly and screaming as he did. The creature glared at him with wide, pained eyes. It hooted loudly, and two more heads looked up from its fur, these two sopping wet with blood, for their teeth had been gnashing away at Kali all the while.
It was not a particularly hardy beast. It untangled its arm from Kali as Leopold stabbed into its blood-matted fur, and it limped away, slipping on the bloodied glass as it went. Leopold was too enraged to think clearly and sprinted after it, stabbing it in the back as it screeched, waving its arms to fend him off.
It fell and he continued knifing it, screaming as he did until the beast was lifeless and his voice tore in his throat. Only Jessicah’s calls brought him back from the brink of madness. Other things were lurking there in the darkness, just out of sight.
He hurried back to Kali—she was alive, but covered in blood and with chunks of flesh bitten out of her—and he picked her up and staggered back to the others, where Captain Orrell and Daneel were still fending off the fire hounds.
The only luck that came to them was the fire hounds running to the body of the ape-thing, and a fight broke out amongst them as they bickered over its remains, snapping at each other, filling the night with yelps and haunting growls.
‘Quickly!’ Leopold said,
setting Kali down beside Salu and Toby. ‘Do something!’
‘Gods, Leopold, she has been torn to pieces!’ Captain Orrell declared. ‘Her legs are broken ... her ribs are crushed in. She’s lost a lot of blood.’
Jessicah wept and had to look away, so savage were the wounds. One side of Kali’s neck was torn away, tubes and vessels hanging out, pouring blood.
‘What can we do?’ Leopold asked, looking to them each in turn.
Captain Orrell regarded the fallen woman gravely. ‘Nothing, Leopold. The damage is grievous. We have nothing to mend her. Even if we did, this is beyond normal medical care.’
‘No,’ Leopold growled defiantly. ‘She will not die. I will not let him be proven right. Not this time.’
Kali’s eyes rolled as she gasped and gurgled, fighting to speak.
‘Samuel may be her only hope,’ Jessicah said, looking to Leopold expectantly. ‘Call him back. Only he can save her.’
Leopold nodded. He stood and called aloud into the darkness. ‘Samuel! Samuel, she’s dying!’ There was no reply. The battle waged on in the distance. ‘Damn you, Samuel, come help her before it’s too late! She’ll only die if you let her! Her fate lies with you, not your demons!’
Still, no answer.
Kali continued to cough and gasp, but her efforts soon languished.
‘Leopold!’ she spluttered, a desperate, longing call. And that was all. Her eyes were open, her warm blood spread all around her. She lay still, looking up.
Leopold dropped beside her, gripping her slick fingers in his, squeezing her, unable to speak so tight was his throat with despair. Tears of molten lead burned from his eyes.
‘She’s dead, Leopold,’ Daneel said calmly, stepping back to give him room.
Jessicah also turned away, sobbing.
Leopold shook his head in denial. He grasped her face and shook it side to side. ‘Kali! Kali!’ he shouted.
The Ancient Ones (The Legacy Trilogy Book 3) Page 54
