The Warlord's Domain

by Peter Morwood

  The pallid, deathly light began to fade, taking on the colors that Aldric had seen once in the petals of a rose— crimson and black and purple as a bruise. Issaqua's spiked and jagged bulk melted back into the shadows as night returned to the world beyond death's door. Yet the demon was so much darker than the darkness that Aldric could still see it as a silhouette, a hole ripped in the very structure of things through which all light and hope of rebirth were leaking out. The heavy reek of roses clogged his nostrils and the sound of the Song of Desolation was in his ears—and in his head, repeating like some grim litany, were the words of the prophecy he had read in Seghar; only words then, but a threat now. Or a promise.

  The setting sun grows dim

  And night surrounds me.

  There are no stars.

  The Darkness has devoured them

  With its black mouth.

  Issaqua sings the Song of Desolation

  And I know that I am lost

  And none can help me now.

  Issaqua comes to find me

  To take my life and soul.

  For I am lost

  And none can help me now.

  Issaqua sings the Song of Desolation

  And fills the world with darkness.

  Bringing fear and madness

  Despair and death to all. . .

  From out of the darkness, in a blur of fangs and claws that were as black as a wolfs throat, Issaqua came for him.

  Kyrin lay on her back with a boot across her throat and the point of a sword in her mouth. Fresh blood, her own blood, was trickling from the cuts the guardsman's sword had made in her lips, but its point was still poised on her teeth and no further. AH it needed was a little pressure and the blade would come crunching down, but that pressure was withheld. She still lived.

  A hot wind burned one side of her face, and its source became a glow of light that she could see even through her closed eyelids. Someone swore, and all of a sudden the blade was gone from her teeth. Kyrin's eyes snapped open. The soldiers still surrounded her, but she was no longer the center of their attention. She took the only opportunity that she was likely to get and rolled frantically sideways toward her own discarded estoc as fast as her wounds allowed. Aldric had always said that there were good and bad ways to die, and what had threatened her was one of the worst. He had not lived long enough to make her Alban by marriage, but rather than be butchered on the floor she could at least be Alban enough to die in their way—quick and clean on her own sword's point.

  The rings and bars of the estoc's hilt rattled as she grabbed at it, reversed it—and then blade and hilt together clashed against the broken flagstones as a foot clad in a long black boot kicked the weapon from her hand and stamped it tight against the floor.

  "No need for that," said Gemmel Errekren. "No need at all." He lifted his boot from the sword and reached down to help Kyrin to her feet, driving the Dragonwand into the stone floor for her to lean on but never once taking his eyes away from the guards. None of them had moved: the manner of his arrival amid fire and lightning had seen to that, and his appearance now was enough to confirm their caution. Kyrin glanced sidelong at him and herself felt the beginnings of that very special skin-crawling unease which comes when the familiar turns strange. She had barely grown accustomed to him as a sorcerer, even one who refused to dress the part; she had no terms of reference at all for whatever he was now.

  What Gemmel wore now was without doubt a uniform, and one which by its cut and color was intended to be ominous, but more ominous by far was the weapon he had cross-drawn from a flapped holster and now held in his right hand. Her first glance made her think it was a telek, but her second and all other glances told her that it was nothing of the sort. It was more massive than the Alban spring-guns, and tiny lights glowed red and blue and green like jewels against the steely sheen of its metal. Gemmel's thumb shifted something, two of the red lights turned blue and the sidearm began to sing a faint, high, two-toned song to itself, a thin humming that was to Kyrin's ear as sinister a sound as any demon-born Song of Desolation. "Is that magic?" she ventured.

  Gemmel glanced at the thing in his hand as if he had never seen it before. "No," he said. Then he looked from beneath his brows at the guards and smiled crookedly. "But whatever happens, they won't know the difference."

  There was a shimmering exhalation of waste heat from the black fins running the length of its heavy barrel, but other than that haze-dance there was no suggestion of movement. Gemmel was holding the weapon as if shooting in formal competition at a target, shoulder and arm and hand all one straight line, but the barrel remained as unwavering as if clamped to a bench as it swept across the five guards who were still a threat.

  The soldiers looked at one another, then at the elderly man and the injured girl who was as good as dead already, and without saying a word began to fan out. Gemmel watched them in silence, but there was a glitter of cold amusement in his eyes as he saw his firing arc grow slowly wider. "Teyy'aj hah!" the enchanter said at last. It was a simple, blunt command to stop, but a half-hidden something in the back of his voice made the Drusalan imperatives more brutal than even they normally sounded. "Kagh telej-hu taü'ura!"

  The guards only grinned and began to move faster. One of them raised his sword and poised it behind his head for a downward stroke. "I suggest you don't," said Gemmel. His voice was bleak, and Kyrin felt the hackles rise on her neck at the sound of it.

  "Listen to him, you fools!" she snapped desperately. Even though she knew that she was the last person the soldiers would heed, the warning was something she had to give. The attempt to save lives had to be made.

  Gemmel's hand came down lightly on her shoulder. "Save your breath, lady," he said, "and your concern. This is their choice."

  "Their choice," echoed Kyrin softly, and shivered.

  That was when the guardsman farthest to the left made his move. The man might have been nettled by the sound of two victims expressing a sort of pity for their slayers, or he might just have reached that one point of the floor from which his attack could best be launched. For whatever reason, he raised his sword and charged with a guttural war-shout—that became a scream in the instant he realized that he would never reach the old man fast enough.

  Gemmel's arm came around with all the smooth speed of a battleram's turret mounting, and the weapon at the end of that long arm matched the soldier's scream with a screech of its own. Focused energy blasted across the intervening space in a sweep of heat and light that ripped into the man's chest and flung him backward in smoking pieces.

  The sidearm had begun to fire an instant before it came on target, and Gemmel had held its trigger-grip closed right through the weapon's traverse. By the time he released it, a long horizontal stripe of the wall was glowing white and the rough-hewn granite all along that line of heat had slumped out of shape like wax in a furnace. The air was darkened briefly by a billow of greasy gray smoke that smelled horribly of burned pork, and when it cleared Gemmel had the undivided attention of everyone in the room.

  He stared at the surviving guards and tracked the shrouded muzzle slowly across them just to make sure that they understood. The men went white and the sound of four shortswords being dropped to the flagstones might have been confirmation enough, but it was only when they picked up their wounded companions and scurried from the room that Gemmel let his hand and its lethal burden drop back to his side. Slowly he returned the sidearm to its holster and secured the flap. His face was without expression, as blank as a sheet of paper, but Kyrin had seen it in the first instant that Gemmel had let himself look full at Aldric's body, and at the black tsepan hilt jutting from it, and she knew…

  "So you killed yourself." Gemmel dropped heavily on to one knee and put out one hand to touch the cold face. "No one else could." The hand was shaking. "Why, my son? Oh, why…"

  "For Voord," said Kyrin miserably. "He did it to let Voord die."

  Gemmel's head jerked up and the glisten of unshed tears i
n his green eyes hardened to the brilliance of flawless faceted emeralds. He drew a quick, deep breath and came to his feet in a single movement, no longer a grieving old man but a sorcerer fired with hope. Kyrin felt a surge of new strength in the hands which came out to grasp her upper arms. He managed not to shake her in his eagerness, but all the energy of that shaking was contained in a single softly spoken word. "Explain…"

  There was nothing left of Aldric's world but the promise of pain in a glitter of talons and teeth. Without thought and without hope, his instincts took over and his empty right hand lashed out at the heart of the hungry blackness in an attempt to block. Without a sword in that hand the gesture was useless, but long years of practice had made some kind of defensive counter as much a reflex as pulling back from a fire.

  And then the hand was empty no longer. A light that was the hot transparent blue of an alcohol flame ran down his arm from where the cut was born, up in the heavy muscles of shoulder and back, almost as if the power that would have propelled a sword had become visible. It flared out from his fist and formed a blade— no more than the shadow of a blade, as all things here were shadows—but when one unreality slashed across another in a sweeping stroke that left an arc of fire in its wake, Issaqua the Devourer reeled back screeching.

  Aldric glanced quickly over-shoulder, making sure that he still stood between Voord and the demon. The once-Warlord was on his feet, watching wide-eyed as the Alban who had been his enemy defended him from the demon which had been his ally. From the expressions fighting for precedence on his face, the Vlechan's confusion was absolute.

  None of Voord's old certainties made sense anymore. That any man should willingly have died for his sake was hard enough to comprehend; that it should be this man, and that the gift should go on beyond pity and into forgiveness, was almost more than he could bear.

  Aldric knew; he had been there, seconds and a lifetime ago, when he had knelt and drawn his tsepan, and realized not only what he was finally about to do but why. It had been the last of all the reasons he had ever considered and yet, strangely, the most honorable of them all.

  He shook his head, then stared at his own poised right hand; the arm, his whole body, were naked no longer, but instead were encased in a familiar metal skin, an moyya-tsalaer, his own Great Harness. It was as it had always been, jet-black, so that as he moved his limbs they glittered darkly. Like Ythek Shri. Too much so for comfort. For all that the armor looked to have been wrought of smoke instead of steel, he had no doubt that it would be just as effective as the sword.

  That, too, was still gripped firmly by his mailed fingers, and its shape was without doubt that of a taiken. It was as if Isileth Widowmaker, being broken, had come with him into death and had waited only to be summoned to his time of greatest need. The long-sword or—by its color—the Echainon spellstone set into its pommel. Both, maybe. Singly and together they had preserved his life often enough, had been almost as much a part of him in the past year as his own heart and hands. Why not then preserve his soul from harm… ?

  Aldric watched Issaqua coldly from beneath the shadowy peak of a shadowy helmet. What was, was. Thinking grimly that it would have amused Gemmel to see him dismiss the mystery, Aldric questioned no longer, did not pause to wonder any further about the why? or when? or how? but instead closed the distance in three swift steps and cut again.

  "Hail"

  Teeth glistened amid a webbing of saliva as the demon's maw gaped wide—then went on gaping, wider and wider as both of its lower jaws fell away. Issaqua bellowed, vomiting up a thick silvery blood like molten metal as it scrabbled at the ruined mask of its face, trying to restore the smashed pieces to their proper configura-tion. In some dispassionate part of Aldric's mind it seemed strange that the Devourer could so easily repair its careful dismemberment of Voord so that it could pull him apart again, and yet could not heal itself.

  A strange hope began to take shape, that instead of fighting this long fight down through eternity he might actually finish it—finish with Issaqua once and for all and finally be at peace. Kill it, if killing was possible here beyond the door of death. Maybe it was. Maybe this was the only place where the unkillable could truly die. Slain by the already-slain.

  Aldric laughed harshly through the wild whirl of his own thoughts. His sword had twice cloven the demon's substance, yet when the great hooks of its talons came raking toward him they were blocked by something more than just the smoky carapace that was the memory of armor. That merely gave an outward form to his true protection. He was already dead—and unlike Voord he could not be harmed or torn or tormented, because even now in his willing defense of a helpless victim he had done nothing to deserve retribution.

  It was Issaqua's attempt to rend him which had broken the Law and upset the Balance, and he held the bladed consequence burning blue in his right hand. Aldric hefted the un-weight of the shadow sword and watched the Devourer rear up to its full height, more than twice his own. The coldness of its hatred burned him and despite his confidence all the old fears came whimpering back. If he had misjudged, if he was wrong about this, if auythyu an-shri laid hold of him—then eternity would be a long, long time to scream.

  There was a flickering of half-seen movement. Too fast. Far too fast. Aldric snapped around and the sword came up, but long before he even saw what it was something had seized his left arm in a grip like white-hot metal. And behind him, with the sound of despair that comes only when hope is offered and then snatched away, Voord began to shriek…

  Gemmel was working with a feverish speed that Kyrin had never seen before. He had taken Ykraith the Dragonwand out of her hands and spoken to it under his breath in that quick, slipshod monotone which always made her think of priests babbling over-familiar litanies, then thrust its spike into the stone floor beside Aldric's body. As Kyrin watched, he repeated the procedure with Widowmaker's hilt-shard, driving the broken blade into the marble flags with an ease that gave the lie to its impossibility.

  "Why can't you let him be?" she said wearily. "This is a waste of time."

  Gemmel straightened up with a jerk and stared at her, and for just an instant Kyrin discovered what it felt like to receive a flicker of real rage from those deep-set emerald eyes. She flinched as if he was about to strike her, then the old enchanter forced a smile on to his face and the moment was gone. "Then it's my time to waste, lady. Isn't it?" He stepped back from the corpse and beckoned her closer. "Come here. Now."

  She stood at the crown of Aldric's head, looking down at him. Gemmel had withdrawn the tsepan and returned it to its scabbard, and had rearranged his dead son's limbs and clothing so that the ugly wound was hidden. Had it not been for the ivory pallor of his skin, Kyrin might still have believed that Aldric was only sleeping and might be wakened by the touch of her hand. Gemmel watched her for a moment; then he said. "Call him."

  Kyrin was not in the habit of swearing, especially at people so menacing as Gemmel Errekren, but she swore now—bitterly and with the tears newly stinging at her eyes. For all that she called him filthy things which would have drawn a reaction even from Aldric himself, the enchanter took her oaths without a flicker of response. "Call him."

  "He's not asleep," wailed Kyrin softly, "he's dead!"

  "I know." The flat response silenced her as nothing else could have done. "But you told me the reason and the manner of it. There is a Balance in these matters, Kyrin, and for these few moments it's still weighted on his side. So do as I bid you and call him!"

  "I… Yes." Kyrin stared at the pale, still body and tried to forget that she had seen a knife go into it and all the blood and life go out. She put from her mind all but the times when he had dozed off fully clothed, all the times when he had looked as he did now, all the times when a word or a touch was all she needed to make his eyes open and his mouth smile. "Aldric. Oh my loved, can you not hear me? Aldric, dear one, come back to me…" Gemmel was beside her, watching, and she turned to him in despair and hope of sympathy. "It isn't workin
g. Nothing's happening. It isn't working…"

  "Hush, now. You wouldn't have brought him back from the corridor outside, and he's farther away than that. Call him again and keep calling him until… until I tell you to stop."

  "And then…"

  "And then watch, and learn, and become wise. Abath arhan, Ykraith, hlath Echainon devhawr ecchud. Alh'noen ecchaur i aiyya.'"

  Kyrin felt the air turn thick, like honey. Power thrummed in it so that little sparks ran crackling down her hair and sleeted from the tips of her fingers. The spellstaff and the broken taiken became the uprights of a doorway, one that had no lintel and no door save only a slow rippling like the near-invisible haze that rises from a heated surface. It was quite transparent, yet things seen through it were not quite the same as things seen around the sides. They were… changed. A whirl of snow from the darkening sky outside gusted through the shattered wall and roof, and Kyrin saw the doorway fill with stars. Then there was only a scattering of snowflakes that settled on to Aldric's face and had not heat enough to melt.

  "Take his hand," said Gemmel. There was the sound of effort in his voice, and it took on an edge of urgency as Kyrin bent toward the cold hands crossed on the cold breast. "No! Through the door. Reach out and bring him home."

  Kyrin did not hesitate, but extended her hands toward the shimmer and into it, and through it. The hand vanished from sight as if she had thrust it into ink instead of a surface that seemed as clear as glass. The junction of wrist and doorway was as straight-edged as the stroke of a razor, and there was a freezing instant of horror as she realized this was what an amputation would look like. Then something solid and metal-cold brushed against her fingertips, something laced and buckled. She closed her grip on what could only be the wrist-plates of an Alban lamellar battle armor. There was a sudden wrench of resistance and Kyrin cried out, pulling with a desperate strength that had no thought for what else might be brought as well…