Death of a Darklord

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Jonathan opened his mouth as if he would argue, but didn’t. “I will go see to the travelers.” With that, he took his horse’s reins and walked back the way Thordin and Konrad had come.

  With a sinking heart Elaine watched him go. Did he hate magic more than he loved her? She watched him disappear through the trees and feared it was so.

  Gersalius pulled a small mirror from his pocket. He sprinkled a pale powder over the glass and spoke a few soft words. The sound raised the hairs on her body, like an army of marching ants. The air was too heavy to breathe, as if a thunderstorm hung in the air. Elaine looked at Konrad, but he was looking at the wizard. No one else seemed to feel anything out of the ordinary. There was an almost audible pop. Then Gersalius put his mirror away and said, “They are just wolves.”

  “Even I need more proof than that,” Tereza said. “You spill some salt over a mirror, mutter some nonsense, and expect us to believe it’s magic?”

  “Look at your friend’s trophies,” the wizard said.

  Thordin looked down at his necklace of ears. He raised it slowly so all could see. Two of the ears were human.

  Gersalius smiled. “It’s a good spell. Not very flashy, but it gets the job done.”

  Tereza could only nod. Elaine could only stare at the two very human ears.

  ONe DeaD maN WaS WeaRINg fULL-PLate aRmOR. Elaine had seen such shining metal only twice before, on the wealthy, or the foolish. Much of what stalked the land was not kept at bay by armor. The wolves had been, though; four of the great beasts lay scattered around the dead man like a child’s broken toys, four dire wolves killed by sword, not by arrows. He had been a great fighter. Now he was so much meat for worms.

  She shook her head, huddling her cloak tight around her. With a little water, she had cleaned off what blood she could, but the blood had frozen in her hair in crimson ice. She needed a hot bath.

  The second dead man was young, about the same age as Blaine and herself. His curly brown hair was cut unfashionably short. His face was handsome even in death, soft as if he had smiled often. Two wolves lay dead at his feet. One had been pierced through by two arrows. The fletching matched the pattern in the arrows in his quiver. Two arrows loosed, with the beast barreling down on top of him. It had died, and the second had come in. Barely time to draw a sword. He and the wolf seemed to have killed each other.

  Only the woman and the wounded … man-creature still lived. They were still in front of the tree where they had been in her vision. The spell that had saved them was still in place. As it had kept the wolves out, it now kept them in.

  Gersalius knelt in the snow in front of the spell. It glowed very faintly, the purplish-pink of wild roses. If he looked directly at it, there was nothing to see, but from the corner of his eye, half-glimpsed, it shimmered. Gersalius ran long fingers along its winking surface. Tiny sparks of violet-pink sizzled in the cold air. The sparks had a more solid color than the shield itself. That’s what the wizard called it, a shield spell. Elaine had never heard of such a thing.

  “I cannot dispel it,” Gersalius said, at last. He stood slowly, as if his knees ached from touching the cold snow. He looked suddenly old. “You must help me, Averil.”

  “How?” the woman asked. Her unnerving eyes, the liquid gold of a gaudy sunset, stared at the wizard.

  Elaine couldn’t meet the woman’s gaze. She had never seen a human with such eyes.

  The rest of her was ordinary enough, if lovely. Her hair was a rich, chestnut brown with a deep copper gleam where the winter sunlight touched it. She was not overly tall, in fact thin, dainty as bird to look at. Her face was delicate, but human enough. Only the eyes gave lie to the rest. Her cloak was black, thick, but not expensive. The dress she wore was a reddish brown with white linen showing at its square neckline and wrists. Her only decoration was a golden chain with a charm on the end of it. It was the tiny carved figure of a stylized human.

  The man still lay on the snow inside the shield. His left arm was gone, torn away in the fight. The arm lay by the shield, encased in its stout brown sleeve. Blood stained the snow from its broken end like a bloomed flower.

  His skin was like the shield in a way. If you looked directly at him, he seemed pale, but here and there from the corners of your eyes, his skin was dusted with gold, like highlights in hair. But his hair seemed beaten gold, so metallic it didn’t look real. His eyes were the same color as his daughter’s.

  Averil, the woman, was his daughter.

  Averil had tied a tourniquet on the stub of his arm. Without it, he would have been as dead as the others. “How can she aid you, magic-user?” the elf asked. Elaine had heard of elves but never seen one. She found it easier to look at him, alien from the top of his head to his toes, than to meet Averil’s eyes. The elven eyes in that human face were more disturbing somehow, as if the eyes had only borrowed the face and did not really belong there.

  “If she would place her hands on the shield and try to dispel from your side, while I do the same out here, perhaps we can break it.”

  “If you saved us, Gersalius, why can’t you dispel it?” Averil asked.

  “I never took credit for this piece of work.”

  “This is not your spell?” Jonathan asked.

  “No.”

  “It is not mine, either,” Averil said.

  “Whose then?” Jonathan asked, his voice thick with suspicion.

  “Elaine’s,” the wizard said. As he said it, he turned and smiled at her.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t do it.” Everyone was looking at her; most didn’t look happy. “I’ve never heard of such a spell. How could I have done it and not known?”

  “What did you do in the vision, just before the wolves leapt?” the wizard asked.

  Elaine looked down at the snow as if it held some clue. “I didn’t want to see them killed. I couldn’t just watch.” She looked up, staring at Gersalius. “I thought, ‘I won’t let it happen.’ I remember reaching out to them as if I could touch her, save her.”

  “And so you did,” he said.

  Elaine shook her head. “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t know how.”

  “Whether you knew how or not, Elaine, you have done it. Now we must dispel it.”

  “Can I do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why were you asking Averil to help you, and not me?”

  “Because I thought it would upset you that you had cast yet another spell without realizing it. If Averil and I had failed …” He shrugged.

  “I know now, so how do I dispel it?” She walked toward him, the furred cloak whispering over the snow. The shield seemed brighter, the color of spring violets. With every step she took toward it, color flowed into it, until it bathed the snow in a soft purple glow.

  “Your magic recognizes you,” Gersalius said.

  Elaine stared at the glowing shield. It recognized her? She tried to be afraid but wasn’t. In fact, she wanted to touch it, to run her fingers along its gleaming surface. It was akin to the desire she’d had to touch the wizard’s hands in the kitchen. Magic called to magic. Her own magic called most strongly.

  “Touch it,” he said softly.

  Elaine reached out to it. Her hands tingled with its nearness. Her skin was stained violet, as unnatural-looking as the elf’s, but she didn’t care. Her hands sunk into the glow with a gush of sparks that flared and blinded her. She took a sharp breath, and as the air went into her lungs the spell went into her skin. She felt its being absorbed, like a tingling lotion. Then it was gone.

  Elaine stood in front of Averil and her father, face-to-face, no shield. She felt clean and fresh, as if she had been bathed in the purest of water. She raised a hesitant hand to her hair and was surprised to find the blood still there. Her body felt clean, but her skin still bore the stains. It seemed wrong somehow, as if the magic alone should have been enough.

  Averil’s golden eyes stared at her. Elaine forced herself not to look away, not to show that it bothered her. That wo
uld have been the height of rudeness. The woman could not help what she looked like.

  “How long have you been studying magic?”

  Elaine thought about that. “Three days.”

  Averil’s eyes widened. “Only three days? You are very accomplished for that short space of time. I still can’t cast a shield spell after four years of study.”

  Elaine glanced at Gersalius. “He’s a good teacher, I guess.”

  The wizard waved the compliment away. “It is not my tutoring but her natural abilities. Elaine had delayed her formal study of magic until recently, but she has been keeping her hand in, here and there.”

  Averil’s stare was too intense, too thoughtful. It wasn’t the alienness of her eyes that made Elaine look away.

  “A person can study for years, but natural talent like that”—she shook her head—“it cannot be bought, or even learned.” She looked envious.

  “You are a good mage, Daughter.”

  She looked down at the elf still sitting on the snow. “But I will never have ease such as she has, such as Mother had.”

  The elf sighed. “Your mother was a great crafter, but what one can accomplish with talent, another can accomplish with sheer hard work. Is that not so, mage?”

  Gersalius nodded. “Very true. You will find very few in Kartakass that have Elaine’s natural flare.”

  “Kartakass?” the elf said. “Is that the name of a nearby town?”

  “I am afraid not,” the wizard said.

  Thordin strode forward. “I thought you all might be new to the land.” He didn’t sound happy about it.

  “What land?” Averil asked. “We crossed no borders.”

  “I’m afraid you did,” Gersalius said.

  With his daughter’s help, the elf stood. “Something has happened, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, my friend,” Thordin said. His face was very sober, even sad. “You are in a new land unlike whatever land you came from.”

  “Since you do not know our land, how can you be sure of that?”

  “I am as sure of that as I am of my own nightmares,” Thordin said.

  “Nightmares?”

  “Welcome to Kartakass,” Thordin said softly.

  tHe eLf, SILVaNUS BRILLIaNtINe, tOOK a DeeP, SHaKINg breath. He held up his remaining hand. “Will this be a long explanation?”

  Thordin exchanged glances with Gersalius. “Yes,” the warrior said, “it will be long.”

  “Then let me see to my friends before night finds us in this accursed place.”

  “You are right on that,” Thordin said.

  “On what?” Silvanus asked.

  “The land is cursed.”

  Silvanus waved that away as if he had no time for it. “My oldest friend lies dead; that is curse enough for now.” He walked toward the armored man.

  Elaine expected the elf to kneel in prayer over the body, to add some last word of comfort to his friend’s dead form. He did kneel, but then he laid his one remaining hand on his friend’s chest. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back. His golden hair streamed down his back in a glimmering exclamation point.

  “What is he doing?” Elaine asked.

  Thordin had a strange expression on his face, a look of both bitterness and wonderment. Gersalius’s look was one of resignation, as if he knew a great disappointment was coming and could not stop it.

  “What is happening?” she asked again.

  Tereza shook her head. “I don’t know.” She was looking from warrior to mage. “You know what he is doing.” It was not a question. “Tell us.”

  It was Averil who said, “Have you never seen a cleric before?”

  “No,” Thordin said, “she never has—not a real one.”

  “What do you mean a ‘real’ one?” she asked. Her voice was uneasy, almost fearful.

  Gersalius gave a deep sigh. “He seeks to raise the dead to life. It will not work.”

  “I have seen my father raise the dead many times,” she said. “Why should this be different?”

  “It is the land, itself,” the wizard said. “It will prevent it.”

  “We cannot permit him to raise a zombie,” Jonathan said. “That is evil magic of the worst kind. He must desist or be imprisoned.”

  “Not a zombie, Jonathan,” Thordin said. “He believes he can bring his dead friend back to life—true life.”

  “He is mad,” Konrad said.

  “No,” Thordin said, “I have seen it done myself, in my home world.”

  “The wizard is trying to do what?” Tereza asked.

  “Raise the dead,” the wizard said, as if it were quite mundane.

  “Can wizards raise the dead?” Elaine asked.

  “Not wizards, holy men,” Gersalius corrected.

  “No one can raise the dead to life,” Tereza said.

  “I have told you that healers could mend wounds by laying on of hands,” Thordin said.

  “Yes, but that is different,” Tereza said.

  “Not so different,” Gersalius said. “I understand the principle behind the spell, if not the actual mechanics.”

  Elaine stared at the kneeling elf. Something was happening. It wasn’t the skin-tingling, overwhelming rush of the magic Gersalius had shown her. This was something softer, fainter. It didn’t dance along her skin, it tugged at something deep inside her. It did not touch the cavern of power that Gersalius demonstrated. This quiet building of power called to something outside Elaine, almost as if the magic did not come from the elf at all, but from something beyond him.

  “We should stop him,” Thordin said. “The cleric that came over with me tried for months. She fell into despair and tried to harm herself.”

  “Some take it better than others,” Gersalius said.

  “But he is doing magic,” Elaine said.

  The wizard turned to her. “What do you mean, child?”

  “Can’t you feel it?”

  He shook his head. “I feel nothing but the cold.”

  She stared at the wizard. Was he teasing her? The look on his face said he was not.

  “Tell me what you are sensing, Elaine.”

  “It is a slow, growing … feeling. The magic doesn’t come from inside but outside.” She frowned. “How can that be? I thought all magic came from inside a person. You said you had to be born with it.”

  “You do, child. Even a healer has to have a natural inclination for his work. But they can summon divine aid. Something we poor magic-users cannot do.”

  “I’ve known mages that consorted with the powers of darkness,” Jonathan said. “They sought power outside themselves.”

  “Wizards are like everyone else, Master Ambrose. There are bad people in every profession. Even among mage-finders.” The last was said with a soft smile.

  Jonathan started to protest when Tereza gasped. They all turned to her, but her staring eyes were all for the elf. The armored body was trembling. The hands flapped helplessly against the snow; unpleasant scrambling motions.

  “This is impossible,” Jonathan said. He spoke for all of them, save one.

  “I told you my father could do it,” Averil said.

  Elaine would have normally turned to see the woman as she spoke, common courtesy, but the body was moving. It had been dead. She had seen the walking dead, but never watched them be raised. She still did not believe in resurrection. That was impossible.

  The armored figure drew a deep shuddering breath that echoed against the bare trees. The “body” gave a sound, almost a shout, and was still. Then a gauntleted hand rose slowly toward the visor. The hand pushed at the helmet. The elf tried to help him take off the helmet, but with only one hand, it was hard to get leverage. The dead man wasn’t much help.

  Averil went forward and slid the helmet off. The face that was revealed was human enough. It had none of the monstrousness of the undead. The man had a sweeping mustache of purest white. Short-cropped hair that looked like it might have curled if it were not so severely cut, sat atop a s
quare face.

  “Silvanus,” the man said, his voice sounded breathy, but otherwise normal. “You brought me back, old friend.”

  The elf’s too-thin face broke into a smile that transformed it. Suddenly, Elaine was not aware of the alienness but only of the love and humor in the face.

  “I could not let this be our last adventure, Fredric.”

  Fredric turned his head slowly to look at Averil. “Where is our young friend?”

  Averil’s face crumbled. “He was killed.”

  “Beyond retrieval?” He struggled to sit, but would have fallen back to the snow if Averil had not caught him. She was stronger than she looked, holding a fully armored man upright.

  “Oh, no, not the boy.” He looked ready to weep.

  “He is not beyond help, Fredric,” the elf said. He got to his feet, carefully, as if it were a hard thing to do. He stumbled and nearly fell. He stood there swaying slightly, then took another step toward the second body.

  Tears slid down Thordin’s cheeks. He was crying without a sound. Gersalius patted the bigger man’s shoulder.

  The elf staggered. Elaine ran forward and steadied him. His good arm was solid and more muscled than it looked. His golden eyes stared at her from inches away. Lines that had not been there before etched his face.

  “Thank you.” He let her help him to the second body. Elaine eased him to the snow. He took a deep shuddering breath.

  “You cannot do it.” Gersalius stood over them in his dark robe. “I may not be a healer, but I know you are sorely wounded. You risk your own health.”

  The elf looked up, still half-leaning against Elaine’s grip on his arm. “I am a healer of Bertog. I have no right to hoard my gifts if they can help others.” He believed utterly in what he said. The strength of his belief was nearly touchable. His truth was a shining, warm thing.

  Thordin touched the wizard’s arm. “He is a cleric, a true healer. Let him be.” The tears had frozen in tracks on his face. Thordin’s smile had a peacefulness to it that Elaine had never seen.

  “He should not have been able to raise even one dead man back to life,” Gersalius said. “He risks more than just his life here, and you know it.”