The Dark Citadel

by Michael Wallace

  A slat slid open high on the door, perhaps ten feet over Whelan’s head and a man with a shaggy black beard peered his head out. “So it’s the bird lover, is it?”

  Whelan looked up and grinned. “Hoffan!”

  “I thought I recognized that swagger. Come back to take my offer of employment?”

  “If I wanted to be an outlaw, I’d go into business for myself.” Whelan said.

  “So you say,” Hoffan said, still making no move to open the door and keep Whelan from craning his neck. He looked back at Darik, Markal and Sofiana. “You brought Markal the Meddler with you.” He grunted. “I should have known he’d be weaseling around with this nasty business going on up and down my road.” He disappeared.

  The door swung open a moment later and the others dismounted and joined Whelan in leading the horses inside the bailey. Inside, several stone buildings huddled against the walls. Two men practiced sword play next to the well at the center of the green.

  Hoffan was a large man, just shy of fat. He gripped Whelan in a bear hug so tight that the man’s bones creaked, then did the same to Markal. If the wizard was annoyed by Hoffan’s comments, he didn’t show it, but grinned and clapped the man on the shoulder. Hoffan looked at Darik, shrugged and gripped him in another hug. Darik grunted as the big man squeezed the air from his ribs. Hoffan hugged Sofiana last, showing the girl no mercy.

  “Now that you’ve crushed us to a pulp,” Markal said, “We have some important business to discuss.”

  Hoffan sighed. “Don’t you always, wizard? I don’t know whether to run and hide when I see you, or pull on my boots and start stomping. And you’re not alone this time. Your friends dropped in night before last. Nathaliey and—what’s that strange man’s name? You know, the one who talks to my sheep?” Hoffan snapped his fingers. “Narud. That’s it.”

  Markal said, “That’s nothing. You’d seen him yesterday and he’d have chased your sheep. Barking.”

  Hoffan shook his head. “Wizards,” he said in an exaggerated tone of voice.

  He led them to his personal apartments, a spartan set of rooms to the side of the keep. They sat on stone benches while a serving man brought flagons of ale.

  “Ah, something real to drink,” Whelan said. He took a long draught from the offered flagon.

  Darik took a sip. It was too bitter for his taste.

  “I have a few words before you start harassing me with your troubles again,” Hoffan said. He wiped flecks of ale from his beard, a growth so thick that Darik half expected the man’s hand to chase out a nesting sparrow. “Your bird friends are devouring my sheep faster than I can steal them.”

  “Griffins keep dragon wasps from the mountains,” Markal said. “You know that.”

  “So you keep telling me, but I’ve never seen a dragon wasp and I see griffins taking sheep every fortnight. I’d shoot a few well-aimed arrows at the buzzards, but those bird riders would swoop down and that would be the end of me.”

  “We saw dragon wasps three days ago,” Markal said. “You’ll be glad for griffins soon enough.”

  “Can’t you at least tell them to eat someone else’s sheep for a change?” Hoffan grumbled.

  Whelan nodded. “I’ll talk to them.”

  Markal told them of Cragyn’s attack on Balsalom, then said, “Now tell us what you know of the dark wizard’s army.”

  Hoffan told them all he knew. For the last week, small groups of men had flowed continually up the Way to the west. Hoffan had four score men under his command and could have challenged any of the groups, but he hadn’t got rich getting his men killed. He’d hoped to lay low until the fighting passed through and he knew which way to direct his allegiances, but earlier this morning ten armed men rode to the doors and demanded that Hoffan declare himself a vassal of the dark lord.

  “And what did you say?” Darik asked.

  Hoffan shrugged. “My chamber pot needed emptying. It had been several days. I believe those men are presently bathing in Springfell.”

  Darik, Sofiana and Markal laughed, but Whelan looked grim, no doubt imagining Cragyn’s full army marching on Montcrag.

  “I got the idea thanks to Whelan’s bird friends.” He grinned at Darik. “Ever have a bird fly overhead and drop his load on your head? Now what if that bird is a griffin the size of a horse and flying with several friends? It gets ugly.”

  Even Whelan laughed this time. “I’ll definitely talk to Flockheart about that one.”

  “Come,” Hoffan said, rising to his feet. “I’ll show you to your rooms. You won’t be staying long, I’ll wager.” He cast a sidelong glance at Markal. “Unless you have other bad news, Meddler.”

  “I’ll think of something,” Markal said. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

  Before they could move, the door burst open and a young man ran in, shrugging into a breastplate. The laces of his boots hung untied. “They’ve come back,” he said, struggling to gain his breath. He laced up his breastplate, then did the same thing with his boots.

  Outside, men rushed across the green toward towers and walls, pulling on jerkins and armor. On the hillside above, the boy rounded the sheep and herded them back toward the castle. The man turned to go.

  Hoffan grabbed him by the arm so hard that it spun him around. “What do you see and how many?” he demanded.

  “Horsemen,” he said, shrugging loose from Hoffan’s grip and lacing his breast plate. “Hundreds of them. They’re coming this way in a hurry.”

  Hoffan turned to Markal. “Looks like you found some more bad news for me. Well done.”

  Chapter Eight

  Three soldiers escorted Kallia to her garden apartments. They didn’t dare touch the betrothed of the dark wizard, but neither did they allow her to deviate. When she tried to veer toward the slaves’ rooms, one took her gently by the sleeve and kept her moving in the proper direction. Cragyn had apparently furnished them with detailed diagrams of the palace before they ever came to Balsalom. She wondered what they would do if she produced a dagger.

  Shortly after Kallia instructed her pashas to surrender, Cragyn let open the Great Gates and the enemy poured into the city. True to the wizard’s promise, however, his men and beasts did not immediately attack the helpless inhabitants, but disarmed and quartered the Balsalomian army, then moved to the palace. Hundreds of troops didn’t enter the city at all, but continued west along the Tothian Way. The wizard had discovered her watching his troop movements from the tower rooms and ordered her escorted to the garden rooms.

  Guards searched her new rooms before allowing her inside. Much as they’d done with the tower rooms, they removed broaches, knives, ropes, and anything else she might use to hurt herself. One guard stayed inside while the others stationed themselves outside the door. Kallia lay on her pillows and affixed a pouting look on her face. Let her look like a spoiled princess and they might relax their guard.

  Saldibar’s pendant dangled from her neck. The poison inside represented release and defiance both, which would mingle in the form of her death. Dragon’s breath was quick and irreversible, its primary virtue, but it was also painful and messy. It was inhaled, and then the poison tore apart the lungs, leaving victims to suffocate on their own blood.

  Once, when she was a child, a would-be assassin tried to kill her father at the Harvest Festival. When guards cornered the man, he breathed a vial of dragon’s breath. Mother rushed Kallia from the room, but not before Kallia saw the assassin cough up clumps of pink foam. The incident had haunted her memory.

  She had until the marriage tomorrow afternoon to steel herself. Cragyn would busy himself in ceremony, and in the public execution of her brother Omar, and she would retire to her apartments to inhale the dragon’s breath. Or so she thought.

  Cragyn proved impatient.

  As the sun set over the gardens, two men came into her room unannounced. One of them was dressed in bright metal armor, painted black and gold, more ceremonial than functional. The other was a tall man with a long
, thin nose. He wore a purple robe with an amulet of office around his neck. Cragyn’s grand vizier, a military pasha named Mol Khah. She’d never met the man, but his reputation scarcely bettered the dark wizard’s. Kallia sat up on her pillows.

  Mol Khah held a red robe and a jewelry box. He tossed them on her bed table. “Put these on.”

  Kallia balked. She crossed her arms and tried to look petulant, desperately trying to stall. “I will not. I haven’t taken my supper yet.”

  “Don’t waste your time playing games. I will see you dressed, even if I have to strip you naked and dress you myself.” He considered. “A chore that might prove pleasurable.”

  Kallia narrowed her eyes. “Very well. Leave the room. Order your dogs out too.”

  Mol Khah snapped his fingers twice and his armored escort and the other guard left the room, pulling the door shut. The vizier smiled. “My master would be displeased if anything were to happen because I was careless. I think I will stay. Now change. Your betrothed is not a patient man.”

  He furrowed his eyebrows, then stepped toward her, grabbing Saldibar’s pendant still hanging around her neck. He yanked, snapping the chain. Kallia gasped and tried to snatch it back, but Mol Khah pushed her back to the bedding.

  “You have no need of that, anymore. Cragyn will appoint ministers to rule Balsalom. Put on the gown, and remember the customs.”

  Kallia remembered the customs well enough, even if they were more strictly practiced in the east than in the Western Khalifates. A woman was to remain naked beneath the ceremonial gowns so as not to interfere with the pleasuring of her new husband. She did not intend to give Cragyn pleasures of any kind.

  She shook her head. “I will not put on these robes until you leave the room. And if you force me, you will deliver damaged goods. As for what I wear beneath the robe, that shall remain my own choosing.”

  He slapped her across the face with the back of his hand, sending her crashing into the bed table. The ceremonial gown slipped to the floor, the box smashing to the ground and breaking open at its hinges. Necklaces and bracelets spilled onto the robes with glitters of green and sparkling white. Kallia struggled to her feet, trying to get away, but he grabbed her by the neck and lifted her into the air, where she struggled for air, clawing desperately at his hand.

  Mol Khah reached into his robes and pulled out a dagger. He put the blade at her throat, then dragged it down her breast, slicing through her robe and chemise. Still strangling her throat with his other hand, he put away the knife, then threw her to the bed. He tore apart her robes to finish what the knife had started, leaving her naked as a woman raped and robbed and left for dead. Kallia lay on her pillows, gasping.

  “My master does not mind damaged goods.” He sneered. “This whole city is damaged. Soft and weak. But Balsalom will change soon enough. As will you. Dress yourself. When you finish, I will summon a maidservant to fix your hair and face paint.”

  This time, Kallia obeyed.

  #

  Kallia entered the throne room, and all eyes watched. The scarlet robes fit her perfectly, while diamonds and emeralds glittered in her hair, on her wrists and ankles, about her shoulders and along her neck and down her breast. The high collar and emerald necklace covered the bruises around her throat. A white sash around her waist represented her virtue, although she doubted Cragyn would have required such. By tradition, a husband would stain the white satin with the blood of her wedding night, should she prove a virgin, and display it on his door as proof of her purity. In recent memory, however, such pre-marital chastity was rarely expected.

  Cragyn sat on the throne with the Scepter of Balsalom in hand. He wore polished black armor, with a tunic draped over the top embroidered with emblems of fertility and words in the old script. Around him stood his ministers, pashas, and viziers, together with an honor guard of thirty men at the door. She saw a few others in the room that she recognized: ministers and guildmasters from Balsalom who would witness her marriage. Somewhat surprisingly, Saldibar stood in this group, and the man’s face clenched into a terrible mixture of hate and dread. Seeing him here dismayed her; she had hoped he would flee the city before the wizard murdered her old ministers.

  No other women were present, nobody who would represent her mother in the ceremony. Neither did she see the brother figure dressed in peasant robes with the scythe of harvest at his feet. What kind of wedding was this?

  Another strange element were the hundreds of candles lining the walls, each giving off a ghostly blue light. A thick, sweet smell wafted from the candles, filling the air with a suffocating—closeness, was how she would describe it. A feeling that everyone in the room had merged into a single soul, all of them held in the pulsing entity living beneath the wizard’s skin. The ceiling in the throne room crowned the unlit gloom forty feet overhead, but the candle smoke clung to the ground, rather than dissipating in the heights.

  Mol Khah released her arm and stood next to his master. “I have brought your bride.”

  “Ah, yes,” Cragyn said, beckoning with a finger. “Come stand next to me.”

  She obeyed, forcing herself to remain perfectly still in spite of the tremors rising to the surface and the terrible fear in her breast.

  “I have had many other wives, concubines, and harlots,” he said, speaking loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “Beside their beauty, your appearance is a dunghill.”

  A few startled gasps behind her. She bowed her head. “Yes, master.”

  “But all of my other wives are dead, and I have decided you will suit my purpose.”

  “Yes, my master.”

  He balled his fist and opened it. A flash of light burst into the room, drowning the candles, illuminating startled faces, and the clouds of smoke drifting overhead. Two ghostly blue figures appeared by his side. The first, a woman, was dressed much as anyone else at the ceremony, in ceremonial garb, but the second was dressed as a peasant with a scythe by his side.

  The presence of the wights was unexpected. The guests shrank from these apparitions, even Mol Khah, his sneer gone.

  Kallia drew backward, her resolve fleeing. The man was the ghost of the high khalif, Ahmaad Faal, the former high khalif of Veyre. The woman was his wife Tainara Faal, a woman so greatly loved by her people that some forty people in Veyre had thrown themselves into the sea when she was murdered. Her father had been the khalif Josiah Saffa, a cousin of Kallia’s father.

  The eyes of both wights raged with the madness of a spirit who has remained in the land beyond when the Harvester has come to gather the dead.

  Tainara’s spirit seized her by the wrist, a chill grasp that sapped Kallia’s strength until she felt she would collapse to the floor. She forced herself to remain steady, staring into the dark wizard’s eyes. The chill spread to her shoulder. Her eyes swam and she staggered.

  The spirit spoke in a hollow voice that was only a memory of life. “I give you this woman to your care and keeping. May she serve you well.”

  The spirit of the high khalif, her husband, lifted his scythe and swept it at her neck, stopping the blade just as it touched her skin. He nodded his head. “The harvest welcomes her. May her womb be a fertile land for you to plant your seed.” He stepped back and put the scythe at his feet.

  Both of their speeches were much shorter than she’d expected, but enough to satisfy ritual.

  Cragyn stood slowly, letting the scepter drop to his feet. He reached out his hands and untied the white sash about her waist and laid it over his shoulder. “I accept this woman as my wife.”

  Cragyn turned to the wights. “That is all.” He cast another flash of light. For a moment, the wights flickered on the edge of this world and whatever sheol had bound their souls. As they did, they passed through a moment of recognition. Horror spread across their faces, and they opened their mouths to scream. And then the image was gone; the wights faded from sight.

  “I don’t believe in long ceremonies,” the dark wizard said.

  The wi
zard turned to address Mol Khah. “To honor my new bride and her reign, impale a Balsalomian for every day since the khalifa assumed the scepter. Let the road from here to the khalifate of Ter be planted with these stakes. Encircle Balsalom with a ring of additional stakes.” He had said the words much as if he’d pronounced a week of celebratory feasting, or just freed a thousand slaves at his own expense.

  Mol Khah smiled and bowed. “As you wish, master.”

  Kallia’s resolve shattered. “No, please. You promised to spare the city. Kill me if you wish, set me atop Toth’s View next to my brother, but please don’t hurt my people.” She wept.

  Cragyn fixed her with a pitiless gaze. “They are my people now. And they have become too soft. Perhaps if you had ruled with a firmer hand, I would not have to take such measures.” He looked at the others in the room, who stood in shock. “The khalifa and I have pleasures to share. Leave us.”

  The others fled, even Mol Khah. No doubt the wizard’s own men had seen such horrors before, but the others would surely spread the news. Cragyn’s power would grow with the telling. She saw in their eyes that many didn’t expect her to live until morning. Indeed, she’d begun to doubt that she would.

  “Come, my dear.” He took her wrist in a painful grip and dragged her from the room, while she tried to recover her balance.

  The wizard didn’t lead her to the tower or her garden rooms, but to apartments he’d chosen on the edge of the palace. These rooms had once belonged to a lesser minister.

  Cragyn threw her on the bed pillows, then drew open the curtains and she knew that he’d chosen these apartments only to serve the sadistic monster eating him alive from the inside. The rooms stood on the edge of the palace, overlooking the city. She could hear screams in the streets as loved ones were ripped from their homes and impaled on stakes. Brief sounds of battle raged through the streets, and the smell of smoke filled the air.