Manon spread his hands wide in a gesture of regret. “Your ‘fathers’, as you call them, would not listen to reason. I am your god, Aram, and you are my son. Why would I harm one of my own children?”
Aram thought of the murdered thousands lying dead upon the dark plains before Morkendril. He took another small step. “What about those that lie outside your door, my lord – were they not also your children? Yet you slew them.”
The smooth features of Manon’s gray face attempted to form an expression of sadness. “There is always sacrifice in the building of a new and better world.” Then the god abandoned the poorly executed expression of sorrow for a look of concern. “I regret death and the sacrifice of any living thing, especially those of my own making,” he replied. “Even when sacrifice is expedient.”
His thin eyebrows raised in mild rebuke. “But, Aram – are you not aware that they died for you?”
At this, Aram stared back at him in genuine surprise, even as he eased closer. “For me?”
“Of course,” Manon stated. “You are of more value than the full extent of my children – and the whole of that army you brought against the very walls of my home.” He leaned toward Aram slightly. “Did you not know this?”
The god was now but a few yards away.
Manon’s sapphire gaze dropped momentarily toward Aram’s boots and his careful forward progress.
Aram halted.
As he raised his attention once more, Manon let go a quiet laugh. “Would you like to know the truth of things?” He asked softly. “Would you care to know the reason why my brethren gave you that Sword?”
“I know the reason the Sword came to me,” Aram replied. He looked down at the floor for a moment, returned his gaze to the god’s face, and slid one foot a bit closer. “They wanted me to destroy you.”
Manon smiled even as he shook his head. “Not so. I was never the object of their thoughts on this matter, whatever you were told. It was you who made me part of this equation.”
The god leaned forward once more, seeming to study the darkness behind Aram and to either side, as Aram moved his trailing foot up next to the other. Manon was now less than fifteen feet from him. Still, he kept the Sword down, by his side, letting the distant sun’s pull render its position non-threatening.
“They were testing you, Aram,” Manon said then. As he spoke he continued to study Aram closely. His eyes moved slightly from left to right, as if he sought the darkness that surrounded Aram for something that was as yet invisible to him.
Aram frowned and brought his careful forward movement to a halt. “Testing me?”
Manon straightened up and adopted a conciliatory posture though his eyes still searched back and forth, back and forth. They never appeared to look directly at Aram but seemed always to be seeking something that lay past him or perhaps to either side.
The god deliberately reached around and clasped his hands behind his back. “They – and I – we all wanted to know if you could come to a full understanding of the true nature of things before you were given even more authority over the peoples of this world.”
Aram had no reply to this arcane statement, so he remained silent. After a moment, Manon shook his head and bent toward Aram once more with his searching gaze examining the darkness and went on. “I do not desire that which is known as the Sword of Humber, Aram. Once you give it into my hand, it will be returned to whence it came and destroyed. You will be made a king, and I will be your councilor should you desire it. This is the way that the world was ever meant to be governed, and is the true consideration of the Brethren.”
He held out his hand even as his dark eyes, lit with roiling blue flame, seemed to pierce the space surrounding Aram, searching, searching. “Will you give it now?”
Aram slowly closed to within ten or twelve feet of the god, wondering at the odd turn the conversation had taken. Did Manon really think he could persuade the man before him that all the death and destruction across all the years and all the miles had been nothing more than a test of his worthiness as a monarch?
Aram dismissed that thought. No, something else was at work, something just beyond his grasp. Something that was lost in the sapphire luminescence of the god’s searching gaze. At best, Manon was attempting to distract him from the moment. Why? – Aram could not guess.
Nor did he care to plumb the mystery.
He did not care about the nature of the grim lord’s game; he had come to slay him, meant to slay him, and he was nearly within reach of the god with the weapon that would accomplish the deed.
One more step, Aram thought, and he could make his final move.
He slid one boot forward.
At that moment, Manon straightened up, and smiled a thin, cold smile. The god’s obsidian gaze hardened, and his conciliatory demeanor abruptly dissipated.
“I see that you are alone,” the grim lord said. “The creatures have abandoned you, have they not?”
He thrust forth one hand, palm outward.
Unseen power smashed into Aram, crushing him to his knees, and continued to force him downward, driving him nearly prone upon the floor. Aram quickly closed both gauntleted hands around the hilt of the Sword and raised it up, straining to keep it aimed at the god.
“And now I will take what is rightfully mine,” Manon said harshly, and he held forth his other hand, with his palm open and the fingers outstretched toward the blade.
Instantly, the Sword leapt toward the outstretched hand of the god. Aram desperately tightened his grip on the hilt even as it tried to slip his grasp.
“You are so like your foolish forebears, Aram,” Manon stated contemptuously. “Forgetting your place in the vain attempt to rise above your station.”
Aram could make no reply. The muscles in his arms and his hands strained to retain possession of the blade, even as the awful weight of the god’s power – as of a massive mountain – bore down upon him.
“Release the object,” Manon commanded. “Do it now and I may let you live. I have little desire to squash a worm such as yourself. You must know that the weapon was never meant for the hand of a man as lowly as you. It is mine.”
Aram clung desperately onto the hilt and concentrated on maintaining control. The blade was aimed directly at the god. If only he could rise and make one final lunge, there was little doubt that his last effort, combined with the pull that was being exerted upon the Sword by Manon himself, would catch the god by surprise, and it would pierce him.
But if he were to make such an attempt, he had to get off the floor, onto his knees, and then off his knees and onto his feet.
His muscles twanged against his bones and burned as if his flesh had been set aflame. His lungs ached from the strain of drawing breath after shuddering, painful breath, and his heart fluttered between every hesitant beat.
The pressure seemed to grow by the moment.
Manon’s pull upon the weapon was unrelenting.
The unearthly blade began to glow and sing softly, as if with eagerness to go to the hand of the god.
He closed his eyes tightly and thought of Ka’en, and Mae, of Durlrang, Florm and Ashal, Donnick, Wamlak, Kitchell, Braska, and Timmon’s mount, Bonhie. He focused his thoughts upon the forms and faces of his friends that yet lived, and on all those that had died.
And in that moment, he determined that he would not fail.
With a mighty straining heave, he forced his body upright, onto his knees, even as his flesh, bones, and sinew stretched and cracked. Using Manon’s hold upon the Sword as a lever, he rose, slowly, inch by inch, with his muscles twanging and popping, and his sinew pulling loose from bone.
It was as if he strained to rise under the awful weight of the full mass of a vast and mighty mountain.
Still, he rose up.
Inch by hideously painful inch.
As he forced his damaged bone and shredded muscle to push his body erect, he kept his eyes closed in concentration against the terrible pain, so he did not see Manon�
�s thin eyebrows curve upward in astonishment, and those night-shade eyes widen ever so slightly.
But then those eyes narrowed again and in their depths sapphire flame leaped and churned as the god unleashed the full measure of his power and sent it crashing into the man.
Aram went down, prone upon the floor.
And now the Sword was a lifeline, the only thing keeping him connected to the moment.
“You think to challenge me?” Manon whispered with fierce dismissal. “I will crush you to dust.”
And in that terrible instant, Aram knew that he had failed.
His bones were mush, his musculature tattered. But even had he retained the fullness of his former strength, there was no opposing a power like that which held him now in utter, pitiless thrall.
With every shredded ounce of strength and courage that remained to him, he desperately gripped the hilt of the Sword of Heaven, and knew that it was futile.
He was beaten.
It had all been for nothing.
Then the Sword began to slip his grip, bit by bit, as the last of his strength ebbed away.
He had borne it all the way across the years and the miles, with the hopes of the free peoples of the world on his shoulders, only to fail utterly.
It had come from the heart of the star that burned in the vast firmament above the mountain of Kelven just to end up in the hand of his enemy.
As he thought of Kelven, his mind abruptly lurched and found a moment of clarity.
Understanding, denied him for all this time, finally came.
Kelven.
Ferros.
What was it they had told him?
In the words of those gods, the Astra had said.
And then, with piercing clearness, Aram knew that he was the most offensive and most dimwitted of fools.
How could he have ever thought that the Sword was meant for him, that he was man enough even to touch this blade, let alone wield it with any authority?
Or use it to slay a god.
He could not.
His intent had been an idiot’s errand, impossible to execute.
He had been hopelessly blind and stupid, a hapless, witless worm – or worse, when compared to the awesome presence before whom he lay prostrate.
There was but one recourse left to him.
“Forgive me, my lord,” he gasped out. “I beg of you.”
The pressure eased ever so slightly though the pull upon the Sword lessened not at all.
“Say it again,” Manon commanded.
Aram drew in a raspy, shuddering breath. “I beg my lord’s forgiveness,” he managed to croak out, in barely audible tones.
The pressure eased further.
“So at last – here at the utmost extremity – you have gained understanding?” The god suggested.
“I am … and have been … a fool,” Aram admitted.
The pressure upon him lessened substantially, though not the pull upon the weapon.
“Give it,” Manon demanded.
There was nothing else to be done. “As you will, my lord,” Aram replied hoarsely. Opening his hands, he released his hold upon the Sword of Heaven.
Then he looked up as all the pressure upon him left with the release of the Sword. He watched, transfixed, as the shining blade performed a delicate flip as it arced through the air, turning end-for-end so that the hilt came to rest in Manon’s hand.
Relieved of the terrible force that the god had exerted upon him, Aram rose painfully and haltingly up onto his knees and gazed upward, open-mouthed and gasping for air, at the god.
Manon’s attention was centered full upon the prize. Slowly, with his blue eyes glowing brightly now, he lifted it in exultation.
Slowly up, and then up, the gleaming blade seemed to have captured the god’s full attention. Aram was forgotten in the triumph of the moment.
The tip of the blade continued to rise, angling ever so slowly up toward the unseen heights of the tower as the grim lord lifted it in admiration.
The blade rose further.
And further yet.
A slight frown spoiled the smoothness of Manon’s brow.
As the blade rose higher, the wide sleeves of the god’s silvery robe slid down his uplifting arms, exposing knotted gray muscle.
Manon’s mouth tightened and he glanced over toward Aram, hatred darkening the blue flame in his eyes.
But his attention was jerked immediately back to the Sword.
The grim lord’s mouth sagged open; he seemed to gasp or perhaps to scream though no sound issued forth as he struggled with the Sword.
Abruptly, Aram understood.
The Sword was rising on its own.
It was pulling the arms of the god upward.
At first, it was apparent that Manon was attempting to bring the weapon under control; then, as bright golden flame erupted and began twirling along its length, it became obvious that he had turned instead to trying with all his might to wrest his hands loose from it.
But it was to no avail.
The Sword of Heaven had him.
The golden flame began twirling faster and faster along the length of the weapon, and then it expanded down over his hands and along his arms. It slowly engulfed the god from the tips of his fingers and spread all the way down to his feet. Once it reached the floor, the fire suddenly lost its golden glow and flamed green.
Manon’s mouth flew completely open, and his head tipped back. He appeared to be howling in absolute torment but Aram heard nothing. This platform, high in the darkness of Manon’s tower, remained eerily silent. Even the Sword’s quiet song had ceased. The only sound that reached Aram’s ears came from inside him, from the distressed pounding of his own battered heart.
Manon could now barely be seen inside the whirling column of bright green flame. Faster and faster it whirled. And then tiny bright lights, lightning-white sparks, began to fly from his body. Visible for only the tiniest moment, these sparks flew outward and then vanished upward, in one moment ascending out of view toward the heights of the tower.
At first hundreds, and then many thousands of these sparks appeared and shot upward to disappear into the darkness above.
Manon’s head was cocked back at an impossible angle, his mouth open to emit soundless screams of anguish. The green flame engendered a sudden bulge of emerald fire that shot up into the heights of the structure, trailing behind it a thin ribbon of flame that connected it to Manon. Aram leaned his head back in awe to watch it as it struck like green lightning against the very top of the tower.
The top of the tower, far overhead, was blasted away with the force of that lightning strike. As the fire shot up and into the firmament, the smoky clouds of dust and ash were blown away.
Way up there, the night sky appeared.
The Glittering Sword of God became visible, almost directly overhead.
It seemed to Aram that the thin stream of green flame turned a bit as it shot out into the depths of the black sky, angling toward the black hole in the hilt of that constellation of red and blue stars.
Aram put his hands upon the polished surface and struggled to get his enfeebled legs beneath him so that he might stand upright. With great and pain-filled effort, he managed to lift himself up and to stand, weak, trembling, and shaking, trying to marshal his strength and regain his breath. As he stood, he dropped his gaze to Manon once more.
It was obvious that the end of the grim lord was near.
There were no more of the white sparks, and the rapidly twirling green flame nearly obscured the form of the god.
Manon was being shredded.
His end was upon him.
The destruction of Manon, the grim “Lord of the World” was imminent and inescapable.
And when the god’s end came, calamity would come with it. Aram turned, stumbling upon ruined legs and knees, and attempted a plunge for the stairs at the edge of the platform, in order to put something solid between him and impending catastrophe.
; Because of his tattered bone and sinew, he failed.
It would not have mattered, anyway.
The detonation behind him was of an explosion so very near and yet so immense that it seemed to have occurred at a terrible, incomprehensible distance. He felt as if he were thrown off the face of the earth and out into dark, bitterly cold outer regions. There was a momentary flash of hideous, unbearable pain as Aram’s spirit was stripped of its moorings and his body was blown to dust.
The pain flared beyond the limits of endurance and abruptly ended.
And with the cessation of pain came the cessation of life.
Death, the relentless hunter that had sought him for so long, found him.
The last image registered by his living eyes was of countless tiny points of light scattered far and wide across a black and limitless void, beacons of hope in the vastness of cosmic night.
Then there was only darkness.
And silence.
Deep silence, like that which inhabits the darkest hour in the heart of winter’s longest night.
Utter.
Cold.
Complete.
51.
Several miles to the south of the scene of the battle, Findaen was jarred nearly upright out of fitful sleep by a severe convulsion of the earth. Rolling out from beneath the wagon where he’d made his bed, he instinctively looked north and gasped in shock.
Rising above the northern horizon was an enormous fireball, pocked with flaming shades of gold, orange, red, and – strangely – green. Expanding with terrible rapidity, as if it meant to engulf the entire world, the awful flaming sphere seemed to churn and enfold upon itself.
He stared in awe at the astonishing, terrifying sight.
It appeared as if the whole northern part of the world was being consumed by hellfire.
And then abruptly, his heart sank within him.
Aram.
Aram was there, beneath that fire, and no one could have survived such conflagration. For it looked as if the entire valley of Morkendril, beyond the line of hills, had gone up in that horrific flame.
Kelven's Riddle Book Five Page 35
