Helmos said nothing, but he did not move.
“Stand aside, Helmos!” Dagnarus repeated, his gloved hand resting upon the hilt of his black sword. “I do not want to hurt you—you are my brother, our father’s blood runs in both of us.” His expression hardened. “But I will cut you down without a qualm unless you move from that doorway.”
“It is for our father’s sake, as well as your own, that I say this to you,” Helmos answered, his voice calm. “Do not enter the Portal of the Gods, Dagnarus. The Sovereign Stone can never be yours. The gods will surely destroy you if you try to take it.”
“The gods destroy me?” Dagnarus laughed. “Why, dear brother, I am practically a god myself! I wield the Dagger of the Vrykyl. I have drunk the blood of those I gave to the Void. I have more lives than the proverbial cat!”
Dagnarus moved a step closer. “Step aside, Helmos. Or else your dear wife, whom I left just now in care of my troops, will be a widow.”
Helmos paled at this, but his resolve did not waver. “The gods keep her,” he said softly. “And bring her safe to me when this is all done.” He looked at his brother almost tenderly. “Our father’s last thoughts were of you. His last earthly concern was for you. I tell you this in his name. If you enter the Portal, you do so at your own peril. And you not only endanger yourself, you endanger all of Vinnengael.”
“Do you dare threaten me?” Dagnarus sneered.
“No,” said Helmos. “I am trying to warn you.” He drew his sword, not skillfully, for he was a scholar, not a warrior. “For your own sake and the sake of my people, I will stop you.”
“You can try, brother,” said Dagnarus, drawing his sword in his turn. “I need only kill you once, Helmos. You, on the other hand, must kill me many times over. That’s something not even the gods could do!”
Dagnarus thrust the blade forward, his movement swift and skilled. Helmos moved clumsily to block the thrust and Dagnarus struck the King’s blade aside, sent the sword flying from his brother’s hands. Dagnarus lifted his sword, intending to cleave between helm and breastplate, sever Helmos’s neck.
Strong hands seized Dagnarus’s arm, halted the killing stroke. Dagnarus turned in fury that changed to astonishment.
Gareth had hold of the prince. The whipping boy’s skin was a mass of oozing pustules. Gareth gasped, “Metal to ice!” and touched the sword.
The blade shattered. Numbing cold paralyzed Dagnarus’s hands.
“Damn you!” he cried in outrage, and turned on Gareth. He would have killed him then and there, but he heard movement behind him.
Helmos made a dive to regain his sword. Dagnarus kicked it away, sent it slithering into the Portal. Helmos could not retrieve it without abandoning his post at the door.
“Hand to hand then,” said Dagnarus, his breath coming heavily. He flung aside the useless hilt of the broken sword. “As I guess it was always meant to be.”
He leapt at his brother, his hands grappling for Helmos’s throat. Helmos met the charge, his hands closing over Dagnarus’s wrists. The two struggled, locked in desperate combat upon the threshold of the Portal of the Gods. The armor of the Dominion Lord protected Helmos from Dagnarus’s attack. The armor of the Void shielded Dagnarus.
Dagnarus was the younger, the stronger, the more skilled. But he was overconfident, overeager. He had expected to strike down his brother—his weak and bookish brother—with ease. That had not happened, and now, frustrated, his will thwarted, the prince lost his head. He tried to overbear Helmos with his strength. Helmos used Dagnarus’s own strength against him, upended him.
Dagnarus lay on his back on the floor, dazed and stunned by the heavy fall, unable to move. It was as if the gods held him pinned down.
Helmos grabbed his sword. Grasping it, he raised it over Dagnarus.
“The gods and our father forgive me!” he prayed.
A ball of darkness, formed of the Void, as big as a man’s fist, molded and shaped by Gareth’s bloodstained hands and hurled with the force of his magic, struck Helmos full in the chest. Not even the might of the Void could penetrate the armor of a Dominion Lord, but the ball struck Helmos a terrible blow, wrenched the sword from his hands. Helmos fell backward and lay unmoving.
Dagnarus regained his feet. He drew his dagger, the Dagger of the Vrykyl, and stood over his unconscious brother.
“Dagnarus, don’t!” Gareth cried. His energy was drained. He could barely stand. With strength born of desperation, he clawed at Dagnarus. “I stopped him! You must not kill him! He is…your brother.”
“You did indeed stop him, Patch,” Dagnarus said. “I thank you for that. You will be rewarded.”
He tried to shake Gareth off.
“All my life, I have borne your punishment,” Gareth said, clinging to him with uncharacteristic tenacity. “I will bear this! Accuse me! Say it is my fault! Only do not do this dreadful crime!”
Inside the Portal of the Gods, the Sovereign Stone shone with a rainbow light.
“Yes, you will be punished!” Dagnarus cried. Seizing hold of Gareth by the neck, he slammed the whipping boy’s head against the stone wall, cracking his skull. “I am sorry, Patch,” he said to the pain-filled eyes that stared at him, still pleading, their light already dimming. “I warned you in the beginning. ‘I will do what I want to do, though they kill you for it.’ ”
He struck Gareth’s head against the rock a second time, then let loose his grasp. The body slid down the wall, leaving a bloody smear on the white stone.
Turning, the Lord of the Void plunged the dagger of the Vrykyl into his brother’s throat.
Helmos died without a cry. His body lay across the threshold, one arm stretched out as if, even in death, he would try to prevent his brother from entering.
Dagnarus kicked aside his brother’s warding arm. The prince stepped over the body and entered the Portal of the Gods.
He reached out his hand, his fingers touched the jewel, his prize, his reward. He felt it, cool and beautiful. Its light was painful to him, though. He couldn’t look at it directly. He grasped the stone, his black gloves closing around it, trying to douse the light that lanced through him like spears of flame.
In that moment, the magic snapped, whipping around, recoiled back upon him.
He could not die, but he could wish to die. He moaned in agony and curled in upon himself and sank to the ground, tried to crawl into the ground, anything to escape the torment.
He heard the magic’s concussive blast, felt the ground shake. He saw, through eyelids closed against the searing pain, the Temple fall, the walls of the city crumble. Attacker and defender plunged headlong into the rubble, their war forever ended. The river, freed of the Void, surged down its bed in a raging torrent.
Dagnarus howled in rage and cursed the gods, the mean-spirited gods, so jealous of his victory that they would destroy Vinnengael rather than permit him to win it.
He could not die. They could not kill him. He would defeat them yet. His hand clenched the Sovereign Stone, clasped it in a deathlike grip.
Though he had lost all else, this was his. They would not take it from him.
The light gave way, diminished, died.
Darkness, soothing and restful, came to claim him, Lord of the Void.
The Well of Darkness
It seemed the world fell on her.
Valura saw Gareth racing back down the hall. She tried to stop him, was within arm’s reach of him when he cast his black spell, the spell that toppled Helmos and gave Dagnarus victory. Gareth’s own death mattered not at all to Valura, who hated him as she hated all who were close to Dagnarus. Especially the living.
She watched Dagnarus step into the Portal. Its awful light blinded her, filled her with such pain that she could have plucked out her eyes rather than stare into it.
She waited for him to return to her, waited for him to emerge triumphant, and then she heard him cry out, a hoarse, agonized scream of rage and anger.
She tried to defy the light, tri
ed to steel herself to brave it, though it seemed as if it must consume the dark tendrils of magic that held her lifeless body together. With great effort, she reached the door of the Portal, and the light exploded.
She cried out to him, fought to save him, but the blast lifted her as if she were dust and hurled her far, far from him. The world fell down upon her, burying her under the gigantic blocks that had once been the Temple but were now tossed about like discarded toys.
She did not lose consciousness. She could not lose consciousness, more was the pity. She heard the voices of the living crying out in pain and in dying, but they were nothing to her, the twittering of birds, the natterings of insects. The one voice she listened for, the voice she longed to hear, the only voice that mattered did not call out. His voice was still and silent.
The rocks settled atop her. The darkness closed over her. Dust drifted down around her, water or perhaps blood dripped and splattered in her face. She struggled to rise, discovered that her body was pinned beneath a huge broken column and mounds of debris on top of that.
The silence reverberated horribly in her head. Frantic to hear the voice, she lifted the column, tossed it aside. Crawling on hands and knees, she fought her way out from under the rubble, shoving aside the enormous blocks of marble, setting off small avalanches in the mountain of broken rock that had once been the Temple.
Her struggle took long hours, maybe days. She had to find him. By the time she had clawed her way to the surface, night was gone. Dawn’s gray light was spreading over Vinnengael like a blanket of ashes. But what dawn? How many dawns after how many nights?
She stood atop the destruction and stared around, and though the Vrykyl rarely feel emotion and then only strong emotion—remembered from when they were alive—Valura was amazed and appalled and awed by what she saw.
The beautiful city of Vinnengael, wealthy and prosperous, envied and admired, lay in ruins. The palace still stood, but only parts of it. Turrets had fallen in upon themselves, portions of walls collapsed. The waterfalls had returned with the rushing of the river, but their water was dark and turgid and had a reddish tinge to it. Smoke hung in the air, fires burned on all the levels of the city. Falling ash and cinders had turned the lovely blue of Lake Ildurel black.
A few survivors crawled out from the rubble, some calling frantically for loved ones and pawing through the ruins; others dazed and shocked, wandering the blasted city like lost children waiting for someone to find them and take them home.
A shadow slid over them and they cried out and scurried away. The shadow slid over Valura, dark enough to penetrate her darkness, its chill cold enough to cause her decaying flesh to shiver. She crouched involuntarily, staring upward.
A dragon, an enormous creature, dark against the gray dawn, circled Vinnengael like a great carrion crow. Its red eyes searched for something, and it appeared to find what it sought, for the dragon swooped, diving downward with clawed feet splayed and wings extended.
Valura thought at first the dragon was coming for her, and she knew real fear, for the sword of a Dominion Lord and the claws of a dragon are two weapons mortal to a Vrykyl. The dragon paid no attention to her, however, and, as it neared, Valura’s fear eased. This dragon was kin to her. This dragon was of the Void.
The dragon landed atop a portion of the ruined Temple. Delicately, the dragon picked through the rubble.
Valura knew fear again, another type of fear. Perhaps the dragon was searching for Dagnarus! She crept from under the cover of the broken building to gain a better view.
The dragon picked up and tossed aside chunks of debris, until it had dug a large hole—the size of a small building—in the rubble. Reaching down with a front foreclaw, the dragon brought forth, with careful tenderness, a body.
The body was not Dagnarus. This body was small, small as a child’s, and brown and covered with odd markings. A Keeper. That would explain the presence of the dragon, one of the five dragons who guarded Time’s Fortress, and who wanted nothing more than to know how the story ended.
Clutching the tiny form in its huge clawed foot, the Dragon of the Void spread its wings and soared into the sky, its lashing tail sending a mountain of rubble clattering and thundering to the street.
Valura turned away. She had only one objective and that was to find him. The Temple was in such ruin she had no idea where to begin to look. She felt despair and hopelessness—two oft-remembered emotions. Banishing them now as she had banished them before, she set about her work.
She was weak, she discovered, weak from the effects of the blast, weak from having to dig her way out from under what remained of the Temple. Fortunately, there was no lack of the dying upon which to feed. She ended the life of an injured woman sobbing over her dead lover, and considered that she had done the woman a favor.
Her thirst slaked, her strength returned, Valura went back to the Temple and started moving aside the broken stones, one by one.
“You waste your time,” said a voice, a cold voice, one that did not speak aloud but through the Blood-knife she wore at her waist. “He’s dead.”
Valura did not respond, did not halt her work. Shakur walked over to confront her.
She raised her head. His dead eyes stared at her. Behind him, the dead eyes of the other Vrykyl stared at her. Behind them, the dead eyes of the city of Vinnengael stared at her.
“He is here somewhere,” Valura told Shakur. “He was inside the Portal. Its magic will protect him.”
“The Portal!” Shakur was disdainful. “The Portals cannot protect anyone. The Portals are gone.”
“Gone!” Valura halted in her work. She had no choice but to believe him. Those connected by the Blood-knife cannot lie to each other. “Gone! What do you mean?”
Shakur stood atop the ruin, gazing around, his black-helmed head seeming to sniff the swirling, drifting smoke.
“Victory was ours,” he said. “We pushed them off the walls. The gates opened to our might. Our soldiers surged inside. Many of their troops broke and ran, but some did not. The Dominion Lords fought on, and they rallied the brave to their side. Yet, we would have been victorious, of that I have little doubt.
“And then the bells began to ring. The magi poured into the street, shouting that doom was come upon us all and that all should flee the city to save their lives. I felt the truth of what they said. I felt the magic torn loose, lashing through the air like whips. The living felt it, too. Our soldiers had no more thought of winning, but ran for their lives. Friend and foe dropped swords and joined hands, to help each other flee.”
“And you?” Valura asked coolly. She hated him more than all the rest. “What did you do, Shakur? Did you run as well?”
“I did not run. I took advantage of the turmoil to refresh myself, as I see you have done.” Shakur’s dead gaze focused on the blood on Valura’s lips and hands. “And then a shaft of light so bright it seared my eyes blazed out of the Temple. It lit the night like day. Then came the blast. I watched Vinnengael die, and then I knew that he was dead. The master was dead and we were free.”
Valura turned away from him, went back to her work.
“It was in my mind to enter one of the Portals,” Shakur continued. Kicking at a smoldering beam with his booted foot, he sent cinders sparking into the death-tinged air. “I planned to make my way to the elven lands. The feeding would be good there. The elves do not know us. I could raise my own army, become my own king…”
“And what happened?” Valura asked, glancing at him from out the eye slits of her helm. “Why didn’t you?”
“I told you. The Portals are no longer there.”
“Then where did they go?”
Shakur shrugged. “Disappeared? Perhaps. Moved? That’s a possibility. All I know is that you may walk into the entryway, the part that has not been knocked down, but beyond that is nothing. The magic is dissipated. You can no longer feel it.” He glanced around. “Just as you can no longer feel it here.”
Valura continued work
ing.
“Come with us, Valura,” Shakur said. He motioned to the other Vrykyl. “We will carve out our own kingdom, be our own masters. There are cities ripe for the taking. You are powerful and strong, your beauty lures men easily to their deaths. I can make good use of you.”
Valura ceased her work. Shakur was right. The magic was gone. The Portal of the Gods was no longer here. But it was somewhere, and Dagnarus was with it. She could hear his voice now, hear it faintly, hear it in the Blood-knife.
“You will form an army, Shakur,” she said. “A mighty army. But not for yourself, not for your own glory and ambition. You will form the army of Dagnarus.”
The Vrykyl laughed derisively.
“The story is not ended. He lives, Shakur,” Valura said with such conviction that Shakur’s laughter ceased. “Our lord is weak and he is wounded. The magic flung him far, far from here. But it could not kill him. He is alive. And though I must search a hundred, hundred years, I will find him.
“And when he returns, his army will scour the world.”
Epilogue
The bahk was an adult male, a young one, not yet fully grown, his body—and his brain—still developing. This fact—that he was quite young—explains how he came to be wandering about the wilderness of this strange and unfamiliar world, lost and hungry.
An older, more mature bahk would have never entered the strange cavelike hole that appeared so very suddenly in the forest. Though drawn to the hole by the smell of magic—bahks adore magic, as humans adore chocolate—an elder bahk would have sensed that this was not bright and shining wizard-magic, not the magic that pleasantly tickles the fingers and sends a thrilling sensation throughout the body, not the magic that glitters and sparkles in the sunshine, warms the hands and heart at night. This hole was god-magic, and therefore dangerous, if not downright deadly.
An elder bahk might well have entered the hole, but only after days of watching it and examining it and tossing rocks inside it to see if Something tossed them right back out and making offerings of dead taan or dead humans or whatever other prey the bahk happened to have on hand.
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