Kurkov cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Ah…Lord Marugon. A freighter has been found for the bomb. It shall leave in one week’s time. I hope to deliver the bomb to you within five weeks.
“Good,” said Marugon. “I have not crossed the darkness between the worlds, overthrown my enemies, and laid waste to the High Kingdoms only to be delayed by the bumbling of a bandit chief.” He leaned forward a bit, his shadow falling over the room. “Further delay would have forced me to find another supplier.”
Wycliffe expected Kurkov to take offence at the insult, but he remained silent, his expression tight and nervous.
“Lord Marugon,” said Wycliffe. “If I might ask, what do you intend to do with the bomb?”
Marugon’s black gaze flicked to him. “We have discussed this.”
“Well, yes,” said Wycliffe, “you wanted to use it against the last stronghold of your enemies. But that was years ago. You have no enemies left. What good would the bomb do you now?”
Marugon did not answer.
“You…don’t intend to use the bomb here on Earth, do you?” said Wycliffe. He felt some sweat break out on his forehead. “That would not be wise. I could not permit it, now that I am vice president of the United States?”
Marugon almost smiled. “You would not permit it?”
“Then what shall you do with that bomb?” said Wycliffe.
Marugon leaned back in the chair. “I shall take it with me through the Tower of Endless Worlds.”
“To use on your world?” said Wycliffe. Suddenly he wished Marugon would go away. Wycliffe needed nothing more from him. He had millions of dollars, even after the money for Kurkov’s bomb. He was vice president-elect of the United States and in position to become the president. He had the Voice, which could bring him anything he desired. And Marugon had changed over the years. Once he had been ambitious and eager for revenge on his enemies, something Wycliffe could understand. But now, it was as if Marugon had gone mad.
Wycliffe wanted Marugon and his winged demons gone.
“So…you will use the bomb on your world?” said Wycliffe.
Marugon laughed. “Senator, Senator.” He stood and began to pace. “How do you worry.” He turned and looked Wycliffe in the eye. “I give you my word that I shall not use the bomb on your world. And something else to put your mind at ease. After I have the bomb, I shall leave this world. Forever. I need nothing more from you.”
“You’re serious?” said Wycliffe. “But…but without Kurkov’s guns, how will you keep a grip on your conquests…”
Marugon gave him a scornful glance. “Conquest? Do you still think this was about conquest? The lands of the High Kingdoms mean nothing to me. Their ruined cities mean nothing.” His face twisted in a mixture of rage and madness. “I destroyed my enemies so they cannot stop me.”
Wycliffe frowned. “Stop you? Stop you from doing what?”
Marugon said nothing.
Dr. Krastiny cleared his throat.
Wycliffe looked at him. “What?”
The little bald man stepped forward. “Lord Marugon…we have news on your commission.”
Marugon turned so fast that his robes swirled like dark mist. “What have you found?”
Dr. Krastiny pulled a tan envelope from inside his coverall. “It appears that not all your enemies are…quite as destroyed, let us say, as you might think.”
Marugon snatched the envelope, stalked to one of the tables, and dumped it out. Color photographs scattered across the table. Some showed the front steps of a college dormitory, a red-headed young woman stepping through the doors. Wycliffe picked up one of the photographs of the red-headed young woman. Something scratched at the back of his mind. He had seen her somewhere before.
“You found her,” said Marugon, his voice low and cold.
Wycliffe glanced at him. “This is the girl you’ve been worried about for all these months? You…hired Krastiny to find her?”
“Most perceptive,” said Marugon, his voice a snarl. “It seems the good physician has succeeded where your researchers and campaign workers have failed.”
“I didn’t have much to go on!” said Wycliffe. “A pretty young woman with red hair and a blue dress? How many tens of thousands of people match that description, hmm?”
“Yet Krastiny managed to find her, did he not?” Marugon stared at the photos. “And in only a few weeks. Your indifference may cost both of us dearly.” He stabbed a finger at the girl’s image. “I sensed the white magic within her, burning like a candle cloaked beneath a blanket.”
Wycliffe snorted, trying to push aside his fear. “A flame smothered beneath a blanket goes out.”
“Or it blazes all the brighter when it is uncovered,” snarled Marugon. The black magic seemed to roll off him in waves of power. “You know where she is?” Krastiny nodded. “Then I shall go and kill her at once, and all with her. I cannot permit her to live. She is only potential now…but she may grow, become more, given time. I shall not give her that time. I will not have everything I have worked for destroyed by this…this child.”
Wycliffe stared at her picture. Why did she seem so familiar? He glanced at one of the photographs of the house. It showed a man walking to a parked car, a briefcase tucked under his arm …
Wycliffe flinched as shock froze his wits.
“Lord Marugon,” said Krastiny, his voice quiet. “There is one other thing.”
“Oh?” said Marugon, his eyes still on the photos.
Krastiny slipped a picture from the pile. It showed a boy of fourteen or so running up the house’s front walk. “The girl’s name is Ally Wester. Her parents are named Katrina and Simon Wester.”
“Impossible,” whispered Wycliffe. “Absolutely impossible.”
Krastiny ignored him. “Evidently she was adopted. But she is not an only child. She has a younger brother, a boy named Lithon.”
Silence hung over the room for a long moment.
“What did you say?” Marugon’s face was an emotionless mask. He stepped towards Krastiny, towering over the little man. “What did you say?”
Krastiny faced down Marugon’s stare without blinking. “Lithon Wester. Her younger brother is named Lithon Wester.” He pointed at a sheet of paper among the photos. “Here is there address. Both children will be at the house after seven o’clock this evening.” Krastiny swallowed. “If you are to strike, I suggest you do so then.”
Goth’s angry growl filled the library. “This cannot be. This cannot be, Lord! We saw them perish.”
Marugon’s eyes narrowed. “Did we?”
“Nothing could have survived that explosion,” said Goth. “Nothing!”
“I thought it a trap.” Marugon’s voice grated with rage. “Perhaps it was not. Perhaps it was a trick.” His shaking hands clenched into fists. “I saw them. Lithon and a young girl,” his eyes flicked to the red-headed girl’s picture, “two men, and a woman.”
“A woman?” whispered Wycliffe. The realization hit him with overpowering force. “Simon Wester. That dirty lying bastard. He tricked me.”
Marugon whirled. “You know of this?” He stalked towards Wycliffe, rage burning on his face. “You knew of this child, you knew of Lithon Scepteris, and you hid it from me?”
Wycliffe raised his hands. “Wait! I knew nothing about this!” He licked his lips. “It’s just…Simon Wester.” His voice rose in anger. “He tricked me. The night when you and Goth went to kill Lithon…Wester told me someone broke into his house, tried to kill him and his fiancée. I thought it a home-invasion robbery. But for a moment…just a moment, I thought he had been involved.” He leveled a finger at Marugon. “But you told me no one had survived. You told me that Lithon, and all those with him, had been killed in that warehouse explosion. So how could I have suspected Wester? If he had been with Lithon, he would have been killed.”
Marugon said nothing.
“All these years,” said Wycliffe. “They’ve hidden Lithon under your very nose, here in Chicago
. And this girl, Ally Wester. Perhaps she came with Lithon through the Tower from your world?”
Marugon went rigid, and for an instant fear crossed his shadowed face. “No. No. I watched him die. I laughed as he bled out his last on the courtyard stones. But his Prophecy still haunts me. Even in death, Alastarius still hinders me.”
“I killed him,” said Goth. Blood-blackened iron claws slid from his fingertips. “I slew him and I shall slay his feeble followers.”
“Simon Wester,” said Wycliffe, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it. But how could he have known? He would have thought Lithon and this…this Ally two ragged waifs off the street. Why would he shelter them?”
“Liam Mastere must have told him,” said Marugon, “or perhaps this mysterious wielder of the white magic…who escaped from your complex, I might add.” Wycliffe scowled but said nothing. “Liam Mastere may even yet live. I know what they plan. Alastarius Prophesied that Lithon Scepteris would undo me.” Marugon’s lips pulled back in a snarl. For a moment he seemed like Goth, huge and black and terrible. “And he Prophesied that Lithon would bring him back, find a way to return Alastarius to the realm of the living.”
Wycliffe scoffed. “The dead don’t rise.”
Marugon glared at him. “Then you learned less of the black magic than I thought.” He began to pace, his words growling with fury. “I will not permit this, not now. I am so close, so very close. My enemies will not stop me now. They will regret ever trying to stop me.” He whirled again. “Dr. Krastiny. Your money has been well-earned. Senator Wycliffe, come with me to the main floor. Goth-Mar-Dan! Gather your kin.” Marugon grinned his wolfish smile. “I have work for them.” Goth bowed from the waist and departed. Marugon pointed at Kurkov. “Bandit. Take the pictures of my foes and follow me.”
“I am not an errand boy…”
“Do it!” The full force of the Voice reverberated in Marugon’s command. Kurkov jerked to the table, scooped up the photographs, and followed Marugon. Wycliffe hurried after them. What did Marugon plan? Wycliffe did not need violence in his home city the day after the election victory.
Yet what could he do to stop Marugon?
They took the stairs to the warehouse’s main floor. Dozens of winged demons, looming and dark in their disguises, filed through the front doors. Marugon climbed the platform before the door to the Tower.
“Goth-Mar-Dan!” Marugon called. He gestured at the meat freezers. “Release the changelings.”
Wycliffe hurried up the platform stairs and opened his mouth to protest. A single look at Marugon’s wrathful face changed his mind.
Goth growled orders to the other winged demons. They stalked forward and opened the freezer doors. The changelings staggered out, blinking their red eyes at the sudden light. They hissed and snapped, but they would not attack the winged demons unless Wycliffe ordered it. He had used the Voice to lay intricate complexes of instructions on the changelings. They would never attack him, and nor would they obey any order unless it came from him.
The winged demons herded the changelings before the platform. They snarled and gibbered, trying to attack the winged demons, but otherwise remained docile, bound by the instructions Wycliffe had laid on them.
“Calm!” called Wycliffe, bringing the power of the Voice into his words. “Remain calm!” The changelings stilled, glaring up at him with their red eyes.
“Goth-Mar-Dan,” said Marugon. “Select twelve of your kin. Arm them with the guns and bombs in this warehouse. Prepare vehicles for our use. You yourself shall accompany me. We put an end to Alastarius once before. Now we shall put an end to his followers and his damned Prophecy.”
Goth’s vicious chuckle filled the warehouse. “It shall be done, Lord.”
“And as for you, you who have partaken of the Warlocks’ rose.” Marugon’s Voice rose in command, shredding through the compulsions laid over the changelings. Wycliffe gaped in dismay. Marugon tore through his spells as if they were paper. “You shall heed my command. Tonight you will march with me.” He seized two of the pictures from Kurkov and held them out. “The boy, Lithon Scepteris. The girl, Ally Wester. You shall find them and kill them. I care not who dies, I care not what you must do, but you shall kill them!” Marugon’s Voice boomed through the warehouse, thundering in Wycliffe’s skull. The changelings whimpered and groveled before the platform. “You are hungry, you are starving, but tonight, you shall feast on human flesh…if you can kill these two children!”
Maddened gibbering rose from the changelings, their claws scraping at the concrete floor.
Marugon turned to Kurkov. “You are released. Bring the nuclear device to Chicago. Fail me not.” Kurkov staggered back, watching Marugon with a wary eye. The Warlock turned to Krastiny, Schzeran, and Bronsky. “You have done well. Your money awaits you.”
Kurkov glared at Krastiny. Wycliffe wondered if the two would ever trust each other again.
“The last obstacles are falling away,” said Marugon, to no one in particular. “The bomb will arrive soon. Yes. They may have fooled me for all these years. But Lithon Scepteris shall die. This girl, this Ally Wester, shall die with him.” He grinned at Wycliffe. “They do not know I am coming for them. And then there will be no one left to stop me, no one left at all.”
Wycliffe swallowed. “Very…very good.” Marugon stalked away. Kurkov stormed off, and Krastiny and his partners hurried away in another direction.
Wycliffe watched them go. “Dr. Wester, Dr. Wester,” he muttered under his breath. “What have you gotten yourself into?” He felt a moment’s sympathy for Simon Wester. Wester’s scholarship had been quite good. His death would be a waste.
Wycliffe shrugged and turned away. He had a presidency to assume. “You should have stayed working for me, Simon. You should have stayed working for me.”
Chapter 13 - A Birthday Dinner
Anno Domini 2012
“I saw her ghost at the ruins of Castle Bastion,” said Arran.
He and Ally sat at a booth in the corner of the coffeehouse. It was late, and most of the other tables were empty.
Ally leaned forward. “What did she tell you?”
Arran closed his eyes, remembering. “Siduri told me that her death was not my doing.” He remembered the white mist, the light that had shimmered in Alastarius’s cairn. “She said I should not blame myself.”
“You shouldn’t,” said Ally. “It wasn’t your fault. The…winged demon, Khan-Mar-Dan, killed her, not you.”
Arran opened his eyes. “I know.” He tried to smile. “She told me herself, did she not?” But he knew he would carry some of the guilt for the rest of his days.
Ally hesitated. “Did you love her?”
Arran blinked. “What?”
“She loved you, I mean. She followed you out into the desert.”
“Siduri saved my life,” said Arran. “I would have died in despair. Find Alastarius on Earth. I have been trying to do that, ever since I killed Khan-Mar-Dan.” He shrugged. “Sometimes I wonder if I ever will.”
But he doubted that. He knew Ally had come from his world, even if she did not remember. She often flinched with recognition at the names in his tale. And she thought of King Lithon as her younger brother.
Alastarius had to be near Lithon.
“Did you ever go back?” said Ally, staring into her coffee.
“Where?”
“To the Scorpions’ Hold. To tell them what had happened to Siduri.”
Arran shook his head. “That would have been of no purpose.” He heard anger enter his voice. “They cared nothing for her. Her husband would have thrown her into the desert to die. And she was content with that.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Arran had told so much to her, more than he had told anyone but Siduri. He had thought she would mock his tale as fantastic. Yet she had believed him, as far as he could tell.
“What happened then?” said Ally. “After you saw Siduri's ghost?”
“She told me again to find Alast
arius on Earth. Then the mists swirled again…and the spirit of my brother appeared.”
Ally’s eyes widened. “Luthar?”
“Yes.” Arran tried to smile. “You’ve been paying attention.”
“That must have been hard for you,” said Ally.
“It was.”
Ally fiddled with her mug. “It was his death that made you what you are, isn’t it?” She stumbled over the words. “I…I mean you would never have followed Sir Liam, you’d have never used a gun, if Luthar hadn’t been shot.”
“Luthar himself told me that,” said Arran. “I told him that I had tried to save him. He said there was nothing I could have done. And then…he gave me a gift.”
“What did he give you?”
“I shall show you.” Arran lifted Luthar’s Sacred Blade from the seat. He had taken it along with him to show Ally.
Her eyes widened. “Is…is that his sword?”
“It is. I carried it with me to the Broken Mountains, then through the High Kingdoms, through the Desert of Scorpions, once more across the High Kingdoms, through the Tower of Endless Worlds, and now here, on your world.” He almost smiled. “I doubt few swords can boast of such impressive travels.”
Ally laughed. “I…guess not. It’s not funny, of course…but what did Luthar give you?”
Arran slid the sword from its scabbard and laid it across the table. “He touched the blade.” He indicated the thumb-sized blue gem a few inches from the hilt. “This appeared.” The gem shone with a faint light. He had never seen it glow before, but he had not taken Luthar’s sword from its scabbard since coming to Earth.
“What is it?” said Ally, peering at the gem. She brushed it with her finger. “It’s…warm.”
“I know not,” said Arran. “Luthar told me that I could call on the magic of his sword in my last despair, and it would aid me, but only once.”
“Last despair?” Ally raised an eyebrow. “What did he mean by that?”
“I do not know,” said Arran. “But he told me something of the future.”
“What? Another Prophecy?”
Arran shuddered. “Gods. I hope not. My life has been ruled by Alastarius’s damned Prophecy.” He made a fist, clenching the muscles in his sword hand. “He said…that my hope and what I most love would be stolen from me by a thing of nightmare. I would have to fight it, or all would be lost. I suppose that is what he meant by my last despair.”
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