Come Armageddon

by Anne Perry

  Tathea felt herself swept dizzy by a wave of memory so powerful it was as if the rest of the hall and all the people in it faded from her awareness and she saw only the one man as he walked the length of the floor towards her. She knew him! Images melted into one another in her mind, gone too quickly to hold. She saw a man half turn towards her, hatred in blazing blue eyes, intimately as if something filthy had touched her soul. Asmodeus!

  But this man’s eyes were dark, and as he stopped in front of her, there was only the slightest flicker of recognition in him—there for an instant, then vanished, as if he himself had been confused by it and dismissed it as untrue.

  She wanted to speak—she ought to from courtesy if nothing else—but all she could do was stare at him.

  It was Ythiel of the Knights of the Western Shore who spoke for her.

  “Welcome to Tyrn Vawr,” he said gravely, politely. “Will you dine with us, or would you prefer to rest and eat alone?” He did not ask the man’s name. Whoever he was, the hospitality would have been the same.

  “I am Kor-Assh of the River,” the man said with the slightest inclination of his head. “I have come to keep my covenant with Sadokhar, and all who stand with him.” His eyes flickered to the empty seat, but he said nothing of it. Perhaps word had already spread that Sadokhar was gone.

  “Welcome, Kor-Assh,” Ythiel replied, indicating a place at the table.

  Kor-Assh accepted, casting aside his cloak, which was immediately taken by a page. Food and wine were brought for him.

  At last Tathea spoke. “Welcome to Tyrn Vawr. I hope your journey was pleasant and we have cared for your men and your animals.” They seemed meaningless words, mere politeness.

  Kor-Assh replied with wry, throwaway humour, thanking her for her care and assuring her that the hospitality was excellent.

  Tathea sat still, the voices around the table beating in her ears, drowning out the sounds of crockery, laughter, distant conversation, the footsteps of the serving men. A dog snored gently on the floor, knowing it was too early to expect tidbits.

  “... my error,” Kor-Assh was saying ruefully to another of the Knights. “The innkeeper mistook me for a travelling trader and sat me in with half a dozen merchants from Dinath-Aurer. I never want to smell uncured leather again, as long as I live!”

  There was more laughter.

  Tathea watched Kor-Assh as he spoke. His voice seemed to wash around her almost like a familiar touch to the skin, awakening emotions that scoured the very core of her being. She knew him; in some way deeper than life, she had always known him. Certainty flooded her soul like light over the sea that this was the time of Armageddon, because although Kor-Assh did not know it himself, it was not in his eyes nor his words, but he was Ishrafeli. He had come as he had said he would, more than five centuries ago on the lake shore, to take his mortal life and fight beside her until the world was won or lost.

  A servant passed by with a dish laden with sweetmeats and fruit. Another poured more wine.

  Someone was asking about Lantrif. He knew it only by repute, and the tales of its strange history intrigued him. It was the western boundary of the world, and its people were different from all other Islanders, older and subtler, their origins obscured by legend.

  “No one knows who was there before the Silver Lords,” Kor-Assh answered with a slight shrug. “Some stories say they were the first children of the gods who were punished for their arrogance by being made mortal.” He smiled. “A mistaken belief, to my mind.”

  Tathea was startled. Surely Ishrafeli could not have been so changed from the man she had known that, even for an instant, he could have countenanced such an absurdity? Of course, once born into the flesh, no one remembers their spirit life before. If they did it would be no proving of their souls. Walking with knowledge, only a fool chooses the darkness, whereas having nothing but faith and one’s own agonising discovery of good and ill, choosing the light is an exact measure in the scales of eternity.

  The Knight too was startled. It showed in a slight widening of his eyes, no more. “There are those among your people who consider it a possibility?” His voice was almost level.

  Kor-Assh’s smile widened, making his face oddly more vulnerable. He picked up a handful of bright strawberries. “I’ve met those who certainly behave as if they thought that they, more than most men, were descended from gods,” he replied. “But that was not what I meant. The mistake I referred to was the notion that mortality was a punishment. Surely the passion of it, for good or ill, and the fact that it is so precious yet can so easily be wasted, is a blessing?”

  Tathea felt her heart hammering in her throat. This was a glimpse of the Ishrafeli she half recalled.

  The Knight leaned forward, his face alight. “What other legends are there, more likely to be rooted in fact? Or is that possibly some tale of rebellion coloured into a story more worth the telling?”

  Kor-Assh regarded him with a flash of interest. “I suppose it could be! I always supposed it was just the same arrogance lending itself a shadow of legitimacy. But whoever they were, conquerors, rebels, or voyagers from another shore, the Silver Lords were ruthless in the beginning, and their descendants still guard their secrets.” He bit into the strawberries, then went on to describe the Silver Lords’ hereditary power, some of the great battles they had led, and the resistance against the Camassian conquest half a millennium ago.

  Tathea listened. He had been her teacher and her guide on that journey they had shared in the past. He had known the truth towards which she only stumbled. Now, as she sat here in this crowded hall, with the gold of the torchlight sending shadows across the deep coffering of the ceiling, she knew the truth, and Ishrafeli did not. It seemed he had not even a vision of who he was or how unimaginably great the task that lay ahead, of him. He had heard of the Book from Sadokhar; he had no possible imagination that it was he himself who had led her to it in the beginning, he who had fought the beasts of good and evil on the shores of eternity so she might escape Asmodeus’ rage and bring the Book to the world. Or that it was his hand which had sealed it at the last, and left her here to guard it until one came who was worthy to open it again.

  Could it be her task to teach him?

  They were still talking, easily, with interest, as new friends do, discovering each other’s thoughts, asking for facts, but listening to the heart behind the answers.

  “Of course, the Camassians tried to take Lantrif,” Kor-Assh was saying. There was both laughter and regret in his face—she did not understand why—and there was an element like pity, as if he knew of something sadder and deeper than the surface facts. “They formed a secret army of spies and saboteurs, the Brotherhood of the Chain,” he went on. “It worked brilliantly. The Camassians tried to occupy us, but even the military might and precision of the Empire was not strong enough to withstand the Brotherhood. No one knew who they were. They recognised each other by secret signs, and their oaths were stronger than death.”

  “But you pity them!” Tathea broke in. She had to know why. It mattered intensely. He had Ishrafeli’s face, and voice, even remembered shreds of his humour, but had he his heart? She kept her hands locked together under the table, where no one could see them shaking.

  Kor-Assh looked at her. In a moment too small to measure there was something in his eyes, an uncertainty, a question, as if an echo crossed his memory also, but vanished before he heard its meaning.

  He blinked. “Did I say that? I don’t know why I did.”

  Ythiel looked at Tathea curiously. Of course he could have no idea what was clamouring in her mind, drowning out everything else. They had known each other since he had come south from the Western Shore. They had spoken of loyalties, terrors and dreams, and yet the love at the centre of her heart she had not shared even with Sadokhar.

  “No,” she answered Kor-Assh. “I just thought I heard it in your voice.”

  He looked down, a touch of colour faint in his cheeks. “I don’t know why anyone
should pity the Brotherhood of the Chain,” he said quietly “They have power and safety, belief in themselves and in their cause.” He looked up at her quickly. “And yet you are right. I hadn’t realised it, but I do feel a ... a pity for them.” The surprise was in his face, a shadow on his brow, a tenderness in his mouth.

  “Why?” Tathea pressed.

  Could he answer her? He remembered nothing of their Journey, of the love or the loss, but surely even without it, he was the same inside himself, his ability to feel, his striving to understand? But who was anyone, without the knowledge of all that they have been up to that moment? Yet there was experience in his face, mistakes understood, fear conquered, laughter and understanding as before.

  She remembered all that Ishrafeli had been, the beauty of his heart, with an ache that tore her open. Would he ever become that man again, fulfil all that was his? And if he did, learning step by step as he must, would he love her as he had before? Or would it be different? Perhaps he would love someone else, or no one with that wholeness ever again?

  “Why?” she demanded, staring at his face. “Why do you pity the Brotherhood of the Chain?”

  He blinked.

  A page approached with a dish of baked pastries, and sensing something larger than hunger of the flesh, turned away again, his feet almost soundless on the floor.

  “Because they lost the light,” Kor-Assh replied at last. “Somehow the means became the end in itself, and the true end was forgotten.”

  The warmth broke open inside Tathea. She smiled at him with a radiance that fascinated him, and frightened him because he had no understanding of its cause. He met her gaze uncertainly, then looked away, turning to Ythiel instead.

  Tathea did not speak again. The page returned with the food, and the meal continued until it was time to retire.

  Tathea did not sleep, and in the morning she was tired and restless, unable to direct her mind to anything.

  She stared into the glass, and saw the same face look back at her as had done the day she had entered Hirioth to give the Book back, five centuries before. Time had marked her heart, but not her flesh. The dark eyes held the same intelligence, the same hunger of the will. The mouth betrayed the same passion, and the same startling power to be hurt.

  Only Sadokhar had known her long enough to question it. To Sardriel and Ardesir it was only a handful of years. Why should she change in that while?

  She rose and began on small tasks she had taken over since Sadokhar left, but she could not keep her attention to them. They had always spoken of Armageddon as if it would be open, something cataclysmic, violent and obvious. But why should it? Asmodeus was the father of deception, the begetter of lies. Surely now, of all times, he would deceive? He could lead them to fear what was ugly but harmless, and send them running into the arms of a sweet and terrible corrosion of the soul, a last death from which there was no resurrection. How would they know? What could unmask the face of the enemy and show them his reality?

  Ardesir had a passion of faith which climbed heights others only dreamed of. But his imagination also showed him what terror to fear. Sardriel had an incorruptible love of truth, an integrity which had never been broken. Sadokhar had had the courage which met the ultimate test in life—she dared not think what hell might do to him now.

  What would Ishrafeli bring? She did not yet know. She must speak with him, tell him Sadokhar was gone and Tiyo-Mah and the creations of damnation were in the world.

  But what if Kor-Assh, still with no knowledge of who he was, felt relieved from his promise? What if he quailed at the thought of an other-than-human enemy? She did not even know how much Sadokhar had told him of the war to come, because they had all thought then that it would be an attack they could see, and for which there was a defence, whether it succeeded or not. At least it would be plain against whom they fought.

  But above and beyond that, she must show him the staff and see if he could read it, and if he did, what it said.

  She sent him a message requesting him to speak with her, and an hour later they met in the courtyard. He regarded her steadily and with courtesy, but she was sharply aware that for him they were strangers, allied by a cause, but no more.

  “I know you were expecting to see Sadokhar,” she began after they were seated. “I shall tell you where he has gone, but first I must tell you why.”

  Then gravely Tathea explained how they had realised that Asmodeus had the weapon of time against which there was no defence; she saw more than horror in Kor-Assh’s eyes as he understood. There was a flicker as if some memory or deeper understanding stirred, but vanished before he grasped it. The temptation to speak to him, to try to tell him what it was, to demand he remember by repeating it over and over, was so strong she was dizzy with the effort of self-control. She longed to stretch across the space between them and touch his hand, even when her mind was telling her it was both ridiculous and intrusive. It would offend him, and embarrass them both.

  She was aware he was waiting for her to continue. How much should she tell him? He was Ishrafeli! Did he remember anything, or was it all gone in the life of Kor-Assh, a man Sadokhar had trusted but of whom she knew nothing?

  “In the ruins of Sylum there is a man,” she said cautiously, “growing thinner and wearier with the years, as he yields to the temptation to use a terrible discovery he has made. There is a doorway into time among what is left of the oldest buildings there.” She saw the shadow in Kor-Assh’s face, but he did not stop her. “Through it he has gone again and again back to the great days of the Empire,” she went on. “Each time he has done so he has weakened both the doorway and himself. He was gaunt when Sadokhar and I first met him, twenty years ago. Now he is a hollow man. The wind blows his robes as if about a skeleton whose bones will shimmer and bend like reeds in water.”

  Kor-Assh could keep his peace no longer. “He told you it was a doorway into the past?”

  “Into time,” Tathea corrected. “He chose the past, or it was given him. Long ago I knew someone else who used such a doorway, and that was into both the past and the future.” She took a deep breath. “She was the most evil woman I know. She learned the art of raising the spirits of the dead who have seen both light and darkness, and chosen the darkness.”

  Kor-Assh’s eyes widened, but he did not argue.

  She tried to read him and failed.

  “Did Sadokhar know of this woman?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  His face paled. “And he chose ... to test the doorway of hell?” His voice was hushed.

  “Yes,” she answered. “The other doorway was in Shinabar, in Thoth-Moara, in the most ancient quarter. There are things there that are more fearful than most of us even ...” She tailed off, not sure how to continue.

  “The Silver Lords of Lantrif believe in sorcery,” Kor-Assh said in the silence, “and in the creatures of the Pit, and beyond. In the days of their power the Seneschal of the Seven-Sided Tower was said to have raised hell-kites, and the Lamia, half woman, half fish, who lures men to their drowning.” He frowned, the small smile touching his mouth, a little self-mocking. “I know there are powers beyond our most hectic dreams, both for good and for evil. If Sadokhar went through that doorway in Sylum, to provoke the Great Enemy, then he loved the world more than it deserves ...” His voice trembled. He struggled to mask some of the emotion in his face. It stood naked and vulnerable for an instant, before he could conceal it.

  “We must all be loved more than we deserve,” Tathea said softly, tears swimming in her eyes, the ache inside her endless, “or else we will not survive.” She rose, turning away from him, and heard the slight sound of his shoes on the stone as he took a step after her.

  “I have a staff I must show you.” Her voice trembled. “You may be able to read the hieroglyphs on it.”

  “Hieroglyphs?” He caught up with her as she crossed the sunlight towards the big door of the castle, studded with brass. She heard the doubt in his voice.

  “Yes,
” she said, not willing to give any more explanation.

  Kor-Assh pushed the door and held it for her, then followed across the wide, marble-flagged entrance hall and up the stairs to the rooms that faced over the inner court. The sunlight poured in, warming the walls and casting back the colour, shining on the polished wood of the floor.

  Tathea went to the curtain that concealed the staff and took it out, holding it for him. Her hand was steady, but her fingers were so stiff he had to pull it gently for her to let go.

  She watched as he studied the carved figures one line after another. He frowned and looked up at her, his dark eyes puzzled. “I can read only a little of it,” he said with sharp disappointment. “This part here ...”

  The answer shivered through her like fire.

  “What does it say?”

  “‘When the man of wisdom has spoken the name of all things,’” he answered. “It doesn’t make sense alone, and I can’t read the rest.”

  She held out her hands, but she did not need to take the staff from him to read the final inscription. “‘When the woman of love has kneeled in the ashes and taken up My burden, then shall I come and receive My own,’” she finished. “That leaves only one line unread ... one more warrior to find.” She closed her hand on the staff, and his remained, fingers inches from hers.

  “Do you know who he is?” he asked.

  “I believe it may be Ulfin of the Flamens, but I am not certain. I can’t be until he has read the last inscription.”