by J. L. Doty
AnnaRail’s eyes grew livid, though she held herself in check, but Morgin could sense her anger as if it were his own. His magic flared within his soul, a magic he thought he no longer possessed; it washed slowly over him, crawled up the back of his spine as if it were a living creature from beyond life. He could sense something growing within the Hall, something wrong, something evil. For a moment he thought only he sensed it, but in the midst of the argument raging about her he saw AnnaRail perk up and cock her head, and then slowly she turned her eyes toward the back of the Hall.
Morgin was close to the end of the Hall where the weapons had been placed, and she was at the other end, but even from that distance he could see the fear in her eyes. She began walking toward him, slowly at first, then more quickly. But just as she approached him she veered away from him, walked past him, and he realized she was moving toward the back of the Hall.
There came a clattering of steel from the weapons there, not a loud or alarming sound, but Morgin couldn’t see anyone near enough to the weapons to have caused such a disturbance. AnnaRail hesitated, blocking Morgin’s view of the weapons. She tensed, and the sudden sound of steel sliding clear of a sheath cut through to everyone’s ears. A harsh, red light flared near the amassed weapons, and raw, uncontrolled power growled at Morgin’s soul.
Not understanding what was happening, but knowing only that AnnaRail stood between him and his sword, he charged at her as if she were an opponent in battle. He hit her from behind, slammed her protectively to the floor and hurtled over the top of her. He caught only a glimpse of an angry red power as it arced up from the pile of weapons high over his head. He tried to convert his forward momentum into a leap, stretched his muscles to the limit to intercept it in midair and caught something in his outstretched hand that felt like the hilt of a sword. Its momentum jerked him back in midair, pulled him toward the center of the Hall where he crashed painfully to the stone floor in a tumbling sprawl.
There was an instant of stunned silence as he lay there with one hand wrapped about the hilt of his sword, all eyes in the Hall questioning him. But he sensed what was coming, and there was no time to explain or shout a warning, so he brought his free hand around to join the other in a two handed death grip, and suddenly the sword screamed at him to release it, to free it so it could taste blood as it was meant to. He was still lying on his back as it jerked and bucked in his grip, swinging from side to side and cutting chips of stone from the floor. But in his soul he sensed the carnage it would lay upon the land if he released it, and he vowed to hold it, even if it pulled him into the very depths of the Ninth Hell itself.
Suddenly it stopped jerking about and shot upward, lifting him high off his feet and well into the air. Then just as suddenly it let go, and still holding onto it he crashed to the floor. It then started pulling him down the length of the Hall, dragging him on his back toward the lone figure of BlakeDown, who stood at the far end entranced with fear. Morgin swung his legs about, got his heels in front of him and dug them in. It pulled him to his feet, then crashed through the table of councilmen, upending the heavy plank table and sending them all sprawling.
Desperately Morgin wrapped both legs about a table leg and locked his ankles, tried to use it as an anchor, but the sword jerked and pulled in his hands, slowly dragging both him and the massive table forward. But he’d slowed it, and that enraged it. The sound of its hatred became a growl, and it now turned upon him, cutting spasmodically toward his own throat while he struggled to hold it at bay. He fought it with nothing but the strength in his arms, sensing that it would choose him over any other victim if it could have him. But when it couldn’t it turned outward, and to his surprise it sought Rhianne. “Nooooo!” he screamed, and a momentary flood of power crashed through his soul.
It changed tactics, chopped toward the table and bit deeply into the wooden planks, sending a shower of splinters in all directions. Blistering waves of black-hot hatred washed over him, igniting the splinters and scorching his tunic. With a dozen blows the blade dismembered the table into four large pieces, and with the size of its anchor now diminished it began dragging Morgin again in spasmodic jerks across the floor.
At the far end of the Hall BlakeDown backed fearfully up the steps to the periphery as Morgin unlocked his legs and released the last remnant of the table. The sword pulled him in a long skid the length of the Hall, but at the last moment he swung his legs in front of him, got them beneath the sword so that he was sliding on his heels and butt, and caught his heels on the lowest of the steps beneath BlakeDown. He put his back into it, pulled with all his might, brought the sword to a momentary halt.
He was on his back with his heels locked against the lowest step, stretched to his full length, but the sword slowly started lifting him off his back, like a rigid timber being raised as a flagpole. Gritting his teeth, trembling with the strain of holding the blade back, he looked down the length of the sword at BlakeDown, whose eyes were filled with stark terror. He realized then that the Penda leader was the sword’s intended prey, and that he could no longer restrain it. Morgin gave one last effort, knowing he could only delay the blade, and through his gritted teeth he growled at BlakeDown, “I . . . can’t . . . hold it . . . I have . . . no . . . power to . . . hold it.”
BlakeDown’s eyes widened with fear, but too they widened with a strange mixture of triumph and gladness, and in an instant he backed through the heavy plank door at the end of the Hall, slammed the door shut and threw the bolt loudly into place. Morgin’s strength finally reached its limit; the sword tore from his grip, dropping him on his back, and without the least faltering it buried itself to the hilt in the planking of the door. The blade hesitated for an instant, then pulled itself half way from the door, and slammed back into it with such force the door’s hinges groaned with the sound of overstrained iron.
Morgin scrambled to his feet, shot up the steps, locked his fingers about the hilt. It shot suddenly backwards, slamming the hilt into his stomach, knocking the wind from him and driving him out into the center of the Hall where it dropped him painfully on his back. It turned on him, and he screamed as he struggled against it. Then it picked him up, swung him from side to side, tossed him onto the steps of the periphery, and like the time it had cut the Kulls to pieces he could only hold on, and hope that his strength would not fail him.
But his strength was not inexhaustible, and soon his battle narrowed to his hands, and the death grip they had upon the hilt, until the world about him receded and he could see only the sword, and the chasm of power it had opened before him.
~~~
Rhianne almost fainted when the storm of power hit the castle. It flooded her soul as if the very ground beneath her had split and a volcano of malevolent power were erupting within the castle itself, a power with a consciousness and will of its own, specifically conscious of her and Morgin. For a single moment it tried to attack her, but Morgin held it back. She leaned heavily on a vanity and tried to reassure herself that the attack would not come again, that it was finished, and then she realized that it was finished only for her, not for Morgin.
She reached the Hall of Wills just as the massed nobility of four clans were pouring from every exit imaginable. The malevolent power she sensed within was like a scar on her soul, and she knew she had to help Morgin. But the panic of the crowd was a current she could not oppose, and they nearly trampled her as they swept past her. Then Olivia suddenly appeared, took Rhianne by an arm and stood her ground like a granite monolith on the shore of an ocean storm. “Seal the Hall,” she commanded angrily. “We must seal the Hall, and Ward it against the possibility he may fail. We cannot allow whatever it is he has unleashed in there to turn upon the land. It would devastate the countryside.”
“Let me go,” Rhianne shouted. “Let me go. I have to help him.”
The old woman’s hand arced out of nowhere and resounded loudly against Rhianne’s cheek, stunning her momentarily. “There is nothing you can do, girl? At least not at this time.” She p
ointed to the barred doors of the Hall. “That battle he must fight alone.”
As if in answer to the old woman’s words Rhianne heard Morgin’s voice raised in a terrified scream. It was followed quickly by an inhuman growl of hatred, and vast waves of power crashed outward from the Hall. A large crack suddenly raced down the stone of a nearby wall, as if the power trapped with Morgin in the Hall would escape by tearing down the castle itself.
Olivia cursed and cried out angrily. She turned upon the crack and cast her power at it like a spear, and the stone was once again whole, and again the old woman stood rock still against the forces that reached out against them. Rhianne looked on as the old woman called her power forth, coalescing it about her as if it were a shield, then feeding it into the stone of the walls about them. She turned suddenly upon Rhianne, and her eyes burned with the power in her soul. “Help me, you foolish girl. You’re a grown woman. Don’t just stand there like a child.”
Rhianne obeyed without question, casting first a small spell to calm her reeling thoughts, then moving up to the more demanding task of imitating the old woman. And as she concentrated she began to sense others who were far ahead of her—BlakeDown, AnnaRail, JohnEngine, NickoLot, Brandon—already lending their power to the aged stone of the Hall. She joined them carefully, and as she touched her power to the veil they were constructing, she sensed again the special affinity that the malevolence within held for her. But she did not retreat, and with the others she settled down to a long and exhausting vigil.
~~~
“There’s a horse waiting for you near the man-gate,” DaNoel told Valso. But then DaNoel hesitated, for he suddenly realized he had no recollection of how he’d come to be standing with Valso in the Decouix’s tower prison. He shook his head to clear it, but was careful not to mention his lapse to the prince. The pandemonium in the Hall of Wills was a muffled roar in the distance.
DaNoel tried to reconstruct his memory of recent events: Morgin’s fantastic struggle with the talisman he had unleashed, and his open admission to BlakeDown, within everyone’s hearing, that he had no power. Thinking of that moment in the Hall, DaNoel had to force himself not to shout with triumph. “He never did have any power, did he? It was all in that talisman, wasn’t it?”
Valso, in the midst of sorting and packing the few belongings he wished to keep, looked up and shrugged indifferently. “Does it matter now?”
“No,” DaNoel said joyfully. “No, it doesn’t matter in the least. He’s discredited himself to such an extent that even if he does survive the talisman, some clansman will kill him soon enough.”
DaNoel had a sudden thought. He looked carefully at Valso. “Were you responsible for that?”
“For what?”
“For unleashing that talisman, and at the worst possible time, and in the worst possible place?”
The Decouix prince didn’t answer, but the corners of his mouth curved upward in a satisfied smile, and that was answer enough for DaNoel.
“I assume you’ve provisioned the horse properly?” Valso asked.
“Twelve days trail rations. I’d give you better, but trail rations weigh very little and they go far. And once the cry is raised you’ll need to move with all possible haste.”
“Well enough,” Valso said. “I’ve lived on worse.” He finished packing, turned abruptly and walked out of the room. DaNoel followed him down the stairway to Olivia’s veil of containment. The old witch’s spell, so complex and powerful before, was failing quickly as she concentrated more and more of her strength on the struggle to contain the talisman within the Hall. The veil was now tattered and rent in a dozen places, though Valso still needed the help of someone with Elhiyne blood to escape without alerting the old witch.
DaNoel chose a week spot in the veil and enlarged it carefully. He stepped through and Valso followed without hesitation. As DaNoel closed the veil, the Decouix turned to the guard dozing under DaNoel’s spell and took the man’s sword.
“What are you doing?” DaNoel demanded.
“I need a weapon,” Valso said as he pulled the sword from its sheath and looked it over. “This isn’t much of a blade, but it’ll do until I find better.”
The guard suddenly groaned and opened his eyes. He looked at DaNoel, then at Valso, and his hand shot instinctively to his side, but of course his sword was in Valso’s hands.
DaNoel reacted instantly, smothering the man’s consciousness with his power. “You did that,” DaNoel snarled at Valso. “You woke him on purpose.”
The Decouix shrugged. “You can handle one minor clansman, can’t you?”
“But if I tamper with his memories Olivia will surely sense it, and she’ll trace it to me.”
“Then kill him.”
DaNoel took a frightened step backward. “I didn’t agree to murder.”
Valso shook his head sadly. “Treason is acceptable, eh, but not murder?” The prince turned his back on DaNoel, pulled the tower door open just a crack and looked carefully outside. He turned back to DaNoel. “I’d really like to stay and discuss your strange code of honor, but I’m afraid I don’t have the time. We’ll meet again, Elhiyne.” And with those words Valso slipped through the door and was gone.
DaNoel turned toward the guard. He struggled with himself to find some other way of handling the man: a bribe perhaps. But Olivia had chosen her guards for their personal loyalty to her. Reluctantly DaNoel pulled his dagger, hesitated for an instant, then drove it between the man’s ribs into his heart, though even then it took some moments for the guard’s spirit to depart fully.
DaNoel cleaned his dagger carefully on the man’s tunic and returned it to its sheath, then checked the man one last time to be certain he was truly dead. Satisfied, he stood, turned to leave, but his heart almost stopped at the sight of NickoLot standing in the tower door, looking at him oddly. “What’s going on here?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
DaNoel said, “The Decouix escaped. Killed this guard on his way out.”
NickoLot’s eyes narrowed further. “You’re lying.”
DaNoel looked at her carefully. “Lying about what?”
“I don’t know, but I do know you’re lying.”
“And what did you see with your own eyes, little sister?”
“I didn’t have to see it with my eyes. You’re tainted with the scent of murder. You murdered the guard. Did you help the Decouix escape?”
When her eyes flashed DaNoel realized he’d given himself away with a look. He reached out and gripped her viciously by the throat. “I’ll deny any accusation you make, and since you can’t prove it, you’ll only hurt mother and father if you speak out.”
He threw her to the floor in a heap of petticoats. “Little girls should not interfere in the affairs of men,” he growled at her, then walked quickly out of the tower to raise the alarm for the Decouix. He’d better do everything he could to appear innocent just in case the little bitch did speak up.
Other books available by J. L. Doty:
A Choice of Treasons (hard science fiction)
To save himself, he first had to save two empires . . . but when he tried, his options were limited to a choice of treasons.
As a lifer in the Imperial Navy, York Ballin’s only hope at an honorable discharge is the grave. Matters only get worse when he finds himself deep behind enemy lines on a commandeered imperial cruiser without a trained crew, commanded by an incompetent nobleman, with the empress and 200 civilians as passengers, and everyone hell-bent on turning them into a cloud of radioactive vapor.
The Thirteenth Man (hard science fiction)
Beware the curse of the thirteenth man, for should he not fall, all may fall before him.
Charlie Cass returns from five years in a squalid POW camp to find the nine Dukes and the King conspiring against each other, and plotting with Charlie’s old enemies. As interstellar war looms, he’s forced to assume the mantle of the thirteenth Duke de Lunis, who, according to legend, is destined to fall b
eneath the headsman’s ax. But if he can survive the headsman, all may fall before him.
When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough (contemporary fantasy)
The dead should ever rest in peace, but when dead ain’t dead enough,
the living should fear for their mortal souls.
Paul Conklin is a rather ordinary, thirtyish fellow, sharing his ordinary, present-day San Francisco apartment with the ghosts of his dead wife and daughter. Suzanna’s cooking for him again, and Cloe’s bouncing around the apartment in her school uniform, and things are almost back to normal. But a piece of Paul realizes he’s really bug-fuck nuts, or at least that’s what he thinks. He has no idea that a Primus caste demon from the Netherworld covets his soul, and that he’s going to have to take a crash course in killing big, bad hoodoo demons, or lose his soul for all eternity.
About the Author
J. L. Doty was trained as a scientist and studied optical physics and engineering, earning a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. His specialty has always been laser science and laser physics. He spent all his working life in various facets of the laser industry including a number of years in research and development, even working briefly on laser weapons in the early ‘80’s. For the last twenty-five years, he has been writing fiction in stolen hours on the weekend, or on long flights overseas.
When writing science fiction, Jim is sometimes hindered by his deep knowledge of laser physics, and for that reason you’ll never see a laser weapon of any type in his science fiction books. In fact, you can visit his website to read his rant on laser weapons, and how they are almost always badly misused in science fiction. You don’t have to be an engineer or physicist to understand it, and you might find the information on lasers of interest.
