by T. H. Lain
The warrior rolled to his feet and stood, back against what remained of the wall. Greasy, black smoke whirled up into the gray sky.
All this, Regdar thought, for a girl?
27
"You know I'll do what's best for the duchy," Maelani told her father, "and if that means I must marry sooner rather than later, I'm willing to accept that."
"Are you indeed," the duke replied, settling into a comfortable leather armchair.
Swirling the fine elven cognac in an oversize snifter, the duke took in a long breath through his nose, letting the heady aroma of the spirit waft through his head. A fire crackled next to him, more a bonfire than a simple hearth fire in the massive, marble fireplace. He reminded himself regularly that many of New Koratia's citizens made their homes in spaces smaller than that fireplace, and that thought often guided his hand in matters of domestic policy. In matters of the heart, he was at a loss-most of the time.
Maelani sank onto the bearskin rug at his feet, curling up like a young lioness surveying the veldt she'd claimed as her own.
"You'll make a fine duchess," he found himself saying.
Maelani smiled and said, "Like Mother?"
The duke took a small sip of the cognac, letting it burn his bottom lip for a second before swallowing.
"Father?" Maelani prompted, concern creeping into her voice.
"No," he said with a sigh. "No, your mother, may Pelor forever hold her in his embrace, was never much good at it. She was a lord's daughter, to be sure, but her family's estate was a rural one. They were farmers at heart, and it was a farmer's blood that warmed her veins the whole of her days."
"Doesn't that same blood flow in my veins, too?" she asked. "I always loved visiting Grandfather's estate…the horses, the flowers…"
The duke laughed cheerfully and said, "You may have enjoyed it for the occasional fortnight's repose, my dear, but even when you were still in diapers, you couldn't wait to get back to the city. You were born a noblewoman and have only grown further into that role since."
"Is that so bad?" she asked with a delicate frown.
The duke shook his head.
Maelani laughed and said, "But my nobility, mixed with a warrior's strength of arm and character-"
The duke took another sip of cognac, a longer one this time, and studied his daughter's face.
"It sounds to me," he said, "as if you've made up your mind about something."
Maelani smiled-a sincere and bright expression-and was about to answer when the door burst open and the elite guard Officer of the Day entered almost at a run.
The duke stood to receive his officer, who slid to a stop and stood at attention.
"Your Highness," the officer said, "there is a disturbance in the city."
The duke glanced back to see Maelani slowly stand, smoothing her gown as she did. He held the snifter out to her and she took it from him.
"Where?" the duke asked.
"The Trade Quarter, sir," the officer reported, "in the ruins of an old slaughterhouse. Your Highness, it seems the murderer has been run to ground."
The duke blinked but began walking to the door with purpose. The elite guard officer fell in behind him, and Maelani followed as well.
"Has the lord constable been advised?" the duke asked as they walked.
"Your Highness…" the officer replied, hesitating.
They stepped through into a corridor bustling with elite guard officers and men, their faces betraying anxiety and excitement.
"Where is Lord Constable Regdar?" the duke roared.
"Your Highness," the officer answered, "it has been suggested that the lord constable is the murderer."
The duke stopped dead in his tracks, and the officer almost collided with him. Maelani did in fact lightly bump into the officer, who turned to apologize, his face red. He stopped when the duke's meaty hand fell on his shoulder and turned him back around.
"Who made such an allegation?" the duke asked.
The officer swallowed and said, "Vargussel, Your Highness. They fight to the death even now."
The color drained from the duke's face, and he found it difficult to draw in a breath. His eyes met his daughter's, and she looked the same.
"To the Trade Quarter then," the duke said, "and let's see for ourselves."
Regdar rolled the rod over in his hands. It was surprisingly heavy, heavier even than his greatsword. To Regdar's untrained eye it appeared to be made of solid platinum. The metal alone was worth a king's ransom. The power to kill in a way that left no trace and cut whatever spiritual connection a soul had with its body must have cost even Regdar's heart sank. His blood ran cold. He began to sweat and shiver at the same time.
The victims couldn't be brought back.
Families of the murdered young men had tried. They employed the most powerful priests in the city, who had tried every prayer to no avail. Whoever was killed by that beautiful, platinum abomination stayed dead.
Naull would stay dead.
All because a grizzled, old mage lusted after the hand of a girl less than half his age. Or was it the duchy that would be her dowry that Vargussel sought? Did it matter? Not to Regdar.
"Hate…" he whispered.
He slipped the rod over his shoulder and wove it between the straps of his pack and scabbard again.
Hate, he thought.
Bending down, he retrieved his bow from the tumble of smoking, rotten timbers.
Hate enough, Regdar thought.
He drew an arrow, nocked it, and pulled back the string as he turned. He looked quickly through one hole in the blasted wall, then another, until he saw the wizard. He needed only a moment to aim through the de facto arrow loop before letting fly.
As the arrow whizzed through the air, Regdar thought he heard it whisper, "Hate," in its wake. In truth the arrow did not speak but the wizard did, mumbling and hissing his way through another incantation.
The arrow popped the wizard's image like a bubble, and it was gone. The others continued their chant.
"Four decoys left," Regdar whispered, "then I'll show you just how much I can hate."
As he spoke, he nocked another arrow, drew, aimed, and – was surrounded by a stone wall. The construction appeared out of thin air, circling him in a tight cylinder of rough, gray stone. Regdar drew in a sharp breath, waiting for something worse but in the space of a heartbeat, the wall didn't come down on him, the space didn't fill with fire, acid, or lightning. With the position of the floating wizard fixed in his mind, he lifted his bow up and loosed the arrow.
Regdar dropped the bow and jumped, his arms stretched out over his head. He barely reached the lip but found himself hanging by his fingertips from the top of the stone cylinder. As he lifted himself up, he scanned the sky. When he saw only four identical Vargussels floating, casting another spell, Regdar knew his last arrow had sailed true. Only three more images to go before the real Vargussel would be revealed.
Regdar pulled himself up high enough that one knee touched the top of the wall as the wizard's chant came to an end.
The wall began to collapse. No, not collapse but melt, droop, like a stick of butter thrust into an oven.
The knee that Regdar had hoisted atop the wall sank into cool mud. He tried to jump over the edge but, when he pushed off with his hands, he succeeded only in burying them up to his elbows in mud. He slipped back and managed to get his left hand free. Looking down, he saw that the whole cylinder was sinking into a formless mound of gray-brown mud. His feet twisted around each other, his right arm pulled painfully past his side and behind his back. The mud pressed relentlessly against him, drawing him down.
Regdar grabbed the end of the platinum rod with his left hand and slipped it free of the straps. It wasn't easy with the mud drawing it down but fortunately the liquefying stone didn't cling to the metal. He drew the rod like a sword and held it over his head in an attempt to keep it, and his arm, out of the mud for as long as possible.
Finally, the slow, c
rushing descent came to an end. Regdar found himself buried up to the neck in thick, claylike mud. He couldn't move, could barely breathe.
Regdar watched the wizard and his three duplicates slowly descend from the sky. The instant their feet touched the rubble-strewn ground, all four of them strode toward Regdar with a purpose.
All four of them were laughing.
As accustomed as she had become to magical travel, Maelani found her hands shaking and her knees weak as she stepped into the circle with her father and a pair of his elite guard. It was rare that she and her father were together outside the confines of the palace. The duchy could survive the death of either one but losing both would cause a power vacuum and probably a civil war.
Still, she was surprised at how easy it had been to convince her father to take her along with him to see the "fight to the death" between Regdar and Vargussel. He had seen in her eyes, she was sure, her love for the lord constable. She made no effort to mask it. Her choice was made, and she knew her father not only concurred but had bluntly maneuvered Regdar in front of her in the first place.
As Maelani waited for the assembled officers and palace staffers to activate various and sundry magical items that would speed them on their way and likely cloak them in layer upon layer of protective magic as well, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine why Vargussel would make such a scandalous, unbelievable claim. Who of sane mind could believe that Regdar was the murderer?
The truth hit Maelani like a bucket of cold water poured over her head. Her eyes popped open and she turned to her father to tell him.
Before she could speak, the world turned upside down, went black, then gray, then inside out. Lights flashed. She heard a sound like a song, thin and reedy, but devoid of melody, and felt a sprinkle of chill rain.
She realized her eyes were closed. When she opened them again, they had arrived.
The sky was a dark, threatening gray, dripping cold drizzle. Wind whipped down the narrow Trade Quarter street and chilled Maelani to the bone. She wrapped her arms around herself and blinked, getting her bearings after the brief slip from reality.
Her father was already moving, already talking, already issuing orders. City watchmen gave hurried, clipped reports, deferring to the elite guard, bowing, walking backward. She followed, an elite guardsman with a halberd dogging her tracks. She'd walked under guard before and knew that the man with the polearm was well-trained, well-paid, and fiercely loyal. He was there for the express purpose of trading his life to protect hers. The thought made Maelani wonder how many men there were in the city, in all the duchy, who would do that. How many already had?
"Father," she called through the press of watchmen and soldiers. "Father!"
The duke turned to glance at her but kept walking.
"Father," she persisted, "it's Vargussel."
He glanced back at her again and asked, "What are you saying?"
"It's Vargussel," Maelani repeated. "He is the murderer, not Regdar."
The duke didn't miss a step. He kept on, following the watchmen around a half-collapsed wall. It was then that Maelani detected the faint stench of decay, of rotten meat, that was draped over the place like a shawl. She put a hand to her lips but quickly took it away.
"It was because of me," she said.
This got the attention of several of the men-at-arms, if not the duke himself.
"It was because of-" she started to repeat but stopped when they stepped around the wall and saw Regdar buried to his neck in mud and four identical wizards marching toward him with grim determination.
Maelani had to shake her head and blink twice before her mind would accept what she saw. The four wizards all looked exactly like Vargussel. They walked the same way, were dressed the same way, and all four were casting a spell. The words, their meaning unfamiliar to Maelani, came out of all four mouths at the same time, with the same tone and cadence. All four of them moved their hands in precisely the same intricate pattern.
"Stop him!" Maelani shouted, and her father finally turned to her. She spoke to him. "Vargussel killed all those young men because he didn't want them to marry me."
"Why wouldn't he…?" asked the duke, though she could tell he was already working out the reasoning in his mind.
"Vargussel has made it plain that he intended to have my hand," she said, though the thought of it made her ill. "He killed those men, and will kill Regdar now, because they were competing for the same prize."
"Your hand," the duke said, then turned to the wizards and his lord constable. "The duchy."
The four identical Vargussels finished their incantation and converged on Regdar, one hand thrust forward as if to grab the lord constable by the top of his head.
"Vargussel!" the duke roared. His voice rolled across the ruin like thunder but the wizards didn't stop, didn't even glance at the duke. "Stop, Vargussel! In the name of New Koratia!"
But Vargussel didn't stop. All four of them converged on Regdar, and all four of them grabbed the top of his head, fingers sliding under the lord constable's helm.
Regdar, who was buried to the neck in a mound of gray-brown mud, twisted and quivered. Maelani heard a crackling, buzzing sound, and saw sparks dance along the slick surface of the mud pile. Those same sparks danced along the legs of the quartet of wizards, and when they touched each in turn, that wizard disappeared into thin air. First one, then another, then a third, until only one Vargussel remained, twitching and grimacing himself.
The lone wizard stepped back-staggered really-and Regdar's head slumped forward. Only one of the lord constable's arms was free of the mud. Maelani puzzled at the rod of what appeared to be platinum he clutched in his free hand. Regdar's head rolled back so that he was looking up at the sky. His eyes were red, his face pale.
Vargussel shook himself and stared down at Regdar with undisguised hate. Maelani found herself stepping backward, and she only stopped when the elite guard with the halberd put a hand gently on her arm.
The power, she thought. To bury Lord Constable Regdar, to sap his strength with the pain of burning spells, to kill him in front of the duke, the watch, and the elite guard…
Maelani watched her behavior toward the old wizard play back in her mind in a cascade of petty humiliations and catty dismissals. Never had it occurred to her that the man was capable not only of murder but murder on an unprecedented scale directed at the very heart of the duchy. She almost wretched when she realized how badly the hideous monstrosity of a man wanted her, the lengths to which he was willing to go, and the horrifying power at his command.
For the first time in years, Maelani felt every bit the helpless, ignorant little girl.
Regdar could breathe but only with small, childlike, panting gasps. Pain had settled down to a dull, humming numbness. Blood rushed in his ears. The mud pressed on him, squeezed him, and chilled him. Regdar couldn't remember a time when he'd been so cold.
He looked up at the gray sky because he couldn't keep his neck from bending that direction. The chilly drizzle stung his eyes, and he blinked. As if that movement alone was enough to move his head, he found his neck turning, his head rolling down. On the way he saw Vargussel standing over him and took note that there was only one of him. The wizard's shock must have traveled through the wet mud with enough energy to dispel the last of the images.
"You did it…" Regdar coughed out, "to yourself…that time."
"Give me what is mine," the wizard said.
His voice was strong, steady, and confident. He might have been tickled by that last spell, it might have been enough to dispel his conjured doppelgangers, but otherwise he was fine.
"And I'm dying," Regdar said aloud.
"Yes," the wizard hissed, his voice even more than his words conveying perfect, pure confidence in that truth. "You are dying, Regdar."
The lord constable closed his eyes. In that moment, in the time it took for Vargussel to say those last words, Regdar wondered if it was true. Had he failed?
His patrol
had been chopped out from under him to a man. Naull was not just dead but irretrievably so. Had he failed the duke, failed the city, failed the duchy, failed Maelani, failed Naull, and failed himself? The wizard was going to kill him. The next spell, whatever it was, would be enough. The wizard would kill him and be free to make up any story he wanted. He would convince the duke, through guile or spell, that it was Regdar who killed all those people. Vargussel would have Maelani, he would be duke, and ultimately, it would be Regdar who condemned all of Koratia to that fate.
"I don't think so," he said.
Regdar felt his left arm jerk, and instinctively he took a tighter grip on his sword. He opened his eyes and saw that it wasn't his sword he was holding.
Vargussel was trying to pull the rod from his hand.
Regdar coughed, then champed his teeth down. His body shook. He looked up at the wizard's triumphant, gloating, hateful grin, and a fire swept through his body.
Hate.
It was hate that warmed him, hate that made him look Vargussel in the eyes, hate that strengthened his grip, moved his arm, and thrust the platinum rod into the wizard's gut.
Regdar tensed every muscle in his body, drove his very blood forward. He let that hate, that pure contempt, flow from him and into the rod. He let his hate power the death ray.
Vargussel couldn't believe it.
He couldn't believe that Regdar could do it.
He couldn't believe that after all his sacrifices, it came to this.
He couldn't believe he was feeling the same thing the others had.
This is it, he thought. This is what it feels like?
There was a blinding flash of light that illuminated the rain and smoke around them so that Vargussel felt as if he had burst into flame. He heard a dull boom, like something heavy but soft hitting the ground after a long fall. Was that his soul?
Is that my soul falling? he wondered.
