by Martin Gibbs
I paused and finally went to the kitchen to refill a teapot, then set it on the hook over the hearth. Tea would be a wonderful respite from the chill of traversing so far over the land to get here. I loved the country, do not doubt, but it was damned cold!
You don’t drink wine?
“I?” I paused, pouring the steaming tea into a large mug. “Why no, I didn’t want to become like…” I let the words die out. In my mind, I could see him turn crimson and hear his teeth grind.
I continued the tale.
“The hardest part was really keeping you inside my head.”
I don’t follow.
I heaved a sigh. “You started visiting me between the notes when I was a simpler person. When Ar’Zoth had my condition “fixed,” I worried that if you found out that I was no longer the Bimb you first met, you would vanish. All the other voices had.”
Why would you think that?
“I don’t know, I just—it’s something you mentioned before that I constantly dwelled upon. You had said that it was easier to visit me than other people, because my ‘gift’ was an opening you otherwise could not find.”
Some people here claim to talk to the living, just like in the world of the living they claim to talk to the dead. I never believed them…I thought it was only ones like you who had the gift—that those with simpler minds were easier to reach. What a fool I’ve been.
He was more than a fool, but I kept on. I was surely not the only one who could be reached by the dead. “In any case, Ar’Zoth did a marvelous job of blocking my thoughts and my skills. I’m not sure anyone outside of Ugly Nose could have seen them, but he never moved a hair to do anything. Perhaps he was scared of me as much as I was of him. Coward. Anyway…you were good about leaving me alone when I asked and not intruding. I am thankful for that.”
I think he grunted. I wish I had left you long ago.
“You’ll see your son soon enough. Why can’t you be happy about that?”
He is dead, how can I be happy?
“I have come all of these countless miles for you. Through the mysterious Tunnels of Woe! Across an inhospitable landscape and through the very Spires of Solitude. All for you and your son.”
You did none of that for me. If it hadn’t have been for the demon warlock, you would have never come this far. I see that now.
So much for the omniscience of the dead! “You simple man. You simple, simple man. It is not like that at all. Nothing is ever so clean and easy—and there is never a simple solution to any problem. Knots, man! Don’t all the Holy Orders talk of knots and the complexities of life? And here you thought I was only serving you and your needs.”
I—
“When, in fact, I was acting for multiple reasons. One was for me—I give you that. Yet I was also working with you to save your son.”
Save him! You killed him!
“And in so doing I saved him. Didn’t I? He will now be with you forever. Why can’t you understand that? You should be happy!”
That is the second time you have said that. Are you truly cured of your illness?
“What do you mean?”
You keep focusing on one thing, that I should be happy. You seem to miss the obvious fact that my son had an entire life ahead of him.
I sipped some tea. “Well, so did you. And how did that work out?”
It was quite the surreal experience to “hear” a dead person yelling as they violently defended taking their own life.
I had no life left! Do you not understand? My wife had been dead for years, and once I got the disease, it was all but over. It was in my bones, for Sacuan’s sake! I was being eaten from the inside out! The blasted magic and powders and so-called prayers—none of it worked. None! There was no way out!
I let him have his say, then sighed. “I still do not understand why you cannot be happy. In any case—” I waved off his brewing protest. “I tire of this. There is much to do and little time. I am going to release Zhy to you, and I am releasing you forever. Don’t ever visit me in the spaces between the notes. Ever.”
Good riddance.
I’m not sure what I did or how I did it. Ar’Zoth had taught me much of magic, but the actual practice was difficult. How could I ever cast a single spell? I wondered. It was easy to take a deep breath and release the two souls, but how would I ever be able to do what the great warlock had done? He had taught me, but now it seemed so out of reach. Perhaps I didn’t do anything at all!
Then I thought of the moose and the flash of light. I had tried to do something, to grasp at something I thought I had seen. Once I’d seen the animal elude the trap, I had pulled what looked like threads, but I had no idea what they were. The flash was probably magic, but it was nothing I was directly trying to accomplish. I think Lyn had seen it, too, but the last thing he had expected of me was an ability to harness magic.
As I thought wearily back on the travelers, I felt the souls of Qainur and Torplug. I felt them, writhing in their own self-pity, wanting to be released. Soon they would be, wouldn’t they? I wasn’t sure how it worked. When I looked at Zhy, his soul seemed to shimmer and waver, if in fact, that is what it was. It was more of a memory than something tangible. I would never understand all of this. But Zhy and his father vanished.
It felt like my chest collapsed as I breathed deeply. Gone! They were gone. Gone from my mind forever. My mind returned to the Bimb of old for a brief second, and I thought of the sutans Ar’Zoth had promised. But a part of me worried that Lyn would return and bring Zhy with him. Later, when things had settled, I would play.
Right now, there was much to do. And I was exhausted. I started to pour another cup of tea, then set the kettle and cup on a side table. I didn’t like leaving half-full cups of tea, but it was hard enough to even raise the cup to my lips, let alone find energy to drink it. I needed to rest.
On the other side of the hearth was a long divan, plush with velvet cushions. I kicked off my wet boots and collapsed on the sofa with a groan. The sheer distance I had traveled seemed to slam into me full force.
I was thankful for whatever magic was in the Tunnels that allowed us to go on foot for so long. But the trek across the wasteland was brutal, and the climb through the Spires took every last ounce of stamina and willpower. It would have been easy to lay down and die. It was too bad we could not take the other easier route that Lyn had mentioned, but alas, I had to go along with his plan. Such cold I had never experienced, and I truly thought I would expire along the way. To sit alone before a roaring hearth in such a massive castle, in such a wasteland—it was truly sublime. Rest, I needed rest. There was much to do.
One needed energy to unleash a demonic horde.
Chapter 32 — Dawn at Dusk
Sharing a task with others does not bind those others to you. The knot is not necessarily helpful or even correct. Working and living together for a common task does not protect you from them.
Cleric Bertrand
The crackling, hissing, and popping of the fire would not let me sleep. I had dozed perhaps a few hours, on and off, but my mind kept racing through the whirlwind of events. Never in my full life had I experienced so much. I don’t think many people had experienced as much during the course of their pathetic lives, either. Only the so-called Protectors and Knights of the Black Dawn were hardy enough to travel such distance. And they trained for it! Here I was, a farmer’s son, guided to my glory by a dead man; such was the twisted and knotted way of the world. It seemed unfair, that I should succeed at the expense of others, but only for a second—the world would soon crumble.
I yawned as my lids fluttered open.
The sun was dropping slowly off the western wasteland. Soon it would be full dark. I stared into the dwindling fire and thought again of my own Fa. He would always be ‘Fa’ to me, even if I were the highest-ranking mage in Belden. Your Fa is your Fa.
I stood and put another log on the fire. Fa was most likely doing the same at the Temple, carrying out his good works. But I wa
s convinced he worried about me, too—I wished there was a way to reach out to him. As much as I wanted to, it was hard to stuff those feelings away. But they would have to be stuffed.
There was much to do. I stood control over a demonic horde of incredible proportions. It wanted out.
First things first.
I stood again, groaning. It was time to dispose of the once-powerful warlock named Ar’Zoth.
His body was heavy as I dragged it across the entryway. My boots were thick enough that I could walk across the shattered glass of the chandelier without concern. It was somewhat depressing to see such a lovely fixture smashed to pieces on the stone floor, especially given the fact that an inept mage had caused it to fall. As I stretched my screaming back, I stopped and laughed. Why was I doing this? I have the powers he had…living the life of a simpleton had inured me to the fact that I always had to do some sort of manual labor to get something done. Now, however, I could harness the great power of demons to do even the most menial task.
Try as I might, however, there was nothing there! I knew the spells; I knew the methods of keeping the demons out of your mind, but—was it the cold? I could not grasp at anything. I sighed and slowly, inexorably, painfully, dragged the warlock to the edge of cliff. Careful not to slip, I heaved him off and over the rim of the canyon. And out of my world forever. I turned back with the intent of brewing another pot of tea when something stopped me cold. Someone.
“Demon!” The sound of a human voice startled me. My first instinct was to try to act the old, simple-minded Bimb, but the man had seen my actions. There was no way I could act my way out of it. I turned slowly.
The man was ragged, his fur outfit covered in snow. A grizzled, scraggly, bearded face was barely visible behind the cowl. In his right hand he held a gleaming sword. It was a very impressive weapon and it looked impossibly sharp. But it was no match for me. If only I could remember the damned spells! As hard as I racked my brain, there was nothing there to grab onto!
“And you are…?” I asked quietly.
“My name is of no importance. So. I am too late. You have killed the travelers who have come here seeking you.”
I wanted to speak, but he gave me no chance to defend myself as he roared and started to charge.
* * *
Ar’Zoth had said I would know when I was able to harness the powers that he had possessed. I’d watched the pathetic spells of the little mage, and even though Bolt of Sacuan was a frightening and devastating spell, there were always things that could counter it. The great warlock easily batted away spells others had spent years perfecting. And he had said they were now mine.
Mine.
But yet I felt nothing.
The man was charging with his huge curved sword and I stood there like the imbecile I had imitated for those many years.
I reached for something inside my head…anything that would give me a clue as to how I was supposed to harness the great magic Ar’Zoth could control. Nothing. I dug in my heart, my stomach, clenched my fists. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!
I was going to die.
Everything seemed to slow down. The burly warrior kept coming forward. With each stair he ascended, I was that much closer to being disemboweled. I backed away a step. He kept approaching. I backed again and nearly tripped over the top stair. My brain screamed at me to turn and run into the castle and hope I could lose myself in the various warrens and corridors.
But he kept approaching. The blade caught a thin sliver of sun that barely peaked through the thick clouds. He growled low in his throat.
Only four more stairs.
And then somehow time stopped. In a mere fraction of a second, I felt a flood of awareness. Like the dreams that take seconds, but in which you travel the length of the world and solve great mysteries, a torrent of understanding was emptying itself into my mind. The words that Ar’Zoth had told me, my discussions with Lyn, and even the music. The warlock always reminded me that it was not magic, as in a children’s story. It was the harnessing of energy. The world’s energy locked away from the view of others who could not channel it. Inaccessible to the untrained like myself. It had taken years for Ar’Zoth to impart his knowledge ... it was not something one could teach from afar. It was a painstaking endeavor, which, until now, appeared to be wasted. Everything I had learned was in danger of being sliced into bits by the man’s great sword.
With the light flitter of a fragment of a song in my mind, I raised my arms to the sky. I had it! I now knew how to do it. The music!
The notes!
The SPACES BETWEEN!
Everything was made of something, Ar’Zoth had said. Even thin air was made of small particles no one could see. That was how magic worked. Even demonic magic had to draw on something unseen. Energy unseen. Energy present in the spaces between the motes and particles and fragments and waves of light and sound. The power is a wave and it is pieces—all at the same time, the warlock had said. If you LOOK you will see it. If you LOOK, you can harness it.
Demonic magic came at a cost, however. One had to create a barrier to one’s own mind before grasping at the red waves and fragments that hung between the spaces. Could those who wove non-demonic magic see these? Most likely not. For it took Ar’Zoth two years to teach me where to look. I hadn’t been born with the ability, so the training was exhausting, but it had finally paid off.
And barely in time.
I opened my eyes and they were everywhere: The particles and waves that made everything, that drove everything, the foundations for magic! Many mages could not truly see these things, but they used them anyway. I could see them. Spinning and whirling and diving and pulsating in the thin air. And even more amazing were the infinitesimal black flecks of the building blocks of these particles! Surely, this would require further inquiry, but the sword of a so-called Knight of the Black Dawn was only inches from my bowels.
For the man charging me, it must have been quite a sight. There I was timid and scrabbling back for safety, nearly incoherent in an attempt to save his pathetic skin. A man who had been fleetingly coherent and sane, now bumbling and broken. I’m sure he welled inside as he pictured the curved blade of his sword slicing into my stomach and spilling my internal organs along the snow-covered stone.
And then, in an instant, there was a flash of red light.
A throaty curse echoed over the valley as his precious sword exploded in a halo of crimson heat. It glowed brighter than the noonday sun and spun like so many kaleidoscopes as it went sailing from his hand. The weapon clanked briefly on the stone steps, took a small bounce, then hissed as it landed in the deep snow that rimmed the staircase. The snow melted with fury; then the remaining water boiled as the sword burned itself into the ground. Smoke curled up in ferocious tendrils.
The man stumbled, then raised his head and glared at me. He raised his fists as if to cast a spell but did nothing.
I quickly cast a ward around myself, grabbing at particles of metal that hung—how could metal hang in the air? I didn’t question that now; I just grabbed them and created an invisible shield around myself. Whatever he was planning, I was not going to give him the chance to succeed. I quickly spun off a web of green tendrils—exactly what Ar’Zoth had used to trap the three village idiots. In some regards, Ar’Zoth was still primitive. He forced too much, not taking his own advice.
The spaces between. Music is in the notes you do not hear. The best drummer sounded that way, not because of how hard he hit the skins, or how fast he could drum, but of what happened when the sticks (or his hands) were in the air. This was knowledge everyone should know. When I first picked up the sutan as an imbecile child, I knew this. People marveled at my ability to play a multitude of notes—but that was not impressive. It was the spaces between those notes. Everyone should know this. Apparently not everyone did, the great warlock included. He worked too hard.
To my horror, the webs bounced off the man. Instinctively I ducked, temporarily forgetting my own shield, and
they smashed into the lintel above the door. Quickly I darted to the side and tried another spell. A blue tendril expanded into a kind of fist as it approached the target. The intent was to knock him down. Again, the magic failed and shattered like paper-thin glass.
He laughed. “You don’t think I would come here without protection, do you?” He unzipped his coat partway, then reached under his collar and fingered something. “I’m sure you’ve heard of these?” he asked, smiling.
I opened my mouth, but in a blur, he sprinted to his sword. But if the talisman only worked on him…my thoughts raced. Again, I sent the red light directly at his sword and flung it into the ravine.
“So be it,” he snapped, turning to face me. He cast a brief and longing glance to his left, but his left hand remained open, as if it still gripped the sword that was no longer there. “Your magic may work against my weapons, but not me. We will fight to the death.” He raised his fists.
I let out a chuckle. “I could just run back inside and lock you out.”
“No,” he said forcefully. His eyes were piercing. “You will stay and fight, you murderous demon. I have sworn my whole existence to destroying the likes of you. My Order has abandoned me because they did not believe you were a demon—they did not believe those boys were demons. I knew you were in league with them, but you killing them only confirms what I suspected. You! You are the demon, and you killed—whomever they were. Minions? What where they?”
“They were—”
“I knew! I knew! You are the very evil we work so hard to destroy. And now you will die.”
“I am not a—” I started.
