Fire Sea

by Margaret Weis

  Alfred leaned back against the bulkheads. Consciousness was slipping away from him. He thought he heard, though it may have been a dream, Haplo's sleepy voice.

  “I never did find out about the prophecy. I don't suppose it matters. No one will be left alive down there to fulfill it. Who believes in that crap anyway? Like you said, Sartan. If you believe in a prophecy, you have to believe in a higher power.”

  Who believes? Alfred wondered.

  CHAPTER 47

  SAFE HARBOR,

  ABARRACH

  THE LAZAR, ANGERED AT LOSING THE DRAGONSHIP, TURNED their wrath on the living who yet remained on Abarrach. Kleitus led the armies of the dead in an attack on the small band of refugees from Kairn Telest.

  The living were led by Baltazar, who barely escaped with his life from the docks. Protected by Prince Edmund, the necromancer hastened back to his people, hiding in the Salfag Caverns. He brought them the terrible news that their own armies of dead had turned against them.

  The people of Kairn Telest fled the coming of the dead, running out into the open plains of the land that was itself, dying. They fled without hope, however, for among their number were many sick and many children, who could not stand the forced pace. The cycles of their suffering and hardship were mercifully brief. The dead were hard on their heels and soon the last living beings on Abarrach were brought to bay. They had no choice but to turn and fight.

  During this time, I walked among the lazar, pretending to be one with them, for I knew that my hour had not yet come. Prince Edmund remained by my side. Although I knew his grief for his people was acute, he, too, waited for his hour.

  The people of Kairn Telest chose for their field of battle a level plain not far from the Pillar of Zembar. They gave some thought to trying to protect the children, the sick and infirm, the elderly. In the end, they decided that it mattered little.

  Against the dead, there could be only one outcome. Men and women, old and young gathered what weapons they could and prepared to fight. They formed their ranks into a single line—families together, friend beside friend. The fortunate ones would be those who died first and swiftest.

  The dead ranged themselves in ranks in the field across from the living. Their army was huge, outnumbering the people of Kairn Telest almost a thousand to one. Kleitus and the lazar walked before them, the dynast exhorting the cadavers to bring the dead necromancers among the Kairn Telest to him for resurrection.

  I knew what was in Kleitus's mind, for I had attended his council meetings with the rest of his lazar. Once the Kairn Telest were destroyed, he planned to enter Death's Gate and from there pass on to other worlds. His ultimate goal—to rule over a universe of dead.

  The trumpets of the cadavers sounded, blowing thin, iron notes that echoed through the kairn. The army of dead prepared to advance. The living of Kairn Telest closed ranks, silently awaiting their fate.

  Prince Edmund and I stood together on the front lines of battle. His phantasm turned to face me and I saw then that he had been given the knowledge for which he'd been waiting.

  “Bid me farewell, brother.”

  “Fare you well, my brother, on your long journey,” I said. “May you know peace at last.”

  “I could wish the same for you,” he said.

  “When my work is done,” I told him.

  We walked together, side by side, and took our places among the foremost ranks of the dead. Kleitus watched us warily, suspiciously. He would have confronted us but the dead began to cheer, thinking that Edmund had himself come out to lead the battle against his own people.

  Kleitus could do little against us. My strength and my power had grown during those last days, shining down on me like the sun I had never seen except in the visions of the Sartan from another world, the one who called himself Alfred. I knew its source. I knew the sacrifice I would have to make to use the power, and I was prepared.

  Prince Edmund raised his hand, calling for silence. The dead obeyed, the cadavers ceased their hollow cries, the phantasms hushed their endless moaning.

  “This cycle,” Prince Edmund shouted, “death comes to Abarrach!”

  The dead raised their voices in a mighty shout. The writhing visage of Kleitus darkened.

  “You mistake my meaning. Death will not come to the living,” Edmund's voice rang out, “but to us, to the dead. Let go of your fear, as I let go of mine. Trust in this one.” He knelt down before me, looked up at me. “For he is the one of whom the prophecy spoke.”

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  “I am,” he said firmly.

  I began reciting the chant, the words I had first heard spoken by the Sartan, Alfred. Blessed be the One who sent him to us.

  Prince Edmund's body stiffened, jerked, as if it felt again the spear plunge into its chest. The face contorted with both the physical pain and the mental, the knowledge of failure, the brief and bitter struggle life makes leaving the body, the world.

  My heart was filled with pity, but I continued the chant. The body slumped down to the ground at my feet.

  Kleitus, realizing what was happening, tried to stop me. He and the other lazar raged around me, but they were nothing more to me than the hot wind blowing from the sea of fire.

  The dead spoke no word, only watched.

  The living murmured and clasped hands, wondering if we offered hope or a deepening of their despair.

  The corpse lay still and silent, the dreadful magical strings that animated it were severed. The phantasm of Edmund, his spirit, grew stronger and more clearly defined. For a brief instant he appeared to me and to his people as he had been in life—young, handsome, proud, compassionate.

  His last look went to his people, to the living and the dead, and then he vanished, as the morning mists burn away in sunshine.

  A battle was fought that day, but not between the living and the dead. It was fought between myself and the dead and Kleitus and the other lazar. When it was ended, the lazar had been beaten, their dread power reduced. They fled, plotting to increase their strength and continue the fight. Some of the dead joined them, fearful of giving up what they know, fearful of the unknown. But many more of the dead came to me afterward and begged me to release them.

  Following the battle, the living of Kairn Telest made their way across the Fire Sea and entered the tragic city of Necropolis, joined there those few who had managed to survive the slaughter. Baltazar is their leader. The first law he passed was to prohibit the practice of necromancy. His first decree was that the bodies of the victims of the dead's vengeance be committed with reverence to the Fire Sea.

  The lazar have disappeared, but their threat hangs like the dreary clouds of laze over the living of Necropolis. The city's gates are shut, the rat holes have been bricked up, the walls are heavily guarded. Baltazar is of the opinion that the lazar are searching for the means to enter Death's Gate and may perhaps have done so.

  I think it quite likely that Kleitus does seek a way through Death's Gate, but I do not believe he has found the means to enter. He remains in this world, all the lazar remain in this world. I hear their voices, sometimes, during the sleepless hours of the long nights. I hear their cries of hatred and agony and torment. It is their hatred that binds them to this world, their hatred of me in particular, for they know that, in me, the prophecy has been fulfilled.

  The torment we lazar endure is indescribable. The soul longs for freedom, yet cannot detach itself from the body. The body longs to give up its heavy burden, but is terrified to part from the soul. We cannot sleep, we cannot find rest. No food can give us sustenance, no drink can ease our terrible thirst. The body aches with fatigue, the restless spirit forces that body to constantly roam the world.

  I walk the streets of Necropolis, streets that were once crowded but are now pitifully empty. I walk the deserted halls of the palace and listen to the echoes of my own

  footfalls. I walk the fields of Old Province, desolate and abandoned. I walk the fields of New Province and watch
the living toil in place of the dead. I walk the shores of the shrinking Fire Sea. When the pain of my existence becomes too much to bear, I return again to the Chamber of the Blessed to find strength.

  My suffering is my penance, my sacrifice. My beloved Jera walks with the lazar, out there, somewhere. Her hatred for me is sharp, keen, but only because her hatred must wage constant battle against her deeper love. When the time for waiting is ended, when my work is accomplished, I will take my beloved in my arms again and together we will find the peace now denied us. 1 keep that dream in my heart, the only dream allowed these sleepless eyes. It is my comfort, my hope. My love and the knowledge of my duty sustain me in my waiting. The time of the prophecy is not now, but soon.

  “He will bring life to the dead, hope to the living, and for him the Gate will open.”1

  1 A Collection of the Writings of Jonathan the Lazar, compiled by Baltazar, ruler of Necropolis, Abarrach.

  EPILOGUE

  My Lord,

  You may remove Abarrach completely from your calculations. I found evidence to indicate that the Sartan and the mensch did once inhabit that hunk of worthless, molten rock. The climate undoubtedly proved too harsh for even their powerful magic to sustain them. They apparently tried to contact the other worlds, but their attempts ended in failure. Their cities have now become their tombs.

  Abarrach is a dead world.

  My Lord will, I'm certain, understand why I do not make my report to him in person. An emergency has arisen that calls me away. On my return from Abarrach, I learned that the Sartan I discovered living on Arianus, the one who calls himself Alfred, has entered Death's Gate. Evidence indicates that he has gone to Chelestra, the fourth world the Sartan created, the world of water. I am following him there.

  I remain your loyal and devoted son.1

  HAPLO

  Haplo, my loyal and devoted son, YOU ARE A LIAR.2

  1 Haplo's report on the world of Abarrach, from the files of the Lord of the Nexus.

  2 Scrawled on the margin of the report.

  APPENDIX

  NECROMANCY

  as described in the Journal of Alfred

  FROM VOL. 3 (NOTE ON INSIDE COVER)

  To the Untroubled Mensch and being written in your own language for your understanding: These are my Rune Journal Notes which I kept secretly and sporadically during the time of my travels through the Death Gate. I confess that I have never been very good about my journal entries—especially during those first years of travel. On reflection, my journal must seem rather disjointed to you. The text includes everything from meal selections in Pryan to long discourses on obscure magical principles. It's punctuated by observations and insights as my whim suited me at the time, usually served up without preamble or connection to previous texts.

  I write knowing that you may not comprehend everything. My narrative is without clear sequence. Further complicating your understanding are the differences between Sartan and Mensch language structures. Sartan language is bound as one with its rune structure. As such, it is a nonsequential language, holding its concepts simultaneously rather than one after the other. While such structures work well for magic and other concepts, they have difficulty conveying a procession of events through time. Such sequences of events are better understood, organized and conveyed in the common language of the mensch.

  I have kept my journal in both Sartan runic and several 403

  mensch languages, choosing whichever, in my judgment, seemed like the most appropriate conveyance for my thoughts and observations …

  FROM VOL 2: PAGE 132— ALFRED BELOW THE CITY OF NECROPOLIS

  … I was riveted by the runes in that sacred chamber of the catacombs. Their structure filled my mind in the instant although, with a shudder, I forced myself to look away. Now their form troubles my sleep. In order to banish their shadows, I am translating them here. As I hide them from my sight by closing the cover on this book, perhaps I can also hide their memory from my consciousness.

  I have chosen to translate the rune structure seen there into a rough equivalent in the common mensch language so as to better understand the sequence of events surrounding it rather than its conceptual whole. I will include as much of the original rune structure and linkages as I can. It is nevertheless impossible to truly translate a simultaneous language into a sequential one.

  The runes begin apparently mid-thought concerning communication with other Sundered Realms—the subject of group research as the text later makes clear.

  Translation: Subroot rune from the Altar1

  Cycle 2752 Origins of Necromancy

  Kinilan3 observed that the current problem was similar tothat facing the ancient necromancers. This suggested that the solutions to those ancient problems might give some clue to resolving our own mission4… We began an exploration of the ancient texts to determine if their own thinking may lead to a solution to our current problem of communication between the worlds.

  INITIAL FAILURES: THE AUTOMATONIC AGE

  Early attempts at reanimating our dead were unsatisfactory though its success was becoming necessary for our survival. The reanimated dead were no better than mindless automatons, capable of nothing more than doing tasks directly designated for them by the necromancer controlling them.5 Such undead were unacceptable as a work force since they did little to free the necromancer from the actual work itself. The necromancer would be required to direct every movement of the animated corpse—a task that was tedious at best and a waste of magical energies at worst. The necromantic research continued to show promise, however, and found its solution in an aging mage of House Advocate.

  THE DELSART SOLUTION

  Delsart Sparanga, a Sartan researcher of considerable years, discovered the Delsart Near State or Delsart Similitude.6

  “… discovered a second state of existence that was resonating with the physical state. In rune magic this

  state is known as the Delsart Near State, referring to both the necromancer who discovered its existence and the concept that this second existence of all objects is a near state to that of its physical presence. This second state was alluded to in the ancient texts as a spiritual state usually associated with a deity or religious belief system. For this and simplification of language, the Delsart Near State is commonly referred to as the spiritual state as well.

  “The spiritual state of all things is a much finer reflection of the physical state. All things that exist in the physical are also expressed in this spiritual state. Delsart taught that no thing exists in what he terms the coarse physical state except that it also have existence in the spiritual state.

  “Through Delsart's research, it was discovered that this second state changes radically upon the death of a living being. While the corpse retains a form of spiritual existence, its new second state is radically different from that of the living being it once was. It was this difference, he surmised, that caused the reanimated dead to be without any self motivation.

  “Delsart failed in his lifetime to discover the nature of this second state nor could his runes have control over it. Delsart's contribution, however, was a set of runes that could recall the original spiritual state and bind it again to the coarse physical state. It was this discovery that ushered in the current age of Necromancy.”

  Early Failures of the Delsart Solution. Necromancy was not without its early problems, despite the common teachings of our day.7 Our research group has studied rune texts from that period. Early notes on those initial experiments speak of terrible problems in implementing Delsart's spiritual connection. The rituals and important waiting periods were not initially known. As a result, early efforts bound the spirit state to the dead subject too quickly and thus too closely to its

  original state. This caused many lazar created in that early time. The lazar were subsequently destroyed. It is secret knowledge,8 known only among runes hidden deep in these walls, that the Rebellion and subsequent Battles of the Pillar of Zembar were caused in part by the creation of s
everal lazar at that time, who subsequently threatened much of the kingdom.

  Delsart Rune Refinements. Even as the Battles of the Pillar of Zembar raged, corrections and ceremonies were made in necromantic rune structures to properly revive the dead for service to their living masters and tha state. The important waiting period between the time of death and that of reanimation was discovered. This period allowed sufficient disparity to grow between the physical state and the spiritual state to prevent their exercise of free will after reanimation. The dead could now act on simple directions rather than as puppets under the necromancer's constant vigil. A new age of necromancy had come.

  Cycle 279: Search for Delsart Equivalents

  If all things in the world—living and otherwise—had such a spiritual resonance to their physical state, could this resonance be tapped as a source of communication between worlds? The sheer mass of creation seemed to prohibit our magical contact with the other worlds of the Sundering. Perhaps contact could be established through this spiritual state more easily than through the physical.

  By order of the Council, our group convened here in the sanctuary around the Table of Elders to contemplate this very thing.9

  The Table of Elders10 was made of wood brought through Death's Gate at the time of the Sundering. Being comprised of material from another world and therefore,

  according to Delsart, having a spiritual echo also from that foreign world, this tone might provide the medium through which we may communicate with the world from which it came—if not with all the other worlds of the Sundering.11 Being well beyond the time of Delsart, however, it was not sufficient for us to know that the spirit state was a fact that worked—we needed to know why it worked. Our next step, then, would be to contemplate a line of research begun over four centuries ago and, having then borne fruit, was discarded.12 From the ancient texts we unraveled Delsart's thoughts and methods in search of a more complete understanding of his work than even he had possessed.