Bureng’s words and his manner were intense and focused but Tashil could see that physically he was at the end — his grimy body was covered with scars and one arm seemed to have been broken and reset at a slight angle.
“I will never be your pet,” growled Qothan. “We do not serve the likes of you — we destroy them.”
“Ah, but he is your friend, is he not?” Bureng said, yanking on a handful of the robes Calabos wore. “Are you ready to see his blood redden the river, or will you rejoice when he sinks into the nethermind to be consumed?” Saying this, he bent to crane his face into Calabos’ then snapped back up to regard Qothan once more.
“What can this avail you?” Sounek said smoothly. “Kill him and nothing will stay our retribution, but release him and surrender to us and well see that you are….cared for.”
Bureng laughed at this. “Cared for! — yes, in an iron casket, maybe? You’re pitiful fools, all of you. No, when I come into my greatness I will care for you, better than poor Rikken cared for me in the end, gave me enough strength to endure and to wait — hah, no!”
Qothan took a step forward and stopped when the dagger pressed into Calabos’ neck and drew forth a hairline bead of blood.
“Time for the final stroke, I think,” Bureng said. “Time for a new king of shadow to arise.”
Then, swiftly and calmly, he took the dagger from Calabos’ neck, brought it up and slashed open his own throat.
Dardan uttered an oath and Tashil cried out in surprised horror. As Bureng fell to his knees, blood drenching his body, Calabos moved away a few feet and shook his head when Qothan tried to drag him further back. Bureng was grinning when his eyes showed the whites and he toppled backwards, legs splaying. There was a long, drawn-out moment of dread, then Tashil saw the very thing she feared beginning to rise from the body.
“Calabos, please get away!” she cried. “Qothan — take him, fly with him…”
“No!” he said. “It must end here, here and now, and only I know what has to be done.”
Yes, but have you strength? she thought, seeing the exhaustion in his face, the darkness around his eyes and the muscle twitching in his cheek.
Yet he drew a deep breath and got to his feet as the spirit-wraith wrenched itself free from Bureng’s body corpse and began drifting towards him. Smoky tendrils writhed around a dark, vaporous core and began to reach out towards his face as it came nearer. When the first of them touched the skin just above the eye, Tashil saw his head jerk very slightly but still he did not duck away. Rather, he waited until several of the vile tendrils were in contact before bringing up his hand and holding it in front of the spirit-wraith. For a space Tashil thought that it would continue along its path to engulf his hand and then his face, but instead it stopped. Calabos’ gaze was unwavering, implacable, and after a moment or two there was a bright, passing flicker at the heart of the spirit-wraith…and its tendrils retracted. Calabos then slowly began to push it backwards, further back until he was standing over the body of the pirate. Then he guided it downwards, down into the pirate’s chest.
“Die the death,” he said and straightened.
The corpse stirred, the chest inhaled and the arms twitched, as did the feet, then with an ungainly effort it sat up. Disarranged eyes blinked and a ghastly glee twisted the mouth, but only for a moment. A slack hand wavered up to finger the gaping wound in the neck and a look of tormented horror passed over the features or a second before it quivered and slumped onto its back. Its last breath was a quiet, grisly sound.
Calabos smiled and leaned back against the bare rock of the gully side, then slid down into a sitting position. Meanwhile, Tashil and the others splashed their way waist-deep across the Kala and Qothan came over to crouch beside him.
“I am here,” Calabos said with the care of the utterly weary, “by virtue of the sacrifice of dear and noble friends. It is so heartening to know that I still have some left!”
As they helped him to stand and walk gingerly out into the sunshine, he surveyed the devastation and the bare earth.
“So — how is Ilgarion, and dear old Tangaroth?”
“Dead,” said Dardan.
Calabos arched an eyebrow. “You don’t say? Any arguments over the succession yet?”
Sounek grinned. “There’s a nice big one scheduled for this afternoon. But we have plans, involving the Count and Countess of Harcas…”
Calabos gave an approving nod. “Hmm, perhaps if I have a brief nap…”
Tashil laughed and hugged him. “Lasting a couple of days, perhaps!”
Calabos glanced at her and smiled. “You may be right, come to think of it.”
As they walked down towards the Valewater, Tashil said, “So is that the end of the Shadowkings and the Lord of Twilight!”
Calabos, poet and mage, did not answer for a moment, then said:
“Yes, they are gone, finished, ended. But I can’t help remembering something that my friend Coireg once told me. He said — ‘Evil acts do not require the hand of an evil god’.”
“And what about good acts?” said Qothan. “What about their origin?”
Calabos smiled and shrugged.
“Does it matter?”
The End
ALSO BY MICHAEL COBLEY
THE SHADOWKINGS TRILOGY
Shadowkings*
Shadowgod*
Shadowmasque*
HUMANITY'S FIRE
Seeds of Earth
The Orphaned Worlds
The Ascendant Stars
Ancestral Machines
SHORT STORY COLLECTION
Iron Mosaic
*available as a Jabberwocky ebook
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Shadowmasque Page 50
