Teron was so flustered that he could barely muster the words to speak. It seemed that he was fighting against his own body, as if his very limbs were not his own. They twitched and spasmed, and it looked as though he could at any moment explode. Melgalés did not want to be anywhere nearby when that sickening moment happened.
“For once, Teron has no speech,” the Magus observed. “Did you not prepare a sermon for me today?”
Teron struggled with his bulbous form once more, his lips contorting and flapping over one another as the words caught like phlegm in his throat. “I am glad you are dead,” he managed, and the bile in his mouth, and in the words themselves, showed clearly that he meant it. Indeed, if the Common Tongue were powerful enough to curse, and were Melgalés not already cursed by the Molok-runes, Teron would have used his words to bring some spell of death upon the Magus.
The head-cleric regained his composure, pulling back his contorted features until they looked like the aged man again, like some old painting of him that he hoped would last forever. Even though the frame was hideous, the picture itself still had an elegance that Teron always had, a kind of poise that made people wonder if he were descended from some ancient line of kings. It was a false grace, for Teron himself was the painter, and he used many shades to hide the blotches and blemishes of his soul.
“You are evil,” Melgalés said. “There are some who do things for greed, for riches and wealth, and some who do things for vengeance, for blood and glory. But you—you do not even just do these things to better yourself, for what is better about you now? No, you do them for some kind of enjoyment, for some kind of pleasure in the pain. Has Agon made you in his image?”
Teron blinked, expressionless. “If this were Agon’s form, you would be cowering. If I were his image, you would be kneeling. Perhaps then you would not be so sure of yourself or your loyalties. Perhaps then even you, faultless and blameless, would swear allegiance to the Beast.”
“I would rather die.”
Teron smiled, one of the few real smiles he had stowed away deep inside. “So you have. It is interesting how so many in Iraldas proclaim that they do not fear death, because they know that it is not the end, that they will go to the Halls and see again their families of old. But you and I know more about the second death, the real death, the one where there are no Halls, no loved ones—the one that really is the end. Are you so certain that you would rather die, truly die, than realise that sometimes we must serve another master?”
Melgalés felt a seed of doubt inside him, and he was startled and unsettled by it, for he thought himself resolute against the darkness. He felt suddenly caught off guard. The words in his mouth dried up. The thoughts in his head slithered back into the shadow. For a moment he stood still and felt almost empty, with nothing inside but that little, gnawing seed of doubt.
“I am not the enemy,” Teron said, and his voice was velvet. “If anything I am just a messenger. You are a Magus, Mehlalesh, so you should know that it is not as easy as good and evil, that the real world does not play like ilokadi, black against white, blue against red. It is not as simple as a winner and a loser. There are a lot of blended shades in this world. I am just part of the grey.”
Suddenly a spark lit in Melgalés’ mind, lighting as soon as Teron had called his name in the Bororian tongue, his true name when he first entered the world. His thoughts returned, and he suddenly became aware that Teron was casting a spell of sway upon him, that there really was a seed of doubt there, but that Teron was the planter, tilling the soil of his being with his words. Once Melgalés realised this, the seed was shattered, and suddenly the ugliness of Teron was more apparent once again.
“There are blues and reds, yellows and greens, indigos and violets, and so many other colours in the world,” Melgalés said. “And yes, there are even greys and other muddied colours. But you are none of them, for there is no colour that can describe you. You are a nothingness—yes, an emptiness—and something evil has taken up residence in the shell of your being, the husk you think is a soul. There is no home for you but the Void.”
Teron’s eyes grew dark, as if a shadow was moving behind them, and now there was a different kind of hatred welling inside of him, a kind of loathing that even Men could not muster from the darkest parts of their hearts.
“Do you not grieve for what you have done?” Melgalés asked, and he felt somewhat futile in asking it, knowing what little was left of what Teron might have been in his younger days. “Do you not regret anything? You sent people to their deaths, yes, to their dooms. Poor Belnavar, whom you should have thought dear. Do you not regret any of your evil deeds?”
“I only have one regret,” Teron said, and he paused as the darkness deepened in his eyes. “That I did not get the chance to kill you with my own hands.”
“You could try now,” Melgalés replied. “But then they would not be your hands, would they?”
Teron stepped forward, his bloated foot landed heavily on the ground. Melgalés saw the discoloured nails, overgrown and curled, but immediately his eyes were drawn back to Teron’s hands, for the head-cleric held them before him, away from the shadows. The light revealed the bits and pieces of fingers, the stumps of fingers, the ragged nails that made even those on his feet look normal, and the pulsing sores and scars that seemed to gather on top of one another.
“Your own hands do not look so bad now, do they?” Melgalés said. “They were old and wrinkled, sure enough—yes, many wrinkles—but they were the hands of Man. What are you now but a monster?”
Melgalés had barely spoken the taunt before Teron lunged at him with those very hands, grasping him around the neck. They fell to the floor, Teron clutching so tightly that his curved nails began to dig into the flesh and muscles of the Magus’ throat. There was no true skin to pierce, no flesh to feel, and yet Melgalés felt it all like any mortal would, and felt it deeper as the nails began to pierce into his soul.
“These hands?” Teron spat, and the spit landed upon Melgalés’ face. “These ones?”
The Magus struggled, bashing at the body of Teron, but his strength was already fading—and Teron was strong. More than ever Melgalés wished he were facing the Man he knew in Iraldas, and more than ever he wished he could have his Beldarian and knock the head-cleric away with a spell of displacement. Instead he struggled, bashing and clawing and striking, until he started to feel his eyes roll back in his head, until he started to feel something begin to swallow him up from inside.
“You think that because you are dead there is nothing worse than this?” Teron shouted, and there was pain in his words. “There is always something worse. I have seen some of it. I have seen some of what awaits the world above. You would pray for the second death to save your eyes the pain, to save your soul the scars.”
But Melgalés mustered his last remaining strength and drove his own nails into some of the blisters and sores on Teron’s face. He dug in deep, and as Teron screamed and loosened his own grip on the Magus’ neck, Melgalés regained some lost strength, and so he dug in deeper. The head-cleric howled as parts of his face began to explode, and then he fell back into a heap, as if he were a pile of bodies upon a battlefield. He screamed and pawed his face, but then he cried even louder as his own hands made the pain even worse, and so he shrieked and wailed for a time, until finally he sobbed and snivelled. There was nothing kingly or elegant about him now.
Melgalés struggled to his feet, coughing as he tried to regain his breath. He rubbed his tender neck, red and raw, and flinched from the touch. He gulped and swallowed hard, and he winced from the pain. He coughed again as Teron whimpered.
“You are a fool, Mehlalesh!” Teron shouted, turning to him with eyes of rage. “You always have been. You toyed with magic all your life, and no wonder you look younger than your age, for you are still a child in mind. The Aelora grow old prematurely, while you grow young, and to insult them even more you take of the Elixir of Life in their very homeland. So the fools inherit the w
orld, while the truly wise watch on.”
It took many attempts for Teron to clamber to his feet, and each one was a horror to behold.
“I am a fool in many things,” Melgalés admitted. He spoke slowly while massaging his neck, but still the words came out broken and hoarse. “Perhaps I was a fool to not consider the fate of my Beldarian, and I was definitely a fool to trust that you, who would stoop down to Agon himself, would send me a letter in good faith, without resorting to foul curses like the Molok-runes. But I am not the only fool, no.”
Teron’s eyes were filled with fire, and Melgalés glowered back. Then more eyes joined the standoff, for behind Melgalés emerged the red eyes of many Felokar wolves. They growled and showed their teeth, which carried the blood of the living and whatever filled the veins of the dead.
“I am willing to die,” Melgalés said. “Even the second death. That is why I was chosen as an Ardúnar. You are afraid to die—and that is why you have guaranteed it.”
Teron began to run, but the Felokar wolves were upon him in seconds. He stumbled and cast some of them off, knocking them away with his mutated arms. He knew he could not fight for long, however, and so he ran towards the vast opening, where it seemed that he could smell the fresh breeze of the world of Iraldas. Melgalés did not pursue him, but the Felokar wolves did. Yet they did not need to chase him for long, for as he neared the opening the great wolf Echarin awoke and lunged at him, catching his butchered body in his jaws. Teron screamed as the monstrous teeth sliced into him, tore through the demon form into the demon soul beneath.
“Death,” Teron coughed, “brings Agon closer.” He parted from the Underworld, his hulking form slumping upon the ground like another sacrifice, another offering to the Beast. A sudden chill came into the cavern, a wind from the nothingness of the Void, and it took Teron’s soul and crushed it, and then consumed it, swallowed every aspect and essence of his being, until there was nothing left but the memories people had of him—and there were few who wanted to remember him.
“So Teron is gone then,” the Gatekeeper said, his voice wafting through the chambers to Melgalés’ ears.
“Let us hope,” Melgalés said. “I would not like to see him again in an even uglier form. I do not know which was worse, the man or the beast. Perhaps the man, for he did much damage in that form.”
“And who knows what damage he has done in this,” the Gatekeeper said, and suddenly it seemed that the Gatekeeper knew more than he was letting on, revelling in the events as they unfolded, like an onlooker in a game of ilokadi. It was not clear which side, if any, he was rooting for.
“I cannot worry about what might have been,” Melgalés said. “Teron was a threat in life, though he veiled it, and so he seemed also a threat in death, and such could not be veiled. Whatever comes of his passing, we will have to face it. I only hope this is the last we will see of Teron.”
“That is one thing I can assure,” the Gatekeeper said. “The second death is final. None recover from it. While my brethren and sistren were imprisoned in the Void, Teron’s soul has been utterly destroyed. There is nothing left of him but the memories people have, and the mark he left upon the world.”
“Then he has left behind evil,” Melgalés said. “For that is what people will remember of him, and that is the tarnish he has left upon Iraldas, if not also here in Halés.”
“If not also,” the Gatekeeper said slyly.
Melgalés did not ask him what he meant, for he could tell by his tone that he would not answer, or would answer only in infuriating riddles, which were, perhaps, the only pastime for one in charge of the Gates of the Underworld. “Why is it then that the Elad Éni can survive in the Void, when the Void to all others is the end of everything?” he asked instead.
“Because they went willingly, so that others could live, though Corrias did not honour the pact he made. There are six locked in the Void, the leaders of the Elad Éni, three male and three female.”
“And you?”
“And me, though I am both and neither. Death is equal to all.”
“Except to the Old Ones,” Melgalés said.
“Chránán is the Lord of the Shadow of Time. Time is Death and the forerunner of Death, foredooming it for us all. When the Time runs out, we must all pass away. When the Time runs out, even Chránán will be no more, for how can he exist when Time itself dies? Even I will one day enter the Halls.”
“Who will be the Gatekeeper then?”
The Gatekeeper smiled his formless smile. “None of us will ever know.”
Melgalés began to wonder about the passing of time and how potentially meaningless it was. As if reading his thoughts, the Gatekeeper drew close and told him of the nature of things, of concepts he could barely wrap his mind around.
“The Time is great and vast,” the Gatekeeper said. “It stretches from one end to the other, and you call the line it forms ‘the Universe.’ Upon this line are many dots. You call them Iraldas, Althar and Halés, and there are others you know nothing of—and never will. To you the dots seem like unimaginable and almost endless lines. To us they are fleeting specks. The Time is great and vast, and so many ages will come and go, and even the ages themselves will think that Time is endless.”
The Magus thought long about this, and the Gatekeeper gave him time, if there was truly any to give, to come to terms with his tiny place amidst the multitudes and the magnitudes. At first Melgalés felt somewhat diminished by this, but after a while he became more resolute and defiant, recognising how a pebble can cause ripples that traverse a great distance, or how a movement in one place can cause an earthquake in another.
“Time might be all the things you say,” Melgalés acknowledged, “but it is more to us—yes, more. Time is a way of measuring our contribution to the world, and its short duration ensures we try to make a contribution all the sooner. Time is a prison, and yet timelessness is also its own jail—to each, the other is the key. I think that in the end we all, gods and mortals, share in some predicament, though it might wear a different guise.”
“So the Magi know a thing or two,” the Gatekeeper said with a hint of hatred. “That will be reassuring to the people of Iraldas, I presume.”
“Yes,” Melgalés said. “And something that does not reassure you.”
There was a grumble of sorts, though not quite a sound. The Gatekeeper retreated into whatever formless place it called its home, and Melgalés no longer felt its imposing presence. He was relieved, and yet now he felt more vulnerable than before, as if he were no longer protected by an ancient power.
Melgalés found that he was more aware of his surroundings. The reds were redder. The ground was tougher. Suddenly he thought he saw the shimmer of a shadow that looked darker than shadows should. He turned, but all that was there was the red rock of the walls of Halés. Then he thought he heard a rumble in the distance, from deep beneath him—from the dark and lonely chambers where Agon was chained.
XVIII – JUDGEMENT OF THE CÉALARI
The battle was over, but it was not yet won, even as dawn broke over the horizon. Bodies were the new bricks of the Mountain Fortress, and blood was the new cement. The surviving Al-Ferian tarried long into the night to clean the cloister where the Wisdomweavers still toiled. The work was hard, for there were not enough guards left, and there were many dead. The hardest work of all was dragging away the corpses of fellow men and women, those who might have otherwise joined the aftermath. It would take many nights to clean the blood from the stone. It would take many years to clean the blood from their memories.
“There will be a new forest from this,” Thúalim said as he looked upon the rising mound of Al-Ferian bodies in the corner. “All in the guard have promised their acorns to the ground.”
Ifferon watched as the guards checked the acorn pouches on the dead. It seemed to him that assurance that these were safe and sound was more important than what to do with the bodies themselves.
Thúalim must have seen his concern, for h
e said, “Their bodies will nourish the soil. They will help grow their own trees.”
“So it is not much different to our burials then,” Ifferon said. He was comforted by this, and yet the thought of burying the dead could bring no true comfort to the hearts of the living.
Ifferon was horrified to see that the Al-Ferian approach to the Nahliner dead was less civil. They were piled near the edge of the paths leading up the mountain, and every so often one of the larger guards would walk the paths and kick the bodies over the edge, where they plummeted into the valley far below—a valley already piled with bodies.
“They did evil in life, but they will do one good deed in death,” Thúalim said. “They will also nourish the soil. But no trees will grow from the armies of Agon.”
“Will none of your own return as Al-Ferian?” Ifferon asked.
“No,” Thúalim said. “All efforts are on Théos. After that the Wisdomweavers will have very little left of them to weave.”
Ifferon turned to the priests now, and he noticed how tired they had become. Some were resting by the windows, peering at the sky, or deep in dreams. Some still spoke their incantations, but they rested against the stone plinth upon which Théos lay. Others seemed to be only there in body, and barely so, mumbling along with the others, struggling against sleep. Ifferon began to wonder if they might fail in their quest not by battle, but by sheer exhaustion.
“Can they last the night?” Ifferon asked Thúalim.
“This is the last night of the ritual,” Thúalim said. “If they cannot last the night, then there is a darker night that we all must face, one that I doubt we can outlast.”
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