The horror of what had happened was on the lips of many around them, and if it was not on their lips, then it was on their minds. Herr’Don looked at Ifferon and could tell that he was lost in his own thoughts, perhaps thankful that he had escaped a similar fate. For Herr’Don, there was nothing he felt thankful for. Though the King was barely a father to him, there was nothing Herr’Gal could do in death to make amends for that, and there was nothing in the manner of his death that could repair the broken, or heal the wounded. Fresh wounds upon some do little to ease the stale wounds on others. He thought of Ilokmaden Keep, which had taken his arm. He thought of Telarym, which had taken his father whole.
* * *
“We have found the captive,” Délin said, “but where is the captor?”
They looked about, but found nothing. Then, from the darkness behind Herr’Don, where their lanterns did not shine, Ifferon thought he caught a glimpse of something. And then he saw that familiar, unsettling mask.
“There!” he cried, and he pointed to the figure.
Herr’Don swung around suddenly, but before he could unleash his sword, he was thrown away into Délin and the guards. Ifferon reached for his own sword, but as he unsheathed it he suddenly felt the handle burning, and he dropped it just as quickly. Swords dropped all around him as other guards encountered the same phenomenon, and many began to back away as the figure emerged not just from the gloom, but from a nothingness beyond the gloom.
“Dehilasü baeos!” Ifferon cried, but the Visage appeared undaunted. He stood there with his hands raised, as if at any moment he would begin a spell.
Then just as he appeared like he was about to act, a shimmering cage closed around him, and he looked this way and that to find whoever assailed him. The tent ripped up from the ground and was cast away, and there around them all stood the Magi of Boror, dozens in number.
“Give it up,” one of them called, and he looked old and grim, and very powerful.
The Visage turned to him slowly in his astral cage, and Ifferon could almost feel the masked man’s eyes settling upon the Magus, like a Gorgon might cast its gaze upon its stony prey. There was a visible strain upon the Magus, and even upon those around him, and the bars of the cage began to flicker and bend.
“Resist and we will destroy you,” the Magus said, but his voice was as strained as the bars.
“I do not fear death,” the Visage said, and the cage fell apart around him.
What happened then was so fast that Ifferon could only make some of the details out later in the annals of his memories. Bolts of lightning, beams of fire, and swords of light were cast at the Visage, all of which were parried and tossed aside, like a tree casts dew from its leaves. Many of the Magi were cast back with returning bolts and beams, and one or two seemed to disappear entirely. There was a flurry and a chaos upon the fields, for some guards ran towards the Visage, only to be killed instantly, while others ran away from him, trying to duck and dodge the magical barrage.
The battle moved across the plains, and it seemed like a constant tug of war, for just as the Visage seemed to be beating back all opposition, the Magi would suddenly renew their attack with greater ferocity, with some of those who disappeared returning to the field, as if released from whatever prison they had been cast into. And then just as the Visage appeared to be losing, and several more cages of light formed around him, with each side appearing suddenly and snapping together to form what might be to any other an impenetrable cube, the Visage cast them off suddenly, and sometimes even fired the cage at one of his attackers. And so cage doors clanged shut, and were blown open, and this continued for a time, until it seemed that the very air was alive with magic, making each breath that little bit more intoxicating, and that little bit more dangerous.
And then Thalla joined the fray. Ifferon would have barely known it was her, for she brought down pillars of fire all around the Visage like Melgalés might have done if he were still alive.
For a moment it seemed that the Visage was caught off guard by her ferocity and skill, for his magic turned entirely defensive, and he began to form orbs of water around him, which were subsequently crushed by the pillars of fire. When he regained his composure, he began to destroy the fiery pillars by casting the orbs at them, and sometimes he lifted up the pillars with his mind, casting them back in the direction of Thalla.
But Thalla knew many of the same spells that the Visage did, for the books she stole from the shelves of Melgalés’ house were ancient and arcane. As the pillars came towards her, she disappeared in a flurry of red cloaks, reappearing metres away, from where she renewed her attack.
But the Visage knew some spells that she had never studied, and he had experience that she lacked. So in time he began to make simulacrums of himself, and though they were mere illusions, the spells they cast were just as real as the Magus himself. So the battle grew more fierce, and the Visage broke down Thalla’s defences, sending bolt and beam her way. She struggled, and even when she evaded one attack, another was ready for her in the new location where she appeared.
Just as all seemed lost, and Thalla would apprentice her master in the art of death, red eyes appeared suddenly upon the battlefield, followed swiftly by the form of the Felokar wolves, who pressed forward, growling and bearing their teeth, while fiery embers flicked off from their fur to singe the skin and clothes of any left standing.
The Visage halted and turned his metal gaze towards the wolves. For a moment it looked as though he might battle them, and then he suddenly gave up, raising his hands no longer to cast spells, but to offer his surrender.
“Someone else is their master tonight,” the Visage said as he looked at the growling beasts.
Ifferon could sense it too, as he was sure many others could. Though they looked the same, these wolves felt very different to those which Délin fought several moons ago.
“Why do you give in now if you do not fear death?” Thalla asked the masked man.
“I do not fear death,” the Visage stated, “but I do fear the second death.” He paused for a moment before adding, “You should too.”
They put the Visage in chains, the kind of manacles that even the Nahamoni giants could not break out of, and yet it seemed that there was little point, for this evil Magus could easily escape the much more powerful prisons of the astral world. What kept him in place were the steady eyes of the Felokar wolves, like a reflection of the eyes of the Gatekeeper himself.
As they began to drag the masked man away, he turned and glanced towards the hills. It might have been just a curious look, but there was something in the movement that made many turn their eyes to where he stared. For most, there was nothing to see there. For Ifferon and those few who had the clearsight, there was the silhouette of a Shadowspirit.
X – THE AMASSING OF ARMIES
The Arliners and Bororians were shocked to see the Shadowspirit upon the horizon, but they were even more shocked to see that it was alone. They waited, and many grew anxious, but it did not move, and some began to doubt the reports of the clearsighted, and others began to wonder if it was some trick of the eyes, or the weather, or just an oddly-shaped tree in the distance.
Ifferon did not have any of these doubts. The Scroll of Mestalarin began its subtle alarm call, and in his heart he knew that what he saw was a Shadowspirit, and that more were on the way.
* * *
Over the next few hours, the armies began to fortify their position, digging trenches and building barricades. Some began to talk of returning home, and within their dwindled numbers thronged another army of doubt and despair.
“We have to do something about this,” Edgaron said. “The morale is failing.”
Herr’Don looked around at the toiling troops, at the fearful faces, at the worried expressions. Agon was so close he could almost feel the presence of the Beast, and yet there lay so many obstacles between them, not least of all the threat of the Shadowspirits, and the more impending threat of the failing spirits of those
around him.
“The King is dead,” Herr’Don said, standing up and embracing, and breaking, the silence. “I can never replace him. I can never be king. The crown is not for me, nor is it even for the one who will next wear it. It is for all of us, a symbol of unity. In that circlet there is the circle of people that make a nation. In the toughness of that gold there is the emblem of the resilience of our race. In its pronged tips lies a message to all our enemies. In its glisten is a reminder of the spark of light within us all.”
He looked through their ranks, staring down the meek, renewing confidence in the strong. As his eyes passed from one to another, he caught sight of Belnavar, standing where others might see only an empty space. Belnavar gave him a firm salute.
“You have fought many battles when the King was never on the battlefield,” Herr’Don continued. “Some of you fought with me at Larksong, and you fought not because there was royalty in the ranks, but because there was something worth fighting for. You did not come here to fight with the King, but to fight against Agon. Our king is dead, but the king of our enemy still lives.”
The troops rallied, even some of those for whom fear had routed before.
* * *
Herr’Don consulted with many generals and advisers, issuing orders and making plans. At times he went off alone, and it seemed as though he were consulting himself, for he talked to the wind, conversed with the emptiness of the air.
“Who are you talking to?” Edgaron asked when he found him like this on one occasion.
“I will tell you because I trust you,” Herr’Don said, “but I trust that you will not reveal this to others, and I trust that you trust me in return, and will believe in what I say.”
“You have my trust,” Edgaron said, “and my confidence.”
Herr’Don appeared to struggle with how to share his experiences, but in time he found the words. “Belnavar fell, but he rose again without a body.”
Edgaron looked around, as if to see this spectral form, but he saw nothing except Herr’Don before him.
“He’s real,” Herr’Don said.
“I should hope so,” Belnavar remarked.
But Edgaron looked doubtful.
“I’m not crazy,” Herr’Don said.
Edgaron smiled. “It wouldn’t matter to me even if you were.”
* * *
Ifferon sat with Geldirana, and though there were many things he wanted to say before, but could not find the courage for, the brief respites from battle proved the perfect opportunity, and perhaps the only one.
“Do you forgive me?” he asked her, and he thought he might be asking that same question for a long time, if he was given time enough to ask it.
“Ten years of faults and failings,” she said, and though her voice was soft, the words were like lashes. “Give me ten more to forgive them.”
Ifferon looked to the ground, where the ants and other bugs surely felt less low. “I guess I deserve that,” he said. He did not say it for pity, and he knew with certainty that she would never grant it, for she deemed it a weakness.
His eyes hugged the ground, but her eyes burned through him, like they always did, right into his very soul. He hoped she could see his sorrow, that his apology was true.
When she eventually spoke, she withdrew into the shadows, as if to make it seem like the words did not come from her. “It will take time,” she said.
“If Chránán is kind, I will have much time to give,” Ifferon said. “Perhaps all I can give.”
“There is more,” she replied, and paused. “What of love?”
“I cannot give it to those who won’t receive it.”
“Time may soften some hearts,” Geldirana said, “while deeds may do the same for others. My clemency cannot be bought, even if it were paid for with time, for it is time itself that adds upon the hurts, that makes them fester. But what cannot be bought may perhaps be earned.”
So they sat together for a time, and Ifferon knew that these brief moments, cherished though they may be, were not enough to make up for all those lengthy moments where he was absent from her life, and for his daughter’s entire life. He prayed, as he might have done back in the monastery at Larksong, that there could be some absolution, that even as he willed that the evils of Agon were made good, he could correct his own evils, and truly be worthy of the blood of Telm, and the company of those he loved.
* * *
As the Bororian force continued to set up camp, Délin began to question the wisdom of digging in, when they should be setting out. All of his knights agreed with him, and it seemed that many were eager to leave this battleground, where the grey of Telarym had turned to red, even though they knew that another battlefield awaited them in the east.
“The battle is o’er yonder,” Délin said, pointing east, to where glimmers of red flashed across the sky, to where the frequent rumbles of the ground emanated from. “Corrias is there now, battling the Beast, and what are we doing here but waiting?”
“That is not the only battle,” Herr’Don said, and he pointed south-east, to where another army was forming. They would not have known who this new assailant was, but for the numerous banners that bore the symbol of a drop of water. “Taarí,” Herr’Don growled.
“And there,” Ifferon said, pointing to the south-west, where the one Shadowspirit became many. “They have grown in number, but still they wait.”
“They wait for their masters,” Geldirana said, and all their minds fell under the oppressing shadow of the thought of the Molokrán.
“I do not see them,” Herr’Don said, “but that does not mean they are not there.” He glanced at Belnavar.
“I see them!” Affon cried, patting Ifferon on the arm.
“These armies are a distraction,” Délin said. “They have come here to stop our advance on Agon. If the Beast needs time to break free, then we are giving him that time; we are gifting him his freedom.”
Herr’Don shook his head. “If we assail the Beast now, then what will happen when his armies come upon us from behind? What good will we do then?”
“The time for tactics is over,” Elithéa said. “Now is the time to act.”
“The time for tactics in a war is never over,” Herr’Don said.
“If they tarry to give Agon time, then let us bring the battle to them!” Elithéa cried.
“No,” Herr’Don said, and they were all surprised. He was usually the one to call for battle, or to make no call at all but that which his sword made as it left its scabbard. “We have another army on the way.”
“What army is this?” Délin asked. “I thought all fighting men of Boror marched with the King?”
“They did, and Arlin has not spared us any more,” Herr’Don replied, “but look north and see if you can guess who comes to fight with us.”
“I see naught,” Délin said, straining his eyes against the darkness.
“Look further north,” Herr’Don said.
At last Ifferon knew the answer to the riddle. “The Aelora,” he said.
Herr’Don nodded, and they all looked to the north with expectation.
* * *
The Men of Boror dug in deep, and they erected barriers and barricades around their siege weapons, which where brought to topple the towering figure of Agon, not the armies he sent forth to delay his assailants.
“We must protect these machines at all cost,” Herr’Don said. “An army may fight an army hand to hand, but against the Beast we must use siege.”
Though Délin thought little of these weapons, he still aided the soldiers in defending them, for he thought much less of Agon, and he had begun to learn that in a war with the Beast, honour was not the strongest weapon.
* * *
In time the army of the Aelora appeared on the horizon in the north, where the glimmer of their bodies outshone even the many lanterns of the Bororian force. The enemy was not blind to their advance, for lights began to appear in the Taarí army in the south-east, while only darkness
thronged in the south-west.
And so before the Aelora could move into place, it seemed that the Taarí began to march, like a grey mass, and the Shadowspirits began to drift towards them, like a black fog.
“So we fight again,” Délin said, and though he seemed weary, the drawing of his two-handed sword seemed to give him renewed strength.
“Let them come unto their doom,” Herr’Don said, and he held up his own sword, which glinted in the darkness, and he stared at it with a kind of manic glee, as if it were called Doom.
The drums of battle began to sound, followed by horns and trumpets, and Ifferon yearned to hear instead the soft melodies of harp and violin by the fireside in a tavern in Boror. The music mounted, as if upon a steed of its own, and it travelled to every ear and invaded every heart, until everyone who stood there began to feel the imminence of the clash, like the final strike of the cymbal to mark the start of chaos and discord.
Then suddenly Ifferon’s eyes were stolen by another sight. Another Shadowspirit appeared to the west upon a hill, but this one seemed somehow different. It looked the same, for those who could see it, but Ifferon could not help but feel that there was something else behind it, that someone else looked out through its eyes.
Suddenly it seemed that the Shadowspirit would dart forth, and the battle would begin, but instead it dissipated, and there, in its place, stood Yavün. Even from this distance Ifferon could recognise the youth, though he seemed less young and naïve now, holding firmly a large sword, and surrounded now by a small army of Taarí warriors.
“Has madness come upon me?” Ifferon asked. “Or do my eyes deceive me?”
The Children of Telm - The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 66
