Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (56 page)

           
They started across, and it seemed
the river raged louder in defeat, rising against its banks to hurl itself at
the pilings of the arch, fuming, as if it would bring down the structure. It
failed, at least until they trod the farther bank and had no further need of
the bridge, which sighed and tumbled down, the blocks dissolving as the black
torrent washed over them.

           
Bracht said, grinning, "Now do
you only restore the sun and conjure us horses?"

           
He jested, but Calandryll chose to
take him at his word, directing the force of his will at the tumultuous sky,
commanding the storm clouds begone, the lightning cease.

           
He failed: the storm ran closer,
fulgurant brilliance striding the sorry landscape like the stilted legs of some
vast insect, the wind strengthening, carrying the odor of corruption, the
thunder growling as if in anticipation. He said, injecting more humor than he
felt into his voice, "I fear we must bear this, and afoot."

           
"Well enough." Bracht
clapped his shoulder. "Likely you need to practice."

           
Calandryll grinned and answered the
Kern, "Aye," but as he surveyed the cheerless vista he knew they
walked a domain of Rhythamun's making now. It was a forbidding place, as if the
oppressive, doom-laden atmosphere that had invested the Jesseryn Plain assumed
solid form. They trod scoria, the myriad cavities pocking the slag emitting a
vile, sulfurous odor. The wind, that should have been cold, was humid and
cloying. The thunder- heads built with impossible rapidity, rising, merging,
re-forming, to fill all the sky with a darkness pierced by the blasts of lightning.
The trees shook, bare branches clattering, the sound like the rattling of
bones. Rain should have fallen, but none came, only the supernal storm, like an
inchoate beast challenging them with its rage.

           
In all that horrid panorama only the
mausoleum stood bright, grandiose; and that, Calandryll thought, fit, for
Rhythamun or Tharn—whichever's will created this landscape—would surely deem it
proper that the resting place of the Mad God stand out ostentatious and
resplendent.

           
They moved on
_;
and the
storm moved to meet them.

           
Calandryll bound his will tight,
focusing desire, establishing around them a protective aegis that fended off
the lightning, the shafts sparking as they struck the immaterial shield,
coruscating as had the mundane missiles over Anwar-teng, failing to penetrate.
The storm raged in its impotence, thunder buffeting their ears, setting their
heads to ringing, speech impossible in that turmoil: they pressed forward.

           
In time—though time was an imposed
concept in this place, which stood beyond time—they came in clearer sight of
the mausoleum and halted, surveying the great edifice.

           
The storm ringed it, a fulgid
diadem, ominous calm at the center. It reached toward the sky, vast as the
tengs of the Jesserytes, appearing as a single, solid block of purest marble,
struck through with veins of glittering gold. From those corners they could see
slender towers, each topped with a gleaming cupola, rose. There were no
windows, nor any doors. At their feet was a moat fashioned, like the
necropolis, of marble, smooth, steep walls descending to turgid liquid, red and
sluggish as blood.

           
"Another bridge?
⁷
'
Bracht suggested. "Perhaps a portal?"

           
Calandryll summoned his will,
assembling as best he could that power he still did not properly understand,
and felt it somehow opposed, as if another mind contested the creation. He
heard ma- . lign laughter, and then a horribly familiar voice, fulsome,
sardonic:

           
"My congratulations—I'd not
thought you should advance so far. I'd thought to have my revenge of you within
that other world, which soon the Lord Tharn shall rule. But no matter. You are
here, and so my victory grows the sweeter for knowing you stand so close, yet
entirely unable to prevent my Lord's resurrection." More laughter then,
horridly contemplative. "Aye, poor fools, you shall be blessed ere you go
into eternal suffering— you shall see Lord Tharn in all his risen glory, and I
in mine! Think on that, fools, while you wait powerless. Contemplate your fate
while I employ that book you delivered to me to raise my Lord. When that task's
done, your fates shall be dispensed."

           
The voice faded, applauded by
roiling thunder, the riotous dance of lightning. Calandryll ground his teeth,
willing a bridge to shape, a gate to form: without success. He heard Katya ask,
"Can you not span this filthy pond?" and shook his head, chagrined.

           
Bracht said, "Ahrd, must we
stand waiting here, like beasts for the slaughterer?"

           
Cennaire asked, "Can you do
nothing?" and he shook his head, groaning in terrible frustration, and
told them, "I've not the power. So close to Tharn, Rhythamun's will
vanquishes mine. Dera, were Ochen only here to lend me his knowledge!"

           
"Might not the mirror summon
him?" Cennaire wondered. "Might your magic not shift its focus?"

           
Like a beacon shining dim through
darkest night that nebulous thought he had earlier gnawed on took firmer shape
. . .
One may, unwitting, aid you.
Perhaps the one might be turned against the other . .
. He seized
Cennaire's hands, surprising her with his sudden enthusiasm, his cry of
"Aye! My thanks for that," and beckoned them all back from the bloody
moat.

           
"This shall be mightily
dangerous," he began, and heard Bracht snort disbelieving laughter and
demand, "More perilous than awaiting Tharn's resurrection?"

           
He smiled grimly and shrugged, and
said, "I know not even if it shall be possible. But ..." He paused,
assembling his thoughts, weighing doubt against the certainty of Rhythamun's
success. The others waited, curbing impatience. "I doubt I might shift
those gramaryes Anomius invested in the mirror. I know not even if those
gramaryes shall have power here. But ..."

           
He hesitated: this plan bore the
delineaments of desperation. Bracht said fiercely, "Go on!"

           
"Can it be used from this
realm," he said, "and Anomius is able to transport himself here
..."

           
"Anomius?" Skepticism rang
stark in Bracht's voice. "You'd double our enemies?"

           
Katya said, "Hold, Bracht. Hear
him out."

           
Cennaire, her eyes wide, fixed on
his face, said, "The scrying! You interpret Kyama's words!"

           
Calandryll said, "Aye! Anomius
owns greater knowledge of the occult than I. Perhaps he might win us entry—use
his power against Rhythamun."

           
"On our behalf?" Bracht
shook his head, the words sharp-edged with doubt. "Even can the mirror
bring him here, think you he'd aid us? And should he defeat Rhythamun—what
then? Should he not do what Rhythamun does, and the outcome be the same?"

           
"Perhaps," Calandryll
admitted. "But I can think of no other course."

           
He felt Cennaire's hand clutch tight
on his arm. She said urgently, "It's his belief only you three may take
the Arcanum."

           
"This seems to me a thing of
skillets and fires," said Bracht. Then shrugged and grinned, "But
what other weapon have we?"

           
"It should be apt
justice," said Calandryll, "to bend Anomius to our usage."

           
"I say we attempt it,"
Katya said.

           
She turned her gaze on Bracht, who
nodded, and fetched the mirror from beneath her hauberk, passing it to
Cennaire.

           
The dark woman took the glass, her
eyes troubled as they fixed on Calandryll. "What do I tell him?" she
asked.

           
He pondered only an instant. Then:
"That we stand before Tharn's sepulcher, but cannot enter. That we three
inspect the place, leaving you alone. That you deemed it timely to advise him.
The rest"—he stretched his lips in dour smile—"is up to him."

           
She nodded and unwrapped the mirror;
began to voice the cantrip. Calandryll beckoned the others away. It seemed the
acrid reek emanating from the grey scoria strengthened; that the gold veining
the marble of the sepulcher writhed, enlivened by Rhythamun's wild magic,- that
the very substance of the mausoleum pulsed, anticipatory.

           
They stood too far away they might
hear Anomius's responses, but from such words of Cennaire's as they caught,
pitched deliberately loud enough they should hear, they gleaned a little
information . . .

           
"Aye, we passed through . . .
The war is won? Sathoman ek'Hennem defeated ... In Nhur-jabal? The bracelets
are gone? Then you are no longer bound . . . Aye, before it. See?"

           
They watched as she raised the
mirror, turning it along the facade of the sepulcher, moving it slowly from
side to side. The air before the glass shimmered. Calandryll thought that were
the stink of sulfur not so strong, he should have smelled almonds. He drew the
straightsword, hearing Bracht's falchion hiss from the scabbard, Katya's saber
from its sheath.

           
The shimmering coalesced. A form
took shape: Anomius stood there. A predatory smile distorted his fleshy mouth,
and his bulbous nose quivered, scenting triumph. Hands brushed the soiled frontage
of his black robe. He stared at Cennaire, a mottled tongue extending to lick at
pallid lips. "This was well done," he declared, nodding his approval.
He eyed the mausoleum, then turned to survey the landscape.

           
And shrieked in fury as he saw the
three questers, moving swift toward him, swords extended.

           
He raised his hands, patulous mouth
beginning a cantrip that was halted unspoken by the straight-sword Calandryll
inserted between his teeth. Bracht's falchion pricked his wattled throat;
Katya's saber touched his ribs, above his heart. Calandryll said, "One
syllable said wrong and you die."

           
The wizard's sallow features
contorted in frustrated rage. His watery eyes squinted angry and malign at
Cennaire. Around the straightsword's steel, the words distorted by the blade
and his impotent wrath, Anomius muttered, "For this you shall suffer. I've
still your heart, remember."

           
"But we, your body,"
Calandryll declared, turning his blade so that Anomius must perforce fall
silent, or lose his tongue. "And a use for it. Do you then hear me out? Or
shall you die, now?"

           
Unmasked fury burned in the
sorcerer's pale eyes, but—as best he could with sharp steel between his
teeth—he nodded. Calandryll held the sword in place, a gag on interruption, as
he explained.

           
"You stand before Tharn's tomb,
and Rhythamun stands within. He's the Arcanum, and he employs those gramaryes
that shall raise the Mad God. Doubtless you sense that working e'en now—save it
be halted, Rhythamun shall emerge triumphant. We've not the way to bridge this
moat or shape an entry to the sepulcher, but I believe you might. So—do you
lend us that aid? Or perish now?"

           
He eased his blade from the angry
mouth, waiting for Anomius to speak. When the ugly little man did, it was in a
voice laden with mockery: "Why should I aid you?" His eyes flickered,
furious, to Cennaire. "Doubtless this turncoat has told you I'd have the
book for my own, and so I ask again—why should I aid you?"

           
"Because"—Calandryll
forced more confidence than he felt into his voice—"you cannot take the
book without us. And because if you refuse, then you shall die with us. Think
you Rhythamun shall let you go free?"

           
Blubbery lips parted in ungenuine
smile. Anomius said, "Aye, there's that, but also another thing—I suspect
you forget those occult strictures I placed upon you and this Kern, that you
may neither do me harm."

           
"I think," Calandryll
returned, certain now, "that those cantrips are become devalued. Shall we
put them to the test? Bracht, do you prick him?"

           
Bracht's grin was pitiless as he
turned the falchion's point against the wizard's throat. Anomius jerked back, a
hand rising to the little wound, his eyes fixing angry on the blood he found
coloring his fingertips.

           
"So that safeguard is denied
you," said Calandryll, aware even as he spoke that the aethyric stuff of
the mausoleum pulsated stronger, that the sanguine moat began to bubble, to
stir. "And do you employ some other gramarye, then you've no chance left
of taking the book; neither of surviving this place. Do you refuse your aid,
you die with us."