Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (57 page)

           
Anomius stared at Calandryll.
"You've grown in cunning since last we met," he blustered, "but
still 1 think you've not the stomach to slay a man in cold blood."

           
"Calandryll, perhaps,"
Bracht said, his voice cold, promising no clemency, "but not I. Do you
refuse, I'll put my blade in your belly and have the pleasure of seeing you die
before me."

           
The watery eyes swung toward the
Kern, finding no hope of mercy there, only the certainty of painful death: the
bald head ducked in acknowledgment.

           
"Say then I aid you—bridge this
moat and grant you entrance to the tomb—what then? I'll not suppose you believe
I shall watch you take the Arcanum without I seek to wrest it from you."

           
"No." Calandryll smiled,
the expression humorless. "I'd not suppose that. But we'll take that
chance."

           
"Then it would seem we reach
impasse." Anomius turned, studying the mausoleum a moment. "Great
magicks are at work in there. Ere long Tharn shall rise and, risen, doubtless
slay you. You cannot enter without my aid. What do you offer in return?"

           
"Your life," Bracht said.

           
Anomius chuckled, a liquid, bubbling
sound, akin to the moat's horrid stirring. "You seek my aid and threaten
my death? Do I refuse, you'll slay me. Does Rhythamun succeed, I am
slain." He shook his head. "I'd have a better bargain of you."

           
Calandryll thought a moment, aware
that each passing instant brought Rhythamun closer to his goal, the Mad God
closer to resurrection. "Do we succeed," he said, "then you
shall go free. We'll do you no harm."

           
Again, Anomius laughed, scornful,
and said, "You know I'll have the book for my own, am I able. Why, then,
should I believe this bloodthirsty Kern shall not slay me once my usefulness is
done?"

           
"You've my word," said
Calandryll.

           
"And his?" Anomius stabbed
a dirty thumb in Bracht's direction; turned a nail-bitten finger toward Katya
and Cennaire. "And theirs?"

           
Calandryll looked to his companions,
his eyes urgent in their demand for promise. Bracht said, unwilling, "Do
we succeed, I'll not slay you. My word on it."

           
"And a Kern's word is his
bond," Anomius sneered. "And yours, miladies?"

           
"You've mine," Katya said;
and Cennaire: "HI not raise hand against you."

           
"Then the bargain's
struck." Anomius shook black sleeves from pale wrists. "A strange alliance,
eh?"

           
Dera,
Calandryll asked silently,
grant this
fell arrangement succeed.
"Do you look to deceive us," he heard
Bracht say, "you shall taste my blade."

           
"As your wiser friend
remarks," Anomius returned, his voice contemptuous, "I've need of you,
just as you've need of me. Now do you close your mouth and leave me to my
work?"

           
The Kern's eyes flashed anger.
Calandryll motioned him back a pace, Anomius yet within sword's reach as he
raised his hands and began to chant, the almond scent wafting strong as he
mouthed the arcane syllables.

           
Calandryll felt occult power
mounting in Anomius,- felt, too, the opposition, but that abstracted, as if the
larger part of it was concentrated on the rituals of resurrection, hastening
toward that end, menacingly confident of victory. Strong, even so, that
defensive magic, so that he lent Anomius what power was his to give to driving
it back, the struggle invisible, a thing of wills and sorcery that he did not
properly understand, but gave his aid instinctively.

           
Thunder roared as if in protest;
lightning flashed wrathful. Anomius's chanting rose to a crescendo— and a
bridge of black light spanned the moat, at its farther end a narrow portal from
which the odor of corruption gusted.

           
"Swift now!"

           
Veins stood engorged at Anomius's
temples, and from his eyes dribbled tears of blood, the steps he took toward
the bridge unsteady for all his urgency. Calandryll pushed past him, Cennaire
at his side.

           
Bracht and Katya herded the sorcerer
onward, swords ready at his back.

           
The bridge was unfirm beneath their
feet, viscid as the red tendrils that rose from the moat, questing sensate as
they sped across. Ahead the door stood black and formless as those gates that
had carried them into this occult realm, stark contrast to the golden veining
of the marble, that flowing now, trembling and vibrating, the marble itself
pulsating, all stimulated by the magic worked within.

           
They hurled themselves into the
portal, fetor nauseous about that dread threshold, slowing, awed, as they entered
the resting place of the Mad God.

           
Space held no more meaning here than
time or substance. Likely each one of them perceived a different place,
informed by individual senses, by Rhythamun's conception, which overlay their
sight. To Calandryll it was a hall of inconceivable vastness, a single
impossible chamber, extending beyond eye's range in dazzling magnificence. Gold
burned with the intensity of suns from walls and floor and roof. Great pillars
of vibrant marble rose to heights invisible, lost in the blazing glory above.
At the same time, the one image overlayed upon the other, coexistant, it was a
foul and miserable crypt, dank and fetid, noisome with the scent of
putrefaction, that mingling with the cloying perfume of almonds, red light, as
if flame shone through bloodied glass, flickering, sending shadows menacing
across the scabrous floor.

           
The latter image was brief,
overwhelmed by the other as Rhythamun's will asserted itself, donating his
malign god the grandeur his crazed mind deemed fitting. It was an unintended
boon: the light in which he bathed his master afforded the intruders clear
sight.

           
At the center of the hall, too
distant they might see as clearly as they did, stood a catafalque of solemn
jet, a stepped construction that rose three times a tall man's-height, upon it
a golden sarcophagus, brilliant, bier and coffin both contained within a red
nimbus. The body the coffin held was not visible; the man who stood beyond it
was.

           
Rhythamun no longer wore the shape
of his fes- seryte victim, but stood naked, himself, his pneuma given form.
Once, in Cuan na'For, Calandryll had briefly seen that face. Now he saw it
clear, fleshed. It was a visage superficially handsome, but imbued with such
innate evil that the clean planes, the aquiline features, seemed distorted by
their inherent wickedness, the mask of flesh no more than a brief imposition
over the iniquity beneath. The warlock wore a robe of gold, dark hair flowing
loose over broad shoulders. His arms were extended above the sarcophagus, his hands
reverentially holding a small, dark-bound book: the Arcanum. His violet eyes
were glazed, his lips moving as they spoke the incantations.

           
Calandryll shouted,
"Rhythamun!" and the eyes focused, turning toward him.

           
In the instant of his shout, even as
the proud head turned, Calandryll and his companions stood at the foot of the
catafalque. Rhythamun looked down upon them. A frown sped across his face and
was gone, replaced with a leer of outrage. He lowered the Arcanum, head bending
to survey them over the coffin's massive bulk.

           
"You dare interrupt me?"
He gestured at their surroundings. "Here? You dare enter my master's
temple? You dare set foot within Lord Tharn's holy sepulcher?"

           
"Aye!" Calandryll roared,
and charged the bier unthinking, straightsword raised, possessed with a
terrible wrath, righteous, intent on halting the unholy ceremony.

           
He flung against the nimbus and it
was as though he contested with the sea, or struggled against quicksand. A foot
touched the lowest step and he was slowed; a weight, imponderable, pressed
down. He fought the pressure: gained a second step. He thought his lungs must
burst; that fire consumed his innards. He thought his brain must melt and flow
out through liquid eyes, his straining mouth. He was returned to the golden
floor. He saw Bracht make the same attempt, and also slow, straining against
the aura surrounding the coffin as if unseen ropes bound and restrained him.
Rhythamun laughed, the sound echoing from the pillars. Bracht groaned and
collapsed upon the lowest step. Katya sprang forward, dragging the Kern back.

           
"I think," said Rhythamun,
"that I shall delay your fate awhile. I shall allow you the honor of
witnessing Lord Tharn's resurrection with your own eyes. After all, are you not
to thank in some small way?" He flourished the Arcanum, mocking them.
"Had I not this tome, I'd not have owned the cantrips to bring me solitary
to this place, nor those last gramaryes of raising. So, stand you there and
await your fate."

           
"And I?" Anomius stepped
from where he had sheltered, behind them, hidden from Rhythamun. "Shall I
await my fate like these? I think not. I'll have that book of you, and
soon."

           
His hands extended, flinging magic
that filled the mausoleum with sound, as if the storm that ringed the place was
brought inside. The glitter of gold was lost under a flash of brilliance that
transcended light, an achromatic assault felt in the raw material of nerves,
visceral. Rhythamun gasped, tottering a step backward, encompassed in wildfire
blaze, his cold eyes widening, surprised. He righted himself, one hand upon the
sarcophagus's rim, and hurled a magical response that enveloped Anomius in
flame. The smaller man stood engulfed, wreathed with ardent coruscation, from
which emerged luminous shafts, darting like lambent arrows at Rhythamun, who
struck them aside, deflected off an occult shield, as he voiced the words of
his spell, the fire enfolding Anomius growing fiercer with each complex
utterance.

           
Calandryll and the others stood
forgotten for the moment, mere observers of the thaumaturgical duel. Both
sorcerers appeared imbued with equal strength, neither gaining the upper hand,
but only holding one another to stalemate. It came to Calandryll—a gift of
Ochen's teaching—that they both drew their power from Tharn, the god
indifferent which should prevail. It mattered nothing to him which should be
victorious, for they were both bent on the same end, which should only benefit
his foul cause. For now the Mad God was a fountainhead of impartial potency,
urgent only for awakening, careless which acolyte should rouse him from his
dreaming.

           
The sepulcher reverberated to the
tumult of their battle, pungent with the scent of their magicks. Overhead, the
golden light was bedimmed, shadow and flame mingling in equal measure. The
impossible pillars shuddered, dust like the detritus of rotted cerements
drifting down. Cracks raced across the golden floor, dark blemishes exuding the
stench of sulfur and putrescent matter.

           
Calandryll saw Rhythamun raise both
his hands, and realized they no longer held the Arcanum. Through the
fulgurations of warring sortilege he spied the book: it rested on the coffin's
edge. He clutched Bracht's arm, pointing with the straight- sword, shouting
into the Kern's ear, through the benumbing blasts.

           
"Think you we've our
chance?"

           
"Do we find out?"

           
Bracht's features were grim.
Calandryll nodded and they darted forward, intent on gaining the bier
unnoticed. The nimbus threw them back again, ungently, as if it, too, gained
strength.

           
"Ahrd!" Bracht grunted as
they clambered to their feet. "Must we stand helpless by and watch this?
Can we do nothing?"

           
Katya shouted over the dinning:
"Save we intervene, the victor shall surely destroy us!"

           
And into Calandryll's mind, as if
whispered, clear, mouth to his ear, came memory of Ochen's words, in
Anwar-teng: "Remember, all of you, that you are as one, a gestalt where
you go."

           
He beckoned the others close and
said, "Have I the proper understanding of it, we must attempt this
together. Not as four separate folk, but as one."

           
"We've naught to lose,"
Bracht said. "Save our souls."

           
And Katya: "They stand already
in jeopardy."

           
Cennaire said nothing, only took
Calandryll's hand.

           
"I think blades shall not avail
us in this," he said, sheathing the straightsword. "Trust is our
strength now. And belief in our cause."