DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (232 page)

“And what of the stone?” asked Mado Wadon.

Yakim Douan fixed the man, the Yatol who would obviously succeed him if not for Transcendence, with a hateful glower. “It is a gemstone, a hematite, I believe.”

“What the Abellicans call a soul stone,” another offered, suspicion evident in his voice.

“Why, of course,” said Douan. “Else their little ploy would have been for naught. I will summon Master Mackaront of Entel in the morning and present it to him.”

I
t pained Pagonel greatly to see Merwan Ma slump down on the stairs, so perfectly still that the mystic knew that his friend had died.

The warriors holding him had relaxed their grip as they, along with the Chezhou-Lei who was supposed to deliver the killing blow, stood and stared dumbfounded at the surprising events about them.

Pagonel weighed the reaction as much as he could. He heard the buzzing of the Yatols, recognized the doubt in their words and whispers, but he heard, too, the
continuing assurances of Yakim Douan in a debate that was now one-sided.

He and Merwan Ma had done exactly as they had intended, though, and for that, he was grateful. They had planted the seeds of doubt, and perhaps those would take root and grow, ending the reign of the tyrant Douan.

Pagonel had only one more thing to do.

He fell into himself again, gathering his energy, bringing every ounce of life force he could muster together in one collected ball, preparing for one burst.

He reached out tentatively, hoping that the Chezhou-Lei would continue to delay, would give him the moment he needed.

Then he felt the connection to the hematite held by Yakim Douan.

“I do give credit to our enemies for their clever ruse,” Douan was saying, laughing.

Pagonel grabbed his life energy together. He opened his eyes and with a sudden burst of movement, ran his arms in circles, then out, dislodging the two men holding him and shoving them aside.

The Chezhou-Lei warrior moved immediately, but so did the mystic, gathering his energy, then throwing his arms forward and sending that ball of power out across the way, reaching for the hematite, diving into its depths, flooding it with the pure power of Chi. Long Ago, the Jhesta Tu had learned the secrets of the gemstones, had come to know that the energy contained within the stones was the same basic energy as within their own Chi, the same energy that permeated all of the universe. The strength of any gemstone depended upon the amount of energy contained within, and the amount that any gemstone could hold was a finite thing.

Spent, Pagonel was already falling as the Chezhou-Lei’s staff whipped around, smashing him to the ground.

Across the way, the hematite blew apart, shards spraying back into surprised Yakim Douan, hurling him to the floor.

Cries erupted for the death of the mystic, but before the Chezhou-Lei could follow that course, Mado Wadon yelled at him to hold his strike and to drag the prisoner away to the dungeons.

Other guards were ordered to bear the wounded Douan away, as well, to a comfortable bed. The Chezru Chieftain, semiconscious, resisted them at first, scrambling desperately to find some piece of his precious soul stone, some chunk of the enchanted gem that would allow him access.

“God-Voice?” came a simple question, and he looked up to see Mado Wadon and several others, including Yatol De Hamman, staring down at him incredulously.

“It may explode again,” he said unconvincingly.

“Yes, God-Voice,” said Mado Wadon. “Go with the soldiers now. You are wounded, and we must ensure that Chom Deiru is now secure.”

Yakim Douan nodded repeatedly, trying to sort through it all, trying to find some line of deception that he might follow to minimize the risk. And, of course, he had to discern a way he could gather another soul stone. Olin would help him.
Yes, and he could keep it secret through the next couple of years until things settled, until he had reestablished himself enough to chance Transcendence once more.

Of course, none of this would make any difference at all in forty or fifty years, when all the witnesses would be dead and buried, and Merwan Ma’s name would be long forgotten!

That fool Merwan Ma!

Soon after, the God-Voice of Behren was resting comfortably in a bed in Chom Deiru, guards securing his door. His wounds were not nearly as serious as feared, only minor cuts and bruises, and the first Yatols who had come in to see him had expressed great regret that such evil conspirators as Merwan Ma and the Jhesta Tu had ever gotten into the palace.

“Where is the Jhesta Tu?” Douan asked Mado Wadon.

“He is dead, God-Voice,” the Yatol replied. “As you commanded, though it would have given us all great pleasure to see him burned publicly before the palace.”

“Too dangerous,” Douan said.

“Of course, God-Voice,” Mado Wadon replied with a bow. “Rest now. The first reports of the battle at Dharyan are coming in.”

“The Dragon has fallen?” Douan asked, coming forward excitedly.

“Not yet, God-Voice,” the Yatol replied. “But soon. She has nowhere left to run.”

Yakim Douan rested back, comfortable in those thoughts.

F
or the third time, they attacked, and for the third time, they were repelled.

“You cannot continue to throw our warriors against the walls,” an angry Chezhou-Lei Shauntil dared to say to fuming Yatol Bardoh after that third retreat.

“Dharyan should have fallen long ago!” the Yatol declared.

“Agreed, but the city is fortified by the fires of a great dragon,” Shauntil reminded. “And we must never underestimate the strength of this woman. She is possessed of demons, my warriors say, and every breach is met with her fiery sword.”

Yatol Bardoh clenched his fist and slammed it down on the small table before him, knocking it to the floor. “I will have the city!” He looked up at Shauntil. “You deliver Dharyan to me, and soon!”

“If we continue to attack, and continue to be chased away, leaving hundreds dead behind us, you will find your ranks thinning by more than the dead, Yatol,” the Chezhou-Lei honestly reported.

“Are we to abandon Dharyan?” came the incredulous response.

“We can resupply. With her dragon downed—and it is downed, by all reports—she cannot.”

Yatol Bardoh’s expression went from anger to curiosity. “What are you saying?”

“Besiege her,” said Shauntil. “She cannot hope to break out. Without the walls and fortifications, her army would be crushed in short order. Besiege her. Let the Ru eat their horses!”

Yatol Bardoh gave a perfectly awful chuckle. “They would not like that.”

“Besiege her, that is my advice,” Shauntil said again. “Demand her unconditional surrender, then hang the witch and her commanders, destroy the dragon, and send the rest back to the steppes.”

Yatol Bardoh looked at the man doubtfully. “Or we say that is the condition of the acceptance of surrender,” the scheming man remarked. “And then, when she is dead and the dragon is destroyed, we put the remaining Ru on the road to the west. And there we kill them, every one.”

Shauntil, an honorable warrior, didn’t particularly like that plan, but neither did he question it. “I will see that the defenses are set to ward against any breakout,” he assured his master. “I will have the catapults rebuilt, that our bombardment may begin anew.”

“Every bit of their misery pleases me greatly,” was the Yatol’s response.

A lone rider approached Dharyan’s eastern gate soon after, declaring the city besieged, and calling for the unconditional surrender of the Dragon of To-gai.

Every To-gai-ru near to Brynn when she heard that call spat profanities back at the man, patting their brave leader on the shoulder and assuring her that they would die to the man and woman before they would ever allow her to surrender.

Brynn appreciated the support, truly, but she understood the reality of their grim situation. She looked around, wondering how long that support would hold, wondering how strong would be the determination when bellies began to growl with hunger.

Y
atol Peridan, wearing a suspicious expression, met Yatol Mado Wadon coming out of the dungeon stairwell.

“You told the Chezru Chieftain that the Jhesta Tu was dead,” said Peridan.

“And so he is.”

“You just came from him. What deception …”

“You did not find his claims intriguing?”

Peridan stopped as if slapped, and nodded his concession. “The Chezru Chieftain explains it as a ruse, a clever one at that.”

“My uncle was a Yatol, here in Jacintha, many years ago,” said Mado Wadon. “Often did he tell me of the miracle of Transcendence, of the amazing blessed child who could recite so clearly the verses of Yatol’s teachings, who seemed to know, so instinctively, the present state of the kingdom.” He fixed Peridan with a telling stare. “As if with the wisdom of the ages.”

Peridan sank back.

“More Yatols have come in?” Mado Wadon asked.

“As you requested,” said Peridan.

The Yatol of Chom Deiru nodded.

Later the next day, Mado Wadon met with the visiting Yatols, laying bare his suspicions and reminding them that none of this made any sense along any other lines of reasoning, especially with the cries of Merwan Ma. The man had been appointed governor of Dharyan, after all, and had been subsequently reported
murdered by a To-gai-ru slave. With so much glory and honor lauded upon him, how or why would he ever go over to an obviously losing side?

Mado Wadon had spoken with Pagonel that morning, had heard the story, one that made much more logical sense, in depth.

After the brief meeting, Mado Wadon led all of those visiting Yatols, twenty-three in number, into the bedchamber where Yakim Douan was fast recovering.

“The Dragon?” Douan asked immediately.

“Yatol Bardoh continues his battle,” Yatol De Hamman replied from the side.

“I have brought the chalice, God-Voice,” Mado Wadon explained. “The interruption of ceremony is unprecedented, but we believe that all can be put in order.”

“That is good,” said Douan. “Thoroughly cleanse the chalice, that the stains of the Abellican gemstone placed within by the treacherous Merwan Ma be washed away.”

“Of course, God-Voice. It has already been done.”

“Consult the scholars, then, and determine the proper rituals for renewing the once-tainted chalice.”

“Yes, God-Voice,” said Mado Wadon, perfectly calm and in control. “But that is why we have come to you.”

Yakim Douan looked at him curiously.

“Were you not the one who initiated the ceremony of the chalice in the Room of Forever?”

Yakim Douan returned a puzzled look, but one that fast turned grave. “What foolishness is this?” he asked, catching on. “The ceremony was determined centuries ago …” He stopped then, his eyes going wide as Mado Wadon produced the other part of the ritual gear, a sharp, ceremonial knife.

“What foolishness is this?” the God-Voice asked again, though he knew from the Yatol’s face what treachery was coming.

“Wait! Wait!” he pleaded. “This is insanity! I have found the true way of Yatol! I can show you eternal life!”

“Through a gemstone?” Mado Wadon asked, pausing.

“Yes!”

Mado Wadon stepped forward and plunged the knife into Yakim Douan’s chest, then stepped back and calmly handed it to the next Yatol in line. And so it went, around the gathering, until all twenty-three had taken their stab at the old wretch.

Yakim Douan lay there for a long time, stubbornly clinging to life.

“There is no gemstone, God-Voice. Nothing through which your spirit can flee this fate,” Mado Wadon said to him, leaning in so that his face might be the last thing Yakim Douan ever saw.

“Sacrilege,” Douan whispered.

“Perhaps it is,” Mado Wadon answered. “We will await the coming of the blessed child to tell us of our folly.”

Yakim Douan tried to answer, but he could not. Consciousness left him soon after, as his blood continued to pool about him.

The Yatols filed out solemnly later on, with Mado Wadon ordering the guards to go and ring the bells of Chom Deiru, the Cadence of Grief.

“I
HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL OF
J
ACINTHA
,
AS IS COMMANDED BY THE TENETS OF
Yatol,” Mado Wadon told several of the more important Yatols later on that fateful day.

“But you are not Chezru Chieftain!” Yatol Peridan insisted. Peridan had been viewing all of this with mixed feelings. He had agreed with Mado Wadon’s argument that Douan had to die, in light of the revelations, but the practical implications of that action did not shine favorably on him. Mado Wadon was a friend of De Hamman.

“I am not, nor do I pretend to be,” Mado Wadon calmly replied. “We are each brothers in the greater cause of Yatol, with our own areas of responsibility. Mine is now Jacintha.”

He didn’t say it, but it was well understood that the control of Jacintha meant control of the legions, greater power than any three other Yatols combined could muster.

But that was indeed the tenet of Yatol.

The meeting broke up sometime later, after many speeches of solidarity and common cause to rebuild. Underneath all the words, though, loomed an unmistakable aura of suspicion and trepidation. Under the Chezru Chieftain, the Yatols united the kingdom of Behren, but that religious grasp over the peoples of the many tribes had always been a tenuous thing.

Yatol De Hamman caught up to Mado Wadon alone a short while later.

“Peridan will move swiftly against me,” the man insisted. “With the Jacintha garrison tied up at Dharyan, he will know that the moment is now, or is never.”

“I have already warned Yatol Peridan that the time has come for caution.”

“He will not heed your words,” Yatol De Hamman insisted. “Chezru Douan pulled many of my soldiers from me to send off along the road to the west. Peridan knows that I am undermanned, and he will seize this moment!”

Mado Wadon sighed deeply, finding it hard to disagree. He knew that the weeks ahead were going to be quite difficult for Behren, and he honestly expected that the next Chezru Chieftain, when one could be found and brought to maturity, would likely have to rebuild many parts of the disjointed kingdom.