Exile's Return (16 page)

Kaspar handed him the water cup and sat down. “Well, I have done things that I now question.”

“So you’ve grown wiser with age. But at the time, the choices you made seemed reasonable.” Samas held up his hand to cut off any debate. “Even if you thought they were questionable choices at the time, I’m sure you justified them as being necessary, ‘the ends justifying the means.’ Am I right?”

Kaspar nodded ruefully.

“If every choice was weighed independently on a moral basis—that is to say, without claiming justification like justice, revenge, or necessary ruthlessness—then far less evil would be done in the world. Every faith in every temple has one creed in common, in one form or another: ‘Do as you would have be done to.’”

Kaspar sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “I think I understand.”

“Good, because if you do, then you can see that the only explanation for evil beyond the justifications men make is that it is insane. It is destructive and it lends itself to nothing useful. In short, it is madness.”

“Keep going.”

“You need a serious grasp of this concept before I can tell you the rest of what you need to know prior to your leaving.” Samas cleared his throat and took another drink of water. “Evil is wasteful. It consumes, but it never creates.”

“So, by its very nature the Nameless One must be insane?”

“Yes!” said Samas, slapping his palm on the table. “You do understand. The Nameless One has no more ability to be sane than a chicken can play a horn.” Kaspar looked bemused by that example, and Samas pointed to his mouth. “No lips. You can teach a chicken all you want, but it’ll never learn.”

Kaspar found this amusing. “Very well, I’ll embrace the notion that evil is insanity.”

“Good, because then you’ll understand what came next. When Arch-Indar died, the other Greater Gods—fearing that the Nameless One would be unopposed and there would be no balance—did something that has happened only this one time; they cooperated. The remaining Greater Gods, even the Abstainer, used their combined power to banish the Nameless One to another realm.”

“So that left five Greater Gods?”

“Yes, though it may as well be four. Helbinor, the Abstainer…well, he doesn’t do anything. He abstains.” Samas shrugged. “It’s one of those things that can drive a theologian to drink.”

“If they were combining their power, why didn’t they just destroy the Nameless One?”

Samas grinned. “Because nothing can be destroyed, do you see?”

Kaspar blinked. “Like the firewood. Yes, they could only…change him.”

“And not very much, really. They couldn’t change his nature, but they could change his location. So they found another realm, a dimension outside this one, and they found a world, one so vast that our world would be but a pebble on its beach. And there they bound him, and buried him deep within the heart of the greatest mountain on that planet. And there he resides today.”

“So if he’s in this other realm, why is he a problem?”

“I’ll spare you the theology, but remember how I said if you knew his name, he could control you?”

Kaspar nodded.

“That’s how powerful he is. Think of the Greater Gods as…controllers, forces of nature, if you will; not nature such as the wind and rain, but rather the essence of how the universe is put together—good, evil, the balance, the builder, the worker-from-within, the granter-of wishes, and the abstainer. The world of the physical and the mystical—all things are governed by these controllers.”

“All right,” said Kaspar. “Now, what does this have to do with the relic I carried up here?”

“We don’t know. What we suspect is that it is from a different plane.”

“Again, I don’t understand,” said Kaspar, looking confused.

“You’ve no doubt heard the expression, ‘damn him to the seven lower hells!’”

Kaspar nodded.

“Well, there are not really seven levels of hell or seven levels of heaven. Or rather, they’re the same thing. The gods reside in the first level, we in the second. Or some maintain they are the same, but two sub-levels.”

“Wait a minute,” said Kaspar. “I’m lost.”

“Ever peel an onion?” Samas asked.

“No, but I’ve eaten many,” said Kaspar.

“Then you know that that they are made up of many layers. Consider the universe as an onion, but made up of only seven layers. That’s a bit arbitrary, but it’s the agreed-upon number. In any event, assume we live on the highest level, save for the gods. At the lowest are beings so alien to us we can not even imagine them. In between are beings that range from totally alien creatures to those which are similar to us.

“Demons come from the fourth and fifth levels, and with great magic can exist in our world. They are able to feed on life energies here and survive, even thrive. The demon who engineered the Serpentwar, or the Emerald Queen’s War as I think you know it, was from the fifth circle.”

“Demon?” asked Kaspar, his eyes wide. “What demon?”

“I’ll tell you that story some other time. In any event, if you’ve heard of beings called the Dread, they live in the sixth circle. They suck the very life energy out of anything they touch in this plane of reality. They can exist here, but if they did they would wither even the grass beneath their feet. The creatures from the seventh level cannot even survive here—they gather energy so quickly from the very air and light they would destroy themselves, along with a very large portion of the landscape around them.

“That armor, we think, is from the second circle, the plane of existence next down from ours. But we’re only guessing, and we wouldn’t advise you to make any decisions based upon that supposition.”

Kaspar said, “No disrespect, Samas, but what is the point of the lecture?”

“So that you would realize how vast the arena is in which you play. The woman who gave you the disc?”

“Yes, the witch?”

“She is no witch. The image on that disc is that of Arch-Indar.”

“But you said she was dead.”

“She is. What you met was a memory of her.”

Kaspar sat up, his mouth open in disbelief. “But I spoke with her! She waved her hand and Flynn fell asleep! She handed me that disc, and that’s real enough.”

“Oh, she’s real. But she is only a memory of the Goddess. If she gains enough worshippers over the centuries, she may return. But for the time being you must realize how powerful the Greater Gods are. They are so powerful that the memory of one lives on as a self-aware, conscious being, an entity in her own right.”

Kaspar sat back. “Ah, nothing is destroyed.”

“Yes!” Samas said, clapping his hands in delight. “You do understand! It’s as if you died, but a single hair from your head fell to the soil and had all your memories and a will of its own. That’s a bad analogy, but it’s the best I can do when I’m sober.”

“I took you to be an abstemious order,” said Kaspar with a laugh.

“We ran out of ale and wine three years ago. It’s one of the reasons Keeper Andani went to Ispar by the Sea. Otherwise I’d be drinking more than water. This magician you told us of, Leso Varen—”

“Yes?”

“I think he is not mortal.”

“You think he’s a memory of the Nameless One?”

“No. I think he is a dream.”

Kaspar was about to protest, then considered the admission he had made about Hildy.

Samas continued, “The Nameless One had relics from before the time he was banished, and over the centuries men have found them. All of them go mad, some sooner than others, if they keep those items. But those that do keep them for a long time gain powers from their master. They also become part of his mind, and long after the mortal body has perished, they live on as dreams in the mind of the god.

“I mention that to point out there are others loose who mean to return the Nameless One to our world.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because they are mad,” said Samas.

Kaspar sat back. “You’ve convinced me that I play in a game so vast I doubt I can comprehend it. So let us just say the stakes are high. But I still do not know what it is I am to do.”

Samas said, “I know. We have given you all the knowledge we have. There’s only one more thing we may do for you.”

“What is that?”

“Why, let you speak to the gods, of course.”

Kaspar sat motionless.

Samas stood up. “Come along. We might as well go and see them now.”

“The gods?” Kaspar said after a moment.

“Why, certainly.”

“I thought your job was to protect the gods?”

Samas motioned for Kaspar to stand, and said, “You’re hardly a threat. No, we protect the gods from being constantly annoyed and distracted by mortals. Prayer was created as a way for a man to let the gods know what he’s concerned about. The temples have slightly more efficient means, but they’re limited. A cleric of one order can hardly speak to the deity of another order. But there is a way to confront the gods directly. We guard protect their privacy in a manner of speaking. Come along.”

Samas led Kaspar from the kitchen, through the empty great hall, and entered a small room. There, he removed a torch from a large metal container holding a dozen or more. Opening a pouch at his belt, he removed flint and steel, handed the torch to Kaspar, then struck sparks into it, until a flame caught. He replaced the flint and steel into his pouch, took the torch from Kaspar and led him into a series of tunnels going directly into the heart of the mountain.

After walking for a few minutes, Kaspar said, “How do I speak to the gods?”

“As you would to anyone else, I suppose.”

“You’ve never spoken to them?”

“No. I’ve had no reason to. We Keepers really don’t, if you think about it. Our mandate is narrow; protecting the gods from…well, you’ll see in a moment.”

The tunnel was long and dark. Then Kaspar saw a light ahead. Samas said, “We’re almost there.”

“Why are you letting me talk to the gods if you’re supposed to protect their privacy?”

“You’ll see.”

They reached a cavern, but one filled with light. In the middle of it sat the source of the light. It was a platform of a pure white substance that looked at first to be marble, but as Kaspar drew near, he saw that it was a single piece of translucent material. Two steps of the same material allowed one to mount the platform. A soft white glow from it was bright enough to illuminate the entire cavern, but was surprisingly free of harshness. Kaspar felt no discomfort looking at it.

“What do I do?” he asked softly.

Samas laughed. “Everyone who comes here whispers the first time.”

Kaspar repeated the question in a conversational tone.

“Just walk onto the platform.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Kaspar took a step and Samas said, “I suppose I should bid you farewell.”

“Why? Won’t I be coming back?”

Samas shrugged. “Maybe. Few people are given this opportunity. And a few manage to get into the Pavilion by other means.” He looked as if he were trying to remember. “A pair of magicians managed it about thirty or forty years ago. I don’t know what happened to them. And a hundred years ago—I was told this, but don’t know how accurate the story is—two beings, men or something else walked into the Hall of the Dead, crossed the River of Death, and entered Lims-Kragma’s Hall.”

“Flynn just did that.”

“But these two came back!” Samas took a step forward and extended his hand. “In any event, you’ve been good company, Kaspar of Olasko, and if you don’t come back this way, I’ll remember our time together.”

“Well, all things considered, I hope I do see you again, Samas.”

The Keeper smiled, and said, “Just walk to the middle.”

Kaspar did as he was told and found a golden circle inscribed in the middle of the platform. He stepped into it.

Instantly he felt something. It wasn’t a vibration, or a hum, but his body felt a tingle, as if energy was coursing through the very fiber of his body. Then a pair of golden spires rose up out of the platform, to his right and left, each spire a latticework of tiny golden threads. Kaspar’s eyes couldn’t quite make them out. They weren’t metal, or light, or anything he readily recognized, but they were brilliant and he felt his pulse race at the sight of them.

They lengthened, seeming to grow out of the base, and crossed before Kaspar’s face. Following the circle, they formed a helix as they rose. Kaspar saw other spires appear and soon he was confined in a golden cylinder of light.

Then everything vanished. Kaspar felt a cold beyond human endurance pass through him, a cold so stunning he could not even gasp.

Then there was total darkness.

Kaspar felt as if he was floating. Then he opened his eyes. The sun was on his face, and he felt a slight chill. As the floating sensation ceased, he realized he was on a hard surface.

He sat up.

He was on a marble floor. He reached out and touched the stone. Then he looked around. The floor stretched out in all directions, and his senses were confounded for a moment.

He stood up. The floor was punctuated at regular intervals by columns, crenellated depressions in the surface giving them texture. He moved to one and touched it. It felt smooth and looked like ivory.

Between the columns hung silken draperies of translucent white gauze which swayed with the breeze. He looked up and saw that there was a glass ceiling above, through which the sun shone down.

There were no other features and after a moment, he decided to move toward the source of the breeze.

After passing though half a dozen hangings, he saw one that wasn’t occluded by the gauze, and what he saw made him pause. He was on top of a range of mountains, and below him he could see snow-capped peaks and clouds reflecting back the afternoon sunlight. He approached the edge cautiously and looked down.

How this place was suspended above the clouds was not apparent, but from the edge, Kaspar could see there was no physical connection with the mountains. The air should have been bitterly cold and thin, perhaps not even sufficient to breathe, but Kaspar found it plentiful and only slightly brisk.

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?”

Kaspar turned around.

Where there had only been empty floor now rested a short pedestal, of the same white stone, topped by a flat slab upon which sat a man.

He was fair-skinned, with curly light brown hair and eyes and a strong jaw. His age was difficult to ascertain—for a moment he looked to be Kaspar’s age, while an instant later he looked almost boyish. He wore a simple light blue tunic and white trousers, and he was barefoot.

“Yes,” said Kaspar slowly. “It is a sight.”

The man climbed off the column and when his feet touched the floor, the column vanished. “Few ever get a chance to see it. This is, in a manner of speaking, the Roof of the World.” He came to stand next to Kaspar. “Like many things, I rarely bother to notice it, until I see someone else admiring it, and then I pause to remind myself of how striking it is.

“These are the two highest peaks on the world, did you know?”

“No,” said Kaspar. “I did not.”

“The southern peak is called The Elephant, and is only two feet shorter than the northern peak, which is called The Dragon. Can you imagine? Both over thirty thousand feet and only two feet difference between them?”

“Thirty thousand feet?” Kaspar said. “I should be freezing to death. I hunted giant rams in the mountains of my home, in the high passes which are over ten thousand feet, and some of my men were sick even at that altitude, and it was freezing even in summer. How can this be?”

The man smiled. “It’s simple. You’re not here.”

“Where, then, am I?”

“You’re somewhere else. Now, before you become overly concerned by this, you don’t have a lot of time, so let’s move on to why you’re here.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I know the story. You don’t need to recount it, Kaspar.”

“You know me?”

“I know everything there is to know about you, Kaspar, former Duke of Olasko, from the time you accidentally stepped on Talia’s kitten’s foot and she wouldn’t speak to you for a week—”

“I was twelve!”

“—to what you had for breakfast with Samas.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Kalkin.”

Kaspar said nothing for a moment, then said, “The god?”

The man shrugged. “Labels, titles, categories, are all so…limiting. Just say I’m a ‘being’ and we’ll get along.”

“But…”

Kalkin held up his hand and his smile widened. “We don’t have time for debate. Now, you have some questions, but let’s save time and have me tell you some things, then you can ask a couple of your questions and then we can get you back to the bastion.”

Kaspar could only nod.

Kalkin moved to sit down and suddenly there was a large pale blue divan where before there had been only hard floor. “Please, sit.”

Kaspar looked around and saw another divan behind him. He sat down.

“I’d offer you something to eat or drink, except I know you’re not hungry or thirsty. For some people, it puts them at ease.”

“I’m not sure at this point that’s possible,” Kaspar said softly.

“So, then, where to begin?” Kalkin said, “How about with that thing you’ve been lugging around?”

“Yes,” said Kaspar. “That would be a good place to start.”

“It’s not armor. It’s a construction. What you would consider an animated machine. Imagine if you could have a toymaker build you a large wooden toy that could walk and, for the sake of argument, understand some basic commands and do your bidding. This is to that what a trebuchet is to a slingshot.

“That thing is called a
Talnoy
.”

“Talnoy?”

“In the language of its creators it loosely translates to ‘very hard to kill.’”

“Kill? I thought you said it was some sort of mechanical device.”

“It is far more than that. It has…a spirit in it, or a soul. It’s…not something that’s easily explained. It’s exactly what Brother Anshu said it was, something very wrong. The soul inside it was not put there willingly.”

Kaspar shook his head. “That’s evil.”

Kalkin said, “Very. I trust you still remember most of Keeper Samas’s instructions on the topic?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because now I’m going to give you more to ponder. As you move from the higher to lower circles or planes, from what we call the First Level—” he made a circular motion in the air “—sort of where we are now, and you move to the Last Level, the laws that govern the universe change. It has been, argued—sometimes for centuries—that each realm has its own set of rules, its own ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ its own ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and that everything is relative. Others contend that good exists at one end of the spectrum and evil at the other.

“For the sake of simplicity, just accept that no matter what you think of such discussions, whatever exists in the fifth circle or plane should stay there!”

Kaspar said nothing.

“That thing, the Talnoy, should have stayed in the second circle of creation. It should never have come to Midkemia!”

“How did it get here?” asked Kaspar.

“Very long story, which you don’t have time to hear.”

“Why not, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Well, I do, but not as much as you will. You’re dying.”

Kaspar sat up. “What?”

“You’re not really here. You’re somewhere else, halfway between life and death, and the longer you linger, the closer you get to death, and once you cross that river…” Kalkin shrugged. “There’s only so much I can do.”

“But you’re a god.”

Kalkin waved this away. “I cannot stick my nose in Lims-Kragma’s business. Once you’re in her domain, she’s the only one who can send you back. And she doesn’t make a habit of it. So, knowing time is of the essence, let me make a few points.

“As I said,” he held up a finger, “that thing you carry around should never have been brought to this world.” Kaspar again looked about to speak, and Kalkin lost his smile. “Don’t. All right, one of the Dragon Lords as you call them brought it here as booty. And it was hard-won and…well, they should not have tried to raid into that realm. In any event, it was before my time, and we—whom you call gods—only discovered it was here after the fact.”

“Then why didn’t you send it back?” asked Kaspar.

Kalkin laughed, a harsh barking sound, then shook his head. “Mortals!” He leaned forward. “Don’t you think we would have if we could?
We are confined to this realm!
We are part of this world.”

“But I was told the Nameless One was confined in another realm?”

Kalkin stood up, obviously impatient. “This always happens when you try to explain.” He turned to face Kaspar. “You don’t have time. So suffice it to say that when the gods you think of as Greater Gods, those Samas would call the Controllers, all put their minds to something, they could achieve it. Now, this has happened once!” He held up one finger and pointed to it. “Once. Got that?”

“You’ve made your point.”

“Good, because now I’m about to make another.”

Kalkin waved his hand and the pavilion vanished. They were in a gray void for a moment, then suddenly they were somewhere else.

They hovered in midair. It was night, and below them was a city, but one unlike anything Kaspar could have imagined. It was massive, without a hint of anything natural. Everywhere he looked, Kaspar could only see buildings, streets, bridges, and people. If one could call them people.

They looked roughly human, but their proportions were wrong, as if people had somehow been stretched, with legs and arms that were too long for their short torsos. Their faces were also elongated but had enough variation that Kaspar recognized that they were as different from one another as people in any Midkemian city. A few might even have passed through the market square at Olasko with only an occasional odd glance. They were uniformly gray of skin, but so pale that it wasn’t obvious. They wore different-colored clothing, but the colors were muted and dull—grays, greens, even the reds and orange hues lacked vibrancy. The females wore long dresses and some sported hats of an odd fashion, but the males seemed almost uniformly attired in tunics and trousers.

The city was all of dark stone and all in tones ranging from gray to absolute black. Nothing colorful was employed as decoration. Kaspar and Kalkin hovered over a main gate. The construction was unbelievable, for the wall was massive, wide enough that a boulevard topped it, with carts and pedestrians, and carriages pulled by something that looked like an elongated horse or mule, but with reptilian features. The gates below opened into a tunnel that led under this causeway and into a gigantic bailey, between the wall and the first…building? Kaspar realized that there were no individual shops or houses in sight. Everything was connected, as if this city was one massive building interrupted by streets and canals, with thousands or tens of thousands of openings. Even buildings that at first appeared to stand alone, upon closer inspection could be seen to be connected by bridges, enclosed tunnels, and halls. Kaspar’s eye failed to catch much of the detail, for everything appeared to exist on three, four, or more levels, and the illumination was from thousands of torches, so the light was constantly flickering.