In the Company of Ogres (23 page)
“Once the decision was made, the Mad Void realized that, powerful as he was, he would need help. He sought out a cabal of gods who’d taken on guardianship of this realm, and though their combined magic was nothing compared to his, he asked for their help. This is where the story gets rather vague, I’m afraid. Forbidden magics were invoked. Many immortals perished in these experiments. Many more sacrificed their sanity. For it was acknowledged that if the Void couldn’t be changed, then inevitably his malevolent essence would be turned upon our reality, just as thousands of doomed others before.”
“Thousands?” interrupted Ned.
“No one truly knows. Possibly it was only a few dozen.” Her voice trembled. “Possibly tens of thousands. Or millions.”
Ned wasn’t very imaginative, but the notion of even one destroyed universe filled him with dread. He couldn’t handle the idea of millions. How many billions upon billions had the Mad Void—had he—cast into oblivion?
“They should’ve destroyed me,” he said.
“They tried. They transformed the Void. Don’t ask me how. I don’t think anyone truly understood the process. It was mostly blind luck, overpowering magic, and a happy accident. The Void’s memory was suppressed. They separated him from his dreadful might, laid aside in some secret place even they couldn’t find, and he was made into a man. Of sorts.
“This was when they hoped to kill him. And so they did. Unfortunately the demon’s immortality was beyond godhood. To kill him was only to slay his mortal transformation. Death only returned him to his all-powerful form. Once more, great gods perished until the accident was, through sheer temerity, re-created.”
“Wait a minute,” said Ned. “I’ve been killed dozens of times. I keep coming back as me, not some raging demon.”
“A technicality was discovered.” she explained. “If the Void was resurrected from a source other than his own, then he remained a man. A guardian was appointed to watch over the Void. Her sole purpose in this task was to restore the demon to life with her own magic whenever necessary. It was her job to keep the cage door shut by insuring he never found the motive to open it. In this way the Void was repressed, if not truly tamed.”
As Ned considered this, he studied his hands. He balled them into fists and imagined crushing worlds, then solar systems, then whole universes as if they were old parchments full of scribbles he no longer had use for.
“I suppose you’re wondering why they didn’t lock you up?” asked the Red Woman. “Cast you in some pit where you could be kept safe from harm, properly tended until the end of time?”
He wasn’t inclined to wonder, and he still hadn’t adjusted to what he’d just learned.
“They tried that too. The Void grew irritated, and when displeased, you can do appalling things.”
“Like what?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“No,” he replied instantly.
She smiled with some hint of affection. “If it’s any consolation it was a very small continent, and no one misses it anymore.”
Ned sank. He slouched, defeated, burdened suddenly by a guilt so heavy it nearly crushed him into the earth.
“I’m not happy,” he said, realizing the situation. “How come I’m not destroying things now?”
She sat beside him. “You have lived a thousand lifetimes, Ned, and only in these last few have you been you. In all the others, which you do not remember, you were someone else. You’ve been kings and peasants, warriors and milkmaids, assassins and priests. I’ve been beside you the entire time. I’ve been at the beginning and end of each incarnation. And each was unique except for one constant. Even when surrounded by wealth and power, or peace and quiet, or any and all things a man might desire in between, they were all quietly miserable.”
Ned rose. “You think I want to feel bad? I know I deserve to suffer.”
“I never said that.”
“But you’re thinking it.” He pointed at her accusingly, as if this were all her fault somehow. “I’m punishing myself for all the damage I’ve done. It’s like some sort of penance. Endless, pointless, aching penance.”
“If that’s the case,” she said, “then it’s more a matter of what you think than I, isn’t it?”
“Why did you have to tell me this?”
“You wanted to know.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Too late for that. Besides, you already knew it. You’ve always known, deep down inside yourself. I’ve merely forced you to finally admit it.”
“I thought you said you were joking when you said the fate of the world depended on me.”
“I was. It doesn’t depend on you. It depends on something inside of you.”
“Can’t you just erase my memory? That shouldn’t be too hard.”
She stood, leaning heavily on her staff as if her legs could barely support her, and put her fingers to his forehead. “It could be done, but it must be known. You must know.”
Her face went blank. She hobbled away and spoke with her back to him.
“Because they’re coming.”
As one, the flock of crimson birds took to the air, darkening the skies over Copper Citadel. The fort became nothing but blackened shadows in the consuming gloom.
“Who?” he asked.
In the blackness the Red Woman spoke softly. “Your enemies, Ned.”
“I have enemies?”
She chuckled. She waved her staff in a small circle, and the thousands of birds dispersed to the four winds, gone as if they’d never been there. Except for the penguin, who remained earthbound and had no choice but to waddle its way from the garden toward the citadel gates.
“You have had many, accumulated over a thousand lifetimes. But there are only two you need concern yourself with now. The first, most important one is a demon emperor. He comes for your power, hoping to take it for his own. Whether he has any hope of success, I couldn’t say. But he is still a potent force of destruction. I shudder to think what would happen should he find a way.
“The second is a trifling matter in the greater view. His name is Belok, an old wizard of some small talent. In a previous incarnation you were a wizard too, and the pair of you got into some sort of ridiculous affair of honor. The matter ended with your death and a curse upon Belok that he struggles in vain to break. He understands something of what you are, but not enough. It could make him troublesome.”
A cold wind swept across the fort. The Red Woman pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders.
“And I do believe he has finally arrived. A touch later than I expected.”
The wind died down, but the air grew frigid. Ned’s breath crystallized as he spoke. “Now? He’s coming now?”
The Red Woman didn’t bother replying. She pointed her staff skyward, and a contingency of ghostly maidens poured from the clouds. They screeched and howled, chanting the name of their master.
“Belok! Belok! Belok!”
The Red Woman groaned. It was always such a production.
The phantoms formed a column of writhing bodies and tangled hair. Their spectral forms turned to dragons, then tigers, then serpents. They sparkled brilliantly, and Ned covered his eyes. When he could finally look, he saw a fur-faced, duck-billed wizard standing before him. His ghostly paramours caressed him tenderly as others broke away and floated absently around the garden. The plants withered and died at their touch.
Ned stood frozen. He pretended to believe it was some ghastly enchantment that held him in place, but it was nothing of the sort. Neither was it fear nor awe. It was shock, not for the wizard, but for the way everything in his life had suddenly become infinitely more incomprehensible.
“Hello, Belok,” said the Red Woman.
Belok snapped his bill. “What are you doing here?”
“Just visiting.”
He snapped his bill again for good measure. “What tricks are you devising, witch?”
“No tricks. Just a test.”
“Come then. Test my might and die.”
“I didn’t say I was testing you,” she replied, seating herself at the bench.
Belok turned his beady eyes on Ned. The wizard raised his hands, and boiling lava dripped from his fingertips. “Break my curse. Break it, or suffer eternally.”
Ned swallowed a gulp. “I don’t know anything about curses.”
“Don’t lie to me.” The phantoms seized Ned by his collar and sleeves and carried him to their master.
“I’m not.” Ned shuddered in the cold embrace of the ghosts. “I’m not a wizard. Or a demon. I’m just a man.”
The Red Woman smiled.
“Your body may have changed,” said Belok, “but you can’t change your true nature.” The phantoms carried Ned to the Red Woman and deposited him harshly at her feet. “Change him back,” commanded Belok of the sorceress. “Find the wizard inside him, and change him back.”
“I can’t.”
“Don’t give me that. You’re his keeper.”
“Just because I keep him alive doesn’t mean I can force him to do anything. The magic at work is beyond my ken. And yours. You’d do best to leave it alone.”
Belok ignored the advice, as she knew he must. Just as the Mad Void couldn’t change his nature, neither could the wizard.
“If you’re not going to help me, step aside,” he ordered.
The Red Woman waved her hand at Ned. “As long as you do not kill him, I don’t care what you do to him.”
Belok’s phantoms snatched Ned into the air again. He struggled vainly. His hand grabbed hold of the Red Woman’s staff.
“You’re supposed to watch over me,” he said. “It’s your job.”
“For heaven’s sake,” said the raven, “have some dignity, man.” The bird pecked at the straining fingers, and Ned was tossed through the air by the malignant spirits.
“Do try and take care of yourself, Ned,” said the Red Woman.
The phantoms held Ned by his ankles. Upside down, his head filling with blood, his ears thundering, and his vision blurred, he watched the Red Woman hobble from the garden, leaving him to his fate.
“I can’t do anything,” he said. “I don’t know any magic.”
Belok gestured and his phantoms raised Ned high enough to peer into the wizard’s golden eyes. “It’s inside you. Somewhere it’s all inside of you. Everything you’ve ever been. If I dig deep enough, if I strip away every other false skin, I think I can find what I’m looking for.” He raised a hand with blackened skin and webbed fingers and ran his sharpened nails across Ned’s flesh. “I do hope this hurts.”
Ned should’ve screamed then. He didn’t. Something held him back. He still wasn’t afraid.
He wasn’t a man, he mused. He was the Mad Void. He was the most powerful destructive force in this or any other universe. He should be able to destroy Belok without even trying. So why didn’t he? Why was he just floating there helplessly as the wizard prepared to skin him alive both physically and metaphysically?
Because he deserved it. He deserved every bit of it and more.
He could’ve called for help. He could’ve pleaded for mercy. He didn’t do these things either. He just waited for his punishment. No matter how bad it was, it would never make up for what he’d done.
Belok raked his claws across Ned’s forehead. Blood trickled down his scalp to drip from his hair. He winced. He cried. But he didn’t cry out.
Then came the next thought. What if there had been a mistake somewhere? What if he wasn’t the Void, but just Ned? What if he was paying for someone else’s sins? Either way it all seemed so pointless.
“Hurting me won’t solve anything,” he said, surprised by his calmness.
“On the contrary,” replied the wizard, “it will at least make me feel better.”
The phantoms rotated Ned and planted his feet on the cobblestones but still held him tight. Belok licked the blood on his claws with a tiny purple tongue. “I may not be able to kill you, but I can do many distasteful things. Perhaps I’ll start by removing your other eye. Perhaps knowing you’re spending eternity in perpetual darkness would cheer me up.” He moved a claw toward Ned’s eye.
Ned cringed. He bit his lip in preparation for pain. Over and over the thought ran through his mind: he deserved this. At least he hoped he did. It was the only comfort he could find, and it’d be a terrible shame if a mistake had been made and the Mad Void was currently a thousand miles away enjoying a nice cup of tea.
A bolt of lightning knocked Belok away and sent his phantom entourage howling with rage.
“Who dares strike Belok?” moaned the phantoms in a musical shriek. “What fool dares clash magic against Belok?”
The Red Woman lowered her staff. “Really, Belok. Always so melodramatic.” She swung the smoking staff in a few wide circles. Rumbling clouds swirled overhead. “You’d do well to get behind me, Ned.”
He didn’t have to be told twice.
“Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?” the raven asked the Red Woman. “It’s been a while since you’ve faced a wizard in battle.”
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