The Spaces Between (A Drunkard's Journey) (32 page)

Snow from the stairs had crept through the small spaces of his outerwear. The coarse granules both scratched and froze his skin. He dared not try to remove any, for fear of the warlock, but instead he forced himself to let it melt slowly. It dripped in agonizing slowness down his back, down the backs of his legs, and down into the bottom of his boots. Ever downward. He was slowly freezing to death only feet from a warm castle.

“The demons! DEMONS! All around us. Beneath us!” Ar’Zoth chirped. “Here! Well, not here, but out back. Beneath the courtyard!”

Zhy’s voice froze in his throat.
Demons?

“Yes, demons, you filthy drunk! Drunk! Demons everywhere. Underneath. In my head. My head! They must be let loose, but not yet. Not yet. More time, I need more time! I need help controlling them.”

“I thought—” Zhy began, then choked.

“Yes? Spit it out,
drunk
.”

I’m not a drunk anymore!
The warlock glowered. “I thought that demons—the demonic horde, I mean—” After all, he had seen the
gherwza
. “—were just a story. Passed down to scare people. To get them to bend to the will of the Orders.” The words flowed from his mouth, but he felt disconnected. It was too surreal. Too unbelievable. Too…cliché.

“You saw a
gherwza
, did you not? Your whore killed it. Why would you not think there would be more? Ha!” The seith erupted in laughter. There were a few snorts and giggles before he calmed enough to respond. He wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve as a child would. “You are very misguided. Have you ever seen an ant and thought it the only one?”

An ant…

“An ant! I said an ant! Yes! So it is with this horde I have to control. Before it destroys me. Before I can control it to my bidding. Fool! Fool! The world will drown. Drown!”

Zhy shook his head and tried to return only a blank stare. There was a flicker of firelight behind the seith—Zhy was being blocked by an insane warlock, his companions splattered thousands of feet below, and he, powerless in the cold, while a warm fire blazed just beyond. But powerlessness was something he had grown used to, even on the adventures they had shared thus far. Qainur and Torplug did most of the dirty work, leaving Zhy to sit there and ponder his past and his future.

Suddenly, Ar’Zoth was placid, his face calm and his voice serene. Such it was with a mad man, Zhy had realized, for he could change between moods in rapid succession. “Forget the Knights, the Temple, all of it. No. The demons must be released. I need help!”

“What kind of help?” Zhy asked too quickly for his own comfort. But he realized that survival was paramount now. Even if the man was mad.

The seith slowly shook his head. “My poor man. My poor, poor man. Explaining would take too long, and it is getting colder. I wish to sit by the fire. Now, I can warm myself over your corpse, or over my nice stack of dried pine. Which would you prefer?”

“Why are you telling me this?” Zhy wondered aloud. Indeed, why?

“Because you want to die, you foolish drunk.”

How common was insanity among mages and warlocks?
Zhy wondered.

“I’m not insane, you worthless excuse!”

Zhy thought back on Torplug’s behavior and the small-man’s cantankerous demeanor each time he used magic. Grumpy was one thing, but Ar’Zoth was flat-out psychotic. This was not the man at the corner of the street, humming and talking to ghosts with a crooked and toothless smile. No, this was a growling, snarling, drooling dog that needed its throat slit. For all the scrotums in the world… he was alone atop a mountain, facing a great warlock who thought he could overrun the world with demons. Should he join him? Of course! If he wanted to live! But how long would he live? A day? A month? Should he just jump off the cliff now and save himself further torture?

These thoughts flitted randomly through his mind, but the audacity and impossibility of the situation overwhelmed them, and he wasn’t able to think properly through the reasons. Demons were real and in a number that was unfathomable. Like ants. He pictured the world crawling with
gherwza
and other unmentionable creatures of the dark. And he saw himself riding on a horse with Ar’Zoth as they commanded the horde to kill anyone in their path. His mind stopped, and the world seemed to spin.

The seith was staring at him. “Now it’s up to you, Zhy. What do you choose?” he barked.

Zhy looked at the warlock. His expression was blank. He had shut down and reverted into a shell he only entered when extremely drunk. Heretofore he had never entered such an inner emptiness sober. All was lost. All was gone. Why? How?

Qainur had only wanted an adventure.
I went along, thinking there would be nothing that could go wrong. That only happened in stories
.
The fate of the world never, NEVER, rested upon the hands of one man. Did it? Could it? The Temple—wherever it lay, supposedly held the pillars against demons. But if what Ar’Zoth was saying were true…

“It is true,” the seith said softly. “It is true. They are here. Would you like to come inside my head and listen to them? All of them? Countless numbers, all taking up the spaces in my head? Then you would believe. Then you would know.” The man snarled, spittle bubbling on his lip. He wiped it away roughly.

Zhy only stared.

“Hrmph. Can I take that as a no?”

Nothing. Emptiness.

“You have no interest in my powers like your friends did? You have no desire to learn from me? Yours was a wealthy and honorable house and you’ve pissed it away on drink. You
drunk
! You fool! You human slime. Answer me!
Answer me!
”

He watched the warlock slowly ignite himself back into a rage, but his body was frozen. Fear was gone. It was no longer fear. It was a sober intoxication. He was literally drunk on helplessness as his mind battled to figure out if the demonic horde was real. Or if the warlock was truly out of his mind. There was no answer. The wheels in his mind had long since spun themselves off their tracks, and the gears were grinding slowly to a stop. Nothing. Black. Snow.

With a sudden burst of fury, the seith stormed towards Zhy and slapped him with a savage backhanded blow. Zhy stumbled and fell. Luckily, he crumpled like a sack of grain, instead of falling back down the stairs.

“You fool! You will answer me!”

Nothing.

“Answer me!”
the seith snapped.

Nothing.

Anger quickly melted. Again. His voice was soothing and calm. “So, you must join me or die. You have very little time, as I am cold. You have gambled poorly.” Just as quickly as he placated Zhy, he snapped into his violent rage. “Drunk! Drunk! The hero does not always win. I always win.” And he laughed, his focus on Zhy fading, as if his mind were far away.

The cold air was silent.

He had no training in swords or magic or even basic self-defense. The journey was long, but it was not long enough for him to develop these skills. Well, it may have been long enough to gain a basic understanding, but he’d spent most of the trip wallowing in self-pity and trying to break free from the clutches of ale and brandy.
You are a sad man,
he thought. For once the thought was his. And so he finally faced the end, and he faced it alone.

He had failed.

“There are many stories, you know,” the warlock said. “Many stories like what we see here. A traveling band of mercenaries against the force that will destroy the world. And although one or more of them may die, there is always some heroic rescue. Think! Who would rescue you? Think! I said think!” he barked, glowering. “No one! No one! I have killed everyone. And I will kill
everyone
.”

Ar’Zoth sucked in a cloud of mountain air and blew it out in a huge cloud.

“Wrong!” Zhy suddenly bellowed to no one in particular. The barest thread that remained in him was one of hope. Somehow, some way, he would get out of this.

The warlock shrugged slightly in response to an unknown voice, then looked past Zhy in the vast wilderness beyond. “And I suppose you hope that I will delay the inevitable by spinning a vast and entertaining tale of my past.” He laughed again, a laugh of a bully in a tavern. “But, alas, no,” the seith spoke with a heavy sigh that sent a cloud of steam into the cold air. “Your friend knew the most about me, but his reaction, was, well, quite inappropriate, if you ask me.” His face glazed over for a moment, then he quickly regained his faculties. “It is here where I am most at home, although it is cold. At least no one bothers me. No one used to bother me, that is.” He gave Zhy a reproachful look, then shrugged his shoulders.

He gave no warning as the familiar green lightning bolt shot from the seith’s hand. It immediately slammed into Zhy’s chest. The beam slowly started pushing Zhy backwards, even though he tried to repel and push forward. His legs wheeled under him, sliding on the snow-covered stone, as he tried to stand and fight. But the energy was too much, and it pushed him off his feet and back, back, back, ever closer to the edge of the sheer cliff. Soon, the beam had him suspended over the vast chasm. At last, he did wet himself, for whatever thread of hope that hung onto his brain finally let go. The warm liquid oozed down his leg, warming him for the barest of moments before freezing solid to his body. Only two amber droplets fell carelessly to the shattered corpses in the valley below.

“I am Ar’Zoth. Ar’Zoth! I am the first and the last! You are offered the choice to help me. There is little time. Some, but very little. And I need a little more before I can set the demons free. Demons! Like ants!” he bellowed. “I’m going to give you the choice, Zhy. No, I take that back. Zhyfrael,” he spat the name out of his mouth like a summer fly. “You can die now, quickly. Or you can join me. I am cold and tired.”

Zhy looked down, but the rocks and snow far below seemed more dizzying than the sheer drop. He looked back up, his head spinning. Ar’Zoth had stepped out from the castle and descended a couple of stairs to come within feet of Zhy. Yet he seemed miles away.

Ar’Zoth grinned, his yellow teeth almost glowing against the shock backdrop of white. There was a flicker of the eyes, looking almost like confusion or uncertainty, but the green web held Zhy suspended over the great void.

He hung there, limp, his mind nearly flat and lifeless as he. Even given the choice, his deeper consciousness struggled to find a spark. Finally, self-preservation won out, and his eyes fluttered open. Looking around he saw only the great stone castle stretching its talons into the mountainside. He remarked with a bit of pride at the dangerous climb they had made up to the castle—it seemed as if the trail rose vertically into the mountain. The massive balsams were surreal in their green against the white. The placating blanket of snow tried valiantly to cover the brutal and razor-sharp rocks, which fell away into oblivion beneath him. On the far eastern ridge of the canyon, he gaped at the endless wasteland of white snow, studded with brown rock that quite possibly led out to the frozen seas. Beyond the castle were mountain peaks that appeared to have no end in their height as they reached to the very tops of the clouds. He tried to offer a small prayer to any prophet that had ever lived, but the only word that came to mind was “please.”

“There is no help for you now young man. You have had years to right your path and change your ways. Had you any magical powers, you would not be in a place like this, with me. Instead you are allowed to drink away your shortcomings and drown your feeble existence in mead and ale.” Zhy felt the beam push again, and the warlock had to yell out to him as he dangled above the cavern.

Zhy tried to scream, but it was only a hoarse whimper. He found his throat closed shut, while hot tears streamed down his frozen cheeks. Bitter cold soon froze them to his face, and his lids were locked open from the ice. He was forced to stare at the grinning warlock with his eyes literally frozen open.

“Ha! My friend, I am cold. I have said this time and time again. I mean it. You can join me, or you can die. No. More. Words!”

It looked like the beam was weakening and had started to lose buoyancy. The grin was fading from Ar’Zoth’s face, but he still held his arms outstretched. He bellowed across the chasm. His voice echoed eerily off the sheer walls of the canyon and the mountainous peaks that surrounded them but then quickly swallowed, and any reverberation was a duller, deeper timbre, as if it were being consumed by the Dark.

“Choose!”

Chapter 27 — From the Dark ... Back into the Dark

Diving like so many seagulls. Twisted threads swoop and swirl. Up, down, around, in, out and around. Oh, it is with me thus! I dart and dash. I live and love. I breed. I kill. You at once know me and at once you cannot. Beware! For I am everyone and I am no one.

Seer Zher’wen, IV Age

Y
ou must hurry! He is in danger! You have already let the others die. Why do you wait? Why do you stand there?