Bloodstone (28 page)

The coruscant effulgence of Bloodstone illumined the entire city and spilled over onto the murky slime of the swamp. Its emerald rays gave a sick hue to the mottled red stone, which now might be seen to be flecked with green throughout its density. For in the darkness, the very stones of Arellarti seemed translucent, as if the light of Bloodstone shone not only on the city, but through the city. The walls of the colossal dome were alive with the radiance that penetrated them--translucent almost to the extent that the sentient crystal within could be distinguished as a darker shadow through the walls. Its brilliance was that of a blood-red star, dying in a nova of venomous luminance.

Bathed in its eerie light, Kane slumped wearily against the crescent dais, a still-warm pipe lying beside him in a scatter of gray ashes. Heavy were Kane's thoughts, his spirit dark as the clouded night beyond the sullen glow of Bloodstone.

This began as an adventure, or so I believed. I thought no more of it than a means to raise an army of conquest--my major weapon arising from alien science rather than elder sorcery, my soldiers these bestial swamp creatures in place of human warriors. Men have fought for wizards and conquerors in the past; I reasoned that once my power was known, men would fight beneath my banner as willingly. Now the horror in which I have steeped myself creeps through the gloom of my spirit, so that even I sense the dread power that emanates from you. Could it be this time I've gone too far--that the revulsion men feel toward my power will prove greater than their lust to share in the spoils of conquest? Shall I stand more alone than before, with my entire race in arms against me, reviling the name of Kane? Would that be so different from your present fate. Your only escape from your curse has been to wander ceaselessly, through lands where your name has faded from man's short memory, move on again when they have new reasons to remember. You will always be reviled, but my power will make you feared; never again will you be driven like a hunted wolf across the land. And from what I understand of your miserable race, there will be many whose souls can be gained for the yellow metal you prize so extravagantly, or the chance to seize another man's holdings without fear of retribution.

I thought I understood her. She loved me for a . moment, then she grew to hate me. She would have given her heart to a conqueror, but it was not strength alone that she sought. When she recognized the alien evil I had bonded to my soul, she drew away from me in loathing... deceived me, joined with her enemy to destroy me. And at one time I could have abandoned this blighted venture, gone with her into her world, found happiness by her side.

For how long, immortal? Until she grew old and wrinkled, while you remained as you are now? Until you grew bored once more with playing warlord over these dull creatures--a petty ruler of a frontier land? I see in your mind that you have fallen to such stupidity in times past--and regretted it with bitter memories ever since. Have you then chosen to forget the lessons of your doomed existence? Have you decided to unman yourself with the dissembling cowardice, the whimpering self-doubts that your race proudly rationalizes as conscience? Such thoughts are not your own, Kane. It was the woman who poisoned you, deluded. you.... betrayed you. Can you deny now that love is the most cancerous of human weaknesses? A race whose emotions overrule rational thought should compensate for this failing and harness the stronger emotions. Hate and fear are far more dynamic principles than love; the former builds empires, the latter throws them away.

I might yet destroy you.

And would you?

No. I have gambled everything for the power you shall give me. And although the prize seems less glorious to me than before, my goal remains to create an undying empire, with all of mankind acknowledging as master the outcast Kane. If I succeed, perhaps I'll grow bored with this game, too, as I have with all others. Perhaps even the new worlds you promise to open to me will in time lose their novelty. And at that distant age, may I enjoy as much the destruction of all I've created as I hope to delight in the striving to win it!

Then if such amusement will lift you from this despondent brooding, take heart. Our enemies gather to destroy us, but already my power has so increased that we need not fear them. Soon the lattice will be complete, and I will no longer be a crippled, imperfect entity. I can draw upon the limitless energy of the cosmos, usurp this world from the rule of its sickly sun, search out through this new universe for the others.

What others?

The others of my race who dwell beyond the stars. I too know loneliness--trapped in this rotting wasteland for millennia, as was my fate. When I am at last complete, 1 can communicate with my brothers, wherever they may wait within the framework of the cosmos. We were so few, so long ago--it will be good to speak with my own kind once more.

Then are there human emotions secreted away in all those locked recesses of your consciousness? The shadow thoughts you seek to hide from my awareness? To return your sneer, do not allow your weak emotions to interfere with the battle we now begin.

The emerald light pulsed and waned like dancing flame, but Kane had broken contact with the living crystal and listened no more to its insinuating thoughts. The vapor from the pipe lulled his tormented mind into a form of sleep where in his glowing dreams he seemed to sense monolithic laughter swirling about him.

On the assumption that any attack from Arellarti, should Kane move first, must cross Kranor-Rill along the reconstructed causeway, Lord Dribeck had positioned a small company of soldiers near this point of egress. Until he could muster sufficient strength to lay siege to the hidden city, Dribeck intended to rely on this advance guard for intelligence of Kane's movements. Whether these men could hold the forest end of the causeway against whatever force might issue from Arellarti was a dubious matter.

So it was, that when the earth trembled beneath their feet, and the air was charged with the drawn-out roar of thunder--though the noon sky was almost cloudless--the soldiers looked to their weapons uneasily and muttered a few prayers that the gods be with them on what might become a suicidal mission. But when the tearing rumble died away, and the ground stayed firm and secure, there appeared no sequelae more sinister than a muffled whisper, like the rush of distant waters. Their waiting lost its painful intensity, so that men relaxed to speculate upon the strange phenomenon and laugh nervously over the fear that had breathed upon them.

At length their captain ordered a scouting party to circle the swampland toward the direction from which the disturbance had seemed to issue. Night overtook them before they could return, and so it was not until the following' day when they made their report. A broad channel had miraculously appeared, gouging a straight course through Kranor-Rill, to the South Branch of the Neltoben River, and on into its mainstream. River water flowed into the swamp's seepage, forming a deep canal into the center of Kranor-Rill.

The captain considered this information at length, uncertain what interpretation to put upon it. Dutifully he sent a courier to Selonari, to inform Lord Dribeck of this cryptic work of sorcery. By the time the messenger delivered his report, the reason for the canal's sudden construction was no longer mystery. In the gray hour before dawn, Breimen awoke to horror.

Through the veiling mists of twilight, an uncanny fleet slipped from Arellarti's reconstructed quays, whose stone piers knew the caress of deep waters for the first time in centuries. Past the glistening banks of heaped slime and muck, shattered vegetation and steaming mud, along the still oozing wound in Kranor-Rill's belly, the flotilla advanced through the freshly torn channel that opened the stagnant waters of the Neltoben's South Branch, and into its deeper North Branch, still turbulent from the cataclysmic redirection of its flow. Emerging into clear stream at last, the strange craft hurtled over the outraged current at fantastic speed, their velocity scarcely diminishing as they left the flow of the Neltoben and the Macewen and turned upstream upon the Clasten River.

The region along the river was desolate, a wilderness broken only by a few tiny settlements, which hung along the banks like sloughing scabs. Heavy mists obscured the riverbed; the waning moon was hidden. Except for those creatures whose hours were of the night, mankind slept.

So it happened that there were few who witnessed the passage of the demon ships through the enveloping fog. Only vague outlines could be glimpsed, dim flashes where the vapors were pierced by eddies of night wind. And what could be seen was sufficient to drive the watchers from the riverbank in fear-haunted flight.

A spectral fleet coursed along the river, and devils manned its decks. Long, gleaming hulls of silvery metal shaped the craft into titanic spearpoints whose cleaving prows balanced above the surface upon elongated struts. Foam streamed past the streaking bowfins to be swallowed in the churning turbulence that surged behind the stern, where silent turbines drove two unseen screws, The phantom decks were open, and their plates bore the weight of thirty or more monstrous passengers--hulking Rillyti warriors in full battle array. There were close to twenty of these bizarre vessels racing through the night at speeds which surpassed the fastest horse's gallop. In single line they followed the lead boat, whose course threaded the channel unimpeded by the darkness and mist. A huge silhouette of a man in billowing cloak could be fleetingly glimpsed at the leader's prow.

And so doom descended upon Breimen.

Fear quickly replaced astonishment in the wondering eyes of the guards who sleepily stood watch upon Breimen's walls of stone and timber. Out of the swirling mists appeared the demon fleet; silver fins retracted into the bow, as the strange craft slowed and thrust alien prows onto the riverbank. Their decks disgorged the Rillyti horde, and the predawn quiet was torn with fierce roars, thunderous splashing as the creatures leaped over the sides. Their bronze alloy swords glinted dully as the batrachian army advanced upon the darkened city, where the first shrill of alarm was summoning its people from dream to waking nightmare.

An awesome sight awaited the grim soldiers who hastily manned the city walls. Wreathed in mist like phantoms of drugged nightmare, the bufanoid invaders shambled toward the river gate. A mighty bar slid into place across the threatened portals, whose thick timbers were proof against any force short of heavy siege equipment--of which the invaders had none. Archers squinted for marks in the darkness, aimed desultory fire into the advancing ranks. The swamp creatures bore heavy armor upon their warty backs, and the arrows struck with little effect. A few venom-tipped spears arched back from them to the walls, sending its defenders behind cover, but these weapons were more suited to thrusting than to casting accurately.

Although the attack was not expected, word of Kane's treacherous plot had supplied most of the conversation in Breimen these past few days, and vivid accounts were advanced concerning his slaughter of Dribeck's men, the terrifying extent of his sorcerous powers. So it was that despite their initial horror, Breimen's soldiers prepared to withstand this inhuman invasion. Archers, shafts at ready, peered alertly through the gloom for sight of Kane, whose death would break the back of the Rillyti onslaught.

Frightened rumors notwithstanding, no man was prepared for what they beheld when Kane at last appeared. At the head of the amphibian's charge stood a glowing figure--a man-shaped specter formed of living energy--or perhaps encased in a wavering armor of baleful green fire. Like a vengeful demon, the shimmering figure strode toward the river gate, his army of blood-mad fiends at his back. Archers sent shaft after shaft into the glowing silhouette, a certain target in the darkness. His ominous progress did not falter, while crackling flashes along his energy web evidenced the accuracy of their arrows. The soldiers looked to their weapons, glanced for assurance at the heavy timbered gate--and waited for the creatures to storm the walls. Nor was their wait a lengthy one.

Scarcely had the alerted guard scrambled from barracks and dashed to the ramparts when horror reached for them. The demon figure halted before the barbican and extended his left arm. From the blazing circle upon his fist leaped a flame of coruscant energy--a lance of shimmering emerald and crimson-flecked light. As this eerie bolt of fire struck the barbican, the ripping concussion jarred the entire length of the wall. The gate buckled inward, its timbers blackened and shattered, iron bolts red-hot slag. Soldiers near the sundered portal were thrown back by the blast.

Through the smouldering gap charged the Rillyti, descending upon the dazed defenders in great hopping strides. Before the stunned and terror-stricken soldiers thought to block their rush, the batrachians were in their midst, golden blades slashing murderously, poisoned barbs stabbing into the disordered ranks. The suddenness of their attack had caught Breimen almost totally unprepared, and now the battle-mad Rillyti had blasted entrance into the startled city. Overwhelmed by the ferocity that leaped upon them, the defenders fell back in near rout.

Their plight would be all but hopeless once the swamp creatures controlled free entry into Breimen, and with this bleak knowledge the soldiers battled desperately to contain the enemy's advance. Determinedly they struggled with the Rillyti, whose size and strength made them deadly opponents even had they lacked their great swords and bronze armor. Reinforced by fresh troops and rallying townspeople, they massed to push back the bufanoid invaders. The struggle grew more intense; men fell upon the Rillyti with seeming disregard for their lives and pulled the monsters down by sheer weight of numbers.

For a moment it seemed that the defenders might succeed in driving back the Rillyti thrust. Then Kane appeared in the smoking rubble of the gate. Death lanced from Kane's fist, tore through the packed ranks of defenders like lightning from Hell. Here was terror against which no courage could stand. Men were flung apart, smashed to the stones as charred and twisted clumps of flesh, weapons fused to lifeless grips. Again and again the deadly bolts sought life, blasted it with annihilating caress. The horror on the faces of the dead sickened the heart, nor were the screams of brave men dying in fear encouraging sounds to hear. The mass of soldiers crumpled and fell apart, dissolved into panic-stricken flight from the destroying rays.