Journey into the Void (50 page)

“
You
wait there, Dominion Lord,” said the Lord of Ghosts.

“I don't understand,” said Shadamehr.

“You are not meant to.”

“I will come,” said Damra, clasping her hand around the medallion she wore on her neck.

“We will come,” said Wolfram firmly. “Gilda and I together.”

“I come to fulfill the oath,” said the Captain. “And put an end to bad omens.”

One by one, they vanished. Only Shadamehr remained. He and the Lord of Ghosts. His ghosts. Ghosts of regret, lost opportunities, past mistakes, failures.

“I will come,” said Shadamehr, humbly.

That left Valura, in the guise of Silwyth, standing on the ramp with the Lord of Ghosts. The calm, serene face of hallowed death looked into the hollow eyes of the hideous, rotting skull.

“You cannot pass,” said the Lord of Ghosts.

Fear and despair filled the emptiness of the Void. Yet Valura did not falter. She faced her fear. She faced the Lord of Ghosts.

“You cannot stop me. Nothing can stop me,” Valura said. “My lord wants me. All this I did for love of him.”

“A love that dishonored you,” returned the Lord of Ghosts sternly. “A love that gave nothing and took everything. A love that fed on itself, fed on you.”

“Nonetheless,” Valura answered, staring straight into the cold and burning light, “it was the only love I ever knew.”

F
OR MANY DAYS, RAVEN HAD WALKED ALONGSIDE LIVING DEATH IN
the form of the taan Vrykyl. Perhaps prolonged exposure to that horror inured him to the terrible sights he witnessed in the ruins of Old Vinnengael. Or perhaps his years on the field of battle had hardened him. He felt cool pity at the sight of the innocents who had died, but a warrior knows that the god of war does not bother to differentiate between those paid to bleed and those who stumble unwittingly into his clutches. Raven felt nothing at all when he came upon the bodies of the unburied soldiers, except to repeat the soldier's prayer in his heart, asking that he be spared such a fate or, if he wasn't, that the god of war accept his spirit anyway.

He and K'let traveled a different route from the one taken by the Dominion Lords. He and K'let did not take the ramp. They could see the others climbing it, and K'let, with a gesture, motioned Raven to a stone stairway. K'let ascended it, and Raven followed. He did not know his fate, but he accepted it, made his peace with it.

Their destination was somewhere at the top of the cliffs on which the city had been built. Every time they halted, K'let turned his gaze in that direction. Raven had no idea what was up there. He knew little or nothing about the city. He'd heard tales of its destruction, but he couldn't remember details. Cities under siege hold little interest for Trevinici warriors. Proper battles are fought in wide-open spaces, with armies charging at one another to meet with a resounding clash of arms. Flinging
flaming jelly on helpless people trapped behind walls is not a Trevinici's idea of warfare.

Whatever was up there, K'let was in a hurry to reach it. The taan climbed swiftly and eagerly, using both his hands and feet to scale the crumbling stairs. Lacking the Vrykyl's undead strength and endurance, Raven climbed more slowly, with frequent stops to rest and catch his breath. He could feel K'let glowering at him every time he paused, and since meeting the taan's dead-eyed gaze was not pleasant, Raven forced himself to keep up as best he could.

They were about halfway to the top when Raven felt the touch on his arm and heard the scream. He drew his knife, looked swiftly about. He saw nothing. The hair rose in prickles on his neck. Trevinici do not tell ghost stories. Their respect for the dead is too great, and Raven was not one to give way to his imagination.

“Cobwebs,” he told himself, and continued on.

The hands pushed at him and shoved him and tried to knock him off the stairs. Their voices dinned in his ears, howled and shrieked so that they nearly deafened him. He sought to ignore the unseen foe and continue climbing, but he was falling farther and farther behind. The battle sapped his strength. He gasped for breath. Every movement was a struggle. The stair seemed endless, the mist-shrouded cliff top high above him. Raven collapsed, unable to go on. He crouched against the stairs, beating at the unseen fists and feet, cursing and flailing at them.

A hand closed over his arm.

Raven gasped and shuddered and cried out in agony. The hand was the hand of a Vrykyl, and its touch was the touch of the Void. The hand burned with a dreadful chill that struck to Raven's heart.

K'let's talons dug into Raven's flesh. Rivulets of blood trailed down Raven's arm. K'let yanked Raven to his feet.

Raven tried to jerk his arm free, but K'let's grip was strong, and Raven could not break it.

“Let go of me,” Raven said through teeth clenched against the painful burning of the Vrykyl's touch. “I can make it on my own.”

K'let's dark and empty eyes stared at him.

“I can make it,” Raven repeated. “The ghosts are gone.”

K'let stared at him a moment longer, then, with a grunt, he let go of Raven and began once again to climb.

Raven looked down at his arm. The flesh was a ghastly white in the imprint of a hand. Raven rubbed it, to try to restore some color. He could not feel his own touch, however. It was like touching the flesh of a dead man. At least, he could still use his hands, and he used them to good purpose. He climbed rapidly, fear lending him strength.

If there were still ghosts around, they held no terrors for him. Not anymore.

T
HE DRAGON OF THE VOID CIRCLED THE RUINS OF VINNENGAEL.
He was enormous, the largest ever to walk upon Loerem, and he had been here once before. Descending on the ruins of what had once been the proud city of Vinnengael, the dragon had lifted the body of the monk of Dragon Mountain from the rubble of the destroyed Temple of the Magi. The monk had come to record the history of hubris and jealousy, treacherous ambition and blinding pride, heartbreaking sorrow, noble self-sacrifice, and the dragon had been sent to bring the dead monk home.

Shredding the gray mists with his black wings, the dragon settled upon the mountainous ruin that was all that remained of the Temple.

The dragon of the Void was the eldest of his kind upon Loerem and the only dragon wholly dedicated to the Void. How many years he had lived, not even he could say, for the passing of the seasons meant very little to him. He had been an elder dragon when King Tamaros was born. He had witnessed the rise of Dagnarus as Lord of the Void. The dragon had watched the fall of Old Vinnengael, had been the one to rescue the body of the monk from the ruined city so that the history of the moment should be preserved.

The dragon generally took no active part in mankind's affairs, except as one of the five guardians of the monks of Dragon Mountain. The dragon of the Void had little care for mankind, but he did find man's struggles as he plodded along life's brief path to be an endless source of
amusement, thus he had agreed to become one of the dragons who guarded the recorders of that struggle.

Over the centuries, the dragon had watched another struggle—an eternal struggle, between the gods and the Void for the souls of man. The Void dragon had watched the tide of battle ebb and flow, with now one side coming close to victory and now the other. He thought it likely that neither would ever win (or should ever win, as the elemental dragons were wont to preach). Then Dagnarus looked inside the Sovereign Stone. He saw the Void and embraced it. He claimed the Dagger of the Vrykyl. The Void dragon was intrigued.

He foresaw that Dagnarus's fire would not blaze up only to gutter out like the fires of so many others before him, extinguished by vacuum of the Void. The fire of Dagnarus needed no air. It fed on itself and it had the potential to burn long and bright. Through him, the Void gained power, and the dragon could actually envision a time when the Void might reign supreme in the world.

“The gods marshal their forces,” the Void dragon warned Dagnarus, as the Lord of the Void climbed down from the dragon's back. “They have sent their champions to test you.”

Dagnarus laughed. “The gods only think they sent them. The champions come at my behest.”

The Void dragon was troubled. “Do not trust your friends, Lord of the Void. And do not underestimate your foes.”

“I have no friends,” Dagnarus returned. “And my foes fall before me. This day, the Sovereign Stone will be mine.”

“Eschew the Sovereign Stone,” said the Void dragon contemptuously. “You do not need it.”

“I do not need it,” Dagnarus agreed. “But I want it. Farewell, Wise Master, and thank you for bearing me to my destiny.”

The dragon was black as the Void that is the heart of the universe, around which all the other elements revolve. In his eyes was the darkness that surrounds the stars. Everything that is born, even the stars, must eventually fall into that nothingness. There the gods waited, with hands outstretched, to gather up the nothingness and cast it back into the heavens, where it burst into suns.

The dragon spread his black wings. Night fell over Old Vinnengael,
so that the mists were only felt, not seen. The rainbows had long ago disappeared.

Yet, for a moment, the dragon paused.

“Lord of the Void,” called the dragon, as Dagnarus walked away, “what will you do with the Sovereign Stone, when it is yours?”

Dagnarus stood atop the mountain of ruin that had been the Temple of the Magi. The rubble was unstable and shifted beneath his weight. He had always possessed a feline's ability to keep his footing, no matter how treacherous the path he walked, and he retained his balance.

“I will bring peace to the realm,” Dagnarus answered. “I will stop all wars between all nations. I will put an end to strife, so that people everywhere may prosper.”

“Your father's dream,” said the dragon.

“I will make it a reality.”

“Your father was told, when he was given the Sovereign Stone, to beware the bitter center,” said the Void dragon.

“You forget,” said Dagnarus with his charming smile, “that I was the one who looked directly into that bitter center.”

“I do not forget,” said the dragon. “But I think you have.”

The dragon spread its wings and blended with the darkness.

“You are wrong,” said Dagnarus quietly. Standing atop the ruin, he looked around him and saw the destruction that his hand had wrought. He saw the ghosts, rushing endlessly to their doom. He saw the ash and the rubble, the corpses lying in the broken streets.

“I never meant for this to happen,” he cried to the gods, trying to pierce the smoking mists, trying to see to heaven. “It would not have happened, if you had given me what I was meant to have! I will take the gift you gave my father, and I will do what you should have done!”

Raven watched in wonder to see the handsome, richly dressed man slide and scramble with catlike grace and surety among the ruins of what looked to have been a Temple.

“Who is that man?” Raven asked.

“Ko-kutryx,” said K'let.

“Dagnarus? Your god?”

K'let's lip curled. “Ko-kutryx,” he repeated, and spit on the ground.

Raven saw reflected in the Vrykyl's empty eyes the figure of the richly dressed man, bold and fearless.

K'let pointed at the man, then put his finger to his lips.

Raven nodded. They were to follow this Ko-kutryx, go where he led them, keep silent, not alert him to the fact that they were on his trail.

Dagnarus walked with assurance toward his destination. Either he had no thought of pursuit, or he had no fear. He did not bother to look behind him. K'let rose to his feet and motioned Raven to do the same.

“What of the four Dominion Lords?” Raven asked.

K'let grinned broadly, chuckled in his throat, and shrugged.

Dagnarus rounded the corner of the partially destroyed temple, one of the few buildings still standing. K'let and Raven followed after him.

The taan moved rapidly over the cracked and crumbling pavement, using his toes and their long talons to grip the broken flagstones and secure his footing. Raven had to be more careful, watch every step, for fear that a stone would turn beneath his foot, causing him to slip and wrench an ankle.

He did not have to worry about making noise that might alert the man they tailed. The roar of the nearby falls was so loud that it was hard to think over it. Raven risked one quick look, trying to see the waterfalls, but the coming of twilight and the clouds of fog roiling up out of the chasm into which the water plunged blocked his view.

“In here!” said K'let, gesturing to the Temple.

Raven judged that this had once been some type of holy site by the four mandalas engraved on the marble blocks. This part of the building had survived relatively intact, with only a few cracks in the walls and a partially collapsed roof. This temple was similar in design to the Temple of the Magi in Dunkar, only much, much larger and far more magnificent.

Raven did not feel comfortable in temples. The gods of the Trevinici were gods of the trees and the earth, the sun and the moon and the stars, the water and the fire and air. There were gods of life and gods of death and war. Such gods did not reside inside stifling walls, were not held prisoner beneath domed ceilings or locked up behind gates.

As Raven moved deeper into the ruins, his unease increased. He had no light. Apparently K'let needed none, for he forged ahead without pause, following the sound of Dagnarus's boots echoing hollowly through
the empty corridors. Raven stumbled along as best he could, bumping into things and making a racket.

K'let growled and muttered, hissed at him impatiently to keep up. Raven did the best he could, but at one point, he tripped over something and lurched forward. He thrust out his hands to stop his fall. His fingers touched cold, smooth stone, and he was face to face with a grinning skull. Realizing in horror that he fallen headlong into a tomb, Raven scrambled out as fast as he could move. He was not one to believe in omens, as did the orks, but he couldn't help wondering with a shudder if this was not some sort of portent. Perhaps the tomb into which he'd fallen was his own.

Gritting his teeth, Raven stumbled after K'let.

 

Only twice before had Dagnarus walked the corridor that led to the Portal of the Gods—the first time the night he'd met his brother there and the second time when he'd come there in a futile search for the Sovereign Stone.

The first time, he'd found the Portal easily. The second, he'd searched for it for many weary days. The Portal was not some grand chamber, as might have been expected, but a small monk's cell located in a part of the Temple that was out of the way, not easily found. At last he had found it, or it had found him, he wasn't certain which. This time he knew exactly where he was going. He had committed the route to memory.

He also remembered to bring a lamp, for the Portal was in a part of the Temple shrouded in darkness. The lamplight guiding his footsteps, Dagnarus walked the silent corridors and the empty halls. He paused once, hearing footsteps and a scrabbling sound, as if someone had fallen.

“The Dominion Lords,” he said to himself, smiling, “stumbling along in my wake. They bring the Sovereign Stone to me, in the Portal of the Gods. At long last, the fulfillment of a dream.”

He wore the black carapace that was the armor of the Void, and now he called upon the Void to remove its protection. Let the Dominion Lords come armored and accoutered to the teeth. They would find him in his traveling cloak and silken doublet. He had no fear of them. Let them attack him, stab him, cut off his head, poison him. They could do all that and more, kill him thirty times over. He had but to kill each of them once.

Confident, at ease, Dagnarus knew he had reached the Portal when
the light of his lamp shone upon the skeletal remains of his whipping boy, Gareth.

The bones lay huddled in a heap at the base of a wall in a corridor that led to the Portal. The back of the skull was crushed. The smear of blood that trailed down the wall was still there, clearly visible. The sight of the blood irritated Dagnarus, for it called to mind Gareth's murder—one of Dagnarus's life-long regrets. There had been no need to kill Gareth. The fact that Dagnarus had done so, acting out of jealous rage, was a lapse in judgment—marked him as petty, weak, and vengeful.

The sight of the bloodstain brought back too many memories—memories of Gareth, memories of childhood. Those brought memories of his father, and those brought memories of Helmos. Dagnarus felt himself tumbling down a well of memories.

“The first thing I will do, once I have the Sovereign Stone, will be to wash away that blasted stain,” Dagnarus promised.

Gareth had died close to the small cell that was the Portal of the Gods. Dagnarus tried to see inside, but failed. He stepped over Gareth's body, held the lamp high, to illuminate the room.

The chamber had the appearance of a monk's cell, small and windowless, quiet and plain, furnished with a bed, a desk, and a chair. Dagnarus felt a sharp disappointment. This was not the chamber he remembered.

His was a careless mind, which did not recall details well—with one exception. He could recall every single detail of that final meeting with his brother Helmos. He could recall every detail about the Portal of the Gods.

“An enormous chamber,” Dagnarus said, flashing the light about the room. “With no walls beneath the dome of heaven. The dome was empty, yet the emptiness was filled with light. In the very center the Sovereign Stone—the quarter piece of the Sovereign Stone—sparkled bright against the radiant light, as the evening star shines at sunset.”

Only his brother stood between him and his greatest desire.

His brother stood alone.

Helmos's expression was grave, serious. The light that shone in the Portal shone in his eyes.

“All this is your fault,” Dagnarus told Helmos. “If you had given me what should have been mine, none of this would have happened. I will finally make it right, but you will never know the pain this has cost me.
And so I say, damn you, Helmos. Damn your soul to the Void, as mine has been damned all these years. These empty, hollow years…”

He stood holding the lantern, looking into the small room with four walls and a ceiling and a bed, a chair, a desk.

“When I get rid of the stain, I'll get rid of this Portal, too,” Dagnarus vowed. “I don't need an avenue to the Gods. If the gods want to speak to me, they can come to me. I'll raze this temple, raze the palace and all that's left standing in this horrible place. I'll build a new city here, my own city. I'll rid this place of its ghosts.”

As Dagnarus took a step toward the Portal, a pale, ephemeral figure rose up from the bones on the floor.

“My prince.” Gareth's spirit bowed, but when Dagnarus tried to move past the ghost, he found his way blocked.

Gareth looked in death as he had looked in life. He wore the black robes of a Void sorcerer. His face was marred with the birthmark that inspired Dagnarus to nickname him “Patch.”

“I want to go in, Gareth,” said Dagnarus. “Stand aside.”

“I am not keeping you out, Your Highness,” said Gareth.

Dagnarus flicked a glance past the spirit into the Portal. Shrugging, he turned carelessly away. When he had the Sovereign Stone, he would enter. Or maybe he wouldn't. After all, what would be the need?