[Magic Kingdom of Landover 05] - Witches' Brew (38 page)

To Lisa.
For always being there.
&
To Jill.
Because you must never give up
on yourself.

The Druid Guard counterattacked once more, cutting into the monsters, bearing them back down the stairway, leaving half their number sprawled lifeless on the blood-slicked steps. In desperation Caerid dispatched another man to summon help from wherever he could find it. He grabbed the man by his tunic as he was about to leave and pulled him close. “Find the Druids and tell them to flee while there is still time!” he whispered so that no other might hear. “Tell them Paranor is lost! Go quick, tell them! Then flee yourself!”

The messenger's face drained of blood, and he sprinted away wordlessly.

Another assault massed in the shadows below, a congealing of dark forms and guttural cries. Then, from somewhere higher up within the Keep, where the Druids slept, a piercing scream rose.

Caerid felt his heart sink. It's finished, he thought, not frightened or sad, but simply disgusted.

Seconds later, the creatures of the Warlock Lord
surged up the stairway once more. Caerid Lock and his failing command braced to meet them, weapons raised, determined to hold.

But this time there were too many.

Kahle Rese was asleep in the Druid library when the sounds of the attack woke him. He had been working late, cataloguing reports on weather patterns and their effects on farm crops he had compiled during the past five years. Eventually he had fallen asleep at his desk. He came awake with a start, jolted by the cries of wounded men, the clash of weapons, and the thudding of booted feet. He lifted his graying head and looked about uncertainly, then rose, took a moment to clear his mind, and walked to the door.

He peered out guardedly. The cries were louder now, more terrible in their urgency and pain. Men rushed past his door, members of the Druid Guard. The Keep was under attack, he realized. Bremen's warning had fallen on deaf ears, and now the price of their refusal to heed was to be exacted. He was surprised at how certain he was of what was happening and how it would end. Already he knew he was not going to live out the night.

Still he hesitated, unwilling even at this point to accept what he knew. The hall was empty now, the sounds of battle centered somewhere below. He thought to go out for a better look at things, but even as he was contemplating the idea, a shadowy presence emerged from the back stairway. He pulled his head inside quickly and peered out through his barely cracked door.

Black, misshapen creatures lurched into view, things that were unrecognizable, monsters from his worst nightmare. He caught his breath and held it. Room by room, they were working their way down the corridor to where he waited.

He closed the library door softly and locked it. For a
moment he just stood there, unable to move. A rush of images recalled themselves, memories of his early days as a Druid in training, of his subsequent tenure as a Druid Scribe, of his ceaseless efforts to collect and preserve the writings of the old world and of fairy. So much had happened, but in so short a time. He shook his head in wonder. How had it all gone by so quickly?

There were screams close at hand now, freshly raised, come from just beyond his door, in the hall where the monsters prowled. Time was running out.

He moved away quickly to his desk and took out the leather pouch that Bremen had given him. Perhaps he should have gone with his old friend. Perhaps he should have saved himself while he had the chance. But who would have protected the Druid Histories if he had done so? Who else could Bremen have relied upon? Besides, this was where he belonged. He knew so little of the world beyond anymore; it had been too long since he had gone out into it. He was of no use to anyone beyond these walls. Here, at least, he might still serve a purpose.

He walked to the bookcase that served as a hidden doorway to the room that concealed the Druid Histories and triggered its release. He entered and looked around. The room was filled with huge leather-bound books. Row after row, they sat in numbered, ordered sequence, reservoirs of knowledge, of all the lore the Druids had gathered since the time of the First Council from the ages of fairy, Man, and the Great Wars. Each page of each book was crammed with information gained and recorded, some of it understood, some of it a mystery still, all that remained of science and magic past and present. Much of what was written in these books was in Kahle's own hand, the words painstakingly inscribed, line by line, for more than forty years. Their recordings were the old man's special pride, the
summation of his life's work, the accomplishment he favored most.

He crossed to the nearest bank of shelves, took a deep breath, and opened the drawstrings to Bremen's leather pouch. He mistrusted all magic, but there was no other choice. Besides, Bremen would never mislead him. What mattered to both was the preservation of the Histories. They must survive him, as they were intended to. They must survive them all.

He took a generous handful of the glittering silver dust he found inside the pouch and threw it across one section of the books. Instantly, the entire wall on which the books were housed began to shimmer, taking on the look of a mirage in deep summer heat. Kahle hesitated, then threw more of the dust across the liquid curtain. The shelves and books disappeared. He moved on quickly then, using handfuls of the dust on each set of shelves, each section of books, watching them shimmer and fade away.

Moments later, the Druid Histories had vanished completely. All that remained was a room with four blank walls and a long reading table at its center.

Kahle Rese nodded in satisfaction. The Histories were safe now. Even if the room was discovered, its contents would remain concealed. It was as much as he could hope for.

He walked back through the door, suddenly weary. There was a scraping at the library door as unwieldly claws tried to fasten on the handle and turn it. Kahle turned and carefully closed the bookcase door. He shoved the nearly empty leather pouch in the pocket of his robe, walked to his desk, and stood there. He had no weapons. He had no place to run. There was nothing to do but wait.

Heavy bodies threw themselves against the door from without, splintering it. A second later it gave way,
crashing open against the wall. Three crook-backed beasts slouched into the room, red eyes narrow and hateful as they fixed on him. He faced them without flinching as they approached.

The closest held a short spear. Something in the bearing of the man before him infuriated him. When he was right on top of Kahle Rese, he drove the spear through his chest and killed him instantly.

When it was finished, when all who remained of the guards had been hunted down and slaughtered, the Druids who had survived were herded from their hiding places into the Assembly and made to fall upon their knees, ringed by the monsters who had undone them. Athabasca was found, still alive, and brought to stand before the Skull Bearer. The creature stared at the imposing, white-haired First Druid, then ordered him to bow down and acknowledge him as master. When Athabasca refused, proud and disdainful even in defeat, the creature seized him by his neck, looked into his frightened eyes, and burned them out with fire from his own.

As Athabasca lay writhing in agony on the stone floor, a sudden hush fell over the Assembly. The hissing and chittering died away. The scraping of claws and grinding of teeth faded. A silence descended, dark and foreboding, and all eyes were drawn to the hall's main entry, where the heavy double doors hung shattered and broken from their bindings.

There, within the jagged opening, the shadows seemed to come together, a coalescing of darkness that slowly took shape and grew into a tall, robed figure that did not stand upon the floor as normal men, but hung above it in midair, as light and insubstantial as smoke. A chill permeated the air of the Assembly at its coming, a cold that swept through the chamber and penetrated to
the bones of the captured Druids. One by one their captors dropped to their knees, heads bowed, voices a rough murmur.

“Master, Master.”

The Warlock Lord looked down upon the beaten Druids and was filled with satisfaction. They were his, now. Paranor was his. Revenge was at hand, after all this time.

He brought his creatures back to their feet, then stretched his cloaked arm toward Athabasca. Unable to help himself, blinded and in pain, the First Druid was jerked upright as if by invisible wires. He hung above the floor, above the other Druids, crying out in terror. The Warlock Lord made a twisting motion, and the First Druid went ominously still. A second twisting motion, and the First Druid began to chant in terrible, croaking agony, “Master, Master, Master.” The Druids huddled about him turned their eyes away in shame and rage. Some wept. The massed creatures of the Warlock Lord hissed with pleasure and approval, lifting their clawed limbs in salute.

Then the Warlock Lord nodded, and the Skull Bearer struck with terrible swiftness, tearing Athabasca's heart from his chest while he still lived. The First Druid threw back his head and shrieked as his chest exploded, then slumped forward and died.

For several long moments, the Warlock Lord held him suspended over his fellows like a rag doll, the blood draining from his body. He swung him this way and that, back and forth, and finally let him drop to the stone in a sodden mass of ruined flesh and bone.

Then he had all the captured Druids taken from the Assembly, herded like cattle to the deepest regions of Paranor's cellars, and walled away alive.

As the last of their screams died into silence, he went up through the stairways and corridors of the Keep in
search of the Druid Histories. He had destroyed the Druids; now he must destroy their lore. Or take with him what he could use. He went swiftly now, for already there were stirrings from somewhere down with the Keep's bottomless well that hinted of magic coming awake in response to his presence. In his own domain, he was a match for anything. Here, within the haven of his greatest enemies, he might not be. He found the library and searched it through. He uncovered the bookcase that opened on the hidden chamber beyond, but that chamber was empty. There was magic in use, he sensed, but he could not determine its origin or purpose. Of the Histories, there was no sign.

From within the depths of the Druid Well, the stirrings grew stronger. Something had been set loose in response to his coming, and it was rising to seek him out. He was disturbed that this should be, that power of this sort should be set at watch to challenge him. It could not have originated with these pitiful mortals he had so easily subdued. They were no longer able to invoke such power. It must have come instead from the one who had penetrated his domain so recently, the one his creatures had tracked: the Druid Bremen.

He went back down to the Assembly, anxious to be gone now as swiftly as possible, his purpose here accomplished. He had the three who had betrayed Paranor brought before him. He did not speak to them with words, for they were not worthy of this, but let his thoughts speak for him. They cringed and prostrated themselves like sheep, poor foolish creatures who would be more than they were able.

“Master!” they whimpered in placating voices. “Master, we serve only you!”

Who among the Druids escaped the Keep besides Bremen?

“Only three, Master. A Dwarf, Risca. An Elf, Tay Trefenwyd. A Southland girl, Mareth.”

Did they go with Bremen?

“Yes, with Bremen.”

No others escaped?

“No, Master. None.”

They will return. They will hear of Paranor's fall and went to make certain it is so. You will be waiting. You will finish what I have begun. Then you will be as I am
.

“Yes, Master, yes!”

Stand
.

They did so, rising hastily, eagerly, broken spirits and minds that were his to command. Yet they lacked the strength to do what was required of them and so must be altered. He reached out to them with his magic, wrapped them about with strands as thin as gossamer and as unyielding as iron, and stole away the last of what was human.

Their shrieks echoed through the empty halls as he relentlessly shaped them into something new. Arms and legs flailed. Heads jerked wildly and eyes bulged.

When he was done, they were no longer recognizable. He left them thus, and with the remainder of his minions trailing obediently after he stole back into the night, abandoning the castle of the Druids to the dying and the dead.