The Archer From Kipleth (Book 2) (13 page)

Deifol Hroth turned to look out of one of the eight small windows of the tower room. He seemed to be seething with anger. Stavolebe was certain his life would end in the next instant.

“All of this life and struggle,” The Dark Lord mused, “so easy to end. I’ve killed tens of thousands. Personally. With my own hands. But... why? Why do I do it?”

Deifol Hroth turned to fix Stavolebe with a defiant stare, expecting an answer.

“I don’t know...” Stavolebe was able to squeak.

“You’ve killed,” Deifol Hroth said. “What did you feel in the moment you ended Lord Argotine’s life?”

Stavolebe could only stare at the Dark Lord, pleading with his eyes, his hands involuntarily raised in self defense.

“You want power,” Deifol Hroth hissed. “And yet you refuse to understand. Do you believe that the living have a soul?”

Stavolebe dumbly nodded.

“Rightly so” Deifol Hroth said. “And when that soul leaves its mortal body, the fabric of all that is made, this reality, is disturbed. The more unfortunate the death, the more violent, the greater the disturbance, the greater the tear in that fabric.” Deifol Hroth stopped to see if Stavolebe understood. Satisfied, He continued, “More and more violent deaths, all in one instant, and...”

“You can tear all that is real apart,” Stavolebe said in horror.

“Yes,” Deifol Hroth hissed. A look of pure anger and hatred crossed the Dark Lord’s face. “Our Parent, Our Creator treats us like little puppets, little sheep, playthings for amusement. We are set in motion with every day, every moment predicted. The contempt the Creator feels for us is infinite,” Deifol Hroth said with a snarling hiss. A rage played across His face. “I will not be anyone’s plaything. I will tear down this stage. I will burn this facade! Playtime is over!”

A chilling silence filled the tower room. The night was cold and merciless. Curls of furious mist tangled up from the field below.

“Draw your weapon,” Deifol Hroth said, and Stavolebe immediately obeyed.

Deifol Hroth turned, and the frozen souls floating in the corners of the room coalesced in front of him.

“Slay that one,” Deifol Hroth said to Stavolebe, indicating the human chained to the wall. “And open yourself, listen, feel, see the infinite shudder as reality is torn asunder at the instant of your act of murder.”

Without hesitation, Stavolebe turned and plunged his sword into the poor chained man. In the same instant, the frozen souls screamed off into the next life.

Stavolebe felt a rush of power. He felt the will to determine his own destiny. He felt the power of the almighty.

“Yes,” the Dark Lord breathed. “Now you understand. You felt it. You can now finally be my vessel.”

“What do the magical objects do? The ones you seek?” Stavolebe blurted out in a moment of strength. Then, he was immediately frightened by his own boldness.

Deifol Hroth turned and slightly smiled at the impudence.

“They work together,” Deifol Hroth said softly. “You will understand absolutely, clearly, when the time comes. Do not question until that moment arrives.”

Overhead in the night sky, the second moon, the Wanderer crested the edge of the tower room.

Deifol Hroth suddenly seemed enchanted, happy.

“Look,” He said to Stavolebe. “What do you see?”

“The Wanderer,” Stavolebe carefully said.

“No,” the Dark Lord said. “She is my child. I brought her here. I gave birth to her. I pulled her out from the celestial spheres and placed her there.” He stopped to remember. “I gave my arm to bring my child to you.”

“And the Archer took your other arm,” Stavolebe said in sympathy.

Deifol Hroth turned to fix Stavolebe with a stare which spoke volumes about His feelings of hatred for the Archer. And Stavolebe knew he had better not continue his line of thought.

“What do you think of my child?” Deifol Hroth said, again gazing up at the rogue moon.

Stavolebe looked up at the moving, glowing moon. It moved too fast. It seemed unstable, dangerous. It’s path across the night sky was crooked, deadly. And then Stavolebe understood.

“You are going to bring it down, down to earth,” Stavolebe said, his throat catching.

“Yes,” Deifol Hroth hissed.

“You will kill so many,” Stavolebe said, his breath accelerating.

“Yes,” Deifol Hroth hissed.

“You will kill everyone. You will destroy the earth,” Stavolebe tried, but failed to swallow.

“YES,” Deifol Hroth hissed. “And how does that make you feel?”

Stavolebe gazed up at the Wanderer. It had a certain, deformed beauty. It was thrilling, sensual.

“I want the power it can give,” Stavolebe said with a heavy breath.

Deifol Hroth tipped back His head and laughed a long, loud, vicious laugh.

“You will have more power than you ever dreamed of, little human,” the Dark Lord crowed. “You may even rival me.”

“I intend to,” Stavolebe deliriously whispered to himself.

“However,” Deifol Hroth said, suddenly serious. “Your education is woefully incomplete.”

“Teach me!” Stavolebe exclaimed.

“So eager,” Deifol Hroth shook his head. “So eager.”

Deifol Hroth turned and stared at a skull, still red from its brutal death, and it rose from its shadow in the corner. The skull hovered right in front of Deifol Hroth. “Take it,” He said to Stavolebe.

Stavolebe gently reached out and grasped the bloody skull.

“Do you understand the nature of good and evil, Lord Stavolebe?” Deifol Hroth asked.

Stavolebe was about to reply gallantly, but then he caught himself in light of all the revelations of the last few moments. Then, he shook his head.

“Good, good,” Deifol Hroth sneered. “An open mind, is a teachable mind.”

The Dark Lord stepped very close to Stavolebe to stare closely at his face.

“Did you ever visit the city of the elves?” Deifol Hroth quietly said. “Before its destruction,” he said with a smile.

“No, no,” Stavolebe stammered.

“The crystal object you saw,” Deifol Hroth said, “the Lhalíi  had a temple in the old city. Four sloping sides meeting at one point at the top.”

“A pyramid.”

“Yes. No. The angles, the lines curved too much. But that is unimportant. Inside were eight chambers, all oriented around the central chamber that housed the Sun Shard. Each chamber was on a different level, positioned around the Lhalíi on the eight paths of wisdom. Do you know of the eight paths?”

“No...” Stavolebe said, becoming inexplicably frightened.

“No matter,” Deifol Hroth smiled. “The lowest point would put you in a chamber directly underneath the crystal. You would spiral around the Lhalíi, in each chamber, asking a question, contemplating answers, until you arrived at the last chamber, directly above the Vananth Indelune, as the ancients called the Lhalíi. You were supposed to understand every nuance, every shade of gray, every rationale, good or evil. But when I came out of the temple, I laughed in Morinnthe’s face.” The Lord of All Evil smiled at the memory. “He didn’t like that, not on his wedding day.”

“Why did you laugh?” Stavolebe carefully asked.

“Because of the question I asked of the Lhalíi,” Deifol Hroth said.

Stavolebe wracked his brain. What question could the Lord of All Darkness ask? What knowledge did He lack? Why would He laugh at the answer He received?

“I didn’t ask anything,” Deifol Hroth said. “I didn’t need to know anything. I laughed because those fool elves couldn’t see, that no matter what you learned, no matter how you saw a question, from any of the myriad possibilities, you always went into, and out of the temple in the middle. The exact, gray, boring, useless middle. The middle! All life is gray. Completely worthless! No matter what you do, no matter what you create, all will erode, fall to decay with time. The greatest kings have erected the most amazing castles. You would stare in disbelief at the structures I’ve seen, Stavolebe. And every one has fallen, been crushed, collapsed,  and been picked clean by predecessors like the scavengers that scour a rotting corpse left to decompose in the woods. Every effort and idea, every emotion and relationship is swept away, meaningless dust in the empty winds of time!”

Stavolebe was about to speak, but then caught himself, because he was still confused.

“I destroyed the Lhalíi temple out of pure contempt,” Deifol Hroth said. “I didn’t use a single brick for my citadel, that’s how much I despised their... methods.”

“But you used the bricks of the walls,” Stavolebe said, hoping for more knowledge. “And the bricks of the towers.”

“These bricks,” The Dark One said stroking the black bricks of the chamber, which undulated and vibrated a bone rattling, deep growl at His touch. “These bricks are alive... in a fashion... like an insect. They are an extension of the mind they surround. I thought the walls would fall with the death of the last elf, and was surprised when they didn’t. When I heard of the final elf, the girl, still alive, I was not surprised. Her life kept the bricks coherent. They have no intelligence or reasoning, but are filled with response to the correct stimulus.”

And then Deifol Hroth turned to pierce Stavolebe with a stare.

“Which brings us,” The Lord of Lightning said, “to your pitiful education. How does the skull feel in your hand?”

Stavolebe had forgotten he was still holding the skull of a human murdered not less than a day ago.

“It feels cold” Stavolebe softly said.

“You must understand stimulus and response” Deifol Hroth said. “You must understand the ‘gray’ in everything. Listen to pain speak in words too loud to be heard. You must feel the fabric of all that is, and, impossible as it seems, understand how it can be undone.”

The skull in Stavolebe’s hands began to move and vibrate. Deifol Hroth tipped His head back and closed his eyes.

“Don’t fight it,” the Dark One said.

Stavolebe could feel every brick in the citadel shaking. The skull in his hands shook so violently he had to hold on with all his might. His body buzzed like a black, nervous insect. He couldn’t feel the skull in his hands, although he knew he was still holding it. All the world went white.

Then.

Stavolebe was a young child. But he knew it wasn’t his childhood. It must be, he thought, I am in the body of some, strange young child. He stood up. His sister was staring at him and screaming. He had been hit on the head by a heavy object. Blackness dripped in front of his eyes like a curtain. He reached up his hand to his forehead and brought back a handful of blood. The terror was too much to comprehend.

Then.

He was again in somebody else’s body. He was falling, in a room all made of flat, polished wood. There was nothing he could do. He fell, flat on his face. He felt his teeth break. The shards of his teeth skittered across the wood floor. He scrambled to snatch the broken pieces of teeth. He cried in horror, knowing his teeth were ruined forever. And then pain. Pain in his broken teeth, blinding, excruciating pain.

Then.

He was in another body gasping for breath. All about was a carefully mowed lawn, and borders of dirt. Adults gathered over him, staring down, shouting as though their words could save him. He couldn’t breathe. Someone had kicked him, with both feet, jumped at him, landed with both feet squarely on his chest. He felt blackness all around the edges of his vision as he struggled for breath.

Then.

He was in another body, much older. It was night. He was curled on a tiled floor in a small room. The pain filled his body from head to toe. He hadn’t slept in two days. He was hungry and nauseous at the same time. He hadn’t been able to keep any food down in those last two days. Pain racked his body. His head was blinded with a headache that felt like fire. He suddenly rose and vomited blood into a porcelain container filled with water.

Then.

Stavolebe was in blackness, and he knew this was death. He understood. He understood how pain keeps us alive. How the Great Parent cares so much for us, we were given the gift of pain. And the love when the soul returns to the Creator opens the tightly woven fabric of all that is with a generosity too great to imagine, except after the soul has left the body.

Then.

Stavolebe was on the floor of the uppermost chamber of the citadel, gasping for breath. The skull, which he had been holding, had melted to ooze on the stone floor before him, sizzling as though it had been cooked by a very high heat.

Stavolebe rose and turned to face Deifol Hroth.

“I understand,” Stavolebe said, and his face was a million shadows.

“Good,” Deifol Hroth gently hissed. The Dark Lord turned to quietly speak with two garonds who had entered while Stavolebe was unconscious. Then He turned back to Stavolebe.

“Stay with the Archer and the elf,” He said. “Do not try to take the Moon Sword. As I’ve seen, she will give it to you freely. All the pieces will be yours with no effort. The selfish elves kept the Sun Shard and the Light of Nunee for themselves. But they gave the frame, the Allmen to the humans. All the pieces will be assembled before you, my dear Lord Stavolebe. Make no effort to contact me. Let no one even guess at your allegiances.”