The Godlost Land (19 page)

It would have been so easy to kill him then. To simply pick up his sword from the wall it was now leaning against and behead him. But Harl knew he couldn't. Not yet. There was more he had to know. That they all had to know. He took a few more deep breaths to calm himself.

“Who did you have your arrangement with?”

“Tyriole!” Geron screamed it out as fast as he knew how. He had no thought of lying any more. He knew the painful death that was approaching him.

“So Tyriole was involved in the attack?”

“Yes.”

Harl wished he hadn't said that. He wished that the coat would have tightened when he did. Anything to say that the old wizard wasn't involved. But he knew he had been. He had seemed like such a kindly old man. A touch proud and always overdressed but kindly. And he had been a respected wizard. He was a member of the Circle after all.

“And who else?”

“The Circle.”

Harl's mouth dropped when he heard Geron say that. In all his life he would never have expected to hear such a thing. The Circle of Magic consisted of the proudest of wizards. The most advanced of their number. It was their governing body in the Kingdom of the Lion. The head of their guild. When a wizard set up business in the kingdom it was the Circle which gave their approval. When an apprentice needed to be taken under someone's wing, it was the Circle that arranged it. And when a wizard stepped out of line it was the Circle that judged them. To be a member of the Circle was the highest honour a wizard of Lion's Crest or any other town in the Kingdom of the Lion could ask for. And the Kingdom of the Lion was recognised for the strength of its wizards. It was said that an apprentice in the Kingdom of the Lion was the equal of a master anywhere else. Harl had secretly dreamed that one day he would have been asked to join the Circle. Maybe in fifty or sixty years when he'd properly mastered his craft.

“All of them?” It was barely a whisper that came out of Harl's mouth.

“Most. The rest were killed.”

It was strange how easily the wizard could say that. As if it meant nothing. But it didn't mean nothing. Not to Harl. Not to anyone. It meant everything. It took him a moment to collect himself. To retain control of his tongue. And to stop clenching his fists in fury.

“So all that remain of the Circle are part of this?”

“Except Dina. She escaped and no one has been able to find her. But she's the only one. I think.”

“Dina Windstrider,” Harl told the others what he knew of her. It was something he could do while he tried to make sense of what he had been told.

“Lady Elan of Elan Fortress, a sky mage. She is wed to Lord Elan. She controlled much of the weather of Lion's Spine, and was regarded as one of the most powerful of the Circle.” And though he didn't say it, she had been one of the toughest of instructors around. In the Circle she oversaw the instruction of apprentices, seeing to it that no matter who their master was they all mastered their basics. He had been before her eighteen times and not once in all those years had he ever left feeling that he had done well. The best he had ever done seemed to be to pass. But his own master had said that that was all that any ever did with her and he had been happy.

He wasn't surprised that she had escaped the fall of Lion's Crest though. She had two advantages over everyone else. The first was that Elan Fortress was seven or eight leagues from the city of Lion's Crest. It was also on a steep hill leading up to the mountain range that was the Lion's Spine. She would have had ample warning before the beast army approached. The second of course was that she could fly, lifting herself up on a column of spinning air.

“If the Circle did all this, how did they conquer the temple? How did they usurp Artemis' authority in her own house?”

The satyr asked the question and in that moment dispelled any idea Harl might have that he was just a simple soldier. He had a clear mind and a sharp grasp of the problem. Because he was right. In the end that was exactly what had happened. And no wizard could ever go against the divine. Not even a Circle wizard. They simply didn't have the power.

“I can't –.” But a moment later Geron screamed and instantly rethought his answer as to what he could and couldn't tell them.

“They made a deal with Xin!”

Harl gasped. So did the others. They all knew who Xin was. The demon king. The one that lorded it over Tartarus, the deepest and darkest realm within Hades. Pluto might be the god with dominion over all of Hades and the dead, but he was an absentee lord. Xin was the foreman who carried out all his orders and actually ran the realm. The one that styled himself a prince. The one with the power.

And they all knew that for a demon his power was immense. Too powerful for any wizard to be fool enough to bargain with. Those who involved themselves in deals with demons used lessor demons and only for specific purposes. They limited their contact strictly. Unless of course they wanted to end up consumed body and soul by one.

But Xin wasn't just the oldest and most powerful of the demons; he was their leader. Their king. If anyone had the power to displace a goddess from her own temple, he did – with the Circle's help. And maybe he also had the power to build a beast army. But the question still remained – who would be stupid enough to deal with Xin? It was like a mouse making a deal with a cat. A hungry cat. He asked.

“They all did. Twelve of the Circle made the deal as one. It was the only way they could hold the bargain.”

Twelve of the eighteen. A dozen of the most powerful wizards in the Kingdom of the Lion. It could work. Maybe. The deal could hold for a while. But when it broke things would go very badly wrong for them. And even if it held they would be very unlikely to get what they asked for. Demons lied. Surely they would have know that. So why would they do something so stupid?

Then a thought occurred to Harl and he rose and went across to where Geron stood and tugged at his sleeve. Sure enough on his wrists he saw the markings of a demon. A sight that shocked him more than he could even understand. He showed the others the markings as well. A wizard had accepted a demon's marks? That was madness. Harl returned to his seat slowly as he tried to make sense of what was never sensible. It took him a few moments to think of the questions he still needed to ask.

“What did they get out of it? And what did they offer?”

“The six great answers. They asked for them and were given them.”

“No!”

Harl denied him instantly. Not just out of shock for their ambition, but because he knew it couldn't be. Had they been given the six great answers they would be gods by now. And there were no new gods as far as he knew. The priests would have known. The world would have changed somehow. But Geron claimed it once more and the coat did not tighten.

“The six great answers are the answers to the six most important mysteries there are for a wizard.” Harl told the others what he knew of them. “The solutions to puzzles that have been considered for thousands of years. They are the six most powerful magics that have ever been dreamed of. Magics that if they even exist are thought impossible to attain by mortal means.”

Unfortunately Harl knew little more of them than what he'd said, which was precious little. The six great answers were more legends and myths than anything else. Things that some few held truly existed but which most believed were nothing more than alehouse gossip.

“They are the answers to the mysteries of immortality, including the healing from all wounds, sickness and poisons. Foresight so that the future is known and yet can be changed. Invulnerability so that no weapon, no spell can ever harm someone. Transport across the realms, so that a wizard may safely travel to any place in any realm and return. Even to the realms of the dead. Knowledge of every spell and every wisdom known or able to be known. And last but not least ascension, so that one may even become a god.”

“But there were problems?” Harl returned his attention to Geron. He already knew there would have been problems. Anyone would have known the same. Anyone it seemed save the twelve of the Circle. They after all were the ones who had chosen to make a deal with a demon. And not just any demon but the king of demons. He would honour his bargains to the exact letter of the agreement and yet still turn them into a lie. As they said, the only truth of a demon was that he lied.

“Yes.”

Geron suddenly looked away, but Harl doubted it was out of guilt. Shame maybe, but not guilt.

“Go on.”

“The price was supposed to be a cull of one in ten. But it became nine in ten.” The instant he said it Harl wanted to kill the wizard there and then. Not just for what he had done. Not even for how he could say something so unutterably stupid. But for how he could talk about so many deaths as if they were nothing. These were people who had been “culled”. Loved ones, friends and family. His family. How could the man not understand that? It was so hard not to simply sit there and scream at him. Or else to bury his head in his hands and weep. His family had died because of a deal that the Circle had made which they hadn't even understood. But for a stupid mistake that even a village idiot would know better than to make, all those people might have lived.

Harl was reeling inside, barely able to comprehend what the man was saying. The shock of what he had just learned threatened to overwhelm him. For five long years he had lived with the knowledge that it was Artemis who had killed his loved ones. And though it wasn't easy he had found a way to deal with that. He had simply hated her.

Now he'd been told it was the wizards. His own people! Learning that the betrayal had been made by those he had looked up to made the murders seem so much more terrible. And now that he had learned that the wizards hadn't just committed this disgusting betrayal of everything they were supposed to be, but that they had killed a hundred thousand people because they were bungling incompetents, made it worse. Finally a little of that exploded in him.

“No you poxy fool!” He yelled it at the wizard, unable to contain himself. “It was always nine in ten. One in ten survived. Do you know nothing of demons? They always deal in absolute truth. And their truth is always a lie. Your masters just didn't read the agreement the way the demon wrote it.”

It was so obvious to Harl. And because of that stupid little mistake an extra hundred thousand or so people had been killed. But he doubted that the twelve would have cared even if they had noticed the error. They wanted ultimate power, and it didn't matter to them whether that price was ten thousand lives or a hundred thousand. Geron certainly didn't care. His only concern was that they had been deceived. Not that so many had died.

It was a while before Harl had calmed his anger and pain enough to return to the questioning. Quite a while, because the only desire in his heart was to run the man through with his blade. It was the right thing to do. But still there were things they needed to know.

“There were other problems weren't there?” Why did he even ask Harl wondered? He knew there were more problems. These poxy idiots had struck a deal with a demon after all. There were always going to be problems. Still, he supposed he had to find out why the heavens weren't filled with more worthless gods.

“Yes.” Geron was starting to mumble, not wanting to admit the truth. But he wasn't stupid enough to lie anymore.

“And they were?”

“The six great answers couldn't be used. The spells were written on an ancient tablet in a language so old that they couldn't read or translate it. They required knowledge that couldn't be obtained. And the words couldn't be spoken by mortals. There were a lot of problems.”

All of which meant that their prisoner wouldn't be getting his immortality any time soon. That was going to be a problem for Geron if the bonds of truth tightened too much more. Or if Harl gave in to his desire and reached for his sword.

“Of course there were. And let me guess. Each problem could be overcome – with another little deal?” It was the oldest story in the book when dealing with demons. They always wanted more. Just another little deal to get you what you dreamed of while they got theirs. It was their way.

“Yes.” The word was barely a whisper coming out of the wizard's mouth. But everyone heard it clearly. “It's been frustrating. But we're so close.”