The Malmillard Codex (24 page)

Madryn used Val's stiff form to pull to her
feet. She stood at last by his side, her hand tight about his arm,
her body pushed as close against him as she could force it.

Was that an answering movement? A sudden
hope sprang up in her heart. Was that a soft reply to her hand upon
his own?

No. It could not be…and even if it was a
response, it had come far, far too late.

The twelfth star winked beside its brothers
outside the window.

Madryn would give her last remaining breath
to see Val look at her once more with recognition in his eyes.

Not that her last breath was a great deal to
offer—considering how very few that they both had left.

Madryn calculated the distance to the
window, and kept her hand tight on Val's arm…

Isole reached out one long, bony arm and
slashed the lancet across her own palm. She moved the bloody hand
in a careful pattern, muttering words of power beneath her
breath.

One lazy drop of her dark, thick blood fell
into each tiny onyx bowl.

"Now you, dearest brother," Isole
commanded.

Valaren held out a shaking arm, winced and
gave a soft mewling sound as the icy blade carved into a vein.

A stream of sluggish crimson trickled into
bowl after bowl.

"Now, brother, take the hand of your new
body," ordered Isole, her voice a screech that battled with the
rising winds that whipped about them.

Valaren seized Val's other hand in both his
own and held on for dear life.

Precisely what he is holding onto,
Madryn thought hazily; the cacophony increased as she took a small
step toward the window, Val's other hand still tight in her
own.

The mixture of the four bloods in their
minuscule containers spat and sizzled. Isole chanted, her voice
growing louder and louder in competition with the howling
winds.

And Madryn took another short step toward
the gaping opening that looked down, down, to the sharp rocks far
below.

A murky miasma, redder than the brightest
blood, began to seep from the onyx bowls, rising in sluggish
menace—just as the thirteenth star opened its bright eye and spread
its jagged rays to join its brothers in rough formation.

"The time! The time is here!" shouted
Isole.

The ice-pale woman reached across the
bubbling, roiling, rising mist and seized Madryn's arm.

A tempest, far greater than the fierce but
contained winds that already circled the chamber, blew in through
the wide window. The storm blew the tiny onyx bowls over, and their
ruby contents leaked out onto the carved stool.

A brilliant flash of light seared Madryn's
eyes. She groped desperately for the windowsill—determined that the
spell would never be complete.

Then, she felt the flesh under her
hand—Val's thickly muscled arm—grow warm and responsive, as if life
itself flowed through it in a steadily increasing stream.

Valaren's life, Madryn knew. Valaren's mind,
Valaren's desires…Valaren's evil.

But she would not let go, not until she was
sure that all that was Val—was gone.

Then she'd do her best to make sure they
both died…a true death, of body and spirit and soul.

Perhaps their spirits, Madryn thought hazily
as the room twisted and spun around her, perhaps their spirits
would maintain some faint and fragile contact with each other, even
after a death in this horrid place.

It was the only hope she had left.

Madryn began to pull Val toward the
window.

Garet sat on a
crumbling step outside the tower study. His eyes were closed in
concentration, his face tense but composed, his grimy hands clasped
tightly in his lap.

The step was the topmost of many more
cracked and disintegrating steps; they snaked down into the
ever-deepening darkness, down into the rank bowels of the pale
tower. From the bottom of the steps echoed uncanny groans and
screams.

The guardians of the gate were feeding.

The heavy wooden door to the study, its
surface scratched and pitted and marked with runes of power, bowed
out toward Garet.

It sounded as if the greatest tempest ever
to manifest was raging on the other side of that frail, damaged
door.

***

"Valaren!" The high, shrill screech ripped
across the devastated chamber, a sound like a thousand bats in
direst agony. "Brother!"

"Isole…" came a low, despairing wail in
answer; a wail that trailed away into ghastly, hopeless
silence.

***

Garet opened one eye. He regarded the door
to the chamber—now silent and still—with a curious and considering
eye.

The pitted wooden slab hung loose by one
hinge; warped and twisted and smoking, it gave off a faint smell of
sulfur and…was that roses, Garet wondered?

Scrambling to his feet, the boy dusted his
breeches with meticulous care, straightened his jerkin, and gave a
disapproving 'tsk' at the slice that ran across the front of his
shirt, its smooth edges stained a rusty brown. Beneath the sliced
material, the somewhat dirty white skin showed not the slightest
sign of damage.

Garet pattered to the damaged, loose door,
reached out and gave it a shove.

The door creaked open a hand's breadth and
hung in that position for a pair of heartbeats. Then the only
remaining iron hinge gave way, with a tearing sound like rotten
cloth, and the massive timber fell with a great crash to the stone
floor. The entire mass disintegrated into a shower of splintered
wooden fragments.

Garet shook his head.

"What unbelievably shoddy construction," he
murmured in disgust.

Then with extreme care, he climbed over the
heap of wood…curious to see what other damage he had managed to
inflict.

The study was a shambles. That was the only
applicable word.

Garet nodded and gave a satisfied smirk.
Good. He had always wondered just precisely what a shambles might
look like, and now he knew.

The window that had once opened onto a
starry indigo sky was gone. In its place a great hole gaped, its
edges rough and jagged. A part of the ceiling had fallen in just
over the hole, so that now the pattern made by the stars was framed
in choking dust and rubble.

The pattern made by the stars.

Garet checked the brilliant sparks, took a
quick count to make quite sure.

Excellent. Just as expected.

Garet picked his cautious way over the
littered floor toward the cold stone table—once Isole's desk and
then the rack where Madryn had been chained. Two of the rusty iron
manacles had vanished, but the other two were still there,
connected by lengths of chain to the table's legs; they lay like
coiled vipers on the rubble-strewn floor. The top of the table was
bare, swept clean by the tumult that had ravaged and destroyed this
room.

Under the table, Garet could make out two
huddled shapes, their arms in a tangle about each other. The boy
laid a finger on the tabletop—then drew it back with a hiss and at
once stuck it in his mouth.

The stone was still sizzling hot from the
overwhelming forces that had been unleashed.

Garet squatted and peered under the
table.

"I believe it's quite safe now. You can come
out," he said in a loud voice. "We really need to get on our way,
you know. The stars will be out in a little while, and the portal
will open."

A face, filthy and covered with blood from a
graze across the forehead, looked out and violet-gray eyes stared
in wonder at Garet's scrawny form.

"But the stars…" Madryn said, "I thought
they were…"

"Already up?" asked Garet. He grinned a
gap-toothed grin. "So did Isole. That was my plan, you see."

Madryn gave a soft shake to the bulky,
silent form that lay across her lean body.

"Val?" she whispered.

Another shake.

"Val?"

A groan like a lion's roar came from the
huge mass.

"My head," complained Val as he slid one arm
from around Madryn and reached up to rub his face with a filthy
hand—then snaked the arm back around her and continued, "my head
feels like it's been danced on."

"By large men with heavy boots, no doubt,"
agreed Garet tartly. "Be glad that the nearly useless thing feels
at all. Now, can you get up? Be careful of the table…it's still
just the faintest bit warm."

With slow and ponderous care, Val helped
Madryn slide from underneath the table—but not before he tightened
his arms around her and gave her a mighty squeeze. Then he followed
her, stifling his groans as aching muscles popped and grumbled.

At last, they were both able to stand, with
Garet's assistance.

"What happened?" asked Val. "I
remember...beasts at the door to the tower…and then waking up with
Madryn in the middle of a tornado."

"All in good time," promised Garet, "but
explanations must by need wait a little. The stars are rising and
the portal will open shortly thereafter. If you recall Aanakun's
instructions, we should be on our way as quickly as we can."

"But what about the guardians?" asked Val as
he pulled Madryn to him with one brawny arm, gathered up a handful
of Garet's jerkin with the other hand, and marched toward the
fallen study door with them both.

"They're both busy just now," Garet
squeaked, scrambling to keep up with Val's long legs. "Having
dinner, you might say."

When they reached the bottom of the
crumbling stairs and stepped to the door, Val and Madryn could see
what Garet had meant by 'supper.'

The two great creatures were positioned
comfortably on either side of the bridge over the moat—and they
were feasting on their former masters. A white arm here, a severed
head ripped from its flimsy hold on a withered body there, were all
that remained of the two evil siblings, Valaren and Isole.

"How do we…?" Val began uneasily. The
creatures looked fully capable of enjoying the three of them for
desert, and his sword no longer hung by his side.

"Don't worry, they'll be satisfied—for a
while," insisted Garet. "Look. The seventh star. We must hurry if
we are to reach the portal in time. And I, for one, have no desire
to spend a night in this place. You might just ask the mistress
what's it like…but I advise that you wait until we're home before
you do."

For reply, Val seized both his companions by
the hand and dragged them after him, across the eerie landscape and
toward the portal, shining pale and inviting in the distance.

The eighth star winked down at the travelers
with a knowing eye.

***

Val could clearly remember their first
journey, from the portal to the tower—it was after that when his
memory suddenly became dim and faulty—and he marked off the
landmarks in reverse as they struggled past them. He had caught
Garet's sense of urgency, but it was unlike the urgency he
remembered from days past. Inside his aching, bruised and panting
chest, his heart was singing.

Madryn was by his side.

Val snatched glimpses of her as they
struggled through fields of clinging mud and circumnavigated round
pools. Madryn's face was scraped and filthy, she was covered in
splattered mud, her wrists and ankles were bloody and torn, her
feet bare—and she was quite the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen
in all his days.

As if she felt his eyes upon her, Madryn
looked up at him—and smiled. Her eyes, those glorious eyes that had
once reminded him of a sunset after a stormy day, were wide with
amazed shock…and a certain amusement. She gave his hand a squeeze
as they struggled forward, Garet continually urging more speed as
he kept a wary eye upon the sky.

Twelve stars danced in a sky as dark as
burnished ebony.

Val, Madryn and Garet stood before the
portal, watching in relief as a tiny central spiral began to form.
Winds, warm and inviting with the faint hint of the desert, began
to blow around their exhausted, aching bodies.

"Get ready," ordered Garet as he watched the
sky. "Only one more to go."

The thirteenth star opened its brilliant
eye. The spiral that hung within stone pylons, between two worlds,
grew and swirled and coalesced. The winds shifted and gathered
strength from the potent forces of both worlds.

Val took a fierce grip on Garet and Madryn.
He had no intention of losing either of them, ever again. He gauged
the time, kept an eye on Garet, and when the boy gave a short nod,
the three flung themselves into the open portal.

An instant later, the portal snapped shut on
the frigid and silent land.

But on the other side, the swift desert
twilight had just begun. Sand that had been bombarded with the
intense rays of the sun all day began to offer up its hoarded heat,
as Garet and Madryn and Val felt full well.

They tumbled out from between the pylons and
fell into the edge of the sand dune that had collected at its
foot.

Garet rose, spitting sand out of his mouth.
"Warm," he breathed. "I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever be warm
again."

Val rose up on shaking legs and pulled
Madryn up beside him.

"Could someone please tell me what just
happened?" he pleaded.

Aanakun passed
the leather bottle of fermented camel's milk to Garet. The boy took
a swig, shuddered and made a face, then passed the bottle to
Val.

The four of them were seated outside the
small cave, in the side of the ravine just around the bend from the
tall stones of the portal. The desert night, with its cold blanket
of stars, blazed over their heads.

"We have been watching Isole and her brother
for some time," Garet continued in his squeaky voice. "Valaren was
easy to watch while he was here in our own world, of course. When
Isole snatched her brother's beheaded corpse and took it back to
her own world, we suspected that she would reanimate his corpse and
seek revenge."