Worms' Ending: Book Eight (The Longsword Chronicles 8) (25 page)

“I vex you still, lord of foul conceit and hubris! The pride
which was your army is swept away. Your servants are fled and rising now for
their own ambition, heedless of yours, knowing that you without them to do your
bidding are utterly powerless, caged as you are beyond the Teeth; there, where
the might of these lands constrained you, and left you trammelled like a rabbit
fearful of the light shining without its hutch!”

“You shall vex me no more, Nothing, for your world is ended.
Nothing shall come of nothing. Chaos rules now where order once prevailed! My
chaos! My legacy to your mewling breed. It would have been so much easier,
Nothing, so much easier had you simply died with all your reeking people atop
your mouldering eyrie, so much easier for you all. The ending of you all would
have been swift and almost merciful compared to the misery all your realms
shall now endure. And it shall be endured. Because. Of. You. While those who
yet remember these days still draw their rancid breath, they shall envy the
dead, and curse you for bringing this ruin upon them, and those as yet unborn
shall know nothing but animal barbarism! Nothing of any worth shall remain! This
is my chaos, this is my legacy, this is my lash of doom which ends your vexing
of me and sees the final hours of all your commonkind endeavours!”

“Bluster. Worthless words from a witless worm once of the eldenD’ith
and now banished beyond all effect and influence. Do you not understand, lord
of stupidity and filth, it was your own madness you placed in Toorsen’s mind.
Toorsen’s madness is your own and not some cunning weapon of clever invention
or creation! You planted in him the seeds of your own destruction! Who shall
you now summon to your dreaming tower? In all those broad lands in the north,
how many are born there with white hair to answer your call to service? In
those fabled lands and islands in the sea, how many fresh white-haired acolytes
are born and raised to heed your summons?”

Morloch blinked.

And Gawain knew the reason for Morloch’s earlier anger.
Strange aquamire had revealed the insight. Why should Morloch suffer such fury,
albeit brief and hastily concealed, when Gawain had asked
where are yours
if the north did indeed hold limitless resources as Morloch had claimed? He
pressed home his advantage.

“You have destroyed yourself, Morloch. Even now the darkness
you unleashed in the west is fading, Goth-lords poor substitutes for the real
terror of white-haired wizards of Gothen, Sethi, and Tansee, so few now in
number. What powers the Tals of the west might learn from wizards are
transitory and live only as long as they themselves.

“Wizards are not made, they are born. Goth-lords are not
born, they are made of grasping men whose lust for power corrupts them and sees
them learning cheap tricks and conjuring from those who once served you. Tals
made Goth-lords remain men of the west, and loyal only to themselves. Do you
think the zealots of Toorsen’s creed will permit any white-haired child of the
west to rise through those treacherous ranks who served you so long ago? You
have destroyed yourself, Morloch. The madness you seeded in Toorsen’s mind was
born of your own hatred for yourself. If I have indeed unleashed this ruin,
then I have indeed brought about your ending!”

“You know nothing, Nothing.”

“Yet I vex you still. You really should have let me cross
the Teeth. Your ending at my hands would have been so much swifter and almost
merciful compared to the withering agony you shall suffer, your aquamire
exhausted, your servants gone, alone there in your tower. While here in these
lands, your name shall pass once more into myth, a story to frighten naughty
children, until with the rising of the new age of enlightenment which shall
surely follow the ending of the Toorseneth, you are forgotten, as dust in a
crypt calls to mind no image of the flesh and bone which once it was.

“We shall vex you, Morloch, even beyond the dust of your
ending. There shall be no chaos here! No descent into barbarism! We shall stand
in the south and the last thing you’ll ever see when you draw your final foul
and rasping breath shall be the light of our world shining like a beacon above
the Teeth of your binding and you shall know then! You shall know then it was I
who vexed you! And with me, all these lands! Vex!”

And as Morloch backed away in dread from the lens in his
dark tower beyond the Dragon’s Teeth, Gawain charged forward towards the
Graken-rider, drawing an arrow ready to hurl and waving it like a banner-man’s
flag. Behind him after the briefest of stunned moments charged his three
companions, Venderrian loosing a hopeful arrow.

“You shall not vex me!” Morloch screamed, but the image
wavered and faded, the Graken-rider noting how close the elven longshaft had
come in spite of the chill breezes wafting down from the north.

The dark wizard fumbled with the Jardember, trying to secure
it in a pouch under his robes as four wild horsemen thundered towards him.
Another arrow snicked into the dirt to the other side of him, and he knew he
had been bracketed by the bowman.

“Vex!” they screamed, their blood up. Even the packhorse
bearing their supplies was running behind them, doing its level best to keep
up.

The Graken lurched, jerking its head around to the north in
response to its rider’s insistent tugging on the reins. Its wings unfurled and
it began to lope down the slope of the ridge into the wind, squealing as an
arrow struck the base of its tail and two more, hurled by Ognorm and Gawain,
fizzed over its head.

“Allazar!” Gawain screamed over the sound of the charge and
the wind whipping his face. “Allazar! Bring it down! Bring it down!” and he
hurled another arrow.

But a stronger gust caught in the Graken’s wings and filled
them, and with three powerful beats it was airborne, and gaining speed, the
horsemen swinging after it, Venderrian loosing another shot which they saw,
incredibly, fly straight and true into the back of the rider’s tall seat. It
was moving quickly now, and while they plunged down the slope at the gallop,
the Graken lifted higher and stretched its lead to perhaps a hundred yards.

“Allazar!” Gawain screamed again, knowing now that only the
wizard’s immense tree of lightning might have the range and the power to bring
the beast back to earth.

But it was no tree of lightning the wizard called forth.
Over the whistling of the wind and the thundering of hooves they could hear
Allazar screaming out strange words none understood, and instinctively they
eased back, giving him the lead.

Then a shimmering grew like a great sphere of rippling water
around the end of the cloth-wrapped staff. The wizard’s shouts rose to a
crescendo, the rippling ball grew, and then sped forward, expanding like the Surge
of Baramenn they had seen before, but this time, holding its watery, balloon-like
shape. It passed under the Graken, and then burst, leaving what for a fleeting
moment looked like a great hole in the air beneath the winged beast into which
it promptly fell.

Its wings flailed, all control lost as it sank into the
great bubble Allazar had burst beneath it. By the time it regained the normal
density of chill winter air some thirty feet closer to the ground, it was too
late. It had already begun to spin, one wing snapping up suddenly at the
renewed pressure of the air, the other flailing as it desperately sought to
maintain flight. It failed, and as the horsemen charged forward, it ploughed
into the soft earth of north-eastern Mornland, throwing up great sprays of soil
and shrubbery until it slid to a halt.

They were fifty yards from the stricken creature and closing
at the gallop when they saw the iron-masked wizard pry himself free of the
straps holding him fast to the high-backed saddle, and stagger away from the
smouldering carcass, purple smoke already beginning to billow from the
creature’s shattered head.

They were reining in, well clear of the beast and to the
east of it when it erupted into purple flame, smoke billowing before it was
whipped away to the south. Gawain jumped from the saddle, drawing the sword the
moment his boots hit the ground, striding towards the dark wizard, fury burning
in his stomach and in his heart.

That was when Allazar
did
release a Surge of Baramenn,
blowing the dark wizard off his feet just as the latter drew a Rod of Asteran
from beneath his heavy robes.

“Don’t kill him, Allazar!” Gawain cried, but the wizard was
already two yards in front of him and running faster than Gawain could remember
ever seeing Allazar move.

“Stand back Gawain!” Allazar screamed, and as the
Graken-rider heaved himself up onto his elbows, the First of Raheen swung the
White Staff like a pole-axe, striking the Graken-rider on the head.

They stood over the supine and motionless rider, Gawain with
the tip of the sword held near the throat, Allazar with the staff held directly
over the iron mask, breathing hard. That mask was dull, and evil, and like
those they had seen before, simple, nothing but crude holes drilled for eyes
and mouth.

Ognorm kicked the unconscious form in the ribs, rather hard.

“Reckon ‘e’s carked it, melord,” he sniffed, “Fall and the
bash on the bonce done for ‘im.”

Allazar stooped, and grasped the base of the mask under the
chin, dragging it off. The face beneath was a man’s, the head bald, fine black
veins visible under snow-white skin. Dark liquid had oozed from his ears and
nose, and the eyes were closed, seeing nothing.

“MiThal!”

Gawain glanced up into the sky, following the direction of
Venderrian’s pointing finger. A trail of smoke, moving quickly south, all that
remained of the Condavian which had died along with the dark wizard who’d made
it.

“Dead then!” Gawain grimaced, stooping to pry open a pallid
and lash-less lid. The black eye beneath was glazing quickly, and entirely
lifeless. “Dwarfspit!”

“Behold the reason for my warning, Longsword,” Allazar
turned the mask over.

Inside, it was lined with what looked like plush velvet
padding, at least half an inch thick, if not more.

“Insulation against the cold,” the wizard explained. “And
the simple design of the mask prevents the wearer from being gagged. Even
without his Rod of Asteran, this foul creature would have been able to chant
any number of unpleasant weapons against you. I am sorry I hit him so hard.
Sometimes I forget how heavy the Dymendin truly is, so light is it in my
hands.”

“No matter,” Gawain declared. “Oggy, Ven, search the body,
carefully. See if there’s anything which might give us an idea where he came
from.”

“Arr.”

“You should step away with me, Allazar, lest they discover
some book of dark spells which might corrupt you in some way.”

Gawain strode from the corpse, leading the horses clear and
walking them after the sprint. The packhorse in particular drew his attention;
it wasn’t overloaded but they had long way to go, and he wanted to ensure they
all took great care for the animal’s welfare.

“I am sorry, Longsword…” Allazar began.

But Gawain span on his heel to face the wizard. “Sorry? D’you
know what this means? We have vexed Morloch! Oh we have vexed him, Allazar! Did
you not see his anger? Did you not see the fury and the despair in his eyes
there at the end! We have vexed him, Allazar! We have vexed him to the vakin
moon and yonder and robbed him of another of his dwindling stock of loyal
servants!”

Allazar blinked, astonished, and then slowly, a smile began
to form. A cruel smile, like the one Gawain himself had worn on so many
occasions.

oOo

26. Grim Smiles

They found little on the dark wizard’s corpse of note. Heavy
robes and garments to keep out the cold, an Eye of Morloch, which Gawain
promptly burst with the tip of his sword, feeling the slight jolt of
something
rushing through his hand as he did so. A book, similar to that Gawain had found
in the satchel of a wizard of the ToorsenViell in the hills near Harks Hearth,
and this Allazar snatched from a surprised Ognorm’s hand, tossed away, and
promptly incinerated with a blast of white fire. And lastly, a phial of
aquamire, possession of which Gawain claimed while Allazar was scattering the
ashes of the burned book.

But the wizard either had eyes in the back of his head or
some other means of understanding what had taken place behind him, and he
stepped close to Gawain, and held out his hand. Gawain sniffed. Allazar simply
gazed at him. Gawain folded his arms over the pommel of his sword, still
unsheathed from bursting the Eye.

Allazar leaned forward a little, and said softly, “Don’t you
think you have quite enough as it is?” and nodded at the grey-black steel of
the sword, aquamire real and false staining the blade deep from tip to hilt and
humming.

“The risk of passing it into your hand is too great,” Gawain
declared, sheathing the weapon. “You might succumb to the temptation it
represents.”

But Allazar’s expression darkened, and sparks danced atop
the cloth-wrapped Dymendin. Fearing the imminent arrival of Eldenbeard, and
Gawain
did
fear Eldenbeard, he withdrew the phial of foul black substance
from a pocket and held it up. At once, Allazar snatched, tossed it towards the
corpse of the Graken-rider, and before it landed unleashed a dazzling torrent
of white fire which consumed entirely the body and the phial. There was a loud
concussion beneath the roaring of the white fire when the aquamire was liberated,
but nothing remained but ash and smoke when the wizard grunted in satisfaction
and turned away to walk to the horses. The three left behind stood gaping and
trying desperately to blink away the after-images staining their vision, and it
was some minutes before they were able to continue on their way.

Camp that night was entirely different to their earlier,
more sombre affairs. The change in Gawain and Allazar was remarkable, and saw
Ognorm and Venderrian exchanging frequent surprised glances at the renewed
banter between the two. Finally, after settling on their blankets and the last
chews of their evening meals swallowed, the confused dwarf could take no more.

“Beg pardon, melord, but, what does it all mean? Everything
the black-eyed ‘spit said left me quaking in me boots, an’ I don’t mind saying
so neither. But there you and the wizard sit, like you won a great victory?”

“We have, Oggy. We have,” Gawain smiled in the gloom. “And
what’s more, Morloch knows it.”

“Well I can’t see it, melord. Sorry.”

“A long time ago,” Gawain began, wrapping his blankets
tighter, “When Morloch was first bound beyond the Teeth, he discovered that
even though he couldn’t cross them back into these lands, he could bring his
influence to bear. He used that influence, to draw sleeping wizards in their
dreams to his tower, there to corrupt them, and make of them dark servants. He
may well have done so when he was on
this
side of the Teeth too, adding
to his retinue of followers, but the perfect freedom of evil to do whatever
evil desires was likely more than enough to attract many of them in those elder
days.

“Toorsen was one of the elfwizards of yore who helped bind
Morloch, and later in dreams he too was summoned to Morloch’s tower. We know
this from the Book of Sardor. Morloch planted a madness in Toorsen, thinking to
create a final weapon, a doomsday weapon against the day all his plans failed,
to be unleashed upon the world should a time come when Morloch found himself
bereft of all hope of ever consuming these lands. That time came with the ruin
of his plans to cross the Teeth through a breach in them and across the rip
beneath them. For how long he succeeded in sending aquamire and loyal servants
into these lands before the Teeth were slapped and the breaches sealed, we
cannot know. But when the work of centuries at the Teeth was undone, and with the
rising of the Goth-lords and dark wizards in the west turning to Maraciss for
their own ambitions, Morloch’s plans lay in tatters. Clear so far?”

“Aye melord, so far.”

“Good. Because as plans go Morloch’s was a desperate one,
born of spite and a thirst for vengeance against the Viell and the D’ith who
together had defeated him, and bound him in the north. His plan was simply to
destroy the Hallencloister and all within; to end the D’ith, and through the
corruption of Toorsen’s mad creed, make dark those remaining elfwizards not of
that creed.”

Ognorm sniffed. “Seems to have worked pretty well then,
melord, if’n you don’t mind me saying so.”

Gawain smiled that grim smile of his, the smile now shared
by Allazar. “Yet the plan called for the D’ith to be destroyed before the invasion
at Far-gor, and so they were. To rob us of friendly sticks at the front when
darkness and the Meggen swept south. And yes, my friend, that worked pretty
well too. But there is where it should have ended.”

“And it dint?”

“No. Alas for Morloch, not only was he slapped back behind
the Teeth, but his army was swept away. The old belief that the waters of the
Avongard are so pure no evil may cross it actually came to pass when the roof
of the canyon collapsed, and Morloch’s army perished. Had the army survived,
Elvendere would have fallen along with all other lands. But Morloch’s army
perished, and Toorsen’s madness survived.

“Toorsen’s creed didn’t stop with the destruction of the
Hallencloister. That foul orb of Benithet has been taken west, so we were told
by Serat. Dark wizards too are Toorsen’s target south of the Teeth, and
Morloch’s influence here in these lands is ending. He hasn’t so much cut off
his nose to spite his face, as cut his own throat. Without dark wizards to do
his bidding, he is powerless. And without wizards of the D’ith, there can be no
dark wizards made of them.

“Morloch’s influence thus wanes, ended by his own hand,
plans of his own design his own undoing. We have vexed him even unto his own
ending. What resources he may yet have beyond the Teeth are failing, and like
his stock of servants here in the south, dwindling, and irreplaceable. His own
weapon has backfired against him.”

“Arr well, that’s good then?”

“It is. It means the kindred’s destiny now rests in its own
hands. Above all else we must prevent these lands falling into chaos as Morloch
hopes. Now more than ever must the lands unite in common cause. This is not the
world’s ending as Allazar and I feared and believed. This is no ending at all.
It is a beginning. The chance to make the Ranger’s Oath a reality. Friyenheth,
Ceartus, Omniumde. Freedom and justice, for all.”

Ognorm blinked, bushy eyebrows arched, and wiped his nose.

“We have a new purpose now,” Allazar announced softly. “A
new purpose, and a new hope, and a new common enemy. This is the new strength
in us you have seen. Master Benithet saw no future beyond the Hallencloister’s
ending because he was not of the new world which shall rise from its ruin. Our
task now is to return to Last Ridings, and strengthen its defences, and then
begins the new age.”

“Strengthen the defences against what, though?” Ognorm
sniffed again.

“Against the Toorseneth,” Allazar replied, “Which is the new
enemy, arisen from the madness of the old. In many ways, the Toorseneth is
Morloch, he the parent and the creed of the Tau his child.”

Again Ognorm sniffed, and looked doubtful.

“And there is no vast barrier of rock twixt them and us,”
Gawain glowered. “They have no Dragon’s Teeth for skirts to hide behind.”

“But melord, why can’t the black-eyed ‘spit just hop on a
Graken and fly ‘imself over those mountains? The Toorsenspits did just that in
the Eastbinding after all.”

“The Dragon’s Teeth is an immense range, high, and broad as
well as long,” Allazar declared. “And nothing may live for long above the tree
line on such peaks. The air there is too thin. It is why so many died on the
slopes of the far side, trying to hammer a breach through them. The Graken
cannot fly in such thin air, nor so far along the coast from the north as it
would need to. If it could, Morloch would have remained bound there for a
matter of weeks, not millennia. The highest peaks of the Eastbinding are no
higher than any in Threlland, and Threlland’s highest peak falls short of the
lowest valley between the mountains of the Teeth.”

“And so Allazar is indeed himself. More than a hundred words
when ‘the Teeth are too high and too broad’ would do. To celebrate, once we’re
well south of the Castletown line, I might relent and let you make us all a hot
rabbit stew.”

“Alas, Longsword, I believe the only rabbits we might find
in these lands are of the cold variety.”

“Oh very good!” Gawain declared. “You took the adjective
‘hot’ as describing the rabbit rather than the stew, and then created an
amusing antithesis by noting the season and the chilly nature of our surrounds
to suggest that the rabbits, though warm-blooded, will in fact be cold.”

“I did.”

“Oh now I feels the stirrings of trouser-bricks an’ no
mistake. Soon melord you’ll be carrying a stick and the wizard a sword.”

“Three chances of that happening, Oggy,” Gawain smiled,
remembering his brother Kevyn’s expression. “Slim chance, no chance, and fat
chance. I’ll take the first watch. I know it’s early yet, but the more we rest
the more we can speed our journey when it’s light enough to travel safely.”

In the silence that followed once the camp had settled for
the night, Gawain sat in his blankets and pondered. Clouds scudded, stars
fading in and out of obscurity. The fire in his heart and the pit of his
stomach blazed once more, and he had Morloch to thank for that, again. Before
Morloch’s gloating visitation, the world had seemed broken and irreparable, and
chaos indeed the likely outcome. The shock of the Hallencloister’s destruction
had left not only Allazar hovering on the brink of fury and immensely
dangerous, it truly had seemed like the world’s ending to all of them, Gawain
included.

But the wizard had been right, of course. The Toorseneth was
very much a child of Morloch’s making, and opposing it was every bit as
cathartic as vexing Morloch himself. Now, they had a target once more, and this
one was within reach, the enemy’s intentions clear even without strange
aquamire to draw upon for insight. In vexing the Toorseneth, Gawain and Allazar
would be vexing Morloch, too. It was a new beginning, a new opportunity for
change, a chance for the world to wrench its own destiny from the grip of
others.

It would take time, Gawain knew. And it would be for others
to dig the foundations of the new age. Gawain was not a builder; the frequent
gaffes arising from his lack of understanding of other peoples and lands other
than his own (and the offence and sorrow he had inadvertently caused Ognorm
recently was proof enough of that) disqualified him from such work. But there
were many who could begin the work and already had. Rak of Tarn and Eryk of
Threlland, Brock of Callodon, and perhaps the honourable men to be found in
Juria. Arrun and Mornland would follow their lead. Pellarn, too, if Igorn’s
campaign in the Old Kingdom was successful. Only Elvendere remained an isolated
question mark. And the Toorseneth was in Elvendere.

Still, though Allazar would carry the pain of the
Hallencloister’s destruction for as long as Gawain bore the pain of Raheen’s
loss, now the catastrophe could be seen in a new light, thanks to Morloch.
Tomorrow, a new dawn would rise, and they would meet it with a new strength, a
new conviction, a new purpose. Morloch’s visitation, though the dark lord knew
it not, had burned away the heavy grey clouds of bereavement, loss, confusion,
and chaos, and lit once more the beacons of hope, and righteous anger. And,
Gawain smiled to himself in the dark, it felt good.

oOo