Coda, Chapter Eight: The True Inheritor

Tapuaua portaled into the tower room and found it empty: she was early. No matter, she could take the time to organize her thoughts, and ...

There was something wrong. The air smelled of something, or the light was tainted with something, or --- there was a shape, long and narrow, hanging on the wall to her right, and she went over to look at it.

A sword, subtly curved along the blade, twisting into a nasty-looking hook at the tip. There was a faint greyish-red light to it, and she had seen it before.

"The Sword of Night," Isin Dule said, close behind her. Tapuaua started.

"I have never gotten used to the way you appear and disappear like that."

"Neither have I."

"Who was the Yalaini who carried it, when it was the Sword of Light?"

"We never knew. Omadin didn't ask --- being, of course, preoccupied at the time with killing him."

"Of course." Tapuaua looked further along the wall: there were other objects set high on its stones, smaller than the Sword. The Sigil of Chaos, looking like a plain ring of wrought iron. The Kemeroi Logos, like an emerald-cut diamond --- but perhaps that was just its crystal housing; there was an uneasy light in its depths. The Lightbringer's Seal, its center divided into three lobes, shining like an image of the sun --- dimly, as through mist, and tiny, as reflected in a water drop, but still an image of the sun.

"I wonder if the Sword could be purified," she mused. "Made a Sword of Light again. We could probably use it. Take it to the Font of Eaulith, maybe?"

"I tried that," Isin Dule said. "There was no effect. And yesterday Asheron, handling it carefully, took it to the Temple of Elemental Light. He can enter there any time, day or night --- but not while holding the Sword."

"What about the Lightbringer's Seal?"

"We tried that," Asheron said, and Tapuaua started again. "Nothing happened. I think, mind you, that the Seal is designed to work upon living things."

"Did you make it, my Lord?"

"No. My mother gave it to me; my father had given it to her, and his father to him. I don't know who made it, or how old it is."

The rest of the Council began to portal in, and they took their seats.

The Raven, who had left the Shadow Kingdom for the Order of Dereth because of their doctrines, sat and looked at her current and her former Lord: Asheron, seated on that tall chair on the dais that was not quite a throne; Isin Dule, seated at his feet like a servant, or at any rate a councillor. One made of light, one of shadow; each on the borderline of tangibility, neither living nor dead. It doesn't matter, she concluded in her thought. There are Shadows who don't hold to the Kingdom's doctrine of anarchy; I was one. There are Orders who don't hold to the Order's doctrine of mercy under law; but I know hundreds who do. Those two are brothers now; Asheron has said it; and by the end, I think, they will be as like as two stars in the sky.

"My patrols report," the Raven said, "that Osteth is entirely free of Undead except for those in the burnt-over areas around the Southern Prosper and Southeast Lost Wish Outposts. I assume that's because people still need to kill those Undead to get the low-level saddle recipes?"

"No, they don't," Daraua said. "Prospero and I have deciphered the formulae for making saddles from hide and a few other ingredients. I was going to mention it later in this meeting. We figure we can have them on sale from Shi Ishura's Curiosity Shop starting next week."

"Excellent," Asheron said. "In that case, it can be arranged to remove the remaining Undead from Osteth, and you can plant runestones in the burnt areas to encourage the plant life to grow back."

"I should also report," the Raven went on, "that our Second Legion is at seventy-five percent of strength and we're outlining a Third on paper. Milord Dule keeps bringing me intelligence on the Falatacot forces, and I'm trying to shape ours to counter them. Part of the problem is that all their troops are fighters. They may have other skills, most of them do, but every last one of them is a ferocious fighter. Even if we match them in numbers, we won't match them in strength."

"Except for one thing," Pfeil said. "They have no Lifestones. If one of us fights one of them and our man dies, he returns to the Lifestone and comes back to fight again. If their man dies, he's dead forever. If we have to, we'll wear them down --- eventually. Unless they bring in yet another Legion."

"I am led to believe," Dule said, "that the Third Legion is still on another world and is needed there and will remain there. Why that is, I haven't learned; I can't very well ask. I am fairly certain that they have encountered no intelligent life on any of their other worlds; perhaps there's dangerous animal life and the Third Legion is occupied with keeping it back."

"Durgan and his people continue to heal Colossi in Keidelur," Nalicana said. The Gear Master has six full Companies of sane Gearknights, drilling in the Ramparts while they wait for an opportunity to fight. Whenever they see one of their mad counterparts, they overwhelm him and haul him in for repair, which means that I don't have to do it. And the last time I saw him, even Ludward seemed less mad, almost coherent --- meaning either that the Gear Master is more skilled than ever I dreamed of, or the Light is conferring its blessing upon us."

"What about the Takeru?" Pfeil asked.

Nalicana smiled. "We saved the best for the last," she said, and gestured toward Daraua.

"We are beginning to reach the mad Takeru," Daraua said. "And when I say 'we,' I don't mean me, or not principally. You'll never guess who we found." He waited a moment, expectantly, but no one attempted to guess. "Akkilea," he said.

"Akkilea?" Pfeil said. "He's a warrior, I thought, not a mage."

"He's a penitent," Tapuaua said.

"Yes," Daraua said. "You know his story: he led an embassy to try to make peace with the Burun, who slaughtered his whole party except for himself. He's been doing penance for it ever since. The Deru Tree acknowledges him; the Amano-bal recognizes him as a pure spirit. His humility and compassion are able to reach the Takeru. He's cured about twenty so far; they are living in Zu now doing household chores, like Durgan's Colossi, but presently we're going to take them down to repopulate lost Itkhanda."

There was silence for a while.

"If that's all," Nalicana began, and Aracoeli stood up. As the most junior of all the gathering, who would never have been in it except that she knew about Asheron, she had seldom spoken before.

"If that's all, I have something I want to mention. It's the Disciple of Orulaan."

"Oh, him," the Raven said with distaste. "Go on."

"Well, he's got this little acolyte called Menaluc who stands around near the Hero Star, buttonholing people and asking them to contribute to the cause. And then when you do he asks you to take the day's takings up to the Disciple, who is up on one of those little platforms to the northeast.

"I don't like him. The Disciple, I mean; maybe I just don't trust people who have titles instead of names. But he takes the money, the Light knows what he uses it for, and then he explains that he's tending this huge gromnaroc called Orulaan, who is in a coma, trying to metamorphose into a gromnatross. And that the chirping of little gromnie nestlings is disturbing Orulaan's rest, and he wants you to go out and kill them. And then he wants you to collect gromnie teeth, which means killing a very large number of gromnies ---"

"The teeth generally break when you kill them," Pfeil commented. "Have you seen the price those teeth are fetching in Ikeras? Never mind, go on."

"And then he wants you to kill gromnarocs, and then when you've done that he gives you a cheap ring and says Come back again sometime. I can't help it, I don't trust him ---"

"I don't blame you," Pfeil said.

"--- but the money doesn't matter, what he's collecting is just Darkenfowl feed compared to the kind of gold most people carry around these days. It's the gromnaroc I'm concerned about. I don't think he's trying to help it metamorphose, I think he's trying to prevent it from metamorphosing, so he can keep doing whatever he's doing."

"If that's possible," Asheron said. "I think I'll look into this myself." He rose from his chair, smiled, and disappeared. The others said their farewells and portaled away one by one. Tapuaua was left in the empty room; she got up and went back to the Sword of Night, and turned to the Lightbringer's Seal, and back to the Sword.

"Yes," Asheron said, close behind her. "It's frustrating. But if it's meant to be that we recover the Sword, then it'll be. Now we're going to pay a call on the Disciple."

"Yes, my Lord." She turned, and saw nothing. "You'll be cloaked?"

"Oh, yes. Go to the Hero Star; I'll follow you."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Aracoeli arrived in the Cragstone Hall and took a few hesitant steps forward, just to get off the drop spot. There was nothing she was supposed to be doing at present; since her role as secret agent among the True Inheritors had gone away when Kellin did. She went slowly to the steps below the Binding Stone and sat down on them.

Thromer appeared at the drop spot, and at the same time she saw Palerath approaching. They both came up and sat, one either side of her, without speaking.

"Aracoeli's worried about Orulaan the Gromnaroc," Thromer said after a while.

"I'm worried about all the gromnie-kin, really," Aracoeli said. "Ever since they reappeared, even without the Disciple to egg them on, people have been slaughtering them like Vermin. Surely that's not good."

"There are two ways of reproducing one's kind," Palerath said. "One is to have only a few children and take very good care of them, as we mortals do, hoping that all or most of them will live to grow up. The other way is to have a very large number and assume that most of them will die, but a few will survive through sheer numbers, and the effect will be the same: a few will live to grow up. Now, for good or ill, the Gromnatross follow that second path. You remember the tale of the maiden Haimn, who took shelter in a Gromnatross's nest, and when her nestling threatened the child, the Gromnatross slew it? I think they intend that only the strongest, swiftest, and best of their children should survive, to fulfill whatever role is fated for them --- perhaps as emissaries of the Light."

"I think he's right," Thromer said. "I know what let's do. Let's go to their island; we needn't kill any, but we can wander around and you can see how very many of them there are, and how, Light willing, their kind will not vanish from Auberean, now they've chosen to come back."

"I like that idea," Palerath said. "Do you have a portal there?"

Thromer smiled. "Nalicana and I between us have portals to everywhere on this planet," he said, and raised his hand and summoned a swirl of rosy light that hung in the air till they had passed through it.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Tapuaua arrived at the Hero Star, figured out which way was northeast, and started running. She could never remember the coordinates to the platform where the Disciple stood, or indeed to anywhere else, but he was just off that little mesa shaped like a kidney bean. She dodged Punishers and Lurkers, found the ramp that led up to the kidney bean and ran up it. The Disciple was a rather skinny and dishevelled Tonk, his beige fur mostly covered by spiky armor colored black and green. He was looking at, or at least facing toward, the huge black Gromnaroc that lay motionless on the next platform over. "Go past him," Asheron whispered in her ear.

Tapuaua obediently walked behind the Disciple, across the ramp that led to the third platform. Here there was a small enclosure with several Carenzi sitting in it. "What are they for?" she whispered. "Food for Orulaan when he wakes?"

"I don't think so," Asheron answered. "Look."

She looked around, and down, and stepped backward hastily. Just in front of her feet was a pile of little bones. "Oh. He's eating them himself." She shrugged.

"Now go to the Gromnaroc." She did so, again edging around the Disciple's back. Even when she must be within his view, he paid no attention to her. The black Gromnaroc lay still, his long neck outstretched, his nostrils slowly expanding and contracting; there was no other sign of life. Tapuaua ventured to touch his shoulder; his skin was cold. "Give me your hand."

She held out her hand, and something fell into it, small and bright, an image of the sun. Her fingers closed over it.

"Use it, once. As if it were your rattle." She raised her hand higher and shook it, once, with a flip of the wrist, making sure she held it tightly. And a cloud of light spread outwards in all directions separating into many concentric rings like ripples in a pond, with soft glowing edges. Wider they spread, covering the sleeping Gromnaroc with light and filling up the whole area above the platform, in which Asheron's shape could be dimly seen like a golden fish in golden water.. Slowly they faded away.

Orulaan opened his amethyst-colored eyes, and took a deep breath. Tapuaua stepped hastily back. His long legs flexed and drew up under his body, and he stood up and spread his wings. He seemed to have grown; his stubby Gromnaroc wings had broadened and run together into a single flexible plane, and their span now was at least twice the width of the platform. His neck arched like a swan's; his head shot forward and seized the Disciple and shook him as a shreth shakes a rat. Tapuaua stepped back again and fell to the ground below. Her ankles twinged with pain, but she ignored it. "Give me the Seal." She held it out, and it vanished from her hand. Something fell beside her with a sickening thud: the torn and broken body of the Disciple. Overhead she heard the beating of great wings, and a shadow passed over her head. "Now, quickly, back to the Star."

She beat her drum and portaled back in haste, thinking, Menaluc. He was deceived, he meant no harm ---

She landed at the Star and ran towards Menaluc, who was staring upward as Orulaan stooped downward, landed on the grass beside him --- and rubbed his huge head against the young man's body, like a pet Carenzi thanking its owner for a mouthful of peanuts.

He raised his head and looked at Tapuaua, and took a step toward her. "Stand your ground." Another step brought him to her, and the violet eyes looked at her, and the great head brushed softly along her jaw. Then the huge Gromnatross took wing again and soared into the sky, heading southward.

"Carenzi," Tapuaua said. "I have to get them down from there before they starve. I'll give them to Fidget." She set off for the northeast again. There was no answer; either Asheron had left, or he was thinking his own thoughts.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Here we are," Thromer said. "Now, if you'll step over here, you'll see more Ivory Nestlings than you could shake a stick at, and ---"

Palerath whispered, "Down!" and took them each by an arm and bore them down to the ground. From where they lay they could peer over the top of a low ridge and see the road that wound around the island, leading into the island's long-burnt-out crater. Several people were walking along it. Kellin was leading them, Valind behind him, and three others whom they didn't know. "Three against five," Palerath whispered.

"I wouldn't try it; Kellin's pretty tough," Thromer said. "We can follow him though, see where he's going."

"We know where he's going," Aracoeli said. " 'The Runestone,' he said, remember? There's a very large Runestone in the crater up there."

"We'll follow, then," Palerath said. "See what he does." And after a few cautious minutes, they rose from the ground and followed up the road, through the tunnel, across the valley to where the broad stone wall stood with rows of runes carved beside a door.

Inside, they saw clearly that Kellin and his companions had not troubled to disguise themselves as S.H.R.E.T.H. members. The floor was littered with the bodies of Flunkies and Elites, bleeding sluggishly from wounds that seemed seared rather than cut; a pale greenish cast was seeping over the skin. They made an easy trail to follow.

The trail led through neatly tiled corridors, over random-seeming piles of Lugian megaliths, through stone tunnels barred with hidden doors and invisible barriers --- and back into corridors again, like the ones that had led up to Number Two's sanctum in S.H.R.E.T.H.'s old headquarters. Thromer put out a hand, and they stopped. Ahead, there was the sound of combat. A Danger Mage came staggering backward into sight and died without catching sight of them. Thromer urged Palerath and Aracoeli several paces backward, and whispered, "We'll watch, carefully. No sound, no attack. Prepare to portal out of here, any instant." They crept forward again.

Once more the floor was littered with bodies, including two of Kellin's people. Valind and another stood behind him. Before him, at the other end of the hall, stood a big Lugian in black armor. "Who in blazes are you?" he growled.

"Kellin Realaidain, Emperor of Yalain. Who are you?"

"The new Number Two."

"Who is Number One?"

"You don't need to know that." The Lugian raised his hand as if to pluck a fruit from a tree; a sphere of force, pale red and hard to focus the eye upon, began to take shape between his fingers --- and Valind raised her own hand and gestured sharply, and knocked the force-ball from Number Two's hand. Aracoeli had time to notice that the S.H.R.E.T.H. leader was not wielding any kind of weapon, no magical focus, not even a dainty glove like Valind's. Not since before the Olthoi came had she seen anyone cast spells bare-handed --- and the only one who could do it had been Asheron.

The Lugian roared like a maddened Gurog and raised both hands. Kellin strode forward, swords raised, glowing with the ominous green light of their chaotic origin. He slashed, and slashed again, and the Lugian stepped back bleeding from a slash along his shoulder. He threw another force-ball, which Valind could not stop, and Kellin rocked on his feet. Valind cast again, and Number Two threw one massive force-cloud, wide enough to fill the hall from one side to the other. Kellin braced his feet, like a man battling fierce stormwinds, and the force-cloud went past him and around him and knocked Valind and her companion flat --- killed possibly, or stunned.

Now it was only the two of them standing, Number Two and Kellin --- and the three observers peeking gingerly around the corner, perhaps too far away to be noticed, or perhaps Thromer had cast some kind of shield that dimmed them to the eyes of the angry fighters.

"Is that the best you can do?" Kellin taunted.

"You don't want to see the best I can do."

"I'm longing to see the best you can do. So far you've been no better than mildly boring."

Number Two raised hands again and threw a force-ball in a bright virulent green, about the size of his own torso. It surrounded Kellin from head to waist, and the Empyrean began to struggle as if the thing were sucking the breath from his body. Unable to shake it off, he stumbled forward, swords slashing, and caught Number Two across the breastplate with one stroke, and struck his head off with the other. The head fell to the floor and bounced twice. Number Two fell to his knees ---

--- and groped across the floor, like a man looking for his dropped wine-cup in the seventh hour of a very good party. He found it, grasped it by the crest on its helmet, and set it back upon his shoulders. His hands fumbled in the air, as if seeking the reins of an invisible mount, and Kellin struck his head off again. This time he seized the head himself, backed off a few paces, and began to strike it against the wall: twice, thrice, and the head cracked, with a sound like an overripe melon bursting, and fell away from the helm. Number Two's body fell headlong, and began to bleed sluggishly from the neck.

The hall was suddenly still, shockingly quiet after the end of the combat, and they began to feel, not quite to hear, a faint vibration, as though the whole headquarters were trembling. The air was transparent, all the remnants of magical energies having fallen out of it like dust, but at the far end of the hall, behind where Number Two had stood, a darkness was gathering.

There was a shape taking form among the darkness, a little thing hanging in midair, hard to distinguish, but it had some long thing dangling beneath it like a tail. "So," said a quiet voice. "Kellin. I've been waiting for you."

The Empyrean rose from where he had knelt, wiping his swords on Number Two's body. "Really?" he asked. "Well, I'm here."

"What do you want, Kellin?"

"I want my throne back," he said.

"And ... ?"

"And to see my enemies rotting at my feet."

"Vengeance," the quiet voice said. "I can give you that. I knew you were the one I was waiting for. Like every great Power, I have been surrounded by incompetence and idiocy. You can provide me with something better."

"Who are you?"

"I am legion," it said. "I've been called Number One, and other names as well. They don't matter. It is what I am that matters. Join me, and I will give you what you desire."

Kellin took a step forward, and another, and the darkness surged forward to surround him. For a moment nothing could be seen to move. Then, horribly, the dead or stunned bodies on the floor began to stir. They writhed like fish landed on the dock, and then they put out arms and began to rise. Their armor had all gone black, and their eyes glowed red in darkened faces. The darkness at the end of the hall swirled, and Kellin stepped out, like them in black, his eyes fire-red, the light of his swords gone murky red. Around his shoulders could be seen something, too light for a cloak, too translucent for flesh, like a pair of tattered wings.

And a swirl of deep-purple energy snatched the observers and dropped them an instant later in the tower room, feeling rather sick. Aracoeli sat down on the floor, clutching her head; Palerath knelt beside her. Thromer looked around the otherwise empty room and said, "Asheron?"

"By the Light!" Palerath said. "If only we had Asheron with us! now that the Hopeslayer has come again."

"Not 'come again,' not strictly speaking," Thromer said. "This is a new Hopeslayer, different from the last only in his origin; whether the Kemeroi that has empowered him is the same, or another, is a question without meaning. Asheron?" he said again, in a hopeful voice.

"Yes," Asheron said, taking form beside them. "I did expect this to happen; now I know where, and who. Thank you, Thromer," and he sighed. But Palerath's face lit up, and like others before him he attempted to clasp Asheron's knees, but could not, and sat back on the floor laughing and weeping.

"Congratulations," Aracoeli said. "You've just joined the most exclusive company on Auberean. There are a dozen of us, perhaps fewer, and our primary rule is, Kellin must not know about Asheron."

"I accept," Palerath said, looking up at the shining figure, his eyes alight.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

She was walking through a tunnel, just high enough to hold her head up, so narrow that she could have touched the walls with either hand. She was walking knee-deep through blood, which should have been a good omen, but the blood smelled wrong, looked wrong. There was some kind of light source ahead, and she waded toward that; and presently she found a flight of steps and walked up out of the pool of blood, so that now it only clung to her skirts and to her shoes.

The light was still further on ahead, and she climbed toward it; now she could see that there was a man in it, walking away from her through the light, carrying something. She tried to catch up with him, but he remained the same distance away from her. The blood on her skirts was drying now, and clinging to her ankles as she walked, and it stank. It is the blood of corruption, not of purification, a voice said somewhere. Then it must be purified, she answered, and all at once she came out of the narrow, confining tunnel into an open room, wide and deep, white-walled, and filled up to the level she stood upon with clear water. The man in the light was on the far side of the room; his head was half-turned, not quite enough for her to recognize him. He had a long blade in his hand, shining so brightly that she could make out no details of it either, and as she leaned forward trying to see it, she fell into the water. It was like falling into the light, and as she tried to swim to the surface she could feel the blood washing out of her skirts. But she was heavy, she could not reach the surface to breathe, and she struggled a long time, trying to reach the air; and then could struggle no longer and let the water fill her lungs.

But the water was light, and it poured into her body, filling her with light, purifying her of blood, letting her float higher and higher toward the surface, and ---

And her orderly was bending over her, shaking her shoulders gently, saying, "Blood-Mother? Are you all right? What strange thing have you been dreaming?" and she was aware that she was laughing and that her eyes were streaming with tears.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Northern Cobalt Outpost is under attack, Your Grace," Rinauri reported. "Not the usual stuff. Chaos-tainted things. Undead Shreth and Monougas, Empowered Drudges, Mounted Skeletons. And some of them are getting inside the walls: the south wall is defended in the usual way, but it's up against a ridge with a road running along it, and some of the attackers are taking a running leap and jumping right over the wall. They've got the noncombatants safe inside the large buildings --- including the farm animals, which is making things very strange. But the fighters are trying to contain them in the south end of the Outpost, and they could use some help."

"Send them a couple of units --- and go yourself, or another good observer, and bring me back a report."

"Yes, ma'am." Rinauri brought the message to the two unit leaders and gave the coordinates to the portal caster. They stepped through the portal to find themselves beside the Lifestone, planted on a little mound in the center of the Outpost (Nalicana had placed it there, after a large picturesque rock had been removed). Below them, the fighters of the Outpost were wielding swords, staves, pitchforks, bludgeons, and one crossbow against a rabble of Chaos-tainted things such as he had described. Rinauri beat his drum and sent lightning bolts, rings of charged air, against the undead things, and slowly they fell. There were more coming down from the road, some of them leaping over the wall, others trying to make their way around to the other gates. One mounted Skeleton leaped in a high arc over the wall, and the stocky woman with the crossbow put a bolt through mount and rider together. They fell with a clatter to the ground, shattered, and turned to dust.

And then they had stopped coming, and those fighters who had kissed the Lifestone stepped down from the mound, and those who were not still on sentry-duty stepped down from the walls. "That last Skeleton got me in the arm right at the end," one of them was saying to a companion. "It's not much of a scratch, but it really stings. Who's a healer?"

"Let me try," Rinauri said, and beat his drum and cast a healing spell. Then he looked at the wound again. Its edges had drawn closer together, but not closed. "I'll be," he said. "If that hasn't healed of itself by tomorrow morning, come to the Cragstone Allegiance Hall, where the Army's set up its Headquarters. There are always good healers there."

"All right," the warrior/farmer said, and Rinauri sounded his drum and returned to Cragstone to make his report.

"The other thing," Pfeil said to the Raven that evening, "is that three people have dropped out of the Order of Chaos, without even asking me or saying goodbye or anything. I don't know what's happened to them."

"What were they like?"

"Youngsters, none of them Heroes yet, very ambitious, very impatient, you know the kind, they want to be the alpha male right now."

"You'd better tell the Three, next meeting," the Raven said, raising four fingers meanwhile, which was a private joke shared by less than a dozen people.