Coda, Chapter Nine: Something for the Bards to Sing

"About three hundred gone missing so far," the Raven reported. "About equal numbers Shadows and Dominion; fewer from the Order. Only two of them have been seen since leaving Dereth; one of Maronak's agents saw them going up the road to the crater."

"To S.H.R.E.T.H.," Thromer said.

"To the Hopeslayer," Nalicana said, and shook her head. "You'd think they would learn from history."

"They slept through History," Pfeil said.

"Some lived through it, and yet did not learn," Isin Dule said. "One of those missing is Naokim." There was silence for a moment. "Is it not fitting, that I, who betrayed my master, should be in my turn betrayed?"

"No, it isn't, curse it," Aracoeli said. "You turned away from following a madman, and saved us all. If Naokim has chosen to go mad, and follow another madman, it's his problem. He always thought he was better than anybody. He'll find out."

"More to the point," Asheron said, "did Maronak's agents see any of these people inside S.H.R.E.T.H. headquarters?"

"No, my Lord. Only the usual guards, who are ordinary mortals, mostly Lugians, not Hopeslayer's Shadows. And the inner chamber, where Number Two used to be found, stands empty."

"Tell Maronak ---" Asheron thought for a moment. "Tell Maronak to go on sending his agents in, but to tell them to be extremely cautious, and to look out for a list of signs which I'll prepare for you. If neither the Hopeslayer nor the Kemeroi are to be found in there, they are somewhere else, and there must be a portal or some other passageway somewhere."

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

"It is now the eighth day, Blood-Father, and Third Strategos Ju'xatl has not reported in."

"Yes. Add his name to the Roll of Honor."

"Yes, Blood-Father. May his blood sanctify the land."

Nagual bowed and left the room. He was still of two minds about the loss of Ju'xatl. He had been a capable fighter, and his loss was a diminishing of the Legion's strength. On the other hand, the man had become increasingly difficult to work with, increasingly resistant to command. He always had some idea of his own, newer or better or at least other than his commander's ideas. There had been one or two incidents that had been smoothed over on the grounds of Ju'xatl's abilities, that would have meant demotion for a lesser man. Perhaps, on the whole, operations would run better without him.

But, yet again --- he had been quick-witted, cheerful, and ingenious. When he wasn't sending his superiors mad with some devious scheme, he had made their lives interesting and amusing; on balance, Nagual would miss him.

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

The back room of the Cragstone Allegiance Hall had been turned into a hospital. Healers with staves and drums moved among the beds laid over the benches, where careful spells encouraged patients to regenerate burst organs and broken bones and siphoned Fors Vitae. But in one corner of the room stood three beds by themselves, and in those lay three people from the Northern Cobalt Outpost, whose wounds would not heal.

Daraua walked up to them quietly --- to say "on tiptoe" is meaningless, since the Tonk always walked on his toes --- and saw that all three were deeply asleep. "My Lord?" he said softly.

"I'm here," Asheron said, becoming visible. "Show me the wounds." Daraua gently lifted the bandages aside and showed the scratch on the man's arm, the toothmarks in the woman's shoulder, the slice of skin torn off the other man's leg --- and the slowly darkening color of the wounds.

"Has everyone been careful not to touch the infected places? To examine, and to bandage, while wearing gloves that thereafter are burnt?"

"Yes, my Lord. No one has touched them except Rinauri, who ran his fingers over this arm when he first examined it. There's been no change in the skin of his fingers, or anything like that, but just in case he wears gloves now, to isolate any possible contamination, and he's off healer duty till we get this figured out."

"Good. I don't like the look of this."

"What does it look like?"

"Ayai Heauviri."

"Soulburn Plague? My Lord! No!"

"I see some similarities," Asheron said. "I also see some differences. Let us not abandon hope. Watch these cases carefully, and let me know of any change."

"How did they treat the Soulburn before?"

"I'm not sure there was any treatment. I was only about five hundred then, studying planar magic with the passionate single-mindedness of the young. I was also looked on as an arrogant young lad, not the likeliest person to consult on the care of an ailing Emperor. Still, we have now the wisdom of five races to draw upon --- six, if we count the Falatacot separately and if Dule can steal anything of medical interest from them. So keep me informed."

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

Eshivon Ugim heard the door slide open and shut, and the sound of heavy feet taking a step, and a second, and stopping. Lugian, he thought vaguely, and finished the line he was annotating and laid his stylus down to mark his place, before looking up.

But it was not some Lugian scholar come to browse the stacks, nor yet some Lugian adventurer with a potentially exciting find of new documents. The visitor was a Gurog, fully as tall as a Lugian, with sharp horns as long as Eshivon's arm projecting straight forward off his head. He was clad in various animal skins with their snarling heads still attached, damp and dripping with melted snow. There was a strong odor of wet goat.

As unobtrusively as possible, Eshivon took a deep breath. He was no fighter, never had been; he had trained the basic magical arts and learned a few healing spells, nothing that would defend him against a creature like that. He did have a magical Focus tucked under the desk somewhere; he had last used it several months back when one of his assistants had dropped a large box of books on his foot. If he could reach it --- it would probably make no difference.

What was a Gurog doing on Osteth, anyway?

"I believe you are Eshivon Ugim?"

"That's right."

"I am Lodrog, called the Forsaken. For many months now I have been studying the documents which brave people have been bringing me from the ruins of Goarata. I want to learn what these fragments tell us about our history, and I want to learn how to use them to bring my people to their senses. Will you help me?"

As unobtrusively as possible, Eshivon let out the breath he had been holding. "I'll be happy to do whatever I can. You have already succeeded in leading many of your people out of their old veneration of Geraine."

"And what has been the result? Loyalist Ancients and liberated Blood-Lords battle one another unceasingly over the Malthabbor plains. I would like to lead them all out of darkness ---" Lodrog sighed, and Eshivon realized suddenly that he was very old. "But if not, I would settle for tipping the balance enough that the Blood-Lords could conquer the Ancients entirely, and put an end to the struggle. It would mean losing many of our most revered Elders. But if this goes on we will lose everyone."

"I understand. Let me see your documents, and we will collate them with what we have learned about the Gurog, and Geraine, from our other records."

"Thank you." The Gurog sighed again. "It's hot in here."

"Take off your hood, why don't you?" Lodrog did so, and hung it on the newel post of the nearby stairs. The smell of wet goat was overlaid by a scent of woodsmoke and pine needles. He crouched down beside Eshivon and drew out a bundle of parchments, carefully wrapped in another animal skin.

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

"So I'll leave the Omishan Undead alone for the present?"

"For the present. We need to bring the Forges up to full operation, and ensure that the crafters making weaponry for our forces don't continually have to stop and fight the Filinuvekta in the midst of their work."

"Understood. I'm going to need a little help."

"Really? You cleared the Catacombs unaided."

"Oh yes, and I can take most of Vothardun the same way: hover on the edges, pick them off one by one. I wouldn't do it any other way; each of those people deserves to have someone to sit by him as he sets out on his last journey. But when it comes to Rytheran and Aerfalle ---"

"You know it's important that no one else know about this thing."

"My Lord, you know that anything you say, I will do. But for the last stage of Vothardun, I'll need the help of either Daraua, or Nalicana. Preferably Nalicana. And I'll tell you why."

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

Hundreds of copies had been made of the page, on rose-colored paper that stood out against the snowy landscape like flowers from a foreign country. Lodrog had tested the winds, climbed a mountain, and let an armload of pages ride the airs to fall all over the battlefield.

Brave warriors have brought back the words of our forefathers from the caverns of Goarata. These are their words.

The Gurog Scroll of Beginning says, "...we, though not born of this world, came to be born on it ... through the art of others we came to be ... we, once unthinking, without past, now gifted with thought and memory ... strange birth ... our masters, who cared for us, now our teachers ... "

Legros' Treatise says, "... strange to think how far we've advanced in the scant ... years of the life of our race ... advances in the ways of magic ... Lord Asheron demonstrated ... "

The Chronicles of the First Chief says, "... High Chief ... friend of Kresovus ... guided us ... ways of the blade and smith ... "

The Annals of Goarata say, " ... in the 30th year since the Beginning, Bloodhorn, son of ... commissioned the building of a great fortress. This fortress was to be called 'Goarata,' in honor of ... "

Bloodhorn's Journal says, "Verdantine 3, 72 P.Y. As the day's light dimmed, a shadowy figure appeared at the gates of Goarata today. The figure said it represented a great power, and this power wished to arrange an audience with the Chief of the Gurog. I have agreed to this meeting. Father said we should fear the darkness, but one never gains power by living in fear. It was not by living in fear that I united those who rebelled against him under one banner. I shall meet this power and see what it has to say."

To the words of the papers of Goarata we have added the words of the Thusik Vault which tell what happened when Bloodhorn went to meet that power of darkness.

"Bloodhorn was the greatest of the Gurog chiefs.
Cunning and ruthless, he slew his rivals and united the tribes.
Geraine went to Bloodhorn's court, offering power and riches.
In return, he asked one thing ... his service.
But the chief was proud. He challenged Geraine, thinking to slay him and be done.
He was mistaken.
Before Bloodhorn could land his first blow, the Firstborn's magic destroyed him.
The shamans bowed, naming Geraine their new king.
Thus, with a single spell, the Gurog became thralls to darkness."

Gurogs, Geraine has departed from the world. Will you still be thralls to darkness? Leave the foolish cult of the Ancients! Join your brothers and their allies, the other free races of the world, in their battle to destroy the evil things, the servants of Geraine, and the Undead!

From the beginning, the outcome of the battle was not in much doubt. The rebels now outnumbered the Ancients by almost two to one. Their spirits were high, and as Caerlin I had once said, "In battle, the moral outweighs the physical as three to one." Finally, many of the Ancients were old in fact as well as in name.

But they had the experience of their years, if not the wisdom that should have gone with them. High on their hill, around the high cromlechs of their base, sheets of magical force flickered like lightning. Behind it, one could make out the dim figure of the High Shaman and the Undying One, holding their long staves topped with skulls, exhorting their Warlocks and Sorcerers to combat.

The Supreme Warlord stood on the next hill over, resplendent in his spiky armor, with Lodrog and Harren beside him. Behind them stood the Blood Lords in their uneven ranks, and behind them many volunteers of other races. The Raven was there, and Pfeil, and Thromer and his cousins. Aracoeli stood beside Aldwan, nervously smoothing the fine material of her Celestrum over her fingers.

"Patience," Aldwan said. "There'll be plenty of battle for all. Why are you so eager? This isn't your fight. Nor mine either, strictly speaking, except the Gurogs used to be our allies."

Aracoeli shrugged gracefully. "I can never kill Geraine," she pointed out. "This is the next best thing."

"Where's Tapuaua, by the way?"

"She didn't come. She says she's no use as a fighter, and she can't heal people if they go running out of range, which is what they always do out here. Look at the Warlord: I think we're getting ready to go."

The Warlord raised his arm and brought it down like an axe-stroke. "Forward!" he roared, and the Gurogs thundered down the hill into a valley sprinkled with Warlocks. Each Warlock had two or three Blood-Lords all for his very own, and did not last long. The Blood-Lords, having taken possession of the valley, seemed uncertain of what to do next. A few began to climb the hill, but were discouraged by the Sorcerers at the top. Harren snorted like a bull Levannath and began to prowl the base of the hill, poking and prodding his troops into some kind of order.

"Sloppy," Pfeil said to the Raven. "Still, we aren't fighting Falatacot today. Units, left!" She led the non-Gurog volunteers around over the top of the ridge, to the left and forward, to meet the Sorcerors on their own level. Some turned to face the newcomers; some continued to pin the Blood-Lords at the bottom of the hill. Some could not decide to do either, but turned back and forth between two sets of enemies, uncertain how to proceed. Archers, spear-casters, and Hive Keepers set to work on these. At first their magical protections held, and arrows and wasps flew in every direction but toward their targets. Pfeil's mages cast counterspells, and the missiles began to hit their targets. A Sorcerer fell, and another, and piecemeal the attention of the Sorcerers began to turn toward their attackers.

Harren, who had been watching Pfeil with the sharp eyes of a bird of prey, shouted something to his followers, and raised his hand. The Sorcerers atop the hill wavered, turned, rushed toward Pfeil's troops --- and Harren brought down his hand and the Blood-Lords began to climb the hill. It was steep and took them some little time, but when they reached the top they were in ideal position to attack the Sorcerors from behind.

Aracoeli, seeing that her fellows had the Sorcerers well in hand, looked further ahead for a target. Too much to hope for, that she could kill the Shaman on her own, but at least she might get a piece of him. The Undying One still stood beside him, well out of range of anything she could cast, and a semi-solid wall of Sorcerors was between her and any interesting target. There was a Warlock, coming in on her left to aid the Sorcerors; she cast a bolt and stopped him in his tracks. While the mage shook his horned head in confusion, trying to find his attacker, she cast again and brought him to his knees. Then an arrow shot from behind her pierced the Sorceror directly ahead of her, and as he crumpled she leapt to his shoulder and over him, through the hole in the Sorceror's wall and past them toward the Shaman.

The old Gurog looked at her with disgust: too thin she must seem to him, too pale, hairless, hornless, useless. She cast a bolt at his head, and watched it slide off his shields. He cast in his turn a fireball that choked the breath from her body --- and someone healed her. She cast again, and saw the Shaman wince --- and six or seven of her fellow Derethians came in around her, casting and shooting and slashing with swords. Something got her, hard, in the shoulder and chest, and she went to her knees --- and someone healed her again. "Thanks," she muttered, and watched the Shaman fall. The Undying One was running away to the north, with fifteen or twenty Blood-Lords and others in his train. The Shaman was dead, and she had had a piece of him. Someone pulled a broken gold chain away from his neck, and Aracoeli picked up a small gold ring as it fell from his finger. Small for a Gurog, it was too large for her thumb, and she slipped it into her pouch.

The battle was essentially over; as she watched. the last Warlock topple and fall. Harren picked up the fallen Shaman's skull-headed staff and waved it overhead in triumph --- fortunately, he had no skill whatever as a mage and there was no effect. The Raven, who had, came up and gently took the staff away from him.

There was a dead Sorcerer lying almost at her feet, and a Blood-Lord Champion sitting beside him weeping, holding his battered hand and weeping like a child. "What's the matter?" Aracoeli asked.

"This is my brother," the Gurog said. "He chose the wrong side. He wouldn't listen. Now he's dead, and it was I who killed him."

"Tell me his name, and yours," Aracoeli. "The bards will sing of him."

"I am Guthmog," the Champion said, "and he was Gunnmogi. The sons of Gundahari."

"I shall see to it," she said. "Listen, as you sit by the fires, in a few days." She set off looking for a suitable Lugian, and soon found Aldwan sitting by a Tonk with a shattered shoulder, casting small precise spells to set all the bone fragments back into place. She sat down in silence and waited until he was finished, and the Tonk was cautiously rotating his arm and making little tentative grunts.

"You're all right, I hope?"

"I'm fine, Aldwan, thanks. Thank you for the heals. I need to hire a bard; can you recommend one? I need him to make a song for a Gurog slain by his brother. Oh yes, can you identify this? Does it have any special virtue?" She handed him the gold ring.

"Simple shielding spell," Aldwan said. "It's worth more as gold."

"Very well," she said. "I'll pay the bard with it." The sun was falling toward the west, and the rosy pages of Lodrog's treatise were scattered among darker patches of blood.

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

Vothardun, a stark company town: tall narrow buildings, their walls supported by flying buttresses, their neat chimneys lined up in tidy rows along the rooftops amid ornaments like spear-shafts; more iron spear-shafts decorated area railings. Tall towers with peaked shingled roofs loomed above them, and overall the scattered bones of a Tremendous Monouga whose skull capped the highest peak like an orrery. It should have been an Aluvian fishing town in a spooky story for the end of autumn, except that its streets were ankle-deep in ash instead of sea-sand. Instead of fish, a row of gutted Darkenfowl hung from a merchant's stall, and someone had decorated all the spikes of his garden fence with golden pumpkins.

But the Undead were gone; the ashy streets were sprinkled with water daily to keep the dust down, and the crafters were settling in, preparing to go into production as soon as the Foundry was cleared of the last of the Revenants. Rumor had it, though no one knew quite where it came from, that the work areas would be clear by the following week; meanwhile, there was time to settle in and clean up. The buildings were in better shape than those of Dereth had been. Someone had posted a copy of Atlan's Foundry Guide on every lamp-post. Tapuaua, reading it through, heard a chuckle in the air above her head.

"I hadn't read that in centuries. You do realize, don't you, that he wrote that for the first of Morningthaw?"

Tapuaua shook her head. "No, I hadn't," she murmured. "Well: time to get moving." She turned and went toward the Foundry Gate.

It had not been necessary after all to bring along Daraua or Nalicana; Orlen and Lynnestra had come up with two more Soulcatchers. In a pinch, she might have made do with one, but two were much safer.

Through the Gate, through the empty corridors that had once been full of Undead and Golems, taking all the shortcuts. She had deliberately not gone past a certain point, trusting that her targets would have retreated to the profoundest depths. There was no sign of life, or undeath, anywhere --- except for a trail of footsteps in the dust on the floor. She followed it, one hand on her drum, the other on her pouch.

The trail led to a door: not one of the doors she had had to go through before, to make her way to the Forge and craft her Atlan Drum. She stopped and looked at its smooth, blank surface. "You're still here, aren't you?"

"I'm here."

She pushed the door open and went in. There, at the far end of a long narrow room, sat a single Dericost Undead. On what remained of his face, fear slowly turned to scorn. "You stupid little Tonk! Is it you who've been picking off my troops?"

"I have had that honor."

"Where have you been sending them? Why haven't they respawned?"

"I have been giving them the true death, Rytheran. I have no idea where I've sent them."

Fear began to return to Rytheran's emaciated face, overlaid with anger. He raised his hands. "Touch your drum, and you die."

Asheron is my strength, and the name of the Light. "I wasn't going to," she said, and lifted her left hand far away from her drum, while her right slipped into her pouch and brought out the Soulcatcher. "Come within," she said. Then there was dust on the floor, and a bewildered, angry face in the blue crystal. "I'm doing you a kindness," she said. "Wait and see."

Now back along the familiar route, toward the Forge. A door. Another door, and the long ramp that led to the door of the Forge itself. She stepped onto it ---

---and the Smith spawned, his shaping hammer still in his hand, and started toward her. Cradling Rytheran carefully in her left arm, with her right hand she took out the rattle and shook it, once. The Smith fell, and put on flesh and breathed. Tapuaua stayed where she was: it was not for her to comfort this soul as it began its final journey. Asheron shimmered into visibility, and knelt beside the dying Smith.

"Well done, my Master Smith. I am the son of Atlan Realaidain, and he sends me to tell you that you have been faithful to your task; you have done fine work; you have set a standard for all future crafters to follow. And now you can rest."

He knelt there while the breath left the Smith's body, and his flesh and bone crumbled to dust, and the hot breath of the Forge in the next chamber blew the dust away, and Tapuaua wiped her eyes. Then he rose and returned to her, where she sat waiting, and they waited together for the next and last figure to spawn.

And Aerfalle stood there, clad all in black except for a pair of thigh-high red boots, the color of her flowing hair. The sparkling eyes, the creamy skin were nothing but parchment over bone beneath it, but her hair flowed like a living thing.

"Good evening, Lady Aerfalle," Tapuaua said, and showed her the face of Rytheran, held in the Soulcatcher like a fly in amber. Aerfalle stood still and stared. Seizing the moment, Tapuaua reached into her pouch and pulled out the other Soulcatcher. "Come within."

And then she had two Soulcatchers in her hands, two shocked faces staring at one another inside them. She went forward to where the Smith had lain, and set down the two crystals, side by side. She backed away again, and looked at them.

"Rytheran and Aerfalle, I have in my hand the instrument that will give you two the true death, as it has given it already to all your people. You are the last of the Filinuvekta; you are the last of the Dericost. I made sure to save you for last.

"Whatever your other failings, you two have loved each other faithfully for fifteen thousand years. I want to let you die together." She paused for a moment, judging the distance between the Soulcatchers and where she stood, and recalling that in their undeath the Filinuvekta had tended to drift across the floor, not running nor even walking with any speed. "Come forth."

The Soulstones shattered, and the Dericost began to take shape again; but in that moment Tapuaua raised her rattle and shook it quickly at them, twice.

Two figures rose up and put on flesh and lordly clothing. Aerfalle, her bright hair bound with many strands of pearls, wore the long velvety robe trimmed with violet fur that had been associated with her in the old days, and her skin was smooth and her eyes bright, and she was very lovely. Rytheran's hair, regrown, was the pure silver of a venerable maturity, and his eyes were dark, and the bones of his face, delicately clothed in flesh, were beautiful. He too was all in black, except for the scarlet lining of his cloak and the star-brooch of diamonds that glittered on his breast. They looked at one another and smiled, assuming some illusion such as they had at times cast themselves. It took them a moment to realize that they were breathing.

Breathing: living: dying. The realization hit them, and they clutched at each other in a fierce embrace. His mouth covered hers, and in the middle of that long kiss they fell headlong to the floor. Their last breaths issued as one sigh, and they crumbled together to dust, and the dust blew away. Tapuaua sat down again and wept into another piece of linen.

"Do you understand now," Asheron said, "why it is that I chose you, and no other, for this task? Because every time you perform it, it grieves you. I feared to give this duty to someone who might come to enjoy it."

"No fear of that," Tapuaua said, and got up. "It's still a few hours short of sunset, isn't it? I'll go tell the people of Vothardun that I've been all the way down into the Forge and discovered that the Undead are all gone, and they can begin work, if they wish, tomorrow. And then I have to go home and write a song."

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

Third Strategos Ju'xatl sat in an abandoned bunker in the western Ramparts and thought with pleasure of a day well spent. The treatise on planar magic he had found in the Lyceum, and plucked away almost from under the Blood-Mother's nose, had been the best find of a profitable career. It was such fun, seeing the ill-assorted northern vermin running away from a sudden onslaught of insects where no insects should be. True, they had always so far managed to return in force and kill the insects, but that was no matter. It kept them busy; he was certain it kept them worried; and one day he would contrive to bring an insectile force through his portals that would leave them bleeding and dead. A Matron or two, perhaps....

Meanwhile, the insects served another purpose as well. He prodded the fire under the boiling kettle, and inspected the basket of carefully selected insect limbs steaming over it. A few more minutes yet. A pity he hadn't thought to loot a supply of garlic butter before he'd left; but the juice of some of the sour fruits of the region, squeezed over the contents of boiled or steamed insect legs, was a dish fit for the gods of ancient legends. And Newborn Workers boiled whole, the meat removed and dressed with cream sauce and herbs, stuffed back into the shells, and the whole lightly broiled .... Ju'xatl licked his lips and smiled.