Alium, page 50
Despite the ogre still reeling beside him, Byron edged out into the open even as the gates of rock began slowly to drag themselves closed behind the shadow warrior, and as he ran back to the front of the tower Ogwold realized too that this was their moment. The great triangular zig zag of darkness had now last of all the others begun to close, and almost as soon as they had slunk inside, the grinding walls sealed fast behind them, shutting off all but memory of the snowy waste without.
The depthless, total dark was impossibly silent. Ogwold took the sphere from his cloak and it filled the room with pale light. They were in a spacious, cave-like chamber seeming to have no visible ceiling, devoid of any sign that once a horde of shadow beings had issued thence, and occupied only by a misshapen set of rocky stairs, more like crags that jutted in rising succession along the wall up through an archway. These they followed carefully, for it was very difficult for Ogwold to hold his balance, and he was already deathly afraid of falling but five steps above the troubled floor. Even as he found his way along the rising turn of the strange footholds, they were soon horrifyingly high in the darkness such that there seemed no solid ground beneath them as much as still there was no surface above them in sight. Yet ever up they climbed in stillness and silence, keeping their attention on the light of the sphere where it played on the next steps.
Ogwold held fast the Fonsolis to the wall, for it seemed not only to give him security of step and balance but also a sense of strange calm here in the alien dark. What motivation else he needed was in the inexorable advance of Byron, who held but one gentle hand as if aloof against the trailing rock as he went, but who never increased his pace such as to leave the fearful ogre behind. Hours seemed to pass in the monotonous half light until they came up onto a wide ledge where they were free at least to stretch and feel secure in standing without constant attention to the placement of their feet. The sphere ranged above them and at last its pale light fell upon a ceiling of craggy rock. Even blacker and more ominous now seemed the void below them, as if one false step would send one falling for an eternity. But their focus was not on that manner of death. One last flight of much more straight and more agreeable steps, broad and flat, led from the ledge to a great door hewn of two smooth slabs of rock.
“Quite a simple construction, this place,” said Byron, no humour in his voice. “He must have truly built it in desperation. If the Zelor I knew would never use his powers, he would surely die before succumbing to fear.” The mercenary brooded in silence before the crude door. That lone green eye turned up from the shadows of his face, and never so striking was his likeness to a starving wolf. “Ogwold. You don’t need to come with me. Your sphere can still lead you from this tomb.”
“We’ll go together,” said the ogre, almost surprised to hear how nobly came his oafish voice. But whether he sounded heroic or brave to whatever ears in all the Cosmos, this impression came rather from within his own heart’s listening, for he was proud, proud of Byron, proud of himself for coming so far, and he felt that he owed everything to the mercenary who was, quite simply put, he thought, his best friend.
Byron nodded, and with a grimace pushed against the doors. They swung noiselessly open for all the tortured grinding of all other living rocks throughout the fortress and its savage walls. Pale light was here, flowing over the head of one last case of stairs. They took these slowly, and came up into a great dome, which seemed to sharpen exponentially at its apex. Now the light was quite bright and natural, for half of the great space was completely open to the elements, yet the snow did not enter upon the place as if there were some invisible impermeable sheet between tower and sky. And there was to this vast sheet as well another magic, for it magnified and rendered the battlefield below in stunning detail, and seemed to move and shift in its scope. But it was all a blur to the newcomers, for they had eyes rather for the cloaked figure who stood, arms clasped behind its back, in the centre of that view, seeing all.
Pure white hair fell blending with the brilliant view of snow in cataracts down the broad black shoulders of a long cloak, hemmed in silver. Sharp purple ears shot up from that mane, and two tails of like hue hissed snaking against the smooth rock floor. About the figure was a cloud of shade that moved like faint smoke. “So,” came a cold, metallic voice from man unturning. “You have found us.”
Byron drew his immense sword, advancing through the gigantic room. Zelor turned, and Ogwold beheld him for the first time. He was noble and beautiful. Though Ogwold had only Hesflet for an example of the Xol race, he could tell that Zelor was a man of stature and grace among his people. His high forehead and thick eyebrows commanded attention, sitting back behind a blade of a nose. Silver scabbards swept from his waist and along his back in the manner of Byron’s. Now about him the nebula of shadow seemed to take shape, and Ogwold saw long tentacles of darkness reaching and winding in all directions; ever so faintly, six red lights stood in two ethereal columns above him.
One affectless purple hand rose before the scene, and as it went the approaching Byron was ossified in place, lifted from the floor unable to move any but those minor muscles which stood out about his clenched jaw. Blood began to seep between his gritted teeth, streaming already down his jawline from the pressure.
“Fight him like a man, Zelor!”
Zelor turned slowly, eyes deep as time. Even as he scanned with that cold gaze the foolish grey oaf who had bellowed so brazenly, he dropped Byron to the floor where he gasped for breath, coughing dark fluid.
Ogwold spoke bravely into the evil silence, though his legs quaked with fear and from Fonsolis and sphere he felt only a mad desire to flee. “Kill him like this, and you shall never escape the knowledge that you cowered before swordsmanship.”
“We have always been better with a blade,” said Zelor, and Ogwold now heard that just as there was a second presence, a second sight in the cloud which hung about the sorcerer, there too was a second voice layered amid the first, a gargling, a distant faltering echo, something not of the world scraping together the primitive verbal symbols of mortals.
Byron rose shakily, sword brandished. He spat a stringy gob of black blood onto the stone floor. “Like I always said, brother: the day you turn to magic is the day you recognize you could never beat me.”
Zelor burst into peals of grating laughter, seeming nothing like laughter at all but some cruel imitation of petty, lesser life. Even as the noises of supposed glee were uttered they were in the same breath mocked by their tone. But at last the awful display was choked off, and he stared at Byron with a boundless fury for one so calm a moment ago.
“Very well!” he shouted. “Die by the edge of the only love you ever knew.” Out from the scabbard at his slim waist came a narrow, jagged blade, black as night. It was not so long or nearly so thick as Byron’s massive sword, but an awful power welled from it, and Ogwold could not look directly into its shade.
The mercenary only smiled, not in the way he grinned in the heat of battle or on the precipice of death, but in a new way, almost as an expression of peace. Then he took his stance, that very same stance he always assumed, swinging over and over his sword each morning, each night, whenever he had the chance.
Zelor leapt forward with incredible speed, such that Ogwold turned his eyes much too late to see what had happened. There was a flash and a crack as the two weapons—one immensely broad, the other needle sharp—recoiled from one another. Byron slid backwards, crouching low to the ground. Zelor stood calm and tall in place, though he had at least placed one foot behind him for support. Then it was Byron’s turn to rush. He came at one severe angle, now pouncing to the side changing his approach and dashing in with a series of thrusts and slashes that amazed Ogwold with their thoughtful grace. Now the ogre saw that all the fighting that Byron had done up to this point—slaying the guards of Occultash, culling the hordes of the Eyeless, even against the insurmountable force of Azanak—had been executed purely through brute rage, the warring of a battle-scarred mercenary. Now, here was a different warrior altogether. With each stroke of the enormous blade he struck the figure of some great knight of ancient legend, stoic and fearless in poise and form, his footwork dexterous, the artful fluid of sword and body a perfect mastery. Ogwold quite shamefully remembered those surges of pride he had felt in his finest moments sparring with the green-eyed man, for now he realized as he watched that if he were ever to duel Byron for real, he wouldn’t last even a moment.
Still Zelor parried every blow with seeming ease, turning Byron’s momentum to his favour, riding the power of each stroke into an offensive of his own which seemed to build with each block. As if at last having gathered in his weapon all of the energy of the opponent’s onslaught, the sorcerer commenced a terrible rebuttal. Down, up, down, up with hurtling, time-rending strokes he advanced slowly on Byron. Each blow caromed back only to be returned with greater ferocity, pushing the man—still calm countenanced—further towards the floor, where his wide stance began to buckle.
Like a bolt of lightning Byron slashed without precedent, and though Zelor held his sword perpendicular, blocking him perfectly, the mercenary already charged forward, forcing the sorcerer’s boots along the smooth floor. Flinging up his weapon, Zelor was thrown back. Byron only quickened his charge, lunged out with a thrust so deadly swift that to Ogwold it seemed the massive weapon vanished entirely from sight. Yet the blow met only air. The image of Zelor appeared beside, and just behind Byron, holding straight out his sword as in completing the routine slicing of a helpless opponent. A gout of blood jetted from Byron’s side, and his knee was planted in the ground.
Zelor smirked. “You are too slow.”
Byron slashed wildly, one hand clutching his side, but Zelor vanished in a blink, appearing as though landing lightly some ten yards away. The mercenary stood slowly. Blood flowed warm down his leg and pooled on the rock floor.
“Good,” he said. “Now I can take this seriously.” He flung off his cloak, and beneath it there was a metal breastplate. The side of it had been cloven wide open by Zelor’s strike, and it was from this gash that Byron’s blood poured onto the floor. He pulled the mangled armour over his head and threw it to the ground with a weighty clang.
Zelor swept forward. Byron lowered his shoulder, twisted his boot into the ground. Their blades met in fury. The sound of the clash was deafening. Blood spouted from Byron’s wound upon impact, but the pain seemed only to make him all the hungrier for victory. Looking into the eyes which had once been his brother’s he saw only the cinders of Molavor. Thus his rage grew, and the strength and speed of his blows. At last with a great thrust Byron’s sword slipped past Zelor’s exquisite defence and found its mark along the hip; though it was a glancing blow, a sword so mighty as Azanog bore no easy wound, however slight its impact. Zelor slid back, staggered, grasping at his side. White blood spattered onto the floor. His eyes flashed bright red and the smoky tentacles—which had receded and faded during the fight—became suddenly stark and full. He raised his off hand, and with it came one of these evil appendages overshadowing him.
“If you use your magic I’ll attack,” shouted Ogwold. He had uttered a new word spoken to him by the Fonsolis, and now the plant had grown to tremendous proportions. It was an enormous, bladed cannon, seething with sunlight, readied to deliver its most powerful offensive. Its roots had surged to massive size and extended all through the room, plunging and worming into the floor and walls and ceiling in preparation for the kick of the blast.
Zelor smirked and sweeping suddenly, his arm produced an enormous wall of flame that washed the entire side of the domed room where stood the ogre with the suddenness of a lamp turning in a windowpane. There was no force to the fire, only a remorseless burning that carried over him like a hot wind of blind death. In the deepest brightest absence of all but light and pain, the Fonsolis screamed; then it was silent. The fire seared the ogre’s flesh quite terribly and burned away his cloak and hair in an instant, but its worst heat ceased almost as soon as it had begun, and perhaps he lived because of his tough hide. Naked and hairless, falling limply to the floor, his last moment of consciousness beheld the smoking stump at his shoulder where once had flourished the gift of Autlos-lo.
Already Zelor looked away, bearing down on Byron who met into his path and blocked—swinging his sword upwards—the downward blow with a terrible shout. Blood gushed from both of their wounds as they stumbled back.
“How honourable,” Byron grunted, slamming his sword vertically into the ground for support. “The mighty sorcerer Zelor, Knight of Molavor.”
Zelor groaned and shook his head. He swung his off arm and the shadow of Duxmortul seemed even to disperse, the columns of red light receding as into a secret world. Though still a clutching, writhing darkness was about the sorcerer, the distinct image of his possessor could not be distinguished, and so the way of his speaking changed. “I’ll do this on my own, brother,” he said coldly.
Again their swords met loudly and swiftly. Zelor sliced a gash in Byron’s thigh, and Byron only just missed Zelor’s head, opening his cheek so that blood spilled down and away from him jumping back. They breathed heavily. The next exchange must decide this, thought Byron; he raised his sword high above his head.
“Foolish,” said Zelor, raising his sword to block.
“You should dodge,” said Byron.
“The strength of a Novare man is nothing to me.”
Yet it was true that Byron had saved his strength for the final clash, waiting for Zelor’s pride to get the better of him, for though he knew long ago that his old friend had been lost in the dark, he knew that not even some evil god from beyond the stars could warp the bone-deep pride of a Molavorian. He had practised over and over this very downward stroke all his life, and more and more since his city was lost, thinking always of Zelor. Now he brought down the sword once more to end it, with all power of will and remaining drop of strength that he had. The spirit of Molavor itself came heavy down upon that falling blade as it carried right through Zelor’s blocking sword, splitting it clean in two; thereon it sank deep into the sorcerer’s shoulder, but still it carried on, inexorably, as with unstoppable inertia, and screaming Byron pushed the blade screeching through seizing torso, down and finally out the opposite side, smashing to the rock floor with a resounding clang. A geyser of white blood plumed up and showered them both, now slowing, bubbling and pooling where the halves of Zelor fell twitching.
Fine streams of black sand and ash and smoke rose from the mutilated body as from infinitesimal pores, and aggregated into a dark nebula above the scene of death. Within the seething black fume was an evil, bloody light that seemed the core of all that had parasitized the Xol body. Yet even at its brightest red and darkest, thickest black the cloud began to disperse, slowly fading out of being. A great sigh passed through the room as the natural light coming in through the vast window subtly brightened, for the shadow of Duxmortul had gone away.
Sundered of much his form, the face of Zelor yet stirred with its final moments. “Byron?”
“Brother.” The mercenary knelt beside him. “You are free.”
Zelor smiled. If Elts were there, she might have seen his face as once it truly was, long ago. “I knew you would come. I cannot be forgiven for Molavor, but I am honoured to be struck down by the finest and last of those warriors. May they never be forgotten…” A river of blood bubbled from the sorcerer’s mouth, choking off his speech as he gagged on the unromantic finality of death. “Brother—you must destroy the Alium. Find Elts. Duxmortul; he is coming.”
The mercenary sat beside his old friend as he died, closing his vitreous eyes with one hand. Suddenly he remembered the ogre. Staggering to his feet, clutching his bleeding ribs, he stumbled hastily to the ashy site of his friend. He collapsed to his knees beside the great blackened, bald Nogofod and gripped him gently on the shoulder. “Ogwold. You’d better be alive in there.”
“Byron,” came a hoarse reply. Slowly consciousness returned to Ogwold as he lay there feeling his skin charred all over. But he was certainly alive, painfully, painfully alive. Slowly that pain drained away as he lay there with the brooding mercenary beside him, so that while he waited for his senses to return they both gazed over at the fallen form of Zelor in its pool of white blood. At last he felt that he could sit up, and when he did, soot and ash slid from his skin in a vast layer, and he saw that really he was quite all right; hairless, yes, but still grey as a misty day. “I guess I have a resistance to fire in me,” he choked out. “But I can’t say the same for the Fonsolis. It is gone.”
“I am sorry, Ogwold. It is a great gladness to see that you live.” Byron looked back at the corpse.
“You did a good thing, Byron.”
“It seems there was more of a scrap of the real Zelor left than I’d anticipated, even after all of these years.”
Slowly and with much groaning Byron wrapped his wounds with cloth torn from his soiled undershirt. His cloak he gave to the naked ogre, and though it could hardly come close to stretching round his rocky shoulders, it was at least some cover for Ogwold’s waist.
