The Old Man stood still as stone, expression agonized. But his stillness wasn’t the uncanny frozennness of the servants below. His eyes remained in motion. To him Yo Hsi was an enigma, an unfathomable black hole in the fabric of the situation. His would be the direction to strike. Mocker was but a man with a sword.
“Vilis slew his father, Valis, by poison, for the crown, as ever it had been with the Imperial succession. Vilis took a mistress. On her he fathered a son she called Ethrian, after the philosopher. A time came when Imperial political pressures made disavowal of the son necessary. The mistress had become a liability in other affairs. Conveniently, a witchcraft charge was tendered by an intimate of the King.”
“No!” Varthlokkur gasped. And yet, from his expression, Mocker saw that he wasn’t surprised. There was nothing sudden about the guilt in the wizard’s face.
“The woman was burned. Her possessions reverted to the Crown. The son disappeared. Years later he reappeared, to waste Ilkazar, to destroy his father in the family tradition. I was pleased.” Yo Hsi laughed that evil laughter.
“Later, there came another Ethrian, born of a serving woman but with the Imperial blood, who was spirited off in revenge by a castle fool, under my protection. In time the child became a wanderer, a thief, an actor.”
Mocker’s gaze locked with Varthlokkur’s. Not possible, he thought. Yet, if the wizard had suspected even a little, some of his strange reluctances would be answered.
“Tonight the father again dies by the hand of the son.”
“Why?” The Old Man spoke for the first time.
“The curse of Sebil el Selib. And even now the woman carries in her womb the son that will be the death of this one.” Laughter.
Nepanthe whimpered, looked to her husband, nodded slightly. She might indeed. She thought that she had conceived that wedding night on the Candareen.
“Not that,” snapped the Old Man, his normal testiness returning. “Why are you here? Why have you, for centuries, fed false divinations to my friend?”
“You know that, do you?” Yo Hsi didn’t seem pleased.
“Yes. An answer, if you please. You’ve offered nothing but nonsense and laughter since appearing.” He didn’t believe this encounter to be part of the Director’s plan. The scripts had never thrust him into such deadly peril.
“A game? An old contest. A war, a struggle.” Yo Hsi gestured sweepingly. For a moment the Old Man was puzzled. Then he identified the wrongness. The Prince Thaumaturge, called the Demon Prince in his home domain, was missing a hand. “My brother and I have been using the West as a board on which to play for mastery of Shinsan,” said Yo Hsi.” Warfare and thaumaturgic dispute have proven pointless on our home grounds. We’re too evenly matched. Yet one of us must be master. An empire divided against itself can’t grow. The way to shift the balance of power may exist somewhere out here, where there’re so many unknowns and unpredictables. Here one of us might find the knowledge or weapon to seize the day. So here we do battle, each to grab first or to deny the other.
“Varthlokkur was once my agent, once my most important tool, for which I made him powerful. My Tervola trained him well. He began his service elegantly, by shattering the single power capable of keeping Nu Li Hsi and myself from using the West—the wizards of Ilkazar. And he demolished the Empire itself, a state with such iron control that nothing could be accomplished here while it endured. But he stopped with that. He ceased returning knowledge to me. Eventually, he hid himself here. I sent divinations meant to get him back in harness, but Nu Li Hsi interfered, subtly twisting them to his own ends. Varthlokkur continued to do nothing. In time I became angry. My Tervola have advised me to come west myself, to punish him for not fulfilling the contract he made with me. I have come, though, too late. Centuries too late. I see that Varthlokkur had forgotten that contract till just now.”
“I cheated you,” Varthlokkur gasped. “As you would’ve cheated me. I made that bargain knowing Nu Li Hsi would cleanse from my mind anything that didn’t suit him. And now I’ve cheated you again,” he declared, his words scarcely audible. “You destroyed my soul in Shinsan. Your machinations have robbed me of love, cursed me with the hatred of an unknown son, and killed me. But I’ve done the impossible. I’ve repaid my debt to Ilkazar. I’ve defied Yo Hsi, and won. Nu Li Hsi has won, and thus I fulfill one promise made in Shinsan, to the lesser of a pair of evils.” He laughed weakly. “His Tervola taught me, too, Yo Hsi.”
“You’re wrong,” the easterner replied, but with little of his earlier certitude. “I win. I’ve found my victory. In this old man lies knowledge forgotten by all but himself and the Star Rider. Knowledge the like of which you can’t even imagine. From him I will milk the weapons of a new, invincible arsenal.” To the Old Man, “I’ve found you out. I know what you are. From now on you have a new master.”
With a croaking chuckle, Varthlokkur died. His face seemed beatific. In his own mind, at least, he had redeemed himself.
Still stunned by the revelation of his paternity, Mocker stared down at that man younger than he, whose head lay cradled in Nepanthe’s naked lap. Her eyes still pleaded forgiveness. His anger and hatred surged up again, but now they were directed elsewhere. In a fluid, lightning motion he threw himself at Yo Hsi. For an instant he saw startled, cadaverous features within the sorcerer’s cowl— then something seized him, hurled him aside, turned him round, round, round. Colors whirled, mixed. He struck confusedly. A scream was his reward. He laughed insanely, was joined by Yo Hsi in his laughter.
Sense returned and, in horror, he stared down at the tiny line of redness where his blade had penetrated Nepanthe’s chest inward of her left breast. And still she prayed with her eyes. And Yo Hsi kept on laughing. The madness returned. He flung himself at the easterner again.
Followed a clown’s dance, futile as tilting at windmills. Nothing could reach the sorcerer. But the madness wouldn’t set him free. Finally, apparently forgetting his earlier oracle (now, with Nepanthe’s imminent demise, in doubt), Yo Hsi drew a bronze dagger, plunged it into Mocker’s chest.
He fell slowly, his sanity returning, his eyes turning accusingly toward Nepanthe. So long, so far, for this. Briefly, he wondered if Varthlokkur were truly his father, and if he had judged Nepanthe wrongly. Then darkness closed in.
The Old Man, during Mocker’s flailing at Yo Hsi, saw the opportunity he had been awaiting. He strode briskly across the chamber, seized Varthlokkur’s wand, stepped into the heart of his friend’s creation. Before the sham battle reached its inevitable climax, he had completed Varthlokkur’s work.
“Come along,” said Yo Hsi, when finished. “You have things to tell me. Dawn-time things. Secrets known only to yourself and the Star Rider.”
“I have nothing to tell you save this: you’re doomed. As he promised.”
Laughter. “You’re presumptuous. That’ll change. My torturers have a way with wills.”
“But they’ll never see me. You won’t leave this room. Varthlokkur told you that he had prepared for you. He was right when he said that you’d lost.”
“He had no magic. Great he was, yes, but distracted. My Tervola and I have leeched his power for months. Tonight he couldn’t control the weakest ghost. Come.”
“Take me.”
Irritated, Yo Hsi started toward the Old Man. After three steps, however, he encountered an impassable barrier.
“Varthlokkur may have lost his ability to fight you, but his researches gave him a means to contain you. This thing surrounding me draws on new sources of Power. No agency, no man alive, can free you now. Not even he whom you call my master. You can sustain yourself by your arts, but to the world you’re dead. Your powers have been jailed. You’ll never leave that cage alive, nor will your magicks. I only wish that Varthlokkur hadn’t been distracted by the woman. He might have lived to see his greatest moment, the fall of the evil that made him. That would’ve finally soothed his torment.”
Yo Hsi tried his cage with physical strength an
d magic. Intolerable fires burned therein. Shadows fought. But nothing yielded. So he tried bargaining.
“You’re old, Yo Hsi, and cunning,” the Old Man retorted after hearing mighty promises. “But I’m older. Only the Director could sway me now. So let it be. Go gracefully, silently. Or else…” He stroked a symbol in the plane of a pentagram, suspiciously liverish in shape. Yo Hsi groaned, clutched himself. “I have my tortures, too, and
my
magic can pass the cage’s walls.”
“Go gracefully? No! I’ll have something.” Yo Hsi’s good hand flashed out like the strike of a snake. Taking advantage of the cage’s only weakness, that of passing inorganic matter, a dart, poisoned, shot from an apparatus attached to his wrist.
The Old Man dodged, but not quickly enough. He gasped, held his wound, presently staggered, fell slowly to his knees. He smiled once, mockingly, at Yo Hsi, then again, happily, at something invisible. “So long you’ve waited, Dark Lady.” He toppled onto his face, half in, half out of Varthlokkur’s magical structure.
Yo Hsi raged from wall to wall of his cage once more, blasting it with the most potent eastern magic, but there were, as he already knew, no exits.
N
INETEEN:
S
PRING, 997 AFE
A
M
ARCH OF A
D
OMAIN OF
S
HADOWS
“Varthlokkur?” Nepanthe reached for his hand. She peered dazedly about the room. Yo Hsi stood stiffly silent a dozen feet away. The chamber was quiet. Nothing moved but the symbols in Varthlokkur’s device. “What happened?”
There was a sound. Yo Hsi turned. In the door stood a shadowy someone who might have been the easterner’s twin. “Nu Li Hsi.” The shadow
was
his twin. Long ago, they had murdered their father, Tuan Hoa, for his throne, and had brought the Dread Empire to its present schizophrenic state.
The newcomer bowed slightly. “You’ve slain them all?” Varthlokkur stirred, groggily sat up beside Nepanthe. He didn’t say anything.
“As you can see,” said Yo Hsi. “We still have a draw.”
“Even my Ethrian?” Nu Li Hsi, who was called the Dragon Prince, took a step into the room, peered about warily. “There’s something strange here. Something not quite right.”
“The Old Man must’ve closed the cage for me,” Varthlokkur grunted.
“You probably sense that.” Yo Hsi indicated Varthlokkur’s Winterstorm construct. “It’s something new.”
“Ah. No doubt.” Nu Li Hsi regarded the Winterstorm with an obvious professional admiration. He stepped closer.
“He doesn’t know.” Varthlokkur crowed. “Yo Hsi just might lure him in.”
Yo Hsi stiffened momentarily. Varthlokkur could almost read his thoughts. Could something organic pass from outside the cage in? He couldn’t let Shinsan go to his brother by default. He struck an exaggeratedly relaxed pose.
And Nu Li Hsi entered the cage, pausing only momentarily to bat the air before his face, as if brushing off a gnat.
“And I prayed that I could trap just one of them,” Varthlokkur said. His face became beatific. “Half a world liberated in minutes.” He snapped his fingers. “That simply.”
The wizard was kidding himself. He knew better. The Princes Thaumaturge would be replaced. The Dread Empire would endure. Impatient heirs already awaited the intercession of Fate.
Mad laughter assaulted the air. “It’s the end, brother. You’re doomed.” Less maniacally, “
We
’re doomed. It agonized me to think that I had to leave the Empire in your filthy hands.”
“What the hell are you raving about? I’d heard rumors that you were losing your mind.”
“It’s a trap. Our pupil has undone his teachers. We can’t leave.” He laughed crazily again. “He’s turned the tables on us, dear brother.”
Frowning, Nu Li Hsi tried going to the Winterstorm.
Something barred his way.
Nervously, he retreated toward the door.
Again, something stopped him.
Panicking, Nu Li Hsi made a thunderous trial of the cage’s walls. Without effect.
Like animals, the brother-princes hurtled at one another, each shrieking out half a millennium’s frustration. They fought with sorcery, blades of bronze, hands, feet, and teeth. All to no conclusion. Each retained his unbreachable defenses, his superb reflexes and combat skills.
They might enjoy one another’s company forever.
Varthlokkur rose, approached the trap.
“Don’t get too close,” Nepanthe warned. “They’d love it if they could get you in there with them.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll look out. Though they couldn’t hurt me now. They’d have to be able to see and touch me first. Look there.” He pointed.
She looked. And screamed.
“That’s us? We’re dead?” Nepanthe and Varthlokkur’s corpses lay in bloody, tumbled, sweat-wet furs. “I don’t want to die!” Hysteria effervesced from the edges of her voice.
Varthlokkur pulled her toward him, tried to comfort her. But he was frightened, too, and she sensed it. She wanted to run, run, run, as badly as she had on that next-to-last night on the Candareen. But from this there was no escape. The swordstroke had fallen already.
How had she come to this? What evil Fate?…She stared at her corpse, morbidly fascinated. Her death-wound was scarcely visible, tricking the tiniest line of scarlet across one breast.
“What happens now?” She wasn’t religious, and had never truly believed that death was something that could happen to her.
“We wait. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.” But his quavering voice betrayed his lack of confidence.
“You’re all right after all?” The Old Man had risen, was coming toward them. He sounded puzzled. His ashen face was frozen in startled ecstasy. That expression quickly transmogrified into confusion.
“All right?” Nepanthe responded to her panic. Feeling foolish, yet unable to stop herself, she snapped, “Wonderful. For a corpse.”
The Old Man retreated before her intensity.
“Calm down,” Varthlokkur pleaded.
“Varth…” At that moment, when most people would have needed someone to hold and comfort them, all she wanted was to be left alone. She tried to explain. “It’s just the way I am. It’s the same when I’m sick, or have a headache.”
“Nepanthe, we’ve got to face this together.” He couldn’t say
I need you.
“Picture waiting alone.”
“Waiting?” the Old Man asked. He was more perplexed than ever. “Waiting for what? What’s happening?”
“You don’t remember?” The wizard pointed. The Old Man turned. He stared at his corpse. His eyes widened as the truth gradually dawned.
“Son of a bitch. After so long.” He went to his clay, carefully avoiding the cage, and stared into his own dead face. Gently, he touched his body’s cheek, ran fingertips over its ecstatic smile. “She came lovingly… Those two… Who’s the other one? Are they trapped? Alive?”
“Yes. Both of the Dread Empire’s tyrants, caged in one fell passage of the shuttle across the loom of the Fates.”
The Old Man’s expression called the price too dear. But when he spoke, he said, “This may cause more rejoicing than your destruction of Ilkazar. Maybe there’ll be a holiday in our memory.” That he said sourly. Transitory facial expressions reflected the war going on within him, the struggle which had driven him both to seek immortality and to long for the peace of death.
Nepanthe started crying. Everything had happened too quickly, unexpectedly, shockingly, for her to understand. And she still bore her gigantic burden of guilt. She looked at Mocker, who hadn’t yet stirred. There lay the father of her son…The child who, now, would never be born. How could she explain? How could she make him understand that she had tried to buy his life?
How could she obtain his forgiveness? That she had to have, or her shame would be unbearable.
Varthlokkur drew her to him again, offering comfort. This time she entered his arms, drawing support from his embrace.
“So. Even death does not end high treachery.”
Nepanthe and Varthlokkur jerked apart. Mocker faced them, hands on hips, lips snarled back over clenched teeth. His dark face had grown darker with rage. He had arisen suddenly, had assessed his situation, and apparently had accepted his own destruction.
Nepanthe forgot her death-terror as shame, and fear of and for her husband engulfed her.
“What is trouble?” Mocker asked. “Would simpleton self, being noted fool, easily manipulated by adulteress wife, harm single hair on head of same? Woe! Am stricken to depth of depthless cretinic soul by very thought.”
His remarks only made Nepanthe feel all the more the harlot.
“Who did the killing?” Varthlokkur demanded. “It was a matter of destiny,” he tried to explain.
Mocker wouldn’t listen. Nepanthe suspected that, though intellectually aware, he hadn’t yet made an emotional accommodation to the despair of his situation, that the full, absolute truth hadn’t yet dawned on him.
Humming, an elderly man, bent as if by the burden of millennia, entered the room. He skirted the invisible cage deftly, deposited a heavy bundle atop the table.
An absolute silence descended upon the room.
The easterners watched him hungrily, their eyes burning with the passion of wolves when catching sudden sight of unexpected, especially delicious prey. Both quickly babbled pleas for aid.
The elderly visitor squinted, chuckled, glanced at the four corpses, nodded to himself, returned to his bundle.
“The Star Rider,” Varthlokkur murmured. He was awed and surprised. “Of all people, why did
he
turn up here?”
His question had occurred to everyone else. The easterners, having recognized the interloper, had fallen into a tense silence.