“Vorn is down!” she cried out the bit of news to him, in between blows. “And the Guildmaster is nowhere to be seen! But Marihke has rallied a strike on the other side of the Markets, and the resistance forces seem to be making some headway there.”
He staggered, still reeling from the force of the parried blow, while from the other side came another enemy warrior, and then, more guildsmen appeared as their reinforcements.
But then a silence from behind them. All turned, involuntarily, pausing in their battle, even the Qurthe.
Like a parting sea, the Qurthe made way, retreating on both sides, allowing passage to a great beast and the one who sat in the ornate saddle, higher than all others.
Feale the Twilight One rode directly toward them, and all behind him, a tidal wave of absolute darkness, a thick wall of soldiers and warbeasts, all bearing down.
Ranhé cursed, then finished off the Qurthe with one final quick strike—he had hesitated also, looking at his approaching lord, and it cost him his life.
“Get behind me, my lord!” she exclaimed then, and bent forward, her gloved hand outstretched to him. “Hurry! My horse can carry us both—”
“No!” Elasand roared then, because blood sounded like a swell of an ocean in his temples. “No, get away from me! He is mine—go, save yourself, freewoman!”
“Don’t be an idiot, you are about to pass out!” She grabbed hold of his shoulder, but he shrugged her off, with more remaining strength than she suspected, and then glanced in her direction with wild eyes.
“Do you want to die, my lord? Is that it?” she screamed at him, furious, while cold began to gather within her.
The moment slowed, and she thought she saw his soul in that gaze.
Let me be, his eyes said. Let me do what I must.
And brimming with that now overwhelming inner cold that may have been sorrow, or perhaps fear, she finally nodded in helpless acquiescence—for even now she could not deny him—and reining in her steed, moved aside and just behind him.
Thus, the wounded man stood alone before the Twilight One.
The first thing that happened was the disappearance of violet. Elasand’s sword, blazing one second with the brilliance of color, went dull and ordinary the next. Light had sputtered, like a blown-out candle, and was no more.
Overhead, the twilight sun.
All around, motionless gray air.
Elasand stood, blood draining away from his face, while dark seemed to grow into a mountain before him, and its source was the form—vaguely human—atop the warbeast. It, the darkness, curled into tendrils of fine vapor, and just spread, pouring outward into an aura, solidifying, and effectively blocking out all sun, whatever weak essence of it had been left.
And then the cloud of darkness continued to pour downward, and at him.
With a harsh cry, Lord Vaeste raised his sword, and focused all his remaining will into a memory. . . .
Laelith.
Immediately, he was a human torch, igniting with violet fire. Fire ran throughout him, and continued outward, sweeping the sword blade, and then past, like a beam of perfect lightning, at the dark form of Feale atop his great beast.
Ranhé caught her breath. For an instant, it seemed the light would actually reach the Enemy, would touch him, burn him away into perfect oblivion.
But the Twilight One lifted his hand, and pointed a single finger. Black lightning, like an afterimage, a perfect antithesis, started from him and moved to intercept the violet light midway, and then, eating away at it, began to move back upon the still burning form of Elasand.
“Feale!”
The sound of the name cut through the thickness of the air, and resounded with fear among the Qurthe. The black fire paused its advance, and hung like smoke in the air, at the boundary of Elasand’s violet form. The Twilight One turned slowly and looked at the one who had spoken.
The Guildmaster of the Light Guild was just behind Ranhé. He was alone, his blade bared and intact, and he sat calm and straight-backed in the saddle of his great ebony stallion.
“Feale,” he repeated in a surprisingly quiet voice that managed to carry. “Leave this one be. It is not him you want, but myself. I rule the Light Guild.”
“I have seen you before,” said the Twilight One, the hiss of a serpent.
“Yes. You’ve seen me many times, but did not know me, even at Vaeste’s side. Remarkable, how blind and stupid you’ve been.”
A pause of silence, only the whispering slithering sound of the wind, a thickening of the air around them.
And then the Twilight One smiled. “You,” he said. “You are the one. Only, it doesn’t matter now. I will have all of you. All of you are here, at last.”
“In that, you speak true, son of a bitch! We are here!”
Ranhé started, hearing the harsh voice of Marihke Sar and his crude outcry, and turning around, saw that flanking him rode all the remaining Masters of the Guild. They had come, out of nowhere, and had slowly infiltrated and passed the perimeter of the Qurthe forces, their light temporarily extinguished, to join the Guildmaster.
“Now!” exclaimed Elasirr, and in that instant, color fire erupted all around, as each of the Masters ignited and released their light, directing it at the form of the Twilight One.
It was an absolute surprise attack, Ranhé realized, for even she had not known. However, she had enough presence of mind to join them.
Elasirr pointed his sword at the Enemy, and with a crackle of electricity, a bolt of blue radiance shot forward through him, and at the black cloud that stood around Feale. From behind him, simultaneously, came a rain of orange as Tegra Daqua, wearing light armor, spread her fingers and became a fountainhead of light. Giant green spheres erupted from the two Khirmoel, Baelinte and Erin, like comets, and fell upon the Enemy, while at the same time, Carliserall Lirr, who today was a slender woman, also wearing mail, sent forth a spinning funnel of violet wind, that rose high overhead in the shape of a twister and began descending upon the black form of the Enemy. More fireballs erupted, as Gilimas Prada bombarded the enemy with orange spinning spheres, and Cyanolis Vaeste followed up with blue strands of lightning that landed like ribbons to wind about the source of darkness. Nilmet, only a few steps away from Ranhé, began to pour forth a brilliant yellow, and Ranhé joined him, focusing upon his stream of light, so that it doubled, like a great rushing river, and fell with a crackle upon the Enemy. And Elasand, standing weakly, his form still engulfed in violet flames, joined their onslaught by forcing the light around him into an arrow of radiance that took flight and sailed at the darkness.
Their fireworks were spectacular, and lasted, it seemed, for several minutes. Color had engulfed the dull cloud around the form of Feale, and had turned the battlefield into a bright garish carnival of madness, beneath a weakling sun.
And yet, it was all laughable.
Ranhé noted—somewhere in the back of her mind, as one half of her awareness focused on the channeling of the energy—that the color light merely swept the outlines of darkness, raged, and yet could not penetrate. The form of the Twilight One remained unaffected, impossibly untouched.
And as their beautiful useless fires died away, they stood, drained, and looked with amazement upon the Enemy, who continued to smile down upon them.
“Now,” said Feale. “You are all mine.”
And Ranhé understood suddenly what he meant. She was tired, drained of the inner force that had created color, and at the same time had served to maintain her inner clarity, her sense of reality and truth. And now—now that she had poured most of it outside herself, there was almost nothing left, nothing in her energy reserves to defend herself.
Nothing to maintain her sanity against the dark.
Feale lifted his right hand, and filled it with night. And then he brought it down upon them all, in the blink of an eye.
Cold. . . .
The psychic blow came down, being quite invisible, and yet quite physical, like a heavy giant palm crus
hing them against the earth. Seated in her saddle, Ranhé felt its sudden impact, felt herself being pressed down, and sensed the sudden debilitating loss in her own muscles, in the muscles of the horse underneath her.
From the corner of her eye, she saw how this same strike affected all of them, saw Tegra Daqua make a pained sound and fall forward, doubled over in her saddle. She saw Marihke grab his throat, as though an invisible hand was choking him, and Carliserall Lirr sway, barely able to stay seated.
Elasand fell. He lay silent, on his last strength, the outlines of his form still vaguely exuding violet.
And then it too dimmed. He lay, somehow vaguely conscious, still impossibly aware, through a haze of encroaching dark. Having hit the ground heavily, his chain mail now pressed at him from all sides, stifling him in bands of iron, crushing his very rib cage, as he felt the ground against his cheek, his own salty blood.
Only the Guildmaster appeared unaffected. He sat straight in his saddle, and watched the Guildsmen collapse all around him, and beyond, the motionless hypnotized Qurthe.
“I see what you can do,” he said in a loud impassive voice to Feale. “Now, release them all, and confront me, at last.”
Atop his warbeast who was elephantine darkness, Feale laughed, throwing back his head in a caricature of human abandon. His hollow laughter sent ghostly echoes all around, and soft hallucinations of wind.
And then, Feale disappeared.
One blink of an eye, and he was no longer in the grand ebony saddle.
Another blink, and he stood on the ground, in the small clearing, just before the fallen Lord Vaeste.
Feale wore skintight elegant armor, and yet his outlines again appeared to waver like a mirage. In his gloved right hand was a long black sword of midnight iron. It had not been there only a second ago.
“Come down and join me, you who rule the Light Guild,” he hissed softly, and there was a strange sweetness to it, Ranhé thought, a sweetness of corruption. At the same time, she felt the psychic pressure lifted from her, as the great invisible palm released her chest, and she could once again sit up straight in the saddle.
On the ground, lying in a growing pool of his own blood, Elasand groaned, then attempted to raise his head, sensing momentary relief from the psychic onslaught. As he lay, he could see metal-shod feet, at ground level, watched them stepping in the pale dust.
Elasirr meanwhile, did not waste a second, and having dismounted lightly, was now on the ground before the dark one, his two Bilhaar swords flashing pale and deadly in both hands.
Feale leaned his head to the side in an odd human gesture, observing him with amusement, and again smiled. He stood, feet planted apart, and said, “Would you like this duel, Guildmaster? Would it please you to think you died well?”
“My lord!” suddenly came a weak voice of a child from somewhere up above, behind the Qurthe ranks. “My lord, be on your guard, for he cannot be killed! I struck him down once, and he still lives! He is not human, he cannot die!”
Without looking up, Elasirr recognized the voice of the boy-Heir, Lissean Grelias. So, the child had been dragged here, into the thick of battle. Then Hestiam must be here also. Whatever good that would do them.
“I thank you for the warning!” said Elasirr loudly. And then, without any warning of his own, his larger sword streaked forward, and sliced at the body of Feale, entering some resilient darkness at chest level, and just as quickly was retrieved again.
“Ah . . . Strike me again,” slithered the voice mockingly, with pleasure, just as Elasirr watched, incredulous, the gaping wound begin to smoke with thick ebony richness, and close up in the Enemy’s chest.
“Damn you!” spat Elasirr, and again he thrust before him, this time with both blades.
All watched the blades pierce the form of the dark one. The longer blade sliced horizontally, cleanly severing Feale’s neck. For an instant, the head hovered several inches above the body, so that one could see through the slit and all the way to the other side.
And then the head, lips still smiling, descended upon the severed neck, healed instantaneously, and was again whole.
“What are you?” whispered Elasirr harshly.
“What will you have me be?” replied laughing darkness.
Elasirr, breath catching in his throat with the cold beginning of inevitability, said grimly, while circling the form of his Enemy, “I will have you dead. I am not afraid of you, Feale. If it’s fear that makes you invincible, then you have no edge over me.”
Feale, elegant, stood back, moving in a graceful parody of Elasirr’s own Bilhaar dance.
“Fear?” he mocked. “No. Neither fear, nor lack of it matters. And yes, you are fearless . . . even to the last.”
“Is it anger, then?”
“Not even that. Besides, your anger, Guildmaster, is well under control.”
“You think you know me?” hissed Elasirr, taunting the Enemy with a killing smile. “Then why don’t you strike me, at last?”
“As you wish . . .” whispered Feale.
And unexpectedly, he took a step to the side, not toward Elasirr, but toward the form of Lord Vaeste. His black blade of vacuum arose above his head in a single-handed smooth blow. And then he brought it down, in terrible slow motion. . . .
Ranhé cried out, the only one to make a sound as the blade fell. It landed deep and slow, into the lower back of the one who lay at their feet.
Agony! So, this is all, then. . . . This is. . . .
Laelith. . . .
There was one shudder. All things took on one last intense focus.
Laelith!
With one eye, lying face on the side, he took it all in—the ground, and the dust, splattered with ebony drops of blood, softly illuminated by a weakling sun.
Laelith.
And Elasand was motionless and silent, at last.
No!
In Ranhé’s vision, spinning earth and sky.
“No!” exclaimed Elasirr at the same time, a howl of desperate fury, and surged forward madly at the Enemy, no longer thinking, no longer impassive.
But like a mirage, the Enemy shimmered and moved out of reach.
No! Elasand!
Ranhé did not know who it was that was crying. She did not know whether it was she or some other that was voicing the terrible guttural sound from within, as she swung forward from her saddle, dropping her sword (its yellow light extinguished instantly), and came at them, at the bizarre trio out of her nightmare.
No! Elasand!
She was on her knees, having thrown herself forward upon the smooth paved ground of the Markets square, only inches away from the feet of the thing that had struck him, her Lord Vaeste.
She had known all along it would be very likely that he would die in this battle—for he’d had that look of completion, of ending in his eyes. But—not like this.
She looked up, momentarily, and registered, with one part of her awareness, the bloated disk of the dying noonday sun—somewhere high up above.
He will never again see this sun. . . .
There was a dark silhouette with phosphoric alien eyes, looking down upon her, his thin curved lips.
She took hold of the bleeding body, registering the small sharp detail. The broken small links of the chain mail. His raven strands of hair, long and soft (she had never touched them, only now would she know they were soft—locks like silk). Hair, stained with deep black wetness. Instantaneous awareness of all of him. She was leaned over his body, pulling at it with both hands, then lowering herself to lie over him, over the wetness, while the world began to spin all around, imbued with that precise focused awareness. And she just repeated his name, over and over again, mouthing with her lips only, not with her voice, rocking back and forth, while her own blood drained all away from her, drained down somewhere, away from her lower extremities, and into an unspeakable void. . . .
Elasand! Elasand. Elasand . . .
He was dead, and with him, died the City. Suddenly, very clearl
y, nothing mattered anymore.
And she lay upon his corpse, oblivious. She did not care, in that instant, that the one who was Feale raised his demon blade for the second time, and started to bring it down slowly, precisely, upon her own lowered head.
Elasirr cried out for the second time, his voice inhuman.
Suddenly, she felt strong fierce arms grab hold of her, and she was pulled backward roughly, thrust away like a thing of straw. It was all a matter of a heartbeat, as she found herself rolling on the ground, and out of the way of blackness, which in turn came down, and struck another.
The blade had struck another in her place.
Elasirr!
“Gods, no!” she cried. “No! Gods, if you can hear me, if you exist, then no!”
She whirled around, and saw him.
The Guildmaster had gone very still suddenly. He had dropped his blades, his proud Bilhaar blades, so that he could instead take hold of her. . . .
He swayed. And then he came down on his knees. She saw a single focused look of his darkened eyes.
“This . . .” he whispered. “I had seen . . . this . . . come to pass. . . .”
And then he was silent, his head lowered forward, still on his knees, bleeding a few steps away from his brother. He, at least, still lived.
There was a cold wind gathering, pitch black as the void. It grew within Ranhé, first soft with vapor tendrils, then thickening into absolute night. She drew upon it, upon the insanity, folding it within her into a tangible form, and though she was drained, she could still mold it, pour it out from her self. . . . Not color, but—
Blackness.
Ranhé, crouched on the ground, then slowly arose, and stood facing the Enemy.
Elasand . . .
She made it come from her lips, like a soft breath, the darkness—soothing, peaceful dark. So easy to manipulate, for it was a part of her.
It sailed forward, like a kiss on the wind, like strange deathly ectoplasm, only black, and it wound about the form of Feale.
It had drawn his attention.
ElasandElasandElasand. . . .