The Night of the Swarm Page 3

  Something close to panic seized the company. The world was off-balance; the fire was suddenly dying, and a noise like laughter echoed through the ruins. Pazel whirled, and saw the gory head a stone’s throw away. He rushed toward it, calling desperately to the others: but no, it was farther off, almost under the trees. Neeps and Mandric were making for different parts of the forest, pointing and shouting; others were racing back to the burning corpse. Stones, mushrooms, clods of earth, weeds, eggs, boots were hurled into the fire.

  “Hold!”

  Ramachni’s voice cut through the mayhem like a scythe. The distant laughter ceased; the world rebalanced itself. The mage, looking very small, stood beside the mushroom Neda had brought in the first place.

  The party reassembled. Ramachni’s white teeth flashed. “Come here, young sfvantskor, and finish your work. But this time, speak your prayer as if you mean it.”

  Neda hesitated, one hand touching the cheek her master had slapped. “The prayer?” she said.

  “Child,” said Ramachni, “that hand is too close to your mouth.”

  Neda’s hand fell like a stone. Thoroughly unsettled now, she knelt before Ramachni. She put out a hand toward the mushroom, made a fist, and shouted several words in Mzithrini, the language of her faith.

  And suddenly they all saw it: the gaunt, cruel, mud-caked, gore-splattered head. The eyes were closed and the mouth hung wide. Below the chin, Thasha’s cut was remarkably neat.

  “Old Faith prayers are rich in antidemonic patterns,” said Ramachni, “and the oldest and most uncorrupted of them, the songs of Tzi-Haruk and Lisériden, were taken from the guardian-spells laid down in the Dawn War. They have almost gone cold, those ancient spells. But a few embers remain alight.”

  “Our prayers are not hexes, wizard,” said Cayer Vispek sternly.

  “Nor is a bucket a well,” said Ramachni, “although it serves to lift well-water.”

  There came a sharp rasp of steel on steel. Hercól had drawn Ildraquin, his black and ancient sword. With great care he drove the tip of the blade into the severed neck, and lifted the head from the ground.

  “Antidemonics?” he said. “Do you mean to say that Arunis counted demons among his servants?”

  “Perhaps,” said Ramachni, “but Arunis never dedicated himself to the summoning arts; in that discipline Macadra was ever his superior. I think it more likely that he has coaxed a lesser fiend or two into serving him, in exchange for future rewards. Arunis, after all, sought nothing less than godhood, and in his fevered investigations of the several worlds, he found at last a kind of schooling that promised just that. He set out to end life on Alifros for one reason only: because that was the task assigned him, in his third millennium of studies. Those studies he had all but finished. The freeing of the Swarm of Night, and through it the destruction of the world, together comprise his last, horrid test.”

  “His exams,” said Pazel. “Fulbreech called them his exams. It seemed too horrible to be true.”

  “Yet it is,” said Ramachni. “Greysan Fulbreech could never have imagined such a depravity, any more than he could have imagined what would come of pledging himself to Arunis. What he witnessed in the depths of the forest was too much for his weak soul. I think he saw the faces of that deathless circle Arunis hoped to join. The hand that killed Fulbreech was a merciful one.”

  Ibjen’s hand, Pazel thought. The dlömic boy had sworn an oath before his mother: never to fight or even bear a weapon. Fear had not been enough to make him break that oath; but mercy had, in the end. Pazel glanced at the dark river. Was the boy still alive? Had he been swept already into some strange, forbidding world?

  “There should be a scarf,” said Thasha suddenly. When the others looked at her, she said, “You can’t have forgotten. His white scarf. He was never without it on the Chathrand.”

  Pazel remembered: that ratty, worn-out cloth. “Thasha’s right; he never took the blary thing off. But I don’t remember seeing it here. Does anyone?”

  The others shook their heads. Pazel and Thasha looked at each other uneasily.

  “Hercól,” said Ramachni, “take the head to the fire. We have labored long for this day.”

  “Your labor is not done.”

  Everyone cried out: it was the head itself that had spoken, in a voice like moaning wind. The dead eyes snapped open; the dead lips curled in a sneer. Hercól placed both hands on Ildraquin. At the sword’s tip, the knob of flesh and bone was moving, twisting, staring with hatred at them all.

  “Arunis!” cried Ramachni. “We have sent you from this world! Death’s kingdom is your dwelling now. Go quietly; you know the agonies reserved for those who will not.”

  “Death’s kingdom cannot hold me,” said Arunis. “Do you hear, rat-mage? We of the High Circle are death’s masters, not its slaves. We brew death in our stomachs. We spit death where we will. Your own deaths I will prolong beyond the compass of your shabby minds, and every instant will be a symphony of pain.”

  “You have no other window on Alifros,” said Ramachni. “Your body is burned already; this last foul tool will follow. Spit, viper! Spit your curses among the damned, for they are the kin you have chosen.”

  The head’s pale eyes swiveled. “Has your mage called this victory?” it asked the others. “He lies, then. For Erithusmé is dying, dying in the body of that wanton girl.” The eyes flicked in Thasha’s direction. “You have failed. She will never return. And I have done all that was asked of me. I have brought the Swarm of Night into Alifros, and it will sterilize this world, as a doctor does his hands before a surgery. Nothing will be left that walks or breathes or grows beneath the sun. Wait and see if I lie, maggots. You will not be waiting long.”

  “It is true that we are done with waiting,” said Hercól, advancing to the fire. The head writhed and roared. Hercól drew Ildraquin back for the fling—and reeled, almost dropping his sword.

  Where the head had dangled a moment before, the tiny body of an ixchel woman hung impaled. A beautiful woman, writhing in agony. Pazel could not help himself: he cried aloud, and so did several others. The woman was Diadrelu—Dri—Hercól’s lover and their cherished friend. She had perished months ago. They had given her body to the sea.

  A tortured moan escaped Hercól’s chest. Ramachni was on his shoulder in an instant, whispering. Ensyl too raced up Hercól’s side, and out the arm that held Ildraquin. “Put her down, put her down!” she shouted through her tears.

  “Stop!”

  It was Dri’s voice. She could see them. Desperately she waved for Ensyl to be still. Then her eyes moved back to Hercól. “Arunis … being helped … the demon-mage … Sathek.”

  “Sathek!” cried Neda and Cayer Vispek.

  Dri’s face was almost mad with pain. She looked again at Ensyl and switched tongues, falling into the speech of ixchel, beyond the range of human ears. Ensyl nodded, weeping uncontrollably. Then Diadrelu placed a hand flat on either side of Ildraquin and swept them all with her eyes.

  “No quitting,” she said, and pushed herself free.

  The tiny body fell to earth. Hercól lunged, but Ramachni was faster. Pouncing on Diadrelu, he sank his fangs into her side and, with a sharp twist of his body, flung her into the fire. Hercól did not make a sound, but he shuddered, as from a death-blow. Yet even as Diadrelu struck the flames, she vanished. In her place the sorcerer’s head reappeared, mouthing a last, voiceless curse.

  Hercól walked out among the reeds by the river’s edge, with Ensyl on his shoulder. They sat there, half hidden, and their sounds of grief floated softly over the clearing. Thasha pulled Pazel and Neeps into her arms and wept. The tarboys stood numb, holding her between them. Pazel could not say exactly where his own tears had gone. He only knew, as he had that morning in the river, that he couldn’t afford them. Your labor’s not done. Manifestly mucking true. Friends had died, he was still standing. Bring on the next thing, the next kick in the gut.

  “It was her,” Thasha kept repeating. “It was really
her.”

  “Yes,” said Ramachni. “Arunis was using her, of course. But being fearless, she sought to turn his torture to our advantage. Even in death she has not given up the fight.”

  Neda and Cayer Vispek stood gaping. Corporal Mandric shook his head in disbelief. Humans no more cried for ixchel than a dog did for its fleas.

  As for Myett, she raced away from them all up the broken stairs. Eyes dry, thoughts black. She could not bear to think of them looking at her. With compassion, maybe, with forgiveness. She had watched Hercól broken once already, at the moment of Diadrelu’s death—her real death on the Chathrand, which Myett had helped bring about. She had taunted him, called him goat, satyr, sexual freak. All for Taliktrum. All to justify the extremes he was going to, the messianic make-believe, the killing of his rivals, the killing of his aunt.

  Didn’t you know? The question chased her, nipped her heels. Didn’t you know it was false, the way Taliktrum excused his own brutality (I am your deliverer, the one to whom vision is given; I am my own reason why)? Couldn’t you see it in his violence, his fear? After each encounter with Diadrelu he would rage at Myett, or strip and straddle her like a rapist, or worst of all sit quivering alone. Didn’t you know it was a lie? Of course, of course. But she had managed not to know. She kept the knowledge hidden, a black stone in her stomach, until the day that Taliktrum himself could bear the lie no more.

  She understood at last why he had cast her off. Taliktrum had shed family blood. And every glimpse of Myett had reminded him of the deed. It could never be otherwise. Even if he lived, and she found him, somewhere in this vast, vicious world—even then, it would lie between them. She climbed on, heedless of the growing wind, the slickness of the weathered stones.

  Pazel sat staring into the fire. He could smell Arunis burning. It sickened him, and yet he craved the smell. There could never be enough proof that the mage was gone.

  Hercól and Ensyl were still crouched by the river. Neeps was walking up and down with Thasha, who was too distraught to hold still. Dastu sat a few yards from Pazel, likewise studying the fire.

  “Muketch,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to thank you.”

  Pazel turned to him, benumbed. “To thank me.”

  “For what you did on the tower. You saved us, every bit as much as Thasha did.”

  Pazel swallowed. “I killed a man in the process.”

  Dastu shook his head. “Not a man.”

  Pazel sighed and nodded. True enough: the tol-chenni had never had a human mind. It had been born with animal intelligence, and its parents had been the same. But its grandparents, or great-grandparents: Who had they been? Shopkeepers in Masalym? Teachers, maybe? Newlyweds, with dreams for their children?

  Some questions (many questions) were better left unasked.

  “You’ve learned some fighting skills,” said Dastu.

  Pazel shook his head. “Only a little, from Thasha and Hercól. I’ll never be really good.”

  Pazel recalled a time when the compliment would have felt like a gift. He had once thought of Dastu as his best friend among the tarboys, after Neeps. He had delighted, secretly, in the fact that Dastu was pure Arquali, and yet free of the contempt for conquered races that infected so many. He’d adored the older boy. Everyone had: even those who never looked at Pazel or Neeps without a sneer.

  Then Dastu had turned them in for mutiny.

  Of course they were mutineers, Pazel and his friends. They’d met in a lightless room in the bowels of the Chathrand, to plan their takeover. Their true enemy was Arunis, but there had been no way to fight him without defying Captain Rose.

  Pazel looked pointedly at Dastu. “You still think we should be hanged?” he asked.

  Dastu looked away. “I’m loyal to Arqual. I swore an oath to my Emperor, and to the Secret Fist.”

  “That’s a yes, is it?”

  The older youth shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what I think. Not to anyone. Pitfire, it hardly matters to me. Listen, Muketch: we have to toss the Nilstone in the River. Not on Gurishal. Right here. I know what Ramachni says about poisoning a well. But we have no choice, no other chance. And think of it this way.”

  He scooped up two handfuls of dirt. “Suppose we set off for Gurishal—somehow.” He let one handful sift through his fingers. “The Stone remains in Alifros. The Swarm grows, the world is destroyed. That will happen. We’ll struggle on awhile, then we’ll fail, and everything will go to pieces. Look around and tell me I’m wrong. Look at us, Muketch; look at your leg. Think of where we are.”

  “Denial is death,” murmured Pazel.

  The other boy looked up sharply. “Rin’s truth, that is.” He opened his other hand, gazed at the sandy earth. “But in another world, who can say? Maybe they’re stronger, maybe they have great lords or wizards who’ll know what to do with the Nilstone. All we know is what happens if it stays here.”

  “That’s all we know,” Pazel agreed.

  Encouraged, Dastu leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Bolutu’s dead set against it, just like the mage. But there’s one good thing about being here, in this godsforsaken wilderness. You know what I mean. We outnumber them. We humans outnumber the dlömu, and if we know what’s good for us we’ll stick together. Do you understand me, Muketch?”

  Pazel looked at him a moment. “Yes, I think I do. And just now I was thinking of what you said that day, when I asked why you’d betrayed us. You told me to save my breath. That nothing I could say would make a difference to you, because you had your loyalties straight. Well, so do I, and they begin with Ramachni. Without him Arunis would have beaten us a long time ago.”

  “Arunis nearly killed us last night. Because of Ramachni.”

  Pazel shook his head. “Despite him. I won’t help you, Dastu. And you’re not getting near that mucking Stone. We’ll carry it to Gurishal, somehow. And you know what else? You’re here for a reason. Doesn’t Ott always boast about leaving nothing to chance? He sent you along to help us on this mission, not to hinder us. Are you going to obey him or not?”

  Dastu let the second handful of earth dribble to the ground. When his hand was empty, he looked up at Pazel. His eyes were bright and accusing.

  “You still don’t see it, do you? We’re trapped here. We’re going to die in this place. We nearly killed ourselves getting here and now we are mucking buried alive.”

  Hercól and Ensyl came back to the group around the fire. “My mistress has not finished the dark journey,” said Ensyl.

  “Not finished?” said Big Skip. “What do you mean, by the Blessed Tree? Is she dead or not?”

  “Her body died,” said Hercól, “but her spirit has yet to pass into death’s kingdom. She is holding herself back in order to help us. All this time she has lingered in some strange place between the lands of light and darkness.”

  “In Agaroth,” said Ramachni. “The Border-Kingdom. I have walked those dark hills myself, long ago in my youth. Many linger in Agaroth, hoping to finish some deed in this world, or because they fear the next.”

  “Ensyl,” said Thasha, “did Dri say anything more, in your tongue?”

  “Yes,” said Ensyl. “She said Arunis was furious that he’d been tricked by Erithusmé.” She glanced at Pazel. “You heard as well, didn’t you?”

  Pazel nodded. “She said that he had done everything he could to bring the Stone to Gurishal—until he learned that we could get rid of it there—and that now he’ll do everything he can to stop us from taking it to that island.” Pazel looked at Ramachni, shaken. “He learned the truth here in the forest, didn’t he? Maybe with the Nilstone’s aid. And Fulbreech overheard. But what if he hadn’t? What if he’d died before we found him? We’d still have no idea where to take the Nilstone. Credek, we’d have no chance at all.”

  “What if Fulbreech lied?” asked Lunja.

  “Excellent question!” said Mandric. “That boy was more crooked than a back alley in Ulsprit. What if he decided to stick it to us one last time?”

  �
�I don’t think he lied about Gurishal,” said Neeps.

  The others looked at him. “Oh, yes,” said Dastu, “your famous hunches. Your nose for lies.”

  Neeps glared at Dastu. “It’s not a blary hunch,” he said. “Think it through. If you can’t reach the world of the dead from Gurishal, then what did Dri mean about Arunis being tricked?”

  “If, if, if!” said Dastu. “If that was really your crawly friend who spoke to us, if she has any idea what Arunis is really up to. If the sorcerer didn’t tell Fulbreech exactly what to say when we found him.”

  “Mage,” said Cayer Vispek, turning to Ramachni, “now that the sorcerer’s body is burned, how much power remains to him?”

  “In this world?” said Ramachni. “Not much, I hope. But I am troubled by that missing scarf; we must search the ruins again before we leave.”

  “There’s one more thing,” said Ensyl. “Dri said that Arunis spoke the truth about the Swarm.”

  Ramachni’s eyes darkened. “This much is true: that the Swarm is drawn to death, and grows stronger when deaths are numerous. It belongs in the Border-Kingdom, patrolling that great and final Wall, beyond which stretches the land of the dead. Where the Wall crumbles, the Swarm holds back the dead, lest they flood into living lands and despoil them. That is its purpose: a vital purpose indeed. But it was never meant to be in the living world, or to encounter living beings, and here its work can only bring disaster. It will fall upon death, immobilizing the souls of the fallen. But when it falls upon the living, they too shall die—and feed the Swarm. The cycle can only accelerate, you see: with each death, the Swarm will grow stronger. Unless we rid the world of the Nilstone, the Swarm will come to blanket earth and sky, and smother every living thing beneath its pall.”

  “But Ramachni, this makes no sense!” said Bolutu. “Why should the Swarm have such power here? I have read many treatises on magic, including your own. The Swarm should be weak here in Alifros, if its power comes from elsewhere.”

  “Not while the Nilstone remains in this world,” said the mage. “You see a dark sphere, Belesar, but the Stone is also a puncture wound, and it is through that wound that the Swarm’s power floods into our own.”