Chains of Mist (43 page)

“Obviously,” said Roger. It wasn’t, at least not to him, but he wasn’t interested in prizing out all the details.
“Are we done here?”

Talan looked pained. “I don’t think you understand the importance of what will happen on Espir—”

“Oh, I understand. I understand perfectly. I just don’t care.” Roger stood, facing the old man. “It’s that simple—I don’t care. I’ll do whatever it is that I’m supposed to do, because I’m already here and it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to leave. But don’t ask me to care.” Roger felt his voice growing heated, but there was still no emotion behind it. No anger, no bitterness—he was simply stating facts. “This is your mission—it ain’t mine. I don’t have one anymore. Since we met, I’ve asked some questions you didn’t want to answer, made you explain things that you wanted to just leave as they were. I bet you wanted a servant who didn’t question you, who simply played by your rules and did as he was told. Well, guess what—you got your wish. Congratulations.”

Roger’s outburst seemed to stun Talan. For several seconds, the two men neither moved nor spoke. Finally, despair and sadness settled across the old wizard’s weathered face. “I never wanted a servant, Roger,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Once again, Roger knew that the old man spoke the truth. But once again it didn’t matter.
Nothing does, anymore
. “Maybe not. But now you’ve got one. And you’d better be sure you’re ready to use him.”

Roger didn’t wait for Talan to respond. With those words still hanging in the air, he turned and walked away.

* * * *

A short time later, one of the Blood Legion warriors, a stocky, female Florca, appeared and commanded Roger to follow her. So he followed, barely watching where he was going, mechanically putting one foot in front of the other. Talan led them out of the ship, moving quickly and confidently. They soon came to a grove in which nothing grew, and the grass beneath their feet was replaced with shards of white stone. At the far end of the grove was a mouth in the mountain, a gaping hole from which sighed an aura of stale air. Talan walked up to the tunnel opening, but he did not go in. Instead, he gestured, and three of the Blood Legion warriors entered first. Talan followed them into the tunnel. Roger remained motionless, until he felt a sharp prod in the small of his back, and a rough voice growled, “Inside.” Without a word, Roger complied, continuing on into the dark corridor without hesitation, without fear.
In, out—who cares? If they want to go inside, I’ll go inside.
The final three red-garbed warriors followed after Roger, so that the Legion formed a sort of honor guard around Roger and Talan.

As they walked, Roger gradually became aware of a dull pain in his hand. He glanced down at the ring of black stone fused to his third finger. At that sight, the memories came flooding back—the strange alien Fa’ix, the chance meeting that Roger knew now had been anything but accidental, the meeting which had set him on the path that had eventually led him here. The path that had eventually led him to the truth that he now wished he had never found. A
few weeks ago, I had too few memories, and now I find that I have far too many.
Roger heard again the alien’s soft, wearied voice: “
To that end, I have something for you. Something to…illuminate the way.
” He felt a sour taste in his mouth and a rush of bitterness came over him.
Well, she got that part right. Without the ring, I never meet Talan, I never come to Espir, I never learn that the truth I’ve spent five years looking for is not a blessing, but a curse. A terrible curse.
“
Illuminate the way
”
—oh yes. The way straight to hell.

That last thought, Roger decided, was fitting. His mind and soul now dwelt in a symbolic underworld, while every step he took carried him further towards a physical one. Down, down, down, into the very bones of the world.
And what monster awaits us at the bottom? For there must be one; even if Talan had not said so, I would know. It is the universal truth, the inescapable reality of all life. I know it; I have seen it.

And now, I am living it.

My memories, which were once dark with emptiness, are now dark with the truth. And in all dark places, there are monsters.

-21-

As they moved further towards into the heart of Nembane Mountain, Drogni could feel the peak’s power pressing down upon him, a tangible force emanating from the cold stone. It reminded Drogni of being on a high-gravity planet, where every movement was slightly more taxing than it ought to be—ironic, given that Espir’s gravity was less than Tellaria’s. For now, the effect was negligible, but Drogni suspected that it would continue to intensify as they drew nearer to their destination.
Which’ll make killing that bastard tougher—but not impossible. By the gods, not impossible.

Beside him, Makree was silent, his eyes focused on the tunnel ahead of them. He kept varying his pace, accelerating for several seconds and then abruptly slowing down. It was irritating and distracting, but Drogni didn’t say anything. He reminded himself that Makree was convinced that he was walking towards his death.
Seems like he can’t decide between rushing towards it and running away from it.
Drogni had known a soldier once who had—jokingly—asked a fortune-teller on what day he would die. The seer had given him an answer, and as that day drew nearer the soldier—a sworn skeptic of all the mystic arts—had begun to wonder if the foretelling might actually be true. He had become more and more nervous and distraught. Four days before the day the fortune-teller had predicted, the soldier had died in an explosion because he had, in his anxiety, misread his instruments and flown his fighter through a stealth mine. Several years before this, the fortune-teller had been proven a hoax, but the soldier had convinced himself that the prophecy was still true.
Fear of death can make a person do crazy things. If I had a chance to find out the day I would die, I’d refuse. No one should know too much about his own destiny.

They walked without speaking for over an hour. Occasionally, the tunnel forked, branching off into two or three identical-looking paths. Each time that happened, Makree immediately chose a route and headed down it without hesitation or comment. He seemed very sure of himself, and Drogni never stopped to question him. Instead, he merely took care to mark their path with a pulseknife, carving arrows in the stone at each fork.
For Forgera, assuming he makes it this far. Assuming he picks the same entrance as us. Assuming way too many things.

They had just passed one of the forks when Makree suddenly froze and raised his hand in warning. Slowly, his head swiveled, taking in the ceiling, the walls, the floor. His other hand drifted towards his pistol.

Across Drogni’s back,
Ss’aijas K’sejjas
began to shake. A faint buzz rippled out from the Mari’eth blade. Slowly, Drogni reached back, grasping the hilt…

The air around them exploded into motion.

Claws of shadow sprang from the stone walls, cruel talons ripping towards the Tellarians. Drogni ducked instinctively, rolling forward, and as he came to his feet he unsheathed
Ss’aijas K’sejjas
in a single dazzling streak. Up went the blade, then down, slashing through the ghostly arms. He carved his way towards Makree, whose par-gun was having no effect on the apparitions. With each swing of the Mari’eth sword, he severed another of the shadowy limbs, until suddenly they retreated, disappearing back into the walls without a trace.

Drogni reached Makree and extended a hand to help him to his feet. “You okay?”

Makree’s eyes were wide, staring past Drogni. “Not…over…” he gasped. “
More…
”

As he spoke, a low rumbling suddenly filled the air, and the ground began to shake. Cracks appeared in the ceiling, and rivulets of pulverized stone rained down around them. Drogni swiveled, blade held to attack, but his night-vision enhanced sight could detect nothing. Just blackness, as far as the eye could—

And his eyes widened as he realized the truth.
Not nothing…everything…

The enemy was all around him, it filled the very air itself—an insidious cloud of tangible oblivion, formless yet terrifying. Unlike before, no limbs of shadow reached out to ensnare them—there was nothing about it that remotely suggested a definite form. It was simply
everywhere
, as if someone had taken a black dye to the air. It filled every crevasse, every crack, wall to wall, floor to ceiling.

For a moment, the formless shadow was still, then it suddenly erupted. It swept towards Drogni, an implacable wall of darkness, and he braced himself for impact—

A ripple of power swept through Drogni’s arms as the darkness collided with the blazing brightness of
Ss’aijas K’sejjas.
Drogni tried to swing the blade, to slash through the shadows as he had done moments earlier, but he found himself immobile. The light from the sword flickered, and for a moment it seemed as though the shadow had won, but then the weapon blazed anew. Abruptly, the darkness dissipated, retreating before this brilliant beacon of power. Drogni suddenly felt the full weight of the Mari’eth sword in his arms, as whatever force had been holding him imprisoned vanished. For several moments, he remained standing, holding the sword aloft in case a third attack was forthcoming. Finally, he felt Makree’s hand on his shoulder and heard the Sergeant Major say, “It’s over, Admiral. It’s over.”

Drogni relaxed--and nearly collapsed as sudden exhaustion swept over him. “Is it gone for good?”

For a few moments, Makree did not reply. “No,” he said finally. “These manifestations are random, sporadic. It is impossible to predict when or where they will appear.” He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “The labyrinth of tunnels within this mountain is vast, and the power of G’Char does not manifest frequently. It is unlikely that we will have another such encounter…but I cannot be sure.”

Drogni grimaced.
Not the answer I would’ve liked, but an unpleasant truth is better than a pleasant lie.
“What was that thing?”

“A guardian—no, that is the wrong word. It is a physical manifestation of the power of G’Char. The magic that resides here is so powerful, so overwhelming, that it cannot always be contained; sometimes, it…
leaks.
You have felt it already; a thickening in the air, a constant pressure as you walk, growing ever stronger? That is G’Char. It is all around us. When the concentration passes a certain threshold, the power manifests.” Makree looked suddenly troubled. “But it should not have attacked us. The Planets of G’Char are not inherently good or evil—their magic is the magic of neutrality, of chaos. They need no defenders; the safeguard of G’Char is that any insufficiently powerful person who attempts to harness its energies will be destroyed by them, and anyone with that much ability would defeat any guardians as easily as you did. Even in places where G’Char did manifest, those emanations should not be malevolent. Unless…” His tone grew suddenly wondering. “Could it be? Impossible…and yet it
must
be…”

Something in Makree’s voice made Drogni go cold. “Must be what?”

“Corruption—corruption of power. The enemy has been here for days—his aura must have infected the neutrality of G’Char, staining it with his darkness. It is the only explanation that makes sense…and yet it cannot be…”

“Why not? That sounds right to me.” Drogni frowned. “That’s what happened to the Traika, right—something about the mountain’s aura making them turn evil? And I saw it in their eyes, too—”

“Yes, that’s right.” Makree blew out a worried breath. “But there should be no corruption
here
. The concentration of neutral energy is too great. To infect the Traika, the enemy’s darkness needed only to pass
through
G’Char, which any magical aura would do easily, since the mountain’s energies are dormant in their natural state. For the corruption to be
here
,
inside
the boundaries of G’Char…” He shook his head. “That means that the enemy is stronger than I thought. Stronger than I had believed possible.”

There was a tremor of despair in Makree’s voice, and for a moment Drogni felt the Black General’s dark mood spread to him. He quelled it firmly, reminding himself that he had nearly beaten Rokan Sellas the last time they’d fought face to face. “So what? So maybe that means he’s a little harder to kill. But I swore to kill that bastard, and I will. Rokan Sellas will die—”

“No!” Makree’s voice was suddenly vehement. “Don’t you see? To corrupt the aura of a Planet of G’Char—to overpower the existing presence of power—that requires a strength of magic that no ordinary mortal could possess without being torn apart by it. You are still thinking about Rokan Sellas as if he is just a man, and that is a mistake. You may not be
able
to kill him…because he may not be able to die.”

It took a moment for Drogni to process what Makree had said, a feeling he was becoming increasingly used to. When he did, his first reaction was shock, followed by anger. “I’m warning you, soldier,” he growled. “Don’t
ever
say something like that to me again, you hear? I swore to kill him—more than once, over the years—and that means I will. And that is all there is to it. That is all there ever was. Me, and him…and finishing what I should have finished fifteen years ago. Understand?”