Dark Magic (67 page)

Puck grabbed up Trev in his arms and hugged him. The other elf women pressed forward to greet him as well.

At first, Brand thought he was witnessing a happy reunion. Things quickly soured as the boy told his tale. They approached Brand as a group then, Puck, Kaavi and Tegan.

“Brand,” Puck said, “they have my wife imprisoned up at the cemetery. I’m going to go get her.”

“What’s that thing?” Trev asked, pointing at the ogre.

“That’s your cousin, dear,” Tegan said. “His name is Ivor.”

Trev stared at her.

“Go Puck,” Brand said. “I understand.”

“But you can’t,” Trev told them.

“Why not, boy?”

“Because there are hundreds of dead-things coming this way. They were chasing me.”

Brand frowned. He opened his mouth to ask what the boy was talking about, when the first of the third wave of Dead poked through the trees and rushed out onto the lane. Moments later, the High Street overflowed with shambling dead. They saw the Living, and came on with great enthusiasm. Troops were pulled down even as they drew their weapons. In moments a wild melee began, and shouts could be heard distantly down in the rest of the town as the wave hit them.

“It’s the third wave!” shouted a militia officer. “Everyone to the High Street!”

Ivor roared and waded forward, thumping dead-things and militia as well, if they got in the way. Smaller beings collapsed before his advance.

Brand looked around and quickly saw that Puck was gone. He grabbed Trev. “Did your father go to the graveyard?” he asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

“What else is up there, boy?”

“Sometimes the King is up there.”

“The King?”

“Yes. Arawn, the King of the Dead.”

Brand nodded and straightened. He gazed at the chaos around him. He could see they
should
win, after losing a portion of the men. But if these waves were to keep coming, they could never hold out forever. They lost men every time, while the enemy were essentially endless, and each man they lost turned into an enemy recruit.

He grabbed Corbin by the shoulder. His cousin whirled around, his eyes wide.

“You take over here,” Brand told him.

Corbin nodded. “Where are you going?”

Brand gestured toward the trees. “To cut the head from the snake,” he said.

Corbin nodded again, but without understanding.

Brand walked into the trees and drew his axe. When one of the Dead shuffled close, he cut it down. A small figure appeared at his side. Brand raised his axe, but did not strike. It was Trev.

“I’ll show you the way,” Trev said, and sprinted up the hill.

Brand followed, and he was surprised that even with the strength provided to him by the axe, he could barely keep up with the child. It was like chasing after one of the Wee Folk.

Chapter Nineteen

The Drake Crypt

Brand marched through trees and thickets with ground-eating strides. He was soon at the edge of the tree cover, and could see the graveyard ahead in the early morning light. Hundreds of graves had been dug open. Dirt stood in mounds everywhere, and there was a matching dark hole for each pile. He saw Puck then, moving toward the caretaker’s shack, which stood in a wooded area at the crest of the hill. The rest of the field was quiet.

Trev appeared at his side. “There’s the crypt, over there,” he said, pointing to a stone archway that led into the hillside.

Brand looked at the boy. He was impressed. This kid didn’t seem afraid. He could not be ten years old yet, but he had a very grown-up attitude. He thought perhaps war did that to children. The young of the Haven had become a harder lot in recent years. They hadn’t grown up innocent and care-free as Brand had, with nothing more frightening than a hungry
Merling to worry about.

He headed for the crypt. He’d never been inside it, not even on a dare as a child. Trev marched beside him. “I’m going to help my father,” Trev told him. “But you should know there are three levels to the crypt. Each one is dirtier and darker as you go down. I’ve met the King on the bottom level.”

“Good luck, Trev,” Brand said. He picked his way through the graves glancing after Trev now and then. He wondered if he should go after the boy and his father, and help them with Mari. He knew if they came to bad end, he would feel guilty because of it. But for him, the stakes were much higher. He had all the living River Folk to think of, not just one family. The sooner he finished matters here, the better.

When he reached the crypt entrance, he noticed it had been forced open. The grate stood swinging on one hinge. He hesitated only a moment before heading down into the cold earth.

When he reached the third level down, he felt a new coldness, one that exceeded the natural cool interior of any cave. A rambling figure in an ancient, tattered robe turned to greet him. Brand met his icy eyes and recognized them.

“Ah, you’ve come at last, axeman,” King Arawn said. “We’ve met before you know.”

“Yes,” Brand said. “On the shoulders of Snowdon. I asked you then not to disturb my Dead—the Dead of the Haven.”

“The Dead were never yours. They were always mine, Lord Rabing.”

“Nevertheless, you have broken your pledge. You are here, disturbing my Dead and my living folk as well. You were once one of us. Why do you not plague the elves, or the Kindred instead?”

King Arawn laughed at that. “Who is to say I don’t?” he asked.

“You have broken your pledge here!”

“Impudence!” said the lich, coming closer. “You dare? My flesh might be dust, but it is still deserving of respect! You are not yet even a King. Your castle lies abandoned and half-built.”

“You are a King of the past, and your Castle Anwyn lies in ruin.”

Brand felt the cold hostility of the other’s gaze. “Do you not know the Black is greater than the Amber?” Arawn said. “Why do you dare challenge me, and thus force me to destroy a kinsman? It was for lust, was it not? For my Queen, my own bride? Tell me about your trespasses, axeman.”

Brand blinked and felt uncomfortable.

“You lecture me about honor,” continued the Dead King, “but you are here to kill me and bed my wife. Such high-mindedness!”

“Why does your Queen do this? Why does she seek challengers to take your Jewel and your crown?”

The lich chuckled. “You are a cagey one. Perhaps you are not completely within her spell. I’m impressed. Most who come after me, once every century or two, do so with crazed eyes. As for my slattern Queen—that is her way. She is a spider who consumes her mates. I have little to do with her now. She was only a trophy to be won and kept, which I have managed to do for centuries now.”

“You were said to be a powerful sorcerer in your day, Arawn. As were all that held the castles of men. You were charged with guarding the Black, not wielding it. What happened?”

Arawn shuffled around Brand, who turned slowly to keep facing the lich.

“We were finely-fleshed in those days!” Arawn said. “I can still taste wine and feel a woman’s flesh with my fingertips—all in my memories now, of course. Each of the Kings in the Dead Kingdoms held a Jewel. We were all wizards, after a fashion. I was given the Black, one of the greatest. I swore upon my sacred honor never to wield the Jewel to raise an army—except to defend myself….”

“Ah,” said Brand, beginning to understand the tale. “So when they came to take it from you…you defended yourself.”

“Yes, even as I do now—from you, upstart.”

“And you send out your unearthly Queen to cause others to challenge you.”

Arawn shrugged. “That is not the way of it. She gets bored with her existence at times. Sometimes it goes further and she wishes to be free of me. She has goaded powerful fools like you into making the attempt in the past.”

Brand considered thoughtfully, “She has been plaguing me for years, really.”

The lich laughed. “She fancies you!”

“My good fortune overwhelms me.”

Brand heard something then. A voice called down from the world of light above. It was a small voice, a child’s voice.

“Brand!” shouted Trev. “My father has been slain!”

“Puck is dead?” Brand asked. He turned around, toward the exit, but it was too late. Morcant stood there, and his shovel was already descending. He struck Brand squarely in the face. Brand sank down, but did not lose consciousness. The axe gripped his mind too strongly for that. He could not see, but he still held onto the haft.

“Kick it away,” Arawn said, coming near.

Brand felt an explosion of pain as a massive boot crunched into his ribs.

“No, no. Kick the axe, fool! Get it away from him.”

Brand felt a tugging. His mind had almost left him, he was barely conscious. But his fingers closed as tightly around the haft of Ambros as he could. He thought there was something else he should do. Then he had it.

He commanded the axe to flare.

The crypt resounded with hissing curses. Still, something tried to pull the axe from his fingers. The smells of acrid smoke filled his nostrils. He thought he heard small footsteps.

“Brand!” cried Trev, “What should I do? I have the rod!”

Brand fought to work his lips. Some of his vision had returned.

“Command them to rest,” he said. “All of them.”

Trev did so, and the two dead-things sank down, as did all the others, all over Cymru. In the Haven and beyond, the Dead fell and stayed low as they should have done from the moment they had died.

* * *

When Brand was able to sit up again, he found the coolness of the crypt refreshing. The chamber was dark, save for the rippling light of his axe which flashed quietly at him, as if in greeting. Brand asked the axe for strength, and it gave it. With a tremendous groan he tried to stand up, but could not. He sat up instead, propping himself against a hard wall of ancient brick. His face was sticky with dried blood and dirt.

Brand heard sobbing somewhere. “Trev?” he asked.

“That half-breed child has defiled my people, axeman,” said a soft voice.

He knew immediately who had spoken. He’d heard her voice in a dozen dreams and evening encounters. It was the Shining Lady.

“What have you done with the boy?” Brand asked.

“What have you done with my husband?” she asked in return.

Brand peered and he saw her then, a ghostly shade in one corner of the crypt. He felt her deathly cold even from here. He realized the sobs he’d heard were from her. She was grieving her fallen husband Arawn. He wondered that one ghost could grieve for the passing of another.

“I did only what you asked me to do,” he said.

“Not yet,” she said, drifting nearer. “You still must take up the Black and master it.”

“I said I would not wield them both. I will not twist their magicks. Only madness awaits me if I try.”

“Then shed the Amber and choose the Black,” she said. “You will find it infinitely more powerful to have an army that cannot disobey you at your back. Imagine! They do not eat, require payment, nor run from battle. You could rebuild your precious Castle Rabing with a workforce that would require nothing and would work tirelessly. You are not limited as Arawn was. He could only use the Jewel fully in defense, as he had sworn.”

Brand thought about it for the briefest of moments. Then he shook his head. “I will not become more of a monster than I already am. I would ask you a question, however. Why is it you never took the Black Jewel for yourself?”

She hesitated. “I do not have the strength to wield it,” she said.

“Oh, but you could,” he said. “I think you are stronger than was that pompous Arawn.”

“Look what it did to its last wielder,” she said.

Brand gazed down at the heap of bones and crusty finery that had once been Arawn, but then he saw Trev curled up and lying in the dust. He fell to his knees beside the boy.

“Trev?” he asked. He touched the other and felt the coldness of his flesh. “I’m so sorry boy. I told you to command it, but I did not tell you to take it. What will I tell Mari? Have I lost her whole family today?”

Trev’s body lay cold and motionless upon the crypt floor. The silver rod still lay in his open hand. Brand reached out with the axe to tap it away from him.

The Shining Lady cackled. Brand wanted to snarl at her, but then the axe and the rod touched, and he felt as if lightning coursed through him. The rod rolled away, making a ringing sound on the brick floor. He almost dropped the axe. He felt to his knees and vomited, such was the agony released from causing two of the sibling Jewels to touch one another.

The shock affected Trev too. The boy convulsed slightly. Brand was glad to see it, for he had thought the child was dead.

The Shining Lady laughed openly now. “You have amused me, axeman. For this, I will let you live to amuse me again.”

“I know why you don’t take the Black,” Brand said. “You fear it. You fear what it might do to you.”

“Yes, I do,” she said.

“Well then, do you have the will to turn it away when it is offered? What if I were to give it to you?”

“You must not, axeman.”

“Always you tempt me and others with their deepest, darkest desires. I would do the same to you now!”

But he realized then that she was not there. She had fled the crypt.

Brand picked up poor Trev and lifted him to his chest. He found the boy was as light as a wisp. He left the Black Jewel where it lay in the gray dust on the lowest floor of the crypt.

Brand carried Trev back up into the daylight. From that day onward, the boy had a haunted look in his eye. He would never speak of what he had seen when he had picked up the Black Jewel and wielded it briefly, before it overwhelmed him.