Infinite Day (115 page)

“Margrave, kill them all!” Nezhuala shouted. “Start with D'Avanos. I wanted him to see the snake as he rises triumphant, but now I don't care.”

As though in a dream, Merral saw Lezaroth loom over him. Blood trickled from a distorted nose and deep gashes across his face. Despite his agony, Merral rejoiced that Anya had hurt the man.

Lezaroth looked at the bloodied sword he bore and let it drop to the floor. Then he knelt down and put his large fingers round Merral's neck. Slowly he began to tighten his grip. Merral tried to move his hands but couldn't.

Merral saw something green move into his field of view.

“The Allenix!” Nezhuala cackled. “The Allenix! She wants to join in. Go on! Increase his pain.”

Betafor, the Final Emblem gleaming on her side, picked up Lezaroth's cast-aside sword with her long fingers.

“You can never trust intelligent machines, D'Avanos. On that, the Assembly was right.”

Merral saw Betafor bound close, the sword swiveling in her hands.

His breathing was difficult now. Lezaroth's face was hanging over him, the dark eyes wide with remorseless fury.

On the edge of his vision, he saw the silver blade flash out and braced himself for more pain.

But it didn't come.

Instead, a spasm of agony crossed the bloodied face above him. Lezaroth gave a terrible, coughing cry, and the hands fell away from his neck. As Merral struggled for breath, Lezaroth gave an awful moan and blood oozed from his lips. He fell away, and Merral glimpsed the blade thrust right through his chest.

“Allenix! You've killed my margrave!” There was shock and anger in Nezhuala's voice. “Why?”

Merral saw Nezhuala shake the silver scepter and saw Betafor cower before him. “
Why?
”

She looked up at the lord-emperor. “They were . . .
friends
.” On her tunic the Lamb and Stars shone out.

The scepter swung down once, twice. Betafor disintegrated in a cloud of green splinters and spurts of silver liquid. The tunic collapsed over the fragments.

Merral was staring at her remains and adding guilt to his pain and misery when he became aware that Anya had crawled next to him. Her face was bloodied, and she dragged herself painfully along.

“You look terrible,” he said and realized he was delirious.

She reached out and took his hand. “You don't look much better,” she mumbled.

Suddenly there were black boots beside Merral's face, and he looked up to see, towering over him, the figure of the envoy.

“She's going to die,” he said to him.
And so am I
.

“Only if she hurries.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“Don't worry about dying. Something far more serious is about to happen.”

“That . . . doesn't make any sense either.”

Beneath the now transparent floor, dark shadows moved with a frenzied urgency.

The envoy stepped back as Nezhuala walked over. He bent down over Lezaroth's body and pulled the sword out. He stared at it with disgust and threw it away. Then he shook his head and kicked the corpse. “A failure, my margrave.”

He walked to Merral and squatted down next to him. “D'Avanos, you realize you have now had the margrave killed twice? Impressive, but not really enough.” Merral recognized the look of triumph on his face. “But it's irrelevant. The boundary is almost breached and the powers will soon seize you. You know this is happening all across the cosmos? In every world hell is appearing. Reality is changing everywhere. You weren't really very good as the great adversary, were you?” He sniggered.

“No,” Merral whispered.

The envoy stepped forward. “Here, I ought to make a point.” Although his voice was quiet, it seemed full of an extraordinary firmness.

“
You?
Why don't you go and leave us? The baziliarchs will soon enjoy playing with you for eternity.”

“There is an issue here.” Merral was struck by the strange tone.
It is almost as if he is amused
. “You see, there
is
a great adversary. And you were right to fear him. But it is not this man.”

Nezhuala started, straightened up, and looked at the envoy. “What do you mean?”

A good question.

“Merral D'Avanos is not—and never was—the great adversary. His destiny was only to distract attention from the true great adversary, your real opponent.”

Distract?

The envoy turned to Merral. “I hope you aren't too disappointed.”

“No.”
I mean that. If Anya and I weren't mortally wounded and surrounded by the dead and dying, I'd find it quite funny
.

“Then who is it?” Nezhuala asked with barely concealed panic.

The envoy turned to him. “Patience. I'll tell you in a moment.” Then he stooped down and put his hand under Merral's back. “Let me help you both sit up.” The envoy lifted Merral into a seated position. He was aware that his knee was a bloodied mess and his left shoulder cracked and grated, yet he felt no pain. Then the envoy did the same with Anya.

“
Who
is it?” Alarm showed on Nezhuala's face.

“A man who, by his prayers, has won battles; and who now, by his own blood, deals you a deadly blow.”

Nezhuala stared at him with a fearful suspicion. “Who?”

The envoy gave a strange smile and then looked toward where Jorgio was lying barely a handbreadth away from the figures sliding past. As Merral watched, he saw Jorgio's bloodied forefinger stretch out onto the leisurely scrolling figures and make a single slow flick downward so that one of the symbols dripped blood. As the formula slid on toward the right-hand cylinder, he realized that what had been a minus sign had now become a plus. The hand fell still.

“
Him?
That old cripple?” Nezhuala's voice was agitated.

“Yes.”

Ape suddenly jumped up and pointed, making a squealing noise.

“And I'm afraid,” the envoy said in an almost apologetic tone, “he's just undone everything.”

“Stop it, Ape!” cried Nezhuala. “Stop the process!”

Merral watched the altered symbol slide away into the cylinder. Ape's despairing gestures told their own story.
It is too late
.

“He's stopped it,” Anya gasped. “Jorgio stopped it.”

“Oh, no,” said the envoy. “He has done far more than just stopped it. Things are going to get interesting. But I have one task first.”

The envoy ran silently across the glassy floor to where Delastro stood, looking this way and that, his green eyes wide with fear.

Merral saw the envoy stand before him and extend an open hand. Something was said between them, but to Merral the words were inaudible. Delastro stared at the offered hand, shook his head, and stepped back.

Without warning, the floor behind him melted, and a leathery hand with long, spidery black fingers emerged and grabbed his heel. The envoy reached out his hand again, but now Delastro, screaming, slid backward into the growing hole.

The sound faded away as the hole in the floor closed. The envoy walked back to Merral and shook his head. “He was offered a way of escape, but he failed to take it.” There was sorrow in his words.

In front of them, Nezhuala and Ape were desperately struggling with the controls of the wheeled box.

The stone floor shook, as if an earthquake had struck. Rustling and rattling came from the baziliarchs high up above the windows.
Was it nervousness?

“Look!” Merral exclaimed. On the far wall behind the throne, the dark red color was sinking back down and the green was flowing back over it.

Nezhuala and Ape saw it too and panicked.

“Envoy, what is happening?” Merral asked.

“Nezhuala is right; the realms are being united. But not as he, or his master, foresaw.”

Now the darkness in the room lifted, and on the wall behind the throne, the diagram changed without warning. The red area was still sinking fast, but at the top, a zone of bright gold had appeared and, in the center, seemed to be funneling downward.

“The gold?” Merral inquired.

“Can you guess?”

“No.”

The envoy smiled. “It's always puzzled me how little attention you people have paid to the possibility of there being a third realm. It's clearly mentioned in the Word.”

“
Above-Space?
” Merral felt a sense of anticipation growing in him. “I've heard the speculation. They said . . . it might be a way of describing heaven.”

“What they said was right. Now watch.”

Nezhuala was looking upward with a look of horror. High above them in the darkened sky, a point of light had appeared.

There was a new shrieking and rattling from the walls as if someone had disturbed the nest of some monstrous birds. Merral saw that the floor beneath him was now opaque again.

“The sun! Look at the sun!” Anya cried, and her excitement was almost childlike.

Merral stared at the dulled disk of the sun to see that the line that had bisected it was breaking up. In seconds, the Blade of Night buckled in the middle. The fractured central segments flew outward, and for the briefest of moments, its wreckage made an unmistakable cross against the darkened sun. Then the blade collapsed entirely into a cloud of debris and vanished.

“Now I have another duty,” the envoy said and seemed to stand up on tiptoe. Then he shouted, but there was no hoarseness in the shout, only a rich, triumphant, musical beauty.

“The first message was the triumph of the Assembly. The second is this: the triumph of the King. The great battle is won; the last war is over! Now is the time long prepared! Now is the time for the Return, the Judging, and the Remaking!”

From above the windows came despairing cries and rattles of terror, and then six brief flares of lurid flame.

The baziliarchs are gone
. Merral saw Nezhuala throw away the crown and scepter.

Looking up, Merral saw that light was growing as if day was breaking directly overhead. On the wall he saw that the gold had spread further down at the expense of the green.

Now the envoy took off his hat and threw it away. His face became radiant, and his coat opened. Light poured from him; Merral had to turn away from the brightness.

“Rise!” the envoy said, and Merral was abruptly aware of strange changes in his body. His shoulder moved back into place; his knee seemed to be manipulated by an unseen hand. He took a tentative step and then another; he realized to his astonishment that he felt fine.
No, more than fine!
In one glorious instant the tiredness, the sadness, and all the dirt and evil of war fled from him.

It seemed to him that the air itself thickened as though turning into solid light.

Anya rose tentatively, grunted in pleased surprise, and stretched her arms out. Merral reached to wipe the drying blood off her face, but it vanished before he could touch it.

Ape had collapsed, twitching, on the ground, but Nezhuala was dancing around madly. Merral saw that he was trying to stab himself with Lezaroth's sword but the blade kept bouncing off him.

Seeing Merral, he ran over and offered him the sword. “Kill me, D'Avanos! As a favor.
Please!
” Merral had never seen such fear in a man.

The envoy shook his gleaming head. “You could not, even if you wished to. As of a few moments ago, death has ceased to operate. Here and everywhere.” He turned to Nezhuala. “You are beyond physical death now. You must endure the Lamb's wrath, now and eternally.”

The man gave a wide-mouthed scream and fled to the edge of the chamber, where he attempted to hide in the shadows that were visibly ebbing away.

The envoy gazed after him. “He ran from death all his long life; now, when he needs it, he can't find it.”

The light from above was growing ever brighter now, and Merral saw a movement nearby on the floor. Lloyd was stirring.

Almost speechless with joy and wonder Merral stared at the sight. “But . . . he was dead.”

The envoy smiled. “He was. But death is over. The dead are raised.”

“Of course,” Merral said, struck by the way a truth he had always seen as distant and incomprehensible was now actually taking form.

Lloyd groaned, stood up, and began to pat his chest. “What happened? I must have been knocked out.” He looked around, his eyes widening. “Did I miss something?”

Merral heard himself laugh. “Only the beginning of the end of the world.”

He heard voices and turned to see Ethan helping Andreas to his feet. Merral wondered if he had imagined their executions, but when he saw Andreas gingerly feel around his neck and then laugh with merriment, he decided he hadn't.

“Jorgio!” Anya cried, and Merral turned to see the man stir, as if awakening from heavy sleep. He shook himself slowly and ran his cautious hands over his body. Then, beaming with incredulity, he stood up.

The air was now full of light, as if it were made up of billions of luminous particles. Merral saw that the light seemed to penetrate the floor around his feet, almost physically descending into the ground.

Merral heard an extraordinary laugh and saw Jorgio staring at his hands with wonderment and hilarity. He flexed his shoulder, and then his flesh straightened, and in an instant, the warping of his body was gone. The big man stood there, arms extended in perfect symmetry. “Well, praise his name!”

Merral ran over and hugged him, and joyful laughter echoed between them.

“I think there are other surprises,” the envoy added. “Look!”

They turned to see that the pile of fragments that had been Betafor was moving, sliding together, and coalescing. The restored creature stepped clear of the tunic, stood up on all fours and, rather shakily, stared around. “Core systems back online after total system damage,” she intoned. “Diagnostics indicate . . .” She flicked her tail in confusion.