Infinite Day (57 page)

“Yes. On your solemn oath that they would be safe.”

“Very well. I will set them free.”

“Give me your oath first, Lord-Emperor.” Luke had insisted on that
.

“As you wish.” Nezhuala stood up and raised a hand. “By the Dominion, by the Final Emblem, by the great serpent himself, I promise to accept you as a ransom for your people. They are set free to return safely to their own world.”

“And by the living God, I promise to surrender peacefully to you.”

Merral turned around. “Citizens of Farholme, I would ask you to leave promptly. Go!” With his hands he signaled them to move away. He was gratified to see the soldiers of the team moving out from around the wall and begin guiding the hostages to the doors.

His gaze turned to Lloyd.

“I'm afraid, Sergeant, this seems to be the end of our road together.”

Lloyd just nodded. Merral handed him his gun, then unbuckled his sword and passed it over.

Lloyd's face creased up with emotion. “It doesn't seem right. They could kill you here.”

“They could. But I would only die at home some way. I'm not afraid of death, Sergeant. Not even here.”
I just about believe that too.

He was aware that two soldiers in heavy gray armor were approaching across the wide floor.

“Better go, Lloyd. Leave me the flag.” He paused. “Have a good trip.”

Lloyd shook his head in a gesture of misery and frustration. He pressed a button on the flag and six short legs extended, anchoring it to the floor. “The Lamb, sir.” The words were clotted with emotion.

“The Lamb, Lloyd.”

They saluted each other.

Then, as if he feared showing emotion, Lloyd turned quickly away. Merral watched him go and saw him shepherd the last hostages out through the doorway. There he stopped and turned. Another shorter figure joined him; Merral knew it was Vero and sensed the pair staring at him.

The doors closed with a heavy final clunk.

I am alone
. Merral tried to correct the thought.
The Lord is with me.

He turned and raised his hands in surrender. The two soldiers circled him as if wary about how to tackle him.

Merral glanced up to the podium to see that the lord-emperor was seated and someone else was now alongside him. The other, a man clad in armor, was taller than Nezhuala and had a military bearing. Merral felt certain that it was Lezaroth. The lord-emperor was talking to him, apparently giving him instructions. The other man bowed deeply, turned, and left quickly.

Amid his own fears, Merral felt a new concern.
Lezaroth has been given a mission
.

The lord-emperor rose and pointed to Merral. “You two,” he said in Saratan, “have that man searched and brought here.” As the soldiers on either side of Merral moved toward him, he saw the lord-emperor gesture to his forces on the levels on the walls. “You! Pursue those people. If you can, bring them here alive. If not, tear them to pieces.”

“
Cheat!
” Merral shouted in fury.

“Commander, you understand Saratan! What an accomplishment.” The lord-emperor's tone was sarcastic.

Merral saw that around him, on the levels, the men and creatures were walking, loping, and slithering toward the doors.

“You promised! On solemn oath!” he shouted up at Nezhuala.

The men laid heavy hands on Merral, but he wrestled free.

“Commander, you misunderstand me.” The words from the throne showed no irritation. “I am lord-emperor. I am above petty formalities like oaths. I obey no law. I am—”

There was a flash of golden light and the floor seemed to shake. From the levels came shouts and cries, some of them not human. Merral saw that the lord-emperor had half risen and his intent gaze was focused on a point behind him.

Twisting his head around, Merral saw that a figure stood at the great doors. He was a tall, black-clad man with a broad-brimmed hat, and in his right hand he bore a gleaming golden sword lifted high above his head.

The envoy walked forward into the vault with an unhurried and commanding air. On either side, the men and creatures retreated, edging back up stairways in a confused mass.

“Who is this that enters the Vault of the Final Emblem unbidden?” Nezhuala cried.

The answer came edged with sharp authority. “I do not give my name, but you know my Master and you fear his name.”

“
You
cannot intervene here. This deal is between humans.”

The envoy, now close to Merral, seemed to tilt his head as if staring at the lord-emperor. “So you recognize
some
rules set by the Most High. But only, it seems, those that suit you.” The voice was loud and clear but was without the echo that the gigantic chamber gave to other voices.

“The matter is no affair of yours,” said Nezhuala, but Merral sensed protest in the words.

The envoy stopped, almost within touching distance of Merral. “My Master thinks it is,” he said, and his voice rang with an unshakable confidence.

“How so?” Nezhuala replied.

“This man made you a simple offer. His life for his people's. You accepted the agreement?”

The lord-emperor seemed to consider something before he spoke. “Yes. And then I changed my mind.”

“You made a solemn oath.”

“And what of it?” The tone was haughty.

“By breaking your oath, you have ended the agreement.”

The lord-emperor snorted and waved his hands wide in exasperation. “A technicality.”

“Far from it. The Lord of all—the One who does not lie—is much concerned with statements made on oath. He himself is the Lord of the Covenant. And, as you know, he takes a particular and personal interest in cases where one man acts as a ransom for others.” The words seemed to hang heavy with significance. “In such matters, he will tolerate no violations of agreement.”

“Will he, now?”

“Indeed. And as you have broken the conditions imposed on you by the agreement, I declare that it is now void for both parties. This man is set free.”

The lord-emperor gave a frozen smile. “Very well; set him free. But he will have to fight his way out.” He made a leisurely gesture to the forces aligned around the walls. “He may be the great adversary, but he will find defeating them a tough task.”

The envoy sheathed his sword and then seemed to lean forward slightly. “Indeed. But I have another purpose in being here.”

“What?”

“My presence is an act of grace. The Most High wishes to give you a warning.”

“How kind!”

“Nezhuala, you have been spared over a great length of time, but the King's patience is not limitless. This is the last caution you will get. It is this.” He paused, and when he spoke again his words seem to ring out with an almost physical force. “
If you attack the Assembly, you will be destroyed.
”

Merral saw movement among the forces assembled along the ledges. The men were looking around at each other, and some shifted on their feet as if trying to edge away.
They are nervous.

“Words, words!” Nezhuala's tone was haughty.

“So you say. But the warning is given. And as a sign that the King's words are true and as a token of your destruction, the One who died and rose gives you a sign. He will both deliver this man and judge your might in one action.”

“I reject it.
Thus.
” The lord-emperor spat on the floor.

The envoy turned to Merral and, for the first time, spoke to him. “Stand close to me, servant of the Most High.” Merral moved closer to the envoy.
Am I indeed, against all odds, now safe?
It seemed too great a hope to hold on to, and he found himself reluctant to trust it.

The face, whose features were still shrouded in darkness, turned to him, and he sensed eyes watching him. “Do you remember reading in the Word how, at the command of the Most High, my kind brought loss of life to the enemies of God's people?”

“Yes.”
The angel of death!

“It is a role I have not taken for long ages, but I take it now!” Then the envoy slid the glove off his right hand and a golden light dazzled Merral.

The envoy turned to the left to face one half of the forces assembled on the ledges. They moved uneasily. He whispered soft, incomprehensible words and then stretched out his gleaming fingers and lifted his hand to his mouth. Merral glimpsed pursed cheeks in the darkness. To his side, he saw the flag move and twist as if caught by the breeze, and as it did, he saw the Lamb move as if it was a living thing. And as he tried to focus on it, it seemed to be more a proud and fearsome lion than a lamb. The envoy blew, as gently as a child might over a dandelion head. Merral heard the faintest, most delicate whisper of sound.

In an instant, something like a colossal, unseen hammer struck the men and the creatures. The figures imploded as though sucked into some internal vacuum: armor, flesh, and carapaces all buckling and crumpling. There were screams and shrieks of terror that rose and then died away in a moment, as if all breath was sucked from the lungs. The Krallen collapsed inward as though they had been made of metal foil.

Merral gasped.

Wails of terror rose on the other side of the podium, and the men there began to run away. But in the panicked chaos, they collided with each other and became entangled.

The envoy turned to the right and blew softly again. There were new screams and howls, again cut short. In barely a second, the ledges were covered by the still and crushed forms of Krallen, beasts, and men.

Now the envoy turned his face upward and blew for the third time. And the slitherwings stalled in midflight and tumbled down to smash on the floor with hollow, brittle, cracking sounds.

The envoy raised a dazzling finger, pointed it above the lord-emperor, and drew it downward. With a loud ripping sound, the great banner was slashed from top to bottom, tearing the coiled symbol into two.

A silence descended, broken briefly by a clattering crash as the empty shell of an armor suit tumbled down. Merral knew that he, the lord-emperor, and the envoy were the only beings left alive in the vast room.

“The warning and the sign have been delivered,” said the envoy.

“You wasted your effort,” the lord-emperor replied, and Merral saw he had his hands folded in a gesture of defiance. “I am unmoved. The fleets will depart within days.”

Above his head, Merral was aware of soft, deep, discordant chords beginning to ring out from the cylinders.

Confused and angry, Merral turned to the envoy. “You've left
him
alive!” he protested.

“And why shouldn't I?”

“Because he will kill . . .
thousands
.”

“Far more than that. But what is that to you?”

“You could end the war. Just like that.”

The envoy seemed to scrutinize Merral. “How human! You are delivered and yet you complain! Be warned: to criticize me is to criticize the One who sent me.”

Merral realized that the energy his fears had generated now fueled his bitterness, yet he could not rein in his words. “You could have spared the Assembly! Just taken one more life!”

The envoy put his glove back on his hand. “You are an ungrateful race. Instead of thanking the Most High for his mercy,
you
question his will.”

The sound of the chiming from above was louder now, the notes urgent, angry, and restless.

“It makes no sense!”

But it was Nezhuala, not the envoy, who spoke next. He gave an icy laugh that was almost a cackle. “Go on, Commander! Ask on! That's how I started.” He pointed sharply at the envoy. “Ask him! Query the One who sent him. I'll tell you what you will find. You'll find that he doesn't care for you. You are just little pawns in his great game. Pieces he moves about, hither and thither, just to do his will. You think
I
am merciless, cruel, and capricious?” He pointed upward. “Oh, I'm
nothing
compared to him. Anyway, I'm going. Don't think you will have an easy journey home. I have far more servants than these.”

Then, as if he was making some strange sign, he stamped his foot on the floor, turned, and left.

Merral felt a strange, irregular vibration under his feet.
Like an earthquake; but this is no planet.
The air pressure in the chamber seemed to change. The dissonant chiming began to increase in volume.

“Man!” the envoy intoned. “The Most High keeps his own timing and purposes. He does not take kindly to orders. He, after all, is the
Lord
.”

As the noise grew from above, so the vibration in the floor seemed to increase in strength.
What is happening?

“Now run,” the envoy commanded. “The ‘powers' of this place are rising. Escape while you can. But beware the seeds of rebellion. In this, the accursed Nezhuala speaks truly—you and he have much in common.”

In an instant, he was gone. Merral looked around, seeing that the floor was changing. It was no longer white but translucent.

Suddenly a new fear seized Merral; he was possessed by a dread of something that he could not—or dared not—name.

On impulse, Merral picked up the flag and began to run with it toward the door. As he did, he saw that the floor was turning transparent as if morphing into glass. And beneath it were things that moved and writhed.

Something dark and enormous coiled and uncoiled below him and Merral was reminded of a great fish.
A shark beneath the ice.
He ran faster.

A loud crack was heard, and then another. The floor began to heave up and splinter.

He stumbled on the twisting floor and put out a hand to stop himself falling over. As he did he realized that the floor was not just cracking and becoming clearer. It was thinning rapidly and beneath it was a bottomless void. As Merral pushed himself to his feet he saw that what was beneath was not empty but increasingly full of indescribable shapes.