The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within (32 page)

Morgin awoke in his bed in his suite of rooms high in Castle Decouix. He was alone, and surprisingly enough alive, and he felt much better than he should. He tested his nose where the Kull had butted him; a little sore, but not terribly so. And the cut on his hip seemed almost healed. He wondered if the memory of crushing Valso’s throat was nothing more than a hallucination.

He climbed out of bed, dressed, then decided to test Valso’s claim that few doors were barred to him. He stepped out into the hallway, passed the two Kulls standing guard there, and began strolling down the hall. They fell into step behind him and followed at a discrete distance.

It appeared he’d arisen a bit earlier than the rest of the castle’s inhabitants. He found the kitchen with the cook busy preparing breakfast. She told him they’d be awake shortly, were probably already awake but were bathing and dressing and doing the things nobility did to make themselves presentable. Morgin talked her into giving him breakfast then, and with the two Kulls standing guard over him he ate in silence.

He explored some of the castle itself, wandered through the stables and the smithy, checked out the kennel, though in the back of the kennel he found a barred door through which he could not pass. But as he tested the door he sensed something beyond it that had the taste of the netherlife to it. He paused at the door and wondered at that, and the silence of his thoughts filled with a faint and distant sound, as if he heard the cry of an animal, or perhaps that of many animals together, and it sounded something like “skree.”

The dungeons were also barred to him, though that didn’t surprise him. Mostly, he wanted to avoid Valso. He’d had enough of the Decouix prince, and he wanted some privacy. And oddly enough, he’d grown accustomed to the two Kulls that were his constant shadows, and their presence no longer intruded on that privacy.

Late that morning, after exploring most of the castle, he was on his way back to his suite when a nearby door opened, a servant stepped into the hallway, turned and faced back through the open door, bowed and said, “Yes, Lady Xenya.” The servant closed the door and walked away.

On impulse Morgin rapped politely on the door. An old matron answered it, the kind of woman mothers preferred as chaperones for their daughters. “Yes?” the woman asked.

Morgin said, “Tell the Lady Xenya the Elhiyne would like to see her.”

The old woman frowned, looked at him unhappily, then curtsied and said, “Yes, Your Lordship,” and closed the door. A few moments later she returned and admitted him to a large sitting room containing Xenya seated on a long couch and a young man standing near a hearth.

“What do you want?” Xenya demanded.

Morgin shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to talk to you. You don’t seem to like Valso.”

“Be that as it may,” she said harshly, “I like you even less. At least he doesn’t rip men’s throats out with his own teeth.”

“Xenya!” the young man said. “He had no choice.”

The young man stepped forward and extended a hand to Morgin. “I am Alta et Vodah. Xenya’s brother. And you must be AethonLaw et Elhiyne.”

Morgin shook his head. “I’m no longer of the House of Elhiyne.”

Alta shrugged. “The talisman, eh? But I’m told it’s lost.”

Morgin looked at the young man carefully. “I’m still an outlaw, without magic, and eventually Valso will kill me.”

“I wasn’t there yesterday,” Alta said, “but I heard about it, and the timbre of Valso’s voice is a bit different this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, you almost killed him.”

Morgin shook his head. “When I woke up this morning I thought it was all a hallucination.”

Alta shook his head emphatically. “Oh no. It was very real. Valso’s just playing his games with you. He used his own magic to heal himself, though as I say his voice has changed, and he also worked very hard to heal you. Then he gave everyone instructions that no one will speak of the matter in your presence. Be careful. He likes to play with your mind.”

“Did you get what you came for?” Xenya demanded angrily. “If so, please go.”

Alta threw an arm about Morgin’s shoulders and escorted him to the door. “Don’t pay attention to her. She has this romantic idea a fight should always be by the rules of a duel, all clean and neat, though you were a bit bloodthirsty yesterday.”

Out in the hall Morgin hesitated. Alta had said he’d had no choice, but he did have a choice. He was going to die anyway, so he could have just let Valso’s Kull cut him down. But he’d been too frightened to do anything but fight, and now he felt unclean.

Morgin managed to avoid Valso most of the day, but late that afternoon six Kulls came for him. They escorted him out to the practice yard, and seeing the circle of onlookers already formed, and the lone Kull standing at its center with Salya and Valso, and the pile of old, derelict blades on the ground to one side, a knot formed in the pit of Morgin’s stomach.

“I enjoyed that contest yesterday so much,” Valso announced, “I thought we might do it again.”

Morgin tried to talk his way out of it, but again Valso threatened to let the Kull cut him down where he stood if he didn’t fight. Again Morgin was too much of a coward to do anything but fight back, and again his sword waited for him in the pile of old blades, and again it would allow him to choose no other. He fought the Kull; they were evenly matched and the contest lasted much longer. They both sustained several minor wounds, and before it ended Morgin bled from a dozen cuts, though the Kull fared no better. But that day Morgin killed the halfman with a clean thrust to the heart. When he turned to face Valso the prince had prudently wrapped himself in his power to prevent a repetition of the previous day’s events.

The next day a slightly larger crowd had gathered for the gladiatorial contest. That day Morgin killed the Kull with a cut deep into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

On the fourth day the crowd of onlookers had grown large and varied. And the fifth saw the yard filled to capacity, people lining the battlements, standing in balconies high above and leaning from windows, wagering on the outcome of the combat. Valso and Salya always chose a well-matched opponent for Morgin, so the contests never ended quickly. And though Morgin was always victorious, he never emerged unscathed. And after he’d lost count of the contests, lost count of the days of murderous battle, one day, standing there soaked in the blood of the Kull he’d just killed, he understood then that this was his death sentence, for Valso had an unlimited number of Kulls, and eventually Morgin would make one fatal mistake.

Chapter 18: A Dark Sacrifice

To Morddon, who stood on the balcony of AnneRhianne’s boudoir high in the palace, Kathbeyanne had the air of a graveyard. The streets below were now almost completely empty, and in the distance beyond the edge of the city lines of refugees clogged the roads.

After the massacre of the First Legion and Gilguard’s last stand, Aethon’s forces had suffered one defeat after another. The Goath hordes, now sensing total victory close at hand, had begun making forays deep into the kingdom of the Shahotma. The inhabitants of Kathbeyanne, realizing the city itself was their ultimate goal, were fleeing with their lives.

AnneRhianne stepped out onto the balcony. A cool breeze blew down off the plains in the west, but she chose to wear nothing more than a thin, almost transparent negligee that covered her from neck to ankles. From behind she wrapped her arms around Morddon’s waist, pressed her cheek against the back of his shoulder. “Come inside, my love,” she said softly. “You’ll catch a chill out here.”

Morddon inhaled deeply, took in the scent of her, continued to watch the lines of refugees snaking out of the city. “You know,” he said. “In the future they’re going to have it all wrong. They’ll think we Benesh’ere deserted Aethon, and the other tribes remained faithful to him. And yet now they’ve all gone over to the Goath, or gone in hiding.”

“We still have the angels,” she said. “Eleven full legions. And we have the Thane. And perhaps WolfDane will relent and allow the Dane to aid us.”

That last was wishful thinking, though Morddon let it stand without comment. “The Goath are gathering a great army on the other side of the Worshipers. They’re forcing our hand. We have to meet them at Sa’umbra, for we can’t let an army that size cross the mountains without resistance. So tomorrow Aethon is gathering what remains of his army, to take them into what may be the last battle of this war. And tomorrow I have to go with him, and you have to stay here.”

She kissed him softly on the back of his neck. “I know,” she said. “Just promise me you’ll come back for me.”

Deep within the soul of the tall Benesh’ere warrior Morgin thought of the Isle of Simpa, and of the witch AnneRhianne waiting there for centuries, waiting for him to return. And he had returned, though he now knew something would prevent him from returning in this time and place. He nodded slowly. “I’ll come back for you—someday. I swear it.”

He turned about in her arms, took her in his arms and held her tightly.

“You know,” she said wistfully, “I’ve dreamt strangely for the past months, dreamt of a young girl named Rhianne in another time.”

Morgin tensed as she continued. “I haunt her soul, just a passenger, and she loves a young man and they’re trying to find happiness. But then it’s just a dream.”

Morgin said, “For me, this is the dream.”

They had only this short time left to them, this day, and the night that would follow, and Morgin knew these few precious memories would have to last them for centuries.

~~~

“Come Elhiyne,” Valso said. The servants had awakened Morgin early at Valso’s instructions, and he’d barely had time to dress before the prince arrived. “I have to feed my pets, and I think you’ll find them quite interesting.”

Valso had come alone that morning, though he had his usual escort of Kulls, but Morgin had come to think of them as part of the furniture. Valso took Morgin by the arm as if they were close friends, smiled pleasantly and chatted as they walked down to the castle yard. “I’m told you did some exploring the other day, that you walked through almost every open door in the castle, that you even explored Xenya’s boudoir. She’s an interesting young woman, isn’t she?”

Morgin didn’t answer, for at that moment they turned into the kennels and his ears filled with the sounds of barking and yapping dogs. But Valso ignored the hounds in the pens on either side and walked directly to the barred door through which Morgin had been unable to pass. The door was open now, and as they stepped through it Morgin again heard the strange, high-pitched cry of several netherbeasts, “skree, skree, skree.”

Beyond the door Morgin saw two Kulls standing at the edge of some sort of pit with a man kneeling between them. They had bound the man’s hands with thick rope behind his back, and he’d been beaten cruelly, his face swollen and puffy. But as Morgin and Valso approached, the pit drew Morgin’s attention, for from it the cries of “skree” arose, and in it Morgin sensed the netherlife so strongly.

He slowed as they approached the edge of the pit, but Valso tugged on his arm and dragged him onward. “Come, Elhiyne. You’ll want to see this.” He pulled Morgin forward, and at the bottom of the pit Morgin saw a confusing mass of writhing and swaying motion, all gray and formless. Then one of the little beasts climbed up on the shoulders of one of its fellows, and jumped toward them with teeth snapping mindlessly. It came nowhere near the top of the pit, managed only to rebound off the pit wall and drop among the seething mass of the rest of its ilk.

There were hundreds of them, small, dog-like, netherbeasts, standing no taller than the top of a man’s ankle. Their hindquarters were small, with most of their bulk concentrated in the muscles of the neck and shoulders. They seemed all head and mouth, their jaws filled with several rows of needle-like teeth. “They’re called skree,” Valso shouted above the noise of their cries. “Their teeth are razor sharp, and when they get hold of you they don’t let go. I’m rather fond of them.”

“But they’re netherbeasts,” Morgin said. “How did you get them into this life?”

Valso smiled. “I have powers, Elhiyne, powers you can’t even imagine.”

Morgin looked at the Decouix prince, and within his eyes he saw that chasm of power opening before him again, and he flinched away from it. Valso threw his head back and laughed. “But come. My pets are hungry.” He nodded to the two Kulls standing over the man at the far side of the pit.

“No!” he cried out. “Please, no.”

Morgin tried to turn away, but two Kulls grabbed him from behind, twisted his arms behind his back and forced him to watch. One of the Kulls on the far side of the pit lifted a boot and kicked the kneeling man forward. He had one instant to realize what they’d done, and as he fell into the pit his eyes widened and he screamed.

He died slowly, not a quick death, and of course not clean. Valso laughed and giggled as the pack tore the man to pieces in hundreds of small bites. The contents of Morgin’s stomach boiled forth; he vomited on his own boots and Valso found that funniest of all.

~~~

The big Kull’s sword sliced toward Morgin in a flat arc. Morgin ducked beneath it, but he underestimated the large halfman’s agility, and as he came up a boot caught him in the ribs. He went down hard, landed on his back with a thud, dust scattering in all directions. He saw the Kull’s blade arcing down toward his face, threw his sword up and managed to deflect it. But it bit deeply into the side of his shoulder and for an instant he hovered at the edge of consciousness.

The crowd screamed and cheered as the Kull raised his sword for the kill. Morgin threw all his remaining strength into one last effort. He threw a hand full of dust up into the large Kull’s face, rolled, kicked upward and caught the halfman in the crotch. The halfman grunted and swung out blindly as Morgin rolled to one side. Then Morgin spotted the side of an exposed knee and he kicked out at it, hit it solidly and heard the joint collapse with a snap. And as the Kull tumbled to the ground Morgin threw his sword out desperately, felt it bite into something, then he rolled away from the halfman.

Morgin staggered slowly to his feet, blood streaming freely down his arm from the deep cut in his left shoulder. He looked at the wound, saw the blood pulse with the beat of his racing heart. And at the sight of so much blood the crowd cheered.

The Kull lay on his side, his sword dropped nearby, his face buried in his hands, his ruined knee twisted at an unnatural angle. Slowly he opened his hands, and only then did Morgin see that his last blind stroke had hacked through the halfman’s face, destroying both eyes and the bridge of his nose, probably even cutting into the brain, though not deeply enough to finish the man quickly. Again Morgin felt pity for a Kull.

Morgin looked again at the wound on his arm, and wondered how he’d managed to survive the last two months. Every day Valso had forced him to fight for his life, each day choosing a combatant more capable than the previous one. Morgin had remained alive only because he’d always been victorious, though several times he’d sustained serious wounds. But Valso always saw to it he was treated with powerful healing spells, always fully healed and ready for the next day’s contest, until today Morgin had finally faced one of the best fighters among the Kull troops. He wondered what Valso had in mind for him next.

The large Kull had rolled onto his back, was breathing raggedly. Morgin staggered up to him, barely had the strength to raise his sword and put the halfman out of his misery. The crowd screamed and roared as Morgin dropped his sword in the dust and staggered off the field of battle.

That evening Morgin stood alone at a window in his suite of rooms looking out over the city of Durin. They’d bandaged his left arm and it hung in a sling, though the healers had done a good job and most of the pain had receded. But the damn thing was beginning to itch badly and Morgin fought to overcome the urge to scratch it. It would be nicely healed by morning, and again Morgin would be ready for whatever Valso planned next.

A soft knock at the door pulled Morgin’s attention back to the moment. “Enter,” he called out.

The door opened slowly, and whoever stood beyond in the dark hallway hesitated for a moment. Then, as if coming to a decision, a woman entered the room, though a dense veil hid her face. She looked at Morgin for a moment, then turned and closed the door behind her.

Morgin bowed cautiously, though the gesture was a bit clumsy with his arm hanging in a sling.

The woman spoke, “I watched you fight today.”

Morgin had heard that voice before, though he couldn’t remember when or where. “Did you enjoy the spectacle?” he asked bitterly.

“Of course not,” she said, in a sharp, scolding tone. “I watched because I’m curious about you. And until now I have specifically avoided watching this display of my son’s cruelty.”

The reference to her “son” was the final clue Morgin needed. The Lady Merriketh stood before him, Valso’s mother.

She continued. “And I watched because if I did not watch today then I would not again have the opportunity to see how you survive.”

“And why is that?” Morgin asked.

She turned her head sharply toward him, and even though the veil hid her face, he sensed her eyes piercing through his soul. “Your family will be here two days hence. They will bring my husband back with them, chained in disgrace, and my son will fully consolidate his power then. So I believe you have fought your last Kull, at least in such a gladiatorial way. But you know these things.”

There was something odd in the way she spoke those particular words, and Morgin decided to confront her with it. “You sound pleased your husband is in disgrace, and displeased your son will see such success.”

Merriketh shrugged out a soft, short, bitter laugh. “There is not now any love between us, though long ago there was something.”

“And why is that?”

She reached up and slowly pushed the veil back from her face. She looked at Morgin proudly and said, “I am Merriketh Alaella.”

“A
twoname
?”

“Yes,” she said angrily. “Oh I loved Illalla once, but like any
twoname
I could love no man enough to spend the rest of my life in one place. And he coveted the power of the Decouix throne too much to wander about with me. So he decided to have the best of both worlds. He took me to wife by force, and he locked me in this castle thirty-five years ago and has held me as a prisoner ever since. I’m still amazed how easily I learned to hate him.”

Morgin could almost feel the hate radiating from her. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m curious about you,” she said. “You’ve managed to survive. You managed to survive the onslaught of my son’s power when you wrapped your fingers about his throat and nearly killed him. You managed to survive it even though you have no power of your own. You managed to survive it with no more than your own will, and so I am curious about you, because Valso fears you. He’s always feared you, for some reason.”

“Why should Valso fear me?”

She smiled unpleasantly. “You are the most frightening thing of all. You are the unknown.”

“And why do you hate your son?”

She frowned wistfully. “He’s so like his father, in so many ways, even in that I loved him once before I learned to hate him. A mother can’t help loving her children, I learned. Valso was the oldest—I bore him thirty-four years ago. And then came Haleen, and after her Valso’s three younger brothers. But Illalla trained Valso in his own likeness, and taught him to be cruel and ruthless. And as each of his younger brothers grew into manhood, grew to a point where he might challenge Valso for the throne someday, each died a strange and mysterious death. Valso is always thorough, especially when it comes to power.”

She referred to temporal power, but Morgin purposefully misunderstood and asked, “But where did he come by such power. It’s unnatural. It’s wrong.”

The Alaella looked at him, and she understood what he was doing. Her lips curled upward in a hint of a knowing smile. “There is an old magic, an evil magic. Its price is one’s very identity, one’s very soul. But the spells to gain such power had been lost in the obscurity of time. Then some years ago Illalla came across a very old manuscript—how I do not know—and he memorized the spells and incantations, then destroyed it. You must also be capable of housing such power, and Illalla knew he was not. But he found in his first-born son a vessel for the achievement of the power he coveted.

“Finally, as part of the incantation, they had to sacrifice the life of a true innocent.” She looked at Morgin and asked him pointedly. “If you assume we are all born pure of heart, and from that moment forward we begin losing our innocence by degrees, where do you find a true innocent?”