Worms' Ending: Book Eight (The Longsword Chronicles 8) (12 page)

Even Gawain began to feel the rising sense of loss which had
so afflicted Allazar. This place had once thrived, and been filled with people.
Wizards, yes, the cursed whitebeards Gawain so keenly despised, but people
nevertheless, people who had fallen to the dreadful touch of a creature very far
removed from any of nature’s making.

On they went, until, in the middle of the third avenue and
thus facing the fourth cloistered quadrangle, Allazar stopped in the centre of
the white-stone away and sniffed the air about him. Gawain and the others
repeated the action, and an involuntary shudder wracked his spine. Fire. There
had been a conflagration nearby, wood burning, leaving nothing now but charred
remains dampened by rains.

No signs of any such conflagration became apparent until
they stepped out of the gloom of a narrow path and onto the final avenue facing
the Cloister of Sek, the last of the five quadrangles before the central broad
courtyard where Allazar had said they would find the Fountain of Zaine.

“It is another Calhaneth,” Gawain sighed, and blinked.

The Cloister of Sek, where once reposed the great libraries
and halls of learning for the most advanced of students working towards the
coveted honorific Master of D’ith Sek, was blackened and scorched. Great
tongues of fire had licked from windows in the rooms and apartments above the
scorched columns, leaving the once-proud and twinkling mica-flecked white-stone
grubby, soot-stained, and mournful. Smoke had roiled from the ground floor
windows, billowing, coating the columns and exposed stone facades above them black
with soot. Here and there, where the blaze had been most intense, pillars and
walls were cracked, though none had tumbled.

Gawain, Allazar, and Ognorm gaped, understanding that this
perhaps had been how much of Calhaneth might have appeared after the firestorm,
before nature had begun the long and inevitable process of reclaiming the land,
trees tumbling walls and toppling columns. Here, though, there were no statues
pointing cracked and blackened fingers, no silent admonishments from
stone-carved figures and their blank accusing stares. The entire quadrangle,
they had no doubt, had been gutted. Only the skill of the ancient builders had ensured
that the stone shell remained intact, though for how long it would remain thus,
none could say.

In the final courtyard where once the students and masters
of Sek had ambled in the sunshine, they found the Fountain of Zaine. No water
flowed there, no crystal-clear flow cascaded in unbroken sheets from the five
great circular dishes into the empty pool below. The dishes were cracked and
blackened, the courtyard, likewise.

“Oh, my lord!” Cherris gasped, catching her breath, holding
her hand to her mouth and pointing with her shortsword at Gawain’s feet.

Here and there, pale shapes could be seen dotted around the
blackened ground, the stone less scorched in those places. Gawain was standing
in the middle of one such spot, the stone paving a pale brown rather than the
darker burnt ochre of the surrounds. With a sudden sense of dismay and the cold
burning of anger deep within, he understood the reason for the look of horror
on the lady Rider’s face.

The pale shape he was standing in was the shape of a man.

He stepped back onto the darker stone, and with the others,
gazed around the courtyard, while Allazar at first blinked and then gave up the
attempt at stemming the tears which rolled silently down his cheeks.

oOo

12. The Last Sardor

How long they stood gaping and blinking at their surrounds
in the fountain courtyard none could say, mere minutes felt like an age. Gawain
had unconsciously begun counting the shadows on the ground but gave up when he
realised what he’d been doing, it had been a large number when he’d stopped and
seeing Allazar weeping with sorrow and rage beside him made him glad he hadn’t
counted out loud.

“Does this rage ever die, Gawain?” Allazar suddenly hissed
through clenched teeth. “Will I ever know relief from this fury?”

Gawain, of course, understood at once. The Hallencloister.
Calhaneth. Raheen.

“Sometimes,” he replied softly. “Sometimes there are brief
moments when the fire dies to embers, smouldering soft and awaiting a breeze to
fan them once more into flame.”

There was a long silence then, the wizard’s teeth clenched
against the primal scream Gawain knew Allazar was struggling to contain.

“I don’t understand, melord,” Ognorm whispered, blinking and
shaking his head in sorrow at the emptiness of the broken courtyard. “We done
for the Orb. We chucked it in the Sea of Hope. What could’ve done this? What
else could’ve done this?”

Gawain sighed. “We came here looking for an answer to the
question, why? Why did the D’ith abandon the world at Far-gor? Now we know, and
now we have other questions that need answering. Perhaps we will find answers
to those, here, too.”

Cherris let out a shuddering sob, and wiped her eyes, and
just as she began to speak, through the silence and from the north came a
single, clear and high-pitched peal of a bell.

“Allazar?” Gawain whispered.

The wizard blinked, slack-jawed, and gazed up at the tower in
the north.

“The Sardorian Bell! Someone yet lives and has rung the
Sardorian Bell in the North Tower!”

“Ven?”

But Allazar was already striding, almost running, across the
scorched courtyard, completely ignoring the shapes burned into the paving.

“Nothing, miThal…”

“Dwarfspit, come on! Allazar, wait for us! Allazar!”

They hurried, weapons still in hand, desperate to catch up
with the wizard, robes flying as he sped through passages and alleyways, staff
held before him and shining a bright Light of Aemon as though it were a visible
manifestation of his earlier scream at the east gate:
Eyem D’ith!
Allazar held the White Staff, Gawain knew, the way he himself had held aloft
the Sword of Justice in the circles in his father’s hall the day he had found
Raheen nothing but ashes.

Through the smoke-blackened ruin of the Cloister of Sek,
across the broad avenue beyond, onward Allazar plunged, all caution thrown to
the wind, the wizard almost dazzling to look at so bright was the Light he cast
about him. Gawain understood. Gawain knew. Woe unto anyone or anything foolish
enough to stand between the wizard and the North Tower this day.

And so Gawain held his peace, his eyes darting this way and
that, scanning frantically for signs of a trap, for movement, for the lunge of
a shadow-creature, for anything which Allazar himself in the grip of fury and desperate
hope might not perceive in his haste to attain the tower.

At the last avenue, Allazar stopped in the centre of the
broad expanse and gazed up at the apartments in the North Tower. Nothing, no
movement, no sign of life. Broken windows, shards of glass scattered on the ground
around the base of the keep, and a wide open door, arched and low, designed so
that anyone entering the home of the Sardor of the North would have to stoop,
head bowed, to cross the threshold.

“Allazar.”

“Here is where dwelled Eljon Meritus, Master of Sek and
Sardorian of D’ith Hallencloister. There,” he nodded upwards, “There is where
we shall find the Sardorian Bell. Stay behind me.”

And with that, and without waiting for a reply, Allazar
strode to the open door, and without hesitation, stooped, and entered the gloom
of the interior.

“Dwarfspit and Elves’ Blood he’ll get his vakin head cut
off!” Gawain gasped, and hurried after the wizard. “Oggy, rearguard! Ven?”

“A light, I think miThal, though very dim!”

“Where?”

“High up!”

“Dwarfspit!”

In through the portal, sword held high to defend against
anything which might come crashing down, but nothing did. Glowstones dim in
ornate lamps set in sconces around the walls, wreckage of furniture, and books,
what had been many books, some scorched, all mouldering. An impossibly
cantilevered stone staircase ran around the inside wall of the tower, Allazar
already disappearing through the landing to the first floor above them.

Gawain took the steps two at a time, his comrades following
suit. The first floor, debris scattered, doors to inner chambers shattered. Up
to the second floor, and more of the same, though clearly here the furnishings
had been much more opulent, rich fabrics torn and shredded as if by swarms of
enraged cats, stuffing exposed and soiled. Tapestries and curtains torn down,
mouldering and damp and exposed to the elements thanks to the shattered
windows.

Halfway up the stairs to the third and final floor and
Gawain heard Allazar give a cry, though it seemed to be a cry of hope and
despair mingled rather than alarm or pain.

Gawain, like the wizard before him, saw the reason why when
he and his comrades rushed through the opening and into the single large room
where Allazar stood breathing hard, almost sobbing, leaning on his Dymendin for
all the support he could muster from the ancient iron-hard wood.

There, sitting behind a great gold-inlaid marble desk on
which stood a small silver bell, the only furniture unbroken in the tower, sat
an old man, wisps of white hair lank, and locks of it fallen out and strewn across
the floor, marking the path taken when the unknown wretch had dragged himself up
all those steps to occupy the stone seat behind the great slab. It must’ve
taken hours for the enfeebled ruin to have dragged himself so far.

An oozing boil glowed a painful red on the ancient wizard’s
right cheek. Rags had been bound around his gnarled hands, and as they
approached closer they could see those rags were wet with blood and corruption.
His breath wheezed and rattled, his eyes scarcely slits where lids had swollen
with tears of pain and misery. A bag of bones, in grubby robes, dying slowly,
open sores weeping.

“Ah… ah…” the old man wheezed, and his voice seemed
impossibly strong for such wreckage as he. “Allazar… I thought it might be you…
I hoped it might be you… Once, long ago when you stood here a boy, I
suspected…” and he coughed, “…I suspected it might be you.”

Allazar’s voice broke when he spoke, and he clutched the
staff so tightly his knuckles cracked. “Sardor Eljon! Sardor Eljon…”

“I waited Allazar… for the thunder and the lighting. I
waited for your coming so long…”

“Sardor…” Allazar sobbed again.

From behind him, Gawain heard Cherris give a shuddering sob
of pity for the spectacle before them. The wizard Allazar, clutching the White
Staff in such desperation it seemed all lives everywhere depended on the
firmness of his grip. The ancient and dying old man, once the Sardor of D’ith,
the highest-ranking wizard of all, clinging now to life as though all lives
everywhere depended on the fastness of
his
failing grasp.

“These are yours now, Allazar,” the Sardor pushed the only
other objects on the table towards the wizard. One, a slender tome of gold,
smaller than Allazar’s notebook, small enough for a pocket. The other, a golden
key on a chain.

A key, Gawain noted, which looked identical to the one
hanging around the scrawny and blistered neck of the wretched remains of Eljon
Meritus.

“Sardor!” Allazar croaked again. “No…”

“Yes, Allazar. It will be clear, when you read the book.
Read it, Allazar. You came, in thunder, and in lightning... You came, just as old
Benithet said you would. I waited, Allazar, I waited. I hid, in the crystal
chamber below. They came too, who ended the world…”

“Who did this!” Allazar cried, tears streaming, “Who did
this!”

“We knew you had a destiny you know… when you came before us
here so young… the youngest ever summoned by Morloch to his dreaming tower. The
youngest ever to resist him. Do you remember, Allazar? You were so small as a
boy, standing there before us. So full of nightmares, so full of potential. Now
you shine so! Take them! Take them, Allazar! Please…”

Again, the Sardor’s feeble and rough-bandaged hand nudged
the book and the key.

Allazar blinked back his tears, and stepped forward,
hesitantly, loath to release his grip on the staff.

“Please…” the Sardor asked again, the plea pitiful.

Gawain and the others watched as Allazar’s right hand
finally let go of the White Staff, and inched forward, trembling, hovering over
the great marble slab, and finally took the book, and the key on the chain.

“Put it on!” the old man twitched a finger, trying to point
to the key on the chain and Allazar’s neck.

“Sardor!” Allazar begged, and the others finally understood
something of the events taking place before their astonished eyes.

“Please Allazar, let me go…”

Fresh tears streaming, Allazar pocketed the book, and then
clumsily, refusing to relinquish his grip on the staff, dragged the key on its
chain over his head. When it was hanging in clear sight, the old man heaved a
wheezing, trembling sigh.

“You came, in thunder and in lightning, Allazar Meritus,
Last Sardor of the D’ith… you came as old Benithet said you would…”

“Who did this!” Allazar cried. “Who did this!”

Eljon slumped in his seat, seeming to wither, slowly
releasing his grip on life.

“Who? Elves, of course… just as old Benithet said they
would… They have gone now, taking their fire and shadow with them. I will go
now, too, Allazar. The Last Sardor is come, and I shall go with our brethren…”

“Wait…” Allazar cried, his voice trembling. “The vaults! The
library!”

“All gone… all gone. They destroyed it all. But not the
crystal chamber below! No, they couldn’t get in there… not even their shadow
could get in there! I stayed there, Allazar, waiting… too long, in all that
bright light, too long…”

“The Book of Thangar…” Allazar sighed.

“Thangar? Ah! Of course! The final panel! It now makes
sense! Clever Allazar! We knew, you know… knew you had a destiny.”

“The final panel, Sardor, the final panel, what did it
depict! I cannot remember, it was too long ago!”

“All gone now. Everything gone. The world is ended, just as
old Benithet said it would. I will go now too, Allazar… I will go now too.”

“Wait. Please.” Allazar whispered, and the awful loneliness
in that desperate plea brought a lump even to Gawain’s throat.

But Eljon’s lips moved, his fingers traced a tremulous
pattern, his head tilted back and with a sigh, a glow began to spread in the
air around him, growing brighter, so bright none could bear to look until the
light faded and was gone, leaving nothing behind of Sardor Eljon Meritus but
ash upon the cold gold-inlaid marble of the once-imposing desk where Allazar,
Last Sardor of the D’ith, once stood in fear and trembling, and now stood
weeping for his world’s ending.

oOo