Worms' Ending: Book Eight (The Longsword Chronicles 8) (13 page)

13. The Book of Sardor

Outside in the fresh air and with two hours of overcast
daylight left in the day, Ognorm and the others gazed nervously at the silent
wizard, and flicked concerned glances towards Gawain. Out of respect for
Allazar’s loss they had acceded to the wizard’s request that he be allowed to
examine the vaults under the North Tower alone. Since he’d emerged from below,
dusty and bereft, Allazar had simply sat upon the step at the entrance to the North Tower, his staff canted over his left shoulder, his head in his hands.

Finally, Gawain relented to the pressure of the glances from
his comrades, and crossed the small distance to where Allazar sat.

“We’re all nervous, Allazar. It’ll be night, soon. Do we
quit this place? Do you believe the shadow-creature is gone?”

“It is gone, Gawain. It is all gone. The great libraries
burned in the cloister of Sek. The vaults rifled and their contents stolen or
destroyed. Only the crystal chamber sealed by Eljon remains untouched.”

“Then let’s leave here, Allazar. We’ve a couple of hours
yet, we can ride down the hill, make a night-camp. Maybe even bag a rabbit or
two. Let’s leave this place.”

Allazar sighed, and nodded, and made to stand. Gawain held
out his hand, and the wizard glanced up at him first with surprise in his eyes,
and then with such immense gratitude for the gesture that both had to struggle
against emotions pricking their eyes afresh.

The walk to the open east gate was made in haste, and in
silence. Venderrian swung his gaze, in spite of the deceased Sardor’s assertion
that the shadow creature was gone, and when finally they passed through the
gate and out into the open air beyond, Gawain could not chide his comrades for
their sighs of relief. His own mingled with theirs, though Allazar either did
not notice in his grief, or pretended not to.

“East and beyond the old ‘weed field,” Gawain ordered when
they’d mounted up, and so they rode, five riderless horses following them.

Beyond the band of almost extinct Flagellweed they made a
hasty camp, though Allazar declined the offer of a fire and cooked rabbit,
claiming he had no appetite. Gawain remembered Raheen, and so they ate dry
rations, frak for the most part. While they were eating, sitting in a close
circle on their blankets and bedrolls, Ognorm suddenly produced a bundle, and
offered it to Allazar.

“Found it on a peg by them stairs in the tower,” the dwarf
said quietly. “Thought you might have a need of it.”

Allazar took the bundle, and unrolled it. It was a cloak,
charcoal-grey, of some warm-looking but lightweight material. It even possessed
a cowl, though it was plain and unadorned.

“Thank you, master dwarf,” the wizard sighed, fingering the
material, and then deftly cast it about his shoulders and wrapped himself in
it.

As if at this very signal, clouds parted for the first time
that day, revealing a bright moon barely a week from full low and to the east
of south.

“Dry night,” Dirs declared.

“And for the next two days at least,” Cherris agreed.

“Arr,” Ognorm announced, “For which I reckon we’ll all be
glad.”

Another silence fell then, attempts at simple conversation
failing. The weight of their discovery in the Hallencloister was too great to
ignore through such simple topics of discussion as the weather for the time of
year.

It was Gawain who spoke next, softly, seeing the wizard’s
shoulder’s slumping, once more on the precipice of mind-numbing grief.

“What was the crystal chamber Eljon spoke of?”

“I know not,” Allazar sighed. “It was sealed by his hand and
I had not the heart to open it. A room of rock-crystal, I daresay, constructed
to deny mystic intrusion. Perhaps a place for meditation, I do not know.”

“He said the shadow-creature could not penetrate its walls?”

“He said the light there was too bright. It burned him, I
think. Like the rock-Aknid’s crystals reflected and refracted my Candle’s energies,
the crystal chamber must have refracted and reflected Sardor Eljon’s. The
emanations he must have been exposed to, waiting in there for so long…” Allazar
shook his head, with great sorrow.

“He said elves done it, melord. How could elves do such a thing?
How could wizards let ‘em?”

“I don’t know, Ognorm,” Gawain replied. “I don’t know.”

Allazar shifted, and something flashed in his hands. The
gold-encased book he had been given, glinting in the moonlight.

“What is it?” Gawain whispered, almost fearing the answer.

“’Tis a book, inscribed in goldpaper. It is very old, by the
feel of it, edges and corners worn smooth. It is heavy. To use so much goldpaper
and to bind it thus, it must be very important.”

“What does it say?”

“I am afraid to open it, Gawain. The inscription on its
cover declares it is The Book of Sardor, and I am afraid to open it. You are my
king, and I am the First Wizard of Raheen. Eljon called me the Last Sardor. If
I open this… I do not know what I shall become.”

“If you open the book you shall become wiser, I think,”
Gawain declared. “That is the power of books, after all. Did Eljon not say all
would become clearer, when you read the book?”

Allazar sighed, and nodded, and shifted the book in his
hands as if to open it.

“But,” Gawain added hastily, “If you prefer to wait for
daylight to save the strain on your eyes…?”

The wizard rubbed the Dymendin, and it began to glow faintly
with the Light of Aemon.

“Ah,” Gawain nodded, and they watched, eyes wide, as Allazar
opened the goldpaper volume, and began to read aloud in the common tongue the
words he read inscribed in the language of the D’ith…

The Book of Sardor

I, Durminenn Meritus, Master of Sek and North Sardorian of
D’ith Hallencloister, do hereby solemnly attest and affirm that the contents of
this tome are a true account of events witnessed by me, and that I, by my own
hand and stylum auricum, committed here for all time in goldpaper those events
in this, The Book of Sardor.

That I have chosen such a durable, precious, and uncommon
means of passing this knowledge from my days to yours should of itself alone
testify to the gravitas of the content, though, my brethren, once you have read
and understood the nature of this work, there shall surely be no doubt as to
the veracity of this foretelling, your doom, and the world’s ending.

The duties of all Sardorians are well known both by the
Council of Sek and by each Sardor himself, and they are of course meticulously
detailed elsewhere. The keys which admit the bearers to the final vault are likewise
well known, and for good reason has it become tradition for them to be worn
about the neck of the four Sardorians as a badge of their office, no other
outward symbol of authority marking them apart from any other Master of Sek.

Yet now it falls to me to add to the burden of all who come
after me. Now it falls to me to impose upon all who wear the key about their
neck, as I do, this knowledge, this dread, and with it, to impose upon you all
a most solemn and secret undertaking. Now it falls to me to commence a new
tradition, and one known only to he who wears the key. From this day, these
words shall be seen and known only by those who sit at the Cardinal Points of
the D’ith Council of Sek, until the world’s ending, when all seals shall fail,
all vaults be opened, all knowledge rendered dust and ashes, reason destroyed,
the lights of wisdom snuffed as candles in a gale of darken days returned.

Abandon hope, my brothers, for there is none.

Here then are the impositions, and though you be Masters of
Sek and thus possess the discipline of the mind necessary for the constraint of
Staff powers, rites, fires, bindings and sundry mystic lore, I beg you do not
close your minds; rather, keep them open, as open as your hands when you
accepted this secret Book from your predecessor on your day of Ascension.

Abandon hope, my brothers, for there is none.

Admit no-one to this knowledge save your successor.

Trust not the Viell of the forest realm.

Every book and every parchment, paper, scrap or scroll
passed to the Library of D’ith here in Hallencloister shall be copied,
secretly, and thence in secrecy taken north, and sealed there in tunnels
beneath the mount of black pyrestone known by those who dwell there as
Crownmount.

Seed the lands, my brothers, with brethren of wand, rod and
staff taught well the ways of the D’ith, that they may stand with faith to the
fore in time of great need, and against the darkness which is to come.

Trust not the Viell of the forest realm.

Abandon hope, my brothers, for there is none.

Those then are the impositions.

Here then are the reasons for them:

It was well beyond the midnight hour when I was summoned
from my reading-chamber to attend Master Benithet in his cell high in the
eastern tower of Hallencloister. Benithet, renowned since boyhood as a
dream-seer, had been labouring three days in a deep and troubled sleep from
which he could not be roused either by mystic or common means. He was ancient
then, and kept himself far from the mysteries of Hallencloister which occupy
all our daily lives, preferring to sit alone atop the east tower gazing out
towards the peaceful lands of Arrunshear; though on occasion he was seen
casting fearful glances in other directions as if observing enemies gathering
all about us.

Before the infirmities of age drew him away from teaching
and study and up into his lonely tower, Master Benithet himself wrote a book he
curiously entitled “Sepulchreum Vaticinatum” which contains sixty-four of his
dream-prophecies, all of which came to pass after publication as authenticated
by the Council of Sek in a later appendix to that work. At a plenary session of
Hallencloister Governance (mxv.eo.110 qv) attended by all above the rank of Met
in Hallencloister, Master Benithet was granted the title D’ith Vaticinator and
declared a Source Unimpeachable. 

Thus it was with considerable alarm that I made my way
across the grand courtyard to the eastern tower, and began the steep climb to
Benithet’s chamber, alone, in accordance with his wishes. Benithet was old, as
I have noted, and not once in all my years in Hallencloister had the D’ith
Vaticinator lain abed dream-seeing for more than a day, his visions coming
always in daytime.

My alarm was greatly heightened when, upon knocking on his
chamber door, I heard a cry from within to advance with caution, and on opening
the door, saw Benithet still lying upon the stone table he calls bed and good
for his aged back, his staff sparking and pointed directly at me.

“Master Benithet!” I cried, “It is I, your old friend,
Durminenn, come in answer to your call! Put down your staff, good Master, lest
one of us be burned by its fire.”

“Durminenn? Sardor Durminenn? Who’s that with you! In the
shadows!”

“No-one, my old friend, I am alone, as you stipulated when
you sent the boy to summon me.”

“Ah, my eyes, curse my age-addled eyes! It is dark and I see
not well… but forgive an old fool… these days, Aemon’s Light and Aemon’s Fire
are easily confused by my failing mind!”

“Then allow me to light the hall, old friend,” said I, and
lit for him an Aemon’s Light to show the way empty behind me, and he nodding
his gratitude laid his staff to rest beside him.

I closed the door and sealed it at his request, and sat
where he indicated upon the only chair in the room, close enough to his bedside
to hear the rattle and wheeze of his aged breathing. A lamp lit and shuttered
narrow, I observed his eyes, wide and wild with dread, flicking this way and
that as if seeing ghosts all about us in the gloom.

“We are doomed!” he whispered, his voice quavering, and he
clutched my arm with a bony claw of a hand, the grip surprisingly strong and I
confess, a little painful.

“Doomed how? Doomed why?” I gasped.

“I have seen the world’s ending! In fire, and in dust! I
have seen the brethren razed by fire! I have seen the brethren touched by
darkness fall in classroom, cloister, cell and vault! All our work! All our
brothers! All our knowledge rendered dust and ashes and decay!”

At this last, his eyes wild and rolling, he coughed, and
gasped for breath, and tried to raise himself up. I helped him to sit, propped
against the cold stone wall of the tower, a flat and yellowed pillow behind him
against the chill. He was light and dry as bones, and I feared those bones
might break in my arms while he settled, and I wrapped a blanket about him.

“I saw fire come!” he gasped, his eyes flicking to the door
and to the narrow slit of the window behind me, his voice never more than a
whisper. “I saw it come in a gilded cask born by elves like brigands in the
dead of night. I saw the cask placed upon water and the brigands melt away. I
saw the gates of the citadel sealed, unbreakable! And I saw the cask upon the
water blossom like a flower in the daytime, and from it, the foulest of
creatures and the foulest of fiery hearts emerged! The one disappeared in the
cleansing light of day, the other, oh the other!”

And here, Benithet began to weep, as the though the last
juices of his life were slipping from his eyes, as unstoppable as grains of
sand held in a desperate fist.

“Oh Sardor Durminenn… I saw the fiery heart glow, and the
brethren nearby fresh from battering the gates with their staves approached in
curiosity and gazed in horror at the heart of that flower! Never have I seen
such a foul fire burn without flame! Those nearest cried out, their flesh
mottled and peeling from their bones! Shields of Baramenn failed! None could
approach to close up the petals of that evil flower… The sun rose, and at noon,
fire blossomed anew, lightning, putrid brown like caked blood, arced and
danced, striking down all those who came near! Wood burned! Blue men burned!
The brethren burned!”