There was no smile on his face now. The shadow of nobility that had masked it vanished. These were the features of one of the Dark Ones swollen with awful pride.
“Son . . .” he returned. His voice was still honeyed, but he leered crookedly.
“No son of yours!” I returned, welcoming the heat of metal about my wrist, balanced by that piece near-piercing my other palm.
“You bear my seal.” He gestured to my hooves.
“A man may have yellow hair and still not be Sulcar.” I did not know from whence came that ease of speech.
“My son—come to me!”
He snapped that as an order. A stir toward him answered in me, faint now, was still in me. I clenched my left hand tighter about the fire I held. I was Kerovan!
His hand came up to draw symbols in the air. I watched them form like smears of greasy oil dribbled across cleanliness, fouling the sunlight.
Again the tug within me—stronger. I planted my hooves, stood straight. I was Kerovan.
“I am no running hound for you, Galkur.” I did not raise my voice, rather used it as if I spoke of unimportant things. “You needed a servant, you strove to fashion one. But you have neither son nor servant.
His face grew hard, cold, with very little of the human remaining in it.
“Hound you are, slave you are, mine you are.”
I heard then a harsh crow, not human laughter, but carrying with it the ghost of that.
“Galkur, when will you admit that your sorcery failed? Surely you must have known that from its very inception. You did not used to be a fool.”
The cold mask tore; underneath was seething hate.
“What matter is this of yours?” he spat at Landisl. “There are Laws—”
“Laws? Do you take refuge in such now? Did you believe you would weave with Power and I would not know it, even though I lay in the Long Rest, and you thought me safely caged so? You sought out the Lord of Ulmsdale even as his lady desired—you strove to fill him with your inner force—then . . . Tell me now, Galkur, what did happen. What really happened?”
The Dark One turned his head from side to side, his face was that of a demon out of a night’s worst dream.
“Look at his body! He bears my mark upon him for all men to see. You cannot deny that. I shall yet prove him mine!”
His eyes caught my gaze—held. They grew larger, were pits of fire, dark depths preparing to swallow me. All else vanished, narrowed to those waiting pits. I would be swallowed . . .
I was Kerovan! I was myself. That fire, the dark, the stench was not mine. Belief in myself was my shield. I was no Dark One’s spawn.
“Do you still claim him, Galkur?”
Beyond the fire pits the voice rang clear.
“Do I, or Neevor, lend him aid now to stand against you? He fights his own battle because he is what he himself has made—and that is not one of your line, Indeed his birth came not from your desires—nor from his mother’s wish—though that set upon his body your mark because she wanted a claim upon you. But in the very moment of his birth she knew she had failed! My doing, Galkur—mine!”
“You could not—” The fire pits shrank, flames no longer sought to lick me down. They were only eyes in a beastly face. “You could not—under the Law—”
“That Law you broke, Galkur, when you so meddled. And, in the breaking released me. He is Uric’s true son—in part—a fraction of his mother’s . . . but there is something more. In time he shall choose, if he will, another path. Do not seek to hide behind the Law now. Face us all!”
Energy poured out of me, fusing with other sources of Power—that from Landisl, from Neevor, whose staff once more rested point down—yes, and from Joisan. The gryphon voiced its roar. Joisan’s face grew pale and strained. I wanted to hold her close—but this was a time when all our strength must be turned elsewhere.
Forms congealed in the air behind Galkur, ready to feed into him energy in the same way we combined our own forces. There were horrors among them from which any sane man must avert his gaze, others which might have passed for Dalesmen and women. I half expected to see Temphera among them.
The drain of energy became stronger. Above my head a snake of flame lashed, would have sunk its fangs into my eyes. I was Kerovan—these were illusions of the enemy. He had failed to entice me—he would fail again. Neevor’s staff cracked, broke into two pieces. The jagged end of one flew into his face. It was met by a band of blue flame. I had flung out my wrist without thinking, instinct had willed that.
Joisan swung halfway around, fell to her knees, her arms flung up above her head to ward off invisible blows. I saw blood start out on her cheek.
Rage, as fiery as those eyes had been, filled me. I turned my wrist; a blue beam shot toward Galkur. One of his misshapen followers darted between, exploded, leaving behind only a stench.
At last the gryphon took wing, planed down from its arch perch to stand over Joisan’s body where she had sunk, face down, on the pavement. It covered her, its beak open in an enraged hiss. The broken ends of Neevor’s staff look on life, rising, darting through the gate at the Dark forces. They did not touch the Dark Lord, but they struck like well-aimed spears at the figures capering about him.
I moved forward, step by step, no longer trying to bring down Galkur himself, but aiming the ray at his band. Each one of those taken out of this struggle would drain him of strength.
The Dark Lord caught up one of his own monstrous servants, rolled the creature into a ball that he hurled at me. Then behind that attack, he himself leaped forward.
There was another beside me as I swept that balled thing out of existence. Landisl, his sword high, stood between me and the hoofed one.
Galkur skidded to a quick stop. His body began to swell. I saw some of his followers fade as he absorbed their substance. The bristly hair on his lower body fluffed, its ends giving off yellowish light.
Landisl’s silver body shone as bright as the sword he now held with both hands. Waves of force burst from its sky-pointing tip, rippled down the length of the blade to encircle his body. He became a pillar of light.
The Dark Lord changed, also. Black flame burst from him, swirled and thickened again into something giant high, which reached out a huge appendage to slap at the burning torch Landisl had become—slap and flinch, without landing a blow.
For a long moment it seemed that both were so equally matched neither could move. The point of the white light fell forward as if it were a swift sword. It touched the swelling Dark. A black stain from that spread up the light, dimming the glory of the white. I staggered as the pull upon my energy grew heavier. Through a mist of weakness I saw Neevor hunch far over, his face as gray as his clothing, his eyes closed. The gryphon and Joisan were now behind me; I felt their united energy pass me on its way to Landisl.
That stain spread no farther, the white held. Then there came a great upward flare of light, blinding me. Almost too late I flung my arm over my eyes. I fell to my knees, sprawled forward—there was no strength left in me.
19
Joisan
I thought that never again would I see such strife as that in which my lord had faced his own kin in the Waste on that other day of torment. But that was only a skirmish with outlaws on a border raid compared to the battle with the Dark Lord Galkur.
Though I did not even see the end clearly, my whole life force near drawn out of me, I knew when it came for I had roused a little into a warmth. The gryphon crouched between me and all evil, curving its claws about my shoulders, holding me to its breast, even as it had once rested against mine, I knew then such a feeling of peace and safety, in spite of my weakness, that I think I whimpered a little, as might a child begging for comfort, finding it at long last.