DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (250 page)

The fight had come quickly to St. Precious, as Braumin had known it would. He had hoped that his resistance would be stubborn and very costly to the invaders. He had hoped that he would strike a profound and devastating blow to the ambitions of the young usurper Aydrian.

But now that the soldiers had finally closed about the abbey, now that they were at last within range of Braumin’s fury, the white noise had accompanied them, denying the magical response.

And they had come prepared, Braumin saw. They had taken the artillery from Palmaris’ wall, dragged it to the corners of the square, and reassembled it over the course of the night.

The bishop winced as the first bombs smashed against St. Precious’ wall. He looked across the square to Aydrian, who stood resolute with Tempest upraised. He looked to Aydrian’s side, to Marcalo De’Unnero, who stood calm, staring back at him.

“B
raumin has ever been a stubborn one,” De’Unnero explained to Aydrian and Kalas, as the bombardment of St. Precious continued around them. “He will not surrender, and will willingly die for his cause. He was like that when he stood beside Elbryan, your father, against Father Abbot Markwart.”

“Is such strength of character not to be commended?” Aydrian asked.

De’Unnero nodded. “Braumin is a fool, and misguided,” the monk explained. “He followed Jojonah and Avelyn and helped to create this ridiculous imposter of a Church.”

“Nearly as ridiculous as its imposter predecessor Church,” Duke Kalas remarked.

De’Unnero shot him a glower. “The people here believe in Braumin, and deeply,” he went on, speaking to Aydrian and trying to keep his gaze away from Kalas. “If we tear down St. Precious and kill him in the process, they will remember, and it will not reflect favorably on the man who would be their king.”

“You just said that we could not turn him,” Duke Kalas remarked.

De’Unnero had no answer.

But between them, Aydrian merely smiled.

B
ishop Braumin felt a sense of relief as he finally managed to loose a bolt of lightning at the attackers sometime later, as the white noise finally diminished somewhat. Apparently, there was a limit to Aydrian’s strength and stamina, though that limit seemed far beyond anything any other mortal man or woman had ever achieved!

So now the monks could use their magic again. But apparently the attackers had anticipated such a turn, for the square was all but abandoned, and the bombardment continued only from afar, with catapults launching their bombs from behind the cover of adjacent buildings.

Braumin knew that the end was fast approaching. St. Precious was in shambles, with fires burning in several places, and the integrity of the walls and the strong gates seemed in question. And Braumin understood that Aydrian, if he so chose, could smash down those gates as easily as he had breached the city itself.

But he had not, as yet.

Braumin had no answers. Only twenty brothers remained inside the abbey with him, and they had abandoned all futile efforts to bolster the failing defenses or even to put out the fires. They were assembled in the main chapel, praying, and, like Braumin, waiting for the end.

The bishop moved past them, offering reassurances that God was with them, and then continued out of the room to the back side of the abbey.

At the back wall of the abbey, Bishop Braumin looked out over the rolling waters of the Masur Delaval, and across the towering masts of the Palmaris warships that had closed on the docks as Aydrian had taken the wall. His dear friend Viscenti was out there, he knew, looking back at him.

Braumin clutched his soul stone closer and fell into it. He sent his spirit out, rushing across the waters. St. Precious was lost, he knew. Palmaris had fallen. But there was a lesson here that had to get to St.-Mere-Abelle. There was a measure of Aydrian that would prove invaluable to the brothers who would defend that great abbey, that greatest fortress in all the world, when Aydrian Boudabras at last came against them.

Braumin’s spirit did find the weeping master. He went to the man, knowing that he could be no more than a warm feeling to the confused Viscenti. Markwart had once used the gemstones for actual communication across the miles; Jilseponie could do so, to a degree, as well—but not Braumin. He had never been very powerful with the stones, and so all he could do now was approach Viscenti and concentrate with all his heart and soul on that which he had witnessed, hoping to impart some sense to the master of the power of this enemy Aydrian.

Viscenti reacted to the presence of Braumin by standing up suddenly, his eyes going wide.

Braumin called out to him and focused on those images of Aydrian’s exploits.

He held the connection for as long as he could, though he had no idea of how much added information he had offered to Viscenti in the one-way exchange.

A voice broke his concentration.

Braumin turned suddenly, and then nearly fell over, for there before him stood Marcalo De’Unnero, wearing a wry smile, and wearing, as one arm, the limb of a tiger, its end bloody.

“And so we meet yet again, Brother Braumin,” De’Unnero said.

“Ever enduring is evil,” the bishop replied.

“Ever enduring is your folly,” De’Unnero replied with a laugh. “Need I tell you that the king of Honce-the-Bear has seen fit to relieve you of your duties as bishop of Palmaris?”

Braumin started to answer, but truly had no reply, and so he just stood there, shaking his head.

“You know who he is, of course,” De’Unnero continued. “You know that Duke Kalas announced him honestly. Jilseponie came through here and told you.”

“Told me the truth of this monster, Aydrian,” Braumin replied.

“The truth?” De’Unnero mused, and he moved inside the doorway and stepped to the side. “That is a curious term. So many truths are bantered about, are they not? The truth of Markwart. The truth of Avelyn. The truth of Father Abbot Fio Bou-raiy. Abbot Olin might not agree with that last one.”

“It is not his place to disagree with the College of Abbots.”

“An infallible body indeed,” said De’Unnero. “Here is your truth, Brother Braumin. Aydrian, the son of Jilseponie, the son of Elbryan, is king of Honce-the-Bear. The noblemen support him. The army supports him. The Church supports him.”

Braumin stared at him doubtfully.

“Oh, not the imposter church of Father Abbot Bou-raiy and misguided Braumin Herde. The real Abellican Church, rising once more from the disaster that was Avelyn. Aydrian is king of Honce-the-Bear. That, Brother Braumin, is the truth.”

Braumin steeled his gaze at the hated De’Unnero.

“It is a pity that you cannot see that,” De’Unnero went on. “We are enemies only by your choosing.”

Braumin nearly choked at that remark.

“I do not hate you, brother, though I know you are misguided,” said De’Unnero. “I offer you now a chance to reassess your actions, to see the light of the former and greater Abellican Church.”

“Spare me your lies!” Braumin interrupted strongly, and when De’Unnero laughed again, he added, “And your mercy!”

Braumin started forward then to attack the monk, though he knew that De’Unnero would surely and easily dispatch him. He stopped short, though, as another figure entered the room.

“Meet your new king,” remarked De’Unnero, who had not even flinched at the charge.

“Greetings, Brother Braumin,” said Aydrian. “I have heard so much about you.”

“Save your soft words for those who do not understand the truth of Aydrian,” Braumin countered as strongly as he could manage, though he was surely shaken by the spectacle of the young king in his shining silver-and-gold armor, at the gemstones glittering across his metal breastplate, at the familiar sword strapped at his hip. “How dare you come here in conquest?”

“How dare you deny me entrance?” Aydrian calmly asked.

“If you are the rightful king, then you have nothing to fear from us, for when Prince Midalis accepts you as such, the people of Palmaris—”

Braumin stopped, unable to breathe, as an invisible hand clamped upon his throat. He could hardly believe the strength of that magical grasp, denying him breath, even lifting him up to his tiptoes.

Braumin surely thought his life would end then and there, but Aydrian’s magical hand let him go. He nearly fell over, his hands going to his throat.

“Brother Braumin,” Aydrian began, slowly and deliberately, “the people of Palmaris, the people of all Honce-the-Bear, will accept me as their king, or they will be put out. It is that simple.”

“Murdered, you mean,” Braumin managed to gasp in response.

“A king defends his kingdom,” said De’Unnero.

“But you can help to prevent that tragedy,” Aydrian said to him. “It need not lead to violence and death.”

Braumin looked up at him, the now-former bishop’s eyes narrowing. “You wish to manipulate me into approval, in the hopes of securing Palmaris against the doubts that will grow when the rightful king marches south from Vanguard,” he reasoned, spitting every word with utter contempt. “I will say nothing to aid the usurper Aydrian!”

Aydrian smiled and looked at De’Unnero, then back at Braumin. His smile only widening, the young king held up a gray stone, the same color as the stone that Braumin held in his hands.

“Or perhaps Bishop Braumin will say whatever Aydrian wants him to say,” the sinister De’Unnero replied.

That voice was with me on the battlefield, guiding my hand—the same voice that I found in the mirror at Oracle.

I still do not know what it is!

The Touel’alfar taught me that humans are not immortal. I am doomed to die, in flesh and in consciousness. I and all akin to me are doomed to nothingness. And yet, at the same time, the Touel’alfar taught me Oracle, that state of meditation where I could find my way in the darkness. At Oracle, I am supposedly guided by my forebears, by Elbryan the Nightbird, my father. But if Elbryan is no more, if his consciousness is gone, rotted with his body, then how do I subsequently contact him? Or do I? Is Oracle, perhaps, merely a place where I can more deeply see that which is in my own mind? This is what I initially believed it to be. Were my instincts correct from the very beginning?

There’s the confusion, for I know from personal experience that Elbryan’s consciousness lives on. When I went to the grave of Elbryan and claimed Tempest and Hawkwing as my own, I reached that spirit and pulled it forth! I nearly pulled it completely from the realm of death, and believe that I could have done so, had I chosen to pursue that course!

Is it that the spirit lives on, but is trapped in emptiness unless brought forth by a living person, such as at Oracle or on the cold field that day by Elbryan’s grave? Do we become in death huddled and trapped blurs, shadows of what we once were, and wholly dependent upon another conscious, free-acting being to summon the power to temporarily break us out of death’s bondage?

It is an intriguing thought, for if that is the case, then is there, within the gemstones, a way for me truly to cheat death? To live on beyond the span of Lady Dasslerond’s years? To live on forever? Is there, within the gemstones, a way in which I might offer eternal life to those around me?

This is what Duke Kalas believes, and it is the only reason he follows me so devoutly. On one level, Kalas knows me as a usurper, as the one who stole the throne from the bloodline of his beloved friend and king. Kalas hates my mother and was no friend to my father—and the duke steadfastly believes—or rather, believed—that the throne of Honce-the-Bear must be reserved for the select few who are properly bred to be king. And yet, he is one whose loyalty I do not doubt, not for one instant. I hold Duke Kalas solidly in my court because he was dead, by my hand, and I gave him back his life! Duke Kalas, who long ago lost faith in the Abellican Church, who
long ago lost all of his faith, now sees in me the promise, or at least the hope, of immortality
.

He will never go against me
.

Can I offer that which he so desires? Am I the way to eternity? I honestly do not know. Twice now I have waged battle with death, and in neither instance was I impressed by the netherworld’s grasp on the departed spirit. And there may be something more, something tangible and physical—a joining of mind and body and spirit in a union untouched by pain and age. The shadow in the mirror has hinted of this, has told me quietly that I can achieve such a union through the powers of the hematite and that in that state, I will be beyond the reach of spears and disease and death itself. Perhaps I will find my answers, to my own immortality and to that of those around me. Perhaps I will find my answers, will find all the answers, within the swirl of a soul stone
.

It is all too confusing, I fear, and all too distracting. Of one thing I am certain: only the great are remembered. Those people who stand above the populace, those people who stand above the kings, they are the ones spoken of as the years become decades and the decades become centuries
.

It is my destiny to rule. I know that. The voice on the field, be it that of Elbryan or one merely expressing that which is in my own thoughts and heart, speaks truly. I prefer that my march be a peaceful one. I do not enjoy the killing. But I know I lead the world to a better place. I know that when Aydrian is king of all mankind, the world will come to realize greater peace and prosperity than ever before. And so the end result is worth the bloodstains of the ignorant. And so those who die in the name of King Aydrian are dying to create a better world
.