The Barrow (85 page)

Arduin stared impassively down at them.

Panting, Godewyn stood smugly behind Stjepan's unconscious body, while Caider Ross, his crowbar held like a weapon, looked up at Arduin.

“I really do think that's quite enough from you,” said Arduin quietly.

Godewyn turned and looked up at Arduin, holding his shovel out like a pointer. “To the Six Hells with you. To the Six Hells with all of this. To the Six Hells with the fucking sword,” he hissed. He tossed the shovel aside and spat. “There's a fortune in that other room, and we're gonna go get it. Then me and my boys are leaving, with or without the rest of you sorry lot.” He turned to Caider Ross. “Here, go get me some of that rope.”

Caider Ross climbed out of the pit on the opposite side from where Arduin stood and rummaged in some of the satchels and bags they had brought with them. He found a coiled-up rope and tossed it down to Godewyn in the pit, then shrugged a shirt on and started buckling his sword belt around his waist. Arduin watched with a tilted head and blank expression as Godewyn turned the unconscious Stjepan over and started tying his hands behind his back.

When he was finished he flipped Stjepan onto his back again, and patted his face with mock affection. “Shit, Athairi, what'd you say about being buried when you were dead?” Godewyn said with a snicker. He climbed out of the pit, grabbing up his sword and daggers and his brigandine jack.

He looked down at Stjepan in the pit, and then at Arduin. “It's been a fucking disaster knowing you two,” he said.

Godewyn and Caider Ross walked past Arduin and out the high-domed chamber.

Arduin silently watched them go and stared at the empty archway for a moment. He looked back down at Stjepan's prostrate form and gave an apologetic shrug.

“I really must go find my sister,” he said.

He turned and walked out of the chamber.

Stjepan awoke to find that he was lying upon a carved stone bench in a clearing on a wooded hilltop. The forest nearby was filled with broad high trees of birch and purple-leaf oak, maple and elm, cherry and white ash, cedar and pine stretching out for leagues in all directions, their trunks coated with old layers of lichens and moss. Leaves were falling to pile on the perimeter of the clearing, or floating past him, stirred in the light wind. Storm clouds roiled the skies above, but he heard no thunder and felt no rain. He felt sure that it was late autumn, but rather than the riot of fall colors, of burnt red and orange-yellow and fire and gold, instead the landscape around him was but shades of blue and grey and black, as though the world was caught in a moment of perpetual dusk. A dream, then. He stirred and sat up, and looked around. He was looking to the east, that he was certain; the desolate high mountains of the Djar Éduins were visible through the trees to his left. Below him he could see a great stone castle that sat on a rise over a small riverside city, and he knew that across that river would be the Plain of Stones.

No, this is not your home, this is not An-Athair. And no, you are not dead. This is not Limbo, either
, came an ancient, gravelly voice from behind him.

Stjepan turned and looked over his shoulder. He could see a figure standing in the shadows of the trees, wearing a long, black robe with a collar of tufted horse hair, surrounding the head like a black fan, and a long, pointed bronze mask, with a pair of gazelle horns spiraling up from its forehead. The mask's eyeholes had an evil, slanted cast to them, and opened onto blackness. Ornate circular patterns swirled and wove their way along the edges of the mask and were echoed in gold thread patterns embroidered into the figure's robe. A chain of gold and bronze discs inlaid with silver symbols was slipped over the collar and around its neck, almost like a noble's chain of office.

'Tis
but
a dream, while you are in a place where men should not dream. Dreaming is for temples, not for graves. Not for
my
grave
, the figure said.

Stjepan stood up, alarmed.

Arduin stepped into the first chamber of the inner barrow; he paused, uncertain. For a moment he looked toward the south passage, and then east out toward the exit. He swayed suddenly, and had to put a hand against the wall to steady himself. He almost retched onto the ground.
My family is ruined
, he thought.
Our line is ended. There shall be no redemption for us here. And I have lost every knight of my household on this useless quest.
Unless . . . unless . . .

He took a deep breath, and then he turned to his right, and west toward the shrine of Ishraha and the treasure chamber with the bier and body.

Stjepan stepped warily into the center of the clearing. He kept his body turned toward Azharad, who began circling the clearing, never entirely leaving the shadows of the trees. He tried not to let the ghostly figure out of his sight.

“What do you want with me?” asked Stjepan.

Azharad laughed with a hiss.
What do I want with you? My barrow has at long last been opened, and I smell it in the air: metal and blood, leather and rust, sweat and fear. I hear it on the wind: the clash of arms and iron, the murmur of rumor and riot.

As he spoke, the trees began to fade away and the shadows turned to men roiling in armored combat. And they were no longer in a clearing in An-Athair, instead they were standing in the midst of a dark and chaotic battlefield that moved about them in slow motion, as though the combatants were trapped in honey becoming amber. Stjepan looked but he could not see who was fighting; the armored warriors that whirled about them were hazy, indistinct, shadows and blurs.

Wolves are howling, ravens taking wing, spirits of death and fire stirring beyond the veil! War is coming, and oh, how I would love to be back in the world for this!
Azharad said as he walked amongst the fighting men.
To feast on the bones and flesh of the dead! To sate myself on the bodies of those I have corrupted! Oh, to be free again to feed on the world!

Stjepan's eyes were narrowing.

Oh, what I want with you is obvious, I think
, said the ghost.
No, the question is: what do
you
want with
me
?

The light of several lamps illumined the long chamber of rough-hewn stone walls and its low, corbel-arched ceiling and the deep arched crevices set in its sides. Godewyn and Caider Ross were quickly and quietly sorting through the urns and chests that lined the crevices and the perimeter of the floor, stuffing sacks with gold statues and figurines and anything that sparkled with gems, creating a pile of sacks by the door. Godewyn had slipped his brigandine back on, though he had not had the time to tie it properly and it hung open in the front, exposing the hair on his chest. They looked up as Arduin entered the chamber, his bared war sword still carried in the crook of his coulter, and both of them stood and drew their weapons, Godewyn with a broadsword in one hand and an axe in the other.

“This is all that's left of value and it's
ours
by our rightful contract, this is, not yours!” Godewyn snarled.

Arduin stared at him a moment, his face a blank, before he turned away. “Keep it,” he finally said. “Keep it all. I care not for those trinkets.” His gaze fell upon the long waist-high bier of rock and stone in the center of the chamber, and the beautiful sword clasped beneath the hands of the body that rested upon it.

Godewyn followed his eyes, and snorted. “Here to claim a cursed sword?” he asked.

“Who says it's cursed?” Arduin said with a shrug. “I mean, how do we really know? Master Stjepan has been wrong about so many other things, so why not this as well?”

Slowly Godewyn and Caider Ross turned and looked at the sword.

Azharad continued to circle Stjepan, creeping closer and closer as he walked.
What can
I
offer
you
? A chance to be a king, rather than a servant?
the ghost hissed and gloated.
I see the oaths that bind you!

Azharad pointed and a ghostlike rune appeared on Stjepan's bare chest. Ghostly chains seemed to bind the rune to his heart. A dagger was suddenly in Stjepan's right hand.

You walk the world in shadows, steeped in secret murder and crimes of state, pollution marring your spirit so men who think themselves your betters can enter the Heavens, while you are condemned to suffer one day in Hell!
the ghost of the ancient wizard said
.
Blood dripped from the dagger in Stjepan's hand onto the earth at his feet.
Why hide in the shadows? Why be a servant, when instead these could be your rewards: golden crowns and laurels upon your brow, legions at your beck and call, kings and queens at your feet, all the trophies of war and lust!

Stjepan laughed drily.
“
A feeble offer from a ghost: the riches of the material world. Do you think me so easily bought?” he asked.

Oh, but I most certainly do
, said Azharad
. Anger and hate consume you; love has been burnt from you, burnt away in the pyre that consumed your mother, by years of service to men you secretly hate and who do not deserve your loyalty.
The battle around them grew more and more vicious; the world grew darker, with fires raging on the horizon in every direction. Azharad seemed to be feeding off the chaos around him.
And a man without love is a man for the taking. A man's destiny is spun by the Wheels of Fate and written in the Book of Dooms, but I was a Magician-King in the service of Nameless Cults. I worshipped Nymarga the Devil and Githwaine his first and last Worm King, and I strived to read the future in all its possibilities. The Book of Dooms is not fixed; the Queen of Heaven gave men that gift, that they may write themselves a new page. You walk a servant's path, but I can offer a different one, the path of war and conquest, glowing bright with fire and slaughter. The Sword, held high in triumph! The Sphinx, the source of mystery! And the Riven Tower, earth-shaker, destroyer of the order of things!