The War of the Moonstone: an Epic Fantasy (23 page)

He turned to one of his guards, the
one named Kragt.

“Prepare my special recipe. Add my
secret spice to their wine.”

Kragt grinned and ducked away.

With horror, the truth dawned on
Fria. “No, my lord,” she said. “Don’t do this. You’re not evil! I know you’re
not!” Her voice broke, and she realized she was crying. “Say you’re not.
Say it!
”

He threw her off, and when she
struck the floor he glared down at her with open disdain. “Stay away from me,
whore. And don’t look at me! I cannot stand your rolling eye. Ach!”

She sobbed and clamped a hand over
her left eye. “Don’t turn away from me, my lord. I’ll wear a patch, I swear
it.” She couldn’t bear his hate. Something shriveled, dying, inside her. She
found it difficult to breathe.

“Take her away,” Raugst said to his
guards. “Take her to her old rooms and do not let her out.”

“Yes, m’lord.”

They dragged her away. Raugst did
not even look at her as she left. That hurt most of all.

From the doorway of the feasting hall, Raugst smiled as the
new jugs of wine were brought round, and smiled further as Giorn’s men began to
drink from them. Yes, this would do nicely. He actually began to laugh as the
hundred-odd soldiers started to choke and gasp and clutch at their throats. His
laugh was a full-on bellow by the time they fell from their chairs and writhed on
the floor, foam beading their lips.

Then, sighing contentedly, he
walked out into the feasting hall, stepping over and around the dead and dying,
and surveyed his conquered foes.

“Stand not in my way,” he said. “For
mine is the path of the Wolf.”

He passed a dead man, fluid
trickling from his mouth, eyes staring, jaw agape. He passed another, his
fingers locked around his throat. He stepped over a corpse that had begun to
turn blue. He passed another and another, and slowly, ever so slowly, his mirth
left him.

He stared about him, at the glossy
eyes, the lolling tongues. These were not men anymore. They were meat.

It should have pleased him. But
somehow it did not. He stood there in the center of the room, gazing about him
at the dead, and it seemed as if they whirled about him, a wheeling vision of
mortality. The ground rocked beneath him.

He touched a dead face with his
toe, prodded it. It lolled lifelessly. Just minutes before it had been laughing
and drinking. Now it was a waxen mask, a caricature of a man.

He
had done that. He, Raugst, without lifting a finger, had slain this man. He had
slain all of them. It is what he lived for, the exercise of his power. This was
a glorious mission, a most beautiful assignment gifted to him by the great lord
Vrulug, the wise and generous. This was the grandest assignment Raugst had ever
been given, the grandest assignment possible—to bring down the Crescent!—and
here he was, at the height of his success, and
he could not enjoy it
.

What had that witch
done
to him?

More. Not only did he not enjoy it,
but the longer he stood there, surrounded by his victims, the more their dead
eyes seemed to stare at him accusingly. What was happening?

They gazed at him, wide-eyed,
glassy, dead, bony fingers stretched toward him, pointing, pointing at the
murderer who had done this to them.

“No!” he said. He pressed his hands
against his ears, as though hearing their accusations in his head. “No! Don’t
you . . .
don’t you look at me like that!
”

His me, hovering at the edges of
the room to keep out the servants, glanced at him nervously, then to each
other.

“My lord?” one ventured, stepping forward—Kragt.

Raugst waved him off. “Come no
closer. I . . . I need air.”

Kragt nodded, uncertain. “As you
say, my lord.”

“Go. Release Fria. She can do no
harm, not anymore.”

“Of course, my lord. What shall be
done about the bodies? Should we leave them to rot? The Gates will be opened
soon in any event. It’s not as if we fear discovery . . .”

Something strange coiled inside
Raugst. “No. Put them on carts. We’ll deliver them to the ‘stogs. Release Fria
first. Then . . . see to the bodies. Let us use the tunnels, if we can find
them.” But inside he knew he was only saying this because it was what Kragt
needed to hear. He needed to hear that his lord and master had not . . . gone
soft . . .

Is that what had happened? Had that
witch turned him soft?
If I cannot kill,
I cannot serve the One.

Raugst lifted a goblet from a
table, still half full of red wine, and sniffed at it, smelling the bare hint
of bitter tang that was the poison. For a moment he considered quaffing it. He
could die with honor. He would not abandon his path, abandon his Master.

But . . .
was
the Great One his master? Surely he was his own man, a free
agent upon the earth. He could say and do anything he desired.

Blasphemy!
Gilgaroth was the One. Everything bent in service to the One. Even Vrulug, wise
and mighty Vrulug, served the One. He was the core of all existence. There was
only one higher, and that was the great and terrible Lorg-jilaad, exiled and lost
in the gulfs of the void before the Breaking of the World. But here all bent to
Gilgaroth. He was the burning center of the universe.

And yet, if that were so, why then
did these men not serve Him? If He was
the
core, then He should be
their
core,
as well.

Could there be . . . two cores? More?
It was unthinkable! Yet it fit the facts. And Raugst was a creature of
intellect, as well as brawn. Under the weight of such thoughts, he sank to the
floor, sweaty and breathless. He was
other
now, he realized. He stood outside the circle of his Master.

No
.

All of his life, everything he had
ever known, was contained in the One. All his life he had lived in the hot
protective shadow of Gilgaroth. The Great One’s warmth, love, His marvelous
Plan: it was Raugst’s entire world. To be outside of it . . .

“Oh, Master,” he whispered. “Don’t abandon
me.”

A new horror occurred to him. For
now, if he truly were shut out of the Great One’s circle, that meant that
Illistriv was denied him, too. The afterlife of his people, gone, its black
gates shut to his presence forever, save as fuel for the Inferno.

“No,” he moaned. Tears welled in
his eyes.

How could it have come to this? His
whole world, his whole life, shattered, in ruins, all he had worked for, hollow
. . .

Fria entered. She gasped, overcome
at the sight of the dead men, and he could feel her fear, her horror, could
smell it on the air. Then, seeming to gather herself, she came to him, slowly,
and wrapped her arms about his thick neck.

“Oh, Raugst,” she breathed, “what
have you done, my love? What have you
done
?”

He did not answer. At that moment
he was imagining how he must look to Kragt and the others: a kneeling, crying,
brooding thing hung with a weeping woman. He must look broken.
Disloyal . . .

He rose to his feet, shrugging Fria
off.

“Off me,” he growled, genuinely
sorry to say the words. He thought fast. He could sense Kragt’s confusion and
fear, could sense his lieutenants wondering if Raugst required a visit in the
dark.

“I was not weeping for
them
,” he said, gesturing to the bodies
all around. “I was weeping because my task is almost over. This is the greatest
task ever given to me, the greatest I can imagine, and I have loved every moment
of it. And now it will end. My agents will open the Gates, and Vrulug’s legions
will pour in. Thiersgald will burn. Yes, Fria,
it will burn
.”

“You monster!” She beat at his feet
with her tiny fists. “You
monster
! Giorn
and Niara were right . . .”

“I’m no monster. I am a servant of
the One. He is the center. Soon He will be
your
center, as well.”

“Never! Never, never . . .” She
could hardly speak through her sobs.

“Either that, or you shall die, or
become a plaything of the Borchstogs, and they are ungentle with their toys.”

She stared up at him with eyes that
were just seeing him for the first time. The look in them hurt, but he must
play this out—at least, until he could think of a way past it.

“How could I have ever loved you?” Even
her roving eye took that moment to obey her, and both glared at him. No, not
glared, not exactly—she hadn’t the will to glare. She loved him too much for
that. She was just looking up at him with immense disappointment, and a sense
of terrible loss and betrayal. “Was it a lie?” she said. “Was it all a lie?”

He leaned down, took her hand, and
hauled her to her feet. He could at least show her that much tenderness. She
jerked away, as though his touch scalded her.

“Answer me!” she said.

He stepped forward, letting his
shadow fall over her. Trembling, she cowered before him, her vehemence faded in
an instant.

“
I
am lord here,” he said. “Not you.”

“I am the true Wesrain . . .”

“I am Baron. My agents run this castle
and the army. It is
me
Fiarth
follows. Not you. So keep silent, continue to amuse me, and I’ll let you live. You
will be my personal slave.”

Trembling, she turned away, unable
even to look on him. That shamed him, but with his men watching he could not
show it.

“As my slave,” he said, “you will
watch Thiersgald fall. And it will have no defense. My agents will open the
gates of the city shortly, and Vrulug will devour it. Not even your priestesses
will be able to resist. The Master took the Moonstone, turned it, and now Lord
Vrulug spreads his poison from it outwards, tainting the light in the whole
region. It will not aid you. Your priestesses and sorcerers are helpless. You
are as babes against the Wolf.” He lifted his head and said,
“Roschk Gilgaroth!”

Kragt and the others, overcome,
lifted their heads, as well:
“Roschk
Gilgaroth!”

Raugst breathed easier.

Kragt approached. “Master, I just
had word. Lord Giorn lives. That one—” he indicated Fria “—was seeing to him in
the hospital wing.”

Raugst tried to hide his dismay. He
had wanted to kill Giorn, but that had passed. Now he was uncertain. Giorn had
a right to his rage, of that there could be no doubt. Yet it looked as though
Raugst would be called upon to slay the last male Wesrain; he could not spare
him, not in front of Kragt and the others.

“Take me to him.”

Kragt strode proudly ahead, eager
to show his master to the Baron’s son. Raugst’s mind spun, trying to imagine
some way he could save Giorn. He could think of nothing, except to keep him
alive for torture, and that would be no kindness.

Kragt led the way into the hospital
wing and boldly stepped in through the archway that led into the infirmary. Stained-glass
windows let in the night’s illumination, almost as if this were a chapel, but
then the Wesrains would look to Illiana to heal their injuries, and it would be
her priestesses who oversaw the healers.

“Here he is,” Kragt said, sweeping
an arm at a line of low beds that stood along one wall.

“Where?” There was no one there.

Kragt frowned. “But I don’t
understand. Our men saw him. Fria was seeing to him.”

“Fria . . .”

They looked at each other. Raugst
hated this, but he knew what would be expected of him. Trying to conceal a sigh,
he marched back to the feasting hall, where Fria wept over one of the dead
Fiarthans. “Hanen,” she was saying. “I’m so sorry.” She glanced up when Raugst
approached her, and even through her tears Raugst saw defiance.

“Where’s Giorn?” he demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking
about.” She wiped at her eyes, but there was no weakness in the movement.

“You lie! Where is the secret
passage?” That had to be where she had hidden him.

“Why should I tell you?”

He jerked her roughly to her feet,
and her lazy eye spun like a tornado.

“Speak!”

A smile tugged at the corner of her
lips. “Very well, I will show you.”

He did not like the look in her
eye, but he had little choice. “Lead on.”

She left the chamber, and Raugst
and several of his men followed close behind. Ambling and stumbling, seeming
either mad or drunk, Fria led down a flight of stairs, then another. The air
grew cold and moist, the tunnels dark. Raugst was obliged to light a torch. He
could see well in the dark, but not
that
well, and it seemed his ability had diminished since Niara’s kiss. Fria ushered
him past the wine cellars into the catacombs, where the Barons Wesrain had been
entombed for centuries. Remembering the legends that spoke of their ghosts
haunting these passages, the hairs prickled on the back of Raugst’s neck. At
last Fria showed them into a small domed chamber containing in its center a
large stone sarcophagus, pressed a panel along the wall, and a section of the
wall swung away, revealing a black tunnel.

“Have at it,” she said.

Raugst thrust his torch into secret
passage but saw only a tight, low tunnel. A fungus-like odor repelled him.

“Where is he?” Raugst demanded. “I
haven’t time to be sneaking about in rat-holes! These could go on for miles.”

One of her fingers twirled a strand
of hair. Her roving eye looked off to the left so that he could only see the
white. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice carrying a singsong lilt. “Are you
sure you would not like to venture in?” She cast her gaze at the square of
blackness where the wall had been.

“I’m certain,” he said. He had not
wanted to find Giorn, not really, but at the same time he’d always prided
himself on accomplishing what he set out to, and she had quite ably frustrated
him. Ah, well. It was better this way. He tried to keep the relief out of his
voice as he said to his guards, “Well, I don’t fear the likes of Giorn. He’s
broken. He can be no threat to me. Still . . .” He looked to Kragt. “You and
some men search these tunnels. If they do go beyond the wall, I may find use for
them. We can cart the bodies out through here, for one.” That, too, would be
expected of him, and Giorn—if he were in these tunnels somewhere—would
hopefully have prepared for it.