Symphony of Ages - Threshold Part 6

The king's shadow began to fade.

There is no time in eternity.Vandemere's voice echoed in the emptiness.In staying behind, you fought to give them more time. Instead, you should be fighting to keep from losing eternity.

Hector woke with a start.

The ground beneath his head was splitting apart, a great fissure ripping the Earth asunder.

In a heartbeat he was on his feet, grasping the startled fisherman next to him and dragging the old man back from the brink of the chasm as Jarmon made a dive to untie the horses.

A roar like thunder s.h.i.+vered the scorched trees around them, and the fisherman shouted something that Hector could not hear. They backed away, pulling the frightened beasts with all their strength, running blindly north into the fire-colored mist, until the ground beneath their feet stopped shaking, settling into a seething rumble that did not cease.

"You all right, Brann?" Hector asked, trying to settle the roan and failing; the animal whinnied in fear and danced in place, her ears back and eyes wild.

The old man's eyes were as gla.s.sy as the horse's, but he nodded anyway.

"The Awakening-it's coming," he whispered, his voice barely audible above the rumbling ground.

"There is no more time for sleep, Sir Hector. We are not that far away; if we hurry, we will be in Dry Cove before morning. Let us make haste, I beg you! My people await rescue."

"Your people are fools if they haven't quit the village by now, old man," Jarmon muttered. "The heat is searing from here. If they be closer, they have already cooked in the belching fire."

Hector took the trembling fisherman by the shoulders and helped him mount.

"We go," he said. "We will stop no more until we are there, or we are in the Afterlife."

Through the lowlands that had once been the towns and villages near the Great River's mouth they rode, the air thick with black smoke that obscured their vision of anything but the riverbed.

The horses, ridden ceaselessly and deprived of frequent stops for fresh water, began to show signs of faltering. When Brann's mount finally collapsed into a quivering ma.s.s on the mule road, Jarmon pulled the fisherman, gray of face from exhaustion and fear, behind him in the saddle and spurred his own mount onward.

"Sorry, Rosie, old girl," he muttered, patting the animal's neck. His hand was covered with flecks ofsweat and horse sputum. "It will soon end, and then you can rest."

Finally the sound of the sea cras.h.i.+ng in the distance broke through the screaming wind.

"Here! We are here!" Brann whispered, tugging roughly on Jarmon's sleeve. "The sea has drawn back a goodly distance, but you can hear it still."

Hector reined the roan to a halt. Off to the north sparks of molten flame, like iridescent fireflies, shot haphazardly into the wind above the sea, swirling in menacing patterns against the blackening sky. He strained to see through the smoke, and thought he made out the silhouettes of shacks and docks, charred timbers blending into the darkness.

They dismounted, abandoning the horses at the sh.o.r.eline, and waded into the wet sand, every now and then pa.s.sing what was probably once a body, now buried beneath a thick coating of ash.

Hector glanced at Brann, but the fisherman's gaze did not waver; rather, the old man s.h.i.+elded his eyes, trying to peer through the gray and black fog to where he had seen what he thought were the doors to the mammoth mine.

"This way," the fisherman said, his voice stronger now. "It was just north of that failed land bridge, past the tip of the peninsula, where once the water met on three sides."

As if to punctuate his words, the sandy ground shook violently.

"Lead onward," Hector shouted, following the fisherman into the sand bed.

Blindly they made their way across the tidal wasteland, where the sea had once swelled to the land, now nothing but a desert of ocean sand. The sea's retreat had laid bare the bones of s.h.i.+ps, broken reefs, sh.e.l.ls of every imaginable kind, broken and jagged in the wet grit where the water once broke against the sh.o.r.e.

A plume of fire shot into the black sky in the near distance, then fell heavily back into the sea.

Over the broken land bridge for a mile, then another, and another, the three men limped hurriedly across the wet sand, burning now through their boots. Finally, when they reached a place where the smoke blackened the air almost completely, Brann stopped near a small, intact fis.h.i.+ng boat wedged in the seabed, dropped to his knees, and pointed beneath the low-hanging smoke down into the distance.

"There," he whispered.

Hector crouched down and followed the old man's arthritic finger with eyes that burned from the heat and ash.

At first he could see nothing save for the endless sand and black smoke. But after a moment, his eyes adjusted, and his breath caught in his raw throat.

They were standing on what appeared to be a great ridge in the seabed, a towering wall that led down into a creva.s.se a thousand or more feet deep, at the bottom of which the remnants of seawater pooled.

Hector followed the perimeter with his eyes, and could not see its beginning, nor its end. The depression seemed to stretch to the horizon; the cliff wall beneath them made the seabed seem as if they were standing in a vast meadow atop a mountain. Whatever the actual dimensions of the ancient mine, it was clear that a man could not see all of it at once even in clear air; it stretched out beneath the sand, hidden for millennia by the sea, into the place to which the water had retreated. He finally now understood Brann's insistence that enough of the sea could be diverted into such a mammoth s.p.a.ce that at least apart of the Island might be spared.

"Where are the doors?" he shouted over the thundering roar that came forth from within the sea to the north.

"At the bottom," Brann shouted in return, struggling to remain upright in the burning wind.

"Can we scale the cliff face, Hector?" Jarmon asked, looking for a foothold and finding none. "If we fall from this height there will be no stopping; 'twill be a quick end at least."

"There looks to be a path of a sort, or at least a place where the cliff wall slants," Hector said, ducking again so that he could see more clearly.

Brann was eyeing the sky nervously. "We must hurry!" he urged as liquid fire shot aloft again, spewing ash and making the ground lurch beneath their feet. He scurried over the rim and began sliding down the wall that Hector had indicated, followed a moment later by the two soldiers.

Down into the creva.s.se, running and slipping they ran, falling, sliding on knees or even on their backs, only to rise, driven by necessity and the imminence of the Awakening. The seabed was thick here, like rock beneath the sand, but absent of the debris that they had seen in the higher ground at the sh.o.r.eline.

Finally, when they had fallen far enough down to have descended a small mountain, they found themselves at the base of a sheer cliff wall, their feet wet in the dregs of the sea that had covered this place a short time before, staring up at a solid wall of rock.

The wind howled and shrieked above them, but stayed at the level of the sea, venturing down into the canyon only long enough to whip sand into their eyes. "Where are the doors?" Hector asked again, his voice quieter in the near silence.

Brann pointed to a towering slab to the north. "There," he said, in a trembling tone.

Crawling now, the three men made their way over the scattered rock of the seafloor, scaling outcroppings, climbing over dips and hollows, until at last they stood where the fisherman had indicated.

Above them towered what appeared to be two ma.s.sive slabs of solid earth, smooth as granite and white as the rest of the sea sand. There was a slash of thin darkness between them; otherwise they appeared in no way different from the rest of the rocky undersea hills.

Beneath their feet the ground trembled again, more violently than before. The winds atop the canyon screamed, rising into an atonal wail that fell, discordant. Distant fire shot into the sky, turning the clouds the color of blood.

From his pack Hector drew forth the scepter. It glowed brightly in his hand, the gilt shaft s.h.i.+ning beneath the diamond, which sparkled almost menacingly.

Before them the slabs of stone seemed to soften. The three men watched, transfixed, as the sand that had covered them for time uncounted began to slide away, pooling at the base, revealing towering doors of t.i.tanic size bound in bra.s.s, with ma.s.sive handles jutting from plates of the same metal, a strange keyhole in the rightmost one. The gigantic doors were inscribed with ancient glyphs and wards, countersigns and runes the like of which Hector had never seen before.

Brann was watching the northern sky nervously over his shoulder. "Make haste, sir knight," he urged.

Hector stared at the ancient key in his hand. It appeared different somehow than it had been a momentbefore; the dark shaft of once living wood that he thought was the branch of a stone tree now more closely resembled a bone, the diamond perched atop it on the rim of where a joint would connect.

Carefully he held it next to the keyhole, trying to ascertain the angle which would fit it.

"Viden, singa ever monokran fri," he said. Open, in the name of the king.

The glyphs on the doors glowed with life.

The gilding began to fall from the scepter's shaft, sliding off in sandy golden flakes.

Hector pushed the key into the lock and slowly turned it counterclockwise.

Beneath his hand he more felt than heard an echoing thud. Ever so slightly the crack between the stone doors widened. Hector pushed on the rightmost of the two, but could only cause it to move infinitesimally. He attempted to look inside. He could see very little.

The darkness was devouring in its depth. Gingerly Hector pushed the door open a little farther, straining against the wedge of sand that had built up at the door's base over the ages. Brann took up a place beside him, adding the remains of his strength to the effort.

Behind him the flares of fire from the Awakening rose suddenly higher, burning more intensely, casting shadows into the black cavern beyond the doors. Hector peered through the crack.

The immensity of the place was more than Hector could fathom. From the small vista he had gained there seemed to be no border to it, no walls below limiting it to edges, but rather was more like opening a door into the night sky, or the depths of the universe.

"Again, sir knight," Brann whispered, pale with exertion. "We must open it wider. Hurry; there is no time left."

Jarmon leaned with all his strength against the door as well. With a groan that made Hector shudder, the rightmost of the two doors swung farther into the endless darkness.

Hector looked in again. At first he saw nothing, as before. Then, at the most distant edge of his vision, he thought he could make out tiny flames, perhaps remnants of the mine fires that could still be burning thousands of years later. But when those flames began to move, he felt suddenly weak, dizzy, as his head was a.s.saulted from within by the cacophony of a thousand rus.h.i.+ng voices, cackling and screeching with delight.

Like fire on pine, the living flames began to sweep down distant ledges within the mammoth pit, some nearer, some farther, all das.h.i.+ng toward the door, churning the air with the destructive chaos of mayhem.

Hector, his head throbbing now with the gleeful screaming that was drawing rapidly closer, could only watch in horror as the fire swelled, burning intensely, a legion of individual flames scrambling down the dark walls toward the doors.

His mind reeled for a moment as the sickening realization of what they had done crashed down on him.

Time stood still as the truth thundered around his ears, louder than the tremors from the Sleeping Child.

He had just broken the one barrier that separated life from void, that stood between the earth and its destruction, and more.

That threatened even the existence of the Afterlife."My G.o.d," he whispered, his hand slick with sweat. "My sweet G.o.d! Jarmon-This is the Vault! We've opened the Vault of the Underworld!"

Jarmon's guttural curse was lost in the sound of oncoming destruction and the orgiastic screaming of the approaching fire demons, long entombed, now rus.h.i.+ng toward freedom.

The soldiers seized the door handle and together they pulled on it with all their strength. They succeeded in dragging the door shut most of the way, but they were able to close it only as far as was possible with the obstacle of the fisherman's body in the way.

Brann had interposed himself in the doorway, straddling the threshold.

Jarmon reached over to shove the old man out of the way. "Move, you fool!" he shouted. And gagged in pain when his arm was crushed against the door, so that it was clasped in a withering grip.

They looked at the old man. His face had hardened, had become an almost translucent mask of undisguised delight. Its wrinkled skin now was tight over a feral smile, above which a pair of dark eyes gleamed, their edges rimmed in the color of blood.

"I," Brann said softly. "I am what the winds forewarned you of, Sir Hector. I am what comes."

"No," Hector whispered raggedly. "You-you-"

The demon in the old man's body clucked disapprovingly, though his smile sparkled with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Now, now, Sir Hector," he said with exaggerated politeness. "This is a historic moment, one to savor!

Let us not spoil it with recriminations, shall we?" He let go of Jarmon's arm.

The soldiers dragged on the heavy door again, but the F'dor only wedged himself in tighter, preventing it from closing with a strength that was growing by the moment. Hector pulled with all his might, but only managed to strip the skin from his sweating palms against the hot metal handles.

Jarmon stepped back angrily and drew his sword, but the fisherman merely gestured at him. Dark fire exploded from his fingers and licked the weapon; the blade grew molten in Jarmon's hand, melting away in a river of liquid steel. It drew a scream of agony from the guard, who fell heavily away into the sand.

"The scepter-" Hector choked.

"Would help you to discern the truth?" the demon asked solicitously, glancing at his approaching fellows, who were drawing nearer now. "Indeed, you were not wrong. Everything I told you was the truth. My peoplehave lived at the sea's edge for a very long time; weare frail in body, though we are strong in spirit. Without a host, or someone to give us aid, we could never open the door alone. And I was most sincere when I a.s.sured you that none of my people would dream of touching the scepter; for one of our kind to touch an object of Living Stone crowned with a diamond would be certain death. That's why we needed you; we thank you for your service."

"Blessed ground," Hector whispered, pulling futilely at the door and fighting off the screaming voices that swelled inside his head. "The inn is blessed ground-"

"I never broached the inn," said the F'dor. "Nor the palace, if you recall. No, Sir Hector, I never crossed the threshold of either place; you met me at the crossroads and left me at the foot of the castle.

Kind of you." The demon laughed again. "And what I told you of my life was the truth as well. Long ago I had the chance to leave my birthplace-that was in the old days, during the first cataclysm, when the star first ruptured the Vault. Many of us escaped before it was sealed again, only to have been hunted throughout history, having to flee from host to host, hiding, biding our time. But now, once again, we willbe out in the world, thanks to you, Sir Hector. You wished to rescue whomever you could from the cataclysm, and here you are! You have spared an entire race from captivity! And not only have you freed us from the Vault, but our master-the one who has long watched the doors, waiting for this day-you will be his host! What could be more edifying than that?"

The fire in the demon's eyes matched the intensity of that in the sky.

"When the old fisherman rowed out in his little boat to examine what the retreat of the sea had revealed, I was waiting, formless. I had come home when I heard of the upcoming Awakening, just as I said I had."

The demon sighed. "A younger, stronger host might have been preferable, but one takes what one is offered in the advent of cataclysm. Isn't truth a marvelous thing? The art is in telling it so that it is interpreted the way one wishes to have it heard.

"Finally, I told you that we would be eternally grateful, sir knight. And we are. We are. Eternally."

Jarmon rose shakily to his feet and met Hector's eye.

"Hector," he said quietly, "open the door."

In his dizziness, the words rang clear. Hector's gaze narrowed a moment, then widened slightly with understanding.

With the last of his strength, he threw himself against the rightmost door of the Vault, shoving it open even farther than it had been before. His head all but split from the frenzied screaming of the demonic horde that was virtually within reach of the door; he tried to avert his eyes from the horror of the sight, but found his gaze dragged to the approaching fire that burned black with excitement as it rushed forward to freedom.

At the same moment, Jarmon threw himself into Brann and locked his arms around his knees. The frail form of the demon's host buckled in the strong arms of the guard and the momentum thrust both of them over the threshold and into the Vault.

Which gave Hector just enough time to drag the mammoth door shut before the mult.i.tude of F'dor that had been sealed away since the First Age crossed the threshold into the material world.

He pulled the key from the hole and tossed it behind him. Then he wrapped his arms through the huge bra.s.s handles, holding on with all the leverage he could muster as the gleaming doors darkened and settled back into lifeless stone once more.

Hector's mind buckled under the screaming he could hear and feel beyond those doors. The stone shook terrifyingly as the demons pounded from the other side, causing tremors that shook his entire body. He bowed his head, both to brace the closure and to try to drown out the horrifying sounds that scratched his ears. Within the demonic screeches of fury he thought he could hear Jarmon's voice rise in similar tone, the unmistakable sound of agony of body and soul ringing harshly in it.

As he clutched at the burning doors that seared the flesh from his chest and face, the sky turned white above him.

With a thundering bellow that cracked the vault of the heavens, the Sleeping Child awoke in the depths of the sea and rose in fiery rage to the sky.

The sound of the screaming on the other side of the door faded in the roar of the inferno behind him. All he could feel now was searing heat, heat that baked his body to the core from behind, and radiated through the stone doors before him, as molten volcanic fire rained down, sealing him eternally in anossified sh.e.l.l to the bra.s.s handles.