Chapter 10: Choice, Obedience and Will

It was Lanten Eve, the night of the Battle of the Great Wall.

The flames of annihilation danced their reflective glow on the upturned visage of the Knight of the Wounds. He watched the gigantic soaring creatures of darkness, wheeling and pouring destruction on the helpless human army.

Taril's face, barely visible in the flickering light, could still be easily read. Etched upon it were lines of concern, and his eyes were pools of pain and compassion. "Joy," Taril prayed, "when is it enough?"

Suddenly, Taril felt that the Spirit was prodding him into action. It didn't take much prompting. In a flash of blinding light, Logos was out of his scabbard.

Praise tumbling from his lips, power coursing through him from the depths of his being: stomach, heart and mind. A raging torrent pulsing upwards. Sword raised, yelling to Joy! Taril's Blade of Truth pointed at the winged engines of destruction. Like a welling volcano of power, truth and light, the Spirit shot up through the knight's sword and into the dark sky.

Pierced! Again pierced! Straight through the hearts of the beasts which had felt so secure and invulnerable, high in their proud envelope of darkness. Like battered and broken kites the creatures tumbled from the sky, disintegrating into vapour and ash, tumbling earthwards.

One enormous vulgrath, more gifted than his fellows, bailed out of his companions' doomed ranks and raced towards earth. Screaming his horrible menacing wail, he banked and then levelled out six feet above the surface of the ground. He roared towards the source of his brothers' destruction, like an ebony arrow shot out of oblivion.

Taril had just concluded that the last of the vulgraths must have been destroyed and was re-sheathing his sword, when the colossal creature catapulted out of the darkness, not forty feet from him and racing straight at his head.

Sky reacted before Taril, leaping deftly to his left. Taril's sword again flashed from its scabbard and, in one motion, neatly parted the creature's wing from its body as it hurtled by. Sky pivoted so that Taril could follow up on his attack. There was no need. The creature had exploded into a cloud of vapour.

Taril walked Sky over to the place where the creature had ignited into smoke. There on the ground were the shredded remnants of a small black bat.

~ ~ ~

Forty-five days after the fall of the Great Wall, the Tower of Grenwilde had looked and smelled better.

Desigarg are for the most part filthy creatures and nearly always stink; yet it is difficult to generalize about them. For one thing, desigarg have so many different mixtures. They are not so much creations as desecrations. One might be three parts pig, four parts wolf and eight parts human, whereas another might be almost equal parts lizard and human. About desigarg, only two things can be said with absolute firm authority: first, desigarg have - by definition - more human than animal blood; secondly, they act more like animals than humans. The commanders of the desigarg, it is certain, have only minute amounts of animality introduced into their seed -- enough to debase and destroy, but not to annihilate the processes of will and thought. It makes them much more useful but harder to control.

Not until he developed the vulgraths and nygraths did the Demiurge have what seemed the perfect balance of strength, intelligence and near total control.

Yet it was primarily desigarg that inhabited the Tower, desigarg and Targa Gamarad. It must be said that between them all they had made what had been a palace, look and smell more like a chicken coup. For desigarg cannot be constrained to regulate their habits, and they make every place they dwell a heap of refuse and sewage.

During the occupation of Grenwilde, Targa Gamarad had spent nearly the entire time in that one room. His weight and girth did not make physical progress an easy thing. In particular, most of the Tower was inaccessible to him for he simply couldn't fit through many of the doors. It had pleased him greatly to discover that the main stairway of the keep, being fifteen feet wide, seemed almost designed with him in mind. Furthermore, the King's retiring room, was at the top of these stairs and its massive double doors opened just wide enough for his bulk to pass through unhindered, having even several inches to spare. Therefore, in this room he had stayed.

However, on this day Targa Gamarad prepared to usher in the triumph of the Lord Nihilos. He had made his way down to the foot of the stairs and crouched in the outer courtyard of the tower beneath the weight of his own bulk, looking remarkably like a malignant tumour. On his right stood Nagara Diserac and on his left Kracka Chank, his leopard-like valet. Together they awaited the coming of the sacrifice, for now the hour was at hand.

Along both sides of the courtyard, ranks of desigarg, the Hordes of Night, stood at attention. The great doors of the Tower stood open. The yard itself had been raked and new straw thrown down, all to honour the presence of the toad. From the Tower's battlements flew the banner of the single crystal star on a black field, the banner of the Prince of the Night. On the ground before the toad, looking like a great oval eye was an enormous image crystal, eight feet in diameter. It was flush with the level ground, being flat and forming a kind of decorative pavement in front of the toad and his two aides.

All was in readiness, and even now, as the toad squatted in the courtyard, like a frog on a Lilly pad awaiting flies, he could see the two riders approaching.

~ ~ ~

Jenna called him Joy, and Jenna had one solution for any difficulty: take it straight to Joy. She was not troubled by thoughts of presumption; she did not worry about whether a thing that bothered her was worthy of the attention of the Highest; she had no fear of being turned aside or rejected. For she had never known any of these things from Him that she loved.

Was it part of his poetry that never was a need pressed upon his children but he, all unoccupied, seemed only to await their coming? Or was it that eternity smiled on time, making tiny rooms for each of time's creatures, even as the swallows' nests beneath the throne of the Most High? Could they all at the once meet with him all alone?

Perhaps such a thing cannot be answered, but it would never have occurred to Jenna. Of course, he was waiting for her - she was his child and he her King.

What Jenna had seen she must tell him. Did he not already know? Had he not known all that she ever told him? Yes, even Jenna knew that, but it was the telling of it to him that made all the difference.

Jenna - pausing only to kiss the Venerable One, Keeper of the Gate - ran pell-mell into the Presence of the Highest. Stop! Do not presume to follow. Even Cherion waits for her here. You could as well swallow the sun as follow her there.

~ ~ ~

Cats are wont to play with their food, and on occasion lose their meal by obeying their nature. Now the garg who had stumbled on Jaomin had more cat in him than, strictly speaking, was good for him. To his eyes the child before him was so contemptible that he would only have pleasure in killing him if he could first make him cry for mercy.

The desigarg extended one hand casually towards Jaomin, and showed his remarkable claws. They were nearly three inches in length, and fully retractable, "Well, little human. I was wondering what I might eat tonight. Now I grow cert..."

The sentence was never finished, for although Jaomin was very frightened, he felt a sudden surge of anger flow through him. Anger that such a creature should be, and that it should threaten him. Without thought or calculation, he leapt like a cliff-diver straight at his enemy's face, head first hands extended. The young warrior was nearly six feet above the desigarg's head and was furthermore leaping diagonally off the hill from, perhaps, ten feet away. Jaomin was three-quarters of the way towards the startled garg, when his hands met and closed over a branch, which hung down vertically across his flight-path. Holding on tenaciously and using all his strength, Jaomin swung his legs around and brought them full into the face and chest of his would be assailant.

Jaomin didn _

't really know afterwards whether it was more the effect of the blow or of surprise that undid his opponent, for the desigarg had begun to shy away even before the blow was struck. However this might be, the garg was knocked sideways and backwards, from his mount. At the same time the momentum of his fall, pulled his troll-beast backwards, as well. The hideous horse-spawn staggered, stepped backwards twice and lost its footing on the margin of the cliff. In a matter of seconds, Jaomin found himself watching garg and troll-beast tumble helplessly down the deep ravine beside the road.

Without waiting to see if they had survived the fall, he rounded up the trembling Nina, and laying hold of her reins had galloped off as quickly as the frightened horse could carry him. She seemed willing to go very quickly indeed.

~ ~ ~

Through his discussion with their mother, Taril had learned the names of each Prince of the Blood. It had touched him to hear Nalitha describe how, daily, she watched her children in the Mirror of Visions - always watching and praying, but not able to touch them. But she had prayed. How she had prayed! And Taril knew that over each an umbrella of protection was spread. Yet what was his part in being the answer to her prayers? On this, Nalitha could shed no light.

On the morning of this day, Taril had spent twenty minutes - all the time he could afford - deciding which path he would ride. Time was short, he could not go both ways: two boys, both on horse back, both riding - at the same moment - into crises. He knew, through Jenna's prophecy that he was to meet with the youngest of the brothers - sometime. Nevertheless, could this really be the day Jenna foresaw? It seemed not, for Telliam was riding towards certain death.

There were times when the Spirit breathed direction into Taril's heart, making him know which path he was to take. At other times he breathed only the peace of His assurance: take your path, child, and I will be with you. Now something inside of Taril, some longing to protect the helpless, would not allow him to let the young captain ride alone into death. So in the council of his heart it was decided: Jaomin would abide beneath his mother's prayer, and Taril would ride with Telliam.

And, at the moment he reached his decision, an electrified young prophetess had run full-tilt for Joy's throne room. But she was too late.

Therefore, it came to be, that Taril and Telliam rode their horses through the gates of the Tower of Grenwilde. No sooner had they entered than a raucous jeering went up: a ghastly half-human noise that accurately represented the semi-human throats from which it issued. The two riders, seemingly oblivious, rode until they stood nearly touching the great crystal, which lay at the feet of the toad.

"YOU HAVE COME!" Targa Gamarad bellowed, in a voice like a gong or an explosion. This roar completely silenced the desigarg Horde, so that the toad's next words were perfectly audible, even though they were delivered in a bare slithering whisper.

"Welcome - Kings."

Telliam had never seen Targa Gamarad, only heard of him, but something about the creature seemed to beg killing. Captain Bindaved looked at him with ill-concealed loathing and contempt - mingled with almost equal amounts of fear and pity.

Captain Bindaved dismounted and stood beside his horse, "I bear a message from King Akinwrath of Grenwilde..."

A roar of vile laughter, sounding more like an emission of steam than the out-workings of humour, broke from the toad and was echoed by the Horde. The toad ended in a snicker that shook his frame and impeded his speech. Finally, he managed to wrestle his humour into submission:

"Little human, you do indeed bear a message from a king, but it is not Akinwrath. What he says is only what I have told him to speak," the toad roared.

Telliam stiffened, "You lie. And speak according to your nature, I see."

Gamarad _

's eyes, which had all the while been divided between the two humans, combined their focus onto Telliam alone. Like a whiplash his tongue snapped at the unarmed and unprepared captain. However, moving so quickly that it seemed as if he had acted first, the sword of Taril Tal Lojan, slashed through the air and met the tongue just inches from its intended target.

Gamarad screamed in pain. Telliam staggered backwards not registering that the blow had been intercepted. Diserac roared and pulled his scimitar from its scabbard. An action instantly imitated by the swarming Horde, which simultaneously began to advance.

"Halt, foolth!" croaked the toad, wincing and reeling in his wounded tongue. Whether it was the order of their leader or the blistering bright blade of Taril, brandished in the Knight of Loridan's hand that had greater effect in stopping the advance is hard to say. Sure it is that the advance stopped and that instantly.

"So, you come treacherously into our midst, under pretence of a white flag. Is this so, knight of distant lands?" Gamarad looked at Taril in rage and loathing, for although he did not know who he was the Demiurge's planting screamed into his mind WHAT he was.

"No treachery can come to this meeting unless you have brought it, toad." Saying this, Taril, smoothly tucked his sword into its sheath. Taril nodded towards Telliam, "My friend has a message he has been commanded to deliver. I am here to see that it is delivered and that he rides from here free. This will be, or you will all taste the metal of Logos."

Diserac snarled and re-sheathed his half-exposed weapon, for a passing glance from the toad's right eye stilled him before he could act or speak.

"We will honour the flag of truce," said the toad. He turned his gaze carefully away from the lethal knight and gazed at the captain. "Let us see this message, Captain," said the toad, at the same time rotating his eyes towards Kracka Chank. The valet came forward and stood in the midst of the crystal holding out his hand.

Telliam glanced at Taril, thanking him with his eyes. He then reached into his satchel, and pulling out the letter, walked towards the desigarg aide. They met at the middle of the crystal, and suddenly, as if struck by lightning, the captain fell to the ground and lay perfectly still.

Moving at a speed that can be likened to nothing but that of thought, Taril vaulted from Sky?born's saddle. He landed with his legs astride the fallen human, Logos in his hands blazing like a budding nova. But on the instant that the knight's feet touched the crystal orb, a cry of anguish rose in his throat.

Taril felt as though a million fingers, each burning like red-hot iron, were digging into his body, ripping him into minute pieces. He was being shredded by merciless hands: sifted, separated - dying. He felt the residue of himself slipping into a spiralling chaos, cast into a void of echoing, mocking laughter: wrong, he was wrong! Beneath the severed vision of his remote and disintegrated consciousness a bottomless abyss gaped its mouth; the scattered ashes of his being sank into the dark chasm of his error.

On the crystal pavement, two smaller crystals, not more than four inches long, had appeared; locked within their frozen hearts were two miniature human forms, contorted in the agony of their death throes.

Sky-born saw his master die, watched him writhe and disappear. For a second he was paralysed and then the fury of high heaven burned within him. He leapt upon his adversaries, sailing right over the crystal orb, breaking Kracka Chank's skull with his hooves in the process. He landed full upon Targa Gamarad's back. Yet his momentum was such that he could not stop, but galloped two steps beyond before whirling round in fury, intending to crush his quarry.

Yet even as he reared to strike, Diserac's enormous battle-axe hurtled through the air, lodging in the great horse's chest, and without making a sound, the noble Sky-born, Steed of Loridan, fell dead upon the stones of Grenwilde Tower.

From a hundred throats a strident cry rang out, shattering the morning the air. Victory raged through their blood. Victory for the Prince of Night. They raged, gibbered and howled in hideous salute to their dark owner.

An enormous shadow slid across the sun: the shadow of the vulgraths! Three great vulgraths hung above the castle quickly muting the desigarg by degrees from celebration, to whimpering, to stricken silence: the silence of utter dread.

Oh apparition that stills with terror these hearts of terror! What are your wings? those dark and artificial nights! How they do beat not only air but drum terror into a creature's breast! What is your stench but a wind from the tomb? What is your mind but the darkness that lies across the nether stone of hell?

Stoop, great birds of terror! The desigarg lie prostrate in mute dread. Stoop and seize the little pendants in your foul mouths. Oh such presents for the Prince of Night! And who now, oh vile birds, who now shall stand before your rain of fire?