Chapter 20: The Sword of Life and Death

When Jaomin awoke his first thought was of battle. To this point he had given it almost no consideration, for conflict had 'just happened'. An ambush or chance encounter carried with it an immediate rush of adrenalin. Even in the rescue of his father and brother he had been buoyed by the combination of anger and urgency. But now that he was contemplating being the aggressor, actually hunting for a quarry, fear and distaste came upon him.

His fear was natural enough. All creatures feel fear when they find themselves in jeopardy; if he truly went ahead with the insane idea of attacking vulgraths he would certainly be brought into that!

Jaomin's feelings of distaste, on the other hand, were more complex. In terrestrial history, despite billing to the contrary, there has never been such a thing as a holy war. Some wars have been necessary, others less so, but none have been holy. In Grenwilde, where unholy beings had taken rational form, the war was holy, for the desigarg were a blot on the face of the world. They had no conscience and no scruples; this made them - by nature - more horrible than any man could be; even one who has worked long at debasing himself.

Nonetheless, Jaomin was so constructed that killing anything troubled him. His brothers often teased him that he couldn't kill a bug without feeling remorse. The criticism particularly bothered him, because it was true, for such was his compassion that it distressed him to see any living creature in pain.

Jao stood up and walked over to Sky-rider and stroked his wise forehead, "Is it right to hunt for our enemy, Sky?" He believed he had already witnessed the horse's opinion; he remembered Sky's ferocious slaughter of the lone desigarg five days earlier. The attack had been a malign and deliberate action. Sky hated the desigarg completely; there was no place for quarter or mercy. Jaomin shook his head. The winged horse seemed like an onion; layer upon layer of mystery surrounded him.

On an impulse, Jaomin stepped around Sky and looked at the sword hanging in its scabbard. He had decided to carry the sword exactly as he had found it, for he felt it would be wrong to separate it from this miraculous horse. Taking it by the hilt, he drew it and laid the flat of the blade across his left hand. This sword was like no weapon Jaomin had ever before seen or felt. It was not only that the sword was remarkably light in weight, but also that it actually emitted a soft glow. Then there was the equally perplexing mystery of the thoughts - instructions - that seemed to flow from it into his hands? How were such things possible? He wondered.

This he knew: before ever he had physically laid eyes upon this sword it had haunted - even terrorized - his dreams. For Jaomin had no doubt that this sword belonged to the great knight, that it was the sword that had pierced his soul. He walked to the edge of the lake and sat cross-legged beside the placid water, laying the sword across his knees. "Creator," he whispered, "what is this blade, where does it come from and why has it come to me?"

There is no answer to prayer that is less than the prayer that summoned it.

What was this blade? What first separated light from darkness? It is not a sword that men master, but a sword that masters men. Its blade will not slice out but that it first slices in.

Jaomin stared from the blade to the water. Gently moving across the surface of the lake came pictures riding on the ripples of the mere. At first they were as fragile as leaves blown across the ground by an autumn wind, as haunting as the voices of young children echoing softly in distant streets: faces, fragrances and feelings. Some Jaomin knew, others not. But pictures grew, becoming disturbing, novas of light and titanic tunnels of gloom: nations, worlds, realities and essences. A parade of juggernauts, not pausing, slowing or going around, rolled over and through him: the true chariots of God.

Terror was growing in the images and in the one who saw them. But behind, beyond and above them all: the Master was approaching. Terror went before him, so that the peaceful lake was whipped into an ocean's frenzy, casting up waves worthy of the coming one.

Jaomin looked on in fear. How had he dared to touch His sword? How had he dared swing it into the body of another being? Jaomin gasped and doubled over in agony, still holding the sword in his hand. Did its blade not cut him now? Pain fogged his vision and he fell upon the margin of the lake, staring out across its waters with distended eyes.

Over the waves He came. The sun was upon his head and his eyes glowed like fire. His hair was white as wool and his beard flowed like a snowstorm upon the wind. His way was in the water and his foot walked on the waves.

"Whose hand is it that grasps my sword?" his voice rose up out of the waves, and in it was the power of the sea and the storm.

Whose hands are holding this sword? Jaomin asked, staring down at his own hands. What have these hands done taking this blade?

"Who are you?" Jaomin dared ask, for terror was on him and he dared say nothing else.

"My name is in the sword you hold."

Jaomin stared down at the blade.

"Hand me the sword," the voice said.

With trembling and uncertain hands, Jaomin offered up the sword hilt, and knelt shaking before this great being. He awaited the pleasure of the King; it was not in him to do anything else. Life or death taken from His hand was right.

Then as gently as a mother's touch, but with the weight of a father's hand, the flat of the blade rested on Jaomin's bowed head.

The voice spoke again, "Rise, my son. Take and use the sword."

Jaomin raised his head, preparing to stand. What met his gaze took his breath away. Not anger, nor condemnation but a gentle approval shone from the face above him. To have seen that look on that face is to know peace.

"The sword has pierced your side also," the voice came in the barest audible whisper.

With that utterance the one who spoke to him was gone; there was no one anywhere to be seen. The lake was perfectly still and the day beautifully calm.

Everything was as it had been before he spoke the prayer. And before him, lying in the sand, was the sword.

Had it all been a dream, a vision? 'Only' a vision was the way he actually framed the question to himself.

But when Jaomin stood up, he winced with pain. He pressed his hand against his abdomen. When he withdrew it again he noticed blood on his fingers. He lifted his shirt and examined himself. A wound was beneath the tunic; the blood flowed from it, slowly and steadily.

a8b

"He demanded to be given the True King; those where Diserac's words, Gamarad's terms of withdrawal." Lieutenant Adran Philomen and Captain Ganarth Bindaved were taking council in Ganarth's tent. But they did not discuss tactics for the battle they both saw coming; rather they discussed the treachery of the king. Each had possessed different pieces of the puzzle; between them they had put together enough to bring them to a point of near certainty, a certainty that laced both of their faces in frowns.

Ganarth did not like the thoughts that seemed forced upon him. Somewhere in his heart he had known - known since the day that Akinwrath had spoken to him following his insane 'offensive' against the Tower. The king had sold Telliam; now he knew why. Gamarad, or whatever powers were behind him, thought Telliam a king. He remembered the words of the Runes of Truth, and said them quietly into the air between himself and Lieutenant Philomen; "My Spirit keeps no company with treacherous men. And he who sells his brother is an enemy of mine."

Lieutenant Philomen raised his eyebrows, "This king, if what we suspect is true, has become a curse to his own army, his own country."

"What do you mean if, Adran?" Ganarth's frown darkened.

"I mean there is no certainty, Ganarth. If we had some direct proof," Adran mused. "We could spread the matter before all the remaining officers and men of Grenwilde. As it is," Adran concluded by shaking his head mournfully.

"See this?" Ganarth pulled his dagger from its scabbard, "This dagger disowns its sheath. It has but one home, a home it will open for itself between the ribs of this King of Traitors." Ganarth slammed the dagger into the table between them.

"Take no vow over this matter, Ganarth," Adran cautioned. "Is this what Telliam would do? Would he lift his hand against the Creator's Anointed?"

Ganarth sat for a moment with his head down; finally he lifted his head and stared at the dagger. He spoke in a low voice, "No, my brother was the picture of honour. He would never have done what I propose."

"Then, Captain, I beg you to think of your soul and govern yourself by your brother's principles."

But when they stood to leave, Adran made mental note of the fact that the Ganarth did not re-sheath the dagger.

a8b

The fact that his eyes had been stolen - eyes that let him see directly into the minds of men - was a great blow to the Prince of Darkness. However, seeing his tormentor was some compensation for the loss. For the Demiurge, in the moment of his near calamity, had seen Nalitha, her works and his own foolishness.

The reason for the gaps in his understanding was now clear. This warrior of light had been his opponent and he had not even known. She had woven blinds, islands of isolation and protection, through which the Seeing Crystal could not penetrate. It was a wonder that some greater disaster had not befallen him! Indeed the situation was serious enough: six more Princes of the Blood to be destroyed. But - and this delighted him - they were ignorant of their royalty! So much encouragement could be derived from their ignorance; no seed of Joy sat upon the throne, nor aspired to do so.

He had not thought that any of his enemy remembered the powers of the Chalice. He doubted that even this black haired enchantress - as he thought of her - knew fully what virtues were in the Waters of Life: horrible strengths that he could never master, twist or directly defile. They had to be locked away, belittled and avoided, until humans could be induced to pollute them through their own works. Had the Chalice lain within the precincts of the Eastern Lands he would have seen to it that mankind did so long ago.

But this day he would see to her. She would interfere no longer. He knew the laws that protected her, but he knew other principles too. She would be done away with; if he was to function without his eyes for a season, the enemy would lose his too.

a8b

On what he was sure would be his last day alive, King Akinwrath watched the remnants of his army digging in along the Western Hills. They dug in without hope, while enduring an admixture of desperation and fear. There would be no rousing speech from Akinwrath this day. He had no stomach for it; he had no words left to say.

He could see the vast forest of enemy spears, arrayed on the Eastern Hills. In their last battle beneath the banner of the Royal Gryphon of Grenwilde, his forces would be outnumbered by as many as forty-to-one. Dismal news had already reached him that day; sentries had reported seeing three vulgraths sliding across the skies above the Eastern Hills. Only time and two miles of no-man's land separated Akinwrath and his men from certain oblivion.

There had been no response to his message sent five days earlier, unless this amassing of troops was to be regarded as an answer. Why it had taken the enemy so long to launch an all-out offensive he did not know, but it had seemingly come at last. Now that death stood knocking on his door, the king was not as anxious to answer its summons as he had believed himself to be.

No plan, no hope, no idea entered his mind. So it always is with those deserted: who have stiffened their necks, stopped their ears and turned their lips from the river of life.

a8b

A day and night spent in prayer had washed away all fear and doubt from Nalitha's mind. In her prayers she had walked by faith to the banks of the Crystal River and drunk deeply. To drink from that river, flowing with the living thoughts of the Creator is to drink peace.

When Nalitha walked from the cave the morning after the arrival of the vulgrath, her heart sang a song of joy - like the heart of a child on the first day of summer holiday. Today she would go home.

At the mouth of the cave Nalitha turned to her two friends. She wished to prevent them from going with her; she wished them to live out their happy lives in peace. So she sang to them a song of leaving. They sang that she must stay. She sang to them of obedience. A song that they well understood: they always went in obedience to all that the Creator had written in their hearts. After this they were sad but silent.

They each gave her a multiple hug, for their arms went nearly twice around her slight form. They whimpered mournfully as their friend of years beyond memory left the cave.

Nalitha stepped out of the darkness and into the marvellous light of a flaming summer morning. The day was without flaw in the heavens, the azure blue gleaming like an uninterrupted sapphire from horizon to horizon. Below, the Mirror of Visions answered in kind; its deep blue surface enhanced by the sky and fretted by a gentle wind. Every bush and tree in the valley stood out like an emerald.

All was glory. Even the vulgrath itself, still hanging like rancid dried meat from the doubled-over tree, seemed only to offset - by way of contrast - the beauty of the scene.

Unhurriedly, in perfect peace, Nalitha made her gradual way down the mountain. There were actually many paths from the cave to the valley, and she could have slipped down along a hidden track, but she chose not to. Rather, she walked in plain view, coming at last out into the opening by the lake.

The vulgrath released its hold on the tree and dropped towards the ground. Then, opening its wings, it swooped slightly upwards and landed on its clawed feet, four yards from Nalitha.

"Is this not why you always lose?" Nalitha said calmly, even joyously. "You know neither the laws nor the power of the Creator."

"I know the laws," hissed the creature.

"Then why will you slay me, and invite an immortal foe?"

The creature hissed, "I have sealed the way in and out of this world, witch. You think you have come to be martyred. But you have come only to linger in immortality - a most disturbing immortality. There is no victory here for you. The Creator rejects you forever."

Nalitha laughed, "You speak to a citizen of Loridan. I have immunity to all that you can devise and every lie you utter. You say you know the law? Then you know that it is not permitted that a righteous being be harmed by a wicked."

"You fool! A knight of Loridan already adorns my chamber. I have triumphed over the life in him as I now triumph over you!"

Seeing her enemy spread its wings, Nalitha knelt on the ground and began to pray.

"The victory of darkness!" the vulgrath spat. With the final word it spoke, the horrid creature opened its mouth wide and a river of fire shot forth, enveloping Nalitha. The next moment, the vulgrath was alone in the King's Chalice. With a shrieking wail of laughter and triumph the creature roared up out of the valley and into the air, making haste to the Western Hills.

a8b

If it is left up to desigarg they will always attack in the evening. It is at this time that they become most war-like. On this day, sixty-five days after the fall of the Tower of Grenwilde and the Great Wall, it was left up to them.

As the sun set, a cry went up from along a three mile stretch of the Eastern Hills; Nagara Diserac and the Horde began to cross the open field between them and their hopelessly out-numbered enemies. The Horde was confident, boastful and - after their vicious fashion - in fine humour. For the only thing that makes desigarg happier than anticipating violence is participating in it. This night they would experience a great deal of violence.

On surged the Horde through the promise of darkness towards the Western Hills.

From their fastnesses along the brow of the Western Hills the humans watched the approach of their enemies. Oh, what a contrast there was between the hearts of the warriors who stood on those hills that fateful night and those who had watched from the Wall nearly three months earlier! These watched the advance like a serried troop of zombies, their mouths slack and eyes glazed. No false hope stirred within their frightened breasts and very little courage.

Suddenly, from out of the west like a single shooting star, like a comet of hope, a silver streak shot above the heads of the human warriors. They had no name for what they saw; they had no idea of its significance. But they watched it bear down upon their enemies like a meteorite on collision course. It came fast; it came direct; it impacted with deadly effect.

Sky-rider was amongst his foes in fury. Now was there payment sore for the violence done to his Master. Now was he a rage of living violence unleashed.

Roaring down the three-mile stretch of the enemies' front line, his feet connected with the heads of the adversary again and again and again. How many did he slay in just one pass? In the darkness, it was impossible to tell: no one ever knew, but there were scores and scores. Yet it was not the number killed alone that was significant - it was the panic in the Horde caused by murderous advent of the White Rider.

Suddenly the haughty and malicious advance was thrown into great confusion. Sky's first attack probably killed less than a fifth of one percent of the enemy, but it cut the head - figuratively - from the Horde: Nagara Diserac lay sprawled upon the ground. Every eye was upon Sky, and inhuman hands - clawed, padded and webbed hands - traced his progress in the skies. Into the twilight heavens above them Sky-rider roared, and then from one hundred and fifty feet over their upturned heads, a shaft of holy white light strafed them from the skies.

Jaomin was learning death from Logos.

Wherever the light of Logos met the darkness of his enemies' bodies, they became smoke. The cries were not from the dying - they had no opportunity to cry - but from the still living seeing their own approaching death.

Yet Sky-rider was not content to be the mere conveyor of a distant death; he must plunge upon the necks of his foes. Down into the swirling and confused tide of darkness he swept again, his enemies scattering in shrieking terror before him. Logos sent the beams of his intimate knowledge everywhere in their midst: beams of final revelation, the light of accurate self-realization, the life that must mean death to darkness. Sky slew his thousands and Logos his tens of thousands.

From the line of the Western Hills the humans had watched up until this moment in stunned amazement. For some seconds it seemed to many that the vulgraths must have turned their murderous attention against their own ranks. For indeed, on the night of the Battle of the Great Wall, many desigarg had perished beneath those indifferent fires of death. But with Sky's second descent upon the Hordes of Night, a great cry went up from a thousand human voices, a cry of hope, ecstasy and joy. It began as a cheering, that rose like a wave of sound from this small human sea. But soon men were screaming "White Rider!"

Then, almost as one, the men of Grenwilde rose from their holes in the earth, emerged from their hiding places. Running and riding down the slopes of the Western Hills, like men run to seize booty. They came down upon the confused mass of their foes, and the unexpected prize of the rancid desigarg blood was sweet upon their blades this night: sweeter than any other spoil they could have seized. For not only did the White Rider bring death to his enemies, but joy and courage to those he aided.

It must not be supposed that the vulgraths rose into the growing night air in order to help the foundering masses of desigarg. The fate of such creatures was to them - and the mind that shaped them - a matter of complete indifference. Rather like moths drawn to a flame they came as if summoned by the holy child.

Three great vulgraths. Each weighed six to seven thousand pounds: gross, evil, menacing, winged deaths. They came from three directions against the rider of life. The Dread Lord of Night was focusing his thoughts, bringing his mind to bear, against the White Rider.

Perhaps the most obvious advantage possessed by the vulgraths was in numbers. But a more dangerous advantage was their coordinated attack. Imagine a soldier whose thoughts lived within a number of bodies all at once. How deadly the lethal cooperation of his attack would be!

In Jaomin they were attacking a child, but a child with a weapon completely fatal to them. If he could see, for even a moment, they would be sliced into pieces of nothing. Now the breath of the vulgraths was a deadly flame. And it then rained upon Sky from every direction.

To the great horse, to the immortal winged-horse, who had purchased immortality in this world through the sacrifice of his own blood, the flames were - at worst - an annoying vexation, but could never cause his death: he was invulnerable. But what of the tiny human on his back?

Jaomin was only mortal, but against these flames, he too was proof. He was so by the power of the promise within him, for he was a son of the prophecy of the Runes, the image and the Seed of David. To be sure, when the flame came upon him he gasped, held his breath and believed himself dead. But not so much as a hair on his head was singed; only his wounded side, which had all that day oozed blood, was healed. As the prophecy portended, his bonds fell from him, and now his movement was unhindered.

For his part, when the vulgraths attacked, Sky snorted in derision. These flames would keep off the flies of night very handily! Indeed, the horse - canny beyond the lot of animals - only wandered above the heads of the desigarg, letting the death fires of his enemies do his work for him. So it came about, that hundreds and perhaps thousands of gargs fell that night beneath the searing flame of their own Master.

But it wasn't long until Jaomin began to panic. He could not breath for the flame was constantly upon him. This was the effect of the coordinated attack of his foes. The flame could not sear him, but his head began to spin for want of air. Viciously and desperately he pulled up on the reins of his winged war-horse. Sky, sensitive as always to his appointed Master, knew the emotion that flowed along Jaomin's body.

In an abrupt move that startled both the vulgraths and Jaomin, Sky shot into the night air at a sudden vertical, turning an almost perfectly perpendicular manoeuvre. The vulgraths couldn't hope to match his speed or track his motion, so lithe, so sudden, and so beautiful. But then, Jaomin couldn't keep his saddle either.

Like a leaf shaken in a gale, Jaomin hurtled through the night sky. He never knew how far above the earth he had been when he was shaken loose; he never could determine how long he catapulted through the heavens. He only knew that he held tight to Logos.

Suddenly, growing large and hideous before his sight was the grotesque winged mass of a vulgrath. In the now nearly inky black skies, the vulgraths seemed an only darker hole; the yellow fangs, the flaming red eyes, the rivers of their fiery breath - these were their signatures upon the night.

Incredibly and purely on instinct, Jaomin reached out his hand as he careered past the creature and seized the gigantic bat by its ear. Like a door swings suddenly shut on its hinges, Jaomin's weight wrenched against his arm and the creature's ear, then his body snapped around and he was seated on the monster's neck. He screamed; the creature bellowed. It was the briefest and most unsatisfactory ride in history, both for steed and rider. One swing of Logos marked paid to the event - the vulgrath was a cloud of rank vapour and Jaomin -- again -- a free-falling object.

But the incident had given Sky-rider just the window that he needed. When he realised Jaomin had tumbled from his back he began a turn so rapid that even he felt pain along his wings and back. Seeing the vulgrath explode and Jaomin begin to fall, Sky raced across the heavens towards his Master. Like a roaring comet he shot after him. And then, immediately below Jaomin, the great horse clapped his wings - bringing himself to a screaming and abrupt stop. Jaomin, who had begun to spin, struck first with his shoulder and then the small of his back. For a moment he lay stunned on the back of his magnificent friend.

Then seizing the saddle with one hand he managed to maintain his hold while Sky slid into a graceful shallow dive, designed to give Jaomin time to scramble back into his saddle.

Yet the vulgraths also saw the destruction of their fellow thought and the rescue of their hated foe. In an instant they were once again hurling fire upon their enemies. Their coordinated breaths made it one continuous bath of flame.

Now Sky was a seasoned warrior; he knew no pain, no fear, and joy raced along the sinews of his heart. Paying no heed at all to the one vulgrath, he streaked towards the flaming throat of the other. Jaomin, who was having the ride of his life, couldn't scream for lack of air, but rather huddled in a ball, hanging onto the saddle horn, praying and holding his breath.

Suddenly there was only cool night air all around him.

Jaomin lifted his head and looked hurriedly in every direction. Where had his foes gone? Then as he strained his eyes into the darkness, he saw two smoking carcasses, one to the east one to the west, spinning in corkscrew trails towards the ground. The vulgraths intent on bathing Sky in flame - who, all the while, was flying on a straight line between them - had cooked each other!

Sky whinnied in triumph and snorted with joy, then plunged again to attack the desigarg. By this time he needn't have bothered. The enemy had scattered everywhere in the darkness. Still, Sky was implacable. Wherever he saw a fleeing shadow running in the fields his hooves pounced. And Jaomin, feeling drained and tired, waited for his friend's blood lust to abate.

Now the tiny, vicariously victorious band of humans, having seized the field - against all expectations attendant upon the night - raised a husky cheer for the White Rider and the winged-horse. The joy they felt can well be imagined; this night death had been a fearful certainty and in its place had come a wonderful saviour.

Jaomin guided Sky back across the fields towards the celebrating humans. Oh, what a welcome awaited him there! But it was a welcome he never received.

Nobody present there that night would ever forget what happened in the next moments. Suddenly, out of the north like a black arrow of death, a gigantic figure hurtled through the night. The vulgrath that had attacked Nalitha in the northern mountains had arrived. It did not bother shooting flame to announce itself to its foes. Rather, like a silent, sudden, plague it struck - with the obliterating force of a landslide.

The vulgrath knew everything the Lord of Oblivion had learned from the eyes of his other vulgraths. There was no point in flame. There was no point in attacking the horse. Hit the boy. And this, the black avalanche out of hell, did.

And after that blow, what did it matter that Sky rose - like a living vengeance - to pursue his foe? Would it help the tiny fallen human that the great horse had flown the vulgrath into the wall of the forest and trampled the remnant of its body into paste?

In his lair, victorious over all his foes, the Lord of Oblivion - even in the agony of his crushed living thoughts - laughed at the triumph of his dark plans. And behind him, like the flag of doom, stood the towering figure of the Death Nygrath.