The Last Talisman (41 page)

“Oren caught us red-handed and lost himself with rage. He dragged Reis away and sent her off to a remote location. He had me booted from the Council and locked in a filthy prison. One day, he arrived and dragged me to his palace from the box where he'd been keeping me. There, he threw me at the foot of a stairway. Reis stood at the top, in all her splendid beauty. For a moment, I thought Oren had reconsidered his decision, that she'd persuaded him to let us love each other. I called out to her, but as soon as she turned to look at me, her face was deformed by hate. ‘How dare you show yourself before me again, you worm? You tricked me. You used me for your sickening schemes. My father opened my eyes to your wickedness. I'll never forgive you, as long as I live. Get away from me!' she said.

“Emanating from her soul was a deep, inextinguishable hate, and it froze the blood in my veins. ‘Your father lied to you!' I cried, though she'd already turned her back and walked away.

“Alone, I lay at the bottom of the stairs, pleading my innocence to her. But Reis would not turn back. I could feel all the hate that had built up within her coil itself around me, crushing me beneath its weight. It was then that I understood. Oren had manipulated his daughter. He'd convinced her that my love was nothing other than a ploy to gain power. But he'd only succeeded in convincing her because Reis hated herself. She loathed herself for her own weakness, for having given in to her emotions for me. But Oren didn't merely want to see me die. He wanted to humiliate me, to erase me completely. He cursed me, locking me in this seal and reducing me to the state in which you now see me. At first, I couldn't understand why he'd done it. I was a powerful sorcerer and would continue to be so in the body of a child. But then, in the loneliness of my cell, I realized he'd done it to ensure that no other woman would ever desire me, to deny me the possibility of ever being loved again. He then placed me on trial before the Council and I was condemned to execution. Though they could never carry out their punishment, for I escaped.” At that, Aster went silent.

“You lie,” said Nihal. “You tricked Reis, and I hate you for that. You tricked her and you held her prisoner in the Fortress, only to take advantage of her again.”

Aster turned toward Nihal, his face pained, his eyes watering over. “Don't say things you don't even believe yourself. Years ago, despite my appearance, I tried to see her again. I sent a knight out to retrieve her, and he brought her here to the Fortress. At first, Reis acted just as you did, searching for the Tyrant in everyone else but me. And when she realized at last, it was terrible. Her face shrunk with disgust. I tried to remind her of our love, I begged her to look beyond mere appearances, but it was futile. For a short while, I kept her here with me, in the hopes that I would someday convince her of the purity of my love. But Reis believed that all I saw in her was her beauty, and her hatred for me and for herself only grew. Plagued by this hatred, she deformed her own face, her own body, day after day. I knew then that she'd never again be the woman I once loved, that her hate was too powerful. I let her go. But first, I wanted to search in her mind for any last trace of love for me.” His words sent a chill down Nihal's spine. “What I saw horrified me. Her mind had been completely warped by hate. In the end, I was able at least to wipe out the memory of my appearance, to keep the world outside from discovering the truth.”

“You're lying,” Nihal accused him again.

“I'm not lying and you know it. I can feel it in your heart.”

It was true. Nihal felt he was being honest, that he'd never stopped loving Reis. It was she who had deformed what they once had with her hatred.

Aster paced toward a window and resumed his tale, his tiny figure framed by the last light of day. “Her second refusal was merely a confirmation of what I already knew. That day, on the top of the stairs, when Reis had turned her back on me and I understood the full measure of her cruel disdain, I rallied my courage and accepted it. The capacity to hate resides in every living creature on this earth. The gods created us to hate one another, to kill one another ruthlessly, and now they look down on us, laughing at our torment. We're nothing but the playthings of the gods, puppets in their hands. Think, Sheireen, think hard, and you'll see that many more men are ready to die for hate than for love. That is why hate is eternal and love ephemeral.”

“What you're saying makes no sense,” Nihal replied. “If hate brings you such anguish, then why nourish it? Why, for the last forty years, have you smeared this earth in blood and barbarity?”

“Because, Sheireen, this will be the last reckoning,” said Aster, and his green eyes beamed with a renewed light. “Enough with the bloodshed, enough with vengeance and with grudges that drag on for years, for centuries, poisoning one generation after another. Peace does not come to this world because the creatures of this world were not made to live with it. We are cruel beings. We are the cancer of the earth. The only logical step is to wipe ourselves out, to start anew and give the Overworld another chance.” Aster was silent for a moment, and in his brief silence, Nihal began to tremble.

“Once all Eight Lands are united under my rule, I'll invoke a spell that I've been mastering since my banishment from the Council. With it, I will destroy every living creature in the Overworld, without exception. My spirit, in performing the spell, will be consumed and disappear forever from the face of this earth, leaving no trace behind. Once and for all, the score will be settled.”

The terror that had gripped Nihal as soon as she'd entered the room seized her again in its frigid hands. “No one, no living being could ever want such a thing … not even you. …” she said, her voice threadbare.

“If you truly reflect, if you think it through as I have, you'll understand that what I'm proposing is not an act of madness, but of mercy. What I propose is a revolt against the gods and against the heavens. Which is why you've been sent here, Sheireen, for the gods are incensed, enraged that such a miserable being as myself could rise up in rebellion. And yet I do so in the name of justice. Why go on living when generation after generation of children is slaughtered, and women like my mother impaled by the blade of a sword? Why survive just to sustain the massacre that began with our creation? So what if every last drop of blood is spilled in the end? From the blood-stained soil, a new generation will rise, one capable of bringing justice to this earth.”

Nihal stared at Aster, frozen with terror. She knew he was beyond help, trapped by his own logic, driven out of his mind by despair.

“Sheireen, you who've descended into the deepest wells of hate, can you give me even a single reason why this world should be salvaged?” Aster pleaded in earnest.

Nihal could find no words, no way to reply. She trembled, and not simply because she feared the Tyrant's plans, but because she understood his reasoning—because perhaps, in some way, his intentions could be seen as justified. Aster turned to look out the window, and beyond his childish shoulders Nihal could see the sun, sinking rapidly toward the horizon. In another half hour, the sun would set.

“The true of heart exist, and they deserve to be saved,” Nihal said at last. “I can not allow you to murder the true-hearted of this world. There are too many that have earned the right to live, that continue to fight for peace.” She could feel their discussion drawing to its conclusion. Aster's words were held up only by logic, but Nihal knew that the heart often trumped reason, and hope still pulsed in her blood, hope and a conviction that the world could still be saved.

Just then, the Tyrant cast her a strange, ambiguous smile, and the blood froze in her veins. “And yet you know beyond doubt that hate is stronger than love,” he said.

“That's not true,” Nihal insisted.

“Then why did you leave Sennar wounded in enemy territory?”

“How do you know that?” she asked, her voice quavering.

“When you left him behind, you had a choice. To live with him in love, down in the cave, far from the world, or to trek all this way to my throne and carry out your revenge.”

“Where is Sennar?” Nihal asked, in a surge of anguish.

“And you made your choice. Hate was stronger.”

“Where is Sennar?” she cried again.

“And yet you loved him; you've always loved him. All those years he stood by your side, a friend, longing to be closer. And what did you do? You went and fought a thousand battles, thirsting for blood, eager to send others to their deaths.”

“Bring me to him, please. …”

“In the end you gave yourself to him, and in doing so you granted him the greatest joy of his life. Believe me, I know, for I saw it in his heart.”

Nihal stared back at him in disbelief.

“But you only did it out of loneliness, because you needed someone to lean on and you knew he'd let you. That isn't love, Sheireen. You used him.”

“Tell me he's okay. …”

“He defended you until the very end. For days on end, he was tortured, but he wouldn't speak. He screamed, no doubt, but he never once gave you away.”

Tears began to stream down Nihal's cheeks.

“In the end, I was forced to intervene. I went to him and pried inside his mind. I didn't want to harm him. I admired him. In so many ways we were alike. He, too, loved a woman who gave him nothing in return. With incredible strength, he fended off my attempts. But soon I prevailed. I broke through his defenses and saw into his soul. I made every feeling he'd ever felt my own. I crept into his heart and examined it piece by piece. That was how I came to know of you and your mission.”

Nihal went on crying, though she hated appearing weak before that monster. “Just tell me he's okay. …”

“I took pity on him. He was doomed to suffer as I had, to surrender all clarity, to lose you and his dreams. My torment in life has been great, Sheireen, and I don't wish that on anyone. It was only out of mercy that I killed him.”

Nihal collapsed to her knees, and for the first time in her life she dropped her sword before an enemy.

Aster gave a triumphant smile and stepped toward her. The bottom of the sun dipped under the horizon. “As with Sennar, your last hope, too, is death, Nihal. You no longer have an aim in life. Only two choices remain: join me and help me to bring my great task to its rightful conclusion, or die, here and now. For those like you and me, there is no peace on earth, only the quiet, stillness of death.”

The rays of the falling sun turned a deep red. The day was coming to a close and Aster had won.

He would carry out his plan. He would wipe every last being from the face of the earth, and in the end, he too would plunge into nonexistence.

Nihal lay on the ground, unable to move, her sword inches from her fingers.

Aster arrived at her motionless body and began crouching down to her, but just then, he doubled over, his face curled in a grimace of agony.

“Maybe you're right, maybe death is my only hope for peace. But at least you'll beat me to the grave,” Nihal hissed through gritted teeth.

In a fit of despair, she'd gripped her sword and thrust the blade through the belly of her archnemesis. She watched as the child's eyes widened with pain and his mouth fell open, speechless. And in the very depths of his gaze, what she saw, in truth, was joy. Deep down, death was all that Aster had ever truly desired.

Nihal withdrew the blade and the Tyrant slumped to the earth. In the course of an instant, the child's body regained its years and morphed into an old and withered corpse. That too, disappeared, and Aster turned to dust.

Vengeance had run its course. For so long, Nihal had waited for this moment, had dreamed of it down to the very last detail, and she'd always believed her joy would be uncontainable, infinitely immense. But what she tasted now was only bitterness.

She'd killed Aster, but she hadn't altered the past. The dead still lay in the earth, Sennar among them. All that Nihal had done, she'd done in his name or thanks to his help. Now her battle had lost all meaning, and so had her life.

Alone in the room, as the walls around her began to quake and crumble, Nihal couldn't wrap her mind around the image of Sennar lifeless, his body stretched on the cold floor of a dungeon cell far beneath the palace. Death and Sennar seemed two completely unrelated concepts, just as life and Sennar seemed inseparable. What could she do now?

Nihal lay there, frozen on the earth. So what if the Fortress collapsed around her? She wanted nothing but to stay right where she was, on the ground, forever. In one sense, Aster had been right. For her, there was no peace, no hope for redemption. She felt sorry for Ido, for Soana, for everyone who'd ever cared for her, but her will to live was gone, if she'd ever had it.

She could hardly breathe. Nearly all eight stones had turned black. The Overworld was saved and she was doomed.

The dagger Sennar had given her was still tucked in her boot. With tears in her eyes, Nihal pulled it out and gripped it in her hands. To see the blade at last unlit would at least help her to accept reality. She unsheathed it.

The moment she glanced at the weapon, her heart stuttered. It was glowing. A faint, dying light, but the blade was lit. In his last, desperate attempt to fool her, the Tyrant had lied. Sennar was alive!

Nihal allowed herself no time to celebrate. There wasn't a moment to lose. The Fortress was caving in, and if she wanted to save Sennar, she had to hurry. She sprang to her feet, nearly fainting from the effort. She could no longer feel her legs. Through the large window behind the throne, she could see the sun sinking relentlessly. She rallied her courage and followed the faint light of the dagger.

She began to run, the earth crumbling beneath her feet, the stairs folding in on themselves. The Fortress, stripped of its soul, was falling to pieces. Nihal sprinted through the dying palace, the walls flaking at her touch and covering her hands in black dust. One by one, the columns gave way, sending great hunks of ceiling to the earth.