The Trials of Lance Eliot (26 page)

“I have room for only one guest. I can't take in another, so I'm afraid I'll have to let him go. You may say goodbye to him if you would like.”

“Wait,” I pleaded. “Where will he go? Will you set him free?”

“In a manner of speaking. I can see you have no interest in saying goodbye to Tsurugi Kanben, so his presence is no longer necessary.”

The thing called Maldos smiled and jerked its head to one side. In the same instant I heard a soft
crack
,
like a stick breaking in two, as Tsurugi's neck broke.

16

THE TRIUMPH OF LANCE ELIOT

HIS BODY SLUMPED TO the floor. I fell to my knees and felt for a pulse. There was a faint flutter, but it lasted only a moment.

Tsurugi was gone.

“Now we can begin the task for which I brought you here,” said the voice of Maldos somewhere above me. “We couldn't proceed without dealing with your—how best to express it?—unnecessary baggage.”

“You killed him!” I shouted through tears, and launched into a litany of curses.

Maldos seemed disappointed. “I had hoped to begin immediately, but I'm willing to give you time to recover your composure. Let us say a day or two.”

Two corpses ambled in and seized me by the arms, dragging me away from the body of my friend. I screamed and cursed and pleaded, but my escorts paid no heed. I heard a screech as the door to my cell was opened and felt myself dropped to the floor. Then the door clanged shut, leaving me alone with the darkness and my grief.

I can't describe those hours. No words are strong enough. Ordinary adjectives like
miserable
and
sad
are useless.
Even descriptions like
devastated
and
grief-stricken
don't begin to convey how I felt.

The man who had saved my life was dead. The man who had not hesitated to plunge with me into the Darkness was dead, and it was my fault. I was the one who had insisted he come with me to Akrabbim. Tsurugi was dead. Tsurugi with the stuffed-fish expression and empty eyes was dead.

They say you never really recover from the death of a loved one. I hadn't known Tsurugi for long—and at no point in our acquaintance would I have said I loved him—but his death opened a wound that has left an irrevocable scar.

I don't know how much time passed before his final words came to my mind. “Don't give up,” he had said. “
Don't give up
.”

There in the darkness and cold, I made another resolution. Whatever happened next, I wouldn't give up.

I wrote not long ago that my Thursday Afternoon of the Soul was made horrible by my hopelessness and aloneness. Now that I think about it, there must have been something else. I had no hope in that dark little room. I was all alone, yet something sustained me.

Purpose—that was it. During my Thursday Afternoon of the Soul, I had no purpose. There was no reason to go on living. As I sat in the darkness of Akrabbim, I had no hope and no company, but I had a purpose. Whatever happened, I wouldn't let Tsurugi down. Whatever happened, I wouldn't let his sacrifice be for nothing. Whatever happened, I wouldn't give up.

Time passed. The door to my room opened and the familiar silhouette beckoned me into the corridor. I followed, trying not to look at it. It led me to another triangular room, where Maldos stood with its fingertips together.

“You seem to have recovered from the departure of your baggage,” it said. “Welcome to the Cradle Chamber.”

Behind Maldos stood a platform of black stone. Bars of steel curved up from its surface like metal ribs. As the corpse shuffled out, I felt myself pulled irresistibly forward into the hollow between the bars. Maldos watched placidly as I was forced onto the platform. Manacles slithered across the stone and fastened themselves on my wrists and ankles.

“In the stories you read as a boy, the villains always explained their plans to the hero,” said Maldos. “I believe you literary critics refer to this exposition as ‘the villain speech.' I see no reason not to follow the example of those villains, provided you bear with me patiently. I've been looking forward to this for quite a long time. I don't often receive visitors, and I cherish every opportunity to speak with a guest.”

“How do you know all these things?” I asked, hardly able to speak through my fright. This was much worse than the dentist.

“I have a passion for knowing things,” said my tormentor. “It was my knowledge that brought you to Gea.”

“What?”

“It was no mistake that you were summoned instead of Lancelot of Camelot. It was you I wanted. You hold the key to great power, Lance. You hold the key to your whole world.”

At that moment, Maldos seemed to choke. A convulsion shook its body, and I found myself wondering in spite of my terror whether it was about to have a seizure.

“Meaningless.”

There was something different about its voice. It continued, “Why is this meaningless world allowed to exist?”

Then, as though nothing had happened, “My purpose in bringing you here is to obtain that key.”

The peculiar quality in its voice was gone.

“I haven't any key,” I said. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Have you heard of Necromancy?”

“Yes.”

“I am a Necromancer.”

I recalled what Maia had told me about Necromancy.

“You're faking magic,” I said.

“Necromancy is not fakery, Lance. Necromancy is puppetry. I am a puppeteer. I am the great puppeteer. These corpses you see are quite dead. They are mere puppets. I have dwelt in Akrabbim for many years, you see, hidden from view, tying my strings to innumerable marionettes.”

“What marionettes?”

“People, Lance. People are so easy to control.”

“You control people as if they were marionettes?”

“I wish Necromancy were so powerful, but it is not. I control no one directly. Necromancy is a much more subtle art. I merely take what is already in a person's heart, be it hatred, rage or fear, and bend it to my purposes.

“Some things, things less complicated than the human heart, I can control directly—animals, for example, and dead bodies. This is why most of my servants are so sorely lacking in life. I can also bend certain natural forces to my will. Gravity is one such force. Thus I was able to relieve your friend Tsurugi of his life without touching him.”

I cursed, and Maldos laughed.

“I'm grateful to you, Lance. I'm enjoying our conversation very much. Before I continue, do you have any questions?”

“Who the devil are you?”

“I was a man once, long ago. I discovered a great power and advanced the art of Necromancy further than any mage before me. My name has entered into history, but it's no longer of any importance. I am Maldos. By that name I wish to be known.

“No more questions? Very good. Listen, Lance, and I will tell you of how I planned the downfall of Rovenia.

“Senshu was my first puppet. I moved him to murder Victor Bonroi and take the throne for himself. Years passed. Rovenia became weak. I turned my attention to the Nomen. Assuming the guise of Ilt, one of their foolish gods, I directed them to lay waste Rovenia from the south. The king of Tyria became my next puppet. I enflamed his ambition, and he sent soldiers to attack Rovenia from the north.

“The pirates plundering the western coast were, I confess, almost an afterthought. Their hearts held such avarice that it seemed wasteful not to make puppets of them. Finally, I created the Darkness which moves across the kingdom, corroding, corrupting and choking.

“One thing remained, and that was to bring you here. To that end, I used Maia to summon you to Gea. I had the Nomen kill Maia's brother in order to lure her away from the city. When you were captured by Nomen, I sent your friend Tsurugi a feather so that you could escape from your cage. As you stood upon a bridge contemplating suicide, I sent another feather whirling by on the wind. You were distracted, fell onto the bridge and remained alive. Last of all, I sent the note that brought you here. Maia is dead, I assure you.”

I cursed and wept and raged. Maldos only smiled that awful smile.

“You ask for what purpose I have brought you here. Through you, Lance, I can open a portal to Terra. A passage, you might call it.”

“Why me?”

“It didn't have to be you. It could have been anyone from your world. It could even have been Lancelot, but you seemed a trifle more breakable.”

“What do you mean to do with me?”

“I mean to break you, of course. Through you I will open a way to Terra. Your world can't stand against the power of Necromancy. When I have conquered Rovenia, the Darkness will spread. I will engulf Tyria and Weit and every other nation under the sun. Then I will gather followers, a vast army of puppets, and conquer your world. California, Oxford, all your world, will be mine.”

I could manage only a single, anguished syllable.

“Why?”

A long silence.

“I don't care for power,” said Maldos. “What is it but a plaything, or a means to pleasure? I have no use for playthings, and I'm beyond all but the most intellectual pleasures. I want to know, Lance. What can be known in this dark universe? There are stars, that illuminate only the emptiness of space, and planets, that go round and round on their courses forever. What lies beyond the stars?

“What I want, Lance, is to come to the very brink of existence and see past it. I want meaning. There is meaning. There must be meaning. I will find it. Whether in Gea or Terra or some other world, I will find it. I will know. All I need is your cooperation.”

“I think I would rather die.”

“I could arrange that, though neither of us would benefit. You will cooperate, Lance. There is a reason I brought you here. You're lying upon the Cradle of Pain, a mechanism of my own invention. It has the power to make you very uncomfortable. Are you sure you won't cooperate cheerfully? I didn't think so. Very well, Lance, we will do things your way.”

Don't give up, I thought.

The iron bars hummed, and I felt an indescribable pain. It was like immersion in magma—a burning beyond the power of fire to inflict. To paraphrase Dante, I would have thrown myself into molten glass to cool the burning of my skin.

The burning stopped.

“Have you reconsidered?” asked Maldos.

“Don't give up,” I whimpered.

The burning resumed.

My third or fourth session in the Cradle came to an abrupt end. I opened my eyes to see Maldos shaking as with fever. It spoke in that odd voice. “Everything is meaningless. Such a pointless universe deserves annihilation.”

Then it recovered and said, “I had hoped you would surrender the key quickly. You're proving more stubborn that I expected. Be stubborn, Lance. I'm in no hurry. You and I have all the time in the world.”

Don't give up, I told myself as a corpse ambled in and removed my shackles.
Don't give up
.

Days went by. I don't know exactly how many days. The Necromancer's puppets dragged me regularly to the Cradle of Pain, where I suffered that unbearable burning. Maldos was always there, watching with its salt-white eyes.

The Necromancer was often gripped by fits of shaking, during which it made gloomy remarks in that strange, indefinably altered voice. Maldos didn't seem to remember its outbursts of nihilism. Perhaps, I mused gloomily, dabbling in Necromancy had worn away the Necromancer's sanity.

I had resolved not to give up, but I was weakening. Maldos gave me just enough bread and water to keep me alive. Tormented by hunger, thirst, darkness, cold, torture and sorrow, I found myself considering the Necromancer's demands with growing enthusiasm.

After a number of days, I received what may have been the greatest shock of my life. I heard a grating sound at the door, as though someone were trying to fit a small key into a large lock. The door swung open. A silhouette stood in the doorway. I presumed it to be a puppet of the Necromancer, and resigned myself to the Cradle of Pain.