The Doom Bearers

CHAPTER 1

Pinpoints of light filled the dark sky over the Middelmass, the pale white mountain of ice that loomed in the distance. They twinkled but, unlike stars, these points of light were moving.

They were coming.

“How long ago, Bel?” said the tall, broad-shouldered man with flowing white hair standing on the balcony of the palace.

“About ten minutes, Nicolas,” said Bel standing next to him. “That’s when the sentry saw them.”

Tall and thin, Bel would normally have been called a man except for the ears. They were different; they sloped up to a point.

This was Belfindel, the chief steward. He was Eliph.

“It couldn’t have been much earlier than that. We’ve expected them, of course, and have been vigilant about the watch.

“We got to you as soon as we could.

“They came over the mountain at first but then stopped. There were few of them in the beginning. Now there are more. That, of course, was to be expected.

“We think they are using the Middelmass as a staging area. It looks like they’ve all crossed the Gap and passed the Gate.

“They're coming now in force.”

Nicolas looked out again.

“Yes,” he said. “Riivors!”

He spit out the word.

“ It comes as no surprise that they would come when the seal weakened and collapsed,” said Bel. “but we hoped differently. Maybe they would have second thoughts about it; maybe they would remember the Tenth Crossing and be dissuaded. Maybe something else would intervene. That was our hope; it was all we had.

“But it looks like that hope was in vain.

“They’re coming. There’s no doubt about it now.”

“Riivors!” said Nicolas again and then he moved. He turned and quickly walked back through the doors.

Bel followed him.

“We haven’t much time, Bel,” said Nicolas his white hair stirred in the wake he created in his haste. “Rouse them, Christophe, Friedrich, Adalbert, Josef, all the others. Rouse them all and get them to the square!”

“They haven’t come back yet,” said Bel.

Nicolas stopped and turned to face him.

“They haven’t? None of them?”

Bel shook his head.

“Why wasn’t I told?”

“I did not tell you because it was just more bad news. And we have had enough of that recently.”

“But not telling me changed nothing.”

“Telling you would have changed nothing either, Nicolas. They would be here or not and nothing we could do would mean otherwise.

“I tried to spare you.”

“You did me no favors, Bel. I must know it all if I am to face the threat.

“That none of the others are here is a blow.”

His eyes focused off into the distance for a moment. Then his features hardened.

“So, that’s it.”

Nicolas turned and started walking again. He walked faster this time. Even with his long legs Bel found it hard to keep up with him.

Nicolas said nothing.

“We haven’t even heard from them,” continued Bel. “They are still out on the search and I have heard nothing from them.

“That they were gone in the first place seemed to be the wisest course. If they could find the Gaalem and bring it back we would not be where we are at this moment.”

“Well,” said Nicolas, finally, not breaking his stride, “there is nothing to be done about it now. That the Gaalem is gone is my fault and my shame but that they might have gotten it back in time was not a foolish hope. Ath is clever but he is not omniscient. He isn’t omnipotent either—the Gaalem doesn’t give up its secrets easily.

“Ath is no Zerlin. That has been in our favor.

“But now the Riivors are coming and we are alone.

“So be it! If that is the way of things now, then let it be. I will face them alone.”

“I will face them with you,” said Bel.

They had just passed the statue of Hotsenslas, the Halt, and were on their way to the Grand Descent but Nicolas stopped suddenly and faced Bel again.

“No, you must get the rest of the people to safety. We have sent many south but some others remain. They are our concern and something must be done for them. Get them somewhere safe.”

“There is no safe place now, Nicolas.”

“Then get them to the safest place you can. That will be difficult to find in a world that will soon be turned upside down. But we must do it.

“Who knows what will be? The future brings many things, maybe it brings us salvation from them? Who knows? But we do not struggle alone. There are other agencies at work out there that may help us in our time of need but we must act our part well to be in their favor.

“The future is not ours to create alone. There may be other turns and twists in this before we are done.

“But we must act, Bel. I must act.

“I face the Riivors alone.”

He grabbed Bel by the shoulders.

“Take care, Bel,” he said with much feeling.

“I will try, Nicolas.”

The large man leaned forward and embraced the slight Eliph.

“May the Host of the Ancients go before you, Nicolas,” said Bel, with great difficulty. “And may the multitude of the Assembly of the North be your rearguard.”

“And may your way be smoothed before you, Belfindel Orlas, until we find ourselves together again,” said Nicolas.

Nicolas smiled at Bel for a moment but then quickly turned on his heel and hurried away. Bel could hear the thud of his boots as he hurried down the hall.

He felt compelled to follow him but he held back. He wanted to and was stopped only because of what had been asked of him.

He would do his duty to the people. And to Nicolas.

But that would leave Nicolas alone. That would mean the death of Nicolas unless something else happened.

He had to do something.

Bel looked over at the statue nearby.

“What would you do, Hotsenslas?” he said.

Suddenly, it came to him.

He would do what he was asked to do but he would do it another way. Not personally. Ollen would take care of the people. He was a good man—one of the best. He would rally and take care of the people the same as Bel could.

As for himself, Bel would go another way to another place. Others had looked and had not found but they were Skanders. He would go on the hunt himself.

It would be Eliph against Eliph.

It had been only days—two, in fact—since the Gaalem was taken. Bel thought his duty lay in the city with Nicolas. But he understood now that he should have gone on the hunt. He should have been the one to look. Skanders could do many things, a number of which were simply incredible. But Ath was Eliph, from another tribe, it was true, but the same race.

There was an old Skander saying: “Sometimes it just takes an elf.” That was true in this case. He was Eliph; Ath was Eliph. He had worked his kwidic ways in getting the Gaalem and had used them to make good his escape. These were things that Bel understood. And it was his mistake for not seeing this before.

Besides, Ath had been his responsibility. He was his protégé, after all. But he had become more than that to Bel. He had become his pride and his joy.

And that had been a great mistake.

He would go out. He would look for him. He would bring him to account for his treachery. And he would bring the Gaalem back. That would save Nicolas.

If Nicolas survived the next few hours, that is.

That was the problem.

“Well,” he said to the statue of Hotsenslas, “there is no hope if I do nothing. So I must go.

“Nicolas needs help. Maybe I can give it to him another way.”

He turned and went off in another direction.

The first missile hit the figure of Zerlin in the main square. The large statue exploded in a shower of sparks, fragments and rain. The sound of the destruction was accompanied by howls of laughter from above.

The second hit the clock tower and the steeple tumbled over and down in what those who witnessed it swore was slow motion.

From that point on, a hail of missiles rained down on the city. The chunks of smelsom launched by the Riivors smashed through the roofs of the buildings and exploded somewhere within. Soon, too soon, many of the buildings in the city were nothing but rubble.

The open areas were not spared either. Smelsom crashed to the ground and exploded out in the open, in the squares, in the parks, in the gathering places. These places were not safe either.

No place was safe. Everywhere there was movement and collapse; everywhere there were the sights and sounds of destruction.

And it did not cease but went on and on and on.

The Wacheslas, the Mortelmaign, the hall of the Titans, the shrines, the monuments, the temples, many of the habitations and edifices of the city. Each of these took direct hits and the structures, or large portions of them, came crashing to the ground. Blue flames licked at what remained.

No part of the city was spared. The few inhabitants that remained fled to the open areas in the hope that the Riivors intended to destroy things but not people.

They were wrong. Wherever they gathered, the people were not spared.

Missiles were lobbed at them.

Wherever they gathered they took the same punishment as the buildings and memorials of the city. Though they hunkered down and bunched together, clearly visible for the breathing, living beings they were, they still took incoming from the sky. And, when they heard the laughter that came with it, they knew that the war was against all.

These finally scattered and took refuge where they could as best they could.

If they could.

And the explosions and fulminations and shatterings continued.

In the middle of the city, the Great Square, the Square of the Ancients, lay in ruin and darkness. But that darkness was suddenly pierced by a light. The large front doors to the palace, the part of the building that had been spared from the assault for some reason, the part fronting the square, burst open and a light cast itself out into the darkness.

In the center of that light was a shadow. A tall, broad shadow.

Nicolas.

He strode into the square dressed in a long green robe and he came quickly to the center of it to a point near the rubble of the statue of Zerlin.

He looked up.

“Stop!” he cried. “Stop!

“I am here! I am here!”

The sledges were bombing on every side but they ceased immediately when they saw him. They quickly swarmed above him in the square and began to circle him, thousands of them, thousand of sledges with their tens of thousands of Riivors. They were, all of them, to a man, to a Riivor, intent on this single, solitary figure standing alone in the desolated square.

“Nicolas! Nicolas!”

It sounded as a great hissing and it came from the sledges above him. No other sound could be heard but that, the hissing of “Nicolas, Nicolas, Nicolas!”

One of the sledges broke away from the others and, passing overhead, flung one of the large chunks of smelsom it dragged with it down at him.

Down at Nicolas.

It arced into the darkness below, a large piece of burning ice about the size of a small iceberg. It was much, much more than enough to crush Nicolas. But it would do more than just crush; it would explode on impact obliterating everything near it.

It came at Nicolas but before it hit him he raised his hand. Immediately, the chunk of smelsom stopped in midair. It stood there in the air just above him, large and gleaming, a small iceberg-sized chunk clear blue in the light of the north.

But it was there for only a moment. With a movement of his hand, Nicolas flung it back.

Up it went and out away from the city. A couple of sledges in its way were hit as it arced through the air and out and the sledges and the Riivors that were in them came crashing to the ground.

Then everything broke loose. The sledges that were overhead moved agitated now like a nest of hornets that had been stirred. They came at Nicolas in a cloud and rained missiles down on top of him. Some of them were cast back by the solitary man in the square and a number of sledges were hit as the bergs sailed away from the city. But soon it became too much for Nicolas. There were too many of them swarming above him and too many missiles came down from the sky. Hundreds of them were flung at him to obliterate him, to wipe him off the face of the earth, the lone man standing against them below in the square.

Nicolas.

Their enemy.

He was quickly overwhelmed and buried under the avalanche and explosions. And blue flames licked at the pile.

The missiles stopped and the air was disturbed at that moment only by the swarming sledges still moving in agitation above the pile, the pile that now marked the place where Nicolas had once stood.

The pile where he was now buried.

One of the sledges broke free from the rest and landed on top of the rubble, rubble that now marked a tomb.

A man stepped off of it.

At least he looked like a man in form. But his eyes were slitted and the features of his face were reptilian though his skin was not scaled or green. Rather, it was clear, translucent, so translucent that the veins could be seen through it, dark black streaks under a skin that looked like ice.

He was dressed in a shiny tunic that made him look important and he strode across the pile to a point close to where Nicolas had gone down.

“Nicolas! Nicolas!” he said wagging his head. “You should have known better! You sealed us up but it was only as good as your power to sustain it.

“It looks like that power wasn’t enough, now was it? Not nearly. And now we are back. After all these long years we are back. And our hatred has not weakened. No, the long passage of the years has fanned it white hot. We have not cooled; our anger has not been dampened; it has not been assuaged. It has only been banked in and curbed by circumstances. But now it bursts out into the open again in incandescent flame.

“We did not forget, Nicolas! We remembered! For an age of ages we remembered and we stewed in that remembrance. It was the light that woke us in the morning and the darkness in which we lay down to sleep. And it was all around and about us as we went about our lives, lives made immeasurably more contracted, immeasurably more miserable because of you.

“Nicolas! We remembered and now we have come back! For revenge, for payment, for blood.”

He kicked at a piece of the rubble.

“So, what did you expect from our coming? A kiss on the cheek? Some bread and drink as a peace offering? A ring of reconciliation?

“No. A hail of missiles from above. That’s exactly right. And now you are gone, destroyed and buried under what was riven from the Virax, the Mount Doom of our race, the beginnings of our power. And it shall be your tomb.”

The man, the creature, looked down at the pile below him and laughed.

But that laugh was cut short by a movement in the rubble. Chunks of it stirred and, within moments, fragments of the debris on top of the pile suddenly peaked themselves and a hand broke through. That hand gripped and secured a hold and a figure came up slowly through the dust, ice and flames of the blown and shattered smelsom.

He was covered in dirt so his robe was now a dark gray and hardly recognizable. But he was alive.

Very much alive.

Nicolas!

The creature stepped back in shock and surprise.

“You live?” he said. “You live?”

“I live, Trahg. I still live. It will take more than this to destroy me.”

With that, Nicolas raised his hands over his head and began flinging the sledges above him away by handfuls in an arc the end of which was Mount Middelmass. The Riivors on those sledges screeched as they were flung away.

“Petulant,” said Trahg coming toward him. “Oh, so petulant. So like a little boy. But I would draw your attention, Nicolas, to that direction over there.”

He pointed to a corner of the square.

A number of the inhabitants of the city were huddled together in that direction. They had been herded there. There were dwarves and elves large and small and there were others that looked like they might be somewhere in between.

Above them sledges circled and chunks of smelsom hung in the air.

“And over there,” said Trahg.

Trahg pointed in the opposite side. On that side a number of nymphs were gathered. Over them hung the same, threatening sledges with their deadly cargo of smelsom.

“Now you might be able to stop those—”

Trahg pointed to one side.

“—but you won’t be able to stop the other in time, especially not, I think in your present condition. But if you do by some sort of freak chance, then you’ll have to deal with all those of my people swarming above who are just itching to destroy flesh and blood.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to save them. I’m not sure about that but I’m willing to take the gamble.

“Are you?

“I will give the command and we shall see the result. Or you can surrender and save them.

“Which will it be, Nicolas?”

Nicolas looked from one group to the other. He saw that Trahg’s hand was poised to give the signal. He could try and he might be able to save them from those nearby but it would be touch and go in his present condition. In that Trahg was right.

But he might not do it even then. The problem was the other Riivors. They were still circling above, thousands of them. They would each have a chance and Nicolas would be hard pressed to deal with them all.

If he couldn’t? Some of those would die. And even if he could save them, what then? It would be a battle won and not a war. Trahg would simply have others rounded up and there would be more hostages threatened. Eventually, he would have to surrender. There were just too many of them. To save the people he would have to surrender.

O, for the Gaalem!

But it was gone.

Nicolas lowered his hands and put them in front of him. Two Riivors came out suddenly as if from nowhere and secured his hands with a bond that glowed red. When it touched his skin, Nicolas groaned.

“Ahh!’ said Trahg with a grin. “You feel it do you! The power of the dark places of the world gathered together in one substance.

“You feel it, Nicolas? Do you feel it?”

He laughed as Nicolas bent under the strain. Then he walked over and slapped him.

Blood appeared on Nicolas’s lips.

But though he was in pain and in bondage, Nicolas looked up and smiled.

That smile maddened Trahg. He stepped closer to Nicolas and twisted the bonds until he had wrung a groan from the man.

“That’s a fine way to treat an old friend, Nestriter,” said Nicolas. And he smiled again even through the pain.

“Old friend?” said Trahg. “You call me friend yet you call me that contemptible Skander name? You insult me while calling me ‘friend’?

“Do friends condemn other friends to the Telwes? Do friends unbridge the Minar Gap on other friends? Do friends close the Barad Gate with their friends on the other side?

“I do not think so.”

Trahg was enraged but he smiled, anyway. At least the lips moved somewhat in that direction. It was more to spite Nicolas’ own smile than for any humor.

But it did express his pleasure.

He looked at Nicolas bent over as he was from the strain of the bonds that held him and he smiled more broadly. That smile was on his face even with an insult ringing in his ears because Nicolas was there, caught and bound, and under his control.

And he was feeling pain on top of that.

That was good! That was very good!

Trahg ground his teeth.

“But of course you jest,” said Trahg, his smile now become a narrow grin. “And because I am feeling merciful at the moment I will not accuse you of mocking me. But I am afraid the end result for you will be the same, mercy or not. In the end, Nicolas, mercy will not be your salvation. No, it will not.

“You say that nothing here will destroy you. But we are not limited to what is here, Nicolas. It is not here that you will be imprisoned. No, not here.

“You will be taken to the Penimbras—to the Keep—the Lanten Keep, I believe you call it. You know what that is, Nicolas? You know what is there?

“The Pillar of Balador! The gleaming shaft of the underworld. It is there and it shall blaze forth again. And then we shall see what you will take. Then we shall see how much you can withstand before you beg us to end it.

“But we will shake our heads, Nicolas. We will remember and we will shake our heads. We will not end it, Nicolas. There will be no end to it but it will go on and on and on until you scream and cry and beg for your life to be taken.

“You hear me, Nicolas! Until you beg for your life to be taken!”

“We shall see,” said Nicolas and he smiled again. But this smile was, like the others, through pain.

“Yes, we shall,” said Trahg. “Now tell me where it is.”

“Where what is?” said Nicolas.

“You know what I mean,” said Trahg. “The Gaalem.”

He reached down and twisted the bonds again. When Nicolas groaned, Trahg didn’t stop until there was intense strain on his face from the pain.

“It isn’t here,” said Nicolas composing himself some. “You should know that. If it were, neither you nor your people could have crossed the Gap.

“But you never were all that smart.”

Trahg shook the glowing bonds again but there came only a groan. Nothing else escaped Nicolas’s lips.

“Oh, now you demean initiative and innovation, Nicolas. These two are the great parents of industry, don’t you know? Who knows what we would have done given time? And we had a lot of time, Nicolas. Oh, we had all the time in the world.

“But I will admit that the opening came unexpectedly. And I didn’t think it was a change of heart on your part.

“But none of this answers my question. Where is it?”

Nicolas looked around at his people in the square and realized there was no use in not saying. Trahg would threaten and use some of them and Nicolas didn’t want that. There might be other horrors waiting for them and he was sorry about that. He had delayed them some at best and that was not nothing. Who knows what might happen with the time gained by the delay?

But all of this was because of him and he felt it keenly. It was his fault that the Gaalem was gone. He should have been more vigilant. He should have been less trusting.

And less proud.

“It is gone,” he said. “Stolen. It is no longer with us.”

“Well, well, well,” said Trahg. “A bit negligent weren’t we? The thing you depended on, the thing which upholds this place and makes it possible for you to engage in your—what shall we call it?—your little hobby—taken from you?

“You are a fool, Nicolas. I told you that before a number of times. Now it is proven in the eyes of everyone.

“So who has it?”

“Atherrod.”

There was no use in hiding that fact either. He would find it out easily enough.

“A lieutenant of yours, a trusted man?”

Trahg’s grin stretched from ear to ear now.

“Oh, this is so good, so sweet, so poetic.

“You know what the bard said about this don’t you?”

Trahg began to recite some words from Shakespeare. As he did, he walked round and round Nicolas pausing only at the chorus to tilt his head back and wag it from side to side.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind

Thou art not so unkind

As man’s ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.

Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,

That does not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot:

Though thou the waters warp,

Thy sting is not so sharp

As a friend remembered not.

Heigh-ho! Sing, heigh-ho! Unto the green holly:

Most friendship if feigning, most loving mere folly:

Then heigh-ho, the holly!

This life is most jolly.

“And this is jolly news,” said Trahg, “at least to me. But no matter now.”

He stood before Nicolas. Nicolas himself was still bent over, though, even in this posture, he looked strong, noble, even regal.

“You are mine, Nicolas. This city is mine, and the Gaalem will soon be mine.

“Take him,” he said to the Riivors who had gathered around him. “Seize him. He is our prisoner. We will take him to the Lanten Keep and to the Pillar.”

Trahg smiled.

“We shall see,” he said. “Yes, we shall see.”

And then he laughed.

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The Doom Bearers