The Redemption of Althalus (99 page)

“Right,” Althalus said. “Bring the Book, Gher.”

They went into the House and made their way to the stairs leading up to the tower.

Dweia was standing at the top of the stairs, and Althalus felt a peculiar twisting inside. He hadn’t fully realized just how much he’d missed her. “Have you got the Book?” she demanded.

“I’m awfully sorry, Em,” Althalus told her. “We used it to start fires along the way.”

“Very funny, Althalus.”

“I’ve got it right here, Emmy,” Gher told her, patting the leather bag he was carrying.

“Good. Bring it upstairs, but leave it inside the bag for now.”

Althalus and Gher climbed up the stairs, and Dweia fiercely embraced Althalus at the top. “Don’t go away anymore,” she told him quite firmly.

“Not if I can help it, Em,” he agreed.

“May we see the Book?” Bheid asked eagerly as they entered the tower room.

“No,” Dweia said. “That’s not necessary.”

“Dweia!” he protested.

“I don’t want you to touch it, and I most definitely don’t want you to read any part of it. We brought it here to destroy it, not to read it.”

“What do you want me to do with it, Emmy?” Gher asked.

“Toss it under the bed for now,” she replied indifferently.

“Why not get rid of the dreadful thing right now?” Andine demanded.

“Not until morning, dear,” Dweia told her. “We
definitely
want plenty of daylight around when we bring the Books together. I want all traces of night gone before we start.”

“You’re cruel, Dweia,” Bheid accused.

“She’s protecting you, Bheid,” Leitha told him. “She knows all about your hunger for books—even for
this
one. There are things in Ghend’s Book that you
don’t
want to know about.”

“Are you telling me that
you
know what’s in it?”

“Only in general terms, Bheid. I’m staying as far away from it as I possibly can.”

“This discussion isn’t really going anywhere,” Dweia told them. “Why don’t we all go down to supper?”

“Do you want me to stay here and guard the Book, Emmy?” Eliar asked.

“Why?”

“Well, shouldn’t somebody stay here and keep an eye on it—just in case Ghend tries to sneak in and steal it back?”

“Ghend can’t enter the House, Eliar,” she replied, “not unless somebody invites him in.”

Several things clicked together for Althalus at that point. He knew what he had to do now. “There’s something I’ll need to discuss with you, Eliar,” he told the young Arum as they all started toward the stairs. “Later on, probably.”

“Anything you say, Althalus.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, love?” Dweia asked Althalus later, when they were alone.

“More or less,” he replied. “Your brother hinted around the edges of it, and I know Ghend well enough to have a fair idea of what he’ll probably try to do. Please don’t interfere, Em. Ghend’s
my
responsibility, and I’ll deal with him in my own way.”

“No killing in my House, Althalus,” she said flatly.

“I wasn’t planning to kill him, Em. Actually, I’m going to do something worse.”

“It’s dangerous, isn’t it?”

“It won’t be a casual stroll in the park,” he admitted. “The timing’s going to be crucial, so don’t interrupt me or distract me—and keep the others out from underfoot. I know what has to be done, and I don’t need any interference.”

“Are you certain you’ll be able to handle it?”

“Your brother seemed to think so. Oh, by the way, he sent his love.”

“Are you trying to be funny?”

“Didn’t you hear him?”

“Not very clearly, no.”

“You missed the good part of the conversation, then. When you get right down to it, you’ve got your brother wrapped around your little finger. He absolutely adores you.”

She started to purr. “Tell me more,” she urged.

“We might as well get on with this,” Dweia told them the next morning after breakfast. “It’s broad daylight now, so let’s go upstairs and get started.”

They rose from the table and started toward the door. But Althalus motioned to Eliar, and the two of them lingered in the dining room. “Pay very close attention, Eliar,” Althalus told the young man.
“This is crucial.”

“What do you want me to do, Althalus?”

“When we get to the tower room, I want you to go over to the window where your special door’s located. Be sort of casual about it, and as soon as you’re sure that nobody’s watching, I want you to unlatch that door and leave it just slightly ajar.”

“Is that a good idea? I mean, if Ghend’s looking for a way to get inside the House, and if that door’s unlatched—”

“I
want
him to see that the door’s not locked. When he comes at me, I want him to come through
that
door. I
don’t
want him coming at me from behind my back.”

“Oh, now I see what you’re getting at. When did you want me to do that other thing?”

“Wait for my signal. Just be ready when I give you the word. We’ll only have a few seconds, so stay on your toes. If Emmy starts screaming at you, just ignore her and do what
I
tell you to do.”

“You’re going to get me in trouble, Althalus.”

“I’ll explain it to her after it’s all over. It’s essential that you only listen to
me
once this gets started. If we don’t do it exactly right, none of us’ll be here to see the sun go down—and that’s assuming that there’ll still
be
a sun, or anything for it to go down behind.”

“You’re starting to make me nervous, Althalus.”

“Good. At least I’m not alone.”

“
Will
you two stop dawdling?” Dweia called down the stairs.

“We’re coming, Em,” Althalus called back. “Don’t get excited.”

“Now, then,” Dweia told them all after Althalus and Eliar had joined them in the tower room, “when this starts, I want you all to stay back. This might be dangerous. All right, Gher, fetch Ghend’s Book.”

“Anything you say, Emmy,” the boy replied, going to the bed. He knelt and groped around under the marble platform until he found the leather bag. Then he stood up and brought the bag to her. “Here it is,” he said, holding it out to her.

“Take it out of the bag, Gher,” she told him, putting her hands behind her back.

“It won’t hurt you, Emmy,” he assured her. “It feels a little funny, but it’s not scalding hot or anything like that.”

“That probably depends on who you are, Gher,” she told him. “Take the Book out of the bag and lay it on the table beside our Book. Don’t let them touch each other, though.”

“If that’s the way you want it,” he said, untying the thong that held the bag shut. Then he reached in and pulled out the large, black leather box. “It seems a little heavier,” he noted. Then he laid the box on the gleaming marble table. “Is that just about where you want it?” he asked.

“Move it just a bit closer to the white one,” Dweia replied.

He slid the black box across the table top toward the white one. “Is that about right?”

She squinted at the two boxes. “Close enough, I think.”

“Nothing’s happening, Dweia,” Bheid said.

“Not yet,” she said. “That’s because it’s not complete yet. Give me your Knife, Eliar.”

“All right, Emmy,” he replied, drawing out his dagger.

Althalus glanced quickly toward the south window and saw that the door was slightly ajar, even as Eliar reversed his Knife and offered the hilt to Dweia.

“Not that way,” she told him, extending both of her hands, palms up. “Just lay it across my hands.”

“Whatever you say.” Eliar placed the Knife on her outstretched hands.

She turned to face the table then and stood holding the Knife over the two books. “Now we wait,” she said.

“Wait for what, Emmy?” Gher asked curiously.

“The right moment.”

“Is a bell going to ring, or something like that?”

“Not exactly. I’m sure we’ll all notice it, though. They’ll probably notice it on the other side of the world.”

“Oh, one of
those
things.”

“‘
Those
things’ as you put it, are a sort of family tradition. We do that a lot in my family.”

Then the House itself seemed to shudder, almost as if shaken by a distant peal of thunder, and the sky outside darkened.

The Knife lying across Dweia’s palms seemed to shift and blur, and its aching song rose in triumph. Then it expanded into a formless sort of mist.

“What’s happening?” Bheid’s voice was alarmed.

Dweia, however, did not answer as the blurred mist above her hands coalesced. Then a slender golden box lay glowing where Eliar’s Knife had been.

The darkness that had descended on the House was quite suddenly pushed back by the golden glow that seemed to emanate from Dweia’s Book. The inky black clouds that had temporarily obscured the light roiled titanic along the horizon as the golden light of the Book and the rainbow light of God’s fire engulfed them.

“I’ve missed you,” Dweia said fondly to her Book. “The time’s finally come for you to do what I made you to do at the very beginning.” And she gently placed the golden Book atop the other Books on the table, meticulously shifting it so that it bridged the gap between the Book of Deiwos and the Book of Daeva.

The shuddering of the House intensified, and from deep in the earth there came a sound so low that it was felt rather than heard. And from the sky and the nearby mountains came that familiar wail of despair commingled with the song of the Knife.

“Oh, hush,” Dweia said absently. “Both of you. I’m trying to concentrate.”

The golden light of the Book intensified, enveloping the entire table in a blinding intensity. “Get back!” Dweia cautioned them. “It’s starting!”

A tendril of smoke began to rise out of the shimmering light that enveloped the table.

“Are the Books on fire?” Bheid exclaimed in a shrill voice.

“Ghend’s Book is,” Dweia replied. “That was the purpose of this from the beginning.”

“I thought you said it wouldn’t burn,” Andine said in a frightened voice.

“Not in an ordinary fire, dear,” Dweia replied. “That fire on the table
isn’t
really fire.”

“It’s truth, Andine,” Leitha told her.

“But—”

“Hush, dear,” the pale girl told her, “and get back.” Then she looked quickly at Althalus. “He’s coming!” she warned.

“I know,” Althalus said grimly. “I’ve been expecting him.”

Eliar’s door crashed open, and Ghend, all in flame, was there, with burning Khnom just behind him. Garbed in armor of fire were they, and armed with swords of flame.

“I have come to reclaim that which is mine!” Ghend declared in a voice of thunder, and his burning eyes were incandescent and filled with madness.

The flaming pair bulked large in Eliar’s doorway, but beyond them it seemed that another door opened on absolute horror. It appeared to Althalus that the door beyond Eliar’s door looked out over a city of fire. The buildings were columns of flame, and the streets were rivers of liquid fire. Multitudes howled and burned in the streets of fire, and lightning seethed around them.

Ghend raised his sword of flame. “Behold the instrument of thy doom, thief!” he roared with lightning seething about his face and with his burning hair wreathing up around his head. And then, with pace inexorable, Ghend marched toward Althalus and toward the table bathed in golden light, and footprints of fire marked his passage across the marble floor.

But Althalus raised his hand, saying,
“Leoht!”
And a wall of purest light barred Ghend from his goal. Ghend howled, and all the flaming hosts of Nahgharash howled with him.

Caught up in desperate frenzy, Ghend slashed at the wall of light that barred his way, as lightning seethed about him and his sword of flame rang hollowly against the barrier Althalus had placed before him with but a single word.

“You’ll break your sword, Ghend,” Althalus told him, forcing all traces of archaism from his speech. “You won’t get through unless I let you through. Are you ready to listen?”

Ghend, still bathed in fire, seized the hilt of his burning sword of flame with both hands and struck mighty blows at the wall of light.

“You’re wasting time, Ghend,” Althalus told him, “and you don’t have much time left.”

“What are you
doing
?” Dweia demanded.

“Stay out of this, Em!” Althalus snapped. “This is between Ghend and me!”

Ghend lowered his sword of flame, but his eyes burned even hotter, and the shrieks of the hordes of Nahgharash howled about him.

“You have a choice to make, Ghend,” Althalus told his frenzied enemy, “and you have to make it now. You can persist in this idiocy and suffer the consequences, or you can turn around and close that door.”

“Are you mad?” Ghend shrieked, as flames seethed hotter about him.

“Close the door, Ghend,” Althalus told him. “The fire will go out if you close the door. Pull your mind together and close that door. Shut out Nahgharash and Daeva. This is your only chance to escape.”

“Escape?” Ghend shrieked. “The world is within my grasp, you fool! I can have it all—forever!”

“Not without your Book, you can’t, and you’ll never reach that Book in time to use it. You’ve lost, Ghend. I’ve beaten you. If you’ll admit that, you might live. If you refuse, you haven’t got a chance. Choose, Ghend. Make your choice now, so that we can get on with this. Time’s running out.”

“I
will
have my Book!”

“Are you sure?”

Ghend renewed his attack on the wall of light, and Althalus felt a sudden sense of relief as certain restrictions were lifted from his shoulders. “Somebody’s going to hear about this,” he muttered, even as he lowered his hand.
“Ghes!”
he said.

Ghend, still burning, stumbled forward as the barrier of golden light flickered and vanished and the wails of the multitudes of Nahgharash rose to shrieks of triumph.

Althalus stepped aside as his desperate enemy rushed to the table. Ghend, wreathed in flame, hesitated a moment, and then he cast his fiery sword aside and reached out with both arms as if to seize up all three Books. But as his hands plunged into the golden light, the song of the Knife soared, and with a startled oath Ghend jerked his hands back.