The Sleeper Sword (30 page)

“This is
nonsense! Torrullin, there must be something we can do.”

Torrullin
glanced at Tial. “I told you I can fight them for you. Relax.”

Margus lifted
his head in the corner. He had been sitting there like a dead man
for hours.

“We aren’t
ready for this,” Tial insisted. “There are innocent people here,
for pity’s sake.”

Torrullin
nodded. “Then I shall reason with them.”

Lazar shook
his head. “This is no longer the fighting force created to protect
against future evil, Enchanter. The majority now are more like the
brigand disguises they adopt, and some are far worse. There’s no
idealism, merely the thrill power over the weak brings and the
pleasure of plunder. There’s a presiding desire to kill, maim,
torture. A tiny spark and they will erupt. They don’t know you and
their militant minds won’t hear you.”

Torrullin
paced the large study as Lazar spoke, listening, not looking at
anyone, and when Lazar fell silent, said, “These Enforcers require
severe taming for peace to regain a foothold.”

“You have no
power here,” Margus drawled. “Stop deluding yourself.”

The Enchanter
came to a halt and turned to face his tormentor. It seemed to Lazar
and Tial as if the temperature plummeted. For a brief moment
Torrullin’s eyes darkened, then they grew silvery bright,
displacing the yellow irises. Tial swallowed with foreboding.

“No?”
Torrullin whispered, barely containing a sense of
self-satisfaction. “You should know by now I change the rules.”

His eyes
returned to the Valleur yellow he recently acquired and he smiled.
He had enough of subterfuge, particularly after last night. He
enjoyed the dawning comprehension on his nemesis’s face and wished
the look of shock and dismay could be imprinted there forever.

He lifted a
hand, preferring to hide his true power - he had no need of hand
gestures - and a bolt of sapphire shot out to shatter a priceless
vase on Lazar’s bookshelves.

“You tricked
me! I never stood a chance here!”

“
How does it
feel?
” Torrullin snarled. “Now that I have
your word, and all doors are closed to you, I can begin to reveal
…” He stopped, closed his eyes, breathed.

Calm,
Torrullin; nobody forced you last night.

Tial shouted,
“This isn’t the time, by god! Not with a whole army out there!”

Tial was
ignored.

Lazar backed
away from his desk and motioned the Deorc leader to leave the line
of fire.

Margus
growled, unfurling from his corner and crossing the space in broad
steps. “You can restore my power!”

Torrullin
lifted his brows. “Then I must be powerful indeed. Shall I regard
that as a compliment?”

“What happened
last night?” Lazar muttered at Tial.

“Buggered if I
know.”

Darak Or and
Enchanter stood face-to-face, Torrullin marginally taller, and they
glared at each other. Heat radiated off both bodies.

Lazar
moaned.

“Gloves off,
Enchanter? At last?”

“Why not,
Darak Or?”

“Return my
power.”

“Even if I could do so, there is nothing,
nothing
, to motivate me. I shall not
give you control, not even for the netherworld. I suggest you live
with it.”

“You will
regret this.”

Torrullin’s
eyes narrowed and Margus was lifted from the ground, flung into the
chair he vacated. With a dismissive twist of his head, Torrullin
faced the Numer once more, a man barely daring to breathe.

“Tell your
troops to stand down, tell them you are negotiating a treaty with
the Deorc and invite a few inside to witness such negotiation. Buy
us a stand-down.”

Tial breathed
a sigh of relief.

Lazar began,
“I don’t know if it will work, and …”

“Try!”

The word
‘treaty’ was music to Tial’s ears. He saw Lazar swallow, nod, and a
strange release came over him. He glanced at Torrullin and
understood the man would force a treaty if it came to that. He
glanced at the figure in the corner to see how he accepted the
situation, and his heart began to pound. Such hate, good lord.

He no longer
heard Lazar remonstrating with Torrullin in a quivery voice - he
began to clear his throat, finding it thick with fear … must warn
…

The angelic
blue eyes turned his way, lips drawn back from even, white teeth,
and a clawed hand lifted …

… Tial was
tossed screaming through the window, shattering and scattering
glass.

Torrullin
whirled, arrested Tial’s headlong rush to the hard cement below,
doing so with a side thought as he faced the unfledged hatred and
fury of the Darak Or.

Lazar cowered
under his desk and prayed.

“Welcome
back,” Torrullin said.

“It was with
me all this time. I listened to you, I trusted you.” There was
blind fury in Margus’ controlled voice.

“I am
flattered you trusted me, but you forgot the most important factor
…”

“… that you are like me also. Yes. I realised when I saw your
need for revenge. This will be satisfying. I know you’ve reached
the point where you desire to assuage your taste for war, you want
to vent your frustrations, and you need to slake the thirsts you
have inside. Again you allow emotion to overcome common sense, and
thus you trail war in your wake. I shall play snugly into your
hands and give you
everything
you want. War, it is! Fight me, gloves off, and
fight the entire Enforcer army - simple to sway them now, right? A
Darak Or pandering to darkness? Between us, we shall wipe them from
the face of this boring flatland, what say you?” Margus stilled and
then paced forward. “Enchanter, who is the true Darak Or on the
Plane?”

He laughed …
and vanished.

Torrullin
stared at the empty space and his blood pounded.

“So be it,” he
murmured, and vanished also.

Tial charged
upstairs to find Lazar ashen and frozen behind his desk. “Where are
they?”

“Gone,” Lazar
croaked, pointing a shaking finger into the air. “War.” He focused
on Tial. God, he needed a drink. “They’re going to fight. We must
stop this.”

Tial leaned
hard over the desk. “Can you control your soldiers?”

Lazar rose
slowly. “I have not that kind of power.”

“That’s not
what I asked. Can you, Numer, control them?”

Lazar drew a
deep breath. He wandered over to the broken window. “Not for long,”
he replied, staring at the olive sea of men. “Not after Margus
spreads volatility.”

“I have no
liking for your men, but I don’t want wholesale slaughter either,
particularly not with innocents in the crossfire. Think!”

Lazar glanced
at Tial and straightened, his natural confidence returning; he had
been Numer for long. “What I can do is curtail the confrontation to
the enclave.”

“That’s
something.”

“You and I must make our way to the tear, and ensure we are
seen leaving and sensed in the going. That will bring one of our
two adversaries and where the one goes, the other will
follow.
They
will
retreat to where the action is and
they
will come after me.” He
gestured at the waiting army.

Unknowingly
Tial echoed Torrullin. “So be it,” he whispered.

He turned on
his heel, roaring for Brenn and Zual.

Lazar had a
small hovercraft in the back garden.

He admitted it
was flown in on autopilot when he sent the distress call, for a
quick getaway if it came to that.

With his three
Deorc companions aboard he dialled in coordinates to the tech
corridors, and they lifted up to float over the boundary wall, from
there to skim the heads of his army, aiming at the stygian
lands.

Tial looked
back after they passed the last of the army to see them following.
A river returning to its source, bleeding away ever faster. It was
a numbing sight.

“I’m confused,
Lazar,” he said as they neared the border.

“Why do I
appear to be on your side?” Lazar murmured, staring ahead.

“Yes. You are
the Numer, you’ve been a scourge to the rest of us and that is your
creation trailing us.”

“It isn’t my
creation - I inherited it. But, to answer you properly, I’ve
returned to my homeworld on a number of occasions and the years
there taught me different values to those instilled by the enclave.
Morality, loyalty, the rules of engagement and the value of trust.
I was born here, Tial, and had it not been for that portal, I
wouldn’t know different. I consider the round lands my real home.
Gods, I returned to the Plane each time because I dared not abandon
it entirely - my conscience wouldn’t allow it. Have you not
wondered why the Numer hates the stygian so much he hides among
you?”

Lazar sighed,
seeing the slight acknowledgement.

“Of course you
have, as have my comrades. Unfortunately changes are slow in
coming, largely overlooked, and I’m able to insist on only so much
before losing my head. The Enchanter was a shock initially, but
with him comes complete change, and it has begun. Admittedly, the
nature of change fills me with anxiety … and still I welcome
it.”

“Is that why
you accepted this development so quickly?”

Lazar grinned.
“We are enamoured of time, are we not?”

Tial nodded. A
dubious trait, these hasty decisions, but sometimes they saved
lives … and souls. He changed the subject, not wanting to admit to
a sneaking admiration for his foe of many years.

“You mentioned
a legend.”

“A prophecy,
as the Enchanter said, and he’d know. Out there, in the real
universe, he fulfilled one after the other and did so without
fore-knowledge, as he has now. He is a powerful individual, but
then, he is also Valleur.”

Tial chewed at
his lip and then, “I’ve heard that name before.”

“You’ve been
here a while; much has passed you cannot know of. The Valleur are
today widely regarded as the first sentients of our universe and
this after we forgot about them for a long time. It was an awesome
sorcery on their part, to make us forget, to protect their heritage
and to protect the Rift.”

“Rift? A
doorway?”

“A doorway,
indeed, on a greater scale. An entire race can pass through as one
or an army a thousand times this one. A doorway between universes,
not life and death.”

“Rift? Margus
said …”

“Yes, he came
to us from beyond that Rift, annihilating Valleur to do so.”

“My god, the
Golden - the Valleur are the Golden. No wonder Torrullin hates
him.”

“The more you
hear the name Valleur, the more you’ll think of them, the more you
remember and, yes, that’s where the saga of the Darak Or and
Enchanter commenced. Torrullin is the product of eons; he has an
ancient heritage.”

“I never heard
of him before.”

“He was born
after you came on the Plane - the time thing, hmm?”

“He is
immortal, yet born?”

“Well, some
say the ‘birth’ he remembers is a convenience.”

“Excuse
me?”

Lazar
shrugged. “I’m as lost as you are, believe me.”

Silence and
then, “I thought the Valleur were evil.”

Lazar shook
his head. “They walk in the Light, Deorc leader, and due to the
Enchanter, it is a beacon to billions.”

“Torrullin is
to be trusted?”

Lazar barked a
laugh. “You’re asking me? I thought you two had an
understanding?”

“I met him
three days ago, Numer. I know him not, but I like him.”

“He has that
effect, I hear. You’re either for him or against him and once your
choice is made you can’t turn from it. What do you know about
him?”

Tial smiled.
“I know he saved my life.”

Lazar nodded.
“Indeed, and now you are his. What else do you know?”

Behind,
balancing easily to the motion of the craft, Brenn and Zual
listened intently.

“He is an
Enchanter,” Tial began, but Lazar interrupted.

“
The
Enchanter.”

“All right,
the
Enchanter, and I know he and Margus had a showdown over the
death of his son.”

“Sons,” Lazar
corrected. “Twins, identical. The one unknowingly played host to
the Darak Or and was near as evil in the end. He committed suicide
and, don’t ask me to explain, his death resulted in his brother’s,
a symbiotic thing. Apparently the Enchanter knew they were
connected like that, but also knew the evil twin would become the
next Darak Or.”

“Sweet god, he
knew of the suicide … and didn’t stop it?”

“And therefore
sacrificed his beloved son also.”

“Poor man. And
Margus is to blame, how?”

“There was
another war before, one Margus lost. Unluckily, he did the
unexpected and hid his essence in Torrullin’s unborn son - a long
story, Tial, but that unexpected bit of genius led ultimately to
those two deaths.”

“The ultimate
revenge.”

“There you
have it.”

“Poor man,”
Tial echoed, and added, “Torrullin must blame himself as well.”

“I would,”
Lazar murmured.

The craft
rounded a low hill and, ahead, the dark, ugly line that marked the
beginning of Enforcer territory speared into view.

“I heard
Margus mention a throne.”

“Torrullin was
Vallorin.”

“A king?”

“Indeed. In
power, deed, authority and truth. The Enchanter Vallorin.”

“And
Immortal.”

“A volatile
combination. Our Torrullin could easily be the ultimate tyrant,
could he not? They await his return, universe over. He is their
Light, their saviour. There has been real peace because of the
terrible sacrifices he made to take Margus away. They await him,
because he is to save them again.”