The God-Stone War

Chapter 13

I brought King Nicholas and his bodyguard, Sir Barnabas, to Castle Cameron after first transporting the rest of his entourage. It was actually a relief to be done with the good-byes. The parting of ways between the two kings had taken an exorbitant amount of time. As usual the excessive and lengthy ceremonies reminded me of one of the main reasons I had set James in place as king, rather than take the throne for myself; aside from the fact that I thought he was the best man for the job.

“It should be fascinating seeing the home of the great wizard of Lothion,” commented King Nicholas as we stepped away from the teleportation circle. For a moment I suspected him of sarcasm, but after a second’s pause, I realized he was speaking in sincerity. He must have seen the pensive look on my face though, for he followed his remark with a preemptive apology, “Please, do not look for hidden meanings in my words. I feel terrible for my foolish words at the feast. Yet again I am in debt to you and your valiant wife.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at his words, “She really is something isn’t she?”

He smiled, “I have never met her equal.”

I laughed, “You may well be correct, but then you’ve never seen our Queen Genevieve when she gets really cross either.”

“If all of the women of Lothion are as frightful in battle, your nation will never need fear another invader,” he added.

My lady wife, the Countess di’Cameron, made her appearance at that moment, greeting us as we stepped out of the building that housed my teleportation circles. “You honor us with your presence, Your Majesty,” she said with a formal curtsey.

“Raise your head Countess!” he responded immediately, while stepping forward to take her hand and lift her. He held onto her hand long enough to lean forward and kiss the back of it. Meanwhile, Sir Barnabas went to one knee beside him, facing her.

“I owe you my life Countess,” said Nicholas. “It is I who should be showing deference.”

I could tell Penny was profoundly uncomfortable receiving such attention from a king, but she covered her surprise well. “Please, Your Majesty, you do me too much honor. Call me Penelope; there is no need to address me with titles here.”

“Then you too must address me as Nicholas, for otherwise I will feel ill at ease with your hospitality,” he answered. I noted he still held her hand. He was perhaps a bit too forward with Penny for my comfort.

She withdrew her hand carefully, without making a show of it, though to my eyes it seemed that the King of Gododdin let his fingers linger too long upon hers. Surely the man isn’t trying to woo my wife right in front of me? I supposed I shouldn’t underestimate the boldness of royalty. If the man were a womanizer, he might be used to husbands turning a blind eye to his indiscretions. Perhaps I was overthinking it though… it was impossible to guess.

“I will gladly call you thus, Nicholas, but only if you tell me what mention you just made of invaders in Lothion, but a moment past,” Penny replied.

With that the conversation returned to lighter banter and I found myself admiring Penny’s skillful handling of the overly friendly king. My thoughts were interrupted before we reached the entrance to the main keep. A man in grey wool stood before the door. His stance was unremarkable, but his positioning was not, for he blocked our path. Every man, woman and child in the keep knew better than to interrupt me with our royal visitor, yet this man… a stranger I noted quickly, stood plainly in our way.

We stopped and the two guards flanking us moved forward to stand between us and the bold outsider. At the same time the two door guards came toward us and took positions behind the man, warily encircling him. Dorian had been very thorough in his security preparations. I also noted that two of the four guards were actually Knights of Stone, Sir Daniel and Sir Jeffery.

The stranger was the first to speak, throwing back his hood and staring at us with wild eyes. “I come bearing a warning for the dark wizard, Mordecai Illeniel.”

I had already extended my shield to cover Penelope and King Nicholas when the latter spoke in return, “Cheeky devil! How dare you address the rightful lord of this place in such a tone?!”

It was rather amusing, considering I had the King of Gododdin addressing the challenger as though he were my chamberlain. Setting my hand upon his arm I spoke quickly, “Please, Nicholas let me deal with this.”

He nodded quickly, “Very well, this is your house,” and then stepped back.

“You do well to listen to your master, puppet-king of Gododdin,” the stranger taunted him. Nicholas’ face turned a new shade of red, while Sir Barnabas surged forward, intent on punishing the man for the affront to his king. I kept the boundary of my shield fixed, and he fell back when he struck it, surprised at finding an invisible wall in front of him.

“Offend my guests again, and your god will need to send a new messenger,” I said to the stranger, while ignoring Barnabas as he rose from where he had fallen.

The messenger smirked before replying, “What makes you think I need messengers, Mordecai?”

The words, combined with a flare of power around the man, signaled his complete possession by whichever of the gods he served. I nodded to Sir Daniel, and he and Sir Jeffery moved with lightning speed and precision. Their swords came out more quickly than eyes could follow, and I saw little more than a flash of light from the enchanted steel before the stranger’s body fell apart in a shocking display of violence. His head tumbled away in one direction, while his torso and two dismembered legs collapsed where he had been standing. Blood was everywhere.

The suddenness of his death appeared to unnerve even the already enraged Sir Barnabas, but his eyes grew wider still, when the disembodied head’s eyes focused on me again and words issued from its lips, “That was rather rude.” The eyes then moved to gaze at King Nicholas, “Perhaps you see now why I referred to him as the ‘dark’ wizard.”

I glared at the impudent face, “Finish your message before we discover whether you can function with nothing more than ash to carry out your will.” I illustrated my point by waving a hand at the rest of the now dismembered body while softly vocalizing, “Pyrren.” Flames rapidly consumed the flesh in a flash of intense heat that left nothing behind but a foul smoke and white ash.

“It matters not to me what you do with this vessel. As you are aware, we no longer need your kind to serve as our conduits here. This is merely a courtesy call,” the bodiless head told me.

“You haven’t the faintest idea what courtesy is. For your kind, it is nothing more than another empty word to be used in manipulating your cattle. You’ll also have to pardon me, for since you didn’t bother introducing yourself, I have not the faintest idea which of the remaining petty gods you are,” I responded acridly.

The eyes narrowed as the still animated head stared upward at me. “Mellicenth was right; there is no bargaining with you. I am Karenth, called the Just, and I am here to offer you one chance: release Celior, and we will ignore your past insults. Otherwise, we will wipe the earth clean of you and all your kith and kin. Nothing will remain when we are done, and not one soul will be left that remembers your name, even if we must purge all of Lothion to accomplish the task.”

I laughed, “You are the worst beggar I have ever met. You’re desperate or you’d never deign to make such an offer. I will be happy to show you my brand of courtesy if you decide to come here personally and make good upon your threat. You would make an excellent addition to my collection, Karenth.” I was goading him deliberately, for I couldn’t afford to show any weakness. The only thing that might give them pause was the fear that I might be able to do the same to them that I had done to Celior.

Rage lit his eyes. “I will not come alone. I do not understand how you defeated my brother, but I will not make his mistake. When we come, there will be no place for you to hide and no hope for anything but a slow death… after you have watched us torture your worthless spawn.”

In my younger days such a threat might have overwhelmed my better sense, but I knew the game Karenth was playing. I could also tell he had not the faintest clue about the subtleties of the human mind. I paused for a moment before answering thoughtfully, “You may have a point, but I am not yet ready to concede. I will consider your offer. How long will you give me to think before you make good upon your threat?”

Now it was Karenth’s turn to pause. Clearly he had not expected such a rational response from me. A few seconds passed, and then the head’s mouth opened, “I will give you two weeks. Be prepared to answer us, or suffer the consequences fourteen days hence.”

I smiled. “Excellent, I’ll look forward to seeing you then. Now if you will excuse me I need to tidy up a bit.” With another word and a gesture, I incinerated the head, just as I had the rest of the body. With my magesight I could see a flash as the energy that represented Karenth dissipated, and then we were alone.

Looking around, I noticed everyone’s eyes were on me; in particular, King Nicholas seemed both shocked and appalled by my actions. “Was that truly Karenth?” he asked.

“We only have his word on it, but it was one of them,” I answered. “Most likely he was telling the truth.” I wondered how Nicholas would react to the knowledge, that the man who had just insulted him was actually the god that he had worshipped for most of his life… and a very desperate and angry god at that.

Dorian appeared then, his nose wrinkling in disgust at the lingering smell of burnt flesh. “What happened?”

Sir Jeffery gently escorted Nicholas and Sir Barnabas into the main hall, while I stayed behind to describe to my friend, what had occurred. As quickly as things had happened, it still took several minutes to explain it all to him. When I had finished, Dorian looked at me questioningly, “Why did you tell him you would consider it?” He knew very well I had no intention of attempting to barter with the gods.

“Time,” I answered. “It’s a lot easier to plan for something when you know ‘when’ as well as ‘where’. Now I have the answer to both of those questions, whereas before I couldn’t be sure of either.”

Dorian rubbed his freshly shaved cheek, “Only you would think to take advantage of an angry god. Do you think they intend to make good on their threat?”

“Of course,” I said, “the real question is, why now? They’ve had seven years to plot their revenge but done nothing. Now they appear suddenly and seem to be acting hastily. If they truly cared to punish me for Celior’s imprisonment, they would have done something long before now. That they didn’t, tells me that they are more afraid of me than they care about their lost brother.”

“Then what forced their hand?”

I was worried that I might already know the answer. “I think there’s someone they fear more than me.”

The dinner and other festivities were a bit more somber than Penny had planned, mostly because of our unfortunate encounter with Karenth. Nicholas seemed deep in thought, responding to most questions with short answers and barely laughing at my occasional jokes. We wound up calling it a night a bit earlier than anticipated, much to everyone’s relief I think.

The next morning Penny and I met Nicholas for breakfast and afterward we wished him well on his journey home. Contrary to my initial fear, that he might stay and insist on being involved once he knew of our imminent problem, the King of Gododdin seemed only too glad to be leaving. As he said his final private goodbyes to us, he paused and looked at me apologetically.

“Mordecai,” he said after a moment, “I want you to know that you have my respect and gratitude for everything that you and your wife have done for us, but…”

I interrupted, “You don’t have to explain. I understand, Nicholas.”

“No, no! I do. I owe you so much, yet I cannot bring myself to go against the mandate of my god. I fear I have damned myself already by befriending you, and yet I cannot help but think there should be some way to resolve this. You are a good man, Mordecai, and my god is a good god. Perhaps if you accede to his wishes and ask forgiveness… the two of you could work together to stop Mal’goroth and the shiggreth as well.”

Over the course of my time with Nicholas I had come to like the man, but he obviously had blinders on; or perhaps it was because of the difference in our personal experiences. “A good god would not threaten the lives of innocents because of my actions, right or wrong. A true ‘god’ would not need to bargain with me, nor could one be imprisoned. These are not gods we are dealing with Nicholas… not of the sort we were taught of as children. These are overgrown and monstrous supernatural bullies. The only difference separating them from a human tyrant is the magnitude of their power. If there is such a thing as a true god, and he is good, then Karenth and the others should be afraid, for they will be the first on his list of wrong-doers to punish.”

The King of Gododdin gave me an incredulous look. “Every time we speak, new blasphemies fall from your lips as easily as fish breathe water. How could there be a god above the gods? If such a god existed, would you advise him as he sat in judgment of gods and men? What hubris is that?”

“Call it hubris if you will, but if he didn’t have Mellicenth at the top of his list, then the term ‘good’ couldn’t be applied to him. Either that or good and evil themselves are nothing but relative moral terms applied by those in power to justify their actions,” I told him firmly.

Nicholas looked away, “You are mad, and yet I will pray for mercy on your behalf.” Sir Barnabas opened the door for him, but before the King of Gododdin exited he looked back at me. “Farewell Mordecai, it has been interesting getting to know you.”

“Farewell Nicholas, I wish you good fortune and shelter in the coming storm,” I replied and then he stepped out. That was the last chance we had to speak privately, for after that our goodbyes were said in the presence of all the residents of Castle Cameron and Washbrook. Needless to say, it was a large crowd that had gathered to wish Nicholas well on his trip home. It wasn’t often that we hosted a king within our walls.

Once things had quieted down later in the day, I retreated to my study to write the letter I should have sent the day before. Too many things happening at once, I told myself mentally. With pen in hand I began the letter:

Cyhan,

We are under threat of imminent attack here at Castle Cameron, therefore I must order you to reverse your steps and return at once. Make all haste to return within the week if possible. I will explain the events that led to this once you return. For now I will simply say, the gods have returned and are anxiously looking forward to a reunion with their lost brother.

Mordecai

I reviewed the words twice before folding the letter and placing it within the box that would transport it to Cyhan as he traveled to Gododdin. He had already been on the road for a number of days, and it would probably take an equal amount of time for him to return. I did a mental calculation, five days, I decided at last. He had left with the patrol four and a half days past, so logically it should take him approximately five days to return.

According to Karenth’s reply to my question, we should have thirteen days before the excitement started. That would give me plenty of time to evacuate most of the people and review the plans Dorian and I had created years before to cover the various situations we thought might occur when the gods finally came to have their due.