The White Rose

Thirty-Four Bomanz’s story

Croaker:

Bomanz faced the Lady from another angle. He saw a ghost of fear touch her matchless features. “Ardath,” he said, and saw her fear become resignation.

Ardath was my sister.

“You had a twin. You murdered her and took her name. Your true name is Ardath.”

You will regret this. I will find your name...

“Why do you threaten me? I mean you no harm.”

You harm me by thwarting me. Free me.

“Come, come. Don’t be childish. Why force my hand? That will cost us both agony and energy. I only want to rediscover the knowledge interred with you. Teaching me will cost you nothing. It won’t harm you. It might even prepare the world for your return.”

The world prepares already. Bomanz!

He chuckled. “That’s a mask, like the antiquarian. That’s not my name. Ardath. Must we fight?”

Wise men say to accept the inevitable with grace. If I must, I must. I will try to be gracious.

When pigs fly, Bomanz thought.

The Lady’s smile was mocking. She sent something. He did not catch it. Other voices filled his mind. For an instant he thought the Dominator was awakening. But the voices were in his physical ears, back at the house. “Oh, damn!”

Wind-chimes mirth.

“Clete is in position.” The voice was Tokar’s. Its presence in the attic enraged Bomanz. He started running.

“Help me get him out of the chair.” Stancil.

“Won’t you wake him up?” Glory.

“His spirit is out in the Barrowland. He won’t know anything unless we run into each other out there.”

Wrong, Bomanz thought. Wrong, you insidious, ungrateful wart. Your old man isn’t stupid. He responds to the signs even when he doesn’t want to see them.

The dragon’s head swung as he hurtled past. Mockery pursued him. The hatred of dead knights pounded him as he hurried on.

“Get him into the corner. Toker, the amulet is under the hearthstone in the shack. That damned Men fu! He almost blew it. I want to get my hands on the fool who sent him up here. That greedy idiot wasn’t interested in anything but himself.”

“At least he took the Monitor with him.” Glory.

“Pure accident. Pure luck.”

“The time. The time,” Tokar said. “Clete’s men are hitting the barracks.”

“Get out of here, then. Glory, will you do something besides stare at the old man? I’ve got to get in there before Tokar reaches the Barrowland. The Great Ones have to be told what we’re doing.”

Bomanz passed the barrow of Moondog. He felt the restlessness within. He raced on.

A ghost danced beside him. A slump-shouldered, evil-faced ghost who damned him a thousand times. “I don’t have time for it, Besand. But you were right.” He crossed the old moat, passed his dig. Strangers dotted the landscape. Resurrectionist strangers. Where had they come from? Out of hiding in the Old Forest?

Faster. Got to go faster, he thought. That fool Stance is going to try to follow me in.

He ran like nightmare, floating through subjectively eternal steps. The comet glared down. It felt strong enough to cast shadows.

“Read the instructions again to make sure,” Stancil said. “Timing isn’t critical as long as you don’t do anything early.”

“Shouldn’t we tie him up or something? Just in case?”

“We don’t have time. Don’t worry about him. He won’t come out till way too late.”

“He makes me nervous.”

“Then throw a rug over him and come on. And try to keep your voice down. You don’t want to waken Mother.”

Bomanz charged the lights of the town... It occurred to him that in this state he did not have to be a stubby-legged fat man short on breath. He changed his perception and his velocity increased. Soon he encountered Tokar, who was trotting toward the Barrowiand with Besand’s amulet. Bomanz judged his own startling swiftness by Tokar’s apparent sluggishness. He was moving fast.

Headquarters was afire. There was heavy fighting around the barracks. Tokar’s teamsters were leading the attackers. A few Guardsmen had broken out of the trap. Trouble was seeping into the town.

Bomanz reached his shop. Upstairs, Stancil told Glory, “Begin now.” As Bo started up the stair, Stancil said, “Dumni. Um muji dumni.” Bomanz smashed into his own body. He seized command of his muscles, surged off the floor.

Glory shrieked.

Bomanz hurled her toward a wall. Her career shattered priceless antiques.

Bomanz squealed in agony as all the pains of an old body hit his consciousness. Damn! His ulcer was tearing his gut apart!

He seized his son’s throat as he turned, silencing him before he finished the cantrip.

Stancil was younger, stronger. He rose. And Glory threw herself at Bomanz. Bomanz darted backward. “Don’t anybody move,” he snapped.

Stancil rubbed his throat and croaked something.

“You don’t think I would? Try me. I don’t care who you are. You’re not going to free that thing out there.”

“How did you know?” Stancil croaked.

“You’ve been acting strange. You have strange friends. I hoped I was wrong, but I don’t take chances. You should have remembered that.”

Stancil drew a knife. His eyes hardened. “I’m sorry, Pop. Some things are more important than people.”

Bomanz’s temples throbbed. “Behave yourself. I don’t have time for this. I have to stop Tokar.”

Glory drew a knife of her own. She sidled a step closer.

“You’re trying my patience, son.”

The girl jumped. Bomanz uttered a word of power. She plunged headlong into the table slid to the floor, almost inhumanly limp. In seconds she was limper still. She mewled like an injured kitten.

Stancil dropped to one knee. “I’m sorry, Glory. I’m sorry.”

Bomanz ignored his own emotional agony. He salvaged the quicksilver spilled from the bowl that had been atop the table, mouthed words which transformed its surface into a mirror of events afar.

Tokar was two thirds of the way to the Barrowland.

“You killed her,” Stancil said. “You killed her.”

“I warned you, this is a cruel business.” And: “You made a bet and lost. Sit your butt in the corner and behave.”

“You killed her.”

Remorse smashed in even before his son forced him to act. He tried to soften the impact, but the melting of bones was all or nothing.

Stancil fell across his lover.

His father fell to his knees beside him. “Why did you make me do it? You fools. You bloody damned fools! You were using me. You didn’t have sense enough to make sure of me, and you want to deal with something like the Lady? I don’t know. I don’t know. What am I going to tell Jasmine? How can I explain?” He looked around wildly, an animal tormented. “Kill myself. That’s all I can do. Save her the pain of learning what her son was... Can’t. Got to stop Tokar.”

There was fighting in the street outside. Bomanz ignored it. He scrabbled after quicksilver.

Tokar was at the edge of the moat, staring into the Barrowland. Bomanz saw the fear and uncertainty in him.

Tokar found his courage. He gripped the amulet and crossed the line.

Bomanz began building a killing sending.

His glance crossed the doorway, spied a frightened Snoopy watching from the dark landing. “Oh, child. Child, get out of here.”

“I’m scared. They’re killing each other outside.”

We’re killing each other in here, too, he thought. Please go away. “Go find Jasmine.”

A horrendous crash came from the shop. Men cursed. Steel met steel. Bomanz heard the voice of one of Tokar’s teamsters. The man was deploying a defense of the house.

The Guard had made a comeback.

Snoopy whimpered.

“Stay out of here, child. Stay out. Go down with Jasmine.”

“I’m scared.”

“So am I. And I won’t be able to help if you get in my way. Please go downstairs.”

She ground her teeth and rattled away. Bomanz sighed. That was close. If she had seen Stance and Glory...

The uproar redoubled. Men screamed. Bomanz heard Corporal Husky bellowing orders. He turned to the bowl. Tokar had disappeared. He could not relocate the man. In passing he surveyed the land between the town and the Barrowland. A few Resurrectionists were rushing toward the fighting, apparently to help. Others were in headlong flight. Remnants of the Guard were in pursuit.

Boots pounded upstairs. Again Bomanz interrupted the preparation of his sending. Husky appeared in the doorway. Bomanz started to order him out. He was in no mood to argue. He swung a great bloody sword...

Bomanz used the word of power. Again a man’s bones turned to jelly. Then again and again as Husky’s troopers tried to avenge him. Bomanz dropped four before the rush ended.

He tried to get back to his sending...

This time the interruption was nothing physical. It was a reverberation along the pathway he had opened into the Lady’s crypt. Tokar was on the Great Barrow and in contact with the creature it contained.

“Too late,” he murmured. “Too damned late.” But he made the sending anyway. Maybe Tokar would die before he could release those monsters.

Jasmine cursed. Snoopy screamed. Bomanz piled over the fallen Guardsmen and charged downstairs. Snoopy screamed again.

Bo entered his bedroom. One of Tokar’s men held a knife across Jasmine’s throat. A pair of Guardsmen sought an opening.

Bomanz had no patience left. He killed all three. The house rattled. Teacups clinked in the kitchen. It was a gentle tremor, but a harbinger strong enough to warn Bomanz. His sending had not arrived in time. Resigned, he said, “Get out of the house. There’s igoing to be a quake.”

Jasmine looked at him askance. She held the hysterical girl.

“I’ll explain later. If we survive. Just get out of the house.” He whirled and dashed into the street, charged toward the Barrowland.

Imagining himself tall and lean and fleet did no good now. He was Bomanz in the flesh, a short, fat old man easily winded. He fell twice as tremors shook the town. Each was stronger than the last.

The fires still burned, but the fighting had died away. The survivors on both sides knew it was too late for a decision of the sword. They stared toward the Barrowland, awaiting the unfolding of events.

Bomanz joined the watchers.

The comet burned so brightly the Barrowland was clearly illuminated.

A tremendous shock rattled the earth. Bomanz staggered. Out on the Barrowland the mound containing Soulcatcher exploded. A painful glow burned from within. A figure rose from the rubble, stood limned against the glow.

People prayed or cursed according to predilection.

The tremors continued. Barrow after barrow opened. One by one, the Ten Who Were Taken appeared against the night. “Tokar,” Bomanz murmured, “I hope you rot in Hell.”

There was only one chance left. One impossible chance. It rode on the time-bowed shoulders of a pudgy little man whose powers were not at their sharpest.

He marshaled his most potent spells, his greatest magicks, all the mystical tricks he had worked out during thirty-seven years worth of lonely nights. And he started walking toward the Barrowland.

Hands reached out to detain him. They found no purchase. From the crowd an old woman called, “Bo, no! Please!”

He kept walking.

The Barrowland seethed. Ghosts howled among the ruins. The Great Barrow shook its hump. Earth exploded upward, flaming. A great winged serpent rose against the night. A great scream poured from its mouth. Torrents of dragonfire inundated the Barrowland.

Wise green eyes watched Bomanz’s progress.

The fat little man walked into the holocaust, unleashing his arsenal of spells. Fire enveloped him.