Castle Perilous

Outer Curtain Wall — Southeast Tower

From an embrasured window Melydia looked out at the long line of belfries lumbering toward the inner curtain wall. The assault was going well, but she knew Incarnadine had yet to act. She was prepared for anything he might do. She had been preparing for years.

She watched as siege engines hurled boulders, some as big as a house, over the inner curtain wall, there to crash into the forebuildings and other structures of the ward. A few stones fell short, bounding off the wall or smashing into the crenelated battlements, to the dismay of the few defenders who manned them. The engines were working well. They would not have worked at all were it not for Melydia’s magical assistance. Each engine was under a spell that enabled it to violate those natural mechanical laws which ordinarily would have precluded handling such massive projectiles. By rights, a trebuchet’s throwing arm should crack like a toothpick under the weight of stones that size. Even if the strain could be borne, mundane engines simply lacked the power to throw these projectiles, or any projectiles, over a thirty-story wall. Only magical ones could do the trick.

The spell was a difficult and subtle one, but it worked.

She heard the clack of hard-leather soles coming up the spiral staircase behind her. She turned to see Vorn mounting the landing.

“There you are, my lady. I had wondered …”

She smiled and turned back to the window. Vorn came up beside her and gazed out.

“The lookouts report nothing brewing,” Vorn told her. “Of course, that means little. Incarnadine is sure to play his hand now.”

She nodded. “He will.”

They watched. The moving towers, now very close to the battlements of the high inner wall, were almost completely manned. Archers, occupying the topmost platforms, were still keeping the walls clear of defenders. Incarnadine’s castle guards weren’t showing their heads. The Guardsmen had chosen not to engage the invaders at close quarters along the wall; they were outnumbered and they knew it. There were fifteen belfries and five thousand men to flow from them and spill over into Castle Perilous proper. No, the mopping up would proceed from tower to tower all the way around the perimeter until the entire inner curtain wall was secured — slow, dirty work, but it must be done. And it would be done.

“Have you slept?” Vorn asked. When Melydia gave her head a shake, he said, “You must be exhausted.”

“After taking on six thousand soldiers in one night? Why would I be?”

Vorn was taken somewhat aback. A voluntary grunt of laughter escaped him, though he did not smile.

Melydia did. “You are shocked by my coarse humor,” she said.

Vorn’s mouth softened. “A bit. Forgive me.”

“No, it was inappropriate. I must beg pardon.”

“I shouldn’t have been shocked. Though you are a lady, you ought not to be judged by the usual proprieties applying to women of quality. You can’t be. They are much too limiting. You are an individual of power, and …”

She turned slightly, one eye peeking around the edge of her blue headdress. “And?”

“I admire that.” He smiled.

“In a woman?”

“In you.”

Her hand, wrist hung with folds of her white cloak, came up to caress his beard. He seized it and kissed her palm.

“Melydia,” he said.

“In the midst of a battle, Vorn?”

“In the middle of Hell, if the occasion warrants.”

She made to withdraw her hand, and he reluctantly let it go.

“Notwithstanding your jest,” he said, “you must be weary beyond measure. To have cast six thousand spells in one night —”

“Fourteen hours without stop. I could barely raise my hand.”

“Fourteen —” Vorn was awed. “Indeed, I did not know. I grew weary and retired shortly after you started.” He considered it. “Even so, it does not seem sufficient time.”

“It wasn’t. It gave me but seconds to effect each one. An ancillary spell was needed, one to facilitate my working unnaturally fast — and another to prevent me from collapsing. That spell yet sustains me, though it grows weaker by the minute.”

He clucked. “Must each soldier have been done individually? Is there not such a thing as a blanket spell?”

“Yes, but a blanket thrown over six thousand covers not many.”

“I see.” Vorn’s eyebrows drew together in a worried frown. “But will it work? Could any spell be sufficient to fend off Incarnadine’s evil? It is said he is no mere mortal.”

“He may be mortal. That is, he may one day die. But he has lived some three hundred years.”

“I have heard that, too, though I scarce believe it.”

“You may believe it. All the Haplodites have been long-lived.”

Arms akimbo, Vorn turned, paced away from the window and stopped. He brooded for a moment, then wheeled slowly around, his gaze on the floor. “Against magic so powerful …” he began.

“We have fought and have nearly prevailed.” She went to him, took his hands and pressed them to her breast. “Have you had cause to doubt me up till now?”

“No.”

“Come.”

She led him across the semicircular room to the staircase. They mounted it, she leading him by the hand. They went up six turns until they came to a hatchway at the top. Vorn threw the hatch aside and they climbed out onto the turret. Stepping over the dead body of a Guardsman overlooked by the clean-up detail, they went to the battlement.

“Look,” she said, her hand sweeping across the scene. “Walls thirty stories high, a keep whose upper floors are sometimes hid in cloud. Walls within walls, towers that touch the sky, black adamantine stone immune to the elements — a fortress of magic and power unimaginable — and you, Vorn, are about to prevail against it. History has never known such a siege. Future generations will scarce credit it. You will be legend.” Her voice rose over the din of shouting soldiers, the whoosh of the catapults, the crack of a thousand crossbows and the ping and clatter of bolts striking stone. Come here.”

She lead him to the south side of the turret.

“We are a thousand feet above the plain.”

Vorn looked out across the dark lands of the Pale. Gray-black mountains hove in the distance, ringing a valley of dirt and dust. Here and there rude farm huts dotted the terrain, and miserable, near-barren fields made haphazard patterns.

So poor a land, Vorn thought. But it was a fleeting thought.

“Was ever a fortress more inaccessible, more invulnerable? You levitated an army a thousand feet straight up.”

“There was no other way,” Vorn said. “Else they would have picked us off one by one as we marched up the trail.”

“You did it by the power of your will.”

The power of my will …

The thought crowded into his mind, nudging doubt aside.

“You did it, Vorn. Not me.”

His chest swelled, then fell slowly, a doubting cast returning to his eyes.

“But you …”

“I love you.”

He looked into her face. Framed in the folds of her headdress, it was partly hidden now as the wind fetched the cloth across her nose and mouth. Her eyes contained a hundred emotions he could not fathom.

“Melydia,” was all he could say.

“Do you believe me?”

He looked out again at the dust into which he had poured his army’s blood.

For what? came a small voice, barely heard. For what?

“Do you believe me?”

His gaze was drawn to hers.

“Yes.”

They embraced as a stronger wind blew his cloak around them.

Presently they became aware of a hush that had fallen over the battle. They parted and returned to the north side of the turret.

Melydia pointed. “Behold.”

Airborne objects approached from the northwest. Their flight was swift, and in formation — like migrating birds.

“What this time?” Vorn said. “What manner of hellish thing?”

“We will know soon.”

“Aye, we will. Too soon.”

“Are you afraid?”

He cast a dark look at her. “You think that deserving of an answer?”

“No, my love. Forgive me. I know you fear nothing.”

He encircled her within his meaty left arm.

The objects soon revealed themselves to be bowl-shaped, with appendages that at a distance could have been taken to be wings, but as the objects neared, took the form of pairs of human hands, disembodied human hands.

“Mother Goddess,” Vorn breathed. “What …?”

Each pair of hands bore a gigantic metal caldron that looked much like an ironsmith’s crucible.

Melydia stepped away from Vorn and stood against the battlement, hands on either side of a crenellation, leaning out, her face awry with strange, conflicting emotions. There was hope and expectation and fear and dread. There was hatred. And underneath it all, she knew but strove to suppress with every grain of her being, there was love.

She did not know that there was madness there as well.

“Yes,” she said as thunder rolled to their ears, dark clouds piling over the castle. “Yes!” she screamed over its roar.

A finger of cloud passed across the sun, plunging the countryside into shadow and revealing an eerie blue glow emanating from the castle itself. Webs of lightning shot from tower to tower and bright blue prominences arose from the keep. A storm wind lashed the citadel, but no rain fell. Dust devils whirled about, sucking up the debris of past battles.

The flying caldrons broke formation and descended, revealing themselves to be of immense size. They swooped, then reformed into a line, each caldron poised above a belfry. The hands that bore them were the hands of malign gods — huge, sinewy, and punishing.

A bolt of lightning hit the tower on which Melydia and Vorn stood.

The prince was thrown down. Struggling against the ever-rising wind, he got up and staggered to Melydia, who seemed unaffected. She was still screaming, unintelligible now over the crack of thunder and the howling wind.

“We must go,” he shouted into her ear, then tried to move her toward the hatch.

She was like a pillar of iron. He tried to shake her, but her body recoiled like a spring, her knuckles white against the stone, face uplifted toward the fearful apparition above the castle wall, the line of caldrons that now began to tip. From within the caldrons came a bright red-orange glow.

Vorn looked over the rampart. Men were bolting from the bottoms of the towers, fleeing in panic. He let Melydia go and hopped up on the wall.

“You!” he screamed. “Man your stations!” His voice was lost in the din.

“Back! Get back, I say! Return to your —” He broke off. It was useless. Too much to expect mortal men to face doom at the literal hands of the supernatural. Vorn looked aghast at the slowly tipping caldrons. Too much to expect even the bravest man to face that. For the first time in his life Vorn knew that he, too, was afraid. Yet he stood there.

Liquid fire poured from the crucibles, splashing down on the belfries in flaming cataracts. At once the belfries and the men in them were engulfed. Like animated torches, soldiers streamed from the belfries into the ward, some jumping to their deaths. Those who didn’t fell to the ground and rolled, or ran in panicky circles slapping at themselves in a frantic attempt to put out the flames.

Vorn’s heart sank. He had never tasted defeat, and now it sat on his tongue like a lump of brass, hard, cold, and bitter.

There was chaos in the ward. Weapons lay strewn about. Soldiers ran and scattered like coals from an overturned brazier. The belfries stood unmoving, mountains of flame, funeral pyres all.

Vorn could look no longer. He stepped down from the wall and walked to the opposite side of the turret. He drew his royal-blue cloak about him and gazed emptily out at lands of the Pale, lands he would curse till he drew his dying breath. He closed his eyes, his chin dropping to his chest.

Presently he felt a hand at his shoulder. He turned.

“You must see,” Melydia said.

He stared at her, his face ashen. He had no words to speak to this woman whom he thought he had known. Now it was as if she were a stranger. Her face was transformed.

“You must come,” she said, smiling as if inviting him to inspect the preparations for a grand ball. “Look what we have done.”

He stared at her for a while longer, striving to find in that delicately beautiful face some clue, some explanation to her mystery.

He found none.

She took his hand and led him across.

The men had stopped running amuck. They stood about, talking, exclaiming, gesturing at one another.

They were all still in flames.

Vorn shook his head, uncomprehending.

“They burn but they are not consumed,” Melydia told him. “Neither are the belfries. Look.”

It was true. The belfries’ structural members were still the color of fresh-cut timber; they had not blackened. Stranger still, no smoke came from the fires at all. The flames seemed to dance on the surface of the wood, furiously trying to penetrate but unable to.

“Soon the men will overcome their shock. The battle will then proceed. They need you now, Vorn.”

She traced a quick pattern in the air and spoke a word under her breath.

“There. They will hear you now. Speak to them.”

Color returning to his face, Vorn mounted the battlement and faced his troops.

“Soldiers of the Emp —” He stopped, tongue-tied by hearing his voice boom out louder than the thunder. Heads snapped in his direction. Arms raised, pointing.

Vorn spoke. “Soldiers of the Empire! We have faced the Devil’s minions and have fought bravely. Now we have come through hellfire itself unscathed.” He paused. “Can any man doubt that our cause is just and holy? Can any gainsay our righteousness? Behold the fortress of Evil itself. It looms before us in all its malevolence. Let no man fear it. We have come to vanquish it, and vanquish it we shall, though all its forces be arrayed against us. Return to your stations. Fight on, bravely, as you have up till now. The Goddess is with us, her blessings are upon us, and her victory will be ours.”

He withdrew his sword and raised it high.

“Fight on, for Goddess and Empire! Fight!”

A great shout rose up from the troops. They all saluted, then picked up their weapons and ran to the belfries.

Vorn sheathed his sword, looking up at the line of crucibles stilt hanging above. Now empty, they were beginning to fade.

He jumped from the battlement. Melydia waved her hand to abrogate the voice amplification spell.

“Why?” he asked her. “Why did you not tell what was to happen? Why did you not warn of this, so that we would know what to expect?”

“Because I did not know what to expect. The spell I cast over each soldier and each of the belfries was general in nature, a protection against whatever form Incarnadine’s magic would take. I could not predict the form, though of late I have dreamt of fire. But I have dreamt of other things too. I cannot see the future. That is not a power of mine. Would that it were. No, the spell was general, which was why it was so difficult to effect. Neither was I sure that it would work. But it did, as you can see.”

Vorn watched his men remount the belfries. The flames were weaker now, and had turned dull red.

Melydia had turned her gaze up to the keep.

“He holds back,” she said. “Still he does not tap his deepest source of power.” Her voice was a murmur. “Perhaps he is afraid. Afraid of me. Of himself. Afraid …”

She swayed, put her palm to her forehead.

“The spell of stamina. It is almost gone.… Vorn, I —”

He caught her as she fell, and picked her up. She lay across his arms like a limp doll.

The pattern, its arcane geometries defying the eye with their complexity, was fading. At the height of the spell it had glowed blue-white and had emitted great heat, so much that Incarnadine could barely approach it to complete the last lines. Now it had reverted to dull red, its power quickly ebbing. Incarnadine stepped up to it again and traced across it the Stroke of Cancellation.

With a hiss like molten metal quenched in water, the pattern disappeared.

Shed of his cloak, his undertunic untied and open across his chest, dripping with sweat, Incarnadine came to the rail.

He saw, and he understood.

He grew aware that Tyrene still awaited his orders. He turned.

Tyrene began, “My lord —”

“The castle has fallen,” Incarnadine told him. “Not yet, but soon. You will withdraw your men to the keep, fighting only those rearguard actions necessary to protect lives.”

Tyrene was appalled. “My lord!”

“Hear me. Once in the keep, you will offer only enough resistance to delay its fall for three days. Thereafter, order your men to disperse through whatever aspects they choose. Do not leave the wounded behind. Do not let anyone be taken prisoner. Order your men to abandon their positions before being overrun. Above all, let no more lives be lost. We have lost too many.”

Tyrene was almost in tears. “Yes, my lord.” Fumblingly he put his helmet back on. “What about the Guests?”

“I will see to them.”

“Yes, my lord.” He stepped forward. “My lord, I —”

“Go, Tyrene.”

Tyrene left.

He waved the simulacrum to a closer view of the outer curtain wall, then focused it even closer … closer still.

There was Vorn. And there was Melydia, in his arms. The prince looked lost, helpless. Strange mien for a victor.

He waved the scene still closer. Melydia’s face, blurred by the great distance across which the simulacrum fetched its image, took form below, bigger than life. She looked calm.

“You do not sleep, Melydia, my darling,” he said, “though your eyes are closed. You do not rest. You will not — until you have destroyed this castle … and me.”

He regarded her for a moment, remembering.

Then, a wide sweep of his hand, and the simulacrum was gone. The vast stone floor below lay bare.

“So be it,” he said, walking away.