Book of Silence

It was Frima's voice, but no sooner had Garth recognized it than it fell silent.

"Frima!" the overman bellowed.

There was no answer; his cry echoed from the surrounding rock and was followed only by silence.

"Frima!" Garth called again. Koros growled; there was no other response.

It was obvious that the Aghadites had gotten her, separating her from the warbeast somehow, and then killing her. Garth felt his anger mount. He saw the glow of the sword deepen to red and brighten to a ferocious glare. The Aghadites would pay for this, he promised himself. They would all die, every one of them, no matter where they might hide. They had destroyed an i

He remembered the Forgotten King's words, and his own reply. Frima was gone now, and with her, his concern for the world's inhabitants. The world might be full of i

"I'a bheluye!" he cried. "Aghad, I will destroy you!" He turned and strode back into the temple of Death.

Watching from their concealed vantage point at the mouth of a tu

"I think," the high priestess said, "that we should wait until he's had some time to calm down. If we try to bargain with him now, he's liable to fry us all before we can speak a dozen words; he's too mad to worry about the girl. When he's had more time to think, we should be able to make a deal."

Her companions made noises of agreement, peering warily out. Farther down the tu

"Be careful with her!" the high priestess warned. "She may be the only thing that keeps us all alive!"

"I beg your forgiveness, mistress," someone answered. "But she fights like a mad creature. She chewed through the gag already, and we had to drop her to prepare another."

The priestess turned away from the tu

Frima thrashed harder and tried to scream; one of the Aghadites jammed another wadded cloth into her mouth, stifling the sound.

Garth did not hear Frima's struggles, and would not have paid enough attention to recognize them for what they were if he had. He was convinced that she was dead. Whenever someone else had fallen into the hands of the Aghadites, he or she had died. Kyrith had died and Saram had died; Garth saw no reason to think that Frima had fared any better. He expected to be confronted with her mutilated corpse when next he emerged from the temple of Death-if he ever did emerge.

He strode down the passageway with the sword blazing before him, the glow feeding on his anger and stoking it as well. His rage, or the combination of his own despair and rage with the malign influence of Bheleu, had driven all conscious thought from his mind, save the necessity of destroying the cult of Aghad, regardless of the means or the cost. He stormed into the i

"What must I do, old man?" Garth demanded.

"You will know when the time comes," the Forgotten King replied. He began to chant again.

Garth was in no mood to wait, but he forced himself to stand behind the King, awaiting the instructions he was sure would come. The old man would give him a sign, some way of knowing what was expected of him, and he would act; the spell would be completed, and the world would end.

His enemies would be destroyed-the cult of Aghad would be wiped out to the last stinking, treacherous member. The city of Dыsarra, which had so blighted his life, would vanish. The gods themselves, the foul Aghad and Garth's own unwanted master Bheleu among them, would die. The Forgotten King would perish, and his U

Garth himself would die, but what of it? He had little enough left in the world. His people had scorned him, Kyrith and Saram and Frima had been murdered, and his world had sunk into an era of chaos and destruction.

The old man would have his wish; his life, which had lasted so impossibly long, would be over.

Everything would end.

Everything.

Koros would die-both the warbeast and the god it was named for. It was hard to imagine the animal dying. The sun would go out, or so he assumed; there would be nothing left for it to shine upon. The green fields of summer would never be again; sun above and earth below Would both be gone. The farmers in the fields would be gone, human and overman alike.

There would be an end to war and hatred and death, Garth told himself.

Yes, and an end to love and life as well. The destruction would swallow up the good with the bad, and there would be no more world, no more time, no chance to make anything right. He would never again feel the wind in his face or the sun on his. back, not only because he would be dead and beyond all feeling, but because there would be no more wind, no more sun, ever again. Fish would no longer swim in the sea, for the sea would be no more, and birds would not fly. No new year would ever follow this one, no autumn would supplant this final summer-all because he, Garth of Ordunin, had defied the gods and lost. He had been defeated by Aghad, Bheleu, and Death; he had lost himself in the anger and despair that the dark gods sent. He was allowing the gods to manipulate him.

This must not be.

The Forgotten King's harsh voice cut through to him, raised suddenly to a new pitch and volume, wrapped around the massed consonants of the chant, and Garth felt magical power seething around him.

He wanted to stop, to retreat, to reverse his decision. He did not want the world to end, did not want to aid in its destruction, but he could not move. He felt a fierce compulsion to give in, to do what the old man wanted, to serve the gods who had shaped the world in this one final act, and he fought desperately against it.

The chanting stopped, and the old man turned to face him, the mask gleaming dully in the red light of the sword, as if washed in blood.

In desperation, struggling to destroy the compulsion that he felt overtaking him, Garth lashed out with the Sword of Bheleu, striking at the old man, hoping to disrupt the spell before his part in it was needed. He thrust the glowing blade against the King's chest, expecting it to be turned aside and to receive a backlash of magical force, a resistance that would break the web of power that held him.

The blade sank easily through the old man's frail body with a sound like a soft sigh, emerging a foot or more from his back and scraping against the stone of the altar. Thick, dark blood oozed slowly forth onto the shining metal.

The Forgotten King smiled, the Pallid Mask twisting to fit his face, and Garth realized, even before the first rumbling began, what his part in the final ritual had been. He had been destined, all along, to plunge the Sword of Bheleu into the heart of the King in Yellow.

He stared in horror at the mask. Something was happening to the King; his blood was evaporating from the sword, and his body was fading, thi

The King's yellow mantle fell open, and Garth tried to scream at the sight of what lay beneath, but something had happened to the flow of time; he was unable to move normally. An eternity wound itself past him and through him as his mouth came open.