Chapter 45

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Maralt ignored the look from the guard, nodding to him to open the cell door. The man used an access code, which Maralt had, but also insisted that he hand over the key. He waited until the guard had gone before closing and re-locking the door. The furniture, sparse though it was, looked the same. No one had done anything more than look in this room, probably wondering why it held a bed, a reading chair, and table. Shelves for books lined one wall of the cell.

He sat down at the dining table where Dain and he had met before. He wouldn’t bring him here for a long time, he thought, if ever. He emptied his mind and sought within. A dark hall opened before him and a cell stood at its end. He heard the rattle of chains, smiling at the memory.

Dain wasn’t whimpering when he entered. Maralt guessed he should have expected that. It had been a huge mistake, not tending to the memory trigger when it happened that had brought Dain back, but one Maralt hoped he wouldn’t have so much trouble rectifying. Dain stood to meet him, defiant, maybe even dangerous. Maralt smiled, moving to the table the Prince still couldn’t reach, and glancing in the bowl of food he still couldn’t eat. Every detail remained the same, exactly how Dain remembered it.

“Just like old times.”

“Maybe you think so.”

“Funny how history keeps repeating itself.” Maralt moved closer, concentrated only slightly to bring about the changes he wanted. The wall behind Dain moved away until he stood in the center of the room, his chains tightening outward until he couldn’t withstand the pressure on his arms.

Dain fought against the growing constriction, kicking at him. Ropes snaked from the ground, wrapping around his ankles to tie him down completely, making him incapable of moving more than a breath or two. To increase his sense of vulnerability, Maralt stripped him naked, noting that the mental image Dain held of himself had no scars. He was as strong and dangerous as ever.

Maralt smiled. “So much easier to manage in here. You keep teaching me. I suppose that’s why I keep you around at all. I’m about to teach you something you seem to have forgotten. I own you Dain.”

He moved behind him and Dain knew what was about to happen, shuddering in dread. All that defiance melted away, replaced by terror that drove him to yank on the chains that bound him in a desperate but futile attempt to escape. Maralt stepped closer, delaying the actual moment of contact to watch the deterioration of will. Dain jerked when he touched his back.

The chains disappeared and Maralt held him, knowing that he couldn’t move now. Blue sparks jumped off his hands, penetrating skin, bringing with it a surge in strength, and he drew him closer. Dain curled up, mouth slack, his eyes widened in silent pain. Strength filled Maralt, energy surging through him, compelling him to extract to the last essence everything he could. He made himself stop, only briefly this time.

“I want you to do something for me. I want you to tell me all about Geneal Elger. Enjoy yourself, Your Highness. This is the last time you ever will.”

He opened his mouth, teeth melting into the soul he held, preciously cradled. Dain jerked once, quivering. Memories spilled out of him. Maralt took them, took his strength, reveling in power-driven greed. It had been too long.

Dain weakened, far faster than Maralt expected, and he forced himself to stop again, amazed at the strength of will required to pull away. He knew then that he’d gone too far, taken too much, too quickly.

“We can’t have that now, can we,” he said and quickly sliced open his own arm, forcing the wound against Dain’s mouth. He struggled briefly, but Maralt felt his resistance vanish, aware of the slow drain of strength and Dain’s acceptance of it. He watched him, smiling at the shock in his eyes, and knew what he was feeling. “Yes Dain, now you understand.”

Dain tried pushing him away, but Maralt wouldn’t allow it, forcing him to drink, forcing strength back into him. He finally removed his arm. Dain immediately tried getting away. This time Maralt let him go, chaining him again, smiling as he stood over him. The cell returned to its old, familiar dimension.

“One day, you’ll join me, and then I will loose you on the world. Nothing will stop us. Nothing.”

He turned sharply, aware suddenly of Dynan’s presence and with him, Marc Talryn. He growled, left the cell, jerking open the door to the dungeons and left it to bang.

They didn’t move fast enough to catch Marc as he collapsed and he fell at the foot of Kamien’s chair. They stared at him, unsure what to do. Allie reached for him first, pulling him back out of the room. Ralion roused himself to help.

Allie froze abruptly, dropping Marc as fear clamped down on his mind. He heard Dain’s voice. “Allie, I’m having trouble raising Marc. Where is he?”

“I ... I don’t know where Marc is, Dain,” Allie said.

Beside him, Ralion turned to him. “We’ve got to get him out of here,” he whispered into his ear. “Dain is doing this.”

“Channel one, Geneal, report please?”

“I can’t right now, Allie.”

She left her transmitter on and he heard the sound of the monitor’s relentless tone. “Dynan.” His voice broke, legs buckling underneath him, and he sank to the floor.

“No way, Allie. Get up. Find out where Dain is. Hurry.” Ralion lifted him up, propelling him toward the comterm one room down from the next. It took longer, because the systems in the King’s quarters hadn’t yet been turned on. The tracking system tied to the receiver activated. A grid of the Palace appeared and a shade walked from the dungeons.

Ralion swore under his breath, went back and picked Marc up, grunting as he hauled him over his shoulder. “Move.”

Allie followed and they left the King’s quarters, at a loss over where they could go. Ralion decided, pointing across the hall to Dynan’s old rooms. Allie opened the door and they moved in. Ralion put Marc down on a dust-covered couch, quickly turning to leave. “I’m going back. You have to wake him up or wait with him until he does, and then get him out of here. I’ll get Dain into the King’s room and keep him there as long as I can.”

Allie nodded, sitting down on the floor beside Marc. The rooms were dark and cold, but the moment he thought to get up and light a fire, darkness pulled him under.

The domed chamber told him where he was again and with that realization, memory returned. Dynan was on his knees. The High Bishop leaned over him while Carryn stood off to one side. They didn’t expect him again. This time he felt more than surprise, but something that bordered on anger from the old man as he reached for Dynan.

Marc dove in front of him, dissolving into a heap the moment the hand brushed against him. Beside him, Dynan huddled, bent, despair and abject weariness marring his face. Beaten.

“No,” Marc whispered, trying to reach him. “No, you can’t leave. You can’t. Please.”

When Dynan turned to him all Marc saw was defeat and a sorrow he couldn’t bear to look at. Dynan looked up at the High Bishop and slowly held out his hand.

“No!”

Marc lunged for his hand, grabbing him. His voice cut off in the instant of contact and he felt energy draining out of him with incredible speed. Dynan straightened, surprised and then afraid. Marc realized what was happening, smiling at the thought that he would die instead. Dynan would live. If they had to have a death, it wouldn’t be him. Dynan wrenched away from him, rubbing his wrist. Marc saw his own hand, almost transparent, float to the floor, saw the rest of him as a barely distinguishable shape curled on the floor.

Then the High Bishop was leaning over them both. He touched Dynan’s forehead with his fingertips. “Go,” he said and Dynan vanished. “You fool.”

“A brave fool,” Carryn said, joining them.

The High Bishop looked at her sharply, but relented. He touched his hand to him and Marc’s strength returned in a rush of energy. He sat up when he could, crawling backward. The High Bishop stood over him, frowning darkly. “I told you never to come here again.”

Marc kept trying to back away, didn’t get any farther, and stopped. He stood slowly, testing his strength. “Kind of hard to avoid it when I can’t remember being here in the first place. What do you want from me? Maralt is probably on his way to kill me right now because I got sucked in here again. He thinks I’m doing it on purpose.”

“And you’re not?”

“No. Whenever Dynan lands here so do I.”

Carryn and the High Bishop exchanged glances. “Interesting,” Carryn said, smiling slightly.

“There is nothing interesting about what’s happening up there. Nothing.”

“You will go now,” the High Bishop said and turned from him.

“No wait.” Marc reached for him, pulling back before he actually touched him. “Please. You can’t do this to me again. If you take my memory away, I’ll go back and be just as confused about where this comes from. I know what I’m supposed to do, but you’re telling me that I have to become like Maralt to do it.” He looked at Carryn. “You told me if I ever used the power I’m cursed with again, you’d kill me. I remember that, Carryn. Don’t you?”

“I remember. I was wrong, Marc.”

“But I can’t remember that out there.” He stopped then. “What do you mean you were wrong? How?”

Carryn smiled. “It’s been known to happen from time to time. I was wrong to threaten you. Wrong to forbid in you what can’t be denied. You are an adept. You’re allowed to use your abilities to defeat Maralt. You must use them, or you and all of Brittallia will suffer.”

“If you send me back without any memory of you, I won’t be able to. I’m only trying to do what you want.” He looked to Carryn in desperation. “You want me to use this power without knowing the rules, or where the rules even come from.”

“It is forbidden for you,” the High Bishop said.

“Why?” Marc turned on him. “No, don’t say it. That’s forbidden too, right?”

“Careful of your tone, my son.”

“I’m not your son. If I knew who you were maybe I’d care how I talked to you. I’m not your pawn. Right now, I’m the only one who can stop Maralt. Are you going to help me, or keep playing this ‘it is forbidden’ game? I don’t have time for it.”

“He has no tolerance.”

“Not much patience either,” Carryn said.

“That’s it. I quit. You can find someone else to kill Maralt. It’s not my home he’s after.” He turned from them, trying to leave and found he couldn’t. A barrier that hadn’t existed before enveloped him. The more he struggled against it, the stronger it grew, tightening until he almost couldn’t move. “I thought holding someone against their will was forbidden,” he said, gritting his teeth against what held him and turned.

The High Bishop stood right next to him, reached and touched his forehead with his fingertips. Marc gasped, slowly sinking to his knees as the immense power of countless generations of minds joined, and spoke to him in a single voice.

With frightening speed, he was given knowledge, humbled and awed by the truth he was shown. He saw Cadal as it once was, a land of towering cities, preserved lands of consummate beauty, without terror or force until one came. He was so like Maralt that Marc shrank from the sight of him. He was incredibly powerful, subverting others to his will, while others joined him willingly, turning into the evil force that eventually brought the Alcasians to Cadal. He witnessed the destruction of his planet, of his home, of a life that should have been but was taken from him. He saw the aftermath of war, death littering cities that once shone in the light, whole forests obliterated, people wandering lost.

A man moved through a crowd of jostling, desperate people who were trying to escape themselves, without being touched. Marc saw his eyes and knew him. In sudden, unrelenting clarity, in that man he saw himself, and he saw Maralt.

“No.”

“Yes,” a thousand voices answered and showed him another man, identical to the one who used power to escape, while he used his power to heal the destruction and death he was surrounded by. But instead of welcoming him, the people he would aid turned from him, spitting on him, animosity growing until they beat him. He did nothing to stop them when he could have. A man in robes came to his rescue, shaming the crowd into stillness while he took the man to safety.

It happened again. The circumstances were slightly different. Maybe the planet was Cobalt this time. The outcome was the same. Lives were destroyed. Worlds annihilated. Over and over, for countless ages, they were caught. Attempts to stop the evil from rampaging across the land failed. Each time the threat of the collapse of the Universe was stopped by the massive destruction of memory, but not the root cause of it. Each time, what knowledge existed was passed from one to the next. A society grew within the established history of Brittallia, a secret order, passing along knowledge, training a select few to continue as they did. Their numbers dwindled until only a few survived.

Until now.

“This is why you are here,” the voices told him. “This is why you were brought here, to conquer your ancient ancestor, as he would conquer us all again.”

Marc looked up at the High Bishop, shaking his head, though he knew it to be true.

“These things you are given to keep as your own. This room and memory of our presence here are forbidden. You have the ability within you to defeat our enemy, but know this, if you abuse what you have learned, if you force your will on anyone but Maralt, you will suffer the same fate as he. Know this to be true.”

Marc pushed himself to his feet, looking him in the eye for the first time, and thought that fate awaited him anyway, whether he succeeded or not in all the tasks they expected of him. “All right.”

“There is one other place you must see, for this is where he will be taken.” The High Bishop touched him again and he found himself standing just outside a darkened square room. Through an arched doorway, small glowing globes rested on six pedestals. A seventh stood empty. Marc took a step forward.

“You must not enter,” the High Bishop said, suddenly beside him. “You see, he is the last, the sum of Ages. He will reside here, with his forefathers, forever without voice.”

Marc nodded, returning to the Hall. He looked at Carryn. “So you sent Dynan to Cadal where he just happened to find me.”

“Apparently so,” Carryn said, glancing at the High Bishop.

“Some things are given, some are not.”

Marc rolled his eyes. “You’d get a lot more accomplished if there was less in the not category.” He looked at Carryn again. “You’ll leave him to die, won’t you, if Dynan comes back here.”

“He won’t come back. Whether he lives or dies is up to him, but he won’t come here again.” Carryn smiled sadly at his confusion. “He rejected what was offered. This was the last time he could. If he dies, he’ll be lost. There are some things you can’t know and aren’t meant to know just yet Marc.”

“When you came to Cadal you didn’t know, did you, or when you sent Dynan? You didn’t know any of this.”

“What you term knowing and what I do are different things. Memory exists beyond these walls. The term I use is called Faith.”

Marc nodded, though he still didn’t quite believe it all, turning to the High Bishop. “I guess it’s time for me to go back.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll remember what you said?” he asked, afraid that if he didn’t remember he’d go mad. “You’re sure.”

“You will remember what is given.”

“But not with knowledge of you or Carryn. All right. Tell me, if I fail – besides having Maralt eat my heart, or life force if you want to call it that, is Carryn going to come to the rescue?”

“You will not fail.”

Marc looked at him. “How do you know that?” he asked, then shook his head. “No, never mind, don’t say it.”

The High Bishop smiled at him. “The Gods go with you, my son.”

Marc closed his eyes, trying to convince himself that those Gods, whoever they were, would indeed be with him, but he doubted it all the same. He concentrated and disappeared.

“He will not fail?” Carryn asked, looking to the High Bishop.

“He needed the encouragement.”

“A lie?”

“A hope, couched in rhetoric.”

“I’m sure that will help him.”

“He’ll need it,” the High Bishop said. “Come, we must go.”

Carryn looked at him, startled. “Go where?”

“We are called. A Prince lies dying in need of the Rites of Transition.”

Carryn stopped at that, bowing her head. “No, I—”

“What was that you were saying about Faith? Come with me.”