I felt a hand on my shoulder, pushing me on. I took a step.
“Dad?”
“Yes. I am here. I have projected myself inside the jewel, too. Come. Move forward, onto the pattern. Walk its length. I will be withyou…”
I stepped forward, heading for the pattern. This was no mere distortion of the Logrus. It was separate, different, and yet… two parts of some greater whole.
Distantly, as though in a dream, I heard Dad’s voice talking to me. I could not make out the words, but the tone nagged and insisted. I had to do something… go somewhere…
So hard to concentrate. And yet I knew there was something I had to remember… something I had to do…
“Forward,” said the voice. “Do not stop.”
Yes. Forward.
I moved on, into the pattern, following the glowing red light. At first I found it easy, but it grew steadily harder as I progressed, like wading through mud. The light pushed at me, trying to drive me back, but I refused to give up. I thought. I would not stop no matter what happened.
And abruptly the resistance ceased. I moved easily down the trail. The light, clear and brilliant, lit the path. Around the turn, forward—another turn—
The whole of my life flashed before me, but strangely vivid—all the places I’d been, all the people I’d ever met.
My mother—
Swearing to serve King Elnar—
Sword lessons on the town green—
Our house in Piermont—
Fighting the hell-creatures—
Dworkin as a younger man—
The path curved and again grew difficult, and I found myself straining for every inch, forcing myself forward. I would not stop. I could not stop. The lights ahead beckoned. Images of my life flashed and danced through my mind.
The beach at Janisport—
King Elnar’s crowning—
Fishing on the banks of the Blue River—
The women I had known before Helda—
The battle of Highland Ridge—
In bed with Helda—
Mustering troops for battle—
For some reason, I seized upon the image of the battlefield. Here King Elnar had fought the hell-creatures to a standstill. Here we had known our first real victory in the war against the hell-creatures.
In my mind’s eye, I still saw our troops again rallying valiantly to the king, swords and pikes raised, screaming their war-cries—
And, reaching the center of the pattern, where it had wound in upon itself—
—I staggered across mud and matted grass, then drew up short, half gagging on the stench of death and decay. Bodies of men and horses lay all around me, rotting and covered with flies. A low buzz of wings came from the corpses.
I looked up. It was late afternoon on a dark, overcast day. A chill wind blew from the east, heavy with the promise of rain. It could not remove the stench of death, however.
Slowly I turned in a circle. The battlefield stretched as far as I could see in every direction. There had been a massacre here, and I saw uncountable hundreds, perhaps thousands of bodies, all human, all dressed in King Elnar’s colors.
From warmth to cold, from dry to damp, from the safety of a castle to the horrors of a battlefield in an instant. What had happened? How had I gotten here?
Dworkin’s ruby…
I remembered it now. I had seen the fields outside of Kingstown while gazing into the jewel. Somehow, it had sent me here.
But why? To see the destruction?
I covered my mouth and nose with my shirt tail, but it did little to hide the stench. Slowly, I turned full circle, taking in the horrors around me.
These men had died at least four or five days ago, I estimated. Broken weapons, a burnt out war-wagon toppled on its side, and fallen banners caked with mud and gore spoke to the magnitude of the loss. King Elnar’s army had been destroyed, and from the number of bodies, probably to the last man.
A cold drizzle began to soak my hair and clothes. The stench of carrion grew worse. Carefully I began to pick my way among the bodies, looking for the king, for anyone I knew.
I shivered, suddenly, soaked to the skin. Then I forced myself to look at the battlefield, at all that remained around me. Birds and dogs and other, less savory carrion-eaters had worked on the corpses for several days, but I didn’t need to see faces to recognize them.
All had been human.
I climbed onto the burnt-out wagon’s sides, my fingers growing black and greasy from the char, and when I stood above the battlefield I saw the true scope of the disaster.
The battlefield stretched as far as I could see. Proud banners lay in the mud. Swords, knives, pikes, and axes by the score lay rusting on the ground. And everywhere, piled or singly as they had fallen, lay more bodies.
No one, not wife nor child nor priest, had come to sing the funeral songs and bury the dead. I did not have to look to know that Kingstown too had fallen, or that the hell-creatures had slaughtered all whom they met along the way.
So much for Dad’s prediction that the hell-creatures would leave Ilerium once I went to Juniper. As I picked my way through the battlefield, a numb sort of shock settled upon me. Severed limbs, empty eye sockets that seemed yet to stare, expressions of terror and pain etched on every face—I could scarcely take it all in.
Then I came to a place where the bodies and debris had been cleared away. A line of seven chest-high wooden poles, each stuck into the mud perhaps two feet apart, held ghastly trophies: the severed heads of King Elnar and six of his lieutenants.
Staring at what little remained of my king, I felt my stomach knot with pain. I stumbled forward to stand before him. His eyes were closed; his mouth hung open. Though his grayish skin had begun to crack from exposure to the sun, he had a peaceful look, almost as though he slept.
It was a struggle to keep from throwing myself to the ground and sobbing helplessly. How could this have happened? Dad had said the hell-creatures would leave once I fled Ilerium. I had believed him.
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
Suddenly, impossibly, King Elnar’s eyelids flickered open.