The Lord of Necrond

Voices came from the door of an antechamber. Keeping himself hidden behind the door, he glance in. Servants in long robes stood with their backs to him, their faces pressed against a glazed window. The women amongst the number were chanting distractedly. Caspar was not quick in the Ceolothian tongue but he understood that they prayed to their god of the New Faith for protection against what they thought to be an earthquake.

Calmly, so as not to draw attention to himself, he crossed to the tall windows at the far end of the gallery and looked out. He was surprised at how high he had climbed. Below him, the city of Castaguard shrank away, dipping into the gloomy hollow around the base of the black tower.

Hot as he was from his exertion, a chill spread through him at what he saw. He was certain he had not summoned such creatures from the Otherworld and yet could not explain how there came to be a vast sea of wraithlike creatures marching out of the ground at the foot of the tower. So that was why the earth trembled and why Perren had been afraid. How could he possible have thought him fearful of the gnomes?

Hazy apparitions of monstrous beasts - two-headed lions, a lequus, sabre-toothed wolves and what Caspar thought to be huge hobgoblins, naked and sinewy - poured out from the black tower. The guards and slave masters were marshalling them into ordered lines. Caspar was afraid now too. Someone, something other than himself, was controlling them. But how?

He cradled the casket containing Necrönd protectively against his breast, watching with horror and disbelief as the monstrous phantoms marched into the market square and joined the men, already marshalled into ranks around the edge of the square. The slaves swayed fearfully but were too disciplined, or frightened of their commanding officers to flee. As he watched, a sickening pain began to throb in his head.

Trying to think clearly through the pain that spread down from the crown of his head and cramped his brain, he stared down at the massing army. Raised to be lord of a frontier castle, he instinctively knew these men that were marshalled into lines were being mustered for war. Judging by their chains, some were from the slave pits; others looked like townsfolk; and those bearing farm tools, billhooks and pitchforks were no doubt from the surrounding countryside.

The Ceolothians gathered an army! From his thorough schooling in history, Caspar knew that Ceolothia had been at war many times in the last thousand years, mostly with Lonis and Salise but in minor disputes only. However, she had fought three major wars, the last admittedly over four hundred years ago, but all three had been with Belbidia. Caspar knew the history particularly well because his own forefathers had been instrumental in fighting back the aggressors. If the Ceolothians were again mustering to attack his homeland, he must do something.

They would march, as all other Ceolothian armies had done before, through Vaalaka and then turn south to attack his father's castle of Torra Alta at the northernmost border of Belbidia. But this time, he could stop them long before any Belbidian blood was shed. A stab of guilt harried his soul. His father had left him in charge of the castle; Torra Alta and its young garrison were his responsibility and, though it was for a higher cause, he had still abandoned them. He must do something. After all he had the power; he held Necrönd. What would it take? He had commanded dragons before; what could be harder? His hand moved to his chest.

But no! He had sworn to his mother that he would not again wield Necrönd. He could not break such a solemn oath; not one made to a high priestess. It had meant so much to her and he could not disobey. Keridwen's reasons were sound; she and the other two high priestesses, Brid and Morrigwen, had lectured and scolded him at length. It seemed certain that all their troubles had been caused by Necrönd; the more he had used it, the more their woes had been compounded. He stared glumly down at the monstrous throng. There was even a unicorn amongst the ghostly number.

His heart beat boomed in his throat; the forms of the ghostly beasts were becoming firmer in outline until they were solid blocks of colour, the beasts fully formed in this world and no longer phantoms. Yet he had not summoned them. He hoped that his mother and the very beautiful Brid, who held the office of the Maiden, and even Morrigwen, if her soul could see him now, would believe in his innocence in this.

Someone was shouting at him. Evidently he was not so inconspicuous as he had thought; a manservant had spied him and recognized him as an intruder. The man began yelling more insistently though Caspar was not familiar enough with the Ceolothian words to translate them when they were shouted in vehement outrage. He ran. Skidding to a halt at the end of the galleried hall, he found a low arch that led to a corridor and that to a huge staircase cut around the outside of a central well. Surely this was a way out. With the agility of youth and the sure-footed speed of a Torra Altan born to the mountain heights, he hurtled down them.

He couldn't think straight. His head hurt and Necrönd felt strange in his hand. It radiated a warm wet pulse, as if he grasped a living heart. Feeling faintly sick, he dabbed at the crown of his head and felt the moistness of unhealed skin. He must run, get out of the palace, join the milling mob about the panicked city, where their was already so much disorder that he would never be noticed.

The huge staircase led to a ballroom and he ran for the narrow service stairs at the back of the hall. He spun down them, his hand hot from rubbing against the stone of the central newel that supported the stair.

At last he was out into fresh air. Racing along what he thought to be a likely alleyway, he soon found himself on the edge of the central market square, where he least wanted to be. But, though there were many soldiers, there was also enough of a mob to conceal him and at least he would be able to follow the main east street out of the city without becoming lost. Here, he was anonymous; all eyes were turned towards the yawning portcullis of the black tower. A great rumbling, like the sound of a distant stampede groaned from the dark mouth. He halted and stared in horror.

Guards charged forward, pikes at the ready, to meet whatever was about to burst out from the gateway to the infamous mines. Great black war-horses, snorting and chaffing at their bits, bore armoured knights that lined the road out from the tower. The ground shook and the air trembled with a deep rumbling roar.

The mouth of the black tower was suddenly filled with emerging grey faces. They stumbled and blinked in the sudden light. Emaciated men and women staggered into the square, some with their hands outstretched pleading for mercy, others glancing back into the dark mouth of the tower in terror. The guards outside the tower showed no mercy but levelled their crossbows at the stampede of slaves and, forming two lines channelled them into the centre of the square. Most of the terrified slaves ran as they were directed though others, in maddened terror, fought to break through the ranks of guards. Caspar saw several shot through with crossbow bolts and many trampled to a pulp by the great horses.

He knew he should run but he could not yet pull himself away from the sight as three-headed bears and lion-faced dogs sprang out from the foot of the tower.

The guards shouted in both Belbidian, the most widely understood language of the Caballan, as well as Ceolothian so that all might obey them. With angry words and sharp pikes, they organized the slaves pouring from the mines into ranks alongside those already gathered.

A guard thundered, "Stand! They are ordered not to hurt you. Like you, they now form Prince Tudwal's army."