Redmerit brushed Roland aside and defiantly beckoned the new arrival to engage him in single combat. The Gnome loosened his hood and shook it so that it fell back over his coarse hair. Sweat streamed from his face even in the chill air and matted his white locks.
In contrast to the reckless fury with which he had dispatched previous foes, Redmerit approached the huge ogre with caution. He parried each lash of his enemy’s chain, always withdrawing his club before it became ensnarled in the links. Unlike his grunting foe, who hurled all his might into each blow, Redmerit held back and probed for weakness. He ducked another roundhouse swing of the chains and leapt forward. Instead of exposing himself to retaliation by aiming for the head or the heart, the Gnome slashed his foe across the knee.
With a horrid cry, the ogre toppled. But as it fell, Redmerit stiffened and his knuckles turned white. His club fell from his grasp. Roland gaped in horror as misty skeleton fingers snaked into the Gnome’s back. A tree wraith, its cursed shadow stretching far across the field, had caught the Gnome chieftain. Redmerit struggled, arms flailing, but no mortal creature could twist free from such a grip. He gasped for breath, unable to cry out. Roland dashed forward in a vain effort to help his ally. He hacked at the formless shadow, but his sword found no substance to strike.
The fire and fury drained from the Gnome’s eyes. His body went limp and he stared unseeing into the heavens. With a groan of anguish, he turned toward Roland, his perpetual scowl falling away into a look of blind wonder that began to dim, like the last ember of a campfire losing its color as it cooled.
“The lode!” said Redmerit, in a strangled whisper “On my neck. Take it.”
Roland ignored him. “Don’t give up!” he pleaded. “Fight it!”
“Take the lode!”
His heart bleeding pity and despair, Roland fingered the nearly black sphere dangling from the chain around Redmerit’s neck. The thought of stripping the priceless jewel off an ally in his death throes turned his stomach. But Redmerit croaked, “Take it! Quick, before the wraith turns on you!” When Roland continued to hesitate, it gasped, “Take it!” one more time, before the light fell from his eyes altogether and death overtook him.
No warrior on either side dared come near ground touched by the shadows of the wraiths. As a result, Roland was left alone as he bent over the Gnome. He had time to fight through his tears and find the clasp on Redmerit’s chain. Still feeling like a grave-robbing ghoul, he yanked the lodestone from the dead form.
For a moment, he wondered if he had turned into a wraith himself. While the sounds of combat raged around him, he stood hypnotized on an island of tranquility while the wraith began to dissolve. Before the Nephil could reform and work its evil on him, he raced with his prize to the safety of a large boulder. There, oblivious to the desperate battle around him, he gazed in awe at this most sacred of all icons of the realms. It resembled a black ruby, so rich in color that only direct sunlight could expose a thin, electric red border around the blackness. So this was the precious Jewel of the Fourth Realm! This was the stone next to which the luster of silver and gold tarnished into murky dullness!
Roland felt the tug of greed. If he could somehow steal away from the battle and get home with this thing, he would be rich beyond his dreams. Set for life. But the flash of fever passed quickly. He could not desecrate the valiant effort of the Gnome even before the body was cold. Moreover, Roland knew better than to suppose that Redmerit meant for him to keep the stone. He was not sure he could have accepted such a gift if it were offered. Already the treasure felt hot and alien in his hands. Roland searched for some Gnome to whom he could transfer it.
The enemy, however, had surged past the last stand of Redmerit as they swept the animals and Gnomes from the field. Roland was left alone amid the sparse rear guard of Ishyrus’s army.
He could feel the seconds ticking away on his life. It filled him with grief and anger rather than fear. Grief for his friends and for all the decent, gentle people of the realmlands whose terrible, undeserved doom had now been sealed. Anger that he had been uprooted from what he was almost certain had been a warm and placid existence into this lethal nightmare. After being slapped around by fate all through his life, he wanted to at least have come control over the ending. He scanned the battlefield for a friend with whom to lay down his life.
But again the lode distracted him. He knew so little about color lodes, but he recalled one comment from the final council of war. Digtry had said something about using a lodestone to confuse Ishyrus. The Gnomes had reacted with pious outrage, and Digtry had shrugged it off as half-baked idea. But Digtry did not do half-baked ideas. Had he been serious, or joking, or just grasping at straws? The lodestones were too foreign a subject for Roland to guess. If Digtry had been serious, what did he have in mind? How could this thing be used? What could it accomplish?
Roland tapped the lodestone against his knuckle. He thought he could feel some give in the sides. “Neither solid nor liquid,” Sloat had said. A tidal wave of color. Maybe such a rush of color could hide him from the enemy.
But he had no more time to think. The lingering shadow of the tree wraith had finally evaporated and moved upfield, leaving Roland fair game for all who had previously shied away from him. A reserve unit of Urchins spotted him and they raced each other to claim a new conquest.
No help would come this time. All of Roland's friends and allies were either fighting for their lives or breaking ranks and fleeing, pursued hard by the overwhelming force of the hosts of Ishyrus.
Every thought flew from his mind except the insistent refrain of Digtry’s voice: “Use the color lode. Use the color lode.”
But how? Slipping the silver chain of the lodestone over his neck, he fled from the slow-moving Urchins toward open ground. Disoriented, he ran straight toward the camp of Ishyrus.
A rearguard of Pharitans spotted him from their post at the sparsely manned perimeter around the enemy’s most forward village of tents. With shouts of alarm and glee they raced toward him. The Urchins closed in from the rear. Roland saw tno way out.
He dropped his arm and held out his sword in surrender as the Urchins closed in shrieking their triumph. But then the image of flames and a torture rack jolted him back to action. Far more noble, and less painful, to go down fighting. Wielding his sword with both hands, Roland screamed a battle cry and charged straight at the Pharitan rear guard. These angular, long-limbed warriors reminded Roland of human grasshoppers, clad in ornately embossed armor and winged helmets of bronze.
They were wary of this single assailant who had penetrated so deeply into their ranks-- a man who appeared to be something like the Brookings of the Second Realm, yet bore an unmistakable air of some higher realm. His sudden charge unnerved them. They so lurched and fumbled in their disorganized effort to defend themselves that Roland was able to hack his way through their line with his sword, dealing painful wounds to two of them.
For the moment he was in the clear, although headed in the wrong direction--toward the vast encampment. He veer toward the cliffs at the edge of the sea until he abruptly remembered that this shore was the gateway to the Fifth Realm. He lurched to a halt. No way would he risk going back to there.
The four unbloodied Pharitan soldiers overcame their fear and surprise. Supported by a regiment of Brookings, they started to give chase. Other companies scattered across the Point also set out after him.
For a moment, Roland stood paralyzed. There was no way out, not unless he was stupid enough to try the . . . It suddenly hit him. Roland, they broke the realm bonds. The Fifth Realm is here! The Nephilim can go anywhere now. It can’t be any worse in the Fifth Realm than it is here.
In fact, he thought, it could be very much better. Adonaram! He could help me.
Finally having a destination in mind, he sprinted full bore for the ocean cliff. As he did so, he saw another company of soldiers, several hundred yards beyond him, near the tip of Point Harrow. They wore purple cloaks and armor that glowed golden in the light of the retreating sun. Roland wondered if they were Ishyrus’s personal body guard. Even in his frantic flight, he could not help trying to catch a glimpse of the maverick Seraphim, the immortal grandmaster who had toppled the realms. He thought he saw him--a robed figure staring at him from a tent pitched on the highest point of the Harrow.
But the Pharitans, who (Roland now remembered to his despair) possessed the Third Realm gift of speed, swiftly closed the gap on him. Desperately, he raced across the Point, veering away from the closest of the new pursuers. During his stay in the realmlands, he had done much running, but almost no sprinting. Now, despite his weariness and the hopelessness of the cause, it felt good to fly across the hard earth one last time, even if the swift Pharitans were reeling him in. Just maybe there was a chance he could reach the cliff and hurl himself out into the the crashing surf toward the Fifth Realm before his foes caught him.
As he drew closer to the ocean, his heart sank. He saw that the cliffs rose up high above the sea. Even if there were actual deep water at their base and not a rocky beach, he doubted he could survive the fall. He glanced back at the Pharitans bearing down on him.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Water or no water, I’m going over the edge. He thought of Berch’s remark in their last conversation. I’m coming through the back door, old man. God, please let it be the way home.
As he steeled himself for the suicide plunge that lay just seconds ahead, he caught a flash of light just ahead of him. Instinctively, he veered away from it until he saw that it was a round Barbarian shield that had been abandoned on the ground. At that moment, he felt the color lode, suspended from the chain around his neck, as it slapped against his chest in rhythm with his pistoning legs.
Digtry’s absurd statement popped into his head. “Use the color lode.”
Impulsively, he lurched toward the shield, clutching the hot lodestone in his hand. Barely aware of what he was doing, he kicked over the shield and picked it up by the handle. Could he smash the lodestone with this? But what to smash it against? His sword? Could he put it on the shield and slice it open with his sword?
No, he did not have the skill to hit such a small object under this kind of pressure. The Pharitans were almost on top of him. Roland saw a smooth, oblong rock resting like a loaf of bread embedded in the sand near the cliff’s edge. He dropped the sword but held on to the shield. He put on a desperate burst of speed, helped by a sudden gust of a tailwind.
He skittered to a stop at the rock, pulled the lodestone necklace off and placed the lode on the flat surface. As he lifted the shield, the first of the Pharitans closed in on him, sword raised for the kill. Instinct screamed at Roland to ward off the blow with the shield. But, remembering the nearly disastrous results of failure of concentration at the Gaterock, he summoned every ounce of courage he had. Averting his eyes from the sight of his own execution, he clenched his teeth and focused on the lode. With all his might, he slammed the shield down on Redmerit’s precious jewel.
A noiseless explosion blasted dense lightning bolts of blinding red color in all directions, and threw Roland high into the air. Wave after wave of a dense, pulsating scarlet presence as thick and bright as flaming lava broke over Point Harrow. Surging walls of color crashed intoo him, washed over him, tossed him about, as though he were caught in the chamber of a giant heart.
After tumbling and floating in this current for what seemed an eternity, he landed with a painful thud on the hard earth. Blinded by the intense red glow, he could think only to crawl away from the rock and stay low in case that Pharitan was still about, slashing at him. He could see nothing of the Pharitans, nor of anything else. He lay rigid upon the sandstone cliff as the redness utterly engulfed him.
At first, some of the hosts of Ishyrus, especially those from the lower realms, cheered the red typhoon that cascaded over them. As it came from the direction of Ishyrus, they assumed it to be another salvo of Fifth Realm magic unleashed to speed up the unfolding massacre. But the Fourth Realmers from both sides strongly suspected what it was. They cringed in fear and awe as the shocking tidal wave of color pounded the field.
How long this assault of color lasted, Roland had no idea. It seemed to erase time along with every other coherent thought; he felt certain he was caught in another dream, and for a moment wondered if he would awake back in a campus library. Eventually, he thought he heard the faint, distant shouts of triumph. Incredibly, these seemed to be coming from familiar voices. Corresponding cries of despair unmistakably arose from those he had learned to dread.
The shattering of the lodestone did more than save Roland’s neck from the Pharitan’s blade. Digtry’s casual and profane suggestion, spawned by Katra’s readings of Fifth Realm lore, had pierced the invulnerability of the immortal Fifth Realm invaders. The seething red cauldron instantly neutralized the tree wraiths from the Fifth Realm. Having no substance with with which to stand against the maelstrom, they were temporarily dispersed into the color.
While this phenomenon blinded every creature, it did not affect the other senses. This gave the animals, with their superior sense of small, a tremendous advantage. Since the beasts fighting alongside the Gnomes far outnumbered their despised brethren in Ishyrus’s army, the advantage began to tell immediately. Robbed of their sight and of their invincible tree wraiths, stunned that certain victory was being ripped most improbably from their grasp, the armies of Ishyrus lost heart and bolted.
Urchins and ogres, Pharitans, Brookings, and Barbarians all came unstrung. Instead of retreating to their camp to be trapped between the enemy and the sea, they scattered for the mainland. Finding themselves abandoned, the Terrible Ones, the dogs, weasels, wildcats, and rats joined their comrades in arms in flight. Hawks and carrion foul flapped away; polar bears took to the water. Even the Raxxars, who held their ground until all their allies had deserted the field, finally skittered and glided off to the south.
Bannaclaw and her grizzlies were the only animals to give chase. They set their merciless sights solely on the fleeing human forms. The rest of the animals and the Gnomes threw back their heads and shouted and howled with relief and joy.
It was dusk before the prevailing winds gradually began to disperse the color. Roland rubbed his eyes and blinked hard to clear his vision. Still able to see only vague contours through the thick, red film, he made an attempt to link up with his friends. But after stepping on a few cold, irregular contours that he was pretty sure were bodies, either friend or foe, he abandoned the effort. Instead, he found an open stretch of ground and dropped to the earth in sheer exhaustion, and waited for the sky rid itself of the colored mist
Later that evening, Digtry discovered Roland still lying in a daze where he had fallen upon the field of battle. After what he had been through, Roland had thought himself immune to surprise and wonder, but what happened next struck him as the most unlikely thing he had yet witnessed in all the realmlands: Digtry, still moving gingerly, walked up to him. He extended his hand and helped him to his feet, although it was more of a symbolic gesture than actual aid. Then, without yet speaking a word, he embraced him in a long and surprisingly strong hug.
Roland assumed that Digtry was aware of what he had done. That he knew it was Roland who had smashed the color lode and saved an army on the brink of annihilation. He could do nothing but accept the honor of the embrace, odd as it was coming from Digtry. Although bursting with pride over his actions and their result, he tried to maintain a sense of decorum and perspective. The Midwestern modesty that had been pounded into him since early childhood served him well. He was determined to deflect the greater part of the glory, leaving just enough residual as needed for subsistence. A gruesome battlefield like this was not the time or place to claim credit. Too many others had sacrificed more than he.
“You were right about the color lodes,” he said, as the two stood for a moment near the cliff’s edge, on the very rock where Roland had split Redmerit’s lode.
“It was not a serious suggestion,” said Digtry. “I was only trying to model for the Gnomes a certain mindset. Whatever happened with that lode must have been a freak accident.”
Only then did Roland realize that Digtry did not know. And if Digtry did not know, it was almost certain that nobody knew. This circumstance made Digtry’s greeting all the more meaningful. The hug had had nothing to do with Roland’s heroic actions; it had nothing to do with anything Roland had done at all. It had simply been an acknowledgment of what they had been through together, that Roland was alive, and that Digtry had been moved by this reality.
“I’m glad I didn’t know you weren’t serious,” said Roland, with a conspiratorial smile.
Digtry raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Roland felt so light and relieved and fulfilled, he imagined that if he closed his eyes and layed back, he could actually float. Being this was the Fourth Realm, he considered that within the realm of possibility. “It wasn’t exactly an accident.”
Digtry studied Roland’s face for a moment and then pulled him close. “Explain,” he whispered, sternly. “And keep your voice down.”
Startled by the urgent tone and the demand for secrecy, Roland haltingly spilled out an account of Redmerit’s final struggle, and the fate of the Gnome chieftain’s sacred color lode.
When he finished, Digtry’s huge brown eyes seared him, destroying his hard-earned sense of euphoria. “Listen carefully,” he said. “You have saved this army. You may have saved the realms from tyranny and torment beyond measure. But it is a debt you must never collect, nor even acknowledge. Never reveal to anyone what you have told me. Never.”
“Okay,” agreed Roland, hesitatingly. “Why not?”
Digtry relaxed his severe posture and sighed. “You’ve been around the Gnomes. Even had they known the color lode would bring victory, they would never have considered using it. There is no crime more heinous to them than the destruction of a lode. Gnome miners who accidentally chip a lode are banished from the Spectral Hills for life. Were they to discover that an outsider annihilated one of their sacred treasures. . .”
He left the threat hanging and Roland found himself on the defensive, branded with the name of archtraitor to the Gnomes. “Hey, it wasn’t like I knew what I was doing. I never really understood exactly what a color lode was anyway. It didn’t seem real. .”
Digtry arched his eyebrows. “You’re apologizing for saving the realms?”
Roland gaped in bewilderment, then grinned sheepishly at the absurdity. This was the Digtry he knew, always keeping him off balance.
“The instant I saw the red explosion, I added a bit of power to it on my own,” Digtry continued.
“You mean magic?” Roland could not resist saying.
Digtry opened his mouth to protest, until he noticed Roland’s grin. “My position on that needs no clarification. The fact is, Roland, you are the hero of all the realmlands, even if no one else ever knows.”
Roland blushed. The hero’s mantle that kept falling back on his shoulders remained an awkward fit. “Don’t forget Redmerit. If there was a true hero of this battle, he was it.”
“True,” said Digtry. “I can’t imagine what made him surrender the lode to you. I did not believe any Gnome capable of parting with such a prize, let alone to a foreigner. I expected Redmerit would die clutching it to his chest.”
“Berch explained that to me last night,” said Roland, softly. He found himself looking forward to seeing the old codger. “’Stars shine more brightly when the sky is the darkest.’ He was quoting a Tishaaran proverb.”
Digtry considered that. “You think Redmerit saw something in death that had been hidden from him his whole life?”
“Could be.”
Digtry shrugged. “I was more than halfway through the doorway to death myself, and I don’t remember anything insightful visions. I mean, watching the blood bubble out of my guts was certainly educational but hardly an epiphany. Still, you may be right. Thanks to Redmerit’s astonishing deathbed conversion and your ignorance of what is sacred, the brief, inglorious reign of Ishyrus has, astonishingly ended.”
“But not for long, I suppose,” noted Roland. “Ishyrus is immortal, isn’t it?”
“Immortal but not invincible,” said Digtry. “The bucks found it stumbling in the seaweed offshore, clothed in the form of an ancient ghost. Its eyes were glazed, and it chanted in a strange language. The boars and bears, in grief over the losses they suffered, tried to tear it to shreds. But Ishyrus is immune to their blows, at least for another 26, 27 hours in this realm. Whenever the beasts reach out to seize it, its chanting grows so heartbreakingly beautiful that none can abide it, and it becomes vaporous in form.”
“So what’s going to happen to him, or it?” asked Roland.
“Ishyrus is under the eye of the Gnomes for now,” said Digtry. “As long as no one threatens it, it is wrapped in its own thoughts, grieving in its own world, oblivious to the real one. It is in no condition to plot more mischief.”
“Who would have thought Ishyrus would have such a delicate constitution?”
“Oh, that was predictable,” said Digtry.
“You mean you knew that it would crack up trying to figure out the nonsense you were up to? I saw Ishyrus’s men frantically digging up those old coins of Berch’s that we planted on the battlefield. I wonder what Ishyrus thought they were.”
Digtry smiled and shook his head. “Ishyrus may have been slightly distracted by the nonsense we were doing on the battlefield. No doubt the refuse we provided as raw material for his consideration cluttered his thoughts. Like feeding dirt into a fire. But that is not what did him in.
“No, it was your callous act of destruction that did it, Roland, and it was an act that only you could have performed. No one from the realmlands, having such a sacred treasure drop into their hands, could destroy it without reflecting long and hard. By then it would have been too late. That was what stopped Ishyrus. His flawless intellect could never have postulated such behavior, and it had no contingency for dealing with it. And believe me, Roland, if it had not been stopped here, it would never have been stopped until the bonds were irrevokably broken.” He touched Roland on the shoulder. “If you have ever wondered for what purpose you passed into these realms, that is a possible answer.
Roland felt relieved and humbled and a little uncertain. He had never thought of his appearance in the realms as anything other than a freak accident. Now Digtry was implying that there might possibly be more to it.
Just as Roland began to ponder that might mean, Digtry added, "An equally likely answer, of course, is that it was all blind, stupid luck.
“But that’s just me talking,” continued Digtry. “Perhaps we should ask Ishyrus what it thinks. I’m on my way to see it now. Would you like to come along?"