The Diamond Warriors. David Zindell

it did not seem to bear for me any kind of human hate, I hated it, for I sensed that the Ahrim was that soul-destroying emptiness which engendered pure hate itself.

      ‘Valashu Elahad,’ it seemed to whisper to me.

      I gripped my sword and shook my head. The dark thing had no form nor face nor lips with which to move the air, and yet I heard its voice speaking to me along a strange and sudden wind. And then, in a flash, it shifted yet again, and its secret substance took on the lineaments of a face I knew too well: that of Salmelu Aradar. It was an ugly face, nearly devoid of a chin or any redeeming feature. His great beak of a nose pointed at me, as did his black and beadlike eyes. I hated the way he looked at me, deep into my eyes, and so I brought up my sword to block his line of sight. And his head, like a cobra’s, swayed to the right, and I repositioned my sword, and then again to the left as he seemed to seek access in that direction to the dark holes in my eyes. And so it went, our motions playing off each other, almost locked together, faster and faster as it had been during our duel of swords in King Hadaru’s hall when Salmelu had nearly killed me, and I had nearly killed him.

      ‘Valashu,’ he whispered again, ‘I wish you had seen your mother’s eyes when we crucified and ravished her in your father’s hall.’

      A dark fire leaped in my heart then, and I fought with all my will to keep it from burning out of my arms and hands into my sword. But my restraint availed me nothing. Salmelu roared out in triumph, and then he was Salmelu no more. The blackness of his being metamorphosed yet again, this time into a thing of scales, wings and a savagely swaying tail.

      ‘The dragon!’ Daj cried out from beside me. ‘The dragon returns!’

      I set my hand on Daj’s shoulder, and shouted to Liljana, ‘Take the children into the trees!’

      I could not spare a moment to watch Liljana gather up Daj and Estrella and carry out my command. The Ahrim, now shaped as a dragon, even as Daj had said, hung in the air before me with an almost delicate poise. It seemed to feed on the fire inside me, and make it its own; in mere moments it grew into a raging, red beast fifty feet in length. I recognized this terrible dragon as Angraboda, into whose belly I had once plunged my sword in the deeps of Argattha. And now Angraboda regarded me with her fierce, cold, vengeful eyes. Then her leather wings beat at the air in a thunder of wind as she flew straight up toward the sun. She grew vaster and vaster and ever darker, and her bloated body blocked out the sun’s light and seemed to fill all the sky. She opened her mighty jaws to spit down fire at me and burn me into nothingness. And I felt the hateful fire building inside me, inciting me into a madness to destroy her.

       ANGRABODA!

      From a thousand miles and years away, I heard myself cry out this name as I readied myself to slay this beast yet again. But dragons cannot be harmed by such fire; only the fulgor of the red gelstei or the stars can pierce through their iron-like scales to a dragon’s heart. And so I drew in a deep breath and willed the fire within me to blaze hotter, purer and brighter until I could not hold it anymore, and it poured out into my sword. For one perfect moment, Alkaladur flared with all the brilliance of a star. Maram and Master Juwain cried out in pain at this fierce light. And so did the dragon. Then her jaws closed, and so did her great, golden eyes, and for a moment I thought that I had slain her. But the Ahrim, I sensed, might be unkillable. All at once the dragon’s immensity dissolved again into a blackness that sifted down through the air like soot. And as it fell to earth, the powdery-like particles of its essence reassembled themselves into the form of yet another man – or rather, a once-bright being who was something more than a man.

      ‘Elahad,’ he called out to me in a strong, beautiful voice that carried all the command of death. ‘The common murderer who would be king.’

      Morjin, for such the Ahrim had now become, stood before me and bowed his gold-haired head to me. His golden eyes twisted screws of hate into my eyes, and I could not look away from him, nor could I lift my sword to block his fearful gaze. From somewhere off in the trees, Daj shouted out in detestation and dread of his old master. Atara, to my right, fitted an arrow to her bowstring and loosed it at him. But the arrow sailed right through his shadowed substance as if it were a cloud.

      He paid her no attention, but only continued to stare at me. He appeared as he had been in his youth before his fall: fine of feature, golden-skinned and graceful in his bearing. The compassion in his eyes gleamed almost like gold.

      ‘Morjin!’ I shouted out. At last, I managed to raise up my sword.

      His smile chilled me. Then he opened his mouth and breathed at me, almost as if he were blowing a kiss. No fire shot forth to scorch me, but only a bit of blackness from which he was made. I lifted my sword still higher, but I moved in vain, for it flowed around my bright blade as oil would a stick. And then his breath fell upon my head and arms, smothering me, blinding me. An unbearable cold burned through my skin deep into my bones. I stood as for an hour inside a lightless and airless cavern, gasping and coughing for breath.

      ‘Valashu Elahad, look at me!’ his hateful voice commanded. All at once, the black fog cleared from around my head, and I could not keep myself from staring at him. ‘You cannot defeat me.’

      My fingers seemed frozen around the hilt of my sword, with all my joints locked and shrieking in pain. I could not even blink my eyes. My heart, though, still beat within me, quick and hard and hurtful, almost as with a will of its own. At last I found my will, and I raised back my sword.

      ‘Val, do not!’ Atara called out from somewhere near me. ‘Do not!’

      I could not listen to her. I looked on in loathing as Morjin smiled at me and his features took on their true cast to reveal the hideous man that he had become: sagging flesh all pale with rot, stringy white hair and bloodshot eyes raging with hate. I struck out with my sword then, driving the gleaming point straight into his face. Nothing stopped this murderous thrust; it was as if I drove my sword through pure black air. And yet I felt a resistance to my sword’s silustria and its cutting edges, not of flesh and bone, but of spite and pain and cold. I fought this piercing numbness, and pulled back my sword. I stared at it in fury, for somehow the Ahrim’s substance had turned it black, like frozen iron. Then I stared at Morjin in horror, for even as I watched, his face became as my own, only blackened and twisted with hate.

      ‘You cannot defeat me,’ he said to me again.

      Or perhaps it was the Ahrim that spoke these words to me, or myself – I could not tell. But some irresistible force moved the features of the thing standing before me.

      There is a fear so terrible and deep that it turns one’s insides into a mass of sickened flesh and makes it seem that life cannot go on another moment. I stood there shaking and sweating and wanting to vomit up my very bowels. I knew that the dark thing standing before me had the power to kill me – and worse. But I seemed to have no power over it.

      ‘Val, fight!’ Maram shouted out from my left.

      I was vaguely aware that he had sheathed his sword and taken out his firestone, for the long ruby crystal caught the sun’s rays in a glint of red light. And then, guided by Maram’s hand and heart, the crystal drank up the sun’s blaze and gave it out as a bolt of pure fire that streaked straight into the Ahrim. I felt the heat of this blast, but the Ahrim felt nothing. The face that seemed so very much my own just smiled at Maram as the black cavern of its mouth seemed ready to drink up more of Maram’s fire and his very life – and the lives of Master Juwain and Atara, too.

      ‘Yes, Val, fight!’ Atara called out to me, as she stood in a spray of crushed flowers by my side.

      I stared at the dreadful thing wearing my face, and I wanted to fight it with every beat of my heart and down to my last breath. But how could I destroy something that was already nothing?

      ‘You know the way!’ Atara called to me again. ‘As it was at the farmhouse with the droghul!’

      I glanced off into the trees, where Estrella stood looking at me. She seemed to have no fear of the Ahrim, but a great and terrible concern for me. I could feel her calling out to me in silence that I must