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A.R.Yngve
DARC AGES
Book Three
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Chapter 57

Fogo awakens

Meanwhile, Tharlos Pasko received daily communications from his allies. Most of these consisted of pleas to attack Damon City first and bother with Kap Verita later.

He ignored the pleas, and sent back vague promises to deal with Bor Damon after Darc had been eliminated.

His spies Craz and Stierne returned from their nightly expedition in the city and reported that an assassin had been chosen, a man they identified as a member of the Koban-Jem cult. They added, proudly, that the assassin would never realize he was doing the dirty work of Tharlos himself.

The young nobleman looked about the room where they stood - only he and the spies were in sight.

"You are absolutely certain," he asked, "that none but us three knows about the plot?"

The faithful agents smiled. "May Koban-Jem strike us down and throw our bodies to the Black Sun if the word reaches outside these walls, my lord and revered high-priest!" Goldy replied.

Tharlos nodded, turned away from the spies a moment - then drew the laser-pistol from his shoulder holster and shot them. Three red pulses in rapid succession penetrated their heads, and they dropped to the floor. Tharlos called for the guards.

"Rosen Craz and Goldy Stierne are dead," he told them in a flat, emotionless voice.



A rumble like distant thunder crashed through the sky and shook Darc and Shara out of their sleep. It was in the middle of the darkest night; the thunder came from the north.

Drowsily, they wondered why no lightning flashed. Then they understood, and rushed out of bed. The stone floor wobbled under their feet, and they groped for each other's support. Pots and small items rattled and smashed against the floor.

After a few seconds, the earthquake ceased - but the distant rumble still increased in strength and rhythm, as if some vast creature was breathing the atmosphere with massive force.

Darc and Shara grabbed their clothes and sandals. They rushed out into the mansion's central corridor and hurried toward the entrance hall.

Around them, the entire household was in frenzied motion - the electric lamps flickered on and off, and an air of nightmare hung over the place.

"Eye-Leg!" shouted Shara, dashing off to the Leper girl's sleeping quarters. The girl's room lay at the other side of the central dining hall, near the entrance to the inner catacombs of the rock mansion.

Darc followed after and the couple found Eye-Leg, writhing in panic on her bed, dangerously close to falling off. They lifted the frightened girl into a wheelchair, and helped her outside.

A wide stone staircase led out onto the winding path below the mansion's rocky front, down toward the forest, the terraced fields, and the nearest village. The members of Mechao's household hurried down the path, lighting the way with candle-lamps. The dark clouds above began to boil with tension.

Suddenly, a crackling explosion drowned out all thunder. An orange glow illuminated the cloudy sky from the north, and the whole main island vibrated. Darc thought of atomic explosions - but the detonation was of another class, more powerful.

Miraculously, the elevated cable-line remained intact and working. The population of the nearby village joined Mechao's household at the upper end of the line, ready to head downward for the harbor and escape in the hidden boats.

Darc defied the natives' warning shouts, and climbed a hill to see past the mountain ridge. The glow of the orange sky illuminated everything; he could see the terrain quite well. Dohan hesitated, then separated from the group and quickly followed after him.

After a couple of minutes, Darc came to the peak of a hill and could gaze across the sea to the north. He gasped at the sight.

One could barely make out the string of smaller islands on the horizon that surrounded Fogo on both sides. The volcano was but a distant, bright top of fire, from which a blazing fountain of lava and smoke shot up into the night.

A hot gust of wind swept over the landscape; the smell of sulfur increased, and Darc's eyes watered from the stinging dust that blew in his eyes and nose. The sea inside the ring of islands was in an uproar - each time the waves crashed against the shores, they hit with greater force.

Dohan came climbing up next to him and stared at the eruption, horrified. The sight stirred up memories of the stories from his childhood.

Those ancient tales recreated the earliest memories of a cataclysm - the time just before the coming of the Eternal Ice, when the earth and sky unleashed its wrath on a corrupted mankind:

The wrath of the Goddess was merciless. From her body opened a vast crack, and fire and ashes burst forth.

The lord of the skies saw this, and roared in rage, and the sky ruptured.

And he shook the heavens, so that a white-hot star fell down from the sky.

And when the star hit the ocean, the entire earth was rocked from its path.

And the cities crumbled, and each day became like blackest night.

"Goddess," he whispered, "have mercy upon us."

Then Darc noticed Dohan, and said to him: "I hope there aren't many people over there. It's not safe for them to cross over, what with the storm blowing up."

Dohan stared incredulously at his friend, who seemed quite composed in comparison to his own fear. Could not even the All-Mother's wrath shake Darc's confidence?

"What do we do now?"

"What can we do? It's safer we stay. Perhaps..." Darc swallowed, ashamed that he did. "Perhaps the Goddess is trying to protect us. Or she's arguing with the Singing King over our fate. Looks like she's winning..."

The moment he finished his quip, a mighty thunderbolt struck down at another peak no more than half a kilometer away, and sent a sharp crackling echo rolling over the hills.

Darc flinched - just a little.

"Great Goddess and King, Darc!" Dohan exclaimed, his young face full of frightful reproach.

And for once, Darc kept his mouth shut.



At the very same moment as Dohan was scolding his flippant friend, a nervous nobleman left his quarters in Lord Pasko's court and sought out Lady Tresa for a late-night audience.

He had announced his visit earlier, with a note delivered in confidence; it told her of a secret admirer with important news. Her vanity thus stimulated, she let him inside her wing of the castle.

In the light of her night candles she saw a familiar lower nobleman, an undistinguished knight of a local clan in the service of the ruling family. Through marriage, he was distantly related to the Paskos; Tresa could no longer remember the details.

"So," she smiled at him, "is it love that brings you here?"

A little affair was not at all an unpleasant offer; her husband had long since failed to satisfy her.

The man leaned closer to her, and whispered: "My fear is almost as great as the passion that drove me to your sweet bosom. Say, where is the good city lord?"

The city lord's wife made a harsh laugh. "Save your worries - he's asleep in his room next door, as usual. I could hit him over the head, and he wouldn't move an inch."

The nobleman blinked nervously at her, grasping her outstretched hand, kissed it fervently but quickly, and asked: "Do you have entrance to his room?"

"Why, certainly I have a key to my own husband's bedroom. Why do you ask?"

From the inside of his mantle, his arm shot out, holding a dagger - and stabbed its target.

With a look of quiet, intense surprise on her pale face, Tresa Pasko sank down onto the floor and died; as she sank into her wide, collapsing green dress it seemed to envelop her, like some giant flytrap plant.

The trembling nobleman frantically searched her pockets and found the keys. He clumsily unlocked the door to the adjacent bedroom; a muffled snoring sounded inside.

Having sneaked up to the sleeping Lord Pasko, he felt across the bed for his face. His hand clasped the lord's mouth shut.

Raising his dagger, the man whispered: "Tyrant!"

He stabbed his victim several times; Lord Pasko twitched in his bed, and lay still. The blood-drenched nobleman hurried back to Tresa's chamber, and out into the corridor. He had a small chance of sneaking past the guards and out through a nearby high window, where a climbing rope was waiting to take him down.

The man stopped, when he found what was waiting for him in the corridor. Not a human guard, and not a robot servant - the Pasko family normally abhorred those.

A huge black, bulbous, long-legged robot, as quiet and patient as a spider awaiting its prey, stood in his path. Its multiple green sensor-eyes flickered, registering the human presence.

Frozen in fear for a moment, the nobleman stood there - five meters from the gleaming metal creature. Then he turned and fled.

A short burst of laser-pulses smattered from the spider robot, and hit the fleeing assassin in the back. He screamed, collapsed, and his cloak caught fire.

A moment later, a guard came running to the place and smothered the flaming, smoldering bundle on the floor with his cloak. The robot stepped forth and placed its forelegs across the burnt corpse, as if to claim it. The guard backed away.

Upset voices cried from the city lord's quarters: "Murder! Murder!"



Tharlos was dozing off in his own bedroom when, a minute later, he was informed that his parents had been slain. It surprised him how little he actually felt then.

Nevertheless he was able to show a face of concern, and went to see the murder scene with his own eyes. It turned out to look just the way he had planned it - Migam and Tresa firmly dead, and the assassin himself assassinated by a trusty spider robot, just as it had been ordered.

Tharlos dismissed the robot to its storage room, and took to examine the pockets of the dead assassin. He found a slightly singed letter, given to the assassin by Craz and Stierne, and pretended to read it.

But he already knew what it said.

Tharlos held up the forged letter to the crowd of onlookers - servants, guards and maids.

"See!" he shouted hoarsely. "Proof that the intruder Darc was behind this! He ordered the murder of my father and mother! I swear to you all, that Darc of Damon City shall die by my hand! Prepare the air force for immediate flight! Alert all forces!"

A guard in the crowd was the first one to confirm the new order: "Yes, Lord Pasko!"

Tharlos was now, without ceremony or official verdict, the undisputed ruler. With all the commotion and panic stirred up by his own scheme, Tharlos failed to notice the red signal lamps that blinked in the rooms of the former city lord and himself.

The signal meant that an urgent laser message was coming in on the receiving-disc in the communications room.

Not until next morning, the new lord of Pasko City took the time to read the recent laser message. His drowsiness all but vanished when he transcribed and read the first part:

From: Lord Ahmes Seguda, Seguda City of Kibralta

To: Sir Tharlos Pasko, Deputy Commander, Pasko City, Madrivalo, Castilia

One of our scout ships has just approached Kap Verita and returned. It reported a massive volcanic eruption in the northern part of the archipelago. Heavy storms make sea-borne transport from Kibralta impossible. The sea attack must be postponed...

Tharlos stopped transcribing the punch-card tape. He tore it to shreds, his gaunt face contorted by fury.

"Worthless cowards!" he hissed, his eyes wide with madness. "They betray me at the first opportunity!"

His grand plan was in peril, and he blamed Lord Seguda. Then Tharlos abruptly changed his mind. He was going to make it without the help of Kibralta, he decided. His airborne allies in Castilia would do - they, and his faithful new robot army.

Tharlos knew well that volcanic eruptions were bad omens, believed to be manifestations of an angry Goddess. This only increased his defiance.

"Koban-Jem spits upon your puny wrath," he muttered.

Tharlos seemed to have already forgotten that only moments ago, his faith in Koban-Jem was badly weakened. Now his lunacy sprang into full bloom, and his personality changed effortlessly. A delusion briefly seized him, that he became one of his black robots: hard, infallible, unfeeling.

Fantasies of grandeur and bloody triumph swirled through his brain. He whispered to himself - because he thought a spy might overhear him: "If there is no Koban-Jem to guide me... well, then I shall simply have to become Koban-Jem... I shall become death itself. No one can stop me now. No... one... can st..."

Tharlos slumped down and fell asleep, exhausted.



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