John Betancourt: The Dawn of Amber

Or father and son.

My father is already dead, I told myself. This cannot possibly be him. Could it?

No, my father would have been much, much older.

This man looked about my own age.

Tell me of Dworkin, the voice in my head commanded. Where is he hiding? Where else has he spread his tainted blood?

I felt my heart leap. Dworkinagain. What did my former teacher have to do with all of this?

The man on the slab spat at the creature, then declared, “I have never heard of Dworkin. Kill me and be done with it!”

Let him go, I thought desperately, dreading what might come next. Whatever you are, you’re looking for me, not him. I’m the one who knowsDworkin!

The serpent-creature didn’t hear me. Talons lashed out from the darkness, seized the man, and ripped his chest and stomach open like cheesecloth. I gasped, stunned. The prisoner screamed and kept screaming. With a quick motion, the creature pulled his entrails across the altar’s slab like an offering to the dark gods.

Blood sprayed in the air and hung there, forming a cloud, a shifting pattern like the snowflakes of color outside the tower. But this pattern was different, somehow—I could see holes where it was incomplete, jagged, and somehow wrong.

Cometo me…

The serpent-creature writhed, body undulating before the pattern in the air, working its foul sorcery. Rings of light burst from the floating droplets of blood, spreading out through the walls of the tower, disappearing into the greater void outside.

Come to me, sons of Dworkin…

The air over the altar filled with a spinning lacework design, with strange turns and angles. The hanging drops of blood flattened, rippled like waves of the sea, then grew clear. Each one offered a tiny window into what must have been hundreds of different worlds. I stared at them, the breath catching in my throat. Some had red skies; some had the familiar blue one. Oceans raged in one; mountains moved like sheep in a pasture in another; fires rained down from the sky in a third. In still others I saw towns of strangely dressed people, or what might have been people. Still more showed virgin forests, others empty expanses of desert, or grassland, or thundering rivers.

Come to me, princes of Chaos…

Like bubbles bursting, the windows began to disappear. The pattern that held them together was breaking apart. I realized the man on the altar slab was nearing death.

Suddenly the last of the tiny windows vanished and beads of red spattered onto the floor, an unholy rain. Coughing, spitting blood, the young man on the altar began to jerk and spasm uncontrollably. Finally, he lay still. It hadn’t taken him more than a minute or two to die.

The serpent-creature hissed in anger and disappointment.

Continue searching.

“Yes, Lord Zon,” said the soldier who had spoken before.

I moved closer, peering into the shadows, trying to see this Lord Zon more clearly. Somehow, I knew the creature was my enemy. It wanted me spread on its slab, my blood sprayed into the air and held up in that strange, flawed pattern that offered glimpses of other worlds.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

Like the first victim, Zon seemed to hear me—or sensed my presence. Eyes glinting like ruby chips, it turned, peering this way and that.

Who isthere? it demanded. Speak!

I remained silent, drifting backward, willing myself invisible. Zon’s slitted eyes suddenly focused on me. It gave a hiss, and a forked tongue flickering from its lipless, scaled mouth.

You. You are the one.

“Who are you?” I demanded, “What do you want of me?”

Death!

Its talons reached for me—

—and suddenly I sat up in my bed, drenched in sweat, heart pounding like a hammer in my chest, shaking all over but unable to recall what had terrified me so. A dream—a nightmare—some sort of horror…

I sucked in a deep breath, held it, listening beyond the canvas walls of my tent to the nighttime sounds of a military camp. Boots on gravel, soft whinnies of horses, the scritch-scritch-scritch of whetstones sharpening steel knives and swords, a distant “All’s well!” call from sentries on patrol.

Home.

Safe.

Everything seemed normal.

And yet… and yet, everything had changed, though I did not know how or why.

Reaching out in the darkness, I wrapped my fingers around the cool, smooth hilt of my sword. Tonight, for no reason I could name, I wanted it close at hand.

A heavy pounding on the door downstairs roused me from sleep.

“Obere!” came a distant shout. Damnable timing. I squinted into near darkness, frowned. The hour lay somewhere between midnight and dawn, and blades of moonlight slid between the window shutters, cutting an intricate pattern of light and darkness across the checkered quilt. Off in the night I heard plodding hooves and creaks from some passing merchant’s wagon, and from farther off still the distant baying of packs of wild dogs as they scavenged the battlefields a mile to the north of Kingstown.

The pounding on the door resumed. Feigning sleep wouldn’t work; somehow, King Elnar’s agents—probably that all too efficient Captain Iago—had tracked me down.

I tried to sit up and found a soft arm pinning my chest. Helda hadn’t yet heard a thing; her breathing remained deep and regular. I half chuckled to myself. Too much wine, too much love. She would sleep through the sacking of Kingstown, given half a chance.

As gently as I could, I slid out from under her, leaving the warm sweet smells of perfume and sweat and incense that filled her bed. I made a reassuring murmur at her puzzled sound and quickly gathered up pants, shirt, boots, and sword.

Damnable timing indeed. My first night alone with Helda in nearly two months, and King Elnar couldn’t wait till dawn to summon me back. Price of being one of his right-hand men, I supposed. Still, Captain Iago—or whoever the king had sent to find me—might have had the sense to let me stay lost at least a few hours more. It was seldom enough we had time to rest, but since the hell-creatures had been quiet now for nearly a week, King Elnar had granted me a night’s leave. I had tried to make the best of it, drinking my way through Kingstown’s half dozen taverns before joining Helda at her house to continue a more private celebration into the late hours.

Carrying my belongings, I padded quickly down the steps. First things first. I had to halt that racket before the whole town was up in arms. The hell-creatures had driven us back steadily over the last six months, and with the front lines of the war close to Kingstown, King Elnar’s troops now policed the streets—not that they needed much attention, since three-quarters of the inhabitants had fled. No need to rouse the night watch for a mere summons back to camp. I sighed, half in apprehension. What calamity had befallen us this time? Something bad must have happened to drag me back in the middle of the night. Had our scouts spotted new enemy movements? Or perhaps the hell-creatures had mounted another sneak-attack on our supply lines?

The pounding ceased as I rattled back the bar and flung open the heavy wooden door.

“By the six hells—” I began.

My curse died away unfinished. It wasn’t Captain Iago—or any of the other officers under King Elnar’s command. It was a stranger, a thin little man of perhaps forty with long black hair tied behind his head and a sharp gleam in his eye. He raised his lantern and peered up at me.