Aldric gritted his teeth against the pain of power he had never experienced before, a pain which froze with heat and burned with cold, then raised his hand and released the force pent up within the spellstone. Thunder hammered through the small room, blowing out its windows, and the demon’s leisurely advance became an impossible leap away from danger. It moved faster than his eyes could follow; one instant in line with his outstretched arm, the next elsewhere in a blinding bound of speed. Despite the purple-glowing afterflash which blocked his vision, he had Widowmaker poised and ready before anything else could happen.
Nothing did.
Marek had one arm protectively round Gueynor’s shoulders, the other making a gesture of dismissal. The only other door out of the room was a mass of shattered timber which still swayed from twisted hinges. Ythek Shri had vanished, and Crisen Geruath had gone with it.
“He called it,” Marek said shakily. “He called it, and it came, and it took him.”
Aldric bent double, hands on knees, panting for breath as if he had just run long and hard. All magic has its price. For an instant his left hand throbbed as if he had plunged it into boiling water, yet there was no sign of injury and the pain was fading fast. This time the Echainon stone had used him, and the physical vigour borrowed by that focussed blast of power was returning in great surges, pulsing back from the talisman through every sinew of his body. At its peak he felt as if he could tear Seghar apart with his bare hands until he found the demon, then crush it between finger and thumb like a beetle. That feeling was glorious, but also terrifying, and Aldric was relieved when the tide of energy receded to a normal level. Perhaps too normal. A little extra power would have been encouraging, for he might need it in full measure before the sun rose. If he lived to see it rise at all.
“Why did it ignore me?” Gueynor’s voice was like that of a child woken in the night by a bad dream. “Crisen was going to – to give me to it. Jervan tried to stop him, so he… He had his men hold Jervan while he took a knife and—” She pressed her head against the demon-queller’s chest and for a few dry, ragged sobs she hovered on the edge of tears. The next breaths were slower and steadier, until when she straightened up again Gueynor Evenou was once again the daughter of a legal Overlord with any weakness concealed from view. “What he did, I will repay tenfold.”
“Ythek Shri may do it for you,” said Marek. “Crisen thought a ceremonial sacrifice would let him make bargains. Why, I won’t even guess. But from the very beginning of this affair none of the rituals were correct. None at all. Ythek has been free all along, without obligation to anyone. Everything it does, everything it has done, is to please its true master Issaqua.”
“Then why take Crisen?” Aldric nudged the scorched and tattered remnants of Enciervanul Doamnisoar with his boot. The spellstone’s flash of fire had charred it to a cinder, and he wondered if Crisen Geruath had suffered the same fate.
“As a more acceptable gift,” said Marek. “Issaqua feeds on evil, and who here was the evil one, this young woman or a son who stabbed his father and laid the blame on someone else?”
Aldric looked at his sword, at the hand which held it, and at the glistening still-wet blood on both of them. That blood was all over his arm, his helmet and most of his battle armour. It was a memento of four sudden deaths, but it was only the most recent memory to cast its shadows in his mind. There were so many others: helpless men he had threatened to kill, others he had left alive when his kailin-code expected him to end their pain, still others he had tricked then trapped so they were roasted by a firedrake.
He stared at Isileth Widowmaker, trying to see past the blood and recognise something to confirm the reality of a gortaiken, an accursed object that could take the blame for what he did. And he couldn’t find it. All he saw was a weapon which had saved his life many times, well-balanced, functional and elegant. So if the hungry need to kill came from within its wielder, what did that make him?
“No, Aldric,” said Marek, breaking into his reverie, “you’re not.”
“Not what?”
“Not evil. You’re an Alban, a people who link honour, violence and revenge as closely as the rings in a coat of mail.” There was a touch of disdain in the Cernuan’s voice, but Aldric let it pass. He might have corrected the accusation and insisted he was Elthanek, but there was no point. “You have a short temper kept on a tight leash, and that thing,” Marek nodded at the taiken, “cuts the leash too easily. But you’re not an evil man. I’ve met them. You aren’t one.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“You’re still here. Not taken along with Crisen Geruath.”
What if Crisen hadn’t been here? What then? Aldric didn’t say it aloud. Those were questions better left unasked, their answers better left unheard.
“And you can put your blade away,” Marek continued. “Nothing from this world can harm the Herald.” A short bark of humourless laughter caught the demon-queller by surprise.
“After everything else they told you about me, did nobody think to mention this?” Aldric raised the taiken slightly. “Or tell you its full name?”
“I’m no judge of taikenin. I’m sure Widowmaker is a fine sword, but still just a sword.”
“This sword is Isileth.”
“Isileth?” Marek repeated the name, one well enough known to anyone familiar with history as it faded into legend. He didn’t try to hide his doubts as he stared at what was visible of the longsword’s bright-edged, smoke-grey blade under its film of blood. He glanced at the loops and bars of black steel that made up its guards. “It can’t be,” he said, and then with more confidence, “because it’s not old enough.”
“Think again, and look beyond the hilt. A sword’s furniture can be renewed as this has been, many times, but the blade remains unchanged. You should know the writing on it. ‘Forged was I of iron Heaven-born. Uelan made me. I am Isileth.’ Widowmaker is Isileth, and Isileth is mine. What do you say now?”
“I say you’re as mad as were the Overlords of this place. But you may be right. I hope so, for all our sakes. Not least your own.”
*
Beyond the broken door was a gallery where the Overlord could walk in rainy weather, its walls adorned with tapestries and paintings of military subjects. It gave a clue to where the passage led, and Aldric turned to Gueynor. He stopped short of giving her a reassuring hug, the time for that hadn’t returned yet, but he rested one hand on her shoulder instead. It left a smear of blood and ashes in its wake.
“You,” he said firmly, “will stay here. This—”
“Is something I intend to see through. Right to the end.”
“You aren’t being stubborn, you’re being stupid!”
“Why? If I come with you, we’ll each know where the other is.”
“We had this argument before.”
“And you remember the outcome, I hope?” Gueynor’s voice was calm and reasonable, though it still trembled. She had seen and suffered things tonight which would trouble her sleep for months, and only by witnessing the conclusion could she be sure that the world was a safe place after dark. She didn’t appeal to Marek either as arbiter or advocate; the Cernuan stood to one side with arms folded and said nothing until, finally, Aldric shrugged.
“It’s your choice. I wash my hands of it.” Gueynor glanced at the stain one of those hands had left on her shoulder and said nothing. “Just remember this: don’t be heroic; don’t even be brave. Right now that’s just foolhardy. Staying alive may be difficult enough, so if I tell you to run, run.” Aldric glanced along the gallery at the light ornamental armours which formed part of its decoration, and then back at her body in its flimsy smock. “I’d like to see you as the Overlord of Seghar, so put on something that might help you live to do it.”
*
The gallery ended at the foot of a staircase which spiralled upwards out of sight, its treads gashed by the betraying triple gouges of Ythek’s claws.
“Into Geruath’s weapon-tower,”
muttered Marek. He stared back along the passage. “Why, I wonder? Best stay down here until I—” No one was listening. No one was there. “Father of Fires, Talvalin! Do you never heed your own advice?” One hand on the medallion at his throat, Marek started up the stairs with all the speed he could muster.
Younger, fitter, faster and already at the top, Aldric and Gueynor stared at a door which bore all the signs of the demon’s passage.
“Wait for Marek,” he said quietly. “I’m going through.” Gueynor shifted in her unfamiliar plated mail and hefted the light battleaxe in her right hand.
“Then I’m—”
“You’re waiting here. Gueynor, wearing armour keeps harm at bay, but it doesn’t teach you how to fight. Stay back, please. I can’t defend us both.”
There was as much force in his words as he dared. Too much and they would have the opposite effect, because it wasn’t false bravado driving her but the honour-enhanced pride that overrode fear for long enough to do what had to be done or die trying. Aldric had felt it enough times himself to recognise it now. But beyond the door he could protect only himself. And perhaps not even…
He pushed that incomplete unpleasant prospect out of his mind, eased open the claw-mangled door and slipped silently into the tower.
It was dark inside the tower, but each spike and blade and polished surface on the pick and pride of Geruath’s weapon collection reflected stars and a setting moon three nights past full. The other light was harder to identify. It was a strange ruddy luminescence as if each mote of floating dust was a glowing red-hot spark, although the air in which they hung was cold beyond the worst midwinter of the world. And then he saw it.
A rose, of course – but such a rose.
It hung unsupported on that icy air, its outlines vague and misty like an image sketched by frost on glass, and it was huge. Issaqua the Bale Flower was a monstrous, overblown blossom as tall as a full-grown man, its great curving petals pulsed with all the shades of red from incandescent scarlet and vermillion down into crimson and the black of ancient blood. Its thorns were the size of taipan shortswords, its perfume was an intoxication overwhelming human senses as a spring tide overwhelms sand.
And it sang.
So close to its source the Song of Desolation was one note in many voices, one note of such purity that it burned with the brilliance of a solitary star on a winter’s night. But this night had no stars. The Darkness has devoured them with its black mouth… The shadows around the Bale Flower were absolute, so distant and so cold that they drained Aldric’s mind of everything except bleak futility. I know that I am lost and none can help me now… That mind was prone to brooding grimness. Better to end things at once than live in despair and die unloved. Despair and death to all…
His hand closed around his tsepan’s hilt.
And that was when Gemmel’s dry, amused voice said, “Cheer up, boy – nobody lives forever. Think of the boredom!” Where the old enchanter’s words had come from, he didn’t know. But they made him smile with honest humour, and no man could smile like that while considering his own self-inflicted death.
Another light began to fill the tower. The steady radiance of the stone of Echainon brought not heat but warmth – the warmth of friendship, of comfort, of pity and compassion, of an embrace. Kyrin, O my lady, O my love. It was the warmth of humanity, with all its errors and its faults. And the soul-crushing coldness of Issaqua began to fail…
Then something moved beyond the monstrous rose and Aldric went very still. It should have been lost in the darkness beyond the conflicting lights, but it was blacker than the deepest shadows. Ythek’ter an-shri was coming to aid its Master. The demon Herald was aware of him, and he felt the scrutiny of an intelligence so alien that he could think of no comparison, not even Ymareth the firedrake. All the memories of its strength and speed and savagery came flooding back, yet any predatory beast had those, even the Beast. Even Evthan. But this was Ythek Shri, and it had more powers than any beast.
Talons like burnished iron lifted towards him, and even twenty feet away their size and power were awesome. But the entity remained immobile, with the light of the Echainon stone reflecting from its surface. Then it hissed and closed its claws.
A gale came out of nowhere and rose to a shriek as it slammed against Aldric like an invisible siege-ram until armoured or not, braced legs or not, he was flung backwards against the wall and almost off his feet. With a mocking whistle the wish-wind died away and Aldric regained his balance. He drew Widowmaker’s scabbard up across his back, well clear of both legs. Until this matter was concluded one way or the other, the taiken would not need it again. The demon seemed to radiate malevolent amusement at his preparations as he assumed a defensive Wolf’s Guard and waited for what was coming next. His wait was short.
Between one breath and the next, Aldric’s perception of the world went strange. It began as a multi-coloured phosphorescence dancing around the outlines of things previously lost in shadow. Then even that weak hold on reality warped out of existence and vertigo hit him like a blow. Up was no longer above him, nor down beneath his feet.
Instead there was a deep gulf which yawned warm and inviting less than a step from where he stood on nothing. Iridescent light twirled in languorous coils far down in its glowing amber throat; small bright specks of pastel colour rose towards him and glided past his face with a faint hot rush of perfume. The chasm hummed cajoling lullaby sounds, sweet tones of half-heard melodies mingled with the distant tinkling of tiny bells.
Aldric could hear the double drumbeat of his own heart slow and deep in his ears, in his bones, in the core of his reeling brain. All that remained constant and unaffected was Widowmaker’s long silvery sheen and a jagged black thing which moved sluggishly at the bottom of the pit.
As it writhed towards him, Aldric shut his eyes.
*
Marek forced the wind-jammed door aside and blinked at what he saw: the beautiful, dreadful Bale Flower of Issaqua – and Ythek Shri advancing with slow, measured strides on an armoured figure who seemed not to know it was there. Gueynor pushed into the doorway behind him, realised what she was seeing and screamed a warning at the top of her voice.
Aldric’s eyes snapped open and focused on the gleam of his blade, the one steady thing in a world of flaring colours and twitching blackness. The giddiness which had almost claimed him, which had almost spilled him into the Abyss, was still there to claim him if he weakened. But he had enough control to poise Widowmaker double-handed by his head and wait for a target, any target, to come within its reach. He could no longer see the colours. A shifting, squirming blackness blotted all else out. The taiken trembled not with fear but with tension, for the muscles of his arms were taut as a full-drawn bowstring and as eager for release.
Secure in its own invincibility, Ythek the Devourer leaned towards him…
Marek Endain raised one hand and spoke the phrases of a spell…
Something made a slavering sound…
And flame scorched the shadow-crowded tower, leaping from Marek’s outstretched hand as he unleashed the Invocation of Fire. Although it could do no real harm, Ythek’s malign concentration wavered, and Aldric struck with all his strength.
There was a ringing, chopping noise as Widowmaker’s blade sheared through… Through something. The blow caused a bubbling screech and a clatter of ponderous movement. Cold flowed down the sword, chilling Aldric’s hands until the sweat on them crackled into ice, and despite somehow wounding the demon he was terrified rather than triumphant. A hackle-raising fear rose from it, almost visible, like fog lifting off stagnant water on a frigid morning. Other enemies might attack his flesh and bone, but the black steel tsalaer guarded them with scales and plates and close-linked mail.
Ythek menaced his sanity and soul, and against that he had no protection.
The demon Herald launched a far more tangible attack and its talons almost took him in the chest. Aldric twisted to one side faster than he could have dream
ed possible, and the great hooked claws screeched across his battle armour’s surface instead of punching through as would have happened had he not rolled with the blow. Even then the impact spun him right around and hurled him across the room again, with all the breath bruised from his lungs. But there was no second attack, no pounce while he was helpless to defend himself.
For this time Ythek Shri had gone for Marek.
A dim flickering of balefire hung about the Cernuan; whether it was the outward sign of attack or of defence, Aldric didn’t know. Crouched low on spread, well-balanced legs like a swordsman, the demon-queller fixed his unwinking stare on the approaching Devourer. He had nothing else with which to stop it yet, incredibly, the black reptilian bulk slowed its raking predatory stride and even seemed to hesitate.
Marek took a long deep breath which seemed to expand his entire body. He stretched out his right arm, all his power focused through the extended index finger. There was no noise, no violent display, but it was as if Ythek had walked into an unseen wall. When Marek took one step forward it retreated that step back, even though he made no gesture of threat and had drawn no talisman or weapon. There was only a raised hand with a rigid, pointing finger black-nailed as any peasant’s, surrounded by a haze that shimmered as if they were made of heated metal.
The knucklebones? thought Aldric through his own roiling nausea. No, not the knucklebones, Gueynor had those now, taken from the demon-queller with quiet words of sympathy for a woman she had never known or met, and who had not escaped as she had done. Marek was holding back the demon with only the force of his own will.
And that will was failing.
“Aldric…” The Cernuan’s voice was a fragment of its former self and shook with effort. “Aldric, help me! I can’t hold it—”
“Abath arhan!” The words came out like a war-cry, like a challenge, and let the stone draw on the power it had granted him, reclaiming it all and more until his senses swam and his legs grew weak beneath him. In ears and mind the Song of Desolation grew loud and triumphant, then louder still, rising to a ululating paean praising darkness and despair. The air was frigid and white crystals of hoar-frost formed on his battle armour, blurring the stark outlines of the metal. As he exhaled, Aldric could see the fog of his own breath hang before him like the smoke-drift from a firedrake’s jaws.
The Demon Lord Page 30