"You have learned something new?" Madia asked, hopeful.
"No," Frost said. "Only . . . an idea. We have the knowledge that the ancients always used the weapon as a group. We will work together to do as much harm as possible."
"But still you are not sure you can win," Madia said in a low voice, but not low enough that the others wouldn't hear.
"It is not a task I relish," Frost replied. "I am nearly willing to let you talk me out of it."
"Then wait," she urged him. "We can retreat back to Bouren and the other fiefs and gather more men."
"No," Frost said. "I have always been the one to offer such counsel, but I have never known a task on such a scale as this. Today, Madia, you have shown that you are the woman this world has always required you to be. Distasteful as it may be, I fear that now I must prove myself, too."
He turned and began on foot down the hill, with Rosivok, Sharryl, Grish, and Marrn following close behind.
"May the Greater Gods go with him!" Lord Bennor said, as they watched the small party descend.
"The Greater Gods for one," Madia replied, turning, handing the reins of her horse to Prince Jaran. "But Frost has three Subartans."
Before anyone could speak, she was already off, bolting after the others down the hill.
* * *
As they neared the center of the valley, the wall of heat began to cool, a countering spell cast quickly enough by the demon Ferris. Frost stopped and called upon the other sorcerers to help him restore the fading energy. The effort weighed heavily on all three men, but finally, the wall of heat remained—for the most part.
"Ferris has allowed us this small victory," Frost stated, deciding it must be so. "He forces us to weaken ourselves."
"He makes a game of us," Grish replied.
"Do not allow it," said a younger voice, Madia's. Frost did not turn. He had heard someone behind them, legs brushing through the tall grasses, and guessed it must be her. He expected as much, though it did not please him.
"You could at least have come on your horse," Frost told her. "They are useful for hasty retreats."
"Thank you," Madia said. "Next time, I will."
Frost fixed his eyes on the hill before them, focusing on the dark figure poised at its crest. Close enough now to gather details, he could see the colors of the grand chamberlain's elaborate clothing and, just barely, the many faces of his waiting reserve troops. We are alone here, Frost thought, fixing it in his mind, so near to our enemies, so far from our own forces—there is no turning back for any of us. He looked at the other two men of magic beside him and nodded. In turn, they each stood ready.
"We will need to get his attention," Frost said dryly. He concentrated again up the hill, fixing his eyes on the figure, then whispered the proper words. He could barely discern the changes as they occurred: the face contorting, clothing becoming rumpled and torn as the creature's shape-shifting spell lost its grip and the demon that had hidden itself within slowly appeared. A hideous beast, larger than the image of Ferris would have implied, made of dark, ruddy flesh, and displaying great bright bony teeth that showed clearly even at a distance as the beast opened its mouth. The demon howled as it lost the struggle to retain its construct, a bitter sound that echoed down the slope to Frost's ears, a monstrous child screaming over a stolen toy.
"His rage is our fortune," Frost said. "But it will not last long."
The others stood close beside him and raised their hands toward the hill. They began at once, attacking the beast with the spells they had constructed while Frost drew the Demon Blade from beneath his tunic, held it in both hands, and commenced reciting the lengthy spell that would blend with the other two and call upon the Blade itself. Already he could feel the demon finding its bearings, shaking free of its tantrum, focusing on the sudden attack. The beast howled skyward once more, then bore down on its three challengers and let loose a searing blast of dark ethereal energy.
Frost felt his warding spells pale against the assault, sensed their limits already near, and knew too well that the others with him would suffer the same fate. He centered the Blade, bracing himself, and with the final phrase let go a violent shriek of green and blue-white power, all the energy he could find inside himself, all the energies the Blade petitioned, the intensity of a thousand lightning storms all gathered at once into a crackling stream—a blast so bright it brought darkness to the world around it.
Then his thoughts were overwhelmed by the sudden rush of pain that drove through every part of his body and mind at once, the pain of all the life energies he possessed being torn from him in one great, insatiable gulp, an agony no living being had ever been meant to endure. He had expected some of this from his first contact with the weapon, but what was happening to him now was more intense than anything he had considered. Through the blur of the pain, he realized that there was no limit to this weapon's draining powers—that, once empowered, the Blade was capable of consuming all the energy available to it.
All the life!
With a last effort, Frost reversed the spell's final phrase, and the stream of power vanished. The pain remained, ten thousand knives stabbing through his flesh and his bones, cutting their way out from everywhere inside him. There could be no end to it, he thought, other than death. No escape. No peace. Then the pain began to fade.
A flood of exhaustion came rushing in to replace some of the knives. He felt himself falling, then realized he was lying in a heap on the ground. The Blade had slipped from his hand, and lay just beyond his outstretched fingers.
For a time he simply lay there, his left cheek pressed against the ground, his right eye straining through pain to focus on objects and sky. Muscles flared into agony again as he tried to use them. His vision was clouded; pain stopped him. He closed his eyes and waited for the worst to subside again, then tried once more. This time the pain wasn't quite so bad, and his vision seemed less overcast. He rested, still, breathing as deeply as his present arrangement and burning chest would allow. Then he bore down and pushed up until he had propped himself on one elbow.
A bony elbow, he realized, no padding at all. He felt tentatively about—first his side, then his abdomen—and found a body nearly as insubstantial as Aphan's.
The pain was still easing, or he was getting used to it—he wasn't sure. Remarkably, he stayed propped up, and attempted a look around. From such a low perspective, he could not see over the distortion of the heated wall of air just ahead, could not see the place where Ferris had stood. He thought to dissolve the wall, but he had no strength, not just now. Soon the spell would run out of energy in any case, and there was no hope of doing anything about it.
Slowly he turned his head toward the others. He found both Grish and Marrn in similar situations, both of them alive but lying on the ground, gasping for relief, their faces and hands white and whithered, loose flesh hanging on bones far more pronounced than they had been a moment ago—just as I am. . . .
They had used themselves up, Frost thought, though he did not understand how, not in so short a space of time. Unless, standing so close, working together as they were, the Blade had somehow drawn energies from them as well? Frost looked more closely at his own emaciated body. I should have stopped sooner, he thought, almost humbly; next time . . . have to remember to that.
He looked at the others again and was reminded of Aphan's words, spoken as they had talked in the spring, of the Blade and its keepers: "I am told Ramins was even thinner than I, nothing but bones, as if his magic alone was all that kept him alive," the old sorcerer had said. "How he could have ever summoned enough power to use the Blade, or withstood its force, I cannot imagine. One assumes he never did."
It must be true, for how could he? Frost wondered now, seeing himself, feeling his bones, feeling the pain that still filled his head and wracked his insides. Ramins may have known the spells that worked the Blade's great magic, but with no fat to consume, and no muscle after that . . .
No, he thought. If Ramins ha
d tried to use the Blade, even for an instant, he would have perished. Which makes no sense. . . .
Frost took another breath, gritting his teeth, and managed a sitting position—and was surprised to find Madia lying on the ground behind him along with Rosivok and Sharryl, surprised to see each one of them nearly as gaunt and pallid as himself and the two court wizards.
He got gradually to his haunches and tried to stretch tense discomfort from his body, and felt the snapping off of a thousand pointy knife blades. He waited again, taking time to gather what little remained of himself, then he got to his knees. The effort left him so dizzy that he lost his sight momentarily, then slowly the light returned. He breathed again, held it, and pushed himself up onto his feet.
A terribly shaky proposition, he found, swaying as if bothered by a stormy wind. But for the moment, he did not fall. With a careful effort, he turned just enough to see the far hill, and he tried to focus. Blinking he saw a figure on the hill where the beast had been. He blinked again. Where the beast remains!
The pain that lingered throughout his mind and body seemed to explode again with the realization. There is no hope then, he thought, no choice.
"Get up," he said, rasping at the others as he found his voice. "Get up, now!"
"What is happening?" Madia asked, barely a whisper.
"I was right," Frost told her dryly, straining to clear his throat. "I should have taken my own advice."
"Why?" she asked, attempting to sit up. "What?"
"I have given everything, you see, wagered all that I had on a fool's chance, and I have lost. The omens were true. I should have heeded them. I am a fool!"
He turned his head again toward the hill, then glanced down at the Demon Blade. A fresh pang of regret made his chest tighten. His head was pounding now, more than it had been. Why? he thought, furious with himself, growing equally as furious with the Blade itself, with the wizards who had used it. Why have we failed? Why so long ago did others triumph?
His mind was running on ahead, desperate for the answers, searching back through a lifetime of fascination with the magical arts. His powers stirred within him like the last cold winds of a dying summer storm—useless!
He could very nearly explain what had happened to the other two sorcerers, but as he reconsidered the condition of his Subartans, and Madia, the rest still made no sense.
Again Frost thought of Ramins, the one mind in all the world who had known the truth, and he tried to imagine an old wizard of skin and bones attempting to use the Demon Blade. . . .
How could he have defended the Blade if others had come for it? How could he? . . .
And then a thought occurred to him, the only possible truth, as he finally turned the puzzle full around and tried to fit the missing piece—as he saw that there was no other answer left but the one that was rushing suddenly, clearly to his mind!
* * *
"We await your word, my lord!"
Tyrr wavered, feet apart, digging easily into the hard ground with the talons on his toes, his arms held out for balance; he remained upright. Captain Rinaud, Tyrr realized, diverting attention momentarily from assessing his own condition. Frost's attack had utterly surprised him. The exhaustion that had drenched him like a sudden downpour still soaked him to the core. He had managed to rally against the attack, then hold his ground against it, but he had felt the limits of his efforts—the end approaching! Suddenly, though, the attack had subsided, and he had begun to recover.
Tyrr fathomed the look on the captain's face, a look of intense concern, a look of consternation. Then Tyrr recalled that he no longer wore the construct of the grand chamberlain, that he was now the demon prince, Tyrr, to human eyes—which also explained the unusual distance the captain was maintaining between the two of them.
"You do not run?" Tyrr asked the soldier, watching him. "No, my lord. We . . . well, most of us . . . that is . . . "
"You suspected something like this?" Tyrr asked him.
The captain nodded.
"That is wonderful," Tyrr exclaimed. "Perhaps I owe you credit! I never should have wasted so much time and energy on the construct, it seems. If only I had known!" Then the thought brought an added twinge of humor: to his knowledge, this was the first time a demon, prince or otherwise, had acted foolishly for the sake of caution!
"Tell me what has happened below." He pointed one long, taloned finger in the direction of the small group of attackers still gathered just beyond his own forces, near the center of the little valley.
"No one can be sure," Rinaud said, "but I think they are badly wounded. And some may be dead. We have seen almost no movement."
"How much movement?" Tyrr asked, taking several steps forward as he did, finding his balance.
"One of them has risen; the others still have not," Rinaud stated.
Tyrr peered down at his enemies—at Frost and the small cluster of fools that had fallen with him. The wall of heat still stood, more or less, though he could sense it quickly fading now, since there remained no one to renew the strange spell. When Frost's powerful attack abruptly lost its force, Tyrr had found it a simple matter to crush the efforts of the two conjurers with him; so simple, in fact, it was as though the job had already been done for him. They were beaten, surely, but they were the ones who might still be alive, somehow.
No, he thought, concentrating, nearly certain he could sense the mind of Frost in the one he saw standing. But the energy of this wizard's presence was weak, nearly extinguished.
"They will pose no more threat," Tyrr assured the captain. "Any of them. Prepare our forces for another assault."
"The burning wind still blocks our path," Rinaud said in an apologetic tone. "We must go around to the south."
Tyrr turned inward for a moment and worked to smooth his appearance slightly, shifting the shape of outer flesh just enough to make it more palatable to those less flexible than Captain Rinaud.
"I will remove that obstacle," Tyrr said, coming out of his brief trance, still amazed that the heat anomaly remained at all. The spell must be a good one, he thought, to maintain itself so long, to find its own energy without being fed. Frost possessed a very great talent, indeed, though that would no longer be a concern.
No obstacle was.
"Even as you speak, it is so!" Rinaud exclaimed, looking down the hill. Tyrr saw the waves of heat suddenly vanish completely, the grass fires suddenly snuffed out. But I have done nothing yet. . . .
The captain bowed once and went to join his men.
What, Tyrr wondered, is happening?
* * *
"The barrier dies!" Madia said, pointing toward the stirring ranks of Ferris' forces now clearly visible in the sudden absence of the heated air.
"I know," Frost said. "I have removed the spell."
Madia looked at him soberly, standing now, using her sword like a cane. "We will be overrun," she said evenly.
To her credit, Frost thought, admiring her a moment, this child turned sovereign nearly overnight was still able to control her fear, weakened though she was, and to deem him worthy of trust even in the face of defeat and death. You will yet sit on the throne of Ariman, if only I am right. . . .
"Now, get away all of you, quickly," Frost commanded. "Even you," he insisted, speaking to Rosivok and Sharryl. The Subartans only stared. They were each standing now, gaunt, bent, and wobbly like Madia and the other wizards, but standing.
"We will never leave," Sharryl said. "We cannot."
"You will because I have asked you to. You will if you truly serve me. I may require your services in times to come, but you must preserve yourselves to fulfill that duty."
"What will you do?" Madia asked. "You are as weak as we are. You were right, Frost. It was a fool's wager, and one we lost. He is too powerful, too clever. Look at yourself, look at what he has done to us. There is nothing we can do."
"It is possible," Frost said, breathing deeply again, stretching tentatively, "that I may have done all this."
Madia looked sidelong at him. "What?"
"I'm not sure, but I believe it's true. I intend to try something, but unless you all get away from me, you will not live through it."
"I need to know your plan," Madia insisted.
"It is a simple one. Another fool's wager, in fact." He smiled at her as best he could. "My last."
He waited for her eyes to let him go.
"Perhaps the omens lied?" he added. He saw a calm in her eyes, a depth that surprised him even now.
"But are you lying, Frost?" she asked. "Now?"
"No."
She nodded once, slowly. "With me, then," Madia said, beckoning to the others. She took Grish and Marrn by one arm each and set off with them, bent slightly forward, the three of them holding each other upright, loping to making good time as they retreated toward the hills behind them.
"You will not die?" Rosivok said evenly, leaning close to his master. Frost shook his head. "I may not," Frost said, saying what Rosivok needed to hear, "as long as I am right, and . . . good enough. Now, follow her."
The Subartans turned slowly and went after Madia, the depth of their endurance showing through as they finally managed an awkward jog.
Frost took the Demon Blade in both hands, faced forward again, and began his chants. The spell was a bent concoction of phrases culled in part from those he and the other wizards had already used, but mixed with further embellishments, bits of spells from the far corners of his mind. He used a spell that had allowed the wall of heat to draw energy from the earth and air, a spell commonly used for sensing the thoughts of others, a spell of deflection turned inside out, and finally a new spell to combine the others and to add the missing focusing aspects—a spell formed from a lifetime of spells learned and adapted to uncounted uses.
Then he waited while the legions of the enemy began to march, waited until they were nearly upon him—until those he had sent away were likely far enough behind him, hopefully safe.
The beast was descending the hill; there was no more time to wait. Frost raised the Blade and braced himself. He focused his mind on the demon's presence, then he made himself aware of the mortal legions drawing near, and finished the spell's last phrase.
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