by Peter David
The frock she’d been wearing split down the back, and she tore it off herself with her clawed hands. That same hideous sound of bones crunching and reknitting themselves filled the air, except within the confined area of the mural room, it sounded even more horrifying.
“Thomas, get out of the way!” shouted Locke.
But Thomas remained where he was, paralyzed, frozen, trying to tell himself that he had simply gone mad, and he wasn’t witnessing what was actually transpiring. “Sabrina . . .” he whispered.
“We could have been happy together!” roared the balverine, and she lunged at him.
Thomas barely darted back in time as her claws raked across him. He screamed as his shirt shredded, and five thin lines of blood welled up on the chest that, the night before, she had been covering with kisses. He fell back even as he shouted, “No! You don’t have to do this!”
“Yes, she does!” Locke called out. “She’s in thrall to them, Thomas! She has no choice!”
Locke came straight toward her, his silver sword extended, and the balverine grabbed Thomas and without hesitation flung him straight at Locke. Locke quickly flung his sword arm wide, lest he impale Thomas, but as a result Thomas slammed into him, the both of them hitting the floor. Locke lost his grip on his sword, and it clattered away.
James darted toward the sword, trying to grab it up so that he could return it to Locke or perhaps even use it himself. But he had no opportunity to do so, for the balverine—seeing the weapon lying on the floor—leaped toward it and landed between it and James. She roared at him and thrust forward with her open paw, knocking him flat. Then she kicked the sword away, sending it clattering to the far end of the mural room.
Locke shoved Thomas off him and yanked out his pistol. He took aim and would have had the balverine cold except she noticed him out of the corner of her eye and quickly yanked James to his feet. James let out a cry of stark terror as the balverine held him up as a human shield, keeping him between her and Locke’s deadly pistol.
“Dammit!” snarled Locke, trying to get a clear shot and unable to do so.
And James cried out, “Shoot through me! It’s the only way!”
“I can’t!”
“This is no time to worry about me!”
“I’m not worried about you per se,” Locke said tartly. “Frankly, I don’t like you all that much. But if you’re dead, you’re of no further use to us in our overall quest.”
Despite the tenuous situation he was in, James was somewhat taken aback at that. “Oh, well, thanks a lot! I’m trying to be noble, and you’re just being a prig about it!”
And then Locke fired.
It was not a shot at the chest, because she was continuing to keep James firmly in front of her. Instead, for half a moment, James’s leg had shifted and it gave Locke a shot at the balverine’s thigh. He hoped that burying a bullet there would startle her enough that she would drop James and give Locke a clear shot at her heart.
In a rare happenstance, matters did not work out as Quentin Locke desired. The balverine, still holding on to James, leaped straight upward. The shot went under her, and as Locke swung his pistol around to aim again, the balverine rebounded off the ceiling and plunged straight toward Locke at high speed, still keeping the screaming James between them.
She crashed into Locke with James as a battering ram. Locke held on to his pistol, but the hammer snapped home, and the shot went wide. He tried to bring it around, and the balverine roared, grabbed him by the arm, and flung him to one side, tearing the pistol from his grasp as she did so. Locke struck the far wall with a violent thud and slid to the ground, looking dizzy and confused.
The balverine tilted her head back and let out a ululating roar of defiance, and then she came straight at Locke. Locke’s blurred vision focused upon the oncoming behemoth but, bereft of weapons and still reeling from the impact, there was nothing he could do to defend himself.
And then Thomas was directly in her path, between her and Locke, and he was holding Locke’s sword, which he had retrieved from the corner of the room, gripping it with two hands. The balverine saw it at the last instant, but she was moving too quickly to slow her forward motion. She slammed straight into it, the impact driving Thomas to the ground and her on top of him, in some twisted perversion of a lover’s embrace. The blade drove into her heart, and she cried out, an animalistic howl that escalated into a higher and higher register until it sounded not like that of a creature but instead of a human girl.
Thomas screamed her name, and she tumbled off him. He yanked the sword clear of her chest even as James shouted to him not to for fear that somehow she would mystically be healed by its removal. He need not have been concerned. Instead, the balverine lay unmoving upon the ground, blood seeping from her chest onto the polished wooden floor.
And as the blood pooled beneath her, as if she were a balloon gradually deflating, the balverine started to shrink. The fur fell out, slowly at first but then in large clumps. Her teeth shrank, her muzzle withdrew, her arms and legs and back transformed into human proportions. The yellow faded from her pupils, and she gazed up at Thomas with limpid eyes.
Thomas began to sob as he dropped the sword and yanked off his cloak, covering her nakedness. “Help her,” he said in a choked voice to Locke. “Help her . . .”
She reached up to him and placed a bloodstained hand against his cheek. “You have. . . helped me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I go . . . to be with my mother . . . thank you . . . thank—”
And then her hand fell away from his face, a bright red stain against it down which his tears were now rolling, leaving little trails in the blood smear on his cheek.
There was a deathly silence then, broken only by Thomas’s sobs, and Locke stepped forward, knelt next to Thomas . . .
. . . and slapped him across the face.
Thomas reeled, almost falling over, and he looked in stunned astonishment at Locke.
“We’ve no time for womanish tears,” said Locke harshly. “Whatever else she was to you, she was an enemy to us, and you dealt with her accordingly.”
“You bastard,” James said, feeling pained on Thomas’s behalf. “How can you—?”
“Be quiet and think. The means to reaching our goal has been handed to us, and you two are too busy simpering or displaying indignation to see what’s in front of you.” He shoved back the cloak that Thomas had draped over Sabrina and placed his palm squarely onto the pooling blood.
“What the hell—!” James was so outraged that he looked ready to take a swing at Locke, or perhaps try to stab him with the knife he was now holding.
“An offering,” said Thomas hoarsely.
“Ah. He understands,” Locke said approvingly.
Thomas couldn’t have given a damn about Locke’s approval at that moment. All he cared about was what needed to be done in order to put an end to this horror. His voice was an emotionless monotone as he said, “The spires need an offering to show the way. If great Heroes are within, then proof that evil has been vanquished must be what’s required. The blood of a freshly killed balverine will likely do.” The blood was still warm as he put his hand in it, and then he said coldly, “James. You too.”
James looked as if he had never wanted to do something less in his life, but he did as Thomas bade him although he didn’t look down at it, and his face was twisted in disgust.
“Quickly,” said Locke. “We need to—”
“Quiet,” Thomas said wearily. “We know what we need to do.” He wanted to mourn. He wanted to scream. He wanted to curse the day he had ever set foot out of Bowerstone, but none of those were options now. Instead, he simply walked across to the spire on the right, turned, and waited for the others to do likewise.
Without a word, Locke and James went to their respective spires as well. This time there was no need to count. Thomas simply nodded, and, as one, they placed their blood-soaked hands flat against each of the spires.
For a moment noth
ing happened, and Thomas wanted to scream in frustration. Before he could, however, there was a low rumbling that seemed to be coming from everywhere around them, but mostly from beneath the floor.
Each of the spires simultaneously retracted into the wall.
There was a deafening grinding of gears, and Locke now had his sword at the ready, looking around coolly to see if another danger was about to leap out at them.
Then the source of the rumbling localized itself. It was the front section of the mansion as depicted on the mural. The paneled section of the mural upon which the front door of the mansion had been meticulously rendered detached from the ceiling and began to slide down. They watched in astonishment as it continued its steady progress down, down, and eventually it reached the floor and clacked into place.
Where a section of the wall had been, there was now only emptiness, and what appeared to be a stairway that led down to darkness.
The three of them had now moved away from the spires and stood in front of the opening, staring down at it.
“After you,” said James to Locke.
Locke promptly began to stride forward, and then, to his surprise, Thomas put a hand out and stopped him in his tracks. He did not say anything. He did not have to. Locke inclined his head toward the opening and gestured for Thomas to precede him.
He did so. Moments later, the only thing left in the room was the rapidly cooling body of a young woman who had gone to her grave with a heart that had been pierced by silver and lightened because of it.
THE STAIRWAY WAS NARROW, AND THEY HAD to make their way down it carefully. Locke, using some of the incendiary oils in his pack, had fashioned a torch for them, which was fortunate since there was no other light source available. He followed directly behind Thomas and in front of James, thus providing an equal amount of light for all, albeit limited.
There was high-pitched squealing and skittering of feet as rats scattered to get out of their way. The smell in the place was almost overwhelming; it was all James could do not to pass out from the stench. This is where Heroes lie? James thought. It hardly seems a suitable resting place. One would have thought something more grand. Even penniless paupers get something better than this.
They continued to move single file through the corridor, and then there ceased being rats in their path. James was thankful for that. Hadn’t they already faced enough without having to deal with vermin?
His heart went out to Thomas. The poor bastard had given himself over to this girl, had allowed himself to take an emotional plunge, and it had ended with a literal plunge of a sword into her. The first girl he had ever been with—of that James was reasonably certain—and he’d had to kill her. How in the world was he going to achieve any sort of closure as far as his brother’s death was concerned when he had a brand-new tragedy to dwell on? James knew that an adventure like this changed people. His worry was that it was going to wind up changing Thomas into someone who was unrecognizable as the friend he’d known for so many years.
“Up there,” Locke said, raising the torch slightly. “Do you see it?”
James did, and, presumably, so did Thomas.
There were three sarcophagi lying at the far end of the corridor.
They were upright rather than horizontal, and each of them had a body propped within. They couldn’t quite make them out from where they were standing; the flickering torch was sufficient only to provide the general outlines of their forms.
“No lids?” said James.
“Sarcophagi lids are rather heavy. Who would have lifted them on?” said Thomas.
James nodded. “Good point. Still, it’s a wonder they weren’t—I don’t know—devoured by the rats or something.”
“I don’t see any here,” Thomas pointed out.
“Let us proceed carefully,” said Locke.
They did as he suggested, treading carefully, wary of perhaps some manner of booby trap that might have been left in place.
Nothing seemed to spring out at them, though, and the closer they drew, the more they were able to make out. The flesh had long since rotted away, and only the bones of the great Heroes remained, the remains of their clothes hanging loosely upon them: a humbling reminder that time and death had no respect even for the mightiest of mortals.
“I see them. The dean was right,” he whispered, and the others immediately knew that the “them” to which he was referring were not the bodies of the long-dead Heroes. Instead, they were the icons, exactly as Dean Carter had described them. The arms of the Hero on the farthest left were crisscrossed over a great sword that, miraculously, did not have so much as a speck of dust upon it. The body in the middle had a pistol tucked into a timeworn belt. The body on the far right had a gauntlet adorning its bony left hand. It appeared to be crafted from elegantly spun copper, spanning most of his forearm, and it glittered in the torchlight.
James couldn’t take his eyes off it. He had been concerned over the prospect of trying to remove a bauble from a desiccated arm. Now, faced with the reality of it, it didn’t bother him in the least. It was as if the gauntlet were calling to him, urging him to free it from its lengthy languishing in the darkness. He could only imagine that the other icons were similarly calling to Thomas and Locke.
“The Black Dragon,” whispered Locke. For once even the unflappable Locke seemed overawed. “That pistol may well be the Black Dragon.”
“The what?”
“A sister weapon to another legendary pistol, the Red Dragon. Never misfires, perfectly weighted. It’s said it’s as if you’re wielding an extension of your own arm. And that sword,” he said, “has to be Quicksilver. It is a silver-augmented melee sword of substantial power; nothing can withstand it. As for the gauntlet”—he turned to James—“I do not know. Magic users tend to guard their secrets, and they believe that names have power. But I’ll wager that, should you be able to harness its abilities, you would be extraordinarily formidable.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” said James.
As one they walked forward.
Abruptly, the air in front of them seemed to congeal, and there was a sense of raw power all around them. Then, as if they were standing at the beach and slammed by a gigantic wave, a blast of heat that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere washed over them. They staggered, James squinting and shielding his face, Thomas doing likewise, and for a moment it felt as if their very skin was going to be flayed from their bodies by the unknowable force that was enveloping them.
Then, as quickly as it had arisen, the overwhelming force dissipated, leaving no sign that it had come through there.
“What the hell was that?” said James.
“If I were to hazard a guess,” said Locke, who was the only one who didn’t seem the least nonplussed by what they had just experienced, “I would say that we just passed through a ward of some sort.”
“What’s a ward?”
“It’s a mystic barrier,” Thomas spoke up. “Something that can be erected to keep people out.”
“In this instance,” said Locke, “it was doubtless designed to prevent anyone deemed unworthy from approaching the presence of the weapons. We certainly need no further proof than that that the Heroes placed their very essence within these weapons.”
“Okay,” said James cautiously. “And just out of curiosity, what if this ward thing had decided we weren’t worthy?”
Locke appeared to be considering that possibility for the first time. “In all likelihood, we would have been incinerated.”
“Incinerated? And you didn’t think to mention that?”
“No,” said Locke calmly. “It never occurred to me that that would be a problem.”
James suddenly felt as if he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs, but then Thomas put a steadying hand on his shoulder and looked at him grimly. “James,” he said tersely, “it’s time to grow up.”
There was a tortured look in Thomas’s eyes such as James had never seen, and also a cold, burning fury. It w
as clear that Thomas’s mind was back on what had transpired in the mural room, and on the corpse of Sabrina, the girl whom he had slain. He had neither patience nor interest in anything save payback for her, and also for what had been done to his brother.
Without a word, he reached forward and gripped the hilt of Quicksilver. He pulled it from the hands of the Hero of Strength. Even as he did so, Locke extracted the pistol from the Hero of Skill. James, seeing that they had done so, stepped over to the Hero of Will and reached down into the sarcophagus. “Sorry about this,” he murmured to a being long dead, and he slid the gauntlet off the arm. He hoped that the action would not cause it to snap off at the elbow and was relieved that it did not do so.
“Now what?” James said.
Locke appeared a bit flummoxed. Even though it was ill timed since they needed him to know what was going on, James took some small pleasure in that. “I . . . am not sure,” Locke admitted. “Perhaps there is some incantation that is required to activate them. But there was nothing in the Omnicron about it.”
“That’s just perfect,” said Thomas, clearly annoyed.
“After all that?” said James. “After everything we had to do, and with lives at stake, you don’t even know how to turn the things on? How are we going to use them if—?”
“Wait,” Thomas said abruptly. “We’re not all using them yet. We’re holding our weapons, but James, you need to be wearing yours. Put it on.”
“All right.” He slid it onto his wrist. “But I don’t see how—”
Then he let out an alarmed scream. The gauntlet had been hanging loosely on his arm when he first put it on, but suddenly it burned white-hot with energy, then shrank and clamped down with such ferocity on his arm that it might well have been alive. Instinctively, he tried to remove it, but he had no chance. Instead, energy lanced out from the gauntlet, striking the pistol and the sword, forming a triangle of pure power that threatened to burn their eyes out of their sockets. All three of them, even Locke, cried out . . .