by Jon Wilson
“You knew, did you?” The demon indulged in a sarcastic shake of its head.
Keone sighed—deeply, wearily. He shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t think it would be so easy.” His left hand suddenly shot out and clamped tightly over the demon’s face. Blue flame erupted all down his arm, flowing over his hand to engulf the scaly head like a ball of fire. Groaning with the effort, Keone dug his burning fingertips down into the ebony flesh. The demon screamed, rearing back, throwing both wings wide and sending Keone sailing across the room. The stonediver slammed against the wall and landed in a heap, but immediately slapped his palm down upon the floor. More blue fire rolled down his arm, spreading the length of the room and then flaring up the walls.
The demon continued to wail, stumbling blindly, its head enveloped in flame. It flapped its wings—desperate and furious and helpless. Then it, too, crashed into a wall, and fire spread over both its wings and down its back. Its birdlike legs twisted beneath it, and it came to its knees. Its shrieks grew more pitiful, and its wings flapped more violently as it seemed intent upon rising up and flying away.
Holt’s attention was drawn to Keone who had risen and was walking slowly toward him. The stonediver appeared to be completely healed—his face once again smooth and pale, his green eyes shining. His clothes were whole and clean. He stopped a stride short of Holt and extended his hand.
“Let me finish it.”
For a moment Holt was confused, but then he felt it in his pocket.Of course!He reached in and withdrew the small black stone, the one Kawika had given him that horrible night so long ago and yet hardly a week past. He stared at his palm, marveling again over the glassy beauty of the black, the deceptive insubstantiality of the white sprays. And, as he watched, it remolded itself slowly into his own knife—the one Keone had given him from Kawika’s belongings.
He offered the weapon to Keone thinking,Someday they will trainmeto fight with a small blade.
The stonediver studied the knife, surprised. But he took it, offering Holt a half smile. He may have been surprised, but clearly he did not disapprove. Then he turned to face the demon.
Suddenly Holt felt the maze erupt in a flurry of activity. More than a dozen alien presences invaded the labyrinth, hunting desperately to reach them. That part of himself that seemed to loom high above everything else, watched as they wound their way through the various paths.
There was a great rodent, with jaws like a wolf and two huge fangs. It ran on lion paws and a scorpion tail curved up behind it. There was a horse, with iron hooves and enormous curled horns like a ram. There was a monstrous serpent, hissing gusts of poisoned steam. It’s black tongue flicked the air, guiding it first to the burning walls of the white room. But it could not penetrate the flames, and rose up instead to keen its frustration.
And then, behind and above the hunting essences, three more appeared. These seemed impossibly huge. Holt almost felt as if, simultaneously, they existed in the maze and the maze existed inside of them.
The first was a golden eagle, with a noble countenance and impenetrable black eyes. The second was a man with tremendous antlers springing from his brow. The horns rose in a forest of fantastic spires, stretching up and out in all directions. Atop each spire burned a shimmering flame, like a star.
The third essence was another man, this one with three faces. He was clothed in a flowing robe of silver liquid. It coursed over and around him, pooling at his feet. His skin was like fish scales, flashing a kaleidoscope of rainbow hues. His expressions were all of disdain.
Keone, if he felt these alien presences, did not acknowledge them. He positioned himself directly in front of the burning demon and raised Holt’s knife. He neither hesitated nor relished his victory. He simply thrust the obsidian blade into the demon’s throat. With a horrible gag, the monstrous wailing stopped. The demon swayed a moment, its wings wilting at its sides, and then fell sideways to the floor.
The serpent’s cry transformed into a great howl of despair. The long, twisting form stretched high into the air, keening and lowing like a mortally wounded hound.
The stonediver’s boots caught fire, and the flames climbed quickly up his legs. Until that moment, Holt had not considered he and Keone had thus far remained unaffected by the blue fire lapping at every other part of the white room. He looked down at his own legs, terrified, but the fire, though burning all around him, still did not touch him.
The stonediver’s entire body flared up in a sudden conflagration. He crouched, folding in upon himself as if in tremendous pain, and then abruptly thrust out his arms. Twin torrents of flame erupted from each hand. They exploded outward in all directions, obliterating the walls of the white room, spreading rapidly through the entire maze. The serpent was immediately consumed, but continued to writhe and scream. Holt realized she would not flee; she would rather remain and die than live without her mate. The horse and the rat and the host of other dark creatures vanished the moment the flames approached them.
The giant with three faces, observing the approaching fire with an expression of arrogant indifference, finally spoke. Each of his three mouths produced its own voice, in its own language. And though all the words were foreign to Holt, he understood them as plainly as if his father had whispered them into his ear. “I warned that the Moadeshe should not have involved themselves here.” He dismissed the others with a wave of his ivory hand and vanished.
The antlered presence extended a giant fist of smoke and flame that enveloped the serpent, obliterating her and her sorrow. Then the ghostly hand itself disappeared. The austere head vanished next, leaving only the antlers and their ten thousand stars, then only the stars, and finally nothing but darkness.
The eagle remained, twitching its head, aiming first one eye, then the other, at the sea of blue fire burning all around it. Though its countenance remained inscrutable, there was a hint of disappointment and pleasure in its golden nimbus. Holt recognized this was the least and deadliest of the three giants— the deadliest because oblivion was its first and greatest weapon, and the least for the same reason.
Fortunately, Holt realized, it possessed no particular interest in him.
Finally, with a flash of coppery light, the eagle dissolved, allowing the blue fire to move in and scour the space it had occupied.
Gradually the fire began to fade, and with it the maze, the throne, and the white room. Holt was kneeling on the cold mountain path, with Keone lying before him. Ardee had hold of his wrists again, tugging at them gently.
“Holt! Holt, you can let go.” She had cut swaths of cloth from Keone’s cloak and, after prying Holt’s hands off the stonediver’s wound, packed the cloth over the seeping gash.
Holt sat back atop his ankles. The dark shadow was gone from his mind, leaving his head feeling light, weightless. But something deeper had also been exorcised, some black poison he had forgotten about until that moment when it was no longer there. He had carried it out of Darnouth that night, and Ardee had been unable to draw it from his body. It had required nothing less than a great sea of scouring flame.
“It was not as bad as I thought,” Ardee was telling him. “Already the blood is clotting. I have some ingredients for a poultice. There are more and better in the valley below. If we can keep him alive through the night…”
“He did it,” Holt heard himself say. “He destroyed it.”
The ranger looked over at him again, concern twisting her weary expression. “What?”
“The demon. It was a trap. I was a trap. He planned it that way from the beginning.”
“Holt.” She took his hands, using another piece of cloth to wipe the blood from them. The look on her face told him clearly he would not make her understand. “We must build a fire. There is no wood this high. Will you go down and gather wood before the darkness comes? We must keep him warm. If the cold gets into the wound…”
“He planned for this too.” He pulled his hands from hers and picked up the stonediver’s hand. He cradled it in his o
wn, feeling the frigid limpness of it—the cold paralysis. So markedly different from the radiant warmth of his own flesh.
He closed his eyes, struggling to remember all the moments that had brought him to this moment. Not the massacre, or the fight with the trolls, or even the final confrontation with the demon—those had been obstacles, impediments. He wished to recall the events that had enabled him to reach that mountainside. The things that had propelled him there.
Kawika’s hand on his shoulder. Ardee’s hand on his shoulder. Sihr’s warm hands on his own. Keone’s burning hands on his neck.
He closed his eyes, the better to remember those few fleeting moments.
Kawika’s essence that had threatened to overpower him. Ardee’s that had brushed soft and supportively beside him. Sihr’s which had pressed him down into the cold darkness. Keone’s that had pulled him again and again through the sky.
The stonediver groaned weakly, gasping, but Holt ignored him.You will take me to the VaSaad.
“Holt!” Ardee’s voice echoed to him as if from some great distance. And then he felt her hand on his shoulder.
It is your duty.
He searched the darkness for Keone’s essence, remembering how it had felt against his own all those times they had sought the demon together. When he stumbled upon it, withered and frozen, his perception was so brutally shaken he nearly withdrew. He brushed it tentatively. The response was like that of a fallen leaf rustling to the low moan of the winter wind.
Let me die, let me die, the anguished spirit seemed to whimper, but Holt was distracted by noises carried to him from the past. Off in the half-remembered corridors of the maze Kawika had engaged that black, twisted thing.
I can help him, Holt. It isn’t too late. I need only be there this time.
No. You used me and now I will use you.He enveloped the stonediver’s essence completely, feeling it stab through his own awareness like a shard of ice. He knew a moment of panic, the emotions threatened to overwhelm him—I can never heal this thing!—but then realized he no longer felt the cold. Or, rather, he felt it—he wasawareof its presence—but it no longer carried the sting it once had. He was a part of it and it of him.
I am the snow-boy.
After a while he felt Keone’s body begin to respond. The breathing grew more regular; the trembling lessened. And then the man began to spasm, and Holt thought:Dolt, dolt! What have you done?But Keone was just struggling to roll over. Holt felt one of the strong arms that had carried him up the mountain reach to encircle his waist. The stonediver pulled himself closer to Holt, giving himself over completely—sobbing into Holt’s lap.
THE END
ABOUT JON WILSON Jon Wilson is an author with varied interests: historical fiction, fantasy and even the occasional murder-mystery. Likewise, he’s dabbled in assorted careers—from fast food server to professional wrestler (with modeling, construction and lots and lots of retail thrown in the middle).
Something of a nomad, he’s lived in several states and a few foreign countries. He currently resides and works in Northern California.
ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC Founded in 2010, JMS Books LLC is owned and operated by author J.M. Snyder. We publish a variety of genres, including gay erotic romance, fantasy, young adult, poetry, and nonfiction. Short stories and novellas are available as e-books and compiled into singleauthor print anthologies, while any story over 30k in length is available in both print and ebook formats. Visit us at jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!