Demon Wars 01 - The Demon Awakens

by The Demon Awakens [lit]

  Quintall stood at the back of the dimly lit cave, leaning easily against the wall, flicking flint against steel until a light caught on the torch he had propped there.

  When the light flickered to life, when it fully illuminated the face of the man Avelyn had known all those years, the man who had traveled to Pimaninicuit beside Avelyn and knew the truth of the stones, Avelyn was nearly overcome with grief. All that he had lost his home, his companions, and most important, his faith assaulted Avelyn; all the memories of the good times at St.-Mere-Abelle, his instruction with Master Jojonah, the revelations about the sacred stones, the studying of the charts, the revealed mysteries of the magic, came rushing back to him.

  And then they were buried beneath the subsequent memories: the death of Thagraine, of the boy who had foolishly gone onto Pimaninicuit, of all the crew of the Windrunner, of Dansally, of Siherton.

  "Quintall," Avelyn muttered.

  "No more," the other monk replied.

  "Why have you come?" Avelyn asked, hoping against reason that this man, too, had deserted the Order and was as much a renegade as he.

  Quintall's cackle rocked him. "I am Brother Justice," the man replied harshly, "seat to retrieve what was stolen." Quintall snorted. "I hardly recognized you, fat Avelyn. You have lost all, so it seems, and have more than doubled your size. Always you took your physical training lightly!"

  Avelyn steeled himself against the insults. It was true, he had taken on more than a few bad habits, drinking too much and eating too much, and the only exercise or martial training he now performed was in the fights he inspired.

  "Did you not believe that we would discover your treachery?" Brother Justice went on. "Did you think that you could murder a master of St.-Mere-Abelle and steal such a treasure, and then walk free for the rest of your days?"

  "There is more-"

  "There is no more!" Quintall shouted. "You fell, my former brother. All that remains for you is the pit of hell. I shall have the stones!"

  "And my life," Avelyn reasoned, making no move.

  "And your life," cold Brother Justice confirmed. "You forfeited that when Master Siherton went over the wall."

  "I forfeited that when I refused to accept the perversion of the Order!" Avelyn shot back, drawing some courage with words of conviction. "As Brother Pellimar-"

  "Silence!" Brother Justice ordered. "Your life is forfeit, I assure you, and no explanation is worth the time to utter. I will have the stones, as well, but if you hand them to me without battle and accept the fate you deserve, then I will let the woman go free. On my word."

  Avelyn snorted at that. "Is your word as solid a thing as the word of the masters you serve?" he asked. "Is your gold but an illusion, meant to coax a ship into waters where it might be destroyed?"

  Quintall's expression showed that he neither understood nor cared about what Avelyn was saying, showed Avelyn beyond any doubts that the man was single-minded and would not be swayed. That left the fat monk two choices: to surrender the stones and his life and hope that Quintall was speaking truthfully, or to fight.

  He didn't trust the man, not at all. Quintall would kill him after he got the stones, without doubt; then he would kill Jill, that there would be no witnesses. Avelyn believed that in his heart. He took his hand, and the graphite, out of his pocket, pointing it in Quintall's direction.

  "You would forfeit the life of a friend?" Brother Justice asked and then he laughed again.

  "I would spare your own life," Avelyn replied, "in exchange for the woman."

  The man's laughter continued and it gave Avelyn pause. Quintall above all others understood Avelyn's proficiency with the magic stones. Quintall should have understood that Avelyn could loose a bolt of lightning with that piece of graphite that would fry the man where he stood. And yet Quintall, this man who called himself Brother Justice, this extension of St.-Mere-Abelle's vicious order, was not afraid.

  Avelyn turned his thoughts away from the man, to the chamber Quintall had chosen for this encounter. He felt the emanations, the subtle pulse of magic, and when he looked then into the stone he held, when he realized that the powers of the graphite seemed far, far away, he understood.

  "Sunstone," Quintall confirmed, seeing the expression. "There will be little magic used in this cave, foolish Brother Avelyn."

  Avelyn chewed his lip, looking for an out. Back in St.-Mere-Abelle, he had seen Master Siherton create a magical dead zone while he and several others had tried to discern the powers of the giant amethyst crystal. Only the most powerful magics could function within such an area, and even then, their powers were greatly diminished.

  Avelyn might be able to effect a lightning stroke within this chamber, but he doubted that it would do much more than anger Quintall even more.

  Quintall held out his hand. "The stones," he said calmly, "for the woman's life."

  "The woman is no part of this," Elbryan declared, slipping into the cave to stand beside Avelyn. "I know not of Brother Avelyn's crimes, but you have offered no charge against the woman."

  Quintall's expression grew suddenly grave at the sight of the imposing ranger. "Treachery again!" he growled at Avelyn. "I should have expected as much from the likes of Avelyn Desbris."

  "No treachery," Elbryan insisted, "but justice."

  "What do you know of it?" Brother Justice insisted. "What do you know of this stranger, this mad friar, who has come into your midst, begging aid? Did he tell you that he was a murderer?"

  "And is the woman a murderer?" Elbryan asked calmly.

  "No," Avelyn answered when the other monk hesitated.

  "A thief?" asked Elbryan.

  "No!" Avelyn said determinedly. "She has committed no crimes. As for my own, I will speak of them, openly and honestly; and when all the account is told, let someone other than a monk of St.-Mere-Abelle serve as judge."

  Brother Justice narrowed his eyes and glared at the monk. Of course, he had no intention of allowing any court. He was judge, jury, and executioner, assigned by the Father Abbot. "You were a fool to follow Avelyn to this place," he said to Elbryan, "for now your life is forfeit, as is Avelyn's, as is the woman's."

  "More justice?" Elbryan started to ask, but his question was lost as Brother Justice spun about, pulling aside some hanging vines that blocked the entrance to another chamber. A flick of the monk's wrist sent a silver item flying and from within the deeper chamber came a gurgled groan.

  "Go to her!" Elbryan cried to Avelyn, and the ranger leaped forward to meet the monk, Hawkwing spinning to a ready position.

  "Not by surprise this time," Brother Justice sneered, setting himself in a crouch. He tried to keep near the door, to prevent Avelyn from getting to the woman, but Elbryan's attack was too fierce, too straightforward. The ranger came rushing in, accepting a punishing blow to the chest but managing to duck his shoulder low against the monk and drive the man back a step. Brother Justice dug in, locking himself in place until Avelyn came roaring in at Elbryan's back, the monk's three-hundred-pound frame blasting the two combatants away.

  Elbryan took three quick punches - two to the chest and then one to the face that nearly sent him down - before he managed to break the clench and get away from the dangerous monk.

  Facing the man squarely, the ranger wasn't quite sure what to make of him. Brother Justice turned sidelong and lifted his leading foot, drawing it slowly up his balanced leg, arms lifting as well, as certain snakes might rise before the strike.

  It was a dagger, small but nasty, and thrown perfectly to hit the gagged and bound woman right in the throat, just under her jawbone. Her main artery severed, blood was pumping wildly from the wound, already forming a puddle around her slumped form.

  "Jill, Jill! Oh, my Jill!" Avelyn wailed, rushing to her. He pulled the dagger free, his hands going to the wound, trying futilely to stem the flow. She had little time left, he knew. Her skin felt cold.

  Avelyn pulled out his hematite, then remembered the anti-magic shield that Quintall had constructe
d. He thought to carry Jill from this place; but realized immediately that she would be dead before he ever got her outside.

  He clutched his hematite in both hands, putting them to the wound, putting his lips against his hands, praying with all his will, with all his heart. If there was a God above, if these stones were indeed sacred, then the hematite must work!

  The monk's fighting prowess was indeed remarkable, his movements quick and fluid, his frame always in perfect balance. He was too fast for most humans, dizzying them with winding, sweeping feints before the lightning strike killed them.

  But Quintall, for all his training, was no faster than Tuntun or Belli'mar Juraviel, or any of the elves that had trained Elbryan, and when he snapped a strike from that snakelike pose, thinking to tear out Elbryan's throat and move on to finish his business with Avelyn, the monk's expression showed he was surprised to find his extended fingers hit only air, while Elbryan's staff gave him a wicked smack on the elbow. With incredible flexibility, both physical and mental, the monk adjusted, rolling his pained arm down across the staff to open a hole in Elbryan's defenses, then snapping off a quick blow with his other hand, followed by a kick that caught the ranger inside the knee and nearly buckled his leg. Elbryan countered by letting go of his staff with his top hand, rolling it under the blocking arm, then grabbing it and sweeping low for the monk's supporting leg.

  Brother Justice hopped over the swing, but was forced back.

  The monk circled, a confident expression mounting.

  Two running steps launched Brother Justice into a double kick. Elbryan jammed one end of Hawkwing into the dirt and swept the staff powerfully across in front of him, left to right, deflecting the blow. He stepped ahead with his left foot then, continuing to turn as Brother Justice landed on his feet and pivoted the other way. Elbryan dragged Hawkwing up and around, slapping a backhand with the staff that connected squarely on the monk's lower back at the same time Brother Justice let fly an elbow to the back of Elbryan's head.

  The ranger reacted well, diving forward as the elbow connected, leaping and tumbling over his staff as if it were a tree branch. He came back to his feet and turned as Brother Justice spun around, the two men circling once more.

  "I give you one more chance to leave," the monk offered, drawing a smile from his adversary. That smug look by the ranger spurred the proud Quintall into a charge. He skidded to a stop right before Elbryan, throwing a vicious overhead chop.

  Up came Hawkwing in a solid horizontal block. Anticipating the following moves, Elbryan snapped his left hand down, taking the power from a right cross, then stepped in closer, putting his right leg inside the monk's left, defeating an attempted kick. Brother Justice wriggled his left arm about the staff, reaching for Elbryan's face, but the ranger pulled the staff and the arm out wide, moving even closer to the monk, then drove his forehead hard into the monk's face.

  Brother Justice grabbed hard onto the staff with both hands, as much to support himself as to prevent any attacks. Elbryan let go with his left hand at that same moment and snapped off a series of short, heavy jabs into Brother Justice's face.

  The monk was dazed; Elbryan seized the moment. He grabbed the staff again, hard, and tugged it in close, pushed it away to the end of his reach, then pulled it in again. Brother Justice should have let go, but he was fighting to clear his thoughts. Following the tug, he came rushing in close to Elbryan, and his face met the ranger's forehead again.

  Still dazed, still hanging on, the monk felt the change in his adversary's angle as Elbryan fell back to the floor, pulling hard, taking the monk right over him. Both his feet planted squarely in Brother Justice's belly, the ranger heaved him right over, sent him flying, to land heavily at the base of the chamber's hard wall.

  Pure rage drove the monk on, forced the pain away. He rolled and came up fast but not fast enough. His defenses were not in place when Elbryan grabbed his staff down low with both hands and swept it across mightily, smashing in the side of Brother Justice's face. The monk went with the blow, turning to a dead run that launched him out the cave's outer opening, into the daylight.

  Elbryan was quick to follow, but by the time he got out, the monk was many strides ahead, in a full run. Hardly thinking of the motion, knowing only that he could not lose this advantage against so deadly an adversary, Elbryan popped the feathered tip onto his weapon and bent it low, quickly setting the bowstring. He ran ahead a dozen strides, seeking an angle to best view the top of the ridge, where the monk was fleeing.

  Brother Justice came into view for only a split second, darting between two trees. Elbryan's arrow caught him in the calf, right below the knee, and with a howl of pain the monk tumbled sidelong, gaining momentum as he rolled along the steep slope.

  Elbryan scrambled to get to the spot, saw the monk land heavily atop one rocky outcropping and then tumble right over it, a fifteen-foot plummet to hard stone.

  Elbryan groaned sympathetically, running to get in view of the man once more. He spotted the monk from a distance, lying among the boulders, one leg bent back up under him, one arm across his chest, the other out straight, then turned back under, obviously broken. The man, gasping for breath, reached inside the fold's of his clothing and produced something that Elbryan could not discern from this distance.

  The ranger halted as the monk suddenly glowed, limned in blackish flames. Elbryan's mouth dropped open as the monk's features twisted, twisted, as his face blurred and seemed to double, and as that second face stretched grotesquely and pulled free of the man's corporeal form, his visible spirit ripping out of that flesh and blood coil, down to the object he clutched in his hand.

  There came a bright flash and then the monk lay still, low flames licking his lifeless body.

  "'Nightbird!" came a cry from the cave, and Elbryan, thoroughly shaken, scampered back within.

  He was careening, flying fast above the forest, across the lakes, over the lands where the snow had already settled deep - too fast for his senses, too fast for the man to understand. The pain was gone, that much he knew. Then he came upon the mountains, whipping through passes, over peaks, to a plateau he had seen before above a vast encampment between the black arms of a smoking mountain. Then came the dizzying ride through tight tunnels, cutting left, right, down and down again to a stone wall creased by a single crack, through that crack, the stone rushing past him so close that his mind screamed out in terror.

  Then he was in the room between the columns before the obsidian throne.

  Quintall stood on semitransparent legs, caught halfway between the mortal and spirit worlds. He stood on the legs of a wraith facing the dactyl demon.

  It was the end, the end of hope, of any pretense of godliness. It was the truth, the dark-shining truth, the reality of what he had become, the only honest end of the road upon which his Abellican masters had set him. It was the dactyl demon, Bestesbulzibar - he knew its name! - in all its horrible beauty, in all its magnificence.

  Quintall, Brother Justice, fell to his wraith knees before the dactyl, bowed his head, and spoke.

  "Master."

  Elbryan took the torch with him as he pushed aside the vines and entered the inner chamber. Avelyn squatted on the floor, cradling the woman. Her wound was closed and she was very much alive, though thoroughly exhausted, as was Avelyn, who had gone into the hematite, who had, by sheer willpower and faith, fought past the sunstone barrier, fought his way into the healing magic.

  The monk asked about Quintall, but Elbryan didn't hear him. Avelyn shifted on the floor and tried to rise, nearly toppling for the effort, but Elbryan didn't notice. All that the ranger saw was the woman, all that he heard was her breathing. His eyes roamed over her - the thick mop of blond hair, the blue eyes, shining in the dim light, despite her weary condition, and her lips, those thick and wonderful lips, those so soft lips.

  He could hardly breathe, could hardly keep the strength to stand, all his thoughts, all his energy, tied up in a single word, a name he had not spoken for so
very long. "Pony."

  CHAPTER 35

  Escape?

  Pony.

  The name hit the young woman like a thunderbolt, spoken with such familiar inflection. She watched, mesmerized, as the strong young man eased toward her, his green eyes growing misty.

  "Pony," Elbryan said again, and he was stating the name, not asking. "My Pony, I thought..."

  He slipped down to his knees before her, closed his eyes, and tried hard to steady his breathing. When, after a long while, he opened his eyes and looked again on this image from his past, he found that her expression was more confusion than anything else.

  "Do you not remember me?" Elbryan asked, and the question alone, the need to ask it, seemed to pain him greatly.

  The woman didn't know how to respond. She did remember the man - he was there, prodding somewhere in the back of her mind, screaming at her to let him out. The way he said the name, her name - her nickname, she suddenly knew, for her name was not Pony, nor Jill, but Jilseponie! - was so familiar; surely she had heard this man call her Pony before in just that way.

  "Give her time, I beg, Elbryan," Brother Avelyn remarked.

  That was it. Elbryan. The name hit Pony as hard as Brother Justice ever could, jarred her, sent her thoughts spinning back across the span of years.

  "When you ran from me on the slope, running into burning Dundalis, I thought you lost to me forever," the ranger went on, spurred by the sudden sparkle of recognition that came to the woman's blue eyes. "My Pony. How I searched! I found your mother and father, my own, our friends. Carley dan Aubrey died in my own arms. And I would have died, too, trapped by a fomorian giant and a band of goblins, had it not been for-" He stopped, realizing that he was going too fast for the poor young woman, realizing that he had overwhelmed her.

  But it was indeed his Pony; Elbryan knew that beyond any doubt. He moved closer to her then, put his face barely inches from hers.