It was just a pack of lies. It had to be. What did he know?
Suddenly I felt a tingling on my face, a strange electricity in the air. I looked around, but there was no one.
Just my parents.
I looked at my father.
His eyes were open.
But they were strange, not the eyes I knew. Perhaps it was all part of this great trick on me. They were glowing, and staring at me, and suddenly my mind went blank. I felt dizzy. I backed up and found myself against a wall, cold and hard. That steadied me, and I looked away from my father.
Tell no one, Anders. We are safe. Woltan lies. The lost city is a city of illusion. You are surrounded by people who exploit your fears and weaknesses. We can help you.
What if there was some truth in it?
It made as much sense as what Woltan had told me.
When I looked back at my father, his eyes were shut, and the tingling was gone.
Woltan was standing at the door.
“Did something happen, while I was gone?”
I avoided making eye contact. “What do you mean?”
“You saw something, didn’t you?”
He was just searching for another reason to probe my parents. All he cared about was his city. They could all go dance with the demons, for all I cared. If I could only talk to my father once more, even with glowing eyes, I was sure everything would finally make sense.
I need to know, Anders. Your parents’ safety and your own is at stake.
“You’re lying to me about something, aren’t you? I don’t know why I should tell you anything.”
“Anders, I’ve not lied to you since you came here. The burden you bear as the sword-bearer, as the three-blooded prince is enough for any man. I would not burden you further with lies and half-truths. Look me in the eyes, and you’ll see, I hide nothing from you.”
Don’t look at him, he lies!
“Look at me Anders, and see the truth that the demon tries to twist and reshape, to pollute and sully.”
But I looked away, toward my parents.
I saw my father’s eyes flutter, open, look at me, and the voice came to me, loud and clear and soothing.
It was the voice of my father, but speaking differently, convincingly, more smoothly than I remembered. Good, Anders, don’t look at him. He is a trickster, a shyster, a charlatan. He has hoodwinked you and your companions but I am here to shed light in the darkness and clear you of your confusions. My master is your friend. They call him the dark lord, because they fear him, but he is bright, and good, and they do right to fear him for they are nothing but trickery and confusion, glamour and lies.
I nodded. It all made sense. I must have fallen in with the wrong crowd. Had Gerard ever given me any trouble before Kara had broken into his shop and escaped to my room? Now because of her and Woltan my parents were under a spell. I felt a burning suddenly on my leg and brought my hand down.
My hand brushed idly my sword and I felt a jolt, but I pulled my hand away.
Yes, Anders, kill him. Kill them all. Then I will be free, and your mother too. That’s all you need to do. Kill all those lying tricksters. Purify this city of those scum and then open the gates to your kin, and to their servants, those who call you Herr.
Enough of this. I was tired of being tricked and manipulated. I hadn’t asked for this, any of this. Just one trick after another. They must have thought I was a total idiot.
I pulled the sword out and then I heard song. The song screamed at me and drowned the other words out and buzzed into me, vibrating all the way to my soul. Suddenly I was sure of nothing. Then I saw her in front of me. Carolina was not smiling.
Anders, don’t be a fool.
I’m tired of people taking me for one.
No one is taking you for a fool. We’ve saved your lives, if you’ll think about it. Listen, now — you are in great danger. There are major imps implanted in both your mother and father, stronger than I, although they have no sword. I will try to keep you free of their glamour as long as you hold on to me. My only hope is that, as they are young, I may know a few tricks that are unknown to them.
I hesitated. Maybe she was right. My father of the glowing eyes suddenly seemed less like the father I remembered. And I had seen blood, and seen them held prisoner.
Act as though you are still under his spell, Anders, get close to him, and then I will help Woltan with the removal, and the battle that will surely follow. She paused, looking worried, still. You might want to call for help, though.
I raised the sword and concentrated on Woltan, but he made no show of understanding.
“Why do you have your sword out, Anders?”
KILL THEM, Anders. Kill Woltan, liar and thief, free this city of the vermin within, KILL THEM ALL and then your mother and I will be FREE.
Yes, Father.
I rose up the sword and swung towards Woltan, who looked surprised and fearful.
YES! Kill him!
The sword swung swiftly, as of its own accord, to right in between the two beds. Ear splitting song poured out of its blade. Two beams of green light shot out from the tip of the sword that vibrated under my firm grip.
The beams hit my parents in the mouth.
NO! NO! NO! I heard the demon scream. The voice no longer sounded like my father’s. I heard a second voice then, HE IS ATTACKING US, MELFOR!
Carolina’s face materialized in front of me.
Now, Anders, the best we can do now is pull them out. Then I can help you try to neutralize them. Woltan may be of better help. Sing with me, Anders.
I opened my mouth to sing, and song erupted from my mouth: my whole body, my whole essence and aura vibrated now.
My parents’ mouths were open too, but not in song.
I almost stopped singing.
Little blue claws were groping their way out of my father’s mouth, and a little red foot stuck out of my mother’s.
My song seemed to join with the sword, pulling at the two creatures, sucking them out of my parent’s mouths.
I heard a word of power spoken next to me. There was a blue flash of light from Woltan’s mouth to the two creatures, surrounding them in two blue globes of light as they emerged. I could see them struggling, but one seemed caught by its blue hand, the other by its red foot.
The air was rife with the reek of gunpowder and sulfur. It burned in my nostrils as I watched the creatures crawl out.
So these were imps. And I had almost listened to them and killed my friends.
They were both around 12 inches tall, the size of a small baby, and the mouths of my parents stretched out unnaturally and grotesquely to birth them. It took all my best effort to avoid gagging again.
The red imp screamed. The scream hit the bubble that surrounded it, momentarily turning it purple. There was another nasty smell. Then, I heard its thoughts: Melfor, they have us trapped in these spheres, what can we do?
Her thoughts, I realized. The red one, coming out of my mother’s mouth was definitely a female demon.
The blue demon, Melfor, now fully emerged from my father’s mouth, scowled at us.
SHUT UP, Minifrest, you fool, he can hear us!
I wanted to lash out at these creatures, using their names for some spell to blast them into oblivion. But no demon would be stupid enough to reveal its true name, I remembered that much from my relatively useless tutor. Maybe, like Carolina, they had more names than I had thought, and perhaps each name had a bit of power in it.
The song continued to course through my sword, and through my mouth. I understood very little of what I sang, but I could see its power, and I added my hate and anger to it.
The spheres held as the two demons battered against them with word and blow and bite.
Carolina’s face was suddenly in view, small and to the side.
They are a bit weaker than I feared but I still can’t hold this up much longer. Once out of the spheres, they’ll expand and become enormous. I hope your friends are more powerf
ul than they look.
I stole a quick glance to the side and saw Kara and Kalle coming in through the open door and shutting it and bolting it behind them.
As if any door could contain a demon. But this door was covered in runes, so perhaps it would help a little...
I heard a noise, then, and looked back at the two demons squirming in their bubbles.
The blue demon Melfor’s eyes blazed red in anger. Minifrest though looked panicked.
Melfor grew large claws that gripped at the bubble. He tore at it and it felt like he was tearing my guts. Woltan must have felt something too because I could hear him grunt.
Then there was a ripping noise and the demon’s head popped out. It felt like a kick in the stomach, and I narrowly avoided doubling over in pain and surprise.
The bubble closed back over the demon’s neck and the demon looked even more furious.
For a moment I thought that was funny. I almost chuckled at the struggling, strangling demon until Melfor looked at me. He scowled and didn’t even need to move his lips: from his eyes a blast of red light shot towards me, hitting my sword which moved without my guidance, and reflecting back towards the wall, where it blasted a two feet wide hole in the stone.
It didn’t go all the way through, but there was a circular indentation about half a foot deep where the stone had been. And the stone itself was just gone.
That hole was the size of my head. Once again I’d been an idiot and Carolina had saved me. All of this was my fault, and I was lucky to be alive.
I heard something in my song change, and then there was a second bubble, covering the demon’s head.
This seemed to enrage it further and then everything went crazy: there was a great ripping sound, and it felt like I was being torn open from my face down to my gut.
Melfor was out. The song was broken, wrong, somehow. Melfor waved a claw and I felt another kick in the stomach.
Minifrest was out too. The song was over.
There was loud, joyous laughter and a smell of gunpowder and sulfur.
The two demons were expanding, their bodies growing until they were taller than any of us, over six feet tall, but still floating in the air.
Well, Minifrest, that was quite a pickle we were in. But now that we’re out, who should we kill first?
The pimply boy. Let’s rip him apart, eat him, and then eat the pixie bitch in the sword for dessert.
Temper, temper. Those pixies can be quite tasty, though. Haven’t had one in ages.
That was when I felt Woltan stir beside me. “Demons are not welcome here.”
This set Melfor into a cackle of glee. “Talk about stating the obvious, there, Woltan, old chap. Not welcome, you said?” And then he was giggling again.
He flicked a finger at Woltan.
A ball of fire shot towards him, and Woltan raised a staff. The ball of fire hovered in front of him. Woltan whispered something, and the ball of fire shot back towards the demon, who caught it in his hand and started throwing it back and forth, up and down. He began whirling it around until it moved so fast I could no longer follow it.
“Shall we play catch? Fast pitch, perhaps?”
And then the ball shot forth, and I was sure there was no way anyone could be prepared for it, but somehow my sword was up, right in front of my face. The ball of fire hit the sword and broke in two, and I felt the heat on my face, and smelled burned hair.
There was no pain, however.
I brought the sword back down and walked forward.
Anders, what are you doing?
I shook my head, and reached out and grabbed the demon.
The demon’s arms felt hot and slippery in my hands, but did not burn me. I said a word. Kalt.
Melfor looked at me, surprised. There was something like recognition in his eyes, and then it said: Herr.
Then the demon started to change colors from red, to green, to blue, to white, and then he was immobile and white.
I raised the sword and swung it, and the demon’s head fell to the ground with a hiss of steam. Then there was an explosion of purple light and sulfur stink, and a scream.
Nooooooooo!
I felt claws on my back, on my neck. Of course, it was the other one.
The claws hurt. I wanted to twist around and have at her, but the demon held me from both sides of my back. I raised the sword and struck blindly behind me, putting all my anger and fear into my blows.
There was another scream, and I struck again, and this time I felt the demon give way, and I turned, and she lay there, steaming, on the ground, her body losing shape, melting.
Her face was solid, though, and for a moment, beautiful.
She looked at me and said one word: Herr. Then, with a flex of a blue claw, she was gone forever.
I rushed to my mother, and crouched beside her bed, put my ear to her mouth to listen. I listened for her breath in the room gone silent.
“Mother!”
But she didn’t move. Her face was motionless, her eyes shut. I turned to my father, and listened there too.
“Father!”
The demons were gone, now. So what was wrong with them? Why wouldn’t they wake up? I kicked out and smashed my foot into the wall. Bad idea.
I bit my tongue to avoid crying out in pain.
That was when Kara put her hand on my back.
For the first time, I didn’t want her to touch me. I brushed her hand away, but she was insistent. She put it again on my shoulder.
“Anders.”
“What?”
“They’re still alive, but they’re hexed, Anders. There’s nothing we can do now.”
“There must be something. If I could just talk to them for a few minutes. My father, he opened his eyes, before, and talked to me.”
Kara shook her head. “That wasn’t your father, you do realize that, don’t you Anders?”
I shook my head. “I need to talk to them, just one last time.”
Kara frowned. “We can’t talk to them now. But at least they are free of demons.”
Woltan shook his head then. “They’re not free of demons. Just free of major ones. Look at them both with your third eye.”
I felt like telling Woltan where he could look with his third eye. It wasn’t his parents he was talking about. But I closed my two eyes and looked with my third anyway.
Woltan glowed a bright, clean orange, Kara a bright clean yellow, Kalle behind her was yellow with a circle of orange around him. I looked down at myself glowing a dark orange, the color extending into my sword, with just a small yellow spot where Carolina must be.
I looked at my father, then. He had a faint orange glow about him; he looked no more than half alive. But there was something else, and I tried to capture it. There was some other color in him, or on him, and then I saw it.
I gasped.
Little red points of light covered my father’s skin. There must have been hundreds of them.
I moved forward to look at one with my two eyes, and it looked like a pimple. I looked closer, probing with my third eye, and saw, just under the skin, what looked like a tiny insect. A tiny red demon insect, buried just under the skin.
Talk about skin problems.
I looked at my mother, and saw the same thing. They were both infested, covered with demon pimples.
It was disgusting.
I spat on the floor. “Are they dangerous?”
Woltan nodded. “They certainly aren’t helping them any. I’ve read about them, but never seen any. These are demon spawn, demons but a few days old. As they grow they will feed, sucking the blood and life force of their hosts. What looks like a pimple now will soon be the size of a boil if left there to grow. If that weren’t enough, they let dark wizards track their victims. We need to get rid of them, now.”
Kara spoke then. “We Kriek have had to deal with such matters. Kalle and I will be glad to help you, Woltan, to remove this scourge.”
“What,” I muttered. “I just stand here, and
watch, while you operate on my parents?”
But they had moved away a little. I could hear them whispering quietly among themselves behind me but couldn’t hear what they were saying. I figured they didn’t want to speak with their minds because they knew I could hear them, that way. I was tired of overhearing everything, of seeing everything, of seeing my parents covered in pimples that weren’t really pimples. I’d had enough of the song that coursed through my blood, through my sword.
Why hadn’t my parents ever told me about any of this? I felt so unprepared, and where were they now, to comfort me? Lying on these cots, covered in demon spawn, under the control of some dark wizard, unable to speak to me.
I felt a hand on my back and the hand was warm. I turned around and Kalle was looking at me.
“Don’t worry too much, my friend. They may be disgusting, but they are nothing compared to what you just dealt with.”
“But we do need your help,” Kara said. She gave me a hug. I felt some of my anger evaporate. Just let me talk to them again. One more time. I let Kara hug me, try to heal me with her flowery scent.
But I wasn’t going to be able to talk to them, not anytime soon. I realized that, and suddenly I didn’t feel angry anymore. I just felt sad.
“We are here for you, Anders. That is what friends are for, and family as well. As Kriek, you are part of our family, and so are your parents. We will always be here for you.”
I felt myself fighting back tears.
“But how did you know? I mean, how did you know, that I was so upset?”
Kara looked at Kalle, who nodded. She said: “We can see it just looking at you, Anders. In your aura, your emotions are like an open book. That is one thing I’m sure Woltan will be training you in, hiding your feelings.”
I felt one last surge of irritation. “So you’ve just been watching me have one big pity party, huh?”
“Don’t worry, Anders,” Kalle said, shaking his head. “You’re going through a great shock.”
Kara nodded. “And we are all like this from time to time, and everyone at the beginning. It takes time to learn to mask your emotions, and more time still to master them.”
Woltan cleared his throat, looking at us a little uneasily. “Shall we cleanse them, then?”
Sword Bearer (Return of the Dragons) Page 12