DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga)

by R. A. Salvatore

  Agradeleous ran along the corridors at great speed as the minutes became an hour, and then two, and on and on. Tirelessly, the dragon ran, feet thumping heavily, Juraviel bouncing and dragging, but never complaining. The elf could not believe the beast’s stamina, but still, sooner than he imagined possible, Agradeleous stopped and shook him, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself again in the dragon’s treasure lair, overlooking the pit, where Cazzira stared back up at him.

  Agradeleous growled and threw him down, and only the elf’s wings, beating furiously, stopped him from smashing to death on the hard stone. Still, he landed hard, falling into a roll, and then a second, and when he came up, he toppled over backward, too dazed and hurt to hold his footing. Cazzira was there in a moment, cradling his head. “Oh, you fool!” she scolded. “You cannot escape the beast! I should have stopped you from trying.”

  Juraviel looked up at her and managed to smile, and to lift his arm up to place his hand on her cradling forearm. “You could not have stopped me. I knew the danger, and knew the futility. But still, I was bound to try.”

  He saw a wounded look upon her face before she sighed and looked away, which somewhat surprised him.

  With great effort, Juraviel shifted about and came up to his knees beside the sitting Cazzira, cupping her face with one hand and turning her to face him. “This has nothing to do with how I feel about you,” he said.

  “It has everything to do with it.” Though he held her face toward his own, the elf still turned her eyes away.

  “No,” Juraviel insisted. “I am bound by duty above all, above even love.”

  Cazzira looked back at him.

  “And I do love you,” Juraviel admitted, to himself and to her. “I do. And that, too, tells me that I must get out of here, I must find a way to get us both out of here.”

  His strength left him as he finished, and he slumped a bit, and Cazzira pulled him in close to her.

  And both of them sat there, wondering what would come next, wondering what punishment Agradeleous would rain upon Juraviel.

  The jolting landing of the heavy beast jarred Juraviel and Cazzira from their slumber the next morning, both elves leaping up to face the wrathful Agradeleous. The dragon stood there, muscles twitching beneath its scaly hide, clawed hands grasping at the air and squeezing tightly, lizard snout curling back as low growls escaped through jagged, pointed teeth. With a sudden burst of rage, as if the anger simply could not be contained within, Agradeleous exploded into motion. He grabbed up a rock that was nearly as big, and many times as heavy, as either of the elves, and hurled it across the pit to smash thunderously against the opposite wall.

  Mouth moving as if the dragon wanted to bite the air itself, the beast took a threatening step forward.

  Cazzira rushed in front of Juraviel. “If you are to kill him, then know that I am your mortal enemy!”

  The dragon stopped. “Kill?” Agradeleous asked. And then he snorted.

  Juraviel pushed Cazzira out of the way and stepped past her to face the dragon directly. He stared at Agradeleous for a few moments, trying to size up the dragon’s mood, and he noted a range of emotions, some surprising. Agradeleous was outraged, of course, but there was something behind that anger. It hit Juraviel profoundly then—his action had wounded the dragon, but in the way that a friend might wound another.

  “I feed you,” Agradeleous started. “You are warm and with companionship. You tell me great tales and I tell you their equal. And you betray me!”

  “I did not betray you!” Juraviel shouted back, as emphatically as any dragon’s roar. “And it pained me to walk away.”

  “You deceived me!” Agradeleous countered. “Step by step, you lured me into your grand play, and that play was no more than a ruse to cover your escape!”

  “No!” Juraviel retorted, but he bit the word short, and his visage softened as he stared at the dragon. “Yes,” he admitted. “I deceived you and I deceived Cazzira.”

  “Then I should tear your head from your shoulders!” Agradeleous roared, and came forward another threatening step, putting him only one long stride from Juraviel.

  The elf only shrugged. “I am helpless to stop you.” He looked up, then, noting that Agradeleous had not continued his advance. The dragon stood there, low growls—of frustration, Juraviel realized—escaping its gnashing maw.

  “I should not be surprised by the treachery of a Touel’alfar,” Agradeleous quietly rasped.

  Juraviel realized then that he could not allow the dragon to go down this disastrous road, relating this incident to the less-than-stellar relationship between their races—for Cazzira’s sake if not his own. Agradeleous was deeply wounded, and would likely kill him, but if the dragon came to consider Juraviel’s treachery as expected from Touel’alfar, and by extension Doc’alfar, then no doubt Cazzira’s ending would come swiftly.

  “You gave me no choice, Agradeleous,” Juraviel remarked.

  The dragon’s lamplight eyes stared at him hard, seemed to burn holes into him.

  “For months you have kept us here, while my protégé walks her dangerous road alone,” Juraviel explained. “I am bound to her side, and yet, there I cannot be. While you hold me here to tell you stories, another is being written, one whose writing is supposed to be partly the province of Belli’mar Juraviel. I have enjoyed my time here—I would be lying if I said otherwise. And yet, I must go.”

  Agradeleous gave a sound that seemed to be a cross somewhere between a mocking laugh and an angry growl.

  “How can you claim treachery if you refuse to claim friendship?” Cazzira cut in suddenly.

  Juraviel and Agradeleous both snapped their gazes over the Tylwyn Doc. Juraviel’s immediate reaction was to shout out at her to stay out of this, to tell her that it was none of her affair, to protect her from inadvertently entering into the wrath of Agradeleous. But the protests died in his throat as Cazzira calmly, so very calmly, continued.

  “If we are prisoners, then you are within your rights to punish Juraviel for his attempt to leave.”

  “My rights?” the dragon asked with complete sarcasm, as if the whole notion was absurd. This was Agradeleous’ lair, where Agradeleous was king, after all, and bound by nothing but the dragon’s whims.

  “You cannot claim the role of jailor and of friend, Agradeleous,” Cazzira went on quietly. “At first, you were the former, obviously. But it seems to me that you have abandoned that mantle, of jailor, as we have abandoned the mantle of prisoners.”

  “You speak foolishness! He deceived me that he could escape.”

  “I must go,” Juraviel said, and Agradeleous laughed at him.

  “He asks you as a friend,” Cazzira added, and that stopped the laughter, and in truth, had all three of them wondering what their relationship truly had become.

  A few moments of silence slipped past, with all three gazes darting from one to the other.

  “And for that, I owe an apology,” Juraviel admitted, to himself and to the others. “I should have come to trust in our friendship. I should have come to you directly, and honestly, explaining that I had to leave. It is my duty that I go to find Brynn, and I tell you now, honestly, that if you refuse me this, I will try again to get away from here. Not to get away from you,” he added quickly, for it seemed as if the dragon was about to leap atop him, “but to get to her.”

  “You do not even know if she is still alive,” Agradeleous replied, and he seemed much calmer then.

  “But I must find out the truth of it.”

  The dragon pondered the words for a long time, then nodded. “You should have come to me.”

  “You would not have let me …” Juraviel paused and looked at Cazzira. “Would not have let us,” he corrected, “go.”

  “You have tales I wish to hear,” the dragon explained. “For hundreds of years, I have slept here quietly. I did not ask you to invade my home, and did not kill you, as is my right against thieves.”

  “We were not thieves,” Cazz
ira put in. “Not knowingly, at least.”

  “You cannot argue against my generosity in this!” Agradeleous roared, and he stamped his foot, which shook the chamber and lifted both the elves into short bounces.

  “You are correct,” Juraviel agreed. “You have been most generous, but that does not change the road I must follow.”

  “You should have asked!”

  “You would not have let me go!”

  “Not alone!”

  That startled the elves, and indeed, seemed to startle the dragon, as well!

  “You would let Cazzira walk beside me out of here?” Juraviel asked.

  “I would walk beside the both of you out of here!” Agradeleous answered, and it was obvious that the dragon had just made that decision on the spot. “Yes,” he said, nodding, and speaking as if to himself. “It has been too long since I have flown through the wide sky, too long since I have walked the realm of the alfar and the lesser races. We will go to find your Brynn if she is living still, and to make a tale of our own if she is not!”

  Juraviel found that he could hardly draw breath, and when he glanced over at Cazzira, he saw that she was equally distressed. What had he just done? What destruction had he just inadvertently unleashed upon the world?

  “Yes, it is too long since I have known an adventure, and too many centuries have passed since I have added to my treasures!” Agradeleous declared. “Prepare yourselves. We will leave as soon as you are ready.” With that, the dragon, seeming much more lighthearted, leaped away.

  Juraviel continued to look to Cazzira, who half walked, half stumbled beside him. “We cannot,” she whispered, barely finding the breath to speak.

  “We cannot stop him,” Juraviel answered. The truth of his own words struck him profoundly, forcing him to bear responsibility for putting this idea into Agradeleous’ head.

  “We cannot control him,” Cazzira reminded. “How many will die because of this?”

  Juraviel tried to keep the edge out of his voice, though the sarcasm remained obvious. “They are just humans, are they not?” He regretted the words even as they left his mouth, for Cazzira turned up at him, her expression wounded.

  “Well then, perhaps I fear that Agradeleous will fly over the mountains to attack Tymwyvenne,” the Doc’alfar answered. “Because of course I could not learn to care for any humans.”

  She started to walk away, but Juraviel grabbed her up in his arms and would not let her go, however she thrashed. “I am afraid, Cazzira,” he admitted. “I do not mean to wound you, but I am afraid.”

  From up above, they heard a guttural, rumbling sound, and it took them a moment to realize that the dragon was speaking—no, not speaking, but singing!—in his ancient language. Both Juraviel and Cazzira, whose respective languages bore the same heritage as that of the dragon, understood enough of Agradeleous’ song to realize that it was all about pillaging and burning, about the tastiness of man-flesh and the joys of the many artifacts the humans always crafted from glittering stones and metals.

  “I think that you should have a long, long talk with our companion,” Cazzira said dryly.

  “That is what got us into this in the first place,” Juraviel reminded her.

  The elves stalled for as long as they possibly could, but as the hours turned to days, the dragon’s song only became more insistent and frantic. Finally, Agradeleous landed beside them with a reverberating thump, and explained that it was time to leave. Both elves tried to offer protests, but the dragon just scooped them up under powerful arms and leaped away. When they got settled into the main chamber, the elves found that he had set out all of their belongings, along with other general supplies and an assortment of weapons and armor.

  “Gather your trinkets and let us go,” the dragon insisted, and when they were finished their outfitting, and just stood there looking at Agradeleous and at each other, the beast asked bluntly, “Do you know the way?”

  “We were searching for that when we stumbled upon your lair,” said Juraviel.

  “Back the other way then!” Agradeleous roared, and Juraviel glanced over at Cazzira, to see her porcelain skin seeming even more pale, and to see her swaying as if she would just fall over.

  “No,” Juraviel replied. “There are one-way doors, and corridors too twisting to navigate. South is the better course.”

  “You are certain?” the dragon asked. “I can fly over the mountains with ease. They are no barrier to mighty Agradeleous!”

  Again, Juraviel glanced over to see Cazzira growing unsteady on her feet.

  “We go south,” Juraviel said more firmly. “But before we walk with you into the human lands, Agradeleous, I will have your word of agreement.”

  The dragon tilted his head, seeming somewhere between amusement and disbelief.

  “You will not kill any humans,” Juraviel demanded.

  The dragon began to growl.

  “Except in defense,” the elf added.

  Still the dragon growled.

  “Or in battle,” Juraviel went on. “I will determine your course in this, Agradeleous. You may defend yourself, of course, but you will take no actions against the humans, any humans, without my direction and permission. I will have your word on this.”

  “Or?”

  “Or I will not lead you to Brynn and the grand adventure you desire,” Juraviel was quick to respond. “If you wish to simply go out from your hole and ravage the land, then do so without me and without Cazzira. If you wish to participate in a war that will change the world, in a tale that will be spoken of for centuries to come, then you will agree to my terms. You will give me your word, and truly, do I ask anything so difficult?”

  “Good enough,” the dragon agreed after a moment’s reflection. “I will trust your judgment on this, Belli’mar Juraviel. To the south we go—let us begin our search down the hole where we lost your companion. If she did not make it out alive, then better that we learn the truth before we step out under the wide sky. Perhaps we will not need to be discerning in whom we kill!”

  Now it was Juraviel who truly needed a bit of physical support, but he somehow managed, and so did Cazzira, to follow the magnificent and terrible beast out of the treasure chamber.

  It was all guesswork, of course, as the tunnels forked and forked again, and so their progress was painfully slow, and so the days meandered past.

  But then Agradeleous stumbled upon a tunnel long and straight and ascending, and with just a hint of current in the air.

  It was late autumn of God’s Year 841, almost a year since entering the Path of Starless Night, when Juraviel and Cazzira and their newest companion walked out of the tunnel, under a beautiful, crisp, starry sky. The two elves stood there transfixed, hardly remembering the sheer beauty of this sight, and so entranced were they that they didn’t notice the crackling of reshaping bones behind them. So they were both taken by complete surprise when Agradeleous issued a dragon’s roar—not the rock-shaking roar of his lizardman form, but the rock-splitting thunder of a true dragon!

  The two swung about, and for a moment, neither doubted that they were about to be consumed, that the agreement Juraviel had forged with the dragon was a meaningless thing after all.

  But Agradeleous calmed his roaring and stretched his great wings out to the sides.

  “It is good to feel the breeze upon my wings again!”

  Chapter 23

  What Agradeleous Wants …

  NEARLY EVERY DAY, BRYNN DESCENDED THE LONG STAIRCASE OF THE WALK OF Clouds, down to the base of the rocky valley nestled within the Mountains of Fire, and then out the valley trails to the fields where Runtly ran with the other horses. Sensitive to her desires to spend time with her pony, the Jhesta Tu mystics gave her duties that would have taken her to the floor anyway.

  As summer gave way to autumn, her job was to collect the black lava stones from the broken landscape and bring them up in buckets so that they could be ground into powder and used to fertilize the many gardens about the monaster
y. Brynn worked without complaint, taking the burdened climb back up the five thousand stairs in the same stoic manner she had utilized to get her through her years of training with the Touel’alfar. In Andur’Blough Inninness, like all of the other ranger trainees, Brynn had spent many days collecting spongelike milk-stones from the bog, carrying them back to a distant trough, then squeezing the bog juice out of them. In those mornings, Brynn had learned the power of meditation, of falling within herself to block out unpleasant external events, and so she used that now, slowly walking up the stairs each afternoon, deliberately and carefully placing one foot in front of the other so that she did not twist her leg, with a pole across her shoulders, a full bucket of stones dangling from each end.

  It was a good life for the young woman, a necessary respite from the trials of the wider world, a time to reflect and to grow strong again, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

  She spent most of her nights with Pagonel and other Jhesta Tu. Unlike her days in Andur’Blough Inninness, her times at the Walk of Clouds were full of openly asked questions and brisk discussions about philosophy and the ways of the various religions. Here Pagonel often led the way, inevitably veering the discussion toward the Behrenese Chezru religion and the concept and ways of Yatol.

  Brynn soon enough recognized that he was doing this for her benefit, that in these times, while learning about herself, the young woman was also learning valuable lessons about her enemy. Even more than that, she came to believe that Pagonel was subtly forcing her to view her enemy not as the singular-minded, and thus, singularly hated, Wraps, but as a collection of people following precepts that were not so variant from her own, or from anyone else’s.

  “You try to distract me from my destiny,” she said to the man one night after a particularly heated discussion about how the To-gai-ru, the Abellicans, and the Jhesta Tu were not so different in the artistic renderings of their respective pantheons.

  Pagonel looked at her curiously, then merely smiled.