by Ari Marmell
His eyes flickered constantly to the motionless, mismatched pair at the window. He took in the witch who’d stood behind him in the council chamber, and the wild-eyed woman with the hatchets.
It would be so easy. Yes, he’d die in the aftermath, but neither could stop him if he decided to end the Terror’s life here and now. A single stroke of his sword and boundless suffering would be set right. It was worth the price of his own life, so much so he actually felt his hand twitching with eagerness to see the job done. Hell, he was barely half convinced by this whole ludicrous idea that Lorum was Audriss. He’d practically raised the regent from a boy, supervised his education in all matters military and political. He couldn’t be so blind, could he? This could all be some trick of Rebaine’s, and they were standing around, letting him get away with—with whatever he was getting away with.
But Rheah, at least, believed, and Nathan had never known her to be wrong. If she trusted, did he not have to as well?
Of course, there was a first time for everything, including the infallible sorceress proving woefully fallible after all. If this was it, Nathan was determined to see the Terror of the East lying in a pool of blood, regardless of the consequences.
Nathaniel Espa continued to stare, at his friends, at his enemies, and not at the pale, long-fingered hand sliding from the darkness behind him, reaching from the depths of the shadows, stretching far longer than any human arm could have stretched, reaching …
OH, great was Corvis’s first thought. Just what I need. More forests.
His second thought was, If the only thing about this place bugging me is the fact that it is a forest, I’ve lost whatever grip on sanity I once had.
The sky burned red above him, the bloody radiance coming from all directions, for there was nothing remotely resembling a sun. Clouds of bubbling liquids drifted past, leaving smudges and stains in the air, as though that sky was a solid surface.
Which, upon further consideration, it very well might have been.
Thunder roared in the distance, or at least Corvis decided to pretend it was thunder, even though most storms didn’t howl like they were in quite so much pain. A hot wind blew through the trees, making him sweat. Not only hot, but moist, and with an acrid odor that suggested it might just be the breath of something far away but very, very large.
Corvis started walking. As one direction seemed as good as any other, he simply set off in the way he was facing.
He was somewhat surprised to note that he was clad not in his armor, but the simple tunic and well-worn pants that were his favorites for helping Tyannon in the garden or playing with his children when the chores were done. He hoped that said something good about him.
The trees appeared normal: brown, rough trunks, green leaves, about the right size. Theaghl-gohlatch had been a lot more disturbing. These were comforting, in a way, an anchor to normality in this alien realm.
That perception lasted exactly as long as it took Corvis, hair standing on end, to think to look behind him.
Protruding from the backside of each and every tree were human limbs. Arms and legs and heads reached beseechingly from the wooden embrace, fingers stretched wide in supplication. Each head was missing its face, as though something had simply peeled the visage off the front of the skull. Blood ran freely from the exposed muscles and sockets, fingers clenched and flexed as he passed, and jaws hung in mute agony.
And then, despite the lack of faces, Corvis recognized a few of them. The big one there, the sheer bulk of the man and the tattered furs that covered his arms, could only be Grat, the trapper from the Terrakas Mountains. That one there was the bartender. And Sah-di. And the young whore who’d propositioned him in the common room …
These were the souls Khanda had consumed in his millennia of life, souls trapped in endless torment in this tiny pocket of hell. And many of them, Corvis himself had put here.
The Terror of the East, the scourge of Imphallion, dropped to his knees and retched.
It was several moments later, after he’d struggled back to his feet and staggered weakly on his way, that he thought to wonder just what a spiritual projection held in its stomach to vomit up. He decided quite firmly not to go back and check.
And then the trees simply stopped, and Corvis was staring across a flat plane of gleaming obsidian, brilliantly polished. Had there been a night sky above, it would have been impossible to tell where the horizon ended, to be certain which stars were real and which were reflection. As it was, the darkness merely reflected the dull red hanging above it, creating the illusion of a motionless lake of blackened blood.
In the exact center of that lake stood a rickety wooden structure bearing more than passing resemblance to a gnarled human hand. As Corvis drew closer, his footsteps careful on the near-frictionless stone, he saw that each finger was, in fact, a cobbled-together extension of ropes and wooden beams, each ending in a thick but fraying noose.
It was a gibbet, conceived and designed by someone who’d never known sanity. The “palm” of the hand, cupped ever so gently, was the platform on which the condemned must stand. The fingers, curled back over the platform, hung over rusty-hinged trapdoors, squeaking and screaming in the breeze. The nooses were currently unoccupied, gods be thanked, but enough dried bones lay in ungainly heaps beneath the gallows to suggest it saw substantial use.
From behind the horrendous structure came the sound of heavy breathing. Ignoring the hackles rising across the back of his neck, Corvis stepped around it.
An enormous throne, made up entirely of red crystal, stood with its back to the gibbet. It was, in light of its surroundings, surprising in its simplicity. No decorations, beautiful or horrifying, adorned its surface, no tools of torture protruded from its back and arms. It was just a throne.
A young man sat idly in the chair, one leg stretched out before him, the other slung over the side. He was naked save for a bracer made up of three thin silver bands. His body was marble white, and shaped as though sculpted by a student of the classical arts. His hair, light brown, could have belonged to anyone. Only the creature’s eyes—each of which possessed a pair of irises, side by side—and the utter lack of humanity in his expression indicated that this thing, whatever it might be, was entirely alien.
The sound of breathing, louder now that Corvis drew near, came not from the chair’s occupant, but from something beneath him. For the moment, the warlord could not make out what it might be.
“Corvis!” the figure in the chair crowed. “How decent of you to come visit!”
An indigestible mix of emotions churning in his gut, Corvis forced a smile in return. “I always wondered what you actually looked like, Khanda.”
“What, this? Meaningless. Nothing you see here is real, not as you understand the term. Rheah—it was Rheah who arranged this little visit, yes?—Rheah should have warned you of that before she sent you here.” Khanda leaned forward, his unnatural eyes narrowing. “And since it’s come up, why are you here? We have plenty of time—without your body, in this place, it moves a lot faster than it does outside—so feel free to indulge in the details.”
“I’m so glad you asked,” Corvis said, steeling himself to step closer to the throne and the unholy thing that sat upon it. “Perhaps I should ask you that same question.”
It was eons since Khanda had dealt with anyone who could actually see his reactions. Though he tried at once to hide it, scowling, imperious, haughty, Corvis saw the demon flinch at his words. “I haven’t the slightest clue what you’re talking about, Corvis. And here I thought that seeing you face-to-face might help cut through your tightly wrapped shroud of idiocy, but it seems—”
“Let me tell you a story.” Corvis stood directly before the throne. He lifted up a single booted foot, resting it on the chair mere inches from Khanda’s exposed genitals. It didn’t make the demon as nervous as it would a mortal, but it did put Corvis in a position to meet Khanda’s gaze without leaving the demon room to retreat. “It starts … Well, I’
m not sure exactly how long ago it starts. A few years, maybe a decade. It’s not really important.”
Khanda blinked. “Excuse me. What are you—”
“In this story,” the Terror continued, refusing to be interrupted, “there’s a demon. His name is Khanda, and he’s trapped inside this itty-bitty little amulet. But even more frustrating is that he’s also trapped inside this great big cold wall of ice. He was put there by a mean, nasty man who’d used him for years and then just thrown him away.”
“I wonder who that might be?”
Again, Corvis refused to go off-course. “But after years of being trapped, Khanda made contact with someone, someone who called himself Audriss.” The warlord shrugged. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me exactly how you accomplished that, would you?”
Khanda sneered. “If you must know, I sensed Pekatherosh when Audriss first made use of his power. We can talk to each other at much greater range than we can speak with your kind.”
“I thought you hated each other.”
“We do. Some things are bigger than that.”
“Ah. In any case,” he continued, “Khanda contacted Audriss—through Pekatherosh, then. Eventually, he learned that Audriss planned to pick up where the first bad man left off. This was perfect for Khanda, since he had something to trade, something Audriss would want.” Corvis smiled grimly. “In retrospect, I shouldn’t have hidden the book anywhere near you.”
“Hindsight is a virgin in a chastity belt,” the demon snapped at him. “Beautiful but useless. Are you going somewhere with this, or is this a bedtime story? Because you’re about to put me to sleep.”
“Oh, it’s definitely going somewhere. You see, Khanda, I know why you betrayed me. There’s only one thing Audriss could have offered that you would possibly want.”
“Sod off, Corvis!”
“So I ask you again: Why are you here?”
Khanda pulled back against the crystalline throne, drawing away from Corvis’s piercing eyes, but the warlord left him nowhere to go. With an enraged bellow, Khanda shot to his feet, shoving the human back. Corvis found himself airborne, and then crashed painfully to the unyielding ground.
“It’s temporary!” Khanda screamed at him. “Just until he’s finished with Mecepheum! Then I’m free, Corvis! I’m free! Just a few more hours! Just a few …” His face falling, the demon slumped back into his chair, head cradled in his hands.
Corvis clambered to his feet. “He won’t free you, Khanda.”
“You don’t know that!” But it was a knee-jerk objection, reflexive, with no conviction behind it.
“I do know that. What amazes me is that you believed him.”
Khanda smiled sadly. “What did I have to lose, Corvis? My other option was to stay trapped in this gem, and that wall, for eternity.” The demon shook his head. “It’s not as if he needs to keep me around, damn him! He’s got Pekatherosh, he’s got the bloody book and the key. He’s already as near a god as any mortal could hope! What good does it do him to keep me here?”
If not for the soul-trees, Corvis might have felt a glimmer of sympathy for his infernal companion. Instead, his voice was cold, clinical, as he said, “You got too used to dealing with me, Khanda. Whatever faults I had, I did what I did in pursuit of a specific goal. Audriss, though, is mad with power. He’ll not let go of even an inch, no matter how much he’s got. Good gods, he tried to ally with me, remember? Even after he threatened my family, tried to kill me, he couldn’t let it end without trying at least once to fit me under his thumb along with everyone else. You’re trapped more tightly now than you were a year ago.”
Khanda’s head rose. “Unless I help you now. Is that it, Corvis? Is that why you’ve come?”
“Fill in the blanks for me, Khanda. Since we do have time, finish the story for me. And then I just might have an offer to make you.”
“And why should I trust you not to betray me as Audriss did?”
“Because you know me.”
Khanda laughed. “Better than you do, I expect, and that’s as good a reason as any not to believe a word you say. But what the hell, I’ve got no more to lose now than I did then. What do you want to know?”
“I want to know why it went down this way, Khanda. Why didn’t Audriss just come and grab you, and the book, from the cave? Why involve me at all?”
“Ah …” Khanda actually blushed a bit. “The uncomfortable truth, Corvis, is that I wasn’t entirely certain where I was. You made such an effort to make the teleportation quick and confusing, so I wouldn’t realize what was happening in time to stop you, that you skewed with my bearings. You used my power to imprison me in the ice, and I didn’t know where I was! Bloody irritating, let me tell you what!”
Laughing aloud at the moment would, Corvis knew, be a poor tactical decision. He coughed twice to cover it up, and then asked, “And Pekatherosh couldn’t track you down?”
“We’ve been enemies for thousands upon thousands of years, you lackwit. We’ve spent most of those casting spells to avoid detection by each other. Besides, you think I’d trust him to do it right, even if I could?”
An avalanche of understanding crashed down upon him. “So you used me, threatened my family and my home, just so I’d eventually have to retrieve you!”
“That’s the long and short of it, yes.”
Corvis squelched his rising anger with a near-superhuman effort. Time enough for it later. “And afterward? Once you knew where you’d been, you knew where the book was. Why not leave me out of it then?”
“You were already fully involved. Besides, Audriss knew that the threat of the Terror of the East might force the Guilds to submit to him. I think he really wanted to rule as Lorum, not as Audriss, given the choice.”
“I’m so horribly sorry to have disappointed him.”
“I’m sure. Also, he suspected Rheah might have developed the key to Selakrian’s book, but he couldn’t very well come right out and ask her, could he? Letting you and your so-called army remain involved brought the Guilds in line—though not as soon as he’d hoped—and it was you who confirmed for him that Rheah had decoded the book.”
Corvis felt the urge to glance at his shoulders in search of strings. “I’ve been a puppet. Every last godsdamn thing I’ve done—”
“Well, not all of it. You pretty well bollixed up his primary plan when you exposed him. It didn’t stop him, but at least you can say you drew blood.”
The Terror of the East let out a sudden, explosive breath. “All right, Khanda,” he said, his voice astoundingly level. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
NATHANIEL ESPA LAY on the floor, fetched up in the corner. Huddled and spotted with blood, he struggled to focus past the pain, to blink the tears from his eyes. His right arm was broken in two places, his left leg literally wrenched around at the knee so that it was nothing but dangling deadweight. So covered was he in bruises and lacerations, he looked as though he’d leapt naked into a briar patch. His sword, his armor, his vaunted skill, all proved less than useless against the sudden, inhuman assault.
In the center of the room, a tornado had struck. Furniture and bits of furniture lay strewn about the room, cadavers made of planks and splinters. The dust fluttered in endless circular clouds, dancing with cruel delight at the unfolding scene of carnage.
Mithraem stood amid the wreckage, a nightmare granted flesh and blood. Mostly blood. He held a relaxed fencer’s stance, his thin-bladed sword dancing with simple, idle strokes. Before him, Ellowaine raged, hatchets spinning, but not a single strike could penetrate his casual defenses. Behind them, Seilloah lay crumpled on the floor, trembling and blood-drenched hands clutching tightly around the shaft of wood protruding from her stomach, a stake she’d intended for the creature attacking them. Thick, black blood flowed from the dreadful wound, and the agony goaded her to the very edge of madness. To a witch of Seilloah’s skill, the wound need not be fatal, but only if she had access to her powers and her herbs, only if she had
the time to treat it properly, only if she could concentrate past the pain …
And by the window, Rheah Vhoune and Corvis Rebaine. The warlord stood, a statue of pale flesh and black iron, staring out the window with sightless, unblinking eyes. The sorceress hovered nearby, torn with indecision.
If something went wrong, and she wasn’t there to stabilize Rebaine, they could lose him. On the other hand, Mithraem was tearing through her allies like so much parchment, and if he wasn’t stopped, Corvis and the rest were certainly lost. Reluctantly, Rheah directed her attention away from the entranced man.
Even as she made her decision, the master of the Endless Legion tired of his sport. A contemptuous flick of his sword sent one of Ellowaine’s hatchets across the room. A swift kick followed, and the mercenary collapsed to the floor, accompanied by the sound of snapping bones.
Espa writhed in the corner, helpless rage nearly blotting out the pain as he struggled, and failed, to find his feet. A thick trail of blood stretched across the floor, as though left by some gargantuan crimson slug. Seilloah, one hand pressed tightly to her gaping abdomen, collapsed from her crawl only feet from where she’d begun and curled tightly into a fetal position, helpless against the agony. And Ellowaine lay stunned, a dramatic angle to her left leg that shouldn’t exist in any animal less flexible than an eel.
Not counting the currently vacant body of the Terror of the East, only Mithraem and Rheah remained standing in that beat-up little room. Outside, twin horrors from the depths of legend ran amok, and if they did not truly signify the end of the world, they were certainly the end of Mecepheum. Inside was a foe that should have been far less terrible, yet the idea of facing him alone was almost enough to make the normally unflappable sorceress seize up into a useless, gibbering mass.
It was his eyes, empty, soulless, endless tunnels into an infinity of nothing at all, tugging at her soul. Even in the vilest of men, a spark of unalterable something made them, at their core, human.