The man grabbed his arm, halting him in place. “Wait. Are you saying…?”
“Yes. It is a ruse, Turock. A grand ruse to keep you and your students out of the way. You have been played on all sides.”
“The prisoner told you this?”
Ahaesarus smiled. “He did not need to.”
He scaled the hill before them and gazed out across the grayhorns’ grazing fields. Turock seemed calmer now, displaying a dutiful sort of pride. It takes acknowledgment of your talents for you to listen? Ahaesarus felt pity for the man.
“Your home will not go undefended,” the Warden said. “You will stay behind with half your apprentices and whatever townsfolk choose not to leave. The others will join me and my fellow Wardens…and them…on the trek to Mordeina.”
Turock’s gaze shifted to the field.
“Oh my,” he said, jaw slack. “Where are they going?”
Ahaesarus watched the massive wrinkled hides of more than a thousand grayhorns as they marched south, disappearing into the distance, their bleating fading away.
“They are going to the same place as us,” he said. “The capital of Paradise. Ashhur is forming his army.”
CHAPTER
42
The dungeons below Palace Thyne used to be the only place in Dezerea devoid of color. When Ceredon joined forces with Kindren Thyne to free Aullienna Meln and her people, there had been nothing down there but walls of lime rock and granite and thick steel bars. It had been drab and lonely, a truly hopeless setting for those without hope.
That had changed, for now the dungeons were speckled everywhere with shades of red.
A despondent Lord Orden had once told him the dungeons had not been used since the emerald city’s creation nearly a century before. All that had changed when the Quellan arrived and conquered their cousins. Afterward, not a day passed when Ceredon didn’t see a member of the Ekreissar march a beaten and bloodied Dezren down the stairwell behind the palace. As he looked around now, locked in the very cell that had once held Aully, he saw evidence of what had happened to those poor souls. Their bones were stacked up in the nearby cells, ribcages on pelvic bones, on femurs, on skulls, large and small, adult and child. The walls were painted with their dried blood, a sickening brown and black, while patches of writhing white marked where thick chunks of flesh and innards had been cast aside. Flies buzzed around it all.
It was the most awful thing Ceredon had ever experienced, the macabre answer to his questions about what Clovis Crestwell did during his long hours locked away in the dungeon.
Ceredon was weak and starving, forced to sleep in the lone corner of the cell he had managed to clear of elven remains. Time dragged on, day and night indistinguishable, while he stared with ever-growing acceptance at the ruin that surrounded him. The torches on the corridor’s rough granite walls always burned brightly despite the fact none came to change them.
Even though his situation was hopeless, Ceredon did not give up, did not give in. He was the prince of the Quellan, the future Neyvar of his people. He would be strong for them. He had no choice. At least that was what he told himself.
His stomach rumbled, and he reclined in his corner and closed his eyes. At least the smell doesn’t bother me anymore, he thought. The rancid stench of decay had made his head spin at first. Now that sensation had passed, the reek becoming as normal to him as the scent of the flowering dogwoods that lingered in the air from spring until fall in Quellassar.
Thoughts of home brought back his concerns for his father. When he had first awoken in this terrible place, he’d expected the Neyvar to free him at any moment. In between bouts of nausea he would sit idly, hands wrapped around his knees, and watch the distant door to the outside world. But that door never opened. His conscience constantly chided him: He is ashamed of my failure and has disowned his only son. There were many moments in which Ceredon, who had never so much as shed a tear for as long as he could remember, felt close to crying.
“Did I do you wrong, Father?” he pleaded at the ceiling. “Did I not do as you wished? Please, tell me!”
You did not disappoint him, my child. He could not be prouder.
It was a woman’s voice, as soft and comforting as a velvet pillow, which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Ceredon’s eyes snapped open, darting this way and that, but he saw nothing but the desiccated corpses of a hundred Dezren. He winced in pain when he brought his hands up to his ears and shook his head. An odd sort of calm overcame him.
“Is this my punishment?” he asked. “For not acting in time? For allowing so many innocents to perish?”
You did what you could, my child, the voice said again. You have acted as a true hero should, with honor and dedication, with love for your goddess in your heart. No single elf can right all the wrongs in the world, but it takes a true hero to try.
“Celestia?” he whispered. This time the tears did flow.
I am here for you, my love, my greatest of creations, my righter of wrongs, but I do not wish for you to join my side just yet. You are my agent in the flesh, and you must go on.
His body grew numb as the fractured bones beneath his skin began to heal, the cuts and bruises disappearing from his body. He laughed then, the sound bouncing off the walls of the dungeon and coming back to him distorted, as if it had issued from the mouth of a demon from the abyss. It should have frightened him, but it did not.
You are loved, you are complete, the disembodied voice of the goddess said, answering his doubts.
Ceredon shook his head and wiped the tears from his cheeks.
“What would you have me do? Please, tell me.”
You must remain strong, my child. You must not give up hope, no matter how unbearable your existence might become. There is balance in all things, and the great pain you experience now will be rewarded tenfold in the many centuries to come.
“Will you not free me?” he asked. “Please, release me so I may confront those who have done evil in your name.”
That, I cannot do, she answered. You must find your own way, or your existence will mean nothing. But remember this—you are my children, never forgotten, never unloved. Trust me, Ceredon. Trust your goddess.
Ceredon stood and wrapped his hands around the bars to his cell, gazing into the flickering hall as if he might see Celestia in the lurking shadows.
“But what of the brother gods? Their war will consume and destroy us! If one of them finds victory over the other, what will become of us?”
There was a long pause in reply to his question, and for a moment he thought he had offended his goddess, that she had abandoned him. But soon the ethereal feeling of comfort washed over him again and she said three simple words: They are wrong.
Another sound reached his ears—a hard, clunking noise, like a sack of potatoes being dragged across uneven ground. The handle of the door leading into the dungeon began to jiggle.
You must remember, the goddess said, that no matter what you see, no matter what is taken from you, you still have your life. That is what matters. Do not bend, my child. Do not break. Become like the mountain I love so dearly. Unyielding. Unmoving. Forever.
With that, she was gone, her essence leaving the dungeon just as the door flew open and struck the wall with a thud. As pounding footsteps approached, Ceredon held onto the words of his goddess. He stood tall in his cell and walked toward the bars.
It was Clovis Crestwell who approached his cell, though to call him a human any longer would have been akin to sacrilege. He wore no clothes, and Ceredon could see, for the first time, that there was not a strand of hair on his body. His flesh was stretched taut over musculature that seemed to shift from one moment to the next—first bulging, then retracting, then broadening again. His face was rippling as well, the jaw elongating, the brow distending, until all would suddenly snap back into place. It was if the human’s flesh was a prison that his insides could not wait to escape.
Clovis dragged two sacks behind him, one lar
ge and one small. He stopped when he reached Ceredon’s cell, his meaty fingers releasing the scrunched end of the larger bag. The smaller one he placed almost gingerly on the ground, propping it against the wall. That was when Clovis finally glanced at him, his eyes glowing a red so intense that looking at them would be enough to sap most mortals’ inner strength.
Ceredon did not turn away from whatever this man had become. He remained standing, the words of his goddess infusing his heart with power.
With a chuckle, Clovis turned away and bent over the larger sack, removing four long iron stakes from within. One after another he drove the stakes with his bare hands into the solid bedrock that formed the dungeon floor. Ceredon watched his show of strength with awe. Then, once all four stakes had been set, the beast of a man reached into the bag once more, creating a wet sloshing sound.
Clovis worked with his back to Ceredon, a back that had grown so wide that the elf could not see what he pulled from his bag. He watched the rippling shoulders tense as the arms came down, heard the thwump of something soggy being wedged atop the stake. Three more times Clovis repeated the task, until finally he sighed, cracked his neck, and stepped aside.
It took every ounce of faith in Ceredon to keep from screaming.
A head was propped atop each stake, eyes bulging in horror, mouths hanging open, lifeless tongues lolling. Ceredon took them in one by one, refusing to look away, etching the memory of their last expressions in his mind’s eye. There was Orden Thyne and Lady Phyrra, their flesh battered and bruised; Tantric Thane, his nose cut from his face, a wicked gash running from the right side of his lip to his stunted right ear, exposing broken teeth and blackening gums; and finally, and most horrifically, was Ruven Sinistel. The most grave of insults had been reserved for the Neyvar of the Quellan. His eyes had been plucked from his skull and now rested on his tongue, a pair of dead orbs staring from the center of his gaping mouth.
Unyielding. Unmoving. Forever.
“I thought you might like some company,” the man said, only it was not Clovis Crestwell who spoke. The dual voices were now singular—throaty, like the grunt of a wild boar.
Ceredon stared back at him with a façade of indifference. Inside, he was reeling.
Clovis breathed in deep, his chest expanding all the more. He stepped up to Ceredon’s cell, wrapped his fingers around the bars. The atrocity was mere feet from him, and Ceredon could smell the rankness of its breath.
“What are you?” he asked. Amazingly, his voice did not crack.
“I am the teeth in the dark, the shadow that descends over all, the devourer of races, the fire that burns all. I am the one after which the abyss was named.”
It was a stanza from a popular children’s story, told with a personalized touch. The story had been taught to nearly every elf child in all of Dezrel. It cannot be. He narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to the bars, determined to show no fear. The reek of the thing’s breath assaulted him anew.
“You know what I am,” Darakken said. It almost sounded like it was laughing.
Ceredon nodded, and the demon smiled, revealing row upon row of sharp teeth within that human mouth. Ceredon took another step closer, now near enough to grab the bars, positioning his hands just below the beast’s. The sharp-toothed smile faltered ever so slightly.
“You do not fear me?” the beast asked. Strangely, even with its deep, inhuman baritone, it sounded almost childlike.
“I do not,” Ceredon lied. “What is there to fear? All I once had has been stripped from me.” Though it nearly brought him to tears again, he pointed through the bars to the Neyvar’s head. “I do not have a father any longer, or a kingdom, or my freedom. There is nothing else of value you could take from me.”
“I could take your life.”
Ceredon threw his head back and laughed. It took a great amount of effort to do so.
“A life without freedom is no life at all,” he said. “There are a great many things worse than death.”
“And I am one of them,” the beast snarled.
“So I have heard.”
The demon in the Clovis suit plunged its hand through the bars, fingers wrapping tightly around Ceredon’s tunic. The beast yanked him so hard that his forehead smacked against the iron, bringing stars to his vision. Still, he refused to show his terror.
“You will fear Darakken,” the beast said.
“I will not.”
It glanced down at itself. “This body is not menacing enough?” it said.
“That is part of it.”
The meaty fingers released him, and Ceredon dropped back down onto the balls of his feet, rubbing the lump that was rapidly growing above his left eye. It was a wholly casual action, and Darakken’s head tilted to the side, those glowing red eyes studying him as if he were some puzzle to be solved. The thing whirled around suddenly and snatched the smaller satchel off the floor. It tore apart the twine binding it, yanked a large tome from within, and held it up for Ceredon’s inspection. It was a large book, nearly a foot and a half tall and a foot wide. Strangely, its leather cover was adorned with the three stars symbolizing the cooperation of the three gods of Dezrel.
“This vessel,” Darakken said, “is a prison.”
“The body of the human Crestwell?”
The beast nodded. “A weak vessel.” The thing laughed, revealing those sharp teeth once more. “It might have been forged by the hands of the gods themselves, but it was still a slave to human needs and despair. And just like all mortal beings, when its soul was wrapped in that despair, it ebbed away, leaving this body to Darakken and Darakken alone.”
“What brought about this despair?”
“News from afar,” the beast said. “An unexpected gift from Darakken’s creator.”
Ceredon drew back, squinting. He recalled the young human Boris Morneau, the newcomer to Dezerea who had assisted him on his quest for water.
“The soldier,” he whispered. “The one with the scar beneath his eye.”
“Yes. A useful mortal, that one.”
“What did he bring you?”
“News of the death of the vessel’s wife. News that Karak, a fraction of the mighty Kaurthulos, changed his mind. And this.” Darakken lifted the book even higher.
“What is it?”
“The journal of the one who swallowed my brother.”
He leaned forward, staring at the book, but the beast yanked it away quickly, as if Ceredon might try to reach through the bars and snatch the book from it.
“It is mostly useless, save for a few wondrous pages. But those pages hold the key to my rebirth.”
“Rebirth?” asked Ceredon, dreading what it might mean.
The beast inclined its head, staring at him from beneath its brow.
“The means to rebuild my true form.”
Ceredon pursed his lips and fell back a step. It was an involuntary motion, but one that did not go unnoticed. The beast chuckled then, issuing coughlike fits of laughter that flung pink spittle from its almost human maw.
“So you do fear me,” the demon said.
Ceredon gathered himself, shook his head, and defiantly stepped toward it once more. “I do not, and I do not fear death. Come and cut me down. End this game.”
The beast seemed uncertain, its fingers flexing. For a moment, Ceredon thought it looked as if Darakken were afraid of him.
“No,” the demon finally said in a growl. “You must live, elf. You must watch as Darakken leads your people into war, as their lifeblood is spilled, and you must look on in horror as I use that blood to bring the order of Karak to this land. You must watch”—the glow of its eyes intensified, appearing more hopeful than confident—“and you must understand.”
“And if I do not?”
The beast tucked the journal beneath its arm and slammed a fist into the bars. Anger washed away the beast’s doubt. “You elves are not timeless, but your lives are long. I will have plenty of time to teach you the glory of dread. Until then, make peace
with your father…or what is left of him.” The beast licked its fingers and grinned wickedly. “The rest of him…was delicious.”
The creature pivoted on its heels and lurched away. The heavy door to the dungeon slammed a few moments later. Ceredon closed his eyes, said another prayer to Celestia, and then sat down, cross-legged, on the floor. When he opened his eyes he stared directly at the four heads, focusing on his father’s in particular. A chill worked its way up his spine.
“Orden Thyne, Phyrra Thyne, Tantric Thane, Ruven Sinistel,” he whispered in reverence. “For you, and with Celestia in my heart, I will show no fear, no matter what may come.…”
CHAPTER
43
The raft system that led over the relatively calm waters of the Corinth River was intact. Aully stood on the bank and looked around nervously. There had been no signs of danger in their journey to the edge of Stonewood: no warnings, no traps, no eyes spying on them from the treetops. In fact, to Aully it seemed suspicious because of its normalcy, for the most dangerous monsters lurked in the quiet.
The Corinth was a relatively slender river, only three hundred feet across at its widest. The raft system had been built where it was a mere sixty feet across. Three lengths of thick rope were secured to the trees on either side of the river, one running the length of the span, five feet off the water, the other two fastened to either side of the rickety raft. All one had to do was stand on that raft and use the upper rope to guide it across. Not that the system was necessary under normal circumstances: the Corinth possessed a gentle current that lent itself to swimming. Aully herself had crossed the river many times that way. Yet when she glanced at her people, all of whom were carrying weapons from the cache found along the coast of Ang, she was grateful for the alternate mode of transportation.
“If we aren’t ready now, we never will be,” Lady Audrianna said after Aaromor used the pulley system to lug the raft from the other side of the river. The Lady of Stonewood stepped onto it without another word.
Wrath of Lions Page 60