Step-by-step he made his way toward the embrace of oblivion, eyes only for the glory before him, as the Deceiver had eyes only for him. As a consequence, neither was aware of any other presence until Elora blindsided Thorn like a charging ram and sent the pair of them crashing off the dais and over the lip of the first pew, to the feet of Kieron Dineer.
“There’s hope for you yet,” he said with a shy, slight grin that encompassed them both.
“Who?” gabbled Thorn, shaken by how easily he’d been snared, at the same time placing where he’d seen the lad’s face before, in the Faery Queen’s apartments. “What? Where?”
“You’d better go,” was the reply. “Things here, I suspect, are about to turn very nasty. The city won’t be safe.”
“Who are you?” Elora demanded.
“One who wishes you well. You saw, and named, me truly before; it’s one of your Gifts, no falsehood can for long beguile you. Now do as I say, and quickly.”
He stood, catching the Deceiver’s next attack full in the chest, and both Thorn and Elora quailed beneath him, instinctively trying to make themselves as small as possible, while human guise peeled way before the burning onslaught like the layers of an onion. Kieron’s flesh stretched high and wide, clawed forelimbs gouging parallel scars in the pristine stone as the crest of its towering head brushed the ceiling. Sinuous neck, leading to a body of such strength that a single sweep of its wings could generate a wind capable of tearing full-grown oaks from the ground. What they’d thought was costume now stood revealed as the magnificent creature’s skin, which glittered with an iridescent life of its own, a cascading riot of brilliance that left not one color true to itself but ran them all together in a never-ending exercise of pure creation. Thorn thought of a field of grass, rippling in the wind, the shape and texture of the stalks changing with the breeze; this was much the same, only instead of variations on a single color theme, this embraced them all, from those common in life to others that existed only in dreams. He’d never seen such beauty. Beside him, sharing both thought and imagery through the link they shared, Elora smiled in wonder and delight.
That was the only moment they had to enjoy it, for with the manifestation of the dragon came the realization that it was in as desperate a fight for life as they were, with an outcome just as much in doubt.
Down every aisle came the Vizards, halberds leveled, and Thorn covered Elora’s body with his own as the dragon struck out with head and tail and dashed a double score of masked figures aside, clearing a path for them to the main entrance. Thorn didn’t wait for urging, he was on his feet—Elora tightly in hand—and scrambling for the exit before the last bodies fell.
Unfortunately, the Deceiver wasn’t about to let them go quite that easily. Thorn heard a volley of Words flung after them, and his heart stutter-stepped as he registered the implications of the spell. Each element was potent unto itself; combined, they formed an enchantment whose power was equaled only by its unspeakable foulness. With sick desperation, because he knew he was too late, he pivoted Elora behind him, placing his body between her and the dais and summoned a shielding spell to protect them.
As much use as raising a piece of paper to stop a charging knight’s lance.
Ice slapped him in the face, the flames freezing every bit of moisture in the air, and casting them about in a hurricane vortex that made them as vicious as tiny blades. This fortunately was something he could defend himself against, but their force was such that they were still able to draw blood before he could fully block them. The Deceiver extended a hand and Thorn braced himself for what was to come.
It was Elora, though, who screamed.
Her eyes blazed with the same awful fire as the figure on the dais, her arms outstretched, back arching to full extension, so much so that her body was drawn up on tiptoe. Thorn knew at once what was happening: the Deceiver had summoned the Powers with his spell, but—for no reason the Nelwyn could fathom—was channeling them through Elora. Energy so raw and primal it burned his eyes to behold it, exploded from her. Instinct made him hurl snares of his own to catch them, but they avoided his grasp with infernal ease; the couple of times he was successful, his own enchantments were shredded in a twinkling. Not so much that the power was greater than his, but the sheer knowledge, the skill, of the creature on the dais beggared his own; the Deceiver operated on a level he never imagined even existed until he met the Demon, much less one he hoped to attain.
“Forgive me for this, Peck,” he heard from his foe in a voice deeply colored with sorrow and regret, and he knew in that instant he was dead. “But know at least this is for the best of causes.”
Elora screamed again, and with that cry gave voice to even more bursts of energy. Thorn knew the touch of one would be the doom of him, racked his wits for some means of turning the attack away as the contrails of flame rose over him like serpents poised to strike, refusing to acknowledge even a hint of despair, much less yield to it.
But the blow never fell, at least against him. While Thorn watched, aghast, every element of the Deceiver’s attack was turned from him to the dragon, who made no effort to deflect them as they ripped into him, each plunging deep as a spear and, he knew, with as deadly an effect. As fast as the Deceiver poured his infernal energies into Elora, Kieron drew them to himself.
Thorn made a desperate grab for the girl, only to reel away in flames himself, sacrificing the last of his own circle of protection to douse the fire before it could consume him.
“What have you done to her?” Thorn screamed, a shipmaster into the teeth of the gale that means to sink him. This is no good, he raged to himself, she and the Deceiver, they burn with the same fire, they’re each as deadly to the touch as the other, how in the blessed, bleeding hells can that be? The dragon’s keeping her from being consumed—I’ll owe him and his beyond death for that—but there’s still more Power coursing through her than I can safely cope with.
“Shown her, as I will you, Peck, the true path of Destiny,” came the self-satisfied reply. The battle was taking more effort than the Deceiver had anticipated, but he had no doubt any longer of the eventual outcome.
The dragon’s sparkle was fading, turning silver like everyone else within the hall. Yet when Kieron looked a last time at Thorn, a glance that took in Elora as well, there was a frightening smile in its eyes, a twitch of genuine humor to the back curve of its mouth. A sureness that all was far from lost, that hope still remained.
Its great head snapped forward, and honest flame leaped forth to counter the lunar cold, a gout of raw heat sufficient to put the molten heart of the world to shame, as though every scrap of what it had absorbed from Elora had been transformed within itself. Now, at long last, it was the Deceiver who was put on the defensive, as scarlet streamers danced around silver ones. He didn’t seem to mind; indeed, it was as if he relished this test of his abilities, measuring his true worth by that of his foe. For the briefest of moments he was wholly enveloped, the glare of the dragon’s breath tinting the skylight above so that the moon itself shone scarlet. But its effort was like a candle, shining most brightly the instant before going out, as a lance of incandescence burned the air between the Deceiver’s outstretched arms and the dragon’s breast. A great light burst within the huge creature, its head snapping upward as though some force had cracked its neck like a bullwhip; flame scored the ceiling, marring the designs of every seal, turning from scarlet to silver, from absolutes of heat to those of cold with such force and intensity that the core crystal of the skylight broke with a terrible crack, worse than the sound of any bone giving way. Then, almost all turned to silver, save for the color of its eyes, Kieron turned its gaze on the Deceiver, with a look as full of compassion as of sorrow. Not for its own passing, but for the soul of its slayer.
It fell, with a crash that shook the tower to its foundations and made those watching and waiting below wonder nervously of earthquakes. As the dragon collapsed it took with it w
hatever remained of the power that had manifested through Elora, so that she collapsed as well, into a boneless heap that Thorn caught before she struck the floor.
At first, the Deceiver was too flush with its own triumph to realize what had actually happened. Thorn, however, saw at once. The crest of the Kieron’s head stood far higher than the Deceiver’s, cutting off his view of them.
He had at best a few seconds to act.
He settled Elora in his arms as best he could and placed his right hand flat on the flagstone floor, casting forth a charge of warmth to remind the stone of what it had been, his undertaking rewarded by a change in color and aspect.
He spoke quickly, hoping the stone would understand his need for haste. The fabric of the floor changed, and he knew his gateway had opened. He didn’t look back, didn’t hesitate in the slightest—do so and he and Elora would both be lost—he simply dove in, as though it were a pool of water.
Nicely done.
“Where are you leading me?” he demanded of the Demon, sensing from the first this wasn’t the route he’d come. They were moving far faster than before and not because the stony bulwarks of the castle were being any more accommodating.
Think you that your adversary can’t spy your trail? Maybe not the way you’re going, but of a certainty the way you’ve been.
“You’re not so helpless as you let on.”
Why rattle chains when all that’ll do is bring on heavier ones, more tightly fastened? The less they knew, the more I could do.
“But now they’ll know.”
That they will.
“I can’t leave,” he said hurriedly, “not without my friends.”
A terrible risk for so small a reward.
“I’ll be the judge of that. Do you know where they are?”
This is a mistake.
“Take me to them,” he snapped. And then: “Please.”
We are there.
It was Elora’s garden. The transition was instantaneous—first there was darkness, combined with the sensation of being covered all over with down cushions, with pressure applied to every inch of his body and resistance to every movement. Then, suddenly, freedom, the medium of stone exchanged for that of air, so stark a difference that he emerged like one shot from a catapult, almost pratfalling before regaining his balance and bringing himself to a stop.
“Franjean,” he called, aloud and with his thoughts. “Rool!”
“By all the Powers,” came Franjean’s reply from around the corner, “what have you been playing at?”
“About given up on you, Drumheller,” said Rool.
They came into view. They stopped. They stared.
“Come on,” he whispered, without daring a backward glance toward Elora’s hall, as though not looking meant nothing was happening. “There’s no time, we’ve got to go!”
Franjean’s face twisted ugly with hatred and when he spoke; he made his words as harsh and cutting as any weapon.
“Demon!” he cried.
“No,” Thorn protested, and tried to reach them with his InSight.
Rool said nothing. The weapons he used were the real thing, Thorn using his Power to bat aside a thorn arrow that was aimed at his heart. He lunged forward, but Rool leaped clear, slashing at his grasping hand with one of his bone swords, the pair of them disappearing from sight into the nearest of Elora’s flower beds.
“What are you doing?” he shouted. “It’s me, Thorn!”
He wanted to search, but the Demon wouldn’t let him by opening a portal in the ground beneath his feet and dropping him back into the embrace of the tower stones.
“They didn’t know me,” he stammered as he felt himself being rushed along.
Knew you only too well, meat.
“Damn you, monster, what have you done to me?”
Change in states of being, one of the things that makes existence interesting.
“That’s no answer!”
Done, little mage? Nothing. You freely took what was freely offered, both Power and price. There is Demon in your soul, Drumheller, for now and ever…
The Demon paused a moment and when it spoke next Thorn sensed the smallest smile in its voice.
…as there is Nelwyn in mine. Which of us got the better of the barter, do you wonder?
“There has to be a way to get them free of here!”
Their choice, their fate. Worry more about your own.
“What about yours? Will the Deceiver do you harm?”
Does it matter?
Thorn wasn’t surprised to discover that it did.
So long as my child is safe, I am content.
“I wish that was a promise I could keep, but I couldn’t even protect Elora Danan.”
Bitterness ill becomes you, mage.
“I don’t like being beaten. I don’t like being forced to run.”
Thought Daikinis were built to stand and fight. Nelwyns made of smarter stuff.
“This isn’t a moment for epigrams, I’m sorry.”
You have life and freedom and Elora. Could be worse. Build on that, try again. Fin Raziel wasn’t reborn in a day, remember.
“For all the good that ultimately did. No matter how hard we strived, no matter how many victories we won, Evil abides.”
Silly little mage—does not Good?
Thorn’s next movement pushed him into open air, and a bracing chill painfully close to that of Elora’s hall. His foot skidded on cobblestones, and breath hissed from the pain of a twisted ankle, forcing him to set Elora on her feet to keep them both from falling.
Hands caught them on either side, and for that first flash, he thought they’d been recaptured.
“Blessed Bride,” said Geryn, “where’d you come from? Not to worry,” he continued in a rush, taking most of Elora’s weight, “I’ve got the lass.”
Thorn saw frost on every exhalation; eyes followed the hand on his arm upward past a shoulder to a woman’s face. Geryn had been true to his word, and found Khory a decent set of clothes: knee-high riding boots and buckskin breeches, cotton shirt, leather tunic, and a sheepskin-lined vest, all belted at the waist. There was a tattoo over her left eye, so intense and colorful he didn’t understand why he’d missed it earlier, that filled in the whole of the brow ridge of her eye socket and then flared up and out along the flank of her skull until it met the hairline. To Thorn, it most closely resembled the feathering of a raptor’s face, as if that eye had been transposed from some great hunting bird.
“Thank you,” he told her; and gentled free of her grasp. She answered him with a quick and ready smile that was a disconcerting reminder of his own.
“Why’s it so cold?” he asked as they moved along the passage to where a clutch of horses stamped their hooves nervously.
Khory tapped his arm, pointed with her chin, but in truth he’d intuited the answer the moment he’d framed the question. The direction she indicated was simply confirmation.
Elora’s Aerie burned. As though the Deceiver had set it alight with the same witchflames that had ensheathed it. The magical blaze extended down the column for possibly a quarter of its length, but already the flames were having a perceptible effect on the surrounding city. It wouldn’t stop when it reached the bottom, either, he knew. As within her hall, these eldritch flames didn’t give off warmth, they absorbed it, sending the air temperature in the vicinity of the palace plunging.
“We have to go,” he said.
“Suits me,” replied Geryn. “But where?”
“As far and as fast as we can manage.”
Admirable goal; achieving it wasn’t so easy. Geryn had a quartet of Daikini warhorses standing nervously at hand, their eyes wide and ears back flat against their skulls, more than ready to run. Problem was, the Pathfinder was the only one among them who could properly ride. Thorn was most comfortable on a pony; with proper adjustments to the saddle, he coul
d manage a full-sized horse, but these animals were so big he could walk upright beneath their bellies and still have room to spare. Khory hadn’t a clue of what was required.
He gave Elora—thankfully, still unconscious—to Geryn’s charge, the young man setting her before him on his saddle, looping the reins of the other horse about his pommel. Thorn had Khory set him in place and used InSight to reach into the animal’s mind, immediately feeling a thrill from its nerves to his, as he’d feel in the midst of a lightning storm when the sky was as super-saturated with energy as rain.
Small wonder the animals are so upset, he thought, if this is what the night feels to them.
He cast an image back to Khory of what was required of her, and to his delight, she swung herself with lithe abandon into the saddle. She tried her best to fit feet to stirrups and use her legs to anchor her in place, but they both quickly found a limit to her expertise. Thorn held tight to the reins, Khory to both him and the pommel.
It was Geryn got them going, with a tap of the heels that sent his mount on its way as though shot from a spring cannon. Thorn’s charger needed no urging to follow; indeed, he had to haul tight on the reins, adding to it a fair measure of calming thoughts, to keep the animal from running away in blind panic. The two riderless horses followed, happy to be led from this awful place.
The city was chaos. Whatever people had expected from Elora’s Ascension, this wasn’t it and they weren’t taking it well. The main thoroughfares were blocked, and from the sights and sounds of the downtown mercantile district, more than a few were using the opportunity to enrich themselves. One of the warehouses was ablaze, but its flames were no match, in color or intensity, for the silver conflagration engulfing the tower. Geryn found them a roundabout route away from the heart of the disturbances, holding mostly to residential side streets and keeping their pace at a steady walk.
“No sense in headlong flight until we’ve a proper clear road ahead,” he told them over his shoulder. “Don’t want to push too hard, too soon; we want these horses to last. Don’t want ’em panicked, neither. Nor hurt, they take a misstep on cobbles.”
Shadow Moon Page 28