by Rick Shelley
There was more than merely the difference in brute power between them. Satan moved with incredible agility and deceptive grace. It was all that Silvas could manage to meet each attack as it came. At every passage, Silvas came within a whisker of total defeat. Death. The two of them danced around each other's blades as Silvas retreated and turned, trying to stave off destruction for as long as possible. In vain, he tried to find a spell that would carry him out of the Devil's reach.
A blow from the claymore cut Silvas's shield in half, just above his forearm. The leather straps that had held the shield to his arm were severed, and both halves fell. Silvas adjusted his stance to fight without the shield and continued to retreat.
Satan's next blow dented the armor covering Silvas's left arm, and from the new stickiness the wizard god felt, he knew that the arm was cut as well. It seemed a miracle that the bone had not been broken-shattered-but Silvas could still move the fingers of his left hand, though it brought excruciating pain.
Silvas scarcely managed to jump aside, away from the next blow. The tip of Satan's sword scored his cheek in the opening below his half visor. Silvas used his blade to beat at the side of Satan's claymore, able to do no more than deflect it a few inches from its course. Satan laughed repeatedly.
"See, I but toy with you, to remind you of your mortality, immortal though you may think yourself. Whenever I choose, this exercise will end, and so will you. Mayhap I'll let you join the legions who pray for a deliverance that can never come. Or I may dispatch you straightaway, and take even the solace of that tormented existence from you."
Then a cold white light appeared in the chamber, off to the side, completely alien to the locale and shatteringly brilliant against the duller colors to which Silvas had become accustomed. He had to squint against the sudden brightness. Even Satan appeared to be disconcerted by the apparition.
Silvas could spare no more than the briefest glance. He needed to concentrate on his defenses. Satan's hesitation might be quite brief. Silvas saw Maria and Brother Paul standing in the patch of white light, on an elevation ten feet above his head and perhaps a hundred feet away. They were several feet from each other. Maria had her arms up, fingers pointed directly at the Devil. The monk also had his hands raised, but they held his crucifix-as weapon and shield.
Silvas moved forward, taking what advantage he could from the temporary lapse in Satan's assault. He beat the longer sword off to the side and struck toward the Devil's uncovered head. For the moment, Satan seemed completely nonplussed. He warded off Silvas's blow with unaccustomed awkwardness, trying to divide his attention between Silvas and the unexpected newcomers. He gave way for the first time in the duel, backing up one step and then another, trying to turn Silvas so he could more directly look at the two figures who had appeared to complicate his game.
While he could, Silvas pressed his advantage, belaboring Satan with as many strokes as he could manage while his mind reestablished its intimate link to Maria.
Maria felt the contact, but she let Silvas worry about maintaining it. She had more than enough to do to advance his own plans. Only desperation-the fear of losing half of herself, or more-gave her the strength and determination to even attempt it.
"There is the enemy," she told Brother Paul. "You know who he is."
Brother Paul was terrified almost to the death, his mind driven to a madness he dared not accept. He felt a pain that was physical as well as spiritual. He had recognized the Devil in his soul. At this pass, the monk could do nothing more than retreat into the basics of his faith, the open teachings of the Church and such minor magics as he had possessed as a minor adept of the White Brotherhood, magics that had never been designed for a pass such as this. But he put every ounce of his being into that little power, focusing himself as he had never before been able to.
Maria took the active lead once she felt Silvas firmly within her mind. She linked Brother Paul to the two of them, as directly as she dared, pouring a certain amount of knowledge-power-into him. At first, Paul's knees seemed ready to fail under the new burden, but then he firmed his stance and squared his shoulders. His voice found new power, and moved from familiar rituals to chant in unison with Silvas and Maria.
The white light spread slowly toward the duelists, a growing globe at the end of a tether that was anchored around Maria and Paul. Silvas felt himself strengthened by the bleak white illumination which so clearly oppressed the Devil. Silvas pressed forward. Satan gave up one step after another while he tried to reach out to counteract this new power.
But the three did not give him time. The ground, the air itself, seemed to freeze as the white light encompassed more and more of the cavern, and when that light finally touched Satan, he slowed down even more-until he stood motionless, except for his eyes.
"I don't know how long this will hold," Maria shouted to Silvas. "We need to be far away before he frees himself."
For a moment, Silvas stood with his sword raised, hilt held in both hands, prepared for a death stroke at Satan's neck, a blow such as he had struck at the black knight that had disrupted his earlier excursion with Maria. But a voice within him stayed the blow. You cannot harm him thus, and the stroke might only serve to free him to resume the fight. You dare not take that chance.
Bringing the sword down without striking at Satan was incredibly difficult. Silvas's arms, and the sword itself, seemed possessed of a contrary will, and power of their own. Maria and Paul ran to Silvas, hopping down from one level of the cavern to the next.
"Come, hurry," Maria urged. "I have our passage out."
"We will meet again," Satan promised as they ran from him. "I can never be defeated for long."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The central section of the pentagram in Silvas's workshop was crowded with three people in it, particularly since Silvas still wore the armor he had conjured for himself in Hell. Despite the fact that both Maria and Brother Paul were thin, there was scarcely room for any of them to move in the minutes it took Maria to shut down the pentagram so that they could safely exit the pattern. Although she possessed all of Silvas's memories, she was unaccustomed to the active manipulation of this magic, so she felt constrained to move with exceptional care, and very slowly.
Silvas was unable to do much. He needed Maria's steadying hand simply to remain erect. When they finally left the pentagram, Silvas got clear of the outer lines and sank to his knees, then went forward on all fours and finally prone, his arms splaying out to the sides. Maria quickly knelt next to him. Paul stood on the other side, still in shock. The memory of his few moments in perdition were burned into his mind, replaying themselves already, a waking nightmare.
"Help me get this armor off," Maria said sharply. She was concerned about Silvas's condition, but saw that it was mostly extreme exhaustion; Satan had not seriously wounded him. Mentally, Maria told Koshka to bring refreshments to the workshop. Satin and Velvet were uncommonly slow to emerge from their protective circles at the edge of the room. They paced forward carefully, but did not come too close to Silvas. They looked at each other, then to Maria.
"He'll be fine," she assured the cats, and Paul. "You've seen him hurt before."
Getting the armor off of Silvas was an awkward business. He was completely unable to help. Maria loosened straps and turned him as necessary to free him from the metal. Brother Paul proved to be of minimal help. Not only was armor and its connections a mystery to him, his hands were shaking out of control and he seemed to lack all coordination. Maria beamed a quick calming spell at the monk, but she had to devote most of her attention to Silvas. The sense of his presence was dim.
Stay with me, my hero, she projected. Don't retreat so far. Silvas was not wounded to the point of death, he merely seemed to be pulling away from his body, as if he were prepared to abandon it permanently. Maria marshaled determination and strength, and sent them into the spark that remained centered within the core of Silvas's physical body. Once the armor was off of him, Silvas seemed to breath
e more easily. His chest rose and fell as he fought for air, and his struggles brought his mind back. He became involved in the fight for his own survival.
"The greatest danger is past now," Maria told Brother Paul after several minutes of effort. "He'll return to us shortly." Already, she could feel the contact between her and Silvas growing stronger. Silvas was not paying much attention to the link they shared yet, but that link was becoming firm again. Silvas seemed to have not yet reached it, as if the link were a physical location somewhere within his being.
We can be separated, became a real worry for Maria. For the first time she had seen that the link between them was not proof against all happenstance. They had almost been separated while he was distant, and even now the link seemed tenuous, vulnerable, though both of them were grasping across it.
Silvas finally stirred on the floor. He drew his arms in to his side, and brought his legs together, as if he were worried that he might still be within the pentagram, in danger of touching one of the lines of power. The movements were slow and uncoordinated. But there was movement.
Brother Paul sat back heavily, gasping, suddenly unable to control the greedy chase for air. He became dizzy and had to lower his head. After a moment, the dizziness passed. He tried to focus on the room in front of him, on Silvas's face, or Maria's face-anything to keep from returning to the confrontation in his mind, the memory of facing the Devil in his stronghold.
"Go up those stairs over there," Maria told the friar. She spoke sharply, making her voice harsh, and pointed to the side of the workshop. "There's a small turret. Look out and see what morning has brought to the valley." Paul would be of no help to her in the workshop. Perhaps this chore would help him to gather his wits.
Paul stumbled as he got to his feet, and he nearly fell before he regained his balance. He staggered across to the doorway and the narrow stairs leading upward, grateful for some task to focus on.
Maria turned her attention away from the monk and continued to pour energy through to Silvas. He groaned and opened his eyes-but only briefly.
"You're safe now," Maria said, speaking to strengthen Silvas's ties to his body. "We're in the workroom. It's dawn, a new day. The Seven Towers still stand."
Silvas's eyelids flickered several times, but his eyes had drooped closed again and did not reopen. Maria finally took time to look more closely at the body that he had almost abandoned. The skin of his face and neck was red, burned. His left sleeve was ripped and bloody. There was a long, jagged cut in the upper arm. The cut had stopped bleeding, but the skin around it was badly bruised and inflamed. Maria put the palm of her right hand over the area-it was painfully hot to the touch-spoke a word of power, and the wound vanished.
Silvas's face was also burning to her touch. Maria spoke soft words of healing and took the heat into her hands. Silvas's face remained red, but his temperature decreased.
Koshka came in with a tray. Maria did not turn around quickly enough to see the first flash of alarm on Koshka's face, but she did sense his worry.
"He'll be all right, Koshka. He faced a deadly enemy and survived. Did you bring wine?"
"Wine and orange juice, my lady," Koshka said, fighting not to stutter over the words. "And food."
"Has breakfast begun in the great hall yet?"
"The folk are just gathering, my lady."
"I think we'll try to come down shortly, Koshka. Silvas will need a full feeding this morning."
"Aye, my lady. Where shall I set this?"
"Right here at my side."
After Koshka left, Maria raised Silvas's head and poured a little wine into his mouth. He coughed and sputtered, and finally opened his eyes again. Maria held the goblet to his lips, and he managed to drink on his own.
"That was a near thing," he said.
"Very near," Maria agreed. I'm not ready to lose you. I can't bear this gift alone.
Silvas sat up with only a little help. Maria gave him a goblet of orange juice, and he drank it down. Then he leaned forward to reach the tray and started taking indelicate handfuls of the usual fruit and cheese selection, simply shoving food into his mouth to assuage ravenous hunger, completely unconcerned with delicacy. His mind was virtually blank during these first moments, concerned only with the need to eat. His focus was so intense that Maria became nearly as hungry herself.
"Where is Brother Paul?" Silvas asked after several minutes had passed.
"I sent him to look out the turret to see what the new day is like." Maria glanced toward the stairs. "He should be back by now."
As if he had been waiting for a cue, Paul came down the stairs and into the workshop. He appeared visibly relieved that Silvas was sitting up and eating, but his forehead was knotted in puzzlement.
"The sky," he said. "I've never seen a sky like that, filled with every color of the rainbow. The sun shimmers gracefully through it. I could scarcely take my eyes from the sight."
"We know of the sky," Maria said. "One of the old gods ceiled over this valley, to put us apart from all other men. Silvas and I strengthened that shield and made it our own."
Silvas stopped eating and wiped his hands on his tattered clothing. "Yes, I want to see how our handiwork looks in the daylight."
"I told Koshka that we would be going down to the great hall for breakfast," Maria said. "He was concerned to see you lying unconscious."
"Breakfast. Yes, that's a good idea," Silvas said. "I need more substantial food than this. Meat and eggs and whatever else the cooks have prepared this morning."
"We can take a moment for you to change clothes," Maria said, looking at his ragged clothing.
"Yes, this took quite a beating in Hell." There was no levity in his voice, but neither was there fear.
Silvas got to his feet without help. He stood and stretched, bending at each joint, extending arms and legs in turn, reveling in the feel of a body that still functioned. Then he looked at Brother Paul.
"You've had a troubling welcome to the Glade," Silvas said.
"So much has happened to me this week past that my mind is numb. I hardly have time to get past my amazement at the way you summoned me from St. Ives, and I find myself going to Hell to face Satan. If the horn should blow right now for Judgment Day, I could scarcely take comfort, or surprise."
Silvas looked from Paul to Maria. "I don't know if even Judgment Day would bring an end to our labors, or to our peril."
"There'll be time enough for philosophy later," Maria said. "For now, to breakfast. Brother Paul, you must be famished. You've had heavy labor, and you said you had been fasting."
"It's been two days and three nights since food last passed my lips," Paul said. "I think. I no longer rightly remember."
– |The three of them spent more than an hour at breakfast. Brother Paul broke his fast greedily. Maria ate with more abandon than she normally did, her appetite heightened by the strength of Silvas's hunger. And Silvas's appetite remained unabated until the very end of the meal. The warriors and workers of the Glade ate their own breakfasts and watched in varying amounts of wonder as the three at the head table consumed their food as if they had not eaten in weeks. The example set some to eat more than their accustomed portion, while it put others entirely off their own appetites.
But Silvas did not rise to give any warning of danger, so most of the humans, gurnetz, and esperia finally relaxed, either to return to their own eating or to go out to their work without special worry. By the time the three people at the head table finished eating, most of the other tables were empty. Servants were clearing the tables of the remnants of the morning meal.
Silvas leaned back finally, so sated that he thought he could not eat so much as one more grape. He looked around the great hall and then at his companions. Maria was at his right, Paul at his left. Maria had finished eating considerably before Silvas, and even Paul had been doing no more than picking at food for ten minutes or more.
"If gluttony remains a sin, then I have sinned," Paul said when he met Si
lvas's gaze. The monk felt more than sated, almost physically ill at the quantity of food he had consumed after his fast. His head felt strangely light, and his stomach was already complaining.
"Then so have I," Silvas replied with a laugh. "I wouldn't worry about it. You've gone beyond the open teachings of the Church, and even beyond the Greater Mysteries of your brotherhood in this last night. We've all gone into a territory that few of this world have ever seen and returned from."
"Just what did you see?" Maria asked. "Much of your experience is veiled, even from me."
A cloud seemed to pass across Silvas's eyes. He felt memories of agony and took a deep breath to settle it. "I've walled it off from myself as well, for now at least," he said. "We won't speak of it here. I still want to see the sky. I want to see the dome that lies over our valley from the highest vantage of the Seven Towers. Now that we have all filled our bellies, we should have the strength to climb to the parapets."
It was a trek that Silvas made but rarely. For so many centuries he had spent most of his days either on the road or in the villages and towns of the realm that he seldom had the opportunity or need to climb the 150 steps from the main level of the keep to its parapets, the highest of the castle's seven towers. Satin and Velvet met them on the stairs as they passed the level of the wizard's apartments.
There was a single human guard on duty when they arrived. He walked the perimeter, looking out through each of the crenels that he passed. The guard looked to Silvas when the wizard and his companions emerged from the doorway at the top of the stairs.
"Pay us no mind," Silvas told him. "We merely came to look. Go down to the level below until we finish, if you please. Take a rest from your watch."
"Aye, my lord." The guard hurried to obey.
"Look at that sky!" Silvas said after the sentry was gone. "Though it still worries me that one of the gods sought to seal us away from the world, that is a magnificent sky. I could glory in it for hours."