The Demon's Blade

by Steven Drake

  Chapter 14: Dreams and Visions

  A moment after sleep took him, Darien found himself standing in the main hall of Shade Castle, surrounded by frozen figures. They neither moved nor spoke, standing in place, actors upon a stage, waiting on some unseen queue. The dreams always began this way, and by now the sharp mind of the Executioner was well aware what he was witnessing was not real, only a ghostly echo of a past that no longer felt entirely his. This particular dream, however, was not familiar. He guessed that he was about to witness the memory he had been searching for during his earlier conversation with Jerris.

  The Master sat upon his throne in the main hall. To his left, the corpselike figure of Avirosa the Wraith stood glaring down at the shackled form of Kirin. A black shadow hung over Avirosa’s left shoulder, formless, dark, and ominous. Something should be there, something important, but try as he might, Darien could not remember what it was. Other figures were standing all around, witnessing the spectacle, but none were recognizable, their faces replaced with blurred colors, or empty darkness. Beyond a few feet away, everything faded into a gray brown haze. Darien stood to the right of the Master, unable to move or speak, awaiting the moment when the motionless actors would begin the terrible dance. Finally, the scene lurched into motion and the air filled with sound, the hum of hundreds of voices in the crowd of faceless apparitions whispering to one another.

  "The accuser shall now read the charges," the Master bellowed loudly over the hum of the audience.

  It was the Wraith who spoke first, in his raspy hissing voice. "The traitor Kirin stands accused of high treason against the most just and worthy Master of the Order of the Shade. He has consorted and convened with the enemies of the Order of the Shade, violated the most sacred oaths of secrecy and loyalty to our order, plotted the assassination of fellow members of the order, and aided the rebels of Palama in their defiance of the Master's just rule." Darien listened, knowing the truth of the charges, but disbelieving all the same. Darien’s former teacher, Kirin the Hollow Eyed, knelt with his head down, his long blond hair fallen over his face. He had been bound by shackles which effectively nullified his magical energies. Darien hated seeing him this way, fallen, defeated, disgraced, and condemned.

  "So says the Accuser. What says the Accused?" The Master's piercing, inhuman voice echoed in the hall.

  "I have nothing to say to you," Kirin sneered at the Master. "To fill your ranks, you promise justice and order, but you only lust for power. You are beyond all hope of redemption, but I would speak to my accusers before my inevitable execution."

  "Ho, ho!" The Master cackled. "Speak then. This is your trial, deny the charges or beg for mercy as you like. Justice shall be served either way."

  “Avirosa,” Kirin stared up at the pallid assassin. “You are a coward. How long have you stalked my steps to discover my plans, to gather enough evidence to bring me here? All because you were too weak to face me. You might have taken me by surprise a dozen times, but your courage was too little even for that. Once, you were my student, but now, you are less than nothing to me.” He spat the words out as he spoke them.

  “What does that matter? Coward or no,” Avirosa countered quietly, “I will live to see another sunrise. You will only see the dungeons.”

  Kirin then turned towards Darien. What role he played in bringing his former teacher to this trial he could not remember, yet here he was.

  "Darien," Kirin looked directly at him. "Whatever happens today, I forgive you."

  "You forgive me?" Darien heard his voice speak, even though he had not willed it. He could not escape the dream, and his voice continued, "You should be asking forgiveness, not offering it, or do you deny your guilt?"

  "Whether I admit it or deny it makes no difference, as you well know." Kirin shook his head gloomily and sighed. "The Master is not what I thought he was. The Order is not what I thought it was. I hope one day you will come to understand that as I have."

  "And what did you think it was? What did you think he was? Order can only be enforced through power, and the Master is power. Only his iron fist can bring order to this world of inequity and sorrow," Darien sneered at Kirin and looked down at him viciously. "The strong rule. The weak have only to obey, and if they cannot obey, they perish. There is nothing else. You taught me this, and now you deny it? Why?"

  "He,he,ho!" the Master laughed in a low guttural way, a knowing laugh. "He will not tell you, my Executioner. He is not your friend anymore. He is not one of us anymore. His loyalty now lies… elsewhere.” The Master snickered, and broken laughter could be heard round the room. “Do you really want to know why he has betrayed us, Darien?"

  "I would. To commit treason against the Order of the Shade is swift and certain death. No traitor has ever escaped punishment. What could drive him to such madness?"

  "Well, then," the Master bellowed loudly, "let us all see what has brought this doom upon Kirin the Hollow Eyed. I'm sure this will prove most amusing."

  As Darien turned back toward Kirin, he noticed that Kirin had looked up. The curtain of his hair parted, and the look on his face was horribly changed. Resignation and defeat had turned to stark terror. What dread doom had the Master unleashed upon the helpless prisoner worse than the prospect of torture and death? Darien had always known his teacher to be cold, calculating, detached, even as he had learned to be. What could so terrify Kirin the Hollow Eyed?

  "Bring forth the woman," the Master commanded loudly, and a large ogre, his face an empty portal of blackness, dragged a struggling prisoner into the hall. The ogre dropped the prisoner in front of the Master and lumbered off. A woman with fiery auburn hair and fair, speckled skin now lay on the floor before Darien and the Master, alternately cursing and weeping, her face covered by her curly red locks.

  "Let her go, let her go, Please, I'll do anything." Kirin scrambled towards her as best he could on his shackled hands and knees, but the ogre who held Kirin’s chains only pulled him back.

  "Oh, I don't think so," the Master said as a sickly smile wormed its way across his dark face. "I have a much better idea. Since you wish so much for freedom from me, I think I shall give it to you. I shall give you a choice." While the Master laughed in amusement, Kirin's face turned white, filled with still new terror, now combined with the miserable despair of a soul who knows he is utterly defeated. Darien had seen this look many times on those brought before the Master. Seeing Kirin this way was painful to the Executioner. His chest tightened, and his head hurt. The pain weakened him, and pulled him closer to the world of his dream. He resisted, but it always happened this way. The longer the dream progressed, the more real it became.

  After the laughter died down, the Master spoke again, "Here is the choice I will give you. If you denounce this woman, deny your love for her, and leave her to me, then I shall hold her wholly responsible for your guilt, and I will allow you to rejoin the Order of the Shade, or accept a peaceful exile, whatever you wish. If you do so, then she shall receive all the punishments I reserved for you, until she dies a slow, painful, and hideous death. On the other hand, you may choose to accept your guilt and punishment. If you do so, I will allow you the privilege of granting this woman a quick and easy death."

  "You are monsters, all of you!" the nameless woman cursed up at the Master and the two accusers. "May the gods’ punishment upon you be the equal of all the pain you inflict upon others." Then she turned to Kirin. "My love, Kirin, I hold you guiltless whatever choice you make, but I beg you. Leave me. Allow me to endure punishment so that your life may be spared. There is no need for both of us to die."

  "She speaks wisdom," Darien heard himself speaking to Kirin. "The Master has shown you mercy this day. Do not allow your desire for this woman to overthrow your reason. Do not foolishly throw away his gift out of misplaced loyalty to this seductress who has corrupted your mind."

  "You do not know what you say, my young friend," Kirin replied. "All your life has been pain, suffering, and anger. You have never known love,
and until I met her, neither had I. I once told you that your feelings made you weak. I thought that true power came from perfect order, cold, immovable, unflinching reason, but I was wrong. If you remember nothing else of this day, remember what I do. I know you do not understand now. Perhaps you will never understand, but remember that the power to endure whatever pain may come for the sake of another is a power beyond anything the Master can ever teach you."

  Darien was stunned, struck by strange feelings of confusion and unease. His mind could not grab any foothold of sense or reason, the dream becoming too powerful to deny, and he cried out with his own voice. "Kirin, how can you make this choice? There is no reason. She will die anyway. She was already dead when she was brought here. You throw your life away… for… for nothing."

  "You see, Darien," the Master placed his clawed hand on Darien’s shoulder and laughed. "I knew well enough that Kirin would make this choice. I have seen it often. Let this be a lesson to you, a lesson in the foolishness of love. You must be ever vigilant against it. It poisons the mind. It consumes a man until he is blind to everything else. It turns man against his brother. It usurps all bonds of loyalty and oaths of service. It is treason; it is injustice; it is chaos. It is the enemy of all order, truth, and reason. Beware of it."

  Kirin only smiled at Darien, and held out his hand. Without a word, Darien handed him a small dagger. Kirin walked over to his lover with dagger in hand. "He would never have let me live anyway. His words are as empty as his soul. I love you, always and forever," Kirin declared with tears in his eyes.

  "And I love you, Kirin. Goodbye my love, and thank you," the woman replied. Then Kirin plunged the dagger into her heart. Blood spilled out onto the floor, and Darien heard the sound of terrible screaming from the dungeon. He covered his ears, but the sound pierced even deeper. He shut his eyes, but the image of Kirin's face would not leave his vision.

  When he opened his eyes again, the image of Kirin was still before him, but now horribly disfigured. His old teacher leaned upon the far wall of a cell in the dungeon, his legs and arms broken in several places. He was missing most of his teeth, and his left eye. He was barely recognizable as man or elf, let alone someone Darien had long known. They were now in the dungeon beneath Shade Castle. Some amount of time must have passed, and Darien realized he was reliving something from after the trial. The dripping of water broke the silence. Darien turned away from the broken face and stared at a puddle of water on the floor beside him.

  “You have come? Thank you.” The voice of Kirin was broken and pained.

  “What do you want?” the Executioner asked. “The Master forbade me to see you, so be quick.”

  “For good reason, and I will be quick. I have little time left. Before I die, I must tell you. I must tell you what really happened with your mother. I must confess this, for of all my crimes, it is that one I most regret.”

  “What are you talking about? What about my mother?”

  “It was… a trap. The Master told us about an elven sorceress living in the forest. The Master said she was powerful, as an enemy, or an ally. We asked her to join us, but she refused, and fled. I don’t understand why, but we were sent, Avirosa and I, to hunt her.” Kirin coughed, and the sound of blood spattering on the floor echoed in the quiet of the dungeon. “We finally found her, in that village, and we found out she had a child. We reported this to the Master. He sent us back, with orders to kill the woman and take the child. We orchestrated all of it. We drew you into that conflict with the boys, and then helped the guards find your mother. We even helped them subdue her. Her magic was strong, easily a match for both of us, but when we threatened your life, she surrendered.”

  “You…you lie,” Darien’s voice filled with bitterness and disbelief.

  “I swear upon my life, upon her life, upon everything I ever taught you. It is true.” Kirin’s desperation was painfully evident, and the Executioner understood the truth of the words, both in his dream, and in the waking world beyond. He turned toward Kirin, who now seemed suddenly frantic, rushed, as if some danger were growing closer.

  “There is more, but we are almost out of time. The Master is not a demon as he claims. He has a secret power, an ancient weapon, the source of his power, his unnatural magic…”

  Another instant later, Kirin and the dungeon were gone. Darien drifted, weightless, in a world of emptiness filled with floating red and gray dust that drifted and meandered as if blown by wind, but he felt no breeze. Some of the dust then coalesced, forming an image of the Demon Sword, gigantic in size, first translucent and shifting like the dust, then firm and undeniably solid. Slowly at first, then more quickly, he felt himself pulled toward the darkness of the gigantic blade. He could not escape. Now he was falling, falling inexorably into the abyss of blackness. All light faded. He heard whispers all around him, in a language he had never heard. They grew louder until the sound was painful. He cried out, but his voice could not be heard over the whispers. He struggled, but no motion of his limbs stopped his endless fall into nothingness.

  #

  Darien bolted upright, dripping with cold sweat, exhausted as if he hadn’t slept in days. The sun had just begun to creep over the eastern horizon. A thin streamer of light pierced the darkness of the underpass, and ran down the dark tunnel parallel to the window. A lone crow cawed loudly somewhere out on the mountainside, its shrill cries like screaming voices to the now wakened dreamer. The crow continued its loud squawking for several minutes, before it mercifully flew to whatever other business called it away. The fear and despair of the dream began to slowly dissipate as the streamer of light inched almost imperceptibly across the tunnel with the rising of the sun.

  Chapter 15: The Executioner’s Apprentice

  Jerris slept long into the morning, so Darien used the time to collect his thoughts. Darien put the vision out of his mind and tried his best to focus on the present. The morning light shone brightly in the window now, illuminating the dreary ruin of the underpass. It was only when the light finally crept over to the spot where Jerris lay that the young man finally opened his eyes. The lad yawned and asked, "What time is it?"

  "It is near mid-morning," the waiting shade answered. "Hurry and get ready to go. We need to reach the south door before nightfall."

  "What?" Jerris exclaimed. "Why didn't you wake me? We should already be on our way."

  "Yesterday you complained when I woke you," Darien cocked his head to the side curiously, "and today you complained when I did not wake you. It seems I must endure your complaints regardless of what I do."

  "Aargh! You really have no idea how to act decently, do you?" Jerris groaned. "I'd rather not have water thrown in my face before dawn, but neither would I like to be allowed to sleep till noon."

  Darien chuckled in amusement at his own wit. "I forget too easily that you aren't used to such exertion. You won't be able to find your hidden city or escape from our pursuers if you fall down dead of exhaustion in the road."

  "Dammit, I hate being so useless. I feel like I'm being carried about like an infant."

  "If you hate being useless, then learn something useful," the shade scolded. "But don't be too hard on yourself. I have lived this way for many years. This is your first journey, and neither your feet nor your wits were prepared for it. Given your background, I think you've done remarkably well."

  "Thanks, I think. All your compliments sound like insults, so it's hard to tell." Jerris smiled as he spoke.

  Darien had already prepared the horses for the day’s travel, so without any further delay, the two men mounted and set off. A fog lay upon the land outside the window. Here and there, the tops of broken hills raised their sullen gray heads above the fog. But for these few islands of gray and the scraggly trees that clung to their upper slopes, the Craglands below were obscured by the sea of white fog.

  While the window continued with the path of the tunnel, the older half-elf made a point of explaining the route through the Craglands. Past the south do
or of the underpass, a road continued on to the south. They would take that road south to the ruins of Thordas, where they would strike a larger road, and turn west upon it towards Galad, the only pass open this late in the year. Beyond that pass lay the Golden Plains and the great nations of men. Those lands posed problems of their own, but at present, those difficulties seemed better than facing Avirosa. When the explanation ended, they rode on in silence.

  After perhaps an hour of travel, the underpass turned into the rock, and away from the window. Shortly thereafter, the bending curve of the tunnel obscured the window from view entirely, and they were once again left with just the dim glow of the torches. Jerris began fidgeting nervously. Darien noticed immediately, but waited quietly for the lad to say whatever it was that he had on his mind. After several minutes of waiting, the lad still remained silent, but the fidgeting had increased in intensity. The young half-elf tapped his fingers rapidly, endlessly upon the saddle horn.

  Finally, the older half-elf had had enough. “Alright Jerris, what is bothering you now?”

  "Well, it’s just… you said I should learn something useful, so I was thinking, could you teach me to use magic like you do?” Jerris nervously stammered out.

  Darien smiled, chuckling inwardly. The thought of taking on an apprentice amused him, but the timing could not have been poorer. Making his best attempt at consoling the lad, he answered, "Training in magic requires, among other things, a great deal of time to concentrate and learn to focus the mind properly. Obviously, we have precious little time, and for the moment, it would be better spent on more practical concerns. If we can make it past Galad, there may be time for that."