Liar's Blade

by Tim Pratt

  Something splashed in one of the many pools of water that dotted the cavern, all presumably leading to different tunnels honeycombing the rocks beneath the lake. A huge creature, something like a seal but with a mouth positively bursting with row upon row of serrated teeth, burst out of the water and began dragging itself across the floor toward them on its gargantuan flippers. Blood poured from its dozens of great, ragged wounds.

  Rodrick scrambled backward, raising Hrym, but Neiros screamed "Kian!" and rushed to the beast.

  "So that's what a bunyip looks like," Rodrick said. "I'd wondered."

  "Silly me, I was wondering what killed it—" Hrym said.

  And then things became very confusing and bloody for a few moments.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The Price of Pain's Ease

  Purplish-black tentacles lashed out from the water, one wrapping around Neiros's neck, making him squawk and choke in the middle of whatever healing spell he'd been trying to utter over his dying companion. Cilian dragged himself out of a pool of water, shouted, "We'll save you, Rodrick," and ran toward Neiros with a knife.

  Before Rodrick could even think to intervene, Kian rolled over and smashed his tail into Cilian's chest, sending the half-elf flying across the cavern, smashing into one of the murals, which appeared to depict a huge man with the hindparts of a locust biting the head off an armored knight.

  Cilian gasped, tried to sit up, and slumped against the cavern wall. His ribs looked almost dented, like a breastplate that had been hit with a hammer, and his breathing was nothing but a series of labored gasps. Kian went still, as if that attack had expended the last of his life.

  Zaqen, in her devilfish form, clambered out of the water, giggling as she came. She wrapped more tentacles around the thrashing druid and began to squeeze. Then Obed rose from another one of the pools, looked around, spat, and came to stand by the choking aquatic elf. He considered the dying druid for a moment, then glanced at Rodrick. "You live. A pleasant surprise."

  "You came to save me." Rodrick tried furiously to think of ways to save Neiros without tipping his hand and revealing that he knew Obed's true purpose. "I'm the one who's pleasantly surprised."

  "Zaqen convinced me you might still be useful, though considering that you were captured by this aquatic elf—this sad parody of a noble gillman—I remain unconvinced. Still, here we are." He gestured toward the druid. "Did he torture you terribly?"

  "Sorry to disappoint you, but he didn't have much of a chance." Rodrick coughed, and tightened his grip on Hrym. "He mostly left me tied up in a heap while he communicated with his beasts of the sea. I'd only just managed to maneuver Hrym enough to cut through the net binding me when you lot arrived."

  "It's good we found him. This lake is full of terrors who would answer his call. I hate to cut down a guardian of Aroden's, but this poor soul's long vigil has clearly driven him mad, and he is incapable of telling friend from foe. Since he shamed you by snaring you in his net, I'll allow you to make the killing blow. Unless you'd like to show mercy again? If so, Zaqen can pop off his head with a squeeze."

  If anyone else struck the elf, his death would be certain, so Rodrick composed his face into a grim mask and shook his head. "No. I seem to have had all my mercy dragged out of me."

  Obed grunted. "Good. We have much do to, though, so make it quick."

  Zaqen unslithered her tentacles and slipped back into the water, paying no attention at all to Cilian's increasingly labored gasps. Neiros gasped and groaned, his flesh covered with welts where Zaqen's tentacles had grasped him.

  "All right, Hrym." Rodrick stood over Neiros, blade held casually in one hand. "You know what to do." He pointed the sword at Neiros, and swirling ice spun out from the point, forming a jagged guillotine of ice in an almost delicate lacework pattern. Rodrick drove the hilt down, and the wide blade appeared to cut right through the druid's throat—an effect that Rodrick dearly hoped was merely cosmetic. Neiros's eyes went glassy and blank, and he stilled.

  "A simple heart strike would have been sufficient, but I have come to tolerate your overdramatic streak." Obed looked at the art on the walls and sniffed. "Come. The rest of our quest will be easier without that creature's interference."

  "Ah. What about Cilian? Surely we can heal him—"

  "He is beyond the reach of my arts," Obed said. "At any rate, he wanted to find his destiny. I daresay he has. Come, now."

  "But—"

  "Now," Obed said, and turned toward one of the pools.

  Rodrick tightened his grip on Hrym's hilt. I've had quite enough of this priest. The endless lies, the arrogance, the undisguised contempt, the secret allegiance to demons, the callous disregard for the fate of the simple-minded half-elf who'd fought for them—all those things were appalling, but worst of all, Rodrick was sure Obed had no intention of paying him what he was owed. Once the priest fulfilled his goal and no longer had need of Hrym, Rodrick would doubtless be made into food for some demonic monstrosity. Betrayal of some kind was inevitable at this point, and Rodrick always preferred to be the betrayer himself, rather than the victim of treachery. Now was his moment.

  He raised Hrym high. The sword had terrible magics, but Rodrick wanted to deliver this blow himself, a single brutal strike to cut the demon-priest's head from his shoulders.

  Instead, a lashing tentacle wrapped around his legs, pulling his feet out from under him and sending him sprawling facedown. Hrym skittered away from his hands across the stone floor. Another tentacle took him around the throat, no tighter than a prison collar—so far.

  Zaqen had worked her way through the connected tunnels to a pool behind Rodrick, and ambushed him before he could slay her master.

  This is bad, Rodrick thought.

  "So the lake elf told you a tale," Obed said. "He revealed my true intentions. I thought he might. I'd hoped to kill any guardians before they had a chance to talk to you, but no plan goes perfectly." He walked over to the druid, looked down at him, and then kicked him viciously in the head. "Hmm. He seems to be dead, though now that I look, it's clear that Hrym just gave him a necklace of ice, instead of slicing his throat. That's half-clever. No matter, though. Zaqen's tentacles can secrete strange poisons, so he never had a chance of surviving. Your death, likewise, is—"

  "If you hurt him, I won't help you," Hrym said.

  Obed frowned and turned slowly to look at the sword. "Oh? I have made you very fine offers, sword, and you were not unreceptive. Kholerus will be generous with his rescuers. You can sleep on a mountain of gold, forever. Why do you care for this low thief?"

  "I wouldn't expect you to understand, fish-man," Hrym said. "But my terms are simple. Rodrick lives, and walks away from this—with me on his back. Swear me that, and I'll help you."

  "I do not bargain with hirelings, especially swords—"

  "Stop, bottom-feeder. I know you need me. The druid told all. I'm your dragon. You will not win this negotiation. Just accept my terms. And play fair—I have powers you have not even begun to glimpse. I could fill this cave with ice in an instant, entombing you all forever. I could freeze myself to the stones at the bottom of the lake and stay there for eternity, in my own unmelting prison. Why not? I'm a sword. I don't get bored the way you short-lived mortals do."

  "I thought using you would be simpler," Obed said. "When I sent Zaqen to recruit a dragon, and her divination led her not to a great scaly beast but to you, and she did enough research to discover your origins, it seemed ideal—use the sword of an idiot thug, instead of trying to negotiate with a wily, traitorous wyrm." He spat. "But a true dragon would have been easier. They are often smart enough to take a good deal when it's offered."

  "Are you smart enough to take the deal I'm offering you?" Hrym said. "I don't care if demons rise. They'll fall again. The history of the world is long, and I was forged in an empire that fell from the sky. Yet I endure. Play me fair, and I'll do the same for you."

  "Fine." Obed spoke through gritted teeth. "Zaqen, do not kill
Rodrick, but keep him contained. I will pick you up now, sword, and carry you on my back. If you try to harm me in any way, Zaqen will make sure that Rodrick dies. I have full faith that she can kill him both instantly and painfully, difficult though that feat can be."

  "Sorry, Rodrick," Zaqen gurgled from the pool behind the thief. "But this is how it has to be."

  "Fine," Hrym said. "Let's go destroy the world, so Rodrick and I can get on with our lives."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The net had been more dignified than this. Zaqen dragged Rodrick along behind her like a child tugging a rag doll through the street, but this doll was wrapped up in tentacles, bobbing along in the wake of a monstrous devilfish. Obed was up ahead, with Hrym on his back—iced right onto the skin, which had to hurt, so that was some consolation—and Rodrick kept wishing the sword would just encase the priest in ice, even if it meant Rodrick's own immediate subsequent death. Not because he wanted to die—because he didn't want Obed to win.

  But Hrym wouldn't sacrifice Rodrick's life just to stop a demon lord from being released, any more than Rodrick would have tossed Hrym into a volcano to prevent a similar disaster. There was still the vaguest chance that thief and sword both might get out of this alive and whole, and Hrym and Rodrick were the same: they wouldn't sacrifice themselves when there was even the slightest chance they might live to cheat another day.

  Realistically, though, death was all but assured. Perhaps dying wouldn't be so bad. Maybe Kholerus would be hungry after his long imprisonment, and would eat all of them. Quickly.

  The prison wasn't so very far from Neiros's lair. Obed led them down to the lake floor, where a vast circular crater of raised rock marred the smoothness of the mud. The priest chanted a spell, and the dirt on the lake bed began to swirl, rising up in a filthy spinning pillar, streaming away into the sunless murk overhead.

  With the dirt gone, the face of the prison was revealed. It was a perfect circle, perhaps a hundred feet across, made of clear glass, or crystal, or—perhaps—even flawless ice. Only darkness filled the space beneath, though. Maybe Neiros had been wrong. Maybe Kholerus had died of boredom long ago.

  While Zaqen and Rodrick floated off to the side of the crater, Obed kicked his way down to the glassy surface of the prison, swimming so close he could almost rest the soles of his webbed feet on the transparent cell door.

  "So this is what you want, Zaqen?" Rodrick said.

  "If my master is exalted, I too shall be exalted," she said.

  "But to release a demon lord! They're pure evil!"

  "Most humans, elves, orcs, and other races I've met in my life were more or less evil too, Rodrick. Or selfish and cruel, at any rate. What's the difference? Just a matter of degree, not kind. At least demons make no pretense of being kind or virtuous."

  "You're just a pawn for creatures like that," Rodrick said. "Like the bandit chieftain said, worshiping demons is like a sheep worshiping a slaughterhouse. It's absurd, you're so much better than—"

  "I don't worship demons. Haven't you realized that by now? I even told you I love him. I worship Obed. I lived in a hole in the dirt, shivering and whimpering, in thrall to the murderous brother on my back. Obed raised me up, made me his right hand, let me dwell in a palace of pearl and coral. Yes, he compels me with a geas—but I would have obeyed his every word without that compulsion. Anyway, I'd rather be a tool of evil than a victim. Now be silent, please, Rodrick. I like you, despite everything, and don't want to choke you into unconsciousness. But I would like to see this ritual performed. I've spent years researching and laying the groundwork for this achievement. Let me savor it."

  "You may as well savor the draining of a boil or the bursting of a pimple," Rodrick said.

  "How do you know I don't?" Zaqen said.

  "My lord!" Obed shouted, hovering in the water, Hrym held in his hand. "Kholerus of the thousand claws! Kholerus of the bloodied mandibles! Kholerus of the bloated wounds! I have heeded your call! I bear within me the blood of old Azlant! I hold in my hand the soul of a dragon! I bring the four keys, and I bring the words of unbinding, which you whispered in my dreams! Master, your moment of release is at hand!"

  Something came rushing up from the dark below the glass, and though Rodrick had heard Neiros's description, nothing could have prepared him for the reality of the demon lord in the flesh.

  Kholerus's face was as wide as a courtyard, his eyes black, bulging, and multifaceted, looking more like clusters of foul eggs than sensory organs. His mouth was a nightmare of grinding, squirming, clattering mandibles and oozing sores, saliva and pus dripping in torrents. Kholerus writhed in his prison, turning over, and his vast segmented body twisted and slammed against the glass—seemingly miles of red-and-black slimy coils slid by, with countless twitching legs underneath, each one ending in knife-sharp serrated claws. As the demon lord banged against the glass, the reverberations seemed to shake the entire lake, vibrations passing through the water with enough force to make Obed spin in a lazy head-over-heels circle, laughing all the while, and to send Zaqen reeling backward.

  "What do you think that thing is going to do when it's free?" Rodrick said.

  "Who can say? The mind of a demon lord is so far beyond our own that we can scarcely imagine its thoughts. Kholerus will lay waste to humanity, I would imagine. No great loss there."

  "You're bitter, and I understand that, but there's bitterness, Zaqen, and there's insanity—"

  "You'd have me fight the path my life has taken? Why? Even if I wished to escape, I could not. Fighting would only make me miserable. So instead I embrace my life. Is this precisely what I would have chosen? Perhaps not. But it's far better than the life I would have had if Obed had left me shivering in my hole."

  "So far, maybe. Wait until Kholerus gets out, though—"

  "I will array the keys!" Obed shouted. Kholerus pressed his huge face against the glass again, smearing foul ichor from his mouth against the surface, and snarled something that might have been a command or assent. Obed kicked to one side of the crater, fumbled in his bag one-handed, and drew out the pitcher of everlasting waters. He placed it at what Rodrick guessed was the northernmost point of the circle. Instead of floating away, the pitcher froze in place, as if glued down to the glass. The priest kicked his way to the east and placed the dog's head there. Then to the west, where he placed the gem. Finally he swam toward the south, Hrym in one hand, the silver key in the other.

  "Soon, now," Zaqen murmured.

  "No," Cilian said, appearing from nowhere as always. But this time he plunged Neiros's trident into the back of Zaqen's monstrous head.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Sword and Ice Magic

  The half-elf was bloodied, but his chest was no longer caved in, and Rodrick goggled at him as Zaqen's tentacles went limp, setting him free. Blood poured from the holes Cilian's trident had made, and suddenly Zaqen was no longer a devilfish, but a small woman in an ugly purple cloak, floating in the water, with most of the back of her head gouged away.

  "You're alive!" Rodrick felt like an idiot for stating the obvious, but Cilian just nodded gravely, legs waving in the water, watching Obed. The priest was so intent on placing the final key that he had not yet noticed anything was amiss.

  "The dying druid used the last of his life to cast a healing spell on me," Cilian said. "He could have cured the poison coursing through his veins instead, but he chose to spare me, knowing I was in a better position to aid his cause. He asked me to take up his trident and fulfill his work." Cilian nodded toward the priest. "Will you help me?"

  "Ah—" Rodrick said, but before he could commit one way or another, something came wriggling from underneath the devilfish cloak.

  It was Lump, tentacles wriggling grotesquely, swimming in an ugly, ungainly way toward them. Like fleas deserting the body of a dead dog, Rodrick thought. If he had Hrym, he could freeze Lump, but since he didn't—

  Cilian moved with balletic grace and plunged his trident into Lump. Rodrick groaned�
��what a pointless attack. You might as well stab a pudding. But then Cilian spoke a mystic word that made the hairs on the back of Rodrick's neck stand up, and lightning surged up the trident's shaft and through the tines. Lump, speared on the three prongs, juddered and shuddered and then went still. A moment later, he began to melt, slimy trails drifting in the current. Dozens of eyes in every conceivable color broke free from the disintegrating body and floated around Rodrick and Cilian in the water, staring blankly at nothing.

  Perhaps Zaqen's twin would grow again from one of the drifting fragments, but without his host, Rodrick didn't expect that he would be able to live for long.

  That problem dealt with, Cilian turned to the next, namely Obed. The huntsman kicking in strong strokes toward the demon priest, moving like a silent arrow, trident at the ready.

  Obed didn't see him—but Kholerus did, and roared, making the priest look up. Cilian bowled into him, knocking the demon-priest spinning, making him drop the key and Hrym both—though Rodrick noted a certain telltale icy glimmer around the sword's hilt, suggesting he'd made himself slippery on purpose. While the half-elf and the gillman wrestled, Rodrick swam for Hrym. The sword rested directly above one of Kholerus's bulging clusters of eyes. Approaching the demon's face was the hardest thing Rodrick had ever done—but it was Hrym.

  Just as he took the sword in hand, trying not to piss himself because a demon lord's eye was staring right at him, he heard Obed cackle, and Cilian slammed into the glass beside Rodrick, his body limp.

  Rodrick looked up, and the demon priest was wreathed in a red and black aura, crackling with power. Cilian's trident stuck out of his chest, like a fork stabbed into a ham.

  "Fools!" Obed shouted. "I am in the presence of my demonic lord! He feeds me his power. Nothing you do can harm me!" He pulled the trident from his chest, the three ragged holes in his flesh closing up instantly, and tossed the weapon aside. He bowed his head, and the colors around him grew more intense. "I will win," he said. "I will absorb this power, and grow strong, and compel you to aid me, sword, one way or another." He closed his eyes and shivered, laughing as the demon lord lent him his strength, pulsing waves of color illuminating his body