by W. C. Conner
She shook her head gently. “It would corrupt him, my love,” she said. “He would become more than Greyleige ever dreamed he could be. Our world would become a mirror of the world from which Styxis came. He would become a corrupted king of our world to mirror the queen of her world.”
As she made the statement, the truth flashed into her mind. Styxis wants you as her mate, she sent to Wil.
I have known it since the day we heard her name, Caron, came his reply. I told you then that there is power in her name. There was a moment of hesitation before he continued. We must not fail. I would sooner be dead than be mated to that demon.
Caron sensed an edge of desperation in the thought and she had another insight. You love her, she sent, disturbed at the tinge of jealousy she felt.
I am infatuated by her, but I am revolted by her at the same time. In truth, even were I to have the moral permission, I doubt that I could bring myself to kill her.
Caron sensed a weakening of resolve in his voice and, at that perception, her own resolve firmed.
Together we will do what must be done to remove her influence from our world, Wil.
She came back to herself to find Roland watching her face closely. “What were you thinking just now?” he asked. “You seemed miles away.”
Taking his hand, she started toward the steps leading to the upstairs bedrooms. “Take me to our room, Roland,” she said. “We will need your help.”
39
“There must be something we can do to help Wil and Caron,” Eldred said as he stood with his back to the fireplace. “With our combined potential we should be able to help somehow.” He held his hands behind him to warm them after the long trek through the snow that he and the others of the leadership had made to study the margin of the Old Forest that had been touched by the passage of the darkness. Bartholomew, Thomas, and Sylvester stood beside him, their hands also held behind themselves to warm them, but none of them spoke.
“Perhaps Wilton will tell us what is needed when the time comes,” offered Stewart from his seat facing the others standing before the fireplace. “After all, he has already told Caron to use my son’s abilities.”
“Stewart has a point, Eldred,” said Patrick who had entered the room as Stewart was finishing. Patrick was one of the surviving Lesser Wizards who had joined them following the disaster at Blackstone. “Allen was more or less directly summoned by Wil. Do you not sense that Wil’s plans will be revealed to us as the need arises?”
An unearthly screech just as Patrick finished speaking caused the group to jump noticeably and turn toward the sound. Looking briefly at one another, they moved almost as one toward the door which swung open almost as they reached it.
“He’s gone,” came the hysterical voice of a woman splattered with blood. “A demon. My Calvin’s gone. A demon, it...” She stopped speaking and looked at them as tears sprang to her eyes.
“Sarah,” Eldred said quietly, trying to calm the distraught woman. “Come sit near the fire and tell us slowly what happened.”
“We were on our way back from the barn,” she said, looking up at them from the chair to which they had taken her. Stifling her terror-filled sobbing as best she could, she looked toward the floor as she continued, “There was a movement in the trees and when we stopped to see what it might be, there was a shriek that froze me in place and something horrible lunged at us. It knocked me out of the way and grabbed Calvin in its huge jaws and crushed him as if he had been a sausage. It sprang back into the trees with him still in its mouth. I think part of him is still out there.”
She shuddered and passed her hand over her face before becoming deadly calm and looking up once again. In a voice devoid of emotion, she spoke. “Your pathetic group of ragtag wizards has annoyed me for the last time. You will never oppose me again. This woman’s husband was only the first. You will all meet the same end, or worse, for your interference.” As she finished speaking, Sarah slumped unconscious in the chair and would have fallen to the floor if Bartholomew had not reached out to catch her.
The group looked from one to the other, the perfect picture of confusion. It was Thomas who broke the silence. “There is only one who could possibly have sent those thoughts into this gentle woman’s mind,” he said.
“Apparently, Styxis was not destroyed at Blackstone as we had believed,” Eldred said dryly.
Bartholomew looked up from his quick evaluation of the unconscious woman. “She has taken no physical harm and the demon has completely fled her mind, but she’s in shock from the experience and her loss.”
“Send for everyone to assemble here,” Eldred said quietly. “Every wizard in the community must attend. Tell their families they are to stay indoors, although I doubt they’re at immediate risk as are the members of the brotherhood.”
At the periphery of the wizards’ community, an enormous demon watched as its pet chewed contentedly on the remains of the wizard named Calvin. The demon had absorbed the wizard’s potential as it fled his body while the gruesome beast had consumed it. It smiled toward the horror that lay in the snow, licking the last drops of blood and bits of flesh from its enormous mouth and scaled legs. Behind it, the rest of the pack of creatures milled restlessly, jostling and snapping at one another as they smelled blood and magic in the air, yet afraid of challenging the leader of their pack for any part of that first kill.
Styxis’s master of the kennels was satisfied. The concentration of darkness at the edge of the Old Forest had given him a target and opening in the Forest’s shield that had allowed him to drive his pack through to rich feeding grounds.
Well done, my loyal servant, Styxis’s thought came to him. I promised them revenge and I always keep my promises.
The master of kennels turned its glowing red eyes back in the direction of the meeting hall, knowing that the call was going out that would bring all of his victims together into one convenient slaughterhouse.
40
Roland stood next to the window in the small bedroom in which he had been staying while Caron leaned her back against the door. She looked at her husband’s face in which the curiosity was evident.
“When Wil summoned me,” she began, feeling guilty at the half truth she was about to tell, “he told me that the darkness sought Alexander.” Roland nodded, for that is what he had been told. “I was misled by his message. I believed it meant Alexander only. In truth, it meant all of us, but he knew I would not aid him if Alexander was not personally and immediately threatened.”
Again Roland nodded his understanding of what she was telling him. “It’s easy for me to understand how a message of that sort was misinterpreted,” he said.
“He knew I misunderstood him, but he needed my help once again. My first inclination was to deny him, but I realized such a denial would ultimately hurt those I love the most. Everyone I love would be finally destroyed by my own spite, so I relented.”
“A very wise decision,” Roland said, then waited for whatever was to follow.
“It’s true he needed his arm back as he told me in the summoning, but not so that it could become a part of his body again... at least, not yet. He needed it back so he could plead his case to have me carry the talisman into his confrontation with Styxis one more time.”
Roland was silent, his mouth grim as he waited for her to finish.
“I don’t know what role I will have in this, but I cannot deny him. You and Alexander are at risk whether I help or not. I love you both too much to not try, at the very least.”
Roland moved over to the bed and sat down on it, patting the spot next to him in invitation. Caron moved without hesitation to do as he bid and, as she sat down beside him, his arm encircled her shoulder. Kissing her softly on her cheek, he drew her head onto his shoulder. “You are the bravest woman I have ever known,” he said.
“There is one other thing you should know that nobody else must know,” she said. “Wil gave me something that will allow him to contact me at any time, whether or not
the talisman is present.”
“Just for now?” he asked.
“I believe it will be forever,” she said.
Roland was quiet for a moment as he digested what she had told him. At last he squeezed her shoulder. “Once again, it changes nothing,” he said. “It has been the three of us since I met you and it is the three of us still. How can I help in this? What is there that I can contribute?”
“You’ve just helped me more than you can ever know,” she said, “but I have no idea how you can help Wil.”
The others looked up as Caron and Roland came down the stairs together. They were able to see from their faces that something had been resolved between them and the sense of concern in the room evaporated.
Barely had they stepped from the stairway when Allen burst through the kitchen door, panic on his face. “The wizards are under attack by demons,” he shouted, his adolescent voice breaking in his agitation. “They’re about to be overrun.”
Without thinking, Roland broke from Caron’s side and ran for the door followed closely by Mitchal.
“To horse!” he yelled as he threw the door open. “To horse and follow me!”
As the Duke and the almost one hundred soldiers thundered out of the courtyard, Caron sprinted across the stable yard, wrapping her heavy cloak about her and shouting at Philip to have her horse ready. By the time she arrived at the stable, he had the saddle across the horse’s back and was just beginning to pull the girth tight as she sprang onto it from atop a box standing near. As the saddle wobbled perilously close to sliding off, Philip pulled the girth tight and secured it while Caron whipped its flanks with the reins. She leaned forward to keep her seat as her horse burst from the stable and disappeared into the falling snow after Roland and the others.
Philip looked around after Caron had left to find Allen fumbling with the tack on his pony. While Allen finished getting the bit into the pony’s mouth and securing the head straps, Philip threw on the blanket and secured the saddle in position.
As he gave the young wizard a boost up, Philip realized Allen was crying. Allen simply shook his head at the look of surprise in Philip’s eyes and spurred the pony off into the storm after the others.
They could hear the howling even over the noise of the horses and the clatter of their own weapons and armor as they approached the Wisdom compound. Roland drew his sword and smiled grimly at the setting of weapons among all those surrounding him.
This much, at least, I can do, Wil, he thought as they rode.
Flashes of glowing light through the falling snow ahead of them steered the riders toward the howls and screeches of the demons.
“These must be what we saw earlier today, my lord,” Mitchal called to him. Roland acknowledged Mitchal’s observation with a sideways glance and a nod of his head, his anxiety growing as the sound of the shrieks and howls increased in volume.
Rounding a curve, the meeting hall came into view. It was surrounded by dozens of giant scaled creatures that resembled wolves more closely than any other earthly animal, but which had two full rows of razor sharp, triangle shaped teeth in wide mouths that were large enough to bite a man easily into three equal pieces with a single snap. Behind them stood a demon of monstrous proportions that turned at their approach. Its glowing red eyes regarded them indifferently as they rode, then turned back toward the creatures that battered themselves against the doors and windows of the meeting hall. As they hit the building, jolts of lightning sparkled across the walls, scorching their scales and driving them into a frenzy of hate and anger.
With a shout, Roland led the riders between the demon and the creatures. As they rode past, spear after spear was flung toward the creatures, impaling many of them and causing a temporary decline in the ferocity of the attack against the meeting hall. The creatures, however, quickly snapped the spear shafts without appearing to have taken any serious harm and renewed their attack.
Just as Roland turned the riders for another sweep, a red bolt of energy scythed through the troop, knocking almost half of them from their horses and causing Roland to sag in his saddle. Through vision blurred as if he had taken a blow to the head, Roland could see Mitchal lying in the snow, a large circle of crimson already staining the white around him. He lifted his gaze to find the demon lumbering toward him, its glowing red eyes fixed on him and a red nimbus of energy crackling around its upraised arm. Gathering all of his strength, he threw his sword at the demon as if it was a throwing knife. His last memory before he fell from the saddle was the creature’s face as it started to dodge the oncoming weapon.
He awoke to find Allen kneeling next to him, his face as pale as the snow in which he knelt. Behind Allen, Caron’s anxious face swam into his view and he smiled weakly.
“How did we do?” he asked.
“Wil is proud of us both,” she replied. The relief that he was not terribly hurt was clear on her face. “He says we’ve got jobs for life if we wish to accept the commission.” She smiled grimly as she repeated Wil’s words to her husband.
“What happened, Caron?” Roland asked. “The last thing I remember was that huge demon coming toward me.”
“Let’s get out of this weather before we talk about it, my love,” she said quietly, even the grim smile disappearing as she spoke.
At the look, the memory of Mitchal flashed into his mind. “Mitchal?” he said. Caron shook her head and rose to walk toward the meeting hall.
Roland stood beside the roaring fireplace looking around at the massive amount of damage the wizards had caused with the magical lightning they had generated to protect themselves from the demon’s hounds. His own wounds had been leeched from him by the young prodigy, Allen. His only hurt now was the emptiness at what he beheld about him.
Caron sat beside the hearth holding Allen in her arms as the youth shook with fatigue and distress.
Across from Roland, Mitchal lay on a cot, the uneven contour of the blanket hinting at the part of his left leg that had been lost in the battle. The loss was evident in his eyes. No longer would he be Caron’s companion of the road, advising and defending the princess that he and Mertine had loved and raised almost as if she was their own.
The count of the dead was dismaying. Eldred had survived the attack, but Bartholomew was lost as was Sylvester and Allen’s father, Stewart, along with twenty-two others and fully half of the soldiers who had accompanied them to Wisdom.
It turned out that Roland’s sword had, indeed, flown true, striking the demon in its shoulder not far from its heart as it turned to avoid the strike. While not a killing blow, the demon’s focus and concentration had been broken long enough for Caron to arrive, charging up just as the sword struck. It took but a heartbeat for her to assess the dangers and, without hesitation, she called forth the power of the talisman only to realize that, in her haste, she had not brought it.
Do it, Caron! Wil’s thought shouted in her mind. You don’t need the talisman for this. My presence alone will do what needs to be done. With that, she finished her thought, raising her hand as if it held the talisman and wondering at the blue nimbus of magical energy that shimmered around it before releasing it.
Oh, Wil, came her thought as the energy flashed from her hand, help me! This pain is too sweet to endure.
Wil’s thought turned her own thoughts away from the seductive memory of the power she had wielded. The demons have been returned to the damnation from which they came, Caron, he sent. Your husband needs you, and Mitchal is sorely injured. Attend to them now.
Caron’s attention returned to the present as Eldred was speaking. Patrick, the wizard who had joined the brotherhood at Wisdom after being rescued from Blackstone the year before, was missing and the discussion revolved around his fate.
“I would prefer to believe that he fell victim to one of those demon dogs than to accept your theory, Thomas,” Eldred said.
“I would prefer it also, Eldred,” Thomas replied, “but my heart does not believe it. Unlike the others, there is
no trace of him, nor of his body or any part of it, nor – and I find this the most telling – any trace of residual magic as we found on the remains of the others who had been killed by the demon dogs.”
From the trembling boy in Caron’s arms came a small, lost voice. “Thomas is right. He has been summoned by her. He is her instrument.” All heads turned toward Allen who sat wrapped in blankets on Caron’s lap.
“It was his thought sent to Styxis that told me of the danger,” he said without looking up. “He told her the wizards would all be in the meeting hall and that her demons could destroy them all in a single rush. The message was sent through the darkness. The darkness created the portal through which these demons came.” He fell silent and Caron rocked him gently, much as she did Alexander on those nights he had difficulty sleeping.
The crackling of the logs in the fireplace was the only sound to be heard as Allen’s information was absorbed. In the moment of exhausted peacefulness, Wil’s thought intruded into Caron’s mind.
Caron, Wil sent, Styxis will be ready to make her final assault on our world before long and the spot where the darkness has collected at the margin of the Old Forest is where she will focus her power to do it. I’m afraid the time is at hand for which I summoned you. I am to meet with Styxis.
Did she send to you? Caron asked.
No, I sent to her. She must leave our world forever. When the time comes, you must fetch the talisman and have Allen take you to where the darkness is concentrated. We must stop her. Together we will stop her.
41
Caron lay in Roland’s arms, snug and warm against the cold, clear night air. A full moon illuminated their little bedroom. Both of their thoughts dwelt on the confrontation they knew would be upon them within days, if not hours. Each of them wanted to talk about the future, about what might happen, about how much they loved one another, but no words would come.