Lightgiver (22 page)

Jez grabbed the sleeve of his robe. “Just a second. There’s something you should know.”

Shamarion glanced at the cave mouth. Pharim warriors still poured through it. He sighed and turned to Jez. “Yes, what is it? I shouldn’t keep myself from the battle too long.”

Jez started to speak but stopped. He stared at the pharim for a second. “You’re afraid you’ll miss all the excitement.”

Shamarion looked like he was trying to appear emotionless, but the edges of his mouth turned up. “What did you want?”

Jez grinned, but the sense of amusement only lasted for a second. “Sharim, the one I was worried about. His demonic name is Andera.”

Shamarion’s smile faded, and his face took on a deadly serious expression. “Oh, well that does change things. I didn’t bring nearly enough warriors for this.”

Jez gave Osmund a pointed glance before turning back to Shamarion. “He’s bound by human flesh just like I am,” Jez said. “He won’t have access to his full power.”

“Unless he decides to destroy his body and become Andera in full.”

“I don’t think he would do that. With a demon as powerful as Andera, there have to be some pretty elaborate protections to keep him from getting out of the abyss.”

Shamarion nodded. “Placed by Sariel himself, though I doubt even Sariel considered human flesh.”

“Then, being human is the only way he can get out again. That’s an advantage, at least.”

“Not so much an advantage for us as it is less of an advantage for them.”

“Still,” Jez said, “it’s enough that we won’t automatically lose. I don’t know what you’re complaining about. It’s not like you’re at risk here.”

“Not in any lasting way, but if this form is destroyed, it will take time for me to recover. I brought three hundred warriors with me. Can you imagine what would happen to the world if three hundred pharim suddenly ceased to exist for a year? Andera could do it.”

Jez rolled his eyes. “It’s not like it would make any difference. The pharim have all retreated from the world anyway.”

Shamarion gave him a hard stare before letting out a long breath and nodding, but he still didn’t seem sure.

“Look at it this way,” Jez said. “If Andera destroys you, that will probably mean he’s no longer Sharim. He’ll be trapped here, and you’ll only be gone for a year. The pharim will be safe to come back into the world. Otherwise, who knows how long the high lords will keep them away.”

“You’re probably right. Come, it sounds like the immediate battle has been won. Let’s look at our losses and see how best to assault this library.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

To Jez’s surprise, the pharim hadn’t actually lost any. That was partially due to the fact that the demons had only attacked with a force of twenty. While that had been enough to overwhelm him and his companions, against a force of pharim several times their number who had been created explicitly to battle demons, they were hopelessly outmatched. The ground was littered with piles of ash. Jez was still standing in the mouth of the cave when the first pharim that had come through landed in front of him. Shamarion quickly related what Jez had told him.

“How many demons does Andera have with him?” she asked. “Of what type are they?”

“I don’t know,” Jez stammered. “There were a lot of them. About half were chezamuts, but there were others too. I didn’t recognize most of them.”

“Where are they camped? Is it one group or several?”

She kept peppering Jez with questions. He answered as best he could, but she didn’t seem satisfied with his answers and kept asking the same things over and over again. Finally, Shamarion walked up next to Jez. The Shadeslayer looked up and narrowed her eyes.

“You’ve gotten all you can get from him, Nakel.”

“It’s not nearly enough to fully plan the attack.”

He laughed causing several of the other pharim to turn and stare at him. He grinned at Nakel. “You’ve gotten too accustomed to being secure in the knowledge contained in the Keep of the Hosts. You never had enough information when we first battled the demons, yet somehow you muddled through.”

A smile crept onto her face. “So I did. Three hundred against, as near as I can tell, seven thousand led by Andera himself. This won’t be easy.”

“We are assaulting demons in their own home,” Shamarion said. “Did you expect it to be easy?”

“You don’t have to beat them,” Jez said. “You just have to hold them off until I can get the library out of here.” A thought occurred to him, and he turned to Shamarion. “Can you banish the library?”

Shamarion shook his head. “If it were only to cause the library to leave this world, I could do it. Given that there are few mortals here, we are not so strictly bound here as we are in your world, but a banishing must have a destination, and sending it back to the mortal realm would be interfering.”

“Can’t you take it to Between?”

“Between isn’t a place. It can’t serve as a destination. Gayel alone knows how that was done, but as far as everything I know says, it’s impossible. Even his highest lieutenants weren’t entrusted with that knowledge.”

“Mirel crafted a circle for us before. Can you do that? Craft the circle so I can use it?”

Shamarion glanced at the circle Jez had used to summon them. It was just inside the cave, though the material had been reduced to ash. He shook his head. “Unfortunately not. However it was achieved, Andera is in the form of a mortal, and we cannot take direct action against a mortal.”

“Aside from attacking his army, you mean.”

“His army is made of demons, and them, we can interfere with.”

“We don’t have time to sit here and discuss this,” Nakel said. “No doubt our enemies noticed our presence the moment we started coming into this realm. Andera will already be preparing for us. Finish what you need to finish, and come up to me when you’re ready to go.”

She spread her fiery wings and rose fifty feet into the air with her sword held in front of her. Dozens of other pharim patrolled the air, while others remained on the ground. Jez met Shamarion’s gaze.

“She does realize that if she hadn’t spent all that time questioning me, we could’ve left a long time ago, right?”

Shamarion chuckled. “I wouldn’t say that to her. Are you ready?”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Jez had never seen an army charge before. He hadn’t known what to expect, but it hadn’t been this. They moved like a wave of light and power rushing over the land. Jez and Ziary flew with those in the air while Lina road a Beastwalker with the body of a winged horse and the torso of a man. They encountered few demons on the way. Most knew to stay out of the way of a charging army of pharim. The few that they did run into were destroyed in short order, and before long, they approached the library.

The sky was full of winged creatures, and an army of demons covered the slope of the hill. The ground rumbled as many of those on the ground spread their wings and took to the air. One of the largest, a demon at least twenty feet tall with four wings and six arms rushed toward Jez. It had skin like polished steel and a long face. It roared, showing two rows of razor sharp teeth. Before it got even close, however, Nakel dove down and impaled it right through the head. Jez expected the beast to collapse into dust as the ones Ziary dispatched so often had. Instead, lines of fire lashed out, cleaving the nearest dozen demons in two. Then, the creature exploded. Nakel inclined her head at Jez before turning and slicing off the head of another enemy. Demon and pharim met with all the force of a hurricane. The air vibrated with power as weapons of fire, crystal, and claw met with blades of darkness and flame as beings of light fought against the stuff nightmares were made of.

A wedge of Shadeslayers flew in front of Jez, mowing through the demons like wheat before a scythe as they tried to get Jez and his friends to the entrance of the library. Demons roared as they died, but all too quickly, the surprise wore off, and pharim started falling out of the sky, though it was nowhere near in as many numbers as the demons.

Jez’s escorts reached the door to the library. Whatever power had made it appear to be whole before apparently didn’t work in the abyss because the door seemed to be a little more than a burned-out husk. Still, the Shadeslayer at the front threw his hands forward. A gout of flame rushed out and crashed into the entryway. It only lasted a second before extinguishing itself. Only ash remained. The pharim spread out and formed a circle around Jez and his friends. A gust of wind carried the ash from the door into the center of the room. A Shadeslayer, whose name Jez didn’t know, briefly glanced at him.

“You have all you need, Luntayary. We will hold them off.”

They stood in front of the door facing outward. Ziary got into line next to them, and though physically taller than they, he seemed somehow less than the pharim around him. Still, the leader inclined his head, and Jez and Lina went inside.

The library was strangely quiet. The pristine marble columns contrasted the wasteland outside. If not for the open door, he might’ve been able to forget where he was. He set about drawing the circle. It was more difficult than he’d expected. Demons constantly burst into the library, and though the Shadeslayers cut them down before they got close, Jez struggled to concentrate with the constant attacks. After the third time he messed up a particularly difficult rune, he threw his hands up in frustration.

“What is it?” Lina asked.

“It’s too loud.”

She nodded. She waved her finger in a circle, and instantly, there was dead quiet. A demon made of a pale green light crashed through a window only to be incinerated by a Shadeslayer’s flame. Jez didn’t hear anything. He gave Lina a questioning look.

She shrugged. “It’s just an auditory illusion. Making you hear nothing is almost like making you hear something that isn’t really there.”

Jez nodded. “Thanks, that’ll help.”

He knelt and started drawing again, doing his best to ignore the spectacular battles happening just a few yards away. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what the
Blood of Sariel
said. If drawn in ash, some of the runes had to be duplicated. The symbol for fire had to be overlaid on the symbols for the other elements, though fire itself had to be drawn lightly. Earth had to be pressed in hard, so the ground showed through the line. One by one, the details came to mind, and he lost himself in his work until Lina’s voice, thick with fear, brought him out of it.

“By the seven.”

He looked up and could practically feel hope drain away. The Shadeslayers that had been set to guard him had come in closer, and there were only half as many as there had been the last time Jez had looked. Dozens of demons had entered the library. Holes had been melted in the ground by the battle and part of one wall had collapsed. Every window in the entry chamber had been shattered, and more of the creatures poured in. Many of the demons had pharim prisoners which they held with ropes or bands of power. Ziary was trapped in a net of darkness. Shamarion was held inside the body of a demon that looked to be made of chains. The Shadowguard was bruised and battered, and half of his left wing had been torn off. Jez’s blood went cold as he realized his mistake. If the pharim died here, they would return to the Keep of the Hosts, but if the demons could find a way to keep them here, they would be trapped. It would be a difficult thing to accomplish, but the demons had a fallen Lightgiver to tell them exactly how to do it.

As if summoned by the thought, Mirel stepped through the ruined doorway. She had abandoned the semblance of a pharim completely and now looked like the reptile demon she’d been the first time Jez had seen her. She no longer looked afraid or jumpy, though, and her eyes lacked any emotion but hate. She gave Jez an evil grin.

“Lina,” Jez said. “Drop the silence.”

She gave him a slow nod and the roar of demons along with the cries of pharim assaulted his ears.

“I never imagined it would turn out so well,” Mirel said. “You have delivered an army of pharim into our hands. If I did not know better, I would think you were one of us. You have done more than any demon ever did.”

“No,” Jez said. “That’s not how it happened.”

“What you intended is irrelevant. The library is ours as are the pharim who weren’t banished. This has been a great victory for the abyss. Only one thing remains.”

“You.”

The voice came from above, and Jez looked up to see Sharim descending slowly, his wings spread wide. He held his blade of liquid flame in both hands. A trio of Jez’s Shadeslayer guards rushed at him, but Sharim casually flicked his wrist, and a torrent of wind sent them crashing to the ground. For a second, Jez just stared, unwilling to believe it. Venta magic was in the dominion of destruction, and while most demons were strong in that area, it was the focus of the Shadeslayers. Sharim had beaten them in their area of greatest strength, and he had done it with ease. Jez raised his crystal sword, but he had no real hope of winning. Sharim landed several feet away from him.

“Surrender.”

“Do not!” Shamarion cried.

The chain demon squeezed, and the Shadowguard screamed. Sharim glared at him.