Mythborn (9 page)

Ah, he thought, and now the reason for the lens was revealed. He took note of that, of Lilyth’s ability to divulge information only when necessary. Some facts were beginning to fall into place, but there were still two glaring holes in her logic, ones he did not yet give voice.

First, it was on her word alone that Sovereign was malevolent to Edyn. The only attacks he’d witnessed over the last two hundred years had been by Lilyth’s own hand. Second, how would he unravel the spell Valarius used to hide Avalyon in a place that had no physical location, but instead existed within this “phase” between worlds?

Then she said something that sounded completely unconnected, a sure sign she was using her entire arsenal of diplomacy to bring about his support. Clearly his actions were important to her, though he could not discern why. “We found something floating amongst our isles.”

“What?” he asked.

Lilyth gestured with her chin at the open window but that movement seemed to take in the entire world of Arcadia. “A metal tomb etched with unfamiliar runes. The metal itself is hard, like ebonite, but gray and covered with minerals. Quite ancient. When we opened it, we found a woman.” She paused, making sure Duncan was listening, then said, “A dwarven builder dressed in strange garb.”

Duncan now looked at the demonlord with renewed interest. “I take it she’s alive?”

Lilyth nodded. “She was in a deep slumber, but awakened shortly after the tomb was opened. I was going to use her to bargain with Dazra.” When Duncan looked confused she added, “The leader of the dwarves.”

“Bargain, how?”

“While Dazra and his dwarven people are not aligned with me, they’re not yet my enemy. Perhaps the gesture of returning one of his own people to him might help reduce his fears enough for him to meet with me.”

“To join your efforts against Sovereign?” Duncan inquired.

Lilyth smiled and said, “With his guard down, my forces will attack and subjugate the dwarves, bringing them in line against Sovereign.”

She said this so matter-of-factly that Duncan was nodding before he caught himself. Then the simple truth that thousands would be possessed by this act of subterfuge hit him with a sickening finality. His morality, the strange new feeling emerging as a result of this place’s beneficial healing, forced him to ask, “You’d betray and possess those who meet you in peace?”

“I grow tired of explaining this.” Lilyth slammed her palm down with a thunder crack and stood. “My Furies need bodies, Archmage! They cannot survive Sovereign nor can they do battle with his forces on Edyn without flesh, without
substance
. Somewhere deep in Dawnlight Mountain the coward Sovereign sits, plotting the end of your world and mine and you speak as if possession is a choice! Do you understand what’s at stake?”

Duncan had fallen back a step at the demonlord’s vehemence. As her anger cooled, he knew he’d have to be careful what he said next, so instead of arguing her point he shifted the conversation and asked, “Then why give up the prisoner? Why give away this opportunity you’ve so eloquently outlined?”

“Do not feign ignorance now, it is beneath you. My world rebuilds you beyond such shallow facades. Did you believe I could not ken your strategy to entice me to chatter away? Were I so feeble-minded, you and yours would already be victims to Sovereign’s dreams.” She turned to him and asked directly, “Do I need the dwarven woman now?”

Duncan thought about that, his mind quickly turning over all the facts. Lilyth had managed to capture one dwarf—wait, this was the second builder she’d captured! The first was… When the answer revealed itself, he looked at her and acknowledged, “Baalor.”

Lilyth nodded, saying, “My general now has a builder’s body and can enter the dwarven city freely—his new trick, as you so churlishly offered. This leaves you with the chance to do the same at Avalyon.”

“You think this woman can breach Avalyon’s phase?”

Lilyth shook her head, a hint of exasperation showing itself before being quickly hidden behind her sapphire eyes. Then she sighed and began to talk more slowly, and Duncan felt like he was being spoken to like a dimwitted child.

“Like me, Valarius has long sought a true builder. This prisoner may be a good reason for the elven highlord to allow you into Avalyon. You meet an old friend, you come with gifts. He may even give you your wife in trade.”

At that, Duncan felt the barb. Give him his wife? His disgust at Lilyth rose to new heights but he kept it carefully hidden. He laughed instead, a short bark that brought raised eyebrows from the demonlord. Lilyth could not gain entrance to Avalyon with a thousand dwarves to trade. Valarius would never trust her enough to open his isle. But Duncan…

They had never been friends, and his haughtiness had put Duncan and many others off, but maybe he
could
convince Val to let him in. Having the dwarven prisoner might be just enough to convince the self-important archmage to treaty with him. Still, he kept his emotions carefully neutral and said, “It will not be easy.”

Lilyth cocked her head at that and asked, “Why?”

Duncan’s smile was derisive when he replied, “Because we hate each other. Always did. He’s a pompous tyrant, arrogant and overbearing. Mix the worst of a Galadine with an archmage of incredible power and you get an ass with a crown, thick-headed and stubborn. It’s no wonder he’s a thorn in your side. He’s been far worse to others.”

Lilyth seemed unprepared for that, and she fell back in her seat. Yet his statement did not seem to change her mind, and her fortitude was plain for even Duncan to see. He steeled himself as she rose and said, “You have your task. Accomplish it if you wish to see your family.”

And that, he realized, was it. He had no other argument. In the end she only cared about results. He was careful when he looked up at her, smiling in a way he hoped was agreeable, and said, “You’ll inform your men I come to take the prisoner?”

Lilyth leaned forward, her mouth slightly parted as if she were about to question him, the tip of a pink tongue delicately touching her white teeth. Then she leaned back again and said, “Of course, they will have clear orders to hand her over to you.”

She continued to look at him, blinking once like a reptile clearing its eyes, and said, “Do you know why we’ve never recovered a dwarven body until Bara’cor?”

Duncan had grown accustomed to the manner in which Lilyth approached things. It was seldom direct unless she was angry. Instead, she came at it from many angles, like a trained warrior fighting. This made him both interested to hear what she had to say and wary. In his experience, those who spoke well seldom had good intentions.

“They come for their own, Duncan.” Lilyth leaned back, “Their ability to shift gives them unfettered access to almost anywhere in the realm, and they retrieve the body from wherever it lies. Always.”

Duncan’s eyes narrowed as he thought this through. “They can enter here, yet they don’t attack? Why?”

Lilyth shrugged. “I don’t know. Until the dark assassins of Sovereign began their assaults on your people and mine, we never saw a dwarf. Even during the last war, not a single dwarf killed an Aeris.”

It was Duncan’s turn to scoff. “You forget I was there. The dwarven axers did their bloody work, just like the rest of us.”

“And killed the bodies of those possessed, but no Aeris
died
.” Lilyth closed her eyes, looking, it seemed, back in time. “Only Valarius and your mages caused us any real harm.” There was silence as the demonlord reminisced, but when she opened her eyes they bore into him like lances. “Killing an Aeris is harder than you think, but you and your kind have nonetheless proven yourselves up to the task. I remember your part well, and your stand at the Fall.”

“Valarius was out of control,” he replied simply.

“Perhaps, but your actions caused all of this.” She gestured around her. “Were it not for you, the Aeris would have achieved Unity already.”

“And Edyn would be lost.”

“Lost?” Lilyth laughed. “How does one blind from birth know what vision is?”

Duncan paused, careful how he answered next. “I’d do so again, but this time I’d not walk so blindly back to the Galadine line.” He looked around the chamber, his mind coming back to the prisoner. He looked at Lilyth and surmised, “But this tomb you found… they didn’t come for her?”

“Not yet,” she answered, “but she has awakened. It is unclear if they will try to effect a rescue.”

“That’s a huge chance you’re taking.”

“Coming from the man who has stretched the idea of ‘chance’ for almost two hundred years, it is hard to take you seriously.” Lilyth’s blue eyes danced with feigned amusement, a thin disguise beneath which true danger lurked. Then her expression changed to one of real earnest. He could tell she took what she said next very seriously. “But I’m not taking that chance, Duncan,
you are
. I hope for your sake that you’re wrong about you and Valarius being enemies, or I fear you walk to your death.”

To Duncan, she didn’t seem the least bit concerned for him, but rather resigned that one way or another, she was getting him out of her way. A sudden thought occurred so he turned to her and asked, “If the dwarven woman can shift as they can, how has she not escaped already?”

“Their ability is blocked by this.” She reached down and lifted a copper, ring-shaped torc Duncan knew all too well. “I see you recognize it.”

“A gift from the Galadines to the world.” Duncan spat, unable to hide his distaste or the fact that he’d felt powerless when Silbane had used the same thing on him.

Lilyth shook her head, correcting him, “A gift from Valarius to the Galadines.” She laid it back to rest and said, “Do you know what happens if this is put on an Aeris?”

When Duncan didn’t respond, she said simply, “I said they are hard to kill, but this insidious ring, this basest of metals, brings true death to my people. You worry about losing your connection to the Way when wearing this,” she said, looking at the collar, “but my children
are
the Way. They die when this collar closes upon them. One reason amongst many you should kill Valarius and feel nothing but pride.”

“Valarius created these?” Duncan asked softly, almost to himself.

Lilyth nodded. “Oh, I doubt anyone knew where they came from, but the Galadine magehunters put it to effective use.”

“And nearly wiped us out,” finished Duncan. “Why would he help to wipe out his own people?”

“What better way to get rid those who betrayed and left you here for dead? Throw in the fear of Aeris ‘demons’ and blame at my feet, and you have a world willing to kill those saving them from eradication. Give them a weapon to destroy us, and you foment war. In this I believe you when you say the archmage is a pompous tyrant.”

For a very brief moment sorrow etched her features, but she finished in a hard-edged voice, “Do whatever you need to do to get into Avalyon. That is the only outcome that will be rewarded.”

“I want to hear you say you’re offering me my wife and son, unharmed.”

“Get inside Avalyon and you will be reunited with your family.”

Duncan cocked his head at that, dread forming a pit in his stomach. He asked the question then, the one that a part of him did not want answered. “Do you know… is my wife truly captive?”

It was almost as if Lilyth knew what he was asking when she waved a hand dismissively and said, “I told you all may not be as you wished.”

Duncan did not know how to respond to that, for she’d not answered him definitively. “Captive” could mean more than one thing, but he did not want his mind to start dwelling on an idea that Sonya had stayed with Valarius willingly. The thought was too much to bear and threatened to spiral him out of control. The expression on Lilyth’s face said that she was not going to say any more, so he forced himself to focus on his present situation.

He looked around. The children continued their play, running in and out of the obstacles made by adult legs or anything else, as kids were wont to do. This could not be her endgame, a nursery of thousands upon thousands of hostages. Then a thought occurred to him, and he pointed at the children and asked, “Why have you not possessed them already?”

Lilyth smiled, her eyes sparkling with something akin to hunger as she explained, “Purebloods may not be harmed, not even by Sovereign, as the First Laws decree. Possession would alter them. They would be mixed with my Furies and Sovereign would no longer stay his hand from the people of Edyn. So long as they stay purebloods we are at an impasse, a stalemate, as I said before.”

So they served her purpose now, unpossessed, but what about after? Then he remembered her words.
We need bodies, Archmage.

His eyes narrowed as he asked, “And what happens when you win, Lady? When Sovereign is no more?”

Lilyth smiled and for the first time her face took on a feral, almost predatory look. “My people still need to live. What difference does it make whether it is you or your Lord Scythe that looks out from behind your eyes?” Her simple question made him rethink everything.

At that moment Duncan finally understood that Lilyth, for all her claims of being misunderstood and of having a virtuous cause, would remake the world too, only to suit her own needs. Her Furies would be the new race of Edyn, possessing these children and able to leave her realm with new bodies of their own. Families would welcome back their missing children and grandchildren, only to be possessed in turn. It was an insidious, different kind of war, designed this time to win without drawing a single blade.