The Demon Lord (38 page)

What from Hell might Crisen do to her… ?

His boot smashed against the door just level with the lock, and he felt timber give beneath the impact. A grey haze of smoke billowed out at him and he coughed sharply as it stung the back of his throat. The light within, whose dim outline he had seen, came from half a dozen fat black candles, each one taller than himself. When Marek saw them, he swore under his breath.

Aldric’s curse was louder, harsher and less reverent. Crisen Geruath sat crosslegged on the bare floor of the room with an open book before him, mumbling to himself and tracing the words he spoke with a golden reading-wand. It scraped loudly as it moved back and forth across the roughness of the page’s vellum surface, keeping time with the cadences of Crisen’s voice. Head bowed forward, intent on what he read, he gave no sign of having seen that death stood in the doorway.

Gueynor lay before him, spreadeagled on her back.

Her outstretched limbs were tied down, wrists and ankles, to four heavy ring-bolts sunk into the wooden floorboards; recently sunk, for the tops were still bright from the denting of the hammer which had driven them home. A pattern drawn in chalk writhed around her body, and that body which Aldric knew so well was covered only by a clinging shift of some fine silky stuff, which followed every contour so that she was both less and more than naked. Skin and silk alike were crisscrossed by lines of drying blood: Jervan’s blood, used instead of ink or paint to write the words of consecration on Lord Crisen’s offering. The blood had smeared, the chalk-marks had been scruffed—but the effectiveness of both remained unchanged. Marek could see them clearly and he knew: both were—and always had been— useless…

Wound between Gueynor’s fingers were two bloated black-red roses, their rich fragrance threading sweetly through the smokiness of incense and the stink from corpse-fat candles. A third blossom lay between her breasts, its great hooked thorns made more vicious yet by contrast with the fragile curving flesh; brilliant and baleful against the white shift as heart’s-blood spilled on snow. It moved with her breathing and her rapid pulse,

petals ablaze with sombre colour and trembling as she trembled. As if they too had life…

“Gueynor,” said Aldric very softly. The girl’s head had turned away when the door burst open; she had not wanted to know the form her death would take, not wanted to watch it stalk across the threshold. But now she looked, unable to reply for her mouth was stuffed obscenely full of cloth that was secured there by a thin cord which had cut deep into dirty, tear-streaked cheeks. Yet she answered the speaking of her name; her fear-wide sapphire eyes glowed from within when she realised that his voice was not a trick played by some hellborn monstrosity; glowed not with happiness, not even with relief, but with simple gratitude. They closed, and a single crystal tear welled from between their lids. And it was as if all the hard words between them had never been…

The Alban took a long step forward, staring at the Overlord. Crisen paid him no heed; rings flashed as his hands made elaborate gestures in the bitter air and their hard, gemmed sparkle was mirrored by Aldric’s cold slitted eyes.

There were so many things that he could say—that he wanted to say. About the dead: Youenn Sicard; Evthan; Lord Geruath; and now Jervan. Before the Light of Heaven, those were just the faces that he knew… ! What about Gueynor’s parents Erwan and Sula—or even the witch Sedna, for lover or not, if Crisen had not arranged her killing personally he had certainly connived at it. “Crisen of Seghar,” he began with brutal formality, then stopped with a shrug of disgust. Why waste time and breath… ? Just do it.

But even when Widowmaker’s point reached out to touch the mad lord’s face there was no reaction. For he was mad. Marek, kneeling knife in hand to release Gueynor from her bonds, no longer had any doubt about it. Only a madman would sit there with
Enciervanul Doamnisoar
at his knees—Oh, why had he not burned those books… !—and mouth the phrases of a major summoning in a room that was completely bare of circles, wards or holding patterns. Yet Crisen had done precisely that. The demon queller looked up and felt a small tremor of shock rush through him as he saw Aldric’s longsword stroke tentatively along the Overlord’s jaw, moving for the great vein underneath his ear. He did not want to witness yet another death. “Aldric, for the love of—”

Aldric’s armoured head swung round to face him. The
eijo
did not speak at first, but the candle-light reached inside his war-mask and what little of his expression showed through the trefoil opening was enough for Marek. He shut his mouth at once, and kept it shut even when the
taiken
slithered into her scabbard and he knew what would follow.

“For the love of what?” said Aldric, not asking any question now. “Honour? Because of Isileth’s honour I will not foul her with this man’s blood. Because of my own honour I will not let him live. So…” He spoke words which brought the spellstone in his hand to life. “He wants sorcery. He will have it.”

The piercing drone which emanated from the stone of Echainon reached into whatever other world Lord Cri-sen’s mind had strayed to, dragging him back to a sort of sanity with the knowledge that he too could die. And
would
. His glazed eyes flickered, then bulged horribly as they focused on the blue-white haze of leashed-in force which danced and flickered around Aldric’s mailed fist. The Overlord’s mouth quivered, hanging open so that saliva drooled unnoticed into his lap.

Aldric’s own mouth twisted with distaste and he wished Rynert the King was here to see the man he wanted killed. There was nothing to be gained from the obliteration of such vermin—nothing political, nothing personal, nothing honourable. And likewise nothing to be lost. Or any remorse to be felt. Aldric raised his arm and tongues of flame licked eagerly along its steel-sheathed surface…

Then something rattled at the door.

Aldric spun, clawing out Widowmaker with his free hand. Nothing burst into the room, but the broken lock gave way and allowed the heavy door to swing slowly open on its well-greased hinges. Outside, against the darkness of the presence chamber, was a man in a crested coat: a lord’s-man, standing casually with both hands clasped behind his back.

“Get out of the way!” said Aldric crisply, although Marek and the still-weak Gueynor were already safe at one side of the room. The retainer’s affected nonchalance was too suspicious, too obviously false. It screamed warning of a trap. Yet the man was alone, watching him through dull eyes, his breathing jerky and shallow. Terrified… thought Aldric. “What do you want?” he demanded.

The trooper neither moved nor spoke; then one arm swung round…

And was just an arm. The hand was gone. Alarm tocsins wailed within the Alban’s mind and he threw himself clear of the doorway with the speed of the fear of death.

In that same instant the soldier exploded from neck to crotch in a welter of blood and entrails, his body ripped asunder by what came slashing through it. An enormous talon at the end of an impossibly long, sinewy limb blurred with pile-driver force into the space Aldric had occupied a bare heartbeat earlier, and its three claws slammed shut on nothing. As the mangled decoy was flung aside in a grotesque flail of arms and legs and viscera a black and glinting bulk filled the doorway.

Aldric rolled, rose to one knee and stared aghast as Ythek Shri tried to force a way inside. Wood cracked and plaster crumbled as its massive form squeezed across the threshold, into the place from which the summons and the invitation had originated. Some of the candles had gone out, choked by dust or toppled by falling debris, but there was still sufficient light for him to see the Warden of Gateways—as if he had not already seen far too much for any peace of mind until this thing was dead and he had seen it so…

It was vaguely insectlike, slightly reptilian, totally hideous. Slimed and shiny surfaces glistened oozily as the being moved. In an atmosphere where scented smoke had been swamped by the stench of spilled intestines, its unearthly outlines were hellishly at home. And it had laid a trap especially for him… Why… ?
Why
?

The spellstone throbbed and burned against his hand, yearning, and still he did not realize the answer. Ancient adversaries: Light and darkness, heat and cold… The spellstone and the demon…

As Ythek advanced through a cloud of dust and fragments its huge head swung from Aldric on one side to Marek on the other. Threats. It considered Gueynor, who had not screamed, not fainted, but who gazed at the Devourer with sick, awestruck fascination. Woman-meat. Hunger spasmed through it momentarily, but was overcome by greater immediacy as its attention turned to Crisen. Summoning. The Overlord’s brain almost gave way beneath the weight of icy malice brought to bear on his cowering frame. With a repellent shearing noise the demon’s maw gaped wide and it took a long stride forward to the one who would most please its Master. It ignored the others completely.

Gritting his teeth against the pain of power which he had never before experienced—pain which froze with heat and burned with cold—Aldric opened his hand and released the force pent up within the spellstone. Thunder hammered through the small room, blowing out its windows, and the demon’s leisurely advance became an impossible leap away from danger. It moved faster than the Alban’s eyes could follow; one instant in line with his outstretched arm and the next elsewhere in a blinding bound of speed. Despite the purple-glowing afterflash which blocked his vision, he was upright on unsteady feet with Widowmaker poised before anything else could happen.

Nothing did. Marek, backed into a corner, had one arm protectively round Gueynor’s shoulders and the other raised in a gesture of dismissal. Crisen was nowhere in sight, and the only other door out of the room was a mass of shattered timber which still swayed in twisted hinges. Ythek Shri was gone.

“He called it,” Marek said shakily. “He called it, and it took him.”

Aldric was bent double, hands on knees; he was panting as if he had just run long and hard and his left hand felt as though it had been plunged into boiling water.

All magic has its price
... But this time the Echainon stone had used
him
, and to maintain the Balance his vigour was returning in great surges, pulsing from the talisman into his palm and thence to every sinew in his body. For a little while he felt as though he could tear Seghar apart with his bare hands; but he knew that this renewed strength would be needed in full measure before the sun rose. If he lived to see it rise at all…

“Why did it not want me… ?” Gueynor’s voice was very small, like that of a child woken in the night by a bad dream. “Crisen was going to—to give me to it. Jer-van tried to stop him. So he—he cut. His men held Jer-van and he—” She pressed her head against the demon queller’s chest and cried as if her heart would break.

“Crisen didn’t know what he was doing,” Marek explained, more for Aldric’s benefit than Gueynor’s. “But he thought he did. He thought that the sacrifice of a young woman would enable him to make bargains with Issaqua. Why, I won’t even guess. But none of the rituals have been observed—none at all, from the begining of this affair. Ythek has been free all along. Without obligation to anyone. What it does is to please its Master, Issaqua.”

“But why take Crisen?” The
eijo
leaned back against the wall, nudging the scorched and tattered remnants of
Enciervanul Doamnisoar
with his boot. The grimoire had been charred to a cinder by the spellstone’s flash of fire, and he wondered vaguely whether Crisen Geruath might have suffered the same fate.

“This is a time for wolves and ravens,” Marek quoted softly. “Issaqua creates and feeds on darkness. What is darker, Aldric—the soul of this girl, or that of a man who stabbed his own father and cast the blame on someone else… ?”

“Then he has escaped me,” the Alban grated, and the metallic edge of his voice was not entirely an echo from his war-mask. “Escaped us…” Widowmaker glittered as he raised her level with his eyes. “That is unseemly.”

“You had your chance. You had many chances. You let each one slip through your fingers.” Marek was not disapproving, nor was he taking pleasure in the younger man’s mistakes. He was simply stating the facts as he knew them. “And you can put your blade away. Nothing from the world of men can harm the Herald.”

“You’re wrong!” Aldric’s flat assertion surprised the Cernuan.

“Why, and how?”

“Because of Widowmaker.”

“Aldric, you have a fine sword—although I’m no judge of
taikenin
. But a sword is just a sword…”

“But
this
sword is Isileth.”

“Isileth… ?” Marek repeated the name, making no secret of his doubts. His gaze focused on the weapon, black steel and braided leather hilt in a lacquered scabbard. “It cannot be,” he asserted, then with more confidence: “It isn’t old enough.”

“She can be, and she is.” Both Marek and Gueynor noted the subtle change of pronoun. “The furniture has been renewed, of course. Often: But the blade is unchanged.” He unhooked the
taiken
from his weapon belt, bowed very slightly and withdrew a hand’s width of steel from the scabbard. “You know the name, so you know the writing. ‘Forged was I of iron Heaven-born. Uelan made me. I am Isileth.’ Isileth is Widowmaker, Marek; and Widowmaker is mine. You say, nothing in the world of men… what do you say concerning iron Heaven-born?”

“I say you are as mad as were the Overlords of this place,” Marek retorted quietly. “But you may also be right. I hope so, for all our sakes. Not least your own.”

Beyond the broken door was a gallery where the Overlord could walk in rainy weather, its walls adorned with tapestries and paintings all of military subjects. It gave Aldric a clue as to where the passage led. “You,” he said firmly to Gueynor, “stay here. This thing—”

“Is something I intend to see through,” the girl said. “Right to the end.”

“You aren’t being stubborn—you’re being stupid!”

“Why? We’ll each know where the other is if I come with you—”