The Name Of The Sword (Book 4) (37 page)

Throughout the room people gasped and cried out. Even Valso started and his eyes narrowed, as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Only Rhianne failed to react, didn’t move in the slightest. She simply smiled and nodded approval.

Behind Morgin, Olivia cried out, “What have you done?”

Morgin looked at the bladeless hilt, and felt as if shackles that had bound him throughout his life had been broken away. He tossed the hilt forward, where it clattered on the stone floor and came to rest at the base of the dais.

Valso threw his head back and crowed with laughter. He took the steps of the dais two at a time, with the little snake hovering just behind him. Rhianne followed more slowly, taking each step carefully. At the base of the dais Valso bent and picked up the hilt. He held it up and laughed. “I am free. No one can stop me now.”

He looked at Morgin with blood-red eyes. “You fool, now there is nothing to hinder me.”

Morgin drew power as he watched Valso change. He pulled it from every level of existence, pulled it from the stone of the building, from the ground and the earth beneath it.

Valso roared with laughter, and with each heartbeat he grew in height. His head transformed slowly, his mouth extending into a muzzle, his teeth lengthening into vicious canines. His pupils elongated horizontally until he looked at Morgin with blood-red goat-slitted eyes. The monster with the head of a goat now towered above them all.

To one side DaNoel shrieked, dropped to his knees, put his hands over his ears and cried, “In my head, in my head, nooooo.” AnnaRail rushed to his aid

Morgin focused on Beayaegoath above all else. He turned back to the dais as the monster tossed the bladeless hilt carelessly to the floor. It clattered at Morgin’s feet, and the Dark God spoke in his true voice. “You are a fool, mortal. You’ve destroyed my self-forged blade, the one thing that could defeat me.”

Morgin tried to still his racing heart, tried to appear calm and unconcerned as he bent down and picked up the bladeless hilt. He looked at it and said, “No. This was my self-forged blade, and I needed to destroy it.”

The monster strode forward, stopped a pace in front of Morgin. He stood half again as tall as a man, and he towered over him. He reached out, gripped the front of Morgin’s tunic and lifted him until their noses almost touched.

With fear crawling up his gut, Morgin tried to appear calm as he held up the bladeless hilt and said, “Your self-forged blade is not some trivial thing of mere steel, but one of flesh and blood and bone, forged in the hell of your hatred.”

The Dark God frowned.

Morgin looked into the Dark God’s soulless eyes and said, “The blade you should fear is me.”

He released his power.

37
The Truth in a Name

The blast of power Morgin released stunned Rhianne, sent a shockwave through the hall that knocked many senseless. Rhianne would not have believed that a mere mortal could contain such power and live. She had managed to stay standing, saw that Olivia, AnnaRail, NickoLot and those who commanded the most power had done the same, and from the looks on their faces they too were stunned by the inhuman strength Morgin had shown. Others struggled back to their feet while many did not rise. She held onto the power she’d summoned, knew there were two things she must do, and that now was not her moment.

Morgin had wrapped his hands about the Dark God’s throat and they staggered back and forth as the monster tried to dislodge him. Bayellgae hovered above them, darting about as they fought, but leaving the battle to its master. Morgin and Beayaegoath threw arcane magics at each other, power that could easily incinerate the strongest wizards and witches in the clans. But it bounced off the two of them the way water sizzles and spits off a red-hot iron.

Beayaegoath roared with fury, “You cannot defeat me, mortal.” Then it writhed and twisted, and turned into a monstrous snake that coiled around Morgin, crushing him. Morgin screamed and cried out, beating against the enormous serpent with wave after wave of raw power, while the little demon snake hovered above them and cried, “Yesss, massster.”

Still, Rhianne’s moment had yet to come.

Olivia, AnnaRail and NickoLot combined their power and threw it at the monster. The three of them together did not match the waves of arcane force that Morgin poured forth, but they beat at it, adding their magics and arcane energies to his. And still it held against them all.

BlakeDown, Theandrin and the other leaders of the clans joined their might to the battle. Even Vodah and Rastanna wizards joined in, and Rhianne understood that while they could live with Valso’s proclivities, none of them wanted to be subject to the Nether God’s dark whims.

Beayaegoath weakened slightly. Rhianne sensed it and knew that the little snake did too, and would now act. Bayellgae’s venom was not a physical poison but a truly magical toxin. She rushed forward, and as the little demon darted toward Morgin, its jaws open, its fangs exposed, she released the blood-spell she’d prepared from Morgin’s blood and its venom, and stepped in its way. Only now would she know if the spell worked.

The snake slammed into her and its fangs punctured her throat. She gripped its body just behind its head and held it there so it couldn’t escape and attack Morgin. It writhed and coiled around her wrist, pumped its venom into her while it fed on her blood, sucking it down greedily. Her legs weakened and she trembled as the cold of the nether poison washed through her veins. She dropped to her knees, felt consciousness slipping away, focused all of her energy on holding the snake to her throat, and feeding power into the blood-spell. And then suddenly she felt an abiding warmth where cold had washed through her a moment before. The snake choked and coughed, stopped pumping venom and sucking blood. As the blood-spell took hold she felt cold pumping out of her and into the snake, while blessed warmth continued to flood her soul.

Where the snake had coiled about her wrist it felt as if she’d plunged her arm into an icy snow bank. She pulled the snake from her throat and looked at the coils. The tiny serpent had turned a whitish-blue, was clear like the coldest of ice, and had gone completely motionless, as if she wore a bracelet of ice in the form of a snake coiled about her wrist.

She dropped to the floor and slammed her wrist and the little snake against the stone. It shattered into a thousand pieces that rose up into the air and swirled into a maelstrom, then dissipated into a cloud of smoke. She heard a faint nether cry that dwindled slowly to silence.

The throne room was far from silent. Morgin and the Dark God were still locked in battle and the monster had weakened. Its power hadn’t diminished, but as Morgin and the clans threw more arcane forces against it, it appeared as if the monster couldn’t match it. It shifted out of the form of the serpent, and back into the form of the goat-headed giant. The edges of its shape grew faint and indistinct as it attempted to drag Morgin into the netherworld, where he could not defeat it.

Rhianne acted, for this was her other duty. She shifted into the lowest level of the Mortal Plane, and threw out the power she’d accumulated, a shield between it and its realm. The monstrous god slammed into her, and her physical body knew pain, while her soul held the shield in place.

“Nooooo!” the Dark God screamed.

The monster’s anger ripped through her soul, and she felt blood streaming out of her eyes, ears, nose and mouth. But from somewhere deep within she found more power, and while the Dark God beat at her, she held, blocked it from drawing fully on its sources of nether power.

She staggered, felt her body weakening while her power remained strong and whole. An odd, distant piece of her noticed that her arm was broken, a white splinter of bone jutting out of the middle of her forearm. It hurt immensely, and yet it did not weaken her. She and her Morgin could fight this monster, and defeat it.

“No,” it said. “You and your husband are such fools. You know nothing of the power of a god.”

He forced her to look into his eyes as they flared with blood-red fire. Once again he showed her the armies of tormented souls, broken and twisted by his hatred. Her heart skipped a beat as the monster smothered her magic and power. It skipped another, and another . . . then stopped altogether.

••••

Morgin struggled to breathe. With the Dark God’s hands clamped about his throat holding him well off the floor, his legs dangling beneath him, he only managed to force a tiny whisper of air into his lungs. What a fool he had been to think he and Rhianne could defeat a god.

“You dare to defy me?” the monster roared, holding Morgin’s face only a hand’s breadth from its goat-snouted head. It shook Morgin like a child’s plaything, and he thought the bones of his spine might snap any moment. “Speak your true name, mortal.”

Morgin couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. He felt consciousness slipping away as he tried to pull air through a throat constricted by the Dark God’s iron grip. All he managed was a sickly gurgle, and when the monster heard that it threw its head back and roared with laughter.

“Finding it difficult to breathe, are we? But I so want to hear this wondrous name from your own lips.”

Beayaegoath relaxed his grip slightly, just enough for Morgin to pull a faint gasp of air into his lungs.

“Speak your glorious name, AethonSword. Speak it now, for it will be the last word you utter.”

Morgin had to try. If he could somehow claim that name, even though he believed it was not his true name, perhaps it would lend him strength and he could salvage something. Morgin struggled to speak. He opened his mouth and croaked, “I . . .”

“Speak it,” the Dark God shouted, shaking him like a child’s doll.

“. . . am . . .”

“Yes,” the monster cried. “I will take joy in hearing the defeat in your name.”

“. . . named . . .”

“Now, fool, speak the name.”

Morgin tried to say
AethonSword
, but it would not come. He hung in the monster’s grip, his mouth open, uttering no sound.

“No, mortal,” the Dark God said. “I won’t let you claim a false name in my presence. You can use only your true name against me, and you don’t have one.”

As little motes of unconsciousness danced in front of Morgin’s eyes, he understood now that he’d spent a fruitless lifetime searching for a name that didn’t exist. AethonSword, AethonLaw, Morgin, one-by-one he’d been given those names, and he could taste the falsehood in each of them. He’d come from the streets of Anistigh, a nameless, filthy, diseased child. He’d never had a true name, and now he never would . . .

Never had a true name . . .

As the monster roared, gloating in its victory, a bright flash of memory showed him the streets of Anistigh so long ago.

Never had a true name . . .

Cutting the purse.

Never had a true name . . .

Running through the streets, one step ahead of the mob.

Never had a true name . . .

The blind alley.

Never had a true name . . .

And he realized he’d always looked in the wrong place.

••••

Nicki struggled to get to her feet, almost couldn’t do it but somehow managed. She stood in the middle of the Decouix throne room, staggering like a drunkard. Nearby Olivia had only made it to her hands and knees, though AnnaRail stood over her, helping her up. Beayaegoath had summoned a massive outpouring of energies that swept all of their combined magics aside, a simple demonstration of how little their mortal powers mattered when pitted against that of a god.

One wall of the room had crumbled, crushing many beneath massive blocks of stone. Dust filled the air like a thick fog, and Morgin, Rhianne and the monster were nothing but hazy figures in the distance, though she easily heard the Dark God’s rumbling voice.

“Speak your glorious name, AethonSword. Speak it now, for it will be the last word you utter.”

Somehow she had to help. Nicki staggered forward, and as she closed the distance the fog-like dust parted. The Dark God stood at the base of the dais, holding Morgin up off the ground by his throat. Blood had streamed from Morgin’s eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

Rhianne lay in a crumpled heap of gown and petticoats at the monster’s feet. She struggled to rise, but one arm seemed to have a new joint in the middle of the forearm, and when she put weight on it she cried out and fell back down.

Nicki staggered forward as the Dark God shook Morgin again. Morgin tried to say something, but clearly in immense pain his words came out in a barely audible croak. “I . . . am . . . named . . .”

Morgin hung in the Dark God’s grip, his mouth open but saying nothing. Nicki watched fear and defeat appear in his face as the monster shouted out its triumph. But then Morgin’s brow furrowed in thought, and a sudden moment of clarity appeared in his eyes. He whispered, “I am Rat.”

“What?” the Dark God said, frowning. “What kind of a name is that?”

Morgin shimmered, the edges of his shape grew faint and indistinct, and he shrank, growing smaller as she looked on. His clothing shifted in a strange way, and she heard it tearing, ripping into misshaped pieces. Nicki couldn’t believe her eyes, for as each heartbeat passed, Morgin shifted and changed, until the Dark God held a filthy, malnourished child dressed in a cloak of dirty rags.

The Dark God grimaced with a look of distaste, then dropped the child. The little boy landed on his feet and looked up at the monster standing over him, his face smeared with dirt and offal.

Beayaegoath looked at the dirt and excrement on his hands and said, “You’re filthy.” It lifted a hand high, and swung it down toward the child with a blow aimed at taking off his head. But as the monster’s hand reached the spot where the child stood, the boy vanished.

The Dark God frowned, and in that instant the boy reappeared behind him, reached into his cloak of filthy rags, and withdrew the wicked little knife Nicki had given him in a dream. He stabbed out, burying the ugly blade in the god’s thigh.

The god screamed as a ray of intense, white light poured out of the wound, followed by an eruption of smoke and flame. The child jumped forward, wrapping his arms and legs about the monster’s waist. He plunged the blade into the god’s back and the monster screamed again. The child used the blade embedded in its back as a climbing spike, and pulled himself up. The monster roared with pain and staggered about, trying to swat the little being from its back. But its efforts proved futile and the boy climbed and stabbed, climbed and stabbed, each wound emitting a ray of intense light, and smoke and flame. Finally the boy reached the top of the monster’s back, grabbed the hair on the god’s head, pulled himself up so he was kneeling on the god’s shoulders, and plunged downward with the knife, burying it in the god’s eye. In that instant, both filthy boy and nether god winked out of existence.

Nicki stood there stunned, unable to move, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Rhianne’s whimper brought her back to the dust filled throne room. She staggered forward, bent down and helped Rhianne stand. Like Morgin, Rhianne had bled out through her eyes, ears, nose and mouth, and her face was a ghastly, red mask. But the tears that now flowed from her eyes were normal, clear, salty drops of water. She trembled with pain as she asked, “Where is Morgin?”

Roland walked out of the clouds of dust, with AnnaRail beside him supporting DaNoel. Nicki’s brother stood bent like an old man, his hands cupped over his ears, his arms and legs shaking with a fearsome palsy. He kept repeating, “In my head, in my head.”

Roland said, “Let’s get her out of here so your mother can help her.”

AnnaRail was by far the better healer, so Nicki nodded. They headed for the doors at the end of the room, she and Roland supporting Rhianne between them, AnnaRail supporting DaNoel. But something snagged at Nicki’s dress. She looked down and found Rat walking beside her, tugging at her skirt. She stopped, and AnnaRail and Roland stopped with her, giving her a quizzical look. Nicki nodded down at Rat and they both followed her gaze.

“Leave the city,” Rat said. “Do not dally. A god is dying this day, and the city will not survive.”

Nicki met her parent’s eyes, one then the other, saw her own fear mirrored in their faces.

AnnaRail shouted, “Olivia, BlakeDown, Theandrin, we must leave the city now, and quickly.”

Olivia had been helping Theandrin and she stopped, looked at them, and opened her mouth to say something. AnnaRail cut her off, “Don’t ask questions. If you value your lives evacuate the city.”

A wave of intense heat warmed Nicki’s back and shoulders. She looked down, and Rat no longer stood beside her. She looked back, and where the little boy and Beayaegoath had vanished earlier, a white-hot ball of flame had appeared, as if a small sun had blossomed in the throne room.