Bane shook his head. "Still you
persist. How tiresome. What the Black Lord gives, I can take away,
and if you return again, I will destroy you."
Bane uttered a
string of harsh words that mad
e Orriss shudder, and the droge dissipated in a swirl of
shadows, exposing the dull red glow of his soul, which shot into
the ground. The Demon Lord rode on, the flames of his rage fanned
with every passing mile. The droge would not dare to attack him
again, no matter what Arkonen promised him. He would not risk being
destroyed. He would know that Arkonen was less likely to destroy
him for disobeying than Bane was for attacking him
again.
Bane was drawing close to the
Black Lord now. He could taste it in the charged air, the tangible
tension that crackled like the lightning and the swirling clouds
whose vortex hung above the Lord of the Underworld. Arkonen was
putting on a display for Bane's benefit, perhaps hoping to
intimidate him with a show of power he probably assumed Bane did
not know he could match. Without the healing, he could not have,
without risking his life.
A wall of rock
shot up
ahead, and he slammed
into it, swept from the demon steed's back as it passed through the
stone. Bane rolled to his feet as an earth demon sprang from the
ground, a stone club whistling down at his head. Bane gestured, and
a lash of shadow struck it in the chest. It disintegrated in a
spray of foul soil, the club thudding to the ground beside the
scattered mound. Bane spun as another shot up behind him,
unleashing the fire with a sweep of his hands and scattering its
dirt.
Demons
were
exceedingly fast,
although their massive bulk slowed earth demons, as Mirra had
discovered outside the dragon's cave. Then, the wards had slowed
the demon as well, but now that their powers had full rein they
could move with lightning speed. Bane, however, had long ago
discovered that he was faster. He contemplated the scattered mounds
that had been greater demons, aeons old and powerful enough to
defeat infinite armies of men, since they were indefatigable and
unaffected by mundane weapons. This time, he did not regret their
destruction; rather, it brought him satisfaction. He rubbed his
face, his nose and brow throbbing from his collision with the rock,
but his hand came away innocent of blood.
The wall was
gone, and Orriss wait
ed for
him. Bane mounted again, and the stallion sprang back on its
course. Tiring of Arkonen's unchallenged toying with him, Bane
closed his eyes and opened his mind to the Far See. The vision was
unsullied by the pain that had stopped him from using it before his
healing. The ability was similar to scrying, only within his mind,
and the image seemed like a product of his imagination, but was
not. Usually a Far See vision took an aerial vantage, like a bird's
eye view, although he was able to see things more closely if he
concentrated on them. Far Seeing was a gift of the dark power, and
therefore other wielders of darkness could sense it.
They were the easiest to find,
and the more powerful the wielder was, the easier he or she was to
locate. Places were also easy to discern, especially if he had
visited them before, while uncorrupted folk tended to be more
difficult to perceive. Far Seeing required a great deal of power,
and was therefore taxing, making it something that black mages
rarely used.
The Black Lord
stood on a barren, wind-swept plain dotted with boulders, burning
forests surrounding it.
Foul
smoke rose from glowing cracks to thicken the air. Several hundred
demons attended him, and an army of dark creatures huddled some
distance away.
Bane muttered
a string of guttural words and pointed at the ground. A hole
appeared under the Black Lord, and he vanished into it, drawn back
into the Underworld as metal is drawn to a magnet. The hole closed
at Bane's command as the demons followed their master down. He
opened his eyes and chuckled. The Black Lord was so confident he
had not even guarded himself
,
and could easily have escaped, had he been paying
attention.
A blow on the
back of Bane's shoulder threw him forwards, and he spun the
demon steed, cursing his own
inattention. Grimacing, he pulled out the crossbow bolt and flung
it away as he glanced around for his assailant. Dorel reloaded her
bow, clad now in the pseudo form of a blowsy, over-endowed
blonde.
Bane's lip curled. "Ah, Dorel, I
see your master did not bother to give you such an attractive form
this time."
She cranked the bow. "He will,
once I've killed you, as I did that snivelling piece of human
trash."
"You, kill me?" Bane chuckled.
"And, if she was dead, do you not think he would have rewarded you
for that too?"
Dorel squinted at him. "She's
alive?"
"Yes."
"Good, then I'll have the
satisfaction of killing her again when you've gone to the Land of
the Dead. The Black Lord promised her to me."
"You will not
get the chance," Bane
said,
his amusement evaporating.
Dorel raised the crossbow and
aimed it at him. "What will you do, destroy me? You don't have the
guts, human filth!"
Bane's fury flared, and he made
a vicious, slashing gesture. The dark power slammed into the droge,
shredding her pseudo body into a cloud of ash and shadow, the
crossbow falling with a clatter. Within the dissipating greyness,
her soul floated like a marsh light where she had been standing. In
the instant before it shot into the ground, Bane stretched out his
hand, his fingers spread, and his power captured her in a dark
fist. He held her trapped, unable to descend to the Underworld to
escape him.
Dorel's spirit blazed sullen red
as Bane increased the power, and a silent scream ripped through his
mind. Her soul became incandescent, and expanded to a pool of
orange light as visions of her life formed within it. Bane strived
to block the screaming from his mind, but he could not turn away
from the soul he was destroying. An unspoken law forced him to
share her pain.
A thin girl dressed in rags
begged for food. Four burly men raped her and left her for dead,
but a healer saved her. She sold herself, bore a child and lost him
to a fever, bore another and lost her to a murderer. She was
abused, beaten, whipped and raped, until she struck back and
killed, her heart filled with hate. She swung from the gallows, and
the Black Lord welcomed her to the Underworld.
Dorel's soul
shattered into soft red flakes of light that dimmed and went out as
they drifted down. The soul-scream in his mind rose to a shriek,
then faded away into the wind whistling darkness. Orriss stamped
uneasily, and Bane dismounted.
Blood trickled down his back under his shirt. Fumbling in a
pocket, he drew out a jar of green paste and rubbed some on the
wound. He paused to consider what he had just done – consigning a
soul to oblivion – but he had little regret. Dorel's torment would
not have ended any other way.
Pocketing the
jar, he went to remount the
demon steed. The stallion cavorted away, rearing, and Bane
turned to face a spreading black circle, its edge flaring with foul
fire. The Black Lord rose, his ebon form filled with whirling
sparks like maddened, tiny red stars. Arkonen took on a winged,
four-armed aspect with flaming hair and glowing yellow eyes. His
red maw curved in a grotesque smile.
"So, Bane, you think to
challenge me, stupid boy." His deep baritone boomed across the
clearing. "Do you really think you are my equal? Do you think I was
foolish enough to create one who could challenge me and win?"
Bane returned the Black Lord's
icy smile with an equally frigid one. "You planned my death so I
could not."
"I wished to be rid of a
nuisance, nothing more. You are a puny human with a weak mortal
body. You cannot sustain the power for as long or as well as I, who
am made of it."
"We shall see."
"Come now. I was wrong not to
reward you; you did your work so well. Join me, and we will rule
together, just as I promised. I was angry with you for disobeying
me and saving that human slut, even destroying a demon to do it.
She was a trap for you; she worked on your weak human emotions, as
I warned you. You lost in the end. You fell completely under her
spell and turned against me."
"No. I turned against you when
you left me to die. You should not have done that. You should have
killed me when you had the chance. Now you will pay."
The Black Lord laughed, a
grating hiss. Two fire demons manifested before the grass fires on
the edge of the black ring went out, and stationed themselves on
either side of their master.
"You would pit yourself against
me for revenge? Because I let you live?"
"You thought I would die."
"Indeed, you should have, and
would have, if not for that damned meddling witch. I should have
killed her, then you would have died."
"You have made a lot of
mistakes, have you not? Making me your equal was one of them."
Arkonen cocked
his head. "What did those old hags tell you? That you are good?
That you belong here, and should save the Overworld for them? They
told you lies, but you are too stupid to know that. You wanted to
believe them, after I left, you longed to believe that you were
good, and I evil. I did not need you
anymore, but they did, and you have craved that all your
life. You cannot fight me; we are the same. You are as evil as I,
no matter how much you deny it. The witches duped you, stupid
boy."
"No, what they said did not sway
me. I am here because of what you did to me."
Arkonen spread his hands. "I
gave you unimaginable power."
"You turned me into a
monster."
"Then I think we have no more to
say. I will see you in the Land of the Dead, when I come to destroy
your soul."
The Black Lord
pointed a finger at the ground in front of Bane, and it exploded in
an avalanche of soil and flying rocks. Bane was hurled backwards,
and sprawled. The dark shields that existed just under his skin
protected him, as they had done when the ring of standing
stones
had exploded.
Springing up, he extinguished one of the fire demons in a rush of
flame, snuffing it out forever. This was calculated to annoy
Arkonen, more than anything.
Neither of the
combatants could strike directly at the other
; their opponent would merely absorb the power
and grow stronger. Only indirect means could inflict damage. The
Black Lord's form was vulnerable to shredding, crushing and
dismemberment, but, most of all, light. This would only destroy his
shadow form, however, his soul would descend to the Land of the
Dead, where it would create another body, but that would take
time.
If Bane could
strip away Arkonen's form, his soul would be vulnerable to the
black power, just as Dorel's had been, but Arkonen's spirit was
infinitely more powerfu
l than
a droge's. Bane's mortality made him more vulnerable, and although
he too had the power to clothe himself in a dark form if he was
killed, he did not know how. His inexperience would hamper him, and
it would take him a great deal longer to gather a dark form than
Arkonen. His journey to the Land of the Dead would be a brief one,
however, for Arkonen would follow him there and destroy him whilst
he was powerless.
Bane raised
his arms and unleashed a river of black fire that
t
ore open the clouds. Arkonen
smiled and directed his power upwards to hold the thunderheads in
place. The clouds swirled and raced, as if in a cyclone. They
struggled, their powers matched, and the wind's tortured howl rose
to a shriek. Lightning rent the air with crackling flashes, and a
stench of burning ozone rode the wind as thunder made the ground
tremble.
The runes on Bane's chest flared
as he Gathered. Closing his eyes, he reached out with his mind and
plucked several tonnes of rock from a distant mountain, releasing
it over his opponent. The Black Lord barely had time to shout a
word of power before he was buried with a grinding rumble. Within
seconds, he climbed from the hill of settling rubble, unharmed. His
concentration had been broken, however, and the clouds parted. He
strived to close them again.
Bane collected a mass of ice
from a distant glacier, dropping that on Arkonen, but again he
shouted the word of power as it hammered him to the ground under a
creaking, grinding mountain of whiteness. He oozed from the melting
mound unscathed, but the clouds thinned while he climbed out, and
he restored his power to the battle above.
Bane sensed a
displacement above him and shouted the word as
pressing redness enveloped him, and crawled from
the spreading mass of solidifying lava that had landed on him.
Flames licked at its edge, consuming the dry grass. The clouds
closed as the Black Lord gained the upper hand. Bane restarted his
Gather and conjured a mass of ice spears, flinging them at Arkonen.
They made an eerie whistling, and the Black Lord diverted his power
to melt them. Bane sensed a movement beneath him and ascended on a
pillar of fire as the ground opened with a gritty ripping
sound.
Bane sweated,
his flesh burning as the power coursed through him. His bones
throbbed and his stomach clenched to subdue the burgeoning nausea.
Abandoning the struggle for the clouds,
he Moved, reappearing next to the Black Lord. He
grasped the shadow form, his Gather draining his opponent. The Lord
of the Underworld's wings vanished, and he struggled to free
himself, the ground beneath his feet burning as he drew power from
it. As he reached for Bane's throat, the Demon Lord broke away and
conjured a gold-hilted sword whose four-foot silver blade flashed
with a blue patina, the dark power within it strengthening
it.