He followed her gaze. "Yes."
"If you did, it would allow the
Lady's power to reach us."
"Which would do me no good, but
ending this would take a great deal of power."
She sighed. "What about
Mirra?"
"He will use her as a
shield."
Her eyes flicked to his face.
"But you will not harm her."
"No."
"Then how do you intend to
defeat him?"
He continued to gaze out across
the land, his expression bleak. "I will find a way."
"Of course you will."
After a pause, he turned to face
her once more. "What becomes of me when this is all over?"
"That is up to you. Give up the
dark power, and you could live a normal life. Keep it, and you will
be an outcast, feared by everyone. Should you then seek out a quiet
place to live away from people, they will eventually forget you
still live. Or, you could take up the blue power."
He snorted. "Blue mages are
weak, pathetic."
"All the great ones are dead,
and the skill has been lost. You would not merely be a mage,
though. You would still be very powerful."
"I have met one of your great
blue mages, and his power was nothing compared to mine."
"Yes, but it did not corrupt
him. Blue mages are highly respected, and once the Black Lord has
been cast down, you will not need to be so powerful. You will not
need any power at all."
Bane eyed her. "You would like
to see me stripped of it, would you not?"
"Only because it will corrupt
your soul."
"And then I would become a
threat to you."
"Perhaps."
His expression hardened. "You
cannot force me to give it up."
"No, certainly not. We would not
try."
"Good. If you did, I might
decide to finish what Arkonen started."
"And perish yourself,
ultimately."
His eyes glinted with anger.
"Your arguments are like a rat gnawing at my mind, old woman."
"Good, perhaps it will find some
sense in there somewhere."
Bane glared at her, then marched
away in the direction of his room, to rest, she hoped, before the
coming conflict. Ellese sighed and walked back to the chapel to
join her sisters in prayer.
The following morning, at the
breaking of a dark dawn that hardly lightened the gloom, Bane
entered the courtyard with his potions. The soldiers who rested
there left, not wishing to witness another Gather, and the healers
who tended them followed. The dark power that filled the air
sickened everyone, and some could no longer eat because of it.
Ellese watched him from a doorway, and Martal stood beside her.
Bane drew his dagger, then hesitated, testing the thickness of the
power around him. The seven runes had been cut only a few days ago,
and, although the white fire had healed them, the portals of power
remained open. With so much readily available, he decided that he
could forgo cutting them again.
Sheathing the dagger, he pulled
open his shirt and smeared some of the black potion on his chest,
then traced each arcane symbol. He did so in the same order in
which he had cut them before, starting at the top right and working
his way down to the lowest at the centre of his chest. Each rune
glowed as he traced it, and when all seven burnt with blood-red
light, he raised his arms.
The power rushed into him with
sickening intensity, no longer confined to shadows but all around
him, as it had been in the Underworld, only much less. The lack of
rune cutting slowed it, for which he was grateful. The faint,
banshee howling filled the air as the Gather gained momentum, and
the darkness sank into his bones. Once more a vortex formed around
him, cloaking him in shadows that owed nothing to the presence of
light. He let it flow into him in a burning river, filling him with
its foulness that chilled his bones and burnt his blood.
Ellese watched Bane from the
doorway, her stomach knotted and her heart heavy with dread for
him. Would she lose him to the darkness? Would it triumph in the
end, and corrupt his soul? That was a possibility too horrible to
contemplate, and all too real. Already he refused to give it up, a
bad sign. If he did not, ultimately it would claim him, then
destroy him.
What would he do if Mirra died?
He was too wild to predict, a man torn by terrible conflicts that
could destroy him unless he found something to cherish. That which
he had found now teetered on the brink of corruption, threatening
to rescind the scrap of hope he clung to and let him sink into the
sea of evil that surrounded him. Last night she had looked into her
glass and seen Mirra huddled in the corner of the rune room, her
eyes wide and blank, her arm a monstrosity of scales and claws.
The shadow vortex thickened
until Bane was hidden within it, then it cleared as he cut the
Gather, dispersing. Sweat beaded his brow, his lips were compressed
in a grim line, and his eyes were filled with darkness. Ellese
wanted to go to him and embrace him, to give him what assurances
she could, but remained rooted to the spot. He would only reject
her, especially now. Tears blurred her vision as he strode away
through the gates, heading out into the dead land.
Bane walked to
the edge of the hallowed ground, where three demons rose to bow to
him, the survivors of those he had summoned. He ignored them,
gazing for a while in the direction of the Old Kingdom, where the
gloom was complete. Turning his attention to the task at hand, he
lighted a fire with a trickle of power from his fingers and
summoned more demons, fire, earth and air. For each one he uttered
the guttural god words,
‘eyre
myrdrath’, followed by a demon's name.
Earth demons rose all around
him, and fire demons stepped from the flames in a steady stream,
bowing to him before taking their place amongst the growing throng.
All were greater demons in true form. Each was powerful enough to
destroy cities and armies. Each one he named, their appellations
born in the recesses of his mind, a gift of the dark power. When
more than a hundred were gathered around him, he swept them with
cold eyes, meeting equally frigid stares that slid away in enforced
respect.
"You will guard my back during
the battle," he ordered. "Let no threat reach me. And you will
attack the Black Lord, draw his attention." He pointed at a group
of earth demons. "You will snatch the healer from Arkonen the
moment you see an opportunity. You will not harm her. You will
carry her at all speed to the hallowed ground and release her. You
will allow nothing to harm her. Is that understood?"
The demons nodded, their stony
eyes baleful.
"Then you will return to guard
me. Nothing else." He raked them with another glacial glance. "Now
go to the place where the last battle was fought, and wait."
As they sank into the ground or
shrank into tiny flames, he closed his eyes and opened his mind to
the Far See. Arkonen stood in the Old Kingdom temple, a bevy of
droges and demons, some in man shape, surrounding him. A young
Chegdhin girl lay on the bloody altar, ready for sacrifice. Several
others had already met that fate. A pile of bodies lay nearby,
stacked like wood in a pool of blood. The hearts that had been cut
from them burnt in braziers, exuding foul smoke.
A droge wearing a red priest's
robe stood with dagger in hand, ready to cut out the sacrifice's
heart. This, Arkonen did merely for sport. It served no purpose
other than to feed his lust for death and suffering. Now that the
Overworld was at his mercy, he had no need of the small amount of
power each sacrifice drew from the Underworld. The girl's eyes were
wide with abject terror. She had not been given the drugs that
eased her ordeal, and her fear added to the Black Lord's pleasure.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream as the droge raised the dagger,
and Bane opened his eyes, ending the Far See. He Moved.
The Demon Lord reappeared beside
the altar. The sensations that had been lacking in the Far See
rushed in on him. The girl's scream tore the air, and the smoke's
stench almost made him gag. The droge with the dagger stumbled
back, his mouth dropping open. Bane spared him a sharp, warning
glance, then turned to face Arkonen. The rest of the droges and
demons retreated, wary eyes fixed on the Demon Lord. The girl
stopped screaming. The Black Lord's momentary surprise was well
hidden, but Bane glimpsed it with a twinge of satisfaction. The Far
See had been too short for the Black Lord to sense. Arkonen smiled,
tilted his head, and spread his arms as if to embrace Bane.
"Bane, my boy! It is good to see
you. So glad you could join us for a little sport."
Bane's lip curled. "This is not
a social visit, Arkonen. It is time."
"Time? Time for what? Son, we
can still patch things up, it is not too late."
"Yes it is. And I am not your
son."
Arkonen's smile widened as he
studied Bane. "You have certainly made a remarkable recovery. How
did you manage it?"
"You do not care how I did it,
but it is done. It is time to finish this."
"Ah, Bane." Arkonen chuckled.
"Such brave words. Such heroism! The healers must be falling at
your feet."
"Do not mock me."
"Why not? This is so foolish. It
is a joke. We can no more fight each other than rain can fall
upwards." He laughed. "The healers have filled your head with lies.
There is nothing you can do. You are a foolish boy, but let us not
argue. Have some wine, it is very good."
The Black Lord picked up a
goblet from the altar, its base sticky with blood, and offered it
to Bane. The Demon Lord raised an arm and pointed at a nearby
droge, who shrieked and dived for cover.
"I said, do not mock me."
The Black Lord raised the goblet
to his lips and sipped. "All right. You want the girl. You can have
her. Just swear to give up this stupidity."
"No."
"You do not want her? I thought
you did. Well, in that case I will sacrifice her."
"I will not swear anything to
you, and I will get her back on my own."
"Now that will be difficult."
Arkonen smirked.
Bane turned, his eyes raking the
demons and droges, who cowered. "I know where she is, and I do not
intend to go in there. You will come to the place where we fought
before."
"Why would I do that?"
"You do not want to fight me
here, with a Source so close by." Bane jerked his head at the
monstrous new temple. "It would even the odds too much, would it
not? In your dark form, you Gather more easily and faster than I,
but with that so close, I can match you."
"And what good would that do
you? We have already tried this, and you almost died. This time,
you will."
Bane shook his head. "You will
not find it so easy to practice your treachery now."
"Ah yes, you summoned some
demons. I noticed that. To guard your back, I take it?" He
chuckled. "But while you have a hundred, I can summon hundreds
more."
"And I can destroy them."
"As I can yours. Come now, this
is futile. You can summon more, of course, so can I. We could wipe
out the entire demon population, but what good would it do us?"
Bane glanced at the watching
demons. "I would enjoy it. I always did, I just did not tell you
before. Far more satisfying than a human sacrifice."
"Now you are being
obnoxious."
"You have to
face me. If you do not, I will undo what you have done to the
Overworld, and
destroy any
demon I find. What will you be without your minions? These fawning
servants you surround yourself with are all you have. Imagine if I
destroyed them all. You would be alone, apart from the
droges."
"You cannot undo what I have
done here."
Bane snorted. "You know I can.
And if you fight me, we will be locked in an endless struggle."
"Not endless. You would die
eventually."
"But not before I have destroyed
all your demons. And it would certainly spoil your fun. You wanted
me dead... Well, here I am. Kill me. Rid yourself of the only
person who can challenge you, who can summon away all your demons
and send them against you." Bane smiled. "I do not have to destroy
them. I can make you do it. I only have to destroy the ones you
have summoned."
"I almost killed you once, I can
do it again."
"Not the same way. Try it."'
"Destroy one demon, and the girl
dies."
"If the girl dies, I will
destroy you."
"You cannot," Arkonen sneered.
"In a few days the Lady's fire will die, and my demons will destroy
the temples. Then you will have nowhere to hide."
"If you do not fight me, I will
return to the New Kingdom and fight on the side of the Lady. I
shall clear the skies and restore her power to the temples. Then
you will never conquer the Overworld. You will have only half of
it. If you want it all, you must kill me."
"You would not dare!" Arkonen
snarled, his face twisted with fury.
"Watch me."
"Why have you not done it
already then?"
Bane shrugged. "I have been a
bit under the weather. But I am well now. Defeat me, and you get
the Overworld. Refuse to fight, and you only get half. With my
powers, I will live for a thousand years."
"You will be corrupted in fifty,
and on my side."
"Do not count on it."
Arkonen
considered. "Very well, if this
is the way you want to die, so be it."
"Good." Bane gave a curt nod. "I
shall be waiting."
Before the Black Lord could
reply, Bane Moved.
Arkonen stared at the place
where Bane had been, furious. The red-robed droge emerged from
behind the altar and glanced about to ensure that Bane was truly
gone. He straightened, brushing his robes.