Demon Lord (41 page)

When he nodded and held out his
hand, she gave him the wineskin, and he drank from it before
tucking it into his tunic. Gradually his brow cleared, and he
relaxed as the pain subsided, but his eyes remained bloodshot and
his colour did not improve much. The freshly cut runes glowed
through his tunic, and the dark power in him added to his skin's
sickly pallor. He walked to the edge of the crevasse and searched
it for the real ward, ignoring the illusion in the rainbow.

Mirra followed and stood beside
him. Bane glanced at her, his weariness written in his eyes.

"Bane, please do not break the
ward -"

Dorel snarled, "Hold your
tongue, slut. Do you think the Demon Lord will listen to your
whining?"

Bane closed his eyes, his brow
furrowing in annoyance. When he opened them again, he looked at
Dorel. "I can speak for myself. I do not need you to champion my
cause. I have managed well enough without you."

The droge glared at him and
flounced off, tossing her fiery hair. Mirra touched Bane's arm,
desperate to get his attention, but he pulled away, staring into
the chasm.

"Please -"

"Leave me be. Dorel is right,
you waste your breath."

Mirra gazed up at him, meeting
his cold eyes. Moisture dewed his skin and settled on his raven
hair like a veil of tiny diamonds. His brows remained knotted and
his stare was as fierce as a hawk's. She looked away, unable to
hold his gaze for long, and her eyes drifted to the glowing ward at
the bottom of the gorge.

"Then I will tell you, the ward
is far below, at the base of the waterfall."

Bane's eyes snapped down in
surprise, and he smiled, a slow, hard expression of triumph and
contempt. "You are a traitor to your kind. Your help will speed
their downfall."

"You are the one who is killing
your own people. The Black Lord is not your father; he uses you to
free himself."

He shook his head. "I do not
care what you say, I do not believe it. You are the liar, and the
traitor. Do you expect to be rewarded?"

"No!" Mirra gasped at the
unfairness of the suggestion. "I am no traitor. You would have
found it, but it would have cost you more pain and brought you
closer to the death the Black Lord has planned for you, which I am
trying to save you from."

"Why? If you really believe that
my father wants me dead, you should not try to stop it. You are
only ensuring your destruction."

Mirra looked away, for his
piercing gaze seemed to probe her soul. "I would rather sway you
than watch you die, for only you have the power to stand against
the Black Lord. If you are killed before you break the final ward,
he will send another, and we will still lose."

"You think I will stand against
my father?" He chuckled. "You dream, girl. I would never betray
him. Never!"

"Even if he betrays you?"

"He will not. He is my father,
and proud of me. Why should he?"

Mirra shook her head, saddened
by his faith in the monster he thought was his father. "Because you
are as powerful as him, and a threat. Because he will not want to
share his power with anyone, and you are not his son, but a human,
which he despises. Because -"

"Enough! None of that is true.
You do not know my father, but I do, and I say he will not harm
me."

"Bane, why would he want a son,
even if he did create you? He is immortal. He made you what you are
only to break the wards. Once you have done that, he will have no
more use for you."

Bane snorted with patent
disbelief. "My father raised me. He was lonely before I came;
demons are tedious company."

Mirra gazed at the distant ward,
illusive in the thundering mists. She was failing, but how could
she convince him of the truth when he dismissed everything she said
as lies? The fate of the Overworld rested upon her, and she had to
find a way to reach him, even though it seemed hopeless. She tried
another angle, one in which she had little faith.

"What of this world? What of the
people he will kill?"

"That is up to him."

"What of me?"

The falls thundered in the short
silence, and he shifted, his leather boots creaking. The red-lined
cloak flapped lazily in the breeze, but she could not look at him,
even though she was certain that he studied her, for she could
sense his cold gaze.

"Perhaps I will keep you."

She shuddered. "I do not want to
be the only human alive in this world."

Bane gazed across the gulf as if
it was a hurdle he had to cross. Abruptly he turned and walked
away, and her hope flared, but then he swung to face the ravine
again, his expression resolute as he raised his arms and summoned
the power. With a groan of despair, Mirra walked away.

Bane closed his eyes as the
power surged through him, burning his raw flesh, still unhealed
from the last time, and the Gather. The memory of the girl's
despairing eyes intruded, but he thrust the image away, recalling
instead his father's fiery glory and the booming words he had
spoken on the night Bane had left the Underworld.

"You are my son! Never forget
that! Complete this task, and we will rule together, forever. We
will share the glory, the power!"

Channelling the power downwards,
Bane stepped over the canyon's edge and floated down on a pillar of
fire. The mists closed over him, and vapour settled on his skin and
soaked into his clothes. He would not betray his father. He would
free him from the trap that had held him for aeons and raise him up
to walk the surface of the Overworld, lord of everything.

The ward shone through the
swirling mist, shimmering within the foaming water, and he had no
time to waste. A mighty gout of black fire smashed it, scattering
the blue lines into prisms of rainbow glimmers. The carven ward was
beyond it, inside the rushing water. He moved forwards, passing
through the thundering falls. The water beat down on him for a
moment, then he hovered before the carved ward, and a blow
shattered it. Moving swiftly as the pain in his head increased, he
retreated through the falls again and powered upwards to the
beckoning safety of the chasm's rim.

As he leashed the power, shafts
of agony spiked his brain like red-hot slivers, and he staggered,
clutching his head. Fumbling in his tunic, he pulled out the
wineskin. Dorel grabbed him, trying to wrench it from his hand, and
he shoved her away. She staggered back, teetering on the edge of
the gulf, her arms wind-milling, rage on her face, then toppled
over. Bane smiled and drank from the skin.

The time it took for the potion
to work seemed interminable. Bane faced the gorge, hiding his pain
from the troops until at last it faded away, and his shoulders
slumped. Opening his eyes, he gazed at the mist veiling the far
side, remembering all the years of suffering in the Underworld.
Demons loved to taunt, and he had grown to hate them, even to the
extent of destroying one when he at last had the power to do it.
Even after they had stopped tormenting him, his hatred had not
waned. Then again, hatred flourished in the Underworld, everyone
seemed to thrive on it.

The droge who had raised him had
hated him, and he had grown to hate her too, eventually persuading
his father to send her to the Land of the Dead. He remembered how
satisfied he had been when his father had revoked her body, and he
watched her fade. At the last her ranting had stilled, and she
returned his hate-filled smile. Her words stayed with him
still.

"He made you well, Bane. You
have nothing left in you but hate."

Only his father had been exempt,
for the Black Lord had not taunted or been unnecessarily cruel to
him. He had remained aloof, watching, sometimes teaching, but never
attracting Bane's hatred. The cruellest thing he had done to Bane
was cutting the runes. Then he had met Bane's fierce glare, shaking
his head.

"Do not hate me, Bane. I am
your father, and this is necessary."

So Bane did not. Until recently,
the Black Lord had been the only person, living or dead, whom Bane
did not hate. Now there was the girl. How could he hate someone who
just wanted to help? Who did help by taking away his pain? Who
showed him where the ward was, so he could break it and destroy her
world, just to spare him more pain?

Bane jumped at a touch on his
arm, turning to find the girl gazing up at him with her innocent
eyes.

"What happened to Dorel?"

Bane shrugged. "She got pushed
over the edge."

"Down there?" Her eyes widened
with horror.

"She has been dead for over two
hundred years. She will be back, when she manages to climb out." He
turned away, becoming aware that he was soaked, and walked back to
his tent. The girl followed, sitting quietly while he dried himself
and donned fresh clothes. He sat on the bed, rubbing his face.

"Have you ever hated
anyone?"

She looked startled. "No."

"Not even someone who was cruel
to you?"

"No one ever was, until..."

"Until me," he finished for
her.

"Yes."

"But you do not hate me,
either."

"No."

"Why not?"

She hesitated. "You enjoy
hurting because you have been hurt. It is not your fault, but the
fault of those who hurt you."

Her perception surprised him.
"How do you know?"

"I can see it in your eyes, and
I feel it. You want people to suffer the way you have. That is why
you were so angry when you could not hurt me."

Bane nodded. "Yes."

The girl looked expectant, but
he had no more questions for her. Lying back, he gazed at the
leather roof. One more ward, and the hatred of the Underworld would
be unleashed.

Chapter Seventeen

The Seventh Ward

Dorel reappeared the next
morning, wet and subdued, merely glaring at Mirra when she found
her sleeping on the floor of Bane's tent. He despatched her to
bring food, and she was busy until the time came to leave, when she
rode behind Bane, arms tight around him. Mirra followed on the grey
horse, and they crossed the river above the gorge, then turned away
from the mountains. After a day of riding, they quit the forest and
descended onto vast, rolling grasslands that seemed to go on
forever. Mirra sighed with relief when the creatures of darkness
halted at the edge of the wood, unable to venture onto the open
plains. Bane did not seem to notice, or care, that he had lost
several hundred of his troops, riding on oblivious.

Mirra stayed away from Bane and
Dorel, seeking solitude to mourn what was to come. She had tried to
talk to Bane, as she had promised Elder Mother. It was useless, he
was determined to free his father, and nothing would sway him. Her
grief grew with each passing day, for she knew that she had failed,
and the hopes of the entire world had been pinned upon her. The
burden of her guilt and remorse plagued her, sowing her sleep with
unpleasant dreams and filling her days with self-recrimination and
misery.

The days passed uneventfully. No
demons appeared, no people were seen in this uninhabited land, and
Mirra found no pools in which to scry. The trolls and goblins
grumbled when their food ran out, but found plenty of game to hunt.
The rock howlers ate the tough grass and dug up roots. Mirra had to
forage each night for roots and nuts, wild vegetables and herbs,
which she cooked for herself. The pickings were scarce, and she
lost weight. Bane seemed to be avoiding her, which added to her
unhappiness.

It seemed like weeks had passed
when a huge stone monolith appeared on the horizon and grew closer
each day. Mirra guessed that this was the site of the last ward. In
a few more days they would reach it, and Bane would break the
seventh ward, allowing the Black Lord to rise. Every day she prayed
to the Lady, but it gave her little comfort.

As the monolith began to tower
over them, she noticed its oddity. The pillar of granite was over
two hundred feet tall, rising out of the flat plains as if it had
been extruded during some violent displacement of rock from far
beneath the land, thrust out by the core of the world, unwanted and
alone.

Mirra studied it, admiring the
wizard's choice. At its summit, stone and soil had been worn away
to reveal a heart of solid crystal, its cracks and natural facets
splitting the light into rainbows. Had it been a sunny day, the
peak would have sparkled like a mammoth diamond, but now it merely
glimmered in the overcast sky's dull light. The megalith's sides
were sheer cliffs that still bore the scoring of its violent birth,
and rubble littered its base, piles of stones that had fallen from
it over the aeons. Tufts of hardy grass grew in the cracks and
crannies of its pitted flanks, furring its harsh greyness with soft
gold.

As they rode
around it, Mirra noticed that it had five distinct sides. This was
not a rock into which a pentagram had been carved; it
was
the pentagram. On
each side, arcane runes were deeply etched, symbols of immense
power that held the Black Lord below. A faint blue glow emanated
from within the giant crystal on the monolith's summit, and Mirra's
heart lifted as she gazed up at it in awe. Surely Bane would not be
able to break this ward? She glanced at the Demon Lord, who studied
the gigantic stone with narrowed eyes. If only she could persuade
him not to try. The most powerful mage had set the seventh ward,
and he had spared nothing in its creation.

They made camp at its base, and
Mirra longed to speak to Bane, but Dorel's presence kept her away.
The fact that he did not tackle it immediately, as he had done the
previous ones, told her that the task daunted him. The night was
warm, and she quit the company of the trolls to enjoy it alone, the
danger of demons almost forgotten. She lay in the long grass and
gazed up at the stars, wondering if this would be her last night
alive.