Demon Lord V - God Realm (15 page)

"She's playing
dumb again," he said.

"What do you
want?" the girl demanded, trying to pry his hand from her arm.

"Bandages,"
Sarrin said.

The girl shot
Artan a scathing look and left, followed by the muttering soldier.
He returned with several rolls of bandage and some soft clean
cloths, which Sarrin took with a puzzled look.

"Where do they
get such fine things from?"

"Their god,"
Bane said. "He provides everything they need, as soon as they
require it."

"How does he
know?"

"This is his
realm. He knows everything that happens here."

"Did he send
the vampires?"

Bane shook his
head. "No. He does not control what happens; he only provides
things, since they cannot provide for themselves."

Sarrin placed
the soft cloths on his eyes and wound the bandage around his head.
"If he is a light god, he could heal you."

"But he will
not."

Sarrin glanced
around as the cowled man appeared in the doorway. He surveyed the
carnage before approaching Bane.

"I see you
have had some trouble."

Bane said, "I
suppose that costs extra?"

The man shook
his head. "No. It is regrettable. You are hurt?"

"A
little."

"Most
unfortunate."

"If you had
blocked up the hole under the bed, it would not have happened."

The cowled man
shook his head again. "The beasts make the holes with acid. They
come from the dark realm below. Nothing can resist it, not even
metal."

"This is not a
domain."

"Not anymore,
but once it was. Our god chanced upon us as our domain collapsed,
and saved us."

Sarrin
finished bandaging Bane's eyes and turned to the stranger. "Why did
he not create a new domain for you?"

"I do not
know."

"Because he
cannot," Bane said.

"Why do you
say that?"

"If he could,
he would have. No light god would choose to live like this if he
did not have to. He is a lesser light god, is he not?"

The man
studied Bane. "You know a great deal about gods, friend. Allow me
to introduce myself. I am Tronak, high priest of Lord Frendar."

"I am
Bane."

"What is your
title?"

"Lord."

Tronak's head
dipped, and he folded his hands before him in a pious gesture. "I
meant your real title. You are, after all, a god, are you not?"

Artan's hand
dropped to his sword hilt, and his men followed suit, starting to
draw their weapons. Grem stepped closer to Tronak, his demeanour
menacing and his grey eyes hard. Bane's nostrils flared, but he
lifted a hand, halting the men.

"What makes
you say that?"

"The
tongues."

"Tongues?"

Tronak turned
his head towards Artan, then faced Bane again. "The kitchen wench
informs me that when your people are away from you, she cannot
understand them, but in your presence, all appear to speak the same
tongue. Only a god can transcend the barrier of language merely
with his presence."

A slight smile
tugged at Bane's lips. "You would think that a god would know that,
would you not?"

"Unless he is
young, and mortal. A blue god, perhaps? Certainly one who can pluck
gold from the air and withstand a vampire's acid."

Bane raised a
hand and fingered the bandage over his eyes. "Not quite."

"Your powers
tell me that you are a greater god."

"And your soul
light tells me that you are a strange creature indeed. Not alive,
are you?"

"No. My lord
finds me useful."

Bane nodded.
"So now that we all know who we all are, what changes?"

"Nothing. You
are welcome here, as is your gold."

"And when we
wish to leave?"

"We will
regret your absence." Tronak bowed his head. "We ask only that,
since it is such a trifling matter to you, you provide us with as
much gold as you... deem our aid worthy."

Bane tilted
his head. "Why the need for gold?"

"A bargain
struck with our dark lord, Morvanor, who leaves us in peace as long
as we pay him in gold."

"Dark gods do
love gold, do they not?"

"It is said
that he covers his realm with it."

"And your god
will not provide it?"

Tronak shook
his head. "He provides everything else. We must do something for
ourselves."

"Tell him that
I wish to speak to him."

"He will
not."

"Why not?"

Tronak's
skinny hands fluttered. "He is... capricious."

"A strange way
to describe a light god, even a lesser one."

"Lord
Frendar... whom we love above all else... is a child."

Bane sat quite
still for several minutes, as if he studied the priest, even though
he could not see him in the usual manner. "A child god. Who would
be foolish enough to make a mortal child into a god?"

Tronak spread
his hands. "We do not know."

"And you are
his playthings."

"You could say
that, I suppose."

Bane turned
his head away. "Leave me."

As soon as
Tronak left, Bane clasped one of Mirra's limp hands. "How fares
Ethra?"

"She is alive,
for the moment," Sarrin replied.

"You think she
will die?"

"It is
possible."

Bane sighed.
"This is worse than I feared. We have wandered into a child god's
playground."

"You think he
will harm us?"

"Not as such.
He will do to you what he has done to his own people. He has made
them grotesque for his amusement."

Sarrin swapped
a nervous glance with Artan. "He cannot do it to you?"

"He might try,
but he is in for a nasty surprise if he does."

"What will you
do?"

"I do not
know." Bane touched the lump on the back of his skull, wincing.
"This place is only a fragment of a collapsed domain. There can be
no light realm, and this child god provides for them for some
reason."

"Pity?" Sarrin
suggested.

"I doubt it. I
know his kind. I met one after he had been cast down and made
himself into a dark god. Lesser gods and true dark gods think like
humans, since that is what they used to be. This one is a child who
has been made omnipotent. Depending on how old he is, these people
are either his playthings or his experiments."

"Are you not
also human, My Lord?" Artan enquired.

"I am both.
Sarrin, I want you to pray to him, ask him to meet me."

"Yes, Lord."
She hesitated, loath to argue with him. "But if he is, as you say,
a spoilt child who treats people as playthings, would that not be
dangerous for you?"

"No. I want to
know how this situation came to be, and how depraved he is. I want
to know what I am dealing with, since we have to stay here for a
time, whether we like it or not. He must live amongst his people,
but invisible."

Sarrin glanced
around. "He could be here even now?"

"Yes, but he
cannot hear us."

"Will he hear
my prayer?"

"Yes."

She bowed her
head and whispered a few words.

Grem asked,
"What is Tronak?"

Bane shrugged.
"Probably a ghoul. There is nowhere for souls to dwell until they
are reborn here, so it seems that Frendar has trapped Tronak's,
probably because he is a useful servant. Any children born here
will be stillborn, but the other beings are alive. Tronak appears
to be the only dead one."

"How can you
tell?"

"His soul
looks different. Larger, more diffuse. Probably dispersing.
Eventually Tronak will simply cease to be. His soul will be
destroyed."

"How
terrible," Sarrin muttered.

"Yes."

Bane turned
his head as Mithran said, "We'll have to move to another room. I
think we should all stay together from now on, and post a
guard."

Sarrin guided
Bane to a room down the hall while Artan and his men gathered up
the equipment and brought Ethra. Mithran followed, carrying Mirra.
Sarrin found her self-appointed role as guide to a blind god novel
and somewhat disturbing. She had always known Gods to be distant,
celestial beings, unseen and unknown, but prayed to often and
believed in fervently.

Meeting Bane
had been a strange and enlightening experience, but seeing him
blind and in pain, so utterly human, shook the tenets of her faith
to their foundations. She recalled again her brief glimpse of
Armorgan in his final, disastrous battle with a dark god. He had
been a shining figure of white light, as she had always imagined
him, all powerful and all wise. The dark god, Torvaran, was a grim
figure with a stony countenance of chiselled perfection whose
raucous laughter had chilled her blood with its evil.

Their meeting
had been a cataclysmic eruption of blinding blue incandescence, as
Armorgan, trapped in the light realm after centuries of flight, had
attempted to place the shining metal shackles upon Torvaran's
wrists. In the instant when he stepped forward to meet his foe, her
heart had swelled with love and reverence. Then the massive
explosion of white fire had torn through the light realm, hurling
herself and her companions far into the fading cloud gardens.

When they had
crept back to the place where the two had met, only the gleaming
metal cuffs remained, lying on the crystal sand. Her despair had
almost overcome her, and many of her companions had slain
themselves in their anguish. Then Artan and his men had arrived and
taken them through the great Gate into the darkness beyond. She had
been numb with grief, but the dangers they had encountered had
somehow revived her will to live.

The discovery
that the strange, beautiful man they had found lying unconscious in
that terrible dark place was in fact a mortal god had ripped apart
all her beliefs and left her floundering in an ecclesiastical
quagmire. That he was a dark god had made her long to plunge a
dagger into his heart, and only the chance that he might be
tar'merin had saved him. His suffering then had grieved her, but it
had been caused by Armorgan's shackles, which were made to vanquish
a dark god.

Now nothing
more than a particularly nasty dark beast had injured him, and
somehow that made him so much more human. She glanced at him, and
her heart swelled as it had done when she had thought of Armorgan
in the past. Bane walked beside her, however, his hand upon her
shoulder, and she was certain a dark god could not kill him.
Stranger still, he had a mortal wife, a father and a friend who all
clearly loved him.

Here was a god
in whom her faith would be safe, who could not be taken from her,
and yet was so accessible and touchable. Her brief encounter with
Kayos had been daunting and uplifting, but he, like Armorgan, was
far removed from the mundane world of men. All her life she had
longed to be able to see Armorgan, to speak to him and know him,
but it had been an impossible dream. Bane was entirely different.
Apart from the strange flashes of blue light when the vampires had
attacked them, she had hardly seen him use any power. She wondered
how it would make her feel if she ever did witness his use of the
destructive black fire that was his true weapon.

They arrived
at the door to the new room, and she pushed it open, guiding Bane
over to the bed, where he flopped down once more. She gazed at him
for a moment, then went to help carry Ethra as Mithran laid Mirra
beside him.

Once the group
was settled into the rather crowded accommodations, a guard was
posted, and Bane tried to get some more sleep. His eyes tingled,
and he wondered what that meant. Was he blind? If so, would Kayos
be able to heal him? Clearly the last of Mirra's power had been
used up when the dark beast had attacked her, and it had probably
saved her life. How would he free the Grey God if he was blind? How
would he survive, for that matter? His ability to see souls helped
a little, but demons would be invisible to him now.

All he could
do was hope that his sight was not gone forever, and rely upon
these people to help him. It put all of them in danger, however,
and he dreaded that more harm would come to Mirra. Already she had
been hurt through his inability to protect her from the dark
beasts, and his inadequacy made him angry. He sighed and stretched
out beside his young wife, reassured by her soft breaths against
his cheek that lulled him into an uneasy sleep.

Chapter Eight

Soul Eater

Kayos turned
to face the man who walked towards him, ignoring the hound that
stood a few metres away, watching him with glowing eyes. He had
found a light place, but not a domain, and so his dilemma had been
resolved. The dark god stopped a few paces away and smiled. His
skin gleamed dull gold, and crimson feathers clothed his scalp.
Narrow black eyes slanted under feathery brows that joined the
feathers atop his head, meeting between his eyes in a deep 'V'. His
flat, cold countenance had the unnatural perfection that all dark
gods possessed, along with a serpentine quality.

His smile
revealed a solid white ridge instead of teeth, and he lacked
external ears. A well-fitting suit of dark crimson velvet clad his
tall, lean form, edged at the collar and cuffs with gold patterns,
a series of golden clasps running down the front of it. A short,
matching velvet cape hung from his shoulders, lined with black
satin, its edge ornamented with intricate gold patterns. A gold
band encircled his brow, set with seven glowing rubies. His eyes
swept over Kayos and came to rest on his face.

"So, you are a
fine quarry indeed, Silver God."

"Not one you
can overcome."

"That remains
to be seen. I am Torvaran."

Kayos
shrugged. "How nice for you."

"And you
are?"