Demon Lord V - God Realm (9 page)

Someone took
hold of his arm and steered him back the way he had come, and he
realised that the group had stopped, but he had wandered on. Sarrin
smiled when he glanced at her, reminding him of Ellese. She guided
him to a rock and urged him to sit down and lean against it, which
he did. The group ate a frugal meal of charred meat, and then
settled down to sleep. Bane slid down the rock until his head was
propped against it and closed his eyes.

A presence
close by roused him from his restless doze, and he opened his eyes.
Ethra squatted beside him, fingering her rusty dagger. He licked
his lips and smiled.

"Go ahead.
Kill me. It will be a mercy... although..." He frowned, sorrow
filling his heart. "My wife will mourn me."

"You have a
wife?"

"Yes."

Ethra studied
him. "Do you love her?"

"More than
life itself. She saved me, loved me, and forgave me." His eyelids
drooped. "She will be sad. She wants children, but as a spirit god
I can give her none." He tugged at his shirt, trying to pull it
open. "Strike. End my misery."

Ethra stared
at him. He seemed half asleep, his long black lashes shadowing
brilliant eyes. Their gaze was vacant, yet filled with sorrow. As
she watched, they closed, and he sighed.

"I miss her,"
he whispered.

Ethra
swallowed a lump, cursing her stupidity. He was a dark god, a
consummate liar, so why did she find him so believable? For just
that reason, she told herself. Yet he seemed so forlorn. His jet
hair fell in glossy wings, stark against his alabaster skin. His
striking face was almost too perfect, but not quite, for he bore
the marks of his suffering. Lines furrowed the skin between his
sharply angled brows, and shadows of weariness lurked under his
eyes. He looked gaunt and sick, and she found that she wanted to
help him more than she wanted to kill him. Was he casting some sort
of spell on her? His eyes opened and flicked up to her face, filled
with misery and suffering.

"I am dying
anyway, and it hurts. I have suffered enough."

She frowned.
"What are you?"

"I am a god
who loves a mortal, and time will take her away. The day we were
wed she wore wild flowers in her hair, and the sun turned it to
spun gold... Her goddess came, and our friends." A faint smile
curled his lips, and his eyes became distant. "She looked like an
angel, so young, so lovely. I spoke the words that bound us, and I
made a rainbow shine in the sky. She told me that it was beautiful,
and that... she loved me."

Ethra gulped,
fighting the tears that threatened to overflow her eyes. He was
rambling, she realised, his mind fogged by pain.

"We were wed
in the forest," he went on, his voice barely more than a whisper.
"The beasts came too. We drank wine and feasted on sweet fruit and
nectar. I gave her ambrosia, and she said it tasted like
sunshine... We were happy." He sighed, his eyes drifting closed.
"She is my life... and... my saviour..."

Ethra jumped
up and marched away.

Chapter Five

Fall

When the group
broke camp, Sarrin spent several minutes trying to rouse Bane
before his eyes opened. She coaxed him to his feet, and he stood
swaying, gazing into the distance. His hands were black now, and
streaks of red ran up the sides of his neck. Ethra watched him from
the other side of the camp, biting her lip. She jumped when Artan
spoke beside her.

"What, aren't
you going to tell me to kill him?"

"No."

"I suppose
there's no point. He isn't going to live much longer. A normal man
would have been dead long ago. Sad that we cannot help him, after
all he did for us. And he knew we couldn't." He shook his head.
"But it's not for the likes of me to kill a god."

The ground
shivered, and Ethra glanced at Artan in alarm. He frowned at the
dull orange dust at his feet, then muttered an oath and ran towards
Sarrin and Bane. Ethra set off after him as the ground shivered
again, making her stagger. A dull rumbling filled the air, and
Sarrin cried out, trying to drag Bane towards the rest of the
group. With a grating of soil and rock, the earth beneath Bane's
feet ripped open. He staggered back, and his foot slipped off the
edge of the crevasse. For a moment he teetered, waving his arms,
then he flung himself forward, but his other foot slid into the
crevasse and his hips hit the edge as he fell.

Sarrin clung
to his hand as he slid into the widening fissure, dragging her with
him. Bane clawed at the dust, seeking purchase in its shifting
substance. Artan threw himself down on his chest and grabbed Bane's
other hand, but Sarrin lost her grip and fell back with a cry of
despair. A dark abyss yawned beneath Bane, exhaling noxious fumes
and heat. Ethra crawled to Artan's side and gripped Bane's free
hand, digging in her heels as she tried to stop his slide into the
crevasse.

Right at the
edge, she found purchase on the rocks, and between them they
stopped his slide, but he swung from their grip on his wrists. The
rumbling and shaking died away, leaving an eerie silence that only
the harsh panting of the two people who clung to Bane's hands
broke. He glanced down at the dim orange glow far beneath him, then
looked up at Artan and Ethra. They hung on with all their strength,
refusing to let him fall. A slight, sad smile curved Bane's lips as
his eyes filled with resignation.

"Let me
go."

"No!" Ethra
shouted, getting a better grip on his wrist by hooking her fingers
into the shackle.

Artan glanced
at her in surprise. "You want to save him now?"

"Yes, now
pull!"

Ethra heaved
mightily, and Artan followed suit, but even their best efforts did
not raise Bane an inch.

"You cannot
save me," Bane murmured. "If you do not let go you will fall
too."

Ethra gritted
her teeth as Bane's weight tore her fingers from the shackle,
leaning forward to renew her grip. Artan slid towards the lip of
the crevasse, unable to find purchase as Ethra had done. Juvo ran
up and grabbed Artan's legs, slowing his slide, then one of the
soldiers took hold of Ethra's arms and threw his weight into the
struggle. The other soldier crawled between them and tried to reach
one of Bane's arms, but he was too far away. He took hold of Artan
instead, and between the five of them they held onto Bane, but they
could not pull him up, no matter how hard they tried.

Bane was at a
ninety degree angle to them now, dangling over the abyss. Ethra
hung on at its edge, her feet braced against the rocks, her arms
feeling as if they would be torn out at the shoulders. She panted
from pain and effort, her heart hammering, and Artan grimaced as
his burnt hands suffered from gripping Bane's wrist. Bane glanced
down again, then raised his head to look at Ethra. The hot wind
that blew up from below lifted the jet wings from his cheeks, and
his eyes glowed.

"Let me
go."

"No!"

Artan cursed
as his hand slipped, his fingers losing their strength. "We can't
hold him!"

"We must!
Pull, damn you!"

"It's no good,
Ethra!" Artan tried to renew his grip, but Bane slid further over
the edge, and Artan almost went over too. The soldiers pulled him
back, but his hands slipped off Bane's wrist.

"No!" Ethra
wailed as Bane's full weight swung on her slender arms, her
ligaments popping. Artan grabbed her as she followed Bane into the
gulf, pulling her back. She sobbed in despair as her fingers slid
free of the cuff, clung to his hand for a moment, then lost their
grip. She lunged after Bane as he fell, and Artan hung onto her
legs, barely stopping her from going after him.

"No!" Ethra
cried as Bane fell towards the red glow far below, his arms spread
wide, his cloak closing around him like crimson-lined black wings.
The manacles glimmered, and his eyes closed as his hair swept over
his face in a gleaming ebon veil.

Artan hauled
her back, helped by Juvo and the soldiers, and they dragged her
away from the crevasse. She shook them off and jumped up to run
back to the edge and look down, her heart filled with despair. The
redness below had swallowed Bane, and she swung away and ran along
the edge of the crevasse, searching for a way down. Artan gave
chase, trying to grab her.

"Stop, Ethra,
there's nothing we can do."

"We have to
find a way down. We have to save him!"

"He's
gone!"

She spun to
face him, her dark eyes blazing in a pale visage. "Only if we give
up!"

"He can't
possibly survive that fall."

"You don't
know that!"

"Why do you
want to save him now?" Artan hurried after her as she strode along
the lip of the crevasse again. "You wanted him dead!"

"Because now I
know he was telling the truth."

"How?"

"I just
do."

"Even if you
find a way down, and even if he survived the fall, he's dying."

She glanced
back at him, scowling. "Then we must find a way to save him."

"Even if we
find a way down, we can't survive down there."

"Stay here
then, I'll go alone."

"Ethra!"

She marched
away along the lip of the abyss. Artan signalled to his men to
collect the provisions from the camp, and then followed her.

Bane lay on a
cushion of air, his arms outstretched. This was it then, he was
going to die. A quiver of fear went through him, and he thrust it
aside. He would see Mirra again when he rose as a spirit god,
although there would be a gulf between them. A faint smile curled
his lips as he recalled her laughing face and shining blue-green
eyes. The pain of the dark power gnawed at him, seeking release,
and the shackles shone with soft pearly light.

Bane recalled
her happiness on the day of their wedding, how her eyes had shone
with joy and love as he had spoken the words that bound them. Never
had he thought that he could bring her joy, and he had striven to
do so ever since, to make up for the pain she had suffered at his
hands. She had filled his life with happiness and laughter, and had
taught him what it was to be loved. The thought of her sorrow when
he returned to her a spirit god brought a stab of pain, and he
mourned for the children they would no longer have.

The red glow
beneath him grew rapidly nearer, and he braced himself for it, but
it swept past with only a sensation of heat. He recalled the balmy
summer days they had spent at play in the forest. He had chased her
laughing through the trees and rolled with her in the leaves. They
had had snow fights in winter, built snow men, had cold noses and
wet clothes. They had had mud fights and swum in the lake, and he
remembered being curled up by the fire with Mirra smiling at him,
her heart shining in her eyes. Such tenderness and joy as he had
not known existed, so precious, fragile and wonderful.

The air
rushing past him slowed, then he struck something spongy and rolled
down a steep slope, the impact knocking the wind out of him with a
soft grunt. The slope levelled out, and his tumbling progress
slowed to a halt. He struggled to fill his empty lungs, aching in
too many places to count. Air rushed in, and he stared at the
seething red glow far above him, surprised that he was still
alive.

No swift end
for him then, but a slow one as the dark power consumed him. The
black fire seethed within him, ate away at the barrier of his flesh
and filled him with its burning agony. He closed his eyes, too
tired to care where he was or try to find a way out, and cast
himself back into the peaceful shrine of his memories.

"Ethra, this
is madness," Artan grumbled again as he followed her along the
crevasse, the soldiers and Sarrin walking behind. "We're not going
to find a way down."

The girl leant
over the edge to peer at the wall of the crevasse before
continuing. She ran ahead, and he cursed, trotting after her. She
stopped and pointed.

"There!"

Artan's gaze
followed her finger, and he gaped in amazement. A few metres ahead,
a steep staircase led down the cliff, carved into it as if it was
the wall of a castle and not a natural rock formation. Was anything
natural in this place? Ethra darted ahead, and he trotted after
her, catching up as she stepped down onto the first stair. The
staircase sloped back the way they had come, vanishing into the
seething redness far below.

A dozen
objections to this crazy course of action popped into his mind, but
he gritted his teeth, knowing that she would ignore them. He
considered letting her go on alone, but that was a coward's way
out, and who knew where the danger lay in this terrible place.
Quite possibly it was safer to descend into this glowing abyss than
it was to keep walking through the innocuous orange landscape.

Artan glanced
back at Sarrin and the soldiers, who gazed into the crevasse with
trepidation and wonder. When the priestess did not object, he
followed Ethra down the steps, noticing that Sarrin paused at the
top to bow her head and clasp her hands. From the look of what lay
below them, they would need all the help they could get.

Kayos paused,
distracted by a whisper in his mind, so faint it was barely
discernable. A constant flow of prayers reached him from many
distant domains, most of which did not impinge upon his
consciousness unless they contained something that demanded his
attention. He listened to it again, and this time heard the
familiar name that had caught his attention. Concentrating upon it,
he divined its source, a priestess of a light god named Armorgan, a
stranger to him. It told him that Bane was in grave danger, but did
not help to find him, other than to make him cast about for the
right direction again and discover that it had changed.