DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (175 page)

“You cannot lift—” Jojonah started to protest, but Pony had already raised her hand with the malachite, had already fallen into the depths of the greenish stone.

Elbryan moved near the master and dropped a hand on his shoulder, bidding him to be quiet and watch.

“I hear the portcullis rising,” Juraviel whispered after a few moments, the elf standing with his ear pressed against the large doors. Elbryan and a stunned Jojonah rushed to join him, and despite the monk’s protests that it was impossible, he did indeed hear the grating sound of the great gate lifting into the ceiling.

Pony felt the tremendous strain. She had lifted giants before, but nothing of this magnitude. She focused on her image of that portcullis and fell deep, deep within the power of the stone, channeling its energy. The portcullis was up high enough, she believed, above the top of the doors, but then she had to reach even deeper, to grab the locking bar as well and somehow try to lift it.

She trembled violently; sweat beaded on her forehead and her eyes blinked rapidly. She pictured the bar, found it in her mental image, and grabbed at it with all her remaining strength.

Juraviel pressed his ear closer, could hear the bar shifting, one end going up. “Now, Nightbird!” he said, and the ranger put his shoulder to the great doors and heaved with all his strength. The bar fell free, the doors swung open, and Elbryan slipped down to one knee in the passageway, quickly moving to light his torch.

“The locking mechanism is in a cubby down to the right,” the monk said to the elf as Juraviel ran past Elbryan.

A moment later the torch came up and the elf announced that the portcullis was secured. Jojonah, back at Pony’s side, shook the woman roughly, drawing her from her trance. She came out of it and stumbled, nearly falling over for lack of strength.

“I have seen but one other with such power,” Jojonah remarked to her as he led her into the passage.

“He is with me,” Pony replied calmly.

The master smiled, not doubting her claim and taking great comfort in the possibility. He quietly closed the inner doors then, explaining that the draft would be felt deep into the abbey if the corridor were left open to the sea.

“Where do we go?” the ranger asked.

Jojonah thought on it for a moment. “I can get us to the dungeons,” he said, “but only by going up several levels, then coming back down at another point.”

“Lead on,” said Elbryan.

But the monk was shaking his head. “I do not like the possibilities,” he explained. “If we encounter any brothers, the alarm will be sounded.” The notion that they might indeed meet up with some of St.-Mere-Abelle’s flock brought a wave of panic over Jojonah, not for this powerful trio and their mission, but for the unfortunate brothers they might encounter.

“I beg you not to kill any,” he blurted suddenly.

Elbryan and Pony exchanged curious glances.

“Brothers, I mean,” Jojonah explained. “Most are unwitting pawns for Markwart, at worst, and not deserving of—”

“We did not come in here to kill anyone,” Elbryan interrupted. “And so we shall not, on my word.”

Pony nodded her agreement, and so did Juraviel, though the elf wasn’t so sure that the ranger had spoken wisely.

“There may be a better way to the dungeons,” Jojonah said. “There are old tunnels off to the side, just a hundred feet in. Most are blocked, but we can pass those barriers.”

“And you will know your way along them?” the ranger asked.

“No,” Jojonah admitted. “But they all tie together—the oldestparts of the abbey—and I am certain that any course will lead us soon enough to a place I can recognize.”

Elbryan looked to his friends for confirmation, and they both nodded, preferring a trek down unused passageways to a course that would likely put them in contact with other monks. First, on Juraviel’s reasoning, they also closed the portcullis, preferring to leave no sign that the abbey’s security had been breached.

They found the old passageway soon after, and, as Jojonah predicted, had no trouble in getting through the barrier the monks had constructed. Soon they were walking along the most ancient corridors and rooms of St.-Mere-Abelle, sections that had not been used in centuries. The floors and walls were all broken, the uneven angles of stone casting ominous lengthened shadows in the torchlight. Water stood calf-deep in many places, and small lizards ran on padded feet along the walls and ceiling. At one point Elbryan had to draw out Tempest just to cut his way through a myriad of thick webs.

They were intruders here, as any person would be, for these regions had been left for the lizards and the spiders, for the damp and the greatest adversary, time. But the companions plodded on through the often narrow, always twisting corridors, spurred by thoughts of Bradwarden and the Chilichunks.

The tunnel was dark and without detail, just a swirling mass of gray and black. Fog drifted up about the spirit of wandering Markwart, and though his form was noncorporeal, in this place he felt the cold touch of that mist.

For the first time in a long, long while, Markwart considered his course and wondered if he was wandering too far from the light. He recalled that time when he was a young man, first entering St.-Mere-Abelle half a century before. He had been so full of idealism and faith, and those qualities had pushed him up through the ranks, attaining immaculate on the tenth anniversary of his entrance to the Order, and master only three short years later. Unlike so many of the previous Father Abbots, Markwart had never left St.-Mere-Abelle to serve as abbot of another abbey, had spent all of his years in the presence of the gemstones, in the most sacred of Abellican houses.

And now, he reasoned, the gemstones had shown him a new and greater path. He was beyond the limits of his predecessors, wandering into regions unexplored and unexploited. And so, after only a moment of doubt, it was with great pride, bolstered by his unwavering confidence in himself, that Markwart continued the descent along the dark and cold tunnel. He understood the perils here, but was certain he would be able to take whatever evils he found and twist them for the sake of good, the end justifying the means.

The tunnel widened to a black plane of swirling gray fog, and among its rolling mounds and stinking mists Markwart saw the huddled forms, blacker shadows among the darkness, hunched and twisted.

Several nearby sensed his spirit and approached hungrily, clawed hands extended.

Markwart held up his hand and ordered them back, and to his satisfaction, they did indeed retreat, forming a semicircle about him, red-glowing eyes staring at him hungrily.

“Would you like to see again the world of the living?” the spirit asked of the two closest.

They leaped forward, cold hands grasping Markwart’s ghostly wrists.

A sense of elation filled the Father Abbot’s spirit. So very easy! He turned and started back up the tunnel, the demon spirits in tow. He opened his eyes then, his physical eyes, blinking in the sudden candlelight, the twin flames flickering wildly. They were still burning black, but not for long, for they flared red and huge suddenly, great fires spouting up from the meager candles, swaying, dancing, filling all the room with their red-hued light, stinging Markwart’s eyes.

But he did not, could not, look away, mesmerized by the black shapes forming within those fires, humanoid shapes, hunched and twisted.

Out they stepped, side by side, the two hideous forms, their hungry, red-glowing eyes boring into the seated Father Abbot. Beside them the candles flared one last time and returned to normal, and all the room was hushed.

Markwart sensed that these demon creatures could spring upon him and rend him to pieces, but he was not afraid.

“Come,” he bade them, “I will show you to your new hosts.” He fell into the hematite and his spirit walked free of his body once more.

The ranger carefully marked the walls at every intersection, and there were many in this maze of ancient and unused corridors. The four wandered for more than an hour, at one point chopping their way through a door and dismantling a bricked barrier before finally happening upon an area that seemed familiar to Jojonah.

“We are near the center of the abbey,” the monk explained. “To the south is the quarry, and the ancient crypts and libraries; to the north, the corridors that used to serve as living quarters for the brothers, but now serve Markwart as dungeon cells.” Without any prompting, the master led the way, moving carefully and quietly.

Soon after, Elbryan doused the torch, for the flickering of firelight could be seen up ahead.

“Some of the cells are there,” Jojonah explained.

“Guarded?” asked the ranger.

“Possibly,” the monk replied. “And it could be that the Father Abbot himself, or one of his powerful lackeys, is nearby, interrogating the prisoners.”

Elbryan motioned for Juraviel to take up the point. The elf moved far ahead, returning a few moments later to report that two young men were indeed standing a calm guard in the area of torchlight.

“They are not wary,” Juraviel explained.

“They would expect no trouble down here,” Master Jojonah said with confidence.

“You stay here,” Elbryan said to the monk. “It would not be wise for you to be seen. Pony and I will clear the way.”

Jojonah dropped an anxious hand on the ranger’s forearm.

“We’ll not kill them,” Elbryan promised.

“They are trained fighters,” Jojonah warned, but the ranger hardly seemed to be listening, already moving ahead, Pony and Juraviel by his side.

As they neared the area, Elbryan moved in front, then went down low to one knee, peering around an earthen bend.

There stood the two young monks, one stretching and yawning, the other leaning heavily against the wall, half asleep.

Suddenly the ranger was between them, elbow lashing out at the leaning monk, slamming him hard into the wall. Up snapped Elbryan’s backhand the other way, dropping the yawning monk even as he opened wide his eyes and started to protest. The ranger turned back to the one now slumping even lower against the wall, wrapping the man, spinning him over and putting him facedown to the floor, while Pony and Juraviel came in on the other, who was too dazed from the heavy hit to offer any resistance. Using fine elven twine, they bound the men, and gagged them and blindfolded them using their own monk robes, and the ranger dragged them down a dark side passage.

By the time he returned, Jojonah was back with the group, and Pony was standing outside a wooden door, staring hard at it. As soon as Jojonah had identified it as Pettibwa’s cell, Pony started toward it as if she meant to burst right in. But now she could not.

The stench told her the truth, the same smell she had known in sacked Dundalis those many years before.

Elbryan was beside her in an instant, steadying her as she finally lifted the latch and pushed open the door.

The torchlight splayed into the filthy room, and there, amidst her own waste, lay Pettibwa, the skin on her thick arms slack and hanging, her face so very pale and hugely bloated. Pony stumbled to her, fell to her knees beside the woman and moved to cradle Pettibwa’s head, but the body would not bend, and so the woman lowered her head to Pettibwa instead, her shoulders bobbing with sobs.

She had known nothing but love for this foster mother, the woman who had seen her into adulthood, who had taught her so much about life and love, and about generosity, for in those years long past, Pettibwa had no practical reason to take in the orphaned Pony. Yet she had accepted Pony into her family fully, shown the girl as much love and support as she gave to her own son, and that was considerable indeed.

And now she was dead, and in no small part because of that loving generosity. Pettibwa was dead because she had been kind to an orphaned child, because she had served as mother to the woman who became an outlaw of the Church.

Elbryan held Pony close and tried to hold together her emotions—so many whirling emotions: guilt and grief, sheer sadness and a great emptiness.

“I need to talk to her,” Pony said repeatedly, her words coming out over sobbing gasps. “I need—”

Elbryan tried to comfort her, tried to hold her steady, and grabbed her arm when she reached for the soul stone.

“She has been gone too long,” the ranger said.

“I can find her spirit and say good-bye,” Pony reasoned.

“Not here, not now,” Elbryan softly replied.

Pony started to protest, but finally, with trembling hand, replaced the gem in her pouch—though she kept her hand close to it.

“I need to talk to her,” she said more firmly, and turned from her lover to the corpse once more, bending low and whispering farewells to her second mother.

Jojonah and Juraviel watched from the doorway, the monk horrified, though surely not surprised that the woman had not survived the wrath of Markwart. He was embarrassed as well that one of his Order, indeed the very leader of his Order, had done this to the innocent woman.