Duality (38 page)

The power of Light also broke the seeming, revealing the two warriors for what they truly were.

“You didn’t think we’d break our own circle, did you?” Dara asked Tegan.

“You cannot win,” Tegan said. “I am free to take those who choose to come. Your Goddess cannot stop that. These people ceded this land to me with their own greed and treachery. Begone.”

“I think not,” Loren stated. “This is not your land. The rulers of this land still side with the Light.”

“The child you hold is also of the Light,” Dara said.

“She chose darkness,” Tegan growled.

“You lie. She was coerced,” Dara snarled. “You killed her parents and her betrothed afore her eyes, branded the women as slaves, let her see the worst that could happen to her, and then seduced her with false kindness and empty promises. You didn’t bind her with blood.” The torque crackled with living draconian fire, the torch circle flared brighter. “I know blood magic, it is a part of me. There is no scent of blood on this one. It was not a true choosing, nor binding, fiend.”

“She did not choose darkness; therefore, she can still choose to return to the Light if that be her wish,” Loren said.

“She cannot hear you,” the Other retorted.

“Aye, she can.” Loren knelt afore Tegan, careful to keep Justice betwixt them and pointed at the Other. “Daughter of the Light, thy name be Tegan te Lacey. Remember. Hear my voice, my words. You know them to be true. You are not part of this curtain of darkness. Remember who you are.”

The Other cowered raging behind the sword of Light, helpless to break the circle. Within its shroud, something stirred. Faint, weak, a mere glimmer of mortal life.

“Tegan?” Dara held out her hands. Black fire danced across her fingertips. “You know my voice. You’ve seen my face. Remember?”

The Other howled and moved to dodge past Loren, but Justice would not give way. The demon was forced to yield to the Light, snarling with impotent rage.

“See?” Dara encouraged. “Darkness can’t break past the Light. Light
is
stronger than darkness, Tegan. I know you hear me. Come back, Tegan. Come back to us.”

Dara sensed Tegan’s presence.
Guilt, shame, unworthiness
hit Dara in uneven waves. Tegan knew her mistake—she thought it unforgivable.

“You are beyond redemption,” the Other roared. “You turned your back on the Light, you chose your path to power. They lie. There is no going back. Your soul is damned forever.”

“Do not listen to this creature from the abyss,” Loren said. “Listen to my voice. I am Her champion, and I stand for Her Light. I cannot lie to you. She wants you to come home, Tegan te Lacey, daughter of Light. You can choose your own fate. The things this creature has done in your body were not done by you. Renounce this darkness. Reach for the Light.”

The Other lashed out at Dara, but the torque flared, demon-fire clashed against a wall of dragon-fire and bounced back into the power circle held by the salamanders.

“You can’t harm usss, fiend,” Dara hissed. “But we can dessstroy you. Leave now while you ssstill can.”

“Reach, girl,” Loren called.

Of their own volition, Tegan’s hands reached out to grasp Justice. At the touch of Light, the Other screamed, echoed by Tegan’s voice as the girl drove herself fully onto the toshi blade, which speared through her body. The Light exploded from her in every direction until the circle was flooded with Goddess-Power. The Other roared, and with a snap was gone, returned to Jalad.

As it left, Tegan returned behind her own eyes, and fresh blood poured from the wound.

“Dara, now,” Loren yelled.

Dara reached for First, grabbed the power he threw at her, and plunged herself into Tegan’s body. Anchored by the torque, she used Light and fire to seal off the bleeding, close the flesh. She poured life back into Tegan until the girl glowed with it.

Tegan burst into tears as Dara withdrew. Both girls were covered with blood. “Ssh, it’s all right,” Dara soothed. “It’s over now. You’re safe.”

“I’ve done such terrible things…”

“Nay,” Loren said. “It was not you. The Lady welcomes Her daughter back. Be at peace.” He kissed her forehead.

“Cianan?” Dara turned to the dark-haired ranger, who up until now had been a silent spectator to the unfolding drama.

He knelt aside them. “Aye,
vertenya
?”

“Take Tegan out of here. Keep her safe.”

He nodded. “Can you walk, child?”

Tegan nodded, and he helped her to her feet. Cianan guided her back out the tunnel.

“Light to Light, from this world to the next,” Loren incanted, holding Justice aloft. “I release you from this vessel. Go. Return to the Light.”

The spirit of the man Justice had shielded winged its way upward.

Loren turned to Dara. “Let us end this.”

Dara took a deep breath. “I’m ready. I want my home back. Let’s go.”

Chapter Fifteen

Was she insane or suicidal? Dara contemplated the question as she eyed the ascending staircase in the dark. Confronting head-on the same demon that had nearly destroyed her in their last encounter? What match was dragon-fire compared to demon-fire?

Loren gripped her arm, hard enough to pull her from her dark musings. His gaze searched hers. “Remember, he takes what is given. He cannot force. Your soul is safe, I swear it.”

Gratifying as that was, it wasn’t her soul that concerned her at the moment. Cowardly though it was to admit, she feared more of the physical pain, as well. Pain was just pain, but she had new appreciation for just how bad it could get, and she had a lifelong susceptibility to iron. Pahn’s treatment was no permanent cure.

“We art with thee. He shalt not get thee thisss time.”

Dara and Loren crept up the stairs. All able-bodied warriors were out on the field, and all the other…noncombatants…seemed to be hiding. Dara hoped so—fewer innocent casualties that way. In a couple of candle marks, they’d all either be freed, or dead.

Dara swallowed down the fear and sense-cast out and up, looking for cold. Dark. Other. A gagging foulness like rotted meat came from the tower overlooking the north mountains. “He’s in the north tower.”

A wisp of a breeze tickled her ear. “
They come
,” the sylph reported.

“There are three entrances to the tower,” Dara whispered. “Come up through the hall and across from the kitchen stores.”

The sylph disappeared with the message.

They continued climbing, the soft soles of their boots silent on the cool stone. The higher they climbed, the greater the sense of dread that churned in Dara’s stomach. The blood torque stirred, the voices rumbling with palpable malice. “
Remember the wordsss
.”

Maiden to Mother
, Dara chanted in her head, envisioning throwing a line of power to Lorelei, one of the binding triad. Three faces of the Goddess, bound in a perfect triangle.
Fire heats water. Five elements, five fingers of the Destiny Hand
.

She choked on that last one. Instead of the four elements, with five mage disciplines they formed a pentagram.

No matter what Loren said, Dara would rather not acknowledge the Destiny Hand at all.

The tower shook as with a great earthquake. Dara leaned against the wall, placed her hand against the stone to steady herself. A stinging thread of wrongness snapped back at her touch. “A trap.”

With grinding suddenness, one of the stairs dropped away, revealing a trapdoor that opened down into black emptiness right below Dara’s feet. She didn’t even have time to scream. The voices screamed for her. Loren grabbed her wrist as she started to fall, and yanked her back onto the lower stairs.

Dara clung to him, silent and shaking, blood pounding in her ears. She’d almost died, and she’d never gotten the chance to say “Thank you”—or “I love you”. He’d been with her every step of the way, never turning aside, never wavering. Even now, Loren crushed her to him and she heard his own heart thundering, as well. “Well, that was close,” she whispered.

“Too close. I almost lost you.” Loren dipped his head for a quick, desperate kiss. His eyes were wide in a taut face. Then he turned and sized up the distance across the void. “I can jump it.”

Dara closed her eyes. Maybe he could, but she couldn’t. “It’s too far. I’ll fall.”

“I can catch you. I swear I shall not let you fall. We have come too far to turn back now. We have defeated his army and rescued Tegan, but if we do not banish this demon, it is all for naught. We must go on.”

She knew that, but she hated the feeling of her stomach dropping as the ground fell away. She shuddered. “You first.”

He leaped the chasm with catlike ease, and spun to face her from the far side. He stared down at her. “You can do this.”

To not only jump across, but
up
? She eyed the bottomless black sprawled at her feet. It looked a mile wide. “I don’t think so.” She whimpered, hating the fear in her voice.

The voices hissed. The blood torque blazed around her throat.

“Dara, look at me.” Loren’s voice cut through the panic.

She stared up at him—her salvation, her anchor.

He nodded. “We started this together. Now, let us finish it together.”

She fought just to breathe. “I’ll fall.”

“Nay. I shall catch you, I promise. I shall not fail you.”

Her gaze locked to his, Dara took a deep breath and jumped. Loren reached out to grab her outstretched hands and haul her up into his arms.

“See?” he whispered into her hair. “There is naught we cannot do, when we do it together.”

Together. Such a simple word for such a profound concept as never alone. She trembled.

A savage snarl came from the top of the stairs.

“Get behind me.” Loren drew Justice.

Much to the voices’ displeasure, Dara obeyed. She gaped at the grizzled abomination peering down at them from the top stair. The changling hellhound bared long fangs at her, darkness and muscle shifting and sliding under its matted coat as it flattened against the stone, every muscle quivering. In the time it took to blink, it sprang.

Loren met its preternatural rush with the upthrust blade. The changling twisted in midair, a fatal chest blow glancing off its shoulder with a painful slice. Its scream echoed in Dara’s mind with black rage and the promise of retribution. It spun toward her, but Loren was there again, keeping Justice betwixt the demon-hound and themselves. “Return to your master,” he ordered.

The changling seemed not to notice the yellow ichor matting its coat. Ears pinned, it whined and advanced in a crouch. The black shard flickered behind its mad, feral eyes. A slight narrowing of those eyes was all the warning Loren got afore it sprang again. Loren brought Justice up, and the changling impaled itself on the blade, which flared with the Lady’s Light. The shard snapped back to Jalad, and the hound dropped dead at Loren’s feet.

Loren and Dara leaped over the carcass and continued upward. The open doorway beckoned. Dara sense-cast again, feeling the Lady’s other followers in the other two tunnels.

“Your armies are defeated. Come down and face my justice, Jalad,” Hengist called from the training courtyard.

“Never,” Jalad spat. “You can never defeat me, mortal.”

“Now,” Everett yelled. All three groups streamed into the tower.

Dara threw a hand toward a wall torch.
“Go. Now, little friends—to me.”
The torch burst into flame, and salamanders swarmed to her call, led by First. “I bind you to this circle of sacred flame, fiend,” Dara called, as she and the others were enclosed by the circle of salamander/sylph fire. “Maiden to mother,” Dara began. The blood torque flared, and Dara threw a line of power to Lorelei.

Lorelei caught the power, joined it to her own. “Mother to crone.” She fired it at Anika.

“Crone reborn as maiden,” the air mage finished, sending the power line back to Dara, binding the three faces of the Goddess together in a sacred triangle. Within the Goddess-barrier, backed by the elemental circle, the Other raged, helpless to escape. “In the name of the eternal She, the Lady of Light, I hold thee to this plane,” Anika decreed.

Jalad’s eyes narrowed and he spun wildly, looking for an escape from the circle of Light. The Other growled.

“As thou entered the physical realm and bound thyself to that body of flesh,” Gwendolyn said, “I bind thee to the earth.” She threw a line of power to Pahn.

“As thou wield iron and quail afore Her sacred toshi blades, I bind thee to the metal of the earth. Dwarf to elf.” Pahn threw another line of power to Anika.

“As words of thy foul deeds spread to all lands on the whisper of the wind, I bind thee with air, that thou mayest have no secrets on this plane.” Anika threw the power to Lorelei.

“As thy foulness pollutes all it touches, I bind thee with water, within and without, to wash thy filth away.” Lorelei flung her power line at the blood torque itself.

The power reshaped. “Fire of life, without and within, I bind you to the element of fire. Human to dwarf, dragon to elf.” She flung the power out to complete the Destiny Hand pentacle.