Demon Lord
Chapter Seventeen
The Seventh Ward
Dorel reappeared the next morning, wet and subdued, merely glaring at Mirra when she found her curled up 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 was relieved when the creatures of darkness halted at the edge of the wood, unable to venture onto the plains. Bane did not seem to notice, or care, that he had lost several hundred of his troops.
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, but 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. Guilt and remorse plagued her, sowing her sleep with unpleasant dreams and darkening her days with self-recrimination and misery.
The days passed uneventfully. 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 as if 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 towered over them, she noticed its oddity. The granite pillar 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 admired 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? The Demon Lord contemplated 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 left the trolls’ company to enjoy it alone, the danger of demons almost forgotten. She lay in the long grass and stared at the stars, wondering if this would be her last night alive.
Footsteps made her sit up. Bane approached, and she relaxed. He unclipped his cloak and threw it down, settling on the grass. Mirra thought it odd that he should seek her company, and wondered what he wanted. He sighed and looked up at the monolith, then back at her.
“So, this one is supposed to kill me.”
“You think it will not?”
He shrugged. “It might.”
“Do you really think you can destroy that?”
He smiled, but his eyes were hostile. “You have not really seen my power. The only time I used more than a little was when I tore open the clouds so you could heal yourself.”
“You were exhausted after the ward at the waterfall.”
“Yes, air walking is very strenuous, as is rock walking. But during neither of those disciplines can I perform a Gather at the same time, so I run out of stored power.” He rubbed his chest. “When these start to burn, I need to draw power, but I cannot always oblige. That is when it really hurts.”
Mirra shook her head, emboldened by desperation, for this was likely to be her last chance to persuade him. “No. The evil power is killing you. You are human, not a demon or the Black Lord, who is no longer human. Only a human can touch the wards, and no one ever thought a man would be able to wield such power, never mind want to. You cannot stand the power you hold. It is evil, unnatural, and your body rejects it.”
Bane gazed at the sky as if he was ignoring her, but she knew he was listening. The moonlight shadowed his face, throwing its lines into sharp relief. He looked truly demonic, the angel washed from him by the night.
“Even if I die breaking this ward,” he murmured, “it will not matter, because my father will gather my soul to him and clothe me in a dark form like his, then I will be immortal.”
Mirra’s eyes stung, and she bowed her head, unable to bear the thought of him dying, lost to the world, and to her. His faith in the Black Lord was unshakeable, built upon a lifetime of ill-treatment by all but the Lord of the Underworld. She could not undermine that in such a short time. He had barely grown to tolerate her, and she was trying to turn him against the only being he had ever trusted. How could Elder Mother be so cruel? She was trying to tear him apart, and being torn apart herself. How could she convince him that the Black Lord was evil, when evil was all he had ever known? To him, the Black Lord was his father, his idol, and a dark god of immense power who had entrusted him with a monumental task.
Bane was not fickle. He did not turn every time the wind changed. He remained faithful, an admirable, but rare quality. How could she convince him that he was loyal to the wrong side? Mirra looked up at the huge mountain of stone and knew he would break this ward or die trying. Then the Black Lord would reward him by stripping away his handsome human body and endowing him with a foul dark form. This he would welcome, believing it to be his destiny, as he believed the Black Lord was his father. Warm tears ran down her cheeks, and Bane eyed her.
“Why do you weep?”
She sighed. “For all of us, but especially for you.”
“I do not need your pity.” His voice hardened.
“It is not pity, but sorrow. You destroy a world you never really knew, and were not able to appreciate, because you were poisoned against it. If only you had seen the beauty in it, instead of only ugliness and death. It is your world, or it would have been, if the Black Lord had not stolen you from it. I weep for my sisters, who pray for us all, and soon will perish. I mourn all the unborn children who will not see this world, but most of all I grieve for you, who will destroy it unwittingly.”
In the silence that followed, Bane sat as still as a statue.
She whispered, “Last of all, I weep for myself, for tomorrow I will die, and I do not want to. I am only sixteen, just starting out, but I cannot live in the world the Black Lord will create.” She tried to read his face, but it was a mask.
“You will die only if I let you.”
Mirra looked away, letting her tears flow, her throat too tight to speak. You cannot stop me dying, Bane. You may be able to control the stars, but you cannot stop me dying.
Bane rose to his feet and stared down at her, then walked away. His cloak lay where he had left it, and, after a little while, Mirra curled up in its soft folds.
The morning dawned grey and cold, a chill wi
nd whipping the grass. Mirra woke in the soft warmth of Bane’s cloak, and pulled it close as she sat up. The grey horse grazed a short distance away, while the demon steed stood like a statue in the distance, the wind swirling its burning mane and tail. She untied the water skin from her belt and sipped from it, then ate some roots she had cooked at Mord’s fire the day before. Birds sailed upon the icy wind with shrill, wind-torn cries, and the grass rustled as small creatures foraged in it. She wondered if this was the last day for the Overworld and all its creatures, her heart heavy.
Dorel ran errands between Bane’s tent and the army, then the trolls, goblins and rock howlers rose and trudged away. They retreated until they were a black mass in the distance, when the smoke of campfires rose once more.
Bane emerged from the tent, stripped to the waist, his jet hair whipped by the wind. He gazed at her for a moment before turning to Dorel. Mirra’s throat tightened when he drew his dagger and pressed it to his skin. Blood streaked his chest as he carved five runes, opening a long-healed scar. She wanted to scream at him to stop, save himself, save the world, but she knew it was futile, and sat hugging the cloak about her as he completed the ritual of the Gather, drawing the foul magic into his flesh.
The droge wiped off the blood, and he dressed in a fresh black shirt patterned with silver, pinning on his spare cloak. He drank from the flask, then faced the monolith and raised his arms, summoning the dark power. Rising on the column of fire, he ascended to the summit and settled beside the crystal. Mirra knelt and prayed that he would live.