Shikrar—oh, my soulfriend Shikrar—had made us all learn to fly carrying weights when we were young, that we might come to understand the changes that we would need to deal with as we grew older. We learned swiftly that with greater weight, we could achieve far greater speed; indeed, that was the first half of his lesson.
The second half is that with all that momentum it is very, very difficult to manoeuvre, and even harder to stop.
I put on a burst of speed, rejoicing in the midst of my fury at the feel of the Winds bearing me up, at the strength in these great wings, speeding me onward towards that great cloud of smoke. Some careless flame must have set fire to those trees. Oh dear, oh dear.
I concentrated, focussed my voice, and sent a sudden loud note to ring in that spot in my faceplate where it would resonate just … so … there.
The echo told me I was upon it. Heart racing, I flew into the cloud and instantly folded the greater part of my wings in close and, using just the tips, pulled up at the sharpest angle my body would bear, praying to the Winds that my speed and the updraft would allow me to change direction. I scraped the cliff with my belly and legs, and bashed my poor tail, but I did it. Flying straight up for a brief moment, then flipping over and rolling away left—I was right way up and heading back the way I had come when I heard the Black Dragon fly into the cliff at speed. It barely had time to scream before there was a terrible thump and a hiss, and black smoke made a thicker screen than the white.
I rode the updraft, spiralling into clear air. Always gain height, the advantage is always in height—I could hear Shikrar’s voice in my head even after all these years. I was oddly untroubled by Rakshasa as I rode the winds, trying to see through the billowing smoke and learn what damage Idai and I had wrought.
A smaller thump, the sound of one taking to the skies—and the Black Dragon emerged.
It was half the size it had been. No, less—it had lost much of itself in its two dunkings, and only half of what was left now flew.
Straight towards Lanen.
Jamie
We fought on, Maran and Rella, Lanen and I, beating away at the demons that beset us, all the while watching Vilkas out of the corners of our eyes. Aral protected us as she could against the demons. At least she slowed them down to manageable numbers. We fought with all our strength, all of us, and the dragons did what they could, but there were just too many. Maran fought like a madwoman, her sword flashing in the sun, the graven runes upon it at least as deadly to the Raksha as the blade. Lanen kept cutting her arm and blooding her dagger—Goddess only knows what that was about, but it seemed to work. It was Rella and I who fared worst, for all our skills. Raksha are hard to kill.
Vilkas
The layers of enchantments surrounding Berys came off slowly, almost physical in their intensity of evil. Some made him writhe, some made him scream—but none made him weaker.
I stopped to think. He saw this as weakness and struck out at me, snarling now like an animal. It was a very powerful attack, as though he were the stronger for losing the enchantments I had removed. I had to work a little harder to fend it off, and it drew blood.
The fool. I was in the midst of my Healer’s vision even as he attacked. Perhaps I did not defend myself as well as I might, but now I could see where much of his power was coming from. The shape of it, the flow of it, jogged my memory—where had I seen that? I sought that shape, that particular spell, hidden as it was among the others, woven around with misdirection. He attacked more viciously, managing to stand, but I paid only passing attention to what he was doing. Where was it now, a flow, almost like a funnel—a soul’s memory of the smell of burning hair—got it!
Rathen. It was the other end of the flow of power that had been draining Rathen, that had so devastated him when I closed it from the wrong end. Close it from this end, though, and all the other Rathens would be free.
Berys fought me, furious now, sweating heavily, drawing every drop of power he could pull into himself. He gestured and a cloud of Rikti surrounded me. I dispelled them with a wave of my hand. His mouth moved, still caught in silence, and even then a dozen of the Rakshasa converged on me. I drew a deep breath and felt the Lady’s power flow through me, from the great Mother earth, from the Crone now hidden in daylight, from the Laughing Girl—a sudden flash of that morning by the waterfall—fanning the white-hot fires of my soul let free at last. I gestured and bathed the Rakshasa in Her power. Screaming, they disappeared back to the Hells, where by rights they belong.
But I was being distracted. I held Berys still—it took more strength to do that than I had hoped—but still I could search through the stinking morass of his soul—wait. Something blue flashed in my vision. Was that some vestige of Berys’s, own native power? Some particle of soul still uncorrupted? Surely not …
I looked deeper. Ah. No, it wasn’t Berys. It was foreign to him: the funnel that supplied him with the reserves he needed to command so many of the Rakshasa. Rathen had escaped at his end by renouncing the pact. I could see no way of closing that source. I tried all the obvious ways, but nothing touched that vast river of strength. I could not close it or stop it supplying him with ever-renewed power.
I released Berys, allowing him to move. Instantly he drew out a demonline I had not seen and opened it.
“No,” I said, and reaching out, crushed it.
It closed. They can only be used once. It disappeared.
Berys screamed and threw himself at me physically. I had not considered that, and it was not a trivial attack—he had the body of a man in his prime, and he easily outweighed me two to one. It might even have succeeded if he had had two hands. As it was, I was able to wrest his dagger from him and throw it over the side of the hill.
That was enough of that. Ruthlessly I stripped away his remaining armour, all in a moment, until all that remained to him was that source of power. He shook as he stood there, trying to say something.
I removed the silence. I was shaking myself. The power that raged in me felt as if it would tear me apart. I promised I would not kill him. I swore it, I must not kill him with this power.
The restraint threatened to unman me.
“Let me live,” he said instantly, going down on his knees.
I sighed. Honestly, how stupid does he think I am?
“I can give you more power even than you have now,” he said. “There is a spell—I can give you all my own power, I will go through the world blind and weak, but let me live!”
“Fool,” I said, and my own voice surprised me—it was deeper and more resonant, it was grown huge. I felt as if I were growing physically, as if my body could not possibly contain it all. “Are you even now so blind? Behold,” I said, and let him See me. The flame that I had held caged those long years roared now, searing what it touched, blending with the Lady’s healing power and reinforcing it. A lick of blue flame snapped out, of its own accord, and struck Berys like a physical blow. He fell back, measuring his length on the ground.
“Master,” he said, as if in awe. “You are the greatest Mage that has ever lived. Let me serve you!” He scrabbled to his knees. “I have ways of learning that which is hidden, I can help you to your heart’s desire, I can give you that which no other knows of …”
“Be silent!” I commanded, angry with myself that I could still not stop the flow of the corrupted Healers’ power to him. “You could have nothing that I would ever desire.”
He smiled and reached inside his robes. “Indeed? What of this?”
He drew out—Goddess, it was a human heart! No, no, it was only shaped like a heart, made of that stone the jewellers call bloodstone, that seems to bleed red when it is cut. It was incredibly detailed, for a carven stone …
Berys’s eyes gleamed when he saw my curiosity. I realised full well that he was regaining his strength as he played for time, but I was intrigued. I did not fear anything that Berys could do to me.
“The Distant Heart,” he whispered. “It is the Distant Heart of th
e Demonlord. Say you will spare me and it is yours.”
Jamie
Berys was down. He had been down before, screaming even though Vilkas didn’t touch him physically, but he’d gotten up again and gone to stab the lad. He failed at that, too.
I thought at first I was seeing a cruel streak in Vilkas, playing with Berys like that, but in the midst of trying to keep out of the reach of demons, and as Vilkas dragged things out, I realised—he’s barely twenty. He doesn’t know what to do now he’s got Berys in his power. And he’s a Healer, they can’t kill intentionally without corrupting themselves forever.
I, on the other hand, owed Berys recompense for half a lifetime of wrongs. I owed him for teaching Maran what fear was; I owed him for the demons he sent that chased her away from my side and kept her from knowing her daughter; I owed him for all the ills that had beset my Lanen this last year, and finally, least but greatest, I owed him revenge for the life of the innocent, nameless babe he and Marik had sacrificed to make the Farseer, without a thought to its parents, without a care for its wasted life, a quarter of a century ago. To a fiend like Berys, life was a game, and it did not matter who was murdered or trampled underfoot, so long as he won.
Berys was on his knees now, but I’d seen Varien’s sword cut him in two with no effect. There had to be some way to get to him—oh. Oh, that might work.
I reached over to Lanen, who was fighting still but growing weary even as I watched. I must be quick.
I sliced open her scrip and caught the soulgem Kédra had given her as it fell out. She didn’t have time to notice.
Somehow I didn’t think old Shikrar would mind helping one more time.
It was harder than it sounds to stab Berys to the heart and push the gleaming red soulgem into the wound before it could heal, but I managed it.
At first Vilkas cried out nearly as loud as Berys, the difference being that Berys kept on screaming.
I have never in all my years before or since taken joy in ending a life, but by all that’s holy, I did that day.
The edges of the wound began to turn black and shrivel. Berys was still alive, still screaming, as he began to smoke. Suddenly Shikrar’s soulgem was surrounded by flame.
Berys was burning. He had enough strength to try to heal himself for quite some time, but there was never any question what the outcome would be. He was too terrified to realise that he was prolonging his own agony.
I was rather surprised when Maran stepped forward and struck his head off.
But then, she always did have a soft heart.
I collected the head and put it on the body, where the flames burned most fiercely. No sense taking chances.
Marik/Demonlord
Free! We are free from the bindings put upon us, free to loose the legions of Hell on that cursed silver dragon that has so diminished us. I-Demonlord feel my old powers return with a shock, and we know that Berys is no more. I scream the words into the air, I sing them, I take joy in the chaos that will rule when all the Kantri are gone down into death and demons rule the world.
I-Marik reel. I did not agree to this. Kill the girl, kill the dragons, yes, but not demons to rule the world. Where would be the gain for me? I fight for control.
I-Demonlord effortlessly thrust that mind away and take the body for myself. At last, I can do that which I have longed to do, all down the centuries of darkness. Berys had summoned many of the Rakshasa. Time to bring in the rest.
“Let the gates of all the Hells be flung open! Come ye great Lords of Hell, come great and small, Raksha and Rikti, come feast on your life-enemies—behold, I, the Demonlord, summon you all here to me!”
There was a soundless clap. The air shook, for all I know the ground shook, and all in a moment the sky, the ground, the very waters of the lake, were full of the screaming hordes of all the Seven Hells. The noise was immense, the numbers uncountable. I laughed with delight.
The Kantri fight, desperately, outnumbered a hundred to one. And there upon that little hill hard by, about to die among a cluster of her companions, stands the one creature I need most desperately to kill.
I start to fly towards her—she is so close!—when that huge silver beast rises before me. It tries to scorch me, fool, but it has no flame. Just then a great gust of wind throws me nearly on my back in midair. I have to fall away and glide for a moment before I recover. The silver one follows me, choking out its hatred from a dry belly, spitting nothing at me—and before I can make any headway towards the girl the wind turns against me again, blowing a gale from my left forward quarter. I yell my frustration, flying as hard as I can against the wind. I am battered by gusts from all sides, forcing me ever down. I cannot react quickly enough to recover, I happen to look up—
—and see the silver dragon circling above me, its mouth wide, spitting nothing at me but hot air. Air, winds, air, the damn thing is controlling the winds with its breath!
“That one!” I cry to the nearest demons. “Kill me that silver one!”
Nothing happens. The Rakshasa do not move. I look around—none of them are moving. Damnation!
I ignore all else, I must reach that hill. The silver dragon flies better than I do, it gets ahead of me, the wind slams me back and down, again and again. I am moving forward, but so slowly, so horribly slowly. I roar my frustration. It is exhausting, and several times I nearly fall out of the sky—but she was not that far away to begin with.
I am near enough to the hill.
I draw in a deep breath, ready to pour the molten stone in my gullet over the bowed and bloodied girl, for her death is my freedom forever.
Wait—no—NO!
Lanen
The sky turned black. For an instant I thought a sudden storm was come up out of nowhere, but then it began to spread out. The Kantri were going frantic, fighting—oh, dear Lady.
For all that I had been through up until that moment, I give you my word, I was never so certain that I was going to die as at that moment. The Rakshasa filled the air like a plague of insects, biting and clawing the Kantri and the Dhrenagan, who fought back with vast courage in the face of impossible odds.
It seemed to be raining blood.
And there was a large contingent of Rakshasa coming our way. I drew my dagger lightly over my arm one last time, committed my soul to the Lady, and waited for death to claim me. I had cut myself so often there was blood all over my hands, but I swear I didn’t feel it.
They never reached us.
It was Vilkas, of course. I had watched in amazement as he brushed off a legion of Rikti, a dozen of the Rakshasa—but when Jamie had stepped forward and killed Berys, Vilkas seemed to go into a kind of shock. Aral tried to help him, but then the Demonlord unleashed the Hells and he snapped back into focus, after a fashion. He put up a barrier between us and the demons just before they reached us.
And he did nothing more.
Outside the barrier, the Kantri began to fall from the sky, bloodied, dying, mobbed by demons.
I did not know which would break first, my heart or my mind. “Vilkas, do something!” I shouted. “You cannot leave the Kantri to die like that!” Every muscle in my body was tense as a bowstring. “Goddess, you’re the only one who can help them!”
“You don’t understand, if I start—” he began.
“They will all die!” I screamed, my heart in my throat. “In the name of the Lady, stop them!”
He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Very well,” he said. He raised his arms above his head and made a gesture as of throwing something away—
And every demon stopped moving, apart from the Demonlord. It was madly fighting Akor to reach us, that was clear enough.
But why?
“What do you think that damn thing wants?” asked Rella. Her voice was ragged with weariness, and when I glanced at her I realised that her voice was likely the strongest thing about her.
Maran was—eh?
Maran had put down her sword and taken off her pack, and now she was drawing o
ut the Farseer. Her movements were careful but swift. I think we all knew there was not much time.
What in the world does she want that thing for now? I wondered.
She knelt, the globe before her on the ground, and said clearly, “Show me what the Demonlord fears.”
Damn my mother was a bright woman.
She looked up at me. “Everyone, here, come look,” she snapped. We all hurried over.
There in the murky globe was a picture of me holding something in my hand. But what the Hells—
“Ah,” said Vilkas. He was trembling as he reached into his scrip and drew forth a shiny black stone. “You’ll be wanting this, then.”
“What in all the Hells?” I wondered aloud. “It looks like …”
“It is the Demonlord’s heart,” said Vilkas. “The Distant Heart. The reason he didn’t die all those centuries ago when the dragons burned him to a cinder.”
There was a roar from the skies. I looked up. The Black Dragon, for all that Akor was throwing it about the skies, was nearly upon us.
I took the Distant Heart from Vilkas. The blood on my hands, from all the shallow cuts on my arms, began to smoke when I touched the thing, a great cloud of acrid smoke that I batted away with my free hand. There was something happening—
I swore loudly and profanely and nearly dropped the thing.
It was beating.
No longer stone, no longer dead now but flesh and blood, it beat steadily in my palm, almost like a bird fluttering.
The Black Dragon, near enough now that I could see its blazing sulphur-yellow eyes, cried out, a great NO! that rang in the mountains.
I raised my hand, that it might see better.
“Die, you bastard,” I snarled, and crushed the heart to a pulp.