It’s over, he thought. Thorn is gone, and I can’t go back. Oddly, his thoughts still seemed clear despite the damage his body was taking. He could feel pieces of himself splintering away, but it didn’t really hurt.
The image of Rose’s face came to his mind. She would be devastated when she learned of his death. “You know what I thought that day, when I first saw you?” The words were hers, from an evening years before, when they were discussing their first meeting.
“Who is that big lout of a man?” That was the answer he had supplied.
“No. That was the next day. This day I spied you helping a young page. The boy couldn’t have been more than nine years of age, and he was crying because he worried his squire would beat him. He couldn’t clean the rust from the armor he was charged with. Do you remember him?” she had asked.
Dorian had shaken his head, ‘no’.
“I do. You were still a stranger in my father’s house, and yet you stopped to help him. The task was beneath your rank, but you not only showed him how to treat the armor with oil before using the steel wool, you stayed and cleaned half of it yourself. That was when I knew.”
“Knew what?” Dorian had questioned.
Rose had given him her special smile then, the smile of a woman who knew the meaning of love. “People sometimes speak of finding a ‘diamond in the rough’, but I had found something even better. You were a diamond from the start, polished and perfect.”
A diamond, thought Dorian. Nothing is stronger than that.
The hammering blows seemed to take on a rhythm that matched his heartbeat, or perhaps it was the beat of the earth. The difference didn’t seem to matter anymore. Dorian’s eyes were closed, and his chin was down as he felt the power surging through him. More, I need it all. His body seemed to be on fire, but he ignored the painful heat and focused on one thought. Diamond.
Penny saw a cloud of smoke rising around her friend’s body as the fallen god pummeled him. At first she thought it was dust from the wall, but it was soon apparent that something else was occurring. A wave of heat rolled outward from him, and a strange hissing sound rose in volume. Within seconds the cloud obscured his body, and the heat became so great that she and Sir Egan were forced to retreat farther back.
When it began to clear, they were startled at the change in him, where before there had stood a golem, a stone man, now they saw a being that consisted of shimmering crystal. Dorian Thornbear lifted his head and stared out with crystalline blue eyes. His body had become one living diamond, hard and yet somehow flexible at the same time. His opponent’s thundering blows no longer seemed to affect him, other than rocking his body back and forth.
Moving suddenly he slipped away, dodging the next blow and thrusting forward with his own arm. Long crystal blades had grown from his fists and he drove them through his foe’s torso before wrenching them sideways. Whether it was their sharpness or his strength, Dorian seemed to rip them through the monster’s tough hide as though it was nothing more than tissue.
Utterly silent, Dorian continued his assault until the creature caught him with one massive swipe and dashed him sideways. Flying twenty feet to one side, he rolled to his feet and leapt back toward the fallen god, landing on its shoulders and tearing great gouges down its back as he descended. It roared and twisted trying to catch him as he reached the ground, but it couldn’t match his speed. Ducking around and through the giant’s legs, he cut and tore at one of them until it collapsed.
Once the god was down, the fight devolved into an extremely once sided brawl, as the crystalline golem sliced and cut, hacking the beast into ever smaller pieces. It seemed to go on forever, and when it ended, it was with a sudden silence. Dorian Thornbear, or the thing that had once been him, stood stock still, surveying the remains of his still twitching opponent.
Unsure of herself, Penny approached him slowly, holding out one hand. “Dorian? Are you in there?” she called tentatively.
His shining form twisted with a blur of light, and one bladed arm lashed outward stopping inches from her surprised face. She hadn’t moved. Despite her own prodigious reflexes she hadn’t even been able to blink. Taking a deep breath she stared into the azure eyes of the diamond golem. “It’s me, Penny. Do you remember, Dorian? We grew up together…”
He looked away then, staring at the ground. Two steps and he leaned down, picking up what remained of his broken sword, a hilt with a foot and a half of blade protruding from it. Opening his mouth he uttered a low keening cry, “Thhhooorn…”
He’s still in there, thought Penny, but whether that’s a blessing or a curse I don’t know. Suddenly aware of the passing of time, she motioned to her childhood friend, “We need to go, Dorian. We have to help the others. Do you understand?”
Dorian’s corundum head dipped in what seemed to be acknowledgement, and when she began walking down the ramp again he followed. Egan came last, watching both his senior knight and the courtyard as they retreated.
“Are there more?” asked Sir Egan.
The countess nodded, “Those were the fastest, but there were more. I think they cannot be far behind.” She quickened her steps as she spoke, and her eyes darted back frequently, making certain that Dorian still followed. For all his bulk, the crystalline golem made surprisingly little noise as he walked.
Chapter 30
They reached the end of the tunnel after a few minutes and discovered that the rest of their party had gone only a short distance along the World Road before stopping.
“Why did you stop?” started Penny, but her question was lost in the outcry as the others saw the golem behind her. The World Road was well lit by enchanted lights built into the ceiling and in that light Dorian’s body shimmered, reflecting and gathering the light like a masterfully cut gem.
Everyone seemed to scramble back, seeking to put extra distance between themselves and the odd creature following Penny. She held her hands up to calm them, but her words were lost in the immediate chorus of questions.
“What’s that?” asked Elise Thornbear even as Cyhan moved to position his body between her and Ariadne and the strange new being that had followed Penny. The children were asking rapid fire questions, less from fear than simple curiosity, but one voice cut clearly through the din.
“Penny,” said Ariadne using a sharp voice of command, “I think you should explain this.”
But someone else saw what was in the golem’s hand, and her quick mind immediately made the connection. Rose started forward, grief and tragedy written on her face. “Oh gods! No! Dorian! Oh no!” She held their daughter Carissa in one arm, but she moved to him without hesitation, reaching out to touch the hand that held the remnant of Thorn.
The golem was utterly still, its gem-like eyes locked on the woman before it. Dorian’s hard face seemed expressionless, but he watched her with focused intensity.
“Dorian, can you hear me?” Rose asked in a calmer tone. The panic that had been in her voice a moment before was gone now, replaced by self-imposed control. Rose Thornbear was a woman known for her intelligence and composure. Over the years she had almost never lost what Penny thought of as her most enduring quality, her ‘gentle serenity’. Today was no exception.
“Lady Rose, I think perhaps you should step back,” suggested Cyhan with cold concern.
“Not now, Sir Cyhan,” she rebuked him with a confident air of pure authority, although she never raised her voice. Even the tiny babe in her arms had yet to become aware of the incredible tension that lay beneath her unflappable exterior. “Do you remember me, Dorian?” she continued softly.
The crystalline golem stared silently at her before at last lifting its free hand and tapping its own forehead in a gesture that might represent either confusion or recognition. The question was answered when Dorian’s crude mouth opened and one long mournful word emerged, “Rrrrosssse…”
Everyone in the room had fallen silent, holding their breath as if any noise might destroy that moment. Rose’s voice had an
almost indiscernible tremulous sound in it, but the tears that had appeared on her cheeks were the proof of her struggle to contain herself. “That’s right, sweetheart. My name is Rose. Do you remember yours?”
“Thorrnnn…” He held up the broken sword.
“Dad?” asked Gram querulously, stepping out from behind his mother.
Dorian stared at the boy for a second before reaching out to gently stroke his son’s hair. Looking back at Rose he noticed the infant in her arms for the first time, and his face seemed to shimmer. “Rrrossse,” he crooned again.
Rose reached out and placed her hand against the golem’s chest, as she had done so many times before with her husband. “These are your children, Dorian, your family.”
“Broken...,” he seemed to reply, lifting the sword again. Whether he meant the weapon itself or something deeper was unclear.
“The sword isn’t important, Dorian. You are. We’re going to fix this—somehow,” as she spoke Rose’s eyes darted back, looking to Moira Centyr for some hope, but the other woman only shook her head.
“No one’s ever been able to change back after going so far,” she answered reluctantly.
Tears ran freely from Rose’s eyes, but she refused to despair. “It doesn’t matter. You’re still my Dorian. We love you no matter what happens,” and then she surprised them by stepping into the golem’s arms, leaning her head against his chest as he gently enfolded her and his infant daughter. Gram rushed forward as well, throwing his arms around his father’s hard waist.
The world paused then, and there were no dry eyes to be seen, but when Penny cleared her blurred vision something had changed. The creature that Rose and her children were hugging no longer glittered with crystalline perfection; its outlines had softened somehow. Even as she stared she saw his head changing, becoming more human and gaining color. He’s changing!
Moira Centyr was the next to notice with an audible gasp. “That isn’t possible.”
Dorian looked like a statue carved from a rosy-hued granite now, if the sculptor had been a master. His features were fine and perfect, and now there was even the appearance of stone sculpted hair on his head.
Even as her eyes witnessed a miracle, Penny couldn’t help being reminded of her own reunion with Mordecai over a year ago… after his transformation. Her heart twisted with pain and guilt. I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. I thought he was gone. She knew better now. While her husband had truly died, something of him had remained. His decency had remained, and she had spurned him. What might have happened if I had reacted like Rose?
The moment ended with a deep grating noise as the stone door that guarded the ramp tunnel from the World Road descended, sealing them inside.
“Did someone do something?!” asked Stephen Balistair in alarm.
“No,” responded Ariadne bluntly, “only the person with the control rod can open and close the doors here, unless someone is occupying the control room in the tower.”
“Where is the control rod?” asked Elise Thornbear.
“The last I knew of it, my father had it…” supplied Ariadne before finishing suddenly, “… Tremont! This was a trap! He knew we would try this route. We have to move. There’s a chance he may not have sealed all the exits yet.”
They rushed forward, forgetting everything else in their haste. Dorian’s transformation stopped at that point, leaving him with the appearance of a perfectly shaped granite statue. None of them had time to think on the matter.
Peter Tucker spoke up as they quick marched along the subterranean road, “The first gate on our left will be the one to Lancaster, if it’s open.”
“I see a light coming from the side ahead of us,” offered Egan. The extra light he was referring to was less than a hundred yards from them.
“Maybe Tremont doesn’t know he can flood the tunnel,” pondered Peter openly.
“More likely he just likes to play with his victims,” declared Cyhan before shouting, “’Ware the front!” Large shapes were spilling into the roadway ahead of them, entering through the Lancaster gate. It took only seconds to realize from the odd shapes and forms that they were facing more of the fallen dark gods.
The light was good enough to easily count their foes as they approached, if there were enough time. “There must be at least twenty of them,” said the Princess in a voice gone cold with despair.
A deep growl sounded behind them, followed by Rose’s cry of alarm, “No, Dorian!”
Pushing her away the stone warrior started forward. With one hand he pointed at Sir Egan and then Penny, “Follow—behind.” His words were spoken with great difficulty, but his gestures were clear as he indicated that Penny should take the left and Egan the right as he advanced.
Waves of heat radiated around Dorian as he walked and the air shimmered. Glancing back he waved his hands for Penny and Egan to keep a greater distance, so they widened the gap from ten feet to twenty. Dorian’s body had regained its glassine appearance, and the long blades sprouting from his arms had returned, growing ever longer now, and more appeared at his knees and elbows; even his skull acquired a deadly horn-like blade.
He’s grown in size too, noted Penny as she started jogging to keep up with his ever increasing pace. Her childhood friend stood close to nine-feet in height now, if she had to guess.
The rest of their party had slowed to a walk, letting the distance grow between them and their ‘vanguard’. Cyhan’s face was a study in restrained suffering, but Ariadne ignored him and continued issuing a litany of small commands, more to reassure the group and maintain calm than to effect any strategy. Deep down she wondered why she bothered, for there was little hope in facing so many powerful foes with so few capable defenders. Logic told her they were minutes, if not seconds, from their deaths. Because this is what he would do… she told herself silently, thinking of her father …because I am my mother’s daughter, a Lancaster, and the daughter of a king.
Ahead of the main group by over thirty yards now Dorian met the first of the fallen dark gods with breathtaking ferocity. Leaping forward he tore the first of his opponents, a massive dog-shaped creature, into three parts in less time than it took to blink. Violence incarnate now, Dorian whirled and slashed, using his entire body as a weapon. The diamond blades and spikes seemed to have grown from every surface and it was difficult for his foes to find any purchase to grapple his hard unyielding body.
Penny and Egan followed in his wake, keeping their distance and burning or hewing apart anything that still moved.
Stephen Balistair was uncomfortable with letting the three fight alone, but Cyhan caught his arm as he started to draw his sword and advance, “Don’t.”
“The Countess is fighting for my sake, I will be no man at all if I don’t at least try to assist her,” Stephen protested.
Cyhan grunted. “You’ll be dead, and rather than help, you’ll become a guilty memory of failure for her. Besides, she isn’t fighting to protect you. It’s them she’ll die for,” he pointed at the children in their midst, “not our sorry asses.”
“Then what should I do?” asked the young lord.
“The same as any good man would, what you can. Watch the children, and be ready to run with one if necessary,” answered the veteran.
A strange light filled the roadway with odd shadows as one of the monsters attacked Dorian with a magical blast of some kind, but the crystal warrior was so lost in violence and rage that he ignored the barrage of magic completely. Within seconds his latest enemy was ripped asunder. Several more piled onto him, striving to subdue him with sheer mass, but Dorian was too strong and no matter how many grappled him, he continued to swing and twist his arms and torso, shredding the bodies of any that came into close contact.
The battle had been raging for less than two minutes, but already almost half of their enemies were disabled, and Dorian showed no sign of slowing. If anything, he appeared to be even faster now. Within his translucent chest a bright red stone could be seen in roughly the same s
pot his heart would have been, if he had still been human. It was the size of a large man’s fist, and it pulsed with a slow throbbing cadence.
“Are we—winning?” asked Gram incredulously.
His grandmother, Elise Thornbear, answered first, “Your father never learned to lose properly. It was always one of his greatest weaknesses.”
“How can winning be bad?” wondered her grandson, but she didn’t respond, other than to look at Rose. Neither woman appeared pleased, and a deep anxiety was written in both their faces.
They were distracted from their conversation by a series of sharp sounds as a number of large envenomed spikes hit an invisible barrier in front of their group. Young Moira Illeniel had been shielding them from flying debris or missiles, though no one had told her to do so.
The arrow-like weapons had come from something that looked as though it had been inspired by someone’s nightmarish vision of a scorpion. It had bypassed Dorian’s melee by virtue of its small size, it wasn’t much larger than a hound, and it dodged Egan’s flames with surprising agility. The projectiles had been spines that it launched from its whip-like tail.
Penny reached the insectoid monster in a mad dash, and using two hands on her sword, she removed the tail in one swing, severing one of its many segmented joints. Dodging a pincer attack she ducked low and removed the tip of one of its legs, causing it to stumble. One more leap took her out of range, and Egan’s next blast of fire caught the thing before it could recover.
Dorian had almost reached the gate that led to Lancaster, and the number of monsters that still stood between them and their escape had dwindled to four now. Victory was close at hand, but a rush of air and a great roaring noise heralded the arrival of a new threat.
“They’re flooding the tunnel!” announced Ariadne loudly.
One of the defenses built into the World-Road was the ability to close off any section and flood it with seawater to defeat would-be invaders. Whoever was in the control room had decided to take matters into their own hands.