“You actually thought Rheah would give in that easily, Audriss?”
The Serpent abruptly began to laugh.
“She switched keys, didn’t she?” Far from the consternation Corvis hoped for, his enemy continued to chuckle, actually shaking his head. “Well, congratulate her for me, Rebaine. She’s just unleashed Maukra and Mimgol on the city without the slightest measure of control. Not, I suppose, the result she intended.”
“They can be stopped,” the Terror of the East told him grimly.
“Oh, of course,” Audriss sneered. “Tell me, Rebaine, is this the part where you suggest we put aside our differences and work together for the common good? I use the book, you use the real key—I assume you have the real key, or you’d be miles away by now—to stop the monsters? Is that it?”
“Not at all. This is the part where I kill you and take the book to do with as I please.”
Audriss remained unworried. Without his precious Khanda, Corvis Rebaine was merely a two-bit, apprentice-level wizard. The only thing dangerous about him was Sunder, and even the Kholben Shiar was no threat if he couldn’t get near his foe.
“Khanda,” the Serpent said casually, raising an arm to point, “get me the key and get rid of him, would you?”
A glow surrounded the silver-ringed wristband, an accumulation of power that may have been the demonic equivalent of a man taking a deep, preparatory breath. Khanda gathered his energies …
And then, accompanied by a shriek of rage and sheer, malevolent hatred from Pekatherosh that only Audriss could hear, both demons, the wristband and the pewter ring, vanished in a swirl of blood-red sparks.
“Oops,” Corvis said conversationally. “I bet that wasn’t supposed to happen.” And then he leapt, Sunder raised high.
The Serpent, overwhelmed, had no chance to react. The axe slammed into his rib cage, hurling him backward, a rag doll bearing the brunt of a spoiled child’s tantrum. The enchanted stone held, though it was once more split in a cobweb of cracks. They’d both learned, on their first encounter, that the Serpent’s armor could withstand at least one blow from the Kholben Shiar.
Nor had Corvis forgotten it. His attack wasn’t meant to kill. What it was supposed to do, and accomplished quite nicely, was send the warlord over the edge of the roof.
The Serpent slammed onto the cobblestones with a resonant crash. Pieces of the magic armor, already weakened by Sunder’s bite, lay scattered through the street, rough fragments that crumbled swiftly into powder. Audriss lay stunned, limbs splayed around him.
Selakrian’s tome, covers spread and pages crumpled beneath it, lay fetched up against a building across the street. Windows nearby erupted as Maukra’s hellfire, herald of the Dragon’s approach, ignited the opposite end of the structure, consuming everything within.
Bereft of any other option, Corvis leapt from the rooftop.
HE HAD AN UNCOMFORTABLE AMOUNT of time to think as he dropped to the waiting earth. His own armor, though not without its own eldritch enchantments, was not as tough as Audriss’s, and his own physical prowess was hardly what it once was. If he could just …
Ground.
Corvis rolled as best he could, but still pain shot through his leg, throbbing in time with his rapidly beating heart. He clattered as he tumbled, spines digging into the stone.
His breathing labored, his body covered in a colorful collection of bruises and contusions, the Terror of the East came to his feet, wincing at the pain in his ankle. Not broken, he determined as he gingerly leaned into it, but badly twisted. He wouldn’t be doing much running in the near future.
A monstrous shadow fell over him, many-legged and dripping, cast by a horror blocks away. Spurred into action, ignoring his fallen foe as the lesser priority, Corvis divided once more, coming again to his feet beside the blazing building, Selakrian’s spellbook clutched in his hands.
It didn’t look all that special, but then it never had. Simple leather covers, dried and cracking, bound perhaps a hundred pages of brittle parchment that would have crumbled into memories long ago without the arcane protections laid upon them. Audriss was the first person to actually use the book in centuries, and his careless treatment had already bent the ancient, stiffened spine. Thus, when it tumbled from his grip, it fell open to the very pages of the summoning spell that had unleashed Armageddon upon Mecepheum.
It required no key to decipher the notes Selakrian wrote beside each spell; only the actual casting of the rituals required that tiny, invaluable scroll. His eyes quickly scanning the page, Corvis felt his throat tighten. Selakrian had indeed worked a fail-safe into this Grand Summoning, a condition under which the spell would collapse, sending the twin horrors back to the deepest netherworld. But did “destruction of the source” refer to the caster, or the book?
And before he dealt with that, there was something else he needed to do, something he had to find. Desperately Corvis leafed through the book, scanning pages. Even as the horrors drew nearer, when the shrieks of the dying resounded in his ears, in harmony with the piercing, otherworldly cries of Maukra and Mimgol themselves, he flipped madly, searching, searching.
There it was, exactly what he needed! Now if he could just …
“No!” His featureless mask abandoned, his armor crumbling in chunks and slivers, Duke Lorum slammed into Corvis from behind, grabbing for the ancient tome. Sunder, knocked from Corvis’s grip by the impact, went skidding across the flagstone in a shower of sparks. “The book is mine, do you hear me? Mine!” A thin worm of spittle dangled obscenely from the corner of his mouth, his hair was plastered to his cheek with blood, and his eyes were devoid of anything resembling sanity.
Like common barroom brawlers, the two most feared men in the entirety of Imphallion fell heavily to the ground, rolling in the street. Fists flew and fingers grabbed. Here, Corvis held the advantage, for his armor was mostly intact. But Audriss was utterly mad, ignoring the thunderous blows Corvis drove home again and again, uncaring that his nostrils bled freely and his teeth rained to the cobblestones in a miniature hailstorm.
And then Audriss, in the midst of another grab for the tome, suddenly reversed his stroke and drove his elbow into Corvis’s chin. The Terror of the East felt his teeth clack together like a portcullis, pain blazing across his face. He struggled to shake it off, but it bought Audriss precious seconds to drop a hand down to the scabbard at his waist.
At his best, Corvis might have grabbed the wrist holding the dagger, or perhaps tried to hurl Audriss away and make a dive for his own weapon. But Corvis was bruised, battered, exhausted, and not as spry as he once was. The best he could do, as the gleaming blade of Talon rose to strike, was to scuttle away like a terrified crab. Before he could even rise to his feat, Audriss lunged and stabbed again. Desperately, Corvis twisted.
And gods be praised, it worked! One of the spines on his shoulder, those foolish, ridiculous ornaments, slammed into Talon in a perfect parry. The blade skittered across the steel beneath those spikes, marring its jet-black sheen, but otherwise harmless.
Corvis had perhaps a full half second to marvel before Audriss slammed the weapon’s pommel into his head.
The world dimmed and flashed before Corvis’s eyes, and the ground tilted. He tightened his grip on the book, felt parchment crumple beneath his fingers even as the Serpent grabbed once more for the prize. A fierce tug, a brief ripping, and the book was gone.
A sudden heavy kick against the side of his ribs, and the world spiraled yet again. As he rolled, he heard a second, louder tearing noise, and he felt the heavy purple cloak, already holed and tattered, finally tear completely from his shoulders.
He slid, flipping completely over before skidding to a halt, and wondered for a moment why it had grown so damnably hot.
Through the throbbing in his head, Corvis forced his eyelids apart.
Every building around them was engulfed in apocalyptic fire, and the harsh cries of the Dragon and the Spider rose to a deafening crescendo. Even as he watched,
Maukra’s serpentine shadow fell over them from an impossible height, blotting out the sun.
Before him, oblivious to the coming danger, Lorum stood with his back to the blazing building. In his right hand he clutched Talon, in his left, Selakrian’s spellbook. And he laughed—a laugh devoid of humanity, let alone sanity.
There was nothing Corvis could do. His head pounded, Sunder lay beyond his reach, and Audriss, now alert and armed with Talon, could easily counter any further attempt on the book. The realization that he could have come so far, suffered so much, only to fail here, at the end, left a bitter taste in the warlord’s mouth. He felt a sudden overwhelming urge to throw himself into a last suicidal attack, to die now rather than live to see the results of his failure.
And then—despite the winds, despite the fire, despite the screams, despite the pain—Corvis swore he heard the laughter of his children, the whisper of his wife telling him to live. To live.
To look.
His gaze dropped, perhaps at that command, perhaps in despair. For a long moment, until it was very nearly too late, they didn’t register the sight before them. But then Corvis looked, really looked, at Audriss’s feet.
He forcibly bit back a hysterical cackle. It couldn’t be that easy! It was a joke, a cliché, not something that ever actually happened! But there it was, exactly where it fell when Audriss kicked him, exactly where Audriss stood now.
Arms and knees aching, Corvis crawled toward the Serpent, ignoring the fire, ignoring the nightmares rising above those greedy flames. Audriss held his dagger high.
“I see you’ve finally learned to crawl, worm!” he exulted, shouting to be heard over the crackling inferno.
Forcing his face into a mask of despair, Corvis nodded, surreptitiously tightening both fists around his objective. “Yes, Audriss!” he called sadly. “You’ve won! I beg of you now only a single favor!”
“Oh?” the Serpent asked magnanimously. “And what might that be?”
Corvis smiled abruptly, and Audriss’s own expression fell.
“I want my cloak back, you greedy bastard!” the Terror of the East shouted. And with that, Corvis rose to his feet, oblivious to the pain, and yanked at the tattered purple cloak on which the warlord stood.
NOW IT WAS AUDRISS’S WORLD that lurched. The building across the street tilted away from him, and the loud crackling in his ears and acrid scent in his nostrils told him, even before he felt the heat, that he’d lost the ends of his hair to the raging fire behind him.
Still he teetered, arms flailing for balance he could not find. The flames licked at his back, heated the bits of armor hanging from his body, seared his skin first red, then black.
But he would not fall! He was Lorum, Duke of Taberness, Regent of Imphallion! He was Audriss, the Serpent, the most feared man since—no, including!—Corvis Rebaine himself! He held in his hands the spellbook of Selakrian, the power to make himself a god among men! He …
… still ranted internally, struggling to right himself away from the flames dancing joyously across his back, when Corvis planted a foot in his chest and shoved.
Audriss landed flat on his back, engulfed in the hellish flames dripping from Maukra’s scales. Tongues of fire dug into his flesh, parting skin and slipping between dark and cracking bones, lapping thirstily at fluids that bubbled and steamed. And Audriss, even as his eyes boiled away, as smoke flowed from every orifice of his rapidly disintegrating body, laughed. He laughed until there was no more air to carry the sound, until no lungs remained to give him breath, nor mouth to release it. Even as the flames abruptly faded away, as the horrors called Maukra and Mimgol vanished, banished to whatever Pit they’d come from, the Serpent’s laughter drifted upward on heated currents. It drifted out above the ruined city like a bird in flight, circled once, and then it, too, was gone.
In the sudden silence, unseen amid the charred rubble, the ancient pages of Selakrian’s spellbook burned away into embers and ash. Had anyone looked closely, they might—just might—have seen the whirling eddies of smoke coalesce, take on a not-quite-abstract form that could, from the proper angle, have been a face. They might have seen that face nod once in satisfaction at the pile of cinders that had been his greatest creation. And then they would have seen the smoke break apart and fade away into the breeze.
But no one did.
Epilogue
A HEAVY BOOT LANDED on the ash-coated gravel. The curtain of smoke parted and Corvis Rebaine, Terror of the East, knelt down by the side of a great stone structure. His face was masked in grime, streaked through with trails of sweat. His hair lay plastered to his neck, and he walked with a pronounced limp. Sunder hung once more at his side. The armor, dirt-encrusted, presented a truly odd appearance without cloak or helm; it made him feel like a large and bedraggled porcupine.
Carefully, Corvis pushed aside a few bits of rock and other detritus, seeking something—two somethings, more accurately. They’d talked this out ahead of time, arranged for him to go to the base of the building nearest the confrontation, but that was still a lot of area to cover.
But no, here they were, ring and bracelet both, gems dulled by the soot coating the city. Corvis reached first for the bracelet.
“Hello, Khanda.”
/Corvis. Would it surprise you to learn that you’ve looked better?/
The former warlord actually found it in him to grin. “I’d be rather astonished if I hadn’t.” Corvis shook his head, as though trying to shake out some unpleasant thoughts. “No trouble with Pekatherosh?”
/I wouldn’t say that, precisely. Caught him by surprise, though, just as we planned. We’ve been sitting here ranting at each other ever since, since we can’t do much without a wielder. Sort of makes me wish I were a monkey. At least I could have hurled a nice gob or two of feces his way, something to pass the time./
“My, but you’re colorful.”
/Right. Enough chitchat already, Corvis. You have a promise to keep./
“I do. And shocking as it may be, Khanda, I intend to do just that.”
Using the tips of his fingers, Corvis lifted the silver bracelet from the dirt. Clenching his fist only partially around the bauble, he began to concentrate.
/Oh, yes! It’s going to be so nice to get out and … Corvis? Corvis, what are you doing?/
“I’m setting you free, Khanda. Just like I promised.”
/But—but then what …/The first stirrings of real panic crept into the demon’s voice, and it sounded as though he were shouting from farther away than normal.
“I’m sending you home, Khanda. You’ll be completely free there!”
/No!/ Corvis could feel the imprisoned entity struggling against his will, but even had Khanda possessed the necessary strength to break his control, it was already far, far too late. /Corvis! Corvis, I wanted to be free here! Here!/
“I never promised that, now did I?”
/Corvis!/ The voice was tiny now, as shouted across a widening gulf. /Corvis, we have to be summoned by name! I’ve been trapped in that stupid gem for years! Nobody but you even knows who I am! If you do this, I may never be able to come back!/
“Noticed that, did you?” Corvis asked casually.
/Corvis! You bast—/ Then nothing. The blood-red gem flared once, dulled, and cracked. Corvis let the worthless bracelet fall.
“Now you,” he said darkly, carefully lifting the purple-stoned ring. “Are we going to have to go through the whole contest-of-wills shenanigan?”
/Ah,/ Pekatherosh said hesitantly. /No, I don’t think so./
“Good.”
/You’re sending me back, too, aren’t you?/ The demon sounded almost resigned.
“Actually, no. I probably should. But if I’ve learned nothing else from these past months, I’ve learned you can never be too prepared for the unexpected. I promised Khanda I’d free him, and so I did. But I think I’d prefer to have access to one of you, if the need ever again arises.”
/So then what … Rebaine, you wouldn’t—/
With a purple flash, the ring was gone.
“Oh, I most certainly would,” Corvis corrected the empty air.
IN AN ICE-FILLED CAVE in the peaks of the Terrakas Mountains, Pekatherosh cursed vilely, loudly, and for a very, very long time. There was, of course, no one to hear him.
“… THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY, Lord Rebaine,” Ellowaine explained as she limped behind her commander. “The city’s essentially defenseless!”
Corvis nodded as he approached the soot-stained doors of the Hall of Meeting, though his expression remained enigmatic. He hit the doors without slowing—they rebounded from the walls with a pair of synchronous crashes. The trio crossed the room and set foot upon the wide stone stairs before the echoes faded.
Seilloah picked absently at the heavy green wool as she walked, one hand pressed to her magically treated (and now quite full) but still aching stomach. She’d grabbed this new garment from an open window in an abandoned house, as the last was far too shredded to meet modesty’s demands. It covered her well enough, but it was a sickly shade of green, not unlike a dying plant, and it couldn’t have itched any worse if it were woven of living insects.
“Ellowaine’s got a point,” Seilloah finally said as they left the staircase and turned down the hall. The wind was now free to roam with impunity through the upper floor, thanks to the absence of the roof. It whipped joyfully around them, unconcerned that this remained a somber situation and that a certain degree of sober behavior would have been more seemly. “You’ve never had a better opening than you do now. The nobles and the Guildmasters are all gathered in one place. Yours is the only army left on the field with any trace of leadership or discipline. You could do it, Corvis. One word from you and you would finally rule, just as you’ve always wanted.”