Rage of a Demon King

  The old man motioned for two others to come, and they managed to get Calis completely out of the pool of demon blood. The leader motioned for them to carry Calis around to the other side of the Lifestone and then he said to Nakor, “If he can be made to work his will on the stone again, it may save him.”

  Nakor’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened. “Of course, the healing energy!” He looked at Miranda. “It’s like reiki! It serves him first.”

  Nakor turned to the two servants of the Oracle and said, “Hold him close to the stone.”

  They did so, though every movement caused Calis to moan in agony. Nakor took Calis’s hands, burned and blistered as they were, and placed them on the surface of the stone. Nakor said, “I hope this works.” He made several passes in the air over the hands, and muttered a few phrases, then he placed his hands over Calis’s.

  Nakor felt warmth under his hands, and looked down. A faint green light bathed Calis’s hands and his own. “The energy flows,” he said. He waited for a minute while the battle between Pug, Tomas, and the demon continued, neither side able to gain the upper hand.

  Nakor said to the two servants of the Oracle, “Hold him here. Keep him in contact with the stone.” Then he ran to Miranda’s side.

  Miranda said, “This isn’t working.”

  “I know.”

  Pug let loose with a blast of mystic energy, invisible to the eye but causing the air to sizzle as it struck the demon. Tomas showed no sign of tiring, for his Valheru-created armor protected him from any incidental harm. The demon would have to get claws on Tomas to cause him serious injury.

  Pug fell back. “The best we can hope for is to keep him at bay. How’s Calis?” he asked Miranda.

  She pointed and Pug looked. Calis sat upright, held in place by the two servants, and a green glow was now suffusing the air around him, shrouding him in an emerald-colored nimbus. Pug watched for a moment, and said, “He’s getting stronger.”

  Nakor said, “Yes, as he continues to hold the gem it heals him, and as it heals him he becomes strong enough to continue his work on it. Look!” Nakor pointed.

  Calis’s eyes were now open, and while his expression showed he was still in a great deal of pain, Tomas’s son was once again unlocking the Lifestone.

  Again the room was filled with tiny motes of green energy, life being returned to its rightful place. Pug pointed to the demon’s severed hand, which was fading from view, and to the bleeding stump that was now in the process of growing a new one. Pug said, “This is healing the demon, too.” Then Pug’s eyes widened. He said to Miranda, “Do you know a powerful spell of binding?”

  Miranda said, “Powerful enough for that thing?”

  “You only need confine it for two minutes.”

  She looked dubious, but said, “I’ll try.”

  “Tomas!” shouted Pug. “Keep it back for another minute!”

  Pug closed his eyes and began chanting while Miranda did the same. Suddenly crimson bands of energy surrounded the creature, seizing him and crushing his mighty wings across his back. Then they constricted, and Jakan howled in pain.

  “Tomas!” Pug shouted. “A killing blow!”

  Tomas drew back his golden blade, then plunged it deep between two of the crimson bands, almost to the hilt, piercing whatever served as Jakan’s heat. The demon’s black eyes widened, and blood began to flow from his mouth and nose. Tomas yanked loose his sword.

  Pug dropped one hand and suddenly the room was still as the demon vanished.

  They all stood in silence a moment, then Miranda said, “Where is it?”

  “Gone,” said Pug. “We couldn’t kill it, but I knew some place it couldn’t survive.”

  Nakor said, “Where?”

  “I transported it to the bottom of the ocean, between here and Novindus. It’s a trench more than three miles straight down.” Pug suddenly felt tired and sat down on the stone floor. “I found it doing some random searches of the planet years ago, and remembered what your father said at the end.” He looked at Miranda.

  “He said, ‘They are creatures of fire.’ ” She laughed in nervous exhaustion. “Now I remember. I wondered what he meant.”

  Nakor sat down next to Pug and said, “That’s wonderful. I hadn’t thought of that.” He shook his head. “It’s obvious.”

  “What’s obvious?” said Tomas, putting away his sword and coming to join them.

  Nakor said, “Even the biggest demon is little more than a fire elemental at heat.”

  Pug said, “Once I fought some air elementals near Stardock and, by forcing them into contact with the water, destroyed them.” He pointed to the space the demon had occupied and said, “A dunking won’t kill Jakan, but trying to swim upward through three miles of seawater, with Miranda’s bands around him and Tomas’s wound to his heat, will.”

  Nakor said, “That’s wonderful. Now it’s over.”

  “No,” said Pug. He pointed to Calis.

  Calis now sat unaided, and again had his eyes focused upon the heat of the Lifestone, which was now less than a fifth its original size. Already the wounds on his face and hands were fading as if they had not existed.

  “He will be done soon, I think,” said Nakor. “We can wait.”

  Tomas said, “Men are losing their lives while we wait.”

  Nakor said, “It is a sad thing. But this is more important.”

  Dominic and Sho Pi came from their hiding place, and Dominic said, “He’s right. This may be the most important thing ever done by a mortal on this world. Now the strangled life of this world is set right, and the order of things will begin to return.”

  “Begin?” asked Miranda.

  Dominic nodded. “You don’t correct damage on this scale quickly. It’s been centuries, millennia, in the making. But now the healing will begin. The way is open for the return of the gods, now, where before the Nameless One blocked their return.”

  “How long do we have to wait?” asked Miranda.

  Nakor laughed. “Several thousand years, but”—he stood up—“each day things will be a little better than the day before, and eventually the old gods will return, and then this planet will become as it was supposed to be.”

  Pug said, “Do you think we’ll ever find out what drove the Nameless One mad?”

  Dominic said, “Some mysteries never are solved. And even if we found the answer, we might never understand it.”

  Nakor reached deep into his bag and pulled out the Codex. He handed it to Dominic. “You take this. I think now you can do some good with it.”

  “What about you?” asked Pug. “As long as I’ve known you, I’ve judged you the most curious individual on the planet. Don’t you want to continue to decipher that thing?”

  Nakor shrugged. “I’ve been playing with it for more than two hundred years. I’m bored. Besides, Sho Pi and I have work to do.”

  “What sort of work?” asked Miranda.

  Nakor grinned. “We have to found a religion.”

  Pug laughed. “A new scam?”

  “No, I’m serious,” said Nakor, attempting to look injured, and failing. He grinned. “I’m the new patriarch of the Order of Arch-Indar, and this is my first disciple.”

  Dominic looked aghast, and Tomas laughed. Pug said, “Why?”

  Nakor said, “If these old men can bring back the Matrix, someone still has to bring back the Good Goddess, to offset the Nameless One. Else Ishap will have nothing to balance the Nameless One with.”

  Dominic said, “A . . . worthy ambition, but . . .”

  Miranda finished for him, “Ambitious?”

  Dominic could only nod slightly. “Very ambitious.”

  Pug slapped Nakor on the shoulder. “Well, if anyone can do it, it’s our friend here.”

  Calis said, “It’s over.”

  They turned to look at him, and as he spoke, he put his hands under the tiny remnant of the Lifestone and with a gentle motion tossed it into the air.

  Like a thousand emerald but
terflies, the last of the life energy trapped for centuries flew, and then the room was again dark. The servants of the Oracle relit torches that had been allowed to go out during the battle, returning a gentle yellow glow to the huge chamber. The jeweled dragon slept, undisturbed.

  Calis rose, steadily. His clothing was still damaged from the demon’s blood, but he appeared unharmed. He crossed to his father and the two embraced.

  Tomas said, “You were incredible. You—”

  Calis Interrupted. “I merely did what I was born to do. It was my fate.”

  Pug said, “But it took courage.”

  Calis smiled. “No one in this room today can be accused of lacking courage.”

  Nakor said, “I can. I don’t have much. I just couldn’t think of a good way to get out of here.”

  Miranda said, “Liar,” and pushed him playfully.

  Calis looked at his father and said, “Mother will be surprised.”

  “Surprised at what?” asked Tomas.

  Pug said, “You look different.”

  “Different? How?”

  Nakor reached into his bag and felt around a moment, then produced a hand mirror, silver-backed glass. “Here, take a look.”

  Tomas took the mirror and his eyes widened as he saw what his son had meant. Gone was the alien edge to his appearance, what he judged the Valheru legacy. Now he looked mortal, a human male with elvish ears. He looked at Calis and said, “You’ve changed as well.”

  Dominic said, “We’ve all changed.” He pulled back his hood and Pug said, “Your hair!”

  Dominic said, “Black again, right?”

  “You look as you did when we traveled to Kelewan, so many years ago!”

  Miranda said, “Give me that mirror,” and snatched it out of Tomas’s hand. She inspected herself and said, “Gods! I look as if I’m twenty-five again!”

  Then she turned the mirror toward Pug and his eyes widened. Looking back at him was a face he hadn’t seen since he had returned from Kelewan, a youthful man without a hint of grey in his hair or beard. “I’ll be . . .” he said softly. Then he flexed his hand and said, “I don’t believe it.”

  “What?” asked Miranda.

  “Years ago, I cut my right hand, damaging it enough I’ve never since enjoyed full strength in it.” He stared at it a moment, flexing his fingers again. “I think it’s completely healed.”

  Nakor said, “How old do I look?” He took the mirror from Miranda and inspected himself. “Hmmm. I look about forty.”

  “You seem disappointed,” said Miranda.

  “I was hoping I’d be handsome.” Then he grinned. “But forty’s not bad.”

  Calis said, “I now understand what that key was the Pantathians were forging with the captured life, and what the alien presence was.”

  Tomas said, “The Nameless One?”

  Calis shook his head. “No, some other presence. Perhaps those creatures who created the rifts for the Pantathians. But one thing was clear, that alien key would have permitted Maarg or Jakan to use the Lifestone.”

  “As a weapon?” asked Dominic.

  “No,” said Calis. “As distilled life energy. That’s food to demons. Can you imagine Jakan ten times the size and with a hundred times the power he had moments ago? That would have been the result of a demon using that key to tap the Lifestone.”

  Miranda shook her head in amazement. “And we still don’t know how all these different players, the demons, the Pantathians, those”—she looked at Pug—“what did you call them?”

  “Shangri,” answered Pug.

  “Shangri, got together,” finished Miranda.

  Pug said, “There are still mysteries, but we have to put them aside for a while.”

  Calis nodded. “There is but one thing we need to do now.”

  “What’s that?” said Miranda.

  Calis’s expression turned somber. “We must stop a war.”

  27

  Truth

  A battle raged.

  It was a scene from hell, as men seethed in the city streets under torchlight. The castle had held until nightfall, but the enemy hadn’t withdrawn under cover of darkness. It was obvious to Erik that a change in command had taken place, for though he was facing the same motley mercenaries he had faced since the war began; now they were acting in coordination, using their numbers to good effect, and grinding down the defenders.

  Erik directed his men along the southern wall of the keep, as the invaders attempted to fill the moat with anything that would give them a means of reaching the wall. Furniture, broken wagons, dirt, anything they could find was being thrown into the water.

  The defenders were shooting as many arrows as humanly possible, but the attack was unrelenting.

  Manfred peered over the wall at the sea of humanity, thousands of soldiers pressing toward the ancient keep. “This hardly looks good,” he said.

  “You have a knack for understatement,” said Erik. He put his hand on Manfred’s shoulders, pushing down slightly.

  Manfred ducked as some rocks thrown by slingers on the roofs of the buildings on the other side of the moat whizzed by.

  “How do you do that?” asked Manfred.

  “Do what?”

  “Know when to duck?”

  Erik smiled. “I saw the slingers crawling on the roof at sundown. I’ve been keeping an eye on them. It gets to be a habit.”

  “If you live long enough.”

  Erik said, “What sort of shape are we in?”

  “I just told the Prince that if we can keep them from getting ladders to the wall, we should hold until morning without much difficulty. The tricky part is going to be getting to the eastern gate to admit the Armies of the East.”

  Erik said, “I told Patrick I’d lead a sally at dawn.”

  Manfred laughed. “So did I.”

  “You can’t,” said Erik.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re the Baron and I’m just a . . .”

  “Bastard?”

  “Yes.”

  Manfred said, “But you have a wife and I don’t.”

  Erik said, “That means nothing,” and he knew the words sounded just as hollow to Manfred’s ears as they did to his own.

  “You’ll have to come up with a better argument than that,” said Manfred.

  “How about you’re a noble and I’m not? You have people depending on you?”

  “And you don’t?” said Manfred. “Besides, doesn’t a Knight-Captain in the Prince’s Army carry the office of Court Baron with it?”

  “That’s different. I don’t have estates and tenants who depend on my protection. I don’t have to administer justice or sort out legal wrangles the courts can’t solve. I don’t have cities and towns, villages and . . . It’s not the same!”

  Manfred smiled. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be Baron?”

  Erik said, “You have Father’s title!”

  “There is that.” Manfred glanced over the wall again and said, “Is there no end to them?”

  Erik said, “Not that you’d notice.”

  For a moment, they rested, crouching behind the wall. Erik said, “How is it you never married? I thought the Duke of Ran had someone in mind for you.”

  Manfred laughed. “The lady came to visit and I think I failed to impress her.”

  Erik said, “I find that hard to believe.”

  Manfred looked at his half brother. “I thought you might deduce it, but obviously not.” He glanced around, making sure no one was climbing over the wall. “When you have a mother like mine, it tends to distort your opinion of women. Stefan liked to hurt them. I prefer to avoid them.”

  Erik said, “Oh.”

  Manfred laughed. “If we survive, I’ll tell you what. You can do me a service. I’ll marry some prize the Prince picks for me, and you can father the next heir to the Barony of Darkmoor. It’ll be our secret, and I suspect the lady in question will thank me for sending you to her bedchamber.”

  Erik laug
hed as a flight of arrows sped overhead. “I don’t think my wife would approve.” Then he said, “There’s something you should remember.”

  “What?” asked Manfred.

  “You have a nephew.”

  Manfred closed his eyes a moment, then said, “I had conveniently put that out of my mind.”

  Erik said, “Well, you may have, but Rosalyn’s child is Stefan’s son.”

  “Is there no doubt? Is it certain?”

  Erik said, “Just one look. He’s a von Darkmoor.”

  Manfred said, “Well, that changes things.”

  “How?” asked Erik.

  “For certain one of us must survive, else the lad will be left to Mother’s tender mercies.”

  Erik laughed. “Only if you tell her.”

  “Oh, she’ll find out, eventually. Mother may be crazy, but she’s well connected and enjoys her intrigues.” He lowered his voice, as if someone might overhear. “There are moments I think Father’s seizures were Mother’s doing.”

  “You think she poisoned him?”

  Manfred said, “Sometime get me to tell you Mother’s family history. Poison played a large role in her great-grandfather’s rise to his title.”

  A huge boulder slammed into the citadel then, rocking the outer keep wall. “Well,” said Manfred as he brushed off the dust, “seems our guests have found a catapult.”

  Erik glanced over and saw the war engine had been dragged out into the middle of High Street. He motioned for a soldier and said, “Get word to Sergeant Jadow to have that catapult taken care of.” Another boulder came slamming into the wall, and the soldiers in the street beyond the moat let out a cheer. “Fast!”

  The soldier ran into the keep. Manfred said, “It’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “They knock a hole in the wall, fill up the moat with whatever they can throw in, and come swarming over.”

  Erik said, “Basically.”

  “Well, let’s make it interesting,” said Manfred. He signaled to another of his soldiers, and said, “Tell Sergeant Macafee to release the oil.”

  The soldier ran off. Erik said, “Going to fire the moat?”