When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  Arda reacted. She knew it wasn’t wise to channel the Light here lest she become a beacon for all the demon lords, but she responded to instinct. Her seal-empowered link tapped into the elemental stream more deeply than she ever had before. Her entire body changed, becoming brilliant as light poured through her skin. Her dark eyes blazed as the sun, two white pinpricks of scintillating glory, and rays of light erupted from her shoulders, forming the countenance of two great wings. Her body turned to fluid diamond, crystalline and clear, from her horns to the tip of her darkling tail. She raised her hand, and a solar flame coalesced into a solid golden blade, shining with the glories of heaven. She swept the weapon down, and the shadow knight disintegrated beneath her radiance.

  Tal Harun saw her and a grin spread wide over his face in spite of his earlier warning. “Now this,” he cackled gleefully, “will give those bastards pause!”

  Arda flashed a wide smile. Sparks of light swirled through her crystalline form, making her appear as a living constellation. “What now?” she asked.

  “There, the center,” he said, pointing to the Dark Citadel. “We’ll need to get you and your friend out of Dis before we seal the watchtowers.”

  “Anuit is there?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered quickly, focusing energy into his staff once more to be ready for the next wave. “I can, however, read the currents of Time in Dis. I know that both your and my purposes converge there.”

  Demons closed in about them, but back to back they fought their way through the mass, slowly moving forward as they laid the hosts of Dis to waste beneath their fury.

  * * *

  Anuit came to the beach where she had last seen Arda, but it was now empty. “Oh, Arda,” she whispered to the air. “I will find you and bring you back from the incubus’s embrace. I won’t let you fall to this place.” Intense love ran through her heart, and she walked back up the sandy path to the villa.

  Kokhabaal started when he saw her. He no longer wore the earlier guise she had seen on the beach. He stood unclad on the veranda, wings rising and falling in irritation as he breathed. His appearance was much like Bryona’s had been, complete with leathery wings and goat legs, fur climbing up over his naked manhood to his belly button. This did not at all seem like the sense of smugness Anuit would have expected from someone who had seduced and mastered the Kaldorite paladin.

  “I was expecting…” He trailed off. His shoulders rose and fell with his agitated breathing, amplified in the tips of his wings.

  “You were expecting Bryona,” Anuit stated.

  He turned to face her. His nostrils flared, in time with his rising shoulders. “How…? You cannot be allowed to persist.”

  The corner of Anuit’s mouth curled upwards in the faintest hint of mirth. “You have no power over me. Bryona was your best bet, and she failed. No other succubus—and certainly not you—”

  “Lesbian cunt,” he sneered. He flicked his wrist, and a cat o’ nine tails appeared, claws on each tip. “I will flay the skin from your body, and you will beg for mercy before I end you.”

  Somehow, Anuit felt no fear. She only felt confidence in the Dark. Through the incubus lord’s bravado, she saw uncertainty in his eyes.

  “No one’s ever done it before, have they?” she asked.

  “Done what?” he hesitated.

  “Survived you,” she answered. “Integrated all our servitors.” She reflected on Arda’s role in her life. Faith, hope, and love. These are the rays of the Light. I would not be who I am without her. “No one who turned to sorcery ever had hope before.”

  He growled but did not respond. His knees bent in anticipation, and he rocked back and forth on his hoofed feet.

  She felt a thrill of joy through the Dark and realized then that the reintegration of all her shadow selves connected her to this land more deeply than any demon. She was whole, and they were not. “No,” she said, eyes narrowing in anticipation. “You’re nothing more than the remnants of failed sorcerers. You’re only a shadow of what Desdemona could have been if she had absorbed you.”

  “No!” he snarled.

  Anuit threw her head back and laughed. “Admit it,” she declared. “I am the first. The first sorceress to complete the path! I have the authority of Dis beyond all of you!”

  “NO!” he roared. He raised his weapon, and the whips trembled and flared with fire.

  “Kokhabaal, I bind you to me. Your will to my will. Your purpose to my purpose. Your life to my life. I bind you to me.”

  Dark energy extended from Anuit’s heart and surrounded the incubus lord. “NO!” he screamed. And when he was done screaming, he bowed, lowering himself to his knees. He dropped his flail and opened his arms wide. She owned him now.

  Anuit walked over to him and stroked the hair on his head. “Tell me,” she said. “Where is Arda?”

  His eyes fixated on her in a mixture of fear and worship, adoration and dread. “I know not,” he answered softly. “She was gone before I could take her.”

  Anuit froze. “What do you mean, she is gone?”

  “The wizard. He took her from me before I could know her.” His purple forked tongue licked hungrily over his teeth.

  “Tell me!” the sorceress snapped. “Who is this wizard!”

  “Tal Harun!” Kokhabaal declared, crying out in dismay. “It is Tal Harun, the Thirteenth of Artalon, who never submitted to the King of Dis! It is he who stole my prize from me!”

  Anuit closed her eyes briefly in relief. Arda had followed her, but the sorceress had not seen her until she found Kokhabaal with her on the beach. Dis had separated and isolated Arda and deceived her, just as it had deceived Anuit through Bryona. But Arda had not—by some miracle—given herself to the incubus lord. Anuit knew the name Tal Harun from Desdemona’s writings. How he might have survived all this time… but this was Dis after all.

  She smiled that Desdemona’s ancient lover had somehow rescued Anuit’s own beloved from the grasp of Desdemona’s servitor betrayer. “Where might I find Tal Harun?” Anuit asked.

  “If I knew that,” the prince growled, “he would have been dead long ago. All of the Twelve desire his head.”

  Suddenly, Kokhabaal’s eyes went slack, and he turned and focused on the horizon. Anuit felt it too… a great shining beacon of Light exploded in Dis, announcing its presence for all demonkind.

  “She is there,” the incubus said softly. Through their fresh pact-bond, she could feel his irritation at telling her, but he couldn’t help himself. She owned him body and soul now, and there was nothing in his being that would allow him to betray or deceive her, no matter how much he might want to. She had transcended Dis through the Dark. Her authority came from a higher plane than the Demon City, and he would obey and serve to the utmost of his being. “She carries the Seal of Light,” he said. “She is on the Bleeding Plains near the Dark Citadel. I can take you there.”

  “Do it,” Anuit commanded. Kokhabaal held out his hand, and Anuit placed hers in his. He closed his eyes briefly, and they shadowjumped through convoluted pathways until they came to Dis’s center amid a morass of fighting demons all tearing at each other.

  Anuit and Kokhabaal appeared on the steps of the Dark Citadel. Its bone structure rose high above her, and its eerie blue light washed over her shoulders. The light of the citadel, however, could not compare to the blaze of glory miles away on the frozen plains in front.

  “Arda!” Anuit breathed.

  Kokhabaal nodded.

  “What is this?” a voice asked behind them. A muscular fiend whose eyes bled behind a leather-wrapped mask flicked out his tongue at her. He had spikes and horns growing from the joints of his body, piercing through milky-white flesh. The lips had rotted away from his teeth, and he sucked in spit after every word. “Kokhabaal,” he slurred, “who is this creature beside you?”

  “What is his name?” Anuit asked the incubus lord, sensing this creature was one of the Twelve.

  “Cleates,” Kokhabaal responded. �
�Demon prince of the gossiping imps.”

  Cleates snarled and slurped his saliva. “She is dangerous,” he hissed. “She will be brought before Lord Yamosh.”

  “Yamosh is your lord no more,” Anuit stated. “Cleates, I bind you to me. Your will to my will. Your purpose to my purpose. Your life to my life. I bind you to me.”

  That same matrix of Dark flashed from her and overcame the imp lord. He trembled and rasped. “No… how is this possible?”

  Kokhabaal pressed his lips together firmly. “She endured all her servitors,” he stated. “She has become whole in the Dark.”

  The black magic took its hold over the demon, and Cleates succumbed and bowed. She owned him now, and all his minions.

  * * *

  Arda and Tal Harun fought ever closer to the Dark Citadel.

  “That’s odd!” Arda shouted. There had clearly been two factions of demons tearing at each other, but it suddenly looked as if the larger faction had now split, and two armies had become three.

  “It is,” Tal Harun agreed, staff whirling in fire and light. “But for us it makes no difference.”

  He was right. It didn’t matter the faction; they all turned against Tal Harun and Arda when they saw the hated wizard and the beacon of incarnate Light fighting at his side.

  * * *

  Anuit looked across the plains at the blazing light that approached. Every now and again an explosion of fire sent demon bodies through the air in flurries. The blazing light was not alone. “The wizard,” she murmured. He was bringing Arda to her, or at least to the Dark Citadel.

  Anuit opened her soul to the Dark and let herself be transfigured. Her demonic form, perfected in her union with the element, looked different now. She no longer had rows of hellhound teeth that split her face; instead, her features remained intact. Her eyes held their solid black, and the entire hue of her skin deepened to the darkest slate gray. She bore neither hooves, nor tail, nor claws, nor any other appendage or warping that marked her as a demon, save for a pair of tiny dark horns on her forehead and raven-feathered wings that sprouted from her back. She extended her wings, and a deep violet mist roiled off her skin as she ascended into the air.

  She turned to Kokhabaal and Cleates. “Be purified in the Dark,” she said, and opened her palms to them. Black streams with purple auroras struck them and they fell to the ground. Both of them arose transformed, their old demonic bodies purified and reborn as she was now—dark, beautiful humans with raven-black wings and hair. They each approached and kissed her toes. “Dark Queen,” they greeted her.

  She shot Dark through them again, this time plunging deeper. From each a wave of shadowy violet light exploded, washing over the fields of fighting demons. All those lesser hosts bound to the two demon lords, the imps of gossip and the tempter succubi and incubi, fell over and rose again, transfigured to Anuit’s service. “Your purpose to my purpose.” Her words resonated through the dark links. “Your life to my life. I bind you, I bind all of you, to me.”

  * * *

  The demon in front of Arda fell back before the paladin could strike him. He twisted under dark light that spread over the battlefield, and then a moment later rose again, transformed into the shining body of a midnight gray man with raven-feathered wings. He flapped his wings and flew three steps back out of reach of her blazing sword. Others like him transformed around her, and then they pulled in close, fighting off hellhounds and terror knights.

  “Are they—are they defending us?” Tal Harun shouted.

  “I think they are!” Arda answered. “They’re clearing a path!”

  The newly transfigured host flew in and started cutting into the fighting ranks, pushing the fray away from the two to speed their passage towards the Dark Citadel.

  * * *

  Anuit spread her wings and flew over the battling fields. The entire landscape roiled with churning demons, fighting and clawing at each other. Limbs and cruel weapons undulated in a twisted sort of organic beauty, delighting in inflicted agony. The very air of Dis celebrated in thrilling shivers over Anuit’s skin.

  Within minutes, she approached the blazing light, and then she could make out the two of them. The wizard hurried between the path set by Anuit’s minions, casting fire from his staff when an enemy demon broke through the ranks. Beside him was a living crystalline constellation in Arda’s form.

  Anuit dove and planted herself on the ground, bending to her knees at the force of her descent. She stood and gazed at the two of them, who had stopped at her sudden appearance.

  “Anuit?” Arda queried hesitantly.

  Anuit smiled. She ran forward, arms open. Arda embraced her, and the embodiment of light kissed the perfected sorceress.

  “I thought you were lost to me,” Arda said when they pulled away from the brief exchange.

  Anuit stared at her lover in wonder, at the transparent skin, hard as diamond, and swirling light inside. “No,” the sorceress answered. “Almost. Instead of giving my life to Bryona, I accepted her back into myself. I’m whole again. What happened to you? How did Kokhabaal not take you?”

  “Him,” Arda gestured to the wizard. “Tal Harun.”

  “Desdemona’s lover!” Anuit grinned. She turned to regard the man.

  “And Kaldor’s ancestor,” Arda added. “He’s also the reason for… for this,” she gestured at her body.

  “We must get to the Dark Citadel,” Tal Harun interjected. He held a clay cube in his left hand. “I can remove Dis from the world altogether, and trap both Dark Lords within it, but I must do this from Dis’s center.”

  Anuit met his eyes and nodded once. “Take my hands,” she told them.

  They did so, and then she raised her wings once more, lifting them off the ground. Holding them fast, she raced through the air back over the land, bringing Tal Harun and Arda to the steps of the Dark Citadel.

  * * *

  Tal Harun held fast to the sorceress’s hand. She was not at all what he expected to see—she was no darkling, and she looked more demon now than human—but Arda trusted her. Tal Harun was not one to trust lightly, but Arda was the Seal of Light, and clearly the Light had accepted her. Ten thousand years in Dis—had it really been that long?—had taught the greatest wizard in Ahmbren’s history that there were many strange things in the world. And despite the demons that were formed from the Dark, and Klrain’s fall from grace, Tal Harun knew that at their core the Dark and the Light were complementary and coequal. His war wasn’t against the Dark. It was against Dis.

  Tal Harun felt Klrain’s presence. No, that wasn’t quite right. Klrain was dead. This was his final remnant, his shade bound up in another form. Nevertheless, Dis trembled when he’d arrived, and Tal Harun sensed him closing in fast behind. Arda’s light drew him.

  Anuit set them down on the ground and then alighted beside Arda.

  “Artalon,” the sorceress asked him. “Do you know how we can unlock the secret of Artalon?”

  “It’s done, Anuit,” Arda told her. “Tal Harun told me the secret. It’s locked away from us—the Seal of Time died with Valkrage and the Seal of Life—Aradma—is lost. It takes all four.”

  Anuit frowned. “For nothing, then.” She looked past Tal Harun’s shoulder over the horizon. “They’re coming,” she said.

  The wizard turned. The raven-winged demons were being overrun. It seemed for the moment that the two warring factions forgot each other and all now rushed towards the Dark Citadel.

  The toad demon Qazim appeared on the steps with a puff of smoke. Tal Harun raised his staff, but Anuit turned to one of her servitors. “His name?” she asked.

  “Qazim,” the servitor answered. Tal Harun paused. That was Kokhabaal’s voice.

  “Qazim,” Anuit told him, “I bind you to me. Your will to my will. Your purpose to my purpose. Your life to my life. I bind you to me. Be purified in the Dark.”

  The toad-like demon prince fell to the ground and moments later rose as one of the transfigured raven-winged celestials.
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  Then the sea of hosts were upon them. Hellhounds and terror knights stormed the steps, and Tal Harun slammed his staff on the ground, shouting words of magic. The flow of energy rushed through his being and into the staff, and a shockwave scattered their enemies.

  “Quick!” he shouted. “Into the interior. There’s no time to convert them one by one.”

  He ran into the bone fortress followed by the others until they reached the expanse of the Abyss.

  They stopped at the sight of its depth. The interior of the Citadel was hollow, and the path ran in a ring around a great rocky maw. A pull of air flowed around them into the hole.

  “What now?” Arda asked.

  Tal Harun glanced back. Anuit’s transfigured princes fought at the narrow corridor leading into this place, slaying the lesser demons who challenged them. That would buy them some time at least.

  “I… I don’t know,” Tal Harun replied. He knew what he wanted to do, but he had also promised Arda he would help them get home. “I’ve never been here in Dis’s heart. I know somewhere there is a pathway that can take you to Ahmbren, but once I summon the watchtowers…” He lifted the clay cube in his left hand and stared at its intricate lines. So close…

  Anuit put her hands over his and closed his fingers around the cube. “Once you summon the watchtowers, the pathways are closed.”

  He nodded.

  Anuit and Arda regarded each other for a moment. They reached out and took each other’s hands.

  “There’s no time,” Anuit said. “Better to seal Dis from the world than lose the chance trying to get us out of here.”

  Arda nodded. “We are not worth it, and Artalon is lost. Ahmbren will be safer without Dis touching it.”

  Tal Harun took a deep breath. He looked down over the black circular chasm in the citadel’s center. “Do you know what this is?” he asked them.