“I prophesy, mortal. The Demonsouled shall destroy you,” cackled the creature, “and I shall laugh…”
“Be silent and be gone,” snarled Lucan, muttering a spell.
A thunderclap rang out, the floor trembling, a flash of light throwing dark shadows against the wall. Lucan lifted his head and gazed into the circle.
It was empty but for a scattering of bloodstained dirt.
“So,” whispered Lucan.
He didn’t know quite what to do. But best to deal with Mazael now, immediately, when Lucan could catch him off guard.
He left the temple workroom behind, making for Mazael’s chambers.
###
Sir Roger Gravesend sat up in bed, drenched in sweat.
The serving girl stood by the window, moonlight illuming her pale skin, her eyes glinting gold and back.
“It’s time, loyal Sir Roger,” she whispered.
“How did you get in here?” he croaked.
“Get dressed,” she said, pointing.
“But the guards…”
Her lips pulled back, fangs glinting. “The guards were lonely, and couldn’t resist a kiss from a pretty girl. Get dressed.”Roger obeyed and followed the girl into the hall.
The guards lay dead on the ground, lips black and eyes bulging. Sir Roger noticed the twin puncture wounds on their cheeks and shuddered.
“Take his sword,” said the girl, “you’ll need it.”
Roger scooped up a dead man’s sword, his sweaty fingers curling around the hilt. “What now?”
“Why, we will kill Mazael and Rachel Cravenlock, and then Lucan and Toraine Mandragon,” said the girl. “Weren’t you listening before?” She smiled at him. “But first we’ll kill the guards keeping watch at the gate, you and I.”
“But why?” said Roger, rubbing his free hand on his trouser legs. “Shouldn’t we kill Lord Mazael first?”
“That honor is reserved for holy Blackfang,” said the girl.
Roger almost dropped the sword. “He’s…he’s coming here. Himself?”
“You fail to listen, again,” said the girl. “Now you will see a holy one of Sepharivaim. Now you will see the power of Sepharivaim unleashed.” Her fangs pressed against her lower lips. “But first, one final test of loyalty. You will betray Mazael and kill the guards at the barbican gate.”
Roger stared at her cold face, her reptilian eyes. “But…but…” He had gone too far to quail now. “All right. But…what is your name?”
Her tongue flicked across her lips. It was forked. “You…may call me Calibah. Now come. We have unbelievers to kill.”
Sir Roger shrugged and followed her through the darkened corridors.
###
Mazael’s eyes shot open. He had not spent fifteen years as a landless, wandering knight without sleeping lightly. He rolled out of bed, snatched up Lion, and came into a crouch, sword ready.
Lucan Mandragon stood in the doorway, his face a pale blur beneath his black cowl.
“Lucan?” said Mazael, lowering his sword. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Lucan said nothing, but walked into the room, cloak whispering against the floor.
“How did you get past the guards?” said Mazael.
“Please,” said Lucan. He walked to the table, waved his hand, and muttered something. The candles lit themselves, throwing their glow over the room. “You may have observed me moving through the castle unnoticed, ignored by everyone.”
“I have,” said Mazael. Something in Lucan’s tone made him raise Lion once more.
Lucan settled in a cushioned chair, adjusting his cloak. “I possess a mindclouding spell that permits me to walk unseen, so long as I do nothing to draw attention to myself. A spell that leaves you curiously unaffected.”
“What do you want?” said Mazael.
“I have observed you for over a year now,” said Lucan, “and from the moment I first saw you walk…or swagger, really…into my father’s tent, I suspected something amiss.”
Mazael said nothing, Rachel’s warnings racing through his mind.
“Your strength, your speed, are clearly unnatural,” said Lucan. “Consider your rage. Knights are, as a rule, violent men. But there is anger, and then there is…something more.”
“I have reasons enough to rage,” said Mazael. “Such as this intrusion, for instance.”
“And most interesting of all, your strange ability to heal,” said Lucan. “Oh, you hide it well, I’ll grant. But I have seen you recover in hours from wounds that should have taken weeks to heal.”
“Perhaps I’m simply vigorous,” said Mazael.
“Quite vigorous,” said Lucan, gesturing. “That cut on your arm. It has vanished entirely.”
“I’ll ask one more time,” said Mazael, “What do you want?”
“Merely to talk,” said Lucan, his smirk reappearing. “You see, Lord Mazael, you’ve hidden your secret quite well. But I can look deeper and harder than most men.” His black eyes glittered. “You are Demonsouled.”
Mazael moved so fast that he scarce registered the movement himself. One moment he stood by the bed. The next he stood before the chair, his blade held to Lucan’s throat.
“You speak madness,” growled Mazael.
“Do I?” said Lucan, showing no fear at all. “I think Lord Adalon Cravenlock was not your father. I think, in fact, that your mother so loathed him that she lay with the Old Demon himself. Hence, you.”
Mazael pressed Lion closer.
“Don’t deny it,” said Lucan.
“I should kill you,” said Mazael.
“You could try,” said Lucan. “But even though your sword rests at my throat, you may find my death harder to work than you think. Do you think I came to speak with a child of the Old Demon without first preparing ample protections? And why would you want to kill me, in any case?”
“Because if your father finds out he’ll kill me,” said Mazael. “If Gerald, Rachel, Sir Nathan, Timothy ever found out…they’d turn against me. Every hand would be raised against me, to kill me before I became a monster.” His voice hardened. “And have you come to kill me, Dragon’s Shadow?”
“And why,” said Lucan, “would I do that?” A single bead of sweat slithered down his forehead.
“Don’t play riddling games with me,” said Mazael. “You know I’m Demonsouled. Why wouldn’t you try to kill me?” A dark thought came to him. “Unless you’re Demonsouled yourself.”
Lucan laughed. “Please. My soul is black enough, or at least half-black, but not Demonsouled. No, Lord Mazael, I don’t want to kill you.” He paused. “Perhaps I want to help you.”
“Help me?” said Mazael. “And how would you help me?”
“Take the sword away and we’ll speak.”
Mazael said nothing, his pulse hammering in his temples. Perhaps it was a trick. Perhaps Lucan would spell-blast him the minute Mazael lifted Lion. His fingers tightened about the hilt. Mazael had almost killed Toraine today. No sense in sparing one of Lord Richard’s sons and killing the other.
He stepped back, keeping Lion raised.
Lucan stood, rubbing his throat. “So. Tell me, if you will. When did your abilities first manifest?”
“Only a year ago,” said Mazael, “when I first returned to Castle Cravenlock.”
“You do realize your father was the Old Demon, do you not?” said Lucan.
“I do,” said Mazael, watching Lucan. “How did you find out?”
“Your blood,” said Lucan, “burns with the power. There are degrees of Demonsouled blood. Some stronger, some weaker. Yours is the strongest I have ever seen.” He lifted an eyebrow. “How did you learn the truth?”
“The Old Demon told me.”
“Himself?” said Lucan. “You stay in communication with him?”
“No,” said Mazael, growling. “You might have met him. He disguised himself as Simonian of Briault.”
For the first time a flicker of surprise crossed Lucan’s face. Mazael
took a perverse pleasure in it. “Simonian?”
“Yes, Simonian,” said Mazael. “You seem to know everything. Didn’t you know that?” Lucan said nothing. Mazael paced, snarling. “You want to know the truth, Lucan? Here it is. The Old Demon was the puppeteer, and we were his puppets. He fathered me on Lady Arissa. He brought Skhath to the Grim Marches, had him create the serpent-cult. He disguised himself as Simonian, convinced Mitor to rise against Lord Richard. Do you know why?” Lucan shook his head. “Me. He arranged Mitor’s rebellion to unleash my Demonsouled blood, to force my true nature to manifest.”
“Why?” said Lucan.
“He wanted me to become something called the Destroyer,” said Mazael.
“Destroyer,” repeated Lucan.
“You know of it?”
“An ancient Tristafellin legend,” said Lucan. “It was written that of the Great Demon’s blood, one mighty scion would rise to enslave the nations of the earth and take the Great Demon’s throne for himself.” He shrugged. “Or herself, possibly.” Lucan glanced out the window, frowning. “Though it does seem odd. I rather imagine the Old Demon would want to claim the Great Demon’s throne for himself.”
“He does,” Mazael said, shuddering as he remembered the terrible glee and rage in the Old Demon’s burning gaze. “When…when I refused him, when I denied him, he…told me that all his children rebel, sooner or later. Then he devours them.”
Lucan lifted his eyebrow. “Raising them as cattle, I imagine. Harvesting them like a crop, absorbing their essence, their power. I suspect when he finds a Demonsouled mighty enough to become the Destroyer, he’ll murder the child and claim that power as his own.”
“Most likely,” muttered Mazael, remembering the Old Demon’s gaping jaws, the stench rising from his jagged fangs.
“I am curious, though,” said Lucan. “The Old Demon is at least three thousand years old. I can only imagine how powerful his arcane art has become, with centuries of practice, with his Demonsouled essence fueling his spells. How did you escape him?”
Mazael closed his eyes. “I…didn’t, not really. I would have fallen, become like him. But Romaria… stopped me. He killed her for it. That stopped me. I rejected him, called on the gods. Their power repelled him.”
“The gods?” said Lucan, dubious. “Of course.” A strange note entered his voice. “I am sorry to hear of Romaria’s end, though. You told us Simonian killed her. I suppose he did, at that. But I am still sorry. I understand that pain.”
Mazael opened his eyes, glared. “You understand nothing.”
“Don’t I?” said Lucan, voice cooling. “I understand quite well.”
“Do you?” said Mazael. “Then tell me.”
Lucan scowled.
“I’ve told you my secrets,” said Mazael. “Or, rather, you have forced them from me. What of the Dragon’s Shadow, eh? What of your secrets?”
Lucan opened his mouth. “Does not rumor tell you…”
His eyes widened, and he stepped back, lifting his hand.
“What?” said Mazael, raising Lion. “What is it?”
“The ward against undead!” hissed Lucan. “I feel it! An undead has entered the castle!”
Mazael didn’t have time to respond. His door shuddered, an axe blade bursting between the boards. An instant later the door splintered into fragments and collapsed to the stone floor.
“What is this?” yelled Mazael. “Who the devil are you?”
A half-dozen men and women skidded to a stop. Mazael recognized them from the merchants and whores that had traveled with Toraine. The biggest man carried an axe.
“What in blazes?” snarled Mazael.
They had black-slit yellow eyes, like a serpent’s, and ivory fangs curling over their lips.
“He was supposed to be asleep!” shrilled one of the serpent-eyed women.
“It matters not!” roared the man, brandishing his axe. “Die, Mazael, die for your crimes against the great god Sepharivaim! Kill him!”
As one the serpent-eyed men and women rushed at Mazael, fangs bared.
Mazael sprang to meet them. He dodged an axe blow, swung, and Lion rammed halfway through the axeman’s neck. He kicked the corpse off his blade, sending another of the assassins tumbling. One of the whores lunged at Mazael, snapping and biting. Drops of liquid fell from her fangs, drops that sizzled and smoked against the floor. Mazael dodged the poisoned bite and slammed his fist into the whore’s gut. She doubled over with a shriek, and Mazael shoved her into another of the assassins.
He sprang backwards onto his bed, kicking one man in the jaw. The leather of his boot sizzled beneath the poisoned fangs, and the man dropped. The four still on their feet stepped back, eyeing him. The whore Mazael had struck writhed on the floor.
“Lucan!” yelled Mazael. For a brief instant Mazael wondered if Lucan had fled, or, worse, if he had invited these snake-worshippers…
A ringing chant echoed through the room, and a pool of gray mist swirled across the floor. The assassins froze, frowning. Lucan surged out of the shadows, cloak billowing, and pointed.
A pair of enormous, wraithlike wolves sprang out of the mist, shimmering with pale blue light, and sprang on the assassins. Their ghostly claws and fangs had no trouble tearing skin and shredding flesh. The assassins shrieked and stumbled back, trying to ward off the ethereal beasts. Mazael sprang from the bed, Lion raised high, but to no avail. The wolves ripped the last assassin to shreds and vanished in a swirl of mist.
“Are you injured?” said Lucan.
“No,” said Mazael. “Who the devil are they?”
“Calibah,” muttered Lucan, toeing a bloody corpse. “Changelings. The spawn of a union between a human woman and a San-keth male.” Lucan smirked. “The San-keth claim to be a master race, but lack limbs, so they must sire changelings to perform their dirty work. The sort of creatures Skhath would have fathered on your sister, I imagine, had you not killed him.”
“Rachel!” said Mazael. “Gods! They’re here to kill her!” He jumped over the corpses and sprinted into the corridor, Lucan at his heels.
###
“Wake up, my lady.”
Rachel blinked open her eyes. “Is it morning already? I…”
Sir Roger Gravesend stood in her doorway, a cold-faced serving girl at his side.
“Good-bye, my lady,” said Sir Roger, laughing. “You ought to have wed me when you had the chance.”
“What?” said Rachel, flinching. “Get out! Mazael will have your head for this! Get…”
She fell silent in terror.
The serving girl had the eyes and fangs of a serpent, of a San-keth. She was a changeling, the sort of monstrous half-breed Skhath would have planted in Rachel’s womb, if Mazael had not rescued her from the dreadful cult. Rachel sat up, trying to tear free of the blankets.
Something moved, a green glow flooding the darkness.
A headless human skeleton stood at the foot of her bed, green fire writhing in its joints.
Rachel screamed in remembered terror.
The coils of an enormous, black-scaled serpent clung tight around the skeleton’s spine, the wedge-shaped head rearing up in place of the skull. Cold, reptilian eyes cored into Rachel, the forked tongue caressing the air. From one skeletal hand dangled a corroded brass urn, swinging from a rusted chain.
“Lady Rachel,” hissed the San-keth cleric, its voice rasping. “I am Blackfang, servant of great Sepharivaim. It pleases me to taste your scent at last.”
“Get away from me,” said Rachel, “get away from me!”
“You are an apostate to the faith, a traitor,” said Blackfang. “Did you think to escape punishment? You were pledged to Skhath, one of great Sepharivaim’s most faithful servants, and you betrayed him! The vengeance of the San-keth has found you. Take her!”
Four more changelings rushed through the door. She scrambled for the dagger Mazael insisted she keep under her pillow. Her fingers closed about the hilt just as the changelings seized her shoulde
rs. She yelled and slashed out, tearing a gash in a changeling’s arm. The man snarled and struck her across the face, the dagger tumbling from her stunned fingers.
The changelings yanked her upright and ripped away her nightgown, leaving her naked. They forced her to her knees before Blackfang, her arms pinned behind her back. The stone floor felt very cold against her knees and legs.
“You met yet recant and return to the true faith,” said Blackfang. The witch-light of his skeletal carrier dazzled Rachel’s eyes. “Renounce the false gods of men, and pledge your soul and body to Sepharivaim, and you will live.”
“No,” said Rachel, her voice shaking. “No. I…I want nothing to do with you…”
“So be it,” said Blackfang.
One of the changelings seized Rachel’s hair and yanked her head back. She knew how San-keth clerics executed apostates. After pronouncing the rite of condemnation, Blackfang would plunge his poisoned fangs into her eyes, leaving her to die blinded and in agony. She screamed and fought, but the changelings’ hands held her ankles and arms like iron shackles.
“You have betrayed great Sepharivaim and the San-keth people,” intoned Blackfang.
Rachel could see nothing but the ceiling, illuminated in the ghostly glow from Blackfang’s carrier.
“I name you anathema and accursed to the San-keth, outcast and wretched,” said Blackfang. “In the name of Sepharivaim, I condemn you. Perish!”
Rachel screamed.
###
Two of the damned changelings blocked the corridor, lunging with their poisoned fangs. Mazael was in no mood for delay. He killed them both, blood splashing against the walls, and kept running.
“Can you summon those ghost-wolves of yours again?” said Mazael, racing down the tower steps.
“No,” said Lucan. “Under the laws of the binding compact, I cannot call them again until the full moon as passed. But I am not without other…”
A dark shape came up the stairs.
Demonsouled Omnibus One Page 43
