“Submit.”
“Fine, you win. I submit.”
“What, no more bravado?” The demon’s head cocked as it studied him.
“I’ve got none left and I’m curious. Forget the Queen of All Trees gambit. We both know that’s not your endgame. Though, it was a nice touch since she and I aren’t pals. So what do you want me to order Sarn to do? Open a gateway to your hell plane? That’ll be tough since he didn’t open the doorway you entered through. And the only book detailing how to summon your kind was destroyed.”
The demon shrugged. “Let me in, and you’ll find out.”
It must be the intense heat getting to Jerlo. The flame bobbing around inside the remaining pane of red lumir had gathered into a hand holding a cross, and it signed the impossible. But God had sent stranger messages over the years, so why not this?
“Then get in here and show me. I haven’t got all day. I have Rangers to mind, forms to fill out and nobles to ignore.”
“No, don’t do it!” Rat woman and Insect man shouted in unison from above. Lotta help they’ve been.
“Quiet, I know what I’m doing.”
A black shroud fell over Jerlo and between one instant and the next, he was not alone inside his head. Something else was in there with him scratching at the periphery of consciousness. But its voice was drowned out by a heavenly plainchant like the Sisters of Charity used to sing on their way to vespers.
And he was back there levering himself out of a chair to follow their solemn procession into a chapel, where it didn’t matter if he’d forgotten who he was and where he’d come from. The light spilling through the stained-glass window above the altar had filled every crack in his damaged mind, making it whole in prayer and unity with the congregation.
The words of the anchoress floated back to him on a wisp of incense. A man set apart, a child caught between—in these dark’ning times, the One King calls all.
“Jerlo?”
He ignored Rat Woman’s shout. The last shard of red lumir fell, shattering on the ground before him. His boots smoked as he limped across those burning splinters into a shrine to the patron saint of blacksmiths. A cross hung over a waterfall whose spill turned a wheel and rotated a stage on which the Blessed Mother wept, her eyes cast upwards at her crucified son. Her hand extended into the spray. Attending to her were saints—patrons of the dangerous arts practiced in the lower quarters. One held a blacksmith’s tongs.
On the far side of the underground river, worshippers conducted a service. The demon took Jerlo’s control of his legs, and he stumbled, falling to one knee. If he could just reach the water, it would purify him, wash him clean of the demon’s taint. He crawled on his belly like a beaten dog until his arms went numb.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” whispered the demon inside his head.
“You deserve this for what you did to me,” Sarn said as he appeared between Jerlo and the water.
“Nice try, but you’re not real Kid, and we’re going to have a long talk about that boy I saw when next I see you in the flesh.”
Sarn’s face blanked and he dissolved like a good phantasm should.
Insect Man hovered over him. “Why did you let it in?”
“Later, get me to the wat—”
Drool rolled down Jerlo’s chin. His tongue glued itself to the roof of his mouth and his sight dimmed. Claws shredded his mind, and he fell away from his body, pulled by black tentacles toward a sea of bubbling tar that waited to drown him. Everything was fading to that amnesiac black. No! Jerlo pushed against it, resisting with all the strength of his soul.
Someone was dragging him. Jerlo wrinkled his nose at the smell of burning insects and singed hair—rat hair most likely. They each had him by a hand, and they were pulling with all their might, but claws extruded from his toes digging into the rock.
Help me Lord, in my hour of need. We can’t let this thing wi—even his thoughts were breaking apart and scattering. Soon there would be nothing left but a demon wearing his face. He’d been a fool to think his fractured mind would handicap such a creature.
“Jerlo?” the Anchoress called his name from twenty years in the past. Through a slot in her walled-up cell, she extended a thin, age-spotted hand and beckoned him closer. A lumir crystal lit the dim corridor, but she sat outside its golden nimbus.
“A man set apart, a child caught between, in these dark’ning times, the One King calls all, and in the darkness, he binds demon kind. Through prayer and faith find, release from all binds.”
“But I have faith. I’ve been doing nothing but praying and running all day.”
“If you hold on too tight, no light can enter.” She patted his hand as if he was a child spooked by a nightmare.
Her cell faded into the blackness gobbling him up. She made the sign of the cross before the memory of their odd conversation exploded into a thousand vanishing shards. But her voice remained, and her last words echoed. Bandages pressed against his eyes.
“You have to learn to walk in darkness in case your eyes don’t heal,” said the priest-healer decades in the past.
‘Walk in darkness’—wasn’t that what he was doing now? Jerlo fumbled for the core of himself—for that impenetrable blackness obscuring his early years. He’d learned to live with it, to walk through its darkness toward the light he knew had to be there if he could only reach it.
Through prayer and faith find, release from all binds.
Somewhere outside his head, a congregation was singing the Lord’s Prayer in plainchant. Jerlo might be bound right now by a body that refused to respond to his commands, but his soul was not. And the one King was calling him. Its still, small voice urged him to move.
His fingers dug into the rock, and Jerlo inched himself forward, stretching the tie that bound him to his demon-ridden body. Over his transparent shoulder, he saw Rat Woman fall and Insect Man dart forward to deliver a blow to a body that no longer belonged to him. But Jerlo kept clawing his way to the water. Its touch was soft but insistent as it drowned him. From his palm, a star burning with God’s pure light floated free of his hand. Its warm light baptized him. Shining motes flocked to it expanding the star.
Andurai corrected the surly voice from earlier. It waited for his thoughts to shape it and give it purpose.
Its silver light reminded Jerlo of the Queen of All Trees. Legend claimed she was a psychopomp and he had a demon that needed an escort back to hell. Who better than her to take out this hellish trash? The star reshaped into a radiant silver tree. Her roots shot out of the river and dragged his body kicking and screaming into the water to join his waiting soul.
A brilliant figure all in white stepped off her shining bow and touched the statue of the patron saint of blacksmiths on the shoulder, rousing it. Bending, it clamped its tongs on the demon’s nose and drew it out of Jerlo’s body. The Saint flung the beast at the crucifix hanging over a simple stone altar, and white light obliterated it. Blinded, Jerlo fell into a white vortex and came out the other side coughing and vomiting water.
The Queen of All Trees deposited a sopping wet semi-conscious Jerlo on the beach. Her silver trunk grew wavy as he blinked at her. How had she squeezed her thousand-foot crown in here? The ceiling of this cavern was high but not that high.
Rat Woman leaned over him, shaking his shoulder. “Are you Jerlo or you still that thing?” Behind her, the Queen of All Trees waited for an answer.
“I’m me.” Jerlo raised an arm to fend Rat Woman off. She didn’t relent. Instead, her grip tightened on his tunic, so he could not escape her eyes. They were twin mirrors reflecting a frightened green-eyed boy wearing Sarn’s face. The Queen of All Trees leaned over Rat Woman’s shoulder as her radiance increased. A silver branch snaked around them, and it touched Jerlo’s forehead.
“Forget,” Rat Woman intoned, her voice ringing like a bell.
The boy’s likeness shriveled up and blew away like so much ash on the wind. Sarn’s cave followed it, deleting all reference to the events that ha
d unfolded there. Then Jerlo fell into the gray between waking and sleep. Likely so too had the congregation because their plainchant ended in perfect silence.
Hello Darkness, My Old Friend
Jerlo blinked in confusion at the dragon statues ringing his desk. His arm had gone numb, and he worked some feeling into it as scattered bits of the last dozen hours caromed around his mind. As he wiped the drool from his cheek, one thought rang the loudest. Hadrovel had escaped. He pushed up from his desk, and a key fell from his pocket. It was tarnished and looked like just the thing to unlock an old and rarely used door.
Running now, Jerlo took the bends at breakneck speed shouting at people to make a hole. He wove only when statuary interrupted his path, which it frequently did thanks to the Litherians and their screwy ideas about decor.
“Woah there, where’s the emergency? Please tell me it’s in the forest and not in here.” Nulthir said as he jogged up beside Jerlo. “I’m not sure I can handle another emergency so soon.”
“No emergency yet, unless my hunch is right. Maybe you’d better come with me.” Jerlo took the stairs two at a time and almost fell in his haste because the steps twisted around an axis and no two were the same height. A drunken madman must have chiseled them out of the unforgiving rock.
“Where are we going? The prison’s empty, remember? There was a jailbreak early this morning. God, I can’t believe it’s still the same day.” Nulthir rubbed his bloodshot eyes.
“You didn’t catch anyone?” Jerlo asked as they left the staircase for the prison level. Without a descent into memory, the trip was considerably shorter.
Through the prison’s gloom, they trod using Nulthir’s blue-white lumir stick for light. Past unoccupied cells they ran, and their footsteps echoed, emphasizing the dungeon’s emptiness.
“Where are you going? There’s nothing back there but storage.”
“Then what’s this?” Jerlo led the Guard captain around another bend to an iron door and unlocked it. Beyond it lay a lake. The causeway was underwater, and there were no boats.
“What the hell is this?” Nulthir pivoted, shining his light on the expansive cavern.
“Over there is the oubliette.” Jerlo pointed to the far side and its closed door.
At least the snakes were gone. What had happened to Snake Woman, Rat Woman, and Insect Man? The former had snuck off during the last leg of the chase, but the other two had been there until the bitter end. There was something he was forgetting about those two. Some fact lost to the shifting darkness left behind by amnesia decades ago, but he couldn’t call it to mind. Besides, Rat Woman and Insect man had helped him when they hadn’t needed to. They’d earned the right to go their own way for now.
“Who’s in the oubliette?” Nulthir asked in a quavering voice already dreading the answer.
“Up until this afternoon, Hadrovel, but he escaped in the general chaos, and I let him. I should have kept a closer eye on him.”
“The Hadrovel?” Nulthir’s face blanched, and he staggered until he caught himself on a boulder. “The unkillable man?”
“Yes, he’s loose in Mount Eredren.”
And Jerlo had to find a way to explain that to his Rangers. He rubbed his aching head. Nolo would be livid about the subterfuge.
“Oh God.” The lumir stone dropped from Nulthir’s shaking hand. “What do we do?”
Jerlo picked it up. It was an expensive grade and quite bright too, which no doubt came in handy for the Guard Captain.
“We wait. He’ll pop up sooner or later, and I’ll be there, waiting when he does.”
Jerlo stabbed the air with the crystal wishing it was Hadrovel’s face. Shadows closed in on them. In response, the lumir stone’s glow intensified until everything was that light and its promise of redemption.
Vanya screamed. Through searing light so white it flayed her from the inside, she fell for what felt like years until she landed finally on a bed of silver leaves. Shimmering roots tangled around the trunk of a gigantic tree. Hands grasped her forearms and pulled Vanya to her feet then released her. She blinked and rubbed at her tearing eyes. In the heart of that blinding light, standing between her and the Queen of All Trees was a radiant woman. Behind her, two silhouetted figures reposed—one was a child cradled in his father's arms.
“Why am I here?”
“You lied about your plan,” said the Queen of All Trees.
“So what? You’re giving me a reprieve?” Hope rose in Vanya’s chest making her heart flutter like a hummingbird’s wings. Maybe the Queen of All Trees wasn’t as intelligent as everyone thought. What was her price? Everyone had one.
Vanya eyed what she could see of this numinous creature. “You need me for something. That’s why you interfered.” Vanya nodded as the pieces tumbled into place. “It’s like that adage—the enemy of my enemy is my ally? That’s what you’re after. You want an alliance with those of my kind who’re fighting the Adversary.”
The Queen of All Trees just stood there giving nothing away. She was a soft-edged, woman-shaped silhouette within the light, a mere sketch of a great queen reduced to myth, and distrust.
“But you don’t make deals with demons.”
Vanya let that fact hang between them. Still, the Queen held her ground and her peace. She was one tough customer, but everyone had a price. What was hers?
“You’re not offering a deal or an alliance, are you?”
The Queen of All Trees shook her head. “That would be inappropriate after what you did.”
“Then what are you offering?”
The Queen of All Trees held out her hand and there rested an abalone shell. Its smooth nacre curve reflected the Queen, and the demon she faced.
“This is what you came for.”
Vanya nodded and snatched at the iridescent curl, but the Queen of All Trees glided out of reach, still holding that shell.
“Did you bring me here to taunt me? I didn’t think that was your style. It’s so demonic, but maybe you have a little demon in you too. You were human once, weren’t you?”
The Queen of All Trees did not deny her claim. But she didn’t have to because a rainbow slammed into Vanya sending her careening through another blinding tunnel. Colors swirled, disorienting her as she plummeted back toward a familiar hell. A dark object accompanied her. It flashed as it tumbled, refracting the light transporting her. Vanya caught it just before she approached the speed of light.
Why had the Queen of All Trees given it to her? What did it mean? She had only a moment to ponder that before her extreme speed made thinking impossible. Nothing could travel faster than light, not even questions.
“Why’d you give it to her?” asked a sandaled man carrying a crude wooden cross that was taller than he was. The world’s balance bowed his shoulders. Light clothed him, making his multi-racial features hard to discern.
“Because it doesn’t matter anymore. My fate is sealed. I will darken and go into the west. Nothing can stop that now.”
“So you’ve given up hope?”
“I can’t. Too many depend on me. I am their last bastion of hope.” She stared into the breach waiting for the enemy to come. There were too many cracks to seal, too many holes to plug. The Adversary only needed to find one, and she’d just handed it to him.
“So you sent him an engraved invitation?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not your style.”
But it was. She was an ancient queen, battle-tested, but clothed in mercy. Control the battlefield, and you control the battle. Why wait for the Adversary to make his move when she could force his hand?
He said no more because there was nothing more to say. She’d chosen her course, and she was ready for the feints to come. Before he faded out, she broke her silence.
“I won’t add to your burden. I’ll keep the scales you carry as even as I can.”
“I appreciate that, but the balance is not yours to maintain. That task belongs to others, and they’ve long shirked it.”
He vanished leaving her alone to guard the periphery of magic, from the Adversary’s fouling touch. A crystal sword coalesced, and her fingers closed around its hilt. Righteousness, be my strength, she prayed, and her prayer increased her luminance.
Behind her, a little boy began to wake. She bent a smile on him and hope flowered in her breast. He and his father were loopholes and maybe even game changers. Only time would tell. With a thought, she sent the duo back to their cave where a shadow and a threat waited for them. One not even the Queen of All Trees could sense.
A white glow flared in a damaged cave restoring it. When it receded, a tall man lay on a thin mattress. Beside him, a small boy woke and shook his father.
“Papa? Papa wake up. I’m hungry.”
“I had the weirdest dream.” Sarn opened his eyes and stretched. He felt more refreshed than he had in a long time. “How long did I sleep?”
“A long time, too long.” Ran hugged him, but the fear he’d woken up with was ebbing away. Something bad had happened, but he couldn’t remember what, just that he was scared.
“Are you okay?” Sensing his son’s unease, Sarn ruffled Ran’s hair.
“No spying, we get food and have a nice ad-ven-ture.”
“Demanding aren’t we this—afternoon?”
Ran just clung to him as the last of the fear faded away.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
Ran shrugged. “I don’t ‘member having one.”
“Maybe it’ll come back to you after we eat.”
“No spying. Spying is boring.”
“Fine, I think it’s too late anyway. I wish I knew what time it was.”
In answer, the bells chimed seventeen times causing Ran to pout.
Unseen by the cave’s inhabitants, a relieved rat crept through a hole in the wall. On the other side, it joined with a horde of other rats. Its silver eyes caught and reflected the lumir light as the rats fused into a cloaked woman. Beside her sat Insect Man. They exchanged nods then withdrew to find a new place to call home, one close by the only other person they trusted. Something dark was coming, and they both felt it.
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 60
