She turned to the nearest officer. “Report.”
“All readings are normal, Commander.”
Nikira went over to his console and studied his screen, confirming his words with a glance.
“What did you do?” the pilot enquired.
“Asked our celestial guests for help.”
The men glanced at each other, and another officer asked, “Which one did it?”
“Drevarin.”
“That figures,” the officer beside her muttered. “I’ll bet the other one couldn’t.”
“You’d lose that bet,” Nikira retorted.
The man turned back to his console, but she sensed their dissatisfaction with the situation. It was hard to respect a commander clad in a coarse white dress who commanded only by proxy. If they wanted to rebel, she thought grimly, let them face Bane’s wrath and see how they liked it. She wondered when she had started thinking of him as Bane and not the dra’voren.
“It seems to be some sort of shield,” the science officer said, studying his screen. “Amazing.” He touched a key, and more numbers appeared before him. “And impenetrable. I’d like to know how he’s doing this. If we could find out...”
“What power is it?”
The officer tapped on his keyboard and stared at the words that appeared on his screen. “White, Commander.”
“Then we’ll never be able to emulate it, will we?”
“No one can use the white power like that.”
“Except a creator.” Nikira straightened.
The pilot turned to her. “Commander, we don’t know if those mountains that he mentioned are still there.”
“Then we’ll see what’s beyond the storm and decide what to do when we know.”
The pilot nodded and faced his screen again. Nikira sat down to wait. Two hours later, they exited the flux-storm and sailed towards a dark mountain range.
***
The Demon Lord stood up, gazing at the main screen. “This is the place. Stop the ship.”
Nikira had asked him to come to the vessel’s control room five minutes earlier, informing him that they were approaching the mountains beyond the pebble desert. Drevarin had accompanied him, and it had only taken a few minutes to find this spot next to the cliffs that filled the ship’s screens.
The pilot touched his controls, and the engines’ faint hum faded.
“Move closer to the cliff,” Bane ordered.
The ship drifted towards the massive expanse of cracked brown rock, where a strange set of stairs protruded.
“We must ascend to the next level, but first I will summon a demon hound.”
“The next level, Lord?” Nikira asked.
He turned to her. “Yes. The one above this one.”
“We can’t do that, Lord. Our engines can raise us a little higher, that’s all.” Nikira tapped several keys on the console and the image on the main screen swung upwards to show the massive cliff that the glowing redness above swallowed. “We can’t go that high.”
Bane frowned. “Carrying your ship up there will tire me.”
“Carry it?”
“I will do it,” Drevarin volunteered, and Bane glanced at him.
“That would be helpful.”
“You need to conserve your strength.”
Bane nodded and faced Nikira again. “Take me to a door that leads out of this vessel.”
“Yes, Lord.”
The lift took them down to the ship’s bowels, where she led them along a short corridor to an armoured portal. She typed the unlock code into the keypad beside it, and Bane glanced at Drevarin.
“You intend to watch?”
“I would not miss it for the world.”
Bane snorted and smiled, then the outer door slid open and a ramp extended from it. Nikira stepped back from the hot, foetid air that rushed in, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
Drevarin sniffed. “A dromon?”
“If that is what it was called,” Bane said. “I have already slain it.”
“Good. Nasty things.”
Bane descended the ramp, Drevarin at his heels, and Nikira followed them, wondering what Bane was going to do. What the hell was a demon hound? A large, nasty dog? Somehow she doubted it.
Bane stepped onto the convoluted stone and paused to glance at Drevarin, who moved to one side. Nikira stopped at the bottom of the ramp. The Demon Lord turned, studying the terrain, then spread his arms. The shadows rose from their dark clefts and rushed into him while Nikira stared at him in horror.
***
Vigilantor Montar jumped as an alarm brayed nearby, swinging around to stare at the scanner screen, which showed a shadowy man form.
“A dra’voren!”
“The ship’s going into auto stealth,” one of his fellow obstechs said.
Montar rolled his chair over to another console and consulted the vidscreen, focussing it on the reason for the alarm. It showed the tar’merin, and standing close by, the creator and Nikira.
“Override and cancel auto stealth,” he ordered.
“Sir?”
“It’s not a dra’voren, it’s the damned tar’merin.”
“Yes sir.”
Montar shut off the alarms and watched the tar’merin drawing shadows from the surrounding darkness, his stomach knotted with revulsion.
***
Bane lowered his arms, allowing the remaining shadows to sink back into their gloomy nooks. The dark power surged through him with its familiar malevolence, but its presence was bearable now. He had only Gathered enough to summon and control a demon hound, and the dark power whispered a name in his mind. Bane spoke the harsh words of summoning followed by the name, then gestured to the spot where he wished the demon hound to appear.
The shadows there drew together like skeins of black silk on invisible strings, mingling where they met to form a tenuous shape. It thickened and darkened as more shadows flowed into it, filling out a form that swelled as it solidified, taking on a lupine appearance. Bane glimpsed the dull red soul that shot up from the ground to inhabit the newly formed creature just before it opened bright yellow eyes.
Bane regarded it coldly, knowing all too well the nature of a Hellhound from his encounters with its kind in the Underworld. They were vicious and deceitful, endowed with a cunning intelligence and a thirst for blood unmatched even by demons, which tended to be fonder of tormenting than killing. Demon hounds killed for sport, and cared nought what their prey was. They seldom left a dark realm unless summoned, since they lacked the power to do so easily, and were usually weak and tenuous when they succeeded.
On those occasions, they rampaged through towns and villages, killing indiscriminately until a priest armed with holy water, the words of banishment and a great deal of courage banished them. Most priests perished before they could finish the ritual, foiled by the lightning speed of a demon hound and its immediate and deadly response to the presence of one who had the power to banish it. Of all the dark creatures, Hellhounds were by far the most dangerous. Only a dark god could control one, and many black mages had met grisly ends after making the mistake of summoning one. Demon hounds fed on their victims’ life force, becoming more powerful as they slaughtered, and more difficult to banish.
The demon hound continued to swell and thicken, its form empowered by Bane’s summoning, drawing its strength from the words he had spoken. The more powerful the god, the more powerful the Hellhound that formed in response to his summons. This one was becoming solid, with long, gleaming barbs forming along its spine and in its thick mane, its back level with Bane’s hips.
It opened its mouth in a lupine grin, revealing crimson teeth and a dull red glow within. Its yellow eyes flicked over Drevarin, dismissed him as potential prey and fixed upon Nikira. Bane glanced at the commander, who stood on the ramp, her eyes filled with horror. The demon hound took a step towards her, but stopped when Bane turned to face it again, looking at him. It could not break the leash of obedience that his summoning placed up
on it, but it longed for its freedom and hated his power over it.
“Tarquilar.”
The Hellhound laid back its pointed ears and lowered its head at the speaking of its name.
“Seek the trail of a Grey God here and follow it. I will follow in this vehicle.” Bane indicated the silver bulk of the ship that hovered behind him. “Do not leave my sight, and do not harm anything.”
The demon hound looked around, then lowered its nose to the ground in search of a trail. Its lithe, deep-chested form rippled with muscles under its sleek hide, and its tail hung straight down, brushing the ground. Bane watched it for a moment before striding back to the ramp, where Drevarin joined him, glancing at the demon hound.
“A powerful beast indeed.”
Bane shrugged. “It will suffice.”
Nikira had retreated into the ship, and when they joined her, she tapped in the code and the door slid shut.
On the bridge, the crew gaped at the main screen, which showed the demon hound casting about for a trail. They were so engrossed that they did not notice Bane’s entry, and those nearest to him jumped and moved away when they found him beside them. Tarquilar found the trail and followed it to the base of the steps, bounding up them. Bane glanced at Drevarin, who spread his hands, palms towards the floor, then clenched them as if gripping invisible ropes. Tilting back his head, Drevarin closed his eyes.
The ship rose. Operators cried out in alarm as the ground in the main screen dropped away in a dizzying rush, clung to their consoles and gaped at their screens. A navigation officer read out the numbers in stunned tones, and Nikira sank into a chair, her expression shuttered. The Hellhound bounded up the stairs, the ship keeping pace. They passed through the glowing red clouds in a flash of crimson brilliance and a beeping alarm that was swiftly silenced.
The cliff face passed in a blur, and the increased gravity forced everyone except Bane and Drevarin to seek chairs. The light god’s expression was blissful, and his power verged on visibility, rainbow ropes shimmering in his fists. The ascent took several minutes, then they passed the top of the cliff, and the ship slowed so quickly that everyone except Drevarin floated off the floor. Bane landed on his feet, but the crew sprawled with grunts of surprise and pain as the ship resumed its static flight, hovering over the crevasse. Drevarin moved his arms forward, and Retribution drifted over the edge of the ravine, orange land passing under it. He opened his hands and the ship sank a little, drifting away from the lip of the ravine.
The demon hound bounded away, and then paused to glance back.
“Follow it,” Bane ordered.
“Yes sir.” The pilot ran his hands over his console, and Retribution moved towards Tarquilar, who resumed his lope. Bane turned to Drevarin with a nod of satisfaction, and they left the bridge.
***
Kayos dismissed the Eye and sagged against the wall, resting his head on it. Bane was still two days travel from him, and he was not sure how much longer he could hold Torvaran at bay. He had to reset the shield sphere’s ward patterns every few hours to ensure the key did not match them, and each time he did, Torvaran struck the sphere as it unravelled. Every blow weakened the sphere, and Kayos could not feed it more power while it was solid, nor did he have enough time to do so in the instant of flux when he changed the patterns.
Left untouched, a shield sphere would last forever, but this one was weakening at an alarming rate. It would last longer if he did not change the patterns so often, but then he ran the risk of the key unlocking them. The fact that Bane was on his way gave him hope; all he had to do was last until then. He had only snatched naps between pattern changes, and the stress of his situation made those light and restless, so he suffered from sleep deprivation now, and the fatigue weakened him.
***
Nikira sat at the observation room’s main console and studied the scanner recording again with a frown. Bane’s form was shaded only lightly with shadows, making it grey, as it had been when they had captured him. It did not change when he summoned the dark beast, and she watched once more the horror of its forming. It turned from grey to black as it filled with dark power.
“Are you sure he can control that thing?” Montar muttered beside her.
“He seems to think so.”
“But look at him; he’s far less powerful than it is. Perhaps he can’t hold any more dark power than that because he’s alive.”
Nikira glanced at him. “Perhaps. But he was able to summon it, and command it, so we have to assume he controls it.”
“And who controls him?”
“He’s not a dark beast.”
Montar leant forward. “Neither is that, by our standards. What we call dark beasts are creatures who’ve been changed by the dark power, and who contain a little of it. That thing is made of it, like a dra’voren. That’s a beast dra’voren. What if he can’t control it?”
“Then we’ll have a problem, won’t we? Are you going to accuse him of endangering us?”
“What good would that do?” he asked.
“Exactly. Drevarin wasn’t alarmed by it, and he knows more than us.”
“It probably can’t harm him, but could he protect the rest of us?”
“I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Nikira touched a key on the control panel to restart the recording, which held a morbid fascination for her.
Chapter Five
Wraiths
Bane dismissed his cup of ambrosia and created an Eye with a wave of his hand, seeking Kayos within it. The image swirled, and then formed a scene identical to the one he had seen in Drevarin’s Eye. Drevarin rose and moved behind him to gaze into the Eye. The dark god stood beside Kayos’ sphere, holding the key. Sensing Bane’s Eye upon him, he swung around, but instead of the wolfish grin he had worn when he had sensed Drevarin’s Eye, this time his expression was murderous. Bane smiled when the crimson-clad stranger shook his fist at the Eye, and Drevarin recoiled as the dark god unleashed a bolt of shadow at it, momentarily darkening it.
Bane said, “I am coming, you damned dead piece of filth.”
Drevarin returned to his couch and flopped down as Bane dismissed the Eye. “Are you strong enough?”
“Not yet, but hopefully I will be by the time we get there.”
“Hope is not enough. I can give you more strength.”
“I will have to cast out my power again.”
Drevarin cocked his head. “Will you lose control of the demon hound?”
“No.”
“Then there is no problem.”
“I suppose not. Unless something happens that requires our help.”
Drevarin smiled. “It takes only a moment to break it off and awake. You need not sleep at all, but I do recommend it, you need the rest.”
Bane inclined his head, glancing at Mirra, who sat beside him. She rose and went to join Mithran and Grem at a nearby table, gazing at him. Bane closed his eyes and unleashed the dark power in his bones, spreading his hands as he let it trickle from his fingers in skeins of shadow.
Drevarin said, “I never thought I would witness a dark god using his power, unless I was his prisoner.”
“You would not want to be that.”
“Indeed. I would rather have a tar’merin as a friend.”
Bane opened his eyes. “You consider me a friend?”
“Of course. Do you not?”
“I had not pondered it, but I suppose so.”
“Good.” Drevarin smiled and lay back, moving his couch alongside Bane’s. When the last dregs of dark power had left him, Bane stretched out with a sigh.
***
Nikira stared at the main screen with a sinking heart, dismayed by the density of the dark region ahead. The demon hound had vanished into it a moment before, and she touched a key to open a comlink to the observation room.
“Montar, do you still have that thing on scanners?”
“Just barely,” his tinny voice replied.
“Can y
ou track it and guide us?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Nikira left the connection open and turned to the pilot. “It’s been moving in a straight line, so let’s assume that it will continue to do so for now.”
He nodded. “Shouldn’t we inform the dra - tar’merin?”
“Only if we have to.”
Nikira looked up at the main screen as Retribution’s bow entered the darkness, and the image became black.
The pilot’s hands danced over his board. “If there are obstacles in here, we can’t see them.”
“Then we’ll have to hope the thing that’s leading us will avoid them.”
“We should slow down, Commander. If we hit something at this speed...”
“I know. I’ll ask Drevarin to put up his shield again. Carry on.” Nikira entered the lift and selected deck five, wondering why the prospect of seeing Bane always filled her with a strange mixture of dread and joy. His presence was electrifying, and meeting his intense eyes was like sticking a finger in a power socket. By contrast, Drevarin’s presence was calming and warming, making her long to bask in his glory always. It stood to reason that a dark god would inspire fear, but why did he also make her feel so alive? Perhaps, she thought with a shudder, because he was so dangerous.
Nikira entered the dining room and stopped in surprise. The two men lay side by side on their couches, their eyes closed, and ropes of white light linked them. Mirra sat with Mithran and Grem at a table, engrossed in a hushed conversation. Ethra and Sarrin sat at another table, playing a simple game. Sarrin looked up with a smile, and Ethra frowned at Nikira.
Demon Lord VI - Son of Chaos Page 8
