Alaric looked sharply at the demon. “But that trail goes straight into the ice,” he said.
“Well, yes, it did,” the demon said, then winced.
“Did?” Alaric said. “What do you mean…did?”
Vagner hesitated then started across the ice. Alaric followed, only to be stopped short by the rope around his waist and three unmoving bodies. With an exasperated hiss, he jerked his dagger free, and in spite of the loud ringing of protests that sang across the icy landscape, he cut himself loose. Alaric then bolted after the demon, half running and half sliding over the glassy surface. The others burst after him. Alaric ignored the various epithets that floated and echoed. He felt an anxiety that was clearly being spurred by Ronan. The bard’s presence exuded panic and dread.
Where Vagner stopped, Alaric saw a gentle vent of pale fog. What in the name of Cernunnos…? He slowed his pace and approached. The air took on a hint of moisture, and Alaric could smell damp and something less pleasant.
At the edge, Alaric stopped. The layers of ice had been melted away, only bare inches of which had been recently reclaimed by the cold.
“How?” Alaric said. “Who?”
Vagner’s gaze wandered aside. “I did this,” he said warily. “With demon fire.”
“Why?” Alaric asked as the others arrived.
“He…made me. I didn’t have a choice,” Vagner said.
“Tane?” Fenelon asked, stopping beside Alaric to peer into the opening.
“Yes,” Vagner said.
“That’s where you were last night,” Alaric said. “That’s why your mark burned me like it did.”
“Tane felt me,” Vagner said. “He summoned me to him…forced me to burn this hole in the ice. And then you tried to summon me.”
“Tane knows I’m still alive,” Alaric said, feeling his face grow pale and cold with something other than the chill of the air.
“No,” Vagner said quickly, glancing at the others. “I burned you to keep you from being sensed, even though it cost me as well.”
“You traitorous…” Fenelon reared back as though preparing to call a spell. Alaric suddenly shoved Fenelon off balance. The moment stunned Fenelon with surprise, and made the women gasp. Fenelon then caught himself and glared at Alaric who held his place, determined not to be backed down.
“Tane doesn’t know we are here,” Alaric said. “Obviously, his magic is almost as befuddled as ours is by this place. Why else would he need demon fire to melt a hole in the ice when he could easily gate himself past the barrier through which he could see.”
“It might mean the ice cannot be passed by a gate spell,” Fenelon said testily. “For all we know, he could be down there laying claim to the Dragon’s Tongue while we stand here, all because that…” Fenelon pointed to Vagner who flinched. “…monster betrayed us, just like I knew he would.”
“And I’m telling you, it was the old magic,” Vagner protested. “Tane could not find enough essence to perform the spell himself, so he borrowed some of mine.”
Alaric sighed. “In case you have forgotten, that monster is still bound to me. You do anything to hurt him, and you’ll have to hurt me as well. Horns, Fenelon, you will hurt me if you hurt him, remember?”
Fenelon glared, but he shoved his hands under his cloak and turned away.
“Fenelon, we don’t need to start fighting now,” Alaric said. “We all need to work together, including Vagner. How else are we going to stop Tane?”
Fenelon turned back, refusing to look at either of them. His anger was evident in the hunch of his shoulders and the set of his mouth. Still, he took a deep breath and looked up, blue eyes sharp with emotion. “Yes, you’re right, Alaric,” he said. “And I’m the one who is delaying us more than anything. I’m sorry.”
Alaric glanced away briefly, his gaze flitting to the rise of the cliff and the path that disappeared into the mist above. A wash of snow tumbled down, a miniature avalanche that bounced off the ice.
“So…am I forgiven?” Fenelon asked.
“Oh…yes,” Alaric said, diverting his attention from the flutters of snow. “Of course, I forgive you. I’d be a fool not to.”
“Good, then let’s get going,” Fenelon said and grinned, though the expression hinted sarcasm.
He made for the hole, looking in then started down what looked like the continuation of the path where little bits of snow continued to tumble at random. Alaric came next, not so assured the path was safe. He just hoped those little avalanches didn’t turn into one big one and plug the only means of escape he could fathom.
FIFTY
Except for the trees, which were black as ravens in nature, nothing lived below the ceiling of ice that could be readily detected with mage senses. Oh, there was air and the rich pungent smell of good soil and ash, mixed with hints of sulfur. But no birds sang. No coney rustled the underbrush. Not even an insect. There was only the eerie silence, as thick as the air itself.
And the cold. In spite of the lack of snow below the ice, it was very cold here. Alaric shivered and took his time descending the cliff path which wound back and forth with hairpin turns. For a short time, he could see above the trees, but soon, the view was obscured and the descent continued. Alaric almost thought they would never find the floor of the valley, but they did. At last, the path widened and its slope lessened, and they were standing on the ground, facing trees more than twenty times the height of a man.
“By the Silver Wheel,” Etienne said.
“Horns,” Shona muttered.
Fenelon walked around one of the trees and whistled. “A giant of the ancient days,” he said. “Black Fir. I heard there were once trees like this over many parts of the Ice Plains before the Great Cataclysm…”
“There are still Black Firs in Ross-mhor,” Etienne said. “But they only grow in places associated with evil things, but I have never seen them grow so tall.”
Alaric approached one, pulling off his gauntlet. He put fingers to the black bark, only to hiss and jerk away. The tree was as cold as ice. He stuck his fingers into his mouth.
“Are you all right?” four voices asked as one, and Alaric nodded, amusement crinkling his eyes.
“Fine,” he said after pulling his fingers out of his mouth and jerking his glove back on. “It was cold enough to burn, that’s all. Why are Black Firs associated with evil things?”
Etienne frowned. “Well, when I was a child, they talked in Ross-mhor of people who went into forests of Black Firs and never returned. They are thick and dark, and allow very little light, making them favorite haunts for all manner of shadowy things. Dark Ones, Darklings, Shadow Lords…”
“Bogies and Black Hunters,” Fenelon supplied with a wicked grin. “Be careful love, or you’ll frighten the children, and we’ll never be able to lose them in the woods. You did remember to bring your breadcrumbs, didn’t you Shona?”
“Oh, bother, I knew I had left something behind,” Shona said sweetly as she marched towards the trees, then stopped and turned back. “I suppose I shall have to unravel my skirts for string.”
“A marvel indeed considering you are not wearing a skirt,” Fenelon said.
Alaric started to laugh, but a movement beyond her distracted him. He squinted, mage sight scanning the shadows of blue-green and black beneath the heavy firs. A humped shape skittered out of sight.
“What was that?” Alaric asked and pointed to where he had last seen the motion.
The others turned, scanning the forest.
“I don’t see anything,” Etienne said.
“Nor I,” Fenelon said. “What did it look like?”
“I didn’t get a good look at it,” Alaric said. “But it was like something—or someone—hunched over, and it moved rather fast.”
“Really? Where did you see it?”
Alaric wondered if he was being mocked. “Five or six rows of trees in,” he said. “Towards that rise over there.”
Fenelon took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “
Don’t sense anything,” he said.
Alaric closed his eyes and stretched mage senses, but with all the magic around him, it was difficult to separate anything tangible. Still, he could not shake the sense that something had been there.
“Come on,” Fenelon said. “Maybe a cloud passed over and made a shadow move.”
“Through mist and ice and these trees?” Etienne said, one eyebrow cocking at a skeptical angle.
Fenelon frowned. He had been about to start into the trees, but now he stopped.
“All right,” he said. “Spell casting will be a bit draining because I don’t sense anything I can draw from. But here goes.” He gestured towards the inner rows of trees and hissed, “Solus!”
Mage light blossomed in a shadow between the trees. At once, the air was filled with shrieks and hisses and scaly rattles as half a dozen humped, shadowy shapes, ranging from the size of a small terrier to one as big as a horse, suddenly extracted themselves from among the trees and fled for darker realms. They looked like crosses between dragons and men, except there was something intangible about them. But they were gone before Alaric could observe them well.
“What in the name of Cernunnos?” he said.
“Beats me,” Fenelon said. “Etienne? Shona?”
“I know of no creature that looks like that,” Etienne said.
“Neither do I,” Shona said.
“Well, they’re certainly not true demons,” Vagner said with a haughty sniff, though his face displayed a hint of doubt.
“Shadow Kin,” Ronan’s voice whispered. “Remnants of an ancient plague that grew in the shadow of Na’Sgailean before the Lords of Light, the Avatar of the White One and the Hammer Maid sundered her. They are the dragon mother’s breath, mist and evil rolled into living essence, stolen from men who died in sin and nurtured in the wombs of demons…”
Alaric blanched when he realized he had just said those words aloud.
“That was Ronan, wasn’t it?” Fenelon said.
Alaric nodded as his face grew hot.
“Want to ask if he knows how to keep them away?” Fenelon asked.
The bards words rolled through Alaric’s head. “Ronan says they cannot bear True Light,” Alaric said. “But to be wary of using normal fire. They feed on it, being born of dragon’s breath.
“Wonderful,” Fenelon snarled. “We’ll have to use mage light, and that will tire us since we have nothing here we can draw essence from.”
“Not if one of us creates the light,” Etienne said. “Even our demon friend can do that.”
“Demon light is not the same,” Vagner said. “Even though my demon essence would last longer, any light I create is more apt to attract them.”
“He’s right,” Fenelon said. “So the four of us will just have to take turns and…”
“There is one other possibility,” Alaric said. Faces rounded in his direction. “I can draw essence from Vagner.”
“And use his essence to feed your spell,” Fenelon said. “Brilliant! I knew the demon would be useful for something.
Vagner’s brows rose in stark amazement. Alaric started to refute that claim, when Vagner cleared his throat.
“I take it that I have no choice in this?” the demon said with a sigh.
“Of course you do,” Alaric said.
“Of all the…Alaric, don’t be a fool!” Fenelon said. “You’re his master. You can make him…”
“Yes, I can,” Alaric said, “but I would rather give him a choice. And trust him to have the wisdom to see that what benefits us will also benefit him in the long run.”
“Alaric, he is a demon,” Fenelon said. “He thinks of no one but himself…”
Vagner looked hurt by Fenelon’s words, but only for a brief moment. The demon reared upright, towering more than twice Alaric’s height, and stretched one claw down to rest it lightly on Alaric’s shoulder, and glared haughtily at Fenelon.
“It is quite true that a demon thinks only of itself and its survival,” Vagner said. “But what you fail to realize, Fenelon, is that at this moment, my survival is closely tied to Master Alaric’s survival. Therefore, his suggestion that I allow him to use my essence is perfectly logical. It will assure his survival, and thus mine. And so I will freely allow him to take my essence even if I could choose not to do so.”
Fenelon looked taken aback by the demon’s nobility. Alaric bit his lip to keep from laughing aloud.
“And as you so quickly point out, it proves I can be useful,” Vagner added. “As useful as I was at saving Master Alaric from Tane’s deathtrap, and from those Haxon’s last night…”
“All right, you made your point,” Fenelon said
“Good, because we are wasting precious time, you know. Tane is well ahead of us by now. We do not wish to give him any more advantage, do we?”
“Exactly where is Tane?” Alaric asked.
The demon closed his eyes. Alaric felt the thrum of its essence within him. “Somewhere close to the heart of this place,” the demon said and frowned.
“So we too must head for the heart of these woods,” Alaric said.
“Then you had better light us with your spells, Alaric,” Fenelon said.
Alaric nodded. He closed his eyes and gently pulled essence from the demon, then whispered “Solus.” White brilliance flared in his hands. He walked to each member of the party, touching it to staffs and swords, and whispered “Solus feith.”
Within moments, they all glowed like beacons as they advanced into the dark of the Shadow Forest.
~
Things kept skittering away in the dark. They flitted past the corner of the eye so that if one turned, they vanished. Etienne was not a superstitious woman, but she muttered prayers to the Lady of the Silver Wheel and the Lord Protector all the same. She felt grateful for the demon’s willingness to give Alaric the power to hold these lights.
Normally, mage light, if given a proper source, would stay indefinitely, but they had already learned Alaric needed to channel the borrowed essence continuously. She worried that concentrating would tire him, and with all he had been through lately…Poor lamb, he was bringing out that rare mothering instinct she felt towards her own apprentices. Alaric was only a few years older than any of them, but he was still a child in the ways of magic.
A child under Fenelon’s influence. That thought almost made her laugh aloud. A pair of adolescent boys who had yet to outgrow their rowdy ways. Except, Alaric was made of meeker stuff. Not a coward, she quickly told herself, but it was obvious which of the two of them had been raised properly.
Oh, well. She told herself a woman had to understand, that for all his bravery and bawdy behavior, Fenelon would always be a rogue child at heart. Perhaps that was why she had fallen into this comfortable routine of sharing his company and his bed without commitment. Life with Fenelon was certainly never dull.
And poor Alaric is discovering that the hard way.
She had to give him credit. Anyone of lesser heart would have quit the scene after the first day in Fenelon’s company. She knew this, because she had almost done so herself. Infinite patience as a trained healer had helped her hold on as she had.
“Look, that’s a poisonous Blood Apple!” Fenelon said suddenly and pointed to the tree that had managed to tangle roots in among those of the Black Firs. “I know a dozen mageborn who would give their last sgillinn to have just one of those.”
“So why not pluck some and take them back to sell,” Shona asked.
“Because Blood Apples have poisonous barbs hidden under the leaves and up around the stem. It’s as dangerous as demon venom.”
“Not actually,” Vagner interrupted. “Our barb venom is instantly lethal with a few rare exceptions. You must wait a few days to die the death a Blood Apple brings.”
“Ah, but like pure demon venom, there is no known antidote,” Fenelon insisted.
“Well, that can’t be entirely true,” Shona said. “I distinctly recall reading in Pragmon’s Poisons that
only the tail barb of a demon was instantly fatal. And that the venom from the claws of a demon, if the wounds are properly cleaned and cauterized and dressed with comfrey and wheat flower and salt mixed with a poultice of egg whites, is not often fatal. But the Blood Apples eat through you from the inside out, and there’s no cure for that.”
“Which means Blood Apples are more deadly than demon venom,” Fenelon said cheerfully.
“Would you care to test that theory?” Vagner asked with a grin, gesturing with claws.
“Not on your life, demon,” Fenelon said. “However, I would be interested in learning the results if you devoured a Blood Apple.”
“I don’t eat fruit,” the demon said sourly.
“Hmmm, my mistake,” Fenelon said. “Probably because you so closely resemble a grotesque version of a large fruit bat.”
“You are the only fruit in this basket,” Vagner said.
“I’m wounded,” Fenelon said. “And here I was trying to be nice to you, too.”
“That’s what you call being nice?” the demon said. “Trying to poison me with poisonous fruit?”
“You’re no fun at all, Vagner,” Fenelon said. “You have no sense of adventure.”
Etienne sighed. Perhaps one needed such patience.
FIFTY ONE
Alaric was tiring. Vagner could feel the young mageborn’s concentration waning. Even though they stopped and rested regularly, the passage of time was taking its toll. The demon pushed more of his own essence into the youth, fully aware such an act could drain him as well over a long period of time. Vagner, at least, could touch the perverse power that ranged through this place. To him, its ancient song was like thick, bittersweet nectar.
Now and again, a Shadow Kin would come close enough for Vagner to see its baleful stare before it would whip away from the burn of the mage light. He got the impression they were accusing him of aiding the enemy. Vagner ignored them. He was demon and had all his powers. Shadow Kin were intangible. Oh, like the darklings of Mallow, they could do harm, but not to a demon. And there was no way he was going to allow them to hurt the little master…
Dragon's Tongue: Book One of the Demon-Bound Page 39
