“I think we will work well together.”
Already accustomed to Alric’s voice, I muttered too softly for anyone to hear, “Great. More good news.”
Sword in the Loam
Alric’s Heaven-wrought blade lay untouched and unblemished in the dried mud outside the village walls.
Only one of pure mind and heart chosen by the sword itself could wield or even lift an Angel Sword.
When Angel Swords first fell from the heavens, whole battlefields were said to be covered in discarded angelic weapons. There were more than enough blades to outfit all the armies of men.
Most of these swords lay unclaimed, for there were not enough men and women of honor to wield them.
Surprisingly, none of the townsfolk of Balde who had tried had been able to pick up Alric’s sword.
The mud was dry, at least for a time, my feet no longer squelching in the protesting soil. Birdsong trilled through the thick woods surrounding the village walls, the birds hidden in the interlinked shadows of the ancient, massed trees.
To my right, the small, rutted path that passed for the main road into and out of the village snaked forward and disappeared into the trees.
Overhead, to my eyes’ watery surprise, the sun peeked through the normally unbroken grey gauze of pregnant clouds.
I crossed the clearing where Alric had fallen, and found that his death had been memorialized by a small cairn. Nearby, the Angel Sword shimmered on the ground beside the stacked stones, a band of sunlight unwavering and persistent beneath the broken sky.
Reaching down, I casually took up Alric’s sword.
“I knew you had it in you!”
I snorted. “I just have you in me!”
“That is not why Loer’allon chose you.”
“She’s just desperate.”
Alric laughed.
If you’ve never had someone else laugh in your head, let me tell you, it is a rather odd sensation.
The blade was surprisingly light in my hands. In fact, the sword was so light, I could not tell I was holding anything at all. But, despite the absence of weight, there was a solidity, a gravity, to the blade.
I could feel its potency.
The longer I held Loer’allon’s pommel in my hand, the more deeply I appreciated its capacity.
Vitality—rightness—flowed forth from the sword, coruscating up my arm and through my body. I felt enveloped in an abiding peace, a deep calm, and filled with complete reassurance. I felt unshakable and untouchable but grounded and part of a totality beyond my ability to fully encompass but one I could sense and appreciate.
Vibrancy, ineffable Light, and energy washed through me in a cleansing wave, reinforcing and reinvigorating me.
The longer I held Loer’allon, the deeper and more comprehensive these impressions grew.
How could Alric bear to hold such a thing of wonder?
How did the Empyrean Knights not become enraptured in the glory of the blades they bore?
I could lose myself in the world the sword was gradually opening before my unsuspecting mind’s eye.
“Saedeus!”
My eyes regained focus and I set the blade back on the ground lest holding it in hand draw unwanted questions and consideration.
“Yes?”
Bailiff Landsdown bustled out through the shadowy gate some distance behind me, waving his arms to get my attention.
Maintaining my posture, one of respectful supplication, as he approached, I heard him say, “I wanted to offer you my sincerest apologies, Saedeus. You are not often afforded the respect you deserve. This unfortunate mistake is just one more example in a long line of similar affronts.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
I stood to my full height.
On my tiptoes, I probably came to the bailiff’s shoulders.
“There is no need. If their opinions mattered to me, I would have left long ago.”
“I respect that you tried to do right, son. You’re a good man. Much better than you’re given credit for.
“I don’t think a one of those who mock you could survive without the protection of these walls, and you’ve done it for years.
“How, exactly, I have no idea, but you’ve done it nonetheless.”
I gave a small half-smile. “My mushrooms have kept me safe.”
He crinkled his deeply inset eyes at me. “More than magic mushrooms have helped you get through these times, son. I only wish I had a bit of what you do.”
I shook my head. “You want none of that, Master Landsdown, believe me.”
“If more were like you, the world would be a better place. We might even have a chance to push the tide back rather than fight a losing battle to hold it in place.”
“If more were like me, we’d run and hide under rocks and hope the demons set their sights on another realm entirely.”
“You didn’t run when the Empyrean Knight needed you.”
“And a fine lot of good it did.”
“You were there for him. And you showed this sorry lot that even the least of them can stand up to the terrors in the night.”
Before I could deflect any further comment, Bailiff Landsdown reached beneath his woolen greatcloak and proffered a small bag.
Without looking inside, I could tell the satchel was filled with Heaven’s Marks, coin of the realm, enchanted to prevent duplication or degradation.
Before I could open my mouth in protest, he said softly, “You’ve led a hard life, Saedeus, one this town has not made any easier. Although these coins cannot make up for past or future affronts, they can at least make things a bit easier for you.”
Holding back tears, for what wielder of an Angel Sword cried at generosity, I nodded my head in heartfelt gratitude. “Thanks.”
There was so much more that could be said. I just did not trust myself to say it.
The ground had soaked in enough tears of late.
It did not need any more.
And Now We Wait
I held within my hands a piece of Heaven.
Though the sunlight reflected off its polished surface, the blade glowed with an inner radiance, a window into the broad sweep of the firmament above.
Whole universes lived within its aureate curves.
The Angel Sword was Light and magic manifest.
Diverting my attention from my reverie, resigned to my fate in the hours since Bailiff Landsdown’s departure, I asked, “How do we proceed from here?”
“The demon will not suspect pursuit immediately after my fall. We should have the element of surprise.”
I could think of many elements, but none of them were to our advantage.
I also had a sneaking suspicion that whatever the outcome, I would be the only one surprised.
“And how do you propose we catch a demonic wizard with access to fell sorceries and arcane Arts?
“One whose might was sufficient to slay even you?”
I could almost feel Alric’s smile.
“We lure it into our trap.”
Fantastic.
We were about to go fishing for an extradimensional monstrosity.
With me as bait.
I sat outside the gates of Balde, my legs crossed, the Angel Sword lying across my lap. The cool, moist earth of the trader’s path that led away from the village had saturated my pants long ago and the chill crept up my legs. The town was secured behind me, its irregular rooftops barely visible above the high wall sheltering its citizens.
The onlookers who had come to gawk at me from behind the wall’s protections had finally retired to their homes. Some had come to see the rumored spectacle of the outcast now said to be wielding an Angel Sword. Others had lined the walls to watch what befell anyone foolish enough to tempt fate when a skin dancer was on the loose. Others, those few who had not gotten their fill from the earlier proceedings, had come just to taunt me.
Now they were gone.
I knew they would be back to check on my progress, or remains, in the morning
.
With Jon suspended and reprimanded for his past behavior, the guard on duty refrained from the usual taunts and jibes that accompanied my evening excursions.
At least in that regard they were better behaved than many of the populace they watched over.
Unfortunately, their regard did little to help my situation.
I was, in every sense, a sitting duck.
Or a quack.
I was counting on Alric’s uncanny senses to function through my own and give me fair warning of the demon’s approach should I miss it.
My mind’s eye open, I watched the essence of night flow around me, tendrils of ethereal fog binding ground to sky and everything between.
Alric’s admonitions from earlier came back to me. “Until you gain some measure of control over your abilities, you must refrain from touching the demon lest its essence become your own.
“If our plan succeeds, do not approach the demon or make contact with its earthly host, whether alive or dead.”
Forewarned, I had agreed.
The last thing I wanted was to be near a demon, much less to come in contact with one.
While I waited, growing ever colder, hungrier, and sleepier, which I gathered were the holy triumvirate of guard duty, I asked Alric, “Is Loer’allon alive?”
I could just make out my reflection on her surface through the blade’s lambency as I peered into her depths.
“In the sense all things are alive...imbued with the divine, the spark of magic. Loer’allon just burns brighter, more intense. Here are the fires of the universe’s creation before it cooled.”
“And these are the fires that slay demons?”
“Aye. These are the fires that consume demonic essences as fuel to her flames. The greater the source, the more intense the blaze.”
Funny, she did not feel hot to the touch.
So much for my dreams of warmth.
A Shadow This Way Comes
Because I had done my best to avoid nodding off, my head snapped to attention as I felt a disturbance in the essence.
Shadows morphed and shifted tremulously on the clearing’s edge, molten liquid shrinking away from the approach of something wicked from the wood.
Although I did not want to, I had a distinct idea as to what it was.
“Stay calm.
“Do not react or draw the Al’zakara’s ire until it is in position and the moment is right.
“Give yourself the opportunity to succeed.”
The right moment?
Nothing about this was right.
The only success I could foresee was surviving this lunacy by running away at full speed to the town gates begging for entry, and even that chance was but a wan mirage quickly fading into the stark desolation of dreams past.
The luminous lights infusing the dark wood with celestial energies slowly began to recoil, pushed back in terror or abhorrence of the blight treading within its shadows.
I felt dirty, soiled, just by experiencing the thing’s presence even from a distance.
“Did someone come out to play?” A horrific voice, dissonant notes colliding like dying stars, taunted me with its approach.
I wanted to do nothing more than cover my ears, to curl up and hide.
Not reaching up my hands to block out the alien voice was one of the hardest things I had ever done.
And this was supposed to be the easy part.
“Hold your silence.
“This is an entity of true power. Speaking out may provide a window into your soul.”
Well, that was encouraging.
“You will be safe from its beguilements so long as your gates are sealed and you remain within Loer’allon’s aegis.”
I had no idea what a gate was, but I kept my mouth shut.
That I could manage.
What lurched from the wood over fifty paces away could not be called remotely human.
That the thing had ever been human made my mind go to places it would rather not visit.
Swollen, discolored, and distended, like a bloated corpse left to rot in full sun for days, the former wizard skittered out of the wood with motions that were entirely unnatural. His movements appeared to be sped up through time, skipping from one instant to the next with no point in between. Like a rock deflecting over the surface of water as it skipped, the wizard’s malformed body barely touched the ground, bouncing from location to location with little regard to gravity or its tread.
Though the man’s physical state was horrific, through my mind’s eye the situation was far worse.
Power oozed from his body like blood from an open wound, swathes of black energy pulsing outward—an oil slick soiling anything it touched. Two rows of paired reptilian eyes floated vertically amidst the demonic halo, steady and unwavering amongst the vitreous corruption.
All those eyes were locked on me.
I wanted to avert my gaze, to block out what I saw, to wipe my memory clean and never see it again.
I felt corrupted, and I was not even close to the thing.
“Perhaps the time for a new host has come…”
Breaking the tableau, the creature’s awful words snapped me out of my trance.
By the farthest reaches of the black Abyss, I was not going to let that happen!
The thing came closer.
Staying still took all the nerve I had and more.
I was shaking.
And it was not from adrenaline.
“Stay calm. If it starts to cast an incantation or extend its power, make your move. Otherwise hold your position. Loer’allon is protecting you.”
If this was protection, I would hate to experience the fell thing’s presence without Loer’allon’s aegis.
At least I had not yet soiled myself.
Unlike the town guard who had, until recently, been watching from the ramparts behind me.
Grass withered beneath the demon’s feet as it lurched unnaturally toward me from the forest—a predator with all the time in the world to catch its prey.
I gulped.
I held my breath, the bobbing of my Adam’s apple my only noticeable movement.
“That toy will not protect you from the likes of me, mortal.
“I have already slain the blade’s true master.
“Do not think you can use it against me where he failed.
“I will rend your soul from your flesh just like I did his.”
The thing was closer now…terribly near.
I shivered.
The black gulf of its aura was oozing around the luminous halo of Loer’allon’s protections.
“Now!”
“Lucius!”
From the center of the clearing, immediately beneath the demon’s feet, Lucius, my pet rock and earth elemental, exploded upward towards the heavens, through the wizard’s distended body.
A shower of gore and ichor rained down on the clearing.
The demon’s shriek of pain and rage brought tears to my eyes, its nebulous nimbus writhing and thrashing frenetically in agony.
Lashing out, I sliced through the black cloud enveloping me with Loer’allon’s aureate edge.
The world exploded in light, the demon screeched even louder, if such a thing were possible, and I blacked out.
Before darkness fully took me, I wondered if fainting would be my last noble act among the living.
On Waking
My eyes blinked feebly, reluctantly, refusing to open.
An incandescent whiteness burned through my eyelids.
Had I died?
Was this the Light of Heaven?
Did Loer’allon’s radiance persist in the darkness shielding me from the demon’s presence?
“Wake up.
“You acquitted yourself nobly.”
I groaned.
“Lucius did most of the work,” I mumbled.
“Lucius’s work was your idea, and a very clever one at that.”
“How do you think I survived in the woods outside the
town walls all these years? Lucius had my back.”
“And you had Lucius’s…and the guile to survive.”
I was lying untouched in the rough dirt of the trail leading out from the town gates. Apparently no one had ventured out yet to check on me.
So much for appreciation and adulation.
In fairness, probably and somewhat reasonably, the townsfolk were waiting to make sure I had not been taken over by the demon.
It’s what I would have done were I in their place.
It stunk.
The clearing smelled like death left to fester and rot amid a sea of refuse…that refused to fully decay.
If possible, the wizard’s corpse appeared to have bloated even further.
“I suggest burning the corpse. The cleansing flames will remove any remaining demonic taint.”
Great.
More work.
I called out, “Mind throwing me some wood to build a pyre?”
I knew people were watching cautiously from the gates.
I could sense them.
Why was my soul sight open?
I could not seem to turn it off.
Standing in place for several minutes, I tried to close my inner vision and failed.
“Your eyes are open to a wider world and cannot be closed. I am sorry.
“This is one of many changes you may be forced to endure.”
Fantastic.
More excitement to look forward to.
“Although you may wish it were not so, this change will allow you to sense demonic presences and beguilements.
“In the days to come, your inner vision will be the key to keeping you alive.”
Joy of joys!
More was expected of me!
At least the normal gloom and desolation of the northern reaches was brightened by the intrinsic energies struggling to regain a footing after the demon’s unwelcome visitation.
I heard the heavy thunk of wood being dropped onto packed earth behind me.
Sighing, I trudged over to the gate and began slogging the timbers toward the wizard’s vile corpse.
“Thanks,” I muttered to the guard warily peering down at me while I worked.
Legacy of the Blade: The Complete Trilogy Page 4
