Julienne dropped to her knees. A sliver of sharp stone pierced her leg. She cursed and shifted her weight to her other knee, leaning down as far as she could to offer her hand. The feel of his flesh was solid, reassuring. Relieved to have a hold on him, she helped him over the edge, dragging him to the safe haven at the forefront of the cavern. He collapsed against the fountain, sliding to the glacial floor in a heap. For a moment they just looked at each other in a melding of the spirit, sharing the knowledge that they had faced a perilous event together and came through it in relative safety.
Her eyes eagerly searched every inch of him. His fingertips were bloody, his hands torn up from scrabbling to hang on to the rocks. Other lesser cuts raked completely down the side of his face.
"My God, I thought you were dead." Shaking with relief, she clutched one of his hands and silently willed her strength into his battered body. Regeneration would take time. He needed rest, but at the moment that was impossible.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again, pulling in a deep breath.
"Very nearly so." His voice was quiet, pained. His fingers traced one scratch beginning at his at his temple. Fresh blood covered the tips. Moving his left arm obviously hurt. He winced, parting the torn sleeve of his coat to examine the damage. The penetrating cut was ugly but not too deep. Cursing, he began to pick out the pieces of sharp stone. Only the tough leather of his coat had saved him from worse damages. His injures were minor, no more than annoying inconveniences to be dealt with and then forgotten.
"You came too close this time, Morgan." She reached and placed her hand on his shoulder, as if she needed to assure herself that he was really beside her. "What the hell were you thinking?"
He looked around the chamber expectantly. A sharp hiss of breath moved him when his sight settled on the contorted remains. Clutched in one of the sorcerer's hands was a crumpled page. The writing on the parchment was stained with coagulating blood, the final wordless epitaph of Xavier D'Shagre's legacy.
Morgan got up. Face drawn, his expression was inscrutable as he approached the body. It was as if he did not believe the sorcerer could be dead. Going down on one knee, he saw the knife that Xavier had once use to slay his sacrifices buried deep in his chest. And while it may have been Julienne who brought the sorcerer down, hers were not the damages that drew his attention. It was the ragged hole where Xavier's face should be. Forehead to chin had been completely lifted away. Bits of gray brain matter and blood were all that filled the mutilated cavity.
Jaw hardening, he gingerly tipped the head over. He squinted in the smoky firelight. Mouth drawn down, the lines around his eyes became more pronounced, unintentionally revealing the unspoken sorrows he conditioned himself from childhood to hide. His appraisal was seemingly detached, but when he finally looked at Julienne, she read intense distress in his dark eyes. His expression registered pure shock.
"What happened?" His accented voice was a monotone.
Realizing that he was unaware of the creature's emergence, Julienne answered, "After you fell, something came out of the light."
Nodding silently over her information, Morgan's gaze scoured the mutilated sorcerer a second time. "Tell me. It is important you leave out no detail." There was an uncharacteristic sense of urgency in his voice.
Overcome with emotion, Julienne buried her face in her hands, trying to keep calm. When she finally lowered them, she recounted in vivid words of how she had attacked Xavier. Hate had given her the strength to consciously seek to kill. For the first time, she had proved herself to be a survivor, an equal in the distorted world of the preternatural.
"Then I saw the thing. Like a lizard, it was huge, with scaly skin, sharp claws and long teeth. Its eyes, oh God! Its eyes were silver… flat tarnished silver with no pupils." Morgan wisely remained silent, giving her a chance to gather her thoughts.
Still upset by what she had seen, she began to speak in a precise way, as if she were trying to distance herself from what she was saying. "It moved to Xavier and reached out--" Her hand twisted into a claw shape. "And it took out his brain and swallowed it."
A shadow of ambiguity crossed Morgan's face, as if he were not quite sure he heard her words correctly. With his hand he made a vague gesture toward the side of his head.
"You say it consumed Xavier's flesh? Made the conscious choice of him, instead of Azoroath or even yourself?"
Julienne nodded vigorously. "Yes, it wanted him. It knew I was there, but it didn't want me. That's when it changed, to become him, only younger. He wasn't bald and had two eyes." She was attempting to convey a sense of normalcy into the bizarre circumstance she'd witnessed. Her body betrayed her. She wrapped her arms around herself, drawing the folds of her cloak around her shivering body.
"Calm down," Morgan said. "It will do you no good to remain upset."
"I can't help it!" she interjected in a breathless burst of words. "I'm not used to this kind of thing. It was horrible! I saw everything, and I wish to God I could forget it!"
"I know you have never seen these things before, but you have to be clear. Did the transmutation, the taking of Xavier's form, happen quickly?"
Julienne found the courage to finish what she had to tell. Her words were halting, betraying her inability to clearly express what had exactly occurred. "It just…changed. It grew sort of, ah, hazy, before it started looking like Xavier. Then, it left, just went." After taking the image of the sorcerer, the thing had made no move toward her, instead fleeing up the stairs, much like a skittish animal would. She silently indicated the stairway. "Is it him? Will it come back?"
He shook his head. "I do not think it is Xavier." His words were utterly unconvincing. He was not a man who easily panicked. Something was wrong.
Abandoning the sorcerer's corpse, he walked toward the yawning rip that had nearly consumed him. The maw of the jagged-toothed specter reminded Julienne of the creature's own mouth opening up to devour the flesh it had lifted from the dying sorcerer.
Morgan halted, standing just inches away from the edge, contemplating the depth. There was something about it that seemed to be calling him back. He stretched out his hand, palm down, as if trying to prevent the rising of an invisible tide by sheer will alone.
Julienne felt a chill creep over her skin. His return to the edge of the chasm unnerved her. She wanted to scream out at him to get away, but the ability to speak seemed to have abandoned her. She ran her hands up and down her arms to rid her skin of rising goose-bumps and watched his movements with cautious eyes. Why did he insist on hovering near the unstable edge?
She took a hesitant step toward him, then stopped. "Morgan," she said, barely daring to speak above a whisper. "What's wrong? What did you see?"
He did not look at her, continuing to stare into the chasm. He opened his mouth, but did not speak. Mentally, he seemed to be drifting back into the abyss. It clearly had a hold on him that he was struggling to break. After a moment, he shook his head. His hand rose and he pressed three fingers to his temple.
"There are no words to explain..." he mumbled under his breath. His hand abruptly dropped. His fingers curled into a tight fist. There was a slight tremble in his hand, as if he were trying to hold on to his control--and losing the battle.
She hesitated a moment, then asked awkwardly, "What did you say?"
Morgan lifted his head and settled his gaze on her. The expression in his eyes changed subtly. She had seen that look before, and as it had before, it produced a shiver of fear to her core. His mental gears were shifting but not catching. A strange look swept over his face. In an unguarded moment, a play of intense emotions colored his features; confusion, awe and, yes, even dread. Something was going on inside his skull and it wasn't good. Then, as if retying his mental strings, he suddenly stepped away from the edge as if the hounds of hell themselves were snapping at his heels.
"The funeral tome Xavier had," he said briskly. "The words written on the pages…" He quoted, "Our minds were not ready for that which di
d come."
"The warning should have been heeded. We've opened the chest of treasure only to slam the lid shut too late when we found ugliness inside."
"The door to hell has been unlocked and the bounty reaped of it is bitter indeed," he agreed.
"This is trouble," she said, disturbed by his strange lapse. By her present observation it seemed that Morgan's facade of control was barely in place. That worried her. A lot. Watching him, she realized that the man who had so often embodied the spirit of the Reaper had just come very close to death himself. It must have had a profound effect on him. In her belief she was half right. She had yet to learn the rest of the story. "I want to leave, now!"
"Get the scrolls."
She looked at him in disbelief. "I don't think we should," she stammered.
He pulled his shoulders a little straighter, slipping back on his mask of shrewd detachment. "Are you also willing to forget the creature?" he countered ominously. "Where is it now? And if left alone, what will it become? By your own words it is a shape-shifter and hungry for flesh. It will kill again, Julienne. I guarantee it."
His hand rose, a single finger emphasizing his next words. "Do you recall when I told you that the astral is the arena of illusions, the realm of demons? Demons are masters of duplicity, deceivers of the eye and consumers of the soul. One has been set loose and I have no other alternative except to take the scrolls. They might be the key to finding and destroying that thing."
She wavered. Suddenly his argument made sense. Something was loose out there now. Something deadly. Still, the idea of his taking possession of the damned writings strongly disturbed her.
"If anyone finds out you have those things," she warned as her last argument, "they'll come after you with a vengeance."
"They are already after me." His intense black stare burned right into her. Only he knew what was going on in his mind and none of it seemed to be good. He suddenly pulled her toward him and gave her a short, intense kiss that stopped further protests dead in her mouth.
"Ná biodh tús acharainn agat ná deireadh scéil. Do not start a quarrel. Do as I say, please." His words rippled with an unfamiliar anxiety. As studied as his composure was, it was a fragile thing, on the verge of shattering. Whatever he'd encountered down there had affected him immensely. He wasn't ready to talk about it. He might not ever be.
She looked into his face. He hadn't shaved since they'd left the Danarran camp and the stubble of his beard emphasized the strong features of his face. Bloodied and battered, his hair a wild mass nearly touching his shoulders, he looked every bit the fierce warrior from the Middle Ages.
Julienne conceded to his argument. She had to believe that he knew what he was doing, that somehow he could reverse Xavier's grievous mistake. When he gave her a little push to get her moving, she knelt and retrieved the page that Azoroath had sliced from Xavier's hand with his machete, rolling up the bloodstained parchment. With quivering fingers, careful not to rip its edges, she returned the page to its leather pouch. She next took up the page the sorcerer had dropped before he'd turned his wrath on Morgan. This, too, went into its pouch. She pulled the neck tightly closed with the drawstring before tucking both into the leather satchel she carried under her cloak.
He might take them, she thought, but I'll have the final decision over their fate.
Approaching beside the hulking girth of the sarcophagus she saw for the first time the keeper of the scrolls. Her lips pulled back in a scowl when she saw the monk's face was streaked with congealing droplets of Xavier's blood.
She reached out to touch the figure, dead for centuries uncounted. "He looks like he's asleep."
Barely thirty when chosen to become the eternal guardian of the scrolls, the face of the etiolate bearded man was peaceful. His features were bathed in the gentle glow of the light beneath his body. There was a blush on his cheeks and gentle smile played on his lips. He looked as if he would soon awaken. He was clothed in simple robes cut from roughly woven wool, complete with leggings and leather boots which tied around the ankle. Looking at him, she could hardly imagine him digging into the forbidden arts of the supernatural.
Hands shaking, she took the remaining pouches from their resting place across his chest and put them away. Finished, she gently raised Erabris' hands and placed them one atop the other. His skin felt almost supple under her fingers, disturbing to touch. In an afterthought, she recovered his face with the white shroud.
When she stepped away from the sarcophagus a grating sound issued from within the stone lair. The platform bearing the body began to lower itself back into the bowels of the coffin. When it came to rest the light faded and the body was plunged into black obscurity, never to rise again.
Startled by the unexpected disappearance of the monk's corpse, Julienne stumbled back, clutching the pouch against her body.
"I think this is a mistake." Inside her soul she felt like a thief. Erabris had given his life to guard the sacred texts. Taking the scrolls away deprived him of his sacrifice. She hoped his soul would forgive her.
Morgan glanced up from his place beside Xavier. Morbid fascination kept drawing him back to the sorcerer's side. "Síochán leat," he said to the body. Peace be with you.
He stood, striding with effortless dexterity over the newly widened cracks to address her.
"It is the action we must take now that we have broken the covenants of the brotherhood." His intonation gave no recourse for further arguments. His decision was made. He would follow through despite the crime he would be committing under the scrutiny of history.
"You're making a mistake," she warned. "I may not have much instruction in occult ways, but I have a woman's intuition. And it tells me you're terribly wrong."
Ignoring her disapproving stare, Morgan stalked over to Azoroath. "If it is a mistake, it is mine." Grabbing the slain wizard by an arm, he flipped the corpse over onto its back. The bolt through Azoroath's head was punched up through his mouth. The serrated edges were coated with bits of flesh and bone. Surprised eyes peered into oblivion.
"What are you going to do with the dead?"
He let Azoroath's limp arm fall to the floor. "What can we do, except leave them?" He ran a distracted hand through his thick hair. Shaking his head, he stepped over the body and motioned for her to follow. His stance was resolute as he urged her toward the entrance of the tomb, carefully picking out the safest steps over the lesser cracks separating them from the stairway.
She went willingly, but paused at the foot of the stairs. Tilting her head up, she stared into the blank nothingness leading back into the empty city. "What if that thing's there?"
"We must face it," he answered starkly. "If not now…later…"
Behind her, Julienne could feel the lure of the dead. She turned, needing a few minutes to reflect over the desecration their presence had inflicted. Never would she forget this final sight of one man's desperation. Even as she looked upon the lifeless body of Xavier prone in a pool of congealing blood, she was sickened. Not far away, Azoroath's scheming was forever over, another greedy man brought to his end. A little knowledge was never enough and always there was the hunger for more power.
Drawing in a last breath of the murky cavern air, she tried to clear away the disturbing thoughts. They would not go. She realized then the awesome responsibility that they had taken on.
The twelve scrolls had been claimed.
And with them came temptation.
Chapter Forty-Three
The sìliche perched on a rocky ledge, concealed in the inky shadows oppressing the forgotten city of Ula'dh.
No longer imitating the image of the sorcerer, the demon was back in its inborn form. Hunched against the smooth limestone, its tail cut the air, back and forth, back and forth. Scales sounding like dry feathers rubbing together rippled over the creature's bulging misshapen body. Mucus leaked from its puggish snout, dripping in strings over protruding teeth. Filmy gray eyes scanned the Ula'dhian landscape outside the tomb. Fountains
lit by Xavier and Azoroath on their journey through the city's elaborately wrought paths only served to enhance Ula'dh's abandonment by its people.
All of a sudden the demon froze. No breath moved it. An unfamiliar presence had come into its line of vision. Narrowing its eyes, it observed the dark figure in the lead. Dim flashes of memory stored in the gray brain matter it consumed filtered into its small mind. Because it gained no psychic grasp on the mind of the sorcerer before its emergence into the physical realm, the images were hazy, jumbled behind bizarre proportions of hate, anger and fear. Hate and anger were emotions beyond the creature's comprehension. But fear was primordial, ingrained in the simplest of sentient life-forms.
The demon understood fear, and the sorcerer's recollection gave that fear a tangible shape and individuality.
The dark haired man was a predator who hunted for the exhilaration of the kill.
A second figure emerged from the depth of the tomb. Absolutely still, it watched intently as the red-haired female joined her mate.
Heavy lids widening, it surveyed her body with eager eyes, much like a child would a beloved elder. In its limited perception, she was the provider, unknowing master of its genesis. Survival depended on her in this strange new world. Where she went, it would follow, stay close to the lhian, the mother-woman. She had killed for it, fed it. It belonged to her.
The demon bristled. Silver eyes shifted. Sharp claws dug trenches into the soft limestone. It remained absolutely unmoving, its intense stare fixed on the figures walking below.
When they had gone from sight, the demon relaxed. Sliding off its high perch, it lifted its misshapen horned head to sniff the stale air. Its tail swished in agitation. The scent of the people was fresh.
Quietly, the sìliche pressed its ungainly form into motion.
The time to feed again was growing near.
Descent of Demons Page 41
