A Lady in Crystal

by Toby Bennett

  When the light revealed the kneeling assassin, Varkuz drew in her breath, for rather than a broken man, she faced an adept in full control of his mind.

  “What place is this?” The daemon asked.

  White and black strands of hair peeled back, to reveal the sharp features of the dream thief and Varkuz did not like his smile one bit.

  “Where do you think you are? Even a gnat such as you should be able to guess”

  Varkuz cast about, searching for some way to deny her growing suspicion.

  “Not possible, I do not know what kind of illusion you have contrived but it will not avail you, we could not cross the veil.”

  Even as she said it, the daemon quailed inwardly. In the world of weight and substance the exhausted assassin would have been no match for her but if he had somehow managed to draw her into a spiritual conflict, if Akna had somehow found the mental strength that he seemed to have, things were not so sure. The imp had always been the least of its kind and it did not relish a battle with an adept capable of drawing the veil into the physical world. It made no sense that Akna could suddenly be capable of such an incredible feat.

  “You’ve found some trick,” Varkuz said, attempting to reassure herself.

  Akna grinned, still all frustrating serenity, “No more than Takiaza did when he made his tomb.”

  “The Hierophant was the greatest talent of his generation and had the use of a daemon stone. How could you learn such sorcery? We waste time with your lies, you will not scare me like some desert spirit, frightened at the flash of a mirror.”

  Sharp bone blades clacked together in agitation as the daemon advanced, but the assassin did not seem unduly concerned. He spoke again and Varkuz could not help but notice the relish in the words, Akna’s voice was not flat as it had been, there was more than just the need to survive sustaining him now, to the daemon’s ancient ear there were clear signs of malice and enjoyment in the tone. Despite her refusal to concede that Akna could have done as he claimed and brought them into the veil from the waking world, Varkuz felt a growing doubt and her advance faltered.

  “It is a rare stone as you say and rare souls that you filled it with. Perhaps it would not work again, another place, another time and we might not have made the crossing. It is even possible it was your rage that made the difference; you are counted weak amongst your kin yet still a creature of the veil, perhaps you helped me without knowing it, certainly you would be easier to draw in. If I had failed, I suspect I would be dead already, I had little choice but to hope.”

  “Hoped for what? You will not keep me here.”

  “But you’re not sure of that are you?”

  The unworthy maggot was definitely taunting her, Varkuz snarled.

  “You forget, maggot, we have faced each other in this arena before...” For just a second the succubus became the image of a young Lothar. “Do you not remember how I tore you? If you seek to make it easier, you could not have done better, we are linked to this place through the stone and only one of us will leave.”

  “My thought exactly but before you concern yourself with my chances, I’d remind you that the last time we met I was alone.”

  “As you are alone now, however clever you think you’ve been.”

  This time it was Akna’s shape that blurred, it split first once and then a dozen times into the shadowy shapes of the men and women, who had been forced into the crystal. They were shadows, half-formed, only Akna was whole but they all held weapons and a palpable sense of menace emanated from them.

  “Ilsar was no single one of us, but her sacrifice was for the whole,” Thirteen voices intoned in unison, “she is none and all, we share intent.”

  Varkuz did not know what to make of the shades standing before her. It was amazing that they had not simply burnt off when the sun found them. This was unexpected but she would not be cowed by these shadows.

  “You dare to stand before me? You fragments, you nilthlings? I have bested each of you and shaped you to my will, like the weak clay you are. Know now that I shall tear myself from your wretched prison and then I will show you madness; I will rend your crippled spirits till all they feel is the pain of their own isolation.”

  “Only one of us will leave, let us see which of us can make good on their promise.” Akna spoke the words but his shadows mouthed them with him, their whispered harmony giving his voice an eerie, hollow quality.

  As one the maimed souls raised their swords and at the same instant, the daemon’s flesh split open, to reveal claws tentacles and snapping maws. The light blazed around them as Akna forced his will into the stone, making the shadows dark and thin, their limbs like slashing swords and their substance like the deepest cold of night. His own sabre seemed to emanate frost, as it lashed out, severing several groping limbs in one wild swing.

  “You shall not have me.” A hundred mouths swore in unison from the thrashing trunk of the thing that had once claimed the substance and security of flesh but now drew heavily on the energies that had poured from beyond the veil, to alter the reality contained within the glowing crystal. For the first time Akna caught a glimpse of the daemon as it truly was, a thing without shape that a mortal mind could comprehend, a primal embodiment of desire, freed of the restraint of the physical world, yet ravenous for the solidity that world represented. To the mortal mind the chaos that boiled before him was everything and nothing but ultimately the horror was trapped by the very act of perception; Varkuz was what other minds made it, the least of its kind because it took the shape of whatever vessel most readily contained it. Chaos boiled before them but the daemon had not the strength to sustain it, to hold off the light of the crystal and the eyes that followed its lashing limbs.

  The daemon could feel the pressures forcing it ever closer to the adept's purpose, denying it the strength, which it drew from the infinities lying beyond the veil.

  “You shall not have me.” The fleshy mouths intoned, echoing each other in voices shrill and deep.

  “We already have you.” Thirteen shadows answered in perfect unison, their chill blades forcing her back, compressing her ever smaller, into a single point of light. Akna’s sword whipped out again, severing the glowing thread that ran through the dazzling light and beyond the perfect curve of the crystal. Too late, the daemon remembered that her true strength was held in the body that stood suspended, just beyond the artificial realm into which she had been drawn.

  Tara slumped down onto the muddy floor of the cave. Without the daemon’s energy to sustain it, the body had taken too much strain. No bubbles hinted at any attempt at breath; the girl was dead as soon as she hit the ground.

  “NO!” The daemon’s chaotic shape reverted to the outline of the succubus, as she attempted to re-establish contact with the ruined flesh. It was too late, the shadows surrounded her, joining hands and chanting, fixing her in place within the stone.

  “I’m no common summoning that you can trap so. You think you have me but you’ll not leave either.” The daemon squealed, “Not without me! When you do, I’ll take your meat, just as I did hers.”

  Akna nodded. “Not all of me can leave the stone it’s true, for I would not have you worming your way into my soul.” He stared, somewhat regretfully, at the dancing shadows. Virtually all that remained of Ilsar, all except for a memory and a dream, he would take those with him at least. “It is a good thing that there is so much of me to go around.”

  “You would leave them here?”

  “Why so shocked? It is no more than I have done before and however tightly meshed we might be these poor souls are not truly a part of me, I will take back what you took, I could not long keep my mind with more. The bond that Ilsar and I forged was deep but not unbreakable, not here.”

  “What will you do with me?” The succubus’s question was plaintive and all hint of threat or anger was gone. There was no mistaking the platinum blond hair and the shape of the face as she looked to him.

  Akna chuckled ruefully. “She is what sh
e should always have been, daemon, a dream, an ideal but even if she were still whole or you could somehow fulfil the promise you are making, I would know that her wish was for you to suffer as she did. You made her to answer your summons, a slave sculpted to your whims, so that will be your fate in turn.”

  “I will never serve you.”

  “But you know you will, should I so choose, I hold the stone and the enchantment is strong enough that you will not resist it. Even now the circle watches you and keeps you as you are.” The blonde hair darkened and the sharp features of the succubus returned.

  “If it takes a thousand years, I’ll find a way to break free of this bondage.”

  “And what will I care in a thousand years?”

  “I will not serve you. I do not care what pain or force you think you can bring to bear.”

  “It is not my intention that you should serve me, you shall have another master.”

  *

  The boat had been left pulled up on the shore of the lake, its owner had not dared attempt another crossing, after the horrors he had witnessed in the churning waters around the island. The tracks of the sailor were easy to read, even by moonlight but Gilash had no intention of being distracted by petty vengeance, the peasant’s aching feet and the fear he would feel on his long journey home would be enough of a punishment. Of course, Gilash would ensure that nightmares found the wretch when he slept but the fate of one sailor was a minor distraction, it was Akna he sought. The devastation on the island had been truly unbelievable and Gilash meant to have a reckoning for all that the traitor had cost him. He shifted in the saddle of the stinking beast beneath him and opened his robe a little more. The night was hot, an unfamiliar heat for one used to the constant shade and cover of Niskar’s vapours, it would be uncomfortable to chase Akna and he could not afford to do it for long with the Asylum in such uproar. It was in times of chaos that Asemutt flourished but he could not let the daemon stone go so easily, the cost wouldn't matter, if he only found it.

  It was also clear that he could not leave the hunt to others, the signs on the island were chaotic and hard to read and Gilash thought he knew why. It was not Akna who had killed those men, the treacherous daemon had survived and slaughtered twenty of his best followers. The startling thing was that Akna seemed to have defeated the beast in turn. If there was any doubt that the thief had the daemon stone and that it was potent, this had to dispel it. Akna had defeated a daemon and made it across Nisgul and that was no small feat. It made Gilash wary, at least it would have if the Patriarch had not known he was chasing a quarry that must be at the very limits of its endurance.

  Gilash slid from the saddle and examined the tracks more closely. If he read them right, Akna was alone, no telling what had happened to his companion, by the looks of it she had not followed the sailor or the thief.

  “Probably lost getting here.” Gilash muttered to himself. “No sign of her on the island and from these tracks he wasn’t carrying anything heavy.” The tracks led off to the north-west, towards the distant mountains of Vordim but Akna would have known he would have had no chance of reaching such far off shelter, any tracks they found would likely be an attempt at misdirection. Gilash was about to climb back into his saddle when his mount shifted behind him, its glassy eyes narrowing as they had in some dim primordial past when its kind had ruled the skies of Seg. The winged lizard’s larger cousins echoed the movement drawing a few startled yelps from the men on their backs. Gilash ignored the consternation of men and beasts and followed the line of the dead gaze.

  A figure of average height was approaching his party from across the stony beach. Bow strings strained as the riders behind him took aim but the Patriarch held up his hand for restraint.

  “Have you seen the hopelessness of your situation now, Akna?” Gilash called out to the shrouded figure. “You up there, more light.” Yellow beams from glow gems, focused by polished silver, pierced the night and played over the indistinct figure, but despite the strength of the beams they revealed no details of the shadow approaching them, if anything the shape became thinner and more indistinct.

  “Akna?” Gilash called out to the beach at large, “Akna, you are no adept to match sorceries with me, let alone the whole House. Show yourself if you wish to talk, these cheap tricks buy you no mercy.”

  “There are no tricks here, Patriarch,” the shadow intoned, “but I do offer a gift in return for peace.”

  “Peace? After the death of so many? Are you as mad as they say, that you should refuse me the thing I asked of you, at such a cost, only to think you will find mercy now?”

  “You have no mercy, Gilash, but there is truth that your pursuit has cost you much. You say I have refused you but how could I give what did not exist?”

  “More ramblings, we both know the stone exists and you’ll not keep it from me with such feeble shadow shows.”

  In answer the shade lifted its hand and dust as dark as its own light-devouring skin, trickled onto the stones.

  “There is your daemon stone, no more than ashes since the Heirophant was destroyed.”

  “You are truly insane to think such a feeble ruse would dissuade me.”

  “Well, if you must believe the stone still exists, you must consider that I still have it.” The shadow's other hand opened, to reveal a perfect sphere of crystal, some trick of the light made Gilash think that he could see the wretched shadow before him, replicated many times in a dancing circle. Light flared in the heart of the stone and the shade grew thinner, still its empty hand seemed to stretch with the light and leak across the sand, until it touched one of the men, who had been searching the beach. The shadow shot forward, somehow leaving the smooth stones and plunging through the man’s chest in an arch of blood.

  “If I have the stone,” Akna’s voice echoed from the razor-thin shadow, “then you must wonder what I might do to protect it or if you might survive your pursuit.”

  “You think we have no tricks to match yours?”

  “I think what you seek is dust and that you will lose more than you can afford to prove my words true, for you must remember Lothar had other stones and those are mine now. Summonings and spells that kept you at bay for years, that made you fear for your life. Would you face them again for nothing, while your strength decays? My messenger should leave you in no doubt that I have the strength to use them.”

  Gilash frowned, there was truth in the sending’s words, he had assumed that Akna had not the skill or strength to use the stones in his possession but the thing before him made a lie of that. If the thief had summoned a mount of his own, he could be anywhere by now and as the summoning had said, he was dangerous to look for. Gilash looked to his men, even if he felt doubt there was another consideration.

  “I do not offer nothing for this.” Akna’s sending intoned, “your men will know wisdom from weakness.”

  “They will do as they are bid!”

  “And they will know that they fought and died for a prize worth having.” The Shadow laid the blazing stone on the beach and shrunk back to man height.

  “Takiaza’s legacy has not entirely vanished, the daemon held within this stone is bound to serve you as it did him. Ask it of the fate of the stone and it will confirm the truth. You know well it could not lie to you, with that stone in your hands.”

  “This is your peace offering? A true daemon cannot be bound so, I must take this to be a trick.”

  “It is no trick, you know the daemon had no love for me; if not bound, why would it tell you something that served my ends? It was not easy to bind her and I have lost much to do it but the daemon is yours if you will stop your vendetta against me.”

  “If I saw you now, you would lie dead before me.”

  “But you do not see me, Patriarch, all I ask is that you accept my gift and we endeavour to not cross paths again. You have won a prize and you will need its strength all too soon, if politics in the Asylum run true to form. I will find my fate in a larger world.”

&nb
sp; Gilash looked at the stone lying on the sand. It would not do to show hesitation, whatever his decision. He strode forward, whispering the words to activate many wards, he stooped to pick up the smooth crystal, but no warning flared and the shadow distorted as he lifted the orb up.

  “You are part of the stone now, are you not?” He said softly, so that those watching couldn’t hear. “How then can I ever trust this gift?”

  “I will fade from it soon enough,” the shadow said equally quietly, “all that I was has been returned, with interest but the stone will not remember me forever, in time all they will remember is Ilsar’s last wish that the daemon suffer the fate she planned for her.”

  “The girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was shaped from this?” Gilash asked only now fully understanding what Lothar had done.

  “She was, with the daemon’s help. It is ironic that she was part of creating something that would prove a trap for herself.”

  Gilash looked down into the dancing shadows and spied the succubus raging at the heart of the stone. “What words will draw her forth?”

  “Varkuz will come to her name.”

  “It is something at any rate.”

  “I will make you pay hard for any more.”

  Gilash sighed. “It is a worthy gift and I have no need to comb the plains from here to the mountains, with the stench of death beneath me.”

  “You will relent then?”

  “I will agree to only kill you, if I see you.”

  “I will make the same oath.”

  “I’d expect nothing less from one I’ve trained.”

  The Patriarch of Asemutt turned on his heel, closing his hand over the crystal’s light, so that the shadow that had carried it disappeared from the beach. He would tell the others that the shadow was all that had been left of Akna and they would believe him because they could not afford to do otherwise. He ignored the slight pain of one of his wasps being crushed not five hundred meters from the beach; Akna would have needed to be close to exert that last control over the shadows within the stone. That control would fade with time as the thief predicted and when it had, Gilash would resume his hunt. For now it did not do to turn the keepers of the Lady in Crystal against him.