“It has taken me all these years to learn you were the one who killed Lamost.”
Tahir vented a sigh that sounded like gas escaping from a volcanic fumarole. “That spell was pernicious, devious, a glory to cast! He wasted away, with none in Porotane the wiser.”
“You also kidnapped his children.”
“I did,” the wizard agreed.
Vered and Santon moved closer to each other, Vered letting Santon keep the glass shield between them and Tahir. Vered whispered, “He acknowledges the crime too readily. I fear a trap.”
“No trap, short one,” boomed Tahir. “It is no sorcery I use to overhear. Since my exile to this pathetic island, I have come to know loneliness. I spend my nights awake, straining to hear another’s voice. Seldom do I hear even wind. This island is at the vortex of a spell so powerful I cannot escape it.”
“The royal twins,” urged Alarice. “What of them? They are not with you?”
Tahir laughed, the echoes dying in the distance. The wizard shook his head. “I am alone. I have been alone for nineteen years. See?” He indicated the hut. “Go, look, tell the Glass Warrior what you find there.”
Santon looked to Alarice. She made no effort to stop him. Santon trotted up the slope and peered into the hut. The simple thatched hut was bare inside, save for a straw sleeping pallet. On a long wood pole Tahir had carved a line of notches, one for each day of his imprisonment. Santon reported this to the Glass Warrior.
“So, Tahir,” she said. “You cannot leave. I take that at face value. There is no reason to deceive me with mere physical evidence. You always used spells to do your bidding. What happened after you took the heirs?”
“I do not remember you as being this anxious. Spend time with me. You still have a few minutes.”
“What do you mean by that?” demanded Vered.
“Who cast the spell binding you to this island?” asked Alarice.
“What did he mean that we have only a few minutes?” shouted Vered. “Demons take the wizard forcing him to stay here. We’re in danger!”
“Aye, that is so, noisy one,” said Tahir. “Exactly at sunset, I must kill everyone on this island. That is part of my curse.”
“Who?” Alarice asked gently. “The sorcerer must be of exceptional power.”
“The strongest. I angered the Wizard of Storms. It was he who cast me here, he whose spell binds me more firmly than life itself,”
“The Wizard of Storms never leaves the Yorral Mountains,” said Alarice. “What is his interest in Lokenna and Lorens?”
The giant shrugged. “Who can say? I dickered with him for the children. I slew Lamost and then…”
“You could not give over the twins,” supplied Santon. “Why not?”
The laugh issuing from Tahir’s lips carried pure evil. “False pride. I thought myself invincible — with the spells promised me by the Wizard of Storms, I would be invincible. I fell into another’s trap.”
“Another wizard has the children?”
Tahir’s lips pulled back in a sneer. “He stole the children and forced me into this odious body. Then the Wizard of Storms exacted his toll for my failure. He sentenced me to this island forever.”
“Then it was his spell we crossed in arriving in the swamps.”
“Space is contorted. Long distances are short, short are long. I saw you and tried to approach, but the movement produced by his spell pulled you away. But you found me anyway.” The giant stood, flexing powerful muscles. “Now that it is sundown, I am compelled to slay you. No hard feelings, Warrior. It is required by the curse.”
“Why? What is the nature of the spell? Perhaps I can lift it — in exchange for information.”
“You would do that for me?” Tahir shook all over. “No, I see that you would not. It is for the royal heirs that you would risk it.” The giant laughed at her naiveté. “I cannot leave this island, I cannot entertain visitors during the hours of darkness — and I am immortal. Forever must I endure my solitude.”
“The creatures surrounding this island,” noted Vered. “The ones with human faces. What of them?”
Tahir shrugged. “The waters are cursed, also. Should you become totally immersed, that is what you become.” With a bull-throated roar, Tahir charged. He picked up Vered in his powerful hands and lifted him off the ground. “That is what you will become, you chattering magpie!”
Tahir’s muscles bunched as he rocked back to heave Vered into the lake. Santon attacked. He ran forward at full speed, the glass shield smashing into Tahir’s kneecaps. He bowled over the giant. Although Vered rolled out of the wizard’s grasp, Santon had not injured Tahir.
“Back,” ordered Alarice. “There is nothing you can do to him. This is my fight.” She drew her glass sword and moved forward.
“We can take him if we work together,” said Santon.
“Stay back. Do not interfere.” Even as she spoke, Alarice lifted her glass sword and held its tip pointed at the twilight sky. Green fire danced along its length.
“He uses sorcery against her,” whispered Vered. “How can we fight that?”
“We can’t.” Santon swallowed hard and pushed his friend back. “We must let her fight this battle. It is not for us to triumph in this. We could not. Ever.”
“You cannot be immortal, Tahir,” Alarice said. “Your energies are too weak. You expend more than you absorb. You must die.” Again the glass sword glowed with the vivid green glow as she sucked strength from the giant with her spell.
Tahir stumbled but did not fall. “You are clever, Warrior. But the same spell can be turned against you. I know your name! You are Alarice!”
Vered and Santon did not understand the sorcery dancing about them, but they saw its effect on the Glass Warrior. She stood her ground, but she seemed diminished. Her lips moved to cast counters, to renew her own assault on Tahir, but she weakened visibly as she worked.
“She turns to glass before our eyes!” cried Vered.
Santon moved forward, the glass shield riding high on his withered arm. He placed himself between the battling wizards. He shrieked and fell backward, but the ploy worked. Alarice regained her substance. The transparency developing in her body misted over and solidity replaced it.
She lowered the tip of her sword and ran forward. The lunge started from a distance and snaked toward Tahir with deceptive slowness. The tip of the blade nicked the giant’s upper arm. Blood spurted.
“You are not immortal,” Alarice called as Tahir jerked back and ran to his hut. She moved to follow, but got no farther than halfway before Tahir reappeared. In his brawny hands he held a great sword so massive that even the giant wizard had difficulty balancing it.
When he began swinging it, the men saw that no human could stand before the deadly arc. Tahir advanced, forcing Alarice to retreat. She made no attempt to parry with her glass weapon. Against this battering ram of edged steel it would shatter.
“Beneath your feet, Tahir. Look at your feet.”
The giant yelped and danced away from some menace only he saw. Vered and Santon saw nothing; this spell Alarice cast only for Tahir. As the wizard backed in fright, Alarice again attacked. Her glass sword shone in the dusk. Another pink to Tahir’s leg; more blood. Nothing serious, but Tahir had received two wounds and given none in return.
“You anger me, Alarice.”
“Fight, don’t talk,” she chided. She slashed viciously for the giant’s midriff and opened a long gash that bled profusely. Any ordinary man would have been disabled by this gutting cut. Not the wizard. Tahir fought on, his massive sword singing through the air. Alarice dodged easily, but dared not get too close. A single cut from that mighty weapon would behead her.
“Who did you give the children to, Tahir?” she asked. “Surely, you can tell me this small thing.”
“Defeat me and I will tell you.”
“How can I defeat you if you are immortal?”
Tahir roared with laughter. “That’s the curse! I cannot be kill
ed — and slaying me is the only way to learn the name that dances on the tip of my tongue.” Tahir thrust out his tongue. The tip glowed a bright pink, shimmered, and vanished.
“Always the jape,” Alarice said. She circled warily, studying the wizard for weakness. The instant before she lunged, a yawning pit opened at her feet. The Glass Warrior leaped over it in time to avoid falling face first into a pit seething with poisonous snakes. The vile stench from the poison dripping from their fangs rose and caused Vered to wrinkle his nose. He backed from the pit.
“She cannot defeat him alone. We must help.” Santon started forward, but Vered held him back.
“We can do nothing in a battle fought with that.” He used the tip of his glass sword to show the sinuously moving black mass at the bottom of the pit. Illusion it might be, but Vered would not chance it. Better to believe the snakes and death-giving poison fangs were real.
Swords he understood. Sorcery lay beyond his expertise.
“We must do something!” protested Santon.
“Think of it and I’ll do it. Until that time, we stand and watch. If we interfere, we risk distracting Alarice.”
Santon saw that his friend spoke truly. The Glass Warrior had begun to turn glass-transparent once more. Her hair vanished and bits of her flesh winked in and out of existence. But the glass sword she clutched so firmly remained solid and she used it well.
Tahir’s body dripped blood from a half-dozen wounds.
“Alarice,” called the giant wizard. “A trade. Do you agree to this?”
“What are your terms?” She continued to circle, not trusting her opponent.
“I sense that you carry the Demon Crown.”
“How do you know this?”
“I may be imprisoned but I retain all my magical skills. The crown blazes within my brain, just as it must for you. Give it to me and I’ll tell you the name of the sorcerer who stole away the royal twins.”
They continued to fight as they negotiated. Even though every stroke threatened to divide Alarice in half, the great sword always missed by inches. Her ripostes lacked Tahir’s power, but she had opened wounds all over his body.
“Ridiculous, Tahir, and you know it,” she answered, beginning to strain. Her breath came in short gasps and her movements slowed. Tahir, for all the bloody cuts, seemed no weaker than when he had begun the fight. “What good would it do me to find even one twin but lose the Demon Crown? The crown is necessary to reunite Porotane. It must rest on a royal brow.”
She weakened further. Vered had to restrain Birtle Santon. The man wanted to rush forward, but Vered saw the clever use Tahir made of the great sword. The wizard wove a curtain of steel around him that no ordinary mortal might pierce.
Just as it appeared that Alarice would fall victim to the wizard’s sword, she moved with blinding speed. She lunged, the glass sword blazing so brightly that it might have been forged from a dazzling emerald. The tip found Tahir’s navel. Alarice performed a quick skip and got her back leg repositioned for an even more powerful lunge. The scintillant glass weapon sank into the giant’s gut.
Both Santon and Vered threw up their hands to protect their faces from the heat and light emanating from Alarice’s sword.
Vered peered through his fingers. His heart turned to a lump of polar ice. Although Alarice’s sword had pierced Tahir, it had not killed the giant.
“He must be immortal,” moaned the man. “Not even a magical thrust stops him!”
The wizard bellowed in pain and grabbed the blade of Alarice’s sword. Tahir jerked about and ripped the sword from the Glass Warrior’s grip. Sobbing in agony, he pulled the sword from his body.
But Alarice had not stopped her attack. She leaped, acid-filled glass dagger lifted high above her head. She brought it down, its fragile tip penetrating Tahir’s breast. Once in the wizard’s body, she twisted the knife. Vered heard the snap! as the hollow blade broke.
Tahir’s flesh sizzled as the acid raced through his heart.
“Look!” Santon bumped Vered with his shield to make certain the other man saw and confirmed the strange sight. The giant began shrinking, turning in on himself until a man slightly smaller than Vered struggled on the ground.
“The curse!” cried out Tahir. “You have broken the spell binding me to this pitiful island!”
“You are not immortal,” said Alarice. She had retrieved her sword and stood over the body of her fallen opponent.
“No longer. Your spells and fine sword work defeated me. Oh, I tried to defeat you, I did. I could do nothing else because of the curse. But now I can die. Glorious day, I can die!”
“The children,” urged Alarice. “What of Lorens and Lokenna? Which wizard took them from you?”
The laugh coming from Tahir mixed with a burbling sound. Blood dribbled down his chin; he turned his head to one side and spat. “It burns,” Tahir said, almost in awe. “Your acid fills my veins already. I taste it on my tongue. It…it is strangely sweet, like a honey-filled pastry.”
“The name of the wizard, damn you!” Alarice placed the tip of her glass sword at Tahir’s throat, then leaned on it.
“You can no longer threaten me, dear Alarice. Not as you did before. I am dying. Sweet oblivion is rushing up on me.”
She pulled the sword away. “I can bind you, Tahir. I can bind your phantom to this island and be sure that you never see a proper burial. Would you allow your phantom to roam endlessly? Or will you trade the name for a consecrated grave?”
Tahir spat at her. “You evil bitch! I always hated you!” The wizard rolled into a foetal ball, arms clutching at his knees. “The pain grows. The acid no longer tastes so sweet.”
He peered up at her, his eyes fogging over with death. “I…the name you seek is Patrin.” Tahir jerked once, then relaxed. His face looked strangely serene.
“Alarice, is it true? Did he tell the truth?”
The Glass Warrior nodded. “Tahir spoke the truth. For that small favour I will not bind his phantom to this land. He will receive a formal burial.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Vered. “Your words convey a strange sorrow.”
“He spoke the truth, damn him!” cried Alarice. She thrust her blade into the dirt beside Tahir’s diminished corpse. “Of all the wizards, Patrin of the City of Stolen Dreams is the worst. Better I had never learned his name. Better I faced the Wizard of Storms himself!”
Vered and Birtle Santon exchanged worried looks. Of Patrin they had never heard, but dread began to build within them.
No one looked upon the City of Stolen Dreams and lived to tell of it. No one.
CHAPTER XII
Birtle Santon rubbed his hand against dirty breeches and stepped back. Vered and Alarice rolled Tahir d’mar into the shallow grave. The wizard lay at the bottom of the grave, a serene expression on his handsome face.
“He knows nothing can happen to him now,” grumbled Vered. He ran grimy fingers through his brown hair and looked up at Alarice. “What did you mean when you promised him you would not doom him to wander as a phantom?”
“Just that. Once the grave is consecrated, his soul is at rest.” The Glass Warrior stared at the corpse, as if trying to come to a difficult decision. “No,” she said at last, “I cannot do such a thing to him, although it lies within my power. He gave me the name I sought.”
“How can you turn him into a ghost?” asked Santon. “Such power is reserved for saints — or demons.”
Alarice smiled sadly. “Alas, it is a simple spell. Most wizards are able to conjure it.”
“Why aren’t we overrun with phantoms then?” Vered began scooping the loose dirt up in his hands and tossing it onto Tahir.
“In some parts of the country, the phantoms outnumber the living,” she said. “The places where battles have raged are the worst. Who properly buries the dead after a major defeat?”
Vered looked over his shoulder, as if a ghost crept up on him. “Never seen one. Not sure I want to.”
“Tahir did gi
ve you the name of this Patrin,” said Santon. He saw the way Alarice reacted. “Is Patrin so evil?”
She shivered. “He is. Never have I encountered a man more evil. If any had conspired to steal away the twins and create a reign of confusion, it would be Patrin.”
“What of this Wizard of Storms? The one who locked Tahir to this island. He must control vast power. He seems the true villain.”
“Patrin I have met and know all too well. The Wizard of Storms is a recluse, content to weave his spells and avoid human contact. Unless Tahir lied, and I see no reason for him to have done so, there is, more afoot than we understand. Porotane’s rulers must play an important part. How, I can’t say.”
Vered finished moving the dirt back to the grave. He stood and brushed off his hands while Santon stamped down the rich black dirt with his boots.
“Why we do this is a mystery,” he said. “There are no animals on this island. Save the one we’ve just buried.”
“The spell is gone,” said Alarice. “With Tahir’s death, nature reasserts control.”
As if to emphasize the truth of her statement, Vered yelped and swatted at an insect boring hungrily into his neck. His hand came away bloody.
“See?” she said. Taking a deep breath, the Glass Warrior started reciting the burial ceremony that would keep Tahir’s phantom from rising to walk the world endlessly. Finished, she made a gesture over the grave as if dismissing a servant. “That takes care of Tahir.”
“You sound sceptical,” said Vered.
“Not sceptical. Tahir is gone for all time. Sad perhaps. The information I sought is mine — and the easy part of the quest is finished.”
“The easy part is done?” exclaimed Vered. “How can you say that? We’ve fought magical ape creatures, a wizard turned into a grotesque giant, the damned insects, the sucking swamp, the…things in the lake. How can you possibly say the easy part is behind us?”
“Because it is. You and Santon are free to leave, should this please you.” Alarice spun and stalked off. Santon and Vered followed quickly, going to the boat. The Glass Warrior sat in the boat, arms crossed over her chest, deep in thought.
The Glass Warrior (Demon Crown Book 1) Page 12
