The Demon Shroud

by T. A. Miles

  With the words, Leodyn merely looked at Korsten. It was again, the face of near innocence, and of having been somehow wounded. And, as before, the demon came out of it with scarcely an effort.

  “You’re going to join me,” Leodyn announced unexpectedly. He offered what was almost a smile. “What I’m doing here will place me above all others of my kind, and yours …and theirs. I am going to rule this kingdom—and every kingdom. And you will be at my side. Over time, you will come to adore me, as I have swiftly come to adore you. We will be the highest example of power this cursed world has ever known.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we will do as we did only moments ago. We will sit in the company of one another, and appreciate myth and song, and color. We will go unchallenged and undisturbed for as many millennia as this ruined world knows. We will remake it, and be the masters of Heaven and of Hell, if we’re so inclined.”

  “But this world is not ruined yet,” Korsten told him.

  “Oh?” Leodyn contradicted, in both voice and expression. He angled his head. “Are you not aware of the previous coming down of all order?”

  •—•

  Entrance through the observatory’s furthest door went unnoticed. Leodyn had become completely absorbed in his present task. Alsaide would not assume that he entered the observatory entirely unnoticed, but he did believe that his arrival was as inconsequential in the moment as an insect. Leodyn’s attitude was probably that he would deal with the Master’s wayward spawn when he was finished wooing what had already been claimed.

  Alsaide would rather that Korsten simply die. The red priest inspired both the Master and Leodyn to irrational levels, even for them. He distracted from the purpose of all of this. Alsaide knew that what crossed his own mind was complete hazard, but it was too close, and too tempting an opportunity to ignore. He was going to kill what none of them could have, and he was never going to hear of it, or witness it, again. Either the Master would kill him, or he would narrow his focus to his actual goal, which was not Korsten—Korsten didn’t need to be alive for the Master to acquire what he wanted from him, at any rate. Lovely as he was, he was still only a pawn …same as Alsaide.

  The crossbow was already armed. Alsaide had only to quietly put himself in position.

  Fortunately, Leodyn had taken to haranguing about the fall of a world only ancients knew. It was a story that Alsaide hated, because it was only ever brought up to prove how insignificant all the rest of them were, just like Korsten only existed in his state to prove how ugly Alsaide was. Misshapen in soul to the point that people instantly cringed in his presence, no matter that his face was half made by Renmyr Caimrey. Korsten thought the man’s face handsome, but he looked upon the man’s natural child as if he were a disease. And now, Korsten looked upon Leodyn, believing that his features were beautiful.

  Alsaide fired.

  The bolt sang toward Korsten’s back, just to the side of the place where he had been shot once before, and lived. Life would not be the outcome this time, not even for the sake of torture. The poison Alsaide had wet the tip of the arrow with would ensure death.

  A rush of success came over him prematurely, and it nearly blinded him to Leodyn’s movement. The demon lord took hold of Korsten and simultaneously turned his back to Alsaide. With Korsten sheltered on the other side of him, Leodyn stood with one hand raised, fingers curled around the bolt that he had taken from the air. Glaring over his shoulder, he snapped it in two.

  Alsaide ran in the very instant the pieces were falling to the floor.

  •—•

  That a demon’s arms were attempting to shelter Korsten scarcely processed. He was swiftly released after what appeared to have been an assassination attempt, though Korsten had not seen the assassin.

  Leodyn seemed to be in contemplation over it.

  It crossed Korsten’s mind while he stepped back from the archdemon that he might try a Release, and fail; that he might attempt to flee, and fail; that he might be confronted by the beast in the event of any action, and fail.

  “You have not failed in all things, have you?” Leodyn asked, in a tone that was deceptively quiet. There was no masking the rage that was building beneath it. The assassin had evidently drawn the demon’s sight from the room and from Korsten, and in the process of that pursuit, he had seen what Merran and the others had been doing.

  Korsten considered the door he had come through. He considered Reaching to the passage beyond it. In that precise moment, all light seemed to drain out of the air.

  A halo of ash formed around Leodyn, swelling with energy that turned the grayness over, like waves of foam rolling off the surface of a cold sea. The doors were drawn open, either by the atmosphere, or someone’s entrance. The air continued to darken and was growing colder. Korsten cast Barrier as Leodyn’s aura erupted outward. The force of the demon’s spell pushed him fast across the floor, into furniture that was already in motion as the brunt of the magic struck the room with the force of a hurricane making landfall.

  Twenty-Two

  Aware of the fact that Korsten had been in the company of an archdemon for a period of hours, and that it was an archdemon who was not attempting to hide, Merran did not bother to retrace literal steps from the butcher’s domain. He went only far enough from the others to ensure that he would not be drawing undue attention to them during their rescue of the soldiers and made an effort to recall significant details of the area he wanted to Reach to.

  Endmark’s possessed lord had exhibited behavior that suggested a goal beyond the essential destruction of an enemy, but even so, they had been shown an unnatural amount of tolerance. Whether or not the beast was inclined to actively assault Korsten or any of them, he had been successfully infiltrated. His demonstration of manners would undoubtedly come to an abrupt end, once he became aware of that.

  The urgency that came of knowing that hounded Merran, even as he performed the Reach, and brought himself to the intersecting corridors where he believed he would find Korsten and Endmark.

  Upon arrival, a young-appearing man slid and staggered to a halt, short of colliding with Merran. His pause was abbreviated, as was any potential of attack he might have made with the small crossbow in his hand. It appeared that he was tempted, enough that Merran instinctively reached for his sword, but then the boy went around him, dropping the weapon and another item with it. Whether or not he required either, he continued to run down the passage, stumbling in his haste.

  Merran let him go and started in the opposite direction, toward whatever had terrified the boy. He was struck by a band of ash and wind which threw him to the floor and several paces across it. It was the edge of the stagnant pool that stopped him. His flight left him not only winded, but exhausted and weak in a manner that let him know he had felt at least some of what Tahlia and the others had experienced. He determined quickly that the demon’s spell felt no worse than one he had felt before, so it must not have been of the caliber that struck Tahlia and the troops. It also had not moved him anywhere, except across the floor, so it must have only been an attempt to neutralize, not transport. Merran understood that he was not the target and did not believe the fleeing boy was meant to be either.

  In the process of recovering, he noticed a narrow scroll which the boy had evidently dropped. It had begun to come unfurled, revealing what appeared to be a map or layout of some kind. He took the moments he could not have fully moved, regardless of his desire to do so, to take a closer look at just what it was one of the enemy believed he needed to have in hand while running from an archdemon.

  His eyes moved over a network of passages and chambers. He looked about him in an attempt to assess his location in relation to the map, then committed as much of it to memory as he could, before forcing himself to his feet.

  His limbs were weighty from a lack of feeling and slow to respond, but they were recovering quicker than if
he had been the target of such a spell. The worst scenario in his mind was that Korsten—possibly rendered unconscious—would have been taken from the room by the time he managed to get through the doors. Thankfully, the door had been left open by the boy who had rushed from the room.

  Merran pressed on and through the opening, where he only glimpsed a towering figure across the length of the room. Before he could collect his bearings on where Korsten may have been in relation to the figure, a second wave ashen mist tumbled into the space, as if a partition had been opened to the outside, drawing in the haze from beyond the fortress interior. The movement of it was fast, but not as forceful as the spell that had preceded it.

  The individual, who could only have been Leodyn Izwendel, turned his focus to the further set of doors, the vicinity of which was rapidly sinking into deep shadow. Another figure may have been there, but Merran was unable to see around the room’s architecture. The silence in the room was active, like the swell of a storm, and there were no words or actions to proceed its arrival.

  The conflict began with the force and suddenness of a lightning strike. The pale demon lord’s features morphed to display an elongated cervine face, enlarged eyes glaring with a ferocity equal to the fury of its magic. Antlers the color of bleached, dead wood swelled from the demon’s scalp while its entire structure amassed size to match the immensity of its spirit. Four sinewy arms rose to meet the liquid shadow limbs of another beast, which emerged from the shadow equally gained in size and of equally grotesque form.

  The darker beast bore down on its opponent with a form that was more fluid, yet consistently held attributes that were both animalistic and humanoid. A wide pair of black horns swept away from a face with sunken and hollow features. Within those hollows, burned the fires of Hell.

  The two were as dark gods in the room, dueling with the sudden determination of bull elk. The hall shook with their struggle, making it difficult for Merran to keep his footing, even standing braced against the wall. Portions of the room came down when the darker of the pair threw its form and its mantle of shadow against the core of the spectral beast, driving it into the second-floor mezzanine. One of the pillars which supported the balcony snapped, as if a tree assailed by storm.

  The atmosphere was that of the foulest tempest. Moments of pitch blackness were set eerily aglow by tangles of ill-lit energy. But the air was cold, in spite of the heat of such presence, and the threat of destruction felt inescapable.

  It was sight of Analee that alerted Merran to where Korsten happened to be amid the quickly accumulating debris. Without hesitation, he made his way across the expanse, though his steps were arduous steps without protection from the demons’ very active destruction. He was held to trying to gauge when and where any projectiles would fall. In more than one instance, he had nearly guessed wrong. It was when a chunk of metal narrowly missed the side of his head that he was forced to take actual cover for at least a moment, long enough to plan a course.

  He had never dreamed to witness something like this, not in all his years. The Superiors told tales of this level of chaos and violence, and in doing so they advised those beneath them to take care in avoiding it. Merran had always done so. It wasn’t until Korsten, that he had been introduced so specifically to the ancient masters of the Vadryn.

  Looking across the littered space, Merran managed to again locate Analee. The scarlet butterfly had settled momentarily on an overturned bench beside a portion of broken pillar. The demons were presently locked by limb and by mantle, as each strained to overpower the other.

  Merran took his opportunity, and sprinted across the distance to the pillar. In stopping himself, he half slid around it, bringing himself to a hasty stop just beyond his partner.

  “Korsten,” he beckoned immediately, even before he had fully arrived beside him.

  Korsten stirred the moment he heard his name. He located Merran visually, and managed to say, “I’m all right.”

  There wasn’t time to assess whether or not that was true. Merran helped Korsten to his feet, ushering him swiftly across the distance to the nearest doors. He pushed through them, the moans and roars of the ancient beasts shaking the air. The demons were expending tremendous amounts of energy, and so it may have been that they would destroy each other in their efforts, or at least the bodies they had taken, which were presently tucked within the swollen shroud of their spiritual beings, suffering in a way Merran was not qualified to envision and that he was not prepared to sympathize with.

  In the midst of the thought forming, the titan beasts collided against some part of the chamber during their grappling. The shock threw Merran and Korsten through the doorway and across the corridor. Merran felt the wall and some protruding shape strike against his thigh, before he fell on his head and shoulders at the baseboard. His legs dropped down afterward and he managed to upright himself enough to look for Korsten, who was on his side facing the wall, one hand braced against it. He appeared unharmed, though he was slow to recover.

  The entirety of his own body had begun to ache, but Merran managed to get to his feet. Korsten was doing so at the same time, and they were able to continue down the passage. Tremors threatened to halt them, as the Vadryn lords continued to fight, but there were no further assaults comparable to that which had thrown them from the room.

  “They’re going to bring these caves down,” Korsten stated. “And this entire fortress with them. We’re going to have to Reach.”

  “We can’t,” Merran told him. “I was too close to the room when Endmark cast his spell.”

  Though Korsten made a beleaguered expression, he held his complaints to that and proceeded to move down the passage.

  This—all of this—was why every priest of the Order was cautioned to stay well away from archdemons. There were few enough that an encounter was unlikely for most, but since Haddowyn, Merran had adopted Korsten’s interests and in doing so, he had also gained the attention of those interested in him. Renmyr was as much a focused enemy of Merran’s as Merran was determined to be rid of him for Korsten’s sake. And now, there was Endmark. Two of the ancient masters. Given the opportunity, an enthraller would draw each and every one of them. And each of them would try to possess him in some way. It was the call of his blood, the curse that could become a boon, if one could have legitimate control over it.

  “We have to find a swifter way out of here than the way either of us came,” Korsten reminded, on the chance that Merran had not picked up on that when it had first been mentioned.

  He had. “There’s a shaft that leads to the surface.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I found a map. The lift was marked.”

  A chandelier crashed to the floor on top of a brief flight of stairs, which led up to another corridor. Fragments pelted the base of Merran’s coat as he rushed to the side of it. Korsten was directly behind him.

  They ran through a pair of doors into a wide hall with a stair which connected to two others on the far side of it. An open entryway awaited at the landing where all three of those accesses met. Merran scarcely had time to be grateful that he had read the map correctly.

  Aspects of the room shattered and came down as the din of the beasts carried on in the near distance. It seemed possible that they would combat each other for centuries, if the cavern and its embedded castle would tolerate them so long.

  Merran reached back for Korsten’s hand while they took the stairs in bounds and went directly through the entryway, across a small foyer which led to the simplest of doors. It was the simplest of metal doors.

  When they arrived, they found it locked. Merran felt a helpless surge of panic stem of his frustration when he checked his coat, in search of the keys he recalled belatedly having given to Syndel. They had probably flown into oblivion when the door was smashed apart by the butcher.

  It was then that Korsten ushered him aside, bringing form
to his weapon. Thankfully, the blade itself was magic and required none from the bearer, beyond the basic minimum required to carry it. Korsten knelt before the lock, and Merran would have been duly impressed if he had shaped a key that fit it, but Korsten lanced the keyhole instead, managing to break apart the mechanism inside, which—Merran admitted to himself—was equally impressive.

  Korsten stood and opened the door, bringing them to a squared chamber, cleared of everything except for a bridge which led to a pulley-operated lift and a scaffolding that followed it up. The bridge, a small platform and the scaffolding were all there was to the floor. Beneath it, lay darkness of uncertain depth.

  They ran onto the bridge, and were followed by a great cloud of ashy haze and a depthless blackness tumbling with it. As the auras of the beasts rolled into the shaft, the iron bridge began to corrode instantly. The two beasts were incensed to such degrees that their toxin must have been flowing from them like open wounds, ruining whatever it touched.

  The scaffolding could have been six flights, or one hundred. It all felt never-ending in the moment.

  Korsten led the way up, his long legs taking multiple steps at a time, in a way that made his running look like flight, or like the bounds of a creature made for sloping terrain. Merran stayed as near behind him as he could manage, determining that he would stop for nothing, save aiding Korsten, if his partner should slip.

  He applied himself fully to that determination when the auras of the demons embraced the base of the scaffolding, causing it to shudder. Soon afterward, it tilted and threatened to buckle. Neither Merran nor Korsten so much as paused.

  The top was near, and a trap door. If it was locked, he and Korsten were dead. If not …

  If not scarcely seemed to matter. Apparently, they were not to reach the door. The scaffolding collapsed. Merran stepped hard through air, pulling his leg. His shoulder followed when Korsten took hold of his arm, bringing him to an unexpected halt. Merran gripped Korsten’s arm in return, hoping to alleviate some of the strain of his weight. Korsten’s blade was in his hand, the end of it hooked through the door overhead. But there was no way to open it.