Isilda freezes. Her white features go paler still. Words of demonic power burn from her throat. She draws her delicate fingers into a claw. A crackling green light wreathes them. She brings her open hand crashing down on the back of Jerisa's skull. Jerisa totters and falls, Abyssal energy coursing through her lithe frame.
Tiberio lunges. With slashing whips, Isilda's eunuchs force him back.
Jerisa falls limp at Isilda's feet.
Fraton and his guardsmen prod Gad up a winding set of muscled stairs. The possessed guards have melted away, presumably to return to their post.
"Aren't you going to ask what she's going to do to them?" Fraton asks him.
"I had that conversation in my head already," says Gad. "It didn't go well."
Fraton beams. "And what did I tell you, when you asked me? In your head?"
"The usual. Wouldn't I like to know. Tortures unimaginable."
"Ah yes," says Fraton.
A pause descends. The cultists and their captive navigate a warren of narrow passages. In the distance, Gad sees the bridge of tar.
Fraton ends the silence. "Still, I would like to see you beg."
"Would you now."
"You asked that I grant your pawns merciful deaths. Would you sink to your knees for that?"
"You're no longer in a position to promise that. Isilda has them."
Perturbation gnaws Fraton's features. "She was toying with you."
"And I with her," says Gad.
"To no effect," Fraton says too quickly.
Gad smiles.
The ex-paladin shudders with rage.
"Some efforts are their own reward," adds Gad.
"She didn't let you ..." Seeing his men surreptitiously observing him, Fraton cuts himself short.
"A gentleman never tells."
Tension falls from Fraton's shoulders.
"But we're neither of us gentlemen, are we?" Gad continues. "So why not?"
Fraton's gloved fists constrict.
"Let me is not the right way to put it," Gad helpfully clarifies. "Insisted would be an apter word. Insisted vigorously."
"Shut up."
Gad stops short. "Oh no, Fraton." A guard's sword-point jabs him forward. "I don't believe it. You don't...you feel for her, don't you?"
"I told you to shut up."
Gad shakes his head. "You poor bastard."
"I'll have you gagged."
"But what if I do decide to beg later? You won't want to miss that, will you?"
One of his ex-paladins chortles.
Fraton punches at Gad's throat. Gad turns, avoiding much of the blow, but still winds up with hands on knees, aching for breath.
"There," Fraton says, peevishly.
"I always think," Gad gasps, "that we're reaching an accord. And then comes the throat punch."
"Your mockery merely sharpens my appetite for what is to come," says Fraton.
"All these years, you'd think I'd learn to anticipate the throat punch." The guards push him on. He does his best to straighten himself.
"You'll be torn apart."
"You always did take too much pleasure in the throat punch," says Gad. "That's how you ended up here. Isn't it?"
Fraton seethes.
"I guessed it," Gad says, "and now I see I'm right."
Fraton grabs him. Spittle flies from his teeth and into Gad's face. "And who was it who first moved me to strike a helpless captive?"
Gad lets the words hang in the air before responding. "Don't tell me I was your first."
This time he's braced for the coming blow.
"The instant of your dissolution will seem to you like an eternity," Fraton says.
Isilda caresses Jerisa's ravaged face. "A great honor awaits you all," she says. "Beyond those doors lies a special cell, one for each of you, from which you can never escape. The tower feeds itself on the distress of its enemies. I tell you this because fear, the anticipation of certain doom, heightens its pleasure in the interchange. Already the tower's awareness reaches into your souls. Determining first if you might be turned to our cause. Though you are thieves, the garbage of mortal society, I somehow doubt that it will so anoint you. Instead it will use what it gleans from you to tailor for you a special pocket of the limitless demon realms. There, alone in your personal Abysses, you will destroy yourselves for Yath's nourishment."
"Sodevina," Vitta blurts. "Sodevina spoke of this."
The priestess turns her attention to the halfling. "Ah, Sodevina. The one who escaped. How does she fare?"
Vitta says nothing.
"Suicide, then?"
Vitta looks away.
Isilda claps her hands together. "Marvelous. Even after escape there is no escape." She turns to her fly-demon. "Throw open the doors," she says.
Fraton's men lead Gad into familiar corridors; he reckons that Isilda's chambers are not far off. He studies the traitor paladins. How Fraton got to this point is clear enough. Gad wonders how he coaxed them to demon worship. He tries to work out which one of them chortled when he needled Fraton. They're all wearing helmets, so it's hard to tell.
"You've done me one favor," he tells Fraton.
"And what is that?" Fraton picks up his cue reluctantly.
"When I get out of here and back to Mendev—"
"You're going nowhere."
"When I get back, I won't have Everbright Crusaders in my way anymore. Are these all that's left of them?"
The ex-paladins veer toward him to listen in.
"Mendev's greatest warriors lie slaughtered in the Worldwound," Fraton says. "Yath's army readies itself for the final assault."
"You could turn only these four, so you killed the rest."
"There is nothing in the matter that will avail you now."
Gad addresses the closest of the ex-crusaders. "So what was it for you there? You also liked the power too much?"
"They won't snap at your bait," Fraton says.
"And were you surprised when you got here," Gad persists, "and found yourself lackeys? Before, you were mighty paladins. Respected. Beloved. Now you're lower than fly-demons. Deferring to possessed men."
"A provocation as obvious as it is desperate," Fraton says.
"Don't worry," says Gad, still addressing Fraton's men. "He's planning to take over. You are planning to take over, yes?"
Fraton speaks loudly, as if to be heard by hidden ears. "By no means," he says.
"I mean, you can't displace Yath, that goes without saying. But you do mean to push aside Isilda, and whoever else, and become Yath's undisputed top man."
"Allow yourself some dignity in your last moments."
"I thought you wanted me begging. Listen, Fraton. When you assemble a team. When you bring it into danger. When you ask them to abandon all else on your behalf, in the end you must adequately reward them. Shouldn't they all be chaos generals, feared and feted? It will require a little treachery, but that's well within your bailiwick now, wouldn't you agree?"
Fraton permits himself a brief, sputtering laugh. "With you as my vizier?"
"You think I'd expect you to fall for that? Please."
"Then what do you stand to gain by this proposal?"
Gad's manacles clank as he shrugs. "It offends me on principle, to see poor leadership."
"Poor leadership?"
"You haven't thought ahead for your fellows at all, have you?"
Fraton halts the procession. "And what would you suggest, wiseacre?"
"Your chief advantage is also your primary danger: Isilda. You must decide whether to dispose of her now, or use her to improve your position, and then kill her. My impression of her—"
This time Fraton's blow is a roundhouse punch. Gad reels.
"That's what you think I'd fall for?"
Gad raises his cuffed hands to rub a forearm against his aching jaw. "As the old saying goes, better a terrible scheme than none at all."
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Abysses
Hendregan awakens on a forest floor. The ground is dry and hard. He pats it. Brown leaves and pine needles stick to his hand, along with pebbles and flecks of dirt. He rises, dizzy, to a sitting position. All around him thrust the trunks of straight, dead trees. A hot wind flows through them, blowing grit into his face.
He looks up. The sky is the dull white of faded vellum. Grabbing a nearby branch, he pulls himself to his feet. The branch snaps in his hand. Shavings of bark fly around him, snatched up by a warm gust. The break point in the branch is brown and dead.
Hendregan spins around. He stands in a forest of firewood. Whichever way he turns, it extends through his entire field of vision.
A dusty chuckle rattles his throat.
At the periphery of his consciousness, a vital fact cries for his attention. Some sort of wrongness he ought to consider. He brushes it off, like the dirt on his robe. Never has he found lined up before him such a tempting target. This is what he was made for.
He has so many fire spells at his disposal. Which one to use? The fireball would be most dramatic, yet perhaps a waste. It would be more delightful, more respectful to the spirit of ignition, to start with the smallest flicker of flame. To let that catch, then grow, roaring on its own power through the parched forest.
Then again ...
To hell with that, he concludes, rubbing sulfur and the feces of an Iobarian cave bat together between his thumb and forefinger. The incantation rips eagerly from his throat. He chooses the point of central impact for his summoned ball of flame. It will land a hundred yards ahead upon a particularly dense collection of dehydrated trees, their trunks tightly interwoven. If he hits exactly the right spot, he'll transform the dead forest with an explosion of outward-rushing embers. From each small impact a new source of flame will be born. The forest will fall at once, like burning dominoes.
His fireball whooshes into existence. It lands precisely as planned, enveloping the twisted stand of trees. It crackles, consuming the air around it.
The trees, the brown weeds at their roots, the papery leaves that lie upon the forest floor, remain unharmed.
The fireball expends itself. A fizzle of diffident smoke spirals skywards.
Hendregan runs toward his center point. Branches snap at his heels. He trips over a toppled log. Arriving, he looks for scorches, for patches of soot.
Nothing.
He stops to think. The missing fact nags at him.
Was the fireball dispelled? It did not seem so: the flame raged, but failed to feed. Presumably some spoilsport protection spell retarded his own magic. Hendregan performs a simple detection. The entire forest registers as magical, and yet not. He catches a strong whiff of demonic presence.
He remembers: This is the Abyss. His Abyss.
Hendregan wills a blue flame to manifest around his hand. It appears with a puff. He places his blazing palm directly against the crumbling bark of the nearest tree. Nothing happens. He brings his hand near to his face. Waves of heat buffet him. With the flaming hand he plucks up a leaf. It retains its shape and form, refusing to ignite. The same happens when he touches a clump of weeds, a loop of thorny briar, the flattened shell of an old acorn.
The swelling sun beats down on him. He combs through the dead wood for new targets to burn. From an ash tree he rips a sheet of powdery bark. A militia of red ants scurries across the exposed wood. It swarms toward an outnumbered force of larger black ants. The two forces wage furious warfare on one another.
Aiming with his fingertip, Hendregan shoots a jet of flame at them. It shoves them to and fro, but none of them are burned.
He rushes pell-mell from the forest, running until he reaches one of its ragged edges. Bursting from the treeline, he startles a fly-demon. It reminds him of the tower, of the priestess Isilda, of all the demons he's supposed to immolate. He concentrates his scattered embers of a mind. First, this demon, the one in front of him, will fall as a pillar of ash. Then he'll burn his way out of here, and back to his companions. He drops a fireball on the demon. Conflagration surrounds it. Then it emerges, unharmed and unconcerned. Even its filmy wings remain unblemished.
Hendregan aims the simplest of arcane projectiles at it. Like all of his incantations, he has altered this standard of the discipline into an expression of cosmic fire. Comets of occult power arc through the air to strike the fly-creature in its compound eyes. They fuff ineffectually into sooty vapor.
The fly-demon's deformed body agitates as if in laughter, then lifts into the air on iridescent wings. It circuits through the cloudless sky, circling several times, then zips off into the distance.
Hendregan hears himself screaming: "No! I am fire!"
He runs, following the path of a cracked and waterless creek bed. Breath flees his lungs. He keeps on going. Rounding a bend, he comes upon a village. Two dozen huts cluster in close colloquy. Plank construction. Thatched roofs.
Inhuman strength fills him. Hendregan sprints toward the cottages. Peasants, clad in some indistinct style, issue from their doorways. He shouts at them, warning them to stand aside. Their houses must burn. The fate of the universe hangs on it. They dumbly make way for him. In sleepy confusion they seem to consent to what he is about to do. Selecting a cottage as the central point of the blast radius, he speaks the words of combustion.
In its doorway a mottled pup appears, panting. A yellow-haired peasant girl runs to grab it. Somehow the girl understands that Hendregan means to incinerate her house, and with it her dog. She dashes closer to the blast point. Hendregan can still abort the spell.
He chooses not to.
A coursing ball of flame envelops the cottage, the girl, the pup. It spreads out to obscure the surrounding houses.
The peasants watch curiously, as if they have never seen fire before. Or heard of it, for that matter.
The fireball dissipates. All stand unharmed: child, dog, cottages.
Hendregan plants his feet firmly on the sandy ground, ready for the villagers to attack. They shake their heads at him in bemusement. Not knowing what to make of him.
He is used to being regarded as a dangerous madman. It is, more often than not, a fair and fitting description. This reaction is new to him. Yes, these people also see him as a madman—but a harmless one!
Only when he bolts for the girl do the peasants treat him as a threat. He gets to her before they do. She squeals in panic as he clamps his hands around her head. He commands them to alight. The blue flame appears, without effect.
The men of the village seize him, pulling him away from the girl. He winds up in the dirt. The thudding pain of their kicks and punches scarcely distracts him from the greater terror:
The demons have consigned him to a world where nothing burns.
Vitta doesn't like the light in this place. It exists without apparent source. It's green, like the phosphorescence of the tower. It casts faint, unpredictable shadows, as if its point of origin is at once invisible and in constant, random motion.
It shines, if that is the word, on four walls, a ceiling, and a floor, all of iron. The sides fall flush into one another, with no rivets or weld points. She feels the floor: its surface is cold, leaving a prickling sensation that lingers after the hand is withdrawn. The chamber looks to be a cube, ten feet on each side. Surprisingly regular for a chunk of the Abyss.
This must be a trick.
Isilda said that each of them would be cast into a personal Abyss. In her case, it follows that this would be a prison she can't get out of.
Nature of trap: magical.
Type of magic: demonic.
Mode o
f attack: mental.
Worst outcome: madness, soul corruption, obliteration of distinct identity.
Best counter-measure: awareness, focus.
If the priestess spoke truthfully—a large assumption, but scarcely unwarranted—this is not an illusion. She is in a pocket of the Abyss, a physical place which nonetheless exhibits the mutability of an illusion. Though it may draw its apparent physical properties from her fears, it cannot be dismissed by disbelief. What happens here will be real, though chaotic and inconsistent. That said, willpower remains the key to emotional survival here. At its most illogical, a logic will nonetheless underlie all that unfolds. This place will try to drive her mad. She will remind herself who she is and where she is.
The prison will react to what she does, Vitta postulates. It exists to anticipate and counter her.
An egotist, she thinks, would take ironic pleasure in this. Having a layer of reality, no matter how small, reconfigured for the sole purpose of achieving one's destruction, would to a less practical mind seem a high compliment, if a perverse one. Many would find it preferable to be the center of a universe dedicated to their ruination than to be a footless pawn in the real world.
Vitta, however, does not fit this definition. She'll find her way back to a place that makes sense. To achieve this, she must be other than the person it anticipates. It will expect her to act in accordance with her standard impulses. To thwart it, then, she must do the opposite.
It expects her to attempt escape.
So she sits on her hands and waits.
Vitta has never dealt well with inaction. She becomes conscious of her various minor aches and pains. Of the contents of her bladder, though they ought to be relatively meager. Of the rumbling of her gut. Still, she waits.
After a time that feels to her eternal, but is probably no more than ninety seconds, the chamber rumbles. The walls shift. The floor and ceiling adjust. When they finish, she's in an eight-foot cube.
Of course, she thinks. The trap has anticipated her anticipation. It will, by way of gradual threat, try to force her to action.
The Worldwound Gambit Page 27
