The magician at Belasco’s side began a conjuration, and Sandreena pointed her mace at him. A blast of energy, clear and colorless, but rippling the air as it shot out from her weapon, sped across the clearing and took the magician in the chest. He was slammed backward in an explosion of white and yellow lights, to lie stunned on the rocks behind Belasco.
“Close your eyes!” shouted Miranda, and those warriors not consumed by her wall of flame were greeted with an explosion of blinding lights.
“Now!” shouted Miranda. “Fall back!”
“Back!” shouted Kaspar, lashing out to skewer one blinking Black Cap who came too close.
All around them burning, screaming men lay, while others tried to see through eyes blinded by a white-hot flash so brilliant some feared they would be blind for what remained of their lives. A few cried out in fear, and suddenly the angry resolve of a moment before was replaced by a rising panic. The stench of burning bodies and the screams of the dying only added to the growing terror.
Jommy saw an opportunity and shouted, “We’ve been betrayed! Belasco lied to us! We’re all going to die!”
No one among the Black Caps could see who shouted that, but, as he hoped, the warning was repeated.
Miranda almost pulled him off his feet by grabbing his collar and hauling him away. “Now!” she hissed.
They moved back, seeking enough room from potential attackers so that Miranda could transport them away. Across the sea of writhing bodies and smoking chaos, Belasco rose to his feet and shouted, “No you don’t!” He reached back and flung his arm forward, as if throwing a rock, and they all saw a flaming ball of orange ripping toward them.
It was Creegan who reacted first, throwing up a mystic barrier that caused the flames to spread up and around the intended targets. It was still hot, and Jommy yelped as his hair was singed. Brandos drew out his dagger and with an impressive heave sent it speeding across the gap between themselves and Belasco.
With a maniacal laugh, the magician dove to one side, shouting, “That was too close! Time for me to bid you all farewell!”
He vanished.
“Damn!” shouted Miranda as she sent a bolt of searing red energy into the midst of a clump of warriors attempting to get organized, sending most of them into the air as if thrown upward by some giant’s hand. “Back!”
Most of the warriors serving Dahun were dead or blinded, or confused and trying to get away from the struggle, but enough of them were gathering their wits that soon Miranda and her companions risked being overwhelmed. “Back!” she repeated.
They hurried up the draw into the narrow path that eventually led down toward the sea. Brandos, Kaspar, and Jommy backed along the path, swords ready, but those few Black Caps who followed seemed less than eager to engage. They had seen the damage the magicians behind those three fighters had done, and their own magicians were nowhere to be seen.
When Miranda felt safe to conjure, she said, “We were led into this trap. Somehow they knew we were coming.”
“We can sort all that out when we get back to Sorcerer’s Isle,” said Kaspar.
Miranda’s eyes widened. “We must go there now!” She reached out and grabbed Amirantha and Creegan and shouted, “Hang on!” When everyone was holding on, she willed herself to the island.
And they arrived in the middle of a holocaust.
Pug and Magnus finished examining what was left of the Saaur library at Ahsart. As the shamans and priests of the city had gathered their writings over the years, most had perished with them, but a few older clay tablets and a handful of bound books locked away in a vault had endured. The language was unknown to them. Simon said, “Had I the time, I have a spell which would allow me to decipher these within a week, two at the outside.”
“We don’t have the time,” said Pug. The discovery that Maarg was dead and someone or something else was using his name to mask his identity was troubling. This was not the first time in his life he had discovered that much of what he assumed to be true was half-truth, inaccurate, lies, or just wrong. “With no one here, we can arrange for some students to come and gather this up, and return with it to Sorcerer’s Isle. Then,” he said with a weak smile, “you can study them at leisure.”
Magnus came to stand next to his father and spoke softly. “What is it?”
“Something is terribly wrong,” said Pug, not caring if the other two magicians overheard him. “Every bit of information we received about the Demon Legion led us to believe that things were much as they had been when we battled the Emerald Queen.” That one demon captain, Jakan, in the guise of the Emerald Queen, the Lady Clovis, had engineered a war that had engulfed half of Midkemia. “But now we see that Maarg lies dead, a victim of his own gluttony, stranded here…” His eyes widened. “Is it possible?”
“What?” asked Magnus.
“Everything that has happened to me from the day I was captured by the Tsurani, all of it was part of a much larger plan. Your grandfather said so, Ban-ath said so, and I’ve always seen myself as a player in a larger drama. But like a player, I’ve only been concerned with my part. Oh, I’m aware of the parts of those around me, your mother, Tomas, Nakor when he was with us, even to a lesser extent Ban-ath’s.
“But because I know my role, or think I do, and because I know something of the others’ roles, doesn’t mean I understand the complete drama.” He visibly winced. “I am such a fool!”
“What?” asked Magnus, obviously not following his father’s deductions.
“At first I blamed the Nameless, because I was told he was at the heart of every evil thing that befell Midkemia. It was logical, even obvious, given he is the God of Evil.
“But what if there’s another agency, another cause of evil that is creeping into our realm using the Nameless’s own acts as a cover, to prevent us from seeing his hand behind things?”
“The Dasati Dark God?”
“Perhaps he was a tool as well. For all his power, did he strike you as particularly subtle?”
“He gulled the Dasati into thinking he was their Death God,” reminded Magnus.
“True, but that is a simple deception compared to what I’m imagining.”
“What are you imagining, Father?”
“I assumed that Jakan, the demon playing the role of the Emerald Queen, wanted to reach the Lifestone, to seize its power for his own use. I was unclear whether that was to fortify his own role in our universe, to return and battle Maarg for supremacy of the Fifth Circle of Hell, or for some other motive. I was so intent on stopping him, I almost got myself killed, and I really didn’t care why he wanted the Lifestone.” He looked at Magnus and a rueful smile crossed his face. “What if he was bait?”
“For what?”
“To lure Maarg here to die of starvation, while someone, or something, else gained domination of the Fifth Circle. Jakan was on Midkemia; Tugor died fighting Hanam; and Maarg was left here to die.
“Someone else is ruling the Fifth Circle, but doesn’t want us to know his identity.”
“Why?”
“Because understanding that identity might be key to defeating him. Else why guard it so jealously with all this misdirection?”
“Perhaps Amirantha might shed some light on this, or maybe the elf, Gulamendis?”
“We certainly will need to speak with both of them.” To the other two magicians he said, “Come here and stand close.” To Magnus he said, “Take us back to the rift, please.”
The four magicians stood near enough to grip hands, and Magnus used his arts to take them to a position before the rift, a short distance from the edge of the plateau overlooking the city of Ahsart. Pug started to step through and halted.
Instantly, Magnus said, “What is it?”
“We’re being blocked!”
“What?” asked Randolph.
“We cannot go through this rift.”
“How is that possible?” asked Simon.
Pug looked around the hillside and saw a large rock. He
threw it at the portal, and when it touched the shimmering grey void that marked the rift, it bounced back. “At least you wouldn’t have been killed, but you’d have gotten a fair bloody nose from walking face-first into that.”
“Who could do this?” asked Magnus.
Pug took a deep breath and said, “The same evil bastard who’s able to subvert Amirantha’s summonings and use them against him, I think.”
“Belasco?” asked Magnus.
“Or whoever his master really is,” answered Pug. He looked around and pointed to another clear area. “Come, let us begin. We’re not going to waste time trying to overcome that barrier. I know enough rift lore to know that I can make another that will follow this one to our home. It should only take an hour or so, faster with your help.”
Randolph said, “Tell us what to do.”
They began.
The heat rolled off the burning building like a wave, sweeping over Miranda and her companions as they appeared in the garden. “Grab hold!” she shouted, choking from the heavy smoke. As no one had stepped away when they appeared, it took mere seconds for them to resume their previous positions, and Miranda willed them a short distance away, on a low hillock overlooking the rear of the main building.
Everything was on fire.
Below, the main house burned like a bonfire, and the outer buildings were reduced to either flaming skeletons of wood framing or little boxes with flames shooting out their windows and doors. The ground around the compound was littered with the bodies of students and instructors, and Miranda could barely contain her rage.
Then the first demon came into view, running around the corner as he chased one of the students. Miranda pulled back her arm and let fly with a bolt of energy that should have reduced the creature to ash. Instead, the spell stunned him long enough for the student to put more distance between herself and the demon, as the infernal creature stood reeling for a minute. Then he shook his head and looked to find the author of the insult.
Spying Miranda on the top of the hill, the demon lowered his shoulders and charged. He was roughly human in the torso, but with shoulders far broader than any human’s. The head looked like a cat’s skull, devoid of flesh, with exaggerated fangs. The legs looked like the back end of a horse, and while it appeared to be at risk of falling over at any step, it moved with uncanny speed.
Miranda’s eyes widened in surprise that the demon weathered the blast she had sent and she began another attack. Then her mind locked up, and suddenly she couldn’t remember anything.
Amirantha incanted a spell and unleashed it at the charging demon, who stumbled, then stood motionless, trembling as if seized by a monstrous hand that shook it. “If one of you would please kill this horror,” he said to Sandreena and Father-Bishop Creegan.
Both hurled their most powerful spells of destruction, especially crafted for demons, and the creature let out a howl of agony as it fell to its knees and was consumed by bursting orange flames.
Miranda said, “Thank you. I thought…”
“Demons are not like mortal creatures,” said Sandreena. “Sometimes, brute force works—”
“Sometimes it doesn’t,” finished Brandos. “Look out!”
A flying horror, all wings and talons, came swooping in, apparently intent on ripping someone’s head off. Creegan shouted a single word as he stuck out his hand, and a black shape, looking like nothing so much as a shimmering blanket of silk, suddenly enveloped the demon, smothering it. As it fell to the ground, the wrapped demon grew smaller and smaller, until it vanished completely.
Sandreena said, “Look!” and pointed at a knot of demons who were gathered together, surrounded by some of the island’s magicians. The magic-users were using a variety of spells and enchantments to keep the monsters at bay, and it appeared to be working.
“We’ve got to help them!” shouted Miranda, charging down the hillside.
“Oh, mercy,” said Brandos as he was a half-stride behind her.
Miranda pulled up short and began to cast a spell, but Brandos dove from behind and dragged her down, just as the demons unleashed a blast of blackness pulsing with purple lights. Each magician was consumed by the clinging, pulsing energy that wrapped around them like a shroud. They fell to the ground, screams muffled as if their faces were covered in cloth.
“When they gather like that in a knot, they’re going to pull something like that,” shouted the old fighter. He leaped to his feet and helped her up, as a demon in that small group charged.
Amirantha, Sandreena, and Creegan all caught up, and Sandreena intercepted the charging demon, bashing it in the face with her shield and swinging her mace in a wicked arc, crushing the creature’s skull.
Miranda allowed herself to be pulled over by Creegan and Amirantha, as Jommy took up position beside Brandos. “What do I do?” asked the young noble.
“Keep these bastards off the spellcasters so they can do their work,” he said, slashing out at a demon who got too close.
“What about Sandreena?” asked Jommy as he backed off another demon with a wicked cut of his blade that took the creature on an unprotected forearm.
“Don’t worry about that girl,” said Brandos, backing off another demon, who was leaping toward Amirantha, as if he recognized where the real threat was coming from. “She knows how to take care of herself.”
Sandreena was expert in avoiding the animal-like claws of the demons. This bunch was something like those she had encountered before, mostly sinew and fangs, little intelligence, though they were cunning, as demonstrated by the trap they had unleashed on the young magicians.
Miranda tried to pull the smothering fabric off one young magician that she could reach, but the stuff resisted her every attempt to remove it, whether through spells designed to dispel enchantment or by physically trying to claw it off. She felt her heart sink and she went cold inside as the young magician, a bright young man from Yabon named Patrick, died as she was helpless to save him. “Do something!” she shouted at Amirantha out of frustration.
He recognized and ignored her frustration, concentrating as much as he could on dealing with the threat right before him. He could easily have gated in a half-dozen demons of his own in this period of time, but now he realized he could not trust one of them to do his bidding. Instead he focused on the spells at his disposal that would either destroy them outright or banish them back to the demon realm. But it took time. Each target had to be in his line of sight for nearly a minute as he enchanted it, and sometimes the break in his concentration forced him to start over.
Father-Bishop Creegan seemed to have different abilities at his disposal, more effective but slower. He would single out a demon, chant, and, after a minute, a bright light would envelope the target and it would freeze motionless. Then, after a few more minutes, it would simply vanish. Unfortunately, from Amirantha’s point of view, he could only manage one at a time.
The wind shifted and suddenly they were choking from the smoke, as it billowed off the flaming buildings and swept over them, a blinding wall of darkness that filled the lungs and caused the eyes to water. “This way!” shouted Miranda, coughing as she tried to lead them around to a point upwind of the flames.
Sandreena crouched as another demon tried to claw at her, its claws scraping harmlessly off her helm, and then she stood, bringing her helmet up under its chin as she held up her shield to block a second demon to the right of the first. Then she spun to the right, her mace held out, so that when she finished the circle, the mace’s head slammed into the demon’s side. It doubled over and fell atop the stunned first demon, and Sandreena retreated after the others.
As they moved back, regrouping, before them unfolded a scene of horror. Of the hundreds of students and instructors in residence on Sorcerer’s Isle, most lay dead on the ground. Many of those had been maimed or mutilated, or partially devoured. Scattered around the area were demon corpses, mute testimony to the courage of the young magicians.
From their vantage
point, they could see scampering figures in the fire as the main house went up in a tower of flames. Then they saw it.
In the middle of the flames, where they reached highest into the sky, stood a figure of undiluted terror. Monstrous in size, it was nearly twenty feet tall. The head was like that of a bull, but with an elongated snout, and the horns were impossibly wide, spanning eight feet. Massive shoulders and enormous arms with muscles looking like heavy cable under a black-silk skin. The eyes were red flame, and steam or smoke blew out of flaring nostrils. As if challenging heaven, the creature threw back his head and bellowed a call that was painful to hear.
Confusion and panic were mounting on all sides, and Miranda struggled to make sense out of what she could see through the blinding smoke. “Amirantha! What is that?” she demanded.
“If I were to guess,” said the Warlock, coughing from the smoke, “it’s a demon captain, perhaps the Dahun those Black Caps were summoning. Right now—” he exploded into a fit of coughing, then swallowed hard—“I don’t know if I understand anything about demons.” His tone left no doubt he was shaken by the day’s revelations.
“Everything we saw over by the Peaks was a distraction,” said Father-Bishop Creegan. “To lure us away so they could destroy the Conclave.”
“As long as I’m standing and Pug and my sons are alive,” said Miranda, “so is the Conclave.” Her tone left no doubt of her anger. And she shot forth a bolt of searing energies that should have withered the demon where he stood. Instead, he turned and looked at the source of the attack.
Sandreena, Amirantha, and Creegan all reacted within moments, unleashing three spells of banishment. The creature seemed stunned, staggering back, but didn’t vanish as intended.
“It’s tethered!” shouted Amirantha.
“Tethered?” asked Jommy.
Rides a Dread Legion Page 37
