Lethos accepted the stone. It was warm and wet, but felt like an ordinary rock. He looked up at Turo. "I don't know where I was born."
"Someone will find out, and it will be to your downfall when they do."
Grimwold's wound did not immediately heal, but the blood flow had ebbed. Turo had dug out the arrow with more precision and care than a true doctor. There was no wasted cut, and it had gone only deep enough to find the arrowhead. Lethos knew as he felt the soreness deep in the tissue of his muscle. Turo smiled down at his handiwork. "Well, that's a surprise. He's healing all the same. What a strange pair you two have made."
With that observation, Turo collapsed to the grass. Grimwold continued to leak blood, Turo's claws raking his flesh as he fell aside and adding three new cuts across his torso. Lethos dropped the arrowhead and rushed to Turo's side. He grabbed him up in a panic.
"Turo, please, what can I do for you? You can't die now."
Yet Turo's formerly strong physique had diminished to nothing in the blink of an eye. Beside him Kafara was now little better than a mummy. The air grew hot around them and smelled of dust and rot. When Turo spoke, his breath reeked of decay.
"Find Tirkin and Storra," he said, his voice a papery whisper. "They will guide you. The war is only begun."
Turo slumped, but his breath was still labored. Lethos leaned closer to him. "Where are these people? How will I know them?"
"Man and woman ... waiting at Vanikka." Turo's eyes opened again, and for a moment they were clear and bright. His voice was stronger. "My time is done. Kafara is sorry she could not bid you farewell herself. She was always fond of you."
Lethos glanced at Kafara's corpse. She wasn't saying anything now that she had become little more than papered bones. He heard Valda cough and turn aside. The stench was overwhelming now, but he could not turn aside from this. He let Turo down on the grass, and he rolled his body beside Kafara. Whether it was an accident of the move or if Turo exercised the last of his will, Lethos did not know. His arm fell across her body and his head touched hers.
In the next instant a blazing heat radiated from them both, and Lethos fell back. Their bodies burned up like old parchment in a fire, becoming nothing but ashes that whirled into the air and fell to the ground. Their final transformation.
Lethos stood slack-jawed. The man and woman who had found him at the edge of madness and cared for him when he should have died, had now become ashes at his feet. The two most powerful beings in the world were no more than a memory now, leaving no trace but for black ashes in the grass. Even these reduced to nothing he could see.
True tears rolled down his cheeks. He did not have many friends, and now he had even fewer. The world had become a colder and lonelier place.
Grimwold's condition did not change despite the removal of the arrowhead. His wound still leaked and the brief incision still gaped. Lethos felt the healing tingle in his own body, but knew the wound still required care. Turo had spent the last of his power to aid them. It was better than a slow slide into madness and death. Lethos thought if he had to die, he would want it to be like this, aiding a friend in desperate need.
"I'm sorry." Valda's voice was small and tentative. He did not turn to her, but realized how foolish he must appear. He wiped the tears with the back of his wrist. Valda had witnessed much worse and had held up better than he had. He could at least do her the honor of showing a stronger face. Straightening himself, he tried to hold is voice steady.
"They were good friends. One day I would like to do something to honor their memories." He turned, forcing a weak smile. "But before that, I have made a promise to you and I intend to keep it. You must sit again upon the High Throne of Valahur."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Syrus stared at the ceiling, waiting for the next thunderous crash to dislodge more dust. A jagged streak of cracks stretched across the ceiling, dark with shadow in the flickering light of the oil lamps lining the walls. He listened for the thud of something moving above, yet nothing came. Telltale dust and flakes drizzled from the ceiling, pattering on the stacks of powder white books and scrolls filling the room. A foul taste of oil and grit was on his tongue and filled his nose. The happy discovery of the library was now marred with dread.
Syrus held the makeshift torch high, the heat from it radiating over his hand. He glanced at Thorgis, who did not look any braver for carrying his father's sword in his white-knuckled grip. The blade's glow had faded like a dying hearth fire. His naked torso still glistened from their swim through the well. He had been courageous then, but now he seemed ready to run again. Syrus dared a whisper and hoped it would not cause Thorgis to bolt.
"We should keep moving." Syrus rolled his eyes toward the ceiling as if to point would draw attention.
"We should go back," Thorgis said, searching the ceiling.
"To where? The bottom of the well? We only have two directions to pick, and one leads nowhere."
Syrus's first step felt like jumping off a cliff, yet no more crashes greeted it. He decided to risk another, and only the gentle flicker of the oil lamps or the drizzle of flakes from the recently disturbed ceiling made any noise. Across the long room was another black archway where the air current rolled inside. He hated to abandon the library but wanted to know he had a way out of Tsaldalr before returning. His stomach growled louder than his footsteps. He was now firmly inside the room where he saw details of the books and scrolls in the expanding circle of light his torch cast. The ancient languages teased him, daring him to break their centuries of silence and plumb their secrets.
"Come on," Syrus said. "You can't go back, so let's move forward. The exit has to be this way."
Thorgis softened his stance, staring skeptically at Syrus as if he were a child being coaxed into jumping into the cold ocean. He glanced overhead a final time, then began to follow. He stopped after three strides and looked up again.
"You'd hear it if something moved," Syrus said, the impatience impossible to keep from his voice. "I don't know what it was. Something mechanical, no doubt. It just acted automatically, like the way all these lamps are fed oil."
Thorgis was halfway to Syrus when the crash of metal echoed from beyond the doors behind them. More dust fell from the ceiling onto Syrus's stubbled head as if to emphasize the point. The crash echoed down corridors they had just traversed, then settled into silence.
Syrus held up a hand to warn Thorgis not to run, but they both remained frozen in place. He strained to hear anything else. Maybe he should close the bronze doors behind them and find a way to bolt them shut. The anteroom and its ascending stairs were shrouded in darkness and seemed miles away now. The torch in his hand was burning down fast and the heat was licking at his skin. He couldn't drop it in this room or both he and Thorgis would be roasted alive. He had to push through.
"It was nothing," Syrus said. "Let's keep going forward."
"You don't know that. What if that was a grate to block our retreat? Now we can never get back to our starting point."
"Which was at the bottom of a well, if I may remind you. Unless you have a means to fly up that shaft we fell through, there's no point in going back."
The lamps extinguished with a hushed pop.
The room fell into darkness but for the weak yellow glow of Thorgis's sword and the thin puddle of torchlight. Syrus felt as if his legs had turned to lead. For an instant, he heard nothing and held his breath.
Then the doors above clanged against stone, their echoes dislodging more dust from the ceiling. Clacking sounds like a bucket of clams being poured down the stone stairs followed. Something glinting and enormous slithered through the archway and piled up in massive coils. Syrus's hands ran cold as he tried to understand what he saw.
It was a massive snake, the section of it exposed to the light at least as large as a horse, and the rest of its length vanished into shadow. Scales of red and black formed a patchwork of camouflage that made it hard to see the details of its wide, flat head. Yet unlike
any snake he had ever seen, rows of human arms lined both sides of it. These were also of red flesh, and each one grasped as if it were under its own direction.
The monster's black tongue flicked and a yellow, soulless eye scanned the room. Then it turned to the left to reveal an eye that looked like a human eyeball stuck into the socket of a reptile. Unblinking and bloodshot, the eye's blue iris disappeared as the pupil widened. The creature hissed.
Syrus was running faster than Thorgis. Both were flying toward the exit, heedless of the obstacles in their path. Books and scrolls skittered away. Thorgis stumbled, raising a cloud of dust. Syrus hauled him up with his one free hand.
The clatter of the snake's scales on the stone bounced along the walls. Syrus glanced at the thing as he got Thorgis to his feet, and it was leisurely winding into the room. Its arms were grabbing at anything, even at other arms.
Thorgis was first through the archway. Syrus turned at the archway, his heart heavy with what he had to do.
He flung the torch inside. The dry books and ancient scrolls burst into fire with a massive whoosh. Syrus fell back from both the heat and the glare. The snake thing, caught in the midst, let out a painful hiss. He did not pause to watch it suffer but ducked into the cool passage.
"Keep running," he shouted to Thorgis, but he needn't have wasted his breath. The dim light of Thorgis's sword was already bobbing ahead of him.
This passage was short, dumping them into another room. It was a balcony overlooking yet another library. This one went down into the deep rows of blue winking lights lining what felt like an endless descent. The air here rushed at them from high above, where the ceiling disappeared into black.
There were more books and scrolls here than a hundred men could consume in a lifetime. At the edge of the stone balcony, he looked down. Thorgis was beside him, his expression less fascinated and more animated with terror.
"It was a demon," Thorgis said. "Did the fire kill it?"
"I assume so," Syrus said. Along both sides of the rectangular room, stairs led down into the dark. Nothing led up. Still, with so much knowledge in one place, he would never want to leave.
The hiss announced the return of the creature, and a bright orange light flooded the dim hall. The demon filled it.
Thorgis ran to the right. Syrus paused. He could follow or take the opposite side of the balcony. He had a chance to either ditch the creature or draw it off of Thorgis, who was his supposed defender. He had a duty to his goddess, Fieyar, and his king. The right choice snapped into his mind the moment the snake demon emerged.
It was covered in fiery debris, flaming papers spitting black ash into the air. Its arms flailed, some smoldering with flame, and some grabbed both sides of the entrance. The monster may have been burned, but it was largely unaffected. A conflagration here would cause a volcanic firestorm. Syrus shouted at the beast as its head swiveled to either side. Its human eye fixed on him, unblinking and bloodier than before.
"Come get me, beast!"
He ran left along the dim balcony, heading for the stairs. Maybe he could delay it in the narrow passage or winding stairwell. His feet slapped the cold stone and he ran as fast as his legs could pump.
But it was not enough.
The snake shot with all the speed of its kind, knocking Syrus onto his face. The world exploded in white pain when his cheek struck stone, then the heavy and still flame-hot body of the snake rolled over him. A dozen strong arms grabbed him, holding him out like an old ragdoll. Powerful red hands clamped on his head, arms, torso, and legs. The snake's head was awkwardly trying to position for a strike, weaving around as the arms held him at full length. At last the arms coordinated and began to pass him up the length of the snake's belly toward its waiting fangs.
Syrus struggled like a speared fish. Then he heard a metallic clang.
Thorgis had followed him after all. His sword, glowing no more than any other well-maintained blade, clanged off the snake demon's red and black scales. The beast's head swiveled around and forgot Syrus for a moment. The body was so long it extended almost to the entrance. With a careless slap of its tale, the beast whipped Thorgis flat and then knocked aside his dropped sword. It returned to Syrus, the crushing hands resuming their upward pass.
He was going straight into the fangs of the demon.
The world stopped. It grew dim and fuzzy. Syrus felt nothing, heard nothing. The massive jaws of the snake hung open, and Syrus's head tingled at the thought of being crushed between them. Yet he did not move.
Is this death, he thought.
Something like it. The voice filled his mind, and had not every part of his body been held down he would have jumped in surprise. The voice was rough and warm, buzzing like a distant swarm of bees at the center of his mind.
Are you the demon? Syrus thought. Not satisfied to kill me in one go. You want more time to toy with me.
I have no time at all, the voice answered. I am Grimwold. You know me, old friend. I cannot explain this myself. I am also near death, but I have a chance to aid someone. So I chose you. Let yourself go and I will fill you with my strength. It will be glorious, I promise.
The world hung still, but Syrus noticed in reality it was moving a fraction of its normal pace. The demon's arms were still raising him and the venom on its fangs still gleamed. All was all so slow that it seemed motionless. The voice did not speak again, nor did it sound much like Grimwold. Yet what did he have to lose?
He let himself go limp and closed his eyes. Despite the heart-pounding terror of his situation, he tried to breathe slowly.
Then the world resumed its normal speed. His vision snapped back to clarity. The sounds of the room rushed back into his ears: the scrape of scales on stone, Thorgis's curses as he retrieved his sword, his own ragged breathing.
And he felt strong. Strong as a hundred men.
He pulled his arms free with no effort. As the other arms fed him into the mouth of the snake, Syrus grabbed its jaws top and bottom.
The human eye seemed to widen in surprise. Perhaps it was the pupil constricting in the blue iris. Syrus did not care. He felt like a god. The arms shoved at him and the jaws tried to clamp shut, but Syrus was in full control. He snapped the creature's jaws open, hearing bone snap.
The hands let him drop. He landed on his feet. The snake rolled onto its back, hissing and spitting with agony. Its jaws hung open, broken.
Syrus knew the creature was not dead. His head hurt and he felt as if something were poking his eyes. Grimwold, whatever he was doing, seemed to guide him. He spun on his heels and stalked for Thorgis. He felt as if he were looking at the young man for the first time. He marveled at his similarity to Eldegris, but his obvious fear brought a sneer to Syrus's face.
"Get off the floor, boy," he said. It was his own voice, but he felt like a passenger in a carriage listening to the driver speaking. "Give me that sword."
Syrus did not wait for it to be granted, but snatched it from Thorgis's hand. The blade lit anew. Hot runes of glowing yellow wrote themselves in the air around the blade and began spinning. Syrus wanted to study it more carefully, but instead he marched forward to the writhing demon's head.
He dragged the blade along its length and the demon's scales cut open like old skin. At the head, he held the point out for the human eye to see. The arms that spanned the top length of its body reached out to try to stop him, but recoiled when the sword swept over them.
"Disgusting thing," Syrus said. "Back to the mist realms with you."
He sliced the snake's head off with one powerful backhand cut. It rolled away with a hiss, disgorging black blood into the hallway. It gurgled out of the stump in thick gouts, more like oil than blood. The stench was sulfurous, and behind him Thorgis moaned in disgust. Syrus watched the body coil and writhe until it stopped. The arms, however, continued to flex and grab in any direction. When an arm grabbed another, each wrestled as if trying to pull the other from the body.
Be safe, Syrus. The voice again fille
d his head, a loud buzz that worsened his headache.
Find the way out and bring the answers with you. We're depending on you.
The crushing pain in his head released but his eyes throbbed. The sword in his hand suddenly electrified, jolting him with a snap and causing him to shout in pain. The blade clattered as it landed on the stone. The symbols vanished and it seemed a normal blade again. Syrus staggered to the edge of the balcony and leaned on it. The snake demon lay still but for dozens of arms flailing mindlessly.
"By the gods, how did you do that?" Thorgis approached, retrieving the sword from the floor. It did not shock him, but nor did it spring back to life.
"It was Grimwold. He possessed me."
"How?" Thorgis's face was incredulous. They stared at each other in silence, and at last Syrus shrugged.
"Let's leave this place. The stench is unbearable."
"We can only head down," Thorgis said. He peered skeptically over the balcony.
"Then that is our direction. We have a duty to fulfill." Syrus rubbed his head, feeling the short stubble of his hair beneath his palm. "Down into the dark to find the answers my king has demanded of me."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Grimwold had held the sword again. Even if it was with Syrus's hand, the glory of that blade had suffused his soul. He was now floating in the white space Kafara had shown him. She had opened a door in his bedroom, planted a soft kiss on his head, then told him to find Syrus. Nothing but white existed beyond the door. When he had turned back to her she was already fading into nothing. He stepped into the light and floated. From Syrus's eyes the world had been blurry and in his limbs it had felt heavy.
The Children of Urdis (Grimwold and Lethos Book 2) Page 17
