“What did I tell you,” he bit out, “about doing dangerous things on your own?”
A spasm made me clench my teeth.
“I didn’t want you to kill him for me, I wanted a piece of him!”
It seemed to me that a head was a pretty substantial piece, and I was more than happy that he’d arrived to take it. I shivered uncontrollably.
“Crow?” He kicked the corpse aside and went down on one knee next to me. The sword clattered to the broken pavement, and then Girl appeared, too, crying as usual. I would be surprised if she didn’t cry. My body continued to jerk and shudder with the remnants of Duzayan’s spell.
“Egg—” I managed.
“To the Dark with that, what’s he done to you? Where are you hurt?”
Everywhere hurt. Every thing hurt. To make matters worse, a low, persistent whining filled my ears and grated on my nerves. The wind of the Ancestors continued unabated, the three of us occupying a little pocket of air free of dust and debris. Thanks be to the gods of breathing and seeing.
Waving her hands helplessly, overcome with relief, Girl finally settled on kissing me, then stroking my face in a fruitless attempt to soothe me. A smear of dark blood stained her cheek. Mine or Duzayan’s?
“M-m-magic,” I croaked, unable to stop convulsing. “N-not-an-Eg-g-g.”
Tanris gave me a distressed look. “Crow, look at me. Can you hear me? Are you all right?”
Yes, I could hear him, couldn’t he hear me? And I certainly was not all right. I tried to sit up and only ended up curled on my side, awkwardly clutching my belly. “Help—help me up.” The compulsion to go find Not-An-Egg was just as strong as the wizard’s had been, and fueled, perhaps, by my fear for him.
“Will you lie still, you mutton head?”
I could not fight the weight of his hands. I found myself lying on my back, my head resting in Girl’s lap. I could not see the stars overhead, which was slightly disconcerting, and the walls of the ruins were lit by a strange, pulsing reddish light. “We’ve got to move him,” Tanris said, contrary to the whole “lie still” order. Tension came off him in waves. “It’s getting worse.”
“What—Wh-what is worse?”
Pale and taut, Girl pointed away to one side, and with an effort I turned my head. Duzayan’s Gate throbbed with a sick scarlet glow. The center of it, darker than the darkest night, stretched and writhed as something pushed against it from the opposite side. As we watched, the fabric thinned and gave way. A man-like figure oozed through the rend, unfolding to a height of seven feet or more. A pair of horns protruded from its head above its brows, and a row of spikes sprouted down the creature’s neck and spine and tail. The tail hovered for a moment, then lashed back and forth as it caught sight of the three of us. Golden eyes gleamed bright in its furred, snouted countenance, and a rumbling growl filled the air. There’s no need to get into a lengthy description about its teeth. Suffice it to say that there were lots and they were large.
“Great shades...” Tanris whispered.
“Sh-sh-shoot it!” I squawked, wondering what he was doing just crouching there next to me, staring at disaster like a lunatic.
Tanris didn’t have the crossbow. As it turned out, neither did Girl. She dove one way while Tanris, his bloody sword suddenly in his hand, leaped to his feet and ran straight at the demon, thereby confirming his lunacy. My head, which Girl had sweetly held in her lap, hit the pavement with a resounding thump and I was left to my own devices. Unfortunately, my devices were few. I had a knife—no, two! I still had Duzayan’s. Imbued with magic, the thing burned my skin and I wanted badly to put it down, but I needed every advantage. I had no idea what I might be able to do against either demon or magical portal, but I was determined not to simply lie there on the ground—though in retrospect it’s possible that I might have been assumed dead and thus ignored, which might have been a good thing, at least until the demons flooded through the Gate and trampled me to death. Stark fear played a large part in the movement I achieved. More or less propped on one elbow, I looked about for the dragon. The twitching and cramping eased a fraction, but refused to let me go.
“Egg!” I called, but if he made an answer I couldn’t hear it. The demon’s howls and Tanris’s shouts rent the air, not to mention the increasingly maddening thrum the Gate produced. It occurred to me that it wouldn’t be long until the neighbors arrived to investigate the strange goings on, and the Imperial Troops couldn’t be long behind them. The Imperial Troops, however, wouldn’t last long against a tide of demons. When it came to that, neither would we.
“Crow!” Tanris roared in that “Do something!” sort of voice. Hideous magenta light bathed him, and he slashed at the demon like a madman. The demon slashed right back, and not only did he have a spiked tail to flail, but he sported impressive claws on his ham-like hands.
I heard a thump and a buzz, and the demon jerked as a crossbow quarrel stabbed into the base of its thick neck. I wondered how Girl could see through her tears to aim so nicely. Tanris made good use of the distraction and directed a two-handed swipe at the demon’s head with his sword. The sword didn’t go all the way through, and the demon howled loud enough to make the walls shake, grabbing at Tanris as it fell. In the meantime, the surface of the Gate stretched and bulged as more demons pressed through. One, two—Faster than I could blink, four little ones popped through, shook themselves like dogs shedding water, and then launched an attack at Tanris’s legs. Right behind them, the fabric of the Gate bulged again.
What could we do?
Crawling across the ground, I picked up the extinguished torch. Bracing it against the ground, I struggled to my feet. Another crossbow bolt zipped past me and I nearly fell over in an instinctive jerk to get out of the way. With a squeal, one of the little demons came rolling past me, tumbling head over heels. For a demon, it was sort of cute. It looked something like a hedgehog, but nearly as big as Not-An-Egg and with a wide, flat face. A large mouth bore an extreme overabundance of needle sharp teeth, which it was more than happy to apply to me. It moved with shocking speed.
I yelped and smacked at it with my torch-turned-cudgel, leaping out of its path. Well, that was my intention, but the demon was not only speedy, it was agile. Not like me in my current condition. Its teeth pierced my boot without any trouble and I immediately had a furious ten pound fur-ball attached to me. My attempts to pry it off shortly had me on the ground again, and the wretched thing wouldn’t budge except to grind its jaws and further mutilate my boot and, in a few seconds, me. I had no choice but to beat it to a pulp. Even dead, it clung to my ankle.
A burst of air bowled another of the furry demons off course as it sped at me. It bounced off a piece of fallen masonry, squeaked, rerouted, and came at me again. I met it with a swipe of my cudgel, sending it flying into the shadows, only to find myself face to face with something else altogether. Five minutes, and already the Gate had produced an admirable assortment of fiendish figures. I did not want to know what it would cough up in an hour. First, though, I had to deal with the six-legged dog-looking thing with the tongue like a snake. It was not a pretty sight. If I’d had time to be frightened I might have tried to run. Weakened, trembling still with the affects of Duzayan’s spell, and with a furry weight attacked to my leg, I wouldn’t have gone far.
The dog thing leaped at me. Still lying on the ground, I braced the torch and caught the dog demon in the chest, hurling it over my head. I twisted around. So did it. It came at me with its crazy tongue and an inordinate amount of drool. The impact of the torch against its skull jarred all the way up my arm and rattled my teeth. Its claws raked my thigh as I stabbed it repeatedly with the knife. That, too, sent painful reverberations up my arm.
A squeak alerted me to another attack by a hedgehog demon, but as I spun to face it, a winged shape flapped past me and plowed into it. Not-An-Egg! I was relieved and terrified all over again. He was going to get hurt! And I could not help him. The dog thing wasn’t finished yet and even thoug
h its flailing was weak, it dug at me. Licked me, even, with its ungainly tongue. The spittle stung, and I wiped my hand on my pants to be rid of it. As I dealt with the creature, the Ancestors gathered around me. Their familiar touch riffled clothing and hair, but it was not an unpleasant sensation. I felt, in fact, strangely safe. They created a space perhaps as wide as my outspread arms, and just beyond that circumference the wind blew with stunning fury, snatching up debris and flinging it away again. Two of the hedgehog demons catapulted themselves at me, stopped short, and disappeared.
“Egg…” I croaked uselessly. Caught up in a tiny, ferocious battle, he tumbled every which way with his prey, fur flying. For a truth, he looked to have the upper hand. I still wanted to go to him, but I found my feet taking me away. The whine of the Gate seemed a distant thing, cushioned by the wind and the voices of the Ancestors as they whispered to me, layers and layers of words tumbling past me. Through me. Girl. What of Girl?
I was aware of her much as I had been in the Ghost Walk, but even more clearly. Although I moved away, I turned my head to find her with my eyes. She stood atop a crumbling wall using her crossbow to beat off half a dozen leaping, snarling shadows. I needed to hurry.
Away to my left Tanris had his back to the wall. His sword in one hand and the ax in the other, he fought a losing battle. The blood drenching his face appeared a garish red in the light of the throbbing Gate. It was a terrible sight to behold, and I feared for him. I had, for a fact, never been so afraid in all my life, nor had so much responsibility placed upon my shoulders. I had never needed the love and guidance of the gods more than I did at this moment, and I knew in my heart I could not allow doubt or terror to cripple me.
A ululating cry jerked at my attention. A dozen figures poured over the lip of the crater, the odd light winking off raised weapons. Another score appeared on the right. Soldiers! Never had Imperial blue been more beautiful.
I turned as though in a dream, everything surreal, slow, liquid. A new menace came out of the Gate and rushed at me. It was big, very big. I staggered beneath the weight of it as it met the Ancestors, but I did not go down and it slid away, arms and legs waving, tail lashing. Golden light blossomed here and there around the broken walls of Duzayan’s ruined mansion, turning the sickly glow of the Gate to sunset orange. Faces, human faces, appeared in my peripheral vision, and with them came the knowledge of shouting and the clash of weapons. The Imperial Troops were dying. Their bodies laid in the fringes of garish light and for the first time in my life I was alarmed for them. For the group and for the individuals themselves.
Surreal, yes...
Twice more the Ancestors moved me out of the path of demon attacks, bringing me at last to the back side of the Gate, which had by now grown to nearly twice my height. So close to it, even they could not completely protect me from the uncanny noise it made. It seared the eardrums and turned the belly.
“What must I do?” I asked, and somewhere behind me I heard my name shouted, echoing. Ignoring the call, I looked at the thing before me, feeling abysmally small and useless. I could not make out a single word the Ancestors said, but I recalled sitting in the sun, talking to old Jelal while he read the bones. He’d said my friends would be with me to shoulder the burden. While they strove to keep the creatures away from me, I must act or they would be crushed. Reaching out to touch the nearest part of the glimmering frame, I did not even realize I still had Duzayan’s knife in my hand until the blade began to change. As though the metal were drawn to the magical doorway, it lengthened and bent toward it. I stared for a moment, then my heart contracted painfully in my chest and I tried to throw the thing from me. It would not leave my hand, which prompted the hundredth panic of the day. Bit by hard-won bit I loosed my fingers from their grip around the jeweled hilt, and it still stuck to my palm. From the perspective of a thief, it was a beautiful thing, well-crafted, decorated with valuable jewels, and utterly pleasing to the eye. This particular thief wanted nothing more than to get rid of it.
I shook my hand violently, making the pretty gems sparkle in the light of the Gate. With the wonderful hindsight induced by absolute terror, I remembered the knife had not left my hand when I’d desperately beat the dog thing and had, in fact, been right there in my palm when I killed it. It was strange and horrible and true—and I couldn’t quite bend my brain around the concept. It was something I would have to save to ponder later, for I’d begun to slide even closer to the Gate as its magic pulled the blade. My first impulse—or my second, since we must count the unsuccessful hand shaking—was to use my free hand to grab it and pull it off, but what if that hand, too, stuck? I couldn’t afford such a handicap. As it happened, I still held the torch in a white-knuckled grip.
From every side came the urgency to do something! to hurry! I had to get the knife off, and it was not a moment to wonder if the gods inspired me, or the Ancestors, or genius struck me. I bent to press the weapon against the stone floor, stepped on the transforming blade (hoping my boot didn’t count as an actual part of me), and yanked my hand away. My hand! My hand! What is a thief without both of his hands??
One of the requirements for performing great deeds seems to be suffering tremendous pain. Another is the shedding of copious amounts of blood. I have an exceedingly strong aversion to both, and I would have liked nothing better than to abandon any and all prospect of being a hero, take back the skin and blood, return the pain, and hie to the nearest tavern for a nice tankard of ale, leaving the job to someone else. Well, not the nearest, perhaps, as the safety of the neighborhood was a bit precarious at the time. Alack and alas for me, everyone else had other plans, and they paid not the slightest attention to my ardent desire to be elsewhere. On my own, I had no idea how to deal with the Gate or the creatures streaming from it.
Tanris hollered at me to close the thing but didn’t offer any ideas for how to go about it, too busy fighting. The demons wanted to kill me; the air was thick with their craving and being on the opposite side of the Gate didn’t keep them from seeking me out and throwing themselves at me furiously. I felt every impact against the shield of the Ancestors, and with every one the sense of urgency grew. Time was running out, and I had no training for this sort of thing. How I had become the key to victory was anyone’s guess.
The key!
I had to drop the torch to dig beneath my shirt for the bone disk I’d taken—no, been given!—at Hasiq. I looked at it with its etching of a portal and then at the Gate. The Ancestors had told me it made or allowed a passage. Did it not follow that it could do the reverse as well?
Close the Gate! Shut the door! Bind the passage!
Hurry! Hurry!
The Voices lifted around me in a frenzy of urgency. A flurry of images came with the words, too fast and too fragmented to be of any use.
“Help me!” I cried out, and perhaps my plea loosed whatever constraints held them. I felt their cool touch upon my skin, and then inside my skin. Tanris had said before that I had spoken strange things. I did so now, an audience to myself as my mouth moved and words came forth, edged in icy, glimmering green light. I stood a fraction of a world away from myself, and it was peculiar in the extreme. Lifting over my head the plain leather cord that held the amulet, I took it in both hands as I knelt between the pillars of shifting light. I laid the amulet on the ground between them, still speaking as I watched my blood flow into the carved marks, quickly filling them. I knew it was necessary but, as usual, I did not know all the whys and wherefores. Neither did I know it would cause even more excruciating pain than I already bore, else I would have politely declined and let someone else—say, Tanris, who is brave and stalwart—take over.
I do not know how the others around me perceived what happened next, and words are insufficient to explain my own observation. Time stilled. The cacophony around me retreated to a distance. The very air turned to ice. I could hardly draw breath. It hurt my heart to beat. It hurt to bleed...
But bleed I did, and not just my life blood, but
the energy of my very essence oozed out of me, weaving through the fabric of the Gate to knit it closed in spite of the efforts of those on the other side determined to come through. I was the bandage for this terrible wound in a very real and very personal way. I lost parts of my Self, and felt the agony in every fiber of my being. The pain of it made every other hurt I’d ever suffered utterly insignificant. I do not know, once it had begun, if some exterior force might have stopped it. I could not. Or perhaps it is better to say that I did not.
I was aware of the world, of existence, in a way I had never known before and had not even realized was possible. It was infinite and beautiful and intimate. In those moments I knew exactly how I fit into the greater pattern, and how the pattern fit into me, all inexorably connected together and each minute element essential to the existence of the others. To my great grief, the purity of that knowledge did not remain indelibly etched into my brain and my heart. I have now only the memory of it, but it is strong and I believe.
The world from whence the creatures Duzayan summoned came was not meant to be a part of my world. That did not make it—or them—either good or bad, but simply different. They were merely the subject of a summoning they could not deny. Their existence in my world was the wrongness, and I felt a deep need to right it, no matter the cost. When at last the Gate closed I knew a moment of absolute nothingness. No breath, no sight, no sound. Nothing.
Then reality crashed into me.
The Gate simply ceased to exist. One moment it was throbbing and filling the air with the most abominable, most wrong sound imaginable, and in the next it disappeared as if it had never been. The creatures caught on this side howled and wailed in shock and fear. The men and women who battled them screamed back their own fear and many, many souls died. The smell of death and sulphur filled the air. Streamers of smoke from torches and fires hid the beautiful night sky.
Strange, unwelcome creatures...
Poor, unfortunate creatures...
As the Crow Flies: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Page 46
