between them. He found his hand gently trembling. “Don’t
attempt it!” he warned. “You won’t reach it in time.”
An eon of seconds passed. So volatile was the creature,
Armilus half expected it to spring anyway, or cast him into the
void in sheer spite.
Finally, it gave a low growl. “You saw something in the
web, didn’t you? I should have thought of that. But there are
more possibilities here than you imagine.”
“Who are you? No lies this time.”
“An emissary. There are other forces in Evenmere than
those you know, always working behind the scenes. Come, we
cannot remain at this impasse. Place the key where I told you;
do what you came here for.”
“Not so quickly. I assume you still require my services, or
you would have murdered me and taken the key the minute we
entered this chamber. What is it? You can’t touch the web, can
you?”
The beast growled again. “You are just my kind of man,
Doctor. Always thinking. You understand the nature of power.
What do you want to be? Master of Evenmere? The position is
yours. Lord of the Earth? It can be done. As one of the gods?
It can be accomplished.”
Armilus drew a heavy breath. He had to take the offensive.
This was the time for some solid acting. He relaxed his face
and brought out a confident smile. “My friend, a negotiation
seems to be in order. If I place the key where you wish, the
world will become a nightmare, regardless who rules it. What
good is that to me?”
He paused, letting his words sink in. When the beast
remained silent, he continued. “You’ve manipulated us quite
masterfully; your strategy has been brilliant!” He raised his
voice in warm approval. “You’ve won my admiration; you’ve
nearly won the game. Let’s not throw it away now. If you kill
me, the key will be forever lost. Let’s reach a compromise that
works for both of us.”
“Perhaps,” the beast said. It began to move its head back
and forth in a rhythmic, hypnotic fashion.
“None of that!” Armilus ordered. “An honest negotiation
or nothing. I will drop the key.”
The movement ceased. The beast shifted its feet. “Very
well. You want mastery of Evenmere. That can be done by
placing the key in a different location.”
“And what do you get? Do not attempt to deceive me. The
web will show it if you do.”
“Unfortunate. I had no way of knowing that until we
reached it. If you place it where I say, it will bring Chaos to
the ascendency, breaking Lady Order’s barbaric symmetry. It
is much less than I wanted, but it will have to do. And from
your position as Master, you can rule Evenmere as you wish.”
Concealing his fear, the doctor kept his expression open
and honest. “Show me the place.”
The creature pointed. As Armilus scanned the web, trying
to keep an eye on both it and his opponent, he saw the monster
has spoken more or less truly. This would indeed make him
Master of the High House, yet it would also make Chaos
incredibly powerful. Could Armilus hold Evenmere against
such strength? The doctor had said he could tell if the beast
tried to deceive him; now he was uncertain. He needed more
time.
He glanced back at his adversary. Behind the creature, he
spied a figure striding out of the darkness. Armilus
strengthened his grip on the key.
“Falan !” Lord Anderson cried, raising his revolver as he
spoke the Word.
Armilus dropped as low as his prodigious form allowed to
shield himself from the golden wave. Its force pressed the
doctor against the web, stealing his breath and sight. When his
eyes cleared, he saw the beast had been thrown from its feet.
As it struggled to rise, Lord Anderson strode to it and emptied
his revolver into its back. It gave a roar of pain; blood dark as
tar rilled from its wounds. It quivered as if dying, then rolled
over in one smooth motion and sprang at the Master.
Anderson leapt back, agile as a spider, and again unleashed
the Word Which Manifests. The beast screamed, a cross
between animal and human speech, and fell back to the
ground.
The doctor drew his own revolver and fired three shots.
One missed, but the other two struck the beast in the head,
tearing a huge hole as they exited. The monster collapsed.
The two men froze, waiting to see if the beast would rise
again. It dissolved instead, melting into the ground, leaving
only a dark stain where it had been. Their eyes met across the
residue of their fallen foe.
“It’s time we went home, Doctor,” Lord Anderson said.
“Give me what you have in your hand.”
The doctor considered for only a fraction of a second. His
immediate instinct was to raise his pistol and fire. Success lay
before him, if he could only kill the Master of Evenmere. He
believed he had an even chance of squeezing off a round
before Carter used a Word of Power. Yet something stayed his
hand. Gratitude to his adversary for saving his life? A false
sense of loyalty to their truce? Or an intuition?
The doctor rose ponderously to his feet, moving with
unnecessary slowness, as if wounded or injured, clutching his
pistol and the key. He turned the revolver around as if to hand
it over. As Carter reached to take it, Armilus struck him with
it, a violent blow to the side of the head. He went down in a
heap, blood running along his cheek.
“I am sorry, Lord Anderson,” Armilus said. “My work is
still unfinished.”
A shot rang out. The bullet whizzed over his head.
“Drop your weapon!” a woman’s voice called.
The doctor looked around, but could see no one.
Apparently Anderson had companions hiding among the
boulders. A bad turn of events, but one must follow through,
regardless of obstacles.
He turned sideways to make himself a narrower target, a
difficult proposition for one of his mass, and pointed his
revolver at Lord Anderson’s head.
“Unless you are a marksman of significant skill, I doubt
you can kill me fast enough to prevent your Master from dying
with me. Come out and drop your gun, and he will live.”
Seconds passed. If they are mere followers, they will
comply , the doctor thought. But if they understand what is at
stake, they have no choice but to shoot, even if they love him.
“Decide now,” he ordered, “or I fire.”
A hissing voice behind him turned his blood to ice. He
would have preferred being shot.
“Destroy him, Doctor,” the beast said. “Let there be
death.”
A powerful, ebony hand gripped the doctor’s own,
wrapping itself around the gun, exerting pressure on the
trigger. Lord Anderson gave a groan.
At the last instant, Armilus jerked the weapon aside,
sending the bullet awry. He expected the beast to pull the
w
eapon back into position, but it did not. Gripping the
doctor’s other hand, it drew him toward the web.
“We will place the key together, you and I.”
From her refuge behind the boulder, Lizbeth gave a
muffled cry. She turned to the professor. “Stay here. I must get
closer.”
“Your bullets will never stop that monster,” Shoemate said.
“I’m going to kill the doctor. For some reason, the beast
needs him to insert the key.”
“It will only try to use someone else.”
“Then I have to kill Carter and myself, too,” Lizbeth said.
“You must run far away so it can’t find you.”
“Wait!” the professor said, but Lizbeth had already slipped
from behind the rocks and was moving closer to get the best
shot. Erin Shoemate stepped backwards, retreating, knowing
Lizbeth was right. She could be of no assistance if she stayed,
might instead bring everything to ruin, yet she could not tear
her eyes from the scene.
“If only I could help,” she whispered. “If only …”
She hesitated. Perhaps she could do something. She had
gazed long into The Book of Verse . She had seen images
beyond understanding. She had touched the Essence of Poetry.
A fool I have been and worse than a fool. That creature
used me—used all of us—deceived us, gave us our power. But
the power could not have come from it; the force is too
beautiful. I feel a fragment still inside me, though the book is
sealed and the tower destroyed .
But did she dare use it? She was afraid. The book had been
consuming. If she stepped back into that world, it might trap
her as it had done before. It might even do more harm.
Lizbeth was still creeping toward the beast.
The professor agonized briefly over her choice. She had to
act. She had to be brave, for the sake of her rescuers, by the
example of their courage. Put that way, she could be brave.
She cupped her hands together, and from their midst rose a
single flame, like a dying candle.
“It’s all that’s left,” she said, looking down at the light in
wonder. “The last shard I can muster. I have to show it to
them. If they see how beautiful it is, they won’t want to
destroy it.”
In that moment, it was not the poetry that controlled her,
but she, for the first time in her life, who controlled it. She saw
it was her sword and the reason for her making. Here was the
flame every poet desired, the star to every wandering barque.
To turn away was not only to play the coward, but to relegate
herself to the lot of those who never truly live.
It burned azure and golden, purple and emerald. As the
flame rose higher, the poetry sang inside her, begging for
release, and her months of captivity seemed but the proper end
to a perfect verse.
As she raised her eyes from the fire, she heard a shot.
Lizbeth stood a few feet from the monster, aiming the pistol
with both hands. Armilus was clutching his shoulder. The
beast turned, using its body to shield the doctor.
Professor Shoemate stepped from behind the boulders,
chanting under her breath:
The lines are drawn
The fable’s done
The heart and hand and world are one
The flame rose between her fingertips, haloing outward,
and whatever it struck became Poetry.
Professor Shoemate, filled with glory, looked down at
herself and beheld, as in an ancient story, a maiden clothed in
glowing white. Her hands, ephemeral as a shade’s, held not
mere flame, but a fire searing bright.
Glancing around her, she saw the world segmented into
lined sections vibrating independently, each separate, each part
of the whole, a tapestry upon which she and Lord Anderson,
Lizbeth, the monster and the massive doctor were stitched.
Everything and everyone was changed. The beast towered in
dragon shape, as in the tales of old. The doctor, draped in gray
and darkness, loomed monumental as a pillar. Lizbeth was
transparent in parts, translucent in others, a glass figurine
diamond-hard, her long hair rippling behind her, her face
angles and lines, beautiful as the moon and the little foxes that
roam the fields beneath its glow.
Carter, draped in light, had grown almost too brilliant to
bear, yet in his center lay a circle of darkness. The Poetry
seemed to revive him, for he raised his head and struggled to
his feet.
We are Art now, the professor thought, clapping her hands
in delight.
The monster screamed in agony. It turned toward Erin,
reached for her with its seeking mouth.
Lizbeth fired again, a shot that sped past the doctor’s ear,
taking off the tip of it. He clutched his head and—freed from
the dragon’s grasp—threw himself onto his stomach.
Carter Anderson lurched forward, staggering as he rose.
He spoke the Word Which Manifests. It sent not out its golden
wave, but Poetry-changed, became a flaming blade in his right
hand, the thing he needed most.
“Noooo!” the dragon bellowed. It lurched back and forth,
hesitant, looking first at Erin, then at Armilus.
Lord Anderson struck, the fiery sword tearing through
armored hide. The leviathan roared its pain and rage, a
creature from the long-ago, a tyrant from the edge of time, a
fiend from the age of rhyme, violent death and lizard pride,
blood and cunning jungle mind. It moved, serpent swift, its
head darting in and out, a dance of death.
Miraculously, the Master followed every step, weaving as
grass in the wind, avoiding the black lips, the gray teeth. So
swiftly did the two struggle, no eye could follow. On and on
they danced, Carter striking where he could, his flaming sword
the biting gnat, the little dog that brings Behemoth down.
They dropped back, the hero panting but unharmed. Dark
blood oozed from the dragon’s seven wounds. But these were
nothing, its eyes declared. “Scratches,” it rumbled, licking its
lips.
“Does a dragon ever win in a poem?” Lord Anderson said,
giving a grim smile.
The beast roared.
Now that the fighting had slowed, Lizbeth fired her pistol,
aiming this time at the creature. Two slugs from the powerful
gun went in, blowing a hole in the dragon’s side, chipping
away scale and bone.
It turned its head, nothing more, a lightning move, and the
girl went flying backward and fell among the boulders. The
pistol was gone, swallowed in the serpent’s maw, and with it
the first joints of the third and fourth finger of her left hand.
Erin hurried to where she lay, to staunch the blood falling like
rose petals to the stones.
The beast extended a bleeding claw. A vortex of darkness
formed at the edge of its grasp, a hole in the air. The dragon
reached in and pulled Jason Anderson out of the darkness.
Carter froze at the sight of his weeping son caught by the
neck, kicking in t
he serpent’s grip.
“Back!” the beast ordered. “Get back or the child dies.”
Sheer terror suffused Lord Anderson’s face. Erin saw it
even from where she stood, followed by other emotions—
anger, resignation, determination.
With a bellow, Carter charged the beast, sword drawn high
to sever the monster’s paw. Too quick, the dragon snatched the
boy away. The blade missed its wrist, but struck the beast’s
side. Seeing the child was useless to it, the dragon snarled,
snapped the lad’s neck, and cast the corpse aside.
If Lord Anderson fought before, it was nothing compared
to now. Given speed by Poetry’s naked force, he struck like a
whirlwind of fury and vengeance.
Professor Shoemate rushed to Jason’s discarded form. But
when she touched it, she discovered a soft, spongy material. At
first she thought the boy had been transformed; then she
realized the truth.
The bullets had wounded the beast; its movements had
slowed. Carter cut the dragon’s tongue, a cruel blow that sent
blood rilling, mixing with the gore from the gun blasts.
It retreated, a sorry sight of dying beast that knows not yet
it dies. It tottered; one leg gave way; it fell.
Teeth clenched, Lord Anderson rushed forward to finish
the fight.
The dragon dropped its head. Carter raised his sword.
Ere he struck, the monster exploded forth, a sudden
movement on heavy wings, taking the Master by surprise.
Almost the rending jaws caught him; he stepped back just in
time. But a scaled claw, large as a board, struck him full in the
face, breaking his nose, sending him sprawling.
Erin stood, looking for a weapon, searching for hope
where none could be found. Lord Anderson lay still, defeated.
“There are darker poems than you know,” the beast
smirked, licking its bloody lips and coughing a wretched
cough.
A noise behind it caught its ear. It turned. Professor
Shoemate followed its gaze.
During the struggle, Doctor Armilus had risen, still
holding the key, and made his way to the web. His back turned
from the dragon, he was about to insert the instrument into
place.
With uncanny speed, the dragon reacted, its long head
darting forward, its claws extended to catch the key, moving
with a power and grace only Poetry could give it, aiming for
the doctor’s hand. But Armilus, also given verse’s might,
Evenmere (The Evenmere Chronicles Book 3) Page 40
