A Life Less Ordinary (37 page)

I collapsed as soon as I had pulled myself over the edge and onto the solid stone floor. I might have remained there for too long, had I not felt the roar in my bones. There was a single passage ahead of me, leading down towards the interior of the Hill Fort...and I could sense the demon’s presence at the bottom of it. I forced myself to my feet, cursing the cold under my breath, and staggered down the passageway. I knew I needed time to gather myself, but time was running out. The hellish climb had consumed nearly an hour. It hadn’t felt anything like so long.

There was another roar as I turned the corner and came face to face with the demon. I’d expected a humanoid figure, with horns and cloven hooves for feet, but instead I was gazing at something my mind refused to give shape and form. My head span and I knew, without the presence of the sword, that merely looking at the demon would have blown my mind into the furthest reaches of insanity. I knew that demons could take on more pleasing forms – they weren’t allowed to make deals with insane men or women – but this one didn’t seem to have bothered. I found myself wondering which demon it actually was. If I’d known its name, I would have been able to command it myself, yet a single mistake would have given me to the demon.

I stepped back as its breath – I hoped it was its breath – rolled out towards me. It stank of hellfire and damnation and burning sulphur. Two glowing eyes, burning with power, turned to gaze out upon me. I almost staggered under its gaze before realising that it couldn’t actually reach out to catch me. It was bound inside a circle that would hold it securely, but in order to get past it, I would have to walk through the circle myself. I doubted that the demon would allow me to pass unmolested. The person who had summoned him had probably promised him everyone who walked through the circle without his permission.

“WHO ARE YOU THAT THREATEN MY SLUMBER?”

The words echoed in my head, sending me staggering backwards; they seemed to be made of fire itself. The demon spoke directly into my mind, rather than bothering with anything mundane and human like a normal voice. I recoiled as the words thundered through my mind, carrying the very taste of a demon with them. There could be no negotiations with this creature. Cardonel had bound it to his will and it would follow his orders without hesitation.

I stepped forward. “You have permission to return to the pit,” I said. It was worth a try. If Cardonel hadn’t been careful enough, I might just be able to dismiss it without a fight. “Leave now, taking none with you.”

The demon laughed. “I AM BOUND TO THIS SPOT BY THE WILL OF THE HALF-MAN,” it said. His voice didn’t improve upon closer acquaintance. “DO YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN TRICK SUCH A ONE AS I? THE TORMENTS THAT WOULD BE FOSTERED ON ME WOULD ONE DAY BE FOSTERED ON YOU. ALL OF YOU CLEVER LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE MUDMAN THINK THAT YOU CAN TRICK US. WE ARE AGELESS. WE CAN WAIT FOR ALL OF YOU. ETERNITY IS A VERY LONG TIME.”

He was referring to Adam, I guessed. The stories about the War in Heaven were contradictory, but most of them seemed to focus around some of the angels refusing to bow to Adam and Eve, first of the human race. Depending on which version you believed, the War in Heaven had taken place before the Garden of Eden had been created, or afterwards, when Satan – then one of the most powerful and beautiful of the angels – had tempted Adam and Eve with the apple of knowledge. The story was a metaphor for a far deeper truth, a parable to use the Christian term, which hadn’t stopped countless religious scholars – all male, of course – using it as a rod to beat their wives, sisters and mothers.

They were silly bastards, in my view. A merciful God wouldn’t hold Eve’s female descendants responsible for her crime, even if she had been the first one to bite the apple.

I drew the sword, somehow. I had no sense of it leaving a sheath, but suddenly it was in my hands, glowing with brilliant white light. Just looking at it made me feel a strange mixture of emotions; I was unworthy to even look upon it and I was the only one worthy to carry it. I understood, now, why Dervish had been so scared. The sword’s mere presence made it hard to think rationally. The white light flared up and I saw the demon flinch back, yet somehow it was unable to leave the circle and flee. I had to move quickly. I doubted that Circe’s protections would be able to conceal the sword’s presence now I’d drawn it and started to call upon its power.

The demon’s form congealed into a horrific monster, several times the size of a man, and breathed hellfire at me. The sword danced up in front of me and deflected it, much to my relief. Hellfire doesn’t burn skin and bone; hellfire burns your very soul. Once a soul fell into hell, the demons set it on fire permanently, at least until the soul repented of its sins and cried out to God. I found myself stepping forward, right towards the demon – and right towards the circle. The demon’s hands grew claws and its teeth grew sharp. It looked, I was suddenly amused to note, rather like a cross between a human and a raptor dinosaur. I’d actually met a handful of dinosaur-folk from the inner world back when I’d been studying – it seemed a lifetime ago – and they were decent people. The demon was a monster whatever form it took.

I lunged forward and crossed the circle. The demon let out a howl of delight and lashed out at me. I jumped into the air, allowing the sword full control, and landed neatly on its oversized arm. Before it could react, I was off again, slashing out with the sword towards the demon’s back. It jumped forward and crashed against the invisible wall keeping it within the circle. I winced as it turned around, faster than I would have believed possible, and lunged at me again. This time, I held up the sword and slashed its arm right off. The demon howled as the sword cut through its physical form. The remains of its arm fell to the ground and faded away, leaving behind nothing but the faint smell of sulphur.

“YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS WENCH,” the demon thundered. It had lost nothing of its arrogance, I noted. “I WILL HAVE YOU IN MY HANDS IN THE DEEPEST PIT OF HELL. YOUR BLOOD AND TEARS WILL BE DRAINED DRY. NOT EVEN THE HATED ONE WILL BE ABLE TO PUT YOU BACK TOGETHER.”

I slashed out again, this time cutting through the demon’s chest. The wound wasn’t deep and the cut healed a second later. I cursed my own mistake as the demon breathed another wave of hellfire at me. The demon wasn’t the monster it looked like and the only way to beat it was to cut it apart, destroying the underlying immaterial form. The stench of the hellfire rolled over me and I gasped, distracted just enough for the demon to land a mighty blow that would have killed me, were it not for the sword. Instead, it threw me back out over the circle and up the corridor. A little extra force would have thrown me all the way over the battlements and down towards the hard rocks below.

“YOU WILL NOT GET WHAT YOU WANT,” the demon proclaimed. “DO YOU THINK THAT HE HAS FEELINGS FOR YOU?”

Demons always lie, I reminded myself, as I pulled my aching body to its feet. The sword was still in my hand – it was part of me now, at least until I passed it onwards – and was pulling me back towards the fight. I allowed it to lead me onwards, realising – to my dismay – that the monster was concentrating on regenerating its lost arm. It paused to give me a look of utter malevolence and I shivered. The hell-kin were the embodiment of pure undiluted evil.

I kept walking forwards until I was back inside the circle. The demon howled and leapt forward, trying to come down hard on me. I ducked back and then stabbed up towards its chest. The sword went inside and, this time, I focused my power and will through the blade. There was a massive burst of white fire and the demon simply disintegrated. I found myself kneeling on the floor, shocked and a little stunned. Only the traces of magic ahead of me pulled me back to my feet and onwards.

No one stepped out to bar my path, or even to try to delay me. The passages opened up into a single vast chamber, right at the heart of the Hill Fort. I was standing on a balcony over a massive pool of boiling light. I knew, at once, that it was the nexus of wild magic. It bubbled and seethed under me, reminding me that going too close would be dangerous. Some of the odder magical races had only come into existence when they’d fallen into wild magic. I’d met intelligent cats, dogs, mice and hamsters, to say nothing of weird crosses between humans and animals. They could never have lived in the mundane world.

And, right at the centre of the chamber, high above the pool of magic, I saw Cardonel.

And, lying in front of him, I saw the girl.

Strong arms grabbed me from behind. “I’m sorry, Dizzy,” Robin said. “I cannot let you interfere.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

I struggled, but she was surprisingly strong and unworried by the sword. It was no longer in my hand. It took me a moment to realise that it had returned to its position inside me, although it was no longer painful. Robin had me in a grip that steadily made it harder to struggle, so eventually I had to relax. She pulled me over towards one side of the wall and pressed me against it. A moment later, my hands and feet were stuck in what felt like glue.

“Dizzy,” a tired voice said. “I wish you had not come.”

I looked over in surprise. There was an old man hanging beside me on the wall. I stared; the cheekbones and voice were familiar, but everything else had aged. I had known that Master Revels was much older than me, yet I hadn’t realised just how many rejuvenation spells he’d been forced to use, not until I saw him with all of his power draining away. It was the only way they could have held him prisoner, but it had brought him to the brink of death.

“I had to come,” I said. I had been determined to rescue both him and the girl. He was my teacher, the one who had tried to warn me about the danger of trusting a half-elf, and she was my responsibility. I didn’t know her, but it was my fault that she was on the verge of being sacrificed. “I...what can we do?”

Master Revels shrugged. Even that took a great deal of energy from him. “How did you get into the building without being stopped?”

“I had help,” I said. I wasn’t going to name names, not here. “What happened to you?”

“I went to see the Nameless Elf,” Master Revels admitted. “I figured that if elfish magic was involved in capturing the ghosts, he was the most likely suspect. I didn’t get there. I was attacked by your friend the day I left you, after the vampire, and lost the ensuing fight.”

My eyes opened wide. “He
beat
you?”

“A keen observation, Dizzy,” Master Revels said, “And most annoying to my ego. Yes, he and his friends caught me by surprise and beat me. They knocked me out...when I woke up, I found that most of my power had been drained, leaving me with just enough to keep myself alive. Since then, I have been hanging here, waiting for the end of the world.”

I stared. “He isn’t going to destroy the world,” I protested. “He just kept saying that he wanted us all to be magical and...”

“Don’t you know anything about the fundamental nature of human desire?” Master Revels snapped. “You give everyone in the human race the powers of a god and we will rip ourselves apart like rats in a sack. We’ll become worse than the elves, even if we don’t start attacking the Great Powers. And if we do, we run the risk of blowing up the entire universe by interfering with the forces that keep it balanced. Your lover boy wants to save his life and, in doing so, is going to doom us all.”

I shivered. “I know,” I admitted. I didn’t want to face it, even though I no longer had any illusions. I looked over towards the girl. She’d been restored to human form, but she’d moved from one nightmare to another. Cardonel had placed her on a stone table and tied her down with golden cord. She could barely move, yet alone escape her fate. “How long do we have?”

“The magic will surge at midnight,” Master Revels said. “He will kill her then and follow her ghost.”

As if the word had opened my eyes, I was suddenly aware of the ghosts in the room. There were thousands of them, all spinning through the air. I saw young plague victims from long ago, their staring eyes fixed upon the girl, perhaps hoping that her death and the torrent of magic would free them from their long imprisonment. Others, more aware of what was going to happen, were shaking their heads sadly. I saw a nun, wearing a black scarf, whispering to the girl. I couldn’t tell if the girl could hear her or not, but I hoped that she would find some comfort in the nun’s words. Soldiers, wearing uniforms that dated all the way back to the days of Robert the Bruce, were surrounding Cardonel. They wanted to fight, yet there was nothing they could do. They were helpless to affect the physical world.

I started to struggle against the glue, but it held me as securely as a pair of handcuffs, perhaps more so. I realised that if I managed to generate any magic, even with my hands and feet immobile, the glue would simply absorb it. I had to admire Cardonel’s work, even though I hated him for everything he’d done. There was no way out of the trap. Even the pendant the Sisterhood had given me was daunted by the glue. Or was there another option? I felt the ring on my finger and shivered. I could call Fiona right into the heart of the Hill Fort.

Cardonel walked away from the girl, crossing the balcony towards us. I watched him come as dispassionately as I could. He was wearing a long white robe, decorated with mystical symbols and patterns my eyes refused to follow. His glamour-spells had faded away completely, leaving his face as it had truly appeared, but no one seemed inclined to abandon him. Everyone involved in his plan was committed now. Either they succeeded in opening up the gateway to a new age of magic or the magical world would tear them apart. There could be no mercy for people who had nearly triggered doomsday.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, when he stopped in front of us. “You could spare her life and pass onwards into the mundane world and...”

“Be silent,” Cardonel snapped. “I want you both to know that you have failed. There are only ten minutes before the clock strikes midnight. When she dies, we will open up the gateway and welcome the new age of magic. You will be the witnesses as the human race begins its rise to godhood.”