Mask of Swords (27 page)

Unless they had been dreams of the Old Demon. 

A woman stood over him, scowling. 

His mother was just as he remembered her. Arissa Cravenlock was a beautiful woman, but she looked like a flower that had just started to wilt. She had grown old before her time. No doubt worshipping the San-keth and taking the Old Demon as a lover had aged her. 

“You’re dead,” said Mazael. 

“I am,” said Arissa. Her eyes gleamed with blood-colored fire. “But I will live again, Mazael Cravenlock. With the catalyst of your blood I will live forevermore.”

“You’re not my mother,” said Mazael. “She has been dead for years. So either you are a phantasm of my own mind, or you’re something using her guise and appearance.” 

“Does this guise displease you?” said Arissa. “Perhaps another will disturb you even more.”

She blurred and became the tall, dark-armored form of Amalric Galbraith, Mazael’s half-brother. He had been the first Demonsouled that Mazael had killed, but not the last. Amalric went to one knee next to Mazael, his black armor creaking, the red-burning sword of the Destroyer aglow in his right hand.

Yet his eyes shone with the same red glow as Arissa’s had. 

“Unceasingly you struggle,” said Amalric. “Perhaps it is time to relent. Perhaps it is time to succumb to your true nature.”

Mazael snorted, blood on his lips. “That speech was more impressive when your sister delivered it, and I renounced that, too.” 

“Indeed,” said Amalric, and he changed form yet again.

This time he became another black-armored warrior, a young man of about twenty, with the same gray eyes and brown hair as Mazael. He wore the elaborate black plate of Old Dracaryl, the Glamdaigyr burning with ghostly green fire in his armored fist.

“Corvad,” said Mazael.

“You failed me, Father,” said Corvad. His eyes, too, shone with the bloody fire.

“I did,” said Mazael. “I deny it not.” The hellish pain pulsed in his chest. “But you are not him.” 

Corvad’s form stretched and swelled, becoming a middle-aged man with a gray beard and cold eyes the color of sword blades.

“Or this form, perhaps?” rumbled Ragnachar, once a hrould of the Tervingi nation. “Yet another of your half-brothers dead upon your blade. You are a kinslayer, Mazael Cravenlock. You slew your brothers and your sisters and your son, and you have driven your footsteps through this world in paths of blood.”

“I have,” said Mazael, “but you are not Ragnachar or Corvad or any of the others. Who are you?” 

“An enemy of your father’s,” said the black-armored form.

Mazael coughed out a laugh. “You’ll have to be much more specific.” 

“Perhaps this form,” said Ragnachar, “will prove helpful.”

The shape blurred and became the Prophetess, slim and lovely in her dark robes. Yet her eyes shone with the blood-colored fire, and previously her expression had been calm and serene. Now there was a hard, alien edge to her face, making her red eyes all the more eerie. She looked…she looked…

“Hungry,” said Mazael.

“Hmm?” said the Prophetess. 

“You look hungry,” he said.

She laughed, long and high. “You have no idea.” 

“You’re not the Prophetess, either,” said Mazael, every beat of his heart sending a wave of pain through him. 

“Go on,” said the Prophetess. “Perhaps I’m simply a reflection of your own mind.”

“No,” said Mazael. “You’re garbed in my memories, but you’re not part of my mind.” He thought of the spiders, of the creature lurking in his chest. He thought of how fanatically devoted Agaric had been to his goddess, how strange it would be for a Tervingi swordthain to worship a foreign god. “No. You are…”

“You’re almost there,” said the Prophetess with a smile.

“Marazadra,” said Mazael. “The Prophetess’s precious goddess.”

For a long moment the black-robed woman said nothing, and the spider writhed inside Mazael’s chest. He knew, with utter certainty, that he was right.

“I see now,” whispered the creature wearing the Prophetess’s form, “why you slew your father. Why you, out of three thousand years of Demonsouled, were the one to at last slay the Old Demon.” She stepped closer. “My herald chose well.”

“Is that why you’re here?” said Mazael.

“Yes,” whispered Marazadra. She knelt next to him and poked a finger into his chest, sending a wave of pain through his torso. “I would have dominated any other mortal by now. The spiders are my voice, and once their venom flows through your blood, you shall hear my voice…and you will yearn to fulfill my commands. Yet you resist. Every fiber of your flesh and soul struggles against me. It is futile, though. You shall be mine.”

“That’s very kind,” said Mazael, “but I’m married.”  

“She will be mine, too,” said Marazadra. “All the world shall be mine.” 

“No,” said Mazael. For a moment the rage against her threat to Romaria drowned out of the pain. 

“It is your doing, you know,” said Marazadra, straightening up. “All of this.”

“I think not,” said Mazael.

“You slew the Old Demon,” said Marazadra.

“Would you rather he have been triumphant?” said Mazael.

“Of course not,” said Marazadra. “He was my mortal enemy long before you were ever born. I hated him before the Grim Marches even bore that name, when your ancestors were still skin-clad savages wandering the ruins of the middle lands. He ruined my plans and bound me, rendered my servants powerless and condemned them to skulk in the shadows.” She turned back to Mazael, her eyes burning hotter. “But now I am free.”

“Because I killed him,” said Mazael.

“Because you killed him,” said Marazadra. “You have no idea what you set into motion, do you? Your father had so many enemies, and he defeated them all, binding them and imprisoning them in other worlds. He could not kill, of course, not unless he was attacked first. But he could trick and deceive and cajole, and he was so very good at it. But now he is dead…and I am free.” She looked down at him. “You should join me, Mazael Cravenlock.”

“The Old Demon made me the same offer,” said Mazael. “I refused him. Why should I not refuse you?”

“Because I am not the Old Demon,” said Marazadra. “He wanted to destroy the world and torment the souls of its inhabitants, but I want to preserve it.”

“To feed on it,” spat Mazael.

“Yes,” said Marazadra. “Why does that trouble you? Do you not feed upon cattle? Do not wolves feed upon deer? My messenger was not entirely wrong when she spoke to you. Men are like deer…for deer, if left unchecked, will spread and destroy their homes. Predators are required to keep the herd in check lest it destroy itself. My children, the ones you name the soliphages, are to mortal men as wolves are to deer.”

“That is not a compelling argument,” said Mazael.

“You are more wolf than deer,” said Marazadra’s spirit, prowling closer. “Are you not weary of the constant treachery? Lord schemes against lord, and the Tervingi plot behind your back to wipe out the Jutai. They fear you enough to keep the peace, yes, but not enough to stop them from hatching their petty little schemes. Fear could bring them to heel, Mazael. Fear of a new goddess and her children.”

“No,” said Mazael.

“I thought not,” said Marazadra. “But it matters not. Even your Demonsouled blood will not resist my venom forever. Either your will and mind shall succumb to me, or you will die.” She smiled. “Consider this. You may think me a monster…but I am not the only dark power of the ancient world bound through the Old Demon’s schemes. There are others, far worse than I am. I would care for mortal men as the peasant cares lovingly for the pigs he slaughters for his dinner. The others have no such scruples, and the Old Demon is not there to stop them any longer.”

“No,” said Mazael.

Marazadra shrugged. “Then die.” 

The spider’s talons seemed to tighten around his heart, and Mazael bit back a scream. Pain flooded through him, sweat drenching his blood-stiff clothing. Every muscle in his body went rigid, the chains creaking. His heartbeats sent knives of pain into his temples. 

Marazadra, it seemed, had decided to simply kill him.

“No,” said a man’s voice, a low, sardonic drawl. 

Mazael blinked and turned his head, and a bolt of terror went down his spine.

The Old Demon stood near the tent wall, clad in his black robe. He looked just as he had on the day Mazael had killed him, with the same close-cropped beard, the same graying brown hair, the same hawk-like nose and wolfish smile, and the same gray eyes that seemed glazed with red fire. 

“No,” said Mazael. “You’re dead. I killed you.”

“Oh, you did, you did,” said the Old Demon. “But I’m not really here.”

“What?” said Marazadra. “Who are you talking to?” The Prophetess’s face twisted in confusion. “Who is there?”

“You see,” said the Old Demon, grinning down at the Mazael, “I am part of you. I have always been a part of you. From the moment you were born you had my blood and my power.”

“Then you are part of me,” said Mazael, “not the Old Demon himself.”

A flicker of alarm went over Marazadra’s face. 

“You understand,” said the Old Demon. “I am you. You are me. Why should your Demonsouled blood not appear to you in the form of your father? You hate and fear it just as you hated and feared the Old Demon. But the time has come to use your power. She cannot dominate you and she cannot convince you, so that tattered old ghost will kill you instead.” The Old Demon bared his teeth in a snarl. “She thinks to feed upon the Grim Marches, that which is ours! She would kill the people under our protection! Will you allow that?”

A shudder of rage went through Mazael, fighting against the agony filling his chest. 

The chain creaked, and Mazael realized that he felt stronger, much stronger, than he had before. For a moment he feared that his Demonsouled fury was blazing out of control, but then he realized the truth. He had been delirious for hours, and the drug the Prophetess had given him had worn off. 

He strained, and his arms and legs burst free from the iron shackles with a shriek of tearing metal. The effort left his wrists and ankles shredded and bloody, but his Demonsouled blood started to heal the wounds at once. Mazael ripped open the front of his shirt and gripped a jagged shackle in his right hand. 

“What madness is this?” said Marazadra. “Mortal fool, do you think to slay yourself to escape your agony? I…”

He ignored her and drove the iron shard into his chest, just below his ribs.

That hurt quite a lot. 

“What are you doing?” said Marazadra. 

Mazael dragged the shard back and forth, making the wound bigger.

That hurt much more. 

Marazadra was saying something, but Mazael had stopped paying attention. He thrust his fingers into the wound in his chest and entered a whole new universe of pain. Every last one of his nerves screamed with it, and the tent spun drunkenly around him. Blood gushed across his fingers, and he felt his own beating heart brush against his hand. 

An odd feeling, that.

He also felt the hard, jagged legs of the spider, fresh agony blossoming through him as it tried to scurry deeper into his flesh. Mazael let out a hoarse bellow, grabbed two of the spider’s legs, and pulled. 

It ripped free from his chest in a spray of blood, its legs thrashing, its mandibles digging into his hand. Mazael heard a wheezing groan, and realized that it was his own voice attempting to scream. 

He made a fist and crushed the spider, yellow slime spurting between his fingers, and the image of Marazadra vanished without a trace.

Then he pitched backwards, his head bouncing off the ground, and knew no more. 

###

A long time later, perhaps an eternity later, Mazael’s thoughts started to lurch back into focus. 

He felt terrible.

Which was good, because it was still an improvement. Every inch of his body ached, and he was ravenous, his throat dry as dust, but the pain in his chest was gone. After a moment he made his eyes open, and saw daylight leaking through the flap of the tent. He started to sit up, slowly, his back aching, and felt something sticky between the fingers of his right hand.

The crushed spider was stuck to his palm, the yellow slime crusted and dry. Mazael grimaced and wiped off the vile thing upon the ground. He pushed aside the ragged remnant of his shirt and saw that the wound in his chest had healed. It must have taken a long time. He was reasonably sure it had been only a little past midnight when he had carved the spider out of his chest, and to judge from the position of the sunlight it was almost noon. 

He had been incapacitated for nearly two days. Where had the Prophetess gone? No doubt she and Earnachar had launched their attack on Greatheart Keep by now. What had happened to Adalar and the others? Had Earnachar and the soliphages killed them all? For that matter, where was Romaria? A flicker of sick dread went through him. Had the Prophetess killed Romaria? Or was Romaria prisoner somewhere?

Mazael looked again at the dead spider. His memories of last night were hazy. He vaguely remembered cutting the spider out of his chest and crushing it, remembered speaking with shadows from his past. Perhaps he had hallucinated the entire thing. 

He could contemplate it later. Right now he had to act, though he was not sure what to do. The first thing was to get away from here, wherever here was. He started to stand, and then froze when he heard the voices. Two men were arguing outside of the tent. Mazael looked around for a weapon and saw nothing. The broken chain, however, would make a useful garrote, so he wrapped it around his right fist. Then he crept towards the tent’s flap as quietly as he could, which was easy, since they had taken his boots. 

“We shouldn’t wait any longer,” said a man’s voice, Tervingi from his accent.

“Why? You heard the Prophetess’s command,” said a second man. “We are to wait another day. Either he’ll be dead, or he’ll come out of the tent and belong to the goddess.”

Mazael smiled. Evidently their plans had not included the possibly of a man carving a hole in his own chest and surviving the process. Not that he wanted to do it ever again.