Realm of Light (8 page)

Caelan hesitated,
trying to be careful. “Are you leashed?”

They hissed
loudly, crowding him again.

The spokesman spat
eloquently, and its spittle flamed and sizzled briefly upon the stony ground.
“We guard this passage, but others can guard. We can swarm,” the spokesman
assured Caelan, gripping his cloak with talons that snagged the cloth. “We are
many. We swarm and attack. We are good to tear out souls. We are good against man-spawn,
not so good against gods of light. Protect us, favored one, and we will swarm
weak man-spawn and destroy for thee.”

Caelan’s frown
deepened. There had to be a way to get past these creatures. He was convinced
now that before him lay their exit. He had to use whatever means of persuasion
were available.

“What is your
name?” he asked the demons. “What are you called, that I may know you again?”

Their eyes glowed
even brighter. “He commands us,” murmured one. Others hissed eagerly. “We
serve! We serve!”

“Tell me!” Caelan
said sharply, letting his voice crack across theirs with authority.

The spokesman
crouched low before him and placed its snout reverently on Caelan’s foot. “We
are called Legion, lord. We are thine.”

“And if I release
you from your captivity, you will serve me?” he asked.

“Yes!”

“You will do
whatever I ask, without question?”

“Yes!”

“You will serve
only me. No other?”

The demons
hesitated, glancing at each other. “We serve Beloth, and no other. Thou art the
servant of Beloth. If we serve thee, do we not serve our dire lord and master?”

Caelan frowned and
dodged this clarification. “I swear I will not call you to attack your master.
I will ask only for your attack against men.”

They laughed and
grunted in glee. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” they chanted.

“But only men I
specify,” he said sharply, cutting them off. “This you will swear and promise,
or no freedom. Only will you attack men when I call you, and only those men I
point out.”

Again they
hesitated. Finally the spokesman said, “But why not let us attack all
man-spawn? We can do many. We are many. We are swift.”

“No,” Caelan said,
trying to keep his voice sharp and strong. Inside he was beginning to doubt the
wisdom of trying to strike any kind of bargain with these creatures. They knew
no mercy, understood no honor. But he had no intention of keeping his word. All
he wanted was access to that passageway.

He glared at them,
showing anger to impress them. “No,” he said again. “Not all men. Only those I
specify. If you cannot, will not, do this, then I will not free you.”

“We hunger to
kill,” the spokesman said. “Unleash us, master.”

“Let me and this
woman pass, and I will agree.”

“Caelan, stop!”
Elandra’s voice called out to him suddenly.

Startled, he
whirled in her direction, scattering several demons who jumped back from him
with hisses of alarm. He saw her leaning forward in the saddle, staring at him.
Her eyes were wide and fearful. She shook her head and lifted one hand to her
face.

Alarmed and
dismayed at what she was doing, Caelan started to go to her, but the demons
were clinging to his legs and cloak. More were coming. He was surrounded by the
creatures, and he did not want them close to Elandra.

“Don’t!” he called
urgently to her. “You must stay within the spell. Don’t break it.”

“I.. . must.” Her
face turned pink with effort. He saw the cords in her neck strain, then she
slumped and her head tipped forward so that the long sweep of her hair
concealed her face.

“You are safe
within the spell,” he reminded her. “Don’t leave it.”

She lifted her
face, and the slackness in her features was gone. Her intelligent eyes stared
at him, aware and cognizant again.

Caelan’s spirits
sank. He could only stare at her, worried more than he could articulate. She
was no longer safe, no longer protected. What in Gault’s name had possessed her
to break free now, when they were surrounded by demons? Was she mad, or simply
a fool?

Suddenly he was
furious with her for risking herself this way, and for making his
responsibilities that much harder.

Tightening his lips
against harsh words he did not dare utter, he turned away and looked once again
at the spokesman of the demons.

“Legion,” he said,
“I will—”

“Stop!” Elandra
cried. She kicked the horse and rode closer until the trembling animal balked.
Imperiously, her eyes flashing “with anger, she glared at Caelan. “You mad
fool, what are you doing? Have you lost all conscience? You cannot bargain with
darkness and—”

“Silence!” he
yelled back at her. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“I command you—”

“Not here!” he snapped,
enraged at how every word she uttered destroyed more of the lie he had built
between himself and the demons. Why couldn’t she understand the need for
caution, the need for silence? Let Legion think what they wanted. Doing so was
to Caelan’s—and Elandra’s—advantage.

Unwilling to let
her say anything else, he
severed
her, wrapping her in cold isolation.
He did it without thinking, pushing her partway into the void without warning
or preparation. He had never done this to a person before. He had never
realized he could, but it was necessary.

Elandra’s eyes
widened with astonishment and her mouth opened, but she could not speak.

It was a strain to
hold her so. For the first time since he’d swum the river, he felt beads of
perspiration pop out across his forehead.

Feeling her mind
and emotions lash out against his control, Caelan knew he could not hold her
long. Fiercely he turned on Legion. “Tell me now,” he said harshly. “What is
your answer? Do we have a bargain, or not?”

There were
suspicious hisses and much jostling among the demons in the back. At least
fifty or more were present now, red-eyed and semihostile. They kept staring at
Elandra, and Caelan felt increasingly uneasy.

“Warm-blood,” the
spokesman said at last. It drew back a step from Caelan and no longer looked
reverent. “With other warm-blood, now not under spell of protection. No
warm-bloods may cross the river. She is our meat.”

Fear stabbed
through Caelan. To hide it, he raised his sword and scowled at them. “Would you
rather feed on one woman instead of the many warm-bloods I will give you? Let
her go, and I will free you.”

The spokesman drew
back angrily and bared its fangs. “Trick!” it cried.

Just as it struck,
however, Caelan brought down his sword in one clean, heavy stroke. The spokesman’s
body, severed in half, went spinning in two directions.

Blood, black and
foul-smelling, spilled from the two halves.

From the pooling
blood emerged tiny demons, at least a dozen, hopping and furious.

Caelan stepped
back, realizing he could not fight them the usual way.

But there was
another way to kill them, a way he had never used before. He had always feared
the power, knowing that if he ever used it he would want it again.

But the demons
were rocking back and forth on their haunches now, tongues flickering, tails
lashing. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” they chanted, clearly working themselves into a
frenzy while the tiny demons grew larger with every passing second.

Caelan released
Elandra and entered
severance
himself, plunging deeply into its coldness
until he hardly knew himself, hardly remembered what he was or had been. Before
him crouched the demon horde, a hundred now and more coming. Their guttural
shouts and hisses filled the air, but he hardly heard the sound.

Rushing past him,
they surrounded Elandra. Her horse reared, but the demons pulled the animal
down, ripping it apart as others swarmed Elandra. She screamed.

Caelan could see
the threads of life, black and knotty, stretching to something hidden beyond
the mist at the edges of his vision. He wanted to see no farther, wanted to
know nothing about what the threads were connected to.

Caelan
severed
the threads of life, cutting off the two demons first, then slashing in a broad
swathe at the others.

Terrible screams
filled the air. He snapped out of
severance
and saw blackened, charred
heaps littering the ground. Smoke rose from the corpses; the stench from them
choked his nostrils.

Howling with fear,
the remaining demons fled from him, vanishing into the passageway.

He let them go,
running instead to Elandra. She lay unharmed on the ground, one leg pinned
beneath the dead horse. Her face was bone white. Her eyes flashed with fear and
something else.

He pulled her
free, grateful she had suffered no hurt, and lifted her to her feet.

Fear and revulsion
were mingled on her face. She stared at him as though she had never seen him
before and slapped him hard across the face with her ungloved hand. His cheek
stung fiercely. Taken aback, he blinked and looked down at her.

“How dare you do
that to me!” she said. “I am not to be silenced with your spells and foreign
magic. You should be whipped and purified.”

His own temper
boiled up to meet hers. “You were putting our lives at risk—”

She swung at him
again, but this time he stepped aside and she missed. “Ingrate!” she sputtered.
“You dare talk back to me—”

“As long as you
are being a fool, yes!” he retorted.

“It is not your
place to reprimand me. I am your empress!”

Scorn curled his
lips. He wanted to shake her by her beautiful neck. Instead, he cleaned his
sword and sheathed it, then buckled on his armor.

“We can argue
later,” he said. “Now we had better go.”

Elandra stamped
her foot. “No, this will be settled now. You have much to answer for.”

“Not now.”

“When?” she
demanded. “Either you recognize my authority, or there is no point in going
on.”

Caelan refused to
look at her. She was a stubborn fool. She understood nothing. “You put us in
danger,” he said tersely, “interrupting like that. They believed me until you—”

“And what was I to
do?” she retorted. “Fold my hands while you allied yourself with these—” She
broke off, her throat working convulsively, and gestured at the charred
remains. “Why?”

He did not intend
to explain. Impatience burned hot in his throat. He wanted to get out of here.

“We must go,” he
said.

“And I said we
will stay until this issue is resolved.”

He sighed, curbing
his own irritation with difficulty. “I will explain. Majesty, but let us go.
They will come back, and when they do we should not be here.”

A flicker of
unease moved beneath the stubbornness in her eyes. “Very well.”

As she spoke, she
started ahead of him, but he gripped her arm and pulled her back.

She wrenched free.
“How dare you!”

“Your Majesty will
recall that they fled into the passageway,” he said coldly. “If they try to
hold it against us, do you really want to be in front?”

Visibly fuming,
she stepped aside and gestured for him to precede her. “By all means, go first,
guardsman. And see that you keep your magic directed against the demons,
instead of against me.”

He glared at her,
then sighed. “I give you my apology, Majesty, for having
severed
you
without your consent. Although you were not hurt, it can be an alarming
experience the first time.”

She did not look
appeased. “There will be no second time,” she said icily. “You overstepped
your—”

“Don’t put me in
my place,” he snapped, losing his temper again. He was damned if he’d bow and
scrape and kiss her foot, groveling in atonement for having saved her life. “I
am here to keep you alive, and that is what I did. If you cannot recognize
that, then you should have chosen a different escort.”

She opened her
mouth to retort, then closed it again without saying anything.

He glared at her a
moment longer, then turned his back and strode on. “Come.”

At the dark mouth
of the passageway, Caelan paused, holding his drawn sword ready, and peered
inside. Ancient, disturbing symbols streaked the walls, and every time he
glanced at them, his eyes burned. The pale illumination that filled the small
cavern did not reach far into the passageway. Looking at its blackness, Caelan
felt a surge of deep uneasiness. He did not think Legion would give up easily.

He glanced back at
Elandra. Despite her tangled hair and rumpled, dirty clothing, she still looked
regal, elegant, beautiful.

Something shifted
in his heart. Frowning, he looked away from her quickly.

His own temper had
cooled. He wondered if he had spoken too harshly to her. After all, she was a
gentlewoman, noble-born and bred. She had been cosseted and protected all her
life. Probably no one had ever spoken a rough word to her before. No doubt she
thought him a coarse, loud-mouthed oaf.

He began to wish
he had not lost his temper with her, had not been so defiant and scornful. It
was not her fault if she did not understand what he was doing.

“Why do you
hesitate?” she asked, her tone stiff and cool, but controlled. “Can the great
champion of the arena be afraid?”

Her scorn stung
like salt in an open wound. He gestured for her to be silent and eased
cautiously into the dark tunnel.

She followed
without a word. He could sense she feared him almost as much as she feared the
demons, but he forced himself to concentrate on what lay ahead.

His own breathing
sounded harsh and ragged in his ears. His heart was pumping too fast. He kept straining,
listening to sounds that might be real or imagined. The menace around them
could be felt; it slid through his consciousness like a great, undulating
serpent.