The Demon Awakens (60 page)

But something else caught the beast’s attention, some sensation, some presence the dactyl had not felt in many centuries. Lower went the demon, and slower, turning tight circles, sharp eyes scouring the terrain, keen ears tuning to every sound.

There was an elf about, Bestesbulzibar knew. One of the Touel’alfar, the dactyl demon’s most ancient and hated of enemies.

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CHAPTER 47

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One Harmony

The night was still, and undeniably beautiful. Every so often a cloud would rush overhead, pushed by southwestern breezes, but for the most part the stars shone crisp and clear, and the smell of spring was everywhere, the smell of new life.

It was a lie, Elbryan knew, all of it. The smell of new life would fast give way to the smell of goblins, powries, and giants, and the stench of death. All this serenity would be shattered under the thunderous march of the black horde, the crack of powrie whip, the rolling war engines.

It was a cruel lie: the quiet, the serenity, the spring breeze.

A movement to the side caught the wary ranger’s attention, but he did not go for his weapon, recognizing the light, graceful step and the smell—like a field of distant flowers, the gentle fragrance carried on soft breezes—of the woman so dear to him. Pony came through the brush lightly, wearing only a soft silken nightshirt that didn’t reach her knees. Her hair was down now, loose and wild, and it framed her fair face in a sensual manner, brushing her cheeks, one thick lock wrapped down and about her chin, that sent Elbryan’s heart pumping.

She looked at the man and smiled, then crossed her arms to ward the breeze and turned, staring up at the night canopy.

“How could I have brought you out here?” the ranger said to her, moving up behind her and touching her gently on the shoulder.

Pony bent her head atop that hand and shifted backward, leaning against Elbryan. “How might you have stopped me?” she asked.

The ranger chuckled softly and kissed the woman’s hair, wrapping his strong arms about her. How indeed? he wondered, marveling, as always, at Pony’s free spirit. He could not truly love Pony, he knew, could not love who she was, if he meant to control her, for surely any attempt to harness Pony would defeat the very free spirit that Elbryan so adored. She was his in heart, but her own in will, and the ranger could not have stopped her from coming along, short of knocking her unconscious and tying her in a cave!

The woman turned within Elbryan’s grasp, her soft face just below his, looking up at him.

Elbryan stared at her for a long, silent moment. An image of her lying dead at the end of a goblin spear came to him and he looked away suddenly, looked up at the stars, and wondered how he would live, what point there would be in going on with his life, if anything happened to Pony.

He felt her hand brushing against his cheek, and then the touch grew more firm as Pony turned his face back to look into her own. “We are each of us in danger,” she reminded him. “And I might die, as Elbryan might die.”

“Do not even utter such horrors.”

“Possibilities,” Pony corrected, “chances that we each took of our own volition, chances borne in duty. I would not want to live in the world that will be if the dactyl is not destroyed; rather that I had died fighting the fiend in the faraway Barbacan . . .” Her voice trailed off and she rose to her tiptoes, her lips brushing Elbryan’s in a gentle kiss. “Rather that I died beside my friend, my love.”

He started to look away again, unable to come to terms with that distinct possibility, but Pony’s hand caught his chin firmly, forcefully, and turned him back to face her, all gentleness suddenly gone from her fair features.

“I am a warrior,” the woman declared. “I have fought all of my life, since the day I wandered the road from destroyed Dundalis. I see my duty as no less than your own.”

“Of course not,” Elbryan quickly agreed.

“And if I am to die, then let it be in battle,” Pony said through gritted teeth. “Let it be against the demon dactyl, delivering Avelyn, that the foul beast might be destroyed. I am a warrior, my love. Do not begrudge me a fitting end!”

“I would rather that your end and my own be together a hundred years hence,” Elbryan replied, a helpless smile finding its way across his face.

Pony reached up to touch that smile and felt the sharp stubble of the ranger’s beard, several days grown. “Ah, but my love,” she said quietly, “put that fine elvish blade of yours to use on that beard, else I fear my face will glow from your scraping.”

“More than your face, my love,” Elbryan teased, and he lifted Pony up before him, biting her softly just under the chin, then turning his face so that his beard rubbed against her neck.

She slid back down, keeping tight to him, until their eyes met, and suddenly the play was gone from their smiles, all teasing lost in sudden intensity, in the knowledge that their time together might be nearing a very brutal end. Pony kissed him then, hard and passionately, her hands moving to grab tightly at his thick hair, to pull him even closer, though there was already no space between them.

Elbryan wrapped her even more tightly, squeezing her in his powerful grasp. One arm slipped down to the back of her bare leg, then up under the nightshirt, over the smooth skin of her buttocks, gently up her back, bracing her as Elbryan slowly shifted her down to the ground.

“Potion,” Avelyn argued.

Bradwarden snorted. “Potion o’ dizziness, then. What fool brewed such a magic as that? A drink to set ye on the ground, when a club might do a better job!”

“Potion of courage!” Avelyn protested, taking a deep swig, then wiping his forearm across his face.

“Potion o’ hiding,” Bradwarden said seriously, changing the tone.

Avelyn stared hard at the centaur.

“Oh, I been known to have me drinks,” the centaur said. “ ‘Tis boggle I’m favoring, and not a potion in all the world’ll kick ye harder than that. But I’m drinking at times for celebrating, me friend, at the solstice and the equinox, and not for hiding.”

The accusation hit the monk hard, especially considering the source. Avelyn had grown quite close to Bradwarden over the first weeks of their journey, a bond more of respect than friendship. Now there was no mistaking the somber, accusing tone of the normally jovial centaur; Bradwarden did not approve of the monk’s little flask.

“Perhaps you simply do not have as much to hide from,” the monk said quietly, defiantly lifting the flask to his lips.

He didn’t drink, though, not then, held back by an unrelenting stare.

“The more ye hide, the more ye need to hide,” Bradwarden replied. “Ye look at me, Brother Avelyn. Ye look into me eyes to know that no lie comes from me lips.”

Avelyn lowered the flask and stared hard at Bradwarden.

“Ye did no wrong in taking the stones,” the centaur said.

“What foolishness is that?” the monk protested.

“Ah, but ye cannot hide from me, Avelyn Desbris,” Bradwarden said without hesitation, his confidence only bolstered by the monk’s too-loud protestation. “Ye’re not afraid of yer kinfolk, not the monks, not any other Brother Justice that might come hunting ye. No, me friend, ye’re afraid o’ Avelyn, of what ye did and of yer eternal soul. Did ye stain it, then?”

“You know nothing.”

“Ho, ho, what!” the centaur boomed in a fair imitation of Avelyn. “I know the ways o’ men, the ways o’ Avelyn. I know that yer drinking yer ‘potions o’ courage’ is no more than yer hiding from yer own past, from decisions ye made—and good ones at that! Hear me now, because I would not lie to ye, I’d have no reason to lie to ye: ye did right in running, in taking the stones, even in killing the man who meant to kill yerself. Ye did what ye had to do, me friend, and so let go yer guilt, I say, and see better the road ahead. Ye said ye knew yer destiny, and I’m believing in that destiny, else I’d not have come. Ye’re meant to face the dactyl, I say, to destroy the beast, and so ye will, but only if yer mind’s clear, and only if yer heart’s clear.”

The words, coming from so mysterious, so wise, and aged a creature, hit Avelyn profoundly. He looked back at his flask and saw it for the first time as an enemy, a sign of weakness.

“Ye’re not for needing yer potion,” Bradwarden said. “Aye, but when ye beat the dactyl, then I’ll take ye out for a bit o’ boggle, and ye’ll know what it means to see the world turn!” He reached out and grabbed Avelyn’s wrist, pulling the flask further from the man, and locking gazes. “Avelyn needs not to hide from Avelyn,” he said in all seriousness, and the monk, after a pause, nodded slowly.

“From the dactyl, now!” Bradwarden said suddenly, satisfied that he had gotten his point through. “Now, ye’re wanting to hide from the dactyl until the time’s right, but ye’ll find yer flask a bit small for that!”

Avelyn said nothing just nodded again. He was amazed that Bradwarden had so seen through him, had looked so clearly into his heart and soul, and had recognized the taint of guilt there. This drink that he always kept handy was no potion of courage but an admission of cowardice, a means for hiding from his own past.

Avelyn continued to stare at Bradwarden, and smiled as the centaur smiled, as the monk tossed the flask into the brush.

Now, finally, Avelyn could face his destiny with no regrets for the path that had led him to this place.

The centaur took up his pipes then and softly played, for such was the magic of Bradwarden’s song that no goblin, no monster, no human, no animal even, could possibly discern its source in the forest night. His tune, mournful and hopeful all at once, calmed Avelyn and bolstered his resolve. It floated through the trees to caress the lovers, and further out to where Paulson and Chipmunk kept a watchful eye on the forest night.

And thus the group was bound by Bradwarden’s song, one band, one purpose, one harmony.

The quiet night brought no such rest for Tuntun and Symphony. The elf watched the stallion closely to see if he was tiring, but the great horse ran on and on, slipping through the leafy shadows like the passage of Sheila herself, running to the horizon and beyond.

They had a quest, these two, every bit as vital to them as the hunt for the dactyl was to the seven who had left before them. For Tuntun, the sting of being left out of that all-important journey had not diminished, and no logical arguments could change the way the elf felt about it. Tuntun’s stake in destroying the dactyl was no less than Juraviel’s or that of any other elf or human. But it was more than that, the elf knew, and she had to admit it to herself, for it was her heart and not her mind that had forced her out here. Tuntun had to rush along, had to chase the group, in part because Belli’mar Juraviel—her closest friend despite their constant squabbling—was among them, but also in part because Nightbird led that troop. The elf could no longer deny her feelings for the ranger. She had played an important role in getting Elbryan to this point and, as a mother clings to her child, Tuntun could not bear to let him go off without her.

Yes, it was Nightbird more than anything else that had the sprite riding hard through the forest night. It was the man she had trained, the man she had grown to love. She trusted in the ranger—never had she seen Elbryan’s better—but even so, she would stand beside him in this, his darkest of hours, in this, his pinnacle of glory.

The elf bent her head low over Symphony’s flying mane and bade the horse to run on, and Symphony, as connected to the ranger as she, needed no encouragement and no outward guidance.

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CHAPTER 48

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Enemies Ancient

“You and your friends saved us all, I do not dispute,” Jingo Gregor said, his voice cracking from the strain of the last few weeks, the overwhelming surprises and horrors. “Yet are we to walk willingly to a place of enchantment?” He looked pleadingly at the boughs, at the rarely seen guide who had led him and his companions through a trackless region, heading south and with towering mountains now in sight.

“Better that than to face the goblin hordes,” Belli’mar Juraviel answered. “I offer refuge, a haven as safe as any place in all the world. And the offer is not given lightly, I assure you, Master Jingo Gregor. You are as strange to the Touel’alfar as are we to you, and the valley that is home to my people is not open to humans. Yet I take you there, for if I do not, then surely you and all your companions will perish.”

“I am not ungrateful, good Juraviel,” Jingo Gregor replied.

“Just wary,” Juraviel finished for him, moving down the tree so that the man could see him clearly, one of the few views the elf had allowed to any of the humans. “And well you should be, given the tragedies that have come to you and your clan. But I am not your enemy.”

“That much has been proven,” Jingo agreed.

“Then rest easy, for Andur’Blough Inninness is not so far,” Juraviel said to him. “Consider yourself blessed to look upon the elven valley of mists.” There was an unconscious edge to that last statement, reflecting Juraviel’s own doubts about this decision to take humans to the secret valley. True, Elbryan had been taken in and trained; true, Lady Dasslerond had allowed Juraviel, Tuntun, and the others to go out to find the ranger and help him with his fight. But to take humans to Andur’Blough Inninness without the express permission of Lady Dasslerond was indeed a stretch of the Lady’s compassion, and Juraviel was not certain that the troop wouldn’t simply be turned away; perhaps the paths into the misty valley would be altered and hidden even from Juraviel. Lady Dasslerond was merciful, the elf knew, but she was, above that, pragmatic and protective of her realm. The welfare of the Touel’alfar she placed above all else, perhaps even above the lives of a score of unfortunate human refugees.

Despite the hints of doubt in Juraviel’s tone, Jingo Gregor seemed satisfied with the words—a speech Juraviel had offered to the man several times over the last few days. Juraviel held nothing but sympathy for this ragged group, many of whom had lost loved ones in the goblin raids upon their homes, and most of whom had been tortured and violated by the wretched creatures. The elf would offer those comforting words to any and all, as often as they needed to hear them, reassuring the poor folk even though he himself wasn’t so certain of the outcome.

Jingo Gregor moved off then, back to the warmth of the campfire and his eighteen companions. Juraviel, too, moved back toward the campfire, tightening his perimeter watch, though the humans had no idea of the elf’s movements, so silent was he as he crossed the higher boughs of the budding trees.

The fire burned low—it had never been truly high, for Juraviel opted for caution, though he was fairly certain there were no monsters in the area, no organized groups anyway. Now the fire was no more than embers, their orange glow casting faint illumination over the resting forms of the humans, the light seeming appropriate for the rhythmic breathing of the sleeping folk.

Juraviel, too, was near to sleep, the elf comfortably nestled in the V of a high branch. He should have been watching the ground, he knew, but in accord with the wistful nature of his kind, his eyes kept lifting skyward to the stars and the mysteries.

And then to something else, something darker and more sinister, moving swiftly across the sky, heading for the camp, for Juraviel. The elf sensed the presence of the demon dactyl as surely as the dactyl sensed him, felt the awfulness, the sheerest of evil, the coldest of deathly chill.

With great effort, Juraviel pulled his thoughts from the night sky and the approach of doom and slipped quickly down, branch to branch, finally dropping right in the middle of the camp. He ran about, kicking at feet, whispering harshly, until all the humans were roused.

“Be gone!” the elf commanded. “Flee to the forest in groups of five and four, each in a direction of your own!”

Questions came at him, and at the stupefied leaders of the group, but Juraviel did not relent. “Tarry not!” the elf warned. “For death comes on wing! Be gone to the forest!”

The dactyl was close, so close! The humans scrambled, trying to gather some things, trying to put on boots, at least, as they stumbled and were pulled to the darkness of the forest night.

Juraviel remained at the glowing fire pit until all had gone, his eyes ever skyward, looking for the blackest of forms.

He felt it, he saw it, the dactyl swooping down from on high, rushing past the tangle of branches with hardly a care, spinning at the last moment, halting its descent to land lightly on the ground opposite the diminutive elf.

Juraviel drew out his slender sword but wondered what use it might be against the horrific demon. He prayed that all the folk would rush back in at the monster and join in his fight, but it was a wish that the elf had to dismiss, knowing that if the folk did come to his aid, they would all perish with him.

“Touel’alfar,” the demon dactyl remarked in its mighty voice. “Not many are your kind. Not so strong, not so strong.”

“Be gone from this place, demon,” Juraviel responded in as firm a voice as he could muster. “You have no hold over me, no claim to my heart or my soul. I am the master here, and I reject you and your lies!”

The dactyl laughed at him, mocking his words and his courage, making him feel like an insignificant thing. “Why do you believe that I want claim to such worthless things as your heart and soul, elf?” the demon growled. “Your heart, perhaps,” Bestesbulzibar teased, “that I might feast upon it, savoring the sweet blood of a Touel’alfar.”

As he spoke, Bestesbulzibar slowly began to circle the fire, and Juraviel moved as well, keeping the embers between him and the demon—though when he thought about it, the elf realized that the flames, were they blazing high, would prove no barrier at all to the creature of the fiery pits of the underworld.

“Why are you out, Touel’alfar?” Bestesbulzibar asked. “Why are you away from your valley—yes, I know of your valley. I have seen many things since I have awakened, foolish elf, and I know that your kind is diminished greatly, that your world is smaller now, a mere canyon in a world that is grown too wide and too human. So why are you away, elf? What is it that brings you so far from home?”

“The darkness of the demon dactyl,” Juraviel answered firmly. “Your shadow has roused the Touel’alfar, foul beast, for you are not unknown to us.”

“But what shall you do about Bestesbulzibar?” the dactyl roared suddenly, and sudden, too, was the monster’s rush, a quick burst right across the fire, scattering embers in a blinding shower. Juraviel struck fast and hard with his small sword, scoring a solid hit, but that hardly slowed the great beast whose armored hide held even the elvish blade at bay, whose clawed hand slapped the sword from Juraviel’s hand while the demon’s other hand grabbed the elf by the throat, lifting him easily up into the air.

“Oh,” Bestesbulzibar moaned, as if in ecstasy. “I could tear it out, elf,” the demon teased, running the claws of his free hand over Juraviel’s tiny chest, “and hold it up before your eyes, biting into its red flesh even as you watched it beat its last.”

“I do not fear you,” Juraviel gasped with what little breath remained to him.

“Then you are a fool,” Bestesbulzibar replied. “Do you know what comes after life, elf? Do you know what awaits you?” The demon laughed wickedly, bellowing thunderously into the still night.

“No torment . . .” Juraviel gasped.

“For you are true of heart,” Bestesbulzibar mimicked evilly, and then the beast laughed again all the louder. “No torment,” the fiend agreed: “Nothing! Do you hear?
Nothing,
elf. There is no afterlife for a miserable wretch such as thee! Only unknowing blackness. Savor your precious seconds, foolish elf. Beg me to let you see one more dawn.”

Juraviel said nothing. He tried hard to hold to his faith, whose precepts insisted that a good life would indeed be rewarded in the afterlife. He considered Garshan Inodiel, who was God to the elves, a god of justice and promise, not unlike the god of the humans. But in the face of the darkness that was Bestesbulzibar, Belli’mar Juraviel knew despair.

“But why are you out?” the demon asked again, giving a sidelong, scrutinizing glance at the elf. “And what do you know?”

Juraviel closed his eyes and said nothing. He expected to be tortured, to have his limbs torn from his body, perhaps, until he confessed all he knew, until he betrayed his friends who had gone to the Barbacan. No, I must not think of that! the elf told himself firmly, and he turned his thoughts once more to Garshan Inodiel, trying to blanket everything else under the serenity of his God.

But then, in perhaps the worst torture of all to the valiant Touel’alfar, Juraviel felt the encroachment, felt the dark and cold presence of Bestesbulzibar creeping into his thoughts, scouring his mind. He opened his eyes in horror to see the demon’s contorted features, flaming eyes closed as Bestesbulzibar concentrated, using his magic to scour the elf’s brain.

Juraviel fought valiantly, but he was overmatched. The more he tried not to think of Elbryan and the others, the more they were revealed to Bestesbulzibar. The demon would get what it wanted, he feared, would devour him, and then would be off to devour his friends!

“Avelyn,” Bestesbulzibar whispered.

“No!” Juraviel cried, and he kicked out with all his strength, his foot slamming the demon right in the eye. The wriggling elf broke free and tumbled to the ground. He tried to scamper away, but Bestesbulzibar towered over him, looking down, laughing, teasing.

“You do not belong here,” came a sudden, melodious voice, one that caught and held the demon’s attention. Both Bestesbulzibar and Juraviel turned to see Lady Dasslerond come out of the brush, flanked by a dozen other elves, bows and swords in hand.

“You live still!” the demon howled at the sight of the Lady of Caer’alfar, an elf he had known centuries before.

“And you walk Corona again,” the Lady replied, “and surely all of the world weeps at the sight.”

“Surely all of the world should!” Bestesbulzibar retorted. “Where is your Terranen Dinoniel now, Dasslerond? Who will stand before me this time?” As he spoke the last, he turned his ominous gaze upon Juraviel, and the poor elf shook with the fear that he had given his friends away.

“Who, Dasslerond?” the demon insisted. “You or this pitiful elf that cowers before me?” Bestesbulzibar looked all around at the encircling sprites, and laughed more loudly than ever. “All of you together, then? Well done, I say, and let us commence. Better for me that the nuisance of the Touel’alfar be done with here and now!”

“I’ll not fight you,” Lady Dasslerond replied coolly. “Not here.” That said, she held aloft a huge green gemstone, shining with power, its illumination turning everything in the area a shade of green—everything except Bestesbulzibar, for the shadow of the demon could not be overcome by any light.

“What trick is this?” the fiend protested. “What foolish—” The words were lost in the demon’s throat as all the world began to shift and change, features blending together in a greenish mist and then growing clear again, crystalline under the stars, bright and beautiful.

They were in Andur’Blough Inninness, all of them. Lady Dasslerond and Juraviel, all the elves and the refugees, and Bestesbulzibar.

“What trick?” the fiend roared, suddenly angry, suddenly recognizing that he should not be in this place, the very heart of elvish power.

“I invite you to my home, creature of shadow,” Lady Dasslerond answered, her voice edged with weariness from the tremendous exertion of power it had taken to transport the group—or, in effect, to change the very ground beneath their feet. “You cannot defeat me here, not now.”

The demon growled and considered the words, felt the strength of the Lady and her fellows in this, their domain. “But soon,” Bestesbulzibar promised.

The Lady held aloft the green gemstone, the heart of Andur’Blough Inninness, now shining fiercely.

Bestesbulzibar’s unearthly roar, one of pain and outrage, stole her breath. “So you saved the pitiful elf and the humans he escorted,” the fiend sneered. “What good will it prove when all the world is mine?” Out came the black wings and the demon dactyl lifted away to the hum of elvish bows, the melodious tumult of elvish insults.

Any true joy felt by the Touel’alfar at the demon dactyl’s retreat was short-lived, though. By necessity, Lady Dasslerond had allowed Bestesbulzibar to tread upon this, their most sacred and secret of places, and though the fiend was correct, Bestesbulzibar could not yet face them all in Andur’Blough Inninness, they had done nothing to diminish the demon.

Juraviel joined Lady Dasslerond as she stood over the spot from where Bestesbulzibar had departed. The ground that had been under the fiend’s clawed feet was blackened and torn.

“A wound that will not heal,” the Lady said despondently.

Juraviel knelt to better inspect the ground. He could smell the rot there: the earth itself was tainted from the fiend’s presence.

“A festering wound that will slowly spread,” the Lady admitted. “We must tend the ground about this spot vigilantly, for if ever we fail to counter with our magic and our song the rot that is Bestesbulzibar, it will grow within our valley.”

Juraviel sighed and looked hopelessly at his Lady, his guilt obvious upon his fair face.

“The dactyl grows strong,” she said, not accusingly.

“I have failed.”

Lady Dasslerond looked at him incredulously.

“The demon knows,” Juraviel admitted. “The demon knows of Elbryan, of Avelyn, and the plan.”

“Then pity Elbryan,” the Lady replied. “Or hold faith in Nightbird and in Brother Avelyn, whose heart is true. They went north to do battle with Bestesbulzibar, and so they shall.”