Delver Magic: Book 05 - Chain of Bargains (48 page)

"You know much for a
human."

"I know that you can't
win."

"I can... if you let
me."

It was almost comical, the
sentiment, and Enin might have laughed had it not been for the tone of the
demon's voice. The demon towered over the wizard in physical presence, but in magical
ability, the draevol was but a dust speck in comparison. Still, there was
something more than confidence in the draevol's words, something very sinister.
Rather than simply discount the ludicrous proposal, Enin questioned its
plausibility.

"Why would I let you win when
victory would allow you to release a plague that would kill scores of innocent
people?"

"No one is innocent."

"Let's not debate that. You
know what I mean."

"Because your choice is not
as obvious as it might seem. There are several ways you can deal with me that
would be to your liking. I can't deny that. You can open your own portal and
force me back to the depths of the dark lands. I could fight you, but it would
be futile."

"That's why I'm recommending
you leave this realm... on your own," Enin stated harshly. He was growing
weary of the draevol, wondering if the demon was stalling in hopes of gaining
an advantage.

"I will not leave of my
own."

Enin shook his head in disgust and
revealed a simple truth.

"That is the only choice I'm
giving you. I'm also getting tired of talking to your back."

"Turning to face you only
gives you what you want, not what I want."

"You think I won't strike
because you're turned away from me? That would be a foolish
consideration."

"I think nothing of the sort.
I'm fully aware of that option as well. If you decide trying to force me
through a portal might be too dangerous, you could simply annihilate me where I
stand, but I don't think you will choose that alternative. Not because my back
is turned to you, but because it conflicts with your views on balance and
interference. You would prefer to see my existence determined by some other
fate. If you were to be honest, you want me to make my own choice."

"Don't fool yourself on that
end, either. I would destroy you in an instant if I thought you had the means
to reach your goal. I won't let you spread your plague."

At that, the demon chuckled.

"Actually, that is the real
question. It is not whether or not
I
spread the plague, but if
you
allow
it to spread. I know, I know. It's an absurd thought, but only because you
don't understand all the facts yet."

The consideration was beyond
absurd. Under no circumstance would Enin let the plague leave the mine shaft.
The demon was playing a game, and the wizard decided to make the situation
clear... as he understood it.

"I know you have consumed a
great deal of magic, that you're a draevol with the ability to cast a powerful
plague, and you have already begun to do so. A good deal of your casting is
already placed upon that corpse. Those are the facts. You have nothing with
which to bargain. It is only you and me within this tunnel. You—and the
plague—will either return to the condemned realm you came from or you both will
be destroyed here."

"And yet you continue to
disregard the third choice. I believe you will release the magical seal on this
tunnel and allow me to leave. You will let this form leave as well and allow
fate to determine how far the plague will reach."

"That's not an
alternative."

The demon did not agree.

"I told you you didn't know
all the facts. Let me point you in the right direction. Where do you think I
got this corpse? From the town above? That would have been too easy."

Enin grimaced. His focus had been
placed on the draevol, the magic, and the tunnel. He had disregarded the corpse
as a simple vessel for the plague spell. He quickly realized it was an error in
judgment.

He could not see the face of the
body, but his magical senses went beyond sight. He reached out to the form
lying on the rock ground and immediately recognized the strong residue of magic
within.

"Heteera?" he whispered.

The draevol ceased its magical
connection with the corpse before it, and finally turned around. Its pale face
glowed with a sinister smile.

"That is why I showed you my
back. I didn't want to give myself away. I find this all very amusing."

The demon stepped to the side and
let the body of Heteera rise on its own. It staggered to its feet, but it did
stand of its own power. No voice spoke. An expression of emptiness filled the
face of the sorceress as the vacant eyes stared off into the distance.

"Now you know
all
the facts," the demon stated
with a satisfied tone.

Enin did not ask why or how. He
didn't care. All he could do was stare back into Heteera's face. He had grown accustomed
to that look. It was lifeless, but it was the expression she wore for a very
long time. It haunted him.

Despite the lack of questions from
the wizard, the demon joyfully revealed the logic behind his decision.

"I never trust my brother.
Never. I noticed the upheaval in the magic long before I contacted him. I have
my own ways of obtaining information. Do you remember the human Prilgrat?"

Enin did not answer. He didn't
care about Prilgrat, or about the draevol twins. His mind was overwrought by the
vision of Heteera's body standing before him, her eyes looking right through
him.

The demon continued despite the
wizard's indifference to its explanation.

"That weak leader of the
humans did not simply have a deal with my brother. It was binding to us both. I
had a connection to his corrupt soul and I used it. I saw and heard what
happened in his room. Not everything. Actually, very little, but I saw the care
you took to send away the sorceress. You wanted to protect her. You even sent
her to a dimensional crossroad to place her out of harm. I made sure I followed
the trail of that spell when you cast it. I can, of course. After all, I'm a
demon. A very fortunate decision."

Enin slowly shook off the numbness
that shrouded his mind. He broke his gaze away from the body of Heteera and
glared at the draevol with fury.

"Why would you disturb
her?"

"To protect myself," the
demon offered, as if the answer was obvious. "It wasn't simply to annoy
you. I did speak with my brother after the goblins had been torn away from this
realm. His explanation regarding the magic over his city smelled of a
half-truth, and like I said, I never trust my brother. I absorbed the magic
over this human town, just as my brother requested, but before I began casting
the plague, I cast a spell of retrieval. I wanted to use the body of the
sorceress for which you showed so much care."

"And you think this will
protect you?!"

"I think it gives me a
chance. I knew you were coming for me. I expected that much from my brother. I
would have done the same thing if I were him."

"You have no chance!"

"But you have a
choice
, and that is my chance."

"What are you talking
about?!" Enin demanded. He saw no choice, he saw only the deliberate
defiling of a corpse... of the memory of a brave soul.

"The option I spoke of
before," the demon answered in a harsh voice after a brief pause.
"Remove the magical seal in this tunnel. Allow me to leave. Let the
sorceress exit out the tunnel and..."

"No," the wizard cut off
the demon.

"You didn't let me
finish."

"I can't let her leave here
and you know it."

"What does that leave for
you? I assure you, I have no intention of opening a portal and taking her with
me. Will you open one and push us both through?"

"I will not do that... to
her
."

"That certainly reduces your
options. If you don't send her away, you'll either have to let her go... or
obliterate her. You would do that to her?"

"You speak of her as if she's
still alive. She's gone. That's an empty shell you cast your disease upon,
nothing more."

"Is it? Then why did you send
her off into dimensional space to protect her while you went to face my
brother?"

"Out of respect."

"Then destroy her now."

Enin made no move. He glanced back
over at the body of the sorceress. His most recent memories of the sorceress
matched exactly what he saw. Despite the vacant expression of the soulless
body, he recalled her state of detachment when the barrier cut off her
consciousness. He did not see a reanimated corpse. He saw his memory of Heteera
standing before him as if she never died.

"You hesitate," the
demon pointed out. "I'm not surprised. You want to believe she's gone, but
what if she isn't? Think of how much magic poured through her body. Such power
could open many possibilities. Think of how the magic allows you to cross from
one dimension to another. Would it be so absurd to assume that she could travel
to the very door of death, perhaps even step through, and yet still return?
What if she was never completely dead? I could have done what you failed to
try. I could have revived her."

Enin's mind raced with conjecture
over the body of Heteera. He knew she had passed on to the next existence. He
was within her consciousness when she let go of the physical world. Her vacant
stare, however, penetrated his memories. Was she possibly still alive?

"No," Enin stated with a
shake of his head, but his tone lacked confidence.

"You don't sound too
sure," the demon pressed. "There is one way to find out. Allow her to
leave this mine. Let the magic flow through her once more and take the plague
from her. If she's still alive, the magic will cure her. If not, you can show
her body the proper respect you spoke of."

Enin knew he couldn't allow it.
The price was too high. If the magic flowed through the sorceress, it would
take the plague with it. With so many dead bodies in the streets of Huntston
and people returning to the town, there would be no stopping it. No, he knew he
couldn't allow the plagued corpse to leave his chamber of magic, but was she
really just a corpse?

The wizard knew the demon was
capable of not only twisting the truth but torturing it into appalling deceit,
yet the circumstances extended beyond the draevol. Enin had spent so much time
in the sorceress' tormented thoughts and then in the blankness of her
isolation. He knew her weaknesses—her madness—intimately. Heteera had taken
hold of the barrier spell, used the magic to hide from reality. What if she did
more? What if she twisted reality? The power was so vast within her.

Too many questions poured from the
sorceress' hollow expression and into the wizard's soul. Enin began to doubt
his own perceptions. He wondered if maybe there was some way to bring Heteera
back.

To his dismay, there was no way to
find out. He couldn't risk entering her consciousness to search for an answer.
He didn't fear the plague, for the magic that protected him was far too strong,
but the magic inside Heteera's body was unstable. If he carelessly added his
own power to the vessel of a plague, he might give the demon the very
opportunity it craved... the chance to break free.

The draevol sensed the conflict
within the wizard and took great satisfaction in creating the dilemma.

"I told you there were other
options. Life is filled with difficult decisions. Which choice will you
make?"

Enin's disgust for the demon grew.
He had not yet determined what to do about Heteera, but his doubts about the
demon dissolved. He closed both hands tightly into fists and brought them
together at the knuckles. The white energy within him poured into a spell of
sheer fury, and then two circles of magical force. They flew from his hands and
wrapped around the demon. The draevol screeched, but only for an instant. The
rings closed around the fiend and eventually strangled it completely out of
existence.

"That wasn't difficult,"
Enin acknowledged with no sympathy for the demon or guilt over destroying it.
It earned its fate. The difficult decision, however, still remained.

The annihilation of the draevol
did not end its plague spell. The casting was complete and the powerful sickness
rested entirely in the body of the sorceress, a woman he believed had already
died.

Of that, he was certain. He had
watched her break apart the barrier, and she allowed the magic to sweep her
essence away. She had saved Jure in doing so. It was her choice. Enin still
wasn't sure it was the right one. He had wanted to try and save them both, but
she wouldn't let him. Still, it was a brave deed and it deserved respect. He
wanted to accept it, but he just kept looking into that blank expression and wondering
if he was being offered an opportunity.

Yes, it was a vacant stare, but a
stare he recognized. That made it so much harder.

"Heteera?" he called.

No answer. Just a hollow gaze into
nothingness.

The wizard looked down on the
rocky ground. He wiped the empty expression from his mind. He locked his
thoughts on the last moments of Heteera's life.

It's better than magic!

That was the message she left him
before she died, and she
had
died.
She found her way out of isolation, freed herself from the magic she saw as a
curse. That was her choice, which meant it was already made. He would not
attempt to use the magic to bring her back. He would honor her memory and make
certain that no one was harmed.

Rather than cling to an empty
memory of a woman who tried to escape, Enin decided to validate her final
selfless decision with the certainty of unbridled magical force. He threw his
hands together and cast another spell of pure power. It lacked the fury he used
against the demon, but it carried the same efficiency. Two rings of magic took
hold of Heteera's body and swept it entirely out of existence.