Depths of Madness (34 page)

Gargan shook his head. There was nothing that would dissuade him.

“I did not agree with the tribe’s decision,“‘Mehvenne said to her

pots as she stirred two at once. Her emerald stripes sparkled in the half light of the rothe-candles.

“Not their decision,” Gargan whispered, inaudible outside the tent. “Mine.”

That caught Mehvenne’s attention, and she turned ruby eyes on him. Gargan felt something in the air strain, as though it would break.

Then she looked away and it returned. The distance between them that would always remain—would remain between Gargan and any goliath—until the day he died.

“The Stoneslayer lost his way, and thus he became the Dispossessed,” Mehvenne said. “He is blind. This is not his destiny, no matter what he believes. Not this doe.”

“Fox,” Gargan corrected. “She is the fox.”

Then the elf squeezed his hand.

Gargan looked at the soft skin stretched over delicate features. Her eyes blinked—red-rimmed, shot with blood, oozing tears, but alive. Mehvenne took a step back, startled and ready with a spell should she need to fight a demon.

But the next sound Foxdaughter emitted was a simple sigh.

“Gys sa salen,” she murmured, bringing one dainty hand to her forehead.

Gargan hardly spoke the Common tongue, much less Elvish. He wondered if his heavy mouth could even form such dainty syllables. But he, like all goliaths, was a student of body language and expression. Even though he did not catch the exact meaning of her words, he understood het basic desire.

As did Mehvenne, who knelt and offered the water bowl to Foxdaughtet.

“No, my good lady,” she sighed. “Not that kind of drink.”

The druid furrowed her brow, almost looking at Gargan before she caught herself. Gargan could only blink and look down at Foxdaughter blankly.

“What was”—the elf paused—”that game… I saw?”

Gargan felt a smile tugging at his mouth. He squeezed her hand. “Kukanath kuth,” he said. Then he remembered that she

wore no earring, so he exercised the few words he knew in the trade tongue. “Goat ball.”

The elf smiled, and it was the most reassuring thing Gargan had ever seen.

As their escorts led the pair into the desert, the sheer size of the goliaths struck Twilight once more. Even standing at about seven feet tall, Gargan seemed stunted and short beside his clan brothers. There was a certain feral strength and speed about him, though—rage tempered by the wisdom that shone in his emerald eyes, and it was this that convinced Twilight he was the most dangerous of all.

And it was part of what had led her to doubt the goliath, Twilight remembered with a pang of guilt. Well, no more of that.

They had stayed at the goliath camp for six days—three that Twilight had slept, three more that she had taken to recover. The poultices and chants had done wonders for her damaged bones and bruised hide, though she could not shake the soreness, regardless of how much walking and stretching she had done. She had spent those days as an observer in the goliath camp, watching the simple joys they took in boasts and tales, the artisans at their trade, and racers leaping the crags. She’d sat with storytellers, weaved necklaces and baskets, and learned some of the songs. She wore several goliath earrings, now, and they’d bound her hair with bone combs.

The goliaths knew peace, and Twilight wished she could be part of it, perhaps forever. But she had left many tasks undone

in her life, and it was her lot—her purpose in this world—to see them done. There were many wrongs to be righted, many friends to be avenged. Asson, Taslin, Slip, Liet… Gestal.

During her time in the encampment—after the dreams— Gargan had scarcely left Twilights bedside, nor had the Shroud left her neck. The farthest he had gone from her had been to the tent flap, to sit cross-legged without, keeping watch. After that, he had been as her shadow, staying beside her at all times.

Twilight did not know if he had remained so near because of some sense of companionship, or if he was simply trying to remain within the protection of her amulet. She figured it was the latter. After all, the goliath had showed no real warmth toward her—they were as survivors of a shipwreck, joined by fate rather than blood or desire.

Why was he following her back into the depths? She had to go, but why him?

On the other hand, what proof did she have that he wasn’t a traitor, like Liet had been—unknowingly, even? Perhaps her old suspicions of the goliath was true.

Ultimately, it did not matter.

Twilight hardly cared whether her suspicion was true, ot whether her mistrust hurt Gargan. It was cruel, but all she could think of were Liet and Gestal—two very different people in her mind, though they were the same man. She would give them peace, though she wondered if her current path was madness as deep as theirs.

Not that it matters, she thought, though she wondered if she lied.

As though he sensed her uncertainty, Gargan laid a stony hand on Twilight’s shoulder. Some of the tension flowed from her.

“We go,” one of the four escorts said to Twilight.

Taslin’s earring, dangling from her left lobe alongside three new silver rings with colored stones, translated the words, though she fancied that the few days she had spent among the goliaths had taught her enough to understand. That this was

cursed ground went unsaid, but she caught hints of it in their bodies. There was regret in their voices, but only a touch.

The goliaths purposefully ignored Gargan, bowed to Twilight, and turned, never to look back. Twilight knew the goliath would not talk to his clan brothers—ever. The escorts walked one way, toward the desert mountains, and the elf and her companion went the other, into a wide expanse edged with rock pillars and broken crags.

“Why do they treat you so?” she asked as the escorts vanished over a dune.

“Exile,”Gargan said. His syntax was simple: declarative and efficient. “I am dead.”

That made Twilight smile in helpless sympathy. Perhaps she and the goliath had more in common than she had thought.

She gestured to the red markings that patterned his flesh. “What do they mean?”

“My destiny,” Gargan said. “My flesh is the parchment.”

That made Twilight blink. “You have tried to read it?”

Gargan shrugged. “That is why—part of the why, not the whole why.”

“But you know what they say.”

The goliath nodded. “Follow the fox with the white claw,” he said. “My destiny.”

Twilight had nothing to say to that.

She spent some time within herself. Her hip felt light without a sword. Betrayal lay somewhere in those caves—lost in the confrontation. She had to get in, elude discovery long enough to recover the weapon, find Liet, then somehow defeat Gestal.

She wondered, abstractly, how she would do all these things. She wondered about Gargan. She wondered what had become of Slip. She wondered about her dreams.

The one thing she knew for certain was what she had to do.

“We arrive,” Gargan said at last.

They had come to the center of a grove of stone trees two spearcasts in width—the Plain of Standing Stones, Twilight recalled, if her geography was correct. Gargan knelt in the sand

and put his ear to the ground as though listening for approaching pursuit. Twilight knew better than to disturb him.

“His magic covered the hole, “Gargan said. “
willfind the cave I entered first.”p>

The elf agreed, though she knew it could not fail to be a trap. “There,” Gargan said. “This sand is shallow. Whispers.” Twilight shivered. Whispers beneath the ground. He pointed.

They walked to the nearest of the stone pillars and searched its base. Sure enough, between two boulders they found an opening just large enough for a goliath to squeeze through—or a fiend-stitched troll, perhaps.

“You are the stronger in a fair fight, but we will not fight fairly,” she said.

He growled in his throat. “We fight without honor? “

“Best to eschew honor, when our foe can defeat both of us at once.”

Gargan finally nodded. He put a hand to his sword hilt. “Wait,” said Twilight, motioning’ Gargan to stop. “I have a plan.”

The goliath eyed her with uncertainty but obeyed.

Closing her eyes and falling into the shadow, Twilight reflected on the stakes. She hated using this power, as it meant letting part of herself go. She hesitated to let any part of herself out, but somehow, after her dreams, she felt calm. She wasn’t so alone.

“This will only take a breath.”

She began the ritual.

The elf padded through the tunnel to the catacombs, her hand on the rapier hilt. She cast her eyes one way, then the other, then proceeded, as though certain she was safe. She moved on, stealthy and hidden to all sight.

All sight except the sight that comes with a demon prince’s power.

A massive form fell out of the darkness above, crashing down

like a falling wall. There was no way she could dodge, no way she could evade impending death.

Tlork was stunned when his hulking maul passed right through her, to smash into the stone, and he landed with a roar on nothing. The elf danced in front of the troll, whipping her blade out of its sheath.

Meanwhile, a hand reached out of the shadows and plucked up a certain rapier, which had been lying against the stone.

He’d missed? How? He’d clung to the stalactites, waiting, then fallen when there had been no chance.

Only then—when the blade darted in—did Tlork realize he’d been tricked.

Twilight thrust the Hizagkuur rapier deep into the troll’s side without a hiss or cry—only a grim frown that bespoke firm purpose. The keen gray-white steel laid aside hard sinew and muscle like warm pudding and speared one lung, then a heart, then the other lung. Electricity and fire burned along its length, searing the tissue before it could regenerate—at least, so the elf hoped.

Twilight’s knuckles slammed painfully into the basket hilt as the blade abruptly halted against Tlork’s far ribs, and she pushed harder, with all her strength. The hilt buried itself against the troll’s nearer ribs. She felt that if she were any stronger, she might end up with her elbows inside him.

“Try fighting with that wound,” Twilight dared Tlork.

To her disappointment, that was exactly what the troll did. With a mighty roar, he whirled and writhed, shaking her furiously.

If Betrayal had been strapped to her wrist, likely Tlork would have wrenched her arm from her body. As it was, the tension snapped her arm back and she shrieked. She thought she heard bones snap before Tlork finally flung her away like so much refuse. And if even she hadn’t, then she certainly did when her ribs crunched against the stone.

Twilight sank, broken, to the ground with a breathless sob.

Still burning, Betrayal stayed inside the troll, but the flesh kept regenerating. Why hadn’t she considered that the demonflesh might resist flame, as did that of true demons?

The troll barreled toward her, his hammer held high.

Without a sound, the second Twilight danced in and stabbed its own Betrayal into Tlork’s back. The sword wasn’t real, but neither was it illusion. Its chilling darkness sapped the troll’s strength at a touch. Tlork faltered and the hammer dipped in a pace-wide circle whose edge was a thumb’s length from the real Twilight’s head. The troll spun and growled in confusion at its attacker, and Twilight dared to breathe.

After that breath, though, pain overwhelmed the elf, and the illusion wrapping her shadow faltered. The false Twilight’s skin shivered and vanished into ephemeral black—features bled away, leaving only darkness. The elf-shadow did not fade, though, and slashed at Tlork with unnaturally stretching fingers. The troll tried to smash it with his hammer, but the weapon passed through harmlessly, giving Twilight hope.

Then a gem embedded in Tlork’s ‘chest flared golden, and the shadow recoiled soundlessly. It cowered, as though rapt, then fled. Twilight knew only one thing that could scare a member of the living dead: the power of a god or, in this case, a demon.

Tlork spun back, slavering.

Then Gargan was there, catching Tlork’s hammer haft in two mighty hands. He locked his muscles, holding the deadly weapon perhaps a pace from Twilight.

As Twilight had planned, Gargan attacked from hiding, but why did he not deal a deathblow with his sword? Was he a fool, thinking to save her and sacrifice his chance?

No, Twilight realized with a shudder. He must have seen Betrayal’s failure, and surmised that Blackwyrm would fail as well. Neither could slay Tlork. And instead of running, as he should have, he had killed himself in a vain play to save her.

Twilight wanted to scream, but a hand came out of the darkness and covered her mouth. Another arm encircled her torso, under the shoulders, and she could do nothing but watch Tlork and Gargan struggle, heavy muscles one against the other, as

her limp form was dragged back through the shadows. She saw the troll and goliath approaching the edge of the chasm Gestal’s spell had torn, pushing and pulling…

Then Gargan’s foot slipped, his leg crunched into the stone, and he went over, pulling Tlork with him. Twilight could do nothing but gasp, tasting leather pressed against her lips, as she watched her last ally plummet to his death.

“Foxdaughter!” he shouted as he fell. Twilight saw Betrayal, its gray edge burning, spinning, end over end, up from the chasm. It clattered, sparking, to the floor. With his last act, Gargan had thrown her the sword.

Then something struck her head sharply, she felt wetness, and darkness fell.

Gestal watched Tlork fall in to the depths of his blood pool. The troll and the goliath still fought, wrestling and punching, all the way into the darkness.

He didn’t bother to watch their inevitable demise. Gestal was much more interested in Twilight. The pool couldn’t find her—she had her Shroud—-but Gestal knew she had returned. Somewhere.

Well enough, he decided. She shall be along presently.

With a hand that had only three and a half fingers—the others were still growing—he swirled the bowl of blood. The image died.