Dragon's Tongue (The Demon Bound) (33 page)

Applause broke the silence to his back. Alaric turned, leaning against the invisible wall for support. Tane stood on the far side of the fire pit, clapping his hands.

“Huzzah!” Tane said in a mocking manner and started across the room. Alaric flicked his gaze back and forth, judging distances. The others spread out to block his way. “I must give you some credit for making an effort,” Tane continued. “But surely you’re not so foolish as to believe I would set up only one warding wall to keep you prisoner?”

Alaric feinted towards his left. A bandit suddenly filled the gap. He shifted right, and there was the other.”

“Come, there is no way for you to escape unless you can fly,” Tane said.

“No, I can’t,” Alaric said and took a deep breath.
But I can cast other spells here,
he thought. Quickly, he stretched mage senses, reaching for the essence in the fire pit and jerking it into the air.
“Loisg bhuail!”
he said.

Flames rose like a huge hand prepared to strike. The bandits hesitated and looked at Tane who did not even flinch as Alaric directed the fire spell at the bloodmage.

Tane suddenly stepped forward, closing the gap between himself and Alaric in a heartbeat. The flames smacked the floor where Tane had been at the very moment Tane lashed out with the back of his hand. The blow caught Alaric hard and flung him down. Before he could think of reacting, hands seized him and jerked him off the floor.

“And here I trusted you when you gave me your word,” Tane said and held up the scold’s bridle.

Alaric was powerless to keep that rancid leather-wrapped tongue from pressing down his own. He retched when the sour filth filled his mouth, but he could not spit it out any more than he could stop them from dragging him up to the tower and putting him into that dreadful chair where he awaited Tane’s next phase of torture.

THIRTY FOUR

“Etienne?” Fenelon’s breath ticked her ear and made her flinch. Etienne opened her eyes. Fenelon leaned over her, smiling. “Time to get up and go,” he said.

“Already?” she murmured. She had hardly closed her eyes when they came back from interrupting Turough’s sleep. Etienne had insisted she needed her own, and Fenelon had agreed.

“Dawn’s already on the horizon, love,” he said and kissed her cheek.

She sighed and dragged herself out of the comfort of the pillows to dress quickly. The whole time, she reminded herself this was all for Alaric’s sake. Then she fetched Shona from Dun Gealach, wanting her to join the search.

“It could be dangerous,” Fenelon said once he learned of the plan to let Shona accompany them.

“Shona can handle herself,” Etienne said. “Beside, the more of us there are, the better our chances of survival…”

Fenelon frowned. “A single, alert mageborn is more than a match for a rowdy band of bandits…”

“And their bloodmage master and his treacherous demon in the shape of a child?” she challenged. “I think that combination more than takes the odds out of a single mageborn’s favor, no matter how alert and clever he considers himself.”

Fenelon leered but argued no more. He gated them first to the village of Fallonscroft which sat half a league from Fallon’s Tower. Fenelon made his reasons clear. Tane would likely have far reaching wards. Better to find out if the locals knew anything first.

So they found themselves in a tavern called the Grey Man on the main road Fallonscroft. Actually the only road, Etienne grimly noted. Fallonscroft was rather small, not much more than two dozen cottages and a few outlying farms. Not even a palisade surrounded the place. Sheep and cattle roamed freely in the fields and the streets.

Fenelon did not act the least bit disturbed by all this. He set about making friends with the tavern’s lone customer, a smith who gave his name as MacLear. Everyone else had already gone out to work the forest or the fields.

“The ruins?” MacLear said when asked. He shrugged his great shoulders. Etienne smelled the burned scent of his plaidie mingled with sweat. “No one goes up tae the ruins, laddie. They be haunted.”

Fenelon thanked the man, gently pulling Etienne and Shona from their chairs.

“Worth checking,” he told them and borrowed horses so they could cover the distance without magic.

All well and good in Etienne’s opinion. The terrain proved rocky. Fallon’s Tower sat atop a broch whose old road had long ago disappeared from existence. They tied the horses just out of view, and Etienne sent mage senses cautiously scrying the ruins of the old rath. She felt nothing past the outer walls, as though the world within them possessed no hint of life. The touch left her uneasy.

“I don’t think he’s here,” she said.

“Better to be sure than not,” Fenelon said. He drew the sword he had brought and picked his way up the rise. Etienne followed. She was glad she had chosen a split skirt and sturdy boots. Shona held the rear guard, looking undisturbed to be forced into such a strenuous climb, but then, she was highland born and had likely done this most of her early life.

“Fenelon reached the first wall and motioned for the women to stay behind him as he crept along its moss-draped edge. He stopped at the old gate, peered around the edge then moved again. Ravens called from the rath. Etienne heard the skittering of field mice in the grass and saw evidence of a rabbit warren when several coney burst from the sedge and fled for holes.

The building before them looked more ancient than most. Parts of its walls had fallen out. Holes gaped in others. Wind picked its way through those openings and moaned.

So much for spirits
, she thought wryly.

Fenelon reached the open remains of the door and paused. Etienne quietly joined him, peering around his shoulder.

There was nothing inside but a great hole where the floor once sat. Evidence of some monstrous blast could be found in the arrangement of stones around the hole and in the blackened patches not worn away by time. The holes depth yielded no call of magic that she could feel.

“As I said before, I don’t think he’s here,” Etienne said.

“I think you’re right,” Fenelon said. He picked up a bit of stone from the litter of many at his feet. It had been turned to glass by some great force. “But I would like to know what caused this. You know, it would be interesting to go down there and…”

“Later,” Etienne said and tugged his arm.

He tossed the shard into the hole. She heard it clatter after a long silence. With a sigh, Fenelon followed her back to where the horses waited.

One down
, she thought.
Three more to go.

~

Tane was gentle once Alaric ceased to throw up walls of defense. The bloodmage’s intrusion into Alaric’s mind that morning was little more than a leisurely stroll. Only when Alaric fought back did he experience pain enough to make him ill.

He hated it. Hated the blithe way the bloodmage pushed and pulled the memories of Alaric’s past, like a discerning customer picking at a merchant’s wares. That Tane sought specific memories became clear. He wanted songs, and not just any song. Each time he found a memory of Ronan, Tane pounced on it like a cat. But as soon as it proved something he had no use for, Tane moved on to other places. Alaric could do no more than watch.

At length, Tane stopped. He looked weary both inside Alaric’s mind and in person. Such a lengthy exploration of Alaric’s mind exhausted the bloodmage. Alaric was just relieved to have the bloodmage withdraw his own essence from Alaric’s mind, for bits and pieces of Tane’s own life surfaced in the sharing. Cruelties and abominations abound. The presence of blood taint made Alaric ill. But wearing the scolds bridle forced him to fight the sensation. A hint of bile burned in his throat. He so wished they would take the damn thing off…let him have a drink of water.

Tane merely opened his eyes, smiled and gently patted Alaric’s cheek where tears mingled with sweat. The bloodmage banished his circle and slipped away.

“I shall rest now,” Tane said. “Vagner will keep watch.”

Vagner narrowed angry eyes at Tane. The demon child sat off in one corner, making short work of a foolish rat. “I need to feed,” the demon said. “I’m famished.”

“You need only what I tell you that you need,” Tane said. “And you had a whole sheep yesterday. Just where did you put it?”

“This body may not have demon powers or size, but it still has demon needs,” Vagner said, dropping the rat and lurching upright. “What good am I to you in this form? What use will I be if I starve to death? I want my old form and I want to…”

Alaric could feel Tane’s abrupt draw of power. So could the demon. Too late, alas. Vagner made a feeble attempt to throw the child’s body aside. Though Tane’s lightning spell was mild compared to some Alaric had seen, it fulfilled its purpose. The bolt struck Vagner in the side. The demon’s shriek was that of an injured child as the creature was thrown against the wall and dropped to the floor.

“Stop it,” Alaric screamed as best he could, but the words came out as little more than foolish gibbering, which Tane ignored. The bloodmage crossed the chamber to tower over the trembling demon.

“Keep that up and you will be of no use to me in any form,” Tane said. “In fact, once I am a god, you will be of no use to me at all. Now, don’t tempt me to anger again, monster. Stay here as you were told and keep an eye on him while I sleep.”

Tane turned and stalked from the room. The bandits followed at a slower pace and closed the door.

Slowly, Vagner pushed the child form off the floor, using the wall as a support. The blackened shift was hanging unnaturally, and a patch of burn skin showed. The demon’s pain made itself obvious in the way Vagner moaned and whimpered and clutched the injured side. Angry eyes turned towards Alaric.

“This is your fault,” the demons hissed and hobbled across the room towards the narrow table.

“My fault?” Alaric murmured around the tongue depressing his own. “How?”

A hint of amusement twitched the demon’s face, but the eyes never lost their rage.

“Just give him what he wants,” Vagner said. “Maybe then he’ll let us both go free.”

“I can’t give him what I can’t remember,” Alaric said, and new tears streamed down his cheeks; tears of regret, remorse and frustration.

The demon merely crawled only the table, lying there curled in a small ball of misery and looked away.

~

Noon sun cut holes through the layers of grey clouds and set aglow patches of verdant heather and the ruins of Greenwall Temple.
A village once stood here,
Etienne thought.
And a temple of Diancecht.
But the histories showed that a mere generation ago, a lone Haxon raiding party made it across Tamnagh and Elenthorn via the river ways to reach this point. Here, they had pillaged and burned and killed every man walking while taking every woman and child hostage. An army of Keltorans aided by one of the mageborn, swept in and drove the few Haxons they did not manage to kill back into their mountainous homeland. Those women and children who managed to survive the ordeal saw no reason to remain. So the village and its temple were abandoned.

As before, Fenelon led the way. They approached the ruins with caution, stretching mage senses in search of any hint of blood essence. But as before, they found nothing outside of the void.

This void seemed more purposeful in Etienne’s opinion. And she and Shona followed Fenelon through the ruins Etienne was struck by the regularity of this void’s parameters. The boundaries were straight and even, rectangular and just below ground level. Stairs to the back of the temple nave led into its dark depths. Fenelon lit torches with flint and steel. Magic fire and mage lights were useless here. Even mage senses would be helpless. Etienne motioned for Shona to stay on the upper level and keep watch, then followed Fenelon down into those eerie depths.

The stairs turned back upon themselves to form a descending square and stopped in a rather large room. Broken cots and tables and pieces of wooden partitions were scattered. Remnants of bandages rotted on the floor. The chamber felt cool and lifeless.
A hospice,
she thought. The healers had obviously used this as a sick ward.

She and Fenelon spent the better part of an hour searching each chamber that ran off this one. But they found nothing. No sign of Alaric, or any other form of life, save a number of eight-legged arachnids.

“So sad,” Etienne said softly. “To think this was once a place of healing.”

“Now a nest for spiders,” Fenelon said as he pulled another web from his sword which he had used to hack through them. “Did you notice those stone pillars in the main corners? The ones with the runes?”

“Yes,” she said. “They vaguely resemble warding glyphs.”

“Exactly,” Fenelon said. “A rather neat little mystery to ponder. This place was built well before the healers set up their temple. Makes you wonder what the Old Ones used it for. It’s too large and open to have been a prison.

Etienne shrugged. “There looks to have been a gallery on the upper half that was filled in to support the temple walls,”

“I noticed that too,” Fenelon said. “Fascinating. Wish we had more time.”

“Well we don’t,” Etienne said. “We’d better go on to the next place on the list.”

“Morrigan’s Tower,” Fenelon said. “That will take some effort to get to. I’ve never been there. Closest I can get us is the village of Spaewood a couple of leagues to the south.”

“What about Dun Ferlie’s Tower?” she said.

“It’s the other way from here,” Fenelon said. “Morrigan’s Tower is close enough to the borders of Mallow to appeal to someone trafficking in demons.”