Lady of Poison (22 page)

The cleric had some experience in gauging the power and threat of supernatural entities. His sense of the queen’s power and level of abilities warned him that to fight the demon there, in the area that she infested and controlled so thoroughly, would prove a suicidal task.

Marrec spoke aloud, “Tell us your condition. We won’t agree to it before you specify what you expect from us. If you’re willing to negotiate in the first place, we must have something you need.”

The voice was silent for a few moments. The icy creatures crowding Marrec and the others shifted their weight ominously.

The Queen Abiding finally intoned, “This is the condition on which I’ll allow you to depart alive and without harm: find for me the token of my freedom and pledge to return it to me here.”

“What’s that?”

“It is the only remaining wall, spiritually speaking, that keeps me bound herein.”

Marrec stalled, “We wouldn’t know where to begin to search.”

“I’ll tell you exactly where it is. It lies here, in the ruins of Under-Tharos. Those frail-brained Nentyarchs squatted on it along with all the other leashes and tokens that bind us who remain locked in darkness. My children tell me that the last Nentyarch has fled, and another has assumed control at the center.”

“The Rotting Man,” supplied Elowen.

“That’s right, that’s what you call him, don’t you? Talona’s lap dog. He visited much pain on me, all unknowing, when he found my token of control when he first arrived. I owe him much for that. Then, like a dupe, he allowed my token to be stolen, ignorant of its true purpose. He’s since [earned of his foolishness.” The voice chuckled.

“I bet you know where your token now lies.” “Of course.”

Marrec sighed, then said, “You can’t send one of your servants to run off and collect it?”

“Think a little before you speak. If it were that simple, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The token is meant to control me. I cannot exert my power to retrieve it, and my power enlivens and encompasses my ‘children’ who surround you.”

“We could get this thing back for you, I’m guessing?”

“Another point for the human, and I thought you a turgid thinker,” said the voice. “Listen closely. My token lies in a portion of this sprawling complex known as the Sighing Vault. It lies not too far from here, no more than a day of travel through Under-Tharos for those who stride on two legs. My senses cannot penetrate too deeply, but I can feel it lying at the center of the Sighing Vault. It glows like a splinter in my mind, taunting me with its closeness.”

Ususi asked, “Is there anything you can tell us about the Sighing Vault? Did the Nar wizards use it for safekeeping of their secrets, as the name implies?”

The blot bobbed, somehow miming a shrug with its formless darkness. “The Vault has its guardians. Kill them for me, and I’ll be doubly grateful to you.”

Elowen said, “We are already in the middle of a quest. We don’t have time for a distraction like this. These ruins are mazelike. You could be sending us on a task that will take days or months.”

“Perhaps, but consider the alternative: I suck the life out each and every one of you with a breath.”

A coldness slipped then into Marrec’s heart, ignoring his clothing, his flesh, his will. It was a sentient hollowness, burrowing into him. He fell, catching himself ‘ against the cold ice of the slab containing the queen. The pain of that chill contact was as nothing compared to the blizzard of dissolution in his soul. Then, like a cat

removing its paw from a stunned mouse with which it played, the cold vanished.

As he straightened, Marrec saw his friends begin to rise, or uncurl, from fetal positions. All of them had received the same treatment, simultaneously. Impressive. Terrifying. They were completely in the queen’s power.

“You won’t be so foolish to refuse me, will you?”

Marrec cleared his throat, tried to answer-After a moment, he tried again, “We might accept but die in the attempt to retrieve your trinket.”

Laughter. Then, “I’ll take that chance. If I kill you, then I’ll never know, will I? So answer me. Do you agree to find the token of my freedom, wrest it from the Sighing Vault if you are able, and return it to me here?”

Gunggari gave him another shrug, shaky that time. Ususi looked unsure, but she was still shuddering from the queen’s demonstration of her power.

Elowen said, “Why not, Marrec? Better to avoid this fight, save our strength for the Talontyr.”

“What does this token look like?” questioned Marrec.

“You’ll know it when you see it, human.”

“All right, majesty. You’ve got yourself a deal.”

The voice thundered, “Excellent. My children, allow our friends to depart, and you—” a tendril of darkness separated from the blot in the ice, its tip wavering, then pointing like an arrow toward one of the ice demon—”You! You will accompany our new friends. Lead them to the Sighing Vault. Make sure that they do not try to back out of our agreement.”

The fiend indicated by the gesturing tendril coughed something incoherent.

Marrec and his group then numbered five.

The chill faded as the Queen Abiding and her icy court fell behind. An all-too-obvious reminder of the visit was embodied in the monstrosity that moved ahead, leading the way. The creature slid along the broken masonry and loose earth of the underground passage as if skating on the smooth surface of a frozen lake.

No one said anything. Marrec was silently grateful. Internally, he wondered if he had made the right decision in dealing with the icy demon. Perhaps they should have refused to find the token for the Queen Abiding. Perhaps she had somehow bluffed them all?

Perhaps, but what’s done is done, mused the cleric.

One good thing had come of his meeting with the formless blot caught in the ice. By comparison with the queen’s monstrosity, he wondered if

his own heritage was so terrible. The queen was to evil like ice was to cold, inevitable. Marrec knew himself well enough to determine that he had very little in common with that creature.

They traveled down a path of tumbled pillars, undifferentiated rubble, dark side passages, and gloomy chambers, some empty, others filled with silhouettes of alarming clutter. Strange sounds sometimes blew in from these darkened alcoves, causing the group to pause.

On a few occasions wooden doors, improbably sound and hardly rotted, proved to be barriers to forward progress, but only until their frigid guide once again moved forward to apply its hell-born brawn. Each such crash echoed away into the mazelike tunnels; sometimes the last, faintest echoes seemed to return, as if shaped into words or cries like a beast, or even screams. No one commented on that unsettling aspect of Under-Tharos, though Gunggari and Marrec exchanged worried glances with each occurrence. Neither was imagining the phenomena.

They broke out into a larger chamber. Stone obelisks poked up through shattered flooring in random collections, like clumps of grass in a garden. Marrec could detect no pattern to their arrangement. It seemed, indeed, that they had grown from the earth, though they were unmoving. Each obelisk was inscribed with cramped symbols, visible even from a distance, because a faint luminescence clung to the chisel marks.

Their demonic guide passed among the stones without a glance. They followed, walking the winding route chosen by their escort. Ususi threatened to loiter, her brows wrinkled as she studied an obelisk, but Elowen cupped the mage’s elbow and urged her on. A dozen doors, all stone, broke off the chamber to the right and left. Some were cracked, others completely fallen and crumbling on the floor, opening on lightless obscurity.

The chamber turned out to be more of a hall. The stone obelisks grew fewer, but in their place were great iron

blades, rusted and crumbling. Like the earlier stones, their arrangement seemed to follow no pattern the cleric could discern. Some of the blades reached up, grazing the high stone ceiling just visible in their light.

The hall finally reached its terminus at an arched opening. Stone valves lay broken and crumbled around the dark mouth. The demon skated past the fallen doors and through the arch without a pause, and those he led followed after.

Beyond was another hallway carved and dressed, but damaged by time. The smooth walls of the original tunnel were tumbled and breached. Strewn about the floor was loose rubble of the dilapidated hallway, bones, loose teeth, and patches of hide. A low susurrus of blended clicks, moans, and gurgles echoed from somewhere ahead. The sounds, or perhaps the evidence on the floor of recent habitation, gave the ice demon pause.

“What is it?” Marrec asked the demon, whispering.

The icy monster shrugged and said, “Never gone here before. Know the way, not the terrain, not the impediments.”

“Are we even close?”

“Close. Maybe,” responded the demon, before giggling.

“After you, then,” urged Marrec, motioning the demon ahead with his illuminated spear.

The demon giggled again then slid ahead. The thick rubble was enough to cause it to raise its paws, pushing off walls, and step over boulders. It was moving almost like a natural quadruped. Almost.

A shape stepped out of the darkness directly into the path of the demon. It was a misshapen humanoid with a single horn upon its head. Great claws hung from its ungainly hands like infestations. Saliva ran from its tusks, whetting its leathery hide.

The ice demon made to sidestep the sudden obstacle, but the newcomer, exploiting the demon’s lack of response, jumped onto the icy creature’s back with an ear-piercing howl of glee.

Answering howls rose from further back in the darkened hallway. The howls swiftly drew nearer. “Here we go,” sighed Elowen.

The hunter unsheathed her gift from the Nentyarch. A glimmer of emerald vigor played at its edges. Marrec heard Ususi begin chanting. Gunggari already had his dizheri in hand ready for anything.

Their guide twisted mightily, trying to throw the horned attacker from its back, but the horned monster’s claws found crevices in the ice, sinking in like pitons. The two began to tumble back and forth, grappling like miniature titans.

A group of smaller but similarly horned creatures broke into the light, some running on all fours, others sprinting on two legs. All were misshapen and horned. All were monstrous. None were of a type of creature Marrec had ever encountered or even heard described. Demons? He counted six, including the grappler.

Ususi ceased speaking and thrust one hand forward. A hail of sharp ice followed after, materializing at the behest of the wizard’s incantation. The storm of ice, composed of razor-sharp crystals so thick that they momentarily obscured vision, pelted the faces and bodies of the advancing creatures, including their guide. The temperature in the hallway fell several degrees in the aftermath of the potent spell. Their adversaries screeched their displeasure and pain.

Marrec, Gunggari, and Elowen ran forward on the tail end of the blizzard. The ice had bowled over the creatures, leaving welts and oozing wounds, but all remained breathing. They began to scramble to their feet with unholy vigor.

Marrec didn’t wait. He hurled Justlance directly into the gut of one creature. It squealed, slumping. Greenish fluid poured from the wound.

Gunggari and Elowen ducked past their chaperone demon and its attacker. The ice demon and the horned

attacker had become a blur of flashing arms and legs, claws and teeth, tusks and spikes. Normally such an exhibition would draw Marrec’s eye, but not then.

With a clatter of claws and hooves, the remaining four attackers surged forward.

Elowen engaged the foremost, Dymondheart pulsing in her grip like the live thing it was. Her foe was dismayed by the flashing green blade; a roundhouse slash to its neck lopped off the creature’s head before it could lay a single claw upon her.

At her side, Gunggari wielded his war club, facing off against two of the monsters simultaneously. His grip on the length of his dizheri was fluid and shifting, allowing him to attack with one hand then the other, sometimes poking, other times spinning and bashing with the full force of his extended arm and weapon length.

Marrec ran forward, screaming Lurue’s name as a battle cry. Justlance returned to him while he ran, and he used it to stab one of the creatures facing Gunggari. It pawed at him but continued to devil the Oslander.

“What are these things?” yelled Marrec.

Elowen ducked a clawed-tipped swipe of the last attacker and yelled, “Ogres, maybe—crossbred with something nastier.”

The light shed from Justlance pierced the darkness further, revealing two more of the “ogres.” Slinking up quietly, they roared as the light touched them and charged. Marrec snagged one with his spear. The other flashed past.

He backpedaled, keeping the one he’d distracted busy with Justlance’s tip. Ususi was a powerful wizard but fragile if undefended. Glancing back, he saw the wizard trace a pattern in the air before shooting her assailant through with sizzling bolts of fire. The monstrosity fell, but its violent momentum tumbled the bleeding, smoking body to within a foot of Ususi.

The two on Gunggari were working together, attempting to distract the tattooed warrior so that the other

could attempt a killing blow. Before Marrec could assist, Elowen lunged sidewise with Dymondheart, which strobed green for the tiniest moment. Where the blade brushed one of Gunggari’s attackers, the monster’s hide erupted in green flame. Screaming, the creature ran back the way it had come, beating at its side. A heart beat later, the Oslander dropped the other creature with a resounding blow from his war club.

Only three creatures remained, one on Marrec, one on Elowen, and the first and the largest still grappling with their chaperone demon. The horned ogre seemed to be getting the best of the fight. It was tearing away icy chunks, burrowing like a rodent in loose earth.

The Oslander called out his cry to battle as he turned and attempted to strike the horned ogre from the rear. Before Gunggari’s cry was fully formed, a clawed foot pis-toned backward directly into Gunggari’s neck. The man’s cry choked off, and he was down, unmoving.