The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril (54 page)

“Get away from me!” Ivy cried.

“You are my experiment, and there is still
much I can learn from you,” Demont said. “Now come.”

“I won't! I'm not your experiment. I'm one of
the
Chosen
, I'm one of the ones who . . . “ Ivy began, her
voice trailing off and a familiar, empty look drifting into her
eyes.

Demont's fingers were wrapped tightly about
the largest half of Ivy's crystal. All of her thoughts stopped
cold, save for the deepest, least controlled of her feelings.
Demont pointed firmly toward the portal. Ivy slowly began to march
forward. There was no hesitation. There couldn't be. There was only
obedience. Her face twitched slightly.

Lain's blade had been hard at work. The
monsters were sturdy, but nothing that they had to defend
themselves with could withstand the bite of his sword for more than
a few swipes. Despite this, the sheer number of beasts attacking
had kept him at a stand still. Worse, the number continued to grow
as the flow of creatures dropping through the portal continued. Of
course, Desmeres’ blade had more tricks up its sleeve. The gleaming
crystals, having filled to bursting on the dark power that dwelled
within his foes, were turned to the spell Deacon had identified as
strength.

At first nothing seemed to change. He felt as
he always had. The weapon felt no lighter. Only when he put blade
to foe did the effects of the spell become obvious. His sword
passed through the thick shelled horror before him without
hesitation, and without resistance. A second and third swipe left
the three largest threats in pieces. A quick leap, one that carried
him far further than he'd intended, landed him well behind the
crush of enemies. His eyes turned to Bagu. The general seemed to be
waiting for him.

Twin black bladed swords were raised
defensively. Lain leapt again, now familiar with the extent of his
strength. The agile assassin soared through the air, pivoting
himself and angling his sword. When the time was right he brought
the weapon down, the lightning fast motion adding its momentum to
his own. Bagu's swords were crossed before him. The three blades
met. The air in the shallow valley rang with a screeching far
louder than any of the beasts that filled it. A moment later Lain
was on the ground. A moment after that the tips of Bagu's swords
fell as well, sliced through.

The general lurched back. The weapons he
held, weapons that had been able to withstand anything that had
been turned against them on a dozen worlds, had barely managed to
deflect the assassin's blow enough to spare him its cut. Indeed,
the front of his breast plate, already damaged by Lain once, now
bore a long new gash. Bagu's flesh had been spared by a hair's
breadth. He looked to the malthrope only to see another slash aimed
at him. A reflexive bit of magic sent Lain sliding back. In the few
heartbeats that the distance had afforded him, Bagu uttered a dark
incantation and his weapons were restored. Then he uttered another
one. When Lain's weapon met Bagu's again, both blades held.

“You've been given magic, assassin. You think
that it will give you what you need to defeat me. I shall teach you
how wrong you are,” Bagu hissed.

Lain fell back, shredded a few of the lesser
beasts to restore his weapon's strength, and clicked a new spell
into completion. Once again it was the world that seemed to be
affected, not he. The writhing mass of demons, the massive
monsters, and the General before him all slowed to near stillness.
When he moved, Lain almost felt as though he was in water. The air
felt thick, pressing against him. He charged in, thrusting his
sword forward, but an instant before it made contact the general's
weapon shot down, knocking it away.

“There is nothing you can do that I cannot,”
Bagu said, matching the spell’s effects.

The general traced an arcane symbol in the
air and hissed a few more placeless words. The already dense air
took on a tingling, living quality. Lain could feel it begin to
burn and tear at him, not via some tangible wave of magic that
could be deflected by his weapon, but directly. It was weak now,
but each moment it grew stronger. Worse, he knew instantly that the
slow onset of the spell’s effects were due to the effects of the
spell he'd activated in the sword. The faint and fading glow of the
weapon's gems assured him that if he did not cut this attack off at
its source soon, he would be fully in its grasp with nothing to
defend him. He rushed at Bagu, determined to end the foe before his
spell could take full effect.

There was a creaking snap, like the felling
of a half rotten tree, and one of the legs of the spider-like
creature dropped to the ground. Instantly Myn turned her attention
to the veritable thicket of lesser limbs that had been making
steady progress at scraping their way through her hide. A blast of
flame and a few mad rakes with her claws cost the creature's back
nearly its full compliment of waving feelers, the narrow things
snapping like twigs. Suddenly a rapier sharp talon carved a shallow
gash down Myn's back. The dragon turned to find the monster had
coiled one of its primary legs beneath itself and up the other side
in hopes of skewering the fire-breather. Myn simply clamped her
jaws on the groping point, dug her claws into the half roasted
back, and unfurled her wings. The vast sails began to beat at the
air, tugging the already unstable creature further and further off
balance. The beast struggled to free its trapped leg and stumbled
to right itself. All it managed to do was bring those beasts
nearest to its feet to swift and sudden ends. Finally the monster
toppled over, falling in a slow, flailing arc. Myn leapt free at
the last moment and hung in the air as the fragile creature
collapsed like a bundle of dry reeds and finally became still as
the swarm of smaller creatures flowed over it.

Ether had assumed her stone form and was
industriously tearing at one of the long seams along the side of
the creature she fought. The beast's hide had withstood flame and
cost the shape shifter much of her strength, but the tendrils were
vulnerable. That meant that it was the skin and the skin alone that
could stand against her attacks. All that she had to do was find an
opening, a point of entry. Impossibly, the beast seemed to have no
eyes, save the bulbs at the end of the tentacles, and no mouth.
Those things that served as a beast's traditional points of
weakness were wholly missing. That left her with the task of
creating her own, and as stone fingers made slow progress to that
end, the entire surface of the creature began to flutter and
ripple. Finally the seam split. Ether shifted to fire and took to
the air. The other seams were splitting as well and one end of the
beast was curling back. Like the blooming of some horrid flower,
the beast opened. A bundle of tendrils lashed about inside what
could now only be a mouth. Ether rushed inside.

In an instant the monster snapped shut again.
For a few long moments there was nothing, then came the sound. The
beast seemed to have no means of making such a sound, but still it
came, a subdued, hissing, sizzling noise. The sound was accompanied
by a glow that began at the seams, brilliant orange. The barbs on
its surface soon took on the same radiant glow. Finally the glow
became more general, spreading across the beast's skin until the
whole of the creature shone a smoldering red color, like a paper
lantern. The glow faded as patches of the beast's flesh darkened to
black. A blazing orange form, for the moment surpassing even the
portal in brightness, burst from inside and watched with grim
satisfaction as the blackened husk cracked and crumbled away. The
glowing form then shifted to stone and plummeted into the throng
below her with the force of a battering ram.

“You should have left me to one of your
allies, Ether or Lain. Someone who would have done what needed to
be done. Instead you take me for yourself,” Epidime mocked,
assaulting Myranda with mystic attacks that, to his mild surprise,
she was managing to fend off. “What can you do? The Chosen have not
marked
this
body. Nothing can chase me from it while it
still serves my purposes. Considering that my purpose is to torture
you, I assure you, I do not intend to relinquish control until
there is nothing left of your father.”

“No!” Myranda cried, lashing out.

She held out her hand and wrenched Epidime
aloft with her mind.

“I will do . . . what I
must
do,”
Myranda struggled through tears.

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?
Regardless, you are fooling no one,” he jabbed. “You won't kill
your own father. He is the last link you have to your life, your
history. Besides, you know it would do you no good.”

Myranda scoured her mind for anything she
might be able to use to take her father out of the fight. Something
had to exist that would render the body unusable for Epidime but
would leave it whole. She lobbed sleep, paralysis, and a dozen
other spells at Epidime, but she felt them fizzle and die. He
seemed to raise defenses against them, one by one, that made the
blasted spells useless. Her maddened mind finally came upon
something that slipped through. It was clear from Epidime's
expression that he was ill prepared to deal with it.

“Well now . . . aren't we the clever one,”
Epidime struggled to say.

The effects were subtle at first. Epidime's
struggles slowed. He became heavier. As Myranda lowered him to the
ground the spell finally took full effect. His complexion grayed.
His body turned to stone. After a few moments of stillness, a
twisted shadow separated from the petrified form. First it launched
itself at Myranda. There came the intense and familiar sensation of
the general attempting to force his way into her mind. It only
lasted for a moment. Then the shadow whisked away, effortlessly
shattering the shield Myranda raised. The wizard rushed after it,
willing the protective stones aside to allow her to escape, then
forcing them back in place, in hopes of protecting the stone figure
of her father left behind.

Ivy had been carefully navigated toward the
portal, and was very nearly there. Demont was treating her
carefully, as though he was afraid of damaging her. As such, the
creatures surrounding her were ordered to give her a wide berth.
One creature was venturing near, and was not responding to his
unspoken commands.

“Back!” he ordered.

The beast, a small mass of legs and snapping
jaws, broke into a run. Demont swiftly retrieved a dagger-like tool
from his belt and raised it. The creature collided with the
general. Its jaws first closed around the gleaming crystal
extractor, crushing it to powder. It then turned and snapped at the
crystal in Demont's other hand, but Ivy's blade caught it in the
back. Both Ivy and the rogue beast released a cry of agony. The
beast writhed and struggled, finally exploding into a burst of
wind. Ether launched Ivy back and turned to Demont, but he thrust
the crystal that controlled Ivy into Ether's swirling form. The
ravenous stone tore at her more intensely than any of the crystals
she'd encountered before. She began to shift to stone and stumbled
back, taking the stone with her.

The half shifted form lurched away,
collapsing to the ground and clawing at the now fully stone abdomen
that had closed around the offending crystal. When she finally
managed to reach it, she pulled the ravenous thing free. The
strength to move quickly wicked away with her fingers still closed
around the broken gem. Demont got to his feet and stalked over to
the paralyzed form. He pulled the gem from her grip and retreated
quickly.

“Destroy it!” he ordered the surrounding
beasts.

Instantly the stone form was buried beneath a
wave of creatures.

“To the portal,” he ordered Ivy.

She turned, but lingered.

“To the
portal
,” he commanded,
brandishing the gem.

Something was wrong. He looked to the
familiar crystal. It seemed less lustrous than it should be, less
transparent. Before his eyes it faded to a dull stone color. The
same exact color and texture Ether's body had been. An instant
later it rushed into a gust of air, accompanied by an identical
burst from beneath the mount of attacking beasts. The wind reformed
into Ether, madness in her eyes and the true crystal in her hands.
She hurled the offending gem with the force of a hurricane, sending
the faintly gleaming fragment nearly to the southern horizon.
Demont's eyes jumped to Ivy. The creature was herself again, eyes
locked on him and darkness sweeping in around her. Before he could
manage a command, spoken or mental, the malthrope holstered one of
her blades and wrapped her fingers around his throat, hosting him
high.

“Call off your beasts or I slash your throat
now,” Ivy hissed, the blackness of hate spreading over her, forging
her still brandished blade to a needle point.

“If you don't kill me, the others will for
betraying them by calling off the beasts,” Demont croaked.

Ivy pressed her blade to his throat, a
trickle of black blood dripping down.

“I promise you, it will be cruel. It will be
torture, and it will still be better than you deserve,” she
growled.

“They will be crueler,” Demont gasped.

“So be it . . . “ Ivy said, a hideous
satisfaction in her voice.

She drew the blade slowly, opening the slice
ever so slightly. As she did, she saw herself in the reflection on
her stained blade. She saw the darkness in her eyes. The madness.
She withdrew her blade.

“No . . . no. You aren't worth it. You aren't
worthy
of my hatred. I will not allow you to draw that out
of me. I won't become what you wanted me to be,” she
proclaimed.

She turned to the portal, just steps away,
and threw him through its border. He struggled to his feet. Above
his head was the black triangle, the gateway between the
worlds.