The Hammer and the Blade (3 page)

  Nix swallowed in a throat gone dry as an enormous, scaled, misshapen form lurched up, and Nix realized with horror that the lampreys were attached to the form at the shoulders.

  They were its arms.

  "What devil is this?" Egil said, raising his crowbar and taking a step back despite himself.

  The devil pulled the rest of its girth from the pit and stood heavily on the floor. The wrongness of its appearance put stinging bile in the back of Nix's throat. Foul fluid glistened on its scaled form. It stood on two legs as thick as temple columns. Muscles pulsed under the deep green scales of its torso. But where it should have had a neck, it instead had an enormous, toothlined hole that opened directly into its torso. Vertical slits in its chest, under the mouth, exhaled wetly. Its lamprey-arms writhed, the motion hypnotic, grotesque.

  "It's a devil, indeed," said Nix, recovering his wits. He'd seen illustrated guides to Hell's Eleven Pits. He knew a diabolical form when he saw it. He noted the grotesque organ hanging from between the creature's thighs. "And not a she-devil, we can be sure."

  The eyes of one of the lampreys focused on Nix, the others on Egil. The fang-lined mouths opened and closed, ichor dripping. The mouth in the creature's center opened in a prolonged snarl of hate.

  "That idol is to be mine, fiend," said Egil, and brandished the crowbar. "Now climb back into your pit ere I and Ebenor give you this to feed on."

  The creature shrieked and bounded toward Egil, its movement surprisingly rapid despite its size and shambling gait. Nix had two throwing daggers in hand and gone before the devil had taken three steps. Both hit the creature and bounced off its scales. It barely seemed to notice.

  It lashed its arms at Egil, the teeth snapping. The priest held his ground and swung the crowbar twohanded at one of the onrushing arms. It connected with a dull thud across the lamprey's mouth. Teeth and dark ichor sprayed. The other arm caught Egil in the side so hard it nearly folded him in half. The impact drove the priest to the ground and sent him sliding across the floor. He dug the crowbar into the floor to stop his slide, the friction spraying sparks.

  The devil lurched toward the prone priest, arms writhing, teeth snapping.

  Nix rushed toward it from the side, throwing his hand axe as he did. The weapon hit the devil squarely in the midsection and again bounced off the scales. The devil roared with anger and Nix ducked under a backhand strike from the lamprey arm, darted in close, and swung his falchion two-handed at the abomination's thigh.

  He might as well have struck stone. His blade rang off the creature's scales and the jarring impact numbed his arms. The devil kicked him in the chest and sent him flying across the chamber. He hit the ground in a heap, the breath knocked from him, unsure if he'd broken any ribs.

  The ground vibrated with the devil's heavy tread as the creature left off Egil and charged toward Nix. Nix rode adrenaline to his feet, wincing from the pain in his sternum. He parried the attack of one of the lampreys, his arms tingling from the force of the blow. He ducked under a blow from the other lamprey and unleashed a flurry of overhand slashes and cross-strikes. His weapon struck home often, but his blade would not bite the creature's flesh. A blow to his head nearly knocked him senseless and he just ducked under the sucking fangs of the lamprey.

  Egil's sharp whistle drew his attention. The priest had scaled the largest statue of Abn Thahl and stood on its shoulder, beside the wizard-king's regal visage and sand serpent headdress.

  "Bring it to me!" he shouted in Urgan, his native tongue.

  Nix didn't know Egil's plan and didn't need to. He feinted an overhand slash with his falchion, causing the devil to hesitate briefly, and sprinted to his left across the chamber.

  "There!" Egil said, pointing with the crowbar at the ground before the statue. "Right there!"

  The slurping, snapping teeth of the lampreys sounded loud in Nix's ears. The heavy stomp off the devil's pursuit was right behind him. He expected the bite of one of those arms at any moment, but he proved the faster and made it before the statue.

  "Now what?" he shouted.

  "Turn and face it!"

  "What?"

  He had no choice. The devil was upon him, arms flailing, teeth snapping. Nix ducked, spun, leaped, his blade a whistling blur as he tried to keep the devil's attacks at bay and hold his ground. His blade hit home once, twice, but did little damage. A lamprey closed on his shoulder, tore through his shirt, and seized his bicep. Only his boiled leather jack spared his arm. The bite tore loose a chunk of leather but only scraped his skin. The creature withdrew, spat the leather to the floor, and snapped at him again. He dove aside, came up swinging but missing.

  "Do what you're going to do!" he shouted in Urgan.

  Another rumble sounded and Nix feared a second devil emerging from the pit.

  "Get clear!" he heard Egil shout, and looked up to see the large statue of Abn Thahl falling toward him and the devil. Egil was astride it, riding it down, crowbar in hand.

  Nix rolled to the side as the statue toppled and Egil jumped clear just before impact. Abn Thahl fell with a wet crunch atop the devil, and the pitch and volume of its pained scream caused Nix to wince.

  Egil appeared over Nix, favoring a leg, huge hand extended, and pulled him to his feet. Nix checked his shoulder – a few teeth punctures – and felt his ribs – no breaks so far as he could tell.

  Egil winced with each breath and the side of his face was already swelling. He'd not be able to see out of his right eye by the end of the day. Yet he smiled anyway. Blood stained his teeth.

  "I may need to keep one of these to hand from now on," he said, brandishing the crowbar. "Quite useful."

  "Aye."

  Behind them, the devil moaned, stirred under the crush of stone. Its large central mouth, open in a pained groan, expelled a stink that turned Nix's stomach. Its wet breathing sounded like a sodden forge bellows. Abn Thahl's stone eyes stared mournfully out of the pile at Egil and Nix.

  Egil spit a mouthful of blood. "Still living, eh? Tough bastard. Help me, Nix."

  The priest went to Abn Thahl's sarcophagus, took the idol from its top, and put it in his belt pouch without a second look. Nix knew they could turn that idol into thousands of gold royals back in Dur Follin.

  Egil worked the crowbar under the lid of the sarcophagus and levered it loose. Plaster seals audibly snapped. The stink of rot filled the air.

  Behind them, the devil exhaled a pained groan and stirred under the ruin. A block of the statue rolled off of it and fell with a crash to the floor.

  They slid the lid off to the side to reveal the corpse of Abn Thahl, his desiccated body dressed in the gold grave-goods of one of the wizard-kings of Afirion – a serpent crown, a beaten gold breastplate, a ring of turquoise, a necklace of pearl, a sea of triangular gold coins to pay his way through the afterlife. In his hand, he held an ivory wand capped with a pearl.

  Nix showed the dead no more reverence than he showed the living. He snapped off two of the wizardking's fingers as he took the turquoise ring and pried loose the wand.

  "The wand for me and the ring for some lucky lass."

  The priest pocketed a fistful of the gold coins, more out of principle than need. He eyed the wand skeptically. "Is it enspelled? What does it do?"

  "Indeed it is enspelled. I can feel that. And I don't know yet what it does." He winked and placed the wand in his satchel. "But finding out's the fun."

  "You and your gewgaws," Egil said, shaking his head. He nodded at the lid of the sarcophagus, then back at the devil. "The fiend still looks hungry, no? Let's give him a wizard-king to eat."

  Sweating and grunting, the two adventurers lifted the sarcophagus's lid and carried it across the chamber. Egil positioned them a few paces from the open mouth of the still-breathing devil.

  "I think it will die without aid," Nix said, noticing the shallower breathing. "Maybe we should just leave it?"

  "Where's the fun in that?" Egil said. "Do you want to be able to say that we slew a devil in Abn Thahl's tomb, or that we left one to rot under a pile of stone?"

  "A fair point," Nix said.

  "Good. Ready? One, two, three!"

  Holding the lid, they staggered as fast as they could toward the fiend. Nix released his end right before the devil's mouth, and, with a grunt and shout, Egil drove the lid half its length into the creature's gullet, shattering teeth and crushing flesh and whatever organs devils possessed.

  With that, the devil moved no more.

  "Done is done," Egil said.

  "Truth," Nix said.

  Together, the friends limped out of the tomb, out of the dark, with their prize and their lives. They passed the acid trap they'd barely escaped, the scythe blade trap they'd foiled, the stinking, now-rotting corpses of the undead guards they'd destroyed on their way in. They glanced on walls decorated with pictoglyphs. Nix couldn't read most of them but those he could were curses promising a dark death to any who dared defile the tomb of the mighty Abn Thahl.

  So much for that.

  To Nix, events seemed to have happened long ago, to someone else, not within the last hour to him. He felt apart from himself, oddly distant. Beside him, Egil bore the idol they'd won and eyed it from time to time as they walked.

  "Now that we have it," Egil said, eyeing the exquisite figurine, "it hardly seems worth all the fuss."

  Ahead, they saw the entry shaft to the tomb. Beams of light from the desert sun outside put a bright circle on the polished stone floor. An ocean of dust floated in the glow. So, too, did their rope, their way out. Before they reached it Nix turned to face his friend.

  "I think maybe it's time to stop. What say you?"

  "Stop what?"

  "Stop this. Tomb robbing. Traipsing across Ellerth for this and that."

  "You think?"

  Nix nodded. "I think."

  Egil stared at him for a long moment. He looked as if he might protest, but then his shoulders sagged and he relented.

  "Agreed. That was close and to no good end. If we'd died here, who'd know? Who'd care?"

  "Mamabird, I suppose," Nix said thoughtfully, thinking of the woman who'd fostered him as a child. "No other."

  Somber, they said nothing more as they walked the rest of the way to the rope. Before climbing, Egil took one last, long look at the idol, then at Nix.

  "Maybe I should toss it?"

  "Maybe you should," Nix agreed.

  Egil looked at the idol one last time, sighed, and reared back to throw. But before he loosed, Nix, struck with an idea, grabbed his arm.

  "Wait!"

  Egil kept his arm cocked. "Wait? If we're done, then let's be done with all of it."

  Nix smiled. "We are done, my large friend. But we're going to need that."

  "Again, why?"

  "Because we're going to use it and the rest of our coin to buy the
Slick Tunnel
. We know it's burdened with several liens."

  Egil looked skeptical.

  "Think about it," insisted Nix. "We clear the lien, become property owners, then later, who knows? Maybe a seat on the Merchants' Council in Dur Follin? Respectability. A voice in the city. No more tombs. Lives of ease."

  Egil pulled on his beard. "Respectability seems an ill fit."

  "A fair point, I concede. Still…"

  Slowly Egil lowered his arm. Nix could see that the priest wasn't in full agreement, but he only needed Egil to come halfway now. He'd come along fully later, as always.

  "Let's get out of here," Egil said, and returned the idol to his pouch. "I need beer."

  Nix nodded, and with that, they both began to climb back into the world. Nix felt lighter by half.

 

 

 
 

Rakon strode the halls of the manse, worry tearing a ragged edge on his emotions. The few servants who were allowed in this part of the dilapidated manse must have heard his approach and scurried out of his path, for he saw none. Floors creaked under his tread. Dust misted the air. He climbed the circular staircase of the manse's western tower until he reached the thick wooden door of his summoning chamber. He spoke the infernal words that suspended the protective wards, opened the door, and walked through into the room beyond.

  The roof on the corner of the house had been removed generations ago to expose the room to the elements, lay it bare to the sky and the lines of the world's power. The bare beams looked like ribs, as if the house were decomposing, though Rakon's sorcery preserved the wood and tile and plaster from rot.

  A waxing, gibbous Minnear peeked over the horizon line, casting the world in viridian. Kulven, the larger pale moon, managed only a waning crescent high above. Stars and planets winked in the vault of the sky, their relative locations a map of time and place to those, like Rakon, who knew how to read them. And they told him the Thin Veil was near. When Minnear turned full, the walls between worlds would be at their weakest.

  And still no herald.

  He looked to the sky-behind-the-sky and found Hell, a distant, blinking red dot in the central eye of the secret constellation, Vakros the Feeder. He stared at it in worry for a long while. The Pact would fail if not consummated during the Thin Veil. And he could not allow it to fail.

  On the wood-planked floor at his feet, inlaid lines of lead formed glyphs of power, the symbols with which he did his work: a thaumaturgic triangle, a pentacle, a source-oval for elementals, a binding circle. He walked over the arcana, heedless in his worry.

  In the center of the round chamber stood a stairway, supported by elaborate scaffolding. Thirteen stairs led up to a raised octagonal platform, atop which sat a simple metal lectern, rusted from exposure to the rain. He ascended the stairs, speaking in Infernal the number of each stair as he stepped over its riser. The recitation gathered energy to his locus. The wind picked up, gusted.