Dragon's Tongue (The Demon Bound) (58 page)

SIXTY ONE

Alaric’s agony swept into Vagner, filling the demon with the sweet pain of remorse. While as a demon, he did not know true grief, he felt Alaric’s all the same, and it turned something inside the demon, opening feelings he had never borne before. Demons did not cry, he told himself, but there were tears on his cheeks, hot and salty as any a human could bear.

“Oh, how utterly sad and pathetic,” Tane said with a sneer. “Vagner, fetch the Dragon’s Tongue while I finish off this foolish love-struck bard for good…”

Vagner hesitated.

“Well?” Tane snapped and glared at the demon. “What are you waiting for, monster?”

Vagner frowned. “I want no part of this, Tane. Kill me if you wish, but you can fetch the damned tongue yourself…”

“Disobey me, will you, monster!” Tane snarled and lashed at Vagner through his True Name.

The demon felt little more than a sting, but it was more than enough to give fire to his own rage.

“You!” the demon hissed. “You are the only monster here. You would destroy everyone and everything in your path just so you can be a god. Well, I will not help you. Fetch the tongue yourself, if you can.”

“What do you mean, if I can?” Tane snarled and rushed toward the well. “Very well, I will fetch it for myself, and bring the wrath of Na’Sgailean on you as well as the rest…”

But as Tane’s foot crossed the outermost of the six concentric circles that marked the floor around the well, rings of light rose. And as he touched the well itself, lightning struck him from the rim and threw him back. He landed on the ground, cursing in anger and pain.

“You and I are not meant to be here,” Vagner said. “Remember? The magic does not like us, and you have destroyed your one chance to gain that
precious
artifact.”

Tane crawled to his feet and glanced across the way where Alaric knelt, holding Shona close.

“Not yet, I haven’t,” Tane said. “Bring him here…”

“I cannot hurt him, remember,” the demon said. “You will have to fetch him yourself.”

“Pah!” Tane snapped and started around the circle’s edge. “Then leave, demon, for I have no more use for you.”

“Just like that?” Vagner said and moved into Tane’s path. “What happen to all of your glorious and terrible threats, manling?

“Get out of my way,” Tane said. “I need him to fetch the tongue, and you are not going to stop me.”

“I will not let you hurt him,” the demon snarled

With that, Vagner increased his size so he towered over Tane. The bloodmage merely frowned up at the demon.

“I am not the least impressed, and you will not stop me,” Tane said.

Once more, he lashed again at Vagner through the demon’s True Name, and this time, the pain penetrated to the core. Vagner shrieked in rage and went to his knees, crying, “Alaric, help me! Make me kill him, Alaric”

“Help you kill me?” Tane said through gritted teeth. “He cannot help you, demon. He is no match for me…He has neither the power nor the knowledge to use you against me.”

“He may not have the power on his own, Dark One, but I do…”
Alaric suddenly said.

The voice—the very inflection of the words—was not Alaric at all. Vagner managed to turn his head and look over his shoulder as Alaric gently laid Shona on the stones and rose to his feet. The youth stretched forth his hand, and Vagner could see the essence of the “other” in the fire that filled Alaric’s eyes. It was not just Alaric’s essence that took command now, but that of Ronan Tey. He wove a protective spell that rushed over demon in a torrential flood. Tane’s bond was melted away with cool relief, as Ronan and Alaric ripped away the last of Tane’s painful control.

“No!” Tane said. “This cannot be. You are dead!”

“And Alaric set me free of the bondage to which you condemned me,” Ronan said. “He has been my host since that night in the keep where you would have left him for dead. And now, the time has come for my revenge.”

“No!” Tane snapped, and ripping at the demon’s essence, he shouted,
“Saighiud buail!”

An arrow of power launched itself across the way.
“Adhar gleidh,”
Ronan said, and the bolt was deflected harmlessly.

“This cannot be! I will have the Dragon’s Tongue, and you will not stop me…”

“By your True Name, Vagner, we order you to destroy Tane,” Ronan said, and a vengeful smile curled Alaric’s lip.

Vagner stood upright and smiled malevolently as he turned back to Tane.

“Your turn,” the demon said.

“No!” Tane shouted and called a bolt of lightning, casting it at Vagner as the demon lunged for the bloodmage. Vagner dodged the bolt and continued at Tane. From the corner of his eye, he saw the bolt fly high and strike the far walls of the cavern. There was a blast and a crumble of stone as a section of the wall fell in from the funnel of the volcano.

“I am your master,” the bloodmage said, backing around the circle to keep the distance to cast spells on his side.

“I have
two
other masters,” Vagner said with a sneer. “And they two are more powerful than the one. Oh, you have no idea how long I have dreamed and hoped for this moment.”

Vagner lunged again, raking at the bloodmage with claws. Tane shifted directions, drawing a small dagger from his boot and shouting the words of a spell. The dagger blade suddenly elongated into a sword, and he lashed at the demon’s claws. Vagner moved out of range, sensing the magic in the blade.
My True Name is in that spell.
By the Barbed One’s Tail Hook. The blade was demon-marked.

“Ha, not so brave now are you, demon.” Tane said and charged.

Now it was Vagner who retreated as the blade lashed at him, seeking some target. The demon did not even dare strike back, for if that blade severed so much as a single claw, the demon would be destroyed. He could do nothing more than dodge and flee as he was forced into the concentric circles where the light still glowed. With a cry, the demon drew his darkness closer and thicker, for the light was trying to burn him.

“Now, you will fetch me the Dragon’s Tongue!” Tane shouted, “or I will make haggis out of you, monster…”

“No,” Vagner hissed through his pain. Oh, yes, there was pain. The blinding pain of white light grew stronger as he approached. But he could not get away, and as he neared the well, those jags of lightning lashed at him as well. He was thrown back towards Tane who readied his blade.

“Not so fast, Tane!” Ronan called in Alaric’s voice, and a blade of fire, solid as any steel, cut across the path and parried the demon-marked blade.

Tane turned to counter too late. Try as he did to cut down the youth now lunging at him, Tane missed, and the blade of fire slashed across his extended wrist. He screamed as it was severed and cauterized by the fiery steel. The demon-marked blade clattered to the ground with his hand still clutching the hilt, and shifted back into a dagger.

“Go ahead, kill me!” Tane snarled, clutching his stump to his chest.

“Ah, as much as we would like to, Tane, we do think there is another who has a more powerful claim to that task…” He stepped away and smiled. “Vagner…”

“No!” Tane shouted and struggled to rise, but Vagner was already there. The demon’s tail lashed out and seized up the bloodmage, jerking him off the ground and bringing him closer. The poisonous barb hovered just inches from Tane’s face. “No, you cannot!” Tane snapped and raised his single hand, calling pain with Vagner’s True Name. The demon stiffened as it lashed at him and coursed through him, but for every nerve Tane stroked, Ronan countered with soothing strength. “No!” Tane called.
“Dealanach mhor buail!”

He had aimed the lightning at the demon’s head, and it was by the merest of fractions the demon dodged it. The bolt was tremendous, and even as it skimmed past, Vagner felt the sting of it. But he would not let its presence deter him. His jaws suddenly spread wide and closed over Tane’s head. There was a muffled shriek before Vagner bit down hard. Ah, warm flesh and life, he thought, and let his hunger rule as he swallowed Tane whole.

But Tane’s death did not stop that bolt from crashing into the top of the arches, and where it struck there was a sudden explosion of marbled stone. Pieces shot high into the air, striking the fragile walls of the inner column of the volcano shell. And suddenly there was an ominous rumble.

Horns, not again,
Vagner thought and turned.
Looks like it is time to get out of here.

~

Alaric was in a trance. When Shona took the bolt meant for him, it was all he could do to think. Then Ronan’s presence came over him like a wave, pushing and prodding and filling Alaric’s senses with that cinnamon bitterness so that Alaric had no choice in his weakened state to do anything but release Shona and rise to face Tane.

The rest was a blur, though he felt sure Ronan was behind it all. Ronan was awake and in command, and Alaric was a sleepwalker, working in tandem with the bard yet unable to control his own body. And Ronan…his essence burned with rage that felt inhuman. Alaric was sure Ronan had gone against Tane with some sort of blade the bard had called from the essence of this place.
I certainly could not have done that.

But now, the world was starting to shake, and it grew harder to stay on his feet.

“Damn,”
Ronan whispered.
“This was not supposed to happen…”

“What?” Alaric asked.

“We better leave…”

Leaving sounded good. Alaric took charge once more, pushing the bard’s essence back and stumbling over to Shona’s side. She had yet to move, and as near as he could tell, she wasn’t breathing. He was about to kneel down and lift her when a claw seized him around the middle.

“Time to go, little master,” Vagner said.

“No, wait, we can’t leave her…and what about Tane?”

“Tane was not as tasty as I hoped, but he went down better than that little monster on the cliffs, and I have no intention of leaving Shona here…” The demon lifted her in his other arm.

“But…we can’t just leave. The Dragon’s Tongue…”

“Is going to be difficult for anyone to reach, I imagine,” the demon said.

Alaric looked up. The rumbling had increased, and great chunks of the wall of the volcano were starting to fall inward. The light of the platforms increased in intensity, and rocks seemed to bounce off an invisible shield of air.

“I don’t know how long that will hold, and frankly, I’d rather not find out,” the demon said. “Now hold your breath and hold tight to me…”

Alaric barely got a lung full of air before the fetid darkness closed over him. He clung tight, growing dizzy and marveling at the speed with which the demon moved. Then suddenly, there was light again, and they were high over the hole and the river, and looking down, Alaric could see that the world below was starting to collapse inward.

And there was magic in the air. A great abundance, and none of it natural to this place. Alaric cringed against the demon and looked out at the wall around them.

At the far end, he could see some sort of platform on which men stood. Among them, the all too familiar figure of Turlough was standing with arms raised as though about to cast some spell. And under it all, as Alaric stretched mage senses, he could feel Etienne and Fenelon somewhere behind the wall of rushing water.

“Horns! Take me to them! Gate me there now!” Alaric cried.

“As you wish,” the demon said, and his darkness swirled around them once more, forcing Alaric to hold his breath again.