Paradigms Lost (32 page)

He laughed at that, a cheerful sound all the more macabre because it was so unforced and honest. “Why, not at all; a purely practical reason, I assure you. You see, fear, despair, and the anticipation of death are part of what strengthens the ritual. They are antidotes to life and endurance and all the other things that this shrine represents. The more I allow you to muse upon your end, the more you see your friends weakened and destroyed, and the stronger my final sacrifice will be. If it were just a matter of killing you, I’d have had you shot weeks ago.” The blade rested on my Adam’s apple, pricking my skin coldly. He drew a line down my throat. I felt a warm trickle of blood. “And your little seer friend, the girl . . . she, too, has a part to play in this.”

“She’ll see you for what you are, and get away.”

“I think not. We caught her earlier this evening, actually. I was anticipating the priest’s incapacitation this morning.” He raised the knife, brought it towards my right wrist.

A blurred motion swept past me, pushing the Colonel away in that instant. A confused set of motions later, the Colonel and the blur separated and stopped.

The Colonel regarded Kafan with tight-lipped amusement. “I must confess I didn’t expect you quite yet.”

Kafan answered in Vietnamese; the two squared off. “What do you hope to accomplish, boy?” the Colonel asked. “You failed the last time. What is the point of fighting me again?”

I began wiggling my hand towards my Swiss Army knife. If I could just get it out . . .

“This time you’re not coming back,” Kafan growled. He and the Colonel exchanged a blinding flurry of blows and blocks, neither of them touching the other.

“Really?” the Colonel said. He swept Kafan’s feet out from under him and hammered the smaller man’s face with his elbow. Kafan barely evaded the next strike and rolled up, throwing a punch at the Colonel that left a dent in the wall. They circled each other, Kafan spitting out blood as the Colonel’s grin widened, the teeth sharpening. “And why is that?”

“Because now I know what I am.”

The Colonel hesitated fractionally. Not quite as much as Kafan obviously hoped for, but even so Kafan’s instantaneous lunge nearly decapitated him. As it was, the Colonel’s preternatural speed pulled his head aside barely in time; Kafan’s claws scored his cheek with five parallel scratches. “Feh!
Kr’lm akh!
What difference is that, boy? So you were meant to be a Guardian! Without the Goddess behind your power, what are you but a simple thug, one whose blows are nothing more than stinging sand?” I’d hoped his words were boasting, but seeing how those five cuts were already healing, I realized that the Colonel was speaking the truth.

Kafan returned the Colonel’s grin, with interest, his form fully changed into a tailed, fanged humanoid. He straightened slightly and brought his arms into a strange, formal stance. “I don’t need the Goddess behind my power. All I need are two words, given to me by the Master who taught me.”

The Colonel tensed.

“
Tor
.”

At that word, the Colonel stepped back.

Not fast enough. Two slashing movements of Kafan’s hands, too fast to follow, ripped aside blocking arms and a third strike against the uniformed chest sent the Colonel flying into the wall with a combined sound of shattering stone and breaking bone.

While the Colonel slowly rose, bones forcing themselves back to their proper positions and healing in moments, Raiakafan sprinted to the section of the wall nearest me. “And
Shevazherana
,” he said. He pulled the sheath from the wall and drew out the immense, squat-bladed sword.

The Colonel’s eyes widened. His form began to shift and he leapt away, towards the exit.

Raiakafan stood there, impossibly having crossed the room in the blink of an eye. “No escape for you, monster. For my father—
this!
”

The first slash took off the changing form’s right arm. What was formerly the Colonel screeched and tried to stumble backwards. It ran into something, spun around to find itself facing . . . Raiakafan again. “For my children—
this!
”

The other arm flew off in a fountain of red-black blood. Screeching in terror, not a trace of humanity left on its bony, angular form, the thing flapped feeble wings and flew upwards, away from the implacable hunter. A hunter who disappeared from view while both the monster and I stared.

And once more, the creature that had been the Colonel rebounded from something that had appeared in its path. Falling along with the stunned demon, Raiakafan shoved it downwards so it landed prone on the grassy floor of the cavern. “And for my wife.”

The great sword came down once more. In a flash of black light, a flicker of shadow that momentarily erased all illumination, the thing dispersed.

A pile of noisome dust sifted away from Kafan’s sword, dust that slowly evaporated and turned into a smell of death and decay . . . and faded away to nothing.

“Get up, Father,” Kafan said, helping Verne. “It’s over now.”

I staggered wearily to my feet, feeling the warm trickle of blood down my arms. “No. Not yet. They’ve got Sylvie!”

Kafan cursed in that ancient tongue. “But where?”

“Only one guess. She’s got to be at Ed’s place. At least, I hope so, because without the Colonel to tell us, it’ll be a long hard search if she isn’t.” And I couldn’t afford to think about that.

“Is it not . . . possible that he was bluffing?” Verne said weakly.

“Do you think he was?”

Verne didn’t answer; his expression was enough.

“Neither did I. He wouldn’t bluff that way. He was smart enough to set things up ahead of time.”

Kafan looked at me. “You’re not in any condition to fight.”

“Don’t even
think
about keeping me out of this. Who else are we going to call?”

Somehow we got to the top of the stairs. Morgan, with his usual imperturbable expression denying the very existence of his torn clothing and bloodied form, smiled slightly as we emerged. “I’m glad to see you’re all still alive.”

“Can you drive, Morgan?”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Certainly, Master Jason. I presume there is some urgency?”

“If any of these monsters are left, they’ve got Syl.”

Morgan snatched the keys from my hand and half-dragged me along. Verne was moving easier, but it was plain that neither of us was up to a fight with a half-dead Chihuahua, let alone a group of demonic assassins. The fact that neither Morgan or Kafan said anything told us that they knew that we’d never allow ourselves to be left behind.

The drive across town was excruciatingly slow. It seemed that every block was ten times longer than I remembered. We entered Morgantown’s main district, crossed through, and continued. Though only fifteen minutes had passed, I felt as though precious days were passing. Syl. How
could
we have left her unguarded?

Ed Sommer’s house was lit up like a full-blown party was going on inside. The fence around it looked normal, but I could tell it was stronger than it appeared . . . and electrified, too. A contractor like Ed wouldn’t have had trouble installing all sorts of bad news for intruders.

“Hang on, gentlemen,” Morgan said.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Going through the gate, of course,” he said calmly, as the engine on Verne’s limousine roared and we were pressed back by acceleration. “Without being in suitable combat condition, our best chance is . . .”

With a rending crash, the limo shuddered but tore through the gateway.

“. . . total surprise and uncompromising speed. Prepare to attack.”

Expecting a counterattack, we dove out of the limo. The front door of the house popped open. Arms screaming in pain, I still managed to bring the gun up, sighted on the target—

—and immediately dropped the gun. “Don’t shoot! It’s SYL!”

Sylvia emerged from the doorway, stepping gingerly over the limp body of a demonoid as she did so. As I raced up the steps and embraced her, she smiled and said, “I see you missed me.”

“We should hurry, Master Jason,” Morgan said. “There may be others pursuing her.”

“There aren’t,” Syl said with calm certainty.

CHAPTER 46

Explanations

“I must confess, Jason, that there are a few things which remain unclear to me.”

Rebuilding Verne’s mansion was taking some time. It had also taken a lot of fast talking to keep Jeri from poking her nose too far in; even though the mansion was relatively isolated, the battle between the Colonel’s half-demons and Verne’s household had been more than loud enough to draw a lot of attention. Now, a week later, we were meeting in the repaired living room.

Verne was back to his old, debonair self: black hair glistening sleekly in the lamplight, dark eyes as intense and deep as they ever were. “Firstly, Jason, how did all the people gain entrance without us knowing of them?”

“Since the house was bugged,” I answered, reaching out for an
hors d’oeuvre
and wincing slightly from the pain in my arms, “Ed and the others heard me come in. When I said to shut down
all
the electrical power in the house, that took out the alarm systems. Your own personal alarms—the mystical ones—were weakened along with you, of course. I’d presume that they had some ability to subvert magical wards as well. And, of course, once the shooting started, none of us would’ve noticed an alarm much anyways.”

Verne nodded. “True enough. In my condition, I wouldn’t have noticed much, nor cared, I admit. Now, second . . . Lady Sylvia.”

Syl grinned from ear to ear. “It was almost worth being kidnapped by those things to see the expressions on your faces. Jason, dear, you try to take me seriously, but like so many people—men and women—you see my gypsy facade and my crystal earrings and pendants and forget what I really am.” She paused. “So did they. They didn’t search me at all; I didn’t resist except to scream and struggle a bit. Then when they had me locked away”—for a moment her face had a grim expression on it, one I’d never seen before; I wasn’t sure I liked it—“I prepared myself, and then I . . .
left
.”

“Indeed, milady. But
how
?”

“You trust my visions. So do I. That’s because I’m not a fake.”

I remembered Elias Klein dropping me in agony because the touch of a rock-crystal amulet burned him. I thought about what that meant.

So did Verne. “My apologies, milady.”

“No apologies needed, Verne. You saw me as I prefer to be seen; a somewhat airheaded, gentle mystic with no taste for war and a hint of the Talent. But when my friends are in danger, I’m not as gentle as I look. The truth is that they weren’t ready for a real magician, even a very minor one. And that was fatal.” She looked ill for a moment.

“It’s okay, Syl,” I said.

She looked up at me. “You’re not too shocked?”

“It’ll take a little readjustment, I guess. But not that much. You carry a gun. I’ve known that you’re smart enough not to carry something unless you were sure you could use it if you had to. So I shouldn’t have been surprised that you’d be able to fight in other ways, too. I’m glad it still bothers you, though. As long as we’re both bothered by it, we’re still human.”

Verne nodded solemnly. “Killing is a part of life at times. But it is when we come to accept it as a matter of course that we give up a part of our souls.”

“I have a few questions of my own,” I said. “Kafan, what were those words you said that made the Colonel back up?”

Kafan glanced at Verne, who inclined his head slightly. “Well,
‘Shevazherana’
is the name of that sword my Master gave me, the one Verne kept after I disappeared. It means . . . Dragontooth, Dragon Fang, something like that. The other word, ‘Tor’ . . . it is the name for the method of combat that I was taught. Why, exactly, it scares demons, I don’t know, but it does.”

Verne shrugged. “It was the technique of combat used by the Royal Family of Atlantaea and their guardians. And demons had good reason to fear that family’s vengeance after the fall of Atlantaea. And the one who taught you . . . oh, there are excellent reasons for them to fear anyone who knows that word.”

All of us could see that Verne might know more, but wasn’t going to continue. I decided I’d delved into more than enough unspeakable mysteries in the past few weeks. This one I’d leave alone. “When you were fighting the Colonel, you . . .” I paused, “you seemed to move, but not move, if you know what I mean.”

Kafan smiled. “You mean, teleported. Yes, I can do that. In combat, I can do it very quickly, to anywhere I can see or directly sense. Out of combat, I can go much farther, to anywhere I have been often enough to have . . . well, call it a sense of what the place is really like.”

“So my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. Still, that’s a hell of a power to have.”

“And
not
one I recall you having to such an extent in the old days, Kafan.”

For an instant, there was a flicker of that dead black look, but it disappeared, leaving Kafan simply looking cautious. “No, I didn’t, Father. But I can’t talk about
why
, not now anyway.”

“No problem. I do have one other general question,” I said.

“Only one? Dear me, Jason, then I must have already said far too much!” Verne said, relaxing.

I laughed. “No, seriously. You’ve often mentioned, offhandedly, things about ‘other worlds’ and how somehow magic was removed or sealed away. I guess my question is . . . where
is
the magic? And will it come back?”

He looked thoughtful. “This is not the first time I have considered that question, Jason. To put it simply, magic exists everywhere to at least some very small extent, but its focal point, if you will, is a single world. Why such a truly cosmic force should be so focused I do not know—I never studied magical theory—and the reasons behind such a phenomenon were probably only really understood by a handful of wizards of Atlantaea.

“However, there was a link—a conduit, one might say—between that world and Earth. Kerlamion and his forces either severed or blocked the conduit. If severed, it might well act as would a similar item in the real world, spraying its cargo of power out into the ‘area,’ if one could use such a term, of the break. Where that would be, of course, is a question far beyond my ability to answer. If it was sealed, on the other hand, the power has been building up behind the blockage. Perhaps there is some maximum which is already reached, and thus the barrier will remain unless something breaches it; or, perhaps, eventually enough pressure, so to speak, will build up and shatter even the Seal placed by the Lord of Demons.”