Wandering Lark (67 page)

“Nice try,” Je’Rhel said, “but I fear I have much more experience at using magic here than you do...”

With that, Je’Rhel called forth a ball of white fire.

“Now, let the contest begin,” he said and tossed it at Alaric.

When the dragon yanked Alaric’s soul free
of his body, Vagner experienced a great sense of loss. It was as though he was no longer attached to either the demon whom he had known as Ronan or the young master. Now, as he stood in the translucent sphere of power in which the White One had placed him, he fretted that the loss was not a good thing. He glanced worriedly at the dragon as she lowered herself into a resting pose on the rim of some cliff that Vagner swore had not been there before.

“Great one,” he said. “What is happening?”

“Would you like to watch?” the White One asked. “For your fate is tied to this duel as well.”

“Yes, I would like to watch,” Vagner said.

The dragon’s tail grazed the sphere, and it vanished, leaving the demon free. He realized then that he could have fled, but his curiosity and concern were strong enough to override the instinct. So Vagner crept over to the edge to peer down at the scene below.

There was darkness, and he sensed it was part of some endless void. In the middle, there was a platform of light, and swirls of colors rode around the edges like a wall. On this platform, Ronan had changed forms. Vagner could not help but marvel. The creature stalking Alaric around the platform looked very much like Sedar, but it was not Sedar. It was more beautiful...and in some ways, more deadly.

Alaric, for his part was trying to keep his distance and the demon creature lunged at him, trying to knock him down. Each time, he would just manage to leap or stumble out of reach. Snarling, the creature called Je’Rhel alternately summoned fire or lightning, and Alaric summoned a shield of air to protect him. But it was clear to Vagner that Alaric was growing weary of the battle too swiftly.
He does not have a demon’s endurance,
Vagner thought.

“Fight back,” Vagner muttered. “Why does he not fight back...?”

“That is Je’Rhel’s doing, I fear,” the White One said softly. “His mark on this poor bard runs so very deep...”

“Deep? How deep?”

“Do you see the ring Alaric wears?” the dragon said. “It once served to bind him to Je’Rhel more than he knows. Je’Rhel will always have power over his essence. See how he weakens. Je’Rhel draws strength from Alaric, and Alaric knows not how to stop the drain.”

“Perhaps he should cast the ring off,” Vagner said.

“He cannot risk such a distraction,” the dragon said. “Not without risking his life. And anyway, the ring was only a conduit. Je’Rhel buried his essence as Ronan Tey deep in Alaric long ago, through music and magic and friendship.”

“This is madness!” Vagner said. “How can you sit here and watch Alaric defeated this way?”

“I could ask the same question of you, Youngerkin,” she said.

“Me?” Vagner looked up at the dragon as she now regarded him with those opal eyes. “What do you mean?”

“All life is a choice, my child,” she said. “You can just as easily decide the fate of the world. But it will all depend on the sacrifice you choose to make.”

“Sacrifice?” Vagner said. “Are you speaking in riddles?”

The dragon smiled. “All life is a riddle, demon. And all life is a choice.”

“Well, I would prefer to know the answer instead of being asked another question,” Vagner said and winced when he saw Alaric knocked back by a hammer of light that appeared out of nowhere and struck his shield of air.

“What do you value most, Vagner?” the White One asked.

“My freedom,” Vagner said.

“And what would be the greatest sacrifice you could make for the world?”

Vagner paused, looking up at the dragon again. “My freedom? But how could that possibly make a difference?”

“You can do nothing. Alaric will die. Je’Rhel will take Alaric’s body and keep his bond to you...and the Balance of All Things will be sundered when the next Darkening comes.”

“Or?”

The dragon smiled. “You can give all that you are to Alaric. You can bond to him so that he will always be the Demon-Bound, but by doing so, Alaric will live to become the key that serves the Champion of Light when the Darkening comes and the Dragons do battle again.”

“Give up my freedom to save the world? Or watch Alaric and the world die, and be a slave to Je’Rhel. Those are my only choices?”

“I fear the Balance generally only leaves but two choices in everything, my child.” Her tail gently caressed Vagner between his wings. A shiver went through him. The barb on the end of that tail could have split him in twain, but its touch was as gentle as a mother’s hand on her infant. “Alaric has said that he would rather be master to a good demon than slave to an evil demon, has he not?”

Vagner blinked. “And I am a good demon? But...I have eaten the living flesh of men and women and beasts. I have wrought pain, suffering and death on many lives.”

“But were those always your choices?” she asked.

“No, they were not,” Vagner said. “In fact, before I came to this world, I never harmed any, and when I did come to this world, it was always Tane Doran’s will that drove me to wreck havoc on men...well, except when that barbarian attacked Alaric, and that thief that tried to molest me when I was hungry for flesh, and the farm folk I sort of vexed and...”

The dragon laughed, and the peal of her voice echoed all around him. “We all make the wrong choices from time to time, but those choices you have made in the past are not the ones that will affect the Balance of All Things. This choice will.”

Vagner took a deep breath and glanced back at the battle. Je’Rhel was throwing lighting now, and each time it struck against the shield of air, Alaric was driven back another step. He was fighting for his life, but he did not have the strength of a demon. Without it, Je’Rhel would drive Alaric’s spirit into the swirl of the Void and claim his flesh...

And mine.

With a rattle of chiropteran wings, Vagner rose to his full height.

“I will be one with him forever?”

The dragon nodded.

“And my flesh will die?”

She nodded again.

“Then so be it,” Vagner said.

The dragon smiled. “Then call to him,” she said and she raised the barbed end of her tail.

Vagner reached for the thin strand that bonded him to Alaric’s essence. He sang his own True Name, and then sang Alaric’s name as well. So deep was his concentration on the bond they shared, he did not feel the pain as the barb of her tail drove into his back, ripping demon flesh, tearing into demon heart. He was only aware of his essence streaming down the line that bound them as he leapt off the cliff and into the circle of light.

Horns! Alaric thought as another
bolt of lightning sprang effortlessly from Je’Rhel’s hands and struck his shield. It was getting harder to hold on to the power that he was forced to draw from within himself. Harder to stand his ground...and his essence was weakening with every strike.

“Give up, Alaric,” Je’Rhel said. “Death will be swifter and painless that way...and then I will make your body mine.”

“No!” Alaric cried. Another bolt hit and he skidded back several steps towards the swirling oblivion. He tried to shift around the circle once more. Maybe if he could keep moving...

The next bold stuck the light at his feet, and shards of it skittered under his shield and stung him like small bees. He gritted his teeth as it forced him off balance with pain. And the next bolt bowled him over, knocking him flat on his back. The shield of air spell vanished.

He lay there panting, seeking to draw essence from himself in order to call back the shield, but his nerve ends felt numb with exhaustion. Je’Rhel stood smiling.

“You have no more strength, Lark,” the demon said. “Pity.”

Je’Rhel crouched and eyed Alaric from those brilliant blue eyes. “Perhaps I should put you inside a soul stone instead. Yes...then I could carry you with me forever. Let you see what it is like to be a prisoner.”

“I didn’t make you a prisoner,” Alaric said.

“No, you didn’t. Still, I cannot say that I do not have a certain fondness for you, Lark. And it would be fun to have you around.” Je’Rhel smiled and his voice took on that honey sweetness it did every time he forced Alaric to do something against his will. “Try to imagine it. Your soul compacted into a mere fragment of stone. Unable to move. Unable to see.”

The Elderkin’s words weighed on Alaric’s thoughts and senses. He could feel himself being pressed into a space so confining, he could scarcely breathe. Like a cupboard locked by errant sisters. Like a truck that locked down its own lid. It closed around him, strangling his senses.

No, stop!
Alaric thought in vain.

“Feeling rather close?” Je’Rhel said in a teasing way. “Oh, yes, you are afraid of small dark spaces are you not? Perhaps I would put you in obsidian where a tiny bit of dim light would manage to get in. Then again, I think it would be more fun to hold your soul within granite where it will be grainy and rough, and everytime you dared to move, you would wear a bit more of your essence away...”

The words continued to swirl around Alaric, pushing his mind into the dark and giving him a taste of oblivion for an eternity. His heart tried to crawl into his throat. His lungs heaved as though they would collapse. And all he could hear was a faint buzzing, like that of bees...

Bees? Shona is afraid of bees—just as I am afraid of small places.

But Shona had promised to protect him from small places, just as he had promised to protect her from bees.

How could he dare fail her now?

I am not that child sniveling in a dark trunk!

He roared those words in his head. And anyway, he scolded himself, he needed to stop those damned bees. That knowledge of having a purpose, no matter how small, gave him something to focus on.

So he lashed out, swatting with his hand as he called out,
“Adhar clach buail!”
And in doing so, he hit Je’Rhel so hard and fast in the nose, the Elderkin was stunned and knocked backwards.

Je’Rhel screamed and lunged back to his feet. “You will pay for that. Forget the stone! I will obliterate you!”

He raised his hand, and it filled with a ball of lightning.

No!
Alaric scrambled to get up.
No!
He wasn’t ready to die. He reached for power, but there was none left. His chest ached as though every ounce of what he had once had was gone.

“Alaric!”

His name rang like a song, full of demonic power, and the bitterness of cloves dressed Alaric’s tongue. Woven into that song was Vagner’s unearthly call.
“I give all that I am to you,”
it sang.
“Do as you will with my essence.
Be demon with me, and we will defeat this braggart at his own game!”

Vagner?
Alaric felt the essence of the demon filling him. Strength flooded his limbs. Part of his essences shifted and changed. He did not so much rise from the ground as sprang from it with unnatural agility. Just as Je’Rhel threw the ball of lightning, Alaric leapt into the air.

I’ve got wings!
His essence felt like an amalgamation of his own shape and Vagner’s true form.

“They’re mine, actually,”
Vagner’s voice laughed inside him, and Alaric felt the joy as though it were his own.
“But of course, you can use them as often as you like, since I will not be needing them.
Now, shall we rid our body of this unwelcome intruder forever?”

“Lets!” Alaric said. He soared around the edged of the platform of light, glowering balefully at the white-skinned form below.

“This cannot be!” Je’Rhel shouted. “The Balance forbids it!”

“The Balance is why we two must stop you,” Alaric said, for he could feel the words of the dragon swirling in Vagner’s essence as well.

He dove at Je’Rhel, flying fast and furious, shifting only at the last moment so that he slammed feet first into the Elderkin’s chest. The power of that blow had demon strength behind it. Je’Rhel could not stand upright. He fell, skittering towards the edge of light. Alaric landed on the platform as the Elderkin sought to scramble upright again. But before Je’Rhel could begin another attack, Alaric seized at the light. With demon magic, he formed it into a quarterstaff and slung the end at Je’Rhel’s head. It struck the Elderkin hard and sent him sliding once more.