Wrath of the Black Tower, page 17
part #5 of War of the Black Tower Series
The demon . . . seemed to smile at him.
Suddenly, it shot toward him. It crossed through the wall of fire and into the real world. Baleron, shocked, dove out of its way.
There was no way to defeat it. He ran. He could hear it laughing as he fled up the hall toward the archway. There the giant demon he had angered earlier blocked his way. Its many eyes looked down at him, and its crocodilian snout grinned cruelly.
There was no escape.
Desperate, Baleron spun about to confront the thing that had eaten Salthrick. He raised his sword and crouched into a fighting stance.
“Come for me!” he shouted. “Come for your doom!”
Evidently the demon couldn’t maintain its monstrous form outside of the inferno, for it shimmered, flickered, and where the centipede-like abomination had hovered now stood a man. He was tall and well-dressed, and he wore a neat, pointed beard on his chin, and had a dark mustache. In his eyes gleamed a devilish intelligence.
Just as the demon laughed, so did he, and somehow Baleron found the laugh eerily familiar.
Anger took him, and he shook in fury. This thing had eaten Salthrick’s soul and now would come for him. Well, Baleron thought, I will not just wait to die. With no further thought, he charged the demon.
He hadn’t noticed it before, but the man wore a sword. He now drew it and met Baleron’s attack ably. Baleron sliced and thrust, but his opponent parried. Baleron drove at him relentlessly, and the tall man gave ground. He easily fended off Baleron’s campaign.
Frustrated, the Heir to Havensrike hacked and sliced and thrust with ever-greater desperation, but the tall man was skilled and eluded Baleron nimbly. Soon Baleron was exhausted.
It was then that the demon took the offensive. Grinning, he thrust his sword at Baleron. He sliced. He chopped. It was all the Heir could do to keep out of harm’s way.
At last he and the demon locked swords. Panting, he stared into the smirking face of his adversary and saw something surprising. That sinister smile . . . looked familiar. Now the author of that laugh became clear to him.
The demon saw his recognition. He used the Heir’s distraction to separate Rondthril from his grasp with a quick twirl of his blade. Rondthril clattered to the floor fifteen feet to one side.
Weaponless, Baleron jumped back just as the demon sliced at his midsection. The demon laughed. Baleron shuddered, remembering it.
“You!” he growled.
Just then, the demon’s shape changed, and he became Salthrick. The Captain wore his old uniform and gave Baleron a confident smile. “It is I, your best friend. Perhaps I will sacrifice my life to save you. No? Then perhaps this would ease your recognition.” With a blur, he shimmered and became Rolenya, dressed in the exotic clothes Ungier had put her in. She smiled sweetly at him. “It’s good to see you, Bal. My love. My truest love. It’s a shame our engagement was so rudely interrupted.” She pouted at his expression of shock, pretending she was hurt. “Mortal love is so fickle.” She became a great, wolf-like beast that stood on two legs and had long, muscular arms ending in wicked claws. “How do you like me now?” it growled.
“Rauglir,” Baleron said through clenched jaws. “What are you doing here?”
“Your dragon killed me, remember. Where else could I have gone? Illistriv draws me back, always. But now I have free rein. I alone of all the Warders can come and go from Illistriv as I please. My reward for my labors on Master’s behalf. I … am free. I can go anywhere I please, anywhere at all.”
“Then why stay here?”
Rauglir, the beast, looked at him disbelievingly. “You must be jesting! Here I have an endless supply of souls to torment. I have power. Look at me! Here in Krogbur Master’s power is at its peak, and all of His agents bask in it, soak it up. I can take physical form here all by myself. I don’t need to possess a body.” He changed back into the shape of the tall man. He still carried his sword.
Baleron eyed him warily. “Why this form?”
Rauglir smiled, but it was a sad smile. Almost, he looked wistful. “Would it surprise you to learn that I was a man once?”
Baleron narrowed his eyes. “Actually, no. Only a man could be capable of such treachery.”
Again, Rauglir played at being wounded. “I betrayed no one. Always I acted in the service of my Master, which is more than I can say for you. You seem to delight in conflict.”
Slowly, Baleron crept towards Rondthril. Rauglir let him. Baleron picked the sword up and waved it at the demon.
“Let Salthrick go.”
Rauglir frowned. “I already did. Even I cannot steal a soul from Illistriv without Master’s leave. As soon as I crossed over, Salthrick was released.” He gestured to the endless flames.
Baleron looked into the inferno, but all the swirling souls and monstrosities looked the same to him. “I’ll have to take your word on that.” He looked toward the archway, saw that the many-eyed demon still guarded it, and looked back to Rauglir. “Now what? Shall we fight to the death?”
Rauglir chuckled. “Master would be rather put out with me if I slew ul Ravast before he’d completely fulfilled his Doom. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun with you.”
Baleron gave a hard smile and raised the ruin of his left arm. “You do still owe me.”
“Very well then. Let us have at it.”
They flew at each other. Their swords clashed and clanged, ringing out over the fires of Hell. Baleron could hear the screams of the damned and roar of the inferno, but to him the sound of steel on steel was the louder. The heat blistered his skin, but his blood burned hot with hate and he paid it no mind.
He slashed Rauglir across the side, and the demon yelped and jumped away. Encouraged, Baleron pursued him. But soon Rauglir, who never seemed to tire, went on the offensive again. He pressed Baleron back and back, until Baleron teetered near the wall of fire that marked the walkway’s edge. Beyond was an endless abyss of flame and despair.
“I wonder what would happen if a mortal entered Illistriv,” Rauglir mused. “Perhaps we should find out.”
Just then Baleron heard someone cry out his name. He and Rauglir both looked toward the archway to see Rolenya, the real Rolenya, standing there, trying to slip past the two demons. They stomped their hooves repeatedly, blocking her way.
Rauglir snorted. “Just when things were getting interesting.”
While the demon’s attention was averted, Baleron batted his sword away and kicked Rauglir in the chest. The demon fell back and Baleron was able to leave the walkway’s edge.
He looked back toward the archway. Rolenya, frustrated and unable to slip past the guards, drew back from them. He thought she would give up, but instead she opened her mouth and let out one long, crystal clear note that stole his breath away.
The two guards groaned and fell heavily to the floor. She had to scamper out of their way as they collapsed. There were two loud thuds. She looked at their fallen forms closely, as if to make sure they wouldn’t simply get back up. When they didn’t, she passed through the archway.
Surprised at her ability to fell the demons without laying a single blow, Baleron gaped at her. A sound caused him to look back at Rauglir, who was advancing on him.
Baleron brandished Rondthril at him. “If this is your true form,” he said, “your soul given flesh, does that mean that if I kill you you’ll really be dead? Can I do that, kill your soul?” When Rauglir just glared at him, he added, “I wonder. And unless you’re on your Master’s business, which you’re clearly not, Rondthril should work on you.”
Rolenya reached them and draped her arms over Baleron.
“Come,” she whispered. “Leave this place.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her looking about apprehensively at the Great Inferno, as Mogra had called it. “Let us leave this place.”
“Wise words,” said Rauglir. His dark eyes didn’t leave Baleron as he added, “We shall have time later to settle old scores. Leave with your woman.”
Rolenya pulled him away.
“It’s Rauglir,” he told her.
“I know.”
“But how?”
“Who else could make you wear that expression? Besides, I would know him anywhere. Let us go. This place is steeped in evil.”
Reluctantly, he let her lead him out and away. As he looked back, Rauglir assumed the shape of the two-legged wolf beast. Even in this monstrous form, he wore that mocking smile.
There was no good in him, Baleron realized. With Mogra, even with Gilgaroth, there were layers, there were depths. Mogra could give her son her power out of love for his father. She could serve Gilgaroth out of love for him. She could want to be close to him when he was away. And he, Gilgaroth, could appreciate the pure beauty of Rolenya’s songs. But Rauglir, he was simply evil—wretched, shallow evil.
They passed the bodies of the two fallen guards and Baleron asked, “Are they dead?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so. Just asleep.” As she gazed at their bodies, she seemed suddenly fearful, as if afraid of her own power. “I didn’t know I could to that,” she whispered. “It just seemed like the thing to do. Baleron, what am I becoming?”
He sheathed Rondthril and wrapped an arm about her shoulder. “You’re becoming the person you were meant to be all along. The daughter of Vilana.”
This time it was he who took her hand and led her away. The roar of the Inferno echoed in his ears long after they were gone.
* * *
Gilgaroth and Mogra met on the top of the tower. It seemed they stood in a strange world all to themselves, as Krogbur’s tip pierced the dark clouds of the sky and there was nothing else to be seen. A howling wind tore across the two, bringing with it rain and thunder, but they were unmoved.
Gilgaroth strode to the edge and waved his hand, and the cloud parted to reveal the innumerable bonfires of the Great Army. Mogra stood by him and together they gazed down on the host that would ensure their victory, not over just the Crescent, but the world.
“We will send them out on the morrow,” said Gilgaroth.
“Has the time come so soon?” Mogra asked in wonder. “I did not think it would be so soon.”
“It is not soon to me. I have awaited this for ages.”
“Ever since your Vision.”
He said nothing.
She smiled. “I’m so happy. It’s even better that all this is a surprise to me, just as you said. I have enjoyed the thrill of it, the shock of it, and it is grand.”
He turned his head to her bright face. “And I enjoy it through you.”
“I’m honored to be the eyes through which you see it. Tell me of it again, my love. Tell me about your Vision. I so love to hear it.”
“You know the story well.”
“Just let me hear the words.”
He made a fist, and twenty tongues of lightning broke around the tower, to punctuate the beginning of his tale. “Long ages ago, when first the Crescent rose to oppose me, I put myself to slumber. I cast my soul out into the black and treacherous waters of Time, what few have dared to do. Those waters harbor dangers beyond reckoning, and most who journey there are lost. Yet I braved those depths, and they parted before me, folding away like warm virgin flesh, and before me I saw a great inferno and out of it rose the Black Tower, and it was the very Heart of the World. All bowed down before it, and I was its Lord—the very Lord of the Earth. Seeing this, I knew what I could become, that I could indeed overthrow my enemies and achieve my Desire. I had only to discover how. And so I did, and here we stand, and the world is laid bare at our feet. Naked, it quivers before us, gasping, awaiting only our bold touch. And here,” he gestured at the Army, and the Hell-Worms, “is our hand outstretched, ready to seize it, to make it ours.”
He made another fist, and forty tongues of lightning blasted around them. Mogra trembled against him.
“Oh, my love! I knew this day would come, but now that it is here I am afraid.”
“What frightens you, my bride?”
“When the world is ours, and you have grown strong enough to re-forge it, when Lorg-jilaad is with us again ...”
A gleam came into his fiery eyes. “Then our war on the Omkar of Light shall begin, and we shall prevail. Only then may our war on each other begin.” He looked at her, and in his gaze was love. “But you worry for yourself.”
“No, I worry for you, and for him. I will put myself to sleep, and only the Victor shall be able to rouse me. I will be the prize. But I fear for the Loser. Never will I look on him again. Never will I feel his hot embrace! He will be destroyed, gone from the world utterly.”
“It is the way it must be. You know this. We will not share you.”
“Yes, my Son. I know. But I can’t bear the thought of losing you, or of losing Him.” She pressed herself to him and ran her six hands over his body, and he took her in his arms and kissed her.
“Let me ease your mind,” he said.
Wind howled and thunder roared. Darkness grew once more about the tower’s tip, and of what unholy sights transpired there, none can tell, but it is said that at one point all the rain that fell on the gathered host below turned to drops of warm blood, and the lightning made strange shapes in the sky.
And in Mogra’s womb something terrible took root.
* * *
Baleron, realizing he and Rolenya were finally alone, kissed her passionately.
“It’s been too long,” she murmured.
“Wait,” he said, separating himself. He hadn’t had a chance to bathe since his arrival, and the sight of the steaming baths demanded his attention. “The last wash I had was two days ago in some mountain stream cold enough to freeze me solid in a few places, or nearly enough. Some might still be frozen.”
She smiled, though it was strained. She still seemed tense, and he didn’t wonder why. The sight of him must be a mixture of good and bad news for her. She would not be simply glad to see him, as she knew that if he’d returned he must have completed his labor. She was half-watching him with the eyes of one who fears that she gazes upon the murderer of her adopted father, the traitor that doomed her adopted kingdom.
He took her hands and said, “I did not kill him, Rolenya. Our father, I did not ...”
Something seemed to go out of her, some burden, and tears sprang to her eyes. “Tell me, Bal! What happened? I must know what happened!”
He sat her down, and slowly told her his strange, sad tale. When he reached the part about Rauglir possessing his hand and how he’d had to chop it off, she cried and kissed his stump. He told her everything, or nearly everything, omitting only the most hurtful parts, such as the image of their father’s severed head on a silver platter at Ungier’s banquet. When he described the sack of Glorifel, she burst into sobs and did not stop for a long time, no matter how much he stroked her hair or patted her back. He let her cry.
At last he finished, and he was heartened to see that she no longer looked at him as though he were a murderer. She looked on him as she had before, but with even greater love, and greater sadness.
He moved off to the baths, and she helped him.
“How did you find me at the Inferno?” he asked when he was neck-deep in the hot soapy water and she was scrubbing his back.
“When I returned here and you were gone, I was scared. I guessed at the only other thing that could interest you here: Salthrick. So I went down to the lower levels. I’ve wandered the halls here a great deal since you left, and I know them well. I knew what lay beyond that archway—one of the Gates of Hell, I call them—and so I went there. Well, not at first. It’s one of several, and it’s the second one I went to.” She shivered. “What a horrible place! But I’m glad I found you in time.”
“Why? I could have defeated Rauglir.”
She did not answer for a moment. “No, Baleron. I don’t think you could. He may play at swords for sheer amusement, but even if you could defeat him that way—he is not human, Bal.”
“Not anymore,” he agreed.
“He’s powerful. Don’t take him lightly.”
He felt his face harden. “Oh, I don’t. I would never take him lightly. But ... let’s think of other things.”
The water was delightful, and he began to feel his old self again, despite everything.
Once she paused in her scrubbing and said, as if just remembering, “You say you ... ate ... this Flower of Itherin?”
“I didn’t. Rauglir did. And just the bloom. But yes.”
She frowned. “And you say your blood smoked when it struck the igrith?”
“Yes? What?” She seemed excited about something.
She set the scrub-brush down. “Baleron, bite your hand.”
“What?”
“Bite your hand or I’ll do it for you. We just need one drop of blood.”
Curious, he punctured his palm enough for a little blood to well up, and as she directed he positioned it away from the bath and let a red drop fall to a section of the black floor not covered in hides. Instantly, smoke rose up from the spot where the blood had struck.
He laughed, more startled than anything else. “What does this mean? My blood has turned to acid?”
He craned his head back to see her smile in satisfaction. She said, “It means that for however long the Flower of Itherin’s power flows through you, your blood is harmful to enemies of the Light.”
“I’d rather keep my blood where it is.” He mulled it over. “There’s another way it helps. I forgot to tell you, but the Flower helped me master my Doom at one point.”
“Can it destroy your curse?”
“My Doom is the stronger, I can feel it. But at least it’s weaker now, with the Flower. I think. Actually …”
“Yes?”
He considered. “Something … has changed.”
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “I feel lighter, clearer than I did before. It’s just happened over the last day or so.”
“What do you think it means? That you’ve found hope?”
