Dark Magic (63 page)

“The shade is usually called magenta here. In the Twilight Lands, the elves refer to it as flame-headed.”

“Ah,” Grasty said, feeling an odd sensation sweep over him. He found it bothersome. He’d rarely had much interaction with females for the last century or so. A man forgot how to go about these things. He did remember one critical element, however. Women liked pretty gifts. He fished an emerald out of his belt-pouch and flipped it onto the table between them. It was rough-cut of course, but still caught the light and Tegan’s eye nicely enough.

“What’s this?” Tegan asked, acting surprised for the first time since he’d met her.

“Payment, for your fine company.”

“Oh, I can’t—” she began.

“No, never you mind now! You said you were having a tough time of it.”

“Well,” she said, and she took the gemstone from the table. “This would go far in feeding my Ivor.”

“Feeding who?”

“My son.”

“Oh yes,” Grasty said. “Where is the lad?”

“He’s sleeping—downstairs.”

Grasty’s single eye rolled around the one room hut. He didn’t see any stairs. Could she mean she kept the child in a root cellar below this hovel? What kind of a place would a cellar be in a marshland like this? The floor must be soup. But he didn’t say anything about that, as he knew well enough not to spoil a good thing. He tried to come up with something pleasant to say.

“So, does your boy like it here?”

“Definitely,” she said. “He loves the trees and the wild lands. You know how young boys like to roam. And the climate here—I think it’s good for his skin.”

Grasty tried not to stare. He cleared his throat. “I see,” he said. He sat with her in an uncomfortable silence for a moment or two. He did not quite know how to proceed. Finally, he lost patience with himself and decided just to bull his way through.

“See here, now,” he began, coughing and clearing his throat again. “I can see you are having a hard time out here, and I’m a man of some means. Perhaps we can come to some kind of—arrangement.”

Tegan looked at him and tilted her head to one side again. By the gods, he liked when she did that! For a moment however, he thought she was going to burst out laughing at him. Imagine, a lout like him having the gall to suggest she would subject herself to his leather-handed gropings. His brow knit together and his lips quivered, wanting to show his teeth. He hated being spurned by women. He’d given them up for decades because of moments like this. They’d always gone badly for him.

But Tegan didn’t laugh. “Grasty, I think that’s a wonderful idea,” she said. “We
can
come to an arrangement. I could use a man like you. So thick of arm and barrel-chested. You’ll do perfectly.”

Grasty grinned so widely the snaggled teeth he rarely revealed were displayed prominently. He figured he would bed her, here and now. Afterward, if she pleased him enough, he’d leave her an extra emerald. Otherwise, if she curled her lips in disgust at his ministrations, he would slap her mouth bloody and take back the gem he’d given her.

He stood up and reached for her without further preamble. She hopped to her feet and danced away.

“One thing,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I really think you should meet my son first.”

“Well, call him up here then!”

“Maybe we could go down and see if he’s asleep still. We’ve made quite a bit of noise. If you could at least see him as he sleeps, I’d be satisfied.”

Grasty narrowed his good eye and rubbed his nose. “All right, all right. Let’s be about it, then.”

The two of them walked out of the cottage and around to the back of it, where a hole opened in the ground. It indeed appeared to lead under the hut. Grasty leaned forward, sniffing. It smelled a bit foul down there, but it was probably just the swampy earth.

Sighing heavily, he lifted a lantern high as he walked down steps cut into the dirt. They weren’t even stone, just rough planks laid upon bare earth. Once down the steps, he looked around and saw nothing. The floor, as he had suspicioned, was packed with squelching mud. He decided the boy had run off or something. He figured he would tell her he was the best-looking child in Cymru and sound asleep. He’d bed her before she was the wiser.

He turned to mount the steps again, when he sensed movement. He turned back, frowning.

“I’ve got a special visitor for you, Ivor!” Tegan called down from above. “Be careful with him, the Kindred have a lot of meat, but it sticks to the bone.”

Grasty whirled, his one eye wide. An ogre loomed over him, dripping with mud and foulness. It was a baby, just as Tegan had said, but still must have weighed a ton or more. The monster was man-shaped, but broader than any man ever born. The skin was green and lightly stippled with carbuncles. A dozen gray teeth showed in its circular maw.

Grasty realized in shock he’d played the fool. Every Kindred child was told that elves and humans, when mixed willingly, produced offspring that were sometimes unsavory. The elf girl’s beauty and the child’s young age had caused him to overlook the possibility. Her lovely elfin form seemed incapable of producing anything unpleasant. He’d forgotten the teachings of his distant youth. And he’d forgotten how quickly ogres grew to a dangerous size.

Deciding he could never outrun the beast to the stairs, Grasty faced matters squarely. “I’m your new step-daddy, Ivor,” he shouted, “and it’s high time for your first thrashing!”

The fight went on for several minutes, and Grasty left scars upon the ogre’s young hide that would never fully heal. Eventually, however, he could no longer continue the struggle. Coughing and heaving, he was still conscious as the ogre began to chew. He raved at the bitch of an elf who stood at the top of the stairs. He felt every tooth as the beast devoured him, one limb at a time.

“You’ll all join me soon enough!” he raved as he died. “You, elf-bitch, and your monster! The Dead will walk everywhere, and they’ll find you, even out in this mud pit!”

Blood-laced slime flew all around the root cellar, splashing the walls with foulness. None of the Kindred die easily, and old Grasty was tougher than most, but soon he had no more blood in his veins to give.

Chapter Fifteen

A Challenge to the Dead

For two days they’d traveled upon the stair. Now, instead of growing cooler with every step they took downward, the air grew warmer. The water that had been dripping from them dried, then was replaced by sweat. Soon, the sweat evaporated and their faces became a feverish red. At last, they reached the final landing.

“I could have run down here in a few hours, if I hadn’t been burdened by your lumbering feet,” Puck complained.

Brand shot him a look of irritation. “Nothing was stopping you, elf. You could have trotted ahead with your skinny blade and skinny shanks at any time.”

“We’re finally here,” Telyn said. “Let’s save whatever fight we have left for the enemy.”

Brand grunted and turned his gaze upward. The abyss above was at least as daunting as it had been when he’d look down into it. He no longer had to fear falling, but now he realized with fresh unease that it would take an inhuman toll to climb those endless steps back to the surface.

He took a deep breath, turned and faced the rocky floor of the great trench. Open veins of wealth lay here, gold dust littered the floor and gems encrusted nodules thrust up from the substratum. He didn’t give any of it a second glance. Material wealth this far down was hardly worth the trouble of hauling back to the surface.

His eyes soon picked out the darkest spot along the rocky walls. An area of stygian darkness that stood out even here. He pointed toward it with the head of his axe. “That must be it.”

The others looked on without enthusiasm. “Perhaps we should rest before—” began Puck.

“Ha!” shouted Brand. “After all that about my delays and slow-moving legs? Now you wish to dither in the very face of our goal?”

Brand sneered at Puck. He knew, in some small part of his brain, that using the axe for so long without blooding it was affecting his mind. But he just couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d had enough of Puck and his foppish ways. Worse, when he looked at the elf, he had a hard time not seeing him as he must have been when he danced and cavorted in his failed attempts to seduce Telyn.

Puck shrugged. He drew his light length of fine steel. He flexed it in the air, cutting experimentally. “I’m ready,” he said.

Brand turned and stalked toward the blackest spot along the walls. It was a crack, really. An opening that must lead somewhere. Brand entered without a care and his brashness nearly cost him his life.

What saved him was the axe. He held it up in front of him like a torch and followed its flickering amber light.
The trap was sprung as he moved deeper into the crevice, he was never sure how he had triggered it. Three triangular blades came at him from either side of the tunnel to cut him into quarters. The higher blade struck the axe’s head, the middle struck the shaft just above his gloved fist and the last one gouged into his shin, but got no further. The three blades must have been connected upon a single axle and when one stopped they were all halted. The axe proved harder than steel and the whirring blades chipped and were stopped dead, as a carpenter’s saw is halted by a nail.

Behind Brand, the others gasped in dismay. He did not apologize, nor cry out in fear. Brand felt a wave of fury instead. He could not free the axe from the two blades that held it pinched against the walls of the tunnel. He tugged and roared.

He heard shouts behind him. Glancing back, he saw the others were in battle. A dozen shambling figures had risen up from the gold-glittering sandy bottom of the abyss. They shuffled forward, intent on doing harm. Was this entire abyss a trap then? Had they climbed down a league or more into the earth to find nothing more than a swarm of wild dead-things?

Telyn drew her blades while Kaavi stepped back near Brand, taking her bow from her back. Puck moved forward to meet the monsters. More and more of them rose up from the floor of the abyss. Many of the Dead could not move quickly, as their bodies were broken. Few had legs that functioned properly. Most of their limbs hung at odd angles. One crawled upon the ground, using a pick to thunk into the sands and drag itself forward. Brand stared at the pick and knew in an instant of clarity that these creatures had once been like his own party. They were adventurers who had made it down to the bottom of this strange pit only to be slain and turned into beasts to feed upon those that followed. By the broken state of their bodies, Brand figured many of them must of fallen to their deaths on the treacherous stairs.

Brand turned back to his axe, which was still stuck fast. He tugged and wrenched at it, but could not free it. Neither could he let it go and turn to help his friends. His love for the axe and its hold over him in this moment of battle was too great. He raged and ripped at it to no avail. He put his boots upon the walls, but could not get a good purchase.

He glanced over his shoulder toward the others again. Puck had one monster diced upon the floor of the cavern. Bits of it flopped about, grasping at his boots. The next two of the Dead lunged for him, but he danced between them, slicing away dry fingers. Puffs of dust fired up from them as his flickering blade struck and their bodies disintegrated under the assault. Kaavi fired arrow after arrow into those that followed. Each one sunk into a skull or a chest. They were thrown back and often spun to the ground, but they usually got back up and kept coming.

Telyn held Puck’s flank. Her twin daggers flashed. She’d practiced often over the years, after their hard trip into the Everdark. Brand knew she thought someday she might need her skills again. He was vaguely proud and yet felt panicked all at the same time as he saw his wife slash apart a thick-shouldered creature. Its belly opened and gray dust that had been guts centuries earlier poured out in a choking cloud.

The next two caught her, however. She was lifted up as one had her by the hair and the arms, the other clutched a foot. She slashed away an arm, but they kept grasping. Kaavi threw down her bow and charged in to help, taking the head off the one that had Telyn’s foot and had been drawing it slowly toward bony jaws.

Brand turned back to his axe. He howled and raved. Bunching his shoulders, he heaved, then shoved, then heaved again. It was the second shove that did it. By pushing the axe forward, rather than attempting to pull it back against the gears of whatever devilish trap had been built here for this very purpose, he managed to free his weapon.

He whirled, and held the axe high. He called upon it for strength, for fury, and for sweet revenge.

Ambros flashed more brightly than the sun, and afterward everyone in the party save Brand himself had a sunburn to nurse. Fortunately, all of them had their backs to him at the moment, or they might have been blinded.

Brand charged to Telyn first, and hacked down each of the monsters that had dared touch her with a single stroke. Kaavi helped Telyn to her feet while Brand charged into the mass of those that surged closer. He burnt them and hacked at them with spittle flying from his lips and eyes rolling in his head. Soon, a hundred desiccated corpses lay quivering in smoking ruin on the floor of the cavern.

He walked back wearily to the others, who had withdrawn into the mouth of the tunnel he’d been caught in. They huddled inside, more fearful of his rage and the axe’s blazing rays of brilliance than they were of further traps.

Brand slumped down against the stone walls and let go of the axe. His fingers felt like rubber. His face was sticky with sweat which evaporated as soon as it formed upon his brow.

Puck clapped slowly, mockingly. “Well done, axeman,” he said in a droll voice. “I thought you’d found something bigger to concern yourself with in this side-passage.”

Brand grunted. “I faced my worst fears in here.”

Telyn came and sat beside him. She narrowed her eyes and she ran her hands over him, looking for injuries. She found nothing serious and bound up the minor ones. Of the whole group, only Telyn herself had been injured by the things that had held her. She could still walk, but with a slight limp.

“Brand,” she said while tending to him. “You’re worst fears? You mean when you saw those things had me?”

He looked at her and nodded. “That,” he said, “and the fact I could not release the axe to come save you.”

She kissed him. “It’s all right. You saved us all in the end.”

“But I
tried
,” he said. “I tried to let it go. I couldn’t do it. Not to save your life or mine. When there is a fight near at hand, it lusts for battle. Its hold upon my mind is never stronger than in such a moment.”

“I understand, Brand,” Telyn said. “It’s not so terrible, I had Kaavi here. She came to my rescue when you could not.”

Brand ran his eyes to Kaavi, and then back to Telyn. They smiled at him and at one another. At least their struggle was settled, he thought to himself.

He closed his eyes then, and he slumbered.

* * *

When Brand dreamt of the Shining Lady, he was hardly surprised. He was not sure if his calm demeanor was a result of the odd mood of dreams, his exhaustion, or a new found confidence in her presence.

He first recognized the cold glow of her as it impinged upon his dreaming eyes. Next came the scent of lilacs and daffodils filling his head with fine fragrances. He turned to where he knew she must be: in the crack where he had almost met his doom.

The blades that had caught his axe were gone, and being a dreamer, he did not think this was odd. He stepped forward rashly, letting his axe droop from his fingertips. She reached out to him, and he felt a familiar burn of desire, but this time it was different. This time he was in control of himself. He did not weep with lust and wanting. He smiled instead, and stepped forward closer still. His free hand reached out toward her, even as she reached for him. Behind him, the axe still trailed as if forgotten. He dragged it with his right hand and reached with his left.

She beamed at him, confident he had finally come to his senses. He thought that in a way, she was right.

“Finally you come to me, Brand,” she said. “I can be complete at last.”

He stepped closer, and his grin broadened. It became predatory.

She did not seem to notice, and it was not until their final step that brought them into one another’s grasp that she understood something was amiss. His gloved hand did not reach to caress her locks or cup her breast. Instead, his fingers curved like the talons that served her as feet and locked upon her white throat.

Brand raised the axe then, from its forgotten place dragging behind him. He lifted it high.

“I’ve had enough of your games, fair lady,” he said to her. “Each time we meet, I shall cleave you apart, in hopes you will come to understand the new nature of our relationship.”

The Shining Lady’s eyes widened in sadness, fear and hopelessness. He knew in his heart he was a beast, an evil thing, a slayer of the helpless. He felt the burn of tears beginning to sprout from his eyes but he tried to maintain his resolve. She was manipulating him, he knew this. He squeezed harder and raised the axe higher, threatening her.

Her face melted and changed into a new form. He blinked as he recognized her. She was Telyn now.

“Stop,” he said. He did not loosen his grasp, although it hurt his mind to hurt her, she who looked like the twin of his beloved wife.

She changed a second time. Now her face was that of another he had not seen for so long. She was Oberon’s daughter who he had slain. A tiny elf maiden with silver hair, a lock of which he’d carried for years.

“I shall strike!” he shouted at her. “Let us talk as equals. No more tricks.”

She changed again, and for a moment, he saw a hag of a woman, a thing of surpassing ugliness. He was so surprised, he almost let her go.

“We are not equals!” she screeched at him.

He did let her go then, and pushed her back. “Oh, but we are. If you cannot manipulate my mind and I can’t slay you with my axe, we are only capable of irritating one another. Now, kindly state your purpose.”

She was the Shining Lady again, and for once, Brand was glad of the change. “I’ve already asked you once. I would have you be my champion. I would have you take up the Black and the Amber. They are a perfect combination.”

Brand snorted. “For whom? I should have no will left at all with such powers running through my mind. I would be like a man riding two galloping horses at once, with a foot upon the back of each.”

She came a half-step closer. “Be my consort, Brand. I’m not a jealous woman. You may keep your wife and your elf-mistress both.”

“Kaavi’s not my…never mind,” Brand protested. “Why would I want a hag as my mistress at any rate?”

The Shining Lady, at his words, glared at him with such hate he felt repelled by her. He had finally struck a sore point.

“You dare?” she breathed.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You are quite lovely to my eyes at the moment. I’m sure the axe has affected my sight.”

Her hateful stare subsided somewhat. “I find it hard to believe any woman desires one such as you,” she said. “You are heartless, cruel. A killer who leers joyfully as he strikes.”

Brand shrugged. “You’ve been eager enough for my embrace.”

She hissed at him, then walked back into the crack until she was only a glimmer. She vanished and after a time, he awoke.