Darklands (37 page)

“You all know the cauldrons of rebirth and regeneration. One cleanses the spirit so it may be clay-born anew. The other strengthens the spirit and its magical body, fortifying their bond. Yet, few of you have dwelled in our realm long enough to know the power of the lost cauldron.”

A murmur went through the crowd.

“Transformation—what does it mean? Turning one thing into something else. Centuries ago, foolish Arthur believed this cauldron would turn cowards into brave men. Other clay-born fools thought it would turn dead bodies into living ones or transmute lead into gold. In the Ordinary, the cauldron could do no such things. At best, it could transform raw meat into cooked—and then only with the help of a fire.”

He waited, smiling, as dutiful laughter rippled around the square.

“Here, in the Darklands, the cauldron draws upon our magic to transform what is lesser into what is greater. It can take
disparate things and join them together into a greater whole. Not physical things—not lead into gold or shards of glass into a mirror. Spiritual things, magical things. Wisps of spirit that have strayed. Bits of magic that have peeled away. In this cauldron, such things can come together in a new whole.” He swept his arm to indicate the crowd. “If you feel diminished—tired, somehow smaller—and the magic calls you, this cauldron will build you up again. But it won’t simply restore you; it will find your essence and magnify it. It will transform you into something greater than you were before.”

Excitement buzzed through the stands. I thought of Dad. If only I had something of him—some wisp of his spirit, as Arawn had said—perhaps this cauldron could give him back to me. But he was gone, and I had nothing.

Arawn lowered his arm, and the crowd quieted. “Our realm has been deprived of this cauldron for far too long. Now, my royal wizards shall perform the ritual to purify it. And then your king, Lord Arawn—yes, I myself—shall be the first to be transformed. You will see a king greater than any you have known before.”

Not if that king jumped into a cauldron full of demons. What would happen if the lord of the Darklands, the source of its magic, combined spiritually with the essence of hundreds of demons?
As Arawn fares, so fares the realm.
Arawn wouldn’t become greater; he’d be defiled, and with him the magic of his kingdom, sickening the land, corrupting the bodies of the shades. The Darklands would become an extension of Hell.

I had to stop him.

“Wait!” I tried to shout, but my parched throat wouldn’t emit more than a croak. I started pushing my way through the packed square. If I could warn Arawn, his wizards would know what they were dealing with.

The king didn’t even notice my attempt to reach him.

“Let the purification begin!” he proclaimed. As the crowd cheered, he took his seat and the two wizards stood. They went to the side of the platform nearest the cauldron of transformation. The wizards flipped their gold capes back over their shoulders, making the garments flare like wings. Silence fell upon the square as they raised their arms. Glowing prisms of light emanated from their fingertips, then grew and brightened. Fingers began to move as, working together, the wizards summoned magic and wove it into a complex pattern above the cauldron.

Where was Pryce? I scanned the square. Everyone was focused on the ceremony. On the rooftops, Arawn’s archers stood sentry. Only one had his crossbow raised—aimed at me. I stopped trying to push my way to the platform. He held the bow steady a moment longer, then lowered it. But his stare stayed fastened on me.

The wizards continued to weave the magic. Their spell hung in the air, shining, an intricate piece of shimmering, colored lace. Music emanated from it, soft at first but growing as the spell developed. The sound was like the music of the spring, but more complex. Instead of random notes, this was a composition, with melody and harmony and counterpoint. Spectators listened and watched, rapt. No one moved.

If Pryce tried to rush the platform, the archers would spot him immediately.

Together, the wizards slowly brought their arms down. The glimmering spell followed, drifting toward the cauldron. Its music filled the square, mystical, like music half-heard in a dream and more beautiful than anything earthly instruments could produce. The spell touched the cauldron’s rim, and the vessel glowed with prismatic light. The light reached through the square, its colors bathing shades’ faces. Everyone was transfixed. The light washed over all with its caressing magic.

I felt it, too. Where the light touched my face, I felt lighter, cleansed, uplifted somehow. Purified. The ritual was working.

Maybe it would work to get rid of the demons.

The wizards guided their spell inside the cauldron. Its metal resonated with the music, adding deep bass notes, like a huge bell tolling. The sound reverberated through the square. I felt it all the way to my toes.

Then the cauldron struck an off note, shattering that perfect harmony.

The crowd gasped. Arawn gripped the arms of his chair and leaned forward. The wizards glanced at each other, uncertain.

Another jarring note sounded, a sledgehammer blow that threw the spell’s music off-key. The notes jangled and slid away from each other. Now, the cauldron spewed out the discordant sounds of a haunted carousel in a child’s nightmare.

The royal wizards gestured frantically, trying to repair their spell. Arawn was on his feet, a hand on his sword hilt.

The music stopped. A scream emerged from the cauldron, a
chilling, desperate sound, rising in pitch and volume. People covered their ears. Some turned and moved toward the exits. A window shattered in the palace, then another.

A demon screaming—just one—like I’d heard that night in Purgatory Chasm.

Shit.
The spell wasn’t purging demons from the cauldron. It was releasing them.

Pryce—or Myrddin, more likely—had rigged the cauldron to make the purification spell a trigger. And now that the trigger had been pulled, there was no way to stop it. The demons would emerge. As what, I couldn’t guess.

Where was Pryce, damn it? If I couldn’t hold back the demons, maybe I could prevent him from turning them into a shiny new shadow demon for himself.

More screams joined the first. The cauldron glowed crimson, like a devil costume, like the hottest flames of Hell.

In an explosion of sulfur and smoke, a fury of demons burst from the cauldron.

There were hundreds of them, more. Huge, hideous things with scaly bodies, leathery wings, and ugly boars’ heads. Some soared into the air. Others jumped to the ground, snatching shades who tried to flee. The square was a madman’s vision of Hell. Ash and burning embers rained down from the sky. Demons dived into the crowd, leaping on spectators, slashing them with their claws, ripping off limbs. One demon perched on the edge of the cauldron of rebirth, chewing on the shoulder end of an arm. Others snatched people, flew high in the air, and dropped them on the crowd.

On the platform, a demon tore off the female wizard’s head and tossed it into the square. The other wizard lay broken over his golden chair. Four demons held the struggling Arawn, looking like they intended to play tug-of-war with the Darklands’ king.

No!
If Arawn died, the land died with him. Demons would overrun the place, gobbling up the remnants of its magic. With that power, they’d invade the Ordinary—and my terrifying vision of devastation would become reality.

Frantic, I pushed toward the platform. I couldn’t fight all these demons, but I’d do what I could to protect Arawn.

The crowd stampeded in the opposite direction, away from the platform and toward the exits. “Let me through!” I yelled. I
struggled to move forward, but I was trying to dog-paddle against a tsunami.

A sound boomed through the air, like a hundred cannons firing at once. “Silence!”

The demons paused in their attack. The shades quit screaming. Everyone looked up. On a rooftop stood Pryce. He wore a tunic and leggings of the palest gray. Beside him, demons held the limp, dangling bodies of Arawn’s archers.

Two demons dropped the archers and picked up Pryce. They carried him through the air and set him down on the platform, where other demons still held the king. Facing Pryce, Arawn raised his chin defiantly. Pryce drew his sword. He lifted it high, so all could see it. Arawn spat in his face.

The crowd held its breath.

Pryce glared as spittle slid down his cheek and dripped from his jaw. He wiped his face. Then, with a roar, he ran the lord of the Darklands through.

Pryce withdrew his sword, and the demons let Arawn go. As the king collapsed on the platform, the ground shuddered. The sky darkened. Around me, shades cried out and clutched their stomachs as though they’d also been stabbed.

“I am your king now!” shrieked Pryce. He brandished his bloody sword. “I annex this realm as a territory of Uffern.” His eyes swept the crowd. “Hail me.”

Silence.

Pryce reached down and took the golden crown from Arawn’s head. He set it on his own. “Hail me!”

A sound arose, but it was nothing more than a groan. All around me, shades grew thinner, rainbow-colored rivulets running down their faces. They were sweating out magic, as Dad had earlier. With the loss of Arawn, the magic was leaving them. Again shades moved, backing away from the platform, some turning and breaking into a run.

“Idiots,” Pryce snarled, the crown crooked on his black hair. “I’ll make you wish you’d obeyed me.” Again, he lifted his sword.

From his raised arm, a shadow stretched upward. No, not a shadow; more like a bodiless spirit. The figure was transparent; it had depth and dimension. It was rooted in Pryce but stretched above him. Myrddin.

“Now, Father!” Pryce shouted.

The spirit of Myrddin gestured, and every demon froze. The wizard began to gather demons together, making motions like he was casting a huge net and drawing it in. The demons, some struggling, were slowly reeled back toward the cauldron.

Pryce was going to do something—use the cauldrons in some way—to combine those demons into a single entity, and then bind that entity to him. He’d become a newly restored demi-demon.

Or something worse.

I had to stop him. Seeing him up there on the platform, I knew how. I had a magic arrow that never missed its target.

Shades pushed toward the exits, trampling each other, moving me away from the platform. The crush of bodies was so tight I couldn’t get my hand near the arrow in my belt. I hoped I didn’t need a bow. I’d never be able to aim in this throng. If I could get the arrow free, I’d focus on my target—the exact center of Pryce’s black heart—and throw. I moved my hand. My fingertips brushed the fletching. Then a shade tried to duck under my arm, pushing my hand away from the arrow. Another stamped hard on my foot, and I yelled with frustration and pain.

On the platform, Pryce’s head snapped around. His gaze locked onto me for a moment before he looked up and spoke to his father. Myrddin paused. The demons he was dragging back to the cauldron stilled. Some strained against the pull, but they couldn’t break away.

Myrddin pointed at me. Immediately two demons dropped from the sky. Shades screamed and scrambled away, knocking me to the ground. The demons grabbed my arms. Their bat wings beat as they lifted me into the air. I yelled and kicked, expecting to be ripped in two. But they didn’t tear me apart. They flew me over to the platform and set me down in front of Pryce. The demons found my sword and dagger and tossed them aside.

Myrddin resumed hauling in his net of demons. Some tumbled into the cauldron of transformation.

Transformation. Pryce was going to fuse them all into some sort of super-demon. He stared at me, his lip curled in an ugly sneer.

“Cousin.” He spat the word. “I thought I’d have to kill you to get you here. But I needn’t have wasted my effort. All I had to do was make sure you knew I was going to the Darklands, and you followed me here like a puppy.”

“I followed you here to stop you.”

“And a marvelous job you’re doing of it, aren’t you?” His sneer got even uglier. “
I
brought you here. I played you like a violin. Father said I might need your life force. As it turns out, I do. Some of the souls that came with me into this place have gotten away.” Like Mack, wandering along the road in search of his taxi. “My human side has grown thin, and I need to build it up to balance my soon-to-be-restored shadow demon. Otherwise, the demon will have too much power. And I must
always
be in control.”

“You never had a human side, Pryce.”

Myrddin dumped the last of the netted demons into the cauldron.

Pryce glanced upward. “Ready, Father?”

The wizard nodded and shrank back into Pryce’s body. Behind Pryce, Arawn moaned.
Moaned?
The lord of the Darklands wasn’t dead. He was trying to crawl toward the cauldron of regeneration.

Pryce turned and kicked Arawn savagely in the ribs. Another kick snapped the king’s head back, breaking his neck. Arawn lay on the platform like a doll dropped by a careless child. The demons that held me chortled with malicious glee.

Pryce plucked Rhudda’s arrow from my belt. “You won’t be needing this,” he said. He snapped it in two, then tossed the pieces on the fallen king. He grabbed my waist and tried to lift me off my feet, but the two demons still had my arms.

“Let go, you morons!” he snapped. “Return to Uffern and prepare my place—unless you’d rather accompany me now.” He pointed into the cauldron.

In a flash, the demons released their grips and took to the sky. They shot like rockets toward the north.

Pryce grabbed me around the waist. He half-carried, half-dragged me to the edge of the platform. I struggled and kicked. I dug in my heels but couldn’t hold my ground.

“Now, cousin,” his voice buzzed in my ear, “we transform what is lesser into something far greater.”

Before I could reply, Pryce toppled into the cauldron of transformation, dragging me with him.

MY ARMS FLAILED, REACHING FOR SOMETHING, ANYTHING. Pain nearly split my arm in two as our fall jerked to a stop. I’d managed to hook my right elbow over the cauldron’s edge. I reached up with my left hand and gripped the rim, struggling to pull myself up.