Days Of Light And Shadow (75 page)

Chapter One Hundred and Nineteen.

Iros and the others entered the inner sanctum with the still struggling and screaming Y’aris hanging from his pole, abusing them. Despite his wounds it seemed that he still had plenty of strength left to call them names. But they weren’t listening to him. His abuse was a small thing compared to the chance to get rid of the Reaver. Besides Iros was more disturbed by the bodies lying all around. Many of them had looked to have died in screaming terror, the horror permanently etched on their dead faces.

At first Iros had thought they were simply the inevitable consequence of the battle in the dark catacombs of the temple. But then he realised that many of the bodies had no wounds on them. And when he’d asked, Finell had simply told him that the Reaver had given up, and taken them as his last desperate meal before his gateway to the world was closed forever. Such were the rewards of following a demon.

After hours of battling their way through the darkness to reach the inner sanctum and the altar, the final battle had not even been a battle. The high priest and a whole cadre of priests had simply stared in horror as the army entered the chamber, looked to get angry, and then simply fallen down dead in front of them. The Reaver had decided that the war was lost and taken his property early.

It seemed wrong somehow, and Iros knew that the commander was angry with how it had gone. All that fighting and battle, until finally in a very real way he’d been denied his victory. Iros understood that. He’d been denied the chance to kill Y’aris, and it still angered him. A man needed to see his enemies destroyed so that he could truly know he had won. Especially after a hard and bloody war. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was beating the demon. Ejecting him from the world. And if what Finell had said was correct, destroying him once and for all.

“Chain him to the altar.” Finell spoke and instantly the men did as he asked, carrying the still struggling Y’aris to the altar, sliding the carry pole away and then one by one cutting his ropes and shackling him hand and foot with big steel chains. Chains that had already been waiting for them, their ends secured into the stone plinth. What sort of altar had chains he wondered? The sort that practiced human sacrifice was the only answer he could find.

Then the soldiers tightened them, turning the dark iron wheels that pulled the chains in to the heart of the altar, and stretching the elf out like a canvas to be painted. Finell screamed as he was slowly spread eagled, terror and agony taking control. Iros was sure that others had been chained on the altar before him, and they had likely screamed as well. And that they probably hadn’t escaped alive. He could guess what the dark stains were that ran down the altar and across the floor. He guessed that Y’aris had watched. Maybe even helped.

“Let me go!” Y’aris was screaming at them again, blinded by the fear ruling him, and though he was surely one of the most evil people Iros had ever met, even he knew a moment of hesitation as he heard the fear in his voice. Surely killing him would be easier than this. Whatever it was.

“Finell?” He turned to ask and met the golden glow of his eyes instead.

“This is what must be.” Thin, wearing rags and covered in dirt, the elf still ruled  somehow, and Iros lost the power of speech. So instead he watched as the wheels clanked and the screaming elf was stretched further.

Soon Y’aris was bound hand and foot, and Iros knew he was doomed. So did he as he screamed in terror. Probably he had seen others in this very position. Almost certainly he’d helped to put them there.

“Thank you.” Finell nodded to them and they all stepped back from the altar, into the squash of all the others down there watching. Apparently their work was done. Unless they were there to witness as well.

Then Finell reached out a hand and a pair of crude steel callipers leapt from the distant wall to arrive in his fingers. Like the stone altar and floor they too were stained with something dark and Iros instinctively hated them. He would have stepped further away if he could have, but the crush of bodies behind him prevented that.

Finell used the callipers to pry open Y’aris’ mouth, something that at least stopped him screaming. And then while he lay there with his mouth held open, he drew forth from his rags, five vials of glowing white liquid, unstoppered the first, and carefully poured it down Y’aris’ throat.

Y’aris screamed, or at least he tried to. But it turned into a choking, gasping screech before he ended up gurgling the stuff down.

Iros turned to the elder standing beside him, and discovered that it was Yossirion. He was uncommonly glad to see him in the gloom. “What is it?”

“Witchbane.” Elder Yossirion smiled knowingly, obviously understanding something he didn’t. What Iros understood was that that was the very poison that had nearly taken his life. There was some justice in that. But no sense.

“He’s poisoning him? Why? I don’t understand.”

“Not him. Y’aris won’t have time to die of the poison. It’s for his master.”

“The demon?” That didn’t make sense, unless the plan was to feed his servant to him somehow. And there was a quite a lot of justice in that as well, just as there was in poisoning Y’aris with his own foul concoction. But how? He ate souls not bodies. And in any case who would willingly eat poison? Naturally he asked.

“The Reaver’s nature is hunger. Insatiable, unquenchable hunger. He is the greatest of his abominations they are simply his reflection. He consumes  everything. In his realm he is all that there is. No people live there but him. No animals. No sky and no sea. He has eaten it all. Every last thing. And still he hungers. Nothing will ever sate him.”

“In desperation  a thousand years ago the Reaver found a way to extend his reach to our world and he started eating souls. It was all that he could find. All that his power allowed him to bring across. We beat him back then, but ever since he has grown stronger from his time in our world. His link to our world is so much closer. Though we beat him back we always knew that one day he would return. This time, with the help of his servants, he planned to feast on much more than souls. He planned to consume flesh as well as spirit.”

“This altar is the means by which he does that. It links his realm to ours, and lets his priests send portions of their victims to him. It is where he creates his abominations. Consuming their souls and replacing them with his hunger. It is where Y’aris power to slowly do the same came from. And every soul that the Reaver consumes makes him stronger. It allows him to reach out and touch the souls of those who are evil. To compel them to do his bidding. To turn them into his priests.”

“We have ended the battle and destroyed his armies. But still he is stronger now than before. In time, even if we destroy his temple, he will reach out and bend more to his will. He will raise more priests. They will rebuild the altar, and he will begin feeding again. We cannot stop that. Not when he lives in his own realm and gathers his power. Not by ourselves.”

“Next time, when he gets the chance, that link will be complete and he will consume everything. We cannot allow him that chance. So now we will open his portal a tiny crack more. Just enough to send him the one servant that he cannot quite absorb like his priests. Y’aris.”

“Why can he not?” It made no sense to Iros. Not when he could see all the priests dead on the floor. They had failed to defend his temple and so the Reaver had taken them completely, their lives and their souls. Angry perhaps at their failure. Or more likely, he had taken one final desperate meal perhaps, before his portal was cut off and he had to starve again. But the elder was right, Y’aris hadn’t died with them. His servant had not been taken.

“Because the Reaver made a deal. A foolish deal. He was so hungry, so greedy, and he wanted to consume our entire world. But his priests couldn’t do that for him. They didn’t have the strength to bring him the world. All they could do was feed him a few scraps and it wasn’t enough. So he found a mortal who could help him. A man with a heart of pure hatred and undying ambition. A creature that killed his own mother. And he gave him a fraction of his power. Not much, just a tiny bit. A little knowledge. A scrap of his hunger. And then he set him loose to bring him his food.”

“Y’aris is that mortal, and what he was given is tiny indeed. But it is enough. Barely enough, but still enough, for him to resist his master’s hunger. At least here. But on the other side, in the Reaver’s realm, he will be eaten in less than the blink of an eye.”

Y’aris clearly understood him as he lay on the slab like alter being fed vial after vial of the glowing witchbane. Understood and was frightened of entering the Reaver’s world. He fought with everything he had left. But Y’aris was held tight by the chains, his broken flesh was no match for the steel, and neither could he close his mouth or try to spit out the poison. The callipers held his mouth wide open, and with each vial that was poured down his throat, Finell held a cloth over his mouth and pinched his nose shut. He had to swallow if he wanted to breath, and so gulp by gulp he swallowed the poison.

“So he’s poisoned. I understand that. But why would the demon eat poisoned bait? Surely he knows what’s happening to his servant  and would reject him?”

“The Reaver can no more refuse to eat than you can refuse to breathe,” Yossirion replied. “It is his very nature. It is all that he is. It is his strength and his weakness. It is his doom.”

“And the witchbane? Can it truly kill a demon?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But the Mother has been at work on it. Extending her vitality and knowledge into it through her servant. It will make the demon very sick at the least, and in doing so, it will make him release many of the souls he has consumed. He will not be happy.”

Unhappy in sooth. Iros realised. Almost the moment the elder’s words ended the temple started shaking. Iros didn’t need to ask what was happening. The Reaver was trying to destroy his own temple, and thereby sever the link between their realms. To do that all he needed to do was smash the altar, and bringing down the temple on top of it would do that quite well.

The soldiers looked nervously, knowing that they could be killed at any moment, even after the battle was won. But while they looked around, none of them thought to look up. Iros did. The shaking didn’t matter. The only thing Iros cared about was the unimaginable weight of stone above his head, and the very real chance that it might be all about to come crashing down on him. Trapped in a huge underground amphitheatre, unable to see the blocks as they came tumbling down on their heads one by one, waiting to be crushed. The thought set his heart racing.

“The Reaver? How strong is he?”

“Very”, Yossirion replied. “He knows our plans and is desperate to stop us. His influence in this world, even without his priests, is considerable. And this is his temple.”

But his influence wasn’t so considerable that it could stop Finell in his work. Or such that the elders looked alarmed or that Yossirion sounded anything other than completely calm as he told him what was happening. Luckily,  as violently as the temple was shaking, none of the huge chunks of stone had yet come loose and fallen on them. The temple had been well built, and there was only a trickle of dust gently floating down from above.

So far.

“Elder, do you think you could persuade Finell to hurry?”

Elder Yossirion turned to Iros, his face showing nothing of the fear he should rightfully be feeling. But he didn’t look completely relaxed either.

“It takes as long as it takes.” But when Iros and dozens of soldiers were suddenly knocked to the ground by a particularly violent shake, that didn’t seem fast enough. Still he said nothing as he picked himself up and tried to keep standing on the unsteady ground. It wouldn’t help.

Without warning a huge cracking noise shattered the air and it wasn’t just Iros who suddenly looked up at the inky blackness above their heads. Apparently the temple wasn’t quite as strongly built as he’d hoped.

“Last vial.” One of the priests with Finell called it out, possibly to bring them all some cheer. But with the ground shaking so violently all around them, it didn’t help. Still Iros like everyone else, stared intently as Finell upended the last vial of glowing white liquid into Y’aris’ mouth and forced him to swallow it.

It probably only took a few seconds, half a minute perhaps, but it seemed like forever as Iros stood there waiting for something heavy to fall on his head. He spent the time constantly splitting his attention between looking upwards into the blackness and across to the altar.