Demon Lord III - Grey God (22 page)

Bane glanced
at the high priestess. "How did the black mages know what your blue
mages were doing?"

"They followed
them. Each is assigned to a blue mage, to spy on him constantly.
Vorkon cannot watch them all himself."

Bane looked
pensive. "Perhaps I should create the first ward myself. No black
mage could stop me."

"But Vorkon
could, and he would sense your power immediately," Kayos pointed
out. "The blue power is far more difficult to detect."

"Then I shall
use the blue power."

"That will be
dangerous. Creating such a powerful ward with the blue fire will
take many days. Vorkon probably knows by now that you are not dead.
He will have his hounds searching for you, demons and mages as
well. If you are found, you will not be able to kill the black
mages he will send with the blue fire. Not quickly enough, anyway.
They will think you a blue mage, and try to stop you, then you will
have to use the dark power. As soon as you do that, Vorkon will
find you."

Bane sighed.
"Someone will have to persuade the blue mages to help."

"If you kill
the black mages who watch them, they will be eager to do it," the
priestess said. "But Vorkon's mages will flee from you."

"I shall hunt
them down."

"Vorkon will
protect them."

"Then I will
have to surprise them. It seems to me that if a blue mage leaves
the city, the black mage who watches him will attack him, so all I
have to do is accompany them and kill the black mage."

Kayos nodded.
"That should work."

"The warlock
will flee the instant he sees you," the priestess pointed out.

"I will not
let him see me."

"Of course, My
Lord." She turned to Kayos. "But the Blue Council will not trust a
dark god, Lord Kayos. You would have to persuade them, and that
will not be easy after decades of war with Vorkon."

The Grey God
frowned. "I dislike revealing myself to mortals, especially in
another god's domain. Disclosing the presence of a tar'merin is
even more fraught with pitfalls, especially a mortal one. Vorkon
will be suspicious when his mages are killed, and he will more
likely suspect you, Bane, since I am loath to take life, even that
of a fallen soul.

"But I do not
think he will seek you out. He will not be in any hurry to face you
again, and you are not that easy to find. He might send assassins,
however, who will be dangerous. As soon as enough black mages are
dead, the blue mages they guarded must start creating wards."

"Vorkon will
instruct his remaining mages to watch more than one of ours, and
they will be discovered," the priestess muttered.

Bane shot her
an irritated glance. "They will have to take the risk. They want to
save their world, do they not?"

"Of
course."

"Why are the
blue mages safe in the cities? Do the walls of fire repel black
mages?"

Kayos shook
his head and looked to the priestess for an explanation.

"Soldiers
defend the cities," she said. "It is they who keep the warlocks at
bay, for they use weapons that spit blue fire. A number of soldiers
with such weapons can kill a black mage. Together they are more
powerful than a blue mage, and too many for the warlock to kill
before he is vanquished."

Bane cocked
his head. "Drayshina told us those weapons are useless against a
god, so why has Vorkon not destroyed the blue mages himself?"

"Doubtless he
will, but he has been obsessed with capturing our Lady of Light.
Perhaps he found their puny resistance amusing. Now he is searching
for Kayos, and their fate is delayed again."

Bane rubbed
his brow with a hand that still shook. "What about Drayshina? The
wards will trap her in the Darkworld too."

Kayos frowned.
"He will not keep her there. If he tortures her there, she will
die." The old priestess looked stricken, and Kayos continued, "He
has proven that he wishes to keep her alive. Clearly he plans to
amuse himself in this domain for some time yet. His greatest
triumph is her capture, and his greatest pleasure will stem from
her suffering. He will make it last for as long as possible."

"But we will
not know when he will Move her," Bane pointed out. "And he might
keep her there while he searches for you. If he continues to block
our Eyes, we will not be able to find her."

A pained look
flitted across Kayos' face, and he turned away. "I doubt he will
wait long. He will want to indulge himself soon."

The priestess
fell to her knees. "Lord, I beg you, do not let her suffer."

Kayos gazed
down at her. "I have not the power to save her, good priestess." He
cast a meaningful glance at Bane, and she paled as she followed his
eyes. Gathering her courage, she crawled towards Bane, prostrating
herself.

"Great lord, I
beseech you, save our Lady."

Bane glared at
Kayos, then at the grovelling woman. "Your begging only annoys me,
old woman."

She retreated,
and Kayos said, "Vorkon can only block my Eye while he is with her.
The moment he leaves her, I will be able to find her."

"He also knows
I seek her, and I know where she was, so he might Move her to hide
her from me."

"Perhaps. We
will have to see what happens. There is no use speculating on it
now."

Bane nodded
and rubbed his eyes, yawning. "I must rest, and I want to see my
wife."

Kayos turned
to the priestess. "Take us to the others."

"At once,
Lord." She rose and went to the door, opening it. "Do you require
anything else?"

Bane stood up,
gripping the chair for support. "No."

The priestess
led them down a deserted corridor to a cramped, bare room. As Bane
walked past, she shrank back. Mirra sat on the narrow bed, a
picture of dejection. She looked up, and her face lighted as she
leapt to her feet and ran to him, crying his name in unison with
Mithran and Grem. Her enthusiastic embrace made him step back, and
she seemed to sense his weakness and fatigue, tugged him to the bed
and pushed him down on it. Mithran and Grem hovered, his father
clasping his shoulder, his face wreathed in a relieved grin.

The priestess
watched them with a shocked expression, then bowed to Kayos. "I
apologise, Lord. We have no better rooms, even my own is the same
as this one. It is not fit for -"

Kayos held up
a hand. "It is fine."

"Thank you,
great lord. You honour us with your presence. Long may your name
live in sacred legend."

The priestess
backed out, closing the door, and Bane shot Kayos a wry glance. "Do
they always fawn like that?"

The Grey God
sighed. "Yes."

"Ah well,
better than screaming and running I suppose." Bane bent to pull off
his boots, but Grem knelt to do it for him.

Kayos created
a couch and reclined on it. "They only do that when they find out
who you are. You could easily walk amongst them without being
noticed."

"If I do not
use my power. So could you, if you used a glamour."

"Usually I do
not let them see me, but now we need their help."

Bane sighed,
rubbing his brow, and Mirra brushed aside the wing of hair that hid
his face to study it. "Are you all right?"

"Just
tired."

"What
happened?"

"He fought
Vorkon," Kayos said. "It did not go well, and now he needs to
rest."

Mirra nodded
and pushed Bane down, then stretched out beside him. Bane closed
his eyes, striving to banish the image of Drayshina writhing in the
grip of the flesh beast, her face twisted with despair. It had been
foolish of her to walk into the trap, or perhaps naïve, he
corrected himself. Surely she should have been aware of her danger,
in a realm a dark god had conquered. Light gods had no hope of
defending themselves, or even, it seemed, escaping a dark god. Bane
tossed and turned until he opened his eyes and gazed at the
ceiling. Mirra shifted beside him, and he turned his head to gaze
at her. The sight of her stilled the darkness' whispering as he
could not, and he turned to pull her close with a sigh.

Drayshina
stared at the flesh beast that awaited her at the bottom of the
shallow pit with dull, despairing eyes. Vorkon had Moved her to the
Lightworld, an unpleasant experience, and stood beside her,
gripping her arm. Her struggles in the Darkworld had exhausted her,
and while she had been weakened, he had shackled her wrists with
thin bands of duron. He held the chains that bound her to him with
his other hand, in case she jerked free of him. As long as he held
the chains, she could not Move without taking him with her.

He leant
closer and murmured, "Your new bed, My Lady. Fine, is it not?" He
sniggered. "Now you will serve me, and no one can save you. Soon I
shall have the light god too, and your precious tar'merin will die.
Where did he come from, the God Realm?"

She inclined
her head, and Vorkon continued, "He cannot defeat me, I have
already almost killed him, and it was easy. Next time I will. It
will be a pleasure to destroy a traitor who goes against his own
kind in the service of the light."

He slid his
hand up her arm to grip her throat. "He is an abomination, and yet
you begged for his help. Did you crawl to him and kiss his feet?
Did you promise to lie with him as payment for his charity? He is
alive, as you are. Do you lust for him?" His hand tightened on her
neck until she gasped, and he smiled. "Your screams will please
me."

Chapter Eleven

Fire Dancer

Shevra eyed
her friend Derrin, trying to quell the bubble of mirth that
threatened to overwhelm her. He glared at her, daring her to laugh
as water ran from his hair and dripped onto his shirt. She kept a
straight face, and shook her head in mock reproof.

"You'll have
to do better than that if you're going to gain your journeyman
status as a water dancer, Derrin."

"What does it
matter these days? We'll all be dead soon."

"Thinking like
that won't help."

Derrin turned
away from the lake and gestured at the gloomy vista around them.
"Who will even want to be entertained, in this?"

"I think
they'll need it more than ever, to keep their spirits up."

"Easy for you.
At least they'll still be able to see a fire dancer perform, but
me?" He snorted. "Who'll see what I can do?"

"That's why we
must perform together. It'll be wonderful, you'll see."

"They're all
too unhappy to care, and too broke to pay us."

"They may
surprise you. Come on, try again."

Derrin scowled
and shook the water from his hair, mopping his face with his shirt
tail. Turning to the lake, he stretched forth his hands and
gestured at the water. A shining globe rose and floated towards
him, wobbling. Shevra held her breath as it hovered over his head,
dreading his reaction if he failed again and got another soaking.
Boys were so full of pride. Derrin kept his eyes fixed on the
globe, concentrating hard as he made the subtle gestures necessary
to work it. The globe split into myriad smaller spheres, which were
almost invisible in the gloom, and Shevra bit her lip, thinking
about how terrible life had become lately.

The world had
been dark all of her life, for she was only nineteen years old, but
she had listened to the tales of the elders, who spoke of blue
skies and white clouds, green fields, trees with leaves and
beautiful animals. Such things were only legends to her generation,
and even her parents did not recall them. Life had always been
hard. The supply wagons that came from the distant cities every
moon barely brought enough food to last until the next one came.
She had helped to distribute the bags of grain that they brought,
and had found that the golden kernels had been touched by a power
that she had never known, sweet and warm and golden.

Once she had
drawn that power from a bag of grain and formed it into a golden
globe of warmth and light, to the delight of her fellow workers. An
elder who had been a fire dancer in her youth had remonstrated with
her, however, and made her take the grain for her own family. They
had found it dry and tasteless, and she had not repeated her
performance. The cities too were legendary, said to bask in pillars
of sunlight, which allowed them to grow the food they sent to towns
like her own, which survived in the darkness.

Shevra had
never seen sunlight, and when she was seven she had asked a supply
wagon driver to bring her some, which had made him laugh. He had
sobered quickly, however, and told her that he wished he could, but
only the goddess, Drayshina, could ever bring her sunlight. She had
prayed for it, but nothing had happened. Now the supply wagons were
three days late, and hunger stalked her town while people muttered
that the dark creatures that were said to stalk the land had taken
them.

The dwindling
supply of grain and salted meat in the town's community storehouse
was rationed, and everyone's belly was empty. Shevra did not
believe in dark creatures. They were figments of people's
imagination, conjured up by the gloom, the ash storms and the black
rain that turned it to sludge. Was it not bad enough that the
children had to play in ash and soot, and daytime was barely
lighter than night, but people had to make up horror stories as
well? At least their lake remained pure, despite the ash falls.

Derrin had
split the water globes into many tiny drops now, and they drifted
around his head in a wavering figure of eight, glinting in the dull
red light. A grin wreathed his handsome, boyish face, and his green
eyes shone with glee as he watched the shining droplets fly. Shevra
smiled and reached for the fire that burnt beside her, causing it
to leap and flare. She was a master fire dancer, recently elevated
by her town elders after she had passed all her tests. As such, she
should have been earning a good living at fairs and shows, but such
things were also no more than legends now. She still lived with her
parents, who survived on the charity of the cities, like everyone
else.