Demon Lord III - Grey God (30 page)

"Then perhaps
it is time you did."

"Why do you
want to save them?"

She smiled,
folding her hands again. "I am an angel."

"How do you
know of their plight?"

"I have heard
their cries. They beg Drayshina to help them, but she cannot, and
could not, even if she was not enslaved. Gods can only hear prayers
that are meant for them; else the clamouring of countless voices
would madden them. We hear nothing, unless we listen carefully, and
then we can hear all prayers, but only as the faintest of whispers,
unless they are too far away, and, of course, the pleas of
gods."

Bane
considered, trying to recall how he had felt when Kayos had shown
him the children being killed within the Eye. Deep down, he still
experienced a flare of anger at their cruel slaughter, but the dark
power mocked his compassion. He found that the thought of saving a
bunch of villagers meant little to him, yet the prospect of
destroying a dark army did hold some appeal, if only to demonstrate
his power and annoy Vorkon. The dark power did not care whom it
destroyed, it revelled in destruction and death for its own sake.
He nodded.

"Very well.
Where is this town?"

"Fifty leagues
to the south, a place called Arbordan."

Bane used the
information to gain a fair idea of the location, and let his powers
do the rest. He Moved.

The Demon Lord
reappeared in the middle of a scene of fire and carnage. The
familiar stench of fear, death and smoke rushed into his nostrils.
Black, lightning-shot clouds roiled overhead, the hellish red glow
lighting them from within, but no fiery rain fell here. Burning
buildings cast a ruddy light over the seething multitude of dark
shapes that stalked between them, cutting down fleeing people.
Agonised screams rent the air as people were torn apart by
monstrous dark creatures the likes of which he had not seen before,
or were hacked to death by the hordes of dirty soldiers.

Hairy,
bat-winged vampires crouched over writhing victims, sucking their
blood with noisy gusto. Soldiers thrust burning brands into
buildings, adding to the blaze. Thick, choking smoke billowed
forth, and people ran screaming from the infernos into the waiting
swords and axes of the dark horde. Blood ran in the cobbled
streets, and mutilated corpses hung from posts and protruding
beams, their dangling guts glistening. Bane turned, his cloak
flaring, to take in the horror of the slaughter. Evidently the dark
army had been amusing themselves in the town for quite a while.
Some distance away, a man clad in silver-studded black leather
stood atop a hill, four earth demons attending him. The black
mage.

The suffering
and death did not affect Bane. The dark power deadened his pity and
horror, and he had seen it all before. Evil enjoyed such sights,
and he found himself watching the carnage with clinical detachment.
Memories of his rampage across the Overworld returned, when he had
been the master of just such destruction, and enjoyed it. It was
familiar, a part of his past, a part of what he had been, and still
was. Was he a man, or merely a receptacle of the darkness, its tool
and plaything?

Bane frowned,
held up his pale, slender hands and stared at them. What was he?
Why had he come here? He had no wish to save these pathetic, puling
humans. Yet was he not one himself? A human? A mortal? A god? If he
was tar'merin, why did he have no wish to end the slaughter? He
tried to imagine Mirra at his side, her horror, her wide,
frightened eyes, but the dark power cast the image from his mind.
Nameless doubts assailed him, tugged at the fabric of his being and
brought dark thoughts from the hidden recesses of his mind to taunt
him.

A young girl
ran from the darkness between two houses, a dozen dirty, laughing
soldiers pursuing her. Bane glimpsed her terrified face in the
brief flare of a burning house as a beam fell within it, sending up
a gush of fire. Her pretty features were set in a rigid mask of
terror, and the wind of her flight pressed the soft material of her
dress to her slender form as she ran as lightly as a gazelle
through the debris. It seemed that she would outrun her clumsy
pursuers, and Bane watched her with a detached interest. She raced
past another burning building, and glanced back, then gestured
towards the inferno.

A swathe of
flame leapt from the conflagration and engulfed some of the
soldiers, setting fire to their greasy clothes and hair. They
howled and beat at the flames, but the rest forged through them and
chased after the girl with renewed determination, snarling curses.
Bane wondered if he had imagined that her gesture had commanded the
fire, but as she ran past another, smaller fire, she did it again.
More men fell howling and writhing, beating at their blazing hair
and clothes, and the girl ran on.

A soldier
emerged from a building ahead of her and leapt into her path. She
tried to swerve, but slipped in a pool of blood and fell. The
filthy men closed in on her, hiding her from view as they pinned
her to the ground. They did not appear to notice Bane; he was just
another shadow in the smoky twilight, standing immobile. The sound
of ripping cloth came from the huddled group, and the girl's dress
was tossed out, then the men laughed roughly, and she screamed.

A flare of
rage shot through Bane, surprising him, and he knew it was his own.
He did not know how long he had stood watching without feeling, a
few minutes perhaps, but now he was filled with revulsion. The
girl's screams spiked his heart, fanning the flames within it to
white-hot fury. The dark power's scorn washed through him, mocking
his rage, probing his mind with fiery spikes of derision. He thrust
it back, ignoring its spiteful attempts to make him enjoy the
horror around him, and something snapped in his mind. He closed his
eyes, and the image of all that was good and evil came to him. A
part of him that he had never known existed sprang to life. It was
as if he could still see with his eyes closed, but only the souls
around him, the pure, pale light of the good and the dark red glow
of the damned.

The dark power
fought him, striving to snuff out that which had just been born,
but he mastered it with the savagery it had taught him, bending it
to his will. Walls within his mind collapsed, and a surge of
knowledge flooded out. He opened his eyes and raised his arms. Dark
fire poured from his hands in rivers of shadow, and all that was
evil around him died.

The black tide
surged through the streets, and soldiers, dark creatures and demons
screamed and perished in the massive wave of his wrath. It spread
from him in a ring of death, rushed through everything around him
and snuffed out the evil. The black mage survived long enough to
turn and see the instrument of his destruction in the instant
before his shields collapsed and he was consumed with a howl of
pain.

Bane's flesh
burnt as the dark fire poured through him, igniting the seven runes
on his chest. The fire he unleashed swept through the town,
spreading from it in a wave of shadow that lapped at the distant
forests, far more than was needed to destroy the dark army. He had
not used so much since Dorel had killed Mirra, and he had summoned
Lyriasharin by threatening to destroy her domain. That time, the
fire had destroyed all it touched, fuelled by his rage and anguish
at Mirra's death. This time, he commanded it to destroy only evil,
but his rage fuelled it again. His stomach clenched and heaved as
the shadows poured from him, then he lowered his arms and leashed
it into his bones. Bowing his head, he closed his eyes as the power
receded from his flesh, then looked up.

The dark army
was gone, the demons piles of fetid earth, the black mage a greasy
smear on the ground. The burning buildings had been snuffed out,
and the dark clouds overhead had thinned to grey, allowing weak
sunlight to filter through. In its soft illumination, the streets
were filled with odd grey shapes, the forms of the soldiers and
dark creatures now made of nothing but ash. His eyes scanned the
stillness, seeking the villagers he had tried to spare, but found
none.

Had the dark
power tricked him? Had it used him to destroy the good as well as
the evil, giving him the impression that he could spare the
innocent when in fact he could not? Bane's heart filled with
sorrow, and he fell to his knees. Had he destroyed everything? He
bowed his head and looked down at his hands again, the instruments
of so much death. What was he? What had he done? He had come here
to save the innocent, and had thought he had, but nothing moved in
the village after the shadows had soaked away into the earth. It
seemed that he had slain everything, which was not surprising
considering the amount of dark power he had unleashed.

A soft cough
made him look up. The huddled ashen shapes of the soldiers who had
been ravishing the girl crumbled and fell apart as a pale, slender
arm thrust through them. The girl sat up, her eyes wide in a face
smeared with ash, her tangled hair grey with it. She gasped, tears
making pale runnels in the dirt on her cheeks. Her eyes settled
upon him, and widened, her expression becoming fearful.

Bane sank back
on his haunches and bowed his head. He longed to thank some higher
power, but there was none. Gods could not pray. He spread his hands
again and stared at them. What had happened to him? He had guided
the dark power before, but not like this. Something new had
awakened within him, a part of his mind he had never used before
had come to life, and with it, more power.

Vaguely he was
aware of other people emerging from the buildings and climbing out
of the ash to look around in mystified relief. Most were too
stunned to speak, but a bedraggled priest in a torn grey robe
staggered from the ruin of a nearby church and shouted, "Praise the
Lady! Praise our goddess! Drayshina has saved us!"

Bane glanced
at him, then his eyes were drawn to the girl, who rose naked from
the ash, and stared at him with undiluted fascination. Bane
resisted the urge to touch his face. Did he look different? The ash
had not touched him, and would not, for the dark power cleansed all
dirt from his skin. Why did she stare at him so? The priest
continued to rant and rave, inciting the people to kneel and pray
to the goddess. The girl picked up her torn dress and draped it
over herself. The priest grabbed people and forced them to their
knees, begging them to pray. The girl glanced at him.

"No." Her
voice carried in the deathly hush that only the priest's cries had
broken until then. "It was not our goddess who saved us," she said.
"It was him." She pointed at Bane.

The priest
frowned. "He's one of them! A black mage!"

The girl
studied Bane again. "No. He's no mage." She displayed remarkable
poise, considering what she had just been through. "No mage could
have done this." She gestured to the devastation, then gazed at him
with azure eyes.

"Then what the
hell is he?" the priest demanded, walking closer to the girl, the
people following.

"He's a
god."

The crowd
muttered, and many of its members frowned at Bane, others looked
fearful and some disbelieving. The priest said, "There's only one
dark god in Drivania, and that's Vorkar."

"Now there are
two," she stated.

The priest
clasped his head in a gesture of despair. "We will be caught up in
a god war. We will be destroyed!"

The girl shook
her head. "Had he wished it, we would all be dead."

The priest
lowered his hands, looking confused.

"He saved us,"
she said.

"Why?"

"I don't
know." Clasping the tattered remnants of her dress to her breast,
she approached Bane.

"Shevra, be
careful," the priest said.

Bane eyed the
ragged, ash-smeared crowd.

Shevra stopped
three paces away and gazed down at him. "Who are you?"

Bane opened
his mouth to answer, but nothing came out, and he frowned. A soft,
lilting voice spoke in his ear.

"Say nothing.
Leave now."

He lashed out,
striking something soft, and the slight power that had silenced him
vanished. "Do not presume to command me, Syrin."

Bane rose to
his feet, towering over the girl, who raised her chin to gaze up at
him, and he admired her courage.

"I am Bane,
the Demon Lord."

"Why did you
spare us?"

He looked at
the crowd again, wondering at their mood. "I did not spare you. I
came here to save you."

The throng
muttered, and Shevra looked surprised. "Why?"

He shrugged,
embarrassed. "Does it matter?"

"Only if you
plan to use us in some dark ritual that requires our gratitude, or
think you can gain our worship by saving us."

"I do
not."

"Dark gods
don't save people."

"So I have
heard."

She tilted her
head, her eyes flicking over him. "You're mortal."

"I am aware of
that."

"What do you
want of us?"

"Nothing." He
shook his head. "In fact, I must leave."

"Wait!" Shevra
held out a hand, but he swung away and vanished with a sickening
surge of dark power.

"Wait?" The
priest looked scandalised. "Why would you wish him to stay here?
Have you gone mad?"

"No, I
haven't, Bedak," Shevra said, staring at the spot where the Demon
Lord had stood. "He just saved us all, and we didn't even thank
him."

"Not all of
us. Hundreds were slain; only a few have survived."

"We can hardly
blame him for that. Those of us who have survived owe him our
lives."

"Which is
probably why he did it," Bedak said.

"No. I believe
him."

"Dark gods
lie."

"Not him. He's
different. I don't know how just yet, but I intend to find
out."