DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (11 page)

Despite the thrill, Avelyn flinched as he drifted through the room's ceiling. He marveled at the loose structure of the wood, at the density of the higher room's tile floor.

There were several monks, men a few years Avelyn's senior, in the chamber above. Avelyn felt himself grinning, felt his physical form in the lower room grinning, as he passed, the men totally oblivious of him.

Then the grin was gone. Something tugged hard at the young monk, some dark temptation that he should enter one of these men, that he could push out the host spirit and possess the body!

He was beyond them before that dangerous notion fully registered, drifting higher, through the next ceiling into an empty room, then through that ceiling and the next and the next and the next, this last one much thicker. Then he was outside, though he felt none of the physical sensations, the warmth of the sun or the chill of the ocean breeze. He saw that he was rising above one of the highest spots of St.-Mere-Abelle, coming right out of the roof. Still he went higher, and Avelyn feared that he would never stop the ascent, that he would drift through the clouds, out to the Halo, the stars. Perhaps he would shine in the heavens above, a fifth light on the girdle of Progos-Behemoth!

He dismissed that ridiculous notion and turned his spirit about, looking at the roof of the abbey. From up here: St.-Mere-Abelle appeared as a thick and stretched snake, winding its way along the top of the sea cliff. Avelyn saw a commotion in the courtyard, far to the side, as a group of young monks labored at the well and with the abbey's horses and mules.

"Come back," bade a distant voice, Master Jojonah's voice, reaching Avelyn through his physical form. The disconnection was not complete, the young monk realized, and he shuddered to think of what a complete break from his own physical form might mean.

Shocked back to his senses, Avelyn turned his attention to the high roof directly below him. He had seen this roof before, from one of the higher points of the abbey, but looking on it from this vantage point revealed a most clever design, an image that could not be seen from a lower angle. Carved into the roof were four arms, two sets, hands lifted high, palms open and holding stones.

The journey back was quicker, until Avelyn got into the room directly above the Ring Stone chamber. This time the temptation of the other bodies pulled at him even harder. He felt himself being drawn in. He pictured the hematite as another living being, commanding him, whispering promises of power into his spiritual ear.

Avelyn felt something touch his hand — not his spiritual hand, but the physical one, the one clutching the stone. He sensed the chrysoberyl again, that magical barrier, and then his spirit was pulled to the floor, through the floor, careening back to his waiting body.

Avelyn nearly jumped when he opened his physical eyes again, seeing Master Jojonah so very close.

"One, three, two, one, five," the young monk said abruptly, trying to satisfy whatever curiosity held the older man.

Jojonah waved his hand and shook his head, uninterested. "What did you see?" he asked.

Avelyn noted that Jojonah held both stones again, though he didn't remember giving the hematite back to the man.

"What did you see?" Jojonah pressed, moving even closer.

"Arms," Avelyn blurted. ""Two sets, palms open . . ." Before he could finish, Jojonah fell away, gasping, laughing, crying all at once. Avelyn had never seen such a display, couldn't begin to decipher it.

"How?" Avelyn asked with enough force to bring Jojonah back to his senses.

"The stones," Avelyn clarified when he had the man's attention. "How could this be?"

Jojonah launched into a rushed explanation, more the regurgitation of a prepared speech than anything spontaneous. He talked of the humours of the body joining together with the alien humours of the stones to create the seemingly magical reaction. He even compared what had happened to Avelyn with the tablets given to a monk with a stomachache to induce a belch or a fart.

As he listened, Avelyn felt the mystery melting around him. For the first time since they had entered the room, there was no reverence in Master Jojonah's voice, just the dry lecturing tone of an instructor. Avelyn didn't buy into it, any of it. He could. not explain what had just happened to him, but he knew instinctively that this talk of "alien humours" belittled the experience. There was indeed a mystery here that no tumble of fancy words could lay bare; there was something here of a higher order. Master Jojonah had called the stone showers "offerings," and to Avelyn, that description seemed exactly wrong.

"Graces" was a more appropriate term, the young monk decided there and then. He glanced around the room again, from stone to stone, his reverence of these gifts from God tenfold what it had been when first he had entered the chamber.

"You should be among those select few who make the journey," Master Jojonah declared, and the weight of the statement drew Avelyn back to him.

"To Pimaninicuit," Jojonah explained, his grin widening as Avelyn's brown eyes widened. "You are young and strong and full of God's voice."

Tears collected in Avelyn's eyes and began to stream-down his face at the mere thought that he might be among the chosen few to get so very close to the greatest gift of God

Jojonah dismissed him then and he left the room as if in a trance, overwhelmed indeed.

When he was gone, Master Jojonah replaced the stones, closed the case, then went to the wall and moved the hidden switch to lock it fast. All the while, the master considered the weight of what he had witnessed. A first-year novice should not have been able to activate the magic of the stone, despite what he had told Avelyn about hematite. Even if a novice had managed to fall into the magic, the control should have been above him, a quick and random out of body experience, culminating with a gasping, disbelieving, thoroughly overwhelmed young man.

For Avelyn to control the magic enough to get behind Jojonah's back and see the finger sequence was incredible. For the young man to use the stones and drift out of the room, out of the abbey, and see the design on the roof was truly amazing. Jojonah would not have believed it possible. The master paused and lamented his own weakness. He had been in St.-Mere-Abelle for more than three decades, and had only been able to use the hematite that way for the last three years!

Jojonah pushed his own self-pity away and smiled about Avelyn. The young monk was a good choice, a God-given choice indeed, to go to Pimaninicuit.

She came back to consciousness never expecting to see the wide sky again. She opened her blue eyes even as she moved her hands in frantic waves, trying to rid the small hole of the thick odor of charred wood.

A slanting ray cut in through the smoke, a single shaft of light that beckoned the girl back to the land of the living. She followed it as if in a dream, gingerly reaching up to touch the piece of lumber that had fallen to partially block the hole.

The wood was warm. Jilseponie understood then that she had been unconscious for a long time. She found she could put her arm against the beam firmly as long as she kept her sleeve between tender flesh and the wood.

The girl pushed hard, but the beam would not give. Stubborn as ever, summoning her rage to bolster her muscles, Pony set her legs under her as firmly as she could and pushed again, with all her might, groaning with the strain.

The sound of her own voice stopped her cold. What if the goblins were still out there? She settled back and sat very still, listening intently, not even daring to breathe.

She heard the cawing of the birds — carrion birds, she knew. But nothing else came to her — not the whimper of a survivor, not the whining, grating voice of a goblin, not the guttural grunts of the fomorian giants.

Just the birds, feeding on the bodies of her fallen friends.

That horrid thought set Pony into violent motion. She set her legs again and pushed with every ounce of strength she had, groaning but too angry to consider the implications of her noise should the goblins still be around.

The beam lifted an inch and shifted to the side, but Pony could not maintain its weight and it came down heavily, with a decidedly final thud. Pony knew that she could not move it again from this new angle, and so she didn't even try. Now she squirmed and squeezed. She got her arm through, then her head and one shoulder, and held there for a moment, trying to catch her breath, so relieved to have her face, at least, out in the open sunlight once again.

That relief lasted only until the girl glanced around. This was Dundalis -

- she knew that logically — but it was no place Pony had ever seen before. All that remained of Elbryan's house was a few beams and the stone foundation; all that remained of Dundalis was a few beams and a few stones.

And bodies. Pony only saw a couple from this angle, a goblin and an older woman, but the stench of death hung as thickly in the air as the smoke from the fires. A substantial voice within Pony's head told her to crawl back into the hole, to curl up and cry, perhaps even to die, for death — be it heaven, be it empty blackness — had to be preferable to this.

She spent a long while halfway in and halfway out, teetering on the edge of hysteria, of hopelessness. She made up her mind simply to crawl back in, but something, some inner resolve the young woman did not yet understand, would not let her.

Again came the wriggling, the tearing of clothes and scraping of skin, the frantic pull and twist that, at last, freed her from the hole. And then came the next long pause, lying on the ground on her back, her thoughts swirling down a multitude of paths, every one of which seemed to lead to no place but despair.

With great effort, Pony pulled herself up from the ground and walked from between the piles of rubble that had been the houses of Olwan Wyndon and Shane McMichael. The main. road remained, crushed stones and packed dirt carefully edged for drainage, and that alone confirmed to Pony that she was indeed in Dundalis, in the remains of what had been her home. Not a single structure stood. Not a single person or even a horse remained alive. Nor were there any living goblins or giants, Pony, realized, with small relief. Only the vultures, dozens and dozens, some circling overhead, most on the ground feasting, tearing at skin that had been warm to Pony's touch just the day before, pecking at eyes that had locked with her own, shared gaze and shared thought.

Pony turned with a start, visualizing the fight on the road, the last she had seen of her father. There were the bodies; she saw Olwan, crumpled and broken in the same spot where she had seen him fall. And then she could look no more, fearing that she would find Thomas Ault, her father dear, among the dead.

Of course he was dead, Pony told herself, and so was her mother, and so was Elbryan, and so was everyone.

The girl, feeling so helpless and so little, nearly fell to the ground, but again that stubborn instinct kept her upright. She noted the great numbers of dead goblins, even a couple of giants. One group in particular, a pile of many monstrous corpses together in the road, posed a curious riddle. They had fallen as if they had formed a defensive ring, yet there were no human bodies near them. Just the goblins and a lone giant, slumped together, soaked in blood from the many small wounds on each corpse. Pony thought she should go closer to investigate, but she hadn't the stomach.

She stood and stared, and a numbness came over her, stealing her emotions.

The riddle was lost, for Pony was too exhausted to pause and ponder it, to pause and think of anything — too defeated and bedraggled to do anything except stagger out of the village, moving south along the road, then turning west at the first fork, moving toward the dying sun.

Subconscious instinct alone guided her. Weedy Meadow was the closest village, but Pony really didn't think that the place would be any different.

Surely all the world had fallen to ruin; surely all the people were dead, were being pecked and torn by vultures.

Sometime later, as dusk descended, Pony's senses warned her that she was not alone. To the right, she saw a slight shiver of one small bush. It could have been a ground squirrel, the girl reasoned, but she knew in her heart that it was not.

To the left came a titter, a tiny voice whispering softly.

Pony kept moving straight ahead. She cursed herself for not having had the wisdom to collect a weapon before leaving Dundalis. It wouldn't matter, she quickly reminded herself, and perhaps this way, defenseless, the end would come more quickly.

So she went on, stubbornly, looking straight ahead, ignoring any signals that she might not be alone, that goblins might be behind every tree, watching her, laughing at her, taking good measure of her, perhaps even arguing among themselves over which one would be given the pleasure of the kill — and the pleasures that might come before the kill.