Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming (34 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

As the portal through which Baranak had emerged moments earlier dwindled down to a tiny pinprick of light and then vanished, I managed to get a sense of just how many barriers, how many layers of reality, he had torn through in order to reach this place.
Seven
. The knowledge staggered me. Never had I heard of such a feat. No wonder he had collapsed; the effort of forcing himself through that many different planes, all in one leap—that alone should have all but killed any of our kind. Looking down at his smoldering form, though, I saw that the jump alone had not left him in his present condition. His gleaming golden armor was dented in places, and scorch marks streaked his arms, as if he had been wrestling with a flamethrower. He had been in a fight, and had taken a considerable pounding.

All the more amazing, then, when he struggled up to one knee and gazed up at me, very much alive.

“Impressive,” was all I could say.

He lunged at me.

Backpedaling quickly, I released the energy I had stored within myself, aiming a barrage at him. I am no offensive juggernaut, but with my life on the line, and a bit of time to prepare, I can conjure up a few methods of attack. I had hoped not to have to employ them against the god of battle, of course. I had had other plans for dealing with him. But here we were, and my options had grown extremely limited.

Surprisingly, the column of blue-tinted energy I directed into his midsection rattled him, and he staggered backward, grunting. I repeated the effort as soon as I was able, and this time he crashed to his knees again, gasping, his golden plate mail clanking on the hard floor.

Now, this was just silly. I could never hope to reduce Baranak to such a condition by myself. He had to have been much more seriously hurt than I had first suspected. Half of me relished the completely unexpected opportunity to finish him off forever. The other half of me—-a half I had scarcely suspected existed until this moment—-held me back somehow.

Once again Baranak attempted to rise and attack me. If nothing else, I admired his determination. Again I smashed him to the ground, this time leaving him flat on his back, his breathing ragged.

Baranak lay on the verge of defeat. I had him. He was beaten, though I had not been the one to do the bulk of the work, by any means. Nevertheless, all that remained was to administer the coup de gras. Summoning up the Power, taking aim at his prone form, I looked inside myself for the elation I thought I should be feeling at such a moment… and found nothing.

I risked a quick glance at the humans. They all hung back, at the far side of the room. They had seen Baranak before, and understood to some degree the power and the danger he carried with him.

“Finish him off,” Cassidy called. “For God’s sake, man—-you may not get another chance!”

Cautiously, my energies at the ready, I approached the big, armored form, peering down at his still body. His eyes were closed, but they flickered open again as I watched. I braced myself.

He regarded me with what looked to be genuine surprise, then scowled. “Enough,” he said in a voice as weak as I had ever heard from him, though still carrying tremendous force of command. Slowly, painfully, he attempted to pull himself up to one knee.

He seemed sincere about ending the fight, and treachery had never been something associated with him, so I waited. Unsure of whether to help him up or kick him back down, I merely stood there, staring at him. After a few seconds he sought to stand, and reflexively I bent down, helping him up, terribly worried that he might strike again at any moment.

“What are you doing?” Kim demanded.

“You can’t be serious,” Cassidy added.

“Quiet,” Evelyn ordered, and the other two shut up.

Baranak coughed roughly, then looked at me, unsteady.

“Lucian. Well.”

Leaning on my arm, he actually managed a sharp laugh.

“How ironic.”

He pulled away, then swayed unsteadily for a second before seeming to regain his equilibrium.

“What did this to you?” I asked, stepping away again quickly, just in case he renewed hostilities.

He tried to move, all but staggering forward, then halted again and stood like a giant redwood, swaying in the breeze.

“I can… no longer… dispute your account of these… Dark Men,” he wheezed. “Four of them… beset me… on the Road.”

“Four?”

I stepped back another step, as quickly as if he’d said he brought them along with him.

“You were attacked by
four
of them?”

“Yes,” he huffed, his breathing labored.

“And yet here you are,” I said, shaking my head in wonder. “At least you managed to get away from them—“

He glared at me with enough force to knock a lesser man through a wall.

“Get away? No! I fought them!”

“Of course, you fought them,” I amended. “That much is obvious. But—“ And I summoned up the Power to full force again, preparing to unleash it upon him, “—you then decided to come straight here, after me?”

“Not… after you,” he said, slowly regaining his composure. “I had no idea… you were here. I came looking for Arendal.”

He grasped his helmet in both hands and wrested it off his head. His thick blond beard dripped with sweat; his piercing blue eyes showed no signs of defeat.

“I sought his help,” he said, “or perhaps a weapon of his, that I could use against them.”

I blinked. “You came here looking for Arendal?” Somehow, that thought had not even occurred to me.

Then I started to laugh.

He glared at me, waiting.

“Of course you did,” I said. “But I’m afraid I have some unpleasant news. Well,” I added, “unpleasant for you, anyway.” I thought of Arendal lying in the sand with a hole in his forehead. “Sort of pleasant for me, actually.”

His eyes bored into mine, and I could feel his patience evaporating. Quickly I gave him a very brief synopsis of the clash between Arendal and myself on the beach. After I finished, he continued to glare at me, his anger now almost palpable.

“Then you may have doomed us all,” he growled, “even if you did not kill the others, before.”

His words struck me like a physical blow, and I almost stumbled.
What?
Had he just conceded my innocence in the matter of the murders—or at least admitted that some degree of doubt existed in his mind? What had changed? As much as I wanted to pursue that topic further, I also wanted to know how my settling of matters with Arendal could possibly result in any sort of calamity, so I reluctantly bit my tongue and waited for him to continue.

“We needed Arendal,” Baranak hissed.

He shifted his gaze to the ground, then, and his voice grew as quiet, as troubled, as I had ever heard it.

“The City itself is under siege,” he said. “We are beset by an army of these Dark Men!”

I swayed on my feet, shocked.

“What? An army?”

“Yes. And there are more of them than there are gods remaining to defend the City. Many more. They have taken up positions outside the walls.”

His eyes narrowed.

“I was convinced it was your doing.”

I glared back at him.

“I was convinced it was yours, all along,” I growled.

“Murderer.”

“Tyrant.”

We stared one another down for a long moment, broken finally by Evelyn, who had approached us from the side, saying, “Your city! Under attack. Remember? Not to mention our worlds…”

Both Baranak and I blinked and glanced at her, then quickly turned back to one another.

“Let us not forget that part of it,” Baranak said. “The demons have returned to the human worlds. You deny involvement in that?”

“Oh, sure—-I unleashed demons against my own adopted homeworld.”

I rolled my eyes.

“How far do you intend to push this absurdity, Baranak?” I demanded. “Can you not see there is more going on here than just me up to my old tricks?”

Sullen now, Baranak said nothing. Seconds ticked past, as I waited to see if he would press the matter or even attack again. It appeared, though, that he had come to some sort of acceptance, whether he would admit it or not.

Then I became aware of something that had nagged at my thoughts since his arrival.

“Your Hosts, Baranak. Where are they?”

He looked away.

“Dead. Or near death, anyway.”

He exhaled, long and slow. He looked more worn down, more beaten, than I had ever seen him—than I could have ever imagined him.

“They fell defending me, providing a chance for… escape.” The words came hard to him; the thought of leaving a battle before it was entirely over had to gall him. “But I—-we—-needed help. The welfare of the City had to be put first. I—-I had to come here.”

I did not know whether to feel hatred toward him for all of the harassment he had given me for so long, or sympathy for his current plight. The errand he was now on was for the good of our City, though, and I owed him honesty in that regard.

“Arendal surely would not have been of any help to us,” I said, “even were he here.”

Baranak frowned.

“What? Why?”

Taking the bag from Evelyn, I unzipped it and dumped out the contents.

“We found these here, in Arendal’s sanctum,” I said. “He had to have been involved.”

Baranak stared at the black pieces of armor, then looked back at me, his expression bleak. Breathing deeply, he drew off one of his mail gauntlets and ran his hand over his face. The swagger, the arrogance with which I had always associated him, was gone.

“This is grave news,” he said.

He lifted one of the dark faceplates, studied it, and tossed it aside in disgust.

“If these…
things
… were never controlled by you, and if Arendal is out of the picture now… then who…?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “But I have my suspicions.” Best to wait for more evidence before accusing his recent right-hand man, I reasoned.

“Whatever the things are,” he growled, “they are powerful. Remarkably powerful.”

“From my own experiences, I would tend to agree with that.”

“They possess abilities similar to our own.”

I nodded. “Remarkably similar, I would say.”

He looked at me, frowning.

And it clicked.

“Tell me, Baranak—-how can I be a murderer, when no one is dead?”

His frown deepened.

“What?”

“Did you see the bodies?”

“Of course! At least, the ones who were killed in or around the City, while the Fountain was not flowing. Others I saw after it was restored, when their bodies were brought back to the City, just before you arrived. All were quite dead.”

“And what became of them?”