Mask of Dragons (33 page)

Crouch let out a furious snarl, and Adalar turned his head just as a Crimson Hunter shot towards him in a black blur, the crimson hourglass blotch upon its carapace glowing like a hot coal. Adalar threw himself to the side, ducking under the sweep of the giant spider’s clawed legs, and swung his greatsword. The blade rebounded from the spider’s carapace as if it had been made of stone, and the Crimson Hunter lunged forward. Adalar retreated in such haste that he lost his balance, falling upon his back as the spider loomed over him for the kill. 

Mazael struck before the Crimson Hunter could finish him, Talon carving chunks from the spider’s carapace. The Crimson Hunter leapt back, positioning itself between Mazael and the Prophetess, and Adalar shoved back to his feet, his legs and back aching from his landing. Rigoric charged at Earnachar and Basjun in a fury, forcing both of them to retreat. Adalar hesitated for an instant, unsure of what to do. He could not aid Mazael against the Crimson Hunter, but he could hurt Rigoric. Better to help Earnachar and Basjun against the Champion. Yet there was a second Crimson Hunter loose in the cavern, and he heard the clicking of its legs against the ground as it pursued Romaria and Sigaldra. Adalar braced himself to distract the giant spider so they could get away.

Then Timothy’s voice rang through the cavern. 

Adalar spotted the wizard standing next to the cluster of stalagmites, brandishing that carved oaken wand. The wand shone with blue light, and Timothy thrust it in the direction of the Crimson Hunter attacking Mazael. The giant spider went motionless, trapped in a shell of bluish light. Then a shudder went through the creature’s form, the light contracting, and the Crimson Hunter vanished in a swirl of gray mist. 

At once Mazael turned, driving at Rigoric. The Champion’s full attention was upon Earnachar and Basjun, and Rigoric did not see Mazael’s attack until it was too late. Mazael drove Talon under the side of Rigoric’s cuirass, plunging the curved blade deep into his vitals. Rigoric staggered, and Adalar threw himself forward, swinging his greatsword with all his strength and speed behind the blade. He aimed for Rigoric’s neck, but Rigoric’s inhuman reflexes let him dodge. Nevertheless, the full power of Adalar’s strike hit Rigoric in the face, right against the Mask of the Champion. Rigoric’s head snapped back, and he stumbled, waving his greatsword back and forth before him to ward off any blows. Mazael did not let up, slashing and thrusting Talon. Adalar sprinted to join him as Rigoric retreated towards the shrine. He had been in enough battles to have a sense of their momentum, and all the momentum was going against the Prophetess and Rigoric. If they could strike down the Champion and the Prophetess, the last remaining Crimson Hunter would be banished, and then…

“Enough!” 

The Prophetess’s voice snarled through the cavern like a thunderclap.

An instant later Adalar heard a howling gale, and a blast of invisible force struck him like a giant fist. The impact threw him backwards to land upon the floor, and he saw Mazael fall as well, and to judge from the sound of cursing, the spell had caught Earnachar and Basjun as well. Rigoric retreated to the base of the hill supporting the shrine, greatsword clasped in both hands. The Prophetess stood next to him, seemingly recovered from the arrows, though she looked pale and strained. Purple fire snarled and hissed around her hands, sheathing her in a translucent, flickering shell of light, likely a spell to deflect any more silver arrows. 

Adalar got to his feet, Mazael and the others following suit. He looked around and spotted Romaria and Sigaldra a dozen yards away, on the other side of a row of stone tables. The Crimson Hunter stood facing them, but the creature had gone motionless. Adalar wondered why the women did not shoot at the Prophetess, but then he saw the glowing wounds on the side of the Crimson Hunter. Likely they had used all their arrows trying to elude the spirit creature. 

“Enough, Mazael Cravenlock,” said the Prophetess, her voice calm. “I will not permit you to interfere any further with the return of the goddess.” 

“Permit me?” said Mazael. “Well, you’ve done a fine job of forbidding me so far.”

“This is madness,” said the Prophetess. “Why have you not come for me with your armies, your vassals, your knights? With only these fools to help you?” She let out a single irritated breath. “Better that you had died in the Grim Marches. Or that you had accepted the will of the goddess.”

“Let the girl go,” said Mazael, glancing in Liane’s direction. Liane still stood gagged and bound at the foot of the stairs, watching everything with frantic eyes. “Let her go, and I will permit you leave here alive.”

The Prophetess raised a single eyebrow. “You will permit me leave, Mazael Cravenlock?”

“Or I will kill you,” said Mazael. There was such iron certainty in his voice that Rigoric raised his sword a few inches, as if anticipating an attack. 

“Will you?” said the Prophetess, drawing herself up. Her voice was as cold and calm as the dead of winter. “You are a fool, a violent animal blundering through matters far beyond your comprehension. Do you not understand? I am the messenger of the goddess. I am her herald, her harbinger, the preparer of her way. The old age of the world is passing away. A new age arises in splendor, and…”

“Wait!” 

The Prophetess blinked as the unexpected voice.

Timothy staggered into the clear space below the shrine, breathing hard, smoke rising from the charred wand in his right fist. The spell to banish the Crimson Hunter must have been more difficult than planned. 

The Prophetess frowned, as if trying to recall something.

But Timothy spoke first.

“I remember you!” he said.

###

Mazael looked back and forth, the Demonsouled rage howling through his blood. It wanted him to attack, to strike down his foes, but his mind counseled caution. The Prophetess had been wounded, but she was still formidable.

And for the first time, she looked…confused. 

Perhaps even frightened?

“Little wizard,” said the Prophetess, her arrogance returning. “Do you think to challenge the herald of Marazadra? The spells and arts of the wizards’ colleges are the merest tricks of imbecilic children next to her power, and…”

“Your name,” said Timothy, “is the Lady Celina du Almaine.” 

Mazael expected the Prophetess to sneer, or to deny Timothy with glassy calm.

Instead she flinched as if he had slapped her, her green eyes going wide.

“Do not,” spat the Prophetess, “call me that! I have been reborn! I…”

“Just who,” said Mazael, watching her, “is the Lady Celina du Almaine?”

“A noblewoman of Travia,” said Timothy. “Ah…she was at the wizards’ college of Alborg when I studied there. We never spoke, but I saw her many times.”

The Prophetess’s face tightened into a bloodless mask, her eyes blazing. 

“So what happened to her?” said Adalar. 

“There was a civil war in Travia,” said Timothy. “Whenever the Prince of Travia dies, there usually is a civil war. At the time, Lord du Almaine wanted an alliance with Prince Malcolm. So he offered Lady Celina to Malcolm in marriage. Malcolm accepted, and took Celina as a mistress, but Celina manifested magical power. So Lord du Almaine and the Prince sent Celina to the wizards’ college, and she eventually disappeared after seducing one of the master wizards. Gods! That was years ago. I had forgotten all about it.” He shook his head. “I thought she would have died in the Great Rising.”

“You will be silent,” hissed the Prophetess. “I saw the feeble weakness of the wizards of the college. They understood little of true power, of true virtue. They…”

“I am sorry, my lady,” said Timothy. Even when facing a mad sorceress, his ingrained politeness remained unwavering. “But you are Celina du Almaine, youngest daughter of old Lord du Almaine, whatever you might call yourself now…”

“I told you,” snarled the Prophetess, “to be silent!” She raised her hand. “I shall…”

Sigaldra’s laughter interrupted her.

Again the Prophetess flinched, shock once more coming over her face. 

“Do you find something funny?” hissed the Prophetess. 

“Aye,” said Sigaldra. “You.”

“You find the messenger of the goddess funny?” said the Prophetess, her voice climbing an octave in her fury. 

Sigaldra laughed again. “Messenger of the goddess? Is that what you call yourself? After all your speeches and spells, all your threats of doom, all the death and destruction you caused? You’re not the Prophetess. You’re just some empty-headed woman who had her heart broken by a wealthy man, an empty-headed woman who was too stupid to see that she meant nothing to him…”

The Prophetess flinched again. “You will be silent.”

Sigaldra’s face twisted with disgust. “All of this, the goddess and the valgasts and all of it…you’re just having a damned tantrum. All your power, and you’re acting like a loose woman cast off by her…”

“I said to be silent!” screamed the Prophetess.

Sigaldra stopped talking, glaring at her enemy, but Earnachar’s laughter filled the silence. 

Earnachar had an annoying laugh. It was a harsh, monotonous bray, and it had always irritated Mazael, but right now it seemed to infuriate the Prophetess beyond measure.

“What,” she hissed, “are you laughing at, barbarian dog?”

“Myself, I think,” said Earnachar, wiping at one of his eyes. “I was afraid of you! I thought you were someone like the great traitor Lucan Mandragon, or one of the Dark Elderborn Exarchs that mighty Tervingar faced in the deeps of time. A wizard-lord of great power and might. Instead, you are…”

“I am the messenger of the goddess!” screamed the Prophetess. Two bright spots of color appeared upon her pale cheeks. 

“You are just a whore,” said Earnachar, laughing his braying laugh again. “Not even a very clever whore, because this Prince Malcolm of yours did not pay you with his promised coin!” 

“Gods and ancestors!” said Sigaldra, blinking. “In a thousand years I never thought I would agree with you, Earnachar son of Balnachar, but you have hit the nail upon the head.”

Again Earnachar laughed his irritating laugh. “If two mortal foes can agree that you are a whore, then it must be true, eh, Lady Celina? A pity I did not think to hire you for a night’s work when you came to Banner Hill! What do you think, young Basjun? Does she look worth two or three copper coins for the night? Or would I be overpaying?”

“It is immortal to lie with prostitutes,” said Basjun.

Earnachar shrugged. “Well, we have already discovered that she is a prostitute. Now we are just haggling about price.”

Still the Prophetess said nothing. For a moment Mazael wondered if she had been shocked into silence, but he realized that she was too angry to speak, too angry to control herself. If she was indeed a Travian noblewoman, it was possible no one had ever spoken to her as insultingly as Sigaldra and Earnachar. 

“You dare,” hissed the Prophetess at last. “You dare!” 

Sigaldra spat upon the ground. “A pity your father did not give you a lashing when you misbehaved. You might have learned wisdom from the…”  

“Fools!” said the Prophetess, her voice rising to a scream. “You understand nothing at all! I have seen the wisdom of the goddess! I have seen her power, and the true nature of mankind…”

“You’ve seen nothing,” said Mazael, a moment’s sympathy going through him. The obsession had eaten the woman out from the inside, consuming whoever Celina du Almaine had been and leaving the Prophetess in her place. “Only your own rage. Leave aside this madness before it destroys you.”

“Madness?” hissed the Prophetess.

“Your father hurt you,” said Mazael. “I understand that. Better than you ever would, probably. If you really want to spite him, then live. Turn aside from your path before it slays you…”

The Prophetess let out a sound that was halfway between a scream and a wild laugh. 

“My path?” said the Prophetess. “You think me a common whore? A screaming child? Then you understand nothing of the truth! Behold!” 

She reached to her collar and tugged open the front of her black robe. 

Mazael’s first, instinctive thought was that the Prophetess would have had no trouble whatsoever seducing Prince Malcolm. Her breasts rose and fell with the furious draw of her breath, her stomach taut, her skin smooth and clear. 

The metal spider wrapped around her torso ruined the sight, though. 

Its body nestled between her breasts, its fangs sunk into her flesh. The eight legs curled around her torso, their tips buried in her sides and back. Purple fire flickered up and down the eight legs, and the metal spider’s eight eyes shone with the same flame. The spider’s body pulsed slightly, as if it was breathing or perhaps sucking upon the Prophetess’s blood, and the entire thing looked like a grotesque parody of an infant suckling at its mother’s breast. 

“Dear gods,” said Adalar, his disgust plain.

“The Talisman of the Messenger,” said the Prophetess, once hand coming up to stroke the spider’s metal body. “When my father left me to rot at the wizards’ college, I understood the true wickedness of mortal kind and I despaired. But in the library of the college I found the secret. I discovered the truth. It led the way to the Talisman of the Messenger, and the goddess’s voice filled my thoughts. I understood my purpose at last. I would be the instrument of the goddess’s return,” her voice filled with malicious gloating, “and men like my father and the Prince would understand the nature of fear at last.”

“Prince Malcolm is dead,” said Mazael. “The runedead killed him on the first day of the Great Rising.”

“So is Lord du Almaine, my lady,” said Timothy. 

“You are pursuing revenge against dead men,” said Mazael.

The Prophetess laughed again, her eyes glittering like jade knives. “But there are others like them, my lord Mazael. So many men and women just like them. My wretched father and the wretched Prince were slain before I could teach them virtue through fear. But there are so many others.” She closed her robe, concealing the metal spider once more. As she did, the spider started to glow with purple fire, and Mazael still saw its light leaking through her robe’s collar and the hems of her sleeves. “You, however, shall not live to see it. None of you shall!”