Chapter 27
27.1
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The oasis was a green island in a sea of white, scented with flowers and clear water. Azygous stood in the sand where the shade of the trees almost touched his toes, unable to go any further. An invisible wall, as strong as the white stone which surrounded the temple proper, held him back. Jovibon, however, grinned as he walked on the grass. He pointed to the spurting fountains, whose spray cooled his face. “I’ll think of you as I drink my fill.”
Azygous looked back, emotionless as a statue.
Chuckling to himself, Jovibon stepped deeper into the shade – then stopped as scream filled the air. There was pain in that scream, but something else. Energy. Childbirth.
Something much better than water.
He turned to follow the sound. It came from one of the huts within the temple walls. To get in, he would have to don one of the strings of amber beads that all supplicants to Lophelia wore, beads that would wake at the slightest hint of power and strangle the wearer. It was said that the Goddess gave her blessing to a few wizards, those she deemed innocent enough to receive her charity, but those were so rare as to be myths. But now, in his hampered state, Jovibon knew he was safe. He plucked a necklace from a waiting bush and started to out it over his head.
Then stopped, seeing the foolishness he had almost committed. He could not reach his power, but Azygous, drawing on power through Jovibon, would waken the beads. He turned and looked at the face which was, indeed, drawn tight with anticipation. “I command you, Azygous, to remain as you are until I return. I command you to make no use of your power until I return.”
Disappointment flickered across the wizard’s opulent features.
Jovibon slid the beads over his head, where they sat quietly. He grinned as he strode toward the hut where the woman labored to produce what he needed. Then, just outside the wall, Jovibon saw something which gladdened him even more. Laying against the wall, trapped in web of amber necklace, was the globe he had sent out. And it glowed brightly.
Not just any woman in labor, then, but the one he needed the most. He would not be stealing a child. He would be claiming his own.
***
27.2
***
Even as Talaski built an image, he reached for the image, and it grew solid around him. He was on the high bluff, looking down on the black cliffs. The tide was rising, the waves licking at the line of white limpets of the tidal zone, and the scent of salt and seaweed hung sharp in the air. Seagulls screamed as they sailed through the cloud-dotted sky.
Not sea gulls, Talaski thought as his gaze focused on the grey mass in the middle of the bay. He could see tentacles, each as thick as a tree trunk, reaching out to pluck boats from the edges of the bay. They lifted the boats above a giant mouth, one lined with a forest of triangular teeth, then crushed them. Screaming, wriggling specks fell down, to be silenced in the maw.
On the far bluff, a squad of Trackers were shooting arrows which bounced harmlessly off of the monster’s scaled hide. Useless, as mortals usually were.
A muscular hand released its hold on Talaksi – only then was he aware that the Tracker had come with him. Talaski glanced sideways and saw that Jesland was already stringing his giant bow.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to shoot it in the eye.” Jesland polished the head of his one arrow and set it to the string.
“Where?”
“Just above the tentacles.”
Talaski saw what he had taken to be foam clustered on the neck of the monster, and saw that they were eyes, in while clusters like grapes. “Which one?”
“All that I can.” Jesland’s arrow flew to its mark and popped one eye.
The monster rose from the water, shook, and shrieked with rage. Then it lunged toward the bluff where Jesland was already snatching his arrow from the air and fitting it to the string.
Neat trick, that, Talaski thought as he filled his hands with power, for the strike he hoped would have greater effect.
***
27.3
***
Devotees of Lophelia scurried this way and that, paying Jovibon no heed as he strode through the grounds. He had in his possession a very powerful weapon, Jovibon realized, one that would hide his power from the wards set against wizards and rival gods. Once he had in his hands the means to remove the belt when he wished, he could go anywhere, do anything.
This made his entire trial worth the pain – not that he intended to show any mercy on those who put him in it.
He followed the woman’s screams to a small hut. Peeking in through the window, he saw that she was sprawled on a birthing bed, attended by three women. Swelling puffed her hands, feet, and face, and her belly was large enough to hold a giant. She screamed again, as if attempting to birth the giant sideways.
“Not much longer,” cooed the attendant standing between the laboring woman’s feet.
“Kill them!” screamed the mother-to-be. “They are abominations! They will destroy the world! Drown them, snap their necks, anything! Do not let the monsters live!”
Them, Jovibon thought cheerfully. Children of a wizard, conceived in a ceremony, and born to a dying mother – if he judged the state of her body properly. From the position of two of the attendants, they were there to restrain the mother – which meant that as soon as the mid-wife delivered the first-born, it would be unguarded while she saw to the second.
Even better, the waiting cribs stood as far from the mother’s reach as they could, and were right beside the door.
“They are innocent children,” the midwife soothed. “Hold your breath and push.”
“Their father’s evil has cursed them!” the woman screamed.
Jovibon grinned at the compliment.
“Please,” the woman begged, and then her voice rose to a high-pitched scream.
“Very good,” the midwife said. “Once more.”
Jovibon stroked his beads impatiently. The amber was smooth to his touch, but demon cold. Lophelia abided no demons in her midst – save her own.
***
27.4
***
Her narrow skirt hiked to her thighs like a peasant girl, Princess ran to the Bay of Grasshopper. Gneara had babbled something about sea monsters and the Dajournae disappearing, and Jesland disappearing with him. Princess had barely stopped to think what Talaski might be doing before she started running.
The fool, her little fool, was probably trying to take the thing on.
Leave it to the soldiers, she thought desperately. Don’t risk your own neck.
But as she gained the hill that overlooked the bay, she saw that the soldiers before her were having little effect on the monstrosity in the bay. Their arrows bounced off its thick hide, harmless as feathers. The two small figures on the opposing bluff had caught its attention, however, and it lurched closer on its multitude of arms.
“Nizt!” screamed a voice at her side, the Farlander word for no. It was Lissandra, dropping her own skirts back to her ankles. The fine lady had kept pace with the mountain-born girl, surprisingly. But then, the one she loved was also in danger.
Glancing back over her shoulder, Princess saw that the Pajourn Daimar was coming, with the ever present Rayden behind her, and a company of Trackers at her heels. The reinforcements were welcome, but why was the idiotic Pajourn here? She would only be eaten, fool that she was. And then the people would have to find a new Pajourn to scorn Princess.
***
27.5
***
“And here is the first one,” cooed the midwife as the new mother sobbed. “So tiny for nine month – how many of you are there?”
Jovibon grinned proudly. Then his smile dropped when he realized that there was no cry.
“Breathe, child,” urged the mid-wife. “Breathe and live.”
Yes, live, Jovibon thought earnestly as he crouched outside the door. Let me be the one to kill you.
***
27.6
***
The Trackers shot again with arrows which had mysteriously returned to their hands, and this time they aimed at the clusters of bulging eyes. This time their arrows had an effect. The creature screamed, a cross between a leviathan’s bellow and a harpy’s screech. It turned back to flail at the hill.
The smaller of the two figures on the opposing bluff let loose a bolt of green light which hit the monster’s skin and left a wide, blistered patch. The creature screamed and turned to the bluff just as Jesland’s arrow hit a large eye. It turned back. The Trackers on the bluff fitted their arrows, now dripping with ichor, to their bows and fired again.
This time, when the monster turned to the hill, and its arms swept over the heads of the crowd, one tentacle paused and darted down, straight for Princess. She froze, watching the grey rope whip closer – then a heavy blow knocked her aside. As she fell to the grass the tentacle wrapped instead against the one who had saved her, and lifted Lissandra high into the sky.
***
27.7
***
Jesland’s world went white save for the image of the woman in the tentacle’s grip. His Lissandra! The thing lifted her above its gaping mouth, and held her there as a second mouth, an enormous beak, rose from among the teeth to snap at her legs.
The woman did not scream, nor did she faint. She very sensibly curled her body around the tentacle that held her, so that it could not bite her without eating herself. And she held on even as it tried to shake her free.
Jesland readied his bow, wanting to save her, fearing he could not.
***
27.8
***
The baby cried, thin and halting, but it did cry. The midwife swaddled it in blue cloth, too busy to notice the dark wizard peeking through a crack in the door, an laid it in a crib. She turned back to the mother. “I see another little head.”
The mother shrieked, a crescendo of pain and hate.
Jovibon eased the door open and reached a long arm in to pluck his prize. The child was light in his hand, delicate as a bird. You are mine, from conception to death.
***
27.9
***
“Who is that?” Talaski asked as he watched the woman struggle in the curls of the tentacle.
“Lissandra,” Jesland breathed out. He did not pause in his rhythm of catch, fit, and release, but his face was as white as clean sand. “The Lady Lissandra.”
One of the few people to show Princess any courtesy or friendship – and she was now to be eaten by this abomination which escaped from the Wizardlands? No. Talaski’s anger poured into the power in his hands, power so hot it burned. And there was more, if he drew from deeper within himself. Deeper still, if he followed the thread of power back to the emerald power of the demon skull.
Demon against demon, then.
Yanking the skull’s power into himself, and then into his hands, Talaski built a bolt so hot that it glowed white, and shot that bolt into the heart of the beast. Red flames rolled down the flank where the bolt landed, and greasy smoke carried high the stench of burnt flesh. The monster wailed and thrashed, its beak snapped open and shut, and it flung its tentacles wide, but it did not drop its prey.
And as Talaski readied another bolt, he saw that the creature was now reached for him.
***
27.10
***
Jovibon strolled across the soft grass, his coveted bundle in his arms. Already he could feel the raw, innocent power seeping from the child. More than enough power to restore himself. He would have revenge on those who had chained him – such as his own stupid slave, standing quietly in the burning sun. That slave would rebuild Jovibon’s house and grounds, and restore all the wards – using his own flesh and blood for the acts of binding.
And Jovibon would laugh. The world was bright again.
***
27.11
***
A second searing bolt made the monster pause, but not for long. Before Talaski could gather more power, it was reaching again, sure of its goal.
“Run,” Jesland said as he fired his arrow deep into the burn. The thing jerked and screamed, then moved forward again. “Run fast.”
“I thought you wanted me dead.” Talaskli threw a half-formed bolt at the appraoching tentacle, bursting the tip. Another took its place.
“I serve my Dajournae. I give my life for him.”
“Demon shit!” Talaski screamed back. “The Dajournae protects his people!”
That was the worst insult, that he was a coward. One to let others protect him, as if he were a girl in a harem. A little girl. No. His anger drove him to reach deep, deeper than even the skull. He reached through the one who held him in thrall, through the one who held that wizard in thrall, and deep into the primal source of the volcano which had almost claimed him, that one mid-summer’s night. He drew up as much of that blistering, molten power as he could hold, then sent it all in a single blow deep into the abomination before him. The body sizzled, steamed, and then the heat of the blow touched the water of the bay.
***
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