She raised her arms toward the ceiling, then brought them down in a sinuous movement, mimicking an ocean wave. Her halo of flickering darkness tore away, becoming a wave of whispering shadow that crested toward Gage. Her men yelled and followed in the shadow's wake.
Gage snatched Angul and thrust its point toward the ceiling. Blue fire bloomed, bright as day, driving back darkness. Gage suddenly felt the strength moral certainty lends-felt it as if he'd always owned it. Tears broke from his eyes as all the failings of his life were laid bare, revealed in the sword's unrelenting light. Did he have Angul in his grip, or did the sword grip him?
These weren't his thoughts! He lived his life according to a code all his own. The enchanted blade sought to pervert his self-image. He wouldn't allow it! Gage wrestled with the feelings of remorse and repentance seeded by the blade. As he struggled, Sathra's shadow-surge foundered in Angul's sun-bright flame. Foundered, wavered, and began to evaporate like mist.
Sathra growled and with a gesture, dispersed the dark flock. She screamed, "Kill the man and get the burning sword, gods damn you!"
The men in the front tank flinched at her curse but launched themselves toward Gage. Gage remained still, transfixed with unsought enlightenment.
Those in the rear rank leveled crossbows, already cocked. The volley of bolts broke Gage's deadlock. Angul ceased its brainwashing ambush to sweep the air of iron bolts, deflecting all but the one that plunged into Gage's thigh.
He tensed with expected pain, but none came.
Your pain does not serve me yet.
The thief gasped as his legs, as if of their own impetus, propelled him toward Laothkund's crime lord. The offending, evil, blasphemous female would be eradicated for the world to be cleansed-
Gage grimaced and scrabbled to bring order to the tumultuous flow of his thoughts. The damned blade was in his head, changing his perspective, his outlook, his very sense of self. The sword's violation was. . wasn't right. Even with his mind muddled, he was pretty sure Angul's mental violation wasn't the sort of thing normally ascribed to a good-aligned sword.
I am the arbiter of what is right, and that which is not.
Sathra retreated from his advance, gesticulating, creating a tracery of dark lines in the air. A spell was being birthed, she its dark midwife. Her men moved to buy her the time she required to finish its weave. He hacked with Angul, hacked again. One man sat suddenly, missing an arm. Another was felled like a tree. Another's head he stove in with the blunt side of the Blade Cerulean.
He parried a fourth's knife thrust, but the fifth clubbed his head. Light flared, then dimmed. No pain followed, no blood. Gage plunged the sword into the club wielder's chest. The man cried out in surprise, but Gage was already withdrawing Angul and swinging for the last fellow, who raised a sword.
The crossbowmen were swearing and fumbling to reload in mortal terror. They released another volley of bolts, more or less in unison. A few bolts tagged him, but he didn't pause to assess the damage.
Sathra's chanting took on a desperate note. Only one defender remained between her and Gage. Or more accurately, between her and Angul.
But that final defender parried two of Gage's thrusts with a maul of gray stone. The man's beard was snarled with small stone trinkets and charms. His head was shaved, and the tattoos scribed there marked him as a barbarian from the plains of Rashemen. Gage had heard tales of the tribesmen of that wild borderland. This was no ordinary thug.
"You're my meat," cried the barbarian. "I am Stolsin, the Grinder of Tribes!" As he spoke, he brought the maul down with force enough to render Gage's flesh to jelly. It would have ended there had not Angul jerked him clear.
Stolsin lifted his heavy maul into the air with no visible strain. The muscles twining his forearm were as thick and corded as tree roots. He screamed, "I've destroyed walking dead on the outskirts of Thay!" He moved, catching even Angul off guard, and struck Gage's left shoulder. Pain flared before the burning sword could erase it.
"I've dared the cold drake's icy lair on the glacier of-"
Gage lunged and pushed the Blade Cerulean's point into the man's abdomen. The barbarian gasped and fell. Gage guessed Stolsin, Grinder of Tribes, wished he'd parried more and boasted less.
But the barbarian's braggadocio had bought time for his crimelord. Sathra ceased chanting and finger waving. The fruit of her spell took its final form: a black-scaled, obsidian-toothed, shadow-clawed thing. A demon of the inky void. Cold air blasted Gage and he took a step back despite Angul's grip on his mind.
"Meet Demoriel," crowed Sathra, brandishing a fist still steaming with shadowstuff. She looked to the crossbowmen and said, "Finish him. Help the demon!" She turned and dashed toward the exit.
Gage wanted to run, too. But like a dog distracted by the scent of fresh spoor, Angul focused all its attention on the newcomer demon.
If it couldn't sizzle away Gage's remaining glove, if it couldn't slice Sathra into thin twins, it could, by the Cerulean Sign, bite deeply into this denizen of the Abyss. The blade's surety of purpose threatened to completely drown Gage's awareness of himself.
With an unfamiliar part of his mind, the thief wondered what the Cerulean Sign might be.
The crossbowmen howled, whether in fear or triumph, Gage couldn't guess, but they followed Sathra's command and continued to harass him with a hail of iron. The Blade Cerulean twitched and danced in his hand, deflecting those bolts it deemed fatal. Despite its tightly focused mind, the blade was rational enough to keep its wielder alive. But a few bolts slipped through.
Then Demoriel pounced. A writhing atrocity, it croaked forth a verse in a language unknown to Gage, but whose consonants seemed to grind at his soul. Angul translated directly into his mind, Come back with me to the Abyss, sweet-meat! You already wear one of my brothers on your hand, mauled though he is!
The thief's mouth went dry and his heart hammered. He had to flee, had to get past the demon-
Demoriel bore Gage down to the hard floor. It began to tear at his flesh. The crossbowmen paused, their eyes wide with horror. One said, "What if it finishes eating before its summons lapses?"
Sathra's men turned tail.
The demon tore a chunk from his shoulder. He yowled in surprised pain. This was how he would end? Eaten by a damned demon?
Join with me, and this demon shall fall.
Gage struggled even as his skin ripped and peeled away. Fighting the blade hadn't helped him; it had left him vulnerable. And in another few moments, he would be dead anyway. .
He surrendered himself to Angul's will.
A blue haze fell across his eyes. Through the filter of Angul's perceptions, everything was suddenly, gloriously, perfect.
Someone was screaming, but the noise was distant, unimportant, not significant to the task at hand-even though the screamer turned out to be himself. He coughed blood, but the many weaknesses of flesh were no longer his concern. Something far stronger girded his frame and held him steady.
Angul's flame flashed and new vigor flooded his limbs. Flayed skin sloughed, unsullied flesh burgeoned and sleeted across his gaping wounds. Gage stood, heaving the demon up, too. Overbalanced, man, sword, and fiend crashed into heaped treasures.
Demoriel's grasp slackened and Gage pulled away, slashing with Angul, knocking the demon backward. It rolled, sinuously as a snake might, onto two cloven feet. It screamed again in its unholy tongue, You anger me. More than your soul is forfeit-have you parents? A wife? A suckling child you spawned? I will find them, and they-
The Blade Cerulean seared the demon's sharklike skin, textured its flesh with vicious swipes, broke its teeth on the hard side of its invulnerable iron. Yet Demoriel withstood this punishment as if it enjoyed the pain. It never ceased its obscene banter, but screamed louder, abyssal curses that smote stone and liquefied metal. A portion of the ceiling collapsed and the demon grappled Gage once more.