When he spoke, his voice rang out clearly over the chamber, sharp and as cruel as a predator’s claw. “Welcome, Vaddi d’Orien. Now that we finally meet, the work can begin in earnest. See the talisman that you crave. It is before you. Take it. It has always been yours.”
Zuharrin’s warriors had been slowly pulling back from the center of the chamber. As they did, the single column with its glowing prize again came into view, but Vaddi stared at it as though it were a serpent.
“Be careful,” whispered Nyam. “His influence over it will be great, and he has Zemella.”
Fallarond, his breastplate slick with the blood of those he had slain, eyed Vaddi. “We will protect you to the last. Take the horn.”
Vaddi moved forward until he stood beside the column. He could feel the intensity of the horn’s power, as if it called to him.
“Don’t touch it!” The voice of Zemella struck him like an arrow, and he drew back. Looking up at her, he saw another movement on the balcony beside her, and his heart truly knew despair. For he recognized the figure there.
It was Cellester.
21
Dragon Blood, Demon Blood
Vaddi’s instincts drove him to attempt the abrupt transportation that would send him in the blink of an eye to Zemella’s side, just as he had transported himself in the Madwood, but his dragonmark was cold. He focused his energy on it, closing his eyes and exerting as much power as he could, but his skin might as well have been devoid of the mark. Something made him look up and he stared into the eyes of the cleric. Realization came to him then.
Cellester was suppressing his dragonmarked powers, as he had done for so many years in Marazanath and then on the journey south. Vaddi’s efforts to use them were impotent. Here, where they were needed most, they were useless.
Zuharrin stood at the very edge of the broken balcony, his eyes blazing in triumph. “Take your birthright. Claim it!”
Zemella tried to struggle in the grip of the two huge demonic warriors, but they held her fast.
“Obey me,” said Zuharrin. “If you do not, I will have your Valenar sorceress carved into a dozen pieces before your eyes!”
Vaddi felt another power intervening as his hand, still numb from the blow of Kazzerand’s sword. His hand stretched for the talisman. He was unable to prevent it, as if Erethindel were dragging him to it. He knew that Zemella would curse him for his weakness, but he could not see her harmed. Zuharrin had him at his mercy. But the talisman itself was working on him, in spite of his resistance.
His fingers were through the green mist and closed around the horn. Vaddi lifted it, holding it at arm’s length and gazing at it like one drugged. He could feel its powers, stronger than ever before, coursing into him, filling his veins. His anger was like fire, his nerves raw to its heat. Across the hall, the circular wall rippled like a mighty curtain, as if cut from fabric, not from stone.
Twice more the huge wall shook and then dissipated as though its presence had been no more than an illusion. Revealed beyond was a perfect circle of darkness, as if it gaped on the outer limits of the space beyond all worlds, but no stars glinted in that darkness, no Rings of Siberys, and no sound emerged from its infinite depths. Every eye in the chamber was locked on this vision.
Vaddi felt the horn working, drawing blood from him into itself. He was powerless to prevent it. Unlike the other times that he had used it, he knew that something else was controlling it, focusing its energy. He tore his eyes from the circle of blackness and stared up at Zuharrin. The sorcerer’s demonic face wore a victorious gaze, for in this place he was at last realizing his dream of power. It was he who mastered Erethindel’s secrets here.
In the circle of utter night, light coalesced, spinning to reveal what seemed to be a monstrous tunnel dug into the infinity of whatever dimension had been opened. The walls of the tunnel were like the curved workings of a titanic worm or serpent, as if they burrowed down into, not space now, but the heart of a world. Khyber! Vaddi knew it instinctively. Far, far down in that abyss, something stirred. He could discern a vague figure thrashing in pain or fury, wrenching at the bonds that secured it.
“T’saagash Mal!” said Zuharrin, and the name carried across the vast chamber to every ear.
As one, Zuharrin’s warriors fell to their knees and then bent to touch their faces to the stone floor, remaining in this position of genuflection. The garish light from the pit bathed them, and in its vile glow they transformed, shifting into fat, reptilian figures, fanged mouths agape, croaking and belching out a nightmare litany to their master. The Deathguard held their swords before these horrors, as if their glow could ward off the vision in the pit. Kazzerand and the other lords drew back, but they were eager to watch the developments.
From Erethindel, blood dripped over its lip and splashed on the stone below. The flow became a trickle, snaking its way across the floor toward the circular opening in the wall. Zuharrin was murmuring a soft incantation. As the blood crossed the brink of the dark opening, the figure in the depths shook itself and a roar came up from the distance. Something flashed down there, like molten fire. The demon T’saagash Mai was free of his chains. As the watchers gazed at the beast, it began to grow in size, coming up the long tunnel like a swimmer underwater rising to the surface. As it came, its huge size became apparent. A dozen writhing arms, claws shining hotly in the fire-glow, reached for the chamber.
The Deathguard looked away. Appalled at what had happened, Vaddi tried to cast aside the horn, but he could not. He felt it draining more and more of his blood, his vital energies, power from beyond him. T’saagash Mal would burst into the world and he would draw into himself the powers of old. They would not stop him. They would feed him! Zuharrin’s sorcery had unlocked the key to this perversion. Power crackled and sizzled like an electrical storm, colossal in its scope, mocking the paltry efforts of those who would hold it back.
Vaddi tore his eyes from the scene and looked in despair at Zemella. She, too, was aghast at what was transpiring, forcing her own eyes away from the monstrous form of the demon as he rose, gigantic and implacable.
Beside her, no more than a shadow in the proceedings, an afterthought, the cleric stood immobile, no trace of emotion on his own face, but his eyes looked into Vaddi’s now.
Vaddi met that gaze. Yes, he uses his power against me, just as he did on our journey. How? How can he have such power over me?
Even as the thought hit him, Vaddi felt something within him snap then shift aside, as if he were sloughing off a dirty garment. Cellester’s powers, as suddenly as they had snapped into place, had been withdrawn.
I have freed you, came a voice inside Vaddi’s mind. Act quickly.
Vaddi read something in Cellester’s eyes and understood. The cleric had rejected his master’s work. There was no time to ponder why. Up on the balcony, standing in shadow, a minor piece in the sorcerer’s moves, Cellester reached forward with both hands and gripped Zuharrin behind his arms, locking them.
“Go to Vaddi!” he shouted to Zemella.
The two warriors holding her were completely unprepared for the cleric’s action, and stunned by it, their own grip on the Valenar girl weakened. She kicked and elbowed her way free of them, pulling a sword from the scabbard of the first and ramming its point up into his vitals. The creature hissed in agony and was flung back over the edge of the balcony to fall on the floor below. In the confusion, the other made to draw his blade, but Zemella had sliced into his thigh too quickly for him, and he toppled forward to meet the returning swing of her blade, which opened his face in a bloody line from crown to chin.