soldiers. The angry shriek of a wyvern came howling out over it all, as the beast shot out of the huge depiction opening overhead, and sped away as quickly as it could. No longer bound by the demon-wizard’s will, it had no reason to risk the proximity of so many humans. A few arrows trailed up after the dark scaled creature, but none of them found its flesh.
King Jarrek let Queen Willa down to the rooftop as gently as he could manage, and then ran to the parapet wall. As the undead soldiers fell, he saw a white, misty form shimmer up from each of them, like so much smoke. Then, as if caught up in the gusts of a magical wind, they were swept away, toward the base of the swirling tower of light. Entire clouds of misty souls went tearing through the ruined city, on their way toward the sword’s judgment. The sight was as breathtaking as it was unnerving.
The guard at the stair landing had come up out of his hiding place, and stormed the roof screaming. “The castle is clear! The dead are dying! The dead are…”
His voice stopped suddenly, and his face contorted into a look of sheer panic, when he saw Queen Willa lying there on the deck. He was overcome with relief, when he knelt down beside her, and saw her eyelids flutter open.
“The dead have died, your Highness,” he said softly. “The night is won! I – I – I’ll call for a healer.”
A sudden surging sound, similar to that of raindrops hitting a tin roof, drew everyone on the tower top’s attention. Over the corpse of the Master Wizard Targon, a misty cloud formed and peeled away audibly before it shot away in a flash.
“Is it true?” Willa asked King Jarrek.
His front half was aglow with radiance from the golden light that held his attention fast.
“Aye, milady,” he answered in that Western way, without turning away from the scene before him.
His voice was full of awe, and reverence, but still tinged with deep sadness, and regret.
“I hope that it’s time for the kingdoms to unite again, because without help, I’ll never be able to free my people from the Dakaneese slavers. And King Ra’Gren, and that Westland wench, cannot get away without paying for their part in this.”
Mikahl felt something scratching on his stomach. Then, he felt a slight ball of warmth nestle down there. It was soft, feathery soft. He didn’t open his eyes, for he knew what it was. The soft cooing sound he could make out, over the supernatural din transpiring around him, could only come from one source: Talon.
Ironspike had healed the bird after all, or maybe the hawkling had just been stunned. Either way, Mikahl found that he had never felt safer in all his life as he did right then.
Lying half naked and weaponless on a death-strewn battlefield, there was no one else he would rather have watching over him.
Feeling safe and secure, it took only a fleeting moment for him to fade completely back into oblivion. There, his partially healed, and newly traumatized body, dragged him back down into the same comatose state that Vaegon had found him in when he had placed the replenished sword in his hands.
Chapter 59
The part of Shokin that had escaped the Nethers wrenched itself free of Pael’s body, and went tearing across the land, towards the Seal.
No one saw it, or heard its screams, because it had no physical substance, and could make no audible sound. It was there though, and clinging to it desperately, was Pael’s vile soul.
Over the farmlands of Middle Seaward, then across the rich grazing plains of Valleya, the formless entities went. Over the edge of O’Dakahn, the Dakaneese cesspool city that was now overcrowded with Wildermont slaves, the demon essence and its ghost-like parasite, continued on. Then, across the nearly deserted marshlands, where the Zard, and other denizens of the swamp used to live before Shaella had led them into Westland. Flashing up into the Dragon’s Tooth Spire, they flowed past Hyden Hawk and the dragon. Then, they were pulled with rude force, down into the molten crystal that was coursing through the carved symbols that made up the Seal.
Pael’s soul was rejected, and left behind, but Shokin’s essence was drawn to its other half, with a violent intensity. Soon after it had passed the barrier, the molten crystal corroded the symbols away completely. The power of the Seal was no more. The once smooth and polished face of it was left nothing, but a pocked, and indistinguishable ruin.
Pael’s soul was not demon kind, nor was it substantial enough to even be considered evil anymore. In the world of demons, souls, and spirit essences, what was left of Pael would be considered more or less a gnat, or a pest. It tried to enter into the young man crouched against the pile of stones, but could not. It started at the lazing dragon, but the great predator’s heat warned it away. As the hissing puddle of liquefied stone finally began to cool, Pael’s pesky spirit darted out of the dragon’s lair, and went searching for something familiar.
Gerard Skyler scratched at the sharp, bony protrusion that was growing out of his elbow. His other elbow had stopped itching a while ago. The dragon’s yolk he had drunk to replenish his bloodless body had changed him, changed him from the marrow of his reforming bones, out to his thick plated, slime covered skin.
The darkness of the Nethers was so potent, that he couldn’t see himself though. It was a blackness that the eyes could never adjust to, but Gerard didn’t need, or care to see what was happening to him. He was on a stairway that spiraled down – forever down, and getting to the bottom had become his passion. He drifted in, and out of consciousness, sometimes waking in mid step, sometimes curled in a shivering ball on a landing that bore no door. He always woke in that blackness, and when he did, he would start plodding downward again, as if his destiny lay at the bottom of the shaft.
Shaella spoke to him sometimes. Her soft voice soothed the pain of his twisting bones, and hardening flesh. When she was in his head, the part of Shokin that Pael had left behind would stop its endless screaming and babbling to listen. His boiling insides would cool, and his dizzy confusion seemed to organize itself into a relatively pleasant train of thought. When Shaella was with him, Gerard Skyler found a way through the swirling chaotic transformation of his mind and body. It was the only time that he wasn’t hungry, afraid, and lusting manically to reach the bottom of the shaft.
When the other half of Shokin slammed into Gerard’s elongated skull, his head filled with visions of chaotic destruction, of undead armies, and falling castles. Had the yolk he had eaten not hardened his mind and body so well, he might have died on the spot, from pure shock. As it was, he relished the distraction from the emptiness around him. He somehow isolated the two halves of Shokin in his brain, and he observed them curiously, as they carried on a psychotic single-voiced argument, that was as entertaining as it was disturbing.
The two halves of the once mighty demon eventually began trying to rejoin, trying to become one again, but Gerard wouldn’t let them. He would permit them to confer and conspire, but he would never let them combine back into one.
Instinctually, he knew that if he did, he would lose any part of him that was still his. Somewhere in his mind, he knew he was still Gerard Skyler. He might be covered in spikes, hard bony platelets, and greasy slick skin. He might have nearly tripled his body mass, and formed into some sort of monster, but he was still somewhat Gerard. His brain told him that even though he was trapped on the seemingly endless stairway, that he would find the power to lead legions once he reached the bottom.
The old crone had told him so. Sometimes, he heard her old cackling voice, cutting over the demon’s chatter, to remind him. He began to leech bits, and nuggets of knowledge, and power, from the two halves of the demon, and use them to his advantage. Already, he knew that there were other ways out of this place. Part of Shokin had seen them described through Pael’s eyes, in the texts the fool wizard had kept in his tower. It was Shaella’s tower now, and since he could talk to her sometimes, ideas were already forming.
Gerard nearly stumbled, and fell, as the stairway abruptly ended on a smooth hard surface. The floor was cool on his clawed feet, and all around him, he felt the presence of dark things. Some were alive and hungry, some were merely spirits, and some were just evil intentions. Everything else was prey.
As he stood there, on the strange level plain, he felt them cringe away from him, and withdraw. They were afraid of him, of what he had become. He knew that they had no reason to fear him. He was barely alive, so very weak, and hungry. He was glad they were cautious, because he needed to rest. As he settled, he felt something out there, in the empty space, something darker, and more intense than the other things. This form didn’t know
