left to do, save confront Deezlxar.
Demons were born into a hierarchy. Some were just more powerful than others. Shokin’s essence told him this. Devils had a hierarchy as well, but they weren’t born into it. This he gathered from Kraw. He was neither demon, nor devil, yet he was both. He was human, and dragon too. He was a god in his own right, and the urge to challenge the Abbadon was growing. He would have his ring back, even if he had to devour the master of hell and order every inhabitant of this blackened place to search it out for him. He wasn’t part of a hierarchy. He wasn’t created to serve. He’d fed on the yolk of a fire dragon’s egg and was transformed. The power he possessed was power he took from others. He wasn’t subject to the laws of the hells. He wasn’t like any other entity that was trapped here.
Some of the denizens of the dark had taken to following him; they listened to his ramblings of the gateway, and they often did his bidding. These lesser demons went out in search of the ring, but only brought back tales of Deezlxar.
Gerard found himself searching for ways to go deeper into the planes of hell. He would find this Deezlxar and learn what the Abbadon was about. Thoughts of the ring, and the mighty evil that had stolen it from him, consumed Gerard. He came upon a great circular stairway that led down into a more potent blackness. Shaella’s sweet voice was the only thing that stopped him from going down. She was calling to him again.
He forced the chaos in his mind away and responded to her. In his mind’s eye he could see her sprawled on her great bed. He saw that she wasn’t clad in seductively revealing silks this time. She was wearing a leather riding dress that was stretched open across her abdomen, hip-high leather boots, and a high collared riding cloak, that almost hid the controlling collar she wore like a choker, finished off the imposing look. She seemed as she had when he first met her at the Summer’s Day Festival; strong, confident, ready to conquer anything that stood before her.
How long ago had that been? His brain couldn’t reach back that far. The part of him that was still Gerard was fading. Gerard’s memories had been trampled into oblivion, but nothing could remove his longing for Shaella. Her voice, and her presence in his mind, is what drove the chaos away. She was as deeply embedded into his being as the urge to breathe.
“Oh, Gerard,” she said happily, almost cheerfully, to him. Neither emotion seemed to reach its way through his gloom. “My wizard, Flick, has brought me the Silver Skull. I have it.” She sat up on the bed excitedly. “And a dragon, my love; he gifted me with another dragon to replace the one your brother stole from me.”
“Brother?” Gerard rasped deeply. A flicker of a memory, of laughing with a black-haired boy while some giant woman told them a tale, shimmered away. A feeling of his love for Hyden almost formed, but his twisted brain came around to what else Shaella had said, and all that was forgotten. “You have Zorellin’s skull?”
“Yes, my love,” she cooed. “The red priests are preparing to open the way for you now, this night, at the peak of darkness.” She looked around, suddenly distraught. “It’s midmorning now, my love. In just hours there will be a way for you to come back to me.”
He looked at his hand, at the long dark finger where the ring should be, and growled. “Not this night,” he rasped. “I have one more feast to attend before I can come give you the world.”
Shaella deflated at the words. Her excited eyes pooled with tears. The idea that being with her wasn’t the most important thing to him was like a knife in her breast. A deep wound that sent ripples of uncertainty through her. The first tears she could ever remember crying spilled down her cheeks. “What is it that would keep you from me?” she asked in a cautiously controlled tone.
“If I were to come to you this moment, love, I could give you the earth to rule,” he told her. No matter how malformed he was, with his elongated, almost snouted head, plated brows, and ropey hair, his eyes were still Gerard’s. The devilish look in them pierced into her and set a fire in her belly. “If you can wait until I finish this, I will make you the queen of hell, and earth. Then we can make the heavens tremble in fear, together.”
She had no designs to rule hell and earth. She wasn’t that concerned with ruling Westland. Oh, the times she would have traded her kingdom just to have him with her again. His deep voice, intense eyes, and his hot slick promises, had rekindled her fire.
“How long must I wait?” she asked breathlessly. Her tears were distant memories, the doubts forgotten, like clouds blown on the wind.
“Not long,” he said gruffly. “Have my priests open a portal this night. I will come to you for a time. Have your binding spells ready. I will bring you a taste of what is to come.”
Phen woke to the itchy, almost painful abrasion of Sticka’s nettles. Spike lay nearby, sprawled with glazed eyes and an overfull belly. Immediately, Phen began to panic. He didn’t know what time of day it was, but he knew he’d slept far longer than he’d intended.
“What time is it?” he asked the lyna, realizing how foolish a question it was to ask a prickly cat.
“Something happens soon,” Sticka conveyed to Phen with uncanny clarity. “The Queen’s master comes.”
Phen gave Spike a glare and went off to find a window so that he could assess the time of day. On the way he nabbed part of an uneaten meal from a cart. When he was finally able to follow one of the priests out into the garden, he saw that it was only afternoon. There would be time for panic later. A surge of frightened energy snaked up his spine. He decided right then he was going to try and grab the skull.
The priests were burning a great symbol inside a circle in an open space of the lawn. It was a seal, or a gateway symbol, Phen knew from his studies. He found it easy to slip across the yard and into the curtained gazebo. If the skull had been there, he could’ve gotten away with it, but it was nowhere to be found. Phen figured that Cole still had it. He had a mind to alter the symbol the priests were burning into the lawn, thus changing their spell. All it would take was an extra mark or two. He decided that he might make things worse by tampering. Before Master Targon died, he’d preached about the consequences of such actions. There was still time, so Phen decided to try another tactic. If Queen Shaella was readying herself for Gerard, then maybe her dragon’s collar was lying about her chamber somewhere.
Phen hadn’t seen the dragon since Shaella returned, but it was the talk of the castle staff. Eavesdropping as he moved invisibly through the castle searching for Shaella’s apartment, Phen heard all sorts of rumors. After wasting an hour looking, and learning nothing, he went back to the pantry and coaxed Sticka into showing him where Shaella slept. Spike had digested his meal by then and was eager to come along.
Sticka led them up a circular flight of steps to the castle’s second level, then down a long wide hall that was lined with statues spaced evenly along the walls. Huge tapestries and paintings of landscapes were centered between the statues. Phen noticed that the scenery was deceptively lifelike. It was like looking out of a window instead of at pigmented oils on canvas or woven threads. A great waterfall in one of them formed a cloud of misty spray that seemed to radiate off the canvas. Another was of a pasture of sheep. When Phen looked directly at it everything was still, but from the corners of his eyes he would swear that he saw the sheep gnawing at the grass. After careful inspection he saw that some of the artworks were signed. He knew immediately that the names were elven. He cast a spell to detect magic on the painting before him, and was pleased that his instinct was right. He made a mental note to look into the type of magic it would take to paint such a vision. It would have to be a potent spell to last thousands of years.
The big oak double doors at the end of the hall suddenly parted. Queen Shaella looked out with narrowed brows. Phen realized that he’d made a stupid mistake casting his spell. The look in her eyes told him that she sensed it. There was nothing he could do about it, though, because he was captivated by her beauty. She was naked, save for a towel that was wrapped around her waist. Her dark wet hair hung down over her breast on the side that wasn’t scarred. Her nipples were the size of coins, and even though he was terrified, Phen couldn’t peel his eyes away from them.
“Who dares to disturb…” Shaella started, but she stopped when her eyes found the two lyna pacing in the hall.
A bit of movement from the statue at one side of Shaella’s door drew Phen’s attention. It was still now, but he thought that the hand had reached to the hilt of its sword.
“Fslandra!” Shaella yelled over her shoulder.
From behind her, the zard girl appeared, looking as sheepish as a bulbous-eyed lizard girl could look.
“Yes, Masteress?” Fslandra hissed in some strange version of the common tongue.
