Morigu: Book 01 - The Desecration Page 9

  A phrase from the Green Branch code of honor flashed in his sight for a moment: "The honorable man knows strength is earned, power given." Did Margawt earn his strength? Was he existing on power the Goddess had infused in him? Power that wasn't truly his?

  So much would depend on the boy, Dammuth was sure of it. Hadn't the Goddess herself said so? Dammuth cared for Margawt, he felt it keenly, a heavy pain in his heart. Must he lose another? Death was no friend to Dammuth, but they knew each other well.

  In some ways Margawt reminded Dammuth of Mathwei, the two so different, yet young, full of passion. Who carried the greater burden? One with great power, the other with so little.... Did either stand a chance? Or were they both, as Dammuth feared, doomed? Perhaps they all were....

  "No!" he shouted. "Enough old man! Fight back, you are Dammuth, the people depend on you! Fight back!" And with that he knew what he must do. A magic, a dark magic he had never dared use. He remembered another phrase of the ancient honor code: 'No evil is powerful enough to corrupt the unconsenting.' He knew in his heart hell itself could not conquer a man, and he knew it was hell he must now face.

  "Well, Shorty, if I must, I must...."He ruffled the familiar's ears and turned to the side wall with the book-shelves. The bird flew to a nearby table and shot a question at the wizard.

  "No, little one, you would risk yourself needlessly, and if I should fail, I would not have you fall with me." It crossed his mind that perhaps he should tell someone of his discoveries of the nature of this war, but no, there was no time.

  "You must be my messenger should I fail," he said to the owl. "Warn Arianrood first, then find Margawt." He left the rest unspoken, for both knew if Dammuth was killed the Morigu would revenge the death of his only friend.

  With that Dammuth turned back to the bookshelf. Intoning words of power softly, his hands danced a graceful pattern as he shaped his magic. He ended the chant with a Word terrible and strong. With a loud crack and an inrush of air, a four foot square of the books vanished. A bluish glow came from the opening. Without looking back he stepped through. The opening closed with a snap and the owl stared at the returned bookshelf. It waited, not daring to blink at the closed door. If it had a heart its beating would have surely resounded within the room.

  The room Dammuth had entered was a shadow. There was no clear definition of walls or ceiling. It wasn't really a room, since no angles existed there; only soft blue shadows, with a dark red pentacle on what might be called the floor. Next to the pentacle lay a brass chest with a little pile of leaves scattered around it, the only physical things in the place.

  The mage walked carefully around the pentacle to the chest. His steps were slow and deliberate, carefully and evenly placed. Yet some steps took him closer to his goal, while others just led him to the very place he started from.

  Dammuth reached the chest and stepped behind it. Intoning a Word, he took a small sliver of wood from the chest hinges. Throwing it into the air he cried aloud, like the hunting call of a wolf.

  The sliver twirled slowly in the air. Each twist it took it became larger until at last it quivered point down in front of the wizard. It was a grey shaft of wood some five feet in length. Taking the staff in his hand, he struck it against the iron padlock on the chest. The padlock fell and burst open. Five black candles and five white fell onto the floor.

  Dammuth picked them up and carefully placed the black ones on the points of the pentacle. Then he retreated some fifteen paces. He seemed to be standing about three feet above the pentacle. Now he drew another, smaller pentacle using the point of the staff. The lines of this one were edged in the same blue that the shadows about him were. Dammuth then placed the white candles on the points of the new pentacle.

  'Careful, careful, old man,' he thought as he stepped inside the small pentacle. Here he sat down cross-legged and placed the staff across his knees.

  "Never have I used such dark magic," he said aloud. "May the Gods of Light forgive me, but I need to know what we face."

  The wizard chanted to himself under his breath. He raised one finger. "Omet," he cried and a breeze blew one of the leaves from the pile near the chest into the air. The leaf caught fire and lit one of the black candles.

  "Terasma," and another leaf lit another black candle.

  "Jum, Ferut, Cardeem," and all the candles around the red pentacle were lit.

  "The die is cast, oh mighty Lugh, look upon me with favor. Stretch out your arm and give me your strength. Imadium, Carfirt, Massuemanum," he cried aloud. The ends of his staff seemed to melt into the shadows around Dammuth, and the five white candles burst into a piercing white-silver flame.

  "To the nether regions let my call be heard, let the voice of Dammuth, the will of Dammuth, the power of Dammuth become awake. I call. I will be heard. Listen, Dark Powers, and heed me. My call is to you, Methrasdemondium. You cannot resist. The bridge is made. Come to me, blacksoul. I call and I will not be denied. Dammuth, Wizard of Light, Dragonslayer, Warrior of the Star, Dammuth calls, you will heed! Come to me NOW!!!"

  The red pentacle burst into a red wall of light and then a cry was heard. Inside the pentacle a shape took form. It was at least nine feet tall. Its feet were those of a bird, tapering off from powerful thighs covered in a dark, short fur. Its chest was human with powerful arms ending in surprisingly small hands. The demon's face was oddly angular and covered with a mesh of dark scales. Two ragged holes where the nose was supposed to be were overshadowed by a very prominent brow ridge. Its eyes had no pupils or irises. They were completely white as if it was blind. The hairless head possessed two ears that were pointed at the tops and the lobes. The demon bared its lipless mouth to show brown, stunted teeth.

  "This cannot be," cried Dammuth. "Begone, foul one, you are not who I called!"

  "That is true," answered the demon in a sibilant hiss. "The one you called was told to stay. I chose to take his place."

  "You chose!?" the wizard's voice cracked. "I chose, dog! Leave before I choose to destroy your black soul!"

  "Fool! You do not tell such as I what to do. I am the master here!" The demon's gash of a mouth split into a macabre smile, the face of a nightmare.

  "By the Light, a Prince, a Demon Prince. It cannot be...."

  "Oh, but it can, old man. I am here and you will do as I say." The demon moved toward the pentacle's boundaries.

  "No. You have no power over me." The wizard stood up and placed his staff in the center of his pentagram. "By deeds, by thought, my power banishes thee, to the darkness bought."

  As the wizard finished his chant, the black candles belched forth a dark smoke that entwined the demon. "Really, Dammuth, I thought you could do better than that," laughed the demon.

  He cupped one hand and the smoke gathered in his palm. Crying words of power, he threw the ball of smoke toward Dammuth. The black globe smashed against the barrier of the confining pentacle. The black candles burst into flame and consumed themselves.

  "So much for your demon cage, dog. Resist me no further and I might have pity." The demon crossed the lines and moved toward the mage.

  Dammuth lost all sense of fear. Now had his time come, the confrontation he knew he must one day face. He saw in the demon's eyes his own death. He felt its mind and dark soul reach to him. Simple spells would not defeat such as this, and now with the confining pentacle destroyed he had no chance of sending the demon back to its own plane. He must destroy it.

  At first the battle was silent as both strove with the most elemental magic, attacking one another with will and force of thought alone. Slowly, the shadows took the shape of creatures of all kinds, clashing physically against one another. Both knew this was Dammuth's best chance, since this small area was a plane of existence he alone had created and it responded best to him.

  The magic formed into small and giant beings of blue and black. The wizard's power crushed the darker aspects one by one. The demon felt the pressure as a physical thing. For a moment it knew fear; the old man was so
much stronger than it had anticipated. It redoubled its efforts, creating a thousand monsters from the depths of darkest imaginings. But each was countered by Dammuth and destroyed.

  Out of the pores of the demon dripped a black fluid that burst into flame. Soon it was covered in a sheet of flame, and for the first time in eons it felt the fires of hell upon its flesh.

  Dammuth knew his enemy was weakening, he could taste victory. Though there was no time here, he knew in the world the sun was going down, the night called and if he did not finish the demon would be able to regain strength from the shadows of night.

  The demon felt pain, an acid pain that swelled its limbs. The old one was so powerful! It felt a sharp lance of light plunge into it, and though night was here, the wizard's power had not diminished. The Prince's magic was such that he could last only another day, and annihilation would be its due. There would be no rebirth for the demon, even the tortures of hell would be lost.

  Dammuth's shadow fighters had turned red as victory drew near. They formed themselves into great armored knights, charging on warhorses that dwarfed the demon. Its power crumbled beneath the onslaught, its magic diluted into a thin, grey shield that blood red waves slowly pounded apart. There was only one chance, and even though the payment would be great, it was still preferable to the true death facing the Dark One.

  It waved its burning arms, fanning a black flame, howling in a language no human was meant to hear. Beneath its feet a great roar built up, then an explosion of fire and molten rock. Deafening screams shook the room that was not a room, and the Gate of Hell opened.

  The stench alone nearly overthrew Dammuth. His magic crumbled as thousands of dark and evil forms flew from the hole at the demon's feet and toward him. The twisted and demented shapes of the demons were so grotesque that Dammuth felt bile rise in his throat, choking the words of power stuck there.

  The dark vomit of Hell smashed upon the walls of his protecting pentacle, trying to overwhelm it. The shadows turned brown and extended indefinitely as thousands of demons expanded its boundaries. They devoured one another in their desperation to reach Dammuth. Now, on all sides, up and down, he was surrounded, a globe of blue light the only thing between him and their diseased talons.

  Even as his mind struggled for sanity, his soul fought back. Great streaks of power shot out from the protecting globe, skewering a hundred of the lesser demons. He called a great elemental of wind that thrust them away, only to be overwhelmed by hell fire. But in its place earth elementals rose, pounding the demons into a thick slush. Fire elementals fought fire with fire, burning dark forms by the thousands. Even water elementals sought to wash the stain of darkness away, and still the demons came.

  Incredibly, with the whole might of Hell arrayed against him, the old man stood up. Holding his staff above his head he slowly got to his feet. Within his small globe of power he stood, his shoulders held back, the brilliance of his soul shining about his form, his eyes so deadly that the demons that faced them withered away.

  Dammuth knew, he knew his time had come. He felt the incredible vastness of the power arrayed against him, and he did not falter. He called his allies to him, great beings of earth, sky, and water, beyond the spheres was his power felt and many raced to his aid. Luminous beings a hundred feet tall attacked the demons, creatures of rainbow brilliance no bigger than a thumb swirled in mortal and immortal conflicts. Old gods long forgotten raised their heads and wielded their lightning. The battle spread and spread, a conflict as had never taken place before, as one old man defied Hell itself.

  The Gate widened, the infinite darkness spread, and one by one the Demon Lords rose and made war. Apkieran, Lord of the Undead, wielded his bleeding ax; Roella, the Fire Lord, followed by his burning minions; and others, great vast shadows, insectlike horrors, shapes of leprosy and nightmares, for here Hell revealed all its might. There was no constraint, no fear of the last battle, and they were winning.

  The cries of the tortured deafened all sound, the stench a physical weapon, and in the middle Dammuth stood, unbowed, his magic flashing from him as lightning, as fire, as pure bolts of energy, and Death himself shuddered at the horror and madness of it all.

  And on it went for what could have been days, though there was no point in trying to understand that battle in time. It was endless and over in a moment. Even as the wizard's allies died they rejoiced in the sheer ferocity and daring of it all, for many had feared their deaths and saw them in the war that embroiled the world, but here, now, the enemy was defined and clear, the battle lines easily drawn, and though the outside world knew nothing of this battle, surely there were many there who would join if they could.

  And so one by one they fell, and though Dammuth's power seemed only to increase, how could any stand against that unrelenting force of squalid despair? He laughed in the faces of his tormentors, his lips blistered as the Words of power he never thought he could contain rolled out. Never, not once did his frame shudder, even as wounds began to break from his flesh, even when he stood alone again, alone, alone, and all Hell crying for his blood.

  Finally the globe of power shattered. Its radiance smashed into a million glowing fragments, but did not Apkieran himself fall before that burst, back to the pit of Hell? An old evil, dark and nameless, reared itself up, towering over the undefended wizard and fell before Dammuth's magic. The demons crowded to reach him, crowding in triumph, only to be cast back again and again. Dammuth's heart rejoiced, for he had hurt the, enemy! He had destroyed much of its power! He had fought the greatest battle any man born of woman could ever conceive of and as he fell to his knees he knew in his soul that though he died, he had won.

  The dark rolled back from the kneeling wizard, his life force still so strong. They retreated from this old man that had done more damage to them than anything in all the eons had ever come close to.

  The great Prince stalked to the old man, the power of Hell at its back.

  "It is done. Now you are mine." The demon's hoarse laughter filled Dammuth's ears.

  "It is not over yet," Dammuth's voice was a whisper. He broke his staff in two and from the break a green beam of light shot forth and struck the demon's legs.

  "Oh, such power!" the Prince gloated as its talons reached for the mage. But then it shrieked in rage and pain. Such was that cry that its followers fell away from it, cringing in fear.

  "With this act," shouted Dammuth, daring to look straight in the demon's eyes, "I defy you! With my heart and soul, with my life, I defy you! With all that I am and ever could be, I defy you!"

  From the demon's legs, through its skin, sprouted leaves. It howled in agony, for the magic desecrated its very soul, impossible for it or any of the creatures of Hell to understand. Dammuth, in his last act of magic, had created life within the body of he who personified unlife, creation not only from chaos and death, but from nonexistence.

  The Dark Prince howled and so did all of Hell, shaken to its core. What could not be done, had been done. With one voice they cried to their master chained beyond the night, and he heard. He spoke a Word, so terrible that even his own nonsoul shook at it, so powerful that many of the lesser demons who heard exploded in agony.

  They took the Word and the million glowing eyes turned to Dammuth and shouted it at him. He cried aloud as bone and sinew shattered. He was lifted and pushed down at the same time; his flesh became a prison of red pain.

  The Demon Prince was covered by the power of the Word. A fire of sludge and mucus covered it, dissolved into it, and destroyed the seed of life inside its corrupt flesh. The pain lasted a true eternity, a pain so great that even he, the greatest of all save the Dark Master, barely survived. He felt each atom of body and black soul torn asunder, then re-knit in a raging fire of agony that no creature had ever stood.

  The demon opened its eyes once more to find itself in the small blue room that was not a room. No sign of the epic battle remained. The Gate was closed. He knelt at the body of its enemy, surprised to see the simple f
orm of a dying man, torn and shredded, the blood steaming into a red haze.

  The Dark Prince shook with wonder at his own survival, at the power and grandeur of his defeated enemy, at the change inside, the loss of power but increase in strength. He stared at the old man for a moment, wondering at this creature--so frail, so brave. For a moment, for the first time in its long unlife, it felt doubt about itself, about its destiny. The demon reached his hand out to the wizard, feeling the life still beating in that devastated form. The hand hovered there for a moment as the demon fought with its very essence, and almost, almost he reached toward Dammuth with a caress.

  But then what it was reinforced itself. The demon remembered its eons old battle to be the Only, the most powerful, to become all that is. And he felt, he felt inside the terrible hunger for power more demanding than ever. He had become more and his form shimmered as he tried to contain the newly won magic. The dark one howled in joy at his survival and strength.

  Dammuth felt it all, the demon's struggle and its failure of the test, the last the demon would ever have. The mage's tongue was destroyed, his throat a ruin. So it was his thoughts and not his voice that reached the demon.

  "No evil is powerful enough to corrupt the unconsenting." For a moment all was silent as the demon looked upon Dammuth. He knew the meaning of the mage's words but was unaffected by his sorrow. He laughed at him, at this silly old man, who could have been so much--who could have rivaled them all! But instead chose death.... He laughed at his own pain and the pain of Hell beating upon it. Like some giant larva the Dark Prince reveled in that agony, his being infused with unholy joy and madness.

  The demon's eyes turned red.

  It's hand, snake-fast, struck at Dammuth, ripping the wizard's chest open. Somehow Dammuth was able to scream as the demon pulled his still beating heart out.