And yet, when I confront her in the morning, and she already garbed for war, buckling on her sword belt, all I can do is stare at her. Gaze at her. She is so like Astresse, and Astresse would never have gone along with something like my plan. And neither will Lyn.
I can feel the tears pricking at my eyes. Worse, I can feel the absolute assurance that this won’t work, that I won’t be able to talk her out of her stupid plan and into mine, which will seem so much worse to her. Which is so much worse, because most likely it means we’ll both die, rather than just her. I just stand there before her expectant gaze and say nothing, and then say nothing some more, until the only thing I can do is bring the DCS back online. Sometimes you can’t get things done, with all that in the way. Sometimes sincerity has to take a back seat.
“Let us walk,” I tell her. “I will go with you.” I say nothing about the plan, not yet. That turns out to be the logical decision.
Lynesse
ESHA DIDN’T WANT TO let her go, but wanted even less to go into the heart of the demon’s realm. In the end Lyn had to pull together all her authority as princess of Lannesite. “Someone must tell my mother,” she insisted. “When you have seen how things fall out. And you,” to Allwer. “You were not always a good man, but you have been a good man in this. You have earned your reprieve.”
After that, there was no more to it than to go, not even a long trek, save that they would be passing through forest utterly conquered by the demon. They had to wind their way, finding paths broad enough to admit them and, even then, the bushy growth of scale that encrusted every surface quivered and reached for them as they passed, extruding whip-like feelers that got within inches of their skin before recoiling from the invisible shield the sorcerer had about them.
Some of what they passed through had likely been more than just trees. The lopsided, furred-over shapes were suggestive of other bodies. The dense profusion of the demon-mark became a blessing, hiding what it had grown upon.
Nyrgoth Elder was very quiet at Lyn’s side, walking with long, solemn strides and head downcast.
“You think I’m going to die,” she accused him, although she might as well have been speaking to her own mind, which had not let up on the subject since they set out.
He stopped, staring at nothing, or inwards. “When we reach the gate,” he said, then faltered, closing his eyes and summoning his resolve. “When we reach the gate,” he repeated, “you must do as I ask you. Will you swear to it? You may not want to.” And then a brief twist of a smile. “Or perhaps you will. Who knows? But do it. Swear to it. As a hero or a princess or whatever is appropriate.”
“What is it?”
“Wizardly things. Oaths and words of great power. Magic,” he said.
“Magic is just the secret ways of the world. Tell me.”
He tried to. She saw the will to do so rise up within him, but find no way to the outside world. “I have lived a long time,” he said at last. “Ridiculously long. And to no purpose.”
In such a way he managed to communicate his meaning to her, without ever having to say the words.
And then, without warning, they had broken out into the central bowl of the demon’s domain, and were before the arch.
Nyrgoth had tried to describe it, but there were no words that might have prepared her for the sight. She felt her stomach knot with vertigo, staring through the arch at whatever lay beyond. It was bright, lurid. She had no names for any of the colours and they hurt her eyes. Parts of her mind threw up cascades of chaotic thoughts and images, just to look upon it. She thought she saw distant peaks and chasms, umbral and vast. A moment later they were no more than the wrinkles on skin held too close to the eye. The hideous distortion of it weighed down the world so that everything sloped inwards towards the arch. At the same time it seemed higher, lifted aloft, so that to approach would be to climb a barbed slope. There was no sound in the clearing, and despite that she could hear the world screaming at the wound opened into its substance. The air stank of rotting tin and soured gold.
She drew her sword, feeling only a great weight of hopelessness. Nyrgoth had told her this could not be ended with a blade and now she saw he was right. But a blade was all she had.
She took three steps towards the arch, fighting the world and herself for each one. “I will do this,” she swore. “I am Lynesse Fourth Daughter. I am my mother’s disappointment and my sisters’ mockery, and I have no purpose but this. I will save the world. Come out and fight me, demon!”
A squeal of abused metal startled her. The wizard’s monstrous servant, which had been lying unnoticed on its side, abruptly rocked and shuddered, remaining legs moving weakly. Nyrgoth was staring at it thoughtfully.
“Is that your plan? To send your monster in again?” she demanded, hearing her voice tremble.
“No, but . . .” Nyrgoth looked about them sharply. “Ah.”
“Ah?” Even as she echoed him, she understood. There was a slow rippling undulation passing through the surrounding growth, scales flexing and standing on end in sequence, a flurry of little tendrils chasing across the mottled surface. The pinhead beads of eyes moved and merged, becoming greater orbs: size of a fist, size of a head, until there were great dark wells staring out at them from all sides.
“It knows we’re here,” she understood.
“It has detected something, even if just the absence of itself in our shadow. I hear it interrogating me again. We have very limited time.” Nyrgoth took a deep breath. “I said you couldn’t do this with a blade.”
“You did, yes.”
“I was wrong.” There were odd muscles twitching about his face, and she realised with fascinated horror that she was seeing the real man, the bitterly unhappy victim of his own mind, trying to make himself known. What would that man say to her? Not to listen to the calm words his lips were telling her. “Lynesse Fourth Daughter, now is the time to do exactly as I say, and no more or less.” And he was fumbling with his clothing, to her incredulous horror. He was fiddling with the bindings and fastenings, that were all in the wrong place, until at last he had them free and had pulled back his robe and tunic and shift, shrugging them off his shoulders to reveal a lean chest and soft stomach. All around them the demon-marked mounds were shifting and swaying, and parts of them seemed to be bulging up as though the tangled mass was trying to give up the forms of animals and people. She saw a brief suggestion of limbs, of faces, and looked away hurriedly, meeting Nyrgoth’s eyes.