Queen of Thorns Page 25

  Desna weeps.

  Eriakne hissed when I thought the name of the goddess. I would have shot her the tines if I'd had my fingers.

  You called me "the gate."

  Dokange's voices answered. "It is your destiny to open a portal to Golarion for us, the architects of your abomination. It should have been one of your ancestors who provided us this path but for unexpected interference that delayed our scheme."

  "But now you are failed," said Viridio.

  Can't fail at something I never tried to do.

  "I did not say you have failed. I said you are a failure."

  I can't tell you how broken up I am about not letting you assholes into my world.

  "You will feel differently soon," said Eriakne. "Your friends will be the first to enjoy the caress of the demon horde."

  "Under our reign, they could have served much as your countrymen serve the Prince of Law," said Dokange. "To the horde they are less than chattel. They are prey to be savaged and discarded."

  I hated to hear that, but there was nothing I could do about it. I'm dead now. I'm done.

  "No," said Dokange. His boy-voice cracked with excitement. "You cannot die so long as your body remains a gate. A large portion of your soul is rooted here in Hell, a smaller one in the Abyss. The rest connects them both to Golarion."

  But you guys show up in my world all the time.

  "At the behest of a conjurer," spat Eriakne. "Or by the command of our superiors. Never beyond the scrutiny and control of the Prince of Law."

  "Never to do as we will," said Dokange. "Never to rule our own domains."

  So I'm your back door, letting you slip out to do your mischief with daddy none the wiser. I've met a few girls like you.

  Quang cackled. "I like him. I want to ride next."

  "You must await your turn," growled Viridio.

  "And you yours," said Dokange. "I am next in succession."

  Wait a second—you're talking like you can still get through me somehow.

  "Not as Norge did," said Viridio. He looked over his shoulder. Without a neck to crane, I couldn't see what he was looking at—but the moment I thought that, my vision shifted. I could move around. All I had to do was think about it.

  We were in a cave after all, only the walls looked more like scabs than stone. The trickling water was thick red and yellow fluid, sticky where it pooled beneath Viridio's clawed feet.

  Curled up in a fleshy alcove in the cave wall lay a familiar shape. I'd seen his shadow plenty of times, his reflection a couple others. It was the devil who'd been riding me for the past couple of years, until the blow meant to end me killed him instead.

  Norge, is it?

  His ragged snores were slow and unsteady. About seven feet tall and thick as a bear, the devil was covered in spikes and spurs, and not just where I had them on my elbows. He must have gotten those for free when he was "riding" me. Even in his restless sleep, he couldn't close that mangle of blades he had for jaws. Looking at him from the outside, I didn't feel so bad about my own set of choppers.

  "He was the first to try passing through you," said Dokange. "The rest of us felt you were not ready, that we should wait for another generation before making the attempt. Norge proved us wrong."

  "Not wrong, exactly," oozed the voice of Gharalon. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't get a look at that devil. "The gate was not ready, at least not for us. He never managed to step through you, but he imprinted his carnal form upon yours by force of will."

  By force of fire, you mean.

  "Fire is Norge's sigil," said Gharalon. "Still, none of us could have ridden your soul until you tasted infernal blood."

  But I never ...Oh, yes I had. I remembered that night beneath the Scion's Academy back in Egorian. The boss and I had been sniffing down a killer. What we found turned out to be worse. When push came to shove, I found myself in a bad spot and had to bite the devil. I remembered the sickening taste of its blood and the filth it spread inside me, just before his sorceress lit me up with a ball of fire. I always thought it was the fire.

  "Norge could not possess you wholly without a compact, but whenever you were bathed in fire, he could push through this veil and ride your soul, body to body. But he was never able to exert—"

  Eriakne and Quang hissed him to silence.

  What? What wasn't he able to exert?

  All the devils remained silent, watching me. I wondered what I looked like to them. Again, soon as I had that thought, the cave turned and I looked back on that piece of myself that was stuck in Hell.

  It looked like a pool of molten copper, only sunk into the cavern wall instead of lying on the floor. Drops rippled across its surface, faster and faster. With each drop, I felt something give inside me, like a bursting blister leaving behind an empty pit.

  What's that? I asked as another tiny rupture opened inside me. The gate? My soul?

  "Another demon passes through your carnal self," said Viridio. "They are moving faster as the gate widens."

  How do I close it?

  "You can't," said Dokange. "But if you cooperate, over time we might be able to flip you open to this side, stanching the flow of the horde."

  My friends don't have time. And I don't want to be a gate to Hell, the Abyss, or anywhere.

  "That has always been your purpose. It is your destiny."

  I'm not so crazy about destiny. I kiss the wings of Desna.

  "Don't mention that bitch again!" screamed Eriakne.

  "There is another option," said Quang. His grin looked wide enough to cut his pointy little head in half. "Make a compact with me. Let me ride you as Norge did. We'll give those demons some hell, all right."

  "Not with the imp," said Dokange. "While Norge remains incapacitated, the succession falls to me."

  "No," said Viridio. "You are no warrior. Too many demons have already passed through the gate. You could never defeat them all."

  "Perhaps not, but I could escape. I could take one of your friends with me as well."

  Saving the boss would be worth something. But a compact with a devil? I don't know.

  "Is it not better to bargain with Hell than to be a slave of the Abyss?"

  Right now, I figure you got no claim to my soul. Hell and the Abyss can fight it out without me.

  "I wouldn't count on that," cooed Eriakne. "Especially while Norge rode your soul, you've done a great deal of evil in your world. Like so many of your countrymen, you have been a great servant to Hell, willing or not. Do you truly believe your capricious goddess can save you from the pits?"

  "Besides," said Dokange, "so long as the gate is open, your soul remains trapped between Hell and the Abyss."

  "Time is running out," said Eriakne. "I can hear them screaming. Would you like to know what they are saying about you?"

  No, I said, but I could feel the demons breaking through me like a hundred boils bursting one after the other.

  "Radovan, where are you?" Quang sounded just like the boss. "I need you!"

  Stop it!

  "Radovan, please!" The imp imitated Kemeili's voice, just like the leucrottas did with Oparal's. Did that mean Quang had something to do with them? "They're tearing me apart!"

  Knock it off! I'm thinking.

  "You must decide soon," said Eriakne. "When I ride your soul, my wings can carry us above the battle. We can save the one you love best."

  "They lie," said Viridio. "If you let them through, they will flee to do what they wish. With me, you will become unstoppable. No demon can stand against us. Together we'll destroy all who stand between us and our desires."

  "Whuff!" barked Quang.

  Don't you do my dog, I warned him. One day I'll have my hands around that scrawny little neck of yours...

  "You won't have hands. Not unless you let one of us through. I like dogs."

  A crazy thought came to me then. How the hell am I supposed to sign a compact with no hands? I don't even have blood for ink.

  "An oral agreement is satisfac
tory in this place," said Gharalon. "Simply say, 'Gharalon, I welcome you to claim my immortal essence.'"

  Pull the other one, grease ball. I don't know if I'm smarter than I look, but I'm smart enough not to fall for that one.

  "Your friends are running out of time," said Eriakne. "Think of flying on my wings, and invite me in."

  The molten copper pool churned like a boiling pot. The demons flying through whatever part of me made up this gate were confusing my mind. I couldn't decide what to do.

  "It is no use," said Dokange. "Who knows what changes the demons have wrought in him already? I say we abandon this one and concentrate our efforts on the child."

  What child?

  "Your child, the last of the Virholt bloodline."

  Bullshit. I don't have any kids.

  "Are you sure?"

  "You ought to have filled a village by now, the way you go at it." Quang cackled. "We'd have a lot of fun, you and me. Invite me in, and we'll go find some sweet young temple acolytes. I've always been partial to the priestesses of Shelyn. Do you happen to know any—?"

  I'm damned sure I don't have any kids. I had that taken care of a long time ago.

  Eriakne transformed into a sunburned old woman. I recognized her as my favorite Longmarket hedge witch by the black locks spotting her shaggy white hair. She held up a bottle just like the one I'd bought around the time I started practicing my charms and wiles. "And did you drink the potion while walking widdershins backward around a fresh-dug well, swinging the carcass of an orange cat by its tail?"

  You're bluffing, I said. You just pulled her face out of my memory.

  "That's possible," she said, nodding as her crone's face transformed back into the image of the bruised angel. "I could do that."

  "But she could also have sold you a bottle of goblin water for a purse of thirty-nine gold coins and three painted lead slugs," said Dokange. He had me there. "We could not allow you to cut off the Virholt line. We have watched over you since your birth."

  "At least until you got Norge cut off," said Quang. "You've been tough to follow since then."

  But I've felt someone watching me, ever since this Norge went down. If it wasn't you...

  "The demons." The imp hovered between Dokange and an empty space where I was beginning to think Gharalon stood or hunched or slithered or whatever unseen. Now that I focused on it, I heard his voice coming from that spot.

  "Oh, how sad. The first of your friends has fallen." His voice left a slime trail in my head. "The others are soon to follow."

  Which one?

  "Invite me in, and I will tell you."

  If I do that, we've got a bargain, right? You can come with me the same way this Norge did. I get lit up, you get a visit. A brief visit.

  "Fire is Norge's sigil," said Viridio. "Each of us is invoked by a different—"

  "Ooh, that looked painful," cried Quang, shaking his fist like he was watching a prize fight. "Another one down."

  All right, damn it. I'll let you in. One of you.

  "You have to choose," said Dokange. "Say my name. I am the next in line."

  I felt his fingers plunge into the surface of the molten pool, into the gate—into me, I guessed. He hissed in pain as his fingers tickled at something deep inside me. It wasn't a good feeling for me, either.

  "No, say mine! Eriakne!"

  More fingers, more grasping claws reaching for the center of my soul.

  "This is no time to choose a lesser devil," said Viridio. "Call my name."

  "Gharalon!"

  "No, Quang! I'll make you smarter! Better looking! Without me, you're going to lose that hair. I've seen it in a vision!"

  In for a copper, I decided, in for a gold.

  I made a choice.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Horde

  Varian

  Reaching for a scroll, I saw that I was already too late. Radovan was dead.

  The demons had not only slain him, they had destroyed his body. Four of the larger brutes raised his eviscerated corpse on a frame of branches. Beneath this gore-drenched banner, the four-armed demon priestess brandished her bloody swords as proof of her deed.

  Ice suffused my veins. I drew the Shadowless Sword, my fingers aching to plunge the blade through the fiend's heart.

  With the sword in hand, Radovan's corpse changed before my eyes. Within the gaping wound on his torso churned a roiling vortex vanishing into infinity.

  A dark speck appeared within the maelstrom. In an instant it grew large, leaping from the vortex to emerge as a fully formed demon resembling a boiled goat. As its hooves clattered on the street, it raised its sinewy arms and screamed a fiendish word: "Freedom!"

  Before my mind could assimilate what I had seen, another mote leaped out from Radovan's body. This one grew into a scabrous, horse-sized condor. Weeping buboes pushed up through its black feathers. It beat its wings, unleashing a cloud of dusty spores.

  Through some Abyssal ritual, the centipede-woman demon had made a portal of Radovan's body. Beneath the glacier of my anger, my curiosity stirred. The answer to the demons' interest in Radovan lay in this horrific tableau. If the victim had been a stranger, my desire to understand its design might have overcome my need to destroy those responsible.

  More demons poured through the gate, singly at first and then in groups of two and three. Long before I could close with the demon-priestess, they burst forth in clusters of half a dozen. The fliers climbed at once to the upper reaches of the dome, while the rest scattered through the ruined streets of the ancient city.

  A cry for help drew my attention to the east. Kemeili's voice rang out above the din. She sprinted from the temple district toward Variel's manor, a multifarious pack of demons at her heels. Lashing them forward was a tall, brown-skinned man with long white hair and red-veined bat wings. I knew its kind from demonic tomes: an incubus.

  I hesitated only an instant before choosing to aid the living before avenging the dead.

  As I turned toward Kemeili, Caladrel dashed across the rooftops behind her. He unleashed an arrow with every third or fourth step. The first few fell short of the pack. Recalling his entangling shots, I knew he had not missed.

  One of the fliers dived toward him. I called out a warning. The ranger looked up in surprise but instantly saw the danger. Three broad-headed arrows feathered the condor-demon's chest. Twisting and screaming, the fiend plunged toward his target. Caladrel somersaulted off the roof, barely escaping the fiend's crash through the roof tiles.

  In the street, the incubus flung his lash at Kemeili, capturing her by the leg. She cursed at him as the demon dragged her toward its gibbering minions.

  I thumbed a scroll. Ice particles formed a cone before me, covering the demons in a glittering blue rime of frost. The corpulent wretch at the head of the pack froze solid. His frostbitten companions barreled through him, leaving the shattered chunks of his body skittering across the street.

  Kemeili rolled onto her back and threw a handful of darts at a pig-faced brute. The demon squealed as the blades sprouted in its cheek and jowls. She raised a curved blade and hacked at the demon's lash.

  She severed the line a moment too late. The incubus's minions reached her even as I landed. I hamstrung a brimorak and stabbed the pig-fiend through the throat. Reaching for another scroll, I called out for Caladrel.

  Only a deep laugh answered. The incubus pointed toward me, the unearthly beauty of his smile even more unnerving than the ugliness of his minions. He uttered a command to bring her to him, but none of the pack heeded his words. They scrambled over Kemeili, each vying for the next taste of her flesh.

  As I decapitated a bird-fiend and kicked away a bloated manikin, the incubus raised his lash. He aimed not for his disobedient slaves but for me.

  A blinding brand swept up through one of his wings, arcing down to sever the other. With a scream worthy of a castrato, the incubus turned just in time to see Oparal's blazing sword split his perfect body at the waist.


  I kicked a wormlike vermlek away from Kemeili. The porcine brute that led the charge against her rose again, despite its bloody wounds. It snorted and lowered its tusks, turning on me. Before it could move, a pair of arrows plunged into its bristling red neck. The distraction gave me time to prick out its tiny eyes before plunging my blade into its heart.

  Oparal appeared at my side, her holy blade singing as it carved into the fiends. Four fled her shrieking sword. Caladrel's arrows felled two of them as they ran. The survivors escaped to join the mob gathering beneath the gate that had been Radovan.

  Slick with ichor, Kemeili crawled out from beneath the demon carcasses. Her eyelids flickered. She dropped her blade and thrust three fingers into either side of the pig-faced demon's bloody jowls. She spat out a few savage phrases to the Savored Sting.

  Kemeili drew the demon's waning life into her own body. Her eyes glowed as the power of entropy sealed her most grievous wounds and filled her with the last drams of the demon's strength. It was not enough to heal her, but it was enough to let her stand and bare her teeth. She was eager for revenge against the horde.

  Oparal flinched at what Kemeili had done. I understood her reticence—Kemeili's spell little resembled the boons of Iomedae—but now was no time for a dispute of dogma. I summoned the voice with which I had once commanded imperial marines. "Heal her."

  Oparal set her jaw but stepped close to press her palm against Kemeili's cheek. A word to Iomedae evoked the healing radiance. Despite the paladin's qualms about the Calistrian's spell, the goddess did not withhold her blessing.

  Caladrel and I stood guard against a return of the demons. None came for us immediately. Those who paraded Radovan's body headed toward the central plaza. At each intersection they balked, quarrelling over which path to choose until the priestess slew one or two objectors and urged the rest forward.

  Many more demons had dispersed throughout the city, befouling the land wherever they went. I detected a whiff of corruption upon the air, and foul trails lingered in the wake of fiends resembling birds, bats, and winged humanoid abominations.

  Hopeful mobs of smaller demons gathered around the behemoths. A crab-spider the size of a caravel smashed against the hardened vines of one of Variel's reserved buildings. I prayed it angered whatever it released.