Part 26 (1/2)
FIFTEEN - Desperation
James awoke slowly.
The cell was dark, the only light a torch in the antechamber which filtered through the tiny window. He recognized it as the same cell Edwin had occupied.
He was lying on a pallet of stale straw. The air was fouler than he remembered from his last visit, but then, he thought, he hadn't been inside the cell.
He sat up and his whole body ached. His head still rang from the beating he had taken and he doubted he had more than a few square inches of skin that weren't bruised.
James took a deep breath and looked around. No food or water, and he doubted his captors had given a second's thought to his comfort. He expected the general thesis was that he wouldn't be around long enough for comfort to be an issue.
The fact that he was alive led him to believe one of two things was about to happen. Either he would be questioned, to determine how many people knew of this hideout and how soon enemy forces could be expected to attack, or he was to be the guest of honor at the next demon summoning.
If the former, he thought, he might stall for time. He could pretend the beating had befuddled his senses and that he needed some rest before it would all come back to him. If the latter, he had only until midnight for Arutha and his army to arrive and get him out alive. Jimmy shook his head again, trying to force himself into alertness. He stood up slowly, quietly, and wobbled to the opening in the door.
Looking through the tiny window, he saw they had placed guards in the room, against the chance of another of James's companions being loose within the fortress. James stepped back quickly, lest a guard notice he was awake. If they are going to question me, he thought, the longer they wait to begin, the better the chances of the Prince getting here.
He sat down quietly and tried to rest. The stones were not cold, but this deep below the surface they were hardly warm. The straw was as much an irritant as a comfort, yet he dozed off after a few minutes.
Some time later, he came awake with the sound of the door opening. Without a word, two guards strode through the door and grabbed him under the arms. He was dragged through the door and frog-marched through the fortress.
They took him to the one portion of the underground labyrinth he had failed to explore, which he a.s.sumed was the quarters of the leaders, the priests of the demon wors.h.i.+pers. He was soon to discover, with no satisfaction at all, that his surmise was correct.
Cast to the stone floor at the feet of a man in black robes, he waited.
”Stand up, so I may look at you,” said the man standing above him. His voice was dry, like the rustling of aged parchment.
James looked up and saw a man with an ancient face looking down at him. Slowly, on unsteady feet, James rose until he looked into the old man's eyes. There was power there, a dark, dangerous power. The face looked impossibly old, barely more than blotched and discolored skin stretched taut across a skull. What little hair remained as a fringe around the sides and back hung like white spider-silk. The old man looked closely at James, and suddenly James realized the creature before him wasn't breathing, save when he needed to speak. Hair rose up on the back of James's neck when he realized he was looking into the eyes of a dead man, somehow still animated.
”Who are you?” the old man asked.
Seeing no benefit from an outright lie, James said, ”My name is James.”
”You come to spy, from the Kingdom?”
James said, ”More or less.”
”Those with you, they are but the tip of the wedge, yes?”
”I believe more of my countrymen will be arriving shortly, yes.”
”It does not matter.” With a grin exposing crooked yellow teeth, the creature took another breath and said, ”We here serve to the death and beyond. We fear not the lances of your Kingdom soldiers. We know what is to come, and by the grace given to us by our master, we do not fear it. Tonight is our final conjuration, and our master will send us a tool, a demon to destroy your Kingdom!”
He gazed into James's eyes a moment, then said to the a.s.sa.s.sins standing nearby, ”Take him to the chamber. The hour is nearly upon us.”
James was speechless. He had expected a dozen questions, possibly a beating or two, and the opportunity to delay and equivocate. Instead he was being dragged off to have his throat cut at a demonic rite.
They took him to a room next to the former armory and roughly stripped his tunic, boots and trousers from him, leaving him only his small-clothes. Two men grabbed him firmly by his arms and held him motionless.
Another black-robed priest entered the room and started an incantation. He carried a small bowl fas.h.i.+oned from a human skull, from which he pulled a bone covered in a dark, viscous liquid. He waved the bone in the air and James's skin grew cold. b.u.mps appeared on his arms and the hair on the back of his neck rose. When he touched James on the forehead, his skin felt burned.
A third priest appeared, with another bowl holding a viscous white fluid. He held the bowl up to James's face and said, ”Drink.”
James clamped his jaws shut. He didn't know specifically what was being offered to him, but he suspected it was to make him more tractable.
A black-clad a.s.sa.s.sin came from behind the man on James's right. He gripped James's jaws with powerful hands, attempting to pry them apart. He got his hand bitten. James clamped down hard enough to draw blood, and received a staggering blow for his troubles.
”Very well,” said the old priest. ”Let him feel every exquisite moment of pain as his life runs from him and his soul feeds our master. But hold him tightly, lest he disrupt the ceremony. Our master does not suffer error.”
He turned and led the way, with the other priests following. James was taken then by the two men who held him, with two other guards following behind.
Every fiber of his body hurt, and the likelihood of his survival seemed close to non-existent, but James found he felt no fear. Somehow he had always avoided imagining his own demise.
He knew, abstractly, that some day he would die, just as every mortal being eventually succ.u.mbed at the end of their days, but at no time had James dwelled on that simple fact. As his old friend Amos Trask had once said, ”No one gets out of life alive.”
But despite the high probability of it, James could not accept the reality of his own death. Part of his mind was astonished at this; he knew he should be mewling like a baby, pleading for his life.
Then he realized that, to the core of his being, he knew knew it was not his time to die. Instead of fear, his mind turned to how he was going to get out of this mess. it was not his time to die. Instead of fear, his mind turned to how he was going to get out of this mess.
They moved into the armory, where James could see the ceremony was already underway. The hundred-odd a.s.sa.s.sins knelt as the old priest entered. They were chanting and already the place felt fey with dark magic.
Torches flickered around the room, and James used every skill of observation he possessed to notice details he had missed the last time he had witnessed the sacrifice. The ancient bellows over the forge was still intact, though they had not been used in over a hundred years; the chains used to lift and move the cauldrons once used to pour molten metal for fas.h.i.+oning armor and weapons were rusty, but looked serviceable. His mind's eyes measured the distances between the dais and two large stone repair tables, and the forges, and how close to those tables the chains hung. James realized that it was unlikely he was going to run through this throng, so every other possible means of escape had to be evaluated, and quickly.
The a.s.sa.s.sins faced the dais upon which he was to be killed, gazing upon the visage of the demon painted upon the wall. The two who flanked James continued to hold him, while the two who had followed joined the others on the floor of the makes.h.i.+ft temple.
As he was marched up the steps to the base of the stone over which he would be stretched, James looked down to see an intricate design chalked upon the floor, a five-pointed star with a large wax candle burning at each point. He observed that the priests took great care to avoid those points or stepping over the lines of the pentagram. He racked his memory, something about the marks on the floor was disturbingly familiar.
As they moved him toward the stone altar, James felt his pulse increase. He still felt no fear, but instead a strange sense of urgency. Whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it in the next few moments and he still didn't have any idea what it was.
Suddenly, he went limp, crying out, ”No! No! Anything but this!”
The high priest turned for a brief instant to see what the commotion was, but the sight of a victim begging for his life was nothing new, and he went back to the spell casting.
One priest opened a large book and held it aloft before the high priest so he could read from it. The old man read in silence for a moment, then cried out in a language harsh and alien to James's ear. The room seemed to darken, as if something was absorbing the torchlight, and a vague shape formed in the center of the pentagram.
James knew that as soon as blood was spilled, the creature would solidify and enter this realm. He felt the two a.s.sa.s.sins lift him, dragging him the last few steps to the stone.
James took a deep breath, for he knew this must be the moment. If he was bent back over that stone, held hand and foot, he would die.
He feigned a convulsion, sobbing and screaming as he collapsed to his knees, pulling the two men over slightly. Then suddenly he planted his feet and stood up, throwing the two a.s.sa.s.sins off balance. Ignoring every ache and protesting joint, he pressed upward with his hands, causing the two men to instinctively change their grip on his wrists. At that instant, he pulled free.
With his right hand, he pulled a dagger from the belt of the man to his right, and threw his shoulder into him, knocking him back into the sacrifice stone. Then he kicked out with his left leg, knocking the man on that side backwards.
The man on the right reached for his belt and found his scabbard empty. James said, ”Looking for this?” He lashed out with the blade, catching the a.s.sa.s.sin across the neck, opening his artery so it sprayed blood across the stone and onto the floor. ”If you're so anxious to make this horror appear, use your own blood to do it!”
The high priest shouted, ”No! It is not time!”