The dragon had begun to play with
them, deliberately slowing its pursuit so that, as long as they kept
running, Zoe and Aylander remained just ahead of it. No doubt the
dragon knew that the two of them couldn't keep up this pace forever,
that soon, exhaustion would overtake them and force them to slow.
And, once they did slow, Zoe was certain the beast would continue to
torment them, finding some other way to keep them entertaining
before, at last, deciding to feed on their souls. That moment, when
the dragon finally decided to dine, would be agonizing in a way that
Zoe understood she had no way of preparing for – based on what she
knew, a person in the clutches of a Creature of the Abyss remained
alive right up until the moment the last portion of their soul was
taken from them – but she thought it would also be mercifully
liberating. The Gods Above only knew what the dragon would do to her
– and to Aylander – beforehand.
Look
at me, Sorceress,
the voice of the dragon – an oily, insidious thing that was equal
parts attractive and repulsive – whispered inside Zoe’s head,
just as it had so many times since the chase had begun.
Look!
Zoe had to physically struggle
to keep herself from looking at the dragon. If she stopped and
turned to look, the chase would be over, as the beauty of what she
would see would dazzle her so much that any further thoughts of
continuing to flee would be driven from her mind. Such a thing had
almost happened when Zoe had gotten her first look at the dragon –
which, in this place, wasn’t a creature of darkness, but, instead,
glowed and pulsed with a kaleidoscope of alternating, hypnotic colors
– and it had taken Aylander grasping her hand and pulling her along
behind him to tear her attention away from it. The dragon’s beauty
didn’t mean it was less dangerous – it just meant that it had one
extra tool to aid it in capturing its prey.
Zoe
glanced over at Aylander as she ran. Though the look of fear on
Aylander’s face was unmistakable, Zoe couldn’t help but think
that he didn’t seem as affected by the dragon as she was. Somehow,
Zoe knew that Aylander wasn’t hearing the dragon’s voice in his
head,
and his being able to pull her away from the dragon while she stood,
transfixed, by its colors told her all she needed to know about his
apparent immunity to that particular display. Was it because
Aylander was Eltaran? Possibly, but Zoe had a darker suspicion –
two
darker suspicions, in fact. Both had to do with Aylander’s soul,
which had, at one time, been Twisted, meaning that it had been
tainted by the touch of the Abyss. Despite what Thaddeus’s sword
had done, a portion of that taint might still remain, which might
also
explain why Aylander was so tempted by the expanded powers the Abyss
seemed to have granted him.
Could he use those extended powers to save us from the dragon?
Zoe wondered, which was followed by an even more disturbing thought.
Could he use them to
take control of
it?
“ENOUGH!”
Aylander
suddenly bellowed.
Aylander
stopped
and whirled around. The black sword he had conjured, before, was
back in his hand, and he brandished it at the dragon. Zoe – who
had stopped and turned, as well, the force of Aylander’s voice
acting on her almost like a spell – watched as, from above, red
lightning struck down from the gray sky. The lightning hit
Aylander’s sword and it seemed to catch fire, burning with a
heatless flame that, the instant she saw it, caused Zoe to heave up
the contents of her stomach. The wrongness of that flame went beyond
the wrongness of anything else in this place, and Zoe knew that, if
she stayed in its presence for too long, the fate it would bring to
her would be far worse than death – or than having her soul
devoured by a dragon. She could no longer run, however. She could
no longer move, at all.
The
dragon stopped in midair, its wings flapping a couple of times in
what Zoe thought might have been confusion, or surprise. Then it
turned and started flying back the way it had come, its colors no
longer flashing – it was a dark thing, now, appearing as it would
have back in Eltara, and, somehow, it no longer seemed as large as it
had. Zoe realized that she could feel the dragon’s fear – no,
its terror
– and she also understood that, even flying as fast as it was, it
had no chance of escaping what as about to come.
Nothing
– not the dragon, not her, not even Thaddeus, if he still happened
to live – could escape what was about to come.
With
another bellow – this one wordless – Aylander leaped into the sky
and shot after the dragon, his flaming sword opening
a
dark,
jagged
crack
in the
sky as he flew. Thunder
rumbled and cracked in his wake, and, before long, he was surrounded
by a nimbus of red lightning. Zoe could do nothing but watch, and
watch she did as Aylander reached the dragon, climbed onto its back,
and hacked its head off at the shoulders with his sword. A
horrendous scream split the air, followed by a tremendous clap of
thunder and a furious torrent of wind. Zoe couldn’t see everything
– she was too busy shielding her eyes from the worst of the wind –
but it seemed that, as it died, the dragon shriveled into a tiny,
black
ball and was then carried up into the crack Aylander had cut in the
sky with his sword. And then the silence returned, just as absolute
as it had been before, with nothing left behind to mark the awesome,
terrifying thing that had just happened.
“Nothing
shall ever threaten us, again, Sorceress.”
Finding
that she could once again move, Zoe turned and looked at Aylander.
The flaming sword was gone, but other changes had been wrought to him
that were just as wrong, just as sickening and mind-twisting.
Aylander’s clothes weren’t
the same
– he was now clad from head to toe in black, with
a cape of the same color draped across his shoulders, a cape that
fluttered slightly in the nonexistent breeze – and his eyes had
become red-flecked
chunks of
obsidian. His voice wasn’t the same, either – it was deeper and
raspier, now, full of a cool malevolence that, Zoe knew, could turn
red hot at any time.
He’s more than Twisted, now,
Zoe thought, and found that, instead of feeling afraid of what
Aylander had become, she felt sad for him.
“Why
did you do it?” Zoe asked.
“To
save us.” Aylander looked at her unblinkingly. “To save
you.”
“There
may not be any reversing this, Aylander,” Zoe said. “Not this
time.”
“Reverse
it? Why would I want to reverse it? Can’t you see how powerful
I’ve become? I might even be more powerful than Thaddeus, now.”
Aylander paused. “Does that trouble you, Lady Zoe?”
“Yes.
It isn’t right, Aylander.”
“Only
by your definition. I saved
us, Zoe, and that, my dear, was a very right
thing
to do.”
“Maybe
so,” Zoe said. “But at what cost?”
“Cost?”
Aylander scoffed. “Gods have no need of worrying about things like
cost.”
So,
Aylander now thought of himself as a god. Zoe knew that meant she
should leave, that she should strike out and try to find Thaddeus on
her own. When she thought about doing it, though, a sudden, sharp
pain stabbed through her head, and she found her legs wouldn’t
move. Zoe
tried forcing them to move – she even started to call on her magic
– but this only made the pain come back, worse than before, causing
her to cry out and fall to her knees. Aylander
had
put
some kind of spell on her, it seemed – a spell Zoe couldn’t
detect, and therefore, couldn’t break. She looked up at him.
“What have you done to me?”
“You
are bound to me, now, Sorceress,” Aylander said. “You are mine.
Do anything to resist that, and there will be pain. Continue to
resist, and the pain will kill. You needn’t fear, however. I
promise to be a benevolent master, and, perhaps, given time, you will
come to feel for me as you do for Thaddeus.”
“Thaddeus
will kill you for this, Aylander,” Zoe said.
Aylander
smiled. “He already kill me once, my Lady. He should have had the
sense to leave me dead. Now, come. We have much to do, here, before
we leave.”
Zoe
stood – not because she wanted to, but because she had no other
choice – and
followed along
behind Aylander as they once again set out across the gray flatness
of the Abyss. I
wonder what else he intends to do?
Zoe thought. Then, more urgently than
before, Please,
Thaddeus! Please be alive, my love! Please!
