Into the Abyss (The Nightslayer Trilogy, Part 2) - Chapter Seven

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!