Sword Play

Chapter 14

Candlemas shivered as he hopped along, as clumsy as a crippled frog. For company, he cursed himself and Sysquemalyn and everyone else he could think of. Especially Lady Polaris, though she'd done nothing especial lately.

He missed a step, slid, dropped his foot into a gap with ankle-wrenching agony, teetered, and flopped on his side. His bald head struck hard, so a clotted gash cracked anew. Cursing, almost weeping, he rubbed blood from the sore spot, then levered himself up. Immediately he slipped and fell again, smacking the same spot.

Bleary-eyed and gloomy, he studied his unchanging surroundings. The floors and walls and low ceiling resembled a sea of giant glass marbles in all directions. Every surface was a half-sphere an armspan wide. Between them were gaps perversely as wide as his sandaled feet. The cloudy marbles were slippery and could roll in place, yet the only way to traverse them was by hopping from one to another. Often he stumbled, sliding in between them, twisting his ankles and banging his knees. He knew he'd shattered and ground his ankle bones to paste by now, but magic kept them firm and the pain low. So far. His magic could last only so long, and the dull ache was rising. Soon he'd be distracted by it, then tortured.

Grabbing a marble with bloody hands, he climbed atop it and gingerly skidded toward a wall. But just before he reached it, it swung away like flotsam on a sea wave. He tumbled and cracked his knee, losing skin to stone. The low glassy ceiling, he'd learned, could dip unexpectedly, and he'd rapped his bald head many times.

Cursing feebly, the mage squatted atop a marble and tried to think how to escape. Slowly the marble turned over, and he had to squinch his backside to stay atop. He'd get no rest in this cold hole.

Too, he was flummoxed, his thoughts murky. The only thing he could concentrate on was blame and doubt: overwhelming blame for others and himself, doubt of everything. This anti-confidence was a curse too, more magic he was sure, but knowing that didn't banish it any better than ignoring a toothache would make the pain go away. If he hadn't wagered with Sysquemalyn… If he hadn't attended Lady Polaris… If he hadn't manipulated the barbarian…

Hissing, he bit his lip, shook his head until his brain rattled in its pan. He had to think. There was something he'd learned once, a way out, but he couldn't recall it. If only he were smarter. If only…

A flap and squawk, and the raven skittered from above to perch on a nearby marble. Preening its wings, it tugged loose a shed feather. The black pin-feather slid down a marble surface and vanished into the crevices between the orbs. Candlemas tried not to imagine what might lay underneath.

"Tough sledding," croaked the bird.

"Never mind that," snapped the mage. His breath fogged, for the temperature was chilly. Cold also made him clumsy. "What have you found?"

A jog of the humped beak. "Only more of this. The glass balls move, too. I hit walls twice."

Candlemas stifled a sigh. "How far does it extend, you lopsided menace?"

"Farther than I can fly without hitting a wall." The raven turned its tail to him, cocking its head to peer at the ceiling.

Candlemas cursed. He was like a cockroach trapped in a rolling jar of marbles. If only he'd brought his potions, or his grimoire, he might have…

No. "If only" led to sorrow and madness. It had killed more than one dream, and dreamer.

Hissing at rasped skin, the mage continued to crawl from marble to marble, like a pigeon hopping from fencepost to fencepost. But his palms were raw and slippery with blood, and when his hands betrayed him he careened and smacked his cheek into another cold marble. The hand, slipping into the crevice, was chilled to the bone. If not for his magic shields, he'd have been frozen solid by now. If only he'd worn a cape.

The bird waggled its tail, then leaped into the air. Candlemas yelled, "Hey! Come back! I need a direction-"

But he'd reached out unconsciously. The marble underneath him shifted and rolled. The surface from below was frigid, almost paralyzing, and he jumped to get away.

Everything whirled, and his head was flying toward another marble. He stabbed out with numb hands to halt his fall, felt his finger snap as he rolled helplessly.

He'd never catch himself in time, came a doubt. Then he recalled with a shock…

… There was a way out.

He'd seen it before. In the palace of Tyralhorn the Archmage, in Anauria, at Sysquemalyn's "entertainment." The benighted human hero had suffered in a hellhole like this too. And he'd won free by doing… what? Something about cutting saplings, tying them under his arms to support himself? No, there was more to it.

But at that point in the story Candlemas had been distracted, wondering what Sysquemalyn intended, reckoning how he might get the upper hand and defeat her without harming himself.

If only he'd paid better attention.

These black thoughts came in a flash, then exploded to black as his forehead crashed on glass.

Groggy, Candlemas snorted and pushed at something brushing his face. His clumsy hand banged against stone.

Sitting up with a start, he bumped his nose on more rock. He could see nothing but darkness. If stone lay all around, he must have been buried in an avalanche. With the thought came panic, and he bashed his knuckles and hands on more stone that was oddly warm. Then he realized his hands were free, after a fashion.

The stone before his eyes slipped down, away, and he could see. Though not everywhere, for a searing, blue-white light filled the center of the chamber, and he had to avert his eyes.

He saw that the stone prison moved on its own, like snakes of living rock. Then he saw fingers and knew they were stone arms. Moving, passing over and down his body, trapping him. He could stick his arms through gaps, but then sliding stone arms would force them down again, pinning him like a fox in a trap.

"Awake, dear?" cackled a woman's voice. "I'm so glad! I've much to tell you!"

Oh, yes, Candlemas recalled, I'm in the Nine Hells. Animate stone beings were to be expected where madness reigned. And there would be no waking from the nightmare. Or rather, only waking as he'd just done, plunging him afresh into new nightmares.

This one was worse than most.

The stone arms were only part of the phenomenon. The walls in this large chamber rippled and convulsed in all directions, so a body grew seasick watching them. Corpses of animate stone formed the walls. Humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, and other races that Candlemas couldn't identify had been turned to stone and fused together like madcap building blocks. Yet some life or unlife still remained in them, for the carcasses heaved and twitched and groped until the walls seemed thick with gray, crawling beetles. A head would bob up, roll blind eyes, then be submerged as a hand or leg or buttock shoved it back and down and another lost soul writhed to the surface. Arms, fingers, toes, breasts, shoulders, bobbed on the sea of living stone like drowning folk struggling for air.

And perhaps they were. Candlemas couldn't imagine a much worse torment than being turned to stone-to live forever frozen-then being cast into an ocean of like-damned sinners, to struggle for purchase, for air, for a chance to see light, only to be dragged back down into black death. The mage, who'd seen many awful things in his years of magic-making, shuddered uncontrollably at the fiendishness of it.

But there was more to see. He was pinned by groping arms and legs that somehow had been stimulated to entrap him. So, too, was Greenwillow, who hung, upside down, on the far side of the chamber. The doughty elf struggled against her stone bonds whenever she got a hand or leg loose, but she only succeeded in winning herself more scrapes and bruises. Still, Candlemas had to admit she was trying to win free, and he wasn't. But then, he knew better how small their chances of survival really were.

Here, too, was the raven. The flustered bird hopped and flew a dozen times a minute as it vainly sought a spot to alight that didn't writhe or bear thorns. It had little luck and squawked unhappily. Some of its discomfiture communicated itself to Candlemas, its master, pity heaped on sorrow. Much of his own making, his own fault.

There was still more to take in, for at the center of the chamber was a huge, twisted ball, like a giant snarl of yarn. Yet the strings were metal branches studded with wicked thorns. Suspended in the thorns, punctured in a dozen places, was the still-unconscious Sunbright. The silvery metal glittered in the eye-smarting, blue-white brilliance that emanated from deep within the center of the loose snarl. Candlemas couldn't comprehend the source of the light, but guessed they would all have been blinded by it if not for the thicket of thorns. What could shed that much light?

"Do you like it? I fetched you all here to admire it!" Striding over writhing stone bodies came Sysquemalyn, raking her red hair back in her vainglorious fashion. She still wore her Ruellana garb, with the rips and claw marks from the fiend that had dragged her off. For that matter, some of the wounds still dripped blood. But the female mage didn't seem to notice as she wiped her nose and left a red streak. From her scraped hand trailed Sunbright's heavy-nosed sword, Harvester of Blood.

"This is my finest creation!" The mage waved her arm and sword at the hideous chamber. The blue-white light cast her shadow dozens of feet tall, eclipsing the lost souls in their perpetual struggle. "It's not what you think, not the Nine Hells, but my very own unique construct for the delight of my friends and enemies!"

"You're mad." The whisper slipped from Candlemas unintentionally, but it didn't matter, he supposed.

"What?" The woman peered up at him like an adult puzzled by a child's odd question. "Did you say mad?"

"Insane. Moonstruck. Addled. Crackpated. Buzzy-brained. Pickle-witted." Candlemas had to pause as a stone arm slid past his nose, brushing his beard. He resumed, strangely calm, in the voice of a tired man ready for death. "Funny I never spotted it, working with you all these years. But such is dementia. It creeps up slowly, and no one notices, until one day the loon lashes out and kills folks, and then it's too late."

The red-haired mage lifted the sword to where Candlemas hung pinned and prodded his toe, drawing blood. "I don't like to be called mad."

"No, I imagine not. Nor do ugly people like to be called ugly, nor cruel folk cruel, nor fat nor slow, and so on. But anyone who would meddle with the Nine Hells…"

"This is not the Nine Hells!" Petulant, Sysquemalyn jabbed at his foot, missed, and bounced the point off a stone orc's head. "I made this place, I tell you! You're just jealous." Angry, she batted at a stone finger and only dinged Harvester's edge.

"By the Silver Lady!" Candlemas shook his head, thumping his ear on a stone nose. "You don't know what you're dealing with. It's impossible you made this place. Look around! There are thousands of trapped spirits here. Where did they come from? You couldn't have conjured them all from thin air. Most gods couldn't do that. And these tunnels, endless numbers of them, all dipping deep into the very bowels of hell. Can you honestly believe you've plugged them all? And what about that yellow fiend that dragged you here? You're still dripping blood from the wounds, yet you claim to have crafted it? You've tapped the wrong portals. You don't have the strength to cope with the Nine Hells!"

To his horror, Sysquemalyn only laughed with delight. "Ah, yes! Did you like my fiend? True, it was a little rough when it came to fetch me, but that's just the merest bump to hammer flat. And your 'wrong portals.' Piffle! I'll admit I drew certain grace notes from the Nine Hells-I studied them long enough-but this is a creation all my own! My presentation, my 'entertainment' at Tyralhorn's party, was merely a rough draft, the most preliminary sketch. This is the perfection! Let's see the Snorting White Sow top this!"

There lies the explanation, Candlemas sighed in his mind. Unknown to him, Sysquemalyn had spent too much time studying the Nine Hells. And watching madness, mulling it, dipping and drinking it, had infected her mind. Like a missionary amid lepers, she'd become what she sought to conquer.

"I won't argue-much. But whatever you did, and no matter how clever you think yourself, you've released lesser horrors from the pits all over Netheril. After you were dragged off, my palantir suddenly rattled with reports of hellfire and trolls, plagues of maggots, and rampaging ghouls. Delia was beset by giant black bats lusting for the blood of your chambermaids!''

For the first time, doubt flickered over Sysquemalyn's face. Her red lips pouted; her brow clouded in thought. Then the storm passed as she reverted to her self-centered fantasy. "Oh, valiant effort, dear 'Mas! Nice try! But you won't talk your way out of this. I won, and you lost. But yes, let's sound the finale of our little symphony."

Sword trailing and clittering on stone heads and limbs, Sysquemalyn pranced to the thicket of silver thorns. With a snap of her fingers, Sunbright jerked, shook his head, then immediately froze as he felt sharp points prick him.

"How's the head?" called the mage. "I saw the owlbear eat it, but it looks sturdy enough now. That's the beauty of my private hell: I can torture someone to death, make them feel every agony, then resurrect them to suffer anew! A dozen times a day, if I wish!"

Carefully, Sunbright opened his eyes, flicked them over the surroundings, then focused on Sysquemalyn.

"Ruellana," he spat without moving. "You've deceived me yet again."

"Oh, I've done much worse than that," chided the mage. "And my name is Sysquemalyn. Reins of Shar, but you're a dense child! I show you a goddess aborning and you see a randy barmaid. As low-minded as humans are, I don't think you even qualify as one. I've taught dogs tricks more quickly. You're hopeless!" Her tsk made Sunbright writhe in his barbed bonds.

Dismissing the youth from her mind, Sysquemalyn returned to gloat before the podgy Candlemas. "Old friend and partner, I've reconsidered my concession of your win, whenever that was. I'd rather win. So your precious barbarian will not, after all, survive his sojourn to Tinnainen. Or rather, he won't after I drop him through that portal I've opened into the core of a star."

From high on the opposite wall, Greenwillow gave a shriek, then returned to struggling her way free. She reckoned that if she timed the groping stone arms correctly, she might slither free without breaking a limb. What she'd do after that, though…

"Star?" Candlemas groaned. "Is there nothing you won't tamper with? You're like a child with a hammer set loose in a potter's shop. You'll destroy the universe on a whim! Please, Sys, listen. Let the mud man go. The game has gone too far. It never should have begun. Call it a draw if you like, or say you've won, but we must quit this foolishness! Let me go, and perhaps together we can patch the holes you've rent in the fabric, before the gods themselves stride down from on high and snuff every one of us like candles."

"No, dear 'Mas. No." Bright-eyed, the mage waggled a finger tipped with a broken red nail. "If I let the groundling go, you'll just change the rules. No, I've already decided the forfeit for the final game, which you've just lost. You shall spend a year here, exploring all the reaches of my custom-made hell, experiencing the ultimate in torment hour by hour. I think it a small enough punishment for opposing me all this time, when you knew you couldn't win. I'm just too powerful for you. Look around yourself! Having harnessed a shadow of the Nine Hells, am I not more powerful than the Malodorous White Maggot? So… where was I? Ah, yes!"

Skipping like a child, the preening goddess-to-be approached Sunbright, who hung on hooks like a rabbit ready for the pot. Smiling, she called, "Thanks for the fun, dear boy!"

With a grimy finger, she drew a small circle in the air that encompassed Sunbright, then swirled the spell toward the fiery heart of the pulsing star beyond the portal.

The barbarian hissed as the metal thorns twisted, curled, parted, coiled. Still entrapped, he saw one side of the thicket part to reveal the distant blue-white light. He averted his eyes rather than be blinded, fought to slide a hand or even a foot loose so he might hang on. But, as one by one the barbed strands sprang free, he was nudged from behind by hundreds more, making it impossible to retreat or dodge aside.

As the last thorn was plucked from ravaged skin, he was hurled headlong as if shot from a catapult.

Cursing, grabbing madly for any purchase, Sunbright spun head over heels. Whirling, a cool nothingness enfolded him even as the heat of the star made his skin prickle with violent burns. He sucked air to make a final effort to fight, somehow, but was stunned to find there was no air to breathe.

He was falling through nothingness into a star. What a legend this would make. Too bad he'd never hear it.

His lungs ached, crushing him from within. His heart pounded like a war drum. Even his eardrums and eyeballs threatened to explode. And all the while, the blue-white light cooked him as if it were a bonfire.

The heat built intolerably. Soon he'd scream out the last of his air, fly shrieking to his flaming death.

Then, just as his lungs swelled to bursting, he disappeared.

Squinting, Sysquemalyn pouted red lips. It was hard to see into the fearsome blue-white brilliance, but…

" 'Mas, dear, did you see that? The manling just vanished. But how? I didn't do that!"

Pinned by stone-snake arms, Candlemas groaned. No matter how bad things got, he'd often noted, they could always get worse. And just had.

"I think," he growled at Sysquemalyn, "you've finally attracted the attention of…"

He, too, vanished.

Sunbright landed with a crunch on his shoulder, fetching his head a solid crack that made it sing.

Grunting, he flopped on his back. But he was unfettered and alive, though he couldn't guess how, and so he snatched Dorlas's warhammer from his belt and crouched to bash his way to freedom if possible.

In an eye-blink, three people flickered onto the stony ledge where he stood: Greenwillow, Sysquemalyn, Candlemas. The raven appeared a moment after.

The podgy, bald mage finished his sentence. "…someone big."

Sunbright attacked.

He didn't sound a battle cry, for while it may have startled his foe, it also would have warned her. He simply leaped and swung the warhammer from the end of his arm.

The long tapered head, five pounds of hardened steel, struck Sysquemalyn at the juncture of neck and shoulder. The weapon would have crushed her skull or snapped her neck if the light weren't so bad or the footing so uneven. As it was, the warhammer shattered her shoulder to flinders, for her shield spell was down or magically drained. The thud of the blow and crunch of bone made Greenwillow and Candlemas grunt.

Sunbright didn't pause. Still charging, aiming for the wall behind her, he kicked Sysquemalyn in the throat with heavy boots as she pitched forward in agony. The jolt knocked her into the wall, bounced her skull off stone. Bleeding red into red hair from a scalp wound, she collapsed into a heap.

Sunbright let her fall and scooched for his sword, which she had brought with her. Once he gained his weapon, he'd see if she needed another blow to kill or incapacitate her. Furious as he was for her callous use of him, her betrayal, and the attempt on his life for no reason whatsoever, he wouldn't kill her unless she were still too dangerous to control. Their party might need her to escape wherever they were. So far he'd glimpsed only dark stone strewn with ashes.

And too, some part of his heart lingered with the traitorous mage. Some part of him still felt love and lust and longing for the sweet Ruellana who had never really existed. But Sunbright would stop her from using her magic first, for he was no lovesick fool.

Though it lay only inches away, he never reached his sword.

A swirling, like a miniature tornado, erupted from near his feet. Sunbright flinched and backed away, but within seconds the tornado turned green-brown and gray, then tightened around him. The spinning mist took the form of serpents, longer than horses and as thick as Sunbright's arm, hissing and twisting and clenching tightly to enwrap him like iron bands. Four or five fanged heads ducked and bobbed against his torso, and he heard more hissing behind him. Round black eyes that glistened fixed him with an intelligent, hypnotic glare.

With a gasp, Sunbright filled his lungs to prevent their collapsing his chest and concentrated to free his hands and wrists that he might pry the beasts off. His mind warred with his body, curiosity with fright with ferocity. On one hand, he didn't fear these serpents much, for snakes were rarely dangerous and he could wriggle free soon. On the other hand, they'd appeared magically and so couldn't be natural beasts. Or could they, only magically summoned? Either way, he wouldn't think overmuch, but fight to get free and deal with abstractions later.

He never got the chance. With a grunt, he was hoisted into the air so his feet dangled a yard off the ground. The serpents consolidated their grips and quieted. Just below Sunbright, Sysquemalyn lay sprawled and moaning against the rock wall, one shoulder crumpled lower than the other. But it was the astonished gaping of Greenwillow and Candlemas and even the raven that finally arrested Sunbright's attention and made him crane to see.

Worse than any nightmare, was his first thought.

The humans and elf were perched on a sharp promontory that jutted over a vast subterranean amphitheater. Harsh red light flickered as jets of gas along the stone walls billowed smoke and flame. The bottom of the amphitheater was a pool of glimmering lava that bubbled and boiled and gave off a sickening, long-dead, stomach-churning stench. Ringed around the amphitheater on craggy terraces were wave upon wave of monsters: skeletal warriors clad in rags, jaundiced yellow genies with anvil-heads, twitching imps studded with horns and spikes, blobs that roiled and seethed with their own internal fire, and many more loathsome creatures of the cursed planes. The obscuring dimness and smoke were a blessing, a protection against screaming madness.

For worst of all was their master, a hideous giant who hunched on a round bluff rising above its monstrous ranks. Three times the height of a man, it was covered, from its blocky head to great splayed clawed feet, with corrugated red skin. Bright yellow tusks curled its lips below eyes as black as jet. Wings of blood-red skin curled half around its mighty, shoulders.

Though the twisted tusks dragged its mouth out of shape, there was no doubt from any of the watchers that the pit fiend regarded them with the greatest amusement.

Like new toys.

"Sysquemalyn!" boomed a voice that crashed like thunder in the vast chamber. "Sysquemalyn of Netheril, arise and meet your fate! You've been very naughty, human. Tsk, tsk! Plagiarizing the Nine Hells!"

The black-eyed pit fiend waited for a second, but not seeing Sysquemalyn put in an appearance, gestured. Gasping in pain, the female mage was jerked upright, her shattered shoulder bones ground to splinters in her tortured flesh. She was hoisted off her feet to hang above the promontory like Sunbright. Yet she hung as limp as a rag doll.

When she didn't answer, the fiend made a two-handed gesture as if straightening a straw and, with a crinkly snap, Sysquemalyn's shoulder was fixed, healed as good as new. The redheaded mage reached out and touched her shoulder tentatively, marveling that the pain had vanished.

Then from below came a dry chortle, like rocks grinding together. Both of Sysquemalyn's shoulders snapped as if from invisible blows. The mage screamed until her voice cracked. And just as abruptly, the shoulders reset, and she hung limp, dripping with sweat.

"Better?" crashed the voice from below. A saggy smile rippled around the tusks in the great red face. "Don't fuss about such little pain, human. 'Tis the merest warmup for things to come. You've earned special attention. Never before has anyone been so foolish as to usurp my corner of hell. Such presumption!"

"I… I didn't usurp your realm." Still hanging like a dead goose, Sysquemalyn hunched her shoulders in dreaded anticipation of more abuse. The fear haunted her worse than any pain. Her voice was tiny, quavery, like that of a chastised child. Her pride had melted in pain like sugar in the rain. "I… built this place on my own, made it myself."

A vast gobble was laughter. The fiend's wings twitched to the shaking of shoulders as broad as a ship. "Brave of you to lie when I can remove your organs one by one yet keep you alive. You did no such thing! You thought to borrow our power and not pay interest and then pretend surprise. Your little amusement has opened new portals into our realm, as a shovel shears through an anthill. Many new rents you've cut, through which we can issue to muster new strength for our war against the vile tanar'ri. Your people will pay the price of your presumption in blood, and fire, and rape, and endless pain, and bitter death. As will you."

The awful gaze of black eyes, like pits themselves, turned on Sunbright. His soul felt seared by the gaze, even as his skin had been seared red by the blue-white star. The snake-bonds trapping him suddenly hissed anew, heads twitching and tongues flicking. Then the snakes dropped away, coiled a few times, and returned to the mist from whence they'd come. Released from their clutches unexpectedly, the barbarian dropped three feet to crash painfully on his knees. He was raw and chapped and slashed and burned from head to toe, and this callous dumping made his temper flare. But there was little-nothing-he could do to the pit fiend or whatever this monster was.

"On your feet!" boomed the great voice. Aching, Sunbright stood. Not back against the stone wall, as did Candlemas and Greenwillow, the sensible ones, but at the very edge of the promontory, before the gaze of the fiend and its fellows. Let them see how a brave man dies, Sunbright thought. At least he could die well.

Movement caught his eye. From the ashes, his great sword Harvester levitated, spun, and came toward his hand. He almost hesitated to catch it for fear of bewitchment and contamination, but when the sweat-stained leather fit his palm, he knew the sword was all right. His father had borne it into battle, and now his son carried it, and would triumph. Or go down fighting.

The pit fiend curled its lips around its tusks and seemed to ruminate like a cow. Then it pronounced, "You, manling, have this ludicrous creature to thank for your current predicament and that of your friends. I grant you a chance to take back a bit of your own. Strike off her head, so it might get an early start at eternal torment. Schemers fear separating mind and body above all. So strike hard and true. Show us the might of a barbarian's arm."

As Sunbright weighed his great sword, Sysquemalyn was magically turned sideways in midair as if by invisible hands, until her head floated above an imaginary block, arms pinned at her sides. Her glorious red hair hung so long it brushed the ashes of the promontory.

Sunbright stood unmoving, pondering. His thoughts were overwhelmed by the depth of Sysquemalyn's treachery. To kill her a hundred times would barely sate his barbarian thirst for revenge. Now, through vanity and foolishness, she'd endangered the whole world, all Sunbright had ever known and a thousand times that. Perhaps her death would alleviate some of the suffering, both past and future.

Unconsciously, he found himself raising his sword and taking aim.

"Don't hesitate, mud man." Exhausted and discouraged, Sysquemalyn hung, unresisting. "Strike, and get it over with."

The great sword bobbed in the air as if it were alive and thirsty. Harvester of Blood was its name, but Sunbright hadn't named it. Vaguely he wondered what he would have named the blade, given the chance. But that was a thought for another time.

The barbarian backed away from the shivering mage, dropping the curved sword tip to touch stone.

"No."