The Black Road

SEVENTEEN

A chill stole over Cholik at Kabraxis's announcement about Lord Darkulan's presence in the church. The man had never come there before.

"Lord Darkulan entered the church disguised," Kabraxis went on. "No one knew he was here except for his bodyguards and me. And now you."

"He may have hired the assassin," Cholik said, feeling his anger rise. He gazed down at his chest, seeing the crimson-stained robe and the hole where the quarrel had penetrated. Only unblemished flesh showed beneath now.

"No."

"Why are you so certain?"

"Because the assassin strove alone to murder you," Kabraxis said. "If Lord Darkulan had organized the murder, he would have ordered three or four crossbowmen into the church. You would have been dead before you hit the floor."

Cholik's mouth went dry. A thought occurred to him, one that he didn't want to investigate, but he was drawn to it as surely as a moth was drawn to the candle flame. "If they had killed me, would you have been able to return me to life?"

"If I'd had to do that, Buyard Cholik, you would not have recognized the true chill of death. But neither would you have known again the fiery passion of life."

An undead thing, Cholik realized. The thought almost made him sick. Images of lurching zombies and skeletons with ivory grins came to him. As a priest for the Zakarum Church, he'd been called on to clear graveyards and buildings of undead things that had once been humans and animals.And he had nearly been damned with coming back as one of them. His stomach twisted in rebellion, and sour bile painted the back of his mouth.

"You would not have been merely animated as those things were," Kabraxis said. "I would have gifted you with true unlife. Your thoughts would have remained your own."

"And my desires?"

"Your desires and mine are closely aligned at this time. There would have been little you would have missed."

Cholik didn't believe it. Demons lived their lives differently from men, with different dreams and passions. Still, he couldn't help wondering if he would have been less-or more?

"Perhaps," Kabraxis said, "when you are more ready, you'll be given the chance to find out. For now, you've learned to hang on to your life as it is."

"Then why was Lord Darkulan here?" Cholik asked.

The demon smiled, baring his fangs. "Lord Darkulan has a favored mistress dying of a slow-acting poison that was given to her by Lady Darkulan only yesterday."

"Why?"

"Why? To kill her, of course. It seems that Lady Darkulan is a jealous woman and only discovered three days ago that her husband was seeing this other woman."

"Wives have killed their husbands' mistresses before," Cholik said. Even past royal courts of Westmarch had stories about such events.

"Yes," Kabraxis replied, "but it appears that Lord Darkulan's mistress of the last three months is also the daughter of the leader of the Bramwell merchants' guild. If the daughter should die, the merchant will wreak havoc with Bramwell's trade agreements and use his influence in the Westmarch royal courts to have his daughter's murderess brought to justice."

"Hodgewell means to have Lady Darkulan brought up on charges?" Cholik couldn't believe it. He knew the merchant Kabraxis was talking about. Ammin Hodgewell was a spiteful, vengeful man who had stood against the Church of the Prophet of the Light since its inception.

"Hodgewell means to have her hanged on the Block of Justice. He's working now to bring charges against Lady Darkulan."

"Lord Darkulan knows this?"

"Yes."

"Why doesn't he enlist the aid of an apothecary?"

"He has," Kabraxis said. "Several of them, in fact, since it was discovered yesterday that his mistress is doomed to a lingering illness. None of the apothecaries or healers can save her. She has only one salvation left to her."

"The Way of Dreams," Cholik breathed. The implications of the impending murder swirled in his mind, banishing all thoughts of his near death.

"Yes," Kabraxis said. "You understand."

Cholik glanced at the demon, hardly daring to hope. "If Lord Darkulan comes to us for aid and we are able to save his mistress from the poison, save his wife from being hanged, and keep the peace in Bramwell-"

"We will claim him on the Black Road," the demon said. "Then Lord Darkulan will be ours now and forever. He will be our springboard into Westmarch and the destiny that lies before us."

Cholik shook his head. "Lord Darkulan is no young man to give into his passions with a woman of Merchantman Hodgewell's standing."

"He had no choice," Kabraxis said. "The young woman's desire for him became overwhelming. And Lord Darkulan's desires for her became strong as well."

Understanding flooded Cholik, and he gazed at the demon in wonder. "You. You did this."

"Of course."

"What about the poison that Lady Darkulan used? I can't believe that all of Lord Darkulan's healers and apothecaries couldn't find an antidote."

"I gave it to Lady Darkulan," Kabraxis admitted, "even as I consoled her over her husband's infidelity. Once she had the poison, she wasted no time in the administration of it."

"How much longer does Hodgewell's daughter have before the poison kills her?" Cholik asked.

"Till tomorrow night."

"And Lord Darkulan knows this?"

"Yes."

"Then today-"

"I believe he meant to come forward today after the service," Kabraxis said. "Your attempted assassination caused his bodyguards to get him clear of the church. Some of the church's guards-as well as the lord's protectors-were killed in that maneuver, which helped cover the real assassin's escape."

"Then Lord Darkulan will still come," Cholik said.

"He must," Kabraxis agreed. "He has no choice. Unless he wishes to see his mistress dead by nightfall tomorrow and witness his wife's hanging shortly after that."

"Lord Darkulan might take his wife and try to run."

Kabraxis grinned. "And leave his riches and power behind? For the love of a woman he betrayed? A woman who can no longer love him back in the same manner as before? No. Lord Darkulan would see them both dead before he would willingly abdicate his position here. But even that won't save him. If all of this comes to light and the women die-"

"Especially when the people believe he could have saved them both by turning to the Church of the Prophet of the Light as they have all done with their own problems," Cholik said, halfway stunned by the devious simplicity of Kabraxis's scheme, "Lord Darkulan will fall out of favor with the populace."

"You do see," Kabraxis said.

Cholik stared at the demon. "Why didn't you tell me any of this?"

"I did," Kabraxis explained. "As soon as you needed to know."

Part of Cholik's upbringing in the Zakarum Church whispered into the back of his mind. Demons can influence men, but only if those men are willing to listen. At any point, Kabraxis's multitiered scheme might have come apart. Themistress might not have fallen for the lord. The lord might not have betrayed his lady or might have broken the relationship off and confessed his indiscretions. And the lady might have taken a lover out of vengeance rather than poison the woman who took her husband.

If the plan had not worked, Cholik would never have known, and the demon's pride would have been intact.

"I humbled them all," Kabraxis said, "and I have brought these lands under our control. And we will have some of the most powerful people here as our allies. Lord Darkulan will be thankful for the salvation of his mistress, just as Merchantman Hodgewell will be grateful for the salvation of his daughter."

Cholik examined the plan. It was bold and cunning and duplicitous-exactly what he would have expected from a demon. "We have it all," he said, looking back at Kabraxis.

"Yes," the demon replied. "And we will have more."

Someone knocked on the chamber doors.

"What?" Cholik said with some annoyance.

"Master Sayes," the priest called from the other side, "I only wanted to know that you were all right."

"Go to them," Kabraxis said. "We will talk again later." He retreated to the back of the room and passed through the secret door.

Cholik strode to the door and flung it open. The priests, acolytes, and mercenaries stepped back. One of the mercenaries held a small girl before him, one hand clapped over her mouth as she struggled to get free.

"Master," the head priest said, "I beg your forgiveness. Only my worry over you prompted me to interrupt you."

"I am fine," Cholik said, knowing the priest would continue to excuse himself out of his own fear.

"But the arrow went so deep," the priest said. "I saw it for myself."

"I was healed by the grace of Dien-Ap-Sten." Cholik pulled his robe open, revealing the unmarked flesh beneath the bloody clothing. "Great is the power of the Prophet of the Light."

"Great is the power of the Prophet of the Light," the priests replied at once. "May Dien-Ap-Sten's mercies be eternal."

Cholik pulled his robe back around himself. He looked at the struggling girl in the mercenary's hands. "What is this child doing here?"

"She is the sister to the boys that Dien-Ap-Sten made whole today," the mercenary said. "She also saw the assassin."

"This child did, and yet you and your men did not?" Cholik's voice held the unforgiving edge of bared steel.

"She stood beside him when he loosed his shaft at you, Master Sayes," the mercenary replied. He looked uncomfortable.

Cholik stepped toward the man. The priests and the other mercenaries moved back, as if expecting Cholik to summon down a lightning bolt to reduce the mercenary leader to ash. The thought, Cholik had to admit, was tempting. He looked away from the quaking mercenary and at the girl. The resemblance between the girl and the conjoined twins was striking.

Tears leaked from the girl's eyes as she shuddered and cried. Her fear had turned her pale.

"Release her," Cholik said.

Reluctantly, the mercenary removed his big, callused hand from the girl's mouth. She drew in a deep, quaking breath. Tears continued to trickle down her face as she glanced around, seeking some way to escape.

"Are you all right, child?" Cholik asked in a soft voice.

"I want my da," the girl said. "I want my ma. I didn't do anything."

"Did you see the man who shot me?" Cholik asked.

"Yes." Her tear-filled eyes gazed up at Cholik. "Please, Master Sayes. I didn't do anything. I would have screamed, but he was too fast. He shot you before I could think. I didn't think he was going to do it. I wouldn't hurt you. You saved my brothers. Mikel and Dannis. You saved them. I wouldn't hurt you."

Cholik put a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder. He felt her shudder and cringe at his touch. "Easy, child. I only need to know about the man who tried to kill me. I won't hurt you, either."

She looked at him. "Promise?"

The girl's innocence touched Cholik. Promises were easy to give to the young; they wanted to believe.

"I promise," Cholik said.

The girl looked around, as if making sure the hard-faced mercenaries had heard Master Sayes's promise as well.

"They will not touch you," Cholik said. "Describe the man who shot me."

She gazed at him in big-eyed wonderment. "I thought he killed you."

"He can't," Cholik said. "I'm one of the chosen of Dien-Ap-Sten. No mortal man may take my life as long as I stay in the prophet's favor."

The girl sipped air again, becoming almost calm. "He was burned. Nearly all of his face was burned. His hands and arms were burned."

The description meant nothing to Cholik. "Is there anything else you noticed about him?"

"No." The girl hesitated.

"What is it?" Cholik asked.

"I think he was afraid that you would know him if you saw him," the girl said. "He said that he was surprised that he was let into the building."

"I've never seen a man burned so badly as you say who still lived."

"Maybe he didn't live," the girl said.

"What makes you say that?"

"I don't know. I just don't see how anyone could live after being burned so bad, is all."

Pursued by a dead man? Cholik turned the thought over in his mind for a short time.

Come, Kabraxis said in his mind. We have things to do. The assassin is gone.

Cholik reached into the pocket of his robe and took out a few silver coins. The amount was enough to feed a family in Bramwell for months. Once, perhaps, the money might have meant something to him. Now, it was only a bargaining tool. He placed the silver coins in the girl's hand and folded her fingers over them.

"Take this, girl," Cholik said, "as a token of my appreciation." He glanced up at the nearest mercenary. "See that she gets back to her family."

The mercenary nodded and led the little girl away. She never once looked back.

Despite the fact that more than a year had passed since he'd found Kabraxis's gateway under the remains of Tauruk's Port and Ransim, Cholik's mind wandered back to the labyrinth and the chamber where he'd released the demon back into the human world. One man had escaped that night, a Westmarch sailor who had even evaded the skeletons and zombies Kabraxis had raised to kill everyone there.

Cholik felt that no one in Bramwell would have dared attack him in the church. And if the man were burned as badly as the girl described, someone would have come forward to identify him and hope to earn a reward from Dien-Ap-Sten or himself.

So it had been an outsider. Someone not even the populace of the city had known about. Yet it had to be someone who had known Cholik from before.

Where had the man who had escaped from Tauruk's Port gone? If this was him, and it made no sense for it to be anyone else, why had he waited so long before he'd stepped forward? And why approach Cholik now at all?

It was unsettling. Especially when Cholik thought about how near the quarrel had come to piercing his heart. Thoughts churning, Cholik reentered his private chamber to plan and scheme with the demon he had freed. Whatever chance the assassin had had was now gone. Cholik would never be caught unprepared again. He consoled himself with that.

Back and shoulders on fire from all the lifting he'd done during the day, Darrick entered the Blue Lantern. Pipe smoke and the closing night filled the tavern with darkness. Men swapping stories and telling lies filled the tavern with noise. To the west, near where the mouth of the Gulf of Westmarch met the Frozen Sea, the sunset settled into the water, looking like dying red embers scattered from a stirred campfire.

A cold north wind followed Darrick into the tavern. The weather had changed in the last hour, just as the ships' captains and mates had been thinking it would. Come morning, Sahyir had told Darrick, there might even be a layer of ice covering the harbor. It wouldn't be enough to lock the ships in, but that time wasn't far off, either.

Men looked up as Darrick walked through the small building. Some of the men knew him, and some were from the ships out in the harbor. All of their eyes were wary. Seeker's Point wasn't a big village, but the numbers swelled when ships were in the harbor. And if a man wanted trouble in the village, the Blue Lantern was where he came.

There was no table space in the tavern. Three men Darrick knew slightly offered their tables with their friends. Darrick thanked them but declined, passing on through the tables till he spotted the man Sahyir had talked about earlier that day.

The man was in his middle years, gray showing in his square-cut beard. He was broad-shouldered and a little overweight, a solid man who had seen an active life. His clothing was second-hand, worn but comfortable-looking, and warm enough against the cool winds blowing in from the north. He wore round-lensed spectacles, and Darrick could still count on the fingers of both hands how many times he'd seen such devices.

A platter of bread and meat sat to the sage's left. He wrote with his right hand, pausing every now and again to dip his quill into an inkwell beside the book he worked in.A whale-oil lantern near the book provided him more light to work by.

Darrick stopped only a short distance from the table, uncertain what he should say.

Abruptly, the sage looked up, peering over his spectacles. "Darrick?"

Startled, Darrick said nothing.

"Your friend Sahyir named you," the sage said. "He told me when he talked to me last night that you might be stopping by."

"Aye," Darrick said. "Though I must confess I don't truly know what I'm doing here."

"If you've seen that symbol as Sahyir seems inclined to believe that you have," the sage said, "it's probably marked you." He gestured to the book before him. "The Light knows that the pursuit of knowledge about it has marked me. Much to my own detriment, according to some of my mentors and peers."

"You've seen the demon?" Darrick asked.

Renewed interest flickered in the sage's deep green eyes. "You have?"

Darrick paused, feeling that he'd admitted more than he should have.

An irritable look filled the sage's face. "Damnation, son. If you're going to talk, then sit. I've been working hard for days here, and weeks and months before that in other places. Looking up gets hellaciously tiresome for me." He pointed at a chair across from him with the quill, then closed his book and put it aside.

Still feeling uncertain, Darrick pulled out the chair and sat. Out of habit, he laid his sheathed cutlass across his thighs.

The sage laced his fingers together and rested both elbows on the tabletop. "Have you eaten tonight?"

"No." Unloading imported goods from the ship and then loading exported goods had filled the day. Darrick had only eaten what he'd carried along in the food bag, which had been empty for hours.

"Would you like to eat?"

"Aye."

The sage gestured to one of the serving wenches. The young woman went to get the order immediately.

"Sahyir told me you were a sailor," the sage said.

"Aye."

"Tell me where you saw the demon," the sage suggested.

Darrick held himself in check. "I never said that I saw such a thing, now, did I?"

A frown deepened the wrinkles over the sage's eyes. "Are you always this churlish?"

"Sir," Darrick stated evenly, "I don't even know your name."

"Taramis," the sage replied. "Taramis Volken."

"And what is it that you do, Taramis Volken?" Darrick asked.

"I gather wisdom," the man replied. "Especially that pertaining to demons."

"Why?"

"Because I don't like them, and usually the things that I learn can be used against them."

The serving wench returned with a platter of goat's meat and shrimp and fish, backed by fresh bread and portions of melon that had shipped up that day. She offered mulled wine.

The temptation was there only for a moment for Darrick. For the last year he had tried to bury his life and his pain in wine and spirits. It hadn't worked, and only old Sahyir had seen fit to save him from himself. But as the old man had told him, saving himself was a day-to-day job, and only one man could do that.

"Tea," Darrick said. "Please."

The wench nodded and returned with a tall tankard of unsweetened tea.

"So," Taramis said, "about your demon-"

"Not my demon," Darrick said.

A fleeting smile touched the sage's lips. "As you will. Where did you see the demon?"

Darrick ignored the question. He dipped his finger into the gravy on his plate and drew out the ellipses with thesingle line threading through them. He even drew the symbol so that the line went under and over the appropriate ellipses.

The sage studied the gravy symbol. "Do you know what this is?"

"No."

"Or whom it belongs to?"

Darrick shook his head.

"Where did you see this?" the sage asked.

"No," Darrick replied. "You'll get nothing from me until I'm convinced I'm getting something from you."

The sage reached into the worn lizard-hide traveler's pack in the chair beside him. Thoughtfully, he took out a pipe and a bag. After shoving the bowl full of tobacco, he set his pipe ablaze with the lantern. He smoked in silence, a hazy wreath forming around his head. He never blinked as he stared at Darrick.

Fresh-shaved that morning, Darrick hadn't seen a more fiercely demanding gaze since the mirror then. Even the Westmarch ships' officers paled by comparison. But he ate, savoring the hot food. By the working standards he was accustomed to in Seeker's Point, the meal was an extravagance. The cargo handling he'd done for the day might have to feed him for two weeks in order to keep him from hunting meager game in the forest with winter soon to be breathing down their necks.

Taramis reached back into his traveler's pack and took out another book. Flipping through the tome, he stopped at a page, laid the book on the table, spun it around, and pushed it across the table toward Darrick. The sage moved the lantern so it shone on the pages more directly.

"The demon that you saw," Taramis said. "Did it look anything like this?"

Darrick glanced at the page. The illustration was done by hand and in great detail.

The picture was the demon he'd seen at Tauruk's Port, the one who had summoned the undead creatures responsible for Mat Hu-Ring's death.

Not entirely responsible, Darrick told himself, feeling his appetite ebb. He owned the majority of that responsibility. He kept eating mechanically, knowing it would be days or weeks before he had the chance to eat so well again.

"What do you know about the symbol?" Darrick asked, not answering the sage's question.

"You're a hard sell, aren't you, boy?" Taramis asked.

Darrick broke a piece of bread and slathered honey butter onto it. He started eating while Taramis tried to wait him out.

Finally giving up, Taramis replied, "That symbol is the one that was longest associated with a demon called Kabraxis. He is supposed to be the guardian of the Twisted Path of Dreams and Shadows."

"The Way of Dreams?" Darrick asked, remembering the stories Sahyir had been telling about Bramwell that morning.

"Interesting, isn't it?" the sage asked.

"Sahyir told me he'd gone to church in Bramwell," Darrick said. "There's a new church there called the Church of the Prophet of the Light. They also mention the Way of Dreams there."

Taramis nodded. "They worship a prophet there named Dien-Ap-Sten."

"Not Kabraxis?"

"It would be pretty stupid for a demon to be going around telling people to call him by his rightful name, now, wouldn't it?" Taramis grinned. "I mean, the whole bit of anonymity would be right out the window if that was the case. Most people wouldn't worship a demon by choice, although there are some."

Darrick waved a hand over his platter. "I appreciate this fine meal you went and bought me, I really do. But I have to tell you, if this story hasn't picked up some by the time I finish, I'm out of here."

"Patience isn't one of your virtues, is it?"

"No." Darrick felt no shame in admitting such.

"Kabraxis is an old and powerful demon," Taramis said."He's been around, in one form or another, since the beginning of recorded history. He's been known by dozens, possibly hundreds, of names."

Darrick pointed to the gravy-rendered symbol on the tabletop. "And this is his symbol?"

Taramis puffed on his pipe. The coals in the pipe bowl glowed orange. "I believe this is the demon's primary symbol. Did you see this in Bramwell?"

"I've not been to Bramwell in years," Darrick answered. It had been too close to Westmarch.

"Then where did you see the demon?" The sage's interest was intense.

"I never said I did," Darrick reminded.

"Your friend told me-"

"He told you that I knew about this symbol."

"That's all you've ever told him?"

Darrick sipped his tea and ignored the question. He pointedly returned his attention to his meal. The plate steadily emptied.

"Do you know the meaning of the symbol?" Taramis asked.

"No."

"It's supposed to represent the layers of man. The facets of a man that a demon may prey on."

"I don't understand," Darrick said.

The sage seemed surprised. "You've had no priest's training?"

"No."

"And yet you know of Kabraxis's most potent symbol without training?"

Darrick said nothing as he used his knife to spear a potato chunk.

Taramis sighed. "All right, then. You intrigue me, and that's the only reason I'm going to continue, because I will not tolerate being treated in such a cavalier manner." He tapped the ellipses. "These are the layers of man as divined by Kabraxis, Banisher of the Light."

"Why is he called Banisher of the Light?" Darrick asked.He glanced around them, making sure none of the sailors or longshoremen was taking much interest in their conversation. In some communities, the discussion of demons was enough to get a man strung up or, at the least, tested by a dunking chair or a red-hot poker.

"Because Kabraxis's main objective in the world of man is to eclipse and replace Zakarum. Kabraxis worked during the Sin War to keep Zakarum from being brought forth by the Archangel Yaerius through his disciple Akarat."

"What of the Archangel Inarius?" Darrick asked, remembering the old stories he'd been told of the Sin War. "It was Inarius who first built a Cathedral of Light in this world."

"Inarius grew overconfident and destroyed Mephisto's temple, and Inarius was enslaved and returned with the Seraph to Hell to be tortured for all time. Kabraxis aided in Inarius's downfall by winning them over to the demon's side."

"I don't remember that," Darrick said.

"The war was primarily between Mephisto and Inarius," Taramis said. "Only a sage or someone who has had priest training would know of Kabraxis's part in the Sin War. The Banisher of Light is a conniving demon. Kabraxis works in the shadows, stretching their boundaries till they cover the Light. Most men who have worshipped him over all those years have never known his true name."

"But you believe he is in Bramwell?" Darrick asked.

"At the Church of the Prophet of the Light." The sage nodded. "Yes. And there he is known as Dien-Ap-Sten."

Darrick tapped the symbol. "What of this?"

"Again," Taramis said, "those ellipses represent the layers of man as Kabraxis perceives them. It is through those layers that he is able to reach into a man's soul, twist it, bend it, and finally possess it. He is not by nature a confrontational demon as are Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal."

Darrick shook his head. "You can't go about just droppingthe names of all those demons like that. They aren't real. They can't be all real."

"The Prime Evils are real."

A chill threaded through Darrick, but even after everything he'd seen-even after everything he'd lost after seeing the demon in Tauruk's Port-he struggled to believe that the worlds of the demons, the Burning Hells, were real and not just stories.

"Have you seen the Church of the Prophet of the Light?"

"No."

"It is huge," Taramis said. "In less than a year, the Church of the Prophet of the Light has become one of the most prominent structures in Bramwell."

"Bramwell isn't a big city," Darrick said. "Mainly fishermen and farmers live there. Westmarch barely keeps a garrison of guards there, and it's mostly a show of support because no invading army would attack Westmarch through Bramwell. The roads are too harsh and uncertain."

"Kabraxis takes generations to build his power," Taramis said. "That's why even the unholy trinity of brothers learned to fear him. Where they waged war and fought with human armies with their own demonic ones, Kabraxis won believers to him."

"Through the layers of man."

"Yes." The sage tapped the outermost ellipse. "First is the fear mankind has of demons. People who fear Kabraxis will acknowledge his leadership, but they will break away at the first chance." He tapped the next ellipse. "Next comes greed. Through the Church of the Prophet of the Light, Kabraxis and the high priest known as Master Sayes, also called the Wayfinder have granted gifts to their worshippers. Good fortune in business, money, an unexpected inheritance. Then he moves closer to the heart." He tapped the next ellipse. "Covetousness. Do you secretly want your neighbor's wife? His land? Worship Kabraxis, and it will be yours in time."

"Only if the man you want those things from doesn't worship Kabraxis as well."

"Not true." Taramis paused to relight his pipe. "Kabraxis weighs and judges those who serve him. If one man-more powerful in the community than another-will better serve Kabraxis's purposes, the Banisher of the Light rewards the more powerful man."

"What of the worshipper who loses whatever the other man wants?"

The sage waved the question away. "Simple enough. Kabraxis tells everyone that the man who lost his lands or his wife or his family wasn't strong in his faith. That he played Kabraxis-or, in this case, Dien-Ap-Sten-falsely and deserved what he got."

Sour bile rumbled in Darrick's stomach. Every word the sage spoke had the ring of truth in it.

Taramis moved to the next ellipse. "From that point, Kabraxis seeks out those people with greater fears. Sickness in your family? Come to the church to be healed. Your father is becoming senile? Come to the church, and have clarity returned to him."

"Kabraxis can do these things?"

"Yes," Taramis said. "And more. Demons have many powers. In their own way, they offer salvation to those who serve them. You've heard of the gifts Diablo, Baal, and Mephisto have given their own champions in the past. Enchanted armor, mystical weapons, great power to raise armies of dead. The Prime Evils rule through fear and destruction, always aiming for subjugation."

"Kabraxis has no interest in that?"

"Of course he does," Taramis said. "He's a demon, after all. Even archangels want those who worship them to fear them just a little bit. Otherwise, why would they choose such fearsome forms and act the way they do?"

Darrick considered the question and supposed it was true. Still, all this talk of demons was foreign to him, something he didn't even want to invest in. Yet he felt he had no choice.

"Archangels for the Light threaten man with being tortured by demons for the rest of his eternal life, and theypromise dire vengeance for any who worship and aid the demons." Taramis shook his head. "Archangels are warriors, just as demons are."

"But they have a more generous view of how man is supposed to fit into this world with them."

"That," the sage said, "depends on your belief, doesn't it?"

Darrick sat quietly.

"There are some who believe this world should be cleansed of demons and angels, that there should be no Light or Darkness, and men should find their own way in life."

"What do you believe?" Darrick asked.

"I believe in the Light," Taramis replied. "That's why I hunt demons and expose them for what they are. I've killed eight lesser demons in the last twenty years. Not all of them are the likes of the Prime Evils."

Darrick knew that, but he'd only seen the one demon, and it had been a truly horrifying creature. "What are you going to do to Kabraxis?"

"Kill him if I can," the sage stated. "If not, I mean to see him exposed for what he is, his priest slain, and his church razed to the ground."

The man's words drew Darrick in, and he took comfort in them. Taramis made doing such an incredible thing sound possible.

"You've lost someone to the demon," Taramis whispered.

Darrick drew back.

"Don't bother to deny it," the sage said. "I see the truth in your eyes. You wear your pain like a chevron for anyone who has been through the same thing." He paused, his eyes sliding from Darrick's for a moment. "I lost my family to a demon. Twenty-three years ago. I was a priest. Such a thing wasn't supposed to happen to me. But a demon's hand took my wife and my three children from me."

The lantern light flickered on the table.

"I was young then and full of my studies as a Vizjereimage. I taught in one of the outlying schools in my homelands. A stranger came to our door. We lived in back of the school, just my family and I. This man told us that he had no place to sleep and had eaten nothing for two days. Fool that I was and full of my new position, I let him in. During the night, he killed my family. Only I lived, though most thought I would not." He pulled back the sleeves of his shirt, revealing the long, wicked scars across his flesh. "I have more scars over the rest of my body." He tilted his head back, revealing the thick scar that curved around half of his neck and across his throat. "The priests who saved me had to piece me back together. All of the healers told me later that I should have died. The Light knows I wanted to."

"But you lived," Darrick whispered, drawn into the horror of the story.

"Yes." Taramis knocked ash from his pipe and put it away. "For a time, I resented my life. Then I came to realize that it was a more focused one. The demon that had killed my family would go on to kill other families. I resolved to get well, mentally and physically. And I did. It took me three years to heal and nine years to track down the demon that took my family from me. I had killed two other demons by that time and revealed four others."

"And now you hunt Kabraxis?"

"Yes. When the Church of the Prophet of the Light first came into being, I became suspicious. So I began researching it and found enough similarities between the healing and the changes wrought within the worshippers to lead me in the direction of Kabraxis."

"Then why come here?" Darrick asked.

"Because," the sage said, "Kabraxis was once here. For a time, the barbarian tribes worshipped him when they warred against the people of the southern lands. During that time he was known as Iceclaw the Merciless. He succeeded in uniting some of the more powerful barbarian tribes, creating a great horde that landed between the Twin Seas, the Great Ocean, and the Frozen Sea."

Darrick considered the implications. The stories about the barbarian horde went so far back that they were considered only tales to frighten children with. The barbarians had been depicted as cannibalistic warriors who filed their teeth and filled their bellies from the bodies of women and children. "Until Hauklin came with his great sword, Stormfury, and slew Iceclaw during a battle that took six days."

Taramis grinned. "You've heard the stories."

"Aye," Darrick replied. "But that doesn't answer why you're here."

"Because Stormfury is still here," the sage answered. "I came for the sword because it is the only thing that can slay Kabraxis."

"It didn't slay him the first time," Darrick pointed out.

"The texts I read said that Kabraxis fled before the devastating might of Stormfury. Only in the stories of men was the demon reported dead. But I believe the sword has the power to kill Kabraxis. If you can track him back into the Burning Hells with it."

"If you knew all of this, why did you bother to talk to me?"

The sage's eyes searched Darrick. "Because I am one man, Darrick Lang, and I'm not as young as I used to be."

"You know my name?"

"Of course." Taramis waved at the books before him. "I am a learned man. I heard the stories of the discovery of the demon at Tauruk's Port more than a year ago while I was down in Westmarch. And I heard of the young navy officer who lost his best friend while carrying out a mission given him by the king's nephew."

"Then why go through all this subterfuge?"

"So that I could convince you of my cause," Taramis said softly, "and perhaps your destiny."

"What destiny?" Darrick immediately felt trapped.

"You're tied to this thing somehow," the sage said. "You lost blood to Kabraxis, so perhaps that's it. Or maybe there is something more that binds you to the demon."

"I want nothing more to do with that demon," Darricksaid. But even as he said it, he felt uncertain, and with that uncertainty came a harsh wave of fear.

"Really? Then how is it you've ended up here? Where the weapon that will cut Kabraxis down is?"

"I've been drunk most of the past year," Darrick said. "I lost my post in the Westmarch Navy. Drunk and destitute most of the time, I only drifted from town to town, finding enough work to keep myself alive and away from Westmarch. I didn't know I was here till I woke up damn near freezing to death. I knew nothing of that sword until you told me just now. I haven't been following a demon's trail."

"No?" Taramis glanced at the elliptical symbol drawn in gravy on the tabletop. "Then what are you doing here now? Unless you've only come for a free meal."

"I don't know," Darrick admitted.

"You already knew who that symbol belonged to before you spoke to me," Taramis said. "Now that you know the demon is in Bramwell, hiding behind the mystical auguries of the Church of the Prophet of the Light, can you truly walk away from this? From any of this?"

Unbidden, the memory of Mat plunging over the cliffside to his doom trickled through Darrick's mind in slow motion again. The pain, once blinded and muffled by drink for the past year, twisted within him again as if it were new and fresh. Anger raged within him, but somehow he managed to keep it under control.

"The Light has guided you here, Darrick," the sage said in his quiet voice. "It has guided you here to this place and at this time, and made it possible for us to meet, because you have a stake in this. Because you can make a difference. My question is whether you're ready to take up the battle that awaits you."

Darrick hesitated, knowing that either answer he gave-and, perhaps, even giving no answer at all-would doom him.

"You believe the sword can kill Kabraxis?" Darrick asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Yes," Taramis answered. "But only here in the final layer." He tapped the elliptical symbol again. "Two layers yet remain that we've not spoken of. The outermost is where Kabraxis takes initiates to forge them into something more than mere men. Here they must face the fears of a demon world, walk the Twisted Path of Dreams and Shadows. The Black Road."

"The Black Road?" Darrick asked.

"As Kabraxis calls it. He's had several names for it during his campaigns here in the world of men, but its true and proper name is the Twisted Path of Dreams and Shadows. Once facing the demonic world, Kabraxis's chosen must give themselves to him, mind and body and soul, for now and forever. Many fail, and they are cast into the Burning Hells to die and die again for all eternity."

"How are the men changed?"

"They become faster and stronger than normal men," the sage replied. "Harder to kill. And some of them are given an understanding of demonic magic."

"You make getting to Kabraxis sound impossible."

"Not with Stormfury," Taramis said. "And I'm not without magic of my own."

"What if I chose not to go?"

"Then I would go alone." The sage smiled. "But you can't deny this, can you, Darrick? This has become too much a part of you. Perhaps a year ago you would have been able to turn your back on me and walk away. But not now. You've tried to live around what happened to your friend and what happened to you. It's nearly destroyed you." He paused. "Now you must find the strength to live through this."

Darrick looked at the elliptical drawing. "What lies in the final layer?"

Hesitating, Taramis shook his head. "I don't know. The texts that I've read regarding Kabraxis have no answer. It has been referred to as the layer of the greatest fear, but I have no idea what that is."

"It might be good to know what is there."

"Perhaps we can find out together," the sage suggested.

Darrick locked eyes with the man, wishing he were strong enough to say no, that he wouldn't go. But he couldn't do that because he was tired of trying to live half a life and avoid the guilt. He should have died with Mat. Perhaps the only way to escape was to die now.

"Aye," Darrick whispered. "I'll go with you."