The Black Road

EPILOGUE

Cold, distant morning sun split the eastern sky, threading the white clouds with violent reds and purples like a fertilized egg that had been cracked too close to term and held blood in the yolk. Despite the cold blowing down out of the mountains, the sun's rays chased the night's shadows away from Bramwell and out into the sea.

Darrick Lang stood atop the garden-covered roof of the Church of the Prophet of the Light as he had all through the long night. He wore his heavy cloak, but the wind cut through it and left him near frozen; still, he wouldn't walk away. His father's voice had rung in his head for hours and had only started to dim a short time ago. Darrick didn't hear Mat's voice at all and didn't know if Mat had continued on through the ghost roads or if he had died yet again during the final confrontation. It was hard not knowing.

Some of Buyard Cholik's mercenaries had threatened to put up a fight, but since their employer had been killed, not many of them had the heart for it. Palat had spat blood and told them they were all mad because they'd lost easy jobs, and if they wanted to lose more than that, all they had to do was step up. None of the mercenaries had. During the confusion, Raithen had disappeared.

Taramis had kept his group together, fearing retaliation on the part of the stunned crowd. At first, it had looked as if the audience would turn on the demon slayers despite the fact that Darrick had held Kabraxis's head and showed them the lie they had been told. They had been there to witness and receive miracles and had seen all that torn away instead. Some of them had sat in the pews for hours,in faint hope that the Prophet of the Light and the Wayfinder would return for those who truly believed.

Footsteps scraped the rooftop.

Darrick turned, Hauklin's mystic sword still bared in his fist. Although he had worked with Taramis and the other demon hunters and had slain both Buyard Cholik and Kabraxis, Darrick knew they still didn't trust him. His path was not theirs; he wouldn't ride off into the new dawn or find a ship out in the harbor to make war against another demon.

Another demon. A bitter laugh rose to Darrick's lips, but he let it die. He wasn't over the last demon yet. Nor was he over the demons his father had instilled within him.

Taramis Volken walked through the gardens. The sage still carried the signs of battle-blood, some of it his and some belonging to others, and soot-on his orange robes. Shadows clung to his face despite the dawn, and he looked older somehow in the clean light.

"I wondered if you would still be up here," the sage said.

"No, you didn't," Darrick said. "You've had Rhambal watching the passageway from the rooftop."

Taramis hesitated only a moment. "You're right, of course."

Darrick said nothing.

Walking over to the roof's edge, the sage looked down. The breeze ruffled his orange robes. "Many of the worshippers aren't leaving."

Reluctantly, Darrick joined the older man at the roof's edge and peered down as well. The streets in front of the church were choked with people despite the city guard's best efforts to move them along. Smoke billowed from a half-dozen burning buildings.

"They haven't stopped believing," Taramis said.

"Because Cholik and Kabraxis gave them what they wanted," Darrick said.

"Some of them," Taramis corrected. "And the price was high. But it was enough to keep the others here, hoping thatthey would be picked out next for fortune's favor." He looked up at Darrick. "What the demon did was a terrible thing."

Darrick remained silent. The north wind wasn't any colder than the sage's words.

"The city guard is fighting with roving bands of worshippers in the city," Taramis said. "Many of them are protesting the night's events. They say that Cholik and the Prophet Dien-Ap-Sten were slain by Lord Darkulan out of jealousy and that there never was a demon."

"The demon is gone," Darrick said. "Not believing Kabraxis wasn't a demon isn't going to bring him back."

"No, but they want revenge against the city for the guilt and confusion and anger they feel. If Bramwell is lucky, only a few buildings and a few lives will be lost before the guard gets the situation under control."

Darrick reflected on his own dark anger. The emotion was residue from what his father had done to him. He knew that now, but he also knew that residue was indelible and would be with him forever.

"They say," Taramis said, "that when a man faces a demon, that man comes to know himself in ways he was never shown before. You faced Kabraxis, Darrick, more closely than any man I've ever known before."

"You've fought and killed demons," Darrick countered.

Taramis leaned against the roof ledge and crossed his hands over his chest. "I've never followed them into the Burning Hells to do it as you did."

"Would you have?"

"If I'd had to, yes." No trace of hesitation sounded in the sage's voice. "But I have to ask myself why you did."

"I didn't choose that path," Darrick pointed out. "The snake swallowed me."

"The snake swallowed you because Kabraxis thought he could beat you on the Black Road. And he thought he could beat Stormfury. My question to you is, why did the demon think that?"

For a long while, Darrick held the silence between them,but he realized that the sage wasn't going to go anywhere. "Because of the guilt I carry," he finally said.

"Over your friend Mat?"

"And more," Darrick admitted. Then, before he could stop himself, he told the sage the story of his father and of the beatings he'd received in the butcher's shop in Hillsfar. "It took me a long time to figure out that my mother had been unfaithful to my father and that I didn't know who my true father was. I still don't."

"Have you ever wanted to know?"

"Sometimes," Darrick admitted. "But the Light only knows what trouble that would bring if I did find out. I've had trouble enough."

"Kabraxis thought he could weaken you by confronting you with your father's anger."

"He would have done it," Darrick said, "were it not for Mat. Always during those times after the beatings, Mat stood by me. And he stood by me again on the Black Road."

"By helping you through Kabraxis's subterfuge."

"Aye." Darrick gazed at the sage. "But the winning wasn't all mine, you see."

Taramis looked at him.

"I defeated Kabraxis in the Burning Hells," Darrick said, "but I brought a part of it back with me." With a quick move, he thrust Stormfury into one of the nearby garden beds. Such treatment to a weapon was unthinkable because the moisture would make it rust. But he knew the mystical sword would suffer no damage. He left the sword quivering there and held out his hand. "The damned demon tainted me somehow."

Darrick's hand shimmered, then began to change, losing its humanness and twisting into a demonic appendage.

"By the Light," Taramis whispered.

"I destroyed Buyard Cholik and Kabraxis's way into our world," Darrick said, "but I became that way." Long talons jutted from his fingers now covered in hairy, green and black skin.

"When did this happen?"

"While I was on the Black Road," Darrick said. "I'll tell you another thing, too. Kabraxis isn't dead. I don't know if he'll ever have another body that will survive in our world, but he's still alive in the Burning Hells. Every now and again, I can hear him whispering to me, mocking me. He's waiting, you see, for me to give up and die or to lose control of myself by getting drunk or not caring if I live or die." He reached for Hauklin's sword, closed his hand around it, and watched as the hand became human again.

"Hauklin's sword grounds you," Taramis said.

"Aye," Darrick said. "And it keeps me human."

"Kabraxis cursed you."

Darrick sheathed the sword at his side. "Kabraxis's gateway from the Burning Hells no longer lies under the ruins of the city on the Dyre River. His gateway is now me."

"And if you should be killed by another?"

Darrick shook his head. "I don't know. If my body were completely destroyed, maybe Kabraxis wouldn't be able to make his way into this world again." He smiled, but it was cold and devoid of humor, holding only bitterness. "By revealing this to you, I feel as though I've put my life at risk."

Taramis didn't say anything for a time. "There are some who would be tempted to put you to death rather than risk the demon's return."

"And you?"

"Doing such a thing would make me no better than the monsters I hunt," the sage replied. "No, you have nothing to fear from me. But should Kabraxis gain the upper hand within you, I'll hunt you down and kill you."

"Fair enough," Darrick agreed. He knew he could expect no less.

"You will need to keep Hauklin's sword with you," Taramis said. "I'll explain the matter to Ellig Barrows, but chances are that he and his family will be glad to be shut of it."

Darrick nodded.

"What will you do?" Taramis asked. "Where will you go?"

"I don't know."

"You could ride with us."

"We both know my place isn't with you," Darrick replied. "Although it would probably prove easier for you to keep your eye on me."

A wry grin fitted Taramis's face. "True."

"There is something more I received from the demon's death," Darrick said. He strode close to the sage. "You're wounded. Show it to me."

Hesitantly, Taramis pulled his robe away and revealed the deep wound in his side. Someone had clumsily bandaged it, but the blood still seeped through.

Darrick clapped a hand over the sage's side, causing him to wince. Power flowed through Darrick, and for the time it took to work, he heard Kabraxis's whispers more loudly in the back of his mind. He took his hand away. "Check the wound."

In disbelief, Taramis pulled the bandage away and inspected his side. "It's healed."

"Aye," Darrick said. "As are the wounds that I suffered last night. But such healing comes with a price. While I do it, Kabraxis has greater access to me. Only Hauklin's sword keeps me sane and human."

"You've healed me more quickly and better than any healer or potion I've ever used," Taramis said. "You could be a great asset."

"But to whom?" Darrick asked. "And at what cost? Perhaps Kabraxis has given me this power so that I will continue to use it and grow closer and closer to him."

"Then what will you do?"

"I don't know," Darrick answered. "I know I need to get away from here. I need the sea again for a time, Taramis. Something to clear my head. I need to find good, honest work again, a sailor's life, so I won't have so much time to think."

"Believe in the Light," Taramis said. "The Light always shows you the way even in the darkest times."

Hours later, with the sun now in the west out over the ocean and a ship's passage secured, Darrick stood on the Bramwell docks. Taramis and the other demon hunters joined him, agreeing to take at least this much of the voyage together.

The docks were congested, people milling around like cattle being herded onto cargo ships. The waves pressed the ships up against the dock pilings, causing sonorous booms to echo over the dockyards.

Without warning, a woman's shrill scream punctuated the noise.

Halfway up the gangplank leading onto the ship he'd booked passage on, Darrick turned and looked back.

Men hauled a young girl from the water, her body torn and shattered in her long dress.

An older woman, probably her mother, knelt beside the little girl as the sailors stretched her out on the docks. "Please," the woman begged. "Can someone help my little girl? Is there a healer here?"

"A healer wouldn't do that one any good," a gruff sailor beside Darrick said. "That little girl had the ill luck to fall between the ship an' the pilin's as she was boardin'. Smashed her up inside. Ain't nobody gonna be able to do anything about that. She's dead, just waitin' for it to come callin'."

Darrick looked at the frail girl, her body busted up from the impact, drenched and in horrible pain.

"Darrick," Taramis said.

For a frozen moment, Darrick remained on the boardwalk. What if the little girl's accident was no accident? What if it was a temptation arranged by Kabraxis to use the healing power again? What if someone in the crowd, a traveling Vizjerei or another wizard, recognized that Darrick's power wasn't given by the Light but from a demon spawn from the Burning Hells?

Then Darrick was moving, vaulting from the gangplank and back to the shore. He shoved people from his path, feeling the old anger and intemperance surging within him. A moment more, and he was at the little girl's side.

Her mother looked up at him, her face stained with frightened and helpless tears. "Can you help her? Please, can you help her?"

The little girl was no more than six or seven, hardly older than one of Mat's sisters the last time Darrick had seen her.

"Ain't no good," a man nearby whispered. "Seen people all squashed up like this before. That little girl's as good as dead, she is."

Without a word, Darrick placed his hands on the girl's body, feeling the broken bones shifting within her. Please, he thought, ignoring Kabraxis's harsh whispers fouling the back of his mind. He wouldn't let the demon's words come forward, wouldn't allow himself to understand them.

Power flowed through Darrick's hands, pouring into the little girl. A long moment passed, then her body arched suddenly, and she stopped breathing. During that still moment, Darrick felt certain that Kabraxis had somehow betrayed him, had somehow made him cause the girl's death instead of preventing it.

Then the girl opened her eyes, the clearest blue eyes Darrick thought he'd ever seen. She called for her mother and reached for her. The woman took up her child and hugged her to her breast fiercely.

"A healer," someone whispered.

"That's not just a healer," someone else said. "He brought her back from the dead, he did. That little girl weren't nothin' more than a corpse, an' he done brung her back like it was nothin'."

Darrick pushed himself to his feet, suddenly ringed in by people who were curious and suspicious of him. He put his hand on his sword, barely resisting the impulse to draw the weapon and clear the path from him. In the back of his mind, he heard the demon laugh.

Taramis was suddenly at Darrick's side, as were Rhambal and Palat. "Come on," the sage urged.

"It's the Prophet of the Light," someone else said. "He's returned."

"No," another said. "Those are the people who killed the Wayfinder and destroyed the Way of Dreams. Hang them!"

"We've got to go," Taramis said.

Was this what Kabraxis wanted? Darrick wondered. Would his death at the hands of a lynch mob allow the demon to step back into the world of men? Darrick didn't know.

The mother rose to his defense, holding her child to her. "Don't you men dare touch him. He brought my little Jenna back to me. If he is the one who killed the Wayfinder, then he had to have done it for good cause, says I. This man is a miracle worker, a chosen one of the Light."

"The Wayfinder was leading you to demons," Taramis said. "If he had not killed the servant of the false Prophet of the Light, all of you would have been doomed to the Burning Hells."

Darrick felt sickened. He was no hero, and he was no saint. He forced himself to release his tight hold on Stormfury.

Grudgingly, the lynch mob mentality gave way, surrendering to the people who were looking for something to make sense out of all they had been through with the Church of the Prophet of the Light.

In amazement, Darrick watched as people came forward with wounded friends and family, beseeching him to heal them. He turned to Taramis. "What do I do?"

The sage gazed at him. "The choice is yours. You can board that ship and tend to your own needs as best you can, or you can stay here in this moment and tend the needs of others."

Darrick looked out over the huge crowd. "But there are so many."

Already two dozen litters with men and women lying near death were spread across the docks. People called out to him, begging him to aid their fallen family and comrades.

"But the power I have," Darrick said, "it isn't from the Light."

"No," Taramis agreed. "Listen to me, though. How do you know that in this moment the Light hasn't had a design in placing you exactly in the position you find yourself in now?"

"I'm tainted with the demon."

"You also possess a demon's great power, and you can do a lot of good with it if you choose."

"And what if in using that power I also lose myself?" Darrick asked.

"Life is about balance," Taramis said. "Balance between the Light and the Dark. I would not be able to champion the will of the Light so strongly, so willingly, had I not been exposed to the Darkness that waits to devour us in the Burning Hells. Just as steel must be tempered, Darrick, so must a man. You've come a long way. Your present is balanced between your past and the dreams you might have. You stand between the Light and the Dark as Kabraxis's gateway, but it is your choice to remain open or closed. Your choice to hide the power or to use it. You can fear it or embrace it. Either way, it has already changed your life forever."

Quietly, thoughts racing inside his head, the demon whispering somewhere at the back, Darrick looked at the crowd that waited so expectantly. Then, taking a deep breath, he went forward to meet his future, his head high, no one's unloved bastard child anymore but a man of compassion and conviction. He went to the wounded and the dying, and he healed them, listening to the demon scream at the back of his mind.

"IT'S THE DEMON'S DOING,"

PALAT SNARLED.

"The demon knows we're down here."

In the next instant, a frightening figure surged from beneath the water. Formed of the rats' bones, the creature stood eight feet tall, built square and broad-chested as an ape. It stood on bowed legs that were whitely visible through the murky water. Instead of two arms, the bone creature possessed four, all longer than the legs. When it closed its hands, horns formed of ribs and rats' teeth stuck out of the creature's fists, rendering them into morningstars for all intents and purposes. The horns looked sharp-edged, constructed for slashing as well as stabbing. Small bones, some of them jagged pieces of bone, formed the demon's face the creature wore.

"That's a bone golem," Taramis said. "Your weapons won't do it much harm."

The bone golem's mouth, created by splintered bones so tightly interwoven they gave the semblance of mobility, grinned, then opened as the creature spoke in a harsh howl that sounded like a midnight wind tearing through a graveyard. "Come to your deaths, fools."