The Black Road

EIGHT

Steadying himself in the rigging of the pirate ship Barracuda, Darrick reached for a ratline just as Mat landed beside him. Despite the sudden explosion that had taken out the line of supplies perched on the cliff's edge, he'd landed aboard the pirate vessel. His hands still ached from grabbing the coarse hemp rope.

"You made it," Darrick said, cutting the ratline free.

"Barely," Mat agreed. "An' where is that fabulous luck of mine ye were braggin' about earlier? That damned cliffside blew up."

"But not us with it," Darrick argued. The brief glance he had of the two burning cogs gave him a chance to feel proud of their handiwork. He checked the stone steps and saw Maldrin pushing himself to his feet. The explosion had knocked the first mate from his feet.

"There's the boy," Mat said.

Darrick scanned the deck below and saw the small figure chased into the broken prow by the huge man who followed him. He had little doubt that the boy was the king's nephew. There couldn't be many boys on the pirate vessels.

"Darrick!"

Looking up, Darrick saw Tomas standing on the cliffside near the surviving block-and-tackle rig. The other had gone down with the explosion that had restructured the riverbank.

Tomas waved.

"Get it down here," Darrick ordered. He took hold of the ratline and swung himself from the rigging. Even with theship foundering in the river-taking on water, he judged-he arced out past the big man cornering the small boy. Reaching the end of his swing, he started back, aiming himself at the big man.

"Bull!" a pirate behind the big man yelled in warning.

The big man glanced around instead of up, though, never seeing Darrick until it was too late.

Bending his knees a little to absorb the shock better, Darrick drove both feet into the big man, catching him across the shoulders. Even then, Darrick felt his knees strain with the impact, and for a moment he didn't think the man was going to budge and was going to smash up against him like a wave shredding over a reef.

But the big man tore free of the deck, sprawling forward, unable to stop himself.

Hurting and winded from the impact, Darrick released the ratline and dropped to the deck only a few feet from the boy. Scrambling to his feet immediately, Darrick drew his cutlass.

"Get him," a tall man in black chainmail ordered.

Darrick got set in time to meet two pirates who rushed him. He slapped their weapons aside with the flat of the cutlass, then stepped in, turned, and elbowed one of the pirates in the face. The man's nose broke with a savage snap. It wasn't the honorable thing to do, but Darrick knew he wasn't up against honorable opponents. The pirates would shove a blade into his back as quickly as he'd do it to them.

The pirate with the broken nose staggered to one side, blood smearing his face. But he didn't go down.

Still in motion, Darrick plucked a dagger from his boot, spun, and shoved it between the pirate's ribs, ripping it through the man's chest and planting it in the heart beneath. He kept moving, getting his cutlass up to parry the other pirate's clumsy attack and riposting.

Mat landed on the ship's deck only a heartbeat later.

"Get the boy," Darrick ordered. Then he raised his voice. "Tomas!"

"Aye, skipper," Tomas called from above. "On its way."

Darrick defended against the pirate's attempt to skewer him, aware that the mountain of a man was getting to his feet as well. From the corner of his eye, Darrick saw the block-and-tackle lower, a small cargo net at the end of it.

"Lhex," Mat said, holding up his empty hands and offering no threat. "Be easy, boy. Me friend an' I, why, we're in the king's navy, come here to see you to home safe. If you'll allow us."

The cargo net hit the bucking ship's deck in a loose sprawl of hemp.

"Yes," the boy said.

"Good." Mat smiled at him, reaching for the cargo netting and dragging it toward the boy. "Then let's be away." He raised his voice. "Darrick."

"In a minute," Darrick replied, bracing himself for the coming battle. He flicked the pirate's sword aside with his cutlass, then nipped in with a low blow, ducked and caught the pirate under the arm with his shoulder, and used his strength to lever the man over the ship's side.

"Get over here," the man in black chainmail ordered pirates on the starboard vessel.

Darrick turned to confront the big man, noticing the bandage that covered the side of his head. When he parried the man's blade, testing his strength, Darrick found the man uncommonly strong.

The big man grinned, filled with confidence.

Ducking beneath the big man's blow, Darrick stepped to one side and drove a foot into the side of his opponent's knee. Something popped, but the big man somehow remained on his feet, turning again with a sword cut that would have taken Darrick's head from his shoulders if it had struck.

Moving as swiftly as a striking serpent, Darrick kicked the man in the groin. When the man bent over in pain, Darrick performed a spinning back kick that caught the big man on the wounded side of his head. He howled in agony and went down, holding his head.

The man in black chainmail stepped forward, raising hisblade into the en garde position. He set to without a word, his sword flashing before him with considerable skill. "I am Raithen, captain of this ship. And you're one breath away from being a dead man."

Without warning, the swordfight took on a deadly earnestness. As skilled as he was, Darrick was hard pressed to keep the pirate captain's blade from finding his throat, eyes, or groin. Nothing was off-limits for the man's sword. Dead, blind, or unmanned, it appeared Captain Raithen would take Darrick any way he could get him.

Still howling in furious pain, the big man rose from the ship's deck and rushed at Darrick. The scarf over the man's head had turned dark with fresh blood. Darrick knew he hadn't caused the wound, only aggravated a fresh one.

"Bull!" Raithen commanded. "No! Stay back!"

Enraged and hurting, the big man didn't hear his captain or ignored him. He ran at Darrick, sweeping his big sword behind him, preparing a blow that completely lacked finesse. Bull interfered with his captain's attack, causing Raithen to draw back before he overexposed himself.

Giving ground before the big man, Darrick noticed that Mat had the boy secure and safe in the cargo net. "Tomas, pull them up."

"Darrick," Mat called.

Shadows spun with wild abandon across the ship's deck as nearby lanterns shifted with the ship's rise and fall on the river current. The crews aboard the other two cogs were fighting losing battles; the flames were going to claim them both within minutes. The heat rolled over Darrick as Tomas and his crew started pulling on the ropes, hauling the cargo net up to the cliffside.

"Darrick!" Mat called, concern thick in his voice.

"Stay with the boy," Darrick ordered. "I want him clear of this." He threw himself back from the big man's blow, sliding across the ship's deck in a rolling rush, coming once more to his feet as Bull bore down on him.

Aware that the cargo netting was quickly rising and that the crew on the other cog had succeeded in spanning the distance between the ships with an oak plank, Darrick took two running steps forward, guessing the distance between himself and Bull. He leapt forward, tucking his chin into his chest, and hurled himself into a front flip just as the big man started his blow.

Upside down, in the middle of the flip, Darrick watched as Bull's cutlass blade passed within inches of him. The pirate's blow pulled Darrick off-balance, causing him to bend over slightly. Darrick landed on his feet on Bull's shoulders and back, got his balance between heartbeats to manage a standing position, and leapt up.

Keeping one hand on his cutlass, stretching his arm as far as he could, Darrick focused on the cargo net being hauled up above him. He tried to curl his fingers in the cargo net, missed by inches.

Then Mat caught him, closing a powerful hand around his wrist, refusing to let him fall even as gravity pulled at him. "I've got ye, Darrick."

Hanging by his arm, Darrick watched as Raithen shook his hand. Something metallic glinted in the pirate captain's hand as he drew his arm back to throw. When the pirate's arm snapped forward, Darrick spotted the slender form of the throwing knife hurtling at him with unerring accuracy. Torchlight splintered along the razor-sharp length. Moving before he had time to think, knowing he couldn't dodge, Darrick swung the cutlass.

Metal rang as the cutlass blade knocked the throwing knife away. Darrick's breath locked at the back of his throat.

"Damn, Darrick," Mat said, "I've never seen the like."

"It's your luck," Darrick said, looking down into the angry face of the pirate captain who was powerless to stop them. Feeling cocky and damn fortunate to be alive, Darrick saluted Raithen with his sword blade. "Another time."

Raithen turned from him, yelling orders to his crew, getting them organized.

Spinning under the cargo net as it continued up, Darricksaw the stone steps where Maldrin encountered a pirate. With a short series of sweeps with the war hammer, the first mate knocked the pirate clear of the steps and sent him plunging down into the river harbor.

Then hands grabbed onto the cargo netting and pulled it to the cliffside.

Darrick caught the cliff edge and hauled himself up as Mat sliced through the cargo net with his sword, spilling himself and the king's nephew out onto the cracked stone surface.

The boy pushed himself to his feet. Blood oozed from cuts on his forehead, his nose, and the lobe of one ear as he took in all the destruction of the cliffside. He swung his head to face Darrick. "Did you and your men do this?"

"No," Darrick said, scanning the ruins. All of them seemed to have changed and shifted. The building they had noticed being used by the pirates had disappeared under a pile of rubble.

The boy pushed away from Mat, who had been checking him over to make certain he was not badly wounded. Cold wind poured down through the Hawk's Beak Mountains, ruffling the boy's hair.

"What have they done?" the boy asked in a dry voice. "Kabraxis is only a myth. The gate to the Burning Hells is only a myth." He looked up at Darrick. "Isn't it?"

Darrick had no answer for the boy.

A horde of demonic flying insects flew out of the yawning mouth of the demon's door toward Buyard Cholik.

Lifting his arms, speaking over the dreadful moaning of the insects' wings, and trying not to give in to the stark fear that nearly overwhelmed him, the old priest spoke the words of a protection spell. He didn't know if it would have an effect on the creatures, but he knew he couldn't hope to run in the shape he was in.

The insects passed Cholik by. A streaming mass of turquoise and bottle-green carapaces and wings illuminated by the torches and lanterns used to light the work area cut through the still air of the cavern. Reaching thefront line of slaves, the insects shot into the victims like arrows, burying deeply into their bodies, ripping through clothing to get at the flesh beneath.

The slaves screamed, but their agony was scarcely heard over the drone of insect wings.

Curious and appalled, hoping they would prove to be enough of a sacrifice to a demon, Cholik watched as the slaves jerked up from their hiding places. The insects writhed within the slaves' flesh, looking like dozens of growths and abscesses. Insane with pain and the horror of their situation, the slaves tried to run. Most didn't take more than three or four steps before their bodies burst open and they dropped to the cavern floor. Several torches fell with them, leaving individual fires burning in a line back toward the entrance.

In seconds, more than half of the slaves, mercenaries, and priests lay dead, their bones picked clean by the demonic insects, bloody white skeletons gleaming in the torchlight. While the demonic insects stripped victims of their flesh, it looked as if a blood mist had dawned in the air. Abandoning the dead, the insects flew up to the cavern roof and took refuge among the stalactites. Their buzzing quieted only somewhat as they became spectators to the next events.

Buyard Cholik stared into the dark recesses of the open door ahead of him. Fear settled bone-deep into him, but it wasn't fear of what lay ahead of him. True, there was some fear of the unknown. But the greatest fear he had was that the power he found on the other side of that door wouldn't be enough to take away all the damage that the sands of time had wrought.

Or, possibly, that the power on the other side of the door would find him lacking or wouldn't want him.

Being rejected by a demon after stepping away from the Zakarum Church was horrible to contemplate.

"Master," Altharin whispered. Somehow the man had escaped the destruction that had stricken most of the people around Cholik. "Master, we should go."

"Then go," Cholik said without looking at the man.

"This is an evil place," Altharin said.

"Of course it is." Cholik pulled his robes around himself, took a final breath, and marched toward the door to meet his fate.

Even at the open doorway, all Cholik could see was the unending darkness stretching before him. He paused for an instant at the threshold, tempted to call out. Would a demon answer if he spoke? He didn't know. The texts he'd read that had given him the information to come this far had not suggested anything past this point.

Somewhere ahead, if the texts were right, Kabraxis waited for the man who would free him into the world again.

A cold breeze whipped out of the yawning space before the old priest. Perhaps he would have turned around then, but the cold only reminded Cholik of the chill awaiting him in a grave. It was better to die suddenly tonight than to have to live with all his hopes shattered and stillborn.

But even better than that would be to live with the success of his efforts.

He stepped forward and entered the dark room. Immediately, the steady drone of the insects hidden against the cavern roof dimmed. He knew it wasn't because he'd simply entered another cavern in the cave systems beneath Ransim and beneath Tauruk's Port. The noise dimmed because in that one step he moved a long way from the cavern.

The chill burned into Cholik's flesh, but his fear and his determination to stave off death drove him on. With the lighted cavern behind him, he could see the narrow walls of the tunnel on either side of him as he passed but still nothing of what lay ahead.

You are a man, a deep voice boomed inside the priest's head.

Surprised, Cholik almost faltered. "Yes," he said.

Only a weak man. And you seek to face a demon? The voice sounded amused.

"Humans have slain demons," Cholik said, continuing forward through the narrow tunnel.

Not slain them, the deep voice insisted. Merely succeeded in binding demons from your world. But only for a time. Diablo has returned. Others were never forced away. Still others remain in hiding, not even known of.

"You were forced away," Cholik said.

Do you taunt me, human?

"No," Cholik said, gathering all his courage. The ancient texts hadn't suggested anything about what would transpire on this side of the door, but he knew from other readings that demons despised fear. It was a tool, like a blacksmith's hammer, that was used to bend and shape the human lives they controlled. Meeting a demon meant controlling the fear.

Don't lie to yourself, human. You fear me.

"As I would fear falling from a high cliff," Cholik agreed. "Yet to climb, a man must face the fear of falling and overcome it."

And have you overcome your fear?

Cholik licked his lips. All the aches and pains of his advanced years settled into him again, letting him know the spell he'd worked to strip the life energy from the slave was being undone. "I have more to fear from living my life trapped in a failing shell of a body than I do of dying suddenly."

I am a demon, Buyard Cholik. Don't you know that you risk dying for centuries?

Cholik stumbled a little in the darkness. He hadn't thought about that. In the years he'd studied Kabraxis and the Black Road, he'd only pursued knowledge. After winning Raithen over to his side to supply him with slaves and provide transport, he had thought only of digging the ruins of Ransim out to discover the door.

Cholik made his voice strong. "You seek a way out of your prison, Lord Kabraxis. I can be that way."

You? As frail and weak and near to death as you are? The demon laughed, and the hollow booming noise trapped inthe tunnel sounded caustic and vibrated through Cholik's body.

"You can make me whole and strong again," Cholik said. "You can return my youth to me. I've read that you have that power. You need a man young in years to help you regain the power that you once had in my world." He paused. "You can make me that man."

Do you believe that?

"Yes." And Buyard Cholik believed in the demon's power as much as he'd believed in anything the Zakarum Church had taught him. If one was false, then it all was false. But if it was true-

Then come, Buyard Cholik, once priest of the Zakarum Church and friend to no demon. Come and let us see what can be made of you.

Nervous fear and anticipation welled up inside the old priest. Sickness coiled inside his stomach, and for a moment he thought he was going to throw up. He centered himself, using all the techniques he'd learned while serving the church, and forced his tired, aching body forward.

A star dawned in the darkness before him, spreading gossamer silver light in all directions. The stone walls on either side melted away, revealing only the darkness of the night. He was not enclosed; he stood on a trail suspended over the longest drop he had ever seen. Visibility ended below the path he walked on, and only then did he realize that he was no longer standing on a stone floor but on a swaying bridge of human bones.

Arm bones, leg bones, and ribs made up the bridge, intermixed with the occasional skull that was complete or damaged. Cholik slowed, feeling the bridge shift dizzyingly beneath him. A skull slid out of place ahead, then bumped and rattled and rolled down the bridge, finally striking a hip bone and bouncing over the bridge's side.

Cholik watched the skull fall, the broken jaw hanging askew as if it were screaming. The skull fell for a long time, tumbling end over end, finally disappearing from thereach of the silver star that waited at the end of the bridge. Only then did Cholik realize the bones were not mortared together; they lay crisscrossed, interlocking to provide support for anyone who crossed the bridge.

Would you go back, Buyard Cholik?

Before he could stop himself, Cholik glanced back along the bridge. Some distance behind him, how far he couldn't tell, the rectangular doorway that opened back into the cavern under the ruins of Ransim gaped. The torches and lanterns flickered inside the cavern, and the stripped skeletons lay on the uneven floor. Thoughts of returning to the apparent safety of the cavern wound through Cholik's mind.

An explosion shook the bridge, and Cholik watched in dismay as a section of crossed bones blew high above the bridge. The displaced bones fell through the darkness like leaves, drifting and spinning.

The gap left in the bridge was too far for Cholik to leap. The old priest realized he was trapped on the bridge.

Let that be your first lesson, the demon said. I will be your strength when you have no strength of your own.

Knowing he was doomed, Cholik turned and glanced back up the bone bridge. The silver star glowed brighter, revealing more of the path. The bridge of bones continued to lead up, but it zigzagged back and forth. What seemed to be trees occupied the elbows of the zigzags.

Cholik hesitated, trying to muster more strength but knowing that his body had none left to give.

Come, Buyard Cholik, the demon taunted. You made your choice when you stepped through that doorway. You only had the illusion of being able to change your mind along the way.

Cholik felt as though a great hand squeezed his chest, squeezing the breath from him. Was it his heart, then? Was it finally going to fail him? Or was this Zakarum's vengeance for abandoning the church?

Of course, Kabraxis said, you could throw yourself from the bridge.

Cholik was tempted, but only for a moment. The temptation came not out of fear but out of rebellion. But thatwas just a momentary spark. The fear in him of death was a raging bonfire. He lifted a foot and went on.

As he neared the first of the trees, he saw that they bore fruit. When he was closer, he saw the fruits on the tree were tiny human heads. The small faces were filled with fear. Their lips moved in pleading that only then became audible to him. Although he couldn't understand their words, Cholik understood their agony. The sound was an undercurrent, a rush of pain and despair that was somehow horribly melodic.

Tormented voices, Kabraxis said. Isn't it the sweetest sound you've ever heard?

Cholik kept walking, finding another bend and another tree and another chorus of hopelessness and hurt. His breath burned inside his chest and he felt as if iron bands constricted his chest.

He faltered.

Come, Buyard Cholik. It's only a little farther. Would you die there and become one of the fruits on the tree?

Pain blurred the old priest's vision, but he lifted his head after the next turn and saw that the bridge remained straight to a small island that floated in the middle of the darkness. The silver star hung behind the shoulder of a massive humanoid shape sitting on a stone throne.

Gasping, no longer able to do more than sip air, knowing he was only inches from death, Cholik made the final ascent and stopped in front of the massive figure on the throne. Unable to stand in front of the demon, the old priest dropped to his hands and knees on the abrasive black rock that made up the island. He coughed, weakly; the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, and he saw the scarlet threads spray onto the black rock. He watched in stunned horror as the rock absorbed the blood, drinking it in till the rock was once more dry.

Look at me.

Wracked by pain, certain of his death, Cholik lifted his head. "You had best work quickly, Lord Kabraxis."

Even seated, the demon was taller than Cholik standingup. The old priest guessed that Kabraxis was twice as tall as a man, perhaps even as much as fifteen feet tall. The demon's massively broad body was black flesh, marbled with blue fire that burned and ran through him. His face was horrid, crafted of hard planes and rudimentary features: two inverted triangle eyes, no nose but black pits that were nostrils, and a lipless gash of a mouth filled with yellowed fangs. Writhing, poisonous vipers sprouted from his head, all of them beautiful, cool crystal colors of a rainbow.

Do you know of the Black Road? the demon asked, leaning close. All the taunting had left his voice.

"Yes," Cholik gasped.

Are you prepared to face what lies on the Black Road?

"Yes."

Then do so. Kabraxis reached forward, taking Cholik's head between his huge three-fingered hands. The demon's talons bit into the old priest's head, driving into his skull.

Cholik's senses swam. His eyes teared as he stared into the demon's monstrous visage and tasted Kabraxis's foul breath. Before he knew he was doing it, Cholik screamed.

The demon only laughed, then breathed fire over him.