Bone lord 2, p.20
Bone Lord 2, page 20
“Ask away, great god. This poor mortal will attempt to answer, if it is within her limited ability to do so.”
I rolled my eyes at her, making sure she caught the gesture. All that this elicited from her, though, was a smirk. She really had woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning; perhaps with all her dildo work the previous night, she hadn’t gotten enough sleep. And she needed to sleep now, as any mortal did. Rubbing either of these things in her face—as tempting as it was to do so—would be counterproductive though. So, I decided to ignore her obvious baiting and cut straight to the point.
“We need to get into Brakith without being noticed,” I said. “And Rollar says that the Goddess of Charm’s Beauty Mirror might be somewhere in the town. What do you know about this mirror?”
“Ah, Lucielle’s Beauty Mirror,” she purred. “A most desirable object to possess, oh yes, and likely the only vaguely useful thing that vain, arrogant, air-headed goddess ever created. Ugh, what a pathetic fool she was. All anyone needed to do to distract her from anything was hand her a mirror—just a regular one would do. The world could be collapsing around her, and she’d just be staring at her own reflection. Anyway, I digress; the Beauty Mirror is a weapon of charm.”
“Thanks for stating the obvious.”
She paused speaking to glare at me, her lips drawn tight and her jaw clenched with sudden anger. But as quickly as it had flared up, it passed, and an expression of subdued amiability returned to her beautiful face, even if something menacing continued to simmer in her pupil-less eyes.
“What I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted, is that the Beauty Mirror can be used for a great number of things.”
“Rollar said it can be used to disguise yourself, even to people who know you well.”
“That is indeed one thing it can be used for, but it has other uses too. Simply carrying it on you vastly increases your natural charm, to the point where you’re able to convince anyone to do almost anything. That is, unless they have a resistance to magic or they are wearing something that has a resistance to magic. And, of course, if they’re Fated, the effect will be greatly weakened. But even so, the effect will still be present.”
“You’re saying that if someone as unattractive as Drok or Cranton slipped this Beauty Mirror into their pocket and hit on someone like, say, Elyse, they’d be able to get her into bed?”
“That fake holier-than-thou whore would jump into bed with anything with a cock,” Isu sneered, “without any need for the charm magic of the Beauty Mirror.”
“That was a serious question, Isu,” I said sternly, “not an opportunity for you to get your bitch on. Now, answer it seriously.”
“Ugh,” she hissed, “If one of those ugly buffoons used the Beauty Mirror on a beautiful woman, then yes, they would be able to achieve the otherwise impossible.”
It was amusing how she refused to say “Elyse” and “beautiful” in the same sentence, and I was enjoying making her squirm. But I didn’t want to push things too far.
“And in that vein, could using the Beauty Mirror convince someone who was a compulsive liar to tell the truth?”
“Absolutely. Again, provided they were not resistant to magic.”
It sounded to me like this Beauty Mirror would be a most useful interrogation tool, and perhaps even something I could use to force my uncle to confess his crimes in front of the population of Brakith. Of course, I would have to find it first, if it even was in Brakith in the first place.
“There’s something else I want to ask you about,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
“In the Tree God’s ruined temple, I discovered a new ability, a weird one. I touched the bones of the dead, and I was able to travel back in time and see through their eyes and experience the last few minutes of their lives.”
“Ah. And you felt quite sick after doing it, yes?”
“I felt like a minotaur had kicked me around a bit, yeah.”
“As your divine power increases, you will find that your ability to see through the eyes of the dead becomes less disorienting, as with your other skills and magic.”
“I figured. But I saw something through those dead people’s eyes. I saw what killed them all, the whole population of Kroth. And I was wondering if you knew what it was.”
A strange look came across Isu’s face: half fear, half something else. Was this guilt I saw? Was she connected in some way to the huge monster I’d caught a glimpse of via the eyes of the dead? Whatever it was, she turned away quickly before I could study her expression too closely.
“The Demogorgon,” she murmured, trailing off into silence.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Demogorgon?” I asked. “What the fuck is that?”
Isu released a long, slow sigh, and her shoulders slumped slightly, as if she was carrying a heavy, unseen weight.
“A creature of ancient darkness,” she whispered, “one of the primeval demons. A powerful being who existed before gods, in the time of fire and chaos, long before the coming of men to this world. The Demogorgon is a creature of immense power, and he wields magic of unimaginable destructiveness.”
“Could I take on this Demogorgon?”
Isu laughed harshly and gave me a dismissive wave of her hand. “Not even I, at the height of my powers, could have stood against the Demogorgon and survived. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“I guess that just means I’ll have to get strong enough to squish that ugly piece of shit under my boot like a bug,” I said.
“Ha. You have a long way to go if defeating the Demogorgon is your aim.”
“You have no idea of the depths of my ambition, Isu.”
“I’m just telling you the truth, Vance. Perhaps it’s an unpalatable truth, but believe me when I say that if the Demogorgon jumped out from behind that tree, it would crush you—and everyone else in this party—under its feet like insects.”
“Maybe that’s the case now,” I said, more determined than ever, “but it won’t be for long. Not when I get as powerful as I’m aiming to get.”
“If you say so.”
“Now tell me, since this Demogorgon managed to wipe out the entire population of Kroth in the blink of an eye, how is it that nobody knew that until now, until went back in time and saw it? That thing was fucking massive. How did nobody see it before or after then? How come it didn’t flatten any other towns or cities?”
“Kroth was an experiment,” answered Isu. “An experiment on the part of the Blood God. The Demogorgon dwells in a different plane than the one in which this mortal world exists. You already know something of the planes now, don’t you? You’ve seen the Sea of Souls, and you’ve visited the Great Tree.”
“So, if the Demogorgon exists on another plane, how did it get to Kroth?”
“The Blood God was able to summon it to this plane, only for a few minutes, for he was weak, but as you saw at Kroth, his experiment was a success. A cruel, bloody success in which hundreds were killed in the blink of an eye, but a success for him nonetheless. The more power he gains, the longer he will be able to call the Demogorgon into this world. Eventually, if he gains enough power, he will be able to bring the Demogorgon into this world permanently.”
“From what I’ve seen of the Demogorgon, that would not be good.”
“Not for the world of mortals, no. But the world would be drowning in blood with the kind of destruction the Demogorgon could unleash. All the better for the Blood God.”
“And that gives me even more of a reason to kick his ass all the way back to whatever primordial privy he climbed out of. Before he can pull that fucking Demogorgon into this world for good.”
Isu chortled strangely. “And who knows how long that might be, Vance? Perhaps in a hundred years, perhaps, tomorrow. We do not know how much power the Blood God has gained. And as a minor god, you don’t yet have the ability to sense this. When your power grows, you will become able to sense such things, but until then, it will remain a mystery.”
“All the more reason to get shit moving,” I said.
Things were getting way more complicated than I’d ever imagined they could. I’d had dreams of ruling the world for as long as I could remember, but I never dreamed that I might one day have to save it. Shit, I didn’t see that one coming, but I was never one to back down from a challenge. A thought suddenly struck me; there was one more question I needed to ask Isu.
“Why did it take you this long to tell me about the Demogorgon? And if you knew all along what happened at Kroth, when a bunch of us were talking about it, why didn’t you say anything?”
A flicker of a mocking smile, tinted with muted wrath, flashed across her face.
“You never asked me,” she said.
“Yeah, and something tells me that even if I had, you wouldn’t have said anything.”
In response, Isu chuckled humorlessly. I was done speaking to her, and more than done with her attitude. Without another word, I spurred Fang on and caught up to Rollar. Trying to get my mind off all this Blood God business, I talked with him about some light-hearted things: battle, killing people, that sort of stuff.
We kept up a good pace, took as direct a route as we could with the aid of Talon’s eyes surveying the landscape from above. By the time it grew dark, we’d covered half the distance to Brakith. It was an impressive feat because if we’d followed the roads, the journey would usually have taken four or five days, and that was traveling at a good pace on horseback. Now, we only had one day to go.
I could have kept going, of course. I wasn’t tired at all, and neither was Fang or my skeleton cavalry and their skeletal mounts. Rollar and his men, though, and the women with me and their horses, were pretty beat by the end of the day, so we found a suitable clearing in the woods and made camp for the night.
I kept to myself, avoiding both Rollar and the women. I had too much on my mind and needed some time alone. My uncle was going to be more of a challenge than I’d thought; Nabu had been plenty tough, and the Blood God had only given him a fraction of his power since that fat-ass bishop had split his devotion between the Blood God and the Lord of Light.
My uncle, it seemed, was completely devoted to the Blood God, and this was bad news. He’d be at least twice as powerful as Nabu had been, possibly more so. It had been years since I had last been in Brakith, and that meant my uncle had been sacrificing virgins for years (and blaming it on me and the non-existent vampire), and that meant he had to have acquired some pretty substantial powers from the Blood God by now. And that was on top of the military strategy expertise he’d gained from being a Sunsword. My uncle was a cocksucker of epic proportions and a lying puddle of goblin piss, but he would be a tough opponent.
I’d gained a bunch of souls in the attack on Rollar’s camp, and while a few of them had gone toward developing my ability to see through time when touching the bones of the dead, I still had a large amount of souls in Grave Oath that I could use to upgrade my powers.
The tree on the black plane was calling out to me again, so after everyone had gone to sleep, I sat by the campfire, closed my eyes, and transported myself there.
Getting to this place was becoming easier and easier. I could get here in the blink of an eye now, and the unsettling lurching sensation of having my soul yanked out of my body was becoming a lot less forceful. I walked across the glass-smooth black floor toward the huge gray tree. There were many boughs still obscured by fog, which meant that I still had plenty of skills to obtain, some of which would be potent enough to fight something like the Demogorgon, I hoped. The fog was already clearing around one of the branches. A new skill was ready, ripe like a fruit waiting to be plucked.
The previous skills I’d obtained had been represented by the image of a corpse exploding, and the other had been a laughing skull. This one was much more like the first rather than the latter.The only difference was that it was three corpses exploding instead of one. Multiple corpse explosions? This could be fun.
I clambered up the tree, plucked the glowing “fruit” from the branch, and felt the familiar jolt of energy zap through my body, filling me with a fresh, invigorating strength. I jumped off the high bough and did a couple of backflips before landing on the rubbery surface.
“All right!” I said. “Multiple corpse explosions. Rodrick’s army won’t know what hit them, if it comes to battle, anyway.”
I zipped back to the physical world in an instant and felt a little of the lurching sensation of being sucked into my body. Fresh power crackled through me, and I was itching to try out this new ability, which would wreak glorious havoc on any battlefield. But multiple corpse explosions would have to wait, as there weren’t any corpses lying around at the moment, and I couldn’t go and kill a bunch of Rollar’s troops just for the sake of testing out my new power, as tempted as I was to do so.
Instead, I sat by the campfire for most of the night, getting my two hours of sleep in the early hours of the morning.
After I woke up, I felt as refreshed and energized as if I’d had a good 10 hours of sleep, and I woke the camp as the sky was graying with the coming dawn so that we could set off at first light and hopefully reach the woods around Brakith by evening.
I kept to myself the whole ride; I didn’t need to be distracted by the women or have my concentration disrupted by chatting to Rollar. Again, we kept up a good pace throughout the day, and by nightfall, my hometown of Brakith, with its familiar castle on the hill, was silhouetted in front of the last fiery rays of the setting sun.
The woods here were as beautiful as I remembered, and the thought that all of this rightfully belonged to me but had been ripped away by my uncle’s lies made me both sad and furious. Still, it didn’t matter that much; these lands wouldn’t belong to my uncle much longer. Not if I could help it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
That night after dinner, I gathered everyone around the campfire to talk strategy.
“Obviously,” I began, “we want to get into the castle with as little bloodshed as possible. My uncle’s soldiers are fair game as targets, of course, but I don’t want any of the townsfolk hurt or killed. These are my people, and I need to win their hearts and minds back after everything my uncle has done to poison them against me. Hurting, killing, or intimidating them will just make the damage he’s done to my reputation even worse.”
“I agree,” Elyse said. “We need the people of Brakith on our side, behind Vance. He needs to be a ruler who is loved, not feared.”
“A little bit of fear goes a long way when it comes to maintaining power and authority,” Isu said, cracking her knuckles.
“And defeating my uncle, forcing him to confess his crimes in front of everyone, then publicly executing him and his toadies will show the people that I’m both strong and just,” I countered. “Without me having to intimidate or bully any civilians.”
“We need to get you into the city without being recognized,” Rami said. “This is our primary concern now. Worry about your uncle later. Right now, as I understand it, the whole town hates you, Vance, and should your identity be discovered by the townsfolk before your uncle’s treachery is revealed to the people, they’ll be baying for your blood. And no amount of reason can swing the opinion of a mob.”
“That’s where the Beauty Mirror comes in,” Rollar said, “if we can find it. If Lord Vance is able to get his hands on that, he could waltz through the town without a single person recognizing him.”
“Unless they’re Fated or have very strong magic resistance,” Isu said. “In which case, the Charm Goddess’ little trinket will be next to useless.”
“Even so, it’ll get the wearer past most people,” Rollar countered.
“So, how do we find it?” Rami asked.
“The way I see it,” I said, “there’s only one person among us who can get into Brakith and walk around in the open and talk to people without drawing any unwanted attention. I’m obviously out, being number one on Brakith’s most wanted list, and Rollar is pretty high up on the Church of Light’s most wanted list too, and there are plenty of Church of Light troops in Brakith. Isu’s going to have a bit of a problem walking around unnoticed with those horns of hers, and a Yengishwoman is also going to draw a few stares.”
There was only one person whose name I had not yet mentioned, so all eyes now turned to Elyse.
“If I dressed in a peasant’s robe, I doubt I’d attract much attention,” she said, answering the question before I’d even asked it. “And I’d be happy to do some snooping around and asking people questions.”
“I knew I could count on you,” I said to her. “All we need now is a decent peasant’s robe for Elyse to wear.”
“My presence might be quite noticeable in the open, in daylight,” Rami said, “but the darkness and shadows are my allies, and I can move through them with enough stealth to make myself invisible to most eyes. I can go into Brakith tonight and steal an appropriate item of clothing for Elyse.”
Isu, though, was another story, and I caught a glimpse of Isu staring coldly at both Rami and Elyse, daggers in her pupil-less eyes. Rami and Elyse seemed to have no problem that they shared me, but Isu’s jealousy was clear. If I ever did add her to my little group of women-with-whom-I-shared-sexual-relations, I would have to quash that emotion of hers.
“Thank you, Rami,” I said. “What color are you after Elyse?”
Elyse chuckled. “I truly don’t mind! But gray has always suited me well, if you can find anything in that color, Rami.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Rami said with a swift grin and a wink.
“All right, so that’s the plan of action for now,” I said. “We’ve done two days of hard traveling, and I’m sure you all need a good night’s rest now. Get as much sleep as you want; you’re allowed to wake up late tomorrow. Elyse, I’ll brief you on spots where you can pick up the latest gossip and rumors, and who to talk to to get information. Rami, you can head off on your mission as soon as you’re ready. Keep to the east side of town; the poorer folk tend to live there, and a rougher garment will attract less attention than an expensive cloak, especially in the kind of taverns and shitholes Elyse is going to have to visit. Everyone else, you’re free to get some sleep.”
