Dragon's Tongue (The Demon Bound) (46 page)

FORTY NINE

“No one would believe I used to skip about the Highland Ranges like a mountain goat when I was a lass,” Shona muttered aloud, and Etienne caught Shona’s arm as she slipped for the third time on something hidden beneath the snow.

Around the little party, a thick mist moved like heavy draperies. In spite of the fact that the sun had risen and the cold wind blew sharp, the world stayed a gloomy shade of grey. Magic mist, to be certain, for it showed no sign of blowing away. Etienne was grateful Fenelon agreed to lash everyone together. She could barely make out Alaric just ahead of Shona in his dark bearskin cloak. Fenelon, all festooned in white fur, might as well have been a spirit as he led the party across the vast tundra. At least, their sticks were still visible from the last visit.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to recognize landmarks in all this,” Alaric said, and in spite of shouting to be heard, his voice had a haunted quality.

“I was wondering that myself,” Fenelon said, his voice as disembodied as his presence.

I swear I shall dye that cloak a bright scarlet the next opportunity I get,
Etienne thought as she moved on. Somewhere off to the left, she heard Vagner’s heavy tread.

“I could fly you above all this,” the demon said.

“Would it be warmer?” Alaric asked through teeth gritted against chattering.

“Forget it,” Fenelon said. “We’re not separating. No telling how many other mageborn Turlough’s got out scrying for you, Alaric. At least here in the mist, it’ll be difficult for them to find you.”

Etienne bit her tongue rather than suggest their own difficulty might force them all to depend on the demon’s good graces. For some reason, Vagner had no difficulty finding his way, making Etienne wonder if the perversity of the demon’s own essence was what gave him immunity to the ancient magic that sometimes scratched her own senses with tiny claws of static.

“Horns!” Alaric hissed and stumbled over something buried in a drift. Before he could land face first in the snow, the demon suddenly appeared and caught him.

“Oh, my,” Shona said, looking into the crevice opened by Alaric’s tumble. “It’s a sheep.”

“Several, actually,” Vagner said, gesturing towards the field of mounds about them. “They must have been grazing when it happened.”

Indeed, the creature beneath the drift was a ewe suckling a lamb, both frozen for an eternity. Etienne started to question whether there was a shepherd as well.
No, I really don’t want to know that,
she thought.

“Come on, we’re wasting time,” Fenelon called from the front, and for good measure, he gave the rope an impatient tug.

With various sighs of resignation, the others followed. They must have trudged off trail, for Etienne had not thought it this far to the edge she and Fenelon found…and then it also occurred to her they had lost sight of the trail of sticks.

“Fenelon, are you certain we’re going the right way?” Etienne called forward.

“Of course, we’re going the right way,” he insisted. “I know where I’m going.”

“Well, actually, you’re not heading for the cliffs overlooking the valley anymore,” Vagner said.

“Who asked you?” Fenelon groused.

“I was just trying to be helpful,” the demon said.

“Aye and the last time you helped, I ended up with a lump on the back of my skull, and Alaric ended up in a trunk!” Fenelon said testily.

“Which way are the cliffs, Vagner?” Etienne asked firmly.

“That way,” the demon said. “The valley is east of the trail we are following just now.”

Etienne observed the frown on Fenelon’s face as he cast a surly look in her direction. She merely pursed her lips and quirked her brows in response, and he turned away to glare at the demon. “Okay, so why don’t you lead,” Fenelon said.

“My pleasure,” Vagner said and whipped his tail around towards Fenelon. “Just hold on…and mind the barb.”

Fenelon’s face twisted into the expression of a man offered some odious bit of human offal. Still, with a grimace, he seized the demon’s tail just above the wicked barb that held its deadliest venom. Vagner turned and took off at a steady pace over the snowdrifts, plowing a clear path for the others.

At length, they came to the edge, and as before, nothing could be seen.

“How far down to you suppose it is?” Shona asked as Fenelon made a ball of snow and tossed it over the edge. A dull thump answered within a few breaths.

“Not too far,” the demon said. With that, Vagner launched over the edge and down into the mist. Fenelon barely released the barbed tail in time. They heard the heavy thump of the demon’s landing on what must have been a solid surface. “Not far at all,” his voice called back.

“Depends on your point of view,” Fenelon said.

He gave a startled shout and fell back into a snowdrift when the demon’s head popped out of the mist, practically in his face. Vagner revealed a garrison of teeth when he grinned. Fenelon struggled upright and glared. Both Shona and Alaric covered their mouths with gloved hands and pretended to look elsewhere.

“Will the two of you stop larking about?” Etienne said, stepping past the pair to glower at Fenelon and the demon.

“My apologies,” Vagner said. “If you will come to the edge, I shall gladly assist you down, my lady.

Fenelon started to protest, but Etienne was already there, holding out her arms in acceptance. The demon picked her up as though she were a child, and it took her only a moment to realize he had stretched his body three times its normal length as she descended through the layer of clouds and felt an icy surface beneath her feet. Here, the clouds hovered far enough above to let her see that the ice stretched as far as the eye could see.

“Blessed Lady of the Silver Wheel,” Etienne muttered.

She was quickly joined by Shona, then Alaric, and finally a rather reluctant looking Fenelon. Their mouths fell open as hers had to see they stood on a thick layer of ice nearly as clear as glass. And that below that ceiling, they could see the shadowy green of trees tops.

~

Like a swift summer storm, memories flooded Alaric’s mind in rapid succession. He had stood on this surface before…Not at this very spot, but not too far from here either. Marda had stood to his left, clutching her cloak tight about her thinly fleshed frame, her brows a single line of disapproval. Ronan in his bardic greens was beckoning and saying, “You must stand in the center to understand.” And Alaric, frozen with unnamed dread, had stared transfixed at the tree tops of the forest and the central valley still many dozens of ells below them.

The flood of images was so great Alaric sat down to stop his head from spinning like a top.

“I was here,” he said in a weak voice and covered his face as he fought to sort the past from the present. At once, he felt bodies around him. Fenelon took Alaric’s wrists and pulled them downward, forcing Alaric to face rich blue eyes filled with concern.

“Deep breaths,” Fenelon said.

“I’m all right,” Alaric said.

“Are you certain?” Etienne asked, her hand slipping out of its wool gauntlet to touch his forehead.

“Really, I’m fine,” Alaric insisted.

“Are you always as white as that snowbank when you’re all right?” Fenelon said, and gestured to the walls of drifts collected at the edges where ice met stone cliffs.

“It just hit so fast,” Alaric said. He pushed hands away and gingerly picked himself up from the surface of the ice. Closer to the cliffs, hoarfrost obliterated the clear view, but away from the cliffs, it bore a resemblance to uneven glass, giving him a distorted, stomach-churning peek at the world below.

“That’s the Shadow Vale, isn’t it,” Etienne said as though noticing the direction of his gaze.

Alaric nodded, grateful for the boots with the roughed leather soles that allowed him to cling to the otherwise slick ice with relative ease.

“And Dragon’s Tongue is here, right?” Fenelon asked.

Alaric felt Ronan’s hint of ire and barely bit back the bard’s accusation of greed. “Yes, it’s here,” Alaric said in measured words. “Down there somewhere.”

“Is there a way to get down there?” Fenelon asked.

Alaric started to shake his head as it occurred to him that he might actually know. But Vagner saved him the utterance when the demon answered quite suddenly, “Oh, yes, there’s a old shepherd’s trail back that way that follows the cliff face down…”

Alaric looked sharply at the demon. “But that trail goes straight into the ice,” he said.

“Well, yes, it did,” the demon said, then winced.

“Did?” Alaric said. “What do you mean…did?”

Vagner hesitated then started across the ice. Alaric followed, only to be stopped short by the rope around his waist and three unmoving bodies. With an exasperated hiss, he jerked his dagger free, and in spite of the loud ringing of protests that sang across the icy landscape, he cut himself loose. Alaric then bolted after the demon, half running and half sliding over the glassy surface. The others burst after him. Alaric ignored the various epithets that floated and echoed. He felt an anxiety that was clearly being spurred by Ronan. The bard’s presence exuded panic and dread.

Where Vagner stopped, Alaric saw a gentle vent of pale fog.
What in the name of Cernunnos…?
He slowed his pace and approached. The air took on a hint of moisture, and Alaric could smell damp and something less pleasant.

At the edge, Alaric stopped. The layers of ice had been melted away, only bare inches of which had been recently reclaimed by the cold.

“How?” Alaric said. “Who?”

Vagner’s gaze wandered aside. “I did this,” he said warily. “With demon fire.”

“Why?” Alaric asked as the others arrived.

“He…made me. I didn’t have a choice,” Vagner said.

“Tane?” Fenelon asked, stopping beside Alaric to peer into the opening.

“Yes,” Vagner said.

“That’s where you were last night,” Alaric said. “That’s why your mark burned me like it did.”

“Tane felt me,” Vagner said. “He summoned me to him…forced me to burn this hole in the ice. And then you tried to summon me.”

“Tane knows I’m still alive,” Alaric said, feeling his face grow pale and cold with something other than the chill of the air.

“No,” Vagner said quickly, glancing at the others. “I burned you to keep you from being sensed, even though it cost me as well.”

“You traitorous…” Fenelon reared back as though preparing to call a spell. Alaric suddenly shoved Fenelon off balance. The moment stunned Fenelon with surprise, and made the women gasp. Fenelon then caught himself and glared at Alaric who held his place, determined not to be backed down.

“Tane
doesn’t
know we are here,” Alaric said. “Obviously, his magic is almost as befuddled as ours is by this place. Why else would he need demon fire to melt a hole in the ice when he could easily gate himself past the barrier through which he could see.”

“It might mean the ice cannot be passed by a gate spell,” Fenelon said testily. “For all we know, he could be down there laying claim to the Dragon’s Tongue while we stand here, all because that…” Fenelon pointed to Vagner who flinched. “…monster betrayed us, just like I knew he would.”

“And I’m telling you, it was the old magic,” Vagner protested. “Tane could not find enough essence to perform the spell himself, so he borrowed some of mine.”

Alaric sighed. “In case you have forgotten, that monster is still bound to me. You do anything to hurt him, and you’ll have to hurt me as well. Horns, Fenelon, you
will
hurt me if you hurt him, remember?”