“The Devourer,” whispered Irunzad. “You are the Devourer.”
“Yes,” said the duplicate. “And you have served your function.”
She reached out and closed a fist and Irunzad screamed, dropping the Key with a clang, and fell to his knees. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth, and the dwarf fell upon his side with a groaning gurgle. Calliande rushed to his side, preparing a healing spell, but it was too late. Irunzad was dead.
“I had to rewrite his brain, you see,” said the Devourer with placid calm. “I needed the Key to get into the Vault, but I couldn’t take the chance that some wandering dvargir might make off with it. So I whispered in his ear and twisted his thoughts, and had him lose it in the basilisk nest.”
“Why?” said Ridmark. “To what purpose?”
The Devourer smiled. “Haven’t you guessed yet? I think the halfling might be starting to figure it out.”
“Your smell,” said Jager in a slow, cautious voice. “It’s familiar. It’s like…”
Calliande got to her feet, white fire crackling around her fingers. “Enough games.” She pointed at the Devourer, preparing to attack with the magic of the Well. “Tell me what you are.”
“Patience,” said the Devourer.
“That still doesn’t answer the question,” said Ridmark.
“I always forget what limited minds you creatures have,” said the Devourer. “Very well, then. I shall explain as you would to a child, or perhaps an idiot.” The blue eyes shifted to Calliande. “A long time ago, I saw you traveling with the Dragon Knight, leaving the kingdom of Andomhaim. I followed you.”
“Why?” said Calliande.
The false face smiled, showing white teeth. “Because I am very hungry.”
“Hungry?” said Calliande.
That smell. That damnable smell. She had smelled it somewhere before, she was sure of it.
“Such great magic you carried,” said the Devourer, her voice almost dreamy. “Such potent magic. I have never sensed its like upon this world. So I followed you here, and watched as you secured your power in the tomb of the dragons. I thought to claim it when you left…but you locked it behind potent wards.”
“One of which she just dismissed,” said Ridmark.
“Yes,” murmured the Devourer, her cloak stirring in the still air of the Vault. “You left after that. I would have taken you then, but the Dragon Knight accompanied you, and I dared not face him. For that matter, I didn’t need to take you. I knew you would return one day. I need only wait. So for two hundred years I have waited, feeding upon the scavengers picking upon the bones of Khald Azalar.” Her smile widened. “But they were only the appetizers, the seasoning upon the feast to come. And now, at last, my patience has been rewarded. You are here…and how I shall enjoy your suffering!”
“Oh,” said Jager. “Oh, I remember. No, no, no. This is bad.”
“What is it?” said Ridmark, not taking his eyes from the Devourer.
“I know that that thing is,” said Jager, pointing at the false Calliande. “Remember Coldinium? The catacombs? The Hunter in the Dark?”
Suddenly Calliande remembered exactly where she had smelled that odor before, and dread flooded through her in a black wave.
“Oh,” said Gavin, raising Truthseeker.
“You’re a malophage,” said Ridmark.
The Devourer’s cold smile widened. “Some of your kindred have named me that.”
The dark elves had summoned several kindreds to this world during their long war against the high elves, orcs and halflings and dwarves and the manetaurs and numerous others. Some, like the orcs and the halflings, they had enslaved, used as soldiers and servants. Others broke away and fought against the dark elves, like the dwarves and the manetaurs.
And others feasted upon the dark elves themselves, like the malophages.
The malophages came from an alien world, and regarded all other kindred as cattle. They feasted upon pain and torment in equal measure, and cared nothing for kingdoms or laws or morals, only their endless hunger. The dark elves could not control them, so they unleashed the malophages upon the high elves. In time the high elves destroyed almost all of them, save for a few who hid themselves away in the Deeps. Calliande and the others had fought a malophage in the catacombs below Coldinium, and while they had driven off the creature, they had not been able to kill it.
“So you’re here to kill the Keeper and consume her power,” said Ridmark.
“Now you understand,” said the Devourer. Orange light glimmered in her eyes, began to flicker in her veins. “I have waited such a long time for this. All that power, locked away behind those wards that only you could access…ah, it was maddening! Now I shall feast! Now I shall gorge myself upon your magic!”
“If you kill me,” said Calliande, “you won’t be able to open the final wards upon Dragonfall.”
“Once I kill you,” said the Devourer, “I will absorb your power, and your magic will be mine. Then I can dissolve the wards and enter myself.” The false face looked back and forth, smiling. “Your other companions carry powerful magic as well. I shall enjoy feasting upon them and listening to their screams.”
“You are making,” said Ridmark, “a dangerous mistake.”
“Oh?” said the Devourer. “Do enlighten me, mortal.”
“We have the magic of a Magistria,” said Ridmark. “We have two sorceresses of elemental magic. We also have two Swordbearers, and soulblades can kill even a malophage. Is this a fight you really want?”
The Devourer let out a reedy, unsteady giggle, the sound bereft of any trace of sanity.
“For two hundred years I have waited to devour the Keeper’s magic,” said the Devourer. “How it has tantalized me! To feast upon it, I would kill you all. I would kill every mortal in Andomhaim! Enough talk! The banquet is at hand…and the time has come to feast!”
The Devourer took a step forward, and her form rippled and changed.
The false image of Calliande vanished, and in its place appeared the true form of the malophage.
It was so ghastly that a scream rose unbidden to Calliande’s throat, her skin crawling with horrified revulsion.
A score of long, whip-like tentacles, each as thick as one of Kharlacht’s legs, swirled and danced over the malophage. The creature’s house-sized body looked like a ghastly fusion of a slug, a jellyfish, and a toad, its hide translucent, revealing dozens misshapen organs floating in thick slime. Orange light blazed here and there from hundreds of nodules scattered randomly upon its flesh, eyes that allowed it to see in every direction at once. A dozen gaping mouths lined with needle-sharp teeth opened and closed on its misshapen body.
Calliande had fought many evil creatures since awakening – urvaalgs and ursaars, undead animations, the Devout and the Anathgrimm. Yet all of them had been at least partly natural creatures, even if twisted by dark magic, and the Warden and the Traveler had possessed their own terrible, corrupted majesty, dark lords mantled in their grim power. She could understand why the Devout and the Anathgrimm had worshipped the Warden and the Traveler as gods, even if she had no wish to do so herself.
The malophage, though, was utterly alien. There was no trace of anything natural, of anything comprehensible, in its twisted form. It was a force of sadistic rage and malevolent hunger, and it wanted to devour her.
Unless she fought back, it was going to consume her.
The Devourer shot forward, moving with terrific speed despite its amorphous bulk.
Chapter 13: Hunger
A tentacle lashed at Ridmark’s face, and he swung his staff with both hands. His old staff would have been useless against a malophage, but the staff of Ardrhythain proved effective against the rubbery, flesh-like material of the malophage’s razor-edged tentacles. The tip of the tentacle rebounded from the staff, and Ridmark landed a quick blow, dodged another tentacle, and then struck again.
He doubted the Devourer even felt the blow.
Around him the others attacked. Kharlacht, Gavin, and Arandar all attacked in a rush, blades rising and falling. Kharlacht’s greatsword ripped into the malophage’s writhing tentacles, but the soulblades bit far deeper, flaring with white fire as their power struggled against the dark magic within the creature. Morigna’s acidic mist rolled over the center of the Devourer’s body, while Antenora flung a gout of flame that left a long burn down the malophage’s flank.
The smell was hideous.
White light flashed around Ridmark, and suddenly he felt stronger and faster as Calliande’s magic closed around him. The white glow spread around the others, and they began moving with greater speed, which was just as well, since the malophage’s tentacles were a blur.
“The body!” shouted Ridmark, dodging around another tentacle. “Aim for the central body! That’s the only place where it is vulnerable.” Already he saw the wounds inflicted upon the tentacles regenerating, even the wounds left by the soulblades. The malophage could recover from almost anything, but it took longer to repair damage inflicted upon the organs in its central core. Ridmark had learned that fighting the malophage in the catacombs below Coldinium several months ago. Though they had not killed that malophage, only driven it off.
They might not be able to drive off the Devourer. For one, this malophage was larger and stronger than the Hunter in the Dark. And if it had waited two hundred years to feast upon Calliande’s magic, the creature might refuse to flee, might insist upon fighting to the death.
Ridmark was willing to oblige.
Of course, the malophage was probably far more capable of carrying out that threat.
Blue fire flickered over the malophage’s central bulk, and Mara appeared atop the creature, her short sword flickering as she stabbed. She landed three blows before one of the Devourer’s tentacles snapped up to remove her, and she vanished, reappearing next to Calliande. All three of her blows had penetrated the malophage’s rubbery hide, but none of them had reached the organs floating in the orange-tinted slime. Her blade had simply been too short.
Another curtain of acidic mist rolled over the malophage, and the Devourer’s dozens of mouths screamed in fury, cursing in Latin and orcish and dwarven and languages that Ridmark did not know. Antenora threw a small fireball at the malophage, and it enveloped the creature’s sagging body in a blast of flame, the horrible stench of burned malophage flesh filling the chamber. The Devourer shuddered in pain, and Ridmark darted forward, slapping aside tentacles. If he could get close enough, he could wound the malophage with his dwarven axe, perhaps damaging one of the organs in the translucent orange slime. That had hurt the malophage below Coldinium, and even if the Devourer was older and stronger, perhaps it had some of the same vulnerabilities.
Yet no matter how many tentacles he knocked aside, others took their place. He could not get any closer. Ridmark stepped back, a new plan coming to him as another wave of acidic mist washed over the Devourer.
“Kharlacht!” he shouted, stepping out of reach of the tentacles. “Help me clear a path! Arandar, Gavin, follow us.” Both the Swordbearers caught his eye and nodded. “Strike once we’ve cleared the way. Morigna, distract it.”
Kharlacht moved to Ridmark’s side, the blade of his greatsword gleaming with the vile ichor of the malophage. Gavin and Arandar followed, their soulblades burning with harsh white fires. A wave of pain went through Ridmark’s head as Arandar drew closer, a legacy of his broken bond with the soulblade, but he ignored it. He would feel far worse pain if they didn’t stop the Devourer.
The huge malophage turned to attack, its tentacles like a storm of razors. Another column of white mist rolled over its body, and the Devourer’s mouths erupted with screams of fury, shouting curses and threats in a dozen different languages. The creature lurched forward, moving towards Morigna, Calliande, and Antenora.
“Go!” said Ridmark.
He and Kharlacht charged. Kharlacht slashed with his greatsword, cutting through one of the tentacles. Ridmark beat aside another tentacle and clubbed aside a second and then a third. Kharlacht severed another of the appendages, and for just a moment the path was clear to the center of the Devourer’s body. Ridmark could not have covered the distance, even with the augmentation of Calliande’s magic.
But Gavin and Arandar had the power of their soulblades.
Both Swordbearers shot forward in a blur of white fire. Arandar reached the Devourer’s body first, and buried Heartwarden to the hilt in the leathery, translucent flesh, the blade piercing one of the misshapen organs suspended in the glowing slime. The Devourer let out a horrible wail, every one of its mouths screaming in unison, and Gavin drove Truthseeker home, striking another one of the organs. The Devourer shuddered again, and Arandar ripped Heartwarden free and struck once more. Calliande loosed a blast of white fire that drilled into the Devourer’s core, and the malophage’s tentacles thrashed like ropes caught in a gale. For a moment Ridmark was sure that the battle was over, that the Swordbearers had dealt a mortal blow to the creature…
Then the Devourer screamed again, and its tentacles spun in all directions.
One of the tentacles caught Ridmark across the chest and knocked him to the floor. Arandar and Gavin and Kharlacht fell as well, and the malophage leaped backwards, its huge, quivering bulk landing thirty yards away.
Then its form blurred and changed. The malophage became…something else.
Ridmark did not have a word to describe the Devourer’s new form. It had an armored shell like a turtle, albeit a shell studded with glistening spikes as long as Ridmark’s arm. It had the legs of a giant spider, their segments covered in bristling black hairs as stiff and as sharp as steel wire. The long, barbed tail of a scorpion rose over its shell, terminating in three barbs that dripped with poison. The serrated pincers of a scorpion reached from below its shell, and three scaled necks rose from its neck, ending in the heads of giant serpents, their yellow eyes malevolent. Perhaps such a creature had once walked whatever hellish world the malophages called home. Or maybe the malophage had simply created the form for itself, stealing the most useful organs from creatures it had encountered upon this world.