Darkwalker on Moonshae - Douglas Niles [170]
The prince heard the voice in his ears, through the haze of his abject despair. He shook his head, clearing it slightly, and heard Robyn continue speaking, very quietly.
“Be careful, my prince, and think! Control!”
The message finally penetrated to the deepest fount of his emotion, and a warm feeling of calm spread over him. He breathed slowly, and deeply, and felt strength flow once again into his tired muscles.
Standing up, he stepped carefully through the mud toward Robyn, his sword tingling with prospect. At last he turned to look up at the monster, for Kazgoroth had begun to move again.
A clawed foot kicked Canthus out of the Beast’s path, and the loyal dog crashed into a tree trunk before sliding to the ground. The forked tongue of Kazgoroth snaked forward with appetite, as it seemed to sense the druid before it.
But between the monster and the woman stood the Prince of Corwell. As the Beast stepped toward him, Tristan crouched low. The bulging gut, smooth and white like a snake’s belly, swung over him.
And Tristan struck.
The Sword of Cymrych Hugh parted the white skin easily, and hissed with gratification as it sank into the warm bowels of the Beast. The blade grew hot as the power of the goddess flooded through the weapon, wracking the corrupted body. Tristan stepped quickly back, but not before the sloshing contents of the monster’s insides spilled over the prince’s own body.
Gagging and choking, Tristan felt himself surrounded by filth and poison.
His skin burned as caustic acids poured over him, and polluted gases filled his lungs. He was aware of the monster stumbling and bellowing.
Then everything stopped.
*****
Robyn gasped in shock as she saw Tristan fall beneath the flailing body of the Beast. The sinuous tail, the great jaws, and the powerful legs all thrashed mindlessly in the center of the Darkwell.
Kazgoroth’s body settled into the mire, and the Beast’s struggles finally ceased. The great, gaping wound in its belly continued to pour the creature’s essence into the sludge at the bottom of the Darkwell.
As the monster’s lifeblood mixed with the stuff of the Darkwell, a strange metamorphosis began.
A small spot of light burned through the surface of the sludge. The light began to swirl, and the spot grew until a burst of white flame shot upward from the spot where Kazgoroth had collapsed. The flame was cool and clean – Robyn knew instinctively that this was the power of the goddess manifested upon the world.
The white flame burst higher, and the brightness spread across the filth and mire in the pond.
Somehow, Robyn knew, the blood of the Beast had given the goddess the power to cleanse the pollution from the Darkwell, purifying it once again into the Moonwell of old.
As the flames spread, they left behind a small pool of crystalline water, surrounded by a smooth and grassy bank. A finger of fire reached for the motionless body of Daryth, wrapping him in white, and then withdrawing. As it left, the Calishite sat up and looked around, scratching his head curiously.
The white light burned away the tree that had dragged Pawldo into the pond, and as the glow subsided, Robyn saw the halfling, standing knee deep in clear water, and looking around in amazement.
And in the center of the pool, the Beast’s body had vanished entirely. The silvery surface broke apart and Tristan stood, sputtering, waist deep in the pond. With a cry of elation, he ran toward the shore, meeting Robyn as she splashed toward him. Laughing and crying at the same time, they hugged each other and fell headlong into the water.
Canthus bounded around the shore, barking, while Newt rode the moorhound’s broad back and chattered insults at the spot where the Beast had disappeared.
A last tendril of white fire flickered from the pond, seeking and swirling about the spot where Keren had stood. The flame probed and twisted, as if searching, but all it could find was the harp, lying now on green grass.
The white fire settled into the strings and frame of the harp, and for a moment the clearing resounded with unspeakably