Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [127]
A black blade burst from his chest and Tlork froze. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then blood and acid leaked from the wound, hissing down to the ground, where they spattered only a thumb's breadth from the elf s bare feet. She seemed not to notice.
Then, without a word, Tlork stumbled back, wrenched away.
The troll gave a shriek as he went, his slowly reknitting limbs flailing on all sides, but to no avail. The blade ripped free and scythed about, cutting Tlork's torso in two. Over the edge the halved troll went, shrugged from the blade, into the twin pits of Demogorgon's throats. The troll screamed and roared and babbled all the way down, until the beast thudded to a rest, shaking the chamber. There he lay coughing and retching, impaled on a dozen man-high spikes.
Foxdaughter blinked up at her savior.
"Shouldnot,"said Gargan, fighting for breath, "gloat."
At the lip of the tunnel that led out of Demogorgon's depths, Twilight shut her eyes against the fearsome desert wind. Gargan, bruised and bleeding from dozens of wounds, limped at her side, his arm wrapped protectively around her slim shoulders. His face, despite a single eye that had swollen shut, shone with serenity, as always.
How Twilight envied that, and always would.
"Youpause,"the goliath said, looking away. "Come."
"Where?" Twilight asked softly, tonelessly.
"I do not know,"said Gargan. "But we must go."
Twilight's eyes closed. "Ever onward," she whispered. "Ever away."
Even when they had climbed the stones and stood at the edge of the desert, with nothing around them for as far as they could see, the elf could still feel him-still taste his lips, sense his fingers tracing her spine, hear his loving whisper. Twilight wanted to struggle, to break away from Gargan's grasp and run back down that tunnel.
"You set him free, Foxdaughter," said Gargan, as he embraced her tightly.
Twilight bit her lip, uncertain.
"Why did you come for me?" She looked at him. "Your pattern? Your fate?"
Gargan shrugged. "You are the Fox."
Then he began to hum-a song of goliaths, she realized- and sing. His voice carried her away, far from darkness and blood, toward the distant, white horizon.
He put out his hand.
She smiled.
Epilogue
At the bottom of the deepest shaft, broken into thousands of pieces, impaled on dozens of gnarled spikes, the fiend-stitched troll slowly, painfully regenerated.
Yes, it would take days before the bits of torn, greenish flesh could find their way back to each other and grow together once more, but as Tlork lay neither in acid nor in flame, he would eventually be reborn. Only a few universes of pain awaited him in the meantime, but Tlork was used to it. With stoic, brute will, the troll would endure.
For when it was done, Tlork would find that gray-faced thing and his little elf pet and smash them both. Yes, that's what he would do.
If only he could remember what they looked like.
Standing at the top of that shaft, the new master watched the agonizing process, his thoughts dwelling upon this labyrinth built over the fallen Negarath-the halls Demogorgon blessed, the darkness in which vileness dwelt, the depths of madness.
"The Depths of Madness," he said, his voice no longer slurred from missing teeth-teeth that had regrown, thanks to his fiendish powers. "A fitting name, perhaps."
His crimson and black robes were torn, but his wounds had largely healed. His fingers had grown back, too. Even his hair, formerly wild and tangled beyond the hope of redress, lay slicked back about his temples, except for a few stubborn spikes that hung over his eyebrows. His hands ached, but they would function fully with time, thanks to the potions he had found in Gestal's chambers.
More important was the red-purple flame that brewed around his fist-a reminder of enduring power. The gift of a devil, bought