Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [1]
But the shadow of his companion refused to resolve at all, except as a gloom of phantom skulls, swirling and mouthing lies. The fluctuating shape seemed to have little in common with the slim youth with dark eyes and pale skin. But Kalkan knew better.
“He’s in there?” asked the youth.
“His shell is,” answered Kalkan. “It’s moldering away to dust, as if he were mortal. But even as we speak, the nexus of his spirit drains toward its next incarnation.”
“Minus the memories of what he’s done,” said Kalkan’s companion, anger making his voice tight.
“Just so,” said Kalkan, and waited for his companion to get to the point. The youth knew perfectly well who lay in the stone grave. The epitaph chiseled on the sarcophagus spelled it out:
Agent of Fate, Emissary of Divine Judgment,
Cutter of Destiny’s Thread.
You died as you lived, and will live again.
Demascus, Sword of the Gods.
A prickle ran up Kalkan’s spine. The epitaph was no boast. Demascus was a terrifying force when operating at the height of his powers. Kalkan recalled all too well the first time he’d tracked down Demascus.
Kalkan had spent tendays lying low in a small cave near the ravine where the abomination laired.
Waiting, at turns bored beyond belief, then terrified that the abomination had sniffed him out.
One day, a lighting bolt shattered the sky, and the thunder that followed threatened to pummel Kalkan senseless. From the charred spot where the lightning had touched, Demascus stepped forth. The man had bone white hair, bloodless skin, black eyes like pits, and elaborate designs like ashen streaks tattooed down both arms, as if charred into his skin.
Demascus didn’t notice Kalkan; the man’s entire attention was reserved for the creature that rose from the ravine at his feet. The creature was the monstrous offspring of a god and demon that should never have been. Demascus was there to make certain no one ever learned of a god’s indiscretion.
The thing undulated like a dragon in flight. Its scabbed head was wreathed in flailing crystal knives and its clawed hands seemed large as houses. Mist poured from it, hiding its lower expanse in a bank of roiling fog lit with a ghoulish flickering.
When Demascus and the beast came together, the resulting blast bowled Kalkan over. He mewled into the renewed crash of thunder, wondering just what he’d gotten himself into—there was no way he could ever hope to “handle” Demascus, as he’d agreed to. The man was so far beyond his power it was laughable to even think …
Quiet reclaimed the clifltop. Kalkan pulled himself upright and peeked around the new rubble of boulders, still hot from the blast that had plucked them from the ground and thrown them about like marbles.
The demi-demon’s head lay dripping in gore on the rock. The lower portion of its body was gone, apparently having fallen away into the misted ravine.
Demascus’s massive sword was thrust through the creature’s head, entering at the left eye, punching through all the way back behind the skull, and down through the rock.
The creature’s slayer, however, had fared no better. The man must have charged straight into the skin-flaying crystal knives to cut the demi-demon’s head free of the body, then nail it to the earth. In so doing, he’d sacrificed his life in a particularly grisly fashion. All the man’s famous implements and abilities hadn’t been enough to save him. Even as Kalkan watched with eyes wide as saucers, Demascus’s sword released a pulse of golden radiance, sweet as the sunrise.
As the glow faded, so too did the sword, the man, and all his storied magic artifacts.
All that had remained behind was the body of the thing Demascus had slain, and Kalkan.
Kalkan blinked away the memory, and curled his lip into a silent snarl. Here was where Demascus’s body had come to rest, as it did every time his deeds surpassed his frame. If only finding Demascus’s latest living incarnation was as easy as locating the failed husks.
“He had a