She strolled back over to the palm and crunched into an apple. Without really expecting an answer, she asked the glowing ball, “How long have I been asleep?”
“A day,” the ball replied, pulsing in rhythm with its words. “Going slow. Woods thicker than once were.”
“That’s a problem? Some god you are!” she mocked it.
“Only so much life energy. Must husband carefully. Could fly or teleport, but would hurt. Find more power Myth Drannor. Move slow till then.”
“You’re not as fluent,” Alias noted aloud, “without Akabar. Where is he?”
“Dead. See?”
A hole opened by her shield, and a pile of bones was thrust into the chamber. Alias dropped her apple. The bones sank into the floor again.
“And the others?” the swordswoman whispered.
“All dead.”
“Oh, gods.” Alias dropped to her knees.
“Just one. Me,” Moander’s light reminded her. “Have offer.”
Alias hugged her arms about her shoulders.
“If you slay other masters,” the voice said, “their sigils will erode and you will work for me alone.”
“Then I’ll have to kill you all,” Alias growled defiantly.
“Without me, no purpose, no life. Besides, cannot slay me. Have tried and failed. Think, I will help.”
“Go to hell.”
“Abode not hell—Abyss. Prefer it here.”
Alias laughed at the creature’s transparent bid for power. “Why should I help you get a monopoly on my … services?”
“You are now puppet of many. Can be servant of one. Serve me, greater rewards—wealth, freedom.”
Alias held her hands over her ears to block out the Abomination’s voice. The tips of her fingers touched the eagle-shaped barrette in her hair. Though muck-encrusted, the silver pin unsnapped without crumbling.
“Think. More freedom yours than others enjoy. Be my high priestess. Be my—” The voice stopped, and the chamber swayed, and the walls vibrated. “Will return,” the voice promised. Again the chamber swayed. “Think about offer.”
The woven wood palm began to retract into the wall.
Something’s attacking it, Alias realized. For a brief moment, she considered Moander’s claim that without her “masters” she could not exist. It didn’t matter, she decided. Despite the Abomination’s promise, she knew she would never be free while it lived, and her freedom was all she wanted. Better to be dead than its servant, and this could be my only chance to escape, she thought.
It was an outside chance, but having been held helpless and frustrated all through the last battle, she could not let the opportunity to injure the Abomination slip by. She plunged the pin of the barrette into the sphere.
The ball was as hot as a bonfire and singed Alias’s fingers. She yanked her hand back, but Moander’s “hand” lay still on the floor.
A high-pitched wail filled the chamber, followed by a deep rumbling. The swaying motion of the room turned to a severe rocking, like a ship in a storm. Alias, her shield, the apples, and the dead boar were tumbled from one side to the other. The swordswoman curled into a ball and wedged herself in tightly between the floor and the hand.
Spit in the god’s eye, she thought, sucking on her fingers, for all the good it will do you. The sickly glow of the slime grew dimmer until it was finally extinguished. She was left alone in the glittering sapphire light of her cursed brands.
“I think it knows we’re here,” Akabar declared.
The lizard, seated in front of the mage on the back of the great wyrm, growled in agreement. Pressed close beside him, Akabar caught a whiff of fresh-baked bread. Now that Dragonbait’s means of communication had been rubbed in his face, so to speak, the mage realized that he could catch the saurial’s more excited outbursts. The lizard had to, in effect, shout with his scent glands for a human to notice the smells. Akabar was beginning to piece together some sort of pattern between scents and sense. He berated himself for not having figured it out before—but then he hadn’t figured out anything else correctly either, so far.
Dragonbait had awakened them all before dawn. Previously clownish and servile, the saurial had been transformed by the crisis into a sergeant major. First he healed all the wounds about Akabar’s head. The mage noticed the woodsmoke scent that had surrounded them the last time Dragonbait had cured him.
“That’s the smell of your healing prayers, isn’t it?” the Turmishman had asked.
The lizard had nodded and given him a friendly squeeze on the shoulder. With a stern look he prompted Akabar to study his spells by jabbing his fingers at the mage’s tomes. He patted and pushed Olive into packing their meager gear, while he used his skill to reknit the cluster of bones that held Mist’s wing splayed out in flight. Lastly, he’d closed the gash Akabar’s dagger had put in his own leg.
Akabar watched guiltily as the saurial performed this last task—guilty both for having caused the damage, and for taking his concentration from his assigned task to watch it repaired. Dragonbait worked in the glow of the finder’s stone Alias had dropped. It was hard to see the glow of his hands as he healed his flesh, but now that Akabar knew what to expect, he would never miss it again.
Now, as they rode the dragon toward battle, Dragonbait held the finder’s stone in his lap, although the sun had already risen. He still wore a kilt of sorts about his loins and one of Alias’s cloaks wrapped around to keep out the wind, but he no longer bothered with a shirt. He left the runes on his chest exposed for the world to see.
Akabar wore one of the lizard’s shirts and the makeshift kilt the halfling had fastened together out of her own cloaks. Olive wore a bright yellow cloak and looked, seated on the dragon’s head like a flashy helmet.
When Olive had shouted a warning and they’d first beheld the Abomination, the monster-god was deep in the heart of the Elven Wood and still moving, albeit slowly. It had grown considerably though. The midden mound that had exploded out of its Yulash prison now stood seventy or more feet in height—a hill towering over all but the most ancient gnarled oaks and duskwoods.
Its composition had changed as well. Human rot no longer figured prominently in its make-up. Instead, huge trees and crushed shrubbery were rolled into the hill. It still had an oozy, wet appearance, but now the ooze came from extruded sap and damp underbrush.
The mound seemed to become aware of them as soon as they spotted it, for it began to speed up.
Mist circled from a safe distance. The forward edge of the moving hill was a sharp angle, literally plowing its way through the forest.
As they flew toward the front of the Abomination, a volley of black-barked trees shot out from the hill, trailing long streamers of vines. The god was trying the same tricks as before, only now he was using fifty-foot duskwoods instead of zombie soldiers to weight his snare vines.
The larger size of the missiles and the redundancy of the attack made it easy for Mist to dodge the assault. The catapulted trees fell in the tangle of woods, smashing down other trees and carving huge divots where they landed.
“Any sign of Alias?” Akabar shouted to Dragonbait.
The saurial shook his head. Just as Akabar suspected. If Alias was in the mess, she was probably well hidden beneath the surface, something they had discussed before they left camp, with Mist translating.
The dragon continued to circle Moander without attacking. The mound fired another volley of tree missiles. Once again, Mist dodged them with ease, until a particularly large one passed in front of her face. She pulled up suddenly, as if alarmed, and plummeted toward the ground. Moander lost sight of her behind the tree line.
Moander chuckled with the arrogance of a god. It might have considered telling Alias of the failure of her friends if only it had not bragged of killing them earlier. It trained some of its eyes in the direction the dragon had gone down, while it continued its crawling march south. Myth Drannor, and the powers held within, awaited it.