The Elder Demon's Dilemma (Realm of Arkon, Book 9) Read online

  The Elder Demon's Dilemma

  Last book of the Realm of Arkon

  by G. Akella

  Prologue

  It was a warm summer night in a vast Darkaaneese valley. A waning blood-red moon was rising over Siruat Heath, the wind having scattered clusters of heavy storm clouds as it had picked up closer to nightfall. The threat was receding, its remnants flickering in the distant east of the night's sky. Fog rising from the marshlands blanketed the gnarled trunks of grim forest giants, then crept further toward the gentle hills. It was the last night of a retreating Spring. The night before the great battle.

  Great Prince Goherym looked over the valley with its blazing campfires, then took a seat on a root protruding nakedly from the ground. He looked eastward. Soon... It would all be over soon. Would their world remain endure or would it descend into darkness? He supposed that not even the gods knew the answer. Nothing happened by accident under the stars. Mallorn trees had returned, putting an end to the terrible fratricidal war, and Providence had decided to add weight to the other end of the scales. Every people would pay a price for the sacrifice. Elves, humans, dwarves... The Ancients would not abandon their advancement, and if Merdoc was right, their victory would bring about the coming of a Beast that would all but assure the total and irreversible destruction of this world.

  Goherym looked away from the flashes in the east and back at the thousands of campfires dotting the valley. Never had this realm known such an army. Nearly one hundred fifty legions of elven warriors, mages, archers and healers. Eleven human legions, seven legions of the Mountain Kingdom, and ten gods. But would that be enough to stop an army of the transformed led by the Titans who had awakened from their thousand-year-old slumber? No, not even the gods knew the answer. And though Merdoc had prophesied that the outsiders would help stop the Ancients, could his prophecy be trusted? Nearly forty thousand two-lived had joined the allied army. The best of the best. And yet, all of their strength combined couldn't rival that of a simple brigade of any of the High Houses. Perhaps Merdoc hadn't meant all of the two-lived, but two very particular ones?

  The prince looked to the adjacent hill where Max was sitting in the company of his friends. He drew a sigh. Nobody had believed that the kid would pull it off, but he had! And in a way that rattled the gods themselves. Perhaps it was him and his friend, the one presently fighting Vill in the distant orcish steppe, that Merdoc had been referring to...

  The Titans were still coming, and they were going to be here by midday. It was the Ancients' unity that endowed them with such great strength. Destroying just one of the three would severely weaken the other two, but the gods hadn't been able to do that last time. Indeed, the only two who had managed to deal any material damage to the enemy were the Guardian with his sacrificial attack and the winged god from Lemuria. And if it hadn't been for him...

  Alas, the winged god had passed beyond the pale, so they could not rely on his aid this time. But the prince was content to let the gods worry about other gods - his job was to stop the transformed. Goherym didn't fear death, but he didn't wish for it, either. The longer he lived, the more enemies he would dispatch to the beyond.

  The prince lowered his head, experiencing a sort of déjà vu. All this has already happened. He was young then. Still a centurion in the Wind Talkers, he had been dreaming of glory all that night. And he hadn't even gotten the chance to say goodbye. The life he had known had crumbled to dust with the Ancients' retreat. Great power had been awarded to him, along with great responsibility that fell squarely on his young shoulders. As for glory, he had gotten it in spades, yet he would trade it all in an instant for the lives of his loved ones. Only such a trade would never be offered to him.

  "I often remember granddad and great-granddad," he heard a soft voice behind him.

  A light smile touched the Great Prince's lips. He turned around and nodded a greeting.

  "When did you learn to read minds, son?"

  "I didn't, but it wasn't hard to guess. That expression on your face means one of three things. Your people, my mother, or them..."

  Orwil took a seat next to his father. They kept quiet for several minutes, each in his own thoughts. Goherym was the first to break the silence.

  "Some of us must leave so that the others may stay, son. Your grand- and great-grandfather, they paid their price then, as we shall pay ours today. I only hope that it won't prove too high."

  "Today shall be unlike any other day in the history of our world, father," Orwil shook his head. "I know that the Winged God is no longer here to aid us, but we've never had a Guardian as powerful as this one. Also, two and a half millennia is a significant period. Long enough for our gods to recover their strength."

  Goherym nodded. "Maybe you're right. But you know what to do if I turn out to be r-"

  "No!" his son cut him off. "You must live, father. If only because neither I nor my brothers wish to take your burden upon our shoulders. Not just yet. And I don't want to hear another word about it!"

  Orwil rose.

  "I must go check on my troops."

  The ruler watched his son walk away with a chuckle.

  "I will try..." he said softly.

  He shifted his gaze to the adjacent hill again, and then it dawned on him. He believed it! He believed in Merdoc's prophecy! They would endure! No matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice, they would never let this realm be devoured by the Darkness!

  Chapter 1

  "A buddy of mine, a war pilot, once found himself in a bit of a pickle," Bonbon reined in his moose, giving Donut a pointed look.

  "What kind of a pickle, pray tell?" the rogue eagerly took the bait.

  "He told his wife he'd be flying off on a job, then slipped away to his mistress who lived on the same military base, next door to him." Bonbon began the story, casting oblong glances at Masyanya periodically.

  "It was a summer weekend. So, his mistress wakes him up one morning and asks him to throw out the trash. My buddy is still sleepy from their wild night of passion, not fully cognizant of where he is. So he takes the trash and heads outside." Bonbon held a dramatic pause, fished for his flask and took a few swigs.

  "So, he's outside with the trash..." Donut encouraged his comrade, a smile forming on his lips.

  "He throws out the trash, then heads to his home out of habit. Just as he was dressed, in sweatpants and a tank-top." The bald man concluded, adding a tragic note to his tone. "He didn't get past the doorstep - the frying pan his wife happened to be holding was put to good use. He had a prodigious shiner on his face for a full month thereafter."

  With another askance glance at Masyanya, Bonbon proceeded to declare the moral of the story.

  "Women are the root of all evil..."

  The huntress bit her lower lip at the sight of Donut struggling to keep his mirth from bursting forth like a geyser, then turned toward Bonbon with an ingratiating smile.

  "If it had been me, your war pilot pal wouldn't get off so easily. In fact, he'd be lucky if I didn't remove a certain body part from him surgically. As for you," she stuck a finger at the still-grinning rogue. "Come next spring, I'm putting you on a leash! To keep you from crawling around unsavory trash sites."

  "And neuter! Don't forget to neuter him!" Bonbon echoed in support. "Otherwise, he's liable to chew through the leash, run away and become a filthy belligerent animal, scratching at the windows of respectable folk, aching to get at their house pets!"

  "Are you seriously listening to this level 220 troll?" Donut had had enough. "I bet he's got a hundred such stories. What do any of them have to do with me?!"

  "You know that I did have a cat once..
." Masyanya began, but then couldn't help breaking out in laughter.

  Bonbon joined in right away, followed by Reece who was walking behind him. Donut puffed out his chest, ready to continue his rant, but then simply exhaled and waved a dismissive hand, a smile playing on his lips.

  "I see the castle!" Kan, who had been in the vanguard, exclaimed shortly thereafter.

  A few minutes later we glimpsed a clearing. Before long, the road had taken us out of the woods and into an open area.

  The castle of Baron Ulrich an Rayne was nearly identical to Laetan's. The sole apparent difference amounted to a massive over-the-gate tower instead of the two watchtowers. Standing on a small hill cleared of any vegetation, it was protected by a ring of stakes jutting out of the ground. Evidently, the art department had applied the same "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" principle to castles in the Borderlands as they had done to cities. And I was sympathetic, having worked in that very department. Just the southern border of Erantia numbered some thirty baronies - forcing the artists to come up with a unique design for them all would be tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment.

  I touched the boar's sides with my heels to catch up to Kan just as he braked his mount to a stop.

  I nodded at the castle. "Now let's hope that your theory is right, and the baron is home."

  "Rest assured, prince, he's home," replied the knight-commander. "Troops in frontier castles are the last to be taken on any campaigns."

  "Fair enough." I waved forward, then steered Gloom toward the gates.

  We had made it out of the steppe only by nightfall. The orcs would not have appreciated my leaving without saying goodbye, and I had needed to speak with Kahella besides. Thankfully, I wasn't in any particular hurry - having released Gloom in the morning, I couldn't summon him again for twelve hours. In setting this condition way back when, the developers had intended to take a considerable chunk of cash out of circulation. The reason being that players preferred paying NPCs for use of their stables instead of releasing their mounts. The lucky few who had access to private stables were members of large and affluent clans who could afford their own castle. You needed either a castle or a city to build a stables, and though certain top clans had managed to avail themselves of a castle, I had heard of no clan in possession of their own city. This had not changed with the patch by RP-17 - you still needed to wait twenty hours for a perished mount, and twelve hours for a released one.

  I had learned from Kahella that the allied army of elves, humans and dwarves was waiting for the Ancients in Darkaan territory, on the very border of the Great Forest. The invasion made it impossible to build portals in the Dark Lands, but joining up with the army was simple enough - you needed only to travel to Ellorian and find somebody to port you to the location adjacent to Siruat Heath. I, however, had taken a different approach. Having seen the titans in action, I knew that I couldn't hurt them even in my Elder Demon form. And I suspected that I wouldn't have the benefit of that form anyway - something inside me was certain that Jaelitte had given me all of her remaining strength in the battle with Vill. And though I had an incredible sword with an ungodly damage multiplier against Great Essences and a 0.3 percent chance of paralysis, that would not be enough. Drawing within a titan's aggro range would be tantamount to shaking a toothpick at an elephant. Setara's Shield would buy me twenty seconds, and then what?

  But there could be another way. Lars had once found an equally prominent sword in a ruins on the Erantian border, on the territory of Rayne Barony. The blood of the Winged Lord was alive, and I was certain that he hadn't departed this world. Perhaps I might be able to awaken him somehow? Why else would the System have tasked me with this strange quest?

  The night was in full force. Ten hours remained until the battle, and it wasn't a fight any of us could avoid.

  "Hey! Open the gate!"

  The knight-commander's yelp pulled me out of my contemplations. His neck craned, Kan was examining carefully an edge of the twenty-two-foot wall. He turned to me.

  "We're going to have to wait a few minutes."

  A few minutes was better than a few hours. I pulled on the reigns, stopping the razorback in front of the gate. The others all followed my lead.

  I gazed up at the sky to pass the time, trying yet again to spot the Big Dipper. It was foolish, no doubt. Even if this world had become truly material and existed in the same universe as Earth, the sky here would nonetheless look totally different. And yet, I couldn't shake this childish expectation of wonder. Now, sure, the kinds of wonders I had already witnessed here would shock and amaze anyone grounded in materialistic reason, but in a world of math and magic such phenomena were commonplace. The Big Dipper, on the other hand... It was natural for people to believe in miracles. An integral part of human nature. And though I may have lost most of my humanity along the way, that part of it hadn't gone anywhere.

  It was about a minute and a half before the helmed head of a sentry popped out over the edge of the wall.

  "What kind of demons are you to travel at this hour of night?" he queried in a surly tone.

  "The best kind of demons!" Reece retorted gleefully.

  "Prince Krian of Craedia and his companions, now move it!" Kan barked at him.

  The soldier leaned forward, examining us closely in the torchlight, then recoiled in alarm.

  "Master prince! Please don't mind my remark about demons, it's a common saying!" he began to patter.

  "Go on, open up already," Kan hurried him along, holding back a smile.

  "Right away!" the soldier disappeared again, then shouted so loud that even the crickets fell silent.

  "Jedan! Grum! Open the gate, you slackers! Kira! Report to master baron at once!"

  "What do I tell him?" came a high-pitched female voice from behind the gate. "Master baron is sleeping, and the baroness will get awfully mad. I'll be on sweeping duty for the rest of the week."

  "Tell him the demon prince and his people are here. And the Four-Armed One is with them!"

  Metal clanged, the leaves shuddered and began sliding open.

  The general appearance of Rayne was largely similar to Laetan, but it was at least one and a half times larger than the latter. It wasn't so much a castle as a fortress. And yet, in all of my time in Arkon, I was yet to see a castle the way historians would describe one. In that sense, any fortress was still a castle in my eyes, unless, of course, it was attached to a city. The five-story keep had the shape of a polygon, spanning roughly forty yards in diameter. I counted ten more three-story structures, an elongated stables and a well directly across the gate. All in all, it was your typical level seven castle.

  Upon entering, we went right for the stables, intent on not wasting any time. There would be no escaping supper with the baron, even if was served at two in the morning.

  The baron appeared shortly after we had billeted our mounts, emerging from the keep in the company of his wife and a tall warrior named Farat. He issued some orders to a captain that ran up to him, then turned and headed our way.

  "Greetings, prince," he gave me a firm handshake, a warm smile playing on his lips.

  Then he gave Kan a hard embrace, and a friendly nod to everyone else.

  "What of Vaedarr? Still standing, I hope?"

  "The old bird will keep standing for many ages to come," I smiled in kind, then greeted Laega and the centurion accompanying them. "And where is Kovul?"

  "My brother went to Tien Mahar, the count's city residence. His squire returned to Rayne just yesterday with interesting news. The king's courier had arrived in the county a few days ago. It would seem that Teiran had been vanquished in the catacombs of Vaedarr less than a fortnight ago." Ulrich gave me a quizzical look, then turned to Kan. "He also reported that you would be heading to the Steppe."

  "We just came from there," Kan chuckled, patting the baron on the shoulder. "The undead invasion has been stopped and the morts destroyed, but Vill has escaped in the nick of time."

  Ulrich took a few
seconds to digest the information. Then, with a sigh, he turned to his wife and spoke with plain envy.

  "Did you hear that? Now that is a warrior's life! From one epic fight in Vaedarr to an even grander one in the Steppe. But we here in the boondocks are deprived of true glory."

  Laega gave an indulgent smile. "Well, then, why are you keeping these heroes out in the yard? Let us feast!"

  "Yes, of course." The baron stepped aside, gesturing for us to enter, and proclaimed in a triumphant tone.

  "Welcome to Rayne, heroes! The grand hall awaits. Please, follow me."

  Kan put up a hand in protest. "Thank you kindly, but we really are in a rush. We must be in Ellorian by morning. We came here in search of something."

  "I'm listening," Ulrich said, arching his brow.

  "A few years before the old Rayne was put to the torch, we had encountered ancient ruins when moving to meet Duke Kerat's clibanarii. There wasn't anything special about the site: two subterranean levels with maybe a dozen chambers each, and a wall display of a winged unicorn in the main hall above ground. That place is somewhere near, on your new land."

  As Kan spoke, Ulrich's second brow crept up as well. The baron looked incredulously at his wife, hesitating for a long moment, and then explained.

  "We came upon those ruins a year after expanding the border. They are directly underneath it. I built this castle right on top of them."

  "You didn't block off the entrance to the underground, right?" I interjected.

  "Why block off the entrance to such a convenient storage facility?" the baron gave a shrug. "But what do you expect to find there? We had checked every inch of the walls and the floor, but found nothing except layers of dust."

  I put my head on the hilt of Ruination. "It was there that Lars had found this sword. And I want to try and find any kind of information about its former owner. Will you allow me to examine the ruins?"

  "By all means. Farat will escort you to the entrance," the baron motioned toward the centurion.