Richard Knaak - Scales of the Serpent

The morlu shook violently, his massive form abruptly beginning to shrivel. Within the space of a breath, he looked even more late for the grave, only his wrinkled white skin now enshrouding his bones. Yet, still Serenthia kept him impaled. Her expression took on an unsettling eagerness…

“Serry!” Uldyssian called, using the childhood version of her name that he had only recently ceased favoring. He feared where her outrage was taking her.

His voice cut through the din…and through her fury. Serenthia glanced back at him, then, with a shiver, the morlu again. A tear slipped unbidden from her, one that had Achilios written on it.

She tugged on the spear, which slid easily out of her foe. The armored villain dropped like a puppet suddenly bereft of strings. Bones and armor scattered across the marble tile.

Serenthia looked at Uldyssian with relief and gratitude. He said nothing more to her, only nodding his understanding as he rose to see to the others.

As he feared, the trap had claimed more lives. There were bodies strewn about and although many were morlu, so, too, were there Torajians and Parthans. Uldyssian saw the slack face of a Parthan woman who had been there on the day when—near the town square where first he had preached—he had healed a young boy with a malformed arm. That brought bitter memories of the lad and his mother, Bartha, for they had both perished when the townsfolk had come to his defense against Lucion. The boy had been one of the demon’s several random victims and Bartha—stalwart Bartha—had died of a broken heart soon after.

So much blood …he thought. So much of it due to me…and their belief in what I bring to them …

But then silence swept over the chamber and Uldyssian realized that the fighting was again, for the moment, over. The morlu had not laid waste to the intruders; it was the beasts of Lucion who had been utterly decimated. They had taken lives—too many lives—but not so much as their own numbers.

That in itself was a miracle, but far more important, the others had taken up both his and Serenthia’s example. It had not been weapons alone that had brought the morlu to bay, but the same gift that Uldyssian wielded, albeit on a less focused scale. One warrior had been neatly severed in two, the cut so clean at the waist that it looked as if all the morlu needed was for someone to put him back together to reanimate him. Another lay far above, his corpse dangling limply over Mefis’s outstretched hands. Scores more lay scattered about in all sorts of macabre conditions, a striking image that, despite their own losses, Uldyssian hoped would bring heart to his surviving companions.

Surveying the dead again, Uldyssian suddenly choked. The triangular tiles covering the floor were now splattered in black bile…or whatever it was that passed for morlu blood. But mixed with it was the precious life fluids of those who had either acted too slowly or had hesitated in their trust of their gift. Uldyssian mourned each and cursed once more the fact that all his vaunted might could not resurrect them.

And that, for reasons he did not understand, made him look again for Mendeln.

He found his brother hovering over not their dead comrades, but rather two morlu who had somehow become twisted around one another. Uldyssian’s brow arched at this enterprising action and wondered just who among his followers had managed it.

Mendeln looked up from whatever it was he was doing. His generally unperturbed expression now took on a darker cast.

“This is not over,” he announced needlessly. However, it was his next words that most set the elder son of Diomedes on edge. “Uldyssian…there are demons here.”

No sooner had he said it than Uldyssian also sensed their nearby presence. The foulness of the morlu…themselves of demonic make, although of mortal flesh…had masked from him the dire fact.

Uldyssian also sensed just where they were…and that they awaited him .

He had faced other demons besides Lucion, none of them proving as much a threat as the Primus himself. Yet, that these new ones waited so patiently—something hard for all but the most cunning of them to do—further stirred his suspicions. They knew of him, knew what he had become…

He had only one choice. “Mendeln—Serenthia—keep watch on the others! No one is to follow me.”

His brother nodded, but the woman frowned. “We won’t let you go alone—”

Uldyssian stopped her with a glance. “I don’t want another Achilios— no one follows, especially you two.”

“Uldyssian—”

Mendeln took her arm. “Do not argue with him, Serenthia. This must be.”

He said it in such a manner that even his brother paused to look at him. Mendeln offered nothing more, though, as had become typical of him of late.

However enigmatic the statement, Uldyssian had already learned to heed such comments. “No one follows,” he repeated, staring down everyone . “Or it won’t be the wrath of demons you face.”

Hoping that they would listen but still fearing that some—especially Serenthia—might yet disobey, Uldyssian crossed the threshold of the door through which Dialon’s followers would have gone. The moment he was clear, the door slammed behind him, just as he knew that so too did the other pair.

He had sealed the way, at least temporarily. Even Mendeln and Serenthia would find it difficult to overcome his effort. So long as he could, Uldyssian would keep the path to the underground chambers —the area where worship of the Triune’s true masters took place—barred from anyone else. Too many had perished for him already.

He sensed the demons nearer, although their exact locations were not known. In truth, they were only a part of the reason that Uldyssian wanted only himself at risk.

Perhaps that had been what Mendeln had meant, Uldyssian suddenly realized. Perhaps with his own strange abilities his brother had also detected the more subtle yet distinctive third presence awaiting Uldyssian…a presence that was much, much more powerful than a mere senior priest and known so very well to both of them.

A presence that could only be Lilith .

All around Mendeln, the voices whispered. The awful truth concerning this place was best known to him, who could hear the victims’ own words.

So many , he thought. So many wrongly done in. The Balance is much askew because of this place alone .

Uldyssian’s brother did not understand exactly just what “the Balance” was, but knew that the horrible events that had taken place in the inner recesses of the temple over the past years had certainly befouled “it.” That disturbed him even more than all the deaths this night, although their cumulative effect was no good thing, either.

And then there was also Lilith…or Lylia, as he, Serenthia, and most painfully of all, Uldyssian, had known her.

Serenthia stalked back and forth like an impatient cat, her eyes ever on the doors so effectively “locked” by his brother. The rest of Uldyssian’s followers eagerly spread through the chambers, tearing apart the grand trappings as they went along despite the fact that the fires consuming other portions of the building would eventually do the same here. Mendeln, aware that victory was truly not theirs yet, paid great heed to the voices, even those of the dead priests and Peace Warders. Not the morlu, of course, for they were creatures long dead and so from them there was only emptiness. He listened very carefully, focusing on some that seemed more relevant than others.

How simple we were , Mendeln thought almost wisfully. Farmers and brothers in a small village, destined to live out our lives tilling the soil and raising livestock . It was Lilith’s fault that it had come to all this, Lilith, who had chosen Uldyssian to be her pawn in some otherworldly struggle between demons and angels over a pitiful little rock called by them Sanctuary .