David Eddings - Demon Lord of Karanda

“Let’s get closer to the altar,” Belgarath muttered. “I don’t want to have to shove my way through this mob when things start happening.”

They pushed through the crowd. A few of the greasy-haired fanatics started to object to being thrust aside, but one look at Belgarath’s face with the hideous designs Polgara had drawn on it convinced them that here was a wizard of awesome power and that it perhaps might be wiser not to interfere with him.

Just as they reached the front near the altar, a man in a black Grolim robe strode out through the gate of the lakeside village, coming directly toward the altar.

“I think that’s our wizard,” Belgarath said quietly.

“A Grolim?” Silk sounded slightly surprised.

“Let’s see what he’s up to.”

The black-robed man reached the platform and stepped up to stand in front of the altar. He raised both hands and spoke harshly in a language Garion did not understand. His words could have been either a benediction or a curse. The crowd fell immediately silent. Slowly the Grolim pushed back his hood and let his robe fall to the platform. He wore only a loincloth, and his head had been shaved. His body was covered from crown to toe with elaborate tattoos.

Silk winced. “That must have really hurt,” he muttered.

“Prepare ye all to look upon the face of your God,” the Grolim announced in a large voice, then bent to inscribe the designs on the platform before the altar.

“That’s what I thought,” Belgarath whispered. “That circle he drew isn’t complete. If he were really going to raise a demon, he wouldn’t have made that mistake.” The Grolim straightened and began declaiming the words of the incantation in a rolling, oratorical style.

“He’s being very cautious,” Belgarath told them. “He’s leaving out certain key phrases. He doesn’t want to raise a real demon accidentally. Wait.” The old man smiled bleakly. “Here he goes.”

Garion also felt the surge as the Grolim’s will focused and then he heard the familiar rushing sound.

“Behold the Demon Lord Nahaz,” the tattooed Grolim shouted, and a shadow-encased form appeared before the altar with a flash of fire, a peal of thunder, and a cloud of sulfur-stinking smoke. Although the figure was no larger than an ordinary man, it looked very substantial for some reason.

“Not too bad, really,” Belgarath admitted grudgingly.

“It looks awfully solid to me, Belgarath,” Silk said nervously.

“It’s only an illusion, Silk,” the old man quietly reassured him. “A good one, but still only an illusion.”

The shadowy form on the platform before the altar rose to its full height and then pulled back its hood of darkness to reveal the hideous face Garion had seen in Torak’s throne room at Ashaba.

As the crowd fell to its knees with a great moan, Belgarath drew in his breath sharply. “When this crowd starts to disperse, don’t let the Grolim escape,” he instructed. “He’s actually seen the real Nahaz, and that means that he was one of Harakan’s cohorts. I want some answers out of him.” Then the old man drew himself up. “Well, I guess I might as well get started with this,” he said. He stepped up in front of the platform. “Fraud!” he shouted in a great voice. “Fraud and fakery!”

The Grolim stared at him, his eyes narrowing as he saw the designs drawn on his face. “On your knees before the Demon Lord,” he blustered.

“Fraud!” Belgarath denounced him again. He stepped up onto the platform and faced the stunned crowd. “This is no wizard, but only a Grolim trickster,” he declared.

“The Demon Lord will tear all your flesh from your bones,” the Grolim shrieked.

“All right,” Belgarath replied with calm contempt. “Let’s see him do it. Here. I’ll even help him.” He pulled back his sleeve, approached the shadowy illusion hovering threateningly before the altar and quite deliberately ran his bare arm into the shadow’s gaping maw. A moment later, his hand emerged, coming, or so it appeared, out of the back of the Demon Lord’s head. He pushed his arm further until his entire wrist and forearm were sticking out of the back of the illusion. Then, quite deliberately, he wiggled his fingers at the people gathered before the altar.

A nervous titter ran through the crowd.

“I think you missed a shred or two of flesh, Nahaz,” the old man said to the shadowy form standing before him.” There still seems to be quite a bit of meat clinging to my fingers and arm.” He pulled his arm back out of the shadow and then passed both hands back and forth through the Grolim’s illusion. “It appears to lack a bit of substance, friend,” he said to the tattooed man. “Why don’t we send it back where you found it? Then I’ll show you and your parishoners here a real demon.”

He put his hands derisively on his hips, leaned forward slightly from the waist, and blew at the shadow. The illusion vanished, and the tattooed Grolim stepped back fearfully.

“He’s getting ready to run,” Silk whispered to Garion. “You get on that side of the platform, and I’ll get on this. Thump his head for him if he comes your way.”

Garion nodded and edged around toward the far side of the platform.

Belgarath raised his voice again to the crowd. “You fall upon your knees before the reflection of the Demon Lord,” he roared at them. “What will you do when I bring before you the King of Hell?” He bent and quickly traced the circle and pentagram about his feet. The tattooed priest edged further away from him.

“Stay, Grolim,” Belgarath said with a cruel laugh. “The King of Hell is always hungry, and I think he might like to devour you when he arrives.” He made a hooking gesture with one hand, and the Grolim began to struggle as if he had been seized by a powerful, invisible hand.

Then Belgarath began to intone an incantation quite different from the one the Grolim had spoken, and his words reverberated from the vault of heaven as he subtly amplified them into enormity. Seething sheets of vari—colored flame shot through the air from horizon to horizon.

“Behold the Gates of Hell!” he roared, pointing.

Far out on the lake, two vast columns seemed to appear; between them were great billowing clouds of smoke and flame. From behind that burning gate came the sound of a multitude of hideous voices shrieking some awful hymn of praise.

“And now I call upon the King of Hell to reveal himself!” the old man shouted, raising his crooked staff. The surging force of his will was vast, and the great sheets of flame flickering in the sky actually seemed to blot out the sun and to replace its light with a dreadful light of its own.

From beyond the gate of fire carne a huge whistling sound that descended into a roar. The flames parted, and the shape of a mighty tornado swept between the two pillars. Faster and faster the tornado whirled, turning from inky black to pale, frozen white. Ponderously, that towering white cloud advanced across the lake, congealing as it came. At first it appeared to be some vast snow wraith with hollow eyes and gaping mouth. It was quite literally hundreds of feet tall, and its breath swept across the now-terrified crowd before the altar like a blizzard.

“Ye have tasted ice,” Belgarath told them. “Now taste fire! Your worship of the false Demon Lord hath offended the King of Hell, and now will ye roast in perpetual flames!” He made another sweeping gesture with his staff, and a deep red glow appeared in the center of the seething white shape that even now approached the shore of the lake. The sooty red glow grew more and more rapidly, expanding until it filled the encasing white entirely. Then the wraithlike figure of flame and swirling ice raised its hundred-foot-long arms and roared with a deafening sound. The ice seemed to shatter, and the wraith stood as a creature of fire.Flames shot from its mouth and nostrils, and steam rose from the surface of the lake as it moved across the last few yards of water before reaching the shore.