Брюс Корделл - Lady of Poison

Then the molting layers revealed more recent occurrences. Marrec saw blightlords releasing poisonous spells, rots of terrible efficacy, and magical diseases spreading across the Rawlinswood and across the forest of Lethyr. He saw the cruel new sorceries devised by the Rotting Man. Seeing, the cleric understood what the Rotting Man intended should the Daughter ever achieve complete integration; he saw the massacres, the deaths, the plains strewn with slain armies left to decay and disintegrate in the noon-day sun. He saw the Rotting Man’s hope for final triumph.

Little of the Daughter was left now. The core of rot remaining scrambled like a live thing, trying to escape. Marrec stabbed it with Justlance. Screaming, the blot skittered away but Marrec stabbed it gain. It lay quivering, and Ususi, stepping out of the surrounding mist where she had hidden, burned the place where it lay with magical flame.

The layers were shed and the core was gone, but something remained behind, hiding behind the core. It was washed clean. It was whole, complete, and shining. It was a great unicorn, white and gold, with eyes too bright to look into, or maybe it was a woman, whose features reminded Marrec instantly of little Ash. It was the woman Ash would have grown up to be. Rather, it was the Aspect the Green Powers had intended to send all along. Araluen.

Araluen fixed Marrec with a look from her blazing eyes. She said, “I forgive myself for succumbing to the Rotting Man’s trap, as you have forgiven yourself for your accident of birth. Redeemed in our own eyes, we are both of us fit to serve Lurue.” The unicorn touched Marrec lightly on the forehead with its crystal horn. Knowledge was imparted to the cleric, and he smiled.

With curses so potent that minor creatures of decay were produced from each utterance, the Rotting Man stood up from his throne.

The battle between growth and decay, years delayed, was joined.

The form of the Talontyr shuddered. His skin rippled, split, and something far larger emerged from the husk—a nightmare of slime and liquefying limbs, melting and reforming. At the same time, the Aspect incanted a series of divine syllables. Her body grew in stature equal to that of the Talontyr rebirthed, and a sword of celestial fire ignited in her hand. Then she was upon the Rotting Man in a fury of righteous might.

Groaning, the rotting husk gave ground, but not quickly enough. The celestial blade cleaved the slime-ridden form, splitting it into two heaving masses. The section farther from Araluen continued to retreat, its gesticulating arms spraying gore as they jerked through an intricate series of spell-casting motions. Meanwhile, the split-off portion of the Rotting Man heaved and pulsed—each section retained a life all its own. It threw itself at the Aspect, its side splitting to reveal a great toothed maw.

Araluen cried out as the attacking portion of the Rotting Man bit at her sword arm, its mouth crunching and slobbering. Light, not blood, spilled from the Aspect’s flesh, and it burned the beast, forcing the creature to relinquish its hold, but the monstrosity’s incanting twin finished its spell.

A ghastly greenish-black cloud blossomed above, but beneath the overhanging branches of the Close. Crashing claps of thunder boomed in its depths, the sound so loud that the Aspect winced and backed away, shaking her head as if to clear it of ringing tones.

The creature leaped again, this time taking a bite from Araluen’s side. Again, light spilled forth from the wounded avatar, and again the rotting creature’s flesh boiled in the light, and it retreated. The Aspect hacked at it with her sword for good measure, using the flat of her divinely fashioned blade. Its impact caused the creature to shudder and squeal, but it did not further subdivide.

The gesticulating portion of the Rotting Man pointed straight above at the boiling green cloud. In answer, six jagged bolts of lightning ripped from the clouds belly, each one finding its target: the Aspect. The blast was too searing for sight to survive, and the wind that followed knocked every creature flat that stood within a hundred feet. The shock wave shredded the mist that still clung around the periphery of the space, whipping it away in steaming ribbons, revealing the entire space of the Close.

Araluen crawled forth from the crater that had opened at her feet. The crystal horn on her forehead seemed somewhat dimmer than before, but the blaze of her sword was yet bright. The lesser portion of the Rotting Man was nowhere to be seen. The greater portion cursed anew as he saw the Aspect emerging from what he had hoped was her grave.

The slime hardened, stretched, and transmuted itself into yet another form, that one more heinous than the last. It was a great twining serpent with ebony scales and with eyes like dark pits of space that ate light—twin vortexes of nothingness.

Free of the crater, Araluen again spoke forth ringing words of power and touched her blade to the buckled pavement. A white flame surged down the blade, continued across the space separating her from the Rotting Man in serpent’s shape, and flared into a nova of fire. The serpent screamed as its scales ignited and its breath burned it from within. Still shrieking it leaped forward, out of the fire, and still burning, it charged the Aspect. Its teeth were like daggers, its claws swords, and its wings a tornado.

Araluen smote at the snaking neck but missed. The Rotting Man was upon her, biting and raking with his claws. Araluen dropped her sword, and her hands found the Talontyr’s neck. The crystal horn on her forehead began to blaze with light, a light similar to that which accompanied her transformation from Daughter to Aspect. The dark wells of the Rotting Man’s eyes drank all the light, but there was yet more to give. The light flared; the darkness expanded. The ground shook.

The shining horn pierced the Rotting Man’s side, and all was tumult.

When the ground finally ceased its shuddering, the celestial lights faded, the hellish dark cleared, and the thundering detonations echoed their last, the Aspect proved the mightier that day.

Marrec had watched the entire battle, when it wasn’t obscured by releases of energy too extreme even for one accustomed to powers of divine magnitude.

With Marrec stood his friends Ususi and Gunggari.

Elowen, barely living, yet drew breath and would only grow the stronger with the cleric’s healing attention.

Of the Rotting Man, only the memory of his final words remained, as he fled the field of battle, “I yield only for this moment.”

Araluen was much diminished from her struggle. She stood apart from the others, gazing about the Close, which was visible following the dispersing mist.

The Aspect said, “The Rotting Man is gone from this place, but he is not beaten. Talona’s Chosen was chastised, but his power was not broken.”

“Ash … I mean, Araluen,” said Marrec, “I don’t understand. You defeated the Talontyr; we saw you.”

The Aspect, having taken the form of a tall, lithe woman smiled sadly. “The effort it cost me to free my greater self from the cystborn curse was not insignificant. Retrieving myself from the Rotting Man’s influence was an awful trial, though one which I could not have begun without your timely assistance, kind Marrec.”

The cleric’s face reddened.

Araluen continued, “But I succeeded, finally. What power remained to me was called immediately to the fore when I faced the Rotting Man. As you saw, he carries much of Talona’s power within him. I had to exhaust my stores just to chase him away. Had he known how much power I expended, he might have stayed to finish me, risking his own final annihilation.”

“His strength is unchanged?” Marrec glanced around, studying the edges of the Close, making sure some new incursion was not even then creeping up unobserved.