Mel Odom - The Black Road

"No." Kabraxis crossed his arms over his huge chest. Muscles rippled in his forearms and shoulders.

"How could you not know? We built this place. You have wards everywhere around the grounds."

"I was also making your miracle happen at the time of your attack," Kabraxis said. "I made two whole boys from the conjoined twins, and that was no easy feat. People will be talking about that for years. While I was still working on that, your assassin struck."

"You couldn't save me from that arrow?" Assessing the demon's abilities and powers had been out of Cholik's reach. Did the Black Road consume Kabraxis so much that it left him weak? That knowledge might be important. But it was also frightening to realize that the demon was limited and fallible after Cholik had tied his destiny to Kabraxis.

"I trusted the mercenaries hired with the gold that I have made available to you to save you from something like this," Kabraxis answered.

"Don't make that mistake again," Cholik snapped.

Deliberately, Kabraxis twisted the bloody quarrel in his hands. Lines in his harsh face deepened. "Never make the mistake of assuming you are my equal, Buyard Cholik. Familiarity breeds contempt, but it also pushes you toward sudden death."

Watching the demon, Cholik realized that Kabraxis could just as easily thrust the bolt through his chest again. Only this time the demon could pierce his heart. He swallowed, hardly able to get around the thick lump in his throat. "Of course. Forgive me. I forgot myself in the heat of the moment."

Kabraxis nodded, dipping his horns, almost scratching the ceiling.

"Did the guards catch the assassin?" Cholik asked.

"No."

"They failed even in that? They could not protect me, and they could not get vengeance on the person who nearly killed me?"

Disinterested, the demon dropped the quarrel to the floor. "Punish the guards as you see fit, but realize that something else has come of this."

"What?"

Kabraxis faced Cholik. "Hundreds of people saw you killed today. They were certain of it. There was much weeping and wailing among them."

The thought that the crowd had lamented his apparent death filled Cholik with smugness. He liked the way the people of Bramwell curried favor with him when he passed through the city's streets, and he liked the desperate envy he saw in their eyes regarding his place in the worship of their new prophet. They acknowledged the power that he wielded, each in his or her own way.

"Those people thought the Way of Dreams was going to be denied to them as a result of your murder," Kabraxis said. "Now, however, they're going to believe that you're something much more than human, made whole again by Dien-Ap-Sten. Talk will go out past Bramwell even more, and the miracles that were seen here will grow in the telling."

Cholik thought about that. Although he would not have chosen the action, he knew that what the demon said was true. His fame, and that of Dien-Ap-Sten, would grow because of the murder attempt. Ships and caravans would carry the stories of the conjoined twins and his near assassination across the sea and the land. The stories, as they always did, would become larger than life as each person told another.

"More people will come, Buyard Cholik," Kabraxis said. "And they will want to be made to believe. We must be prepared for them."

Striding to the window, Cholik looked out at Bramwell. The city was already bursting at the seams as a result of the church's success. Ships filled the harbor, and tent camps had sprung up in the forests around Bramwell.

"An army of believers lies outside the walls of this church waiting to get in," Kabraxis said. "This church is too small to deal with them all."

"The city," Cholik said, understanding. "The city will be too small to hold them all after this."

"Soon," Kabraxis agreed, "that will be true."

Turning to face the demon, Cholik said, "You didn't think it would happen this quickly."

Kabraxis gazed at him. "I knew. I prepared. Now, you must prepare."

"How?"

"You must bring another to me whom I may remake as I have remade you."

Jealousy flamed through Cholik. Sharing his power and his prestige wasn't acceptable.

"You won't be sharing," Kabraxis said. "Instead, you will take on greater power by acquiring this person and bending him to our power."

"What person?"

"Lord Darkulan."

Cholik considered that. Lord Darkulan ruled Bramwell and had a close relationship with the King of Westmarch. During the problem with Tristram, Lord Darkulan had been one of the king's most trusted advisors.

"Lord Darkulan has let people know he's suspicious of the church," Cholik countered. "In fact, there was talk for a time of outlawing the church. He would have done it if the people hadn't stood so firmly against that, and if the opportunity for taxing the caravans and ships bringing the people from other lands hadn't come up."

"Lord Darkulan's concern has been understandable. He's been afraid that we would win the allegiance of his people." Kabraxis smiled. "We have. After today, that is a foregone conclusion."

"Why are you so sure?"

"Because Lord Darkulan was in the audience today."

A chill stole over Cholik at Kabraxis's announcement about Lord Darkulan's presence in the church. The man had never come there before.

"Lord Darkulan entered the church disguised," Kabraxis went on. "No one knew he was here except for his bodyguards and me. And now you."

"He may have hired the assassin," Cholik said, feeling his anger rise. He gazed down at his chest, seeing the crimson-stained robe and the hole where the quarrel had penetrated. Only unblemished flesh showed beneath now.

"No."

"Why are you so certain?"

"Because the assassin strove alone to murder you," Kabraxis said. "If Lord Darkulan had organized the murder, he would have ordered three or four crossbowmen into the church. You would have been dead before you hit the floor."

Cholik's mouth went dry. A thought occurred to him, one that he didn't want to investigate, but he was drawn to it as surely as a moth was drawn to the candle flame. "If they had killed me, would you have been able to return me to life?"

"If I'd had to do that, Buyard Cholik, you would not have recognized the true chill of death. But neither would you have known again the fiery passion of life."

An undead thing , Cholik realized. The thought almost made him sick. Images of lurching zombies and skeletons with ivory grins came to him. As a priest for the Zakarum Church, he'd been called on to clear graveyards and buildings of undead things that had once been humans and animals.And he had nearly been damned with coming back as one of them. His stomach twisted in rebellion, and sour bile painted the back of his mouth.

"You would not have been merely animated as those things were," Kabraxis said. "I would have gifted you with true unlife. Your thoughts would have remained your own."

"And my desires?"

"Your desires and mine are closely aligned at this time. There would have been little you would have missed."

Cholik didn't believe it. Demons lived their lives differently from men, with different dreams and passions. Still, he couldn't help wondering if he would have been less-or more?

"Perhaps," Kabraxis said, "when you are more ready, you'll be given the chance to find out. For now, you've learned to hang on to your life as it is."

"Then why was Lord Darkulan here?" Cholik asked.

The demon smiled, baring his fangs. "Lord Darkulan has a favored mistress dying of a slow-acting poison that was given to her by Lady Darkulan only yesterday."

"Why?"

"Why? To kill her, of course. It seems that Lady Darkulan is a jealous woman and only discovered three days ago that her husband was seeing this other woman."