Mel Odom - The Black Road

"The sword has been needed before now," Taramis said gravely. "But Kabraxis is a cunning demon and doesn't ever use the same name twice. If it were not for Darrick's encounter with the demon in Tauruk's Port more than a year ago, we would not know which one we faced now."

"Iceclaw was a fierce and evil beast," the old man said. "The old stories tell of all the murder and carnage he wrought while he was in our world."

"There were two other times Kabraxis was in the world," Taramis said. "Both times before, Diablo and his brothers sought him out and returned him to the Burning Hells. Only the sword now offers a chance against the demon."

"You know why the sword has never been taken from my family before," Ellig Barrows said. The lantern light deepened the hollows of his eye sockets, making him look like a man days dead.

Darrick shivered at the thought.

"The sword has never allowed itself to be taken," Taramis said.

"Two kings have died trying to take this sword," the old man said.

Darrick hadn't known that. He glanced at Taramis, studying the sage's appearance in the lantern's pale yellow glow.

"They died," the sage said, "because they didn't understand the sword's true nature."

"So you say," Ellig Barrows replied. "There are mysteries about the sword that I don't know. That my grandfather before me didn't know, and his grandfather before him. Yet you come to my house and tell me you know more than all of them."

"Show me the sword," Taramis said, "and you can see for yourself."

"We have been responsible for the sword for so long. It has not been an easy burden to bear."

"It shouldn't have been," Taramis agreed. He faced the old man. "Please."

Sighing, the old man turned to the wall. "You take your own lives in your hands," he warned. His fingers inscribed arcane symbols in the air. As soon as each one was completed, it glowed briefly, then sank into the wall.

Darrick glanced at Taramis, wanting to ask why he instead of one of the other warriors had been brought on this part of their search. Even as he started to open his mouth, the root cellar wall shimmered and turned opaque.

Ellig Barrows raised the lantern, and the light shone into the room on the other side of the opaque stone wall. Eldritch energy sparkled inside the wall, illuminated by the lantern light.

Beyond the wall, wreathed in the shadows of the hidden room, a dead man lay in a niche cut into the hillside. His snow-white beard trailed down to his chest, and he wore animal hides over crude chainmail. A visored helm hid part of the shrunken features that bound the dead man's head. His arms crossed over his chest, and his withered hands-the yellow ivory of his knuckles showing through-gripped the hilt of a long sword.

In the hidden room in Ellig Barrows's root cellar, Darrick studied the sword Taramis Volken had come all this way to get and found the weapon was in no way like anything he'd imagined since the sage had told him of it. The sword appeared plain and unadorned, hammered from steel with a craftsman's skill but lacking the touch of an artist. The blade was an infantryman's weapon, not something that would invoke fear in demons.

"You're disappointed?" Ellig Barrows asked, looking at Darrick.

Darrick hesitated, not wanting to offend. "I had just expected something more."

"A jeweled weapon, perhaps?" the old man asked. "Something every bandit you met would want and try to steal? A weapon so unique and striking-looking that everyone would mark its passage and know it for what it was?"

"I hadn't thought of it like that," Darrick admitted. But he also wondered if someone had stolen the real sword a long time ago and left the barbaric piece in its stead. He immediately felt guilty for that, because it would have meant the old man's life had been spent doing useless guard duty.

Ellig Barrows stepped through the opaque wall. "The smith who forged this weapon did think of those things. Perhaps Stormfury isn't an elegant weapon, but you'll never find a truer one. Of course, you'll only know that if you're able to take it."

Taramis followed the old man through the wall.

After a moment, Darrick stepped through the mystical wall as well. A cold sensation gripped him as he passedthrough, and it felt as if he were walking through the thickest forest growth, having to fight his way through.

"The sword is protected from interlopers," Ellig Barrows said. "No man may touch it or take it if Kabraxis is not within this world."

"And if any try?" Darrick asked.

"The sword can't be taken," the old man said.

"What of the kings who died?"

"One slew members of my family," Ellig Barrows said. "He and all his warriors died less than a day later. The Light is not evil as the demons are, but it is vengeful against those who transgress against it. Another tried to drag Hauklin's body from its resting place. He rose that time and slew them all."

Standing in the crypt carved from the root cellar, Darrick felt afraid. Although the caverns under Tauruk's Port were larger and the huge doorway had seemed more threatening, the dead man lying with the sword clasped in his hands seemed just as deadly. Darrick would have gladly left the crypt and been satisfied never to see anything more of a magical nature.

He glanced at Taramis. "Why did you want me here?"

"Because you are tied to this," the sage said. "You have been since you witnessed Kabraxis's arrival on this plane." He looked at the dead man. "I think that you are the one who can take Hauklin's sword to use against the demon."

"Why not you?" Darrick demanded. For a moment he wondered if the sage was only using him, willing to risk his life in the effort to recover the sword.

Taramis turned and reached for the sword. His hand halted, quivering, in the air several inches from the weapon. The effort he made to reach the weapon corded muscle along his arm. Pain showed on his features. Finally, in disappointed disgust, he drew his arm back.

"I can't take it," the sage said. "I am not the one." He turned to Darrick. "But I believe that you are."

"Why?"

"Because the Light and the Darkness balance each other,"Taramis said. "Any time power is passed into this world from the Light or the Darkness, a balance must be made. Demons come into this world, and a means of defeating them is also created. If the Light tries to upset the balance by introducing an object of power that can be used against the Darkness, the powers of Darkness intercede to make the balance whole again. Ultimately, the true threat to the balance, whether the Light or the Darkness has the greater power in our world, is left up to us. The people. Just as when the Prime Evils appeared in this world during the time that came to be known as the Dark Exile, the Angel Tyreal gathered the magi, warriors, and scholars in the East and formed the Brotherhood of the Horadrim. Those people would never have come together with such power if the demons had not been loosed in our world. If Tyreal had tried to do this before the Prime Evils had arrived here, Darkness would have found a means to strike a balance."

"That doesn't explain why you think I can pick up that sword," Darrick said. He made no move to try.

"I heard the stories about you when I arrived in Westmarch," Taramis said. "And I began looking for you. But by the time I'd arrived, you'd vanished. I caught up with your ship, but no one knew where you were. I couldn't tell many that I was searching for you, because that might have alerted Kabraxis's minions, and your life could have become forfeit." He paused, locking his gaze with Darrick's. "As for the sword, perhaps I'm wrong. If I am, it will prevent you from taking it. You have nothing to lose."

Darrick glanced at Ellig Barrows.

"Over the years before the sword was hidden away," the old man said, "many tried to take it just as Taramis has. If there was no true evil in their hearts, they were only prevented from removing the sword."