He couldn't feel the stone beneath his feet, and he hated that fact of his existence more than anything else in all the world, more even than he hated this monster, this demon, his savior. For all the benefits of this wraithlike existence, Quintall missed the tangible sensations of his mortal form, the feel of grass or stone on his bare feet, the smell of dinner cooking, of brine when he looked out over All Saints Bay, the taste of shellfish or of the exotic herbs the Windrunner had taken on at Jacintha.
He stood now, or rather floated, in the dactyl's great columned hall at Aida before the obsidian throne and the monstrosity that was his god.
"We will be in Palmaris by midsummer,"' Bestesbulzibar explained, coming forward in his seat, the rough folds of its red hide shining in the orange glow of the lava rivers, pouring down through the walls and onto the floor at either side of the wide dais. "And Ursal shall be besieged when the season turns to autumn. Then the winter snows will not work against us as we roll on to the south, to Entel and the mountain range that separates the kingdoms."
"And will we stop there?" the spirit asked.
"Stop?" scoffed the dactyl. "We will entreaty with Behren's many chieftains; then find ways to use them against one another, and finally, when they do not expect war, we will sweep south. And all the world will be mine. Let humanity know its age of darkness."
Quintall couldn't disagree with the dactyl's reasoning. There were minor points untouched, to be sure. Alpinador, despite the brutal border raids and the subsequent, determined march to the coast, remained intact, but the northern kingdom was not an organized place and was not populous enough to pose any real threat.
"It is an age well earned," Bestesbulzibar said. "Your kin have only themselves to blame for the coming storm; their own weakness opened the way." The demon waved its wings and a rush of hot air passed through Quintall, a sensation the spirit somehow felt. And with that blow, Quintall remembered.
He remembered in incredible detail: all that he had been, all the promises of his mortal life. He remembered St.-Mere-Abelle, the journey to Pimaninicuit. He remembered Avelyn, damned Avelyn, and the rivalry. He heard again Avelyn's voice, his screams of protest when the Windrunner had been sunk, a voice touched, Quintall now knew, by God. He remembered chasing the rogue monk, the tales in town after town of the mad friar and his words of warning, words that rang all too true now.
Quintall looked at his demon master; he knew the dactyl had shown him his mortal memories only to torment him. Since he had come to Aida, since the moment of his mortal death when the hematite broach had somehow transported his spirit to Bestesbulzibar Quintall had remembered only that last encounter and not the path that had led him to Avelyn and the monk's powerful friends.
But now -- now he remembered. Everything. And he knew that he was a doomed thing, knew the dactyl's claims were true, that Avelyn's warnings were true. The weakness of mankind, the impiety of. the Abellican Church, the murders of the Windrunner's crew, his own jealousy of Brother Avelyn -- all these things had fed the demon dactyl, had awakened the darkness that now encroached upon the world.
Quintall loathed Bestesbulzibar but realized he was powerless against the fiend, realized he had fallen to the dactyl and that he could not escape.
Bestesbulzibar extended its hand palm down and telepathically demanded that Quintall pay homage.
The doomed spirit took the hand and kissed it.
There could be no redemption.
And Quintall knew the demon read his every thought, that his hopelessness only made the creature something more.
"You are useful to me," Bestesbulzibar said suddenly, "as you visit the dreams of men such as the fool Yuganick, as you walk unnoticed among our enemies. But I can do all that, Quintall."
The dactyl paused, and Quintall, in light of the last statement, expected that his time was at its end, that he would be blasted out of existence or thrown into a bottomless pit of eternal torment.
"I need more from you," the dactyl decided. Bestesbulzibar looked from Quintall to one of the lava rivers. "Yes," the creature muttered, talking more to itself than to the ghost. It moved across the dais, dipped one arm into the molten flow, then looked back at Quintall.
"Yes," the dactyl said again. "Do you not long to feel the sensations of the corporeal world once more?"
Quintall did indeed.
"I can do that, my stooge. I can give you life, real life, once more."
Quintall felt his spirit drifting toward the creature, though it was surely an unconscious movement.
"I can make you something greater," the demon whispered, and again the great black wings beat softly and a gust of hot wind passed through the spirit. After the gust, the heat remained.
The heat remained, and Quintall understood he was feeling the warmth of the lava!
Bestesbulzibar began a long, slow chant in a language the spirit did not understand, a guttural, cracking language of clicks and sounds that could only be equated with an old man clearing his phlegm-filled throat. Bestesbulzibar then spat upon Quintall, and the goo did not pass through the spirit, but struck him and stuck to him. Bestesbulzibar repeated the action over and over until Quintall was thoroughly slimed, then the fiend grabbed the spirit and, as Quintall screamed out in instinctive protest, plunged Quintall into the lava.
All the world was blackness, was searing heat and unbearable agony, and Quintall knew no more.
He awoke later, much later, though he was unaware of the passage of time. He was in the throne room still, standing, not floating, upon the solid floor.
He was a creature of lava; shaped like a man, shaped roughly as he had once been with arms and legs, rock hard torso and head, and joints somehow fluid, molten and glowing bright orange but not dripping away. He felt awkward, but he felt! He looked on in amazement as he opened and closed his black, orange-striped hand, understood the unearthly strength in that grip, and knew he could crush a stone -- or the head of an enemy.
The head of Avelyn.
Bestesbulzibar's wicked laughter drew Quintall from his contemplations.
"Are you pleased?" the demon asked.
Quintall did not know how to answer. He began to speak, but the sound of his own voice, of a voice that resonated like a rock slide, frightened him.
"You will grow accustomed to your new body, my stooge, my general," the dactyl teased, "my assassin. No giant could stand before you, and no man. When Palmaris falls, you will lead my army into the city, and you will take the seat of Honce-the-Bear's deposed King when Ursal is mine."
His power, sheer strength, was dizzying, overwhelming. Images of conquest flooded Quintall's every thought. He felt he could destroy Palmaris all. by himself, that no weapon, that no man, could possibly stand before him.
"Train your new body," Bestesbulzibar instructed. "Feel its powers and limitations and apply all that you once learned of the martial arts to this form. You area my general now, and my assassin. Let all men, let all creatures of Corona, tremble before you."
The fiend ended with yet another hideous laugh, but this time, Quintall heard his own grating voice joining in.
"The war goes well, my pet," the dactyl went on. "While you were asleep, your spirit binding to this gift I gave you, I viewed the southland, the unstoppable progress. Palmaris falls before midsummer, I say, and another
powrie force sails to join us, makes fast for the Broken Coast. One army will march south, the other west, inland, until they join at the very gates of Ursal! Who will stand before them? The feeble King of Honce-the-Bear?"
"I know nothing of kings," Quintall replied.
"But you do!" the dactyl teased. "You know of your Father Abbot, the doddering old fool, and even he is a more worthy foe than the jester who sits on the throne of Honce-the-Bear. Who will stand before the beast then?"
The answer seemed obvious to fallen Quintall. No one would stand before the beast, before his master, before his god. Suddenly, the man-turned-spirit- turned-lava monster wanted desperately to smash through the gates of Ursal, to take his place on the throne of Honce-the-Bear.
Even more than that, Quintall wanted to visit St.-Mere-Abelle, to face Father Abbot Markwart and Master Jojonah, to make them grovel at his stony feet and then step upon them and squash them, grind them to death. They had used him, he understood now, all too clearly. They had used him in' sending him to Pimaninicuit, and then again when they turned him into something less than human, when they, turned him into Brother Justice, the instrument of their anger. So now Bestesbulzibar had done the same thing, but in Quintall's estimation, the demon dactyl was by far the worthier master.
"You will watch over Aida and serve in my absence," Bestesbulzibar announced.
Quintall knew better than to question the beast at all.
That very night, the demon swept out of its mountain home, flying fast to the south to its minions. In mere hours, Bestesbulzibar covered the hundreds of miles to the base at Dundalis, where it found a rattled Gothra of the goblins and Maiyer Dek of the fomorian giants arguing fiercely.
How their words caught in their throats, how all the camp about them fell to stunned silence, when the dactyl dropped between them, when the absolute darkness fell from the night sky.
"Tell me!" the dactyl demanded, and both started talking at once, and both were silenced by a mere threatening glare. Bestesbulzibar looked at Maiyer Dek squarely.
"Our camps swell to bursting," the giant chieftain explained, even its thunderous voice seeming meek before the demon. "More should be sent south to face the armies of our enemy!"
The demon's eyes flared with fire. Its head snapped about, an accusing glare falling over the trembling goblin.
"Ulg Tik'narn cannot be found," Gothra stated. "Likely he is dead."
"So?" The demon snorted, for there seemed no shortage of potential replacements.
"The region is not secured," the goblin went on. "Nightbird owns the forest."
"He is a thorn!" Maiyer Dek roared. "And a charging giant does not stop to pluck a thorn!"
"A thorn that interrupts supply --' Gothra began, but he was cut short by the bloodcurdling shriek of the demon dactyl.
"Enough!" the beast thundered. "You mean to stall our thousands for the sake of this one man, this Nightbird?"
"Each area must be secured in t-turn," the goblin stuttered, realizing that this discussion was not going very well. Goblins by nature were conservative in their warfare tactics, securing territories one by one, then methodically moving along, rarely attacking unless complete victory could be assured.
Bestesbulzibar had little patience with that.
"I demand Palmaris, yet you hold back thousands to retain this pitiful village?" the dactyl roared.
"No," Gothra protested. The goblin general wanted to explain its reasoning, wanted to make its master see that supply lines might be interrupted, equipment and needed reinforcements destroyed or delayed, and that the result in the south, at Palmaris's very gate, perhaps, could be disastrous.
Gothra, no fool -- at least by goblin standards -- wanted to argue his point in logical, rational terms, but all that came from the goblin's mouth was an agonized scream as Bestesbulzibar reached out with one hand, clamping the goblin's held and pulling Gothra in. Smiling wickedly, Bestesbulzibar lifted its other hand so that all could see, then extended one finger, and with a thought, lengthened the fingernail into a terrible claw. A sudden, impossibly long swipe brought a shriek from Gothra, and the demon shoved the goblin back.
Gothra stared down at the line of blood running from forehead to crotch, then looked back at the demon.
Bestesbulzibar's hand reached out and clenched the air, and the demon's magic grabbed at Gothra
-- or at least at the goblin's skin, pulling it from the goblin's body as completely as if the demon were helping Gothra out of clothing. The fleshless thing fell quivering, dying, to the ground.
Not a sound came from about the beast as, clothing and all, the dactyl devoured the torn skin of Gothra.
"Who was Ulg Tik'narn's second?" Bestesbulzibar asked.
There came no immediate reply, but then one trembling powrie was pushed forward from the ranks to stand before the master.
"Your name?"
"Kos-" the dwarf's voice trailed off, lost in the terrified gasps.
"He is Kos-kosio Begulne,-" Maiyer Dek offered.
"And where did Kos-kosio Begulne stand on this issue?" the dactyl asked.
Maiyer Dek smiled confidently. "He wished to move south," the giant lied, for Maiyer Dek liked the thought of Kos-kosio, not a strong personality, in command of the powrie forces. "Or at least to strike hard and quickly at the petty human raiders, that the issue be settled and the greater road be open."
The demon nodded, seeming pleased, and Kos-kosio stood a bit straighter.
"You are the powrie commander now, Kos-kosio Begulne," Bestesbulzibar announced. "And you and Maiyer Dek shall share the leadership of the goblins until a suitable replacement for Gothra can be found." Bestesbulzibar shared his glowering visage with all gathered near. "You two I charge with delivering Palmaris on the Masur Delaval by midsummer's eve. I will see you at the gates of Palmaris, my generals, and if I find need to see you before those gates are mine, then look upon Gothra's fate as your own!"
With a flourish, a thunderous beating of wings, and a bit of magic to make the flames of the main fire in the camp leap high into the night, the demon dactyl took wing, flying fast for the west to view the other occupied villages, to see its massing might spread out beneath it. Satisfied as End-o'-the-World was left behind, the beast turned northward, thinking to swoop low over the newest caravan plodding south, to encourage its minions and to strike fear in their hearts all at once.
But something else caught the beast's attention, some sensation, some presence the dactyl had not felt in many centuries. Lower went the demon, and slower, turning tight circles, sharp eyes scouring the terrain, keen ears tuning to every sound.
There was an elf about, Bestesbulzibar knew. One of the Touel'alfar, the dactyl demon's most ancient and hated of enemies.
