A Monster Inside, page 34
part #1 of Undying Prince Series
“People keep saying that.” Erik sighed.
“Hold this,” Tandri said, passing Erik the torch. “Down!”
As one the soldiers dropped to their knees, and Tandri leaped to his feet, throwing the jug. It struck the Vatn Björn in the face and shattered, bursting into orange flames. The monster squealed as its moist flesh caught fire; it backed away as fast as it could. The soldiers cheered, shaking their spears in jubilation.
Tandri laughed, a self-satisfied sound. “It thought us easy meat. We disabused it of that notion.” The cheers grew louder. “Forward men! Forward!”
The soldiers chased after the Vatn Björn in clanking armor, in four rows of five, rushing at it with spears at the ready. Darkness hid the interior of the corridor that the monster had scurried inside, slowing the soldiers’ steps with caution. Anything could be waiting within the blackened interior.
Tandri sucked air through his teeth as if his displeasure was not evident enough by the scowl on his face. “I said forward!”
“Make way,” Erik said, the torch held above his head and his longsword in his right hand. He pushed himself to the front of the ranks and entered the corridor. Both walls had been smashed apart, expanding the corridor into the size of a large chamber. The floor was covered with a pulsing and swelling pale, meat-like substance, and dotted with the bodies of dead, golden-surcoated Punishers and a black-coated man. Out of the skull of each corpse grew a large stalk with two round growths that looked like the center of a sunflower.
Fear radiated off the men behind him, but Erik put it out of his mind and stepped deeper into the makeshift chamber. He caught a glimpse of the tail end of the Vatn Björn disappearing down the stairway where the thick iron bound door with a small iron grill once stood.
“This is why we should kill every Sorcerer,” Tandri said, stepping beside Erik. A murmur of agreement rose behind them.
I agree, Patrick said. Kill, kill them all, Asbjörn sang in the rhythm of a child’s lullaby.
Rip out hearts and eat.
Erik moved toward the stairwell, glancing both ways at once, fearful that another Vatn Björn, or maybe some other monstrosity would appear at any moment. The thumping hearts of the soldiers that followed behind him were thunder to his ears. His every sense was focused on signs of danger, yet the odor rising from the green and yellow, mucus-flecked floor made his sense of smell all but useless. Every step he took, he was in danger of slipping and throwing up.
Braver than most, Tandri stooped beside a corpse. Frowning, he stretched out a hand to touch the stalk protruding out of the Punisher’s skull. “What do you think this thing—”
“Don’t touch it!” Erik said.
The Lightbender raised an eyebrow at the Prince. “How stupid do you think I look?”
Nervous laughter filled the room, and terrified soldiers gave each other grins of encouragement. The growths on the stalk in front of Tandri exploded with a soft, popping sound, spreading thousands of pollen-like spores into the air. Face turning red, the Lightbender fell back with his hands going around his throat. More popping sounds cut through the chamber.
Erik’s lungs clogged with fungal spores. He stumbled, dropping his sword and torch as everyone else collapsed to the floor. The surrounding walls faded into a haze. He could feel reality tremble, feel himself unraveling. There was something inside, something desperately trying to seize control of his body.
SENDU.
The voice wobbled Erik, ripping through his innards, toppling him to the floor. That one word struck his mind like an anvil and shattered his thoughts like glass. He was aware of the warmth of pulsing flesh against his cheek; everything else was darkness and pain.
SENDU. SENDU. SE—EAT!
The Celestial Dragon blazed like the sun, consuming the darkness inside Erik, flooding him with awesome power. He thought he might melt, but then he mastered the torrent and directed his body to devour the spores. The pain receded, and the world once again became stable.
Fucking Sorcerers. Patrick groaned. I hate Sorcerers.
Hearts still pounding, Erik jolted to his feet and looked around the chamber. The torch had somehow managed to remain lit, providing the room with its only source of light. Nearby, Tandri was on his knees puking out yellow bile; all the other men were still on the ground, writhing in torment. Eyes wary, Erik reclaimed the torch and his longsword.
“Can you stand?” Erik asked Tandri.
The Lightbender stood, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “What the fuck was that? I had to burn a third of my prana just to keep my mind from being overwhelmed.”
“A gift from Ypse, I assume.” Erik breathed, and the soldiers jerked to their feet as one, eyes glowing like yellow bile. “I don’t have time for this. Kill them and make sure that no one else enters the corridor.”
“What will you be doing?” Tandri asked, casually avoiding the spear thrust at him by one of the corrupted soldiers. His sword left his scabbard smoothly and just as smoothly took off the yellow-eyed man’s head. Golden-green blood sprayed into the air.
“Killing Ypse.”
Without a backward glance, Erik charged down the stairwell; it was covered in the same flesh-like structure as the corridor, making every step treacherous. The walls were broken and cracked as if something large had forced its way down.
What if. . . . Patrick began.
There was no need for him to finish that statement, the same thought kept rattling through Erik’s head space. What if Ypse had done to Hanna what he had been done to the soldiers? What if she was dead? What if? The unknown seemed to increase the possible outcomes into infinity, and they appeared all just as likely.
At the bottom of the stairway, Erik hopped over the dead body of a Punisher with a stalk growing from his head and sped down the dark tunnel, his torch held out in front. Even the smoke from the torch could not mask the stench that tried to overwhelm him. But all his attention lay at the end of the tunnel, in the pursuit, in the man he must kill.
Erik leaped over two more dead bodies and ran on. Whatever traps Ypse had laid to destroy him, he moved too quickly to fall victim to them. He was in the sorcerer’s cavern, strutting through the rubbled gap that had once been a heavily guarded door. Pieces of wood still hung from hinges like broken teeth. And Ypse watched him from the center of the domed chamber, yellow eye glowing, misshapen flesh pillar encasing his lower half. Red wires like exposed veins sprouted off from Ypse’s skull into the darkness above. And four torches supported by twisted flesh illuminated his hybrid existence.
“Welcome, my Prince,” Ypse said. His upper body was unclothed, and his skin hung loosely off his bones as if he had not eaten in weeks. “I had an inkling you would show up to ruin my plans. Indeed, I expected you sooner, but now it’s too late. I’m free of you!” Shadows shifted, and two Vatn Björns approached Erik from opposite sides of the room.
“I don’t care why you did what you did,” Erik shouted. “I only have one question: Where’s my wife? Answer it truthfully, and I won’t make you suffer before I kill you.” The longsword spun in his hand, and torch light roiled off its deadly surface.
Ypse laughed, fingering his missing eye. “How merciful of you. She gave me this, and I threw the little cunt into the hole. If she’s lucky, she’s dead. If she’s lucky. But if she’s not, she fell into the hands of our gray-skinned friends. They’re fascinating creatures; obviously conceived by the mind of a pervert. They live in burrows deep within the earth, millions of them, each colony separated from the others by design. Otherwise, they would have come together to overwhelm the lands to the south. I theorize that even during the height of the Dökk Wars we only ever fought two colonies, and there are hundreds of them spread across the Northern Reaches.” He dropped his hand from his missing eye. “For your sake, I hope she’s dead.”
I threw the little cunt into the hole. The phrase repeated over and over in Erik’s mind, rendering the rest of the Sorcerer’s words almost unhearable. He took a step forward, and the ember of monstrous hatred inside him grew, expanding larger than the skyline seen through a twisted prism. The torch dropped from his hand, and his body ballooned, assuming the Celestial Dragon’s black-and-gold-scaled form. Liquid fire surged through his veins, a fire hotter and fiercer than the magma boiling at the earth’s core. He could sense the Hunger build in him, gnawing at his inside, begging to be appeased. What was once cloaked in shadows transformed to perfect clarity under the power of his Celestial Vision.
“Marvelous.” Ypse clapped. “Now show me what you can do!”
“GIVE ME BACK MY WIFE!”
Chapter 41
Stones rattled, and walls shook as the deep boom of Erik’s dragon voice reverberated through the chamber, vibrating into flesh, bone, and rock. It was as if a bottomless cavern had been given the ability to speak. Ypse grimaced, eye flashing, hands jumping to cover his ears.
Kill him, Asbjörn said. Kill them all!
Before the last echo faded, the Vatn Björns attacked the Prince from both sides. Hate pulsing inside him, he charged forward without fear. He counterattacked, and with the torrent of power filling him, he felt unstoppable. Pale, slimy flesh met dragon claws, and tore, giving slightly beneath the might of Erik’s blows. The Vatn Björns barreled back, leaking crimson rivers, which were already healing as they came to a stop.
All around the domed chamber lay large, bulbous, spherical nodules. They grew out of the floor like massive boils, each with a different misshapen monster developing within its interior. One by one, like broken eggshells, the nodules ruptured, spewing undeveloped horrors onto the floor. They crawled, stumbled, and lumbered toward Erik when intact, at least; more ended up as twitching corpses than not. For every creature that could move, ten were rendered useless with blood pouring out of strange-looking orifices. Some lay toppled in heaps. Others lurched with missing limbs or double heads. Swiftly as they could, they raced across sprawling mounds of flesh, the quickest few already clinging to Erik’s colossal form like cancerous growths.
Erik hobbled forward, scrambling over a tide of swarming abominations, crunching monsters beneath his scaled stomach like dead weeds. The floor groaned and quaked, and the monsters snarled in surprise. Rocked by the blow of a Vatn Björn, he fell again, rolling and picking himself up with creatures flinging from his back. Hooked appendages and arms like curved swords reached for him, unable to find purchase on his scaled form.
“Do you remember the last time we stood in this chamber, under this roof?” Ypse asked, watching the unfolding drama, seemingly unperturbed by the brutal battle. “We talked about the past and your bloodline. A thousand years ago, your forebear escaped from a sorcerer’s cavern and today you’ll die in one. Fitting don’t you think? There’s a kind of poetic symmetry to the whole thing.”
“GIVE ME BACK MY WIFE!” Erik roared. Death clothed in the form of a Celestial Dragon, he opened his maw even wider, and fire poured out of his mouth, pulsing brightly with searing heat, sweeping a wave of abominations with orange flames. Much simpler to burn them to ash than to fight them with tooth and claw. Those who could run, ran. But it was useless. His blistering breath lit the darkness, consuming those below him, charring faces without eyes, faces contorted in agony. They had depended on numbers to overwhelm him, yet the ferocity of the conflagration turned them into offerings on a pyre; meat sizzled with the occasionally rupturing pocket of fat until nothing was left but blackened tar.
Erik closed his mouth and the stream of flames vanished. He stood among the dying, poised to release a new jet of fire. The last Vatn Björn to fall still thrashed, claws scraping on the flesh-covered floor. Burning monstrosities yet flung about, screaming, howling at the ceiling; death by fire was not painless, even for them.
Ypse stared, lips parting in a thin smile. “You think you’ve won, don’t you? That this is over, but I promise you it’s just beginning. Do you hear me?” The shrieks and guttural cries of pain that once filled the room sounded fainter. “The throne will never be yours. You’re destined for failure because I’m coming. For my daughter, for everything you hold dear! Do you hear me? I will be the next King—the next Sorcerer-King!”
Erik moved toward Ypse, carefully inching forward, huge teeth flashing in the torchlight. He had to find Hanna, and Ypse was the only one with the information he sought. There was only one way to get the Sorcerer to reveal his secrets, but Erik was loathe to even contemplate it. The thought of having another unruly voice in his head sickened him. For her, I would burn the world. For her, this I can do.
Patrick groaned. You’re making a mistake. You don’t want a Sorcerer in your head. One mad man is bad enough, he said. Asbjörn cut in, murmuring, Madness is a raven on a wall, a group is an unkindness. Asbjörn laughed, and Patrick groaned louder.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Ypse yelled.
“No point. Soon, I’ll know what you know.” Erik came to a stop twenty meters away from the Sorcerer. He had never searched for a particular memory while consuming someone, but he was sure it was possible. And there was only one way to find out for certain.
“W-what do you mean?”
Dragon claws uncoiled into tendrils of bright red flesh, creeping toward the misshapen pillar Ypse stood encased in, devouring the strange floor as it went. The Sorcerer howled, and Erik convulsed as his head rang like a beaten gong. Thoughts shattered and everything doubled in his vision. Erik could see himself through Ypse’s eye, but the strangeness did not stop there. He sensed a bond forming with the sorcerer’s cavern, slowly connecting him with the throbbing, flesh-like organism that covered the walls and floor.
“What are you doing?” the Sorcerer shrieked, thrashing back and forth uncontrollably. Terrified, he watched tendrils swell into more tendrils and petals as they worked their way up his encased lower half.
A part of Erik drifted through a world of shining mist, the part that was bonding with Ypse. Balls of glowing amber dotted the strange landscape, floating apart and together. Unconsciously, the Prince reached out, as though his mind had become a hand and grasped one ball, falling into it. He could see through the eyes of a soldier battling Sir Tandri above, sense the wooden spear in his own hands. Pain flared from a sword thrust into his throat.
“No!” Ypse yelled, stretching his hands toward the ceiling.
The flesh-like organism covering the holes in the domed roof retreated, and gallons of oil rained down below. Torches and still-burning corpses met flammable liquid, and numerous rivers of flames flowed together, merging as they roared through the chamber. A scream tore through the inferno, a man shrieking in misery beyond knowing.
Erik tumbled aimlessly through the shining mist that was slowly receding before his eyes. No! Dimly, he was aware of the flames devouring Ypse and the tendrils wrapped around the Sorcerer. Hanna. Where is Hanna? The glowing mist wavered and transformed into an image of Hanna, eyes wide, falling backward, into a gaping hole in the ground. It faded into nothing, but it was long enough to recognize the location as Viscount Baldur’s private gardens.
Erik opened his eyes. There were no one else in the chamber now. By the look of the burning corpse, Ypse had already burned to death, flesh blackened by heat, hanging half-melted on his chest. The inferno climbed up the walls, and the sorcerer’s breeding cavern was no more.
Erik stumbled back, still in dragon form. The charred tendrils and petals tore away from his body, spilling fresh blood that was soon darkened by the heat of the sea of flames. Pain flared, but it was nothing compared to the taint of fear beating inside him. The sense of horror in his chest shook like ten-thousand lightning bolts, one blast dropped on top of the last. The very ground seemed to pound beneath his claws, shivering into his dragon bones.
Please, don’t be dead. Hanna . . . please.
Limping, he shrank in size, morphing into an ebony-and-gold-scaled man, ghosting out of the chamber in a haze, carelessly placing one foot after another. He was aware of the choking scent of overcooked meat, the feel of orange flames dancing on his scales, and the squeaky sounds that dogged his every step. He meandered down the tunnel and up the broken stairwell.
Don’t lose hope, my son, Asbjörn said. If she dies, she’ll die in your arms. This much I know.
Erik stopped halfway up the stairwell. The air was cleaner up there; the fire had yet to work its way up that high. “What do you mean?”
There’s a pattern, can’t you see it? Asbjörn paused, seeming to ponder the unfathomable. Everything you do follows the grooves worked into the world. Your choices are few and your path always guided. What—
Stop looking for meaning in the spoken words of a mad man. You have more pressing concerns, especially now, Patrick said. I miss the good old days, when it was just the two of us in your head, he said, more to himself.
With gusts of warm air nipping at his heels, Erik continued his climb up the stairwell, changing into his fully human form, losing his scales. The blue robe once again adorned his body and the dragon-hilted swords hung at his waist. The weapons surprised him; he did not recall what happened to them during the heat of the battle with Ypse, yet here they now were. Skin prickled between his shoulder blades and a sense of foreboding took hold of him. Putting the sensation aside, he strode into the corridor that had been widened into a chamber.
Tandri spun toward the stairwell, longsword dripping with golden-green blood. Sweat ran down his face, and his chest heaved in and out. “Ypse?” he asked, lowering his weapon.
“Dead,” Erik said. The fiery glow behind him revealed a floor littered with the corpses of armored men and the strange pulsing tissue they lay upon. He scanned the bodies, and the crawling sensation returned, making him feel like he was being watched through the dead men’s eyes.
