"I don't know. Maybe it's a stupid idea. But everything's all hidden away down there. Maybe the plague won't follow us."

  "That is kind of stupid. Let's try it anyway." Dante looked around to reassure himself the lich wasn't playing some fiendish trick on them, but the night was perfectly still and quiet aside from a few insects over in the forest.

  He walked across the field of stone shards to the entrance to the mine. This was large enough to drive a wagon through, and as dark as the rear ends of the oxen hitched to it. They couldn't use their own ether to light the way, so Dante produced his torchstone and tentatively blew on it. Its wan light reached down the tunnel without drawing any of the red force to it.

  The ground was smoothed from many years of many feet. The walls were scattered with children's drawings of animals from the swamps. This was apparently one way the children of the Mara Taub kept themselves occupied while their parents kept them cooped up in the hills. There were numerous side passages but Dante stuck to the main one, meaning to get some distance from the outdoors. There was nothing overtly menacing or eerie about the tunnels, yet they still had a feel to them, as if the demons had left a scent in them that could only be burned away with fire.

  The main tunnel felt like it might well go on forever, so after five minutes and a quarter mile of unimpeded travel, Dante decided to call it good enough. At the next intersection, he took the offshoot, and soon found himself in a decent-sized cavern.

  "All right," he said. "Time to find out how dumb this really is."

  Without bothering to draw any of his own blood first, he summoned a droplet of shadows to the palm of his hand. No angry red static shot up from it, so he expanded it to a ball, then swallowed his hand in it.

  He dismissed it and looked up at Blays. "How did you know that would work?"

  Blays shrugged. "I didn't? It just kind of felt like a giant castle or something. You know, a place that keeps out bad stuff. Anyway, it kind of feels like Nolost is always looking down on us, casting these curses from on high. I thought if we got out from under his eye maybe we'd get out from under the curses too."

  To be certain the first time hadn't been an exception, Dante summoned and dismissed both nether and ether. With everything looking perfectly normal, he got out the light of life, who floated in the air beside him, and then the lichstone, which he set on the ground in front of him.

  "First, nether that acts like ether." He cut his knuckle, flexing out a bit of blood, and called on the shadows.

  The task would have been impossible for an apprentice, and still challenging for many priests and sorcerers. But he knew how the nether functioned so well that he had no trouble making it go still as he drew it out into what he felt was a pretty presentable pattern of spirals and connective splines.

  He held it in the air before him, making sure that it was stable, then brought it to him and sank it into his chest, as Gladdic had done. "I'm ready. I think."

  "You should be sure," said the light.

  "I'm sure."

  The light tilted forward. It detached a piece of itself, hanging this in the air between Dante and the lichstone. A second source of flawless light jumped from the stone, standing vertically before bending toward Dante's chest. He braced himself. It made contact with his sternum.

  He felt no more than a slight coolness. Yet he could feel the presence lurking in it like he would an animal in a cave he'd just entered. As if aware of his thoughts, it gave up the ruse and galloped toward him. Instead of grappling with it directly, he mentally stepped to the side and deflected it. Like that, it was gone.

  "Now I take the light into me," he said.

  "Slowly and steadily," Gladdic advised.

  They didn't in fact know that that was necessary, but it had worked for Gladdic, so Dante decided it probably wasn't worth experimenting with. He moved his mind into the stone and coaxed a thin flow of ether from it.

  It was shockingly concentrated. So much so that when it first touched him he swayed back and nearly fell over. He righted himself and, after a momentary pause, resumed the flow.

  It felt incredible. In its way even more intoxicating than the dalax. For that had been nothing but low pleasure. This, though, bore a feeling of vitality beyond all measure, of a mastery of knowledge and skill, of the ability to grab hold of a thing and reshape it at will. He could already tell that once the process was complete, he would be able to see the underlying shape and nature of the world that was hidden to human eyes. And all of this—this strength and revelation—was made even more potent by the fact that he wasn't doing this to attain selfish personal power, but to save his citizens and all other peoples of the world from extermination.

  The ether of the lichstone moved smoothly into him and after a little while, having shown him no difficulties whatsoever, he increased the volume, and found no troubles with this either. The process was all but acting on its own at this point and he sent part of his mind into the ether within him. It swirled beautifully, like living light, and it was a part of him and would soon thrust him to a glory beyond all imagination.

  The light had told him that it was necessary to distribute this ether evenly throughout his body, and he set to doing so, shepherding it through his veins and down his limbs until every part of him glowed from within.

  The lichstone was starting to dim, but it was still heavy with ether, and Dante increased the flow again. Once he was sure it was stable, he cast his mind about—into himself, the stone, and the air around him—but he felt no presences foreign or hidden. Still, he stayed wary.

  "How does it proceed?" Gladdic said.

  "Everything's fine," Dante said. "I can feel it building within me. It won't be long before I possess the power to strike down a god."

  The light was as cold and invigorating as a leap into a springtime stream. It was the purest thing he had ever felt and his mind was becoming so clear that he would soon be able to see beyond the horizon and into the minds of the lesser men around him. He now knew why the White Lich thought as he did, why he had believed he must use his power to cleanse and reforge the failed people of the earth, and he knew that he must wield this terrible strength with a judgment that was just as towering and perfect as it was.

  So much ether swam through his body that he didn't know how there could be room for more. The stone was now just a fraction of its original brightness. Though his breathing felt sharp and potent he thought that he would no longer need it. They would be a curious thing, his old mortal habits, when he no longer was one. The lichstone flickered. He stirred the light through his body, making sure that every part of him pulsed with it in equal measure.

  At last, the stone went out. He felt like he was floating. He looked down at his hands. They gleamed with blue-white light. He could hear a voice whispering to him but Blays and Gladdic's mouths weren't moving. When he looked out on the cavern, he found that he could see both the nether and the ether without trying: they were now simply there, the same way that the stone of the floor and walls was there. Sensing something, he sent his mind into Gladdic's—although he no longer sent his mind into things, rather he surrounded and enveloped them—and saw that the old man was afraid.

  "Don't fear, Gladdic," he said. He stretched out his arms and pulled his hands into fists. He felt like he could snap trees with them, crush skulls, tear things out by their roots. "All of the light is within me. It is finished."

  "Do not let down your guard," Gladdic said. "It only came upon me after I had taken on all the light myself."

  "No. The lich is vanquished." Dante took a few steps forward. He could walk across water, he thought, and leap over castle walls. And why not test that? He moved to the cavern wall and struck it with his open palm. The rock cracked; his hand didn't.

  He called to the nether. It ran to him like a slave. He threw it against the wall, not flinching as it collided with a tremendous boom that blasted a room-sized hole in the side of the chamber. Rocks bounced from his chest and face but drew no blood.

  He turned back to the others, who were crouched down with their arms thrown over their heads. "This is even more than I imagined. It will be more than enough to slay the Chained God and expel Nolost from our world."

  "That would be some good news." Blays looked him up and down. "Are you feeling all right?"

  "Why wouldn't I? I feel greater than in all the other moments of my life combined into one."

  "Well, you're glowing, for one thing. Literally. For another, your eyes are different colors."

  "Yet they see much farther than they ever have before. They now see so far that I can perceive why it might be a virtue to bring this world to its end after all."

  "Blays," Gladdic said quietly. "Prepare your spear."

  "Eh?" Blays said.

  "Your spear!"

  Not taking his eyes off Dante, Blays thrust forth the Spear of Stars. Its light was just as pure as the light from the lichstone had been.

  Dante laughed. "Put that away."

  "Oh sure, just give it a minute. It gets sensitive when I play with it too much."

  "I said put it away!" Dante strode toward Blays.

  Yet before he could reach him, Dante's knees shivered beneath him. He staggered back as a new presence forced its way into his mind. It was cold and titanic and though Dante now was as well it had been lurking there with him outside of his perception and it was ready.

  They slammed together and struggled against each other. They seemed perfectly matched and each time one pushed the other back the other would regain all his ground a moment later. It felt like they fought in this manner for days, but it was only a few seconds.

  But the lich's will was as iron and steadfast as the walls of the Riya Lase. All at once Dante found himself sliding across the space of his own mind and nowhere could he find a hold to brace himself. And then he was falling, tumbling through some not-space, and he no longer knew who he was.

  He was lying on the floor and he was himself again. Small and frail and weak and doomed to die. He wailed, then, the cry out of his control, echoing from the walls of the cave.

  "Stay right where you are," Blays said. Dante thought he was talking to him, but as he pulled himself together enough to sit up, he saw that another figure was with them: the White Lich.

  He too was lying on the ground, propped on one elbow. He was as battered as the first time they'd accidentally revived him and the wound to his heart was leaking blood down his mail.

  He began to laugh. The sound of it was both ragged and rich. "I told you that you would not have the will to take it from me. You forget that I have worn this form for a very long time while you are no more than a man."

  Another wail tried to climb up Dante's throat, but he swallowed it back down. Yet he couldn't rid himself of the fear that the lich was right. He had thought he'd been holding his own, but the moment the game changed, he'd been powerless to keep his footing.

  "Big deal." Blays leaned on his spear. "We'll just kill you again."

  "Go ahead and kill me again!" thundered the lich. "You will never overcome me! Kill me a hundred times over and see what difference it makes. Every time we will return to where we are right now and every time I will laugh at your failure."

  "Maybe so. But as they say, for us to lose, we'll have to fail every time. For us to win, you'll only have to fail just once." Blays raised his eyebrow at Dante. Dante nodded. Blays stepped toward the lich and leveled his spear.

  "Hold." The word came from the light of life, who was still floating in the air behind Dante. "He's deceiving you."

  "I know. Nothing can hold out forever. We'll just keep killing him until he breaks."

  "No…the lie is something else altogether. He knows how much strength he stole from me the first time he returned. I can help you make no more than three more attempts to take on his power. Maybe less."

  Blays jerked his chin to the side. "And he knows he can hold out that long for sure. He was trying to goad us into destroying our last chance."

  The lich grinned at him. "Now you know why I laugh."

  "Laugh all you want. We're still going to kill you."

  The lich pulled up his mailed armor, revealing his bare chest and the open wound over his heart. "Do it. Send me back into the stone. Just let me be free of your insipid smallness."

  Blays drew back his elbows to strike but again the light spoke up. "You mustn't do this. You'll only rob yourself of your last hope."

  "But what else can we do?" Blays said.

  The light hovered, silent. Then it swiveled toward the lich. "I know who you are, Bade. I know you'd never hand over your power. But you don't have to give it to them. You only have to lend it to them."

  The lich snorted. "Such a thing is not possible. To remove it from myself for even an instant would be to destroy myself forever."

  "You don't have to give up a thing, Bade. You just have to go with them to see the Chained God—and kill him."

  Everyone in the chamber fell quiet. Then the lich once more began to laugh. "Now you are the one deceiving me. I won't walk into your trap."

  "You undid the betrayal of your brother. Now undo your betrayal of the gods."

  "I never betrayed the gods. Arawn granted me his power to remove the demons from the land. That is just what I did."

  "And then you tried to do the exact same thing that the demons you replaced would have."

  "And I would do it again."

  "But your goal wasn't to eradicate humans." Dante couldn't believe he was even speaking the words, but there was a striking flaw in the lich's reasoning. "It was to remake them. What's the point of us both dying?"

  "You can't possibly be considering this," Blays said.

  "You do not deserve to exist," the lich said. "You attack greatness wherever it attempts to arise."

  Dante squinted down at the lich. "You'd rather die along with us than save yourself? I thought you were going to turn yourself into a god."

  "You spied on me. I thought that you were. But I had more important matters at hand than to root you out." The lich sat up. He'd made no attempt to heal himself. Either he no longer cared, or he didn't know that it was safe to wield their sorcery here. "Your offer is made in treason. You make no mention of what would happen after."

  "What about it? Destroying the Chained God destroys Pholos. Destroying Pholos destroys Olastar. Destroying Olastar ejects Nolost from our world, along with all of his plagues. All we'd have to do then is kill the minions that get stuck here when the portals go down."

  "And once you have finished with that?"

  "I'm not following."

  "Ah, but you will follow me. Once this world is cleansed you will not suffer me to live. I am too much of a threat to it."

  "That could be so," Dante said.

  The lich snorted. "You continue to forget that I have seen your mind, little sorcerer. You cannot lie to me. Even if I were to try to go into hiding and wait for you to die of old age you would still hunt me down and slay me as soon as you are through with the entity's armies."

  "Surely you're not that afraid of us."

  "You will never possess the level of power that I do. You cannot create things of wonder and terror. But you have become very effective death-dealers."

  "You're right. If we both survive the aftermath, we would have to come after you and try to eliminate you. All I can say is that none of us knows how that encounter would turn out."

  "Then there can be no deal."

  Blays shook his spear. "Why am I not just killing him again already?"

  "I'm about ready to," Dante said.

  "Please." The lich lifted his armor again. "I invite you."

  "The Chained God can open portals," Gladdic said. "That is how we came here to begin with. Before we kill him, he will open two more. One will lead back to Rale—and the other will send you to the realm of the gods."

  "The realm of the gods."

  "That is the very place you intended to go before Nolost struck, was it not? Finish the journey, and seek your godhood there."

  "The gods were happy for you to do their bidding in the first place," Dante said. "That's why we're all here right now, isn't it? Let them deal with you."

  The lich dwelled on this. Then his blue eyes hardened. "Why wouldn't I simply go straight to the Realm and leave you to whatever fate awaits you here?"

  Dante froze. "Because we'd have to kill you if you tried."

  "Compelling. Then I insist for a third time that you do so."

  "Before the…accident, you made it sound like you weren't even sure you could open a portal to the Realm by yourself."

  "There would be some risk of failure. I doubt it would be greater than attempting to slay a god." The lich stirred, readying to stand. "I tire of your plodding reason. Get this over with."

  Dante clenched his fists. He hated the very idea, but from the moment the light of life had suggested it he'd known that, insane and risky though it was, it was the only meaningful chance they had left. And it had just slipped away.

  "Revenge." Blays sounded as though he regretted saying the word. "You spent half your life working out a way to bring your brother back to life—and just minutes after you'd finally pulled it off, and lifted the stain from your soul, Nolost killed him."

  The lich made a sound deep in his throat. He rocked forward. Dante took a step back and reached for the nether. The lich braced himself and rose, standing unsteadily. He wreathed his hand in ether and pressed it to his heart, gazing down at it.

  "This is impossible," said the lich. "Yet it must be. I will kill a god—and then become one."

  30

  It was also impossible for them to travel together.

  It wasn't just the possibility the lich would betray them and attack them the second they found themselves in a vulnerable position, or really just at any moment at all. There was also the very real possibility that one of them would say the wrong thing, or just look at one of the others in the wrong way, and that this alliance, or arrangement, or armistice—whatever it was—would crumble on the spot.

  Dante could tell that Blays loathed it, enough that his all-but-silent acceptance of it made Dante suspicious that, if they were able to kill Wessen together, Blays might break their word and try to kill the lich before they escaped from Pholos. Dante wasn't even sure he'd object to that. If he did, it sure wouldn't be on the grounds that betraying the lich was bad, but that it eliminated the opportunity for him to go cause problems for the gods.

 

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