Best Laid Plans by D.P. Prior Read Free Book Online Page B

tip towards the Dweller and golden light flared around the blade. The demon howled and dropped to its knees, frantically burrowing into the cave floor. Its fat backside wobbled and strained, and then squeezed into the hole with a plop. Earth and rock fell back behind it, covering its escape. Sounds of its underground digging thumped up through the cave floor for a few moments and then all was quiet.
    Milo, Tajen, and Narcus crept forward and stood over the crumpled husk of Jarmin’s body.
    ‘How can this be?’ Milo asked.
    Tajen placed a hand on his shoulder, his eyes distant, frown-lines like gouges between his eyebrows. ‘Now do you see?’ he said. ‘We have not arrived. We are still running the race.’
    The glow from Narcus’s skin was noticeably dimmer. Fine tremors rippled through his limbs as he reached for Tajen’s hand and pulled him close. ‘What is happening, Tajen? Where are we?’
    ‘Besides Jarmin and Shader,’ Tajen said, ‘no soul has entered this so-called Araboth for centuries. As for that thing, that Dweller…’
    Shader relaxed his grip on the sword and its light died. ‘I faced it on Earth, just before I came here,’ he said. ‘I suspect this is its natural abode.’
    ‘But why should it appear now?’ asked Milo, his bronze tan dissolving in the sweat beading his skin.
    Shader shrugged. ‘I remember it smothering me. There was a flash and then I was here with no idea of who I was. Something happened at the moment of my death.’
    Tajen knelt beside Jarmin’s body. ‘What is it about you two,’ he said, ‘that attracted the beast?’
    Shader struggled to think as the Luminary closed Jarmin’s eyes. ‘It sensed something in me. Presumably the same thing that drew it to Jarmin.’
    Take back my sword,
the cowled man had said. The Dweller had referred to him as the Archon. More than ever, Shader was convinced he was dreaming, trapped in a nightmare of his own imaginings. The inklings of an explanation were starting to form in his mind. ‘I had a piece of an ancient artefact,’ he said to Tajen. ‘Is it possible Jarmin once possessed another?’
    ‘What artefact?’ demanded Tajen, turning from the corpse and standing. ‘Describe it to me.’
    Shader bent down and traced the outline of the serpent statue on the dust of the cave floor.
    Tajen nodded. ‘Eingana, one of the three beings who fell from the Void. She who is forever pursued by her brother, the Demiurgos. Maybe that’s what drew you here. Jarmin too. You’d both touched her power. It is like a scent, drawing the attention of the Demiurgos. But the demon…’
    ‘I think it may have been wounded when it tried to consume me back in the templum,’ Shader said. ‘Perhaps the power of the sword and statue combined…’ Shader tailed off. Tajen’s mouth was hanging open as if he’d realized what he was saying. And then the penny dropped. Eingana, the Archon, and their brother, the Demiurgos. Shader had learnt something of the old myths from Aristodeus. Picture language, he’d called it. Metaphysics. If the Demiurgos existed, and if he’d drawn them here, then this could only be…
    Shader met Tajen’s eyes. The Luminary stared blankly back at him, his mouth working, but no words coming out.
    ‘What must we do?’ Milo asked.
    As if in answer, an aperture of green light appeared in the cave wall and a young boy stepped out, freckled face streaked with grime, mousy hair matted and plastered to his scalp.
    ‘Sammy!’ Shader cried in disbelief.
    ‘Quickly,’ the boy said. ‘Follow me.’
    Shader glanced at Tajen, who managed a shrug and a nod. ‘There is no other action open to us,’ the Luminary said. ‘Act in faith and perhaps we shall all yet be saved.’
    The Luminaries huddled together, their eyes flitting from Tajen to Shader and the boy. Shader didn’t think it seemed right leaving them here, but Sammy continued to tug at him.
    The cave began to tremble, a sound like an earthquake coming from the depths.