Deltora Quest #8: Return to Deltora

Lief ran like the wind, dodging every hand that clutched at him, every blister that flew at him. He did not look behind him. He barely heard the screams, the snarling fury, the shouted orders that ended in shrieks of terror. Jasmine and Barda were on either side of him, but they could not keep pace. In seconds he had reached the platform. Alone he leaped up to the top, sliced through the ropes that bound Dain, pulled the limp body from the flames.

Eyes streaming in the smoke, he swung the boy further down the platform and let him go. Dain staggered, then stood, swaying, on his own feet. Lief grappled with the clasp of the Belt of Deltora. At last it slid apart. He pulled the Belt from his waist …

There was a mighty crash, a bellowing roar. Lief spun around. Jasmine and Barda stood teetering on the edge of a gaping hole that had opened in the square. Flaming torches were scattered around them. Nevets, Steven, and a host of Guards had disappeared. The Guards’ screams echoed hideously up into the night for a single moment, then were choked off. The ground shook as Nevets raged against the walls of his prison.

Rats poured from the little yard where the caravan stood. As they ran they shimmered and paled, rising into wavering white flames with coals for eyes and gaping, toothless mouths. And in the core of every one was the Shadow Lord’s mark.

Lief whirled back to Dain, the Belt dangling from his hand, his mind blank with horror and confusion. A trap had been set for Nevets. They had been betrayed! Their plans had been known. But how? No one knew of Barda and Steven’s scheme. No one …

And then he saw the dagger on Dain’s belt. Unsheathed, the dagger gleamed in the fire’s fierce light. Its tip shone bright silver. Lief looked away from it. Up into Dain’s dark, dark eyes. And in those eyes, unveiled at last, he saw the answer to all his questions.

“You,” he said quietly.

Dain smiled. “I made an error,” he said. “I should have put the dagger aside when I returned to this form. How fortunate you did not notice it before you ran to me. That would have spoiled my plan.”

His hand swung, striking Lief’s arm a tremendous blow, knocking the Belt into the fire. With a cry, Lief grabbed for it. But Dain had his wrist in a grip of icy steel. Dain’s eyes narrowed, and suddenly Lief’s sword was white-hot. It fell from his blistered hand and clattered, useless, down the steps of the platform.

“Still, I am glad you know, human,” Dain hissed. “I want you to know what a fool you have been. And it does not matter now. For now the Belt of Adin cannot harm me. Soon it will be nothing but melted scrap.”

He pointed at the remaining Guards. They were open-mouthed, devastated by what had happened to their companions. “Take the prisoners to the palace!” he shouted shrilly. “They have served their purpose.”

“No! Let them go!” Lief cried. “You have the Belt! What more do you want?”

Dain’s huge, dead eyes glittered. “When I call him, my master will come,” he sneered. “He will see you, and your companions, and all the other traitors I have found and brought together here. Then I will be his favorite, ruling this land for him as the soft, Lumin-soaked failure in the palace never could. And you — you will die in torment amid the ruins and ashes of all you love.”

His mouth twisted in scorn at the expressions on Lief’s face. “You fool! You never dreamed that Ichabod was acting under my orders. That he had not carried me away, but was running alone in the dark, babbling of Del! And when you found the dagger I had become, you did not suspect it for a moment — even though you knew that Grade 3 Ols could take any shape they wished. You put it in your own belt, as I knew you would, snivelling for my loss, little knowing that you were carrying me with you from that time on. I was watching your every move. Listening to your every plan. Waiting to see how best I could destroy the devil Steven and that accursed Belt. And when I knew enough — I left you, and came here to prepare … this.”

He waved his hand at the seething square. But Lief held his gaze, and did not look away. Lief had seen a movement behind Dain. Someone crawling up the steps of the platform towards him. A hawklike face. A pale, ragged scar. Tangled black hair. Slowly, slowly …

“I trusted you, Dain,” said Lief. “I thought you were the heir.”

Dain sneered. “As you were supposed to do from the first, human. It was what I was created for. I acted my part perfectly, did I not? I made no mistakes.”

“You did,” Lief said. “You should not have entered Tora. That was your vanity — and it was nearly your death, was it not?”

For the first time, Dain’s eyes flickered, and dread brushed his face. But he did not answer.

Keep him talking. Keep him looking at me.

“And you failed to kill Barda with the poison you fed him, little by little,” Lief went on doggedly. “Of course, I should have known why he was weakening. I had forgotten. When the amethyst dims, that is a sign of poisoned food. But you had forgotten something, too. The emerald is an antidote to poison. It cured him.”

Dain’s lip curled. “When he is facing my master, he will wish it had not,” he spat.

Nearer …

“You feared Barda,” Lief said. “He knew too much about the king, and the palace. You realized he was a danger to your scheme when he saw so easily through the false note left with the skeletons. Another of your precious master’s plans that fell in ruins!”

By now Dain was breathing heavily. His twisted face was hardly recognizable as that of the delicate, modest boy Lief had known so long.

“My master had many plans, human,” he rasped. “And I was the most deeply hidden one. How often I wished I could inform on you, or kill you while you slept! But that was forbidden. My master had ordered me to peace and silence. I was his final weapon, to be used only if every other plan failed,”

“You contacted him once,” said Lief. “You told him our names.”

Soon …

Dain clawed at his chest in remembered pain. “I was — corrected, for that,” he said sullenly. “So then I made my own plans. And now my time has come.”

Without warning, he threw his head back.

“Master!” he screamed. “It is time!”

A clap of thunder shook the earth. Great red clouds began to roll across the sky from the north, blotting out the stars. Dain faced Lief, eyes gleaming.

“The armies of the Shadow Lord have risen!” he shrieked. “Those throughout the land who have dared defy him will be destroyed. And you have brought his wrath down on all their heads. You and your companions have done it all, Lief of Del!”

Doom!

With a cry, Doom leaped upon Dain, knocking him down, his sword plunging for the heart. But Dain twisted like a snake, his body dissolving, rising again in a column of sickly white. Icy mist coiled around him. He whirled around, his fingers reaching for Doom’s throat. Long, thin fingers, bringing with them the chill of death.

Lief staggered back, shuddering in a cold that was beyond imagining. The fire wavered, and went out.

Doom was on his knees. The Ol that had been Dain was laughing, laughing, pressing forward, intent on destruction. Shouts and groans rang from the square as Jasmine and Barda, torches blazing, held back a hundred crawling Ols, and the prisoners were dragged away. The sky was a mass of scarlet cloud.

Sobbing, Lief crawled to the fire. He scrambled among the dying embers, his fingers burning and freezing by turns. He found the Belt, staggered to his feet. The Belt was covered in white ash. But it was whole. The ash dropped from its gleaming length. The gems flashed under the red sky.

Now!

With the last of his strength, Lief threw the Belt around the Ol’s waist. With both hands he pulled it tight.

And the Ol screamed, throwing up its arms so that Doom fell heavily down the stone steps. Smoke rose from the place where the Belt gripped, and beneath the smoke the shuddering white flesh began to melt. The Ol twisted, trying to break free. But already it was dying. One face alone loomed from its melting white. The face of Dain, in all his moods: timid, beseeching, tearful, laughing, teasing, dignified, brave …

Lief bent, choking, as his stomach heaved. But he held tightly to the Belt, squeezing his eyes shut. And when at last he opened his eyes, there was only an ugly puddle of white dripping down the stone steps.

He clasped the Belt around his waist and threw himself down to the bottom of the pyramid, to where Doom lay. Doom was muttering, shuddering with cold. His lips were blue. Great red marks wound around his neck. There was a swelling bruise on his brow.

“Lief!”

Lief looked up wildly. Jasmine and Barda were racing towards him. The Ols in the square were not coming after them. They were wavering, aimlessly clustering together, as though they were confused. It was as though the source of their power had been struck a blow by the destruction of the great one among them.

But already some of them were starting to recover. And the red clouds were tumbling, boiling, as they raced towards the city.

Frantically hauling Doom to his feet, Lief tried to think. Where could they go? Where could they hide?

Then the answer came to him. Where he had always gone when he was in trouble.

Home.