A sound arose, but it was nothing more than a groan. All around me, shades grew thinner, rainbow-colored rivulets running down their faces. They were sweating out magic, as Dad had earlier. With the loss of Arawn, the magic was leaving them. Again shades moved, backing away from the platform, some turning and breaking into a run.
“Idiots,” Pryce snarled, the crown crooked on his black hair. “I’ll make you wish you’d obeyed me.” Again, he lifted his sword.
From his raised arm, a shadow stretched upward. No, not a shadow; more like a bodiless spirit. The figure was transparent; it had depth and dimension. It was rooted in Pryce but stretched above him. Myrddin.
“Now, Father!” Pryce shouted.
The spirit of Myrddin gestured, and every demon froze. The wizard began to gather demons together, making motions like he was casting a huge net and drawing it in. The demons, some struggling, were slowly reeled back toward the cauldron.
Pryce was going to do something—use the cauldrons in some way—to combine those demons into a single entity, and then bind that entity to him. He’d become a newly restored demi-demon.
Or something worse.
I had to stop him. Seeing him up there on the platform, I knew how. I had a magic arrow that never missed its target.
Shades pushed toward the exits, trampling each other, moving me away from the platform. The crush of bodies was so tight I couldn’t get my hand near the arrow in my belt. I hoped I didn’t need a bow. I’d never be able to aim in this throng. If I could get the arrow free, I’d focus on my target—the exact center of Pryce’s black heart—and throw. I moved my hand. My fingertips brushed the fletching. Then a shade tried to duck under my arm, pushing my hand away from the arrow. Another stamped hard on my foot, and I yelled with frustration and pain.
On the platform, Pryce’s head snapped around. His gaze locked onto me for a moment before he looked up and spoke to his father. Myrddin paused. The demons he was dragging back to the cauldron stilled. Some strained against the pull, but they couldn’t break away.
Myrddin pointed at me. Immediately two demons dropped from the sky. Shades screamed and scrambled away, knocking me to the ground. The demons grabbed my arms. Their bat wings beat as they lifted me into the air. I yelled and kicked, expecting to be ripped in two. But they didn’t tear me apart. They flew me over to the platform and set me down in front of Pryce. The demons found my sword and dagger and tossed them aside.
Myrddin resumed hauling in his net of demons. Some tumbled into the cauldron of transformation.
Transformation. Pryce was going to fuse them all into some sort of super-demon. He stared at me, his lip curled in an ugly sneer.
“Cousin.” He spat the word. “I thought I’d have to kill you to get you here. But I needn’t have wasted my effort. All I had to do was make sure you knew I was going to the Darklands, and you followed me here like a puppy.”
“I followed you here to stop you.”
“And a marvelous job you’re doing of it, aren’t you?” His sneer got even uglier. “I brought you here. I played you like a violin. Father said I might need your life force. As it turns out, I do. Some of the souls that came with me into this place have gotten away.” Like Mack, wandering along the road in search of his taxi. “My human side has grown thin, and I need to build it up to balance my soon-to-be-restored shadow demon. Otherwise, the demon will have too much power. And I must always be in control.”
“You never had a human side, Pryce.”
Myrddin dumped the last of the netted demons into the cauldron.
Pryce glanced upward. “Ready, Father?”
The wizard nodded and shrank back into Pryce’s body. Behind Pryce, Arawn moaned. Moaned? The lord of the Darklands wasn’t dead. He was trying to crawl toward the cauldron of regeneration.
Pryce turned and kicked Arawn savagely in the ribs. Another kick snapped the king’s head back, breaking his neck. Arawn lay on the platform like a doll dropped by a careless child. The demons that held me chortled with malicious glee.
Pryce plucked Rhudda’s arrow from my belt. “You won’t be needing this,” he said. He snapped it in two, then tossed the pieces on the fallen king. He grabbed my waist and tried to lift me off my feet, but the two demons still had my arms.
“Let go, you morons!” he snapped. “Return to Uffern and prepare my place—unless you’d rather accompany me now.” He pointed into the cauldron.
In a flash, the demons released their grips and took to the sky. They shot like rockets toward the north.
Pryce grabbed me around the waist. He half-carried, half-dragged me to the edge of the platform. I struggled and kicked. I dug in my heels but couldn’t hold my ground.
“Now, cousin,” his voice buzzed in my ear, “we transform what is lesser into something far greater.”
Before I could reply, Pryce toppled into the cauldron of transformation, dragging me with him.
27
MY ARMS FLAILED, REACHING FOR SOMETHING, ANYTHING. Pain nearly split my arm in two as our fall jerked to a stop. I’d managed to hook my right elbow over the cauldron’s edge. I reached up with my left hand and gripped the rim, struggling to pull myself up.
Pryce clung to my waist as we dangled inside the cauldron. My instinct was to try to knock him off—kick at him, bang him against the wall—but I resisted the urge. I didn’t want him to fall into the cauldron and merge with all those demons. I needed to drag him out with me.
I looked down. Whoa, big mistake. From outside, this cauldron appeared maybe twelve feet deep. Inside, though, it was bottomless. At least, I couldn’t see any end to the space that yawned below us.
Getting out of here would definitely be a good thing. I braced my feet against the wall and pushed out and up. If I could just hook my other arm over the rim…
“Let go, damn you!” shouted Pryce. He grabbed my belt with one hand and tugged at my arm with the other, trying to loosen my grip. I ignored him and concentrated on hauling us out. My feet slipped on the wall, and I scrabbled to regain a toehold. My arms trembled with the strain. Pryce’s fist pounded at me—my arm, my back, my kidneys.
Abruptly, he stopped hitting me. His laugh echoed hollowly through the cauldron.
I didn’t like the sound of that laugh. I chanced another look down. Pryce was drawing a knife from a sheath in his belt.
I twisted sideways, pushing out with my feet, and slammed us both into the wall. Pryce grunted and tightened his grip on my belt. He cursed, and I looked down to see the knife tumbling end over end as it fell.
Score one for the shapeshifter.
But my victory was short-lived. More blows battered me. I let go of the rim with my left hand and reached down to grab Pryce’s face. My thumb found an eye and pressed. He swore and grabbed my wrist, yanking my hand away. I jerked upward, breaking his grip, and drove my fist back down. His nose cracked under the blow. Again, I got my hand around the cauldron’s rim and tried to pull us up.
Somewhere far below, a rumbling sounded. The cauldron shook.
Pulling harder, I managed to hook my left arm over the cauldron’s rim. Almost there. I heaved, and got one leg up. Now I lay on the rim, but Pryce still hung from my belt. The weight felt like it was cutting me in half.
The rumbling intensified, hurting my ears. The pressure threatened to crush my head.
I reached down to grab Pryce by the hair and haul him up. As my fingers brushed his scalp, he suddenly wasn’t there. Whether he’d lost his grip or purposely let go, Pryce plummeted into the cauldron’s depths.
The rumbling stopped, like some angry volcano god appeased by a sacrifice.
I hoisted myself onto the platform, then spun around and peered into the cauldron. The interior was dark, smoky. I couldn’t see anything through the murk. Pryce had disappeared.
The city, too, was overrun with smoke. I got to my feet. All around me, Tywyll was burning. Bodies littered the ground. Demons that had evaded Myrddin’s net swooped through the sky or rampaged through the square. Screams rose over the terrified babble. An airborne demon—fangs bared, hideous face twisted, claws outstretched—dived at me. I somersaulted out of the way. There, a little to my right, lay my dagger where the other demons had dropped it. I snatched it up and got to my feet. I turned, knife poised, ready to attack.
But the demon stood there, staring stupidly at a blade that protruded from its chest. Someone had stabbed it from behind. As I watched, flames—not bright, but dark as shadows—flared from the blade. The demon howled. It touched the sword, and its hand caught fire. The shadowy flames spread up its arm. The howl became a scream as the demon batted at the flames. They spread to its other hand. Soon dark fire flared from every part of its body. The blade withdrew with a slick, sliding sound. The burning demon danced and writhed, its furious, agonized screeches rending the air. Its body shimmered. The shimmers turned black, like embers winking out, and the demon collapsed into a pile of black dust.
Above the pile, holding a black-flaming sword, stood Arawn, lord of the Darklands. He was alive.
Arawn kicked the ashes, scattering them across the platform. His face was streaked with filth and soot. So were his robes. Under the dirt, they were no longer purple but lavender.
Lord Arawn had been regenerated. He must have gone into that cauldron while I was struggling to get out of the other. Or maybe it was harder to kill a god than Pryce thought.
Two more demons landed with heavy thuds. They charged Arawn, coming at him from both sides. I hurled my knife at one, getting a solid hit between the wings. The demon roared and whirled around. As it turned, it lost its balance. It teetered on the edge of the platform, wings flapping crazily, then plunged into the cauldron I’d climbed out of.
Arawn drove his flaming sword into the other demon’s stomach and held it there. Black flames sprouted from the wound, and the king yanked out his sword. As before, the demon was consumed by fire, burning until it was nothing but ashes.
Chest heaving, Arawn held his sword ready as he surveyed the square. Most of the fighting had moved to my left, on the square’s north side. Shades pressed toward the exit, shouting and trying to escape. Demons scythed through crowd, tossing bodies left and right. Some demons stomped through the exit and into the street. Others took to the sky. All were heading north.