FROM
CHAPTER FOUR: THE FIEND PIT
The horse’s eyes flashed, as if in
recognition of that name, and I shuddered, wondering if the things they said of
Odim were true. What hope did I have against a beast
that was destined to destroy God at the end of all time? What hope did I have
against the stealer of souls and the master of hell, the prince of darkness?
The Exelsiton men
took up their prayers as the devil stood looking over me. They called their god
Lefnhar, and it sounded too close to Vand’s words for my liking. And Vand
prayed like a madman in his fits, ejaculating words he scarcely understood in
the night and calling on Odim to bless my sword.
Then the rain fell, the thunder clapped, and
a single bolt of lightening struck. In its light I
could see the Exelsitons, old and shriveled from
their praying and babbling. And by its light I could see that this bolt of lightening had fallen on my sword, and set it ablaze, and
surrounded my entire person in a coat of trembling, dancing needles of light.
Then LayFaynar-- or Lefnhar,
whom I have heard spoken of as the wolf in horse’s clothing and as Unicorn the
almighty-- then this god leapt into the pit and upon me. The sheets of pouring
rain and the unearthly light, from the Unicorn and from my sword, made
everything look strange and ghostly. Vand’s prayers
murmured in the air as I flung out terrible lashes against the charges of the
deadly sharp horn that plunged again and again for my heart, seeming to come
from all directions at once. A maddening, ear splitting tone rippled in the air
every time my sword parried the horrific horn, and I grew half blind and
confused in the singeing light and the pouring rain. The beast pranced in thick
currents all around me and peals of lightening struck the ground now and then,
incinerating wailing men. And some of the men still called on me to be their
god, me, an ape who cares nothing of the gods and
devils men invent. Yet this god was real, and I fought it to the death in this
pit, with my sword somehow charged with the power to keep it at bay, and
perhaps with the power to slay the god as well.
Yet I could not focus on where the wolf in
horse’s clothing seemed to be, at one time. In one instant I thought I could
swing at it. In the very next instant, its horn nearly pierced my breast from
some other direction, and only by the skin of my teeth was I able to deflect
the doom of its blow.
This had become the sport that every Exelsiton had spent his life to see. For the golden men and
the golden women had become old and feeble now, victims of their devotion,
their prayers, and their cheers for blood. Their feared storm fell full upon
them now. Their god clashed at war with Vand’s god, and my sword became the instrument of that
improbable Odim.
I fought, locked in a deadly peril against a monster that I knew I could
never equal.
Vand prayed. I feinted and lunged, hacked and
parried. The whirring of lights, washed and blurred by the rain, filled my head
with showers of color, as I fought to maintain a fix on the thundering hooves
that played all around me in that damnable pit. Every now and then those
baleful eyes stopped to glower at me and mock me. I marked that eerie target
and swung the heavy, broad blade, but there came no contact. Just as suddenly,
a golden horn plunged at my breast and I wheeled my blade around and smacked
the deadly thing away in a torrent of piercing sound.
This became a battle that no mortal could
fight for long. My senses simply could not stand it. Fatigue began to overwhelm
me. Each time I parried the deadly horn, I knew not weather I had stopped the
attack in time. I almost felt my chest burst and my heart pinned each time, but
I snapped back to reality, and lived to face another deadly onslaught.
I fought the beast with new offenses, blindly
lashing out in random directions. This became my last desperate tactic. I had
no other hope, but to strike at random. I doubted my sword, though blessed in
its halo of light, could hope to harm the immortal flesh that so badly mocked
me.
But my sword struck something not flesh. I saw a circle of light leap away, and the
horse stopped short and fixed its eyes on me. In the glare of those devil’s
eyes, I waned powerless to fight. I dropped my sword and its light went out,
extinguished. Before me stood the mighty immortal unicorn, the Lord of Hell who
had every soul at his mercy.