The First Champion

by Sandell Wall

  Mazareem looked for the typical signs of life within a castle. He found none. There were no stables, no evidence of the army of servants needed to maintain a place this size, there was not even a pen for livestock that would mark the location of a kitchen. The courtyard they stood in was lifeless.

  At a hand signal from Pynel, her seplica disbanded and left her alone with Mazareem. She started forward again without a word or glance at him. Mazareem followed her through a small doorway at the base of one of the keep’s towers, and he found himself in an enclosed, spiral stairwell.

  They climbed in silence. At every turn of the stair, a torch set in an alcove lit their path. Mazareem brushed the shining black stone with his fingertips. It was smooth to the touch, the texture almost silky. The walls glistened in the faint torchlight. He forced himself to remain calm. His heart thumped in his chest so hard he worried Pynel might hear it. It was a novel sensation. Mazareem had forgotten what it felt like to be anxious.

  After several long minutes, they reached the top of the stair. Pynel and Mazareem stepped out into a long hallway. She marched straight down its length towards another closed door. Mazareem tried to glimpse into the rooms they passed by, but their interiors were obscured by shadows. His impression was that these were storerooms. They seemed unused, almost forgotten. The further he ventured into the castle, the more Mazareem felt it to be a hollow, empty place.

  Pynel opened the door, revealing yet another set of stairs. Mazareem’s mental map of the outside of the fortress placed them at the base of its highest tower. They ascended the steps with the rhythmic precision of marching soldiers. Mazareem matched Pynel’s pace, his every footfall timed with hers. He focused on walking in step with her to distract himself from what they would find when they reached the top.

  The climb ended sooner than Mazareem would have preferred, and they finally stood before a single wooden door. Pynel turned to Mazareem, and without saying a word, she reached inside his grave robes and removed the scale of Abimelech that he carried. He tried to catch her eye, but she refused to even glimpse at his face. Pynel’s features were rigid. The woman was terrified.

  Scale in hand, Pynel pushed the door open and stepped through. Mazareem did not need to be told that he was expected to follow. On the other side of the door, he entered a room that left him speechless.

  The entire top of the tower was one huge space. There were no divisions, only open floor from one outer wall to the other. Overhead, the high, vaulted ceilings rose towards the peak of the tower’s spire. As impressive as the room was, it was not its architecture that robbed Mazareem of his words. It was the contents.

  Everywhere Mazareem looked, he saw wonder upon wonder. There were bleached fossils of ancient animals, their skeletons held together by cunning artifice. Preserved specimens of creatures and plants he did not recognize sat suspended in glass, liquid filled jars. Mechanical contraptions hung from the ceiling or sat on the floor, poised like great insects ready to leap into motion. An alchemical workbench, strewn with a hundred labeled bottles, a mortar and pestle, and a pile of open tomes, drew his eye and made his fingers twitch with the desire to explore its mysteries.

  These were the items Mazareem could identify. There was far more he could not. Chests and bookshelves lined the outer walls. He could only guess as to what they contained. Even with the collar around his neck, he sensed the latent magic in this place. It reminded him of his pitiful suite beneath Castle Vaulkern. The mind that had assembled this collection had devoted itself to the acquisition of knowledge, to unlocking the mysteries of the world, no matter how dark or forbidden.

  Pynel walked through the hall of wonders with the closed-mindedness of a soldier. She looked neither left nor right. All that mattered was her duty. Mazareem forced himself to stop gawking and keep up with her. They neared the center of the room, and when Mazareem stepped from behind the large skeleton of some tusked monstrosity, he laid eyes on Pynel’s destination.

  Mazareem stopped. He would not have been able to take another step to preserve his own life. Pynel approached a large desk, strewn with parchment, books, and maps. At this desk, a woman sat with her back to him. She seemed oblivious of their approach; her attention focused on the unfurled scroll in front of her. Her hand moved to dip her quill into the inkwell on the desk next to her, and she paused as she considered what to write next.

  Pynel dropped to one knee next to the woman’s chair. She kept her gaze fixed on the floor. The seated woman did not acknowledge the seplica’s presence. Pynel waited silently while the woman found the inspiration she was searching for. When it came, her quill flashed as she finished the document she was drafting with a flourish. That done, she placed the quill in the inkwell, rolled the scroll up, and carefully sealed it with a drop of hot wax. She pressed a metal insignia into the wax to complete the process. Only then did she glance up at Pynel. In all this time, the seplica captain had not moved.

  “You’re late,” the woman said.

  That voice seared Mazareem’s consciousness. Memories that had been locked away for a thousand years surged to the surface, yet they remained just beyond the reach of his recollection. Pieces of himself he did not know screamed to be heard. It was the sound of madness.

  “Forgive me, mistress,” Pynel said. “There were complications on the road.”

  Still not looking up, Pynel held up the scale.

  “This is all that he carried,” Pynel said. “Mother Terro of House Gorvan asks that you honor their claim on him as a risen one.”

  The seated woman took the scale. She inspected it for a moment.

  “Leave us,” the woman said.

  “As you command, mistress,” Pynel said.

  Pynel rose, turned, and strode past Mazareem without looking at him. A moment later, the sound of the door being closed echoed in the grand room. Mazareem barely noticed. He could not take his eyes from the high-backed chair at the desk. All he could see of the seated woman was the dark hair on the top of her head.

  The woman pushed herself away from the desk. She stood, stepped from behind the chair, and revealed herself to Mazareem. He forgot to breathe. She was unclothed. Her pale skin almost glowed, exquisite in its nakedness. His gaze started at her feet and slowly rose to her perfect face. When he looked into her diamond eyes, the curse she had placed upon him vanished.

  Like an arrow to the eye of his mind, everything came rushing back. His vision went blurry. Her name thundered in Mazareem’s thoughts.

  Morricant.

  Morricant, the wife of High King Rowen, queen of Haverfell. The woman who had spurned her husband for an illicit love. Together, she and Mazareem had planned Rowen’s demise. With Abimelech’s help, even the undying king could be usurped. Locked away in Vaul, the father of dragons had been powerless to prevent Rowen’s slaughter of his children in the other realms. If Mazareem and Morricant toppled Rowen from his throne, Abimelech promised them power beyond imagining.

  Mazareem would have taken the throne with Morricant as his black-hearted bride. Morricant had persuaded Rowen to bestow the final gift of immortality upon Mazareem, the king’s greatest champion. Once Mazareem had consumed the heart of the last dragon prince, he would have moved against his liege. The crown would have been his.

  But Rowen must have suspected treachery, because after he cut the still beating heart from the defeated dragon’s chest, it did not go to Mazareem. Mazareem had been forced to watch as Rowen feasted on the heart himself. How Mazareem had raged. Already immortal, Rowen had thrown the last gift away, claiming it for himself for no reason other than pride.

  Morricant had tried to calm Mazareem, to convince him they could find another way. But she was immortal, like her husband, and Mazareem would soon die and be forgotten. So he had gone to Abimelech with his own offer. Mazareem had demanded immortality of the tyrant. Only then would he deliver Rowen.

  Abimelech had agreed to his terms, on the condition that Rowen be destroyed and Morricant become his slave. Mazareem had
readily accepted, trading the freedom of the woman he loved for the chance at immortality. He had gone to Morricant then, revealing Abimelech’s new plan to her without ever telling her the price. She had gone along willingly, believing that they would share in the reward. Morricant never doubted Mazareem until the very last, when Rowen lay defeated, and Abimelech demanded his prize.

  Now, Mazareem remembered that day. For the first time in a thousand years, he watched as Abimelech’s minions dragged Morricant from Rowen’s throne room. She screamed at him, tears streaming down her face. He had been nothing before her, she had shouted, and would return to nothing without her.

  All of this flashed through Mazareem’s mind in an instant. He sank to his knees with a groan. The terrible weight of the returned memories was too much to bear. Morricant smirked at him as she padded across the stone floor on her naked feet.

  Her nakedness was a twofold insult that raked across Mazareem’s heart like a double-edged sword. Not only did he remember the bad; now he could recall the good. Her body was still as flawless as the last time he had tasted it. Never again would he experience the carnal pleasures he had known with her. The empty husk that was his body trembled with echoes of ancient lust.

  Morricant stopped several paces in front of him so his thirsty gaze could drink its fill. The second insult cut worse than the first. Here she stood, perfect in her youth, while he rotted in his cage of desiccated flesh. She flaunted her immortality for him to see. He had courted Abimelech’s favor for millennia, and still the promise of undying youth was denied him.

  “Perhaps I was mistaken to curse you,” Morricant said. “I see now that the memories hurt worse than forgetting ever could.”

  Mazareem opened his mouth to speak. Before he uttered a sound, something lashed out at him from the corner of his vision. He jerked back from the strike, but the attacker caught his head and held him fast.

  An enchanted length of ribbon, black as the stone of the castle, wrapped itself around his body quicker than a constricting serpent. It circled his neck and slipped over his mouth. Around his throat, it turned edgewise against his skin. He felt the razor sharpness. Blood seeped from his flesh where it touched.

  “Hush,” Morricant said. “You don’t get to speak. Not here, not to me.”

  She held out her hands, palm upwards, to direct his attention to her naked body.

  “I trust you’ve seen your fill?” Morricant asked. “If it brings you pain, think of me as often as you like.”

  Morricant flicked her wrist, and another ribbon unfurled itself from the floor. It wrapped itself around her, over and over again, until she wore a form-fitting dress of many layers. She was no longer naked, but her flawless figure was still on display.

  In her right hand, she still held Abimelech’s scale. She held it up between them now.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you stink of the wyrm,” Morricant said. “No doubt you were about to tell me why you’ve come. I care not. Your master no longer holds sway here. I rule this land. Perhaps, I’ll send you back with that message. I haven’t decided yet.”

  Bound as he was, Mazareem could only watch and listen. The ribbon wound around his body never stopped its slow, incessant twisting.

  “After all these years, and all the agony you caused me, I had thought to take my revenge on you,” Morricant said. “But now that I’ve laid eyes on you, I realize I was wrong. To have hated you for this long was to give a part of me that you didn’t deserve. You’re not worth the effort of despising. You’re nothing more than the worthless refuse of the past. I can’t do any worse to you than you’ve already done to yourself.”

  Morricant turned away and returned to her desk. She never looked at Mazareem again. Moments later, summoned by means Mazareem could not detect, Pynel returned. The seplica captain knelt next to Morricant’s chair and awaited instruction.

  “Take him to one of the royal suites in the city,” Morricant said while she worked. “Keep him under constant guard. He’s not to leave for any reason. Mother Terro is dear to me, and I intend to honor her house’s claim. They need not know that he’s false. They’ll still reap the glory of the rite of oblation, and I don’t think it will kill him. Once it’s finished, send him back whence he came. I don’t want to see him again.”

  “It will be as you command, mistress,” Pynel said.

  Pynel hesitated. Morricant paused her work to look at the seplica captain.

  “Forgive me, mistress,” Pynel said. “He needs that scale to stay alive.”

  “Of course he does,” Morricant said, disgusted.

  Morricant plucked the scale from where it lay on the desk and tossed it to Pynel. Pynel snatched it out of the air and climbed to her feet.

  The ribbon holding Mazareem loosened and dropped to the floor as Pynel approached. With a glance, she indicated that he should come with her. They retraced their steps through dark hallways and down long flights of stairs and soon stepped out into the courtyard again. The sky had darkened, and it would soon be night. Pynel grabbed a lit torch from a wall socket and made for the gate.

  Mazareem followed automatically. He felt numb inside. Torture would have been better than what Morricant had just done to him. She had reduced him to nothing. Less than nothing. The past thousand years of his life had been a waste. Not once, in all that time, had he encountered anything to rival the experience of loving Morricant. What was the point of immortality, if it only brought with it isolation and insignificance?

  Horrified, Mazareem traced the pathways of his life, seeing where he would have chosen differently had he possessed the memories Morricant kept from him. She had not just robbed him of his past, she had stolen his future too. Now, at long last, he was complete. And he hated himself. He hated what he had become.

  Under the starless night sky, Mazareem trod the streets of Orcassus with a heavy step. He had come to The City of Death, but even that mercy would be denied. Like the iron collar around his neck, the chains of fate shackled his soul. Fate that demanded he live a life that was not his own.

  Mazareem glanced over his shoulder. The black castle was almost invisible against the night sky, but he could just make out the silhouette of the high tower. In the depths of his heart, fanned by the sparks of reawakened memory, a truth too painful to face smoldered.

  He still loved her.

  Chapter 24

  LACRAEL LOATHED THE MASK she was forced to wear. It was not designed for comfort, and the rough wood chafed against the soft skin of her face. No matter how much she sanded it down, the mask always left her scratched and irritated. The narrow eye slits restricted her sight to the point that she had no peripheral vision. She had adjusted to these limitations as best she could, but she cursed inwardly every time she had to don the disguise.

  Hexia’s presence required Lacrael to keep the mask on all the time. Normally, as soon as Lacrael and Niad were alone, she would remove the mask. As long as Hexia traveled with them, Lacrael was forced to remain in her role as a subservient forsaken. Niad spoke only to Hexia, ignoring Lacrael completely. Lacrael trudged along behind the two of them as they made their way to the slave quarter of the city.

  “We still need breathers,” Niad said. “We’ve been navigating the Ravening without filters.”

  “You’ve been sucking down raw miasma?” Hexia said. “You really are poor.”

  Hexia hefted the pack she carried on her back.

  “I’ve got ten masks in here,” Hexia said. “If you need more than that, just sell a few slaves here before we make the trip. It’s better than killing them outside. Sure, they’ll fetch a reduced price, but you’re not going to find any breathers for sale right now. Everyone’s heading to Orcassus. A risen one appeared on the outskirts of the empire, and he’ll arrive in the capital any day now. No one wants to miss the chance to be a part of his pilgrimage.”

  “Ten is fine,” Niad said. “But why are you carrying so many?”

  “I was going to sell them for twenty ti
mes what they’re worth. The coin you’re carrying is less than what I could have gotten, so consider yourself lucky that you’re getting a deal.”

  To reach the slave pens, they had to cross a crowded square where travelers were preparing to depart for Orcassus. The space was packed with people checking miasma filters, securing packs on their backs, and making last-minute preparations before venturing out into the Ravening. Hexia strode through the crowd as if she expected people to make way for her, and they did.

  So it was a surprise when Hexia stopped and ducked behind a group of travelers. Lacrael looked in the same direction as Hexia, curious as to what could make the young woman want to hide. Behind her mask, Lacrael’s mouth fell open. Twenty paces away, at the head of a party preparing to depart, stood Elise. Unhelmeted, her austere beauty was unmistakable. Lacrael had never thought to see the tomb keeper again.

  “That’s one of my half-sisters,” Hexia said, gesturing towards Elise. “She doesn’t approve of my star hunter aspirations, and I don’t have time for another one of her lectures. Come on, we can get around her by going this way.”

  Hexia kept her head down and made for the outer wall of the square. Niad and Lacrael followed but made no attempt to hide themselves. Lacrael did not expect Elise to recognize them, and Hexia’s curious behavior was drawing the attention of those nearby. If all three of them scurried away at the same time, they were certain to draw Elise’s eye. At the edge of the courtyard, Hexia ducked into a narrow alleyway that ran parallel to the open space.

  The cobblestone alley was filled with trash and stinking puddles. Lacrael dodged the fetid water as she walked quickly to keep up with Hexia. Only when they had moved beyond the staging area where Elise stood did Hexia guide them back to the main avenue.