Vaguely, as if from a dream, he remembered Masters Tyrius, Lynnea and Finneus, who had probably been down there somewhere. And the mages who had come with them in search of the Well were gone, their bodies fallen to the street level many stories below. As far as he knew, his mother and himself might be the only surviving mages in all the world.
Meiran.
The thought ripped through him with the force of a death blow, the pain of it almost doubling him over. His eyes scoured the ruins below him until his vision blurred. But there was no movement in the scattered rubble, no sign of life. Only undulating clouds of dust swirled over the shattered remains of his home. The soaring structure of the Hall of the Watchers had been reduced to an enormous mass grave, the mounds of broken stone an immense burial cairn.
If Meiran had been there, then she was dead.
“Aidan.”
The sound of his mother’s trembling voice seemed to come from another world. Instantly, sound and substance came rushing back. Darien blinked as if waking from a nightmare, a cold sweat breaking out all over his body. The air was thick with rising dust, and his vision swam with tears he was too numb to shed. He wiped a hand across his eyes, restoring his sight. Then he turned to look at his mother’s face.
Emelda stared at him with eyes wide with shock, shaking her head as her mouth stretched into a tight grimace of anguish. He took her into his arms, holding her against his chest as her body shook with spasms of grief.
Aidan had always been her favorite. Darien wondered why he could not summon even a fledgling tear over his brother’s death. Perhaps he was past tears, past the capacity to grieve.
With a last, long look at the ruins of the Hall, Darien forced himself to turn away from the sight. Delay now might cost them everything. He was going to have to take control. His mother still quivered in his arms, shaking with the force of her sobs. She was not yet capable of leading them anywhere. They had to flee the city, but Darien doubted the wood platform would ever make the trip again to the valley floor.
“Mother,” he whispered, gently pulling away. “We need to flee. Down the mountain. I know there’s a way, but you’ve never told me. If it’s some secret, I don’t think it matters anymore.”
Emelda blinked at him. Her face was a mess, all crusted in grime and smudged with tears. But deep within her eyes stirred a flicker of the strength he was used to. It was the same, innate strength that moved within himself.
“We must reach the Temple of Isap.” Emelda’s gaze darted toward the southeastern part of the city. Darien allowed his stare to follow. The sun would be rising eventually in that direction, but not for a while yet. There was definitely a chance the two of them could reach the temple if they kept low enough and made good speed.
But confusion continued to nettle him. It was another route he’d been considering. Placing his hands on his mother’s shoulders, he pressed her, “I don’t understand. How can the priests of Death help us escape down the mountain?”
“The Catacombs,” his mother whispered, shivering as if she had just revealed some dire secret. She probably had. “The Catacombs of Death exist partly in the Atrament. Distance and time have no meaning there. We can make use of the Catacombs to escape and go anywhere we like.”
Darien frowned in disbelief. It seemed unimaginable that the Temple of Death could have harbored a secret of that magnitude for so long. If these Catacombs truly existed, then the priesthood of Death had found a wonder that would rival even the greatest works of the Hall.
“Then we must go,” he agreed, feeling a pressing sense of urgency. He squeezed her shoulders. She was bleeding, he noticed, from cuts and scrapes she’d acquired during her fall from the bridge.
So Darien did what he had been trained to do all his life. He closed his eyes and reached within. Only, this time, it was different. Whenever he’d tried this same mental exercise in practice, there had always been just emptiness inside. But now his mind grasped something tangible. He could feel the song of the magic field as never before, soaring inside him like a symphony. He touched it, feeling it conform easily to his will, as if it were the most natural thing he had ever done in his life.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that his mother’s injuries were healed. She looked renewed, invigorated. Her face was swept clean of grime, the torn fabric of her dress mended. She looked hale. And very much full of pride.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
He took her by the hand and led her off the balcony into the shadows of the building. Emelda followed behind, down long flights of steps and out into the empty street. They continued down and off the terrace, working their way eastward toward the bottom of the city. The night air was thick, filled with acrid smoke and choking dust.
The streets were littered with debris that had fallen from the heights. They often found themselves skirting a pile of rubble, as collapsed parts of buildings and bridges impeded almost every step. There were few people alive in the city. It was like walking in a world of the dead under the glow of that filthy green light. Every so often, the silence was pierced by distant screams.
They had been traveling for over an hour when Darien found himself confronted by an obstacle that looked impossible to cross or go around. An entire building had fallen across the road, cutting them off from the bridge on the other side.
Darien needed to reach that bridge. They were already at the lowest reaches of the city, at a split in the enormous rock face where the cliff bowed inward, creating a vertical crevice that cut deep into the sheer rock wall. The bridge that spanned the gap arched over a drop of thousands of feet. There was nothing but air below it, all the way down the sheer precipice to the valley floor below.
A wolf howled, the sound eerie and mournful. The noise made Darien shiver with a feeling of dread. There were no wolves in all of Aerysius.
Something skirted the edge of his vision. It looked like a shadow moving on the far side of the road. But when he turned toward it, there was nothing there. Frowning, he rubbed his eyes as he pondered the situation. The only way to the bridge was up and over that wall of rubble.
So they climbed.
The going was slow, as the debris had a way of shifting underfoot. Darien let his mother go before him, picking out her own path as he trailed behind, steadying the blocks that threatened to slip out from under them with the force of his mind.
The more he exercised his power, the more he became accustomed to it. It was simply another extension of himself, just like his sword. He handled it expertly; he’d trained for this moment most of his life.
A block of rubble shifted overhead. Instantly, an avalanche of stone and chunks of marble started to slide down on top of them. Darien simply deflected the shower of debris, hardly sparing it a thought. He saw his mother turn to stare at him with respect in her eyes. Though Prime Warden, Emelda Lauchlin was still only first tier.
Darien knew why his mother had waited so long to arrange his Raising. She had been waiting for just the right time, when he could receive the Transference from an especially strong Grand Master. Ezras had contained approximately five times the amount of power in his frail old body as Emelda was capable of wielding. It was possible she was allowing Darien to stabilize the larger pieces of rock by himself, to give him practice working with his newfound strength. Yet, he couldn’t help admitting, it was also possible she couldn’t do it herself.
They reached the top of the rubble and gradually worked their way down the other side. In the distance, another wolf-like cry broke the silence of the night. The sound chilled Darien’s blood. He hurried his mother off the rubble and started toward the bridge.
A scraping sound from behind made him stop. Whirling, he reached for the hilt of his sword and grasped only air.
A lone man was coming toward them from the other side of the street, black cloak rippling about him as he moved, face lost in shadow.
Darien released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He waited for the man to approach as his mother st
ood beside him, studying the newcomer with an expression of vibrant hope.
Darien was skeptical. At least there was someone else alive in the night besides themselves. He had the feeling that his mother was studying the shadows of the approaching face for traces of familiar features. She was hoping it was Aidan, miraculously saved from the catastrophe of the Hall. Darien just hoped it was someone useful.
When the figure stepped out of shadow, Darien’s eyes widened in surprise. His mother drew in a sharp gasp and immediately started forward. But for some reason, Darien thrust out his hand and held her back.
She was right. It was Aidan.
But there was something very different about his brother.
Aidan Lauchlin halted in the middle of the street, regarding them with a narrow blue stare that somehow seemed more arrogant than usual, supremely more confident. Darien frowned, trying to put a finger on exactly what seemed so wrong. It was something subtle, something just not right. His mother pulled against his hold on her arm, struggling to free herself and rush toward the son she had thought was lost. But Darien tightened his grip, refusing her.
Then he saw it: Aidan was wearing his sword.
Darien could think of absolutely no good reason in the world why his brother would be carrying his own weapon. A few explanations drifted across his mind, but Darien rejected them all, until the only explanation left was one too terrible to consider. But it fit. Horribly, it made a sinister kind of sense. Like Meiran, Aidan had also missed his Raising.
“What’s the matter with you?” Emelda spat at him, tugging her arm in an effort to release his grip. Darien only held on more firmly.
“He opened the Well of Tears,” he said, eyes only for Aidan as he searched the shadowy face before him for confirmation of his words. But there was no reaction on his brother’s face. Aidan just continued to stare at him, eyes calm and arrogant. Darien wished his brother would do something, anything. Shout in denial, rain him with curses, lash out with the scathing sarcasm Darien found so infuriating. Anything but his silence.
His brother’s complete lack of response confirmed Darien’s worst fear.
A confident smile spread slowly on Aidan’s lips. Darien reached within, the action now almost a reflex. Then he stopped himself, recalling in horror his Oath to Tyrius Flynn. Never to harm. The words rang bitterly within the confines of his head, along with his plea to his mother the previous day: Unbind the Sentinels.
He was not Unbound.
He had uttered his Oath, the Oath he had already chosen not to keep. But something had changed in him. Darien didn’t know if it was his experience with Grand Master Ezras or perhaps even Tyrius Flynn. Maybe it was witnessing the destruction of the home he had always taken for granted, along with the sum of its ancient traditions.
Darien realized he would keep that Oath. Gerald Lauchlin had kept it to a bitter grave. His son could do no less.
Dimly, on the edge of his vision, he saw five dark shapes approaching. They looked like nebulous silhouettes of mist gliding toward him from out of the shadows of the street. A sickening horror rose inside him, a harrowing chill that was appalling. The air around him thickened until it was hard to even breathe.
He felt his mother’s arm growing cold in the grasp of his hand. He knew what those black forms were, had read about them in texts, heard them named in the darkest tales and myths. He knew their only chance was to run. The touch of a necrator was not death; it was something very much worse.
Darien spun his mother around, propelling her toward the bridge. He started after her, but his foot caught in a crack in the street. He stumbled, thrusting his arms out as he fell to the ground. He caught himself with the heels of his hands and rolled, barely avoiding the necrator that melted up from the street in the exact place he’d landed.
Gaining his feet, Darien glanced behind to see his mother clearing the end of the bridge. It exploded behind her. Shards of broken stone flew toward him, and he flung his arms up to shield his face. He groped desperately for the power within, but there was nothing there.
Darien froze in the steel grip of the starkest terror he’d ever known in his life. It wrenched up from his stomach, clenching his throat, as all of the blood seemed to rush out of his head at once. He retained enough of himself to recognize the feeling for what it was: not a true emotion, but rather the awful influence of the necrator that stood like a black wraith in front of him.
He forced his legs to move, backing away from it, stumbling over debris.
His brother walked casually toward him, a hand lifting the baldric that held Darien’s sword over his head. Aidan flung the sword at him, scabbard and all. It slid toward him across the pavement, bumping along, coming to a rest at his feet. Darien reached down to retrieve it, never taking his eyes from the necrator. The other four were approaching, as well. He gripped the scabbard in his right hand, the trembling fingers of his left hand closing around the hilt of the blade.
“Aren’t you wondering who helped me unseal the Well of Tears?” Aidan asked, striding toward him. He stopped perhaps ten paces away, as if hesitant to come too close to the necrators.
Darien was too distracted to respond. The five dark shapes in front of him were pressing him slowly backward toward the edge of the cliff. And not just any cliff. He knew it wasn’t just a simple fall to another terrace. His death wasn’t going to be that clean.
Aidan took another step toward him. “I killed Meiran. It’s her blood that stains your sword.”
Darien looked down at the blade in its scabbard, not daring to bare the steel. It would only confirm what he already knew had to be true. Meiran had not been there at his Raising. That should have been enough to tell him something was horribly wrong.
The rage and pain that consumed him was overwhelming, a harrowing fury that swept aside every other emotion, burying him under a breaking tidal wave of wrath and grief. He almost lashed out with his mind, was on the brink of focusing his rage into a fiery spear of vengeance.
It wasn’t his Oath that held him back.
It was the necrators. Three of them glided forward, their vile influence keeping his power in check.
“It won’t hurt so very much,” Aidan promised, moving toward him. “I’ve had much practice tonight. I’ll even make it quick. Come, Brother.”
Darien took a step back from him. And another. The necrators glided smoothly after him, maintaining their distance. Aidan strode between them as Darien looked around for anything he could use to defend himself.
There was nothing. His sword was useless against another mage, and the song of the magic field was silent inside him. There was only Aidan and the necrators, or the cliff. The choice was easy to make. Carrying out that decision, now … that was hard.
But knowing Meiran waited for him made it a little easier. He knew she would be there, somewhere in the distances that span eternity.
Darien had backed up as far as he could against the edge of the cliff. There was nowhere else to go. He held his gaze locked with his brother’s eyes as he took one last step off the edge of the precipice.
4
The Price of an Oath
Emelda Lauchlin landed roughly on the other side of the gaping chasm. Pushing herself up off the ground, she watched helplessly as Darien surrendered himself to the mountain’s sheer face.
There was nothing she could do.
She watched him go.
Emelda screamed his name, reaching out with her mind across the distance between them―too little, too late. She collapsed forward, arms hugging her chest. A wail of mortal grief tore from the depths of her soul.
First Gerald, and now their son. It was too much to bear. And Aidan … Darien said it was Aidan who’d opened the Well of Tears. Emelda hadn’t believed him at the time. Now, she did. Aidan was her child, her firstborn. He had opened the Well, destroyed the Hall of the Watchers, slain his only brother, and brought Aerysius to its knees. She couldn’t understand, any more than she could stop the waves of anguis
h threatening to sweep her away in a harrowing current of despair.
And now he was coming for her.
Emelda watched through a blur of tears as delicate strands of energy twined across the yawning mouth of the crevice where the stone bridge had been only moments before. She gaped in shock at the span of solid light that formed, woven from silver filaments of magic. It was impossible. Such an act was well beyond the talents of even the mightiest Grand Master.
Emelda shuddered as her son mounted that glimmering span and moved toward her, flanked by five living shadows that flowed soundlessly after him. Part of her wanted to run, but she couldn’t summon the strength to do more than draw breath. A paralyzing fear crept up from her stomach, seizing the motion of her chest. The necrators moved past him, gliding swiftly toward her.
She took a trembling step backward and stumbled as Aidan stepped off the glowing bridge that shimmered out of existence just as quickly as it had appeared. She shuddered as his cold blue gaze fixed on her. There was nothing left of the son she knew in those terrible, piercing eyes. Fresh tears of horror ran down Emelda’s cheeks as she shook her head in denial.
“Why?” she screamed, backing away from the demon who used to be her son.
The malevolent sneer on his face was terrifying. He advanced toward her, shaking his head as if in disgust, then paused to consider her for a moment. In a voice she barely recognized, he said, “You’re so pathetic, Mother.”
The shock of the insult came as a hammer blow, driving the last bit of strength from her body. She moaned, covering her face with her hands and sobbing into them. That was all she could do. He advanced the last few steps toward her, reaching a hand up to caress her face.
She recoiled from the touch, backing away from him. “How could you? He was your brother!”
Aidan only chuckled. “You would be surprised at what I’m capable of.”
Emelda whirled away from him, tears spraying from her cheeks as she sprinted in the direction of the ruined street. She didn’t get far. Her body hit a solid wall of air and rebounded to the ground. She lay there, panting in the dust and dirt, staring up at the green-infected sky. Chest heaving, she saw him moving toward her again. Only, now, she knew there was nowhere to run. She was helpless. Her Oath prevented her from doing anything to protect herself. The dark presence of the necrators insured that she kept it.
The Complete Rhenwars Saga: An Epic Fantasy Pentalogy Page 5