by Mike Truk
And for once I felt absolutely no need for clever quips. I did as asked, allowing Iris to move forward, her family a step behind.
“What are you?” asked Lady Haverwort. “Who are you?”
Iris didn’t respond. Instead, she stretched out her hand and plucked with her fingers at invisible strings.
Lady Haverwort startled as if someone had goosed her, then raised her staff in both hands and began to cry out a series of arcane words.
“Iris?” I hesitated, not knowing what to do. “What’s going on?”
Iris ignored me. She plucked with greater speed, and then simply reached out as if grabbing at a spiderweb and clenched her fist, drawing whatever hung in the air to her chest.
Lady Haverwort let out a cry of rage and shock. Her staff flared punishingly bright. “No! My children! How are you - release - you cannot -”
Squinting, eyes shielded by a raised hand, I saw one of the barrow golems turn and hammer its fist into the side of Lady Haverwort’s head. Bone shattered, her neck snapped, and the light in her staff blinked out as she collapsed to the ground to lie still.
“There,” said Iris. “We can continue.”
My heart was pounding like a mad thing. “What - what just happened?”
Netherys moved forward, stepping as if on an ice-covered lake, to stare in wonder at the barrow-sorceress’ creations. “They still stand?”
“They are now mine,” said Iris, a faint pulse of intensity to her voice - was that pride? Impatience? I couldn’t tell. “They will do as I command.”
And as if to underscore her words, the golems moved aside, the apostles doing the same, forming a corridor through their ranks through which we could pass.
“But…” Elsa was ashen in the light of my lantern. “How did you… you’re a necromancer?”
“For now,” said Iris.
“But it’s illegal to attack each other down here,” said Elsa. “We’re not supposed to… you just…”
“Oh, grow up, Elsa,” said Netherys, moving past the barrow creatures to the far archway. “Those rules and regulations don’t apply to us. Let’s be going. Good work, Iris.”
I followed the dark elf, and only then really understood what had just happened. We’d just doubled our strength. Strength that was in large part already based on Iris’ power. I suppressed a shiver as I marveled again. What would I do if she and I were ever at cross purposes?
The barrow creatures fell in behind us, relieving Pogo of rear guard.
“The golems are creatures of brute power,” said Iris, stepping up to walk alongside me, voice dreamy, gazing off into the middle distance. “Very resilient and hard to damage. The apostles are more cunning creations. I admire Lady Haverwort’s work. She must have spent a lot of time on them. Ah - look at that.”
I peered ahead. Nothing but shadow. Only to realize Iris was no longer really talking to me. What was she seeing?
“Very interesting. She gifted the apostles with subtle magical powers. They can step through shadows. Limited distances. And this… what does this channel do? Ah… to their blades, perhaps? Their essence. They can pour it into their weapons to some effect. But how clumsy this layering. So much unnecessary work. Inhibiting instead of enhancing. Haverwort was talented, but the poor woman. Let us improve on her handiwork.”
Iris reached out and once again plucked and pulled at invisible strings, and even I felt the pulse of power that emanated from her, like a silent shockwave of pressure.
“There,” breathed Iris. “They should enjoy that. And if we blend them?”
Iris stopped walking. Cerys almost ran into her. Her undead family spread out to line the walls of the hall down which we walked. Netherys turned to look back.
“Iris?” I asked.
She held up a hand, bidding me be silent.
I shut my trap.
She was staring intensely at something within her mind’s eye. A single vertical slit appeared between her brows. “Yes. Exponential benefits. If we collapse these matrixes, combine and open… but…” She trailed off, frowning still.
I shared a confused look with Cerys.
“Ah,” said Iris, and her frown smoothed away. “Yes. That could work.” She turned to regard the barrow creatures at the rear, extended her hands to them, and once again began manipulating the air.
I raised my lantern so as to see the rear of our group.
Two apostles stepped toward each golem. Simply pressed themselves against those monstrous humanoids of earth and stone, and then… melted into them. Half sunk into the dirt, half spread out across them like heated wax.
I watched, transfixed. The stuff of the apostles ran over the surface of the golems, whose very outlines began to change, becoming leaner, less like crude golems and more like statues of dark stone and loam. Their bodies trembled as different sections compacted, so that they lost that loose, hilly look and instead appeared dense and vicious.
A few minutes later it was done. Iris dropped her hands, exhaling happily, and we all stared at the two new creations. As tall and lean as Pony, their arms reached nearly to the floor and were tipped with sharp stone shards. Their faces now resembled crude approximations of the apostles’, and a vicious kind of intelligence, base and cunning, gleamed in their large, metallic eyes.
“What… what did you do?” asked Cerys, clearly impressed. Or horrified. Or both.
“It was hard, given how much inanimate matter Lady Haverwort worked with,” said Iris. “She was equal parts transmuter as necromancer, but her weaves allowed me to manipulate what she’d already done. I’ve merged them. Consolidated them so that my new creations are more than the sum of their parts. Observe.”
And the two barrow apostles stepped back into the shadows just beyond the radiance of my lantern and disappeared.
Pogo startled. “Where - what happened to them?”
A scraping sound behind me. I turned to see Netherys already staring at where the two barrow apostles had emerged from the darkness ahead of us. One of them had purposefully dragged a finger across the wall to alert us.
“They can travel through darkness,” said Iris. “The range is limited, but I believe if pushed they could move a dozen yards. I’ve yet to test how often they can do it; the passage frays at their matrixes. But they’re now stronger, more armored, and capable of semi-autonomous activity based on the directives I give them.” She beamed at us all. “Aren’t they wonderful?”
Their metallic blue eyes were alien, utterly monstrous, their gangly bodies looking for all the world like great, warped insects made of stone.
“Wonderful,” I agreed, voice dry.
And they stepped back again and disappeared.
“I’m ready,” said Iris, voice cheerful. “This is proving to be very interesting and fun.”
“Ready,” I said, only to realize I was just parroting her words. I coughed and forced myself to gather my wits. “Great work, Iris. Thank you. Netherys? Are you leading the way?”
The dark elf nodded, eyes narrowed as she stared at our necromancer, then resumed walking, not, apparently, needing much light to proceed ahead of us.
“I’d… I’d no idea she was so powerful,” whispered Elsa to me.
“Now you understand why Gremond’s fucked if he doesn’t do what we ask,” I replied, taking a grim satisfaction in the words.
“I… yes.” Elsa was obviously perturbed. She bit her lower lip, brow lowered, eyes darting from side to side in thought.
“Hey,” I said. “Relax. She’s a friend. She’s on our side. It’s everyone else that has to worry.”
Elsa gave a curt nod and forced her shoulders back. “Right, right.”
Netherys led us through the ruins. And now, for the first time, I actually took them in. Ruins, yes, but still full of splendor; there was no corner that was unworked, no blank expanse of stone, no column that didn’t bear some tracery of art or that wasn’t carved into a statue.
And… it was beautiful. Or would have been, before
the centuries or millennia had brought it to what it was. I’d half expected to find skull motifs, tableaux portraying masses being tortured and killed, endless paeans to wrath and destruction. Instead, what I saw was designed endlessly around abstract themes of nature; spirals like the inside of a snail or nautilus shell; the curvature and cells of leaves magnified a hundred-fold; the ceiling of the halls rippled and carved to resemble the undersides of forest canopies. Yet it wasn’t a simple elegy to the beauty of the natural world; I saw carved depictions of dead animals lying amidst roots, saw skulls - not horrific, but rather grotesquely accurate - of deer and bear, of man and hound, and others I couldn’t identify.
Fragments of ancient tapestries hung here and there. Rotten piles of what might once have been gilt frames. We passed rooms in which I espied balustrades high up the walls, rooms whose doorways opened to steps descending into the depths, rooms lined with tarnished mirrors.
And here and there, corpses. Corpses impaled on rusted spikes. Corpses partially covered by deadfalls. Corpses pulled into walls so that part of them had become stone, the rest rotted away to bony nubs.
And all of these Iris collected, pulling off their spikes or adding what remained to those who could still walk, so that soon our group swelled to include another ten or so of the undead.
“There,” said Elsa, pointing down a fork. “The stairwell should be there.”
We dutifully went down the hall and found her to be correct; a grand stairwell carved to mimic the descending spiral of a snail shell led us into the depths.
Lantern held high, I paced after Netherys who went ahead with nary a sound. Down and down, round and round, passing one, two, then three doorways till we reached the fourth and there found a shattered seal.
It lay in fragments upon the ground, and had clearly once depicted the White Sun. The rope from which it had hung was neatly cut and lay about the broken seal like a severed snake.
We paused, staring at it.
“It would appear we’re not the only ones with designs upon the king troll tomb,” Pogo said.
Netherys knelt and lifted a fragment of the seal. “Recently done. No dust. Thus, one of the other teams.”
“Not the barrow-sorceress,” said Iris, and I couldn’t tell if she was trying to be funny.
“Nor the knights,” said Cerys. “They didn’t seem the type to break rules.”
I rubbed at my jaw. “Either the elves, or the Port Gloom crew. I’d wager Baleric. He’s less likely to respect the sanctity of a rival god, and why would the elves seek out their queen’s tomb here?”
“Unless their queen was buried with the king troll?” asked Cerys.
Netherys stepped over the seal into the hallway beyond. “Speculation will only get us so far. Let’s continue.”
I felt an ache as I acutely missed Yashara’s presence; her common sense, her tactical mind, the sheer stability and confidence she gave the whole team. Gremond had best be treating her with every courtesy. If she was returned to us any the worse for wear…
We followed after. The hallways here were if anything larger and more grand; the walls featured more scenes from the past, battles, gatherings, depictions of solitary figures underwater or rowing or striding through empty halls. A story, I was sure, but we were moving too fast to decipher it.
“Up ahead,” said Netherys, raising a hand to slow us down. “I hear voices.”
I heard nothing. Still, I banked the lantern’s light as we followed Netherys along the last stretch of the hallway, which had now grown wide enough for six of us to walk down abreast. Ahead I saw a set of double doors, massive enough for two war trolls to have walked through with ease. One half was cracked open, and a golden light spilled forth across the hallway floor.
Netherys lifted her hand again, bidding us stop, and crept up to the door, each footstep as quiet as a feather touching down upon one’s palm. There she listened, a dark shadow against the door’s pale surface, and then risked a glimpse through the crack before returning down to where we stood.
“The elves,” she whispered. “They are speaking with the exemplar, Aurora.”
I tongued the inside of my cheek. “What are they talking about?”
“They were arguing, very politely. Aurora was apologizing but refusing to accede to what must have been a request.”
“If they’re going to fight,” whispered Cerys, “then we might do best by waiting them out.”
“Agreed,” I said, “no sense in -”
The great door pushed open wide, allowing the golden light from within to flood the hallway, and I startled like a gentlefinger caught in the act of lifting a purse.
One of the elves stood there, a metallic green shield raised to cover most of her upper torso, a gleaming blade in her other hand. The shield was made in the same leaf motif that accented her armor, and I saw that the central leaf that had adorned the other elf’s chest was missing.
She said something in elvish over her shoulder to those still in the room, her voice rich with disdain, her finely arched brows lowering over her peerless green eyes.
“Actually,” said Netherys, pushing back her hood to reveal her full mane of purple hair and ashen, swept back ears, “this band belongs to Kellik, not his war troll.”
It was the elf’s turn to startle, and she quickly ducked back into the room and out of sight.
“Apologies,” said Netherys, turning to smile at the rest of us. “I have great difficulty putting up with their idiotic arrogance.”
“So much for waiting for them to fight it out,” I said, pushing past her. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
I stepped up to the doorway. The entrance itself was imposingly grand, massive and flanked by statues, the lintel seemingly teeming with artwork, all of it looking more like the entrance to a temple than the doorway to another room.
But there was no time to gape at the artwork. Within I saw a grand chamber, dominated by a huge alabaster sarcophagus that would have fit Pony quite easily. The rest of the room was almost painfully beautiful, the walls resplendent with carved white marble, the rear wall an explosion of painted glass, statues so lifelike I thought they’d move, but again - no time to gape.
Aurora stood to one side before a swirling portal of white fire. She was dressed in peerless steel plate armor, functional and wondrous, with the White Sun emblazoned over her chest. Every inch of her was covered in steel but for her head; her helm was held under her arm, and so I was treated to the full weight of her disapproving stare, her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed in displeasure. Her golden hair was braided in the same way I’d seen her wear it at Beauhammer’s party, the bun, I now realized, serving as a cushion for her helm.
The elves stood on the far side of the room, gathered behind the two sisters, all of them identical in their wondrous chainmail, all of them holding leaf shields and with long blades of glowing white in their other hands.
Nobody seemed particularly happy to see me.
“Hello,” I said. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything important?”
“Master Kellik,” said Aurora, her withering scorn making me feel like a six-year-old. “You were told to stay away from this area. Leave now, and I’ll urge leniency when we discuss your infraction later.”
“What about their infraction?” I asked, gesturing at the elves with my thumb.
“That is proving to be more problematic,” said Aurora.
“What is your business here?” asked one of the sisters. I couldn’t tell them apart. Her Khansalese was deliciously accented, though it was hard to ignore her anger. “Leave at once.”
“Why does everyone think I can just be ordered around?” I stepped inside, making room for my friends to follow. Netherys stepped in first, drawing hisses from the elves, then Cerys, Pogo, Elsa and Iris. The undead spread out across the rear wall, but I saw no sign of the barrow apostles. Pony came in last, Tamara still held in the crook of his arm.
“A necromancer,” said Aurora, “and a dark elf. I see I
was hasty when I assessed you as a harmless buffoon.”
“Ouch,” I said. “Harmless?” My pulse was racing, my nerves so stretched that I didn’t even know what I was saying. “You couldn’t have gone for ‘handsome?’”
One of the elven sisters said something cutting in elven. Netherys gave a bark of laughter and responded, and even I could tell the difference between the two languages; they were incredibly similar, but one sounded like sunlight falling on leaves as the wind blew through the canopy, the other like a cold stream flowing deep underground.
Netherys’ comment didn’t go over well. The elves fell into combat crouches, shields rising so that only their eyes were visible over their brims.
“Enough!” Aurora raised her blade and it shone with power, momentarily flooding the tomb with such brilliance that everyone drew back. “I’ve been patient thus far, but you, this situation, and frankly this whole sordid city has pushed me to the edge. Get out of here now and resolve your differences elsewhere, or I’ll put on my helm and start cutting you down.”
Coming from anyone else I’d have laughed, but what with Aurora being an exemplar and all? That was a serious threat.
One of the sisters spoke again. “I ask you for the last time, exemplar. Step aside. You agree that what is happening is wrong. It is why you are here. My sisters and I shall remedy the situation for you.”
Aurora’s smile was cutting. “I appreciate the offer, Anadriel. But the White Sun handles its own problems. And there’s no way I’m allowing you - elven royalty or not - to interfere. I sincerely don’t wish to fight you. You have my utmost respect. But I won’t allow you to seize the Eye. It will remain within my church. I swear to you on the White Sun that when I am done with this situation, even you shall be satisfied.”
I half turned to Netherys. “The Eye? What are they talking about?”
Netherys shrugged.
Anadriel’s smile was the kind of cold, pitying smile that only a near immortal being can summon. “Alas, the time for your church to manage this situation is past. We will not allow kyeengtruhl artifacts to return to the waking world. I salute you, Exemplar. And I shall weep over your needless death when we are done.”