Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  “Thaddeus,” Ghrenna turned to the scribe, “would you explain your discovery?”

  With a brisk nod, Thad traced a few sigils upon the near obelisk. They flared a wraithlike white-blue beneath his fingertips, like the sigils upon the tombs. To Elyasin’s surprise, when Thad added humming to his endeavors the obelisk moved. Like a massive Praoughian clockwork, the thing shuffled through a few smooth clicks, pushing out pieces from its surface with a liquid fluidity, then re-placing them into the whole as entire sections twisted and rotated. What had been a six-sided obelisk now had eight faces with protrusions every handspan, the sigils on its face re-arranged into a different pattern.

  “Amazing!” Elyasin stepped closer, reaching out to stroke the sigils. They flared under her fingertips, then went quiet.

  “Indeed,” Thad smiled brightly. “I discovered this a few days ago and have been recording the Giannyk sentences they form. Or incantations.”

  Elyasin chilled, not liking the sound of that, but Thaddeus merely plowed on in his scholarly excitement as he gestured to a group of sigils on the near surface. “I’ve recorded this pattern already. From my observation of the memory walls, I’ve come to assume that these sigils translate to ice, travel, home, thought, bring, and wyrria. It seems to mean something like, by the power of wyrric thought, will you travel home to the ice. Whenever the sigils rearrange, they always recombine in a pattern of six. On any obelisk in this room, each sentence has six elements. Noun-verb-noun, followed by another noun-verb-noun.”

  “What are you getting at, Thad?” Reaching out, Therel traced the sigil of ice, like seven stylized icicles or fangs in a row.

  “Everything we’ve experienced down here makes music, or responds to it.” Thad pulled off his spectacles and put them up on his head. “I believe Giannyk wyrria operated within that framework – sigils that are a living imprint, which respond to sound and vibration. When we interact with that – with the vibrations of our bodies through touch, speech, or singing – we get results.”

  Reaching out, Thad stroked the gold veins of the travel sigil, like an ornate cart-wheel. It brightened, then dimmed, but as he began to sing the sentence inscribed upon the surface, the brightening effect was multiplied. The pillar resonated, a low, thrumming vibration cascading off of its smooth surfaces, rumbling Elyasin to her core as waves of light rippled through the sigils Thad touched. Like thunder over mountains, the feel of it was carnal and Elyasin shivered at the thrilling sensation. Thad ceased singing and the hum of the obelisk faded, until his fingers merely traced pretty streaks of light upon its surface.

  “Fascinating. How do you suppose it works?” Therel mused, riveted beside Elyasin.

  “I believe that each obelisk is a puzzle,” Thad spoke, “a tricky one. Just on this obelisk alone I’ve recorded thirty-six different positions, each with numerous faces, and each face having the recombinant six-sigil pattern. If you look at each obelisk, sigils will rise up from inside sections when it changes shape, revealing entirely new markings. Whoever created these didn’t want them to be solved easily. Or perhaps at all. I also think––”

  Thad cut off suddenly and Elyasin prodded him, “You think what?”

  “That these puzzles protect something. Or perhaps incarcerate something.” Thaddeus’ gaze darted down, then back up as he cleared his throat. “I have the feeling these obelisks were put here to keep these tombs asleep. Every obelisk has one sigil that repeats. The symbol for sleep. In the tunnel pictures, the symbol for death was everywhere – a reclining figure on its side with coins over its eyes and arms crossed. But here, it’s all sleep. A reclining figure on its side with one finger raised before its lips. What if – what if they’re down here because Bhorlen put them to sleep on purpose? And created these obelisks with binding-magic in an unfathomable puzzle so that no one could ever wake them?”

  Elyasin thought back to their battle with the Giannyk wight. How cold the thing had been, how inhuman. The wight had fled to this pinnacle when it flashed out. Elyasin shivered as her gaze met Therel’s again. Therel took a deep breath, then turned to Thad.

  “You’re stalling, Thad.” Therel admonished gently, his lupine gaze wry. “We know you’ve figured out more than you’re saying.”

  Thad took a deep breath, and his next words ringing out among the obsidian obelisks like a death-knell. “I’ve learned enough of the Giannyk language that I’m able to read many of the glyphs inscribed upon this central tomb. Much of the text is historical, speaking of the entombed warrior’s identity. This tomb identifies the occupant as King Trevius Stranik of the Heimhold Giannyk clan. Elected King of the North during the Giannyk-Albrenni Wars, when a vast evil swept the land. Wars, famines, plagues, purges, slaughters, natural disasters, you name it. An evil attributed to the Utrus, the Undoer, who is identified as a possessor-entity with red eyes.”

  “The Red-Eyed Demon,” Elyasin murmured.

  “Precisely.” Thad’s gaze held hers, troubled. “From the glyphs, I’ve pieced together that Trevius was actually possessed by this Undoer-entity. That he waged a horrible battle against his own kind, the Giannyk, and their neighbors the Albrenni, and nearly won. His own brother, named Archaeon Stranik in the glyphs, acquired a tremendous weapon, something called the Key of Fire, to halt Trevius and his warriors.” Thad gestured to all the tombs. “And then this other fellow, Bhorlen Valdaris, created an unsolvable wyrric trap for Trevius and his warriors – to put them to sleep forever, away from the clutches of the Undoer.”

  “King Trevius’ Sleep.” The words breathed from Therel’s lips with a terrible awe. “It’s all real.”

  “So it is.” Thad held his King’s gaze. “There are dire warnings on the sarcophagi. To never solve Karakhan nikh Obderheim, the Riddle of the Obelisks. Lest it wake Warrik schlafin k’Utrus the Sleeping Warriors of the Undoer.”

  “Better stop fiddling with those plinths, kid,” Luc murmured, only slightly acerbic.

  “I have.” Thad gave a cordial nod to Luc. “But I discovered that one had been tampered with long before we arrived.” Gesturing to the second black spire in the ring, Thad stepped over to it, then began his routine of touching the sigils and humming, then singing again. But this one stood inert, not a single rune upon its surface flaring. Thad ceased his efforts, rejoining the group.

  “So that one doesn’t move,” Elyasin observed, crossing her arms, intrigued.

  “Its shape is final,” Thad agreed with a nod, retrieving his spectacles and polishing them on one sleeve with a troubled look. “It has been unlocked, shall we say. It doesn’t move anymore. No matter how many sigils I touch, or how I sing to it, it’s done.”

  “So one of seven locks surrounding a sleeping Giannyk King possessed by the Red-Eyed Demon is open?” Therel spoke, his pale brows knitting in a frown. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “I believe it’s why we were attacked when we arrived.” Thad put his spectacles back on his nose. “This lock was open prior to our arrival. Eight hundred years prior, to be exact. I spoke to Ghrenna about it, and her memories came flooding back.”

  “What do you mean?” Elyasin asked, turning to Ghrenna.

  “Morvein unlocked that obelisk,” Ghrenna cast her haunting gaze upon Elyasin. “The first time she came seeking the Giannyk to learn the Rennkavi’s binding. She’d thought this was the place, when she arrived. She opened tombs, saw sleeping Giannyk warriors, and realized there were no doors leading out of this chamber, so she began fiddling with the obelisks, just as Thad did, learning the Giannyk language, figuring out their sigildry and incantations. She figured out two things while she was here. And a third that nearly killed her.”

  “What things?” Elyasin asked, crossing her arms over her chest, her fingertips touching her longknives and finding comfort in them.

  “The first thing,” Ghrenna gestured to the silent pool of water around the sarcophagus, “is that this pool is a portal, accessed by that obelisk at the foot of the sarcophagus. It leads to an undergrou
nd citadel, to which Morvein traveled and found the White Ring of the Rennkavi’s Ritual. And further, to the Giannyk Bhorlen who taught her how to bind the Rennkavi.”

  “Thank fucks we’ve got a way out of here!” Luc breathed.

  “The second thing Morvein figured out,” Ghrenna continued, “was how to unlock the obelisks. Her fascination with them outweighed her fascination with the tombs, and she was able to unlock one without having read the warnings. She freed something horrible. Just a bit of its wrath and power, but enough that she nearly lost her life battling it. She managed to get through the portal – barely, but Morvein didn’t dare travel back this way until she had her Brother Kings.”

  “Morvein couldn’t win against that wight we battled?” Therel and Elyasin shared a look.

  “Not that creature.” Ghrenna gave Elyasin and Therel a long look. “That was only one of Trevius’ warriors. When Morvein unlocked that obelisk,” Ghrenna nodded at the non-functional one, “she awakened Trevius himself, or at least a small part of his enormous wyrria, as well as the wights of many of his sleeping warriors. She nearly died, getting through the portal and out of here. When she was with her Brother Kings, they had more power to get through to the White Ring. Raising wyrria so close to Trevius’ tomb will wake him again, but we must, in order to take the portal to our destination.”

  “Damned if we do—” Luc murmured.

  “Damned if we don’t.” Therel glanced at the healer, then gave a battle-ready grin. “The only way out is through. Everybody take a half-hour to eat, water, and pack your things. We’ll meet back here. Make ready to fight a demon.”

  No one spoke as they moved back down the hillside. Belongings and bedrolls were packed in a hurry; meals were quick. Canteens were filled at seepage-basins along the edge of the cavern, and then they were trekking back up to the mist-wreathed height. Packs were flung into the pool at Ghrenna’s instruction. Everyone slid into the frigid water, cold enough to even give Elyasin a shiver, though it was only knee-deep. The fighters gathered around Ghrenna and Thad at the obelisk in the water, facing outward.

  Ready for whatever might come when Ghrenna began opening the portal.

  Tense silence breathed around them. Elyasin felt something hard rise in her, ready for battle. Heat flooded her, and as she gazed at Therel, she could almost see a cool flood of power surging inside him from the Brother Kings. Mist swirled over the waters of the black pool. Ghrenna’s hands began to slide over runes upon the obelisk, igniting their blue-white incandescence. A vibration began in the chamber: a low, shuddering sound, like the growl of a mad animal. Ghrenna’s hands were fast, her humming opening to singing in ancient Giannyk. The vibration increased, shuddering the hillside, making the black waters of the pool dance and the mist swirl up around them. Elyasin’s neck lifted in hackles, the hairs on her arms standing straight as the entire chamber electrified.

  Suddenly, a rippling concussion shot through the mist. Originating at the central sarcophagus, it hammered through the pool and down the hillside, lifting the mist in a macabre, shuddering dance. Upon its heels, light flared in a spreading wave down from the height. Bier after bier surged to life with a searing, terrible glow, the cavern flooding with a sinuous brilliance. Too bright, the light was obliterating, and Elyasin cried out as she shielded her face, longknives ready in her hands, but no matter where she looked it was the same. Like sun upon a snowfield, blazing sigils scorched her from every direction, the opalescent mist magnifying that brightness like diamonds.

  Something came rushing out from the tomb in the center of the black pool. Terrible as a hurricane, it swirled the mist into a dazzling vortex. Elyasin had no time; it was upon them. Power hit her in a shuddering wave, and with a cacophonous howl, that power raised an army of wraiths in the mist all around them. The pressure of a thousand damned warriors slammed into Elyasin. It smote her to her knees in the water. A thousand gazes of terrible power – a vast, unimaginable wyrria that made the Brother Kings look like playthings.

  A towering form rose from the central sarcophagus in a diamond light, cavernously dark in all that brightness. As if the light could not penetrate the ancient Giannyk King, Trevius Stranik’s wight devoured all brilliance. Like a black hole, he ate all resonance – inhaled it, devoured it, as dead-bright blue eyes looked down upon them. Pain coursed through Elyasin’s limbs like live lightning as his mind gripped her, forcing himself into her, demanding that she come to heel – and showing her his true essence.

  Like a nightmare, red eyes stared out at Elyasin from a darkness so deep, it was the absence of all light. A world of endlessness and shadow, and the deep eternity of the Void. This was the force behind the wight-King. An enormous presence that wasn’t in the universe, but of the universe. As its crimson, soul-staining eyes pierced Elyasin, devouring her mind and flesh, it ate up whatever was good and beautiful inside her. Leaving only terror and nightmares, and the worst parts of her nature, for her to examine at leisure. For an infinity of its pleasure. For an infinity of her Undoing – the annihilation of everything she had ever been, was now, or ever would be.

  “No!”

  The word scorched from Elyasin’s lips like a firebrand from the forge. It went spearing into that darkness with all the power of Hahled Ferrian’s wyrria behind it. She sent it right to those bloody eyes, spearing them, as her left hand shot from her body in a banishing movement, palm out – slamming that presence out of her soul in a wash of heat like a volcano’s wrath.

  She felt Therel do the exact same thing at her side. The red-eyed evil broke like a mirage, but it was not arrested, the wight-King surging in fast. Elyasin’s hands flashed in a complicated warding on instinct, but the creature was faster. With one lance, the dark-wight seized her. The black mist wrenched her from the pool, lifting her high. Her limbs were freezing, her body devoured by pain and cold. Her ears heard Therel roar as Ghrenna’s singing faltered. Flooding flows of power slammed the dark-wight from Therel, but it held Elyasin fast, tuning aside those wyrric attacks and sending them into his dazzling army – infuriating them.

  As wights rushed in, attacking Therel from all around, King Trevius’ eyes devoured Elyasin, a poisonous, terrible red. A face of massive stature and strong bones formed, made of the swirling black mist, staring down at her. A disembodied wyrric power, his body was still trapped in his bier, and on instinct, Elyasin seized the creature’s swirling black wyrric hands that held her. Digging in claws of heat, she roared in its face, sending wrath out through her fingertips. Like lava flooding a mountainside, fire and molten gold seethed up its arms in crimson veins as she poured Hahled’s defiance through the wight-King with a defiant roar, wyrria racing into her foe.

  With a shriek of pain, it dropped her. The black mist flashed out as Elyasin splashed into the pool. Her bottom hit stone; her head plunged under. Golden sigils flared as she choked on icy water, thunder shuddering the pool from the dark-wight’s wrath. He was coming. Black mist smote the pool, directly for her, but then, she was wrenched. Ripped away and threaded through nowhere, her insides twisted and eyeballs exploding as she traveled.

  Thrust back into being with a splash onto hard stone – surrounded by a night full of stars.

  CHAPTER 20 – JHERRICK

  For three days after his death-rite, Jherrick sat in Flavian’s oculus-room before the pool, feeling the Void surround him. Whispering energies of benign or curious intent touched at his hair, stroked his skin. Deep in trance as evening settled, Jherrick felt a malign touch seep into body, demanding energy. He shivered it off, blinking rapidly. Sweat stood out on his forehead from hours of rolling back such intrusions. His heart beat with a strange rhythm since his trials, and it did so now as he fought off the stealing touch from the Void, hammering his chest and making him cough.

  Noldrones Flavian and Noldra Ethirae had been teaching him these past few days. Showing him how to immerse himself in the Void, yet remain above any energies that wanted to steal from him. After his encounter with the red-eyed
demon, Jherrick was cautious, and it had taken the Albrenni a full day to convince him he could open himself up to the Void safely. Still, it was a struggle, venomous energies plucking at his body anytime he relaxed his vigilance.

  Sensing a presence behind him, Jherrick released his trance as Noldra Ethirae ducked beneath the flowering vines that twined the stone doorway, carrying a silver tray of fruits. Her skin was the milky color of starlight in the violet evening, her hair a silver river that cascaded from beneath her hood. Her silk robe flowed over long limbs as she wove a table out of living vines that crept across the floor with an elegant gesture, then set the tray upon it. Her cheekbones cut across her immortal beauty, her eyes entirely black as she turned to evaluate Jherrick’s aura in the Void. A midnight sky lived in those eyes, just like Flavian’s – a miniature of the swirling cosmos Jherrick could now experience.

  “Noldrones Jherrick,” Noldra Ethirae addressed him with a slight bow and two fingers touching her brow. “Noldrones Flavian would speak with you after you sup. Are you well enough?”

  Jherrick could feel her powerful presence in the Void, like a shudder through his bones. He had known little about her before his awakening, and now he almost knew too much. Ethirae was one of the oldest members of the Sanctuary, despite her youthful appearance. An orb of light glowed around her in the Void, an energy-sphere that now reached out to Jherrick with luminous tendrils, smoothing his jagged struggles. Every color light eased into his heart as she moved close, bolstering him. As if she was a strung harp singing through the dusk and he a coarse bronze bell, Jherrick tuned to her resonance, until all devious energies rolled back.

  “How do you do that?” He sighed, bliss enveloping his Voidworld-vigilance at last.