Zya looked confused for a moment, and then indicated her understanding with the briefest of nods. The communication passed right by Cameron, who concentrated on the door.
“Draw your sword, Cameron.” Zya said slowly, and withdrew a stone from her robes. She did nothing with it for a time, but closed her eyes in concentration. “They are far away from here, concentrating on their target. Their loss. They are putting themselves heart and soul into the storm, which will presently sink the ship. Now is the time.”
Zya stepped into the doorway of the room, her robes flying out behind her as she did so, and instantly Ju and Cameron sprang to either side. The reaction was not what they expected. Three wizards stood on the balcony, outstretched and partially withered hands clutching focus stones. They wore different robes, and from this Zya deduced their origins. “One wizard of the air, one of the water and one of life. That shocks me most of all, that a dedicate of Jettiba could be involved with this but it also explains much.”
“Zya, I think we need to do something quick,” Ju warned, “for these strangers on the ship will be gone while we ponder over links between crusty old men.”
“Indeed, we must do something, but not quite what I thought,” Zya replied. “Stand back you two.” Zya closed her eyes, and Ju felt rather than watched a sharp gust of air knock the focus stones out of the hands of the three wizards. Nothing happened for a moment, but then Ju had a momentary vision of somebody hurtling backwards at uncharted speeds. Two of the wizards let out piercing screams, forcing Ju and Cameron to drop their weapons and cover their ears. Zya seemed unaffected, and drew her dagger. The third wizard just dropped to the ground. After but a moment, he was joined by the other two. As they did so something not so far off screamed as well, a mental projection that reeked of madness, and of unspeakable evil.
“Oh dear,” Zya said quietly, “I think we may be in trouble.”
Cameron bent down over the still forms of the ancient-looking men. Dropping to one knee, he tested the pulse of the air wizard. “They are dead! What happened to them?”
Zya was surprised to find a pang of sympathy for the three wizards. Or was it empathy? “They committed themselves to their cause so much that they were almost completely crossing over into the focuses they had created. It required so much power and control from all three of them that when I knocked the stones clear of their hands, they were ripped from the focuses and torn between returning to their own bodies and remaining there. What actually happened was the equivalent of slicing them to ribbons, just without the blood.”
“Where did that happen?” Cameron appeared to be having a hard time adjusting.
“Wherever they were,” Zya replied, “which could have been right here in this very room, or a hundred leagues away where they were trying to kill somebody with their power, a damnable act at best.”
“It was better done this way than despoiling these quarters with needless blood,” Ju added.
“It's not proper. Not big and it's not clever,” Cameron muttered.
“No, but it was necessary.”
“Has it worked? I cannot feel it.” Ju looked into the distance, where the sky was fading from the reds and yellows of late afternoon into the purples and dark blues of early twilight.
“The feeling has gone, though I cannot tell whether or not we have succeeded. We might have been too late, There is only one way to find out, and that is to go there. We need to go to Caighgard, across the sea. To that end, we need to get back to the main hall. The Duke is sorely pressed.”
“You want to just leave these dead man here?” Cameron was still fighting to deal with the unnatural way the wizards had died.
“If you want to save your Duke, then the time to leave is now,” Zya replied with no hint of emotion. “Wait here and deal with this, and risk losing him. Come now, and we might yet save him.”
Cameron looked up at her, his sunken eyes haunted by all that he had seen. “How do you know all of this?”
“Look at her robes, man. She is a wizard too.”
“No, she is but a girl,” He said, a strange kind of longing in his voice.
“We will go,” Zya announced. “Cameron, you can come with us, or stay to deal with this chattel as you desire. We have other methods of finding the Duke.”
“No, I will not stay here. We will go back and deal with the mercenaries, and save my Lord Duke.” His priorities seemingly reasserted, Cameron led them off of the balcony without a single glance back.
“What was the 'Oh Dear' about?” Ju quietly asked as Cameron stalked ahead of them in pursuit of some invisible enemy that perhaps he could use a sword on.
“You sure you want to know?”
“I think that I should, Zya. I get all the feelings that you do because of these damned weapons.”
“You are right, of course,” Zya agreed, “but do not let our trusty guard get word that anything is wrong. There were two sources of danger in the palace. We have faced down one, but the more deadly peril still lies ahead of us. The dark and dismal feeling that spread throughout the land? Well the source is a few rooms away. Ju be very careful, and absolutely do not approach it.”
“You have no need to fear me doing that. I have heard of it, and what it has done. A man saved me this very afternoon and it was mercenaries that had been touched by it that he was protecting me from.” Ju shuddered at the memory of the blank-faced mercenaries, Foster, and the flight through the dimly lit tunnels with invisible foes pursuing him.
The sounds of fighting began to manifest themselves in the form of the occasional clink and crash. As the three neared the hall, the sounds became more defined. Jeers and yells accompanied the screams of pain and the clash of swords. Behind it all, the bellows and threats of O'Bellah provided a very poignant reminder that there were foes of a source less ethereal but just as deadly. A man that was willing to drive others to their death was somebody to fear for they would lose nothing to send a friend or foe to oblivion for a personal goal, and that was exactly O'Bellah's aim.
They passed up the hallway that led to the alcove, and Cameron bade them wait. “This is too dangerous for you.”
“My foot,” Zya replied and shoved her way past him, focus stone in hand.
“What about you?” Cameron said defeatedly, looking at Ju.
“I go where my sister goes,” he said with a grim smile.
Cameron shook his head. “I give up, lad. Where you kids get your balls from I will never know, but most guards in this Duchy would learn a thing or two from you.”
“We do what we must,” Ju replied, and unslung his bow. The instant contact with the weapon gave the clear feeling that the Duke was fatigued, but the contact also registered with the Duke, and hope replaced fear. Ju followed quickly almost on Cameron's heels. The very fact that they had returned cheered the guards that were left, but Ju found it hard not to gawk at the room, which had changed considerably. It was carnage. The lines of fighting had shifted but a little, and the remaining guards were ringed in front of them around the dais. Beyond that was a wall of chopped flesh. At some point reinforcements had entered the palace, most probably by one of the tunnels underneath the building, and the face of those opposing them had changed. O'Bellah remained behind his forces, but now he threw rank after rank of the numb-faced mercenaries at the guards. There were a few of his 'conscious' mercenaries on guard around him, but it was the slaughter by the Duke that drew the eye. The dead and dying were several deep, and the blood was flowing freely on the floor around the dais. It had pooled so deep that it splashed up when yet another body fell down. Tables had been chopped to kindling in the fighting, and hardly any of the festive banners remained. If there was a courtier within hearing distance, Zya doubted they would even move to assist. It was the immediate sight that had such an impact on a boy who was not yet a man. Zya shook her head. The slaughter was senseless, but it was unending. The Duke was clearly tired, and even the addition of Cameron to the ranks did not make much difference. For his
part, Cameron threw himself into the fighting so forcibly that at least a couple of the other guards were able to take a breather. The mercenaries he faced attacked, but they tried to do it in formation and with no passion. They used no intelligence, and just attacked whatever was in front of them. The creature that had done this to them had no concept of tactics, or strategy. It only had want, and a desire to spread its corruption about like a tree shedding leaves. It was getting what it needed.
“The girl and the whelp! Get them! There they are, behind the guard!” O'Bellah had noted them the second that they had returned, and Zya felt that this was no time to be scared. The duty that the Duke felt echoed to him through his bow. He climbed atop a column behind the dais and found a perch to fire from. He would save the Duke the only way that he could. The mercenaries that had surrounded their foe now joined the attack, and O'Bellah closed behind them. “Join Me!” He commanded, and with a roar the unarmed fighting men burst in on the hall. With a lust for battle that had been missing in the catatonic mercenaries, they lit up the hall with their animation and obvious hunger for blood. As a unit they charged towards the dwindling force of the Duke and his guards, and as a unit they crashed into an unseen barrier.
Ju smiled. “Fight that, why don't you?” He called out, and sent an arrow into the arm of a mercenary about to chop down the Duke himself.
Zya stood in front of the great table, her eyes ablaze as she conjured a focus that had encircled the outlanders. “I will not permit you to do this, O'Bellah. You serve an abomination, defying the very Law by which we live, and you shall fail.”
O'Bellah laughed evilly at her denouncement. “Will I, girl?” He shouted across the din of fighting, “I think not. You do not have the tricks to stop everybody in this room. I know you for what you are and you will not escape me again. You will be taken to the proper place and I think you will find that you are not the only one with tricks up your…AAH!”
“Yes!!” Ju crowed from his perch as he readied another arrow. “I don't think you will find much more up that sleeve than fat and bone!”
O'Bellah crouched down and with a gesture that spoke of anger as much as it did of insanity, pulled the arrow straight through his arm. “Kill them! Kill them all! Keep the girl and slay that archer!”
The fighters bellowed and attacked the focus to little avail, but the other mercenaries heeded his command and attacked with renewed ferocity. Ju sent arrow after arrow into the enemy, only felling them where they were about to take out one of the guard. “We are going to have to get out of here, Zya. There is no more time left. Zya! Watch out!”
One of the mercenaries rushed the line, feinted and then dodged past two of the guards wearied by the extensive fighting. He ran straight for Zya, who froze to the spot. She had her focus stone glinting in one hand, but no other weapon. Closing her eyes, she apparently prepared for the inevitable, but she was recalling a memory that was recent, although it seemed a world away from this death and violence.
“'Is the dagger bad?”
“The dagger has a type of magic that you will come to understand, child. You shall have it back, so do not worry yourself. But you shall have a different outlook on life when you wield that weapon once again.”'
The old woman had been right in her assessment. Ju was too young to appreciate the compulsion that wielding the weapons gave to a person, but she understood the words now. The magic linked a select few, granting them the one thing that so many people lacked in their solitary private lives, a sense of companionship that bordered on the preternatural. A sense of solidarity that meant she was never truly alone. She felt it now, in the young hands that protected her, in the sure hands that wielded the sword mere steps to her left. Knowing that there was no other choice, she stepped to one side and brought the dagger up and around in an arc.
The dagger plunged straight for the heart of the man that rushed her, and he stopped in his tracks. Saliva dripped off of his quivering bottom lip as he sought to comprehend what had just happened, but this turned quickly to blood as he fell back off of the blade. With a questioning look he dropped to the ground, shuddered once, and then died.
“Oh my, what have I done?” Zya looked at the blood on her hands, on the blade of the dagger that had seemed for so very long an object of comfort. Now it was an object of revulsion. She could not drop it though, and knew exactly what the woman had meant. She had often imagined herself defending valiantly as she was attacked, but now the dagger showed her exactly what it was. The release of life to a different plane of existence, to forever be denied a body. There was more to it as she considered her feelings. The mercenary that had rushed her had been one of those in the front ranks, wooden in movement numb in intelligence. The change had happened suddenly, the man getting released from his stupor for a reason perhaps. Zya turned away from his corpse to consider her options and found Ju facing her, no longer perched above the massing ranks of mercenaries.
“We must go now if we are to reach the ship in time.”
“I…Yes you are right. I will follow you Ju.”
“Look!” Exclaimed one of the Duke's guards. “We are pushing them back! See now as the coward flees!”
Zya peered through a gap in the mass of bodies. It was true. O'Bellah was backing out of the door behind the ranks of mercenaries. He had an evil smile on his face that spoke of bad things to come, and Zya felt them. “This is not played out yet, Ju. O'Bellah has one card left to deal.”
Zya felt the evil, the sheer malevolence of the thing before it even entered the hall. It had dogged her dreams, filled her unoccupied moments with thoughts of terror, and the very land on which she stood recoiled from its passing. Darkness preceded it, and the lanterns in the hall dimmed as it crossed the threshold. In the twilight of the day, the Golem had come at last. The mercenaries that were currently unaffected by its touch stepped quickly back, the rest just dropped their swords and turned towards the thing that had taken part of their very souls in payment for their services. The Duke's guard remained defiant, but it was obvious to all that they would run given the chance. That none of them was looking any higher than the floor was understandable. The creature had rendered many stronger men with a glance.
Zya looked the creature over for the first time. It was bulky and black, seemingly created from the darkest stone. It had no features to speak of, but the impression of eyes under that overgrown rocky brow was definitely there. It grumbled and groaned as if rock moved against rock as it walked towards her, slowly, unemotionally. There was an air of expectation mixed in with the evil that made her so tempted to look away, and Zya realised that O'Bellah had returned.
“Your time is at an end, girl. Come with me now. Release my warriors, or you shall all perish in a land of torment and pain, where you shall exist forever.”
The statement made Zya laugh in defiance, despite the situation. “You stupid man. How can we perish if we are going to exist forever? That is a contradiction in terms. Maybe you should write down your petty speeches before you reel them out. And to think I have been running and keeping ahead of you ever since Hoebridge.”
This last sentence registered with O'Bellah. “You are without doubt the girl we have been after, the very person that Garias Gibden needs to grab ultimate power. My search is at an end. You are all I need to gain favour over any of my rivals in the Nine Duchies. Oh the riches that will be mine when I present you to him. I would look around you, girl,” he said slowly, “you are outnumbered, outmatched and about to pass into a world where all you will know is pain. Smart comments are the last stand for a fallen people. This Duchy is about to have its head chopped off, the start of the end for the Duchies. You will be responsible for the new order coming in, whether you like it or not.”
The Golem approached her, and the guards parted like fat around a dagger straight from the fire. The Duke managed a glance, and then stood back with the rest. Zya felt the horror through her dagger, and realised that the joined weapons were the only source. She l
ooked up at the Golem as it rumbled closer, and realised that she had accepted her fate. There was no dream to equal the feeling she was experiencing. If her end was now, then so be it. She stood defiantly on the middle of the dais, and waited for eternity to overtake her. The Golem mounted the platform in one easy stride, and the Duke and his guards cowered back, shivering with fear, unable to look up. Zya sent a reassuring thought through her dagger. The only person to remain anywhere near was Ju, who held tightly onto his bow as if he could still do damage to this creature of stone. The Golem hulked over her, and Zya tensed for the blow that would surely flatten her, but nothing happened. Zya tipped her head up to look into the face of darkness, the pit of oblivion seething behind the unreadable 'eyes'. The creature stood immobile, seemingly ready to move, but something held it back.
As this strangest of confrontations was taking place, a man entered unseen by the mercenaries and whispered something to the Duke. Breaking the spell of the Golem's evil, the Duke got the attention of his guard. “Fall back,” he whispered, and motioned to Ju with his hand indicating that he too should come.
“I stay,” Ju replied, and with that decision, the Duke remained with them.
“We make a stand together for my realm, and all that would oppose you.”
O'Bellah pouted, trying to look sad. “Such a noble statement. Shame it is wasted on ears of stone. Golem, take them, they are yours!”
The Golem shifted as if to move forward, but remained otherwise immobile, tensed as if waiting for something.
“Golem, Take them!” O'Bellah raised his voice. The creature did not stir in response as always it had. Zya looked up at it as she had done in a dream. It was waiting for something, but not from O'Bellah.
“TAKE THEM!” He ordered, but still no movement.
“Zya, the shield around those outlanders is weakening.” Ju whispered loud enough for her to hear, and she glanced across. It was true. Oblivious to the tense standoff happening in front of them, the warriors were working up a frenzy as they beat against the focus that surrounded them, and they were having success. The raw energy in their voices was getting louder.
The Path of Dreams (The Tome of Law Book 2) Page 63