Beyond the Dark Gate

by R. V. Johnson

  “The outlander has departed,” Atoi said, lower on her right.

  Crystalyn gaped at the little girl. Slowly, she lowered her arm. “Whatever do you mean, little one. I left him only six bells ago. He was paralyzed. How would he leave? There’s been a constant guard on him the night through.”

  Atoi regarded her in silence. Then, turning toward the stairs, she scampered from view.

  Lore Rayna tapped a sandaled foot. “Do you wish me to go after her? The Dark Child displays little respect for her elders.”

  Crystalyn turned the key. “Nay, if Atoi wanted, she could mention she’s older than both of us put together and be right.” A gentle push swung the door inward. A quick glance around the room affirmed Atoi’s brash statement. The room was empty.

  “Look to the window, Do’brieni.”

  Cut close to the frame, a squared edge was all that remained of the glass window. A bath rag draped along the bottom had protected the Terran’s hands and fingers.

  Crystalyn grappled with an anger that boiled, an ire threatening to spill over her self-control. “Perhaps you’d better go find the blasted little imp, Lore Rayna.” Crystalyn gave the command as evenly as she could, but her voice cracked at the end.

  Executing a small curtsy, Lore Rayna left without a word.

  Crystalyn strode to the window and looked upon a narrow alley. Three stories down, shards of glass gleamed in front of the Quench Quarter’s rear entrance door. Quelling her fury with a slow breath, Crystalyn looked out upon the hazy town of Gray Dust and fumed.

  Perhaps she’d made a vast mistake by giving the red orb back to a thief, a thief from her home world. The very orb Crystalyn hadn’t found after killing her Indenture Service Provider though she’d searched for some time after. Seasons ago, while indentured at the warehouse, she’d sensed a power within the beautiful crimson ball of crystal. But after the events of returning from beyond the sapphire gate, the crystal had not been lying in its customary bed of velvet in the mausoleum. Nor had Crystalyn found several other items she’d had her eye on though there was still plenty for the taking within Ruena Day’s massive collection.

  Again, Crystalyn wondered if she’d done the right thing by giving the crimson orb back. Even with the black crystal candle augmenting her symbols, she may not be a match for Darwin and the immense power of the Shimmer Spear. One bolt from it had taken all of them down and nearly killed Atoi. If the little girl could be killed, Crystalyn had her doubts.

  The soft tramps of booted feet outside the room preceded the sound of the door creaking closed behind her. Then Long Sand spoke, his quiet voice revealing little of the fatigue he must feel from a day and night of searching a fair-sized city. “Our quarry has entered the Stair of Despair,” he said without preamble. “The Revered One and the servant Malkor may already be dead.” His quiet statement hung in the room.

  Crystalyn whirled, staring from human to nonhuman host to the broad and beautiful Valen face. Even the usually unflappable Hastel looked taken aback. Only Long Sand and Railee remained unperturbed. Crystalyn had a sudden irrational urge to float one of her symbols back and forth in front of them to see if that would elicit a reaction, but she quickly discarded it. Don’t act like a petulant child, she admonished herself.

  Crystalyn allowed herself a glare at Long Sand. His visage remained impassive. “Are you positive of your reading? Does your contact know this for certain, if that is where you heard this?”

  “Can we fight our way through this Stair of Despair, Do’brieni?”

  “There is an ancient power there. The White Fur clan and all my people have not risked an entry into its dark abyss.”

  Railee spoke in Long Sand’s place. “I give witness to the words. The sand reader’s source took note of the mention of such a dangerous place. No one, legend or otherwise, has made claim of surviving a climb up the Stair. Those that have tried were not seen or heard from again.”

  Centered under the vaulted ceiling, Lore Rayna paced the lengthy room at her full eight-hand height. Three of her steps took her to the end wall. Spinning, she continued back, her dress shifting high up and down her upper thighs. “We cannot follow the path he has chosen. Even in the sanctuary of the Vale, my people know better than to stray too close to the Stair of Despair. Perhaps the Dark Child will know of a way. I located her downstairs.”

  Turning her back to her companions, Crystalyn contemplated the city outside the window; the same one Trenton had escaped through with the orb. In the distance, the columns of a roofless coliseum stood with magnificent grandeur atop a small hill. “What are my options then? Let me remind you, allowing such evil escape isn’t one of them.”

  As if reluctant to speak them, Hastel’s words came quietly. “There’s an old belief, nothing more than an obscure passage in a codex, I forget which, that names a cave leading from the Dark Citadel to the Stair. Unfounded or true, I know not.”

  Crystalyn faced the room’s interior. “That must be it! That’s where he’s going.” Then she froze, crestfallen. “He has two days’ lead on us, and the Citadel is so well manned. He’ll have all the soldiers he needs to fight us when he arrives. If only we could get there first, take out the guards, and ambush him when he arrives.”

  Atoi spoke from the doorway. “The topaz gateway would take us ahead of him possibly.”

  The room erupted into a chaos of sound.

  “Such a move would not be wise,” Long Sand declared.

  “They’ll strafe us as we step through,” Hastel protested.

  “The hooded man’s soldiers nearly destroyed mine and your mother’s forces, Sarra’esiah, please reconsider such an action. But if we are to go, you must wait for my people. They are two days from here,” Lore Rayna begged.

  Crystalyn silenced them with a raised hand, her vision fixed on Atoi. “Where is this topaz gateway?’

  Atoi crossed the room and took her by the hand. Turning her around, she pointed to the coliseum. “There,” she said. “Where the outlander went.”

  “Aye Do’brieni, the outlander used the topaz gate.”

  The protests began anew.

  Crystalyn ignored them. Perhaps now, she had a way to get ahead of, and waylay, the two men she most desperately wanted to catch while searching for the intriguing outlander—a designation most people on Astura would still consider for her.

  POWER GAINED

  Darwin gazed long at the Stair of Despair. The great stairway rose from behind and climbed above the massive black wall barring entrance to the southwestern plateau. For all of his twenty-four seasons of life, he’d heard of the dangers inherent to the place, a dark place rumored to hold the power to consume souls.

  From the overwhelming sense of dread leeching his resolve the longer he stared at the stairway, he suspected the rumors had some truth. Darwin waved his companion forward.

  The bloodstain on Malkor’s red robe looked as fresh as it had two days ago when he had pried the crossbow bolt from the back of his servant’s ribcage. Pulling it from Malkor’s lung and out the front had been easier since the cruel steel bolt had ripped a wide hole through two of the bones. The healing had drained Darwin, but his well of knowledge lived. “I do not see a way through. How much is known of the stairs and the Black Wall?”

  Malkor kept the hood of his stained robe lowered, refusing to look at either subject of Darwin’s question. “Are you certain this is wise, Master? Access to the red pit might be less of a danger if we go by way of the Dark Citadel. We can always return to Gray Dust. Surely the symbol wench will not have followed us there.”

  “We have had this discussion, do not call her that. The chance of someone identifying us once we enter the Dark Gate is too great, so is the likelihood the betrayer now has the gray gateway I took from Guail is great. I have little doubt she is in Gray Dust. Now, let us move forward with what we came here to do. You have the lore infusion. I ask one final time. What is known of the obstacles barring my way?”

&n
bsp; The red hood rose slowly to the wall. As he peered from under it, Malkor’s jaw trembled and then grew slack. After a time, he looked away, lowering his head quickly. “There is no passage through the wall, hidden or otherwise.”

  “What? Why would the Black Wall have no door?”

  Malkor’s hood snapped up, a stunned look upon his narrow face. “There is no wall. What stands before us is a seal.”

  “Why would a wall be a seal?”

  Malkor gripped him by the arms, his brown eyes wild. “The seal is there to keep something inside from getting out, something dark. To get inside we may have to break the seal. Please, Master, there has to be another way.”

  Using the butt of the Shimmer Spear, Darwin prodded his companion away from him, roughly. “You forget your place, servant. You would do well to remember you are here to accomplish what I command, only as I command. We shall get past the seal with the knowledge of its making. As a lore master, sift through the wisdom streaming into your mind soundly; concentrate on anything pertaining to the construction of the wall.”

  “As you command, My Lord,” Malkor hissed. “Sorting through eras of material, searching for oblique references, may take some time. Judging from my brief scan to locate the seal, not much knowledge has been passed down from the Ancients.”

  “Nevertheless, you shall put all you have into the effort.”

  Malkor gave a brief nod. Then he stiffened. The red flecks racing across his corneas expanded and grew pronounced. Soon they covered his orbs completely, turning them a glowing blood red as he accessed the library of countless tomes streaming into his mind, infused into memory.

  Darwin had seen the process before, though not from Malkor. A Servant of Eons in the southern land of Shimmer had provided a demonstration. The woman had given up stable sanity to retain the lore, became a living Flow-powered knowledge base. That person had given him the idea for discovering the Shimmer Spear’s location.

  Darwin returned to his contemplation of the Black Wall. They had found no other cover near the wall. Someone had cleared a wide swath in front of the wall making it a barren place, devoid of even so much as a weed. Standing out in the open in front of the Black Wall was foolish beyond measure. Dark things guarded it. Darwin could attest to a dozen winged shapes as he sat waiting for Malkor to sift through the lore.

  Someone had also exerted immense energy not long ago, perhaps a season. Filled with timber, topsoil, and rock, the path to the Citadel that used to wind around a series of waterfalls, called the Plunging Chasms, stood tall and forbidding now as terraced cliff faces.

  Malkor’s recent infusion—his sacrifice—had been the deciding factor that brought them both to such an ominous place as fast as the gates could bring them and before his companion’s insanity set in fully. Darwin had already seen the first sign of it with his frequent pauses during conversation.

  A tinge of regret for requiring his lifelong manservant to undergo the infusion crept upon him, but he quelled it ruthlessly. Malkor’s place in life was to comply with his decrees. Having a lore master to command would substantially decrease the time it took to dominate the whole of Astura.

  Darwin napped and ate, waiting without impatience as the morning wore into early evening before Malkor stirred. Abruptly stumbling forward, Malkor fell. Darwin caught him in his arms. Supporting his older servant friend, he walked him around the little clearing tucked inside the heavy foliage bordering Fetid Fern Swamp.

  A dozen passes around the small clearing allowed Malkor’s leg muscles to loosen while storing the memory of walking inherent to them. Darwin released him afterward, letting the man continue twice more on his own. When his red-robed servant made it without mishap, he stopped him by extending the double-tipped spear in front of his chest. Malkor had to stop or risk a gash across his chest. “What have you learned?”

  “The risk is high, but you have the power to make the attempt… with assistance.”

  “Whose help do I need?”

  “Mine.”

  Darwin was annoyed yet jubilant at the same time. “Why did you not just say that? What is required?”

  A flash of something unidentifiable flitted across Malkor’s narrow face, vanishing in an instant. Perhaps fear. “The cost is high and we shall only have the power to attempt it once. Should we fail, we die.”

  “Then we die. Get on with it. Tell me what it is I am to do.” Again, something flitted across his manservant’s face, but now Darwin knew it for what it was, glee. Why would Malkor be happy with his choice to gamble both their lives?

  Darwin dismissed the thought. What his manservant believed did not matter. By the time his friend discovered his fate, it would be far too late. “Did I not command you to get on with it? No cost is too high.”

  Malkor smiled, as oily and obsequious as the merchant Guail. “As you wish, Master,” he said, extending a hand. “First, you must give me the Spear.”

  Darwin drew back, gaping at the hand. “What could you possibly want with it?”

  Malkor’s smile faded, and his swarthy features smoothed. He kept his arm extended. “You must trust me if it is truly your desire to slip quietly beyond the Stair of Despair.”

  A great reluctance to part with the Shimmer Spear gusted through Darwin. Glaring at his manservant, Darwin dropped the Spear’s center grip in Malkor’s hand. “Whatever you have to do, make it fast, the spear belongs with its master.”

  Malkor pulled the spear close and then jabbed it forward, the tip pointed down. “As you wish, Master, the Spear shall return to the master.”

  A sharp pain to his groin caused Darwin to bend over where his confused sight fell upon the Spear embedded in him, its golden glow growing red. The red haze of his pain fell away, enveloped by a fog of blackness, darkness he knew as final. He grew weak, his mind lethargic. Strength bled from him.

  Then Malkor’s comforting healing settled inside him, adding strength without the pain. The darkness grew lighter.

  But it was wrong. The red tint of his friend’s healing light had changed, turned black. The blackness was somehow lighter and felt different from the final darkness of the storm. Flickering with the promise of pain’s end and power gained, it waited for him to accept it, to draw it within, and drink deep from its dark supremacy. Tasting the surprising influence of the Flow inside the dark heart of omnipotence, Darwin drank.

  *****

  Clutching the Spear in his maimed hand, Darwin strode to the Black Wall, maintaining a tight grip on the dark aura that surrounded him and his manservant. The key to their survival lay with his ability to exude the Dark power of a great master, a soul saturated with Flow corruption.

  As they neared the base, four maimwrights dropped in front of them, two at a time, the thump of their landing echoing dully from the hard granite construct of the Black Wall. The way forward blocked, Darwin halted. When the four monstrosities stood side by side, their multifaceted eyes glistening silvery and motionless under the midday sun, he raised both arms. “Lift us to the stairway of darkness, the path of bleak and utter despair,” he commanded.

  The tallest, most brutish-looking wright with the largest pinchers taking the place of a right hand cocked its head to one side. The gesture would have been human-like if not for the beak of a mouth and bee-like orbs where the eyes should reside.

  Screeching something unintelligible, the maimwright, along with the creature next to it, stomped to his side bringing the strong smell of rotting carrion. Gripping him under the pit of his arms by their pincher members, the wrights lifted him from the flattened rocky ground. Then, four powerful wings flapped, raising him and their own heavy bodies upward.

  As he rose, Darwin had time to reflect on his current situation. He tried to ignore the uncomfortable awareness that one closure of their pinchers—accidental or not—would result in him falling armless to his death. Such thoughts lowered his mental grip on the aura, and the smaller beast swiveled a thick human neck to scan it with both se
ts of its silver foiled eyes.

  Deigning not to dwell on the beastie, Darwin concentrated on the aura, drawing more of the Flow into his infused body from the Spear through the undetectable blood pathway Malkor had created. Such a path was an ingenious way to infuse one to an artifact, requiring a direct route to a main artery to function at the fullest, though at a high cost as his servant had promised. Emanating the arrogance of power absolute while ignoring the ghost pain, the emptiness of one side of his testicle, was difficult, but he would prevail.

  As they neared the top, Darwin thought about his next move beyond the Black Wall; one mistake there and both he and his manservant would burn in darkness. Worse, they could become a mindless shell, made that way by the Dark guardian of the stair. Darwin had heard such tales from scholars his entire life, stories he expected held much truth.

  With the Spear, he should be able to bypass the guardian, if Malkor’s information held true. Everything hinged on the great artifact’s ability to store the Flow for him to draw upon and maintain the façade of a great master, one with true immense power.

  Infused to him now, he felt the Flow resonating in the Spear with an undeniable acuteness. The black Flow throbbed through his body like an icy dark entity seeking release upon any that irritated it, all instantly at his command. No longer did he have to ground himself before drawing upon the Flow, nor did he need to use and discard an Interrupter to augment his power. Darwin could take from the artifact until it emptied. Precisely what he required, for his feet no longer touched the ground, the one great limitation of the Flow.

  The beasts carried him over a wall one could stretch out upon with room to spare. The descent into an ancient courtyard, kept dark by the looming cliff above, took half as long. Dropping him roughly in the center, the maimwrights trod into the shadows.

  Darwin waited for his servant, trying, and failing, to ignore the palpable sense of great power moving around him with uncanny speed, an alien intelligence that harbored an almost uncontainable rage at his invasion into its domain. Yet for all its power, it had an uneasy caution. Darwin carried something it was wary of, and the power he and Malkor projected stemmed from it. It knew.