The burned man emerged from the stairway and into the grim light, posture hunched. His head was hairless, flesh a milky white. Gnarled scars made up the majority of his face, punctuated with a half-parted eye, the other sealed by scars, a twisted mouth, and some semblance of a nose. Some of his scars were bubbled as if on the verge of bursting open. The scars traveled down his neck and faded at his chest. His torso was bare, lower half covered by what appeared to be a long skirt of heavy riveted dark leather. His skirt hung low on his hips, showing far more of his pubis than Greyson would’ve liked to see. In one hand, he brandished an ivory staff whose head was carved to resemble a cobra with long spines on its hood. His other arm was a stump ending at the elbow. Greyson’s gaze lingered on his stump, drawn like a Rot Fly to fetid flesh. Why, he couldn’t say.
“Terar, I presume?” Greyson crossed his arms, inching farther back until he bumped into the balcony with a shudder.
“Yes,” his voice drawled in a sickening tone. “How did you come to know my name?” He gestured with his cobra staff. Terar slowly raised himself up, torso straightening in a series of clicking vertebrae. His full height reached nearly seven feet, looming over Greyson like a disappointed parent.
“We met some of your…” What was the right word?
“Friends?” Terar offered.
“Yes, your friends.” Greyson started pacing, words spilling out fast. “They met an unfortunate end, but they left us no choice!” He pressed his fist into his palm, grinding his knuckles. “I’m sorry, but they tried to kill us, and if you know who I am, then you must know that those men,” he gestured over his shoulder, “are sworn to defend me. The Black Guards.”
“Of course, I understand… my prince,” Terar stretched out the last words, dripping with acid. “What brings you out from your precious castle and into my… bordello of nightmares? Hm?” He hummed. A sideways smile played on his twisted lips. “Hm? Do tell me? Hmm? I am sure there is more to this than the need to witness my flawless beauty.”
Shut up with your fucking humming! He wanted to shriek, and he wanted to laugh. He paused and breathed, willing himself to arrange the flurry of words begging to be released. “I came at my father’s behest, your king.” He wanted to draw his sword and run this foul man through for what he did to all those people. He wanted to remove his head, take his other arm home with him.
“Oh. I sense your anger. You’re very angry with me, aren’t you, young man?” Terar limped a step toward him.
“Come no closer. You mu-must stop this,” he stammered. “What you’re doing here is wrong!” Greyson hissed, stabbing the air with a pointed finger.
“Wrong?” Terar asked with a tilt of his head, arms spreading as if to embrace him.
“Who are you?” Greyson’s armpits bloomed with sweat, hand falling to his hilt.
“I am Terar of the Old Magic. Once a former servant of the Shadow God, may the Great Beyond treat her well. Once a former servant of her slain son, Asebor. I have been other things in other times.” Terar raised his stump, curling up the stub of tissue where the elbow started. “You sense something in my injury, do you?” Terar lowered his head to look at it as if the movement of his eye alone wouldn’t allow him to see it.
Greyson’s throat flashed in a wave of heat. “What? I don’t know—”
“Of course you don’t,” Terar said, trailing off in a high-pitched giggle.
Greyson swallowed, jaw flexing. His mouth fell open, and he shook his head, his mind blank as new parchment. He’d spent the last ten years being groomed as a Midgaard diplomat and never found himself with a lack of words until this moment.
Terar started into a languid pacing, staff thumping on the floor with every step. “I lost control of my surrogate. I think men use the term Blood Eater in this time. Well, I had a special sword, Blackout. And it cut me. Lost control, never again!” He growled, slamming his staff into the floor.
Greyson stifled a yelp, drawing deep, and mastering the quiver that had started to form in his legs. “I-I came here at my father’s command. He wants to use you, the Purists, to attack the Tower.”
“Use us?” Terar threw his head back in a mad cackle. His voice fell to a rasp. “Despite what your daddy might’ve told you, the king has no control over us. He gave us these lands because I demanded it. That is, if he ever wanted his daughter back.”
Greyson’s eyes bulged and fists clenched, taking everything he had to prevent them from opening and drawing his blade. “The princess? What have you done to her? Where is she?”
“She is not here, still in Midgaard. Go and see her…” Terar gestured with his staff toward the capitol. “You will find she is different. Not different like you, but she is not the same sister you always so intimately loved. No, no, not different like you.”
“What? But how?” A torrent of questions spilled over his mind. Did he somehow know about him and his sister’s sordid past? Impossible. They were always painfully discreet. Did he know about the Shadow’s infection stewing in his guts? “If you’ve done anything to harm Larissa. Mark my words I’ll—”
“And what will you do?” Terar’s voice roared over him. “The only reason you and your guards live is because I wish it.” Terar halted in a wide stance and raised his staff, slit of an eye faintly glowing with violet.
Greyson yelped as the ground slowly pulled away from his feet to find himself horrifyingly weightless and hovering on the air. “Stop! Stop that! Put me down, damn you!” Greyson yelled.
Terar continued, “With a thought, I could split your body into halves, set your retinue ablaze in Shadow fire. Wait… hmm. There is something that protects you.” He gestured with his staff.
Greyson swatted at the air, searching for anything to grab onto, anything to end this damned floating. “If you’re going to kill me, why don’t you just do it already?” Greyson found the floor returning, gently rising up to meet his feet. When he could once again detect his full weight against the floor, he abruptly vomited between his legs. He doubled over in pain, stomach squeezing out every morsel of half-digested food. Cold sweat welled from his skin. “Prodal? Are you him? The man from the Dread Temple?”
“Yes, yes, I smell her now.” Terar ignored the question, lurching toward him with a sniff. “She is in you.”
Greyson backed into a beam supporting a corner of the roof. “Come no further, leave me be,” he croaked.
Terar raised his nose, scenting the air like a dog, coming ever closer, so close he could bite him.
“Please.” Greyson turned his head. Sweat beaded on his temples. He closed his eyes, courage vanishing like a lone cloud in the Nether.
Terar dragged his revolting cheek against his. It was bumpy, terribly cold, and wet, and held an odor of rot melding with cooked flesh. Terar greedily sucked in gulps of air. “Oh, yes she likes you very much.” Greyson heard him backing away but couldn’t muster the strength to pry his eyes open. “Not much longer now,” Terar hissed.
The embers of his will returned, flaring up in a rage at his moment of cowardice. “You will stop this! This indiscriminate killing of wizards!” Finally, there it was. With two hands, Greyson ripped his sword from its sheath, blade flashing over the air and stopping at Terar’s neck.
“Oh,” Terar whispered, setting his gaze at the naked blade. A great peel of laughter issued from his narrow neck. “Go ahead, kill me then.”
“I…” Greyson drew the blade back, arms warbling. He felt then this abomination of man should live. What right did he have to end his life? He would be no better than him. His thoughts warred. All the slaughtered men and women, all the horrors they endured getting here were wrong. There must be justice. Those wizards didn’t deserve their fates. Not all wizards were evil. He thought of the friends he’d made with the Arch Wizard’s associates in Tigeria. They weren’t wizards in the traditional sense, but Juzo, Isa, and Senka were damned near close enough by his estimation.
“Go on.” Terar lifted his head and exposed his neck. His dar
k eye narrowed down to nothing. He even cocked his head, exposing his throat. “No, you can’t because she won’t let you.”
Greyson wanted to ask him who “she” was, but they both already knew the answer before the question could be asked. “No, you’re wrong,” he whispered, stumbling away from Terar, the world blurring, heart roaring in his skull like a struck drum.
Terar’s voice shrieked in a mad cackle as Greyson fell into the cart, somehow sheathing his blade without impaling himself. He managed to reach up and pull the right lever, cart lurching into motion. He slumped to the floor. His breaths came in gulps and heaves, tears sliding down his cheeks in abject misery. “What have I done? What have I done?” he repeated, thinking of the one person he would leave behind. The one person he ever truly loved: his sister.
FOUR
Bezog
“Every hero is a blade of grass standing in a sea of mud. Some get stomped out while others thrive.” - The Diaries of Nyset Camfield
Three great windows spanned the height of the walls of Greyson’s study, ending in arches where they met the vaulted ceiling. Light flowed in like beams of fire, showing dust motes flowing on the air currents. Light gleamed from a highly polished antique table in the middle of the room, its wood grain taking on a waving pattern. Around the light, the room was cloaked in shadows.
An outline of his desk held a guttering candle beside a stack of unread books. A pair of chairs with leather dyed red sat empty at the desk’s front. The ceiling was adorned with three candelabras, unlit skeletons in the gloom. While enslaved in Tigeria, his sister had taken upon herself to decorate for what she felt was his invariable return. She filled the empty space on his bookshelves and the wall behind his desk with trinkets, bullshit paintings of fruit, uninspired flowers, and bland countrysides. Greyson found it all painfully trite. Despite her tastes, he appreciated her optimism. At least someone wanted him back in the kingdom.
The majority of his bookshelves held not books but tankards he’d collected in his travels among the realm. It wasn’t that he was particularly fond of ale, but admired the unique craftsmanship some of them possessed. Some had handles forged in the likeness of the Dragon and the Phoenix gods. Another’s handle was a sword grip, others had their surfaces etched with battles, and another’s handle was a finger bone. He caught a glimpse of that bone-handled tankard when he’d returned, producing a shudder in his guts. It was his secret hobby. He had to always appear the educated diplomat to the public, collecting nothing but knowledge and new skills.
Greyson lay sprawled on his back on a couch too small to contain his gangly limbs. His legs were spread over one armrest, one hand pressed behind his head and the other hanging off the other armrest. He stared at the beams of light, hoping they’d cleanse him of the memories of the Purists’ encampment. He watched as the colors changed from amber, to orange, and finally to wounded reds. He found himself smiling, feeling for the first time in a long time that his body was without pain. He couldn’t help but think that Terar’s proximity had somehow given him relief. The smile fell from his lips at that thought, pressing down into a line.
A knock resounded from his door. “Go away,” he shouted. How many times did he have to tell the servants to leave him be? Always cleaning, always tidying the immaculate everything. The door swung open, hinges crying out with their distinctive squeal. “How many times must I…?” He set his lips in a scowl, rose, and twisted his torso against the couch’s back. To his surprise, he found Larissa.
“Is your beloved sister no longer welcome in your chamber?” the princess asked.
She wore cream-colored silks interwoven with tiny diamonds, making her body shine like light on water when she shifted her hips. There was a volcanic eruption of ruffles that started at her neckline and trailed down her chest and around her shoulders. On her head was a circlet with at least ten power diamond marks. Greyson could make out the tiny Dragons trapped within, like fireflies in beads of glass. In a time unknown, wizards could infuse marks with the essence of the Dragon. The art had long been lost, making them an incredibly precious commodity. Men were such strange creatures, only valuing possessions by their rarity rather than intrinsic utility.
She blinked at him, her lush eyelashes opening and closing like butterfly wings. She lowered her eyes, and the beginnings of a coy smile touched her lips. “Are you going to say something, or just continue to stare at me?”
“Sister,” he breathed. He rose to his feet. It was absurd. His knees went weak, mouth barren, his mind twirling, and with every second he stood in that position, it seemed to get worse. He hadn’t felt this terrified since fleeing from a shrieking horde of Death Spawn in the Dread Temple. But why?
He got his legs into motion, taking a nervous path around the room, his clammy fists working open and closed. He squinted through one of the arching windows overlooking the public gardens. A few couples followed the lazy paths arm in arm, enjoying the last of the day’s light.
He heard her properly enter his study, door thumping shut, dress bottom whispering across the polished marble floor. A chair groaned as she lowered herself into it. “Well, well, well… how did your visit with the Purists go?”
Greyson turned his back to the window to face her. The light glowed in her golden hair and down the edges of her dress. A ghost of a smile touched her shadowed face. There was something about her that had changed. Something he couldn’t place.
It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her since he returned. It was, however, the first time she came to him in private. It seemed more often than not, moments which were long awaited generally proved to be disappointments. Being this close to Larissa again after so much time apart was one of those rare exceptions.
He’d spent countless nights trapped in Scab’s slave wagon, rehearsing what he’d say to her if they were ever again reunited. It all evaporated now that she was here.
“Fine,” he said, quick and cutting.
Her smile widened. “You’re still alive then? The Purist leader didn’t try to crucify you, flay you or burn you alive?”
“I… suppose not, no.” He forced out an awkward smile. “Did you actually think he would’ve done something like that?”
“No. Of course not,” she said flatly.
“Did you worry about me? When I was gone?” he blurted, cheeks burning with shame as he smiled involuntarily.
“Well, I hoped you were dead.” The start of his true smile fell from his face. “As far as I knew, you left me, gone on a diplomacy mission and had liked it so much you wanted to stay in Tigeria. Now I know that’s not true, but I thought you had about forgotten me, brother.”
Greyson winced, hands gripping the window’s ornamented trim. “I’m not sure what I could’ve done differently. I’ve replayed the day the Arch Wizard betrayed me in my head thousands of times now. There was no sign of Captain Derwood’s agreement with her, nothing that told of his being bought off. I wish I could’ve been the one who killed him…” He trailed off, remembering as Derwood’s cart-mates beat him to death with their manacles. That wasn’t nearly enough to sate them. Once dead, the three men tore him apart like wolves to a carcass, using hands and teeth to rip out his every organ. And even still that wasn’t enough for their barbarous rage. The enslaved then pinned his organs to the cart’s ceiling, wholly disemboweled. Poor Senka was in there with them, the target of their next bout of anger. Thankfully, she was able to defend herself, felling the three single handedly.
“I know. I’m just glad you’re home. The whole of the city buzzed for a time, new rumors shouted from the criers almost daily.” Larissa pursed her lips at the memory, staring off at his bookshelves. “One of the rumors claimed the Arch Wizard had you chained in her dungeons. I suppose that wasn’t too far from the truth.”
“No, quite accurate.” Greyson was struck with a series of unpleasant images. He thought of crowds gathered about the marketplace criers after learning the truth of his return, how he was rescued by the Arch Wizard’s c
losest friends. He thought of everyone gossiping about how he’d let himself be fooled by the Arch Wizard. He thought of how much of an incompetent idiot he must’ve looked in his father’s eyes. “What did you hear?” He felt the burning in his cheeks reaching up to touch his ears.
“I heard you fought bravely in Tigeria, against Death Spawn no less.” Larissa regarded him with an appraising stare, not a hint of mocking to be found.
“What? How?” He was baffled. How did she know? He, Isa, Senka, and Juzo had all agreed that what truly transpired should only be shared with the Arch Wizard and the king.
He saw then that she had risen from the chair and bridged maybe half the distance between them. She came closer and closer, and he found himself growing more nervous as she approached. This was wrong. What they were was wrong. But it felt so very right.
She looked up into his face, thin lips slightly parted. She came closer still, so close that he was sure she would kiss him. He licked his lips in anticipation, eyes half-closed. She slid against his side, looking through the window.
In the light, he saw how her skin no longer glowed but held a ghostly depth. Her cheeks had a new hollowness, like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. “You’ve changed… somehow.” He muttered, hand coming up to cover his mouth. “Somehow different. Are you feeling well?” Her hair once thick and layered appeared thin and stringy.
“I… maybe I have changed.” Her lips twitched in the semblance of a smile, not looking at him.
Being so close to her now made him realize the effect she had on him was stronger than ever. Back then, there hadn’t been the weight of expectations. “I missed you.” The words tumbled out before his mind could censor them.
The Shadow Age (The Age of Dawn Book 7) Page 8