“Cerumal.” She swallowed, sprinting for the other path, its distance empty of such abominations.
She ran and ran, the murderous horde’s roars echoing over the grim landscape. She reached an ornamented stairway that might’ve once belonged in a king’s palace. She leaped over a section where the stairs fell away, the tops of dead trees emerging from the gaping crack. At the top of the rise of stairs was a rounded pergola whose columns were made of dark stone. Its crosshatched roof shone down with a reddish glow. In the center of the pergola was perfectly round stone, standing from it a glowing sword with a ‘B’ etched on the flat of the blade. It was her sword. She smiled and reached to take it, caution making her hesitate. A trap?
“Why does the avarice of men make them unable to resist the allure of a sword for the taking?” Prodal asked and waited for her to answer.
Nyset took a quick backward glance, the horde maybe fifty paces away, and ripped the sword from the stone. It came away easy with a ring.
Prodal continued. “The wind may rip at their bodies, the rain chilling their bones, their lives approaching the end… and yet the sword must be drawn.”
Nyset’s chest heaved, sweat streaming down her body, now coated in streaks of soot, blood, and dirt. She didn’t know when or how it had all gotten there. She ran, passing more lantern-lit trees, low walls, and wilted grasses. It all felt like it could go on forever like some infinite death. Everything about this place was death.
“You!” a woman shouted from the distance. “Help me!” Lillian’s voice, she recognized. She didn’t look for her but only clenched her jaw and continued running, the horde ever approaching and gnawing at the distance between them.
The path branched at a cavern highlighted in a pillar of amber light. She felt herself drawn to it like a moth to flame. Hanging in that light were bright wisps of golden flecks that danced like dust motes. She entered through the light and into the cavern, softly lit by two torches mounted on the walls.
Her eyes widened. Strewn along the cavern’s floor was more wealth than she’d ever laid eyes upon. There were gems the size of her fist, chests propped open and filled with glimmering golden coins. There were swords inlaid with gems, emperor’s crowns, and gilded cups. She gaped at a silver plate filled with diamonds the size of meatballs.
“Arch Wizard. I’m surprised to find that you’re unable to resist the allure of a few shiny baubles.” Prodal chuckled. “Men never change, even as the sands of time run down. I expected more from you, Nyset,” he said with a disappointed sigh.
“I… why am I here?” A distraction, she realized, regaining her faculties. It was hard to think here, everything muddled, fractured, and numbed. She left the cavern, finding the world outside of it had lightened. The clouds had vanished, and the sky was colored in a dull pink. She paused to locate the screech of the Cerumal and hefted her sword, but she was surprised to find it quiet. She swallowed. The chorus of singing children fell away, revealing a backdrop of cold wind that constantly whistled through the trees. She decided to stop trying to understand, to merely accept the madness of this world.
She followed the path farther, and the looming outline of a mansion came into view. At its front was a short rise of stairs with statues flanking the short balustrades. They were each immaculate copies of Prodal standing with his arms crossed, his expression fixed in contemplation. They were the only structures apparently untouched by ruin.
“Remember, Arch Wizard, you can always give up this quest,” Prodal goaded. “Leave the path. Head into the fields. You’re doing awful, you know? You’ll never find me here. Never forget there is always an option to lay down and die.”
“Oh, I’ll find you,” she replied softly, her voice hard. She reached the top of the stairs, always running, feeling the pressure of time, something in her gut telling her that her chance was slipping.
Twin staircases wound around what might have once been a reflecting pool, now filled with dead weeds and wholly absent of water. Everything was shades of gray punctuated by the occasional waving shadows. She took the staircase to her left, grip squeezing on her sword hilt, eyes scanning for threats. He had to be here. She could smell his stink of rot and sulfur.
She reached the top of the stairs, the landing another tier of stone that joined to yet another set of stairs. The landing was large enough to be a courtyard, in its center a three-tiered fountain that was dry as dust. Along the landing were a few bulbous gray clouds that roiled as if they were alive. She avoided them, taking a wide path before starting up the next set of stairs.
At the top of the stairs was the mansion’s front entrance. It was wide with closed double doors painted black, banded with iron spikes. Flanking the doors were four floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the majority of the mansion’s front. Behind them, a scarlet light pulsed as if the mansion contained a heart.
“You’ll never find me, Arch Wizard. None who dared have.” Prodal’s voice was tinged with anger now.
“You don’t believe your own words,” she said with a snicker.
She pushed with the Phoenix, throwing the doors apart, then she pulled, ripping them off their hinges. The wood cracked like thunder, the doors tumbling away like hurled stones. The mansion’s interior revealed strange shapes edged in a dim light. Nyset never stopped in her stride, determination her scythe.
It had the appearance of having been ransacked. Chairs were upturned. A long dinner table that could easily seat twelve was set askew. The doors of an armoire were torn off and cracked, glasses and cups shattered. A few stubs of candles flickered on the ground, set in huge pools of wax as if they’d once been as tall as a man. She frowned at half of the table where its surface was thick with grease and mold, a place where flies would likely go to die. Long rooms fanned to the left and the right, a staircase in the center traveling down. She knew where she had to go, the red light fading behind her as she took the welcoming path.
The stairs spilled into a long hallway whose wooden walls were a deep and beautiful walnut. Its tiles were a polished bright white, none broken, all perfectly cut and mortared. Decay held no foothold here. The hallway terminated maybe thirty feet away, illuminated by an arched doorway of amber that cast a spear of light over the tiles. It seemed to make the air shimmer. As she drew closer, she saw it wasn’t a door but a wobbling pool of flames.
“I’m coming for you, Prodal,” she voiced, picking up her speed. “Is this the place you hide?” She was five paces away now, reaffirming the presence of the Phoenix’s strength with a mental probe. It was still there, humming in her heart.
She gasped as the ground fell away with the roar of breaking glass. She was airborne, crashing into something hard and blowing the air from her lungs. She choked for a breath, turning on her side as bits of tile as thin as paper crashed down around her.
Prodal’s crisp laughter hammered in her head. “Did you really think it would be that easy, Arch Wizard? I must say, your tenacity is admirable.”
The iron taste of blood spilled over her tongue and trickled out the corner of her mouth. She pushed herself up to her feet with a growl. Nyset brushed herself off, new cuts flashing bright with the glow of Phoenix healing. She found herself in the shadowed alcove of what appeared to be a tomb. Great arches of stone were inlaid in the walls between stone columns. Around her were the jagged remains of the polished tile floor of the hallway above. It had appeared resilient and true.
Nothing was true here, she reminded herself.
The floors were inlaid with a repeating pattern of pentagrams enclosed by two concentric circles. She narrowed her eyes at the symbol, unsure of its meaning.
She emerged from the alcove, turning to find more stairs. “You do like your stairs, don’t you?”
Prodal chuckled. “They’re a nice touch, don’t you think?”
Where the world had been pink outside the mansion, it was now a wounded red there. The sky was a sheer dome of blood, casting its red glow over everything much like the Shadow Realm.
“Not very original,” she commented.
She mentally felt Prodal shrug. “I find it relaxing.”
The stairway had ornate handrails whose balustrades were sweeping arcs that bounced between the top and bottom rails. The stairs spiraled down ten paces into another courtyard. In the distance was the black outline of mountains stabbing at the sky. There were a handful of stairways that led nowhere, dropping off into an abyss of scarlet.
In the courtyard was a mix of crumbling cobbles, tiles, and earth. There were gaps where dead and stunted trees stood like ancient guardians. Blackened clusters of tall grass emerged between areas of tiles heaved up from the ground and stacked against each other. A red mist emerged from a crevice running along the length of the courtyard. The mist stopped at ankle height, forming wisps around hunks of shattered stones.
“You can’t run forever!” she screamed, starting down the stairs.
The courtyard had no walls, just a vast expanse of the blood sky beyond the ground. In the courtyard’s center was a tiered fountain of gurgling blood. The blood was bright among the gloom of dust and decay. Some of the tiers had broken edges where blood came out down in fat streams. The basin of blood gurgled like a choking man. Behind it was a mirror standing within a frame of stone. The mirror’s top curved and converged at an apex holding a cycloptic eye. At either side of the fountain were twin staircases that led up to a circling balcony below an enormous half shattered dome. Pillars of stone were carved with a texture of trees snared by twisting vines.
“You keep saying that and I keep waiting. I wait, and wait, and wait, and yet you malinger on my laughable traps,” Prodal said.
She marched over to the fountain, hesitated a moment, seeing within the mirror behind the fountain her own naked reflection. Her hair was streaked with soot and sweat, matted at the side of her throat. Her once flawless skin was thick with scars, eyes glowing like a pair of frozen suns.
She stepped back as the reflection shifted. It became Prodal, slowly clapping with an admiring grin within the pane of glass. His form further shifted to a gangling humanoid creature whose limbs doubled the length of its torso, flesh a dull gray. His skin was taut around lean muscle, head long and narrow like a dog’s, eyes razors of golden light. From the back of his head emerged a crown of six horns. Along his bony spine were six pairs of horns, each emerging from between his vertebrate. His torso was cramped and held the stub of a tail, the end pointed with a needle of white bone. He had four fingers and four toes, all wiry like the rest of his appendages.
Nyset scowled. “Can’t say that I’m impressed. Knew there was an ugly bastard beneath that veneer.”
“I vok o kuur su emqesa aeui rara. Cumsrosiroseumk, Arcr Wezord aeui kemorrae kuimd ka,” Prodal said in a slithering demonic tongue unknown to her.
Nyset drew a pile of tiles into the air and sent them smashing into the glass. The mirror exploded into a shower of tinkling shards. A few seconds of blissful silence fell over the barren courtyard. The fountain of blood gurgled. Was it finally over? Could it be this easy?
That demonic voice laughed with scorn, echoing through the broken dome. “Is’k mus uqar. I reqa, Nyset.”
“How? What am I supposed to do?” she whispered, stepping away from the mirror and the fountain when something caught her eye. A pair of golden eyes watched her from within the surface of the blood.
“There you are!” She wove a skin-tight shield around her fingers and up to her shoulder and pulled a sliver of the Phoenix’s strength to flatten out the shimmering blood, making it mirror smooth. She furrowed her brow in concentration, freezing all of the blood in its tracks. Ruby droplets hung in the air where the blood spilled over the upper tiers.
Prodal blinked up at her in what she registered as surprise. Viper quick, she plunged her hand into the blood, snatching Prodal around the throat and dragging his wriggling form out with one hand. He screeched and writhed in her iron grip, hands trying to slash at the Phoenix shield protecting her arm. A dagger of blue light born of the Phoenix formed in her other hand, pressing it against the side of his neck.
“Return them to me, or I’ll hunt you through the end of time!” she screamed.
“Vru?” Prodal choked.
Nyset started to press the dagger of light into his throat, black blood hissing as it burned and spilled into the fountain. “You know who I came for!” she screamed, driving the dagger farther, black blood spraying across her face and torso.
“Qarae varr!” Prodal hissed then vanished in a puff of sparks, her grip closing on nothing.
“No!” She gasped, then leaned over the fountain. He was once again behind the mirror of blood, back in his human form, voicing more words in his tongue she couldn’t understand. His form shrank as if he were plummeting down a canyon, slowly waving goodbye with a gloved hand.
“Stay away from the realm of man. You’re not welcome here.” She slammed her Phoenix dagger into the blood, piercing through Prodal’s chest. Flames sprouted from his body, and he threw his head back with a lion’s roar. His eyes were engulfed with fire, the fire spreading over his face and crackling his flesh. His body broke apart like a desiccated desert and from the cracks emerged spears of the Phoenix’s light.
A disc of white light opened behind him, and he was suddenly sucked into that white void. His screams echoed and reverberated in the blood mirror as he was drawn into it. His body burned and dissipated into flecks of dust as if he’d been thrown into the sun. His screams were cut off, and the disc of white filled Nyset’s vision in a blinding light. A hollow ringing sounded in her ears.
Well done, Arch Wizard, the Phoenix crooned with approval.
And then there was nothing.
TWENTY-FOUR
Drinking
“The mark of a true friend is that you can act like a silly child with them.” - The Diaries of Nyset Camfield
Nyset blinked, finding herself staring up at a slanted ceiling with rough cut beams. A moan escaped her chest as she rose onto her elbows in what appeared to be a cot, the crisp sheets pulled over her bare breasts. “Where am I?” she asked the room, apparently devoid of other life. From somewhere distant she thought she heard a hearty laugh.
She was pleased to find her favorite dress hanging over the back of a simple chair, its back straight and arms thick. Its bright scarlet was stark against the drab colors of the room, trimmed in gold on the sleeves and the neckline. There was a round end table beside her bed with a rag folded over a bowl whose water was pinked with blood. Before the table was another straight-backed wooden chair, and adjacent to the bed was a bookcase with a few tattered books, their spines illegible. The floorboards were cupping and in some places had finger-wide gaps where the boards pulled apart from each other.
Bright white light poured in from two modest windows, framed by gossamer curtains. Birds twittered outside. She raked her hand through her hair, feeling a sense of surprise at its presence and then its cleanliness. But why should it surprise her to find she had hair? Then she remembered all of it in a crushing wave, from defending the Tower, killing the Shadow Princess to her time in the Fire Realm.
“Gaidal? Where are you?” she whispered, biting her upper lip and scanning the room’s shadows.
What realm is this? Panic seized her throat, suddenly making it hard to breathe. She forced herself to breathe deep. Wherever she was it seemed safe. Someone was caring for her. She relaxed with a long exhalation, then set the covers aside, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. She leaned on her knees and rubbed her eyes.
There was a great emptiness in her chest as if she’d lost something dear, something she couldn’t place. She reached for the Dragon and the Phoenix to discover, to her horror, that they were gone.
She looked at the ceiling. “Why have you left me?” she asked, eyebrows drawing down. There was no answer. Hot tears filled her eyes, and she sobbed into her hands. “Why? What have I done to deserve this? Why!” She tried to scream, but all that came out was a rasp.
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nbsp; A tremble went through her legs, traveled up through her belly, breasts, and throat. She drove her cheeks hard into her palms, slicked with tears. “Why? Oh, why? Why? Why?” she whimpered, tasting the salt of her tears. “I only wanted to serve you. Why have I been abandoned?” Her sobs became a sad laugh. She clawed her fingers and drew them down her face, scratching her cheeks and tugging hard at the corners of her lips. Her chest heaved with nibbling breaths. She slowly let her hands fall to her hips, tears streaming down her jawline. She pressed her lips into a shivering line, holding what little air she had deep in her chest. Accept what is, you must accept, she told herself. The curtains twitched as a warm breeze pushed into the room.
Everything is gone. She exhaled with an animal’s snarl, mouth wide and teeth bared. She thought of everyone, everything she knew and loved. They were lost to the Shadow. The weight of it all threatened to cripple her and leave her bleeding on this bed until the end of time.
“No,” she whispered to herself. “Not like that.” She ground her palm against her forehead, eyes screwing shut and pressing all that misery back behind the floodgates.
Outside, a bird sang a joyful tune, and she heard laughter again. She found herself laughing in kind, but not for the same reasons. She laughed at the paradox of sensing merriment while she stewed in sorrow. It was absurd. Acid rose in her throat, burning in her lower stomach.
Why were they laughing? There were people here who were enjoying themselves. The thought piqued her curiosity and stifled a bit of her sorrow. She rose and snatched the dress from the chair, slipped it over her head, punched her arms through the billowy sleeves, and tugged it over her bottom. It was cool and comfortable against her skin. It was something familiar. She wiped a hand across her sleeve. “Suppose I ought to see what it is,” she said with a sniff and a sad smile.
The Shadow Age (The Age of Dawn Book 7) Page 40