by BJ Hanlon
“Your lightning strike, the way you controlled the tide to save our lives on the river.” There was the sound of a grin in his voice. “You’re strong and precise.”
Edin shrugged.
Le Fie took his ‘fancy clothes, stuffed them in the sack and threw them over the wall into Mersett’s yard. The old councilman would dispose of them.
In his head he heard the ‘engagement of Princess Arianne and Casitas…’ He must’ve looked like he was going to cry because a quick slap crashed into his face.
“No time for blubbering, you need to be a man… like your father.” Edin shook his head. “Where’d you get the wan knife?”
Edin looked up shocked, then shook his own head. The words stumbled from his mouth. “That broson whose foot I broke, tried to stick me with it in the back.”
“How’d you?”
“Quick hands.”
“Like a terrin?” A smile came over Le Fie, then he yanked Edin forward, pulling him. At the edge of the path was an iron gate with a guard on the other side.
Le Fie moved to the grass and sprinted silently toward the stone wall. It was about twice his size but he scaled it and vaulted it like it were merely waist high.
Le Fie landed on the guard silently and the man went unconscious… at least Edin hoped he was just unconscious. Then Le Fie opened the squealing gate. They were in the shadow of the mountain and the much nearer Boganthean Tower.
“You remember the layout?”
Edin nodded, there were circular stairs that headed almost a hundred yards beneath the tower. Different sublevels where ancient magi used to experiment with spells and rituals.
They stayed low as they ran through the unlocked front gate and up the broken stone steps into the first floor. Le Fie turned toward the basement and pulled out his lockpick tools.
A moment later, it creaked open and he disappeared into the darkness.
Edin heard Le Fie whisper ‘Ablo,’ and a small flame appeared above his hand. His face glowing. “Spells do come in handy,” he said and began the descent down the stairs.
Edin pulled up an ethereal ball and followed descending quietly into the depths.
As they went lower, something changed. Slowly, a feeling began to come over him, a dreadful, terrorizing feeling. Edin shook it off then bumped into the back of Le Fie.
In the light, he was ghostly pale as if he’d been caked in flour. “Do you feel it?” Said Le Fie.
Edin nodded.
“Something isn’t right… it feels like…”
“Like a battle… a war is about to begin. Like we’re about to be invaded.”
“Yes,” Le Fie said. He took a hesitant step and reached a landing with a closed door. A light was coming through, a greenish glow like a putrid mist in a bog.
“A spell…” Le Fie said shaking his head. “It’s… I can’t think.”
“What type?”
“I… don’t…” He shook his head again as if it was clearing cobwebs from a dusty box. “I found a man who seemed crazy living down by the docks. He had a minder who watched him as he bellowed out wild things, burning bones, stinging bees, and jesters…”
“Jesters?” The word sounded crazy… he saw one in his mind, long floppy hat, painted face and gooseflesh overcame him.
“Yeah, that one frightens me the most,” Le Fie said, his teeth chattering as he shivered. “Their sad painted faces, their noiseless mouths… how they can pull things from places where it shouldn’t be…”
They still hadn’t moved. The light before them was growing brighter, glowing and pulsing. The feeling came back, someone was coming to destroy them.
“What are we doing here?” Edin asked.
“I ah… don’t know.” He pointed at the door, “I think we need to go inside.”
Edin didn’t want to. Not even a little bit...
Le Fie tested the door, locked. He dropped to his knees and stuck his lock pick set in. A moment later, Edin heard the latch give.
Le Fie threw open the door and leapt in. Edin followed and shut it.
Inside, were four men… all magi. Edin could see the fire around one, chunks of earth another, water balls a third, and a tornado around the forth.
They didn’t notice the intruders as they were chanting over an odd symbol in the floor.
“What are they?” Edin asked.
“Mind spell… break it...”
Edin didn’t know what to do. He felt confused, lost even. Then the room began to spin and from somewhere he heard a scream… maybe it was his. Edin saw flashes of fire, the flames of the justicar, he saw his mother and Kes next to him, Arianne crying. Then the flames engulfed him in a sheet of white-hot pain. He knew blisters were leaping up.
Edin couldn’t breathe, they torched his skin, flailed and peeled like a scraper on a potato. Edin screamed. Blinked and looked back.
His mouth went dry.
Spiders, small ones were crawling up his boil covered arm, he flung them around trying to get the spiders away. Nothing worked.
One pinched, and dove under his skin and began crawling. Edin tried to control himself to slap it. He missed and fell and nearly vomited.
“Steel yourself,” Le Fie called, “It’s not real.” But his voice seemed far way. Then a moan, a scream from Le Fie.
Not real, not real… Edin thought. It kept playing in his head.
Edin tried to remember what Dorset had told him to counteract these.
“Concentrate on reality, what is here, now.”
But his mind was jumbled. He was outside on the pyre… then inside the manor. Other flashes, the Reaches, Arianne’s keep. Arianne. He held onto the picture of her face. Her turning away from him. Flames burst between them and Pharont stepped in his path. The fat man was bellowing about something… Edin heard the word. “Engagement.”
“No!” he screamed and then he received a moment of clarity. He knew where he was. The tower. His mind cleared a bit and he saw Le Fie struggling to his feet. His head in his hands as if he had a powerful headache and there was the droning chants of the men.
Edin reached into his tunic, he felt the warm wan stone dampening his power… but. He pushed himself to his knees his fingers felt numb as if he were still in the freezing Crady Mountains. The blade dropped.
The pain roared back, with a vision. Now he was kneeling over a wooden bar with another around his neck. He felt no pain but he was looking out over a crowd of people. More than he’d ever seen, thousands, hundreds of thousands maybe. They were screaming, throwing things. Edin turned and saw Arianne next to him, tears running down her face. She was in the same position Edin was. Above her,
was a large man with a black hood covering his face. He stepped up next to her. A headsman. Edin watched as he hefted a giant axe above his head. Sharp as anything, eluvrian steel.
Edin screamed as the blade came down. “No!” He screamed and tried to summon a culrian over her. But he had no strength left. Nothing.
Time slowed, and he locked eyes with her.
She screamed, it was a long, terrified scream.
He tried to tell her with his eyes, it’d be alright. But the blade cut through with an almost noiseless thwack. The light in her eyes dulled as her head disappeared into a basket.
Edin roared, tears filling his eyes. This wasn’t real. He thought. He could feel the blade of the wan stone around him, suppressing him.
His eyes snapped open. The weapon, sat only a few inches from his hand.
Without thinking, trying to push everything out he grabbed it by the blade and pulled back. Fear tried to push itself in again. He felt it trembling on the outskirts of his brain like a flood against a levy.
He flung it forward with all his strength. The weapon made no sound over the cacophony of chants and elements.
A moment later, Edin felt the surge of energy. The talent flowed into him like a dam had just been demolished and Edin shouted a pained grunt he could neither hear nor feel.
Power pulsed around
him and the terror dissipated. He could feel the electricity in the air, his hair stood on end.
He glanced up and saw the water mage had dropped, blood trickled from a wound in his lower back. A magi with green robes dropped by his companion and pulled out the blade with a sucking sound. Then threw it back as if it were on fire. A moment later they turned on Edin and Le Fie.
“Interlopers!” the wind mage shouted. A fiery cyclone spotted with chunks of stone appeared between the three. A triumvirate of combined power. It raced toward them, howling and cackling like a loony man.
He saw Le Fie was trying to recover his feet; he was wobbly as was Edin. A moment later, he summoned the culrian shield. The white bubble covered them as the impact threw them back.
He landed hard and felt his ankle tweaked but he kept the shield. The cyclone circled them. The roar was so loud, he couldn’t think, couldn’t know what was happening.
Le Fie and he knelt in the center like children hiding in a cupboard to escape their abusive drunk father.
Wave after wave pounded into the shield weakening him... he was just about empty.
Sweat poured down and he felt the culrian collapsing with too much pressure. Edin couldn’t see through the madness, he couldn’t feel anything.
Le Fie yelled something, Edin couldn’t hear. All he knew is they didn’t have much time.
Slowly, he got to his feet, Le Fie was doing the same. Together, they stepped forward, Edin forcing the shield to move with them. He felt the resistance, as if he were wrestling a giant.
Another step. Using all his body weight and his will. Every bit of strength he had.
He’d beaten a crillio, dematians, a terrin, the Por Fen… So many people tried to kill him… he wouldn’t let three magi.
Another step. Le Fie was still next to him, pushing with his hands. He could sense a puddle of water on the ground near where the glasorio lay.
It wasn’t huge and was seeping into the stone. He stepped back and felt the water, he pictured it flowing out of the stone and forming on the ground. Then he raised them, floating orbs of water. He couldn’t, didn’t have the ability or the strength to turn them into ice.
Edin sent them forward in a wave that grew. The tornado stopped for a moment, Edin let loose the shield and screamed. The electricity in the room was metallic and buzzing.
Without thinking he raised a hand, let an arc of electricity shot forth from his palm striking the earth mage and bouncing to the other two. Their eyes snapped open, their bodies seized and they dropped in the glowing circle.
Edin collapsed but Le Fie caught him. Edin felt cold and drained like someone had stuck him with a needle and was letting out all of his life blood.
“The room is filled with energy…” Le Fie said. “Can you use it?”
Edin’s eyes were closing, he wasn’t sure what the man was talking about for a moment then he did. Grent had taught him. He felt it all around him, reaching out and touching it with his mind. The energy was like a cloud of insects that healed. He pictured that, as creepy as it sounded, but then had them all land on him.
His eyes opened and the room came into focus.
“Gods, you are strong... but they…” he looked over at the men. Steam was rising from three of the bodies while blood still trickled from the forth. “I’ve never seen an attack like that…”
“Who were they?”
“Pharont’s men… I knew one of them.” He walked over toward the wind mage. “Veclan was in my class at school, smart and pompous but weak minded. Seems he grew very strong in the talent...”
Edin looked around, though he didn’t want to be in there anymore. The glowing green symbol on the floor was gone. The perimeter of the room was studded with tables and bookshelves covered in many curious objects that didn’t make any sense, ropes, bricks, casts of bricks, huge clear glass mugs with a viscus red substance in it; animal hair and what could’ve been a human bone.
“These are all alchemy and spell books… I’d love to know what my uncle was working on, but I have a feeling, someone will come by soon. We need to find the creature.”
Edin nodded, he was
tired but followed Le Fie back out into the stairwell and down. The air grew cold and damp and he was reminded of Arianne’s and his days in the long escape tunnel.
They reached another door and Le Fie took out his lock picks and snuck them in. Then he stopped, “it’s warded.”
“So we can’t get in?”
“Well, I don’t know what type of ward. It could be any number of things…”
Edin remembered Arianne’s ward was an alarm. But there was also the darts that knocked him unconscious only for him to wake up with the most beautiful woman in the world taking care of him… before she tried to kill him. He wished they were there again, in the mountains alone.
“Where’s your head? When I open this, somethings going to happen, I need you with me not thinking about her… if we fail, the island, the people could all die.”
“So dramatic… maybe you should’ve studied theater.”
“Didn’t you feel it? They are pushing the isles to war… they will listen to Pharont. But if the
Ecta-”
“Shut up…” Edin shook his head, “I’m not a prophesied anyone.”
“Not yet, now draw that blade.”
Edin was wary but did it.
Le Fie twisted and the lock snapped open.
Edin quickly covered Le Fie and summoned the culrian as a clicking sound came from around them as if they were in a large cavern.
Slowly, a yellowish gas began to slide down the walls as if it were a waterfall.
“Inside,” Le Fie said as he rammed a shoulder into it. It sprang back. “Stuck…” he hit it again.
Edin was too drained to try and blow the door open. He looked up, the smoke kept coming. A moment later, something felt odd around his feet. As he looked, he saw the leather on his boots start to decay. The shine faded slowly… “What is this stuff?”
Le Fie looked down. “Blast… help me.” He stepped back and kicked. Still nothing. “Shoulders.”
Edin saw his black trousers were becoming threads as if they were being taken apart on a loom. His eyes went wide and he saw Le Fie. They stood facing each other.
“Now,” Le Fie yelled through a cough. They hit, nothing happened. Again. Then again. Edin could see skin now on his feet, the hairs on his legs began to shrivel.
“One more,” Le Fie called. The smoke was at their chest now. They both threw their shoulders into the door.
It crashed open and Edin fell. He caught himself and began scampering on his hands into a dark unknown. A moment later, the door slammed behind him.
Edin coughed, and glanced back. He could see nothing in the black of the underground cellar. He had little energy, but could… at least he hoped, make a light.
He did, though if flickered dimly.
“Le Fie?”
He looked over and saw the spy lying next to the door. There was no smoke, but half of his clothes had been burned away and his legs looked like they’d just been shaved and he’d been put into a steaming bath.
Edin’s own legs looked the same.
Slowly, Le Fie turned his head, his eyes were red and his face pale. Edin stood gingerly and scanned the room. It felt damper and colder than even by the door. Though maybe that was because three-quarters of their pants were gone.
“It’s empty…” Le Fie sighed. “Can’t be… Mersett promised...”
Edin spotted a single stool and a table. The table had been turned over and was missing a leg.
“Could he have lied?” He wondered about the bodies above them. “What if he just wanted us to stop that?” He pointed to the ceiling.
Le Fie took a few moments to consider it. He coughed but shook his head. “I’ve been used as a pawn before… this isn’t like those...”
“Well, I don’t think we’ll be going out that way anytime soon,” Edin said. “Can you stand?”
/> “Yes,” he replied.
He moved to the ancient stone walls. He ran fingers along them. They came away with dew and mold. It smelled like the place had been vacant for years like the room at the top of the tower.
Slowly, he circled it, not sure what he was looking for. Then, in the darkness, he spotted something. A statue holding a bowl.
“Le Fie… come here. It’s a…”
“Dematian. But what is it doing here?”
Edin grinned, he closed his eyes and felt the water in the air and on the walls. He called for it and it shot at him like a weird horizontal rainstorm. Then the water dropped into the bowl.
“Step back,” Edin said.
He ran his hand around the rim as Arianne had showed him at Erastio’s Rise. A moment later, there was a rumbling to the left and a gust of wind.
“How’d you…”
Edin said nothing and
went to the new door.
It was another dark space but the walls weren’t hewn stone, it was as if someone dug it straight into the mountain. The floor shone as if by moisture.
Le Fie cleared his throat. “No one’s been here in years.” Le Fie nodded and stepped forward into the darkness.
Edin followed.
Soon, they saw it was a long hall that seemed unending. He ran his hands along the damp walls. The tunnel began to slope steadily downward, deeper into the ground.
Suddenly, they felt a rumble and stopped. Stones began to drop from the roof of the hall.
Edin felt unsure on his feet and reached out grabbing a nub on the cave wall. “What the…”
“An explosive,” Le Fie said. “Like we used it at the dry docks.”
From far behind, he heard voices.
“There’s water up here… I think we’re near the ocean,” Le Fie called from ahead of him. “It goes down, under the waterline. Can you swim?”
“I have the talent but… do we have to?”
“Those are probably Pharont’s men, the broson, you know how understanding they are? Do you have the energy to fight them?”
Edin said nothing.
“Do you think they’ll be lenient?”
Again, Edin didn’t answer.
Le Fie grinned. “You go first and light the way… fire doesn’t hold up well down there.