Malcor's Story
Page 52
Spark cautioned, “Careful Ynt’taris, soon that one will be joining our counsels.”
“I have watched over your children a long time Alerius,” the white continued, “and I grow weary of it. Perhaps, after this great cascade, I will return to Merakor.”
“Surely,” Alerius shot back, “there is beauty here exceeding the blight of that place?”
“Just two remain – Ora and Klara. My favorite jewel Ora is watching the girl now.” Ynt’taris created a white ghostly image of the two females.
Alerius nodded at the image and asked, “I have not seen Ora’s test report. I assume the child is a prodigy?”
“No, she is nothing. She is everything.” Ynt’taris’ illusion shifted to show Ora sitting in meditation holding Klara’s hands. “They pray to Mother, but Klara is equally in this world and outside of Time. Ora could not determine if she has a created soul.”
Silence reined for a moment before Spark added, “And yet, our debriefing with Armageddon noted that he and Malcor saw Klara’s aura. She must have a soul.”
The white dragon shifted the illusion to Klara and described the test. “Because my Ora could not see, she stood with Klara and only when talking about Malcor did her aura alight. She is a reactive soul.”
Alerius commanded, “Say what you mean brother.”
“She lacks a soul and so borrows from those she has bonded with. She will bond with Ora, very probable. If so, she will be an ice priestess. However, she has a strong bond with Malcor and were she to -”
Spark slapped the floor and said, “She would become a paladin!”
Ynt’taris told Spark to bite his tongue. “You would never understand the appeal of a gifted child, a girl child even. They have such potential. Klara, not Malcor, is the one to be king. Rojo’s haste nearly killed Kell’s son Malcor, and because of that haste, Klara had to present herself to Armageddon. The idiot brute did not see her lordly destiny, but I see it. We are lucky she did not bond with that brute.”
Ynt’taris suddenly struck like a cobra at Alerius stopping just shy of contact, and whispered, “I would see Klara seated on the Dragon Throne and safe before I leave this place. I see great pain coming and Alaura still haunts me. Klara, not Malcor, shall tame the heretics and allow Morbatten to survive what is coming.”
“Tell me brother ice,” Alerius hissed. “What do you see coming?”
“Cor’tanos will rebel; this we already know. Malcor may or may not endure the role chosen for him by Fate. Against this, Orcus grows weary of these one-at-a-time incursions against us. Bomoki’s return means this is an end game. We are either the spearhead or not, and yet the Pha Rannic messenger who spoke to Dar said Taysor would be the shield.
“We all know Taysor is not ready or willing. Instead, they have withered and lost their way in zealotry and self-righteous arrogance. Their rhetoric against us becomes increasingly hostile… a pattern we have seen before. You once asked where Bomoki has been all this time. I’ll tell you – he has been in Taysor creating this end game. So tied up with your treasures, you miss the signs brothers. That the others pledge to us, even Cor’tanos, means they all sense the growing threat.”
Alerius head butted Ynt’taris away from him. “Let them come. Even if you are right and Taysor fails as a shield, my children will win. I am unsure that Klara is the sister mentioned in the prophecy. That sister could be king. Klara may or may not. It feels wrong.”
It caught Ynt’taris off guard and with renewed suspicion asked, “What do you know brother fire?”
Alerius’ giant head swiveled to match Ynt’taris’ movements. “Rarely do our prophecies become literal. By this age, we knew Malcor met the prophecy. That Klara has remained elusive this long, no. If true, she would have revealed herself to the King as well, at his call. She is something altogether different.”
Ynt’taris humanshifted to his little girl form and walked out. At the grand doors exiting the front steps, she turned and looked back, “I concede and agree – we shall watch Klara though I believe she will be a better king’s successor. To the spearhead, my brothers, victory at what price? Do we get what we want from this victory? I question the price.”
She vanished into the evening fog with her last statement reverberating back into the great chamber.
Excerpt from Bomoki’s Gate, to be published February 2017 as 300+ page book…
The hound screamed at the rising sun as its quarry dropped onto the fortress battlements. The damned sunlight already made him feel lethargic. He longed for the green sun of his homeworld and snapped at the two dragons fading into the distance. Feeling a mass of necromancy somewhere underground, the hound turned and found a small opening just as the first ray of light beamed to the valley's floor. The sun, even on cloudy days, allowed normal life to happen here as birds and other creatures hiding and struggling to survive awoke.
The hound crawled through the dark as its body reknit itself. How many it had absorbed to stay alive during the fight with that cursed warrior and dragon, he had forgotten. He stopped and rubbed his healing but still tender shoulder alongside a rock face. At some point, another hound greeted him. It bowed low in welcome. "Oh great one, we heard your call but could not come through."
"Then you were too slow coming!" Bomoki's Gate snapped back. "Everything was there for what you needed except MORE effort on your part!" He snapped at the lesser hound who jumped ahead of Bomoki careful to avoid any kind of a challenge.
They eventually entered a cavern with a pool of clear shallow water. Bomoki ran into this bite-drinking water and washing the gore and filth away before at last letting go of his hound form. From the pool, walked a slender man with olive skin tattooed and scarred many times over. Skin and tissue sagged or sloughed off en masse as the water pulled away but regenerative tendon and ligament pulled it back and held it closed. Green light from his eyes lit the cavern. The other hound, now joined by two more and a growing number of undead waited in silence for this one, the first of all that still lived in this world to speak or command them.
Flipping the sleeves on his gold-trimmed red robe, Bomoki walked through them. From behind his spine, the jade sceptre of Orcus spat threats at the other hounds reminding them of their enslavement. Bomoki reached back and scratched at the skin around the sceptre's claws where it dug into his spine at the neck's base. Bomoki paused when he felt the jade head of the sceptre and then patted it on the head whispering for it to calm. Ahead of him, skeletons and undead felt like water, splashing apart and rushing to reform into a throne of eye sockets and gore. On this, Bomoki sat, flipping his sleeves out as the sceptre reformed from his spine to his left hand where his fingers reached over the skull and stroked the nose bridge. From the chair, other sceptres crawled onto his skin, helmeting his head, becoming shoulder armor. Each a complete ram skull and spine, it locked and crisscrossed his body tearing at it as they settled into their host.
"A glorious time comes to us brother," he said addressing the lesser hound. "Unlike the disaster in Ori, we have a time of prophecy and rivers of blood flow through time. The king of Tania is here and his pet gold dragon is with him! Long have I prayed to Orcus that the blood and eyes needed to complete the master's gate would be brought. Too long has the master been locked out of Tehra."
The hound and undead groveled and the throne tittered at the seeming good mood of their ungodly master. "Hound, you must take a message back to Orcus and the waiting hounds. You will tell Orcus the following. Gold dragon eyes will at last complete the artifact we began constructing centuries ago to unlock the gate. I require six hound generals to retrieve the eyes, under my command, my absolute command. I also require the demi-liches, so convey my request for their release to the master."
Under his hand, the sceptre crooned and said, "Orcus will question your timing. Get the eyes first or else the artifact is just another wand. The hound generals will want the eyes before they come. Too risky the price of failure they will think."
Bomoki retained his
gaze at the lesser hound and paid the sceptre no attention. "You will tell this to the master with all respect and politeness. Now go. It will take them time to travel here though I need them already. As for you," he turned his gaze to the sceptre. "You forget that time passes thing. I have waited eight centuries for a gold dragon to come here. And, here it is. We will take this opportunity.”
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