by P D Ceanneir
‘Ouch! Ah, look who else is coming across,’ he said as Tamberline, Cormack and the other boy walked over to the table with their drinks. Telmar turned to Vanduke and whispered, ‘that’s our cover blown.’
Vanduke nodded then stood to shake hands with Cormack.
The Keveni heir said, ‘Highness, I thought such drinking establishments were out of bounds to second years?’ He said this with a note of kindness and respect, even humour, but my father still flinched at the hidden meaning within the sentence.
Telmar spoke before Vanduke could answer, ‘such establishments are the hub of city life and all part of being human, you should try it sometime.’ I have to note that he was feeling brave through drink.
Cormack’s cold features barely flinched at the baron’s clever insult. Tamberline and Curla both covered their mouths as they giggled.
‘Telmar,’ said Cormack, a little too loudly. Telmar caught sight of the two men as they snapped their heads around just as the Cormack said his name. ‘I did not see you lurking in the shadows,’ continued Cormack, ‘but I should not be surprised. It is the trait of your family to go into hiding. Besides, we came to hear Curla sing.’
Telmar made to stand but Vanduke placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head slightly. To relieve the tension, Vanduke changed the subject.
‘And who is your friend, Cormack, we have never met,’ he asked, still with a restraining hand on Telmar’s shoulder.
The other boy stepped forward. He was of medium height with wild brown hair and a pale complexion, although good looking; he still had some small pits on his left cheek from bad acne in his youth. He grinned broadly revealing a fine row of white teeth. He thrust out his hand to Vanduke just as Cormack said, ‘This man is your opposite number, your highness.’
‘Sallen De Proteous Cambrian,’ he said cordially.
Both Vanduke and Telmar were speechless for a few seconds. Here, in this run down bar, were two heirs to Rawn thrones. The boy with the bright smile was destined to become King Sallen the Fourth of the Vallkytes.
In addition, it was Telmar’s destiny to kill him.
5
There was a heartbeat of silence from the group as the mindless banter of the bar broke through their thoughts. Vanduke, still holding the Vallkyte De Proteous’s hand, shook it and smiled.
‘A pleasure to finally meet you, Prince Sallen,’ he said.
‘The honour is mine,’ said Sallen still with his wide grin, which was alarmingly charming. ‘And an honour to make you acquaintance, Baron Telmar of Tressel,’ Sallen offered his hand and glanced quickly towards Cormack, ‘I have heard much about you.’
Telmar stood and shook the offered hand, ‘well met…cousin.’
For a moment Sallen’s smile faltered, he frowned and then a forced grin quickly replaced the smile. ‘Ah, cousins, so we are,’ he turned to Cormack lightly slapping him on the back. ‘Cormack, the baron’s mother is my great aunt and is, like me, a descendant of the Royal Houses of Duli and Solan, which means that if I, and my uncle Cambrian, were to die without issue, then Baron Telmar would be the next Vallkyte king.’
Cormack said nothing. His cheeks flushed red, which if Telmar judged correctly, meant that the future Keveni duke was painfully aware of his legitimate line to the throne. Both Tamberline and Curla still had their hands clasped to their mouths, but this time in shock. Both girls stared at him in awe. Vanduke’s dumfounded expression made Telmar laugh, though. Clearly, his friend had no idea of his royal lineage.
Sallen chuckled along with the baron. It stuck Telmar that this boy liked to shock people with seemingly innocent statements, and he had an instinctive feeling that this prince would make a dangerous enemy.
Cormack clapped his hands together making the girls jump. ‘Well, how very interesting,’ he said, ‘but we must adjourn to the private lounge to be entertained by Lady Curla’s angelic voice. Will you two gentlemen be joining us?’
Vanduke looked forlornly at Curla who smiled back at him, but Telmar gripped his arm before he could speak. ‘Love to, Cormack, but we were just leaving.’
‘We were?’ said Vanduke in surprise.
‘Yes, you remember that thing we had to deal with?’
Vanduke nodded without conviction.
‘Then I will see you at the next meeting, highness,’ said Cormack and turned away from them, guiding the girls as he did so. Telmar wondered what the “next meeting” was, but Prince Sallen spoke before he could ask Vanduke.
‘A pleasure gentlemen, hope to see you under…’ he looked around him, ‘…less gloomy conditions.’ He waved and caught up with the others before they entered the lounge door on the south wall. As they passed, Telmar noticed Cormack give an almost imperceptible nod towards the two undercover Watchmen, if that is what they were. Both men looked towards him, then away again. Telmar’s heart jumped.
‘Well, that whole conversation was strange, eh?’ asked Vanduke. However, Telmar threw two gold sovereigns onto the table and pushed my father towards the door.
Both boys entered a warm still night. A light rain had dampened the cobbled street, which unleashed a strong stink from the dirty gutters. Telmar forced a complaining Vanduke across the road and into a dark alley on the other side.
‘What’s going on?’ said my father.
They both pressed their backs to the wall. ‘Take a look, and see if those two Watchmen are following us,’ said Telmar.
Vanduke did so without argument, peering around the edge of the wall. He remained quiet for several seconds as he looked at the Hoydart Wreck’s main entrance, then he stiffened.
‘Bugger!’ he cursed, ‘they saw me. Run!’
6
Telmar did not know the citadel as well as my father, so he trusted his friend to get them out of the alley without finding a dead end. They both sprinted along the narrow walls as, behind them their issued the sound of booted feet, slapping the road at a sprint as their pursuers raced after them.
‘They’re not Watchmen or they would have blown their whistles,’ said Vanduke. ‘Probably Academy Agents. If they catch us after curfew my father is going to completely flip!’ They turned right at an intersection, climbed a short wooden fence and took a worn set of steps to the next street level; the Old Port area of the citadel started a hundred feet above sea level near Market Town then sloped down towards the shore, so some streets tended to zigzag upwards. The sign on the far building of the next street said Compton Lane. Telmar followed Vanduke as he turned left and headed north, the full moon cast long shadows of their running forms on the road in front of them.
‘You’re wrong,’ informed Telmar. ‘They’re Cormack’s henchmen. I saw him nod towards them before we left.’
‘Cormack! No, you cannot be serious. Why would he set two men on us?’ they were both panting now. The sounds of their pursuers were getting closer.
‘On me, actually,’ said Telmar as they took a junction into another quiet narrow street with gas lanterns giving off yellow light. ‘Both our families are still in the middle of a Blood Feud, remember?’
‘Even so, he is not likely to endanger me or…’ Father stopped and looked around. The street came to a dead end. It angled to the left into a stable yard. ‘Damn it! I thought this was Planking Street.’
Long moonlit shadows of the two men stretched over the wall of a brick building at the street entrance, getting bigger as they drew closer as they moved in on the trapped boys.
‘Quick into the yard, there must be a way out of the stables towards the rear,’ said Telmar, and both boys sprinted through the open gates of the yard. To their front and to their left, was an old style stone building that had various annexes built onto it over the years so there was no form or logic to their structure. The large waterwheel on the left hand building told Telmar it was some sort of mill, now closed for the night. They veered right into the stable, which had a wide aisle leading to a row of stalls where two grey bays drowsed. Moonlight shone through an open hatch in t
he hayloft and Telmar toyed with the idea of climbing the wooden ladders to the loft to hide, but from the sound of it, their pursuers had already entered the mill yard.
They quickly scanned the stable for exits but found none. Vanduke nudged Telmar in the back and indicated that they should hide. They discovered a small space by an empty hay stall. Both boys crouched behind a lath and wattle partition. The gaps in the lath were ideal for seeing through, but hid them from view on the other side.
The two pursuers entered the stable with a quiet feral stealth that made Telmar think of professional soldiers. The horses at the rear snorted at the men’s unfamiliar scent but remained impassive to the intruders. The taller of the two, who was shaved bald and wore a neatly trimmed goatee, surveyed the stalls with narrow intelligent eyes, while the other looked more like a local thug. His brown hair hung long to his shoulders and he had a scar over his left eye and cheek.
Goatee turned to Scar Face and whispered. ‘Remember, the De Proteous is not to be harmed.
The thug nodded, ‘right, boss.’
Vanduke looked at Telmar with shock and confusion on his face. Then there was a sound that sent shivers down Telmar’s spine, that of forged steel being drawn from a scabbard. Telmar looked to see Goatee hold a dagger in his hand and Scar Face pulled out a short blackjack from the inside of his jerkin.
Telmar felt that this was getting far too serious. The rules expressly forbid Rawn Apprentices from using the Arts outside of the Academy grounds. Both boys were strong enough in the first two elements, but neither felt the need to defuse the situation they were in with the elements when skill of combat would suffice. Telmar looked around for a weapon and saw a pitchfork leaning up against the far wall truss a dozen yards away. To his left, hanging by a series of hooks, sat a leather hitching tack for one of the horses cart traces. He nudged Vanduke and indicated with a jerk of his chin towards the pitchfork. My father understood; he was closer to it anyway.
The two men split up to inspect the stalls on each side of the aisle. They nudged them open with their feet. Each door’s hinges squeaked ominously in the dark silence before closing with a soft thud.
Vanduke crouched like a runner, ready to sprint. He waited until one of the two edged closer, and then leapt out of his hiding place with long strides, running towards the pitchfork. The distraction was all Telmar needed to unhook the tack.
Because of the angle of his run, Vanduke, reached Scar Face first and used his shoulder to knock him off balance before grabbing the pitchfork. Scar Face was quick to recover and hefted his blackjack in a backswing towards my father. The blow hit Vanduke in the shoulder lightly, but the pain still shot down his arm. He grabbed the handle of the pitchfork and, because of the lack of room, was unable to use the tangs on his assailant so he jerked the handle upwards to thump Scar Face in the chest.
Telmar stepped out of the shadows just as Goatee rushed to help his friend. He swung the tack over the knife arm and succeeded in getting it tangled over the man’s shoulder and neck. He pulled sharply, Goatee was thrown off balance, and the dagger wrenched from his grip. Telmar lashed out with his foot, striking Goatee’s knee and causing his leg to buckle, but when he followed this up with a clenched fist to the head, Goatee blocked with his left arm and stuck Telmar in the chest with a hard punch. The blow sent him back against the partition.
Vanduke saw Telmar fall back and the distraction was all Scar Face needed to leap forward and disarm him. Father saw the move just in time and stepped quickly out of the way, twisting as he did so. He brought the shaft of the pitchfork down on his attackers exposed neck. Scar Face fell to the floor with a grunt, and did not move.
Goatee had only a second to react to the unexpected two on one situation. He unravelled the tack and threw it at Vanduke, which cause him to move out of the way. Goatee grabbed the handle of the pitchfork and jerked it upwards, violently. The shaft struck my father full in the face, broke his nose, and rocked his head backwards so it thumped against a stall post. He slumped to the floor.
Telmar looked around for the dagger and saw its blade glint in the moonlight in the middle of the aisle a few feet from him. He was about to reach for it when it moved of its own accord and spun through the air. The handle landed in Goatee’s hand and he sneered at Telmar’s surprised expression. The use of the Wind Element was tangible in the air, straw and dust whirled around both of them as the element died down.
‘You’re a Rawn!’ gasped Telmar.
‘Cleaver boy,’ said Goatee with a hint of sarcasm.
‘What do you want from me?’ Telmar’s heart was fluttering in his ribcage. He had never known danger or fear in his life before, but now it slammed into this awareness like an armoured cavalry charge. On the floor, Vanduke lay still but Scar Face groaned as he stood.
Goatee ignored his question and nodded towards his accomplice. The stocky thug, angry from the pain in his head, grabbed Telmar’s collar and dragged him to the stable doors. Telmar used his elbows to thump them into his chest. The man took the pain and just grunted, then he delivered a large fist to the boy’s temple, and the world for Telmar went black.
The Brethac Ziggurat
“Revenge is an emotion best left to those disturbed enough to see it through!”
The Inner Eye: Sevaris the Mage
1
It should be noted at this juncture that Pyromantic Energy affects people differently. My son, for instance, showed signs of the power at a young age. Of course, the stress of the civil war also contributed to Havoc’s inability to control the outpouring of superheat. The Pyromancer must control his more volatile emotions because therein lies the energy to create Pyromantic Surges, a term Havoc used and Shanks acknowledged.
In the case of Telmar, as with Havoc to begin with, both men had stable and loving upbringings and lived in a safe peaceful environment. In the case of my son, that environment shattered when my brother turned on his people during the Battle of Dragorsloth.
Telmar was not to show signs of Pyromantic Energy until four months before his sixteenth birthday, which was on that night of the attack. Even then, his memories mixed with disturbed delusions of the event, and the ravished sequences of his damaged mind became disjointed, yet wondrous to see. Fear, anger and pain, the worst emotions for a Pyromancer, churned inside him on that day, building towards a catastrophic confrontation with his captors. His life would never be the same again.
Telmar, some years after what he called “The First Event”, wrote in his personal journal that Pyromantic Energy has a life of its own. It senses danger to the host and acts accordingly.
When it did act, it was devastating.
It started in his unconscious mind as a nightmare.
He was running from Goatee and Scar Face, his legs heavy, the cobbles of the street ran like thick treacle to slow him down. His pursuers were closing. Goatee brandished the dagger, giggling like a court jester and then his body changed to Vanduke brandishing the training sword as he jumped skilfully away from Telmar’s childish attempts to get through his guard. Telmar roared in frustration and felt heat build inside him, but Vanduke only laughed in a high-pitched screech and then his features changed again, this time more terrifying. His eyes turned as black as night and grew in his ocular sockets as his face thinned, skin shrinking to become as thin as parchment and bone white on his skull. He continued to laugh but it was dry and emotionless. The darkness around him cloaked his body and he pointed his sword at Telmar’s chest, a sword with a black blade.
‘Unleash the power!’ he said, and then the dream changed again. He was standing in the middle of a city square with the Door in front of him.
It literally loomed before him, quiet and unassuming, yet dangerously malevolent. Telmar studied it as if for the first time. This time, he knew, it was different. In Vanduke’s descriptions of his other dreams, the door was either white or green; sometimes it was red. Now it had gone through the colour spectrum and was now a deep black. The black was so complete it
acted as a mirror for the sky, and even though it was night, the sky was blood red.
Telmar looked around him and saw the strange city he stood in. Even if it were not a burning ruin, he would still not have recognised it. So alien was the architecture that he could not match up any descriptions of cities he had read about in books.
Ravaged fire blackened the walls of once baronial homes now silhouetted against the raging flames that bloomed inside its massive structures. The shocking devastation was immense and Telmar felt so small and alone that he hugged himself to stop his body shivering.
That was when he looked down and saw the corpses that littered the square.
They were, for the most part, human in shape, but now resembled dried up husks of desiccated flesh. Their limbs were twisted and withered, and the agony of their death still showed on their contorted faces. Most wore armour and carried weapons, which now lay beside their lifeless forms. Whatever had happened here, they died fighting whatever it was that came out from the Door.
Something terrible!
A soft white light suddenly lay over the closest body. Telmar looked up and saw Harlequin. He was emitting darts of white plasma whose strobes gently passed over the rippled contours of the dead soldier.
‘Macerated internal damage to organs,’ said Harlequin, obviously talking to himself, ‘total body shut down after intense trauma. Conclusion, the subject suffered soul energy transference via some form of powerful absorption effect from an unknown entity.’
‘Harlequin?’ asked Telmar.
The Powerball stopped his analysis and retracted his probing light. He seemed to look at Telmar for the first time and his voice sounded surprised to see him.
‘Master Telmar! How can you be here?’ he said.
‘Where exactly is here?’
‘The ancient city of Melthonansa on the continent of Helpash Norde,’ explained the Powerball.