Shadow Realms: Part One of the Redemption Cycle

by J. R. Lawrence

  “Thank you, Mage Master,” Vak said under his exhausted breath.

  “My pleasure to secure the safety of a friend,” Grulad said with a grin.

  Vak staggered to his feet and retrieved both swords from the body of the fallen guard. He turned away from Grulad without another word, and strode with a limp up to the large iron doors of the Mage Tower.

  These doors did not open to him as his own had, but rather they remained securely closed. He laid his hand against the iron workmanship and pushed with all his strength, and the one door slowly unbolted itself, revealing the room within as the throne chamber of the Lord and the Lady Zurdagg. They sat in their thrones, wearing robes of the deep red and purple of their Branch, and looked up as he entered.

  “Forgive me for my uninvited visit, Master and Mistress Zurdagg,” Vak said as the door closed shut behind him, the two very displeased faces of Lord Deotuer and Lady Maaha Zurdagg glowing in the light of the candles that lined the walls. “My sudden entry was most demanding and unexpected… as I had wished.”

  “What is the meaning of this, Vaknorbond Vulzdagg?” Deotuer demanded, rage and confusion in his tone. “I demand an immediate answer!”

  “I demand an answer of my own!” Vaknorbond cried in response, swinging his scimitar violently to make the steal whistle through the air. “Why have you slain my father and the Lord of my people?”

  Deotuer waved his hand, motioning to a nearby wall where the statue of a large cave troll stood seven feet high, leaning upon a stone club. “How dare you defy the Branch of Zurdagg with your lies!” he hissed.

  As he spoke, the troll statue began to shift and move. What once appeared as a stone cold statue in the infrared spectrum was now a creature warm with life, straightening and fixing its pale eyes upon Vaknorbond in the center of the room. It lifted its club and charged forward, raising its weapon higher over its head as it came near the warrior.

  Vak leapt backward in time to dodge the powerful impact of the club as it rattled the stone floor, and Maaha sat forward as she gripped the arms of her throne, watching the battle commence. From his standing position Deotuer spoke a spell that affected only Vak’s two scimitars, causing them to become as heavy as gold.

  Vak struggled to maintain his stance, his weapons suddenly heavy for no explained reason, and he crouched just a few feet from the troll as it rose to charge him once again. This time the club swung in from the side, forcing Vak to drop to his chest, and the club barley grazed his white hair as it passed just above him. He rolled forward and underneath the troll to come up behind it, and leaping onto its back he gripped it round the neck, a vain attempt to bring the monster down, and the troll dropped its club and began reaching behind its head to grab at him.

  Vak’s mesh armor pressed against the rough hide of the troll, his purple cloak flapping about as the beast spun around to see him, and then suddenly the troll caught hold of his cloak and pulled Vak from his grip on it. The monster swung him round to be held before its face, and Vaknorbond dangled helplessly by his cloak a foot in the air right in front of the hideous face.

  Vak kicked forward unexpectedly, striking the troll in the nose, and then again in the throat. The monster released him and stumbled over, painfully clutching its throat, and Vaknorbond dropped to the floor in a half crouch. He reached into his boot where he kept his hidden blade and made a quick leap at the monster, running up the troll and slashing it across the throat. Now standing over his victory he turned to face the Lord and the Lady of Zurdagg once again.

  Deotuer had already drawn his sword and was rushing upon Vak before he had finished the troll, but at once Vak jumped aside and hit the floor, knocking his head against it.

  The hit dazed him for a moment, and by the time he could think straight he saw Deotuer standing above him, raising his weapon up to swing down upon him for the final stroke. Vak desperately grabbed both of Deotuer’s ankles and pulled them from under him, and Deotuer fell, his sword slipping from out of his hand.

  Vak caught the blade and came upon Deotuer as he lay holding his head.

  One of Vak’s boots pressed against his neck, forcing Deotuer’s head back, exposing his throat to the blade extended toward him. Maaha jumped to her feet as she saw him fall and become pinned helplessly to the stones under Vaknorbond, but she said and did nothing.

  The cold steal of the straight blade of Deotuer pressed against his throat just enough to draw a single drop of blood, and Vaknorbond caught himself struggling to keep his anxious breath steady. He said slowly to the trapped lord, “Now comes your end, Deotuer Zurdagg, and the end of your namesake – just as you wished to end mine,” and was about to force the blade into his throat when the doors of the Mage Tower burst open.

  Vaknorbond looked up, startled by the sudden entrance, and was shocked when he saw Grulad standing with his palm outstretched toward him, a power emanating from it in dark red.

  “Sorry Vaknorbond, but I must secure the safety of my Lord and Lady,” he said with a wicked grin.

  The flames were about to erupt from his hand and consume Vak when he lurched suddenly, steal tearing through his robs from behind and protruding outward from his chest. His blood shimmered in the candlelight on the scimitar of Dril’ead, who had come up from behind the treacherous Mage Master.

  “Just securing the safety of my lord and father,” Dril’ead said grimly. The blade came free of the corpse, and the body of Grulad collapsed to the cold, stone floor.

  Vak stared dumbfounded at the sudden appearances, forgetting for a moment the trapped Deotuer beneath him. But the lord of Zurdagg did not struggle or even attempt escape while Vak was distracted, though he asked the confused Lord of Vulzdagg a question, saying, “Tell me, lord Vaknorbond, how many more of The Followers must die this day?”

  Vak, however, was staring at Dril’ead, Dril’s own attention was held on the corpse of Grulad as he lay in his own warm blood pooling at his feet, and he couldn’t help noting the struggling emotions of horror and rage in the young fighter. But he looked down at Deotuer in time to see his lips moving to form the final words of a spell, and his mind seemed to halt for a moment too long.

  He was pulled upward by the force of some unseen power behind the words of the Lord of Mages.

  Dril’ead looked up in time to watch as his father was hurled upward and thrown to crash violently against the far wall, his body slumping down in a heap over the candles now extinguished beneath him, and Deotuer was again on his feet. The sword of the Zurdagg Lord clattered to the floor beside Vaknorbond, but Deotuer cried aloud a single word as he threw his arm out toward Dril’ead.

  Dril had only a second to react to the power now crashing toward him. However, a second was all that the expert fighter needed in order to be ready for the impact. He widened his legs, putting his arms out to either side – one scimitar gripped tightly in his right hand – and concentrated his attention on Deotuer and his outstretched palm.

  The blow struck Dril directly in the chest and nearly threw him from his feet, intended to cast him away, but he had planted his feet firmly against the stones underfoot. Remembering a lesson his father had taught him when he was just a child, he again rehearsed what he had many times before whenever he fell into trouble; and seeing the crumpled form of his father lying helplessly away from him only increased his determination to do as his father told him.

  Remember, Dril’ead, where your feet are set is where you shall stand, and it is where you shall stand that the enemy cannot touch you.

  Deotuer pressed his attack against Dril, forcing his strength to its limits to throw the foolhardy Vulzdagg out of his courtroom. But The Follower simply pushed back even harder. His eyes widened in rage and surprise, never before meeting someone who could equal his skill with the magic arts. He groaned as he threw both hands forward against Dril’ead with all the power he had obtained over the centuries of his life, but Dril only staggered in place, stubbornly resisting the force pushing him away.

  In his mind he s
aw his father laying apart from him, and this wizard the only thing keeping him from his mentor’s side. No one – and Dril meant no one – could stand between him and his teacher.

  He lifted a foot from the ground, holding it gingerly in the air as he tested the force pushing against him, and to either of their surprise he put it down a step toward Deotuer. And then, with increasing confidence and determination, Dril stalked slowly forward against the current pushing against him.

  Deotuer screamed in rage, stomping his foot and summoning more power to put against Dril. Nothing worked. The prince of Vulzdagg appeared resistant to the magic that the mage threw at him, no amount of power or force changing anything in the determined stride he was forcing toward him. And so it was no surprise to Deotuer that Dril’s sword came up and was driven through his stomach, no shield of protection deflecting the blow, and he simply lurched beneath the strike.

  With dying eyes, his energy having already been spent in the attempt to destroy the Vulzdagg prince, Deotuer looked up into Dril’s eyes now alight with the warrior within him. There was a fire in those dark eyes that Deotuer had never seen before, though he knew it as the fire of one whose determination cannot be stopped, and he simply stared.

  “Only one more need die,” Dril’ead said in a hoarse voice, his throat dry and his lips cracked by the magical winds sent against him. “And that one will not be my father.”

  Once he pulled his sword from the body of Deotuer Zurdagg it fell limply at his feet, and Dril’ead paid it no more heed as he rushed to his father’s side. He dropped his bloodied scimitar aside as he lifted Vaknorbond up in his arms, the Lord of Vulzdagg barely regaining consciousness as he opened his eyes to look tiredly up at Dril.

  “Son,” Vak said weakly. “The nobles… They will…”

  Dril’ead looked up as Vak’s voice failed to tell what he was trying to say, and he saw that the throne of the Lady of Zurdagg was empty of Maaha Zurdagg. Turning back, he quickly interrupted the struggling words of his father, saying, “Deotuer is dead. And so is the Master Mage. However, Lady Maaha Zurdagg has gone away, though I don’t know where.”

  Vak closed his eyes, recovering his strength. “Very well,” he said with an audible sigh. “Enough work has been done this day. Let us go back and gather our troops. With the loss of their master the Zurdagg’s have undoubtedly given up the fight.”

  Dril nodded as he helped his father onto his feet. Vak limped to where he had dropped his scimitars and gingerly picked them up, the adamant weapons having recovered their proper weight, and stopped beside the body of Deotuer. Crimson blood shimmered beneath the corpse in the remaining candlelight, and the Lord of Vulzdagg frowned contemplatively.

  Dril’ead, on the other hand, stood before the two thrones of the Zurdagg nobility, sword back in its scabbards and hands on his hips, a distant look on his face.

  Vaknorbond turned away from the scene and left the throne room, passing over Grulad’s body heaped upon the floor in his own blood. Outside the city was destroyed, soldiers of Vulzdagg were already taking the weapons from the surrendering Zurdagg warriors, who realized from the sudden change in their strength that Deotuer had fallen and Zurdagg was no more.

  Taking a few quick glances around the chamber, Dril’ead turned and strode out of the citadel, his blood stained sword in his hand – stained eternally with the blood of his enemies.

  “I’ll find her,” he promised himself. “I’ll find the lady of Zurdagg – the Branch that once ways but is no more; the Branch that murdered my grandfather.”

  8

  Born to Kill

  When all those of Zurdagg who surrendered were placed among Vulzdagg in Zurdagg’s stead, a great monument was built before the ruins of the Mage Tower and Zurdagg citadel. This monument was called Zurdagg-Urden’Dagg, marking the place where the Zurdagg’s had once lived and prospered in the darkness of the Shadow Realms before they had been destroyed by the wrath of the Urden’Dagg. The monument was that of a statue of a male Fallen, wielding a hammer in his left hand and a scimitar in his right, signifying the destroying and creating power of the Urden’Dagg. It was an act of Vulzdagg to sway any wrath that the Urden’Dagg might turn upon them, reverencing it in this way.

  The Followers of Vulzdagg increased in size after that battle, for they had received many of the soldiers of Zurdagg. And with the capturing of the Zurdagg mages their power with magic increased, and their strength also. But even though Leona’burda was pleased with the work, and all those of the House of the Basilisk, Vaknorbond, Dril’ead, and Gefiny were displeased concerning various things pertaining to the day.

  Vaknorbond never enjoyed shedding blood, especially the blood of his own kin and his own race. It was against his nature to kill others of The Followers, or even Fallen in that sense. He did it so well it made him sick.

  Dril’ead was displeased with the loss of Maaha, the witch who had murdered his beloved grandfather and caused the whole conflict to begin with. She would have also brought to his people great power and authority over the works of magic. He shared some of what his father felt, too: He hated himself as much as he would hate his enemies. He saw in himself a monster; an uncontrollable beast that killed for the thrill of it. But he also saw a warrior that would lead his kin to victory in the end. So it was, in the end, he hated and loved himself.

  Gefiny was displeased with the coming of a brother. She wished for a sister, but instead had received a brother. So stress fell upon her, and she found only comfort in spending time with Dril’ead; for she loved him dearly.

  *****

  “How could I have let the one who murdered Vishtax get free of my grasp?” Dril’ead said to his mentor and father, Vaknorbond, some months later as they walked down a narrow hall from the training quarters of the citadel. “I failed my grandfather!”

  “It is not important,” Vak assured him, “She can do no more harm to us.”

  “But the power she would have given us,” said Dril, looking toward his father with a strange gleam in his eyes.

  “No power would we have obtained from her. She would grant us nothing,” Vak told him firmly. He tried to ignore what he saw in his son’s expression.

  “She would,” Dril said, turning to face his father eye to eye. “She would have, or else she would feel the pain of a million flames.”

  “Be silent!” Vak exclaimed, and he slapped him on the cheek with swift hand. “No more pain must we give another race. Enough screams have I heard from my own kind. It was a cruel thing what we’ve done, however necessary it might have been.”

  Leona’burda came round the corner carrying her infant son. Vaknorbond and Dril’ead immediately straightened themselves before her, bowing low to the mother of their city. “Is there something troubling either of you?” she asked when looking from one tense face to the other, “I see it in your eyes. Gefiny is already displeased, I know, of the birthing of a boy.”

  “We are not troubled,” Dril replied smoothly, smiling stiffly. Then he changed the subject, saying, “Is this he, my younger brother?” and took a step nearer to see the child in his mother’s arms. “I haven’t seen him since our return from Zurdagg.”

  “Yes, this is Neth’tek Vulzdagg, your brother and fellow warrior,” Leona replied, looking down at the child. “He is young, but will soon be a great warrior like you and your father.”

  Vak shifted his position at the remark, and frowned down at the child. “He looks much like you did when you were born,” he said to Dril’ead. “Perhaps if you teach him all you know, when he’s old enough, he’ll be just like you.”

  Dril’ead’s expression suddenly changed to one of strange sorrow. The child’s eyes in the infrared spectrum appeared as pale dots in a glowing face, and Dril’ead studied the eyes of his brother as he frowned in thought.

  To be like me, Dril thought, would be like that of a wild beast born to kill.

  Chapter Nine

  The First Lesson

  The days passed into weeks, and the
weeks unto months, until at last three years past as the young Neth’tek grew and learned how to use the tongue of The Followers and the Voice of Power used only in spells forged by the mages of yore. He was restricted, however, from leaving the walls of the House of the Basilisk unless escorted by Dril’ead or a guard assigned chosen by the aristocracy.

  His hair grew long, straight, and white like all others of his race, and his eyes glazed over with the strange hue that blessed The Fallen with the ability to see in the deep darkness of the Shadow Realms. Upon his brow there slowly appeared the glyph that would signify is birthright in the aristocracy of Vulzdagg, and would be fully formed once reaching the age of eleven. But above all Neth’tek grew to love his brother, who looked down upon him as a teacher does a student. Of Gefiny, though, he grew to fear, as she only spoke to him when giving an order.

  Once Neth’tek attempted to lift a heavy curved blade from its place on a stone table in an empty smithy outside the citadel, among the other assembled barracks and stables and workshops, but only succeeded in losing his balance and falling as the weight of the blade overcame him.

  “A little too big for you, I’d say,” said a wry voice from the doorway of the weapons shack. Turning to look Neth’tek saw Dril’ead leaning casually against the doorframe, both arms folded over his chest.

  He shook his head, a brow raised. “Try a dagger, or a pocket knife,” he suggested with a grin.

  Neth’tek stood shook himself loose. He looked around the room but only saw large swords, scimitars, crossbows and darts. He shrugged and frowned in embarrassment.

  Dril laughed and stepped inside. He picked up the fallen sword and brandished it. “A sword must be used with the greatest of care. It would be unwise to lop off your own head when fooling around.”