Five Kingdoms: Book 07 - Wizard Falling

by Toby Neighbors

  “Trust the people around you. Trust General Hausey and trust Quinn. We are all behind you, Wilam, but you have to stand firm. You can’t let yourself be bullied, otherwise when this is over King Zorlan will force Yelsia to serve him..”

  “I’m… well I don’t mean to.”

  “Trust yourself. You’re a good man and you are strong. Be strong for your people. The entire kingdom is depending on you to keep them safe. You can do that. You were made for this moment.”

  “I know you’re right,” he said, clearing his throat and tugging at his clothes. “I shall make more of an effort.”

  “I know you will,” Brianna said.

  Then she did something entirely without thinking. It was almost as if someone else had acted while she sat watching from a distance. She stepped up to him and kissed him on the check, pressing her soft lips into the stubble that had popped up since his last shave. She gripped his broad shoulders and felt them tense. She had to stand on her tip toes to reach his cheek and she felt his hands rest on her hips. There was heat between them and even a longing conveyed in her kiss. She stayed close to him for a long moment, neither of them speaking, just being close and still, while a storm raged around them.

  Finally Brianna stepped back and the connection between them broke. He looked at her and she saw the desire in his eyes. She felt like a liar and a cheat. Her heart groaned as her desire for Wilam battled against her desire for Zollin, threatening to rip her heart to tatters in the process.

  “There’s someone outside who would like to speak with you,” she said.

  She didn’t wait for his answer, just pushed open the door and walked out. The men were eating now and she knew they were all watching him as he followed her. All but two; Quinn’s and Mansel’s eyes were on her and she wondered if they could see the agony she felt inside as they watched her move past them. She didn’t return their gaze, instead she kept her eyes on the floor. She had felt wild and free as she rode Selix through the day, scouting the enemy and making plans. Now she felt trapped between her heart and her honor, between what could have been and what was.

  She pushed open the door and was hit by an icy wind rushing down out of the mountains. An image flashed in her mind of snow falling in the mountains, moving toward the small village of Walheta’s Gate and the ranks of soldiers whose camps spread out on either side of the settlement.

  “Who’s out here?” Wilam asked.

  Then his face took on a blank expression and Brianna knew that he was hearing Gyia speak to his mind. He was studying the images she sent to him—scenes of the monstrous army making its way toward them.

  “Where have you been?” he asked, as the serpentine purple dragon landed before them.

  Gyia ducked, lowering her head and staring at the hard packed dirt at their feet.

  “Gyia was manipulated, just like Selix and Tig,” Brianna said. “Somehow your father was controlling them.”

  “That’s insane. How could he control them?”

  “I don’t know,” Brianna said. “But I plan to find out.”

  Chapter 9

  At first Zollin tried walking, but his boots sank into the thick mire of bat guano. The smell was beginning to make him feel sick too. He knew he needed to get past the awful mess he found himself in as quickly as possible, so he gathered his strength and lifted his body up using his magic. Levitating was always a strain, but even more so in the darkness. It was hard for him to keep his bearings. He had hoped to use as little magic as possible as he traveled through the great abyss, but he wasn’t having much success.

  He let his magic flow around him, not out into the blackness like he usually did. He didn’t want to take the risk of attracting unwanted attention. He kept his magical senses in a small bubble around him. He stayed just above the thick mire and moved along the narrow gap between the guano covered walls. It seemed as if the trench was angling downward, but he couldn’t be sure. His hope was that at some point the bat dung would lessen and he would be able walk.

  Normally, he could levitate himself a few miles before the strain became too much. He couldn’t tell how far he had come or how far he had to go, but after what seemed like only a few minutes the strain overcame him. He lowered himself, panting. His boots immediately began to sink into the stinking swamp. He tried to stay on top of the guano but it seemed to suck at him like quicksand. He was forced to use his magic and levitate himself again, but his boots and trousers were covered with the thick, heavy muck that made holding himself in the air even more difficult.

  After several starts and stops, his magic roared like a forest fire. Using it was almost painful and he decided he needed to stop and rest. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find a place where he didn’t sink into the mire. He tried using his magic to keep himself on top of the guano, but before long that became too taxing as well. Then, exhausted and frustrated, he stopped. He sank slowly into the mire, but he forced himself to relax. When it reached his neck he created a magical bubble around his head.

  For a short while the bubble stopped his descent, but eventually even that sank into the guano. Zollin had no idea what to do. He could possibly levitate himself up and find a perch on the walls above the bat droppings, but he didn’t think he had the strength to hold onto the slimy walls. If he could find a ridge or ledge he could rest, perhaps even sleep, but he had no idea if he had the strength to levitate himself long enough to find a safe place. Not to mention the fact that if he used light to search for a resting place it would attract the bats again.

  His strength spent, he struggled just to stay awake. The weight of the guano around him pressed in like a physical manifestation of the overwhelming darkness. It was almost too much to bear when suddenly he felt his feet dangling. The weight of his boots, covered with guano, pulled at his legs and he felt himself moving faster through the mire. At first he was afraid some kind of terrible dung worm had taken hold of him, but there was no pressure on his feet and no pain. After a few moments his legs were free up to his knees and he could move his feet. He realized that there must be some sort of opening beneath the build up of bat droppings. He wiggled his legs and hips, then suddenly felt himself falling. Orange light assaulted his eyes and Zollin used his magic to slow his fall.

  Molten rock flows glowed brightly around a large cavern, but there was a well worn path not far below him. Zollin had to use his magic, which was beginning to feel like a lava flow inside him, to shift himself over and land on the walkway rather than falling down into the river of magma. Once his feet touched solid ground, he fell to his knees and caught his breath. He was so tired he felt nauseated. The cavern was warm and although the path he rested on was solid rock, he laid down and slept.

  When he awoke he had no idea how long he’d been sleeping. He was sweating from the heat in the cavern and his body ached from lying on the rocky floor. He sat up, stretched and rose slowly to his feet. The guano that covered his body was dry and crusty. He spent some time knocking the clumps of dried bat dung off his boots, pants, and shirt. Luckily the bubble had kept most of the guano out of his hair. He did his best to clean off his pack and then dug inside for his canteen. The water was lukewarm with a metallic taste, but it was sweet to Zollin. He could have emptied his entire canteen and still wanted more, but he forced himself to only take a few swallows.

  Ahead of him the orange light from the lava flows faded into darkness. Part of Zollin wanted to stay in the cavern filled with orange light; he wanted to see what was around him, not get lost in the darkness again, but he knew he had to press on. The temperature grew cooler as he passed the last of the lava flows and the thick, orange river disappeared into a tunnel far below the walkway. The walls of the cavern came together so that he could reach out and touch both sides while walking down the center of the path. Eventually the path was so narrow Zollin had to turn side ways in places to squeeze through.

  The ceiling also hung low; the rough, uneven rock above forced him to duck his head in places. He walked and walked, u
sing only the slightest bit of magic to illuminate the path just ahead of him. It continued to narrow until he was forced to walk bent over, then eventually to crawl. He feared the path led nowhere and he was wasting his time. If the tunnel got much smaller he wouldn’t be able to continue. Eventually, he was forced to remove his pack and push it ahead of him in the tunnel. He had to scramble through the tiny opening on his stomach. He was so afraid that the rocks around him would shift and collapse on top of him that several times he was almost too scared to move. He could feel the stone walls scraping and gouging him as he struggled through. He was afraid that he would have to back his way out of the tunnel soon and that thought terrified him almost as much as the thought of getting trapped and dying in the darkness.

  He forced himself to keep moving forward. He didn’t know why he felt compelled to keep moving, but he did. He had no idea where he was going or what he would find in the depths of the underworld, but he understood now why Brianna had called it that. He felt cut off from the world he knew. He was so deep in the earth he wasn’t sure he could find his way out. He’d thought that he would be able to climb down and find Gwendolyn, but there was much more to this dark realm than he had imagined. Still he kept moving. He had lost all track of time and wondered if the hideous army had reached the mountains. He could be going through this nightmare for no reason, he thought to himself. He might be too late to help the people he cared about. All his struggles might be wasted, but he had to keep moving. Until he found the witch, his journey couldn’t end.

  Finally, after squeezing through a section almost too small for his lanky body to squirm through, the tunnel began getting larger. He breathed a sigh of relief and pressed on. The tunnel opened up much more quickly that it had narrowed, and soon he found himself in a long corridor. His magical light was still small and dim. The last thing he wanted was to attract attention to himself, but as he stared into the darkness he realized he had done just that. Zollin froze. Staring back at him were hundreds of glowing eyes. Some were yellow, others red, and of different shapes and sizes. They lined the corridor on either side, stretching out into the darkness.

  He watched, barely daring to breath as the eyes moved slightly. He saw them blink slowly. He waited for the inevitable attack, but it didn’t come. Then an idea occurred to him. The eyes belonged to creatures that were imprisoned, that was why they didn’t converge on him. He wanted to send his magic out in an invisible wave to investigate the creatures, but he held himself in check. It wouldn’t do to stir up the creatures and touching them with his magic might do exactly that.

  He took a tentative step forward and when nothing happened, he took another. After a few steps he could hear the heavy breathing of the closest creatures. Their breath rumbled in their thick chests, somewhere between a purr and a growl. Zollin kept moving forward, trying to stay in the middle of the path. He was afraid if he got too close to one side or the other, one of the beasts might be able to reach out and take hold of him.

  He stopped when his light, dim though it was, illuminated the first of the cages. The beasts were imprisoned in small cells with what looked like stalactite bars. There was no sign of any doors or locks, and his light didn’t penetrate the darkness inside the cells. The creatures stayed near the bars, but far enough inside the cells to remain out of sight. All he could see was the light, reflected in their eyes.

  He decided that it might be better to move quickly through this prison. He increased his speed, moving down the long, straight corridor, no longer trying to see into the cells. He heard hissing and growling as he passed, but the hideous sounds only made him speed up. His magic churned inside him. His rest in the orange cavern had calmed the hot power, so he knew wielding it would not harm him now, but his fear seemed to keep his reservoir of magical power stirred up and ready to leap out.

  He held the magic back, doing his best to stay calm and focused on moving forward. Then he heard another sound, this one different from the heavy breathing and quiet growling of the creatures in their cells. It was a scraping, the sound of stones grinding together under great pressure and the squeal of hinges that have suffered under long disuse. He didn’t have to turn around to know what was happening. He knew instinctively that the cage doors were opening behind him. He didn’t look back, he just ran.

  Chapter 10

  As Zollin ran, the light from his magic grew brighter instinctively. He could feel his magic churning inside him and snapping like tiny bolts of lightning all over his body. He knew he couldn’t outrun whatever was chasing him, but he hoped to find a more favorable place to make a stand. He could still hear the stone doors, at least he thought of the stalactites as doors, opening behind him as he ran. He feared they might open up in front of him and then he would be trapped between two groups of whatever monstrous creatures were in the small cells.

  He was breathing hard when he finally reached a narrow space in the corridor . There were no more cells, just a long, narrow space barely wide enough for Zollin to walk down. He turned just a few feet inside the tunnel. He knew the creatures wouldn’t be able to come at him in large numbers inside the narrow space, so he gathered his power and waited. He let light shine out and saw the glowing eyes moving toward him. His heart pounded and he felt a stitch burning in his side, but he had no time to deal with catching his breath.

  The first creature he saw ran on four legs, like an animal, but with the body of a man, twisted and mutated, so that it looked like a man who had been turned into an animal. Fur covered the elongated face and fangs stuck out of a wolf’s muzzle. White foam built up at the corners of the creature’s mouth, and Zollin could see more of the beasts right behind it. He didn’t wait for them to reach the tunnel, but sent blasts of blue magical energy shooting out in small bursts. It wasn’t enough power to kill, but it knocked the creatures off their feet. The first beast, the wolf man, was hit square in the face, the magical energy burning fur and sending it slamming down, its haunches flew up and the creature flipped over and lay panting. Zollin could see the sweat glistening on its hairless body and the sight sent a shiver through him.

  He realized that whatever these poor creatures were now, they had once been something else. He knew Gwendolyn had the power to mutate people into a hideous army of oversized, mindless minions, but it seemed not every mutation worked for her. It made Zollin wonder if he would be turned into some gruesome mutation, locked away in the darkness until he died. The thought made him shudder, but not as much as the look of the huge beast that leapt over the still twitching body of the wolf man.

  Zollin sent a bolt of energy sizzling at the beast, which looked part lizard, part man. It had a thick body with dull gray skin which looked almost like armor. He could see the muscles bulging in the creature’s shoulders and neck. The beast had the face of a man, snarling in rage, with a large gray horn curving up out of its forehead. The creature dropped its horn toward the magical energy and seemed to absorb it without slowing down. Zollin was forced to send a much more powerful blast which spread around the horn and burned into the creature’s thick skull. The magical energy lit the tunnel and the long corridor up as bright as day and caused some of the creatures to slow their charge. The horned beast crashed to the ground and slid toward the tunnel, partially obstructing the opening.

  Zollin could still see the other creatures coming. He sent blasts at three more: a hideous creature with black and white striped fur, one that looked like a mountain lion with huge curved teeth, and the third was a powerful looking man, with long arms and hands. It ran, using its arms and knuckles to vault it forward. It was covered with shaggy brown fur and had a thick ridge across its forehead just above the eyes.

  All three fell, and the horde of monsters still in the corridor slowed down and tried to get closer to the tunnel without being seen. There were several spider like creatures that reminded Zollin of the Anacrids in the caverns of the dwarves. They tried creeping along the ceiling of the corridor, which was taller than that of the tunnel. The rocky
roof was jagged and uneven, allowing the creatures to scramble along, hiding in the recesses of the ceiling, their black, hairy bodies blending into the shadows. Luckily for Zollin, they were vulnerable to his magic.

  It wasn’t long until the creatures attacking Zollin had to climb over the bodies of their fallen, most of who weren’t dead and didn’t take kindly to being stepped on. The wolf man bit two creatures, one a gaunt looking human, whose chalky white skin was pulled tightly over his oversized skeleton. The other was a fat looking human, not much taller than a child, but round and covered with spiny quills. The wolf man took a bit at the creature’s leg and howled in pain when its mouth was filled with needle sharp quills.

  Zollin hit the fat beast with a bolt of magical energy and saw the creature fall. A flash of sympathy went through his mind as he imagined the pain of the creature the fat beast fell onto. Then he was busy again. Several of the creatures flew and looked like hybrids of the huge bats that he had fought off during his climb down into the abyss. They were harder to hit with his magical energy and he was forced to throw up an invisible shield when the third couldn’t be hit. He slid a wall of magic over the body of the huge horned beast just as the flying creatures swooped toward the tunnel. He heard the bones in the bat splinter as it crashed into his barrier. Its neck was broken and the bat fell onto the body of the horned creature, effectively blocking the tunnel.

  Zollin dimmed his light, despite the raging of his magic inside him. He waited for a moment, expecting the next creature to pull the bat’s body away from the mouth of the tunnel and leap inside, but that didn’t happen. Instead, a thick snake with the face of a woman slithered into a small gap near the floor. Zollin sent a blast of energy that sizzled along the length of the snake. It died with a hideous gasp, the face slapping hard against the stone floor. He felt guilt as the female face, now soft in death, twitched against the stone until the skin was nearly scraped away and dark blood pooled beneath the long mass of hair.