King Of Souls (Book 2)

by Matthew Ballard

  Danielle inhaled, breathing in the sweet fragrance of flowers blossoming atop a nearby tree. The ripe yellow fruit hanging from its limbs set her mouth watering.

  The rustling treetops gave way to a small beach, glittering with pure white sugary sand. Keely touched down shifting into human form before she’d come to a complete stop.

  Danielle followed tempted to shift into human form above the lake’s welcoming waters. She could perform a spectacular swan dive and disappear beneath its cool inviting surface. But, after her mental admonishment of Keely a moment earlier, she thought better. She shifted letting her human feet jog to a stop atop the soft powdery sand.

  Danielle loosened the heartwood staff strapped to her back and sank it deep into the soft sand planting it like a conquering hero. “That water looks absolutely delicious.” Danielle worked free the top button of her thin cotton blouse. “I can’t wait to cool off. Why didn’t you tell me about this place earlier?” She flashed Keely a smile while she worked loose the last button of her shirt. “You’re holding out on me, Keely.” Danielle ripped off her shirt and peeled away her thin tank top beneath.

  “You think I could’ve held onto a secret like this?” Keely tore away her shirt revealing her bronzed skin and washboard stomach. “If I’d known about this place, I would’ve shown up here a week ago. As far as I know, nobody’s ever gone this far south into the desert.”

  Danielle slipped off her leather boots and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Really?”

  Keely nodded as she twisted her corded leather belt. “The Guard has long considered it too dangerous.” Keely rolled her eyes and held up her hand. “A big shock, I know.” She kicked free her boots and worked the edges of her pants near her flared hips. “The council believed shards too precious to take the risk. If you lost a crew out here, you’d never find them or their shards. But, I guess that’s all changed now.”

  Danielle pulled off her pants and gazed with lust at the cool waters lapping at the white sand ten feet away. “I suppose it has.”

  Keely wriggled her tight pants around her hips and kicked them from her outstretched foot. She flashed a quick smile, pushed away a lock of short dark hair draping over her eye, and rushed the water. “Last one in is a water bison’s pimpled ass!” She sprinted down the beach kicking up sand with her bare feet and hit the water with a giant splash.

  Danielle pulled back her long blond hair bleached platinum by the relentless sunshine and tied it into a ponytail. “Keely!” She darted after her laughing as she plunged headfirst into the clear glassy water.

  Danielle’s skin came alive as the water’s cool relief washed away a month’s worth of sweat and grime. She turned onto her back and ran her fingers through her hair washing away layers of dirt and gritty sand.

  Across the lagoon, Keely dove underwater before reappearing a few seconds later. She froze, staring with furrowed brows at a strange object floating in the water. “That’s odd.”

  “What is it?” Danielle said. She swam near Keely and treaded water staring at the object floating at the water’s surface. “Ice? I know the nights can get cold, but not cold enough to freeze a desert lake.” She scooped up the chunk of ice floating in the lake, and her palm immediately went numb. “I’ve felt ice before, but I don’t remember it being this cold.”

  “Danielle look at that stretch of beach over there,” Keely said, pointing across the lagoon.

  Danielle gasped and nearly choked on the lake water. “What’s that?”

  Keely shook her head. “There’s only one way to find out.” She swam to the beach and scooped up her clothes.

  Danielle followed, pulling on her breeches and tossing on her blouse.

  Keely stood frozen, staring down the beach her eyes never leaving the dark spot.

  Danielle slipped on her shoes and hurried down the beach, stopping beside Keely. “Come on, let’s check it out.” She grabbed her staff and set off at a trot.

  Keely nodded. “Be careful Danielle. I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.”

  Danielle reached the edge of the dark mass and paused. She knelt and flattened her palm against its shiny glass-like surface.

  Danielle cocked her head, recalling an old half-remembered conversation. The strange substance looked and felt like smooth black glass. “It’s melted sand,” she said and stood. “Arber showed me once what happens to sand when enough heat’s applied. It turns into this strange black glass.”

  Keely knelt and ran her fingertips across the smooth surface. “What’s going on here?” She stood and scanned her surroundings as if expecting someone to jump on her from the jungle overgrowth. “What is this place Danielle?”

  Danielle didn’t have an answer. She took a tentative step onto the glassy surface and paused.

  The melted sand stretched in a rough oval shape beginning near the jungle’s edge. It covered the beach before disappearing beneath the lagoon’s waterline. “I don’t know, but it just got stranger.” She knelt and touched a small indenture embedded into the glass.

  Set into the murky glass, small child-sized footprints started midway down the melted sand. The tracks curled upward disappearing into the thick jungle undergrowth.

  A cold chill crept along Danielle’s spine, raising the short hair at the nape of her neck. What human could withstand temperatures hot enough to melt sand? “Keely, can you switch into snake form, please?” Danielle tapped into her nature magic, and a sleek layer of white bark spread over her body like a second skin. She hoped she wouldn’t need the added protection the bark gave her against thermal attack.

  Keely shifted into a gray skinned jungle viper. She slithered along the glass before vanishing into the jungle floor’s dense underbrush.

  Danielle followed the pint-sized tracks until she reached the point where the beach ended and the jungle began.

  A narrow sandy game trail twisted between three palm trees before circling a spectacular fig tree. The fig tree’s thick roots spread outward engulfing nearby shrubs and plants. Its thickest roots had grown large enough to climb through. Keely slithered through the fig tree’s meandering root system and curled around its wide trunk.

  Danielle leaned on her staff and climbed through the tree’s gnarled roots. She followed the twisting path around the trunk.

  The trail wandered a few yards beyond the fig tree and ended before a dark moss covered cave. Keely slithered ahead disappearing inside the cave’s foreboding shadows.

  Danielle’s stomach fluttered. The entire oasis held an overwhelming sense of wrongness. The cave's sinister feeling magnified that wrongness tenfold. Her instinct screamed for her to run, but she pushed away the physical reaction. She needed answers, and the trail started here. She tapped the magic entrusted her by Lora’s Sphere, and a bright globe of green light radiated from her staff’s head. She took a deep, steadying breath and pushed forward into the darkness.

  Bright green light pierced the shadows. Keely stood ten-feet ahead shifted into her natural human form. She stared deeper into the cave’s murk, her face locked-in concentration. “I can’t sense any animal life inside the cave,” she said. “It doesn’t go back very far.” She faced Danielle and released a held breath. “I think we’re alone.”

  Danielle nodded. “Did they leave anything behind?”

  “There’s some gear and an old campfire near the back,” Keely said.

  Danielle’s shoulders eased as some tension faded, but she kept her armor in place as a precaution. “So someone was here.”

  Keely nodded. “This way.” Keely tipped her head forward. “Follow me.” She squinted into the shadowy passage ahead. “Can you make that staff of yours any brighter?”

  Danielle opened her mind tracking the cave’s nearby fauna. She found moss covering the cave’s walls and held out her hand channeling nature magic. Swirls of yellow and green energy drifted from her palm spreading across the cavern. The light sank in infusing the plants with a torrent of magical energy. The moss responded to Danielle’s mag
ic illuminating the cavern with a soft green hue.

  “Or you can just do that,” Keely said.

  Near the cavern’s far wall, a small circle of blackened ashes surrounded half burned chunks of scorched timber. A glass container, a frayed piece of burned rope, and piles of shriveled palm leaves scattered the cave floor.

  A rusty oil lamp lay knocked on its side beside a broken crate. Cracked fish bones blended with the dead fire’s charred embers. Behind the fire, a soiled pair of dirty trousers and ripped tunic lay in a heap. Beside the clothing, a pair of scuffed leather boots lay half buried in the leaf pile.

  “Whoever was here ate fresh fish.” Keely kicked sand over the dried bones and campfire ashes. “I wish they’d left us some.”

  Danielle picked up the lamp. “Keely, look at this. It came from Meranthia. I’ve seen ones like this for sale in Freehold’s Market District.”

  “So someone at some point in the past came here from Meranthia. What good does that do us now?” Keely said.

  Danielle stared at Keely with her mouth agape. “We find signs of someone from Meranthia inside a remote cave in an unexplored oasis deep inside a desert so inhospitable to human life that even those trained in magic won’t go more than a few hours into it for fear of death, and you don’t find that curious?”

  Keely shrugged. “I’m not paid to think. That’s your department.”

  “What about the floating ice chunks, the melted sand, and the child’s footprints?” Danielle said.

  “I wish I could help you Danielle.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe whoever wore these dirty old clothes has the answer,” she knelt and picked up the stained tunic. “But that person’s not me.” As she spread out the dirty, tattered tunic, a small book slid from its right sleeve and tumbled onto the cave’s sandy floor.

  Keely and Danielle stood frozen with eyes glued to the little book with its worn red cover and tattered spine, but neither moved.

  A smile tugged at Danielle’s lips, and she let out a short hard laugh. “Keely you’re a genius.”

  Keely blushed. “You don’t expect me to read it, do you?”

  Danielle knelt, scooped up the book, and blew loose sand from its soft cover. She paused, recalling the last time she’d opened a strange book. It had ended two lives.

  “It’s not going to bite. Go ahead,” Keely said as if reading Danielle’s mind.

  Danielle’s eyes flickered toward Keely, and she flashed a nervous smile. She flipped open the book’s cover and leafed through the first few pages.

  Danielle’s hands trembled, and her head swam. She shook her head in disbelief. “I recognize this handwriting, but this can’t really be his. Can it?”

  “You do?” Keely’s brow furrowed “Whose is it?”

  “It’s Arber’s handwriting.” Danielle stared into Keely’s stunned face. “This is his journal.”

  Porthleven

  Tara followed General Demos across Porthleven’s still sleeping village square. She paused when a strange building caught her eye.

  A dull bronze statue stood outside a white circular gathering hall adorned with a golden domed roof. The statue depicted a lean man wearing long flowing robes staring upward at a globe resting in the palm of his outstretched arm.

  Tara knew, without a doubt, the statue depicted Elan. Had these people raised him as their God?

  Ahead, the squeaking sound of a door opening came from the harbor master’s office.

  Tara’s head turned following the noise.

  General Demos’s silhouette appeared in the doorway, highlighted by soft lamplight spilling from behind. She took a long last look at the statue and hurried toward the weathered office building.

  An ashen-faced Fitzgerald Montgomery staggered through the door, followed by Tara and General Demos.

  A young close-shaven blond haired man, no older than twenty seasons, sat behind a shabby ink-stained desk. A tarnished brass oil lamp shone a soft yellow light across the cramped office.

  His eyes widened as he tracked Montgomery’s slapdash path into the office. The young man flung back a rickety wooden chair and sprang to his feet. He knocked over a half-filled ink bottle beside the desk lamp and dashed around the desk. He lunged toward the distraught harbor master almost crashing into a dented pewter spittoon. “Fitz. What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

  Tara stepped into the small office followed by General Demos, Sergeant Reed, and Corporal Oliver. “An interesting choice of words.”

  Terror shone in the blond man’s eyes as his gaze locked on General Demos. A low groan rolled from his gaping mouth, and he stumbled backward, crashing his rear end into the desk. Without taking his eyes from General Demos, he pitched to the side while the desk tipped upward teetering on two legs.

  Inkwell, pen, and paper slid along the desk’s surface and smashed against the salt-crusted floor. The desk groaned a final gasp before overturning.

  The young man’s legs wobbled, and he fell backward, crashing into the desk chair splintering it beneath his lower back. He took little notice of the wreckage beneath him and scooted toward the rear wall. His eyes, wild and desperate, scanned the cluttered office.

  “Easy Zack. Don’t do anything stupid,” Montgomery said.

  Montgomery’s assistant, Zack, snapped his neck toward the sound of his master’s voice. “Fitz, what happened to Reed and Oliver?” He looked between Montgomery and General Demos. “And, who is he Fitz?”

  General Demos remained silent and stone-faced with his arms folded.

  Tara lifted the hem of her white silk skirt easing over the spilled ink puddle spreading outward from the piled desk clutter. She stopped before Zack and soaked in the fear radiating from his body.

  Despite the man’s dim gray aura, Tara felt his life force full and vibrant, shining like a beacon in the dead of night. She took Zack’s warm, rough callused hands into her own. Her white gloves disappeared under his palms. Heat, like an inferno, boiled from his skin and sent a shiver racing along her spine. She hadn’t felt a human touch in centuries. Not since Elan.

  The tainted memory, sudden and strong, left Tara’s head reeling. She closed her eyes and forced those ancient thoughts from her head. She could feel a man’s touch without bitterness and pain. Couldn’t she? Tara opened her eyes and smiled. She ran her fingers through Zack’s tousled hair. “Now, what’s there to be afraid of?”

  Zack edged backward, pressing his back against the far wall. On trembling legs, he stood, sliding upward as his eyes flickered between Montgomery and Tara. “Fitz?”

  Montgomery’s head drooped as if unable to meet his assistant’s gaze.

  Tara eased forward until her body hovered inches from Zack’s. The heat and fear melted off his body like a baker’s oven firing at full capacity. Her stomach fluttered, and a ripple of craving flashed through her head, leaving her off-balance. She needed him and found little reason to resist her urge.

  With her heart pounding, Tara craned her neck upward and stared into Zack’s cool blue eyes while lifting her arm to meet his face. Her index finger grazed his cheek's stubble and desire tore through her body in waves leaving her near breathless. As her finger scraped along his jaw line, she touched the dark energy pulsing inside her. She recalled Elan’s words. He’d judged her brand of magic forbidden.

  With a physical link established, Tara released the energy through the connection. She felt it surge, strong and unfettered, through Zack’s bloodstream.

  Zack’s body stiffened as Tara’s eyes drew half-closed, and her ruby lips parted.

  “Please.” His plea came out in the barest whisper as his eyes widened.

  Even if she’d wanted to, Tara couldn’t reverse the energy flows, and she wanted nothing more than this young man body and soul. She’d waited too long and needed the restoration his energy would provide.

  With her magic spread across Zack’s body like a million tiny anchors, Tara pulled on the current of dark energy. She shuddered pitching her head b
ack in ecstasy as the young man’s life force filled her empty coffers. Tara closed her eyes and gasped, savoring the raw intensity of the human soul filling her body. She’d grown used to the bitter, biting, foreign tang of the strange Baerinese souls. She’d forgotten the human soul’s pure sweet taste.

  Her body quaked while a low groan escaped her lips, and she tossed her head back and forth. Riding halfway down her back, Tara’s wavy auburn hair flowed in time swaying side to side.

  Zack’s face drained of color, and his cheeks slackened before collapsing. His his skin hung like a loose sickening bag of flesh draped over a skeleton’s frame.

  She moaned louder as energy poured into her body sharpening her senses in a way nothing else could. That fleeting sensation of human existence she’d long ago given away sparked a passion and desire inside her. The human soul had no rival on earth. Tara drained the last drops of life force through the link and released her touch before her eyes fluttered open.

  General Demos’s gaze found the office floor as if unwilling to watch the act’s culminating moment.

  The assistant harbor master’s skeletal remains held motionless for a long moment. His clothing hung loose from his grotesque body, giving him the cruel appearance of a sideshow absurdity. Zack’s lifeless remains crumpled collapsing into a bloody heap atop the office floor.

  Montgomery’s face, a mix of horror and rage, trembled as he watched his friend’s last moments of life fade from existence. “In the name of Elan, why? That boy’s done nothing to you.”

  “It’s not what he’s done to me. It’s what he’s given me. I’m sorry for your loss, but I won’t use his gift in vain. Besides, the pleasure he felt during the act made his last moments of life his best.” Tara tipped her head toward a chair placed beside the dented spittoon. “Please sit down Master Montgomery.”

  Montgomery struggled to his feet and staggered into the chair.

  “I need you to supply me with information, and if I’m happy with your responses, you may live.”

  Montgomery stared ahead wearing a blank expression. He looked like he’d aged a dozen years since Tara had first seen him so haughty on the pier.