by JD Franx
“I got rid of our mutual friend’s body and then blended into the city for a few weeks to be sure Falcon and Tox weren’t going to act against you. Tox may have voted your way on Yrlissa’s death, but that slimy bastard is almost as conniving as you are, and Falcon would like to kill you on a good day, let alone now. Would you have preferred me stay here and do… nothing?”
“Of course not, and watch your tongue unless you prefer to lose it. So? Where did you put her body? And what did you find out about the others?”
He smiled and leaned forward. “Yrlissa Blackmist will be feeding the beasts of the Cauldron by now,” he scoffed, referring to the Black Cauldron Ocean to the south of Cethos. Yrlissa smiled at the statement. Savis’ body dumpers tossed her into the moat not realizing there was a hidden grate under the bridge. Had they dumped her further down the river, she would be dead somewhere in the Cauldron. Arrogance made for a poor assassin, even an invisible one. “And the rest of the council appear to have no plans to act against you, though they’re not too happy with you killing Yrlissa the way you did. It wasn’t supposed to happen in council chambers. Every member called before the council is going to have an itchy back now.”
“I don’t really care what the rest think,” she snapped.
“I understand. And just so you know, I did lose track of Falcon for a while…”
Yrlissa heard enough, she backed away, picking up her pace as she bounced across the beams just below the ceiling. There was no way she could defeat both assassins, especially one that was nearly invisible. Her stomach burned with fury at the missed opportunity. Unable to change what happened, she pushed her feelings aside and in mere minutes arrived at the guild’s living quarters.
She dropped to the hallway without being seen and ghosted down it, hiding in the shadows of the recessed doors whenever someone walked by. The door at the far end of the hall was her target, her former living quarters. She approached slowly and whispered an ancient reveal spell to see if any glyphs or wards had been added since her unexpected departure the month before. She smiled at Merethyl’s pathetic attempt at a poisoned ward and dismissed it with a wave of her hand. A single word triggered the release of the security glyph she had placed long ago and it bloomed brightly at her command. Her precautions had paid off; no one had gotten by the protective spell.
A quick peek over her shoulder verified that she was alone and she proceeded to trace her fingers over the lines of the ornate design incorporated into the lock-ward. She chanted softly and the lines began to move with her fingers, slowly unweaving and eventually dissipating. In seconds the glyph and the protective ward were gone and the door clicked open. Another look over her shoulder and she swiftly ducked into her old room. To her surprise, she wasn’t alone. Never one to freeze, Yrlissa tore her daggers from their sheaths knowing that magic would do her little good against the man standing in the middle of her room.
“Falcon!”
Ember, Giddeon, and the others were forced to travel slowly at first. Kasik suffered from a concussion and the customary massive headache and projectile vomiting that followed. Saleece was weak, her body devastated by the WraithLord’s assault, fell from her horse twice during the first day alone. Finally they were forced to stop when she slid from her mount for a third time. Ember raced to her side, gently turning her over to make sure she was all right.
Looking up at Giddeon, Ember shook her head. “She can’t go on like this, she’s too weak.”
He nodded in agreement. “Kasik, we have to build her a trundle, like the one you used to carry me from this land twenty years ago.”
“No problem. We have everything with us except the poles. I’ll cut some.”
“I’ll come with you,” Max offered.
Ember met him as he slid from his horse. “No, you won’t. If we’re stopping you can sit and rest. Your face could still tear open again, and Yrlissa is not here to help this time. Besides, that infection is wiping you out. Perhaps you’d like to ride in a trundle, as well?”
Max shook his head with disgust, but he wasn’t angry. “Yes, Mom, if you say so. I’ll be just fine riding,” he replied, sarcastically.
“So, one set of poles then… or two?” Kasik asked, delighted at the chance to poke fun. Cleverness danced in his eyes as everyone chuckled at Max’s expense.
Max wasn’t quite as amused. “I could always smack the other side of that fat fuckin’ head of yours, Kasik, then we’d need the second set for you.” Kasik howled with laughter as he turned and headed into the woods, but it was short-lived as the sound of retching drifted from the trees. “Asshole Northman,” Max grumbled. With a cocky grin, he sat with his back against a tree giving him a clear view of Kasik tossing his stomach contents as the lingering concussion refuse to subside.
Kasik returned after fifteen minutes with the four poles of varying lengths he needed to build the trundle. The two longer poles were secured to the sides of the saddle on Saleece’s horse with leather straps. The shortest pole was tied across the two long poles just behind the horse’s rump, while the last one was strapped across the bottom to keep the longest poles from swaying too widely. They spread Saleece’s sleeping blanket across the middle and tied it to the poles with more leather straps that came from Kasik’s leather vest. When they placed Saleece on the makeshift cot, she was a perfect fit and was asleep in minutes.
“It looks like a travois, doesn’t it, Max?” Ember asked, looking his way.
“Same idea, I guess, little different design.”
“Travois?” Giddeon asked, curious.
Ember smiled at the chance to teach something new to the know-it-all ArchWizard. “Yes. The North American Indians and others, back in our world, used them when they travelled many years ago, before settlers came to their land and technology became what it is now.”
“I’ve always wondered if cultural crossovers between different dimensions happened,” Giddeon said, scratching his head in thought. “Well, a topic for another day, perhaps.”
“You do that a lot, you know that?”
“What might that be, Ember?” asked Giddeon, as he looked at the young woman with a strange expression.
“Saleece, too. ‘A topic for another day.’ ‘I’ll think about it another day’. Yrlissa does it too, but not nearly as much.”
“Wizards, Ember,” Kasik answered her, as he double checked the trundle with Saleece on board. “Always with too much crap in their heads. It’s a defence against overload. They make room and concentrate on what’s most important at that given moment. No one is really sure why beyond that, but it does let them carry massive amounts of knowledge.” Ember nodded her understanding and went to check her own horse.
“Well, if everyone’s satisfied when it comes to a wizard’s quirks,” Giddeon said, testily, “let’s keep moving. We have a long way to go.”
Riding with the trundle was slower than their normal travelling pace, but it allowed them to move at a faster pace than they had been going before when taking into account the stops for Saleece to recover after she fell from her horse. Kasik was plagued by headaches and ringing inside his ears, but after Ember gave him some leaves to chew on, he never complained again. Max was constantly in excruciating pain from the three deep lacerations he suffered, but like Kasik, he said nothing after Ember applied a salve to reduce the pain. The scars would likely never heal completely, but the pain would eventually subside.
The group carried on, determined to meet up with Yrlissa and then seek help from the DragonKin. They had weeks of travel ahead of them and hopefully they would cross paths with nothing dangerous, because they were in no shape to fight.
Yrlissa lunged at Falcon in an attempt to silence him for good. Anticipating her move he jumped to the side and hissed in a whisper.
“Stop it, girl!” Wincing at how loud his voice had been, he repeated himself, but quieter. “Stop, Yrlissa, please. I had no idea what she had planned. I swear to you on the bite of the Broken Blade that I didn’t know. Listen
to me. Please.”
“Why should I believe you? You’re fucking traitors to what this guild stands for, all of you. It became something vile long ago,” she hissed back.
Throwing both his hands out to show he meant her no harm, he continued. “I agree with you, Yrlissa. To kill for the betterment of society is to kill with the blessed hands of the gods. To kill for gold, position, or power is to kill with the corrupt hands of all that is evil. My father taught me that, Yrlissa. At the same time that he told me what this monastery once was, what it really was, not what it’s become. I mean you no harm.”
Yrlissa stumbled, fell to her knees, and dropped her blades with a clatter of metal as the memories from so long ago came rushing back into her mind.
The last time she had heard those words was before the Cataclysm some five thousand years ago. “Th… That… That’s impossible… Terric…” she stuttered in a whisper. “It can’t be... He died… He…”
“No, Yrlissa, he didn’t. He survived Jasala’s Cataclysm. With no living DeathWizards left, he hid and eventually met my mother, but she had no magic, and when she died during my birth, he brought me here towards the end of your last hiatus. Merethyl killed him before you returned. I’ve kept the secret, your secret, like he asked me to, for as long as I could.”
Starting to recover and put things together Yrlissa regained control of her overworked senses. “That’s how you got past the ward on my door. Terric told you about it? And about the hiatus? Everything?”
Nodding, he answered, “He told me everything. How you disappear from the guild every six or seven hundred years. You come back a century or so later with a different name and a different appearance, but you have the mark of a high ranking member so you’re never questioned. The guild’s magical markings can’t be faked or reproduced so they never question your story. My father watched over you from a distance for forty-five hundred years and then asked me to carry on for him if you returned from your last hiatus. I would never hurt you. I’ve been hoping and praying that you were alive. My father told me you’re hard to kill. I’m glad he was right.”
“It was closer than you might think, Falcon. If not for Lady Lykke and a skilled young woman, I would be dead. Why didn’t your father tell me he was alive? I’d have given anything to see him one more time.”
“He said as much, but since you stayed with the guild all these years, two of you disappearing and coming back would have caught someone’s attention. He let you try to take over the guild eventually because he believed you would succeed.”
“I would have if not for Merethyl.”
“I know, and I’m here to help you in any way you need. My father loved you like you were his own daughter.”
Emotions swamped her once more, but she refused to surrender to them. “He was like a father to me. I was so young when my real father died in that cursed war. I was only twenty when I met your father. He was already an old man by then, but so powerful his magic was. You wouldn’t believe the things he could do. I used the spell he created to counter a WraithLord’s death-grip yesterday morning and another one shortly after to heal the damage it caused to a friend. The Guardian Pact was his idea. He was the one who convinced the gods to help us. Now it’s starting all over again. I’ve seen what’s coming, Falcon. This world has no idea what real magic is and we don’t have your father’s help this time. The Pact is gone. The prophecy will come true. Talohna will fall to the darkness.”
Seeing she had calmed down, Falcon lowered his hands and went slowly to her side.
“That won’t stop you from trying will it?” he said, as he helped her from the floor. She shook her head and took a deep breath to clear her head.
“No, of course not,” she said.
“Then why are you here? What do you need?”
“My last WraithLord binding stone,” she answered. Gently pushing past him, she went to her bed. There were three drawers under her mattress that she had paid an incredible amount of money to have built into the bed precisely to her designs. She pulled the middle drawer out halfway and placing her hand on the bottom pressed down until she heard a click. Closing the drawer tightly she pulled the two outside drawers open halfway at the same time. Placing one hand on the bottom of each drawer, she pushed until again she heard them both click. Finally she closed both outside drawers and listened as a clunk sounded in the middle drawer. When she opened it there was a box, two feet square, sitting in the middle of the previously empty drawer.
Watching in fascination, Falcon finally said, “You really are the best, that design is ingenious. Father always said you were.”
“You should have known your father before the Cataclysm, Falcon, before the war even. He was an amazing man. Even the gods took notice when he spoke. And he was always fair. He created so much new magic, teaching others without a hint of possessiveness, at least until the Cataclysm ruined magic as we knew it,” she muttered as she opened the hidden box. Inside was her last bound stone and a bag of gold and silver coins. She grabbed both and hurried to her standing armoire. Without a second thought she stripped the travel-weary clothes from her body and began removing her typical travelling gear from the armoire. Falcon turned a dark shade of red as she began removing armour from a hidden panel that she hadn’t worn in centuries.
“Whoa! A little warning, girl, you look young enough to be my great granddaughter,” he complained, as he whirled away, hiding his eyes with his hands.
“Sorry, Falcon, I’m kind of in a hurry. It’s not like you haven’t seen a pair of tits before.”
“Of course, and no offence, Yrlissa, but I’m not in the habit of ogling my much younger sister, you know?”
“Yes, I do… brother,” she replied.
She quickly pulled on a black leather body suit. The heavily enchanted garment was thousands of years old. She picked her Elloryan daggers up off the floor and slid them into the hidden sheaths made of the softest doeskin sewn directly into the small of the armour’s back. Taking the stone she had come for, she gently eased it into a soft, velvet bag and pulled the string tight that closed it. Looping it over her head, she pushed it down between her breasts under the tight body suit where it would be safe.
Throwing a few more things into a travel pack, including her rare supply of poisons and antidotes, Yrlissa turned to Falcon.
“You can turn around. I’m dressed.” She smiled as he did so, slowly. He was the only gentleman assassin Yrlissa had ever known. “I’m going. Thank you, Falcon, for being Terric’s son. I thought I was the only one left.”
With a sad look in his eyes, he answered her. “You are the last, I’m afraid. I didn’t inherit my father’s immortality. It seems it can’t be passed on to another generation.”
She approached him slowly and gave him a hug as she whispered into his ear. “I’m sorry, Falcon, it could have been, had I known Terric survived.”
“I have no regrets, my dear, and I promise you that I will do all I can to make sure Merethyl leaves this life before I do. Even if I have take her with me kicking and screaming through the fiery gates of Perdition.”
“Then stay alive, Falcon, please. You may not live forever, but you can still help me try to stop what is coming. Merethyl is the least of our concerns… Others will take care of her.”
“I know. I met Tacarion when I was in Ta’Ceryss. But regardless, I’ll be here if you need me.”
“Thank you, brother. Take no chances here. If you even suspect Merethyl plans to act against you, leave and head to the Ynasu rice plateaus in the mountains of Yusat. There you’ll find an Elvehn tribute grave-site. It’s located in a glade by a waterfall. Inside the statue’s base you’ll find the list of names of those who oppose Merethyl, both in the guild and those outside of it. There are assassins, rangers, noblemen, and even a king. If she acts against you it means that she no longer cares about appearances, that she’ll kill any who oppose her. That is the time to fight back and save what we created so long ago, when your father and I help
ed lay the first stone for this monastery. Understand?” she breathed, her voice cracking with emotion. As he nodded his understanding, she stepped back and her body dissolved into a cloud of black smoke. Falcon stood and watched until the smoke evaporated, as if she were never there.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We’ve set up camp within the shadowed walls of Ellewin’s Keep. The keep’s commander, Nessedra Talron, and I have known each other for many years, and she agreed to let us stay inside the walls for protection, even though it is against Elvehn Guard regulations. This is the closest we will come to the DeadZone Barrier as we race for WhiteVale Cove in our attempt to seek help from the DragonKin. Spending the darkness hours so close to the Barrier could be fatal for us all should one of Jasala’s abominations wander out of the disorienting fog.
We had a safe journey after our encounters with the WraithLords and I don’t feel the risk is worth taking. I’m quickly coming to care for the newcomers to our world, Ember and Max, though I have a strong dislike for our strange assassin. She is a secret wrapped in a mystery. I am almost glad she is not with us tonight.
I pray every day of our journey that the Lightfoot family has at least one ship docked in the harbour when we arrive at WhiteVale Cove, for seeking the DragonKin’s help is the only option we have. If Yrlissa has abandoned us for her freedom or was captured trying to help us, then our last chance is Ella Navasha, the white witch—unpleasant as it is sure to be. But that is tomorrow’s problem.
PAGE FROM ARCHWIZARD GIDDEON ZIRAKUS’
PERSONAL JOURNAL.
END-WINTER, 5025 PC
WHITEVALE COVE, TA’CERYSS
Giddeon and Ember’s group had been on the road for forty-two days. Leaving the HellisKor ruins they rode hard for the Northern Forest mountain pass. They continued across the northern part of Cethos, just south of the DeadZone bordering the Forsaken Lands. Yrlissa had been waiting in Albynor for weeks by the time they arrived, her passage through the underworld to the Broken Blade Monastery and back had been instantaneous. Kasik was at full strength and Saleece was nearly better as well. Max no longer wore his bandages but the wounds inflicted by the WraithLord had left horrendous pink scars across his face. It never seemed to bother him. Always the pragmatist, it was just another lesson learned. He had made it clear to them all that next time he would be faster.