by JD Franx
“That’s dragonbone,” Kalmar said, as he leaned over Kael’s shoulder and touched the interior surface of the forge. “Its magic properties are phenomenal, but unmeasured because only the DragonKin can possess it, let alone use it. It’s an immediate death sentence and a violation of at least a dozen treaties for anyone else to even possess this material.”
“It looks like both the bowl of the forge and the foundation are made from it,” Kael guessed, as he gasped for a breath. The tugging on his mind was getting stronger, pounding like a hammer. The voice screamed inside his head. Here! Over here! Free us now!
As the others watched, Kael’s eyes glossed over and he reached out to touch the dragonbone base of the forge’s interior. He could feel it draw him in as more words washed over his mind, less urgent now. What is hidden here is meant for your kind. Just like back at Jasala’s tower, as Kael’s hand made contact with the dragonbone base of the forge, a black and purple magic-filled mist flowed from his hand and began to swirl around the base supporting the ancient forge. A small part slid across, creating a four foot wide opening. It revealed an alcove under the forge, hidden within the base.
Still looking over Kael’s shoulder and joined by both N’Ikyah and Kalmar, Galen’s shocked expression said more than any words could.
“By the Gods, how did you do that?”
“Don’t know, Galen,” he replied, as if in a dream-like trance, but he continued to speak. “Why would anyone hide something under a forge? Wouldn’t it melt?” Kael asked. Shuddering, his mind returned to normal, the trance-like state gone. As he expected, Kalmar was the first to answer.
“You have to understand, Kael, that only a select few have knowledge of the DragonKin, let alone the Dragons. Dragonbone and its properties are a complete mystery to everyone.”
“So you know nothing about it at all?” Kael asked, pushing harder for information he sensed Kalmar was holding back.
The old wizard sighed. “I know it’s the bone of ancient, long dead Dragon Behemoths. The most powerful magical creatures since the Ancients. It may have been used in the forge to protect what is hidden inside. Perhaps it is resistant to heat and fire. That would be my guess, considering Dragons were and their Kin are believed to be so.”
Kael nodded, the voice inside his head spoke again but quickly faded in strength. We thank you, dark wizard, for releasing us. Use well what you find here. We release it into your care…
“Kael? Kael, are you all right?” Kyah asked, as she noticed the dazed look on his face had returned.
“What are you listening to?”
“What? Oh, nothing. I’m fine.”
“You… Are you sure you are all right? You have been acting very strange since you stepped into this room.”
He nodded and smiled, hoping to calm her suspicions. “I’m fine, just tired. Let’s see what’s hidden inside here, shall we?” With the secret door slid to the side, Kael could see that something bundled in jet black leather had been placed inside. He removed the leather-wrapped items, taking care not to snag the material on anything. He stood and placed the wrapping on the top of the forge in front of him.
“Ah, are you sure you want to open that, Kael?” Galen asked, worry making his voice tremble. “That was well-hidden, and your… ah… unique power opened it.” Kael paused and gave him a puzzled look.
“Merciful Inara,” Kalmar groaned, rubbing his forehead. “You have to remember that your kind do not have a good reputation, Kael. What if that’s the reason why? What if it was hidden in there because of the danger it may pose?”
With his eyes never leaving the wrapped leather, Kael whispered, trance-like, “They were made for my kind.”
Faster than anyone thought possible, Kyah stepped forward and grabbed Kael by the chin, forcing his face to hers.
“What did you just say?”
“Nothing,” he said, as he looked at her confused, “and no offence, you two, but this looks like it’s been here since the days of the Dwarves. I don’t think it’s responsible for anything but collecting dust,” he suggested, chuckling as he looked back down at the bundle.
Kalmar finally relinquished his objections with a nod. “Fair enough. This has quite obviously been here for some time. Open it and maybe it will be of some use to us.”
Kael focused on the package in front of him. They all noticed, for the first time, that the bundle was tied in a light silver chain. Orange and purple veins riddled the silver metal and there were no ties or knots anywhere along its length.
“That’s kinrai,” Kyah blurt out, excitedly, as she examined the shiny multicoloured chain.
“We are never going to break that are we, Kalmar?” Kael said, with a groan of impatience.
Shaking his head, the old wizard replied, “I expect not. Kinrai is the rarest and strongest magical material, besides dragonbone. I could not begin to hazard a guess as to how to break it.” Though he knew that Kyah would likely be mad, Kael snickered at his own idea.
“Um, Kyah? Would you mind if I borrowed one of those small blades that are attached to that thin chain you wear around your belly?” he asked, with as much sweetness as he could muster. He even looked at her and smiled. She stared back at him like he had just given away her greatest secret, and perhaps he did, but it couldn’t be helped. With only a look, she made sure he knew that she was not impressed with him. She lifted her dirty, thread-bare shirt and held it up with her chin as she unwound a chain from around her midriff.
Once Kael got a good look at it, he understood why she was upset. As he suspected, it was made from kinrai as well. As she handed him a three-inch-silver blade with veins of orange and purple, Kael apologized.
“I’m sorry, Kyah, but I noticed it months ago and I had hoped it was made from the same metal. Forgive me, okay?” Again, he asked with a voice he hoped was drizzled in honey sweetness.
“Hmph,” she grunted. “At least I now know that you were enjoying the view of me over top of you.” She giggled and Kael felt his cheeks flush with red. One look at his bright red face, and she kept going as if his embarrassment fuelled her revenge at giving away her secret. “Even half dead you still noticed a thin chain around my hips and bare belly. I will just have to keep that in mind the next time you are dying. Perhaps next time I should show you my chest instead of worrying and pouring healing magic into your body, hmm?” she teased. “Do not forget that I do want that blade back,” she quickly added, serious this time.
Trying his best to recover from her teasing, he replied, “I’ll return the blade if you promise to tell me the story behind it later. Deal?” A quick shrug and a sly, sideways smile was all he got in return.
Taking the blade, Kael carefully placed it under the thin kinrai chain wrapped around the bundle. With an easy tug on the silver blade, the chain popped and separated, the blade sliding through with little resistance.
“Gotta love magic sometimes,” Kael muttered, as he gave Kyah back her small blade. He cocked his head to the side and made an exaggerated point of watching her as she reattached the blade to her chain. As she wrapped the chain around her waist several times, his eyes never left her midriff, and when she finally glanced his way he returned a sly smile so she knew he’d been watching. She flushed at the attention as he turned her game back on her. It didn’t last long though, and he turned back to the items they found. A second later he felt her warm breath on the back of his neck.
“Be careful, handsome… You just may discover more than you can handle,” she whispered, and then backed up a bit to watch his reaction. Kael chuckled at the light-hearted banter and then readjusted his concentration back to the bundle on the forge, with great difficulty.
Taking his time, with gentle hands, Kael removed the kinrai chain from the bundle, spinning it around his left hand as it came off the leather wrapping. Standing on Kael’s left side, Kalmar reached out to touch the greasy looking black leather, only to find it supple and soft as if it had just been made.
“Oh, Mot
her Inara,” he gasped. “That’s not leather. It’s Dragon skin. Whoever hid this didn’t want it affected by the elements or time, and wanted it kept hidden, except from you, Kael. Or your kind, if you will. Even if I weren’t wearing this collar and had my power, I could never tell you what is inside here. The skin of a Dragon repels any magic and will block any kind of sight. Right Galen?”
“Like a big hole in the earth,” he agreed, nodding. Finished with the length of kinrai, Kael gave the chain to Kyah with a wink. He took a deep breath before opening the leather-wrapped items.
“Everyone ready?” he asked. As he glanced around, only smiles of acceptance came his way. “All right then, let’s see what was worth hiding so well.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Darkness.
The people of Talohna have known darkness. Whether it’s a young love’s broken heart or the death of a loved one, darkness follows love wherever it goes. Often we cannot know one without at some time intimately knowing the other. For many years I have a felt a darkness rising deep within the very soul of the world I love so deeply.
But this darkness does not follow love. It follows desperation, pain, and suffering. I am not a prophet or a seer. I am merely a humble minstrel, writer, and poet. But I greatly fear this darkness I believe is coming. I have seen the changes throughout Talohna. It is a darkness like that found far in the earth, where it is so black you can see nothing before your very eyes. It is like the darkness found at the putrid soul of evil, where all that is light is swallowed by the black. The realm of the Mahala has darkness like this. I have seen it for myself, and felt the terror that comes when hunted by them in a world where you do not belong.
The darkness within Talohna will come from this domain. It will rise without challenge from the realm of true horror.
EXCERPT FROM THE MINSTREL,
GARREN SALLUS’ JOURNAL. 5025 PC
DEEP EARTH
REALM OF THE MAHALA
Darkness.
Far below Tazammor Mountain and fathoms deeper than the ancient Dwarven prison of Arkum Zul lies the realm of the Mahala. The light has not touched such depths since before the Gods walked Talohna beside mortal-kind. It is a world where the blind are the ultimate predators and where food of any kind is exceptionally scarce. Known to the people of Talohna as the Deep Earth, or just the Deep for short, very few people ever set foot that far below the surface. Of those that do, whether on purpose, by mistake or by accident, even fewer survive to tell the tale. The Mahala rule this domain, though there are creatures in the Deep who rival them, they are the dominant species. Even so, at times, though very rare, something the Deep Earth has never seen stirs and awakens. Something even the Mahala fear.
With a forced, torturous, deep breath, she opened her eyes to blackness. Pure, utter, and complete. Unaware of how long she had slept on the fringe between life and death, she closed her eyes and focused her other senses on her surroundings. The shuffle of agile, yet careful movement reached her ears mere seconds before the scent of death and decay drifted to her sensitive nose. Blocking the cloying stench of rot, her lungs fluttered as an infusion of air allowed her to inhale the varied fragrance of the Deep Earth. Fungus, dirt, and damp along with the spicy balm of living sweat. So long had passed without being able to feed that hunger seared her very soul and a growl within her belly stirred like a persistent animal.
The quiet shuffling moved closer and she listened to the creature as it sniffed along her leg, seeking to discover if she was edible. The being rose up and turned its nose to the gentle breeze that streamed through the cave system. A strange noise came from the throat of the beast that stood over her. The nook, nook, nook enlightened her to the identity of the young Mahalan scout. The echo location clicks from its throat intensified as the returning echo showed that her stilled body was ready to be devoured.
In less than a second the scout pounced for her throat. The Mahala move with speeds faster than any mortal eye can follow, but even so, the scout was eternities too slow. Her eyes snapped open and the bright red, demonic orbs absorbed the entire scene before she snatched the scout out of mid-air with her left hand and flung his body to the cold granite floor with little effort. He didn’t even have time to scream a warning to his tribe-mates, less than fifty feet away.
In the absolute darkness of the Deep Earth, the only audible sound was the small group of Mahala scouts as they moved farther away from the desperate struggle of their brother. Overpowered by her physical strength, the young scout’s fear multiplied as his sensitive hearing told him that his chances of survival lessened the farther away his tribe got. With a hand pressed over his mouth and the entire weight of his attacker’s body crushing him into silence, the young Mahala fought for his life with every ounce of strength he could muster, but to no avail. When the rest of the Mahala scouting party had travelled out of earshot, a low hiss from his captor told the scout that his time was up.
With the raw hunger and savage fury caused by starvation, his captor attacked with a quiet fierceness. Unable to scream or cry for help, the young scout clenched his jaw and rode out the relentless pain as she gorged herself on the vitality that was his life. The last of his consciousness faded to the sounds of snapping bone and rent flesh, her frenzy inflamed by the yearning desire to find every last drop of sustenance.
Days pass with no great hurry in the complete darkness of the Deep. After finding the body of their fallen brother, the rest of the Mahala later returned to the sight of his death in full force. But as days rolled by, the scouting party’s numbers dwindled while something else continued to grow in strength. One lone Mahala survived, falling from a ledge out of her grasp. Now, the hunt was on in earnest as the Deep Earth crawled with angry, but terrified Mahala warriors from several tribes. They called her the Feared One, and though dozens had died at her hands, it wouldn’t stop them from hunting her. It also wouldn’t stop her from hunting them. It is what they both did best.
Days turned to weeks and the Mahala deaths came less frequently now. They never travelled in less than a dozen; even the Feared One couldn’t kill that many at once. They pushed closer to the surface than ever before, trying to drive their greatest fear from their realm, but they were growing careless in the process. The Feared One waited for them to make a mistake. She knew it wouldn’t be long. To feed one last time was all she needed to reach the surface and freedom. A primal urge to walk the land of mortals once again drove her on. The desire to finish what she had started however long ago drove her every step to higher ground.
Sitting on an outcropping of rock high above the Mahala hunting party, she watched as they passed below her. As still as an ancient gargoyle guarding a castle keep, the Feared One never moved. Until she spotted three Mahalan veteran warriors branch off down a side tunnel heading towards the surface. She smiled and gave chase without so much as a whisper of sound. The Deep’s best killer was on the hunt once more.
Kael released his pent up breath and examined the leather-wrapped items. The pieces inside were five feet long but weighed very little, less than a pound, including the dragonskin encasing it. Using only his fingertips to remove the leather, he realized some kind of weapons lay inside. As he peeled the leather free, they all stared at two of the strangest weapons any of them had ever laid eyes on. The pull to touch them hit Kael in an instant, as if they were made only for him, as if they were a part of who he was. He reached out for them at the exact same time that Kyah exploded with fear.
“Holy, Mother Mylla, Goddess of the earth,” she stuttered, as she slapped Kael’s hands away from the weapons. “They do exist… Goddess, it… It cannot be… Please, Kael, put them back. Please, please, put them back. Do you hear me, Kael? Put them back!” she screamed, and tried dragging him away from the forge. Her pulling upset Kael’s balance and he tripped, landing on his backside, and still she tried to drag him away from the weapons, jerking on the fur collar of his Orotaq cloak until it tore free. Shocked, Kael didn’t know what to say.
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br /> “N’Ikyah?” Galen tried to calm her, but nothing got through the hysterical fear that gripped her.
“By the blessed Fae and the holy Ancients,” she carried on. “Nobody touch them. Stay away. We have to leave, Kael. Please, we have to go. By the gods, we have to go!” She fell while still trying to force him away. Finally, she began crying as she tore at his cloak.
Kael spun around on his knees and grabbed her, pulling her tight and forcing her terrified body down onto his lap. Refusing to let her go, he whispered in her ear to calm her fears. Her reaction to the strange-looking weapons was so extreme and outside of her character, he’d have to calm her down if he hoped to get an explanation.
She struggled against him, her protests increasing to physical violence as she fought to strike his arms and chest. He held her tight, even as she shrieked louder. The only thing left for him to do was to let the horror burn itself out as her pounding fists eventually lost their strength, even if her crying and shaking didn’t.
Some five minutes passed before her hysterics finally flickered and died out enough so Kael could finally talk to her. “Kyah?” he whispered, in her ear. “We’re all right here, no one has touched them, okay? Are you all right?” he asked, still holding her tight, her face only inches from his own. Anxiety and intense fear still radiated in her eyes, and tears continued to fall to her cheeks.