by Rex Hazelton
Darrus was her name. Endowed with breasts and hips that spoke of fertiltiy, the guard had made up his mind that he would ask for her hand in marriage when his time at Chylgroyd's Keep was over and settle down to raise a family with her. But now that would never happen. Darrus would never find out how often the guard thought about her. She would never hear him tell her that he loved her. Nor would Darrus learn that the guard's life was drained out of him by a monster who was once dead but now was alive.
Finally done, the One Who Was Not Ab'Don loosened its gripped on the limp body it had been feeding on and rose from its meal. After wiping its bloody lips off with the back of its hand, the Sorcerer smiled and said, "Ah... sweet blood... the building blocks of the Warl of the Living."
Then the dark entity furrowed its brow and concentrated to send the blood it had extracted from the man to do the work of restoring Ab'Don's body: the fractured skull was mended; a broken arm and ribs were restored; a punctured lung was knit back together; and the gash on the Sorcerer's head- that ran out of his spikey, blond hair and across the left side of its forehead- was attended to. But not all off it. Only the part that was visible, leaving a pink scar behind. A portion of the cut that was above the hairline was left open, enough so that drops of blood continued to rise out of it like persperation drawn out by the hot sun.
This was left unhealed so the agreement that Ab'Don and the Nameless Evil were bound to would not be violated. The Evil One had no intention of leaving its host, and as long as Ab'Don wasn't completely healed, the dark entity had a right, as the Rules of Magical Exchanges stipulated, to stay in the Warl of the Living. Although the Nameless Evil used magic in ways that it was never intended to be used, for the Songs of Creation were orginally harmonous in nature, its power was not greater than the supernatrual foundations upon which the warls were built. At least not while the Mountain of Song remained free from its touch.
"My Lord," one of the Hag said as he and the others of his order bowed their heads to the intimidating presence that frightened them so, for they knew they were speaking to the Nameless Evil and not to the man who onced ruled over them. "What is your command? Shall we go after the Hammer Bearer?"
Looking at the broad shaft of daylight shooting through an opening in the keep's structure the earthquake's violent shaking had created, the One Who Was Not Ab'Don replied, "You can still call me Lord Ab'Don if you wish. I won't be offended. It's better that Ar Warl thinks nothing has changed" Then staring at the Hag with unblinking eyes, the entity added. "Do we understand each other?'
"Most certainly. And I must say... it will be an honor to serve the master of our master."
And as easy as that, the Hag shifted their allegiance to one they knew was greater than Ab'Don. For those whose only goal was to amass power, it was the logical thing to do. Simply stated, a bigger dog had arrived and the pack would fall in line behind him.
"I don't doubt it's an honor. But temper your enthusiasm until you get to know me better, for I will not suffer fools, and it's foolish to be excited about things you know little about." The look that the One Who Was Not Ab'Don gave the Hag put an end to any more misguided boot licking.
"As for the Hammer Bearer, let him go. He'll be no problem to deal with once I consolidate my power. So I'm off to the Hall of Voyd. You'll have to find your own way out of this mess." The new Lord of Ar Warl swept his arm about as it spoke, before pointing to the cavern that stretched beyond the black pool of water and the dead slograp that lay on its shorline. "If the memories this body's brain has stored in it are correct, their's a back door somewhere in the caves over there. Once you get out, make haste to join me. All of you."
Stretching its arms out like the ancient entity was trying to embrace the entire dungeon complex, the One Who Was Not Ab'Don morphed into a black cloud that took on the shape of a bird that was not unlike a huge crow. When the cloud of wraiths flew down and melded their essence in with the Sorcerer's, the bird-like creature grew into a giant whose wings lacked the symmetry flight required. When it defied the Laws of Nature that gave birds the ability to soar through the skies by lifting off the ground, the two fraethym that followed looked like sparks were coming off the tail feathers.
The mass of fire dutifully returned to the pits that remained open as the Hag carried their wounded off into the adjacent cave. To brave the keep, without having time to do so with care, was foolish. Examining the extent of the earthquake's damage would have to wait. As for the remaining prisoners, they would have to fend for themselves, a proposition that the surviving wild animals made tenuous.
****
Turning at the promptings of those who were looking behind, the raiders watched the giant, winged-creature lift its ponderous form up into the sky. At first, frightened by the terrifying sight, though their fear would have been much greater if they knew who they were really looking at, the raiders relaxed when they saw the bird-like thing wing its way off into the west. If Kaylan had been with them, he would have thought it looked like the Goar that attacked him and Lylah when they were in the Realm of Vapor. And he wouldn't be far off the mark if he had.
Whereas the Goar wanted to claim the Waterkynd's Magic for its own, the one who had assumed the form of this ragged, giant of a bird wanted to consume all it surveyed, including the Hammer Bearer, the Prophetess, and their sons. And once it had feasted on the Warl of the Living, the monster would turn its attention back to the Mountain of Song, armed with the weapons it needed to subjugate the Warl's Magic beneath its dark will.
As Jeaf and his sons, who rode on his back as he continued to fly toward the Great Ral Mountains, turned to look at the ponderous, black monstrousity that slowly flapped its misshapen wings as it rose into the air, they had no idea that they were looking at one whose magic was far greater than Ab'Don's. For the lord of the darkness that infested the Warl of the Dead had come to the Warl of the Living, and the odds that Nyeg Warl had of triumphing over Ar Warl in the quickly approaching war were reduced to nearly nothing.
But if a man raised up to be a Woodswane could learn to shape-shift into a griffin, and his sons Travyn and Kaylan could get Crooked Finger out of the Hall of Voyd, maybe nearly nothing would prove to be enough. Only time will tell.
Chapter 36: The Hall of Voyd
A whining sound, like an exhausted infant makes when protesting being put down to sleep, wafted out of A’Kadar’s throat. The moan cat lifted his upper lip in a skewed way that revealed just one of his impressive fangs as he mirrored Lamarik’s agitation at being told she would have to stay behind while the men stole their way into the Hall of Voyd. The massive beast was as clearly unhappy as the Neflin at being asked to hide and wait while the others went off to steal Crooked Finger.
If Dog was here, A’Kadar could pass the time hunting with the canine that was as physically imposing as he was. Going on his own wouldn’t be as enjoyable. This in itself was a strange, since the moan cats that lived in the Lorn Fast Swamp were loners. Only the biological imperative to procreate urged them to find others of their kind, and these encounters were all too brief for the beasts that were covered with irregularly-shaped blotches of glossy, green and black fur.
Somehow Dog found a place in A’Kadar’s life that none other had. He had become a companion in a way Lamarik wasn’t. She was closer to being the moan cat’s master, though parent would be a more accurate description since she raised A’Kadar from a cub. Dog was more like a sibling the moan cat had bonded to, the kind of bonding that occasionally happened among those born in the same litter. When the rare event occurred in the warl of big cats, it was usually sisters who partnered up. Now it was brothers, not of the same blood, but of the same mind. The magic Dog possessed made this possible. It would also make certain that the bond continued.
Lamarik's long, pointed ears went rigid when she was told she would to stay behind. Her lean-muscled body tensed as she stood before Travyn. “But we have an agreement,” she intoned with a measure of insistence. “You can’t leave me.”
“Ashes, I’m not leaving you.” Rings of amber light began to flare in Travyn’s eyes as he confronted the Neflin. It was his way to fight fire with fire. But this particular blaze couldn’t be dealt with that way. Besides, the heat that existed between the elf and human didn’t come from animosity anyway. They had an agreement that wasn’t written down on paper, nor was it sealed with a signature penned in ink, intimacy had provided the accord’s confirmation. And as Travyn had learned, tenderness was the only thing Lamarik would respond to in a congenial way. So, Travyn tried another tactic.
“Lamarik,” the light in Travyn’s eyes softened as he continued. “I’m glad we have an agreement. I wouldn’t have it any other way." Then he reached out and took the Neflin’s hand in a show of affection he rarely displayed before Kaylan. After a moment passed, Lamarik’s ears reluctantly bent back, but only slightly. “I need you to stay here to help us escape once we get our hands on Crooked Finger. Besides Neflin are rarely seen in the Hall of Voyd.”
“Alright, I’ll stay if you’ll promise to come back to me.” Lamarik s ears picked back up as she spoke. Not liking what Travyn said, she couldn‘t disagree with his assessment of how unwelcome the Neflin were in the Sorcerer‘s stronghold. “But mark my words, I’ll not stay away from the Hall of Voyd if you delay your return. An agreement is an agreement. I’ll honor my end of the deal even if it brings me death.”
“I’ll come back to you if I can.” Rings of amber light flashed out of the shadows that sat beneath Travyn’s wide-brimmed hat as concern for the elf rose up in him. “But our agreement does not include you throwing your life away on a fool’s errand. If for some reason I don’t come back, find my brothers or my uncle once he returns from the Nyeg. They’ll know what to do. And remember the Mar‘Gul. My aunt will welcome you.”
Taking his hat off his head with his left hand, Travyn reached over and gently brushed Lamarik’s face with his right. “I don’t want you to die. I want you to live. If the Warl’s Magic smiles on us, I want to live with you. If you want to honor our agreement, respect my wishes and stay alive. And when death does finally come, make certain you meet it while doing what an Oakenfel would be doing.”
Lamarik’s supple ears fell against her head as she closed her eyes and took a moment to savor Travyn’s touch. Then a smile appeared as she opened her eyes. Juxtaposed against Lamarik’s dark skin, it was as bright as candlelight at night. “An agreement is an agreement My Love,” she said as A’Kadar sighed in his moan cat way.
“I’ll make certain he comes back.” Horbyn spoke with the kind of confidence that appealed to Neflin tastes. Claiming to have left the ranks of the Hag, the wizard would use his history in the Dark Order to get him, Kaylan, and Travyn in and out of the Hall of Voyd, hopefully with the magical talisman, Crooked Finger, in hand.
“But while you wait… keep an eye up there,” Horbyn nodded to the gorge that ran away from the Hall of Voyd and up into the Thrall Mountains. “Watch the holes that fill the cliffsides. The things that live in them won’t be happy about what we’re doing. Cretchym are there and other beasts terrible to behold. Remember what Scytholar was doing to the hunchmen. Such things were done to other creatures that now dutifully watch over the Hall of Voyd.”
The Sorcerer’s stronghold was built in the mouth of a v-shaped gorge that looked like the Thrall Mountains had been struck with a gigantic ax. The steepness of the cliffs, angling away from a narrow but deep channeled river, jostling along the rocky floor as lively as a pack of hunting dogs chasing a magnificent roe, made this an unlikely avenue for attacking the Hall of Voyd.
The holes scattered about the cliffs made this way impossible to pass without being seen by the cretchym that lived there. And once seen, the winged-swarm would descend on intruders like bees on a bear that foolishly wanted to taste their honey. The rough terrain, that prevented raiders from moving in mass, would make certain that the swarm did more stinging than the bear did swatting.
Horbyn and the others stood east of the gorge where a footpath, leading to the Hall of Voyd’s back door wound its way down the cliff, began. Hag wards placed on the trail kept all but the Dark Order from descending this way without an alarm being raised. Horbyn was confident that his association with the Hag, yet to be officially severed, would permit him and any who were with him to use the trail without this happening
The river that flowed out of the Thrall Mountains split into two, becoming a natural moat that surrounded the island the Hall of Voyd sat on. This happened at a place where the gorge widened. Beyond this, at the island’s northern most reaches, the rocky cliffs transformed into steep hills that diminished in size the farther they went until they were sub-summed into the Malam Plains.
The island the Hall of Voyd sat on was shaped like a tear drop that had fallen down the mountain’s face. Wider at the end farthest from the peaks that looked down upon it, the greater portion of the Sorcerer’s hall was built here. Erected with the aid of dark magic, the edifice had an organic appearance that resulted from the materials used for construction. Altered and reshaped into pliable crystalline cables and columns of varying widths, dark magic wove these together to form the time-hardened structures used to house the School of the Hag. Continually adding buildings over the many winters since their order had been founded, the wizards erected the Hall of Voyd at Ab‘Don‘s direction once he came to power.
Due to the lack of a master plan at the school’s inception, the structures covering the island were positioned without a pattern in mind. In the end, they looked like huge spider eggs held in place by a mass of webbing, the largest of these being the Hall of Voyd proper. The ropes of material, joining the cocoon-shaped buildings together like arteries running haphazardly through a man’s body, acted as both conduits that sent Hag magic coursing through the complex and physical support for what had become a formidable fortress.
Jutting upward, the towers that rose out of the hall’s engineered chaos looked like clots of webbing that were trying to attach themselves to the sky. The towers’ extraordinary height and tapered shape added to this illusion. The balconies, looking like thorns sticking out of the towers’ sides, added to the organic ambiance.
Having taken rock mined from beneath the hall, the Hag used their black candles’ magic to manufacture a material as white as freshly fallen snow in an act that was meant to mock the Order of Candle Makers they once belonged to. Unfortunately for the wizards’ plan, a side effect of the magic Ab’Don used thwarted their attempt to ridicule the white-robed wizards who lived in Nyeg Warl. Filling the air with an oily, sooty discharge, the Sorcerer’s dark powers besmeared the Hall of Voyd’s buildings just as it did the golden armor he loved to wear.
The sooty offal that was thrown into the air was thick enough to marble the buildings in varyinh shades of gray and black. Black near the buildings’ bases, where most of the discharge eventually settled, the towers were largely gray since their height exposed them to wind and rain that regularly washed them. But nature’s efforts to cleanse the filth from the Hall of Voyd had failed miserably as the structure’s darkening exterior proved. Only the tops of the highest towers retained a modicum of their original white.
****
Two days passed before the sign they were looking for set Horbyn and the others into motion. During the time spent watching from their hiding place among the craggy rocks that jutted up from the canyon’s eastern lip, the company of would-be thieves saw cretchym come and go from the holes scattered across the cliffside where they lived. Most were insect-like in appearance.
Nearly as big as Ab’Don was, his winged offspring were variations of beetles, wasps, dragonflies, mosquitoes, locusts, bats, birds and the like. Many of those created by mingling the Sorcerer’s essence in with birds of prey built nests along the cliff sides where they slept in good weather. Holes were only used during extremely inclement conditions. Using copious amounts of mud, some of the less raptor-like avian horde constructed habitats that had the appea
rance of dirty blisters rising out of the stone walls. Wasp-men made similar dwellings.
Other mutants looked like giant centipedes when they left their holes to go searching for food. A few massive snake-like creatures were seen moving closer to the river. Occasionally these met, fought, and the loser was devoured.
The sign that Horbyn and the others were waiting for was a spectacular one. It came just before sunrise on the third day.
Because of a commotion A’Kadar’s keen ears heard coming from the Hall of Voyd, the massive moan cat nudged Lamarik awake from the sleep she was getting while Travyn took his turn keeping watch. “What’s wrong?” the Neflin asked her feline friend while she caught Travyn’s attention and said, “Something’s happening.”
Roused into action, the screeching swarm of cretchym that suddenly burst out of their holes and nests awakened Kaylan and Horbyn. Indeed something was afoot in the Hall of Voyd. The light that Hag candles sent radiating out of their weirdly-constructed home confirmed this. In short order, the number of candles that were lit with Words of Power the dark wizards intoned became so numerous that their light increased to the point that it made the fortress look like an enormous pile of glowing, disheveled spider webbing sat on top of a raging bed of embers.
Long and winding, looking like a massive fiery banner was flapping in the wind, a giant winged worm rose up into the air from the biggest ember of them all with a man astride its back. Legs anchored behind the flaming wings that were joined to the worm’s sinewy body, the riders long, matted hair looked like eagle feathers sprouting from the head of the one who had to be the Sorcerer.
As Ab’Don flew off on the back of the undulating, fiery worm, cretchym- numerous as ants flooding forth to defend their colony- streamed out of their holes. Comprised of mostly insect-like creatures, the swarm looked like a cloud of ashes carried along on a strong wind. Lacking the coordination that a flock of birds exhibit in flight, the cretchym flew along in a free-for-all that hurried to catch up with their master.