“The Nar’doroc?” D’Jenn asked. “The…God-hammer?” That was what the words would mean, translated directly. Dormael wasn’t as adept at the ancient language as his cousin, but even he could make out what the words were intended to mean, the idea they were meant to convey.
“That is the word used for the thing in the original poem,” the Mekai said. “It’s a rough translation, and I’ve never seen the word elsewhere.”
“We can bet that Victus will send agents to search for the other pieces of this thing as soon as he finds out what it is,” Dormael said. “I would, were I him. The moment he is able to get his hands on the research—or anyone who performed it—he’ll put operations in play to recover them. If we suddenly disappear with the thing in tow, he’ll suddenly become curious about it.”
“That’s why we have to kill him tonight,” D’Jenn growled. “It’s the only way to ensure that he’s out of the game. Leaving him to act in our wake is dangerous.”
“No,” the Mekai said.
“Honored One, I must insist, everything I’ve been taught says that—”
“No, Warlock Pike. I will not repeat myself,” the Mekai said, holding up a hand to forestall any more argument. “The truth is that Victus has already won. I knew it the moment I saw that boy’s face—Kendall—in Bethany’s memories. The mysterious deaths, the machinations, the odd decisions made by the Council…all these things and more I should have seen coming. Victus has purged any Warlock with the desire to stand against him—all except for the two of you. We don’t know what contingencies the man has in place against an attack, but we can safely assume that he would have something nasty prepared. Look me in the eye, D’Jenn, and tell me you believe the man will be unprepared, or unguarded.”
D’Jenn let out a frustrated breath, and looked away.
“Exactly,” the Mekai said. “If the two of you tried to go after him tonight, with no plan, no preparation, you would be killed—at which point, all hope of recovering the Nar’doroc would be lost. We cannot allow that to happen.”
“Honored One,” Dormael said, “he will move against you. If you don’t kill him, then he will kill you. The Mekai serves for life—death is the only way he ascends to your office.”
“Do not think I go forward blindly, young Dormael,” the Mekai smiled. “I can see the field as readily as anyone else. I know what is waiting for me.”
“Why would you sacrifice yourself willingly?” Shawna asked. Everyone grew silent, and all eyes turned to the Mekai. He offered Shawna a melancholy smile, and let out a long sigh.
“He’s already secured all the real power to be had,” the Mekai said. “He has the only group of wizards in the Conclave who are trained to fight with their magic. If I try to command them to arrest him, they will refuse. If I come out against him publicly, he takes control by force, killing any who oppose him. The violence would be terrible—wizard against wizard, brother against sister. Such a thing might spiral out of control, and tear the entire Conclave apart. Maybe the entire city.”
“So you’re just going to give up without a fight?” Allen asked.
The Mekai turned a sharp gaze on the gladiator.
“Not at all,” he said. “With what power I do have left, I will put a burr in his plans. First, the lot of you will leave here tonight, taking the entirety of this research with you. Lacelle, you and your team—the people you used to dig all this up—must also go into hiding. Anyone who worked on this will be just as important as the documents themselves, and Victus cannot be allowed to get his hands on you.”
“As you say, Honored Mekai,” Lacelle said, blinking in surprise. “Must we also leave tonight?”
“You must,” the Mekai nodded. “Though it pains me, you must. Take your people east, Lacelle, to Alderak. The Sevenlands will not be safe for you.”
Lacelle nodded, the bewilderment contained to her cold blue eyes.
“As for the rest of you,” the Mekai said, turning his gaze on Dormael and his friends, “you will be charged with recovering the rest of the Nar’doroc. Find it before the others can. I’m sure I don’t have to elaborate upon how dire this situation is—do everything in your power to recover the pieces. Fight, even kill, if you have to. Find the other pieces of the Nar’doroc, and find a way to destroy them.”
“Why destroy it?” Allen asked. “If it’s such a powerful weapon, we should use it—or someone should, anyway.”
“No,” the Mekai said. “Though I admit, the prospect is tempting. A thing such as this is terrible. I have felt the breadth of this armlet’s power, and it is truly frightening. If there are six more of these things out there—and others looking for them—then their destruction is paramount. Even if we were able to control it, which I doubt, such a thing would only attract those who would seek its power. There would always be the chance that the wrong person may wield it. We must prevent that at all costs. It must be destroyed.”
“Did you find information on the thing’s destruction, Honored One?” D’Jenn asked. “We’ve barely been able to contain it with our magic, much less destroy it.”
“There is one place that we think you’ll be able to find out,” Lacelle said. “The Holy Place, at Orm—in the story, the Place Where the Gods Listen.”
The room went silent.
Orm had been the site of a great temple in the old days, the holiest place in all the Sevenlands. Its place was significant in all the histories Dormael had ever read. The temple to the gods at Orm was built upon the stones of an older temple, built to older gods. For thousands of years, it had served as a holy place to the people of the Sevenlands.
During the Second Great War, Orm had been sacked by the Dannons.
There had been no soldiers at Orm, only priests, priestesses, their families, and the people for whom they had cared. The details of the slaughter recorded in the archives were disturbing—even to Dormael, who had a strong stomach for such stories. It was the move that pushed the Conclave into action against the coalition of Alderakian kingdoms, and saw the wanton slaughter that had earned the Conclave such enmity worldwide. The event changed the history of the Conclave forever.
People believed that the weight of all that blood—the innocents at Orm, and all the people who died as a result of the Conclave’s revenge—had laid a curse on Orm deep into the very stones. The once holiest place in all the Sevenlands, holy stones built upon holy stones, now stood corrupted. People avoided the place with religious fervor.
Dormael had no wish to go himself, and he didn’t consider himself a superstitious man.
“What will we find at Orm?” D’Jenn asked.
The Mekai got a strange gleam in his eyes.
“As you may know,” the Mekai said, “I have a particular obsession with history. One of my abiding interests happens to lie in the life of the man who founded the Conclave—Indalvian himself. Amongst a small group of serious historians, there has long been a theory that Indalvian left vaults full of his lost writings and inventions scattered around the world—we call ourselves the Cabal of the Epitaph.”
“Cabal of the Epitaph?” D’Jenn asked. “That sounds a bit macabre, Honored One.”
“The name is from an inscription on an old obelisk, a story for another time, perhaps,” the Mekai said. “The point is that I have long believed one of these vaults to be in the catacombs beneath the temple at Orm. The inscription—there’s a piece of it that reads ‘in the place of the dead under the house of the gods, behind a door only their hammer can open’. I believe we now understand the significance of the word ‘hammer’. I always believed that its use was metaphorical, but after reading about the Nar’doroc, I’m not so sure.”
“That’s not a lot to go on, Honored One,” Dormael said.
“Regardless, it’s the one place that was mentioned in connection with the Nar’doroc,” the Mekai said. “If this thing is truly a weapon, a gift from the gods, then there must be some mention of it in the ruins of Orm. We’ve gathered together what informatio
n we could from the Conclave’s archive, but the holes in it need to be filled. Orm is where you will find your answers.”
“We’ll be seen leaving,” D’Jenn said. “If he’s gone so far as to make an attempt on Bethany, you can bet Victus is having us watched. Getting out unseen will take planning, and then we’ll have to duck Conclave agents all the way to Orm—a feat Dormael and I both know is nigh to impossible. I still say we kill Victus tonight. Leaving him behind us is a mistake, Honored One. Leave him to strengthen his power base, and he becomes exponentially more dangerous.”
“You may be right, Warlock Pike,” the Mekai said. “But the truth is that sending you boys in to kill him would more than likely result in your deaths. Like it or not, you two are my only loyal assets, and I will not allow you to waste your lives in a foolish attempt. I will spend your abilities where they are needed—and right now, they’re needed to find the seven signs of the Nar’doroc.”
D’Jenn’s jaw tightened, but he nodded his head in assent.
“Victus will send people after us,” Dormael said. “He’ll send our friends after us.”
“Small point,” Allen said, “but they’re not exactly your friends anymore if they’re trying to kill you. Those are called enemies, brother.”
Dormael gave his brother a flat look, but Allen just shrugged his shoulders in response.
“And you will not be seen leaving,” the Mekai cut in. “There is a way, through the lowest level of the Rat Holes, to get into Ishamael’s sewers. It’s an old escape route only revealed to the Mekai, passed down from one to the other. It comes out north of the city, on the western side of the river. From there, you’ll have to continue on your own.”
The thought of going into those sewers again filled Dormael with cold anxiety. He schooled his face to a bland expression and loosened his shoulders. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to see him unmanned by the thought.
“Even if we make it out, he’ll have Warlocks searching for us by morning,” D’Jenn said. “And when he makes his move for power, they’ll issue Death Coins for us. We’ll be hunted to the ends of Eldath for all our days—that’s the law. They’ll name us rogue sorcerers, treat us as any Rashardian Mystic.”
“Yes,” the Mekai nodded. All eyes in the room turned to him. “The Conclave will hunt you. You will be forced to fight your own. But that’s not something you can change, those pigeons have flown. If you wish to join your deacon, then say so now—it’s your only guarantee for safety, after all.”
Everyone at the table traded looks, but no one said a word.
“Good,” the Mekai said. “Then from this night on, you will be considered unsanctioned operatives. I have faith, though, that you boys are uniquely suited to surviving such a distinction—and ladies, of course.”
Shawna bowed her head in acknowledgment.
Dormael felt a small bit of warmth for the Mekai’s vote of confidence, but he knew the odds were against them. Every Warlock under Victus’s command had received the same training, had survived the same trials. Each one of his colleagues had their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and Dormael knew that amongst their company, he was nothing special.
“So we escape through the tunnels under the Conclave, into the sewers under the city,” Allen said. “Then we dodge hostile wizards all the way up the countryside to the most accursed place in all our histories, and from there…something. We hope something, anyway.”
“If you wish to boil it down into absurdity, then yes,” the Mekai said, turning a serious look on Dormael’s brother.
Allen turned a flat look on Dormael.
“Well, you did promise me a bit of excitement, didn’t you?” he said.
“You could always go home,” Dormael offered. “Hope that Victus leaves you alone.”
Allen snorted. “And leave you lot to stumble on without me? The best warrior amongst you is a woman, by the gods.”
“Still is, even in your company,” Shawna said, giving Allen a patronizing pat on the shoulder. “Don’t feel too bad about it, though. I’m sure they could use you back on the homestead if you’re feeling a bit light in the ankles.”
“I’m not sure if you’re calling me a whore, or a coward,” Allen said. “But there’s no way I’m going anywhere. You’ll have to put up with me the entire way.”
“Do you think they could use me back on the homestead, then?” Shawna asked.
Everyone shared a laugh, but the mirth in the room was thin at best.
“The important thing is that none of you have a choice,” the Mekai said. “I’ve taken the liberty of having your horses taken to the place where the escape route terminates. Go a different way if you wish, but you will do so on foot. I had to act quickly, you understand, and there was no time to convince you beforehand. I am the Mekai, after all—for a short while longer, anyway.”
“You should go with Lacelle, Honored One,” D’Jenn suggested. “Go into exile, stay out of Victus’s reach.”
“I will not run from him, D’Jenn,” the Mekai said. “I have been Mekai for a very long time, and I will not be the first to abandon the Conclave in such a time. If Victus wants to take my seat, he’ll bloody well have to take it. I am not as defenseless as he seems to think. You all have other things to worry about, however. I will worry about the Conclave, you worry about finding the Nar’doroc.”
“Very well, Honored One,” D’Jenn said, though Dormael could see the tension in his jaw.
“Now is the time, I’m afraid,” the Mekai said. He rose and walked to one of the windows, peering out over the moonlit grass of the Green. “The moon is high, and most of the Conclave is already asleep. If you’re quite ready, we should make our way down to the Crux. Gather your people, Lacelle, and meet us there.”
“Yes, Honored One,” Lacelle said. She organized the research into a scroll case, and gathered it to her chest before rushing from the room. Dormael watched her go, willowy form disappearing through the door.
“We’ll need to cover our retreat somehow,” Dormael said. “Even if most of the Conclave is asleep, Victus will have someone watching.”
“Leave that to me,” the Mekai said.
“What are you planning to do, Honored One?” D’Jenn asked.
“I am the most experienced wizard in the Conclave, with access to the most powerful magical Circle in all of Eldath,” the Mekai smiled. “I’m going to do magic.”
Into the Tunnels
If it comes to a fight, D’Jenn thought, we can’t depend on this lot.
Lacelle herded her people down the tunnel like a clutch of frightened children too nervous to stray from the edge of the light. The light that hung in the air above them was bright, cold—like the woman who had conjured it. Lacelle’s Kai sang into the ether with a clear, precise note.
The scholars that the Deacon of Philosophers had jostled into the corridor were an odd bunch. D’Jenn had spent so much of his time around Warlocks that he’d forgotten what the rest of the Conclave was like. None of the three looked a day over twenty springs, and they fumbled along the hallways as if they weren’t sure they were supposed to be there. D’Jenn couldn’t blame them—if he had been roused from his bed in the middle of the night, been made to pack a bag, and ushered out of the Conclave with no warning, he would probably be just as clueless as Lacelle’s three helpers.
The Mekai had ushered them all down to the Crux, and sent them through a little-used tunnel that went deeper underground. He had assured them that it would connect with the sewers, given them instructions on how to navigate it, and retreated back to the Convergence Chamber to use his magic to cover their escape.
For that, the Mekai had chosen a sleeping spell. It wasn’t a standard one, though—it was much more insidious. The Mekai’s spell would be a slow, unnoticeable thing that would creep up on unsuspecting wizards and draw them into a slumber. They wouldn’t fall asleep right away, but the closer they got, the sleepier they would become. Those who were already out for the night would
be impossible to wake until the Mekai’s magic had run its course. With the power of the Crux behind him, the Mekai had whispered his spell over the entire Conclave. Anyone caught in it would be affected.
Vera’s letter burned in the pocket of his cloak.
The Mekai’s words had ignited a storm in D’Jenn’s mind. Connections were made as everything fell into place, and the deaths of his friends had taken on a new stink as all the information was mixed together. All it had taken was the off-hand mention of a purge taking place, and D’Jenn knew it had to be true. Being lost at sea was such a convenient way for his friends to have disappeared, and he cursed himself for not having seen through it before. A thousand questions came bubbling to the surface. Mataez had told him that he had looked into the deaths himself, and D’Jenn had trusted his word. What reason would he have had to discount it? His brothers and sisters, his family, had never lied to him.
Never before, anyway.
His hands shook with the urge to rip Vera’s letter from his cloak and tear into it, but everyone was too close. He didn’t care to have anyone’s eyes on him when he read it—he knew it would be trying, regardless of what he found within. Still, the urge was wrapped up with rage at what Victus had done. Another part of him, the one that had little doubt as to Victus’s responsibility, knew why they had so likely died at his command.
If he was in Victus’s place, he might have done the same things.
“My cat is probably hungry,” said Jev, one of Lacelle’s Philosophers. He made a sour face as he wrestled with his pack, the man’s narrow shoulders doing little to support its weight. Jev was short, sallow, and surly in the way that old women were surly—though the bags under his eyes spoke of his sleepiness.
“Nobody gives two golden shits about your cat, Jev,” spat Lilliane. She wiped a meaty arm across her brow, cheeks already red from the exertion of the walk. Lilliane was fat—very fat, in fact. The woman was pouring sweat already, and they had only just started. D’Jenn worried that she wouldn’t make it if they had to run. For all her sweating and heavy breathing, though, she outpaced Jev with ease, and with the least amount of complaining.
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