The D'Karon Apprentice

by Joseph R. Lallo

  She again stirred the air with her staff, summoning the swirling disk of black much more swiftly than she had the first time.

  “Yes…” she said. “Yes, I see where my mistake was… This should be much smoother this time.”

  There was no apparent fatigue in her voice as she spoke, the spell being fueled directly from the thir gem in her other hand. When the black disk was through growing and the portal itself began to open, it filled the room with a vicious, biting cold wind. Turiel discarded the expended gem and grasped Kintalla’s tunic again, hauling her up.

  “What… what have you done?” the young mystic asked.

  Turiel and Kintalla peered through the portal. The sun had set, and in the dim light of the moon filtering through the clouds it was difficult to see more than vague forms through the portal. There didn’t seem to be any ground beneath it, and now and again something would slide past the portal with a ponderous, pivoting motion.

  “Curious… I am not entirely certain this portal is properly aligned,” Turiel said.

  “You… you can simply open doors to other parts of the world?”

  Turiel dropped the expended thir gem into the chest and retrieved the final one, smaller than the others, and tucked it into a pouch within her robes. “I wouldn’t call it simple. Now, let me see.” She leaned though the portal. “Ah. There seems to be something solid not far down. If you survive the fall, do let me know.”

  Before Kintalla could object, Turiel pushed her through the portal. The young woman screamed in terror for a few moments, then cried out in surprise and discomfort amid the rustle of leaves and the cracking of twigs.

  “Ah, wonderful,” Turiel said.

  She stepped through and plummeted after Kintalla, landing not long after in the branches of what looked to have at one time been a tropical tree. The branches, now dead, were dense and thin, making for a relatively soft landing after the short fall. After a few moments to gather her wits and right herself, Turiel dropped down and felt the crunch of dry grass beneath her feet. Kintalla had fallen from the tree and was just now climbing to her feet, shivering violently in the howling breeze. Turiel, on the other hand, seemed completely unaware of the cold.

  She brushed the twigs from her robe and shook free the crook of a branch that had become entwined with her staff. Above her, the portal snapped shut. Gradually her eyes adjusted to the light available, and what she saw was enough to give her pause.

  They were atop a small clump of drifting soil that looked as though it had been swept up from another part of this world or some other. All around them additional fragments of earth, some as small as pebbles and some nearly the size of cities, drifted and circled in a bizarre galaxy of displaced land. No two of them were the same. A distant one glittered as if made of glass. Somewhat closer was a long, low stretch of prairie or meadow that seemed unbothered by the cold and looked to be home to some manner of beast that looked almost like a deer, but far smaller and with antlers infinitely more intricate.

  Far, far in the distance, almost at the limit of their vision, the moonlight illuminated the snowy covering of the surrounding mountains. A nearly circular pit had been carved out, leaving perfectly sheer cliffs leading down into darkness below. The clump of earth they now rode atop was near the middle of this chasm.

  “I am quite certain this is not how the portal was to look,” Turiel said, her tone irritated. In the face of this impossible place the most emotion she could muster was that of a person who suspected a prank was being played.

  “This…” Kintalla said shakily, “is where the portal was. Before the Chosen closed it. We call this place Lain’s End now.”

  “Explain it. How did they close the portal? How did these blasted adversaries even manage to arise!?”

  “I don’t know. P-Please, we’ll freeze out here.”

  “Do the adversaries still live?”

  “F-Four of th-them do. L-Lain was the f-f-fifth.”

  “And he died here, I suppose. Hence the name? Very well, who are these creatures? I shall personally bring them to task for this travesty.”

  “If I t-tell you, w-will you help me leave this place?”

  “I can’t very well leave you here. That would be inexcusable. This place was meant for the D’Karon.”

  “V-Very well. Myranda Celeste, th-the wizard. She is Duchess of Kenvard now. Her pet dragon, Myn. An elemental named Ether, and a malthrope named Ivy. All but Ether can be found in New Kenvard.”

  “New Kenvard. Why would there be a new one?”

  “K-Kenvard’s capital was d-destroyed in the war! P-Please. We’ll f-freeze! Y-you must get us out of here!” Kintalla begged.

  Turiel muttered. “Oh, very well. But you must do me a simple favor in return.”

  “Anything!”

  “I’m rather curious what is at the bottom. Do let me know if you find out.”

  “What? No! NO!”

  The necromancer grasped Kintalla by the tunic one last time and heaved her toward the edge. Numbing legs and frazzled wits proved inadequate to let the poor wizard recover before pitching off the side. Turiel paced to the edge and peered over, watching the screaming form plummet swiftly into the darkness.

  Kintalla’s cries continued for quite a while, echoing up from the darkness long after she was out of sight. Indeed, there was no sudden stop to them, they just gradually faded into the howling wind as she fell into the chasm.

  “I suppose it is entirely possible there isn’t a bottom,” Turiel commented.

  She rubbed her chin and thought for a moment. As she did, she paced forward, black threads twisting out from the land and lacing together into a bridge to the next piece of land. It all seemed to happen effortlessly, or even without her notice. She paced along a meandering path, moving across temporary bridges to stationary clusters of stone. Her thoughtful pacing continued for some time before she spoke again, each twist and turn taking her closer to the nearest piece of solid ground, a narrow point due south.

  “Let us see… there is no doubt that this is the site of the keyhole, and no doubt that the portal must have been finished.” She casually crouched down a bit, avoiding the lower edge of a mountain-sized piece of stone as it rushed by. “If this place truly is the doing of somehow shutting the portal, then these adversaries are not to be taken lightly… If they can be killed for what they’ve done, they shall be. And regardless, the second keyhole must be opened. I will not deprive this world of the teachings and power of the D’Karon…”

  She paused, eyes settling on the tiny clump of stone that remained between her and solid ground. It was barely three strides across and mostly circular. At its center stood a sword, but that didn’t concern her. What seized her mind was the black stain across the surface of the stone, out of which the sword stood.

  Turiel rushed across the bridge of threads and let it vanish behind her, kneeling at the edge of the silhouette burned into the stone. The shape was vaguely human in form, but just barely. It was twisted and unnatural, but Turiel held shaking hands out to it as though it was the still-warm corpse of a departed loved one.

  “This is… this was Lord Bagu…” she said, her voice hushed with disbelief. “They… killed a D’Karon…”

  Her hands tightened into fists, the right hand squeezing tight around her staff. With a vicious cry of anger, she thrust the staff forward, conjuring a blast of energy that struck the sword and dislodged it. The weapon went twirling into the shifting clusters of stone. Its blade sank deep into the underside of a passing boulder, embedding itself there.

  “How dare they… How dare they!”

  She crouched again and reverently touched the final resting place of one of her wisest and most powerful masters, then slowly climbed to her feet and conjured a bridge to the mainland.

  “I’ll… I’ll…” she fumed, but after a moment she stopped, forcing herself to calm. “This is serious. There will be time for blind fury later. This is a time for cool heads and careful consideration.”
>
  She paced southward.

  “I will find other D’Karon. The others must be here still, or at least other followers or creations. Yes… Yes. That is what I shall do. But first, I must see to my dear little Mott.” She started to stir the air with her staff. “He must be beside himself with loneliness…”

  #

  Ivy’s eyes were shut, her ears perked up and angled toward the door of the carriage. The tone of the journey had changed sharply once the group turned toward the D’Karon fort. Spirited, though admittedly adversarial, conversation had lapsed into complete silence. Their westward and northward journey had brought them toward the sea and its endless, damp, freezing winds. This had encouraged them to secure the windows and doors as tightly as possible, granting no hint of a view of the outside. Now the white-furred diplomat breathed in slow, controlled breaths. Her hands were folded and her toes were rocking on the ground in tense readiness. For all outward appearances, she seemed to be fully prepared to spring into a sprint at a moment’s notice but using all of her willpower to avoid doing so.

  “You seem to be… distracted, Ambassador,” said Ambassador Krettis.

  “I’m worried,” Ivy said.

  “Worried? About what?”

  “I’m worried about what we’ll find at the fort. It’s one of Demont’s forts.”

  “And what might we find in such a place that would worry you?”

  Ivy shut her eyes a bit tighter. “Awful things… nasty things. Wrong things. Things no sane mind would imagine.”

  “Surely you can offer something by way of example. So that we might prepare ourselves.”

  The malthrope opened her eyes and looked at her Tresson counterpart. “Things like me.”

  Krettis arched an eyebrow.

  “What you see here, what you were at first unwilling to talk to and what you still are unwilling to trust, was crafted in a place like the one we are about to visit. He takes things, innocent things, and he changes them. He twists them into weapons and monsters.”

  “He. General Demont? Fortunate for us all that you and your other chosen have killed him and his kind.”

  “Not him. We… I threw him away and slammed the door behind him, but I didn’t kill him.” She cast her eyes downward. “At the time it was a triumph that I’d managed to keep from killing him. He’d designed me to be a weapon. Sparing him showed that I wasn’t willing to be one. But now I genuinely wish I’d pushed the blade through his throat when I had the chance. The thought that he or one of his kind might be back…” She visibly shuddered.

  “Perhaps we shall be lucky then? Perhaps it is he who has returned. I shall have a chance to see for myself both that these D’Karon exist and that you are as dedicated to their destruction as you claim to be.”

  “You don’t want that. You haven’t seen what they can do, and you should be thankful for it. No one who has had to suffer through their reign would ever call their return lucky.”

  “You do not merely sound worried, Ambassador Ivy. You sound frightened.”

  “I’m terrified.”

  Krettis clucked her tongue.

  Ivy shot her a hard glance, her lip twitching and her ear flicking. “What?” she said firmly.

  “It is nothing. I was simply given to believe you were a warrior.”

  “You were wrong. I’m not a warrior. I never was. I’m an artist. It is what I am, it is what I always was, and it is all I ever really wanted to be. But I’m also Chosen, and that means it is my duty to face things like this. And though I’d much rather I was back in Kenvard practicing a new tune and visiting with the handful of people I can truly call friends, I would still rather clash with the D’Karon than leave the task to anyone else. I wouldn’t wish that sort of thing on my worst enemy.” She peeled her lips back in a brief snarl. “And what about being terrified suggests I am not a warrior?”

  “A warrior would not be afraid.”

  Ivy shook her head slowly, a look of understanding slowly coloring her expression. “You’ve always been an ambassador, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Never once seen a battlefield?”

  “In Tressor we were never rendered so weak that our women were forced to take up arms. Our military is composed entirely of our strongest men.”

  Ivy cast a knowing glance at Celeste.

  “I used to think of warriors the same way you do,” she said. “I used to think I couldn’t possibly be a proper warrior, because I felt the fear down to my core every time I looked out across the battlefield. But some of my friends, some of the fiercest creatures you could ever hope to meet, set me straight. There are plenty of people who could step out on a battlefield and not be afraid. A child could step into an arena against a tiger and not be afraid, because a child doesn’t know better. A lunatic could face an army alone, because a lunatic wouldn’t care. But a warrior? A hero? The thing that makes them what they are isn’t that they don’t feel the fear. It’s that they don’t let it stop them.”

  The rattling of the carriage began to slow. Ivy pushed the door open a crack, letting a stiff breeze in, and peered out.

  “Stop in the middle of the next stretch there, please,” she called to the driver. “That is as close as I want the rest of you to get. That’s certainly the fort we are after. I’d recognize the sort of forts the D’Karon build anywhere.”

  As she pulled on her overcloak, she began to issue orders. Unaccustomed as she was to a position of authority, they came out as requests. “Mr. Celeste, please stay with the ambassador. I would prefer if all of the guards remained behind to keep you all safe. Is that acceptable?”

  “You are a Guardian of the Realm and an ambassador. You have the highest authority here. If it is your wish, then it is acceptable,” he said.

  “Okay. Okay, good,” she said, taking a slow breath. “I need a weapon.”

  Celeste began to unbuckle his sword.

  “No!” she said, waving it off. “Not a sword. I don’t… I don’t like the way I act when I’ve got a sword in my hand. Come on. I’ll find something.”

  She pushed open the door and stepped out. The others followed.

  Their journey had taken them out along one of the unique features of the western shore of Kenvard. Many stretches of coast, this one included, were composed of uniform gray stone slabs that were so polished by the ice and wind that they seemed almost to have been cut by chisels and fitted together. The land fell sharply off into steep, sheer cliffs. Water splashed against the base of the cliffs just a few dozen feet below. It was not a dizzying drop by any means, but the thrashing water combined with the biting cold made death all but certain to anyone unfortunate enough to lose their footing. And losing one’s footing was all too simple, as the constant sea-spray had formed itself into a thick crust of ice that crunched beneath their boots as the group stepped cautiously forward.

  Ambassador Krettis squinted against the spray and gazed around. Their carriage had pulled to a stop near the center of a long, low slab that, to her evident dismay, was not a part of the mainland. The flat-topped island was the second of a string of three such plateaus that jutted out of the water. They were all at precisely the same height and perfectly level with the mainland. It almost looked as though some sort of calamity in the past had sliced away the ground itself, separating these remaining pieces from the shore. They formed something akin to stepping-stones leading toward the final island that was home to the fort itself.

  To reach their current perch, the carriage and its escort had first crossed a fifty-foot-long bridge to reach a roundish stone island large enough to comfortably fit a cottage if someone were mad enough to build one there. From there they’d crossed another thirty-foot-long bridge to a much larger plateau. It was just a bit wider than the first island, but easily miles long, forming a strip of stone that led almost perfectly perpendicular to the shore. It was an elevated road of sorts, connected via a final bridge to the final island, which was home to the fort. They’d stopped a few dozen paces
shy of this last bridge.

  Ambassador Krettis eyed the bridges they had crossed to get this far.

  “I must say… I am impressed by your construction skills. These bridges seem sturdy, and yet they are still but wood and rope. I would think this stiff wind and moisture would turn even the finest bridge to a rotten and splintered mess in no time.”

  “We build these bridges as we build ships, both rope and planks coated with pitch to ward off rot. I’m sure your own builders do the same,” Ambassador Celeste said.

  “Perhaps… I suppose I’ve never considered it. Most of the times I’ve crossed bridges I’ve not been so… aware of the consequences of their failure.”

  The gap that separated the long island from the fort was only a dozen feet, and the bridge that spanned it was as wide as the island itself. Beyond it lay a short strip of stone courtyard, then the low, rectangular structure of the fort itself. It was large. A small village could fit beneath its flat roof, and it occupied almost the entire island. What had not been covered by the simple stone building was home to an odd assortment of plants. There were a few sturdy northern pines and oaks, but joining them were shrubs and trees from all over the north. Some even had remnants of the broader leaves and smoother bark of Tresson plants. Most had withered and died long ago, the only evidence of their former lushness lingering as shriveled leaves encased in ice like a display piece in a museum. Now husks of trees stood dead throughout the courtyard. The remnants of gnarled vines clung to some stretches of the fort’s windowless walls, and thorny skeletons of bushes stood beside the entrance like a grim warning. How such an assortment of flora had been assembled, and why it had been planted in a place that couldn’t be expected to support much of it, was a curiosity.