The D'Karon Apprentice

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “Such a strange place…” Krettis said.

  Her earlier insistence that she be allowed to see the D’Karon facility had eroded somewhat, and for the moment she was content to observe from beside the carriage rather than following Ivy as she stalked toward the fortress itself.

  “We call them the river stones,” Celeste said, his eyes locked on Ivy as she stepped carefully onto the ice-crusted bridge. “For a day’s travel in either direction one can find such islands stretching off into the sea. Some house sea forts to guard against invasion. Most are too scattered to be bridged as these have.”

  “Yes… I’m sure you are quite proud of your land’s natural beauty,” Krettis said. She’d managed to voice the final word with an almost surgically precise level of irony. “But I was speaking more of the structure. These plants did not find their way here on their own. I see a Taarsin cottonwood, or what is left of one. I can’t imagine it chose to grow here.”

  “General Demont was a collector of such things. He was fascinated by plants and animals. I am told that early in his tenure, when he still had troops under his direct command, he would use them almost exclusively to gather samples of the wildlife and plantlife from across the kingdoms.”

  “An odd predilection for a military man.”

  “He was no more military than you, Ambassador Krettis. Like most of the D’Karon generals, the title was simply a means to an end, a way to exert authority in a time when the war was all that mattered.”

  “And yet you followed them.”

  “As I said, war was all that mattered. Your people were strong. If we were to survive, we needed their troops. Those troops came at a price. We paid dearly for the aid the D’Karon rendered.”

  He turned to the troops and the carriage. The soldiers were uneasy. A seasoned warrior knew a place of battle when he or she saw it, and this fort reeked of spilled blood. Even the ambassador had the cold, focused stare of someone expecting violence.

  “Let us get this carriage turned around,” Ambassador Celeste said. “Escorts, eyes on the fort and all be ready to move.”

  “Turning the carriage?” the ambassador said. “Surely you do not intend for us to leave without Ambassador Ivy.”

  “No,” he said, ushering her aside so that the carriage driver could begin the complex maneuvers necessary to pivot on the relatively narrow island. “But if the time comes to move, I want to be able to move quickly.”

  “What manner of threat could this place offer if you have disabled and destroyed any remaining D’Karon troops and technology?”

  “Such was our aim. And so we believed we had. But as I’m sure your troops can attest, the D’Karon are not so easily dispatched.”

  Krettis pulled her cloak a bit tighter and squinted against the sea spray. “The fort is a large one, but not so large that one could hide a regiment of soldiers for months. What surprises might be found?”

  “Demont was the man responsible for crafting the creatures so often wielded by the D’Karon. Many such beasts are small enough to be missed but still large enough to be a threat. And the fort is larger than it seems. The D’Karon tended to dig deep for their forts. It may well fill the whole of this island, or even beyond.”

  “Wouldn’t the lowest levels of such a fortress flood?”

  Celeste turned back to the fort. “Perhaps. Perhaps by design.”

  #

  Ivy shuddered and released a shaky breath as she approached the door of the fortress. She knew that the icy sensations rushing through her, growing with each step, had little to do with the wind and moisture. This was a D’Karon fort. Demont’s fort. There were dark spells at work on such places. One could hope that such enchantments had withered and died without his oversight, but hope was a terrible defense against such horrid creatures as she knew the D’Karon to be.

  The one heartening thing she’d observed as she approached was the state of the door. The massive wooden planks that made up the fortified entryway were splintered and shattered. Where they still hung weakly from their bulky hinges, they were blackened and charred. Ivy smiled. It was Ether’s handiwork. The shapeshifter had scoured the Northern Alliance in the months following the war’s end, and few things were more devastating than Ether’s wrath when she found something she felt no longer deserved to exist. She was terrifying when she had reason to be and thorough to the point of excess in her devastation. If she had been here, then it was likely the inside would bear only rubble and ash.

  Ivy flicked her ears and twisted them to the yawning doorway. Somewhere, deep inside, she’d heard something. It could have been the crackle of ice dislodged by the wind… or it might have been the skitter of feet. Ivy turned to a dead tree not far from the door and bounded up to it. With a firm grasp and a quick twist, she heaved at one of the lower branches and managed to tear an arm-length portion of it free. A club had served her well enough in the past. In the absence of the blades she’d come to embrace as her weapon of choice, it would do.

  To her great relief, Ivy found that the inside of the fort was not entirely dark. Ether’s typical level of fury had caused a long section of the roof to collapse, filling the center of the largely vacant floor with pale light. It also left the floor glittering with ice where the spray had settled. She took a deep breath, drawing in the scent of the place. It was musty and damp. Moldy cloth and rotten wood were the most prevalent scents. Beneath them a sharp, acrid smell asserted itself. It was strange, unnatural, but not unfamiliar. That smell was left behind at many a battlefield during her days fighting these creatures. It was the syrupy black muck that most D’Karon beasts used for blood. That it had been spilled was again a relief. Ether had found and destroyed some monster or another, but knowing that did little to quell the bone-deep anxiety and the terrible memories that the scent brought rushing out of her mind. Joining those scents was the smoky, charred sting of Ether’s aftermath and… something else… something warm and alive, but unlike anything she’d smelled before.

  Ivy tightened her grip on her makeshift weapon and cast her eyes around. Stone columns held up what remained of the roof. Here and there a pile of stony fragments or a scrap of leathery hide marked the remains of what had briefly been a D’Karon beast before Ether had snuffed it out. No hint of the source of the living scent. She licked her lips and swallowed hard. She was going to have to go deeper.

  Her footsteps echoed in the vacated hall. Unlike the two other forts of Demont’s that Ivy had the great misfortune of having visited, this one was not cluttered with bars and walls to hold various specimens. She approached the stairway at the far side of the floor and gazed down. Again she saw that it was not entirely dark, though this time it came as a source of concern rather than relief. Just barely detectable to her sensitive eyes was the gleam of violet light. She hesitated.

  “Those gems… don’t tell me there are still gems left here,” Ivy said aloud.

  When she moved again, it was with great caution. Her eyes widened to take in every scrap of the dim light, her ears darted madly at the source of every echo, and her nostrils flared to draw in the scent of her target, whatever it might be. Ivy rounded the turn of the massively wide staircase and moved to the next level. Now without a direct opening to the outside, the splashing waves and wailing wind could be heard only as a dull hiss filtered through thick stone. Her eyes adjusted to the indigo glow, which she could now see was coming not from full crystals but the shattered fragments of them. Again Ivy grinned. If there was anything Ether hated more than D’Karon beasts, it was D’Karon magic. Their gems burned the elemental terribly. Naturally she would have smashed them. Now all that remained of the horrid things, which had formerly been mounted on the walls, was a dusting of fine crystal slivers across the floor. They created just enough light to give the shadowy structures of the floor enough form for her to navigate. This level was marginally more crowded, a few broken walls marking where holding cells had been. The air was also thicker with spilled blood and charred flesh. Ether had been quit
e busy. But there was no doubt now that there was something alive. Without the wind pouring through the damaged door and roof, the trail was undisturbed, and the details of the scent were bright and clear in her mind. Clarity, however, did not dispel confusion in this case. She could detect canine elements, but also traces of goat and reptile and even human. It smelled like a small menagerie had been wandering through this place, but the scents were commingled and always present in the same mixture. Ivy didn’t know what it meant, but she couldn’t imagine the answer would be a pleasant one.

  Ivy twisted her ears about and gazed across the floor. She was alone on this level, that much was certain. As her eyes became more and more adjusted to the low light, they were able to discern something chilling in the arched doorway of the stairs at the end of the floor. The light was brighter there… and the shadows were moving. She stepped lightly toward the stairs, careful not to make a sound. Each step allowed her to make out more details. A brighter light came in from the floor below, and as it shifted from side to side, it painted shadows across the rear wall of the stairwell. Steeling herself, Ivy began to descend, stopping when she reached the landing so she could peer around the bend.

  Her eyes widened. Something was there, though seeing it did little to answer the question of what exactly it was. It was a jackal head perched at the end of a serpentine neck and body, skittering about on eight clawed spider legs and flapping black feathered wings. In its mouth was a fist-sized chunk of fairly intact D’Karon crystal, which it used as a makeshift torch to investigate the darker corners of a floor that had at least some relatively intact remains of D’Karon beasts.

  In the brighter light, Ivy could see stony wolves and small, strangely smooth dragon-like beasts. The wolves at least were just as she’d remembered them, a rare but familiar part of the D’Karon arsenal. The other beasts looked like dragoyles, but they weren’t much larger than the wolves, and their hides were much smoother than Ivy remembered from the dragoyles she’d fought. Their claws were also stretched with filmy fins.

  The jackal-headed curiosity was clearly intrigued by the most complete example of these new dragoyles, as it was holding the gem close and sniffing at the beast. It sampled the scent with the excited, rapid sniffs of a puppy confronted with a new toy. Then, in a motion that was almost terrifying in its speed, the beast raised its head and twisted it aside, turning to the door and locking its eyes on Ivy.

  She gritted her teeth and fought the urge to run, though a flutter of blue aura stirred around her as her fear began to leak through to the surface. The aura flickered again when the jackal beast skittered toward her. It moved in a darting zigzag, sweeping across the floor as a blur and coming to a stop a few paces away.

  “Stop!” Ivy warned, her voice echoing through the fort.

  The beast froze, then twisted its head aside. It took a single step forward with one of its entirely too numerous legs.

  “Don’t come any closer.”

  Now the thing twisted its head the other way. The curious puppy quality of the creature grew stronger with each movement. Aside from its nightmarish appearance, it hadn’t made any motions that suggested it was dangerous. Indeed, as she watched, it set the crystal down and reached its head forward, sniffing at her feet. She held the club high enough to strike if she needed to, but something inside Ivy couldn’t bring her to attack the creature.

  “What are you?” she said.

  It stepped forward again, more slowly now, as though it understood that her tone was no longer one of threat. When it was near enough to do so, it extended its neck enough to nearly touch its nose to her leg and sniffed her up and down, then twisted aside and rubbed its head affectionately across her thigh.

  “Okay… okay, you’re friendly…” Ivy said, though she was not entirely convinced of it yet. “I can’t say I was expecting to find something friendly in Demont’s fort.”

  The thing perked up at the mention of the general’s name.

  “Uh oh… I don’t like that you know that name. Let’s see how much you understand. Did he make you?” she asked, crouching down.

  Her jackal-headed friend shook its head.

  “And you understand Varden. That’s certainly new,” she said, brow furrowed in confusion as it rubbed its head against her neck.

  She reluctantly patted the side of its long neck, mildly repulsed by the hairs that poked up between the serpent scales. As affectionate as the beast appeared, she was still coiled like a spring, ready for that to change at a moment’s notice. After all, Demont had been more than capable of creating creatures that seemed quite friendly. She herself was evidence of that. Of course, she was also evidence that just because the touch of D’Karon magic had created something, that didn’t mean it had to be evil.

  Ivy cupped the beast’s chin in one hand to keep its sweeping head still and leaned down to draw in a strong whiff of its aroma.

  “No…” she said. “You aren’t a D’Karon creature. There’s too much nature in you. I don’t know who made you, but it wasn’t them. But what are you? And what are you doing here?”

  The creature didn’t respond. Ivy wasn’t certain if that meant it was unwilling or unable to speak, but at this point there was little doubt it was at least somewhat intelligent and there was no reason not to suppose it might be smart enough to answer if it could. Instead, it skittered back to the dropped gem and picked it up in its teeth. It took a few steps toward the center of the floor, then turned back to her.

  “What do you—wah!” Ivy yelped.

  Her bizarre new friend had lashed out with its tail and coiled it around her free hand, tugging it lightly like a toddler who wanted to explore. Ivy forced away a flash of blue aura and gently pulled the coiled tail from her wrist.

  “Easy, whatever you are. I’m nervous enough in this place without you moving about so suddenly.” Ivy released an unsteady sigh and paced forward. “Have you found anything else alive in here? I came because there might be something dangerous here, and it doesn’t seem like you are the sort of thing that I’d be sent to find.”

  It shook its head and hung it down briefly, its disappointment apparent. Ivy knelt down to inspect an almost intact example of the dragoyle-like creature. Up close, it had a number of features that at first struck her as more dragon-like than the rockier, simpler dragoyles she’d fought in the past.

  “Maybe this was a new version? Demont did always like to improve his toys.” She leaned forward a bit and grimaced as she picked up its limp claw. “Wait… no, this isn’t like a normal dragon. This is more like a fish. I wonder if—”

  Her thought was quickly cut short as the hairs on her neck stood on end. Something awful, something cold and supernatural, was happening deep inside the fort. Ivy had never learned much of magic, but she’d been its target often enough to recognize when it was at work. Even if such was not the case, every fragment of shattered crystal flared intensely bright for a few moments before fading again.

  Whatever had happened, it thrilled the creature by her side. It sprang up and practically pranced about, zipping and darting around Ivy and nudging her to stand. She clutched her weapon tight and set her eyes on the next stairwell.

  “That’s what I’m after. I’m sure of it.”

  She set off for the stairs, the creature weaving ecstatic rings about her and lighting the way with its gem. Something about being certain that she would find something ahead took the edge from the fear. Ivy moved with purpose, running through the next two levels and turning a blind eye to the devastation Ether had left during her visit. After a third stairwell, the dampness in the air began to gather into pools on the floor. She splashed through a channel that could only have been designed to route the water toward a carefully placed drain, and through that drain she saw a brighter glow slipping through the corroded brass grating. Along with the light was a voice.

  “No… no, no, no… Broken… All of it broken… How could this happen? Who would do this?” muttered a woman’s voice, bordering on tea
rs.

  Ivy slowed when she reached the final staircase. Partially it was because these stairs were pouring with water and would be treacherous even at a walking pace. Mostly it was because if she was going to come face to face with this woman, she would do it with some degree of stealth. Her companion, however, saw no wisdom in either precaution. It streaked down the stairs ahead of her, clawed feet and spindly legs holding firm despite the slick surface. A moment after it disappeared around the bend of the stairs, its scrabbling footsteps were replaced with sloshing ones. The splashing steps drew the attention of the woman. She spoke, joy and relief mixing with the sorrow in her voice.

  “Mott! My dear Motley, look what has happened! Thank heavens you are safe! I was afraid what had done this might have done something to you as well.”

  The malthrope crept carefully around the bend and took in the baffling sight. This floor of the fort was entirely flooded. The center was a walkway with only a few inches of water on it, but on either side the walkway descended in steps into the murky, sloshing water. From the scent, and the fact it was not frozen solid, Ivy could tell it was seawater. This portion of the facility must have been at sea level. What she could see of the submerged walls and walkways indicated that the room had been separated into a dozen or so pools. Each one held what was left of an aquatic or semiaquatic monstrosity. Like most of Demont’s creations, there was some indication in each that it was at least based on a creature nature had intended, but in all cases he had taken horrid liberties with the forms. One monster looked like an armor-plated seal with undersized wings on its back. Another was some manner of nightmarish fish the size of a large dog and equipped with row after row of insectile legs.

  At the center of the room, kneeling in the icy water with her arms wrapped tightly about the neck of the jackal-headed beast Ivy now knew was called Mott, was a woman. Based on her appearance she was not quite young enough to be Myranda’s mother, but she might have been close, and tears were running freely down her face. A staff was submerged just below the water beside her, its gem glowing bright enough to paint dancing marbled patterns on the ceiling and walls.