The Ancient Ones (The Legacy Trilogy Book 3)

by Michael Foster

  Samuel was safe in his casket, and so Leopold picked up his sword and left the room. He remembered Rei’s gloating warning that she had set a trap for the women; they may still be in danger. Chatrise had told him about going to the cellars in times of refuge, so he set about to check on them. Into the wolves’ den. Rei’s words came back to him.

  He passed guards along the way who nodded to him, obviously content that he was not one of the enemy. The subjects of Rei’s Order were easily distinguishable from the sane members of humanity. He tried to convince soldiers to follow him, but they continued past, ignoring his calls for aid, intent on getting elsewhere in a hurry, and certainly not recognising him for who he was.

  He came across plenty of bodies from both sides. In places they filled the halls to be unpassable. He climbed over the corpse of a furred brute that lay in its own blood, its head laying separately across the hall, set in an open-eyed, savage grin. Other such creatures abounded and he avoided them as much as possible.

  He found what he hoped was the entrance to the cellars, set beneath a stairway. Knocking on the heavy metal door brought no response.

  ‘Open up!’ he called. ‘It’s clear!’

  No sound from within.

  It caused him worry, for surely the women would come out if they could, or at least reply, and he ran into the courtyard and called out until two battle-weary guards came to investigate his cries.

  ‘What’s wrong, man?’ they asked him. ‘We’ve got plenty to do without your howling. We’re fortifying the gates before they come back!’

  ‘Are you injured?’ asked the other, with more concern than his companion.

  ‘Quickly!’ Leopold told them. ‘The women won’t answer. Something is wrong.’

  They followed without hesitation and after banging and calling extensively, they agreed with Leopold’s conclusion. Unfortunately, the chain of command had been sundered and neither of them knew where their captains were, or who might have the key. Instead, they obtained a length of timber from the outside rubble and rammed it against the door as hard as they could, with Leopold’s assistance. More men were attracted on hearing the noise, all bloodied or injured in some way, and they crowded around the battering ram and heaved in unison.

  The door began to buckle and another few attempts had it bursting inwards. They dropped the timber noisily to the floor and hurried in with their swords readied, calling as they went, hoping for some reply from the women and children hidden away inside.

  Leopold followed last, cautiously. He wondered if he should go back and check on Samuel and let the men do their work or follow along to see if he could provide some further help. The magician would be safe in his coffin, so he followed carefully into the dim corridor.

  He ventured down the stairs and found the first of the dank cellar rooms, lined with supplies and boxes of fresh goods. What worried him were the ladies sprawled unconscious on the floor. The guards were squatting beside them, patting their hands and calling to them.

  ‘They’re asleep,’ one called.

  ‘No!’ said another. ‘They’re awake!’

  Most had their eyes open, moving and looking around, the only sign of consciousness. For some reason, they lay absolutely still.

  ‘Take them out! Give them air,’ Leopold told the guards.

  At once, the men picked the ladies up and carried them outside one by one, leaving Leopold alone to delve deeper into the cellar.

  A dank passage led away from the first room and, following it, Leopold found another similar chamber, with two more passages leading from that one in opposite directions. Young children and women lay all over each other, likewise awake but locked rigid. Their chests breathed and their eyes followed him eerily.

  Leopold assumed there must be more such chambers, especially if they were capable of holding the keep’s entire population of women and children—several hundred by his guess. He could not afford to stop and help just yet—not until he found whatever danger the witch had left for them. Immobilising her prey did nothing. Surely something else lurked somewhere in the dark, waiting to take advantage of the situation and administer Rei’s revenge. He drew his father’s sword in readiness.

  The air was hazy, and a thread of fine silk caught across the end of his blade as he held it before his face. He wiped it against his leg, and noticed the thick cobwebs in the corners of the chamber. Why had they let the place become so untidy?

  He coughed, feeling the dust in his lungs and went down another passage at random, listening intently for anything that may be creeping around unseen.

  This next room was much larger and had close to thirty people strewn across it. A noise sounded, a soft hissing of air, and then movement. In one corner, a fat and enormous caterpillar, as long as his arm, was crawling on one of the crates. It sensed his presence, eyeless as it was, and raised its head. The hissing noise resounded from deep in its abdomen, louder and more pronounced. Fine spindles of silk floated towards him, and Leopold raised his sword to meet them. The threads wrapped around his blade, sticky and thick.

  A shuffling noise had him turning his head, and across the room in another corner was a sight that made him start. Another grub was there, this one braced upon the chest of a girl of no more than five. It was snuffling blindly at her body, looking for a gap between her clothes through which to press its eager jaws.

  ‘Get away from her!’ he cried, and he hurried for the grub, carefully treading amongst the hapless victims.

  It raised its head and hissed as he struck it. One flick of his sword had it thrown aside and its body cleft in two. It wriggled upon the floor, oozing green fluid.

  A guard came in behind him, attracted by the noise. ‘What is it?’ he said, gasping on sight of the creature. ‘What is this?’

  ‘Quickly! There are grubs … eating them!’

  The guard grew wide eyed with apprehension as he spied the first caterpillar on the crate. He scrambled over the bodies, slipping in his haste, and smote it with his sword.

  ‘There are chambers further back,’ the guard revealed and he called behind him to the others. ‘Come here! Quickly!’ Five men responded to his echoing call and Leopold led the way through the back of the room, sword readied.

  ‘Gods!’ cried the first man in behind him, for in that next chamber the grubs had crawled from their hiding places in a swarm.

  Women and children were again spread across the floor, eyes open. Half of them were teeming with melon-sized grubs, each working furious at their meals, mouthparts moving back and forth in rows, systematically consuming their helpless, paralysed prey.

  Blood was awash across the floor. In one corner, fattened grubs—child-sized with enormous distended abdomens—munched slowly from atop unrecognisable mounds of flesh, nearly finished with their meals.

  ‘Kill them all!’ the guards cried, full of disgust and anger, and the men went at the creatures with their swords, desperately hacking away.

  Leopold joined them, horrified as the living meals’ eyes follow him, some with limbs already devoured.

  ‘They come from the crates!’ one man declared, throwing a container crashing to the floor. It teemed with tiny caterpillars amongst the fruit, hissing and spewing out silken threads.

  ‘Don’t touch the webs!’ another man declared. ‘Kill them quickly!’

  Through each room they went, smashing open the boxes and killing every bug they found, while other men, civilians and guards alike, came in growing numbers to convey the women and children into the fresh air.

  Thankfully, the grubs had only just begun to feast in most of the chambers. Any longer and it would have been far worse. All the rooms would have resembled the worst. After a few hours, no one would have remained at all.

  Leopold found Lady Chatrise in one chamber and dragged her out, her eyes fixed upon him all the while, her face expressionless. He grabbed children under his arms, desperate to have them out of the cellars in case any more horrors awaited them.

  ‘We c
an’t thank you enough,’ the guard said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Leopold,’ he replied and realisation dawned on the guard.

  ‘Emperor Leopold!’ he declared, wonderstruck. ‘How is it you are here?’

  ‘The magician brought me back. We came to help you.’

  ‘How fortunate for us. We lost a great number and were without hope. Thank goodness you came. Thank goodness!’ The man was on the verge of tears.

  They used wet towels to clean the threads from the survivors, and slowly the victims moved and groaned, attempting to speak. Their first common act was to shake and sob.

  Judging from this, it would not be long until they returned to full mobility. Leopold left them to their work, for with him around the guards spent more time bowing than helping, so he judged it better for everyone if he left.

  He returned to the magician’s room and found the casket quiet and unmoved. He finally had time to clean his sword as Samuel had told him, and went to work scraping the black muck and fresh green blood from the scabbard. Afterwards, listening to the sounds of joy from women and children at being alive, and the laments of woe at realising their losses, Leopold waited alone in Lord Samuel’s room. He went to sleep upon the floor, the magician’s casket crushing the bed beside him.

  ****

  Leopold awoke with the sounds of movement outside his window. He looked outside, realising he had slept through the night.

  People were organising in the courtyard, carrying foodstuffs and supplies, taking stock. He went downstairs and spent the day helping however he could and the survivors of Seakeep were grateful for his assistance. It would be many hours until he could open the magician’s coffin, and he had to do something to pass the time.

  Rooms were full of wounded, whom he could not help. They had bandages and simple balms, but supplies of medicines were severely limited. What little they possessed had gone to Cintar upon the ships, to treat whatever casualties resulted from their battle.

  Leopold realised then that no one in Cintar knew where he was. Neither he nor Samuel had mentioned the danger in Seakeep; no ships were on their way to aid them. Once receiving the news, it would take the fleet several days to arrive and Leopold damned himself for not thinking of it earlier. His only course of action was to wait until it was time to revive the magician. He would know what to do.

  Late in the afternoon, Leopold deemed it to be one full day since the magician had been put in his box and he climbed upstairs and sat beside the casket, considering how to proceed. Samuel had not mentioned any special words or specific procedures; he decided to simply open it up and see what happened.

  He let the sturdy clasps click open one by one and straining, he lifted the hefty lid.

  The magician looked peaceful inside, sleeping.

  ‘Samuel?’ Leopold prompted softly, so as not to waken the man suddenly. ‘Lord Samuel,’ he said louder, when at first the magician did not wake.

  The coffin’s occupant opened one of his eyes, then the other. He momentarily looked unsure of his surrounds, before blinking the confusion away with some rapid fluttering of his eyelids. He sat upright and swivelled out of the casket, standing straight and looking convalesced. He was still covered with blood—obviously not his own—and strangely enough, much of it was still wet and glistening; no time had passed at all within the box.

  The magician looked around the room and wandered to the window, glancing downwards. ‘I see some still live, so it was not a total loss.’ He took a deep breath and when he turned back to Leopold, his skin was clean and his black robes were knitted whole again: a bath and change of clothes between blinks.

  Leopold was about to open his mouth to question the feat, when he stopped, realising he should not be surprised by anything the magician could do. ‘Casualties were high. Most of the wives and daughters and grandchildren of my father were saved. They had locked themselves in the cellars. There was—’

  ‘Then let us go,’ Samuel said, interrupting him and obviously not caring to hear the remainder of his tale.

  ‘But can you not see to the wounded?’ Leopold implored him. ‘Many screamed all through the night and continue to do so. Dozens died this morning from their injuries and many more will soon follow if they do not receive your aid.’

  ‘Then let them die. It will motivate those who live to better prepare in future. That was the folly of our magic,’ the magician stated. ‘While the outlands spurned magic and found practical cures for such injuries, Turia was dependent on its magicians. Natural remedies were lost and forgotten. Now there are no magicians remaining, the people suffer and in their ignorance they know only the simplest of cures.’

  ‘So you will not help them?’ Leopold asked, disbelieving such lack of compassion.

  ‘We have other matters to attend to. If we dally here, those we save will die anyway.’

  ‘Then why did you come? If you do not care for these people, why did you bother? Why drag me here and risk our lives to save them? And don’t tell me it was to keep your word!’

  The magician met Leopold directly with his gaze, as he often did, implying Leopold was deficient for not knowing the answer. ‘It was for Jessicah—and for Rei. I had to spite her. I could not let that witch have the satisfaction of victory.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Leopold asked impatiently. ‘Rei? The witch is gone! Why speak as if she is still here to know any better?’

  ‘Few things are often as they seem, Leopold,’ the magician told him. ‘When Jessicah hugged me in the tower, it was no mere show of affection. I thought I had saved her—that my victory against Rei was complete—but as she leaned close to my ear she said something that made me realise how complete was my failure. My blood ran cold at those words. That is why I came here.’

  ‘What did she say to you?’

  ‘I’m still here. Somehow, even though I sucked the power of Rei out of Jessicah, some residual essence of the vile woman remains, too deep and too ingrained in Jessicah’s mind for me to pluck it out. Until I find a way to free her, Jessicah is hostage to that woman, and we will never know which one is speaking, or which one is looking out at us. Jessicah is pure and innocent. I do not think she has the fortitude to withstand the evil of Rei for long. In a short time she may be lost altogether and then, only one will remain.’

  ‘But what of the thing of which Rei spoke, the light she found inside?’

  ‘Ravings of a mad woman, Leopold. There is nothing inside Jessicah except pureness of heart, something which Rei, with her black soul, cannot tolerate.’

  ‘What about here? People are suffering.’

  ‘I have no time to mend every corpse thrown upon us. We have other things to do, Leopold. Have you not realised that the common people are simply fodder for the likes of us? Their lives are a currency to achieve what we will, paving stones for the greater path. Did your father not teach you anything?’

  ‘I should have known,’ Leopold scowled. ‘You are as bad as Rei. Do you really believe such things?’

  ‘What I believe is not important, young Emperor. What is important is what I do—and the same counts for you. Come. Let us return to the Farstride.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we tell them we …’ Leopold’s words faded. The room had already shifted and he, Samuel and the casket were back upon the mighty ship—the Farstride—safely within the magician’s cabin.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  To the Far Side of the World

  COMMANDER RIGGADARDIAN WAS caught by surprise when the magician marched out of his cabin, Leopold venturing behind.

  ‘Lord Samuel!’ he declared, Captain Merryweather beside him. ‘You live! And Emperor Leopold. Thank goodness! We were sorely tempted to break down your door and see what had become of you both—except of course, you had made it very clear we should not.’

  ‘I’m glad my threats were well understood,’ Samuel responded as he descended the stairs. He strode to the edge of the main deck to get a better view of the city. The ship was lying
parallel with the coast, to ease the loading and unloading of the boats. ‘I assume the last of the witch’s forces have been rooted out?’

  ‘Indeed. Captain Orrell is in his cabin resting. He returned this morning, after battling through much of the night. With the defeat of their greatest beast, the defenders lost their nerve and were easily harried down. There were just so many, it took our men so long. It is a shame that no one found General Ruardin. The good captain was at a loss to speak of it. Did no one find where the witch was keeping him?’

  ‘Suffice to say, Commander, that he went down fighting with Captain Orrell at his side, just as any Turian would wish.’ He bent the truth adeptly.

  ‘Ah, a fitting end,’ the man said with a sad, solemn nod.

  ‘Samuel!’ called the voice of Captain Orrell as he hurried down from the aftcastle to join the pair. He looked washed and had changed into a fresh, smart uniform; his face bore a large purple bruise and was scratched along his cheek; a small price to pay for the battle he had endured. ‘We have to thank you for your assistance yet again. I was relieved when the Order did indeed lose its will to fight once we destroyed their ... beast. Our losses were severe, but at last Cintar is ours.’

  ‘No good it will do you,’ Samuel said bleakly, looking towards the smouldering remains of the city. ‘The place is a ruin and even if repaired, it will do little to keep out any further creatures. You only have a short respite now Rei is gone. After that, they will grow in strength and number.’

  Riggadardian was perplexed. ‘But surely now we have destroyed the witch, the monsters will no longer come?’

  ‘They will come, Commander. Rei was not the only cause of your worries. The second Ancient One may have perished, but a third remains on the far side of the world, and these dangers will not cease until we deal with him. The distance is great, but that means little where magic is concerned. I feel more beasts arriving all over the world every day. This Age will end when their master awakens.’