smiling from ear to ear. But tiredness hit him hard as well. Slumber had eluded him for a very long time. He made a much slower journey back to his rooms, placed Tallyn in his cot and then flopped onto his own bed, fully dressed.
Before he could sleep, however, something called him back to the hallway beyond. He snapped his eyes open again. Bloody light of Achellon! Would nothing let him rest?! Morghiad roused his weary body and forced himselfto leave. There was no one outside, not even any guards. Only the cool air and the soft glow of the castle at night greeted him. Then he heard it. It sounded like Danner howling in the distance. He checked the room behind. Tallyn was still sleeping, and panthers marched around his cot; he’d be safe there for
a moment. Morghiad re-arranged his sword belt and strode forward into the curious blue glow once more.
Following the wolf’s howl, he found himselfat the base of the spire again. Jet black panthers patrolled the castle everywhere, but the soldiers were absent. How was it that there were so many panthers? And, come to think of it, when had he invited them into his city? He trotted down the steps and into the dark abyss below. Danner’s howling was louder down here, echoing against the glassy walls. Was he still at the cave entrance? Morghiad was sure the wolfhad followed them back to his rooms. The tunnel was oddly dark when he reached it. All of the torches had been extinguished, which really wasn’t acceptable. He was forced to feel along the granite wall to find his way, the sound becoming more deafening the deeper he went.
After stumbling about in the dark for an age, the diffuse light of an orange flame became apparent. A man held it aloft on a long torch; Danner was standing with him, quivering. Morghiad withdrew his sword silently, and examined the intruder before he made another move. The man had his back to him, but something about his stance said he was swordready. He was tall, broad shouldered and lean, with tough arms and wavy hair that hung to his ears. This probably wouldn’t be an easy fight. Morghiad stepped forward, keeping his blade low, and waited for the other man to react. The intruder detected him, of course, but his movements to turn were slow and deliberate. There was something about him – about his face. He looked... blazes, he looked like
Morghiad! A pair of bright green eyes glittered back at him, and the man’s hair shone bronze in the low light.
“Tallyn?”
The man did not smile. “She’s in there. She needs your help.”
It was his son. It couldn’t be anyone else. “We’ve looked in there – it’s empty-”
“You have to open the gate. Find her.” With that, the young man turned his back and walked into the darkness. Morghiad tried to follow him, but only succeeded in tripping over a rock and knocking himself out.
He was back in his bed when he came to, and still fully clothed. A red sun peeked in through the windows, and a warm breeze caused the shutters to waver. Tallyn. Morghiad threw himselffrom the crumpled sheets and
crashed into the room beyond, causing Danner to jolt awake. The cot was where he’d left it, and Morghiad peered in to check its occupant. He was still there, still sleeping and still an infant. Had that really been him? Was that really what he’d look like as a grown man? Feeling somewhat shaken, Morghiad slid to the ground. Those words had surely meant something, whether they had come from his own mind or his son’s.
When Tallyn’s minders arrived, Morghiad made straight for the library. Even if he found no answers there, he would find a quiet place to think. The stacks were not nearly so overbearing or full as those of the Cadran library had been. A great deal had been lost in the destruction of the city, though Silar claimed it was only the unimportant stuff. They’d put
considerable effort into buying new, and very old, pieces for the Gialdin collection, but it was never quite the same. It was always very neat, very organised; it smelled too clean.
Morghiad quite missed Dorlunh’s messy piles and dens built of tomes. Perhaps he’d offer the peculiar little man his job of archivist again, assuming he returned. He paraded the older sections, not really knowing what he was looking for. A “gate” was how Tallyn had described it. Artemi had never called it that, or given any hint that she knew of an alternative purpose for it. His mother might have known, or perhaps someone else in his family’s murky history. Morghiad pulled out a volume on royal lineages and leafed through for something on the Jade’ans.
The black image of the leaping panther
caught his eyes almost immediately. It wasn’t terribly pleasant reading, detailing how Acher had persistently harassed Medea when he’d been a kahrling, refusing to leave Gialdin in spite of repeated requests. Medea’s father had died after being poisoned, and her mother had killed herselfbefore Medea was nine. Further back, Morghiad’s great-grandmother had tried to kill her own husband, and he had been forced to have her executed. Blazes, it was a wonder any of their line survived at all! He leafed through more of the book, but it only reported another three generations that died in equally depressing ways. There was no mention of gates or panthers. He thrust the book back onto its shelfin disgust. He had to stay sane and alive for the sake of his son; he ought to be able to achieve that where his ancestors had
failed!
He dragged another dusty tome from the shelfand dropped it onto the too-new table. Its pages were rather mould-encrusted but it was still legible. A History of Gialdin, it proclaimed in Ignarinian. Morghiad had to concentrate hard to translate it; his knowledge of the language was only very basic, though it reminded him of the day when Artemi had woken up speaking it. She hadn’t even realised at first, and had chattered away happily at him with words he only faintly understood. She seemed to do that with numerous of her old languages. Again he found no mention of chambers of light below the ice-white palace, but he did find one line that seized his interest. “Gialdin: Uruk na jad-evia-an Assel.” It was a recording of an inscription dug from the
foundations of the old castle. He didn’t know the language, but he was wise enough to spot his own name within it.
“Not many people read that nowadays,” Romarr puffed, standing over him. Morghiad hadn’t even noticed him approach, but that was typical of a Kusuru.
“Do you know what this line means?”
The heavily built man frowned in concentration, but then emitted a chortle. “It says they found a stone under castle, and it said ‘Gialdin: The gateway to the gods’ on it. Only, it’s a play on Jade’an. Jad is Serifin for gate, evia is a path, and an usually implies it is guarded somehow. I think your ancestors wanted to tell the world they had a direct line of communication to the gods.”
“Assel means god? As in Achellon?”
Romarr sighed. “Ah, it has the same root. Assella means fire. All languages start to sound the same after a while. Bit of an affliction for vanha-sielu.”
Fires of the firegods... Tallyn had meant the chamber was a gateway to Achellon. And Artemi... Artemi was in Achellon! Morghiad cursed loudly and repeatedly, provoking a wide-eyed, if slightly offended, look from Romarr.
“Is everything alright?!”
“Yes... I have to get ready.” Morghiad left the book where it was and made his way back to the exit.
“Ready for the funeral? Then you know it’s hap-”
Morghiad spun around. “What funeral?”
The Kusuru’s voice caught briefly before he spoke, “Silar ordered it for today. He said if we waited-”
“No, no. You must cancel it! It cannot go ahead.” Morghiad turned back and paced out of the room, Romarr trailing behind in confusion.
“But, my lord. I know you’ve been through this before, but a death is a dea-”
“She is still alive!” Alive and in Achellon. And in need of his help.
“Alive? We all saw her body in the tomb. This isn’t like before with Mirel. You must accept-”
“No, you’re right. It is not like before. Get Silar to cancel the funeral. Now.” Morghiad left Romarr standing in the hallway, looking as baffled as a man with such wise eyes could.
>
Morghiad returned to his rooms in a hurry, quickly changing into a set of clothes better-suited to travel. Tallyn’s minders had evidently taken him to another corner of the castle, and Danner would almost certainly have gone with them. He strapped just about every weapon he owned to his body, taking care to leave behind anything made with Blaze. Silar stormed in while he was pulling on his wellworn, brown leather boots.
“You risk upsetting a lot of people by putting this off even longer, my friend.”
“She’s not dead.”
Silar rolled his eyes. “Oh bloody Achellon, Morghiad! Not again. Look, we need to have that funeral NOW.”
Morghiad kept his voice calm,
measured. “No. I have to go and get her. If I don’t come back, you are to watch over Tallyn for me. There’s no one else I’d choose to be his father in my stead.” He patted him on the shoulder.
“Go and get her? What madness are you spouting?”
“I am a gatekeeper, it seems. Though blazes knows howI am to open the damn thing.”
Silar took him by the shoulders and stared him fully in the eyes, no doubt searching for signs of insanity. His determined expression faltered. “You really are going somewhere else to find her...”
“Yes. Do you have any ideas that might help me?”
Silar took a step back. “I... ah...
Follocks, these are powers beyond my understanding. What is she doing there?”
“I don’t know. But I want her back.”
“You think she’s in danger there?”
Morghiad nodded. “I am sure of it.”
Silar gazed at the white floor for a moment, thinking a million thoughts. “Alright. I’ll hold things together here. Try and be back within three days...” He swallowed. “Three bloody days... Otherwi- Wait... they took her because they have no care for this place, but they have need of her. They won’t give her up unless you give them a reason. Render her useless to them.”
That did not bode well for her. “Sound advice. Thank you. I will be back as soon as I can,” he replied, before sprinting from the rooms with all the speed he could muster.
He was sweating heavily by the time he arrived at the gate, but still felt fit enough to fight a battle or four. It had been years since he’d fought a good battle! He stared at the brilliant, blue non-Blaze light. A gate had to have a lock, but how was he to find this one? He paraded the perimeter of the cavern, looking for anything obvious. The cave was essentially bare, save for the light. But there were smooth rocks that protruded from the water, and these were mirrored by the contours of the ceiling. They formed some sort of shape. It was too bright to make out that shape from within the light field, but he could see it better from the darker corners of the cave. It looked like... a knot - a variation of the guardian knot. Morghiad walked into the water and reached down to feel for the stone that he most wanted
to un-pick. It wouldn’t shift. He kicked at it. It still didn’t move. How to undo a guardian knot made of stone?
He moved over to one of the more prominent stones and examined it. There were a number of shallow marks running parallel to each other. They looked like cut marks, or perhaps scratches. He put his hand out, aligning each mark with four fingers. Perhaps claw marks made by a panther? He dragged his own nails along the stone, but they were too soft to make any impression. He needed claws of steel. Morghiad pulled out four of his daggers, held them in his fist and dragged them over the stone. This time something happened. The floor vibrated a little, and then the water began to drain. A great, gaping hole opened up in it, as black as the darkest night he had ever seen.
And then everything started to fall into it - the light, the unravelling stones and him. He plunged down and down, through an endless nothingness. There was no light, no sound, no warmth, no cold and no time. He simply existed.
“Artemi,” he whispered for reassurance, and the light came crashing into his vision. It was searing and strong, feeling as if it burned his eyes to the backs of their sockets. He felt ground beneath his feet, and air in his lungs. Morghiad shaded his face with the back of his arm and felt for his weapons. They were still attached, and so were his clothes. That was a good a start as any. He squinted at the ground, and could see something glinting at him. He was forced to feel for it with his other hand, but quickly discovered it was one of his
daggers. There was another one nearby, and another. He gathered them and stowed them in their holsters. It was still as bright as he could bear, but shapes were becoming apparent: trees and leaves and grass. There was no sound of birds however, or movement of animals. That either meant there was a predator nearby, or someone else had scared them into silence. He stood completely still - waiting, not breathing. Nothing came for him except the return of his sight.
The world around him was odd, to say the least. It was woodland constructed by someone who had never been in woodland, and the sky was cloudless... and sunless. Yet the entire place glowed brilliantly. Glittering dust sprang up from his heels with every footfall, and branches that moved through his
vision left trails of light behind their forms. Gialdin would have blended into this place perfectly. “So this is Achellon.”
He walked through the false forest for an hour, or what he assumed was an hour, before he reached a building. It had no road to it, no footpath and no stabling. It was just there, made of gold brick and silvery tiles, sitting in the middle of the woodland. Morghiad stepped up to the door, which had no handle, and watched with bafflement as it opened for him. Beyond, in a broad room with no obvious light source, crouched a crowd of men. Each of them turned to face him, florets of fire burning in their eyes. One of them stood and hissed, “Darkworlder!” And then they moved forward.
His face lurched in aggressively, its pallid skin reminding her of a dead, oil-covered pig. Artemi looked away. She’d been raped before, only in that world she’d had the satisfaction of watching her assailant burn to death in agony. She would bear his pathetic excuse for manhood through all of the minutes it would last. Nothing so worthless and wretched could ever have fazed Artemi Fireblade. She turned back to him, and spat in his bloated
face.
“No,” he said, wiping his face, “I’ll save you for later. What’s another day after all the years I’ve waited? Don’t worry, my fireheart. I’ll make it very special.” He hauled her up against the wall then, and cast her into the corner of the room.
She tried to get up, tried to fight back, but he was holding her with Influence. He shouldn’t have known how to use it nor had access - he wasn’t permitted. But somehow he had found a way. Blazes, how she hated being powerless!
When he left, she found herselfwith marginally more freedom. She could move her arms a fraction, and turn her head to the side. The room around her was bare, save for the bed, but that was all she and Brindon were
expected to occupy themselves with. Breed and preserve the line. It was sheer madness more backward even than Darkworld practices! Her kind were so driven by duty and obligation they had forgotten they even had feelings or personalities or any... fire! Where was the blasted fire in this place? She closed her eyes and searched for The Blazes again, hoping to recover them as she would following a quenching. But they were so utterly absent. This was a place beyond Blaze, where people were not conduits for energy, but made of energy themselves. Maybe if she ripped apart her new husband she could harvest a little of it! Artemi was free to stand now, which she did rapidly. She tested a few Kusuru moves, designed to incapacitate and behead in the absence of weapons. She was not as fast or strong here, but what she did have would be sufficient. She just needed to find a moment when he was vulnerable, off-guard. Perhaps when he was asleep. The thought made her think of her son; was Tallyn sleeping now? Was he speaking any more comprehensibly than before? How she missed him and his sticky hands and cheeky grins! And his father... would he manage without her? Would he remarry when he realised, two decades from now, that she would not return? It made her want t
o cry, but she did not allow herselfto. Not yet. If Brindon could break the rules, then so could she.
She paced the room twice. It was devoid of anything she could use as a weapon, and she was too weak to lift the entire bed for dropping onto his fat face. No one here
believed in blades, which was a shame. She’d come to quite like them in the Darkworld. For all of the pain and suffering those weapons were supposed to cause, they’d released her from a great deal of it too. It seemed it did not matter what world people hailed from; someone would always do harm to another. Even Brindon. Brindon had not always been so abhorrent. She’d found him really quite charming when she’d been a young little flamelet, but he’d grown delusional when his elders had told him of his purpose. No one liked the idea of being extinguished, but he’d taken his own revulsion at the prospect to mean that he was somehow special. He manufactured his own realisation that he was some sort of divine saviour who would lift all worlds from darkness and resurrect Achellon from its
inevitable destruction. Fool man.
A noise echoed through from the next room, meaning he’d returned. She had quite forgotten how much more efficient time was in The Crux. Artemi struck a pose of defeat in the corner of the bedchamber, and waited. But the company of individuals that faltered through the door were the last ones she’d expected to see. Tiranna, Kufya and Chana all walked through as if forced, and two more Law-keepers followed behind them. Their faces betrayed their fright, and that each of them was under Influence. Brindon swaggered in finally, his face a picture of arrogance. “I’ve brought you a wedding present, my fire-heart. Do you like them?”
The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle Page 101