by Dean Cadman
Lusam quickly located the five indentations and connected their points together with his magic as he had done before, then waited for the door to slowly open. Once he could squeeze through the gap, he created a small light orb and jogged towards the large chamber. He really wished he had time to say hello to Mr Daffer and Lucy whilst he was there, but he knew full well he didn’t.
Even before he had read the new Guardian book in the High Temple, he had fully intended to go to Helveel and recharge his own power reserves there, as well as one of the Power Orbs, by using the walls of the underground chamber. He knew he could not have tried to drain any power from Coldmont without risking its complete destruction, not to mention the possibility of bumping into Lord Zelroth again. So here he was in Helveel—again. He made a promise to himself, and to Aysha, that he would return later and replenish all the magic he took. He just hoped there was enough magic within the walls to fill both his, and the Power Orb’s reserves.
When he reached the huge chamber he placed his hand on the warm stone wall, then paused a moment. He didn’t want to drain any power from the wall until he was sure it held enough not only to meet his needs, but also enough to maintain the shield around the Guardian book room afterwards. The last thing the world needed was for Lord Zelroth to discover the location of another Guardian book. He sent out his new magical sense into the wall to search for the power source which powered it. He immediately felt the same intense pull on his mind that he had suffered when he first encountered the Power Orb, only this time it was far stronger than before.
It seemed to understand what he had come for: to steal the magic that was protecting the Guardian book. It seized his mind in its iron grip and threatened to drag him under. Whatever it was, it was immensely powerful. Lusam struggled desperately to free himself, but to no avail. He could feel the mind of another being crawling through his own, searching and clawing for information, and no matter what Lusam did, he could not stop it. As the entity pulled him in further and further, he began to sense the huge power reserves it had. He need not have worried about draining it. It could have filled his power reserves a hundred times over, and then some.
“Please, stop! I have to get back to protect the Guardian book in Lamuria,” Lusam shouted desperately with his mind. The incessant pulling at Lusam’s mind lessened slightly, as his words were digested by the hidden entity. Whatever had hold of him didn’t let go, but it didn’t pull him in any further either. Lusam knew it was waiting for him to speak again, but he also knew that whatever he chose to say next had better be exactly what the entity wanted to hear. Whatever the entity was, Lusam had to assume it was there to protect the Guardian book above all else, and therefore it too had a vested interest in keeping them all safe, or at least he hoped.
“The power source has been completely depleted in Lamuria. I need to take some power from here to recharge it, so we can get the city’s magical shield back up. There are thousands of Empire magi attacking the city, I must be allowed to get back and defend it, or the entire world will be in danger,” Lusam said with his mind. He immediately felt the entity searching through his mind for the truth in his words, so he allowed it free access to his thoughts. Not that he considered for one moment he could have prevented it, even if he had tried.
The entity sent out an incredibly powerful wave of emotion that stunned and dizzied Lusam. At first Lusam thought it was anger, and expected to be pulled in further at any moment, but it was anguish he felt from the entity, not anger. Anguish at being unable to change what had already happened, and anguish at not being able to do more now to help. The anguish was eventually replaced by a deep feeling of sorrow and loss, almost mirroring what Lusam himself had felt when he had discovered the power crystal had been depleted in Lamuria.
“I know you can read my mind, so you must already know that I’m their last hope to save the Guardian book. Please… help me! I give you my word that if I survive I will return the power I take from you,” Lusam mentally pleaded. The voice that came back was like nothing Lusam had ever heard before. It wasn’t a human voice. It was as if the entity struggled to form each unfamiliar word with great difficulty, with a mouth that was never intended for speech at all. Its voice boomed so loud in Lusam’s head, he was glad he hadn’t been forced to hear it with his normal ears, or he felt sure he would have been completely deaf now.
“BLOOD RECOGNISES BLOOD,” the entity said, and suddenly released Lusam from its iron grip. As Lusam retreated away from the entity, it let out a piercing war cry that chilled him to the very bone.
Lusam had no idea what the entity had meant by its strange statement, but he felt sure it had something to do with why he was still alive. He hesitated as he reached his hand out towards the wall again to take his fill of magic, but decided if the entity had wanted to kill him, he would already be dead. The magic flooded into his body, like an ice lake breaking through its glacial barrier. He filled the Power Orb from his new reserves, and was amazed to find that his was almost empty again by the time it was full. It pulsed brightly in his hand, tugging at his mind like an untrained juvenile version of the entity within the wall. Lusam filled his own reserves once more from the wall, then turned back towards the book room.
The door to the book room had long since closed, so Lusam was forced to wait for it to open once more. When he stepped inside the room, the bright light burst into life, and he quickly walked over to the book pedestal. Making sure he was standing in the right spot, he reached out and touched the green line of power that emanated from the word Transcendence. The room flashed brightly, and once again he felt the strange falling sensation as the pedestal sent him to his destination.
A moment later he was standing in the book room in Lamuria, still clutching the fully charged Power Orb. He felt a little queasy and disorientated, but it didn’t last long, and he guessed it was down to the fact he had travelled twice through the pedestal in a relatively short space of time.
Lusam didn’t know how the priests recharged the city’s power crystal, and he didn’t have the time to find out either. He placed a hand on the wall of the book room and traced a route directly to the main power crystal above the city. Once he had secured a line of power to it, he channelled the magic from the Power Orb directly into the city’s power crystal. He could sense the city’s power crystal burst into life above the High Temple. What he didn’t know, was how brightly it now glowed in the late afternoon sky, as he made his way out of the book room, and towards the waiting battle outside.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Zedd and Cole finally arrived at Lamuria with a small army of their own. When they had reached Stelgad seven days earlier, they had found more than twenty Empire agents still patrolling the general area there. Some had been on their way to Stelgad before the order to move to Lamuria had been issued, others were simply out of communication range when that order had been given. Zedd had immediately taken them all under his command, then set off towards Lamuria without further delay. Each of the seven villages and towns they had passed through on their way to Lamuria had suffered the same grisly fate, and by the time they reached Lamuria, they arrived with an undead army of hundreds.
When they first arrived at Lamuria Zedd and Cole had reported to the Baliaeter in charge there, and Zedd had immediately been forced to concede the command of his men and their undead-minions over to him, much to Zedd’s annoyance. Baliaeter Varorde was a powerful man, both in magic and physical strength, and Zedd knew without doubt he would lose a direct confrontation with him.
Lord Zelroth had commanded Zedd to take charge of his army whilst in Coldmont, but had refused to suggest how he could accomplish that goal. It put Zedd in a very precarious position indeed, because if he confronted Baliaeter Varorde with Lord Zelroth’s orders without any written proof, he would likely be challenged to a duel for command; as was standard practice in the Empire when two magi of equal rank confronted one another. If that happened, Zedd had no doubt about the outcome of that battle, bu
t neither did he doubt the outcome of failing to follow Lord Zelroth’s orders.
He decided, for now, that he would simply bide his time and watch for an opening to present itself. If Baliaeter Varorde actually won the battle and took control of Lamuria, he hoped that Lord Zelroth wouldn’t even remember his name, let alone pursue him. If on the other hand Baliaeter Varorde failed to claim Lamuria and the Deceiver’s High Temple, Zedd knew that he and Cole were as good as dead if they ever tried to return back home to Thule.
Baliaeter Varorde’s second in command was Vintenar Nahau, a man who had served under his command for many years. It had been this man that Zedd had first met when he arrived at Lamuria, and he had taken an instant disliking to the man. He had been extremely arrogant, and had openly questioned both Zedd and Cole’s legitimacy of being a Baliaeter due to their lack of magical prowess. Even though Vintenar Nahau was more powerful than Zedd, he still outranked him, and as such he could easily have killed the Vintenar using his Necromatic ring, something he was about to do, until Cole communicated silently to him that he had read the Vintenar’s mind, and found that he was a close friend of the Baliaeter in charge. So instead, Zedd had swallowed his pride and tried to ignore the man’s derogatory comments.
Baliaeter Varorde used his Necromatic ring to issue his battle orders, silently communicating with everyone in his army simultaneously. They were only to use their undead-minions to weaken the city’s shield and keep the Deceiver’s paladins busy, until his spy reported back to him from within Lamuria. Once the true strength of Lamuria’s shield was known, he would then issue further orders.
The time for the spy to report came and went, and it soon became obvious that he had failed in his mission. It had taken years for the spy to gain the trust of a key member of the Afaraon Royal Family, and now it all seemed like it had been for naught. For decades the Empire had tried to gain access to the inner workings of the Deceiver’s High Temple without success. Either the spies were discovered, or they simply failed the priesthood selection process for no apparent reason. Baliaeter Varorde felt sure it must be the interference of the Deceiver Goddess Aysha herself, because each time a potential spy failed, the next one adjusted their tactics accordingly, but the end results always remained the same. This time the Empire had chosen a different tactic, and had slowly cultivated a close friendship with one of the Afaraon Royal Family. The Empire had hoped that the legitimacy that came with a recommendation from a member of The Royal Family, would be enough to gain their spy access to the inner workings of the Deceiver’s High Temple, but it seemed they were wrong.
Baliaeter Varorde was a naturally suspicious man. He suspected the Deceiver’s High Temple held many hidden magi, all waiting to take advantage of a weakened Empire army, and so he based his attack strategy on that flawed assumption. He believed that if he ordered an all-out attack on the city’s shield and it failed to collapse, he would be left with an army of heavily depleted magi. If that happened, and the Deceiver’s High Temple did indeed hold an army of powerful magi, he would be handing them an easy victory—something he was not prepared to do.
Baliaeter Varorde always led his men from the front. He refused to cower on the rear lines of battle like many of his fellow Baliaeter within the Empire, and that he believed, was why Lord Zelroth had chosen him to lead his army during this crucial battle. Their undead-minions were strong, and given enough time, they would vastly deplete the city’s shield of its power, but time was not something he had in abundance. The Deceiver’s paladins were slowly but surely killing them, and eventually their numbers would be so low as to be ineffective at keeping them occupied in the valley below. Baliaeter Varorde knew only too well how effective the Deceiver’s paladins could be against his magi, especially when they had blessed shields like many of the ones below.
He needed to speed up the destruction of the city’s shield, but not at the cost of exposing his entire army to any hidden magi within the Deceiver’s High Temple. He ordered a small contingent of around a hundred magi to attack Lamuria’s shield, and then cycled through different groups of magi every few minutes, so as not to deplete their magic too much. Any groups of paladins that were in range also became a focused target, but the vast majority of his forces simply waited, and conserved their magic.
When the first magical-missile breached the city’s shield it took everyone by complete surprise. The short time it took everyone to realise they had achieved their goal, felt like an eternity. As one, the magi let out a huge cheer that echoed the length and breadth of the entire valley, then Baliaeter Varorde ordered everyone to open fire on the city. The air around them sizzled and crackled with power as thousands upon thousands of magical-missiles arced through the air towards Lamuria, devastating it in seconds. Every building within their range exploded violently, sending plumes of fire and black smoke high into the sky above the city.
Baliaeter Varorde then ordered every magi to send their undead-minions to attack the gates of Lamuria. He knew that once the city’s gates were breached it would be over quickly, and the city would be his. He had dreamed of this day. A day when he took the Deceiver’s holy city for the Empire. A day he could return home as a hero to his people.
He watched as the paladins desperately tried to retreat towards the city gates and defend them, but there were thousands of undead between them and the gates now, making it impossible for them to get back in time. Baliaeter Varorde wasn’t a man who liked taking unnecessary risks, so just in case they did manage to somehow thwart his plans and defend the gates, he issued new orders: to destroy a section of the south wall.
“One way or another, my army of undead will enter Lamuria,” he thought to himself. He smiled as he watched huge chunks of the city’s wall being blown away far below him. Massive pieces of stone crumbled under the intense barrage from a wall that had stood for more than a millennia.
Zedd had sent his own undead-minions towards the city gates long before Baliaeter Varorde had ordered everyone else to do the same. He had also communicated silently with Cole to follow his example, even though he only controlled a handful of undead compared to the number Zedd controlled. He wanted to be the first to see what treasures the Deceiver’s High Temple held when the gates were finally breached, and if his minions were the ones to kill the High Priest, it would go a long way towards redeeming him in the eyes of Lord Zelroth—or at least he hoped it would.
Zedd and Cole were standing in front of the Empire army, impassively watching as the buildings in Lamuria exploded before them. Baliaeter Varorde was even closer to the cliff-tops, with the ever present Vintenar Nahau by his side.
“You see, that’s how a real Baliaeter gets things done,” Vintenar Nahau shouted to the men, but did so whilst looking directly at Zedd. His intended insult infuriated Zedd so much that his face turned purple as he resisted the urge to end the man’s life with a single thought. Zedd’s thoughts of revenge were interrupted by a sudden flash of blue light, quickly followed by several strong death-pulses. At first no one knew what was happening. They all stopped firing on the city and paladins below so they could try and determine where the sudden attack had come from. It was then that Zedd noticed the arrow protruding from the top of Baliaeter Varorde’s head, only a heartbeat before he fell face first into the dirt… dead.
Vintenar Nahau’s mouth worked wordlessly as he saw his long time commander and friend drop dead before him. He glanced back nervously towards Zedd, who was now wearing a predatory smile and looking directly at him. Zedd and Cole were now the highest ranking magi there, but it would be Zedd who took command of the army. Zedd had to give Vintenar Nahau credit for what he did next, instead of cowering before Zedd’s stare, he attempted to take command of the army from under him.
“They’re at the bottom of the cliffs. FIRE!” he shouted to the men. A dozen or so men dropped fireballs blindly over the edge of the cliff before Zedd bellowed his orders to cease fire.
“You are not in command here Vintenar, I am. The men take
their orders from me now, not you. Do you understand?” Zedd said, daring the man to argue with him. It was the face of Vintenar Nahau which turned purple this time, but he managed to control his emotions enough and bow his head in deference, much to Zedd’s disappointment.
“Yes, Baliaeter. Of course, please forgive me,” he said through gritted teeth. Zedd wanted nothing more than to kill the man, but not in front of thousands of witnesses. Instead he fought against his natural urges and simply nodded his head to the Vintenar’s subservience. Zedd knew as soon as he saw the arrow exactly who it was below them, and he knew how accurate she was with her weapon. He had already had the misfortune of losing men to this female paladin, and he didn’t intend to lose any more than he had to now. He gave the order to move back two hundred paces away from the cliff-top, whilst he thought of a plan to end the threat from below.
A moment later a fresh volley of arrows sailed high into the air, but came down harmlessly in the now open space before them. If he had not already moved his men, more of them would have certainly died. His mind raced at what to do next. He tried to put himself in the position of the enemy, and asked himself what he would do next. It seemed obvious to him; they would want to know why their latest volley of arrows failed to hit anything.
“I want every man on the front row ready to fire. They will send a scout out into the open to see why their last volley of arrows failed to hit anything. When they do, fire on them,” Zedd silently commanded through his Necromatic ring to his new army. They waited several more minutes before Zedd was proven correct, and over a hundred magi opened fire on a paladin as he emerged out into the open. The paladin managed to narrowly avoid being struck by a number of the missiles, before disappearing once more behind the cover of the cliff-tops.