Darkstorm (The Rhenwars Saga Book 1)

by M. L. Spencer

  Zavier Renquist turned his back on the man to consider the apocalyptic panorama below. He took a sip from the cup he was holding in his hand, a spiced wine fermented from mare’s milk.

  To the young man behind him, he wondered, “Then why are you still here? Go home. Make love to your wife. Then make your peace with the gods.”

  The prime warden continued to gaze down from the heights long after the other man had gone. The air was terrible, chokingly thick and filled with the acrid taste of wood smoke and defeat.

  Glowing embers continued to shower down from the midnight sky, falling everywhere, wafting down to cover Bryn Calazar in drifting blankets of smothering ash.

  It seemed the whole world was on fire.

  Aerysius, The Rhen

  Quin covered his ears and threw himself down, shielding Sephana with his own body.

  There was a noise like deafening thunder followed by a concussion wave so intense it battered him against the ground. A thick cloud of fine, gray dust billowed toward them.

  Choking, Quin held the fabric of his coat up over his mouth. Beside him, Devrim Remzi made a retching noise. Quin locked his hand on the mage’s collar, pulling him along after him as he struggled to his feet.

  One hand on Remzi, the other around Sephana’s shoulders, Quin steered them back down the hallway. They jogged forward, finding a set of winding stairs that led upward. Here, Quin let Sephana go first. She knew this place far better than he.

  “Well, that was one way to announce our arrival,” he muttered sarcastically.

  Sephana led them to the top of the stairs and out across the tiled floor of the Hall of the Watchers. There, Aerysius’s Circle of Convergence lay quiescent. Quin considered the circle carefully, distrusting it. Crouching down, he spread his hand upon the red marble of its surface.

  “It’s been in use,” he observed. “And it’s been used hard.”

  He rose, turning to stare upward into the shadows of the dome above. A gnawing feeling of trepidation crept over him. He retreated a step, then another, eyes scouring the forest of stone columns that supported the roof as he turned slowly around. A terrible feeling of cold shivered across his nerves.

  All around the Hall of the Watchers, a host of necrators rose upward from the ground. They seemed nebulous, like demonic silhouettes constructed of living shadow. Quin froze, knowing very well what the touch of just one of those creatures could do.

  He reached down to his side, drawing his scimitar.

  “That sword will do you little good.”

  Quin glanced up and found himself gaping into the eyes of Cyrus Krane. The Prime Warden of Aerysius was glowering arrogantly down from a balcony high above the floor. He appeared completely at ease, master of his own dominion.

  Quin slowly circled his companions, holding Zanikar up before him. A necrator glided toward them from its position along the wall.

  Quin pushed Sephana back, inserting himself between her and the living shadow. He brought the sword up, tip pointed at the necrator’s chest. To his horror, the blade penetrated the creature harmlessly, as if the necrator was nothing more than animated mist.

  He glanced around. More shadows were gliding toward them, streaming forward from the walls, herding them toward the center of the Hall. Quin allowed himself to be forced backward with Sephana.

  “Can either of you sense the field?” he inquired of both his companions.

  “No,” Remzi responded.

  Sephana silently shook her head.

  All around, the ring of necrators was drawing inexorably closer, little by little tightening the noose around them.

  Quin froze; he didn’t know what to do. Slowly, he eased Zanikar back into its scabbard. He looked around at the constricting ring of shadows. He was immune to the necrators’ awful influence because of his covenant with evil, but there was nothing he could do to stop them; they were not his minions to command.

  He paced slowly in a circle around Sephana and Remzi, arms spread out at his sides, warding them both with his body. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks.

  “How ironic,” Quin muttered, one corner of his mouth twitching upward into the slightest hint of a grin. “I just remembered something.” His eyes narrowed at Cyrus Krane. “I’m a darkmage.”

  He reached back, plucking Sephana’s light staff out of her hand. At the same time, he opened his mind to the power of the Onslaught.

  “No!” shouted Krane.

  Quin smiled as he channeled the malevolent power of the Netherworld into the ring of necrators around him. Dazzling rays of unholy light blossomed from the end of the staff, shining out in every direction at once. All around the room necrators withered and died, impaled by spears of light, consumed by licking tongues of putrid flame.

  Quin raised the staff up over his head and then brought it down with force against the ground. The Hall of the Watchers went absolutely dark and then erupted into a dim glow of ethereal green light. The world seemed rendered in a monochromatic pallet of pestilence and decay.

  “That was impressive,” Krane commended him as he descended the curving staircase toward the floor. “But it was also stupid.” His face was a lurid chiaroscuro of shadow.

  Krane paused at the bottom of the stairs, one hand lingering on the rail, white cloak swaying behind him. He took a step out onto the tiled floor. It seemed as though he oozed arrogance from every pore.

  “Xerys is your Master now,” he explained to Quin in a lecturing tone, eyes only for him. “Every move you make in opposition to His will brings you closer to His judgment. Only torment shall await you should you betray the covenant you made.”

  All the while he was speaking, Krane was slowly inching forward, closing the distance between them. His piercing black eyes glowed with malevolent intensity fraught with shadow. Quin found himself forced gradually backward as he attempted to draw Krane toward himself and away from the others. The prime warden pressed forward, cornering him against the far wall near the stairs. A disdainful sneer contorted his features.

  Quin leaned the light staff against the corner of the wall. Carefully, he withdrew Zanikar from its scabbard, holding the thin-bladed scimitar out in front of him.

  Krane scoffed at the blade, indifferent to Quin’s threat. “Such resistance will not serve you. Every act of virtue you commit renders you more vulnerable to my pets.”

  Quin sneered, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he spat. “After today, I could stand here exuding virtue the rest of my life and still have evil left to burn.”

  He lunged forward, swiping Zanikar up in a backhanded arc that scored a ragged gash across the prime warden’s face. With a cry, Cyrus Krane flinched back, blood welling from the wound. He brought his hands up to cover his face.

  His entire body jerked.

  Krane brought his hands down, eyes wide and horrified.

  Quin grinned at him, stepping back with Zanikar raised. “The sword’s a dampener,” he informed Krane, hatred gloating in his eyes. “Now, isn’t that a honey of a pickle?”

  He raised the sword, focusing his mind for a killing strike.

  “No!” he heard Sephana shout from behind him. “Don’t do it, Quin!”

  Suddenly, she was behind him, hands around his chest, grappling with him for command of the blade. At first he resisted her. But, grudgingly, he lowered Zanikar back down to his side.

  He turned to glare at her. “Why not?”

  She shook her head, eyes wild and tormented. “You have enough blood on your hands today,” she scolded him in a near-whisper. “Think of your soul, Quinlan. You are going to need to start exuding virtue to have any hope of salvation. He’s not worth it, Quin. Let him live to face the justice of the Assembly.”

  Quin grimaced, knowing she was right. He slammed Zanikar back into its scabbard, turning away as he used the power of his mind to bind his enemy with fetters born of shadow.

  He left the prime warden there on the floor of his own Hall, bound and gagged, face battered and bloodied
. He left him kneeling before the judgmental eyes of the stone Watchers on the walls.

  He strode away from the man, walking back toward Remzi. The Empiricist was resting at the base of the staircase, leaning with his back against the rail. He appeared very old and very weary. When he looked up at Quin, his eyes were full of disgust.

  “I was afraid you were one of them,” Remzi muttered in a tone full of contempt. “I didn’t know for certain…I just had a feeling. It made sense.” He turned his head and spat upon the ground. “Your brother would turn over in his grave.”

  Quin stared down at the old Empiricist for a long moment. Softly, he assured him, “There is no way I could possibly be more of a disappointment to my brother than I already am. But, for some reason beyond my capacity to fathom, he always still loved me.”

  He knelt down before Remzi, one hand on Zanikar’s hilt. “Now. Tell me what we have to do to close this Well of your creation.”

  “I didn’t create it,” the old man argued defensively. “It was always just a theory. Research I was dabbling in. Renquist stole my notes, all my journals. He brought my work to life, unearthed the Well against my better judgment. Then he leveraged my cooperation.”

  Quin couldn’t help the smirk that came to his face. “It would seem that you and I have more in common than you’d care to admit.” He reached up and adjusted his hat. “Now, what do we do to destroy it?”

  “You can’t destroy it.” The old man shook his head with confidence. “You can only seal it. We will have to split up. Only a Grand Master can enter the gateway that has opened to the Netherworld. But someone else must venture below and erase the rune sequence on the Well itself.”

  “I can do that,” Sephana assured him, kneeling at his side. “But I will need your help; I don’t understand the cipher.”

  Devrim Remzi nodded solemnly. “I will guide you.”

  Quin frowned in consternation, not fully understanding his role. “So the gateway is something different from the Well itself? Where do I find it?”

  The old man stated tightly, “The Well of Tears is the lock that opens the door. The gateway is the path to that door. You’ll find it most accessible in the square beneath the Hall of the Watchers. Take some courage along with you, Grand Master Quinlan. You won’t be walking back out again.”

  Quin supplied a small, sad grin. “I’ve never had any courage, I’m afraid. What I do have is an unending supply of indifference and audacity. It will have to suffice.”

  He rose and turned to Sephana. He gazed into her eyes for a long moment. Then he took her hand and pressed a kiss against her fingers. “I would tell you that I’m truly sorry for all the pain I’ve caused, but I doubt that would do much, if anything, to ease your sorrow. I fear it would only add to the greatness of my hypocrisy.”

  Sephana’s eyes filled with tears. “Gods’ mercy, Quinlan.”

  He shook his head with a scowl. “I’m well beneath their mercy.”

  She caught him as he turned away, scooping him up in her arms and embracing him fiercely. He returned the gesture awkwardly, hugging her back.

  Into his ear, she whispered, “Thank you, Quin.”

  Holding her gaze solemnly, he told her, “Enjoy your life, Sephana. Do it for Braden. And for me. Live every minute to its very fullest, but never do one damn thing that you’ll ever regret. Please, Sephana. Sleep well at night.”

  With that he turned and walked away.

  Sephana stared after Quin long after he was gone. She wrapped her arms around her chest, her shoulders shaking with muted grief.

  She heard a soft noise, turning to find that Devrim Remzi had risen to console her. The old man put a hand on her shoulder, patting her gently and bowing his head.

  “Don’t mourn him, my dear. Quinlan Reis is no hero.”

  Sephana turned to glare at him, angered by his coldness. “You judge too harshly,” she snapped.

  The old man shook his head, disagreeing. “I don’t think so.”

  He gestured with his hand toward the enormous doors that guarded the entrance to the Hall of the Watchers. “Shall we go?”

  She started forward but then turned back to consider Cyrus Krane. Frowning, she wondered, “Do you suppose it’s safe to leave him here?”

  “Absolutely,” Remzi asserted, his gaze travelling up the walls to the severe faces of the Watchers. “Let him wait for his hour of reckoning under the censure of his own paragons.”

  Sephana scooped up the light staff Quin had left for her. Then she guided Remzi out the doors and into the cool night air.

  The urgent peal of a tolling bell rang out across the city. They followed the same path she had tread the evening she and Braden had fled the Hall in pursuit of Merris’s story. It seemed like such a long time ago.

  As they passed by the font on the corner of Torte and Regent, Sephana felt an unexpected stab of sentiment. She had waited by that font for Braden to catch up with her.

  Swallowing, she clenched Quin’s staff tighter in her hand.

  She found the alley without any problem. Holding the staff gripped in her hands, she guided Remzi toward the door of the cellar.

  Quin strolled down the street toward the square below the Hall of the Watchers. The avenue ahead was empty; indeed, the entire city seemed deserted. Odd. In the distance, the sound of a tolling bell rang out across the night.

  The sound of the bell was a warning, he surmised.

  Where are you? he wondered of the mages of Aerysius, conspicuously absent in their own desperate hour of need.

  Then he remembered who their leader was.

  Cyrus Krane had no doubt contrived a means of keeping his own people at bay while he was about his own malevolent purpose. Quin clenched his hands into fists, cracking the knuckles of his fingers.

  He turned a corner onto the square and stopped.

  Gazing up, his eyes went wide.

  “Mother of the gods,” he whispered.

  Ahead, piercing up into the sky from the center of the square, was a towering spire of sickly green light. The air around it contorted, shivering, writhing as if taxed by waves of heat. Lightning licked down from the sky around it, exploding against that awful pillar. There was an odor to the air, a sharp and pungent smell.

  Gazing up at that column of energy, Quin almost lost his nerve. Reflexively, he reached into the silk pocket of his vest. He pulled his hand back out again—empty. His bronze flask of alcohol had been drained a long time ago.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  Sephana knelt down beside the Well of Tears in black pools of stagnant water mixed with the blood of victims spilled by sacrifice. The thick, gray blocks of the Well felt rough and cold beneath her hand. Around its rim glowed runes of power, shining with a putrescent inner light. The entire chamber was swathed in a malignant glare that issued forth from the shivering column of energy that spilled upward from the Well’s depths.

  The sight of it made her want to retch, filling her with a gut-penetrating cold. Somehow, Sephana knew exactly what she was looking at. She knew she was staring at a portal to the Netherworld. And it was appalling.

  Thinking of Quin, she shivered in horror.

  “Peace,” the aged Master whispered, laying a steadying hand upon her shoulder. “Concentrate. Do exactly what I say. The first rune of the sequence is dacros. There. Use fire. You must clean the stain of blood that feeds each rune and gives it life.”

  Sephana gazed at the rune dacros, raising her hand. With her finger, she traced above the glowing symbol in the air. Then, determined, she focused her mind and drew deeply on the power of the magic field through the staff of light.

  “What are you doing here, Quin?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of that soft and silky voice. He didn’t turn, just brought his hand up to rub his eyes. He searched his feelings, not knowing how to react. He hadn’t anticipated this confrontation.

  “Hello, Merris,” Quin muttered wearily, still with his back to her.

  H
e didn’t want to look at her. Just hearing the sound of her voice turned his stomach sour. He swallowed heavily against the bitter aftertaste of her betrayal.

  He asked of her, “Are you enjoying the sweet legacy you plundered from my brother’s corpse?”

  He stood there, shoulders tense, eyes closed. Waiting to hear her response.

  “That’s not very nice,” she admonished him in low and sultry tones. “Did your mother not teach you how to be cordial?”

  “It wasn’t meant to be cordial,” Quin informed her stiffly. His eyes were open now, gazing up at the glowing pillar of energy thrusting upward into the sky. Far easier to look upon the promise of his own damnation than subject himself to the alluring manipulation of her eyes.

  “Did it hurt very much,” he wondered, “receiving the Transference through the Soulstone?” He was deliberately baiting her. He needed to hear her admit her part in his brother’s murder.

  Smiling darkly, he went on, “It’s a beautiful artifact, the Soulstone. Especially when it’s full of its own inner life. Beckoning. Alluring. It just…begs for your attention. Entices you with its vitality, its facets, its promises…its lies.

  “But it has a flaw in it, you know, hidden very deep inside. One that’s impossible to detect until you actually put it on. Of course, by that time, it’s simply too late.” Quin smiled morbidly. “Maybe you really were fated to wear the Soulstone, Arden. You’re just like it.”

  There was a long, gaping silence that could be measured by the echoing cadence of his heartbeat. Then:

  “The Transference did hurt, Quinlan. Dreadfully. But what I went through was nothing compared to your brother’s torment. I wish you could have been there to see his face, to hear the sound of his screams. They went on and on until he was too hoarse to scream anymore. And even then…he still tried. Braden was a strong man. It took him a very long time to die. And I enjoyed every…single…agonized…scream.”