by IGMS
Ash never for a moment doubted that the raveller was truly blind, but just as he needed no words to be heard, Ash was certain he needed no eyes to see. Ashrak Naru possessed gifts beyond the limitations of flesh. Ash thought of it as magic, but it was more than that: Naru's touch could pare away the very threads that bound the world together, reshaping it to his whim. He walked betwixt and between two worlds, living and dead, and both took their toll. Ash felt no sympathy for the man; his magic revolted the swordsman almost as much as his physical stench.
In Ash's world of steel and blood the truth lay in cold reality. There was no such assurance around Naru. Ash was sure the man could as easily unravel the ties that bound flesh to spirit as he could those that bonded the stuff of stone and steel.
The raveller smiled, baring cracked and yellowed teeth.
Jayant Ash turned his back on the man. Not once did he look back to see if the raveller followed. He had no need; the man's stench dogged him all the way to the heights of Crowscrest.
Release me!
The command rose unbidden in Ash's mind. He staggered, trying desperately to fight back the urge to plunge down the slope to the sandy beach.
Ash stared at the blue ghost-lights ringing the citadel. The moonlight appeared to shift around them, giving the distinct impression that, as one, the luminous figures turned to look up at him. Ash shuddered with revulsion.
The raveller eased up beside him, drinking in with all of his senses the impossibility of the risen tower and its salt-eroded spires. Sweeping his blind, rag-bound eyes from the tall, four-step box spire to the broken gateway, the raveller focused on the figures surrounding the citadel.
The warm air blew in off the sea, bringing with it the sent of carrion. Ash hadn't noticed the dead fish gathered at the base of the cliffs before. There were thousands upon thousands of them rotting there, more species than he could name. The stench rose up the heights of Crowscrest, sickening him. It was more real than the imagined ghosts and voices and it brought home the tragedy of the sea.
Ashrak Naru crouched, then lowered himself gently until his ear pressed to the ground. Naru's lips twitched as barely spoken words fell from them. He said only: "Such pain." Ash did not need to hear more to guess the truth, the raveller was listening to the trace memories of the land's upheaval, tapping into the stone itself.
As though in response to the raveller;s whispers, a beacon fire burst to life on the pinnacle of Crowscrest, tongues of fire licking at the sky. A moment later a second orange and red beacon fire sprang to life, and then all along the coast warning lights flared, carrying their message: Danger at Crowscrest.
These mystical beacon fires had lain lifeless for the last decade, ever since the Rector brought peace to the seas. Had Naru's presence rekindled the magic that controlled them? Seeing them burning now sent a shiver down the ladder of Ash's spine.
The raveller's disbelief sounded in his head. It cannot be.
"What?"
This place. You know it as Mergolies, the home of Blazeus. This citadel was drowned when the world was young, long before you or I or even our ancestors walked these shores.
Ash shook his head, but the image of the citadel rising refused to be dislodged. The idea that they stood before the gates of the Citadel of Blazeus was ludicrous; it was a cautionary fairy tale, there never had been a city so wretched with sin that the gods themselves sank it.
"You are toying with me, raveller."
Naru said nothing, he merely stood at the cliff top, his iron chain dancing, drawn toward the ghost-lights on the beach.
The sea was the embodiment of chaos; there was not one wave but hundreds upon thousands of tiny ripples, each moving to its own current in subtle variations. With the moon full, her light shimmered across each tiny undulation, a majestic suitor looking to claim the last dance of the night. At the center of it the citadel stood, unmoved, utterly real and impossible.
As though reading his mind, Naru whispered inside his head: How can it be impossible if it has already happened. Do not waste your life thinking things impossible. Deal with the truth of what you see, warrior. You see and accept my Mortal Chain, he raised his manacled hand. The links crackled and sparked with energy, reacting to the nearness of death. The iron anchors my soul to this realm, this you believe, yet you doubt the veracity of your eyes when it comes to this citadel? Where is the line between impossible and merely improbable? Find the truth and listen to it; in every story hides truths long forgotten.
"Blazeus is a story, Naru, meant to frighten little children." But Jayant Ash couldn't even convince himself.
RELEASE ME!
He is here. Are you so insensitive you cannot feel the truth of it? No, wait . . . you can feel him, can't you? That is why you sought me out. You can feel him. Let me . . . oh yes, yes, yes. He is growing inside you even now, like a canker. You burn with him, don't you? You've heard his voice, his command. What did he bid you do? Are you his creature already?
"I am no one's creature, raveller. The voice would have its freedom, but not from my hand it won't."
RELEASE ME!
Foolish man. Let me tell you what is inside you. There is only one way to quench the fire, and it lies within that terrible place, doesn't it? That's what fills your mind, the certainty that you must enter the citadel of the beast, that you must face the thing you fear.
Do not do it. Do not enter the heart of Blazeus or you will be lost. I can hear it -- the siren song calls to you even now, begging you to satisfy the need in your soul. What did you do? How did it get inside you?
"It is not inside me!" Ash shouted.
RELEASE ME!
Ash staggered against the will of the voice, but refused to buckle. "What are these lights?" he asked, though he already knew.
The wretched dead of Blazeus, bound even now.
"But you can lay them to rest, can't you? You can unravel whatever enchantment binds them to their pain."
I can. And I shall.
Naru picked a path down the steep cliff with unerring surety of step, never once slipping or losing his balance, until he walked among the ghost-lights. Ash did not follow. He simply watched as, one by one, the ghost-lights were snuffed out by the raveller's mortal chain, their energy absorbed into the dancing, twisting metal links. The chain writhed in the salt air as Naru moved among them, his back curved like a weighty, creeping vine.
Naru's sobs carried up to Ash.
So much pain, Ash thought.
A moment later a savage joy that wasn't his own fired in his belly.
The watchers have fallen! Release me! Release me!
Ash heard the sounds of hoof on stone -- and knew that the rest of the Rector's Men had responded to the beacons. How could his swordbrothers not? Had he been in Kalatha with them he would have been the first to the horses, armored and ready to ride out.
But Levant lead the group of six riders; immediately behind him, Efrem Kerr and Samman Raz. Marten Gaunt to his right. Blaine and Tomas Mornar following. Good men all. Ash felt no relief at their arrival.
He just stood there, swordless, looking down at the twisted spires of Mergolies. So precarious were the towers that rose from the citadel that it looked as though the weight from an errant moonbeam would be sufficient to topple them. Who knew what kind of damage centuries beneath the sea had done to the citadel's fortifications. But it had survived resurfacing, it would survive a while longer.
Release me, Ash. Bring me back into this world. Release me!
Ash looked back at the approaching riders. Even from a distance Levant was immediately recognizable because he wore no helmet, his hair pulled back in a top-knot that lent his narrow features an air of barely contained savagery. Unlike the others, the strange young man never wore a helmet, even into battle. He believed it hampered rather than helped, reducing his field of vision and sweating his brains out. Sweat in the eyes, claimed Levant, had undone more men than stray arrows or lucky blows combined. Ash had tried to reason with him, but the s
wordsman would have none of it. "Let them rattle my brains," he said, "so long as I have Kinslayer in my grasp I pity them."
Levant now rode with an extra blade across his knee. Guiding his destrier alongside the raveller, he swung down easily and tossed Ash his sword.
"Thought you might need this," Levant said. "Hellish lengths to go to for a practical joke." His eyes went from the cliffs to the causeway to the twisted spires and back again, and again. Whatever else he was going to say stuck in his craw as he studied the spires of Mergolies out in the darkness.
"Holy mother of Mashan," Marten Gaunt said, joining them at the cliff's edge. The older man made the symbol of The White Rose, moving his fingers in a tight spiral. "It's . . . beautiful."
It wasn't the word Ash would have chosen, but it wasn't wrong. There was a terrible beauty to the City of Blazeus.
The others dismounted and joined them.
None spoke, though whether that was because of awe or fear Ash had no way of knowing.
"Gerant would have us investigate so that he might make a full report to the Rector," Levant said. "It seems word of this wonder is spreading almost as quickly as the flames of the warning beacons." He laid a hand on Ash's shoulder. He nodded down to the weeping blind man on the causeway. "What is the raveller doing?"
"Laying the dead to rest," Ash said.
"That's a lot of effort to go to for a few fish," Levant grinned at him.
RELEASE ME! the voice demanded.
Ash reeled.
Down on the sand, the blind man turned to look up at him, his mortal chain hanging lifelessly at his side. Had Naru heard the voice?
The way to the citadel was so treacherous that the riders were forced to dismount and tether their horses before descending to the causeway, which was just as well: rather than the neatly laid octagonal columns Ash had thought he saw from above, the causeway linking Mergolies to the mainland proved to be erratic and uneven. The octagonal stones mimicked the violent waves of the sea -- there was no gentle ripple to these stones - and was made doubly treacherous by the coating of algae and slime that clung to it.
The seven warriors walked side by side, Levant at the center, Ash to his left, Marten Gaunt to his right. Levant moved half a pace faster than the others, turning the line into an arrow with himself at the tip. Efrem Kerr and Samman Raz walked beside Ash, while Tomas Mornar and Blaine completed the line on Gaunt's side. Each man was cut from the same physical cloth, powerful of form, narrow of face, dark of eye. Intense. Levant held up a hand and they stopped as one.
"Did you see? Up at the window?" he asked.
"See what?" Samman Raz said. "Seaweed?"
Levant's top-knot whipped the air as he turned, his long arm snaking out to grab Raz by the collar. "Look at the windows of the upper spires and tell me what you see."
Raz pulled away from Levant's grip. He did look up at the spire though. For all their bravado, the citadel's atmosphere already had the swordbrothers on edge.
Ash followed the direction of Raz's gaze. He saw them easily enough -- shadow shapes flitting across the black eyes of the spire. As far as Ash could make out there was no substance to them, but the height, the angle, and the distance did not help.
"Shadows," he said.
"And what casts moving shadows?" Levant said, as though talking to a simpleton.
"Fish men?" Raz said, but his bravado was sounding more and more hollow.
"Something we can kill," Efrem Kerr said evenly. He wasn't looking up at the windows. His gaze was fixed firmly on the one ironwood door still hanging drunkenly on its broken hinge.
"Something that can kill us," Mornar replied, voicing the thought all of them shared.
"Then we'd best be careful," Levant said, drawing the Kinslayer with a fluid motion. The steel blade sang as it slipped free of its sheath. "This is the stuff stories are made of, seven brave souls entering a fabled relic where only death has lived for centuries. Let's go and write ourselves into legend!"
Ash looked up at the spires, the crumbling bulwark and the rotten fortifications, immune to Levant's bluster. Instinctively he knew there was no glory to be found within this place.
The gods did not sink this place, Ash thought. Men did. Men like us. But there was no conviction to it.
Naru's voice sounded in his mind. It is always men like you, Jayant Ash. Always. Do not do this. Do not go in there. You are not strong enough.
"Are you with us, Ash?" Levant's voice brought him back sharply. The others were a dozen steps ahead of him. He had stopped, staring up at the blank windows of the spire.
Ash nodded and together the seven men stepped across the crumbling portico, entering the immortal remains of the City of Blazeus.
It was dark within, velvet night. Somehow the moon's light did not touch the interior. It wasn't until he was a dozen paces into the darkness that Ash realized what was wrong -- he could not hear the others, there was no shuffling of feet, no curses, no breathing turned ragged by his swordbrothers' excitement or exertion. It wasn't silent either, though; far from it. He heard a body's worth of sounds, all internalized: the rhythmic beat of his heart against his chest, the susserent whisper of the blood through his veins, the haunting echo of the in and out of his own breathing. But nothing else, nothing external.
Release me!
The urge to flee rose within him. Every instinct screamed that he should listen to it and run, run, run, far away, but he took another step and then another, deeper into the darkness.
"Levant? Mornar? Gaunt?" he called. None of them answered. Inside his head he tried again, Naru? Are you with me? But he was alone. He knew it, even before he sent the thought out with his mind.
Ash reached out, fumbling in the darkness for his swordbrothers. Any kind of contact would have been a relief. The logical part of his brain insisted that they had to be there, that flesh and blood did not simply cease to be because they had crossed the transom. But his fingers found only darkness.
"Enchantment!" he rasped, hoping his certainty would somehow touch the others.
A wisp of scarlet light flickered and faded before his eyes, no more than twenty feet away. It sprang to life again ten feet further on, and elevated slightly, as though the light bearer had taken two steps up a stairway.
Ash hesitated before following, Naru's warning echoing in the silence of his mind. Was he strong enough? The darkness of the Citadel was cloying, pressing in on all sides. Still there were no sounds beyond his own flesh. He moved through the muffled darkness, testing the shadows with questing fingers. They met nothing but more darkness.
He followed the flickering scarlet wisp. It stayed tantalizingly just a few steps out of reach, leading him deeper into the City of Blazeus, not merely blind, but robbed completely of his senses.
"Levant?" Ash called again. This time he thought he heard a whisper damped by the darkness, a voice.
"Levant?" he called again, but there was no reply.
Were the others making their own way, following similar wisps of light into the heart of the darkness?
Then Ash saw it -- blacker than black -- a diseased, twisted bramble of a soul; a creature formed of the dark itself. It had no flesh, no substance, yet it was more than mere shadow, it was a total absence of the stuff of light. It possessed shape and form, molded from the dark, its shape changing, shifting as he tried to focus on it. It moved silently, with canine grace. It turned to face him, only like the ghost-lights it had no discernible features, no nose, no mouth, no plane of cheekbones, no ridge of brow, no eyes or ears. It was smoke and shadow and yet Ash knew without doubt that the thing was looking at him.
He couldn't say how he knew; he just knew.
Instinct.
It always came back to that, a soldier's instinct for survival.
The shadow beckoned, moving away again.
Ash followed. He didn't call out this time, sure that Levant and the others were chasing their own shadows. That was the nature of evil, after all, it was divisive, seekin
g to separate the good and find the weaknesses that together were muted and held in check.
Ash barely raised his blade in time as the shadow-shape lunged out of the darkness, the silence brutally shattered by its scream of rage. Ash's sword slipped along the inside of his attacker's, slicing into the softness of the shadow's inner arm and across the curve of ribs, glancing away as it met resistance. The scream came again, fueled this time by fear, not rage, as a second savage blow cut the darkness inches from Ash's face. A fraction of a second too late he realized it was Marten Gaunt's signature blow. But Ash had already dropped to one knee and lunged.
His blade came up between the joins in Gaunt's mail, biting deep through hard armor and the soft flesh. The shadow crumpled soundlessly and the black mist evaporated, leaving Jayant Ash standing over the body of his friend. The blood appeared black and leaked out onto the stone floor of the citadel.
Ash was no stranger to death, but this deception cut deep. Gaunt had been hunting Ash, believing he was striking at the evil of Mergolies, not his own swordbrother. He had died ignorant of his own treachery. There was small mercy in that.
The muffled spell of the silence was broken now. Ash could hear his friends, hunting each other; the clash of steel and the screams of the dead and dying. They were revolting sounds, the voices at once so familiar and yet at the same time so utterly alien.
Could they hear each other? Did they know? Or was the madness of death driving them?
Ash opened his mouth and screamed, roaring and raging against the blackness of the night, against the murder of his friends, and though he screamed himself hoarse he knew the others must still be wrapped in their deceptive silence, hunting each other through the black, oblivious to the true nature of their foes. There were simple spells of obfuscation, dark and silence damping out light and sound -- but the shadow, that was different. That took more than merely blurring the senses. That took power.