Shadow Of The Mountain

by D. A. Stone

  The wind rose to a scream outside. The storm was nearly upon them.

  The wolf slid the trunk to the middle of the table, carefully placing it in the exact center. Drumming his fingers across the top, he seemed to think over something as he stared the boy down.

  His fingers came to a halt. “I was hoping,” he said, “that you would make this easy on yourself.”

  His words carried no more pain. The wolf was changing tactics. Violence would be the logical choice. A slap in the face certainly wouldn’t have the most calming effect on him.

  “Do you know what happened to the man out there? Tied to the chair?” He motioned behind them, to Darien in the living room.

  Tenlon didn’t like the direction this was going.

  “I know you tortured him,” he said quietly. “And then you murdered him.”

  “We did indeed,” the wolf agreed with a sage nod. “But first we had a conversation. He knew things, things that I also wanted to know.”

  Tenlon’s heart felt like it was trying to tunnel out of his chest with a hatchet. “And now I know something you want to know.”

  The Magi waved his words off, as if to say: not so fast, we have all the time in the world.

  “This is Vakka.” He pointed to the massive Volrathi sitting next to him, then to the other in the doorway with the misshapen shoulder and arm. “And that is Nelkin.”

  Tenlon glanced around and saw Nelkin’s hollow black eyes staring at him, face void of emotion. His abnormal arm hung low, yellow fingers stretching from the sleeves of a grimy tunic past his knee.

  “They are charged with my protection, these two,” the wolf told him. “They’ve been with me since I was a boy. It is considered a great privilege to protect someone with my gifts, and they are both skilled beyond measure. I’ve never met two swordsmen with more speed or strength in all my life. Songs are sung of these two in our drinking halls.”

  “I tell you this not to boast of their talents,” he continued solemnly, “for warriors of their caliber require no such praise. Each solitary breath they take is in defiance of the great men they’ve faced in combat. Hundreds have died at their feet. They live to fight, to cut men apart and shower their souls in the screams of death.”

  Tenlon looked at Vakka, his face remaining impassive.

  “I wish you to know these things because you are not alone in this city. There is a man with you, with dark red hair and colored paintings on his arm. You think he will come to save you, but he will not. You think he is strong, but he is nothing more than a still-breathing carcass. If he survived my explosion—which I doubt—he will search for you, and die when he finds you. Vakka and Nelkin will kill him. You have my word on that. There is no reason for you not to tell us what we want to know. One man cannot face these two and survive. Take me to the egg, and they will bring no harm to your friend when he comes.”

  Tenlon knew then that Desik was alive, and if he was alive, he would be on his way here. He had to keep these men talking. Desik would need more time.

  “If my man came here,” he asked bitterly. “Why wouldn’t you kill him?”

  “Because he fights with the blade, and nothing is more sacred to our warriors than combat. I would never rob them of that.”

  “Now,” the wolf said, standing upright once more, his bright demeanor returning. “While indeed they are great men, my two wardens also maintain a deep well of creativity. Isn’t that right, Vakka?”

  Vakka agreed with a nod.

  “Do you know what happened to Darien’s eyes?” the wolf asked.

  “No,” Tenlon answered. He didn’t want to know.

  “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. As I said before, they are quite the creative pair. It all started…” He trailed off, pulling the chest closer to him once more, stretching his arms out to lean against it.

  Tenlon was well aware by now that it held some instrument of torture, perhaps even the very tools that would kill him.

  The wolf let out a frustrated breath. “Nelkin? How did this all start again?”

  “We were on our way here.” Nelkin’s voice rolled over Tenlon from behind like an overloaded wagon.

  “Yes!” the slim Volrathi cried out. “The ride over! Ah, such sweet memories. Anyway, we were riding for Ebnan and Nelkin wondered aloud…” The wolf paused in thought again. “What did you wonder aloud, Nelkin?”

  “If the flame of a candle could burn a man to death.”

  Tenlon’s legs felt like they might give out.

  “Yes again! That’s what it was! You’ve always been the colloquial one, Nelkin. You’re a poet. I’ve been telling you for years, haven’t I? Can the flame of a candle burn a man to death?” He walked around the table to stand before Tenlon, letting the words sink in.

  “And he was not speaking of a candle setting a man on fire or burning his house down while he sleeps.” The wolf picked up his pipe and tapped the ashes out. “But a lone flame upon skin, a searing scalpel of heat. The blistering paintbrush of a true artist.”

  Tenlon looked away from the man, closing his eyes.

  “Brace the head and tip them over,” the wolf whispered. “Feed him to the flame, and watch the eyes turn to black-cherry syrup.”

  Tenlon saw Darien’s empty black eye sockets again. They had burned right through his skull with candles, through the eyelids, through the eyes, into his brain. How could anyone do such a thing? How long would it take to kill him, even after the eyes were lost?

  When he looked again, the wolf had lifted the lid of the trunk with a quiet creak. Reaching inside, he removed a single long-stemmed candle of white and held it between them, examining it.

  “This will be your candle,” he said reverently, slowly turning it in his hands. “Only, Vakka thinks it can burn through your chest cavity until the flame reaches your heart. He wants to have a mirror on the floor for you to watch. Do you think it possible? Not the mirror, of course, but to burn through your chest?”

  The question appeared to be serious, but Tenlon didn’t answer. He wouldn’t allow his mind to venture into such dark territory until there was no other choice.

  Outside the rain began, soft at first but quickly growing into a hammering tumult that thrashed the thin roof above them.

  “Unfortunately our time has been cut short,” the wolf said apologetically. He reached for the gray cloak that hung over the back of his chair and spun it over his shoulders, pulling the hood up. “More of my men are nearing the city and there are concerns I must deal with beyond this little side project. I will return shortly and we will chat again, but for now I leave you in the very capable hands of Vakka and Nelkin.”

  All Tenlon could see were Darien’s eyes, black and empty pits of horror. He would beg for death, he realized, but they wouldn’t grant it to him. These men weren’t the merciful type.

  “What do you want to know?” Tenlon asked suddenly of his own free volition. No spell was needed for him to speak now. He was ready to say whatever was needed, so long as he wasn’t left alone with the two men. “I’m ready to talk. I‘ll tell you everything.”

  The wolf smiled, resting the candle upright on the table. “The questions will come later,” he whispered, hand curling around the back of Tenlon’s neck, gripping him tight. “But you struck me in the face, and disobedient boys must be sent to their room.”

  Nelkin came in from behind. The giant gathered him up in his clammy, elongated arm, lifting him above the table. Tenlon shrieked as mighty hands pushed his head and torso into the trunk. He shouldn’t have fit, but the combined strength and pressure of the Volrathi swordsmen bent his body until the lid could shut, his ankle twisting painfully. Before they closed the clasps, he heard the wolf direct one more order before leaving.

  “Give the boy a bath.”

  Tenlon felt his trunk slide off the table and splash upside-down into the fetid bathwater. He bobbed like a cork for a terrifying heartbeat, and then the trunk slowly began to fill.

  ***

  He ha
dn’t an inch to move. Even his screams seemed to take up space. His trunk filled, covering his face first before the rest of his body in the cold muck. He held his breath until his lungs burned with fire and his thoughts dashed from one place to another in flashes of white.

  He saw his mother, then his room at Iralic. There was Darkfire, Desik, and Graille. Draxakis soared above him, and then the foothills before the flatlands spread open and distant. Green islands of men against a black ocean of evil. The sun setting against the mountains. The Light of Serra glowing so bright it burned his skin. Kreiden’s sword flashing from his horse, the ocean slamming against the cliffs—all of it in bursts of brilliance.

  Then, just before his lungs split apart, his trunk was lifted from the bath and dropped to the tabletop. The water slowly drained and when the coughing subsided, he screamed.

  Again, they moved him to the water.

  Upside down he sank and once more the flashes of life and death came to him. Lungs burning, mind screaming, they would pull him back out to repeat the whole cycle, though each time he thought it would be his last.

  Over and over this happened, too many times to count.

  Desik. Draxakis. The cliffs. Mother. Darkfire. Flatlands. Mountains.

  Burning. Darkness. Death.

  If by some cruel fate, Tenlon thought finally, I am released from this torture and given a second chance, I will make the most of it. I will not sit at the foot of the hills to watch the battle. I will find the strength to fight.

  His mind went places, became lost. The pain melted to nothingness…

  “As months turned to years, the Danaki mystics worked with the black dragon, building his strength with increasingly sadistic sacrifices and spells. Ancient books of magic were used, but the minds of the mystics soon twisted to insanity. The beast grew exponentially, faster than any thought possible. Within a few seasons it was a fully matured black, though had yet to release its first breath of dragonfire. Mir-Saad, the Danaki people named him…Shadow Wind.

  “Disappearing for vast stretches of time, one morning Mir-Saad returned with the limp carcass of Kra-and clutched in his mighty grip. It is said they did battle amidst the dunes and rocky canyons for six days, and on the seventh Mir-Saad ended Kra-and’s reign—not with flame but tooth and claw, muscle and valor.”

  “The black dragon didn’t breathe fire, did he?” Tenlon asked.

  The man smiled but continued on. “Dropping his mother’s body in the center of the city, the Danaki people rejoiced. Their plan had worked. Shadow Wind had killed Man Hunter. Feasts and joyous revelry were plentiful during those early days, and for a time all was well. Kra-and was dead and the desert was safe once more. Long abandoned trade routes were reopened and the Danaki people could again flourish within the realm.

  “At first the southerners had rallied behind the black, but the appreciation soon turned to worship as the beast laid waste to any free dragon roaming too close to its territory, a territory which grew each day.

  “Elevated to political positions of the highest order, the original mystics present for Mir-Saad’s hatching ruled the desert people, believing in the certainty of their nation’s prominence beyond all doubt. Each beast their dragon faced in combat was vanquished and every carcass was brought to the city center. Polished dragon skulls the size of wagons festooned their walls and buildings—dozens at first, then hundreds. Mir-Saad was the fiercest dragon in all of Endura.”

  The man paused for the first time, looking down at young Tenlon. “Are you certain you wish to hear the rest?”

  “Yes, I am certain. And I have heard it before.”

  Satisfied, the man nodded and continued on. “What came next is still argued amongst historians, as there are few documented accounts of the South’s final days leading to the Pestilent War. For the first time in its life, Mir-Saad released his dragonbreath, and it was not a river of fire that screamed into the air, but a smog of unimaginable poison.”

  “Some say it was the ruling Danaki mystics who succumbed to the strange illness before anyone else, that they were the first exposed all those years earlier in the chamber of its hatching and now Mir-Saad no longer needed them. Others believe the black dragon raked the desert city from above with his toxic cloud, and within months the sickness spread north as the Danaki people fled from the misery. No matter the disparity of facts, all can agree on one thing: the black dragon’s breath was death.

  “The inflicted suffered skin clustered with boils at the neck, face, and joints. In time the inflammations would turn black and rupture, and shortly after their flesh would begin to slide off their bodies like rinds from rotting fruit. Millions died from this disease, and the realm was cast into darkness for over a decade. There is no way to calculate the total loss of life, for as panic spread with the plague, wars broke out amidst the nations of the north to reach all corners of the map. The world of man, if it could ever be called that, was coming to an end.”

  “Until Draxakis and Shadowfist arrived,” Tenlon prompted.

  The man raised an eyebrow. “You skirt the sadness, young scholar.”

  Tenlon bit his lip. “I don’t like the part where we forced the people out to sea. It wasn’t their fault, and banishing them changed nothing.”

  “It is the tragic errors that we must examine most carefully, so they won’t be repeated. The unobserved stupidity of our present will always be a gift of wisdom to our future. Others will look back on the decisions we’ve made today and wonder how we could have been so foolish, how we could have blundered along at the expense of so much. The realm was desperate back then, and desperate people will often turn to radical solutions.”

  “We made it right, though, didn’t we?” Tenlon insisted. “Draxakis made it right.”

  “The bronze played its part, but there were others who sacrificed their lives so that the land could heal. When the world is in ruin, buried in shadow, always there will be those who rise up through the dark to set it right…”

  His trunk was pulled from the water sooner this time and dropped to the floor. He could feel the difference as one side landed first, bouncing against immovable stone instead of the table. Tenlon heard the clasps snap open. Something was happening, he thought vaguely.

  Now what was to come? His trials hadn’t even begun yet, he realized. This was only the commencement, the opening act. He didn’t dare imagine how many scenes of torture he’d be starring in, but Darien’s candlelit performance appeared to be what they would be closing the curtains with.

  His trunk opened and the light of the lantern burned brightly above, nearly blinding him. He had no idea how long he’d been locked away. Probably minutes, but he felt older somehow, as if years had been taken from him.

  Hands grabbed him. He tried to resist but only succeeded in vomiting up water. Vomit was a sign of defiance, wasn’t it?

  So much of the muck rushed out of him, more than he thought possible. Every time he opened his mouth, the fluid gushed out cold and rank.

  He was pulled from the trunk. A terrible pain sliced through his ankle and he screamed. They had moved to bladework, these Volrathi villains. Tenlon hated them with every fiber of his being! If only he could strike them, or cause them pain!

  “What have they done to you?” one of them asked.

  Tenlon’s vision slowly returned and he was on his stomach, facing the ground. Hands were patting his back, and he saw his blood splattered on the floor.

  Rolling over, he tried to crawl away, but the hands gripping him were strong.

  Turning to his torturers, he instead saw Desik kneeling before him, his tattooed hand gently squeezing his shoulder and locking eyes with him. He had the greenest eyes Tenlon had ever seen. He’d never truly noticed them until now. They were so green he thought he might cry.

  “You’re a fighter, boy,” Desik said softly. “That’s for damn certain.”

  Two short swords rested at either side of him, both red with blood. Behind Desik were the still forms of Vakka and Nel
kin, towers of flesh toppled over.

  Vakka was face down on the floor, blood dark as wine spreading in a pool around him. The top of his scalp was cut open in a wide, greasy-haired flap, exposing a blood-smeared gray skull. His right arm lay nearly severed at his side, hand still gripping a curved blade.

  Nelkin sat on the floor against the doorway, tunic soaked wet and black. He coughed once, the strain of it sending a stream of blood to gush from a gaping wound at his throat.

  When their eyes met, Tenlon saw him feebly lift the haft of an axe, dragging the head against the floor as if it were heavier than a tree trunk. Nelkin tried to lean against the propped up weapon and stand, but the motion caused more lifeblood to stream like a river from his throat and unseen places inside his shirt.

  Slowly he settled back, resting in a puddle of his own death. His head dipped forward and his eyes shut. The axe slipped from his hand and dropped to the stone.

  “You killed them?” Tenlon asked.

  Desik didn’t answer. He rummaged around Vakka’s belt before finally removing a pouch of pipeweed. Smelling the contents, he recoiled before tightening the drawstrings and pocketing it.

  “They were great warriors,” Tenlon found himself saying. “Songs were sung of them in their drinking halls.”

  “They were just men,” Desik said, sheathing his swords and helping Tenlon to his feet. “No more than that.”

  ***

  He held the lantern aloft as Desik used an axe to free Lesandra from her chains. Tenlon’s words regarding the wolf quickened the warrior’s hand. Neither of them wished to linger in the house when the Magi could return any moment and the Volrathi were at their doorstep. They were to make for the Lancer at speed.

  Once free, they found she hadn’t the strength to walk. Desik took her in his arms and carried her from the basement. Tenlon followed them, listening to the remaining links of her chains rattle softly as they climbed the stairs.

  “Tenlon,” she said to him weakly from the top of the landing. “The books. You must burn them. The books, the house, all of it. Burn it all.”