Even the faint light caused him pain, and the shadows within him roiled at the sight.
“What are you going to do with the Well?” said Tarrabus. “Cut off the Magistri from their magic?” He supposed that would no longer make much difference. With the Frostborn surrounding Tarlion, the Magistri would be of little use one way or another. “Or direct the power against Arandar and his fools?”
“Have you not listened to anything that I have said, Tarrabus Carhaine?” said Imaria, stopping at the edge of the Well. Her black, distorted reflection fell across the still waters. “I care nothing for strength. Instead, I shall free us from its laws.” She began casting a spell, more shadows streaming from her fingers. “Remain on guard. I should be able to open the gate before the enemy comes to stop us, but if any Swordbearers arrive, you need to kill them.”
“Gate?” said Tarrabus. “Gate to where?” Was she opening another world gate for the Frostborn? That would be stupid. With the Enlightened broken and Arandar’s army on the verge of defeat, the Frostborn had no further need of additional world gates. He barked a few more questions at Imaria, but she ignored him. Annoyed, he looked at the shattered doors to the courtyard. Perhaps he should simply leave. Imaria was so preoccupied with her spell that he doubted she would even notice. Once he left, he could hunt down Ridmark and Calliande and Arandar and kill them all in retribution for the destruction of the Enlightened.
But to what end? The Frostborn would still triumph. Mankind would either be destroyed or enslaved. Tarrabus’s hope of making mankind into immortal gods had failed beyond all recall.
Or had it?
Tarrabus looked at Imaria as she continued casting her spell. He wasn’t sure, but he thought she was attempting to tap the power of the Well for herself. Tarrabus knew that the Well was a source of incredible magical power, older than Andomhaim itself, and that the Magistri used only a small portion of that power to fuel their spells.
Perhaps once Imaria finished, he could seize the power of the Well for himself. Then Tarrabus could make himself into a god. He had thought to make humanity into a race of gods, but they had rejected him. So why shouldn’t he make himself into a living god and rule over the wretched fools who had rejected his wisdom?
If he could take the power of the Well for himself, he could destroy the Frostborn.
With that kind of magical power, he could do anything he wanted.
Imaria threw out her arms and screamed in effort and concentration, the cords in her slender neck bulging as if she was lifting a heavy object. The Tower of the Moon shuddered, and the smooth water in the Well began to boil and hiss. The light in its depths brightened, and a blazing ribbon of fire erupted from the water. Imaria thrust out her left hand, the dvargir armor plates sliding forward to create a clawed gauntlet over her fingers, and the ribbon of fire bent towards her hand and curled around it.
No. It wasn’t it a ribbon.
It was a cord.
A cord of pulsing fire, of raw magical force, drawn from the very heart of the Well itself. Imaria pulled it loose, her face tight with strain, her shadow writhing and lashing around her boots.
“Behold,” hissed Imaria, “the key to my freedom!”
She gestured with her right hand, casting another spell, and a gate fashioned of mist and pale light rose from the floor. Tarrabus blinked in amazement. Somehow, she had just opened a gate, a portal that led somewhere else. Not even Tymandain Shadowbearer had been able to do that, but Imaria had drawn the magic from the blazing cord she now held.
“Where does that gate go?” said Tarrabus.
“Come with me,” said Imaria, her double voice filled with mad exultation, “and you shall be the first to witness our freedom from time and matter.” She paused. “Don’t touch the cord.”
Without waiting for an answer, she turned and strode through the gate. The cord followed her, seeming to rise from the heart of the Well like a rope unwinding from a spool. Tarrabus hesitated, gathered himself, and then followed Imaria through the gate, taking care to keep from touching the cord of raw white fire. So much magical force pulsed through the cord that Tarrabus feared a single touch would vaporize him.
He stepped into the gate. A moment of spinning disorientation took him, and then Tarrabus found himself…
He looked around, blinking.
For a moment, he had no idea where he was.
Once this place must have been a hilltop, the ground rough and rocky. A huge dome of blue-green ice rose high overhead, large enough to cover the entire top of the hill, and Tarrabus recognized the distinctive look of khaldjari-created ice. This must be a fortress of the Frostborn. The chamber had no windows, and the only doors he could see were closed, but he had no trouble seeing.
The light from the world gate ensured that.
Atop the hill, thirteen menhirs of black stone stood in a ring perhaps fifty yards across, each stone rising fifteen to twenty feet tall. The stones were rough-hewn, yet strange, elaborate reliefs marked their sides, sigils of dark magic and scenes of the dark elves torturing and killing orcs and halflings and dwarves. Tarrabus had seen such rings of standing stones before and knew that the dark elves had once used these places to focus and augment their powers.
The menhirs glowed and flickered with blue fire, focusing the tremendous power required to maintain an open world gate. An altar, a massive block of rough black stone, occupied the center of the circle, resting upon a raised mound of dead earth. Atop the exact center of the altar rested the soulstone that Tarrabus had spent so much time and treasure attempting to steal for Tymandain Shadowbearer. It shone with the same blue fire as the menhirs.
Behind the altar, between two of the menhirs, stood the world gate itself.
It looked like an enormous circular mirror that hung in the air, its surface rippling and undulating. From time to time arcs of blue lightning danced around the circumference of the gate and leaped from menhir to menhir, throwing mad shadows across the vast chamber. Looking at the gate gave Tarrabus a slight headache, as if he saw something his eyes and his mind simply did not know how to interpret.
And the power rolling off the thing…Tarrabus could scare imagine it. Despite the powers that the shadow of Incariel had given him, he was neither a scholar nor a wizard. Yet Tymandain Shadowbearer had told him that the worlds ruled by the Frostborn were so distant from Andomhaim that if the sun exploded, the light from the blast would not reach the worlds of the Frostborn for a billion times a billion years.
Such an unfathomably vast distance…and the world gate had the power to let a man cross that endless void with a single step, as easily as crossing from one room to another.
He saw Imaria a few yards away, climbing the side of the hill, the cord of fire still wrapped around her left fist.
“This is the slope of the Black Mountain, isn’t it?” said Tarrabus. “We’re in the Northerland.”
Imaria said nothing, but she inclined her head, her steps slow and heavy as if laboring under a great weight.
“What is the point of this?” said Tarrabus. “Why have you brought us here?”
Imaria still said nothing, but she crossed between two of the menhirs, moving within the circle of standing stones.
The hill rocked beneath Tarrabus’s feet, and he lost his balance and went to one knee. A groan went through the fortress, and a few chunks of ice fell from the domed ceiling to smash against the rocky ground of the hill. Imaria paused, her shadow writhing around her, and then kept walking towards the altar at the center of the ring.
“What are you doing?” said Tarrabus. “I demand that you answer me!”
“So long ago,” said Imaria, “before this world coalesced from the cosmic dust, Incariel was defeated and bound outside the walls of the cosmos. Such a prison has an anchor, and the Black Mountain is the anchor of Incariel’s prison in the material world.” She was only a few yards from the altar now, the cord of fire flaring in her fist. “And now, at long last, I am the instrument of the destructi
on of that prison.” Her voice grew louder, the inhuman half rising to a hideous, triumphant shriek. “The power of the Well shall expand the gate, and it will grow until it rips open the Black Mountain. And when it does, Incariel shall rise in splendor! We shall be free! All mortals shall be free of death and life and strength. Chaos shall reign, and we shall rejoice and scream in freedom and madness!”
Her voice rose to a wild scream on the final word. She reached the altar and the soulstone, and with a final howl of triumph, Imaria Licinius Shadowbearer thrust the cord of white fire into the altar.
Again the hill shook, the earth groaning as if beneath a great weight. The soulstone went black for an instant, while the blue fire on the menhirs blazed brighter, and the world gate turned solid black, like a hole into eternal nothingness. A dull roaring sound came from the gate, and it began to grow, becoming larger and larger even as Tarrabus looked.
“Behold!” said Imaria. “The gate opens! Incariel comes!” She turned to face him, her expression wild and mad, her shadow swelling behind her as if the gate was feeding her power. “You desire vengeance, Tarrabus Carhaine? You shall be glutted with it! When the laws of time and death are broken and Incariel reigns supreme, all shall do as they wish!”
For a moment Tarrabus stared at her, horrified.
This wasn’t what he had wanted. He had wanted mankind to become gods. He had wanted to rule the world, not destroy it. He wanted to demand that she stop, that she undo whatever she had done to the world gate.
And yet…
Wasn’t this what he had really wanted all along? The freedom to do whatever he willed, whenever he willed, without consequence? He had wanted to become strong. But was that not the purpose of all strength, of all power? To ensure freedom from consequences?
He looked back at the gate. It had grown perhaps a quarter larger and now looked like a spinning disc of shadow. Wisps of shadow broke off from it, and the air around it looked…blurred, somehow, maybe even corroded.
As if the air around it was breaking down, and even as he looked, the strange blurring effect spread to the stone of the ground.
“Yes,” said Tarrabus, walking to her side.
“Then watch,” said Imaria, “and you shall see Incariel rise in power.”
Chapter 26: Knight and Keeper
The gate closed, and Ridmark and Calliande stepped onto the streets of Tarlion.
Chaos ruled around them. Companies of men and orcs rushed towards the northern wall, the sounds of shouts and trumpets and screams rising over everything, even the din of the fighting outside of the walls. Several nearby houses had been shattered, two from the freezing breath of a frost drake, and a third from the bolt-pierced carcass of a drake that had crashed there. It took Ridmark a moment to recognize the Via Borealis, the street that led from the Forum of the Crown below the Citadel’s hill to the Forum of the North.
The sight of Cathair Solas hanging in the air over the city like an executioner’s sword waiting to fall threw off the landmarks.
“The Via Borealis?” said Calliande. She had to shout over the din around them.
Ridmark nodded. “Any sign of Imaria?”
Calliande took a deep breath, her expression becoming distant as she drew on the Sight. “I…cannot tell. The auras around Cathair Solas are too powerful. Keeping that much stone in the air requires a lot of power.” She frowned. “For Ardrhythain to consider using that…”
“He would die with the rest of us,” said Ridmark. The Final Defense was a horrifying weapon, but Ridmark understood why Ardrhythain would consider using it. In the visions and dreams he had endured while mastering the sword of the Dragon Knight, Ridmark had seen what would happen if the Shadowbearer succeeded and shattered Incariel’s prison. He had seen Incariel’s shadow rise like a tide from the ruins of the Black Mountain, had seen it wash across the world and twist it into a reflection of Imaria’s murderous madness.
The Final Defense would be better than that.
“Then let’s head for the Forum of the Crown,” said Ridmark. “If Imaria is making for the Citadel, we will intercept her there.”
“Agreed,” said Calliande.
Ridmark called to Caledhmaer and opened the gate once more.
When the gate closed behind Ridmark and Calliande, he found himself in the Forum of the Crown, the towers of the Citadel and the spire of the Tower of the Moon rising against the sky to the south. The Forum had seen its share of fighting. Five dead frost drakes lay scattered across the Forum, their bodies pierced by ballista bolts. A group of men-at-arms and Anathgrimm stood near a half-dozen portable ballistae in wheeled carts, and…
“Ridmark? Calliande?”
Jager stepped from the Anathgrimm, blinking in surprise. He wore the dark elven armor he had taken from Urd Morlemoch, and his face was tight with alarm.
“Jager,” said Ridmark. “Good to see that you’re still alive.”
“Yes,” said Jager. “You, too. For now, anyway.” He looked at the huge mass of Cathair Solas, stark against the blue sky. “Is the world about to end?”
“It might,” said Ridmark, “unless we find Imaria Shadowbearer.”
“Then do I have good news for you, sort of,” said Jager. “We just saw her.”
“She didn’t kill you?” said Calliande, surprised.
“I would say she was overcome by my overpowering charm,” said Jager, and one of the older men-at-arms snorted, “but I don’t think she took any notice of us, probably because we were no threat to her. She disappeared and reappeared at the gate of the Citadel.”
Ridmark looked at the Citadel. The gates stood open, and as he looked closer, he saw that they had been ripped apart.
“We’re out of time,” said Ridmark.
“Yes,” said Calliande. “Can you take us there?”
“I think I can get us close,” said Ridmark.
“Do you need me to do anything?” said Jager.
Ridmark hesitated. In truth, there was nothing Jager could do to help. And if Ridmark and Calliande failed, Jager would die along with Mara and everyone else when Cathair Solas fell from the sky.
“If you can find the High King,” said Ridmark, “tell him we’ve gone to the Citadel to stop Imaria. Tell him to send as many Swordbearers as he can spare to the Citadel at once.”
“I will,” said Jager. “And good luck. Oh, and congratulations. Didn’t I tell you once that you really needed to do something about Calliande?”
Calliande gave Jager a startled look.
“You did,” said Ridmark, “and you were right.” He called on Caledhmaer’s power once again. “Good luck you as well.”
“If we live, I’ll have to get you drunk sometime,” said Jager. “It seems the only proper way to celebrate a wedding.”
Calliande smiled at him. “We celebrated your wedding by sacking the Iron Tower.”
“First. We sacked the Iron Tower first. Then Mara and I got married.”
The gate opened, and Ridmark walked through it, Calliande hurrying after him.
###
Calliande caught her balance and looked around.
Ridmark’s gate had deposited them about two-thirds up the ramp to the gates of the Citadel. Tarlion stretched below her, a sea of tile roofs, the streets filled with men rushing to the battle. The dark mass of Cathair Solas blocked the sky overhead. Magical power burned before her Sight, radiating from Cathair Solas, from the furious battle outside the northern wall, and from the Well itself.
She saw far more power coming from the Well than she should have.
“It’s beginning,” said Calliande. “I think Imaria has reached the Well.”
“Then we’ll have to run,” said Ridmark, taking his burning sword in both hands. “I’ll go first.”
She nodded, and they sprinted up the ramp to the Citadel. The gates to the courtyard lay in ruin, the wood brittle and crumbling, the metal rusting. Dead men lay scattered around the courtyard, killed by Imaria’s power, the corpses reduced to with
ered shells. The doors to the Chamber of the Well had been smashed, and harsh white light came from within the archway.
Ridmark ran across the courtyard, Calliande following, the staff of the Keeper crackling with white fire as she called both the power of the Well and the magic of the Keeper’s mantle to her. It was easy to call power from the Well. It was only a few dozen yards away.
They entered the Chamber of the Well and came to a stop.
Calliande had been here before dozens of times, albeit centuries ago, so she knew what to expect. The Well’s waters should have been still, but they boiled and churned. A cord of fire rose from its depths, leading to a shimmering magical gate a few yards from the Well’s edge.
The cord of fire vanished into the gate.
“She was already here,” said Calliande. “She’s drawing power directly from the Well. I think that gate goes to the circle of standing stones on Black Mountain. Imaria has likely connected the cord to the soulstone powering the gate.”
“Can we just cut the cord?” said Ridmark, stepping closer to the rope of fire.
“Don’t touch it!” said Calliande. “If you do, there won’t be anything left of you but ashes.”
“But would it affect the sword?”
“I don’t know,” said Calliande.
“It’s worth a try,” said Ridmark, and he swung the red sword down before she could stop him. The burning blade struck the cord of fire and rebounded as if he had struck a steel bar.
“It’s too strong,” said Calliande. “That’s raw magic from the heart of the earth. Nothing can resist it.” She took a deep breath. “We’ll have to follow Imaria through her portal. The only way to stop her now is to destroy the soulstone powering the world gate.”
“Can the sword do that?” said Ridmark.
“Oh, yes,” said Calliande. “That soulstone is the locus of everything. Without it, the world gate of the Frostborn collapses. Without the world gate, Imaria can draw all the power she wants from the Well, but she can’t destroy Black Mountain.”
Frostborn: The Shadow Prison (Frostborn #15) Page 37