“Now my sweets, you are man and woman, husband and wife. What you’ve joined, no god and no man can break apart against your will, in this world or the next. Now, go enjoy a little married bliss in that room of yours, I’ve got an inn to run.”
They smiled.
“Ah, and don’t forget to come down for dinner, but not dressed like that! I’ve got a few treats for you.”
13. The Tale of Desperate Measures
When Arjun arrived at the house of Shirin iru Anlil, disguised as always, the latter was standing in his entry hall, and had a tense air about him.
“Arjun,” he said, “walk with me.”
Shirin led Arjun to a room he hadn’t seen before, a library full of clay tablets and strange items. He thought in amazement of how much knowledge there must be in this place, and his eyes almost stung from the flicker of the magic. Shirin walked to a stone box carved with glyphs that glowed with power. Shirin lifted the lid, and inside was a seal stone of red granite, carved with a pattern he now recognized as that of a planar portal. At its top was a small ring where a cord or chain might pass. Shirin spoke again.
“This, my apprentice, is a stone that is the stopper to just such a plane as you wish to create. It is larger than what your first effort would be conceivably likely to produce, and its opening is larger than that of the stone that seals it. In fact, you will find it is large enough to accommodate goods as large as clay tablets, or a weapon turned lengthwise. However, it is not invisible and undetectable as the portal you wish to make.”
He handed it to Arjun.
“Use it well, and may this be enough for your purposes.”
Arjun stopped, and stared at his master, unsure what to say. The latter, however, continued to a shelf, where he gathered a set of clay tablets.
“Arjun, these contain the methods of wielding the simpler forms of the magic you wish to master, as well as a few others that you might have some chance of learning without destroying yourself. Do not worry that I might miss them; they are all books I have memorized from beginning to end. It is not safe or wise to give you more. Nor do I have time to explain the safe operation of other things I might give you, and some I will need myself.”
“Master!” said Arjun, now disturbed, “what do you mean?”
“Arjun, watch now the gesture and command word I use to open the seal stone,” said Shirin, who with them opened a strange blue-black space in the air behind the stone, its edge rimmed in magic. He put the tablets inside. Arjun watched carefully. Shirin closed the portal.
“Now repeat them.”
Arjun did so, just as he had seen, and the portal opened.
“Well done, now, come with me to the training room, and we will speak as we go.”
They went through a hallway and down a different set of stairs to the lower level, and from there to the way that Arjun knew. As they went, Shirin spoke.
“My apprentice, our time has run out sooner than I would have chosen. Even now I can sense the powerful magic being worked that will soon send foes upon me that, in numbers, I cannot overcome, and even if I did, more would come, and then more. Therefore, as I warned you when we began, I will have to flee if I want to live, and must prepare. There will not be time to do much more for you.”
“But master, I can help you!”
“Apprentice, you are as yet but a mouse to the hungry leopards that come my way. It will not just be warriors and mages, but things from the realms below. Count yourself lucky that they have not found your hiding place, and that you do not as yet merit the risks they must take in summoning evil spirits. You may, if you wish come with me, and with you, the girl you’ve mentioned, but if you do so, you may not return to Zakran for a long while. I intend to remain hidden, very far away, until the time is right, or until death catches me.”
“I… master, if that is the choice, I will stay here,” said Arjun, furious emotions choking his speech.
They entered the training room, and instead of taking his seat, Shirin stood beside Arjun.
“My apprentice, now is time to cast The Eyes of Comprehending of Darkness. I will provide you guidance on anything you may have missed. You may also cast the Eyes of Comprehending Truth, and if you wish I will add an enchantment to make it permanent upon you, as most elder magi have done for themselves. I regret there is not time to teach you the method”
“Master, I wish them both made permanent upon me.”
“Arjun, you do not fully understand what you ask… ah! Time is almost out. I will do as you ask, but forgive me!”
Arjun cast the magic, and felt a strange and uncomfortable change behind his eyes, though he knew it was not visible from the outside. The room looked the same, yet indeed somehow different. The shadows had reality and shape of their own, and depths independent of the light whose absence they represented, or the walls on which they stood.
“Before I make this permanent,” said Shirin, tension cracking in his voice, I give you one more time to reconsider. Turn your head and look beyond the protections of this room and into the hallway beyond.”
Arjun did, and there in the hallway were faint things visible in the dark, spirits or creatures unknown that were both there and not there. It seemed they could occupy the same space, like layered shadows. They watched with varying expressions of interest, hopelessness, or hunger. He steeled his mind and will.
“Are you SURE?” asked Shirin.
“Yes Master.”
“Then follow my words exactly.”
Together they repeated the incantations and made the gestures. When it was done, he knew he’d gotten them right, and felt in his spirit the permanency of what he’d done.
“Arjun, there are ways to undo this, but they are not easy. Someday perhaps we will meet again and discuss them. I am so sorry that I must leave your apprenticeship unfinished, I therefore release you of all oaths to me… however I beg of you that you don’t attempt the Forge of the Least of Worlds on your own.”
“But, master Shirin…”
“Now go, I have much to do and almost no time left. I must send you away. Good luck!”
There was a glow of magic that blinded him, and when it cleared, he was standing in a dark alley. He walked to the end, and then around a block trying to orient himself. After a moment, he recognized the place. He was far across the city, near the western bazaar.
He was very grateful that things of shadow were not thickly crowded as they’d been outside the door of Shirin’s training room, but there were some about. They varied in form and size, some frightening, others not. Some of them watched him, others ignored him and acted on strange impulses of their own. It occurred to him that they’d always been there, just unseen, and that whatever harm they might do, if any, they could always have done it. Now, in a way, he had an advantage, he could see them. With that, he feared them no more.
As he headed towards home, he was grateful for what he’d learned, but fearful for his former master. Then he realized strange new desperate hopes. He’d been released from his oaths, and with that, had choices to make.
~
The next evening, Arjun read a message stone from Kartam dra Argesh. It had black tidings. First, Kartam told him that his father’s execution, and Keda’s, were now scheduled in two day’s time. Second was the news that Kartam had been forced off the council, and that though he thought his enemies wouldn’t be so bold as to openly strike at him, because it would lead to a rebellion, he would have to watch for subtle means to bring about his death. As a result of all of it, it was unlikely he’d get further messages to Arjun. Lastly, Kartam warned of new and harsher laws in the works, laws that would make it harder to hide in the city, but which might appear slowly over time.
He turned to Inina, his heart cold with the path he knew he must take.
“My love, I’m going to try to cast my spells, the spells Shirin didn’t have time to finish teaching me. I need to go alone to somewhere no one else will get hurt if things go wrong, probably one of the
empty warehouses in that area south of the western bazaar.”
“Not without me you aren’t.”
“Inina, you can’t risk…”
“I’ll take my chances, but our baby won’t have much of any if you are dead. I can at least try to keep you alive if something goes wrong. I don’t know much about these things, but will it help if I stay back some distance?”
“From what I know so far, yes, I can point out how far when we get there.”
“See! Then I’ll stay back far enough to protect the baby, but close enough to do something if I need to protect you.”
“Very well,” he said glumly.
~
An hour later, they stood inside a deserted empty warehouse. Inina knew the owners had died and there was some sort of uncertainty over who owned it now. This was a poor and dangerous area, and the courts were unlikely to hurry. In the meantime it had been secured. The doors had been barred from the inside by someone who Inina thought must then have left through a hidden trap door above or below. In any case, Inina had no trouble opening the bars, and they were sitting safely inside with the doors barred again and wedged.
Arjun drew out a protective circle like ones he seen in his new tablets, and a little like the far more powerful one Shirin had used in his training room. In this case though, the projections faced in. He hoped he’d gotten it right. He motioned to Inina, and she stepped back twenty feet, holding a lamp.
He then prepared in his mind another circle, a portal circle. With his hand he began to draw it in the air. With practice he could dispense even with that, but not yet. As his hand passed through the air, it left traceries of faintly glowing magic. He completed the outer circle, then made the glyphs, and finally the inner. A portal began to open.
But something was wrong.
Instead of blue-black, still and silent, there was a flickering greenish glow, and strange unearthly noises, like howls, seemed to come through the portal from far away. Arjun moved to break and dispel the circle, but he was too slow.
Something crawled out of it. It looked like shadow within shadow, and flickering green in impossible depths within that. It was small, perhaps the size of a cat, but it had long arms of unequal length, like a deformed parody of a man’s, and a head that seemed to be upside down, or if not, then its jaw opened on the top rather than the bottom. The leering distended mouth opened hideously wide, and the eyes, of which there was one large on the left and many small on the right, boggled at the new world before it.
Arjun recoiled, only for a moment, but a moment he regretted. He completed his motions to dismiss the circle, but the thing bolted out, ignored his protective circle, and skittered along the floor. Inina looked disturbed, but also hesitant and strangely inactive.
“Inina, I’ve got to catch that thing!” he said as he ran after it.
Inina got up and followed, still seeming unsure. She kept tilting her head as if trying to see what he saw. Without warning, the thing leapt straight up like a monkey, grabbed at the rafters above, pushed aside a hidden panel of wood on the ceiling with a crack, as if a seal above had been broken, and darted out into the night. Arjun had no hope of imitating that, but instead made for the door. He noticed now as he ran that he could see, faintly, a trail of magic left by the passage of the thing.
“What do you see!” said Inina in a frightened voice.
“You didn’t see it?” he replied, as he reached the door, tossed the bars aside, and pulled it open.
“No, I just saw, or thought I saw, a flicker of shadow, then you closed the circle. I did hear some strange noises just before that, but it was only for a second,” she said, as she followed Arjun outside and around the building.
As they ran, the lamp blew out. Inina stumbled as her eyes adjusted to the dark, but to Arjun’s altered eyes, the light and dark were now equally clear, if not equally pleasant.
Arjun could see the magical trail left by the thing even far away, like a flickering path in the night. Unlike most magic he’d seen, there was an unpleasant, sickly greenish glint to that left by the creature. As he raced after it, Inina followed, still trying to make sense of what was going on. He also noticed that shapes of darkness gathered and joined him following the wake of the thing, curiosity in the voids of their eyes.
He followed the trail down a dark back street, then into an alley. At the alley, something different and horrible had happened. There, on the ground, the trail twisted and turned, circling about, and in the center of that circle was the body of a beggar. The smell of freshly spilled alcohol mingled with freshly spilled blood, but the body looked withered, as if it had been dead in desert sands for weeks.
“What…” said Inina, whispering in horror.
“A thing, something I unleashed when I failed in that spell,” said Arjun, as he cursed his haste and stupidity. As he considered an innocent man was now dead because of it.
He raced onward. Inina now moved with more surety, her eyes adjusted fully to the dark, but not so surely as him.
The trail followed the alley around a corner, and then into a small back courtyard containing a well, crossed it, circled it for some reason, and then entered another alley. There was a shriek.
Arjun forced himself to run faster, and in sprinting leaps reached the alley to see an urchin girl of eight or nine cowering before the thing, which was capering about leering at her hungrily with its upside down mouth. Its belly was now distended. There were shadow creatures watching with cold curiosity, and shadow creatures seemingly trying to fight against the thing. In some way they seemed to be able to almost, though not quite touch it. For its part, it seemed much distracted by them. Arjun drew his sword, which in his strange new sight seemed almost to glow amidst the darkness.
As Arjun charged, he called forth flame from the plane of fire in his free hand. The fire did not and could not burn him with his magic active, and it spouted through the fingers of his closed fist. The thing looked at his hands in surprise, then at his eyes, and it paused for the briefest moment. Arjun knew, somehow, that there was comprehension in its eyes, that it knew he could see it, and why. It turned and fled as fast as it could go, racing forward in the darkness. Arjun chased after it. Behind them, Inina whispered something comforting to the girl who still whimpered in terror.
As Arjun rounded another turn in the alley, he saw the path of the thing reach a sewer entrance, and saw the lead grate had been ripped loose as if it had been so much straw. The entrance was just barely large enough for a man, being meant for slaves to use, and without hesitation he dived in, skittering downward in the slime of the steep passage. Above him, he could hear Inina curse as she decided to follow him.
Arjun again cursed himself. This was all his fault, and he had to stop it now. He had no idea what that thing might do, or how long it could linger in the world, but he would let no one more be murdered if he could help it.
He hit the bottom with a thud in a pile of refuse. The trail went along the service path of a main line. He raced after it. The sewers looked very different in his new sight. It was simultaneously pitch dark, and yet as clear as if the noonday sun had somehow reached it. He could see shadows and spirits, though they were, contrary to what he’d expected, fewer down here. Then he remembered Inina. She cursed loudly on hitting the bottom, then started fumbling in the pouch where her small lamp must be. Arjun turned and opened his hand, letting bright flame light her way. She raced after him.
14. The Tale of Wrong Turns
They followed the trail through the sewers for weary minutes, tiring and the air beginning to burn in their lungs as they ran. The trail passed into a smaller, higher, but long disused looking side passage. The channel at the side was filled with rubble and stagnant ponds instead of a stream of foul water. Pieces of rubble were scattered on the path as well, and sections were missing from the ceiling. Up ahead, the passage seemed caved in entirely, but to the right side opened a crack in the wall. The trail of the thing went there. Without hesitation, Arjun follo
wed. Inina did so too, but less happily. The tunnel was a narrow and treacherous crack in the rock under the city, and they proceeded slowly. From the leaps and dodges of the trail, the thing was slowing too, but not so much as they.
At last, it opened onto another kind of passage. Even the half-moment’s glance he spared told Arjun that the stonework here was not that of modern Zakran, and there were strange designs carved into the walls. The floor was thick with dust, but there were large, misshapen footprints in that dust.
“Arjun… where are we going?” whispered Inina, “Are these… the tunnels they say are under the city?”
“I think so,” he replied, “and those footprints are probably of ghouls.”
She shivered, but followed him.
On and on they went, through branching tunnels and, here and there, small chambers carved with hideous scenes of leering demons or monstrous gods, and dying captives. The work was in an abstracted and complex style, but even allowing that Arjun was not so sure that the captives were human or anything particularly close to human. The trail of the thing seemed to meander more, as if it were forgetting its fear of them, or excitement at new freedom, and was exploring. Arjun wondered what kind of mind and what kind of hideous alien intelligence it might have. It seemed a thing of chaos.
At last, they turned a corner, and there a macabre sight greeted their eyes. The thing was capering about in a domed chamber with many doors, watching half a dozen of what Arjun now knew to be ghouls. The latter, tall and gaunt, stared at the thing from their unnaturally tilted heads. Their long tongues lolled out, and their eyes followed it, as if wondering whether it was alive, and if so, could they eat it. Arjun ignored the ghouls and ran straight at the thing. It turned about and looked full into the spouting flame of his open palm. It seemed dazed for the least moment, and in that moment Arjun pounced and drove his sword clean through its hideous body. The shadowy form dissolved into a green mist of magic, then dissipated.
Blood on Bronze (Blood on Bronze Book 1) Page 12