The Starry Skies of Darkaan (Realm of Arkon Book 6)

by G. Akella

  The whole time he'd been running here, it wasn't the possibility of a deadly pursuit that was on his mind. No, he was thinking about how he would open the case stolen from the tomb, and all that it might lead to. Cases like these were used by sentients to store exclusively powerful charged artifacts, which meant that peeking under the lid of the truesilver case was far more dangerous than taking a stroll through the crypt he'd just escaped from buck-naked. Truesilver was the worst conductor of magic in this world—even a literal ton of it couldn't accumulate or store an iota of magical energy. Its antipode—the mythical black iron—trumped any precious stones or metals in terms of capacity, to the point where a standard-sized staff could accumulate energy sufficient to kill a god. Of course, all this was purely theoretical drivel for either the bored or the crazy. Black iron was so rare a metal that if any of these theoreticians had actually seen it, it was from a great distance, and the owner of the object made from this metal wouldn't be caught dead lending it to anyone for some harebrained experiments. And the reason such thoughts kept circling about in Rynec's head was because he was terribly afraid—and rightly so—to open the lid. After all, whatever lay inside could incinerate him, his dog and all the surrounding graves in the blink of an eye! The truesilver couldn't protect him from magic, but was simply blocking the magical energy of the artifact stored inside the case (and Rynec very much hoped that it was indeed an artifact, and not the hairs from the tail of the first human emperor's favorite dog, or something to that effect), which could well refuse to accept its new owner. Earl Pharex did teach that great objects could possess their own volition... It didn't matter. None of that mattered. He had to risk it! This was his shot at power and money! Harnessing all his strength, the necromancer pressed hard on the well-defined protuberance on the side of the case...

  "Oh, Great Deceiver!" Rynec exhaled at the sight of the plate lying inside the case. Fashioned from dark metal that had cracked with time, and shaped like a pentagram, the plate had the ansar rune glowing softly in the center, framed by five runes at the points he'd never seen before. The necromancer knew then its purpose. He was sure that he knew...

  Nobody knew how the catacombs had appeared under Vaedarr. Myrt's priests spoke of quarries and iron mines from as far back as the Dark Ages, bards claimed it was where the ancient humans buried their tribesmen, and the crazies in the town squares warned of secret entrances to the Netherworld and the Gray Frontier. Whatever the case may be, less than a century ago there was a great rockslide near the entrance to the local mine that opened up a ton of empty space located directly underneath the City of Seven Winds. That led to numerous access points being made to the catacombs, and with the discovery that some of the caves' ceilings were as high as one hundred fifty feet came the royal decree to move all the local slums underground. As expected, the slums reappeared on the surface again before long, but the catacombs, particularly the southern and southwestern sections that were magically protected against the attacks of subterranean monsters, had since housed nearly one tenth of the city's populace. The catacombs were regularly swept for hostile creatures, again by the royal decree, but it was useless. The eradicated fauna would simply reappear after a time to reclaim their territory, so the initiative was eventually scrapped.

  Any thief worth his salt had a place to lie low during a raid or flashes of activity by the city guard, and he and Bolo would frequently make sallies into the wild areas of the catacombs. On one such sally, the old thief brought him to a wide abandoned passage that led up to a massive metal gate.

  Rynec ran his hand along the rough surface of the plate, remembering his exchange with Bolo.

  "What is that, Bolo?" he asked quietly, inspecting the five-cornered hollow at the juncture of two thirty-foot metal plates.

  "A g-g-gate t-t-to nowhere," the old man shrugged. "Everyone knows it, b-b-but no one g-g-g-oes there." Gesturing at the quarter-mile passage stretching behind them, he continued. "Rumor has it among the g-g-guards that male p-p-potency is lost in this c-c-corridor, so most avoid it like a p-p-plague. Lots of side chambers, g-g-good for hiding..."

  "Male potency?!" Rynec's hand jerked involuntarily to protect his most precious, but then he noticed the playful smile on the old thief's lips, and grinned in response.

  "You didn't say what actually lies beyond the gate!"

  "D-d-does it matter? Folks in the t-t-taverns say it's an old g-g-gold mine. Idiots c-c-claim it's a p-p-passage to the Grey Frontier. The Holy One's p-p-priests used to say that not even the g-g-gods can open it! So, unless you have the k-k-key, let's keep moving!" Bolo waved dismissively in the direction of the gates, and headed back down the corridor.

  "Gods can't open a simple gate?" Rynec muttered skeptically as he followed after.

  "G-g-gods aren't omnipotent," the old man said, eyes forward. "P-p-providence isn't all p-p-powerful. Even the g-g-gods have rules they must follow. So, when you find that k-k-key, c-c-come back and see what hides b-b-beyond," on that note, the old thief burst into hoarse laughter that echoed off the rocky walls of the poorly lit corridor.

  Rynec shut his eyes and leaned back against the warm rough tree bark.

  "Here it is, Bolo! The key! I've found it..." he whispered.

  The necromancer opened his eyes, gazed up at the moon hanging over the forest, and gave a bitter chuckle.

  Sure, he had the key now, but what was he supposed to do with it? And why him? Why did he have to find the burial vault of the first human emperor, opened for him so graciously by some random elven scout? Why did the case contain precisely this plate, whose purpose was known to probably only a few people in the whole realm, Rynec being one of them? Or was the late Earl Pharex right to say that such objects chose their own masters? But if that was the case...

  Suddenly a flock of birds took flight over the trees on the other side of the meadow, startling Rynec. He closed the case and tried to follow their flight. The next moment, the flapping of wings was directly above him, and he felt a breath of sepulchral cold and decay waft over his face. He felt a chill. A gerdard! But why is it so huge?! the thought flashed in his mind when the bird perched on a branch low to the ground took its yellow unlinking eyes off of him, stuck out its featherless neck, and cried something that seemed to block his ears.

  He felt as though the bird's cry penetrated to the very depths of his soul. The necromancer followed the gaze of the creature from the Gray Frontier just as the bonehound to his side leapt to her feet, crouched onto her forepaws and growled menacingly.

  "Easy, Myrna!" Rynec barked the order, though he too was struggling to fight down the horror enveloping him. Putting the case aside, he rose to greet the translucent figure moving towards him from the direction of the forest.

  Master Urgam had hinted that whoever came for the information would be unusual, but Rynec could never have imagined that it would be Teiran himself. The Great Lord of Darkness, master of pandemics and deferred death! Even the Dark God's projection radiated a macabre, devastating force. The Great Lord of Darkness was slowly advancing on the rigid necromancer, the heralds of death swirling over his head in a soundless entrancing dance, long whitish tendrils dragging on the ground, transformed by his aura. On all the murals and paintings Rynec had seen over the course of his studies, Vill's companion was depicted as a giant figure wrapped in cerecloth, with a serrated scythe in one hand and prayer beads in the other. But in this projection he looked like an ordinary village youth, the kind that would be tasked with delivering a food cart to Vaedarr on market days. Two feet taller than the necromancer, who was on the short side himself, he appeared to be wearing trousers and a tunic of thick plain cloth, his hair tied in a ponytail. And his eyes... The frigid, bottomless eyes of the Great Lord appeared to reflect Death herself, at once exquisite and terrible in all its hypostases.

  "Think of nothing, and do not move!" a calm, even somewhat pleasant voice sounded in the consciousness of the necromancer, standing at attention with his head bowed. Nothing was happening for a
moment, but then Rynec felt the earth escape from under his feet as he tumbled into a black abyss. Only he felt no fear whatsoever, as if he were but an impartial observer. And just as he was coming to grips with the fact that there was no coming back from this, and his sanity was all but gone, everything ended.

  "Good! You have done what was required of you."

  The same impassive voice brought him back to reality. Barely keeping his balance, Rynec inhaled a chestful of air, cold and permeated with decay, and finally dared to raise his head. What he saw in the eyes of his future Master's companion was indifference and... approval?

  "Open it! I can't see..." the sleeve of Teiran's spectral tunic motioned just barely at the case lying on the grass.

  "Yes, master," Rynec nodded, picked it up off the ground, threw open the lid and demonstrated the contents to the Lord. A perfect silence ensued over the woods that lasted ten full heartbeats, broken only by the flapping of wings overhead.

  "The key to Arkam's grave..." Teiran spoke softly, his tone tinged with irony. "What perfect timing! Myrt and his pups will no doubt rejoice when the city they consider theirs will be razed to the ground by an army hidden in the grave of his old friend..."

  "It will all be over by morning, in the castle and the cemetery both," the Lord continued, steel in his voice. "When you return, hand it to me personally! You have pleased me twice this night, neophyte. By morning, you shall be a master!"

  The Dark God's companion's words were still ringing in his ears, but Teiran was no longer there, his projection having dissipated in the night hanging over the cemetery. The gerdards were gone as well, with only the myriad moving worms carpeting this strip of the forest serving as a testament that Rynec was still of sound mind.

  The Master of Death! This was his chance at power and revenge! The old king's tomb had proved to be his lucky break! The Great Lord of Darkness would open the gate and, undetected by hostile Great Essences, summon his entire army there. With the human legions decimated, the heavy cavalry was on the move to join the armies of the Great Forest and their dwarven allies, leaving the City of Seven Winds defenseless before the undead army pouring out of the catacombs. "May they all die like dogs!" he spat through clenched teeth, gazing northwest with a burning hatred. Curse the city that had taken everything from him! His father, his family, Bolo! Curse the nobles bastards ready to bear false witness to cover for their own! Curse the captain of the city guard and his bitch wife! Curse the scumbag who had killed the girl he fancied... Curse them all!

  There was a sudden pang in the chest of the young disavowed. He screwed shut his eyes, clenched his fists hard and breathed deep, letting the breeze blowing from the direction of Erantia caress his face. After standing there for five minutes, he opened his eyes once more, patted the bonehound nuzzling him in the side, and gave a bitter chuckle.

  "I've made good on my promise to my teacher, but I still have unfinished business at Ahn Kulad," he said quietly. Then, having quickly built a portal to the castle gates, he made an inviting gesture to his dog. "Come, Myrna, we have till morning..."

  "Back so fast?" Ornoc inquired. "Did you already..." the eyes of the senior student on gate duty fell on Rynec's bonehound, and his brows arched upward in astonishment. "Whoa! That's one beautiful dog! How did you manage to summon it?!"

  "I'll tell you later," Rynec smiled in response. "After I get some shuteye."

  He entered the gates, rounded a couple of service structures, and stopped before the southern entrance into the educational building.

  "Goodbye, Myrna!" the disavowed got on his knees and embraced the dog, pressing his cheek to her bone snout. "I'm sorry, girl..." he whispered, then got back up. Bidding the dog to wait while fighting back tears, he made for the university entrance.

  "A bonehound is a creature summoned from the Gray Frontier that contains a tiny part of the soul of the necromancer who summoned it. The creature cannot feel compassion or pain! Fondness and attachment are alien to it..." the necromancer's lips recited the class material like a prayer as he walked down the empty hallways.

  He walked into the library, nodded to the drowsy student on duty, and continued straight to the small hall. In the far left corner, behind the glass stand, he crouched and removed two bricks from the wall, slipped the truesilver case inside, and immediately put the bricks back in place.

  "You'll be safe here, for now. Who knows how the phantom guards would react to you..."

  Upon carefully inspecting the wall and remaining satisfied, he dusted off his hands and made for the library exit.

  The thief in him had found this cache six weeks ago by pure habit, knocking on all the walls out of boredom. It was empty, having evidently been used by one of the adepts years ago to keep some sort of secret. And now it was keeping his.

  Treading carefully on the carpeted floor, Rynec made it to the southern stairwell and went down two flights. The hallway was familiar, and so was the lock. Only the charge on the amulet issued by his teacher was down to barely more than a minute.

  Nothing had changed in the treasury since the last time—still the same six empty stands and four artifacts. The disk isn't particularly interesting anymore, he thought, stopping before a slender silver dagger resting on a velvet cushion.

  Rakot's Hand of Justice. Rakot was a dark god and master of Limbh, the scariest place in all of Gray Frontier. The souls of sentients slain by this dagger landed in this monster's domain and skipped twenty cycles on the Great Wheel of Reincarnations. And no one—not even Rakot himself—could question the soul that ended up there. This was the law. Two thousand years in return for total absolution? A fair price to pay, in his mind.

  Rynec looked around the treasury, and let out a heavy sigh. He suddenly remembered the taste of freshly drawn milk served by his mother, his father's warm smile, the silly quarrels with his sister, the merry squealing of his nieces...

  "You are my son no more..."

  Once the undead burst out of the catacombs, there would be no mercy toward everyone. The people he still cared for—the people who had done nothing wrong—they would still die, along with everybody else. His mother may have disowned him, but he hadn't disowned her! The key was safely hidden behind walls of truesilver, never to be found again.

  The floor trembled under his feet. It had begun!

  "Goodbye, Myrna!" he whispered, snatched the dagger off the cushion, and drove it hard into his chest.

  Instantly turned to ashes, the necromancer's body crumbled to the floor, followed momentarily by the silver dagger, clanging... The phantom guards howled with disappointment over missing their mark... The Great War halted for a moment, then resumed its flow along a very different trajectory... And over in the castle courtyard, an ugly skeletal dog who had lost her master threw up her snout and howled its lamentation to the burgeoning moon...

  Chapter 12

  "He's-s-s coming to..." Reece's hissing voice, transformed by combat form, reached me through a veil of darkness.

  "Dar! Dar! Are you all right? Great Darkness! Wake up!"

  I felt beyond feeble, as if the landmass of the whole continent was pinning me down, and my head ached as it might after a night of nonstop boozing. I groaned, and realized I was still hearing the echoes of the last words of the disavowed just before his final sacrifice.

  I blinked open my eyes, shoved aside the vial with the foul-smelling mixture, and struggled up to a sitting position.

  You've accessed the quest: Defending the Great City.

  Quest type: hidden, chain.

  Stop the undead invasion of Vaedarr.

  You've accessed the quest: Defending the Great City I: The Key to the Forgotten God's Grave.

  Quest type: hidden, chain.

  Find the key to Arkam's grave in the castle of Ahn Kulad, ruined by the undead.

  Reward: experience.

  "Krian! You've been lying there for twelve hours!"

  "Wait, Vaessa!" I stopped the magus with a gesture, then leaned back against the pedesta
l upon which the sarcophagus stood, closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. "Give me five minutes to recover. Then I'll be right with you."

  You're alive, then?! the shock in my spouse's voice was tinged with significant relief.

  Good question, I chuckled mentally, glancing at the flask I was still gripping in my hand, then put it away into inventory. But, judging by your tone, you're not especially upset by that.

  Seeing as you're back to talking gibberish masquerading as a sense of humor, I suppose it really is you, Jaelitte said with total seriousness.

  That was just a vision, I replied wearily.

  Just a vision?! I was right there with you, choking on your hatred and despair! Gnashing my teeth from your pain! And then you died... If it weren't for my mental protection...

  I'm sorry, there was nothing I could do. I would if I could, believe me...

  Gods, I sure lucked out with a husband... Oh well, nothing to be done about it now. She held a small pause, then continued. I don't know what lies ahead at that cemetery, but whatever it is, I can sense that it won't be good. And I cannot help you in any way. All the power I had accumulated, I've spent trying to keep my sanity while you were entertaining yourself. Great Chaos! How I loathe being so weak...

  Entertainment. Yeah. I sighed but decided not to explain. Jaelitte had already disengaged, anyway. She got the last word. As always. Whatever. Arguing with a woman about something trivial was silly at best and a sign of stage four male idiocy at worst. I clenched my teeth in anticipation of a returning headache and got my pipe out, then put it back in my bag. The air in here wasn't exactly stagnant, but I'd wait till I was outside. So, what do we have here? I looked at the party standing around me in a half circle and leaned the back of my head against the cool stone of the king's sarcophagus.