by D. P. Prior
Snaith glanced at Theurig, but the sorcerer responded with a finger pressed to his lips.
An unnatural hush fell over the assembly, all eyes fixed on the figure on the throne. Around the cavern, the shadowy forms of Lakelings looked on.
The Archmage rested his staff on his knees then scanned the sorcerers and apprentices, swiveling his head so that he could bring his good eye to bear. His bejeweled fingers clenched and unclenched around the staff in his lap.
“Something’s wrong,” Theurig whispered.
It should have been impossible, but the Archmage seemed to hear. His yellow eye came to rest on Theurig. A blaze of color rushed to his cheeks. He looked angry. More than that: he was furious.
“Theurig of the Malogoi!” The Archmage’s voice rumbled like thunder, and Theurig visibly flinched. “Explain yourself.”
THE HORROR BENEATH
Tey turned to face the door they’d entered by—the door on the far side of the room which Hirsiga and Vrom had barricaded with crates from beneath the grille. The metal had buckled inwards. A second bang and the door flew from its hinges, crushing the crates blocking it and spilling their contents—sleek silver packages and brightly labeled canisters.
There in the doorway stood a mound of rags, furred with mold, black with mildew. Not a mound: some kind of creature: four arms, tree-trunk legs, all bound with diseased cloth. But the head… The head was a gelatinous clump of goo, clear and speckled like frogspawn. Only, Tey saw with fascinated dread, these were no mere specks, no seeds of new life: they were tiny eyes, hundreds of them, gyring within the substance that made up the misshapen head, looking everywhere, missing nothing.
Simultaneously, the four arms disappeared within the rags shrouding the central mass of the body. They returned with their ape-like hands clutching blades of dark metal.
In the corridor behind the beast, the macabre inner light of dozens of crimson eyes pierced the gloom. Tey caught glimpses of squat forms, and jagged maws that emitted a ceaseless chatter—not the gibbering they’d heard earlier, but a chorus of clicks and grunts, guttural, belching roars. The tunnel creatures had grown bolder, no doubt on account of this monster they’d brought with them.
Gulgath looked up from his meal, growling and yapping, but without conviction. The dog looked as though he could barely stand, let alone fight.
“Is it any wonder, the noise you two were making?” Pheklus said, taking the last vial of black powder from his pocket. Without asking permission, he grabbed Vrom by the arm and dragged him over to the locked door he’d designated their escape route.
“Tey?” Vrom said, looking to her for help. He tried to pull away, but Pheklus was clearly stronger than he looked.
Tey backed towards them, unable to rip her eyes from the beast in the doorway. It clashed its blades together and advanced into the room—not with the lumbering steps she’d envisaged but flowing forward with the balance and economy of movement she’d seen from the best warriors in the circles.
The sound of a scuffle behind her, then a thunderous blast. She glanced round as Vrom groaned and slumped to the floor. Pheklus already had the door open, and only stopped to pick up Gulgath and carry him through.
“Come on!” the necromancer yelled over this shoulder.
The mound of rags and goo glided across the room toward them.
“But Vrom!” Tey cried.
The door slammed shut, and Pheklus was gone.
On instinct, Tey grabbed the amulet she’d carved from Slyndon Grun’s shrunken finger, held it out before her. In her mind, the beast became the bear that had savaged her, the bear she’d tried to back away from. This time, there was nowhere to go.
With all her will, she pictured dark fire streaming from the shriveled finger, but nothing happened. She should have tested it. No, she realized, she should have preserved her well’s essence.
The creature flowed right at her. The stench of rot was overpowering. All four blades came down. Tey shut her eyes.
[No!] the Shedim shrieked. And in that cry it communicated something: guided her the same way it had guided her to pattern her scars.
Lightning streaked through her bones. Something sucked at the inside of her skin. She felt turned inside out, shredded, dispersed. The vambrace on her wrist sparked and caught fire. Magma surged through its patterns, leapt to the amulet pinched between thumb and forefinger. And the beast stopped in its tracks, blades quivering inches from her face.
Tey screamed as the flesh of her forearm began to blister beneath the burning vambrace. She hurled her outcry at the beast. The shriveled finger throbbed in her grasp, wriggled and writhed. A pulse passed through it, then it exploded in a virulent cloud of purplish smog. Without a sound, the monster dropped to the floor, a puddle of bubbling pus.
Choking, Tey stepped back, snapping the cord that held the amulet around her neck. Of Slyndon Grun’s finger, there was nothing left save for strips and tatters. She slung it from her, into the poisonous brume. Then she set about the clasps on the vambrace, gritting her teeth against the scalding pain. It came away from her forearm, clattered to the ground still blazing. Her skin was blistered and scarlet. She whimpered, fighting back tears.
When the flames consuming the vambrace died down, the metal cracked open to reveal charred and smoking tendrils of copper interspersed with faintly winking specks of light. One by one they flickered and went out.
Beyond the obscuring cloud of purple, the tunnel creatures had returned to gibbering. Through the haze, she saw them fleeing the way they had come.
Vrom groaned. She turned to him, crouched down, surprised at how easily her scaled leg bent at the knee; at how strong it felt. Moving made her swoon. She clutched her stomach as it went into spasm. She started to dry heave, then leaned away from Vrom to vomit.
[You will recover,] the Shedim said. [With your well empty, you used up your own essence. Not enough to kill you, but close enough.]
“You spoke,” Tey said, coughing up the last of her gorge. “Even though I commanded you to silence.”
[Fear is a strong antidote to the power of command. Yours called to me, though you did not; and my own responded: my fear that you would be lost.]
“And that would never do,” Tey said bitterly. “You need me.”
[We need each other. It is the will of the Weyd.]
“Hah!” Tey said, wiping her face. Gods, she was a mess. Hirsiga’s blood and her own vomit down the front of her dress. It was on her chin, in her hair. The Witch Woman was probably loving it. It gave her manifest form. But Tey didn’t feel the least bit witchy right now. All she wanted to do was curl up and die.
[Don’t you want to know what happened?] the Shedim asked.
Tey looked toward the door the monster had smashed open. No sign of the tunnel creatures. They’d seen what she’d done and must have thought they were next. Impressions. It was all about impressions.
[The aberration you created, that crude and shrunken thing, would not have been sufficient against an Old One of such puissance.]
“Old?”
[From before the reign of my sires. The result of dark theurgy during a devastating conflict. This isle has always been at war. It is part of what drew the Wakeful here.]
“To revel in it?”
[To bring peace.]
It was hard not to scoff. The Shedim was as full of itself as Theurig, and just as full of lies. “So, what is it you did? How did you make me fire the vambrace and discharge the amulet?”
[A desperate ploy. Another second and you would have been finished. I guided you in the merging of two patterns: that of the vambrace and that of the thing you created. When patterns are crossed, it is not without risk, and the effects are unpredictable. This time, we were lucky.]
Vrom stirred and tried to rise. “Who are you talking to?” he muttered.
Tey crawled to him on her knees and helped him sit.
“You stink,” he said, then caught her eye and smiled weakly. “Pheklus left?”
<
br /> “So long as he’s all right, eh?” She thought she had the measure of the necromancer now. For all his posturing, he was no different to anyone else. He was as scared as they all were. Maybe more so, given his fixation on death.
“Thanks, Tey. Thanks for staying.” Vrom grasped her hand.
Something alien flashed across Tey’s mind. It wasn’t the Shedim. It was hunger, raw and crimson; a craving to be filled, a longing to be renewed. Her well was a tangible void at her center, calling to her like a half-starved cat.
She looked sharply away from Vrom and snatched back her hand. He must have taken it for embarrassment.
“I won’t forget, Tey,” he said. “If you need anyth—”
“No, Vrom.” Tey reached into her satchel for another potion. After this, she’d only have two left, but it couldn’t be helped. It was either drink one, or do to Vrom what she’d done to Hirsiga. She ripped out the cork and downed the potion in one. She must have been getting used to it; there was no rush this time, no warmth flooding her skin. But it took the edge off her need for passion and blood. If only for now.
She caught Vrom watching her, a frown on his face. At her glare, he looked away to the door the beast had broken down.
“We should get moving,” he said. With effort, he got to his feet then gathered his pack, stopping to transfer Hirsiga’s provisions into it.
When Tey stood, she swayed. At first she thought it was the potion, but then she looked down at the club-foot of her scaled leg poking from beneath her dress. It unbalanced her, forced her to hobble. She should have been pleased: it was better than dragging it, scraping her maimed leg across the floor. But it was another reminder of violation, the same as her well, which hadn’t been there before; or if it had, it had been a latency, one that should never have been awakened. Always there was something with her—Khunt Moonshine, her well, the Shedim—and her leg was indisputable evidence she was losing the battle for herself. And that, she realized, was what she feared more than anything.
“Want me to go first?” Vrom said, adjusting the straps of his bulging pack.
He was still trying to show his gratitude, still trying to persuade her she could rely on him, that she needed him. Didn’t the idiot realize that made him just as bad as all the other things making their demands on her?
She shook her head and limped through the doorway Pheklus had left by. It wasn’t a pained limp, either. Nor was it the result of stiffness. Her scaled leg propelled her forward with powerful, lunging strides, and it was her good leg now that had to struggle to keep pace.
Anger distracted her. Anger at Vrom, the Shedim, at herself for letting things go this far. Her head was swimming. Maybe the potion had affected her after all. She barely registered the corridor, the stark glow of undamaged crystals lining the ceiling; barely even noted Vrom’s footsteps behind her.
“Slow down, Tey,” he called. “The pack… I can’t go that fast.”
A shadow flowed around the corner ahead of her, and Tey drew up sharp, clutching for the amulet around her neck that was no longer there.
“You made it,” Pheklus said, stepping into the light. Gulgath was asleep in his arms. “Might I ask how?” There was trepidation in his voice, and he cast worried looks over Tey’s shoulder, no doubt checking to see if they were being pursued.
“No thanks to you,” Vrom said, coming alongside Tey, hands on his hips. He was trying to look tough for her benefit, but he couldn’t hide his true nature from Tey. Vrom was a mouse, not a lion. He’d always been a mouse.
Pheklus narrowed his pink eyes and stared until Vrom looked away. “Remember your place, apprentice,” he said in a chilling whisper.
“His place is with me,” Tey said.
Pheklus had no idea what she’d done in the chamber back there, and he had even less idea of what she was capable now. Not much, judging by the residual nausea from drawing upon her own essence. Do that again and she had no doubt she’d be incapacitated, or worse. And her well was empty, her vambrace and amulet gone. Without the offensive patterns carved into both, what threat could she possibly be? But Pheklus didn’t know, and he didn’t strike Tey as the type to gamble his life from a position of ignorance.
Emulating Vrom’s hands-on-hip stance, she consciously assumed the Witch Woman persona. More and more, it was the one that fit.
It was an eternity before Pheklus forced a crooked smile and nodded. “You are right. And we must hurry. I fear we may be late.”
The necromancer led them through a maze of passageways, following his map, until they reached a ladder ascending to a domed cover in the ceiling.
“Would you ask your apprentice?” Pheklus said, indicating the cover with a flick of his head, then the sleeping dog he was carrying.
With a sigh, Vrom climbed the ladder, struggling under the weight of his pack. When he opened the dome and climbed out, the muted thuds of drums reached Tey’s ears, along with an eerie melody played on pipes.
“Good,” Pheklus said. “We’ve passed beneath Lake Pleroma. Slyndon was right about this route. We’re right at the heart of the Wakeful Isle.”
Somewhere in the near distance, a gong clanged, its echoes reverberating down below.
Pheklus winced, then lifted Gulgath by the scruff with one hand. The dog opened a bleary eye then resumed his gentle snoring as the necromancer began to climb.
“Be quick,” Pheklus shot over his shoulder to Tey. “It’s started.”
THE CONCLAVE
The Archmage’s eyes blazed violet, lit from within by a radiance that had not been there moments before. The air in the cavern bristled with unseen forces. Tingling waves passed across Snaith’s scalp, sending ripples through the stubble on either side of his crest. Around him on the seating, sorcerers and apprentices patted down hair standing on end. Theurig gripped his beard in a white-knuckled fist, though it continued to curl unnaturally upward. Pressure built and built, till the apprentices were covering their ears and groaning. The sorcerers shut their eyes and winced. Theurig rolled his head, face contorted in agony.
But Snaith fought it; fought the need to cry out and writhe in his seat. He directed his full attention at those incandescent eyes, etched them into his memory along with every other feature of that wizened face, every crease and shadow on the scarlet robe, every intricate carving that adorned the onyx throne. Even so, he felt an invisible pinch on the bridge of his nose. His ears popped. A vise gripped his skull. And he could smell blood.
The Archmage blinked, and the pressure abated. A palpable wave of relief passed through the others in the cavern. Theurig let out a long sigh and released the death grip on his beard.
Snaith wiped moisture from his nose. Crimson stained his fingers. To the far right of the row he was seated on he caught sight of Calzod Murcifer, completely unfazed. The sorcerer glanced surreptitiously in Snaith’s direction, the hint of a smile curling one corner of his mouth.
Around the cavern the Lakelings stood perfectly still, amber eyes reflecting the background phosphorescence, bows and glaives unspoken threats.
“Well?” the Archmage said in a deep, soothing voice that somehow seemed more menacing than his earlier rumbling thunder.
“Excellency,” Theurig said, “I do not know what to say.”
“Now that I find hard to believe,” the Archmage said. Muted titters passed among the sorcerers, though there was no disguising their tension. Anticipation permeated the cavern, held everyone in clenched expectation of a sudden lightning strike.
“Perhaps some hint of what Theurig is being accused of, Anathoth?” Calzod Murcifer said in an affable tone. “Age may have blunted his wits, as indeed it has done for many of us. I, for one, haven’t the foggiest what you are referring to.”
The Archmage narrowed his eyes, one milky and blind again, the other back to its virulent yellow veined with red. He did not register that he’d heard Calzod. His gaze remained unwaveringly on Theurig. The Lakelings, though… Snaith thought some of them might have moved
, maybe tightened their grips on their weapons.
Calzod Murcifer appeared to have noticed. He grinned to himself, then adopted a mask of seriousness and deference. Behind him a woman, naked save for a slender girdle of plaited hide and what looked like a grey tufted tail, flashed feral looks with her ice-blue eyes. Black hair streaked with white. Face weather-worn and wrinkled. Body firm as a teenager’s, no doubt from a life on the prowl. For the apprentice with her was clad in the wolf’s head and skin of the Wolvers.
“You were all there for the Proving,” the Archmage said, finally releasing Theurig from his glare. “Well, most of you. I’m sure some of you must have spoken with Theurig. Shared… knowledge.” He frowned. “Where is Slyndon Grun? And where is Pheklus the Clincherman?”
One of the sorcerers, a man in a motley robe of patches and a tall, crooked hat, coughed politely and said, “They were traveling together, Excellency. Perhaps they were delayed.”
The Archmage gave a fierce nod, apparently satisfied. “So, is no one willing to tell me what happened at Malogoi? Believe me, it will go far better for you to speak now before you are exposed. What I don’t already know, I will find out. And if you have been keeping things from me…” His eyes flashed violet for an instant, accompanied by a brief swell of pressure. At the same time, Snaith noticed the Archmage lightly touch one of the rings adorning his fingers.
No one spoke. Either they were too frightened to reveal whatever it was they knew, or they really didn’t know anything.
After a long, tense silence, the Archmage said, “All the sorcerers of Branikdür, greedy for hidden knowledge, scouring the ancient ruins for traces of lore, and no one saw anything unusual? Heard more than was intended for their ears? Detected anything out of the ordinary? Sorcery far beyond what any of you possess? Something so puissant that it pricked the attention of Hélum?”
Hushed words were quickly exchanged up and down the rows. Theurig was frowning, tapping the side of his nose with a finger.
“The sort of thing,” the Archmage said, “that we all search for: relics of the old times, when the Shedim ruled the Dark Isle, and before them, when the shadow of the Wakeful fell over the whole of Nemus. Something long buried and now unearthed.”