Companion of Darkness: An Epic Fantasy Series (The Chaos Wars Book 1)

by CJ Rutherford

  I drifted into exhaustion with the ghost of a smile on my face.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When a shaft of sunlight passed over my face, I dimly realized it must be mid-morning, and I rolled over in bed with a satisfied groan.

  Mmm, Lyssa never lets me sleep in this late.

  I’d almost dropped back into another contented doze when I sat abruptly up. Lyssa NEVER let me sleep late. The moment of confusion gave way to understanding, and I smiled. Talyn. He was doing exactly what he said he’d do: keeping her away from me. I had no doubt it wouldn’t last, and part of me — quite a sizable chunk in fact — dreaded what he might have to do to distract her.

  My heart gave a lurch. Dammit! The butterflies were back in my stomach with a vengeance, but I couldn’t let my feelings for him distract me from the mission. I almost snorted. Mission. I had no idea what to do, where to go, or how to actually accomplish anything if I found…whatever it was I had to find.

  Maker! I ground my fist into my palm. Hoggan’s idea seemed absurd, but his words about the dragons’ impending betrayal stung me deeply. I felt…I didn’t know how I felt, not truly. Angry? Yes. Bitter? Maybe. Disappointment, mostly. Disappointment in my trust of Glyran, and that he’d neglected to inform me of the likely outcome of what I’d told him.

  No, I wouldn’t let myself plunge into the depths of self-pity. I had a job to do, and if Talyn was doing his best to keep the princess away from me, then I’d do my best to find and break this bond…curse, whatever it was.

  Hoggan had told me he had court business all day, so I was by myself, but he’d given me a few places to search. He’d been here over two centuries and had explored a lot of the Citadel, but the palace was vast. He’d marked on the map places he’d already searched, and pointed out likely hiding places, areas with little in the way of traffic, out of the way corners where the eldar or lower elves seldom visited.

  After slipping on one of the plain gowns hanging in the wardrobe, I reached up to the hiding place to retrieve the map and concealed it within the gown. Then I wolfed down the meager breakfast of bread and water. Lyssa, it appeared, had left standing orders concerning my rations. At least the bread was fresh, and the water flowed like a cool stream down my throat.

  I cracked the door open to reveal an empty stairwell. Good. I didn’t want any prying eyes reporting my excursions, but at the same time I didn’t want to appear suspicious, so I stood tall and marched down the stairs to the transportation circle in the hall. My luck held, and I reached the circle without seeing another soul. Here goes nothing, I thought.

  And indeed, as it turned out at the end of the day, all I’d found was a whole bunch of nothing. Of over a dozen trips to outlying parts of the Citadel, the only interesting thing I’d found was a small library. I’d marked that to visit another time. Some of the books looked interesting, but I hadn’t caught a whiff of anything magical.

  Urgh. I was done. I was hungry, tired, and frustrated. Time to go back and see if I could scrounge something tasty from the kitchen without anyone telling Lyssa. I looked at the map. I didn’t know why. I knew the pattern for the circle closest to the kitchen by heart, but something…I had no idea what it was, wanted me to look at the map. Something swam at the back of my mind, a suggestion of a half-remembered melody. I tried to concentrate, to identify the tune, but it was gone before I managed to latch on to it. The suggestion remained, however.

  The map looked exactly as it had all day. The marks Hoggan had made were there, along with my own, which I’d used to cross off the locations I’d visited. I sighed. What was going on in my frazzled brain? I began rolling up the map but stopped abruptly as a shaft of light speared down through an overhead sunlight.

  It blinded me, and I put my hand up to shade my eyes. As I did, I dropped the map. I muttered a curse under my breath as it fluttered to the ground, the pale parchment unrolling to settle upside down on the floor of the passage. The shaft of light washed over the plain back of the map. Through it, I could see the hundreds of transportation circles littered throughout the Citadel. I could clearly see my and Hoggan’s markings, but that wasn’t what drew my eyes.

  As the sun passed overhead, the light narrowed, transforming into a pencil-thin beam. Part of me panicked in case the focused light might be enough to ignite the flimsy material of the map, but no, the beam settled on a circle, a circle that Hoggan hadn’t marked but which lay deep in the bowels of the Citadel. I watched as the sun moved just enough so it didn’t shine directly on the map, and the beam winked out, but as I knelt down to scoop up the map and turn it over, the circle the beam had rested on shone with a golden illumination.

  I peered up at the skylight, trying to see if there was anything out of the ordinary about it, but no, it looked just like any other window. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply. Maybe if there was magic at work, it had left the customary tang of bitterness in the air, but again there was nothing.

  It didn’t make any sense. Magic had rules, and if what had just happened wasn’t magical? Well, if I still had my wings I’d eat them.

  I flattened the map out on the floor. The circle remained surrounded by a golden glow, like a beacon drawing me inexorably toward something. A tiny voice in my mind cried out to sow a seed of doubt, of hesitation. It screamed to wait, to think. The map, the light—it was wrong.

  I clenched my fists, trying to fight the urge to leap into the circle in front of my eyes and travel to a place something inside me told me would be a bad idea, a really bad idea. I picked up the map and held it in my outstretched arms. The circle sparked with golden light, filling my vision. I felt the warmth wash over me, tugging at me.

  This isn’t real. Fear rose up within me, and I glanced desperately at the transportation circle on the floor, just a few inches away. All I had to do was take a step, and I’d be back in the hallway below my room. Kitchen be damned. If it meant me going hungry to be safe, I’d choose safe every time.

  If my room was safety, this other place, the golden circle drawing me in, was danger.

  I took the step. It took all the willpower I had, and my leg muscles groaned as I fought against the invisible force drawing me into the map. One foot was on the circle on the floor, but my vision swam with golden stars. I tried to blink, but like my legs, my eyes weren’t cooperating.

  I managed to shift my other leg a bare inch toward the circle on the floor. Panic—no, terror—threatened to overcome me as I recognized the sensation repelling me from the circle on the map. It was the same feeling as in the dark corridor the night I had encountered the dragon, only a hundred times more intense, the warning the eldar king had given, that first day so long ago: that I would know where I shouldn’t tread and to stay away.

  One more step and I’d be free. I clenched my teeth and grunted to lift my foot.

  Suddenly the hold on my body released, and I overbalanced, screaming as I fell, arms outstretched, through the golden portal of the map and into darkness.

  Chapter Seventeen

  How was this even possible? How had a map…a piece of paper…transported me?

  I stayed utterly still and silent as I took in my surroundings. I’d gone from a brightly lit passage to…wherever I now was, and although I’d initially thought this place was completely dark, as my eyes adjusted, I saw a dim illumination, a flickering light, coming from a doorway at the end of a stone corridor. But that wasn’t all.

  The whole place reeked of magic, the sort I’d encountered in the corridor just a few weeks earlier. Could it have been so recent? It felt so far in my past already.

  I got up off the rough stone floor and looked around. In front of me lay the doorway, which was exuding the sensation I recognized from before. I wanted to turn tail and run. It felt…wrong. There was no other word for it, but there was nowhere to run to. Behind me lay a blank face of rock. Whatever had brought me here had stranded me. There was no pattern on the floor. No escape apart from through the door. I really didn’t want to go through that d
oor. The last time I’d walked through this sort of magic, I’d unlocked a barrier and caused the brutal murder of an ancient, noble being, all to fulfill some sort of evil prophecy. I didn’t want to do that again, of course I didn’t, but did I have a choice? Was there even a way out beyond that door, and was there any way for the dark being and Lyssa to get here, even if I did break the spell? I had the map—

  Oh no. The map was gone, left to drift to the floor of the hallway after I’d fallen through whatever magical portal had transported me here. I couldn’t panic. Think, Jes! The map would be useless anyway, as there was no circle here. My breathing gradually slowed and I took a long moment to calm myself.

  Last time, I’d been chased to the corridor by the dark figure and his curious song, but now I was alone. Could I risk it? Could I risk unlocking the spell, even if it was just me here?

  Choices. I could sit here in this dark place, with no way of escape, or I could cross the threshold. There was no choice. I took a tentative step toward the doorway. With each step, the wrongness thickened in the air around me. How hadn’t I noticed it the last time? Then I thought back to the terror coursing through my veins at the time.

  The bitter scent of magic filled my nostrils, and the hairs on the back of my neck felt like sparks as they rose up almost painfully. I reached the door and passed my hand over the carvings adorning the surface. Small trees and bushes with tiny, intricately carved flowers and thorns scattered randomly.

  Something prevented me from seeing what lay beyond the barrier itself, like an opaque window stretched across the surface of the doorframe; some part of the magic no doubt, but I knew what lay beyond, and I felt sickened.

  One step, this one much slower than the mad rush last time, and I felt it. Something ripped in the fabric around me. For an instant, it was as if I stood inside a mirrored surface, half of me on one side, half on the other. Then it shattered, or dissolved, like smoke on the wind, and I stood in a purely mundane place. The magic was gone and all that remained was a small grubby figure crouched over a low desk in the corner of a wide room.

  A single candle burned, almost guttering, casting flickering shadows all around the room. I heard a scratching noise and took a step farther into the room, trying to keep as silent as possible. Not silent enough.

  The scratching stopped, and as I approached close enough to peer over the figure’s shoulder, I saw a dark feathered quill quivering between gnarled fingers.

  “So, it is time.” The voice was unexpected. It was deep and gravelly…somehow earthy, and his scent only served to reinforce that this being came from the deep forest. The smell of moss and pine filled the air.

  His back revealed little detail of his appearance, except for his hair, which was like the brambles carved into the arch of the doorway behind me.

  But what did he mean? Time for what?

  He turned to face me and we both gasped. A pair of dark, tormented eyes peered into mine, and the initial hatred directed toward what he had expected to encounter faded into incredulity.

  “You are not the it.” The voice was barely a whisper, and I detected desperation in it, a hint of complete surprise, and…hope?

  “It?” I whispered, unwilling to break the spell by talking aloud.

  The being…the brownie…turned back to his desk, and the scratching resumed as he finished the sheet he was working on and snapped it up to lay it on a pile perched precariously beside the desk.

  “You are not the Darkness. You are not real,” he muttered under his breath, but I caught the relief in it. “Not real. Not real. Not real.” He started to sing the words in a melody that was hauntingly familiar, the song the dark figure sang the night he chased me into the first passageway. It grated against my brain.

  “Who were you expecting?” I asked. No response. I took a step closer and laid a gentle hand on the brownie’s shoulder. He stilled, and as his hand stopped, I saw what was on the fresh page on the desk, as well as the spilling pile beside it. The image was identical in every case. On the desk it was unfinished, but the top picture of the pile was unmistakable.

  Glyran.

  It couldn’t be, could it? Had I been so wrong? I felt sick to my stomach at the thought.

  I grasped the shoulder of the brownie king. That’s who he had to be, even if he’d lost his natural appearance, as well as his mind, after being in this dungeon for so long.

  “Is it Glyran? Is he the Darkness?”

  My heart pounded. I wanted him to tell me I was wrong. I wanted him to tell me Glyran was who I thought he was, someone who fought against whatever enemy wanted to doom us all.

  He turned his maddened eyes to mine, and they gleamed with an insane light. His lips split in a wide grin, his thin grasping fingers biting into my arms hard enough to hurt.

  “No.”

  His speed and strength surprised me, but a wave of relief flowed through me. Thank the Maker, Glyran wasn’t this Darkness, whatever it was. Then a memory pierced me. The Darkness. Could the Darkness the brownie king rambled about be the same as the thing I’d seen in Vaeolet’s memories…the inky blackness that had chased them as they tried desperately to escape?

  Another memory came unbidden, one that had haunted my waking hours, teasing me before disappearing back into my subconscious. One of a figure wrapped in blue flame, a being with a cruel smile and a murderous glint in her eyes.

  The brownie king recoiled as if I’d suddenly become too hot to touch, but I realized at once it wasn’t pain that sent him scurrying to the farthest corner, where he scrunched into a ball and lay rocking as he whimpered. It was fear. He was terrified…of me.

  I knelt down beside him and gently patted his back, only to jerk back as a large spine stabbed out of his back to pierce the soft skin of my arm. I cried out in pain, but as I sat back, hard, on the stone floor, I saw it wasn’t a deep wound. It just hurt horribly. I wouldn’t be doing that again anytime soon.

  Gingerly, I prized the spine from my arm and clasped a hand over the wound, muttering a spell of healing. Warmth flowed into me and instantly the pain lessened and the bleeding stopped. It would take a while to heal, but at least I wouldn’t bleed to death.

  I got onto my knees again, but this time kept my hands clasped in my lap.

  “Why are you afraid of me?” I whispered. I didn’t know why I was whispering; there was no one here but us, but it seemed the right thing to do. “And why do you keep drawing Glyran?”

  That caused a reaction, and the ball unfurled just enough to reveal the king’s beady eyes. They seemed to consider me for a long moment, and I expected them to retreat into his defensive ball, but then they widened in what could only be surprise. The madness retreated, and in less than a second, the short stocky figure stood before me. He was so short that I was taller than he was, even when kneeling.

  “You are not the Darkness,” he said in that impossible baritone. An enigmatic expression crossed over his features. “At least not yet.”

  Not yet? What did he mean by that? But even as he finished the sentence I remembered the dream at last. I remembered the mirror image of myself as I lay at the edge of the burning tree line of the devastated forest. I remembered looking into my own eyes and quailing in terror and denial.

  “What do you mean?” I asked anyway, although I didn’t want him to tell me what I already suspected.

  A look of profound sadness crossed his features, all traces of madness gone now. “You have a long journey ahead of you, young one.” He shook his head. “And many impossible choices.”

  He leaned forward. “You are the one foreseen. You are the Companion of Darkness,” he whispered, almost inaudibly.

  My jaw dropped open and I sat speechless for a moment. “Wait…companion of what?” The word companion danced through my mind. I’d been brought to the Citadel to be the companion to Lyssa, and if anyone could be described as dark, it was that evil little bitch.

  “Lyssa…is she this…Darkness?”

  The king bowed his head.
“The Darkness deceives us all. It has done so since its arrival on this world at the end of the Chaos Wars, when the barriers between realms were at their weakest. I don’t know this…Lyssa.”

  I thought back to Wash’s vision. Hadn’t the dark-haired warrior destroyed the darkness? Then I remembered Vaeolet’s memory. It was all so confusing!

  He gestured to the pile of drawings. “It can take any form except that of a dragon. I suspect this is why it imparted so much of its own essence into the spell binding the dragons to the will of the eldar king. It knew the king would become its pawn eventually, and it could then use its greatest weakness as its most powerful weapon.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, and I spoke the truth. I was totally bewildered. Then I saw the intelligence, edged with amusement, flicker across his face. And I remembered the hideous prophecy the dark being had sung in the dragon king’s cavern. “You’re supposed to have a soul as mad as a crow. But you’re not mad at all, are you?”

  He chuckled. “You just fell through a map to get here, crossed a magical barrier to confront someone who should have died a thousand years ago. Tell me, are you mad?”

  I smiled. “Quite possibly.”

  He reacted with a smile that lit his features, and I swear I saw Brecca’s eyes glinting back at me. Could it be possible? I knew brownies were long lived, like the eldar and dragon races, nigh on immortal, but that meant Brecca was…much older than she looked.

  By the Great Maker! Did Lyssa and her parents even know this? How could they not know? Maybe I was wrong. Perhaps all brownies shared the same shade of eye color. I had to know.

  “Do you know a brownie called Brecca?”

  His lips thinned into a line as the deep emerald shade of his skin lightened to pale green. “My daughter is here?”

  I nodded, but then my heart lurched. If Brecca was his daughter, then her brother…her dead brother, was his son. My head reeled and my breathing quickened. My heart thundered in my chest as I debated what to say next.