Companion of Darkness_An Epic Fantasy Series

by CJ Rutherford

  He cut my train of thought off mid-stream. “Good.”

  Good? Was he actually crazy? Was this intelligent, sane appearance an elaborate act?

  “If she’s here, it must mean the others are ready to act,” he said, pacing around as if pondering a deep thought. He turned to lock eyes with me. “Listen to me, young one. You are not here by accident.” His eyes narrowed, and he studied me for a while.

  “The map was my work,” he said, “and for it to have been found after so long tells me the Darkness feels strong enough to reveal itself at last, for the spell laid upon it ensured it would only reveal itself when a force powerful enough to defeat the Darkness was born.”

  Not this idiotic prophecy nonsense again. I held my hands up. “Look. I don’t know who or what you think I am, but I’m just a faerie girl. You all seem to think I’m this mighty savior from this crock of a prophecy, but I’m not. I’m just me. Jesaela. Just Jesaela. I’m nothing special, and I’m not anyone’s savior. I can barely keep from crying myself to sleep every…single…night.”

  Then I…we, heard it. A shard of ice pierced my spine, and the king’s eyes widened in terror, clearly resisting an urge to roll up into a ball again.

  Coming from the now open doorway was a voice. It was still distant, and I wondered how that could be when the hallway outside was so small. I recognized it at once. It was the voice of the dark being that had chased me into the corridor to unlock the spell hiding the dragon king from him.

  I’d done it again. Despair washed over me. I’d doomed another creature. It was coming for the brownie king.

  The king reacted instantly, grabbing my wrist. “Jesaela, this is one of those impossible choices I mentioned.”

  I had no idea what he meant, but my own terror was growing alongside the increasing volume of the song coming through the door. I realized I was staring at the opening with wide-eyed horror when the king grabbed my chin and drew my gaze to his. “If I die at the Darkness’s hands, the dark prophecy continues unbroken.”

  His eyes bore into mine. What did he mean? I recalled the line the dark figure had sung.

  “A Brownie king’s soul, turned mad as a crow.”

  The pieces dropped into place. The brownie king had feigned madness all these years, so when the Darkness came for him he’d attempt to disrupt the prophecy, dying while he was still sane, but somehow I knew the Darkness would see through the deception when it saw us together. With the barrier down, the Darkness would be free to turn the brownie king mad, using torture or other, more diabolical magical means.

  And an impossible choice? What did that mean?

  With a feeling of utter horror and revulsion, it came home. ‘If I die at the Darkness’s hands, the dark prophecy continues unbroken.’

  He couldn’t die at the Darkness’s hand, but if he couldn’t die at its hand, the only other hand to die at was…

  “No!” I uttered, my voice breaking.

  The singing reverberated from the opening behind me. It echoed around the chamber, its melodies rebounding off the surfaces to create a twisted cacophony of sounds.

  The king took my hands tenderly in his. Though they looked like bark-covered branches, they were surprisingly warm and soft. “My life is yours, Jesaela of the Tree people. I give it freely, to save my soul from everlasting torment at the hands of the Darkness.”

  He reached inside the dark cloak he wore. I hadn’t even noticed he wore clothes, so close they were to his own coloring. He withdrew a length of wood, slender and sharp, and pressed it into my palm.

  The song outside the door threatened to overcome the thundering of my heart.

  The king drew the tip of the spear to rest on his breast. “This is the first of a series of impossible choices, my young friend.” His face darkened. “You shall be the Companion of Darkness.”

  He turned his face to the opening, and I followed his gaze. A finger of complete blackness probed the light cast by the candle, eating up the meager illumination. It pulsed in time with the song. A wave of nausea swirled in my stomach.

  His eyes met mine again. “My name is Gak, young faerie, and now my life is yours.” With the final word, he grasped my wrist and plunged the spear into his heart.

  “No!” I sobbed. I felt the blood…or was it sap…pump out from the wound in Gak’s chest. Deep moss-colored liquid pooled on the floor of the room, but even as it did the song outside the door seemed to hiss and vibrate in fury. The walls of the small room shook as dust motes filled the air. I was afraid the ceiling might collapse, burying us all, but just as suddenly as the music had begun, it receded. Soon, the only sound was the ragged and wet breathing of the dying king in my arms.

  Gak smiled weakly. “You see? The Darkness will not have my soul, young one…you will.” As he slipped to the floor, he clung to me. With an effort, he drew a rattling breath into his ruined lungs. “You are the Companion of Darkness. You are the Shadow, and Light always needs the Shadow to bring it back into the world.”

  The song outside the door died along with Gak. The room became a silent tomb.

  Through the thickening silence I sat cradling Gak’s head in my lap, weeping. His eyes looked out through the stone prison, but even as I watched, a tiny spore flew up on an errant draft. The prison was breeched, so magic could come and go again. The darkness of the cell gave way to a star-filled sky, and Gak’s soul soared skyward.

  I sat in the darkness for what seemed an age before the walls around me began to glow softly and grow opaque. Slowly, I began to make out shapes becoming clear around me, and before a minute had passed, I sat alone in the dimly lit passage, the map on the floor beside me. Gak was nowhere to be seen, and the glowing circle was gone. I was alone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I had to find Hoggan and tell him what had happened, but where would I even start? I’d never gone searching for him before; he always seemed to turn up when I needed him most. He could be anywhere in the entire Citadel.

  I tried the kitchens first. We’d spent an inordinate portion of our time that first week there, eating every assortment of foods, but at this late hour it was deserted, the fires banked until their heat was needed to bake the morning bread. I did manage to nab a couple of soft rolls and stuff them in my mouth as I climbed the steps to the nearest transportation circle.

  As I ran headlong up the winding passageway, I racked my brain for where to try next. Hoggan had told me the eldar king consulted him on matters, but there was no way I was going to the court. Not once in the many weeks I’d lived in this place had I been invited to attend any of the functions.

  Yes, Lyssa delighted in torturing me in front of the courtiers, but I’d always been sent away when she was called to court.

  His room! Yes, even if he wasn’t there I could wait for him. I raced to the circle, struggling to remember the pattern we’d used before. A blue flame with a purple mantle? No, the flame was purple and the mantle a deep red. I stepped on the circle with the image in my head and I suddenly stood in a vaguely familiar hallway. I turned around, trying to find something, anything familiar, but all the doorways looked the same.

  I wished I’d asked Hoggan to mark his room on the map. I wasn’t even sure I was in the right hallway. That one. I selected a doorway I was pretty sure was the right one and ran down the corridor, searching for the spiral staircase to Hoggan’s room. After a few steps, I realized I was in the wrong place. For a start, this corridor was straight, whereas the route to his room bent at a sharp angle a few feet into it.

  I turned to go back and try another opening when I felt it. The briefest, slightest scent of magic, but one unlike I’d experienced before in the Citadel. While most eldar magic left a slightly bitter smell in the air, this was sweet and fragrant, like the blossoms on a magnolia tree in spring.

  It drew me farther down the corridor until I arrived at a wooden paneled oak door flanked by two white stone pillars. I expected it to be locked, but a gentle push had the door swinging wide on silent hinges t
o reveal books. Hundreds, no…thousands of books, on hundreds of shelves lining the walls of the biggest library I’d ever seen.

  There were so many books that I could read every day for the rest of my life and barely read a fraction of them, but one area in particular drew me in, like a moth to a flame. I passed tables and stacks of books. The place had been ransacked at some time in the past. Entire bookcases lay empty, their contents strewn across the floor. A thick layer of dust coated everything. No one had been in here for a very long time.

  Still I felt the attraction. I arrived at an empty set of shelving at the back corner of the library. Here the attacker had been far more thorough in his destruction. Books lay ripped and crumpled all around, but it wasn’t the books I was interested in.

  On the wall between two towering bookcases was a shimmering surface of silver, about a foot square. From it emanated the sensations of magical energy that had brought me here. Scents of the forest filled my nostrils. Could this be faerie magic? If it was, it was like nothing I’d seen or even heard of before.

  By now the blood in my veins sang a song that had my heart racing with excitement and exhilaration, but I steadied my shaking fingers as I reached through the barrier. It felt like a frigid mountain stream. The cold stung, and I winced but plunged my arm in even farther, grasping desperately for whatever hid within.

  Just as I thought my arm might freeze solid enough to shatter, my fingers closed around a smooth hard object. I immediately recoiled. It was like touching the surface of the sun. Then I realized it felt so hot because the surrounding air was so cold. I forced my hand to close around it, crying out in pain. Thankfully, whatever it was was small and light enough to hold in one hand, and I moaned in relief as my hand, now blue-tinged and flecked with ice, withdrew it from the opening.

  I spent a long moment rubbing the blood back into my frozen limb before I turned my clenched fist over and opened my hand.

  In my palm lay a huge red stone…a ruby? No. It wasn’t a stone at all, I realized as the dark facet at its center turned to look at me. This was an eye, a dragon’s eye, and it locked its gaze with mine and told me its tale.

  I was there when time dawned, little faerie.

  I was there when the Makers made the races, and I was there when petty jealousy drove the Makers to war.

  I was there when the Great Maker left us here to fend for ourselves.

  For a thousand years, we thrived.

  But the Chaos Wars had weakened the barriers between the realms of Light and Darkness, and something was left behind on this world when the Great Maker left.

  We were meant for greatness among the worlds, but the seed of Darkness corrupted us all, all except my people, the dragons.

  We alone retained our purity, with no taint of Darkness, while war swept across the plains of Teralia, the Darkness pitting race against race.

  The eldar are tied to this world, and like the dragons are immortal. But the eldar king did the unspeakable. On the eve of his ultimate defeat, the Darkness made its move to seduce the king, who gave his own life to complete the spell you hold in your hand.

  He sacrificed thousands upon thousands of years of life, which the Darkness had turned to spite. The Darkness used it, imparting a large portion of its own power, to steal a tiny part of each dragon’s soul, which you now hold in your hand.

  I almost dropped it. It throbbed with a multitude of minds, and I could sense each and every one. Glyran’s soul was in the palm of my hand, along with the entire dragon race. I’d done it. I’d found the binding spell, but what was I going to do with it?

  Give it back to the dragons? Would that even work?

  “No, it won’t.”

  I spun round on my heels and almost fell to my knees. Talyn stood, his hand clasped in Lyssa’s, an evil gleam in his eyes. “The dragons cannot take their souls back. They must be freely given, isn’t that correct, my love?” He turned his head to the side to grace Lyssa’s cheek with a kiss.

  What? This wasn’t any of the Talyns I had met up till this point. He wasn’t the mischievous boy from the beach. Nor was he the idiot prince from the cavern.

  His expression, and his voice, were as cold as ice. “Give it to me, Jes.” He held his hand out, palm open.

  No! Even now, I didn’t know if this was all part of his act. Did he want to take the eye from me, just to steal it away from Lyssa?

  Was this even Talyn? Gak’s words came back to me. The Darkness could appear in any form except a dragon. And hadn’t he just said he could only claim it if I gave it to him freely? Did that mean I had already claimed it? It didn’t feel as if I had. I felt the draw of the minds within the crystalline prison. They seemed to want a master, seemed to hunger for something within me. Could I be it?

  No! This was the key to freeing the dragons. As long as the fragments inside the eye weren’t bound to anyone, they could return, and the spell would break. But how could I do it? How could I get the eye back to the dragons?

  Talyn snorted. “Stupid faerie bitch. Do you really think the dragons want those shards of their souls back? Are you really so foolish?”

  What did he mean? Of course they would. Isn’t this what Glyran asked me to do? To free them? Then I felt it, an almost imperceptible vibration in my hand. The eye began to heat up, and with the heat flowed something else. Waves of memories pulsed out of the eye. Horrible, wicked, tragic memories. Glyran gazed through his own eyes, helpless as he was ordered to incinerate a child. I felt his rage, his pain, and his ultimately futile resistance. But it was the guilt that almost forced me to my knees, gasping.

  A cold lump settled in my belly as I realized what I held in my hand. Oh, it was the binding spell, no doubt, but it was much crueler that I’d ever suspected. The eye held the dragons’ guilt. For each act of depravity they had been forced to carry out, the consequences of their actions were stored within the eye.

  Talyn laughed, but it was a wholly cold, thin sound. It sounded familiar, somehow. “You understand now? You understand what will happen if you return their souls?”

  I had visions of Glyran and the other dragons being confronted with the guilt of centuries of slaughter. I didn’t know if they could survive it without going mad, and an insane race of unstoppably powerful beings might not be a good thing. Maker, what was I to do?

  “Give it to me, child!” Talyn held his hand out greedily. “Only I can release them safely.”

  Yeah, like that was his intention. Dimly, I realized he could hear my thoughts, and a brief check assured me my barriers were up. How could he do that? Who, or what, was he? Lyssa stood docilely at his side, her eyes glassy and vacant. Her cruelty was gone, for now at least, but I wasn’t about to fool myself it wasn’t there, lurking under a shallow surface.

  I stepped sideways, so the wide oak table lay between us. “How much do you want it, Tal?”

  His eyes narrowed to slits, and I thought I saw slatted irises flicker momentarily before he shook his head. “You can’t keep it, Jes.” His voice was like a cold draft, and the library chilled. His lips split in a wide smile. “You don’t have the strength or will to use it, but if you give it to me now, I’ll make sure your family live.”

  My blood froze. I was both scared and angry. Could he hurt my family? Would the Talyn I knew do so? “Who are you?” Lyssa wasn’t the Darkness. That much was clear.

  Talyn’s face sneered. “I’m the victor in the game I’ve played for centuries. Now give it to me!”

  I looked down at the eye resting in my palm, and it winked. It actually winked, and I swallowed a laugh as my lips curved into a smile.

  “You want this?” I held the red stone in my right hand, and my left searched for an item I’d seen earlier, a mass of melted red wax. My hand closed over it. “Here you go.”

  I tossed the wax high up in the air. I’d always been good at this game. I’d often close my eyes and toss an acorn up, only to snatch it from the air mere inches before it hit the ground, but the thing before me didn’t k
now that.

  The not-Talyn vaulted the desk and launched into the air in search of the eye. His hands closed on empty air and he clattered to the ground, shattering a couple of rotting wooden chairs.

  I clasped the eye in my hand and ran out the door, past the mute princess. She didn’t even acknowledge my passing, but the curses coming from the library, along with the crashing of debris, was enough to spur me on.

  I had to find Hoggan. He’d know what to do. I ran breakneck toward the transportation circle, my heart racing at the sound of steps running up the corridor behind me. I concentrated on the first pattern that came to mind and jumped into the circle, praying to the Maker that there was no way for Talyn, or whatever it was chasing me, to track me. I appeared in the courtyard before the massive main gates, which at this time of night were shut. A single chime split the air…midnight. It was midnight. Why did the fact it was midnight strike such a cord within me? Had so much time passed in the cavern of the brownie king? Midnight…what was so important about —

  The image of a circle flashed in my brain, a circle of fire surrounding a vast range of mountains. I closed my eyes, and even before I opened them again, the scent of cinnamon washed over me.

  “So, at last you deem me worthy to visit.”

  I opened my eyes and saw Glyran standing a short distance away. We were on a wide platform, one designed to accommodate dragons. We seemed to be right at the edge of the wall, for towers rose around us on all sides except for one, and in the distance, I saw the red glow of the Fire Mountains.

  I ran to Glyran, throwing my arms around his wide neck, suppressing a sob. “Oh, Glyran, I am so glad to see you. You have no idea what’s happened.” I began to tell him, but I was so flustered that most of my words were a jumbled mess of gibberish.

  “Calm yourself, child,” Glyran said, and I felt his magic flow over me, slowing my breathing and settling my racing heart. Glyran blinked once, and a stone bench appeared from nowhere. He beckoned me to sit, so I did. “Now, you have brought me here for a purpose, young one. Out with it.”