Exile's Gamble_The Chronicles of Shadow_Book II

by Lee Dunning

  “Excellent! With that settled we can turn our attention to the real meat of the evening, the after dinner entertainment.”

  The room spun and the terror Umbral kept shoved into the recesses of his mind gibbered, nearly breaking free. He dragged his eyes from the floor design he’d meditated on to Ruaz’s toothy grin. A too-long tongue slithered out, wetting the demon’s lips—lips set in a face molded to mimic Umbral’s father.

  Umbral understood the demon’s display of hunger had nothing to do with food. It spoke of other appetites. Ruaz giggled, something the First would never do, and dabbed at his chiseled chin with a dainty lace handkerchief. “Pardon me,” he said, “how terribly common.”

  Gleaming razors of terror set every nerve in Umbral’s body screaming. He schooled his face to reveal nothing of his feelings but the demon wasn’t fooled. “Oh, come now, little prince, you had to know this day would come. I didn’t spend all these long years molding a savage into a gentleman just so I could watch him steal my men’s loyalty from me.” Ruaz drew close and ran an intimate finger along the angle of Umbral’s cheek.

  Umbral recoiled. He fought his natural urge to argue with the creature. He had no desire to steal anything, but as he had learned long ago, he’d never manage to persuade Ruaz’Daem to see reason. In Ruaz’s world, it made sense to clean up a young elf, teach him how to bow, how to speak prettily, and even how to tolerate an ascot, only then to use him as a weapon against a single army in order to put dinner on the table.

  And now, he, Umbral was to be raped to death by a creature wearing the guise of his father. Entertainment for the demon’s guests.

  “No.”

  Ruaz’Daem’s visage darkened at the sound of that one word. No one ever denied him. That would be rude. He struck like a serpent. His nearness should have guaranteed his attack landed but he hit naught but air. A much younger and greener Umbral K’hul would have fallen, gaping as his insides spilled onto the floor and sprayed across the walls. However, Umbral hadn’t spent the entirety of these past eons focused solely on lessons in etiquette.

  Ruaz’Daem spun, snarling, all sign of the well-bred, demon of leisure gone. His manicured nails erupted into curved talons. He charged the elf, smashing through a sculpture of a nymph. Splinters of hand painted porcelain sprayed the room. He swiped at Umbral but the elf teleported out of reach and flung a psychic blast at the demon. The attack tore into Ruaz, shredding skin and clothing alike. “I would have visited such sweetness upon—!”

  “No!” Umbral interrupted. This time he delivered the word as a shout that crushed the demon lord’s larynx, cutting off Ruaz’s words and air. “I tire of your games and your threats. You’re right. I knew this day would come. I’m only grateful you waited this long to quench your twisted lusts. You gave me thousands of years to prepare. Maybe you thought it made you appear more cultured, denying yourself until just the right time. The perfect reward after vanquishing your enemy.”

  The demon’s eyes bulged with disbelief and rage. He tried to cast a spell that didn’t require a verbal component. Umbral spat a phrase and instantly the power dissolved around Ruaz. Since Umbral had come to live at this place, Ruaz’Daem had kept up the appearance of the elf’s hated father. Now the disguise slipped and half his face sagged into the puss-riddled flesh of his natural form. Curling rams horns pushed out of his forehead. Blond hair melted away, revealing a lumpy, distorted pate. His brow bulged, shadowing his flickering, jaundiced eyes.

  For the first time in five thousand years, Umbral smiled. To the being who had provided so much pain and fear, the elf raised his hand in farewell. “Cheerio, Ruaz.”

  Ruaz’Daem, self-styled gentleman, conqueror of the Abyss and sexual sadist, erupted in a cloud of hissing red steam.

  The building shuddered as if caught in a seizure. Lady Sera half-ran, half-fell into the room as the floor shifted under her feet. Ryld and Caeldan stumbled in after, coltish legs struggling to keep their owners upright.

  The first thing the healer saw was Raven straddling Lord W’rath, pummeling him in a desperate attempt to wake him. When Raven caught sight of the healer, the Shadow Elf yelled something incoherent just as a landscape flew off the wall and cracked her in the temple. “Ow! Shit!” she bellowed, this time all-too understandable.

  Around the room, more paintings ripped free and soared through the air, or fluttered about like crazed bats. Vases hurtled from nooks, bedding writhed, and carpets leapt up to trip and entangle those dashing across the room. Panicked cries echoed from all over House of Laughing Waters. Breaking glass and stampeding footfalls filtered in from the halls as Lady Sera’s people fled.

  Lady Sera, Ryld, and Caeldan landed in an undignified heap next to W’rath’s hovering bed. Seismis, still trapped by the psion’s powerful grip, dangled unconscious. The bed’s frame groaned as an unseen force fought with the preservation spells imbued within the solid wood. The magic should have kept the bed pristine for all time, but the mind assaulting it tore at the threads of the enchantment, unraveling it like a poorly made sweater. The headboard tore free, ripped through a window, and sent a shower of glittering, jewel-colored glass across the field outside.

  “Oh, Gods!” Raven yelled. “I need help up here!” In answer, a blast of power smashed her into the ceiling. She hung there, pinned like a bug in the impact crater. Her head lolled as she struggled to hang on to consciousness.

  “Trying,” Lady Sera said, dragging herself up so she could cling to the side of the levitating bed. Obviously, she’d made a terrible mistake in allowing Lord W’rath to dream. She would have to use magic to put him back into a coma so his brain could continue healing in peace.

  She cursed as the bed started to buck. Her spell utilized sympathetic magic, so she needed to get a hold of part of him. She heaved herself up higher and tried to fling an arm across W’rath’s exposed chest. Like an angry hydra, his long white hair writhed out in a nimbus about his head and struck. It coiled itself around the healer’s arm and yanked her shrieking into the air.

  The thick tendril of hair shook Lady Sera, rattling her teeth. Another piece of the bed ripped off and glanced painfully off her thigh before spinning away to ricochet off a wall. Ryld and Caeldan, who’d started to regain their feet, threw themselves back to the floor when the projectile cut through the space their heads had just occupied.

  “Lady of Wisdom, give me strength,” Lady Sera snarled. She stopped fighting W’rath’s serpent-like hair and used it as the anchor for her casting. Normally, she preferred to enter into the spell as gently as possible, but she could ill afford to ease into anything given the situation. To her right a stone pillar cracked. The sound of falling rubble came from further in House of Laughing Waters. W’rath’s mind tore at the building without any sign of abating. House of Laughing Waters shuddered like a dying god.

  Lady Sera rattled off the words to her spell in one desperate breath. She felt the magic grow and wrap itself around W’rath. She hung limp, relieved. She’d saved them.

  W’rath’s hair tossed her into a wall. She yelped as several ribs broke on impact. She slid, stunned to the floor, struggling to breath. Horror bloomed in her mind. The effectiveness of sympathetic magic depended much on a person’s will. From the stories she’d heard, Lord W'rath possessed the will of ten elves. Lady Sera cursed herself for her arrogance. She searched the dust-choked air for the boys, her neck popping as she twisted her head. Agony shot down her spine. The itching in her bones meant they’d started to mend, but she needed more time before she could try another spell—try being the operative word. Against someone as powerful as W'rath, her efforts might prove futile. Raven hung like the dead from the ceiling. Seismis, finally released from W’rath’s grip, lay in a heap amidst the growing rubble. Somewhere in the distance, a wall collapsed, cutting off a scream. She needed another option.

  Her eyes lit on Ryld and Caeldan. They still lay, partially tangled in the carpet where they’d taken cover. No doubt, they rued choosing this day to visit.
However, where magic failed, their innate psychic abilities might prevail.“You two!” Lady Sera called to Ryld and Caeldan. “I need you to focus.”

  “I’m focused on that crack in the ceiling that’s getting bigger,” Caeldan said, his eyes flitting from the ceiling to her and back.

  “You can go back to being a smartass in a minute,” Lady Sera said. The boy could still joke. She took it as a good sign. “I need you to get through to Lord W’rath. I know you’re telepaths, so get in there and bring him out of his fit.”

  “Are you crazy?” Caeldan said. “He’ll turn our brains into snail snot!” Ryld nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

  Lady Sera choked, whether from the dust or the image the boy painted, she didn’t know. “Get in there or that ceiling will crash down and turn all of us into snail snot.” A timely chunk of masonry plummeted to the floor between the healer and the two frightened boys.

  The twins exchanged glances. Lady Sera didn’t doubt they’d realized they could scuttle from the room like roaches. Their gazes roamed over the tableau surrounding them—the tiny, unconscious form of Seismis—Lady Raven helpless and broken, embedded in the ceiling—Lord W’rath himself. The stranger, who had saved them from the collars, now tore his mind apart as some nightmare burned through him. They both took shuddering breaths.

  Okay, on the count of three we combine our psychic voices and barge in there, Caeldan sent to his brother.

  Their inner voices rang out in each other’s head. One! Two! Three!

  Boss! Their combined psychic cries rattled shrilly in their minds. Childish, almost as if they asked permission to assault the walls of Lord W’rath’s self. Pitiful.

  They used one another to bolster their courage and willed themselves to boldly throw their inner voices against W’rath’s might. They hurled themselves into the iron barrier, and bounced off like insects against a window. A seething wind, more hurricane, snapped up their interloping minds. No more than helpless leaves, they spun and felt the anchors of their sanity start to fray.

  Their powers, strictly self-taught, were sorely inadequate to the task of subduing their powerful leader. They realized brute force had no chance against a psion of Lord W’rath’s caliber.

  A desperate ploy presented itself to Caeldan. He stopped struggling against the powers savaging him, and Ryld copied his behavior. We need to try …, Caeldan started.

  Something … subtle? Ryld finished.

  Caeldan sensed his doubt. Understandable. Neither of them had the training for something like this. They needed to find something they could use to lure Lord W’rath from whatever had sent him into a fighting frenzy.

  Lady Raven.

  You’re killing Lady Raven. Caeldan sent his mind out as a soft plea, barely a caress against the savage winds tearing at him and his brother. Ryld echoed his call, and they set up a rhythm, playing off of one another—one calling high like a wraith, the other deepening his psychic words so they filled the darkness of Lord W’rath’s mind with a persistent but non-threatening hum. As the psychic chant developed, they added in images of Raven to the mix. They used what memories they had to draw on, especially those they’d gathered this day as she sat next to them and tried to allay their fears.

  One moment they cycled through the mantra again, and the next they found themselves forcibly ejected from the older elf’s mind, and back in their own heads, blinking and stunned.

  Lady Sera jumped when W’rath sat up as if propelled by a gnomish spring. Everything, which had taken to the air, crashed to the floor, including the bed the Shadow Elf sat on. Lady Sera nearly did herself further damage trying to avoid the deluge of paintings, vases, rubble, glass, candles and books. She gritted her teeth as the last rib pulled itself back into place, and then she started to crawl over to where Seismis lay half buried in bits of debris. Halfway there, a rain of dust warned her one last item hadn’t fallen yet: Lady Raven.

  As one, those on the floor ducked as much as their prone positions allowed. The stunned elfess didn’t crush them, though. Raven’s bulk flattened Lady Sera’s newly awakened patient. The already abused bed stood for one eye-blink more, gave an outraged shriek, and collapsed into kindling. Seismis stirred and started to sob. Lady Sera found herself on the verge of joining in.

  Ryld and Caeldan recovered first, and knocked away the items covering them. They rushed over, gathered up their young companion and fled to the relative safety of a wall where they huddled together. “Get your asses up and out of here,” Lady Sera said. “Get clear, and if help isn’t already on the way, get some. I need mages who can shore up these walls until I’m sure we can safely move Lord W’rath and Lady Raven.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the twins said. They gathered up Seismis and staggered toward a crumbling exit. Lady Sera watched to make sure they got out. Even though Seismis couldn’t weigh much more than a sack of potatoes, it still took both boys to carry him. They were still weak, and she felt a wave of guilt for forcing them to do something a trained adult would have balked at. They’d done it, though, and probably saved them all.

  From the shattered bed came a muffled voice. “Lass? Are you all right?”

  Lady Sera’s head snapped back toward the bed as Raven groaned. “I think part of my brain is stuck in the ceiling. I can’t feel my legs.”

  “Hold still, both of you,” Lady Sera said as she scooted across the floor to them. With the softest of touches, she probed the back of Raven’s head and then lifted away the injured elfess’ robe to examine the damage. Raven was right; the impact with the ceiling had crushed her skull, along with part of her spine and pelvis. Lady Sera kept the details to herself. No use in announcing the young warrior had nearly met her end for the second time in two weeks. While Lady Sera hadn’t had the opportunity to speak with W’rath, his actions on the battlefield made it plain he cared about those in his charge. He didn’t need to hear he’d nearly killed Raven. Hells, all of them would have died if the boys hadn’t succeeded in breaking him out of his fit.

  “Your bones are already mending,” Lady Sera said. In truth, she found Raven’s regenerative ability impressive. “If the two of you can tolerate the discomfort for thirty or forty minutes, I think Councilor Raven will recover enough to walk out of here.”

  “Oh, no,” Raven said. She tried to squirm off W’rath, but from the waist down nothing moved. “I’m suffocating him.”

  “I assure you, I am happy to make the sacrifice,” came W’rath’s stifled voice.

  Raven’s embarrassed laugh switched to a hiss of pain. There followed a series of pops as her spine worked to realign itself. She stopped her struggles, and muffled her cries of distress in W’rath’s mangled bedding. She’d feel her legs soon enough but Lady Sera expected Raven would lament the fact for a time.

  A group of pure casters and spell swords spilled into the room, and fanned out to check the walls and search the rest of the building. “We need to get all of you out,” their chain-clad leader said. He stopped and stared at the odd spectacle before him.

  “Lady Raven requires some more time in order to recover,” Lady Sera said, smiling up at the soldier as if nothing about the scene amongst the wreckage merited explanation. “I need your people to erect a shield around us until she can move.”

  “Of course, Healer,” the befuddled soldier said. Shaking his head, he ordered his team to critical locations, and they turned their attention to shoring up the disintegrating structure. A protective dome of soft blue appeared around Lady Sera and the Shadow Elves.

  “Oh, what rumors shall fly about the islands now,” Lady Sera murmured.

  Chapter 2

  Historian raised his head, K’hul-blue eyes narrowing at the interruption. No alarm rang out to assault his ears. He abhorred loud noises. Instead, a series of crystals he’d set up to alert him if a major calamity befell First Home pulsed. One glowed blue to indicate a change in the magical balance of the islands. The red crystal gave off a single brilliant flash and then went dormant—something viole
nt had occurred but ended. Green’s lack of activity meant no assault against the natural order had taken place. Yellow’s dark depths indicated the shiver of ground movement Historian had felt wasn’t an earthquake.

  That left the purple crystal. Historian laid his surgical instruments to either side of the tiny sprite he’d started to vivisect and approached the luminous crystal as if he stalked an animal. He reached up and plucked it from the air where it floated with the others in a perfect circle. It pulsed like a heart in his hand. Not once in the past five thousand years had the stone so much as flickered. Now it blazed in warning.

  Historian released the crystal. It floated back up to hover in perfect symmetry with its fellows. He glided past his half-finished project, murmuring a quick spell to sustain the sprite. The elf had worked too hard to snatch the fae from its pocket universe to have it die before he could finish his study of it. It keened with despair and agony. “Shush,” Historian scolded. He cast a cantrip to keep its plaints from disturbing him. “As fascinating as you are, you must wait.”

  Out of habit, the elf smoothed his robes and patted his long honey hair into place but not before ensuring bits of sprite didn’t cling to his perfectly manicured fingertips. Everything settled into place, he strode to a velvet-draped object set upon a pedestal. He whisked the drapery free and folded it, ensuring each edge lined up straight. As dire the crystal’s warning, it would never do to act in haste. Order and discipline must be maintained.

  Free of its covering, the flawless crystal ball sparkled and winked in the glow of the hovering stones. Historian pulled out a soft brush from one of the many pockets lining his robe and used it to sweep away a dust mote from the orb. “Show me,” he intoned. The crystal ball flared, revealing a scene Historian recognized as the flower-strewn field where House of Laughing Waters resided—or at least it ought to.