“You helped Ramiel fight me!”
Mulciber mauled him again. The pain was worse than anything Tyrus could remember. The dreams were often uncomfortable, cold, and disorienting, but that pain felt too real. Tyrus struggled to breathe through the torture. He gasped for air and feared he would choke to death in reality.
“You belong in the lowest of the Nine Hells. I’m going to spend eternity making an example of you. The overlords will speak your name with dread, and the rest of the shedim will fear me when they see what I do to you.”
Tyrus gasped in ragged breaths. “Please—”
He wanted to beg for mercy, but Mulciber’s claws ripped into him, and he couldn’t control his tongue. His voice cracked, and he couldn’t believe the pain hadn’t torn him out of the nightmare. Something was very wrong, and his eyes rolled in his head. The dreamworld felt real.
“You feel it now, don’t you?” Mulciber grinned at him. “This close to the Black Gate, I’m much stronger. You must enjoy suffering to trespass in my domain. What did you think I would do?”
“Please… stop.”
Mulciber threw his head back in a throaty laugh. “Oh, my general, you still have air to beg. This isn’t pain. Broken flesh doesn’t hurt. The real pain comes when I break your mind.” Mulciber took a long talon and traced the line of Tyrus’s jaw. “I’m going to break your arms and legs. I’m going to crush your spine. You’ll be bleeding on the ground when I go after Marah. You’re going to watch me hurt her. You’re going to listen to her scream, and I will spend days killing her.”
Tyrus fought to control his tongue.
“That is when you beg, Tyrus, and that’s all you’ll be able to do.”
Tyrus snarled. “Touch her, and I will—”
Mulciber’s claws raked Tyrus’s face. He lost his eyes and his jaw, and he was ripped out of the dream world.
He awoke thrashing and screaming in the dwarven temple. Marah sat in the corner of the room, kicking into the wall to stay away from him. He panicked for a moment and reached for his knife. Then he felt his face and found no wounds. With one look at Marah, he knew real dread. If he had been thrashing, with all his runes, he could have killed her.
He asked, “Are you hurt?”
Marah shook her head. “What is wrong with you?”
“I had… a bad dream.”
Marah relaxed a little. Her face shifted from fear to worry, and she pulled her knees up to her chin. Tyrus told her that, from time to time, old enemies taunted him in his dreams, but he assured her it didn’t happen often. He felt sheepish at having lost control around her, and he found fresh bruises on his limbs. He had hurt himself, thrashing against the stone floor.
Marah said, “That was no dream.”
“It was a message. Mulciber… doesn’t want me in this place.”
“Mulciber…?”
“Why doesn’t he just come for me and get it over with?”
“Because Ithuriel would fight him.”
Tyrus slowly raised his head and looked at her. She was right, he knew, but the truth caught him off guard. Mulciber tormented him in his dreams because he was too cowardly to invade the dwarven city. And if he did invade, the seraphim would answer and burn everything to ash.
Marah called to the priests and asked for inks and a brush. They asked her several questions, so she changed tack and asked for Silas. A half hour later, Silas knocked on the door, and Marah told him she needed his inks.
“I will be happy to paint whatever runes you require.”
Marah held out her hands, and Silas gave her the kit. The room chilled, and she used sorcery to draw runes on Tyrus. He had no warning. A brush flew at his face and stroked his cheek. He froze, fearful of what would happen if he smeared the ink.
Marah said, “These are the runes that ward the dwarven temples.”
“But… is Mulciber dead?”
“There are also wards for demons.”
Silas whispered, “Careful, Marah—those are dangerous.”
Tyrus said, “I can live with bad dreams.”
“They aren’t dreams,” Marah said. “Mulciber knows you are here now. He found you.”
Silas looked shocked. “Moloch was looking for you?”
“It’s a long story.” Tyrus winced. “I wouldn’t let him kill Marah.”
Silas asked Marah, “Is Moloch leading the legions?”
“I don’t know. He’s good at hiding.”
Marah finished her work, and Tyrus wondered how long the ink took to dry. He didn’t notice a change, then he had an ugly thought.
He asked Silas, “These are the same wards on this temple, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but she combines them in weird ways.”
Tyrus grimaced. “What I mean is Mulciber already made it past them to get at me.”
Marah said, “Those will make it harder.”
“But they won’t stop him?”
Marah didn’t answer, but Tyrus saw the truth in her reluctance. If anyone could avoid such wards, it was the King of the Nine Hells. He sat back against the stone wall, exhausted but too fearful to sleep. Like most of his experiences in the dream world, the memories began to fade. Mulciber had said many things that Tyrus couldn’t remember. The words were on the tip of his tongue but slipped away. He had an image burned into his mind, though: he lay broken on the ground while Mulciber tortured Marah.
Silas gathered his inks and said he had to see to the work in the city. Marah curled up on her bed again.
Tyrus pulled his knees up, rested his arms on them, and hung his head. He argued with himself that he needed sleep, that he couldn’t be afraid of sleep. However, his body refused to rest.
Marah asked, “Are you going to leave?”
“I won’t abandon you.” Tyrus ground his teeth. “But how much deeper do you intend to go?”
Marah hesitated. “We need to save the Ward.”
“What are you really after?” Tyrus looked at her. “I know you want something else. Forbidden runes or something.”
“I need to know the Riddle of Runes.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“What is the source of sorcery?”
“How would I know?”
“The answer is down here somewhere.”
“What do the dead say?”
“Only one of them knows, but he is hard to hear.” Marah sighed. “The closer we get to the bottom of the Ward, the easier he is to hear. I can’t explain it.”
Tyrus accepted that. Having served beside sorcerers before, he often heard things that he would never understand. However, he’d watched her with the priests, and he’d watched her fight, and as far as he could tell, Marah didn’t understand her own powers either. Out of habit, he checked on her and found her asleep again. He envied her. The pain of his dream still felt real, and he was surprised his stomach wasn’t covered in blood. Tyrus knew he would spend several days fighting off sleep until he finally collapsed.
X
Days later, Marah worked beside the priests to fortify the city. They did the hard work of scouting the hundreds of burrows left behind by the tribes and shifting stones around with sorcery to collapse the tunnels. Tyrus stayed by her side, silent, as she worked with priests who had experience countering the sappers. They explained to her, in detail, how to avoid causing more harm to Ros Koruthal, and what they lacked in knowledge, she learned from priests who had died ages before.
Teams of wardens worked to clear the streets of rubble, and after the priests had secured the outer walls and gates of the city, they moved inward to help rebuild the homes that had been lost.
Refugees began returning to the city, and the priests sent messengers to neighboring cities with news of the victory. Silas claimed wardens from other clans would join them soon and they could push into the lower levels of the Ward to help the Council of Kings at Ros Mardua.
Marah asked the dead, “What is happening with Ros Mardua?”
That is the keystone of the Deep Ward, the greatest fortress of the lower levels. They are under siege by the Tusken.
Another voice explained, The tribes found it easier to go around it and began attacking other cities. But sealing the Ward around Mardua will force them back into the Deep.
Marah asked, “How is it so strong?”
Ithuriel helps defend it.
Marah reached out with her powers to find the archangel, but she didn’t sense him anywhere in the Deep. That bothered her so much that she lost track of what was going on around her. Tyrus coughed, and she noticed a gathering of people with a makeshift banquet on a cleared city street. Tables were arranged in long rows with platters of food in the center.
Marah asked, “What is this?”
Silas said, “It is the day of your birth.”
“Is it? How do you know?”
“I confess that I did not, but the priests in this city marked your birth when Dura brought you to us years ago. Did you know that you had already been to this city on your way to Ros Mardua?”
Marah didn’t remember any of that, but the dead told her it was true. She noticed that people were waiting for her to do something, and she offered thanks. The banquet seemed less a feast and more a vigil for the dead. The high priest said a few words to commemorate the high cost of saving the city, and people were escorted to their seats. The priests took special care to arrange the seats in a specific order, and Marah found herself seated beside the high priest, with Silas and Nemuel across from her.
She asked, “How can you tell what day it is?”
“If you stay in the Deep long enough, you will learn its rhythms,” Silas said. “You will feel the passage of time. We mark days in hours, not sunlight.”
Nemuel told Marah, “Do not listen to him. That is a dwarf trick.”
Silas said, “Elves, however, do not feel the passage of time. The Avani do. Avani are like the Gimirr—we live shorter lives.”
Nemuel asked, “And how many of her kind mastered this trick?”
“Few Avani have lived in the Deep since Jethlah ended the Age of Chaos.”
Marah tried the food. It was more porridge with a sweet sauce drizzled on top. Many of the city’s stores had been lost in the battle, so they had been eating the same meals for days.
Marah asked, “Jethlah came here?”
“And died in the Deep,” Silas said. “He wanted what many of the prophets wanted, to liberate Skogul from the Shedim.”
Nemuel said, “A foolish dream.”
“But imagine if we held the shedim at the Black Gate. We could rid this world of them once and for all.”
Marah said, “That won’t work.”
Both Nemuel and Silas waited for her to explain. Many of the other priests and the high priest paused as well, spoons halfway to their mouths. Marah almost blushed at all the graybeards staring at her.
Be mindful of what you share. Do not explain things that they do not need to know.
She said, “Mulciber doesn’t need the gate to travel between worlds.”
Nemuel asked, “Who told you that?”
“No one,” Marah said. “He uses runes.”
Nemuel questioned her in a hushed voice, “Do you know these runes?”
“No, but I’ve sensed them.”
“He cannot have runes.” Nemuel sat back, contemplating what she had said. “If he had such means, why would he need the White Gate?”
The gate is for the lesser demons—the corrupted souls of the Avani. Most of the fallen angels died in the Second War. He’s been creating lesser shedim ever since. Many of them must travel by foot.
Marah asked, Lesser shedim?
Creatures like Gorba Tull…
Marah said, “His army needs the gate.”
“Who told you this?”
Marah didn’t want to explain herself and went back to eating her meal. The priests waited and looked at each other. None pressed her for answers though, and the awkward lull gave way to more eating.
After the meal, teams went back to work clearing the city, and Marah returned to the temple to practice her meditation. She found the drills boring even though she had a talent for blanking her mind. She lacked the discipline to sit for hours and fight the voices. They were so much stronger in the Deep that she thought the task impossible.
However, Silas counseled her that if she could use meditation to block out the shadows, then she wouldn’t need sorcery or inks. They tried several times a day, but Marah found little success.
They also toured the Great Vault, which was a much larger version of the vault in Dun Berthal. He consulted stacks of scrolls, looking for runes or writings that dealt with the shadows of the Underworld.
Silas said, “There are some catalogs of the various shadows in the Deep, the different types of demons who have tricked people foolish enough to talk to them.”
Marah asked, “How do you tell the good from the bad?”
“You can’t.”
“Do you hear them?”
“I do not practice such runes. They are forbidden.”
“Then how do you know?”
Silas considered her before answering. “You have powers that I will never possess, this is true, but we learned during the Second War that there are things in the Deep worse than death. There are ancient stories of ghosts that refused to die and tried to live again in another’s flesh.”
“Possession?”
“And other abominations. The shedim harvest the dead to use in their rites, much in the way that your father created his monsters. There are many reasons why such things are forbidden.”
Marah lost interest in the endless stacks of scrolls. She had been speaking with dead priests since they entered the last vault, and few of them could point at any secret knowledge she needed to know in Ros Koruthal. Silas seemed to sense her losing interest.
He said, “Dura and your father came here, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Your father was never interested in our scrolls. We study how to keep the demons away. He wanted to invite them in.”
Marah continued the tour and, at the end, asked to leave. The priests seemed offended that she was not interested in poring through their scrolls or drawing in the sand at the center of the room.
Marah had little interest in practicing runes. She wanted to finish fortifying the city walls and continue onward into the Deep Ward.
Tyrus carried her outside and asked, “I thought you wanted to see their vault.”
“I did, but I need to go deeper.”
“Where are we going?”
“Deeper into the Ward. To Ros Mardua.”
Careful what you share with him.
She listened to the ghosts and withheld the rest. Tyrus would not want to hear about the Tomb of Prophets because it was in the shedim lands. The dwarves had lost it centuries before. Marah hoped she wouldn’t need to travel beyond the Ward. The lower they went, the easier it was to hear Kennet. The only problem was the other voices also grew louder. Kennet was closer, but he was drowning in the ancient dead.
Tyrus asked, “The dead prophet?”
“I hear him better, but he is still hard to find with all the noise.”
“But you aren’t sure he has the answers?”
“I have to try. I can’t do this alone.”
“You aren’t alone.”
“The prophets died young, Tyrus. All of them.”
“Alivar didn’t.”
“I’m not Alivar.” Voices mocked her, and Marah squeezed her eyes. “Do you know who killed Alivar?”
Tyrus lowered his head. “I know the old songs.”
Marah hugged Tyrus harder. Many different stories and accounts chronicled the life and death of the greatest prophet, b
ut in all of them, Gorba Tull had helped destroy Alivar, then he returned to the surface and broke the Kassiri Empire. The False Prophet began the Age of Chaos, and Marah knew he had returned to start the Third War.
MONARCHS AND SORCERERS
I
Lahar stalked his ancestral home like a caged lion. He could not stand being locked inside King’s Rest, waiting for people to attack him. Through the windows, the rays of sunlight shifted across the marble, marking the time, and as the hours slowly slipped away from him, he spent his time waiting for Breonna to attack. Thousands of Norsil surrounded the fortress, and they were working day and night to find a way inside. If they managed to sneak in, Lahar would know when the screaming started.
The place was filled with women and children, the families of Marah’s Ghost Clan. Lahar could not talk to most of them because he didn’t speak Jakan. Olroth arranged the shifts for the Norsil guards, and Lahar arranged the shifts for the sorcerers and knights.
Several times a day, Lahar paced through King’s Rest. The weak points of the fortress were few, but he checked them all. The keep connected to the western walls on two sides, and he made sure to check with the knights and thanes posted at the doors. The doors were like smaller gatehouses, with an iron portcullis on each. The Norsil had probed the doors but stopped when the sorcerers and archers took to the battlements. Lahar checked the windows, which were thirty feet above the courtyard and the main door. Massive timbers braced the thing. Larz Kedar assured him the keep was warded against sorcery, but Lahar double-checked it anyway. And the final door was deep in the bowels of the fortress, connecting to the tunnels Marah had burned.
He dreaded that one the most. As he worked his way down the spiraling staircases, the smells brought back bad memories that made him clammy. He could not enter the lower levels of King’s Rest without remembering his brother Lior dying, but he forced himself to confront the place and ensure no one tampered with the cellars.
About the time Lahar finished his rounds, he decided to start them again. He couldn’t sit still and wait for the screams. He wanted to be at a door when it breached. Marah had only been gone for a few days, but his constant worrying made it feel like weeks.
Dance of Battle: A Dark Fantasy (Shedim Rebellion Book 4) Page 37