Long, Dark Road

by Bianculli, Susan

I took a quick sip of the energy drink in my waterskin as we headed at a quick pace for the Leadership Ring. I couldn’t stop myself from peeking into the particular boulder enclosure where we’d rescued Emalai from her owners. I wondered if the bodies of Jodron and Descora that we’d hidden in the way back had been found yet.

  If Jodron’s and Descora’s souls had had anything to do about it, they probably would have, I grimaced to myself.

  We made it up to the Leadership Ring entrance only to discover there was a quad of Under-elves warriors blocking the way in.

  Chapter 36

  Dusk, Jason, Ragar, Heather, Auraus, and I went right up to them, hoping the armbands Dusk wore would make them stand aside. It didn’t work. The warriors crossed their spears in front of us more authoritatively than the ones who’d been guarding the controls room.

  “What do you here?” the Sub-leader for the quad asked with distrust.

  “We come bearing a message from the Primus for the Head councilor,” Dusk smoothly lied.

  “Why so many of you? Surely not all of you are needed to take a message?” he said, the suspicion deepening.

  “We are at war, you realize,” said Dusk. “They are my bodyguards to defend me in case any of the attackers have slipped through. They’ll ensure the message gets to the Head councilor. Just like your having been positioned here, they are with me for just in case.”

  Behind Dusk we straightened up and puffed ourselves up a bit, trying to look menacing.

  The Sub-leader, in unconscious response, gripped his sword. His subordinates copied him.

  “Impossible. That cannot happen,” he ground out.

  “Not impossible. The battle has broken through the gates and is now on the training grounds! The Head councilor needs to know this!”

  I looked back at Auraus and raised a blond eyebrow questioningly at her, but she shook her head in response. That made me remember that she was unable to cast any further spells until she’d rested.

  Meanwhile, murmurs of disbelief and anger came from the warriors behind the Sub-leader. The Under-elven leader hesitated, and I could see the information Dusk had given him warring with the distrust of us just showing up at his guard station.

  “Mola,” he said over his shoulder to one of his quad.

  A female Under-elf straightened up. “Yes, Sub-leader?”

  “Take the message to the Head councilor that has been so kindly brought to us.”

  She saluted smartly, spun about, and disappeared in an instant down the hall.

  “The message is being delivered. You can go back and assist the battle,” he said dismissively without breaking eye contact, “if that is truly where you are from.”

  “Oh, for Caelestis’ sake!” roared Ragar, and charged around us to throw himself at the Sub-leader, hood flying down onto his shoulders as he extended his sharp claws.

  “Ragar!” we all shouted in disgust as the Under-elves froze in surprise, but that didn’t stop us from drawing our weapons and fighting with the rest of the quad that was left.

  It was really no contest. We were six to their three—or rather, five to their two, since Ragar was pretty much one-on-one on the ground with the Subleader from the surprise attack. It only took a few minutes before each of the remaining Under-elves lay motionless and bleeding on the ground outside the tunnel’s entry way.

  “Run for Central Court!” growled the mountain-cat-elf.

  I shot a look at Dusk, and he said, “I agree. The warrior sent with the message will be alerting the whole of the Leadership Ring, so the sooner we get through it, the better!”

  We booked it down the almost straight corridor towards Central Court, Art, and Arghen. The few beings here who saw us running full bore, blood spattered and with weapons drawn, dove shrieking in fright back into the subcorridors out of our way.

  “This is kinda cool!” Heather yelled, a maniacal grin on her face as she watched yet another Under-elf dash into a hallway out of our way. “But boy, would we be arrested quick if we tried this in Grand Central Station back home!”

  I quirked a half smile back at her and wondered to myself if Ragar’s general bloodlust was a communicable thing.

  We barreled through the Leadership Ring without stopping and burst into Central Court without so much as a weapon even vaguely waved at us. The huge stage in the very center was empty, as well as the stone benches that lined the cavern, stadium-like, all the way to the ceiling. Nor were there any beings hiding behind the lamp pillars covered with luminescent lichen spaced evenly around the whole area that gave decent, though still kind of dim, lighting to the defined places of the cavern. Or at least, nobody that we could see.

  “This way,” I shouted, heading for the walking paths outlined in air moss and lichen that led to the Art pie-shaped area.

  “I do not like this, Lise,” said Dusk as we ran up to the beginning of the Art pie slice. “This has been too easy. There still should be warriors left to guard the Councilors of Chirasniv, if nothing else.”

  “You are right. There are,” said a loud voice.

  A quad of warriors materialized in that annoying Under-elven way, blocking the path ahead of us into Art. We stopped short. Behind them there were six older Under-elves, dressed in what looked more like decorative armor and carrying fancy weapons but who still looked dangerous enough.

  Those must be the councilors the quad is guarding, I thought.

  What concerned me the most was that behind all of them was the Conductivus-venire for Chirasniv. The one who had ordered our deaths and the death of our venire in the controls room of the city-state not long ago, who had escaped as the going got rough. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of Ragar, and swiftly she scanned the rest of us. I saw recognition bloom in her eyes.

  “Kill them! Kill them without hesitation! They are the ones who disabled the controls room!” she shrieked, eyes going black.

  As the fight started, zooming with their hands outstretched like claws towards me from behind the Conductivus-venire, came two souls I had never wanted to see: Jodron’s and Descora’s. They appeared like ghostly versions of what they’d looked like when we’d fought them before, except for the fact that they could fly now. I parried a sword slice from an Under-elven warrior to my gut and skipped backwards out of the battle around me, not wanting to take on both the corporeal and incorporeal at once. The pair of souls clamped their spirit hands around my neck, their colorless eyes wide and faces grinning wildly with a revengeful glee as they squeezed. My blue eyes bugged out as Jodron and Descora put as much pressure on my windpipe as they could. I let go of my sword and put my hands around my neck, trying futilely to slip my fingers under their ghostly ones before they choked me to death. They laughed soundlessly in my face as they realized what I was trying to do, and squeezed all the harder. My consciousness started greying around the edges because I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs to keep from blacking out, and I staggered around in a circle trying not to fall over as the two spirits hung on to my neck like attack dogs.

  “Lise!” I heard Jason’s despairing cry over the sounds of battle from somewhere beyond the internal fog surrounding me, but I could no longer see him.

  I was about to pass out when two other spirits crashed into Jodron and Descora, knocking them off of me and fading out of my sight. I fell to my knees and took in huge coughing gasps of air through my bruised throat.

  “Halt! I order you to cease fighting!” commanded an amplified voice from somewhere behind me.

  Belatedly I looked around me. The fight had stopped at the sound of the authoritative voice. Besides a few Under-elven warriors on the ground, I also saw Heather lying crumpled, hopefully only unconscious, while a red-stained Ragar stood over her obviously having fended off the three warriors around them. Dusk and Auraus were back-to-back, bleeding from a multitude of cuts in a semi-circle of most of the older and fancier Under-elves, and a sliced-up Jason was about two feet away between the last of the warriors attacking him and me.

>   Trying to see who it was that had stopped the fight, I was shocked to see it was the white-clad Conductivus of Kelsavax who had spoken, backed by more than a handful of quads of red-belted Kelsavaxian warriors.

  Chapter 37

  Did he come here to save Arghen after all? I wondered woozily. I guess Conductivi do have some sort of authority no matter what their city is.

  Jason disregarded his injuries to leap over to me and give me some of his energy drink waterskin. I coughed a little as I sipped at it carefully. The wetness of it helped my throat a little while pushing back the grey mind fog. Ragar crouched down and started checking Heather over, and the fact that he wasn’t howling let me know with relief that she was still alive.

  “You–you traitor to your charges and to all Under-elven custom!” screeched the Conductivus-venire for Chirasniv at the Kelsavaxian Conductivus in the meanwhile.

  The Conductivus gave a bark of laughter. “Hardly. Chirasniv first fell into temptation by using abomination, and then compounded it by bringing Surfacers here to use it for them regularly. But you–you are the traitor, female. You dared to sentence another Conductivus-venire—MY venire—to death and nearly had it carried out!”

  Her face turned the color of dirty marshmallows at his words as every Under-elf turned and stared at her—some in shock, some in surprise, but most in anger.

  “What?!” gasped one of the fancy dressed Under-elves. “Venire, surely you did not?”

  She drew herself up, her white robes of office fluttering around her. “The venire of Kelsavax was one of the ones who had broken into the controls room to disable the Shifting Tunnels. He abused his position to gain entry and planned to commit treachery against Chirasniv with those beings there!” She stabbed a pale, accusing finger at us Surfacers. “He was lacking in proper propriety for a venire,”

  “He was acting on my orders,” interrupted the Conductivus. “Orders that would not have been necessary had your city-state seen reason and repented of your collective actions. Because of your specific actions, though, I have lost my venire to a dragon for an unknown period of time.”

  “A dragon?” said another of the fancy dressed Under-elves disbelievingly. “What nonsense is this?!”

  “No nonsense, I assure you,” said the Conductivus to her. Turning back to the venire of Chirasniv, he said, “If my venire is gone too long I will have to initiate a new one, and I have no wish to because I am satisfied with my present one. If I must do that, then I will hold you personally responsible.”

  “You are not my Conductivus!” she raged.

  “Not that that should matter, venire–you know better than that. I, however, am yours,” sighed a tired, old-sounding voice.

  The Conductivus for Chirasniv was brought forward from in back of the Kelsavaxians in an improvised carrying chair and set down next to the Conductivus from Kelsavax, her staff set across her lap. I winced at the black and blue mark evident on her temple that we’d given her.

  Her venire’s eyes bugged out. “My Conductivus! What has happened? Are you hurt? What have they done to you?” The venire slid an accusing glare at the Conductivus of Kelsavax, but he ignored her.

  “I am fine, my venire. But I am disturbed to have learned what has been done by you, and chagrinned to have been reminded of what it used to mean to be a Conductivus by one who is much younger than I. There are some things that are ….”

  “What?” gasped her venire, interrupting. “You cannot mean that. They must have used abomination on you somehow! Or tortured you! I can see you have been wounded!”

  “No,” began the Chirasnivian Conductivus with a frown, but all of a sudden her venire turned and fled into the Art section.

  We were all taken aback for a moment, and then both Conductivis’ eyes went black. Just as swiftly their eyes became normal again and they exchanged glances.

  “If you wish to save your friend, run,” they said at the same time to us Surfacers.

  Jason, I, and Dusk jumped to our feet, but Ragar actually howled because Heather was in no shape to go with him, and he was torn.

  “Go,” I heard Auraus behind us say to him as we three ran after the venire. “I will look after her.”

  “There is a considerable disagreement happening around us,” the Kelsavaxian Conductivus said before he was too far behind for me to hear anything more.

  The venire was fast, but we were just able to keep her within sight. We flashed by empty Art cages—a clear change from when we had been here last—but it looked like she was definitely heading for the heart of the Art section.

  “Arghen!” I yelled as we ran. “We’re coming for you!”

  “Watch out!” roared Ragar even louder, having caught up. “A traitor will reach you first!”

  Ragar’s words proved true. The venire, drawing a wicked-looking dagger from inside her robes, reached Arghen’s tiny metal barred cage first. Dusk, Jason, Ragar, and I stopped short as much for how he was displayed in his imprisonment than because of the dagger being held threateningly to Arghen’s neck through the bars by the venire. Arghen was naked and imprisoned by clamps that held him spread eagled on a bronze metal table inclined at a forty-five degree angle, with little foot rests supporting his weight kind of like how Jason had been displayed when Jason had been imprisoned here. The horrifying difference between the two situations was that Jason had been found unhurt.

  I had seen documentaries and TV shows about autopsies on dead bodies, with their innards taken out for educational purposes or TV dramatics. But my friend and mentor was alive. His torso had been opened up from his chest to almost his groin to expose his innards. His intestines had been taken out, uncoiled, and carefully affixed in loops and whorls to the table around him almost like a fancy frame, or a border. I blocked the rest of what had been done to him out. It was too horrible to look at, and I focused solely on his face. A face that was calm despite his body’s condition and the knife now threatening his life. Arghen’s eyes, crinkled at the corners from pain, looked steadily back at me, but he said nothing.

  “You cannot tell me this is not whom you seek. My souls have told me everything!” said the venire nastily.

  “What do you hope to accomplish with this act?” Dusk asked in a soothing, reasonable tone.

  “Vengeance!” she shrieked. “Somehow you have subverted my Conductivus from the new path that Chirasniv was on and forced her back to the old ways. We were supposed to become a model for Under-elven society—that Under-elves could put magic to use for themselves without losing what it means to be an Under-elf!”

  I blinked. Wait, what?

  Dusk and Ragar exchanged wide-eyed glances, as if they were having trouble understanding what she’d said. Jason’s mouth dropped open.

  “And you!” she continued, her white eyes glaring at us, “You have been instrumental in taking all that away! My souls have confirmed for me that you helped the Surfacers to escape and stole all the magical items we had either captured or painstakingly bartered for!”

  “But you were kidnapping,” I started to say.

  “Silence!” she shrieked. “I know that the Kelsavaxians are coming to take even this away!”

  I heard the tramp of feet get louder behind me, and knew she was right. “Look, you really should just put the knife down before someone gets hurt,” I said, the stress that I could not block out evident in my tone. “Everything can be worked out one way or another, I’m sure.”

  “No, it will not!” she cried. “The souls who agree with me are barely holding off the ones who do not, and soon the invaders who have captured and swayed my Conductivus will be here! I do not wish to admit that you have won. But you will not have a complete victory!”

  “Noooo!” I screamed, echoed by Jason, Dusk and Ragar. “Arghen!!!”

  The four of us leapt for the venire to stop her, but we were too late. She jammed the dagger all the way through Arghen’s neck, and I saw the light of life leave his amber eyes.

  Chapter 38

 
I stopped dead and fell to my knees, tears pouring down my cheeks. Arghen was dead! I wanted desperately to not believe it, but wishing didn’t make it unreal. Ragar reached the venire first, and with spittle slavering out of his muzzle from anger, he swiped her across the face with his claws and knocked her spinning to the ground from the force of his blow. Dusk, sorrow and anger mixed on his face, nevertheless threw himself onto the mountain-cat-elf to prevent him from killing the white-clad Under-elf. Jason, however, scowling fiercely, leapt onto her back to prevent her from getting back up. He needn’t have worried though, because Ragar’s blow had been so hard that she’d been knocked unconscious from it. I staggered to my feet and, sobbing, threw myself at the metal cage that contained Arghen’s blood-covered body and shook it to force the door open since I didn’t have a key. Jason got off the venire and shoved me roughly aside.

  “Let me,” he said hoarsely and went to work on the barred door. It didn’t take him long to spring the lock.

  The Conductivi arrived with only some of their Under-elven entourage as he swung the door open. I saw them arrive and hope rose up in me, but then I fell into despair because Auraus and Heather weren’t with them. I’d been hoping that Auraus might have had something, anything, that could help Arghen before he was too far gone in death. But when the bronze cage door swung open I froze, not knowing what to do. I couldn’t make myself go in there and see my Under-elven friend laid out like a jigsaw puzzle up close. Dusk, after assuring himself that Ragar wasn’t going to kill the venire, went inside to confirm what my heart already knew. When Dusk turned around with a sad look on his face, I turned around to bury myself into Jason’s chest and cry like my heart was breaking. Because it was.

  “It wasn’t supposed to end this way!” I bawled. “We were supposed to rescue him just like we rescued you, and we were supposed to get back to the Surface in one … piece.” Remembering again that Arghen had been mutilated while still alive, I could no longer form words and sobbed uncontrollably. Jason turned me away from facing the cage and spoke urgently over my sobs.