“We need to move,” Dan said. His voice didn’t sound as urgent as he felt. “It’s coming. Please, let’s get out of here.”
“Where’s there to go?” Marit asked. She gestured around with an angry wave of her hand. Only the close wall was visible to them. All the others were concealed by the bright mist that reflected the sourceless, sickly green light.
“Away,” said Ruckus. “He’s right. Let’s get to the other side of the room. Can you walk, Tarissa?”
“I think so,” she said, continuing to glare at Dan. “Keep your human away from me. He’s a knight-damned maniac.”
Dan ignored her, hoping she’d forgive him when they were out of danger. As they walked, Richard tried to flare fire around his hands, but Soo’s power didn’t burn away the mist like they had hoped. The lizard spirit herself had been uninjured in the fall, thankfully.
The far side of the room was flat and barren. Dan noticed the ground was no longer cracked and muddy, but made of the same smooth material as the walls had been when they had traveled above. He couldn’t remember when the transition had occurred. They followed along the wall until it broke off into a descending stairway of smooth steps which seemed made for creatures much larger than humans.
Marit sighed, turning to Tor Pin with a strained grin. “Can you light another—”
The cavern’s green light began to fade, and then it was among them.
A monstrous figure stood behind her, hulking and lanky, its skin smooth and dark and taut like a plum’s. Its eyes were fractured, reflecting the green mist light, and its shoulders bore corded muscles that wound down its many-jointed arms into hands comprised of three thick digits, each ending in a cruel claw. Those hands were as large as cartwheels, and with them the creature grabbed Marit around the torso and threw her into the nearby wall.
Dan gasped as Marit gasped before she fell back down to the ground, groaning and bleeding from a gash in the side of her head.
Their nerves taut as bowstrings, the party was swift to act. Tor Pin scrambled in his pouch and came up with a handful of beads, crushing and hurling them into the beast’s gnarled face.
The creature roared in pain as darts of force sprang across its frame and spurts of fire and lightning gouged wounds into its thick skin. The light of magical decay lit the scene even as the mist-light faded. Tor Pin fell to his knees after his moment of heroism, staring in shock at the horror he had enraged.
Tarissa threw herself across Tor Pin, sobbing, dagger outstretched and waving frantically at the creature. She screamed something incomprehensible, wildcat-fierce.
Darkness consumed them, but another light tore through the mist.
It was Richard.
He was himself again, wreathed in flames, Soo on his shoulder screaming a tiny lizard roar. Richard bellowed, his left arm burning brightly, swinging at the monster with all his strength.
His fist connected and, with a smell like melting tar, sank into the great beast's flesh.
The creature howled and crushed Richard’s arm in one colossal claw. Richard’s flames flickered between the beast’s webbed fingers as the Contractor fell to his knees, gasping in pain and struggling to stand.
The monster grasped Richard’s torso with its other hand and tore the student’s arm from his body.
Dan heard a sickening impact as Richard’s light faded. For the briefest moment, time seemed to slow. Blood spread across the ground. Tarissa looked on in horror. Marit raised her head and reached out toward the monster.
As the floor became slick under his feet and Richard failed to scream, despair crushed Dan’s innermost being. It was worse than the night when death had fallen from the sky. His death now didn't matter. He didn’t matter. Dan was just an orphan from another world. He didn’t even belong here. These people, these friends who had come so far to help one of their own, these were the ones who deserved to live.
Dan had brought them here, had convinced them it was the right thing to do. He had taken advantage of their kindness to repay the kindness shown him. It was his fault. There was only one thing to do. It would kill him.
He deserved it.
Dan spoke five words inside his mind. “I now invoke Prime Justice.”
Stretching out his hand, Dan ignored Ruckus’ bark of shock and focused on the power that cocooned him, that which patched the rift between the world of London and the world he had grown to love. He felt a weight appear in his hand, though in the darkness he could not see it, and he struck at the source of the hideous breathing, the monster that would take his friends from him.
Dan slipped and almost fell on the blood-wet ground, and the tip of his sword scattered sparks like a branch thrown onto a bonfire, illuminating the scene briefly, showing him the rage painting the face of the alien horror.
He swung again, clumsy as a child whipping a tree branch, feeling nothing until the tip of his sword scraped the far wall. Sparks from the contact revealed that Dan had indeed pierced the creature, had shredded through it.
The monster screamed and fell, allowing the sword’s edge to tear it even further. The creature died before it hit the ground. Dan felt it. He held the sword still, hearing the wet groans of pain and sobs of fear from his friends.
Dan found himself sick with the stench of iron and urine in the dark and fell to the ground, vomiting, his sword sparking from even the gentlest scrape against the floor.
“L-light,” sobbed Tor Pin, and Dan heard a rustling sound. A bolt of force scattered along the floor, shedding a small bit of illumination as a side effect of the spell bead’s decay. The Mystic must have grabbed the wrong bead.
A few moments later a true bead of “Light” had been used, and Dan could see his friends again. Tarissa was desperately applying pressure to Richard’s shoulder, who gazed off into the distance, mouth hung open. She gasped and recoiled as a burst of flame ignited the grisly wound, Soo having appeared on her brother’s shoulder to cauterize it. The fire quickly faded and Tarissa embraced Richard, sobbing a prayer of thanks to the Knights Miracular.
Marit had struggled to her knees, as this happened, her gold hair plastered red to her face. “What… do we do?” she asked no one in particular.
Dan froze. Marit had always seemed in control. Now he was the only one able to act, but the blade in his hand, summoned at such a high cost, didn’t make him a leader.
And he felt that cost. A wave of bone-numbing pain shook Dan to the core, throwing him back to the ground. It throbbed inside him as the muscles in his body began to break down, the ligaments connecting them soaked in corrosive arcane power. Dan hauled himself to his feet and wondered at the blue lines appearing in his vision.
Leylines. The cracks of magic in the mundane world through which currents of power rode. They attracted to the surrounding people with warped threads of blue connecting to arms, legs, and torso… Except for Richard. His threads tangled his body and lashed about like debris tossed in a storm.
Dan looked down and saw a glaring, bright blue wound in his chest, the hole formed ten years ago when he had punched through a wall not meant for his kind to pass at the beck of the magician in black.
Despite lying dormant for a decade, that wound was now growing larger. It would soon engulf him, but ‘soon’ was not now. Dan gritted his teeth and hauled himself up by the sword in his hand. Its crystalline blade, long and thin and many-faceted, sparkled in the magic light held by Tor Pin. “The shard. Leylines. Do it.”
“What?” asked Tor Pin vaguely, still in shock, but Tarissa searched through his pouches until she found the silver dungeon shard. She pressed the shard into Tor Pin’s hand.
The contractor’s hands were covered in burns from the mismatched beads, and they shook as he held the silver shard between them, but his face had become firmer in some semblance of determination.
“I now summon the gate of Mana,” he said between clenched teeth.
The mirror formed, shattered, and pulled them through.
And they were free.
Chapter 11
Two years ago.
The man dressed in officious navy stepped from the doorway, grimacing at the scene. It wasn’t a noble or good thing he had done, despite its necessity. Though of course he hadn’t actually done it; that was the whole point. The real murderer, a young boy with bright red hair, had fallen to his knees before the corpse and was sobbing. He held his hands to his face, his left stained bright red with the blood of Moderator Caliana. There was no fire remaining on the corpse. It had faded as soon as the boy had withdrawn his arm from her heart.
“Come,” said the navy-garbed man. “Get up.” But the boy ignored him, so the man curled his hand into a fist and yanked on the threads of mana already wrapped around his fingers, the ones which led to the boy’s limbs and heart. Richard stood and turned, his eyes filled with a loathing for the man in navy and for himself. “Come here,” the man ordered again.
Richard approached, clutching his murderous left arm in his right hand. The orphan’s fingernails cut into his own skin, drawing wounds into the flesh among the blood of the woman who loved every orphan and beggar as her own child.
It was a shame. Had the Moderator stuck to her charitable works and left politics to less influential members of the Church, she would be alive, and the boy would be no murderer, and the world would be a better place. But people like her always had to threaten the workings of those who knew better, and so she had to die.
“Here is what I promised you,” said the navy-garbed man. He proffered a letter wrapped with ribbon and sealed with a hazy, magical stamp. A letter of recommendation to the University. It was of no concern; the letter was anonymous and could not be traced back to him, though the magical stamp served as a mark of authenticity well enough.
“I hate you,” said the boy in a low voice. “I want to tell you to take your letter and rip it up.”
“But you won’t.”
A pause. “No.”
“They told me you do this for your sister. You put her above your own pride and honor?”
“Maybe.”
“An admirable trait. I too once chose family over duty.” The man in navy turned to look back at the corpse. The wound had cauterized itself, so there was little blood on the ground. More coated Richard’s arm than the floor, in fact.
The orphan took advantage of the apparent lapse in focus to throw himself at the navy-garbed man. Richard snarled, striking out and reaching for the man’s throat with both hands.
The man in navy didn’t even glance back. He raised a hand, the one holding his assassin’s mana threads, and threw the boy to his knees. Richard’s arms remained outstretched, the right pale-fleshed, the left dyed a blackening red, both smoldering with furious fire.
“You can resist to an extent with the power you possess,” said the navy-garbed man, “but I’d advise you to remember your sister possesses no magic at all.” He twitched a finger, forcing the red-haired boy’s hands up to his own throat. “I make no threat, only give warning.” He threw his attacker to the ground with a wave of his hand and dropped the letter of recommendation. As he walked out of the sacred chamber desecrated by a murdered priestess, he called back over his shoulder. “We will watch your growth with interest, Richard. We don’t want you dead.
“You will find a cart out back that will take you and your sister southward. Stay in some village there until the festival ends. No one will find the body for hours, and even then no one will suspect you. And if you ever come for us, or try to turn me in, your sister will become my servant.” He paused before closing the bronze door behind him. “Even as you yourself are.”
He was not a cruel man. He felt only sympathy for the twin children who had come to Capital Tirmein seeking sanctuary for their debts and who had found a measure of it in Moderator Caliana. At least in the fever assailing her the sister wouldn’t ever have to know it was her brother who had killed their savior.
Unless Richard told her. Or someone else did. It wouldn’t be the man in navy though. He had seen enough of the situation. His calling was elsewhere, and he would leave further messiness to others.
The navy-garbed man met no others on his return to the surface, but collided with a servant boy just as he arrived on the ground floor. There was likely nothing to be worried about, but the man in navy was nothing if not cautious. He laid a fatherly hand on the servant’s shoulder, giving it a friendly pat and drawing away the ends of the boy’s mana threads. “Oh, Jorin. Be a good lad and bring me something to drink, will you? I haven’t had a chance to enjoy the festivities, but I would dearly love something to quench my thirst.” At the same time he yanked on the thread attached to Jorin’s heart, shaking off the memory of his arrival from the record halls.
The servant boy smiled and bobbed his head in a bow, careful not to drop his tray of food. “Yes, Inquisitor. I’ll be right back.”
A genuine smile spread across the Inquisitor’s face as Jorin departed. He was grateful he could do something as simple as preserving the boy’s innocence, keeping him away from any trouble which might come from idle gossip. In moments, the boy wouldn’t so much as remember which Inquisitor had asked for the drink.
The Inquisitor took an upward flight of stairs to a floor where many more temple staff milled about, each of whom gave him a wide berth. He walked to one of the high, open windows overlooking Capital Tirmein and leaned out, allowing the cool breeze of early summer to waft over his face. It was a good day to be alive.
“Is it settled?” asked a casual voice from behind.
“Of course,” murmured the Inquisitor, not bothering to turn from his view of the festivities below. “No complications.”
“They won’t be pleased with your choice to go through with the deal,” said the voice. “You don’t need me to tell you what should have been done.”
“I do not go back on my promises,” said the Inquisitor, “and as I told them, he will be useful in the future. Our agents in the University will keep their eyes on him.” He turned from the window, pretending to stumble against the elderly servant who mopped the flagstone hallway at his back. As the Inquisitor leaned in to steady her, he whispered in her ear. “And I will not have him harmed.”
The Inquisitor left to take lunch in the great hall. He might as well enjoy the festival while it lasted.
Chapter 12
Dan gasped, feeling as though he had passed through ice water and burst onto the surface. He stood, sword still in hand, breath ragged. They were back in the forest. Dan could get help. He began to stagger toward the main road, not so much as speaking to his friends. They didn't stop him. Tarissa moved to follow, but hesitated, and turned back to the two more injured club members. She nodded to Dan and knelt down to minister to Marit’s wounds.
Dan moved as quickly as his shaking legs would take him. Dusk had begun to fall, though they had not been in the dungeon long enough for so many hours to have passed in the physical world. After ten minutes he came upon the road and turned back toward Ormuil. He knew the bus wouldn't be there anytime soon, but he needed to find help. Shooting pain forced his progress to an agonizingly slow walk, his body growing more pain-wracked with every step. Dan felt as though insects crawled between his muscles and bones, and his vision became blurry. The air in his lungs felt as though it didn't stay long enough and a horrible noise rasped in his throat with every breath.
After only a few minutes Dan couldn't take the pain any longer. Not even for them. Not even knowing they would die because of his weakness. He fell to the hard-packed road, arms wrapped around himself, curled up, tears of anguished pain soaked up by the dirt road below. His consciousness wavered and fell away, and all became black.
***
Dan’s first sight upon waking was an unfamiliar stone ceiling. He tried to sit up, but pain like needles stabbed through his body. He gasped, arching his back, ragged pain washing over him in waves.
"He's awake," someone said, and it sounded as though they were very far away. His vision blurred
again. Someone pressed a cool metal cup to his lips and held his head, tilting a bitter and chalky substance into his mouth. It soothed the angry dryness in his throat, and the pain began to subside significantly.
Dan could breathe, move, and see again, though the grogginess in his head grew worse. "Where... am I?" he asked. He turned his head and saw a strained-looking young woman with black hair tied in a bun sitting beside his bed. She held the cup in her hand, but set it down on a stand by his bed.
"You're back at the University," she said. "Hold on, I'm only a medical student. Let me fetch the doctor." She stood and left, leaving Dan alone.
He tried to sit up and the pain returned, though nowhere near as overwhelming as it had been before. He gritted his teeth and slid back against the bed’s backboard, the painful touch of the sheets scraping his bare skin, until his head was propped up enough to give him a look of the room.
It was tiny, with dull gray walls. They looked more like plaster than stone, not much like the rest of the University. A small window was set against one of the walls, but a thick curtain blocked any outside light. A small chair sat beside the bed, and on the nearby nightstand sat a pale ceramic pitcher.
Dan reached for the pitcher with trembling fingers and pulled it toward him, tilting it back. To his joy it contained water, and he did his best to get some of it into his cracked, dry lips. Much of it spilled down his naked front, cold as river water.
Before his thirst was quenched Dan’s strength failed him, and the pitcher slipped out of his grasp. Water sloshed down his front and the pitcher rolled onto the floor, shattering. Dan fell back, letting pain and exhaustion flow over him again. He tilted his head to the side, trying to keep his eyes from drooping closed, as the doctor entered the room. The doctor was a short man with large spectacles and a thick ring of hair around the crown of his otherwise-bald head. He rushed to Dan’s side and began to pick up the pitcher’s pieces as Dan fell to sleep again.
The Black Librarian Archives Page 8