Alexandria tried to pull the hood of the Assassin’s Shroud over her head. It was ripped right off her body and sucked into the swirling vortex. She and Rolem were lifted off their feet and into the air. The panic-stricken king swam in midair, somehow making his way toward her. They locked arms as they floated up in front of Finster.
Finster glowered at them like an angry god. He reached out with both of his naked hands and gripped them by their wrists. Drawing them in with a white-hot stare, he said, “As of this day, you both will cease to exist.”
In a final move, Alexandria drew a poisoned dagger with her free hand and buried it in Finster’s chest. The sorcerer-savage didn’t so much as flinch. Her stabbing hand began to disintegrate. In agony, she looked right at King Rolem, whose handsome face cracked. He let out a final cry before his mouth crumbled away. His body and clothing turned quickly to ash. One moment, she was the greatest assassin in the world, and in the next moment, she was dust drifting out to sea.
***
The Founder’s Stone and scarab pushed Finster and Moth’s anger to the limits. Enraged by the deaths of Dizon and Rinny, they toppled every soldier like dominoes. Galleons and brigantines were capsized at sea. Castle Mendes shook and trembled. The walls and foundations cracked. Finster and Moth were both caught up in a maelstrom of violence. They were becoming something else, two beings, now merging with the hungering Founder’s Stone. Finster wanted it to stop for the world’s own good, but driven by his older, darker ambition, the Founder’s Stone took on a new life. He and Moth would forever be a part of that now, and the world would be doomed.
As they cruised the air around the city, casting bolts of light from their fingers, he or Moth caught the sound of screaming voices within the storm. He looked down on the abandoned shoreline. Three people stood by a small skiff on the beach. Two of them were waving their arms and calling up to them.
“Dizon! Rinny!” Finster shouted. The sight of the mother and daughter calmed Moth’s raging spirit, cutting the thirst from the Founder’s Stone. Without hesitation, they landed. Dizon and Rinny, who were accompanied by Osgald, threw their arms around Finster. “You live! You live! I thought the sea had taken you.”
“No,” Dizon said, kissing his face. “Your invisible hand caught us at the last moment, softening our landing.”
Clutching her hands, he said, “Rolem is no more. The assassin too.”
“Good,” she replied. “But what about you and Moth?” Dizon looked over his body, which was bursting with glowing green veins. “You are not well.”
“No, we are not. That’s why I must return to the Red Citadel.”
CHAPTER 102 (Epilogue)
For the time being, Finster had control. He was back inside the granite walls of the Red Citadel, where he’d spent endless hours scouring the library tomes in search of a way out of his dilemma. He needed to separate himself from Moth, the scarab, and the Founder’s Stone. But it was the Founder’s Stone that had pulled them all together, and it did not want to let them be free.
In the days since they had arrived at the Red Citadel, some good had come of Finster’s brave efforts. The citizens of the kingdom of Rayland, prompted by the great slabs—now called the Slabs of Truth—had overthrown King Mather and hanged him from the gallows. The citizens of Mendes and its new leadership reacted very much in the same manner and were holding a council on how to handle a kingdom without a king while they all weighed in on Finster’s case.
The news of the Black Tower carried up the coast along with Finster’s deeds and sea-god-slaying efforts. Times, if possible, were good. Meanwhile, the Red Citadel, no longer bereft of leadership, had become a hive of new activity. Many magi of the Red Citadel had returned to aid Finster in his cause. And with the Violet Citadel fallen wayward, many of its dozens of men and women were eager to follow Finster’s lead as well.
Still, none could rid Finster, or Moth for that matter, of his curse. Now, in the company of Dizon and several magi robed in scarlet, Finster stood in front of a slab door made from solid stone. He looked down at his trembling fingers, at the rings of power that had grafted themselves on top of the skin. It was a sickly sight, not the radiant adornment that he’d once longed for. He glanced at Dizon. The woman’s light, pretty eyes were filled with worry. She was cleaned up now, honey-blond hair tied back in one braid behind her head. Her robes were a pale-pink cotton. She kissed his hand while still holding it in hers.
Finster took a deep breath. He stood before the doorway to the Mystic Forge. The rune-covered slab concealed a twenty-foot opening. Long ago, when Finster had been a young sage, he’d stood guard at the Mystic Forge for months. It hadn’t been standard sentry duty, made for soldiers, but a situation in which the forge chose its guardian by revelation. The Magus Supremeus of the Red Citadel revealed that honor to Finster. Finster stood week after week, eating and sleeping little, on chronically aching feet. Nothing ever came of it except one thing: he knew how to open and close the great doorway.
With quick lips, he muttered an incantation and pressed the arcane runes in a particular order. The slab groaned as it scraped upward along the framework, revealing a kaleidoscope of scintillating light within.
Dizon, Rinny, and the present company of Osgald, the new leader of the Citadel Guardians, and several more sorcerers in scarlet shielded their eyes. The Mystic Forge was a fountain of energy in which magic items were enchanted and shaped. Water flowed into two separate wells at the top and bottom of the chamber, allowing its spectacular energy to ebb and flow upward and downward like two intersecting rivers.
Finster pulled his hands from Dizon’s firm grip and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Tears ran down her tanned cheeks.
“Be strong.” He stepped inside. The slab came right down behind him, sealing him inside. With the fiery illumination warming his face, he stepped closer to the searing mystic waters. He didn’t see any choice in what he was about to do. He couldn’t live with the Founder’s Stone and scarab inside him. He could do without the savage trying to tear himself free as well. The question was, would Moth go along with what he was about to do? Jumping into the fountain, no doubt, would kill them both, but it would end the curse too. There was no other way if they were going to keep others safe, and that was what Finster was sworn to do.
“Give your life for others, and the others’ flower beds will bloom,” he said quietly. He tried to step forward. His limbs seized up. He started to sweat. “Moth, we have to do this together. The stone won’t let me budge. I need your strength matched with mine. It’s now or never, or we are lost forever.” He raised his voice. “Do you understand?”
Suddenly, Finster’s legs bent at the knees. Coiled to spring, he heard Moth’s voice growl inside his head. Together, they burst out of the Founder’s Stone’s chains and launched themselves into the forge’s fires.
***
Dizon paced back and forth for hours. She heard nothing on the other side of the slab, and all of her tear ducts were dried. Rinny was in the same situation. Osgald tried to offer them comfort, but the knight found few soothing words to say. The host of magi didn’t have any answers either. Only Finster had the ability to open and close the door, though many of them tried. Finally, Dizon said to Rinny, “Let’s get something to eat.”
Rinny had sat down in front of the door. She wouldn’t budge, but her tummy made a loud rumble.
Dizon reached down to pick her up. The slab started to lift. With bright light washing over her, she squinted. A huge man washed in colorful light emerged from the glimmering chamber. It was Moth, returned whole, with a shine about his features. The sullen-eyed savage was followed by a gangly man, lither in frame, whose new scarlet robes seemed to be holding him together. The door closed behind him. He leaned back against the slab, shaking like a leaf.
“Finster!” Dizon wrapped the man up in her arms.
He returned a weak hug. “I pray I never have to go through that again.” Separating himself from her, he opened his hand. A scara
b lay in his grip. He crushed it into dust. “And to think I invented the cursed thing. Shame on me.”
Still holding him tightly, Dizon asked, “You are whole?”
Nodding, he replied, “The Mystic Forge, with unseen powers one will never fully comprehend, showed mercy on me.” His gaze drifted to Moth. “Both of us it seems. Now the Founder’s Stone feeds its fires. It’s a fitting home for it, I believe. Perhaps that is where it was forged to begin with.”
“What of the rings?” she asked.
He showed her the black iron and ruby regeneration ring on his ring finger. “I’m keeping this one, maybe another.” He patted his robe pocket, which jingled, and smiled. “As the Magus Supremeus of the tenth order—and I don’t think any will dispute it—I’ll find worthy men and women to be the bearers of them now.”
Rinny hugged Moth’s leg. “Don’t leave me, Moth. You can’t leave me.”
The bare-chested and bald Moth peeled her away and took a knee. Laying a hand on her head, he stroked her forehead with his thumb. Moth dusted the tears from her eyes, wiped them on his cheeks, hugged her, and stood. He gave Finster a long and lasting gaze, shook his head, and started walking away.
Finster, Dizon, and company followed Moth out of the citadel to where the road led back into the rolling green hills. Moth never looked back once. He walked at a slow and easy pace, long, powerful arms gently swinging, appearing now and again between the humps along the road.
Sniffling, Rinny asked, “Do you think we’ll ever see him again?”
“After this last encounter, I’d hope not,” Finster replied. As he watched Moth disappear once and for all, he wondered, had the savage saved him, or had he saved the savage? “But for some reason, I don’t think this is the first or last kingdom that he has helped save.”
Holding onto her mother’s leg, Rinny asked, “We don’t even know what his real name is, do we?”
“I don’t think he knows what his name is either, but I think Moth will do,” Finster replied. He put his arm over Dizon’s shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but my tongue longs for a flagon of wine. After all, how often can a man celebrate saving a kingdom if not two?”
FROM THE AUTHOR
Thanks for reading The Red Citadel and the Sorcerer’s Power. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. As for further adventures for Moth and Finster, I don’t know, but please let me know how you feel about it by contacting me anytime.
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OTHER BOOKS AND AUTHOR INFO
Craig Halloran resides with his family outside his hometown of Charleston, West Virginia. When he isn’t entertaining mankind, he is seeking adventure, working out, or watching sports. To learn more about him, go to: www.thedarkslayer.com.
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* * *
[ICS1]All of him, or just his head?
[ICS2]Moth’s, or Finster’s?
[ICS3]Didn’t Ingrid turn the throne to ash when Finster turned it against her?
[ICS4]What hap
pened to all the soldiers who were hanging in the air?
[ICS5]Why not?
[ICS6]Not sure what is meant here. “Froward” means “habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition”, like a troublemaking teenager.
The Red Citadel and the Sorcerer's Power Page 33