by Lakshman, V.
Talking to Cainan had given him a new perspective, but he didn’t want to spend more time on this line of questioning and instead looked at the pyramid and asked, “You call the city Olympious. Is that where you live?”
Cainan nodded, his eyes seemed to drink in the sight like a man who had been too long from home. “Yes, the city eternal, home of the faithful.” He spent a moment more gazing, then changed subjects and addressed Arek directly. “The Lady will be pleased you have escaped from the highlord’s grasp, and I shall be amply rewarded.” He looked down, chagrin painting his posture in such a way that even Arek could tell he was ashamed. “I regret not saving your companion.”
Arek shook his head. “No fault of yours. He chose to go with Gabreyl, the elven commander.”
“Armsmark Gabreyl Galadine is well known to us, my lord.”
Arek’s ears pricked up at the name. “So he truly is a Galadine?”
“Aye,” the winged warrior replied, “born of the highlord’s blood, as are all the elves. The Galadines are a curse upon this land.” Cainan looked at Arek from beneath his open visor, clearly uncomfortable with something. “My lord, we cannot tarry here. It is not proper to make the Lady wait.”
Arek raised a hand. “I need to confer with someone first.” At the quizzical look he got from Cainan, the adept simply said, “Piter.”
The air next to Arek darkened and from the coalescing cloud stepped the dark apprentice who had been with the young adept from the very beginning. “My Master, command me.”
“You’ve said you’re sent by Lilyth. What then, can we expect upon our arrival?”
Before Piter could answer, Cainan cried, “Abomination!” He looked frantically at Arek and said, “He is a dark one—nephilim! We must slay him now!” The Aeris’s blade sang from its scabbard.
Arek turned to the clearly distraught warrior and said, “Hold your arm, Cainan! Piter and I are companions. I vouch for his—”
“You cannot vouch! Had we known the ones facing us at the henge were nephilim we would have never touched them. Woe to Elpenor, who had not enough sense to stay his hand before it was too late.”
Arek realized he was speaking about the Aeris who had waded in first and grabbed a dark elf, only to be turned himself. Then another thought struck him and he asked, “You can see Piter?”
Cainan didn’t say anything but moved forward, his single-minded focus with his blade answering Arek’s question as clearly as any words could. Arek quickly interceded with his body and said, “You will hold!” Blackfire detonated into being, flaring around the adept and hurling the Aeris Lord away like a leaf in a gust of wind.
Cainan fell onto his back, one arm outstretched in an ineffectual effort to ward off the dark shade and the blackfire at the same time. His eyes flicked back and forth between the two, finally coming to rest on Arek alone. “What are you?” he asked. It was clear from his open mouthed expression and the fear plain in his eyes that nothing had prepared him for this.
Arek pointed a finger and demanded again, “Can you see the person standing next to me?”
Cainan nodded, a rigid motion as his neck was held tight with terror. “All Aeris, whether Watcher or Fury, know of the dark ones. They must be slain. No mercy, no quarter.”
Arek looked at Piter and then back at Cainan, concern plain on his face. This situation was escalating, becoming dangerous. It needed to be defused quickly. He demanded Cainan’s attention by asking, “How did the Watchers find us at the henge? Will they appear here?”
Cainan stared at Piter, his eyes still wide. When he didn’t answer, Arek snapped, “Cainan!”
That startled the Aeris Lord, who turned to Arek and said, “I… the henge itself. When it was activated it would be a clarion call any Watcher within sight would answer.” He stopped, then said, “My lord, you must kill it! If you do not, everything it touches will be turned. Killing it will kill all it begat. I beg you, do not wait, for it is a pestilence amongst us.”
Piter moved forward and whispered to Arek, “What do you suggest we do now?”
Arek turned to Piter and said, “You can create more like you?”
The shade smiled. “Evidently.”
“Have you?” demanded Arek, his eyes never leaving Piter’s. He didn’t trust the creature he’d created, but like it or not he still thought of him as a companion.
“Master, without your leave? Never,” said the shade, a hurt look on his face.
“Then how do you explain the henge?” retorted Arek.
Piter started to say something, then a slow smile crept across his face. “I’m guilty… but it was only one elf. I hungered for it. You must know what I mean.”
“You bring death upon us,” cried Cainan. “Had I known the nephilim were your doing, I would have run my blade through you when I had the chance.”
Piter’s voice floated in his ear, “I guess that narrows your choices.”
Arek turned back to the fallen warrior who held his sword protectively across his body, and slowly knelt in front of him. “Do you believe the Lady doesn’t know my nature?” He tilted his head to the side, drinking in the fear this Aeris Lord emanated. It was like cool water to a parched throat. Piter was right. It would be so easy to drink his fill and satiate the hunger within.
“We need to make our way to Lilyth’s stronghold,” said Piter in a disinterested way. He looked at the pyramid and then back down at the form of Arek, kneeling in front of the prostrate Aeris Lord. “Get this over with.”
“What do you mean?” asked Arek, the edge of hunger in his voice balanced by the desire to control himself. He knew exactly what Piter meant, but didn’t want to say it. He needed the shade to give him a reason.
Piter obliged, giving him three: “Do we need him? He knows now what you are, and of my existence. Better we don’t leave loose tongues.”
Arek had come to the same conclusion, or perhaps his hunger had. He smiled at Cainan’s growing horror, then slowly reached out with a hand to grasp the man’s boot.
Cainan’s sword performed a quick arc, aiming directly for Arek’s neck, but it was not proof against the blackfire. Arek’s flameskin flashed and the blade was slag for a brief moment before it vaporized into a cloud of metallic steam. The Aeris Lord could only look dumbly at the melted half blade still in his hand.
Before Cainan could scream, Arek yanked him by his massive leg, his strength magnified, until the Aeris Lord’s head and neck lay beneath his hands. Cainan fought, striking with fist and elbows, but the adept controlled the flailing lord’s punches, moving into the strikes and locking his arms until he was only inches from the giant warrior’s face. For a moment, they just stared at each other, then Arek’s eyes became black liquid pools, sucking in the light.
The same blackfire that had made such short work of the sword now consumed the Aeris Lord, immolating him from the inside out. Everything that was Cainan became one with the fire, consuming until only a blackened body was left. That fire then flowed into the young adept, filling his form with an energy that felt like the sun itself shone from within him.
Arek stood, the energy of the Fury suffusing him with power. He breathed in deep and every part of his body sang with joy. It was better than Adramelek, better than the angel upon the door beneath Bara’cor, Dvarin. It was even better than that dark elf who dared touch him at the henge. It was better than anything.
Then something happened. His mind expanded, as though his view had somehow shifted. It was subtle, and Arek realized it wasn’t a physical thing, but instead an adjustment of his mental perspective. Absorbing the Aeris Lord had done something to him, altered his perception in such a way as to provide him some small part of what Cainan was. Interesting, for if true, this meant each victim added to his knowledge.
He thought back to the others he’d taken. Had he in some way used Piter’s knowledge to create his flameskin? The apprentice had created something similar at their fight at the library. He now remembered the faint ghostly image of the winged warrior an
d a name floated into the edge of his consciousness, Kaliban. Had he been an Aeris Lord like Cainan? What about the others? Arek realized he could not decipher what was his from before and what he knew now. In fact, had he not been paying attention, it was doubtful he would have realized the transference of Cainan’s awareness.
Lilyth thought him important, that was certain to him now. Cainan’s death would be dismissed against her larger need, which was… he shook his head in frustration. He simply did not know, likely because Cainan did not know.
He looked at Piter, his body full of Cainan’s vitality and essence and said, “You’re right, the hunger can be… overwhelming.”
Piter sneered as he said, “What do you command?”
“You never answered my question.” He meant the question about their reception with Lilyth, but he’d learned that when speaking with Piter, giving him less information often led to more truth. Plus, thanks to the Aeris Lord’s death, he had a good idea of what she would do. He just wanted to hear what the shade had to say.
Piter shrugged and replied, “I don’t know, Master. Lilyth does not share her plans with me.”
Arek moved closer to Piter, looking past him and at the great pyramid of Olympious. “I’m getting a little sick of being a pawn in everyone’s game.”
“About time,” murmured the shade. “I told you before, you were nothing but a sacrifice to them.”
Arek looked sidelong at Piter and then said, “I don’t trust you, but I know what Cainan said is true. If I die, you die. Therefore, it’s in your interest to keep me alive.”
“It has never occurred to me otherwise, Master.”
The deceit in Piter’s voice was easy to hear, as was the sarcasm, but Arek knew he was right. Cainan had believed the death of the master killed those he made, which meant Piter’s very existence depended on Arek’s survival. In that at least, they were aligned.
He squatted on his haunches and said, “Piter, perhaps it’s time we charted a different course.”
“What?” asked the shade of Piter, “storm Olympious, cast down the gods?” A small laugh followed. “You and I, an army of two.”
Just then a groan sounded, a sucking in of air that went on for far longer than normal lungs could bear. Arek and Piter turned, just in time to see Cainan shudder. His body convulsed, then gasped again as if drowning. Then, slowly, the eyes opened. They glowed an unearthly blue, without irises or pupils.
Arek stood slowly, watching as the Aeris Lord’s body shuddered yet again, but the tremors were dying down. Cainan, or the dark Aeris that was now Cainan, rose. It stood motionless for a moment, as if orienting itself to this new unlife, before slowly turning to face the young adept who had made it.
The dark Cainan bowed to Arek and in a hollow voice devoid of the lord’s earlier emotion said, “Master, I hunger.”
Arek turned to Piter and a slow smile spread across his face. “Now we’re three.”
Piter smiled back. “And so it begins.”
Fortitude
The depth of your commitment to life
is measured in the moments
When a stray thought can kill you.
- Kensei Tsao, The Lens of Blades
Queen Galadine looked down at the slice uncomprehendingly, her mind still numb with shock. It went cleanly through her leather jerkin near the top of her thigh. More blood welled up, looking black in the dim light of the cavern as it soaked into her softclothes. There was something she had to do… something important before she lost consciousness. If she let the blackness take hold, she knew she wouldn’t wake up again.
Grabbing her belt, she undid the clasp then made a loop and placed her dagger’s scabbard under it. She quickly reclasped the belt, then twisted the scabbard until the belt loop tightened on her upper leg. Her hands moved automatically even as another part of her watched with detached amazement, marveling at her methodical exactness.
The black blood slowed to a trickle. Before tightening it further, she looked to her left and grabbed the wad of cloth she didn’t remember ripping from a dead man’s shirt. Loosening the makeshift tourniquet, she quickly stuffed the bandage under the belt and then tightened it again. The hardest part was the last pull-tight knot, the bolt of pain so pure and intense she almost bit through the tongue of leather she’d held in her mouth to keep from crying out. Then it was over.
She fell back exhausted, fading into and out of awareness. At some point, her sticky hands gingerly surveyed her own handiwork as she gulped air. The throbbing with each heartbeat meant she’d stopped the bleeding for now, at least it felt that way.
She sat up and had a moment of acute clarity, her eyes wide. How long had she been unconscious? Her leg demanded attention and she pulled the jerkin carefully apart to inspect it with a critical eye, not knowing how much time she’d have before passing out again.
The blade had bit deep, but mainly through muscle. The only certain way to stop the bleeding would be fire, and that was not an option at this moment. Her other choice was geranium oil or even rose petals crushed into the wound. Either would act as an effective clotting agent.
Yevaine looked around the cavern, assessing her chances. Just her luck, she thought wryly, no rose bush in sight when you needed one. An involuntary laugh burst forth, sounding strange in this dark place, bringing with it fresh tears as her leg jostled from the motion.
Their trip from Haven back to reinforce Bara’cor had been generally uneventful, with one exception. Captain Kalindor had made an ass of himself trying to keep Yevaine in the city, claiming her importance as regent of Dawnlight outweighed her duty, as if she would stay behind while the men rushed off to battle. Leave it to them to find an excuse to leave her behind, but she would have none of it.
He’d gone so far as to order her to stay, to which she had reminded him of her rank and that she would no sooner remain behind than he would offer his other eye. She’d been tempted to order him to stay as just rewards for his impudence, but Kalindor’s mapsense was invaluable to the team. So a suitably highbrow impasse had emerged, filled with decorum and grace.
Pointedly avoiding the subject, they had filled their ranks with men born of the high steppes of Frost Dawn, northern lands where climbing was as essential as walking. Kalindor liked to brag that they had been suckled by mountain goats. Judging by their smell the queen did not doubt him. Still, for the hard work of climbing her handpicked squad had no equal.
In the end, both had decided to ignore the other and accompany the team heading back to Bara’cor. Of course, each stubbornly believed they knew what was right for the kingdom. Only the fact that the leader of Haven’s Praetorians, Commander Siel, had trained at the Galadine House of Arms left them the choice of being able to leave at all. Under his and Ellis Tir’s watchful eyes, the regents of Haven would cooperate. Spaiten, still held in the jails of Haven, would answer for his crimes in due time but getting back to her husband with reinforcements had taken priority above all else.
So the next morning saw each show up at the appointed time of departure, outfitted and ready, with nothing more than a “Captain” and “Your Grace” shared between them. The queen’s party, for she still held rank, numbered no more than twenty men and women. They were to scout ahead and fix ropes, allowing a company of men-at-arms to follow. The going would be tough, no place for heavy armor or large weapons, so they had dressed light.
Her only concession had been the Aeonian House blade, Falken. Straight, double-edged, and keen enough to shave the hairs off an arm, Falken had been part of her family since its forging during the Demon Wars. It now sat within easy reach, but everything else they had lay strewn about in a shattered mess. Yevaine fingered the slice through her stiff leather jerkin in anger, as if its betrayal had been a matter of spite and not an ill-timed riposte she’d missed.
“I’m happy you came,” a voice rasped out of the darkness.
It came from her right, and could only be Kalindor. She levered herself up a bit, searching. A smal
l movement caught her eye and she could see the white of his one good eye looking at her, closer than she’d expected. “You okay?”
“I’ll live. More than can be said for most of our men,” he replied gruffly.
The queen looked around. “Sound off. How many?”
She heard a faint “one” from the gloom, then a “two.” When the count was finally done, it was a depressing six, including herself and Kalindor. Not an impressive show considering this had been their first encounter with the things infesting the underdark of Bara’cor.
They had come seeping through the very cracks in the walls, black mists that solidified into fearful creatures, not unlike those from bedtime fairytales she recalled reading to Niall when he was just a boy. Why such things were turned into a tale for children made little sense to her now. These demons were far worse than any nightfright, and she did not relish the idea of facing them again.
“How far behind is the rest of the Company?” she murmured, her tongue feeling thick in her mouth.
“You need water.” Kalindor scrambled over to her, unstoppering a canteen.
“I need blood,” was her curt reply, but the cool water did taste wonderful as it spilled down her throat. “Thank you.”
Kalindor sighed. “They’ll be coming slower.”
She knew the men behind them were carrying the bulk of the supplies and medicines to relieve Bara’cor and that would make their pace a matter of careful planning. “At least the first Step is passed and ropes replaced.”
She referred to the place known as the Giant’s Step, because it was a rock face that went vertically up to the position they now occupied. They’d come upon the lowest Step with its climbing ropes cut and massed at the bottom in a tangled heap. It had taken them time to scale the cliff face and properly refix the ropes. There was another such Step leading farther up, but this one’s rope ladder still looked to be in place. Kalindor seemed to believe they were past the worst of it, and rarely was his mapsense wrong.
“These things, if they’ve infested the fortress…” she began.