Vampire Mist: Ballad of the B-Team, Book One

by Adam Thomas

  Shonasir stood up and walked to Halla. Grasping hands, the younger elf said, “Fyara, nethana relanaon.” (Peace, life-giving ancestor.)

  “Fyarana, ralshon.” (Deeper peace, beloved child.) Halla squeezed Shonasir’s hands. “I feel a strange power in these lovely long fingers. I sense you are in touch with the elements.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “At my age and experience, I can see the weave of magic all around me. I am 674 years old, you know.”

  They dropped one hand, and Shonasir supported Halla to a seat at the table. The old elf surveyed each of the companions in turn. She passed quickly over Rhys and Emric, but her gaze lingered on Alurel and even longer on Jeral. Turning back to Alurel, Halla said, “It is rare for one without full elven blood to commune as the Kir do. Tell me, young one, what forms have you managed?”

  “How can you –”

  Alurel caught herself before finishing the same question as Shonasir. “I suppose I just have the gift, Grandmother, but I’d rather not discuss it.”

  “Naturally. Is that why you left Starfall? Because the sand held so few creatures?”

  Alurel nodded and exhaled a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. In just a moment of conversation the old elf had spoken to the core of her being. Alurel felt a coil of tension begin to unknot within her.

  “And you, my dragonborn friend, there’s something odd about you.”

  “There are many things odd about Jeral,” Emric said.

  “Magically odd.”

  “I’m a warlock,” Jeral said.

  “No, that’s not it. But I warn you, do be careful entering into pacts with unknown powerful creatures. It rarely ends well.” Her creaky chuckle rang out again, filling the office. “There’s something else about you that I can’t put my finger on.” Halla turned to Lord Day, her playful demeanor rapidly sobering. “We need Grail.”

  “She’s on assignment for a day or two, but I will summon her as soon as she’s back. In the meantime, I have a task for our new friends here. An audition of sorts.”

  Alurel tapped the table. “First Grail, then work.”

  Halla echoed Alurel’s tapping, and her levity returned. “Oh, I like this one, Sonny. She has come a long way and she will not be knocked off course.”

  “Very well,” Day said. “Grail Maverick is the Phantom of the Thousand Spires Guild of Secrets. She has been in intelligence since the Three Sisters War, and she has a peculiar set of skills that makes her very good at her job. One of them is the ability of true seeing. No illusion or enchantment can stand up to her scrutiny. If you make it through the audition, I will insist that Grail look upon you with her true sight, lest we have any more issues like the hag at the orphanage.”

  “Or the orcs,” Halla added, and her eye caught Jeral’s, but he looked away.

  “All right,” Alurel said. “What’s the job?”

  “Head to the Opal Spire ossuary. There, you will find a member of the Spire Guard named Haniya Rix. She will fill you in. Also, if you love your boots, you might want to wear different shoes on this one.”

  “I only have one pair,” Emric said to no one in particular.

  

  The Opal Spire was north of the League Quarter. The party crossed the Grenadin Canal via one of the many drawbridges that spanned the dwarfmade channel and jogged the rest of the way to meet their contact.

  “Ossuary,” Jeral said. “Like, bones?”

  “Lots and lots of bones.” Alurel made spooky sounds and ran her fingers up the back of Jeral’s neck. “Maybe they’re alive and rattling around!”

  “There it is,” Rhys said, pointing to a handsome octagonal building of white and gray stone. Opal-topped finials adorned each of the angles of the structure, and a dome rose from the center with one more finial, larger than the rest, sprouting from it. A uniformed woman wearing the gray and white leathers of an Opal Spire guard stood at the entrance. She wore a sword casually on her right hip and a neutral expression on her face. She watched the companions approach, and they got the distinct impression that she was sizing them up.

  “Haniya Rix of the Spire Guard. You can call me Rix. I take it you’re the cleanup crew I requested?”

  “Cleanup?” Alurel repeated, letting a tone of challenge into her voice.

  “We’re not janitors, if that’s what you mean,” Jeral said.

  “A good thing too,” Rix said. “A broom wouldn’t be much help where we’re going. A sword would be better, but I don’t see any of those except on the big fellow.”

  Jeral cupped his hand and formed a ball of energy. “I don’t need a sword.”

  Rix sniffed. “All right then. Let’s go.”

  She led them inside and down a flight of stairs. “There’s a corpse flower in the sewer below the ossuary. Been stealing the newly interred bodies from the lower crypts. We need to exterminate it and make sure there are no more growing. Are any of you magical types packing fire?”

  Shonasir smiled. “I think I can arrange something.”

  “Good. Easier to burn the buds than hack them to pieces. The big one on the other hand.” She patted Rhys’s muscled arm. “You can go to town.”

  They descended another flight and entered the crypt. Balls of magical light floated through the air, and Rix caught one in her hand. Jeral and Rhys did the same.

  “There,” Rix said. “That’s where its tentacles are getting through.” She shined her light on a gaping hole in the floor next to several disturbed tombs. The clay that was supposed to seal them to allow bodies to decay was broken and strewn about the floor. And, of course, the bodies were gone.

  “Down we go.” Rix handed her light to Emric, slid into the hole, and dropped. “Toss me the globe.”

  “Shouldn’t we be more quiet?”

  “Why? It’s a plant. It doesn’t have ears.”

  “Good point.” Emric jumped through the hole and landed on his stout, dwarven legs.

  The rest followed and before they had gone a dozen feet, Shonasir started retching. “What is that stench?”

  “That’s the corpse flower,” Rix said. “You might want to hold your nose. It gets worse the closer we get.”

  Rhys shined his light down the sewer. “I don’t see anything.”

  Rix chuckled. “Point the light upwards.”

  Rhys did so. And there, growing out of the ceiling like an awful, organic chandelier was the corpse flower. Thick green-gray tentacles swayed and swirled around its bulbous body, a land-bound anemone as big as a horse cart.

  The big swordsman kept one blade sheathed so he could hold his red sash over his nose and mouth. He approached the corpse flower and slashed at it. The long sword bit into the thick fibers of the flower’s stalk. The flower trembled and released a cloud of putrid gas in all directions. Rhys dropped his sword, doubled over, and vomited on his own boots. Rix dashed forward and pulled him back by the belt before one of the flower’s tentacles could enwrap him.

  “Maybe we do this from a distance?” Jeral offered, and he sent a blast of energy into the center of the flower.

  “Is it...moving?” Alurel asked.

  “Very slowly,” Emric said with a wink. “I think we can keep up.”

  Shonasir loosed an arrow. It found the center of the flower and blossomed into an elemental of fire. “You all take down the flower. My Awakened Flame will find any buds.”

  The corpse flower continued to inch away from the party as they bombarded it with magical attacks. Shonasir’s flame danced around them, throwing shadows in all directions as it set fire to the flower’s progeny.

  In a last desperate act, the flower disgorged its most recently consumed bodies, which fell to the ground, but didn’t stay there. The zombified corpses stood up and shambled towards Rhys, who had stayed back since releasing the contents of his stomach. He made qu
ick work of the disgusting corpses, and soon they lay in dismembered heaps on the sewer floor.

  A few final blasts of forceful energy from Jeral stilled the flower. Its tentacles hung limp like wet hair. For good measure, Rhys severed each tentacle, and Shonasir’s flame lit the whole foul flower on fire.

  Rix nodded her approval. “That was easier than I expected. It helps when the cleanup crew is packing as much magic as you lot. Don’t often see that.”

  “So you’ll put in a good word for us with Lord Day?” Emric asked.

  “I‘ll run it up the chain of command. He’ll know soon enough.”

  The companions climbed out of the sewer, made their way through the ossuary, and returned to the fresh, chilly air of the city.

  Alurel gave Rhys a once over. “How about a dip in the canal?”

  Rhys looked down at himself. All over his clothes and boots, bits of zombie flesh and corpse flower pus mixed with half-digested bacon and eggs. He turned his attention to his friends, who were all as clean as they had been when they entered the sewer. He sighed. “Next time, we all get dirty.”

  Rhys took Alurel’s suggestion and swam the canal while the others crossed over a bridge. They returned to the Emerald Spire and slept well owing to the prospect of partnering with a wealthy patron. Saving orphans was great and all, but there was no money in it.

  Winter’s final frost encased the grass as they headed back to the League Quarter early the next morning.

  “The corpse flower is no more,” Emric said after Lord Day waved them inside his office.

  “Your speed and efficiency does you credit. Well done.”

  “Is Grail back yet?” Alurel asked.

  “She is. Halla will fetch her, I’m sure.” Lord Day looked up at the ceiling. “Do you hear that, Archmage? We need the phantom.”

  He looked back at the party and gestured to a basket on the conference table. “Please, have a pastry while we wait. Shouldn’t be but a few minutes.”

  The adventurers did not need to be told twice. By the time Halla and Grail appeared in the middle of the office, the basket was empty. The flash of Ethereality subsided, and the two elves waved to the pastry devourers.

  “It’s so good to see you again,” Alurel said, approaching Grail but stopping short of embracing her tribal kin.

  Grail closed the distance and put her copper-skinned hand on Alurel’s cheek, which was only a shade or two lighter than Grail’s hand. “It does my heart good to see you as well,” Grail said. She pulled her hand away and touched her own lips, chest, and navel, a well practiced gesture of blessing.

  Lord Day cleared his throat. “Phantom, might I ask you to use your gift on our new acquaintances? After the business with the orcs and Shay Ariel and the Prime Speaker’s bodyguard, we can’t be too careful.”

  “Of course,” Grail said. “I figured you didn’t ask me here simply for a reunion with these recent allies.”

  “If you please.” Lord Day gestured for the party to line up. “Your true seeing?”

  Grail spoke a word under her breath, and her eyes shone like sapphires in the sun. She looked upon Rhys, Emric, Shonasir, and Alurel, nodding as she passed over each of them. But when she came to Jeral, she gasped and cried out in alarm.

  “He’s an orc!”

  six

  Jeral’s Confession

  Jeral threw up his claws and backed against the wall. His companions whirled to face him, confusion written across their faces. Crackling magic flared to life in the palms of the archmage. Jeral’s arms flew to his sides and locked in place. He couldn’t move from the neck down.

  Grail pointed an accusatory finger. “So, your masters in Ornak thought they could plant another spy so close to the Sularin government. This time an outsider who had gained our trust? Did they not think we would have developed countermeasures by now to their magic?”

  The elf glanced at the other adventurers and saw their confusion. “Tell me, how long have you been lying to these, your so-called friends?”

  Jeral’s teeth chattered, and his eyes darted between Grail and his teammates. At length, he forced out, “Please, you’ve got it all wrong. Or mostly wrong. I’m not what you think I am.”

  “You are a necromantic illusionist. You are exactly what I think you are.”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” Jeral gasped. His breath was coming quicker and quicker. Soon he was hyperventilating.

  “Archmage, please let him go,” Alurel said. “Your spell is pressing on his lungs!”

  Lord Day said, “Bind his arms behind his back, and then Halla will release him.”

  Emric pulled some rope from his bag. Shonasir took it and tied Jeral’s claws together. The archmage dropped her spell, and Jeral slumped forward into Rhys’s arms. Rhys dragged a chair over and pushed Jeral into it. The dragonborn who wasn’t a dragonborn put his head between his knees and gulped down air. When he caught his breath, Jeral raised his head, but would not look anyone in the eye.

  Lord Day pulled another chair over and sat across from Jeral. “I said yesterday that Grail would be able to see through any illusion. Why would you subject yourself to her gaze if you knew it would uncover your true identity?”

  Jeral’s friends circled behind Lord Day’s chair. The seven figures stared down at him, but there was no malice in their faces. They were curious and angry in equal measure. “You think I’m your enemy simply because of my origin,” Jeral began. “But the ones who did this to me are my true enemy. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

  “Then tell us,” Emric prompted.

  “The further back things are, the murkier they are. I don’t know where to begin.”

  Grail watched her quarry collapse in on himself, and a wave of compassion washed over her. “Then I will,” she said, kneeling beside Jeral’s chair. “During the Three Sisters War, I was captured in Ornakai and nearly became the subject of the orcs’ breeding program. Another prisoner, a human wizard, had been there longer than I. He revealed to me the horrors he had been subjected to, the consecutive rape in order to inseminate orcish woman to try to breed magic into their people.

  “A few years ago, the guild of secrets heard reports of elves being kidnapped from the coast of Daen and spirited away to Ornak. The only possible explanation was that the program had been renewed. With the recent infiltration of Thousand Spires, our worst fears were confirmed. The orcs had succeeded in becoming magical, at least in a limited capacity. And now here you are, a prime example of their murderous magic.”

  Jeral and Grail stared at one another for a long, tense moment. At length, he spoke. “Jeral is the name of the dragonborn I killed. I had no choice but to take his identity. If you give me the chance, I will tell you everything.”

  “You better,” Alurel said. “We trusted you. I trusted you.”

  “I know, I know. I’m so sorry. It’s just that...that the longer I’ve been Jeral the easier it was to pretend my old life didn’t happen. That it was all just a bad dream.” He heaved a plaintive sigh. “I guess it’s time to wake up.”

  Alurel crossed her arms over her chest. “You can start with your real name.”

  Even though they were all watching him, Jeral addressed his words to Alurel. “My birth name is Sorvek. That is the name my orcish mother gave me. It means fire mountain. Volcano. A good, strong orcish name for her son whose features were more elven than orcish.

  “I never met my father. I just know that it is as Grail said. I was one of the first successful subjects to come out of the forced breeding program. My mother was an officer in Ornak’s military, and she raised me to believe whole-heartedly in the cause of the orcs. I was to be the tip of the spear when we invaded Sularil. All I knew was the glory of serving Ornak as a spy. I learned the Sularin tongue fluently, as well as Draconic. When the time came for my magical test, I didn’t blink.”


  To this point, Jeral’s words held a monotone note of recitation, but now his voice broke, and tears started rolling down his green-scaled cheeks.

  “I killed my human victim without a second thought. The magical change happened. I became the man I killed. But that’s where everything fell apart. I could not bear to look at my reflection because in it I saw him. His eyes stared back at me, accusing me, indicting me justly for his murder. I tried to tell myself that I had no choice in the matter. I was ordered to test my magical abilities, and I didn’t stop to question the order. But the truth is I did have a choice. I chose to kill him, and now his eyes haunted me day and night. I couldn’t fight. I shook so hard I could barely hold a weapon. I went days without speaking.”

  Jeral took a deep, steadying breath. “My mother disowned me for my weakness, and I was turned over to the Kernix Zav for re-indoctrination. They tortured me for I don’t know how long. I looked human, so it must have been easy for them. They broke me completely.

  “I began pretending I was the human I had killed. I convinced myself that I was him so that he would still be alive. No harm had been done. No harm. No harm.”

  Jeral trailed off, and his eyes went glassy for a moment as he stared into his own traumatic past.

  “Why’d they torture you?” Alurel asked. “Why not just kill you?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeral said, his voice cracking again and his tears flowing all the more fiercely.

  “I do,” Grail said. “They wanted you for breeding stock. They forced you like they forced my friend.”

  Jeral’s eyes clarified in a flash, and he bared his sharp teeth. “No. Before that could happen, I met my patron –”

  Careful, my pet. The Shadow’s voice oiled its way across Jeral’s mind, freezing his tongue. Not too much sharing now.

  Jeral quaked at the sudden intrusion and adjusted his story. “My patron promised me the power I would need to escape, and I took it. It was the night of my first session – they used such innocuous terms to cover their evil – and my patron’s magic flowed through me. I killed two Kernix Zav agents and then fled. It was so easy because now I looked like the second of the two. Every orc is afraid of the Kernix Zav, so I used that fear to bully my way out of Ornak.