by Cam Banks
“I admire your ability to continue with these pointless jokes as you face death,” Cazuvel said. “Gredchen here is the result of the true Cazuvel’s early experimentation with soul magic. While flawed, she is nevertheless living proof that his theories were viable. In fact, had he not overreached his own abilities when plumbing the depths of this magic, he might have perfected the immortality of body and spirit.”
That was interesting-and Vanderjack wouldn’t mind prolonging the discussion with a fiend from the Abyss about one of Rivven Cairn’s pet Black Robes. Keep the braggart talking. Yes, that was the plan, such as it was.
“I have the ghost of the Cook to thank for reminding me of that experiment.” Cazuvel smiled, gathering power in his palm, holding it there, nurturing it, as if biding his time before delivering the sellsword’s fiery end.
“As I unravel the magical bonds that secured the life force of the baron’s daughter in this painting, bonds secured by energies wrought from the Abyss, I shall replace the baron’s daughter with my own spirit. Then I shall be the template, the progenitor of a new race of fiends on Ansalon. No longer will I need Rivven Cairn and her crumbling army. I shall lead an army of my own.”
As Vanderjack thrust his hand into one of the pockets sewn into his trews, his fingers closed around the thing he was frantically looking for. He coughed again and used the wracking motion to fall against the cage near Gredchen.
“Which reminds me. Where is my dear highmaster?”
“I really don’t know,” said Vanderjack. “But I think I’ll send her a message.” He pulled his hand from his pocket and, thrusting both arms into the cage on either side of Gredchen, produced the small parcel Rivven had given him. It was the talisman for sending the mage’s body back to Rivven after Vanderjack had killed him. Well, that might not happen, but Vanderjack had a more immediate use for it. If only he could block out the pain burning his arms, searing his skin, setting the sleeves of his tunic on fire.
Cazuvel’s eyes widened and he drew his hands back, focusing the power of the cage through them. Vanderjack was faster. He slipped the parcel on its thong around Gredchen’s neck, even as the parcel itself glowed with the heat of the eldritch fires within the cage. He fell back and allowed himself a scream, his arms smoking.
Cazuvel roared in anger, unleashing the lightning bolt he’d stored up, and watched it streak into Vanderjack, an Abyssal lightning that blew the sellsword back to the very edge of the platform. But it was too late. A burning smell like roasting cinnamon wafted up from the cage.
Vanderjack lay on his stomach, feeling all but dead. He could barely to look up to see that Gredchen had vanished. The raging vortex of soul and planar energy within the cage had lost one of its vital elements.
Cazuvel shrieked and was lost in a towering column of nightmarish light, fire, and darkness. The vortex exploded upward, straight up into the sky, a tornadic firestorm that carried the too-mortal body of the fetch up as it went. Cazuvel spun about, end over end, screaming, before being torn apart by the winds of the Abyss.
“That’s what I think of your army,” Vanderjack whispered before passing out.
Rivven spoke the words in her mind.
Cear. I need you.
The wind increased briefly, heralding the great red wyrm’s arrival. His wings buffeted Rivven as he descended, dropping to just below the balcony level. The highmaster made sure her sword was secure on her back, adjusted her knee-high boots, and leaped over the railing onto the dragon saddle.
She looked down at the arena and saw Vanderjack hugging the cage, silhouetted by the blinding blue-orange light churning around within it. She saw the wizard, threads of magical power extending from almost a hundred small blue and orange points of light in the arena. She shifted her vision magically with a spoken word, expanding her senses to penetrate into the eldritch realms.
“By the Dark Queen, he’s done it,” she whispered.
“Are we going anywhere in particular?” asked the dragon. “Or am I just hovering here to give you a better view?”
“Take me down there. I have a feeling Vanderjack’s about to die, so I need to-”
“Rivven Cairn!” cried a familiar voice.
She turned in her saddle, looking up to the left. “Theodenes? Are you insane? Get your flying cat out of the way of my dragon, or I’ll personally give the order for him to burn you out of the sky.”
“How much do you know, Rivven?” the gnome said defiantly. He was astride Star, who had flown up and in front of Cear, as brazen as his scales. “About this. How much did you know before today?”
Rivven looked down at the battle then back at the gnome. “Are you asking me about the painting? I knew all about it, of course. Well, Cazuvel being an imposter, that was new to me, but I can adapt.”
“You knew who Gredchen really was,” the gnome said. “That she and the painting …”
“Yes, yes. The painting was crafted by Cazuvel to preserve the baron’s only daughter, but she died anyway. So I had Cazuvel use the painting to bring the daughter back, and Gredchen was the result. I’ve kept the painting ever since.”
“And you promised the baron that one day, if he kept funneling you information about the Solamnic Knights, you’d have your wizard fix everything. He’d get his real daughter back, not an ugly copy.”
Rivven sat up a little straighter in the saddle. “That was the deal. Now if you’re through with this line of investigation, I’ve got a precariously balanced portal to the Abyss to take off the hands of a demonic wizard.”
“That’s all I needed to know,” said Theodenes. “Star? Did the ghosts get all of that?”
The dragonne rumbled. “Yes,” he said. “They will pass this information to Etharion, who is watching over Vanderjack.”
“Ghosts?” asked Rivven with a frown. “What ghosts?”
The gnome smiled. “Vanderjack’s sword is haunted,” he said. “Didn’t you know that? Seven ghosts, always giving him advice. And an eighth ghost, a cook he accidentally killed and whose spirit joined the others.”
Rivven cursed. “So that’s the secret of that sword! Of course! A nine-lives stealer. Cazuvel must be using the sword’s properties to-”
The highmaster was cut off by the sudden arrival of Gredchen, whose unconscious body simply materialized immediately in front of her. Cear craned his long neck around and said, “Hey, isn’t that-?”
“Gredchen!” cried Theodenes. He spurred the dragonne forward. Before either the dragonne or the highmaster on her dragon could react, there was a titanic explosion.
A bright column of roaring magical fury shot into the late-afternoon sky from the cage. The force of the column’s creation released shockwaves that struck Star and Cear and sent the wyrm crashing into the balcony. Marble tumbled to the palace below, smashing through skylights and breaking apart as it hit courtyards and gardens.
Rivven clung to her saddle and realized Gredchen was sliding off the dragon’s neck. She reached out, hauled the girl back up, and looked at her. The teleportation amulet she’d given Vanderjack was around her neck, still smoldering.
“Oh, you clever bastard,” she said. She stood in her stirrups, held Gredchen aloft, and looked up at Theodenes. Star had flown back up again, a little shaken by the fiery column’s explosive arrival, and the gnome was intact.
“Theodenes!” Rivven shouted. “Here. Take her. Now that your friend’s removed her from the arcane equation, the Abyss is about to empty its contents upon Ansalon.”
“But Vanderjack …”
“Probably disintegrated. Just like Cazuvel. Forget about him. Go now. Save yourself. I’m going to go down there and see what I can salvage of that mess.”
“You’ll be killed!”
Rivven laughed. “Don’t sound so pleased, gnome. No, I think I can take care of this little dust-up. I’m Rivven Cairn. I walk the Left Hand Path, just like Ariakas.”
She gave a heave, and threw Gredchen out into the space above the arena. Star dived, in
tercepting the falling girl before she struck anything below them. Rivven didn’t want to spend any more time arguing with a gnome.
Rivven rode Cear at great speed from the palace of the khan to the center of the arena. The red dragon made one circle around the pillar of Abyssal flame, allowing Rivven time to examine it with her eldritch sight. As she feared, Vanderjack had succeeded in disrupting Cazuvel’s plans to channel magical power into his mortal body and conduct his demonic rituals, but removing Gredchen had upset the delicate balance. The painting was probably still intact, but what she needed was the enchanted sword. Where was it?
“Impossible,” she said as Cear flew back in close to the platform. There, standing barely ten feet from the whirling inferno, was Vanderjack. He’d struggled to his feet, and in his hands was the sword. It had been thrown clear, and the seemingly tireless mercenary had recovered it.
Cear unleashed his dragonfear upon the arena. Rivven saw Vanderjack recoil, shudder, and simply shrug it off. He raised the sword before him; he was keeping himself going by sheer will alone. That and maybe his ghosts were helping.
“Bring us close,” she said to Cear. The dragon obeyed, his wings beating at the air then dropping them to the edge of the platform. Perched like a monstrous red gargoyle, Cear exhaled his hot, blanching breath in Vanderjack’s direction.
“Rivven,” said Vanderjack, gritting his teeth. “I know everything.”
“Almost everything,” she said. “Hand me the sword, then get out of the way. I’m taking over for Cazuvel.”
“You want an army of Abyssal monsters of your own?” the sellsword said, cocking his head to one side and adjusting his grip on the sword.
“That’s something I’ll have to think about in future. Right now, though, how about you do us all a favor and give me your weapon?”
“You said I could keep it. I killed the mage. Now I get my sword back.”
Rivven looked away. “Oh, right. I did say that. Well …” She looked back at him. “I lied.”
“Thought you’d say that,” said Vanderjack.
Rivven tensed and sprang out of her saddle. Cear shoved away from the platform as she unsheathed her sword and brought it down in an impressive display of speed and skill.
Rivven bound all of her strength into the blow she was about to give Vanderjack. As she came down, her curving elven weapon, the weapon with which she’d cut down countless hundreds of foes in her lifetime, flashed in the light.
The blade sliced downward. Vanderjack brought Lifecleaver up in its path. With a high-pitched squeal of shredded metal, Rivven’s magical scimitar struck Vanderjack’s sword and was sliced in half. The end of the sword flew out to the side, and Rivven landed in front of Vanderjack with a gasp.
“My sword!” she cried.
“Star metal!” said Vanderjack. He brought the blade back and swung it forward. Rivven ducked, and the blade swept over her head. She couldn’t believe how sharp and impossibly hard the sword was. Her own blade was magically reinforced, and it was half its original length after meeting his, the end jagged.
Furious, she reached out and grabbed Vanderjack by the shoulder. He buckled; there was a wound there, and she clenched her fingers hard. With her free hand, she grabbed at his sword and wrestled the blade free of his grasp. Wrapping her fingers tightly around Lifecleaver’s hilt, she brought the hand up and delivered a solid right hook backed by the weight of the sword.
Vanderjack collapsed, coughing up blood and worse. She gave him a swift kick in the ribs and said, “That’s for my sword.” With Lifecleaver in her possession, she strode over to the edge of the screaming vortex and stared straight into the Abyss. The smell of power was even stronger, almost overwhelming. She needed to bottle the storm, but there was something about it …
She noticed, then, the ghosts surrounding her.
“Rivven Cairn,” said the Aristocrat.
“You cannot do this,” said the Philosopher.
“Enter the vortex, and you will die,” said the Apothecary.
“I know what you are,” said Rivven, her breathing heavy. “You aren’t ghosts. I’m no stranger to divine forces. I walk the Left Hand Path, like Ariakas before me.”
“But you are not Ariakas,” said the Conjurer.
“No,” she said. “I’ve been more careful than him.”
“And yet you kept a black robe mage in your confidence,” said the Balladeer.
“And never noticed when he was replaced by a fetch,” said the Cavalier.
“If you know who they are, Rivven,” said the Cook. “Then you know they have been watching over Vanderjack all this time.”
“Did he realize it, though? Does he know who the seven of you truly are?” she asked. She was waiting, waiting to step into the vortex and take control of it.
“A man comes to faith in his own way,” said the Philosopher.
Rivven took a deep breath. “So does a woman,” she replied and stepped into the tumult.
She stood there on the edge of oblivion, looking down into a spiraling vortex of black. Above her, she saw the torrents of wind and fire, lightning flashes of orange and blue, everything laced with that howling darkness. Holding the sword tightly, she focused inward; she tried to do what she knew Cazuvel had been doing, using Lifecleaver as a lightning rod for collecting and controlling the power.
“We’re sorry, Rivven,” said the Aristocrat.
“You think you can harness this dark magic for yourself, but it is too strong for you,” said the Conjurer.
“No, I can feel it … even stronger. I see legions of … soldiers, dragons, the minions of my Dark Queen. I could bring them all through. No more highlord, no more requests to Neraka for more draconians.”
“Rivven,” said the Cook.
She closed her eyes and lifted her arms up, filled with the surging and seductive power of the Abyss. “Unlimited power! It’s almost too much! Cear!”
She felt rather than saw the red wyrm land beside her. She felt something emanating from him-anxiety? Suspicion? Fear? “Cear! I have to share this with you!” She reached her hand out, felt it touch upon Cear’s steaming snout, and heard the dragon howl in pain.
“Cear!” she screamed, turning around, looking away from the tremendous black vortex, seeing everything through a shimmering veil of energy. She couldn’t move, couldn’t step out of the wall of the fiery column, and watched helplessly as the red dragon tried to recoil.
Ropes of orange and cobalt blue energy snaked out and seized the dragon. Where she had touched him, his scales grew thick, calcified, and crumbled into dust as if he had aged a thousand years. The vortex howled, and her dragon was pulled sharply inward, into the middle of it. It drew him in, and he was gone, lost to the Abyss.
“Rivven, I’m sorry,” said the Cook.
“Damn you!” she screamed at the ghost. “The sword …?”
“It’s the only thing keeping you alive,” said the Cavalier.
“All this power!”
“Never really yours to take,” said the Conjurer.
She opened her eyes again and looked out at the platform. Vanderjack was getting to his feet again. One leg hung limp; one arm was broken in several places. He looked at her and lifted a finger in her direction.
“I want my sword back,” she heard him say.
She held the sword out before her and pointed it at him. “You can’t have it. I need it!”
“That’s what I used to think,” the sellsword said, taking a step forward, “until a really ugly girl, who by rights should have been a really pretty girl, told me that I didn’t need it nearly as bad as I thought I did.”
“Don’t come any closer,” she said. “I’m warning you, Ergothian. I’ll not surrender this power!”
“This is why history will forget about you, Rivven,” said the Cook.
Rivven didn’t have time to ask him what he meant by that. She looked at the ghosts arrayed about her, their spectral visages sorrowful, and when she looked back at Vanderj
ack, he was running at her.
The fool! she thought. He’s running straight into-
Vanderjack leaped at Highmaster Rivven Cairn, the star metal blade in her hands piercing through his scale mail shirt, tunic, his ruined chest, and his heart. His mouth was near her ear, his ragged voice barely a whisper.
“Room in there for one more?” he said and she knew he wasn’t talking to her.
With his last gasp, Vanderjack shoved himself away from the highmaster, taking the sword with him. She saw the ghosts descend upon him; they faded from her sight, and all that she heard was the howling siren of the Abyss behind her. The vortex fell in upon itself, an implosion of light and sound. Like a flame deprived of oxygen, the column of nightmares was extinguished. It yawned open one last time.
Rivven followed her dragon down into darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Vanderjack was dying.
He lay on the blasted stone surface of the raised platform, alone. Lifecleaver jutted upward from his chest. The pain was indescribable, but death had yet to claim him. He wondered if, by some bizarre stroke of luck, the sword had completely missed any vital organs and was just lodged in a rib or something like that. But every beat of his heart flooded his chest with a sickening warmth, blood pumping out of the wound formed by the sword.
It can’t take this long to die. Death should be instantaneous. Wasn’t that the way a soldier was supposed to die? He couldn’t have asked for a better way to go, though. Run through with his own life-stealing sword, sending the highmaster off to her doom, somewhere in the Abyss. It was glorious. But it was taking far too long.
“Vanderjack,” said a voice nearby.
He opened his eyes. He was surrounded by his ghosts. For some reason, they seemed brighter, larger, more real. He saw features on their faces that he’d never seen before. The Hunter’s hawklike face, with phoenix feathers arrayed behind his ear. The Cavalier’s mighty barrel chest, that helm with the curving bison horns he’d always kind of ignored. The Philosopher’s thin, ascetic features, quizzical movements, like a praying mantis.