“My lord.” the voice came again, this time as the high cackle of a mad man, “I cannot break your chains while you remain in Ancarth’s circle of warding.” A ghostly hand stretched towards Selth, “Come to my domain and I will shatter that which binds you so unfairly.”
Selth laughed without knowing why, “A Wraith of Golgoderoan! I should have known the reason for the darkness when I first came into these mountains. Curse these chains, curse this frail human body I am locked within!” She laughed again, her voice resonating at the same timbre as the Wraith’s cackle. She did not know where the knowledge she had was coming from but every word felt right. And she didn’t think she could have controlled what she said if she tried.
“My Lord,” this time it was the rough voice of a farmer after a hard day’s work in the field, “Let me break your chains. Come out of the warding!”
“My dear wraith,” Selth’s voice twisted and turned back and forth between high pitched madness and a resonating voice of power. “Even you cannot break these chains.” she looked down at them and the darkness swirling around her, “Traiganidorians are too tricky to allow raw power to break bonds of their forging, too . . . dark. You might whittle them down until just a speck of power was left, and a speck of power cannot be destroyed, it is a speck, it cannot be sensed, but then that speck would grow back into a full set of chains once more.”
“But my Lord!” The high-pitched voice of a young girl rang out from the wraith, “At least let me do what I can. Let me break the chains down to a speck, give you more power so that you may find, more easily, the way to break them.”
“No,” Selth laughed madly, “No. It does not work that way, nor will it matter how far broken they are when the time comes, and the time comes quickly. Soon I shall be free but for now the chains serve my purpose. I will keep them the way they are, I think. Yes, they serve a purpose.”
“What purpose could be served by leaving you chained, My Lord?” the wraith howled, a voice that tried to tear her flesh from her bone.
“Because the chains draw the creatures which can break them.” she whispered, insanity visible in her eyes, “Because the chains draw the creature which created them.”
The wraith let out a terrified screech and in a swirl of darkness it disappeared. Selth floated in the void of darkness, laughing insanely. Then the dream faded and others took over. Nightmares of traiganidorians chasing her down dark hallways along with Atlatraigan’s cold laughter. When she woke she couldn’t remember what she had dreamed the previous night. She felt as though it was something important but she couldn’t recall it. Everyone was in a depressed mood as they came to their senses and with as little talk as possible Kant passed out food and the five of them began their journey.
27
Journey through the Mountains
Az’emon has been chained, locked away forevermore. The celebrations have lasted for a full century but I fear something is wrong. Selthraxadinian disappeared soon after Az’emon. Ruination followed him quickly. My two remaining companions have grown nervous and I find myself listening to their fears.
– Journal of Tel’arib
Aren led the group around the side of the mountain they had camped on, following a twisting track that was almost impossible to pick out from the rocks all around it. Traiganidorian corruption coated everything in sight and Selth repressed shudders at the substance which indicated so much danger. Images of what had happened to her horse the second night in Mardule flashed through her head whenever she observed the sticky black gunk and the way it clung to everything around it. There weren’t any forks or turnings in the road to stop at as their small group meandered around the mountain. Small markings in the ground were the only thing that showed the way to travel.
Rocks clattered from overhead several times on their journey, sending small showers down on Selth and the others. Once a massive thundering sound came overhead and Aren made the whole group get down on the ground and hide as well as they could in the sparse, desolate landscape. Selth pulled her cloak closely around her but peeked her head out and peered up into the sky to see what could cause such a sound. The thundering grew louder and louder, heading towards her and the others and, when Selth thought it couldn’t possibly get any louder, a massive beast flew into view. Its wings spanned a hundred yards and huge talons tipped each of its impossibly massive feet. Enormous, burning, eyes shone from inside the skull of the great beast and spikes ran down its back, ending in a tail which was as viciously barbed as any of the creature’s claws. “What was that?” she breathed as the enormous creature vanished from sight and Aren rekindled the light at the top of his staff.
“Dragon.” he said, staring wonderingly up into the sky, “That must be one of the last of its kind. It was probably still alive when Ancarth the Black threw its species back into the mountains to die.” He started walking along the trail again but kept his eyes fixed on the sky, “I’ve read about dragons of course but nothing can prepare you for seeing one. The feeling of insignificance, the awe they inspire.” He shook his head and refocused on finding the path. Kant and Mattle both nodded agreement, barely focusing on where they were going so fixated were they on the sky. Selth shifted uncomfortably and moved to the back of the group, she hadn’t experienced anything like what Aren had described. The dragon had been magnificent, yes, but it hadn’t inspired awe in her or made her feel as though she was a bug to be crushed under the foot of a more powerful creature. She wasn’t sure that she liked the idea that something made Aren feel puny yet didn’t affect her in the slightest.
With surprise Selth realized that the others had moved a good ways ahead of her and that she was almost out of Aren’s shield of light once more. She hurried to catch up, she didn’t want any more of what being in the darkness of the mountains was doing to her, not if it was going to take her away from Kant and Aren, from Mattle, and change her into something else. Those thoughts came to a grinding halt as she stepped out onto a ledge with Aren and the others. “The Great road of the Vazgun” the mage stated grandly. He had grown his light so that it stretched across the wide valley at their feet and, by it, she saw a massive paved road that ran throughout the darkness of the Mountains of Endless Night.
She could only stare, disbelieving, at the enormous construction. It blew through hills and filled in small valleys. The nature of the mountains had bowed down before the insane creation. She turned to Aren but he had already started down the side of the mountain, heading for the road. Scowling to herself she darted after him, the two Inquisitors hot on her tail. The four of them, with Raxous not far behind, barreled down the side of the mountain at breakneck speed, almost falling every time a pebble came loose or a plant reached out with gunky corruption to grab at them. Selth thought she was going to die at every step, the way down was far longer than she had thought it would be, given the fact that she had been able to clearly see the road from the edge of the mountain. Thirty minutes of sliding and scrambling later she came stumbling onto the road she had seen from the mountain. It was twenty times bigger than she had thought it was, stretching so that a hundred men on horses could comfortably ride side by side along it. Massive blocks of stone fit seamlessly together to form the body of the structure and for as far as she could see no plant or corrupt thing came close to it. “Who could build a thing like this.” she breathed as she stared around her in wonder.
“The Vazgun.” Aren said as though stating an obvious fact, “Why do you think I called it The Great road of the Vazgun?” He looked at her quizzically but she could see the laugh that he was trying to suppress written clearly across his face. He strolled down the road, whistling merrily as he walked. His staff clicked with every step he took.
Selth hurried to catch up to the mage as Kant and Mattle pulled themselves onto the road. “But who are the Vazgun?” she asked when she pulled level with him.
“Monsters, now.” his staff clicked as he strolled casually forwards, “Creatures that have become a combination of human
and wolf in order to survive the terrors of the mountains. Once they were the greatest civilization Aulternanden had ever seen.” He tapped his staff on the road they were walking down for emphasis, “They built things that no one else could ever imagine doing, such as this road. No evil can move down it and it runs the whole course of the mountains without break until it reaches their mightiest citadel, Dunehain.”
“What happened to them?” Selth asked, “If these people were so great then what could defeat them. Why did they become savages?”
Aren’s eyebrows drew together and when he spoke it was in a dark voice, “You saw what did it earlier today.”
Her jaw dropped open, “A Dragon? One Dragon destroyed a whole civilization? How?”
He eyed her up and down, “Not one dragon, no. Although it might as well have been just one. Vencoth the Destroyer, the most powerful dragon on Aulternanden, united the dragons together to assault the Vazgun. All other Vazgun citadels had been destroyed, cast down by one powerful dragon or another, but not Dunehain. It stands to this day, walls stretching a thousand meters straight out of the ground. Built into the side of a mountain out of the purest of stone. Spells that no human mage can replicate are woven throughout it. Inside was a utopia: crime, poverty, suffering – all were wiped out through the machinations of the greatest civilization that ever existed. But dragons are chaos and Vencoth was the most chaotic of all. He set his eye upon Dunehain, his eye upon the priceless treasures that lay within it, and wanted it for his own. Dragons cannot work together, they are too chaotic, too vengeful and too proud to be chained to a creature of similar intelligence and power but Vencoth stood above all other dragons on Aulternanden and he forced them to bow to his will. A horde of dragons rose against Dunehain. They ripped down the unbreakable doors and poured into the city in a wanton rampage of destruction. Vencoth led the path of slaughter, bringing to pieces everything he could find.
“The leaders of the city saw the destruction being brought down, saw that they were powerless to stop it. So they committed travesty, performing black magics that no creature has seen the like of since. Even Ancarth the Black did not use a spell of such power, though he would have if he could have found it. The Vazgun cast a spell of death and corruption and loss. They cast a spell which wiped out every living entity in the citadel. Every Vazgun, every dragon, everything. None could enter the citadel without dying a death more painful than you can imagine. The remnants of the Vazgun had nowhere to turn. Their citadels were gone, their magi and leaders were dead so they wandered. Faced with the dangers of the mountains and left without their protections the Vazgun changed into monsters. They retreated to the northern reaches of the mountains and now they do not come to their citadels of old.”
“That’s terrible.” Selth breathed, staring with new wonder at the road upon which she walked. “How could anyone even think about doing something like that? Destroy a whole civilization with a single spell.” she shuddered at the idea.
Aren nodded sadly but when he spoke there was an almost humorous turn to his voice. “Yes, well if they hadn’t done what they did you and I likely wouldn’t be walking around these mountains. We wouldn’t even exist. I know that you heard Ancarth the Black vanquished the dragons but the dragons he vanquished were the few that escaped the carnage wrought by the Vazgun. If Vencoth the Destroyer had flown out from the mountains he likely would have made Ancarth shit his pants in fright, right before he was gobbled up.” Selth looked down at the road in shock. “Never forget,” Aren broke into her thoughts, “Everything happens for a reason. Perhaps the Vazgun were supposed to make the sacrifice they did. Perhaps if they hadn’t the dragons would have killed all of them. Don’t judge to harshly those whose shoes you have not walked in.”
She moved away from him, wanting to think in peace. What he had said resonated deeply inside her. Not the last part, about not judging people. She felt differently from him and had argued the point when at the academy, after all if one couldn’t judge another person without performing the same actions then everyone would be a killer and everyone a King, but the story of the fall of Dunehain sparked something inside of her. When Aren told his story, she had almost seen the fighting as it took place from the perspective of the Vazgun. Had seen the arguments between the leaders of Dunehain over whether or not to cast the spell of destruction. Selth shook her head, those thoughts gave her a headache. Then a new thought struck her, “Aren, why are we walking down the road to Dunehain if Dunehain is corrupted?”
“Because that’s where we’ll find Ancarth the Black’s staff.” he called back over his shoulder
“What!” she shouted, running to catch up to him, “I thought you said that Ancarth’s staff was hidden where no one could find it. How do you know where it’s at?”
“Because I’ve spent most of my two hundred forty-four years looking for its precise location.” he said as though she were an idiot, “Did you think we were going to scour the entirety of the Mountains of Endless Night on the off chance that we could find it?”
“Well, no.” she said uncomfortably. She hadn’t actually thought about that particular idea up until then but she didn’t want to tell that to Aren. He’d likely burst into laughter at her inability to recognize even basic logical necessities prior to going on a journey. “But what about the corruption in Dunehain?” she asked, desperate to change the subject, “Won’t it kill us as soon as we enter the city?”
“That was the problem for most of my life.” he grinned, “But I think I found a spell which can get us into the city and hold off the damage of the corruption.”
“You think?” she yelped, her voice jumping up in pitch. It was classic Aren to have brought them all the way out to the Mountains of Endless Night on the off chance his spell might work. “What happens if it doesn’t work?”
He shrugged his shoulders, “Well, it’s been fifty thousand years since the spell was cast. Maybe we’ll be fine no matter what.”
Selth buried her head in her hands as they kept walking, “By The Provider, Aren. Couldn’t you have thought something all the way through for once in your life?”
He looked at her in shock, “What are you talking about? I always go into a situation fully prepared.”
“The Díryen? Shoving me into a pit? Really? Every time we do something I almost die because you’re not certain of exactly what is going to happen. This is just the next in a nice long list of times everyone around you might die because you decided to try something with only a half assed idea of what’s going on.” she said flatly, looking at Aren as though he were a particularly unpleasant bug that had done her one too many wrongs.
“Well, you’re stuck with me for now so try to focus on the fact that you get to see Dunehain rather than the fact that it might kill all of us.” he began whistling again and with a cheery skip moved out of comfortable talking distance with Selth.
She sighed, focusing on keeping up with him. If Dunehain didn’t kill them all it was sure to be amazing. The greatest civilization ever built, destroyed by dragons then surrounded by the deadliest of spells. There had to be some sort of amazing adventure hidden within the city. She looked back at Mattle and Kant but the two of them were absorbed in staring at the road as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. She didn’t think that either of them had heard the story about Dunehain and the dragons. If they had then at the very least Kant would be up with Aren trying to wheedle as much information as possible out of the mage. Raxous was trotting along at the back of the group, claws clacking with every step along the smooth stones of the road and appearing incredibly uninterested in everything that was going on around him. Choosing to ignore the three trailing members of her group Selth turned back in the direction of Aren and strolled forward. The mountains passing them on either side were barely visible by the light from his staff and they stretched miles into the sky, looming over her as though she were an insect.
The miles dragged by as they continued to walk along the road and Sel
th found herself wishing for something to do. At least the previous day they had been running for their lives from an unknown enemy. This day was taken up almost entirely by an interminable walk along a road that rejected evil so nothing bad could happen to them. Idly, she wondered whether or not it would hold off a traiganidorian then wished she hadn’t. It didn’t make her feel good to remember that there were creatures of darkness, despair, and death out hunting her in the mountains. Maybe one of them would wander into the lair of a Baltoth and get itself killed, although Selth wasn’t sure which one of those would actually kill the other. No matter what Aren had said about Baltoths being gods in their territory, the traiganidorians were some of the most powerful creatures there were.
After hours of walking, she wasn’t even sure how long it had been, Aren called a halt to their travels. “We’ll sleep on the road tonight,” he said as they gathered around him, “It should be even safer than Ancarth’s circle of protection if anything tries to approach us with malicious intent, but still no fire, nothing that will attract undue attention. We eat cold meat and we go to sleep and then we start walking again in the morning. Okay?” Everyone consented to his wishes. The mountains were oppressive and it was easier to let another person make decisions.
A quick dinner with no conversation ensued and afterwards everyone lay out on the road and got ready to sleep. Selth scowled at the smooth paving stones, what had been so nice for walking on was proving to be an incredibly uncomfortable sleeping experience, but it didn’t take long for sleep to wrap its warm arms around her and drag her into darkness.
28
Dark Dreams Return
We have been betrayed! Selthraxadinian was right in his suspicions. Shattrenlix feared the five of us, we who came directly from Chaos. The other four have been taken, locked away. I will be next, I cannot resist. My power is as a match next to a fire storm compared to Shattrenlix. I can only hope that Selthraxadinian has a plan. The devious bastard always does.
The God in the Shadows (The Story at the Heart of the Void Book 1) Page 30