The Talontyr began to spew syllables toward the tree, giving voice to a rough and somehow obscenely urgent chant. He ran his slender digits across the gnarled bark, caressing it. The dead wood began to shift and mold itself, soon enough forming the likeness of a face. Damanda thought the features seemed elven and possibly masculine. Sometimes it was hard to be sure with that androgynous race.
The face spoke, saying in a weak voice, as if relayed from a great distance, “Who’s there? Is that you, Anammelech?” Though the face was that of an elf, its texture was that of petrified wood, briefly animate through the workings of the Talontyr’s sorcery.
“It is to Anammelech’s master you speak,” intoned the Talontyr.
The expression on the woody face grew slack with amazement then fear. When it could speak, the face sputtered, “My Lord, I … Where is Anammelech?”
“Anammelech is dead, Fallon. He fell to those who pursue you.”
“Marrec and Elowen? I didn’t think they had the power to contest a blightlord. Where are they?” squeaked the voice, its spike in tone betraying sudden apprehension.
“I don’t know their precise location, Fallon, but you can be assured that as we speak they are growing closer to you. You have only a small chance to escape them, but you will, if you do as I command,” instructed the Rotting Man. “If you fail, they’ll likely kill you. Don’t think that I won’t summon your spirit, from whatever afterlife it attempts to find, so that I can punish you for your failure. I have devised punishments that even the dead fear to feel.”
Damanda knew that last boast to be true.
“Of course, my lord. Instruct me,” shuddered the faraway voice of Fallon.
“They will catch you if you stay above ground. You must lead them into a trap, below the boggy forest.”
“Below?”
“Yes. This forest was a dark place, even before my arrival,” chuckled the Rotting Man. “Why do you suppose the Nentyarch placed his seat of power here in the center of the Rawlinswood? To seal the unquiet Nar demons that still walk the blind paths below us. To stopper up Under-Tharos.”
“Nar demons?” quavered Fallon.
“Do not interrupt me, elf. You may not know it, but Dun Tharos extends its crypt-like tunnels deep underground, though the Rawlinswood has choked shut most entrances. While my Close sits at the center of Dun Tharos on the surface, the extent of the city is far vaster below ground, showing only its tip here in the light. In truth, the Close is surrounded by a subterranean complex of great plazas and wrecked temples devoted to demonic powers. The treasures of Narfell’s fallen lords lie in buried storehouses and underground conjuring chambers. It was one of the reasons I chose to take this place as my own. Secrets can be had here that even I, Talona’s favored, could stand to learn.”
“I am to venture into this complex?”
“You are. I am sending Damanda to meet you. She can guide you through some of the most dangerous portions.”
The blightlord smiled slightly upon hearing her name and the purpose the Rotting Man intended for her. She always enjoyed a chance to walk Under-Tharos. She was a seeker after lost secrets, too.
The Rotting Man continued, “You must keep pressing forward, Fallon. The demons bound by the sorcerers of fallen Narfell sleep; you can pass by them, but they are sensitive to the presence of mortal life, and in your wake they shall open their eyes. The cleric and his band will find roused demons barring their path. They will be turned back, or they will be killed. Either way, I succeed.”
Fallon had the temerity to stutter, “What if a demon gets me and this child that you prize?”
“Keep moving. Do not linger in any one area too long. Do this, and you will live. Stay alive until Damanda reaches you. That is the only task you have. If by chance you should fail … well, the child whom you accompany may survive events that your frail flesh cannot, but I’d rather not put that surmise to the test.”
“How will I find an entrance?” asked Fallon’s rigid image.
In answer, the Talontyr touched the animate wooden mask on the forehead. The face screamed in sudden pain. The wood lost its coherence and gradually flattened back to stiff, petrified uniformity. The scream faded slowly away.
The Rotting Man turned to Damanda. “I implanted the location of the entrance directly into his mind. It seemed easiest.” His eyes narrowed “My new pawn will be entering through the Barrow of the Queen Abiding. It is the Barrow onto which the Arches of Xenosi connect, after all. He’s nearly on top of the entrance already. From there, he has a fairly straight path to us here at the center.”
“What about the Lurker in the Middle?” asked Damanda. She remembered the name from another of the Rotting Man’s foray’s into the dungeons. That group had found the main passage contested by a creature, perhaps a demon, though that was uncertain, of considerable power. “Won’t Fallon and the child have to pass the Lurker to reach here, not to mention all the rest?”
“That’s why I’m sending you. Intercept him before the reaches the Middle Lurker. Keep the child safe from the Lurker. I do not much care what happens to Fallon, of course. He may serve as a useful distraction, should the Lurker prove too formidable. In fact, when I touched his mind, I implanted a seedling of control that should render him incapable of doing anything other than what I command.”
Damanda took a deep breath. “As you will, Lord. Allow me to take my leave, so that I can make preparations. I should depart immediately.”
The Rotting Man waved her away, saying, “I expect to see you again soon, Damanda, with the child by your side.”
“You shall.”
Fallon’s head pounded, as if someone had driven a spike through his skull. He couldn’t quite recall where he was …
The elf studied his surroundings—broken cobbles, through which sickly grass protruded, and nearby, hooves. His gaze climbed higher, and he saw the pony and the child seated quietly in her saddle. A silent expanse of gray forest enclosed them to either side, though they were within a partially clear lane. He remembered his conversation with the Rotting Man, then, and groaned.
In fact, the pounding in his head was an image of the lane, brutally imprinted on his consciousness. In his mind’s eye, a spectral map revealed that the lane completely petered out at the foot of an overgrown mound not far from where he lay. Knowledge on how to open the mound, no, the barrow, rose like gorge in his throat. He groaned again, louder—not good.
The elf was in pain, but he rose to his feet in a fluid motion, a testament to his race. The square of a cobble had pressed a red mark into his face.
Fallon considered, rubbing his jaw. Anammelech had assured him that Fallon’s pursuers were as good as dead, but it was Anammelech who had departed the flesh. The blightlord’s killers were probably right behind him. While being caught by those who thought him a betrayer was an unsettling thought, he was more afraid of his apparent new status in Rawlinswood. He answered directly to the Rotting Man.
As Anammelech’s secret ear in the court of the Nentyarch, he was well rewarded. Other than his last act, the kidnapping of a child, he’d never taken any outright action that made him feel as if he was actively betraying the Nentyarch. With Anammelech’s death, his service had apparently passed directly into the Talontyr’s keeping. He wasn’t foolish enough to regard that status shift as a good thing. He didn’t know what would be asked of him next. More worrisome, he was pretty sure the Rotting Man cared not at all for Fallon’s safety.
Looking through the growth of the forest, he knew that his options were limited. He was in too deep. If he fled his commitment to the Rotting Man, he did not doubt that he’d turn up dead quick enough. Even if he did escape, the Nentyarch and his hunters would dispense their own justice, if they should find him. The only thing to do was soldier on. The pain in his head seemed to promise worse should he fail in that decision.
Fallon took the pony’s reins. The small horse’s eyes rolled in its sockets, but the child on its back had a calming influen
ce on the beast. The little girl, about five years old, judged the elf, sat her saddle quietly, oblivious to her state and surroundings.
Fallon said, “You’ve brought me a lot of trouble, girl.” No response. He’d expected none. He wondered if he could get some sort of reaction out of his captive.
“Lucky I don’t have your skin for a cloak. That’s probably what the Rotting Man has in store for you.”
The calm blink she treated him with belied any discomfiture the child might be feeling. He shrugged. The girl was damaged, despite everyone’s interest in her. He hoped her state was known to the Talontyr—he didn’t want to be blamed for her shortcomings. Still, he couldn’t help feeling the slightest bit sorry for the little tyke …
He hastily put that thought from his mind. Down that road lay a quantity of self-recrimination that Fallon was not prepared to accept. Considering the consequences of his actions on others was something for which he knew he didn’t have the moral fortitude.
Fallon led the pony and its rider along the evaporating lane. He hadn’t seen a stone arch for the last several hundred feet, and cobblestones were few and far between. He might as well have been walking through native forest.
The barrow was visible ahead. Brown grass covered it, though bare patches of earth showed through in many places. Only his “gift” of knowledge from the Talontyr alerted him to the mound’s significance.
He moved to the edge of the earthen heap, raised one hand and inscribed a sign on the air, according to his special instructions. By the time he finished tracing the sigil, the lines he’d imagined solidified to visibility in the air.
“Huh,” he commented, surprised.
The sign, a complex figure featuring a star inscribed within the circumference of a circle, pulsed though the color spectrum, beginning then ending in coal black. Without further fanfare, the floating symbol fell on the face of the mound, enlarging in size as it fell, so that the diameter of the figure easily reached ten feet across as it impacted the earth. The figure melted away, but as it did so, the earth framed within the circle did likewise.
An earthen staircase descended downward, the steps small and cramped, the angle steep. A rush of stale, dusty air plumed from the opening, blowing back Fallon’s hair.
He nodded appreciatively at the entrance’s appearance then frowned.
Fallon lifted Ash from her saddle, setting her on her feet. He said to the small horse, “You’ve reached the end of your use, damn the luck.”
Fallon pulled his sword free, deciding to tie up a loose end. The pony continued to stand peacefully without moving.
At the last moment, he held back with his intended thrust. Too much thinking about consequences, damn him. Ash’s mount fixed the former Nentyar hunter with his gaze then dashed away up the lane.
Surprised at his softness, he decided that running down the horse would only cost time that he probably couldn’t afford. Maybe the discovery of the horse without its passenger would worry his pursuers, and give him a little more time. The drumbeat of pain from the image implanted in his head by the Rotting Man seemed to be growing, and he didn’t want complications.
Fallon sighed as he unstowed the hooded lantern he had brought with him out of Yeshelmaar. Its fanciful designs of leaf and bough reminded him again of what was behind him. He carefully filled the reservoir with clear oil all the same.
Taking the girl’s hand, he and the Child of Light descended into the Barrow of the Queen Abiding.
CHAPTER 18
Marrec blinked. Surprised, he blinked again. The pain was gone, the physical pain, anyway. Anguish lay like a canker on his conscience, ready to bite with too thorough an exploration.
Someone spoke. He was too numb to understand what was said, but it sounded like a woman’s voice.
Marrec tried to focus his vision. At his feet was a banked campfire within a circle of stones. He recognized the stones as cobbles dug up from the lane he’d been traversing when Anammelech had caught them …
He groaned, bringing the heels of his hands to his eyes. He rubbed, too vigorously, and saw stars. He didn’t care. He’d rub his eyes out of their sockets if he could.
Hands, small but strong, grasped his wrists. He let the hands, soft, draw his own hands away from his eyes. It was the mage, pale, ragged, but alive.
“Ususi!” Despite his resolve, his spirits rose a fraction. “I thought the blightlord killed you.”
“He nearly did. He would have finished the job, but you must have stopped him. The others tell me you rescued me, carrying me like a child.”
Marrec shook his head, saying “I don’t remember what happened after I killed Anammelech.”
“How did you manage it? He had a power in him unlike any that I’ve ever faced. I feared both our tales were at a close.”
Marrec looked grim.
“Why the frown, Marrec?” asked Ususi. “It was him or me, and I like to think I was the better choice.” Ususi bent forward and delivered a quick kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”
Though Marrec struggled mightily, the gloom in which he wrapped himself lightened by a measure. He muttered, “You’re welcome.”
Ususi smiled. “Now, get up. Elowen and Gunggari are anxious to be off after Fallon and Ash. That betrayer can’t be too far ahead.” Looking past the mage, he saw the two Ususi named making preparations to leave. Didn’t they understand that his vow had been broken? Then again, how could they know?
But Ash’s name galvanized him. Maybe he was nothing but a sham of a person, hiding a monstrous heart and a terrible ability, but that person could still try to do good.
“Get up,” repeated Ususi, impatient then. “You’re not even hurt as badly as me.”
That was more like the woman he remembered. Marrec pulled himself to his feet. He said, “I intend to find Ash, but I want to tell you something first. Back there, I thought Anammelech had ended you. I thought hope was lost for me, too. In desperation, I had to break a promise I’d made long ago … I called up something in myself that is monstrous.”
Ususi narrowed her eyes, looking a question at Marrec.
Marrec couldn’t bring himself to say more.
Ususi said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and perhaps I do not want to know. We all have secrets, you know, but listen. You are the man your actions make you, nothing more, nothing less, and I don’t see a monster standing before me.”
When Henri appeared, sans Ash, Marrec feared the worst, but Elowen noted that there were still supplies in Henri’s saddlebags. The horse yet wore the bridle given it by the Nentyarch. The elf hunter figured the horse had escaped, nothing more.
Gunggari soon confirmed her hypothesis when he backtracked the horse to the lane’s end. A hole gaped in the base of a weed-infested mound. The Oslander indicated clear signs that two people, one a child, had entered the mound, taking steep stairs downward.
“How much time?” asked Marrec.
“Not more than an hour. We have a real chance to catch them.”
Ususi said, “It appears we have reached the dark ways the Nentyarch described.”
Marrec asked, “Where is the map the Nentyarch gave us? Does it show this entrance?”
Elowen retrieved the map scroll from her pack and unrolled it across the face of a large boulder. The group gathered round.
“Unfortunately, no,” said Elowen after a few seconds of study.
Marrec identified the Rawlinswood and the Arches of Xenosi. The map recorded where the Arches petered out, apparently where they stood. According to the map, the entrance identified by the Nentyarch was further back, located midway along the lane made by the Arches and about half a mile to the east of the lane.
Ususi said, “This mound isn’t even noted on the map. It’s a waste.”
Elowen replied, the slightest flush tinting her face, “Don’t be rash. If Fallon is heading for the center, no doubt he shall wander onto or across the route marked by the Nentyarch.”
Marrec pointed to
a tag on the map, asking, “What’s the ‘Lurker in the Middle’ and why should we ‘beware’ it?”
Elowen said, “Some Nar demon bound below the earth, probably, but maybe not completely bound.”
Gunggari asked, “I would like to know more about these Nar. Such knowledge may aid us if we venture into their realm of old.”
Elowen nodded, rolling up the map. She said, “I can tell you something of ancient Narfell. This is what my mentor taught me when I was a child.
“More than a thousand years ago the sorcerous land of Narfell grew mighty on the strength of its unholy mages and cruel priest-lords. It was Narfell’s trafficking with demons that contributed to its eventual downfall, though I do not know specifically the event that brought them down. Secrets of the old Nar lore draw unscrupulous spellcasters who attempt to plunder buried vaults in search of knowledge and power. Rawlinswood is thick with these vaults. It’s sort of like one extended vault, I suppose.”
Ususi commented, “One can’t be a practicing mage in these parts without hearing about Nar rituals, Nar obscenities, and trinkets of supposed Narfell vintage. I’ve found that most are fakes, sold by fakir wizards to the credulous.”
Marrec realized that Ususi was admitting to being fooled herself on at least one occasion.
“Demons and foul magic, then,” said Gunggari. “Can demons be any worse than the blightlords and their pets we’ve already faced?”
Ususi said, “They could. Demons are not from the world. They have an infernal power, and some even have abilities that could imperil your immortal spirit.”
“Hmm,” was Gunggari’s only response.
Marrec walked to the edge of the mound entrance. “Let’s go.”
Gunggari and Ususi stepped forward, but Elowen said, “Hold on, what about Henri? We can’t just leave him.”
Ususi said, “This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of such things—mounts being left at the mouths of subterranean passages too narrow for hooves. He should be safe enough until we return. If we return.”
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