Sapphire of Souls

by M. R. Mathias

The staircase Braxton understood was the magic of the jewel, and he wondered why he hadn't thought to seek the void before leaping from Emerald's back.

  "The summoning stone will bring Pharark to you," said Taerak. "But if you try to trap him by calling him to the field of blood crystal, he will know. He can resist the draw of the stone. He is much stronger than I anticipated and grows even more so."

  "How can I stop him?" Braxton asked, wondering how Taerak had known he had thought about summoning Pharark into the vein of blood crystals. "What do I do?"

  "The jewel's magic will guide you, Braxton. Its magic will help you find the solution. You must protect the girl until she can stand on her own. She has far more power than she should and is still vulnerable to corruption. She is apt to follow her childish emotion so she must be guarded and taught to find the goodness in the world. This will be hardest for you after you learn what she already knows. The nature of the jewel is brutal, but you are strong, young, and true of heart, so I will trouble you no more with these dire warnings. Be proud and steadfast, for you have done well. When you finally make your stand against the demon, choose your battleground wisely for his rage and hatred will be his undoing. Those who witness the battle will determine the future of this land." Braxton was about to ask a question, but the blackness around him disappeared, leaving behind and uneasy feeling of accomplishment.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the sky had lightened with dawn, and he remembered the crypt where the piece of the Sapphire of Souls lay pulsing.

  Eagerly he woke his friends. There would be time to worry and ponder Taerak's words later. At the moment, curiosity was growing as fast as the forest around them.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Flying to Jolin was exhilarating. Nixy and Suclair giggled and squealed like little girls when Emerald climbed above the clouds then dove down, skimming the wave tops at unimaginable speeds. Normally, the wyrm wouldn't have been forced to travel this way, his leathery wings should've carried them easily from the Wilderkind to the island without the need to rise on warm currents of air and gain distance by gliding his way back down. But he was injured beyond repair, and by the time they landed on the island, he was too raw to continue carrying anyone anywhere.

  "It will take many seasons to heal," he told them after dropping them near the stone table where they had feasted the last time they were there. He then left with the intention of respectfully approaching the wounded blue wyrm on the other side of the island.

  A dozen startled elves all cringed at the edge of sight, waiting for a battle to ensue. When it never happened, Nixy and Suclair were greeted well.

  The next day, while the saddened elves were having a ceremony to honor Vinston-Fret and Sorrell, Pranthius thanked Nixy for her part in destroying the Sapphire of Souls and creating a new land for them to inhabit. When he was done, Nixy joined the others at the table and tried not to think of how hard it was to leave Braxton behind.

  They were all shocked when a young blue wyrm, not twenty paces long from head to tail, came flapping down to hover above them.

  Many of the elves fled, but Nixy, Suclair, and Pranthius did not.

  "Though I am not yet big enough to carry a rider," the dragon spoke. "I am prepared to carry a message from mighty Emerald to the Warriors of the Void who were left behind. If any other messages should be delivered, have them ready by dawn. I will return here to retrieve them before embarking on my journey to the forest of Wilderkind." With a proud roar that sounded more like a shriek, the dragon pumped his wings, carried himself over the trees, and disappeared from view.

  Because he had done as Braxton asked of him, Thaelos knew that it was the wounded blue dragon's hatchling who had come. Thaelos had been delivering baskets of fresh fish to the wyrms and had nicknamed the young male Cobalt because of his darker blue color.

  He left them then, and the ceremony slowly resumed. Oddly, the sadness the elves were showing before had faded, if only slightly, and Nixy heard them talking about the lush forest the dust of the Sapphire of Souls had created.

  Thaelos returned and seemed pleased to tell them that Emerald and the blue were getting along. Though wounded, the larger green dragon could hunt and had agreed to do so for both of them. Most relieved by this news were the two dozen elves who had been fishing to feed the injured mother dragon. Now they could concern themselves with other things, such as preparing for the great move to their new land, that according to Pranthius, would happen in the spring.

  Nixy and Suclair learned that the dwarves returned to the mainland a few days after they'd left, and by now, were probably back underground. During all this, Pranthius drank several goblets, no doubt distressed over the loss of his nephew Vinston-Fret. At one point, he stood, shouting, and offered to summon a ship to take Nixy and Suclair to Halden, and even offered two of his most trusted elves to escort them. He also swore, though the elves might be few in number, they would not idly stand by while the demon still lived.

  Nixy could feel Suclair's sorrow even though she was quiet and subdued. Sue had grown fond of Vinston-Fret during their travels, and her father’s death was still sinking in.

  Nixy wasn't sure just what the elves could do against the demon, but she didn't say anything. She was happy to have two elves coming with them to help with the children of the orphanage, and had even gotten permission, through Xuniper's influence over Pranthius, to bring them all back to Jolin for the winter. There was no place safe for them in the kingdom, and no safe place for her, for that matter. The whole of Narvoza would soon be at war, if it wasn't already, and there was still a heavy bounty on her and Braxton’s heads.

  Since his promise to Braxton had been fulfilled, Thaelos volunteered to be one of the two elves who escorted them. The other elf that volunteered was named Savonison, and was Sorrell's cousin.

  "Please, call me Savon," he said when he was introduced. He bowed his head respectfully to the girls. It became clear he was caught up in some sort of hero worship over them, for he acted, and treated them, as if they were not humans but goddesses. Neither girl bothered to dispel his illusion, and they both enjoyed his attention while waiting patiently for a ship to arrive.

  When it finally did, four days after Cobalt left the island with a scroll case tied to his claw, they stood on the dock speechless. To call it a ship was a great stretch. The captain of the small boat, a short, potbellied man with less hair than teeth, assured them it was the fastest vessel in the Forgiving Sea, and they would be in Halden before they could sink.

  The captain thought this was hilarious, as did his six-man crew, but after surviving the journey on the Luck of the Little, Nixy and Suclair were unnerved at best.

  The journey was hard, as rough as rolling down a boulder strewn hill, but the captain hadn't lied. He delivered them to the docks at Halden in only three days.

  In hooded cloaks, they followed Thaelos down the strangely deserted dock. Savon followed with an arrow nocked and ready. Savon had never left Jolin in all his sixty-eight years, and Nixy could feel tension radiating from him. By the time they reached the edge of town, Thaelos had readied his bow as well.

  During the voyage, the captain told them that bandits had destroyed all the dockside businesses, and ghosts and corpses roamed the streets. To Suclair's dismay, he said even the Sorcerious had fallen to the great necromancer and his ruthless man, Commander Baragon.

  Suclair questioned him, and he admitted he hadn't braved the streets of Halden since the rumors started, though he’d docked there and saw firsthand how the supply house had been torched to the ground. Sonley was his home port, but even it was under the control of bandits and fools these days.

  It was obvious that the rumors were at least partially true. The dock should have been brimming with late season krill fishermen. Instead, on a cool windy afternoon favorable to the catch, it was deserted. Only the white clouds of their breath when they exhaled into the evening chill were there to remind them they were alive. It wasn't until they made their way thr
ough town to one of the main thoroughfares that they saw other people. The ones they saw were dead and rotting and heaped to the roadside in piles of twos and threes.

  "I can't believe it," Suclair cried openly. "This is where I grew up. This very lane is where my father took me to get candies and dresses as a child when he came to fill the wagon with supplies for the Sorcerious."

  "I'm sorry, Sue." Nixy put her arm around the girl. "Tell Thaelos how to get to the Sorcerious and try and put it behind you. There is no telling what sort of trouble is waiting for us there."

  No sooner had Suclair finished telling the elf how to get where they were going, did three burley men wearing leather armor and carrying swords step out from in between two well-scorched, but still standing, buildings.

  "None can pass," the biggest man said as he and the other two moved to block the way. "Not without Baragon's say."

  "Baragon is a thief and a coward," Nixy shouted and threw back her hood. Baragon had chased her and Braxton through the Little Forest and helped slander their name across the kingdom. She'd had her fill of it, and she drew her sword with a growl.

  "Look, Ballen, it's her," one of the men said. "I bet the boy is under one of them hoods, too. We could use them five hundred pieces of gold."

  "It's dead or alive, right?" Ballen, the bigger man, asked the other.

  "No, no. It's five hundred for his fancy magic necklace. Only one hundred each for their—" his voice was cut short by the arrow Savon sent into his throat.

  Ballen raised his sword and made an angry rush toward them. Three steps into his charge, he burst into flames that leapt from Suclair's hands and enveloped him. The third man turned to run, but Thaelos's arrow sank to the fletching through his spine. The man took two more stumbling steps, let out a whine, and then fell face first into the packed dirt road.

  The Sorcerious was a large rectangle of black stone three stories tall with a head high wall encompassing it. There were stables in the back, and another smaller rectangular building sitting a good distance away from the main structure but still inside the wall.

  Suclair told them there was a garden between the wall and the Sorcerious in the front, and the larger area behind was a small farm and grazing pasture. The smaller building was for the servants who cooked, washed, and tended to the crops and animals.

  Looking at it from the outside, it didn't seem possible to Nixy for the area to hold so much. Suclair told her that it was a visual illusion she couldn't explain with words. Nixy and the elves were left to wonder what exactly that meant, but they didn't wonder long because their thoughts were stolen by the two men posted at the heavy, iron-bound wooden front gate.

  The guards drew their swords and called over the wall for reinforcements the moment they saw them.

  "We will have to kill them," said Suclair. "And anything else that moves beyond the gate."

  Savon loosed an arrow at one of them, and Thaelos the other. Both found their mark, but only Thaelos killed his target. Savon's shaft stuck in the gut of the other, and he screamed and wailed as loud as he could. By the time Nixy ran up and skewered him, the heavy deadbolt beam banged into place. Behind the locked gate, the sound of scurrying feet and clanging steel was distinct.

  "Stand back," Suclair said and moved to stand before the gate. Looking back over her shoulder she added, "Way back."

  After seeing what her fire ball had done to the man back on the road, Nixy knew to do as asked. Huddling with the elves a good twenty paces behind her, Nixy marveled at how confident her friend had grown. When she saw the girl waving her arms around, chanting the words to her spell, Nixy found she felt sorry for the unsuspecting men beyond.

  Suclair seemed more focused than usual, and her grief and anger intensified the erratic movements of her arms as she cast her spell. This time it wasn’t a blast of fire that shot forth from her hands, but a sizzling crack of yellow lightning. The only thing more surprising than the way it blasted the heavy wooden gate into splinters and melted the iron bands was the shocked expression on Suclair's face when she looked back at them.

  Savon vomited from the horrid smell coming from the piles of corpses around the building. Thaelos, with a hand covering his nose and mouth, indicated some archers taking up position on the roof of the main structure.

  Nixy was busy hacking at a group of advancing corpses while Suclair darted into the trees surrounding the garden she'd mentioned and motioned for them to follow.

  Savon had to swallow his bile and pull Nixy away from the undead ghouls and almost drag her into the cover of the trees. In the process, he was hit in the shoulder by an arrow from above. Seeing this snapped Nixy out of her rage, and she apologized for being so stubborn. She was glad to find the wound wasn't too serious, and after breaking the shaft, she could yank it through.

  Suclair led them to a stone-formed gazebo. It was set in a clearing that was hidden from the archers above. As excited shouts of pursuit came from behind them, she opened a plain-looking cellar door at the back of the gazebo and urged them all down the stairs before those following could see where they'd gone. No sooner did she have the door shut and locked from within, did they hear the confused voices of the men searching the clearing above.

  There were a few intense moments when the cellar door banged and rattled, but the man said loudly, "It's locked. They couldn't have gotten down there." The voices faded then, as their pursuers moved to search somewhere else.

  A ball of light flared from Suclair's hand, and she pushed her way past them. She led them through cobwebs, down the stairs to a damp hallway formed of the same black stone as the rest of the place.

  "At least it doesn't smell so bad down here," said Savon, fighting back another heave. "I can still taste the stench on my tongue."

  "Here," Nixy said. She took a long swig from a wine skin, and then handed it to him.

  Suclair told them all on the boat that her father warned her of the undead, but none of them had been prepared. The putrid, oozing bodies were repulsive and, in some cases, stank so badly they took your breath. The ones Nixy had cut, especially the ones she'd gutted, were terrible. But the worst were the ones who had been shredded by the splintering gate. When they'd come through, the smell hovered there like a fog.

  Thaelos fought to keep his gorge down as well, even now that they were away from the source. After a few sips from Nixy's wine skin, though, the elves seemed able to refocus.

  They followed the passage for some time and, eventually, came to a set of stairs that led up to the kitchen. Suclair cracked it open a little and immediately dropped back down with a thump.

  "Shh," she hushed, more to herself than anybody else. "There are a bunch of them in the dining hall. I can see them through the opening."

  "Was it Reaton the cretin?" Nixy asked through clenched teeth.

  "No, they were soldiers," Suclair answered.

  "Let me see," Nixy eased her way past them and pushed the door open just enough to look in. She took her time and scanned the whole room for a few moments before closing the door.

  "It's Baragon," she said. "And there are six other men I can see. Baragon and three of them are seated at the table directly in front of the door." She pointed through the door to where they were so the others knew what she meant. "Two are standing guard at the far door, and the other one is just outside the doorway that leads from the kitchen to the dining hall on the left."

  She looked back at her friends and grinned. "Only the two at the far door are armed. Leave Baragon for me. He's the one with the silver breast plate. I have a score to settle with him."

  Before anybody could say anything or ask a question, Nixy shouldered open the door, letting it bang loudly, and tore off across the kitchen.

  Neither Baragon or any of the three men at the table said a word as Nixy charged over to the entryway and ran her sword deep into the guard's side. They appeared too shocked to move. It wasn't until Thaelos's arrow ripped past the man at the table nearest the kitchen, causing his split jugular
to spew bright crimson blood across the two men opposite him, that they reacted.

  Baragon, in an attempt to shield himself from the next arrow, attempted to lift the heavy oak table on end and would have dropped it had one of his men not alertly helped him. The man with the arrow sticking out of his neck stood and screamed. He stumbled and fell face first into the table, which helped bring it the rest on its side. Baragon's other man hadn't been prepared, but Baragon swiftly stepped behind him, putting him between the kitchen and himself.

  Savon's next arrow wasn't directed at any of the three men left by the table. This shaft was loosed at the guard approaching from the other doorway with his sword held high. His sword still swung down at Nixy's back, but Savon's aim was true. The arrow buried itself deep in the man's chest, but didn't stop his momentum. Nixy only escaped his blade by dropping flat to the floor and rolling toward the far door where the other man was ready and waiting for her.

  Suclair shouted something, then sent a blast of magical flames at the three men by the table. It was far smaller than the fire ball she'd thrown on the street, and it barely affected them. The clingy flames burned wickedly on one of the men, but only for a moment.

  The guard before Nixy was bringing his sword down, and she was forced to roll toward him so that she was inside the blade's range. She used a move she'd seen Big H do while under a troll. Dropping her sword as she came up, she drew her dagger in one swift, smooth motion and drove it into his inner thigh. When she was fully upright, they were almost eye to eye. His angry look twisted into a cry of pain and when she heard his sword clang to the floor beside her she shoved him to the side.

  After the fire left Suclair's hands, she crumbled to the floor in a heap. Thaelos dropped his bow, drew his sword, and immediately took up a defensive stance over her limp body.

  Savon loosed an arrow at the man Suclair burned. The shaft shattered into splinters when it hit him in the forehead above the eye. The man yelled, and after making sure his arm was no longer on fire, put his hand over his bloody face and ran. After a few steps, he tripped over a fallen chair and landed hard. He wasn't dead, but he rolled about, howling on the floor.