Obsidian Ridge c-2

by Jess Lebow

  The king had tried on several occasions to come up with a plan that would revitalize the area and prepare it for the future. But many of the trading guilds employed small armies of their own-sellswords who provided security for the goods and their wealthy owners. The king's efforts had very nearly started an open civil war, and so he had relented. Storming the docks with his entire army was not part of his vision for ruling Erlkazar.

  As a result, the waterfront had become a sort of independent state. The trade guilds kept to themselves and protected their own. Anyone who had business there was free to come and go, but their safety was their own concern. It became a place where ordinary citizens never ventured-a place where only criminals and toughs felt at home.

  Stepping from the flagstones of the road onto the wooden planks of the boardwalk, Princess Mariko entered the seedy underbelly of the city. She had spent many nights here, patrolling the area for information. She and her Watchers were the eyes and ears of her father, and by extension, of the newly created Magistrates. On any other night, she would be looking for shipments of Elixir or other illegal potions. But tonight was something else.

  Slipping into a dark alley, Mariko climbed the tall side of a decrepit wooden building and crept onto its shingled roof. Most of the storehouses down here were owned by individual groups. There were a few larger guilds that had blocks of buildings together, but for the most part it was a patchwork of different businesses all shuffled together.

  Reaching the top, she could hear the faint rumbling of conversation passing by in the opposite alley. Crossing the roof, she crouched down and listened.

  It was two men, and they were speaking in a language that Mariko didn't immediately recognize. Closing her eyes, she placed her fingers on her temples. "Reveal to me," she said quietly, casting a quick spell.

  The sounds rising from the alley below transformed from gibberish into words.

  "Old Korox is going to get one real good this time, he is," said the first man.

  "Get what he deserves if you ask me," replied the other.

  Mariko lifted herself up and craned her neck. She could just see the men's heads as they traveled down the alleyway. Neither wore a helmet, but she could hear the jangle of chain mail as they walked. Turning the corner, the two men headed east, toward the water and out of earshot.

  Getting quickly to her feet, Mariko looked over the edge. The ground was three stories down-a long drop, and one she couldn't make silently. The roof of the storehouse across the alley was probably twenty-five, maybe thirty feet away. It was a shorter building than the one she was on, which would make the jump a little easier.

  Turning around, she crept back to the opposite side of the roof. Then, spinning with the grace of a stage dancer, she faced the storehouse across the alley. The edge of the building blocked her view of the landing spot. For that matter, it blocked the view of the docks and other buildings as well. All she could see was the open sky and the waters of Shalane Lake in the distance. Steeling herself, she bent her knees and took off at full speed.

  Planting her foot squarely on the edge of the roof, she pushed off into open space.

  The princess hung for a moment, suspended over the alley by nothing but the dark of the night. She stretched, spreading herself out to reach across the emptiness. It seemed a long time, but was no more than two heartbeats-and she came down on the edge of the storehouse. Her toes touched the bricks that formed the outer wall, and she crouched as she hit, rolling forward into a ball and tumbling once before coming to her feet already at a run.

  The landing had been a little noisier than she had hoped. Sliding to a stop at the easternmost wall, the princess cautiously crept up to the edge. The two men were passing just below. They were still talking, apparently so engrossed in their topic that they hadn't heard her leap.

  "That'll teach him to go messing with our livelihood and all," continued the first. "Say, when do you think it'll happen?"

  "Don't know. But I'll bet the Matron does."

  Mariko's heart skipped a beat. The Matron? This was much bigger than she had first thought. If what they said was true, it could only mean one thing: the underworld planned to start an all-out war with the throne.

  The men continued down the road, and Mariko followed. The storehouse was nearly side-by-side with the slaughterhouse, and the princess simply hopped over the intervening space to continue her pursuit. She was much closer now and could see them more clearly. Both men were cleanly shaven and quite well equipped. Each had a long sword on one hip and a dagger on the other. They wore chain mail tunics, which were covered partially by sleeveless white robes. She couldn't quite make out the symbol they carried on their chests, but from the short glimpse she did get, it appeared to be the profile of a woman with long golden hair.

  "I wish I could see his face when he knows he's done for."

  "Yeah, wouldn't that be something?" The man slapped his companion on the arm. "Hey, what would you say to him? You know, just before you did him in?"

  "That's easy. I'd say-" Their words were drowned out by the sliding slaughterhouse door being pulled open as the two men walked inside.

  Lifting the edge of a skylight, Mariko followed, slipping through the roof and lowering herself down onto one of the large framing beams.

  Inside, the smell was nearly unbearable. There must have been two hundred pigs packed into the space below. They snorted and squealed, stepping on each other and pressing their snouts through the wooden slats.

  The men continued through a small door on the other side of the slaughterhouse, leaving it ajar behind them. Mariko scampered across the beam to a post along the wall and scaled her way down to the floor. Crossing the room as fast as she could, she closed the distance, inching her way around a huge burned section of the floor.

  Behind the door was a small room. There were no windows, and the men hadn't lit any torches or candles. The moonlight coming in from the skylights above illuminated only a small triangle of space on the floor of the room, revealing a plain brick wall maybe thirty paces beyond. She tried to listen for the men's voices, but the soft snuffling of two hundred pigs was simply drowning out all other noise.

  Pressing her back against the wall, Mariko thought for a moment. She didn't know who was on the other side of that door or what they were doing. She was at the very least outnumbered two to one, maybe more. This wasn't a very smart idea. But the risks aside, if there was even a small chance that she could learn more about the planned assassination of her father-and if that information could help her keep him safe-then it was well worth the risk.

  She had no choice. She was going to have to follow those men, and she was going to have to go quietly, hoping they wouldn't notice. If they did, well… she'd worry about that if and when it happened.

  Slipping her dagger from its sheath on her boot, the princess squeezed its hilt. The worn leather wrapping felt comfortable in her hand. Taking a deep breath, she spun away from the wall and stepped through the open door.

  Just inside, she could barely see anything. Except for the sliver of moonlight, the rest of the room was completely black. Mariko slipped into the far corner. Finding it unoccupied, she knelt down and peered into the darkness.

  The beam of moonlight crossed the room in front of her. If anything in the darkness on the other side wanted to come at her, it was going to have to step through the light. That would give her all the warning she needed.

  But, if there was something in the darkness closer to her…

  Opening her eyes as wide as she could, she sat in place, tense, letting her eyes adjust. Nothing moved. Inside the office, the sounds of the pigs in the slaughterhouse were muffled, and she could hear a small scuffling sound coming from the other side of the room. It sounded like scratching- like fingernails on the wooden floor.

  The noise started to grow, coming closer and becoming more frantic. Mariko lifted herself up into a lunge, holding her blade out to one side, ready to strike down anyone-or anything-that came int
o the light.

  Scruff-scruff-scruff

  It was right in front of her. She could feel it vibrate through the floorboards, only a few feet away. Then something appeared in the pale moonlight.

  Mariko squinted, unable to make out the shape at first. It was pointed, and moved very slowly, sort of undulating as it came further into view-a rat.

  An ordinary wharf rat, just scrounging around the slaughterhouse for scraps.

  The princess relaxed. She lowered her blade and let out a sigh. Her brow was covered in sweat, and she could hear her heart pound in her ears. Wiping off her face with her hand, she shook her head and chuckled, relieved that she hadn't just been backed into a corner by a band of underworld thugs.

  Slam.

  The sliver of moonlight disappeared, and the room went completely dark as the door shut tight. The sound of boots, dozens of them, tromping across worn wooden floor followed.

  Mariko reacted on instinct. Holding out both hands, she shouted the words to a spell she didn't often have to use. From her fingertips sprung long, ropy strands. Her spell filled the room with sticky magical silk, pinning everything-she hoped-in place.

  The pounding noise of running boots stopped, replaced by shouts of frustration and the sound of men falling to the ground.

  Reaching out her palm, the princess touched the brick wall to her right. She cast another spell, one she used more frequently.

  The chamber exploded with light as every brick in the wall lit up. The men shouted and cursed as their eyes were shocked awake from complete blackness.

  "Not good," said the princess.

  The room was much larger than she had anticipated. The corner she had seen in the moonlight was just a small nook. Behind the door, the office-really more like a sub-storehouse-ran off for at least several hundred paces then disappeared again in the darkness.

  But more disturbing was the scene immediately in front of her.

  Twenty men, all of them wearing similar white robes and chain mail stood before her. A good dozen of them were tangled in her magical web. Several had tripped over their companions and were stuck face first to the ground, completely incapacitated. Try as they might, they weren't getting free anytime soon.

  Beside the door stood a man. He wore a fine chain shirt over padded clothing, the same image of the golden-haired woman on his chest, but his face was elongated, and there were two small horns jutting from the top of his forehead. Despite his deformations, he seemed oddly familiar.

  The man was directly between Mariko and the way she had come in. It was possible that there was another way out, somewhere in the still-dark section of the room, but her web and nearly two-dozen men made finding it a little trickier.

  "Well met, Princess," said the horned man, his words slurring a little as they slipped over his sharp teeth. "We've been expecting you."

  "I see that," she said, searching the room for an exit.

  Those men not stuck fast came at her from around the edge of the web. They all carried long swords, but to a man they left them in their sheaths. Instead, they bore down on the princess with wooden clubs.

  Mariko managed to raise her dagger in time to stab the first assailant through the foot. He screamed and dropped his club. A second came in at her from the left, which she sidestepped. But the third struck her squarely on the thigh, knocking her off balance and forcing her down to one knee.

  Wounded and angry, the princess looked up at the mob of white-robed men in front of her and let out a scream.

  Not a cry for help or a sign of defeat-the princess's shout was more of the ear-splitting, skull-rattling, gem-shattering variety. Backed into the corner, the brick wall amplified her spell, catching six men in its blast and sending them reeling backward, holding their heads in their hands.

  "The ringing! Make it stop! Make it stop!"

  The men staggered away, poking their fingers in their ears and howling.

  Taking advantage of the opening, the princess limped to her feet and moved toward the door. Only the horned man stood between her and freedom.

  Lifting her dagger over her head, she struck a fencer's pose-one she had been taught by her fighting instructor back at the palace. The blade of her weapon began to glow a deep purple, and the runes on its edge sparkled with white light.

  "Let me pass, and I let you live," she said. The man merely looked at her. "My name is Jallal Tasca," he said. "Perhaps you recognize it."

  "Pello Tasca's brother," she whispered. That was why he had seemed so familiar. His face did hold a resemblance to the man she had spied coming and going from the docks on many a night. But something dreadful had transformed him.

  Jallal looked down on her with what the princess could only imagine was pity. "So you do recognize me. Very good."

  The princess felt something heavy hit the back of her head, and the room went blurry. She slumped to one side. A pair of hands appeared in her view, then the sleeves of a white robe.

  One hand slipped behind her head, and the other held a piece of cloth to her face. There was something caustic on the cloth. The smell of it burned Mariko's eyes and made her gag. She struggled, but the robed figure was just too strong, and the smell of the fabric made her woozy. The bricks on the far wall began to shimmer and move. They grew and shrank, coming up close to her face then slipping away. Her body grew weak. She was tired, and her eyes rolled back into her head.

  Finally, she surrendered. Unable to struggle further, she felt her body go limp, then the light went out.

  Jallal Tasca led his men out of the slaughterhouse. They moved swiftly through the quiet streets. The sun would be rising soon, and the docks would grow thick with workers and traders. Many would turn a blind eye to armed men carrying the tied-up, limp body of Princess Mariko. But most people followed a simple unspoken rule here on the wharf-if they didn't see it, then it wasn't wrong. Jallal preferred to keep to that rule, especially given his new appearance.

  "Hurry," he urged, picking up the pace.

  The man marching in the front of the column stopped suddenly, and Jallal nearly ran right into his back.

  "What is it?" barked Tasca the elder. The guard was squinting at something in the distance, and he shook his head.

  "Well?" said Jallal. "Speak up."

  The guard lifted his arm, and pointed to the horizon. "What… what in the Nine Hells is that?"

  Jallal followed the man's outstretched finger, looking up into the sky.

  Overhead, a gargantuan black mountain had appeared. Rising from a base of jagged black stone, it came to a sharp ridge at the top. If it weren't for the battlements that decorated its sides, it would have looked like a volcano, ripped from the ground to hover over Llorbauth like an executioner's axe.

  The men gasped as each of them followed Jallal's gaze into the sky.

  "Holy gods…" said one. He dropped his weapon and let it clatter to the ground. "We're doomed." Without another word, he turned and bolted into the darkness, running as if he were being chased by a lion.

  Seeing him take off in fright, two other men lost their nerve and went running off as well.

  "Stop, you cowards!" shouted Jallal. "No one leaves unless I say so, or I will kill you myself!"

  The two men froze in their tracks. The third was already too far away to hear the threat.

  Jallal growled, then looked up at the structure looming in the sky. "Let's get her royal highness to the Matron and out from under that thing. Whatever it's going to do, I don't want to be out here when it happens."

  High above, Arch Magus Xeries looked down from his floating citadel onto the sleeping kingdom of Erlkazar. He'd been waiting to return here for almost two hundred years.

  Last time, he wanted something very different. Sadly, it had eluded him.

  Taking a sip from his goblet of blood-red wine, he waved his hand. His conjured image of this soon-to-be-conquered kingdom winked out of existence.

  This time, he would get what he wanted.

  Chapter Seven
r />   Call Captain Kaden!" shouted King Korox. "And Senator Divian too!"

  Whitman and Quinn, the only two others in the room, bowed and took off to find the king's advisors. Korox stood at the edge of his balcony, looking down onto the valley, the water, and the sprawling city of Llorbauth.

  "For all that is holy," he whispered. "What is that thing?"

  Right in the middle of his view hung a mountain. The morning sun had risen, but the shadow of the floating fortress left most of the city still in the dark.

  "You called, my lord?" Captain Kaden arrived out of breath, having run all the way in his heavy plate mail.

  "Have you seen this?" asked the king.

  "Yes, my lord. I think everyone in the barony has seen it."

  The king nodded. "Yes, I suppose it is hard to miss." "I've already put the Magistrates on notice." The king paced back to the other side of the room. "Does anyone know what it is? Where it came from?" "No one I've spoken to, my lord."

  Quinn arrived, running up the stairs and into the chamber.

  "I found the senator," he announced between large gulps of air, his blond hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. "She just arrived at the palace and will be here momentarily."

  The king continued to pace. Nothing like this ever happened during his father's reign. If only his wife were still alive. She always seemed to know what to do in impossible situations. Thinking of her gave him an idea.

  "Quinn, see if you can find Plathus," said the king.

  "The queen's old tailor?"

  "He's probably the oldest person in Klarsamryn. Maybe he knows something about this… this thing floating outside my window."

  Quinn bowed and left. As the king's bodyguard stepped out, Senator Divian stepped in.

  One of the king's chief advisors and one of the most influential voices on the matter of law and order in the kingdom, Senator Divian was also a very powerful cleric. Tall and slender, her hair had gone completely white years before, with only the occasional strand of grayish blond still showing. Despite her slowly advancing years, she was still quite attractive, and more than a few of Erlkazar's powerful dukes and noblemen had pursued her.