by R J Murray
“Then why do you need me?” Mia asked softly, almost afraid of the answer she would find. “I am neither warrior nor mage powerful enough to fight a squirrel, let alone that which you have described.”
“Five bound the seal, five must un-bind it,” Jochum said softly. “We need you to take the oath and allow us to end the spell and find our fate.”
Chapter 18
Kristdor settled down into the worn, wooden chair behind his desk and blew out a soft sigh. It had been an exceptionally long day of interviews that had got him nowhere. The paperwork on his desk had seemed to grow higher in his absence and from the distant sounds of caterwauling, the cells in the basement of the watch-house were full.
There was a tension in the air, a rising anger at the inability of the city lords to protect the people. Even though there had been no fresh killings, the creature that had been doing the killing was still at large and could kill again at any time.
He reached over and propped his short sword and truncheon against the whitewashed wall of his cramped office and let his head fall back. There was a weariness about him that he tried to hide when outside the office, but in there, alone, he could finally let it show.
The city lords, with his mother being the most vocal, were demanding results. A letter in the pocket of his coat was a reminder from them that he needed to find the killer. He fully expected to receive another like it by courier each day the investigation dragged on.
A knock came at the door and he straightened his back and lifted his head. He reached up and smoothed down the hairs of his goatee and called out, “enter.”
Constable Asa pushed open the door and stepped inside, pausing to take a moment to close it quietly behind her. She snapped a smart salute, fist against breast, and stood to attention before his desk. He gave her the once over, brows drawing down.
“Rough day?”
“Sir.”
Her coat sleeve was scuffed, and the breastplate had lost its shine while her boots were coated in dried mud. A sure sign she had been in the rougher parts of the slums where the cobblestone had long since been taken up and sold by some enterprising thief, leaving just the bare mud beneath.
“Who gave you the bruise?”
The constable’s lips turned up at the corners in what must have been a painful movement as it shifted the wide bruise on her left cheek. The skin was swollen and turning a yellowish purple.
“A man who wishes he hadn’t,” she said smartly, lifting her chin.
Kristdor nodded approvingly. It wouldn’t do to let the denizens of the slums get the idea that they could knock about his constables and get away without retribution. While he wouldn’t let his constables act like utter beasts, he also didn’t brook them letting the slum dwellers get away with such behaviour.
“Report.”
“We had five separate groups gathering, making noise and getting rowdy. They were broken up and sent on their way with minimal fuss. A fight in the Laughing Donkey tavern resulted in seven arrests and the need for a chirurgeon.”
“Not a priest?”
“Minor cut. Needed some bandaging and stitching. Not worth the cost of a healing.”
He nodded approvingly. Nearly two decades prior, the various guilds had come together and petitioned the city lords. Too many of their members were being roughed up by the city watch and left with injuries and scars that prevented them from working and paying their guild dues.
The city lords then had proposed that coin would be provided to ensure healing by priest or local chirurgeon to ensure that those arrested remained in good health. Then, they raised taxes on the guild houses to pay for it.
Which meant for Kristdor, that he had to keep a tight leash on some of his more enthusiastic officers to ensure they didn’t cost the watch-house more than it could afford. Once the monies from the city lords were used, any further healing would come out of his day to day budget.
“Anything else?”
“Constable Snorri is back, sir. He found the attendant to her holiness and asked him the questions you gave him.”
“And?”
“The attendant couldn’t confirm her attendance at any of the functions she mentioned.”
Kristdor settled back in his chair, fingers tapping on the old desk he had inherited from his predecessor and thought about that. She was the right height and she wore a robe of white, that was true enough, but the idea that the high priestess of Ysnir was the killer was ludicrous.
But, stranger things had happened in the northern city and as close to the corruption of the wilds as they were, they had more than their fair share of dark deeds perpetrated by those they would never would have considered capable of such things.
“Have a carriage readied,” he said and reached for his pen and ink. He jotted a quick list of names on a sheet of paper and handed it to the constable. “And send Snorri to the people on this list.”
“Constable Snorri, sir?” Her eyebrows rose as she read the names on the list and he nodded, thoughtfully. “Good point. You go.”
“What should I be asking them?”
“Whether they remember the presence of the high priestess at the functions they attended on the nights of the killings.”
Constable Asa saluted once more and spun on her heel, marching towards the door. Kristdor called out to her as she reached for the handle.
“Am I mad for considering this, do you think?”
“It is our duty to ask the questions no one else will, sir.”
He nodded and she left the office, closing the door behind her and he brooded in silence as he waited for the carriage to be prepared. A high priestess and one so lovely as Amina could not harbour a heart filled with corruption, he thought.
But no matter how he considered it, he kept coming back to the same thing. She was the only real suspect they had.
****
The college of magic in the city of Rial was smaller than many of the other colleges in other city-states or kingdoms. The number of students was low due to the natural suspicion of the northerners for magic and the wealth the other colleges enjoyed, was not for them.
It did have one thing that Vala was especially proud of and that was a library that was full of obscure tomes and texts on the magic arts that few of the other colleges had. And if that was because they had no interest in such oddities, then it was their own loss. Or at least, so Vala thought.
Deep in the lowest chambers of the college, beneath the streets and halls of study, was the library. Light globes set in sconces around the walls provided a low lighting that was enough to search the high stacks of shelving.
Set around the open floor and nestled between those stacks of ancient books and scrolls were the desks for students and masters alike to sit and study the various tomes of knowledge. Each desk had a small brass bowl for a light orb to be placed, providing enough illumination for anyone sitting at the desk to be able to read.
Vala sat at one such desk, the aged wood of the shelving stacks rising up around her and the ceiling lost in darkness. Librarians wandered here and there, arms full of books and scrolls that they were returning to their shelves.
There was a deep silence in the library that Vala found soothing. It was a silence that she didn’t find often in the home she shared with her husband. A man of passion and laughter with a love of talking about his gardens and her work at the college.
As much as she loved the man, the library was a refuge where she could recharge and forget about the burdens of her role in the college and just enjoy the silence as she absorbed as much knowledge as she could from the various tomes.
For the past few days, since she had encountered the monstrous killer, she had spent as much of her time as she could in the library. She searched amongst the oldest texts there, from those that were written either during or not long after the wars of ascension.
Much had been lost during those wars when the world was ravaged by impossibly powerful magic and more after, when those who had survived turned against
the remaining practitioners of magic, blaming them for the devastation of the world.
What had remained, had been gathered in various libraries and private collections for years. Usually hidden away and kept safe from those who wished to destroy the knowledge of those earlier times.
When the college of magic in Rial had been built, a century before, the archmagi of the time had used the considerable family wealth he had to gather as much of that knowledge as he could, storing it away and keeping it safe. Something for which Vala was profoundly grateful.
She closed the wide leather-bound book before her, taking care to ensure the fragile pages were not damaged in any way and rubbed at the back of the neck where it ached from being hunched over books all day.
Despite her efforts and the wide array of knowledge available, she had found little to help her discover what the black substance was. What she had learnt, was disturbing enough due to how little of it there was.
The doors to the library opened with a cutting squeal of the old hinges and she glanced over irritably. Her frown fell away as she recognised her brother Kristdor. He caught sight of her at almost the same time and headed her way.
She couldn’t help but notice how weary he looked and ran a hand down her own face, realising she likely looked just as tired.
“Sister.”
“Brother,” she replied with a smile as they shared their usual greeting.
“How goes the study?”
“About as well as your investigation.”
His face darkened at that and she immediately regretted the jest, waving her hand in apology.
“Forgive me, brother. I am tired.”
“No forgiveness necessary. My dark humour is due to my own weariness. Please, tell me what you have learnt.”
“Little,” she admitted sourly. “But what I have found scares me.”
“I find it hard to believe that anything could scare you, sister. Tell me what you found.”
She sucked in a breath and nodded, reaching for the vial she kept in a pocket of her robe. It contained the small piece of darkness that she had found after the creature had fled.
“What do you know of the wars of ascension?”
He blinked taken aback by the question, his eyes moving towards the black substance in the vial as he lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “About as much as anyone. You had the same tutors as I.”
She nodded and patted the chair beside her indicating he should sit. It would take her some time to explain what she had learnt, mainly because he needed to understand the history first. She took a deep breath and began.
“After the age of wonders, when the gods had retired to their celestial homes and the care of the world was left to the first races, humans, dwarves, elves and the like. It was a time of exploration and learning.”
“Time moved on and the races grew and developed. The elves tired of the squabbling humans retired to their forest homes beyond the windshield mountains and the dwarves, reclusive by nature, constructed their great city of stone.”
“How far back does this story go?” Kristdor asked impatiently and she tutted softly.
“It is important for you to understand.”
“Oh, very well.”
“The humans,” she said with a stern look warning him against further interruption. “Constantly warring against one enough and squabbling for wealth, land and power, didn’t notice the heights the mages were reaching for.”
“Some of them, deciding that it was time to restore peace and order, joined together to emulate the rule of the gods.”
She bit her lip and looked around the quiet library. Some of what she was about to tell him was for those of the magic orders only and forbidden to the mundane populace. It spoke of things they could not understand and would fear, so she had to tailor her words.
“They grew in power, becoming more than mere human. Their control of the magic arts was unparalleled and while they were mightier than any of the celestial court, they were still several steps below the power of the gods.”
“Some of them did not like that.”
Kristdor frowned, his eyes going once again to the vial she held, unsure what the history had to do with that.
“They called themselves, Ascendants. Humans who had, quite literally, ascended to something beyond the mortal and they seized control of the human lands.”
“Each of them carved out their own territories, becoming ruler over all within that land and for a time, the people prospered. Great magics were wrought, artefacts and relics created. People went without hunger and life was good.”
“Till it wasn’t,” Kristdor muttered.
“Yes. Eventually, resentment grew amongst a small number of the ascendants. They saw the people worshipping the gods and offering them thanks for the works the ascendants had done and they knew anger.”
“Thirteen of them made a pact. They would seek out ways to increase their power to the point where they could challenge the gods themselves and take their place in the heavens, to become the very deities they considered themselves to be.”
It was dangerous to speak of what came next, but he needed to know at least part of what happened. Much of the world was ignorant of those end times, knowing only that destruction was wrought and the world burned. Those mages that survived knew more.
“One of them, the most powerful, found that way. He discovered a source of power that was beyond anything they could imagine. Together, the thirteen drilled a hole through the fabric of our world to reach that source.”
Kristdor’s frown grew deeper and he leant forward, interested despite himself.
“They managed it, I take it?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “But the hole they made couldn’t be closed and the power spilt out, corrupting everything it touched.”
“The wilds!” Understanding blossomed in his eyes and they widened as he looked at the vial once more.
“Yes. But more than that, they took that power into themselves, filling themselves with the power. Corruption ran through their very veins and it twisted them beyond anything remotely human.”
“The other ascendants, realising what they had done took action. Eighty-seven of the hundred ascendants that walked the world at that time, worked together to plug the hole. They could not seal it completely and three of their number died trying.”
“These were beings who had lived millennia by that point, so for them to die sent shockwaves through the rest. They did what they could, but a trickle of corruption still leaks there to this day, in the very heart of the wilds.”
“Which is why the wilds spread,” Kristdor said and she looked at him sharply. “I am not blind. The growth is small, but I have seen the maps from a century ago and the boundary was further away then.”
“Aye, it grows. But it was the best the other ascendants could do for they came under assault from the thirteen. The war was long and much of the world burnt as entire nations were destroyed, their peoples, their knowledge, their history, lost to us forever.”
Her tone said that was a greater crime than the loss of life and was entirely in keeping with her deep love and respect for knowledge, her brother thought with a fond smile.
“By the time the wars ended, just seven ascendants remained alive, each of them filled with the power of the corruption they had unleashed. They turned their attention to the heavens and left this world, to take their war to the gods themselves.”
Kristdor couldn’t help but think back to the vacant buildings in the temple district. Their windows dark and their worshippers long gone after their gods had died.
“This,” Vala said, holding up the vial in her hand. “This was made during the war of ascension. During that time, many such artefacts and creatures were made in an effort by one side or the other to gain ground.”
“The snake people to the far south,” Kristdor said. “The gryphons that couriers ride. I do recall some of the things we learnt from the old windbag tutor.”
“Yes
,” she agreed. “Them and many more. One such artefact was used rarely. It was made of their dark magic and bound with the corruption itself.”
“It’s purpose?”
“To feed. It can take the form of a human though it has to feed on them first. Wearing their image like a cloak, it walks in plain sight as it hunts, controlled by whoever holds the activation stone.”
She paused and licked dry lips as her eyes flicked down to the darkness in the vial.
“The people it attacks, it doesn’t just kill them. It syphons off their life force and stores it. The creature is little more than a conduit for its master's will and they can act through it, using that power for their own evil, or taking it into themselves and adding it to their own power.”
“Someone is controlling it, from afar,” Kristdor said. “But why? What use would one have for gathering such power and where would they even find such a thing?”
“Their reasons are their own,” Vala said. “But as to where it came from, I would say the wilds.”
Kristdor felt a sudden chill run through him as his eyes widened. A relic of the age of ascension, found in the place where the corruption was born.
“I think I know who the controller of the creature is,” he said, thinking of ruby red hair and eyes of grey.
Chapter 19
The ship descended, rousing Mia from her introspection and she looked up, alarm written across her face. An alarm that faded as she saw the others of the company moving about their business as normal.
“What’s going on?”
“This is as far as the ship goes,” Elva said, turning to look at the girl. “Time for you to make your choice.”
Easy for her to say, Mia thought, she had already made her own choice a decade before. More than that, she’d been a seasoned adventurer when she did it and not some scared village girl in way over her head.
It was by no means an easy choice to make and while the others had respected her decision to think about it, time didn’t seem to have the same consideration and had kept moving on, bringing them ever closer to their destination with every passing moment.