***
Aerdoan let out a relieved sigh. The NecroKwar was out of the Hells. The Champion was dead, but that mattered little to Death, he would still serve. Normally, if a mortal was killed in the Hells the soul was captured there, it was only because the black devil-son was Death’s Champion that he hadn’t been caught. The NecroKwar was safe now in Death’s realm.
The Sisters would need more than just their Champions for what was to come. The Maze might produce more soldiers, Aerdoan wasn’t sure who the Sisters might choose to go through it. In the end, someone would have to pick up the Alisande.
Aerdoan left his scrying room, preparations would have to be made. The Sisters were focused on protecting their realms, but a Balance had to be maintained. The light and dark rocked on the edge of Chaos, and he would make sure it stayed level.
***
A whetstone scraping along a blade woke Madger. The rest of the group began to stir, slowly, still digesting the effects of the alcohol. Khain dug into one of the packs they’d managed to bring with them and started handing out food.
“We need to attack before the Fallen can harden his defenses,” DraKar rumbled. He continued gliding the small, smooth whetstone along the blade. The sword never needed sharpening, it was just an old habit that offered a little comfort.
Camry swallowed, his voice shook her. It wasn’t like the smoother baritone of Armagon’s. “What do you plan to do?”
“Old Blue is spoiling for a fight,” Khain answered gleefully.
“Kill Arkhed,” DraKar growled and stood to face them
Slear sat up sharply and hissed at DraKar, “He hears!”
“Let him hear!” DraKar roared. “Let him hear that I’m coming for him! I’ll rip him open like I did Asmodeus. I’ll tear down the volcano and bury him under it.” He gestured toward the smoking mountain, beyond the walls of the shack, his eyes beginning to darken. “No more trying to hide from things like him. No more running from fights. I’ll not leave him to kill anyone else.”
Camry began to understand why DraKar was so enraged. “You didn’t run from the fight. What happened to Golas and Armagon wasn’t your fault.”
DraKar sneered down at her. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
Seal stood but kept her hands away from her knives. “So you’ll call the Fallen’s attention here and get the rest of us killed?”
Morkleb grabbed at her hand. “Don’t.”
Slear stood, his massive frame forcing most of them to stare at him. “Fighting amongst ourselves doesn’t bring us any closer to killing him. If all you’re going to do is yell at each other, leave this plane. Go back to the Mortal plane. But if you want to kill him, I’ll help you.”
DraKar stared up at him for a moment, his lungs seized. “Now? Now, you’ll help?”
Slear’s hands curled into thick fists. “How far would Armagon have to fall before you tried to kill him?” When DraKar didn’t answer he continued, “He went after the NecroKwar. He is breaking the Dark One free. I have to act.”
“Every attempt to kill him has failed,” Seal muttered bitterly. She succumbed to Morkleb’s gentle tugging and sat back down. “We can’t succeed without Armagon and the NecroKwar.”
“Oi, lass, don’t put us down just yet. Could be we have a unique mix here.” Kharick waved his mug at the whole group.
Seal scoffed with a slight roll of her eyes. “You have no idea.”
“Then tell us,” Camry snapped. “Maybe we can put something together that will work if we know more about what we’re facing.”
Madger ticked a finger. “Can he be killed?”
“Asmodeus could,” DraKar answered.
“With the NecroKwar,” Seal corrected.
DraKar turned on her. “It weakened him. But I have no more souls with me to burn.”
Slear’s wings lifted off his shoulders. “You burned a soul to kill Asmodeus?”
“Two,” Seal said as though tattling on him. The glare from both Slear and DraKar made her settle back into a sullen silence.
Madger frowned and tried to get the question answered. “Will taking off his head kill him?”
“Yes,” Slear answered.
Madger raised another finger. “And if he is controlling the cirKad, he can’t use magic?”
“Correct,” Khain answered. “He usually only uses magic to work his alchemy.”
“If he has Golas, he’ll be able to control him and use his magic,” Slear said. “His mentalism is formidable.”
“I know how to block a mentalist,” Camry said.
“Not this one, child,” DraKar said.
“My father taught me. You know how powerful a mentalist he was. He taught me how to protect myself from someone with his capabilities.”
DraKar hesitated, not wanting to hope, not wanting to sacrifice another person. He berated himself for hurrying to Limbo. On the Seventh plane, he might have been able to keep the devils at bay, at least long enough so they would have a better plan than simply running when they got there. A better plan that wouldn’t have left them all vulnerable or got Golas captured. No matter how much he detested the elf, it was not a punishment he deserved.
“No. Even if you could withstand the Fallen’s mind, I can’t. He would turn me against you.”
“He didn’t when we were escaping,” Camry pointed out. “Even the best mentalist loses strength when trying to control multiple things. He controls the creatures with his mind?”
Slear nodded. “Yes. And I’m immune. The stewardship over the Sisters’ swords grants me that.”
“And so is Khain?”
Khain shrugged. “Not exactly immune, but much more difficult to control than his other creations.”
Camry nodded, her eyes distant as the plan slowly began to come together. “We leave DraKar behind.”
DraKar choked, insulted and incredulous. “W-what?”
“We leave you outside the volcano. Draw the creatures out. Try and get as many outside as possible, so we don’t have to fight them,” Camry said. “If he does get past my defenses, Khain is only hurt by water.”
“Someone has been spreading my secrets,” Khain grumbled, crossing his arms.
“And if you’re like the icren on the Mortal plane…” Camry led the theory to Slear.
“I’m also immune to the magic you channel,” Slear finished for her.
“And the rest of us?” Kharick asked.
“You’ll want more than one attack coming at him,” Madger said. “Can the cirKad sense magic?”
Slear shook his head, the small chains in his ears chimed.
“We can come in separately.” Madger searched the hovel for something to use to show what she meant. Her eyes landed on a game board on a shelf, Generals and Champions. She hadn’t thought to see the game in Limbo. Her father had brought home a board when she was young and taught her to play.
“Here.” She stood and grabbed the game. After Slear made an offering gesture she placed in on the floor so they could all see it. “This is the volcano, our objective. Camry, Slear, and Khain will sneak inside. Outside is DraKar, and the cirKad.” She shifted a large piece and several smaller ones to the perimeter of the board. “While the Fallen is distracted with the attacks from DraKar, and then the push from you three, the rest of us can slip by with an invisibility spell.” She slid four pieces past the cirKad and to the volcano.
Camry smiled, understanding. “If he does manage to stop us, you four will be coming in to help.”
“Aye, with us coming in separately it might give us enough advantage,” Kharick said.
“You should leave the cleric behind,” DraKar said.
“What? Why?” Morkleb asked.
DraKar leaned toward him. “Gentle cleric, do you often go on assassination missions?”
Morkleb’s ears flattened and he rocked back from DraKar. “No.”
“I want him there,” Camry said. “For Golas.”
DraKar grunted and relaxed back in his seat.
“It’s a maze in the volcano,” Khain cautioned. “I’ll be able to sense where Golas and the Fallen is, but you four…”
“I studied maps of the interior. It was a long time ago and we never got permission to go through with the mission.” Seal shrugged.
“If Golas or the Fallen uses some larger spells, I’ll be able to get a sense of direction from the ripples of magic,” Madger said.
“You’ll have to be careful. If the Fallen realizes you’re there before we have time to distract him beyond DraKar, he might turn you against each other, or us,” Slear said.
“Just keep him distracted long enough for us to get to you,” Madger said.
Kharick belched. “Or kill him. Not like we be getting paid for this.”
DraKar frowned. “If we do this, you must hurry. Mages have to be strong willed and focused, but I will be overcome. If he tries to use me against you, I won’t be able to stop him.”
“I can break your spells,” Camry reminded him.
“That won’t be enough,” DraKar whispered darkly.
Chapter 31
317 Br. summer
“Mages are long-lived, owing most of that longevity to the extension of life via a spell. They only need a sound mind to keep their craft sharp.
“Clerics are the next largest order of empowered beings. Their bodies must be young and fit to work the power of their god.
“Mentalists are largely unknown, most being insane or crippled. The craft has dwindled as there are fewer and fewer to instruct those that come into the power during adolescence.”
-Beyond the Mundane – Greof of the Windy Pines, sworn scholar to Lord Breof Herns
G olas woke with a needling pain in his mind. Panic took hold, recognizing the sensation from when he had worked with Varlec. Someone was prying past his mental barriers. Straps held him down, his back pressed against something hard and smooth. His eyes were covered and a hard gag was held in his mouth by another strap.
He tried to craft a spell, but the magic was blocked. Still inside him, but just as he couldn’t move because of the straps, he couldn’t use his magic because of the block. He couldn’t be sure if his control was choked by the mentalist digging into his mind or if there was something external, some enchantment that was interfering.
A slithering, thorny sensation coiled in his mind, a spider tickling across his head, a leech digging for its meal within him. Golas shuddered, wanting to scream, but the gag muffled and choked him. A dark presence tickled across him, intimate and deadly, like a snake had slipped into his bedding. Terror wrung tears from his eyes as he strained, in vain, against the straps holding him down.
“You cannot hide from me.”
A whimper broke from Golas’s throat, the words wound around it, like a skeletal hand. The dread centered in his chest like a weight.
“I will know what you know.”
Golas tried to focus, tried to keep up the crumbling barriers of his mind. The fear was part of tearing them apart. It was a distraction, but just as he tried to focus on that rationale, it was drowned. The vileness of the attack was like a wave of rotting blood. The locks to his reason rusted away, the doors baring his desires melted, and slowly he was being picked apart. Carrion birds pecked at him, ripped him open, and saw everything.
“I remember you.”
The bindings rubbed Golas raw from his struggles. The voice was digging deeper, to the past he didn’t want to remember. Loneliness tried to drown him, guilt and fear made him hide. No one was left. No living thing offered a sound in the vast sand dunes. There were no more animals. There were no trees to rustle their leaves. No other elf left to speak.
“What have I done?” Golas screamed inwardly.
“I remember you stumbling over that spell. You never found out where it came from.” The voice laughed within Golas, slathering his mind with fetid dreams and maggots. A tongue, slick with spit and covered with boils, licked at Golas’s face, the image burned into the elf’s psyche. “You thought you were following a winged elf to the portal. You don’t even remember who brought you there. You don’t know the real reason you were so desperate to find it again. To open it.”
The voice was close and seductive, dark and ugly. Cracked lips whispered against his ear, hot breath against his skin, something a lover should do, not a torturer.
“You remember your native lands? On the southern continent?” the voice hissed against Golas’s cheek, echoing not only in his mind, but in his ears as well. Claws and leathery skin caressed his face, pressing his cheek against rotting fangs. “You remember the jungles being trampled under demons’ feet?”
Golas’s heart hammered in his chest, it ached like it was going to break his ribs. Frantic breaths around the gag left spittle dripping from his mouth. He wanted to scream again, the terror and agony ripping at his sanity, but his throat was tight, and the ball of anxiety had nowhere to go, and it grew.
“You remember the orb? The spell?” The voice slithered over Golas, feeding terror that was building to madness. “When you found it, when you touched it.”
The creature’s groan made Golas want to squirm away, everything in his essence needed escape from this thing. The thing that was too close, too deep inside him.
“You used it. You claimed that power. You… liked… it.”
The scream broke from Golas’s throat, though muffled by the gag. The terror shattered in his chest, dark tendrils spiraled up to his mind, diving into it, piercing it, destroying the sanity he had tried to protect.
The voice was excited now, no longer drawing out the words. “The spell broke from you, cascaded over the landscape, devouring everything it touched.” A wet inhalation of breath through teeth. “You did it. You made it happen. No one but you could have done it. And you were all that was left.”
There was so little left in Golas’s mind, so little left to succumb, to drown in the ichor that wanted to smother him. A quiet whimpering cry was the last vestiges of his agony, his regret.
“The desert of the southern continent was your masterpiece. I but gave you the paint.”
***
Camry stilled her mind, a solid rock, unbreakable. She would not be touched while she followed Khain into the cave. The presence of the Icren-Lord at her back was like a mountain moving with her. Over the sound of their running, she could hear DraKar’s invitation to the horde of creatures inside. The heat from the volcano’s interior already had her shirt damp with sweat. Her fear didn’t help.
The cave shook around them, and for a panicked moment she thought DraKar might pull the mountain down around them as he’d promised. They lit the obsidian cavern with mundane torches and the flare of power in Camry’s eyes. Khain and Slear carried the torches in one hand, their weapons in the other.
Khain’s scythe was made of the same material as him, but was separate and not sentient, much like the robe, boots, and gloves he wore. He could manipulate the chemicals of the failed experiment, life had never taken hold in them, but if splashed with water, they were his only protection.
For all Slear’s bulk, he was nearly silent behind her. The spear he carried wasn’t allowed to rap on the floor, and his leather armor didn’t creak or jostle. Only the heavy tread of his bare feet made noise, and she was glad to have him at her back.
Camry’s hand sweated as she gripped her simple sword. Forged by an unknown swordsmith in an unknown town, and gifted to her by her father. Her tunic was in tatters, she’d removed the sleeve ruined by the cirKad. The knees of her pants rubbed to shreds, and the soles of her shoes were trying to peel away.
The dark, sharp glass of the cave walls reflected their light. Deeper down the maze of branching corridors, the howls and screeches of Arkhed’s creations called out, ready to be released.
Khain paused midway down the hall, and hushed Camry when she tried to question him. At the next branch, a herd of creatures thundered past, aiming for the most direct route out of the caves. He moved again after the last cirKad
passed.
He guided them down a dizzying twist of tunnels and through a mix of echoing chambers. Camry could only guess at how he knew where he was going. Khain dispatched the few servants they encountered, some small imps, stolen from the Hells and a single, deformed mute creature that wasn’t cirKad but also wasn’t a recognizable species.
They raced up a ramp and through a variety of doors, deeper into the sweltering interior of the volcano. Khain stopped at a metal door, silently holding up a hand.
Camry felt a tickle at the edge of her consciousness, like a cobweb caught in her hair. “He knows.” She didn’t try to hide the tremor of fear in her voice.
“Nothing to help it now,” Khain muttered and pushed against the door, the iron lock creaked and screeched as he forced it apart.
A blast of thundering magic hit the door, ripping it off its hinges and smashing Khain between it and the far wall of the corridor. Camry screamed, thinking Khain was dead, despite knowing he was an alchemical creation. Slear brushed past her and was hit by the same bright flash, but he shouldered into it, his wing braced over his head like a shield. The magic flickered and died from contact with his natural immunity.
With Slear as a guard, Camry dashed inside, and Khain moved past her. The room was small and bare, only a stone slab with leather straps stood in the middle. Several flickering red lamps lined the walls, offering some light as Khain and Slear had left their torches on the ground. The shadows were still thick in the room, the walls oddly shaped, like the spit of lava had been frozen around it and turned into black glass.
“Where is he?” Camry demanded.
“He’s here,” Khain said. He didn’t like how muddled his thoughts were, it meant Arkhed was trying to confuse him. “Pull his magic away.” A clarity drew his attention, a certainty that Golas was with them, as though a fog had been lifted and Golas was presented to him. He pointed at a shadow between two lamps on the left wall. “There!”
The Titan's Tome (The Mortal Balance Book 1) Page 36