He landed, stunned, blinking away the stars from his vision. Through the blur of his own tears he could see the defeated guards hobbling their way towards him, Raga at their head, now joined by a new figure.
He rose, leaning against the wall for support, his every bone on fire, focusing on the new arrival, who, with Raga, had ventured closer, the other warriors hanging back, wary, wounded.
The man was, perhaps, in his forties, though the loss of all his hair made it tough to discern his true age, and he was wrapped in a robe of blackest night, with a staff to hand wrought in the shape of a snarling snake’s head that matched the sunken, venom-filled eyes of its owner.
The most startling thing of all, though, was the colour of his skin, the unmistakable contours of his once-noble chin and cheekbones.
This man was a Plainsman.
He had the whiff of spirit-craft about him, the same familiar odour he’d smelt when Wrynn and Lanah had worked their magicks, but this smelt gone off, sour, as though corrupted, like milk left out too long in the sun.
Stone growled, his spit flecked with blood, unsurprising after the blow he’d taken.
“Traitor…”
The other shaman smiled, humourlessly.
“Do not believe everything that old fool Wrynn taught you, young one. It is not treachery, but logic that brought me here, where the shaman is not bound by rules, free to pursue other… ahem… avenues of knowledge.” His eyes twinkled, darkly, with forbidden mysteries. “There are powers in this world beyond that of the mere elements, my friend. Powers that demand our obedience.”
A cold shiver went down Stone’s spine at the words, remembering the revelations about himself as spoken by the Avatars. Instantly he pushed the feeling from his mind; he was no pawn, no weapon to do someone else’s bidding. He was himself, master of his own destiny.
“No power that demands obedience is ever worthy of it!” he roared, feeling the familiar warmth of fire flaring with relish along the channels of his soul, ready to be unleashed in a devouring blast of heat. “Respect is earned through strength of character and brave deeds.”
The dark shaman laughed, heartily, his voice the dry, rasping of saw on wood.
“Pretty words, stripling, but naïve. When you have enough power, respect comes to you whether people believe you’ve earned it or not.”
“Then respect this!”
He threw his hands forwards, feeling the roaring fire clamouring to be released, granting its wish, a superheated plume of rippling air emerging in a cone from his palms, ready to scorch and blacken, burn to a crisp.
The barbarians stumbled backwards, screaming, protected from the brunt of the wash by sheer distance, but Raga and the shaman stood, unflinching, the sorcerer’s staff raised in front of the two like a warding shield, the furnace air parting visibly in front of them, blackening the stone of the ground on either side.
Screaming, Stone unleashed the full fury of his rage, till he finally succumbed to exhaustion, hands dropping to his sides, fire spent, the spirits already clawing for a piece of his soul. His eyes widened in disbelief as his two foes simply stood before him, unharmed, smiling, the barbarians rising all about, moaning, skin red from flash burns.
Raga spoke, even as he turned to walk away, his unwavering confidence infuriating.
“Take him to a holding cell for now. Later, I will wish to learn all about him. For now I have an auction to watch, shekels to earn. Starting,” he pointed to Raine, swinging, tears streaming, in her dangling prison, “with that cage there.”
“No!” screamed Stone, charging forwards to tackle Raga.
Once more, bolts of black lightning shot out from the sorcerer’s staff, sending Stone skidding across the floor, body writhing as it contended with unnatural, insidious energies trying to burn him from the inside-out.
His vision blacked out. A dry, crackly voice chuckled evilly in the darkness.
“I shall enjoy ripping the memories from your mind, shaman.”
***
His head pounded as though he’d been out in the burning sun for days and his tongue felt like a strip of leather in his mouth. His eyes were heavy, like they had lead weights attached to the lids, but he forced them open anyway. He looked about the small room he found himself in, blinking away the bright light, till it receded to nothing more than a dull glow from a solitary oil lamp that swung, gently, from the ceiling.
He was naked, stripped of his stolen clothes and his hands and feet were bound, manacled, chains tying him upright against the cold, stone wall. His arms were stretched painfully above him, the wound on his shoulder from the crossbow bolt already healing, even contorted in this awkward position, a long trail of dried blood encrusted against his flank.
Tentatively, he tested the chains, straining with all his might, but they wouldn’t give. He sniffed, before closing his eyes, imploring the strength of earth to fill his limbs, to give him the strength he needed to wrench the chains from the walls.
He frowned in confusion, for no matter how hard he willed it, the power of the earth couldn’t reach him. It was a different feeling from when he’d been in the lair of the elements; there, the power had been denied by its source, as they’d sought to test him. Here, it felt more like the power of the elements was being denied access to him. It felt suffocating, as though he were a candle, trapped under a jar, slowly being starved of air.
He gazed about, eyes finally taking in the detailing on the walls, carved inscriptions and symbols that he didn’t recognise, that seemed to swirl and change, hurting his head if he looked on them too long. Yes, there was the source of the interference; the symbols were acting as some kind of barrier, preventing the power of the elements from reaching inside this room.
He shuddered as he remembered the boundless might of the Avatars, wondering what kind of force could possibly deny them, but his train of thought was interrupted as the wooden door across from him burst open, a pair of Clansmen marching in, eyes on him, wary, hands on the hilts of their scimitars, before being followed by the sorcerer and – to Stone’s confusion – a young girl.
“Leave us,” the sorcerer commanded the guards as the young child made her way over to a chair in the corner and sat down, eager, as though ready to watch a re-enactment or listen to a campfire story.
The door closed with a slam of finality, sending the lamp rocking in the draught, the shadows careening from one side of the room to the other as the sorcerer turned his attentions to Stone.
“You intrigue me, shaman.”
“You’re not the first to tell me that, traitor.”
The sorcerer smiled.
“My name is Goraht, but traitor will do just fine.”
The name didn’t sound right to Stone’s mind, not a Plains-name, but one the sorcerer had taken when he’d moved to the Steppes as a way of ingratiating himself. Traitor in name, as well as deed. He nodded over at the young girl.
“You regularly bring children with you to witness your handiwork?”
The bald man’s mouth opened, hand flying to cover it in mock embarrassment.
“Oh, but my manners! This is my daughter. Ceceline, say hello to the man.”
The young girl waved at him, no older than six or seven, long, dark hair almost covering the smile across her angelic face as her blue eyes twinkled in amusement.
“You’re sick, sorcerer, involving an innocent child in your evil deeds…”
“Hah! You misunderstand things, shaman; I didn’t summon her here, she’s here by choice, wanting to learn.” He turned to his daughter. “Aren’t you, my dear?”
By way of answer, the girl raised a finger, before drawing an imaginary line in the air with her nail. Stone gritted his teeth in pain, looking down in horror as a thin line of blood drew slowly across his left pectoral, as surely as if someone were wielding a knife.
The little girl laughed at his obvious pain, her blue eyes no longer innocent, now, he saw, deep wells of twisted amusement.
Her father
, however, narrowed his eyes in curiosity, moving closer as he watched the thin cut already sealing over, the blood congealing on exposure to air, scabbing with his body’s usual swiftness.
“Fascinating…”
The sorcerer looked up, fixing Stone with his lifeless grey eyes.
“What are you, shaman? How do you heal so even here, locked away from the succour of the elements?”
Stone spat at the man, for what it was worth, the dryness of his mouth robbing the gesture of most of its symbolism.
The young girl, Ceceline, giggled, clapping her little hands together in glee.
“I think he wants to do things the hard way, papa.”
The sorcerer smiled, face contorting to reflect his evil intent.
“Very well… Watch and learn, my angel, for this is how we sorcerers earn our bread and butter in the halls of the Barbarian King…”
He raised his wizened, clawed hands, grasping Stone’s head with long, filthy fingernails and Stone gasped in horror as icy tendrils of the sorcerer’s cold, evil soul began forcing their way into him, wrenching aside his unprepared mental barriers, sifting at will through his most intimate memories, his friends, Lanah.
Stone shook his head from side to side in an effort to break the connection, to force the wizard from his mind, garbling and gibbering at the sheer violation taking place in his head, the sorcerer grinning, in cruel, sadistic glee as, all the while, his daughter bounced up and down on the chair in excitement.
“Ah, Stone, you have such a wealth of sweet, sweet memories.” He licked his lips as though sampling a particularly fine vintage of wine. “Oh, the flavour, the sensations.”
The sorcerer found the memories of Stone’s trip to the realm of the Avatars, discarding them, passing by, for he had undertaken the Journey himself once before, focusing instead on the hazy wall of grey he saw at the end of Stone’s mind.
“Well, well, well, what have we here? A barrier, eh? Think you can hide things from me?”
He pushed on, hungry to know everything, reaching the fuzzy nothingness that sprang up several months back in Stone’s memory, not subtly prodding it as Lanah had done, all those months ago, but assailing it, tearing into it with glee, as a child rips open the paper wrappings of a long-awaited gift.
Stone convulsed with the brutality of the intrusion, foam gathering at the corner of his mouth, feeling but not seeing what his torturer was searching through.
Finally, the veil parted before the sorcerer’s eyes and his face lit up with triumph, but only for an instant, before the smile faded, the blood draining from his features as he took a step back in horror.
The connection broken, Stone breathed out a long, juddering sigh as his mind recovered, aching, throbbing with humiliation, before turning his eyes to the sorcerer.
Goraht was looking about now with frantic, fear-filled eyes, as though expecting the very roof to collapse in on his head.
The steady glow from the oil-lamp flickered and died, plunging the cell into darkness and Ceceline cried out in fear, her bloodlust lost now, reverting back to the pitiful mewling of a seven year old girl.
“Papa, what’s…”
Abruptly, the symbols on the walls all erupted in blazing, orange flame, casting the room in a hellish hue, the smell of brimstone and sulphur filling the air with its acrid potency.
Screaming, Goraht turned to flee, but the handle of the door would not turn, refusing to open as he flailed at it with his wiry arms. A low and sinister whispering began to rise up, slowly, insistently and, with horror etched upon his face, the sorcerer turned, falling to his knees in the centre of the room.
“I… I didn’t know!” He gibbered into the air. “I wasn’t meaning to tamper!”
The whispering grew in volume, mocking, insidious, a thousand voices overlapping and pulling in a myriad different directions, often contradicting yet the message coming through clearly all the same.
We know you meant nothing by it, Goraht.
Stone froze, the whispering that grated on his soul sounding eerily familiar, but he couldn’t place it, his mind refusing to go there. The voice continued.
All the same, Stone has a purpose greater than yours, Goraht. And you threaten his life. This cannot be allowed.
This was the message delivered to the trembling sorcerer, conveyed by a thousand voices in a thousand different ways, mocking him, laughing at his failures, leaving no stone unturned in their humiliation.
“No!” He cried out, in desperation. “I still have a use! I can still be a loyal servant!”
Your purpose is fulfilled, sorcerer. There is no further use to you.
A series of clicks echoed amidst the roaring of the unnatural flames.
Goraht turned, eyes brimming with fear-brought tears as he saw Stone massaging his wrists, the manacles that bound him having been opened by supernatural means.
“No! No!”
The sorcerer brought his hands up to ward off the naked warrior, attempting to summon once more the lethal black lightning, but whatever power once fuelled him was now being denied.
Destroy him, Stone. End this wretch.
Stone loomed over the man, now rendered pitifully small and impotent without his access to the dark powers. His mind still reeled from the mental rape he’d just endured and vengeance burned hot and bright in his veins.
Yes. Focus on the humiliation, Stone. He tore through your mind, ripping you apart as though you were no more than a piece of meat. How cruel. How humiliating. You cannot let a man live that has seen what he has seen. Your darkest moments. Your most intimate of times. Lanah.
Loathe as he was to be commanded, something spoke to him, telling him that this voice was an important part of his past, how he came to be in this world. Whether this meant he should trust it, he didn’t know, however, he lowered his defences, allowing the whispers’ words inside.
A bubble of rage welled up inside Stone, then burst, his limbs flooding with anger, grabbing the frail shaman as he tried to flee in futile terror, raising him up and throttling the life out of him, till his eyes bulged and his tongue hung, blue and swollen from his drooling mouth.
He dropped the corpse, turning, eyes filled with a bloodlust not yet spent, to the young daughter who had sat, mocking, enjoying his humiliation at the hands of her father.
The pair looked at each other, the giant and the child, a simmering hatred crackling the air between them, her fear swept away in her rage at him, her anger every bit the equal of his.
“Kill me,” the little she-witch spat, blue eyes a sea of stormy hate. “Kill me now, as you killed my father, or I swear I will hunt you down and destroy you when you least expect it…”
Stone raised his hand, one mighty fist poised to end the insolent bitch with one blow, but, before he could strike, the door burst open, allowing a cooling breeze of fresh air to waft over him.
Freedom.
Lanah. Raine.
Thoughts of vengeance forgotten, he dashed from the room, sprinting down the corridor, not noticing the two guards who lay outside the door, lifeless and grey, terror etched on their frozen faces.
Behind him, left alone in the dark cell as the flames began to die down leaving scorched and blackened runes upon the walls, the young girl stood by the corpse of her fallen father, her fists clenched and fury twisting her angelic face.
“Coward!” she cried after him, falling to her knees, voice trailing off to a quiet, sobbing mumble. “Coward…”
***
Stone flew through the twisting corridors of the sprawling underground labyrinth, still naked, smashing his way past startled servants in an effort to reach the light of the market.
At last, he reached the main tunnel, the entrance ahead, bright sunlight streaming through.
He ran towards it, but dark silhouettes heaved into view, barring his path, the two guards he’d earlier slipped by unnoticed. They drew their scimitars as he grew closer, ready to strike him down.
He tried to summon the
Falcon-Sight, but couldn’t, the spirits slipping away as if afraid to be near him, as though he were tainted by something foul that they couldn’t bear to be near.
The guards charged him, a war cry on their lips, lethal, razor swords poised to take his life, and he flinched, for he was unarmed, unarmoured, his shaman powers unavailable.
Allow us.
As the warriors reached him, they stopped momentarily, incomprehensible terror on their faces, before exploding, messily, the walls of the tunnel coated with their gore; their bones, their organs, their slippery innards dripping and forming congealing pools of matter on the tunnel floor.
Stone stood, shocked, his bare form spattered with thousands of droplets of crimson blood, before powering on, leaping over the terrible puddle, and bursting into the sunlight of the Market terrace.
Terrified screams and cries of alarm filled the air as the crowd strove to flee from his fearsome, gore-strewn form. He looked about, peering down the terrace to see the trading platform a hundred yards distant, the unmistakable forms of his villagers bound, chained, up for auction, leering fat merchants and barbarian princes thrusting hands high in the air in gleeful barter as they each sought to purchase the women for their own vile amusement.
With a snarl of rage, Stone ran down the sandstone steps, his bare feet crushing the rock to powder beneath him, leaping over shocked onlookers, barging through those that got in his way, sending people scattering like pins to fall, teeth smashing and heads concussed, to the hard floor.
In one of the boxes that housed the wealthy and elite, Raga stood, peering through the crowd to see the source of the commotion, eyes widening as he saw the tribesman flying towards the stage.
“Guards!”
The entire complement of Clansmen that guarded the Market answered his call, barging through the crowd with equal violence to Stone’s, forming a wall, three deep and ten wide, between the naked escapee and his goal.
The Descent to Madness (The Graeme Stone Saga) Page 23