Darkmage

by M. L. Spencer

  “The signal,” Wellingford whispered to himself through the almost paralyzing fear that gripped his heart.

  The black turmoil above surpassed anything even his nightmares had ever conceived. He had been expecting something big, perhaps even terrible, but nothing as darkly evil as the sickness above that had enveloped the sky. The boy that was still in him wanted to turn his horse and run, gallop away as fast and as far as he could. But the new-found man within him knew that he had a duty to perform. A duty that, at all cost, had to proceed.

  General Wellingford drew his sword from its scabbard, striving to keep the point of the blade steady as he held it skyward over his head. Raising his voice, he addressed his men:

  “They must be kept within the eye of the vortex! Ring them in to the line, push them up against the mountain as close as you can. They’ll try to run, but accord them no escape. We have but one chance at this; there’ll not be another. Do not fall back!

  “Now, FORWARD!”

  With a downward slash, he leveled his sword in the air. The blade did not waver in his hand, so unlike the heart that faltered in his chest. He was but a boy, but he was also a man with a homeland to defend. Wellingford held his breath as, before him, twelve thousand men rushed out from behind the cover of the ridge, the sound of their charge shaking the very ground and trembling the air around him.

  As Swain had promised, they were almost exactly an hour late. As always, Kyel rode at the front of the column beside the dark-haired captain. He had fidgeted in the saddle the entire ride, afraid of what awaited them up ahead. He strained for a view of Orien’s Finger, but the sight of it was still blocked by a range of hills that stretched out in front of them to the north. What he did see ahead was strange, and strangely disconcerting.

  “What is that?” he wondered, pointing at a dark patch in the distance that was almost hidden from sight by a small grove of trees, pushed back against the rise of the protruding ridge.

  Swain squinted, a frown of concentration on his face. Slowly, a look of fascination dawned in his eyes, and he whispered confidently, “It looks to me like a bunch of fools. Something tells me you held back a few tidbits of Darien’s plan.”

  “I told you what I knew,” Kyel replied defensively. “He’s the one who didn’t share everything with me.”

  Swain looked decisively skeptical. “So, you’re telling me you had no idea that an army from Chamsbrey was going to be meeting us here?”

  Kyel shook his head, wondering what on earth Chamsbrey’s presence could mean. He didn’t wonder long. Looking up into a sky suddenly dark and gray, he saw with dread that the sun had gone a pasty shade of white. And then Orien’s Finger came into view around the edge of the ridge in front of them. At its summit, Kyel took in the sight of a spiraling mass of black, sinister-looking clouds. Appallingly unnatural, the dark clouds spread outward like a twisting, churning saucer that was rapidly increasing in size. Kyel stared up at it, horrified.

  At his side, Nigel Swain was staring at it, too. Softly, the captain muttered, “Not dangerous, you say?”

  Kyel barely heard him. He was watching that writhing, circulating mass with a feeling of acute disbelief. That couldn’t be Darien. It couldn’t be. The thing in the sky looked evil; there was no other word for it. And the sun...whatever corruption had been done to the sun was repulsive. Something malevolently vile was taking place ahead, something both hideous and terrifying.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  Beside him, Swain never took his eyes off the abomination in the sky as he answered, “I have no idea.”

  The ground before them sloped away and Kyel pulled his horse up, transfixed by the unimpeded view ahead. In the distance he could see Orien’s Finger with its black, swirling crown. At its base was almost the mirror image of what was taking place above it in the sky. Kyel could see the dark mass of the vast Enemy host ringed by a thin line of infantry desperately fighting a pitched battle to hold their line. The scene was as heartrending as it was appalling. The army from Chamsbrey had no chance; their numbers were like a child’s dike of sand trying to hold back the rising flood of a river.

  In the sky above, the black clouds rumbled. A low-pitched, resonating thunder built gradually, increasing until Kyel could feel it in his chest. The sound of it swelled, unrelenting. His horse reared, almost throwing him off, as all around him the mounts of the officers were all doing the same. And still the echoing thunder rose. Kyel jumped down and grabbed his horse by the bridle, holding it with one hand as he tried to wrap his other arm around his head to cover his ears. The rumble became a thrumming, regular vibration.

  And then the entire world went black. Looking up, Kyel saw that the racing dark clouds had utterly consumed the sky. They swirled overhead, raging. The only light to be seen was at the summit of Orien’s Finger. There, a white brilliance gleamed from out of the darkness, pulsating with the rhythm of the rumbling vibrations that shook the air and seemed to tremble the very foundations of the earth.

  Kyel’s horse reared again, knocking him to the ground. The gelding bolted, galloping away, but he hardly noticed; his wide eyes were fixated on that pulsating beacon of light. At what was happening above it.

  An explosion of orange-yellow flame streamed upward from the summit, blazed there for a span of seconds, then immediately turned and swept back down upon itself. It poured over the sides of the crag, spilling like a ferocious, glowing waterfall to rush outward in an expanding cloud that whipped across the plains. There was a brief, blinding flare of light that made Kyel scream as he threw his hands up before his face.

  Then it suddenly vanished, as if stopped by an invisible and impregnable wall. The noise of it hit, a terrible, air-splitting thunder like the sound of all the Heavens collapsing straight into Hell. Then the sound was gone, dying almost as abruptly as it came. A warm wind like a summer breeze drifted toward them from the crag, billowing great clouds of dust up high into the air.

  Kyel watched from the ground, mouth gaping, unable to believe what his eyes had just seen, what his ears had just heard. It had taken only seconds. Just seconds. Nothing could have survived that.

  At the summit of Orien’s Finger, the white light faded to a dim afterglow, then died away completely. Overhead, the sky was still encased in darkness, though the clouds seemed to be swirling less rapidly. Below, on the plain, nothing moved. No sound could be heard over the appalling stillness that had taken hold of the morning. Kyel sat and looked out into the darkness, his mind completely numb, heart heavy with tears.

  Darien opened his eyes to find the thanacryst nuzzling its head against his face, whimpering. His vision blurred, and for a moment there seemed to be two beasts leaning over him. The images wavered, gradually blending back into one. The thanacryst was crouched beside him with its forelegs sprawled across his chest, panting furiously like an anxious dog. Doglike, it reached its head out and slathered the side of his face with its black and oozing tongue. The smell of the creature was foul, like stale, moldering death.

  The sky was dark, but not as dark as it had been. The unnatural night had given way to an overcast sky. The clouds above were drizzling, a gentle sprinkle that was oddly both warm and comforting.

  “Move,” Darien told the beast, patting his hand on the stone by his side. The thanacryst opened its mouth wide and whined a complaint, but complied by shifting its weight off his chest. The thing lay down beside him with its muzzle between its paws, looking thoroughly dejected.

  Darien rolled onto his side then weakly pushed himself up. He was sitting near the edge of the summit, though he didn’t remember getting there. Before him, the Circle was quiescent. Sadly, he realized that it would never awaken again; Orien’s Circle was ruined. The stone itself seemed to have liquefied and run, then cooled once more in rippling pools of slag. The Star itself was grotesquely twisted and distorted. The lights of its rays would never shine again. The abusive onslaught of power he had subjected it to had destroyed the Circle completely.

>   It was a waste, one of a great many wastes that had come from this day.

  He tried to push himself to his feet, but found that he lacked the strength for it. So instead he leaned back, resting his head against the thanacryst’s heaving side. He gazed upward at the gray, overcast sky and let the rain drizzle down on his face. Dimly, he could see the dark shadows of the necrators still present at their stations around the summit’s rim, silent guardians watching over him sightlessly. He found their presence strangely comforting.

  He closed his eyes and let his mind wander towards sleep, but almost as soon as it came, his rest was disturbed by a fragile sound from below. Sitting back up, he stared warily at the place where the stairs met the summit’s rim. Behind him, the thanacryst uttered a low growl. Darien did nothing; there was nothing he could do. If it was one of Renquist’s darkmages, then they would have him. The bone-weary exhaustion that filled him prevented him from even thinking about touching the field. He had a suspicion of whom it might be, and he wasn’t prepared for that challenge, either.

  But he was wrong. To his horror, it was Naia’s veiled face that crested the rim.

  She froze as soon as she saw him. Her dark eyes widened as she took in the vision of the necrators and the thanacryst at his back. Face pale, she gazed at him, openly appalled, slowly shaking her head. She was the last person in the world he wanted to see. He had wanted Naia to remember him the way he was; not like this. Anything but this.

  Slowly, she crept forward, eyes wandering over the melted Circle at her feet. Then she stopped, looking fearfully up at the form of the necrator that glided forward smoothly from its station to confront her. Darien frowned, not understanding the necrator’s sudden motion. Naia’s presence should not have provoked it; she was no mage.

  “Visea,” he whispered, and watched as all six of the dark shadows melted downward, disappearing into the stone.

  Naia looked back to him, aghast. But she pressed forward again, crossing the ruined Circle to stand before him, eyes on the thanacryst that was growling protectively, a low sound that rumbled up from deep within its throat. Darien put a hand on the beast, stilling it. Then he looked down, not wanting her to see the shadows that he knew consumed his eyes.

  She knelt beside him, reaching out a hand to touch his face. He shirked away from her touch, wincing as if in pain. Her hand found his hair instead, running through it soothingly. He closed his eyes, wishing to the gods that he was dead. If he were dead, she wouldn’t have to see him this way. Better that she gaze upon his corpse than be witness to the decayed corruption that had become of his soul.

  “Easy,” she whispered, trailing a hand down his cheek.

  He suffered her touch. A week ago he had longed for it. But Naia’s hand was pure and wholesome, and it had no business touching such a filthy thing as his face.

  “I’m here,” she soothed, leaning into him. “I won’t leave you again.”

  But that was not what he wanted; he needed her to go. He needed her to leave, right now, before it was too late. He tried to tell her, but he couldn’t bring himself to move his lips. He had missed the warmth of her touch, the scent of her hair. In the end, he was weak. He had always been weak.

  “Can you stand?” she wondered. “We must go down from here. It’s not safe.”

  He couldn’t understand why. The Enemy was no longer a threat; or, at least, they shouldn’t be. He felt confused. His senses were jumbled, and he was feeling even fainter now than he had before, as if Naia’s soft touch had sapped away the last vestiges of his strength. She stood up and, reaching around him, helped pull him to his feet. Darien staggered as the world seemed to lurch, but he managed to remain standing with Naia helping to support his weight. He had to lean against her heavily as she guided him across the destroyed Circle to the stairs.

  He could hear the sound of the thanacryst’s paws padding along behind, dutifully following its new master.

  Kyel walked at Swain’s side over charred and blackened ground. The blast from the Circle had created an almost perfect ring of devastation that extended out about a league from Orien’s Finger, where it suddenly just stopped. After that, the plains continued off to the horizons untouched, the snow at the transition not even melted. He didn’t understand it. But apparently someone else had; the remains of Chamsbrey’s army were wandering in dazed shock on the other side of the boundary, not daring to step foot within the ring of scorched earth. Someone had known where that boundary would be, and had positioned most of the soldiers on the other side of it during the battle, saving their lives.

  But the Enemy hosts had not been so lucky. Kyel picked his way carefully around what remained of the two armies, now reduced to twisted lumps of melted armor. There would be no graves dug here; there was nothing left to bury. Not even bones had survived the tremendous heat of the blast. The black soil that crunched beneath his feet glittered where it had been melted into glass.

  The sight was appalling. Even Swain was affected; the captain walked in silence, face constricted in a grisly scowl. Kyel found himself at a loss; he didn’t know how to feel. In a way, he was almost as dazed as Auberdale’s soldiers. A victory had taken place here today, though it had more the feel of a bitter defeat. War had been waged, but what kind of war, Kyel did not know. There was no honor in what had happened here today, only cold inhumanity. He found himself wondering if it was even worth it; his homeland was once again safe, but at what price? A price had been paid, and it was more than the sum of the souls that had been taken so brutally out of life.

  They walked on silently, each man groping within his own mind to come to terms with the horrors that confronted them. Ahead, Orien’s Finger loomed imposingly overhead, its sides scorched black, its summit appearing dangerously offset. A crack had widened near the summit and the stone itself had slipped forward. The entire top of the pillar seemed in danger of toppling at any moment. Kyel shivered, almost hoping to see it go. He never wished to see a repeat of what he had been witness to that day.

  They reached the base of the column of stone, feet still crunching on glass that here looked like dried and cracked pools of mud. Kyel stared down at one such puddle, wondering how hot the sand must have been to have become adulterated like that. It was beyond imagining, beyond horror.

  A hand on his arm made him look up.

  Swain had stopped, fingers reflexively going for the hilt of his sword, though he didn’t draw the blade. Kyel looked ahead to the base of the crag, and saw what had inspired the man’s reaction.

  Naia was sitting at the opening of a narrow stairway carved into the cliff, Darien’s head resting on her lap. His eyes were closed as if in sleep, Naia’s hand stroking gently through his hair. Behind them, a hideous beast sat on its haunches, panting. It looked almost like a dog—a dog exhumed from the grave. It drooled long strings of saliva that dribbled to the stone, pooling under its enormous paws.

  Kyel felt stunned by fear. He wasn’t even sure what provoked it, whether it was inspired by the repulsive beast or of the sight of Darien lying prone in Naia’s lap. Kyel couldn’t tell if he was dead or asleep, and he wasn’t sure which would scare him more. This was the man responsible for the atrocity that had turned even the very sand to glass, and the fell beast that lingered protectively above him only affirmed Kyel’s doubts.

  Swain moved forward and Kyel followed him, stopping as the captain knelt down at Naia’s side. The priestess looked up at him through her veil, an unspoken question on her face. As Swain moved a hand to Darien’s arm, the mage opened his eyes.

  Kyel turned his face away; he couldn’t bear to look at him. The shadows that had once wandered across the Sentinel’s eyes had since utterly consumed them. Darien’s face was a mask of pain. Not physical pain; it was as if his soul itself were crying out in misery.

  “I thought you’d come,” he whispered in a gravelly voice, staring up at Swain. The words didn’t even sound like his own. The beast above him whimpered, edging closer. Naia encircled her arms arou
nd him, looking suddenly, fiercely protective as she glared at the captain through the obscurity of her veil.

  “Then you know why I’m here,” Swain muttered softly.

  Darien nodded.

  “I can’t leave you Unbound,” the blademaster explained, sitting down next to him on the step below. “You’re too dangerous, now.”

  As Kyel watched, Darien grimly shook his head. “There are some things I have to do first.”

  Swain drew back, a considering look on his face. Almost kindly, he assured him, “Kyel is perfectly capable. He’s come along well. You’ve done what you had to do, now leave the rest up to him.”

  Naia was staring at Swain with a contemptuous look in her dark eyes. Darien grimaced, pushing himself up with effort. He squeezed his eyes shut as he leaned on the step above to stabilize himself. Kyel wanted to go to him, but something held him back.

  “It takes two mages working together to seal the Well of Tears,” Darien explained quietly. “Kyel can’t do it alone.”

  The captain shrugged indifferently. “Then leave the damn thing open. Come on. You knew the price before you started any of this. Don’t try to wheedle out of it now.”

  Darien glared at him outright. “You know me better than that.”

  “I don’t know you at all anymore,” Swain differed gruffly.

  Darien sighed, bringing a weary hand up to rub his face. “Aidan must be stopped. He’s using the Well of Tears to coordinate the Eight with the strength of the Enemy. If you leave him be, everything I’ve done here today won’t matter. They’ll just keep coming.”

  “I don’t know,” Swain muttered, looking around at the charred and blackened earth that surrounded them. “If you’re asking me to choose between you and your brother, I say I’d have to pick Aidan. From what I’m seeing, he’s the lesser of two evils.”