Oathen

by Giacomo, Jasmine

  “Just get us inside. We’ll save Meena and deal with Oolat,” she replied.

  “Then ready yourselves,” Curzon breathed. He turned toward the deep blackness of the barrier.

  The darkness ahead of them melted away at Curzon’s will, revealing a set of stone-and-metal doors. The group could now hear Meena’s anguished cries from the other side, her voice ragged and raw. Sanych’s hands flared white. She sliced the doors from their hinges, and the others pivoted them away from the doorway. Sanych bolted through, and the others, save Curzon, rushed in behind her, blades and magic at the ready.

  The wide oval room was dark and sinister, its green-tinged, herbed air toying with her nose. Oolat stood at the far left, eyes closed, arms raised overhead in a beseeching pose. The Dire Tome itself rested near the doors on a black stone lectern, its thick pages rustling of their own accord.

  Between the book and the man was Meena. Her wrists were manacled to the floor, and her back arched in screaming agony at the touch of the yellow magic that swirled around her like a miasma. The floor beneath her was slick with her own blood.

  “—is pointless, thief,” Oolat was saying.

  “Torturing me to surrender to your spell won’t work,” Meena said through her teeth, as she swayed under the force of his yellow magic. “I’d rather die; it’s what I came here for.”

  Sanych stumbled to a halt as she heard Meena’s words. Salvor and Geret bolted past her.

  “You will not die. You will serve—” Oolat began, then belatedly noticed the intruders at the far end of the room. “You!” The yellow mist around Meena dissipated.

  “‘You’ll serve you’,” Salvor said, running. “I’m always getting accused of being self-serving. It’s so unfair.” He brought his fiery blue sword down toward Oolat’s neck.

  A second later, he smacked against the wall several paces away and slid to the floor. His sword skittered across several gemstone circles before coming to a stop near Sanych’s feet.

  Geret, wary, stopped a short distance from Oolat; Sanych could feel him trying to suss out a plan. Oolat raised his hands toward him, and Sanych raised her hands toward Oolat, but Ahm formed a thick metal cube over the cult lord, encasing him in steel.

  That works too, Sanych thought.

  While Geret ran to help Salvor, Sanych scooped up the nobleman’s sword and ran to Meena’s side, slicing through the manacle chain with a thin beam of light.

  “Meena, we’ve got you. Let’s get out of here.” Sanych helped her up, trying not to step in the pool of blood.

  “Take the Tome!” the Shanallar grated, her pained expression relaxing as her healing began to overcome Oolat’s damage.

  The pages of the book turned of their own accord, seemingly in response to its name. Then the room went black. But a moment later, the pale green light of the torches returned.

  “What a rude old man he is,” Curzon griped from the rear of the room.

  Oolat’s metallic cube exploded with fervent heat, sending hot metal fragments plinking off the walls and floor. Many of them also landed on Sanych and the others. Geret hissed and slapped a hot metal sliver from his arm.

  Ahm slammed another cube around Oolat and added a shielding dome.

  “See here, Ahm, you’re not doing much more than irritating the man. Come here and help me with this,” Curzon called.

  Sanych turned to see what Curzon was doing. The old hermit stood next to the lectern, seemingly unharmed in any way by the Dire Tome’s chaotic effects.

  “I can bind it for a while, but I’ll need you to create me a matrix.”

  “A what?” asked Ahm, standing at a safe distance.

  The Tome’s pages turned again. Violent horrors suddenly assaulted Sanych’s mind. Visions of death and agony swirled unchecked through her head. She heard everyone else crying out even as she shrieked in horror.

  Then the images were gone. Gasping for breath and clinging to sanity, she saw Curzon cross his arms and twitch his lip in annoyance.

  “Altogether uncalled for. Now make me a blanket,” the hermit explained, pointing to the book. “I’ll infuse it with anti-magic.”

  Ahm nodded. A thin, flexible weave of metallic fabric appeared over the Dire Tome, forcing its cover shut and draping to the floor on all sides. Its shiny surface reflected the torches with every curve of the metallic threads, making it appear green instead of silver.

  Curzon nodded and flicked a few fingers at the fabric. It did not change in appearance, but it folded itself around the Tome and tucked its ends in tightly.

  “There you go,” he said. “You can carry it now.”

  Ahm grinned and stepped close to pick up the wrapped book. “Thank you.”

  “Yes, yes.” Curzon waved Ahm’s gratitude away with a hand. He glanced at the metal capsule that enclosed Oolat at the other end of the chamber, then squinted up at the ceiling. In a moment, he smiled. “There. Now you can all vanish away without getting snared in any more barrier spells.” He waggled his fingers at Sanych. “You should hurry. The Tome will eat through my anti-magic eventually.” Without another word, he turned and headed toward the hallway.

  Geret helped Salvor limp over to Meena and Sanych. Ahm rushed to them, holding the book tightly.

  The second cube shattered, its fragments clanging loudly against the domed shield. A moment later, the entire room was filled with seawater, cold and dark. Sanych was lifted off her feet by the water’s buoyancy. An enormous bright white sea creature, its multitudinous tentacles bristling with wicked red-and-white spines, swam toward her. It grasped her, Geret and Salvor and drew them toward a three-sided mouth that yawned wide to receive them.

  And then it was gone, along with its ocean. The three would-be meals fell back to the floor with Ahm and Meena.

  “Go!” Curzon shouted as he stood in the doorway. “I’ll delay the little turdling from following you.”

  Everyone stared at him.

  “Always wanted to try being the hero, deep down,” he said in a quiet voice.

  “To the Deep Gateway, Sanych,” Meena said, grasping her arm.

  With a final glance at the now-vibrating shield dome, Sanych nodded. She blinked out, taking the others with her.

  ~~~

  With an ear-rending shriek, the dome shuddered into ash-like fragments that wafted to the floor in a large heap before dissipating into nothingness.

  The sorry creature that stood before Curzon made him furrow his white brows in consternation. Oolat was covered in oozing burns and soot, and his black attire was now merely blackened.

  “My, aren’t you a sight,” he said. “Little boys who don’t listen to their mothers when they’re told to wash up apparently grow up to be slovenly cult lords.”

  “The body will serve a while longer,” Oolat said through a raw throat.

  Curzon tipped his head, fingering the nubs in his favorite braid. “Ah. That’s how it is, eh? Well, I’m afraid—” he surrounded Oolat with a barrier of anti-magic, “I can’t let you go after them like that.”

  “You dare?” Oolat’s white eyes widened in outrage.

  “And why not? You only live once, unless you’re truly unlucky.” Curzon flicked the braid over his shoulder and let out a reckless cackle. “So this is the rush heroes feel when facing near-certain death, eh? It took me eighty cycles to feel it, but now I can die happy.”

  “And die you shall! You, old man, are the reason my followers have suffered at the hands of the Scions. You will not hamper my plan further.” Oolat raised his hands and tried to force magic through Curzon’s barrier.

  Curzon giggled at the look on Oolat’s face as he failed.

  Oolat strode forward. Curzon kept the field wrapped tightly around him, but he didn’t want this fight to degenerate to a game of chase. Even the burnt and crispy Oolat, while powered by the Dire Tome’s energy, could eventually catch him.

  “That’s far enough, you evil little book-man. Your unholy alliance is at an end.”

  “You cannot s
eparate me from my avatar, mortal.”

  “I can separate you from every magic spell you’ve ever cast,” Curzon said with a smirk. He flicked his index finger in a small arc toward Oolat’s head. A look of horror came across Oolat’s burned face, followed by ecstatic joy.

  “You’ve freed me!” Oolat exclaimed in disbelief, taking another step toward Curzon.

  The hermit nodded, still keeping his shield in place.

  “You have no idea how horrible it was to be trapped in my own head, helpless to watch as another controlled my every move, letting my body suffer endlessly!” Oolat’s hands clawed in recollection. “I owe you my very life.”

  “I didn’t do it for you.” Curzon’s eyes were drawn to the horrible burns that covered Oolat’s exposed skin.

  “I know your loyalty still lies with your friends,” Oolat said, coming to a stop. “The best way I can thank you—” he said, holding his hands out in friendly greeting, “—is to kill you quickly.”

  ~~~

  Oolat shoved his magic through Curzon’s relaxed shield. The hermit managed a squawk of surprise before a sphere of shadow enveloped him entirely, enclosing him in its vast, endless depths.

  A broad section of the sphere vanished, and Curzon tried to scramble out into the light, but Oolat slammed more shadow around the hermit, encapsulating him again. Another section evaporated, and Curzon managed a couple of steps before the cult lord caught him. Over time, the sections of the shadowy sphere that Curzon erased became smaller and smaller, until only a thumb-sized hole appeared, over and over, like a stream of bubbles popping one by one on the surface of a murky pond.

  Oolat held the shadow sphere in place for a long time after the bubbles vanished. When he let it dissipate, Curzon’s limp body tumbled to the floor, his long white braids splaying wildly.

  Oolat looked down on the body. “Old fool. You assume everyone is as you are: kind, helpful, willing to forgive and be forgiven. A fatal mistake.”

  He stretched his silvered hand toward the corpse at his feet and collected a prize, then teleported out of the ritual chamber in a blast of shadow.

  ~~~

  Outside the mullioned windows of the palace, a light drizzle fell upon the trees and shrubs of the royal gardens. The wind breathed tiny drops against the glass, where they melded into a delicate sheet and slid off the frame, dropping to the brickwork three stories below.

  The misty-haloed lamps on the grounds below were lit only beneath this window. The deciduous trees in the gardens outside wore their leaves in riotous reds and yellows, wet and shiny in the circles of light. A few pointed leaves had already twirled to the bricks and shrubbery below.

  A pale face, unlined and clean-shaven, stared through its own reflection, watching the wind toy with a small branch a few feet from the lamp closest to the window. The brown eyes stared vacantly, blinking only when necessary.

  As they had for eleven years.

  Soft, unseen rustlings indicated that the day nurse was leaving out for the night. Her words of farewell to him meant little.

  Time passed unnoticed.

  The man’s head collided with the window without warning, and his eyes widened as he staggered back into the center of the room. His hands flew to his head as he stumbled to his knees, a howl of confusion and fright echoing around the room.

  Chaos erupted as a dozen guards rushed into the room, swords bared. The man, seeing their invasion, scrambled onto his large four-poster bed. He gabbled in fear and warded the men away with his hands, leaving them baffled and concerned.

  Beret Branbrey was summoned from his finance meeting by a servant with frightened eyes. Her quick whispers into his ear caused him to leave the meeting with rude haste, and he outdistanced her with his long strides, climbing the stairs and hastening down the hallway to his son’s chambers. Briefly, he considered sending for Anjoya, but recalled she was at the Temple of Knowledge with Braal Runcan and Halvor Thelios this evening.

  He thrust the door open and looked around for Addan, finding him crouched on the bed, panting. The Magister sighed in relief; his son looked perfectly healthy. After the poison scare, Beret had been worried about a short-sighted act of revenge from one of the executed Counts’ loyal followers.

  The guards had sheathed their weapons by now, and stood waiting for the Magister’s orders. He nodded them out of the room.

  “Addan,” he began, approaching the crouched figure on the bed with measured steps. “It’s all right. The men have gone away. Your night nurse will be along shortly, and then you can get some rest.”

  A frown came over Addan’s face. “She has cold hands!” he argued.

  The Magister blinked. He couldn’t recall the last time Addan had frowned, let alone dissented. The young man rarely spoke, and when he did, it was never in a contradictory tone. He simply accepted the world around him, unaware that there was an option to disagree. But now…

  Beret looked deeply into the his son’s eyes. “Addan?”

  “Yes, Papa?”

  “What year is it?”

  “It’s 1050. Geret’s birthday party is coming up. He’ll be six.” Addan looked pained for several moments before continuing. “No, that…that feels like it happened a long time ago. I can’t remember what year it is now.”

  Beret stood stunned, hope’s light gleaming in his mind like the promise of a new sunrise.

  Addan cocked his head, sitting down on the bedside and dangling his legs off the edge. “Is Geret coming today? Or Anjoya? Or that nice lady that helped me once…I tried to thank her, but…everything went funny again before I could.”

  A silent tear ran down Beret’s cheek as he sat on the bed next to his son.

  “What’s wrong, Papa?” Addan asked, laying a hand on his father’s shoulder. Then he stared at it. “Is this my hand?”

  Beret laughed, still deliriously amazed, and clasped his grown son’s broad shoulders. Meeting his eyes, he said, “It is, Addan. You’ve done a bit of growing. And as for Geret—” The Magister had to pause as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him. When he trusted his voice again, he said, “As for your cousin, he has saved you from all your years of troubles. He traveled far, far away to set you free, and may not be back for quite some time, but I know this, my son: he will be very happy to see you when he returns.”

  Addan beamed. “And I’ll be happy to see him, too! I bet he’ll have a great story to tell me; Geret always had the best stories.”

  “I’ll want to hear his story, too, Addan. I surely will.” The Magister’s emotional control broke, and he enveloped his son in an enormous hug, weeping. “How I’ve missed you, Addan! How I’ve missed you!”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  At the bottom of the Deep Gateway’s steep, multi-level spiral ramp rested an enormous underground chamber, lined row upon row with the ornate tombs of Shanallese royalty from ages past. At the head of each sarcophagus was a larger-than-life statue of its occupant. Those who had presided over times of war held weaponry, and those who reigned in peace held scrolls containing maps or treaties, items that depicted their lasting contributions. Their shadows flickered eerily in the light of Sanych’s makeshift torch: the group had entered the volcano’s magic dead zone as soon as they’d passed through the Deep Gateway, and Sanych couldn’t create a magical spark if her life depended on it.

  Yet neither Salvor’s sword nor the silvery wrapping around the Tome had vanished. Ahm explained that it had to do with existing items versus new spells; he considered it a weakness in the dead zone’s defenses. Meena countered that it was a good thing, since it had allowed her and Arisson to protect themselves from the Tome last time as well.

  Sanych, having tasted the power of magic, now felt its loss keenly. The defensive space that wrapped around the mountain beneath its volcanic skin did not allow any magic-users to cast spells within it. Its original purpose was lost, but it had been co-opted by Shanallese royalty in order to protect them during times of upheaval. Those who sought to infiltrate the
royals’ hiding places also took their chances against the mechanical traps they had constructed over the centuries.

  Unfortunately, that left Sanych and Ahm bereft of their magic until they passed through the zone and into the Heart of the Dragon. On the positive side, any Dzur i’Oth pursuers would be stripped of their magic as well.

  Along the wall, between the rows of sarcophagi, numerous alcoves held dusty, expensive treasures, each a thief’s dream. Geret stepped closer to get a better look at one of them, his nose wrinkling from the odor of dry, dusty crypt air. Meena had already told them to step only on the large pavestones that were marked with the Seal of Shanal—the dragon symbol of the royal house. Any that were not so marked might hold a pit trap below. But as he edged closer to an enamel vase swirling with red and green dragons, his foot edged over onto an unmarked pavestone. It clicked under his boot, snapping in half along its short axis and dropping away, revealing a small collection of oily-tipped metal spikes waiting to puncture his flesh.

  Pinwheeling, Geret managed to avoid falling into the trap long enough for Salvor to reach over and drag him back to safe footing.

  “Fool,” the nobleman chided. “Were you not listening when Meena said ‘don’t touch anything’?”

  A rush of irritation and fear for his safety from Sanych made Geret feel doubly bad. “I didn’t touch it,” he said, bristling. “Paver must have a hair trigger.”

  “More likely you have sticky fingers and the ash of a thousand scrolls for brains,” Salvor grunted. “You really want to test that Oath of yours this way?”

  Embarrassed, Geret brushed past him and hopped across the Seal-stamped pavers until he reached the others. Meena stood before a vast mural of historical scenes, carved in bas-relief and painted in thick, vibrant hues.

  “Nearly done,” she said. Her hands pushed a hidden button disguised as a basket of maize.

  “You still have eleven images to choose from,” Sanych said, counting an image of one king kneeling to another, a ship battle with trained sea monsters, and more still scattered down the length of the wall carving.