Gifts of Vorallon: 03 - Lord of Vengeance

by Thomas Cardin

  Iris leaned forward to take up Falraan’s hands. “Your young knight was incredible as well. He lit up the sky as his sword flashed across it like streaks of lightning.”

  “Believe me, he was hard to keep up there,” Lorace clasped Tornin’s shoulder. “I probably failed to get something under his feet every other step, but we started working together quite well.”

  “How were you able to do it, Lorace?” Tornin asked. “I was moving so fast the world seemed to be at a standstill. For me, I was up there what felt like an entire day. Yet you kept up with me.”

  “It was through the link I forged with your spirit,” Lorace explained. “I could see where your spirit was leading your steps just quickly enough to make a pad of air beneath your feet most of the time.”

  Iris narrowed her eyes. “Lorace, could you not have shielded the whole sky above us from them?”

  “Enclosing us in a barrier that size would have removed all the air for leagues around, suffocating us,” Lorace explained. “Perhaps if we were all on only one or two ships I could have done so and continued to bring air into them sufficiently for us to breath. As it was, forming platforms under Tornin, I was reusing the same air over and over, as I do with moving the ships. If we had not been continuously moving into new regions of air, very severe things would have begun to happen, like the tornado over the demons. With us floating in the air, that would have been disastrous.”

  “How will you be able to use your gift within the confines of Blackdrake Castle?” Iris asked.

  Lorace paused while he contemplated the size of the monstrous edifice, larger than the space Halversome’s walls enclosed. “I am thinking it would be best if that old pile of stone was no longer there.”

  “I do not think we will be able to simply tear it down with wind or even burn it with fire,” Iris said with chagrin. “Its stones have not weathered in the hundreds of years since the dragon Kamunki built the dreaded thing. Many artisans have tried to work the stone, but almost all failed. Only the wizard Losqua was able to pierce the stone when he erected the great doors of the throne room. The Devourer has made his lair in the deepest heart of Blackdrake, the very chamber where Elena slew Kamunki in ages past. Nor will the dead flesh of his body be much put out by removing the air from within its walls.”

  “Assuming he does not come out to meet us, we go in, it is my chain and my will that is going to destroy him,” Lorace said. “But we will still make the attempt at reducing the castle around him. We do not know what sort of monstrosities the blight of undeath has made of any of the living men who will fight with him.”

  “There should not be many,” Iris said. “The fiend had devoured all but a handful of guards, and only a few prisoners and slaves remained when I departed to join our forces before the gates of Halversome.”

  chapter 12

  THE COUNCIL OF WAR

  Last Day of the Moon of the Thief

  -upon the Vestral Sea

  We need a battle plan. Lorace arranged the ships’ hulls beside one another and called out over the bow, “Come, my friends, it is time to talk of war.”

  He raised the leaders of their respective forces up and placed them upon the bow of his ship, greeting them each in turn with a weary smile. “We have weathered our first direct contact with the forces of the God of Undeath. We have learned that there is a clear will behind all of this—a plotting and cunning intelligence that intended us to be caught blind to the threat of the birds.”

  Hethal spoke up. “I have been spending a lot of time with my visions, trying to determine what I may share and weighing it against the threat against us. I have followed the line of your destiny to its conclusion in either your death or ascension hundreds of times.”

  Hethal turned his head side to side, looking to Adwa-Ki, Prince Wralka, and Moyan. When his gaze returned to Lorace, he shrugged his stooped shoulders. “We cannot continue with this venture successfully if I remain silent any longer. If the sun rises once more and this creature you name the Devourer has not fallen, we all will fall. The God of Undeath will walk upon the corpse of Vorallon and re-awaken him as he has those bird monstrosities.”

  Lorace took a deep breath and increased the speed at which he drove the ships, cutting through the wind while holding the air upon their decks motionless. The strength to do so was coming ever easier to him, but to go any faster would risk the surviving crew who were already leaning hard into the acceleration simply to maintain their footing.

  “Is the Devourer opening a way for this God of Undeath to enter our world?” Iris asked.

  Hethal nodded, drawing his lips in a hard line before continuing. “The blight heralds his coming, preparing the way, for life is anathema to him. The Devourer is the gateway of the blight and only his complete destruction will halt its progress.”

  Lorace shifted his sight, following the tendrils of blight that sought the core of Vorallon. Their reach had drawn even closer. Without having to ask Hethal, he knew the touch of blight on the core would kill the living spirit of their world.

  “There is more,” Hethal said, meeting Lorace’s distant gaze. “The god watches through the gateway. It is warping the flesh of those it possesses with the blight, trying to build defenses to counter what its birds and fish showed it of our strengths. We will meet fierce opposition and if you attempt to destroy Blackdrake we will fail when it rises up even stronger.”

  After Hethal finished, and remained silent, Lorace spoke. “Is that all you can share with me?”

  “Yes, Lorace,” Hethal admitted. “There are still choices you must make. This is all I can tell you without sundering all hope of success.”

  “He changes what is true if he says more,” Lehan said, staring hard at Hethal. “The truth swirls around him uncertain.”

  Ah, so it begins. Lorace smiled at them. “Lehan, I would like you to meet Hethal. Hethal is gifted with visions of the future. I suggest the two of you spend some time together before we arrive at Blackdrake. Share your insights with one another. Together you may discover what it is we must do to insure our complete success—be they things you can tell me or not.”

  Hethal smiled in relief. “You have made a wise choice, Lorace. Come, Lehan, I have much to tell you.”

  Accompanied by Oen, the monk of Lorn took Lehan by the hand and withdrew to seek a quiet area.

  “Lorace this is not welcome news,” Iris said with concern. “This god has seen us in action and it is doubtless preparing defenses geared toward our strengths. It wants all life to cease, never mind the threat the Devourer alone poses.”

  “Yes, and compared to the strength of a god, Vorallon’s strength is that of an infant,” Lorace murmured.

  “It did not see what we are capable of when we are joined together with your chain, Lorace,” Prince Wralka offered. “We forged godstone without one stroke of a hammer—there is no limit to what we may do.”

  “I am counting on that,” Lorace said with a smile, swallowing hard on his grief over their losses to the blighted birds. “It saw Falraan’s fire and the glyphs light, as well as Tornin’s speed and the spells of Iris and our priests. It would certainly note the wind and these ships afloat in the air. Though I do not see how it could counter such things with warped bodies of the dead.”

  “I do not see how anything of darkness could defend itself from your chain either,” Iris added. “But Hethal sees the future undeniably, and he saw that it tries to build defenses. Combine that with his warning about the fierceness of opposition, and it means we will meet something that will, at least, partially counter our wind, fire, light, and unbelievable speed.”

  “We also know we must act quickly,” Adwa-Ki put forth. “The sun grows low on the horizon, how much longer until we reach Blackdrake as we move now?”

  Lorace reached out above the blizzard with his sight, until he could see where they were in relation to Blackdrake and how far they had come since the attack. “We reach Blackdrake very soon, just after night fall.”

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nbsp; “Assuming we meet defenders through the entirety of the Castle there is no telling how long it will take us to penetrate to the throne room,” Moyan said. “It is the deepest chamber.”

  “It has not seen my dwarves in formation,” Prince Wralka declared. “We are made for fighting in the narrows of castle halls and the depths of its dungeons.”

  Iris held up one of the godstone glyphs. “I am hoping we can drive back the blight before us with the light of the glyphs. We cannot dare any of it to touch us. We must strike the throne room before the blight can steal Vorallon’s life, which is all that prevents this god from entering the gateway. Surely it will work at slowing us down at every turn so that it can delay us until then.”

  “That is the crux of what Hethal warned us of,” Moyan agreed. “Even partial defense against our strengths may slow us down enough.”

  “And we must not attempt to destroy the Castle,” Lorace said. Why? “Who will cause it to rise back up? The spirit of Tezzirax manifested no such ability to my knowledge, and the god is acting solely through manipulations of the blight so far. Does this mean that we face yet another antagonist? What is so special about Blackdrake Castle?”

  “The dragon Kamunki built it hundreds of years ago,” Iris said. “It is like no other construction in that it is just a mockery of a castle, many halls lead nowhere and there are many chambers that serve no function. Legend tells that the dragon shaped it of his own will to lair as the ruler of all beings upon Vorallon. The warrior Elena, bearing a godstone spear struck down the dragon within the heart of his lair, the throne room, and his blood melted great pits in the floor in his death throes. In his final spasm he clutched Elena in his claws and fell into the bottomless depths of his own acid pits.”

  “Could that be our third antagonist?” Lorace asked, meeting Iris’s steady gaze. “Could the blight of this god have awakened Kamunki to undeath?”

  “So we face a giant demon spirit housed in deathly flesh possessed of a dreadful gift that makes it virtually immune to all but Lorace’s chain,” Sir Rindal summed up. “An undead dragon of epic legend, unknown numbers of blight-fleshed defenders, perhaps thousands of risen dead, a maze of halls and passages, and a god waiting to pounce on us at the moment of Vorallon’s doom.”

  Tornin chuckled. “Yes, but what are all of you going to be doing while I slay all that?”

  Everyone laughed with him as Falraan stretched up on tiptoe to kiss her husband on the cheek.

  Prince Wralka and Adwa-Ki began pressing General Moyan for more details about the chaotic layout of Blackdrake Castle, trying to surmise ideal defensive strategies given what they could guess about the blight-infected horrors they may face. Before retreating from the bow, they promised to share their best guesses with Lorace by the time they reach the castle.

  “Lorace, can we aid you to move us any faster?” Sir Rindal asked.

  “Thank you, Sir Rindal, but I think I have pushed us to our limit now,” Lorace told the paladin, gesturing toward their footing on the deck. “To go any faster will sweep men from the ships.”

  “Are you tempted to look into the castle with your sight, Lorace?” Iris asked.

  He paused before answering, “Tempted. I remember its halls from when I viewed it the first time, when the Devourer saw my presence.”

  “Surely he knows we are coming,” Iris said. “Is there harm in looking now, regardless of whether he can detect you or not?”

  “I think so,” Lorace said with a patient shake of his head. “He may be able to do more than detect me now. Worse still, if he alerts the God of Undeath of this facet of my ability, we arm our foe with more knowledge to use against us.”

  Iris pursed her lips. “If I had my library of spell books I could be of more use,” she said. “My gift is useless against the Devourer and the undead.”

  “But it is not useless against us,” Lorace said with sudden insight. “Iris you manipulate emotions, when I was trapped in my despair against that empathic demon, your image entered my thoughts and altered what I was seeing in my memory.”

  “I have not gone to great lengths to examine the effects of my gift from the recipient’s perspective, Lorace,” Iris said narrowing her eyes. “To what benefit can my gift be when turned on our own? They will fight bravely to the last for you as it is, nearly fearless due to the blessing of your chain.”

  “I want you to try to make me see something, not just an emotion,” Lorace said. “Preferably no emotion at all. I think your gift can work both ways. Just as I can shift my sight, would you try doing the same thing with your gift? Try to put an image from Halversome in my mind, some specific place in Halversome.”

  “If that worked I would not have needed your sight to view my memories of the glyphs,” Iris said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

  “Did you try, though?” Lorace asked with a smile.

  Iris was silent for a moment before she shook her head. “What about your chain, it will prevent me from even trying.”

  “I do not think it will, if it is not an attempt to alter my emotions,” Lorace said. “It does not prevent Oen from seeing my spirit, or Hethal from seeing my destiny, I think it is because they are passive and not destructive.”

  Iris studied him with a frown, her hands balled into fists at her hips.

  Lorace smiled and braced her shoulders. “I have every confidence in you, my dear, and if it fails, my chain will prevent any of your lusty coercions from working upon me.”

  “We trust in you, Iris,” Falraan said with a warm smile.

  Iris locked her eyes upon his. “Very well, I will try.”

  Lorace gazed back and tried to keep his mind blank, focusing on the cool depths of his tranquility alone. In his mind, he saw an image of the Voradin tree in the heart of Halversome. “I see the twins tree, we embraced beneath its branches.”

  “That is exactly it, Lorace,” Iris said, blowing out the breath she had been holding. “Now tell me how this helps us?”

  “Not yet, you must do more,” You must be confident in this. His heart urged. “Send another image, a different one, but this time; send it to all of us.” Lorace’s gesture included Sir Rindal, Tornin, and Falraan who remained at the bow with them.

  Lorace found himself seeing through Iris’s eyes. She shook with excitement as she unwrapped and looked upon her violet dress. He heard the words of amazement and appreciation she spoke to Falraan at the sight of it. Yes!

  “I do not know if I have ever seen anyone so delighted to get a new dress before,” Falraan said with a smile as Tornin and Sir Rindal nodded to show that they too had received the memory.

  “This is the first dress I have ever owned,” Iris’s smile was enough to brighten the darkening day. “It was the perfect gift!”

  Lorace asked, “Was that difficult to do?”

  “Well it was different from manipulating emotions,” Iris said after some thought. “But not difficult at all, I just had to push the memory as I would push an emotion. This is a wonderful new addition to my gift, but I do not see how this will help us against what we face.”

  Lorace reached out to her and lifted up the circle trapped upon the godstone chain at her breast. “With this you could be the voice of Vorallon. He is living and aware, but he cannot tell us what to do for him, up until now we have had to guess. Between what you and Falraan are capable of, his blessing of godstone makes even more sense. With Falraan’s gift he can strike at his enemies and with your gift he can communicate with us, his only defenders.”

  “I understand, Lorace, I do,” Iris said, her shoulders sagging in his grip. “But he could also enslave us, all but for you, completely to his will.”

  “He will not,” Lorace said, with a firm shake of his head. “He has our love already, who do we serve if not him? Who has given us life if not him? Vorallon gives us his benevolence freely. He will not betray us in this. The Lords of Balance exist because of him—their function benefits him in some way, as it does all of us.”

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sp; Lorace saw Iris swayed by his arguments. Trust in his love, Iris.

  “I love all of you,” Iris said to her gathered friends as her hand slowly lifted to the chain at her neck. “I am sorry if this causes any harm to anyone.”

  “Everything will be fine, Iris,” Falraan said, squeezing her hand briefly. “I know now I can trust him with my gift, and I know you can as well.”

  Iris slipped one perfect finger through the circle of godstone.

  chapter 13

  THE COUNSEL OF VORALLON

  Last Day of the Moon of the Thief

  -upon the Vestral Sea

  Lorace’s mind filled with a crescendo of sound and light. With an effort, he maintained his hold over their fleet, keeping them aloft.

  The light was the sun shining down upon his face, giving him life and strength. The constant pounding of waves upon the shores of his body and the thunder of storms chasing one another across the mountains of his back were the sounds of his first breaths.

  Lorace reeled to the rapid flood as everything flowed impossibly fast at first, the sun careening through the heavens in a streak of brightness from east to west, the lightning of the storms were a continuous blaze. Untold days, years, and eons passed before Vorallon truly awakened and the imagery slowed to a regular, cognitive pace.

  This is Vorallon’s first memory! Lorace thought.

  Iris’s voice spoke in his mind, pitched like a whisper, but overlaid with ponderous strength. Yes! This is my awakening. I do not see this as much as feel it. I spin with joy, held within the sun’s strong arms. I am thrilled to find the life upon me that has grown and flourished while I slept—I owe my awareness to these many sparks. I watch them closely and enjoy the dance they do upon me, this is everything, and I care for them. The loneliness does not come for many more swings about the sun.