Death's Knight

by Jena Rey

  With the exception of a few bug bites, he was in fine condition, and as she moved her way around him Star grabbed her by the cloak. She felt the tug and glanced at him. She considered pulling it away, but gave up on the idea. If chewing on a bit of fabric and leather made him happy, who was she to complain? She scratched his shoulder, removing a bit of dried mud. “Just another couple of days and this will be over. I hope.”

  The horse’s ear flicked toward the camp as Tabor roused the other two knights. Ianel spoke, and Star nearly bowled Ephema over as he twisted around, looking over her head to try and see Ianel. The Knight rose and muttered something to Tabor that was unintelligible from this distance, and Star whinnied happily.

  Ephema laughed, grateful for something worth laughing over. “I can feed you carrots, and pet your nose, but you will always love Knight Ianel best.”

  While the Knights worked on breakfast and packing, Ephema checked on Raven and Valor, grateful none of them had been injured by the bandits. She was fairly confident she could heal a horse, but she’d never tried and wasn’t sure she wanted to try out here. They were so much bigger that it might be too hard or leave her too tired to help the Knights. As much as she never wanted to choose, if it came down to it, the Knights were her priority.

  After a quick breakfast of trail rations and an apple split between the four of them, they were back on the move. The road through this part of the wildlands had not been traveled in a very long time, but at one point had been well-kept. Cobblestone, now overgrown with weeds and grasses, clattered underneath the horses’ hooves as they rode. The hours passed in a haze of wan light and the music of hoof beats.

  Early in the afternoon they rode into the ruins of a long dead city.

  Ephema kept looking around her, feeling more and more like they were being surrounded as the trees gave way to piles of stone and warped, cracked timber. The half circle of a well or an occasional shattered foundation showed where there had been a farmstead here and there, but those only lasted for a short time before they drew up into a series of what must have been shops and centers of living. Ephema heard echoes of voices carried just beneath the breeze and what seemed like laughter at the edge of her hearing, drifting around her and beneath the pounding of hooves. She kept catching glimpses of something in the shadows, but when she looked straight into the darkness, whatever it was would be gone. She had no description to give Darian, save her sense that ‘something’ was there.

  What they couldn’t see, the horses could definitely sense. All three horses slowed their pace the farther into the ruins they went. Evan Valor, the most solid of the three, shied and started to take mincing steps until he refused to go any farther. To Ephema’s relief, they had come almost to the temple street they’d been told to watch for. Darian helped her down from Raven’s broad back before he joined her. He removed his shield from the side of the horse, slinging it over his back.

  “Well, I suppose this is where we want to be. Awful place.”

  Ephema closed her hand around the globe at her neck, her fingers trembling though she tried to stop them. The chill that had begun before the dawn still haunted her, making it impossible to get warm no matter how she huddled in her thick clothing. “It looks very sad. We should hurry if we can. It would be bad to be here when the sun sets.”

  “Nowhere in the wildlands is a good place to be when the sun sets, but I agree.” Darian’s voice was calm, but Ephema knew he was as unsettled as she was. His hand rested on his mace, and his eyes constantly moved as they walked away from Raven, searching shadow and fallen stone. “Come. Let’s get this over with.”

  No one argued. They didn’t hobble the horses – horses like these had no need for it. They would wait until their masters returned or until they died, whichever came first. Tabor took the lead, Ephema walking behind him with the other two Knights to either side and slightly behind her. Tabor had been given general directions to the building they were looking for, though it took a few missed turns and backtracks before he came to a true stop.

  “I believe we are here.”

  The structure before them had been beautiful, once upon a time. Tall rose colored stone towers which must have once reached toward the heavens lay strewn in every direction, crumbled and smashed. An archway that showed the way into the depths of the shattered and desecrated temple was partially covered by more collapsed stone. One ruined door frame was still visible, the wooden door mostly rotted away.

  Tabor paced to the door and grimaced. “That’s not much room. Ianel, come. Give me a hand here.” He started to shove, and between him and Ianel, they shifted the debris enough to allow passage while Darian and Ephema completed a check of the courtyard, finding only more rot and overgrowth. Tabor brushed the dust off his hands and carefully pulled his maul in behind him as he entered first. “Dark as pitch in here. Everyone be cautious. Osephetin, guide me.” He murmured, and the head of his maul flared to life, illuminating the hallway beyond with a pale blue glow.

  Darian nodded to Ephema, gesturing at the arch. “Go on ahead. I’ll be right behind you. Better to have two of us back here if anything starts to shift around.”

  Ephema held back her fears, trying not to let them show in her expression, though she didn’t know if she succeeded. She wasn’t good at hiding what she felt or thought, but it seemed wrong to make things worse for the Knights. She tried a smile that felt fragile. “I wish we knew exactly where to look and what we were looking for. Though, it can’t be that big, can it?”

  “Hard to say. We’re looking for something that’s been missing for at least a hundred years. Some sort of reading device. I wish we knew if it would work. We just don’t have another lead to follow.” Darian paused and then snorted. “I’m starting to sound like my brother now. I’m sorry.”

  Tabor’s voice echoed back to them. “The Dark Lord and the Lady Goddess have given us this direction. We must have faith.”

  “I have faith in the Dark Lord. What I don’t have as much faith in is my own ability to know what it is He wants us to find here.” Darian murmured his own prayer, and his mace too glowed as he fell in step behind Ephema. “All of these exterior rooms have collapsed. Hopefully what we’re looking for isn’t in any of them. It would take weeks to move that much stone.”

  “Adaman said that the device was part of a puzzle and that it was important. If it was just in one of these outer rooms someone would have found it by now.”

  “Huh. I hadn’t thought of that.” Darian lapsed into silence as they carefully picked their way through the rubble and into the main building of the temple. The tunnel opened up into a proper hallway, and they found other rooms branching off into more recognizable chambers framed by rotted wood and cracked stone. Living chambers stood to one side, but had been gutted by fire, long ago. They found a dining area that vandals had cleared, though they found a crumbling table and a scattered handful of rough iron forks. In one large room, the walls and ceiling stood proudly and the ruined remains of a library loomed, a vast storehouse of knowledge lost to the march of time and decay.

  Darian picked up a tome and opened it, grimacing as the pages turned to dust in his hands. “Such a waste. I’m glad we didn’t bring Fressin. He’d have a heart attack and try to figure out a way to reconstitute the paper dust. Anyone find anything worth keeping?”

  Ianel called from where he was removing books from an old, lopsided shelf. “Nothing.” He sounded bored, which Ephema thought was probably the case. These were Knights, not librarians.

  She walked around the room, prickles of more than cold running along her skin. It wasn’t the heightened sensation of danger, or the overwhelming presence of evil she had felt before. This was like catching the warm draft from a fire, but not knowing the source. As she walked, she felt the flooring under her foot shift slightly, as though she had stepped on a loose tile.

  Ephema stopped and crouched to touch the wobbly stone. She stepped back, cocking her head, then dragged her foot over several of the tile
s to push the dust and dirt back. There were lots of small tiles in different colors and textures, like a picture. Or maybe a pattern?

  She knelt down and brushed back more dirt, trying to count how many colors there were, but it was too hard to see. “Is there a way to make more light? There are colors here.”

  “There is.” Tabor moved to the center of the room. “Dark Lord, I pray, light my way.” The light from his maul flared brighter. The light changed from blue to a pale, constant white. “This is as bright as I can make it for you. Where do you need it?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She ran to the north-most point of the room, trying to see out over the floor. It wasn’t enough, and she looked for a higher vantage point, finding an old window casement she thought she could climb to. She scrambled up a few stones, digging her fingers into gaps in the wall and pulling herself up step by step. The glass was long gone and greenery filled in the gap. Tiny pieces of slick stone shifted under her hands and feet, and she did her best to stand without starting any further collapse. She wedged herself in place, peering out over the room.

  Her eyes narrowed as she tried to identify the colored stones and find some sense to it. She rose up on her toes. “There are…maybe it is letters. I am not sure. It’s something though. Something purposeful.”

  Ianel knelt and inspected the floor. “I can see something, but it’s hard under the dirt and debris. Even close up.” He sneezed. “Anyone bring a broom along?”

  “Of course not.” Tabor shook his head. “We need to clear the way. Ianel, Darian, go back out and find long sticks and grasses. Lash them together as best you can. There is twine in my saddlebags. Ephema and I will move what we can.” He released the maul, though it remained standing where he left it.

  It didn’t take Darian and Ianel long to return with the supplies. They had created impromptu brooms, though the workmanship left much to be desired. When they returned, they bent to the task of helping Tabor and Ephema move the remains of furnishings to the edges of the room.

  With concentrated effort, the floor was cleared enough that they could see the tiles beneath their feet. After a short argument over safety, Ephema climbed back into the remains of the window. Darian handed her a piece of parchment and a charcoal stick.

  She carefully leaned back against the broken frame, holding the paper in one hand and drawing rough lines as she studied the floor. “There are two symbols, I think. Darker and lighter and they’re all tangled up.” She squinted, trying to get higher and see more. “Darian, I can’t see everything. Your light is brightest. Can you take it to the middle and put the others on the edges?”

  “Sure thing. Ianel, you take the west. Tabor the east. That should shed as much light on the pattern as we can.” Darian walked to the center of the room while the other Knights moved to the corners. Between the three holy weapons, the room was illuminated nearly as well as daylight. The symbols crisscrossed the room, covering nearly every piece of flooring and running through each other, creating a pattern that repeated itself every dozen steps.

  Ephema kept drawing, having to work to keep herself from falling and drawing all at once. She chewed her bottom lip, trying to figure out what the pattern was. It was like words, but not, and it was familiar, like something she’d seen before, but she couldn’t place from where.

  She sketched in another square then held the paper at arm’s length, squinting at it. She almost had it. If only… She turned the paper, looking at it on its side and the familiarity soared. She knew where she’d seen this pattern. It was on a wooden box that played music. Mother had kept it tucked deep in the cave and would bring it out sometimes when Ephema couldn’t sleep. They had taken the box with them when they left.

  The complex pattern on the lock looked like the drawing on the paper, intertwined symbols with a keyhole in the middle. A keyhole. She looked up.

  “Darian? Is there a hole in the middle? Where the black squares and the grey ones cross each other?”

  Darian peered at the ground by his feet. “Not that I can see…or… wait.” He scuffed at a suspicious clod of dirt with his foot. “Yes. Right here, though it’s pretty full of dirt.” He set his mace on the floor and cleared the hole out with his fingers. “It’s not deep.”

  “Something should go in there.” She frowned a little, thinking. “What does it look like? Maybe if it’s a certain shape it will tell us what to look for.”

  Darian held his mace closer to the hole. “It’s too dark to tell. I’ll see if I can see into the hole. Maybe there’s a latch or something.” He touched his mace with his other hand, murmuring in prayer. The runes along the haft joined the head of the mace in glowing, bathing him in light.

  Ephema nodded, putting a hand out to steady herself as the rocks around her shifted. It took her a second to realize it wasn’t just a stone or two turning beneath her feet. The wall was vibrating. “Something is happening!”

  Darian had no chance to respond as the stone squares in the floor flashed around him. The dark stone patterns pulsated with deep blue and the pale patterns in a brilliant, nearly-blinding white. It was more than light, showing angular runes on each tile, invisible to the naked eye until lit from within. The hole Darian had cleared flashed with both colors alternating, one after another.

  The power erupting from the keyhole solidified into two magic tendrils, one dark blue and one bright white. They wrapped around the mace and pulled it hilt-first into the keyhole, the tiles around the edges breaking under the force.

  The skull atop the mace turned skyward and screamed, a terrible wail that ran down Ephema’s spine and nearly made her scream with it. Mercifully, the scream only lasted an instant, drowned in a clap of noise and a brilliant flash that left her momentarily blind. When the light dissipated, the mace was gone.

  So was Darian.

  Ephema half-jumped, half-fell from the window. “No! Where is he?”

  Tabor and Ianel ran to the broken keyhole. Tabor’s eyes filled with horror. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “What…” Darian blinked in surprised as he picked himself up off the floor. At least it was no longer shaking. As the light faded, he tried to get his bearings. He blinked, stunned. The temple around him had changed. It was no longer decayed, crumbling, and falling down around him. Instead, it appeared as it must have a hundred years ago.

  The library was new, the bookcases shining with polish that showed their rich mahogany finish, with all the books ordered and stacked in pristine condition. The holes in the walls and ceiling had vanished, replaced with carved timber and etched masonry. The dust and dirt were gone, and sunlight poured through the small window showing the patterning on the floor, the colors as pure as the day the stone had been laid.

  The changes were stunning in and of themselves, but the biggest problem Darian saw was that Ephema and the other Knights were missing. He tried to pick up his mace from where it was lodged in the floor, but it remained sealed tight no matter how he pulled. He grimaced in frustration; whatever had pulled him here wasn’t going to release his weapon easily. He sighed and cleared his throat. “Hello? Ephema? Tabor? Ianel? Anyone?”

  A calm voice from behind him chuckled. “No one can hear you, my boy. There’s no one here but me, and it’s been that way for a long time. So tell me, what is a Knight of the God of Death doing in my realm? Have you come to collect this old soul?”

  Darian turned around as a man walked out of the hallway and into the library proper. The man was unremarkable. He was short, balding, obviously ate well and walked with a limp. What hair he had was grey, and he wore a small greying goatee that he pulled at idly as he studied Darian.

  Darian raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  The man shrugged. “Well, you must be here for a purpose, yes? As I remember soul gathering was one of the jobs Osephetin intended for you. Though I’m not sure how that applies in this case, even though I’m sure I have a soul. Quite the theological ponderation.”

&nbs
p; “I’m not taking anyone’s soul. I…that’s not something we do while alive.” Darian’s hand fell to where his mace should be, forgetting for an instant that the weapon was lodged in the floor. “I’m not even sure where I’m at. One minute, I’m standing in a destroyed temple, tracing a bunch of symbols on the ground and the next minute here I am.”

  “Destroyed temple?” The man sighed. “That damned Lich. He’s killed them all then.”

  “Killed all who?”

  “My disciples.”

  “Your what?”

  Amusement flooded the man’s face. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

  Realization hit Darian like a hammer. “No. But if I had to guess,” Darian ticked his fingers. “You mentioned this was ‘your realm.’ You said you’ve been here a century, but you don’t look a century old, and there wasn’t supposed to be anyone alive in this temple anyway. With all of that and talk of disciples, I’d guess you were Whilpow, the God of Languages.”

  “Right in one. It’s gratifying to see they still teach young people to think.” The man bowed low, his grey and pink robes rippling around him. “So, let’s go back to the first question. What are you doing here?”

  Darian sighed. “I don’t rightly know the answer to that, m’lord. We came to your temple seeking something to assist with deciphering a scroll.”

  “Wait.” Whilpow held up his hand, interrupting. “Let me stop you right there. Did you say, a scroll? One encased in silver and bone, I might guess?” When Darian nodded, the god’s face broke into a wide smile. “Oh me. Oh, dear me. She did it. Bless my soul. Bless her. She did it.”

  “Did what?” Darian scratched his head, his hand coming away dirty and assuring him that he wasn’t dreaming.

  “What transported you here, my boy?” Whilpow ignored Darian’s question, visibly excited as he rubbed his hands with glee. “I want to see it with my own hands. What activated the spell?”