by B J Hanlon
Edin stepped forward again and saw arms, legs, and a torso. But it seemed almost polished like some fine pewter dishes.
“I am a mage,” he said. The stiffness of the thing reminded him of a statue. Then he knew it was one… but it seemed so real.
A grotesque ugly one, a gargoyle, but clearly the same demon-human hybrid thing he’d fought on the road… what the heck?
His heart pounded. The thing had gemlike eyes, red… but there was something yellow in them as well. It was like a pupil but somehow deep within the head.
The eyes seemed to glare at him wherever he stepped. He stepped closer and saw something in its hands. It was holding a bowl as if in offering. Edin was only a foot away holding the gaze of the thing’s eyes then he glanced inside in the bowl.
It was empty. Shiny, but empty. Edin reached out and touched the bowl.
Warmth seemed to emanate from it as if it was just taken from an oven. He ran a finger over the rim and looked at the statue’s eyes.
“What are you?” he whispered and then looked back down. “What is this place?” Edin’s mouth felt dry and suddenly he wanted something to drink.
He concentrated. In front of him was a bowl… a clean bowl that he could drink from. It’d hold water for a while at least. He felt the moisture pluck from the air with little pops and tried sloshing the drops into the bowl.
He drew the bubbles toward him and focused in his mind on where the water was to go. He pictured the bowl in his head and led the water there as if they were goats heading to pasture.
Edin opened his eyes and saw the bowl filled with water. Somehow he didn’t soak himself, Edin grinned until a moment later the water began to glow. It was soft, like the blue glow from the cliff cavern… the one where he’d found the sapphire, where he’d seen the map. Only this one was yellow like the sun tickling the sky a day of thin clouds.
What the heck was this? He felt the need to touch it… feel the statue. His fingers graced the bowl and a jolt shot through his body. He felt burning and tingling and saw steam before his eyes. Then everything went blank.
His head hurt when he came to. Wetness trickled down his forehead. Edin opened his eyes to the darkness. It was almost pitch black with nothing but a single shaft of moonlight pouring through the arch.
The circle of light stopped only a few inches from his hand. Edin touched the wetness on his forehead and held it to the shaft.
Blood. Edin looked up and saw the outline of the statue holding the bowl. A yellow radiance came from the bowl giving a haunting, grinning look to the demon’s face. The elven cousin.
There was no way to tell how long he’d been unconscious. It took a few moments for him to reorient himself and remember what he had been doing. As his gaze turned back toward the statue he had the distinct impression it was a guard. But what it was guarding?
Edin pulled himself to his feet not touching the statue and moved closer. He peered at the eyes, bright red. Something was missing. Then he realized the eyes didn’t follow him because the yellow deep inside was gone. It was coming from the bowl.
Edin felt the hair on his arms stand.
The statue was magical. Or maybe mechanical…
The door on the wall of the cliff cave had activated by touch but this statue jolted him and there was no door here. At least not one he could see. Edin stepped back and noticed something else.
The shaft of light had moved. Before, it had been on the ground, now it was tickling the grotesque claw like toes.
The moon was moving and the light with it. Could that be something? He continued to inspect the statue from further away. It had thick muscular arms with symbols running down them. They were a different language and he couldn’t read them.
There had to be something here. On the stomach he saw a circle protruding from the chest just above the glowing bowl. Edin looked at it and reached out. The air around it felt charged, like the atmosphere before a storm. He snatched his arm back quickly.
He couldn’t touch it or he’d feel the same zap he’d received before. But there had to be some reason for it…
The thought puzzled him and he moved back to the far end of the room. He absently touched his head wound again and pulled it back. The blood was congealing now and still sticky. He’d have to clean it.
Edin stared at the statue for a long time, over an hour probably. He watched the light from the moon rise up till it tickled the bowl and Edin saw small sparks of lightning leap from it like trout in mating season.
Electricity flowed through the water and statue… the whole thing had to be charged somehow… He had to negate that. Get the electricity out and into the stone.
But how… why?
Edin moved closer. The glow of the yellow light dimmed slightly as the moon retreated. Edin looked deeper into the bowl but couldn’t see anything past the sparks.
Edin noticed a small channel running down the side of the wall to the statue. Above the channel, cut into the wall was the outline of a square block. A block that said ‘Push Me… just try it.’
Edin pushed it and heard a rumbling from behind the wall.
He stepped back and saw liquid pouring from a small hole into the channel. It began racing toward the statue then past it to the bowl.
A spark crashed from the guardian and blue lightning exploded. The air buzzed.
Every hair he had stood on end. His body felt as if he were on the precipice of some great height and about to jump.
Edin’s hand went to the fang. The water stopped at the bowl. It was already filled… but the lightning continued to spark. He flinched as it cracked and leapt off and toward him. Edin ducked, feeling a slight burn around his ear.
More cracks of lightning. They danced around the room in blue and yellow streaks leaving etchings across his vision. He needed to stop the bolts or retreat…
They came faster and faster, buzzing and striking in some methodical but deadly song. He could use the ethereal shield, but would that stop this? He couldn’t be sure.
Then he thought of something. Use the water.
He concentrated on the channel and the water within. At least he didn’t have to create water. Edin closed his eyes and imagined the stream leaping from it like a horse over a gate.
He pulled it out trying to block the electric barrage around him. A bolt hit his boot. His body seized and blanked for just a moment.
Just a moment. Edin caught himself and saw the water dropping like the falls in the valley. He waved a hand and brought it up as if he were a god creating the flow of a new river.
Edin spun it, as more water leapt from the channel. He began to circle the statue. Edin directed it upwards, first around the leg, then higher toward the torso. It circled the statue like a serpent before enveloping the lighting blasts in it. The shield expanded until the statue was encased in a ball of water and no more lightning escaped.
Electricity cracked below it and the statue seemed to glow blue. More water rushed out of the hole in the wall and Edin kept drawing it up the statue, almost smothering it.
A yellow pulse began to grow from inside of the bowl. Edin could barely hold his concentration. It began to smell like a storm… taste like a storm. He heard winds ripping but felt nothing. He clenched his eyes shut but beyond the thin lids he saw it growing brighter and brighter. The color was switching from blue to yellow as if they were fighting each other.
A huge crack echoed through the room like a giant whipping an oxen.
Edin’s eyes shot open.
Through the water he watched as chunks of the statue started to shoot off. A claw like finger blasted from its left hand. He gapped as the digit shot through the water and crashed somewhere over his head. More pieces shot off, some larger, others smaller. They smashed into the walls and ceilings with a murderous force. He had to get out of there.
Edin dropped to the ground and crawled toward the arch. More explosions behind him, above him… Something cracked the wall next to the arch as Edin dove out.
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He turned, planting his back against the wall and felt the reverberating thuds as if it were being hit by a mallet. Edin sank to the floor. Afraid to even look back into the room for fear a wayward toe may strike him in the forehead and kill him. He hid as the cracks rippled for what seemed like hours.
Eventually, as they died down Edin started to peak back through into the almost completely destroyed room. The moonlight was distorted with odd shapes. To the center, he saw the bowl. No longer shinning like it’d been polished but chipped and dented as if it were pulled from an old ruin. The statue was gone. Only the left foot, snapped at the ankle, remained and on it like a glittering star sat a small glowing yellow object. He moved toward it, kicking chunks of black stone away quickly as if they may explode at any moment.
Edin reached it and knelt. It was a gem… a yellow version of the one around his neck. Edin brushed away a black talon and reached for it.
As his hand grew nearer, he felt a tingle. No pain, just the static. Edin tapped it. A current flowed from it and into him like a wave of energy. It didn’t hurt, but again the hair on his arms was standing on end as if it were trying to escape.
Then he clasped it in his hand and a thicker wave rolled by as the smell of a storm made way for one of a rank and dusty tomb.
A warm and moist breeze began blowing in on him from the left. Slowly, he moved his attention in that direction. Tucked in another nook, he saw an open space. Holding the small yellow light of the stone he went toward it. The light showed cracked blocks at its base.
The thick and musty air wafted at him. It felt stale and sordid and he knew that it had been stuck behind this door for a very long time.
A tickle came over him. Edin sneezed. His head jerking forward and when he opened his eyes, he saw the stairs. Carved stairs leading up into the darkness. The stairs themselves were taller than he was used to. Almost one and a half times as tall and the stairwell was narrow. He could press his elbows out as if he were a bird and touch both walls.
A song came to his head, but only the few words he could remember. “Lead me to that place; take me up to thy land; another world may I face and see across the living strand.”
It was a song about the gods, a sinner begging for forgiveness as he straddles life and death. After putting his boots back on, Edin started up.
His eyes strained trying to see with nothing but the fading yellow light. Edin continued, almost oblivious, just watching the darkness ahead of him waiting for something to pop out.
A boot landed on something and he felt a dull push into the ball of his foot. The steps weren’t smooth and they were covered in stones like natural caltrops.
Edin stumbled, his foot tapping a vertical part of the stair. He reached out to brace himself and let the yellow stone tumble from his hand. He heard the gem clink against a stair and stop. The light went out and he instantly summoned an ethereal ball.
He found the stone and shoved it into his purse. Then he looked up and steadied himself, holding a hand pressed to the wall and began to climb. There was a slight curvature to the stairs and he climbed, his eyes strained in the darkness.
He thought of the tales of ghostly apparitions and the things that leapt out at you in the night… that tore your soul away, and dragged you to the underworld.
Fake…
His legs grew increasingly tired, his heart beat and breathing were rapid.
The white light was beginning to flicker and fade with his will. Edin’s stomach growled and he didn’t know how much further he’d be able to climb.
All of the energy he’d used to control the water, the light… there wasn’t any way to replace it. He wished he had some of those eleven biscuits.
Edin stopped after maybe an hour. Though he had a feeling it was much shorter. He couldn’t go any further. The mage light disappeared as he leaned against the cold wall and panted. He tried to imagine where he was from the outside. He couldn’t even picture the mountain but he was somewhere inside on a spiral stairwell reaching up. Reaching up? Why? For some reason that thought stuck with him…
Edin’s mouth was dry and he didn’t have the energy to call the moisture from the air. He felt himself nodding off and nearly fell back down the stairs.
Why wasn’t there a spot to rest? Edin thought. He reached into his purse, felt a few coins and then gripped the gem. It shown no light. He pulled out the necklace, hoping the blue gem would offer something.
Again, it was black. Edin closed his eyes and tried to steel his will. He’d have to rest somewhere, have to drink something… eat something. What were the odds he’d find anything up this dark staircase deep in a mountain?
Not much better than out there without food, water, or something warm, he thought.
Slowly, he began to crawl up in the darkness and hope his limbs didn’t just collapse. The stale silence was broken only by his random yelps when he pressed a palm on a rock or kicked a stair.
His arms began to shake. They were fading fast and he was ready to collapse when he heard a noise. A whistling followed by a clack, clack. It was like an arrow slapping the ground. Then felt something touch his hand.
Edin yelled and flicked the hand up, sending the thing flying into the air. Then more whistles and something tussled his hair.
He nearly fell backward, and would have if the walls had been further apart. He slapped both walls and hold himself like a vice. More whistles and clacks. They were above him. Not far.
Again, something rustled his hair like a fanatic of a swordmaster finally meeting his idol.
Edin somehow summoned the strength to create his mage shield. The ethereal light lit up the thin stair well blinding him.
He almost didn’t notice the sharp pain that jabbed into his neck. Edin reached a hand up and pulled out a small dart.
Like the alter room in the cliffs. His head swam and his body began to weaken as more darts clattered into the shield or crashed into the wall.
Poison, was the only thought he could process. Edin saw a row of darts blasting out at intervals. He watched, they were cutting across the stairs at about stomach and chest height. He felt woozy.
He had to get past… somehow, he knew he’d die unless he did. Edin fell forward and began scrambling up. There’d been no choice, he had to let the ethereal shield go.
His heart pounded and his body began to feel numb. He whispered to his limbs, cheering them like the spectators at a wintertide competition. “Go arms… don’t fail me now…”
The clacks and whistles shot through his nerves. Instinct or fear told him to jump to his feet and run. He wasn’t sure if he could do that. Then felt a dart whip past his head. The darts were constant, it made him cringe but he fought it.
His mind was moving slowly. He was slithering now, not able to hold himself up. He could barely feel the cold stone on his hand.
Suddenly he reached forward to try and pull. A dull thump travelled down his arm. It confused him. What was that? He moved his arm again, he couldn’t feel his hand but felt the thump inside again. He felt the ethereal light and tried summoning it. Nothing. With his other hand he reached out. Thump. Something blocked his path. He could do nothing. His voice was gone, mouth dry, and he had no energy.
Slowly, he saw a silver of light appear. His head swam and slowly, the single shaft of light grew. It was bright and piercing and he thought he saw a goddess...
4
The Princess of Bestoria
Fitful images pierced his brain, pain, poison, then the screams. Loud terrifying screams from his mother, Kesona, Master Horston, and the servants. A buzz ruptured his thoughts again, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. He screamed but nothing came out.
An image appeared; he was in a black room with a black-eyed man leaning over him. The face glowed red with dancing torchlight.
Merik.
His look was that of a man about to enjoy what he was going to do. A large fire erupted all around them. He felt the singes, the burns.
Somewhere in his mind, Edin remembered the way he controlled the rain. He tried but couldn’t feel that connection.
Merik held a jagged dagger in his hand. The steel twisted like a snake traveling the dirt. It was a Vestion dagger used for ceremony, only this one was onyx black, a blade made of pure wan stone.
The smile on the blazing face grew and the blade plunged down. A wrenching, agonizing terror ripped through him. Pain seized control of his body. He lost focus and the world became an orange haze. He felt the blade begin to tear toward his heart. His lungs seized and he couldn’t suck in air. Metallic blood filled his mouth. He tried to scream, nothing. His heartbeat slowed and the blackness came.
Edin screamed out, waking himself…
A woman spoke, the tongue unrecognizable but the urgency was there. Edin felt a sticky, syrupy liquid coating his mouth like sap. It was warm and tasteless. A second later, it stopped followed by the quick patter of light footsteps retreating.
Edin’s eyes opened briefly. His sight was blurry like looking through murky water. There was an orange haze… a fire and next to it a dark portal… a door.
His eyes felt heavy again and the started to close… For a moment, he began to panic, he couldn’t open the jaw and couldn’t move his head… was the Justicar there? Was he about to attack him with that serpentine knife?
The footsteps came back like a half-realized dream. Struggling to open his eyes again he saw a slender figure rushing in carrying something.
A moment later, water poured down his throat. It was warm and stale as if it had been sitting in a barrel for far too long.
She spoke again but again Edin didn’t understand. His mouth slapped closed and he tried to push out “thank you.” It came out as a groan.
“Do you speak Ulstapish?” she asked a little hesitantly.
He understood that fine… but Ulstapish? It was a dead language only used by scholars.
“It is commonly called highborn…”