Legend of Ecta Mastrino Box Set

by B J Hanlon

  “And how many of your men’s lives are over? How many more are going to die?”

  “You forget, it is not just those who join the order that follow our law.” Diophin shrugged, “we are many, we are endless like the tides. We are the entire world.”

  Edin slowly moved toward the old man, closer to the pool. “You are doomed to walk the Underworld licking the boots of your betters,” Edin said. “You pathetic son of a whore!” Edin cried out.

  Edin noticed the old man’s hands were in his pockets. A soft white glow came from where his left arm was.

  Diophin’s smile fell into a sneer.

  He felt warmth as he approached. There was a pulsing pressure coming off the old man.

  Edin continued. “You murder anyone you want and claim it as purging the world of magery. I’ve read your propaganda, your lies, you are scum hiding behind a corrupt institution that is just as evil… just as ready to be torn down. I know the lies and treachery this world is built on.”

  The white light from his robe grew brighter.

  “The war is coming to you,” Edin said.

  “Stupid magus, it’s already won.” Diophin sneered. The old man’s arm shot out and slammed into Edin like he was hit by a sledge hammer.

  Though he couldn’t feel any breath, it seemed as if air was driven from his body. The man twisted his hand and Edin felt like someone was tearing out his heart.

  A blinding pain erupted, he felt a spasm. Only for a moment. A numbness ran down his side, through his heart. He felt his eyes water. He was aware of his body, aware of everything.

  Static was charging. Like a bolt of lightning ready to blast from his body.

  Words came to him seemingly from somewhere else. They shocked him as much as Diophin. “Lial vastio denari ostil.” They were out of his mouth before he even knew it.

  Diophin’s eyes widened as sparks began to erupt from Edin’s body crashing into the stones around the room. The inquisitor screamed, a piercing howl of pain.

  Someone began pounding at the door as a bolt splintered a large stone as a part of the turret crashed away and a wild wind poured in.

  The charge pulsed in Edin as he let out a roar as a blast of blue and white lightning cracked into Diophin’s chest tossing him into the wall near the hole.

  Edin felt dizzy and someone began calling his name. It was soft but panicked and was as if he were hearing a whisper in a large room. He couldn’t respond, couldn’t think.

  “Edin?” the voice was around him but so distant. His mind gave way as the black hole appeared in front of him.

  6

  Prepare for Battle

  A cold sweat surrounded him as if he’d been training in an oppressive sun on the top of a windblown mountain. His clothes felt like they were fused to his body by an adhesive.

  A warm damp cloth rushed over his forehead. He remembered his mother and pictured her in the chair beside his bed. Her kind and worried face staring down at him.

  The cloth moved down the side of his face, warm and soft. Edin opened his eyes.

  “You’re awake, thank the gods.” He felt arms wrap around him and squeeze. Then she sat back and pulled down her blouse. “I thought I lost you too. I thought…” It was Arianne. Not his mother… Edin knew that. She was dead.

  Arianne reached over and grabbed a cup of something. She tilted it up and helped pour water down his throat.

  “Hot…” Edin said. He could feel the heavy down blankets on him. It took him a moment to realize these were her blankets and he was in her bed.

  “What happened?” Arianne looked worried as she searched his eyes for something. “Tell me?”

  Edin wracked his memories. Brief glimpses of a darkened room but nothing else. There was a blankness there like a curtain had been drawn. “I’m not sure.”

  Her eyes went down to his chest.

  Edin followed them and saw what looked like a scorch mark over his heart. “I found you in the tower. You were frozen gripping the relay basin. Your eyes were rolled back and you were smoking… then you collapsed.”

  Edin closed his eyes and put a hand to the crillio fang. What happened?

  “I tried to treat the burn. I used a healing spell.”

  “How long?” Edin said motioning toward the cup.

  “Three days… a long three days.” She poured him another glass from a steaming pitcher and brought it to his lips. “Did you get through with the relay?”

  He took a deep sip and closed his eyes. He was certain something had happened. It was right there, the memory tilting on the precipice of his mind ready to fall off if he didn’t snag it.

  Edin shook his head. Nothing came to him.

  “You should rest. Scoot over,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow then did as she said. His body was stiff and sore. Edin watched her slip into the bed next to him and turn away.

  “Tell no one of this,” Arianne said. “My father would kill me if he knew…”

  Edin didn’t speak. He looked up at the tall windows and the gray cloudy sky through them. A tickling of something ran on his mind. Gray skies, gray walls… he couldn’t think. His eyes began to close.

  He felt movement next to him in the bed, then a hand reached out and gripped his sweaty palm.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Arianne whispered as he drifted to sleep.

  There was a moment somewhere in the night when a face appeared. Ghostly white and ethereal. A nimbus aura around it. The aura was white yet hollow and empty. A face he’d known, it was there but he couldn’t place it. There was nothing attached, it was as if he were looking down into a black pit with only that one speck of light. An evil speck.

  He woke screaming and it clicked in his mind. The dream… it led him to the tower, he remembered.

  “Edin!” Arianne shrieked next to him, her voice piercing his brain for a moment. Why did all women have that wild octave…

  “They’re coming… they know where we are,” Edin said. He leapt from the bed tossing the fine blanket and it wrapped around one of the posts. It hung there like a long mustache around a man’s pursed lips.

  Edin glanced at Arianne. She was wearing a nightgown that stopped at her knees. Quickly, she pulled her legs up into her gown and stared mouth agape.

  “Wait what? Who’s coming?”

  “The Por Fen… mage hunters.”

  She sighed and reached back for the blankets. “It was a dream Edin. A bad dream.”

  Three days she had said. He’d been out for three days. “The Inquisitor was there… I was in the citadel…” Edin looked around the room, he needed his weapons.

  “It was a dream,” Arianne said again, her hair slightly ruffled, eyes tired but at that moment he thought she was the most beautiful woman ever to have been born.

  Edin shook the thought from his mind. “No. In the relay. I remember. The Citadel was once a mage academy. There was a relay there right?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “They’ve accessed it, I don’t know how, maybe they always have but they’re coming, somehow they know where we are. Erastio’s Rise.”

  Her face went blank. “You know the name of the keep. Did I mention it?”

  “No, it’s what he called it.” Edin was out of bed now and grabbing at a pair of trousers on the plush chair. He was again in only his undertrousers. How many times did she undress him while he was unconscious? Two at least.

  “Edin wait. The front is hidden and guarded. No non-mage can find the cave.”

  “Guarded?”

  “The statue of Yio Volor, the god of the underworld. He is a master deceiver and trickster. To mundane people it would be like looking at a rock wall. There is no way for them to enter the front.” “That was Yio Volor? He was a dematian? No wonder no one ever made statues to him…” Edin said to himself then looked back at her and swallowed, “I destroyed it.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know… I was freezing and didn’t know what else to do. It opened th
e passage… it was the only way in.”

  “You could’ve knocked…”

  “On what? The guardian was charged like an electric field.”

  “The bowl of course. Add water and run your hand around the rim thrice.” She mimed the motion over the blanket that covered her naked legs. “it’s sound penetrates the upper reaches like a bell.”

  “I didn’t know…” Edin said.

  “It’s written on the bowl.”

  “I don’t speak highborn!”

  Arianne sighed and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Are you sure this Inquisitor didn’t lie? Maybe he is attempting to lure you out? You are a bit jumpy…”

  He paused, could she be right? Possibly, he claimed to know where they were… but did he? Could they take that chance?

  They were in a defensible position, though they only had two people. As far as he knew there was only one entrance into the keep. That meant only one exit. If the Por Fen were waiting for them at the entrance they could ambush him.

  Leaving from there would be a poor idea.

  “I have to assume he was telling the truth… this is a Keep, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “There must be defenses right?”

  She nodded. “The door is impregnable, there are the enchanted arrows that pierce all armor and the keep cannot be seen from the ground as it is shielded by a spell.”

  “If they breech the door.”

  “The fountain is… enchanted. It is like a last defense. The statues are… deadly.”

  He was quiet for a moment trying to picture the defenses. Invisibility from prying eyes was good until someone knew exactly where they were. Spells were good, though the attackers were Por Fen and could be expecting it. The stairwell was their only way out. A mage-built keep with one exit. How dumb… “Wait you said front, as in there is a back?”

  “Yes, there is a tunnel through the mountains. It’s steep with old pulleys like a mine shaft. Tilliac showed me… just before.” She stopped for a moment and brushed her hand in her eyes. “Not even the servants knew about it.”

  “What about spells, do you know any?”

  “I know some, confusion spells I’d use them on the servants as a child. I can also perform some healing spells but no offensive or defensive spells… Unworthy of a princess.” She added in a highbrow tone. Though he didn’t know who she was trying to impress. Him maybe? He smiled a bit at that. He found his sword and scabbard and slipped them on to his belt. He may even try and find another quarterstaff.

  As if reading his thoughts, she stood up. “There are weapons in the armory…” She gave him a weary look.

  Edin saw the hesitation in it. “I’ll look.”

  “I don’t think you’re right… but I’ll search the library for spells…”

  The stairs heading down came to an end over two hundred feet below the entrance. It was colder down here than even the first basement. Even going down the stairs he felt winded as if he’d just smoked an entire bushel from Horston’s pipe.

  Edin spied brackets on the walls with wooden torches leaning in toward the hall. No gas sconces here. Using a torch that never seemed to burn, he began to light the first pair. The fire caught almost instantly and he wasn’t surprised he didn’t smell or even see the smoke.

  The walls were darker than the floor above and the doors he passed on both sides were splintering and had shavings lining the floor. The servants must’ve been too afraid to keep this floor clean.

  Edin went to the armory, the first door inside the hall denoted by the sword and shield. As the door creaked open, he was met by the overpowering smell of damp leather, oil, and must.

  He flashed the torch across the room and saw it was vast by the faraway glinting of metal. It was huge, too large for him to believe it was underground. Hung on one wall were hundreds of long and short swords that would look perfectly in place on a battlefield or in a city guard. Then there were others. Huge ones that could reach his chest, others to his chin.

  They looked to be normal steel or iron blades, though a few were Eluvrian steel. After testing out a few of them, he decided to stick with his.

  Why did they need so many in this keep? Was there another purpose to this place?

  He grabbed a pair of eluvrian short swords and moved to the wooden trellises that held racks of knives. Everything was as if it’d just been sharpened the day before. He found a bandolier with throwing knives and threw it over his shoulder.

  Other trellises held bows, crossbows, and quivers.

  He strapped weapons on to his weighty belt and looked at the long weapons that hung on the opposite wall: spears, poleaxes with heads the size of his torso, as well as large blades on the end of poles.

  He spotted one of the dematian weapons. A sign in common tongue read Horsehead Knife. Edin picked it up and sliced through the air. It clashed in the stone with a thick spark. The blade was heavy and had almost no counterbalance.

  Now was not the time to try them all out.

  He looked over the other weapons: maces, cudgels, flails, and ones he’d never seen before, all clearly not meant to be used by a novice.

  He knew what he and Berka would’ve done if they’d found this place before... They’d act like kids at wintertide and would try everything.

  It still fascinated him, it was a treasure trove for a warrior… but they wouldn’t be useful to him. Edin was liable to hurt himself as much as an enemy.

  On the rear wall were both ironwood and tarix staffs. The amount of gold all of these weapons would’ve cost had to be enormous. It was at least twenty times more weapons than were to be found in all Yaultan.

  Edin remembered her using the tarix staff and how flexible it was. Great for two hands with that snap, but not for an offhand. He grabbed the ironwood quarterstaff, a pair of crossbows, and quivers.

  He was able to situate everything onto his shoulders, back, or around his waist. The weight was more than a hundred pounds but he carried it up the switchback stairs, huffing and stopping to catch his breath. At the top, he dropped everything but a weakhanded shortsword that he secured next to the longsword.

  Then Edin retreated down to the bowels of the keep looking for the exit tunnel. Arianne said it was behind a large statue at the end of the hall.

  Sullen stone statues stood in alcoves along the corridor, each wore crowns and they reminded him of stone likenesses above tombs.

  His mother had once taken him out to the family plot beyond the village. There stood a dark crypt where his ancestors laid. He didn’t care much about them or his family’s history at the time and the darkness creeped him out and had him in hysterical tears. He was barely five but remembered it perfectly.

  This too was giving him gooseflesh.

  As he crept down the hall, the hair on his neck began to stand. The eeriness of the hall grew with every step. Shadows danced around despite him lighting every unburning and smokeless torch.

  Edin’s eyes were flittering between the statues and thick oak doors for what seemed like an hour. Finally, at the end was the largest statue. It was made of gray stone; the man had a long beard and wild eyes. His arms were crossed with a sword in one hand and a staff in the other.

  His lips scowled and he seemed dark and foreboding like the statue of Yio Volor. The feeling of terror that pervaded the entire floor seemed to emanate from it. Who was this man? A god certainly but which? It was familiar but not…

  She said. “Pull the arms back so that it looks like the statue is embracing you.”

  He reached out and gripped the forearm of the staff hand and pulled. It moved slowly but opened like a door. As he was about to reach for the sword when he heard a tapping to the left. It was barely audible, but it drew his attention.

  Edin glanced over, not wanting to take his eyes from the statue.

  A wooden door with a barred window stood next to him. Edin turned the torch to try and peer inside.

  Another tap, then another. That definitely wasn’t water, the sound was
too inconsistent. Then something else came… a moaning on the wind?

  Edin shuddered and before he knew what he was doing, Edin gripped the handle and pulled. The door squealed open to reveal a thin stairwell descending further into the black depths.

  These stone stairs seemed to be crumbling like the doors. None of them were uniform.

  Edin glanced back at the statue. It hadn’t moved. Edin had half expected its stone eyes to shift somehow and look right at him.

  Another moan… or was it a groan came from below. Edin began moving. Was someone else alive here?

  The temperature grew colder and he saw his breath.

  It was quiet, only the sounds of his feet broke the silence in this forlorn place. Soon, the feeling of the talent seemed to seep away. It was slow and somehow, he barely noticed it.

  At the base of the stairs he found himself in a dingy but large room with a shallow ceiling. It seemed to tilt toward the right like a ship listing in calm seas. There was only a wooden table and a pair of chairs to the right. On the ground near the leg of one chair, was a leather-bound book.

  He moved toward it and picked it up. It had taken on the coldness of the floor and the room… but Edin sensed something else. A presence.

  He looked around again and saw the prison doors. This was the jail.

  Edin set the book on the table and flipped it open. There was one line. ‘Vicilu Dunbili. Cell One.’ He recognized the surname and swallowed. It was the same one of the hero of the civil war. The name of the eastern state was based on it. Dunbilston.

  “Vicilu?” Edin said. Then his nose twitched and he sneezed. As he inhaled, he smelled death.

  There was a corpse in here… was it one of an ancient noble? But it didn’t smell ancient, it smelled maybe weeks old.