by Dante King
“Yes,” Lillian replied hesitantly. “I know it seems odd, but—he was created with advanced magic a very long time ago. He’s evolving.”
“That’s not possible,” Winnie said. “Golems do not evolve. They are puppets that do their masters’ bidding. They do not feel, they do not think, and whatever responses or behavioral ticks they might exhibit are programmed by their creators.”
I watched as Lillian’s face contorted with desperate worry. “What are you saying?”
“Is it possible the golem is possessed?” I asked.
Winnie bit her lip. “It’s the only explanation? But who would possibly want to possess a golem?”
“Kalazar,” I said flatly.
Yarina flashed me a look. “What are you saying? We killed him.”
“Or maybe we only thought we did. You heard the archmage yesterday, he wasn’t convinced we had killed him. Kalazar might have been more powerful than we thought, and he is the only one with the power to invade skins. He has enough motive, too. Taking control of the golem would have allowed him access to the Spire and to Lillian. Magic attracts magic. He would have figured out what she was and how to get to her.”
“That’s how those corrupt mages got past all the traps,” Lillian gasped. “Orli’s knowledge of the Spire would have made it easy for them.”
“Come on,” I said, fastening the last piece of my armor. “We need to move.”
”But he could be anywhere,” Lillian said.
I shook my head. “He’s not going to be just anywhere. If he’s being possessed by the necromancer, then there’s only one place it makes sense for him to go.”
“The Mausoleum,” Yarina said.
Winnie groaned before she nodded. “You’re right. I—fucking hate to have to go back there. But it’s where we’re most likely to find Kalazar. With the number of corpses and skeletons and all the death energy permeating the space it’s the perfect place to practice corrupt magic.”
“You would know,” Yarina said curtly.
Winnie opened her mouth to retort, but I held up my hand.
“Enough,” I said firmly.
Yarina and Winnie both fell silent, and Lillian looked at me with unmasked admiration.
“Do you really think Kalazar is alive?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, he is alive,” a deep, confident voice said from the door.
All four of us turned as Archmage Cyntria entered the chamber. He was dressed smartly in a deep-red tunic with folded lapels and a midnight-blue cloak that lapped against his ankles. He was using his walking stick; he seemed to be relying on it a little more than usual.
“I checked Orli’s quarters this morning,” he continued. “I used a detection spell and found dark residue that links him directly to the Mausoleum. There can be no doubt that the golem has betrayed us.”
I felt Lillian shudder, and I resisted the urge to reach out and embrace her. Instead, I picked up my axe, twirled it lightly in the air before holstering it against my belt.
Lillian turned to me. “I’m coming with you.”
There was a long drawn out silence in which Barlin looked between Lillian and me with an expression I couldn’t decipher.
“Lillian,” he said with paternal calm. “I think it’s best you stay in the Spire.”
“No,” Lillian said, turning to the archmage. “Father, you cannot keep me locked in my tower forever. I can make a difference, if you would only let me. I want to be of some use. I need a purpose in life—and maybe this is it.”
“Lillian—”
“You want to protect me. I do understand that, but I am not a child anymore. It’s time I made my own decisions. I’ve wasted too much of my life here, my power has slept for too long.”
Barlin looked at her for a long time. Out of nowhere, the fight went out of his eyes and his shoulders hunch over slightly.
He looked back up and nodded. “Very well.”
“I—really?”
“You’re right, Lillian, my lovely, powerful daughter. You are no longer a child. I have to learn to trust you.”
Lillian’s face broke out into a smile that only enhanced her beauty. She rushed forward and hugged her father close.
“Thank you,” she said.
Barlin returned her hug, but looked at me over her shoulder. “Make sure no harm comes to my daughter.”
“I promise.”
Lillian said a short goodbye to her father, and with that the four of us left the Spire and headed straight for the Mausoleum. As we walked away from the Spire’s tall towers, I felt a stirring of anticipation in my gut. I had always thirsted after the thrill of adrenaline, and my newfound profession had only made the feeling more defined.
“Only practitioners of the darkest black magic can steal skins,” Yarina said. “Were you aware that Kalazar could do it?”
“No,” Winnie said, somewhat defensively. “I—I knew he was working on it. I didn’t know he had achieved the power.”
“And you didn’t think that was important enough to share with us?”
“I thought he was dead. I didn’t think any information I had on him was relevant at that point.”
“Perhaps next time, you will let us decide what is relevant.”
I was barely paying heed to their heated exchange, because the closer we got to the Grand Esplanade, the stronger the scent of corrupt magic grew around me.
“Something’s wrong,” I said softly.
“What?” Lillian asked, glancing at me worriedly.
“There’s dark energy everywhere,” I said, as a raindrop fell onto my nose. “I can smell it.”
Yarina pulled out her rapier and led the acceleration.
“Wait,” she said from up ahead, as we approached the heart of the Grand Esplanade. “Is that the city guard?”
Sure enough, we turned a gentle bend and came across a group of city guards. They were all heading in the same direction.
“The Mausoleum,” Winnie said with a gasp, rain now trickling down from the skies.
“She’s right.” Yarina nodded before she took off at a run.
The rest of us followed, and I raced ahead of Yarina in seconds. The further in we went, the more crowded and chaotic things got. There was magic flying through the air like dust, and I realized why. Mages and city guards were coming together to fight an army of the undead, right here on the esplanade. Some were walking skeletons, others were flesh-eating summons, and most of them were armed.
“What do we do?” Lillian asked, looking lost.
“We’ll have to cut through these bastards to get to the other side,” I said. I was forced to raise my voice to be heard over the cacophony of rain, screams, and the clattering dirge of weapons hitting weapons. “Don’t worry, Lillian. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Stay behind me at all times, and stay close.”
I pulled out my axe and led the way into the fray. The guards had the fight well in hand. These were lesser summons anyway, and they were easy enough to overpower. It was the sheer number of them that posed the challenge.
The rain was coming down hard now, but I stayed focused as I ripped through the legion of undead minions. If I’d had any doubts about Kalazar being alive, I certainly didn’t anymore. His stench was everywhere. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t picked up on it sooner.
This time was different, however. I didn’t just have my axe; I had my armor and the null-field gauntlet that sat safely around my left arm. I used my shield to force myself through a torrent of the summons and then I sent my axe flying into a long row of them. They scattered like startled birds, and I summoned my axe back to my hand.
Using a combination of kicks, my axe, and the gauntlet, I cut down more than fifty lesser minions within minutes. I felt the rain cling to my armor, but I paid no mind to the slick wetness. We were making progress, inching toward the mausoleum and leaving a trail of broken summons behind us, but they came out of the woodworks like ants.
I could sense Yarina and Winnie on either side of
me, working their magic on the clawing, featureless creatures. Yarina sliced through them with calculation and finesse, while Winnie used bone-shaper spells, causing a constant melody of little explosions that trailed behind us right up until we were at the Mausoleum’s doorstep.
Lillian shadowed me closely. Every time I smashed my axe into one of those clingy bastards, I heard her gasp. Her magic drummed violently, like a second heartbeat, and I realized how sheltered she had been up until now. Her eyes darted from me to Winnie to Yarina, she was helpless.
I saw four undead creatures drag their feet towards me with rusty swords in their hands.
“Take cover,” I told Lillian, knowing that I had to cut down the persistent monsters in order to clear our path into the Mausoleum.
I twirled around, using my senses to pinpoint my enemies’ positions even when I couldn’t actually see them. The four summons converged around me, and I smashed one in the nose with my first, while slamming my axe into another one right behind me. In my spin to face the other two, I saw one particularly opportunistic summons approach Yarina from the back with a sword in hand.
Yarina was so focused on dueling two more of them that she didn’t notice her back wasn’t covered.
“Yarina,” I yelled, but she didn’t hear me, though she was only a dozen feet away from me.
I tried to shake off the two minions I was battling, but I had underestimated their strength, and my distraction was costing me the fight.
Thankfully, Lillian heard me yell out Yarina’s name. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lillian pick up one of the fallen swords off the ground. She closed her eyes squeamishly as she plunged the sword into the creature’s back. It crumbled to the floor, and Lillian dropped the sword with relief. Satisfied that Yarina was safe, I was able to focus. I used my gauntlet to block their attacks and had turned them both to rubble with my axe within seconds.
I reached out and grabbed Lillian’s hand before racing on, with Winnie and Yarina trailing behind.
“Do we actually have a plan?” Winnie asked breathlessly.
“We need to find the source, we need to find Kalazar,” I said. “Or else that fucker is going to kill us all with a bunch of dead men.”
“Oh, great,” Winnie said. “A little visit to Kalazar, one day after I abandoned his lair and betrayed him. This should be fun.”
“Kurt,” Yarina said, with more ease. “What do you sense?”
“Around this corner. We need to move past the graveyard—”
I stopped short as I felt a new wave of dark magic take hold of the Mausoleum.
“Kurt?” Lillian said. “Are you alright? What is it?”
“Something’s happening,” I said. “I think Kalazar is calling forth a new wave of summons—right here, right now.”
We turned the corner and saw the sprawling mass of gravestones before us. The stones that marked the dead were upturned in a rumbling heave of magic, before the corpses rose from their earthy beds, their gnarled hands pushing through the soil, propelled by Kalazar’s magic.
“Well, fuck,” Winnie and I said simultaneously. We glanced over at each other and snorted. Count on Winnie to remind you to have fun.
I grabbed my axe, and if I didn’t know any better, I could have sworn it was trembling with excitement to get chopping.
16
“We can’t fight them all,” Lillian said. “We have to run.”
“I don’t run,” I said.
“But there’s so many of them. Kurt—they outnumber us twenty to one.”
“Guess we’ll just have to up our game then.” I gave her a little wink as I slashed my axe through the air in front of me.
Lillian looked stupefied. But it wasn’t that I never got fearful. I just never did in the heat of battle. What good would fear do me there?
The horde of undead was still being added to, dozens after dozens of them ripping free of their earthen prisons. But the imminent danger was the line of minions coming toward us.
I counted eight corpses, six of which had weapons in hand. Three carried swords, two carried sharp daggers, and the sixth minion carried a crossbow that had a weathered look about it.
“How did so many of them get weapons?” Yarina asked.
“They would have been buried with them,” Winnie said.
I saw that one of the swords and the crossbow were pulsating with magical energy. “And some of them are magical.”
I tried not to let that distract me, and I threw my axe in a curve that took out three of them. As I called back my axe, I sensed Lillian’s eyes land on me with naked admiration. But I had no time to enjoy the moment, the three I had killed were simply replaced with more.
Yarina advanced, and with a mighty lunge she pierced through two skeletons at once. Winnie was trying to call forth a particularly strong bone-shaper spell, and Lillian had been backed into a corner, her eyes wide and her body paralyzed and tense.
As three more undead creatures sprang up on me, I was forced to focus on my own weapon again. I punched one of them in the face, my fist crashing through and appearing through the other side of its skull, and then I used my axe to get the other two off me. I jumped over them, and in one fluid movement sent my axe flying into the advancing army.
When I had my axe back, I closed my fist and raised my hand. The shield that sprung forth was a faint glimmer that could just as easily have been a trick of the light. Despite its somewhat meek appearance, I knew it would do its job. I kept my gauntlet raised as I smashed through the wall of minions.
I heard both Winnie and Yarina scream my name as the throng started to converge in around me. It was impossible to count them, they were like drops in a flood. Was this it then? Was this how I died? No, I told myself firmly. You will not write yourself off. I was a natural fighter, and I had finally found a purpose that didn’t involve any kind of debauchery.
With minions close enough to leap and grab me at all sides, I finally gritted my teeth, and kept my gauntlet arm up as I turned in a tight spiral, knocking over at least ten of the lesser summons. When I had made a little more breathing room, I raised my axe with the other hand, and smashed through the barricade of skeletons and undead creatures.
They quailed before me, and a burst of adrenaline screeched through my body. This was what I was born to do. I wasn’t made for guarding books or herding sheep. I was made for battle. The combined power of my axe and my gauntlet gave me an escape route. I rushed through the scattered bones back to Yarina and Winnie. They were both casting spells in quick succession, but while they managed to take down two, maybe three minions at a time, the creatures were multiplying faster than that.
“There’s too many of them,” Yarina said desperately.
“Kalazar is in there,” I said, jerking my chin toward the Mausoleum. “I can feel him. The whole place is blistering with his magic. We kill him and these bastards disappear.”
“Look out!” Lillian screamed.An undead creature had launched itself at Winnie. Taken off guard, Winnie screamed as the creature’s hands wrapped themselves around her neck. It was too close to her to risk throwing my axe. Just as I was about to go over and pluck the thing off her with my bare hands, I saw Lillian reach out for a fallen crossbow. She picked it up confidently, but her eyes were frantically blinking.
If she missed, Winnie was dead. But the arrow went zinging through the air before I could protest, and—the minion dropped suddenly and anticlimactically to the floor, releasing its grip on Winnie.
“Fuck,” Winnie gasped, clutching her neck. She was safe.
There was no time to talk or strategize; the army would be upon us in seconds.
“Go,” Yarina said, “get in there.”
“I’m not leaving you out here alone.” I threw my axe through the air at three approaching undead.
“I’m going to conjure up a Holy Flash. I’ll be right behind you.”
I gritted my teeth and nodded. “If you’re not inside within two minutes, I’m coming back out here
for you.”
I saw the ghost of a smile on Yarina’s face before I summoned my axe, grabbed hold of Lillian, and pushed her toward the entrance. Winnie followed right behind. When we stepped into the dark stench of one of the lesser crypt chambers, I felt a burst of power that punctured the Mausoleum’s thick walls with spindles of light.
Soon after, Yarina rushed inside breathlessly. I could sense the quiet, quickening pulse of her magic as it rushed to refortify itself for the coming battle.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked.
The skirt Lillian was wearing over her trousers had been all but ripped off. It looked more like a cape around her waist now, but apart from that she seemed unhurt. Winnie and Yarina each had a few new bruises on their arms, but their magic still flowed strong.
“I’m fine, you?” Winnie said, looking at Yarina.
“Me too,” Yarina said.
“Lillian?” I asked.
She looked at me with absent eyes. “There were so many of them…”
“I succeeded in annihilating the first three lines of Kalazar’s army,” Yarina said. “But the rest are still coming. They’ll be at the mausoleum doors in no—”
Before she could finish her sentence, there was a great bang at the door. It sounded like a tidal wave had just hit the Mausoleum’s limestone walls, followed by a general cacophonic thrum.
“Come on,” Yarina said. “The door should keep them out. But let’s not stick around to test that theory.”
“Where are we going?” Lillian asked hesitantly. She was still clutching the crossbow she had used earlier. I noticed her hands were white, and her usually rosy cheeks were flat and colorless.
“The main chamber,” I said. “He’s there. He’s waiting for us.”
If Winnie or Yarina were scared, they didn’t show it. I took the lead and headed straight for the main chamber, sensing my way through the corridors and anticipating attacks at every corner. Five skeletons leaped out at us in a room just off the main chamber, but their unimaginative attack made the job easy. I cut through three of them before the girls had even lifted their hands. Yarina decapitated one with her rapier, and Winnie annulled the last one with a quick weakening ray.