by Ember Lane
“That traps it, forces the others forward to free it.”
“What happens then?” I asked, revulsion coursing through me.
The soldier backed away, leaning against the farthest wall of the lateral tunnel.
“Then?” he said. “Hopefully they have some pitch ready.” He pointed up. “Sometimes they do, quite often not and the beast gets released, sewn up and sent back. The charms were dissuading them, until you appeared. No doubt it will calm once you’re gone. The Forbane, who can tell what them mad ones will do next? Look!” He pointed.
There were tens of them now, about a hundred yards away. Their horses swirling in time, pointing toward me, turning, and then facing me in a line once more. No. They were baiting me; I knew that. They were laying down a challenge. In their midst was a man, dressed in black robes, a hood shadowing his face.
“Combinium,” Zybandian spat.
Suddenly, my mind seemed to squint, like it was being pinched. And I felt a prying eye, like I had that day when the bird flew overhead. This time, though, I could see priests, all in a circle, hands linked. They were staring up at something, like a burning pyre, a vast torch or beacon, something like that, and I felt their eyes roaming the land, then falling on me as one. My knees weakened, nearly gave way, as my innards were exposed to them. Their boring eyes saw straight through my own, and I heard the beginnings of a deathly chant all around me. I felt helpless, pitiful, as I began to fold before their might.
Then I felt Sakina’s presence, though I knew it could not be there, and her will focused with my own, guided me. It was like my vision narrowed, except I wasn’t using my eyes. My first instinct had been to skulk away, to hide from them. The spearing stare that was invading me automatically making me defensive, but now I saw a new way, and sent my own thoughts toward the invaders, except concentrated, like a spear of light.
I saw twelve of them: Robed priests like the one prancing on the horse outside, all staring upward in a circle of faces. Each face, though different, had similar characteristics. Dead eyes looked out: Their bulk, black, but irises, crimson-red and glowing. Skin hung on gaunt faces, and though of many differing hues, all had that pasty, gray look of stalking death. They mouthed words, their lips in time. My own eyes studied them one at a time.
Behind my ranging gaze, my mind was building defenses. Mental walls were being thrown up, blocking their assaults. I fell to my knees, the strain of it all overpowering me. I saw twelve smiles, and my rage grew. It boiled, it bubbled, it swelled, and then, like an arrow, it shot forth, along my gaze and into the center of those old men.
Their expressions crossed from elation to confusion, from confusion to horror, and then they began to wither, to shrivel, and I felt even more hatred for them, and more burst from me. I knew it was they who had sprung Sakina’s trap, they who had colluded with this Morlog, and I focused everything I had. I felt my Shadow Mana fill.
I noticed tendrils of black threading with my golden light, it appeared to strengthen it, temper its steel, and give it an edge that wasn’t there before, and then the black flew out of me, down onto the priests, and they erupted in a ball of crimson fire, their screaming mouths roiling with the maelstrom of chaos that I had unleashed.
I felt my shoulders slumping, yet I carried on looking up, wondering what I had done.
Then I saw him.
As the boiling flames separated, he was standing against a backdrop of black night.
A shock of blond-white hair bloomed from his scalp and fell down to his wide shoulders. It was chopped as though it were falling layers of a rich mane—almost pixie-like. His eyes were bound with a strip of black cloth that contrasted with his ghost-like skin, and his lips were curled with a smirk. Black armor clad him, not a heavy, imposing armor, but armor that radiated power. He bore no weapons, but also didn’t seem to need any. Mere presence, that was all he needed, that carried enough threat.
“Alexa Drey, nicely done. That’s twice you’ve bested my minions. Two lucky strikes? I think not. Who are you, Alexa Drey? Who are you that those piteous trees would mark you so?”
He scoffed and looked away, as though in thought, as if he was making his mind up about my fate. Once decided, he brought it back to bear.
“I will delight in finding out. My name is Zender. Some call me ShadowDancer. You will, in time, call me master. I shall enjoy the path that leads to that outcome, and wait for your arrival,” and then he smiled, and held his hand up to his mouth, kissed his fingertips, and blew the kiss to me.
What started as a small, black spec grew to a morphing, black shadow that flew toward me. I saw it grow until it was large enough to consume me, like a blanket getting thrown over me. I tried to duck, to sneak out from under it, but it closed too fast.
Then my body slew away, shoved, and I was sent sprawling, ripped from my vision, clattering across the wet-stone floor. I opened my eyes and screamed, for in my place the soldier stood bent over, though now he was no more that a burning skeleton. The stench of his roasting flesh hit me hard.
Critical Damage! A Midnight Crawler Charm hits castle soldier. 2428 damage received. Soldier is obliterated.
I heard ShadowDancer’s laugh jink around me, full of threat, full of delight.
Congratulations! The boy called Zender has awarded you 2000 Experience points, your reputation grows. You are now "Known."
And his laugh grew louder, and his voice rang out.
“Everyone will know your name, Alexa Drey.”
Name: Alexa Drey. Race: Human. Type: Chancer.
Age: 24. Alignment: None. XP: 9500. Level: 6.
Profession: None. Un/Al pts: 0. Reputation: Known.
Health Points: 500/500 Energy: 120/120 Mana: 180/180 Shadow Mana: 0/180
HP Regen: 50/Min EN Regen: 12/Min MA Regen: 5/Min SMA Regen: NA
Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Vitality: (12, 38), Stamina: (12, 0), Intelligence: (18, 0), Charisma: (6, 0), Wisdom: (5, 0), Luck: (7, 5), Humility: (2, 0), Compassion: (3, 0), Strength: (3, 0)
Skills: (Level, % to next level, Boosts %, Level Cap)
Running: (5, 16, 25, 12), Perception: (3, 78, 0, 15), Commerce: (1, 0, 0, 6). Magic: (5, 1, 0, ∞), Concealment: (5, 40, 0, 15), Night-vision (4, 6, 0, 10), Blades: (4, 10, 0, 25), Spell Casting: (2, 5, 0, ∞), Close-Q-fighting: (3, 17, 0, 25), Archery: (4, 56, 0, 28), Swordsmanship: (4, 22, 0, 20), Staff-fighting: (5, 56, 0, 60), Horseriding: (3, 23, 0, 8)
Talents:
Tongues of Time. The Veils of Lamerell.
Quests:
Seek out the Legend of Billy Long Thumb. Status: Incomplete. Reward: Unknown.
The Veils of Lamerell. Status: Incomplete. Reward: Death.
20
A Star With A Smile
My eyelids glimmered amber, signaling the beginning of a new day. My dreams had held but one vision, and that was of him, the boy called Zender, or rather, the man named ShadowDancer. Yet they were not nightmares, it was as if his image had been imprinted on my mind. As I woke, guilt ran riot through me with flashes of the burning soldier littering my waking mind. Had I been too cocky? Had I held the connection to ShadowDancer open for too long? Those questions were as much the reason I kept my eyes shut as the mere fact that I couldn’t face opening them. That was mostly because Shylan, Marista, Cronis and Greman were all having an argument, and I was its subject.
“We just turn our backs,” Marista stated.
“A quick rest,” Shylan agreed.
“Before we know it,” Cronis continued. “She’s met Sakina, been gifted a priceless sword, done Poleyna only knows what to something, and had a guard crisped to his bones like bacon.” Cronis paused. “I love her,” he said, emphatically.
“What!” said Marista. “Are you actually enjoying it?”
“She’s the best thing that’s happened to this land in an age, truly random. I tell you, it takes something random to spice it all up. I love it!” Cronis crowed.
“What is it?” Greman said, his voice steady, ev
en, as always. “All we know is what Zybandian saw. One minute she was staring out at the Forbane.”
“Forbane!” Shylan spat.
“And the next,” Greman continued. “She was kneeling. The guard lost his mind and shoved her and then erupted into flames. We can hardly judge until she tells us exactly what happened.”
“Herumph,” said Marista.
I felt a damp cloth dabbing my brow, and somehow I knew it was Greman. “I’ll admit it, though. She has a fine knack for getting into trouble. Seems it was only the other day that she was killing a dwarf king.”
My lips curled in a smile.
“Then sparring with Flip, not everyone in the land gets to do that.”
“She is outstanding,” said Shylan. “And she ate a whole bowl of Marista’s broth—some feat for an uninitiated.”
I heard a sharp slap. Shylan yelped.
That did it; I started to smirk and opened my eyes. All four of them were looking down at me, smiling.
“I’m sorry,” I ventured.
All four heads receded, and I pushed myself up. Shylan and Cronis were sitting on one side of the bed, Marista and Greman the other.
“What for?” Marista asked carefully.
“Killing the soldier,” I replied, tears welling, and I told them what happened.
Rather than be falling over each other in a bid to ask me questions, they all just sat back, visibly stunned. I felt my stat board scrutinized.
Marista looked at Shylan. “Translocation—she did it, yet she hasn’t the skill nor the level of magic. How?”
“She wiped out a Combinium tower, that takes telekinetic abilities—same thing goes. She hasn’t got the skill, nor has she got the ability, let alone the level.”
“It’s a pickle, alright,” agreed Cronis. “Almost like someone’s helping her…”
“A pickle,” Greman said, with a nod.
“They weren’t my powers,” I blurted.
“What?” they said as one.
“I said, ‘They weren’t my powers.’ Sakina was with me the whole time.”
Shylan cleared his throat. He appeared to be dwelling on my proclamation.
“Rubbish,” he finally said. “She couldn’t be. We were with her, repairing her body. Distilling her essence.”
“Did you speak to her?” I asked.
“No,” he said, emphatically.
I wriggled around in the bed. “It was her, I know, I saw her before, and you don’t question that.”
Marista leaned forward. “Alexa, what you saw in the glade, in the hollow, was an apparition. The glade called Sweet Haven was Sakina’s place of power. Her essence would still be echoing around, and if granted by the boatman, she could have easily engineered that meet.” Marista sighed. “There is that, and then there is joining in some magical battle, which I’m afraid, is just not possible.”
“But I—”
“Not possible,” Marista said firmly.
I took a large breath. “I felt her will in my head. She focused it. She encouraged the black tendrils to temper my strike.”
“Wait a minute,” barked Cronis, and he jumped up and stared straight into me, scraping my stat board for information. “Shadow mana—her shadow mana—must have been summoned,” and then he added in no more than a whisper. “She has mixed both magics.” He turned to Marista. “It is time we started exploring the impossible.”
“I have always said,” Shylan announced imperiously, and he stood and paced up and down the gray-stone chamber. “That the impossible is intolerable, and much more likely to happen than folk think. We need to understand this. I suggest we retire to Zybandian’s inn, I believe it’s located in the fourth keep. Sometimes things are best mulled over an ale or four.”
“Agreed,” said Cronis.
“By Lamerell, I know I could use a swift one,” Marista muttered.
“I can stay,” said Greman, but the sulky lilt to his voice hinted otherwise.
“I’ll be okay,” I said.
“Blah,” Shylan spat.
Marista smiled down at me. “You are way too adept at getting in trouble. Alas, Petroo has had to leave—business with the king, and Flip has vanished—probably robbing Zybandian blind.”
As if by magical coincidence, there was a knock on the door, it opened, and Star’s head poked around it.
“One more to see the patient?” she asked.
Shylan and Cronis didn’t even say goodbye, they were out of the room and on their way to the inn before Star had breached my room’s threshold. She was wearing tight, leather pants, tucked into knee-length boots and a corset-type top. I swear more of her spilled over it than was trapped within.
Soon left alone with Star, at first there was an awkward silence—we hadn’t really spent any time together. I’d always hated those weighty pauses, so I just let my mouth take over. It had worked out so well for me recently, after all.
“Done any spying lately?” I asked, and instantly blushed.
“Spying?” Star repeated, not appearing in the slightest bit put out. “There isn’t much I don’t know about this place. Besides, it is really more a sideline for me. I much prefer the…the hunting, the archaeology, the mystery of it all. Folk can be so…false.”
“Archaeology?” To be fair, while not the last word I expected to hear in a mythical world, it was right up there with them.
“Precious artifacts don’t find themselves.” She poked her tongue out at me. “No, I love the dungeon runs, unearthing banes, following rune trails. The spying? Something’s got to pay the bills.” She shrugged and pouted.
“And…and the king doesn’t mind you spying on his lands?”
She shrugged, “I’m a Karaktorian, it’s not like I’m from Ruse. ShadowDancer uses our land as a battlefield—there are many that would rise up against that incursion.”
“Why don’t they then?”
Star laughed at that. “You’ve never seen The Mists have you? If you had, you’d understand a bit more. Imagine...” A faraway look came over her. “Imagine an angry cloud of white, gray, and black, tumbling, swirling, folding back on itself, and then imagine it not a hundred yards away from you rising high into the sky. Imagine a million tornados in a rank stretching across the horizon. Imagine that, and you aren’t even close to their chaos.”
“The mists that cut this place off?”
Star nodded. “So, tell me, what does Carmeyour, Karaktor, Tharameer, or as you call them—The Lowlands, what, Alexa, do they have in common with the rest of this land.”
I pictured those mists, saw them billowing up like an infernal wall of cloud and whispered, “We are all within the mists.”
Star nodded. “We are isolated, left out of the world. Left to fall behind. It is supposed to keep us primitive, backward, and yet…”
“They keep meddling from outside…”
“Why?” Star asked.
I looked at her, looked deep into her blue eyes. “Because they fear us,” I answered, but Star shook her head.
“No, Alexa, they fear what we could become.”
“But…why? Surely if this land… What does Cronis call it?”
“Mandrake.”
“Yes, Mandrake. Surely, by being cut off, things will hardly progress here? Where I come from, it was the cities and towns that had all the power. If you wanted a peaceful, simple life, you stowed yourself away in the country. It seems by isolating, they have hindered any progress this land might make.”
Star grinned and leaned close to me. I felt her breath on the tip of my ear. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you, but…” She drew away.
“But what?”
Star got up and paced the room, and for the first time since I’d regained consciousness, I looked around. The room was clearly in a turret. A quarter of it had a curved wall, and two sides narrowed to the door, sort of pizza-slice-shaped, with a bite out of its point. There was a window in the middle of the curved end, and over the head of the bed. I say window, a hole in the
stone and no more than that. A table stood against one of the straight walls, a cloudy, glass mirror above. Four chairs surrounded the bed, and Star moved three away against the other wall, picking my sack up and dumping it on them. She made to tidy my sword, but flinched away from it. Eventually, she sat on one of the chairs away from the bed. Looking straight at me, a mix of pity and intrigue crossed her face.
“Do you know why the wizards hinder you so?”
“Hinder me?”
She nodded.
“Sure, let me explain. The points on your ‘stat board’—that’s what you call it don’t you? They’re a bit messed up.”
“Messed up?”
“The way someone such as you...” and then she shrugged. “Anyone really—player or not, they specialize. Imagine, I don’t know, imagine being a cobbler.”
“Mending shoes.”
“And boots,” Star said, absently. “A cobbler would not fret about learning how to mend a roof—he may know the rudimentary bits, but he wouldn’t concentrate on it.”
I laughed inside at her awkwardness, and grinned outwardly. “Just spit it out,” I said.
“Attribute points—the way you allocate them. They are precious. They can tip the balance between death and victory. You carry a sword, yet you have little strength. You cast spells, and yet you practice running. I… I’m not making much sense.”
“No, I understand…a bit.”
“Put it like this. You have twelve vitality points plus bonuses ready to soak up a bashing. You have eighteen intelligence points, ready to enhance your ability to cast magic. What if you took ten of those vitality points and pumped them into intelligence—could you not cast a spell of protection to stop you getting damaged?”
I felt myself nodding, things becoming clearer in my mind. “So, if I excel in magic—”
“There’s no need to swing a sword—”
“Because I’ll be casting spells from afar,” I said. “But why would Sakina give me that sword?”