by Layton Green
The scorpions grew denser. Selina looked tired. Mala shouted at them to keep going, pinning all her hopes on a secret door. Halfway along the third wall, Gunnar broke from the group and strode down one of the rows. “Take my back!” he yelled.
Will followed, wondering what he had seen, hoping Gunnar didn’t stray too far. Will braced as a powerful wind blew by, Selina covering their flanks. He noticed Gunnar heading straight for a statue of a putrefying corpse with the head of an owl.
The scorpions seemed thicker than ever near the grotesque figure. A group of skeletal statues surrounded the corpse, and Will watched a pair of scorpions jackknife and then scuttle through the feet of the skeletons, as if clambering out of one of the hidden pits.
What is Gunnar thinking?
Will and the big warrior tried to push forward but the scorpions attacked en masse, causing them to retreat. Selina flew to their side, clearing the way once again. The effect of her Wind Push seemed weaker, but in the interlude, Gunnar rushed forward and knelt next to the corpse statue, waved his hand through it to confirm the illusion, then stuck his head through the floor.
“There’s a staircase!” he shouted, jumping to his feet.
Their hopes renewed, the rest of the party fought their way to the owl statue. Hundreds of scorpions surrounded them, pincers clacking, stingers poised. Mala herded everyone onto the staircase as Will followed Gunnar down, feeling blindly through the illusion for the first step.
-22-
Garbind Elldorn soared high above the Canal Bridge as he flew back into New Victoria after a long weekend exploring the wetlands south of the great city. As always, the sylvamancer from the Fifth Protectorate was not eager to return to his urban stronghold. A sylvamancer’s true home was the jungle, the swamp, the forest. Though an ambitious man—one had to be in order to claw one’s way into the Conclave—Garbind had never felt at ease in the intrigue-soaked halls of the Sanctum.
He dipped low enough to inhale the exotic aromas of the Goblin Market, then basked in the aura of unbridled might as he entered the Wizard District and gazed upon the domes and obelisks and poly-sided towers, the gleaming fortresses of the Realm’s most powerful wizards.
Slowing as he entered the thicket of colored spires, he floated past the Hall of Wizards and the serene groves of the Abbey, then wheeled to the right and flew into his citadel. Compared to most of his peers, it was a simple affair, thirty thousand square feet of teak and forest-green marble shaped by a master artisamancer to evoke the subtropical rainforests of the southern reaches of the Fifth Protectorate. Of course, the vegetation surrounding the stronghold concealed a host of nasty defenses.
Garbind’s thoughts turned pensive as he glided into the arboretum. Taking up an entire level and heated by solar walls, the indoor botanical garden showcased a stunning variety of tropical plants. Garbind’s wife Elena loved the arboretum almost as much as their twin eleven-year-old daughters did. He always felt close to his family here.
Two more weeks, he thought, until he returned home for the second half of the year. Most members of the Conclave brought their families to New Victoria, but Garbind preferred to raise his daughters in the less cosmopolitan atmosphere of Port Nelson. Let them remain children a while longer.
These days, preserving his daughter’s innocence wasn’t his only concern. Lord Alistair’s new policies bothered Garbind a great deal. He knew his voice of tolerance was an unwanted one, but Garbind was from a port town with a stew of people and cultures. His mother was Egyptian. His father Basque. Garbind had long opposed Lord Alistair’s discriminatory policies, and lately they had taken on an even darker nature.
And for what? The modern era was eons removed from the Age of Sorrows. It was laughable to think that anyone, especially gypsies and other Exilers, could challenge the might of the Congregation.
As Garbind removed his traveling cloak and strolled through a grove of red coconut palms, he noticed a shadow pass through the glass wall, out of the corner of his eye.
A shadow? Passing through the solar panel?
He turned and saw something foreign to his hundred years of travels drifting towards him, creating a swath of destruction through the dense vegetation. It resembled, he thought, a coagulated shadow.
Streaks of silver light darted like heat lightning through the man-shaped form, its white eyes glowed as if heated in a forge, and the face of the thing, akin to a sculptor’s mold cast in shadow, seemed strangely familiar to Garbind.
Expressionless, it drifted towards the sylvamancer with arms outstretched. Though stunned, Garbind was a powerful wizard in his own home, surrounded by layers of defenses. He had no idea how the shadow thing, whatever it was, had bypassed the wards. But an elder mage had many defenses.
Garbind extended his palms and summoned a Wind Push so fierce it made the red palms bend. He aimed to blow the shadow thing out of his residence and reseal the wards, yet the entity drifted right through the powerful gale.
Though a sylvamancer by trade, all Congregation mages were familiar with the basic forms of magic. Garbind could not summon a fire spirit or create a multi-pronged Flame Scourge like a pyromancer could, but he could use fire against an enemy vulnerable to that element. He whisked a glow orb into his hands, smashed it with his mind, and sent a Fire Sphere spinning towards the shadow creature.
No effect. After that, Garbind tried a blast of water from an overturned urn. That also failed. Next he tried to suffocate the being with a mountain of soil, overturning half the room in an explosion of power.
Still nothing.
Garbind felt a stab of fear.
Air, fire, water, earth. Nothing had slowed it. Harnessing spirit, the only basic element left, was not within Garbind’s power.
The thing was ten feet away and closing. The sylvamancer’s instincts screamed that a touch would mean his death. After what he had just witnessed, he did not even trust his Wizard Shield.
Something else: from this distance, Garbind finally recognized the face of the shadow creature as belonging to a spiritmancy student named Alfor Tremayne who had perished three years earlier, while attempting the Planewalk.
Or so they had been told. An elder spirit mage oversaw each attempt at the Planewalk, and Lord Alistair himself had proctored Alfor’s exam.
Garbind’s face drained of color. Lord Alistair. He knew the Chief Thaumaturge had long detested Garbind’s voice of dissent, but he never dreamed he would take it this far.
The others had to be warned. He would call a special meeting of the Conclave and accuse Lord Alistair in person. Ideally, he would bring what remained of Alfor as evidence—except he had no idea how to capture him. Better to find someone else to bear witness. Jalen Rainsword lived nearby and would support him.
As Garbind decided to flee, he realized the shadow creature—he could not think of the thing as Alfor, a studious and well-mannered lad—had drifted over to block the exit. No matter. Garbind flew to the northwest corner of the arboretum and up through the wizard chute, all the way to the highest room in the stronghold. He would use the portal at the top.
When he exited into the high-ceilinged chamber called the Eagle’s Nest, a beautiful space filled with ethereal orchids in hanging baskets garnered from cloud forests around the world, he saw the shadow creature drifting upward through the floor to block his escape.
Furious, Garbind made the room come alive, sending hundreds of vines and creepers to entrap the shadow thing. All passed right through him. Garbind cursed. He could think of no spell or magic item that would affect the wretched thing. Not only that, but it was drifting towards him again, deceptively fast, and he didn’t have time to think of creative options. He was forced to return to the wizard chute and try another level. If he had to, he would blast through the walls of his own stronghold.
He wheeled and dove into the wizard chute—and saw a second shadow drifting towards him from below. In a panic, he wheeled to return to the Eagle’s Nest, but the first shadow creature had entered
the top of the chute.
Garbind was trapped between them.
Now with the rancid taste of fear coating his mouth, Garbind whisked down four levels and quickly disabled the wards around the secret escape passage halfway down the chute. He could sense the shadow creatures converging on him. Images of his wife and daughter filled his mind as he released the wards and extended his arms, blowing out the hidden door and revealing the horizontal chute that led to the exit.
He thought he was free when one of the shadow things appeared ahead of him in the escape chute, drifting through the wall and trapping him inside.
Desperate, Garbind tried to blast out the thick walls of the escape passage. He had almost succeeded when one of the beings flowed on and then into him. Garbind screamed as the hottest fire imaginable seared through his body, from the tips of his fingers to the soles of his feet, and then he ceased to exist.
-23-
Val and the others flew through the mist for as long as they dared. Not a mile from the village, the shadows of the flying things roaming the ghostly blue sky drew closer, exposing the bottoms of forty- and fifty-foot membranous wings.
That was enough for the party. They had no desire to combat whatever strange species of demon or other creature thrived inside the aerial netherworld. After flying low enough to ensure no search parties had followed, they set down atop the highest ridge in sight.
Except for the lonely speck of gray marking the village walls in the distance, nothing but bleak moorland rippled the landscape.
Dida glanced at the sky and cringed, as if expecting something to swoop down and snatch him up. Adaira simply sagged, exhausted. How long had it been since they had slept? Val wondered
“I s’pose we’re off to Badŏn to find Tobar,” Rucker said. He pawed at his stubble, consulted a stainless steel compass attached to his belt, and pointed. “Taking into account where we started, and assuming this world’s anything like ours, Badŏn should be about a three-day journey that way.”
“I don’t understand,” Adaira said. “Tobar brought the demons to Badŏn? A year ago? And he’s some sort of . . . king here?”
“Lassie, I don’t know much of anything about this world, except it’s bloody dangerous. But wherever we are, we need shelter. A place to rest where we can defend ourselves.”
“What about right here?” Val asked, forcing his thoughts away from the redheaded girl. As much as he wanted to curl into a ball and wallow in grief and self-pity, he had others to think about. The members of his expedition. His brothers. “It’s high ground, with a good view of the moors.”
Rucker shook his head. “Too close to the town, and I don’t care to be exposed. Not with demons roaming the land.”
“Traveling also poses danger,” Synne murmured, eying Val with a worried expression. “Especially without your magic.”
Neither Dida nor Adaira took offense at her words, and Val knew what the majitsu had meant. Dida was a bibliomancer, Adaira a healing-focused mage. Both could defend themselves and were powerful in their own right, but neither of them possessed Val’s innate strength or offensive skill set.
Or a staff that can disembowel a teenage girl.
Val pressed his lips together, forcing the memory away. “She’s right. I’ll need to rest to regain power.”
“I propose we start towards Badŏn,” Adaira said, “and impose a half-day limit on the journey. If no better option arises by then, we camp on the nearest high ground.”
“Reasonable enough, Your Highness,” Rucker said. He started warily down the ridge, sword in hand. “I hope we last long enough for it to matter.”
A wary, contemplative silence encased the group as they trudged single-file through the mossy terrain. Thankfully, the direction they chose was free of bogs. Val tried to focus on his surroundings, but the village girl’s sightless eyes found his no matter where he looked, pleading for her future, asking why Val had taken her young life.
Adaira stepped beside him and squeezed his hand. “You didn’t know,” she said softly, gleaning the source of his distress.
“I lost control.”
“You were trying to save me. They were trying to kill us.”
Val lowered his head. Nothing mattered when you took a child’s life, intentionally or not. The black sash gypsy he had crippled in New Victoria, Mari’s murderer, flashed through his mind. While the violent act had made him ill, the man had deserved worse.
Nor did Val feel remorse about threatening Gowan, and even preparing to torture him if he didn’t cooperate. Val had needed to find his brothers. He had given Gowan a choice. He would do it again if he must.
The same with the Dwyn. He had ordered his followers to kill Adaira. Val could protect himself and his loved ones with little remorse, though he now knew that the taking of another life, whether justified or not, took something from him, too.
But the redheaded girl had taken more than everyone else combined.
Much more.
Who am I? What have I become?
He blew out a breath and let Adaira’s hand fall away. He didn’t need sympathy or self-pity; he needed better control of his magic. He needed more spells. He needed to plumb the depths of his limits and increase his magical reserves, work to ensure he never had to blindly lash out again.
The party walked beside a steel-gray creek for the better part of an hour. After that, they skirted a boggy valley, picked their way across a boulder-strewn plateau, tramped up and down a series of hills and dales. Val analyzed his spells in his mind, trying to dissect how they worked, thinking of ways to improve his arsenal. The odds they faced seemed so daunting. A city full of demons? A terrifying entity named Asmodeus? A powerful and insane spirit mage whose head he was supposed to deliver to the queen?
They didn’t even know the way back.
Five hours in, as they topped a hillock covered with stunted trees and dark green moss, another smudge of gray emerged out of the mist in the distance. A collection of granite stones too aligned and purposeful to be random. Hands gripping their weapons, the party pressed forward, eyes in constant movement. As they drew closer, Val realized they were looking at dozens—hundreds, even—of enormous standing stones formed into house-like structures of varying shapes and sizes.
Not houses, Val corrected himself.
Crypts.
They had stumbled upon an ancient cemetery.
Imposing and silent, the necropolis seemed rooted to the ground, present since the dawn of man, defying the ravages of time to protect its inhabitants from desecration. Runes and crude iconography marked many of the stones, and Val noticed a number of crosses with short arms and elongated bases carved into the granite.
“Well?” Dida asked. “Will this suffice?”
“Maybe,” Rucker said, his eyes roaming the perimeter of the cemetery. “If it’s not infested.”
Val gripped his staff, shuddering as he remembered the ghouls in the tunnels beneath the Londyn graveyard. “Infested?”
The old adventurer waved a hand. “Demons, undead, scavengers. A cemetery’s no place for the living.”
The vaults and mausoleums sprawled across the moor with no apparent order or formal entrance. The party stepped warily past the perimeter, weapons drawn, keeping a tight formation.
“We need a place we can barricade,” Synne said.
Val noticed the tombs near the perimeter were either too small to be of use, not enclosed, or had no visible door.
Rucker gripped his sword. “Aye.”
“Adaira and I can seal one of the open tombs with a standing stone,” Dida said. “I can then set a ward.”
Rucker grunted. “Not a bad plan.”
Adaira pointed towards the center of the cemetery, where the top of a large oval structure was visible. “I wonder what that is?”
Rucker twirled his sword and started walking. “It might be our inn.”
As they delved deeper into the cemetery, Val had a strong sense of being watched. In addition, a whiff of s
omething foul lingered beneath the smell of loamy earth and old stone. Perhaps a recent burial was the culprit, though judging from the remoteness of the site and the besieged state of the villagers, Val doubted anyone had visited the cemetery in some time.
He mentioned his suspicion to the others.
“There’s something in here, all right,” Rucker said. “The question is how dangerous it is.
The structure Adaira had seen, a huge block of smooth gray granite looming over the center of the cemetery, came fully into view. Judging from the seamless construction and the size of the mausoleum—fifteen-feet high with at least a hundred foot diameter—Val guessed a wizard had been involved.
As they circled the giant tomb, they found a bronze door etched with three lines of runes. On either side of the door, pillars protruded from the granite in bas-relief, carved with intricate renditions of forest life.
Adaira and Dida stepped forward to study the runes. They started to translate at the same time, but Dida flourished and allowed Adaira to continue.
“Herein lies the tomb of Myrddin of the Demetae, Lord of the Wild and Scourge of Albion, defeated in glorious battle in 1201.”
Adaira’s reading had slowed to a crawl by the time she finished, her face pale. “But that can’t be.”
Val looked to the others, who also seemed disconcerted. He tried to remember his lesson about Myrddin at the Abbey. “1201. That was the Battle of Londyn, right? The one that established the Conclave?”
Adaira covered her mouth in horror. “The wizards didn’t win here. But this place, it looks so old . . . I’ve been under the assumption that we had somehow traveled into the past—but could this be an alternate present? One where the druids and common born rule Albion, and wizards are still oppressed?”
Dida stepped forward to run his hands along the door. His head cocked to the side, contemplative. “The entire structure is warded. Quite powerfully, I might add.”