Rendar.
His face shone far more carefree than before. She studied the child, and when she saw the moon medallion resting on his breast, she realized she looked upon Errance.
“I missed you, Daava,” the small boy said, disapproval in every word.
With a laugh, Rendar kissed his son’s cheek. “I was gone only for an hour. Surely you could not have missed me so terribly.”
“I did,” he insisted. “I want to go in there too!”
Smiling, Rendar set him on the wall and swung his arms back and forth. “Someday,” he said.
“When?” the little Errance demanded. “When can I read the Moonscript?”
“When you’re king,” Rendar promised. Then he looked up and straight at Tellie.
She stepped back and found herself falling, unable to scream, unable to catch herself. And as she fell back into darkness, the memories of the dream slipped away like the rays of light themselves…
And then there was nothing.
Nothing at all.
6
oOo
It is said Darkness is empty and that is why it always hungers. A consuming void, unable to be satisfied by that it devours. Whatever vanishes into its depths is lost forever. I know this better than anyone. For I have suffered here in the shadows, and there are none who might find me.
In the northeastern corner of Orim, there hunkered a range of mountains in peaks of serrated teeth and shrouded in shadow. Few neared those fell mountains upon their own free will, and none had ever scaled those heights. For a truth was whispered—though none could say from where this truth came—that the mountains hid a secret too terrifying to reveal. A scar on the world uglier than death.
There were those who had been taken beyond that mountain wall by mysterious ways and never returned to speak of what horrors lurked inside. Only those pledged to the evil within ever ventured out again.
If one could have looked over the high peaks, they would have seen that on the other side, formed from the very rocks of the mountains, there rose a fortress, towers as sharp as spears and the walls as riddled as decaying flesh. None would have noticed the clumsy buildings of wood scattered around the foundation or the mines delving into the mountain sides or even the dramatic proportions of the edifice. When one saw the fortress of Tertorem, one could only look at a single thing.
Between the highest two towers suspended a colossal, black sphere, hovering in mockery of the sun, spreading darkness and fear instead of light and courage. Such was the Nyght, where dwelt the Darkness. The Nyght, his throne—Tertorem, his kingdom. Here he clung, a leech sucking the blood from its prey.
And out in the world where brightness and beauty could yet be found, rumors spread as common folk whispered and imagined what horrors might lie in such a place.
But it was far, far worse than they could have ever dreamed. For where Darkness and soul meet…hell is born.
oOo
Yador, the current warden of Tertorem, sank onto his throne and troubled over the news just brought in along with two young humans. The new prisoners did not concern him—he cared little about fellow mortals, especially ones as dull as these children. But according to Master Daran, the girl was acquainted with the Aselvian elves and had spoken a rather startling declaration.
The king of Aselvia was dead.
Yador flung his head back in disgust and clasped his long-nailed hands under his chin. If this was true, then his excellent plan had died with the king’s last breath. He rose with an angry pant and paced from one corner of the small room to the other. There was little to interrupt his pacing for the room was bare save for a table and chair. Other wardens had treated themselves to frivolities, but Yador was conscious of the fact that His Darkness did not like his servants to become too comfortable with wealth. And anyway, how could he, perched in such a precarious position, afford to take liberties?
He knew that he was the first mortal to be given charge of Tertorem, an honor that he could still barely comprehend. When offered the position by the Voice, he’d eagerly accepted, thinking to further himself in His Darkness’s favor. At the time he’d held a reputation as a cunning, cruel man, and he had not been intimidated by the mantle all other wardens left behind—charge of the Prisoner. He’d studied methods used on the Prisoner and which ones he reacted to the most before going down to try his own schemes.
But the Prisoner had broken free. It took three men to hammer him unconscious before his fingers could be pried from Yador’s throat.
In the reflection of those beautiful cyan eyes, Yador had seen his own death. In that moment, he realized he wasn’t ready to die. He was terrified of dying. As those eyes continued to haunt him, he’d felt his will and potential fraying till by the end of the ten year span, he was the broken man and the Prisoner yet unbroken.
Once more, Yador glared at the report he was writing concerning the death of the king. If only…but it was too late now. His ten years were up. He’d failed. His skin bubbled with fear as he contemplated the consequences of failure. How much longer until he showed up? How much longer did he have to come up with a convincing argument?
“Curse that Prisoner,” he muttered. “If only he had given in years ago.”
“If only he had given in, My Darkness would even now be enthroned in the Higher World.”
Yador blanched at the sound of the Voice. There could be no doubt to the identity for no other voice was so smooth as silk, strong as iron, and cold as the heart of evil. Dreading what he knew he would see, Yador slowly lifted his gaze to the yawning hallway before him.
Gliding down the passage came a figure not quite a man, for no man could carry such a presence of power and depravity in such a beautiful form. Dark iron twisted into ghoulish hands and arms that wrapped around his body, and his cloak whorled in his wake as a consuming void.
The demons of His Darkness walked here and there in the shadows of the world, but none were so feared and so reverenced as the Voice, for he had been chosen to represent and speak the Darkness’s command.
The Voice did not glance Yador’s way as he walked to the table and picked up the report. “But the Prisoner has not given in, and the Higher World remains untouched.” His eyes lifted, and he looked over the top of the paper, darker shades of grey swirling around his piercing pupils. “Perhaps you would like to explain why he has not given in?”
Yador’s mouth went dry. Why not? Why not for the past several decades, when he’d been under the hands of evil far more powerful? But some sense of self-preservation kept him silent.
“Where is the Prisoner now?” the Voice asked, glancing around as if he expected to see him there in the very room.
“Working in the mines,” Yador rasped. “I’ve sent for him. He should be returning soon.”
The Voice nodded, continuing to sift through the papers on the desk. “Perhaps,” he said, “you would like to show me what strategy you employed, and perhaps I shall be able to see where you went wrong.” His swift gaze bit with the sting of a wasp. “Physical torture in the Mormare Chambers, yes?”
“Yes,” Yador gasped. “And every other week, he was sent to the mines.” He was fairly sure he heard the Voice mutter, “completely unoriginal,” and he trembled.
“Well then,” the Voice said setting the papers down with a brisk slap. “Let us go to Mormare and see what you devised, shall we?” His face split in a fearfully brilliant smile as he reached out and took Yador by the elbow.
The man flinched, but to his surprise, he felt a hand, without warmth, but with firm flesh and solid bone. He was not comforted. He knew what ran through the Voice’s veins.
The Voice turned to a door on the left wall, a door that should have opened to a stairway leading down into bottomless depths. But instead, the pale wisps of Mormare slipped through the entry way and curled around their feet.
Yador had heard that that the demons were given the power to change Tertorem at will, but he had never seen it done. His pupils dilated as the
y passed into the chamber.
In years past, the warden had been a man to shiver with delight as the spectral fog breathed through his bones, to look with pride upon the hideous instruments and machines contorted in gleams of drifting lights. But now the fog seemed to wrap around him like snakes and the acid of its touch burned his skin, eyes, and lungs. Every step he took, he feared the spurting little fires to burst under his feet. And on every terrible torment, he fancied he read his very name.
The Voice stood amongst the mist and sparks like a king in his hall, and he breathed deep the venomous fumes. “So,” he said, thin and soft. “Do tell? Mormare is only as marvelous as its wielder. Tell me…”
What had been expected of him, to create more than what was given? He’d been ruthless yes, but he’d never been an inspired inventor! Yador’s mind desperately spiraled in search for the tortures he had ordered. His wavering vision fixed on the furnishings of the chamber, and his memory slowly returned. He stumbled through a loose explanation of his plan, but through it all he watched the demon’s face turn steadily colder, and at last his voice faltered and snuffed out like a candle.
One long hiss slipped out from between the Voice’s lips, and his eyes narrowed. “You gave him a routine?” he growled, and the quiet tone was far worse than any shout. “You gave him a routine?” He snarled, his face twisting into that of a monster. “A body—especially an elven body—can get used to almost anything! And you give him a routine!” The Voice was shouting now, anger held by the thinnest of threads. “Don’t give him something he can get used to! Switch ideas every day, pull him out in the middle of the night, invent new ways to hurt him, rob him of his sleep as he lives in terror wondering what you dream up next!”
The warden stood still as the dead. One wrong move could be his last.
And then the Voice smiled. “Well done,” he said.
Yador blinked. The words were wrong. Or if true, they’d surely be followed by death. Neither proved true. “My…my lord?” Swallowing hard, he managed, “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t, you darling fool. Which is what makes you so perfect. No doubt the Prisoner thinks we are tiring of him, that we are becoming inept. He’s had time to draw up his strength again, if he has any left. It’s very important to be sure you have all your enemy’s reserves in the forefront when you strike the devastating blow, always remember that.”
With a brisk clap of his hands, he said, “I shall be taking over management of the Prisoner now. Obedience can be taken in ways other than brute force or seduction. From what I have seen, you blundering idiots have only accomplished convincing him of his own self-righteousness and courage.”
He turned and walked out of the chamber back to the small study, Yador timidly creeping behind.
“The king of Aselvia is dead,” the Voice said, carelessly throwing aside the table to sit in the chair. “Well, he shall be missed. As missed as a thorn in the foot. Chances with him failed anyway, so it’s not as if we’re now at a disadvantage. I always knew my one chance would be with this Prisoner, and I have planned and plotted far too long to fail. When the Moonscript is mine, My Darkness shall assault the Higher World and bring those pandered celestials into corruption as he should have done from the beginning. The time is right for the endgame.”
“How?” Yador whispered, flinching at how his voice shook. “How will you accomplish it, sire?”
The Voice remained silent for another few moments before speaking. “The two children brought in today…”
“Yes, sire?”
The Voice paused, considering. Children. Rarely were they brought to Tertorem, and rarely did the Voice include them in his plans. Though such simple things, they proved a mystery to him, a pawn he could not predict. So full of curiosity they were, so quick to run to the safety of bright places and warm arms. They were not yet set in stubborn pride, and when confronted with fear and pain, they sought comfort and healing. And in that simple seeking, they drew dreadfully near the truth. The Voice dared not keep them among the other prisoners lest they lead the elders after them.
But in this case, he admitted with begrudging, children would serve his purpose well.
“Send in the girl to me, the one whom the elves fancied. And when the Prisoner arrives, send him to the cells next to the children in the Dormen level.”
“Sire?” The Dormen level was by far the tamest and most comfortable of quarters to be found in Tertorem.
“Why of course,” the Voice said, his face wide with mock offense. “Where’d you think I send them, the Well? No, no, that is no place to become acquainted. It’s not always about blood after all. Often it’s about love. At best, love and blood.”
oOo
Fear rose to greater heights than Tellie ever dreamt possible. Every time she thought she couldn’t possibly feel worse, worse happened. Fear took predominance over everything else—thought, speech, movement. She was no more capable than a corpse as the guards pushed her along, bound and gagged. Nothing existed beyond her fear. It took a long while for her to realize that everything was silent and still, that she’d stopped moving some time ago. It took even longer for her to realize that her hands were no longer bound.
A breath puffed out of her lips, and she became aware of her cold, aching body. Hesitantly, she reached up and pushed the cloth off her eyes. She stood in a simple stone room, quite narrow and small, lit with an eerie twilight. For a moment, she thought she was all alone. The next, she saw the man seated on a throne. Except it wasn’t a man. It couldn’t be. For no man could embody such evil, could so clearly reveal the ravishment of cruelty in his eyes, could look so horrible and so alluring at the same time.
She hadn’t known until she saw him that there was something worse than mere fear.
She hardly dared breathe, frozen like a mouse in sight of a hawk. He wasn’t looking at her yet, as his fascination seemed fixed by the wall, but he would look at her, and he would destroy her with his gaze.
Then he did look, and she was not destroyed.
“So you’re the little mortal Rendar took an interest in. How charitable of him; I’d expect nothing less,” the Voice said.
No one so dreadful should be able to speak so casually and personally, as if Rendar was an old friend. But the impossibility of it seemed to break a chain inside Tellie, giving her a chance for the impossible as well. Her mind’s voice, so faint and thin as to be unrecognizable, flitted across her mind. Tell him nothing of Rendar. The king must be kept safe. Then she remembered with both a relieving and devastating blow that Rendar was dead, and so in a way, already safe.
The Voice rose, robes swelling like thunder clouds, and swept towards her. She only came to his waist, and he had to pause a few steps away and bend to really look at her.
“Won’t you say hello?” he said, brows arching.
She stared up into his eyes. There was no difference between the pupil and iris, and the whites were dark gray, unable to mask the Darkness beneath.
Shaking his head with a tisk, he tried again. “Do you know why you’re here?”
This time she managed to whisper, “No.”
His teeth were the only white in the room, bright and gleaming. One of his fingers reached out, and though she longed to recoil, she could only stand there as his nails dipped under her collar, then remerged, dragging the necklace’s string with them.
The moon medallion lay translucent upon the palm of his hand, perhaps trying to hide. He rubbed his thumb across its surface several times as if he could rub it out. Then he let it drop back onto her chest.
His smile flashed in front of her eyes again, the white-washed walls of a tomb. “We’ll speak again later, yes, Tellie? In the meantime, enjoy your quarters.”
Footsteps thudded behind her, hands grabbed her shoulders again, and her vision eddied as she fell into darkness once more.
Ever since she could remember, Tellie had been afraid of the dark. Whether in a warm bed or caught outside, a cloud-covered
night sent shivers through her bones. But never, never had there been darkness like this. Here, light had never existed. The very blackness was thick and suffocating. It was in and of itself terrifying. She did not fear anything it might hide lurking in the void beyond, for nothing would dare enter this horrible place. It was so silent. She couldn’t even hear her own breath.
She was alone, oh, so alone! Alone, alone, alone—
“Tellie?”
She shrieked.
“Oh, bother it, Tellie! I’m right here, don’t startle so.” Kelm heaved a grumpy sigh and then mumbled something that shouldn’t have been heard except in that silence: “Girls.”
Her breath returned in hiccupping gasps. She could hear Kelm shifting on the floor nearby. She could feel cold iron clasps around her wrists and stone beneath and behind her. Oh thank heaven, she was not alone and she was somewhere.
“Kelm!” she gasped. “Oh, Kelm!” If she hadn’t been in shackles she would have flung herself in his direction and covered him in kisses. She blinked. Where had that thought come from?
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” the boy grumbled. “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”
“You could have spoken up sooner! I’ve been dying of fright!” she snapped, everything inside blazing up in anger. “Where are we and why did they take us?”
“Don’t ask me,” Kelm snapped. “You were the one meddling with elves, and magpies, and magic necklaces!” At her dead silence, he softened and said, “It was some sort of dark magic. I’ve heard the merchant talk about such things, but…but well, I guess I never expected to experience it.”
“But where are we?” she whispered. “Do you think they took us very far?”
“They used some kind of portal, I guess.” He hesitated for a dreadful moment before admitting, “And we are far from home, Tell. I don’t know how far, but…far. You were in a faint when they took us down here, but we’re a long ways below ground.”
Tellie absorbed the news slowly, fearing that any swift processing would send her into a panic. She shifted, the shackles clacking together sharply.
Moonscript (Kings of Aselvia Book 1) Page 8