Keys of Candor: Trilogy

by Casey Eanes

  Kull shook his head and let out a sigh. “No. It’s like he is hiding, but he is the least of my worries right now. This situation is larger. There is more to it and I am not sure how to take the next step.”

  “Isphet, the least of our worries!?” Willyn’s voice was incredulous. “The monster just leveled Elum’s largest city and is on his way to Lotte. He is the least of your worries!?”

  “Yes.” Kull kept his eyes to the horizon as his mind wandered to Ma’et and the Sea of Souls. “I don’t expect anyone to understand because I hardly believe it myself, but I know what is coming, and it is much worse.”

  “Do you want to fill me in then?” Willyn asked, her eyes cutting into him. “If you know what’s next, why are we just sitting here?”

  “I have to find Seam.” Kull shuffled his feet and turned his attention back to Willyn. “He has to help us.”

  Willyn stared at Kull, her expression shifting into confusion. “Seam? Seam Panderean?” Her face pulled into a dagger of rage, waiting for Kull’s response. Kull glanced at her, his face stern and nodded.

  Willyn spat on the ground. “That jackal will do no such thing!” She stepped close, inches from Kull’s face. He could smell her breath as she spoke through clenched teeth. “I would rather run myself through with my own jave than to work with that lecherous snake. He will never help us. I forbid this plan, Kull.”

  Kull blinked, his face saddened but determined. “No...he will, in the end.”

  Willyn turned away from him, her mind full of anger and confusion, unwilling to follow the mysterious path Kull’s mind had devised. Focus. You are here to defend Lotte. To make one last stand against your enemy. She turned towards Kull, muffling her rage, “Do what you must, Kull. We are beginning our march towards Vale today. We cannot wait anymore for Cyric. All reports indicate that Isphet will be at Vale’s doorstep in a matter of days.” She turned and marched toward her headquarters, the dust of her boots clouding behind her. Kull stood, staring out over the horizon in silence. Suddenly, Willyn’s datalink blinked to life and emitted a loud chirp announcing a perimeter breach.

  Willyn read the digital map in an instant. “Incoming craft! Southern boundary. One thousand meters and closing.”

  “Is it friendly?” Kull yelled back, but Willyn was sprinting back down toward the base.

  Seam lifted his head from the cold, damp floor. His head was cloudy and spun like a twisted carnival ride. He stumbled forward after a few difficult steps, holding out his hand to steady himself against his dragging, stubborn vision. The room was dark and foreign, his memories no better than cobwebs. Seam tripped over something and went tumbling, slamming against the floor. He cursed as he got up again, sending a rageful kick toward whatever had tripped him. It did not connect.

  A wave of panic flew over Seam as his mind jostled back to reality. Dyrn. Dyrn survived! Seam scrambled to his feet and scurried around the room searching for Dyrn and Abtren’s remains, but the room was a black and empty void.

  No! I can’t be trapped again. Seam sprinted forward, but found no wall, no boundary. Just an eternal inky void.

  Seam stopped himself and straightened his back as his adrenaline eased. He turned in a slow circle and held his arms out to the side. “Show yourself, Dyrn! I am finished with your tricks. I defeated you once and I will do it all again.” Seam paused and drew in a deep breath, smiling as he continued. “Except this time, I will make sure you are dead!”

  There was no answer, only an eerie silence. The quiet hush of the room was maddening, and Seam screamed, “Answer me! Don’t hide! ANSWER ME!”

  “Careful what you ask for, essence,” said a voice that rumbled like thunder. The words landed like an avalanche. Seam drew back and shielded his face as the voice continued.

  “Who are you?” Seam asked, lowering his hands. “Show yourself.”

  A shimmering row of gilded teeth shone through the darkness and a set of large, terrible eyes pierced the midnight. “I am your destiny, young Panderean.”

  “I don’t understand. Where am I?”

  “Enough!” The voice crashed over Seam, pushing him back. “You will listen and make your choice. So, listen carefully.”

  The fogginess that had been clouding Seam’s mind since waking cleared in a terrifying instant. His eyes opened to a giant serpent towering over him, growing in size and stature until the beast hovered fifty feet above him. Its horrifying teeth dripped with venom.

  “You...you have caught my attention. To destroy a Benefactor is no small task. Now...I am offering you a new chance, a test of your will.” The beast’s eyes flickered as it coiled its tail around Seam, creating an inescapable perimeter. “Will you claim your destiny?”

  Cyric leapt from his jeep’s cockpit and quickly made his way to the trailer he had towed from Elum, ignoring the growing amount of Grogan soldiers surrounding him, asking him for credentials under gunpoint. He threw open the door and pointed inside the large cargo trailer.

  “You want credentials, boys?” He held open his arms like a circus barker. “Here you go! More firepower than you Grogans brought to the party, and it makes the Lottians look like a bunch of kids with sticks and stones. You might as well—”

  “It took you long enough.” Adley’s voice cut Cyric off mid-sentence. “We expected you back more than twenty-four hours ago! You’re cutting it close, Cyric.”

  “I had some personal business to check on,” Cyric grunted. “You’re lucky I even bothered to come back. Not many people sign up for a suicide mission.”

  Adley shook her head and then nodded. “Thank you. We need each other more than we would like to say. We don’t have much time to waste.”

  Cyric offered a knowing nod of his head and motioned toward the town center. “Why are we digging in here? I thought we were going to make a strike? That was the whole reason I went after this stuff!”

  “It was...” Adley’s voice trailed off as her eyes caught sight of Kull, Willyn, and Ewing approaching from the town center. “But we had a gap in our intel.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Cyric asked. “You sent me half-across the world just to come back and die here with a bunch of farmers and the blood-thirsty Grogan army? I might as well have just drunk myself to death and enjoyed the coast down in Elum.”

  “No. You wouldn’t do that. That’s not who you are,” Adley countered. “We have the armament to make a final stand, and with the firepower you brought we might have a chance. We just need to maximize our opportunity. Now tell me what you’ve brought.”

  “Easy,” Cyric said holding up his hands. “I’ll share the goods in time, but first I need to understand. What’s this talk about us not going anywhere? We are sitting ducks here. We are in the middle of a field! Ain’t no walls around this city, not that walls can do much against the hordes of the shambling dead.” Cyric pointed at Kull gruffly. “I thought your boy there and the monk were gonna lead us where we need to go. How’d they screw that up?”

  Ewing grabbed Kull’s arm as he started to charge for Cyric at the mention of Wael. “Watch your tongue, merc,” Ewing barked. “Wael gave his last making sure we were all safe, and Kull is still doing all he can to help us. It just ain’t safe anymore.”

  “What’s not safe? Nothing’s safe, old man! Look around,” Cyric shouted. “We have devils cremating cities and stealing their living and we are stopping here because it ain’t safe?!” Cyric threw a strong glare at Kull. “Look, I’m sorry about the monk. I didn’t know...but I’ve seen what this guy can do in Elum. You aren’t ready for what’s coming. It ain’t the time to mourn. We’ve all lost someone. No one is safe now. No one!”

  “He’s here for a reason!” Adley said as she stepped between Kull and Cyric. She pointed at Kull. “He can see on the other side, and he had nearly tracked down where we needed to go, but something happened…and Wael...”

  Cyric glanced at Kull and then scanned Ewing and Adley’s faces. Willyn stood at a distance, silently standing guard over
them. Cyric then looked over to Ewing’s face but everyone’s expression offered nothing but uncertainty.

  Kull shrugged off Ewing’s grasp and exhaled before stepping toward Cyric. “She’s right. I can see...further than most. I was probing the other side, trying to find where we could strike, but I was attacked. Wael saved me...I lived, but he didn’t. I can try again, but without Wael, I don’t think I will succeed.”

  Cyric squinted as he rubbed at his temples. “I am not following a word you are saying, boy.”

  Kull gritted his teeth. “I’m looking for Seam Panderean. I had found him on the other side but he was panicked and I couldn’t determine his surroundings. That’s when I was attacked.”

  “Attacked? By who?” Cyric asked, dismayed at all of this.

  “Ma’et,” Kull said flatly as his attention drifted from Cyric. “It’s like he was protecting both Seam and Isphet. He knew I was hunting for Seam. When I found him, he acted like he had been hunted before from the other side. It was weird. He thought I was someone named Dyrn, but—”

  Cyric threw out a hand. “Wait! Stop right there.” Cyric furrowed his brow as he leaned forward. “What did you say?”

  “Dyrn,” Kull answered.

  Cyric’s face went pale. “Aleph above, this is rich. This goes deep, deeper than I’d ever want to be. But none of it matters now.” Cyric slammed shut the door to his trailer and nodded. “If Seam is working with Dyrn, then there is only one place he could be.”

  Kull sat in the back of the rook as Cyric maneuvered the craft across the desert dunes. Willyn had agreed to lend them the vehicle, and everything now hinged on one thing: speed. The two shot out over the dunes, casting a thirty-foot plume of sand and grit in the air. The horizon rolled up and down with each dune they traversed, and it made Kull nearly lurch.

  Breathe. Breath, he whispered in his mind. In seconds, long swaths of the Devil’s Stretch streaked by him, bringing with it the pang of another journey long ago, with a friend that was now lost. It took only minutes for Cyric to barrel through Hangman’s Pass. Soon the shadow of what was left of Rhuddenhall stood smoldering in the distance, its once pristine red walls torn down, shattered, and charred with ash. Kull felt a deep remorse, but his spine tingled as they got closer to the ruined Grogan capital. Quickly, he spoke over the coms, fighting against the roar of the careening rook.

  “Cyric, give the city a wide berth!”

  Cyric didn’t say anything but turned the craft a sharp right, keeping Rhuddenhall at the edge of the horizon. He pushed the accelerator to the limit and the rook shot out at a breakneck pace that sent Kull’s skull flying back against the hard headrest. Over the coms, Cyric chirped back at Kull.

  “Only an hour and a half out now, kid. Listen, you need to share with me exactly how this is going to go down. Dyrn is not someone to deal with lightly, and if Seam is...allied with him, then we are in trouble. He’s a…”

  “A desert witch?” Kull asked, his eyes focused firmly on the horizon, thankful that the ramping dunes had leveled out. “Wael warned me about them. Not to underestimate their influence and pull in Candor.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know much about that. I’m not in the line of work that studies the ins and outs of the Rihtian native religions. If Dyrn dabbles in that stuff, I wouldn’t be surprised, but let me tell you what I do know.”

  Kull listened intently.

  “Listen, Dyrn is the number one source for the black market on all things pred tech. Nearly every advancement we’ve made over the past hundred years stems from technology traded out from this little cell located deep in the desert of Riht. Though, don’t give him too much credit; he isn’t exactly known for advancing humanity toward magnanimous ends.” Kull saw Cyric’s hands reach deep into his shirt pocket to fetch a single white cigarette. It shook in his trembling hand as Cyric lit up.

  “You’re terrified of this, aren’t you?” Kull asked, bewildered at the few cues he could read from the merc sitting in front of him.

  “Aleph above, kid, this isn’t a walk in the park! I’ve made it my business never to deal directly with Dyrn or any of the others out here. I’ve had other sources that did that work, and I had to pay a premium for it. I’ve given more creds to Parker than I could ever get back, but it was worth it. I don’t mess around dragon’s dens, Kull, no matter how good the deal.”

  Kull let Cyric’s words recede back into the roar of the engine. He closed his eyes, collecting whatever energy he could to envision what was coming. In the darkness of his mind he could see an image gathering. Foggy and distant, the shape of the object became clearer with each minute until he could finally see it. The obelisk.

  Kull opened his eyes, scanning the darkening horizon. There, just ahead at the edge of the desert plain, stood a dark structure, ancient yet incredibly solid. The last bit of twilight glinted from the structure, capturing the last light of the sun. Mirrors, Kull realized.

  “Over there.” Kull pointed and then marked on the datalink map housed in the back of Cyric’s seat. He drew a path that led straight toward the obelisk. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “Good eye, kid. They say that Dyrn’s dwelling is never in the exact same place as where you left it. It doesn’t make sense to me, but nowadays that’s what I call normal.”

  Cyric and Kull rocketed forward toward the darkness ahead, as the first pinpricks of stars began their silent dance above them.

  Seam’s eyes opened and he found himself back in the Warren. He had been asleep for what felt like a lifetime. He checked his datalink, shocked to see that only an hour had transpired since he first laid down. His body pulsed with an energy that only came with secret knowledge. For the first time he understood the power that Isphet served, and he understood why. The Keys were mere trinkets compared to the darkness that thrived on the other side, whose power was all but set to being unleashed.

  Seam knew the truth now: If Lotte fell, there would be nothing to stop Ma’et from crossing over from the other side. Seam stood up and paced through the empty, cold Warren, his mind racing. The familiar temptation he had first felt upon retrieving his father’s Key vibrated through him again. He could taste it. The mantle of destiny and greatness was pressing in on him again, tempting him toward his greater purpose.

  He approached an ancient mirror, not unlike those he had hunted so long ago in the far corners of Candor. He spoke to himself, staring deep into his own crimson eyes.

  “I do not have to be cast aside. I could claim it again...yes my kingdom, yes. My kingdom could be rebuilt. I could banish these cursed Serubs away from us once and for all and lead Candor into the true knowledge of the great power on the other side. I could claim all of the Keys and bring Isphet down.”

  Seam stared at himself as his whole body vibrated with the same dark energy that he had felt when he bore the Keys, and he laughed. “But I will not do these things. For now...I am free.” Seam knew that the dragon’s offer would only bring about his end. He would not accept.

  A resounding crank of a hatch opening echoed through the metallic corridor, and Seam smiled as he heard the sound of footsteps from the entrance above.

  A bold cry erupted through the Warren’s dark halls. “Seam! Seam, where are you?”

  Seam stared at his reflection as confusion grew on his face. “What is this?”

  Cyric walked next to Kull carrying a shimmering orange ball of glowing, twisting energy, its bright light illuminating the darkness around them. He wore two of the gloves that were undoubtedly some form pred tech, but all Kull carried was Wael’s ironwood staff.

  Cyric spoke, his voice barely above a whisper, “You know, if I was a real mercenary, I’d just bring you down right here, right now and cut my losses. You’re quite a mark in some circles, Kull. I could bring you in and be set for life, but no, here I am walking right next to you as we plunge into a devil’s den on a job that is sure to kill me.”

  Kull smiled in the darkness. “You are very generous, Cyric.”

 
; “No, I’m not,” Cyric quipped. “All the money in the world means nothing, Kull, if the world isn’t around for me to spend it.”

  “A good point.” Kull’s eyes narrowed. “Be quiet now. He’s close.”

  Kull stared out through the narrow hallway, unable to pierce the thick darkness before him. He called out, his voice ricocheting in twisted echoes, “Seam?”

  It was greeted with only silence.

  The two continued down the narrow corridor until they felt the path open into a larger room. Kull could feel the walls give way and the darkness close up around him. He motioned Cyric forward to shine the light. A huge circular salon revealed itself, and Kull stared down from a catwalk of twisted paths that hung over what could have been a battle arena.

  Cyric gulped and whispered, “Look! Look down there.”

  Kull peered in the dim light and saw two figures seated below.

  “Who's there?” Kull questioned, unafraid.

  Cyric held out his gloved hands and made the ball of fire orbit toward the shadows, its light casting a blood-red glow.

  “They’re dead, Kull,” Cyric whispered.

  The bodies of a man and woman lay below, cast aside like rag dolls. Kull looked at them with pity, only recognizing the form of the woman, though she was a shell of her former self. What beauty she bore was now gone, and all that was left was a crumbled, aged body. Her hands were knotted up like those of the elderly, and she wore a mop of thinning gray hair. Her face looked up at them, frozen in pain and terror.

  “Abtren, the sorrow of Lotte.” Kull could hardly believe it. Seam had somehow destroyed her after working so hard to release her from her mirror prison what seemed like a lifetime ago.