by T Nisbet
Chp. 35
We mounted up and trotted slowly out of the valley and the amber light hanging suspended in the air above it. I opened the sack and pulled out a large stick of jerky. Closing the sack, I looped its cord over the saddle horn and took a bite of the salty beef as Guldan urged his mount back into a gallop. I took up the rear and taking a deep breath, urged my horse to follow. In moments we were flying down the road again.
We had been riding for quite a while when I felt Thallium’s presence return.
“I still feel the magic inside of me.” I said.
“And you will for the rest of your infinitely long life my boy. It will remain a part of you until you cease to draw breath, perhaps even following you into the next life, who knows. I can feel your doubts, Jake, but you can’t run from it. It just is.”
“I don’t want any of…”
“I know,” Thallium’s old voice interrupted me. “We’ve been down this path before, young master. You don’t want any part of what is happening to you… so on and so forth.”
“I really don’t!” I argued.
“Your desire to be a normal human child is respectable, but dangerous, Jake. Your life, as well as the lives of your friends and family will depend on your new abilities. Like your girlfriend, the others will find that their lives have changed as well. They will require your strength to get through what is destined to happen to them.”
I felt a chill pass down my back that had nothing to do with the wind whipping past me.
“What do you mean by that? What changes, what’s going to happen to them?”
I could feel Thallium trying to calm and reassure me.
“Don’t do that!” I said, fighting against it.
“As you wish,” Thallium said, and I immediately felt the calm leave me. “I can’t tell you more than I know, and I don’t know much in the grand scheme of things. The prophecies aren’t very clear. They hint at much and are specific about little.”
“What do you know old man?” I demanded.
“What do you see when you look at your giant friend?” Thallium asked.
I looked ahead of me in the darkness as we flew down the road. I could see the purple glow given off by Ivy, and the elf’s red aura, but little else.
“Concentrate, Jake. What do you see?”
I could see a darker shape bobbing up and down between Ivy and me. I concentrated on Toby’s shape, but it was difficult. A flitting image of a huge warrior replaced Toby’s dark shape for a moment.
“Just as I thought,” Thallium said in my head.
“What?” I stammered, “What was that!”
“It was your friend as he truly is Jake, as he will be. Toby Daniels isn’t only your friend, he’s your guard as he has been since you first met, as he was meant to be. The Flinthor’Sa prophecy is pretty clear concerning the Guardian.”
“Guardian?”
“Knowing he is the guardian answers some questions, even though I guessed as much before you read him just now. I thought there was a chance it was Corporal Gillian. But it’s not, that makes Gillian ‘the brother knot’ I guess. It’s Toby’s girlfriend, Carla, that I have questions about.”
“What about her?”
“I don’t know if she is suppose to be here,” Thallium said casually.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. If she wasn’t suppose to be here then what was going to happen to her? Of course she was suppose to be here, Ivy’s mother said she was.
“That is the part that eludes me in the setting of this group. What did Lady Hlava see… I wonder,” Thallium muttered as if he were talking to himself. “The H’Gilnja codex is the only prophecy that names all the members of the group that set out to capture the demon. Lets see: the light bearer, the dead prince, the brother fighting, the king forgotten, the guardian, the brother knot, the sorceress of sighes, the vampire queen, the bane, the changeling, and the light within. Everyone is accounted for except the changeling.”
“Is Carla this changeling person?”
Thallium seemed to wake from his thoughts.
“That is the problem, Jake, she can’t be the changeling, she isn’t fairy. Fairy changelings can assume the form of different animals in the forest. They have merely to touch that animal, and they can assume its form from then on. They become indistinguishable from that animal.
Fairies that have the power of shifting are extremely fickle. Perhaps remaining in the animal form degrades their intelligence, I’m not sure.”
“Only fairies are changelings?” I asked. Then something Thallium said popped into my mind. “Wait! What about ‘the light within’. Could she be that?”
Thallium chuckled. “I have the honor of that title, my boy. Better than some I’ve been given.”
I felt kind of stupid. Of course he was ‘the light within’, if I was ‘the light bearer’. The rest were fairly obvious. She had to be the changeling then.
Carla was amazing with animals, she always had been, at least since I’d known her. Her parents owned a pet store, and it seemed like they had just as many animals at home as in their shop. Accordingly, she was a huge animal right activist. Her and a friend had thrown paint on a preppy girl’s fur stole at school. She’d been suspended for it, but the point had been made; Fairview high school was officially a no fur school.
“Hmmm.” Thallium mused. “As far as fairies being the only changlings, they are not. The world in which the Cardinal Ruby was crafted abounds with changlings, which your world calls ‘Were’.”
“You mean like werewolves? You’ve got to be kidding!” I said, as my horse raced across a bridge, the sound of its hooves echoing over the wood slats.
“Does it not make sense that the Were race would create a stone capable of imprisoning their natural enemy, vampires?” Thallium asked.
I hazarded another bite of jerky, as I thought about it. Thankfully Thallium shut up for awhile and left me in peace to sort it out.
So many of the magical creatures I’d grown up thinking were pretend, were real, and not the product of an overactive imagination. It was hard to swallow, but ignoring it all wouldn’t make it go away.
If I wasn’t dreaming, then I had no choice but to believe. That meant magic was real, because I’d seen it for myself. Dwarves and elves were real, also, as were vampires. If my friends and family were in jeopardy and relying on my actions, I didn’t have the luxury of disbelief. When I attempted to put it all in order, I failed miserably.
I gave up and concentrated on staying in my saddle. It seemed as though every question I asked, created ten new ones.
I followed the bobbing purple and red auras ahead of me, as the ancient road crested a mountain pass and began to descend in a series of switchbacks. Guldan slowed our pace slightly for the descent as a light rain began.
“Thallium?”
“Yes, Jake.” Thallium’s ancient voice spoke in my mind, though with quite a bit less strength that it had in the valley.
“Why do I glow a different color than Bronn, Ivy or Guldan?” I asked, trying without much success to stifle a yawn. The rocking motion of the canter threatened to put me to sleep. Despite the harrowing ride, my eyelids felt extraordinarily heavy.
“The color of one’s aura depends entirely upon the area of magic to which they are attuned, my boy. Bronn’s magic is that of the deep earth, of rock and stone. Guldan’s relates to fire, while Ivy’s relates to the mind and body,” Thallium spoke quietly. “Blue is the magic of light, and is the rarest of magics, though purple is a very close second.”
“The high mage of Ceneria was blue,” I stated.
“As am I, or rather, was I,” Thallium informed me. “Nearly all the leaders of the council have been blue.”
“Why?” I asked struggling to keep my horse on its feet. The paving stones used to make the road had become wet and slippery.
Thallium laughed, his chuckling even less audible.
“The magic of light has little to do with making light, any mage that ha
s a modicum of training can create light. The magic of light has to do with creation itself.”
“Creation, as in God created the heavens and the earth?” I said, blinking furiously to try and keep me eyes open.
“Even so,” Thallium agreed. “It is also called ‘the devine magic’ by some. Most magics manipulate things that already exist. Magic of the light doesn’t require anything more than will and ability.”
I could barely hear his voice now as the rain began to fall harder. Was he saying I could create things?
“Can blue mages create life?” I asked, wondering just how far the creation thing went.
If Thallium answered me I couldn’t tell. Thunder rolled down over us. Larger drops of water fell down in sheets. The cold water revived me somewhat, and I no longer fought to stay awake. Our horses slid all over the place as flashes of lightning lit up the trees on either side of the road.
How long it took us to reach the bottom of the mountain I don’t know. Guldan whipped his horse back into a gallop as the road leveled out. The rest of us followed as the darkness began to give way to predawn light. I could make out more details in the trees on either side of the road despite the rain.
The pounding rain mixed with furious gusts of wind, driving the large drops sideways into my face beneath my hood as we sped along the road. The speed of my mount added to the raindrops velocity, stinging my lips and eyes. I was cold, wet, tired and miserable.
My horse was exhausted, its breathing too loud. I could tell it wasn’t doing well and felt horrible asking more of the fatigued animal. I’d read somewhere about a condition horses got when they ran for too long. It did something to their lungs that caused permanent damage. Listening to my horse’s labored breathing, I felt pretty sure it might have that condition.
It slowed blowing harder and harder, as if unable to catch its breath. I could hear Toby’s horse making similar sounds as we suddenly emerged from the forest onto the killing fields three hundred yards or so from the city of Grimhome.
Even through the pouring rain I could see that the city wasn’t anything like I’d pictured in my mind. It wasn’t constructed of black and red obsidian like the blood elves buildings in Brighton were. Closing the distance towards the city gates in the predawn light, I could see that the walls surrounding the immense capital city of the blood elves were made from a metallic green stone of a type I’d never seen before. Huge spires and towers of that same strange green hued stone shot up over tall building towards the roiling dark clouds.
Chp. 36
As we approached the city a handful of dark clad guards stepped out of the gatehouse into the storm. Guldan slowed his mount at the last minute before the guards standing in the road. Ivy, Toby and I pulled our mounts to a stop behind him.
“Now!” I heard Guldan shout. “Gligna loth temani bac!”
I didn’t hear what he’d said before that, but the lead guard nodded quickly and gestured to the gates. The other blood elves sprinted into the gatehouse and seconds later the massive gates began to open. The guard Guldan had spoken to bowed low, ignoring the pounding rain. As the gates open enough to let us enter, Guldan spurred his mount forward slipping between the large stone gates and into the city. Ivy, Toby and I followed, our heads down.
We followed Guldan at a fast trot down a wide street. I didn’t dare lift my head and peer out from under my soaked hood, but even with my limited vision I could tell there were few if any dark elves on the street.
We hadn’t gone but two hundred yards or so when Guldan turned his horse down a narrow street. Stopping before a four-story building, the dark elf jumped from his mount and ran up to the massive wooden doors and opened them.
“Leave them!” he shouted and disappeared inside.
We dismounted. Ivy and Toby looked at me. I nodded and dropped my shuttering horse’s reins to the street and followed Guldan inside.
After Ivy and Toby had entered the building behind me, Guldan shut the door, putting a finger to his lips. The room was large and covered in near darkness. My eyes fought to adjust, but I couldn’t make out anything in the room.
“Grishna!” he shouted, waiting impatiently.
I couldn’t hide my surprise as a few moments later a burning, two-foot tall devilish shape skipped towards us out of the darkness. The creature had a long, hooked nose, pointed ears, and a forked tail. The flames surrounding the creature provided some light in the room.
“Master!” the flame-covered imp cooed, running over to Guldan’s leg and hugging it tightly. “Master is home!”
“Yes Grishna,” Guldan said, rolling his eyes to us. “I am home.”
The imp continued to hold Guldan’s leg tightly. I was surprised the flames surrounding the creature didn’t burn Guldan’s pants.
“Master is nasty wet. Could put out fire if Master isn’t careful,” the imp cried softly.
“Do something about it then. Give me back my leg and go prepare three rooms… oh, and have Demolus report to me in the study,” Guldan ordered.
The imp released his hold on Guldan’s leg and bowed four times in quick succession.
“Grishna to do Master’s will,” the creature said, and skipped back out of the room like a little girl in a schoolyard.
Guldan put a finger to his lips again, and then gestured for us to follow him. None of us said anything as we followed Guldan out of the darkened receiving room and down an equally dark hallway to some stairs. We climbed the stairs behind the light-footed elf and emerged onto a landing before a large metal door made of brass. Guldan passed his hand several times over the door and the lock made a clicking sound.
Opening the door, Guldan gestured for us to enter before him. I instinctively stepped in front of Ivy as we filed into a large darkened study, filled to overflowing with all sorts of items I couldn’t quite see. Guldan followed us into the room and walked over to a curtain, yanking it open. Dim, overcast, dawn light spilled into the room. The biggest desk I’d ever seen sat against the far wall beneath a tapestry depicting a battle of some sort. If I hadn’t known this was a different world, I would have sworn that Peter Paul Rubens had designed the tapestry.
My parents had taken me to an exhibit featuring his artwork last year when we’d visited New York City. Mother had explained that during Rubens’ day fat women were considered beautiful. I remember dad snorting his barely contained laughter at the idea. Mom had made a convincing argument that today’s fashion featured women that were so skinny as to be just as unhealthy as some of Rubens’s overweight subjects.
Some of the women in his paintings were obscenely obese, while others looked more like female power lifters. I figured Rubens had to paint them that way because he put them beside such powerfully built men.
The tapestry behind the desk had such men and women riding overly muscled horses entwined in battle on a cliff against a dragon. It was breathtaking. I stared at it as Ivy slid her hand into mine and studied it with me in silence. Guldan noticed our gaze and came alongside us to look at the tapestry.
“It’s my favorite. I had it commissioned while visiting Antwerp in 1638. I was visiting your world to help Sir Nisbet with a problem in France pertaining to some religious relics he was guarding with the help Cardinal Amand, err… Richelieu he was called,” he said admiring his tapestry.
I blinked in amazement. Guldan had been to France? He and Sir Nisbet knew Cardinal Richelieu? “The Three Musketeers” was one of my favorite books.
“Seriously? You’ve been to our world?”
Guldan shrugged as if it was of no importance.
“Many times.”
“And you knew Cardinal Richelieu?”
“Indeed, a brilliant man. Not in the same league with Sir James mind you, but more of a conceptual thinker than most,” Guldan said, walking around to the other side of the massive desk. He sat down looking around us towards the door.
“Brilliant?” I asked shocked, hardly believing my ears. Cardinal Richelieu was a scheming bad
guy in “The Three Musketeers”.
“Quite, Sir Nisbet was living in France guarding relics for the Knights Templar.” Guldan said, impatiently peering around us towards the door. “The relics were in danger because France was a feudal country at the time ruled by power hungry, princes, dukes and petty tyrants that used religious differences as a means of controlling their people. France had a King of course, but his authority was extremely limited, that is, until Sir James and the Cardinal formulated a plan to consolidate the King’s power. France would still be fifty or more feuding states if it were not for Cardinal Richelieu and Sir James.”
It’s difficult to have your perceptions turned on their ear by new information. Alexander Dumas obviously had an axe to grind regarding Cardinal Richelieu, and his popular book had succeeded in tainting the general perceptions of millions of people concerning the ‘infamous’ cardinal.
“Wow,” was all I could say.
“Indeed. Find a seat, young ones. Don’t touch anything please,” he said looking over at Toby who was standing next to a large table piled high with books, weapons, and contraptions of various kinds.
Toby put down a golden globe.
“Sorry, thought maybe I could see some differences between our world and this one.”
“They are different, but that is a copy of a globe from your world, not this one,” Guldan sighed.
“Oh.” Toby said shrugging. He shuffled painfully over to a throne-like chair upholstered in red velvet and sat down gingerly. Ivy and I found a couch and careful pushed aside various items so we could sit down.
A knocking sounded at the door.
“Come!” Guldan shouted.
I looked towards the door wondering what on earth would walk through. After seeing the tiny demon, Demolus could have been anything. As the door opened a thin, old man walked through, his keen eyes noting each one of us in turn.
The old man walked to the front of the desk and silently regarded Guldan.
Guldan opened a drawer of his desk and withdrew a pouch. Weighing it for a moment in his hand, he threw it to the old man who caught it surprisingly easy.
“Your service to me is concluded, Demolus. It is likely that by nightfall this manse will be the property of another, so take what you will, but I recommend traveling lightly as Zildain is certain to send someone after you. Go south and make your way to coast like we planned.”
“It is started, then,” the old man said, tucking the pouch into his tunic. “I have completed several new smoke bombs in your absence. Like the others, they will trigger when heated by a flame. Good luck Sir.”
“We’ll need it,” Guldan said, tilting his head to the skinny old man. Demolus return the gesture and the left the room.
The unflappable elf sat back in his chair and put his feet up on the table after Demolus had gone. Ivy sniffled and looked away. I could see she was holding back tears. Guldan took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Don’t waste your energy reading my mind anymore magi. You will need all of your strength if we are to get into the Demon’s chamber.”
“Couldn’t you just tell him you loved him? You’ve known him since he was ten years old. Would it have been so difficult to show him that kindness?” Ivy sputtered as tears began to fall freely down her cheeks.
“You read his mind as well, I’m sure. He knows how I feel,” Guldan said casually.
“Yes, he knows.” Ivy cried softly. “That is not quite the same thing as hearing it though, is it?”
“Never the less, it is done,” Guldan sighed. “On to the business at hand, capturing the Demon. Since the success or failure of this quest appears to hinge upon you, young immortal, it must be you who decides where we go from here. There are many options, all fraught with danger, but one option in particular I have been preparing for, for quite some time. Would you hear about it?”
“I’m listening,” Toby said stifling a yawn.
I nodded.
Guldan smiled complacently and ran a pale hand through his jet black hair.
“When the blood elves discovered the fissure within the earth where the Demon was bound by the magic of the fairies, they built a building over it called The Cathedral of Sacrifices. Over several millennia they excavated beneath the Cathedral creating a labyrinth of passages and halls that lead down to a chamber where the actual fissure can be seen. It is in that chamber that they bathe in the blood of their first-born and dismember their prisoners to fed the Demon’s hunger, and augment its power. It is in that chamber where we will find and trap the Demon.
“The Cathedral itself has only one entrance from the street and it’s very well guarded, but there is another way in. The city of Grimhome was built around the Cathedral with the Imperial Castle resting against it’s northern side. Prisoners to be sacrificed in the chamber are brought there by way of the dungeon under the Imperial Castle.
“I’ve prepared a tunnel that leads to the dungeon under Zildain’s Castle. It will take about forty-five minutes or so to get there once we’ve entered the tunnel. It should take another twenty minutes to make our way down to the lowest level of the dungeon… if we’re not bothered,” Guldan said, looking pointedly at Ivy. “Once there, we find the tunnel that the priests and priestesses use to bring in the prisoners to be sacrificed. We find the passage, we use it to get in, trap the demon, and get back to the dungeon as quickly as possible. Add maybe an hour if we don’t raise an alarm. If we’re lucky, the whole thing will take a little over four hours.”
Guldan regarded me, his dark eyes penetrating. The smile he gave me sent shivers down my spine.
“Do you have any objections?”
I swallowed nervously, but somehow the plan sounded right to me.
“When do we leave?” I asked, trying to keep the fear coursing through me out of my tired voice.
“After lunch. We all need to get some rest; it won’t do to be fighting exhaustion if we’re to achieve what lies ahead. We’ll be fleeing for our lives once the sun sets regardless.”
“How so?” Toby asked, fighting to hold back another yawn unsuccessfully.
“The chamber is the point in this world where the Demon’s hold is the strongest, giant. Once darkness falls, and the ceremonies in the Cathedral of Sacrifices begin, they will undoubtedly know their God is gone,” Guldan said. “The timing therefore is crucial. We need to be outside the gates before they find out and order them closed, but not before the sun goes down. I’m well known as the King’s Champion. If I’m seen out in the daylight it could cause problems we don’t need.”
“What happens if we don’t make it in time?” Ivy asked, putting her hand in mine. I could tell she was frightened too and squeezed her hand reassuringly.
“Regardless of the timing of our exit I’ve prepared a distraction, that may aid us in getting through the gates,” Guldan said shrugging, as if it were of no consequence. “As soon as…”
The door opened and the flame-covered imp entered the room, skipping through the piles of stuff to stand before the desk.
“The rooms are ready, Master. Demolus had Grishna put nasty human food in them too,” the blazing imp said, bobbing up and down in excitement. He looked at Ivy and I. “The human slaves smell Master. They will smell up the pretty rooms. Would you like Grishna to clean them?”
I had no idea how the imp would do that, but I imagined it would be quite painful.
“No Grisha, I will be sending them out at noon,” Guldan said folding his arms in front of his chest. “ I have a mission for you as well. If you complete it, I will set you free.”
The imp’s fire turned blue for a moment and it did several flips. The demonic creature seemed unable to control itself it was so happy.
“Master is serious? Oh master, please, please tell Grishna what it is!” the imp simpered.
“You will take a bag I have to the Cathedral of Sacrifices and bring it to high priest Zelnik’s study. Set it next to the gilded bookcase I gave him. When the sun goes down,
you will set it on fire. Once the bag is on fire you are free to return to your home in the abyss.”
“Master is so kind to Grishna, letting him burn something and go home. Thank you Master,” the imp said dancing and flipping.
“Now go make sure the boiler is hot. I desire a warm bath. I’ll give you the bag and send you on your way when I’m finished,” Guldan said, pointing towards the door.
“Yes Master!” the imp cried out, unable to contain itself and then turned and skipped out of the room.
Toby laughed.
“The diversion?”
“Indeed. That fact I loathe Zelnik has little to do with it,” Guldan smiled evilly.
