by Dan Zangari
“Are you really Iltar?” Cornar asked.
“Uh, yeah,” Iltar said, rolling his eyes. Iltar did that when annoyed.
But this could be a figment of my imagination, Cornar thought.
“I’ve been learning things here in Mindolarn, about this place,” Iltar said. “It’s called Vabenack, a realm that mimics Kalda. I don’t know how else to explain it. Regardless, I’ve learned how to access this place at will. At least, I think I’m here. If only I could verify this experience with someone else. Neither Pagus nor the women seem to be able to reach this realm. Pagus’s aunt has tried everything we found in Dreamwalker, but she hasn’t made any progress. I have a theory that—”
A flash of red appeared in the barn door. Cornar turned, seeing a tall man in a red robe embroidered with strange patterns. The patterns looked similar to the symbols in the Keepers’ Temple, but they were different.
“Reflection!” Iltar blurted.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” said the man in red, sounding exactly like Iltar.
Cornar started. The man in red also looked exactly like Iltar. Well, except the long white hair and full beard. But every other detail was identical. Was this the creature Cornar had encountered throughout these dreams? The same being that claimed to have healed Cornar from that deadly fall in Klindil? The one Iltar called Reflection?
“Why?” Iltar barked with frustration.
“Begone,” the man in red said, flicking his finger at Iltar.
Iltar vanished.
The man in red studied Cornar. “Your time is up,” he said, sounding displeased. He flicked his finger, as he had done to Iltar, and the world zip away.
Soon, Cornar found himself in an abysmal pit, although he briefly saw a gigantic shape out of the corner of his eye. It had a tail and wings— The blackness abruptly disappeared, and Cornar gasped. He was lying down, and he felt wet. The sheets were wet, too. And, there was a smell… like iron. He tossed the sheets aside and rolled out of bed, stepping into a puddle. Was the Promised Maiden taking on water?
Light spread from beneath the door, but it wasn’t enough to illuminate the cabin. Cornar staggered across the room, stepping in more of the puddles. He reached a box containing a lightstone, nailed beside the door. He opened its lid, illuminating the cabin. Cornar pulled out the stone, turned around, and started.
Blood marred the cabin. The sheets were all red, and so was the decking. It looked like a murder scene. Frightened, Cornar looked down at the places where he had been wounded in the dream, but every fiber of his clothes was drenched.
“By Heleron’s Trident…” he cursed, staggering backward and falling against the door.
“Cor, are you all right?” Kalder asked from outside the cabin, his voice muffled.
A key turned in the lock and Cornar steadied himself as the door opened.
“What on Kalda?!” Kalder blurted. Cornar turned. The burly warrior looked frightened, studying Cornar with a horrified expression. “Whose…?”
“Blood?” Cornar finished the question. “I think it’s mine.”
“How are you still alive?” Kalder asked. “And how did it happen?”
“That’s a long story…” Cornar sighed. “I need some air.” He stepped past Kalder and strode through the corridor to the stairs leading to the main deck. It was still dark. Both of Kalda’s moons—Kistern and Kaelyrn—were high in the night sky. Kistern was almost full, but Kaelyrn was halfway through its phase; its speckled light didn’t do much to light the night, anyway.
Cornar was cautious as he moved from the stairs. Much of the main deck was covered with sleeping Wildmen. Kaescis had ordered them to spread across the fleet, so as to not crowd a single vessel. A couple of sailors manning the rigging noticed Cornar, probably alerted by the smell of blood. They whispered to each other, but Cornar ignored them. He carefully picked his way to the starboard rail, careful not to step on any of the sleeping Wildmen.
Once at the rail, Cornar gazed at the Mindolarn vessels sailing nearby. His eyes settled on the Executor’s Breath.
“So, you killed my father, Kaescis,” Cornar whispered. “And he and his men killed your brother, wife, and unborn child.” Though those closest to both him and the prince had died on that fateful night there wasn’t any fairness about it. Murder was never fair.
You shouldn’t trust him. Kaescis is not what he claims to be. Solidin’s words rang in Cornar’s mind. How true had those words been…? Kaescis was not at all what Cornar thought him to be. The young aspiring prince Cornar once saw was now a man much older than he. That gave Cornar pause.
He reflected on the strange encounter with Iltar… if that was Iltar. Should he avenge his father? Cornar didn’t feel a burning desire to kill the prince. Perhaps that’s because he saw the circumstances of his father’s demise. Kaescis was just as much a victim as Cornar. Where there should have been anger, there was only sorrow… and pity.
Perhaps the anger would come later.
Cornar stared at the Executor’s Breath for a time, thinking about everything that had happened, starting with that moment he met Kaescis on Pier Eight. The prince had stared at Cornar’s weapons as if he knew them. And he had known them. They’d almost taken the life of his uncle, the emperor.
Is this why they haven’t trusted me? he wondered. Because I am the son of Melthas Dol’shir? The man who invaded their homeland and slew their people? If Cornar had encountered the son of a man like that he didn’t think he could trust him either.
It seemed a plausible answer. But it didn’t make the situation any easier to bear.
Cornar stared at the Executor’s Breath for a long while, then searched for his usual spot near the bow. Luckily, it wasn’t occupied.
Fatigue overcame Cornar, draining his very soul. He plodded to his favored spot and nestled against the sacks of provisions.
I need to sleep, he thought. Hopefully, this time it would be dreamless.
THE END OF
Part Two
The screams of dying men haunted Balden’s mind. His victims had often plagued his dreams these last nine-and-a-half years. Balden vividly relived his part in their deaths, over and over. And only thirty more to go, he lamented. Balden wished he could leave, but he couldn’t. His contract with Baron Cilgan wouldn’t be finished for another thirty years.
Balden clutched the sides of his head, trying to block out the screams. But it didn’t help. Baron Cilgan’s jailers and interrogators suggested he should just embrace his role. They encouraged him to revel in those abominable acts he was forced to perform. After all, that’s what they themselves had done. Each of those men had become cold and callous. One man had only been in the dungeons half as long as Balden, but now he was as bloodthirsty as the rest of them.
Balden wouldn’t become like that. He couldn’t…
Sighing, Balden placed his head against the cold stone wall of his cell. He wasn’t like the others who worked in Baron Cilgan’s dungeons. Balden was as much a prisoner as the men he was forced to kill.
Years ago—when Balden was first banished to Cilgan’s service at the age of sixteen—he tried to escape, not once, but five times. They tried binding him with magic-inhibiting cords, but that didn’t work. To his employer’s surprise, Balden could muster magic without incantation. But not just any magic. He could produce a mist of blackness that eroded all it touched. When bound, Balden simply dissolved his bonds.
Seeing the danger Balden possessed—but not willing to give up such power—Baron Cilgan locked him away deep beneath his castle, within the dungeons. Balden was permitted to leave his cell for only two things: bathing and torture.
Balden tried escaping once after his exile to the dungeons, but that was ultimately a futile attempt. He reached the wards outside the baron’s main keep but was wounded before he could escape the complex—soldiers broke his legs and cut him to the bone. Balden probably would have died from the bleeding, but the baron gave him an opportunity to use his life-draining magi
c on a prisoner.
Regretfully, Balden seized the opportunity. He wished he had let himself die instead of siphoning that man—a man who turned out to be innocent. That man’s death haunted Balden the most. From then on, Balden didn’t try to escape. He kept his head low, biding the time until his release… or rescue.
At one time, Balden hoped his master in the magical arts would deliver him from this servitude. But Iltar never came. Balden was bitter for years, but recently began to understand the predicament in which Iltar had been placed. The other necromancers on the Necrotic Order’s council gave him a choice: Kill Balden or hand him over to them.
I hate those bastards, Balden groaned, thinking of the council. They saw him as property and sold him like a slave, and all because of his half-elven heritage. Balden sighed and slumped against the wall, resting his head against the stone. His long blond hair hung partially across his face, obscuring his vision.
Balden sat there for a while until the door to his cell creaked open. “Hey, pointed ears,” Tegaris, the jailer, said. “Silik just finished interrogating that man from Sarn. It’s your turn.”
Balden didn’t move.
“Are you going deaf?” Tegaris demanded. “Get up!”
“Can’t it wait till morning?” Balden asked. “I’m tired.”
“Didn’t sleep again?” the jailer asked, chuckling. “Well, it is morning, Balden.”
Had this been another sleepless night? Hours blurred in this cell.
“Come on,” Tegaris said. “Get up. You have work to do. If you don’t move, I’ll have to get Gilard to whip you. I think you’d require ten lashings with a vidaren.”
Balden sighed, standing reluctantly. A few lashings with a vidaren would make him bleed badly. If he didn’t want to succumb to the loss of blood, he’d have to use a life-draining incantation. Balden would be forced to die, or mete out torture.
“Good,” Tegaris said as Balden approached the door. “I’m glad your sleepless night didn’t deprive you of all your senses.”
Balden remained silent as they walked the halls of the dungeon. Soft whimpering reached his ears, undoubtedly coming from the man he was to torture.
“We’ve learned a lot from this one,” Tegaris said. “He confessed to spreading the rumors about the good baron. This man’s employer, a Sarn noble, is trying to cause enough chaos here in Sereth to try to usurp the baron’s domain. She assumes the title belongs to her, since she was a distant relation of the good baron’s grandmother.”
Tegaris continued relaying the information but Balden only half-heartedly listened. Balden thought the information was probably inflated to stoke Cilgan’s paranoia. He highly doubted that this man’s employer was trying to unseat the baron. But Cilgan had a way of finding his enemies even in the hardest to reach nooks and crannies.
The whimpering grew louder, and Balden turned a corner, entering the main torture room. The prisoner was stretched out on a rack, wearing only a simple cloth around his loins. Many scars marred the prisoner’s body, wounds that were cauterized by heated brands.
“His name is Daegar,” Tegaris said, gesturing to the tortured man. The jailer didn’t need to say more. Balden knew what to do next. He uttered an incantation, mustering gray enthralling magic. It wisped through the air and into Daegar’s nostrils. Balden felt the man succumb to his will. He was in complete control of poor Daegar.
“When Yisig is ready, begin verifying what I told you,” Tegaris said, mentioning the female scribe who sat across the room. Yisig had been in Baron Cilgan’s employ longer than Balden. She rarely spoke and only stayed long enough to copy down the information received from Balden’s probing.
After a moment, Yisig nodded and Balden began asking questions to gauge the successfulness of the prior interrogation.
Daegar’s answers were exactly as Tegaris had said. The man was a spy sent from Lady Ralisu Davig, a member of the Scolae family of Sarn. Lady Davig was an ambitious widow aiming to climb the political ladders of the Principality of Soroth. In order to advance her goals, she sent Daegar to Sereth to gather information about the island’s citizens while also disseminating rumors to incite a rebellion against Baron Cilgan.
All of that gave Balden some relief. This man wasn’t innocent. Yisig left amid Daegar’s retelling of details. Balden assumed she had already heard and scribed that information. Daegar continued rambling details, and Balden felt sympathy for the man as he listened.
“You can go.”
Balden started. He knew that voice, even though he hadn’t heard it in years. Balden turned, seeing Baron Cilgan standing behind him. The baron stood taller than Balden and was of a thick, muscular build. Cilgan’s wavy blond hair was accented with an occasional gray hair, and his chiseled face was clean-shaven. He wore a stiff tunic bearing his family’s crest—a green hawk with its beak pointed upward.
“I’ll handle this,” Cilgan said, stepping past Balden. Daegar continued rambling, still subject to Balden’s magic. “I said go, dog!” Cilgan’s words frothed with wrath.
“Come on,” Tegaris tugged at Balden’s arm. “Back to your cell.”
Balden hesitated. He had never seen Cilgan in the dungeons. The baron stopped beside the rack holding Daegar. Cilgan slapped the prisoner across his face, but the man continued spewing details like a broken faucet spewing water.
“Release your spell, dog,” Cilgan growled, glaring at Balden. “I want to hear him scream.”
Balden refused to move, but the jailer pulled him through the torture room. A fire of hate burned within Balden. The man who had ruined his life was standing before him, without guard or armor.
I could kill him, he thought. End it all right now.
Cilgan turned and struck Daegar’s face, causing the man’s nose to bleed. But that didn’t faze Daegar. The poor fellow was still enthralled.
“You better cease your spell,” Tegaris said, grabbing Balden’s other arm. He hauled Balden out of the torture room and back into the hallway.
Balden didn’t relinquish his spell. If he could maintain it perhaps he wouldn’t hear Daegar scream.
Soon, Balden was back in his cell. Tegaris shoved him inside, and Balden fell upon the dirty floor. The door’s lock clicked as Balden recovered. Sighing, he crawled across his cell, feeling exhausted. He climbed up on his bed and stared at the stone ceiling. All was quiet. Not even the voices in his head were screaming. For a moment, he felt peace.
Muffled shouts echoed through the hallway outside his cell. It sounded like Cilgan. Footsteps hurried past the cell door, moving toward the dungeon’s entrance. Not long after, more footsteps hurried back through the hall.
As the footfalls faded Balden felt his mind slipping. He was drifting toward sleep.
“No!” Balden’s eyes shot open. “If I sleep he will scream.” He hoped the baron would lose patience and just kill Daegar. The man could die as peaceful a death as one could suffer at the hands of Baron Cilgan. That would make things—
No!
A scream echoed throughout the dungeon, and Balden no longer felt his enthralling influence on Daegar. Cilgan must have summoned one of his mages from the castle to dispel the enthralling effect.
More screams echoed into Balden’s cell. Though they were faint, he heard them as clearly as if he were standing beside the poor man.
Time blurred as fatigue overtook Balden, and he fell unconscious.
* * * * *
A dying wail awoke Balden, and then all went quiet. Several moments passed in silence. How long had he slept? That didn’t matter. He had escaped the brutality of Daegar’s death. Balden expected Baron Cilgan to come to his cell. But neither the baron nor anyone else disturbed him.
“I can’t take this any longer,” Balden whispered. At what point had he become so broken? Where was that youthful half-elf who yearned to be a hero? He’s dead, Balden thought. Long gone.
Why don’t you try escaping? a voice asked in his mind. That voice sounded like his former master, Iltar.
<
br /> “Am I going mad?” Balden asked, though he knew no one would respond. Rather, he hoped no one would respond.
You have the means, that same voice said. Just slaughter them all. You can make everyone disappear.
Balden rolled over, pulling a blanket over him. He couldn’t think of escaping. He would fail, like the last time, and the time before that. Six attempts with only pain and isolation to show for it.
You can kill Cilgan… the voice urged. That sparked something within him. Vengeance.
Balden sat upright. But could he really slay Cilgan? There were at least two hundred men in the castle, and Cilgan was paranoid. Balden would have a lengthy fight on his hands, not to mention the reinforcements that would pour into the castle from the city.
You just need the right weapon, the voice said.
Tossing the blanket aside, Balden crawled out of bed. The right weapon? That gave him pause. In each of his failed escape attempts Balden had succumbed to the soldiers who surrounded him. Balden could deal with archers and mages, using his magic to defend himself while hurling deadly projectiles. But fighting close-range was another matter entirely. It was something Iltar had not taught him.
Stories from his youth flooded into his mind, and he recalled tales of his master fighting beside a man named Cornar. Iltar would bathe Cornar’s weapons in deadly magic. I could steal a sword, he thought. But that’d take time to enhance… besides, they could dispel the enhancement easily.
There had to be another answer. Balden closed his eyes, remembering a tale he’d read from a book in Iltar’s library. It spoke of mages who made weapons of pure magic, using them in close quarters. Balden never saw Iltar use a spell like that, and he figured that was because Cornar and his warriors were doing all the close quarters fighting.
“That’s it!” Balden exclaimed with excitement, but soon deflated. “I don’t know one of those incantations…” His hope dwindled. Amid despair, he felt a distinct urge to muster his devouring mist. Could that be the answer? Balden didn’t need an incantation to muster it. That magic obeyed his will.
