The mage struggled within his invisible bonds but a month of hard labour had taken the fight out of him. The necromancer whipped his arm out and Hadavad flew with its motion until the impact against the mountainside brought him to an abrupt stop. He couldn’t remember the fall or how he had cut so many parts of his body, but the mage looked up through the pelting snow to see The Crow and his wizards peering down at him. He was lying on the plateau below, where he had not long killed the whip master.
One of the dark wizards pointed his staff down at him, ready to bring an end to Hadavad’s five long centuries of life.
“No,” The Crow commanded, lowering the wizard’s staff. “This is not where he dies. Gather our supplies and kill the slaves. We must return to the south immediately.” The snow crunched under The Crow’s feet as he approached. He bent down and handled the Viridian ruby around Hadavad’s neck. “You may keep this a while longer, Mage…”
Hadavad blinked hard in an effort to stay conscious, but the cut on his head and the fatigue in his bones robbed him of further thought, plunging him into a blissful oblivion.
Hadavad… Hadavad…
The soft feminine voice called to the mage from deep in his soul, rousing him from the abyss.
Open your eyes…
Hadavad lifted his head from the snow, only to find he was lying face down in the middle of a forest. The biting chill of Vengora’s mountainous heights had been replaced by the warmth of a midday sun on a summer’s day. His ears were soon filled with the sound of animals going about their lives between the trees, which towered over him, so full of life.
The mage lifted himself up to his knees and parted his long dreadlocks to better see what could only be the result of a serious head injury.
There, before him, was a soft glow breaking through the trees and slowly circling him. Every colour he could imagine emanated from the glow, spreading through the leaves and the moss, increasing the vibrancy of their lush green.
You need to open your eyes, Hadavad…
The words came from within the glow as a humanoid form began to take shape inside the light. The mage was entirely captivated by the spectacle, curious as to whether he had died and found his way to the afterlife. The legs, silhouetted against the light, stalked towards him until a supple body, glowing with life, came to stand over him.
You need to open your eyes…
The light overwhelmed his every sense and banished the summer warmth and the sound of nature. The mage gasped and swallowed a mouthful of freezing air, so cold that he feared he might choke on it. Through grunting and considerable pain, Hadavad slowly rose from the snow, discovering that he had been mostly buried beneath the powder.
How long had he been there? Why had The Black Hand left him?
Questions began to circle in his mind but the cold in his bones and the pain in the ends of his fingers prevented further thought. Then he remembered, as if it had been a lifetime ago, or another life completely. The woman in the forest, made from light. Her voice had felt familiar, like that of a mother’s call.
As hard as it was, Hadavad managed to find his feet, collect his staff, and follow the narrow path back up to the plateau above. The central pavilion had been left to burn out, and the rest of the black tents had been packed down and taken. The Crow’s last words echoed in his mind and he hurried to the nearest tunnel, fearing what he might find.
The mage stopped in the mouth of the tunnel. Sprawled across the cave floor was every man they had taken off the streets of Grey Stone and forced into labour. Every one of them had wounds typical of a destructive spell. Hadavad’s heart sank and he slid down the wall, holding onto his staff.
Who was this new Crow? The Black Hand were powerful wizards all, but he had never fought against one as powerful as today. The mage looked up as yet more of The Crow’s words came back to him. They were going south.
With a lasting look at those who had died by their dark hand, the mage set off for the mountain path. He would find them: he had to. With the bones of Valanis in their possession, there was no telling what evil The Black Hand could wreak across the world…
3
Origins
By torchlight alone, Alijah Galfrey navigated the ancient caves in the hidden depths of The Wild Moores. Every step was the first any man had taken inside these dark halls for centuries, maybe longer.
This was what he lived for.
For the last four years, he had devoted himself to uncovering every trace left behind by the men of The First Kingdom. This cave was the sixth location Alijah laid claim to and he would be damned if he was going to leave any stone unturned.
With the fire from his torch, Alijah cast light over the ancient dwelling of his ancestors. Everything was coated in moss and weathered by time, but he could see the manmade objects resting on shelves carved from the stone. Above them, crude hand paintings decorated the walls, though their story was lost on him.
As fascinating as cups, tools, and finger paintings were, it wasn’t what Alijah was looking for.
He pressed on, further into the cave. The air was thick and stale, an oppressive force that did its best to see him turn back. He hadn’t trekked through the most untamed forest in the world to be turned back now. He had to know if this was the place.
Hadavad had spoken of the prophecy’s origin for years, keen to discover the legendary cave where the priests of The Echoes had first scribed their foretellings. The old mage didn’t believe that anyone could see the future, but he did believe in knowing your enemy.
The Black Hand. Alijah stopped and held his torch low, where a painted black hand decorated the smooth stone at his feet. With a delicate finger, he stroked the handprint before placing his whole hand over the top, matching every digit.
“Found you…” he whispered into the dark.
His excitement was building now and he quickly entered the next chamber, eager to set eyes on anything left behind by the priests of The Echoes. The final cave that marked the end of the network was small and intimate with a high ceiling. The centre of the round chamber was stained and dark, where, perhaps, there had once been a fire.
Then he saw it.
On the back wall, pinned to the stone, was a large piece of parchment that had succumbed to several lifetimes in a damp cave. Alijah crossed the cave and ran the torch over the surface, careful not to set it alight. His heart sank to see that so many of the glyphs had faded, their ink the victim of incessant droplets from above.
His finger and thumb gripped the edge of the parchment, gently caressing it. As he suspected, the taut scroll was, in fact, made from skin, and, if Hadavad was right, The Echoes always used human skin. His heart racing now, Alijah removed the iron pins and rolled the skin up, binding it with string. He began to search the cave for any other hidden gems: anything that might tell them more of The First Kingdom or The Black Hand.
It was his nose that made the next discovery. Alijah sniffed the air, relying on the senses he had inherited from his elven mother. The air inside the cave wasn’t foul, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant, making the aroma of cooked sausages impossible to ignore.
“Oh, you fool…”
He ran from the cave, only dropping his torch when the light of the world showed him the way out. The clearing beyond the cave was walled off by trees that had given in to winter’s call, their branches skeletal limbs that looked ready to pluck wayward travellers off their feet. It wasn’t the sinister trees of The Wild Moores that worried Alijah Galfrey so much.
“What are you doing?” he cried, upon spotting Vighon Draqaro spit roasting a line of sausages.
“Don’t worry, I cooked enough for both of us,” Vighon replied casually.
“I don’t care how many you cooked, you bloody idiot!” Alijah kicked as much dirt as he could over the fire, smothering its flames in a bid to stop the smoke.
Vighon jumped up. “Oi! What’re you doing? I’ve been cooking those for ages!”
Alijah ignored his friend and sc
anned the trees with one hand over his shoulder and his fingers nestled between the arrows in his quiver. His left hand slowly crept up his back, ready to pull loose his folded bow.
Vighon swept his furry black cloak out behind him and sat back down again. “I’ve already walked the perimeter three times while you’ve been poking around in the dark,” he explained. “There’s no Outlanders in these parts.”
Alijah sighed. “We’re in The Wild Moores. There are Outlanders everywhere…”
Vighon retrieved a tin plate from his pack and went about salvaging the sausages. “Let them come, I say. It’s dull as shit sitting around here.”
Alijah took one last look at the ominous forest before turning back to Vighon. “If you weren’t so obsessed with swinging that sword you might use your head a little more.” He removed the ancient scroll from his belt and waved it in front of his friend. “Maybe even learn something.”
Vighon took a cautious bite of his steaming sausage. “There’s more to fighting than just swinging a sword, Galfrey. It’s an art. I’m an artist, really.” He waved his sausage at the empty clearing. “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my canvas has been awfully dull of late.”
Alijah tutted under his breath. “Barbarian…”
Vighon chuckled to himself. “That’s never been proven.”
Alijah offered his friend a roguish smile and held up the scroll. “I found it.” He unravelled the skin and weighed it down with small sacks of spice left out by his hungry friend.
“That’s one of those prophecy things, then?” Vighon asked, engrossed in his food.
Alijah paused before answering, “Do you listen to anything Hadavad says? You’ve been privy to everything I have for the last three years, and you think this is one of those prophecy things?”
Vighon shrugged as he salted the next sausage. “I like the old mage as much as anyone, but he talks a lot. First Kingdom this, ancient prophecies that, the big scary Black Hand, blah blah blah… It’s simple in my eyes. You follow him and I follow you.”
“Well, maybe instead of following me, you could take part, help me even.”
Vighon stuffed the last of his sausage into his mouth and held up both hands, displaying seven digits. “Seven,” he said between chewing. “Seven times.”
“Not this again.” Alijah closed his eyes.
“I’ve saved your life seven times in three years. I’d say following you pays off, especially with the way you gamble. How you survived working for Hadavad for a year without me is a mystery.”
Alijah was happy to drop it there. Had it been anyone else, he might have argued the point of why the person who continued to save his life, and follow him across Illian, didn’t simply return to their old life. But Vighon wasn’t just any other person. They had known each other since they were children, when Vighon’s mother had been under the employ of Alijah’s parents. That aside, the life Vighon had left behind to join him was not one Alijah would have him return to. He would personally kill any who tried to drag his friend back to that hell…
“This,” Alijah explained as he ran his hand over the top of the skin, “is an original prophecy, scribed by a priest of The Echoes.”
Vighon rubbed the heavy stubble on his cheek. “I always get confused when you call them that. You are talking about The Black Hand, yes?”
Alijah tried to hide his disbelief. “Yes, The Black Hand. But, when this was scribed, they were just known as The Echoes.” He looked over the scroll like a hungry animal. “The oldest religion in the world, maybe even the first. They worshipped a god called—”
“Kaliban!” Vighon exclaimed. “I remember that bit. Hadavad always says it like he’s got a bad taste in his mouth.”
Alijah couldn’t argue with that. “Hadavad’s been fighting them a lot longer than we have…” Knowing how long the mage had been fighting the necromancers didn’t give him much hope that they would ever win, at least not in his lifetime.
Vighon ran his finger over the narrow scar above his left eyebrow. “I still remember fighting them last year,” he said. “Was it Dunwich or Longdale?”
Alijah was trying to take in every inch of the half-ruined prophecy. “Dunwich,” he replied absently. “They had a temple under the lake.”
Whatever Vighon said next was lost on Alijah, his voice blending into the background noise of the forest.
The glyphs had been arranged in three verses, but most of the text was gone, with no one verse left intact. At the bottom of the scroll was the painted black hand, just where Hadavad had said it would be.
“So,” Vighon said a little louder, breaking his thoughts, “can you read the markings? The glyphs.”
“Of course I can read it,” Alijah replied. “Do you remember the ruins we found in The Narrows? Or the royal graves in The Spear? You’ve seen me reading the ancient language.”
Vighon screwed his face, creasing the scar that ran down his right eye. “You see, you always remember reading this and finding that. All I remember is fighting off the bandits who felt we were trespassing or slaying the Gobbers who thought we’d make a good meal. Oh, and keeping the barbarians of The Iron Valley from ripping your limbs off…”
Alijah chewed over the smart reply on the end of his tongue, but Vighon had a point. “I’ll give you that,” he conceded.
It was only mid-afternoon when the sun began to wane, forcing Alijah to take the scroll inside the mouth of the cave, where Vighon could make a new fire and he could use the light to see the faded glyphs. A westward breeze blew the smoke farther into the cave rather than up into the sky, where any Outlander might spot their camp.
Alijah flicked backwards and forwards through his small leather notebook. Every page had something written down about his discoveries over the last four years. Right now, however, the most important thing was the translation key he had been maintaining. There were elves and mages across Verda who could read and speak much of the ancient language, often using them for spells and such, but unearthing The First Kingdom’s forgotten fortresses and temples had also unearthed more of their language.
“Pass me my pack,” Alijah said, tying his chestnut hair into a knot. “I need to write some of this down to make sense of it.”
Vighon, who had been resting back with his feet up most of the afternoon, opened his dark eyes, entirely unimpressed. “I’m not your man-servant, Galfrey. Get it yourself.”
Alijah lifted his head from the scroll, reminding himself that treating Vighon like a servant never ended well. He reached over and retrieved his ink and quill, eager to get the glyphs written down so that he might make light of their meaning. It was hard to understand any of it, with so much of the text ruined.
With his head down, Alijah missed the rising moon and the downpour of snow that encroached on the cave. He couldn’t miss the freezing air, however.
When the cold became too much and interfered with his concentration, he sat up and wrapped his leather jacket a little tighter around his chest in a bid to fight off winter’s bite, which took little notice of their fire. Vighon took pity on him and emerged from the warmth of his fur cloak to throw Alijah’s long overcoat across the cave. It only came to his knees, but he was all the happier for the extra layer.
“You should really invest in some gloves,” Vighon suggested, lifting his own black gloves. “Why you would choose to wear fingerless gloves in winter is beyond me.”
Alijah blew into his closed hands. “Makes lifting arrows from my quiver easier.”
Vighon raised an eyebrow. “And the reason you don’t wear a cloak?”
Alijah smiled. “I haven’t found one I like yet.”
The northerner laughed. “You just think the look of a rogue is all it takes to win over a girl.”
“It helps…”
Alijah took advantage of the precious silence that always accompanied Vighon’s drooping eyelids and went back to work. The scroll had only so much to offer, but he would make sure he knew everything there was to know
before he met up with Hadavad. And so the night crept on and the wind did naught but howl through the cave in its attempt to snuff out the fire.
Alijah flinched when Vighon’s northern voice broke the silence. “Have there been any quakes while I’ve been out?”
Alijah considered the question for longer than he really should have. “No. None since we arrived.”
Vighon nodded, his eyes glancing over the scroll. “I thought you said you could read the ancient language? Have you been going over that all night?”
“I can read it!” he argued, noting the irritation in his own voice. He looked up for the first time to see the pale blue of dawn’s first light resting over the trees. Maybe he should have got some sleep…
“I’ve seen you stroke your beard like that before,” Vighon continued, lighting his pipe. “You’re stuck.”
Alijah rubbed the back of his neck and removed the loose braids of hair that sat over his chest. “I’m not stuck. It’s just hard to put together. Must you always start the day with a pipe?” he asked, holding his hand out for a puff himself.
Vighon blew a perfect circle of smoke into the cave before handing the pipe over. “You got me into the stuff. I used to prefer a good cup of Velian tea in the morning.”
Alijah inhaled on the pipe, enjoying the sweet aftertaste of the weedwood. “I merely showed you a better class of smoke than that wretched stuff from Namdhor.”
Vighon snatched the pipe back and let it hang from his mouth as he pulled his one-handed sword from its scabbard. The rhythmic sound of a whetstone running over the steel was another morning routine Alijah had become accustomed to over the last three years. In truth, he quite enjoyed the creature of habit his friend had become and he wouldn’t have him any other way. He just wished he’d got some sleep…
“So, what have you translated so far?” Vighon asked, preventing further investigation of the scroll or indeed sleep.
The Fall of Neverdark Page 4
