Grellock, her most intelligent and loyal ogre, stood with Thuvian and two of his best Rauglor hunters. Lord Skullreaver favored secrecy as well, but asserted that the deviousness of his sister demanded added protection. Annoxoria’s lover wore steel bracers and shoulder guards fastened by chains, but otherwise trusted in the natural resistance of his scales.
The smell of the Rauglor was something she could do without, but she held her tongue, instead using it to greet her Lord with a kiss. She’d dressed sleekly in black leather, including her clawed gloves, and was confident she could disappear into the shadows upon any sign of danger.
“The sooner we get moving, the sooner we’ll reach the cover of the trees,” Thuvian said after breaking their kiss.
Annoxoria nodded, knowing Sepathia was his most urgent concern. Thuvian led the way, gripping Viper’s Kiss his both hands, though he’d also strapped his powerful horned bow to his back. The Rauglor flanked him a few steps behind, carrying bows of their own, used to the formation of their hunts.
Annoxoria went next, moving more briskly than she was used to in order to keep up with the half-Nightwing’s long strides. She was proud that he didn’t feel the need to slow on her account. Grellock took up the rear, his heavy steps shaking the ground, and his large form completely covering Annoxoria’s profile from behind.
Within half-an-hour, they reached the first copse of evergreens along the back slope of the mountain leading away from Nightwing Castle. They were using the game paths she knew Thuvian was intimately familiar with; she trusted in his guidance, and for most of the trip, they had little to fear from the skies.
When they did break cover, they quickened their pace even more until back under the trees. The rest of the group all had excellent night vision, and they traveled well past dark. After sunset, Annoxoria kept close to her mate, whose twin enchanted blades glowed with a dim blue light. Even so, she tripped on enough roots and stones to be glad the dark hid her embarrassment.
The climb over the ridge of the next mountain proved the most challenging part, and Annoxoria was exhausted by the time she went to sleep each night. She was glad to do so in a tent with Thuvian, however, which made it all worth it. He made love to her more savagely than he had during her time healing in the castle. It brought her bliss, and she made no effort to stay quiet or conceal their activity from their underlings.
The full light of day had not yet painted the morning after their second night of camp when Annoxoria started seeing tell-tale signs that their destination was near. Stone markers with weathered and moss-covered eladrin runes stood waist-high at irregular intervals along the path. Every now and then, she heard disturbances among the trees – twigs snapping or leaves rustling – but whenever she looked, the only movement she spotted was the vegetation itself.
“The Ellafous?” she whispered ahead to Thuvian.
He nodded without looking back. “They are watching.”
Annoxoria had expected as much and found the idea somewhat comforting. She and Thuvian had been here before and realized they were not alone on that trip, either. Still, the half-eladrin, half-human guardians had not shown aggression, and she hoped they wouldn’t as long as they were not provoked. Thuvian suspected they recognized his eladrin heritage – though she saw only dragon – and felt some rules of kinship applied even if they looked nothing alike.
They were, indeed, close. The path they’d been following ended, and Thuvian commanded Grellock to hack through the underbrush with a machete. Annoxoria remembered how the growth encircling the ruins was unusually thick. She suspected ancient magic had enchanted the surrounding woods. When they’d cleared through two dozen paces of vines, low branches, nettles, and entangled leaves, a clearing lay beyond.
Only the grey stone carved from a nearby mountain quarry remained, so old was Rinn-Rhulian. The foundation and crumbled walls of the eladrin citadel sprawled across the field ahead, encroached on all sides by old forest. The elwise had lived here before the Gift of Arkmus and were mostly slaughtered when the God of Battle set humanity against them.
Thanks to his involvement in the construction of Nightwing Castle, Thuvian was able to spot an anomaly the last time they were here. One section of wall, decorated by carvings with an archway motif, looked significantly less weathered than the adjacent stone. When Annoxoria had cast a spell to detect enchantments, she discovered an illusion had been placed upon the area and found a corresponding eladrin inscription set with warding glyphs.
A locked doorway had been hidden in the stone wall and would only open when one of the Ellafous touched the glyphs, or so the inscription read. Thuvian had guessed correctly that his mixed heritage might also suffice, and sure enough, a passage had opened for him.
He and Annoxoria returned to the enchanted doorway, giving orders to the Rauglor and ogre to keep watch and enter only if a threat manifested. She wondered if Izefet was after what was beneath and felt a tightness in her stomach after she cast her spell to reveal the illusion. Had the half-fiend already been here? Would the Ellafous allow that, or were they perhaps unable to stop him?
Thuvian reached out and lay his hand upon the largest glyph, which came to life at his touch, glowing brightly. Once again, the stone slid aside to reveal an open archway with narrow stairs leading down. Annoxoria grasped his muscular forearm with both hands, calmed by the texture of his glossy scales.
Only a sliver of sunlight reached the passage, and it didn’t extend beyond the first few steps. Thuvian glanced down at her and then clasped Viper’s Kiss with both hands. “Ignite,” he ordered, and the blue glow of the blades surged to a brighter green. A sizzle accompanied the change, for the weapon’s ends had become enveloped in magical acid.
Annoxoria released Thuvian’s arm so he could lead the way downward. She followed a couple of paces behind, allowing space in case he had need to swing his weapon. The room below was as she remembered it, vacant of life and hauntingly beautiful. Veins of a silvery material in the walls and ceiling reflected the light of Viper’s Kiss. Against the wall directly across from the base of the stairs stood an ornately carved, wooden stand. Unlike the ruins above, everything in this room was perfectly preserved and looked new.
The stand had small, metallic braces that supported a staff of polished wood. The staff was a shade taller than Annoxoria and possessed a paler grain than the stand. Runes spiraled around its circumference from the base to its head, which held a green crystal set into a tight hollow. She knew from her previous visit that it also held an enchantment, though she’d yet to decipher it.
Given the Ellafous were watching, Thuvian had forbidden her to take it on their first visit, but she doubted Izefet would show the same courtesy. Was the staff what he was searching for, or was it a way through the door? Lord Skullreaver turned right once the steps met the floor and walked over to a stone pedestal, set between two columns that melded into the back wall.
The slanted top surface of the pedestal was divided into a matrix of polished marble plates, each about the size of a hand. On the wall above the pedestal, a warning was written in Eladrin. Thuvian lifted one end of his weapon closer to re-read the passage:
“Of the many Dooms we have escaped, one is locked within. The way to the Door can be guessed, but only a fool would do so, for another Doom awaits the impatient. Knowledge leads to our Salvation, and ever will. It can be passed down or granted by a well-planted Seed, though Wisdom does not come with it.”
“I can’t tell if that’s poetry or just poor writing,” Annoxoria derided. Why couldn’t the Eladrin, or Ellafous, or whoever was responsible for the message, just state things plainly. It was a puzzle, and one that had stuck in the back of her mind since she saw it, though she hadn’t memorized all the words.
“But what do you think it means?” Thuvian asked, turning his attention from the inscription to the pedestal.
She tasted the air, stirred by magic, without need for a spell to inform her of its properties. The marble plates radiated power,
and she possessed enough arcane knowledge to realize touching them would have consequences. She’d studied magical traps and was wary about setting one off with careless experimentation.
“I think we’re right not to touch them without knowing more,” Annoxoria replied. She suddenly remembered that she’d brought the Living Fire Izefet had given her. Removing her pack, she searched for it.
“What is it?” her lover asked.
“The Name of the Beast has been searching for this place, and Izefet stole the Living Fire we’d already mined. He wanted it for something …” She grasped the black metal statuary and her forked tongue extended in unconscious acknowledgement. “Perhaps that’s what ‘Seed’ refers to in the riddle: the Seeds of the Avatars.”
“Yes, that is what the elwise call them.” Thuvian’s tone suggested he’d caught on. “I didn’t know we had any left.”
“This was locked up in my study when the fiend ransacked the castle. They couldn’t get in.” Annoxoria was actually quite pleased with herself for outwitting Izefet. Not knowing what difference it might make, she carried the facilitator of her sacrifice over to the pedestal.
Its red light sparkled and grew in intensity, acting like a dim, infernal lantern in the darkness. Thuvian held back Viper’s Kiss so the hues wouldn’t compete. As if written in invisible ink, runes appeared upon each of the marble plates as Annoxoria passed the light of the Living Fire over them.
“Look at that!” Delight in her discovery stretched Annoxoria’s lips in a wide smile.
“Ingenious,” Thuvian murmured. Then, a moment later, “What are we supposed to do now? Spell out something?”
Annoxoria was in the midst of contemplating the options when a coarse shout from her ogre carried down from the top of the stairs.
“Arrows!”
Thuvian shared a look with her and then was off, bounding up the stairs as she stuffed the Living Fire back in her pack. Doing so left her in complete darkness, save the rectangle of dim light marking the exit. She was familiar enough with her spell components that she could identify them by touch, and forced herself not to rush until she’d extracted what she needed from the pouch at her waist. Whoever was attacking would suffer the melting sting of acid for their trouble.
Annoxoria took short steps over to the stairs and used her hands to feel their edges before working around to ascend. She paused at the top, took a deep breath, and was about to surge into the open until she heard Thuvian’s voice. He was conversing, not emitting feral battle cries. Curious, Annoxoria emerged into the morning light.
Grellock and the Rauglor had fanned out on either side of Thuvian, the latter holding their bows with arrows nocked as their heads swiveled, looking out into the trees. She saw a green-feathered arrow piercing the trunk of a nearby mountain hemlock that had broken through a floor of crumbling stone.
Given that aggressions had been thusfar contained, Annoxoria risked joining her Lord to get a better sense of what was going on. She nudged her ogre aside to stand next to Thuvian and saw that he was speaking to a man she assumed was an Ellafous.
“—reason to disturb the secret chamber?” The man who asked the question was wrapped in a green, hooded cloak, fringed with intricate designs, and held a recurved bow. Yet his golden, eladrin eyes drew her attention. He had an arrow drawn, though she presumed he had not fired the first shot himself. He would be a fool to address a superior force in the open if there were not others behind him, hiding in the trees.
“We have the same concerns as you,” Thuvian explained, “for we suspect others seek to uncover the secrets buried here.”
“You do not appear Eladrin, yet were able to enter the chamber – how do we know your intentions are honorable? You have been here before, after all,” the Ellafous stated.
“And we have not taken your treasure,” Annoxoria asserted. “You are addressing Lord Thuvian Skullreaver, ruler of Drachenmark, and are yourselves standing on land within his domain. Who are you to question us?”
“Nox—”
“Do you not see the remains of our city around you?” the Ellafous archer asked. “This has been our land since before your first ancestor was born. And there are dangers beneath that would spell Doom for us all if unleashed. It is our sworn oath to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Friend, we have no intention of probing your secrets further. To answer your question, I have eladrin blood, too. At least part of us is kin.” Thuvian emitted a draconic snarl, as if his own body desired to demonstrate how clearly the other half was not related. “I am glad to know of your oath and fully support you honoring it. Consider this a shared warning, then, for others may come soon for your secrets.”
“I appreciate your warning, though must still ask you to vacate and never return to this site. If you come again, I will have no choice but to assume you speak falsely of your intent.”
Annoxoria opened her mouth to object, but Thuvian grasped her wrist tightly, cutting off her speech. She looked up at his face and he shook his head slightly before addressing the Ellafous once more.
“We will take our leave, but use care that your defense of this location does not widen further into my territory. I am crafting a nation, and I expect my sovereignty to be respected.” With that, Thuvian turned and pulled Annoxoria with him, heading north, the way they’d come. Her ogre rumbled at the lost opportunity to bash in skulls but followed without a word, and the Rauglor came after.
“I spotted at least a dozen more at the tree-line,” Thuvian whispered as they reached the trees themselves. “I didn’t appreciate his presumption either, but it wasn’t worth the possibility of losing you.”
Annoxoria had been prepared to argue, but his words disarmed her. She was still hot at the audacity of these natives but decided to save her aggression for their tent.
Chapter 15
The Eight Hills
T haelios had just long enough to wonder whether this was the last time he would ever travel from one plane to another, before he appeared on the stone steps of yet another magnificent building. He knew he was no longer on Mount Celestia by the chill that immediately set into his exposed skin.
“What trickery is this?” a man yelled before bounding down the first few steps in Thaelios’s direction, extending his glaive as he came to a halt. A second man, dressed in a similar white tabard emblazoned with a purple crescent moon, joined his partner, though he remained a few steps further back and didn’t brandish his weapon.
“What is it, Uther?” the second man asked, staring hard at the newcomers. Thaelios couldn’t determine if the man’s question was in reference to him or the reason for his partner’s outburst.
“These two just appeared out of thin air!” Uther explained. “And the one in front looks strange – must be Shapers. Should we warn the Grandmaster?”
The guards spoke Illanese, so Thaelios assumed Hiruth Jeshu must have deposited them in the right place. “We are, in fact, Shapers,” Thaelios stated, lifting his palms to show his hands were empty, “but we mean you no harm.”
The second guard lowered his glaive and crouched when Thaelios spoke. Perhaps reassurance would be better received from Dyphina? Thaelios glanced over his shoulder at his companion, who looked elegant in the new, green dress created for her by the gods.
She seemed to understand and a beguiling smile broke across her face as she stepped forward to draw the guards’ attention. “Gentlemen,” she started, clasping her hands together, “please don’t be alarmed. We have traveled far to visit Grandmaster Jaiden Luminere, who is expecting our arrival. Would you be so kind as to escort us to him?”
“Sorry, m’lady,” the unnamed guard responded, though his firm stance softened and the shaft of his weapon rose. “We cannot allow entrance to the palace simply on your word.”
Dyphina’s face fell while she simultaneously straightened her posture, lifting the cleavage exposed by her bodice into plainer view.
“But, um,” the man stuttered, his eyes trained preci
sely where Thaelios felt his companion intended. “Allow me to speak with the chamberlain, and if you are indeed expected, I would be more than happy to escort you to the Grandmaster’s court.” He turned to his partner. “Uther, stay with the visitors and await my return.”
Uther hesitated at the command. “Well, yes, certainly,” he finally decided, drinking in Dyphina’s full form. He lifted his glaive as well and planted both feet on the same step, adopting a more neutral posture.
“Wonderful,” Thaelios said under his breath. “I suppose we’ll just wait here to be shown in.” He lifted his head and gawked at the extravagance of what was apparently the palace. The façade was striking in shades of white and gold, with rose-colored windows at various heights. Several spires rose high enough to remind him of Blackfeather Perch. He couldn’t imagine the expense of building such a large structure out of stone.
Spinning on his heels, he took in the even grander view as Dyphina flirted with the remaining guard to entertain herself. He was standing at the top of a high hill, overlooking a city, vast beyond expectations. The sight of Zeblon twinkling below during their excursion to the mansion of the Twelve was astounding. Seeing the full splendor of Selamus in the daylight was simply awesome.
It dwarfed the coastal city – crowded buildings seemed to squat upon one another for breathing room among the surrounding hillsides. He was standing on the tallest of them, but other peaks rose nearby. Both they and the valleys between were filled by the sprawl of human construction. Thaelios was in the midst of attempting to calculate Selamus’s approximate population, when he felt hands clasp his shoulders from behind.
“Isn’t this exciting?” Dyphina squealed. “We’re going to be staying in a palace!”
“With hundreds of people who look more like you than me,” he responded. Thaelios knew she would never understand the anxiety that being the only Eladrin in a human city summoned. Dyphina’s ancestors, at least on her father’s side, had likely helped wipe out most of Thaelios’s.
The Hall of Doors Page 23
