With a shaky hand, I withdrew Equalizer from its holster and then grabbed one of my father’s special bullets. I had only fired a flintlock pistol a handful of times. With a normal gun, I’d need to pour in grains of shot and then pack down the bullet. My father had said this pistol didn’t need gunpowder, so I removed the ramrod from under the barrel and used it to stuff the ball-shaped bullet deep into the weapon.
Once I was sure the bullet was secured inside, I reinserted the ramrod into its holder. Would the pistol fire? Even if I had no priming powder? I supposed I was about to find out.
Gamal rushed for Luthair and Vethica whenever they exited the darkness. He created another beam of light, preventing their quick escape. Luthair followed my lead and dove for cover, keeping Vethica with him, draped in his inky cape.
“I will destroy you,” Gamal said. “Nothing but ashes will remain!”
I stepped out from cover, determined to divert attention away from Luthair and Vethica no matter the cost. “Over here,” I shouted. When Gamal ignored me, I ran close to one of the young khepera and got within arm’s length. “Aren’t you trying to protect the others?”
I had no intention of hurting the little khepera, but my proximity enraged Gamal. He whipped around in the air, his wings buzzing louder and his exoskeleton glowing hotter.
After a quick breath, I held up Equalizer, took aim—my eyes burning—and then fired. Fire flared around the hammer and barrel. The sound wasn’t the usual bang, but a shriek, like a firework. I feared I had missed, but the light from Gamal’s body flickered and faded. His wings gave out, and he crashed onto the smooth tile floor, screeching the entire way.
The manticore bullet prevented magic use, but only for a short period of time. Now was the time to act.
I holstered Equalizer and drew Retribution. The moment the ebony blade left its sheath, the young khepera, all four of them, collectively gasped. They scuttled off the top of their pillars and hid themselves from me. They hadn’t moved before—not at any point in the fight, not even when I had been close to one. Were they afraid of the sword?
Gamal hissed and pushed himself up onto his six legs. “Fiend! You are an agent of destruction.” His exoskeleton slowly heated as the bullet injury to his carapace—the part covering the thorax—began to heal. His black eyes shimmered again. With cold certainty in his voice, he said, “I will kill you where you stand.”
His last statement sent me beyond the limits of self-control. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt me or those I cared about. Not if I could do something about it. Not ever again. This bug would regret starting a fight he couldn’t hope to win.
With icy rage that seemed to hone my focus on my one opponent, I gripped my blade and rushed forward. The khepera tried to fly away, but the lingering effects of the bullet injury slowed it just enough. When I swung my sword, I imagined clipping it on its injured thorax—enough to incapacitate, but not kill.
That wasn’t what happened.
In the millisecond before I connected, I turned the blade to aim for something vital. With all my might, I slashed right through the khepera’s body.
It felt like I had cut through air.
No resistance. No drag. No sensation of contact. The sword sliced the mystical creature into two parts. It surprised me so much that I continued the arc of my swing until the blade struck the floor, chipping the tile.
Gamal chittered something as the half with his head separated from the back end. Both parts hit the floor with a soft clack. The buzzing of his wings ceased, even though his six legs twitched. Guts spilled out across the floor like a mixture of pudding and beef stew, hot and crimson.
Shaken, I dropped Retribution. The sword hit the ground with a hard clatter.
I had killed in the past, but in each instance I had intended to take a life. I had never… done something like this before. It bothered me because it had felt like a secret desire—I had wanted to harm Gamal, to make him pay for attacking us—and even though I had rationally understood death was unnecessary, I had gone through with it anyway.
Luthair and Vethica emerged from behind one of the pillars. Neither spoke as they rushed over to my side. The slice through Gamal was so clean and perfect that it invoked horror in both of them—even if Luthair had no face, just an empty helmet, I knew.
“You killed him,” Vethica whispered.
“It was an accident,” I said, terse. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It was probably for the best. He had lost his mind.”
I took several shallow breaths. “But—”
“The khepera never really die, remember? He’ll be reborn in this chamber as a young khepera. Perhaps then his mind will be calm.”
That fact eased my guilt.
But still.
The way I had acted troubled me. Had it been a result of the arcane plague? Or something else? The uncertainty added a new layer of anxiety.
“You can come out now,” Vethica said to the four young khepera. She used a part of her burnt coat to hide the injury on her arm. “I promise, we mean you no harm. I tried to tell that to Gamal, but he wouldn’t listen. We had to fight him to stay alive, but I assure you we didn’t want that.”
The four smaller khepera scuttled to the tops of their pillars, each waving their antennae. They glanced between one another, and then all turned their attention to me.
“He is corrupted,” one whispered, its voice feminine. “We can see it in his magic.”
Vethica stepped between me and the mystical creatures. “He knows he’s ill. He came to beg you to help him recover, not to hurt you.”
“He carries a weapon made from the end of times. It is wicked. I do not think he can be trusted.”
“His weapon?” Vethica turned around and stared at my sword.
While on the ground, it seemed harmless—as wicked as any other longsword—but I remembered how it had cut through Gamal without any problems. The exoskeleton should’ve offered some resistance, but there had been nothing.
The door to the center chamber opened again to reveal Adelgis, Fain, Karna, Wraith, and Felicity. They hurried into the room, wet from the waist down. While the others had to glance around to take in their surroundings, Adelgis shot straight for me as though he knew the area well.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he reached my side. With his telepathy he added, “Your thoughts have been panicked since you killed Gamal. You really must keep calm. I fear these outbursts will only take you down a spiral of despair.”
Luthair turned his empty helmet to face me.
I ran a hand down my face and forced half a smile. “I’ll be okay. I was just startled. That’s all.”
“He is a knightmare arcanist,” another young khepera said, this one boyish in voice. “Knightmares only bond with individuals who are both valiant and filled with a sense of justice. If he is corrupted, it is a tragedy.” The khepera spoke with no contractions, making their speech elegant and formal.
The feminine-sounding khepera buzzed her wings, but didn’t leave her pillar. “We need an arcanist to help him.”
“The woman completed the trial of worth.”
“She is… also corrupted.”
The four khepera whispered amongst each other, their little voices becoming too hushed to comprehend, even if the sounds echoed in the large chamber. Vethica looked away from Retribution and then returned her attention to the khepera.
“I’ve also come for your help,” she said. “Please. I want to become a khepera arcanist so I can aid others in my situation.”
For a long moment, no one said or did anything. Everyone waited, silent and with rapt attention, for the fallout of our actions. Would the young khepera trust us, even though we had killed Gamal? I hoped I hadn’t ruined this opportunity.
The boyish khepera scuttled to the edge of his pillar, as close as he could get to Vethica. “My name is Akhet,” he said, his black eyes shimmering. “I will bond with you.”
“You will?” Vethica asked, h
ope and desperation mixed into the breathlessness of her speech. “Th-Thank you. Thank you so much!”
She stepped close to the pillar and held out a trembling hand. Akhet stretched out one of his thin insect legs. The moment they touched, Akhet glowed a soft white, and Vethica’s forehead was marked a second time. A star with the shape of a scarab etched itself into her flesh, signifying to the world she was, once again, an arcanist.
Once the light calmed, Akhet removed his leg and fluttered his wings. “My arcanist, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I hope, together, we will grow ever wiser.”
Vethica rubbed at her eyes. Unable to speak, she just nodded.
The relief of the situation helped my frayed nerves. At least the waiting and the trek hadn’t been for nothing. Vethica was now a khepera arcanist, and we could return to the Sun Chaser victorious.
Gamal’s severed body shook. I stepped back, startled. Everyone else turned their attention to the corpse as well, clearly confused by the movement. The scarab body twitched and then flaked apart, similar to ashes from a fire. The exoskeleton broke down, the wings disintegrated, and the glistening guts shriveled and rotted.
Within the span of sixty seconds, Gamal’s body transformed from a fresh corpse to…
Sand.
Everything broke down until nothing but two piles of sand remained.
One pink. One tan.
I held my breath, realization dawning on me at a slow rate.
The sand moved on its own, controlled by magic and willed to one of the pillars. The piles rolled around the ground, swept up by an invisible force. When the sand reached the base of the pillar, it slid up the sides, moving in a line only three grains wide. Once atop the pillar, the sands collected themselves back into colored piles, neat and tidy.
“What is that?” I demanded, even though I knew the answer.
Akhet buzzed his wings. “That is Gamal. The tan sand is his body. The pink sand is the soul that he has collected throughout his many lives. Once he has recovered, he will form again.”
“What happens if someone removes the sand?” Adelgis asked, his expression neutral, his words careful. “Let me clarify. What if someone uses the sand for some purpose? Healing or… some other purpose.”
The young khepera exchanged another round of sad glances.
“That was why Gamal was upset,” Akhet muttered. “Khepera do not die, but they can be permanently destroyed. For decades, the only person to reach our sacred chamber in the center of the Grotto Labyrinth has been an imposing man who does not reply to our questions. He takes our sands and uses them…”
Akhet pointed to the broken pillars—the hundreds of broken pillars.
“They will never come back,” Akhet stated. “If the sands are used or consumed—that is the end of the khepera.”
30
Plague Hunting
Adelgis brushed his hair back with a quick stroke of his hand. Then he turned away from the group and bit down on his index finger. He said nothing as he stared at the polished tile flooring.
I opened the pouch on my belt and withdrew the two vials of sand—one tan, one pink. These were a khepera? I hoped beyond reason they were something different, something similar but ultimately unrelated. I uncorked the vials and then poured them onto the floor. The others watched me with knit eyebrows and curious expressions. All except Luthair, of course. He stood next to me without even the slightest of movement, an intimidating decoration, though I knew he understood the gravity of the situation. He had been with me every step of this journey.
Once the sands were free from their confines, I stepped away.
My heart sank like a brick the moment the sands shuddered and moved. They traveled across the floor, just like the sands of Gamal, and went straight for an empty pillar. They slid up to the platform at the top and reformed as piles.
Unlike Gamal, who had remained sand, the grains from the vials sparkled and shimmered. Glittering the entire time, they reformed into a tiny khepera, coalescing together like Luthair whenever he formed from the shadows. It only took a minute, and the glimmer of magic stopped—the khepera had been reborn right in front of our eyes.
From the sands I took from Theasin’s lab.
And the real map—the one with the correct solution to the center chamber—had come from the same place.
“What’s going on?” Fain asked. He crossed his arms, uncrossed his arms, and then motioned around, obviously restless. “You just had a bunch of khepera sand in your pocket?”
The other young khepera buzzed and trembled.
“Evil,” one whispered.
“He must work with the vile man,” another added.
“Those sands,” I muttered, barely hearing the others over the chaos of my own thoughts, “I first saw them in Thronehold. Theasin—Adelgis’s father—used the tan sand to heal Adelgis’s physical injury after removing the abyssal leech. And then later… I used the pink sand to heal Adelgis’s soul of the lingering damage. I didn’t know… I didn’t know they were khepera.”
Vethica and Karna gave each other one quick look that had a conversation’s worth of information in it. I didn’t know what they thought of me, but I would understand if they thought me a monster. I just hadn’t known what the sands were, and no matter whom I had asked, no one had given me an acceptable answer.
“How did you get these sands?” Fain asked.
“I found them in Theasin’s labs. Right alongside the map.”
Vethica picked up Akhet and then held her new eldrin close to her chest. “I understand now. Theasin Venrover was the one who tampered with the maze. He’s the one who stole all the khepera and used their sands for his own purposes. He killed them and trapped their sand in vials, preventing them from returning to the Grotto Labyrinth. That’s the only explanation.”
I had known the moment Gamal had dissolved into two colored sands.
Theasin had done this.
He was the only one with the knowledge, the resources, and the dark ambition to think he could get away with something so over-the-top. He had even been the one to conclude that the khepera were gone. In reality, he was the “imposing man” who had visited the center chamber over the last couple of decades—he was the one killing the khepera. Him. This was all his doing.
Karna huffed. She placed a hand on her hip and leaned back on one leg. “Okay, so what’re we going to do now? We can’t remain shocked and aghast forever.”
“We should take the rest of the khepera out of here,” I said. “If we leave them, there’s a chance Theasin might finish the rest of them off for their sands.”
“What’re we going to do with them afterward? Give them to the governor of New Norra?”
I gritted my teeth, hating every moment of this. That seemed like a logical course of action, but I didn’t know anything about the governor of New Norra. What if the governor was in on this with Theasin? Or perhaps all city officials were? Giving the khepera away could put them all at risk. They were small and young, and without Gamal, they had no protection.
Who would I trust to look after the khepera? There weren’t many people who I could say, with absolute certainty, were beyond suspicion.
“We should keep them,” I said. “And when I go back to the Frith Guild, I can take them with me.”
“You want to give them to one of the guilds?” Vethica asked with a frown.
Although I figured Karna would agree, she tightened her grip on her arms. “No, Volke’s right. We should take the khepera far from here. To a place where Theasin can’t get them.”
The remaining khepera conferred amongst themselves, their antennae waving back and forth as they whispered. I ignored their conversation and placed a hand on Adelgis’s tense shoulder. His eyes were scrunched shut, and he didn’t move. Fain and Wraith joined us, but it was obvious that neither knew what to say.
Fain met my gaze and then motioned to Adelgis with a subtle jut of his shoulder. Did he want me to say something? What was I supposed to
say at this moment? Sorry your father was involved in something so heinous. It happens, I guess.
I rubbed at the back of my neck.
Adelgis could hear my thoughts… He probably didn’t appreciate the jokes…
While everyone dwelled on the situation, Karna picked up Retribution and handed it to me, hilt first. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take it back, but I needed to have a weapon. I’d just have to exert better self-control in the future.
“What’s your sword made out of?” Vethica asked.
I shook my head. “Steel. Knightmare magic. And bones that I found in Theasin’s lab.” What were they from? Some other innocent creature that Theasin had harvested so he could use the parts for his purposes and experiments? “I don’t know where the bones came from, but they felt powerful. I thought they would be perfect for a weapon.”
“I still don’t feel it,” Karna said. “The sword is just a sword to me. Nothing more.”
“I can sense it,” Akhet said, his little boyish scarab voice mixed with fear. “Something terrible.”
Luthair, who hadn’t shifted at all, chimed in with, “I can also sense it. I’m not sure what it is, but the power is there.”
Could mystical creatures feel the power? But why couldn’t any of the other arcanists? Why me? I held the hilt of the blade out to Fain. “Can you feel anything?”
He touched it, his movements hesitant, but once his blackened fingers grazed the top of the blade, he relaxed. “I feel nothing.”
Vethica held out her hand. Although I didn’t think it would make much of a difference, I allowed her to touch Retribution as well. Like Fain, she didn’t seem enthusiastic to handle the sword. Once she touched it, she grimaced and jerked her hand away.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“It’s powerful,” she whispered. “I can feel it, too.”
So… only the two arcanists who had been corrupted with the arcane plague could feel the power. And the khepera claimed it was wicked. What were those bones? What creature had they come from? Perhaps a plague-ridden monster? Had Theasin been experimenting with the plague in his free time? Or perhaps he was testing out the abyssal leech’s ability to manipulate magic? Was that how he was developing a cure? Or was something more sinister taking place?
Plague Arcanist (Frith Chronicles Book 4) Page 29
