The Blade Unbroken
MAGEBREAKER
By
K.G. Allbright
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to my world of The Blade Unbroken. These stories take place in The Forsaken Isles, and the largest is Everscia. You’ll meet many characters in this world, each living different adventures, which means plenty of stories to tell. Magebreaker gives us our first glimpse into this world, through the eyes of Kylan, an Everscian mage who finds himself in an impossible situation.
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Copyright © 2021 KG Allbright
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PART ONE:
Necromancer’s Kiss
Kylan spoke the final words, his incantation complete. Aeterna ve oblivi. He leaned forward, gripping the sides of the table with white knuckles. The wood creaked beneath his weight, though the crypt beneath the streets of Felmourn was silent. Tattered banners of ivory and sage hung from the walls between each section of the burial hall above tables cluttered with small offerings, bundles of flowers, and handwritten letters. Incense burned in several bowls around the room, thin wisps of white smoke fading into the air. The main chamber of the crypt was a circular room with several corridors branching off into smaller rooms, each hall lined with coffins stacked on thick wooden shelves of stained oak set into the stone walls. Behind Kylan were wide steps carved into the stone ascending to a pair of heavy oak doors. The distressed wood had ornate details carved into its borders and, when Kylan had entered, they groaned on weary iron hinges.
Kylan leaned over the table and went through the steps in his mind, eyes on a small wooden bowl beside an open book with worn yellow pages. He checked the bowl’s contents. Skull of an albino raven. A braided lock of his wife’s hair. A withered black rose, the thorns along its crooked stem caked with dried blood. And the final piece, something personal to him. Kylan ran his tongue over the hole in his gums as his eyes set on the tooth in the bowl. His attention was drawn back to the book.
The words of the spell began glowing on the page, each letter hovering in the air above the ancient tome. His pulse quickened. “So it’s done.” The words were dragged from his dry throat, a deep breath pulling thin wisps of incense smoke from a nearby bowl, filling his nostrils with spice and decay. Kylan looked past the table in front of him, beyond the glowing pages of the spell book, to the body laying atop a stone altar. The altar was etched with runes, ancient Everscian symbols of passage. Candles of melted wax circled the stone slab, their low flame casting long crooked shadows across the walls. Kylan’s eyes were on the dead body of his wife, Auralyn. It had been weeks since she’d fallen ill with scarlet plague. The rash of red bumps had covered her chest and throat, soon taking her ability to breathe. In the days after her death, Kylan’s denial grew, and each passing day, even more so. He could not accept that his wife was gone.
Gone.
The thought of the word, its permanence, stuck in his mind over those lonely days. He turned to the only thing in his life that was familiar to him, magic. Being a mage, he knew there were things that were not spoken in the taverns or in the merchant square. He knew there were things beyond his understanding, dark things, but he was adamant it was the only way he could bring her back. And he would do anything.
In the days after her death, he began spending time near the docks and spoke with the healers and alchemists in their shops. A secret here, a whisper there. He followed the information. He sought out the undesirables, those people he otherwise wouldn’t associate with--peddlers in dark alleys, mages who dabbled in dark magic, who made their homes in the warrens beneath the cities--all to find something, anything, to bring her back.
The evening he had met with the necromancer, the snow had stopped falling but the wind from the eastern coastline blew in a heavy storm. Kylan recalled weaving through the streets of Velorra to a small cottage at the end of town. Rain pelted the roof, an unsettling sound eroding the silence. He stood in front of her, a broken man, heartsick and weary. It had been days since he had slept or eaten, and sorrow consumed him down to his bones, but the cold outside those walls could not compare to the chill he felt within. Auralyn was everything. Losing her, he lost himself.
“Please, I’ll do anything.”
Kylan raised his hands in front of him, pleading with the necromancer. She looked at him without a word, no doubt taking in his disheveled hair and grey beard falling over his chest, his face weathered by his pain. The hollows beneath his eyes were heavy circles, chiseled deep and dark. He knew exactly what she saw in him. He was a shell of a man. He was a shadow. He was a dead man pretending to be alive.
“I’ll ask you again to reconsider, mage.” She stood from her chair and walked over to face him. Her eyes were the color of the sky after a lightning strike, soft silver. “The spell can bring your wife back,” She ran her hand over his hair and along the side of his cheek. She leaned in and kissed him. Kylan took a deep breath. She smelled of lilac and honey, tinged with the smoke of her fireplace. Her soft skin brushing his made him miss his wife even more. “But the cost is high. You may find that you’re not willing to pay it.”
Her voice was seductive. The outline of her shape in front of the fireplace taunted him. The flicker of flame in the darkened room drew his eyes to her curves beneath the thin silk robes she wore. His mind drifted to nights with Auralyn. Moments later, he spoke with more clarity than he had felt in days.
“I’ll do anything to get her back. I understand there’s a cost...that everything has its price. I can’t live without her.” Kylan looked into her eyes, an intense gaze that drew the seconds out. “It’s worth it to me to get her back, no matter what that means. Please, help me.”
The necromancer turned and walked to a nearby bookshelf, pulling a thin leather bound tome down. Her robes swayed with each step and Kylan’s eyes followed her, lingering over her neck and shoulders, and then her thighs and naked feet. He glanced to her unmade bed on the other side of the room, and then back to her, watching her rifle through the shelves. In this moment, a rush flooded his senses and his skin tingled with wanting.
"No." He thought, steadying himself. Her appearance was nothing close to what he imagined a necromancer to look like, and he realized his pain made him weak. "Don't mistake the tricks of her magic for personal connection. Remember why you're here. Remember Auralyn."
She moved a few loose scrolls aside and took something from a small box sitting on the shelf. She walked back and handed Kylan the book. He took it with both hands, fingers running along its worn cover. He could feel its currents of magic pulsing beneath his fingertips. The necromancer reached up and clasped an amulet around his neck. A simple amethyst gemstone on a braided leather cord.
“Perform the ritual and read the spell from the pages I’ve marked in the book.” She stepped back and met his weary gaze. “You’ll get your wife back, and in return,” She turned and sat back down in her chair near the fireplace. “When you die, this amulet will collect your soul for me.”
Kylan nodded his head in agreement and opened the door. Grief twisted in his gut like a dull blade. He considered her offer. What was someone’s soul worth? Was getting Auralyn back, his wife back in his life and by his side, worth giving up his soul for whatever sinister purpose she had planned? The question screamed inside his mind.
Was doing this worth it to get her back? Would he die for love?
“Yes.” He whispered, acceptance settling in the back of his mind.
“What did you say?”
He looked to the necromancer sitting there, pulling her long rust-blonde hair back over her shoulders. She ran a hand over the bottle of s
piced wine on the table and poured its amber liquid into a glass, taking a slow sip. Her eyes were demanding an answer. She didn’t see the tears filling the corner of his eyes. She didn’t feel the knot in his throat. And she couldn’t imagine the weight of the stone he carried in his chest. All his hope hung on the need for this to work. He turned before slipping outside, clutching the book beneath his arm, and nodded to the necromancer. His lips quivered for a moment before he spoke, his fragile emotions revealing themselves. Kylan choked them back and buried the book beneath his cloak. His voice passed over his lips, cracked and whispered.
“Thank you.”
Kylan reached up to the amethyst pendant around his neck and looked to the body just ahead of him. Auralyn was dressed in casual robes, indigo and grey. He had placed a moonstone circlet on her head, a gift to begin their ‘new’ life together. He watched from behind the book as the spell took hold.
The subtle rise and fall of her chest was the first thing he noticed. She took a breath. Then another. When her eyes opened, he stepped around the small table and approached the altar. His footsteps echoed in the silent crypt.
“Auralyn.”
He whispered her name, allowing the word to linger on his lips. She sat up and looked at him. Their eyes met, and for a moment everything that was missing in his life faded into the background. She was right here in front of him, he could reach out and touch her. Her lips curved upwards, a half-smile raising her cheeks.
Was this recognition? She knew that it was him, she had to know.
His heart threw itself against his rib cage and he held his breath before exhaling and rushing to her side.
“By Alivar's grace. Auralyn, my love.”
He returned her smile, throwing his arms around her in a heartfelt embrace. He pulled back and looked into her golden-brown eyes. It was as if they had not lost a moment. The necromancer’s ritual had worked. He closed his eyes and whispered the final words of the spell again.
Aeterna ve oblivi.
Kylan was knocked backwards onto the stone floor. Pain pierced through him, branching out from his shoulder over his back. He absorbed the brunt of the fall with a grunt and looked up to see Auralyn curled over, her limbs rigid, and eyes rolled back. He pulled himself to his feet and moved towards her. Cold washed over him when she raised her head. He finally saw her for what she was, what she had been all along. Dead. Her skin was pale corded leather, dark eyes sunk into the hollows of her face. She moved towards the edge of the altar, eyes never breaking his gaze. He stood frozen in place, his heart now pulsing to the rhythm of her low murmur. Shivers crawled up his spine with the rasp of each ragged breath.
“No.” He whispered. “What have I done?”
The reality gripped him, a cold hand, its icy fingers squeezing his throat. His next breath caught in his chest. He watched the creature his wife had become lower herself to the floor and move towards him. Her limbs were twisted and she slithered forward with jagged movements. The sight of it unnerved the mage. In all his battles and adventures, Kylan had never felt fear like this. It crept up the back of his neck, swelling inside him like some cold, black entity. He stepped back, shrinking away from the sound that echoed throughout the chamber. From her mouth came an unholy groan, and something undying now wore the face of his wife. Kylan backed away from the creature.
“I’m sorry, my dear.” Tears filled the corners of his eyes before falling, trailing down his cheeks in the low candlelight. “I just wanted you back. I thought it would be as if you never left.”
The creature moved closer, its groan making Kylan’s stomach turn. A tightness built in his chest, and he took several deep breaths to calm the sickness rising from his gut. He waved his arms and fire erupted from his palms, swirling in the air around him. This creature was not his wife. She was not the woman she was before. He recalled the night he asked the necromancer for help.
“She warned me. She asked me to reconsider. She gave me a way out of the transaction.” He told himself, moving in circles around the room. He stepped over several offering urns and spoke out loud, his voice straining. “But I wouldn’t hear it. Was I so blinded by my love, or by my loss? Was I driven so mad by my grief that I didn’t see it then?” Swelling rose up in his throat and behind his eyes. “And what do I do now?”
He bumped into the table that held the spell book and ritual ingredients. Kylan knew he had been wrong. About his wife, himself, and about using this dark magic to get her back. He knew he was wrong, though the consequences of his mistakes had only been revealed tonight. Anger rose up from within him, replacing his sorrow, and he turned his rage to the one thing he did have the will to destroy. His eyes fell to the book on the table, and Kylan thrust his hands forward. Flame consumed the book, each page curling and withering into ash. The leather bound cover followed and soon the table had caught fire, the gnarled wood burning slowly, lighting up the stone room’s shallow darkness.
He looked back to the creature in the ochre glow, and his gaze met those honey brown eyes that he missed so much. The eyes of his wife. Could she be in there somewhere?
“Auralyn?”
The answer came when he met the gaze of the creature again. The eyes were dark and sullen. Kylan shook his head, brushing the thought away. This was not his wife. This was an abomination of the woman he loved. He raised his arms, flames rolling over his forearms and curling around each finger. The fire flickered in his eyes. Anguish tore at his sanity and he cried out to her.
“I just wanted you back, Auralyn. I wanted our time back, the life that was stolen from us. Stolen from me.” He screamed to the creature circling him in the small crypt, her limbs hanging from crooked shoulders, feet dragging her towards him. Her movements were slow, but the intentions behind them were menacing. Through his weakness, Kylan understood. He realized that her corpse was driven by dark magic, and not the love he so desperately wished for. He said it again, more to remind himself than anything else.
“This is not my wife. This creature is death’s cruel punishment.” His world was collapsing in on itself. Fire cascaded along the walls. The images of his wife’s face through the flames brought with them an uneasy revelation and Kylan screamed again through clenched teeth. “The necromancer betrayed me.”
He knew what he had to do. But how could he do that? He was paralyzed. Surrounded by a wall of fire separating him from his wife, he didn’t move. He couldn’t move. His limbs had become stone, as if he were just another pillar along the walls of this tomb. Tables began to burn higher and as their flames rose, the banners hanging on the walls caught fire. Time froze around the mage. He stared into the flames, now reaching for the ceiling. His vision blurred in the copper glow. The room blazing around them, they moved in tight circles, a dance to the fire’s crackling melodies. Thick swirls of heavy black smoke darkened the corners, entwined with ribbons of gold and orange. The heat began closing in. Kylan’s furrowed brow dripped with sweat and he used the leather cuff on his forearm to wipe his burning eyes. He needed a way out of this. Should he just escape and leave her trapped in these catacombs? His mind was riddled with questions, each one a different scenario. He thought it over, and every time it always came back to the same ending.
He had to kill her, or she would kill him.
Kylan’s anger subsided, giving way to his sorrow. Tears filled his eyes and poured over his cheeks. He crouched down, heavy sobs heaving in his chest. He cried out, his own mournful sound muffled by a groan above him. His thoughts were disrupted by sharp, blinding pain. She was on him before he realized it. She bit into his neck, tearing the flesh from beneath his robes. Blood poured over his chest. Pain seared through him, and he cried out again, raising his palms to push her off. His hands ignited with flames and the fire flowed over her. She screamed and folded, curled up on the stone floor.
The horrid sound filled the crypt. Her shriek was a dull blade piercing Kylan’s heart, as if Auralyn was dying all over again. He pulled his arms to his body and stood, backing
up. He didn’t mean to attack her. He looked down at his hands. They were covered in flames, rolling over his knuckles and palms. His eyes widened and his mouth hung open as the creature stood in front of him again. Kylan staggered back against a stone wall near one of the corridors, shelves of coffins to either side of him. He released his hold of the flames and lowered the hood of his cloak, revealing his face to her. He thought of their life together and the good times over the years. Images flickered in his mind amidst her voice scraping out another shriek. For a moment he saw her as he remembered, soft skin and bright brown eyes, braided hair. The freckles on her cheeks. He lingered in his memories until the sound of metal hitting stone brought him back to the crypt.
He looked down and saw the moonstone circlet had fallen from her head. Glancing up, he saw Auralyn was hunched over in front of him. She bore the scars of his fire spell from earlier.
Her hair and robes were burned, her grey skin charred and blackened, curled up over yellowed bones. He looked into her eyes. It was her, his Auralyn. He froze in the moment, eyes on the body of his wife, now ruined by his magic. His own hands had done this. She was the one thing he would give his life to protect. Words echoed in his mind and he remembered speaking the vows of marriage. Even the thought of those words tasted sour in his throat. Emotions stirred inside him. He inhaled. The air was thick with the scent of smoke. Kylan wanted to scream but choked back the urge, pushing his emotion and pain through his hands. His palms erupted with fire, and flames roared out in a shimmering burst. The shelves and pine coffins soon burned with the rest of the room. Shadows slithered along the walls and disappeared into the darkness.
What he had set into motion could not be undone.
Was his undying love not enough to atone for the events of this night? Undying. The word echoed in his mind with new meaning. The word chained itself to him. For any other mage, it would be a worthy title. Kylan the Undying. But tonight, in this burning crypt, it was his solemn burden to bear. And, perhaps, his last. He watched her and tears filled his eyes again, considering this side of her, driven wild by dark magic. Bumps rose up along his arms and the back of his neck, his skin crawling with icy shivers. He had promised his life to this woman. And he would keep that promise--his life was hers to take. The woman whose blood pulsed beneath the skin of this creature was still his wife, and she still owned his heart.
The Blade Unbroken: Magebreaker Page 1
