“Every word I spoke was true,” Xandra interrupted, her tone precise, and with a hint of pleasure in it. “Arguing with them would have been fruitless, so I didn’t bother. Instead, I chose to use the truth to make them regret ever taking my coin. If they like my money so much, they can choke on it. I dislike how your magi charge the platforms, as it slowly damages the enchantments, but at least your magi properly maintain them, which makes them safe. This one was a death trap, and had the one in Lothdar been in similar condition, I would have chosen to walk instead. It’s safer.”
“Goddess,” Vanreth murmured, paling slightly as he thought about the consequences, and he winced. “Those were all wealthy people who walked out. By tomorrow word will be all over the city… Are you certain that it can’t be repaired?”
“The flow of mana was completely compromised, several key runes were on the verge of rupturing, and the core of the mana reservoir is about to discharge entirely. Perhaps a grandmaster artificer could repair it, but anyone else will just destroy it instead,” Xandra replied, her tone almost bored. “They are going to have to rebuild the platform from nothing, and replace the entire underlying foundation. I suspect they are going to lose thousands of times what they charged me, assuming that the high priest doesn’t curtail trade in recompense. I suspect the current authorities of the country are going to be upset.”
For several seconds Vanreth thought about the explanation, cringing internally as he did so. The web of teleportation platforms across the continent was extensive, yet incredibly delicate as well, as all it took was one tyrant or mob deciding to destroy one to isolate sections from one another. Most of the network had several routes between locations, including Loth’s, but losing a link was painful for everyone… and neighbors tended to look at anyone who let theirs break skeptically at best. It wouldn’t be good, and Vanreth… wasn’t happy. He had family in the republic.
“I don’t envy the prime minister,” Vanreth said, shaking his head unhappily. “He’s a good man, and likely doesn’t even know what’s going on here. For the most part Jirr is a good country to live in.”
“Then he should keep an eye on his reports more closely,” Xandra said bluntly, her tone withering. “The primary issue with having good men or women in charge of a country is that they tend to trust people to do their jobs properly. That is supremely foolish, as all it takes is one power-hungry idiot to ruin a country.”
“How would you know that? You were trapped in a tiny palace for what, a millennium?” Vanreth retorted, his anger flaring again.
Xandra stopped so suddenly that he almost ran into her. As she turned to face him, he gripped the hilt of his sword, wondering if this was the moment he had been expecting. Instead, she had a look of derision on her face.
“Tiny? Perhaps you need to expand your vision a touch, paladin,” Xandra said quietly, her disdain palpable. “Tell me, what in all the hells do you think demons make pacts for? They find people with ambitions greater than what they can achieve on their own and grant them the power to carry those ambitions out… or to at least cause as much destruction as possible before descending to their damnation. The resulting chaos is even more likely to prompt people to call on them for aid, and thus the cycle perpetuates itself. Perhaps you should use your mind from time to time, rather than letting your sword do the thinking for you.”
Vanreth gawked at her, not quite believing what she’d just said. Xandra sniffed, turning away again as she started moving again, speaking as she walked. “I have learned that people like you help create the problems that you think you’re solving. Foolish arrogance is a bane to anyone, whether they claim to serve the light or darkness. Those with great power, those with nothing… both are equally likely to reach out to the darkness for the power they desire. Some are simply easier to spot before it happens.”
“I…” Vanreth began, but stopped, confusion rushing through him. He’d been certain that Xandra was about to attack him, and then she’d… not. And what she’d said, that was disturbing. Not that he should listen to her, he reminded himself. She wasn’t trustworthy.
“Enough. I have a long trip ahead of me, and no more time to waste teaching you lessons you should have learned years ago. I’m not being paid so much as a copper by your church, so such is wasting my time,” Xandra said, picking up her pace. “If you’re coming, you’d best keep up. I’m not waiting for you.”
That caused Vanreth to growl and retort angrily, “If anyone’s going to be left behind, it’s you! I remember how quickly you ran out of energy during the hike.”
“I didn’t run out of energy. I got blisters. Which is why I bought boots enchanted to avoid that, plus a ring of amplified endurance,” Xandra said, glancing over her shoulder as she smirked. “Good luck.”
Vanreth paled, and suddenly wished that he hadn’t said anything. Every time he tried to get in the last word with Xandra, he somehow made things worse.
Chapter 11
Some of the landscape along her route looked faintly familiar to Xandra as she passed it. Nothing important, of course, and none of it was enough to make her stop and contemplate her past. It was just… familiar. Though that could simply be because she’d seen trees and buildings like the ones along the road before.
The worst part about the journey was her tag-along, as far as Xandra was concerned. Vanreth dogged her steps ceaselessly, even when he looked like he was about to collapse from exhaustion. It was pushing her own limits to exhaust him, that much she had to admit, and she wasn’t the one in full armor. Still, it kept him from harassing her with pointless questions, so she kept pushing for as long as she could each day before setting up camp. It also meant that she was making better time than she’d anticipated.
It was about halfway through the second day that Xandra spotted the bandits. She almost missed them, with how distracted she was by the strange appearance of a large tree she thought she remembered, but the bandits were bad enough at hiding that she spotted them. Xandra did hesitate at the sight of them, then she paused, staring directly at their hiding place as she cast a spell.
The blast of purple flame torched a branch hanging over the road into cinders, dropping ashes onto the road, and she announced loudly, “If you attack me, that’s what’s going to happen to each of you. Is the miniscule chance of your victory worth your lives?”
Without pausing any further she continued forward, flicking a finger as she did so. Behind her, Vanreth swore, and she could hear him draw his sword an inch before returning it to the sheath, likely making sure it would be easy to draw.
There was a hurried discussion from behind the bushes, but Xandra wasn’t surprised when they didn’t attack. Once again, she was reminded of how useful confidence could be. The spell she’d cast was just about the most potent attack spell she could safely use right now, so she would have a more difficult time in combat, but she doubted she’d lose. Not with all the defensive items she’d taken from her Mistress.
Later that night, Vanreth was cooking his dinner, a small amount of beans and some salted pork, when he asked, “Why did you let the bandits live?”
“Why didn’t you kill them?” Xandra countered, barely even paying attention as she nibbled on the hard biscuits she’d purchased for the trip. Hardtack didn’t taste good, but it worked well enough, and tasted better than most of what she’d eaten for countless years.
“I was trying to keep up with you, and you weren’t slowing down,” Vanreth said, scowling at her. “Besides, they didn’t actually attack.”
“Precisely. They were a tiny group of bandits who weren’t anywhere near a town, and on a route that leads to an area that, as best as I can tell, was abandoned over a century ago. They weren’t worth the time, weren’t a threat, and were little more than a delay. I don’t see why I should bother with them,” Xandra told him, rolling her eyes as she asked, “What, did you think I’d kill them just because they dared confront me?”
Vanreth’s silence was answer enough, and Xandra pau
sed, staring at him as he stirred his beans. Her exasperation grew practically to a peak at that, and her eyes narrowed.
“So that’s how it is,” Xandra said, her voice cold as the depths of a glacier. “I should have known.”
“What?” Vanreth asked, his gaze jerking up to meet hers, and he froze, then she saw his free hand drift toward his sword. That told her quite enough, and anger grew within her.
“You are looking for an excuse to kill me. A reason that you can be justified in killing me. How very noble,” Xandra said sarcastically, tossing her hardtack into the fire as she stood. The impact raised a cloud of sparks, and he recoiled, scrambling to his feet as she spoke. “I think that I have humored your church for long enough.”
“What do you think you’re doing, then?” Vanreth demanded, poised to draw his sword, and Xandra sneered at him, flicking her finger again as she surged a thread of mana into her ring.
“What am I doing? I’m leaving. And you cannot stop me,” Xandra told him, her voice still icy, and her hand slipped into her bag, reaching for the item that she knew was readily available. The bracelet was cold to her touch, but she didn’t mind as she pulled out the diamond-inset jewelry.
“We’ll see about that!” Vanreth snarled, drawing his sword and striking in a single motion. The blow was studied and fast, obviously practiced hundreds of times, if not even more. It was also useless.
The glowing sword bounced off an invisible barrier with a chiming sound, and Xandra saw the man grimace as the vibration reached his hand, quickly gripping his sword in both hands to avoid dropping it. While he recovered, she slipped the bracelet on, laughing disdainfully at him.
“I told you that if you’d encountered my Mistress when she wasn’t naked you’d have died. Goodbye, paladin. May you get everything that you deserve,” Xandra sneered, and as she finished she channeled mana into the bracelet, fixing her mind on a destination.
“Oh no you don’t, you damned—” Vanreth began, but she never heard him finish, not as she vanished in a clap of thunder.
Xandra was mostly happy she hadn’t bothered to set up her tent yet. That would have made her life more difficult. Instead she appeared in the forest a half-mile south of the camp, and looked around at the pine trees surrounding her before letting out a soft sigh, murmuring, “Well, at least I purchased the endurance ring.”
Traveling without Vanreth was far more pleasant, Xandra found. Not having the faint itching sensation of him watching her was good… but at the same time, she suspected that he hadn’t given up. Not when he knew exactly where she was going… which was why she used the bracelet ruthlessly, teleporting several times when she could see a decent distance ahead of her in order to widen the gap, as well as traveling as long as she could each day. It was painful, as even she wasn’t used to working for quite that long each day, but she did what she had to.
It was shortly after dawn on the fourth day that Xandra reached the top of the ridge to the valley she thought she remembered. She glanced over her shoulder, scanning the countryside carefully for Vanreth, but she didn’t see any sign of him. That didn’t mean he wasn’t there, but she’d rather check, just to be safe. The chances of him managing to hurt her were miniscule, but it wasn’t impossible.
With her due diligence done, Xandra turned back to the valley, examining it curiously as her memories stirred a little more.
For the most part the valley was unremarkable. The moldering ruins of a town were near the base of two peaks that formed the rear of the valley, and she could see what looked like an ancient, rickety mine entrance there as well. Most of the town had long-since collapsed or burnt down, leaving stone walls containing little more than rubble or ash. A stream ran through the valley, and Xandra saw four ancient monuments that had been raised here and there. The part that interested her most was the tower atop a ridge near the town, though.
To be more accurate, it was the ruins of a tower. She knew it had been taller once, how tall was a good question, but at present it only jutted a little over a single floor above the ridge, and its walls were still gray and seemingly unmarred by the passage of time. With a single murmured spell, Xandra was able to see the mana pulsing in those walls, maintaining their integrity even now as it drew on the ley line beneath the tower.
“Someone must have deliberately destroyed the rest. And since I don’t see stone around it… they likely used it to build part of the town,” Xandra said, then shrugged and started picking her way down the hillside. Even now it would take her a couple of hours to get there, and she didn’t want to break an ankle along the way. That would make avoiding Vanreth quite difficult.
As she walked, flashes of memories flickered through Xandra’s mind, so faint they almost felt like they belonged to another person. She remembered dwarves carefully building the foundation of the tower, and her arguments with the head runemaster. No mine was present in that memory, but the memory was also imprecise enough she wasn’t sure she’d have remembered it. She’d been too frustrated with the dwarf trying to ignore her plans.
The next memory was of an arrogant woman in the tower’s foyer, and the shock on her face when Xandra’s spell had reduced her to ashes. Xandra had felt nothing but satisfaction at her death, and it made her wonder who the woman had been. She’d been finely dressed… but Xandra didn’t remember much more than that. It was slightly frustrating, but she didn’t let it affect her. Instead, she continued to walk as more memories came to the fore.
She remembered an army arriving in the valley entrance, and the moment when she’d brought a cliffside down on them, and destroyed the remaining soldiers with purple lightning. Then another army had arrived, this time avoiding places where she could use the terrain against them, and she’d fought a bloody battle where she’d nearly died. The blood of over a thousand people had stained the earth, and she’d laughed. Oh, how she’d laughed in the moment of her victory, exhilaration overcoming the fear which she’d felt during the battle itself. The third battle… she only remembered flashes of it, as two separate armies had merged into one to face her. How she’d killed them… that she didn’t know.
“Huh.” Xandra paused, blinking as she realized that while reminiscing, she’d managed to climb all the way up to the tower door… or what was left of it. There were a couple of rusted hinges hanging in the doorway, but little else. She considered, then stepped inside… and immediately wished she hadn’t.
Instead of the fragments she remembered of a plush, carefully furnished room with a beautiful tile mosaic across the floor, the building was in ruins. Debris littered the floor, which had been torn apart by what looked like pickaxes. Any shelving which had once existed was gone, and holes had been punched through the roof.
Looking around, a sense of loss rippled through Xandra, and she leaned against the doorframe, murmuring, “Looters. Of course there were looters… it’s been over a millennium. I should have known. Was there anything else? Any other…”
Xandra’s voice trailed off, as another memory teased at the back of her mind. It wasn’t a strong one… but she remembered a pair of dwarves swearing an oath to never share knowledge of what they’d worked on, an oath enforced via magic. What had they been swearing about, though?
It took several minutes, but eventually her memory began to grudgingly give up a few secrets, since apparently this memory had been important. It whispered of a door at the base of the ridge, one where she’d hidden… something.
“Well, either it’s gone, or it isn’t. It can’t be much worse than this,” Xandra said, letting out a sigh and pulling out a different item, this one a wand. She remembered it, from when her Mistress had enjoyed tormenting her. Xandra stepped out of the tower ruins, walked over to the edge of the ridge, and studied the hundred-foot descent. Then she jumped.
The wind whistled as Xandra fell, and she half-closed her eyes, wondering if this was how she should let things end, if end they did. The rocks would likely do her in… but she didn’t want to die. Not with the t
orment that lay ahead of her. Instead she channeled a thread of mana into the wand and flicked it, murmuring its activation word.
An invisible force wrapped around her, slowing her fall to a fraction of its former velocity, and she opened her eyes fully, watching the ground come, then flipped her legs, twisting in place until she was positioned for a proper landing. She landed like a feather, barely feeling the impact as the spell came to an end, and Xandra smiled. She did love being able to use magic that wasn’t purely for housekeeping or giving demons the mana they needed for yet another round of torture.
Xandra turned, looking at the cliff face for anything that looked familiar. She was irritated by how much it’d worn away over the years… then she stopped, and laughed, shaking her head. “Oh my… the looters must not have been here recently. That is a touch obvious.”
The doorway was incredibly obvious now, with how weather had worn away at the cliff over the passing centuries. The magic that reinforced the stone kept it from wearing away, so there was a broad arch of perfectly intact stone, something Xandra hadn’t expected. It did make what she was doing easier, though.
She approached it, running her fingers over the stone arch, which was filled with stone. It felt warm to her touch, but nothing more, which annoyed her. She didn’t remember anything more, and if she couldn’t open it, that would be more frustrating than anything else. She pushed gently, but sighed as it did nothing.
“How to open you, I…” Xandra began, and stopped as at the third word, there was a soft cracking sound, then the stone split in two, slowly creaking backward. Xandra considered for a moment, then snorted, shaking her head as she grew amused at herself. “Apparently I wasn’t very creative. ‘Open’ indeed… I hope it at least required me to touch it.”
Pushing the doors open, which were both a bit stiff after all the years, Xandra was confronted by a red glow from down a hallway that was at least thirty feet long, with numerous steps going still deeper underground. The floor was covered in a thick layer of dust, which told Xandra that no one had found this, at least. When Xandra paused to think she realized it was directly below the tower, and thus the ley line. She shrugged and continued down the passage, taking the stairs downward, and toward the red glow. She also hoped that she hadn’t set any traps, as she’d likely trigger anything she’d left.
Dusk Gate (Soul Bound Book 1) Page 9
