The Serpent Tower

by William King

  Ilmarec lowered himself into the command throne. All was in readiness. The servants were gathered in the great hall. All of his troops were in position. Kathea was confined to her chambers nearby. The great ritual was complete. Tonight he would unleash the greatest weapon this world had seen in millennia.

  He took a final look around. The central chamber was empty save for his demonic bodyguard. It would keep watch while he was at his most vulnerable and deal with anybody who managed to get past his guards and into this sacred place.

  He allowed himself a momentary surge of triumph. It had taken centuries to master the secrets of the Tower, to open the seals to its hidden heart and awaken the Old One who lay in long-doomed hibernation within its secret vaults. It had taken endless study and sacrifice and the expenditure of a great deal of gold.

  Tonight would make it all worthwhile. He would prove to the world that he was the greatest sorcerer of all the Terrarchs, and a power to be feared as much as the Princes of Shadow. He would destroy Azaar’s army the way a man would crush a nest of insects, and all would know who was the true master of the world.

  Anything and everything seemed possible. He would free his beloved nation of foreigners. He would drive both the Taloreans and the Sardeans back to their homelands, and after that he would conquer them. Perhaps he would even open the Eye of the Sun and reclaim Al’Terra from the Princes of Shadow. He knew he could do it, if he wished. What lay within the tower made him capable of it.

  He smiled. Such pleasant daydreams were getting him nowhere. It was time to test the power of this ancient artefact and put the Old One’s knowledge to good use. It had taken him long enough to obtain it. He smiled, knowing his captive would sense the use he was putting the knowledge it had given him to, and tremble.

  He touched the glowing amulet on his chest, and muttered complex sentences in the cold, hissing language of the Serpent Men. His mind opened and sent tendrils of thought drifting out to interlock with the chained intelligence of the Tower. It responded to his alienness and fought him briefly, but he drew upon the power of the talisman, and it recognised its appointed master.

  His body seemed far away now. His true form was the Tower. He could feel it like he could feel his own flesh. He touched the cocoon of energy that encased it and it grew thicker as he willed it to. He was aware of the mighty power that burned in its heart, a power which grew ever stronger as he drew upon its energies.

  He was a god. It was that simple. He could reach out and destroy the entire town below if he wanted but that was not his purpose. He extended his will and the Tower obeyed. His senses extended to the horizon. He reached out with fingers of force and probed the nearby mountains. Only the curvature of the world’s surface protected Azaar’s army now, and he would deal with that soon enough.

  Awake, he told the spirit of the Tower. Give me your strength.

  It responded.

  Rik stripped off his wet clothes and got into the guard’s uniform. He strapped the sword to his side and stuck a pistol inside his jerkin. He made sure all his concealed weapons were in place. He forced himself to go through all of this quickly and calmly even though he felt certain that the Nerghul was about to lay its cold hand on his shoulder at any moment.

  He pulled on his officer’s tricorne hat, forced himself to smile and stepped out into the corridor. The flash of the lightning almost made him wet himself but at least it prepared him for the boom of the thunder that came heartbeats later. He thought about going back over to close the shutters but could not make himself go back in the direction of the creature that hunted him.

  Instead he forced himself out into the corridor. Where were all the servants, he wondered? Where were all the guards? What were they about, this night of all nights?

  It did not matter too much. He made his body march confidently. He knew he needed to find the ramp up into the Princess’s chambers. Asea had marked them on her map.

  With the Nerghul out there he could not help but feel this mission was doomed before he started, but there seemed nothing else to do but keep at it. It seemed preferable to waiting for unclean death to come and claim him.

  The Nerghul stood in the rain at the base of the Tower. Its prey had gone up here, it could catch the scent. It could not climb these huge slick walls, and the height of the balcony baffled even its mighty leaps. It would have to find another way in. It slid around the Tower looking for an entrance. It found an archway from which a jewel eyed serpent looked down. It was under observation it knew.

  It sensed the power there, the cold malign intelligence that had watched for centuries, an intelligence which could call upon strange powers to aid it. The mansion it had attacked had been guarded by wards of a similar type. It stepped away, took a long run and leapt through the archway. Cold needles of agony lanced through its brain. Its whole body seemed encased in a chill so deep it burned. Had not momentum carried it through the archway, the Nerghul would have been frozen to the spot. The pain would most likely have burst the brain of a normal man, but the Nerghul was not as they. It landed sprawling in the corridor beyond the arch, momentarily stunned by the power that had blasted it.

  Two sentries looked at it in astonishment then raised their rifles. The Nerghul attacked.

  Rik closed his eyes and visualised the maps he had memorised. He had a long way to go, and only a short time to do it in. It was only a matter of minutes before somebody spotted him and a general alarm was given.

  He forced himself to smile and walk with the swaggering confidence of a Terrarch officer. He kept his back straight and his gaze in the mid-distance. He strode along as if he had every right to be here.

  The oddly shaped corridor emerged onto a gallery. A mass of people filled the large circular chamber below him. Most of them were humans although a few green-garbed Terrarch stood watching them. He hoped none of them has noticed him. A commotion erupted at the entrance.

  A horrid figure in tattered black clothing, grey skin peeling from its face, eyes a hideous red, smashed a soldier aside and hurtled into the room. It sniffed the air and its gaze scanned the balcony on which Rik stood, drawing the attention of everyone in the room to him.

  Rik’s heart hammered against his ribs. His mouth felt desert dry. He felt terribly conspicuous as he stood away from the balustrade and continued walking towards the upward ramp. From down below came the sound of screaming and shots.

  It seemed that the Nerghul has begun the business of killing with its customary efficiency. How long would it take till it got to him, he wondered?

  Was there any way to escape from this cursed place?

  Ilmarec exerted his will. In a hundred places crystal panes slid from the walls, sealing the windows. Massive airtight doors slammed into place at every entrance. Within the Tower massive artificial lungs began to breath, cleaning the air, changing its alchemical consistency. Power built up within the structure’s demonic heart. Soon, thought Ilmarec. Soon.

  Rik heard an audible click as thick translucent panes sealed every window. A blazing curtain of lurid greenish light flowed up the side of the building, as if the Tower now stood in the middle of a vast blazing bonfire on which some mad alchemist had thrown strange powders. The floor beneath his feet vibrated as if the building was coming alive. Was this some sort of defence mechanism? Was the Tower trying to protect itself from the incursion of the Nerghul?

  He was trapped now for sure. There was no way out.

  Sardec looked at the Tower. Flame wreathed it then sank away, wreathed it again, and then vanished. The clouds swirled around the tower’s tip, creating a greenly underlit vortex. An enormous sense of pressure filled the air. Sardec could believe that Ilmarec was summoning an army of demons up there. This was the mightiest sorcerous ritual he had ever witnessed. He cursed the wizard and the day he had begun to seek Elder World knowledge.

  “What’s happening,” he asked Asea. He almost didn’t want an answer. He feared it would be too frightening. Down below, the courtyard was full despite
the rain, as the Foragers emerged to witness what was happening on the cliffs above town. From beyond the walls of the mansion he could hear shouts and screams. Some people clearly thought the end of the world had come. Perhaps they were right.

  “I don’t know, but it’s going to be terrible. I have never sensed such power,” Asea said. “Not even when we fought the Princes of Shadow back on Al’Terra.

  An awful thought whispered inside Sardec’s head. Perhaps this was a prelude to unleashing the green light. Perhaps the half-breed had been discovered and Ilmarec was about to destroy them all in response. Or perhaps…

  “Perhaps he really is going to destroy Azaar’s army,” Sardec said.

  “I don’t doubt he has the capability.”

  Rena, Sardec thought.

  Bullets blasted into the Nerghul’s flesh. It batted a screaming woman aside and leapt for the man who had shot it. With a clean movement it tore the soldier’s rifle from his arm and tossed it at the head of another foe. Before that foe had even started to collapse, it tore the arm of the rifle’s former owner from its socket in a welter of blood and gristle. Using it as a club, it smashed its way through the crowd. Random shots from panicked soldiers helped do its work for it.

  There was no need for this. None of it was getting it any closer to its prey. It sniffed the air again, and caught the scent. Swiftly, inexorably, it began to follow the trail.

  Rik turned the corner and almost halted as two Terrarch officers ran towards him, swords drawn. “What’s going on down there?” the tallest and most arrogant looking asked. He had a Captain’s epaulettes, or what would have been such in Queen Arielle’s army.

  “Monster,” said Rik. “It broke in, started slaughtering the servants. Looks like Dark Empire work.”

  The Captain stared at him coldly. “Why are you running away?”

  “Came to summon help,” said Rik, reaching out and grabbing the Captain, tugging him back towards the balcony. Down below was a scene of terrible chaos as the undead creature did its work. “Look,” he said. “Down there, there it is.”

  The Captain nodded and then shot a sideways glance at Rik. “I don’t know you,” he said. Rik’s nerves were keyed up to the ultimate level. The Captain seemed to be moving as slowly as a man trapped in bad dream. Rik’s blow caught him on the side of the head and sent him toppling over the balcony.

  The other officer just looked at him as if not quite able to understand what was going on. Rik was grateful. He sprang forward and punched him in the throat. The officer made a horrible rattling noise and went down. Rik caught his sword by the hilt even as it fell from numbed fingers and ran it through the officer’s body.

  A strange sense of satisfaction flowed through him. It vanished when he noticed more soldiers led by a Terrarch officer were rushing down the rampway. They had seen what he had done, were looking at him with horror.

  “Traitor,” shouted the leader.

  There was no way up that way. He turned and ran as bullets smashed off the balcony all around him. He took the first turning on his left and then left again. Ahead of him loomed an entranceway, larger and dimmer than others in the Tower. He cast back his memory to the maps and realised that it was one of those marked as sealed. It quite obviously wasn’t sealed now.

  There was something foreboding about it, that made his skin crawl but he did not have any choice. He raced towards it, expecting the door to block his way. To his surprise it gave way before him, and he sprawled forward into the darkest, innermost recesses of the Tower, into the area that had been forbidden even to Ilmarec for so many centuries.

  Behind him he heard a Terrarch voice shouting: “ Don’t follow him. Whoever he is, the fool has doomed himself.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was quieter in this part of the Tower. Almost like one of Asea’s wards had slipped into place when he passed through the entrance. The sounds of pursuit fell away. Rik ran on slamming into walls in his panic, until he forced himself to stop and take his bearings and study his surroundings.

  The walls glowed with their own soft internal light, dimmer than within the tower chambers. It suggested secrecy and stealth and some abominable purpose. Rik found it easy to imagine painted Serpent Men priests creeping through these tunnels and spying on their fellows, selecting sacrifices from among them and then carrying them off into the gloomy regions below as offerings to their demon gods, never to be seen again, never to be asked after.

  He told himself he was imagining things, that he had read too many cheap novels, that the chances were that he could never guess or understand the motives of creatures as alien as the Serpent Men. They were not even as human as the Terrarchs. They had been created by other gods, under the light of other suns if Asea was to be believed. And now he stood within one of their secret places.

  The question was: how was he going to get out alive.

  The Nerghul raced in pursuit of its prey. Ahead it sensed life. A group of soldiers stood around an entrance while one of their green clad officers harangued them about something. The Nerghul ripped through them, smashing them to one side, forcing them out of its way, as it hurtled through the archway.

  A few strides took it round a corner and out of their line of fire. It paused for a moment and inspected itself for damage. The bullets had torn its flesh, weakening it somewhat but it knew that given time it would heal.

  The walls around it burned with sorcerous energy and it sensed powerful spells designed to maze and confuse intruders. Even as it realised that, the spells began to warp and twist its sense of direction. It paused for a moment and concentrated on the scent of its prey.

  As long as it could hold on to that it would find its victim.

  Rik pushed on down the corridor. His eyes adjusted to the gloom and he noticed that sometimes, strange symbols swirled along within the walls. They did not seem to be doing this in response to his presence. He felt as if he was merely the witness to something that was always going on. The corridor carried him towards a split like a serpent’s tongue. One branch went up and the other continued on the same level. He took the path heading up. The lights became dimmer. The air became staler. The oppressive sense of alien presence continued to grow.

  At times dizziness swept over him. At first he put it down to the bad air but after a while he realised that it was more than just that. Magical energy was all around. Sometimes he felt as if he were crossing invisible lines of it. He felt a tingling on his skin and pressure in his ears that should not have been there. The path curved and branched, curved and branched. Always he kept to the left hand path, the one that went higher. The deeper within the Tower he went the stronger the sorcerous pressure became.

  He felt as if something was opposing him, willing him to retreat, not to proceed any further. There were times when his feet felt like lead, and it took an enormous effort of will to continue to press forward.

  He took another step and felt something click beneath his foot. He cursed himself for his carelessness. He had been so busy trying to deal with the sorcery he had neglected to look for the most basic of traps.

  He glanced around waiting to see what would happen: wondering if he had triggered something that would seal the corridors or summon a guardian. He had encountered such things in the treasure rooms of merchants back in Sorrow. For a long moment nothing seemed to happen then the floor underneath his feet began to move.

  He struggled to maintain his balance as the stone started to flow like a river at a uniform pace, carrying him upwards and inwards swifter than a man could run. He tried to turn but there was nothing he could do. No matter how fast he ran he was carried along: all his efforts were doing was slowing his progress and exhausting himself.

  Eventually he sat down on the stonework and marvelled at the Elder World sorcery that could make the glassy stone flow like a solidified form of water. He felt as if he were on a sledge being carried upwards, at forks he was effortlessly and dizzingly moved between switches so that he became lost. He was
moving so quickly and so randomly that he doubted he would be able to remember his way back even if he were allowed to depart.

  Had he triggered a trap, he wondered, such as ancient kings set for tomb robbers? Or was this a sorcerous defence set by Ilmarec? The thought that the ancient wizard might know he was here filled him with fear. His swift progress had taken on an air of unreality now. The lights blurred by, the stone felt warmer. He wondered if he was being carried out of his world and into another, passing perhaps from the reality of Gaeia into some extra-dimensional hell.

  Ilmarec laughed with pure pleasure then began the final stages of the ritual. He was dimly aware that somewhere far away an alarm had been triggered. The moth wings of a warning system beat against his senses. Intruders, he thought, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He needed all his concentration simply to keep control of the Tower’s intelligence.

  And there was something else too. Somewhere another entity had seized control of part of the Tower. Had the Old One waited for this most critical moment to try and rebel? He promised himself if that were the case he would make it pay for its insolence and soon.

  Right now he had other more important things to worry about. This was the most important stage of the ritual. If he failed here, the magic would run out of control and the consequences would prove incalculable. So much energy saturated the Tower that if he failed to rein it in, even this mighty structure would be destroyed. A power like that of a god lay at the Tower’s core ready to be unleashed. If he failed to control it now, everyone within the Tower and for leagues around would be destroyed.