The Halls of the Fallen King

by Tiger Hebert

  The practitioners of the magics do not face these same restrictions. Instead, their system appears open, free, and structureless. A practitioner that develops the skill and knowledge to bend the Qarii to their will can perform any number of powerful feats, and they are not limited to a single element. The most powerful of them can even manipulate the Qarii to warp reality, bending space and time. Additionally, the wild and chaotic magics allow the wielder to utilize any Elder Stone to great effect. The Qarii respond regardless of the stone’s color.

  For these reasons, people often make the assumption that the magics or the Qarii are a free and unhindered source of power, but they are mistaken. The power of the magics is great, but it does have a structure to it and it does not come without a cost. The Qarii, despite being a collection of nearly innumerable fragments, is finite. Though no one knows the number of Darklight essences that make up the Qarii, it is not without an end. With the understanding that there is a finite number of Qarii scattered throughout the Eversphere, there is naturally a limit to how much Qarii can be commanded over any period of time. The chief concern here is that highly skilled practitioners can use the Elder Stones and the Qarii to manipulate time and space, therefore overcoming certain base limitations.

  The magics do offer great power, but it is not without a cost. The Qarii exacts a price on its wielders. It inflicts tremendous pain upon those who’d call upon it, and all our evidence suggests that this has a profoundly damaging long-term effect on the wielder. Over time, savvy sorcerers found a way around this by using the Elder Stones to dull a great portion of the pain, but few have ever lived long enough to put it to use.

  After reading the last line, Theros looked up. On the other side of the camp, he watched Nal’drin utter a command and make a whipping upward gesture with his hands. A roaring geyser of flame shot upward a dozen feet in the air. Then it was gone. Nal’drin cried out as the newest wave of pain racked his arms with claws of unseen fire. He collapsed to his knees. He held his shaking arms out in front of him as he grit his teeth and groaned.

  “It’ll pass, my boy, it’ll pass,” said Duroc.

  Theros shook his head. This isn’t right. I should have listened to Dom. The orc closed his book and started to get up when Duroc shouted.

  “Their wards have been dispelled, we’ve got to go!”

  Dom’s eyes snapped open.

  “What do you mean?” demanded Theros.

  “They must have been discovered; the spell was broken!” shouted Duroc before running into the Merchant Quarter.

  “I’m going to kill you,” snapped Theros as he grabbed his axe and raced after the dwarf.

  Dominar shook his head and muttered, “I knew it. God help us all!”

  The pain still bit at Nal’drin, but he said nothing as he tried to chase after his friends.

  Duroc led the charge, and he rambled under his breath the whole way. The muscle-bound orc was right on his heels.

  “What are you going on about?” barked Theros.

  “We don’t know what kind of sorcery they have, so I’m preparing my alcoves.”

  “You better find a way to save them,” warned the orc, his voice more fear than anything.

  As they rounded the final bend, the goblin encampment laid before them. It was a beehive of activity, with several patrolling swarms roving through the region, and several smoldering tents on one end of the camp. Duroc darted to the nearest alley off to their right. Theros and the others hurried after him.

  “SO WE ARE TO BE YOUR play things?” asked Sharka with disgust.

  King Groknahl smiled and replied, “Ohhh, you look like you’ve got some tasty parts. I might nibble on you a little bit, but make no mistake—I have grander plans for you, much grander.” The king chortled and his corpulent body bounced with each laugh.

  “What do you want with us?” demanded Kiriana as she fought against her restraints.

  The king stopped laughing for a moment, but his sinister grin never faded. “My, my, don’t you already know? After all, you and your companions are so determined to keep the stones from me, I thought that surely you knew my intentions. But that’s not the case at all is it? Is one dwarf’s hunger for power so strong that it could lead you all right into my lap?”

  The king burst out laughing again. He went to say something more, but he was far too tickled to speak. So instead of fighting it, he placed his hands on his tremendous gut and let the laughter flow.

  The rotund king took a deep breath and smiled once more. “We will have to pick this up later; it’s time for me to greet your friends. Guards, haul them away.”

  “THE WHOLE THING WAS a setup, a trap. All these guards were not here when I surveyed the army. His position is heavily surrounded now, he knows we are coming,” said Duroc, with a strangely unconcerned tone.

  “You say that like it’s no big deal,” said Dominar with a raised eyebrow.

  “It’s not,” replied Duroc with a mischievous grin.

  “You can’t fix everything with fire,” snapped Dominar.

  “Sure you can,” insisted Duroc, and with that he charged back out into the open street and shouted, “Extra crispy, anyone?”

  The gazes of about two hundred goblins snapped toward the mage king. There he stood in the middle of the street, with his beard and robes billowing in the windstorm of the magical tempest that brewed around him. As he called upon the Qarii, they became a vortex of raw energy, surging with the potency of flame. A fiery mark appeared in blazing flames upon the king’s brow and his eyes became torches.

  The goblin forces charged at the king, and the havoc began. An orb of fire swelled in each of Duroc’s hands. He slammed the first one down into the street about halfway between himself and the enemy. The once-cold stone now burned with an unnatural flame. It wouldn’t halt their advance, but it could slow it down some. That is when the second ball of flame left his hands.

  Duroc hurled the second ball of flame into the crowd, just melting about a dozen goblins. Their screams were swallowed up by the roar of the flames, and they were gone. Still, many more came. Theros, Nal’drin, and Dominar joined the king in the street, and they prepared their weapons for battle as Duroc’s barrage continued. Duroc had probably incinerated more than fifty goblins, but it seemed that the enemy forces had only grown in the past twenty or so seconds.

  As he rained fire down upon their enemies, he screamed, “Just keep ‘em off me!”

  As he said it, a great explosion went off behind them like a crack of thunder, and then a second and third explosion. Rock and stone flew through the air in every direction as the buildings behind them were destroyed. Dust and mortar clouds swirled as stone and debris crashed down into the street. Then another crack of lightning rang out, but this time Duroc saw the source of the explosion. Streaks of dark red magic had been loosed from a fat figure peering out from a second story shop window.

  Duroc cursed and flung a fireball at the figure. The target ducked back inside the window. The fireball shot in through the window to great effect. Swirling flames spread through the room upon impact, but the figure popped back up into the window, apparently unscathed, and offered an obscene gesture to Duroc. The dwarven king’s blood turned to molten magma and he cursed again. Totally ignoring the tidal wave of attackers that were now closing in on them, he launched a torrent of fiery orbs at the building. The cascading barrage of fire battered the entire storefront, engulfing it in flames.

  “Yoo hoo!” shouted a voice with a whistle.

  Duroc spun back to find that same dark shadow mocking him from a balcony ledge on the opposite side of the street. Duroc spat in rage as he set another building ablaze.

  “Duroc!” screamed Nal’drin, “the goblins!”

  Duroc was too locked in on his target; he was oblivious to what was happening. The goblin horde had crossed the flaming divide and pressed down upon the three that were prepared to defend him.

  Dominar was fairly skilled in battle, but neither he nor Nal’drin
would be able to stand in the faces of such a horde. So, with their large two-handed weapons, they did their best to simply fend off the attackers. Theros, however, was an absolute terror. The axe wielding orc flew into action doing the only thing he knew how to do, destroy. That dark and wicked weapon sung a song in his hands, a song of destruction. He whirled and spun with murderous intent as he painted the street red.

  Lifeless and often headless bodies fell to the ground, but it was only a matter of time before even the orc chieftain would be overrun. Yet Duroc still slung his fire at the shadowed figure that hid among the buildings.

  “We can’t hold them much longer,” cried out Nal’drin as he swung his blade in another wide arc, narrowly missing his targets.

  Duroc snapped out of his trancelike state to realize their dilemma. The explosions had cut off their escape. They would be overrun any minute now. Time was running out and their options were few; no, there was only one option. Duroc knew what he would do.

  “Hell balls!” said the angry king as he pulled the other gems from his leather pouch.

  With two stones in one hand and the third in the other, the king began a new evocation. It was quick, it was sudden, and the storm of wind that accompanied it was virulent. The fabric of reality began to be torn away as the rift began to open. This alcove, unlike the others, seemed to be a hole bored straight into the fiery pits of Hell. Hungry flames licked at the alcove’s opening, as they sought escape. Then they heard a sound that they had thought, and hoped, they’d never hear again—the roar of a dragon.

  The bestial roar of the unseen dragon exploded from the alcove with great effect. Duroc’s suddenly terrified companions all dropped to the ground. The mass of the goblin army broke into absolute chaos. The line of the once-focused and bloodlusting force was broken, and they scrambled every which way in an attempt to flee from the coming wrath.

  As the dragon roared, the alcove erupted with gouts of flame that engulfed Duroc. The dwarven mage was lifted from the ground as he was clothed in the power of the surging magical energy released from the dragon’s fire. There, the levitating king became the embodiment of flame.

  “What the—,” said Nal’drin before being drowned out by the roar of the inferno.

  Theros, Nal’drin, and Dom reflexively cowered beneath the heat of the flames, but it never came near them. Truly, this was sorcery. Duroc rose higher into the air above them and with outstretched arms he called down fire. Swirling tempests of blinding orange flames shot down upon the street like flaming serpents. Blazing whirlwinds raced through the goblin infested streets like the wildfire it was. The biting touch of the fire laid waste to everything in its path. This wasn’t the whole army, but the immediate goblin threat was gone!

  Duroc slowly spun in midair back toward the last place he’d seen the shadowy figure. There on that balcony he saw the fat little goblin king sitting there shaking nervously. Duroc sneered at him and wreathes of flames shot out at the building, but the figure was gone. Duroc turned back to the other side of the street and he launched a ball of fire before he had even looked. In that moment, he saw the figure and a subtle flash of reddish purple light, then he was gone again. Enraged, the empowered dwarf drew a deep breath and spread his arms out to both sides and he channeled unrelenting torrents of pure flame to both sides of the street at once, consuming every last ounce of his power.

  In an instant the alcove snapped shut, the torrent ceased, and the flames that shrouded Duroc were extinguished along with the fire in his eyes and the mark on his forehead as he passed out. The levitation spell ended, and Duroc began to fall.

  Theros dropped the axe and bolted forward. With a lunge he was able to intercept the king’s body. The two men crashed down to the stone floor. The impact jolted Duroc awake. The king’s tired eyes met the orc’s and it seemed that he wanted to say something, but then he passed out from sheer exhaustion once more. His arms drooped to the ground, and his palms fell open, and the three gems tumbled to the ground.

  “Well, now, that’s a shame,” said a voice that they didn’t recognize.

  Theros turned to see the silhouette of a figure on one side of them, then it flashed and disappeared.

  “So much power and so much skill, yet so little wisdom,” it said again.

  They turned to see that silhouette moving closer from another angle before disappearing with a reddish-purple flash.

  “I tried to reason with him, but he was always too stubborn to hear me out.”

  They spotted him just in time for him to disappear again.

  “But then, what should I expect from someone who thinks the solution to every problem is fire,” said the figure, who now stood over them in full view.

  The goblin king was staring down, but not at Theros or even Duroc, but at the three gems that had been cast upon the ground. When Theros realized the stones were at his feet, he scrambled forward on his hands and knees. It was no use. The orc was seized by the goblin king’s red lash. The snare pulled tight against the gray skin of his throat and instinctively it began to squeeze. The mighty orc was brought back down to his knees as he struggled to breathe.

  Groknahl cocked his head to the side and gave a haughty smile. “That’s about what your women looked like when I bound them too.”

  Nal’drin screamed as he charged the king. A fist-like cloud of dark red smoke slammed into the young man’s chest, knocking the wind out of him. As he tried to catch his breath, he staggered to a stop. His sword clattered to the ground as he fought for air.

  Dominar had charged in right behind Nal’drin, but he didn’t make it very far before the cords of dark energy found him too. The red bands of magic pulled themselves fast around his legs, tripping him. The red bands quickly extended themselves to his hands as well, leaving him completely bound upon the hard stone street.

  Groknahl adjusted his red lashing on Theros to subdue the warrior’s great strength, while gradually releasing the bands from around his neck. The desperate orc gasped as air filled his lungs once more.

  “Normally I would just kill you all and be done with it, but what with me being about to change the world and all, it would be a shame to kill all the witnesses. No, I think you shall be the witnesses to my grand achievement, to the changing of the guard,” said Groknahl.

  “Where are the girls?” demanded Nal’drin as he struggled to break free.

  “Did you listen to anything I just said?” asked Groknahl. “I just told you that I am on the precipice of making history. I stand at the threshold of the door to eternity and I am prepared to knock, and you ask where the squatters are? Either you’re slow, or they are as fun as they look.”

  Nal’drin shouted, “You touch them, you die!”

  Duroc slowly started to wake.

  “Oh, really?” asked the king, his voice dripping with derision. “I plan to touch them extensively, what are you gonna do about it oh mighty warrior—champion of the soft-tails? No, I think not. Besides, your girl, she’s the pasty one right? Or were you hoppin’ the fence for that dark meat? Either way, it doesn’t matter, they’re not going with you. Not only are you incapable of saving them, but they wouldn’t go with you even if you could. You know, no offense or anything, but they tell me you’re just not very good with your sword.”

  Nal’drin spat as he cursed.

  Theros spoke with his deep and threatening voice, “Make no mistake, harm them, and I destroy you.”

  “Oh yes, now that is a more promising threat. Everyone knows to fear the mighty Ogron Hammerfist... oh wait, he’s the dead one,” remarked the goblin king sarcastically.

  The hulking orc groaned as he strained against his bonds. The magic burned against his flesh, but they refused to give. Darkness clouded his thoughts, and his eyes did not hide it.

  “Good, very good,” said the goblin king as he goaded Theros further. “Let your brother’s death fuel the fire. Let the rage and hatred flow into you, and you will be the perfect vessel.”

  “What are you talk
ing about about?” asked Dom.

  “You are about to witness the beginning of the end of the world as you know it. Kingdoms will topple, rulers will fall, the age of frauds, impostors, and thieves is over, it is time for the return of the kings of old,” answered Groknahl with dramatic flair and then he flashed a wicked smile. ”The gods are coming home.”

  With a flourish and a bow, the goblin king surrendered his prisoners over to his soldiers who placed them in more tangible shackles made of hardened iron. He released them from his snare with a chuckle, then he bent low and carefully picked up the three Elder Stones one by one. Then with an equal amount of care, he placed them inside the pockets of his crude, overstuffed tunic. With four gems now in his possession, the grinning goblin slowly waddled his way over to the spot where Vrasch en Drak lay upon the stone floor. He stared appreciatively at the intricately crafted weapon. He studied the lines of the dragon’s scaled face, and the menacing wings that formed the blades. Then his eyes naturally sought out the dragon’s eyes. The dark, hollowed out sockets reeked of potential energy. He could almost smell the remnants of power spent. Through the Qarii, he reached out and felt for the object of his desire. The massive emerald that was hidden inside the weapon hummed with power as it began to glow with an intense light.

  “You won’t be able to summon your gods, the inter-dimensional rift will be unstable,” warned Duroc.

  The goblin king chuckled and said, “With just four stones maybe, but not with all five.”

  “You’re bluffing,” challenged Duroc.

  “I’ve no need to bluff—I’ve already won,” noted the goblin king, his voice oozing with confidence.

  “Where’d you find the fifth stone then?” asked Duroc.

  The goblin king wore a mask of arrogance. “Ah, you see, dwarf, while you were locked away in your prison and your friends here were off fighting the big bad dragon, Karthusa was left abandoned. So we made a little trip. Heck, that ole singed wyrm did such a good job clearing out all the elves, and the orcs too, that we were able to just sail right up to the mouth of the Kiyai River. A quick raid on an unguarded city was easy work for us. We recovered the gem.”