The Legacy (The Darkness Within Saga Book 1)

by JD Franx

  Nodding, Galen dropped to her side. “Tell me what you need, N’Ikyah. I’m here.”

  Trying her best to wipe her eyes on her tattered sleeve, she nodded her thanks. “Kalmar, you have to hold him down. I cannot deaden his nerves while I heal him, it’ll take too long.” He did as she asked, but his reservations were more than obvious..

  “What are you planning to do, N’Ikyah?” Kalmar asked.

  Ignoring him, she looked at Galen. “Please, Galen, give me your hand, I need your power as well…” Galen hesitated for only a second before he offered his hand.

  Kalmar slapped it away from Kyah. “Stop!” he hissed. “You’re going to bond graft, N’Ikyah. That’s illegal and it’s immoral. You’re a healer! How can you heal someone at the expense of someone else’s well-being? How do you even know how?” he raged.

  “There is no other way!” she yelled back. “He is dying and if I do a soul-graft with Kael unconscious, my soul with be stuck inside his body. We discussed this with Lycori,” she cried, loosing her anger as she turned her focus back to Galen. “He freed you from that collar and gave you back more magic than you had before. I saw your face when he did it. You have the power to spare.”

  “No!” screamed Kalmar. “It’s wrong. How can you even suggest it? Grafts never work. They almost always kill the person who supplies it and if they somehow survive, that power is gone forever. It’s a permanent drain. That’s why it’s banned…”

  “Quit it, both of you,” Galen growled. N’Ikyah and Kalmar stopped arguing. “We need him alive. We need all of us if we are going to get out of here. It’s my choice. Besides, N’Ikyah’s right. I have power to spare, Kalmar. Even if I didn’t, I’d do it anyway. We’d still be up there in those cells if it wasn’t for Kael and if you ever want that collar off of you, you’ll need Kael to do it.”

  Kalmar shook his head, refusing to agree. “I won’t allow you to do this. The fact that she knows how to do such a thing scares the life from me.”

  N’Ikyah snorted at the older wizard. “Of course I know how to bond and soul graft. It is one of the first spells the Dead Sisters teach a novice or a healer. Why do you think every ternion travels with one or the other? Ternion means three. The fourth, the novice or the healer, will supply the life force to save a Sister if need be. As the fourth, she does not count. It has nothing to do with morality. We need to save Kael or we will all die down here. It is taking every damned bit of energy I have just to keep him alive right now while you argue with me.”

  Kalmar glanced down at her hands to see the power flowing into Kael’s body and he recognized that N’Ikyah’s periodic mumbling kept her magic activated.

  “Holy mother, Inara! What the Nine Hells of Perdition are you doing to him, N’Ikyah?” he gasped. Galen and N’Ikyah both looked down to where her magic flowed into Kael’s body. The air bubbles and bloody froth coming from his chest grew smaller and smaller with every strengthening breath Kael pulled through his lips. The broken collarbone that had snapped when the Mahala bit into him popped and crunched its way back into place as the exterior bite wounds closed leaving only the scar. N’Ikyah stared down at her own trembling hands as her magic stopped. With no further damage, there was nothing left to heal.

  “Goddess…” she whispered, too shocked to say anything else as she looked up at Kalmar and then over to Galen.

  Kael erupted from unconsciousness, fighting violently against the shock of the advanced magical healing his body had just undergone. With no other option, Galen shouted at Kael that he was sorry as he let loose a wide band of compressed air that slammed into Kael’s face and knocked him out cold. Without thinking twice, N’Ikyah checked him and then nodded her approval.

  “Thank you, Galen. He will be okay now. You did not hurt him.”

  “What did you do, N’Ikyah?” the two wizards asked at the same time.

  “I… I do not know. It was just my normal healing spell, the same one I have used my whole life. Gods, what does this mean? You two are both real wizards, what does it mean? The wounds were mortal. He should have died. How can such a thing happen?” she repeated, her voice trembling as much as her body as panic began to set in.

  Kalmar looked at Galen before he spoke. “It can’t be, can it?”

  “No, it… How? It can’t be. It’s impossible!” Galen stuttered, unable to express what he was thinking.

  “What?” N’Ikyah asked. “What are two talking about? What cannot be?” Kalmar shook his head, as if afraid to even hope.

  “There’s only one answer, N’Ikyah. One thing that could boost healing magic to that degree,” Galen replied. She stared at him with her eyes wide open in shock.

  “No…” she started, but couldn’t finish.

  “Yes,” Galen replied, as his face paled. “The Fae. The Fae must have returned to Talohna.”

  While Kael recovered from the attack and the shock of the enhanced magical healing, Galen and Kalmar checked the cave-in and reported that it appeared to be over a dozen feet deep and had packed the tunnel from side to side with countless tons of rock. With no risk of the Mahala digging through the fallen debris, they decided to rest for a while.

  Coming back to a conscious state over the course of several minutes and still confused, Kael cursed. “Christ, I’m still not dead?”

  “Not yet. The DeathGod took one look at your smelly carcass and sent you back here. Besides, we still need your help.” Galen laughed.

  “Ah fuck, don’t make me laugh, you ass,” Kael wheezed as he coughed up a chunk of clotted blood. “What the hell happened? What were those things?”

  Galen glanced at Kalmar and got a nod. “This is one of your areas of expertise. You know more than I do, especially about these lost ruins.”

  Kalmar sat down with his back to the tunnel wall and groaned.

  “I know some things,” he said, “so I’ll do my best to help you understand what I can. This city was built in secret by the third dynasty Dwarven Empire and was called Arkum Zul. We actually know very little about the Dwarven race and even less about this secret city. We suspect it was built as a weapon site. Based on what we experienced while captured, the prison was likely created to hold test subjects for the new weapons and maybe even as a gulag—dozens of cells were magic-proofed. The Dwarven people were tough and they had a hatred of magic unlike anyone else. They were annihilated as a race some twelve or thirteen thousand years ago, we believe, but we don’t really know how. Likely victims of the DemonKind Wars, just like the Fae and the Dragons.”

  “Kalmar?” Galen enquired as he raised his eyebrows.

  “Sorry, everyone,” he apologized, as his face turned bright red. “I didn’t mean to wander from the question. My life’s passion is these people and their mysteries. Anyway, what little written knowledge we have found has indicated that the Dwarven people had an enemy here underground. They were a race of being called the Mahala. It’s a Dwarven word that means ‘deep dweller’. There was no description of what they looked like, but there were reports about how they moved incredibly quickly, even though they were blind. Their hearing must be incredibly sensitive to compensate for their lack of sight. Did you get a good look at it, Kael?”

  “Yeah, a little too good of a look, don’t you think?” Kael snapped, shivering as goose-bumps rose on the flesh of his arms and neck. Staring down at the bite scar, he examined it closely, measuring the bite radius with his hand. “They’re not Human, that’s for sure. Bite’s nearly twice the size of my hand. It didn’t like the flash from Galen’s fire spell either, I can tell you that much for certain. Thankfully,” he chuckled.

  “Well, they can clearly hear a quiet whisper from over fifty feet away. I’m sorry everyone, especially you, Kael. You paid the price for my stupidity,” Galen said.

  Kael nodded his agreement. “Yeah, and…” He covered his mouth, coughing, but it quickly passed and left only a bit of blood on his lips.

  He wiped his mouth and continued. “Sorry guys, not quite a hundred p
ercent yet. But yeah, it crossed those fifty feet before we moved so much as a step. It also walked sideways along the wall from a standing position. I hate to say it, but if we run into three or four of those things at once, we’re gonna be in serious trouble. That thing stabbed me twice before I could even think about reacting. And worse, my personal shield failed. It’s never done that before, even when my magic backfired and wasn’t working at all, it always flared to up to stop anything that came my way,” Kael said.

  As he thought about what Kalmar had told them about the extinction of the Dwarven civilization, Kael suddenly realized that he knew what had happened to them.

  “Ah, Kalmar?” he asked.

  “You should be resting, Kael,” he said, still relaxing against the wall.

  “You have no idea what happened to the Dwarves? No theory?” he asked.

  “No one knows what happened, or where they went. Some folks believe they left our realm along with the Fae many millennium ago. Most people believe that the last of Dwarven race died during the DemonKind Wars, as did the Fae,” he offered.

  Kael steeled himself for the sure argument to come. “They didn’t leave. They were destroyed, along with the Fae, during a war that involved all the races of that time.”

  “That’s… How could you possibly know that? What war? We have no knowledge of any real war during that time, just rebellions that the Ancients put down like they did with the DemonKind though it is usually referred to as a war.” He questioned Kael with a touch of anger in his voice. Knowing that arguing wouldn’t help, Kael grabbed the collection of diary entries from his travel pack.

  “Here, Kalmar,” he said, as he offered the book to him. “See for yourself. I can read some of these pages, but not nearly all of them. Can you?”

  It took Kalmar several minutes to flip through the book, but his puzzled face told Kael all he needed to know before he even spoke. “I recognize a couple of the languages, but I can’t read them. I see what might be Dyrrenai Elvehn. I’m not sure because I don’t read it, and these are written in Ancient, one or two other Elvehn dialects, but this language, and this one... I’ve never seen before. I don’t know what it is. Gods, these must be over ten thousand years old. They’re incredible. You know, Kael, the ArchWizard Giddeon Zirakus can speak most of these languages. If you take this to him he can help you translate the rest. How much of it have you read?” he asked, apparently impressed by the collection.

  “Giddeon Zirakus is the last person I want to see. We were running from him when Lycori and I were caught. Finding him would be the equivalent to committing suicide. That said, I have read some of them, yes.”

  Kael held up his hand to stop the question that he knew was coming. “I don’t know how I can read them, I just can. They seem to tell the desperation of the war they were fighting against a race they called the Ri’Tek. I haven’t found a better explanation yet but it seems that they were on the verge of losing. The Elvehn, Humans, Fae, and even the Dragons and their Kin were allied with the Dwarves against the Ri’Tek. They had planned to do some kind of ritual in the Dyrrenai Forest that would help them fight the war. Then there is a two-hundred-and-eighty-year gap in the entries that I can’t read, finished by an entry from the Red Plains Elvehn explaining that the war was won but, that the Fae, the Dragons and the Dwarves didn’t survive as a race, whereas Mankind, the Elvehn, and the DragonKin did.”

  Galen seemed content listening to the back and forth between Kael and Kalmar, but finally asked, “Are you sure about what you read, Kael? Could you be mistaken, maybe?”

  “I have no idea. Some of the entries I can read and some I can’t. I found a letter in Jasala Vyshaan’s tower when I was there. She left it there for one of our kind to eventually find. It said when my power had increased to a certain level, I would be able to read the second half of the letter. I just assumed these may be something similar. Other than that, I honestly don’t know.” As he finished speaking, a lung spasm triggered another coughing fit. A chunk of congealed blood filled Kael’s mouth and as he spit it onto the floor, it set Kyah off on a healerly lecture.

  “That is enough for now, all of you. He needs some rest if we are to keep moving tomorrow. Lay back, Kael, and get some sleep. Now,” she ordered. Not in the mood to argue, he grinned a lop-sided smile and closed his eyes to try and get some rest.

  Twelve hours later, by Galen’s best guess, Kael woke feeling much better. A half day’s sleep had done wonders for helping to heal his broken body. They packed up their hallway camp and moved on. Their escape-route continued to drop deeper into the under-city catacombs and was wide enough to walk side by side with at least two feet of space above their heads.

  Several side rooms they passed held the remains of weapons and armour. The passage of time had destroyed anything of value centuries ago, and most of the items were unrecognizable piles of rust and rotted leather. Some pieces of brittle, black glass were strewn about on the floor as well. Not recognizing what it was, Kael picked a piece up to inspect it.

  Kalmar noticed what he was doing, and frowned. “That’s raw obsidian. Only an exceptional Orotaq blacksmith can forge it properly in order to make weapons,” he explained.

  “Yeah, I know,” Kael replied. “It’s a type of volcanic glass, but I didn’t realize there were any volcanoes around.”

  Galen shook his head, adding, “There are none here in the Bloods. The Southern Kingdoms have a few, including Pantheon Island, the mythical home of Kaminus, the blacksmith of the Gods. We have a couple written documents explaining how the Dwarven blacksmith’s used to worship him. The Northmen blacksmiths still do.”

  “Where’d the raw glass come from then?” Kael asked, placing the small piece of obsidian in his pack as they carried on walking.

  “I’m not sure,” Kalmar answered. “I don’t know if the Dwarven blacksmiths made obsidian weapons or not. I don’t believe they did. I’m pretty sure only the Orotaq have ever had that knowledge, but I could be wrong.”

  They passed by more side rooms as they travelled on, but all were the same, empty of anything useful. A half hour later they came to a flight of stairs that led them into a dead end at a large, square room. They stopped and stared at what could only be an old Dwarven smithy, complete with a large forge, bellows and worktables.

  “It must have been seriously important to be hidden away like this so far below the old city,” Kael said.

  The massive forge in the centre of the room had a diameter of ten feet. The rotted leather remains of three large bellows were attached to the back. A vented hood was suspended overhead by four thick, metal chains, one of which had broke at some time in the past, leaving the rusted metal hood to hang at an awkward angle. Black soot stained the walls and in the corner opposite the forge, the wall looked like it had sweated rust at one point in time.

  Kael closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath. The sharp tang of hot metal along with the choking cloy of oil smoking on warm blades still hung in the air. It was faint, but it was still there. A large assortment of corroded tools remained scattered throughout the workshop’s wooden benches, most of which were worm-eaten and crumbling to dust.

  “For a secret smithy it sure is big,” Galen said. “Four storage rooms, that’s a lot of space to stockpile weapons or supplies.” They stepped inside one of the smaller rooms for a closer look, but Kael hesitated in the doorway as something tugged at his mind. In here. The words that echoed in his head were so faint, he thought he imagined them.

  “What’s wrong?” Kyah asked, as she turned and saw he hadn’t entered.

  “I don’t know,” he said. Shaking his head, he turned back towards the large room with the forge. “Something’s not right in here,” he muttered, stepping further into the smithy. Once Kael was inside, he realized what was bothering him.

  “Oh, lovely,” he complained. Much to his surprise, Kyah answered his complaint.

  “Yes, dear, what would you like?” she said, with an overly sweet voice as she looked righ
t at him. Her flushed face gave away her flirtatious intent.

  “I’m sorry, but I was referring to the fact there’s no goddamn door out of this smith’s shop.” Flushed with anger, Kael quickly realized what he had said. “I… I’m sorry, Kyah, it’s not your fault.”

  “It is all right. You are correct, there is no way out. But… You need to relax, we are alive and we are free. Do not be afraid to enjoy it, at least a little bit,” she smiled, and placed her hands on his arm.

  It took Kael a few seconds to calm the anger that was a constant companion boiling below the surface. Closing his eyes, he took a few breaths, and soon noticed that the tugging at his mind had returned. Keeping his eyes closed, he tried to focus on it. Here. As he cleared his throat, Kael waved his left hand for silence as someone began to talk. Concentrating in the silence, he could feel the strange sensation calling him to the right. Over here. He opened his eyes and realized he was staring at the old forge.

  Letting his senses guide him, Kael followed the pull of the whisper inside his mind to the front of the forge. The rim, dusty and made of granite, was the height of his waist and without conscious thought, he touched the edge with his right hand. The pull increased in strength and a single word echoed through his head. Freedom. Kael knelt over and started to inspect the foundation of the forge. He slid his fingers into cracks and pulled at the seams. Using his thumbs he pushed and prodded his way down the foundation.

  Near the bottom, the bricks that formed the base were loose. With great care he began removing them. Freedom. With one final whisper inside his mind, Kael began digging and scratching with frantic urgency. The others stared at him as if he were possessed, clearly unsure of whether to interrupt him.

  He cleared enough of the stone bricks to make an opening about three feet wide and three feet high. Once finished, he stopped and stared at the underside of the forge. A dark green leather covered the entire inside. He tore the rotting liner away and revealed a solid, round base attached to the bottom of the bowl-shaped hearth. A single piece made up both the foundation and main part of the forge. It looked like the squat brandy glasses his father used to serve his favourite drink in during the family’s holidays. The dark green material had shiny shades of black swirling through it, unlike anything Kael had seen before. The whisper in his mind returned. Again with a single word, but stronger, and more insistent. Closer. Kael could see a dull light shining up through the cracks in the stone floor underneath the forge that he assumed were part of the forge’s venting process. It didn’t seem important, so he forgot about it and focused on the task at hand.