The Legacy (The Darkness Within Saga Book 1)

by JD Franx

  “Perhaps one of us should try…” Kyah started to say.

  “No!” Kael yelled, and jumped between her and the blades. “God no, the next one won’t be a warning. They were made for a DeathWizard, that protective enchantment proves it. I’ll touch them.”

  “Wait,” Kyah yelped, grabbing at him. “You told me about that armour in her tower. What happens if you are not strong enough to use these either? The enchantment could kill you.”

  “No, it won’t,” he said, as he grasped the handle on one of the weapons, lifting it off the forge.

  “Kael! What did you…” Kyah shrieked, but stopped just as fast when nothing happened to him.

  The moment he touched the Vai-Karth, he knew they were nothing more than master-crafted weapons. The pull he felt earlier evaporated and no ancient demon soul consumed his mind. No lost angel tried to take over his body. No corruption, no evil. Nothing. Just weapons. Strange and exotic, maybe, but weapons nonetheless. He laughed at the superstition caused by myths and legends.

  “Weapons,” he said, looking at the others, who had all begun to back away from the forge, and from him, almost without thought. “They’re just weapons, nothing more.”

  Standing with his legs apart, Kael spun the scythe in his right hand, slow and easy. “They’re extremely light and well-crafted weapons, but that’s all,” he said, as he smiled.

  Kyah approached him with caution and asked, “Nothing? Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” he assured her.

  “There must be more to them than that,” Galen stated. “Otherwise why hide them so well?”

  Shaking his head, Kael couldn’t even begin to guess. “I have no idea, but we’ve wasted enough time here. We need to get out from this under-city. I think I know how.” Kael pulled his travel pack from his shoulder and slid his new weapons through the flap that closed the knapsack. The weapons hung from the longer set of blades and framed his pack in a square as he slid his arms back through the straps.

  Kalmar waited until he was done before he asked, “How do you think we’ll be able to leave this blacksmith’s tomb? We seem to be trapped here. The cave-in was the only exit we’ve come across.”

  “Believe it or not, I’m hoping your knowledge of the Dwarves will get us out, Kalmar.” Though the wizard seemed confused, Kael kept speaking. “When I first arrived here in Talohna, Lycori told me that the Dwarves used technology and machines like everyone else used magic.” The old wizard’s eyes grew wide with comprehension.

  “They definitely did. Why?” Kael knelt in front of the forge where he had removed the external bricks from the structure and gestured for Kalmar to join him.

  Pointing inside, underneath the forge, Kael asked, “Do you see that faint light shining through those narrow cracks? There must be an exit for this room under the forge, some kind of venting system maybe? I’d bet that forge slides back and there’s an escape bolthole under there. No way the Dwarves would only have one way out this far below the mountain. You got any idea how to activate it? The forge has gotta weigh at least five thousand pounds.”

  “Normally, yes, but without my magic, I’ll never find the pulley system. The Dwarves used a magical oil and pressure to operate their mechanical systems. I could trace it, but not with this around my neck,” he said, as he touched the edge of his Gyhurra collar.

  Kael’s brow arched into a frown. “Then let’s get that thing off of you so we can get out of here.”

  “Are you sure, Kael?” Galen asked, stepping up beside Kalmar. “It nearly killed you last time.”

  “He is right,” Kyah added, as she touched his shoulder. “We need your help getting out of here and you are still very weak.”

  “We’re not going anywhere unless we find a way to move a several-thousand-pound forge. Kalmar is the only one who can sense traces of this oil.”

  As Kael glanced over his shoulder at Kalmar, he could see the old man smiling, but it couldn’t hide the tremors of fear racing through his body or the nervousness in his voice. “Are you sure about this, Kael? I don’t have many years left, but I’d like to keep the few I do have.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Maybe I can give you back a few of those years while I’m at it?” Kael winked. “When you get back to Corynth and the ladies are falling all over you again, you remember who did that for you, all right?” Kael joked, but his own nervousness made his voice crack. Kyah stared his way, and when he wouldn’t meet her eyes, she moved closer, forcing him to look at her.

  “It could kill you,” she whispered.

  “If it does, hopefully Kalmar can get you out of here. There’s no other choice. You know that.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be fine,” he whispered, so only she could hear.

  “Ready, Kalmar? Those ladies won’t wait forever,” Kael said, winking again.

  “Just get on with it, son. And if I don’t make it, it’s not your fault, Kael. They did this to me. In all reality, I’d rather be dead than live without magic anyway. You pulled us out of there and I will die free if something does go wrong. That is all that matters.” Shaking his head, Kael knelt on the floor and pulled Kalmar down with him.

  “You’re not gonna die, old man, I promise. Kyah, Galen, hold him still. This won’t be the same as when I did yours. I’m sorry, Kalmar, if this hurts.”

  “Just do it,” the old wizard growled through clenched teeth. Kael closed his eyes and placed his left hand on the Gyhurra collar, his right on Kalmar’s chest.

  Kael could feel the void inside the old wizard, like a black, bottomless pit that drew him into its never-ending emptiness. He ignored it and altered his focus to the collar instead. Like living smoke, black threads of swirling purple energy drifted off of Kael’s fingers and coiled around the collar. With the smallest command of his mind the power curled around the strange metal of the Gyhurra collar and snaked its way down the spikes embedded deep in Kalmar’s neck. The old wizard’s body jolted with pain and his muscles locked in spasm from the invasion of sinister energy. Kael pushed himself harder, hastening the magic, forcing all four magically-inscribed metal pins to back out of Kalmar’s neck. With one last rush of power, the four pins shot across the room and the collar crumbled, falling to the floor in pieces where Kael’s dark magic continued to eat at the metal. A groan of agony escaped past Kalmar’s lips and his body began to convulse.

  “Hold him!” Kael barked.

  “Hurry,” Kyah cried out. “He has no connection to the earth!”

  With his cruus disconnected from the earth’s power, Kael could feel Kalmar’s weakening soul try to vacate the wizard’s broken body. Flexing his right hand, ropes of phantom-like, black energy ensnared the fleeing soul and dragged it back to Kalmar’s dying body. Panicking at the unexpected amount of power it took to hold Kalmar’s soul, Kael froze with doubt, knowing he no longer had the power to finish replacing Kalmar’s connection to the earth.

  Out of nowhere, the Vai’Karth on his back pulsed with energy. His own connection to the earth and all life blazed with vitality. Working by instinct, Kael released a pure, white energy. Brighter than any sun, it rolled down his right arm and through his hand, entering Kalmar’s chest. The black void filled with the power of the earth in seconds and he was forced to close off the shining void, sealing the power in with an intuitive twist of his right hand, before pulling it free from the old wizard’s chest. They both collapsed, exhausted, but alive. Kyah ran to Kael, but he waved her off.

  “Check Kalmar. I’m all right.” She bent down to see the old man breathing steadily and he had a healthy flush in his face. Though Kael had been joking, Kyah noticed the change in Kalmar immediately. The lines and wrinkles that came with age were gone, his skin smoother than it had likely been in over two centuries. She stared back at Kael over her shoulder, fear dancing in her eyes.

  “He is fine... Perhaps a little too fine?” Kael collapsed on his back, chuckling up at the ceiling.

  “Why, Kael? It was not a joke. You c
annot mess with the natural order of the world, ever,” she fumed.

  “Yeah, I don’t care. They’ll never stop hunting me and sooner or later, Kyah, they will find me. I can live with that if I have to, but this world is gonna need men like Kalmar. Men like both of them,” he said, as he glanced at Galen through his spinning vision.

  Consciousness slipped from his reach. Giving Kalmar back almost two hundred years of his life had wiped out all of his magical resources, and a small part of his life force as well.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Magic users have been pushing past their limits since the first wizard was granted Lady Inara’s power many millennia ago. Magic will forever demand a price from those who use it. For those who abuse magic, the payment is ultimately much worse. The price of over-exertion can result in physical damage and even death.

  In the past two days, I have seen Kael do this twice and wake from the darkness no worse for wear, besides being tired and miserable. I know that he is not a typical wizard, and a purer, more selfless soul I have never met. But to push so far past the limits of magical endurance and have no visible price demanded scares me. Magic must be always be balanced; it is the law of our universe. The law of our very existence. If his physical body is not paying the price, then I fear for what part of him is.

  EXCERPT FROM JOURNEYMAN-WIZARD GALEN VIHR’S JOURNAL. END-WINTER, 5025 PC

  CATACOMB RUINS BELOW ARKUM ZUL

  Kael returned to the waking world with the sounds of the others helping Kalmar look for the Dwarven pulley system for the massive forge ringing in his ears.

  “Yes, perhaps. The Dwarves used many different gears and pulley systems for almost everything, but the oil has a feel to it that you would only know about if you have seen it or felt it before. Look for a lever. It will probably be hidden quite well yet nearby. The lines run from the forge through all the benches and then into the storage rooms. I’ll see if I can find the oil reservoirs,” he said.

  “I see it worked,” Kael pointed out, with a groan.

  Kalmar turned as he lifted himself from the floor. “Kael, my boy. It seems that I owe you a very big thank you. It feels good being able to touch Lady Inara’s essence again.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Kalmar shook his head. “Why the years, Kael? Why would you do such a foolish thing.”

  “Your colleagues... Your ArchWizard won’t stop hunting me. Even I can feel that something is not right here in this world. Talohna and its people need you. It needs someone who knows the truth about what we’ve seen. What we’ve been through. If Giddeon succeeds and I’m gone, the problem won’t be over. You and Galen know that. I can’t have you die of old age before you return to Corynth,” Kael snorted. An indignant frown curled onto Kalmar’s brow as he stared at Kael, clearly at a loss for words. “But most important,” Kael added, “is that someone, somewhere, knows that I’m not the psychotic evil they think I am. You two are just the lucky bastards who happened to be here, I guess.”

  Laughing as the scowl faded, the not-so-old wizard lightly slapped Kael’s shoulder. “Fair enough, my friend. Fair enough.”

  It took fifteen minutes after Kael joined the search before they found the lever. Kyah noticed it under a cleverly disguised false bottom drawer while searching one of the shelving units. A hard tug activated the gears hidden under the floor. The rotted bellows folded upwards. Rolling on a recessed track in the floor, they slid against the wall away from the forge. Once complete, a different set of gears rumbled to life. They watched, fascinated, as intricate but solid gears engaged with a clack, rotating the forge. Grinding and popping, the forge moved slowly and turned to the left. After several seconds, it shuddered to a stop, revealing an escape tunnel underneath.

  “Well then,” Kalmar said, as he smiled and knelt down to inspect the floor. “I guess there is still oil in the tanks after all. It would have been nice to find them. I’d love to study the oil back at the Eye. No one has ever retrieved enough to experiment with.”

  Kael picked up his travel gear to discover that while he was unconscious, Kyah had used the dragonskin leather to sew sheaths for his new weapons on the outside of his Orotaq leather cloak. Designed like a harness, the sheathes were easily detachable for in warmer weather. The fur trim around the neck that she tore earlier was gone and the blades formed a sturdy square on his back just like they had with the travel pack, but they were much easier to pull free now. Nodding his thanks, she flashed a crooked smile and gave a mock bow.

  “All right. I’ll go first and scout the tunnel,” Kael proposed. “The rest of you follow, but be sure to leave enough room to fight if we need to. I’d hate to remove Kalmar’s pretty new face after all my hard work just because he’s standing too close.” Kael chuckled and dropped down the shaft, his cloak trailing behind him like leather wings.

  A ladder secured to the wall of the hidden shaft led to a tunnel connecting to another cave system far below the smithy. As Kael dropped, the ladder flashed by and after a short descent he landed in a crouch, unharmed. As the pulse from the Vai’Karth on his back faded with power, he understood it somehow cushioned his landing. A thrill of excitement rushed through him and he wondered what other surprises the weapons held.

  Closing his eyes, he focused his esoteric sight. Pushing it out several hundred feet, he felt... Nothing. Not a single living creature existed down here. He pulled both of the Vai’Karth from his back with a dull rasp and opened his eyes. Twenty feet ahead, swallowed in darkness, a scuffle of cloth on the stone reached his ears. Along with another, much more familiar sound.

  Nook, nook, nook.

  “Shit!” he whispered. Realizing his mistake, Kael swung immediately. The Mahala scout flashed in his vision a split second before his right-hand reaper-blade sliced through the creature’s chest with little resistance. The two pieces of its body spun passed him, one on each side. His weapon pulsed, stronger this time, and energy flooded his body. Gasping from the shock, he dropped to a knee as all the pain, hunger, and exhaustion that had been a part of everyday life for so long, vanished as if it were never there. Using his left blade to hook an outcrop of stone and pull himself to his feet, he vaulted back up the ladder into the smithy.

  “Mahala,” he spit, frustrated. “Are we ever gonna shake these things?”

  “How many?” Kalmar asked, readying himself as Galen tossed him an Orotaq dagger.

  “Can’t sense them for some reas—” was all Kael got out before three Mahalan warriors burst from the escape hole.

  The moment they cleared the forge, Kalmar barked, “Give me some time!”

  Galen grabbed Kyah, casting a wall-shield around them both and Kael jumped ahead, engaging the warriors, allowing Kalmar to drop back within the shield as well. Kael could hear the old wizard chanting as all three Mahalan warriors attacked, two from the left and one on the right. Using his new blades to deflect dagger strikes streaking in from both creatures on the left, sparks danced along his blades. A dagger from the third warrior slid past his right side guard, slashing the top of his thigh and a second blade from the same enemy cut into his hamstring, but not quite deep enough to sever tendons. Struggling to keep up against their superior speed, Kael never even though about using magic.

  Somewhere behind him, he heard Galen shout, “Almost ready, Kael. Hold them a little longer.” Focused and concentrating on staying alive amidst the flashing blades, the words barely registered, but Kael felt the stone under his feet shift, twist and crack. It slowed the Mahalan fighter’s attack for a second, letting him catch a breath. As he heard the strange words from behind him, he knew from Kalmar’s tone that his spell was close to completion.

  “Kippa bjarga hvessa,” Kalmar growled as if the words had been torn from his very soul. The blacksmith’s room twisted a second time under the pressure of intense magic. Shards of razor-sharp rock pulled from the floors and walls around the older wizard. Dozens rose into the air, spinning like foot-long spearheads. Kalmar shook under the strain as th
e shards began to hum, whirling faster as every second passed.

  “Kael, duck!” Kyah screamed, as the last stage of the spell drew close.

  “Foss hrinda,” Kalmar snapped with authority. The shards whistled away. Kael dropped to the floor as dozens of stone shards whined overhead with subsonic speed. One low trailing chunk clipped his shoulder, gouging a chunk of flesh from his arm. He cursed himself for nearly waiting too long. He grabbed the wound, crashing to the floor as a fine mist showered him in gore and chunks of the three warriors.

  “Jesus Christ, Kalmar! What the hell was that?” He turned to look back and saw the wizard drop to his knees, exhausted. Kyah raced to his side, but could do nothing for a wizard who’d pushed too hard.

  “He’’ll be fine,” Galen offered, dropping his magical shield-wall. “The Shards of Hell Mountain has a hell of a kick, nasty spell to cast. Give him a bit to rest.” Kalmar grunted in acknowledgement as he leaned back into the wall.

  “Not as nasty for those on the receiving end,” Kael muttered, climbing to his feet with a wince. Kyah stepped up beside him in order to help. The words for the Dead Sisters healing spell left her lips, but nothing happened.

  “Kyah? What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “I know not. I can feel my magic, as always, but nothing happens.” Galen, crouching by the Mahalan remains, shifted a piece of bloodied torso and lifted a braided leather amulet with a piece of pulverized metal on the end.

  “It’s this thing,” he explained. “I can feel it neutralizing my magic. No wonder you couldn’t sense how many, Kael.”

  Kyah shook her, disagreeing. “If so, then Kalmar would have never been able to cast his spell.”

  “Not true,” the wizard said, regaining his feet and clearly some strength. “I was behind Galen’s shield-wall magic. That amulet must be weaker than his magic. Leave it there, Galen.”