by Jesse Teller
“There will be many people standing in our path,” Trysliana said. “This is going to get bloody.”
“How are we going to deal with the soldiers in there and the apothecaries?” Smear added.
“We are going to kill them all,” Rayph growled.
“Well, we can’t do that,” Smear said.
“Then go home. Go back to Ironfall and the Stalwart Dreark abandoned. Go back to your ranch and the cheese. Go back to—”
“Watch who you are talking to, Rayph. That was not fair,” Smear said.
“I’m going in,” Rayph said. “Follow me or go home.”
Rayph took one last look at the Crown and fought back the shudder that threatened to overtake him. Prison, asylum, hospital, and harborer of the darkness of Lorinth, in this place Phomax had hidden all his terrible secrets. This was the dark heart of the nation. Here, hunkered into the shadows of the building, hid those still loyal to the dead king. Still, they did his work, and they had one of Rayph’s friends.
Rayph spoke a word, and the air above his hand ripped open. He whistled and a pocket of air beside him spat out a creature of stone. It was canine in shape and bore little resemblance to a dog, save its body and its stone jaws. It snapped its maw shut, and Rayph stepped forward. His hound howled, and he jumped the high wall to the Crown and landed in the courtyard.
A blaring alarm ripped out over the air and doors shot open all over the building, purging soldiers like a sick beast vomiting its filth. Rayph pointed at the main door, and his hound burst forth in a run. Its stone paws tore up flagstones as it ran. An instant before it collided with the door, it lowered its head to strike with the flat of its skull. The door rattled on its hinges and the wood split. Rayph turned to face the coming onslaught, grinning as two figures leapt from beyond the wall and clung to the structure with all four limbs. Smear and Trysliana crawled the towers like insects invading a corpse. Rayph spun, letting loose his first wave of terror.
He waved a hand in the direction of a coming surge and, with a word, their flesh ripped and tore into shreds of blood and muscle. The rest of the soldiers pulled back, and Rayph spun from his macabre spectacle to address them all.
“Your judgment has come for you. Too long have you preyed on the downtrodden and the sick. This place, I condemn for treachery. Drop to your knees and lay your weapons at your feet, or I will crush you all to bone and tendon.”
Every man of them dropped. Rayph held a hand up, and the weapons lifted into the air to collide with his hand. He held them all, a hundred or more weapons attracted to his hand like a great magnet before he swung his hand behind him and tossed the arsenal away and out of reach of the soldiers.
He spoke a word and stone hands erupted to grip all their thighs, pinning them to the ground. He turned to his hound. The beast nearly had the door open. Rayph passed the defeated men and climbed the stairs to the main door.
“How is it progressing?” he asked.
“I have three of my scanners placed,” Trysliana said.
“Four more to go,” Smear said.
“We will know where they have him soon,” Trysliana said.
“Good,” Rayph said, his hand gripping the fetish that allowed him to talk to his crew. “I’m almost in.”
“Rayph,” Smear said.
“Yes?”
“Mercy is a virtue to rise to.”
“I will exercise mercy when I have Cosmo back. Until then, I know only wrath.” The door split right down the middle, falling into two halves and booming through the entire courtyard. Rayph stepped into the Crown, his sword high, his hound gnashing beside him.
Rayph met all aggressors with fire and steel. His spells were muted here. His potency curbed to light magic and lesser powers. Truly devastating spells dissipated in the air as he fought to cast them, but he had a few powerful items at his command. He reached the bottom of a long row of twisting staircases, and he stopped. Seven staircases squirmed before him like a set of stone serpents, each rising to a different tower, each of differing ages and stabilities. Rayph knew not which rise to take, so he waited. The alarm screamed, more and more soldiers rushing to meet him. He patted his hound, and the first wave of enemies hit him. He cast as they collided with him, and an invisible wall sprang out in both directions, leaving a thin narrow corridor for them to get through. He stood in the breach, chopping and firing until Smear sounded off in his head.
“He is in the decrepit tower, the Stone Snake. You must be careful, Rayph. It is falling apart.”
“Meet me there. Trysliana, find me an escape point. Set the charges and get out of the way. I’m headed to the Viper.”
He tossed his sword and the air zipped closed around it. He spoke a word, his bow dropping into his hands. He pulled at a pocket of air above his shoulder and drew a long arrow boasting an ivory-colored fist at its end where an arrowhead should have been. He pointed it at the most degraded of the flights of stairs and grinned when the fist opened and gripped the stone. A flaming cord trailed from the arrow’s wake. Rayph gripped it tight and spoke a word. The flaming cord pulled tight, and Rayph flew into the air. He screamed out to his hound to keep fighting. He whipped through the air until he reached the doorway at the top of the stairs that led to the Stone Snake. He entered the darkness there and stowed his bow, calling once again for his sword and enjoying the way it felt in his grip. He stepped onto the staircase that would take him to the top of the tower, bracing himself for the climb.
The stairs crumbled as he climbed. Wind whistled through the stones, through weak spots in the mortar. Novices had built this tower over a hundred thousand years ago. It had nearly fallen a dozen times and had been patched with stone and steel caps over and again. As Rayph walked past one of these caps, he could see it riddled with rust and holes that looked out over the city. The streets of Dragonsbane at night stood dark and enticing. The nation’s most dangerous city seethed beneath him. Rayph fought back a chill that could have been from the currents of air ripping through the Stone Snake, or it could have been his aversion to this city.
He reached a rip in the wall, where stones had tumbled into the courtyard long ago, and he slipped past the hole and the wind that blasted through it. He kept climbing as footsteps clattered above him. If they were casters and idiots, they could easily break through the tower and send it all tumbling down on them. Rayph would be buried in a pile of stones at the bottom of the courtyard. He knew he could not let that happen. He slipped out of the next hole he found and gripped the stones on the outside of the building.
It was like climbing a wall of crumbling cheese. His every grip broke and ran as the bricks spat rock dust and split. The icy wind ripped at his robe, tearing away the edges to flap around his head and his hands. His feet could not hold anywhere on the structure, and he was forced to climb without them. He thought to release and call upon a flying spell but knew not whether it would fail beneath him. He had no play except to climb. He looked up, the tower waving in the wind like a charmed viper.
He finally found a hole in the structure again and climbed through to cling to the stairs as a trembling fit passed. He reached the door at the top of the Snake and kicked it in.
The room was run through with holes. Wind whistled from rotted stone and fallen bricks. The floor seemed to have bled cobbles from its expanse as drops peppered the floor before him. Four apothecaries stood with wands at the ready around a capsule made of iron fit with a door. It was tall and looked heavy, and Rayph wondered what held it from falling straight through the floor and down the tower to crash into the building below.
It was shaped like a cylinder with a domed top, and the door was held closed with many locks. It possessed one thick window, scratched and cloudy as if the person within boiled from some sort of fever and had clawed at the window for years.
The man obviously in charge stepped forward and sneered.
“One step farther and we will blast out the floor. This wretch will plummet to the ground to his death and your
insurrection will fail. We know who you are, Ivoryfist. A criminal against the true king of this nation. A kidnapper, murderer, and a fiend. Leave us to our work or we will destroy this waste of life and kill you along with him. Drop your weapon and hit your knees. We will find you a nice cell in the mighty Crown, and you can live out your days in peace and captivity.”
“You’re all going to die today,” Rayph said. “This tower crumbles and—”
A woman stepped forward, bald and spattered with tattoos. “Let me stop you there, fool. Do you truly think we would come to this place without the ability to fly? If we bring down this tower, we will soar to safety. But our spell-muting powers will not allow you the same escape. You will fall, buried by the falling Snake, and die a death terrible and sudden.”
“Cosmo? Is he in there?”
“Cosmo is not a man any longer. We have transformed him into the weapon Phomax commanded us to. We have only to break his mind, and it is all over. We will turn him on you and your foul bunch and bring justice to this nation. We will persuade Thomas to obey, and the leaders of the Crown will have this nation within its grasp. We will—”
“We are ready, boss,” Smear said.
Rayph spoke and his bow dropped into his hand. He spun, facing the ceiling and firing. His arrow’s fist shattered and the holes in the room sealed. Apothecaries fired their wands, and Rayph curled in on himself, covering his body in his robe and weathering the blasts. After their attacks failed, they shot their wands into the floor to no effect. Rayph felt the tower beneath them explode, and the entire room dropped. It fell two feet before colliding with solid ground. Apothecaries dropped to the floor, confused and terrified. Rayph could feel the spell-muting effect wear off, and he smiled.
“Get my buddy, will you?” he said through his fetish, and Trysliana laughed.
“We have him. We are coming home.”
Rayph clenched his fist, and the room exploded in every direction. The city of Ironfall stretched out around them, and the four vile torturers dropped their wands and hit their knees.
“How?” the elder one asked. “How did you do this?”
“I shattered your tower. I dropped this room into a portal, and I saved my friend.”
Rayph saw portals open, and Trysliana stepped through, his stone dog following behind. Smear stepped out of a second one, and Dran appeared from around the magistrate’s building beside them.
“Treason, torture, attacks on a Manhunter, and wrongful incarceration,” she said. “I condemn you to the prison of Ironfall until such time as you can stand before the one and only king of Lorinth, Thomas Nardoc.” She grabbed the nearest criminal and bound him in shackles.
Rayph rushed to the door of the capsule and gripped it tight. He spat a word, and with one wrench, ripped the door off its hinges. He looked inside to see his friend, bound in a steel chair, his head facing up as he thrashed and bucked. Foam ran from his mouth and nose like a fount, his throat and face purple and swollen. Rayph burst into sobs and rushed to Cosmo’s side.
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