by T. O. Munro
“Ah, Lady Niarmit, jussst on time,” Maelgrum hissed his greeting from infront of the great planar gate.
“Where’s Kaylan?” She demanded. “This oaf said he wasn’t dead.”
“Of courssse he isss not dead.” At the flick of icy fingers two orcs shuffled forward from the edge of the cavern. Kaylan slumped bruised and battered between them. But still alive.
The thief raised a half closed eye towards her and mumbled “’y lady.”
“He livesss under sssuferancsse. Your complete obedience isss the only thing that keepsss me from letting the orcsss entertain themssselvesss with hisss innardsss.”
She glowered at the Dark Lord’s bright red eyepits, shivering slightly in the heat sapping frost which radiated from his blackened form.
“Here!” He pointed to a low stone cube half a dozen yards infront of a tall pedestal. There was a steel ring embedded in the side of the cube facing her. A shove from the orc added some extra emphasis to Maelgrum’s command. “Down.” Camrak pushed her to her knees. She gasped at the pain which shot through her shaken fingers.
Camrak took a knife and sawed through the cords binding her wrists. She gritted her teeth. His unsubtle bladework gouged her wrists, while the flood of returning blood and sensation in her crippled hands only served to intensify the agony the crushed bones caused her. She breathed through it, short quick breaths.
Camrak brought out a pair of cast iron manacles. He quickly clamped one around her left wrist. He then threaded the manacle chain through the ring in the block and pulled on her right arm to fix the other end of the clamp. The action brought her hand crashing into the unyielding stone of the block. Fragments of broken bone slid and grated over each other and there was no stopping the shrill inhuman scream it dragged from her lips.
Kaylan flung himself away from his guards, guttural cries of outrage filtering through his bruised jaw. The orcs watched more amused than alarmed as the thief blundered towards the Queen, tumbling to his knees beside her.
“Kaylan, no, don’t,” Niarmit called out through her tearful agony.
He said nothing but pressed his face, his mouth, against hers. The orcs were laughing now as the battered thief kissed the crippled Queen. Niarmit was stunned, as paralysed by surprise as the first time she had been kissed. It had been one of Matteus’s wards who said he had just done it for a dare, but then as now something unexpected was forced into her mouth. Then the orcs descended dragging Kaylan away with rough hands and several flying fists and Niarmit ran her tongue over the curious metallic object he had left behind her lip. A thin strip of metal with a crooked end, Kaylan’s lock pick. She didn’t like to think where he might have been hiding it or what he hoped she might achieve with it and her broken hands.
Niarmit bent her head forwards, experimentally, trying to see if she could bring her mouth close to the lock on either manacle. The chain was short and the space between her knees and the ring in the block too cramped. As she leant she felt a prickling sensation at the back of her neck. With a twisting of her head she saw Camrak looming over her, he made a quick chopping motion with his hand and gave her an ugly grin.
She sat up abruptly, leaning back on her heels trying to put as much distance between herself and the stone as possible, but the manacles had her anchored to the spot. She looked in pale fear at the cube, suddenly aware of its resemblance to a headsman’s block like the ones she’d heard tell of in the Eastern lands where executions were the cure for all crime.
She glanced around, scanning the inscrutable mask of Maelgrum and the faces of the grinning orcs for some clue as to her fate. She saw Kaylan slumped insensible between the orcs.
“You said you wouldn’t kill him.”
“I sssaid no sssuch thing.”
“I’ve done what you asked. You said that was what kept him alive.”
Maelgrum stalked towards her. “How foolisssh it isss to let your own actionsss be held hossstage by the life of another. I have never ssshared thisss human weaknesss.”
She glared at him. “Your parents would be very proud, I am sure.”
He paused for a moment, contemplating her rebuke, head tilted as he tasted the sarcasm. Then he flung back his head in a mirthless laugh. “I have exsssisssted ssso long that my human childhood isss asss much a myssstery to me asss your own time in your mother’sss womb.”
“To exist is not an achievement. What purpose or value has your undead life served?”
“I sssserve no-one and nothing. It isss the world, the matchless panoply of the planesss which ssservesss me, which fuel my power and incite my curiosssity.” He knelt beside her, breathing in the fear she was trying so hard to supress. “I have learnt ssso much and ssstill the worldsss can sssurprise me.”
“You have learnt nothing of what truly matters,” she shot back at him, calling on every sinew to defy the mask of death before her. “Nothing of the Grace of the Goddess or the love one human can feel for another.”
“Oh I have learnt all I need of that. Humansss and elvesss are crippled by love. It isss the thread that conssstrainsss them, the ssstring by which I lead them. The magesss of the Monar empire reckoned that if you called any creature by itsss true hidden name you would have absssolute power over it. I have found a sssimpler way to sssuch control. No one that you love isss beyond my grasssp, nor held sssafe by your preciousss Godesss.”
“You lie!” she cried in fear. “Your whole existence is a lie.”
His eyepits flared with a sparkle more of amusement than anger. “The Bissshop’sss daughter livesss or diesss at my whim. Did you think that wizzened herbalissst could ssstand againssst my will? I know her passst, of what she wasss, the tiny life she led in the ssstreetsss above our headsss. I knew her father too, oh ssso briefly, another fool dessstroyed through thisss weaknessss of love. He ssshould have let the sssicknesss take hisss daughterss, but inssstead he let himssself be duped by the promissse of a cure.” Maelgrum’s head rocked back and his lipless mouth opened in a silent laugh. “One doesss not cure a curssse!”
“You cursed Hepdida? You cursed them all!”
His shoulders lifted in an indifferent shrug. “I am the Massster, amongst my ssservantsss are some with consssiderable talentsss. They turn my thoughtsss into actionsss, sssometimess before I have even thought them. Can you not ssseee now how thessse emotional attachmentsss have undone you?”
He glanced across at the crumpled form of Kaylan. “Even your affection for thisss thief isss enough to keep bent to my will. Tamely walking to your destruction. Ssso absssurd to allow any creature to become ssso preciousss to you.” He stood up, a smooth pillar of darkness and gestured to Camrak. “Ssstand there!”
“Yes Master.” The big orc hurried to the indicated spot keen to demonstrate the swiftness of his obedience.
“Now Camrak isss a loyal ssservant,” Maelgrum told Niarmit. “He isss the kind of assssociate you might expect me to value.” The Dark Lord flicked his blackened fingers and the waiting orc erupted in an instant pillar of flame. Surprise stunned Camrak at first, he stood in disbelief as the fire seared his flesh and scorched his hide. Then, as the smell of his own burning skin and the agony of pain from charred nerve endings penetrated his consciousness he howled a low animal scream and tried to fall, or to run, but the flame held him upright in its embrace, roasting him alive.
A couple of the orcs laughed, the wiser ones stepped back away from their leader’s fate. “There isss no-one whossse life or death could sssuck obedience or remorssse from my bonesss.”
“You are inhuman!” Niarmit’s nostrils were filled with the stench of burnt orc.
“I have ssspent millennia ssstripping away every vessstige of that sssicknesss you call humanity,” Maelgrum replied. “I am glad that you think I have sssuccsseeded.” He looked towards the entrance tunnel. “Ah here comesss the ressst of our little party.”
As Niarmit turned she saw a thin but familiar figure bearing a formidable but familiar object.
“Uncle,�
�� she greeted him.
“Your Majesty,” Udecht replied nervously, holding the Helm infront of him as if scared it would explode. The royal ankh on its chain dangled from his wrist.
“It isss cussstomary,” Maelgrum told Niarmit. “To greet the massster before the ssslave. Have you no word of welcome for our diligent resssearcher to whom thisss day owesss ssso much.”
“Oh I know of Haselrig. As great a traitor to his people as my other uncle, Prince Xander. Worse even as he has the temerity to still be alive. I do not treat with a traitor who, in freeing you, betrayed a nation.”
Her response seemed to amuse Maelgrum. “I sssee you have your sssourcesss too. You are mossst perssspicassiouss. Xander’sss royal blood and Hassselrig’s unholy prayersss were indeed two keysss to sssetting me free from your forefather’sss prissson. Sssince then, Hassselrig hasss alssso been inssstrumental in unlocking thisss artefact’sss ssseecretsss.”
“Its secrets?”
“We know what it isss. A gateway to a demi-plane where Eadran and hisss descendantsss ssskulk in cowardice and think they are beyond my reach.”
She gave an involuntary start of surprise at the extent of his knowledge.
“Their ssspan in Eadran’sss bolt hole isss coming to an end. Sssoon their ssspiritsss will ressside in altogether lessss conducssive circumssstancesss.” With a broad sweep of his hand, Maelgrum waved along a line of great gems lining the floor of the cavern. He pointed to one particular jewel impossibly balanced on a finely bevelled edge. “That isss for Eadran himssself. The traitor Feyril may have eluded the trapsss and pursssuitsss which I ssset for him, but hisss accomplicsse hasss foolissshly lingered well within my reach. Now I will pluck him and all hisss kin from their illusssion of sssafety.”
“You’ll not get any help from me.”
“It isss not your assssisssstancsse which I need. It isss your death, a carefully and precisssely controlled death that I require. I believe it may involve sssome pain too.” He pointed Udecht towards the high pedestal. “Bissshop, place the item carefully. Posssitioning isss important.”
Niarmit craned her neck round to watch as Udecht carried the Helm to the stone pillar and placed it carefully atop the plinth. He adjusted the Helm’s orientation and position in response to the slight hand movements of direction which Maelgrum gave.
She would not beg, there was no point. She had faced death so many times before in so many ways, this was just one more. But before she had always known that the peace of the Goddess awaited her. Ever since wearing that accursed helm, the path to her deity had been barred to her. At the moment of her death Eadran’s blasphemous creation was set to claim and imprison her in a tormented paradise. The fate of her soul, more than her body, prompted her to ask, “What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen to me?”
“Hassselrig will explain,” Malegrum hissed, still preoccupied with directing Udecht in the precise positioning of the artefact. “He enjoysss passsing on hisss knowledge, no matter how ssshort lived hisss ssstudentsss are like to be.”
Niarmit turned to the antiquary. Haselrig managed a half-apologetic smile of greeting. The Queen returned it with a scowl which did not dim the lecturer’s enthusiasm for his subject. “We know that the Helm is a bridge between our world and the demi-plane that Eadran created. The Master is keen to release the souls which reside in that plane to new homes.” Haselrig pointed at the great gems perched on their edges around the great cavern. “To do that we must destroy the bridge and the plane behind it. Great heat is needed, such as fire from a dragon. A dragon from the realm of Grithsank.” He waved towards the gate, his tone warming as he accompanied his explanation with elaborate gestures. “But the dragon fire alone was not enough to destroy the Helm. The Master saw the key. He realised that the Helm is only vulnerable at the instant that it opens to admit a new soul. Only then is there a line of connection between the planes through which Eadran’s interlinked creations can be destroyed and the souls released.”
Niarmit gave him a dark stare. “You mean to open that connection by killing me and then destroy the Helm as my dead soul flees into it.” She tried for a nonchalant shrug, a painful gesture given the agony that every move created in her hands. “That is a difficult act of timing, I would think.”
“It isss more a matter of posssition,” Maelgrum assured her as he knelt about ten yards away so that he, she and the Helm were in a line. “The dragon will breathe from here, the flame will dessstroy you and asss your soul travelsss the ssshort dissstance to the Helm, the dragon fire will follow you in and dessstroy the artefact and Eadran’s hiding place.”
“I have seen the dragon’s work,” Haselrig murmured. “It is very quick, all that remains of its victims is a shadow of dust on the ground where they stood.”
Niarmit gulped, unsure how to interpret the ghoulish reassurances of the antiquary. “And what of my soul?” she asked. “Is there one of those prisons for it?”
“Of courssse not! Your ssspirit will never have properly inhabited the hidden plane.”
“Then my soul may travel to the Goddess?”
Maelgrum looked at her, his head tilted in curiosity red eye pits throbbing slightly. “No. Your sssolitary sssoul will wander the infinite planesss.”
“Until?”
“Until the end of time itssself.”
Cold dread gripped at Niarmit’s heart. It might be a cruel jest by the Dark Lord, but Maelgrum seemed more amused by an awful truth than a clever lie. Despite her best efforts to stay calm she could feel her breathing quickening and her heart pounding.
Udecht was shuffling up behind her, his task with the Helm complete to Maelgrum’s satisfaction, but then she heard him stumble. Something flew through the air, the pink gem of the coronation ankh gleaming as the object shot past Niarmit and skittered across the stony cavern floor, all eyes following it until it came to rest between Haselrig and Maelgrum.
So no-one else saw how Udecht stalled his fall by leaning heavily on Niarmit’s shoulder, nor heard the Bishop’s mumbled benediction, “Sanaret servum tuum carus dea,” nor saw the flash of gold as something slipped from the priest’s sleeve into the Queen’s lap.
But Niarmit saw and felt it all. She shuddered as the raw unfiltered grace of the Goddess coursed through her body. She who had been more often the deliverer than the recipient of the Goddess’s grace knew what that power could feel like and yet, in that one instant she felt an explosion of healing the sort of which she knew she had never delivered. She looked up at the Bishop, puzzled at the blurring of her vision and a misplaced halo of blue which hovered over her uncle’s shoulder and then was gone even as she fixed her gaze on it.
Udecht pushed himself away from her, limping towards the assemblage of Maelgrum and his associate. “I’m sorry, my lords,” the Bishop was saying. “I tripped.”
“Put thisss trinket by the girl, let it burn with her.”
Udecht retrieved the fallen ankh and returned to Niarmit. His body masked her face from view as he placed the item on the stone block infront of her and mouthed an inquiry after her health. She nodded and mouthed a “thank you.” She would not have dared to raise her blessedly restored hands above the level of the stone block, even had the chain been long enough to allow it. Instead she kept them tucked clenched in her lap, hoping that the Bishop’s healing grace had not removed too many of the visible injuries from her time as Maelgrum’s guest.
“Come your reverence,” Haselrig beckoned. “The dragon will be here shortly.”
They began to file out, the orcs and the humans. Kaylan gave out a groan prompting a barked command from Maelgrum. The two orcs by the thief rained down kicks and blows upon his prostrate form. Niarmit saw a flash of white as a tooth flew from his mouth, better out than choking him in his concussed and oblivious state.
“Your pet can ssstay to ssshare your fate.” Maelgrum told her. “Your co-operation bought him a few more minutesss of life, that isss all. Yet ssstill you paid the pricsse. You had ssso li
ttle and you traded it away. Isss it any wonder that your people will alwaysss be my ssslavesss.”
Niarmit watched them disappear into the narrow winding tunnel. Maelgrum paused in the entrance, beckoning a great boulder with his little finger. The huge rock obediently rolled across the cavern floor like a piece of tumbleweed in the desert, until it sealed the entrance entirely.
Alone, Niarmit spat the lock-pick into her healed hands. A few thin scars were all that remained as testament to the blackened sacks of crushed bone they had been. It was the work of an instant to release first one catch then the other and she was free, well free to roam a sealed cavern awaiting the arrival of a dragon.
She glanced towards the window on Grithsank. She had seen in the racing of the Sun and its shadows, how out of step the time in Grithsank was with that of her own plane. There could be little warning of the dragon’s arrival, whatever she was to do it would have to be quick.
Kaylan groaned in his crumpled heap. She retrieved the golden symbol from between her knees where Udecht had dropped it and scurried across to the badly beaten thief. Two cycles of invoking the Goddess’s healing grace and all she had managed to do was make his breathing easier. Perhaps she had healed some unseen inner injury, but the effort was draining her tired body and there was too little time.
The light of the land of Grithsank afforded only a partial illumination of the cavern. She needed to see more. She seized the Ankh from the stone where Udecht had left it. With the chain in one hand and her golden crescent in the other she muttered, “Lumen per dea.” The pink gem glowed with an additional white light which cast jagged shadows on the pitted and uneven wall.
She whirled the chain around her head faster and faster, until the bright white gem was blurred into a circular wheel of light. Then she let it go, angling her arm so the object was flung high into the air towards the roof of the cavern, taking its precious illumination with it. She scanned the expanse of glassy broken rock in the ceiling of the vault for any hope of escape.
