“Hotek seems displeased to have guests,” said Dorien with a smile.
“This is something more,” said Caledor, standing up.
As the king got to his feet, a scream of pain rang down through the shrine followed by panicked cries. Caledor dashed from the chamber, sword drawn from his belt, Dorien close behind.
After a short distance, they came upon another room, lined with barrels. A surprised acolyte greeted them with wide eyes.
“Where is Hotek?” demanded Caledor.
The acolyte dumbly pointed to one of the two doors leading from the other side of the room and the Phoenix King ran on as more screams sounded from the shrine’s depths.
They came out into a wide cavern, split by a river of fire over which a narrow bridge arched. More statues of Vaul flanked the crossing, each bearing the lightning-bolt hammer in upraised fist. On the far side of the chasm, through the fire and haze of the lava river, elves clad in the robes and accoutrements of priests struggled with each other.
Caledor dashed across the bridge with Dorien at his heels. Reaching the height of the span, he saw two huge bronze doors were open in the wall at the far side of the chamber. Beyond flickered the light of furnaces, and he could feel the trickle of magic seeping from the open portal.
Running down the other side of the bridge, Caledor was unsure what was happening. There were almost a dozen priests fighting, some with forge hammers, others with knives or swords snatched from the armouries. A few wrestled with bare hands, trying to drag their opponents towards the fire chasm. Four bodies lay between the two sides, blood pooling on the bare rock.
Caledor did not know with which group to side. There were five priests holding the path to the open doors and the others were trying to get past. He did not know if the traitors were attempting to seize the inner shrine, or if they were the ones stopping any interference.
“Make way for the Phoenix King,” bellowed Dorien, running past Caledor with sword in hand, answering the question for him. The priests trying to get into the sanctum forge parted; the others closed ranks against the Caledorian prince.
Dorien ducked under a swung hammer and drove the point of his sword into the wielder’s gut. Caledor reached him, charging shoulder-first into another traitor priest, sending him tumbling to the ground. His sword found the priest’s chest, opening up ribs and breastbone with a trail of fire.
Behind him the other priests rallied, charging into the elves holding the door with fierce shouts. The air crackled with magical energy as rune-etched blades and hammers clashed. Caledor hacked the leg from another foe and leapt over him as he fell. Without a glance at the others, he sprinted into the inner sanctum.
The shrine room was a large cavern overlooking the main crater of Vaul’s Anvil. A sea of fire boiled, kept at bay by magical wards, redirected into the furnaces lining one side of the temple-forge. There were several anvils and workbenches, but at the centre of the room was the main altar-anvil. Gilded and carved with runes, it glowed with mystical power, the force of it stopping Caledor in his stride. Several acolytes were hurrying out of a side entrance, carrying what appeared to be pieces of black armour.
Caledor spared them only a glance. Behind the altar-anvil stood Hotek.
He was clad in his ceremonial robes, bare arms covered with enchanted tores and bracelets, an iron collar about his throat. In his left hand he held a sword, its blade like a sliver of midnight, a black streak in the air. In his right he hefted the Hammer of Vaul, used for the forging of the elves’ greatest artefacts, its golden head inscribed with lightning bolts.
“Surrender!” shouted Caledor, taking a step.
“Stay where you are,” warned Hotek, raising the Hammer of Vaul above his head.
“What have you done?” said the Phoenix King, circling slowly to his right, seeking to get between Hotek and the tunnel down which the acolytes had fled.
“Who was it that crippled our god?” said the priest, a manic edge to his voice. “Who was it that bound him to his anvil to labour on the deadliest of weapons?”
“Khaine,” replied Caledor, knowing the myth well.
“And who are you to do the same to me?” said Hotek. “Why labour for the servant when one can labour for the master?”
“You are in league with the druchii,” said Caledor, taking a few steps closer to the priest.
“The ‘Dark Ones’?” laughed Hotek. “How simplistic! You are blinded by your name-calling. They serve a greater purpose and will see our people restored to greatness.”
“What purpose?” asked Caledor, edging closer still.
“To rule the world, of course,” said Hotek.
“What did Morathi offer you?” Caledor was almost within reach of the priest, a leap and a slash of his sword away from ending this. He hesitated, wanting to hear the reply. He heard a shout from Dorien at the doorway and turned briefly to wave him back. “What could a servant of Vaul desire?”
“The secrets of the dwarfs,” replied Hotek. “I have tried for an age to understand the workings of their runes, but they defy me. But with the power of true magic, the strength of sorcery, I have prised those secrets from the dwarfen trinkets. The power will be mine and with it I shall surpass even the Dragontamer in my accomplishments for Vaul.”
“You are corrupt,” said Caledor. “Everything you have made is tainted.”
The Phoenix King tensed, ready for the lunge.
“I am blind but still see your intent,” shrieked Hotek. “I warned you!”
The priest brought the hammer down onto the anvil with all his strength. The cavern filled with an explosion of light and heat. The shrine reverberated with an almighty crack, as if at the centre of a storm cloud, the floor and walls shaking with the detonation. Forks of energy flared from the anvil, blinding Caledor. A bolt struck him in the shoulder, sending him spinning to the ground, sword falling from his numbed grasp.
Through streaming eyes, Caledor saw Hotek unharmed, running into the side tunnel. Dizzy from the wave of power that had smashed into him, the Phoenix King stumbled and fell as he tried to get to his feet. He raised a gauntlet to his top lip and saw blood on his finger from his nose. His ears rang with the after-echoes of the hammer’s striking and blotches of white swam across his vision.
Rolling over to see how Dorien fared, he saw his brother lying against one of the open doors, head to one side. For a moment the Phoenix King feared his brother dead, neck snapped, but Dorien moaned weakly and lifted a hand to the side of his helm.
The surviving priests and acolytes came running into the room. Their calls came as distant, tinny shrieks and Caledor could not understand a word that was said to him. He allowed himself to be hauled to his feet, head spinning. He waved the priests towards the tunnel where Hotek had fled, but they shook their heads vehemently, their arguments lost amidst the rushing in Caledor’s ears and the pounding of his heart.
A thorough search of Hotek’s chambers uncovered a series of journals and a number of strange artefacts the priests identified as crude experiments in rune-forging. The most recent manuscripts were missing, presumably removed by Hotek’s followers, but Caledor sat down with the others and spent the night reading them while Dorien went with the priests in a search of the tunnel labyrinth that criss-crossed the volcanic rock into which the shrine had been carved.
They returned shortly after dawn, reporting failure.
“None knows the tunnels better than Hotek,” said one of the priests. “He has spent centuries exploring them. I fear he had his escape long-planned and even an army would not find him, and we have only two dozen at best to search.”
“Where do you think he will go?” said Dorien.
“To his masters, and mistress, in Nagarythe,” said Caledor, lifting up a journal. “Morathi ensnared him with pride and curiosity long before the war began. She gave him dwarfen treasures to investigate, a riddle she knew he could not solve. When he reported failure, she sent one of her sorceresses to aid him. With dark magic
they unlocked some of the rune-forging secrets and Hotek was trapped upon a traitor’s path.”
“He has spent many years on a secret labour,” said the priest, looking through one of the leather-bound volumes. “He has kept meticulous notes, but I cannot decipher many of them; they refer to practices of dark magic and sacrifice that I do not understand.”
“He is making a suit of armour,” said Caledor. “I saw his followers fleeing with it, and his journal speaks of such an endeavour beginning just as the war with the Naggarothi started. For what purpose he did not record. The other priests under his control have been using the forge to supply the druchii with enchanted weapons, and diverted the arms shipments to Nagarythe.”
“It is a long treachery,” said Dorien, “and an injurious one at that.”
“He has taken the Hammer of Vaul,” added the priest. “Without it, our forging is much diminished. Hotek was the most accomplished of us, and now the greatest enchantments are lost, no doubt to be turned against us by the druchii.”
“It is a sour year indeed,” said Dorien. “It seems the forces arrayed against us continue to grow, while we are sapped of our strength.”
“Yes,” said Caledor, nodding mournfully.
“We must find a way to strike back, even the balance,” said Dorien.
For the first time since becoming Phoenix King, Caledor felt the task ahead impossible. For every victory he had won, the enemy came again. Every advantage he thought he possessed—the dragons, the mages of Saphery, the power of the Everqueen, the artifices of Vaul—had been taken from him. Not in thirteen years of war had he considered defeat, but now he could not see how victory might be gained.
He looked at Dorien, saw faith and determination written in his brother’s expression. The priests of Vaul waited expectantly, perhaps with some desperation, for the Phoenix’s King’s reply. He had no answer for them. There was no grand strategy that would turn the current situation. He felt helpless and hopeless, and the burden of duty weighed more heavily upon him than ever before.
“We fight on,” he said, the words sounding hollow in his head but bringing encouragement to the others.
The burning would not stop. It raged in Malekith’s mind long after his body was dead to the pain of the flames. Had his father felt like this? Is this what drove him to the Sword of Khaine, to escape the touch of Asuryan’s blessing?
The thought calmed the prince of Nagarythe. As his father had endured, so would he. What was his torment but another chance to prove his superiority? When he next stood before the princes to declare his right to be Phoenix King none of them would argue. It would be plain for them to see the strength of his character. Who of them could deny that he had passed Asuryan’s test? He smiled at the thought, cracked flesh creasing across the remains of his face.
Their resistance was fuelled by jealousy. The usurper, Bel Shanaar, had groomed Imrik like a prize stallion, though in truth he was nothing more than a plodding mule. The other princes had been blinded to the truth by the whispers of Bel Shanaar. When the evidence of Malekith’s acceptance by Asuryan was presented, they would see through the falsehoods woven by the Caledorian and his supporters. Perhaps even Imrik would bend his knee, as Malekith had so graciously done at the foot of Bel Shanaar.
The curtain surrounding the bed stirred and Morathi bent over him. Malekith tried to rise to kiss her cheek but his body failed him. A spasm of pain along his spine trapped him beneath the covers, as though a great weight was laid upon him. His mouth twisted into a snarl of anguish.
“Be still, my beautiful son,” said Morathi, laying a hand on his brow. “I have someone you should greet.”
An emaciated elf moved up beside Malekith’s mother, face almost white, eyes pale and unseeing though they fixed upon the prince.
“Greetings, your majesty,” he said. “I am Hotek.”
The memory of the name surfaced through the fires of Malekith’s mind. The priest of Vaul. The one who would restore him. If he was here, that meant…
“It is ready?” said Malekith, voice cracking with joy. “It is time?”
“Not yet,” said Morathi. “Caledor chased Hotek from his shrine and he has come to Anlec to finish his work.”
“The interruption, the loss of the shrine, have added perhaps only a year to my labours,” said the priest. “Yes, I am confident. Four more years and the work will be done.”
Four years? The prospect made the flames rage through Malekith’s thoughts. Four more years imprisoned within this husk of a body. Four more years could see his armies destroyed, his kingdom overthrown. Why did the torment have to continue?
In the chambers below, the elves going about the palace paused as a piercing cry of agony and woe rang through the rooms and corridors. Shrugging, thinking that Morathi tormented some fresh victim for purpose or pleasure, they continued in their work without a second thought.
* * *
Looking at the tips of her fingers, Illeanith wondered if the black stain had spread since the day before. Her fingernails were utterly black and the flesh of her fingertips a darkening grey, touchless as she tapped them gently along the flat of her dagger’s thin blade. It was not just her fingers that disturbed her—something sat in the pit of her stomach, a malign presence that seemed to be feeding from her, draining her strength and spirit. Only the dark magic kept it suppressed, and only the dark magic kept back the necrotism crawling up her fingers.
The gagged sacrifice looked at her with wide tear-filled eyes, the blue of them ever so bright in the candlelight. He had stopped struggling against the iron chains that bound him to the stone altar and now watched Illeanith carefully, eyes returning again and again to the rune-carved knife in her hands.
“Your death will have a greater purpose than your life,” she told her captive. He was a tailor, she remembered. He had once fashioned a silk cloak for her father, Thyriol. She looked at his hands, so slender and nimble as they had wielded thread and needle. “Those lovely fingers, when they twitch their last, will bring life back to mine.”
He was naked, his skin already prepared with the unguents and runes she had learnt from the grimoire. She had studied its pages at length, in secret, and knew many of the incantations by rote. This one was trickier, incorporating not just elvish words, but phrases and noises from the Dark Tongue, the language of daemons and the beasts of Chaos.
Illeanith read aloud, moving the point of her knife to the prisoner’s throat. She stopped, distracted, trying to remember the unfortunate’s name. It did not matter. She pushed aside the thought and started again, this time more forcefully, concentrating on every syllable.
As she spoke, the brands and scars upon the prisoner’s flesh began to weep a thin stream of blood. He grunted in pain, teeth gritted, chest heaving, Illeanith ignored him, focussing on the enunciation of every verse, ensuring that she spoke every word precisely and correctly. She could feel the dark magic gathering in the chamber, seeping up from the lower levels of the tower like a tree drawing nourishment from its roots.
The coils of dark energy mingled with the blood, turning it to a deeper red. The prisoner was panting heavily, eyes roaming the room as tenebrous shapes gathered around the white-painted rafters and shadows coiled across the bare pale stones of the walls.
Finishing her incantation, Illeanith gently slid the dagger into the captive’s throat. He gurgled and died, slumping to the slab without any undue fuss. Blood bubbled from the wound as the sorceress placed the dagger to one side. Illeanith dipped her fingers into the crimson stream and quickly drew a rune upon each of her cheeks with the thick fluid. The bloody runes upon the body were glowing now, their gleam edged with a disturbing darkness, flowing together to form a shifting aura of power.
“Mistress!”
Illeanith turned, scowling as one of her acolytes burst into the chamber. She snapped at him to get out and returned her attention to the ceremony.
“Something approaches from the north, mistress,” said the acolyte. �
�A strange cloud that does not move with the wind.”
Illeanith stopped just as she was dipping her fingers into the sheen of magical energy encasing the body. She took a breath, ignoring the concerns that suddenly crowded her thoughts, and wove a sigil with her fingertips. Where they passed, her hands left trails of glimmering darkness.
She stopped, uttered a few final words and drew the magical energy into herself.
“It is Saphethion, mistress.”
Illeanith knew this already. Now was not the time to be distracted. She shuddered, a low mewl escaping her lips as the life force of the dead elf flowed into her body. The thing lurking in her gut subsided and she held up her hands, watching the greyness recede. Still there was a faint darkness about her skin and nails, the corruption not wholly expunged by the spell.
She turned to her acolyte, picking up her knife. She saw others crowding at the doorway.
“I said I was not to be interrupted,” Illeanith told him.
“But mistress, Saphethion…”
Illeanith rammed the dagger under the acolyte’s ribs, puncturing his lungs. He collapsed to the stone floor with a gasp. The sorceress looked at the others in her cabal.
“No interruptions,” she snapped. “Do you want be torn apart by daemons, or dragged to the Realm of Chaos?”
“We have to leave here,” said Andurial. “The floating city will be here before dusk.”
“No,” said Illeanith. “We have prepared. We do not run anymore.”
“We cannot face the might of Saphethion,” said the sorcerer. “It is folly. We have not heard from the others. We may be the last of our kin to remain in Saphery.”
“And if we leave, we shall never return,” said Illeanith. She strode out of the chamber, Andurial and the adepts falling behind her as she made her way to the staircase that spiralled up to the tower’s roof. “We shall show them that we are not defeated yet. Morathi has promised support and we will not fail her.”
03 - Caledor Page 28
