“Of course, of course I will! What do I have to do?”
Elder Relech’s wrinkled face twisted into a hideous grin. “I will explain everything on the way.”
After a long hike through a scraggly pine forest filled with morning mist, Mara’s mind raged with plans for killing the ones responsible for kidnapping Talis. Elder Relech had taught her the art of moving without being noticed, and there was magic in what he taught. She pictured herself stalking silently up to an ancient—an immortal even—and allowing her dagger to do a little dance along his throat. And if they’d hurt Talis, she wouldn’t hesitate to do worse.
The old sorcerer explained that their destination was a country manor at the top of a nearby hill, an ancient place of power that overlooked the sea. It had stood for tens of thousands of years, the manor itself built and rebuilt many of times to suit the fashion of each generation. Elder Relech told Mara that Manor Top was ancient when he was a boy, over five thousand years ago. He had survived the many thousands of years through his wit and power and allegiance to Lord Aurellia. And now he was returning home.
“Was Manor Top really your home?” Mara asked, studying the sorcerer’s impassive face.
Elder Relech remained quiet and simply sped up his pace as they ascended the foothills of a mountain several thousand feet tall. So it is true, this is a home-coming for Elder Relech. But was his father still alive after all these years? Or was there another Lord of Manor Top that had kidnapped Talis? Some feeling, deep in the pit of her stomach, told Mara that the way Elder Relech moved, the fierce determination in his stride, meant that everything about this journey was personal—and she and Talis were caught in the middle of it.
By the time the late afternoon sun burned olive tree shadows on the grassy hillside, Mara realized how hungry she was and how long it had been since her last meal. She reached up to pluck several olives, and relished at the sour and savory taste. Her master turned and noticed her eating, then pointed up ahead at a grove of almond trees. All along the trek they stopped to forage, finding wild mushrooms and sour apples and prickly lettuce. A rabbit gazed at their intrusion, nibbling on a wild onion top, and Mara stared longingly at the game, dreaming of a delicious roast. A piercing whistle from Relech scared the hare off, and Mara’s hopes deflated under the sorcerer’s shake of his head.
Soon they were within range of Manor Top. Formed of sleek rose granite columns and walls, cypress beams, and terra cotta roof tiles of red and burnished brown, the circular manor looked like a temple of the Goddess of the Sun. As Mara neared the structure, gazing at the beauty of the fading light on the building, she believed it was true. But within the wondrous walls of the manor, blood would flow tonight. Mara held up Princess Minoweth’s dagger, allowing the sunlight to catch in the emerald, and felt the righteousness and rage slither up her fingers. She would kill those that kidnapped Talis.
“There is a Lord of Manor Top…” Elder Relech’s face was filled with bitterness and spite. “An ancient, light-blinded fool, who connived and schemed the assault on Aurellia and your friend Talis. For some reason he has plotted to steal away the boy and use him in some nefarious plan against our cause. Perhaps, since Talis knows Sun Magic, the Lord of Manor Top will blind his eyes like the others, and make him immune to the world of shadows. They live in a world of perpetual white haze. Follow my lead and I will mark the target to kill—the Lord of Manor Top, Prince DeSabrian.”
As they stalked up through long shadows leading to the manor, Mara gripped her daggers and felt the malice bubble up inside. Darkness was falling quickly and the night winds started whistling up the hillside. Elder Relech led her along a white stone walkway until they passed a twisted-thorn arched trellis that marked the entrance to the estate.
The wind immediately ceased, as if from a magical shield, and a soft, hazy golden light filled the air. The path guided them to a garden of fragrant roses, ripe lavender, and lemon and blood orange trees. In the midst of the garden Mara’s eyes were drawn to an alabaster fountain with intricate relief carvings of sun goddesses and sea serpents spewing water from their mouths. Below, on four corners, crazed titans held up the world, straining under the load of the stars and sky and land and ocean. Demons and hellhounds bit at the heels and ankles of the titans, and Mara swore they moved, she swore the titans snarled and kicked out at the demons, causing the world to shift and shake, splashing water erratically into the pool below.
She stepped closer to the pool, and bent over, peering inside. This is a mistake, I should follow the master. Inside the velvety-green liquid, alien eyes stared at her, monstrous fish with child faces, eyes haunted and sad. They bobbed up to the surface, sucking gasps of air, and spoke to her mind, a chorus of children, voices low, like a song.
“Your master lies, he is the father of lies, your master deceives a fool, and the fool is you.” The childrens’ voices chanted, amused and playful, singing their devilish song. “Light is purity, but rage is blindness. You, the fool, are blind. Let go of your burden, let go of your rage, let go of what you hold in your hand… Or die, just die, you’ll surely die.”
Their voices faded down into a water grave, until all Mara could hear was the falling water and swishing of fish tails. Elder Relech grabbed her shoulder and shoved her on.
“Do not be distracted, I warn you only once. This is a place of power and holds many traps. Keep your mind clear and do not focus on anything for any length of time. There is danger lurking all about.”
Mara grunted and continued on, but was still haunted by the child voices, their words caused her to doubt her master and mission. Shouldn’t she hate Elder Relech? Shouldn’t she doubt every word he spoke, every lie he spun from his vile mouth? She gripped the dagger tighter and focused the hatred she felt on her master. He should be the target, not some stranger. All that had happened to her had come because of Aurellia’s dark plans. Why was she even trying to kill anyone but Elder Relech?
Just as Mara raised the dagger in a murderous delight, a door opened on the side of the manor, and a beautiful, wispy girl of around seventeen stepped out into the garden. She was dressed in a long, flowing white gown and her face held a kind of enraptured radiance, oblivious of her surroundings. Elder Relech vanished into shadows, melding into the darkness of a hedge, and Mara followed, disappearing from sight. She studied the girl’s movements and soon Mara was aware that the girl was sleepwalking.
The girl’s enchanted steps led her figure, covered in a glowing orb of brilliance, to a nightshade-shrouded cave mouth with forest-green mist steaming out. Mara and Elder Relech stalked after the girl, and watched her kneel at an altar, and waving her small hands, wafted the vapors into her nostrils. Ghosts appeared around her long, pale-white hair; ghosts of sages with wizened-beards whispered indecipherable words in her infant-shaped ears. A dark, menacing rictus appeared on her lovely face, twisting her expression into a deathly pallor. In a blazing twirl she stood and pointed accusingly at Mara and opened her mouth to the beginnings of a choked scream.
Elder Relech’s gnarled, knobby fingers stretched out and summoned shadow demons into the world, and he commanded them to slither out and snake around and smother the girl’s delicate neck. Her eyes widened in a horrified disbelief. Lithe fingers that once caressed mystical vapors now ran up to her neck as if to fight off whatever was choking her. But her strength failed her as she fell to her knees, the beauty of her face blossoming to a red shock. She was dying and the expression in her eyes told her murderous witnesses that she knew nothing of death. Mara cried tears of anguish and pity, and begged for her master to stop.
But by the time he ceased the shadow hands around her neck, the girl tumbled to the ground like a broken porcelain doll. There was nothing left of the life that once animated her girlish figure. Mara gaped at the girl’s dead eyes and was unable to speak, and was unable to even shed more tears. Something broke inside her heart, like the broken twig of tenderness. She forever left the island of innocence that once defined her.
<
br /> “Why did you kill her!” Something snapped inside Mara and she struck out in a perfected slice and cut open Elder Relech’s lower thigh. Pained, fearful, the old sorcerer hobbled away, disbelief in his tired eyes as he inspected the blood oozing from the wound.
9. MANOR TOP
“You cut me! How in the name of the gods is that possible?” Elder Relech stared at the dagger glowing green in Mara’s hand, his eyes narrowing as if seeing it for the first time. “Your blade, your cursed blade, where did you get it?”
“An old family heirloom,” Mara lied. There was no way in hell she was going to tell him the truth.
The sorcerer snarled and stretched out his wrinkled hand. “Give it to me.”
I’ll give it to you, all right, I’ll shove it into your black heart. “I don’t think it would be wise for you to touch the dagger—especially if you value your life. It is bound to me, and me alone. For now, let’s reach a mutual understanding. Don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you.”
“And you vow to still aid me in my quest, no matter what the cost? Aurellia warned me about you, considering you’ve refused to swear allegiance to our cause.”
“I value freedom.” Mara took a step closer to the sorcerer, and jutted the dagger up under his chin. “Just remember how my blade burned your tainted flesh. I will help you as long as it helps save Talis. Past that, I hope you’re mauled by the hellhounds of the Underworld for an eternity.”
Elder Relech smirked at her in response. “A charming thought. If I go, you go. Try and kill me, and I’ll send you flying to greet the guardians of the Underworld. Enough banter, time for the business at hand. Do you want to find your friend or not?”
The wretch didn’t even pay a moment’s respect towards the dead girl as he strode past her in the dim ever-light of the Manor Top garden. Mara bowed her head and said a small prayer to the Satvis, the God of Darkness, for her soul to journey peacefully to the Underworld. Too much death, and too much sorrow. Maybe it would all end someday soon and she could find safety and solitude in Naru, the gods be good, with Talis and Nikulo, and end the stupid civil war back home.
There were no guards patrolling the grounds of Manor Top, and Mara suspected, no guards inside. The land held the air of tranquility, of a place untouched by war and pestilence, and gifted with the serene truth that blindness provides. Light-blindness, the dark lord called it. And indeed it felt like it. Other than the broken body of the girl lying at the foot of the cave, the gardens were unmarred by disease and death, and the ever-present light seemed to banish the nefarious nature of night. The dagger held in Mara’s hand would soon prove otherwise.
The light was brighter inside the manor, beyond the carved wooden door where the girl had entered the gardens. Cool, bright marble floors shimmered in the vibrant light of magical orbs embedded in the ceiling. A wall was covered with ancient maps made of skin. A fat servant with tired, puffy eyes strolled mindlessly down the halls. She died quickly, eyes burned in her sockets, mouth opened in horror, silence preserving the peace. Mara tightened the grip on her dagger, knowing that one slice across Elder Relech’s neck could end the killing of innocents. But then again she’d never be able to rescue Talis.
Ascending the wide, curved stairs, her fingers traced the darkly-stained cherry wood railing, and she found a statue waiting for her at the top: a child of maybe twelve, an old man and woman, and a towering man, all with a fiendish expression on their face. The figures were so realistic, it gave Mara the impression of bodies frozen as stone. Then she knew her thought was true as she read the inscription underneath.
“Know death, know darkness, know defeat. We will never leave the light.”
Mara caught Elder Relech gaping at the statue, his expression horrified and furious, as if he personally knew those trapped in stone. He reached to touch the face of the old man, but turned aside and released a heavy sigh, as if he thought the better of it. Down a long hallway they stalked off and left a trail of darkness in their wake. Ahead a door was engraved with an archaic illustration of the sun, still young, still vivacious and virile, with diamonds for eyes. Her master raised a palm and pressed open the door with waves of shadow magic, and the scene inside caused Mara to bite her lip and stifle a scream.
Talis was tied up high against a white wall, wearing only a loincloth, stretched out unnaturally, his face contorted in pain. Hundreds of tiny blades sliced over his hands, stomach, neck, thighs, ankles, and feet. His moans of agony were like darts in Mara’s ears. An usually tall, bony man with hip-length, shock-white hair glowered in fiendish delight as he commanded the blades to do their work. He swirled in sudden awareness of Elder Relech and Mara’s arrival, his silver, flowing robes swishing on the floor. Remembrance flashed in the man’s face. His expression beamed joy and sadness and the deathly pale of fear.
The tiny daggers clattered to the ground, startling Mara, sending her eyes to the bloody blades lying in disarray against the white marble tile. She heard Talis’s weak voice as if from a far distance down a dark hole.
“Mara? Is that you? Have you really come?” Tears streamed down his beautiful face, now marred with agony and desperation. “I’m so cold, Mara. He’s hurt me, this monster—”
“These eyes have longed for thousands of years to see my son again—and now the time has come at last.” The man strode towards Elder Relech, eyes uncertain, and stretched out his hands in submission. “Come to me, my son, come and embrace me. I forgive you, I forgive you for all those you killed, for all those you betrayed, for all those you turned to worship death and darkness.”
Elder Relech looked wistful and hopeless for a moment, enraptured by his father’s pleading face. Then a hard glint came to his eyes and a snarl formed on his wrinkled mouth. He motioned for Mara to flank around behind the man, and she obeyed, summoning the shadows to cloak her figure.
“Prince DeSabrian, is it? The legend and the fabrication. Are you truly royalty or merely a traitor?” He flourished his hands and waves of shadow energy bubbled around the room. The prince raised his arms to fight off the darkness with beams of light from his palms. “Light-blinded fool…you think that works against me? I’ve mastered the shadows and the light. What have you mastered? The art of torturing innocent boys?”
The prince settled down to a fighting stance, glancing at the wall where Talis moaned and cried, gasping and fighting off the pain. The blades flew into the air and positioned themselves against Talis’s neck and heart. Mara’s pulse raced with fury, but she calmed herself, and sneaked towards the prince.
“Boy?—”
Mara leapt onto the man’s back, stretching her dagger around his neck, and made a cruel cut across the length. Blood bubbled and spurted from the wound, staining the silver robe, and Prince DeSabrian’s knees buckled, causing Mara to tumble to the floor. Princess Minoweth’s dagger pulsed green fury and eerie light fought against the blanch, blinding light shining from the broken body of the prince.
Why didn’t he resist me? Mara looked up at the wall where Talis once was tied and found nothing. No body, no blood, no ropes. Only a clean, white wall with a painting of a lonely ship fighting off immense waves in a windy storm. Where is Talis? Mara whipped around, searching the room, but found nothing but the triumphant face of Elder Relech staring down at the bloody mess of his father’s body.
“You tricked me into killing him!” Mara cried, dropping the bloody dagger onto the ground.
The old sorcerer ignored her as he bent down to pull the long, white hair away from the prince’s face. An expression of fright was sealed in the man’s eyes. Mara hated herself for what she’d done. How could she have been fooled like this? It was all too easy; the setup too smooth. Elder Relech had known every bit about Manor Top: it was his old home and he’d returned for vengeance.
“Where is Talis?” Mara screamed, and leaned over to retrieve the dagger. She looked at the sorcerer now with bloodlust, not caring for anything but to find out what had happened to Talis.
&nb
sp; Elder Relech lifted his eyes and studied Mara, concern and puzzlement creasing the wrinkles around his eyes. His voice was low, thoughtful, and perhaps a hint of melancholy.
“The boy, your friend? Yes, where is he?” He glanced around the room, at the wall, and up to the ceiling. “You killed my father…and his magic died with him. The illusion died with his death. Ah, but the memory still lingers on these walls.”
A leathery finger traced the air, aiming at the wall where Talis once was tied up. As if whispers in the wind, the wall shimmered a hazy, radiant gray light, echoes of the scene that Mara had once seen. Mara’s breath locked in her chest as she gaped at the vision: the pain, the torture, the blood—Talis’s blood. Was the vision real or just an illusion? Was it a memory of something real or a fabrication? She found her arms trembling like blown branches beaten in a storm. This was all too much, too intense, too filled with sadness. Talis was gone.
“My father was a trickster…the worst kind. He would play off the fears in his enemies’ minds. He’d discover what you loved, what you cherished, what you couldn’t stand losing. And he was a master of illusion, he could weave a web of a whole world. Once he convinced an enemy army that they’d won the battle, that all the soldiers they’d fought were dead, slain by magic. When the army came close they cheered and raised their weapons, only to be impaled by our spearmen. My father, the master illusionist, the slayer of shadows, the father of lies.”
“So does that mean Talis is still alive? Your father was just playing off my fears?” Mara noticed she’d forgotten to breath normally and she inhaled a huge gulp of air.
“I don’t know.” Each word the sorcerer spoke was slow and deliberate, as if he was pushing away Mara’s questions with each exclamation. “I came here to question him. I didn’t realize your blade would invoke death so quickly. It’s impossible really, it shouldn’t have happened. That dagger of yours is too powerful, too dangerous, too swift in meting out death. Keep it away from me.”
Dragon Mage (Blacklight Chronicles) Page 7
