“What has the witch done to turn you?” Selikk asked. “You were so eager to become one with our group.”
“She has not seduced me. She has done nothing but open my eyes.”
Selikk charged, and the two exchanged another flurry of sword blows. Then, they locked swords and pressed against one another. Selikk looked into Halmir’s eyes, and saw something in their reflection. He saw Vye sneaking up on him.
Immediately, Selikk backed away and flung his hand out. A plank of wood, recently a part of the carriage, went spinning toward Lady Vye.
Vye didn’t have time to think, but her reflexes did better than her brain could have managed. She held her hand out and swung it around, as though swatting a very slow fly. The plank of wood circled around her, orbiting like the moon to her body, and then shot back at Selikk.
It sliced him across the face, severing one of his ears.
Halmir took that moment to chop at Selikk’s arm, slicing off his right hand. His fist fell to the ground, still holding his sword.
Selikk unleashed his magical will against Halmir with his left hand. It wasn’t much, given his current state. And it wasn’t refined or organized. It was just his rage, channeled into magic, and shot forward at his Turn brother. Halmir braced himself, but still, the impact shot him sliding along the ground ten paces before he stopped.
But now Selikk was defenseless. And that’s when Vye charged in.
Vye thrust her sword through his heart. Selikk fell to his knees. Vye put her boot on his shoulder and leveraged her sword out. He was dead, but Vye didn’t like to take chances. She grabbed a clump of his hair, holding his head up, and sliced his neck wide open.
Selikk fell lifeless to the ground.
Halmir returned to the fight, sword drawn and ready, and looked at his fallen comrade. For half a minute, Halmir and Vye just stood there, panting, spent, exhausted. Then, something occurred to Vye.
“The Prince!”
“It is too late for the Prince,” Halmir said. “We must go.”
“Go where?”
“Into cover,” Halmir said, then grabbed Vye’s hand and ran north, into the woods.
Book 4
Realms Uncharted
Chapter 42: Memory of Betrayal
“Quickly, come with me!” Halmir called. Vye followed him deeper into the Eliowode, about half a mile east of where Prince Anthony had just died.
“What’s going on?” Vye called, keeping in step with Halmir. “Where are we going?”
“Listen, it’s going to happen very soon,” Halmir said. “Argos is going to discover that Selikk is dead, and then he’s going to check everyone. He’s going to check my memory.”
“I don’t understand,” Vye said.
“Listen, it’s what I was saying before. He can read my memories. Not my thoughts, but just as though he had been watching and listening to everything I did all day. He will begin as soon as he knows that Selikk is dead.”
“So... What happens then?”
“So, if I betrayed him, he’s going to consider me a threat. And then he’s going to find me. I have to keep him out of my mind tonight.”
“How?”
“I resist, with my own magic.”
“Can you do that?”
“No. Yes. Not tonight. I’m too tired. Our ability to do magic, it comes from life energy. Trees, animals... I replenish my strength fastest in the woods. But I’ve been in your stone prison for more than a week. You’re going to have to help me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You can use our magic. Or at least resist it. And you have proven to have a vast reserve. Your mind is very strong. I need you to fight him off, until I can gain my strength.”
“Won’t he know you’ve betrayed him if you resist?”
“Not if I make it look like you’re blocking him. We’re going to have you cast the spell.”
“Let’s just let him come. We’re not defenseless.”
“We can’t fight him. He’s too good. You’re not ready.”
“But--”
“No, listen! We have to--”
Halmir seized up, grabbing his head with both hands, falling to his knees.
“AAHHGG!! It’s starting! Quickly, grab my hands!”
“What do I do?”
“Just grab my hands!”
Vye knelt beside him and grabbed his hands. Halmir opened his eyes, but his brows betrayed his pain.
“Put your hands on my temples!”
“I don’t--”
“Do it!”
She did. And her heart jumped. She couldn’t breath. It was as though she had contracted a fever in mere seconds. She yanked her hands away like she had touched a hot stove.
“What the hell was that?”
“That’s him. That’s Argos.” Halmir murmured through blinding pain. He grabbed her wrists and put them back on his temple.
“Listen to my voice!” Halmir said. “Listen to me talking. Vye, Vye, breathe, quickly, take a breath.”
Vye inhaled. The tension eased, but she couldn’t relax. Her body shook, the fever burning through her head, torso, arms...
She could see a pair of eyes. Not Halmir’s eyes. She wasn’t looking at Halmir. Her eyes were shut. But she could see the piercing gaze coming from across the continent. Pupils of blue fire, searing through Halmir’s mind, searching...
Searching...
“Breathe, Vye, breathe.”
Vye took another breath. She managed to keep her hands on Halmir temple, even though her fingers were begging her to pull them back.
Through her closed eyes, a memory came into focus. It was the road, just south of the Eliowode. It was the march. The one that had just ended. But it wasn’t Vye’s memory. It was Halmir’s. She was watching the march from his point of view.
She shook her head, as though that would disrupt the image. It did, but only because her adversary wasn’t expecting any opposition. The vision, the memory of the march faded. The sounds faded to silence. Her mind was a blank.
Except she could see the eyes again. Argos’ eyes. The blue flame of his second sight.
“Vye, take a breath and…could you please loosen your hands a little.”
“Sorry,” Vye said, realizing she had externalized her fear onto Halmir’s temples, “This is very difficult.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“Good, because I don’t know how much more--”
Then Argos was back, stronger than before. He was sending jolts of pure energy through her hands and down her arms. Her heart tightened. Her eyes snapped open.
“Breathe!”
Vye hadn’t realized she was holding her breath. She inhaled, letting the cool air remind her of what cool was. She closed her eyes again and furrowed her brow. She concentrated. The energy was vast, and strong, but it was far away, and it was trying to do something very difficult. Vye couldn’t compete with this power, but she could interfere with its hold on Halmir’s mind.
Again came the image of the march, of where Halmir had been moments after the last time Argos had read his memories. But the image was clearer to Vye, and she could feel the wind on her face as though she was there.
“Don’t just tag along,” she heard Halmir say. “If you let yourself go, you’ll just watch the memory with him. You’ve got to fight it!”
She screamed. Not with her body, but inside Halmir’s memory. Her scream echoed not only in her mind’s ear, but also seemed to cause waves within the image itself. A great mist came over the march, and eventually, the scene was blurred out in white.
Vye felt hands on her wrists, and then realized that those were her wrists, and that they were Halmir’s hands. He pulled her hands off his temples as she opened her eyes.
“Ok, very good, very good, we’re almost there,” Halmir said. “He’s going to try one more thing before he gives up. Now, this one is going to be tough, so I need AAGGHH!!!!”
Vye immediately put her hands on his temples. She knew wha
t to do. She went straight for the memory, but while she was holding Halmir’s temples, she felt energy firing across her arms, right to her heart and lungs.
“What’s he doing?”
“He knows you’re here,” Halmir said. “Breathe!”
Vye took a breath, but there was no relief this time. Her body was feeling limp.
She saw the carriage, the march, and this time she was there, in it. It wasn’t a painting of the march, nor a memory. Every sense and instinct told her she was there, in Halmir’s place, on the march. She could feel his restraints on her limbs. The wind on her neck. The jostling of the carriage over the uneven cobble roads.
Then she felt a sharp stabbing pain in her heart, but the image didn’t get any weaker. It just kept getting more painful.
“He’s attacking you directly now!” Halmir yelled. “Fight him off. He’s too far away, you can do it!”
Vye mustered her concentration and her energy and blasted forward with her mind. She attacked the image with all the pain she was feeling, and it blurred out quickly and died.
But the pain stayed there. She felt her real body, as it collapsed and fell sideways. Halmir grabbed her, hugged her, and fell sideways with her. She became fetal.
“Just a little longer, Vye!”
Halmir put his forehead to her forehead. Vye’s body was both too hot and shivering. She saw the image come up again. She yelled. She cried. It stopped, then came back again, her heart getting shocked at the same time. It was almost too much.
“Listen to my voice,” Halmir said, “We’re still both right here. Don’t believe where you are. Believe my voice.”
Vye was going into convulsions, but the image was staying blurred, and the sounds were like echoes in a deep mountain range.
Then Vye felt a hand on her bosom, right on her clavicle. And her heart started beating normally, and she screamed, not in agony this time, but in fierce determination. The image of the march blanked out and suddenly, everything was quiet.
“Vye,” she heard Halmir say, from only inches away, “Breathe, please.”
Vye took in a breath. The air was soothing. Cool. Her head spun.
“Did we make it?” she said.
“Yes,” Halmir said, “Mostly.”
“Good,” she said, before passing out. This magic shit was tiring.
Chapter 43: A History of Drentar
The Leaking Tub landed on the shore of the Island of Drentar. The only extant above-sea-level entrance into the Caves of Drentar.
It is hard to explain the Caves of Drentar. Simply mentioning that it is the deadliest subterranean geological structure in the world doesn’t really do it justice. The Caves have a rich and complicated history, geography, geology, ecology, petrology, and political structure. Inasmuch as Caves have political structures. Well, anyway, it’s really hard to wrap your head around them.
At the most basic level, the Caves are an interconnecting series of cylindrical tunnels that swoop around below the Island of Drentar. They move about in an unpredictable pattern, intersecting at odd angles and changing depth seemingly at random. It was as though fifty-foot-long worms had dug a series of caves for themselves, having a whimsical sense of direction and no appreciation for the difficulties of cartography.
This was, in fact, what had happened. A race of super-intelligent, fifty-foot worms had evolved in this part of the world. And, being worms, they dug themselves some tunnels. They were called the Platonic Worms, and though they eventually became extinct, their legacy lived on in the Caves of Drentar.
Their extinction can be traced to the intrepid explorer, Harry Nibwinder. He bravely led his expedition into the Platonic’s tunnels and was unceremoniously devoured. This was unfortunate for two reasons: First, it gave the Worm indigestion because Harry had not enjoyed a high fiber diet. Second, Harry Nibwinder was the younger brother of King Nibwinder, who ruled a small island Kingdom in the Khiransi Sea.
King Nibwinder, hearing of the untimely and malnutritious end of his brother, declared that the Platonic Worms were evil, and offered a bounty of fifty Nibwins to anyone who brought a carcass of a Platonic Worm back to the Kingdom. So now there were a lot of explorers in the Caves of Drentar.
One of those explorers came across a valuable amethyst gem. He didn’t know that Harry Nibwinder had dropped it shortly before his last lunchtime. This explorer theorized, for no good reason, really, that the Platonics excreted these precious gems. So began the great Amethyst Rush of Drentar.
So there was a lot of traffic at the Caves. Nibwin hunters, Khiransi miners, naturalists from the Towers of Seneca. A diverse, impromptu township sprung up, the people trading and learning the art of subterranean farming. They even incorporated the village, naming it after its first Mayor, Drentar. They created a Charter, not dissimilar to the King James Standard. Supply routes formed, making the Village of Drentar a regular stop.
At about the same time, a group of pirates under the command of Scratchy the Nine-Fingered Pirate Captain came into prominence. Hearing that Drentar was becoming quite the hub of supplies, Scratchy raided the Island on a regular schedule. Drentar, not having unearthed a treasure of valuable gems, had to borrow money from some very shady merchants at a very unreasonable rate, just to hire mercenaries to protect their semi-subterranean village.
But Scratchy proved to be the superior tactician, defeating the mercenaries with ease. So Drentar was now broke and defenseless. The citizens fled deeper into the caves than they had ever gone before. Far from the comforts of their town. Past the dark corners where the Platonics used to live. Deep, deep into the strange world below...
And that’s when they found the other caves.
As it turned out, there had been an archeological dig in the area to find the thirty-seven pieces of the Idol of Kalik, an artifact that had shattered during an ancient battle on the very same island. This archeologist, a student from the Towers of Seneca, knew the pieces of the Idol were somewhere on the Island of Drentar. He had brought more than fifty diggers to the site to excavate the relic.
The excavation went on for years, creating another set of tunnels that moved in unpredictable patterns through the rocks and shale of Drentar Island. The excavation had set up living quarters, supply posts, even tracks, as they dug up thirty-four pieces of the Idol. The Scholar used clay to fake the rest and returned home victorious.
Although the Scholar and his diggers were gone, a nest of poisonous vipers had taken up residence in the tunnels. So when the citizens of Drentar village, fleeing from the Pirates, ran into these caves, many were killed by the venomous critters.
It turned out they were running for nothing. Scratchy and his pirates, finding the Village of Drentar abandoned, decided to settle in. They had been at sea for quite some time, making a name for themselves. This comfortable little hamlet was a nice place to rest. And since supply ships kept showing up, and since the pirates had a lot of looted gold on their hands, they took up residence in Drentar.
But, the unsavory merchants who had lent Drentar the money to fight Scratchy didn’t like that they hadn’t been paid back. So they sent a massive army to collect the debt, and mistook Scratchy and his band for the overdue miners.
So now Scratchy and his band of pirates were the ones fleeing underground. The merchant army chased them for a short while, but eventually settled for all of their unattended gold, ale, and prostitutes as payment enough, and left. The pirates, unaware of this development, delved deeper.
It was then that the pirates found the other caves.
No, they didn’t find the caves of the excavation of the Idol of Kalik; they found an entirely new set of tunnels. These tunnels were the halls of the Castle Zenith. It had been designed to rest atop the highest peak in the tallest mountain range in the world, but some geological shifts in the region had sunk the entire structure to the bottom of the ocean.
After that, things get much more complicated.
“I’ve heard a lot of stories about this place,” T
hor said, standing before the circular opening in the stone.
“Half of them are true,” Jareld said.
“Which half?” Thor said.
“The less believable half.”
“Shall we go in?” Thor asked.
“Aye,” Corthos said, “The map be clear on that at least.”
Chapter 44: Homecoming
Michael received a hero’s welcome upon his return to Hartstone. A lot of things had gone wrong since the first day of summer, but the Count’s miraculous survival gave everyone a reason to be grateful.
Just inside the gate, dozens of Lords and Nobles waited, cheering as Michael stepped out of his carriage and waved to them. Sarah stepped forward to greet him.
“Michael,” she said, “It’s good to see you on your feet.”
“It’s good to be on my feet.”
“Come in, come in,” Sarah said, “Landos and I have a small feast waiting for you.”
“Good, because I haven’t eaten for a week.”
Michael took her hand, waving the procession into the Castle. Once the chatter of the crowd was loud enough, he leaned in close to Sarah, to whisper to her.
“Sarah,” he said, “Did you come out to the woods? Did you come and see me?”
Sarah blushed, “Yes.”
“I remember you being there.”
“Oh, you couldn’t possibly,” Sarah said. “You didn’t wake up for another two days.”
“No,” Michael said, “I remember you being there, but like from a dream. I remember hearing your voice.” Then he said, even more quietly, “I think I remember you crying.”
Sarah avoided Michael’s eyes.
“I was there. And, yes, I cried. You would have, too, if someone you loved were so badly hurt. I wasn’t sure you were alive until I heard your heartbeat.”
Michael pulled her close.
“I remember you, when I was out there. I was cold and alone, and I heard your voice. And I’m telling you, I wouldn’t have made it out alive without you at my side.”
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