Halls of Power (Ancient Dreams Book 3)

by Benjamin Medrano

  At the thought of her, the Captain’s eyes were drawn toward the center of the army, where the Queen glittered in her gold-washed armor, banners at her sides as she waited on horseback. The last few formations were falling into order, and as he watched, the signal horns sounded and the Queen spoke, her voice echoing via magic so the entire army could hear her.

  “Soldiers of Yisara, today we depart to face the warriors of Kelvanis in their stolen lands! For too long they have driven us from our lands, raided our homes, and enslaved our people. Even my predecessor and mother were forced into slavery by their raids, and the time has come for this to end!” Beryl’s voice rang out, filled with conviction. “I cannot promise victory, but Kelvanis is assailed on two fronts and is facing strife from within its own borders. Uprisings within Kelvanis’ territory are slowing the responses of its soldiers, and they face the warriors of Sifaren and the newly established city-state of Beacon, who have rescued my mother from captivity and brought us news of dangerous developments. If we are to have any chance of success, we must strike now, with both speed and strength.”

  Her words filled Arthan with hesitation and worry, but his back straightened as she continued over the whispers of concern from the army as a whole. “I know some of you may worry that this is a fool’s errand, but I will not lie to you. If we do not do this, our nation will die instead, or be turned into a hollow shell of itself as our people are enslaved by the nation of Kelvanis, and our very souls forfeit to a demon lord. I would rather die in battle than suffer such a fate, or allow those innocents we protect to be touched. So, I ask all of you to join me in this. Join me as we send Kelvanis’ corrupt rulers to their damnation!”

  With her final words she thrust her sword into the air, and from the blade a bolt of golden lightning lanced thirty feet into the sky. With her words, the first cheer began, and it quickly grew, spreading through the army. The confidence in her voice and manner were inspirational, and Arthan’s hesitation vanished. She was right, after all. Death at Kelvanis’ hands would have been one thing, but the enslavement of their souls to demons? That was too much. Better to die fighting, but better yet to defeat Kelvanis and live!

  For a minute the cheers continued, almost shaking the field of battle, but finally the Queen swept her sword forward. “Forward, then! And damnation to Kelvanis!”

  The roar of agreement might have warned Kelvanis that they were coming, but Arthan couldn’t bring himself to care. Instead he gestured his people forward, grinning broadly as he called out, “You heard Her Majesty! Let’s show Kelvanis what Yisara really can do!”

  Without further delay, the army began its march forward, and Arthan directed his column into position, his spirits brighter for the first time in too long.

  Chapter 38

  Everything was going wrong at the same time. Ulvian could hardly believe how badly things were going in some cases, especially as he watched the fires raging through the dockyard in the distance. Ships were highly flammable to begin with, and when multiple fires were set deliberately, the docks had gone up like a bonfire. Despite the clear skies, the magi had a rainstorm trying to slow the fire’s spread, even as the city guard tried to quench the flames.

  “What about the rebels, Major? Did you manage to catch any of them?” the Archon asked, turning away from the distant fires and smoke to look at the swarthy-skinned man, who looked tired.

  “Most of the rebels had gone into hiding before the fires really got going, so there were only a handful to begin with, sir. Of them, two were killed, three escaped, and one committed suicide before we could catch him. I did have my soldiers take the deceased to Tyria’s temple to be revived, but unfortunately their souls refused to return to their bodies,” the man explained, taking a deep breath before continuing. “We’ve announced a ten-crown reward for any information about the rebels, so I hope to get something for you soon, but I’m afraid I don’t have anything at the moment, Your Excellency.”

  “Damn.” Ulvian shook his head, smiling at the man as he blanched. “Oh, I don’t blame you, Major. With everything that’s been going on, I’m not surprised that the rebels finally emerged from the woodwork. While I admit that it’s frustrating, I’m not going to blame you unless you’ve obviously screwed up egregiously. You haven’t, have you?”

  “Err, not that I know of, Your Excellency!” the man replied, looking more relieved.

  “Good, you have nothing to worry about, then. Why don’t you go get yourself something to eat? You look famished, and I’m sure you’ve got plenty of things to do,” Ulvian told the man, smiling as the man saluted, then left the balcony.

  Turning back to look at the fire, Ulvian pondered a moment, then sighed and began to murmur a spell of his own, his fingers flicking precisely through the gestures it needed. The spell took a good deal of mana, certainly, but he figured that it was far more important to put out the fire now, rather than letting it rage for hours. As his spell flickered to life, the sky darkened and clouds coalesced above the docks. Less than five minutes after he cast, the clouds began to drop an incredibly dense, pounding deluge of rain. The flames began to sputter and die, and Ulvian grunted softly, canceling the spell a minute after the last fires he could see vanished. The other magi could deal with the problem from there.

  “I’m surprised to see you putting out fires, Ulvian. I rather thought you were more likely to start them.” A voice spoke from behind the Archon, and Ulvian turned, raising an eyebrow at Kevin.

  “Mister Sailor! This is something of a surprise. I haven’t heard a word from you since your people failed at their job,” the Archon told the assassin, his eyes narrowing. “To what do I owe the visit? Obviously you haven’t taken a job to try to assassinate me, considering that you didn’t attack me.”

  “Oh no, I’m not that suicidal, Ulvian. I did hear what happened in the attempt in Westgate, and I’m not quite ready to die just yet. On the other hand, I told you that my guild didn’t specialize in dungeons. Why, one of my people was even captured by your damned adventuring guild,” Kevin Sailor replied with a lazy smile, moving to the edge of the balcony and leaning against it.

  “They’re not my adventuring guild. I left the Guild over sixty years ago,” Ulvian replied, relaxing slightly. Thinking of the dungeon, he barely suppressed a frown as he thought about his former prisoners. The two women had died hard, and in the end for relatively little. Neither had known much, even as Irethiel’s servants had wrung them dry. He shook the thought off and focused on his guest instead. “As for them… well, I gave them everything I could to get them in and out. I know you warned them how dangerous the job was, too. It isn’t my fault they failed.”

  “No, it isn’t your fault. That’s the only reason I didn’t have words with you after I lost four of my best men and women,” Kevin replied, his smile vanishing as he looked out on the city. For a moment he didn’t say anything, but when he did, his voice was serious. “Your rulership seems to be coming apart at the seams, Ulvian. The council wants me to cut ties with you.”

  “That sounds like a drastic measure. It’s also unwise, from my perspective,” Ulvian replied, his heartbeat quickening. Losing the support of the assassins wouldn’t have much of an immediate impact, but in the long term it could be disastrous. A moment later he asked, “Is there a particular reason why?”

  “That information is for sale, at the usual rate,” the assassin leader told Ulvian with a smirk.

  “I’ll pay it. You knew that before you even got here, Kevin, so why don’t you just spit it out?” the Archon told the assassin with a sigh, shaking his head. “It’s been a bad month so far, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t beat around the bush.”

  “Fair enough, remember, you asked.” Kevin’s smile vanished as he continued. “We have reports that both Alcast and Morak are seriously considering allying with Sifaren, which will add two fronts to your war, even if Alcast doesn’t count for much. Word also has it that Yisara has hired at least a battalion of mercenaries from Si
rshif in addition to declaring war on you, so that’s another mess. Considering—”

  “What? What are you talking about?” Ulvian interjected, standing bolt upright and staring at Kevin.

  “Which part?” Kevin asked curiously.

  “Yisara declaring war! I haven’t received any declaration of war!” Ulvian retorted, thoughts racing. “There’s no way in all the gods they’d go to war without a formal declaration, not with both our nations under a Fate-Binding!”

  “I have no idea what rock you’re living under, Ulvian, but I have word that your messenger corps brought official word of their declaration last night. It should have been delivered directly to your High Adjudicator,” Kevin replied, frowning heavily at Ulvian.

  “I haven’t heard a damned thing from Marden this morning, not with the fire out there!” the Archon replied, but then his eyes narrowed, and he hissed. “Gods damn it all! The docks were just a distraction!”

  Without another word, he turned and nearly ran for the guard room, even as Kevin called after him. “Good luck, Ulvian! You know where to send the payment!”

  At first glance, the High Adjudicator’s home looked perfectly serene and normal. The manor grounds were well trimmed, the wall around it in good repair, and the iron gates were firmly in place. The problem was that there were no guards in sight, or anyone else for that matter. The gates were locked, but Ulvian’s escort had spare keys. He waited impatiently as they unlocked the gate and rushed onto the grounds.

  The smell of death was waiting for them as they approached the front doors, and one of the guards swore under her breath as she shoved the branches of a bush to the side to reveal the corpses of two guards. The doors weren’t damaged, which made Ulvian’s mood sour still more. That meant that whoever did this either managed to infiltrate all the way into Marden’s home or they’d been a traitor.

  Blood and bodies covered the floor as the Archon and his guards made their way inside, a handful of his people scouting ahead. All the bodies were of Kelvanis guards or slaves, he noticed grimly, not those of outsiders, and the faces of several were frozen in expressions of surprise.

  “Sir, bad news. The High Adjudicator…” One of the men who’d been scouting ahead paused, his face pale as he took a deep breath and shook his head.

  “I’m not surprised. Whoever did this was too thorough to accidentally leave him alive, unless it had been as a message,” Ulvian acknowledged, taking a deep breath as he stepped over and around bodies, ignoring the elegantly plastered walls, and the blood that had sprayed them and the fine furnishings. “Let’s see him.”

  “Yes, sir!” The man saluted and led the way toward the High Adjudicator’s office. From the look of the blood, as well as the smell, Ulvian was grimly certain that this had happened hours earlier, or possibly even the previous night. That meant there was no chance of reviving Marden.

  Marden’s body was in his office, a small, normally well-organized room with a map of the country on the wall, a map which had been kept up to date with Kelvanis’ acquisitions over the years. The office had been ransacked, and the portly figure of the High Adjudicator lay on the ground, a sword inches from his hand and his skin pale in death. On the desk was a message tube, opened and with a letter unrolled. Something about the color of the paper felt off to Ulvian, though, and he frowned as he looked at it, then at his loyal subordinate in sorrow, his voice soft. “Ah, Marden… why did you get yourself killed? You should have called for help. No, no… they probably kept you from doing that.”

  Marden Valorous had always been far more focused on the comforts his position could bring than Ulvian was, and he had also been an extremely selfish person. The only advantage that had kept him in power was that he was both loyal and a skilled administrator, with an incredible memory for details. That he was so loyal was what had given him his position, and yet now Ulvian was going to have to replace the man. That was going to be… difficult.

  As one of the soldiers reached for the letter on the desk, Ulvian spoke quickly. “Don’t touch that! I’m fairly certain someone coated it in poison. The color of the paper’s off.”

  “R-right, sir,” the woman replied, her hand jerking back quickly.

  Sighing again, Ulvian quickly walked around the desk and scowled at the letter. It was beautifully written, but the text was irritating.

  Ulvian Sorvos, Usurper of Kelvanis,

  I’ve no doubt that you’re angry about the loss of one of your toadies. It’s only appropriate, considering how you murdered the royal family of Kelvanis and all those with a claim on the throne in your pursuit of power. How does it feel to have your own allies be the targets as they were? We may not have the ability to deal with you, Archon, but the time is coming when you will receive what is coming to you. We will make you die a death of a thousand cuts, no matter how long it may take. Wait for it, Usurper, for we are coming.

  “Arrogant bastards,” Ulvian said, eyes glittering with malice. With a gesture and word, the message tube upended itself, spilling out a number of papers on which he saw the official seal of Yisara, and he scowled more. “Well, dammit. Have someone come out here to clean this up and see if they can’t figure out who was behind the attack. It looks like the situation just got complicated.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Chapter 39

  “What in the hells is this damned thing anyway?” Darak gasped, setting down the large metal component, the dwarf pausing to wipe away the sweat from his forehead. Even with his earth spirit reinforcing his body, the dwarf had obviously had a hard time carrying the metal baseplate.

  They were on top of a portion of the wall of Beacon facing east, well away from the city gates. That gave Albert plenty of space from anything that might be critical, even if it did mean that getting his device onto the wall was more difficult.

  “Why do you ask, Darak? I’m paying you either way, aren’t I?” Albert asked, grinning as he set down a small crate of components for the device.

  “I’m asking because I didn’t expect to be carrying something damned near five hundred pounds!” the dwarf retorted. “You aren’t going to ask me to carry the damned steam engine up here, are you?”

  “Of course not! That’s far too big for the stairwell,” Albert quickly replied, shaking his head and looking at the equipment. “Just a few more pieces of it…”

  “Guildmaster, seriously, what is this? You just asked for some help carrying things, and it’s one of our days off from the dungeon,” Darak asked, frowning at the handful of pieces in view.

  “I suppose I can’t blame you for asking,” Albert admitted, looking over the items, then sighing. “If I’m being honest, this is something of an experiment, so I’ve been loath to talk about it.”

  The base of the device was a four-foot across, flat-topped pyramid of steel. While the exterior looked plain, the interior was an entirely different story. Dozens of thin plates engraved with runes to channel magic had been welded into place inside, and connected to the central shaft as carefully as Albert had been able to manage. The only other visible pieces were a shaft like one that allowed a crane to turn, itself covered in intricate gold and silver runes, which was topped by a clamp designed to hold the shaft at a mostly horizontal angle. Another screw allowed the angle of the clamp to be changed, which had made the runes an absolute nightmare, but Albert was proud of the end result.

  “Oh? Why so?” Darak asked, resting against the wall as he caught his breath.

  “Mostly because the damned thing might not work. I caught wind of a magical weapon during a conversation with the Queen and Sistina, and I worked out a trade, the basic designs of aetheric condensers for the base enchantments of the weapon, something called a Siegebreaker Array,” Albert explained, and shook his head. “I always thought that while the ancients had some interesting enchantments, that when it came to sheer complexity of spells they weren’t anywhere near us artificers, and in some ways that’s true. In others, like in this, they went far beyond what I thought could
be done with their form of enchanting. I don’t know if this’ll even work.”

  “Huh. That sounds… odd. And the name of it is worrisome. Why are you suspicious it won’t work?” Darak murmured, straightening and looking at it with a frown.

  “Because since it’s that complicated, it’s even more complex to create a device that can do the same thing. I give it about seventy percent odds that something in this explodes. Probably fifty percent that it doesn’t even manage to fire.” Albert sighed heavily. “If it doesn’t work, it’ll be depressing, considering that I’ve spent a couple of weeks on it so far.”

  “Huh. Now I kind of want to see this experiment,” the dwarf replied, grinning. “And hey, if it doesn’t blow up in your face, at least it’ll be a good show.”

  “First we have to get all the pieces up here. Don’t worry, we already got the worst of them,” Albert told Darak, grinning as the dwarf made a face.

  “Fine, fine…” Darak muttered, heading back toward the stairwell.

  As Albert and Darak were setting up Albert’s device, Sistina was putting the finishing touches on her own project, a conversion of the aetheric condensers that Albert had shown her.

  While the devices were fascinating in their own right, Sistina couldn’t help but think that they were named badly. They didn’t condense the aether, instead simply absorbing mana that had been generated by elemental disturbances. The problem she saw was that the way the artificers had designed their spell-forms, it made the condensers highly vulnerable to overloading if the mana in a region was too potent. While it might not be apparent to others, it was readily apparent to her own senses as a dungeon.