by S. M. Boyce
At the end of the hall, the darkness began to morph. Bit by bit, the rocks shifted and piled onto each other as if lifted by invisible hands. Diesel and Fyrn stepped back, staffs raised, and Audrey realized with a sudden rush of panic that neither of them were controlling this.
Not sure what else to do, Audrey drew her sword and charged it with the white energy of the crystal in the tight grip of her free hand. Victoria summoned the gleaming magical blade of her Rhazdon Artifact and aimed it toward the self-piling rocks. Together, they flanked the two wizards and prepared for whatever came next.
At least, Audrey thought she had been prepared.
The rocks formed the rough shape of a man twice their height, and thick arms hung at its side as more rocks formed a head. The boulders clung together seemingly by sheer will, and Audrey could see the light of the cave behind the creature through gaps in its biceps and thighs where tendon and bone should have been.
“What the fuck is that?” Victoria screamed.
Audrey nodded, shock and disbelief locking her mouth even though she wanted nothing more than to voice a similar sentiment.
“A golem! Get back!” Diesel shouted.
“Damn it all!” Fyrn aimed his staff at the creature and fired just as the head finished forming. Two red eyes popped open and glared at them.
The burst of light from Fyrn’s staff burned a hole through the creature’s forehead, but instead of falling to the ground dead as any normal being would, it merely screamed as though Fyrn had pissed it off.
“Fyrn, how do we kill it?” Victoria yelled.
The monster charged, and all four dodged out of the way. Audrey barely managed to roll out of reach as it grabbed for her. Its massive rocky fist sailed toward her head, and she ducked once more. It roared, the billowing sound shaking her to the bone, but she held her ground when it attacked again.
Victoria jumped between Audrey and the creature, which never took its eyes off Audrey. It seemed to watch her every step, every swing of her sword, every bend of her knees. It was as though only she and the golem were in the cave.
Great, an admirer, she thought.
It screamed again and charged for her. She ducked, rolling out of the way while its hand closed in the space where her head had been only a second prior. They needed a plan, but Audrey had no idea how to destroy this thing.
“Fyrn! Plan?” Victoria shouted.
“Remove its heart!” the old wizard replied, shooting another beam toward the monster’s chest. It burst through the rock, leaving a baseball-sized hole in the monster. A dim red glow radiated from within, made more prominent by the dark cave.
The golem swung a hulking fist at Audrey, but Victoria dove for the creature and took the brunt of the blow. She gritted her teeth, no doubt biting back the pain of absorbing such a strike, and Audrey couldn’t help but be grateful for her friend’s innate healing ability.
With every ounce of her strength, Victoria clung to the beast’s arm. It threw her over its head, and she sailed into the air. Her hair hovered around her face, and she fell as though she were submerged in water. For a moment time seemed to stop.
Audrey couldn’t tell at first what Victoria’s plan was, but as gravity pulled her back to the ground she lifted her sword and swung at the monster’s shoulder. The golem’s arm was sheered clean off and shattered on the floor.
The creature screamed. Victoria landed on her feet just as the other arm sailed over her head then dropped, rolling until she was out of reach.
“Victoria, be careful!” Diesel shouted.
“Well, the goal is to not die, so duh!” she yelled back.
The golem returned its attention to Audrey and charged her like a one-armed gorilla, which would have been hilarious in almost any other circumstance.
Audrey spun out of the way and lifted her sword to take off the creature’s other arm. Before she could, two brilliant bursts of light tore through the creature’s torso.
Audrey spun on her heel to see the two wizards’ faces set in grim determination while they stared down the beast like a scraggly father and son duo.
Although riddled with holes—none of which were Audrey’s doing—the golem never took its eyes from her. It reached for her with its remaining massive hand, which she was pretty sure would crush her face.
“Enough!” Audrey was done with this monster and its fixation on her. Pissed off and ready to kill, she tightened her grip on the crystal she still held. A bolt of brilliant white light burst from her hand, aimed for the red glow in the golem’s chest.
As it hit, the white light of her Atlantean magic morphed and twisted into something else. The pure white brilliance bled into the dark red glow, and seconds later they heard the fragile crunch of shattering glass. The monster stilled as though it had run out of batteries. The red glow in its eyes faded, and the remaining rocks that had once comprised its body almost deafened them as they clattered to the ground in a heap.
Still on one knee with the other leg braced for balance, Audrey didn’t move. She suspected that thing would move again any moment now, and she wasn’t going to be caught off-guard.
“Audrey,” Victoria said softly from beside her.
Audrey started and fell on her ass, eyes wide with nerves as she stared at her friend. Victoria watched her with concern on her face, but thankfully said nothing further.
Faced with four powerful foes, the golem had focused on Audrey. Even though the rest had tried to kill it, its only intent had been to kill her.
“Any injuries?” Fyrn asked, eyes on Audrey.
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Fyrn nodded, apparently not bothered by the golem’s appearance, and continued down the now-cleared tunnel as though nothing had happened. Audrey pushed herself to her feet, dusting off her pants as she muttered absently to herself.
“Damn wizards.”
Chapter 11
In the royal master suite, nestled in the centermost tower of the Fairhaven castle, Luak set his feet on a grand dining table. The collection of rooms and hallways the king had occupied alone comprised over ten thousand square feet and included a waterfall, sauna, a master kitchen, and several bedrooms—all of which now belonged to Luak. The suite had been his for several weeks, and even though he wasn’t officially king, he liked the way a royal could live.
He drank from a goblet carved from the same crystals used to make denni, which hummed with power every time his lips touched its rim. It only gave him the smallest boost, but the sips added up quickly. He all but gloated with joy and pride, sitting above the peasants as he reveled in riches and excess.
It was good to be the king.
Someone knocked on his door and interrupted his jubilation, the fist heavy and hard against the wood.
Cautious in these times of changing power, Luak slunk silently to the door and peered through a strategically hidden gap in the stone to the side of the door. He himself had gotten the king to open the magically sealed door on the pretense of a group of soldiers delivering a message, and had dragged him out. The soldiers were all loyal to Luak, of course, and the message had been that the king would be escorted to the dungeons.
Luak wouldn’t fall for the same trick that had ended the previous reign.
Instead of a small army to whisk him away, he saw one of his higher-ranking mercenaries. The Light Elf had his hands on his knees as he gasped for air, but this was a seasoned warrior who wouldn’t be fazed by a trip up the stairs. He had apparently run all this way. Whatever this was about, it was urgent.
Luak opened the door without a word, sword drawn to reinforce the image of an imposing king. These mercenaries needed to respect him, always and forever. No signs of weakness, only unbridled power with a penchant for murder instead of mercy.
They would only respect what they feared, which was just the way he liked it.
“Lord Luak, the Rhazdon host has left the city.”
Luak nearly backhanded the man for letting her out of the city, but
waited long enough to get more information first. “How did she escape? Why wasn’t she stopped?”
“I was patrolling the south tunnels with another soldier, sir, since you requested we split our numbers to cover more ground. When I saw them, I sent my patrol partner to tell you while I trailed them to find out where they were going. I found his remains on the way back. Apparently there’s another snarx in the tunnels, sir. It got him before he could get to you.”
As expected, the mercenary didn’t show a shred of emotion at losing a comrade. These elves and ogres were interchangeable, and barely knew each other. They were loyal only to whoever paid them, and they had few, if any, friends.
It was yet another reason Luak enjoyed commanding a mercenary army—they were easy to replace.
Soon he would enlist the citizens of Fairhaven into his army, but that would have to wait until he had more deep-rooted power in the city. When they had no means to defend themselves, he would draft them to fight and die for him whether they wanted to or not.
“Where did she go?” Luak finally asked.
“I was able to listen in on snippets of their conversation, but Fyrn Folly and Diesel Armstrong are powerful. I didn’t dare take them on myself.”
Ah, so that was where Diesel had gone. Disappointing, since Luak had wanted to see if Diesel would join him. The young wizard was powerful and, according to rumors, easily swayed by women. Apparently those rumors were true. Now, the boy would have to die for supporting Victoria instead of Luak.
“I only heard they were going to Sedona,” the mercenary continued.
As much as he hated to admit it, a pang of fear tore through Luak’s chest. Those fools. They would get Victoria killed in the network of tunnels beneath Montezuma’s Well, and Luak would lose his Rhazdon Artifact to the labyrinth. Only a desperate idiot would travel to the remnants of Lochrose.
He paced the expensive suite, hand in his hair as he debated his options. Perhaps it was his fault they had left. He had been too obvious in overthrowing the king, too blatant in the way he had kidnapped, tortured, and killed the senators and generals who needed to either join him or die. That was the downside of moving his plan forward—the subtle nuance of the original timeline was lost.
Still, he had what he wanted. Well, everything except Victoria Brie and her Rhazdon Artifact.
But there was little he could do. There were things even he dared not disturb.
Luak rubbed his temples, mind racing as he tried to adjust. He couldn’t simply forgo the Rhazdon Artifact in Victoria’s arm. He needed it desperately. It was vital to securing Fairhaven and destroying what little courage the citizens of this kemana might have left after he officially declared himself king.
When their precious hero was killed in front of them, no one would dare to voice dissent. With her execution, their hope would die.
“Find her,” Luak said darkly.
“Sir?”
“Go to Sedona. Find Lochrose. Capture her alive. Drug her, knock her out—I don’t care, as long as you drag her back here alive. I will give you and everyone in your party four years’ salary if you succeed.”
This caught the mercenary’s attention and he leaned forward, apparently hanging on Luak’s every word.
Luak paced the entry while he gave his orders. “Kill the rest if you have to, but I’ll give you another five thousand denni if you bring the other girl back alive as well. I want to kill them both myself.”
“But sir, Lochrose is a myth.”
“It’s quite real, or I wouldn’t order you to go, would I?” Luak’s eyes narrowed as he glared at the brazen mercenary. “Take ten of the best soldiers you have and travel undetected to Sedona. I will draft a map. Track the girl. Bring her back, or don’t return.”
The mercenary’s eyes widened, but he saluted and retreated without another word.
Luak could warn them of the traps and creatures in the caves, but they would probably desert him. They didn’t need to know what was down there waiting to kill them. He merely needed them to drag Victoria Brie to him, begging for her life.
And after even a few nights in the horrors of the Lochrose ruins, she would break. When she arrived on her knees in front of him, she would be begging for death.
Chapter 12
Lochrose went on forever.
It was astonishing that the route never seemed to change and the walls were always identical. Even stranger was the complete lack of time or any concept of how far they had traveled. It made Victoria uneasy, but she tried not to let it bother her.
She walked with Fyrn as Styx flitted overhead, wondering how to word what she wanted to say.
“Out with it,” her mentor said with an impatient sigh.
She frowned. “This Rhazdon Artifact you want us to find… Do you know who the ghost is? What powers are tied to it? How can I prepare? I feel like I’m walking in blind, and I don’t like that one bit.”
The old wizard’s staff tapped rhythmically with his steps. “I don’t know the ghost, no. There’s no written record of the soul tied to the Rhazdon Artifact we’re looking for, since it’s been lost for so long. However, it will give you the strength you need to fully utilize the other one.”
She lifted one thin eyebrow and stared him down, silently willing him to say more.
He shook his head. “That’s all you need to know.”
“Like hell it is. Every Rhazdon Artifact has three powers, and this one will be no different. It will give me physical strength, but what else can it do?”
Fyrn studied her with a harsh gaze, similar to the way her high school teachers had stared her down when she spoke out of turn during class. After a second, though, his expression softened. “You’re right. You’ll find out after fusing with it anyway. I suppose I was merely trying to protect you from becoming power-hungry like—”
“Like the others,” she finished for him.
She was the only known Rhazdon host who didn’t kill for sport or power. It befuddled the people around her, and though Fyrn trusted her, it was clear he worried about her.
Hell, Victoria was a little worried about herself.
She had a clear mission, and that drove her forward. Deep down, she suspected the other Rhazdon hosts didn’t have her focus or her friends, and that was what made her so successful. Her only goal was to protect Fairhaven. Well, and kill Luak along the way. Most Rhazdon hosts would have tried to usurp the throne by now.
But not her, and Fyrn knew it.
Fyrn studied the ground as if it were interesting, obviously letting his mind wander as he spoke. “What we are looking for is a small bear figurine carved of onyx, unassuming to any who don’t know its power. It grants its host incredible will in body, mind, and emotion.”
Victoria studied his face a moment, confused. “That cryptic wizard-speak may make sense to you, but to me…”
He huffed. “You will have immense physical strength, almost limitless emotional control, and enhanced intelligence. The world and everything in it will come easily to you.”
Ah. Thus his hesitation. “And you’re afraid the suddenly super-smart me is going to take over the world?”
“A little,” he admitted.
She laughed and waved away the thought. “I’m not going to turn evil, Fyrn. Besides, you’ll get a suite in the palace if I do.”
“Of course she won’t turn evil! It would break my heart, and she wouldn’t do that,” Diesel called from the back of the group.
Victoria didn’t roll her eyes. She laughed instead, surprising herself. Diesel’s annoyingness had at some point eroded her stubborn dislike of him. At least now he could entertain her a bit. Maybe the thought of losing him had allowed her to forgive his irritating advances.
A little. Just a little.
She cast a backward glance to find Audrey sulking, shoulders tense as she glared at the glimmering walls they were passing.
Victoria’s smile fell. “What’s wrong, Audrey?”
Audrey’s gaze shifted t
o Victoria without so much as another motion, the sudden movement not unlike watching a portrait’s eyes shift. Victoria nearly jumped in surprise, and Audrey seemed to notice she had done something wrong. “Sorry, V. This place gives me the creeps. And, well, that golem—”
“It’s dead and it’s not coming back, thanks to you,” Fyrn said without looking back.
“That was a compliment, in case you missed it,” Victoria said with a chuckle.
“Humph,” Fyrn said absently.
Audrey, though, didn’t crack even the smallest of smiles. “It was going after me.”
“It was willing to kill all of us, if you’ll recall.” Diesel chuckled.
Audrey shook her head. “It never took its eyes off me, except when Victoria cut its arm off.”
“She’s right,” Fyrn said without pausing in his steady gait.
“What? But why?” Victoria slowed until she was next to Audrey, ready to draw her sword if need be to protect her friend.
“Because I’m Atlantean,” Audrey answered.
At this, Fyrn stopped and turned on his heel to study her. “How can you be certain?”
“Well, that’s what the ghost in my head is telling me, anyway.”
Victoria laughed. She couldn’t help it.
Fyrn shushed her with a sharp glare and leaned on his staff. “The spirit tied to your Artifact said this?”
Audrey nodded. “Apparently there were wars between Atlanteans and the wizards. Neither liked each other very much.”
“That’s news to me,” Diesel said, spinning his staff like a baton. It was an absent motion, meant more to keep his hands busy than anything else.
Audrey shrugged. “The Atlanteans disappeared, and the largest wizard settlement was all but wiped out. I guess the hatred died with them.”
An idea popped into Victoria’s mind. “You don’t think—”
“I do,” Fyrn interrupted. “Perhaps the traitor was not from within after all.”
“My kind destroyed Lochrose?” Audrey asked, almost too softly to hear. She sounded heartbroken, and Victoria set a hand on her back for comfort.
