Asaph smiled at her ruefully, a strange mix of guilt and determination on his face. ‘In the end, we must do whatever we can to stay alive.’
Issa nodded. ‘So be it.’
Calmly, he walked into the empty hallway and turned left. He went up more stairs and along more corridors. Issa was shocked to see daylight spilling through the tall, stained glass windows. Had so much time passed? It had stopped snowing, but the sky was filled with light-grey clouds.
The carpet up here may have been more ornate, but it was still worn and frayed. Wind howled through broken windows, the long walls were empty of tapestries or paintings and there was no furniture or furnishings of any nature.
‘Once this place was warm and adorned with beauty,’ Asaph said under his breath, sharing her thoughts.
He took the first doorway on the left and went up a narrow staircase to a smooth oak door embellished with iron scroll work. He turned the handle and pushed. It opened into a large, unfurnished room, where four carved pillars held up a high ceiling and light spilled in from a handful of arched windows with stained glass like the others.
He led her through another hallway and upstairs again to more rooms until Issa was completely lost. If she had to leave this place in a hurry, she’d be better off jumping out of a window and taking flight as a raven.
That thought made her think of Ehka. Where was he? Had he found Marakon? The bird had a knack of finding that man, so she didn’t need to worry. Now she thought of it, their army might well arrive before they ever found Vornus and Asaph’s plan would be ruined.
While he paused for thought in the medium-sized room with a hearth that had not been lit in decades, she walked to the next door.
‘No, not that way,’ said Asaph, taking her hand and frowning in thought. ‘It’s somewhere close, I can’t quite reach the memory.’
Voices came beyond the door Issa was about to open. Asaph dragged her to the only place they could hide – the fireplace. She ducked under the mantlepiece with him.
‘We can’t hide here, they can see our legs!’ she whispered.
He didn’t reply and instead fumbled along the soot-covered wall. His hand found a chain, it clanged loudly, making them both freeze.
‘…there’s nothing up here.’ A male, human voice said crossly. Issa thought she recognised it, but did not want to think Hameka stood only yards away from her.
‘My senses are never wrong,’ hissed another voice, low and crooning. Issa’s skin crawled as the necromancer spoke. ‘Something comes to us, something powerful. We should be wary.’
‘It will be the glory of the Under Flow,’ said the other voice. ‘Starting a faction of the New Order here has brought us all greater powers. Nevertheless, I’ll heed your warning. Gather your necromancers, tell them to search the castle. I’ll alert the Maphraxies. It’ll be those cursed Draxian ghosts again—this place is crawling with them, but soon we’ll be rid of them for good.’
The voices faded away. Issa let go of her breath.
‘We can’t be too far away from Vornus now,’ Asaph said. It was a small relief, she decided. Even she’d prefer to fight him than hide like this.
‘Here it is!’ He pulled on something metal and a loud grating sound scoured their ears. Issa winced then stared as the back of the hearth—a simple metal plate—screeched open to reveal a pitch-black tunnel behind.
‘Quickly!’ Asaph said as footsteps returned. She jumped inside, hitting her head on the low ceiling and stalling. He followed after her, hunted for another lever, pulled it, and the door screeched shut.
Crouching, they shuffled forwards into the black. Issa went through a hundred questions in her head, the main ones being had they left footprints in the soot on the ground and had the hidden door shut properly? She paused as a darker object moved in front of her. Maggot’s eyes flashed.
‘You can get there this way too,’ the little demon said. From the sound of his voice, he was enjoying this adventure with her.
Again, Issa couldn’t see anything as she shuffled forwards, and her back soon ached for being hunched over. She hated trailing one hand along the wall and the other hand in front of her, there could be spiders or scorpions in every nook, and she was certainly already covered in soot and dirt. She preferred to worry about what she was touching rather than think about what would happen when they emerged out of this passage.
When she paused again Asaph grabbed her hand, she wondered how he could find it in the darkness. ‘Let me go first,’ he said, squeezing it.
They moved quicker now he was in front, but still she dared to let her talisman glow the faintest blue, just enough to see her feet and give a little comfort. They walked for ages.
‘It goes on forever!’ she said, wondering how long they had been walking. When her breath came harder, she deduced they were moving upwards. It seemed to wind to the left too, but in the dark it was hard to be sure.
‘There are several branches,’ said Asaph. ‘Luckily I don’t have to keep hunting through the Recollection because Maggot is leading.’ He chuckled.
Eventually the sound of distant voices came. When they grew in volume, Issa reluctantly doused the light of her talisman. Asaph paused at what appeared to be a dead end, but a breeze blew from somewhere. Human voices came but they were muffled. A chill ran down her back when she heard a woman speak; could it be Cirosa?
Asaph began searching for a lever. He found it and turned to her. ‘Ready?’
‘Not really.’ Issa swallowed.
Asaph turned the handle anyway. The metal plate grated a little, then opened an inch, spilling light into the passageway. The voices became louder but were still muffled. He turned the handle more, and inch by inch the door squeaked open. He peered into the light for a long moment, then shuffled forwards.
‘Maggot, stay safe,’ she whispered to the demon. He nodded and faded into shadow. With one hand on her sword and all senses alert, Issa crawled forwards. She stood beside Asaph and rolled her shoulders back, stretching her back with a silent sigh.
They stood not in another hearth but in a tiny, ornate alcove. There was an empty pedestal in front of them where once a statue or ornament would have been placed. Drawn across it, and a foot or so in front of them, was a heavy, frayed, blue velvet curtain, although time had faded it to a mottled blue-grey. The light, seemingly bright in the tunnel, was actually dim. There were no steps down and it was quite a drop to the floor. She noted that the curtain barely reached all the way down.
Voices came from beyond the curtain, male and female, but at a distance, possibly even in the next room. She didn’t want to leave here. Her heart pounded as Asaph reached for the curtain and peered through.
He turned back to her, his eyes wide and face serious. ‘We’re in the upper hallways of the castle. I can’t see who is talking but I think it’s them. Maphraxies guard the doors and there are two necromancers on alert, but they are far to the right. No one is facing in this direction.’
He turned back to peering. After several long moments, nothing had changed. Issa hoped he was formulating their next move out of here.
‘The longer we stay here, the more likely we’ll be detected,’ Asaph whispered.
Issa nodded, then something pressed upon her mind, the pressure growing in intensity and quickly becoming painful as she resisted. ‘Wait!’ she grabbed his arm as he began to crouch and get off the alcove. He paused, and she let the vision come.
Her sight turned inwards and Ehka’s familiar avian mind touched hers. Freezing wind ruffled her feathers, and the air was rich with the smell of pine forests and snow. She whispered aloud what she saw.
‘Wind, snow… I’m flying. I see the castle, there are Dread Dragons. They have seen me but ignored me, I’m just a bird. Here, Ehka, we are here. Can you feel us?’
Ehka turned. The upper ramparts of the castle came into view and the vision faded. She took a moment to regain her senses. A loud caw came, then the sound of something tapping on a window. Asaph glan
ced around the curtain. ‘He’s found us!’ he whispered.
‘Kill that cursed raven!’ Cirosa’s unmistakable voice shouted.
Beyond the curtain came an explosion of activity. Issa caught her breath wondering what to do as Ehka continued to tap on the window and caw. Heavy boots clanged the floor and Maphraxies grunted. Issa felt the Under Flow move as the necromancers sprang into action.
‘Ehka, go!’ Issa shouted in Daluni.
‘Issa, now,’ hissed Asaph, making use of the raven’s distraction as he crouched and made ready to let himself down from the alcove.
Just before their connection broke, a thought-form from Ehka came to Issa. She saw different races and many knights, Feylint Halanoi, Karalanths, elves, and dwarves. She quickly translated it, ‘I did not come alone.’
Asaph dropped to the ground and helped her down. He opened the curtain an inch and she glimpsed Maphraxies, necromancers and a pale haired woman running to the windows lining the hallway.
Cirosa was dressed in white. Her arms were folded, and a black crown held back her platinum hair. Her flesh was devoid of colour and warmth, and dark power emanated from her. Her powers have grown, Issa thought. Beyond her stalked a man, tall and slender, with slicked back black hair, though his features were Draxian.
A terrifying roar tore apart the world. Issa gasped and fell against the wall covering her ears. The air outside the window swirled with purple magic and an enormous, ice-blue dragon appeared. Its giant claws grabbed onto the castle walls as it landed in the midst of its enemies.
‘Morhork!’ Issa breathed in.
The wingless dragon, uncaring of the Dread Dragons descending upon it, raised his head and let out another deafening roar. The Flow sucked away from her in a torrent towards the dragon. Morhork lifted into the air with the magic and moved so fast he all but vanished.
33
Dragons of Drax
Asaph froze and yet his blood boiled.
There, pointing at the raven outside the window, stood Vornus at an angle, his hawk nose in profile. The Recollection opened, and his mother’s memories of this man flickered through his mind.
Vornus had been a brave fighter, fearless of dragons even though he wasn’t a Dragon Rider. He’d also been a deeply trusted and wise advisor—now he was a traitor. The memories were overwhelming, filled with the deep pain of betrayal. How could he do this to his own? How could he let his own people die? What price immortality? The man looked as pale and dead as the woman beside him.
As his eyes fell upon Cirosa, Asaph’s blood chilled and cold sweat instantly trickled down his back. For a moment he felt her chains still upon him. She had changed him in some way, Issa was right; she’d weakened him, and her evil claws dug deep into him.
He dragged his eyes from her and looked back at Vornus, his hand tightening on the hilt of the Sword of Binding. In front of him stood his single purpose, his primary objective, a task to complete before he could take Drax. The time had come.
All those moments he had lain awake in the Unchartered Lands, listening to the wind in the trees and Coronos slumbering beside him, thinking of his revenge for all that had been taken from them, all that had been destroyed.
A tremor shook him, his body held him back, yet his emotions urged him forwards, to stride right into their midst, lift his sword and hew the man’s head from his body. His other hand clenched the curtain and began to draw it back. He stepped his right foot forwards.
Dragon magic moved in such a vast quantity he could feel it in his human form. The air outside the window shimmered and darkened. Asaph did a double take and stared at the enormous blue dragon straddling the castle walls. What in Feygriene’s name was Morhork doing here?
The dragon’s golden eyes locked onto him. Could he see him even from there? A thousand thoughts and feelings flew through him. Had the dragon come here to hinder and ruin his plans? Or had he come here to help them? Did his arrival mean Marakon had arrived?
It didn’t matter what he thought for events unfolded rapidly.
Maphraxies poured into the hallway from the left and right, and the magic wielders in the room called the Under Flow. The enemy either pressed against the window or ran to the balconies outside, hands raised and crackling with latent energy.
Only one person did not act like the others and it was to him Asaph looked. Vornus had stepped back from the window, an uncertain expression on his face. Moving swiftly but not running, he sidled away from the others and made his way along the hallway, past where Asaph and Issa were hiding.
Asaph only realised Issa was using all her strength to hold him back after the man had passed.
‘Not yet, wait and follow him,’ she whispered.
Asaph nodded, forcing himself to be calm.
With one glance back, Vornus whirled to the left into a doorway and disappeared.
‘The coward is running away already!’ Asaph grabbed Issa and dragged her after him. As they emerged from the curtain, he realised how filthy their red-robes were, covered in blood, tears and soot. They’d be hard pressed to fit in now, he thought, but it didn’t seem to matter, everyone was focused on the enormous dragon outside the window.
The passageway was small and dark, lit by a single lantern, a servants’ passage. Vornus had already disappeared along it. There were two doors at the end; one led into a store room and the other opened into a stairwell leading up. Asaph ran up them two at a time.
They exited into another hallway and Vornus’s black cloak disappeared through the door at the other end of it.
Asaph hurtled after him. With sword raised he threw himself through the door, splintering it off its bolts and landing the other side into a large chamber—a chamber he desperately did not want to recognise. Vornus was kneeling as if praying before an altar made of black metal and stone, and a great mirror tarnished with dark splatters that looked like blood. Dried blood also crusted the altar.
Her dresser had been where the altar was now. Her bed had been there, atop the three stone steps, and her wardrobe on the far side. He swallowed, his body shaking; he could see it all as it once had been. This was his mother’s chamber, and now it was filthy and desecrated! Rage.
‘Vornus!’ Asaph cried.
The man leapt up from the altar and almost stumbled over his robes, his eyes wild. He threw something, and the air sparkled. Sharp pain pierced Asaph’s eyes and face. He smarted and blinked, blearily glimpsing Vornus running to a door on the other side of the room.
‘Wood, Flames,’ Issa commanded and threw up a palm.
Anything made of wood splintered and burst into flames, including the door Vornus was just opening. Asaph heard him cry out.
Issa reached up and held Asaph’s face. A wave of coolness spread over him from her palms and the pain began to clear. Asaph nodded his thanks.
‘They’ll all have felt that,’ said Issa, her voice oddly calm.
Vornus was trying to get through the flames that licked the doorway. The flames suddenly vanished and in the place of the flaming door, stood Cirosa. She raised a hand at Asaph. Something pierced his heart and he fell screaming.
‘So, you saw your death on that sword, did you, Vornus?’ laughed Cirosa. ‘Look at him, he’s pathetic! I don’t know what you were worried about. The blade will be destroyed in the Dark Rift and you won’t ever have to discover yourself at the end of it. No, my dear Vornus, as you can see, we write the prophecies now.’
Asaph could barely hear her through the agony breaking his body. He saw Issa raise her talisman and a wall of blue flames flared. Cirosa held her hands up and the flames paused in the middle of the room. There they held, between the two women, sizzling, until something gave, and it hurtled back to Issa throwing her against the wall.
‘The Flow has no power here, foolish wench!’ Cirosa hissed.
Asaph writhed on the floor, unable to help Issa who remained pinned to the wall.
Cirosa pulled out her knife and slowly advanced. ‘Which one do you want, Vornus?�
�� She grinned maliciously, lips blood-red against the bloodlessness of her face.
Vornus, seeing the hapless state of his foes, lost his cowardice. He drew his slender sword, a gleam of hateful revenge in his eyes.
‘Recognise this room, do you, prince,’ he sneered. ‘This is where it happened. This is where Drax fell and your mother was utterly destroyed.’
Asaph groaned with the pain and pent-up, unreleasable rage.
Issa wanted nothing more than to slice Vornus’s smirk right off his face.
Why have we come here? What a foolish plan! Issa kicked herself as she strained against the unseen force that held her. She tried to speak but her throat constricted and her breath came in painful gasps. She tried to feel the Flow or will Illendri and her talisman to respond, but they were a dead weight at her side.
The Under Flow overpowered all. It swirled around Cirosa as she advanced, slow and cat-like with her knife in hand, her blood-stone amulet glowing. The Under Flow grew. Black and red clouds filled the room, distorting reality, twisting time. It came from all around but mostly it seemed to be spilling out of the old mirror Vornus had been kneeling before, as well as from Cirosa’s amulet. It was truly mesmerising, and Issa found herself staring at it in cold horror.
Cirosa spoke but Issa couldn’t hear her voice. The priestess began to fade into the black clouds.
‘Issa.’
A deep, airy voice called out from within the Under Flow. Her name echoed around her.
‘Issa.’ The voice called again, drawing her in, whispering dark promises, offering her power if she would just reach for it. Triangular red eyes flared in the centre of the Under Flow. Issa gasped as the rest of Baelthrom’s form materialised.
‘You and I, we are the same,’ he said. ‘We do not belong here, and we never have. Come to me, Issa.’
Blood pounded in Issa’s head and the Under Flow began to bodily lift her, drawing her into it.
War of the Raven Queen: The Goddess Prophecies Fantasy Series Book 6 Page 36
