Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  The enchantment that flowed over the lip of the pool, as its spillage careened down the mountainside and into the gorge below, must have attracted Ab'Don to the island where he had the Hall of Voyd erected, though he couldn't have guessed where the magical emanations that drew him here came from. To him, it must have seemed the gorge itself was endowed with supernatural properties that he was determined to tap into.

  Not knowing where Kaylan's scent would bring her for sure, believing the magic that rent the Warl asunder made it impossible to use the pool since Mythoria was on the other side of the Breach Sea, Lylah had decided to not try and force her way through the portal that, along with others of its kind, took the waterkynd to the various realms they traversed. Nevertheless, she kept the place in mind. And if necessity dictated, she would try to use the pool to escape with Kaylan, though, as she recalled, a cliff did not hover over the passageway like in Mythoria. Without the prerequisite plunge this afforded the couple whenever they wanted to travel to the Warl of Vapor, or Water, or Ice, Lylah was uncertain that the Pool of Transition's magic would be activated in a way that could accommodate Kaylan. Still, she would try.

  ****

  Seeing the people that were planted in the river sway as the current bent them with its passing sickened Lylah since she knew they were still alive. Morphing into a form that resembled an extremely long, ribbon-like fish, she swam closer to examine the magic used to do this deplorable thing. After a brief inspection, she was glad that she didn’t sense Kaylan among them. With arms lifted up like they were hanging upside down from a ceiling, instead of jutting up from the river bottom where they were anchored, she swept over the unfortunate throng. Brushing up against the throng, she sensed the sleep they had fallen into that had a reoccurring dream where they were snatched out of their former lives and forced beneath the river's surface.

  Moving in and out of the dreamscapes that were presented to her as she moved along, Lylah came to an abrupt stop when a picture of Kaylan and his brother, Travyn, passed through her mind. Retracing her path, Lylah searched for the picture's author. To her surprise, the dream fragment came from a man who appeared to be a Hag who must have had a falling out with the order of dark wizards he belonged to.

  Hovering above the disconsolate man's head, Lylah observed the reoccurring dream the Hag was having. She watched it play over and over again until she had memorized every detail.

  Aware of the history of the slender, iron branch, she knew that Ab'Don had used the talisman to pierce Kaylan's mother's heart so he could send her spirit to the Warl of the Dead. There she was tortured by the Nameless Evil that lived in the shadows covering half of that realm. The goal of the abuse was to twist her spirit to the point where she would willingly embrace the same kind of wickedness the Nameless Evil fed on. The magic found in the iron branch made the journey to the Warl of the Dead possible by anchoring her spirit to the body the talisman had skewered, the one that hung on an iron tree of the Sorcerer's making.

  Kaylan was trying to take Crooked Finger away from Ab'Don, the Lylah guessed. Crooked Finger was the name that rumor said the slender, iron branch was being called. Lylah was convinced that Kaylan had entered the Hall of Voyd to remove the dangerous talisman from the arsenal the Sorcerer would use against Muriel Oakenfel in a war he planned to wage against Nyeg Warl.

  As the Hag's dream revealed, Kaylan had come up short in his bid to free Crooked Finger. When it looked like Kaylan and his brother would get away with the theft, Ab'Don had returned from Chylgroyd's Keep where he had fought a battle he lost with the Hammer Bearer and those who had come to free him from the prison where he had been held for five long winters.

  The scene that showed Kaylan, Travyn, and the man who was now in the river hurrying toward the Hall of Voyd's door in an attempt to make good their escape was burned into her mind. Passing a throng of Hag that strangely enough seemed to barely notice their presence, the three were set upon by flames that swept into the Hall of Voyd through its open windows. In quick order, the fiery deluge engulfed Kaylan while pushing the other men away.

  Recognizing the fraethym for who they were, Lylah was sure that Crooked Finger had commanded their attention, the talisman that had ushered Muriel's spirit into the Warl of the Dead from whence they came. It was obvious since Kaylan was carrying Crooked Finger, he had become the target the evil spirits were drawn to while Travyn and the Hag were noticeably ignored.

  Magic was used to hide Travyn, Lylah concluded, magic that couldn’t keep Crooked Finger from being noticed.

  The ensuing tension-filled conversation that took place between the Hag and Travyn verified both of her assumptions, a conversation that advised Travyn to flee least the fraethym decided to include him within their fiery embrace.

  With the cloud of smoke that followed the evil spirits into the Hall of Voyd coalescing into the form of a human who must be Ab'Don, the advice was sound as far as Lylah was concerned. When the Sorcerer took hold of Crooked Finger and rammed it into Kayaln's chest, she knew the best course of action was for Travyn to flee.

  Recalling how Ab'Don used the slender, iron branch to control Muriel, Lylah was quick to realize that this was not a killing blow. The continuing scent of blood that trickled out of Kaylan's wound, as it dripped on the floor and flowed toward one of the drains that were situated in hall's floor, made this apparent to the horrified waterkynd.

  When Travyn's companion turned to take one last look into the hall they had exited, Lylah was forced to witness Ab'Don placing Kaylan's limp form on a tree of fire the Sorcerer must have fashioned with his dark powers.

  The memories of fleeing from the evil complex that followed gave Lylah a map she could use to locate the man she loved. Later, she watched and listened as the men talked to the Ferryman as they sought passage over the very river she was in. Before the trip across the river was completed, Lylah heard the Ferryman say he had to turn his vessel back to the island because Ab'Don was forbidding anyone egress from the Hall of Voyd. She saw Travyn's companion light the Ferryman's garments on fire with the flame that sat on top of a black candle as he tried to keep the vessel from being turned around.

  Spying on the man's dreams the way she was, using his eyes to see all that had transpired, Lylah felt like she was lunging at the Ferryman. Then she was falling into the water along with the boatman who Travyn's companion must have tackled and driven overboard. Down she went as the chaos of the ongoing struggle the men were caught up in swept about her, a struggle that ended once the Ferryman overpowered his adversary and dragged him down into the river's depths. The daylight filtering through the water from above dimmed until all had become black. Then the nightmare began anew.

  Having seen the dream so many times already, Lylah was surprised to hear a voice speak in her head once she was disengaging her mind from the last one she had joined herself to.

  "My name is Horbyn," it said. "Who are you?"

  Quickly reestablishing contact with the man whose outstretched arms limply floated above his head in the river's pulsing current, she replied, "I'm Lylah."

  "Lylah? I know that name." The lifeless-looking body the voice must be coming from showed no signs of being revived. "You're a waterkynd aren't you? How wonderful. I've always wanted to meet a waterkynd."

  "How do you know me?"

  "Kaylan told me about you." The voice was growing faint. "He loves you, you know."

  "Don’t despair. As long as Crooked Finger remains in his heart, he will live." The voice was barely a whisper now.

  "Can he be saved?" Lylah was hoping the stranger had an answer that could help her.

  "I don't know." Horbyn's voice sounded like exhaled air. "Ab'Don is no longer Ab'Don. A greater evil has taken..."

  "A greater evil has what?"

  But no voice replied as the perpetual dream Horbyn was doomed to have took over.

  Disengaging from the horrifying recollection, Lylah headed for the island where Kaylan was being held a prisoner with the memory of how T
ravyn and Horbyn had exited the Hall of Voyd stuck in her mind. Taking the form of a woman like she used whenever she was with Kaylan, Lylah set foot on dry ground. Expecting the island to be fully warded, she didn't think remaining ill-defined mist held any advantages.

  The excretions that had hardened into root-like extensions reaching out from the Hall of Voyd, warned her of the dangers she was facing. Traps were likely. Magic was placed around the islands like a ring of inhuman sentinels that could sense unwanted intrusions. Being a waterkynd, Lylah hoped her presence was alien enough to keep it from being felt by the wards that could sense supernatural things native to the Warl of Man. Her recollections of Laviathon indicated this hope wasn't well founded. Still, she had escaped from the dangerous sea serpent; maybe she could evade the Hag and their master as well. Because of her love for Kaylan, Lylah had no other recourse but to try.

  Approaching the stone pier the Ferryman used to dock on the island, Lylah was pleased to see it was vacant. Looking across the water, she saw an empty craft moored to a similar pier on the river’s far bank. Where is the boatman, she wondered as she turned away without further investigation.

  If Lylah had only waited a moment longer, she would have seen the Ferryman appear as he rose from his seat on the boat and swing his head around to look at the island and at the stranger who crept along its shores.

  Arriving at an opening that didn't have a door hinged to it, Lylah looked up at the towering edifice that was mottled in black, gray, and off-white hues. Stepping through the portal, she found herself walking through a round corridor whose walls and ceiling looked like they were made with massive ropes wound about the passageway like loops in a hangman's not.

  Before she had gone far, cracks appeared in the floor that lined up with the edges of the loops that arched overhead as they began to constrict upon her. Unlike Kaylan who had trouble keeping his footing when he encountered this phenomenon, Lylah simply took on a more misty aspect and floated up into the air. If Kaylan, Travyn, and Horbyn had been with her, the erstwhile Hag would have lit a candle and used its magic to stop the constricting structure from tightening. But she was alone. And the passageway continued to squeeze in upon her.

  Noting the passageway's length, calculating that she couldn't reach its end before she was caught in the tightening walls’ grasp, Lylah resumed her former mist-like form and fled back to the opening she had used to enter the hall. Already the size a human couldn't get through, the passageway continued to tighten until it was no wider than a warrior’s buckler. A moment before even that was gone, Lylah shot out of the Hall of Voyd looking like air being exhaled by a surfacing whale.

  Pulling herself together once she reached the Voyd River, Lylah found that she had not escaped the trap that was closing in on her. Four long, narrow boats were rapidly approaching, each guided by a Ferryman. The sorcery she felt coming from the men was formidable in its scope. Though not Hag, each of the four were powerful wizards in their own right. And one of the sources of their power came from the river itself. Another was found in the crafts they controlled. Greatest of all was the Hag magic they had accumulated whenever members of the dour order employed their services. At such times, the Ferrymen would warm their hands over the flames that sat atop the black candles their passengers carried with them. The warmth they gathered was not as important as the sorcery that created the heat, sorcery that they stored in their bodies and the long, black robes they wore.

  Lylah stood a chance if she had faced any one of the Ferrymen alone. Maybe two? But four at one time... that was different; and the difference could have the Hall of Voyd’s servants taking her prisoner like Kaylan was. Fighting the Ferrymen was out of the question. She needed to flee.

  Before, Lylah had time to fully register this thought in her mind, she was speeding toward the biggest gap found between the approaching craft. As she passed between two of the vessels, the Ferrymen reached out and sent a spider web of glowing magic toward one another. But before the net could be completely formed, the waterkynd raced beyond its grasp as it cut her with radiant fingers that were reaching out to interlock with one another.

  Lylah knew she should heed the advice Horbyn had given Travyn in the Hall of Voyd at the time Crooked Finger had been thrust into Kaylan's heart. She needed to run so she could fight another day. So run she did.

  Just as Lylah reached the place where the channels that passed on either side of the Hall of Voyd came back together, at a place a short distance away from the twin bridges that connected the hall to the lands sitting on either side of the Voyd River, she found Laviathon blocking her way with a shower of sorcery-engorged fire he vomited out to create an impassible barrier between her and the northward flowing waterway that was heading toward Malam. Black-robed Hag were gathering on the twin bridges above her. Their candles' flames flickered to life like stars that suddenly appear as dusk is replaced by night.

  Already suffering from wounds the Ferrymen's developing net had inflicted on her, wounds that the ambient dark magic surrounding the hall made difficult to heal, Lylah swerved away from the fire that personal experience proved could burn her. Instead of challenging the huge crocodon's incendiary might, Lylah raced beneath the twin bridges and back up the channel that bordered the island's far side.

  Gathering all the speed she could, Lylah hurried past the Hall of Voyd until she reached the place where the river initially split apart south of the Sorcerer’s citadel. As expected, the four Ferrymen were using the other channel to reach that very spot, herding glowing nets they hoped to catch her with before them. Now spanning the river's width and reaching to its bottom, the magical meshing looked like bulging ship sails that reached high into the sky.

  Before the Ferrymen could force back into the channel she was trying to exit and back toward Laviathon's fiery barrier that was pressing up behind her, Lylah made a right turn and sped up the waterway running through the bottom of the gorge that cut its way up the towering Thrall Mountains' side.

  Her mind was made up: She would find the Pool of Transition that sat high above her and use it to make good her escape; that is, if she could activate its magic when the pool was so close to the Hall of Voyd. Bound to the warl's waterways, Lylah was left with no other option. Her chances of getting past the bridges that, by now, were filled with Hag and the dangerous black candles they wielded were poor. So, why not try to force her way through the Pool of Transition?

  If she was successful in doing what no other waterkynd had been able to do since the Age of Star’s Blood had failed, Lylah could gather more of her ethereal kind and return to set Kaylan free. If she failed to activate the pool's supernatural potential, she would have to fight her way past the dark magic that was hurriedly being set up to catch her, magic that was determined to see her meeting with Kaylan wouldn’t be on terms she liked.

  Lylah had never heard of a waterkynd being trapped by humans before. But with the way Laviathon's fire had burned her, she didn't dismiss the possibility.

  The turbulent water Lylah's misty form swept over was a reflection of the activity that burst to life on the steep, rocky walls that bordered the river. Weird creatures climbed out of holes too numerous to count. Many of these took to the air. Others crawled over the rocks looking like giant bugs squirming along. Some looked like naked men with elongated torsos sprouting multiple sets of arms and legs that were used to gain purchase of the gorge they scrambled through.

  As chaotic as the exodus appeared, the monstrous looking things were driven by a will that ordered them to find the waterkynd. Soon the sky was filled with a swarm of winged-creatures that possessed a mixture of human, insect, and aviary characteristics. There were raptors with the heads of men and those that had long, human-like fingers protruding out of their massive wings. Some of the feathered mutants had bare chests that were replicas of the Sorcerer's own.

  Human arms and legs hung below many of the insect-like winged monsters. Swords were held in their hands. Beetles, wasps, dragonflies, mosquitoe
s, bats, hawks, and vultures were the main recipients of Ab'Don's supernatural manipulations. The lone human contributor was the Sorcerer himself. It was like he had forced his physical essence on all of the living warl, defiling it as surely as a dog lifts a leg on the ground it wants to claim as its own.

  The clatter of flapping wings and screeching cries that were eerily human enough to make a normal person cringe accompanied Lylah up the gorge. So did a mass of giant cockroaches, beetles, centipedes, and snakes.

  The cattle-sized beetles were covered in patches of long, blonde hair they had inherited from their father. Human arms sprouted behind the snakes' heads; legs jutting out of their tails pushed them forward as they wound their way over the rocks. Some of the man-sized cockroaches stood and ran on short legs that could only carry them upright for a short distance. Strangely lacking any human trait, the biggest centipede was as large as one of the merchant convoys filled with wagons that wind their way between the cities they did business with.

  Cretchym, Lylah thought, some with wings and some without. She had always been told the Sorcerer only perverted the winged creatures found in the warl to make his unnatural children. Obviously, his tastes had expanded. But she didn’t fear them. The magic Lylah sensed that was invested in the mutants wasn’t enough to worry her, though it could keep her from evading their detection. The cretchym that failed to gain purchase in Lylah’s body, with hands whose thorn-studded knuckles and fingernails were as hard as an insect's shell, gave credence to her assumption. The winged demons’ swords that futliley passed through her vaporous form provided confirmation.

  Following Lylah as she passed beyond the gorge and into the surrounding forest that climbed up the steep mountainside, only the winged-cretchym could keep pace with her. Coming to three robust streams that joined together to make the Voyd River, Lylah turned up the tributary that would take her to the Pool of Transition.