The main corridor struck Niel as exceedingly narrow given its immense length. Pushed back into arched alcoves, with a column between each, stood thousands of large, richly detailed statues of creatures Niel had never before seen—remarkable works mounted on great blocks of dark, burnished marble. Niel couldn’t help speculating about the sculptor and the phenomenal effort necessary to create so many wondrous and distinctly individual figures. Something about the way they’d been shaped, though, suggested there was more to them than simply their appearance, especially with how the bizarre, ambient chorus of wind through crumbling stone seemed to emanate from the statues’ open mouths.
Niel pulled his hands inside his cloak and folded them over his chest, over the pouch beneath his tunic. The rushing air brought a penetrating chill from beyond the edge of the Wall, but the small stone allowed him to acknowledge the discomfort and set it aside without yielding to it.
The group moved in single file toward the massive set of wide, shallow stairs leading to the mouth of the cavern. Peck stayed in front, stepping with the watchful deliberateness of a cat expecting to be pounced upon at any moment. Niel followed him, trailed by Cally and Jharal in the middle with Arwin at the rear, who spent as much time walking backward as not.
At the foot of the staircase Peck stopped so suddenly he had to reach behind and yank Niel to a halt as well. As Peck’s hand tightened around his arm, a dreadful shiver ran through Niel’s body, making his stomach lurch and the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
It hadn’t come from Peck, though.
Niel studied the uncertain concentration creasing Peck’s angular face.
“Lord Elder,” he whispered, “tell me that was my imagination.”
Niel shook his head.
Jharal had taken up a defensive stance with Cally and Arwin, his back toward them, battle axe at the ready.
“Tell you what was your imagination?” he asked over his shoulder.
Peck whirled around to face the same direction as Jharal.
“Everyone. Up the stairs. Now.”
There came another, more violent shudder, and the corridor’s floor buckled as the jolt rippled its way through the stonework. The rest of the group teetered, trying in vain to maintain their balance while Peck rode out the tremor, crouched low in place with arms outspread.
When the tremor subsided, Niel stood and saw what both he and Peck had sensed.
And terror burned away his confusion like fog fleeing a white-hot sun.
An army of the sculptures he had admired only moments ago stalked toward them. As those nearest advanced on the group’s position, others awakened in their wake and left their pedestals to join the brigade. A flood of horrific abominations poured into the center of the walkway, moving not only with unquestionable intent, but with a fluidity wholly incongruous with their construction. While the figures scraped their way forward with a bone-shivering, droning grind of rock on rock, no awkwardness or irregularity hindered their gait.
As though he were suddenly swimming in it, Niel sensed unfathomable magic at work. The stone beneath his shirt seared as it responded to the energies engulfing them. The exotic influence of power as it swirled and filled the corridor could have easily driven Niel to intoxication.
A hulking warrior-figure fronted the horde. The torso and arms looked human, but it had the backward-bent hind legs of a horse, the clawed feet of a reptile, and the squarish head of a mastiff. The monster leveled at them a massive marble sword, its eyes burning with violet malignance.
You were not invited, it said in a deep, loamy groan.
Peck nudged Niel. “And you thought the bouncer at the Rascal was big.”
As if in reply, the dog-man raised his weapon and made a wicked slice at Peck, but by the time the sword crashed, biting deep into the floor where he should have been, Peck had rolled away and stood far off to the creature’s left.
Bursting from either side of the dog-man like blood-frenzied hounds loosed for the hunt, the other statues rushed forth.
Peck pointed toward the top of the stairway and shouted at Cally. “Get him inside!”
Cally snatched Niel’s wrist, yanked him along behind her, and raced up the long flight of stairs.
Another quake, more severe than the last, pitched the stony floor causing Cally to topple halfway back down the steps. Before she recovered her stance, a pair of spider-like felines scrabbled out from the mass of statues, biting and slashing. Cally’s grunted cry sounded equal parts fear and anger, and it brought Jharal to her side within seconds. He dropped his axe, lifted one of the monsters from Cally and hurled it down the remainder of the stairs. The spider-thing cartwheeled, crumbling to bits by the time it reached the bottom.
The second creature released Cally and launched itself at Jharal, who grabbed his axe and with a wide swipe batted the spider aside. The flat of Jharal’s blade exploded half of the creature’s legs into a rain of gravel.
Niel pushed himself up to see Arwin sprinting toward him. While the statues advanced unabated, he caught a glimpse of Peck beyond Arwin, dodging and dancing around his attackers.
Jharal, beard and hair dusty with the remnants of his adversaries, reached out to Cally, who slapped his hand away. Torn and bloodied, she pressed her back against Jharal’s, readying her sword for the next attack. Jharal poised himself as well, only without the benefit of his axe—his last strike had snapped the blade from the stock, leaving him with nothing more than a great splintered stick to face the creatures drawing near.
A wild battle cry issued from the giant man as he raised the shaft over his head, and the monsters charged.
Niel witnessed only the first few defiant strikes before a river of marble limbs and teeth swallowed Cally and Jharal.
“Gods in heaven,” Arwin gasped as he reached Niel.
From over the edge of the staircase’s upper portion came another collection of clawing and scratching beasts, so close that the grating clicks of mandibles rattled Niel’s teeth. At the lead, an appalling figure resembling from its neck up a skeletal bull pointed a long, jagged talon at them.
You were not invited, it screeched.
“I don’t think they want us going in there,” Niel said.
“So it would seem.” Arwin set his jaw. “Come on.”
For an instant, Niel felt his companion’s determination, warm like an unexpected embrace, and it brought him to his feet. He and Arwin ran, and the statues took positions to block the entrance above. Arwin shoved Niel aside and with his sword deflected a scythe-like arm that swept between the two of them. Niel staggered but kept his balance and managed to jump from one stair to the next over the thrust of a slender, fish-looking beast with the elongated, fanged face of a hawk.
Step by step, Niel and Arwin ducked and ran toward the opening.
Only a few strides from the top, Niel heard a wrenching cry of pain, and felt a blinding anguish erupt between his own shoulders.
He looked back.
Arwin lay on his stomach, sword on the ground in front of him, his arms and legs splayed out. His already paling face turned up toward Niel, and wine-dark blood bubbled from his mouth. A fiend vaguely resembling a scorpion towered over him, its rapier tail arching over its head and into Arwin’s back, running him through.
The beast leered at Niel with the face of a horridly old woman.
Terror and anger rushed from deep within Niel, blazed through him, and he screamed at the abomination that had felled his friend.
As though he’d struck dead-center with a great hammer, the scorpion-woman burst into a thunderous shower of stone and pebbles. The remaining statues, however, never paused.
Niel ran to retrieve Arwin. Despite his friend’s larger size, and ignoring the weakness left by the waning rush of magical power, Niel threw Arwin’s limp arm over his own shoulder, picked up the sword, and hobbled to the top of the great staircase.
They staggered across the threshold into the cool darkness of the huge chamber. Agony blossomed i
n Niel’s calf from what felt like a vicious bite, and the two of them tumbled inside.
Niel wheeled around and leveled Arwin’s sword to protect himself and his friend, even if all he could offer was a clumsy, token defense.
The horde did not follow them. Instead, as the creatures reached the chamber’s entrance, each turned its back and sat, one beside the last, then one upon another, until they formed a solid wall of marble worthy of the finest masons, sealing Niel and Arwin in the mountain.
37
He comes.
“Let him,” Ennalen whispered amid the deafening blackness that screamed inside her.
“Let him come.”
38
Niel’s first thought was to light a torch, but his eyes adjusted quickly to the eerie, violet glow that filled the chamber.
Arwin lay stomach-down on the cavern floor. In the strange hues of the room, his blood seemed black as it spread between his shoulders and soaked the cloak he wore.
“Niel…” Arwin said, his voice thick and watery.
Niel knelt, ignoring the pain in his leg.
“My pack…”
Pack? Of course!
Niel grabbed up the tattered bag from the stone floor and rifled through it. After a few long seconds, his hand closed around the tiny clay vial. The healing potion.
But it felt wet.
He yanked the potion from the bag; a crack ran from its cork to its pear-shaped middle. Precious liquid trickled onto his fingers from the top, where the crack appeared largest.
Despair filled him.
“It’s broken,” he whispered. “And it feels about half gone.”
A faint smile formed across the swordsman’s pallid face. “Figures.”
Healing potions worked best when ingested. Given the extent of Arwin’s injuries, Niel dared not roll his friend over to let him drink it. Moving him could worsen the harm already done, and healing potions didn’t work on the dead. Also, Arwin could easily choke or vomit while trying to swallow. The vial held too little to risk wasting a drop.
He tugged out the cork with his teeth and spat it off to the side. With a grimace he delicately peeled open the ragged edges of Arwin’s cloak and shook what remained of the vial’s contents into the wound.
Niel immediately saw improvement in Arwin’s face, and his quick, shallow panting became deeper and more controlled. Though Niel knew better than to take too much encouragement, he closed his eyes in relief.
When he did, he saw the small brightness perceived outside Glernny had grown to a ferocity that could drown out all his other senses if he chose to let it. Accompanying it loomed a less intense, though in its own way far crueler, presence.
“Better,” he heard Arwin say, his voice a bit stronger. “Thank you.”
Niel shook away the brightness and patted Arwin on the shoulder.
“You rest,” he said. “I have to go.”
Arwin swallowed, wincing with discomfort. “She’s here?”
“Yes. She’s here.”
“Take my dagger,” he said with a feeble gesture toward his waist. “You might… need it.”
Niel slipped the weapon from its sheath on Arwin’s belt.
“And don’t be afraid,” Arwin said as he placed his cold hand on top of Niel’s. “You’re… the Apostate, after all.”
Niel smiled. “That’s not funny.”
“I know,” Arwin replied with a weak squeeze of Niel’s fingers. “Wasn’t... meant to be.”
39
He is here.
“Yes,” Ennalen replied. “I know.”
40
Even without benefit of the amethyst luminescence farther down the tunnel, Niel had no doubt he would have found his way. As he walked he kept a wary eye on the stone statues peeking out from their carved niches—miniature versions of those that had attacked outside.
The long, twisting passage ended with a short flight of steps leading down to an open archway beyond which glowed the source of the cavern’s light. Niel descended slowly, thankful that the scant amount of healing potion he had licked from his fingers eased the pain in his leg.
He listened for a break in the silence that saturated his ears, but heard nothing more than his own heartbeat.
Niel passed beneath the archway into a room whose magnificence exceeded even that of the Great Forest; even that of sailing through the skies.
The entire mountain had been hollowed, fashioned into a realm of its own. From high above, farther than he could clearly see, poured a narrow column of silvery light that pierced the enveloping sea of pale violet to illuminate a distant object at the center of the great cavern’s floor. Engraved into that floor, an immense spiral consisting of millions of characters of minute text led inward to where the shaft of light fell.
After a few moments of scrutiny, Niel realized the symbols at his feet were identical to those etched inside the huge trees of Chael. Niel shuddered at the bizarre, unending mural shaped from the dark rock of the mountain; figures and depictions of every type intertwined. All manner of people and creatures crowded against one another as if grappling for a place at the surface, struggling to breathe. Among them, a pod of dolphins riding a crest that somehow seemed to transcend the turmoil below.
A faint rush like that of a waterfall tickled his senses. When he turned to find the source of the sound he saw it was the mural—which no longer merely seemed to be moving. Like a basket of oiled serpents, the carvings twisted and writhed about themselves, pointing, whispering, vying with one another for the best vantage point from which to watch.
“Welcome,” came a woman’s distant voice.
Much like the mural, the ethereal echo made it difficult to determine from where it had come. He squinted into the brightness ahead, able to make out a thin silhouette of a person.
Ennalen.
With a deep, none-too-steady breath, Niel stepped out onto the vast stone floor.
41
It had not occurred to Ennalen that the boy would possess his own cantle. Not that it mattered; she appreciated the symmetry. Still, something about the way he shined gave her pause, like suddenly emerging from a shaded avenue into the raw light of noon. It angered her further that with all she’d invested in her endeavors, someone so undeserving and inferior would arrive wielding a presence rivaling her own.
You mustn’t let—
She willed the voice silent, trembling as she focused on the young man. She no longer cared if either or neither of them were the Apostate. The boy would pay dearly for daring to think he could take from her what had taken so long to acquire.
42
For a short while, the distance between Niel and the center of the room felt like it would never shrink. Part of him hoped it never would.
But, eventually, it did.
Within the column of light at the circle’s center stood a single piece of charred timber, half-again his height and embedded in the floor where the inscription ended. Atop the post hung a pair of soot-blackened shackles. Niel recognized the significance of the monument right away and found himself moved by its poignancy.
From around the opposite side of the brilliant light stepped a young woman.
She looked to be his height, and to his surprise not many years older than himself. She wore a black robe concealing any trace of her shape; the pushed-back hood gathered at her neck, cradling short, chestnut hair.
Magistrate Ennalen clearly had been attractive—a slender, oval face with high cheekbones and a thin nose turned up a bit at the end. However, she also clearly had neither rested nor eaten in days. She looked emaciated and sickly; her red eyes glared wet and sunken within dark, swollen circles. Her pallor was more ghastly than Arwin’s had been.
Physical condition aside, she brandished a frightening amount of power. Without needing to concentrate Niel recognized the brilliance of her shine, felt her radiating upon him.
He’d likely been sensing her all the while.
“I know why you’ve come,” she said. H
er scowl made the lilt in her voice a dangerous jest.
“Well,” Niel replied with a dour sigh, “I’m glad at least one of us does.”
43
The boy looked about her own height, with a roundish face and straight, brownish-blond hair.
How pitifully young.
She watched him gaze at the shackles atop the post, and scoffed to herself as his dark ale-colored eyes misted.
Thick hatred swelled and urged her to destroy the boy; she would not be able to rein it back much longer. But even from the core of her rage she knew it would be a mistake to attack without fully assessing what threat the boy represented.
She moved closer, not minding at all the fear overtaking his face. If she couldn’t have respect, as his very presence suggested, then fear would do.
44
His remark seemed to amuse Ennalen.
“In truth,” she said, “I expected more stalwart words from the Apostate.”
Niel could all but taste the malice she felt toward him, and had been surprised to sense her hatred abate by the smallest degree when he spoke.
“I’m not the Apostate,” he said. “And in truth, as you say, I’ve come to believe that there may well be no such person.”
Ennalen made no reply, which he hoped meant she had no objection to his continuing.
“Throughout my journey here, Magistrate, I’ve found myself at the mercy of revelations that more than once have upended my view of the world. Forgive my presumption, but I can’t help wondering if your journey might have been much the same.”
Her apathetic expression changed ever so slightly.
“If that’s the case,” he continued, “then I also wonder if you might consider the possibility that we are both caught in the designs of someone else.”
A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) Page 27
