by A J Allen
It screeched and leapt through the air, pincer legs outstretched, the clicking mouth on its soft underside filled with circular rows of gnashing teeth snapping toward his face.
Simon steadied himself, sword raised, ready to bring all his fury down in a single blow upon its filthy head. And at the instant he felt the steel sever its skull in two, the words finally erupted from his parched throat: “Dalach mair su faytoh lantori daemonicou!”
This was his last desperate prayer to be heard; in the space of a single frozen heartbeat, he knew that if his final plea fell silent, he would never have the chance to utter another.
Chapter 16
Fables and Stories
“Simon? Can you hear me?” Rachel’s tearful, loving voice emanated, chased by a horde of shrieking echoes. Simon fought to break through the surface again until only the warmth of her words remained. “Simon, it’s Rachel. Please wake up. You’re home now.”
Simon jerked back his feverish head and gasped. He looked around in a panic, his head whipping side to side, sweat running down his face.
It seemed a mist was gradually dissolving to let in the first light of day. He looked around again, more slowly now, drinking in his surroundings.
He was sitting in the same chair in the Council chamber, Rachel gripping his arms and staring into his face, trying not to cry. Jack stood next to the Holy Seer, two monks at her side. Everyone looked as if they had just seen someone rise from their deathbed.
Simon reached toward Rachel’s beckoning face, still fearful of what he might touch. “Rachel? Is it really you?”
Her eyes gleamed. “Yes. Of course, it is me.”
Simon’s arms and legs jerked in painful spasms as though returning to life after being summoned from the brink of death at the last moment. His foot nudged a bucket next to the chair. “How long was I gone this time?”
“It’s almost morning.” She wiped the tears from her cheek. “We were so scared when the Holy Seer couldn’t bring you back.”
“You... you did?”
She hugged him then quickly stepped back, clearly embarrassed by her unguarded emotion. The Holy Seer inched toward him and touched his cheek. “I am so glad to see you again, dear. How do you feel?”
“I don’t know which is worse; my head or my—” Simon grabbed the bucket just in time. He heaved.
“There, there, It will pass. Speak, when you can.”
At the rustling of parchment, Simon turned, never imagining he would be happy to see Lord Rabek and his spectacles again, but he was wrong. The old scrivener sat hunched at a corner desk, busy with his book. He turned around. “I was worried your story might end here, young Blackfyre, but fortunately, it seems, I will have many more pages to fill, to say the least.”
“Holy Seer, I did as you asked, but don’t know if I succeeded.” Simon wiped his mouth with a clean cloth. “I... I thought I had returned to this room, but it wasn’t so.”
The Holy Seer drew a deep breath. “I brought Rachel back first, then Jack, but when I placed my hands on you I felt powerless to intercede. Someone or something was fighting to prevent you returning.”
Simon massaged his throbbing temples with his palms. “Someone else was there with me.”
“Who, child? Can you remember?”
Simon rubbed his eyes, trying to clear away the lingering fog in his mind that would not lift to reveal the concealed face beneath. He sensed he should know who it was, but the harder he tried to recall, the more obscured by cloud the memory became. “I... I can’t remember. I’m sorry.”
“There is a reason, then. The Choldath will resort to any trickery to remain hidden in our midst while they carry out their dark work seducing others to join their legion. They know our deepest desires and will offer to gratify our every need if we but invite them into our fragile hearts. It is possible an attempt was made to secure your allegiance, Simon, by offering you something or someone you desire.”
Simon looked at Rachel. She pressed her lips together and looked away.
Guilt assailed him yet he knew not the reason to feel so shameful. Yes, someone familiar was in the room but it was not Rachel. Had he indeed given in to some forbidden temptation with another that he could not undo? He racked his brains to recall; it seemed all so blurry, so indistinct. His befogged memory was suppressing it all as though under a dark spell.
But of one thing he was sure. Rachel had risked her soul for him.
He decided it was better he could not remember anything else, if such a memory would only hurt the one he cared for the most.
The Holy Seer leaned closer, scrutinizing his face, as if inspecting for the trail of a lie in his features. “Well, child? Was a gift offered that you should not have taken?”
Simon cleared his dry throat. “No, Holy Seer, but what should it matter as long as you heard the demon’s name. I did force it to speak, did I not?”
He hoped he had spoken the right answer and had not given in.
“We heard it.” Jack offered him a cup of water. “There in the corridor it was, as if we were looking down and watching ourselves in another person’s nightmare.”
Rachel patted gently at Simon’s brow. “We couldn’t call out to you but we both heard the thing speak its name.”
Simon gulped the water. “Then we can destroy it now, isn’t that true?”
The Holy Seer hobbled back to a chair behind the Council table. “The demon is known to us now, as you are to it, but its name is one I prayed I would never hear again.”
“Then tell me, I beseech you. I deserve to know it, the same as each of you.”
The shadow of a long forgotten, ancient fear passed across the Holy Seer’s weathered face. “In life he was known as… Anthor Koldrin.”
A familiar sensation of intense sickness and desolation swept over Simon, yet he had no understanding why he should react so strongly upon only hearing that name. “That thing I saw in the Corridor of Shadows... was a man?”
“Once... before the Age of Heroes.”
“I don’t understand. How is it possible for a man long dead to return as an unholy, living thing?”
“Because, my young protector, whose eyes are only now beginning to open,” her Holiness said, lowering herself to the chair with a sigh, “Anthor Koldrin never truly died.”
“But you said he was human, the same as you and I. What sorcery could give a man the power to cheat death all these centuries and become a demon?”
The Holy Seer seemed to become frailer with each passing moment as if something had attached itself to her soul, leeching her own spirit within and sucking it dry. “Lord Rabek, if you please. I am suddenly quite weary after speaking such dark words and thoughts.”
“As you wish, your Holiness.” The old scribe put down his quill. “Now, young man, did Mister Byrch explain any of the history of the ruins you saw on Lundy’s Hill?”
Simon rose to his shaky feet. “Only that the statues represented each of the five patriarchs.”
Lord Rabek opened another dusty volume on his desk. “That is true. The temple on what we now call Lundy’s Hill was the first erected by our ancestors… and here was where the eternal fire first burned… but it was destroyed within a few short years after the first Rites of Succession and the crowning of Sibert Evermere as our first King of Miradora.”
“How? Were the patriarchs still at war with the people here?”
“In a manner of speaking... with each other.”
“I know little of the old stories, Lord Rabek, and don’t care for them. What do they have to do with fighting demons?”
“Much, considering how remarkable it is that you have returned from the Corridor of Shadows a second time. Few outside this room know of your ability... or the true story of our throne.”
Simon stood next to his friends. “I mean no disrespect, my lord, but I can read now, and from where I stand, it seems that noble family continued to enjoy their fair bounty of crowns thanks to the King’s Council.”
Lord Rabek p
olished his spectacles. “They do, yes, but not all.”
Simon exchanged puzzled looks with Rachel and Jack.
His Lordship turned to a page in the opened book and began reading. “And in those days, before the Age of Heroes, the Winged Queen bade her six dukes to not seek infernal counsel or make dark allegiance, though her people’s enemies pressed down hard upon them from all sides.”
“That’s the same book!” Rachel rushed up to the desk next to the Royal Scribe. She ran her finger down its rough parchment page. “This is the passage I read, your Holiness.” She seemed giddy and childlike, bubbling over.
The Holy Seer raised her hand in a quieting gesture. “I know, child. Now, calm yourself and allow his Lordship to continue. This is no place for over-excitement.”
Rachel covered her face with one hand and shrank back, trying to be invisible.
Lord Rabek cleared his throat and pushed his spectacle back onto his nose. “Yet one among her lords, her most trusted and favorite, did not heed her wise command and instead forged unholy allegiance with infernal majesties promising eternal victory and domination over his enemies.”
Simon’s heart pounded beneath his burning chest brand. Overcome by dizziness, he dropped down in his chair and slumped forward.
“Anthor Koldrin was one of the original patriarchs?” he asked, eyes wide. “Really?”
Lord Rabek looked up from the book. “Yes. Really. Unfortunately, we know little more than that. Anthor Koldrin is referred to as a Duke while the others are called Baron. All we have are these collected tales and ballads handed down through the centuries, and the few surviving writings in ancient Asharru that we have so far translated. All others known to prove his existence, including paintings and statues, were purged and destroyed centuries ago.”
“Duke and Barons? From which kingdom, Lord Rabek?” Jack asked.
“That is what generations of scholars and scribes have been trying to uncover, young Evermere, without much success. Some suggest they invaded from an ancient kingdom in the lands now ruled by the Barons of Varza, which may explain much of their centuries-old animosity toward us. Regardless, it appears the five patriarchs set about to destroy all evidence of their origins before the founding of Miradora, including the mysterious Winged Queen once it was known that Koldrin conspired with the Choldath to overthrow their common enemies.”
“The demon told me it was lie. The Winged Queen, whatever she is, would not return.”
“And you believed it?”
“In a world of darkness and shadow how can one truly believe anything? I believed only that I would find my friends and return safely.”
The Holy Seer smiled and clasped her hands.
Rachel squeezed out the water cloth, a small scowl spoiling her brow. “But why should any of this happen after all these centuries?”
“Time, as we experience it, is meaningless to them,” Rabek said as he turned another page. “The Choldath are patient and will mount a full invasion of our realm only when they believe to have the decisive advantage, and they grow more certain that time is fast approaching.”
A tumble of confused thoughts and conflicting images clashed in Simon’s mind. “But what I saw in the corridor was but a demonic shade trapped in the netherworlds, was it not? This Anthor Koldrin, however menacing he appears, is not a flesh and blood threat to us. I mean, he’s not like the Necrolos.”
The Holy Seer unfolded her hands. “And we are each sworn unto death that is the way it shall remain.”
A flashing vision of Koldrin’s half-bestial, half-human face leered down at Simon, taunting him, while the other faces remained hidden high on their swaying necks. “Your Holiness, forgive me, but are you saying this man became the thing I saw in the Corridor of Shadows so our ancestors could conquer these lands with the help of demonic forces?”
Lord Rabek closed the book with a resounding slap. “Did you not understand her Holiness nor the words I spoke? How long must this inane questioning go on for, pray? Are you still suffering from the effects of your ordeal?”
He lifted from his seat and paced about in a small circular motion, before re-seating himself. The frustration was etched on his expression. “Now this time, listen. And listen well. The five barons, our five patriarchs, killed Anthor Koldrin before that could happen, you see?”
This time, it appeared Rabek refused to speak more than a sentence at a time, now feeling compelled to check for understanding at each pause. He looked to Simon again, his eyebrows raised, waiting. “Do you see, boy?” He tapped a pen on his desk, nib downward, impatiently.
“I… I… yes, I understand,” came the plaintive response. Simon had just been transported all the way back to the Pumbertons in his mind; he fought to quash the urge to say, “Yes, Mister Rabek, sir. I do see, sir.”
“Good, good. Well, insatiable greed, jealousy, and lust for power over the lawful rulers of this Kingdom drove Anthor Koldrin to his own damnation. That is why almost all record of his vile existence was erased from our history. What remains of it has been turned into myth and fairytale, and the shades of things that can never be within the Corridor of Shadows.”
The old scribe leaned forward and pointed his quill at Simon.
“Those same five barons, whom we honor as our founding patriarchs, rid this land of pagan warlords, cutthroats, and sorcerers. They built a new and glorious kingdom... and let their past remain buried with the dead where it belongs.”
“Yet, what if the truth does not wish to remain buried, my lord?” Jack asked.
“And the winged queen the demon spoke of to Simon?” Rachel added. “Is she but another bedtime story to tell children, your Lordship?”
The old scribe recoiled, his thin chest heaving with each raspy breath. “Of the winged queen and other things, I can speak no more, but what Anthor Koldrin became, he did so by surrendering his soul of his own free will to the most unholy manifestations of darkest evil. Remember that, each of you, and you in particular, Simon Blackfyre of Grimsby, the next time you are enticed by their—their unholy words and temptations.”
The furious clanging of the iron knocker at the front door made everyone turn. “Holy Seer, please, open up.” Lady Bellemar implored frantically. “Holy Seer!”
A monk slid the bolt across and opened the door. Her Ladyship hurried inside, breathless.
“Heavens, Eleana. You look whiter than a ghost. What is so urgent that you have to interrupt us?”
“It’s Robert Strathwald and Felicity Craverston, Please, you have to see them.”
At the mention of Felicity’s name, Simon jumped to his feet, ignited by a spark that cleared the fog in his mind long enough to recall. She was the one! Felicity had been there in the corridor with him… but beyond that, he remembered nothing, only knowing how a somehow shameful red heat came rising up his back to smother his face in a most embarrassed hue.
The Holy Seer looked at Simon intently. “What is the matter, child?”
“I’m... I’m not sure. Nothing. I mean—No!” His voice had risen to a crescendo, but the spoken words stuttered and faltered.
The Holy Seer rose from her chair, her fear, stark and vivid, glittering in her anxious eyes. “Bring them to me at once; I shall need to get to the bottom of this.”
Simon stared at the ornamental sword hanging over the rear door. Although he was certain he had never held that blade before, he wished beyond all rational explanation that it was in his hand once again.
Chapter 17
Who Can You Trust?
Mr. Joren hurried into the chamber carrying Felicity in his arms. Her eyes were rolling white spheres embedded in dark hallows of madness, her red hair damp and plastered to her scalp like moldy hay. Her body twitched in spasms and white froth spumed in the corners of her lips. Her skin tone assumed a purplish hue, as if she was starved of oxygen.
The Holy Seer pointed to one of the woven bedrolls prepared by her monks. “Place her there.”
Lord Fromund and Lord Lionsb
ury shouldered Robert through the door; his deathly pallor and crumpled and listless posture made him appear like a dying man being taken from the battlefield. They lay him down on the second bedroll and turned him on his side, whacking at his back in case he had ceased breathing. Robert took one huge intake or air and then coughed up a thick, greenish phlegm reeking of a cesspit.
The monks covered each patient with thick woolen blankets. They stepped back to the Holy Seer, their hands resting impatiently on their swords.
The Holy Seer brought her fingers to her lips. “Who found them like this?”
“I did, Holy Seer.” Lord Fromund pulled the blanket around Robert’s neck. “I was completing my rounds and checking the sentry watch when I discovered them behind the North tower.”
“How so?”
“They were, forgive my words,” he raised his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat, “They were indulging each other like wanton beasts in the field. I surprised them and when they broke their embrace, the girl shrieked and fell into violent spasms. I have never seen anything like this before.” He handed a small vial to the Holy Seer.
“I found it on the ground next to her. I believe it to be oil from the Eelamassi plant mixed with Nahrina poppy.”
Her Holiness examined the vial closely, rotating it in her frail hands. “Lord Lionsbury and Mister Joren, is this true?”
Mr. Joren knelt beside Felicity. “I heard Lord Fromund call out and when I arrived, he was tending to young Strathwald. I tried to subdue her but she was like one possessed. She was—” He wiped the corners of her mouth as another voice came in.
“Mister Joren speaks the truth,” Lord Lionsbury interrupted, placing a hand on Robert’s forehead. “I came upon the scene moments later with the guard and found them as they are now. Robert is still as cold as the crypt while she burns like the fires of—like the fires of—” His eyes went wide and he stared at Simon as though confirming his worst fear.
His Lordship leapt to his feet and withdrew his sword as fiery orange streaked up and down the blade. He swung around, pointing the tip at Felicity’s heart.
