Mantle: The Return of the Sha

by Gary Bregar

  The mountain itself was devoid of any hint of life, with only sharp rocks growing from its slopes. However, lava could be seen flowing from crevasses, only to be redirected back into the mountain a bit farther down so that none of the molten rock seemed to fully escape the mountain itself.

  The temperature of the place would have been unbearable to Balki Touro. But since the inflock had left its home in the medallion and was fully possessing him, he was no longer living within his own body—not in the traditional sense, anyway. He was still alive, but the inflock had pushed him far out of the way once he was no longer needed. It had imprisoned Balki in the farthest reaches of his own mind—shut away forever.

  ****

  When the inflock reached the gate of the mountain, one side of its double doors lay open as if to greet him. At more than a hundred feet in height, the door towered over the inflock and the horse he was riding, making them appear small by comparison.

  He dismounted and stood before the gate. He was smiling, although it would not appear so on the now-decrepit face of the former Balki Touro. The face now appeared as old as that of a centenarian and was covered in boils and dirty blisters. His lips were cracked from the dry heat, and the long black hair that had once belonged to Balki was now a murky gray that had thinned to near baldness. It hung in scattered clumps from the skin that seemed to lay thinly over his skull.

  He walked through the gate. This would be where he would abandon his horse, for this was a one-way venture and he would not be returning to the open air—not in Balki Touro’s body, at least.

  The air was cooler inside, but the heat of the place would still be unbearable to the normal inhabitants of Mantle. When he entered, he was standing in a great hall. He could hear the mountain moaning as if it were contracting, or maybe breathing, and he could feel Menagraff’s presence—could feel his power becoming stronger.

  The great hall was empty of any trace of the Skites. The inflock had been here before, of course—it was home. It knew what this place would look like when the Skites had fully returned to power. He had seen it.

  The king taking his place atop the large stone block that stood in the center of the room. Skite armies clustered around, cheering when the king bid them to cheer. It wasn’t so much a cheer, he supposed, as it was gnarling and grunting, but the effect was the same.

  The gatherings that had taken place in this room had not been for the benefit of Menagraff’s minions, though. Menagraff’s children (the Skites) were connected to him mentally like tentacles, receiving instruction from their king seamlessly, and obeying without thought. They would fight to the death without regard for their own safety, for they were only parts of a larger evil.

  The assemblies were for the benefit of Menagraff and his overbearing ego. He relished at the sight of them, praising him and his purpose. He drew energy from the collective evil that gathered in the hall, and he would return that energy back to his soldiers, as well, creating a circle of hate.

  There were two wide stone corridors on both sides of the hall that spanned fifty feet in width. The right corridor, the inflock knew, led to areas of the city that included the dungeons where Balki Touro’s own ancestor, Barth, had been kept centuries ago. Of course it had been Barth that had unknowingly set the current events into motion. Thank you very much.

  The inflock moved farther into the room and then turned down the left corridor. Torches that hung on the walls lit as he walked down the corridor, seeming to welcome him. The inflock would not need such illumination had he continued to possess the medallion that he had called home for centuries. In the medallion, he did not have a need for sight. In the medallion, he knew what appeared around him. Now, though, he possessed the body of a man, and was reliant on the vision that it granted him.

  When he reached the end of the corridor he came upon a wide stairway that led down into the bowels of the mountain. His journey down the steps would take hours, and the temperature rose the farther down he went, causing new blisters to form on Balki’s skin and older blisters to break.

  Once he was clear of the stairway, he found himself in a vast round room with a large door on the curved wall opposite the stairway. Other smaller doors were placed around the room, separated by only a few yards. There were fifteen smaller doors in total, and he knew that these led to the birthing areas, where Skite soldiers were bred and now lay restlessly waiting to be born.

  It was the larger door that he was concerned with, however. That door led directly into what might be considered Menagraff’s throne room, although it would not be a traditional throne that he would find when he entered.

  He approached the large door, clearly marked with the sigil of Menagraff. The door was made of iron and had no latch or handles—none were needed. The door swung open on its own as he approached.

  ****

  As they came to the final hill of their trek back to the Outland Post, Bella’s horse struggled to keep its balance on the shale rock that covered the side of the hill. The rock was set in light gray dust, and Zander was sure that he had not traveled this way when he had gone to meet Balki. But the Dark Weed had been guiding him then, changing directions so that he did not know his way.

  Once they crested the hill, the dim firelight of the post removed his worries. The light was dim, but he could see it nevertheless. They would be back soon.

  He noticed something else, as well. He saw firelight lined along the border in both directions for as far as his eyes would carry. King Cergio had arrived, and he had brought a vast army—thank all of the Fathers.

  ****

  The inflock could see the room illuminate as the door opened. The torches were lighting in order to welcome him, just as they had welcomed his two brothers who had come years earlier. He was the last to fulfill his duty, and would soon join his siblings in darkness until he would be called up again by the king. When that time came, the inflock would gladly carry out the king’s bidding once more. After all, that was its purpose.

  He walked through the entrance of Menagraff’s throne room. A familiar place.

  A solid iron block stood in the center of the room to serve as Menagraff’s throne. The rest of the room was empty, as there would be nothing else necessary to benefit the king of Skite. He had no interest in material objects—only the infliction of evil. That was enough.

  Resting atop the iron block were the other two skull pieces. They had been recovered some years earlier, and now lay covered in white powdery dust.

  The inflock approached the throne and took up the two skull pieces that had been resting there. He could see beneath the dust that one had been dipped in gold, the Bores, no doubt, he thought. Them and their precious gold! Ha!

  The other was the natural color of the skull itself, but seemed covered in glass. He presumed that the Tongars had charmed it with the oils of their great whales. What will they say of their magic whales now?

  He gently laid them back on the iron block and removed the silver-dipped skull piece from inside his coat. The shine of the silver immediately looked out of place in the dingy gray of the room.

  He lowered the final piece down to the throne and as he did it pulled free of his hand. The three pieces came together as magnets would, forming the perfect shape of the former king’s skull. When they had snapped together, the dust fell from the first two pieces, revealing the three coverings of the pieces that had been placed by the three kingdoms—silver, gold, and glass.

  The skull, at first, only rested on the iron block, but for only a moment. The inflock backed away from the throne, as the mountain began to rumble and the making of the king began.

  ****

  Had Balki Touro been granted the ability to feel his own body, he would have felt like he were being sucked into the center of the room. The skull began to vibrate viciously and, as it did, it created a vacuum, pulling the air to it. The trembling of the mountain caused the dust from the walls and ceiling to descend into the room, and it was immediately pulled toward the throne
and the skull.

  All of the dust in the room was pulled from its crevasses—every grain of it. The inflock backed away once again, when dust began to fly into the room through the open door. It came into the room in sheets, flying quickly to its destination. Had anyone else been inside the city of Narciss, they would have witnessed dust being pulled from the cracks of every door leading to every room—from every hole and from every nook.

  The dust continued to make its way to the iron block, until finally there was a large pile of powdery white dust that covered the skull and most of the throne itself. When there was enough material to begin, the dust began swirling around the skull. It scrubbed against the skull violently, first removing the outer protection provided by the three kingdoms centuries early. Then it began to dissolve the skull itself. As it did this, the skull was turned to dust that simply joined the rest.

  It continued swirling around as a whirlwind might, reaching ever greater heights as it did. The inflock stood fascinated as the body began to emerge, first with the king’s feet, then legs. The dust worked its swirling dark magic until the king’s entire body was put into shape.

  The dust cloud was much lighter now, but it continued to swirl around the king, adding the finishing touches, until the inflock clearly saw the ruler of Skite—Menagraff.

  He stood tall upon the iron throne, nearly nine feet in height. Although he was naked, his skin was coarse like hide and was colored a shade of red so dark that, in the light of the room, it appeared nearly black. The skin was also lightly covered in places with small deposits of iron that had bubbled from the skin before hardening.

  The king’s arms were large with muscle, and while he had five fingers on each hand, they appeared slightly webbed together.

  The head of the newly formed king was large and smooth compared to the rest of his body. There was neither hair nor ears—only a smooth scalp that curved back into the single large horn that protruded from the back of his head.

  The horn began at the top of his head and curled down toward the center of his back. Just before it reached his lower back, though, it split into two separate horns that spiraled outward.

  It was the eyes, though, that the inflock was drawn to. There was only dark red in the eye sockets of the king. It was the blood of the king, the inflock had no doubt, and the swirling red eyes now turned down to look on him.

  “Greetings, Prince Mornned—you have done well, my son,” Menagraff said.

  He had a very deep and scratchy voice that seemed to contain absolutely no echo. The voice fell down to Mornned, and to him it felt heavy. The prince fell to his knees at once.

  “Thank you, my king,” Mornned said. “What service will you have of me now?”

  “You will return now to your possession of the mountain. Join your brethren princes and I will reward you with bodies of your own, with kingdoms to govern once they are won—and they will be won,” Menagraff replied. “You and your brothers will be named Lords of Bore, Tongar, and Forris under my rule. At long last, all four of the kingdoms of Mantle will suffer under my hand. ”

  “Thank you, Father, I am forever in your service and will return to the mountain.”

  With that, Prince Mornned took one final look through Balki Touro’s eyes. The room, now free of all dust, appeared completely clean.

  After a moment, he laid Balki’s body against the stone floor. A moment later, he was free of Balki and had taken joint possession of the mountain, alongside his brothers. Balki Touro’s body, which had been kept by evil without food or water, now took its appropriate form. It shriveled to brittle bones that lay on the floor of Menagraff’s throne room. He would not move the remains, for they mattered not.

  King Menagraff raised his hands above his head. His eyes changed from dark red to bright red, and he yelled in such a voice that the whole mountain shook, “Rise my children,” he shouted, “for your time has come. Be born to your destiny!”

  Below the throne room, in the deep caverns of the mountain, the children of Skite began to awaken. They pulled first at the soft membrane that surrounded them and then began breaking their way out of the hard shell that had taken shape over time.

  As each one broke free, it let out a deafening screech and began exploring the use of its arms and legs. There were hundreds of thousands of Skites being born in the mountain, and the sound of it would have killed anyone other than them.

  They were covered in a slimy substance that dripped from them, and when they stood they were not nearly as tall as Menagraff. They stood only about five feet tall, but mirrored the king’s appearance in almost every other way. They, too, had a horn that formed on the back of the head, but it did not split into two as the king’s had. And their eyes had a liquid quality, but were milky gray, unlike the red eyes of the king.

  Once the newly born Skites had gained their mobility, they went to one of the many heaps of weapons that lay scattered throughout the caverns. They had been made and left by the last of the previous Skites—one batch of Skite children, leaving provisions for the next.

  As they did this, iron doors—hundreds of them—flung open around the base of the mountain, flinging rocks and dirt high into the air.

  Each cavern in the depths of the mountain led to one of the iron doors, and as the Skites finished preparing themselves, they rushed toward these doors. They needed no training for this. The king of Skite—Menagraff, was sharing his wishes as easily as he was thinking them.

  They poured from the open doors of the mountains, running away from the mountain to take their place in front of the others.

  At the same time, darkness began to flow out of the mountain as well. It rolled thick out of the doors along with the Skite soldiers, engulfing them until it could break free and spread into the air like thin clouds. The darkness would move relatively slowly, but would still cover the full Kingdom of Skite within hours.

  When the Skites had finished their exodus from the mountain, they lined up in formation as any highly trained army would. Two hundred and fifty thousand soldiers of the dark.

  Once they had assembled, Menagraff walked out to a ledge that overlooked them. Pleased with what he saw, he silently ordered them away to battle, and the Skite soldiers turned to begin their charge.

  ****

  When the watchman signaled that someone was approaching from the Outlands, the war room that had been full of men now cleared at once. They went to the balcony of the main building that overlooked the Outlands, and saw three figures in the shimmer of the heat. The sun had only risen a short while ago, but already the heat was overbearing. The figures appeared to be of a horse and rider, with someone leading them.

  As the figures got to the edge of the Outland Post, the men shuffled down the narrow stairs and into the courtyard, with Lizabet and Dorian rushing past them.

  Once the figures finally emerged from around the corner of the gate, they saw King Zander leading a horse with Queen Bella sitting atop. Soldiers began following them to the gate, so that there was a large crowd now gathered behind them. The soldiers stopped at the gate, but Zander continued in, and once Bella could see Lizabet standing in the courtyard awaiting their arrival, she leaped from the horse and they both ran to each other. They embraced and tears began to flow from both of them.

  Zander walked toward King Cergio, who was also standing in the courtyard.

  “Zander, you make me look bad to my wife!” Cergio said with a smile of genuine relief.

  “King Cergio, I believe that you would do the same for your wife,” Zander replied, surrendering only a brief smile. “Now tell me where we stand,” he continued.

  They began walking toward the main building, and it was then that the ground began to shake. It only shook for a few moments, then stopped as quickly as it had begun. A muffled roar could be heard coming from Skite, and although they did not know it, what they heard was the collective screaming of newly born Skite soldiers.

  ****

  In the war room, an exhausted Zander
stood looking down at the map. It had now shuffled the black crystals of the Skite army to a place that would be visible to them from the post. This told them that it was clearly a deception, since no armies could be seen. An approaching army would be visible from anyplace within the Outlands, and although the Grey Eagles would not fly over the deepest of the Skite lands, they would fly over the Outlands that lay along the border. Yes, the map was being deceived by the Skites, and Zander planned to remedy the situation. He picked the black crystal up off the map and handed it to General Brask.

  “Put this away—it is nothing but a distraction.”

  Brask took the crystal and placed it in the velvet bag that the crystals had been transported in.

  “Have we heard news of Ekkill?” Zander asked.

  “Yes, Majesty,” Brask said, “he has a fleet of ships that have reached the Red Islands, but his primary fleet is still in the Domin Sea, rounding the Knob-Nose Peninsula. He will be entering the Lost Waters shortly. The map is true in that respect.”

  Zander continued looking down at the map. The crystals that indicated Ekkill’s fleet were colored in gold, and seemed to be true enough.

  “He is much too far away to be of any use, I think,” Zander said.

  Brask nodded agreement. “Yes, I’m afraid so,” he said. “We knew this might be the case, Majesty, and I don’t believe that a front on the Lost Waters will be of benefit in the long run.”

  Zander had known it was possible that Ekkill would not be at Skite shores in time. It was much farther for him and his armies. They would make the best of it.

  ****