As Nel’ead looked upon his brothers and sisters, Alastra’s firm eyes shocked him as they glared back at him; festering a seeming hatred. Why exactly she would be angry at him, Nel’ead did not know and could not guess at the moment. His mother had asked him a question, and if he disregarded it for too long he could be punished. Alastra’s eyes reminded him of the punishments one could face in their society.
He turned from Alastra and focused on Eldrean instead. “We are leaderless at this time, and have been for a few weeks now it seems. To be leaderless is to be guideless, and to be guideless is to be lost. We are at a loss in our present state, and if we remain so our enemies will strike us while we are weak. And so being the eldest of our noble family, I take it upon myself to be lord of this branch in our fathers place. I take this burden willingly, and with no complain, knowing full well the difficulty it will be to carry.”
Jastrum shifted his weight uncomfortably. “You are certain father is not coming back?”
“No, he is not,” Nel’ead replied offhandedly. “Our enemies are upon us at this very moment, and have been since those few weeks ago when father vanished. I have put this moment off for far too long my dear brothers and sisters; it is my fault that we have gone so long in this state with no proper authority.”
“What enemies do you speak of?” Eldrean demanded at his side.
Nel’ead paused, allowing it to sink into their minds before answering. “It is Vulzdagg that has betrayed us.”
“How could Vulzdagg have done this?” Elemni asked in disbelief.
“The lesser realm was upon Vulzdagg those weeks ago when father vanished,” Tyla put in. “They could not have had the power or the time to enact such a thing as what you speak.” Both Jastrum and Elemni nodded in agreement with her, and Eldrean frowned in doubt of Nel’ead.
Nel’ead knew they would not immediately side with him, but with time and effort they would eventually have enough stress and fear to have no other choice but to follow his lead. Nel’ead knew that Vulzdagg had done something involving the death of Hestage, and was ready to repay his spilled blood for theirs. However, one among the noble family had said nothing since her arrival into the throne room.
Alastra stood unmoving, persistently staring directly at Nel’ead as if waiting for an explanation for it all. She continued to stand motionless, unblinking as Nel’ead turned toward her and met her furry filled eyes.
“I ask only for one thing,” Nel’ead said as he slowly pulled his eyes away from Alastra’s, a sudden thought coming to his mind. “Will the nobles of Swildagg swear their allegiance to their lord?”
“We swear no allegiance to anyone, lord or not,” Elemni said, broadening himself before Nel’ead. “Our allegiance is sworn only to the all great and all powerful Urden’Dagg. Its command is our duty.”
“Very well,” Nel’ead said. He nodded as he faintly smiled at himself. If it is the Urden’Dagg’s command, then it is their duty. Nel’ead now knew what he had to do.
The Swildagg nobles turned round and went back to their separate quarters, having things to do that they supposed better worth their time than consulting with Nel’ead. Alastra, however, remained standing with her powerful stare fixed still upon Nel’ead as he watched them each depart out the door through which they had come. When they were gone at last, he turned to Alastra with a scowl of his own.
“Vulzdagg is treacherous, you know that just as much as I do, so don’t stand there patronizing me with your devilish glare!” Nel’ead said in a harsh tone.
Alastra’s expression did not soften, but she shifted beneath his words and said nothing.
“We all know that it was Vulzdagg who destroyed Zurdagg,” Nel’ead continued, “and that Maaha survived the assault. She was even here once or twice, consulting with father and with mother something that they did not allow us to know. They were keeping secrets from us, Alastra, secrets that should not have been kept secret.”
“Father did not know he was going to disappear like he has,” Alastra said in a steady, confident tone.
“What difference does that make?” Nel’ead retorted. “Whether or not, we will never know for sure what exactly they were plotting. Perhaps they were scheming against Vulzdagg, or maybe she was uniting with us.”
“She hated Vulzdagg, so why not plan their destruction?” said Alastra. “Maaha had great power with the dealings of magic and the lesser realms. I heard rumors of how she often raised demons from the lower planes to test the strength of her mages, or conjured monsters to her will as she drove cave crabs and other such monsters from her domain. Do you recall how it was the lesser realm that was driven against Vulzdagg?”
Alastra smiled as she saw the grim expression of Nel’ead, and how he gripped the arm of the throne with confused anger. Alastra began to laugh, and as she did Nel’ead shot her an angered glance that he quickly swept away with a raised brow.
“I remember very well the assault upon Vulzdagg,” Nel’ead replied. “Are you suggesting that it was Maaha who brought that blow upon them? Maaha may be powerful, but it is the Urden’Dagg that repaid them for their treachery against Zurdagg.”
“Believe whatever superstitious nonsense that has been placed into your mind, dear brother, but do not forget that revenge is an emotion that all creatures feel and experience. Maaha delivered the blow, the Urden’Dagg guided it.”
Nel’ead was silent, and Alastra grinned as she felt his thoughts agree with hers. She had him trapped within her reasoning, and had destroyed anything that he might have used to argue with, leaving him only with thoughts and questions that pertained to her.
“Where does Hestage’s disappearance fit into all of this?” Nel’ead asked.
“Maaha had complete control over our branch while she was here,” said Alastra as she crossed the room to stand beside Eldrean’s throne, and casually rested her hand upon its side. “Her power outdid all of us – even our most expert mages kept their distance from her as she spoke only and directly to mother and father. They believed everything she said, and feared her as one would fear the Urden’Dagg. When the command came, they had no other choice but to obey her.”
“What command?” Nel’ead asked, not respecting her comparison with the Urden’Dagg.
Alastra smiled, a strange gleam in her eye that more than disturbed Nel’ead. “The Urden’Dagg demanded that the nobles of Vulzdagg be punished for their crimes, and therefore slain by the hand of an existing branch. The reward for such obedience would be great indeed, or so Maaha said,” Alastra said. “One who is practiced can easily see through such lies, but mother and father are apparently unpracticed,” she added with a quiet laugh.
Nel’ead leapt to his feet. “How do you know all this?” he demanded, nearly on the verge of roaring into her face.
Alastra did not flinch at his sudden fury, seeming to have felt it boiling within him since their conversation had begun. Secretly, she had been prodding at his temper as she purposefully made him feel and appear foolish, knowing that eventually he’d give away his designs for the knowledge she gave him. His weaknesses were beginning to show already, and they were many.
“One who listens more and talks less learns much,” she replied offhandedly. Stepping away from Eldrean’s throne, Alastra began walking around and behind the two seats, and sighed as she made another attempt at his weakness. “Why don’t you ever listen to the things going on around you, Nel’ead? There is so much your missing, so much going on around you that you cannot even comprehend.” She stopped as she came to stand beside the lord’s throne, and rested against it as she had before.
Nel’ead lowered his head as he sighed with contempt. “What else do you know that I do not?”
“Many things,” she replied in a low voice, her eyes narrowing as she hid her smile. “I’m afraid that if I tell you I shall only stress you further. A lord should not trouble himself too much with the knowledge of what is going on around him.”
“Tell me, Alastra,” Nel’ead grow
led angrily.
Alastra paused contemplatively before speaking. “Lord Vaknorbond Vulzdagg is marshalling his remaining army for an attack upon us. With Hestage dead at their feet they have traced the attack back to us, and will destroy this branch as soon as they have the power. I tell you, my brother, that they must not have that power.”
Nel’ead cursed under his breath. “I knew it!” he cried aloud. “Maaha and Vulzdagg, they are all deceiving liars! Who now can we trust?”
“No one,” Alastra answered. “But the Urden’Dagg will deliver us if we earn its favor.”
Nel’ead turned to her with determination. “How might we gain its favor?”
“Simple,” Alastra replied with a smile. “We must finish what our father began. The nobles of Vulzdagg must perish for the crimes they have committed.”
Nel’ead nodded in thoughtful agreement, and then he smiled as he turned round to face the doorway into the Circle of Power. “Alastra, my sister,” he said with a widening smile, “you are brilliant!”
“I know,” Alastra whispered as she smiled secretly, and thanked Maaha Zurdagg for her cunningness that appeared so cleverly done.
3
I Am the Lord of Vulzdagg!
Lord Vaknorbond Vulzdagg had slain Lord Hestage Swildagg during his escape from Vulzdagg as he delivered his son, Neth’tek Vulzdagg, unto the Urden’Dagg in payment for the destruction they had enacted upon Zurdagg the day the child of the basilisk was born. Hestage Swildagg was under the powerful influence of Maaha Zurdagg, having been ordered by that witch to intercept and destroy both the child and his father so that the entire branch of Vulzdagg would fall out of the Urden’Dagg’s favor, and therefore be exposed to destruction. Hestage, however, had been slain by the hand of Vaknorbond and so fell into the dark abyss below his city.
Maaha’s weight upon Swildagg not only destroyed its lord, but also bred in the hearts of his children a terrible malice condemned toward Vulzdagg. Purposeful whispers were uttered behind the backs of each noble member of the Swildagg branch, and her stereotypical hate for Vulzdagg was made known to all of them for a precise reason that she knew would play out exactly as intended. She would never forgive Vulzdagg for what it had done to her, and would be sure that it fell beneath the chaos that would soon take place after her departure toward the realm of the Urden’Dagg; for she had been summoned to bring the last piece of her power to it beside Vaknorbond.
Dril’ead Vulzdagg, along with the members of the branch his father had left him, was oblivious to the death of Hestage Swildagg, knowing only that Vaknorbond and Neth’tek had gone to the Urden’Dagg despite his position against it.
“Great were the plans I had for Neth’tek,” Dril told his sister, Gefiny, as they sat together at a stone table in the center of the throne room.
A sparse meal was laid before them, and Gefiny at first did not look up at Dril’ead as he spoke, or even realize he had at all. They had been sitting there, silently eating for what seemed almost an hour without speaking to one another. And so when Dril spoke Gefiny had been so enthralled in her own private thoughts that she at first did not take immediate notice of him.
Dril’ead looked up from his plate at her, waiting for her to react to what he had said. Gefiny had always been his dearest of friends and most trusted when it came to counseling. If ever he had his doubts, he went to her and she made his decisions clear for him.
Gefiny looked up as she felt his gaze upon her, and realized he had spoken. She faintly smiled at him as she reheard his words echo in her mind.
“Neth’tek is no longer here, Dril’ead,” she reminded him.
Dril’ead looked back at his plate of food. He had eaten barely any of it, but instead had pushed the bits of meat around contemplatively. The same thoughts of his lost brother replayed in his mind throughout the past weeks since his departure, and he wondered where he was now and what he was doing.
“Eat,” Gefiny told him, gesturing at his plate. “The harvesters worked hard to pull this out of the caves.”
“Than shouldn’t they be eating it?” Dril said. “What is the point of hard work if you get nothing from it?”
“They gain the honor of serving their lord,” said Gefiny.
Dril was silent as he strayed from the subject, his mind wandering back to what he had begun at first to say. “Do you suppose he will come back?”
“Dril’ead,” Gefiny said sternly, “you said yourself that Neth’tek was to be forgotten. He is no longer here or in reach of our concern. I miss him as well, but I think it best that you take heed of your own words and try to forget what happened.”
“What happened, Gefiny?” Dril’ead asked in sudden furry. “All I remember of that dreadful day is drawing blades against our father in a blind rage! What was I thinking? What demon possessed my body throughout those black years that drove me onward toward a goal I could not reach with the anger and hate that boiled within my heart? I am a monster, borne to kill and nothing else. I was wrong trying to stop Vaknorbond. If Neth’tek had stayed we all would have died on that day.”
“You were not yourself,” Gefiny assured him. “I knew a young warrior who trained day by day to become the most skilled warrior the shadow realms would ever see, and to deliver his people from darkness deeper than the shadows of the caverns. That young warrior is you, Dril’ead. Retake the hope you once had for yourself.”
Dril avoided her eyes. “That hope lay in Neth’tek. He was to become something great for these people to look toward, so that my assurance could be made whole when I died with that demon horn stuck in my back. I meant to die that day, Gefiny. I meant to die the glorious death of which would return me to the place we all had come from.” He looked up at her, tears streaking his cheeks. “You do not understand the pain I now feel. He was to be my salvation, but I destroyed that hope with my relentless rage and determination to fight my whole life away when I was returned to the world of the living. The warrior you speak of is no longer before you. I am not myself hereafter.”
Gefiny sat motionless, dumbfounded by what he told her. She opened her mouth but struggled to speak. “So find something to hope for.”
Dril shifted in his seat, a sudden thought entering his mind. He rose from the bench he sat upon and looked Gefiny in the eye, the tears on his face beginning to dry already. To Gefiny’s confusion, Dril smiled sincerely.
“Urden’Dagg bless you, sister,” he said to her. “You have reminded me of a task I had accepted at the side of a wounded student. I may have lost my chance with Neth’tek, our beloved brother, but my hope is not yet gone. Nelastro of Vulzdagg, the blind warrior, shall receive my teachings. I take this oath to myself for you to witness, Gefiny, that I shall not allow the demon Maaha Zurdagg placed upon me to overcome this child as well.”
“But I thought nobles taught only nobles,” Gefiny said curiously.
“Noble or not, I shall teach him, Gefiny,” Dril told her. He turned round to pass through the anteroom door when the doors into the Circle of Power opened and a guard strode toward them.
“My noble masters,” the guard said, bowing to them both. “Where is Lady Leona’burda?”
Dril opened his mouth to reply when Leona’s voice cut him off as she entered the chamber. “What is it, guard?”
The guard bowed again. “Lord Nel’ead Swildagg wishes to speak with the nobles of the Vulzdagg branch.”
The three nobles exchanged confused glances. “Lord Nel’ead?” they asked one another quietly.
“That is the name of which he referenced himself with,” the guard replied with a nod.
Leona nodded, pondering still the confusing notion. They all knew Hestage Swildagg to be the lord of Swildagg, but none of them knew yet of his death and disappearance. “We shall speak with him,” she said after a short moment.
The guard led them through the doors into the Circle of Power, still housing the injured of the city, and to a wide circle etched in gold upon the stone floor. Smaller circles connected alo
ng its edges, and within three of these the nobles stepped and waited as a blue orb began to appear before them.
As the blue orb took shape in the air, hovering within the main circle, the face of a Follower took form in its center. Nel’ead Swildagg smiled at the three floating orbs from where he stood in his own Circle of Power, a mysterious look in his eyes.
“Greetings from Swildagg,” Nel’ead said, still smiling. “Does my appearance as lord unease you?”
The Vulzdagg nobles exchanged quick glances before one replied. “Unease is not the word, I think,” Leona said. “Has Hestage resigned the stalagmite throne?”
Nel’ead frowned. “Nay, he has died. I thought you had already known.”
Again the nobles of Vulzdagg looked at one another, stunned at his announcement. None of them had heard even a whisper of Hestage’s death.
Nel’ead waved his hand to disregard the subject. “Do not trouble yourselves with it; there are more pressing matters to attend to. But tell me, where is Lord Vaknorbond Vulzdagg?”
“Resting,” Dril’ead was quick to reply before either of his family could speak, and neither of them tried to correct him. “The battle here has worn him weary and he requires much rest before taking any troublesome labors upon him.”
Nel’ead nodded thoughtfully. “Is all well with the Vulzdagg branch?”
“It is,” Dril replied.
“There must be something Swildagg can offer in service to Vulzdagg,” said Nel’ead.
Dril shook his head. “There is nothing, thank you.”
“However,” Nel’ead said suddenly, “I wish to have a private meeting with the nobles of Vulzdagg – in person. There are urgent matters that I must consult with you about. When might be an appropriate time?”
None of the nobles answered for a moment. “In Vulzdagg or in Swildagg?” asked Leona’burda.
Passage to Glory: Part Two of the Redemption Cycle Page 3
