by Dean Cadman
“Well, I thought we might use the incantation Lord Zelroth enjoyed teaching us so much,” he replied sarcastically.
“That isn’t really what I meant. What I’m asking is this; once The Great Rift is reopened, then what? I would imagine there are hundreds, if not thousands of Netherworld creatures on the other side, all just waiting to escape and kill us. So, how do we get out of there alive? I don’t know if you noticed, but Lord Zelroth failed to mention that part of the plan.”
“Yes, I did notice. But apparently, unlike you, I have given the plan some thought. It’s quite simple really. We’ll reopen The Great Rift at midday, when the sun is at its highest and strongest in the sky. Once it’s reopen, we run for our lives towards Helveel. It’s not that far from here, so we should make it before nightfall,” Zedd replied smugly.
“But what about any Zeadahl that might come through?” Cole asked, sounding a little concerned.
“Any what?” Zedd asked.
“Zeadahl. Day-walkers. Netherworld creatures that can move around in the daylight. Or at least they can in the shadows.”
“There’s no such thing!” Zedd spat at him.
“That’s what you said about the Carazhal too, if I remember correctly,” Cole replied, trying not to sound too smug.
“And I suppose you learned all about the Zeadahl from an ancient scroll too?”
“Actually no, I didn’t. I read about them in an old Afaraon text that had been left behind when they abandoned Azmarin. It was one of a number that was sent to The Great Library in Thave for further study, and I was the one assigned to that particular text. The reason why you probably haven’t heard of a Zeadahl, is because the Paladins of Aysha hunted them all down and exterminated them shortly after The Great Rift was sealed. Which meant by the time the Thule Empire began capturing and studying the Netherworld creatures, there were none left here to capture.
“Apparently the paladins were attempting to build an outpost inside The Dark Forest, somewhere close to remnants of The Great Rift. The Zeadahl, as you can imagine, made that extremely difficult for them, so they were hunted down and exterminated. Later the project was abandoned anyway, and the location moved to what is now Stelgad. It eventually became known as The Sanctum of Light we know today, but…”
“Enough!” Zedd yelled, cutting Cole off mid-sentence. “I’m not interested in the history of the paladins. All I need to know is what they look like, and how we kill them.”
Cole thought back to what he’d read in the ancient text, and realised that there was actually very little information about the Zeadahl contained in it. Most of the text had related to the construction of a fortified observation post for the Paladins of Aysha. And he was pretty sure the only reason that the Zeadahl had been mentioned at all, was because they had interfered with that process.
“I’m not sure. The only reference to their physical appearance was about their very thick armour, and the fact that they could still move around during daylight hours. Apparently it was difficult for a single paladin to bring them down alone, because their only weak spot was on their back. Other than that, the information was pretty scant I’m afraid. The only other reference to the Zeadahl, was about their speed, which may, or may not be beneficial to us. Apparently, the paladins often encouraged the Zeadahl to chase them, so they could lead them into an ambush and attack them from behind. But whether that means a man can outrun them over a long distance, or only for a short sprint, it didn’t say. With regards to how we kill them, I’m not sure we can. If their armour is thick enough to withstand direct sunlight, I doubt that anything we can do will harm them much,” Cole replied.
Zedd thought about Cole’s words carefully. Everything he had ever learned about Netherworld creatures had led him to believe that once they reopened The Great Rift, nothing would emerge until after sunset. And now he found that might not be the case at all. The only glimmer of hope he had was Cole’s information about their lack of speed. But like he had already pointed out, no one knew just how long they could be outrun for. Then he suddenly realised that they might not have to outrun them for very far anyway.
“Are the Zeadahl the only ones that can move around in daylight?” Zedd asked, hoping that they were.
“They’re the only ones that I know of. But that’s not to say there aren’t others I don’t know about,” Cole replied truthfully.
Zedd nodded slowly to himself. “Well, let’s assume for the moment that they are the only ones likely to emerge in the daylight. We also know we can outrun them, at least for a short distance. So why not use the circles of protection we’ve already made as a way of escaping. We can’t reopen The Great Rift from inside a magic circle for obvious reasons, but we can make sure there is one ready a short distance away. Not too close though. We would need to put some distance between us and The Rift, or we might get overrun by them.
“We would have to leave a small break in one of the lines of the circle so we can pass through its boundaries, but once it’s repaired again, we should become invisible to the Zeadahl. Then hopefully they’ll get bored and move away again, allowing us to run to the next circle. The more distance we put between ourselves and The Rift, the fewer chances of us being seen by a Zeadahl.”
“That might work, just as long as they can’t see through our circle of protection like the Carazhal did,” Cole replied.
“We better hope that they can’t, or we’ll both be dead for sure,” Zedd said flatly. Cole had no need to reply to that, because he knew what Zedd had said was true.
“Maybe we should get back to work. It looks like your minion has finished replacing all of the rollers,” Cole said, nodding in its direction. Zedd grunted, and they both headed back towards the dragon heart. It was immediately apparent that the intense feelings of anger and hatred being emitted from the dragon heart towards them, had not lessened any since they had been gone. In fact, if anything, they had intensified somewhat. It was now so powerful, that Cole could still feel it through his best efforts at defending against it. He almost felt sorry for Zedd, knowing that he would be suffering to a far greater degree than he was.
They soon had the dragon heart moving again on its log-rollers, and once they’d got into a rhythm, they covered the ground fairly quickly. So much so, that they decided to bypass the first circle of protection altogether, and head straight for the second one instead.
The ground was flat now, and that meant they no longer had to hammer stakes into it to stop the dragon heart slipping backwards on its log-rollers. It also had the added benefit of allowing both Zedd and Cole to retreat well away from the dragon heart’s influence, and allow the minion to continue working by itself. A few minutes later, the feelings of anger and hatred suddenly stopped, and were replaced by powerful pulses of magic. At first, Zedd thought the dragon heart was preparing to attack them somehow, so he raised a magical shield around them both just in case. When no attack came, he began to relax a little.
“What do you think it’s doing?” Zedd asked nervously. Cole had been trying to work out the answer to that very question for himself, and could only think of one possible answer. And when he looked at the dragon heart using his mage-sight, it seemed to confirm his suspicions. It was pulsing incredibly brightly, just like a magical beacon.
“I think it’s trying to commit suicide,” Cole said.
“It’s what?” Zedd asked, slightly taken aback by his answer.
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense. Think about it. It knows we’re here, and what our intentions are. It also seems to know that it’s being moved towards The Rift somehow. I know it’s not alive by any normal definition, but whatever that thing is, it’s definitely still sentient, and very intelligent too. It no doubt remembers its past existence, and will do anything to avoid being used by us to reopen The Rift.
“Look at it using your mage-sight, it’s pulsing like a powerful magical beacon. It’s trying to signal someone, or something. Who knows, maybe it can’t tell that it’s stil
l daylight. Maybe it’s trying to attract the attention of all the nearby Netherworld creatures. Can you imagine if it was dark right now? That pulsing would attract everything from miles around. I think it has decided to try and destroy itself, rather than let us use it as a tool to reopen The Rift,” Cole replied.
Zedd looked at the dragon heart using his mage-sight, and was almost blinded by the incredibly bright pulses of magic it was emitting. He found himself having to agree with Cole, whatever its true intentions were, it was obviously trying to signal something. It was then that another, much more terrifying possibility suddenly occurred to him.
“Seven Hells!” he whispered to himself, as the thoughts played out in his mind.
“What’s up?” Cole asked, checking all around the area nervously.
“What happens if it’s not the Netherworld creatures it’s trying to communicate with at all?” Zedd replied, barely believing what he was about to say himself, but unable to deny the possibility, no matter how remote.
“What else could it be trying to communicate with?” Cole asked, not knowing if he really wanted to know.
“What if it’s trying to communicate its location to other dragons? Everyone knows that they always used to collect their dead and returned them to their homeland in the north. They must have had a way to locate them, and maybe this is it,” Zedd said, staring at the pulsing dragon heart.
“No one has even seen a dragon in almost two millennia. Most people don’t even think they still exist. Besides, if it could have communicated its location, wouldn’t it have already done that a long time ago?” Cole said, trying to sound far more confident than he felt.
“No one has seen a Carazhal in almost two millennia either, but that didn’t stop one trying to kill us earlier. Maybe the reason why no one has seen a dragon in so long, is because they had no reason to come here… until now.”
“I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I hope that it is trying to attract the attention of Netherworld creatures. But either way, I think we should get it hidden inside a circle of protection as quickly as possible,” Cole said, nervously scanning the small patch of sky above him for any signs of movement.
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Zedd replied, scanning the sky for himself.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cole woke to the sound of Zedd’s muted whimpering. He was obviously having another one of his strange dreams, but what it was about this time, he didn’t know, or care. Today they would finally reopen The Great Rift, and if they survived the process, he would finally be rid of Zedd once and for all. He knew that Zedd planned to return to his family in The Badlands, south of Thule, but he intended to remain in Afaraon, at least for the short term. He could speak the Afaraon language well enough to get by, and if questioned, he would say he was from the southern lands of Edrana.
Once he had acquired enough money to book passage, he would head south to Edrana, and start his new life there. He had no desire to be a citizen of the Thule Empire any longer, and even if Lord Zelroth had not posed such a threat to his life, he still wouldn’t have returned there. All he wanted was to be able to live his life in peace, maybe have a family of his own one day, and not have to worry about being responsible for killing innocent people in the name of the Empire.
He rekindled their campfire for what he hoped would be the final time, and started to cook them both some breakfast. He was intentionally noisy as he went about his task, and it soon had the desired effect of causing Zedd to stir from his slumber. He wasn’t surprised at all to see the shard in Zedd’s hand when he rolled over to see what the noise was.
“What time is it?” Zedd croaked, pushing himself up into a seated position.
“It looks like the sun has just started to come up,” Cole replied, looking towards the cave entrance at the first signs of light filtering in. Zedd didn’t reply as he stood up and casually brushed off his robes. Cole thought it was a pointless exercise, considering the amount of mud he still had on him from the previous day’s digging. In fact, he thought they both looked more like field workers, than magi at the moment.
It wasn’t long before they left the cave for what would hopefully be the last time, and headed towards where they had left the dragon heart the day before. It had been a big relief to them both, when they had secured the dragon heart inside the circle of protection the previous day, and its powerful magical pulses had been muted to the world. Although neither man had spoken about it, both secretly hoped that the dragon heart was still where they’d left it. The fear was that it might have already been carried off in the night by another dragon, and taken back to their ancestral lands in the north.
It was quite possible that the same forces which had prevented the dragon heart’s discovery for so long, were still active now, and would continue to hide it as they moved it closer to the remnants of The Great Rift. But not knowing for sure, certainly made them both a little nervous, to say the least.
They both breathed a quiet sigh of relief when they saw the dragon heart was exactly where they had left it. If it had been calling out to its brethren, either they hadn’t heard its calls for some reason, or there were no dragons left to hear it. Either way, they both felt a lot happier about it than they had before.
They wasted no time in moving the dragon heart, and as soon as the lines of the magic circle were broken, the incessant magical pulsing resumed once more. Cole stayed behind and meticulously repaired the circle of protection, leaving only a small break in one line so they could enter it in case of emergency later. The plan was to bypass the other magic circles today, and reach their intended destination by midday, or even earlier if possible. They had managed to move the dragon heart further than they had originally intended the day before, and that meant it should now be possible to cover the remaining distance before midday.
As they passed each circle of protection, Cole stopped to check its lines and prepare it for their possible hasty retreat later. He knew that one simple mistake could cost both of their lives, and they certainly wouldn’t have time to repair any damage if they were being chased by a Zeadahl, or anything else which might emerge from The Rift.
Even though they were making good progress now, Cole decided to start collecting the used log-rollers from behind, and move them to the front of the dragon heart to help maintain the momentum. He was very surprised to see Zedd join him a moment later, and even more surprised when he didn’t complain about doing so. The new system they were using, meant they were moving forward constantly with the dragon heart, and their destination was soon within sight. They had noticed the intensity of the magical pulses gradually increasing as they drew ever nearer The Rift, and realised that the dragon heart must also be able to sense its own proximity to it.
Zedd called a halt shortly after they emerged into the clearing they had previously created. The exact location for where the dragon heart needed to be, had already been marked on the ground by a small pile of rocks. Once the rocks had been cleared away, Zedd instructed his undead-minion to carefully manoeuvre the dragon heart into position.
It wasn’t only the dragon heart that had been affected by the close proximity to The Rift, the shard had also started acting strangely too. It suddenly seemed very scared and agitated as it frantically called out to Zedd for help. Even Cole could feel the echoes of its fear through his tenuous connection to Zedd’s mind. He could see how Zedd’s body tensed up with each mental assault from the shard, but it appeared that he was still able to maintain his defences against it—at least for now.
Zedd could feel the shard’s fear coursing through him. Somehow it knew where it was, and was utterly terrified by the prospect. He didn’t know why, but Zedd got the distinct feeling that it didn’t even know why it was scared, only that it was. It was as if all of the knowledge regarding The Great Rift and the horrors it contained had been lost to it, leaving only the overwhelming fear behind. It reminded him of a small child that knew something was dangerous, but didn’t re
ally understand why.
The shard reached for his mind with a strength he had not yet felt from it, crashing hard against his mental barriers. It was desperate to join with him. To bond with him. To become one with him. So he could protect it. Teach it, and share his senses with it. It couldn’t understand its own sudden existence in the world, and knew something was missing. And it wanted to replace that something, with him.
He refused.
The sun was now at its highest point in the sky, and Zedd knew that he must start the incantation soon. The problem was, he wasn’t sure that he could concentrate sufficiently to recite the complex incantation with the shard constantly battering at his mental defences. He still held the shard in his hand, but couldn’t for the life in him bear to part with it. Not even for a short time. It had done something to him. He knew that. But he didn’t care, just as long as the shard remained with him.
He had spent hours examining the shard over the past few days, and never tired of seeing its hypnotic beauty when he viewed it with his mage-sight. It burned like a small sun in his hand. “It’s incredible that something so small, could contain such power, and yet be so helpless,” he thought to himself, staring at the shard in his hand. He shook his head vigorously to clear it, bringing himself back to the task at hand. He tried to reinforce his mental barriers against the shard, and began to prepare himself mentally for what was about to come.
After a few moments of meditation, he opened his eyes and nodded to Cole that he was ready to begin. The incantation was without doubt the most complex and challenging he’d ever had to learn, but he was confident that he could recite it without fault—Lord Zelroth had made certain of that.
Quietly, Zedd started the slow incantation, repeating a series of powerful words over and over. Almost immediately the atmosphere around them began to change. Subtly at first, but with each new recital it became more and more charged with power. The air crackled around them, raising the small hairs on the back of their necks, and a sudden wind began to howl around them. He raised his voice over the cacophony of sounds, and moved seamlessly into the second phase of the incantation.
