by Swanson, Jay
He made the jump back, whirling his sword from behind the next Parnithon, splitting its spine at its haunches and jumping again before they knew he had been there. He jumped in and out, again and again, hacking, slicing, and killing the beasts. There were well over a dozen, perhaps more, but he just kept at it until he was certain no more waited in the darkness to attack.
He stepped back into the blood light of the exterior of the fortress, sword in hand as he beckoned for Rain to follow. “It's safe.”
She came forward as much from her lack of options as from any sense of real safety. Her eyes were trembling, he realized; it was no trick of the light, so he took her by the hand again and turned to enter Krakador.
“How can you see?” she asked as they pressed forward. “Where are we going?”
“Just hold my hand,” he said with a smile in the darkness. “It's calling me.”
They entered a grand hall lined with statues along the columns that ran its length, and illuminated dully by wicked looking chandeliers of black wrought iron that hung by chains from the shadowy heights. The faces of gargoyles stared down at them, barely visible from where they stood. The space to either side of their path remained open for a grand audience with the distant throne. The throne itself was tall and crooked, cast from the same iron as the chandeliers. Its leather seat looked inviting in spite of the spikes that roamed its edges.
“It's a powerful throne,” Ardin whispered as they came to a halt halfway down the hall.
“It is a throne that should never be filled.” Rain looked away.
Ardin paused a moment longer, then turned to the side. “There are stairs over here; they'll take us where we need to go.”
They crossed the broad space to their left, the tile reflecting the red points of light above so that it looked like they were traversing some sort of blood galaxy. Ardin pushed on the wall between two tapestries, the monsters depicted upon them causing Rain to shy away as she saw them. He squeezed her hand reassuringly, then pushed again until the wall gave way to reveal a dark passage beyond. The stairs spiraled tightly downward, the way so narrow that they were forced to mind their step and their shoulders simultaneously.
Ardin stepped into the passageways beneath the grand hall and held out his hand for Rain to wait. The light from the hall above just barely leaked from the stairway here.
“There are more in here,” he whispered as he drew his sword again and vanished into the dark.
A scuffle sounded in the dark, followed by squeals of anger and howls of pain before silence settled on the passageway anew.
“Those were different,” Ardin said as he appeared only feet in front of Rain.
“You startled me!” Rain put a hand on her chest involuntarily. “What were they?”
“I don't know.” Ardin took her hand again. “They were like bats, but bigger, and a lot stronger. Watch your step, there's another stairway over here.”
“How can you see all of this?” she asked again, baffled in spite of the overwhelming closeness of the stone overhead.
“When I made it to the Tomb, I was too late to stop the Shadow King from opening the Gates.” Ardin pulled her around a corner at the base of the stairs and led her down another long dark hallway. “But I wasn't too late to kill him. When I did, he sort of... well, I guess he inhabited me.”
He could feel her grip loosen slightly as he said it. “It's nothing to worry about.” He squeezed her fingertips. “I won. He's gone, but he did try to control me. That's what he did to Silvers, his last host, and he would have controlled me too if I hadn't been able to destroy him. Now I am as fully Shade as I am human, and with the transformation has come some helpful gifts.”
Ardin led her up a short flight of steps to a door that was locked to them. “Like this.” And he vanished.
“Ardin?” Rain was left in the dark, suddenly alone. “Ardin, where are you?” Her panic began to rise as the walls seemed to close in on her. She could see the veins in the walls now, glowing so dully it had taken her until only a few minutes before to finally see them. But they were unable to illuminate anything around her, so faint that she had thought for the longest time she had been imagining them. “Ardin!”
The door clicked as the latch was released, and she felt a slight movement in the still air as the doors were swung open and away from her. “Ardin?”
“C'mon,” he said gently as he took her hand. “We're almost there.”
They walked down a broad set of stairs. Ardin came up to another door and shoved it open to reveal a brightly-lit chamber beyond. There were real flames here interspersed with the Relequim's orbs, and they cast long, flickering shadows off of the strange contraptions both large and small that were littered about the room.
“This, I believe, is the Relequim's private workshop... of sorts.”
Rain lowered her eyes as they adjusted, but began to breathe heavily against the smell. There was death everywhere in this room. The unrecognizable corpses of dozens of strange monsters lined the walls and lay open on tables around the room. She had never seen anything like these before, and grew frightened that living ones might not be so far off.
“This is where he makes them,” Ardin thought aloud as he drew her after him. “This is where he learns from his mistakes and alters his breeding plans to suit.”
“How can you stand the smell?” Rain asked as they wove through massive iron cages and chairs in which she would never wish to sit. “This place is horrible.”
“It is,” Ardin admitted. “But so full of knowledge, too.”
“This is evil, Ardin!”
“And we should learn from it.” He stopped short as a giant stone table came into view. From its edges hung all kinds of tools that Ardin had never seen before, meant for purposes he was only beginning to imagine. On the table itself lay the most beautiful stone he had ever seen, nearly transparent yet filled with the rush and sparkle of captured energies within.
“This is it.” He released Rain's hand and stepped forward. He could feel the pulsing life of the stone emanating through him as he approached the table. “It's amazing.”
Even Rain couldn't help but stare at it as she followed tentatively. “What... what is it?”
“There are nine components.” He placed his hands on the table. He could see through it clearly, as though he understood its very molecular structure from the briefest of glances. “There are nine stones within it, each containing a different power... like there are living beings inside.”
Rain stood just behind him, as if hiding behind Ardin could keep her safe from a stone she didn't even begin to understand. As if she could understand it, Ardin thought as he reached out to touch it with his hand.
“This is what he has been making all of these years?” He felt it respond to his touch like a child in the womb. “Each...” He closed his eyes to better see. “Each is younger than the last, as if he started with one and has been working on them in turn ever since.”
“Younger? Is it magic?”
“No.” He ran his fingers along the contours within the stone. “It's something else all together.”
And then it flared to life under his fingertips, rushing through him with an energy unlike any he had ever known before. With it came a clarity he could never have imagined possible. The world was laid bare and, suddenly, he was linked to the stone.
“It's a spiritual weapon,” he said to himself as much as to Rain. He was losing himself to the power as it washed over him again and again, each time bringing new knowledge, each time freeing him from what he had thought he knew. He could see through the stone, and through his hands somehow, in a way he couldn't fully understand yet. He could even see what it was in him that blocked his connection to the Atmosphere beyond his Shadow form. And he didn't care. “It's so beautiful.”
“Ardin...”
“But it's more than that, Rain. He's poured himself into tying these living things to the stone... things he's somehow made through manipulating spirits. Spiritual power. Bu
t he doesn't realize what he's gathered in the process.” He looked up at her, eyes rimmed in a bright certainty. “This is a well of spiritual power, the third tier of this world, and a conduit of its strength to whoever knows how to unlock it.”
“How can you know this?” Rain's nerves were getting the better of her. “How can you be so sure?”
“It's speaking to me, Rain.” For a brief moment, the irises of Ardin's eyes faintly sparkled every color locked within the stone. He smiled. “And only I can hear it.”
The whole fortress shuddered in that moment, the stone walls groaning as they turned in place, startled. Ardin turned back to the stone, mesmerized. “We have to take it from here.”
“What?” Rain grabbed his shoulders to turn him and face her. “What would we do with it? What are you doing Ardin?”
“I can't destroy it,” he said firmly. “At least not here. We need to go.”
“And where would you run that I could not find you?” The voice echoed through the chamber with such depth and power that Ardin felt it physically press into him. “I doubt you could find a place to hide where I would not feel its power, Ardin. Much as you find yourself tied to it now, so I have been for centuries.”
Rain hid behind Ardin as the Relequim entered the room, his figure hidden by the same tattered cloak he had worn when Ardin had seen him over a week before. His heart was racing; he wasn't ready to face the Demon, not yet. Not truly.
“I can't leave while this stone exists.” Ardin pushed Rain back and away from him.
“You have my permission to stay, then.” The Relequim laughed. “And how will you stop me without your power?”
“What's he talking about?” Rain dared to ask.
“You shouldn't have followed him here, little Renault. It spells your demise as well.”
“I'll die here to stop you if I must.” Ardin set his stance.
“Brave words, but hollow, for while you will indeed die here, you will not accomplish anything by it.” And without warning he threw his hands out to strike at Rain.
THIRTY-EIGHT
RAIN SCREAMED AS INVISIBLE CLAWS GRABBED HER INSTANTLY, TEARING INTO HER TO PULL HER APART AT THE SEAMS. But Ardin stepped forward, thrusting his hands downward and severing the connection. Rain dropped to the floor shaking, blood oozing from where she had been cut, but alive.
“So you have regained your power?” The Relequim couldn't hide the surprise in his voice.
“No,” Ardin said. “Not yet.”
He threw his palms out as he felt the power of the stone surge with his call, and blasted the Relequim straight through his contraptions into the far wall with a crack of marble.
“I understand your weapon,” he said as he walked forward. “I've seen something like it before. In fact I carry one with me.”
He pulled Alisia's Uriquim from under his armor so that it dangled freely from his neck. “You've tied these stones to something else, something you would call into existence in this world, something of your own making. But unlike my Uriquim, your stone is a well of power.”
The Relequim picked himself up from the ground and casually brushed the black marble dust off of his cloak.
“You've unlocked the highest realm of power, and yet you've missed it entirely. You've been so corrupted by its creation that you can't see what's staring you in the face.” Ardin breathed deeply and pulled on the strength of the stone to cleanse him one more time, removing the obstruction of his power once and for all. “Now I have my power back.”
“Excellent.” The Relequim stepped forward. “I would have hated for this fight to be boring.”
He reached out and grabbed Ardin so quickly and with such strength that he couldn't think to react. Before he knew it, the Relequim hurled him across the room. Ardin raised what defenses he could in an instant, but they were put sorely to the test as the Relequim sent him crashing through layer after layer of corrupted marble.
Ardin came flying out of the very front of Krakador with a burst of exploding stone, traveling in a high arc and landing with a thud before he slid to a halt at the gates.
Holy shit... Ardin picked himself up, shaking the dust loose as a second crash came bursting from above and the Relequim came hurtling down. The Demon landed twenty yards before him with a crack of stone, with far more grace and control than Ardin had just shown. The Demon stood from the broken rocks underneath his feet and shed the tattered cloak.
Underneath stood the frail figure of a starved man, his skin gone gray and his veins black. He was repulsive, but somehow his face maintained a harsh and attractive quality. But the Relequim didn't stop with the cloak. He began to grow, the sound of joints popping and muscle tearing as he howled and took on a more menacing form. Soon his horned, muscular figure stood towering over Ardin in the brilliant red glow of Krakador.
“This night I destroyed my nemeses, boy.” He looked down at Ardin, his voice even more deep and commanding than before. “I ripped the bird men to shreds, burned them to nothing, and now I will finish with the Magi.”
No... Ardin gaped with horror. It's not possible.
“Tonight will stand among my greatest accomplishments!” The Relequim launched an invisible strike that Ardin could somehow see, rolling down on him like a whip and intended to cut him in half. He brought up his hands, creating an equally invisible pillar that stood at the same angle as the attack. He deflected it as he sent a shock of fire at the Relequim.
The Demon only laughed as he brushed the fire away and sent ten more attacks at Ardin like the first from ten different directions. Ardin threw up a series of defenses subconsciously and stepped into a strike of his own, hurling a flurry of ethereal daggers as he stomped the ground. The stone beneath him broke in a dozen directions, rising in pieces that he launched forward to follow the daggers.
But the Demon spun, deflecting everything and reaching for Ardin in the Atmosphere. Ardin tried to break the connection as he had for Rain, but missed the incoming strike and was suddenly flying across the cavern. He vanished just before impact, and then made the jump back into the physical. The tricks of the Shadow were certainly useful; even the damage from before healed more quickly with a jump.
“Nine like me shall come, lesser than I yet still greater than you,” the Relequim was saying as he walked forward. “I have unlocked a power that the world has yet to know.” He laughed as he brought up his hands, breaking and lifting boulders from the ground with no effort. “But soon it shall!”
The Demon shot the boulders at Ardin, who sent out a series of shockwaves to break them apart and defend himself. And then the Relequim was behind the boulders. He lowered his shoulder into Ardin, catching him with a protruding horn and ramming it through Ardin's shoulder as he tackled him to the floor.
Ardin made the jump before they came to a halt, jumping back in to the sudden pain of the open wound and the even greater shock of a kick to the chest. He flew backwards, sliding along the ground to a halt before he could kick to his feet. He drew his sword and put his free hand out, the long blade of the Shadow King materializing from the Atmosphere in his hand.
He spun the blades into a low defensive stance. “I'm more than just a Mage.”
“I cannot be fooled by the tricks of the Shadow, boy. Your swords are no good here.” The Relequim set himself floating just above the cold stone floor. “I will not be undone by you.”
Ardin dodged to the left as a bolt of black fire shot past him, then put his swords up to block one he could not dodge. The fire pressed him physically backwards as he planted his feet, and when he lowered his arms, he found another blast on its way.
“You cannot win, and as I promised, I will rend your soul from your inheritance so that you never join the Magi.”
Ardin's mind was whirling, the key to his survival just past his ability to grasp. He had seen everything so clearly moments before. Why couldn't he now? The Relequim struck out with a series of blows from the Atmosphere that he could sense coming. He could even blo
ck most of them. But he knew this was a losing battle. He was on his back foot and he needed desperately to gain the offensive.
He twisted to dodge another stone-crushing strike and raised the light to his need, aiming it directly into the Relequim's fire and stopping it mid-air.
“So you learned from my dragons, I see.” The Relequim spun and brought his hands together to send an even mightier blast of black fire at him, this one laced with the same purple as the Onyx dragons. “But where do you think that power came from?”
Light burst forth from Ardin as he called the warmth to his need and focused it in front of him. The collision of power and the struggle to maintain it began to physically shake him. He grit his teeth, leaning into it even more as he began to lose his ground.
“You and the bird men may have discovered their weaknesses, but mankind is still unable to defend against them. When I unleash them next, there will be no one able to stop them!”
The fire was getting so close that Ardin could see little bursts of purple fly past him now. He poured himself into the light, the point of contact growing brighter and more violent as he did so. He pulled on the Atmosphere with every atom in his body, conducting it into physical energy with a massive influx of force. Then suddenly he broke the Demon's attack.
“I'll be there,” he said, breathing hard. “And I'll stop them.”
Ardin flexed his arms and thrust them forward, sending the warmth through them and creating a concentrated blast of energy that broke through the Demon's defenses and sent him spiraling back into the base of Krakador. The tower he collided with began to crumble. In a flash the Relequim raced back towards him, howling with the misery and hatred of a thousand tortured souls.
Ardin twirled his swords, ducking below the Relequim's lead strike and thrusting them out to catch the Demon in the leg as it passed. Both blades bit, dragging along the gray skin and opening it as the Relequim twisted and passed him. The Demon struck out with his other foot, connecting and sending Ardin skidding along the smooth floor of the cavern as the Relequim crashed and rolled to a stop.
