by P D Ceanneir
They all turned to look down into the Atrium. Several partly formed Golems were looking up at them.
‘Over there,’ said Foxe as he touched down on the floor and looked down the corridor, ‘there’s a door.’
18
Havoc reached the top of the stairway, half dizzy from twists and turns. He was in a large circular room with many round windows, the spectacular landscape beyond them showed a vista of mountains carpeted by miles of pine forests. In the centre of the room was a thick decorative pillar around which wound an iron staircase painted black.
‘More stairs,’ he groaned, but raced up them anyway. At the top, the upper floor was the same size as the one bellow. However, this one had narrower windows and below the windows there were large niches filled with lifelike statues.
The strange contraption over by the north wall drew his attention and the beautiful girl standing inside the large upright sarcophagus, her wide brown eyes staring back at him in fear. Somehow, he felt he should know who this girl was. Some fragments of memory slotted into place and feelings, feelings of fondness mixed with anger and disappointment.
‘Tia?’ he asked, knowing in his heart that this was she.
She seemed confused at the name. It was obvious she did not recognise him as he approached. Her memories were as mixed and missing as his own.
‘Who are you?’ she said in a tight voice, ‘please, get me out of here.’
‘I will, please remain calm,’ he soothed. The contraption looked strange and yet something about it seemed familiar. Inside his head, the Blacksword grew interested in the large glass stone sitting in the centre of the curved table surrounded by glowing symbols.
A Phemoral, he said with a mental grin of wonder. Very rare.
‘A Phemoral? What’s a Phemoral?’ asked Havoc shrugging.
‘That’s it!’ cried Tia loudly, ‘that’s the word I was trying to remember. It is a Phemoral. It absorbs Rawn Energy. They are used in Oculus Towers which sit on strong intersections of Dragon Lanes.’
Havoc suddenly felt an element of danger at what she said. In addition, a sliver of knowledge about days in the Rawn Academy learning about the history of Phemorals made him step back from the table and the eerie pulsing glow of the stone.
Tia gasped, ‘Cullen Ri!’ she groaned. ‘I recognise him now. He was a member of the Ri Order, Adjudicator of the Dulan–Tiss Parliamentary Council and follower of the Brethac Ziggurat. He has been missing for over two hundred years.’
At the mention of the secretive order of the Brethac Ziggurat, Havoc became animated.
‘A Ri from the Order, here?’
She shook her head, ‘no, dead. His spirit is now part of the Phemoral. Inside it he has unlimited power. He can draw energy from the lanes and transport his will for miles along the Earth Energies.’
Then we have to stop him, said the Blacksword urgently.
‘And how do you propose to do that?’ Havoc asked him.
‘What?’ Tia frowned at him.
‘Not talking to you,’ Havoc said as he approached her and reached out to pull her out of the sarcophagus but the golden motes of dust that floated around her started to shift angrily around his hands. Short, sharp jabs of light rippled all the way up his arm and he pulled them back with a hiss. Large areas of his arm were bleeding from tiny scratches.
‘What the?!’
‘It won’t let me go,’ said Tia, ‘the Phemoral is drawing my powers to feed it.’
‘Then all I have to do is destroy the stone.’
You can’t, rasped the Blacksword while Tia shook her head, the build-up of energy inside will be unleashed with enough force to create a hole in this entire mountain range.
Now totally frustrated from the hopelessness of the situation and his anger at his memory loss, Havoc growled at the Blacksword through gritted teeth.
‘Have you got any better ideas?’
Tia looked frightened at the tone of his voice, obviously thinking he was directing his anger at her. He smiled at her reassuringly.
Put me inside the Phemoral.
Havoc was stunned. ‘How?’
Use the Sword that Rules. I can transfer my essence through it.
‘I would need to pierce the Phemoral, I think. You said it would be dangerous!’ said Havoc.
‘Who are you talking to?’ asked Tia, now totally confused and looking more frightened by the minute.
‘No one of any importance.’
The Backsword seemed a little put out at that comment, but ignored it. Piercing is different from destroying it. The sword will plug any escaping energy. Do it while we still have time!
‘Fine,’ nodded the prince, ‘if you’re sure.’ He stepped around the curved dais, climbed up onto the higher back-end and unsheathed SinDex. He looked down onto the top of the glass stone. He inverted the sword point, gripping the long hand-and-half grip with both hands.
‘What...what are you doing?’ asked Tia in a tight and quavering voice.
‘I wish I knew,’ said Havoc.
Suddenly, high above them in the arched stone rafters of the room, the Storm appeared, large and threatening. Forks of lightning darted out above Havoc’s head.
The Storm is the towers defence mechanism. It sees you as a threat, hissed the Blacksword, do it now! He urged.
Havoc yelled over the roar of the Storm. He jabbed downwards with the black blade and pieced the top of the Phemoral just as a forked bolt, as wide as his arm, lashed out and struck his chest to send him spinning over to the other side of the room.
19
‘Gods,’ panted Whyteman as he climbed the endless flight of stairs, ‘we Falesti are not used to stairs. We have things called “lifts” in the Eternal Forest.’
Powyss, slightly ahead of him and, even though he was older than the tall archer, was panting less. Purely because his fitness level as a Rawn Master was far superior than most mortals, turned back and said, ‘only your people created lifts, mainly because they had the ingenuity, foresight and, dare I say it, lack of stamina to think of anything else.’
Whyteman, supporting himself by placing his hand on the curved central column at the centre of spiral, chuckled as he drew breath. ‘What I don’t understand is, the dwarf. How can a creature with legs no longer than a badger’s, keep ahead of us?’
Gunach popped his head around the next bend, ‘was there stairs? I had not noticed. And for your information, my lad, badgers can run very fast when they want to.’ he disappeared again. His footfalls echoed off the marble walls as he climbed.
Powyss shrugged and grinned at Whyteman, ‘dwarves may be as blind as badgers, but they have damn good hearing.’
Gunach shouted at them to hurry, ‘we, that is to say, I, have reached the top,’ he said.
‘Thank gods!’ said Whyteman.
‘But there is another staircase,’ added the dwarf.
The archer groaned.
20
Something shifted over to his left. A grinding of stone.
Pain blossomed in his chest from where the electrical bolt struck him. Havoc groaned and opened his eyes.
A shadow hovered over him. He tried to focus his blurred vision and noticed the spear point heading for his heart.
He rolled.
The steel tip struck marble sending up bright sparks. Havoc jumped to his feet with the intention of facing his attacker but noticed another two moving his way. He was even more stunned to see they were the statues.
Statues?
One lunged, but he dodged left and grabbed the spear, then struck out with his other hand. It would have been an effective punch if it had landed on the jaw of a human, but the Golem barely flinched and Havoc yelled in pain as several bones in his hand snapped.
He stumbled against the wall. The Golem’s spear jabbed forward again and Havoc quickly shifted his head to the right. The spear tip embedded into the wall, small pieces of marble stung his cheek. A cold hand of stone clamped around the prince’s throat, cutting off h
is air supply. The lifeless eyes of the creature stared back at him as his vision dimmed. He placed his hand onto the chest of his attacker in a feeble attempted to push it away, but it was too strong. His hand found the Earth Orrinn. He felt energy flow into his hand. Earth Energy, he thought and wondered how he knew that.
As his throat slowly crushed under his assailant’s cold grip, his vision dimmed to pinpoints of light and the instinct of the Rawn Arts took over. He agitated the Orrinn’s matrix, forcing it to shut down and expel its energy. Suddenly his vision returned and the pressure on his throat eased. The Golem before him collapsed into large chunks of dusty stone and the Earth Orrinn in his hand turned white and flaky before falling through his fingers as fine white sand.
A rush of memories from his Academy days flashed through his mind’s eye, explaining the concept of using the Arts in the way he had just done, yet he was so astounded at this ability that he was still in a state of shock when another of the life-sized statues approached him. He was about to duck and roll away when a tall man in green armour appeared out of nowhere brandishing a beautifully crafted sword, its blade wreathed in yellow flame, cut the Golem in half at the waist.
‘Thank the God’s you are alive!’ said Powyss. He glanced over towards Tia; he could barely see her beyond the motes of golden particles swarming around her. His quick eyes surveyed the billowing storm that hovered overhead like a loyal hound. Behind the Paladin, Havoc noticed a dwarf who sprung in between two Golems with his double-headed axe and hacked them into pieces before rounding on a third, sidestepped its spear, then jabbed his axe upwards to decapitate the thing. A tall slim archer was the last to reach the zenith of the iron staircase. He notched an arrow onto his huge War Bow and loosed a white-fletched arrow into the Orrinn chest of another Golem, sending it toppling backwards.
The prince felt as if he knew these people. They were all familiar and he racked his brain for names.
‘Powyss?’ said Havoc frowning at the knight in front of him, ‘your name is Powyss?’
The commander raised an eyebrow, ‘of course it is! What’s wrong with you?’
Havoc nodded towards the spinning vortex, ‘travelling inside the Storm Vortex causes temporary memory loss,’ he explained.
‘Ah.’
The dwarf stepped in beside Powyss, ‘do you remember me?’
Havoc’s brow knitted together. He flexed his hand, noting that it had healed automatically and the pain in his throat was receding. ‘Ah! Yes...yes I do! You’re Gunk!’
Gunach frowned, ‘eh?’
Powyss was trying not to laugh.
‘Erm…guys,’ said the archer nervously. He was stepping around the large smashed chunks of Golem, which were vibrating as they slid along the tiled floor. Some of the chunks clicked together and merged to form into the original limbs. These limbs then slid towards the cracked torsos.
‘They’re rebuilding,’ hissed Powyss. He noted that three other statues, still standing in their niches, were looking his way. One of them stepped off its dais with a loud “thunk!” and turned towards them.
‘Their Orrinns,’ Gunach ventured, ‘they must be programmed to keep the Golems intact.’
Whyteman, who was walking backwards away from one statue that now stood up on one leg and waited patiently for the other appendage to move into place, said, ‘that explains much, but doesn’t help our situation.’
Powyss turned to Havoc, ‘do something!’ he said, ‘use Skrol to switch the Orrinn’s off.’
‘Uh…what…can I actually do that?’ queried the prince.
‘Of course you can, with the help of the Sword that Rules you can do…’ Powyss stopped in mid-sentence because he had just noticed that Havoc was unarmed.
‘Havoc,’ he said in sensible tone as if to reassure a child who had just lost its mother in a crowd. ‘Where is your sword?’
The prince, his face now a mask of worry, nervously pointed towards the granite console. Powyss was a little startled. In all the commotion, he had not noticed the weapon was even there.
‘What in the name of Arcun’s stony left nut is it doing there?’ he said.
‘The voice in my head told me to pierce the Phemoral so he could go inside and stop the bad man,’ mumbled Havoc.
Regardless of the danger of the repairing and advancing Golem, all three warriors stared at the prince as if his head had just sprouted horns.
‘Was that the wrong thing to do?’ he asked.
Powyss groaned and shook his head. He hefted his sword and then turned towards the archer. ‘Whyteman, you and Prince Nutcase will go and see if you can rescue Tia. Me and… “Gunk” will deal with the Golems.’
‘Sir?’ Whyteman acknowledged the order.
Gunach raised his axe as two Golem moved towards him with spears levelled. ‘This “Gunk” better not stick, no pun intended.’
‘Trust me. I won’t say a word to the others,’ said Powyss with a grin as he blocked a spear lunge and hacked off the stone limb that held it.
‘I seriously doubt that,’ mumbled the dwarf as he raised his huge axe to strike.
21
The transference was quick and effortless.
The Blacksword stood inside a crystal world where refracted light bounced around the outer walls of the Phemoral to create the illusion of a vast empty space.
No, not empty. There in the distance was a gaseous formation pulsing with light. In fact, the light from the outer walls was being pulled towards that direction. The Blacksword willed himself closer to the cloud and was there in an instant. The gas was like steam, but cold. It hummed with energy.
Rogue energy, random energy, he thought and wondered how he knew that. This energy matrix is without thought. It is mindless.
He also sensed it was old. Very old. It had been here for a very long time trapped inside the crystal.
‘Ah, stored energy absorbed from all the Rawns and Ri that were trapped by it in the past,’ he said aloud and his voice echoed as if in an empty room.
‘How correct you are,’ said another voice from somewhere inside the cloud. ‘It has taken me two hundred years to discover a way to control it. Now that I can, I will be able to transport to anywhere in the world through the Dragon Lanes and so will my Master.’ There was a slight edge of maniacal tenseness in the voice.
‘Cullen Ri, I presume,’ said the Blacksword, ‘the years of your incarceration have left you quite mad.’
Loud, forced laughter echoed around the crystal. ‘Who are you to know me? Who are you to speak of madness? In this world, you are insignificant. I control the Phemoral.’
‘No. It controls you.’
‘Fool!’ Cullen roared. The cloud before the Blacksword shifted and formed into a giant head. Dark red eyes stared down at him over a pointed nose. The perfectly formed mouth twisted into a mad leer.
‘You dare to enter my domain and speak to me in such arrogance! Who are you?’
‘I am the Blacksword.’
The huge face of Cullen betrayed his emotion only for a split second before hiding his surprise in a deep scowl. He was no longer smiling.
‘So the prophecy is true. You have come. My Master will be pleased.
‘Your Master?’
‘The Acolyte to the Lonely God. He who brought like-minded people together in worship of the supreme being that all life must worship to save itself from sin.’
‘You speak of the Brethac Ziggurat, the Order that worships the Dark Force of the Earth?’
‘Correct. The Acolyte, Lord Sernac, sent me on a mission to find the Gredligg Orrinn, but I found something better instead, a fully charged Phemoral, capable of tapping into the Dragon Lanes.
The Blacksword shrugged, ‘it is of no use to you. You are spirit. You can do no harm wherever you go.’
‘Oh!...HHHHHAAAA!’ The loud mad laughter caused the Blacksword to frown. ‘Is this it? Is this the great weapon that the My’thos has against the Earth Daemon? The Lonely God has no need to fear you. Did the Earth Sh
epherds not furnish you with knowledge? Did they not explain that the Earth Daemon is made of separate parts? Some trapped, yes, but not all of it. Some swim through the Dragon Lanes as volatile energy.’
A cold shiver ran down the Blacksword’s back. He knew that the Ri spoke the truth. Telmar had mentioned much the same thing to Prince Havoc before his departure on the Cybeleion.
Cullen Ri continued, ‘in my time trapped in the Oculus, did you think that I mused alone? Did you think that I did not use the Phemoral to mine own ends? In the end, He sought me out. I was a voice in the wilderness calling to him. The Phemoral works both ways. He found me and I gave him knowledge. I was a beacon, drawing his component parts to me so he could form into an entity of strength and power!’
The walls of the Phemoral were darkening. Cullen’s eyes burned a brighter red. The Blacksword felt the shift in energy.
Cullen chuckled, ‘all I needed was a replacement so I could keep the Phemoral alive long enough for me to transfer. Now I call to Him again. Not even you, Blacksword, can stop him. Do you think the flimsy walls of the crystal will hold him? He will escape and take the body of the girl, or even the Ri, yes I sense the presence of my old mentor, Ness Ri. The Earth Daemon will use their bodies until he finds the essence of the Five Who Speak. Then, fully clothed in the flesh of the Dark Tanis, as prophecy foretells, he will be unstoppable!’
Darkness invaded the Phemoral. Cullen’s laughter made the walls vibrate. The Blacksword apprehensively looked around him as the floor shook.
‘HE IS HERE!’ roared Cullen Ri, ‘PREPEARE YOURSELF, BLACKSWORD, FOR YOU MEET YOUR DOOM!’
22
The whole tower shook. Cracks etched and zigzagged along the walls, webbing outwards from areas of extreme stress inside the brickwork. Plaster broke from the ceilings in big chunks as a horrendous noise of screeching masonry echoed up the winding staircase in the centre of the tower.
