by P D Ceanneir
Lord Ness fell against the curved wall as the earthquake struck. Hexor nearly ran into him and he dropped to the shaking floor as he lost his balance.
In time, the shocks eased and became small tremors. Both men looked around as Foxe appeared from around the next bend in the corridor.
‘Alright?’ he asked.
Hexor and the Ri both nodded.
‘I have found the main stairs,’ said Foxe, hooking his thumb over his shoulder.
‘Good,’ said Hexor as he got up from the floor and brushed himself off from the dust that trickled down from the ceiling.
Lord Ness remained where he was. Both the twins watched him apprehensively.
‘There is something here,’ he said looking at the cracks in the walls. His fingertips traced the nearest one. His hand was shaking, ‘something has arrived.’
Suddenly there were the sounds of movement behind them in the corridor. The sounds of many stone booted feet clumping in unison.
‘Ah, Gods, the Golems have found us!’ Foxe cried, ‘let’s move!’
23
To Havoc’s surprise, Whyteman moved with the agility of a Tarridun Mountain Goat. He darted through two of the Golems as they tried to impale him onto their spears and reached Tia quickly with long-legged bounds. Yet as he reached out for her, the motes of shimmering gold concentrated into the shape of a spear themselves and jabbed at the archer. Whatever physical force they possessed was enough to send Whyteman off his feet and slam him hard against the wall.
Havoc avoided a spear lunge, gripped the shaft and used the Earth Element the shatter the wood in its centre. Gripping the spear end, he spun on his heal and impaled the Earth Orrinn in the Golem’s chest. The thing instantly stopped in mid attack and toppled forward to shatter into dozens of pieces.
Behind him, Powyss and Gunach were causing a racket as their metal weapons clanged against stone, but they had dismembered several of the mobile statues and were hacking away at the Orrinns to destroy them.
Havoc reached Tia. The girl was staring at him in wide-eyed fear. He fashioned an area of hardened air around the golden motes and used it to close around them, effectively trapping them inside a spherical bubble. Tia gasped and lifted her arms in surprise as the motes pushed themselves up against an invisible wall of Rawn energy. Havoc pulled them away from the girl and closed the bubble further. The motes became so densely packed, looking for the entire world to see, like some sort of children’s play ball.
Tia was able to move her head and she leant out of the sarcophagus, still with that confused look.
‘Whyteman, help her out!’ yelled Havoc.
Just as the tall archer rushed forward, the ominous Storm above sent out a thick electrical bolt towards the prince. Havoc had to release his hold on the motes and dive to his left. As he did so, the motes contracted and pushed Tia back in the sarcophagus. The lightning strike scorched its way along the floor and punched a large hole in the wall. Havoc got to his feet and had to duck as another strike nearly took his head off. He and Whyteman hid behind the granite console.
‘Damn it! I almost had it.’ said the prince in annoyance.
‘We shall just have to try something else, Boss,’ said Whyteman.
Havoc looked askance at the archer, ‘feel free to talk it into submission.’
Whyteman sighed. Just then a terrible tremor shook the building and everyone standing, Golems included, were thrown off their feet. Walls cracked and several niches collapsed in on themselves. Parts of the vaulted, conical ceiling sheered away from the main structure and smashed into pieces where they struck the tiled flooring.
Havoc sensed a shift in the air, a presence that made the hair on the back of his head prickle. Darkness blocked out the sun for the briefest moment and dimmed the room. Tia screamed as she stared at the Phemoral. Havoc noticed that its vibrant colours had vanished, replaced by a deep blackness that crept around the inside of the crystal with probing sinister tentacles.
24
The Blacksword was not a creature of fear. The emotion was certainly there, but it was a dim and unknown feeling that played no part in his life. Yet, the presence of the Dark Force of the Earth sent a cold chill down his spine. The sense of being trapped inside the Phemoral while this entity invaded it was not a place he wished to be. Cullen cackled with mad delight as the walls dimmed and festered with an inky substance. The Earth Daemon spread quickly, invading, infecting the Phemoral. The Blacksword sensed its hunger for violence. Its power was so strong that a mere fraction of it would be enough to shatter the ground of the surrounding valley and the tower with it.
Nevertheless, there was something wrong. There was no voice, no intelligence; it was just a mindless primeval force. It was malevolent and warped with need, a need to destroy life. This was obviously not the sentient consciousness currently incarcerated in the Gredligg Orrinn, but a fragment of the whole, a fragment summoned by Cullen. How the entity could have the intelligence to inhabit the body of a Rawn or Ri was beyond the Blacksword. However, what he sensed from the thing was not a need to control, but a need to destroy and because of that, it was far more dangerous.
The Blacksword needed to act fast before more of the volatile energy from the Dark Entity coalesced inside the Phemoral. If this one tiny piece were anything to go by, then more would be disastrous. He thought quickly, summoning up his superior tactical ability to handle any situation. If the My’thos were truly behind his creation then they would have foreseen this danger and equipped him with the ability to rectify it, yet the answer eluded him.
In front of him, the huge disembodied head of Cullen Ri chuckled as he watched the probing tendrils of the Dark Entity climb the walls of the crystal and darken the air around them with its steady intrusion. The Blacksword thought about destroying Cullen, but the Ri was a mass of insubstantial energy and not the main sources of concern, though he was a catalyst to drawing in the entity and so too was Tia. The girl’s Rawn power was charging the Phemoral. Sever her connection and the link was broken, but how was he able to get a message to Havoc if he was not inside the prince’s head and the Sword that Rules impaled inside the crystal.
The Sword!
Of course, he thought, the sword is made of Pyromancium. It literary absorbs energy.
He cast his mind out to the weapon, easily connecting with it for he and the sword are one.
The Dark Entity stopped it’s probing. The black tentacles began to thrash wildly. The dimness in the air began to brighten.
‘What? What is…What are you doing?’ said Cullen as his red eyes frantically looked around him at the retreating darkness.
‘I have changed the rules, Cullen,’ the Blacksword answered.
‘NO! NO! NO!’ he yelled in rage, ‘I will not let this happen!’ he closed his eyes tightly and mumbled incoherently. The Blacksword frowned and then felt the Sword that Rules slowly shift as some unseen force pulled the black-blade out of the crystal.
25
Havoc watched in astonishment as the Phemoral dimmed and then brightened. It was as if the shifting colours within its facets were competing against the invading darkness. The tower shook again. More chunks of masonry crashed onto the floor from the ceiling. Somewhere amid this chaos, Havoc noted three people entering the room via the iron staircase. Now that his memory was returning he recognised Ness Ri, Hexor and Foxe. Each of them took in the situation with a glance. Foxe sprinted towards the prince while Hexor helped Gunach up from the floor where he had stumbled amongst a pile of broken Golem.
A bright stab of lightning arced down from the howling Storm above them. It struck the floor next to Foxe to send him careering into the wall, shocked, but unharmed. Ness Ri rushed towards the centre of the room and stared up at the Storm. Suddenly, its roaring gale dulled and became muffled, thick bolts of electricity jabbed down at the Ri only to strike an invisible wall. Havoc felt the use of the Rawn Arts coming from his old mentor. He had fashioned a hardened area of air directly underneath the Storm to
lessen its danger. The prince knew that Lord Ness was a powerful Ri, but even he would not be able to hold the Storm at bay for long.
There was movement to his left and he turned to see a large section of golden motes move away from Tia and lasso the hilt of SinDex. Slowly, the sword lifted from the crystal. Havoc leapt up and grabbed the swords pommel, using his weight to push the black-blade back into the Phemoral. The instant he did so, the Blacksword sensed his presence and screamed into his mind.
The girl is the link, kill her and end this!
The prince was not as emotionally cold as the Blacksword, yet understood his alter ego spoke sense.
‘No! I will not kill her. There has to be another way!’ He suddenly felt a tightening on his throat as an arm of the motes formed into a thick strand and wrapped around his neck. Whyteman was there in an instant to help.
‘I’m fine. Help Tia,’ croaked Havoc.
Tia was flailing about in the sarcophagus. Only a fraction of the motes held her down and she struggled against them.
‘Oh shit!’ said Whyteman. He was looking towards the stairway. Golems were entering the room spreading into a long line, yet their movements were slow and clumsy. Whoever or whatever controlled them seemed distracted.
Powyss, Hexor and Gunach rushed the line of statues. The Golems were so slow that they barely defended themselves as dwarven-forged blades compromised their Orrinns, yet their numbers gave them an advantage.
Moreover, they were heading straight for Havoc.
26
Shanks was right.
Pyromancy truly was a power derived from the Dark Force of the Earth. The Black-blade of the Sword that Rules sucked up the raw and raging energy of the Dark Entity with a thirst of its own. The next to roar at the swords absorption capabilities was Cullen, who was resisting with all the power he controlled, yet strips of the mist around his head were being pulled towards the sword.
‘You have failed Cullen Ri. Accept fate and die with some dignity, at least,’ taunted the Blacksword.
‘It…it is not I…that has failed. It is you.’
For a moment, the Blacksword felt the slight pang of fear coming from Havoc and through the prince’s eyes, he saw the small army of Golem march towards him.
Damn it, Havoc. Kill the girl!
27
Whyteman reached for Tia, the golden motes resisted by clumping together to push him away, but they were few and the gangly archer forced himself through them. He grabbed Tia’s shoulders and pulled her free of the sarcophagus; both of them fell into a heap on the floor.
In an instant, the Storm vanished, so too did the golden motes and the Golems stopped in mid step. A brilliant white light burst from the Muse Orrinn on the Sword that Rule’s pommel. Havoc stepped away from it in shock. The light flickered into a spinning pattern of beams that spun around in a circle to light up the whole room. Somewhere within these beams he could see streaks of grey dust, Havoc recognised what was happening with such resounding clarity that he roared at the top of his voice.
‘DON’T LOOK AT IT!’
Time slowed. Everyone stopped moving for a heartbeat. Within that heartbeat, anyone caught inside the light saw the future that the Muse Orrinn revealed to them.
28
Whatever was happening inside the Phemoral was having an effect on the Muse Orrinn. This Orrinn in particular was unique. Few people knew of its abilities, even the most skilled Ri over the past few hundred years knew how to open its unfathomable depths. Its past was a mystery. Initially thought to be a gift from a beautiful woman from foreign shores and then passed from hand to hand as a family heirloom, until coming into the possession of the royal House of Cromme before its final use as a pommel to the sword Tragenn.
No one had been able to activate the Orrinn.
No one except Prince Havoc De Proteous Cromme.
In addition, at times, it had showed him the future.
Fortunately, for most in the room the flash of future light was brief. Whyteman covered Tia with his body and neither of them was aware of any change in the room. Havoc turned away at the last moment, which just left the others staring as the light danced in front of their eyes…
…Gunach was suddenly standing upon the prow of a sailing ship. Snow obscured his vision, yet the cascade of the Southern Lights hung above the ship in a green and yellow curtain to cast away the darkness and reveal a huge harbour and a town snuggling inside a vast forest. He did not recognise the town but knew that he was sailing into the Dhüthlem, the White Haven, a huge ice-free cove in Erndall, the second largest landmass on the planet, ninety percent of which was covered in ice, yet it’s soil harboured vast mineral wealth. It also came under the jurisdiction of the King of the Roguns. Gunach wondered why he was sailing there in the future and then the image disappeared…
…Powyss looked out from the parapet of a huge castle, which sat on the small Isle of Zent. Far across the mile of the Zent Channel, its white buildings glittering in the noonday sun, was Sonora. What disturbed Powyss most about the whole scene was the fact that Zent had no castle and more importantly no expansive bridge connecting the isle with the Sonoran shore. The bridge was white and sleek; it arched along the mile with no central supports. It was truly a marvel of engineering.
The next thing to surprise him was the fact he was wearing a white cloak. The white cloak of a Ri…
…Hexor flinched as the seven children of various ages all screamed for his attention. Podgy arms raised with dirty food stained fingers clawing at his trousers. Each child was saying “Dada, Dada!”
Hexor almost screamed until the most beautiful woman he had ever seen walked into the room with a bright smile and a swirl of skirts. She ushered the children out of the room and gave Hexor a loving kiss. “I will see you in bed,” she said before skipping out of the room…
…Lord Ness was amazed to discover that what he saw was not his future, but his past. Why the Muse Orrin should reveal something different to him was a mystery. He stood in a poorly furnished room inside a creaky old wooden house. A house he recognised as his own when he was a child, a house that sat on the outskirts of Develt in the lands of South Aliniani. Here he spent many happy days with his loving parents even though they did not have a Merk or a Copper Bit to rub together. His parents were here now, both looking very young barely out of their teens. They stared down at the child in the home made cot with a mixture of love and relief on their faces. Lord Ness realised the child was himself. He was a small baby, born premature by about a month, yet gleefully waving its tiny limbs and smiling.
Lord Ness could understand the relief from his parents. In the day and age he was born the land was poor due to the constant demand for soldiers, crops and monies during the dark days of the Dragor-rix War. The extreme poverty in the rural areas was such that few newborns survived. Ness Ri also knew, from the stories told to him by his parents, that he was a miracle child, born stillborn for five long minutes before beginning to breath.
This was the moment in the past they spoke of.
Yet, the grinning babe disturbed him. It was as if a memory from his past slotted into place. The child was staring in wide-eyed wonder, not at him or his parents, but at something in the room. Something Lord Ness knew was there, but did not want to acknowledge its presence.
He forced himself to turn and look and what he saw chilled him to the marrow, for the person that stood beside him should not exist for another two thousand years.
That person was the Blacksword.
However, the Blacksword ignored the Ri’s older self, even though his dark cowl turned his way to regard him for the briefest moment. He approached the cot. The child’s parents did not see him. The tall ominous being placed a pale long-fingered hand on the cot and said, “Goodbye, Lord Ness.”
Then the vision faded…
…Foxe reacted to his vision with complete horror. All of the other future events witnessed by the rest were mild and cryptic in comparison to his own.
His own showed him his death.
The charging Vallkyte cavalry thundered along the parkland that fringed the main thoroughfare of Sonora. His company, so few in number, used their Spit Guns to take down the front rank of horsemen and then they levelled their spears. The momentum of the cavalry charge smashed and then folded against the bristling spears. There was a huge wrenching noise as the spears buckled, but it was enough to hold the charge. Foxe found himself wedged in between two horses that crushed his armour and his ribs. Blood gushed from his mouth.
Then the vision faded. The spinning future light from the Muse Orrinn winked out and a moment of calm settled on the tower.
Before the earthquake struck again.
29
Cullen Ri’s head explored into a shower of white particles. The Blacksword watched them wash over him as they spun wildly towards the blade of the Sword that Rules. The last thing he heard of Cullen Ri before his atoms were absorbed by the black-blade was his screeching voice cursing the Blacksword for ruining his plans.
Then silence descended inside the crystal. No sound, no hum of energy, the Phemoral was dead.
Then it began to shake violently. The Blacksword sensed that the tower was shaking and not the crystal. Structurally weakened by the arrival of the Earth Daemon, the Oculus Tower now, with the Phemoral deactivated, had no Rawn energy to hold back the years of entropy that the tower should have endured.
It was beginning to fall to pieces.
I have to hold the damage, slow it enough for the living to escape. How can I do that? The Phemoral has no power to… then he realised that the Sword that Rules had all the power he needed.
30
The tower was collapsing around Havoc and his friends. Huge chunks of masonry fell from the conical roof to smash the granite console into several pieces, but the Phemoral, and the sword inside it, remained intact.
Havoc grabbed Tia and Whyteman and pushed them towards the stairs shouting for the others to run, but more brickwork rained down onto the exit and the floor gave way into a huge dust-filled hole. The shower of brickwork crashed through several more levels below them.
