The Voyage of the Cybeleion: A Rawn Chronicles Interlude (The Rawn Chronicles Series)

by P D Ceanneir

  The view from the roof was astounding. The surrounding vista of mountains still had the tinge of dusk on their summits, but the land below was in darkness. The Blacksword’s eyesight was exceptional at night and the purple light he could see picked up the potency from the elements and the odd flow of volatile energy seeping from the Dragon Lanes underground.

  There was movement around the walls of the Castle-mount.

  ‘The Katávri are patrolling the walls,’ informed the Blacksword. Havoc, now a disembodied spirit floating in the dark, but comfortable, recess of the Blacksword’s mind nodded as he looked out of his alter ego’s eyes.

  To keep us in, he said. As an afterthought he said, do you trust Elric?

  The Blacksword scoffed, ‘I trust no one, not even you. But there is something honourable about the Marauder Doom.’

  That much I sense too.

  To Havoc’s surprise, the Blacksword made a strange chitterling noise through his teeth and thin lips.

  What are you doing?

  ‘You shall see.’

  In a short time, something black landed on the parapet with a flurry of wings. It cawed twice and fixed the dark shadowy mass that hid the Blacksword with one black beady eye. The raven hopped from one leg to another as if eager to be away.

  ‘Go and summon your brethren,’ was all the Blacksword said and the bird flew off to the east and was soon swallowed by the night.

  So, you can talk to animals now.

  ‘Apparently. It works on the same principal as you communicating with Mirryn through the Muse Orrinn,’ said the Blacksword.

  You learn something new every day it seems.

  ‘I only just realised that I could do it.’

  Erm…brethren?

  ‘Did you not know that ravens love to eat the dead?’ said the Blacksword as he turned and walked back through the balcony entrance

  I see.

  ‘On that note, seeing is why we are here,’ said the Blacksword, leaping from one rafter to another. In a short time via this method he had travelled the full length of the Castle-mount until he reached a dark section to the rear. A large round window filled most of the back wall. It had once framed a stained glass window, now sadly gone and letting in gusts of chill air.

  ‘There is something here,’ he said, ‘I cannot detect the undead, but something moves in the darkness up ahead.’ He moved onto a ledge on the west wall and edged forward until a network of wooden rafters, that formed part of a coned roof, blocked his path. He looked up and saw the reason for his trepidation.

  Hundreds of Katávri hung, or sat, on the thick wooden beams that supported the roof. They slumbered; making no noise, for they did not breathe as such, yet there was the occasional chitter amongst the group.

  They are not Fyrandian Legionnaires, remarked Havoc. The Blacksword’s eyes passed over the mass of undead noting the tattered and dirty clothing they wore, which resembled the convict smocks back in Sythar-Nord.

  ‘They are the original inmates from the Imperial occupation,’ answered the Blacksword.

  The Insane?

  ‘Correct.’

  Suddenly, something moved on their right. The Blacksword whipped his head around and crouched. One of the Katávri was crawling on all fours towards them along a beam. He was sniffing the air and trying to peer into the shadows that the Blacksword hid in through the grey fringe of his lanky hair. Its evil eyes, sunken and yellow, flicked back and forth, warily.

  It edged closer, almost entering the synthetic darkness of the Blacksword’s cover, sniffing the air as it drew nearer. It stared for a few seconds and then gave up its search, turned around and was about to scuttle back across the beam when a pair of long white hands, with spider-like fingers and black fingernails, clamped themselves on either side of its head.

  The Blacksword pulled the creature into the shadows and performed a Thought Link, the Rawn ability to use the Water Element to read minds. The thing suddenly went rigid, unable to move as its muscles tightened in its stick-thin limbs.

  To Havoc, the Thought Link with the creature was like touching a dark and fetid mind. The thing oozed evil, suffering and, above all, madness. The Blacksword did not seem fazed by the touch. In fact, he relished it as he probed further and deeper into the dead matter that was once a human brain.

  ‘It’s dead,’ he said, ‘dead but still…animated, I think is the right word to use. It’s higher brain functions still work, but it’s being manipulated by a powerful force elsewhere in the building.’ The Blacksword probed further and found something else. ‘There are two of these things, a twin, but a twin not of the flesh.’

  It’s spirit? Asked Havoc.

  ‘Yes, they have a symbiotic connection, a link. They cannot be united, however, yet they yearn for unity. The pain of separation is constant. Bound by the will of the Necromancer. The Necromancer commands them through his control of their own souls…’

  Does he have a name? cut in the prince.

  ‘Yes, they call him, Cornelius Pagan.’

  Ah! That name sounds familiar.

  ‘This Pagan is close by. He knows we are here’

  Well, that’s my plan to gate-crash his party out of the window, then.

  The Blacksword looked down at the pathetic creature in his hands, ‘it’s true identity is lost or burnt from its mind. It’s sole existence is to serve the Necromancer. I can glean no more from it.’ With that, he jerked the head to the left and snapped its neck. The pitiful thing slumped on the beam.

  ‘We must get back to the others…’ he said. However, a long high-pitched scream echoed around the Castle-mount, female and clearly human. Above him, the Katávri stirred and shifted. Somewhere down below there was a trace of light flickering near an opening at the rear of the structure. As Havoc had expected, from his earlier observations of Sjardhiem, the rest of the castle continued into the mountain that it stood on.

  ‘Human,’ frowned the Blacksword, ‘and something else. Whatever power this Necromancer is using, he hides things well with it.’

  There were the sounds of footfalls behind him. He turned in time to see Elric, Furran and Gunach running towards the source of the screams. Above him, the Insane Host hissed as all of their yellow eyes watched the three warriors run below them. They started to climb down from their roost.

  We have to help them or this is not going to go well.

  ‘Agreed,’ the Blacksword leapt out of his shadow mass onto another rafter. All of the Katávri now turned their attention onto him. Several raced down the walls and beams to reach him.

  He jumped off the rafter, falling backwards. He waved his hands in the air and produced two Pyromantic Fireballs that glowed bright white, tinged at the surface with yellow flame. He willed the Fireballs to travel at high speed upwards and into the network of beams that held up the coned roof. The subsequent explosion ripped the roof to shreds. Hundreds of the Katávri were obliterated along with sizable chunks of wood and masonry. As the roof caved in, the Blacksword flipped into a somersault and landed lightly on his feet. Dust and flaming timber rained around him and he used the confusion of the crashing roof to find a dark corner and allow the prince to take dominance of his body once again.

  16

  Havoc extracted SinDex from its sheath on his back and then ran towards the rear of the building, nimbly dodging falling bricks and burning timber. He found the other three at the opening. They were staring at the destruction with wide eyes and open mouths. All of them raised weapons when Havoc ran around a pillar.

  ‘What, in the name of Arcun…?’ said Furran, but the prince ran past them to the opening were yellow flame light emitted.

  ‘No time to explain,’ he said, ‘this way. Move!’ he took a set of stairs downward and entered into a brightly lit cavern. The ancient Hinterlanders must have used this area for storage, because there were little chiller huts to the right and rows of shelving next to them. The stairs, carved out of the rock face, zigzagged downwards to an open area lit by ten cauldrons
of burning oil. In the centre was a large obsidian table, on this table, bound by hands and feet, was a woman of about twenty years of age. She looked their way and screamed for them to help her.

  Havoc took the stair two at a time; he could hear the others behind him.

  ‘Hang on, that’s the girl at the tavern in Hjornfelt, the one that served us,’ said Furran.

  Havoc looked again at the girl. The Paladin-knight was right, she even wore the server apron he last saw her wearing. Why was she here?

  It was the Blacksword that raised the feeling of dread in his head, it’s a trap! Look up!

  Havoc did so and his blood froze. Above their heads was the source of the bright light. Gossamer threads wove into starling patterns as thousands of humanoid forms swam around one another, bright and pulsing with such vibrancy, vibrancy he had never seen the like of before.

  The Katávri Souls, said the Blacksword.

  As soon as the others looked up, the souls burst from their ethereal clouds and swooped towards them. To Havoc’s right he saw Gunach lifted from the stairs by hundreds of insubstantial hands and sent spinning to the ground. Furran was shooting Wolfram Bolts into the screaming souls with no effect. Havoc could not see Elric anywhere. The prince summoned the Rawn Art, but a mass of spirits struck him. They may appear weak and fibrous, but they certainly felt solid. The air went out of his lungs and so too did the Sword that Rules. His back smashed against a brick wall, which collapsed under his weight. He tumbled down a steep embankment, bouncing off rocks that dented his Raider armour with each strike. He tried in vain to slow his decent but the drop was too steep. A large boulder loomed out of the darkness before him and he yelled in fear before he struck it.

  Darkness and sweet oblivion followed.

  17

  Havoc woke.

  He was sitting cross-legged and naked on the Pyromancer’s Rage, the boulder he had created through an expulsion of Pyromantic Energy during a fight with his father, an event that happened during the years after the exile of his people from Aln-Tiss. The glass underneath him glistened with many facets of colour in the moonlight.

  I have returned to the beginning. I must be dreaming.

  This was the point in his life when he had made a decision to leave and follow his own path of destiny. This was the point that most modern scholars of Rawn History thought that the fate of the war against the Vallkytes changed.

  He looked up. The camp of tents looked so familiar, remaining the same as he remembered it. The guards patrolled the perimeter of the camp with lit torches. None of them looked his way.

  Of course they are not looking, for I only remember this in a dream.

  He turned to his right hoping to see the spirit of his little sister, Verna, in her blue dress and carrying her favourite doll. Instead, he saw a grown woman in a dress of shimmering white with curly blonde hair framing her beautiful oval face.

  ‘Bluedwed?’ he said with a sharp intake of breath.

  Hello Havoc.

  She stood very still with her hands clasped in front of her. She neither smiled nor looked unhappy.

  ‘So, I am dreaming?’

  Yes. You must trust the Blacksword.

  ‘What?’

  And Elric.

  Havoc, taken aback at the cold tone of the countess, was even more shocked as she began to grow younger before his eyes. Her dress became a dirty, torn shirt and breeches. Her hair matted with streaks of mud and her face smudged.

  In this aspect, there was only one name he ever called her.

  ‘Mulvend?’

  You must wake now, Havoc. Danger is near.

  The dream faded into distorted colours. Mulvend/Bluedwed disappeared and light flowed into his sight as his lids fluttered open.

  18

  At first, the disorientation was surreal.

  He was looking down his body, his armour scratched and dented, his feet floating several feet above a spiral cut into the floor. He assumed it was another Cürious, but this one had harsh and ugly etchings compared to the soft curving flow of magical glyphs. The markings and the embedded spiral pattern emitted a red glow, which pulsed upward like hoops of red mist travelling along his body as he hung suspended in the air and dispersed somewhere above his head. He found that he could not move his arms, which were pinned to his sides by some unseen power.

  The second thing was the pain. His head throbbed and his body felt as if he had been wrestling with Little Kith. He groaned as he lifted his head.

  ‘You should have listened to me,’ said Elric somewhere to his right, ‘all we had to do was collect the Heart of Grendal the Wayfarer and be on our way. But no, you had to go snooping!’

  ‘Be silent, Elric!’ snapped a female voice which contained a hint of anger.

  Havoc’s eyes focused. The large black table stood off to the left of the cavern. Elric was standing next to a wooden table cluttered with various implements of torture. He was still armed with his Mara Swords and looking very unhappy. To the prince’s front stood the serving girl from Hjornfelt, her maids attire was now discarded for a skimpy skirt, a tight suede bodice and knee-high boots. Her fine blonde hair was held up inside a black fan shaped hat, locally called a Loorf. She also wore a black feathered cape over her shoulders and carried a wooden staff with a glowing red crystal at its tip, the same red glow that now surrounded Havoc. Her rather revealing attire was lost on any hot-blooded male when they took in the dark make-up and tattoos that lined her face. Her scowl at Elric was harsh and demeaning, but when she looked at the helpless prince, her black lips twitched into a crooked smile.

  ‘Welcome back, young princeling,’ she said.

  ‘Who are you?’ croaked Havoc through a dry throat.

  ‘She’s a Morgani Witch, Kervunder,’ said a voice to Havocs right. Gunach was inside a strongly constructed wooden cage suspended from the ceiling. Blood matted his helmetless head and he no longer had that amused expression on his face, which was so common with dwarves. In fact, he looked downright angry with the girl before him. ‘A practitioner in Dark Magic and a total bitch!’ he added.

  ‘I have had enough of your tongue, dwarf!’ said the witch and pointed the head of her staff at Gunach. A red burst of plasma shot from the crystal and struck him in the chest. Gunach’s whole body went rigid and he yelled in agony as the red glow covered him from head to toe.

  ‘Stop it!’ yelled Havoc. The girl regarded him with a scowl.

  ‘Do as he says, Omivra,’ spoke another voice that seemed to come out of the air around them.

  Omivra released her hold on the magic that tortured Gunach, ‘as you wish, my lord.’

  ‘Cornelius Pagan, I presume?’ asked Havoc as he looked around the cavern for the owner of the voice. That was when he noticed the Sword that Rules. Its black blade plunged inside a boulder and the Muse Orrinn glowing brightly. He only just realised that the Blacksword was quiet in his mind and he reached out to his alter ego and got no reply, yet he felt him watching through his eyes.

  A man stepped out of the shadows. Havoc was surprised to see that it was actually Bors, the proprietor of the Boarjövrd Tavern.

  ‘Ah, I see, foolish am I to not realise that you and Elric had all of this planned,’ said the prince.

  ‘Yes, said Bors in a totally different voice and without a trace of an accent, ‘you have been slow on the uptake for a Cromme.’

  ‘This is not how I wished the plan to turn out,’ said Elric, ‘you have the sword now, Pagan, let the rest go.’

  ‘I think not, Elric. Plans change. You humans are always so inept when it comes to trusting others.’

  ‘Then at least give me the symbol to unlock the throne and retrieve the Heart of King Grendal.’

  ‘Ha! Your obsession with that is becoming tiresome,’ scoffed the Necromancer. ‘Unfortunately, the understanding of Skrol was denied to my kind many years ago. Only the prince has the knowledge you seek.’

  Havoc looked at Elric, ‘must have taken a nasty knock on my head in that
fall. I seem to have forgotten everything,’ he said with the hint of a smile.

  Elric chuckled, ‘so humorous and cruel, my prince. I have always said that you should embrace the darkness within you. From one Bani to another.’

  Havoc frowned at that comment. The words of the dream returned to him in Bleudwed’s voice, “trust Elric”. The Marauder Doom was giving him a message. Then, Havoc flinched when the Blacksword hissed inside his head.

  He is a sly one that, Elric. You are trapped in this device, but I am not and he knows it. Keep Pagan talking!

  Pagan did not seem to notice Elric’s subtle hint to the prince. He approached the table beside the Marauder Doom and picked up, what looked like, an armoured gauntlet made of silver and studded with gems along the wrist guard. He looked up at Gunach.

  ‘Remarkable contraption, wouldn’t you say, dwarf? Losing my arm pained me for hundreds of years until I kidnapped a skilled dwarf and forced him to make this.’ He pushed the wrist guard over his armless-stump and the gems flared with magic. The fingers of the metallic hand squeaked when he moved them. ‘Of course, I need to oil it from time to time and the dwarf showed me how to maintain it and energise the magical crystals before I had him skinned alive, oh, only to show him my own skills, naturally. One good turn deserves another. He actually managed to live for six days as he tried to hold his guts in.’ the Necromancer chuckled. ‘I think I’ll do you the same service. After all, my kind has never gotten on well with yours, have we?’

  Gunach was glaring at the Necromancer with hate.

  ‘Your kind?’ prompted Havoc.

  Pagan looked at the prince with some surprise. He looked down at his body, ‘ah! Where are my manners?’ he stretched his arms wide, the real one and the fake one. His body shivered and changed as the disguise of Bors faded to reveal the true face of the Necromancer. He shrunk in height to just under six feet, slim but with broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist. His beard disappeared to leave him barefaced; it was a thin, oval face with a narrow nose, and a wide and heavy brow ridge over blood red eyes, his long lobeless ears swept back to a point framing the reddish hair that hung down his back, straight and loose. He had a nasty white scar running along the left side of his face from his temple, down to the nape of his neck.