by Greg Curtis
Of course there would always be the question of what to do when he got there. But he couldn’t let himself be troubled by that until then.
Chapter Thirty Two.
“What in the nine hells is that?” Umber, once a king, stared at the dark blotch in the sky, wondering. It wasn’t a cloud and it didn’t look like a bird. What it did look like was trouble, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the wizard or druid or whatever he was, had finally come for him and his assassin to finish the job and kill them. It would be about time.
Between the endless cold and wet from the dark ocean, the boring diet of fish and shellfish, the monotony of having to spend all day every day trying to catch his dinner and repair his shelter, death would have been welcome. Battle would have been more so.
Umber hated fish. He hated the smell of the sea. He hated being cold. He actually hated having no one to talk to. And Virris was no use. He sat on his own little crag of rock, doing the same things he was, and probably hating his life every bit as much.
For a while Umber had considered swimming over to him, just so he could finally have someone to speak with. But that was before he had seen the dark shapes swimming in the waters between them, and he knew he would not have made it to the other island. Virris had apparently made the same decision, and so they could do little more than stare at one another from the best part of a league away, and no doubt each planned the other’s demise. And if there was one thing Umber wanted, it was to wrap his hands around his former assassin’s throat and squeeze until his face turned blue and he gasped his last. His failure should have cost him his life and one day maybe it would.
Instead of dreaming about his eventual joy, Umber sat on the rocks and studied the dark blotch heading his way, all the while wondering what it was. Not a cloud, not a bird, not anything he had ever seen before. It was a giant egg shaped sack of dark cloth of some sort, floating through the air like a cloud, while beneath it hanging on ropes was a small wicker basket in which he could slowly make out a man’s form. Behind the long narrow basket, he could just make out a giant wooden screw turning slowly while smoke billowed out from the basket, the sign of the magical engine that turned it. The screw he knew from his advisers, was what let the air machine travel in any direction, even against the wind.
“A flying machine.” Over the long, cold, empty months he’d got into the habit of talking to himself; there was after all no one else to speak to. But there was also no one else to agree with him.
Yet he knew he was right. His advisers had spoken of the strange gnomish machines, thinking them a miracle from the gods while all he could think was that they would be great for spying on his enemies with. High above, unseen and unheard, his soldiers could tell him of the enemy’s strength and deployment. Maybe they could even rain down arrows on them. Never though, had he actually sent out his agents to buy one. It had been too soon and he’d had too much else to do.
Suddenly he regretted that as he realised a flying machine could not only help him win battles, it could rescue him from this horrible little outcrop of rock.
Slowly the machine came closer to him, and he knew it was no accident. The driver was deliberately heading his way. That was enough to almost make him hope rescue was at hand. Except for the fact that he knew no one with such a machine, and if he was any judge of what had happened to Calumbria after he had left, he was sure he had no friends remaining there.
The kingdom, his kingdom, would have fallen into chaos and strife. The different factions would have started vying for power. And in all likelihood, war would have broken out. A kingdom needed a king, and a strong king at that. Those horrible peasants and all the self-important nobles who had surely hated him with every breath in their bodies must by now be ruing the day he had been taken from them. Though they would never admit it.
“You!” Finally the air machine was close enough that he could make out the face of the man in the basket, and it was no gnome. It was no one he would ever have thought would have come for him either. It was that accursed emissary, and he shouted out his anger at seeing him again even before he thought of the likely consequences.
“Now master Umber, is that any way to speak to a man who has come all this way to bring you back to the land.” The man even had the gall to smile at him as if they were old friends. They weren’t, and Umber absolutely hated the way that he addressed him as master Umber, almost as if he was a mere merchant instead of a king. Except that he had to remind himself, he wasn’t a king any longer.
“Acolyte Gypson.” Somehow he even managed to nod politely to the man as he floated in the air thirty or forty feet above him.
“The same.”
“I’m pleased you remember, especially when it appears that you so quickly forgot my advice to leave the druid alone.” Umber closed his eyes in pain as he realised he was being rebuked, and not too subtly. But at least he kept his silence as he remembered that he needed this man to get him off this rock.
“Are you here to rescue me?”
“Possibly.” The emissary smiled some more and Umber gnashed his teeth quietly. “But I’m really here to bring you back to my mistress so that you can answer her questions.”
Umber suddenly remembered who his mistress was, and let the anger pass away as he knew a fresh thrill of fear. A dragon wanted to see him? What for, to use him as an afternoon snack?
“Questions?”
“Troop strengths of all the surrounding realms. Resources to fight a war. The tactics each military unit uses. The strategies of the various generals. Where to find provisions for people fleeing south. The types of weapons soldiers can lay their hands on. You were a battlefield commander before you took the throne, and you have knowledge we can use against the necromancer’s armies.”
The man was right of course, and it took a lot for Umber to hide his smile as he realised he was needed again. The advantage was his once more. And soon he would be free. Free to bring death and destruction to his enemies.
“Yes, I have all of that knowledge. Bring me to your queen and I’ll gladly share it.” He wouldn’t. Already he was dreaming of getting on board that flying machine and pushing the smug emissary overboard, before he embarked on his quest of vengeance.
“Yes I think you will.” The emissary smiled back at him, making Umber wonder if he’d made a critical mistake. Especially when the man pulled out a huge coil of rope from behind him. Whatever it was it didn’t look like a ladder. In fact the way he was holding it made him think it was a whip of some sort. But it was surely far too big to be a whip. “Even if you’re really thinking about killing me and stealing this ship of the skies.”
“I would never -.” It was almost second nature for Umber to deny the truth, but he stopped quickly enough when he saw the rope starting to glow with a golden light. That he figured was never a good sign. Maybe it was time to start looking for somewhere to hide, as if there was such a place.
“No you won’t.” The emissary smiled at him again, before somehow the rope simply flicked out of his hand like a striking snake, heading straight for him.
Umber tried to dodge, but he was simply too slow. Months of bad food, little fresh water, and no exercise in a proper parade ground had left him slow. But even had that not been the case, the rope would have been far too fast for him.
In a heartbeat it had wrapped itself all the way around him, binding his arms to his sides and then started winding him up like a prone man in a rug. Only a few heartbeats later he found himself forty or so feet in the air, staring at the emissary in his flying machine, completely trapped, and wondering what to do before he died. All the man had to do was to let him go and he would fall to his death. But instead he just smiled some more.
“Open wide.” For some reason Umber did just that as the man brought out a small flask of red liquid, and put its tip to his lips. Then he squeezed, and before Umber could even think of spitting it out, the impossibly sweet liquid was spilling into his mouth and sliding down his throat.
“There now, that wasn’t so bad was it?” The emissary simply flicked his wrist a tiny bit, and Umber found himself suddenly spinning around as the rope uncoiled, before he found himself tossed unceremoniously into the far end of the basket.
“You -, you -,!” There were actually no words to describe just how angry Umber felt at being treated so disrespectfully, and he really wanted to kill the man. But as he clawed his way up to his feet intending to do just that, the emissary simply raised his hand, and Umber found himself stuck, half standing, half still hanging on to the edge of the basket.
“Now you will do exactly as you are commanded. You will never harm another person in your life. You will answer all of Sera’s questions. You will obey all the orders given you by any member of her House. And you will serve for the rest of your days. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” He didn’t intend to say it, absolutely didn’t want to, but Umber found himself with absolutely no choice as the word simply came out of his mouth. He realised immediately that he was under some sort of spell, and deep down understood that it was never going to be lifted. He hated that, hated the very thought of having to obey another, but no matter what he wanted to do, he couldn’t free himself from it.
“Good.” The emissary smiled at him some more. “Then take a seat in the end of the basket, and we’ll go and pick ourselves up an assassin. I understand that through his horrid work he knows nearly every royal court intimately.”
Umber did as he was told, unable to stop himself, and hating his body as it obeyed the emissary’s every word to the letter. In fact he hated everything just then, and most of all, himself.
From a king to a slave. Could there be a more terrible fall?
Chapter Thirty Three.
Alan spotted the mouth of the tunnel from high in the air and dived for it as fast as he could, knowing somehow that it was the entrance to the necromancer’s fortress. How he knew he wasn’t completely sure; it wasn’t as if their enemy had put out a shingle to tell them, but he had no doubt.
He had even less doubt when he streaked into the mouth of the underground fortress as fast as he could and saw a tunnel opening up before him, at least a league long, and with walls that were almost polished smooth with age. Logic told him the tunnel was man made, or rather made by an ancient Huron, but in truth the feeling of his scales crawling over one another as he felt the presence of evil all around was all he needed to know. He was actually inside the necromancer.
Powered by a strange mixture of fear and disgust, he streaked down the tunnel, heading for its far end as fast as he could, all the time waiting for the necromancer to spot him, and to try and kill him. A simple tunnel collapse would be all it would require. But nothing happened, and though he felt like he was flying through evil, almost swimming through it in truth, he kept flying freely.
The far end of the tunnel came up quickly, and beyond it Alan burst into a large open chamber with tunnels branching off it in all directions.
For a moment he was shocked by that, shocked by the incredible number of alternative routes that led into the deeper parts of the fortress. The necromancer’s ancient home was a maze. But something, maybe the memory of those journals of Kirsten Greentree he had read, maybe something else, told him it was the tunnel on the far side and slightly to the left he had to take and he flew for it.
Inside he found himself flying through a tricky chicane of twists and turns, some of which threatened to disorient him, but never once did he get lost as he navigated his way through them, and then through the further chambers and tunnels beyond them. And all the time he could feel himself getting closer. Closer to Ashiel, and closer also, to his destiny. Because there was something in this place that was telling him that the time was coming when everything would be ended one way or another. Either the world would win, or the necromancer would, in which case life would end.
It took time, too long in his opinion, but given the vast scale of the fortress, not long at all, but Alan found Ashiel quickly enough, guided by an instinct he didn’t fully understand, or maybe the faint memory of a dream he’d been sent or scrolls he’d read. And when he found her, when he set eyes upon her, something inside him just said this was it. He had somehow reached the end.
It surprised him somehow. All the while as he’d flown through the fortress he expected the ancient necromancer to attack him, but he hadn’t. It was almost as if he was asleep, or maybe, Alan suddenly realised as he flew through the final cavern, he didn’t recognise him in the form of the draglet. Though he had seen him before in that form. Or maybe he was simply too fast. On the other hand he could just be setting a trap for him, waiting for him to enter far enough that he couldn’t escape.
Whatever the reason, Alan had flown through the endless passageways and tunnels flat out, and no one and nothing had tried to stop him. That was good.
Better was the fact that they were alive, Ashiel and the unicorn both, trapped in a section of a large tunnel that had been barred off with columns of stone extending from floor to ceiling. Huge stone columns that it seemed had just risen up out of the ground to create a prison. That surprised him, as did the size of the chamber they’d been given as their cell. It was easily twenty paces long, far more then it needed to be. And more than that, they were barred off by two sets of the stone columns, one easily twenty feet in front of the other. Why?
The unicorn though, that was the true surprise. It was too soon he thought, for their kind to reappear, in fact he was surprised that the first of them had even been born. But it was standing there in front of him, large as life and white as snow, calmly staring at him, as if it had seen small dragons every day. Maybe it had. Maybe it recognised him as the one who had helped return its kind to life. Maybe it simply didn’t care. What it cared about though was the woman standing beside it, clinging to its back, and even as he landed in another nightmarish disaster of bone bruising impacts, he watched as it turned its neck, put its face against her cheek and nuzzled her, as if to say it was all going to be all right.
“Ashiel?” He called her name even as he was getting back up, worried that all was not as it seemed. It couldn’t be after all.
“Alan.” She acknowledged him instantly, and she sounded normal enough. Not hurt, not even worried. “Will you never learn to land properly?” Unbelievably she was almost laughing at him. In the middle of the enemy’s fortress, trapped in a stone prison, leagues from the surface, surely in danger of being killed, she was finding his landing humorous? He might never understand these ancients.
“Probably not. He hasn’t hurt you?”
“No.” And that made no sense. She didn’t look hurt, but she should be dead. No magic and right in the middle of the necromancer’s fortress, she should have been dead long ago.
Why? Why were they still alive? If they’d been there for several days as it appeared, locked up in the makeshift cell why hadn’t the necromancer or his diseased echo killed them? He’d surely had plenty of time. In fact as he looked at the strange stone bars of their cell, it was almost as if the necromancer wasn’t so much locking them away, but rather walling them off, trying to keep them away from him.
Alan didn’t understand what was happening, and he guessed he wasn’t alone. Certainly Ashiel didn’t seem to be on top of things as she stood in her prison cell looking worried, and if the unicorn knew something, it wasn’t saying anything. It just stood there, calmly looking at him with those big, dark eyes, apparently waiting for something.
“Why did you come here?” Probably it wasn’t the best time to ask questions, but he had to.
“To destroy Agrin’s body.” And as she said it she pulled out from under her robe a scrap of decaying papyrus that he recognised instantly, a page from the book of days. “But it didn’t work.”
“It didn’t work?” He was shocked by that. Even from this distance he could feel the terrible power of the magic locked up in those few scrawled symbols, and he knew fear. However she had managed to get the piece
of ancient magic, and it should have been safely locked away somewhere, the one thing it should have done was destroy. Such was its power that it should have destroyed everything, including her.
“No. It's locked in some way, warded. The magic refuses to be released even though the spell is unleashed purely by speaking a few simple words. But I couldn’t say them.” Thank the heavens for that was Alan’s immediate thought. The damage that thing could do was immense, beyond immense. It was an actual unmaking spell of some sort, and while he was almost certain it would have destroyed the necromancer, he wasn’t sure how much else of the world it would have taken with it. The plateau for certain, quite probably the surrounding mountain range with it, and maybe much more still.
