The mists of sorrow ms-7

by Brian S. Pratt

  He finds Tinok lying not far away and runs over to him. The barrier which James had around him is gone. “Tinok!” he says as he comes to kneel at his side. When he doesn’t respond, he puts his ear to his chest to see if he’s still alive. A very faint lub-dub is heard as his heart still beats within his chest.

  Giving him a gentle shake he says again, “Tinok! It’s me, Jiron.”

  His eyes flutter open and at first he is unable to focus well enough to see. Then the sight of his friend’s face comes into clarity and he smiles. “Jiron, thank god you found me,” he says weakly.

  “Can you stand?” Jiron asks.

  “I think so,” he replies. With Jiron’s help he makes it to his feet. “Oh man,” he says as he sees James there struggling to keep the gate closed.

  Jiron turns and sees the Star shining with incredible brilliance. The bulge within the gate moves outward, then recedes. Outward, then recedes again as James struggles to keep it closed.

  “I can’t stop it,” James says. “Even with the Star, I can’t prevent him from coming through.”

  “What can we do?” Jiron asks.

  “Get everyone out,” he says. With sweat pouring down his face, he adds, “Fast.”

  Tinok leans on Jiron’s shoulder as they hurry over to where Brother Willim cradles Miko’s head. “We’ve got to go,” urges Jiron. He sees the blood covering the front of his robes and the two halves of his staff lying on the ground nearby.

  “Miko’s lost too much blood,” he says. “He can’t make it by himself and I am not strong enough to carry him.”

  “Can you help Tinok?” he asks.

  “I’m alright,” Tinok says as he lets go of Jiron’s shoulder. “My strength is coming back.”

  “Okay.” To Brother Willim and Tinok he says, “You two help each other.” Bending over, he picks up Miko. The hand that had held the dagger is still a little numb, but serviceable as life returns to it. Turning back to James he hollers, “Let’s go!”

  James turns his head toward them and they can see the strain etched across his face. “I can’t go,” he says. “If I do, he’ll pass through.”

  “You said he’s going to pass through anyway,” he yells back. “We failed.”

  Shaking his head, James says, “If the gate is no longer here, he won’t be able to pass through.”

  “You mean…?” he asks.

  James nods and says, “I’m going to destroy it.” When Jiron hesitates, he says, “I can’t hold this for long.” Reaching into his pouch, he removes the medallion with the warrior priest symbol and tosses it to Brother Willim. “You don’t have much time.”

  Brother Willim snatches the medallion and puts it in an inner pocket of his robe. He nods and with he and Tinok leaning on one another, head for the stairs.

  Jiron remains motionless as he stares at James.

  James meets his eyes and says, “It’s been fun.”

  A tear runs down the face of the battle hardened pit fighter.

  “Go,” urges James then turns his attention back to the gate.

  “Come on Jiron!” Tinok hollers from the stairs.

  With the unconscious body of the High Priest of Morcyth in his arms, he hurries after the other two. Moving to the stairs, he begins climbing up. He only pauses a moment when he reaches the point where the stairs leave the cavern. Looking down at his friend, he sees the light from the Star still shining forth. Completely surrounding James is a ring of shadows, not nearly as far back as they had been. “Goodbye James,” he says then continues up the stairs.

  “Jiron?”

  Stig comes over to where Aleya is lying on the bed. Her eyes are open and she sits up abruptly when she realizes that Stig, Shorty, Reilin and Aku are the only ones in the room.

  “What happened?” she asks. When the others fail to answer, she understands. “No!” she cries. Rising from the bed, she starts to head for the door.

  Stig steps in front of her and says, “It’s too late. They’re already in the temple.”

  From where he stands looking out the window, Shorty says, “The whole temple area is swarming with guards and soldiers.”

  Aleya rushes over and looks out across the dark city. Unable to see the temple well from here, she turns to them. “How could you let them go in there alone?” she demands. They can barely meet her accusing eyes let alone answer. “How could he do this to me?” The last question is more to herself than anything else.

  Gazing for a moment over to where the temple sits, she then puts her face in her hands and begins to sob. The others in the room glance to each other, none knowing what to do.

  Aku gets up from his position in the corner and comes to her. He slips his hand into hers and together they stand there, with only the sound of her sobbing disturbing the silence.

  “How many are there?” Potbelly asks. Deflecting a sword stroke with his knife, he follows through with his sword and guts the guard before him.

  “I don’t know,” replies Scar. Both of his blades are red with blood from the bodies that litter the hallway from where they stand at the top of the stairs, all the way back to where they first crossed swords.

  Ever since the others had left, they’ve held the corridor. Both now sport numerous wounds and have been forced to give ground until they now stand at the top of the stairs. Unwilling to give any more, they decided to make their stand here.

  “Wonder if they made it,” Potbelly says as he lashes out with his knife. The man he struck dodges back momentarily when a six inch long cut opens up on lower abdomen,

  “Doubt if we’ll ever know,” Scar replies, then he feints with the sword in his left hand. When the temple guard raises his sword to block, he runs him through with his other.

  Standing side by side, the two comrades trade blows with all who come. Only rarely do their opponents manage to get through their guard. The skill Scar and Potbelly are facing is woefully below what they’re used to facing in the pits.

  “We could always surrender,” suggests Potbelly.

  “I’d rather eat bloodworms for breakfast,” replies Scar. “Besides,” he begins then has to pause as his opponent’s sword lunges forward in an attempt to skewer him through the middle. Unfortunately for the guard, he slips on the blood covering the floor and continues forward off balance. It’s easy enough for Scar to trip him up and then nudge him toward the top of the stairs.

  Potbelly sees what he did and uses his elbow to propel the guard the rest of the way. As the guard completely loses his balance, he hits the stairs and falls. Tumbling down the stairs, he hits the bottom and doesn’t get back up.

  “Besides,” resumes Scar as he readies to meet the next in line, “no one would understand us even if we tried.”

  “You do have a point there,” replies Potbelly.

  So side by side they continue meeting all comers. Eventually, guards from the city begin to be intermingled with those of the temple. Blades sing and blood flies as man after man meet their fate at the hands of expert pit fighters.

  “Move!” urges Jiron. The weight of Miko in his arms is beginning to tire him. Brother Willim and Tinok have fallen behind and he has had to wait for them to hurry up. “James isn’t going to be able to hold off much longer.”

  “We’re coming,” Brother Willim hollers back. “Don’t wait for us.”

  To himself, Jiron says, “You have the medallion, I have to wait for you.” Then the other two reach him and he moves down an adjoining corridor toward the Hall of Despair. Little Brothers have been their constant companions since leaving James. Most of the time, Brother Willim has one or two who grab hold of his robe and pull him forward. Even they seem to understand the urgency of the situation.

  “How much further is it?” Tinok asks. At first he didn’t have much strength, but after walking for awhile, the stamina he once had has begun to return. It must have been the time held inactive here that had done it to him.

  “Not much more,” replies Jiron. In fact, the hallway they are in open
s up onto the room containing the bone chair, the room that Brother Willim had called the Hall of Despair.

  “Almost there,” he says. Upon entering the Hall, he’s surprised not to see bodies of Hikuli scattered across the floor. The last time they passed through here, the Little Brothers were embattled with the Hikuli that populated Ith-Zirul. The fact that the Little Brothers had come to the cavern and that no Hikuli had been seen since, seemed to say that they vanquished the little buggers.

  He moves along the side wall until he reaches the entrance to the hallway leading to the dais room. “Down here and then we’re home free,” he announces. Moving into the hallway, he leaves the other two behind as he hurries to the end. Once he reaches the dais room, he lays Miko atop the dais then quickly returns to help the other two.

  Lending an arm to both Brother Willim and Tinok, he practically drags them forward. “Easy my son,” Brother Willim says when he almost loses his balance. He’s still not completely over the wound to his middle the warrior priest had dealt him despite the healing he did on himself.

  As they enter the room, he helps Tinok up onto the dais first, then he follows. “Now you,” he says as he turns to offer Brother Willim his hand.

  Brother Willim takes his hand and steps up upon the dais. The medallion in his pocket triggers the magic within the dais and they vanish.

  All his life he had read in books these wondrous tales of people who had overcome the odds. Who had gone the distance despite the obstacles that lay before them. He always wondered if he had it in him to be one of those people. When he sent the others off to safety while he stayed behind, he had his answer.

  But what other choice was there?

  The struggle to prevent the gate from allowing the presence from the other side from getting through grows harder by the minute. Even with the power of the Star at his beck and call he doesn’t have enough to prevent it for long. Having to put more and more of the Star’s power into holding the gate closed, he’s forced to use less in keeping the shadows away. Slowly they draw ever closer.

  He has a good idea what he can do to destroy the gate, he just has to hold out long enough for the others to reach the dais and get away. If he can’t, there’s little hope that they will survive what’s to come.

  A little to his right he sees the dark form of Ozgirath as it lays upon the rune covered floor. The dagger Jiron thrust into his breast still glows with ruddy light, the dark robe remains still.

  Then his eyes return to the gate as the malignant presence that James can only call pure evil tries again to bull its way through. He can sense the frustration and growing anger coming through from the other side. He can also sense lines of magical energy being channeled to the gate from elsewhere and being absorbed by it. Try as he might, nothing he does effectively interrupts the streams of power from being delivered.

  When at last he deems the time is right, he creates the sphere. One that he’s created twice before, each time with massive destructive power. The first time was outside the City of Light, the result of which destroyed a good portion of the Empire’s invasion force. Not enough to stop them, but it hurt them bad.

  The second time was not too long ago when mages came to destroy Illan’s army and everyone with it. The resulting explosion that time was immense. It seared the earth for miles in every direction and weakened the boundary between the planes to such an extent that a creature not of this world was able to pass through.

  Now staring at the sphere before him, he sees his death, as activating it will surely mean. There will be little chance to escape its blast once he does. Then all of a sudden, the presence from the other side makes a massive push as it tries to force its way through the gate. The gate bulges to an extent further than ever it had before. Sparks dance across its surface and just as James is sure it’s going to break through, the pressure subsides.

  Now James, he says to himself. While it’s regrouping for another attempt. He focuses his eyes on the sphere and sends the command that will activate it. For Meliana.

  No sooner does the sphere become activated than it latches onto the streams of power flowing to the gate and draws them to itself. James can also feel the power of the Star beginning to be drawn into it as well. Opening up the conduit as wide as he can, he funnels raw, primal power to the sphere.

  The sphere goes from translucent to deep red in half a second as unimaginable power is absorbed into it. The magic that James had used to prevent the gate from opening is now being drawn into the sphere.

  Sparks begin to appear across the surface of the gate and it bulges forward as the presence again tries to cross. Only this time, it’s not meeting any opposition. As the gate opens, terror rolls over James as something begins to cross over.

  Tearing his eyes from the gate, he concentrates on the sphere. Now so dark red as to be almost black, it crackles with power. Then it reaches critical mass and detonates.

  Back in Zixtyn, the priests of Dmon-Li continue sacrificing slaves and directing the resulting power to Dmon-Li’s altar in the nexus of the temple. Which in turn sends the power to Ith-Zirul. A backlash of energy travels back along the power stream when the sphere detonates. When it reaches the altar…

  Crumph!

  …the magic explodes in a tremendous conflagration of energy. The temple rocks on its foundation as the force of the explosion blasts the temple asunder.

  “Jiron!” screams Aleya when the temple explodes into the night. Standing at the window, Aleya and the others see a massive fireball rising to the sky where the temple had stood.

  “Damn,” curses Reilin under his breath.

  “Come on,” Shorty says. “James said to get out of town if things went bad.”

  “It couldn’t have been much worse than that,” agrees Stig.

  Aleya collapses by the window and is wracked with sobs. Stig tries to comfort her while Shorty and Reilin gather their things.

  “We can’t know that killed them,” he says to her. “They’ve survived worse before.”

  “You think so?” she asks as she raises her head hopefully.

  “Sure,” he says. “But we need to get out of here before someone comes looking.” To Shorty he asks, “You got everything?”

  With their traveling packs in hand, he says, “Yes.”

  “Then head down to the stables and get the horses ready,” Stig tells him.

  Nodding his head, Shorty rushes downstairs.

  Aleya pulls herself up off the floor and stares once again at the fire that is still arcing toward the clouds. “Please be okay,” she says. Then taking a deep breath, she takes Aku by the hand and turns to Stig. “Let’s go.”

  “What the hell was that?”

  Covered in rock and dirt, Scar and Potbelly find themselves at the bottom of the stairs. The blast knocked them back and threw them down to the bottom.

  “James I would imagine,” Potbelly replies as he pries his leg out from under a large piece of what use to be the temple wall.

  “I think I’m blind,” Scar says from further up the stairs than where Potbelly had landed.

  “You’re not blind,” replies Potbelly. “It’s just dark. I think the blast collapsed the hallway up there and buried those soldiers along with the torches they were carrying.” Stepping carefully, he begins feeling his way up toward Scar. “You still have that flint?”

  “Yeah,” replies Scar.

  Then a second or two later, he hears cloth being torn, then sparks appear as Scar strikes the flint stone. A moment later, a flame appears and Potbelly sees Scar sitting on a broken section of the temple. Beside him is a strip of cloth that use to be attached to his tunic. Using his knife, Scar winds the burning cloth around the blade and holds it aloft as a torch.

  “I think we’re alone down here,” Scar says after looking up and down the stairs for others.

  “Looks that way,” agrees Potbelly.

  “Better see if we can get out of here,” Scar says. Getting up off the broken section of temple wall, he t
urns toward the top of the stairs. That’s when he realizes his swords are not in their scabbards. One is lying further up the stairs and the other is wedged in amongst a pile of rocks so tightly that no amount of pulling will free it.

  Potbelly sees his predicament and suggests, “Take the sword from the dead guy at the bottom of the stair.

  “Good idea,” replies Scar and descends to the bottom where the dead guard that they shoved down the stairs lays. The man’s sword doesn’t fit within the scabbard around his waist so Scar removes his empty scabbard and then buckles on the dead man’s. He then draws the sword quickly from the scabbard a couple times to be sure it’s in the proper position. Once he’s satisfied that it has an easy draw for emergencies, he bends over and tears off several strips of cloth from the dead man’s shirt to use as fuel for his makeshift torch.

  “Now, let’s get out of here.” With his knife-torch held high, he ascends back up the stairs. The stairwell is choked with rubble which makes the footing treacherous. At the top, they find little resemblance to the place they had so recently been fighting for their lives. A few bodies of temple guards are wedged in among the debris that’s all but blocking the top of the stairwell.

  From where Potbelly stands slightly below Scar on the stairs he asks, “Is there a way out?”

  “Maybe” replies Scar. “Here take this.” He then hands Potbelly his knife-torch. “Let me see if I can get us out of here.” Moving toward the choked passage, he begins to feel a slight breeze which gives him hope.

  Using his hands, he starts trying to push the rock away. When that fails to yield results, he begins digging out the stones chocking the passage. All of a sudden he stops and turns back to Potbelly. “Kill the light!” he exclaims quietly. “I hear someone.”

  Potbelly flicks the burning cloth from the blade of the knife and stomps the flame out once it’s on the ground. When the passage again goes dark, they notice a faint light coming from the left side of the rock pile.