“Of course you had to defend yourselves, of course you did,” it mumbled. “My people are… not themselves, of late. They are not responsible for their actions, and must be treated as unwell.”
“What happened to your people?” Bellimar asked in a smooth, calming tone. “What calamity has befallen proud Stronghold?”
The Wyrgen grunted. “Proud Stronghold, indeed. Too prideful we were, and too confident in our ability to harness the greatest of forces. Our hubris was our downfall. Is it not always thus, with reckless mortal kind ever marching to our own doom?”
The woolly head snapped up as the Wyrgen took a sudden step toward them, causing Amric’s swords to flash up and to the ready. The Wyrgen, its expression animated, did not appear to notice in its eagerness.
“But I am not infected, and I will fix it. Am I not Stronghold’s head scientist? I will cure my people, bring them back. I just need more time.” The creature turned to Amric with a plaintive whine. “So you must not slay any more, do you understand? They understand not their actions.”
“I can make no such promise,” Amric said. “We will defend ourselves, if attacked again. But perhaps there need be no further conflict, if you can lead us to Grelthus and the place of safety you mentioned.”
The Wyrgen’s eyes burned with anger, but it dipped its muzzle in a slight nod. “I will lead you. Only I can take you to Grelthus.”
The creature gave a mad chuckle and turned away, padding down the corridor. Amric exchanged a look with the others, and they hastened to follow. A faint howl wafted after them. Half a beat later it was joined by a distant chorus of growling voices. Amric’s jaw tightened. It seemed more of Stronghold was becoming aware of the intruders.
The Wyrgen glanced over its rounded shoulder, eyes lambent in the lamplight and lips peeled back from long, glistening fangs in a mirthless grin. “It is not far now.” It thumped its chest with one hammer-like fist. “Only I, only I can take you to Grelthus.”
Their guide swung forward once more, and Amric heard the creature muttering to itself as it loped onward. The remote sounds of pursuit grew steadily louder as the companions made their way toward the forbidden heart of Stronghold, following on the heels of madness.
CHAPTER 9
Amric paced the floor and fought a losing battle with impatience. He stalked back and forth at the narrow end of the long, windowless stone chamber, and each time he passed the door there, he paused to listen.
There were no sounds of pursuit outside, and there had been none for hours. Their Wyrgen guide––Amric had decided he was male––had been as good as his word on that count, leading them through a maze of twisting corridors and chambers separated by solid metal doors. The Wyrgen locked each portal behind them with a small, cube-like device which he was quick to pocket after every use. He explained in a mournful whisper how his people had degenerated too far to recall even the most basic use of their tools, and thus would be unable to reach them through the secured doors.
Even as he knew relief at the frustrated clamor of pursuit growing more distant with each twist and turn, Amric also felt a growing unease at how dependent they were becoming upon their erratic guide. They were at the heart of a hostile labyrinth, and only the Wyrgen possessed map and key.
As he paced, Amric studied the creature from the corner of his eye. The Wyrgen moved around a large table in the center of the room, rummaging through piles of clutter in what seemed an endless, aimless fashion. A walking path had been preserved around that expansive slab, but the rest of the chamber was littered with crates, stacks of parchment, and countless strange devices in various stages of either assembly or dismantling. A number of items caught the warrior’s roving eye in the quiet hours of waiting: a fanged skull formed entirely of crystal, a pulsating gem which worked its way through a gamut of different luminous colors, a pair of wicked-looking, clawed black gauntlets cleverly articulated for the movement of each joint, and many more. For every item he recognized or for which he could divine a purpose, there were a dozen more that baffled him. Given the spectacular level of disarray, he could only guess at the additional wonders buried in the room, beyond immediate sight.
The Wyrgen had insisted they wait here, in a room he declared safe, until all was quiet in the fortress once more. He had then rebuffed each subsequent query, even those as basic as inquiring after his name, by stressing the continued need for silence and patience. Their guide’s actions, which had at first seemed a reasonable set of precautions, now reeked instead of reticence. Amric ground his teeth with inward exasperation at the delay.
Halthak and Bellimar sat upon wooden crates which had been pinned beneath stacks of debris when they arrived, before the Wyrgen swept them clear. The healer dozed, sitting upright, his head bobbing forward. The old man was wrapped in his cloak, his eyes following every movement of the Wyrgen. Valkarr sat cross-legged on the floor with his back to a wall, one of his swords naked across his knees. His eyes were closed, and even Amric could not tell for certain if he was truly napping. The dried blood caking the side of the Sil’ath’s torso was the only remaining indication of his earlier wound, since Halthak had seen to it as soon as their flight permitted.
This had drawn a tremendous amount of interest from the Wyrgen, who had overturned a pile of debris in his haste to cross the room and witness the healer’s use of magic. “This is a most wondrous talent,” he breathed, regarding the Half-Ork in near rapture. Amric noted a moment of frenzied consideration pass behind the widened eyes, however, before they became guarded once more. Even hours later, as the Wyrgen dug through the chamber’s contents, he still cast furtive glances at the nodding healer when he thought no one was watching.
Amric listened at the door again, and again heard nothing. He growled, and wended his way through the clutter to the far end of the long chamber where another door identical to the first was set into that opposite wall. He pressed his ear to the cold metal panel, straining for long minutes to catch any sound. Did he imagine something there, a faint scraping sound, or perhaps a low cough?
“No attack will come from that direction,” the Wyrgen said, studying him over his shoulder. “I told you this before.”
“We have waited long enough,” Amric said. “Your people are no longer pursuing us. We should move while all is quiet.”
“We are safest here for now,” the Wyrgen grunted. “Stronghold is my home, and I have not survived these many months by being reckless. Have patience, human.”
“Why continue to wait?” Amric pressed. But the Wyrgen had already turned back to the table, and did not respond. Amric bit back his frustration and tried another approach.
“What is past this door? I think I heard something moving in whatever chamber lies beyond.”
The Wyrgen turned and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “An observation room lies that way, overlooking a grand experiment that stood to change our world. Alas, there are too few of us remaining to complete that work now.”
“And what of the movement I heard?” Amric continued. “Is Grelthus in the observation room?”
“No, Grelthus will not be found in there,” the Wyrgen replied with a deep, grating chuckle as he turned away once more.
“Is he coming here to us, then?”
The Wyrgen did not reply at once, and the swordsman thought at first he would ignore the question, as he had so many others over the intervening hours. After long seconds, however, he rumbled, “If you meet Grelthus, it will be here.”
At that statement, Amric exchanged a look with Bellimar. It seemed their chances of finding Morland’s contact were becoming less and less certain. The merchant had indicated that Grelthus held high stature in Stronghold, so Amric had been hoping to find someone more stable than their current guide, with sufficient influence to guarantee them safe passage among the Wyrgens. At least, he amended, among the Wyrgens who were not yet infected with whatever strange ailment coursed through Stronghold. Also, while this fellow claimed to know naught of their Sil’a
th friends, Amric held out hope that Grelthus’s position of influence would translate to a broader network of information as well. Now that he had their guide talking, however, Amric intended to elicit as much information from him as possible.
“Why should Grelthus come here?” he asked. “I have seen you send no signal. Does he frequent these rooms?”
“Of course he does,” the Wyrgen snapped, an irritated snarl slipping into its tone. He lifted a sheaf of parchment papers and thumbed through them before throwing them aside. “These chambers, though currently in disrepair, are dedicated to science and research. And is Grelthus not Stronghold’s head scientist? Now be silent, for I must think.”
Amric frowned. “Grelthus is head scientist of Stronghold? Back in the corridor, you claimed that you were––” He paused as realization dawned. “You! You are Grelthus!”
The Wyrgen froze in the act of pushing aside a stack of relics, then swung slowly about to face him once more. The dark, liquid eyes darted to each of them in turn. Bellimar had not moved, but Halthak sat forward, awake now, and Valkarr, no longer feigning sleep, had slipped into a crouch with bared steel clenched in one fist. The Wyrgen’s gaze fell upon Amric once more, and the warrior watched a mad flicker of indecision pass through the wolf-like features. The muzzle curled in an unconscious snarl as the tall, powerful form tensed. Amric shifted his stance and relaxed, measuring his space to maneuver in the surrounding clutter. Just as in the hallway, however, the Wyrgen regained his composure with a concerted effort and the moment fell back from the brink of violence.
“I am Grelthus,” he growled.
“Why this damned deception, then?” Amric demanded through clenched teeth. “You could have revealed your identity at any time. Did you not believe that Morland directed us to you?”
“That Morland sent you is no evidence of your good intentions,” Grelthus said with a toothy sneer.
Amric found it difficult to argue the point, as the merchant was a snake. Even so, he had agreed to perform a duty, however distasteful. “Morland provided the maps and information that led us here. In exchange, he bade us inquire as to the disposition of your, ah, business arrangement with him, were we successful in locating you.”
Grelthus bared his teeth in a mirthless expression. “The merchant and I had an arrangement where the mutual benefit outweighed the mutual distrust, by a very slight margin. It has been superseded by more important matters, however, and our deal is now voided. I owe the man nothing.”
“I will carry your answer back to Morland,” Amric said in a measured tone. “Our dealings with him were out of necessity rather than choice, whereas our own goal is to determine the whereabouts of our missing friends, the party of Sil’ath I mentioned to you earlier. Now that we are being more truthful with one another, I ask you again: have you seen them?”
The Wyrgen met the warrior’s level gaze, head swaying slightly, dark eyes hooded. “No, human,” he said at last. “You must seek your friends elsewhere.”
Amric swallowed bitter disappointment and gave a tight nod. “Our friends were seeking the source of the disruption plaguing the region. Morland directed them here to Stronghold for answers. Can you tell us aught of this?”
“I wish that I could not,” the Wyrgen said with a rumbling sigh. “I wish I could disavow any knowledge of it, but you must understand that it is our nature to study such phenomena. Untold secrets beckoned, seemingly within reach––and with the convergence, and Stronghold so ideally located to study––but little did we realize…”
The Wyrgen’s broad shoulders slumped and his hands rose to claw at his head. An agonized groan escaped him. Bellimar leaned forward from his seat on the crate, eyes intent beneath delicate silver brows.
“What did you find, Grelthus?” the old man asked.
“It will be easier to show you,” Grelthus whispered, raising his shaggy head from his hands. “Come with me to the observation chamber. It is fitting that you see.”
Amric stepped aside as the Wyrgen crossed the room and, procuring the strange cube from the folds of his tunic, unlocked the inner door. The swordsman observed the action from the corner of his eye, noting how the cube was pressed to the metal surface above the door handle and twisted to one side, prompting the muffled click of a mechanism hidden within. Grelthus then swiftly palmed the device before throwing open the door and striding through. He descended into a narrow, darkened stairwell that ran perpendicular to the room, and Amric and his companions followed several paces behind.
The stairs plunged a considerable distance below the floor level of the room they had departed, forty feet or more by Amric’s reckoning, and were lit at their nether end by an eerie, flickering glow. Amric peered past the hulking form of the Wyrgen to the doorway below, where a shimmer of multi-hued light danced across the wall in bold relief against the shadows, cast from the chamber beyond. A vague sense of unease stole over him as they neared the bottom, where wispy fingers of light caressed the walls about them and clawed at the stairs beneath their feet.
Sudden vertigo lanced through him, and he almost missed the last step before the landing, reaching out one hurried arm to the wall to brace himself. His vision swam for one disorienting moment, and he glanced over his shoulder at his companions. They did not appear similarly affected. Instead, they looked back at him, their faces streaked with unearthly luminescence and taut with concern.
Amric shook his head to clear it. He took a deep, steadying breath, and passed through the doorway.
A long stone chamber stretched away before them, not unlike the one they had vacated above in terms of size and aspect. There the resemblance ended, however. This room was free of clutter, and had only the one doorway they had come through without a twin on the opposite side. A huge metal cage squatted at the far end of the room. It was capped top and bottom in large iron slabs, with thick supporting posts at each corner. The bars themselves were not metal; instead, crackling bluish beams of energy draped its sides. In the center of the cage was a heaping pile of cloth, and Amric felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir as he saw that bundle of material rustle and flap as if beat by an unseen wind. The cage was large enough to hold several men, if need be, and Amric spied an empty water pitcher lying on its side as well as a chamber pot pushed to the back corner. His nose wrinkled, informing him that the chamber pot had seen recent use.
The cage, with its sinuous bars of fire, was an unsettling sight, but it was not the only source of shimmering light permeating the chamber. The eyes of all in the room were drawn to one long side of the room, which overlooked a scene that dazzled and baffled the senses. At first it appeared the space was enclosed only on three sides and the entire right side opened onto a vast amphitheater. The tight echo of their own footsteps indicated a enclosed area, however, and the dull sheen hanging in midair soon gave the lie to that first impression. The whole of the wall was forged of a single great sheet of glass, or some other transparent material, several feet thick. Amric stepped over to it and brushed his fingers against it to confirm what his eyes doubted. He rapped his knuckles against the unblemished surface, and was rewarded with a feeble tapping sound that was quickly swallowed in the tomb-like silence. Clear as crystal it might be, but the wall seemed as solid and strong as the outer hide of any castle. Grelthus and the others joined him at the wall of glass, and together they looked upon the spectacle below.
The circular amphitheater was enormous, dwarfing even the expansive architecture they had passed through in their harrowing passage into the dark heart of Stronghold. Colossal stone columns stood like a grim ring of sentries, mounting from the floor far below their vantage point to a vaulted ceiling far above. Past the transparent wall, a wide set of stone stairs fell away before them to spill onto a broad terraced landing. Stairways of more modest size flowed downward and away on either side to one of a series of mezzanines encircling the room. The floor itself was comprised of a series of concentric circles, each dropping in elevation from the last to re
ach the lowest point at the center of the chamber. The entire gigantic coliseum seemed constructed around that center, focusing inward upon some unnamed, anticipated event there.
Looking down, Amric somehow doubted that the builders of this vast chamber had intended for what he was witnessing now.
A ragged fissure gaped at the center, the stone crumbling at its edges. The force which had torn the floor asunder had been sudden and explosive, for huge shards of granite were scattered from the crater to the distant walls in every direction. Adjusting for distance, Amric observed that some of those chunks of rock were better than the size of a cottage, and yet had been hurled hundreds of yards like the toys of a child. Portions of the surrounding pillars and walls had been torn loose in the passing of those ponderous missiles, with a spider’s web of cracks radiating from each point of impact.
From that angry wound in the ground rose a titanic geyser of flame, spearing upward almost to the ceiling. They watched, open-mouthed, as the fountain jetted and heaved, writhing like a live thing. It changed colors in fitful bursts, sometimes lingering on a multi-hued arrangement for several seconds and other times strobing through luminous colors in a sequence too rapid for the eye to follow. The fiery display pressed against Amric’s senses in a dizzying assault, forcing him to shade his eyes against its brilliance even as a dull roaring filled his ears.
The swordsman shook his head again, averting his gaze from the fountain. In truth, the shimmering, light-filled chamber in which they stood was little better, with their shadows dancing and twisting against the back wall in a mad mockery of their forms. Amric turned to study Grelthus, and found the Wyrgen staring down at the fountain, barrel chest heaving as his breath whistled through bared fangs.
“You are looking upon the remnants of a grand experiment,” Grelthus whispered. “It was to be our greatest triumph, and has instead become our darkest chapter.”
“What are we looking upon, Grelthus?” Amric asked.
The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept Page 16
