The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept

by Michael Arnquist

  “How dare you speak of my father thus?” Thalya demanded, rising to her feet. Behind her, Shien shifted and gave a nervous whicker. “He was a good man, not some specimen in a jar!”

  The old man favored her with a look of mild reproach. “I have already admitted that he was a good man, Thalya, but these are my memories, given forth unembellished. It may not be flattering to you or to me, but these were my initial motivations for making your father’s acquaintance. Now, please sit down and lower your voice, as the countryside out there is veritably crawling with things that would like nothing more than to find so many beating hearts trapped in this small cavern.”

  Thalya paled, throwing a glance over her shoulder and out into the darkness. She knew his words to be true, for in the days of lying in wait for the return of her prey she had witnessed a multitude of things skulking through the night, misshapen things that turned her flesh to ice. Always she had been able to give them a wide berth, at least until earlier that night when she stumbled across the strange black man-creatures on the trail outside. No, it would be foolhardy in the extreme to remain out in the open night, or to draw its denizens to them now. And since she refused to allow her target from her sight now that she had tracked him down, she was forced to share this cave with him until she determined how he could be slain.

  It was some small consolation, she had to admit, that she found herself hungering for every new word of her father, even if the vampire’s words stirred as much rage as recollection. She patted Shien’s neck and sank to her haunches with a scathing glare at her nemesis.

  “Drothis and I became friends,” Bellimar continued. “We shared some common interests in the field of arcane studies, and I presented myself as a traveling scholar, though I was always careful to mask the true extent of the knowledge I had gained over many centuries as well as through my, shall we say, former preoccupation with certain subject matters.”

  He paused, staring into the fire. “I stayed too long,” he said. “I had made the same mistake in the past, and so I knew better, but I had come to value his company. For Drothis, I seemed to fill some of the companionship void that his wife, a highly intelligent scholar herself and a shrewd foil for his theories, had left behind. As the years passed, I knew I should move on, for the peculiarities of my nature cannot be concealed forever. But I hesitated to leave him alone and bereft again. I had become convinced that his broken nature would never fully mend after the loss of his bosom companion, and somehow my presence soothed his pain for a time.

  “I grew too comfortable, or perhaps the buried part of me that knew I had overstayed was trying to force my hand. Whatever the reason, I began to make mistakes. I let slip references to things from the distant past, and glimpses of my dark side peeked through cracks in my carefully constructed façade. Mayhap I meant to scare him away, but my actions seemed to have no effect. I should have known better. Drothis was hardly a fool, and his intellectual curiosity was ever more ravenous than one would know from his affable outward manner.”

  Bellimar lapsed into silence then, and as the seconds slid by it seemed he had entirely forgotten his audience. At last, Thalya spoke into the stillness.

  “The night of the attack,” she prodded.

  The old man glanced up from his reverie, meeting her narrowed gaze and flashing a wan smile in return. “Indeed so,” he said. “Thank you, dear girl. Everything changed that night. We were returning home from the academy, having stayed long past nightfall debating some dusty topic or another in its great library. Drothis was fretting about how the family hosting young Thalya here would be angry at the late hour, when we both knew this to be false, since she was all but a member of their family by that point. A band of brigands set upon us, emboldened by the late hour and the richness of our attire. They did not even demand the handful of coins in our purses, for they made clear their intent to leave no wagging tongues behind that might betray them to the city authorities. Corpses seldom make objections to parting with their possessions, after all.”

  Bellimar sighed, shaking his head. “Even these murderous cutpurses, more akin to rats than true men, I could not bring myself to harm. Of course, they did not know that. It was an easy thing indeed to part for a few moments the mortal veil I maintain about myself, to bring forth the shade of my former self, to give these cutthroats a glimpse of the fearsome sorcerous warlord who had scattered legions of terror-stricken foes before him on one bloody battlefield after another. For a fleeting few seconds, my dark presence expanded to fill that deserted street in Hyaxus, sucking the very light from the torches in their quavering sconces, and I was once again Bellimar the Black, the Vampire King of old. The brigands screamed and scattered as if a host of demons were nipping at their heels, and though I quickly shrank back into myself, I knew I had gone too far. I had tried to shield Drothis from it, to direct it only toward our attackers, but I had failed; he had seen my past, my other side, and he stared at me, open-mouthed and dumbstruck.

  “I tried to explain it away, offering up feeble stories of possessing a modest talent at spinning illusions even though I had never displayed such ability to him before. He believed none of it. He confronted me right then and there in the street with an astonishing amount of evidence he had collected against me over time, and though he had been astute enough to piece together much of the truth about me, he had not wished to credit the possibility that his friend could be such a monster. He even deduced my real name, as I had labeled myself with a derivative form of it, in my boundless arrogance. Unwilling to insult him with further lies, I admitted to it all.

  “He became furious, no doubt due in large part to my deceit, but also because his reasoning had already taken him in directions I had not foreseen. He accused me of befriending him to gain unfettered access to the academy and its resources, which was, of course, initially quite true. He further believed that I had arranged that access for some nefarious purpose, that I was planning some new effort to shroud the world in darkness as I had come so close to doing before. He was incensed and no longer heard my protestations. He flung himself at me, soft and kind at heart though he was, and I vanished into the night rather than see him injured. I was gone from Hyaxus by the morn, and have never returned.”

  Bellimar fell silent once more, and his last words hung quivering in the air like strained notes. The campfire sputtered, casting a strobing, fitful glow across the faces of the men seated around it. Thalya sat frozen, stunned and lost in her thoughts. Damn the fiend, but he sounded so bloody sincere! She still managed a venomous glare at him, but inwardly it felt as if he had stolen the very breath from her chest.

  “Thalya,” Bellimar prompted gently. “I would hear the rest of your father’s tale now.”

  The huntress took a steadying breath and began speaking, her voice thin at first but gaining heat as the words tumbled out, one atop the other.

  “My father would brook no discussion of that night. He would only say that you were gone, and that we were well rid of you. He became obsessed with new research, neglecting his obligations at the academy and locking himself away for days on end. Sometimes he was away for months at a time as well, traveling to some remote corner of the lands to meet with obscure experts. About what, he would not say at first. Only when the heads of the academy threatened to cast him out for dereliction of duty did he reveal what he had discovered.

  “He believed he had borne witness to the return of a great evil, and he felt compelled to take action against its rise. He said that he had foreseen the world being swallowed by darkness, and that the end of all we know would be accompanied by the return of the ancient conqueror, Bellimar the Unholy. Further, he claimed that the kindly old man that had wormed his way into our family’s trust was no less than the bloodthirsty tyrant himself. He was ridiculed for his statements, and his fervor to warn others was dismissed as the ravings of a madman. My father would not be swayed from his convictions, however. In the end, he was cast out of the academy and branded a lunatic. He left the
city, taking me with him, and we withdrew from all we had known.”

  Thalya stared at the old man across the cave. “My young life became a living hell, demon. My father was convinced that I must be prepared for war, for whatever cataclysm was to come. If he were to fail in his mission to find and destroy you, I was to carry out this all-important task. He impressed upon me the consequences our world would suffer if we failed in this. We were always on the move, never remaining anywhere long enough to put down roots, always seeking signs of your passage. We learned the use of weapons, and the bow in particular. Picture it, devil: we trained endlessly, a little girl and a man who should have remained a scholar, so that we would have the skill to slay the monster when our chance came. Years passed as we continued this nomadic existence, and I became far more acquainted with the harsher ways of this world than I would wish on anyone.

  “My father grew frustrated, despairing, for he had long lost the trail. He withered under the long years of fear, obsession and self-imposed isolation. His health finally failed such that we could no longer travel freely, and we were forced to settle into a village near Velnium that boasted all the charm of a cesspool. I had begun to think it was over, that despite my unflagging faith in him he was after all just a deluded old man obsessed with nothing more than feverish visions and vaporous fears.

  “Then word came to us of the corruption of the land’s magic to the north, of a desolate wasteland spreading to engulf the lush plains at the foot of the Hoarfang mountain range, of dark and twisted creatures spilling from the forest at night to prey on the countryside. My father was convinced this was the inception of the dark vision he had feared for so long, and he was certain that the Vampire King was at the black heart of it all.”

  The huntress paused, her gaze locked to Bellimar’s with an expectant air, as if awaiting a confession. The old man sat as still as a marble statue, offering nothing in return.

  “My father was too frail to continue his quest, demon,” she said. “He sickened and died in that miserable village. Grief-stricken and alone, I came north. I owed him that much more at least. I was skeptical that I would find anything to support his predictions, but much to my amazement I discovered that you had indeed been lurking about Keldrin’s Landing for some time, and I had only just missed your departure. And here I find you, run to ground at last, having aged not a day in twenty years.”

  Thalya rose slowly to her feet, her recurve bow in one hand and the black arrow in the other.

  “Bellimar,” she intoned. “I hold you responsible for the death of my father. You poisoned his soul back in Hyaxus, though it may have taken twenty years to claim him. You took my life from me as well on that same night. And I accuse you now of all that he foresaw, of being at the root of the upheaval which threatens to destroy our world.”

  The other men stared at the vampire, their expressions ranging from calculating to stricken as they waited for his response. Bellimar, for his part, did not permit his gaze to waver from the huntress.

  “I accept your accusations on all points but the last one,” Bellimar said in a solemn tone. “I now hold myself responsible for the downfall and demise of Drothis, even as you do. I conceal my nature in part because exposing it never leads to anything but fear and suffering in others. Whatever remains of my soul is blighted by your father’s death, though I suspect it can be blackened no further. I deny, however, being the cause of the spreading corruption. I am tempted to admit to involvement, if only to honor your father and give you the closure you seek, but I cannot do this. I have enough sins for which I must atone without laying false claim to others.”

  Thalya eyed him, her face a frozen mask as she rolled the arrow back and forth between her fingertips.

  “No one can fault you if you choose to fire that arrow,” Bellimar said. “But it appears to be your last, and understand that I am not prepared to perish in that fashion.”

  The huntress said nothing. The glow from the bed of coals glinted from the curved blades of the arrowhead as it spun in her hand. Amric rose to his feet in a swift, lithe motion and stepped between them.

  “Enough!” he commanded. “We have heard from both of you. Now, if you wish to slay each other, depart the cave first so that the rest of us can get some sleep.”

  “I’ll not be sharing a camp with this devil,” Thalya growled.

  “You cannot survive out there,” Syth objected.

  Bellimar flowed to his feet like a long, slender shadow cast against the stone wall. “She will not have to,” he said. “I am long overdue to feed, and this is an opportune time to find game, away from both the corruption of the forest and the sweaty confines of the city. If you will step aside and let me pass, dear girl, I will depart. If Amric wishes to send me away for good when I return in the morning, I will accept his judgment.”

  Amric turned to face him, but the old man shook his head. “Do not fear for me, warrior,” he said with a tight-lipped smile. “The night has ever been my element. I will be safe enough in its embrace.”

  Thalya guided her mare down the sloping floor to where the cave widened enough to permit the vampire’s passage at greater than arm’s length away. Her emerald eyes followed him warily until he glided from the cave and disappeared into the yawning darkness beyond. Ignoring the other men, Thalya left Shien with the other horses at the back of the cavern and stalked back to the entrance, where she slid to a seat against the rock wall with bow in hand and black arrow nocked. Only then did she address them, without a backward glance, as she stared out into the night.

  “The first watch is mine.”

  Thalya awoke with a start as a chill breeze played across her cheek, and her hand tightened convulsively on her bow. Her frantic eyes raked the darkness beyond the mouth of the cave, and then darted to the deeper blackness of the cave’s interior. Outside, nothing moved except the lazy, star-stroked grasses on the hillside, waving in the capricious wind. Inside, nothing stirred either, and her straining ears picked out the soft, rhythmic breathing of the men sleeping against the larger humming backdrop of the night. Her fingertips brushed the fletching of the arrow, still resting at the string of her bow, and the cool press of the stone at her back brought her comfort.

  Her momentary waking panic gave way to relief, which then evaporated before the advancing heat of her anger. What a fool she was to have dozed off, she chided herself savagely. The night was swarming with dangers, her vile nemesis foremost among them, and here she was napping like a babe in arms, as if she could afford to be without a care. That she was worn down from her days and nights of constant, solitary vigilance in the midst of a hostile countryside was little excuse; her foe could exercise the cold, calculating patience of the immortal killing machine that he was, and so she simply could not make such mistakes.

  The huntress cast another swift glance around, assuring herself that nothing approached the cave. She laid her bow across her legs and made to set the arrow aside on the ground so that she could rub her eyes to force herself further awake. Suddenly she froze in mid-motion, the blood congealing in her veins.

  Lying neatly beside her leg on the rocky ground was the other of her black arrows, identical to the one in her hand.

  The first of her priceless enchanted missiles had been destroyed in slaying one of the foul man-like creatures which had attacked her at dusk. The last of the three was still in her possession. This, then, was the one she had fired at Bellimar, which he had caught and kept.

  She lifted the arrow and inspected it closely in the dim light. There was no trick that she could see; the fiend had returned the arrow undamaged, leaving her once again with two chances to slay him. She grimaced as she pondered the implications. The monster had slipped into the cave while she dozed, swift and soundless, and had come within inches of her to set the shaft at her side. Had he wished her dead, he could have torn out her throat with ease and been lost again to the darkness before her gurgling cry could bring the others running. Instead, he had restored a deadly weapo
n capable of ending his existence to someone who wished exactly that, though for what reason she could not begin to fathom. Was it a show of confidence, meant to intimidate her, indicating that he would swat aside any future attack as contemptuously as he had her first? Or did he truly wish to die?

  Thalya recognized her fatigue and knew she should get someone to relieve her and take the next watch, but sleep was suddenly far from her thoughts. She made certain her quiver remained within reach, leaning against the cave wall beside her, and then she settled back as well and gazed out into the darkness. All around her the night stole onward in a hushed whisper as life struggled to endure beneath the spreading mantle of death.

  The first breach of the mighty city wall surrounding Keldrin’s Landing came that night.

  In the somber hours preceding the dawn, the cry rang out even as the city was preparing to release the collective breath it had held throughout the night. The wall-walk guards, having raised the initial alarm, watched in stunned silence as a seething wave of motion swept toward the city from the east. What had appeared at a distance to be a vast ripple of vegetation before a forceful wind soon resolved into something much more sinister: an advancing tide of dark, twisted creatures clawing their way over and past each other in their eagerness to reach the city and its people.

  Huge, bulky things drew themselves up from the very ground and shambled forward amid the smaller forms, scattering them with spiteful blows when they got underfoot. Long, sinuous shapes carved through the mass, preying indiscriminately on the smaller spiked creatures even as the entire heaving mass crashed toward Keldrin’s Landing.

  City guards gathered at the eastern gate, their faces and knuckles white as they clutched shaking swords, spears and halberds. The heavy gate doors stood closed and barred. These days, after the sun fell, they parted only to permit the occasional caravan or group of travelers bold enough––or foolish enough––to brave the landscape at night. In recent days, rumors had spread with greater and greater frequency from the guards patrolling the city wall. There were tales of strange things sighted beyond, sometimes approaching the wall to scrabble at its surface and shriek in outrage, or to gaze upward at the guards in hateful silence. There were also rumors of wall-walk guards and gate watchmen vanishing or being slain in gruesome fashion, but most people dismissed all these stories as fear-mongering, at least in the comforting warmth of the morning light.