He paused and studied her bright eyes, wishing he didn’t have to hurt her by leaving for Carvina.
“But tonight I must leave before twilight, and perhaps never again return.”
9. LAIR OF THE NAMELESS
Rikar loathed the empty darkness and the dread of waiting for the being Lord Aurellia called the Nameless Lord of All. The space between visitations with the enigmatic priests of this tomb had been long and tiresome, and Rikar found his sanity slowly slipping away. Not that he had much to begin with, ever since he’d first bowed down and prayed to Zagros in that dark temple in Naru. Had it been a year? Or perhaps more than a year since his rage at Garen Storm, and his cruel unwillingness to grant Rikar’s father passage to the Fair Seas. It had all driven him mad and caused him to make his vows to the Lord of the Underworld. Little good that did for father, Rikar thought, remembering the devious dog-like face of Zagros.
Why had Aurellia commanded him here of all places? To the ruin of an ancient city that legend said once ruled the entire world? Aurellia confirmed this legend and claimed the great city older than Darkov and Urgar, even ten thousand years older than his visitation to the world four thousand years ago. The Dark Lord had explored the planet back then for powerful crystals and relics and magical weapons that might prove useful to his cause. He claimed a dark and hideous fate lured him into the lair of the Nameless, and cursed his life forever. And now Rikar’s life was cursed.
The waiting and the endless chanting of mantras the priests had commanded Rikar to commit to memory chipped away at his saneness. The complex cacophony of chaotic sounds caused his consciousness to plummet into a black void so pure it flooded Rikar’s mind with sadness. The span of each visitation to the void lasted only moments in his awareness, but he returned to wakefulness with an urgent need to relieve himself, knowing that hours must have passed.
He had fasted now for countless days and was far beyond the point of hunger pangs. Though the mental clarity that resulted from the fasting helped to keep his mind from crumbling apart. When Rikar had found himself in the middling world of Chandrix, he had fasted for several days at a time, but it was nothing compared to the intensity of this exhausting period of abstinence. He was weak and drained of physical strength. How long would the Nameless make him fast before granting him an audience? A cold, certain dread fell over Rikar and caused his hands to tremble in his lap. Why was he so insane as to desire ever interacting with such a cursed and hideous entity?
But the promise of power and dominion over this world had been clear from Lord Aurellia. His master would rule Vellia and Rikar could claim rulership over Yorek. And with his acceptance by the Nameless, Lord Aurellia had assured Rikar that his master could influence Zagros and assure a place along the Fair Seas for his father. At this point Rikar had given up hope of ever alleviating his father’s torment, especially after witnessing the horrors of the Underworld. But he craved the idea of ruling this world and exacting revenge against Garen Storm…
An orb of sickly yellow light appeared far off in the distance and bobbed and danced in its journey over towards Rikar. The implacable eyes of a priest neared, and studied him with a cautious conviction.
“We believe you are ready to meet the master.” The dancing yellow light reflected off the priest’s shaved head and he turned and motioned for him to follow.
Rikar found his heart racing at the priest’s words, and he practiced the prescribed breathing technique to calm himself. But as they snaked through the narrow tunnels and down stone stairs deeper than Rikar had ever been, his pulse pounded erratically and he was unable to eliminate from his mind rash thoughts of escape. He had come here willingly, and the priest claimed that he was free to leave whenever he wanted. Rikar doubted that was true. Leaving would likely mean a painful death.
One thing that had worried his mind over the long days of meditation: the wrathful eyes of the Starwalkers after he had brutally killed one of their quad. He realized he had only been able to succeed against them as their leader was without the fragment that gave him vast quantities of power. In the hands of Nikulo, that power had been fearsome against all in Illumina that day. Would the Starwalkers come and seek revenge against Rikar? He knew they would.
They had gone down eleven flights of stairs, and from his counting on prior days, he had descended a total of twenty-two levels. The priest cast several spells on an iron door with four indecipherable symbols etched in the metal. The magic seemed to remove many warding spells from the locks. From within his robe the priest withdrew a ring of ancient, iron keys and unlocked the four locks that secured the door.
“Enter the prison of the Nameless,” said the priest. “And visit his sanctuary and refuge against the world.” The priest touched the four symbols in a counter-clockwise order, and the door swung open of its own volition.
Rikar didn’t want to go inside the shadowy room. His heart wrenched and his mind screamed for him to flee this place and fight his way to the desert surface. The ring on his finger seemed to pull him away from the room, like a magnet yanking the metal back to the stairs. His feet refused to move. There was something inside so absolutely hideous and malevolent and Rikar was certain that it craved the control over his mind and soul. If the Nameless were imprisoned inside and protected from the world, then his reach to the world was through his followers, spreading the stain of sin throughout the worlds.
No, I won’t do it, Rikar thought, but he found himself being shoved by massive hands into the room and the iron door slammed shut behind him.
10. DEATH AND DELIVERANCE
After the tenth and twentieth citizen had scuttled screaming past Nikulo and the caravan, many with burned faces and bleeding wounds, he swore to mete a higher standard of brutality back onto the Jiserians. He encountered a squad of shambling, slobbering undead and wished that he’d asked Talis to teach him the spell of purifying the plague. Most of these undead were days or weeks old, displaying distended bellies and mottled, purple necks, and their shredded skin flapped behind them as they jogged after the shrieking people. A hand raised to his temple caused the squad of undead to stop silent in their tracks.
“I always wanted a flock of rabid pets,” Nikulo said, and chuckled at the frothing, foamy mouths of the undead. Callith didn’t share in his sentiment, and the girl cringed back in the wagon as if it actually offered her any protection. The slaves were less brave, and only Nikulo’s shouts for them to stay and avoid being eaten alive caused them to cower close to the caravan.
Nikulo gained more pets along the way until he’d massed a company of undead soldiers to fight on his behalf. The whitewashed walls of the houses they passed were blackened by fire and signs of combat. The streets themselves were filled with the broken debris of flipped-over carts and slain oxen buzzing with flies and gaping wounds that oozed maggots. They rode past a once thriving food market, a wreckage of wasted fruit, flanks of meat, and ripped and ravaged human bodies; a grim stew festering under the hot sun.
As they neared the charred central part of the city filled with collapsed buildings and stones strewn across the streets, he strengthened his hold over the undead soldiers’ minds, knowing how easily another necromancer might be able to steal them. From his practice of mental domination at the Order of the Dawn, Nikulo had learned how to sense when another wizard was attempting to commandeer a creature he controlled. He compared the feeling to watching a serene pond for biting fish, and the faint tug they make on the line. No one was biting. For now…
Closer in they caught the confused eyes of bands of citizens in active revolt, armed with only crude cudgels and cleavers and farm axes. These ill-protected revolutionists made sweet bait for the hordes of undead lumbering after them. Lucky for them, Nikulo intercepted the hordes and saved the streets from a bloodbath.
“You fight for us, wizard?” asked a tall, grim-faced man who was one of the few to actually wield a sword. More of his comrades crowded in around the caravan, faces tensed and gaping in dismay at Nikulo�
��s army of undead.
Nikulo snorted and studied the man, assuming him their leader. “I fight for myself. Little did I know Ursula would have war raging in her streets. I aim for the ports and out to sea. Who brings these undead, the Jiserian scourge?”
“Where are you from, young master? You wear the style of clothes from Naru, and though we know the city fallen to the Jiserians and filled with undead, we heard a rumor from a scout passing here a week ago that Naru is reborn and a savior come to renew and rebuild her back to her once grandeur.”
“Tis all true, Naru is restored, though not fully. I’ve left Naru myself. There is a fear that the Jiserians will return.” Nikulo leapt off the wagon and stood tall and faced the crowd. “Are you content to allow the undead to feast on your children and grandparents? They are going after the weak first, you know. You are ill prepared and poorly armed to deal with the Jiserians. Have you no magicians or wizards among you?”
The eyes of those in crowd were sullen and desperate, and no one offered a hopeful answer. Their red-haired leader spoke in a somber tone. “All our champions are either slain or turned to undead. Beware, as some of the undead are wizards who still possess the gift of casting. Will you help us defeat them?”
“I am called Nikulo, though who I am doesn’t matter. What’s the name of the leader that I fight with against our common enemies?”
The man brightened at Nikulo’s words, seizing and shaking his hand in delight. “I am Yarin, a merchant and leader of our revolutionary group. We tired of the daily insults and torment of our imposed rulers, and managed to kill several sorcerers in their sleep before the streets erupted into bloodshed. From what we know, only a handful of sorcerers and necromancers remain. Emperor Ghaalis withdrew his fleet from our docks and ordered all Stelan Knights returned to Carvina. When we heard there was war in Ishur amongst the magical Orders, we struck out against the few Jiserians remaining in our city.”
Nikulo frowned at the man’s words and scanned the ragged crowd and the ruined city. A handful of sorcerers and necromancers did all this? The city was easily ten times the size of Naru, though far less dense. Still, the prospect of facing such powerful fanatics didn’t thrill him. Did it really matter if he helped them? The Naemarians would certainly bring back the pain if they found him distracted from his goal of reaching the ship to Carvina.
“If we are to defeat our enemies I will need your help.” Nikulo remembered back to history lessons of successful military maneuvers and strategies of legendary campaigns. Distract, divert, divide, and destroy, he thought, remembering the four D’s of warfare. Likely these citizens were inexperienced in the ways of war and winning. “Do any of you have a map of Ursula?”
An old man ambled up to where he stood and at Yarin’s nod, produced a thick parchment penned in an ornate and flowery hand. Nikulo studied the map and observed the position of the buildings in the center of the city, and asked a few clarifying questions as to the locations of their enemies. When he asked where the others of their resistance lurked, he gaped in bewilderment at their utter lack of organization or communication infrastructure. No wonder the Jiserians had had an easy time defeating them. They’d won already and were just entertaining themselves in the city’s slow torment.
Nikulo sketched out a four-pronged plan of attack on the map, splitting the band of citizens into four groups to lure the sorcerers in four different directions. He knew the necromancers would avoid coming out in the heat of the day, shunning sunlight for the cool of the dark. His plan included dealing with them separately. As for the sorcerers, from experience he’d seen them keep their distance and fly high and away from bowshot and sword, only swooping down to strike when necessity demanded. That was where he would come in and shoot the sorcerers at a safe range. At least that was the plan…
The crowd divided into four squads as Nikulo had ordered, and Yarin joined the lead group that would strike from the west. Nikulo commanded double the number of undead to follow and protect each group, infusing their plagued minds with a fervent loyalty towards the living. He hoped there would be enough to keep the revolutionaries alive and provide a suitable allurement for the sorcerers.
Callith left the wagon and stood by his side, watching the ragtag squads marching off through the streets. She scoffed and shook her head. “Strangest army I’ve ever seen. Do they even have a chance of surviving against the Jiserians?”
“Not likely,” Nikulo said, as the last of the citizens left the square. He had kept a group of around forty undead to protect them or to use as bait against the sorcerers. “Let’s go. We’ll move in after Yarin.”
As they trekked through the littered streets, Nikulo thought about what could go wrong. The sorcerers might not take the bait and go after the squads, and the necromancers might not stay inside. If the Jiserians joined forces against a perceived larger threat, that could make things extremely difficult for him. He hoped that dispersed attacks over time would split the sorcerers and allow him to kill them one by one. But he hadn’t anticipated that there might exist a rivalry amongst the Jiserians.
The first drone and boom of a fireball came sooner than he’d expected. Nikulo chased ahead and commanded the undead to follow, veering around overturned carts and piles of bodies decomposing in the street. Soon he spied a sorcerer hovering in the air above a crowd of cringing citizens, while the protective undead clambered up a building in the impossible hope of attacking the sorcerer.
Nikulo drew in power from the Ghaelstrom crystal and focused on the Jiserian sorcerer who had turned to face the revolutionaries running from an explosion of flames. The noxious cord of poison jettisoned from Nikulo’s palm and tore through the air towards the flying sorcerer. Behind a burning, overturned wagon, Yarin released a triumphant shout as the shrieking sorcerer’s skin erupted into blistering pustules and the Jiserian plummeted to the ground in a wet, bloody thud.
One enemy down, Nikulo told himself, and gave Yarin a victorious salute. The slaves and the caravan pulled hesitantly up to where Nikulo and Yarin’s group were reforming. Nikulo noticed that several of Yarin’s squad of bedraggled soldiers were missing, and one glance at the spot where they had tried to shield themselves from the sorcerer showed him the blackened bodies of the slain citizens. His plan had cost the lives of several innocent people. But he was surprised to find that more were not dead.
After the first attack, the other three squads were supposed to execute a series of assaults against known points of Jiserian control in the center of the city. But the experience with the flying sorcerer had taught him that the citizens were ineffective other than playing a role as bait. Nikulo decided it was far better for them to get roasted by Jiserian fireballs, and avoid getting burned himself.
“Young master Nikulo, I hope your plan works smoother next time. Several of my comrades were slain.” Yarin bore a pained expression on his face as he looked at the burned bodies.
“Tell them to hide behind something stronger next time.” Nikulo strained his eyes to study the sky above a far temple. Was that another sorcerer who’d spotted their soldiers in the far group? “We need to hurry, I think we’ve roused more Jiserians. Callith, keep the caravan and the slaves here until I return. I don’t think you’ll survive a fireball blast. Watch the skies for my signal, a single shot of flame soaring towards the clouds, and only come to the docks then. Otherwise I might be dead, in which case you’ll be wise to turn and trek back to Naru, or flee up north.”
They charged ahead through the terrorized streets, past government buildings and ruined palaces and destroyed temples, until they reached a grand plaza where unnatural storm clouds slowly blotted out the sun. Necromancers fight under the protection of darkness, he thought, remembering the words of Master Viridian. Nikulo wondered if he knew enough spells of elemental magic to aid him? He could summon light, but that would just mark him as a target. It’s quite possible, thought Nikulo, that the Jiserians are hoping for me to act as foolish as those feeble-minded citizens of Ursula. H
e wasn’t intending to meet their minuscule expectations.
From the four fringes of the plaza, the thick air released hundreds of small, shining shots that illuminated the broken landscape and caused Nikulo and the others to seek the darkness behind damaged trees and abandoned vendor stalls and cracked statues of the gods. There was silence as the shots ceased and the shimmering globs of burning pitch cast eerie, twisting shadows across the plaza. So much for dividing their enemy. If they moved, they’d likely be zapped by lightning strikes. Nikulo grinned to himself. But if he sent the undead out into the plaza…
He pressed fingers to his temple and commanded an undead man with a desiccated body to run out towards a mass of burning pitch, and readied a spell to strike out at a sorcerer. There was a pause as the undead man stumbled about in the ruined plaza, his foaming mouth confused and stupid, and his arms swayed around like branches under a rising gale. Nikulo waited for some secret verdict to unleash its wrath.
It did not come. And as the undead man stood stupidly in a shambling dance, the sky slowly cleared and the burning pitch waned to smoke and ash and coldness. Confused, Nikulo studied the air from the protection of a tree trunk and found that the sorcerers had vanished. What had caused them to leave?
“It seems the sorcerers have fled,” Nikulo said. Then he thought of something and turned his gaze to Yarin. “Have you noticed anything strange about the Jiserian sorcerers and necromancers in the last few days?”
“Anything strange?” Yarin said, and scratched his scraggly beard, eyes locked away on some distant thought. “Well we rarely see the necromancers anymore, only the bands of undead roaming and feasting throughout the city. If it wasn’t for the undead, you would think the necromancers had gone, for they are never seen with the sorcerers these days.”
Star Mage (Book 5) Page 6
