by A. E. Wright
“You my pets have betrayed me. I was on the cusp of glory, the queen of the battlefield ready to take the spoils of my victory and now, in what seems like only a moment, I find myself here in this prison. Tell me my little ones, what century are we in?” One either particularly brave or particularly stupid Gnarl stepped forward with the answer. His words came out in a hiss.
“Thisss isss the twenty firssst century missstresss.” Agrona’s radiant features turned purple with rage.
“HOW CAN IT BE THAT I HAVE BEEN LEFT IN A PERPETUAL SLUMBER FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS BY THOSE WHO PROPORT TO LOVE ME SO?” Her screams echoed round the chamber as she raised her hand towards the Gnarl who had answered “Suffoco” she whispered maliciously. The Gnarl began clawing at its own throat, desperately trying to release his airways from the invisible force that was restricting them. Flailing, he fell to the ground and then stopped moving altogether. The other Gnarls sniggered in unison at their own imagined cleverness in remaining silent.
I took a deep breath to calm my now racing nerves the sad figure of the outspoken Gnarl laying stationary on the ground made me feel a strange sense of guilt because I had done nothing to help him. However disgusting these creatures were to me, I still felt sorry for the Gnarl, his passing met with no sympathy or sense of grief from his peers. The tittering of the other Gnarls made me feel ill, they were rejoicing in the evil deeds that Agrona committed many centuries before now. I shouldn’t have been surprised that they would react in this way to something they had probably witnessed many times over.
I wanted to block out the maleficent chuckling, which was most likely to become the last sound I would hear as Agrona ripped my heart from my chest but there was something distinct about one of the voices that kept my attention. Something more human to its tone, something I recognised. I began to hear a distinct pitch to the voice. A laugh I had heard before that not only emerged from the din but also silenced all other joyous voices in its wake. It was a voice that evoked a strong sense of relief within me. The sound of the weary voice to me was like the singing of birds on a spring morning or the chuckling of a child laughing with its mother. It was a sound of pure joy. Merl was the only one laughing now.
Chapter Seventeen - The Chamber of Light
“ONLY A RUDDY nincompoop would engage these drivelling troglodytes to do their bidding.” Merl was standing at an opening in the wall of water, his arms behind his back as he rocked on his feet playfully. His manner was relaxed, as if engaging an old friend in casual conversation. He had not changed from his striped night robes and was now standing in the entrance shoeless with his torn socks pulled up around his thin ankles.
“Merrydian, how dishevelled you look in your old age, it were as if there is no one around to take care of you. Oh, how foolish of me, of course, I took them from you. I do apologise but needs must.” Smiling, Agrona tapped her newly renewed chest where the pulsating heart had entered. She was playing a clever game by reminding Merl that the remains of his daughters beat on within her. She knew this would make it impossible for him to kill her. However if this comment had upset Merl, and I’m sure it had, he didn’t show it.
“Indeed, I hope your rest has been a comfortable one for you. I would be loathe to find you had awoken with, shall we say a stiff neck for example?” Merl’s smile was terrifically wicked as Agrona felt around her neckline in horror. Her expression turned from controlled anger to one of utter and absolute rage.
“You lecherous old man! I shall see to it that you die lonely, screaming and begging for mercy just as your daughters did.” She spat her words with the venomous zeal of an angered cobra, raising her hands from the earth with a current of angry red electricity that shot towards Merl. He quickly cupped his own frail hands. The water that was flowing around him suddenly formed a protective bubble that easily absorbed the charge of red electricity. My heart beat faster with the fear. What if the bubble that had formed around Merl had not been his own spell and now he was trapped inside the water bubble with Agrona’s wicked red force assaulting his feeble old body? It would surely kill him!
I shouldn’t have doubted him. As the bubble of water span around the room and then levitating above the heads of the perplexed Gnarls, it released. Flashes of red rode within the gushes of clear current that soaked all those below it, including myself. In the confusion I noticed that Agrona had moved position, summoning the tiny diamonds from the rock, she had created a shield that had protected her from the onslaught of water. Her Gnarls however had not been so lucky. They now sat on the ground, bound by the red electricity that formed a rope like restraint around each of them. The heat of it was burning through their robes, a pungent smell permeated the air emitting from their blistering rancid skin. In the same moment the thud of Alphus landed just to my side, an awful cracking sound came from within his body as soft muscle and breakable bone met hard stone.
He let out a pathetic sigh as his lungs began to work furiously towards re-oxidising themselves. His sad whimpers quickly turned into a low guttural angered snarl, prompting me to move position further towards the stairwell. I didn’t want to be trapped next to him when he was fully conscious. As I tried to shuffle silently away from his motionless body his huge wire-haired hand reached out and caught my foot pulling me back towards him. He couldn’t have seen me but he must have smelt my presence, I had witnessed the keen sense of smell of a Worlen when Elba had sniffed out the doorways earlier in the day. Even in his half-conscious state he was determined to retain his gift to his furiously aggrieved lover. I was kicking and thrashing out at his hand, which was moving uncoordinated with the rest of his stationary body. He was too strong holding onto me with an iron grip that could not be loosened.
I looked towards the stairwell to see if there might be a jagged piece of rock to anchor myself too in order to pull myself away from his determined grasp. There was nothing only the smooth, almost marble like surface that made up the whole of the staircase. Stuck and exhausted I gave one final kick, the hand did not release its grasp, instead I felt yet another force at work, this time it was a crushing weight on the hand that held me. Alphus finally loosened his grip as the pressure increased and I slipped away from his deadly grasp.
I dared to look around to see a heavy boot that crushed king Alphus’s hand. The familiar was once again comforting as I quickly surveyed the distinctive dull brown dear hide boot, lined with bearskin, crafted by the queen of the Worlen herself. This was a boot that only one person on the whole of the island owned, a giant boot that belonged to friend not foe. Now the impenetrable wall of water had subsided, Balthus had come to the chamber to fight along with Merl. Raising a half-conscious Alphus to his eye level it was clear that Balthus was the taller of the two. Towering over his brother, whose feet were now at least half a foot from the ground.
“You traitor! I knew you were not of good character brother but this! For you to be here in this place and in support of the Agrona. You are no brother of mine.” A lolling Alphus smiled in the face of his brother’s anger.
“You are the traitor brother. You took the queen of the Worlen, my queen, and defiled her. You gave her children that should not be in succession to my throne nor serving in my army. I should have had them murdered at birth. I have been good to you brother, covering for your treasons. Leaving your daughter on your doorstep and taking in your son as if my own and here you treat me with such malice. I begin to wonder why I was reluctant to have you executed.” Alphus spat back. Balthus’s top lip curled showing deadly sharp pointed teeth.
“You have done me no favours in this life Alphus, you could have chosen any female to be your queen, the Worlen lords were begging you to take their daughters and make them yours and instead you chose to rob me of my only happiness. I loved Deltrina long before you even knew her name. You took her only because you wanted to hurt me.” Balthus’s pain was obvious. I wanted to reach out to him but I was still recovering from the shock of finding out Balthus was in love with Queen Deltrina. King Alphus
smiled even more maliciously than he had for me.
“Yes and to see her misery throughout the years has given me the greatest of joys matched only by my true love, one you helped to take from me.” The idea that Alphus really loved Agrona was laughable. In the very short time, I had been in his company it was painfully clear to me that Alphus was in love with one thing and one thing only, absolute power. Balthus’s sadness declined as his anger once again rose. He raised his almighty fist and with one giant blow, sent his brother cascading across the room until he came to rest, unconscious on the chamber floor.
Balthus turned his attention to the still crouching Agrona but before he could even begin to make his advance, a huge flash of shimmering black light hit him hard in the leg separating the lower half of the limb from his body. From beyond where Balthus now lay, clutching the stump of his knee, I could hear Agrona’s wicked chucking.
Internally I was terrified for Balthus, although I remained as quiet and still as before. I knew the Worlen people just couldn’t afford to lose him, he was one of the last true heroes in Forge Gate and to have been so debilitated in the middle of this chamber was a death sentence for him.
Where was Merl? I searched the room for him but he seemed to have vanished with the tide, until I noticed his small frame stood steadily on the umbrella of diamonds that Agrona had formed to protect herself from the water. Now Agrona was no longer distracted by Balthus her eyes were darting around the room at an unnaturally fast pace. It took only moments for her to realise that Merl was above her head, clearly less time than he had anticipated. Merl busied himself forming a strange circular ball of light from jolts of electricity he seemed to be pulling from the chamber walls. The glowing ball of gold that rested delicately between his sinewy fingers was astounding. It shimmered with an intense light, reflecting gloriously on the sparkling walls of the chamber. Agrona was also performing unspeakable feats of magic, using the small glass like diamonds to forge a glorious but deadly sword. Pulling it, hilt first, from the very ground itself I could see her estimating with terrifying accuracy where Merl had positioned himself.
I was still sore, the cut on my elbow had been bleeding ever since I had reopened the wound trying to see what I now know had been the top of the staircase. I was exhausted. I felt an awful numbness in my shoulder that I guessed was my body’s way of overcoming the pain, despite all this I had to move. There was no point in trying to attack with half measures. The situation called for urgency and recklessness so I flung myself forward with all the force I could muster, pushing onwards jumping first over Balthus and then careering over the slippery stone surface at a pace that I didn’t even know I had in me. I felt a rush of exhilaration, like a child going dangerously fast on a playground ride, I was about to fall off but I didn’t care.
As my body met Agrona’s, the surge of evil energy that touched me was overwhelming, an intense sense of loneliness and isolation penetrated into the deepest part of my soul. It was pure black, a violent form of nightfall in which all the most hideous monsters hid. My body shook involuntarily and viciously with the power of the touch. My eyes bulged, unable to close and hide away from the demons that danced before them that were manifested in reality by my temporarily corrupted mind. My mouth opened in a silent scream, a scream that echoed through the ages, back hundreds of years to her victims that had long since died. It was a moment in which all happiness was eclipsed by the darkest of moons. A mere moment and then it was gone.
I was lying across the ground again, my position well and truly given away by the sound of my gasps from the heavy and uncontrollable sobbing that made my body tremble. My body! I could see myself, somehow when I hit her not only had the sword she had been forging smashed into thousands of tiny pieces but more alarmingly my invisibility spell had broken. She was on me in a second, her long yellow nails dug deep into the skin of my wrist. She was forcing my arms backwards to the ground. A position that, being so injured, they no longer wanted to bend to. She was not interested in my screams of pain. Her anger matched her confusion as she surveyed my face.
“How can it be?” She stated. Horror had won out as the main emotion within her, distorting her beautiful features back to the death-like state that I witnessed in the crypt.
Merl, who had jumped down from his position on the diamond umbrella with a surprisingly youthful sprightliness, pulled me from underneath her and flung me protectively behind his back. At the same time, he threw his golden ball of light directly at the stunned Agrona. Hitting her hard in the chest, the light erupted with the power of a thousand sunrises. The heat it gave off was extraordinary, filling the room with a strangely comfortable warmth. It was undoubtedly the most beautiful light I had ever seen as it reflected off the shimmering diamonds embedded in the rock. As the golden light exploded upon the stunned witch, it melted over her like a thickened molten metal rendering her stiff and unmoving. Her frozen face was incandescent with rage. It was such a miraculous thing to behold, that I didn’t even think to try to escape the chamber, instead I sat dumbstruck resting in the position I assumed when Merl had thrown me behind him.
I was jolted back to reality however as someone grabbed both of my arms and began to propel me in a circular motion around the chamber. The brilliant light was now fading in and out of my vision. I once again felt the pain in my shoulder and my stomach lurched with the sudden movement. The chamber spun with furious pace and my left arm threatened to detach with the strength that this person had mustered to send me flying into oblivion. I felt myself slipping away from their grasp they were letting me go. No, this couldn’t be happening, if they let go of me now I would surely hit the chamber walls with such force that I would be dead. Agrona wouldn’t want to kill me like this. She would want me intact, my heart still beating as she took it from me. A dead heart wouldn’t be any good to her. The fingers that held tight onto my wrist relaxed their grip and in a state of pure terror, I felt myself slip away.
Chapter Eighteen - The Darkest Dawn
I OPENED MY eyes when I felt the freshness of the clean morning air upon my face. I was lying on the moorland just outside of Forge Gate, my back wet from the morning dew on soft thick grass. I barely had a second to recover my senses before the huge figure of Balthus materialised from the air itself and landed directly to my side. He was awfully pale, still clutching the stump of his knee. I don’t think he had discerned yet that he was out of the chamber and out of harm’s way. He was thrashing with his huge arms at the imaginary force he thought was assaulting him. Scarlet pools of blood ebbed from the angry exposed wound on Balthus’s kneecap.
“Balthus, Balthus you’re ok.” I whispered the words as soothingly as I could but he didn’t appear to hear me, continuing his fight like a wounded animal striving to survive an impossible situation. “It’s going to be okay Balthus.” I promised calmingly. “We’re out of the chamber; we’re out of danger now.” The last words I spoke made me feel like a liar. After all, I was lying we were not out of danger. We were undoubtedly in the most dangerous predicament that could be. The whole of Falinn Galdur was and it was entirely my fault. Whatever the truth of the matter, in this moment Balthus needed reassurance and the least I could do was to offer him some. When Balthus finally stopped fighting me, his eyes opened rolling around in a sporadic manner before finally focusing on my face.
“Violet, your safe.” He smiled weakly; his lips had a bluish tint due to the huge amount of blood he was now loosing.
“Thanks to you and Merl.” I said somewhat weakly myself. Balthus did not answer as he slipped into a worrying state of unconsciousness. I reached out across the grass toward him, touching the tips of his fingers with my own. It was a small comfort but I was sorry, so sorry for what I had unleashed upon him. In that moment, I was so consumed with Balthus’s suffering that I had not even thought to question how and why we were here. At least I hadn’t until I saw Merl somersaulting out of the air in much the same way that myself and Balthus had landed, only touching down with a
bit more grace.
“Come on Violet you nincompoop ruddy move yourself.” Merl said. He was urging me upwards, grabbing the soft skin inside my elbow. I winced with pain as my injured shoulder bore the brunt of the force. Merl’s eyebrows rose at my flinching, he gently stroked the blade of my shoulder.
“Gosod.” Fusing and snapping together again, the strength in my muscles renewed giving me new power to try to help Merl with his attempt to lift Balthus but it was no good. Our futile efforts to lift Balthus’s huge form hardly raised him from the ground. He was so heavy that even when he had calmed slightly and stopped thrashing around he was almost impossible to lift physically and without the lower half of his leg, he was finding it difficult to regain his balance. Instead, Merl stepped back and began to lift him from the wet ground in the same magical way he had elevated me on the night at Stonehenge. Balthus, boosted from the ground easily by Merl’s magic, was ascending higher and higher into the air until he was at least a meter above head height.
