The Doom of Fallowhearth

by Robbie MacNiven

  Ulma led the group up the tower’s spiral stairs. The old guard room lay halfway up, where the Dunwarr foundations gave way to the remains of the human masonry. The south-facing wall was half open to the elements, the rubble filling part of the circular chamber. The rest of it had been converted from an old garrison room into what Logan assumed was now Dezra’s lair. An old Al-Kalim rug had been hung across the crack in the wall, while the former guard bunks had been converted into a cot and table. Clothing hung from abandoned weapon racks, and a small metal cage stood incongruously beside the stairs that led to the tower’s battlement – stairs which now led nowhere.

  “Homely,” Logan said dryly as he surveyed the chamber. It was as cold and miserable-looking a place as he had imagined on the journey from Fallowhearth. It was just its denizen he’d been wrong about. Dezra didn’t respond, taking a seat beside a table heaped with musty-looking tomes and scrolls. Ulma headed over to the clothing rack, while Ronan stayed warily by the door with Pico on his shoulder. He still had his sword drawn.

  “Well, you certainly have quite the view,” Logan went on, peering past the rug hung across the broken wall. The moorland stretched away, rugged and unbroken, from the foot of the crag below to the distant horizon. He turned back to Dezra.

  “How in Fortuna’s name did you end up all the way out here? You’re living like some sort of vagrant.”

  “That’s just the sort of question you would ask,” Dezra replied. “The reasons would never occur to you. You could never imagine the stigma attached to my life. The doors closed in my face, the shelter and warmth and comfort denied to me because of what I am. Because of what I’m capable of.”

  “You should have stayed with us,” Logan said. “We all accepted you for what you were. Gods know, none of us are any better. A mad dwarf, a loner orc and the most handsome, wealthy rogue in all of Terrinoth.”

  The jest fell flat. Dezra glared at him.

  “So, acceptance depends on you, Logan? Just stay and surrender any dreams I might have beyond the Borderlands Four? Nordros help me if I seek a life and a purpose outside of your idiot adventures.”

  “I never wanted to hold you back, Dezra,” Logan said, moving over to the cage set by the stairs. A dead bluecrest lay among the litter at its bottom, its plumage dusty. “But see where your path has led you?”

  “Whose are these?” Ulma asked. She was standing by the clothing draped over the empty weapons racks, the sleeve of a long, pale blue dragonweave dress in her hand. It was one of several expensive-looking garments hanging off the rack.

  “Doesn’t really seem your style,” Logan pointed out. Dezra didn’t answer.

  “You took her, didn’t you?” he asked, biting back his anger. All the danger and discomfort he’d endured, all the fear and worry, just to discover Dezra had been behind it all.

  “No,” she said firmly. “I played no part in Kathryn’s disappearance.”

  “Well, someone did,” Logan snapped, his anger unabated. “Someone with arcane abilities. And they were likely using dark magic, at that. How many people do you know in Upper Forthyn who fit that description?”

  “You’ve been looking for her too, haven’t you?” Ulma asked her.

  “You won’t find her here,” Dezra said. Her expression was cold, hard. Logan had seen that look before. She was trying to mask her emotions, but inside she was torn up and angry.

  “What have you done with her?” he asked. He refused to believe she hadn’t played a part in this.

  “Nothing,” Dezra snarled. “And by Nordros, if you ask me one more time I’ll curserip the skin from your bones! The Baroness’s daughter is a grown woman who had been managing these lands for months! Did you never stop to think she could have left of her own accord?”

  “But she was here. That, or you stole clothes from her wardrobe. Which is it?”

  “It’s none of your business,” Dezra snapped, her eyes glimmering dangerously. Logan felt Ronan tensing even further, but he was beyond trying to talk the northerner down. He was too angry himself.

  “Baroness Adelynn has made it our business.” He glared at the necromancer. “So, one last time. Which is it?”

  Dezra paused, and for a second Logan thought she was going to lash out. Instead, she spoke. “She would visit from time to time. In secret.”

  “All the way out here? Alone?”

  “I… used my magics to help her,” Dezra went on, slowly. She was still tense, defensive, holding the same dangerous poise Logan had witnessed on so many occasions in fraught situations the length and breadth of Terrinoth. “She was never gone for more than a night or two.”

  “But why? Why was she meeting with you? Did she know you were a necromancer? Did you use your reputation as an adventurer to gain her trust?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped.

  “You’re right, I don’t. So, explain.”

  Dezra looked about, almost as though trying to find a way out of the chamber. Ulma crossed her arms, while Ronan remained tense by the stairs leading back down to the tower’s entrance. The sorceress sighed and closed her eyes, and Logan was shocked to see tears on her cheeks.

  “She told me about this place,” she said, her voice low and heavy with emotion. Her stance had lost its aggressive edge, arms at her sides now, shoulders slightly stooped, looking like a condemned woman. “This tower.”

  “Lady Kathryn?”

  “Yes. I was living rough in Blind Muir. She was visiting the forest, and she was about to be attacked by… something. I still think it’s linked to the arachyura. I was hunting it when I came across her.”

  “So she knew about your powers from the beginning?”

  “To a degree. I bade her leave Blind Muir and not return, but she did. She found me again, and she told me about this place.”

  “She took pity on you and told you the northern watchtowers were no longer used by the Fallowhearth garrison?” Logan asked.

  “Yes. She knew nowhere in the town would take me in. That if they discovered what I was I would be hounded out, or worse. Necromancy carries the death penalty in this barony, and the local seneschal hates the ways of Nordros.”

  “So, she always knew who you were?” Logan asked. “What you were?”

  “Yes. She wasn’t afraid. Just curious. She wanted to know about Sudanya.”

  “Don’t they always?” Logan said, smiling humorlessly.

  “You gave her a tome,” Ulma said, nodding towards the book-laden table. “A dark text. We found it in her chambers, in the castle.”

  “The Cadaveribus,” Dezra said. “And I did not give it. She took it without my knowledge. She was desperate to learn the arcane arts. I taught her simple tricks at first, but I refused to teach necromancy. Given the laws of Forthyn, how could I teach the black arts to the heir and daughter of its baroness?”

  “Then how did she come by the book?” Logan demanded. “I don’t know much about the arcane ways, but it clearly contains dark, powerful knowledge.”

  “She learned quickly. As we grew closer, I allowed her to read small extracts of the Cadaveribus, under my supervision. It felt like the least I could do. She gave me this place. She came whenever she could, brought me food, clothing, ink and parchment. But one morning, after she had visited, I realized the book was gone.”

  “And you didn’t confront her?” Logan asked.

  “Of course I did. But I didn’t want to drive her away, and I couldn’t exactly storm Fallowhearth castle looking for it. She admitted she’d been rash taking it. She was going to return it to me. I believe that’s what she was going to do when she disappeared.”

  “Did you help her in other ways?” Ulma asked. “She was the ruler of Upper Forthyn. Not long of age, newly appointed. Did she ask for your help administering her new holdings?”

  “I advised her when I could,” Dez
ra admitted. “But you underestimate her abilities. She is a clever administrator. Her mother taught her well. It did not take her long to become accustomed to ruling.”

  “And while she ruled, you led her astray,” Logan accused. He felt like an idiot, like he’d been played for a fool ever since leaving Sixspan. The sense of betrayal had made his tongue sharp, but he didn’t care. “Intentionally or not, you said it yourself, what you practice now is punishable by death. It would ruin Forthyn. By the flames of Kellos, it could rip apart the whole of Terrinoth!”

  “I loved her!” Dezra shouted, and for the briefest moment balefire flared in her eyes, casting ugly, skeletal shadows across the room. Ronan shuddered at the uncontrolled display, but it seemed even his hatred of dark sorcery had been wrong-footed. In the silence that followed Dezra wiped her tears away, her cold reserve gone now. She was angry, and she was no longer trying to hide it.

  “I would have given it all up for her. All of the knowledge I have spent my life acquiring, the powers I have gained, the long youth I have enjoyed. I would have cast it to the wind and burned up every one of these books in an instant if I thought we could have been together. But how could we have been? I am Dezra the Vile, the dark sorceress, famed across Terrinoth and beyond! I could never be seen publicly with Kathryn, let alone be introduced in polite circles at Highmont or at Adelynn’s court. Even if I renounced what I am now, her mother would still have me beheaded and burned!”

  Logan didn’t know what to say. He had never seen Dezra so vulnerable, so anguished. The sight of her misery crushed him, even as her words stoked his anger. She had changed so much, had embraced unspeakable magics that had turned her into even more of an outcast than she had been before. He couldn’t see how he could help her, couldn’t imagine how she could do what she had described and turn back from the path she had chosen. Without Kathryn that seemed even more impossible.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a tinny, chirruping noise. He looked towards the cage by the stairs, and a shiver ran up his spine. The bluecrest that had been lying dead in it was up and hopping about.

  “I have seen enough,” Ronan barked from the door. “She is a necromancer! She must die!”

  Dezra stood up sharply, balefire igniting in her eyes, then sputtering as Ronan’s familiar snarled. Before he realized what he was doing, Logan had positioned himself between the hulking northerner and the sorceress, feeling as surprised as either of them at his intrusion.

  “Don’t,” he said to Ronan. “Not now.”

  “This witch has been a scourge on the clans,” Ronan growled. “I have not come all this way just to let her live.”

  “I’ve done nothing to your damned clans,” Dezra retorted. “I just want to be left in peace!”

  “You defile our dead and torture the spirits of our ancestors,” Ronan shouted.

  Logan quailed at the huge man’s anger, but didn’t move from between the two.

  “You won’t lay a hand on her, not while we’re here,” he said to Ronan, trying to sound firm in front of the furious northerner. “She’s our friend.”

  “You neglected to mention that part when we set out from Fallowhearth,” Ronan growled.

  “We didn’t know that she was your witch.”

  “I will not bandy words with this damned creature!”

  “Then you can leave,” Ulma said, moving to stand beside Logan. “We never claimed we were coming here to help your clans, and you never said anything about killing witches. You said she could lead us to Lady Kathryn. That’s the only reason any of us are here.”

  “She’s right, for once,” Logan said, looking back at Dezra. “Please. You have to know something that can help us. She couldn’t have just vanished from her chambers. You mentioned she might have left of her own accord. Why? You said you argued about the book, how do you know she was going to return it that night?”

  “Because I sensed it,” Dezra said slowly, her voice riven with pain and regret. “She… I think she tried an incantation alone. She wanted to use the book before returning to me with it. She raised a family from the Shrine of Nordros, but she couldn’t control them. They pursued her to Blind Muir. I don’t know what happened after that.”

  Ronan growled at the mention of necromancy, but made no move to get past Logan.

  “Durik spoke of bodies missing from the shrine’s graveyard,” Ulma said.

  “How did she get out of the castle without being seen?” Logan pressed.

  “I suspect it was the same way I tried to leave this tower, before Ulma’s little alchemy trick,” Dezra said, looking bitterly at her withered hand. “The hex nebulum. The mist shroud.”

  “Sounds like you taught her well after all.”

  “I told you, she’s clever. More so than any of us. She taught herself far more than I ever told her. If I had truly tried to instruct her, she would have become more powerful than me. Far more powerful. Her potential is vast.”

  “And now she’s lost somewhere in the Blind Muir. Lost, or worse.”

  “I’ve been looking for her every day since she left,” Dezra said.

  “That’s what you were doing when you found us. Not just hunting arachyura. Looking for Kathryn.”

  “Is that why you raised Fallowhearth’s dead?” Ulma asked.

  “Yes,” Dezra said. “I was getting desperate. It’s been over a month, and I’ve found no sign of her, either through my undead or any form of scrying.”

  “You said she tried to perform an act of resurrection and lost control,” Ulma said. “Is it possible that she might have fallen foul of her own undead?”

  “Perhaps,” Dezra said. “But the arachyura are a far greater threat. You saw that for yourselves.”

  “No one could survive for more than a day in that place,” Logan said, unable to quell a shiver as he remembered the infested, nightmarish forest. “Not unless they already possessed powers as great as yours.”

  “She is inexperienced and untrained,” Dezra said. “But there’s no reason to assume she’s dead. I have to find her. I came here to perform another scrying rite. And now you’re wasting precious minutes for a second time in almost as many days.”

  “Very well,” Logan said, turning as though to leave. His anger had burned out. He wasn’t wasting his time here any more. “It’s clear you have no intention of helping us to find her. If she did indeed flee into Blind Muir Forest, then there’s nothing more we can do.” He paused and looked at Ulma.

  “I suggest we return to Fallowhearth and retrieve our belongings, then ride south and report these events directly to Baroness Adelynn.”

  “I agree,” Ulma said. “I would rather tell her in person than leave it to Lady Damhán. Doing so might see us released from our oath.”

  “You’re not going back into the forest?” Dezra asked. “I swear to you, that’s where she has gone! We can still get her out!”

  Logan turned back to her, his own anger rising. “A small group cannot enter that forest and hope to survive long enough to find any trace of her. It would take an army to march into Blind Muir and cleanse it.”

  “So you’re just going to give up?” Dezra demanded. “You’re many things, Logan, but I didn’t take you for a coward. Age has that effect on some, I suppose.”

  Logan turned on her, then paused, fighting back his resurgent anger. “You know nothing of growing old, Dezra, and I pity you for that. I am no coward. I am doing the logical thing. I would return to the baroness and explain to her what has happened here. We need the resources she has at her command. This isn’t a job for a small group of aging adventurers. And besides, don’t you think the baroness has a right to know? She’s her mother, for Fortuna’s sake!”

  “You would condemn her,” Dezra hissed. “Think about what you’re saying! If she is found safe and whole, her mother will be forced to confront her necromancy. She’ll either pardon her and
fatally undermine her barony’s laws, or she’ll execute her! And that’s without even considering the political damage it will do to her house, to Forthyn, to all of Terrinoth! A necromancer set to inherit one of the twelve baronies? As though the times we live in now aren’t fraught enough. At best, she’ll be disowned and forced to give up her land and titles.”

  Logan had no immediate answer. To his surprise, Ulma spoke for him.

  “Logan’s right. We can’t do any more for Lady Kathryn here. It is our duty to report all that has happened since we came north. Even if we could somehow find her and save her, she will still have to explain herself to Baroness Adelynn. I believe she would rather renounce her rulership entirely than sign the execution order for her own daughter. As for the turmoil that would bring, well, that wasn’t our doing.”

  Dezra was silent, her eyes shut. Logan sighed.

  “Think of it this way,” he said. “If Ulma, Durik and I didn’t take this news to the baroness, we’d be guilty of breaking our oath to seek out Lady Kathryn. As Ulma said, it’s our duty to tell her everything we’ve discovered. We’re not abandoning her daughter.”

  “That’s a coward’s answer, and you know it,” Dezra said, eyes still shut, her voice a harsh rasp.

  “But it’s also the truth,” Logan replied. “And it might be her last hope.”

  Dezra said nothing more. Logan looked at her, pity and regret warring with anger. Before leaving Sixspan he hadn’t seriously imagined he would ever see her again. Now this, a bitter parting that made their decades of friendship seem like a cruel joke. What had she become? Or what had he become?

  “Your path is your own,” he said eventually. “But I would strongly recommend leaving this tower as soon as possible, and not returning. I doubt you’ll be safe here for much longer.”

  “Thanks to you,” Dezra said. “Again.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Your sorrow has never been worth anything.”

  • • •

  They departed as the sun lowered over the moorland, trudging back down the track to the foot of the crag. Nobody spoke. Ronan was glowering, and Logan was half afraid he would rush back and try to put Dezra to the sword – he was just glad they’d made it this far without blood being shed. At the bottom of the track they found her undead mount lying still once more, insects swarming over its carcass. Ulma went and retrieved Ransom, who had remained grazing serenely on the moorland grass.