Gilbert screamed as his body fell to the stone floor before his throne. His stomach jutted forth, with his head arching backward. Blalock walked forward to stand over His Majesty’s pain-racked form.
“You shall what? Your screams are useless. Your guards cannot hear them. Only you and I are privy to those beautiful sounds. Perhaps I should let them drift out over the town below. Do you realize, my dear king, that with a flick of my mind I can snap your spine, killing you or not, as I please?
“I have kept you in power because it served my purpose. I should be quite angry over this attempted intrusion into my affairs. However, this demonstration has served a purpose. Remember it, Gilbert. If you annoy me further, I will make your own guards chop you into pieces.”
Through tear-filled eyes, Gilbert saw the wielder turn and walk swiftly from the room. The king gasped and sobbed on the floor. Twenty feet away, his guards continued to stare down the hallway, oblivious to all that had transpired.
As Kragan, robed in black, stood before the hearth in his bedchamber, the sound of his door opening pulled his attention to his left. An ancient figure in robes of midnight blue entered, his long gray hair and beard merging into a mane that swept over his shoulders, draping both chest and back.
Kragan’s fury at this violation of his privacy crept into his voice. “What is the meaning of this, Gregor?”
Flashes of light glittered in the ancient blue eyes that locked with Kragan’s own. Veins stood out on the back of the old man’s hands, hands as gnarled as the great staff they held. “I don’t know what you are scheming, Blalock, but it stops here.”
A sneer spread across Kragan’s face. He stared at the only wielder in the kingdom who imagined he had power that surpassed Kragan’s own. Though Gregor had been King Rodan’s powerful ally, the old fool’s imagination was about to get him killed.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Gregor.”
“Don’t bandy words, Blalock. I have long advised Gilbert to rid himself of you and your poisonous words and deeds. But he will not listen to my counsel. Thus today, I take matters into my own hands.”
“Meaning what?”
“You will trouble this kingdom no more.”
The great staff rose in the old wielder’s hands as webs of power shimmered from his body, an aura that extended to engulf Kragan’s form. But as the light closed in upon its target, the aura frayed at the edges. Kragan felt no fear, yet Gregor’s mastery taxed him far more than he had expected. Although the most powerful wielders could call forth elementals from each of the elemental planes, they tended to specialize. Kragan’s specialty was earth magic. Gregor’s was that of air.
Kragan gritted his teeth as his mind tapped the essence of the earth elemental, Dalg.
Red-veined tendrils crawled from Kragan’s skin, worming their way up into the surrounding aura. The brightness around Gregor intensified to the point that Kragan had to close his eyes lest the searing light blind him. For several moments, Gregor’s aura seemed poised to drive the interlopers back in upon their creator, but then, with an effort that pulled a low grunt from Kragan’s throat, the wielder called forth a tremor that threatened to collapse the room’s floor, walls, and ceiling.
Gregor extended the fingers of his right hand as the fire elemental Jaa’dra materialized and surged forward, seeking to enfold Kragan in its flaming arms. The entity was too slow. The floor beneath Kragan acquired the texture of mist, dropping him into the ground as an inferno roared into the space where he had just stood. Manipulating the density of the stone as if it were flowing water, Kragan pushed himself back into the room, this time behind the spot where Gregor stood.
Then, as if bursting from earthly bondage, legions of tendrils snaked up through the floor as others descended from the ceiling, slowly burrowing paths through the shimmer to the gray-bearded wielder within. As Gregor dismissed the fire elemental to focus all his mental might on the air elemental that formed his shield, Kragan smiled.
The realization of his own mortality dawned in Gregor’s blue eyes, and he spoke with a voice that still carried the power of lost youth. “Blalock, even if you defeat me, the king will learn of this.”
“Indeed, Gilbert will find you. But what he finds will give him little comfort.”
As Kragan turned away, the old man’s wail began.
5
Rafel’s Keep
YOR 412, Late Winter
After four days and nights helping organize the pack-out of Rafel’s Keep, Carol faced the dawn with a mixture of fatigue, trepidation, and excitement. Her thoughts turned to Arn. Despite how the memory of his rejection still hurt her, she did not believe that he would follow through on the order to assassinate her father. She could not believe it. She knew that the deep rage she had always sensed just beneath the surface of Arn’s mind had its origins in the loss of his parents, but he had refused to discuss the topic and she had not pushed. During the years that he had become a part of her family, she felt that rage recede, but Arn had never completely vanquished the pain. And when he left for Hannington Castle, his estrangement from his adopted family had unleashed the killer within. In some ways, Carol felt responsible for that.
For so long she had told herself that she didn’t care, that it was better to have learned of Arn’s true nature earlier rather than later. Could any man who harbored such a dark side ever truly keep it contained?
Having not seen Hawthorne since last night, Carol made her way across the courtyard to the wielder’s quarters, anxious to hear of his progress in establishing the wards her father had told him to erect.
When her knock drew no answer, she felt a disquieting sense of wrongness invade her mind. She opened the door and stepped inside Hawthorne’s large outer chamber. He sat cross-legged in the center of a large black-and-silver rug, the intricate patterns seeming to rise from the carpet into the air.
The wielder’s head hung low on his chest, a strand of spittle settling into his gray beard from the corner of his mouth, unnoticed. Hawthorne’s eyes stared unseeingly at the rug’s helix, directly in front of where he sat.
Quietly, Carol knelt beside her mentor and friend, concern tightening her chest. Unsure of her next action, she hesitated. Hawthorne was clearly in trouble. With a trembling hand, Carol touched him lightly on the shoulder.
The wielder’s head came up, his eyes focusing on her face. He wiped his beard.
“Hawthorne, what’s happening?”
The wielder glanced down at the rug and then returned his gaze to Carol, sadness etched into his features.
“Lorness, I’m failing your father. I’m failing you.”
“Tell me,” she said.
“I’ve done my best to strengthen the wards that I have placed on several of the high lord’s wagons to prevent Blalock from seeing our preparations. Nevertheless, he is stronger than I imagined, chipping away at my barriers faster than I can reinforce them. And when they fall, he will know of our flight from Rafel’s Keep and track us. Even though we are beyond the range of his direct spells, there are primordials that can create a broad swath of destruction in our world. The more precisely they can be targeted, the more intense the damage they can cause. I fear that Blalock may have the power to call upon one of these beings.”
“How can I help?”
Hawthorne tightened his lips.
“Despite the potential I’ve long sensed within you, Carol, your father has forbidden me, on pain of death, from subjecting you to the ritual that would grant you access to the physical magics. Absent that, there’s nothing you can do to assist me.”
Carol gritted her teeth, biting back the shout of frustration that tried to crawl from her throat. She’d spent years studying under Hawthorne, mastering the arts of meditation that should have enabled her to become his prized apprentice, but her father had been adamant in denying her the opportunity.
In the Ritual of Terrors, aspirants opened their minds to the forces that governed the elements of fire, water, earth
, and air. Hawthorne had said that the greater one’s potential, the more powerful the elemental opponent she attracted to the confrontation. If Carol survived, the ritual opened a mental channel to that realm. Possession awaited those who failed, their minds forever trapped in torment, a tool of their supernatural masters from that day forward.
“Come with me,” Carol said, rising to her feet.
“I need to continue to strengthen the wards. Even though I won’t succeed, perhaps I can give us a few extra hours.”
“That’s not good enough. We have to go see my father.”
Hawthorne hesitated, and then rose unsteadily to his feet, allowing Carol to help him.
With the wielder’s left arm draped over her shoulder, Carol made her way to Rafel’s command center. Her father was bent over the map-covered table with Gaar at his side. She and Hawthorne stepped up behind the men. Sensing their presence, Rafel turned, concern suddenly filling his eyes.
“Hawthorne, what’s wrong?”
Gaar moved to the wielder’s side, relieving Carol of the old man’s weight and guiding him to a chair.
“High Lord, I’m sorry, but my magic will not hold. By this time tomorrow, Blalock will break the wards and me along with them. Then you will be defenseless against his power. I have failed you.”
Carol stepped forward, her voice breaking her father’s silence. “But there is a way to strengthen Hawthorne’s defenses.”
Rafel turned toward his daughter, his features hardening. “You will not perform the ritual. I have forbidden it.”
“And I have always bowed to your command. However, this is no longer just my capricious wish to learn magic. If Hawthorne fails, our people die. We cannot prevail against all the forces the king will bring against you. Even if we succeed in fighting our way out of Tal, there is a more important reason to let me try.
“If our people see that you are protecting me, keeping your daughter safe in a gilded cage while others confront danger, they will lose all respect for me as future leader. You told Gaar that I would replace you should you fall. How can I do that? How can I face our people, knowing I could have done something to protect them but was unwilling to take the risk?”
Rafel’s jaw clenched as he stared back at Carol. Then he shifted his gaze to meet the eyes of his battle master. Ever so slightly, Gaar’s head nodded. When Rafel looked at her again, the anger in his gaze had transformed into pride.
“Well argued.”
Rafel turned to Hawthorne. “All I ask is that you send her into this battle properly prepared.”
Hawthorne rose to his feet, pushing away Gaar’s hand. “High Lord, on that, you have my word.”
Having retired to his quarters to make ready for the Ritual of Terrors, Hawthorne felt a sudden breeze sweep through the room, blowing out the two candles in the holder set in the center of his rug. For several seconds, he remained cross-legged in the dark, trying to divine the source of the draft. It had not come from the door directly in front of him but from his left. But there were no windows or doors on that side of the room.
Had he subconsciously reached out for a minor air elemental, like Tuuli, without intending to do so? Examining his thoughts just prior to the event, Hawthorne found no direct evidence to support that theory. He remembered thinking of Carol and the strength of will that he had recognized within her since she was a tiny girl. Hawthorne had always felt that she was a gathering storm, destined to reshape the world in which they lived. But such drive almost always had its roots in a deep-seated well of fear. Although he didn’t know what Carol’s hidden fears were, he didn’t doubt their existence.
Rafel had recognized these traits within his daughter as well, which was why the high lord had forbidden Hawthorne to put Carol through the ritual until now. Her combination of willpower and fear would likely attract the attention of one of the more powerful elementals, possibly even a lord of the elemental planes. And that elemental would attempt to bolster her fears, using them to break her will and mind.
If only he had more time, Hawthorne could have brought her along more slowly, helping her to dig through the mental blocks that people erected within themselves, so that she could bring those buried fears out into the day and come to terms with them. But the power and speed with which Blalock had chipped away at Hawthorne’s best wards had denied him that luxury.
Calling forth a minor fire elemental, Hawthorne relit his candles, watching as the shadows fled into corners. He was intensely aware of the presence of his own double shadow stretching out behind him and climbing the far wall. Turning his head slightly, he watched from the corner of his right eye as the twin shades moved under the direction of the dancing flames. Where those two wraiths overlapped, the darkness became absolute, as if it were a portal to the realm of the dead.
With an angry hiss, Hawthorne dismissed the vision and refocused on the flames. It would not do to let Carol pick up any of his own fears when she arrived.
When Carol stepped into Hawthorne’s chambers, a pair of white candles burned in a holder set in the center of the rug. The wielder, now clad in flowing black robes, stood on the far side of the room holding an ancient book in his left hand. He read from the tome softly, gesturing elaborately with his right. The candle grew brighter and changed to a deep shade of green.
Having long since memorized the ritual, Carol needed no instruction. She walked forward to sit cross-legged in front of the candles. Staring into the flame, she freed her mind to wander within her body, the wielder’s distant chant vibrating in her ears. Her body took on the feel of comfortable clothes, her mind floating separately from form.
Hawthorne had taught her that controlling the mind of an elemental required the person attempting to cast the spell to possess an innate psychic ability. This prerequisite was a rare trait, and not all those who possessed it desired to undergo the rigors and dangers of becoming a wielder. That made wielders of magic a rare breed.
Since Carol had been a little girl, she had often sensed what someone was about to say before they spoke. Hawthorne had recognized the trait when she was a mere five-year-old. Thus he had trained her in the wide variety of meditation techniques necessary to free the mind from its bodily tether.
The feelings of the flesh became distant vibrations. Carol concentrated on the flame, allowing herself to become one with the light. A cool mist swirled about her. The wielder’s chamber was gone, an ancient temple spreading out in its place. Torches burned along the walls, sending smoky trails upward. Strange gargoyle heads carved into the native stone stared down at her. On the far wall, a door opened outward, just a crack.
Carol felt her spirit shudder as she beheld the portal into the elemental realm. She knew that the only thing she needed to fear was giving way to the terror that awaited her. Little comfort. A weight descended. She had a sudden feeling of an evil presence lurking just on the far side of that doorway.
Had her father been right? Who was she, after all, to dabble in arcane rituals of power? But wasn’t that the entire point? There was no way to know whether the aspirant undergoing the ritual had the inner fortitude required until she took the test.
The mist swirled around Carol’s form as a cold breeze whipped through the room, blowing out the candle she now held. Only the dim light from the torches in their sconces penetrated the gloom. The air felt heavy, like a thick, wet blanket, cold and damp.
Carol struggled to keep her thoughts positive and comfortable, even as they continually turned toward darkness and evil. This was not going well. In the ritual, what you thought took on reality.
A deep moan sounded from behind the door. Carol got up and began walking toward the portal. To her horror, she found she was no longer wearing her riding clothes. Instead, she wore a nightgown, a garment associated with quiet nights and cherished books. Almost never worn outside of her private chamber, the attire now made her feel weak, vulnerable. The revelation that this was one of her deepest fears violated her self-image in a way that she had never ima
gined, filling her with dread when it should have imparted fury.
She did her best to visualize herself in chain mail. The nightgown stubbornly remained. Forcing herself to stride rapidly to the door, Carol tried to achieve boldness through action.
The handle felt slimy, leaving her hand damp as she pushed the door open. It swung outward to reveal a narrow stone stairway that spiraled downward, its steps worn by the passage of many feet, the granite walls almost scraping her shoulders.
Having discarded her candle, she grabbed a torch from its sconce and started down the stone steps, cold on her bare feet. With each turn of the stairs, she checked to see what lay beyond. Six turns revealed more of the same.
The stairway ended. Carol entered a large chamber, its high ceilings supported by tall, fluted columns. In the great hearth on the far wall, a smoldering log bled its red light into the mist that swirled almost to her knees. She felt her eyes drawn to the throne facing the fireplace and to the shadowed figure held in its arms.
Carol tried to swallow. Clenching her hands into fists, she forced herself forward. The red wood of the chair had the texture of scabbed flesh. Bas-relief faces distorted in pain crowded together along the surface, faces that seemed to move as she approached.
The lorness concentrated, trying to visualize a fat little boy sitting in that awful chair. She laughed aloud at the thought, but the sound came out shrill and nervous, fading to a sad echo in the elemental chamber. The figure in the chair stood and turned toward her.
Slitted golden eyes glowed in a face of luminously evil beauty such as she had never imagined. She stared as one would peer over a precipice, frightened yet tempted to jump, as if the depths called to her. The being with a feline face and clawed hands stood over seven feet tall, muscles rippling beneath his bronze skin as he moved.
Mark of Fire (The Endarian Prophecy Book 1) Page 3
