Reign of Immortals
Page 34
Melvekior nodded, hoping Accus could see it, unwilling to speak.
Time passed and it was interminable. Melvekior was not tired, nor did he want to do any more exploring. Now that Accus had brought it up, all he could smell was the putrefaction of the nearby corpse. The cell wasn’t big enough for it to not be nearby, literally the furthest he could get from it was three feet away. He was sure he could hear rats. Rats in the dark were one of his least favorite things. He could easily smash one with his mailed fist, but the thought of its sharp little teeth on his face while he slept made his skin crawl. He shivered. It was cold and getting colder. There was no reason to keep such a place heated and it was probably below ground level increasing the cold and damp. He began to be grateful that there was little light. Mold and shit were the last things he wanted to see and he knew he’d be surrounded by both.
His initial bravado was slowly slipping away.
Accus eventually stirred. It was easily eight hours he’d been entranced but Melvekior was too pleased to hear his voice to complain.
“Success, Melvekior!” he began immediately. “It is now late in the castle so guard numbers are minimal, Sunar’s chambers are not far. All we need do is escape from the cell and I can get us there.”
“What? Are you sure? How did you find all this out?”
“A little trick I term Hellwalking. It involves the memories of the recently departed and I am able, by…” He stopped. “This is neither your concern nor am I permitted to speak of it, but it’s effective. Now, to raise this corpse.” He sounded breathless, eager.
“No, Accus, no. It’s rotting, you cannot mean to do this. Is this how my father would have gone? Rotting and leaking like a plague pustule?” Nausea struck Melvekior, he started to retch. The smell of decay and death heavy on him.
“I do and I will. What you are feeling is quite a common reaction to corpse revival. This is nothing but a lump of matter, Melvekior. There is no life and there will be no life. The animation will be that of a simple creature. Assuming I can find one.” There was some scraping, an “aha” and then a tapping. “As I thought, rats.”
Accus started to hum. At first it seemed tuneless and then Melvekior noticed it was the same refrain over and over. Not a melody as such, but a particular set of notes. After a couple of minutes they became painful to listen to.
“Accus, man, stop it.” Accus did not stop it and it became maddening and then shortly after joined by a skittering noise as though half a dozen hounds were scrabbling to get in the room, scraping the stone walls with their paws.
“They come, my friend. Catch at least one, I beg you. That gave me a headache.” The voice of the Necromancer floated from the dark and then Melvekior realized what it was he was hearing. Rats. Dozens of rats.
He jumped to his feet. “Accus, what have you done?” He could hear the panic in his own voice, shrill unthinking fear.
“I need a life, a rat will do. What’s the matter with you? I’ve seen you fight, a rat is very small.”
He could hear them closer now, their tiny, scratching claws. He spun around. Was that one on his leg? He kicked out and made contact only with thin air. Squeaking, the endless squeaking. Melvekior was furious.
“Damned rats. I’ll kill them all!” he bellowed.
“No! I need at least one alive. Here, there’s a couple.” He had evidently forgot that his companion was almost blind. Melvekior heard Accus utter a choice few curse words and then the threat of the rats became too great. He started stamping his feet, ensuring his knee was out as to not strike the feet of his cellmate.
“Got one! Little bastard bit me. Melvekior, there’s one alive at your feet, pick it up it is trapped by my foot.”
The teenage knight had faced off against robbers, guards and professional fighters, but he had never known such revulsion and reluctance. He took a deep breath and bent at the knees to feel around the feet of his companion, rapidly scrabbling at the ground, gripped a twitching rat and held it at arm’s length. It was almost dead, this revolting rodent, but still it twisted and pulled to be released and how he yearned to dash it to the ground.
“Thank you. I would never have thought you feared such small creatures, but then again, I am not fond of birds.” He pulled the almost dead rat from the knight’s grasp. “This one will banish the others.” He said some words in a sonorous tone, there was a strangled high pitched noise and then the skittering lessened, the squeaking abated instantly and Melvekior felt himself breathing again.
“Do not move, this is important.” Melvekior grunted in agreement and merely waited, hoping this would all be over soon. Rats, darkness and Necromancy. All over soon.
He heard some squelching and scraping and was grateful that he couldn’t see. Once Accus had finished doing whatever he was doing he started chanting, almost singing. His voice was deep and confident and commanding. The words floated in the darkness and seemed to charge the air with an almost palpable presence. Then, all of a sudden, there was a flash of darkness. As though even the trace of light that they still had was snuffed out, for the shortest time, but then it was back again. Melvekior couldn’t be sure he just didn’t blink and imagine it, but he soon had the confirmation that it was more than that.
A voice then, from afar. On top of that there was a new noise in the cell. One that Melvekior didn’t immediately understand but feared to recognize. A wet slithering and a noise like a rushing of wind or a great exhalation and he knew it to be the corpse rising. He moved to the furthest corner of the cell away from where the body had lain and then saw it, or rather noticed it blocking off the line of light at the side of the door.
Then whispering. Accus whispering, but not to him. To the abomination he had animated. The sound of talking and footsteps from outside the small room distracted him from listening to the Necromancer crooning to the thing in the room with them. He didn’t want to hear the words but with the curiosity of the morbid he knew he would listen.
There was a banging on the door and the sound of a key in the lock. Something, whether it be the rats or the sudden instant of total darkness had roused the guards. Was this part of Accus’s plan? He didn’t have time to ask. The door banged open, allowing torchlight into the cell. Melvekior was partially blinded and had to screw his eyes up. He was still armored but had no weapon and noticed that there were two guards without, one with a sword and one holding a torch. Obviously they felt secure against two unarmed men, one without any noticeable martial prowess.
“What the hell are you…” the guards voice trailed off and Melvekior had enough vision to see the double take of the guards as they saw something that should not have been there. The look of a man who is seeing something that cannot exist and whose mind cannot quite accept it. The lead guard, the one wielding a sword and shouting, recoiled in horror, his face twisting. The other peered forward and was pushed back slightly by his comrade. He then caught sight of the rotting, yet walking, cadaver and swore.
Melvekior did not want to see the Draugr straight on and moved to pass it on the right and shove his way through the door, hoping to use the guard’s horror and surprise to take him down before he could react fully. This was a false hope as the guards were well trained and hardy. Melvekior couldn’t see Accus but his creation was moving forward and there was barely room for two abreast through the door, but he could come up behind the risen corpse.
The foremost guard had stepped back and that gave them all more room to maneuver. The man with the torch thrust it forward directly into the face of the undead and it sizzled as it came into contact with the oozing face of the dead body. Risking a quick glance, he wished he had not. The face of the corpse had dropped. Almost slid down the skull, the eyes no longer level, the mouth with a look of a simpleton or an old man who had been half frozen by infirmity. A burning brand to the face had no effect on the monster and it reached out with one hand to grab onto the arm of the hindmost guard and pull him into a grotesque embrace, the torch caught between them.
“In the cell, unharmed.” He barked at the undead monstrosity over which he seemed to have full control. The second guard had dropped his torch and was lying limp on the grasp of the zombie. The creature slid backwards and dropped him unceremoniously on the ground. On examination, Melvekior found him to be alive and breathing. The sheer fright of the cell’s previous inhabitant come to life must have caused him to faint. He dragged the other unconscious man into the chamber, “Accus, come let us hurry, lock them in there,” he said noticing a set of keys hanging from the door.
The corpse lurched out of the small room and stood in the passageway. Accus closed the door and turned the key in the lock, pulling out the ring and tossing it to his companion. Melvekior caught them, knelt down, picked up the blade dropped by the insensate guard and without another word, started off down the corridor.
Accus scurried ahead and led them unerringly through the dungeon, the odd entreaty for release ignored. They saw only one further guard, asleep, plainly drunk, at a small table where he’d been playing dice by himself. The table sat against a wall across from four cells, all containing a single man each, the doorways simple bars so that the prisoners could be watched. Two of the men merely glowered at them from the backs of their cells. Another, a decent looking enough fellow, begged them for release and Melvekior was considering it until the man said he would kill all the guards on the way out for them. He deserved his incarceration if that was his attitude. The fourth man, merely stood and peered at them through the bars. He was surprisingly clean and wide eyed. He looked like he didn’t belong and although not scared, looked confused. Tall, his slender frame in a blue robe, now muddied and smudged but clean it would have been of high quality. Accus stopped and looked at him, his brow furrowed in confusion. He then shrugged and moved on.
Melvekior followed, trying to put it from his mind, he had more important issues.
“I wonder what he was doing in here?” mused Accus as they moved quickly down the damp corridors, outpacing the walking corpse and leaving it a score of feet behind as it slithered wetly along. “Oh, this is the exit from the underground.”
It was a small dark chamber at the end of a passageway. Barely room for two people, it had no door and no windows and worst of all, it seemed to be swaying slightly as though it wasn’t properly affixed to the ground, almost swinging.
“Come, inside.” Accus motioned and then stepped into the room. Melvekior entered and Accus said something harsh sounding and sucked in his breath suddenly, his eyes wide. Melvekior looked to the risen dead and saw it collapse, as though all its bones had vanished. Accus clanged a dagger, stolen from the table of the sleeping guard, against the wall of the small chamber in which they stood and Melvekior suddenly felt his balance falter. And he began to rise into the air.
Momentarily panicking he realized that the small room rose and not just he, the corridor was becoming lost to sight and he caught a sudden whiff of a terrible smell. Sweet and thick, the smell of putrefaction and then everything went black.
He almost lost his balance more than once, so uneven was the journey through solid rock in a tiny room. Accus was silent and soon the darkness became mere gloominess and then as dark only as twilight. His movement slowed down.
“Get ready to brain the winch operator.” Accus said and Melvekior didn’t have a clue what that meant, but he readied himself to beat someone down.
They emerged, a small room at the end of another, totally different hallway. This one was bright and warm, the walls ahead painted and decorated with canvases and tapestries. Another ante room stood to his left and within it a large wheel with a handle. Standing up from a bent position and having just finished tying a rope from the wheel to a metal loop secured to the ground was a man, another palace guard, but this time without weapons.
He looked over at them with a not unfriendly look. Then he must have realized that he didn’t recognize either of them and screwed his face up in confusion, right about the time that Melvekior’s mailed fist plowed into his face. It was a hefty blow but it didn’t knock the operator senseless but it did daze him long enough for the knight to grab him bodily and force him into the elevation room, Accus making use of the wheel to send it down just enough to silence any cries for help.
“C’mon, move, I don’t like this, that poor fellow was probably just earning a crust for his family.” Melvekior started off but had to wait for the man with the knowledge, Accus.
“Or he could be a wife beating whoremonger, you just never know.” Accus laughed and surged ahead happily. He literally had a smile on his face.
“You’re taking too well to all this mayhem, Accus,” he said and took off after him.
Several unguarded hallways later they stopped at the end of a sumptuously appointed and doubly wide passage, two huge doors barred further progress. Dark wood, it looked strong, the handles thick golden metal. It was curious how there weren’t more guards, at least in Melvekior’s mind. Then again, how many did he have guarding his sleep at home. Granted he was no Prince, but he had a few men. Maybe Sunar had fallen on hard times, maybe he wasn’t that worried. Was he that loved? He knew nothing good about the man, save that he was a Prince.
Accus didn’t hesitate, he’d seen this while Hellwalking apparently. He opened the double doors ahead of them and walked in.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Sunar
“I never really believed that turning to Mithras would solve any of my problems. It was a means to an end. Not the end itself.” - Melvekior
This isn’t a bedchamber, was Melvekior’s first thought. It looked more like a library. The wall to his left and the one furthest from the door were both covered in books, from floor to ceiling. He’d never seen so many books and Aeldryn considered reading a gentleman’s pastime so encouraged the collection of tomes of all kinds. Their library at home, and he felt a little nostalgic to think of it, was impressive, but nothing compared to this.
He didn’t know why he was expecting a bedroom, maybe it would have been easier to confront the Prince when nobody else was there to interfere. Melvekior certainly didn’t mean him harm, and in fact owed him an apology but there was no way he was staying a prisoner for someone else’s deeds.
The center of the room was what appeared to be a map. Sunken eight inches below floor level, an intricate drawing of a series of islands, oceans and continents covered with a shiny translucent film. It reflected the light oddly making it difficult to properly take in the entire tableau, but he’d seen enough maps to recognize another. There was a complex set of candles and holder that hovered above the floor-map, connected to ropes hanging taut from the ceiling and ran along to the wall. Where then, he could not see, as his attention was taken by the human occupants of the room.
He and Accus stood at the open door, no guards without or inside the door where guards might normally be, but two people stood at the right wall. The entire wall was covered with a dark red curtain and as the two men in the room turned at the opening of the doors, the curtain billowed as if rapidly returned to a closed position.
Both men looked confused to see them. Melvekior recognized one of them as Sunar and the other he did not know. They were presented very differently. Sunar was half-dressed, merely a white shirt that covered him to his knees, his short dark, approaching gray, hair cut severely across his forehead. Other than that he was bare; his legs, feet and head uncovered. He was a handsome man, ears decorated with golden loops, thin mustache neatly trimmed and though his face was lined, his body was well kept and slim. He looked over, scowling at first and then his eyes widened slightly.
His companion was young, enough to be his son possibly, but also extremely handsome and well kept. A part
icularly vain place, this. He wore a dark red and black doublet over black pantaloons, all of a fluffy sort of puffed up material. His hair was long, and black and wet looking. Some sort of oil no doubt. Mikael would have been most disapproving. What had they interrupted?
He looked at them almost fearfully, not a man used to power. Not a noble, but the Prince’s friend then. Then it came to him. The fellow who insulted him those years ago in front of Ottkatla.
“Your Highness,” Melvekior began, “I apologize most profusely for the unfortunate and ill-timed interruption.” He bowed deeply. One would kneel only to one’s king, Sunar was neither his lawful liege lord nor a king.
“You have the best of me, intruder. I am neither armed, nor clothed. What is your purpose here?” The prince squinted at them, trying to see more clearly. He plainly was short-sighted and unable to recognize the man he recently had arrested.
There was a smell in the air of incense, but sweeter, maybe perfume. “It is I, Melvekior Martelle, you had me arrested earlier today.” Melvekior could feel his manners slipping away, this Prince was nothing more than an aging fop.
“Ahh, yes, I have your friend in the next room,” he said silkily. Definitely a threat. His voice was quite effeminate and spiteful at the same time. Hereditary kingship was something Melvekior had always agreed with but now he saw its downside. Weak and cruel some rulers could become and here was one.
“Prince Sunar, I wish you to understand that the appropriation of your amulet was an accident and only done with the best of intentions. My late father would have been horrified to know that it has caused you any inconvenience.” He didn’t think for a second an apology would work, but he had to try, Janesca’s life and quite possibly theirs was hanging in the balance.