Reign of Immortals

by Marin Landis

  After a few more minutes he stopped, Accus slumping down against a large rock, kicking up dust and breathing heavily. Melvekior shook his head, “It’s not that bad, man.” He peered ahead of him, looking for the way ahead. If anything it was becoming steeper and more overgrown. Soon they wouldn’t be able to continue on foot.

  “It’s a wild goose chase,” panted the unfit Necromancer, “that Prince is insane. One moment he’s a ravening psychopath, the next, helpful and enthusiastic. I don’t trust him and I think he’s playing games with us.”

  “You believe there to be no cave? What of Janesca in that case?” He looked at the Mage directly, “Is there no magic you have that can determine the presence or absence of a cave so described?”

  “It doesn’t work in that fashion, how could I search for something that may not exist?”

  “We do now,” the young man, frustrated now, spoke bluntly.

  “Umm, ok, I can detect the presence of nearby magic if I concentrate but that is it. I can Hellwalk also, which may help, but unless a higher being, such as a human has died nearby, there will be no path to follow. I will try nevertheless.”

  He looked around and walked a couple of yards to a relatively free spot before a large bush with plump green leaves. He sat cross legged and closed his eyes. Melvekior took the opportunity to relieve himself while keeping an eye over his shoulder at his companion. By the time he had finished, Accus was standing and looked over at him. “Well, that was simple.” He walked about forty feet back down the way they had come and stepped down into a shallow dip some bushes had overgrown and covered. “Here, look,” he shouted over.

  Melvekior stepped forward and noticed, previously hidden by the bush and even when uncovered, almost invisible, the faint outline of a door.

  “Well spotted, however you did it.” He remarked and walked forward to push at the door. It didn’t move. It felt as though it were just part of the hillside. “What’s this? Some sort of magic?” He looked over at Accus who shrugged.

  There was a gust of wind, cold, out of place on this warm day and from the direction of the door from where it should not have originated. He involuntarily shivered and peered at the door. It was no different.

  “Melvekior, step back!” came the sharp command from behind him. It was his companion, but his voice sounded unsure and a little worried. The young knight spun and at the same time drew his sword with impressive speed. The object of Accus’s fear was not to be intimidated by such a display however.

  It was a man, in black robes and both of them recognized him. The figure stood unmoving and then, quite stiffly, raised its hand, pointing away from the outline of the door.

  “Turn away and do not seek to enter. The pact was sworn in blood.” The voice of the Mage King held its usual sonorous tonesbut seemed oddly impersonal as though rehearsed.

  “Lord Thacritus, I humbly beg your pardon,” Melvekior started, “we…”

  “Wait, it’s not real,” interrupted Accus. “It’s a triggered illusion.”

  He looked at his companion and then back at the Mage King. The figure looked as real as either of them. The black robes fluttered gently in the breeze, though it was a calm day. His skeletal hand still pointed away from the hillside, the bony index finger stiff. The eyes blinked yet didn’t see anything, the orbs moved not nor was there the slightest twitch from the mouth. After half a minute, the Mage spoke again.

  “Turn away and do not seek to enter. The pact was sworn in blood.”

  The same admonition. Repeated in exactly the same way.

  “You see, it’s a warning that Thacritus would have put in place to scare off any intruders. By the sound of it, very specific intruders. Sunar and King Alpre.”

  “Why would he not want them to enter? And what is this pact, I wonder?” He peered more closely at the likeness of the Mage and was amazed at the realness of it. He reached out to touch the hanging sleeve from the pointing hand and felt nothing. There wasn’t anything solid to feel or touch, it was as though the apparition only existed in some of his senses and not the others. He was about to move even closer to see if he could smell anything when again he was interrupted.

  “Haha! It’s a mere cantrip. I would have figured it out in short order even had there been no illusory Mage King.”

  He was rubbing his hands over the door, tracing the outline in the stone wall of the hillside. On reflection, Melvekior realized, it was an unusually flat and uniform hillside and seemed totally out of place. How had he not seen that before?

  “All I need to is either reverse it or create my own to counter it.” Accus seemed to be talking to himself. “Ebit nom montibe,” he chanted and Melvekior watched in fascination as a flash of azure outlined the door. Just for a second. Brief enough for it to be a figment of his imagination and worthy of no closer look but that a man skilled in the arts of magic was chanting before it. When the light had faded, the door was plain to see, no longer hidden but as visible as a door in a hillside. “Well, it is a door, certainly and it is protected by magic. How it opens is another matter.” Accus reached out and gripped the metal ring that ordinarily would be the handle, made to turn and release a catch on the other side. He grimaced with effort and strained but the ring wouldn’t turn.

  “Magically held fast?” Melvekior didn’t know much about the arcane arts but felt that this was a reasonable question.

  “Maybe,” managed Accus, red-faced and rubbing his wrist. He stepped back and allowed Melvekior to grip the iron ring. The much stronger knight, gripped the metal with his mailed fist and twisted. There was a scraping sound and with a little more effort the ring suddenly turned, the mechanism on the other side of the door clanking as it hit home.

  “It appears as though our black-robed friend didn’t foresee anyone disobeying him.” Melvekior felt smug as he yanked the door open.

  He stood firm against the rushing wind but only barely and was forced to plant one foot behind himself as an anchor. His shoulder length hair blew back and his eyes stung from the dust. He felt almost as though three centuries of dirt and air had accumulated and suddenly been released by his dramatic pulling open of the door. It was not just a simple burst of wind but a constant blast of an incredibly powerful and invisible force. He could hear nothing but the howling of this impossible sirocco and his own shout of surprise was rendered feeble by the overwhelming noise

  He let go of the door and lifted his arm to shield his eyes from the flying motes of dirt and turned back to see how Accus was favoring and was astonished to see nothing but blackness. All around him, a total absence of light.

  Fighting down panic, he tried to take a step forward but could not. The rushing air was simply too strong. He was about to crouch low to the ground until the wind died down but a voice stopped him. A voice close enough to be heard clearly through the wind, and yet nobody was there near him.

  “Beloved of Mithras, aid me!”

  He was certain that was what he heard but there was nothing further. He tried to shout in response but heard nothing of his own yells. The voice had been deep and melodious and grave. The exhortation, a command. And he felt as though he should obey.

  But how?

  A hand on his shoulder prompted him to turn rapidly and it was Accus and the sun was shining and there was stillness.

  “…what are you doing?” Accus’s voice, concerned and a little agitated.

  Melvekior was confused, the feeling one gets when awoken from a deep sleep all of a sudden and he struggled to concentrate on the face of his companion.

  “…standing there like you’d been struck by a palsy.”

  Melvekior turned to face him and squinted, his mind almost back in the present.

  “Did you not feel that wind, Accus? As though from the bowels of the earth and the dust. My armor,” he looked down and his armor was no dirtier than when he opened the door. It wasn’t as clean as he would like, but neither had it gathered a lot of dirt.

  “There was no wind, man. What d
id you experience? Describe it to me.”

  He had to concentrate to get his words out, “It was blackness all around, Accus, and the wind, the wind.” He gathered his breath. “There was a voice that called out to me, seeking my aid.”

  “I didn’t hear a voice, but I didn’t experience the wind or blackness either. Describe the voice.”

  “I’m not going to describe every single thing. Someone in there needs me and I intend to find out who.” He started to walk through the door, but Accus tried to pull him back by holding onto his right pauldron. Melvekior shrugged him off. “Accus, dammit! It called me as Beloved of Mithras. I cannot ignore that call.”

  “This isn’t what I expected, Melvekior, but nothing with you is.” He bent down to pick up the torches they had bought from the obnoxious miner and hurriedly followed his young friend, the knight and follower of Mithras, the Lion of Light.

  Sjarcu arrived in Amaranth and was determined to find a cheap and nasty inn in which to recuperate and lay low while he made plans. The Thirsty Mermaid seemed ideal for his purposes. He located it without having to make any inquiries. Finding the poor quarter of any town is simple; merely follow a beggar once you’ve given him a silver piece.

  The fellow he had chosen couldn’t believe his luck and after an appropriate amount of bowing and scraping, took to his heels and ran. Presumably to the most inexpensive dive to drink himself stupid. And so he did. Followed closely by a not even very subtle Tavra assassin.

  With his hood pulled down over his forehead he entered the tavern, sneaking a peak at the bawdy signage as he did so. That particular mermaid was thirsty for something other than ale by the looks of it. The inside of the low rent establishment was precisely as he thought it would be. Dark, smelly and inhabited by the worst sorts of people. He relaxed slightly as nobody would be interested in anything but his money and his disguise was such that it was plain he had none. He’d covered his immaculately kept leather tunic with a torn and muddied robe and wore, over that, a voluminous hooded cloak. He looked nothing much more than a tramp who slept rough and ate infrequently. Nobody would pay him any mind for none were as invisible as the pointless and useless.

  He hobbled, shuffled even, over to the bar which was merely a table on which stood several wooden tankards of ale poured out ready. An old woman, toothless and hairy, sprawled in a chair behind the table, her vast belly pushing through the shift she wore. Her hair was long and stringy and she barely looked at tramp-Sjarcu when she said, “What?” Her eyes flickering briefly over to the cudgel which was propped against the table on the far side.

  “Some feller givin’ out silver in the square. I want me a room for as long as it’ll larst.’ His accent perfect, including glottal stops and rheumy coughs. She perked up then, similarly to the way he’d seen her pay attention to the hapless indigent to whom he’d given the original sibbit. He’d obviously paid in silver as well and had to explain where he’d got it.

  “Spose it’s as good as earned. Back room, three days.” She muttered at him as though she was addressing a particularly difficult to excise wart. He was being robbed but three days was enough for his needs.

  “Mercy if I could have food an’ ale,” he bobbed his head up and down like a simpleton.

  “That too. Take it! Stew’s in the corner.” She pointed to a large cauldron suspended over a fire beneath an embedded chimney. By the black! Why did he have to ask for food, now he would have to eat it and it was doubtless putrid. There wasn’t a hope he would be recognized in here, the disguise didn’t have to be perfect. Barely passable would do.

  He dragged himself over to the pot of stew, scooping up a wooden tankard as he went. Collecting some of the vile slop, he made a show of rapidly ingesting it while spilling a great deal on the floor. He then nervously pilfered another ale before slinking up the stairs like a beaten dog. The fat woman watched him go up with a look of distaste upon her giant, boil-ridden face

  The back room was as awful as the taproom, a small fifteen by ten affair with nothing but a dirty bedroll to its name. The walls were covered with black mold and the smell of damp was overpowering. Luckily he was adept at blocking out sensory distractions. There were fleas on the bedroll and what appeared to be dried feces smeared over it. Sjarcu rolled it up, carefully avoiding touching anything too unsavory, and flung it out of the window opening. There was no window, merely a hole in the wall. The next building being less than four feet away, the bedding got stuck before it hit the ground, but he was unconcerned.

  He stamped down on a couple of spiders that scurried for safety once the bedroll had been moved and settled himself down into a cross-legged position on the floor.

  Soon he had entered Kehan, letting his subconscious mind mull over the information at hand, free from opinions and biases, to determine the best course for the future. Plotting countless thousands of options and paths, to arrive at the best strategy possible with the current data available. The trance could take minutes, it could take hours or even days. Sjarcu didn’t worry about that, but in his experience, this problem would take mere hours and he felt confident he would have that much uninterrupted time. During the trance his physical body would be perfectly still, his heartbeat slowed and breathing almost non-existent. It was wise though to not disturb a person in the depths of Kehan. Not only were their thoughts at maximum efficiency, their physical abilities were also; for the slightest period after awakening. Long enough to slit a throat or gouge eyes at lightning speed.

  The putrid smell of human waste, rat droppings, fungal spores and unwashed bodies; all went unnoticed. The slow descent of the Sun, was similarly invisible to Sjarcu.

  It was almost twenty hours after he had first entered the back room that his eyes flicked open. Sooner than expected. The calculations of his instinctive mind unfinished.

  Aur! At levels he had never experienced. How?

  It sat there at the periphery of his senses, like the beacon of a Seawarden tower. Shining and inviting.

  He shot up. Something was wrong, but gloriously wrong. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. He burst through the door, starting to run. He leapt over the balcony and through the door leading outside. So fast was he that the Thirsty Mermaid’s patrons didn’t see much more than a gray blur as he shucked his now superfluous disguise.

  He started to pick up speed. He estimated maybe half a mile; at this speed, less than a minute.

  Heading towards the mine, the Tavra’s grin was as wide as his blades were sharp.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Unexpected

  “Revenge. It stinks of false pride. It is the tool of the wicked, and bends the weak to their will.” - Hestallr.

  It was pitch black ahead and the doorway twenty feet behind afforded little light All Melvekior could heard were the sounds of swearing and the occasional ‘chink’ sound as Accus tried to light one of the torches. “To the Nethers with this,” he bellowed aggressively. A strange humming noise then could be heard and then Accus again, “From the depths of Ordia’s domain, I reach out and bring you light.” The final word was almost shouted and Melvekior guessed that something was supposed to have happened.

  “Let’s not waste any more time. Can you light those torches or not?”

  “Something is wrong here, Melvekior. I believe magic to be dampened in this tunnel. I thought I would try to light this in the normal way, but then I tried a minor conjuring of light and it did not work. Let us go back outside, momentarily.”

  Outside the tunnel, Accus was proved correct, his chanting declaration brought forth light and the torch was lit with a strange, smokeless flame. “This possibly explains the rather weak protective measures by Critus. This is becoming less fun by the moment.”

  Melvekior ignored this. “Stay close, I’ll need that light to see where I’m going. And to protect us against any more phantoms.” He let out a scoffing sort of sound.

  The tunnel itself was wide enough only for a single person to walk comfortably, Accus needed to walk
behind and stayed close he did. The tunnel itself wasn’t at all natural but no signs of passage were evident. After some time he did relax. While he was virtually defenseless, what would there be to threaten them? This door had not been opened for centuries so nothing living could present a danger and nothing dead could live in an anti-magic field. Periodically he reached out with his Gravesight but there was nothing.

  Melvekior was similarly uncomfortable, but for different reasons. He felt out of control and a latent claustrophobia was manifesting itself. He’d been underground before but in well lit dungeons or wine cellars, not hidden tunnels leading to Mithras knows what. Should the light fail, Accus fall or any other number of calamities over which he had no control occur, he would be lost. Darkness was no man’s friend, save an assassin and magic was ridiculous and evidently untrustworthy. He could rely on nothing but his own physical abilities, none of which allowed him to see in the dark.

  Swallowing his rising panic, he surged forward, eager to find this Neral and be free of the confines of both this quest and Calra Alpre, Sunar and Critus, damnable curs they were. Royal in name maybe, they had no nobility between the three of them. That they were siblings did not surprise him.

  After a period of time, an hour, maybe two, of trudging through darkness, Accus called out softly. “Melvekior, wait, can you feel that?”

  The young Earl stopped and tried to feel anything different. The surrounding air felt temperate, neither hot nor cold and there was nothing else to experience.