Cursed

by Keri Arthur

  It wasn't the blade that was glowing. It was the runes that ran along its length.

  “It seems the King’s Sword isn’t the only magically imbued item within Divona,” Donal said. “And this one is obviously designed to sense what we cannot see.”

  “It appears so. Unfortunately, my mother died not long after she gave it to me, so I don't really know much about its use.”

  “That seems to be a developing theme, and one that may yet cost us all dearly.”

  My gaze shot to his. “I hope you don't hold me—”

  “No.” He clasped my arm, his grip warm and reassuring. “I only wish the wind had brought me to your doorstep sooner.”

  “I'm glad she didn't.” I raised the blade and walked on. Red began flickering through the golden glow of the runes. “Because then you would have been nothing more than just another who'd taken his ease with me, and I would have been forced to add you to the hate list.”

  “You can rest assured I will never be just another, Princess.”

  “Not to blow your own horn or anything,” I murmured, amused.

  “I wasn't talking about my skills as a lover, profound as they might be.”

  “Then what were you talking about?” I hesitated, and then grimaced. “Oh yeah, I forgot—all you want from me is freedom for your people.”

  “Perhaps.” He motioned to the knife. “How about you concentrate on that rather than something that may or may not eventuate.”

  “Perhaps? You can't say something like that and then not expect to explain what the hell you mean.”

  “I can when expectations are nothing more than desires best-kept secret.”

  My lips twitched. “So does that mean you do desire me, despite previous statements to the contrary?”

  “Concentrate, Princess. Now is not the time for such discussions.”

  “A simple yes or no is all that’s required.”

  “You really are annoying sometimes, you know that?”

  My amusement grew. “It's one of my many unheralded traits. And something you, highlander, have yourself perfected.”

  “Barrier. Knife. Concentrate.”

  I chuckled softly but nevertheless returned my attention to the glowing knife. With every step closer to the barrier we couldn’t see, the red fire grew, until it all but smothered the gold. I stopped again and studied the air just beyond the blade’s point. If the fire flickering down the blade was anything to go by, the barrier was now within touching distance.

  I took another step and pressed the knife forward. My arm wasn’t quite straight when the blade was stopped and the faintest shimmer appeared at its point. I pressed harder, trying to force the knife’s magic through the other. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then the runes pulsed and the red flames gained life, crawling from the blade onto the surface of the unseen barrier.

  Their touch was like acid to the opposing magic—it quickly peeled away from them, creating a hole through which the rest of the pathway and the mountain beyond were visible.

  Revealing the fact that this barrier wasn’t just magical—it was a lie.

  The old crater wasn't empty.

  It was filled to the cone’s rim with buildings.

  Big, rusty, metal and stone buildings.

  “What the fuck?” Donal peered through the red-ringed gap. “Why would anyone in their ever-loving mind want to live in the crater of an old volcano, let alone build a city so fucking huge?”

  “If they can create a barrier that hides their presence so successfully, then maybe they've found some way of controlling the volcano's eruptions. Or maybe they simply don't care.” I paused. “Presuming, of course, that this city belongs to the bipeds and not someone else.”

  “Yes.” His voice was grim. “Are you able to widen that gap enough for us to crawl through?”

  “Possibly.”

  I swept the knife up and around; a glowing trail of red followed the movement and formed an arched doorway. But the minute I pulled the knife away, it disappeared.

  I cursed, repeated the process, and then glanced at Donal. “You go through first. I’ll follow.”

  He unlatched the pulse rifle and then crawled through. I followed him, making sure the knife remained in contact with the barrier even though it required a little sideways shuffle. I had no idea what would happen if the magic reasserted itself when I was partway through, and no intention of finding out. At the very least, it might set off an alarm, and that was something we could ill afford given how far away we were from either the air or earth’s help. We certainly weren’t carrying enough ammo to take care of a city filled with armored bipeds.

  Once through the barrier, I pulled the knife away and the gap immediately closed. I followed Donal across to the edge; the farther I moved from the barrier, the less intent the knife’s red glow became. But the runes still shed golden light, which suggested it was still reacting to some sort of magic, be it the barrier or something else. I sheathed the knife to contain the glow and was oddly comforted by its warmth against my thigh. If magic in another form approached, I rather suspected it would burn brighter, and that, in turn, would give us time to react.

  Or, at the very least, run.

  I dropped and crawled the last few feet until I reached Donal. The stone and metal buildings were perched precariously on the crater's sides, their varied shapes and sizes seemingly dependent on the section of rock to which they clung. There were a series of bridges and stairs linking the various buildings on the same level, and at least twenty levels all told. These were accessed via a platform that zigzagged from the crater’s rim down to its base. Interspersed along its length were silver poles topped by a flickering, yellow-green flame. They threw a very muted light across both the platform and the nearby buildings, but if this were the home of the armored bipeds, they wouldn’t have needed much more.

  Then I spotted them. They were stationed on every level, and all of them were carrying the long, sword-like weapon that had almost sliced me in two. They were obviously guards, but against what? Did other beings live within this dead zone? One whose culture either threatened or were at war with this lot? Or were they simply a precautionary measure, in much the same way as Cannamore's army was?

  They weren’t the only bipeds here, however, and these others were, in fact, more plentiful. They were long and pale, with limbs that were oddly stick-like and faces that weren't as angular as their armored kin. Those who were obviously male had bony plates of red on their heads while the females had red scales that ran down their spines and covered their rears.

  A good portion of these were leaving their houses and heading down the walkway. The base of the old volcano was strangely flat and would have been little more than a black hole had it not been for the flickering, amber-green lights. The entire area was packed with both kinds of bipeds, but many also lined the walkway immediately above. In the center of the lit area was a raised dais on which two figures stood. The first was the drummer—an armored biped who, even from this distance, looked huge. The other was not only taller but one of the bipeds without armor. His head plate wasn’t red, however, but the same brilliant color as the lights. He was holding a silver staff topped with a black stone and wore a chunky white necklace—which suggested he was a figure of importance given none of the others appeared to be wearing any sort of jewelry.

  “We've obviously caught them in the midst of some sort of meeting,” I whispered.

  “Which conveniently provides us with the perfect opportunity to do a little investigating.”

  “I'm not entirely sure that's wise, Donal.” I skimmed my gaze across the crater again. While most of those visible on the upper levels seemed to be watching what was happening below, it didn’t exclude the possibility of others who weren’t so entranced. “There's far too many of them and only two of us. If we get caught—”

  “We'll be in a shitload of trouble,” he cut in. “I'm well aware of that. But we need to know if the bipeds are responsible for the tunn
el we discovered, or if that’s someone—something—else. If there isn’t a tunnel entrance here, then we really have no choice but to go back out and try to find it.”

  The last thing I wanted was to go underground—and not just because I still wouldn’t be able to access my element. I simply had a bad, bad feeling we would never see daylight again if we did.

  Which might just be fear rather than intuition, but I still wasn't about to ignore it. Not unless there was absolutely no other choice.

  The drum’s steady beat was getting louder, echoing off the cone’s walls. The pale biped raised his silver staff and made a sound that weirdly reminded me of the guttural noises produced by groaners. That we even heard it above the resonating drum suggested there something enhancing his voice even if there was nothing evident.

  Yellowish-gray light shot from the black stone on top of his staff, a bright beam that arrowed past us and then flared out across the barrier, making the invisible visible. It was only then that I realized neither the stars nor the moon could be seen. The barrier not only kept prying eyes out but also any glimpse of the night sky. Given the muted lights that ringed the crater, maybe the moon was simply too bright for them.

  A chant rose, softly at first but gathering in strength with each beat of the drum. No one appeared to be looking at the ever-spreading blanket of yellow light; instead, they seemed entranced by the two on the dais.

  “If these creatures are responsible for the tunneling,” I said softly, “the entrance will surely be underneath us given this is the point where the deadness would meet the mountain.”

  “There's only one way to find that out.”

  Donal pushed forward until a good portion of his body was hanging over emptiness. The edge started to crumble under his weight, so I shifted position, braced my feet against a rock, and then grabbed his legs.

  “Thanks, Princess.” He twisted left and right for several seconds and then added, “There's no obvious tunnel entrance that I can spot, but there's a large rock shelf directly below us. I can’t see what might lie below it.”

  “Are there any buildings on our side of the cone?”

  “None at all. Maybe it's too fragile.”

  Given how well anchored the other buildings appeared to be, I had no doubt they would have found a way around the fragility if they needed to. That they hadn't suggested they had other reasons for not using this side.

  “Is there any sort of path that leads either down to that outcrop or further around the crater itself?”

  “There's a track to our left, though it doesn't look very wide. If we can follow that around, though, we should get a better view of the entire crater.”

  “Let's try that, then.”

  I helped him get back onto more solid ground and then rose and went left. The path began at the point where the lava breach ended and the volcano wall rose sharply upward again. It was little more than a goat track and looked even more fragile than the one we’d followed up to the breach point.

  I swung my feet over the ledge and then, after a calming breath, dropped down. Black dust plumed around my boots and small stones skittered toward the edge.

  I took a step and then froze as a crack appeared. When nothing else happened, I risked another step. The ground shifted slightly and the trickle of stones moving toward the edge increased.

  “I don't think this ledge will support your weight, Donal. It's barely supporting mine.”

  “Give me your pack. That thing won't be helping.”

  I carefully tugged off the backpack, handed it up to him, and then took another step.

  The result was the same—more cracks, and more stones sliding toward the edge.

  “Hang on.” Donal swung off his pack, dug out a rope, and tossed one end to me. “Tie that around your waist. At least that way I won't lose you if the ground does give way.”

  I quickly tied it on and then double-checked the knot to make sure it wouldn’t come undone at an inopportune moment. Donal wrapped the other end around his body and then braced his feet against the volcano’s wall. Once settled, he gave me a nod. I continued on, keeping as close to the wall as I could and pausing between each step so that the flow of dirt and stone toward the path’s edge didn’t become too noticeable.

  The chanting grew louder; the bipeds who lined the walkway were joining in. The beam of light coming from the pale biped’s staff was now pulsing and, overhead, a foot-wide hole had appeared in the dome of the magic that protected this place—something that was evident only because I could see pale stars shining in the black sky.

  I continued to follow the path’s gentle curve. Light from the yellow beam washed across the area directly ahead, and I didn’t need the knife’s increasing heat to warn me not to step into it. Even from where I stood I could feel not only the power of that beam but its foulness.

  A few more steps took me to the end of the rope’s length, but I was far enough around now to see the area under the stone shelf that had blocked Donal’s view.

  Though there were a lot of vertical fissures splitting the volcano’s wall under the shelf, there was nothing wide enough to suggest it might be a tunnel of any kind. But at the volcano’s shadowed base, close to where the crater’s wall would have met the floor, a thin stream of molten yellow was visible—one that matched the stream we’d spotted at the base of the shaft lit by sparks. The thin stream dropped into a pool that slowly bubbled—a pool that didn’t appear to increase in size despite that molten flow.

  That pool was lava. It had to be.

  But where was it coming from? It surely couldn’t be an indication that the old volcano was active, because the flow was coming into the volcano, and that suggested an outside source.

  Unfortunately, the diffused lighting lining the rest of the crater wasn’t enough to provide even the smallest hint of what the shadows above the pool hid.

  Those shadows deepened as the yellow beam of light went out. Both the heavy drum and the chanting stopped, and the ensuing silence was filled with anticipation. Chills slithered down my spine, and all I wanted to do was run. But that was the instinct of someone who’d spent nearly half their life protecting themselves, and one I couldn’t afford right now.

  Moonlight poured in through the ten-foot-wide hole the yellow beam had created in the protective barrier. It didn’t diffuse as it should have, but was instead funneled directly down the middle of the crater. It hit the table on the dais, and spider-like veins of silver appeared in the black stone. They moved swiftly toward the edges, until the whole stone shone so brightly it was almost impossible to look at it.

  The pale biped pointed his staff to the right. A door at the far end of the lit area opened and a pale female walked out.

  A murmur rose from the waiting crowd—another wave of anticipation that was quickly silenced.

  As the female moved up the steps, the biped mage thumped his staff three times on the dais. A bell-like sound rang out and the lights ringing the entire area flared brighter. They not only cast away the deeper darkness concealing the area around the southern edge of the volcano but also revealed what lay beyond—a cavernous, V-shaped cut in the crater’s crumbling wall. It was in the right area to line up with the strip of deadness that had led us to this place and all but confirmed these bipeds were behind the tunneling.

  I pressed back against the wall again and carefully edged back along the path. On the dais below, the female had walked to the shining table and stopped opposite the others. The mage lifted his staff again and the chanting resumed; this time it was a husky but haunting sound, and it sent another shiver down my spine. The steady thumping of the drum sounded like a heartbeat and maybe it was, because moonlight pulsed in time with it. With each heavy thump, the luminosity increased, until the beam of moonlight was all but solid. This time it flooded the old volcano and filled it with a surreal glow that made the black stone buildings gleam.

  The bipeds made no move to protect their eyes, but none of them appeared to be looking at
the moonbeam column, but rather what was happening on the dais below.

  The chanting grew louder, the moonlight fiercer, its brightness washing across the path. It would only take one of the armored bipeds to look up and they’d see me as clear as day.

  I hastened my pace, not wanting to remain on this crumbling pathway any longer than necessary. But the cracks were becoming wider and the flow of stones over the edge stronger. Sooner or later, someone was going to notice them. I had to reach the breach point before that happened.

  Again the chanting stopped. Again the silence was eerie.

  I glanced down. The mage lowered his staff and touched its black stone first to female’s right shoulder, and then her left, uttering guttural sounds I presumed were either some sort of blessing or spell, but really could have been anything.

  When he raised his staff, the female rose. The drumming immediately resumed; the female was rotated and then placed facedown on the silver-veined black table. The moonlight still pulsed in time with the drumbeat and the sense of rising power grew.

  The ceremony was reaching its crescendo. I had a bad feeling I’d better be anywhere but on this ledge when it hit.

  But the increasingly fragile state of the ground made going any faster virtually impossible. Instinct might be warning I’d better get off this ledge, but falling from it would be infinitely worse than whatever might happen when the spell hit its peak.

  As the chanting grew in volume, the male biped gripped his staff with both hands and raised it above his head. His voice also rose, his chanting carrying easily over both the drums and the other voices. He stepped closer to the table; the female didn’t move, didn’t react. Perhaps she was locked into immobility by the pulsing light.

  The thrum of power was so fierce it crawled across my exposed skin, small gnats of energy that bit and stung. I glanced sideways; there were twenty yards, if that, to go, and yet it might as well have been a mile. At least Donal was gathering the slack and keeping the rope as tight as practical. If I did fall, it wouldn’t be very far.