Night Born

by K L Reinhart

  “And then what, Novitiate?” the Chief Arcanum prompted in hushed tones. “You said something about a statue . . .”

  Big Mendes was quiet for a moment longer, and then his brow descended thunderously over his small eyes.

  “It was the null. You say he doesn’t have any magic, sir, but please, you must forgive me when I say that the elf has something!” Mendes’s face raised, his eyes dark and sparkling with fury.

  “The statue I described—like a dog but with tentacles and too many eyes. It started to twitch and shake to life as soon as that elf took the scroll. Terak woke it up somehow. Or knows some elf-trick that we don’t.” The big man let out a hiss. “It just wasn’t natural, sir.”

  “No. I am sure that it wasn’t at all.” The Chief Arcanum unhooked his fingers from where they had been steepled and drew a long breath. “And after that, you managed to escape, and you encountered the group of fathers on the path?”

  Big Mendes nodded. “I did, sir. But I didn’t recognize any of them. The one in the lead said he was Father Jacques, and I told him just what I told you. He sent me back, with another father escorting me.”

  “I see.” The Chief Arcanum slowly stood and hunted along one of the corners of his shelves for a book. When he spoke again, gone were the comforting and sympathetic tones of the understanding chief. Now, he sounded just as he always had in the lesson halls—austere and authoritative.

  “There is nothing natural about a null, Novitiate Mendes. And nothing good or natural will come from one. You see that, don’t you?”

  “I do, sir.” Mendes said.

  “Do you?” The Chief Arcanum half-turned, fixing him with a single eye.

  “I do, sir!” Mendes hissed with passion this time.

  A very small smile played at the corner of the Chief Arcanum’s mouth, “Good. Then I have something to show you . . .” He pulled a slim volume halfway from the corner of the bookcase. To Mendes’s surprise, half the wall—shelves and books and all—started to grind backward.

  On the far side was another, even more private inner sanctum of the Chief Arcanum. One that glowed with an eldritch blue-white glow.

  Mendes’s mouth dropped at what he saw.

  It wasn’t a large room, but it was nonetheless impressive. Inside, two tall, thin poles of white stone stood. At their very top rough-cut crystals glowed, one emanating a blue radiance and the other, white.

  “This is ochullax in its rawest form,” the Chief Arcanum said proudly. “As the Chief Arcanum, I must study all of the Enclave’s most sensitive secrets.”

  The rest of the room held display cabinets, tall thick wooden boxes with panels of wavy glass. Mendes caught glimpses of what was inside—gold amulets, crowns, and jewelry, even a small leather-bound book wrapped in chains, and many more things besides.

  But what drew the novitiate’s eye more than anything else was something that was not locked away inside any cabinet but sat on a stone plinth at the back.

  It appeared to be a set of arm gauntlets made of plates of a strange blue-white metal. They were fingerless, ending in knuckle studs, their segmented sections much longer than normal gauntleted gloves. In between them rested a fat-bladed shortsword similarly made of the blue-white metal and inscribed with swirling lines and half-circles.

  The blade gave off a soft radiance all its own—not blue or white, but the faintest red.

  “Ah, I see you are drawn to the armaments of the Red Warriors,” the Chief Arcanum said in a pleased tone. “I knew that you would be. The Red Warriors were elvish fighters, once upon a time—skilled in the art of bloodletting. Indeed, every item that you see here is of my personal collection from the Reign of the Elves and the old sorcerer-kings.” The chief lightly ran a finger over the edges of the nearest case before turning back to the gauntlets of the Red Warriors.

  “The cuts of the blade can never be healed, and the gauntlets themselves give strength unmatched by any normal fighter. The Red Warriors specialized in vengeance, Novitiate,” the Chief Arcanum said encouragingly. “In delivering justice . . .and revenge.”

  Big Mendes gazed at the glowing blade. He had never dreamed that such magical treasures existed right here, so close to where he studied every day. He shook his head sadly at all the things he would not be able to share with his friend Torin anymore.

  “You are still untrained in the arts of using your magic,” the Chief Arcanum mused. “But were you to wear these gauntlets of the Red Warriors—and use the blade of the Red Warriors—you could put an end to the unnatural abominations of this world.”

  The Chief Arcanum didn’t say who he was referring to, of course. The oldest chief of the Enclave was far too cunning for that. But he didn’t have to say his intentions clearly. Big Mendes said them for him.

  “The null,” Mendes growled, his face twisting with fury. “The worm.”

  The Chief Arcanum turned to one of the cabinets beside him, touching the delicate metal lock with a forefinger and muttering a word. The lock clicked and the door opened. He reached inside and drew out what appeared to be a teardrop of blue-white steel, inscribed with swirling patterns and geometric figures, all branching toward and away from a milky-white orb of ochullax.

  “This is something called a way-finder, and it was used by the heralds of the sorcerer-kings themselves, designed to hunt for more pieces of ochullax,” the arcanum said, holding it up between them. The milky-white orb glowed with an intense inner brightness.

  Mendes looked at the thing with heavy brows, his heart still twisted with hatred and dreams of blood.

  “It will glow brightly around ochullax as it is now, and dimly at all times, as all things have magic—you see?” The arcanum presented the palm-shaped charm to the novitiate and looked at him expectantly.

  Mendes’s large face only tumbled into confusion at this new gift.

  The Chief Arcanum sighed a little. “Of course, were it to be pointed to one without any natural magic—who is anti-magical—then it will look like a dull, lifeless orb of rock,” the arcanum said.

  And suddenly Mendes understood, and his heavy-browed confusion lifted, to be replaced with a wicked grin.

  16

  Learn Quick

  Terak woke up the next day to a strange feeling. He felt . . .safe.

  “Which is insane,” he murmured to himself, considering what he had heard the Chief External say last night about the gates and the nightmare realm of Ungol.

  Nevertheless, the young elf felt different. The aches and pains of his desperate adventure at the shrine were still there, but greatly diminished. There was also something small, warm, and furry nestled into the crook of his neck.

  “Frebius,” the elf greeted the small creature.

  “Ratachook!” it squeaked, before nipping him lightly on the tip of his long ear.

  “Ow! Hey.” Terak moved, dislodging the green-eyed rodent from its nest, for it to leap and scamper around his bed.

  His bed, the elf realized. Although nothing in here was technically his—everything belonged to the Enclave of the Tartaruk Mountains, after all—but somehow, Father Jacques had already managed to make him feel at home in a way that he had never felt in the rest of the Black Keep below.

  Well, apart from the First Moon Garden, perhaps. Now that he was free to come and go, he realized that he might have more freedom to go to that secluded spot as well.

  His expectations of freedom were short-lived, however, as there was a sudden knocking on the wood of his door.

  “Novitiate? You are awake?” It was Father Jacques. Before Terak could voice a reply, the door opened, and there was the father himself, carrying a bundle of clothes and other things.

  “Good, I see that you’re already awake.” The father dumped the bundle onto his bed, to an irritated squeak from Frebius as the thing rustled and dislodged itself from under the heavy materials. Terak saw a black robe, a pair of sturdy trews, a fat-leather belt with many hoops and buckles, and an under-tunic of light tanned cream. Last ca
me a set of brown leather gloves.

  “You still have the dagger I gave you?” Jacques asked brightly, moving to where the high, thin window let in a column of daylight. He snagged the lever to open the window, and the temperature dropped as the high and sharp breezes of the mountains washed into the room.

  “Ratachook!” complained Frebius.

  The dagger? Terak thought of the blade that he had used to fight beastials and underground serpents . . .and Torin. “No.”

  The Tartaruk air seemed to become even chillier as the gusts whistled around the room, carrying with them the high keen of the mountain vultures.

  The chief’s dagger is still embedded in Torin’s chest in that accursed place, isn’t it? Terak remembered.

  “I see. Never mind.” The father coughed, as if forgetting himself. “I will make sure that you are equipped before you go.”

  “Go? Where to?” Terak blinked. I thought you said this was my new home?

  “Seeing as you are one of the Enclave-External now, Novitiate—and considering how your body heals at an unprecedented rate—I see no reason to halt your training. You are to begin your first mission for the Enclave-External!” Jacques said in a proud voice.

  “I thought the Loranthian Shrine was my first mission . . .” Terak mumbled, before he remembered that he was still, in fact, talking to one of the chiefs of the Enclave.

  “That was your testing, Novitiate,” the Chief External said with a hint of gravity to his voice. “We do things a little differently here in the Enclave-External. You aren’t destined for a life behind the black walls, studying or guarding. What we do is active, and out there,” Jacques nodded out of the window. “You’ll be expected to learn quickly as you go.” The chief lifted his own disfigured, three-fingered hand. “And consider yourself lucky, Novitiate, that you do not have the Chief External I had at your age!”

  Terak blinked. But for all the menace of the situation, he felt excited at the same time.

  “Now, down the stairs to the washrooms and get yourself ready before the day completely escapes us!” The chief clapped his hands together in a sharp snap.

  There was indeed a set of washrooms down the stairs in the corner of Terak’s hall, although they appeared ancient and unused. Great ironwork pipes and handpumps sputtered and gurgled as he filled up the small bathing area with hot water warmed by some hidden fire. After he was clean and garbed in clothes that were, if anything, a little too short, Terak emerged from the washroom to see that the stairs continued down, and that there was a grim-faced woman waiting for him.

  “Uh, hello?” Terak said.

  The woman was dressed similarly to Terak—tan trews and tunic with black robes belted over the ensemble. She was blond, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she nodded once at the elf.

  “Father Ella,” she said, but did not offer her hand. She was one of the few female “fathers” of the Enclave, and she appeared to have been waiting for him because she presented Terak with a carry-pack and two small scabbards containing curving knives.

  “Father Jacques sent you?” Terak frowned.

  “The chief sent me,” Ella scowled, pulling the hood up over her head and gesturing for Terak to do the same. “We try not to use any personal names, just chief, father, journeyer, novitiate, and so on. That way we can move unnoticed through the Black Keep.” She nodded down the stairs. “Follow me. Don’t speak, and keep your face covered.”

  But why did the Enclave-External need to be secret? Terak wondered as he followed the woman down the winding steps for what felt like an eternity. Eventually, however, Terak heard clanging and clashing from below, and the smell of fresh-baked bread filled his nostrils. The kitchens!

  The stairs ended in a wooden wall that completely blocked their path. Father Ella moved to the door, setting her eye to one of the knotholes in the panels, and waited. After a few moments, she tapped on the wood. A clicking, thumping sound of some mechanism working followed.

  Then the wooden panel slid outward, revealing a circle of candlelight and one of the keep’s kitchen staff—another human woman, although younger than Father Ella. The kitchen woman nodded once, briefly, to Ella before stepping aside. The pair stepped quickly into one of the many storerooms for the kitchen. It was dark, save for the light of the servant’s candle, and cool.

  “This way.” Ella led Terak down the line of ancient wooden shelves loaded with the sacks and barrels of foodstuffs that kept the inhabitants of the Black Keep fed. On the way, she helped herself to blocks of cheese and rolls of bread. She filled small pouches with handfuls of the dried berries and seeds that the Enclave servants harvested constantly. Ella handed half of her takings to Terak, gesturing to him to put them in his pack.

  At the end of the storeroom, a large set of stairs led up to the source of the noise—one of the main halls of the kitchen. Ella put her hood down before climbing them. Terak did the same.

  The stairs ascended to a wide landing that led off to kitchen halls on either side, as well as forward down a wide hall to a set of black mahogany doors, open to the bright sunny morning. An aging man—a father with the more archaic shaved head of the older fathers—sat on a stool, a staff resting across his lap.

  “The kitchen doors have to remain open most of the day for deliveries,” Ella mumbled. She strode down the hallway confidently as servants emerged around her, carrying pots, pans, or trays of covered food. Terak saw everyone ignore her, and in fact, ignore him.

  Just another black-garbed member of the Enclave. He kept his head down and hurried to catch up with his guide.

  “Doorkeeper,” he heard Ella murmur, and Terak observed the old, wizened man smile briefly and nod, in that same knowing way that the servant had.

  The Enclave-External are completely interwoven through the rest of the Enclave! Terak realized. He wondered how many times he himself had failed to spot one of those knowing nods as they did their silent work around him.

  But now, the pair exited the Black Keep on what Terak saw was its eastern side, almost the exact opposite side as the weir gate he had left through before.

  Terak and Ella were immediately buffeted by the constant breezes that came up the Cliffs of Mourn in front of the Black Keep. They stood on a wide, stony path that ran along the top of the cliffs. Only a low retaining wall marked the edge.

  “Hurry. Everything the Enclave-External does is urgent,” Ella stated as she doubled her pace without apparently moving any quicker. Terak realized that she was loping—lengthening her strides but not her pace—and he copied her.

  17

  The Chase Begins

  “Are you ready to begin?” the Chief Arcanum whispered into the incense-laden air of his study hall. The room was wide and littered with benches and equipment, but his voice carried easily to the only person there to receive it.

  “Yes, sir.” The large, hulking form of Big Mendes turned from where he had been standing, running through his mental exercises the chief had made him practice since he’d been brought here.

  The chief appraised the novitiate with a critical eye. He was big and strong—good—but he was still very untrained—bad. He’s not as quick a thinker as that other boy had been . . . What was his name? The arcanum searched his memory. Ah, yes. Torin. The arcanum had high hopes for that one. Capable and bright enough—and loyal to his core. He would have made the perfect agent of the arcanum.

  Because the arcanum had a lot of plans that he wanted to achieve. One didn’t get to be someone in his position without them.

  But this “Mendes” would have to do. The arcanum sighed inwardly. At least he had a natural reason to hate the null. That was a passion that a chief like the arcanum could, and would, use to its full potential.

  Something that most people aren’t even aware of, the arcanum congratulated himself as he held Mendes’s dark, fierce stare. It is quite often not your magic or your skill with weapons that will bend others to your will.

  It was knowing how to call on their own b
ehaviors. The arcanum knew that he could well have cast a glamor on the young man, or even lay a full spiritual command upon him, but such magics were always taxing and never resulted in the creative, dedicated loyalty to the cause that his preferred method did.

  That’s half of what magic is, after all, the arcanum thought. Learning to identify what made other people work, inside their own minds, and how to utilize, disrupt, or enhance it.

  “Let us begin.” The arcanum moved from the podium, carrying with him the tray that bore the gauntlets and the blade of the Red Warriors. The old man moved with solemnity until he was standing before Mendes, whose breath had quickened.

  “First, the gauntlets.” The arcanum nodded and watched as Mendes licked his lips, eagerly taking one gauntlet and then the other. Each one allowed the wearer to slip their hand inside the plated glove, and then secure the straps at the wrist. After the first one was in place, the arcanum already felt the wash of power radiate from the young man.

  “You can feel them?” he whispered.

  Mendes paused before he slipped on the next gauntlet.

  “I . . . I can, sir . . . I mean, Chief!” Mendes was grinning wider than he had ever grinned before as he stretched out his two fists.

  I am sure you can. The arcanum smiled enthusiastically. He hadn’t told Mendes that the elvish Red Warriors also had a very short term of service in the old Reign of the Elves. The post was usually taken by the mourning or grieving, because the enchantments of their gauntlets and daggers gave them vast strength and speed, but also ate away at their life. The Red Warriors were expected to die in battle, and it was considered a great honor to don the red.