“I fear not,” said Tazemazar. “Unless they possess a greater magic than mine, there is no one in the cavern beyond.”
“Calliande?” said Ridmark.
“The Sight shows me spells,” she murmured in that unfocused, almost dreamy tone that filled her voice when she relied upon the Sight, “old warding spells, brittle and ancient. The dark elves built here long ago, but no one has lived here for centuries, I think.”
“We can risk some light,” said Ridmark. “Antenora.”
Antenora nodded, the sigils upon her staff flaring, and a ball of harsh yellow-orange light burned to life at the end of her staff. She thrust her staff, and the ball of light glided into the air, growing brighter and wider than it did.
It revealed a large cavern about the size of a church, the walls and ceiling of rough-hewn natural rock. The floor had been paved in large square flagstones of the pale white stone Gavin had seen in dark elven ruins. At the far end of the cavern yawned an archway of the same white stone, leading into another tunnel with rough walls and a paved floor.
“The Labyrinth, I assume,” said Caius.
“It seems a waste of effort,” said Antenora. “The labor that went into this maze could have gone into a defensible fortress.”
“But that was the weakness of the dark elves, Lady Antenora,” said Tazemazar, his staff flickering with purple fire. “They adored cruelty, loved it as other kindreds enjoy beauty and art.”
“Is that not true of the manetaurs?” said Antenora. Gavin blinked, wondering if Curzonar and Tazemazar would take offense. “The Red King’s sons kill one another, and then one day the strongest of them kills his father, only in turn to be slain by his own sons. Is that not cruel? I have seen it many, many times upon Old Earth, starting with the first High King and his bastard son.”
Suddenly Gavin understood why it offended Antenora so much. The High King Arthur Pendragon had been betrayed and killed in battle by his bastard son Mordred, and Antenora had been in love with Mordred. His curse of dark magic had given her a twisted form of immortality, forcing her to see the pattern of Arthur and Mordred repeated over and over again across the centuries. Likely she saw it again in Kurdulkar and Turcontar.
To Gavin’s surprise, Curzonar answered her. “It may seem so to you, Lady Antenora, but you are human. Death is less dear to us than it is to humans, for we see that both Hunter and prey share a common fate. We kill, but we are not cruel. The prey is to be slain as quickly as possible, for we could not survive without the prey. And when Hunter fights a Hunter, the killing blow is delivered quickly. To draw out the agony of death is…is not in accord with the nature of a Hunter. That is why Kurdulkar must be opposed and defeated. He would seek to change our nature. He does not respect the prey, and he delights in cruelty.” He shook his head, his mane swishing beneath his red diadem. “Just as the dark elves delighted in cruelty. Kurdulkar would do the same to us, and the dark elves were destroyed by their own lust for torment. That is why he must be stopped. Perhaps you think us monstrous, Lady Antenora, but Kurdulkar would truly make us into devils.”
Antenora said nothing, her yellow eyes glinting in her fiery light, but at last, she inclined her head. “It seems you know your own nature, Prince Curzonar.”
“That was well-spoken, my lord Prince,” said Tazemazar. “You have heeded well the lessons of the arbiters and the example of your father.”
“Mere words,” said Curzonar. “Let us put them to action.”
“Wait for a moment,” said Ridmark. “I want to scout ahead.”
Gavin frowned. “Is that wise?”
“Remember Urd Dagaash?” said Ridmark, taking a few steps forward, tapping the flagstones with the end of his staff.
“Urd Dagaash?” said Antenora.
“A dark elven ruin near where I was born,” said Gavin. “There was a trapped room within it, where blades would erupt from the ground between the flagstones.” He turned a concerned look at the floor, but the flagstones were fitted tightly together with no visible gaps between them. “We barely escaped some spiderlings there. The Gray Knight lured them into the room, and…”
His voice trailed off as he spotted the gleam of metal in the distant cavern wall. There was a niche in the stone, and in the niche he saw interlocking gears of bronze-colored metal, reflecting the light of Antenora’s spell…
Gears, like the traps they had seen in Urd Dagaash.
“Gray Knight!” Gavin shouted, and then a click rang through the cavern as Ridmark took another step.
Suddenly a dozen of the white tiles disappeared, swinging open in hidden trapdoors.
One of them was right beneath Ridmark.
“Ridmark!” shouted Calliande, but the Gray Knight disappeared into the hidden shaft.
###
Ridmark just had time to curse himself as a blind fool, and then he braced himself for the impact on the ground.
At least it would be quick. He had fallen far enough that he would dash himself to bloody pieces against the bottom of the pit.
There was a flash of green light, a burning smell that seemed to seep into his lungs and throat, and then everything went black.
Chapter 17: A Hunter’s Challenge
Ridmark drifted in nothingness for a long time.
“Burn with me.”
For a time he stood in the long hall of gleaming white stone, the old knight frowning on his throne, the sheathed sword laid across his knees. The woman gowned in fire stood before him, her pale skin stark against the flames that clothed her and burned in her eyes, her face blurring and shifting between the features of Aelia Licinius Arban and Calliande and Morigna. She was reaching for him, calling to him again and again. He wanted to reach for her, but a terrible dread held him back.
Did moths feel this way, he wondered, as they danced closer and closer to the candle flame that would consume them?
“You’re right to fight her, boy,” said the old knight in his gruff voice. “She’ll devour you if she can. But you had better hurry up and find her. Else there won’t be anything left to burn.”
The world wavered, and Ridmark found himself standing on the pebble-strewn shore of a vast cold lake, white mist rising from its surface in billowing curtains. The water splashed against the shore in gentle waves, pieces of driftwood banging against the rocks here and there.
Morigna stood next to him, her tattered cloak rippling in the wind.
“For such a clever man,” she said, her black eyes studying him, “you do have a knack for missing the obvious.”
Ridmark stared at her. His mind felt fuzzy and thick, and he struggled to form words.
“You’re dead,” he said.
“Yes,” said Morigna. “Come, now. Did you really think that would shut me up?”
Ridmark shook his head, trying to think.
“Burn with me,” whispered the woman clothed in flame, floating over the surface of the lake, the water starting to boil beneath her.
“As much as it pains me to concede to Calliande in anything,” said Morigna with that familiar mocking smile, “I am dead and therefore no longer have an interest in such matters. You two are suited to each other in a way that even you and I were not…and you certainly need each other in a way that you and I never did.”
“I don’t understand,” said Ridmark. God and the saints, but his head hurt, and he had the sense that something was wrong.
“I know you do not, my love,” said Morigna. “I hope you understand before it is too late.”
“Burn with me,” whispered the woman upon the lake, and the world shifted to become the hall of white stone once more.
“You should listen to that Wilderland girl,” said the old knight on the throne. “She’s got sense. A rare quality in a woman.”
“How very flattering,” said Morigna. “I am shocked to learn that you never married.”
“Duty was my marriage.”
“If that is what you say to comfort yourself, who am I to gainsay it?” said M
origna.
The old knight blinked, and threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“Listen to her, boy,” said the old knight. “Listen to her before it is too late for you.”
“I wish I could tell you more,” said Morigna. “But remember this. The dark elves loved cruelty. The dark elves loved cruelty so much that it destroyed them…and those who would follow in their footsteps suffer from the same malady. Remember.”
Everything dissolved into mist and Ridmark knew no more.
###
His head hurt.
His head hurt a lot.
Bit by bit other pieces of information filtered their way to Ridmark’s mind. His body ached and throbbed, which was strange because the fall should have killed him. He felt something hard holding his arms in place, which didn’t matter because he didn’t have the strength to move them at the moment. The thick, musky scent of manetaur fur filled his nostrils, and he heard the rumbling growl of manetaur voices raised in argument.
For a moment a dream wavered on the edges of his consciousness, a dream of fire and a cold lake and of something else, but it slipped away before he could grasp it.
He heard the manetaur voices again. Had Curzonar and Tazemazar found him? No, they would be speaking Latin in front of Calliande and the others.
Which meant…
Ridmark forced his eyes open.
Two manetaurs in chain mail and plate crouched next to him, holding his arms pinned to the ground. Ridmark looked around and saw that he was in a cavern of rough stone, though a white archway stood in the pale mushroom-lit gloom on the other side of the cavern.
There were dozens of manetaurs in the cavern, all of them holding weapons. Ridmark spotted Ralakahr first. The khalath stood in the midst of a ring of a half-dozen manetaurs, scowling with his arms folded over his chest. Prince Kurdulkar stood in their midst, clad in his ornate red armor, nodding every so often.
Ralakahr saw that Ridmark had awakened and snarled something to Kurdulkar.
“So I see,” said Kurdulkar in Latin. The Prince strolled forward, paws silent against the rocky ground, his golden eyes fixed upon Ridmark. “The Gray Knight himself. Under other circumstances, I might have been pleased to meet you.”
“Why am I still alive?” said Ridmark.
“A clever trap of dvargirish make that did not quite work as I had hoped,” said Kurdulkar. “Show him.”
The two manetaurs holding Ridmark’s arms yanked him to his feet. He stumbled, his head spinning, but caught his balance. The fall should have killed him or left him dying, but instead he only felt as if he had been drugged.
The manetaurs turned him, and Ridmark saw the pool of mist.
A crater occupied the center of the cavern, filled with a swirling green mist. The mist ought to have spilled across the chamber, but something held it bound in place. Looking up, Ridmark saw a shaft amongst the stalactites of the ceiling. He must have fallen through that shaft and into the crater of mist.
“Watch this,” said Kurdulkar, picking up a loose stone from the floor.
He flung the stone over the crater. Ridmark expected the stone to hit the far wall, but instead it came to a sudden stop over the crater, the green mist coiling around it. The stone hovered for a moment, and then drifted towards the floor, almost like a feather.
“Intriguing, is it not?” said Kurdulkar. “The gas is a powerful sleeping agent, though it lasts for but a short time.”
“A clever trick,” said Ridmark, “but why go to the effort?”
“I wondered that myself,” said Kurdulkar, “but I realized the truth in time. The chamber above us was once the exit of the Labyrinth. Sometimes the dark elves permitted their slaves to pass through the Labyrinth unharmed. The slaves ran for freedom through the final chamber only to fall into the trap door and land here in the sleeping gasses.”
“That seems like a waste,” said Ridmark, watching Kurdulkar. The manetaur Prince gazed into the swirling green mist, his expression distant. Ridmark would have expected rage or anger, but Kurdulkar only seemed…bemused. Contemplative, even.
“The dark elves elevated their cruelty to an art form,” said Kurdulkar. “You see, the slave would think he had fallen to his death, only to awaken here and believe that by some fluke he had survived. He would prepare to flee…and then the urvaalgs would emerge from concealment and tear him apart. It seems the dark elves understood that hope snatched away at the final moment is the keenest cruelty of all.”
“You’re entirely certain there were urvaalgs down here?” said Ridmark.
The manetaurs let up a growling chorus of laughter that made the hair on the back of Ridmark’s neck stand up.
“Oh, yes, Gray Knight,” said Kurdulkar. “We are entirely certain. Just as we were certain the Keeper would come for us.”
“Were you?” said Ridmark.
“Indeed,” said Kurdulkar. “Shadowbearer warned me of you, both the old Shadowbearer whom you slew and the new Shadowbearer, who took up his mantle. The Keeper and the Gray Knight, the bane of the Enlightened and the foes of the Frostborn.” There was mockery in his quiet, growling voice. “Imaria Shadowbearer said you would come one day, asking for aid. The dvargir raids have been a useful distraction, but your arrival would provide those raids with a second use. After all, what better way to discredit me than to prove that I had hired the dvargir to raid my kindred? And what better trap to set for both the Gray Knight and the Keeper?”
“Your plan seems to have failed,” said Ridmark. “You captured the Gray Knight, but the Keeper is the more dangerous.”
“Not really,” said Kurdulkar. “Imaria Shadowbearer hates you. She also fears you. With your death, she said, the Keeper will lose both her strong right arm and her own heart. But that is immaterial. The Keeper will waste precious time seeking you, and by the time she finds what remains of your corpse, Turcontar will be dead, and I shall be the Red King.”
“You’re going to kill him?” said Ridmark.
“Obviously,” said Kurdulkar. “It is time for the Hunters to evolve and grow, to take their rightful place as gods of this world…”
“Tarrabus Carhaine might disagree,” said Ridmark. “The Frostborn, too.”
Kurdulkar laughed. “The Enlightened are a useful tool, but once a tool has achieved its purpose, it is discarded. As for the Frostborn…once I have transformed the Hunters into gods, we shall destroy the Frostborn. Or perhaps I shall permit them to live as useful slaves.”
“Madness,” said Ridmark. “You cannot defeat the Frostborn.”
“The words of a weakling human,” said Kurdulkar.
“I have fought the Frostborn,” said Ridmark. “You haven’t. They are relentless, and after a defeat, they simply regroup and prepare a new strategy. They will wear you down mile by bloody mile, and unless you help us now, they will conquer the Reach.”
“The shadow of Incariel would give you the power to destroy your foes,” said Kurdulkar.
“The shadow of Incariel will destroy you, just as it destroyed Shadowbearer and the dark elves,” said Ridmark.
“You destroyed Shadowbearer, and the urdmordar devoured the dark elves,” said Kurdulkar. “They were both weak. The Hunters are not, and we shall become stronger still.” He shook his head, and the gesture was oddly similar to Curzonar and Turcontar both. “You are like my father. You are…obsolete.”
“Obsolete,” said Ridmark. Kurdulkar seemed to have a need to explain himself. If Ridmark could draw this out long enough for Calliande and the others to find him…
“You cling to old ways,” said Kurdulkar. “The Dominus Christus for the humans and the teachings of the arbiters for the Hunters Both hold us back. Without them, we can become gods. With them, we shall be destroyed by the other kindreds. I will not permit that to happen to the Hunters. We shall become gods, even if I have to drag my kindred into the future against their will.”
“Then you will murder your father to achieve this,” said Ridmark.
“Yes,” said Kurdulkar. “It is necessary. He expects me to challenge him, but I cannot take that risk. Too much is at stake…and he favors that mewling fool Curzonar.” A flicker of hatred went through his voice. “If I am slain, all hope for the future dies. Therefore I shall kill both my father and Curzonar’s supporters in one heavy blow, without giving them the chance to fight back. Their sacrifice will pave the way to the future, to our ascension to divinity itself.”
“That is insanity,” said Ridmark. “You will destroy yourselves. You’ll…”
“‘And the serpent said unto the woman,” said Kurdulkar, “ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’” He smiled. “That is what you were going to say to me, was it not? Were you going to quote the scriptures at me? Perhaps humans are too weak to wield the power of the shadow of Incariel. The Hunters are not. Humans are fit only as slaves or prey.”
“Lord Prince,” said Ralakahr. “We should go. If our other enemies were going to fall into the trap, they would have done so by now. The longer we linger, the more likely we are to be discovered.”
“Yes,” said Kurdulkar. “Yes, you are right. Prepare to depart the Labyrinth and return to Bastoth.” He turned his gaze back to Ridmark. “I’ve been very direct with you, haven’t I? I’m not sure why. I have been lying for so long about so many things that it was almost…refreshing to tell the truth to an enemy.”
“You should make certain you have not been lying to yourself,” said Ridmark.
“I have not,” said Kurdulkar.
“Tymandain Shadowbearer lied to himself,” said Ridmark, “and look what happened to him.”
“Another fool who was unworthy of the mantle that the Hunters will claim,” said Kurdulkar. He looked at Ralakahr. “Kill him and we shall depart.”
Ralakahr growled with pleasure and strode towards Ridmark.
Frostborn: The False King Page 24
