by Tom Lloyd
Isak felt a hand on his arm, looked down to see Mihn’s steady expression. For a moment he could taste the Dark Place again — the infernal stink of his jailer, the tang of his own blood and the cold of the void below. Mihn took a step forward and the slight grip he exerted was enough to lead Isak right to the entrance. Once there Mihn made to go first.
Isak reached out and stop him. ‘My duty,’ he said. ‘This is no grave.’ And he descended, ducking to fit his enormous frame down the stair. Once out of sight of the Sanctum he paused and loosed the wrappings around Eolis. With Mihn following close behind, they soon found themselves on the bare upper floor of the ziggurat’s interior. Isak looked around and almost laughed at how mundane the room was. The lowest rank of the commissars were all initiated here — thousands of men and women, far too many for any real secrets to be revealed. All the same, something akin to a schoolroom wasn’t quite what he’d expected. It was empty now, but a dozen short benches stood on the far side of the room, just beyond a second stone stairway that led further down into the ziggurat. A pale green light emanated from the walls, illuminating tablets bearing a carved stone script Isak couldn’t read.
‘Their holy mission,’ Mihn supplied when Isak shot him a questioning look. ‘The nameless stranger who showed them they were blessed by the Gods.’
Before he could say any more a sound came from the upper entrance. Isak turned to see the faint scrap of starlight on the stair’s wall disappear as the door was closed behind them.
‘No going back, I suppose.’
‘Was there ever?’
Isak didn’t reply. He did a quick circuit of the room, briefly inspecting each tablet before starting down the central stair to a similar sort of room, this one partitioned by wooden panels. Icons of the Gods took centre stage on the panels, while the outer walls again bore more of Vorizh’s mysteries — the coming of a saviour whose appearance would overturn the ungodly ways of the Seven Tribes, and more of the regime’s founding and the duties of the commissars.
The pattern was repeated on the next two floors, where stone pillars and walls increasingly divided up the space into multiple rooms, and within each there were more of the mysteries, each coming closer to truth. Mention was made of the Great War and the curses laid down by the Gods on their enemies, of the crimes enacted by both sides.
‘Strange,’ Isak commented as Mihn reported excerpts for his benefit. ‘I forget how much I know of the Land now, the secrets and lies that frame our lives. A few summers ago, half of this would have astonished me.’
‘And it has taken a toll,’ Mihn warned. ‘Your insight has not come without cost. The more I think on what you have endured, the more I fear where it will lead you.’
Isak turned to face his friend. ‘Lead me? You mean us — you’re coming along for the ride, remember?’
Mihn bowed his head to acknowledge the point.
‘It’s too late anyway,’ Isak continued, one hand resting on the Crystal Skull at his waist. ‘We’re well beyond consequences now and you know it. All we’ve got left is success or failure.’ He moved off before Mihn could reply, turning his back quickly as though hoping he could avoid whatever the failed Harlequin might say. The last stairway stood before them, this one more ornate than the rest, with wyvern heads in bas-relief on the large central pillars standing on either side of the open entrance.
‘The labyrinth.’
Isak drew Eolis. The blade shone bright white in the dim interior of the labyrinth. Green trails of magic danced in the darkness, reminding Isak of the first time he’d gone to the dragon’s lair underneath Tirah. The artefacts stored there under Genedel’s guardianship had been mere toys compared to what he sought now, but still their presence had set his mind aflame. Now it was different; now he was more accustomed to magic in all its forms, the presence of the divine and daemonic as much as the wild, raging energies of battlefield magic.
But he found something new as well. Like a man who had withstood the torrent and now beheld the ocean, Isak hesitated before the entrance of the labyrinth. It was muted, hidden from view, but inescapable all the same. He knew there could be no mages within the Commissar Brigade; they would ask too many questions, as unable to resist investigating as an addict who smelled something akin to opium.
‘Isak,’ Mihn whispered, ‘are you okay?’
Isak found himself biting his lip as he nodded, the torn flesh of his lips moulding around the broken teeth left to him by Ghenna’s inhabitants.
‘I don’t know what it’ll do to me,’ he said eventually, ‘what’ll be left of me when I take it.’
‘It is that powerful?’
Isak almost laughed. ‘Can you not feel it?’
‘The air makes my skin crawl, I know that.’
‘It is the sword — the black sword of Death.’
Again Mihn made to go first, seeing Isak’s reticence, and again it stirred the white-eye into movement. ‘We are beyond concerns now,’ he said firmly as Isak pulled him back. ‘There are no consequences, no tomorrows — only the deed to follow this moment.’
‘Another dusty quotation?’
Mihn shook his head. ‘You have had enough of those from me; all I have left are my own words.’
Isak forced a grin in the strange half-light. ‘Learning your place in things at last? So no more relying on the words of others; your own carry far greater weight, my friend.’
They went down into the darkness of the labyrinth. Before he’d left the last step Isak’s head was ringing with the latent power resting uneasily somewhere below their feet. He tightened his grip on Eolis, holding the sword ready as he walked forward to the first turning. The base of the ziggurat was several hundred yards across, while the stone-walled passage they stood in was barely one yard wide.
At the end of the corridor he used his sword to score the wall, inscribing the ‘heart’ rune there rather than a single notch. It seemed appropriate, given the protection Xeliath had given him in Ghenna, but it proved to be unnecessary as a voice rang out from further down the corridor.
‘No breathless commissar are you,’ called a woman, ‘you come bearing power like a mantle, but you are in our domain now.’
Isak exchanged a look with Mihn, then stepped forward and turned right, barely able to make out the figure ahead amidst the shadows swirling angrily around her. The woman had pale, delicate features half-obscured by her loose raven-black hair. She wore a cuirass of beautiful workmanship, and greaves and vambraces, but her sword remained sheathed on her back.
‘Only fools enter the labyrinth,’ she warned. ‘It is only by my hand that you will ever leave this place.’
Isak turned back the way they had come and saw the entrance had vanished, the passage ending in a dead end only a few yards behind Mihn. He didn’t bother going to investigate; something told him this was more than mere illusion.
‘Been called that often enough,’ Isak said, raising his sword for the woman to see clearly, ‘but in this case, you might want to think again, Araia.’
The woman’s eyes blazed suddenly, twin sapphires shining out through the darkness. The shadows around her started to whip more frenziedly around the narrow passageway, but Isak made no further move towards her. He put a precautionary hand on the Skull and continued.
‘Your sister’s at the top of the ziggurat,’ he said carefully. ‘We’re here to end this.’
‘End it?’ Araia gasped, reeling from his words as though physi cally struck. ‘There is no end, not even in death!’
‘Zhia doesn’t believe that.’
Her voice softened. ‘Zhia- It’s been so long… No, I am bound still.’
‘What is that?’ Mihn asked, using Araia’s own dialect. ‘What duty binds you?’
‘I–I am bound to this place, bound to drink of those who come here, bound to protect our secrets.’ She spoke as though in a daze and Isak realised she was indeed bound — with sorcery, not oaths. The lesser two of the Vukotic children, ever in the shadows of their
three remarkable siblings, were even now in the thrall of their family. Vorizh had turned them to his own purpose, using them to maintain this horrific masquerade.
Isak felt a chill of uncertainty. Is Vorizh even here? Is this some madman’s ruse, or just the next step on a far longer path?
‘Come,’ Araia said hoarsely, ‘I will show you the way through.’
She beckoned them forward and watched as Isak cautiously approached. He studied her as he went: a good hand taller than her sister, and less terrifyingly beautiful, but no less arresting for it.
‘Your brother is here?’
‘You will meet him soon enough,’ Araia warned.
When Isak was just two paces away she turned abruptly, affording him a glimpse of the long-handled sword on her back, and set off. There was a bitter scent left in her wake as Isak followed, magic unknown to him, and wrought in a way he couldn’t begin to guess at. All along the walls were inscribed tablets: more secrets and mysteries, no doubt, leading to the sudden shock of coming face to face with a vampire in the darkness.
Araia led them silently through the labyrinth, moving without hesitation despite Isak’s certainty the passages were changing around them, that they must have crossed back over their own path more than once, through once solid walls. The vampire moved as though led by a chain in the darkness, resigned and defeated by it.
How long has he kept her here? His own sibling! Isak shook the questions away. Vorizh was a vampire twisted into madness by Death’s own weapon. He could expect no reason in Vorizh’s actions, whether or not there was purpose.
After ten minutes or more Araia jerked to a halt. A new light spilled out over the walls, a constant pale blue. ‘My brother is within,’ she said quietly.
Isak waited for her to move off, but she didn’t; she remained still, almost like a mechanical toy run down. There was space to pass her, however, so Isak waited a few heartbeats longer before moving through the entrance, which took them down another short flight of steps, below ground-level now, to a wide chamber covered in ornate carvings and runic script. Roughly cut shards of blue glass were set into the walls, apparently at random, each producing a faint glow that illuminated the room.
The room was empty beyond a statue in the very centre: an obsidian figure standing on a dais. His right hand, held at waist-height, was empty; in his left was a long, straight-edged sword, its snub tip resting on the ground. The sword itself was a good five feet long, and as black as the statue. It didn’t reflect any light from the room; instead it drank in the blue glow, and Isak found himself dragged forward a step or two before he even realised he had moved.
The black sword had a short, plain cross-hilt, and a pearl encased in twists of metal was set in the pommel. It looked finely made, but without ostentation, for it needed no frippery; the stink of magic in the room was choking and the presence of raw, wild power fizzed through Isak’s veins. The very air around it twisted away, folding back on itself as it touched magic in its most pure and warping form.
Two small doors were set into the far wall. Both were made of some pale wood and bore Elvish runes incorporated into a single geometric pattern. Isak advanced towards the statue, watching the doors as he moved. Mihn followed close behind him, but Araia stopped just inside the door.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
Isak moved left as the shadows in the room suddenly danced into life; in a blur of jagged movement the darkest coalesced into a figure, a tall man, who drove straight for Isak, thrusting at his heart with one of a pair of swords. The white-eye twisted aside and brought Eolis up, deflecting the lunge in a burst of white lights.
On his right, Araia drew her own weapon and surged forward, the sword carving dark arcs through the air. Mihn lashed out with his staff, swiping across her hands, then spinning to kick at her knee. He blunted the vampire’s advance, but Araia recovered her balance swiftly and chopped down at him. The blow never reached Mihn, for he dodged away, dancing backwards and swinging blind at the other as he went.
Her brother faded right to avoid the blow, checking for just long enough to allow Isak time to move. He clashed against the vampire’s lead blade and kicked forward, connecting with his thigh and shoving him closer to Mihn. The two vampires nearly collided as Araia charged behind her brother, slashing wildly at Mihn, who turned each blow, intent on keeping at the edge of her range.
Isak felt the magic-suffused air crackle on his skin as his bloodlust sparked to life. White threads began to race over his skin and Eolis started glowing with un summoned power, tracing blistering curves of light as he struck out. The vampire fell back from the onslaught, wielding both swords frantically to ward off Isak’s swift blows. Beside him Araia was trying to corner Mihn, but the small man just kicked up and off the nearest wall, vaulting her slashing blade and putting himself back in the centre of the room again.
Even as Isak caught one of his opponent’s swords and sheared right through it, Mihn dropped to a crouch and swung his staff up in the same movement, catching Araia’s fingers with the steel-capped end before her descending sword could reach him. The crisp blow jerked the sword from her grip.
In the next moment Isak had battered away her brother’s other sword. He chopped deep into the vampire’s neck and blood sprayed over his ragged cloak as he continued drawing the sword-blade down and through. The vampire fell away as the tip of Eolis cleared the wound and punched forward again to pierce Araia’s cuirass with a sharp crack.
The sister jerked to an abrupt halt, frozen in the act of reaching for Mihn’s throat. The smaller man rolled backwards and back to his feet, out of range, while Isak ran Araia through to the hilt before whipping the blade back out again and leaving her to collapse to the ground.
He stared down at the vampires at his feet as their last moments of life spilled away, and suddenly sensed Mihn’s eyes on him. The failed Harlequin brought his staff back to its usual upright position and looked Isak up and down, and he realised with something akin to a laugh that the gifted duellist was assessing his form, his poise after the blow.
An immortal vampire nearly ripped your gullet out, Isak thought with a sense of wonder, and still you notice such things.
Mihn gave him a small nod of thanks. ‘In another age,’ he began with no trace of exertion in his voice, ‘you would have become a great lord of the Farlan. With Bahl to teach you, you would have forged a human nation such as the Land has never seen.’
Isak looked down at the ripped tunic he wore, the frayed edges of his cloak. ‘We’re made by the trials life gives us,’ he replied, adding with a smile, ‘but I was never meant to rule — I was never built for it.’ He shrugged. ‘I find the beggar lord a more natural role for me.’
Around their ankles a thin mist began to appear, swirling up over the body of one, then both fallen vampires.
‘Feneyaz?’ Mihn asked, gesturing to the brother.
‘I would think,’ Isak said, though he’d never met any of Zhia’s three brothers. No matter how skilled a swordsman, against a white-eye wielding Eolis the result had never been in doubt, he realised, which made it likely they were both the lesser siblings.
‘What about him?’ Mihn said, looking at the statue. ‘He makes them his protectors while he sleeps?’
‘A prison of his own making — it was done to the dragon in the Library of Seasons. He’s under the weight of madness and his family’s curse, so why not sleep until change comes?’
‘And now?’
Isak stepped up to the statue to inspect it. It portrayed a man of middle years, lean of face and build, in armour similar to the plate Zhia wore under her clothes. He reached up and rapped his knuckles on the statue’s forehead. It seemed solid enough, and cold to the touch. He wiped Eolis on his cloak and sheathed it, then took hold of the Crystal Skull at his waist before he dared touch the statue’s black sword.
Nothing happened. Isak withdrew his fingers, rubbing them together. The scars faintly tingled in the proximity of such power. This was
Termin Mystt, he was sure of it, but it was firmly lodged where it was, despite only resting in the statue’s hand rather than being grasped — part of the same spell that kept Vorizh a statue, he guessed. He looked at the statue’s hands: they were in exactly the same pose, but one was empty.
‘How about a swap?’ he said, drawing Eolis and resting it in the statue’s hand in the same way as Termin Mystt, its tip resting on the ground. He felt a shudder run through the rock and, pressing his hand back against the Skull of Ruling, he attempted to take the black sword again.
A great gust of wind swept up from the dusty floor, but Isak barely noticed. This time as his fingers touched the black sword it flared, searing-hot, even as light burst from the Crystal Skull. Isak gasped and staggered back, his hand now firmly wrapped around the black sword’s long grip — it was the only thing he could see through the white light, a midnight force that not even the power of the Skull could eclipse. Power surged up his arm with such ferocity he felt his bones creak and judder. Magic flooded his body and invaded his mind with shards of ice before the presence of the Skull balanced it.
He dropped to one knee, his great shoulders shaking with the effort of holding the weapon as dark stars burst before his eyes. Suns wheeled through his mind, scorching a path across the holes torn in his memory. Voices clamoured in his ears, hundreds, thousands of beseeching voices, and as he moaned under the pressure, his own voice felt like the vengeance of the heavens, crashing through his mind.
Distantly he felt a hand under his shoulder. He tried to scream a warning for Mihn, but his voice was not his own. His heart boomed in his chest, his ribs shrieked in pain and the rune on his chest burned once more, the stink of charred flesh filling his nose.
And then the hands holding him felt blessedly cold against the surging heat of magic, a foundation stone upon which Isak braced himself. The heartbeat of more than one man pulsed in those hands, it was dozens, hundreds. Through the rune on his chest he could feel them, with Mihn a second conduit to those who had bound themselves to him. The soldiers of the Ghosts, their brute strength a force of its own in his veins, marched alongside the cold, remarkable men of the Brotherhood, and leading them all, the iron-hard will of Legana’s sisterhood.
