The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril

by Joseph Lallo

  Victory was at hand, but unfortunately, a sudden and rather terrifying realization made it an afterthought. The gems that had been leeching away all of her strength had been treated to a veritable feast since Myranda's arrival, and many were full nearly to bursting. Deep black scars on Bagu's face and a large jagged hole in the hallway of the arena stood as evidence of the destructive potential of one of these gems, and now there were dozens. The light was growing more intense by the moment. Myranda thrust the struggling wizard with all of the spell's might. In her hands, it was considerable. As she hurried to the most threatening of the gems his form collided with the bars of the cage and dropped motionlessly, but not lifelessly, to the ground.

  A healthy dose of golden light was shining out from the swirl of brilliant blue chains, feeding their radiance. Ivy's flawless motions propelled the azure tendrils with astounding speed and accuracy. She advanced slowly at first, bringing the tips of the chains into striking distance link by link. The warrior raised his sword defensively. The overfilled crystals burst on contact, showering him with faintly glowing shards and scalding him with intense energy. As the chains grew shorter, and she grew more bold, Ivy swept closer still. The strikes became stronger and more frequent. Now the warrior was backing away.

  Before long Ivy's chains had been worn down to a few short lengths, affording her far greater control. The sword wielding nearman was already on his last legs, the bizarre assault leaving him battered and bloodied, but now the strikes where landing upon undefended flesh without fail. Finally there was nothing left on her legs and neck but shackles, the crystal bands on her tail having long since slipped away. She wrapped the remaining links that dangled from her wrists around her fingers and advanced on the nearly beaten warrior. Her ears twitched. The door marked III was creaking open.

  Myranda took a large, gently pulsing crystal into her hands. Its ravenous hunger sated, she felt no draw on her strength. In its place she could feel the raw power locked just below its surface. It was like a dull warmth, a warmth that she felt not with her body, but with her soul. Tiny fractures were feathering across the surface. Myranda probed the enchantments of the staff. There was a connection, she could feel it. The same power trapped within the crystal fueled the spells. If she could just manage to use the staff to tap into it, she might have a chance. Carefully she tugged and pulled at the tools of the D'karon with magic. Reluctantly, a filament of brilliant light wormed out of the crystal and flowed into the staff. Instantly she felt the enchantments come alive. Each seeming to have a will of its own. They all wished to be cast at once. She sifted through them, finally coming upon one that seemed right.

  Staff in one hand, gem in the other, she turned to the door barring their way. On the ground the defeated warrior lay, barely moving. Ivy stood over him, the links of chain slowly slipping from her fingers. Her gaze, her mind, her entire being was transfixed by the form before her. A young woman, perhaps Myranda's age, was standing just outside of the third cell. Her eyes were blank and empty, staring at an indistinct point in the distance. From the looks of her, she hadn't seen the outside in years, so pale was her skin. Indeed, she looked frail and weary enough to have been locked away for the whole of her life. The clothes she wore were simple, and seemed almost ancient, worn thin over years. Ivy approached her.

  “What is the matter?” Myranda asked, concern in her voice.

  Ivy raised a hand and touched the woman on the cheek. Slowly, mechanically, the woman imitated. A ragged sleeve slid back to reveal, in sharp black against her pale forearm, the Mark of the Chosen. Ivy was fairly trembling. A lone tear rolled down her cheek, her face a potent mix of agony, longing, and confusion. Her mind seemed frozen, locked about a feeling she couldn't describe. Something she felt . . . she knew to her very core. Those eyes. They were familiar, but she'd never seen them before. How could it be? What did it mean?

  This third foe did not seem to be a threat, but appearances were often deceiving. However, as a quiet crackling emanated from the crystals behind her, Myranda knew that there was a far more pressing concern that had to be dealt with first. She focused her attentions on the door, unleashing the full power of the spell she'd selected. Sure enough, the staff was all too eager to sap the crystal of its stolen strength. As it did, the door began to rattle against is hinges. Myranda could feel the clash of the two spells, the tension as they struggled against one another. As the two D'karon spells battled, she cast her gaze cautiously about with what little will she had to spare. The woman before Ivy seemed harmless. Indeed, beyond harmless. She'd seen a blank expression like that once before though, on Hollow, the prophet of Entwell. Yet when the spirits gripped him, Hollow was anything but harmless. As she contemplated what precisely it was that Demont had been keeping behind the third cell door, and why Ivy found it so fascinating, the malthrope's expression changed to one of comprehension.

  “She doesn't look right because she is . . . she is too . . . old,” Ivy gasped in a hushed voice.

  Realization cut through her more painfully than any knife could. In its wake, memories long concealed by a dense fog were thrust into clarity. A continuous line of recollection lurched up from the mists, bright and real. The sounds of battle rang in her ears. Scenes of soldiers flashed before her darting eyes. They were the same images she'd recalled when Myranda had asked her to remember, but vivid as life. She saw the eyes of her parents in crystal clarity as they were struck down. She heard the screams of the other children around her. She felt the searing sting of an arcane tool as it was plunged cruelly into her chest.

  Her shaking fingers rose and tugged at the neck of the human's shirt. It slid down slightly, revealing a ghastly white scar at the base of her throat. A scar precisely where the artifact had been driven in her memory. Ivy stumbled back as if struck, her eyes riddled with pain. The agony dropped away slowly, leaving Ivy's expression as blank as that of her tormentor. Slower still came its replacement. The change was subtle on the surface. Her lips pressed together slightly. Her eyes drew narrower. Around her the air seemed to grow warmer and colder at the same time. It had all of the burning bite of the chillest of winter nights. She drew in a breath and released it as a seething hiss that swirled in front of her as a puff of white mist.

  Deep inside, Ivy burned. She burned not with the white hot flame of anger, a fire that danced blindingly across the surface. This was deeper, smoldering in her very core. This was an emotion she'd never felt so intensely. Her soul and body boiled with it. It was not long before the intense feeling found its way along the channels installed by the D'karon. It came to the surface not as the crimson glow of anger. It was not a glow at all. Indeed, the light seemed to be drawn from the air around her. Darkness rolled off of her in thin black waves, billowing like mist and thickening as it drifted to the floor.

  “Demont,” she hissed, blackness beginning to thread its way along her white fur. “It wasn't enough that he killed me. It isn't enough that he tore my soul from my body. He had to lock them both away. Twist them. Shape them. Leave them to wither. I am nothing to him. He tainted everything.”

  Ivy's words dripped with a hatred the likes of which Myranda never would have thought her capable. She felt the intense emotion at the edge of her mind, eager to get in. It was relentless. Myranda kept it at bay and intensified her efforts on the door. It was not budging, and the crystal was nearly drained. Or at least, it had been. Now it was drinking greedily of the blanket of black mist that rolled across the floor.

  “Ivy, I need you to calm down,” Myranda pleaded.

  “No . . . no. Now is not the time to be calm. Not when that . . . thing still lives. Not while his little twisted creations still lurk about. He must be punished. He must be ended. And I will use what he gave me to do it,” she fumed.

  Her voice had a more even, more mature quality. There was no hint of the innocence that saturated her tone normally. Now there was hatred, vengeance, and nothing else. She shifted her gaze to the mock hero, his falsely noble form struggling
back to his feet, sword in hand. She stalked toward him. The mist around her feet whisked aside, offering a glimpse of pockmarked, eroded stone where her feet had been. Each step left behind a similar patch that looked as though a century of decay had worn it away.

  Myranda looked around. Everywhere the mist touched seemed to age before her eyes. Iron bars rusted. Wood flaked and crumbled. Only two things were spared. The mist had parted itself around Myranda, and around the figure that had driven Ivy to this level of madness. The nearmen were not afforded the same mercy. Instead, as Ivy finally reached the battered form of the warrior, the mist seemed to coil up around him. She reached out and grasped him by the neck. A ghostly pallor spread out from her touch, withering flesh to gnarled sinew. Myranda turned away from the horrid sight, only to behold a far worse one.

  The wooden racks that held the dangerously full gems finally gave way under the effects of the mist. The crystals tumbled to the ground. Some of them fractured, brilliant light gleaming from within and threatening to burst forth. Most managed to stay whole, drinking in the mist that they were now immersed in. Every last one of them took on a painfully bright glow. Myranda rushed to them, staff in hand. She had to spill off the energy, and quickly, as there was certainly no time to make it far enough away to escape the blast.

  She slid to a stop as a form rose up from the mist. The wizard, still clinging to life after Myranda's last attack, struggled to his feet. He hadn't been spared the effects of the concentrated hate that was pouring out of Ivy. His clothes looked as though they had been left at the mercy of a dozen hard winters. His flesh was stark white and drawn. In his hands, though, were a pair of the wands left by Ivy's handlers. With a mechanical look of dignity and nobility still plastered on his ravaged face, the creation began to unleash blast after blast of the black magic. The stores of the wands were depleted quickly, only to be fed by the very crystals Myranda was trying to deal with. The black energy kicked up a wake of mist as it crackled through the air. Myranda raised the staff and found it more than able to deflect the attacks.

  Volley after volley of D'karon magic splashed against the stolen staff, but if anything it was merely delaying the inevitable. The crystals would give way before long if something was not done. Myranda cast a glance she could not afford to Ivy, who strode casually along a floor that was now wholly hidden beneath a lightly shifting black mist. She seemed unconcerned with the destructive bursts of magic that lurched in wild deflections across the throne room turned battlefield.

  The lapse in Myranda’s attention let a swath of magic through her defenses. It passed through her. A simultaneous agony of the body and soul burned at her, but she wrestled it from her mind and managed to block the follow up attack. Now Ivy was beside her.

  “See to it that nothing happens to Aneriana,” Ivy ordered.

  Before Myranda could object, or even agree, Ivy was in front of her. A pair of spells that would have put Myranda on her knees clashed against Ivy. Rather than passing through her, they seemed to curl and scatter. A third seemed to wrap around her, blending with fur that was now more black than white. Finally she stopped. Once again the mist swirled up, swallowing the wizard even as he continued his assault. The spells continued to burst from the writhing clouds. A moment later, there was stillness. The mist dropped away. It left behind what looked to be a poorly embalmed cadaver left to the elements for a century. It crumbled to the ground in a dusty pile of gray bones, white skin, and black powder that may once have been blood.

  A sound like crackling ice drew Myranda's attention. A sound like scratching claws drew Ivy's. As the girl tried to find something in the staff's arsenal that could buy them some time, she saw a fleeting glimpse of Ivy's eyes. The bright, lively, innocent pink eyes were replaced with a cold, determined violet mockery of them. The eyes locked on the watcher as it scrabbled along the high ceiling to a window. The mere gaze was enough to prompt a choked off squeal of pain from the creature. A moment later it fell to the ground, causing a ripple in the settled mist before striking the ground as a dry, shrived husk.

  Myranda drew up as much as she could of the power that surged dangerously around her and heaved it at the door. The staff, powerful though it was, simply could not burn enough energy quickly enough to unravel the locking spell, let alone empty the crystals. As a shaft of light burst from a crystal, Myranda turned in a blur of motion and focused the staff's efforts on holding it together. Another crystal, then another got the same treatment. The only thing standing between the castle and its utter demolition was the struggling will of the Chosen.

  “Ivy . . . the door. You have to get it open . . . I can't . . . hold this for very long,” Myranda pleaded.

  “My work is not through here,” came a voice as cold and hollow as a crypt.

  The black as night form of what had once been Ivy stood before the final door. The wood crumbled to dust. The form inside looked up, as though the light that now poured into its chamber brought with it a long missing spark of life. What she saw was a man, young, but already scarred with the remnants of many battles. He wore armor that was twisted and damaged. His eyes had the same distant, empty stare as the woman that even now stood in the center of the room. Deep inside them, though, was the tiniest flicker of wisdom.

  Myranda wove her will with that of the staff, lending as much as she could spare to the weapon's mystic influence. As she did, its secrets began to unfold. She could feel the texture of the spell, see the runes that would coax it from a page, feel the thoughts that had created it. Slowly she traced it to its roots, the fragment that somehow allowed it to draw its strength from the crystals. The rest of the threads of magic drew back to reveal it. Quickly she crafted a spell of her own that incorporated the stolen technique. A shimmering shield flashed into existence, forming a dome over the crystals. She gave her aching spirit a moment's rest. The shield held, but a shudder as a crystal splashed its contents against it assured the young wizard that it wouldn't hold for long. She turned to Ivy knowing that now was the last chance to escape.

  One last time the black mist rushed in around the work of Demont. It twisted and roiled about the armor clad form. A hand reached out from among the mist and grasped the hilt of the Sword of the Chosen. Instantly the mist was swept away. He raised the sword defensively. Ivy grasped the blade, oblivious to the razor sharp edge, and attempted to wrench it from his grasp. There was a glimmer of dormant magic and a paralyzing sensation that had been felt only once before it shot down Ivy's arm. She cried out in pain.

  The voice seemed wrong coming out of the dark embodiment of malice. It was Ivy's own, riddled with agony and fear. Myranda looked to the fifth product of Demont's meddling. The image drove itself deep into her memory. She'd seen him before, though never his face. His was the soul that had selected her for this quest. His was the sword that had brought her such trouble. His were the rations that saved her life that night. Somehow, the swordsman that she'd found dead in the field so long ago stood before her now, alive.

  A wave of brilliant gold light swept outward from the point where sword had touched flesh. It draped itself along the weapon, and along Ivy's arm. The creature, squealing in pain and a look of desperation in her eye, released the weapon and rushed backward. The light continued along her arm, leaving white fur where black had been. She dropped to her knees on the now mist free floor and clutched at her chest as the mark burned at her.

  As the wave of gold reached the flesh of the swordsman, he grimaced in pain as well. A network of black lines that formed intricate strings of runes shone a brilliant blood red. Enhancements, alterations, and other manipulations left by Demont reacted with the wave of divine energy. Thoughts and commands implanted by the D'karon generals burned and sizzled in his mind. That which was D'karon and that which was Chosen battled each other. Soon he was little more than a mass of shifting mystical lights in the shape of a man.

  Ivy struggled to her feet. The burning was slowly dropping away, and she was once again herself. Her crimes again
st The Mark had been minor. She'd approached the swordsman, a fellow Chosen, in battle with hatred in her heart and every intention to kill him. Perhaps another day such an act would have drawn a far greater price, but there was precious little left of what the gods had intended in that warrior. Now the man who would have been the leader of the divine warriors was receiving a punishment that his slumber of death had spared him. Much of his mind, body, and soul were now replaced with D'karon. The Mark would not allow that. It burned at him, rendering away the tainted parts at the expense of the rest.

  Ivy backed away unsteadily as she watched the Swordsman consumed by the same divine fire that had destroyed Trigorah. Myranda rushed to her. The confused creature, recovering from the emotion that had seized control, looked desperately to Myranda for some sort of reassurance, but the wizard had none to give. A threatening glow on the other side of the room drew their attention.

  The barrier Myranda had erected around the crystals had been intended to keep their power in, not to keep them from absorbing more. It was an oversight she might not live to regret. The mist may have been dispelled, but in the brilliant spectacle of The Mark's wrath they had found a far greater meal. Another crystal burst.

  It was one more blast than the weakened floor could stand. Ancient and decrepit stones, made more so by Ivy's mist, finally shattered, spilling the whole of the mound of crystals and a fair amount of the throne room onto whatever recesses lie below. Myranda could only spare a moment's glance into the widening hole, but what she saw chilled her. Shadowy, vaguely human forms, bathed in the blue light of the fallen gems. She could not be certain, but it seemed that they were incomplete . . . as though they were in the process of being assembled. As the edge of the hole crept closer, she knew that this was a concern for another day. She grabbed Ivy and rushed to the door.