“No time to explain now. I presume the rest of the party plans to sneak in while you make some noise up here? Then you intend to plant those explosives you’re carrying and blow up the table?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. I wondered how much of that was guesswork and how much he might have heard through spying on us in some manner.
“I will handle the distraction. You follow me in and make a break for the table,” he said.
“Sure,” I said.
“Listen, Zah’rak: no matter what happens tonight, you must carry on. You and your team are the new Sac’a’rith. I must fade away soon,” said Narcion.
“But … ” I protested.
He waved me to stop and said to the stranger, “What say you, Raquel? Once more into the breach?”
Raquel nodded and gave an affectionate squeeze to Narcion’s shoulder, then they boldly walked into the clearing in front of the door to the castle.
“All teams, there is a slight change in our plan: Narcion will be creating the distraction for us. All teams, continue as planned,” I said over the communicator. They must have had a thousand questions; I knew I did, but right now we had to focus on the mission.
Narcion and Raquel walked up to the gate and stood before it. After a quick glance into each other’s eyes, they pulled off their robes and threw them into the air. The robes vanished to reveal bright, metallic armor. From the air, Narcion drew down a staff and Raquel a pair of swords, one glowing red and the other blue; both of them sizzled as they cut through the air.
From the castle came a laugh with no humor in it. “So the great Narcion and his estranged lover are finally crawling out of their hole!”
The couple seemed to ignore him as Narcion began casting a spell with great motions using his entire body. It was a complex and fluid dance that mimicked pulling things from the ground. Around him the ground started to rumble and skeletons burst forth, wielding swords and shields. At the same time Raquel began to cast, but her motions were more pointed and looked as if she were funneling some unseen river straight at the castle gate. Then a blindingly bright bolt of energy leapt from Raquel and slammed into the fortress, obliterating the door and much of the wall around it. Narcion directed the skeletons around him to charge the castle, and he and Raquel charged in after the skeletal army through the hole that her spell had made in the wall.
“What just happened?” I asked.
“Narcion summoned an army and made your distraction. Let’s move!” said Shira.
“All teams: move out!” I said, then quietly to Shira, “Skeletons? Lover? What’s going on?”
“Worry about that later! This is our chance!” she said and made for the opening at a full run.
She was moving as fast as she could, but my superior gait allowed me to catch up with her quickly. I followed her into the castle as she blindly charged right down the path of destruction that Narcion and Raquel had left behind. Everywhere we looked, there were piles of bones and parts of bodies. It looked as if they hadn’t bothered taking any turns; instead they’d blasted their way through the walls, moving in a straight line towards the center of the massive fortress.
“My former master is probably calling up all the dead he has left to try to stop them,” said Shira as we ran. “That is good; if he is busy with them he won’t be able to divert his attention to us.”
Just out of sight in front of us was the constant sound of battle, eerie without the screams of the wounded and dying. All that we could hear was the clash of blades and many explosions. We raced to catch up, but did not manage to do so until we reached the central table room.
In the center of that room was the large stone table, just as Shira had described it. Between us and the table were Narcion and Raquel; they were fighting against some creatures that looked something like a cross between an insect, a skeleton, and a lizard. Narcion and Raquel were completely engrossed in their battle as everyone poured into the room from all sides. The creatures continued to teem out of the silver liquid in the center of the table. Raquel weaved her swords in a deadly dance around her, and Narcion’s staff smashed anything that got through. His skeletal army must have been defeated, as there was none in sight.
Crivreen, Felix, Shira, and Ragnar joined the fight with their wands, and Agent Byron joined Narcion and Raquel and lent his swords to theirs. I used my superior size to smash through as many of the creatures as I could but, try as we might, we could not keep up with the number of enemies pouring into the room.
“Quick, deploy the explosives and get out of here,” sent Narcion to all of us.
The others quickly threw down their packages and backed out of the room while Narcion and Raquel moved to cover their retreat. Ragnar and Agent Byron grabbed me and tried to pull me out as Narcion fought on.
“No! I won’t leave him!” I said.
“You must! You must carry on without me,” sent Narcion. “As soon as you’re clear, blow up the table!”
“He knows what he’s doing. Let’s move!” urged Agent Byron.
Much as I hated to do it, I knew I had to get my team to safety. We ran as fast as we could out of the castle and into the woods. Once there, I picked up the detonator and looked at Ragnar, who nodded.
“He is risking his life to give you time to press that button, so press it before it’s too late,” said Agent Byron.
I looked back towards the castle and slowly depressed the button. It seemed that an eternity passed between the press of the button and any reaction, but when it came, the shockwave lifted me up off my feet and threw me into the woods, briefly stunning me. Crivreen had said that any one of our packages would have been more than sufficient, and we had set off all three.
As I regained my feet I heard Ragnar call out, “We have to get out of here!”
Back where the castle used to be, a massive vortex was forming and quickly expanding towards us. Shira called out, “This way!” and cast her gate spell. We all charged through her gate and came out on the Night Wisp.
I ran up to the bridge and pointed all the sensors at the former location of the castle. I could see nothing, as the massive amounts of power erupting from the vortex were overwhelming the sensors.
“What is going on?” asked Felix.
“I should have realized that this would happen! That table contained massive amounts of power and it is all being released at once. It will be many days, maybe weeks, before it is all dissipated,” said Ragnar.
“So the table is gone for sure, then?” asked Shira.
“Yes. We definitely destroyed it,” said Ragnar.
“We won?” asked Felix.
“Yes, but at great cost,” said Ragnar.
“Then we lost them?” asked Agent Byron.
“I don’t see how anyone could survive that,” said Crivreen softly.
I looked again at the sensors and a sense of finality came over me. “Once the storm has passed, let’s find what we can of Narcion and Raquel and give them a proper burial,” I said.
~~~
When the storm had finally dissipated, we returned to the surface and began to search the rubble. The area stank of burnt flesh, and there were body parts everywhere. I assumed that most of it was what was left of the necromancer’s undead army.
After searching the area, Agent Byron said, “None of these bodies is wearing armor.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means,” said Ragnar, “that there is no sign of their bodies. That enchanted armor they were wearing should have survived the blast; at least some of it should still be around.”
“Then where are they?” I asked as I headed towards what used to be the back of the castle. “Maybe they attempted to run and got a little further away.”
“Look!” said Crivreen as he pointed into the woods, far from where we were standing.
In a clearing in the forest, some distance from the castle, stood Raquel. Her armor was badly damaged, and
she was covered in blood. Before her was a crude table that seemed to have been made from debris, and Narcion’s body lay on top of this. She had piled wood all around him and the table. Leaning over him, she said as we approached, “He is finally free.”
“What happened?” I asked sadly.
“After you left, we charged through the portal in the table. We knew that was the only way to keep the fight going long enough to give you time to detonate the bomb. However, we underestimated the power of the necromancer,” she said. “I don’t know how long we fought there with him. It felt like an eternity, but it was probably only days, maybe a week; I never learned how to tell time in that realm. The necromancer kept falling back to rest in secure positions which he must have prepared in advance. We kept hunting him down, over and over again, for as long as we could. I fell first, but Narcion fought on with all he had. He was able to force the necromancer to retreat one last time, and we lost track of him. Narcion used the last of his life force to bring me back here.”
“What do you mean, ‘he is finally free’?” I asked. It was hard not to cry, but I forced myself to be strong. I had to lead my team through this victory, no matter how painful. I thought I had come to grips with the loss of Narcion from the time I had first entered his quarters, but nothing could have prepared me for seeing his broken body like this.
“Narcion was a good man once, well-loved and highly-respected. No one feared him, and he never hurt anyone; he loved life in all its forms. One day someone hurt a person he cared deeply about, and Narcion turned to necromancy to get revenge. It made him very powerful very quickly, but the more he used it the darker it turned him. The rot spread through to the very core of his being. These past years that he served with all of you were his attempts to escape that darkness, and perchance find forgiveness,” she said.
Raquel lit a torch and slowly lowered it onto the wood surrounding Narcion’s body. Flames spread throughout the wood and began to encompass him.
Ragnar saluted the burning pyre and said, “You gave yourself so that others could live. Rest well with honor, my brother, for there is no higher calling.”
As we watched the fire burn, I wondered what would be next for my team. “Raquel, what do you plan to do now?”
“I will turn myself in to Grandmaster Vydor and let the council decide my fate for the part I played,” she said.
“Turn yourself in?” I asked.
“Narcion and I should not have been here. We should have been dead long ago. We, and some others, escaped the cataclysm that rocked this realm many generations ago, and have spent most of the intervening time asleep. Narcion woke first and has been trying to rebuild the Sac’a’rith, but in the process he has stirred the weave so that others are waking, many of whom should never be allowed to do so. The doom of which I warned you may yet come. I must give myself up for the part I played in the cataclysm, causing the death of so many. You must carry on and complete Narcion’s dream: to recreate the Sac’a’rith, and do it the right way this time. You must become the noble warriors who defend this generation from the coming storm,” said Raquel.
“How?” I asked.
“Deep down inside you already know what to do. Narcion did not choose you, the weave did. Follow your instincts and you will be the great leader that Narcion knew you to be. Now I must be on my way; Grandmaster Vydor will only be nearby for a short while, and if I miss him, I will have to cross the entire galaxy to meet him,” she said. Then, just as Narcion used to do, she was not there anymore.
We stayed with the fire until it burned out and then I said, “We have a strong team here, and I plan to carry on Narcion’s dream. If you do not want to join me, then I will drop you off at the nearest station.”
“Zah’rak, count me in,” said Crivreen without hesitation. Ragnar, Felix and Shira soon echoed his agreement, but Agent Byron was silent.
“Byron?” I asked.
“I have a responsibility to my current employer, but maybe someday I will join you,” he said.
I did not yet know our next move, but I knew one thing: the work of the Sac’a’rith was only just beginning.
###
The story continues in Spectra’ Gambit: An old ally of Grandmaster Vydor comes to him for help because an enemy, perhaps as old as the Empire itself, has turned its sights on the Cathratinairian race and means to wipe them out. Spectra and Dusty are sent to find and stop this new threat, while Spectra begins her plan to change the balance of power for the entire known multiverse. Dusty must decide whether to follow Spectra as she uses this mission of mercy for her own gain, or stand with the Wizard Kingdom, which would put him in direct opposition to his wife.
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Also by Vincent Trigili:
The Silverleaf Chronicles
The Silverleaf Chronicles: Season One follows the life of Silverleaf, a young dragonmaster who was born into a world without dragons, and doomed to die as a madman alone in the wilderness until a young woman enters his life, and a mysterious army marches across the land destroying all its path.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Map of Phareon Region
Time Line So Far
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Also by Vincent Trigili
The Sac'a'rith Page 31
