A Dagger of the Mind (The Imperial Metals)

by Daniel Antoniazzi

  They hadn’t snuck up, nor faded in, nor appeared in a flash of light, nor stepped through a smoking door. They were just there, as though they had been there all along. Nuria recognized the Regent, Master Eric, and a number of other Turin, most likely the Turin Council.

  “Well,” Frost said, “It seems we’ve arrived at the party.”

  “Nuria,” the Regent said, “Welcome to our dream.”

  “I was hoping it would be my dream,” Nuria responded.

  “It’s all the same dream,” Frost pointed out.

  “Is it just the two of you?” Eric taunted. “To face all of us?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Nuria answered.

  “Your will cannot outlast ours,” Eric warned. “Not all of us together.”

  “Then she will have to face you alone,” Frost answered. He turned to Nuria, kneeling beside her. “I need you to jump off the cliff.”

  “What?!”

  “It’s a dream, remember? Haven’t you ever dreamed that you could fly?”

  “Yes,” Nuria answered, staring down the sheer cliffside. “But as soon as I realize it’s a dream, I always fall.”

  “Well,” Frost said, as he tossed Eric off the cliff, “Try to get over it.”

  And then he shoved her off the cliff, too.

  ---

  Duncan laid Nuria out by the fire, easing her head onto a rolled up blanket. No time to make her comfortable. Just enough to make sure she didn’t crack her skull on the ground.

  Landora drew her sword, looking down at the approaching platoon. Duncan drew his weapon and stood beside her.

  “These are my comrades,” Landora said.

  “I’ll try not to kill any of them.”

  “Not good enough. They are innocent in this. Following orders that they think are given in good faith from the Regent. Or else they are under the influence of the same monster that has taken the Regent and my Master. Either way, I will not accept any of their deaths.”

  “OK, what’s the plan?”

  Landora scanned the area. Not a lot of room to move around. They had the advantage of having their backs to a cliff, but they also had the disadvantage of having their backs to a cliff.

  “I’m going to that ledge. It’s the steepest part of the climb. I think I can hold off a lot of them there. Treat it as a sort of bottleneck. You stand over the cave. If they want to get around me, they’re going to have to pass right by you. Throw rocks, branches, whatever. Keep them at bay. But no killing.”

  “Don’t worry, my aim isn’t that good.”

  “Go!”

  Duncan ran to position as the Turin soldiers stepped up to the ledge...

  ---

  Nuria plummeted down the side of the cliff. The trees below growing larger and larger as she fell further and further.

  Great, she thought. I’m going to die falling into trees. Well, except they weren’t really there. They were just the memory of trees. The illusion of a forest. Maybe Nuria couldn’t stop herself from falling, but she could pretend she was anywhere else.

  And then she was in the clouds. Still falling. Still in the grasp of gravity, but not close to the ground. She pierced the layer of clouds, speeding ever downwards. She was higher than the birds. She could see the Castle Hartstone below her. Only the size of a marble from up here.

  And again she realized she wasn’t alone. Master Eric stood beside her. It was weird, that he seemed to be standing while Nuria was falling through the empty air. But that’s what it looked like. It looked like he was standing, still and calm, in thin air. The wind didn’t even brush through his hair.

  “Hey there,” Nuria said, unable to think of anything better to say.

  “You’re falling.”

  “You’re very observant.”

  “I can help you.”

  “Don’t need it.”

  “You will hit the ground eventually.”

  “I have some time yet.”

  “In the meantime, I must bring you into our fold.”

  He reached over to her, but Nuria spun around, distancing herself from him. It was dizzying. He seemed to be pacing over, like he was taking a leisurely stroll along the castle corridors. And she seemed to be falling, turning her body as though in a swan-dive.

  Nuria saw that the ground was getting much closer. The Castle Hartstone now looked more like the size of a coconut.

  “Do you really expect to outlast my will?” Eric said.

  “Not sure,” Nuria said, “But I’m definitely not giving up that easily.”

  “The demon you are opposing is too great for one so small.”

  “I don’t see a demon here. Just you.”

  “I am too great for one so small.”

  “I’ve heard that before. More than once.”

  The Castle had grown to the size of a carriage, and seemed to be growing faster and faster. Nuria was getting nervous.

  “You cannot even stop yourself from falling,” Eric pointed out. “How do you expect to outmatch me and my fears.”

  “Your fears?” Nuria said, “Right. That guy said it was something about your fears. That the demon controlled you by your fears.”

  “Yes. And you cannot even master your own.”

  The Castle now looked the size of a galleon. They would hit it in seconds...

  “I’m not afraid of falling,” Nuria said, “I’m afraid of hitting the ground.”

  And once again, they were somewhere else. Way high up in the frigid air, above Aceley. The terrain below was an even white. The snow and ice spread out for as far as the naked eye could see. Though they couldn’t see anything from this height, Nuria knew they were right above the bear cave. Where Sir Noble had died.

  And they were still falling. No matter what, she couldn’t shake the sensation of dropping. Her dive continued, while Eric only stood, calmly, arms crossed, glaring at her.

  “So,” Nuria said, “What are you afraid of?”

  “My worries are too grand for your young mind.”

  “Then you should show them to me. Defeat me once and for all.”

  “Very well,” Eric said, “Prepare to enter my mind.”

  ---

  Landora opened with a concussive blast. Similar to what she used on Nuria, but stronger and with a wider blast radius. She hit the first half-dozen soldiers who approached the ledge. It wouldn’t knock any of them out, but they all stumbled back, some bumping into others further back in the ranks. It made them stumble on their first assault.

  But it was only seconds before the next line approached the same position. Landora swung her sword around, parrying attacks, beating them back, but never going for the killing stroke. She managed to use the flat of her blade to smack some of the soldiers, but it wasn’t much damage. At best, it would pause a handful of the attackers for a minute. At best.

  Duncan saw five of the soldiers break off from the main attack, heading for the passage by the cave. Either they hadn’t seen Duncan take a position up there, or they didn’t care, for they climbed the rocky facade without caution.

  Duncan knew he couldn’t hold off five trained swordsmen, even with the high ground and a bit of a bottleneck. He had the element of surprise, but after that, the only surprising thing for the Turin would be how bad he was at fighting.

  The five soldiers were scaling the rockface in close formation. Duncan could only see one maneuver, and it was going to hurt. He grabbed a lose branch. One that still had a lot of pine needles on it. And he slid down the side of the cave, feet first, holding the branch out in front of him.

  It worked about as well as he could have hoped. The needles got in the lead Turin’s eyes. Duncan’s feet broke the Turin’s fingers, forcing him to lose his grip. He fell into the second Turin, who fell into the third. Duncan and the three assailants tumbled ten feet down the rocky slope, crumbling over each other as they smashed onto the path below.

  Duncan felt it when his ankle broke. And that bruise on his shoulder sucked, too. But he didn’t stop movin
g. He kept waving the pine needles around, hoping to keep the soldiers off him, as he limped away from the fray. As he had hoped, the three soldiers he had knocked down had taken the worst of the fall. They weren’t dead, but they were all badly bruised.

  The only problem now was that the other two soldiers were healthy and Duncan wasn’t at the bottleneck anymore...

  ---

  Nuria was still falling.

  But now the sky had become more populated by one. Eric was still standing there. Like he was on solid ground. And beside him was the Regent. She wore the most elegant silk gown. Her dark skin glistened in the sun.

  And she was facing away from Eric.

  Nuria realized right away that the Regent’s mind wasn’t there with them. Not in the way she had been on the clifftop. This was Eric’s memory of the Regent. His projection of her.

  “Your greatest fear is a woman in a dress?” Nuria asked.

  “Do not mock me,” Eric said. “I still have the strength of a hundred men.”

  “So, what’s the problem? Your genitals only have the strength of a crippled boy?”

  “Silence,” Eric said, though he wasn’t facing Nuria. He was facing the Regent, even though she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He knelt beside her, lowering his head. Like he was offering his fealty.

  Nuria saw that the ground was almost upon her again. She changed their location one more time, now miles above the blue ocean. It could have been anywhere.

  “Why won’t she turn to me?” Eric said. He reached into his chest, fingers digging beneath his skin, as though he intended to tear his heart out of his ribcage. But instead, his hand emerged with a glowing white ball of light. His soul, out in the open.

  The Regent took the gift, without ever looking at Eric. She considered it like a bauble. A cheap trinket. And she discarded it. The little ball of light fell faster than Nuria, plunking into the ocean below within seconds.

  “I would give her everything,” Eric lamented, “But she does not see me.”

  Nuria laughed.

  Eric stood, turning to Nuria. Even though she was still plummeting to the sea below, and upside down, and so much smaller than him, she was still bursting with the giggles.

  “What do you find so amusing?”

  “This,” Nuria said. “Look at you. The greatest mage in the Turinheld. One of the two most powerful wizards on the continent. And your greatest fear is that you will not have the love of a woman?”

  “You are too young to understand.”

  “Fuck that. I understand. I’m just glad that’s your greatest fear. That I can deal with it.”

  “Perhaps, but you cannot deal with me!” Eric’s voice had changed. Nuria had dug deep enough to find Grimsor, hiding under the surface. “I know your greatest fear, and you will fall before me.”

  Nuria felt the ground approaching fast. She tried to change her location again, but found herself stuck. Eric was smirking, making sure she couldn’t move. Grimsor was going to make her hit the surface...

  ---

  Landora still had a couple of concussive blasts left in her, and she managed to keep the assault at bay. But she was wearing out, and by her own rules, she hadn’t killed any of the attackers. It was only a matter of time before they tired her out. And she was even more concerned that, when she could spare a second to glance at the cave, she couldn’t spot Duncan.

  Duncan watched as one of the two healthy guards started climbing the side of the cave, hoping to get to Nuria before anybody could stop him. Duncan limped in to grab the guard’s leg, but the last healthy guard drew his sword and blocked his way. There was no way to get to the climber without engaging the swordsman.

  Duncan knew that would be a losing fight. Besides having been bruised by his fall, and only one working leg, he wasn’t a good fighter to begin with. So, he was going to have to do something else that was crazy.

  He flailed around with his sword, forcing his opponent to back away. And then he turned and fled down the slope. On one good ankle, he wasn’t moving very fast, but he let gravity drag him down the hill when he could. As he had hoped, the last guard pursued him, sword leading the way.

  Duncan stopped when he got to the largest tree he could find that rested along the side of the path. He grabbed a clutch of vines, hacking them just below his grip. He turned and flung his sword at his pursuer. It wasn’t a good throw. There was no chance it would kill, or even injure the guard. It would just force him to stop for a second.

  And with that second, Duncan leapt off the path.

  He swung on the vines, arcing around the trunk of the tree, to the other side of his pursuer. The vines shortened as they wrapped around the massive limbs of the oak, and Duncan had to let go, flinging himself back onto the side of the cave. As luck would have it, right by where his sword had landed.

  He grabbed his weapon and ascended the side of the cave. He was a good ten feet below the climbing guard, but he might still be able to catch him before he hit the top of the slope...

  ---

  “Submit to my will,” Grimsor said.

  “Not gonna happen,” Nuria protested. The sea was close now. So wide in her sightlines that she couldn’t see the horizon.

  “Perhaps your master could match my will for a fleeting moment,” Grimsor said. “But you are a pup. You will be mine.”

  Nuria couldn’t think of anything to say. She couldn’t think of anything at all. She felt the mist of the water on her face as the ocean sped up to her.

  “Wait!” she said. Fuck falling. Fuck hitting the ground. She didn’t need to defeat him. She didn’t need to avoid the ocean. She needed to free Eric.

  “Eric, listen to me!” Nuria said, rushing her words as her fall continued. “Don’t let this monster use your love against you. Your love is more powerful than your fear. Embrace it! Fight with it, not against it!”

  “Are you done, little girl,” Eric’s voice was still the deep, gravelly whisper of Grimsor. “Do you want to hit the water?”

  “No, please!”

  And she stopped falling. She was on solid ground. On the Lunapera once again. Grimsor appeared in his natural form. The leathery-red demon, with the blazing fire above his horns, the reptile wings, and eyes from beyond the netherworld.

  “Leave me alone,” Nuria called out, but her voice was weak.

  “I will not,” Grimsor said, holding his fiery hand out. “You have been Turned.”

  And he pressed his paw over her eyes. Nuria screamed...

  ---

  Landora backed away. Her sword arm was worn down, and still the enemy assault continued, their numbers only thinned by a fraction. Sure, Landora could hurt a couple of them, carefully, to make sure they wouldn’t die, but also wouldn’t continue the fight. But there were still thirty of them coming at her.

  She backed away from the ledge, giving up the bottleneck position. She could only swing her sword once every five seconds now, and they weren’t good swings. She instead just kept shooting off concussive blasts, hoping to topple a few of the enemy. But she was now only a few paces from Nuria’s sleeping body, and she was running out of energy.

  Duncan’s luck was only slightly better. He climbed as fast as he could on one foot, pulling himself up by his weary arms. He ignored the stinging in his shoulder from the bruise. Nothing he could do about that.

  Above him, one of the guards climbed higher. But he wasn’t an experienced climber. By luck, Duncan was actually gaining on him. But below Duncan, the last of the healthy guards, the one who had pursued him down the path, was now climbing up after him.

  Duncan didn’t have a lot of options. He gained a few more feet on the man he was pursuing, and then braced himself against the rocks. He drew his sword and stabbed up, cutting the man’s foot. He was thankful he didn’t cut the Achilles tendon. But a nice cut in the foot would make sure this guy didn’t get to the top too fast.

  Which meant Duncan had a second to breathe. He let the guard below him close in, and, at just the right mome
nt, Duncan loosed his grip on the rocks. He slid, only for a couple of paces, and planted his boot in the bottom guard’s face.

  Again, it wouldn’t be enough to kill anyone, but the pursuing guard fell off the wall, collapsing to the ground below, onto the pile of the other injured guards. Duncan only had the one guard left. He continued his climb...

  ---

  ...Nuria screamed. Her mind was wiped clear. Her will swept away. Grimsor had taken her.

  “Stop!” said a thundering voice behind Grimsor.

  And Grimsor stopped. Shocked that anyone could find him in this part of the dream. Usually, by the time he had gotten his victim to submit to his will, nobody could reach that part of the memory.

  “Let her go!” the voice said. And Nuria recognized the voice. It was Eric. The first Eric she had met. The proud leader of the Turin-Guarde. The loyal soldier. The good guy.

  “You will release her,” Eric said. “For she has already released me.”

  “An acceptable trade,” Grimsor said. “This one is more valuable to the Countess Vye.”

  “Nuria, you do not need to bend to his will,” Eric called out to the mentally imprisoned young woman. “If you can free me, you are already stronger than him.”

  “Too late,” Nuria said, with a devious smirk. “I know all the secrets now. And if I know them, Grimsor knows them too.”

  “The battle isn’t over yet,” Eric insisted. And he waved his hands.

  And they were falling again. All three of them. Grimsor spread his wings, steadying himself. Though he stayed beside the others, he was in no danger. It was as if he was hovering.

  But Nuria could only look down at the stone ground below. It wasn’t a real place anywhere in the world. It was just an unforgiving stone quarry, stretching out to every horizon. Eric’s version of Nuria’s nightmare.

  “What do you think you can prove?” Grimsor taunted them.

  “Nuria, listen to me,” Eric said. “If you want, Grimsor can save you again, and you can continue to submit to his will.”

  “If you don’t,” Grimsor warned, the snarl in his voice digging into Nuria’s deepest fears, “I promise you will hit the ground. He will not be able to stop it.”