Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago: Tales of the Lost Isles

by JOSEPH A. MCCULLOUGH

  I didn’t quite reach it. Instead I slammed against the wet, vine-draped earth on the far side of the crevice and scrabbled at the cliff edge.

  I found no hand hold, and the next thing I knew I was dropping. I could see a ribbon of sky above the crevice where the trees gave way, and the thunder lizard leaning down, teeth bared as if in fury. I heard it start a roar, and then there was a sharp pain in my side and everything went black.

  * * *

  I woke to cool fingers brushing hair from my forehead. My vision was a little blurry, but I had the sense I was in a dark, moist place. Somewhere behind the figure near me, a red flame flickered. ‘Where am I?’ I asked. My voice sounded hoarse.

  The woman answered in a husky, strangely sibilant voice. ‘You are safe in the cave of my people.’ She sounded familiar, and as I blinked I looked up into the striking green eyes of the Count’s sorceress. ‘Myria?’ I asked.

  Her lovely face tightened as though I had slapped her, and her fingers withdrew. ‘No. I am Sora. Myria is my sister.’

  At a furtive sound behind her, I tried to sit up and was overcome with a terrible pain in my side. I had to lie back down upon what I now realised was a bed of fronds.

  ‘Be careful,’ she urged. ‘You broke your arm and many ribs.’

  As I nodded slowly, I noticed my right arm was splinted and wrapped, and looking down my chest, I realised I was bare to the waist apart from some tight bandages. And I saw that Sora was in a red outfit that bared midriff and shoulders and was tight enough in all sorts of wonderful places so that a man wasn’t sure where to put his eyes. Her hair was shorter, too, but otherwise she looked just like her sister.

  The noise turned out to be one of the serpent folk, who deposited a woven basket heaped with those terrible turnip pinecone fruits beside me before withdrawing. I gathered I was supposed to eat them. Yay me.

  At my look to the serpent man, Sora said,‘My people have ruled the scaled from the dawn times. But your people hunt and kill them. You did not? Why?’

  I can’t really explain my reasoning even now, and especially not then, half groggy as I was. ‘He needed help,’ I said.

  ‘A simple answer. But a true one. I see this. My blood burns as yours does, and it gives me gifts. Yes, I was told of your feat of strength.’

  ‘My crew. Where are they?’

  She shook her lovely head. ‘It is bad for them. They have hours at most.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘My sister lured them to the temple, and they have been seduced by the sleep spell of the silver mists. Soon Myria will use their blood to fuel her ritual.’

  Even in pain and groggy as I was, something didn’t ring true. ‘Couldn’t she have gotten blood a little easier? Tregellan is months away by ship.’

  ‘Myria has no shortage of blood. But she needs the blood of kings.’ She touched my chest and I felt a chill that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. ‘And outlanders. She may have enough now to awaken the full power of the great necklace.’

  ‘What happens then?’

  ‘Then her power will grow like that of a goddess. She must be stopped, or she will kill your people and use her powers against mine.’

  I looked down at my arm. ‘I’d love to help,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure I’m in any shape to do so. How long do we have?’

  ‘Until tonight.’

  She saw the despair I felt. I was practically helpless. Still, it was hard to believe that Heln and Lilandra had gone down so easily. ‘You’re sure they were captured?’

  ‘We saw. What is your name?’

  ‘Varn. Kellic Varn. Captain of the Sea Witch.’

  ‘Well, Kellic Varn, there may be a way for you to help. But it is very dangerous.’

  I’ve been led along enough times over the years to recognise a sales job. She’d shown me the problem, then the promise of a solution, then yanked so I’d chase after, like a fish swimming after bait. Still. What was I to do? My cousin and my friend needed me, not to mention the Count, his nephew and the soldiers. ‘What’s dangerous?’

  ‘You have the blood burn. I have a drink. It might enhance your powers. Speed your healing. Right as rain, your people say.’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Or it might kill you. Or worse.’

  ‘What’s worse?’

  She drew her fingers through my hair, full lips shaping a sad pout. ‘The blood burn pains, yes?’

  ‘Yes, very much.’

  ‘This will come with greater pain. And it may be that when you drink you transform into something that isn’t human anymore. There is no telling.’

  I can’t say I was super excited to be trying it out. I glanced down at my bandages. ‘Where did you get this drink?’

  ‘From a sacred pool on a remote island. There is but a single dose. They say that those who are Heritors can drink it and live.’

  There it was. I wanted to know what she planned after she got me to drink. All I knew for certain was that my friends were in danger. If I didn’t hear a workable plan, I couldn’t be sure my own risk was worth it. ‘You want me to drink it. You heard about my strength, and want to use it.’

  ‘We can be of use to each other. The fortress is surrounded by a great wooden barricade with sharpened spikes, and well-guarded. There is no way swiftly through them – unless someone were to rip through the old stone barricade below.’

  ‘How many men do they have, and how many do you?’

  ‘I have no men. I have the serpent folk. And we are three dozen. They have one hundred. But most of them will be scattered through the temple, and less than half are soldiers.’

  ‘How many use magic?’

  ‘At least four. But my archers will target them first. We will attack at dark, as the ceremony begins. If we strike the sorcerers, we have nearly won.’

  It sounded to me as though she were readying herself for the victory party a little soon. Still. If she was telling the truth, and I thought she was, I didn’t have many options. To aid my friends, I’d have to ally with these people. And I wouldn’t be in shape to do so unless I tried her drink.

  I sat up, managed not to moan as pain lanced through my shoulder and chest, and looked her boldly in the eyes. ‘Bring the drink.’

  She was good with theatre. She slipped away with a sway of rounded hips then passed through a beaded curtain. When she returned only moments later she held a gold, ruby-encrusted goblet. I guess she’d been pretty sure I’d take her offer.

  As she brought it close, I saw it half full of a dark liquid that smelled of floral blooms. She presented it, her fingers lingering upon my own, and then I was staring at the goblet I gripped in my right hand, wondering if there were some other motive. If she’d wanted to drug me, she could have done it while I was unconscious. If she’d wanted me dead, she could have knifed me, or left me in the jungle.

  What I didn’t know was just how bad my chances were. I didn’t trust her to tell me.

  So I lifted the drink, toasting chance and the gods, then toasted her, then put the goblet to my lips and drank deep. It was sweet, like a first kiss and the blush on a maiden’s cheek, and the sugared wine they give to children on Harvest Day in old Vornell.

  Three good gulps and it was down me. I sat the goblet upon the stone floor and managed two blinks before the magic seized hold.

  I thought I’d known what pain was before that. You ever been hit by an arrow? Imagine your body riddled with them. Maybe you’ve been lucky enough that’s never happened. You ever get a dog bite? Imagine thirty dogs biting you at once, except with needle-sharp teeth. And then imagine that pain being trebled, and not just a single sharp moment, but one continual blast at the same level. I surely would have screamed, but I was struck so senseless I couldn’t manage a breath.

  When I fell backwards, writhing, so great was the agony that jarring my chest and my arm barely registered. Within was a living flame that hungered to destroy me.

  ‘Is it bad?’ I heard her call, as if from far off. ‘
Do you feel much pain?’

  I could say nothing.

  But by and by the agony passed, and I can’t say if it was minutes or hours. But it faded, and a strange strength filled me, such as I had never known. I breathed more easily, and as I shifted, testing my limbs, the pins and needles that enervated them left off and the pain departed. All of it. The arm trapped in the splint felt hale and hearty. And so I tore the cast away and flexed it. I sat up and breathed, and ripped off the bandages circling my chest. I sucked in a deep breath. No pain there, either.

  ‘It worked!’ She sounded relieved. Maybe she hadn’t been as sure as she’d let on, for she made a strange gesture and rolled her eyes as she stared towards the cavern roof. ‘Praise be the gods of the night!’

  ‘Praise be,’ I muttered.

  She smiled at me. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Like it’s time to see that temple.’

  * * *

  It was already dusk when we left the hiding place and moved silently through the foliage. The serpent folk strode ahead and behind, and didn’t say a word to one another. Maybe a quarter of an hour passed, and then suddenly the greenery parted and we were in front of a narrow cave entrance, flanked by soaring, vine-choked stone columns. Sora led me past them and into the darkness, whereupon a serpent man handed over a torch, which flickered redly and threw our lurching shadows upon the wall. At a signal from her, serpent folk lit torches set all along the passage.

  Two hundred paces further on, deep in the oppressive gloom, we began to pass slabs of rock and stone piled on the left side of the cavern.

  ‘We’ve been moving the rock for a long time,’ she said. ‘But there was no way we could breach the final stones.’

  And before long I saw what she meant. A slab of rock was crammed diagonally across the cavern. Its surface was carved with serpent folk in knee-length tunics raising their hands and bowing and carrying baskets of fruit, and a whole lot of squiggly characters that were someone else’s idea of letters, I guess. The corners were cracked and broken, but the rest of the slab was intact. It looked very, very heavy.

  ‘So,’ said Sora, ‘there it is. You have to move it.’

  I gave it a good, long look. ‘You’re expecting a lot.’

  ‘I’m expecting a little. Your strength, with ours. We need only move it far enough to squeeze past. And your friends need you.’

  She could have gone without mentioning the whole friends angle again. But I stepped forward and watched as she pointed four serpent folk forward with me. They didn’t look much stronger than the rest of the serpent folk, who might have been muscular, but were a little rangey. Sort of like me, I suppose, so maybe they were stronger than they looked.

  The serpent heads swivelled to look at me as I crouched to put hands on one corner. The slab was tilted backwards just a little, or it would have been nigh impossible. The serpent folk aped – rather, copied – my movements, still watching with unblinking eyes.

  I closed mine, partly so I’d stop seeing them but mostly so I could focus on the blood burn as I started to lift. It didn’t budge, naturally, because I hadn’t called on any sorcerous strength yet.

  Then my pulse was racing and it felt again like fire raged through me, but the strength came. Even then it was hard going, but as I strained, the slab rose and I dragged it back. For all I know I might have been dragging the serpent folk too, because I couldn’t tell if they were doing me any good, but by and by that old hunk of stone came along. Four spaces was all it needed, for Sora called us to a stop, then waved her serpent folk forward. She started into the darkness, saying something to her followers at the rear before hurrying off with the rest.

  I would have started right after, but I was bent over, gasping for breath. The two she’d sent over to speak with me conferred briefly.

  And then the shorter ran after the others, and that left me with one, staring at me and holding a torch.

  ‘I have only words few of yours,’ it hissed. ‘You gave tree off me.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. It was the one I’d rescued. I couldn’t have told the serpent folk apart if I’d tried.

  ‘Sora plans to give you dead hurt. Run off.’

  I furrowed my brow. ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘She gave you magic. If she kills you, she takes back. You run away.’

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t do that. I have to save my friends.’

  It only stared at me.

  ‘Are my friends in there?’

  ‘Yes. She will kill them.’

  I asked my serpent folk pal why, but I didn’t quite understand his answer. Something about their blood and magic. As he gabbled at me some more, I inferred that Sora and Myria had had a falling out. It wasn’t so much that Sora opposed the idea of the ceremony at the silver waters, just the idea of the ceremony giving her sister the power.

  I told my pal, who said his name was Zhleen, that I had to save my friends, and he said he had to save his, who were captured and to be sacrificed, and that’s as close as we got to any agreement before we started into the cavern together. I couldn’t be sure if we were allies now or just happened to be going in the same direction. I had clued in to the fact he limped a little, which was something, at least. I’d be able to tell him apart from the others.

  The sounds of the conflict echoed back to us long before we reached the end of the cavern. There were shouts and screams and the clack of swords, which don’t really have that romantic ringing sound you hear about in the songs.

  All that noise was spuring me on. I believed Zhleen, and was worried Sora might already be killing my friends.

  The tunnel came out at the edge of a large, clear space. To my left the crumbling temple loomed, steps climbing its face, its dark stone carved with innumerable serpent-folk faces. In front of it was a raised granite dais, looking over a long, rectangular pool framed by flagstone walkways. All along the walkway, columns of stone hung with flickering torches that supported a crumbling trellis.

  The pool was the centre point, though. It bubbled, and in the lurid torchlight the steam rising from it took on a strange, silvery cast.

  Everywhere the lizardfolk wrestled with bronze-skinned men and women in cloth of gold, in a bloody, no-holds battle. I searched through the ranks of struggling, stabbing figures, then saw a line of crude wooden cages on the pool’s longest edge. And from within those cages I heard shouts, and saw human arms waving.

  I snatched up a curved sword from a glassy-eyed corpse and sprinted for the cages. I was halfway there when I heard an explosive thunderclap behind me. On that raised dais, Myria and Sora were locked in sorcerous conflict. Myria still wore the ivory tunic dress thing I’d seen her in most of the voyage, and Sora had on that same garment that left only a little to the imagination. About Myria was a greenish glow, rising in a cloud above her head. A nimbus of lightning hovered over Sora’s hands, then leapt from her fingertips as she pointed, piercing the green energy that shielded Myria.

  She shrieked in agony, then sent a coil of that energy back towards Sora. I looked away just in time to sidestep a maddened man in cloth of gold jabbing at me with a spear. I cut the weapon’s head off then kicked him off balance towards the pool. He screamed in fright as he tottered, then screamed, once, when he hit. He was silent after that, although the pool bubbled as it sucked him down, the way a dog slurps down leftover stew.

  I decided then and there to avoid the water.

  Heln and Lilandra were at the front of the first cage, and I could see the Count, his nephew and the soldiers crowding behind. Their armour and weapons were gone, though they still had clothes and footgear. A bunch of serpent folk were penned in the cage beside it, and I saw one of the serpentfolk hacking away at the tough ropes that bound the cage shut. Maybe it was Zhleen. He wasn’t limping at the time, so I couldn’t tell.

  ‘We thought you were dead,’ Lilandra told me.

  There was no time for idle talk. ‘Get back.’ I raised the sword

  From the dais arose a
great gout of laughter that sounded an awful lot like the way villains laugh in stage plays, so you can hear them all the way back in the cheap seats. Loud, maniacal, depraved. One of the women had won the sorcerous conflict, I guessed. And given what I knew from Zhleen, I didn’t figure it was good no matter who pulled through.

  So I hacked once at the cords that tied the cage shut, but when that didn’t work I tossed down the sword, gritted my teeth to the pain, and called on my strength. I tell you, after dragging that stone, ripping a bamboo cage open was child’s play, and my friends and the Tregellan were soon swarming out. There were shouts of thanks and a hug from my cousin Heln, and naturally the Count asked if I’d seen where the treasure was, but I shouted them quiet and told them we had to get out. Now.

  Like a lot of great ideas, that proved easier in conception than execution. Heln and the men grabbed spears and the curved swords that the dead natives were holding.

  Over on the dais, Sora raised hands to the sky, calling out in a harsh, guttural language while groups of serpent folk heaved the bodies of the dead and dying into the pool. As they did that, Sora’s eyes took on a glowing, silvery sheen. About her neck hung a sort of torc with pulsing rubies.

  ‘Follow me,’ I said, and made for the opening back of the dais from which we’d emerged.

  Sora’s chant rose to a crescendo and cut off as a massive bolt of white lightning shot down from the roiling heavens. I’d like to report that it blasted her into tiny pieces, but when it touched her, she tripled in size and turned towards us. We’d reached the end of the pool by then and were nearly to the dozen steps that led to the dais. She caught sight of us and extended a hand, crackling with energy.

  Lilandra was waiting, though. She conjured a wind and with a wave of her hand sent a gust rolling at the mad woman atop the dais. It set her hair and garments sailing out behind her. The sparkle on her hands died as she staggered. We could just make out her shouting over the wind.

  I couldn’t speak serpent folk, but there was no trouble guessing the meaning behind her words, because they stopped heaving bodies and started for us.