Heir To The Nova (Book 3)

by T. Michael Ford

  For over an hour, we followed Elsa and her men through the rat’s warren of unused cut stone buildings, metal-working shops, and mine supply stores that lined the business district; finally finding ourselves moving deeper and deeper into the underground tunnel system. Before long, I could smell water, and then hear it. The last tunnel we exited led us out onto an actual dock platform which stretched out over some sort of subterranean river. There were a number of large metal, flat-bottomed boats lashed securely to the dock. The boats were kind of bed shaped with headboard and footboard, and a very low flat middle area. Despite being immersed in water constantly, they looked relatively rust free and well-maintained. Without hesitation, Elsa and her companions jumped in like they did this every day and beckoned for us to follow.

  “Let’s go, I already sent the rest of my boys on ahead to make sure the beastie doesn’t escape and lose us the reward.”

  I cocked my head dubiously at the craft, considering the weight of my armor. On firm ground, my lightening enchantments have the solid earth to push against; in a boat they might just send it to the bottom. She laughed at my expression.

  “Relax, Alex. These are ore haulers, they can handle even someone of your tonnage, trust me.” And she was right; the boat dipped slightly as I stepped aboard, but not alarmingly so. Immediately, Elsa’s people cast off the lines and picked up large poles from along the gunwales and used them to push us away from the dock. Rocking just slightly, it drifted out into the main channel and was seized by the current. The two silent dwarves set the angle of the bow with deft pole corrections and we were moving, slowly at first, but picking up speed. Looking around, even with my mage sight, was pretty monotonous; just a concave ceiling, sloping sides that dropped into the river itself, and that was it.

  Elsa stationed herself at the bow, one foot up on the forward rail like some carved figurehead of a dwarf goddess, occasionally conferring with her men in clipped, professional tones. It was very evident that her people respected and adored her.

  Settling into the back of the craft, Darroth prompted me for the dark elf story and I relayed what I knew of the situation. By this time, he had pulled out his pipe and even lit it, asking the occasional question or framing a point.

  “Poor, poor Maya.” He winced absently at the end of the story, and then redirected his attention to me, catching my surprise. “What? Do you think you’re the only one suffering from this turn of events?” He took a large puff and blew it out. “Let me tell you something, Alex; if Rosa was like Maya’s surrogate mom all those years at Xarparion, I was probably closest to being her dad. She and I have always talked a lot, even on the trip to Sky Raven; and I can tell you right now that little girl loves you more than life itself. However bad you’re feeling right now, hangover included; believe me, she is feeling a lot worse. It took a mountain of courage and sacrifice to order you out of the city like that. Hell, she probably knew the only way to actually get you to leave was to hurt your feelings, and it worked perfectly!”

  By this time, I had my head in my hands, and I was seriously considering the attractive option of just slipping over the side and letting my armor drag me to the bottom of the river. Why do I always feel like such an idiot when it comes to women? And now I left her there to face who-knows-what…alone.

  Nia stood up on my shoulder and shook her head gravely at Darroth. “Wow, great pep talk right before a battle, Darroth. You should really turn pro at this.”

  About this time, Elsa wandered back to us and frowned at the long faces. “Hey, we’re just about there. Nia, what did you think of the boat ride?”

  “It was awesome!” she said brightly, determined to single-handedly lighten the mood. “But how do you get the boats back up the river?”

  Elsa chuckled proudly. “It’s not a river, little one; it’s a dwarf-built water loop. Think of it like when you push water around the curve of a bathtub, the water just travels in a constant direction in a circle. If we stayed on this boat, we would eventually end up back where we started.”

  “But what keeps the water moving?”

  “Steam from deep magma flows power an array of turbines; think of them as big fan paddles that moves the water. If you want a more precise answer, you’ll have to talk to an engineer, but they are a surly closed-mouthed lot.” She looked up and grinned. “We’re here!”

  Elsa’s guys used their brawn to pole us into the shallows. We were entering another docking station, the path from which opened into a larger cavern area. I was startled to see actual daylight peaking through from above, and a huge pile of stone debris on the floor below. Beyond the debris field was the remains of a fortified guard station; and farther behind that, on the far wall at least two hundred paces from the docking area, were five huge banded metal doors. Four were intact, but the fifth was barely on its steel hinges. It looked like something had ripped it open, tore it right out of its framework. There was a small crowd of workmen assembling materials to fix the structure on one side of the door, and on the other, a group of about eighteen of Elsa’s people lounged about, checking weapons and sorting ropes.

  Elsa strode up to them as they turned to salute her. “Situation report,” she barked eagerly.

  One of the men, who looked at bit older than the others, leaned in to talk to her. “Elsa, it appears the beast broke into the vault overnight two days ago and is still in there. It made a mess of the guard station and the garrison before it went inside. You’ve already heard the survivors’ reports. I sent one of our scouts through for a quick listen and he reported a lot of arguing going on inside.”

  “What were they arguing about?”

  “Not they, it. Iron Shoulders went in against orders and took a peek. He reported it’s a huge, three-headed creature that appears to be searching for something; and there apparently was some disagreement between the heads on the best way to find it.”

  “Three heads?” Elsa tilted her head, intrigued. “Any clue what it’s looking for?”

  “No, ma’am, only that it’s old and made of stone.”

  “Hmmm.” Elsa turned and gave me a measured look.

  “Sounds like a chimera, Alex,” Rosa supplied in my thoughts.

  “Sounds like a chimera,” I echoed out loud.

  The dwarves looked at me in confusion. But I knew what a chimera was from Rosa’s extensive library. A foul, tortured beast, by all descriptions; created by the cruel mind of a practitioner of dark demon magic. The concept was to combine the strengths of three different monsters or animals into one organism in the hope that it would produce an even more powerful hybrid. From Rosa’s books, I knew that historically there were only a few successful templates that produced viable monsters, and the evil types tended to gravitate toward those due to their comparatively high level of success. The most likely result in dabbling in this cursed exercise was a creature with three heads. This could get interesting.

  Elsa impatiently shook off my description. “It doesn’t really matter what it is; we need to kill it.” She looked back at her lieutenant. “Are there any other tactical considerations we need to know?”

  “Yes, we found the upper passages of the vault and most of the security devices are still in place. If we can get up there, we should be able to rain heavy crossbow bolts down on it from the murder holes above.”

  “Good work! Then we have a plan. Gather the men and our heaviest crossbows–we leave in five!”

  The man nodded and ran off, barking orders at the rest of the mercenaries. Elsa turned to us. “I want you three to stay here and hold the gate. Don’t worry, if we kill the beast without you, I’ll still hold up my end of the deal. Stupid thing doesn’t belong here anyway.”

  Well, at least she is a fair leader. We nodded and smiled as she and her strike forces ran through a hidden side door and were quickly out of sight.

  “You can see them, can’t you?” asked Darroth, beside me with concern in his voice.

  I nodded. “They are a quarter way to the top already. Pretty
fast for dwarves.”

  “Do you think crossbows and rocks are going to kill this thing?”

  “Not in a million years. I’m just waiting for them to leave,” I said as I reached up and grabbed hold of the damaged door, swinging it open.

  “You might want to wait for your lady fair here, Darroth,” I said as Nia and I walked calmly into the vault. I closed the door behind us and twisted the metal wheel that slid the heavy steel rods into the door frame, then picked up a chunk of stone from the debris on the floor and jammed the mechanism closed.

  ..................................................

  Maya

  It’s day three of the illustrious reign of Queen Maya, and I haven’t been outside or seen the sun since the day my parents were slain. My world has fallen into a routine of sorts; every six hours or so I am ‘invited’ to the council arena, usually to hear some snotty minor noble with an attitude stand up and recount to the attendees what a bitch and a whore I am, and how my parents slept with barnyard animals prior to my conception. This invariably leads to a challenge and the snotty noble’s bloody and painful demise.

  On the positive side, I have made serious inroads into the viable breeding stock of the three clans that most oppose my rule, to the point where they are just not showing up much anymore. Instead, they send foolish proxies from the waffling clans in the hope that someone will get lucky. I am also starting to see a lot of poisoned blades flash by my head, and even the occasional magical weapon in use, none of which are up to the challenge of Winya. She and I have patched up our differences despite her admission that she is in love with my mate. As time goes by, we are more like sisters than ever before.

  The twins, however, have been strangely distant; no joking around, no flirting with my guards. They altered their appearance to resemble dark elf girls but, for some reason, they neglected to change their eyes which are one hundred percent icy cold saurian and spooky as hell. The effect does keep the casual visitor to my chambers away rather effectively. One evening, I asked Dusk about this change from their usual behavior, and she said that Alex’s mother had spoken to them before they left and had strongly impressed upon them the importance of keeping me alive. Beyond that comment, she would reveal nothing else, nor would her more easy-going silver sister, Dawn.

  I do occasionally get to see Ollis and my grandfather. The news from Ollis is not good; officially, there is no progress on finding out what happened to my parents, and he suspects that the higher-ups are blocking the investigation, waiting to see if my reign lasts more than a week, I suppose. Ollis did tell me that word of the challenges and my response to them has reached the general populace, and people are starting to talk about their fierce warrior Queen; apparently, with growing pride. We are a martial society after all.

  My grandfather is my one ray of sunshine, other than Winya. I enjoy his visits and I have made him recount his conversation with Alex in the hut more than once. He seems to be imbued with something I lack; simple faith that something good will come out of all of this.

  Yawning, I am mildly intrigued by the concept that I might actually get some sleep tonight. It’s strange, I used to fear sleep because of the nightmares. Now I have real life assassins to worry about. Dawn and Dusk have been frighteningly efficient, and it isn’t unusual to walk past dagger-wielding frozen corpses on my frequent trips to the arena.

  I try not to dwell on how much I miss Alex and my friends at Sky Raven. Instead, I focus on promoting the mission to further weaken the three enemy clans. I am thinking of trying a new tactic. Tomorrow I will make a public announcement declaring that all members of the three clans are despicable craven cowards and demand that they face me in the arena or forfeit their lands. That should stir them up a bit and perhaps provide me with some brief diversion.

  I was nearly asleep when I sensed Dusk move away from the door and move closer to me, staring upward. Shaking the cobwebs from my mind, I threw off my blankets and followed her snake-like gaze up the wall to a small ventilation grate near the ceiling. It couldn’t have been more than four inches in diameter. Dusk continued to stare, and then tilted her head oddly as if tasting the air. Finally, something caught my eye behind the grate. It was a small rodent face, with black dots for eyes and long white whiskers, peering back at me. A few seconds later, there were three of them crowded behind the grate.

  Rather than be alarmed, Dusk sniffed the air again, then relaxed and returned to her usual spot by the door, freezing back into her statue-like unblinking stance. Fascinated, I watched the rats stick their heads through the grate bars and squeeze they bodies through as well. The first rodent through stopped, clinging easily to the wall just below the grate to stare down at me curiously. In the blink of an eye, all three were using their sharp little claws to run down the wall to the floor. Once there, one hung back while two of them leaped up onto the bed with me. Now, I’m not normally a squeamish-type of girl. I used to sleep in snake-infested trees all the time when I camped out alone; it was safer than sleeping on the ground. But something about these rodents wasn’t quite right, and I had a suspicion I knew what it was.

  “Ok, you two, you’re not fooling anyone, you know,” I whispered.

  The two rats stood up on their hind feet, eyeing me curiously, and groomed their whiskers with practiced nonchalance. Finally, they dropped back to all fours and began to blur. Julia enlarged and came out of the change first, throwing herself into my arms.

  “Maya! We’ve missed you!”

  “That’s her eminence, Queen Maya, to you, shortcake!” I joked, rolling her over and tickling her. Seconds later, Lin finished her transformation, and we spent a few silly minutes roughhousing on the bed and just being carefree wild young girls.

  Finally, I pulled back and settled the druids down. That’s when I noticed Ryliss standing in the corner watching us with obvious delight and adoration.

  “Whew, I haven’t laughed like that in too long,” I panted. “Hello, Ryliss. I’m happy to see you, too.” The young scholar shifted uneasily in her dark robes, her nose twitching. She grabbed hold of it and still managed a low dignified bow.

  “You honor me, my Queen.”

  I smiled in a, hopefully, reassuring manner and motioned for her to join us on the bed.

  “While I am very happy to see you girls, this was very reckless of you. It’s not safe to be around me, and you could all get into a lot of trouble.”

  Lin took my hand and a serious look came over her freckled face. “We’re not here on a whim, Maya; and we’re about to get into a lot more trouble than just this. We’ve come to break you out of this prison.”

  “What?”

  “At least temporarily,” she amended. “Belrothe is waiting outside and she says that it is urgent that she speak to you alone. She wouldn’t tell us any more than that, but you must come.”

  “And how exactly do you plan on getting me out past all the guards?”

  Lin grinned crookedly, the lights from the glow orbs in the room shining off her eyes. “Why, the same way we got in, of course! We’re giving you a lesson in walking on the wild side. We found a spell in the old archives that works great. Ryliss insisted that we try it out on her first before we came to you, and as you can see, it works fine.”

  “But her nose is still twitching uncontrollably!” I protested, examining the embarrassed scholar.

  “A minor side effect. We’re pretty sure it will go away eventually. Come on, we have to go.”

  “But...”

  “No buts! Look, Bel said if you resisted, we should sweeten the pot by telling you that you will regret it the rest of your life if you don’t come with us!”

  “Ok, ok, I’ll come,” I said, caught up in their enthusiasm. “Bel now, is it?”

  “Yeah, she’s actually pretty nice once you get to know her. I have to keep reminding myself that she’s older than dirt though,” Lin smirked.

  Julia moved over in front of me. She took both my hands and looked up into my face with her b
ig blue eyes, whispering, “Maya, now close your eyes. When you open them again, the world will look a lot different, so stay calm and please don’t freak out. Trust in me, trust me.”

  “I trust you, sister.” I breathed slowly, willing myself to relax. Losing myself in those blue eyes, suddenly my vision swam oddly.

  Yikes! What happened to my eyesight? It was so blurry in here I couldn’t see a thing. Maybe some shadows. Hawk! Instinctively, I dived sideways and my whiskers came into contact with other whiskers. I was not alone. My nose told me it was another like me and there were more of us here. Wait! Bacon! I smell bacon! I plowed forward toward the smell and bumped into someone.

  “Maya, slow down, girl; you are disoriented,” Winya said in a calm voice. “The girls are around you on all sides as an escort. Follow them and they will take you outside.”

  “Outside would be good. Ouch! Someone just stepped on my tail…now where’s that bacon?”

  Scaling the wall was just like the gecko climb my armor lets me do, so that wasn’t too bad. I had to really squeeze my whiskers through the grate to get my head to fit, and I didn’t like that at all. Once inside the pipe, there were so many interesting smells to think about that I just sat there overwhelmed for a time. Finally, I again felt whiskers intertwining with mine and another like me faced me.

  “Maya…food…this way.” And I smelled (?) a mental image of a succulent barrel of fish heads and potato peels just waiting for me outside. Oh, so yummy! My mouth was watering–I would definitely follow this female anywhere.

  Coaxed on by my companions, I started to run. Well, they ran; I hopped a lot, tripping over my feet and getting tangled up in the process. For what seemed like miles, we scampered through drains and open sewers; me just following obediently behind my sisters. Disgusting, I know, but part of me found it exhilarating and I adored it–the whiskered part, I hope! Darkness wasn’t a problem; in fact, I grew to prefer it. Finally, with a squeak of triumph, the group of us burst out of a crumbling ceramic drainpipe into the night amidst a grove of huge trees that smelled good enough to eat.