The second group was led by Balen, general and war-leader of a large portion of Balator's present military. Though there were two other generals, they were out of the city with their armies on defensive maneuvers. Balen was Joven's older and bigger brother, standing at seven feet tall and possessing a great deal of combat experience and skill with a weapon. He was present for the meeting to represent the military's opinions on the matter at hand. The big man still moved almost gingerly, having nearly been killed by his brother Joven during their confrontation with Kalenden. It wasn't his fault that he’d turned against them; Kalenden had charmed him with some sort of spell, forcing him to believe that Endrance and his brother had betrayed him. He had been healed, but still had bouts of dizziness since Joven had cracked him in the head so hard. Endrance had volunteered to look at his head again, but Balen insisted that the bouts were getting better.
The third group was led by a fiery haired woman named Kalah Varg. One of the few red haired women of Balator, she was feared by many as one of the most dangerous people alive. Endrance had thought it silly that the whole of their people had the superstitious belief that women with red hair had a temper, but Joven insisted that it wasn't a superstition, it was a sign of a very real curse. Given that she had been seen in battle at one point wielding a dead man by the ankle in one hand and a battleaxe in the other, and striking blows that bent steel with her bare hands in a bar brawl, Endrance had to suspend his disbelief until he knew better.
The three leaders waited for Endrance to come to a stop by the fire. Of all the people around, it seemed that only Thorald noticed that snowflakes melted upon touching his clothes. The three nodded their heads to him silently.
"So..." Endrance began. "I take it you guys are the final members of the council?"
"Guys?" Kalah asked, her tone menacing.
"Uh... people?" Endrance corrected. Kalah squinted at him, but after a moment of scrutiny, rolled her eyes and sighed in displeasure.
"Okay." Endrance continued. "So I take it you need me to help settle a matter?"
Thorald nodded, waving his hands at the doors leading into the castle. "We need to discuss what happens here."
"Here?" Endrance asked.
"The King was struck from the mountain." Balen supplemented. "We need to close off his home so that no one else moves in and is tainted by his evil."
"But that prevents us from using the castle at all." Kalah stated plainly. "And that would make this whole bowl useless."
"We don't believe that it's necessary to block off the castle." Thorald said. "But the other two have different ideas."
"We need to stick to tradition." Balen insisted. "This whole problem was caused by our king not following the traditions."
"We need the castle for our new leadership." Kalah added. "We should knock the old castle down and build a new one."
Endrance looked at Kalah, incredulous. "Knock the thing down?" he looked up at the castle. "That's going to take a long time."
Kalah nodded. "But the new castle won't have the taint of the old king."
Thorald shook his head. "We don't have time to do either of those. The ascension will happen in the spring."
"Right." Endrance responded. "The ceremony where you all beat the stuffing out of each other to see who gets to rule the throne."
Thorald nodded, Balen shrugged, and Kalah smiled.
"Stuffing," Kalah stated. "would be an understatement."
"Oh, you're competing too?" Endrance said wearily.
Kalah smiled. "Yes. My sisters will back me."
Thorald looked surprised. "You have enough of your... kind?"
"Tradition says you must take at least twelve." Kalah said with a grin. "And no more than twenty four. Otherwise there is no rule saying I cannot compete." she stared at Thorald harshly. "Or has the kingdom gotten so weak that it is afraid to recognize when a woman is proven to be strongest?"
Endrance watched the exchange with some degree of detachment. He was glad he wasn't going to be part of the ascension ceremony. It sounded like a lot of danger, and he for once was glad he didn't have enough friends; one would have inevitably put his name forward. He raised a hand, trying to get their attention. The conversation between the two had turned into bickering and they'd even managed to drag Balen into the issue. Kalah had started yelling and it seemed like things were about to come to blows. Endrance had to figure out a solution before they ended up murdering each other. As much as he disliked having to interfere, he wanted to see as few people as possible die because of his actions.
Endrance took a breath, used all of the voice training exercises he had learned and waited for the air in his lungs to warm before shouting. "ENOUGH!" he boomed. His voice scattered theirs into echoes as he spoke as loud and as deep as he could manage. It was easily sufficient. Silence reigned as the three leaders and their followers stared wide eyed at the smallest one among them.
"I do not have the time or patience for this degree of bickering!" he exclaimed, his exhaustion adding a bite to his tone of voice. He continued to speak with enough projection that they knew he would not allow interruption. He might also have been venting because of his encounter with Bridget, but he wasn't going to think about that. "This kingdom has been broken up enough. The only people who can lead it back into some semblance of sanity cannot afford to be arguing over this!"
Endrance walked through the people, actively pushing one of Thorald’s brothers out of the way as he passed. “This castle is not going to be knocked down, nor will we block it off!” he exclaimed angrily. “Yes, bad things happened in it, but you have hundreds of years of your people’s history engraved in it! If the misdeeds of one man are enough to make you throw away your pride in your history, then you are all weaker than I ever believed.”
Following behind him, members of the council and their supporters became angry. Only Thorald seemed to agree with him. He walked up the steps to the castle doors. He stopped before going in and turned to look back at them, his own built up frustrations giving him backbone he wouldn’t ordinarily display. "As the Spengur I will remove the taint of evil from this place and there will be no more fighting over it!"
Kalah looked at him with some measure of respect. "You... can do that?"
Endrance looked over the group, his eyebrows furrowed. "Yes. I am the Spengur. Do any of you know what I'm actually capable of doing?"
"No." Balen admitted.
"Not really." Thorald said, scratching his chin.
"No." Kalah said. "But I get the feeling I should find out."
"Fine." Endrance stated. "You do that, ask the Ergnoa if you have to. Until then, I will take care of this."
Endrance entered the castle doors then and didn't wait for a response. He let them slam shut loudly, the sound satisfying to him on some level. He pulled the drop bar into place, preventing the door from opening from the outside. He paused for several moments, his back to the crossbeam, trying to get his heart under control.
Too much was piling up on him. It had been different when Kalenden had been around; his threat had made things seem so linear, so simple. It had been easy to decide what was needed to be done next. Now he was bogged down in a dozen small things that came from that linear progression of choices, and he was entirely unsure which things to do first and which to do later.
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. It didn’t matter what else he had resting on his shoulders at the moment; he had already walked himself into a corner with the castle, so he had to sort that out first. He figured that the only taint in the castle was the taboo the king had left in the minds of the people, so there really wouldn’t be anything to worry about.
He figured he’d walk through each room, see if he could detect anything arcane, and if so, deal with it. If it turned out there was nothing, he’d just cast a few flashy spells where the people waiting outside could see, and say it was all cleaned out. That way they would be happy, he would be done, and Balator could move on.
&n
bsp; The first room had hallways that led to either side of the throne room. At one point it had been manned with over a dozen armed men and women who would be able to flood the chamber to flank intruders from both sides. Now, the doors were abandoned and the double doors into the throne room hung open on their hinges.
Endrance concentrated and spoke the word of power for his spell. "Silustrius." he muttered, holding up a clenched fist. Bright rays of light leaked out around the fingers of his hand and he released his clenched fist. He watched as hundreds of tiny specks of light exploded out into the air. Some bounced off the stone of the walls, floor, or support columns, but came to a halt shortly after bouncing. Others slowed to a stop, having found a place where it could shed its light unhindered. The spell was a modification of his original light spell, and it was exceptionally good at blanketing a room with even lighting. Now that it was designed to perform in this manner, the spell worked much better than when he had first accidentally cast it; and the hundreds of specks each gleamed more brightly than when they had originally been created.
Some of the masons had come and repaired the damage that Endrance's battle had done to the floor, but there were still scorch marks and lightning scarring on the walls and ceiling. One of the eight pillars had been defaced, an outer layer of stone chipped off roughly. Four pillars on either side of the main hall and the right pillar closest to the throne looked like they had taken chisels to it.
Endrance kicked a stone chip out of the way as he approached the throne. The back had not been repaired and remained snapped off where the king had collided with it during their battle. Only a small triangle of stone remained in one corner where the stone had not broken evenly.
Nearby was the spot where Anna had died. The blood had since been cleaned away, Kalenden’s corpse burned, and the dead Draugnoa given to her family who would finally be able to bury her. The sword Kalenden left behind had been set on the ground near the throne; no one wanted to have anything to do with the weapon of someone struck from the mountain.
Anna’s family had received the body with dry-eyed gratitude, but none of them mourned for her. To them, she had died many months before, when she had been ‘sacrificed’ to him as an appeasement. Though the family had accepted she was dead long before, they were glad her body had finally made its way back to them so they could give it proper treatment.
Endrance sighed and sat upon the broken throne. He held his head in his hands, so tired of the ache in his chest. Since the day he returned Anna’s body to them, his heart had felt broken. How many more times would he feel this pain of loss? Three more times? Thirty? Three hundred?
With the lifespan that comes from having great magical energy, he would see quite a few people grow old and die, if they even lived that long. It was no small wonder his master, Kaelob, was considered a crackpot. He was over eight hundred years old and had been around since the beginning of Ironsoul. He'd mentioned a few times how much more harsh life had been before the kingdoms were united.
Sitting on the throne, Endrance felt that niggling worm of instinct in the back of his mind. He had accidentally captured the sum of the king's spellcasting experience, making Endrance almost instantaneously quite well read in demonology and summoning. He had kept the information locked away inside his head, in an imagined library inside his mind where he sorted all his memories and knowledge.
Capturing spell knowledge wasn't all that was gained from the king. He had also gotten a few surface memories, impressions, and worst of all, the man left behind an imprint of his instincts. While other imprints had faded completely with time, Kalenden's ego had been very strong and had faded very little in the month since that battle. Endrance had to keep pushing it down, or else it would influence his actions.
That instinct was urging him to take up the sword, hunt down Bridget, and finish her off. She was of no use to him broken, and if she really wanted to die why should he not grant her wish? Once that business was done, he could pin that half-demon bitch down, rip off her clothes and-
Endrance shook his head, grimacing. He pushed it back out of his mind for the moment. Kalenden's ego was strong; it had to be in order to force demons to do his bidding. It had faded a little, but being there, at the seat of the man's power, caused it to surge up in strength. A thought nagged at the wizard as he kept control of his ego.
“Is this... the seat of your power?" he asked aloud. If he was a demon summoner, he would need a circle. A large and powerful one for what he had been doing. None of the men searching the castle for the child had seen a circle, and drawing a new one every time was dangerous. Too many chances of making a mistake. He'd have crafted a permanent circle somewhere, after double and triple checking to make sure it was perfect.
So it had to be hidden somewhere. That would be the seat of his power. But he didn't know where. Endrance closed his eyes and concentrated, relaxing his body and slipping into the meditative state he used to access the library.
The library in his mind was much bigger than it had been when he had first imagined it years ago while training with Kaelob. Then it had been one floor, with red curtains and wooden walls and a fireplace to read by. The rest of it had been hazy and indistinct and never had much sharpened focus. Things seemed fuzzy, indistinct unless specifically called upon, and nothing had much detail. It was almost more like a dreaming state than an imagined room. Only when he started getting better at focusing his mind did the room change, becoming white marble and vaulted ceilings. The framework of his years of training had noted results.
Ever since he came to Balator it had taken on a sharp contrast, where details flooded in around him and felt as much like reality as the world outside his meditations. The library had three floors, a central circular reflecting pool, shelves upon shelves of subjects he’d studied; and shelves empty and bare, ready to accept new knowledge in the inviting way that a newly polished wood shelf invites someone to place things upon it. Now he had additional rooms, and the back wall of the library held a large bay window with red velvet curtains. The window shed a soft white light, as did several crystal chandeliers that hung in a geometrically pleasing pattern.
There was an abundance of furniture, even couches. Some of the other rooms had beds, even though the idea of sleeping inside his head while he was meditating seemed a level too deep for his present state of mind. There was even an elaborate gold detailed pair of large redwood doors that was supposed to lead 'out' of his mind. The doors were closed and Endrance had not yet explored beyond. That was beyond his ability at this time.
He appeared at the edge of the reflecting pool, as he always did. His reflection smiled back at him. Here he appeared in some of the finest, most comfortable pants and tunic he had ever worn, with soft soled shoes he had loved wearing until they had fallen apart on him. The clothes were memories from his life, and he chose them because they were some of the things he treasured. His hair was hanging loose and not held back in a ponytail as he usually did while he was working.
Endrance turned to the shelves on a side wall and spread his hands at his side, facing the palms to the shelves on that wall. Immediately he lifted off the ground and rode up to the second floor shelves, riding on a current of imagined force. The shelves there were of blackened wood and locked away with a barbed, black iron grate that was as menacing as he could imagine. Chains locked the grate into place, the ends of which were bolted into the stone walls.
Endrance snapped his fingers, and the chains were undone. He flicked his hands apart and the grate flung open, revealing the books within. Dozens of black hide tomes clogged the shelves in contrasting disarray compared to the rest of his library. Even the single row on one of the first floor shelves holding the goblin shaman's gathered knowledge was more ordered than the information gathered from the king. Endrance carefully looked through the shelves before finding the book he wanted and pulled it off the shelf. He flicked his hand at the shelves and the grate dropped back into position. The chains slithered into place, locking i
t back down.
Endrance drifted over to a chair and sat down. He ran his hand over the dull gray book that couldn't hold more than fifty pages. Only slightly larger than the palm of his hand, Endrance untied the thread holding the book closed and flipped to the front page of the book. Castle Balator, by King Kalenden. Endrance started reading through it, looking for signs of the circle he needed to find.
Endrance opened his eyes, back in the throne room. In reality, very little time had passed, but in his mind he had all the time in the world. Endrance had learned a few things about the castle he didn't really care to know, but he had found what he needed. Now he knew where every secret passage, chamber pot, and prison cell there was to be found inside the castle.
He stood, walked down the small dais of steps to the floor. He stooped, hauling the bastard sword left behind upright. Point down in the rock, the sword was a one and a half-hander with a black steel blade with sharpened barbs on either side. Despite the month of inactivity and being left covered in dried blood, the sword was still of extraordinary quality, the barbs were measured in inches, in staggered form.
The blade will be necessary. Endrance checked through what he had learned. Walking towards the back of the throne room, he went up to the back wall. He stepped over Kalenden's corpse, careful not to touch it. The whole castle was made of black stone, the rarest of the stones quarried from the mountain. As Endrance approached, he felt his skin start to crawl again. He at first thought that it was specifically a reaction to being around Kalenden, but he had not felt the sensation when the King had visited his home, only whenever he was in the throne room. Every time before, the King had been there. But now that he was dead, there was no doubting it was something about the castle that set his senses off.
He walked along the wall; just off center, he found some stonework that looked like two half circles of stone with a seam down the middle. Struggling to raise the blade, Endrance hefted the sword and pushed the point of it into the seam. The sword slid in easily, each barb evoking a click from the stone as it passed in. The weapon sank in to the hilt and a loud final click echoed through the otherwise silent chamber. Endrance hesitated a few seconds, then twisted the sword to his right. The stones and sword rotated together, the metal sliding along the stone just barely. One half rotation passed and the sword stopped.
Spellscribed: Ascension Page 3
