by Jason Jones
Cristoff waited, eyes closed in prayer atop his horse, and waited for a sign that it was time for him to move. The melody of the little minstrels hummed out, the stomping of armed forces headed toward destiny, and still he waited. A lick to the face from a lewirja reared on its hind legs was what he received. Smiling, wiping the feline saliva from his beard and face, Cristoff thanked Alden once more.
“Lord, I also thank you for Dalliunn Cloudwatcher, the lewirja with such a gifted sense of smell, one that I shall never doubt again.”
Sorceries IV:I
Ruins of Mooncrest
Kingdom of the Crescent Moon
“I said be quiet, now!” Gwenne whispered through her gritted teeth.
Fool of a girl, you need to enter the tower of my former student, Carados! The powers there I can teach you are immeasureable!
Gwenneth was hovering at a forward angle, moving faster than she ever had through the air above ground. Her mind was resisting the impulses and demands of the Staff of Imoch, demands that she leave her friends and enter the green marble tower. She was indeed fascinated by what may be inside the millennias old home of the famous archamage, Carados, but the army of skeletal soldiers on long dead steeds that chased them through the ruins held her attention to that of survival. There were thousands, stampeding under gray skies through sandstone ruins, herding the five toward the palace.
“Not now, after this is over. I promise you I will---“
“Gwenneth, who are you talking to?” James grabbed her arm and pulled her around the corner street they had all dodged into.
She looked quick to Zen, Shinayne, and Saberrak, lastly to James. They were all breathing heavy, the dead knights would not give up their chase, it had gone on for hours. Her eyes caught the old bronze sign, barely legible from erosion, it read Carice Way.
“Nothing, no one, talking to myself is all. Where to now?”
“They aren’t lettin’ us any closer to the center, or near the road to the mountains. They keep corralling us either north or west, like they’re protecting somethin’ there. We can’t go on like this much more, I say stand at the temples.” Azenairk wiped the sweat from his face, wishing the storm that hummed menacingly around the outer ruins would blow inward, just for a moment to cool off.
“I agree. We can use the bridges to lessen their numbers, and their steeds will slow with all the stairs.” Shinayne nodded, also noting that the street was named for her blade and the white moon, or perhaps the other way around.
“Make it quick, I am tired of running.” James looked southwest to the seven rising white and sand colored stone temples, each interwoven with connecting bridges, and then to the three that surrounded the seven, each twenty to thirty, even forty stories in height.
“Looks like a maze to me, hopefully more so to them.” Saberrak grunted and wiped the sweat from his face.
“They have been here two thousand years, I would think they know this place by now.” Shinayne added, listening to the growing noise of hooves upon the roads, nearing every moment.
“Here they come, enough talk.” Saberrak Agrannar pumped his tireless legs, greataxe in each hand, and led them toward the temples. He saw the blackened bones and ragged tabards, heard the trampling clatter of the equine dead they rode, and knew without a second glance that several thousand ancient swords were coming for them.
Down Carice Way, then across Siddora Street with its ancient dead gardens, right onto Faith Way which held nothing but rubble, and then left onto Tyadrie Street and the forgotten burnt markets. The five companions ran the streets of ruined Mooncrest toward the ancient places of worship, gray skies still, and the once still dead on the move. The outer temple was smooth, open without doors nor roof, its pillars and curved walls reached three hundred feet or more into the colorless horizon. A symbol of a triangle wreathed in vines with nothing inside could be made out above the opening. No stairs led up from the lower floors, making them all wonder how one reached the bridges above. They kept their pace and turned again, this time down Uhmm Street.
“There, stairs up, at the temple of Megos!” Gwenneth flew ahead, feeling the arcane powers lift her higher and faster with greater ease.
“The… temple.. of who?” Zen looked around, three large temples around him, seven more ahead in a giant circle inside of the three. It was dizzying to look up at such an angle while running for his life.
“The one with the hand holding the moon, Megos, the old God of light and the white moon! There is a way up, leads to the others!” Gwenne yelled, the charging dead cavalry were hissing now, close enough to hear as they trampled the trail through old city steets.
“I see a temple o’ Vundren, one o’ Alden, only ones I recognize, wizard. Just point for me next time!” He followed the floating woman in black robes, then looked back as the dead knights rounded the corner they had just passed, and ran faster to the stone stairs that were wide enough for ten men.
Up stairs not climbed by a living soul in over two thousand years, the five ran up the curling open steps that wrapped the temple of Megos far above ruined Mooncrest. At one hundred feet, they began to slow, yet so did their pursuers.
The dead dismounted, pointed helms over black skulls that spoke no words, massed by uncountable numbers, and began their march upward toward their prey. Bone horses ran circles under the arcing and elaborate weave of bridges, many still with dead soldiers guiding them, and some with riders made for the open stairs that descended from the temple of Seirena, marked with her round moon and ivy leaves. The undead warriors with curved blades of ancient craft spread out to surround the inner heights and bridges that all seemed to connect in one way or another.
“They block us at Seirena’s temple, turn left!” Gwenneth yelled.
Two hundred feet above the timeless ruin, their left and right flanks were suddenly cut off by countless undead. The bridges to the temples of both Vundren marked with the hammer and twin moons and Siril marked with a crescent and stars, were blocked. Up higher, and the dead picked up speed, knowing their haunt well. They moved to block the temple passage to Alden of the feathered cross. Behind, the five intruders watched as they overran the bridges to the temples of Vasentanessa marked with two serpents around twin moons and of Solumet whose moon had flames to resemble the sun.
“Temple of Annar, hurry!” The minotaur snorted.
Saberrak turned, then double backed, making a run for the bridge that led to the temple of Annar marked with a crescent moon in the grasp of a clenched fist, much like his enchanted belt. Halfway across, his allies right behind him, the mob appeared marching up stairs out of the vacant and charred temple dedicated to the God he had met and freed. He turned, horns lowered, and rushed across a spanse of sandstone bridge that led down and straight through the open middle.
With the downward angle, the horned warrior outsped the bone soldiers that now must have been reaching a thousand strong on the interweaving stairs alone. He rounded a temple that held the symbol of a half white moon and half blue moon that appeared to have waves off of the lower half. As Saberrak finished the turn, he and Gwenneth stopped, face to face with a set of steel doors that were closed. There was not even a handle in which to pull. Heads lowered, Saberrak and Gwenne looked to the still one hundred fifty foot drop below, then turned to their friends.
“Tell me that door opens!” Shinayne was sweating now, having just ran up and down stairs and across bridges for miles without stopping.
“I am about to find out.” Saberrak stepped back a few paces, then lunged and slammed his shoulder into the doors. The echo from inside was muffled, his shoulder ached, and his scalemail rattled. The door was solid steel, it did not give.
“No budge, now we fight.”
“Gwenneth!” James turned back pleadingly, then faced ahead. Eight dead knights with crescent moon symbols on their pointed helms of rust and black marched around the curve in the bridge. Then another row, then more, then hundreds appeared within fifty feet and closing. James look
ed over the edge, over a thousand there, hissing as they filled any chance of escape with their numbers over every single bridge and stairway.
Saberrak walked to the left, rotating his shoulder to loosen it from his attempt at the door. He twirled his axes twice, then lowered his horns. Shinayne took a stance with her blades, sideways in the center, Elicras out on point with Carice high overhead. James raised his shield and took the right side, then drew his griffon hilted broadsword back and saluted it to his cheek. Azenairk stood behind them, hammer and moons in his left hand, blacksteel warhammer in the other, shield over his back.
Hissssss
Stomp, stomp, stomp
Hisssss
Stomp, stomp, stomp
“Now you listen here, I know you have been here before. So open these doors, or show me how.”
Gwenneth had quickly gestured a few arcane spells of undoing to no avail. The door was either divinely locked, magically sealed without trace, or something else. Her little tricks, that no longer required more than a simple flick of her fingers, would have unlocked or unbarred any normal door. She whispered to the staff, sensing it was amused with something.
No. You refuse to take me to the tower, so you can die here with your friends. Someone worthy will be along to satisfy my needs, eventually.
Gwenneth fumed at the thoughts in her head. “If you do not help me, I will channel the Incantation of the Sky into your emerald here, with all I can summon. I will make sure the lightning takes us both out of this world. Now, open the doors, Imoch.”
You would not dare, you are a little girl, you do not have the stomach for it.
“Watch me.” Gwenneth began to chant and speak the words that would summon lightning from storms that did not exist here.
Saberrak waited until the knights of undeath were within reach of his axes. He feinted two brutal high swings, their shields raised, and he stepped up fast and drove his horns and shoulders into them. The gray gladiator lifted as he impacted, sending twenty or more skeletal soldiers hurling off the left side of the bridge and airborn over the ones behind them. His axes spun low right after, around twice, taking the legs off of ten more before he backed up next to Shinayne.
The elven highborn slashed Carice across the incoming scimitars, then drove Elicras into a skull. The hiss died fast, orange flickers of light wisping out from the eyes, and it fell to the ground in a pile or old steel and charred bone. Shinayne kicked a shield to her right, sending two more off the edge, then spun with Carice and took off two more skulls.
James blocked a blade with his shield, crosscut another, then slashed downward through bone and rusty armor. He did not stop his cut, but followed down with his shield, knocking another off the right edge of the bridge and letting it shatter from the fall. He felt his hand glowing, though he had not willed it, and when he returned with a sweeping cut across the mob, the blue flames danced up his blade and seemed to burn through the bone. Four more fell to piles, the hisses turning to faint screams, yet James backed up with Saberrak and Shinayne as the thousands kept their march, even crushing the remains of their own dead brethren underfoot.
As the elven noble slashed the countless down with her blades, the knight of Chazzrynn and Saberrak hurled and cut more off the sides of the bridge, Zen Thalanaxe prayed loudly over the cacophony of crackling bones. As he finished, he swung his hammer around his head.
“Gurdeth ekvir Vundren ve, darvillis!”
Stone pillars shot up in circles, mimicking his motions with the warhammer, and thrusting up from the bridge into existence. The dead knights flung into the sky, were smashed into one another, and their countless numbers were now bottlenecked to get past.
“Volishir, Valashan…” Gwenne’s fingers went numb, she smiled, feeling the energies build around her. She tickled the emerald on her staff as small sparks began to ripple from her fingernails. She looked to the army of dead knights her friends stood against, the bridge that would soon fall and consume them all, then she winked at the staff with a mischievous grin.
Very well, Indirith, Omnirian, Haddius de Seartes! But, you had best keep your promise, Lazlette.
“Indirith, Omnirian, Haddius de Seartes!”
Gwenneth channeled her latent energies into the words and gripped the staff of Imoch as she thrust her hand forward toward the doors. The magic felt different, older, a blend of arcane and some wicked divine power built into words that were either unknown or far beyond her. Her hand ached, nearly forcing it closed with a spasm of pain. The steel doors swung inward, steam rose from inside, and small rivers of water pooled at her feet.
“Inside, quickly!” Gwenneth yelled over the war ensuing on the bridge.
Through parries and stop cuts, shield blocks and guarding greataxes, the three warriors on the bridge withdrew toward the steel doors and steam. Zen backed in, his steps sloshing on wet stone, and waited for his friends. Gwenneth turned inside, concentrating on illuminating her staff in the dark forgotten temple. With a well timed quick feint to lunge ahead, Shinayne, Saberrak, and James backpeddaled with their dwarven ally in past the doors as the dead knights raised their shields.
“Shut it, shut it, hurry now!” Zen and James grabbed the right door while Shinayne and Saberrak turned to the left. Just as the massing undead soldiers reached the entry, the steel portals slammed shut. Half a dozen arms and blades snapped with the steel, then fell to the stone floor and turned to dust and ash.
“How does it lock? There are no bars!” Saberrak leaned his weight on the doors, feeling the pressure from an army of bones trying against him.
Gwenneth was showered in green light from the staff, turned and pointed her finger at the doors her companions leaned their backs to.
“Ouderium, Omnirian Haddius de, Cierti!”
I did not tell you how to shut and seal them, how did you---
I am a graduate master of Lazlette Semanarium Arcanum, Imoch. I am far beyond what you may think of me.
Gwenne whispered mentally to the staff, having easily found the reversal of the empowered ancient words to the doors he had given her, she knew he would not have offered it willingly.
So you may be, but Lazlette was a servant surname name when those like myself ruled the arcane. Be warned.
“They are sealed, we are safe now, you can let go.” Gwenne ignored the insult and threat from her staff and motioned for her friends to cease their support of the doors she had closed.
“Nothing like being trapped in a strange place with certain death waiting outside for you.” James sheathed his blade and turned to his allies, his body slumping down the wall to the floor next to Zen.
“Aye, feel like we done this before then.” Zen thought of Deadmans Pass and the trapped cavern that had nearly been their ends months past.
“This is interesting, how is it the other temples are vacant and burned out from war? Yet, this one stands sealed and preserved.” Shinayne followed Gwenne’s light around the chamber. High ceilings dripped with condensation, alcoves held stone basins with water that still flowed, and steam rose from the lower stairs that dove up and down through the center of the grand enclosed structure of white.
“What is that symbol, whose temple was this?” James traced his finger around a large glowing moon of stone next to his face as he sat. The top half glowed white, the bottom glowed blue, and rays that looked as waves decorated off of the bottom. As his fingers touched it, it throbbed and the sound of stone grating against stone echoed deep below.
“I would not be touchin’ that there, careful James. I don’t know who was worshipped here, and after two thousand years or so---“ Zen heard Saberrak snort over his head.
“Haddius, Ruler of the Oceans and Winds, he was worshipped here. He is one of the seven Caricians.” Saberrak knew it, from the scroll, from whatever was in him now, he just knew. “He was lost long ago, just like Annar and Solumet.”
“There be ten temples around us then, seven Caricians. So, what is the other three for if ye’ know so much, min
otaur?”
“To protect them. Their Mother and their Father, Seirena and Megos.”
“That makes nine, what be the tenth one then?”
“Some sort of hidden worship I cannot see, that no one can see. We are not allowed to see them. They protect them all, I guess.” Saberrak huffed.
“Baah, how do ye’ know that? And who be we, anyway?””
“Not sure how I know, but I do.” He snorted.
“Allright, I’ll buy that then, yer eyes be glowin’ blue and such now.” Zen nodded up with his chin toward the gray minotaur whose eyes had the effervescent shadows of rich blue wisping around them again, dancing flames over the horn tattoos upon his face.
“We need to head down.” Saberrak blinked his eyes, trying to get the blue tinges to fade, and pointed to the stairs that led into humid darkness below.
“Very well Saberrak, Gwenneth, you keep yer’ light bright then. Come on, let’s all follow the chosen one here.” Azenairk chuckled as everyone fell into place treading down the curling spiral stairs of stone.
Step by slow cautious step, they passed floors of open temple with flowing pools of ancient water, steams that hissed from alcoves unseen, and the faint hum of noise from beneath grew more ominous. Mildew permeated the air as they continued, old bones and cloth robes floated by in airborn streams that drew stares, and skulls by the hundreds bubbled over in a pool of brackish green.
Keeping a downward pace, prayer rooms and inner balconies on flooded terraces came into view, yet the source of the water was not to be seen. Small waterfalls recycled the bones and holy decorations of old priests before their very eyes, over and over, down through the roaring falls into steam, and returning from another set of pouring water two floors later.
