by Chris Fox
Kerin composed his face as best he could, trying to keep his real thoughts on that particular subject hidden. “And we do. I am Kerin, once of the Starfarer’s Guild and handler of this starbeast. My companion is Nala.”
“A mage?” the lich said, turning to regard the kyrathi.
“I am,” Nala replied. She appeared calm under the lich’s scrutiny, but Kerin could see that the fur on her back was bristling.
“From what school?”
“The Emporia, on Marakil. I’ve reached the third -”
“Celestial sphere. Yes, I heard. So you have some knowledge of manipulating the aether?”
Nala gave a jerky nod, then raised her paw so that the lich could see it was now limned in crackling green energy.
“Good. You could prove useful in the treehold. I do not know what guardians and traps the Alvarens have left behind, but a battlemage might help in keeping the child alive until we reach the sanctum.”
“The sanctum?”
The lich turned back to Kerin. “Yes. This is no ordinary treehold. They called it the Crucible, and it is where the Alvarens forged the greatest of their artifacts. There is something within its innermost depths that I greatly desire.”
Kerin wasn’t sure how he felt about delivering a device into the hands of a creature so hungry for power that it had refused to die, but with Nala seemingly having adopted the child, he couldn’t see any way out of their predicament . . . except by helping the lich.
“And if you assist me in retrieving what I want, I will let you choose whatever other objects you desire from the treehold’s vaults.”
That would certainly go a long way toward soothing his troubled conscience . . . or at the very least help him to push aside his concerns.
Kerin sketched a bow. “Thank you. Your generosity is unexpected.”
Another dry chuckle. “You assume I am some sort of monster. I am not, mortal. When I saw my death approaching, I realized that there were things in this universe that I could not leave. But I derive no pleasure from causing pain.”
Perhaps he shouldn’t be so quick to judge, Kerin thought.
The lich’s grip tightened on its staff, and a shimmer of energy played along its gleaming black length. “Though I will not hesitate to destroy anything that opposes my will.”
Then again, perhaps his initial impression was accurate.
“Let us depart. The Crucible lies before us, and I have waited ten thousand years to plumb its secrets.”
Kerin had been to a hundred different worlds in dozens of systems, and never had he seen a once-living organism as large as this tree. The lich’s skeletal starbeast could have nearly disappeared among its vast, squirming roots. It was like a mountain made purely vertical, soaring up and up and up, until finally spreading out into a great canopy that even without any foliage obscured most of the stars above the treehold.
Dizzied by the vastness, Kerin tore his gaze away and instead watched the creature that had deposited them at the base of the tree as it slowly flapped its way back to the waiting dragon. Their transport had appeared to be an amalgamation of monstrosities welded together to make some new horror, kept aloft by a great pair of wings that might have been scavenged from a dragon’s corpse. Kerin had counted three heads and a dozen limbs, all sprouting from a body that looked to have once been a cetacean of some kind.
“I need a bath,” Nala whispered when she noticed him staring after the abomination.
“It’s certainly a bit disgusting.”
The kyrathi shuddered. “It’s not just that it’s all bones and corpses. The sorcery used to bind the souls with these remains is both vast and horrifying. I’ve never felt anything like it. The practice of necromancy – even in a much rougher form than these creatures – is forbidden in the Emporia and every world I’ve visited.”
Kerin spared a glance at the lich, who was picking his way across the stony ground toward a massive set of stone doors flanked by a pair of seated statues. “I don’t think he cares.”
“Clearly. And are you worried at all about what he’s going to do with whatever he finds in the treehold?”
Kerin sighed. “Yes, of course. But I thought you weren’t going to leave without the girl. I didn’t see any other way.”
“Well, keep you grandfather’s knife ready. Its enchantments might be the only thing we have that can hurt that thing. Maybe even kill it.”
Kerin’s hand strayed to the sheath at his belt . . . and his fingers closed on nothing. “Oh no, Nala . . . I must have left Solace back on Drifter.”
Nala gave him a withering look. “Wonderful. Well, maybe Xerivas will send back his corpse-bird if you ask politely, and you can go grab it from your bedside table.”
Kerin silently cursed himself. His grandfather’s knife was ancient, and imbued with powerful magics. The markings on its glittering blade were supposedly the writings of another of the Elder Races, and it could pierce any magical ward or protection as easily as if they were soap bubbles. But all that didn’t matter now, as he had quite foolishly forgotten it back on his starbeast. Damnation.
“Mortals, come here!”
Kerin heard a trace of impatience in the lich’s voice, and he couldn’t hold back a slight smile as he leaned over to whisper in Nala’s ear. “Thousands of years he’s planned for this moment, and yet now it’s finally come and he sounds like a virgin unable to wait for his turn at a Thessolisian pleasure house.”
Nala sighed and shook her head in exasperation – though at him or the lich, he didn’t know.
They approached the ruins and joined the lich and the gobber in front of the looming set of doors. Kerin looked around wildly for the girl, only to find her trailing behind him and Nala, silent as a shadow. She averted her eyes when he caught sight of her, as if she had been caught doing something embarrassing. Strange little thing.
“This portal hasn’t opened for many millennia,” the lich intoned, reaching out to brush skeletal fingers against the cracked white stone.
At least, it certainly looked like stone. But surely it couldn’t be. “I can’t believe you or your dragon couldn’t open these doors,” he said.
The lich pointed at an indentation shaped like a hand, though with a few too many fingers. “That is the lock. The doors will only open when someone with Alvaren blood places their hand inside.”
“And what happens if that someone isn’t Alvaren?”
At Kerin’s question, the lich gestured at the hulking stone giants seated on the thrones flanking the doorway. “Then the war golems animate and destroy whatever being was foolish enough to try and gain entrance. They are virtually indestructible, the pinnacle of an Elder Race’s battle technology.”
“So if the girl isn’t Alvaren enough . . .”
“Then you’ll all quickly be reduced to a thin layer of jelly on this forsaken rock.”
“And you’ll be ground to dust.”
The lich chuckled dryly. “If one of those golems flinches, I have an escape plan prepared. And then I’ll start my search for the last Alvaren heirs anew.”
“What worries me,” said Nala softly, “is that he has an escape plan prepared.”
Hm. That was a disquieting thought. So he wasn’t quite as confident in the girl’s lineage as he appeared.
“Child,” the lich said, motioning for her to approach, “place your hand in the lock.”
The girl shrank against Nala, and the kyrathi crouched beside her, cupping her chin with her paw. “I’m sorry. I think you have to do it. I’ll protect you as well as I can, don’t worry.”
The girl gave a curt, nervous nod. Then she approached the great doors warily, her eyes locked on the imposing war golems.
It was impossible, of course, to read the lich’s expression - since he lacked any features - but Kerin thought his face would have been a mask of annoyance at the girl’s slow and measured steps.
Finally, she stood before the doors. To her credit, she hesitated only a moment and then slipped h
er hand into the indentation, which was so large and deep it swallowed her arm almost to her elbow.
She shivered slightly, as if a jolt of energy had passed into her from the door, then withdrew her hand.
A bright red point had blossomed on her index finger, and the girl looked at it curiously as a line of blood trickled into her palm. A low rumbling came from Nala, but the former pain conduit seemed more surprised than hurt by the puncture. Her tolerance for pain was probably fairly high, Kerin realized.
Everyone seemed to be holding their breath – save of course for the lich – as the girl stood before the great door and watched the blood carve runnels in her hand.
But the golems did not move, and after a moment a series of loud thunks and whirrings came from within the hold. Then, with theatrical slowness, the great doors began to open.
A corridor of pale white stone stretched away from them, lit by what looked to be some sort of bioluminescent blue fungus dripping from the ceiling. There were no doors that Kerin could see, but windowless circular portals were incised into the sides of the corridor, and he suspected that these were entrances into other rooms. The passageway jagged sharply downward after about fifty paces, vanishing from view.
“Anything we should be worried about?” Kerin asked, but the lich didn’t answer. The ancient sorcerer was staring into the treehold as if hypnotized. Even the gobber was watching its master strangely.
Xerivas woke from his daydream. “Worried? Of course. There will be traps and guardians aplenty. The Alvarens would not leave their greatest weapons lying around undefended.”
Nala and Kerin shared a quick glance. Weapons.
“But come. I would not attempt to enter the Crucible if I did not believe my magic could overcome any defenses. I would not have persisted so very, very long if I took poorly considered risks.”
“Still,” Kerin said, “you first.”
The lich stepped toward the threshold, but before he could pass within, the air inside the treehold began to shimmer and twist. An image solidified of a spectral Alvaren draped in flowing robes, with a circlet on its brow and a braided belt cinching its slim waist. From its gentle curves Kerin assumed the Alvaren was female. What was this? Some sort of artificial construct? Or a spirit?
The Alvaren raised a glowing hand, as if to command the lich to halt. “Strangers!” the Alvaren cried in high, lilting Standard. “Do not enter this cursed place! There are things here that should never again see the light of the stars!” Then she was gone, dissolving into glittering motes.
“Xerivas?” Kerin asked the lich, who had frozen when the Alvaren appeared. “What was that?”
The lich was silent for a long moment. “That was . . . an echo,” he finally said.
“Something constructed? Or a ghost?”
“Neither.” There was an odd tone to the lich’s voice. Kerin struggled to place it – the undead sorcerer sounded almost . . . giddy? “A guardian. The consciousness of one of the Alvaren artificers, kept here to warn away intruders and protect what lies within.”
Nala glanced at the two hulking war golems. “Then why doesn’t it wake up the –”
A grinding. Dust sifted down as one of the broad stone faces turned toward them.
“Run!” cried the lich. Kerin didn’t waste a moment – he scooped the child into his arms and dashed for the open doorway. There was a great cracking sound from behind him, as if an avalanche had just started sliding down a mountain, and the ground trembled.
“By tooth and claw they’re fast!” Nala cried as she darted ahead. Kerin put his head down and sprinted within the treehold. A tremendous crash came from the doorway behind him, and the reverberation sent him sprawling. He twisted in the air so that the girl would be cushioned by his body, and earned himself a resounding thwack on the back of his skull for his efforts. He lay there dazed for a moment, then scrambled to his feet, peering through the cloud of dust and debris that was billowing from where the great doors had been. Now they were just tumbled slabs of rock.
“Is everyone alright?” he cried, glancing around wildly for Nala. The kyrathi crouched on her hind legs, poised to spring away at the next sign of danger. The lich was there as well, leaning on his staff as if the exertion of running inside had somehow exhausted him. There was no sign of the gobber . . . then something shifted in the debris blocking the entrance, and the squat little creature came stumbling forward, hacking and coughing. The gobber certainly seemed to have a knack for survival. No wonder it had managed to last as a lich’s sole living servant.
Kerin! Drifter’s panicked thought exploded in his mind.
I’m fine. We’re all fine.
I saw the statues rise from their thrones and lunge toward the doors.
Yes. The entrance is blocked. But there must be another exit. See if you can slip away from the dragon. Be prepared to swoop in and grab us when I give the signal.
Kerin felt Drifter’s affirmation, then returned his attention to the collapsed corridor. The lich was pushing deeper into the ruins, the crack of its staff on the stone floor echoing in the passage. Kerin winced at the sound.
“Perhaps we could be a little quieter?”
The lich brought the end of its staff down harder, as if to show what he thought of Kerin’s request.
“Whatever exists down there is well aware of us, I promise you.”
Kerin glanced back at the shattered entrance. Yes, that was probably true. “Well, maybe if you’re a bit quieter we could hear whatever it is when it comes for us.”
The lich made a sound something like a snort, but Kerin did think his staff rang a little more softly as he continued on.
They followed the passage as it twisted deeper into the treehold. Xerivas never hesitated when they arrived at a branching, almost as if he had studied a map of the ruins. Occasionally they passed through sections where the glowing fungus had withered and died, and to light their path the lich summoned a silver sphere that hovered above his staff. Part of another corridor had flooded, and they had to slosh through freezing ankle deep water. Kerin picked up the girl and carried her there, and was surprised to feel a little bit of warmth in his chest when her slim arms tightened around his neck.
Kerin was just starting to think that they might wander through the treehold unmolested when they rounded a bend and again encountered the spectral Alvaren. She hovered a few span from the floor, her long shimmering hair twisting in the air, as if a strong breeze was blowing through the corridor.
“Strangers! Again I beg you to turn back! The Starlance is too dangerous and must be kept here, where its power can be safely contained!”
The lich ignored her and shuffled forward, and again the Alvaren dissolved into glittering sparks. Kerin thought the corridor here was slightly different: the walls seemed to be metal rather than stone, and they were peppered with round holes about the size of a human head, dozens of them stretching from floor to ceiling.
“Wait, Xerivas, perhaps we should –”
Something long and sleek and silver wriggled from one of the holes and dropped to the ground.
“What’s that?” Nala cried, green fire flaring around her paws.
A multitude of legs uncoiled, and serrated mandibles clacked as a metallic segmented insect scuttled in their direction. Nala gestured and a crackling bolt of aether erupted from her paws and struck the strange centipede, blasting it into countless silver fragments that tinkled as they bounced off the walls and floor.
For a long moment they all watched the holes warily, but nothing else emerged.
“That wasn’t so –”
Kerin never finished. A gushing torrent of silver bodies exploded from the holes, dozens at least, some much larger than the first.
“Behind me!” Kerin cried at the girl as he drew his pistols and started firing into the squirming mass. More aether billowed from Nala, washing over the centipedes and causing them to burst apart, but more and more of the creatures were dropping from the walls like meat being p
ushed through a grinder. A shadowy bubble had formed around the lich, and as the centipedes threw themselves against it, they sizzled and popped and disappeared in explosions of greasy smoke. The gobber appeared beside Kerin, blasting away at the scuttling horde with a pair of oversized flintlocks.
As the creatures slithered closer Kerin cursed, dropped his pistols, and drew his saber. His blade clanged against the centipede’s metallic hide, and the creatures separated, legs and thoraxes and mandibles scattering as he laid about with his sword. But still they came on, scuttling over their dismembered kin as they surged toward him. The girl shrieked and clutched at his waist as one of the monsters darted within the arc of his sword and lunged for her. Kerin skewered it, and the centipede shuddered and died. Another slipped past his guard and its mandibles grazed his leg, opening a line of fire on his calf. He stumbled, and for a moment he thought he would be consumed by the chittering mass.
“Cheth siva!” boomed the lich, his voice heavy with power. Instantly every one of the centipedes shuddered and collapsed, their legs curling in on their bodies, as if they truly were insects and not some strange automatons.
Kerin gasped in relief, then pulled the child from behind him to make sure that the creatures hadn’t bitten her. The girl shook her head solemnly, then pointed at his leg. His trousers were damp with blood, but he could tell it was only a surface wound, so he made a face and showed her that he could still use his leg by doing a quick little jig. She rewarded him with a secret little smile.
“Might you have done that from the start?” said Nala, gently prodding one of the motionless centipedes with a claw.
“I was not expecting that to work as well as it did. It appears that these creatures still obey some of the old commands.”
And how do you know those commands? Kerin wanted to ask, but he knew Xerivas would ignore his question. There were secrets that the lich was not about to share with them.
The way onward became significantly more treacherous. Not far from the insect ambush a trio of gleaming faceless simians swung down from hidden alcoves and leaped at them – Xerivas caught two in coils of dark energy, and Nala consumed the last in a pillar of raging green aether. Then they encountered several traps – clever, deadly little surprises that Xerivas pointed out but Kerin disarmed using the skills his grandfather had taught him more than two decades ago. Some variations of Chenoki flamewards and Pes Eros shadowlines must have been popular thousands of years in the past, when the Alvarens had rigged these little delights as they abandoned this place.
