Two things now hindered his plans–time and transportation. He paced away from the balcony for the hundredth, perhaps three hundredth time, and cast a last look at the beckoning gloom.
It had been folly to destroy all but one of the portals in the city. His army was slowed leaving by the sole remaining portal. He estimated a two day march from the nearest portal in Old Wood to the Citadel.
“So be it.” He spat at the creeping gloom. Flashes of purple lightning lit up the clouds from behind, turning the faint golden glow of the city into a haze of clashing color. “I am out of time. I must reach the Crown of Gods before they do.”
A bolt of purple lightning split the sky and struck the balcony before him. The stench of burning skin and decay stung his nose even as the blinding shards of light faded. He faced the source of the stench with a scowl. The smoke cleared, but not the scent of death, and Rodon waited impatiently for the Necromancer to emerge.
“Alarandia.”
Soulless black eyes flared red in the candlelight. She bowed, a sneer twisting lush red lips into an ugly pout. Her towering headdress defied gravity.
“Master Rodon.”
“Why are you here, Necromancer?” Rodon grunted. “You were defeated by those children. You earned your exile.”
Alarandia laughed. Her head thrown back, the headdress wobbled dangerously atop the mound of dark curls. “Rodon, your pets were your favorites once, remember?”
“I remember they spared you.”
The laughter halted. “Mercy is wasted on the dead, Rodon?”
Inky black swirled in the Dro-Aconi’s gaze at her words. His manic chuckle echoed within the cavernous room. The meager light from the candles dimmed behind the weight of his darkness.
“You speak the truth, Necromancer,” he sneered. “And yet here we both are.”
“I have what you want,” Alarandia said. “I know what you are doing.”
“You know nothing.”
Alarandia stalked past him with a haughty sniff. Her wiry curls swayed with each long step. Lean, curvy legs flashed in and out of view as she crossed the room. A jagged black scar, slick and cold, halved one calf. One couldn’t heal if one was undead.
She halted beside the door and flicked a finger at the latch. It shuddered, cracked, and melted, sealing the massive door shut.
“I know that the Youngest was right.” She spun on her heel. The ornate carpet singed as if burned beneath her tall heel. “I know that you would never had given me what I wanted. So instead I will trade for it.”
“What do you have that I want, Necromancer?” He sniffed. A flash of silver iris bled through the oily black of his gaze for a split second. Alarandia saw and sneered.
“I know that you search for the one thing that can ensure your vengeance on the surviving Soldeuns. The Crown of Gods has waited for nearly fourteen thousand years, hidden from the world for so long that only whispers from the dead speak of it. That is what I know.”
Rodon clenched his jaw until his rotting teeth began to crumble. “Answer my question.”
Alarandia’s smirk twisted in triumph.
“You want a quicker way out of this city and I can give it to you.”
Rodon paused, his gaze narrowed. He mentally searched for a trap.
“How?”
“I am dead. You are dead. Well, your body is dead. I travel with the dead. How do you suppose I got here, of all places? I am the Necromancer, Master of the Dead Road.”
“You traverse The Void with energy you steal from the dead. You can direct it where you wish?”
“Of a fashion. Nothing living would survive, of course, but you would. You are strong enough, Immortal, yes?”
Rodon scowled. “How do I know you won’t betray me, Alarandia. I will not be led into a trap.”
“You don’t, Dro-Aconi.” Alarandia waved a dismissive hand at the door. It burst into thick black ash and billowed into the air to coat the floor and hall outside. “But you are running out of time, remember? You want a fast way out of this city and I want something in return.”
“What is it you ask?” Rodon eyed the Necromancer. The desiccated door notwithstanding, as the mistress of the dead, an Immortal cursed to rule the underworld was not someone to underestimate. That she could walk the border between life and death as a means of travel was intriguing.
Alarandia’s sigh filled the room with echoes of regret.
“I wish to be free. I wish to die for good. I am First Fallen and wish to be at peace.”
Rodon schooled his features into a semblance of understanding. And he did understand. All things must die. Especially those meant to die and Alarandia the Necromancer had been cursed to become an Immortal and yet remain forever undead.
“So be it. Don’t make me regret this, Necromancer. You’re certain you can do it?”
“I will return in a day’s time. I can only take you, no one else. Your army will have to travel the old fashioned way, I’m afraid.”
“I must retrieve the map from them. Can you take me to the old Windwalker Citadel in the north?”
“I can get you close, no more. The Windwalker wards extend into The Void. You are on your own after.” Alarandia said. She crossed the room to the balcony and spun to face the black eyed god. Lightning struck, scorching the air and trading the Necromancer for the gut turning stench of death.
The blast of light faded from behind his eyelids. Rodon opened them to stare at the charred ash that remained where the Necromancer had stood. He turned and surveyed his destroyed door.
“Damn it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Gabaran’s Tevu army was formidable, but mortal. Dehil also wasn’t sure if they would follow an Eideili outsider. Time would tell.
Weariness tugged at his soul. His form wavered for a moment, but he forced himself to focus. He paced the length of the gate like a madman, determined not to let the Citadel fall to The Traitor.
Once the attack came, it would be up to him to keep the enemies’ eyes off his friends and this time he couldn’t, wouldn’t, let Jadeth down.
His heart twisted, a sharp stab of regret that made him stumble. He gripped his tunic over the battered organ and held on as if to keep it within his body.
That day came to mind, unwanted and unbidden. He had failed Jadeth and their people so terribly that he had wanted to die once he realized what had happened on his watch.
He rubbed his chest and kept walking, his ears twitching to hear every sound riding the winds.
It was going to be a long night.
***
Ivo rubbed his thumb over Emaranthe’s gloved one. Unfocused eyes stared at the small flame fluttering in red hot coals in the brazier. He leaned back against the wall and pulled her close to his side. She leaned into him with a soft sigh and he buried a kiss in her pale hair. Silence reigned, but it was an oddly comfortable one.
“We need armor.” Jaeger sat upright, his shaggy hair damp and now bizarrely slicked down. “We can’t go out there in just trousers and tunics.”
“What do you suggest? Our armor was destroyed in the blast,” Ivo muttered. He’d briefly thought on it too.
“I’m sure we have some leather or chainmail that will fit you,” Gabaran offered. He sat opposite his sister, but refused to look at her. “Sesti can take you to the armory now.”
Sesti stood and nodded, her expression grim.
“Come.” She headed toward the door. “It’s decently far.”
“Will you be warm enough until I get back?” Ivo leaned into Emaranthe, his warm breath tickling her right ear.
She nodded, but pulled her damp cloak tight around her thin body as he reluctantly stood.
“What about you?” Jaeger asked Sesti as he followed her and Ivo out of the room.
“I do not have armor,” she said with a backwards glance. “I do not need it.”
“No, with that tongue you certainly don’t,” said Jaeger. Her glare sharpened on him as they rounded a corner.
“Ha ha,” she said. “Come. Less talk and more walk, boys, or we won’t be able to climb the mountain once the suns rise.”
“How big is Anat?” Ivo asked once his brother fell silent.
“Big. I have no other words for it. It is a maze of tunnels, terraces, ice and stone,” Sesti said as their pace quickened. Soon all three were panting. The corridors just kept going. Plain stone and ice blocks made up the floor, ceiling, and walls. No decorations, only a single brazier every so often. It was dark, cold, inhospitable.
Just like the Exiles, Ivo mused. He wondered how much the Tevu had modeled themselves after their new, icy home after The Fall and subsequent loss of their own kingdom.
“What about Isid?” Jaeger asked. He huffed as they rounded yet another corner and began to descend a set of spiraling stone steps. “What was it like?”
Sesti halted and spun to face him. Jaeger nearly collided with her, but instead caught her against him to keep them both from tumbling down the stairs head over heels. Streaks of red burned her cheeks and she twisted away from Jaeger’s gentle grip.
“Why do you care, Earthlander?” she asked with a scowl. She spun away and darted down several steps before either of them could even move one foot.
“I care because I believe knowledge is power,” Jaeger retorted. He jogged down the steps on her heels. “I’m sorry if I offend, again.”
“Our people,” he added to her stiff back. “Were solitary. We rarely ever saw any other races, much less other Earthlanders. We kept to ourselves and now I see that may have hindered us that day so long ago.”
Her ears twitched. Ivo watched in amusement as he realized that Jaeger had captured her attention.
Curiosity won. She whispered, “How so, Earthlander?”
“If we had allies perhaps our village wouldn’t have been attacked and my wife and daughter would still be alive. We had no one to help us. No friends among others to seek out for aide. We were alone.”
Silence.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I know they walk with your ancestors in the morning sun.”
Ivo nearly stumbled and tripped down the remaining three steps when she apologized. He reached for the wall to steady himself while Sesti wrestled with the latch on a massive wood and iron door barring their path.
“I used to look for her, you know,” Jaeger continued as if he hadn’t heard her. Maybe he didn’t, because like a broken dam, the words kept coming like water down a river. “I would search everyone’s faces. Even children I saw. Every village. Every town. Every pub. I had hoped against hope that maybe Mirena had been immortalized too. And then I realized that it was a foolish dream.”
She stopped, her frown thoughtful.
“But you still have hope?” she asked. “You must, to be doing this, here and now.”
Jaeger glanced away, pain chiseled into the lines at the corners of his eyes.
“I don’t know.”
The door grated open.
Sesti flinched, whispered, “You…you can look for them in the book.”
She stood aside and waited for them to enter. Ivo moved past quickly, leaving them in the doorway.
Jaeger halted and looked at her, eye to eye.
Pale blue, frosted with grief, locked with dark blue in the shadowed entryway.
“I fear the day I won’t be able to remember their faces, Sesti. I don’t need a spelled book to make me remember what I’ve lost. I fear for my heart and soul if I seek them there and don’t find them.”
Jaeger stalked into the dark room to join his brother. Sesti followed, eyes downcast.
“You are welcome to whatever you wish from the armory,” Sesti whispered. She crossed the darkened room and halted before a torch embedded in the floor. She lit it and retreated to the doorway to let them view and try on the available armor. Benches and crude mannequins dotted the room, sporting various styles of armor and leathers in various qualities, hues, and repair.
Jaeger browsed the well stocked tables absent-mindedly. He pulled on a padded gambeson, hauberk, pauldrons, and chausses. He could not see anything for his feet, head, nor hands, but he would not complain.
“They fit well,” Ivo grunted as he arranged the fall of the hauberk. “Luckily the Tevu warriors are near our size, brother.”
“I do miss my armor,” Jaeger said. “I wonder where our helms ended up.”
“No idea, I wonder why there aren’t any here though?”
“The Tevu don’t wear helms. The ears,” Sesti spoke up from the doorway. “Hard to fit a helm on an elf.”
Jaeger grunted. He ran a hand along his jaw. The scruff was quickly turning into a beard, something he had not bothered with before. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not, but he definitely didn’t like not having a helm.
“We must make do, either way,” he said. He strode past the tall elf and into the corridor. “You coming, brother?”
***
Emaranthe paced the length of the library, her ankles and cloak swishing in the freezing water unnoticed. A small flame trembled above her upturned hand as she wandered and absently studied the shelves lining the cavernous room.
She could feel Ishelene’s gaze follow her movements. She forced herself to ignore the empress and the uneasy feeling that lingered in the too quiet room.
“What are you looking for?” Ishelene’s voice echoed off the walls and stone shelves.
Emaranthe trailed a gloved finger across an empty shelf and studied the pattern left behind in the dust.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “I but wonder why and how you came to us with such timely warnings, empress.”
“I have my own spies, Child of Fire,” she said. “You are ever suspicious.”
“Yes, I am,” she said. “What did your spies have to say that made you entertain the thought of certain death at the hands of your own brother?”
She moved to stand below the statue and stared at the empty stone hands.
“They informed me that Rodon had destroyed all but one of the portals to The Unknown City. He knows where you are and will come. Soon.”
Jadeth stood to join Emaranthe, a frown on her lips. She opened her mouth, but shut it again with a puzzled expression clouding her eyes.
“Where,” she asked slowly, drawing out the word as she formed the question carefully. “Where you then, if not at The Unknown City?”
Ishelene barked a hoarse laugh, a bitter one.
“I had fled The Unknown City as soon as Atil did. I took my guardians and headed west.”
Jadeth’s frown tightened. “You went home, to Isid.”
“Yes. I went home to the very place I had errantly destroyed a thousand years ago,” Ishelene studied her hands where they fidgeted in her lap.
“Why?” Jadeth asked. “That’s four days south west of here, why not just come here?”
“I wanted to see the proof of my guilt. I wanted to feel that anger, rage, grief, and be able to direct it to the one rightly to blame. Myself.”
“Did it work?” Emaranthe asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It wasn’t what I expected.”
“Just what did you expect? You’d destroyed your home. The home of your people. Many perished, from what Gabaran spoke of,” Emaranthe snapped.
“I had expected to see ghosts. Ghosts of those that had died at my hands. Instead I found silence and decay–and that was far worse than facing the dead and seeing their condemnation.”
“Guilt is a powerful feeling, empress.” Ivo appeared in the doorway, a tall, broad shadow bathed in leather and firelight.
Emaranthe, Jadeth, and Ishelene jumped, startled by their unnoticed entry. Behind Ivo, Sesti stood still, her jaw set and eyes flashing with dark pain. Without a word she turned and shoved past Jaeger to vanish down the corridor again.
“It is, warrior.” Ishelene said. She watched her daughter walk away from her again, and bowed her head. She fell silent for a long moment as Ivo and Jaeger crossed the room to join Ema
ranthe and Jadeth before the statues.
Ivo peered up at the statues. He wondered who they were. As if reading his mind, Emaranthe wound an arm through his.
“I suspect they are The Four,” she said at last. Ivo twitched, startled, but continued to study the stone figures in silence.
“I believe so as well,” Jaeger added. He sighed and turned his back to the ancient stone and sank to the floor and leaned back.
“I wonder if that’s what they really looked like. Ishelene, do you recognize them?” Emaranthe leaned to one side to study the other carved faces in the dim firelight. They were unfamiliar to her. Then again, everyone and everything would be to someone with no memories.
“I do not know. I truly do not know who they were, I swear,” Ishelene finally spoke up. “I was not present when they cast the curse that ruined everything.”
Emaranthe closed her eyes and leaned into Ivo’s side. His hauberk was hard against her skin despite the bulk of her overlarge cloak.
“If you had been there, had seen what they were doing, would you have attempted to stop them?” she asked softly.
Silence.
“I don’t know.”
“Wait, where is uncle?” Sesti spoke from the doorway, her face puzzled. She scanned the room, worry tightening her features when her gaze landed on the place she had left the travel bag.
It was gone.
***
Gabaran slipped out of the library. He’d tuned out the whispering of the women, his thoughts solely on the book that could do what he could not. All his thoughts were centered on her.
Tanari. A woman who walked the world as a ghost might. In and out of time with nothing more than a sad smile and hope in her brown eyes.
His fingers reached for the scrap of parchment tucked into his travelling cloak. The feel of the fragile paper adorned with her blood and tears against his calloused and scarred skin was enough to twist his heart all over again. The strap of the bag dug into his left shoulder as he made his way along the darkened corridors. He extinguished the braziers as he went…they were not needed any more.
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