Queen of Oblivion

by Giles Carwyn

  The bridge collapsed, and Brophy fell with the shattered remains. He spun, flailing to save himself. He grabbed a broken crossbeam with one bloody hand and jerked to a stop, dangling over the valley below. Black tendrils swept across his face as he stared at Arefaine from the far side of the chasm. His black eyes began to glow red.

  Arefaine drew tortured breaths, watching him. The heartstone in his chest flared a blinding crimson that hurt her eyes. Above it dangled the black feather that Shara had given to him.

  “Arefaine,” he cried, his red eyes boring into her. His teeth grew longer, sharper.

  Lewlem spun around her head like an angry insect. She ignored him and grabbed her shoulder, pinching the sides of the ragged wound together. The skin knit and became smooth. She looked for further damage down the length of her naked body and saw the streak of blood on her inner thigh. A wound that couldn’t be mended.

  “You’ve got to fight it,” Brophy yelled, “Take this!” He reached into his pocket and threw something. A shimmering shard of crystal arced across the gap between them and landed at her feet. She kicked it to the side.

  “Fight them,” Brophy growled, his wet fingers slipping on the wood. “Push them out of your head. I can help you.”

  She sneered, gathering her power, gathering her control. “You had your chance,” she shouted over the roar of the waterfall.

  Reaching out with her mind, she gave him a little shove. His body jerked, and his fingers slipped. He fell, tumbling end over end until he was swallowed up by the mist.

  Lewlem flew after Brophy, leaving her all alone on the blackened mountainside.

  Chapter 10

  Dewland’s hands were shaking as he held the lantern in front of him, trying to peer into the shadows. Father Lewlem’s soul light hovered in front of him, urging him into the dank passageway, but Dewland found it nearly impossible to follow.

  He had lived with acute anxiety his entire life. Ever since he first heard the voice of Oh as a young man, he knew the world hovered precariously on the brink of oblivion. He had learned to live with that fear, but it was a vague and distant fear. Now the menace had come home to Ohohhom. It was as real as Brophy’s fist around his throat when the Ohndarien had slammed him against the tree. Dewland had never before faced any immediate physical dangers, and he was beginning to fear he wasn’t up to the task.

  His old friend, Lewlem, returned to him and began circling his head. A veil of calm seemed to cover him, and Dewland was able to take a deep, cleansing breath.

  “Thank you, my old friend,” he told the little glowing ball. “But remember, you have little to fear. You are already dead.”

  The priest’s hand still shook, rattling the lantern, but he was able to take a few steps forward. He hadn’t been in this staircase since he was a young man. It was darker, steeper, and narrower than he recalled. Memorizing the passageways was part of his training as a young priest assigned to serve the emperor. He knew every hidden door and secret passage into the palace, but he had not used them in thirty years. At the time he thought it was a grand adventure to be shown the dark underbelly of the Opal Palace. But the childish excitement of creeping through old tunnels vanished when an actual corrupted creature was waiting for him somewhere in the darkness.

  Dewland continued, one careful step at a time, until he reached an empty wall sconce. He was very careful to avoid the center of the stairs and only walk on the little lip of stone on the far left side of the passageway. The steps under the sconce were nothing more than a thin covering of sand and resin hiding a long dark pit. When Oh designed the Opal Palace so many years ago, he knew locks and bars would deter only the most incompetent of thieves and assassins. So the first emperor placed no locks anywhere in his palace. But the forbidden areas, the ones a criminal would be attracted to, were full of traps. Many desperate men lost their lives in these tunnels before the divine queue stabilized and the twelve tribes accepted Oh’s wisdom into their hearts. No one had tried to rob the palace in generations, but the traps still remained.

  Dewland heard an anguished howl in the distance that made his bowels seize. Lewlem flew away from him, disappearing down the dark passage.

  The priest had heard all the stories of those scorched by the sacred fire. When Lewlem was still alive they had discussed the horrors of the Nightmare Battle in detail. Dewland had found the ghastly stories fascinating, but only because the black tales of a distant land were retold in the warm safety of a green garden. He never imagined that he would have to look such an abomination in the eyes.

  The howl came again, and the sound of pitiful anguish mixed with raw fury made Dewland cringe. He knew there was a solid stone door between him and those tormented cries, but that didn’t make the final steps any easier.

  The stairway ended in a hidden doorway near the underground river, but he avoided the door and took a smaller passageway to the right. The side tunnel led him to an arrow slit hidden in the shadows. The narrow opening offered a clear view of the river and causeway below.

  A dark figure splashed through the water, swatting at Lewlem’s soul light as it dodged around the creature’s head. The remains of several bodies were trapped against a metal grate that the river flowed through. Dewland couldn’t see the bodies very well, but he could tell that they were pitch-black. And torn into pieces. The black figure continued to slash desperately at the air, trying to catch Lewlem’s soul light.

  “Brophy,” Dewland tried to say, but it came out as a hoarse whisper.

  “Brophy!” he called again. This time his voice rang true, and the dark figure spun around, glaring at him. All Dewland could see were three red dots in the darkness. Two of them were his eyes. The third one, much brighter, was the shard of red diamond glowing in his chest.

  Brophy roared at him, charging upstream, looking for the sound of his voice.

  “Child of my heart,” Dewland said, his voice shaking. “You are not alone, you are among friends.”

  Brophy roared again and spotted Dewland’s lantern through the arrow slit high above him. He launched himself at the light, trying to scramble up the slick wall.

  Dewland gasped as Brophy made it fifteen feet up the wall, his black claws hooking around the edge of the arrow slit. The priest leaped backward as Brophy reached one arm through the narrow gap, trying to kill him.

  “Brophy,” Dewland cried, scrambling away. “Come back to us, you can fight it, you can push it back.”

  The boy howled and tried to force his body through the narrow gap. His face was still recognizable even though his eyes were glowing red and his skin was pitch-black, cracked and oozing. He wasn’t completely gone. There was still a human in there, and Dewland had to reach him. Everything depended upon it.

  Oh, give me strength, he prayed. Give me courage.

  “Brophy, I know you can hear me. You are lost in the darkness right now, but come back to me, follow the sound of my voice.”

  The boy stopped struggling for a moment, panting through needle sharp teeth. He clung to the thin arrow slit with one clawed hand, suspended above the river. Lewlem circled his head.

  “That’s right,” Dewland said, leaning closer. “Hear my voice. Follow the sound of my voice.”

  Brophy’s red eyes closed, and his head twitched from side to side.

  “This is not who you are,” Dewland continued. “You are the Sleeping Warden who sacrificed everything for those you love. Your friends. Your family. You must return to them.”

  He reached out to touch Brophy’s hand.

  With a roar, Brophy lashed out, nearly raking his claws across Dewland’s arm. The old priest screamed, tearing cloth as he yanked his arm free.

  Brophy went berserk. Clinging to the arrow slit, he put his feet up on the wall and yanked a chunk of masonry out of its moorings. He flew backward, falling into the river. He leapt back moments later, scrambling up the wall and forcing one shoulder through the enlarged gap.

  Dewland stared in horror as the boy stripped his own fl
esh to the bone to force himself through the jagged opening.

  A sudden white light struck Dewland between the eyes. The impact of Lewlem’s soul light snapped him back to his senses. The priest scrambled to his feet, stumbled over his lantern, and fled up the stairs.

  He tripped in the darkness, sprawling onto the cold stone steps. Fighting the pain, he heard another chunk of masonry snap free and land in the river. He surged forward, practically running on hands and knees. Lewlem reappeared, lighting his way up the narrow stairs. He heard a roar and then a thud as Brophy slipped through the broken arrow slit and hit the floor.

  Dewland clutched a hand to his chest and kept running. Lewlem shot ahead and began to spin around a distant wall sconce.

  The priest looked back; he could see the three red dots gaining on him. “Oh preserve us,” he whispered, taking the steps three at a time. “Save us all.”

  The guttural pants and claws scraping on stone drew closer and closer, and Dewland lunged forward just before the wall sconce. His jump fell short, and he broke through the false steps. His thighs slammed into the stairs on the far side and his face cracked against the solid stone. He started to slide backward into the pit until his fingers latched onto a jagged piece of stone.

  Brophy stumbled into the pit and bounced off the wall below Dewland, screaming in rage until he crashed to the bottom forty feet below.

  With all the strength left in his fat, old body, Dewland hauled himself out of the trap and rolled onto the steps. He struggled to rise and threw up on his own hands, retching over and over again. “Thank you, Father, thank you,” he mumbled as the bile dripped from his lips.

  When he finally caught his breath, Dewland rolled onto his back.

  Lewlem flew over to him and he clutched the light to his chest. He could hear Brophy howling below, scrambling up the side of the pit and falling back down.

  Slowly Dewland regained his composure. This had to be the Awakened Child’s doing. She was the only one who could have done this to him. If she was capable of this, then the world was already tipping toward the darkness. Only Brophy could guide her back. He had to be restored.

  Dewland knew the corrupted could be healed—the emperor himself had been rescued from the darkness—but they would need a very powerful mage. They needed Brophy’s paramour, the legendary Shara-lani. He opened his hands and looked at the little ball of light that had once been his best friend.

  “Go, my brother. Find the woman who loves him; bring her back before it is too late.”

  Lewlem’s spirit became a golden blur. It streaked down the dark stairs and disappeared.

  The priest leaned over the edge of the pit and stared into the blackness. He couldn’t see Brophy, but he could hear him down there, flinging himself up the walls and falling back down.

  “Be strong, child of my heart,” he said. “Hang on. All depends upon this.”

  Chapter 11

  Shara sat alone in the dark galley picking at her dinner. It was the same thing she’d eaten the last three nights, dried fruit and brick bread dipped in wine to soften it. Not the best of dinners, but she couldn’t risk lighting a fire to cook something better.

  Tonight was her sixth on the Farad messenger ship. The little craft wasn’t the fastest she’d ever sailed, but it had easily overtaken Vinghelt’s fleet. The Summermen’s ships were designed for island hopping in the calm Summer Seas, not for long blue-water voyages. They were forced to travel at the speed of their slowest ships, which bobbed like driftwood in the heavy seas, constantly taking on water as the waves swamped their low decks. Many of them would probably be lost in a heavy storm, but the weather held good, and the weeping ones kept them on course.

  The few days Shara had spent passing the Summer Fleet had been terrifying. Scores of weeping ones packed the deck of every ship. She maintained a powerful glamour at all times, but she kept expecting them to suddenly come to life and surround her like they did in Ohndarien. But the poor, soulless creatures remained inert unless a course needed to be adjusted or sails needed attention. A weeping one would move to the task, but after each of these tasks was completed, the black-eyed sailors would stop where they stood and simply wait, staring blankly ahead.

  Those few days of terror slowly transformed into endless hours of tedium as she left the Summermen behind. She had never been so long in a place where she had nothing to do and no one to talk to. One bleak day flowed into another, rising and falling on the swells.

  She spent most of her time trying to unravel the mystery of the voice in the black emmeria that seemed to be controlling the weeping ones. She could feel its presence all around them and slowly learned to detect the shift in the ani when it grabbed hold of an ani slave to manipulate it. The man—she assumed it was a man—said he wanted all those of illuminated blood to return to Efften, where he would create a garden for them to live in. That goal was too similar to Arefaine’s for the two to be unrelated. Was that voice talking to the young sorceress? Had she fallen for his lies? It terrified Shara to think that Arefaine was only a cat’s-paw to something larger, and she was beginning to feel like a child in a rowboat hunting whales.

  Was she on a fool’s errand? Did she really expect to stop Arefaine or was she just fleeing to Brophy’s side, hoping against reason that he would accept her with open arms this time?

  Stop it, she told herself. Just wait. Wait for the moment to act.

  She emptied her mind, sweeping her worries into her glamour. She had to save her strength. There was no point in exhausting herself in a battle against shadows.

  She picked at her food a little longer before packing it away and went up on deck. The night was clear and warm and the stars were already out. The faint wind smelled like the sea, not the fishy smell of a port, but the clean, salty air of the open ocean. The shadowy shoreline of Vizar was barely visible in the starlight off the starboard bow. There was an undeniable beauty to a ship under full sail. It offered the ultimate freedom. It could take you anywhere. The wind was free; the sea belonged to no one.

  As she watched the waves, the tendrils of a great hatred began to build in Shara’s chest. The black emmeria was at the heart of this misery. All of it. The fall of Ohndarien, Brophy’s madness, Baelandra’s death, all were caused by the legacy of Efften. Those mages couldn’t live without their soaring towers and the slaves to build them. They’d paid for their greed with their lives, but their misdeeds lived on. How many people would have to suffer for a few men’s insatiable appetites? Had humanity doomed itself three centuries ago and just didn’t know it yet?

  Stop it, she told herself again. Wait for the moment to act.

  Over and over she thought she should have used her magic to search the fleet for Issefyn and that damned containment stone. She had wrested control of Baedellin from Issefyn once before, she could probably do it again. All she had to do was take command of the weeping ones aboard. It would be easy. All it would cost her was another dance with the black emmeria. She shook her head. Part of her was convinced that she could control the magic this time. She could use it without losing herself. But she was terrified by that arrogant, power-hungry side of herself. Even twenty years later, she wasn’t that different from that enraged young woman who tortured her Zelani master before she killed him. She had enjoyed doing that. Enjoyed it too much. And that part of her wasn’t going away anytime soon.

  It was much smarter to beat the fleet to Ohohhom and confront Arefaine directly, but Shara hated doing nothing. She was just starting to realize how frustrating fighting another mage could be.

  Giving up her dreams of easy victories, she planted herself by the rail and waited for the long night to pass. Her thoughts, as always, turned to Brophy. She imagined herself sneaking into the Opal Palace, creeping through the dark and twisty passageways to the door of Arefaine’s bedchambers. She peered inside to find Brophy in her bed, the two of them lying naked side by side. Brophy rolled over to look at her. His eyes were black as tar, and twin rivers of blackness poured
down his cheeks.

  Breathing through the fear, she added it to the swirling aura of ani surrounding her, bolstering her resolve.

  She imagined Brophy’s soul light, blazing in the darkness ahead of her. She clung to the image, a ball of golden ani rushing toward her. She would find that light. She would return to Brophy and together they would end this madness.

  Chapter 12

  B reathe, Ossamyr thought. It begins with the breath. It will end with the breath.

  She kept her eyes closed, concentrating. She imagined her wound like a black slash through the center of her body, and her ani was a golden thread woven through the rift, squeezing it closed, keeping her alive.

  She’d managed to stop the bleeding, but it took almost all of her concentration to simply hold the wound closed. Even with her magic, it would take days for the wound to heal. But she didn’t have days. She had to stay on her feet, had to keep moving.

  Gathering her strength, she opened her eyes and peered into the darkness ahead. The roar of moving water muted her footsteps as she entered the tunnel. The underground river beneath the Opal Palace had a vaulted ceiling and narrow walkways on either side of the rushing water. The chilly upstream breeze seemed unnaturally cold on her feverish skin. She shivered, and the sudden movement sent lances of pain up her spine. Ossamyr paused, waiting for the spasm to pass.

  I will not die here, she promised herself. I will not die alone.

  She took a few more steps forward before spotting a golden light in the distance. It flew toward her, growing larger and brighter until a little glowing ball hovered about ten feet in front of her, waiting for her to continue.

  “I’m coming,” she said to the little light. “Don’t rush me.”