“Bong.”
“Go, this whole area’s coming down,” Sarn shouted.
Thank the Litherians for their obsession with carving up everything in sight. As Sarn found more are more ornamental grooves to shove his fingers into, he flashed back to climbing that peg board in the training room.
“Bong.”
Another section sheered off taking the rocks under his right hand with it, and Sarn dangled by one arm. Thank Fate, he hung by his dominant one. It shook from the strain of supporting all his weight, but his grip held, and he pulled himself up enough to dig his right hand into a crevice and catch his breath.
“Bong.”
His arms burned from exertion. They were tired from hours upon hours of carrying his son around, but Sarn kept climbing. This would be less nerve-wracking with magic. But his magic was gone, so Sarn made do without it.
“Bong.”
A brown blur tumbled past followed by an anguished cry.
“Ran!”
“I’m here.”
Sarn looked up, not daring to hope. The distance between him and his son seemed to be growing instead of shrinking, or maybe exhaustion was making it seem that way.
“Bong.”
“Bear! Catch him, P—”
“Just hold on,” Sarn shouted, cutting his son off before Ran could say that one word, which would reveal everything he’d been hiding.
“We’ll fetch him later. You just hold on, okay.”
Ran nodded and curled tight around the statue’s legs. But like the floor, it too was tilting, and the statues were cracking as the floor under it buckled. Would they collapse like a bunch of dominoes and crush his son?
“Is this Death’s doing?” Sarn asked, not really expecting an answer.
“Bong.”
The floor had collapsed right where that entity had been standing. Was that just a coincidence those tentacles had broken through at that same spot? Sarn ignored the pain and inched himself upward. Hand over hand, he closed the distance between himself and his son until his fingers plunged into a crack widening faster than he could climb.
“Bong,” said the bells, sounding his death knell.
No! Oh Fates, no, don't do this to me. Despite his mental pleading with that capricious entity, the remaining section of floor tilted another twenty degrees give or take, sending the cart straight at him. To avoid a painful collision, Sarn let go with his right hand and swung sideways while still clinging with his left, more dominant hand.
As the cart careened off the edge, it grazed his shoulder before plummeting toward a hole in the floor below. Through that widening gap, tentacles thrust upward smashing everything in sight. How did the Ægeldar escape from the pit?
“Bong.”
Sarn couldn't look over his shoulder to see whether Nolo had escaped or not. He couldn't take his eyes off his son lest he lose the boy forever. Neither could he maintain his one-armed grip. Sarn swung his right arm up, but it was no good. His shoulder throbbed from where the cart had struck it, and the ledge crumbled away when he tried to grasp it.
“Help me! I can’t hold on.” Ran sounded as desperate as he felt.
And I can’t catch you because I don’t have access to my magic. Sarn almost invoked the Question while he hung there. Only the fear it wouldn’t resolve in time to save his son stopped him.
“Bong.”
“Sovvan! If you can hear me, help us.”
Sarn swung a leg up, but the precipice cracked in half, and he fell. There was no magic to catch him or his son when the rest of the floor collapsed.
“Bong.”
Sarn planked like his life depended on it because it just might. He kept his arms close to his body to streamline his fall so the soles of his worn-out boots could do their job and absorb the shock of his impact with the ground. Hopefully, they’d keep him from breaking anything important.
If he could land well, he could catch his son. If, but oh Fate, what an if. He needed help more powerful than Fate. J.C.’s kind face floated up out of the morass of fear, and Sarn reached for the promise he’d made to that man.
“Bong.”
J.C., if you can hear me, save my son. I’ll never ask for anything else. Please, catch my son.
Was it his imagination, or had a white cross made of light shot past him? It must be J.C. Save my son, please. Sarn begged that glowing cross as he plummeted through the expanding hole in the level below, and the one below that, into the Lower Quarters.
Tentacles rushed past batting aside debris here and snatching other falling objects there. Each thing they caught, they fondled like blind children trying to identify the toys they held. None were what they sought, so they dropped them and sought others.
“Bong.”
What are you searching for? Not me. That was all Sarn had time to think then he grazed a passing tentacle and hit the water boots-first. So, did chunks of the floor. They struck the surface in a deadly hail as Sarn plunged under the frigid water.
Right before everything grayed out, Sarn thought he heard the bells of Mount Eredren speak again. They tolled for his son now because he'd failed to protect the boy. I'm so sorry, Ran. Please, forgive me.
A Fiendish Delight
Black motes floated in the air and were dragged by its current away from a cobbled-together door toward a staircase. That spiral affair was a dark straw sucking the fetid air of the Lower Quarters upwards and eventually out of the door in the side of the mountain.
Not that way, take me down to the pit where the monster dwells. I have a deal with it. The wind ignored his command and kept carrying the cinders Gore had been reduced to up and around another bend in that unending staircase.
Footsteps disturbed the quiet as the essence of Gore tried to reconnect. What have we here—a snack to fuel my transformation? Gore tried to look down, but his eyes were blown to smithereens that were still trying to accrete.
Through the Adversary’s dark gift, he saw the dark head of a teenager carefully negotiating the stairs with a full rucksack and a crutch. Around that boy's neck hung a pendant that blazed up, surrounding the boy with a nimbus of light.
It burned the cinders that Gore had become, and he screamed as he broke into even smaller bits. Darkness took him as the wind carried his essence toward the night that had birthed him. You'll pay for that, whelp even if it's the last thing I do.
The teenager continued as if nothing had happened because to him, nothing out of the ordinary had. Light had always been his friend even when his path had skirted too close to the dark.
Miren paused on the stairs certain he’d heard something. He listened hard, but that sound didn’t come again. Maybe it was a cat fight somewhere. The echoes down here were extremely annoying, and they bounced around so much, it was almost impossible to tell where a sound had originated.
When that sound didn’t come again, Miren leaned on his crutch and descended another step. It was slow going but that twisted affair pretending to be a staircase left him no room for error. These triangular steps narrowed to a point where they joined the central pillar supporting the landing above.
Navigating them while on crutches took more concentration than he would have liked leaving little room in his awareness for anything else. But he noticed when his pendant flared up to near blinding levels. At that exact moment, something rushed past Miren, and he reeled from the unnatural touch of its strange magic. It was the utter opposite of his brother’s and an affront to the senses.
“What are you?”
No answer came except the fading echoes of a primal scream. It sent chills down Miren’s back while he leaned against the wall enclosing the staircase and waited for his head to clear.
What was that? Definitely not something natural. Was it that same dark thing that had tried to overcome me and Nolo just a little while ago? Is that thing after my brother?
Where are you, Sarn? Why aren’t you with the Rangers? Miren had so many questions as he pushed off the wall and continued his laborious
descent. He cursed his bad leg every other step. As much as he wanted to hurry, his leg wouldn’t stand up to that kind of strain, and he had a feeling he needed to stay mobile.
At least the Foundlings weren’t far away, and this staircase wasn’t frequented by anyone other than them and his brother. I just need to reach their landing and traverse a couple of tunnels, then I can find out what the hell’s going on.
One of the Foundlings would know. Information was money, and they sold every rumor to the highest bidders except one. None of them would ever sell any secrets about Sarn. Or me or my nephew. Oh, Fates, Ran must be frantic and starving by now. I’ve never returned from school this late in the evening. Hang in there, kiddo, Uncle Miren’s coming, and I brought food.
Gore wasn’t dead, but he wished he was. His mind, though shattered, had distributed his consciousness to the black motes swirling in the wind still carrying his remains away. It was disconcerting to be in multiple places at the same time but unable to see, hear or do anything except think, float and hurt.
As his bits and bobs rose out of the Lower Quarters, they attracted each other and quickly formed clumps that lumped together and birthed him back into a parody of life. Pain wracked him, and he screamed until he'd fully reconstituted.
Gravity seized him, and the wind relinquished its hold. Gore caromed down an uncountable number of twisting stairs until he reached a landing. Every step struck his healing body, liquifying it, but he reformed a fraction of a second before the next impact.
Gore finally bounced to a halt and lay there, dazed, bruised and confused, but that state only lasted a moment or two before the pain ebbed, and he could move again.
“Where are you Ragnes? If you can hear me, tell that rat Dirk I’m coming for him.” And when I catch him, I’ll find a way to destroy him once and for all.
A familiar pain stabbed his belly, and his mouth watered as the hunger roared back twice as strong as before. It was a physical craving crawling up this throat and burning its way into his mouth. It made his tongue tingle and press hard against his teeth. I need to feed. And he knew just who to feed on.
“Come out and face me Ragnes, or I’ll eat the Foundlings.”
No response. What had happened to his ex-friend’s concern for those rugrats? What could be so important it could trump saving their pitiful lives?
“Find me a demon,” the Adversary’s command was a mere whisper in the back of his mind incapable of exerting any force, not while the hunger mastered him. Its need drowned out the Adversary’s call, and a terrible need to feed consumed him.
Mortality was a drum beating in the dark, summoning him back to that pitted door and the children whose souls he’d tasted earlier. There were more Foundlings cowering behind that iron-banded affair that reeked of magic.
He sped toward it and licked his lips as he phased through walls to reach their tunnel sooner. Then he was there, standing right before their door just as before only there was no sign of Ragnes. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Somewhere a bell rang, and its song struck Gore like a physical blow. He covered his ears and curled into a protective ball, but there was no escape from those bells. Would the pit be safe from them? If I took the Ægeldar up on its offer, would it end this torment?
Each peal hammered a spike of pain through his chest, and one by one, the bonds holding his body together snapped before he could will himself into the ground.
When they ceased, Gore lay there broken and bleeding black ichor while his body regenerated. Hunger burned in his belly wiping away all other thoughts, and his vision grew wonky as he reached for sustenance.
Gore touched the Foundlings' door. Whatever spells had been worked into the odds and ends used to fashion it were gone now. It was no barrier to him. His hand passed through that door, but there were no Foundlings within reach of it. A noise recalled Gore’s hand. He cocked his head to one side and listened to the footsteps coming this way and the discordant hum of a conflicted soul. His mouth watered for a taste of the bright spark animating the teenager limping toward him, and his blackened lips curved into an anticipatory smile. Dinner had come to him.
Battle for the Foundlings
Consumed by worry, Miren limped toward the Foundlings, who should be babysitting his nephew right now. The key word was ‘should be,’ but would Ran be there? That was the usual pattern. If Miren was late, as he was today, Sarn would go to work after dropping Ran off at the Foundlings’ cave. But according to Nolo, he didn’t go to work.
Miren blew out a frustrated breath. Why didn’t you go to work, bro? It just didn’t make sense. Sarn was bound by an oath and couldn’t break it. His friggin’ magic wouldn’t let him. Sarn didn’t even try to wriggle out of that anymore. When the nineteenth bell rang, he was usually off like a shot. Why not tonight?
Miren cast his mind back over the day, but nothing stood out. He’d gone to school in the library and spent several hours studying the books he could not borrow before finding the ones he could.
So, if you’re not at work, bro, where are you? What are you doing? And how did you get around that damned oath?
A kernel of hope popped in his belly releasing a flood of warmth and possibilities. If Sarn could get around that oath once, he could do it again. Then we could get the hell out of this place and strike out on our own just the three of us. Pleasant fantasies of what that new life on the road would be like, and the places they might end up distracted Miren from the shadows rising around him.
Ran would just love that. At the thought of that inquisitive child, his adorable little face, brows scrunched together, lips pursed to ask some question or other popped into his mind, and Miren paused to check his pockets because he knew exactly what the first question his nephew would ask the moment he entered the Foundling’s cave.
'Do you have food, Uncle Miren?' No, ‘hi, how are you.' No, 'I missed you,' just straight to the heart—or rather the stomach—of things because Ran was always hungry for knowledge, food, affection and adventure, not necessarily in that order. The tyke had his priorities.
So Miren took a moment to check the snack he'd filched so many hours ago was still on his person. Hopefully, it wasn't too squashed from the unanticipated hours he’d spent just trying to reach the Lower Quarters. And I still have no idea why the staircases were being guarded like that.
It wasn't a lockdown. They'd have told him if a manhunt was underway. It wasn't a cave-in either because Sarn wouldn't choose an unstable place to live. Besides, his elder brother had magic, and he'd probably reinforced the walls and ceiling every time he passed by. Miren could picture Sarn doing that. So, what had happened down here to scare a seasoned guard like that?
Miren glanced around but this tunnel, like the ones before it and the staircase he’d descended, were empty. There was just him and the stonewalls and the deep darkness thrown back by his pendant’s glow.
Miren withdrew his hand from his pocket, remembering the snack had been carefully wrapped and tucked into his rucksack, not his pocket. It was proof he’d taken that argument last month to heart. He never wanted to see such naked disappointment in Sarn’s eyes ever again. Miren pushed that memory away and concentrated on where he put his crutch and his good foot. The pendant threw a nimbus of white light about three feet in diameter. After that point, it fell off into a darkness so deep, he could cut it with a sword.
So far everything was quiet, too quiet. Under the muffled pad of his boots, the too loud thump of his crutch hitting the stone floor, and the books shifting around inside his rucksack, there were no other sounds, and that raised an internal alarm.
Something moved ahead. It was almost imperceptible in the dark. Almost, but Miren had grown up with a mage-gifted brother and a soul-deep longing to see what he saw. Whenever Sarn had stared off into the distance with that unfocused look in his green, green eyes, Miren had stared at that spot too.
And Sometimes, he'd catch a glimpse of something like right now. What he'd seen might be trouble, or it
might be a conjuration of a tired, worried mind. Couple that with the cold prickling sensation walking up his spine, and he knew something was up.
But Miren wouldn't be cowed by the unknown, so he planted his feet and winced when he put weight on his bad leg. That knee was quite inflamed from all the extra walking he'd done and sorely in need of a rest. But he stood straight and tall, though not quite as tall as his big brother, and gripped his crutch with both hands as if it was a quarter-staff.
Miren angled his makeshift weapon, so it pointed toward the thing he felt more than saw stalking toward him. I wish you were more of a fighter, bro. Then you could have at least taught me how to defend myself.
But Sarn wasn’t, so he hadn’t and wishing things had worked out differently wouldn’t save Miren from a possible attack. There was no other light except his pendant. So, hiding was out of the question even if he'd been inclined to try. Running was equally out because of the pain shooting through his bad leg. Besides, Sarn was the swift one. He could outrun a spooked deer. And he can take more damage than me thanks to his magic.
Miren might have a bad leg, but his upper body was toned, and his arms were as strong as an oak branch thanks to all the heavy tomes he carried around and his penchant for swimming. If only we were in the water right now, I could take this fool out without breaking a sweat. Not even Sarn can best me in the water. But there was none, just cold, damp air and silent stones.
“Who goes there? Step into the light so I can see you. Or are you afraid to reveal yourself?" Miren asked in case it was one of the Foundlings on some legitimate business. Their door was close by. But if it was one of them, they'd have hailed him before now.
"Your worst nightmare," said the darkness.
“That I find hard to believe because my worst nightmare is dead, and you don't sound anything like him."
Curse Breaker: Sundered Page 20
