The Memphis Knights

by Phillip Drayer Duncan

  I saw Eilidh watching me from her peripherals. Her head was turned so as not to alert me to her spying, but spying she was, perhaps wondering how the room would effect me. Had it hit her the same?

  I closed my eyes for a moment and focused on my breathing, desperately trying to ignore the rot of the place.

  I opened them again and took a few uneasy steps further in.

  “Careful,” Eilidh warned, motioning to the graffiti. “Some of them are still hot.”

  I nodded and took a few more steps until I stood in front of the bed. The sheets were a saturated mess of dried blood. This had been the artist’s palette.

  Above the bed, on the wall, was one clear space in the rough shape of a man’s body. Dried blood streaks ran down behind the frame.

  The long metal spikes they’d used to crucify Uriah’s father were still implanted in the wall. Enchanted, the Knights hadn’t been able to remove them. Instead, they’d had to mutilate the body further to remove it. They’d had to pull their leader’s corpse through the spikes.

  Behind me, I heard Uriah’s footsteps moving away. The door clicked behind him.

  I could only imagine what was going through the Knight’s head. Whoever had done this, it wasn’t a simple murder, that much was clear. They’d wanted to hurt the whole order. They wanted to send them a message, and it had been received.

  On one hand, I was glad Axel hadn’t accompanied me on this somber mission because I couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t say something ridiculous and inappropriate. On the other hand, I was desperately missing his perspective. It would be about now that he’d utter something inanely stupid enough to cut through the madness in my head, or say something profound to cut through the darkness in my heart. I was very aware of his absence.

  I tore my gaze from the wall and turned toward Eilidh, trying to focus on something other than the oppressive aura of the room.

  “It was much the same for me,” she said, casting me a furtive glance. “I thought you’d be used to it.”

  I shook my head and tried to clear my thoughts. “You should quiet down your assumptions about me.”

  “You can feel it, yes?” she asked, moving closer. “The corruption?”

  “It’s all I can feel,” I said. “I can hardly think.”

  “I’ve never experienced anything like it. Have you?”

  I nodded. “To a degree, yes. I’ve met a few beings of such corrupted energy that they carry with them a similar aura. But no, I’ve never felt the rotten aftermath of a wizard performing such dark acts. This is... This is just wrong.”

  “It’s blood magic, isn’t it?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “It’s so vile. Beyond words.”

  It was that and so much more.

  My jaw clenched, I reached up behind me and felt Drynwyn’s hilt. I dropped the veil over the sword, revealing it to Eilidh. Tapping the pommel I glanced toward her. “This is what the sword is meant for, Eilidh. To stop things like this.”

  We stood in an awkward silence for several seconds, neither of us moving. The only sounds in the room were of us breathing, yet, the pressure was so immense I couldn’t hold my focus. Eilidh seemed to be struggling as well.

  Finally, she broke the silence. “I can barely think. It’s too much.”

  I was about to respond when I felt a whisper slither across my mind. Not words. Just a feeling.

  I drew Drynwyn from its scabbard and welcomed the blade to fire to life. It burned brighter than I’d ever seen, almost blinding.

  There was a sound I can only describe as a scream sucked through a vacuum, and the oppressive feeling began to fade. As though Drynwyn were cleansing away the stench of its decay. Purifying the air around us.

  Beside me, Eilidh breathed a sigh of relief. “What did you do?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, able to think clearly again. The memory of the dark magic was still present, but not as jarring as before. “I think my sword is burning through the leftover fumes of dark magic.”

  “Look!” she said, her voice excited. She was pointing toward the wall.

  It took me a moment to see, but once I did it was obvious. Scattered among the graffiti, an occasional sigil had taken on a slight sheen of light. It seemed random, but I doubted it was. I suspected we’d just stumbled onto the live enchantments used to perform this dark atrocity. These were sigils which, as Eilidh had described, were still hot.

  “Well, I guess we know which ones are still live,” I said.

  “More than that,” she replied, eyes widening. “We may be able to use this to suss out a clue.”

  “Right,” I said, sharing in the excitement. “But how?”

  “You’re the Blade Mage.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not very good at it.”

  “Well, let’s see,” she said, approaching a nearby sigil. She raised her hand and gently moved her fingers toward it. Just before her fingers made contact, there was a bright flash and a sizzling pop.

  Eilidh shrieked and jerked her fingers back. “Son of a bitch!”

  “You all right?” I asked.

  I moved closer and saw a charred black spot on the tip of her finger. A blister was already forming.

  “That fucking hurt,” she said, shaking her injured hand.

  “Yeah, uh, maybe don’t touch the evil wizard symbols.”

  “Thanks,” she said, scowling as she slipped the burnt end of her finger into her mouth.

  I tried my damnedest to refrain from laughing, but apparently my humor was evident.

  “It’s not funny,” she mumbled over her finger, yet, her smile betrayed her. “I was just trying to get a sense for the magic. I wanted to know if the sigils were all connected, but it’s like its booby-trapped.”

  “Hmm, so, you think they left it like this on purpose?” I glanced around the room, studying the different sigils. Only one out of ten or so had the sheen, but that was still more than I cared to count. “It took a lot of extra effort to leave these all fired up like this. Why? What was the point?”

  “Unless you knew someone would have a look,” she said, finishing my thought.

  “I think we should probably be really careful going forward. I think that may have been the warning shot. There’s no telling what else might happen.”

  “Right. Okay. How good are you at shields?” she asked.

  “About average at my personal shield. Absolute shit at trying for a group shield.”

  “Some Blade Mage you are,” she muttered.

  “That means a lot coming from the lady who just fingered the magical booby-trap.”

  She scowled at me then raised her staff. She pointed it at the sigil, closed her eyes, and mumbled some words of power. Then...

  A whole lot of nothing happened.

  “Damn.” She turned toward me. “I can’t get a read. It’s like it’s shifting or something.”

  I raised my own staff and reached out for the magical energy in the enchantment. I immediately sensed what she meant. I could certainly feel the magical energy swirling around the sigil, but when I tried to focus on it, I couldn’t quite grab it. Like trying to grab a fly that’s buzzing around your head, I’d see it, then I’d miss. It was like I slid right past it, as though it were coated in oil, and each time I reached out I got a hand around it for a moment but couldn’t keep hold.

  A powerful mage could veil their enchantment from a lesser mage, no doubt. A strong sorcerer could also simply block a lesser mage from sensing the magic in their enchantment. Either option was fairly common, but this was something I hadn’t seen before. This was a designed misdirection. A puzzle our murderer had left to be solved.

  A puzzle made from the blood of a Templar.

  I opened my eyes and saw that Eilidh was trying again. After a few moments, she gave up. Shaking her head, she said, “It will take a greater sorceress than I to unravel this mess.”

  “Eilidh,” I said, clicking my tongue. “You’re the most powerful witch I’ve come
across all day.”

  “Thanks,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Makes me feel so much better.”

  “We can do this,” I said with feigned confidence. “We have to.”

  “Okay,” she said, nodding at me. “So, what’s your brilliant plan?”

  “Oh, I don’t have one,” I admitted. “I was rather hoping you’d come up with the plan since I was providing the false confidence and witty banter.”

  “You have got to be the worst Blade Mage ever,” she said, shaking her head. “Growing up, we’d hear stories about the Blade Mages. Some good. Some bad. But in all of them, the Blade Mages were unstoppable warriors and absolutely brilliant sleuths.”

  “Yeah,” I said, making a show of shaking my sword next to my ear. “I’m thinking this thing might be broken. But it didn’t come with a warranty and the druids have a strict ‘no returns’ policy. So... This is what you get.”

  “Can you turn up the dial on that sword of yours?” she asked. “Maybe if we can bring the sigils more into the light we’ll have a chance of detecting how they’re connected.”

  “Maybe,” I said, looking at my sword. “It kind of did it on its own.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “I mean I didn’t cast anything to make those sigils light up. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to do that. The sword did it. It’s weird like that.”

  “That’s... creepy,” she said, glancing from me to my sword. “It also means you’re an even worse Blade Mage than I thought. I was prepared to give you credit for that, at least. Now I know you’ve contributed nothing to this investigation so far.”

  “You’re very mean,” I replied, scowling. “I’ll see if I can crank up the amps.”

  I tried to focus on my sword. On the strange connection I had with it. The first time I’d really tapped into that marriage was during the battle with the shadow creatures. Right when Nicolo was about to chop off my head I’d sensed the connection and latched on, summoning Drynwyn to my hand just as my enemy’s blade came down. Since then, I’d been working on trying to strengthen that relationship. Thus far, my results had been meager. But as Byron had told me, the sword would teach me if I let it and it would show up for me when I needed it. Just then, I needed it.

  I felt the connection between us an encouraged the magic onward.

  A thought occurred in my head, but I don’t believe it was my own. The logical part of my brain tried to convince the mystical part of my mind that I was being silly, but I knew the thought was right. It was of blood. Warm blood.

  The sigils had been made of the fresh blood of the dying Templar. When the dark spells were cast the blood was still warm. It was still living, so to speak. That state hadn’t changed. The sorcerer had enchanted the man’s life juice and though it looked dry upon the wall, the molecules were still alive, warm, and moving.

  This tiny bit of Abner Craon’s physical form was still alive. Just as alive as if it were still in his veins. It just didn’t know the rest of its host was gone. This was even more morbid than I’d thought. What manner of person could do this to another human? How much worse could this get?

  And, I realized, that was why we couldn’t lock on to the magic of the sigils. It was because the molecules themselves had been charged, and they were still moving. As I stared at the sigil, I thought I could see the blood shifting ever so slightly, but that could’ve been a play on my imagination.

  I knew what needed to be done.

  I began channeling magical energy into my staff.

  Beside me, Eilidh asked, “What are you doing?”

  “We need to make it cold,” I said, then explained to her about the blood.

  “Are you good with cold magic?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Not particularly, but I thought I’d give it a go.”

  “Better let me do it, then,” she said with a mischievous grin. “I’m an ice elementalist.”

  “Really?”

  “Do you believe in fate, Blade Mage?”

  “Not particularly,” I said, shaking my head. “I suppose I believe there may be a higher power, or powers, that like to move the chest pieces around a bit. But I don’t subscribe to the whole idea that everything is pre-written. That just takes the fun out of life.”

  “Same,” she said, nodding her agreement. “Then let’s call this a lucky coincidence. You try to get your sword cranked up to eleven. I’ll handle the cold front.”

  I didn’t argue.

  Eilidh closed her eyes and held her staff in front of her. Again, she mumbled words of power and I could feel the magical energy swirling all around her.

  After a few moments, she opened her eyes again. The piercing blue of her pupils spread across the whites of her eyes and they took on a sheen, then began to glow.

  Goose bumps darted across my flesh as the temperature in the room dropped. I exhaled and saw my breath in front of me. In seconds, she’d managed to lower the temp below freezing. Still, she pressed on, lowering it further. I found myself wishing I’d brought a winter coat.

  The tip of her staff began to glow with the same light in her eyes. Blue runes fired to life along the length of the shaft, as well.

  Ice veins began to crackle along the walls, spreading out like tree roots.

  Ignoring my shivers, I again focused on my connection with Drynwyn. It answered my call and I felt the pressure of its spell cranking up. I don’t know why, but I felt inclined to summon my own magical energy and channel it into the sword’s spell. I don’t think it mattered. It certainly didn’t need my help, and to be honest, until just then, I didn’t even know such a thing was possible. Yet, I knew it was the correct course of the action. The joining of my own power with it just felt right, as though it somehow encouraged the mystical blade.

  The walls were covered now in a thin sheet of ice and a pattern was indeed beginning to emerge.

  Eilidh let out an exasperated sigh and slumped forward.

  I reached out a hand but she pushed it away.

  Kneeling, she said, “I think that’s the limit of my power. I can’t push it any further.”

  “You don’t need to. Look up.”

  Her face lifted, her expression serious as she studied the walls. Then she flashed me a mischievous grin.

  I returned her smile. We’d done it.

  Not only had we managed to freeze the blood molecules in place, but each of the active sigils had physical links between them that we could see now. They spanned across the walls like a spiderweb, revealing the pattern and complexity of the enchantments.

  I reached out my hand again, and this time she took it, allowing me the courtesy of helping her to her feet.

  We split up then, each following different trails.

  It was still a puzzle, but we’d solved the first piece. Now, a pattern emerged. The more I studied it, the more I believed the dark wizard had left it on purpose. Perhaps, it was part of their sick game. Like they wanted another mage to find it.

  A dark thought occurred to me that I didn’t feel inclined to share just yet. The mage that Uriah, Hamish, and I had faced off with earlier that day hadn’t been immensely powerful. Sure, he’d summoned some wicked face licking demons, but had he been the mage who’d put this spell together, surely he would’ve killed us. Also, he hadn’t used blood magic. Did that mean we were dealing with multiple dark wizards? The thought made me shudder.

  Standing at a distance, it appeared there were thirteen different patterns webbed together throughout the room. The way they intersected and webbed, it was hard to be sure, but it seemed an appropriate number. But why thirteen? And why create this silly puzzle? What was this spell for? My best guess was that it had nothing to do with the murder and torture. If it had, there was no reason to leave them active. Better to kill off the evidence, unless the murderer was just a narcissist who wanted an army of wizards and pissed off Templars on their trail.

  “Check this out,” Eilidh said, waving me toward her.
<
br />   As I approached, she pointed at a certain sigil. “Reach out and sense this one but be gentle. Very gentle.”

  I did. I could feel the corrupted magic of it, but the essence of its purpose remained hidden. I didn’t dare push further. It was quite likely booby-trapped. Push too hard and who knew what could happen. Maybe the room would explode. Maybe demons would pop out. Or maybe I’d win cash prizes.

  “Okay,” I said, glancing toward her. “I can sense it now, but it seems our murderer has its essence under lock and key.”

  “Right,” she said, then pointed at a different sigil, connected through a different pattern. “Now, try this one.”

  I did. It had the exact same aura and feel.

  “I don’t see a difference.”

  “Now try this one,” she said, pointing at a third web.

  I reached out to this one as well. I was about to tell her I didn’t sense a difference, when I realized that I did. The corrupted dark aura of the magic was the same, but the lock wasn’t. In fact, with a little effort, I felt I could break through. What was more, I got the impression I could activate it. Whatever spell the dark mage had associated with this web of sigils, they’d left it in such a way that it was usable.

  “Woah,” I said, glancing back at Eilidh. “That’s creepy.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “But I think we found a winner.”

  We stared at the webs then back at each other.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.

  “That we may really regret what we’re about to do.”

  “Well, that too,” she admitted. “I bet the others are booby-trapped. Try to break in and they’ll go off like a landmine in your face.”

  “I had the same thought.”

  “But this one,” she said, pointing excitedly. “I think the killer left this one on purpose. I think they wanted us to find it. Like they knew the Knights would bring in a wizard, and they wanted to leave us a clue, but only for a wizard clever enough to find it.”

  “Or, it’s booby-trapped as well and it’s going to blow up in our faces when we activate it.”